Chapter Text
Hitoshi becomes a ward of the school, and then war happens. He makes it out not much worse for wear, but Aizawa’s down an eye and a leg. Hitoshi spent nights in the hospital with him, sometimes, when he could get away with it. Nearly losing him terrified Hitoshi in a way he isn’t sure he can put into words, even now, sitting in the back of the classroom, while the man stands in front of them and prepares them for their next simulated exam.
Hitoshi’s in therapy. It’s helping, maybe. They spend a lot of time talking about coping mechanisms and how old survival skills influence his behavior in the present, and not a lot of time talking about the details of what happened to him, which was by design at first. Hitoshi wasn’t ready.
Some days, though, today being one of them, it feels like being alone with the knowledge of what was done to him is going to burn him alive. He doesn’t think he can bring it up with his therapist, even after all these months. He can’t bring himself to tell his friends, wary of dumping his trauma on someone unprepared, regardless of how willing they insist they are. His eyes meet Aizawa’s from across the classroom, and Hitoshi watches a twitch of a smile show at the corner of Aizawa’s lips, just for him.
Hitoshi thinks about the first time someone reported his parents. The hurt that followed. The years of terror after. And then he thinks of the time he sent that picture to Aizawa. The broken window. Gentle hands, holding him up, guiding him to a gurney, holding him at the hospital and through the police interview. He thinks of how the calluses on Aizawa’s fingers and palm from years of using his capture weapon felt on Hitoshi’s arm and in his hands that night. Rough and strong and capable. Safe.
Hitoshi thinks Aizawa could handle his story. He knows Aizawa would listen, and Hitoshi remembers that Aizawa’s already offered. Hitoshi’s chest aches with the isolation of being the only one who knows what happened to him all those years ago, and the years of pain that followed after that single escalation. Then his brain slides off the safety rails like melting butter and slides into the way water feels when it’s running down his restrained forearms, dripping off his elbows. He rubs his goosefleshed arms, and then his tightening chest. Aizawa notices, raises an eyebrow at him and jerks his eyes towards the door. A silent, go, if you need to, I saw your tell.
Hitoshi raises his hand, excuses himself to the restroom, and heads down the hallway. He sets a timer on his phone for three minutes, and sits on the floor in an alcove made of windows. He lets the sun beat down on his face, and neck, and sink into the fabric of his shirt. He breathes the way he learned in therapy, counting under his breath. It’s a little too hot and he focuses on that, rather than the memory of cold and wet and fear.
His phone chimes. Before he heads back to class, and before he chickens out, he texts Aizawa:
“Can I come over and talk tonight?”
He gets the response about a minute after the bell rings to switch classes.
“Of course.”
—
Hitoshi has been in Aizawa’s apartment enough times that he knows the code to unlock the door, so he lets himself in, toes off his shoes, and curls into his customary corner of the sofa. He can hear the shower running down the hall. He’s about twenty minutes earlier than he said he’d be, but Aizawa is used to that. He wraps a blanket around his shoulders and pulls another over his lap, and then leans his head against the back of the sofa, relieving the pressure from his neck.
It’s still sore, sometimes, but in the kind of way that makes him wonder if it’s in his head. It’s not the way flashbacks happen in movies, but it pinches in the same way the muzzle used to, even when nothing’s there. He hasn’t brought it up in therapy yet. He thinks Aizawa has noticed, though.
He hears Aizawa’s crutches before he sees him, but when he comes into view, Aizawa’s face is pinched with discomfort and he’s holding a bottle of lidocaine lotion and a pair of nitrile gloves with the tips of his fingers. It dangles precariously from where he’s gripping the handle of his crutch. His hair is down, damp and tangled, and he’s wearing a grey t-shirt and basketball shorts. His residual limb is red and sore-looking from what Hitoshi can see of the end of it peeking out of the shorts.
Aizawa sits down with a soft groan and starts talking as he rolls up the leg of his shorts.
“Do you mind if I-” he gestures to his stump, the lotion, “I didn’t want to leave you waiting out here for another ten minutes just because my nervous system thinks I still have a leg and that it’s melting.”
“It’s cool, do what you need to do,” Hitoshi says, and Aizawa tucks the leg of his shorts up at the base of his hip, slips on the gloves, and starts slathering on the lotion. Hitoshi vaguely wonders if there’s a recommended dose and if Aizawa cares what it might be.
“So,” Aizawa says, hands still working on his stump, rubbing harshly at gnarled scar tissue. “What do you want to talk about?”
“I kind of don’t know how to start,” Hitoshi says, suddenly feeling embarrassed. He doesn’t really want to blurt out that he wants to talk about what he considers the worst episode of abuse he ever endured while under his parents care, but that’s exactly what’s been flooding his mind the last few days.
“Do you want me to ask questions or do you want to tell me the topic and go from there?”
“Ask me questions,” Hitoshi says. They’ve done this before. Aizawa will poke and prod until he finds the bleeding spot, pulls off the bandaid, and suddenly the words pour out of Hitoshi like a hemorrhage.
“Is it about why you got triggered in class today?” Aizawa asks, looking up to make eye contact even as he digs his fingers into the meat of his thigh. Of course he’d zero in on it right away.
“Yeah.”
“It’s been happening more often this week,” Aizawa observes, and then seems to decide massage is a lost cause, and strips off his gloves before he rolls his pant leg back down. He leans back in the chair and stuffs a pillow under his stump.
“It has been. It’s… been stuck in my head.”
“A particular experience you want to talk about?”
“Yeah.”
“Any reason it’s come up so much lately?”
“I just feel… alone. Knowing I’m the only one that knows.”
“Did you talk about it in therapy?”
“I’ve… talked around it.”
“Any reason you want to share it with me instead?”
“You’re safe.”
“Your therapist is safe, too.”
Hitoshi thinks on that for a moment before he answers, “You’re safest, though.”
“Okay,” Aizawa says, and folds his hands over his chest. “How old were you?”
“Eight.”
“What makes this experience different from the others?”
“It was… an escalation of violence I wasn’t prepared for. And…” Hitoshi trails off, lost in his thoughts.
“And?” Aizawa gently prompts, after a moment.
“And the reason it was so hard for me to get help, after, I think. It showed me… that getting help was dangerous. That if I asked for help but didn’t get out, I’d get hurt worse.”
“That sounds like a very damaging and scary lesson to learn at eight years old.”
“Yeah,” Hitoshi agrees, honestly, letting the validation seep into his pores before he continues. He takes a few deep breaths.
“You have a lot of insight about how this has impacted you,” Aizawa says, “even without processing it in therapy.”
“I think about it a lot.”
“That makes sense.”
“I’ve thought about it a lot ever since I survived it.”
“I’d imagine so.”
“When it was happening, I thought I was going to die,” Hitoshi says in a rush. He’s never admitted this before, how convinced he was that his parents were going to kill him.
“That must have been frightening.”
“It was. It was. I kept thinking, ‘this is it, they’re going to kill me. I’m going to die,’ but then… well it’ll make more sense if I tell you.”
“Before you start- do you want me over here, or next to you on the sofa?”
Hitoshi thinks about it before he answers, “I think I always want you next to me actually.” Aizawa huffs a single, tiny laugh, before he levers himself out of the chair and down into the sofa next to Hitoshi.
“Okay, kiddo,” Aizawa says. “I’m ready whenever you are.”
Hitoshi takes a deep breath. Then another. Slowly reaches over and takes Aizawa’s hand. Aizawa squeezes it and presses their shoulders together. Hitoshi leans his head to rest on Aizawa’s shoulder for a moment before picking it back up.
“Okay. Okay- I want to tell you about what happened when I was eight.”
“Alright.”
“It’s… It’s a lot. I know it’s a lot. I don’t want to be–”
“You’re not too much. I can handle it, kid. Even if it’s a lot.”
Hitoshi starts the story and the words pour out of him. He sets the scene, and then swan dives into his trauma. He swims through it while the waves beat him down, try to pull him under. His breathing picks up a little and he stops talking at one point. Aizawa leans harder against his shoulder and squeezes his hand.
“You still with me, kid?”
“...yeah” Hitoshi says faintly.
“You don’t have to keep going.”
“I do.”
“Okay. I’m here. We’re in it together.”
He dives back in, and slowly, his voice deadens. His inflection leaves him but his mouth keeps saying the words. He sounds like he’s reciting something rote, and he knows it’s a warning sign, knows that he’s hit a limit somewhere, but he can’t stop himself now that he’s started.
Aizawa adjusts and wraps an arm around Hitoshi’s shoulders. Hitoshi leans into him like he’s the only thing tethering him to the present. Hitoshi’s stomach churns and his throat aches, and tears start to escape him when he blinks.
“I’m here with you,” Aizawa says when he hits a lull. Hitoshi drops his head down onto Aizawa’s shoulder again, sags into him. Aizawa wraps his other arm around Hitoshi’s front, holding him close. “You’re not alone with it anymore,” Aizawa says into Hitoshi’s riot of purple hair and that’s what finally breaks Hitoshi's composure. He starts to sob, turning and clinging on Aizawa, pressing his face into Aizawa’s chest, hand twisting in Aizawa’s shirt.
“I've got you, Hitoshi. Easy. You're safe. You're not alone with it. I'm with you,” Aizawa says, gently rubbing a hand up and down Hitoshi's back.
“‘m sorry” Hitoshi mumbles and Aizawa shushes him.
“Shh, it's alright. Everything's okay. You just told me something that was really intense, that's scared you for years. Your body's reacting to that and it's okay. Let it happen. I'm staying right here.”
So Hitoshi cries it out and leans against Aizawa until he feels emptied out. But he also doesn't feel alone for the first time since he was eight years old.
Aizawa keeps holding him, and doesn't move until Hitoshi starts to sit up. He lets Hitoshi go, but stays close, keeps their hands intertwined. Hitoshi hangs on to that small bit of contact.
“Thank you for trusting me with that, kiddo.”
“It wasn't too much?”
“It wasn't too much. I can handle it. I hate that it happened, and it was wrong. It was fucked up,” Aizawa says, seriously, and Hitoshi glances up at his face in surprise. “But you're safe now. We can focus on that part.”
Hitoshi nods, not quite smiling, and says “It feels validating to hear from someone that it was fucked up.”
“It was absolutely fucked up, and it makes sense you're hurting because of it. It was wrong, and terrible, but you survived it. You're here now,” Aizawa responds, squeezing Hitoshi's hand.
“I feel like it broke me.”
“In some ways it did. It hurt you. It damaged you. It impacted your development. Those consequences are very real. But you're not broken- you're a whole, healing person.”
“I don't feel like a person sometimes,” Hitoshi says, the honesty of the statement surprising him a little.
“You are. And it's okay if it doesn't always feel like it, you're working on that. Hell, I'm still working on that. We can work on it together,” Aizawa says and Hitoshi takes a second to really look at him- the twisted, inflamed tissue of his empty eye socket that's usually covered, the bags under his eyes, the pallor of his skin. He's looked like this ever since the war ended. It aged all of them, but Aizawa more than most.
“Are you okay? I'm sitting here unloading all of this on you and-”
“I'm okay, kiddo. I won't lie and say things aren't hard right now, but it won't be hard forever. I'm going to be alright. And so are you.”
The quiet confidence of the statement bowls Hitoshi over.
“I don't see how-”
“Do you trust me, kid?”
“...yeah. I do. You just sound so confident and I dunno where that comes from.”
“It's not my first rodeo,” Aizawa says with a sideways almost-grin. “So if you can't believe it right now, that's okay. You can borrow it from me. You can trust that I'm right when I say we'll be okay. You don't have to believe it for yourself yet. Just believe me.”
“I can try.”
“That's all I'm asking.”