Chapter Text
The car ride is awkward and stifling. He's glad that Aizawa is the one coming with him but knowing that he's seen Deku--It's almost too much. He kind of wants to jump out of the car headfirst and into traffic.
"You might want to let your mom know we're coming." Aizawa breaks the silence.
"She, uh--she's probably not home." Izuku remembers. "I... probably should've mentioned that before."
"It's fine." Aizawa tells him. "Is she gone a lot then?"
Izuku shrugs, following the trees with his eyes. "I guess. She's a nurse so she works a lot."
Aizawa hums. "Is that why she didn't realize what was happening?"
Izuku swears his neck could snap with how quickly he turned around. "It isn't her fault." He bristles. "She--she had to work--and it was my word against a hundred of other kids--teachers too."
Aizawa sensei looks at him with a long, strange look, and Izuku remembers all the footage he has that tears his argument to shreds. "Okay, kid."
Unlike Izuku had thought, his mom actually is home, for once.
Aizawa Sensei knocks—two perfunctory times, and his mom opens the door, performative smile drooping at the sight of them.
"Oh," she says in a small voice. "Has Izuku gotten in trouble?"
A shot of—something—shoots down his spine, like Izuku thinks Aizawa sensei is suddenly going to change his mind and go:
'Actually, yes. We've found out all about his past, and we actually don't want him anymore.'
And Inko will say, 'oh, I understand. I'll take him off your hands.'
And then Inko will sweep him inside and hide him away so nobody has to recognize his existence, and he will forget, too.
But Aizawa doesn't do that. His face tightens, and he says "Of course not. May we come in?"
She ushers them in after that, worrying about formalities and darting back and forth. "Would you like some tea?"
Aizawa just shakes his head, short and respectful. "Midoriya-San, I've come across some concerning findings—"
"Oh, just Midoriya is fine, and I assume you're talking about Izuku's penchant for trouble?" She shrinks, as if the words themselves are an admission.
"Why would you think that?" Aizawa asks without missing a beat.
"Well—" she stutters, caught off guard. "That's what's caused some issues for us in the past."
Aizawa hums in the same way he did earlier with Izuku, letting the silence linger. It's a disarming sound, he realizes. Meant to make you think he's just making conversation.
"It came to my attention that your son was severely bullied and that no action has been taken for his healing or against his perpetrators."
If anything, she sags at the mention, tension melting away like they're talking about the weather.
"Aizawa I've been Izuku's mother for a very long time—" she starts in that tone she always uses, that 'I know what I'm talking about' mixed with 'It's a fact of life that my son is a troublemaker.' And a side of 'I'm so sorry he's been causing trouble.' It's a very specific tone.
"—I've talked to many of his teachers before. Now, Izuku can be a bit sensitive, sure. He inherited it from me, after all. But from first hand accounts he's usually the instigator. Not to say I don't love and support him!" She rushes to defend, one hand going onto Dekus arm, as if comforting him.
"I love him very much, I've just noticed—well, due to all the discrimination, he lashes out quite a bit. Troubled, you could say. But I think that 'getting him help' would be incredibly beneficial!"
"...excuse me?"
"It's just—he's had a difficult life. Since Katsuki’s falling out and his Izuku’s been very—"
"Katsuki?" Aizawa interrupts sharply. "As in Bakugou?"
"Well, yes—" she answers mildly alarmed. "—as I was saying, he takes things very harshly—and his quirkless status—he's more fragile than other kids, sure. But I can't imagine Katsuki and the others doing anything like what he's described. Not to mention he stopped his stories very quickly once the teachers stepped in."
"I see." Aizawa responds slowly.
You don't. Deku can't help but think. You don't understand—it's not true—and then he remembers the footage. Remembers Aizawa's reaction—and he lets himself relax just a little, because there's evidence. And it's being taken seriously.
Maybe if he could just show his mom—
"No offense, Midoriya-San," He hears Aizawa say. "But that's bullshit."
Inko gasps at the language, and Izuku just barely holds it back, though his eyes do dart to Aizawa in alarm.
"Midoriya is one of the best students I've ever had the pleasure of teaching. Knowing how little training he's had with his quirk only heightens my commendation for him. Now, I don't know what his past teachers have been feeding you, but I have clear evidence of the contrary."
"Well now, you don't understand—"
Aizawa stands, not threatening, but like he's getting ready to leave. Like he knows the conversation won't get anywhere—but if he thinks that, why is he still talking to her? "No, you don't understand. You let a quirkist staff and a couple of students sway your opinion of your own child, you put him in severe danger every day, and you repeatedly failed your duty as a parent to protect Izuku.”
Aizawas eyes meet his, a small jolt of his head towards the door—like he's asking if Izuku wants to leave.
Can he leave?
Izuku stands up, and his mom's sharp nails wrap around his arm.
"What are you doing?" She asks, voice betrayed and small.
"I-"
"Get your hands off him." Aizawa commands calmly, quirk enacted.
She jolts back as if burned, eyes watery. "Izuku?"
"We're heading to the station to file a report—what you should've done years ago." Aizawa tells her, hardened with anger and drawing her attention back to him. "You can come with, but we are leaving."
Please come with us, mom. He thinks as hard as he can, as if sheer will can change her mind. He doesn't have the courage to ask.
"I-" she stutters, indecisive. "I won't stand by and let him slander Katsuki and the others—I can't do that to Mitsuki, it wouldn't be right."
I'm right here. He blinks back tears. I'm standing right in front of you and all you care about is everyone else. What about me?
Aizawa nods his head, clearly holding back a few choice words, and walks out the door with Deku in tow.
The ride to the station is silent, brewing helplessness and rage sitting stiflingly in the atmosphere. Aizawa's hands tighten on the wheel.
"How long have you had your quirk?" He asks tonelessly.
It sparks bottomless fear, the realization that he hadn't had before making a late comeback—because Aizawa sensei knows. He'd been so distracted he hadn't even realized what his mother had admitted to, but now that he has the fear fills up like an overflowing cup, an electric wire he walked into.
He tries to answer, but a breathy noise is all that leaves. He feels the tremors building back up, realizing he's trapped in a car and that Aizawa sensei could take him anywhere.
"Izuku I need you to breathe—I can't, fuck I can't pull over, so I need you to work with me."
The cursing kind of makes him want to laugh, because he'd never expected Aizawa to be a potty mouth but it's kind of sounding like he is, outside of school.
"Yeah, it's very funny, haha." Aizawa agrees, having overheard his muttering. "Tell me what you see, kid."
Izuku does, and then he tells him the rest without being asked, just moves seamlessly from one to the other. It isn't as hard to come back as it usually is, noises clearing quicker and the blurry road sharpening.
"There we are. Good job. I apologize; I should've thought about how that would come across." Aizawa tells him, apologizing without a second thought. "And I want you to know, I won't tell anyone you don't give me explicit permission to tell—even the police."
"R-really?" Izuku asks, shocked at the fact that Aizawa might impede his duty to report just so Izuku isn't afraid—he seems like the type to always follow the rules and put heroics first. After all, Izuku can't rationally justify keeping that crucial piece of information from his report.
"It will make prosecution much harder." Aizawa admits. "But we're doing this for your safety and peace of mind. If it doesn't achieve that, I'm not doing my job as an adult in your life."
"But wouldn't that mean there's a higher chance of them hurting someone else?"
"Yes." He answers, brutally honest. "But you are my priority right now."
Priority. When has Izuku ever been a priority?
It feels unspeakably nice to have someone choose him, for once.
Aizawa doesn't ask any more questions.
Walking into the station is nerve wracking, doubts and insecurities jumping ahead of him.
"Ok." Tsukauchi answers softly. "For the record, please state your name and the date."
Izuku does, and the pen scratching paper fills the eerie silence.
"Are you currently safe?" Izuku nods before remembering to answer verbally, and he doesn't analyze the relief that comes when Tsukauchi just nods.
"What are the names of the perpetrators?" He starts bluntly, clinically save for the compassionate gleam in his eye.
"That's—I mean that's complicated. Who counts as a 'perpetrator'? If it's physical violence I can probably keep it under ten, if it's destroying stuff or saying stuff it's like, the whole class. Ignoring it would be the whole school—so I don't—I don't really know how to answer."
He asks other things—when it started, how it started, injuries and how those injuries were treated--by himself? How else?, if Izuku ever told anyone, —"Were you ever sexually assaulted or harassed?"
"No." Izuku answers, and Tsukauchis eyes flit upward from the paper, Aizawa's hands tightening imperceptible in Izuku's peripheral.
"I swear!" Izuku straightens. "I mean—kids used to threaten and, and make jokes, but they never physically—y'know, did anything."
Tsukauchi visibly relaxes at that, but he writes something down anyway.
"Has an adult ever participated in any type of abuse?"
Izuku doesn't really know how to answer—he has no evidence, and even ringing true with the quirk seems easily dismissed.
Izuku hadn't filmed any discrimination from the teachers at Aldera, mostly because it was hard to recognize that there was any.
Izuku isn't stupid, he knows what discrimination is and what it looks like, but it was hard to reconcile adults treating him poorly with the image he'd had as a four year old.
For his first four years, adults were trusted, capable people, similar to hero's in the way he saw them. They kept him safe, they seemed to always know how to fix things.
Then it flipped like a switch. And suddenly Izuku was wondering what he did wrong, trying to reconcile the fact that adults protected and knew things with the fact that the way they treated him made him feel bad.
He realized something must be wrong with him, a reason adults just seemed to know they shouldn't be kind to him.
After learning about discrimination, and that the Quirkless were a minority, Izuku realized it wasn't him, but his mind never caught up, stuck in the 'what could I have done to avoid this? What did I do to deserve it?'
Filming that kind of felt like filming his own crime scene—like either he was the guilty or the abused, but either way nobody would want to look.
When it was other kids, it was just bullying—and bullying was wrong.
It feels like maybe the adults weren't.
But he doesn't say that, because he recognizes, logically, that if this happened to another quirkless kid he would be horrified, so it must be wrong.
So no, he doesn't have footage of a teacher treating him poorly, but Aizawa seems to know anyway, even before he answers.
"I—guess. Yeah."
"Alright. I have another set of questions, is that alright with you?"
Izuku nods, not answering if only because the question is just a formality—they don't really care if he wants to or not.
"Was your mother aware of the abuse?"
Izuku's eyes snap to Aizawa sensei, a sense of betrayed indignation welling up. "They're standard questions, kid."
Izuku thinks Aizawa sensei must have at least nudged Tsukauchi in that direction, that he'd rigged the interview somehow, but he has no proof, and Tsukauchi just agrees.
"I just have to get them out of the way, Midoriya."
"No." Izuku tells him snappily. "I hid all of it."
Tsukauchi's eye twitches, something Izuku has figured out means his quirk has gone off, and he asks in a non-confrontationally bland tone, "Would you mind elaborating?"
Izuku does. Mind. But he does it anyway, Tsukauchi ignoring the lie with a tight-lipped smile and continuing on to the questions. They're accusatory, barbed things—or maybe it just feels that way when his answers all feel wrong, even true as they are. Some questions feel like relief, when he can answer honestly and it doesn't paint them in a bad light.
Too many answers leave them stony faced, and too many catch Izuku off guard with how raw and vulnerable they make him feel.
"Alright, Midoriya. That's all I need from you."
Izuku tries to walk in pace with Aizawa as they leave, but it still feels like running