Chapter Text
“H- Hizashi?” Shouts rubbed his eyes and looked in front of him to see Hizashi Yamada, Present Mic, with his head in his crossed arms sleeping on his hospital bed.
“Huh? Oh, Shouta! You’re awake!”
“Yeah, yeah..” He shuffled awkwardly as Hizashi leaned in for a hug, that he managed to mostly avoid.
Hizashi moved out of his chair sat down on his bed. “I was wondering when you'd wake up!” And held up a brown bag.
“Oh don’t tell me you snuck alcohol up here- Do I smell coffee in there?”
“You have no trust in me, do you? Tsk tsk tsk…” He shook his head. “But yes, you do!”
Shouta lunged for the bag, snatching it out of Hizashi’s hands. He took out the cup and took a deep breath of the hot steam pouring out of the hole in the lid before taking it off.
“You got plain black, right?”
“Of course I did.” Hizashi gave him that stupid smirk he always seemed to have on hand. “Who do you think I am? Not your-?”
Shouta scoffed and took a gulp of the coffee… And spat in back out.
“Fuck, Yamada where’d you get this shit?!”
“Huh? Is something wrong with it?”
“ Wrong? I- It’s boiling! And it doesn’t even taste like coffee!” He let out a pathetic sigh. Why couldn’t I just accept Tamawaka’s offer… “Where’d you even get this?!”
Hizashi turned the brown bag around, a big yellow M was pasted on the side of it. “The McDonald’s next to the station, it was the closest place I could think of. I got you a burger too but…” Hizashi winced as he looked at Aizawa’s bandaged face. “I’m not sure if you’ll be able to eat it.”
Shouta sighed again and raised a hand to his cheek, it didn’t hurt much anymore, but he still had trouble moving his mouth with it.
“The one by the station, yeah? … That’s the place where the kid I saved the other day worked.”
“Oh? I didn’t know. What did he look like?”
“Green hair, freckles…” Shouta thought back to the kid… His description did match quite a lot of what he saw in his assailant-
“Heyy, I’m pretty sure that’s the kid that served me today!”
He broke out of his thoughts. “Really? How’d he seem?”
“Fine enough, he recognised me, that was unexpected!”
Shouta chuckled. “Yeah, he knew me too. Said he was my biggest fan, even.” He was overthinking it, no way a kid like that could put a grown man in hospital.
“Y’know… It’s funny. The man at the USJ said something similar.” Hizashi looked up to the ceiling.
“Oh shit, I’d almost forgotten about that. What happened over there? You didn’t get hurt did you?”
Hizashi smiled comfortingly, something he rarely did and said in a soft, teasing voice. “I’m fine. Thirteen and that terrorist from your class were there with me. All Might and Vlad though…”
“Fuck, how are they? I told Tsukauchi that that threat was real!”
“Noone could have known this was going to happen-”
“But that bastard little brat did! Which means other people did too-”
Hizashi grabbed his hand. “Shouta. It’s too late for that. You did your best, I know you did. All we can do now is support each other and try putting those villains behind bars. We’ve already caught one of them, and we’ll catch the rest soon enough.”
“Yeah, but- … You caught one?”
“Well- I mean, we caught almost all of the thugs, your students did amazing, but yeah, me, Kurose and the hot-head were able to take out the villain that warped them in, with minor injuries.”
“Are you alright?” It was a dumb question, of course he was, but Shouta couldn’t stop himself from asking.
Hizashi pulled up his sleeve to above his elbow, revealing a minimally bandaged forearm. “Bakugo may or may not have gone a bit overboard with the explosions, I fell back but that’s all.”
“He’s gotta learn not to be so fucking reckless all the time.”
“Yeah.” Hizashi snorted. “You not teachin’ your class well enough, Eraserhead ?”
Shouta punched him playfully. “Shut up.” And chuckled. “So… how'd it play out?”
“I mean… we got the warp villain tackled and down for the count. But… Let's just say we're lucky Ingenium’s kid brother came back with backup when he did.”
The door flung open and the two heroes turned to see Detective Inspector Tsukauchi and DS Tamakawa standing in the doorframe.
“Excuse us. But may we ask you a few questions, Eraserhead?”
“Uh, sure.”
The two police officers walked in, pulled up seats from next to the wall and sat by Shouta’s bed.
They sat there in awkward silence, Hizashi kept sneaking glances back at Shouta, making it hard for him to keep a straight face.
“So. I know we’ve already done this, but we need a description of your attacker.”
Shouta sighed, he had his revised description already, he knew this was coming, after he saw the news of what happened at the USJ. “Male, early teens, Asian/Japanese or at least fluent, black hair, maybe green highlights/tint, green eyes.”
“Quirk?”
“Speed or something mental, possibly a mutation quirk seeing as there was no visible signs that my quirk was working on him.”
“Is there anything else?” Tsukauchi looked tired, he’d probably been working for the 4 days straight since Shouta was hospitalized.
“Um, Tamakawa?” The cat’s hair stood up on his skin and he jumped slightly and looked up from his report.
“Uh- Yes?”
“That kid, the one I rescued a week or so ago, the McDonald's one?”
“Yes?”
“What was his quirk?”
Silence.
“Do you think he was your assailant?” The cat said cautiously.
“Well- I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking-”
“There’s barely any possibility that it was him. His… quirk … is in no way suited for attack or defense. And in any case, he had been in a hospital bed barely one day beforehand.”
“I see.” Shouta grunted out. Something about the kid didn't sit right with him. “Can I ask how our colleagues are?”
“Which ones?” Tamakawa said, his face back in his report.
“I think you know which ones, man.” Hizashi spoke up. “Vlad King? and All Might?”
I might not like ‘em but they’re still my coworkers.
“Vlad’ll survive.” Naomasa answered instead. “He lost his leg to the leader, some… sort of decay… disintegration… quirk…” He started muttering to himself, Shouta could have sworn he heard him say Nezu’s name, but who knew with this guy.
“Yes?” Even if Shouta respected his talent, he didn't have much patience for this particular detective.
“He's recovering fine. He barely lost any blood. When he's out of the hospital it will take at least a year of physical therapy to fully recover and go back to hero work, but that shouldn't affect his ability to teach, he will possibly be back at UA by the start of the next school year, if he decides to return at all, that is. I hear that Ectoplasm is willing to help with Vlad's… transition. To prosthetics.”
“Well shit.” Aizawa said blandly…
Before blowing up. “I warned you, I fucking warned you this would happen-”
“And All Might?” Hizashi put a hand on Shouta's mouth, careful to miss his bandages whilst still keeping him in place. Shouta hated when he did that. “What about him? Will he be alright?"
Tsukauchi looked away. “His condition is… more confidential. All I can say is that he is still alive. Vlad King, Thirteen and you, Present Mic, have all given very detailed descriptions of what happened and it has made my job much easier, so thank you.”
“What about the villain they captured?” Shouta moved Hizashi’s hand from his face and shoved it away.
“We are still investigating it.” Tamakawa answered for him.
“ It? ” Shouta repeated.
“ Ahem .” Tsukauchi cleared his throat and got up, gesturing for the cat to follow suit. “Thank you very much, Eraserhead. But as you can imagine we are extremely busy. To answer your question, it's still a confidential matter. But if our current theory is right we will need both of you. Soon.”
They started walking away from the bed but the detective inspector stopped in his tracks. Without turning around he asked “Is there anything else you can think of about the child that attacked you.”
“No… Not really, he sorta cut straight to the point, y’know? Why?”
“And he didn't try to harm you before you attacked?”
“I… guess you could say that? What are you getting at, detective?”
“That if this kid is more innocent than we think, he's gonna be in a world of trouble if the villains find him first.”
Izuku was doing… Okay.
I mean, he'd just got saved from a pummeling by a hero student, and met another hero! That was great, right?
So why can't I feel happy for myself?
He was sat in bed, it was pretty late.
His hands were soaked in blood again. He sighed. Fuck this. And got up to go wash them.
The house he grew up in seemed smaller than it used to. He missed when he was younger, before he was deemed “quirkless”, before the world seemed wrong. It was just claustrophobic now.
Izuku made it to the bathroom without disturbing his mom, and washed his hands for what seemed like the one millionth time that day. He didn't want to look at them, so he just stared blankly at himself in the mirror. He looked wrong.
He must've zoned out like that, because he jumped back to himself with the water pouring out of the sink bowl.
“Shit!” He squeaked, rushed to turn off the taps, and silently cleaned up the water on the ground with a towel.
He sighed, he was tired. So tired.
What are you doing then? You fucking idiot. Go to bed. A familiar voice in the back of his head screamed at him.
He limply walked to his room and climbed in bed, wincing at the creaks the floorboards made as he did so.
He was asleep within the hour.
Naomasa was waiting in front of the door, how was one even supposed to start entering the hospital room of someone they couldn't protect, especially if they were your best friend, and the person keeping the illusion of safety in Japan intact.
He took a deep breath, opened the door, and entered the room.
“So.”
The detective jumped.
“Gran Torino!” He exclaimed as he turned around to see the tiny man. “Excuse me sir, I was just-”
“No need. You're here to visit Yagi, aren't you?”
Naomasa relaxed slightly and looked over to his friend, his skeletal body looking even more pale and sickly than usual.
“Yes. I… This case, I mean. It's a lot.” He chuckled solemnly. “I wish he was here with me.”
“I'm sure the whole of Japan feels the same.” The old man grunted.
The detective nodded, and pulled up the chair next to the hero, as far as Naomasa could tell, he'd been sitting there ever since Toshinori had been admitted into hospital.
“You're off of work then, ey?” Gran Torino side-eyed him.
“That'd be correct-”
“No need for that fancy-shmancy talk! You're off of work!”
“Sorry.” Naomasa rubbed his neck. “... I swear the hours keep getting longer. I try to be here as often as I can but starting at 7 and ending at 11 is hard. What time even is it right now?” He looked at his watch and sighed. “Midnight. I just got off, I swear, I had to revisit Eraserhead and update his attacker’s desc-”
“No need for apologies! I'm guessing that cat is still driving you around though?”
Naomasa raised an eyebrow. “I'm pretty sure that's quirkist.”
The old man sighed and slapped his leg. “You youngsters with your ‘being woke’. When I was a kid we'd call those mutants what they looked like, like anyone in their right mind would!”
Naomasa sighed, better to change the subject then let a geezer rant. “And also he's not just driving me around. We're friends, y’know?”
“But he is waiting outside right now.”
“Yeah, with the car. Sansa and I are roommates, so he was gonna drive me home-”
“You're on first name basis with him.” Gran Torino stated blandly.
“I- I guess.” Naomasa stuttered. “We use last names only during work hours, though. Professionalism and stuff.”
Torino grunted once more.
They sat in awkward silence for a minute, Naomasa looked anywhere in the room apart from Yagi, it was too much, his spindly, bandaged body was a reminder that Naomasa wasn't able to protect him.
I should have listened to Eraser.
“So… How is he?” Naomasa muttered.
After a minute, the old man took in a deep breath and turned to look at the number one hero.
“He still hasn't woken up.” He stopped, trying to find his words. He had the same fierce look plastered on his face but his eyes showed some different feeling; sorrow, greif maybe. “He's been in a coma for a few days now, he's not showing any signs of waiting up soon. But I know he'll be back. Toshinori wouldn't just leave like this.”
“Yes… What are his injuries?”
“Don't you interrogate me!” He earned a slap across his head from the old man, how he reached that far up? Naomasa had no clue. “... The thing that attacked him, that ‘Nomu’ as you called it, it almost ripped him in two.” He paused. “It was bad. Really bad. He was in surgery for almost 17 hours after the fact… We're lucky he survived.”
…
So many questions raced through his head, ‘will he ever wake up?’ ‘he’s gonna be alright, right?’ but he found himself asking the most selfish one.
“Will he still be the symbol of peace after this?”
It felt like he was waiting forever before he finally answered, in the most defeated voice he'd ever heard on the man.
“We can only hope."
Sansa twirled his straw through his milk. (One of the downsides of having the appearance, inside and out, of a cat was that he couldn't digest most things adults usually could.)
He had invited Naomasa out for drinks ‘cause he seemed pretty down after he'd gotten back in the car at the hospital, but now he wasn't sure if that had been the best idea. As far as Sansa could tell, he was sleeping with his head resting on the table, which was rare for the usually so professional man.
“Soo…” he spun the straw once more and Naomasa looked up from his crossed arms. “How'd it go?”
The man sighed loudly and stretched his arms out in front of him, nearly knocking over his scotch. “Bad. Torino was still there, and well, you know him.” He yawned and put his head back in his arms.
“Yeah…” He paused. “How's… you know who.”
“All Might? You can say his name, y’know. He's not dead yet. ” Naomasa snapped.
“Right” Sansa looked at his glass and took a sip of his milk.
Naomasa let out a long breath and turned his head away, hiding his face from Sansa. “I'm sorry, by the way. For snapping so much ‘n stuff. It's not okay.”
“It's fine, I don't mind.” Sansa smiled softly as he slowly moved the straw around in his drink, forming foam on the rim of the glass. “This case would be a lot for anyone, let alone you .”
“Yeah…”
He rested his eyes on his friend's ruffled black hair, hidden amongst his arms. “You know, I'm sure the commissioner would agree to take you off the case if you requested it.”
Naomasa chuckled and sat up, picking up his glass. “Pretty sure that'd make me feel even worse.” and took a drink.
They talked about work some more, and then about the dog they were eventually gonna get, after the chaos subsided. (It was mostly Naomasa drunkenly begging and Sansa soberly refusing, on the basis that he'd be the only one taking care of it.)
They stayed there an hour or so before finally getting up to leave, Sansa payed (out of the detective's wallet) and drove the both of them to their apartment, where he stuffed the grown man in bed like a child then went to his own room, and fell asleep as soon as his head reached his pillow.