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i.
Something inside Izuku’s chest is whispering at him to stop.
It’s the little voice that stays tucked away between his ribs, the one that he doesn’t let out from the confines of fragile bone. There is too much hope in its words, too much want, and Izuku shoves it back down. He cannot have the things he wants. He knows this, has known it for years now, and there’s no point in pretending otherwise.
Instead, he keeps running, feet soft and light on the rooftop edges as he jumps from one building to another.
There’s something about how high up he is.
Something in the way he feels held, almost, suspended every time his feet leave the rooftops. Izuku floats, and everything stills, just for a moment.
(“I’m sorry, Izuku.”
That’s all she left in her note. Izuku is fourteen, and alone in an empty apartment, and nowhere near as hurt as he thinks he ought to be. After all, she left ten years ago, lost somewhere on the drive home from the doctor’s.
Her words are bitter in his mind, acrid and stinging, and Izuku wishes he could stop loving her.)
It’s that painful jolt of memory that distracts Izuku. It couldn’t have been more than a second, but he blinks, and his feet are slipping on the edge of concrete, dust and grit crumbling, and he’s slipping, one foot and then all the weight on his right side, as if something is tugging him down, and Izuku is almost ready to accept it, maybe–
A distant shout.
Strands of something tight around his chest and thighs, until he is tugged up and back, dropped in a heap on the very rooftop that he fell from.
Izuku’s head spins.
There is a man in front of him, dressed in clothes so dark that Izuku can barely make out his outline, except for where there is a coiled white scarf wrapped in layers around his neck. Some stray tendrils are escaping, and Izuku follows them with his eyes. It takes him far too long to realise that they lead to him, and that he is wrapped up in loops of the strong, white fabric. The man’s yellow goggles lie forgotten around his neck. Eraserhead, Izuku’s mind supplies.
“Kid?”
Izuku blinks at him. The pro hero looks–
Scared is probably too strong a word, but his eyes are wide and he’s panting slightly. It’s a strange sort of expression on someone who Izuku has only ever seen looking bored or tired, often with a layer of irritation pasted over the top. This, though. It feels like something’s tearing apart in front of Izuku’s eyes, but he can’t stop it, barely knows what it is.
“I’m going to take these away, okay?” Eraserhead’s voice is low and gruff but steady as he gestures towards the cloth. Quiet, as if he thinks Izuku’s going to be scared away at the slightest sound.
He should probably say something, he thinks, except his throat feels weirdly tight and he’s hit with this heavy ache of tiredness that slams into him and leaves him reeling. The scarf loosens around him, almost hesitantly. Why–
Oh.
Oh. Eraserhead probably thinks he jumped.
Izuku would laugh, if he didn’t ache so much.
(He would have jumped years ago, if only he could have found the courage.)
“Thank you,” Izuku manages to choke out as the last of the fabric is pulled away. Eraserhead is crouching in front of him, and Izuku hastens to explain as the man’s face tugs downwards into a frown. “I mean– um! I didn’t, um, it’s just, I slipped?”
Izuku, you idiot, why was that a question.
“You slipped.”
“Uh, yeah,” Izuku tugs himself up to sit straighter. He knows how he looks, all bruised skin and bloodshot eyes. The hero doesn’t look like he believes him, at least not completely, and Izuku can’t even blame him. Not when Izuku’s not really sure what happened himself. “I was just–“
And here he runs into another problem, because how is he meant to explain why he’s here in the first place?
Good little boys are tucked up in bed right now, not tumbling from rooftops in the city.
Good little boys are loved, Izuku thinks, and wonders where his good enough fell through.
Eraserhead is watching him.
The man’s eyes really are quite dark. He’s tempted to ask him to turn on his quirk, just to see the redness bleed through, before he realises that he never actually finished his sentence.
What was he saying, again?
“I mean! I couldn’t sleep,” Izuku laughs awkwardly, and wishes something would knock him out so that he wouldn’t have to keep talking. “So I thought I’d go on a quick walk, you know, but I guess I got a bit dizzy, there, so thank you again but I really should be leaving now–“
“Have you eaten?”
Izuku blinks at the man. There’s a tiny frown that makes its way onto the hero’s face, disappearing so quickly that Izuku wonders whether he’s also confused about why he just asked that. Does this mean he does believe Izuku? Or is it just a clunky sort of deflection?
“Yes?”
Eraserhead doesn’t seem like the sort of person to rely on deflection.
“When?”
Izuku doesn’t really want to start counting the hours back, because he’s almost sure he had some toast in the morning, but the day blurred into static in his head and he’s not so sure that he’s eaten since. The black spots at the edges of his vision grow briefly, mocking, and Izuku suddenly wonders whether his little slip-up wasn’t his mother’s ghost but rather his own inability to do normal human things, like eating when he’s meant to.
Although, that’s technically Inko’s fault too, if he thinks about it hard enough.
Apparently, he’s been quiet for too long, because the man sighs softly and stands from where he’d been crouching in front of Izuku.
“Come on.”
Izuku scrambles to his feet instinctively, and begins following Eraserhead towards the fire escape at the side of the building. It’s not until the man raises an eyebrow at him (and wow, he’s never seen such a judgy look with such little effort required before) that Izuku realises that he is basically following an absolute stranger to a secondary location. He wonders briefly how he has made it through fourteen years of being alive.
Just as the hero opens his mouth, probably to introduce himself or maybe to reprimand Izuku for being the way he is (which, you know what, fair), Izuku beats him to it.
“You’reEraserheadright?” pours out of him in a rush, the syllables tripping into each other in their haste.
The hero blinks at him. Nods, carefully. Looks like he wants to ask how Izuku knows that, or maybe why, but refrains and instead ushers him down the staircase.
“Mm. And your name, kid?”
Some part of Izuku panics, lighting up in alarm. He likes his anonymity, likes the way his baggy clothes make him look like any other teenage delinquent. Likes the way he can ignore the quirklessness, the abandonment, can take all of it and fold it away into a zipped up pocket.
“Midoriya Izuku, sir.”
The man doesn’t respond, but leads Izuku down the street as they reach the ground.
They step into a little store on the corner, open sign buzzing disappointedly as Eraserhead pushes the door open. He ends up picking up a can of coffee while simultaneously glaring at Izuku until he picks up a sandwich, and then some crisps, and then a bottle of juice. Only then does he seem satisfied, heading towards the cashier and picking up two chocolate bars on his way out.
Once back outside, he turns to look at Izuku for a moment, before humming and turning to continue walking down the street.
They end up at a park, and it lights up in odd shades of orange from the scattered streetlamps around them.
Eraserhead looks tired, Izuku thinks.
The man finishes his coffee quickly, but waits until Izuku’s finished all of his food before he asks where he lives, and then insists on walking him back home even as Izuku flutters his hands and words in protest.
They reach the door of his apartment building far too quickly.
There is something calculating in Eraserhead’s eyes as Izuku sidesteps to block the doorway, stopping the man from following him into the entryway. Izuku wonders what he sees.
“Careful on rooftops, kid. I’m not around here all that often.”
It’s not a warning, or even scornful. Eraserhead doesn’t tell him not to go back up there, only to be careful, and it’s a little show of trust that has Izuku feeling warm and flushed. He’s sure his face is red by the time he’s inside the door and Eraserhead is long gone, but it’s not until much later that he finds the pair of chocolate bars tucked inside his jacket pocket.
ii.
Izuku applies for the support course at UA.
It’s the first thing he’s chosen for himself. The first thing where he’s doing it not out of spite or to prove a point or only because he thinks he can’t. He’s stubborn, far too stubborn, and this bleeds out into the rest of him until he’s caged in by his own decisions.
He’s trying, though. Even if what he really wants, what he has always wanted, lies just a little out of reach. A few walls and an infinite space.
(The night time wandering didn’t stop.
It didn’t change either, until a few weeks after Eraserhead had brought him home, when he ran into a mugging. And by ran into, he means that literally, because he’d turned the corner and skidded right into the man, who had stumbled in surprise. Izuku never got a glance at who he had been threatening as they must have run in the interlude he provided, but the man certainly didn’t.
“Ah!” Izuku squawked. “S-sorry! Sorry, I’ll just be on my way now–“
The man had tried to grab him and it was only years of dodging harsh hands and shattering glass that let him duck quick enough. Acting almost faster than he could think, he had grabbed the man’s arm and yanked him down from the already unsteady position he was leaning into. He had fallen in a bundle of curses, and Izuku had sprinted past him and back up to the rooftops before he could get up again.
Izuku’s not sure that excitement should have been his reaction to that whole situation, but it was. Alarming little bursts of exhilaration, a step away from melting into panic, sparked in his chest, in his palms, running down his legs until he was almost grinning.
He’d wondered, steady feet running across telephone wires and window ledges, whether there was a dojo nearby.
Another thing changed, too.
Every so often, Izuku would feel familiar eyes on him. He never did see Eraserhead, but there was an odd sort of comfort in the knowledge that he was there.)
“Ohmygod!” something screeched. There were suddenly hands gripping his arms and lifting him, wide pink eyes looking up at him. “You’re the kid who built a whole freaking AI in his practical assessment! How did you do it in such little time? Do you have it with you? Where did you find–“
“Hatsume, put him down.”
“But, Sensei!”
“Down.” Someone sighs. “Now.”
Izuku is suddenly righted and on his own two feet again. No, he absolutely does not stumble.
There is a pink-haired girl arguing with Power Loader in front of him. Hatsume, his brain supplies, and Izuku is suddenly struck still by the weight of his own awkwardness. Should he say something? Or would that be interrupting?
“Ah, Midoriya. As I was saying, this is the workshop where you’ll probably be spending most of your time when you’re not in lessons. Most of those you’ll share with General Education students, as the support course intake was so low this year.”
The girl clears her throat loudly.
Sighing again, Power Loader continues. “This is Hatsume Mei, your only classmate. Hatsume, this is–“
“Midoriya Izuku, I know!”
“How do you know my name? That’s a little creepy.” Oops. That was probably far too abrupt for an introduction, but it feels justified, even if he did forget to inject any sort of emotion into his voice. He wonders how tired he sounds, and hopes the pair in front of him can’t tell that he hasn’t slept in a few days.
Hatsume stares, and then bursts out laughing. “I like you!”
Power Loader sighs. He does that a lot, Izuku notes, and then agrees that that’s probably fair. Hatsume is already buzzing with more energy than Izuku has probably had in his entire life, and then she grabs his hand and starts showing him around the room.
Izuku’s never seen this many supplies in one place.
He’s used to picking up scrap metal and ducking into random little shops to barter for screws and wires and sometimes little tools, if he could get away with it. Most of his old clothes have been cut up and used in some project or another, and, due to his lack of machinery, Izuku had to learn to sew pretty quickly, rummaging through his mum’s closet looking for needle and thread.
But this.
Izuku doesn’t think he can actually name half of what’s in here.
It’s pretty easy to get used to Hatsume. She’s loud enough to fill the quiet room up, and she doesn’t mind his random mumbling. They each take a half of the room (and, sure it’s kinda weird that there are only two support students, but it’s also amazing.)
“Whatcha working on, anyway?”
Izuku grins, and it’s all teeth. “A flamethrower.”
It takes him most of the day, and he thinks he must forget to leave for lunch because Power Loader appears at some time, sighing at him this time, before depositing a bento box and a carton of juice at the table and disappearing from the room before Izuku has a chance to thank him.
What is it with heroes and feeding him?
He’s quickly distracted by the pieces laid out in front of him, turning back to finish attaching the tank to the main body of the device.
It’s almost gone five when Izuku finally sits back and looks up at the clock. It’s only the first day, so Power Loader had let Izuku and Hatsume skip the general admin meetings and assemblies in favour of getting them introduced to the workshop.
Hatsume is already grinning at him. “You want to try it out, right?”
Izuku’s eyes widen. He’s allowed to do that? At best, he’d been hoping to sneak his creations out of school for a little bit.
Hatsume laughs at the expression on his face, pushing her goggles up and getting a streak of some sort of soot on her forehead in the process. “I’d offer to take you, but I can’t really leave this right now! Just head downstairs and then go all the way to the end of the corridor. There’s a gym there which we use to test out new equipment.”
Izuku smiles at her. It’s a small thing, furtive and soft, but it’s there. “Thanks.”
“Oh!” Hatsume goes a bit pink, for some reason. Her face almost matches her hair, and Izuku has to keep himself from laughing. “It’s fine, Mido! Just make sure to stop by the teacher’s lounge and get Power Loader, kay? We’re not really allowed in there without supervision.”
How does she know so much?
And, wait, Mido? Izuku blinks at her but she’s already gone back to tinkering with whatever’s scattered across her desk.
It’s only when he’s halfway downstairs that he realises that he doesn’t actually know where the teacher’s lounge is.
“Hatsume said we’re not really allowed in there alone, right? That doesn’t sound like a super strict rule. Anyway, there’s no reason to bother him for something so trivial,” Izuku mutters to himself. It’s not until a student passes him, staring and leaving a wide berth between them, that he realises he looks kind of mad right now, mumbling to himself in the middle of the stairwell while hugging a flamethrower to his chest.
That makes his decision, and he hurries down to the gym before anyone else sees him.
He has to swipe his access card to get in (see, if that worked without a teacher then he’s sure it’s fine) and once he does, he gushes over how much space there is. The ceiling is high and the walls bare, with soft mats stacked up one side of the room.
Izuku grins.
The lower settings work fine. The little bursts of fire are almost cute, Izuku thinks, and they barely touch the air before twisting out of existence.
It’s when he clicks the flamethrower over to the highest setting that it all goes a bit to shit.
See, Izuku knows he’s not built to withstand sudden force. His size makes him quick and flexible and light, perfect for ducking into dark alleys and running across fine wires, but he probably should have accounted for that when making this. He’s not wearing any sort of support gear either (apart from his goggles), so it shouldn’t really come as too big of a surprise when he presses the trigger and doesn’t even see the flames before the recoil throws him back into the air. He barely has time to process the shock before he realises, oh shit, at the speed he’s travelling he’s going to slam straight into the gym wall, and he doesn’t even have time to bring his arms up around his head when there’s a sudden, weirdly familiar tightness around his chest and hips, and he’s yanked back in the opposite direction.
He skids when he reaches the floor before tumbling into something, and hands come up to grab his arms and steady him.
The ‘something’ turns out to be Eraserhead.
Izuku stands there, breathing heavily from the adrenaline, for far too long before he actually processes what’s happening and jumps back away from the man, who huffs and keeps a hand on one of his arms to steady him, again, when he almost crumples from the sudden movement.
“Eraserhead!” Izuku yelps, and his voice is weird and high and shaky.
The man scowls a little at him. “Aizawa.”
“Huh?”
“My name, kid. Don’t go throwing around my hero name, here. Or anywhere, actually.”
Izuku nods his head frantically, then winces at the way his brain feels like it’s being thrown around in his skull. The man narrows his eyes at him, as if he just heard what he was thinking, and Izuku really hopes he’s not speaking aloud again. Aizawa’s eyes run up and down him quickly, assessing, before he determines that Izuku is fine enough to pull his scarf away. One hand remains fixed on his shoulder, warm and solid even through the fabric of his jacket, and it’s kind of embarrassing how much effort it takes not to lean into the touch.
“You’re not meant to be in here alone.” There’s a question in there, but Izuku, finally rebooting his brain after the whiplash of almost cracking his skull open and then coming face to face with his idol again, barely processes it in favour of his own confusion.
“I was just– Wait, what? You’re here?” Izuku’s brain glitches a bit. Is he hallucinating?
The man huffs, again, and somehow understands what he means. “I teach 1-A.”
“Oh. Oh!” He’s abruptly insanely jealous of whoever is in that class, before remembering that Aizawa had actually asked him a question. Well, kind of. “I was just testing out my, uh. Flamethrower, sir. Power Loader said we could use this gym for trials?”
“He also said you needed supervision when you did that, did he not?” the man asks, shutting his eyes briefly and tipping his head to the ceiling. His hand lets go of Izuku’s shoulder to rub at his closed eyes.
“I guess, but I wasn’t planning on taking too long, so it doesn’t really make sense for me to bother him just for that.”
Izuku’s pretty certain he’s right, because his logic is flawless, but Aizawa opens his eyes again and there is something he can’t identify in the man’s eyes when he looks at Izuku.
“So you’d give yourself a concussion, or worse, instead?”
Izuku can’t really answer that.
Aizawa sighs, a little. “Are you alright?”
“Yep! Thank you, sir,” Izuku says, belatedly, mentally kicking himself for not thanking him earlier.
“Right.” Izuku thinks that’s it, but then– “You know where the 1-A classroom is, I assume. Come find me if there’s no-one in the teacher’s lounge.”
Izuku blinks at him, then nods at the expectant look. The man watches him for a moment more before his eyes drift to the item still clutched in his arms.
“You made that, then.”
“Uh, yes, sir. I didn’t account enough for the recoil, so I couldn’t really test the higher settings.”
The man nods. “May I see?”
Which is how Izuku gets to watch Aizawa play with fire with a sort of manic glint in his eye and then tinkers with the tool for a couple of hours until he can finally use it himself, Aizawa settled into a corner and watching over him with half-open eyes.
iii.
Aizawa’s not actually that scary, Izuku realises, before immediately laughing at the thought.
That’s such a lie.
Aizawa is terrifying. They’re only a couple months into the school year, and already all the students know to steer clear of the hero, not that the 1-A students really get that luxury. Izuku is still nervous talking to him, but he thinks that’s mostly the residual hero-worship (there’s not many heroes he looks at like that, at least not anymore), and it helps that Aizawa, despite being blunt and gruff and always tired, always comes with him to the training room when he asks. He gets easier to talk to once Izuku realises that most of the dry statements are actually jokes, just very carefully painted over in annoyance. Just enough that you wouldn’t notice unless you were looking for it.
Izuku looks, and forgets to look away.
It’s one of those times, with Izuku jumping around the gym with boots that let him jump far higher than he should be able to and then allow him to stick to whatever surface he lands on. His face is red from the bloodrush and his vision spins when he finally jumps back to the floor.
Aizawa has a stack of papers on his lap, but when Izuku glances at him, he’s looking right back. There’s something in the quirk of his lips and the way his eyebrows are slightly raised that makes Izuku think he might be impressed, and the thought makes him grin.
(He’s been smiling a lot more, at UA. It’s odd, because sometimes he’ll glance in the mirror and not recognise the way his face is tugged upwards. It’s not bad, though, just strange.)
“How long have you been making things like that, kid?”
Izuku hums. “Quite a while, I guess. After I realised that there was no chance I was magically gonna get a quirk a few years late, I started making all the things I didn’t have, sorta. Ink–uh, my mum used to come home and find the kitchen appliances all taken apart, and then had to buy new ones because I hadn’t figured out how to put things back together yet.”
Izuku laughs a little self-deprecatingly, glancing away.
When he looks up, Aizawa’s watching him carefully. He’s confused for a moment, and then realises that he hasn’t really said anything about himself to the hero before. The look on his face is open. Inviting, almost.
“Anyway, I got good at it pretty quickly, mostly because my mum got tired of having to replace things around the house.”
Aizawa hums, recognising the dismissal for what it is. “Do you know how to fight?”
“Not really. I wasn’t allow– uh, I couldn’t learn when I was younger, but I’ve been learning karate for the last month and a bit.”
An approving nod.
“I don’t really know how to use weapons, though. I keep meaning to learn but–“
He trails off. Karate isn’t expensive, not really, but Izuku doesn’t have much money to spare after he spends most of it on scrap metal and notebooks and food when the fridge is empty. Weapons training is even more expensive, and Izuku can’t exactly ask his mum, not least of all because she’s never around.
There’s a long, weighted pause where Aizawa looks like he’s chewing something over in his mind. Okay, well, it doesn’t show on his face, but Izuku can tell, alright.
“Meet me here after school tomorrow.”
“Huh?” Izuku says, but the man’s attention is already back on the papers in front of him, and he doesn’t look like he’s planning to say anything else at all. Chin tucked into the scarf around his neck, Aizawa looks as close to embarrassed as he gets. He’s got the same why the hell did I just do that expression that he had the first time they met, when he’d asked Izuku whether or not he had eaten.
Izuku wants to push, but also doesn’t want Aizawa to retract the offer, so he shakes his head to clear his thoughts before once again beginning to jump around the room.
The next day goes painstakingly slowly.
It’s not that the Gen Ed lessons are boring, because they’re not, really, it’s just that Izuku already knows all of this. He spends most of the lessons planning out his next project (knuckle dusters which deliver an electric shock on impact, and no, Hatsume, he’s not just making these because he thinks they look cool) and thinking about whether anyone would be willing to spar with him so he could test out the impact.
Maybe he should just find another mugging, instead.
Aizawa’s already there when Izuku pushes the door to the gym open, apologising quickly as he makes his way towards the man, who nods in greeting. There is a black case next to him, with clasps running all the way around and a keypad on the front.
“The code’s 1414.”
Izuku looks between the man and the box, realising that oh, he’s meant to be opening it. Slightly suspicious, because Aizawa’s face is too blank now and that’s never a good thing, Izuku presses in the code and steps back as the clasps release and the box opens.
He blinks at the contents of the box. Turns to Aizawa, who’s not even trying to hide the manic grin on his face.
A small, delighted “what the fuck” escapes him before he can stop it. Aizawa snorts.
The box is full of knives, blades sharp and glinting in the bright gym lights.
“Mic told me to use the training ones first, but I thought this might be more useful.” The unsaid and I trust you warms the air and Izuku’s cheeks. “There are a number of different types in there; today’s objective is just to find something you feel comfortable with.”
The implicit assurance that there will be more than just today makes Izuku feel almost giddy.
What’s even better, though, is the way he feels with a knife held firm in his hand.
Aizawa fixes his grip, then shows him how to use it first to cause as much damage as possible, and then how to control it so as to contain rather than kill. He’s sweating by the time the gym has to be closed, but he’s almost grinning, loud and bright and unashamed. Aizawa won’t admit it, but Izuku knows he enjoyed it too, especially once he realised how quickly he adapted after choosing a knife that felt right in his hand.
(Aizawa had looked at him consideringly. “Hm. One moment.”
He’d left the room and come back with two pairs of plastic training knives and sparred with Izuku. He could tell how much the man was holding back, and a sick sort of determination filled him, because Izuku is so good at pushing buttons, and the only way to push Aizawa’s would be to get better.
He can’t remember how many times he’d landed on the floor with the other man holding a knife at his neck with a smirk. He doesn’t really mind, though, because each time he fell, Aizawa tugged him back up with a strong hand and showed him exactly where he’d gone wrong.)
Izuku is vaguely jealous of how composed his teacher looks while his own face is almost feverishly warm, sweat dripping from his forehead and trickling down his arms.
“I can walk you home.” Aizawa doesn’t often ask questions, Izuku has been learning, preferring simply to make ominous statements.
“What? No, it’s okay, sensei,” Izuku says, beginning to make his way back down the stairs from where they’d gone up, collecting Izuku’s things while Aizawa locked up his classroom. “It’s not that late, and it’s barely dark out.”
Aizawa hums, sounding unconvinced. “Give me your phone.”
Confused, Izuku unlocks it and passes it over, and then promptly misses a step on the stairs when the phone is handed back with a new contact.
Aizawa catches him by the back of his jumper and tugs him back before he can go tumbling down the stairs, keeping a hand fisted in the material as he slowly raises an eyebrow at Izuku, who is turning red alarmingly fast.
“Where does all of your spatial awareness go once you stop fighting?”
Izuku squawks in his hold. “I was surprised! You surprised me!”
The hero laughs (and, woah, Izuku doesn’t think he’s ever heard that before) and finally lets go of his jumper. “All of 1-A have that number for emergencies. Since I’m training you, too, it’s only logical for you to have it as well.”
And–
Did he just place Izuku in the same category as his hero students? The ones with the useful quirks, the ones that can save people in all the ways that he can’t? His mouth refuses to open and reply, but Aizawa just glances at him when he doesn’t say anything.
“Message me when you get home,” Aizawa says, and walks out of the UA gates, leaving Izuku standing motionless by the door.
iv.
Midoriya Inko is a kind woman.
She has been a nurse at Musutafu General Hospital for almost two decades now, and the noticeboard above her desk has layers upon layers of thank you cards pinned firmly onto it. Her neighbours thank her for the food she brings round, her reading club is fond of the little spiels she lets out when the book they’re reading catches her interest. Inko holds doors open, and tips all of her waiters, and leaves spare change in open guitar cases on cold winter evenings.
Inko is a kind woman.
It’s a shame, Izuku thinks, that all of this kindness cannot make her a good woman, or a good mother. At least not for Izuku. Never for Izuku.
It was almost better when he was younger.
She would yell, sure, and Izuku would be forced to pick up shattered mugs and tidy the house when she refused to leave her room for days at a time.
But she was there.
And the times when she felt bad (not for long, no, never for long) were some of the best moments of his childhood.
They’d go out to fancy restaurants dressed in their best clothes, pretending to be someone, anyone other than what they were, just for an evening. Inko would buy him every side on the menu, and then later every dessert, and Izuku would grin even as his stomach tumbled over and he threw up in the restaurant bathroom. They’d go see random movies, Inko distracting the staff for long enough that Izuku was able to run into rooms playing movies with far too much blood for how little he was, then. He didn’t tell her about the nightmares, not with how happy she looked, laughing at the jokes on the big screen.
Sometimes that happiness would stay even as she glanced at him, and Izuku could pretend that it was meant for him in the first place.
He knows, of course, that it was a sick sort of guilt that underpinned the good days. That doesn’t make them any less good, though, in the drowsy, half-forgotten haze of his memory.
Izuku learns how to pretend.
He’s not sure when it changed. Maybe when he was eleven and starting talking back. Started asking questions. He was meant to be made of clay, malleable dirt in Inko’s soft, harsh hands, but he slipped out of her grasp, day by day, until she was left clutching nothing but empty air.
She turned to air too, and was gone when Izuku finally turned to look.
So he’s used to the empty house.
He learnt how to clean and wash his clothes and change the bedsheets long ago. Trips to the small store down the street are commonplace, because the fridge verges on empty most of the time, and he walks to school, anyway.
It’s fine.
Mostly.
Except it’s parents’ evening tonight, and Hatsume’s parents are kind and soft and smile gently at her when she’s not looking. There are almost crowds of parents in the hall around him, and he recognises some of the beaming faces of people he shares general classes with.
Izuku sits by an empty chair, and settles in to wait for the unreachable.
Eventually, Power Loader seems to realise that no one’s actually going to turn up, and quietly asks Izuku if there’s anyone else he could call, or maybe they should reschedule?
Izuku is tired, and he is too numb to lie.
“Don’t bother,” he mutters. “Can I just sit in alone on mine? It’s just to go over progress, right?”
Power Loader eventually agrees, but not happily, and the man keeps throwing him concerned little glances throughout the rest of the evening, which seems to drag on endlessly until Izuku thinks he might suffocate in the crowds of people milling around the room. Just when he’s about to say screw it and walk out, Nedzu finally makes a boring little closing speech that he happily ignores, and then Izuku’s out of the door almost before the rat-bear finishes speaking.
“Mido!” someone shouts, and Izuku turns to see Hatsume running up to him, breath fogging up in white clouds in the cold air. Her parents follow her more slowly, chatting quietly and looking over curiously at Izuku. “Do you need a ride home?”
“Oh, uh. No, I’m fine, thank you,” Izuku manages, trying to twist his face into something that at least tries to resemble a smile.
“Are you sure? We don’t live far so it wouldn’t be a prob—“
“I’m fine,” Izuku snaps, and then immediately wishes he could bite the words back and hold them in his throat until he chokes. “Sorry. I’m fine, just. Tired, I guess. Walking should help clear my head a bit.”
It’s a weak excuse, fragile and fraying at the edges. but Hatsume only nods, something sad spilling into her eyes. “Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”
“Yeah,” he says, then watches all three of them head down towards the car park, the same sad expression on Hatsume’s face when she looks back at him from halfway down the street.
The lights are off when he gets back to his apartment. It’s empty, which is a surprise to no-one at all.
Izuku barely makes it through the door before he’s hit with that feeling.
The angry sort of hurt that coils in his stomach and winds down his arms, tight vines pushing straight into muscle, and thorns breaking off right into his bloodstream. It’s the sort of hurt that makes him want to do something stupid. Like trying to balance on rooftops with no sleep. Like training until his hands break open and bleed, until his knuckles turn red and blue and purple.
There is a live wire stretched inside of him, and it sparks in time to his hurt.
It’s three in the morning when Izuku looks at the clock.
How long has he been sitting here? Back against the front door, empty eyes staring out at the dark apartment.
He blinks away the fog and turns around, pulling the door open and almost tripping over the doorway in his haste to get out. He zips up his coat and tugs up his hood until none of his face can be seen apart from tired, bloodshot eyes, and walks a couple streets over before pulling himself up to a roof using window sills and breaks in the beaten down brick.
The quiet is bathed in cold, briefly broken by a far-off siren, and Izuku breathes it in greedily.
It’s the first time he feels like he can breathe properly in what feels like days, and the crisp air soothes his burning throat and burrows into his lungs.
It’s two hours and three quick, brutal fights later that Izuku finds himself outside the convenience store Aizawa had brought him to, so many months ago. Someone’s fixed the open sign, he thinks, because it shines steady now with none of the previous uncertain flickering.
He doesn’t really register going inside, just finds himself wandering down the juice aisle, shivering slightly at the cool air blowing outwards from the fridge shelves. There are too many colours around him; they blur and streak across his vision when he turns his head.
“Midoriya?”
Izuku blinks. That’s him, isn’t it?
He turns, and finds Aizawa standing there, carrying a stack of cat food tins in his hands.
The sight is so bizarre, and Izuku is so tired, that he snorts and dissolves into a fit of giggles. He must look insane, he thinks, as tears start escaping his eyes. The laughing crumbles into choked off little breaths and he’s abruptly hit with the realisation that he’s crying, standing there holding a bottle of orange juice as soft sobs stumble out of him.
“Jesus, kid.” There’s the sound of clattering, and then two warm hands gripping his upper arms.
Izuku can’t respond, choking on the sobs that come out harsher, more stubborn, tears dripping from his chin. The orange juice falls from his hands just as his knees buckle, hit by the exhaustion of the last few days all at once, and Aizawa curses before shifting his grip so that he’s holding Izuku up, tugging him towards his chest. Warm, strong arms wrap around him, and Izuku tenses reflexively before realising how gently they settle around him.
Oh. Aizawa’s hugging him.
This shouldn’t make him sob harder, but it does, because he can’t remember the last time he’d been held like this and Izuku is so, so tired.
He’s not sure how long they stand there, Aizawa rubbing his back in small circles with one hand while the other cups the back of his head, keeping it gently tucked into the man’s shoulder.
It’s not until Izuku goes quiet and still and stops shaking that Aizawa finally pulls back, just a little, to look down at him.
He’s sure his face is blotchy and tear stained, and he hastily tries to wipe his eyes with the arm of his jacket, ignoring how the rough fabric makes his eyes burn even more and hoping that the man will let him walk away without having to acknowledge any of this. He’s not sure what he could say, whether there’s any way to explain it at all.
Aizawa frowns at him, though, and carefully closes a hand around his wrist to bring his sleeve away from his eyes, digging inside his own pocket for a minute before passing Izuku a packet of tissues. “Don’t do that.”
“Sorry.”
The man frowns even more. “No, that’s not—”
He breaks off with a small sigh, quietly watching Izuku take a step away from him.
“Is there anything I can do?”
It’s not a question Izuku’s been asked before. Inko, when he would burst into tears, would scowl at him and tell him to just speak up, Izuku, it’s not that hard and there’s no reason to cry. She’d yell when he didn’t tell her what was wrong, and then dismiss everything he said if he tried to tell her.
He learnt to stop crying where she could see.
But, he doesn’t know what to say to Aizawa now. “Um. I, I’m not sure?”
The hero nods as if he’d been expecting that, before picking up the cans he had dropped earlier and then, slowly, as if he thinks Izuku might run or flinch away from the touch, placing a hand back on Izuku’s shoulder. “Do you want to meet Kiwi?”
It’s such a strange question that Izuku forgets, for a moment, all of the embarrassment that is starting to rush through him. “Huh?”
Aizawa pays for the cat food and Izuku’s juice (“You really don’t have to, I didn’t really need it any—” “Give it here, kid.” “But!” and then Aizawa glared at him and he quickly shut up) and heads out the door. His hand is still a warm, grounding weight on Izuku’s shoulder, and he tucks himself a little closer to the hero’s side as they walk out into the chill of the early morning. A hint of sunrise is starting to make itself known, fuzzy gold outlining the backs of buildings and lampposts.
They turn down a small alley a couple streets down from the store they’d just left. “You’re not allergic to cats, are you?”
Izuku barely begins shaking his head when something small and dark darts out of the shadows and starts winding itself around Aizawa’s legs.
“This is Kiwi,” the man says, huffing a little laugh at Izuku’s wide eyes before opening some of the cat food from his bag. “She’s a menace.”
Kiwi is dark and fluffy and bounces around happily after finishing off the can. She’s oddly friendly for a cat, sniffing at Izuku then walking in two small circles before settling on his lap with a yawn.
Aizawa has the tiniest smile on his face when Izuku looks over at him, and Izuku doesn’t feel quite so alone anymore.
v.
It’s a couple weeks after The Unspeakable Juice Incident that Aizawa shuffles into one of Izuku’s gen ed lessons.
Izuku pauses mid-rant to Hatsume. “Wait, isn’t Snipe meant to be covering this lesson? Do you think he’s okay?”
“Aww, Izu,” Hatsume coos and leans forward to pinch his cheek, only half-joking. “It’s so sweet how worried you are! I’m sure he’s fine. Anyway, I don’t see any reason for you to complain when your dad— oh, silly me, I meant teacher! When your favourite teacher is here instead.”
Izuku flushes and elbows her, hissing a panicked shut up at her, but he’s too late. Aizawa’s already turned to look over at the commotion. The hero’s eyes quickly scan him from head to toe, as if checking that he hasn’t sustained any sort of bodily harm since the last time he’d seen him.
Which was on Thursday. Literally yesterday.
Izuku would be offended but, given his track record, agrees that the chances of something having happened are alarmingly high.
He still scowls, though, and stares pointedly out of the window as Hatsume cackles behind him.
“Problem child,” Aizawa says, and holy shit, is this man actually embarrassing Izuku in front of his entire class. “Come with me.”
Hatsume cackles louder.
“Coming!” Izuku yelps, face burning as everyone turns to look at him. He gathers his stuff into a haphazard pile and follows Aizawa out the door just as Snipe enters and yells at everyone to shut up.
“That was not funny,” Izuku hisses once the door shuts behind them and he gets a glimpse of the amused little smile that the man’s not even trying to hide.
“It was a bit,” Aizawa says as he starts leading the way down the corridor. “I especially liked how you responded to ‘problem child’ with zero hesitation.”
“I! Um— well!”
Aizawa snickers.
“Well, where are we going anyway!” Izuku spins to point an accusing finger at the hero. “You can’t just kidnap me!”
“Hm. I probably could.”
“Hatsume wouldn’t let you.”
Aizawa pauses, and then reluctantly nods in agreement. “My class is going to be sparring quirkless, today. Since you’ll be transferring soon anyway, this seemed like as good a time as any.”
Izuku nods. Then abruptly stops, the movement so sudden that he ends up tripping over his own feet, arms pinwheeling at his sides. He’s yanked back by a hand on his arm, and he looks up to find Aizawa watching him with a careful expression on his face.
“What?” Izuku says. And then, suddenly angry, he rips his arm out of Aizawa’s grip. “What do you mean, transfer?”
“The Sports Festival is coming up. With the way you can fight, there’s very little doubt that you’ll get far enough to prove yourself worthy of a transfer, or just end up winning the whole thing. That’s mostly dependent on how the match-ups work out though. Winning in a tournament like that is down to luck more than skill.”
Aizawa’s words settle like static around Izuku. The anger dissipates, leaving something cold and hollow in his chest. “I— I can’t be a hero.”
“Why not?”
Why not.
“I’m not— I don’t have a quirk. I’m nowhere near good enough for something like that.”
“Good enough? Kid, you’re amazing,” Aizawa says, something soft and fond in his voice. “If it were up to me, you would be in the hero course already.”
Amazing.
Izuku is not amazing.
Izuku is small and quiet and quirkless. He is—
He is tired.
Why can he not have this? Inko’s voice spins in his head, unspooling like yarn under the weight of Aizawa’s firm belief. All of the years of being alone and hurt and afraid pile up around Izuku. Isn’t he allowed to want this? To want something, for himself, just for once.
He wants to try.
“You—,” Izuku starts, throat tight and nails sharp where they dig into the soft skin of his palms. “You really mean that?”
“I haven’t lied to you before. I’m not planning to start now.”
It hits Izuku suddenly, how steady Aizawa is. Warm hands and gruff truths.
“Okay.”
It’s quiet and uncertain, but Izuku straightens up and takes a deep breath.
Aizawa is watching him with that same soft look. “Okay.”
The man reaches out to place a hand on his head, ruffling his hair a bit before tucking his hand back into his pocket and leading the way towards the gym where Class 1-A are waiting.
Izuku can’t promise to stay, not yet. But he thinks about all the things that are waiting for him, if only he reached out to take them, and thinks that he might be able to, someday.
+1
Shouta watches, just a little gleefully, as Midoriya beats up all of Class 1-A, one by one.
He doesn’t fight neatly.
He fights with bloody teeth and bruised knuckles, elbows and knees slamming into every soft space, nails digging into necks and arms and eyes.
The ruthlessness, the unrelenting brutality, all of it settles easily into his skin. It scares Shouta sometimes. Makes him wonder what the kid knows, what he’s had to survive, to make him fight like winning is the only way out. Like he’ll be dead if he loses.
It’s a realisation that most of Shouta’s class haven’t made yet.
Earlier, Midoriya had asked, all big eyes and a wide, innocent smile, whether they’d be fighting with weapons. Shouta’s glad he held out with his firm no, because the class already looks terrified of Midoriya, occasionally glancing over at Shouta to plead for help. He doesn’t think they would have survived Midoriya with knives at his disposal, and Shouta can’t tell how much of the violence is just for show.
The kid is weird about hero students.
He’d noticed it pretty early on, the odd mix of reluctant awe and resentful distaste. Midoriya hides it well, but sometimes the mask will slip and Shouta gets a glimpse of the wild anger, the ringing hurt, the violent want that wraps around his neck. A makeshift noose.
He doesn’t think it would take much more for Midoriya to step off his stage and let the rope tighten.
And—
Shouta doesn’t mind most children. He tolerates them, because there’s potential in everyone even if it’s not suited to becoming a hero. The expulsions are necessary, no matter how unreasonable they seem to people who are willing to lie and cater to childish dreams—heroism is not kind or bright or beautiful. It aches and tears you open, and no number of stitches can hold the rest of you up after that.
So. Shouta tolerates them, and maybe even comes to like them sometimes.
But they stay at arm’s length.
If he wants to stay alive, wants to be able to do his job without drowning in guilt, then he has to. Caring is a risky investment in a business like this, in a company where poor chance is equivalent to death, not bankruptcy.
And he’s always managed it.
Until—
Midoriya flips Todoroki and pins him to the mat with a knee digging into the small of his back and an elbow pushing sharply into the back of his neck until Todoroki goes still and taps twice against the mat.
There’s something a little manic about him.
Midoriya wears his anxiety like a cloak, most of the time, wrapping it around himself until no one can see anything else.
Shouta likes this version of him.
A little unhinged, sure. Dangerous? Definitely. But it’s also delightfully honest, and pride bursts inside Shouta, bright and kind. He buries it down quickly before it can show on his face, but gives the boy a smile when Midoriya looks over.
Midoriya is quiet on the way back, not even arguing when Shouta insists on walking him home after they’d tidied and locked up the gym, the tired, awed faces of 1-A long gone by then.
It would be easy to attribute it to exhaustion.
Except there’s a weird energy around the kid, buzzing like a faulty streetlight. Only working when you look at it, turning off when you look away. Shouta lets it be. Waits until they’ve reached Midoriya’s apartment and the door is unlocked before speaking.
“Midor—”
“Izuku,” the kid interrupts, and Shouta almost stumbles. “I don’t like that name.”
There’s so much in those words. He wants nothing more than to push, to press until his kid tells him what’s wrong so he can fix it, fix everything, break anything that has ever hurt him.
“Izuku,” Shouta echoes. The familiarity feels right, falling out of his mouth easily. “Are your parents around?”
The kid snorts.
He looks paper-thin and vulnerable, standing motionless in his doorway. Shouta is struck by the urge to fold him up and tuck him away somewhere where he doesn’t have to look so—
So sad, all the time.
“No,” Izuku says. He laughs, and it’s a bitter, clumsy mutilation that stings at Shouta, vinegar spilling over fresh cuts.
The kid doesn’t say any more about it, not that day and not for months afterwards. Shouta worries, of course, but only where Izuku can’t see. He’s learnt that outright care is all or nothing: Izuku either holds tight enough to bruise, or he walks right away. Scorn is a strange emotion on him, because he’s so polite about it that Shouta sometimes doesn’t realise he’s being dismissed until he finds himself standing alone on the pavement.
He’s getting better at working out which one it will be, but Izuku is full of dissonance, the only constant being his unpredictability.
Shouta waits.
Waits, and hopes that when something breaks, he’s there to pick up whatever’s left.
It happens sooner than he expects.
Izuku stumbles into the gym one Thursday evening. He’s clever about it, but it’s clear that he’s favouring his left side, wrapping an arm around his ribs when he thinks Shouta isn’t looking. He waits for the kid to say something, to excuse himself from training or something, anything, but Izuku shrugs off his jacket and starts running laps as if he’s planning on doing his normal warm up.
“Izuku.”
“Yeah?”
And, seriously? The kid doesn’t sound hurt at all, no strain of discomfort underpinning his voice. If Shouta couldn’t see him, he wouldn’t realise he was hurt at all, and isn’t that an uncomfortable image? He wonders why Izuku is so good at hiding the things that hurt him, and why he feels that he has to in the first place.
(Shouta knows. He tucks the truth away, worries about how Izuku will react to blatant confrontation. Worrying isn’t like him, not like this, but Shouta is selfish, wishes that Izuku would just tell him. Say it outright so that he doesn’t have to risk sacrificing the small parcels of trust that he is slowly collecting.)
“Stop for a second.”
Izuku frowns, but slows and limps over to him. As he gets closer, Shouta can see the dark purple bruises around one of his eyes that dim lighting and shitty foundation can’t hide, not from this close up.
“You’re hurt.”
“What.” Izuku says. Says, not asks, because there is no intonation. The perfectly flat voice is full of challenge. It might even be a threat, Shouta thinks, because Izuku looks ready to bolt at any moment.
“Problem child–”
“It’s nothing! Just a, a night-time stroll gone wrong, you know how it goes.”
And yes, Shouta knows. Knows about how often the kid will step into petty theft, that damning goodness dragging him into things that will hurt him, over and over. It’s hard to watch, but he knows it’s necessary. Knows that it’ll only make it worse if he tries to stop it. (Wonders why his parents don’t realise he’s gone almost every night.) It’s the only reason he let Izuku sneak two small knives from the case, and pretended not to notice when he tucked them into the soles of his shoes. They had fit in too neatly, too easily, leaving Shouta wondering when Izuku had made the adjustments and whether he’d just been played by a fifteen-year-old.
But for all the fighting, all the violence, Izuku has never looked this hurt before.
It leaves Shouta wondering how he could be so stupid as to let him keep at it for so long.
“I’ll make you a deal,” he says. Izuku prefers it when it’s transactional, he’s learnt. Always needing to offer something in return, as if he’s not allowed to have things unless he himself is being useful in turn.
Izuku eyes him.
“Come with me to Recovery Girl–no, shush, listen to what I’m saying–to get checked out, and in return you can come with me on my patrol next week.”
(And the week after, and all the ones after that is what he doesn’t say. Hopes that keeping Izuku within arm’s reach will make him real, solid enough to keep safe.)
The calculating look in Izuku’s eyes, the one that seems to always be there, disappears for a moment. It leaves behind wide eyed excitement. It’s jarring, because that’s all there is. He loses the hard-edged skepticism that stays with him, and a set of shackles falls away in front of Shouta’s eyes.
“You’ll take me on patrol?”
Shouta hums in agreement. “Think of it as prep for your eventual internship. You haven’t had the same experiences that the 1-A kids have had, so it’ll be useful for you to see.”
It’s flimsy, as far as excuses go. In reality, Izuku has probably had more real-life experience than all his other students combined, but it’s logical enough that the kid seems to let himself accept it.
“One other condition,” Shouta adds, while they’re walking down towards the medical wing, his arm wrapped carefully under Izuku’s shoulders.
“I knew it. That was way too easy.”
Shouta snorts. “Just don’t go out fighting crime by yourself, anymore.”
“But–”
“Please.”
And that seems to surprise Izuku into quiet acquiescence, and he stays that way, reticent and contemplative, even as Recovery Girl fixes him up and mutters quietly to Shouta about extensive scarring, layers and layers of it. Early childhood trauma, she thinks, and bones broken which were never set quite right.
He nods, and waits in the chair by Izuku’s bed as he sleeps off the side-effects of Recovery Girl’s quirk.
It’s strange that he doesn’t look relaxed, even in his sleep.
His chest aches.
Izuku transfers into his class, and everyone is simultaneously enamoured and terrified. Even Bakugou, who swaps out his yelling for little more than a loud voice when Izuku is around. There’s an odd sort of recognition there, one-sided but heavy, when Bakugou looks at him. Regret melting into relief which twists itself into confusion. Izuku either doesn’t recognise him in return, or he’s a perfect actor (a perfect liar), because he treats Bakugou with the same distant kindness that he offers everyone else.
Knowing all that he does, Shouta leans towards the second explanation and finds himself sympathising with Bakugou’s bewilderment.
The kid takes to stealing Shouta’s sleeping bag when he leaves it unattended, even if only for a moment. It becomes commonplace to find the yellow bundle tucked inside warm nooks and crannies around the school, and Shouta doesn’t have the heart to tell him to stop when the purple under his eyes finally starts fading away.
(“Wait, you’re just, like, letting him take it?” Hizashi asks, baffled.
Shouta scowls at him.
“Ohmygod. Ohmygod.”
“Hizashi–”
“You’re meant to tell me when you adopt a kid, ohmygod Sho,” Hizashi outright screeches, and the entire teacher’s lounge goes dead silent and turns to stare at him. He looks back, blank-faced, and slowly turns to meet Hizashi’s eyes, who abruptly pales.
“I’m going to kill you.”
“Wait, no, Sho, I’m sorry, I was just super excited, you have a kid! It’s exciting, you’ve got to admit–”)
Spring comes and goes, and Izuku smiles more and more. It’s less of a defense, too, less baring teeth and more sunshine grin. He sometimes even skips patrols to go into town with Ochako and Iida and Todoroki, and takes to painting his nails black when Tokoyami shows him how to do it. This is all fine.
The Bakugou thing, though? That is most definitely not fine.
It’s the strangest friendship Shouta’s seen in his life.
They yell and fight and use insults as nicknames, but Bakugou jumps in front of him over and over, whether it’s with reporters who won’t take no for an answer or villains or a car that swerves too close to the pavement. It’s oddly protective, and Izuku rolls his eyes whenever he’s too obvious about it, but dishes it back, taking hits for Bakugou until they’re both holding each other up from injuries taken for the other.
Best friends is a childish term, a weird, possessive thing that Shouta doesn’t really believe in, but it’s the only term that fits for the pair.
Shouta realises before everyone else that Izuku is the dangerous one, there. Bakugou is loud and brash and endlessly irritating but Izuku?
Well.
Shouta’s glad he’s here. The flip side of the heroics coin, for Izuku, is too bloody to even imagine.
It takes even longer for Izuku to tell him about the empty house, the tearstained note left on a kitchen table so many years ago. Shouta holds him through the tremors and pushes down the anger that burns and chokes him up with heavy smoke. He keeps a hand on Izuku’s shoulder as they go talk to Tsukauchi, and then to Nedzu, and through the whole process of moving his things into Shouta’s apartment. Izuku hesitantly leans into his side as Shouta signs the guardianship papers, and something in him settles, just for a moment.
Izuku is skittish, though, hesitant as he steps through the entryway.
Shouta is scared of replacing one set of shackles with another, and he is scared that he is not soft, not kind enough for what Izuku deserves. But this is his kid.
“Will you stay?”
Izuku looks so much younger than he is, all of a sudden. “Am I allowed—”
“Kid.”
“Sorry.”
There’s a moment of silence. The weight of it feels important, and Shouta waits.
“Do you want me to?”
“More than anything.”
Izuku blinks. Watches him, waiting for some sort of crack to show. Waiting for Shouta to decide he doesn’t want him anymore, that he’s too much, too difficult. He’ll be waiting forever, if that’s what he’s looking for.
“Yeah,” Izuku says, a small smile dancing across his face, there and gone before Shouta can process it. “Yeah, I’ll stay.”