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Izuku had been attempting to stop himself from running outside for the past hour. Though, as more time passed, the harder it got. It’s difficult to fight against habits you’ve been doing the previous four years.
He tried to distract himself by writing in his analysis notebook but he found himself repeatedly stopping mid-sentence to count the seconds in between each clap of lightning. When he tried to play music to drown out the sound, he ended up subconsciously turning down the music. He didn’t know what to do. Nothing was working. He hadn’t had to deal with this problem at U.A before, it was the first thunderstorm he had endured at the dorms, he couldn’t just do as he used to since Aizawa would get an alert that he’d left the dorm building during the night.
<(*)>
When he was around 7, he was trying to avoid Kacchan and his friends at the park, so he climbed the first tree he saw. He was always a small child, which his bullies took advantage off quite often, so he found it quite easy climbing trees. His small bodyweight was easy for him to pull up onto branches and also ensured that thin branches wouldn’t snap underneath his feet. It meant bullies couldn’t follow him up as the branches broke from their weight. He only had issues if there was a branch he couldn’t reach, which was quickly fixed by a small leap of faith.
Overall, trees always felt safe for him. An escape. That was until he got stuck up one after Kacchan had finally had the idea to snap the branches at the bottom so he had no way to climb down again. As if that wasn’t bad enough, it soon began to rain. Then there was thunder. And then lightning. At the time, he didn’t feel unsafe (which he should’ve as lightning had a tendency to strike trees), only concerned about making it home on time. If Izuku had bothered to count the seconds between the flashes of lightning, he would’ve noticed how close it was to him.
But just as he was about to give up, a large flash and a crack rang out to his side, striking a very close by tree. Izuku startled so much his feet slipped from their footholds. He tumbled to the ground, hands flailing for something to grab onto but only grasping open air. He hit the ground with a thud, landing awkwardly on his arm.
Groaning, he sat up, avoiding putting pressure on his right arm. He examined it under the light of the steadily setting sun. It was at least fractured. Fortunately, he didn’t have to lie to his mum about how he got this injury, as he truly did fall out of a tree this time. Finally taking notice of the time passing, he hurriedly used his jacket to recreate a sling similar to the one the doctors at the hospital had given him in the past.
He was about to start running home when the charred black wood of a nearby tree caught his eye. It was the tree that had gotten struck by lightning earlier. He walked closer to it. The wood of the trunk was splintered from the top to bottom and the bark surrounding it was burnt. A red glow was slowly dimming in the splintered wood. He was stuck staring in wonder at the destruction before he realised that he could’ve possibly been in that tree. He stood for a while, contemplating how he could’ve died, before forcing his feet to move from where they were rooted to the ground.
When he found his way home, his mother fretted about his injured arm and questioned him on how it happened. After he had finished retelling the story of how he got stuck in a tree and fell, he saw a brief flash of relief cross her face. She was likely just glad that it hadn’t been one of the other kids this time. Though she promptly returned to worrying, So Izuku decided it was best not to inform her of the lightning strike, lest she worry more.
It took a couple weeks for Izuku to start climbing trees again.
<(*)>
He’d started receiving spider lillies and excerpts from news articles about quirkless suicides on his desk at the age of nine.
His classmates locked him on the school roof, telling him to take a hint at the age of ten.
He started climbing trees during thunderstorms at the age of eleven.
He still had the vivid image of the damage that was done to that tree when he was seven in his head, which motivated him to do it. Climbing trees during a thunderstorm was like a lottery. You didn’t know whether you were going to win. Winning for Izuku would mean getting struck by lightning and dying.
Participating in this unconventional lottery was the best option in Izuku’s eyes. He couldn’t commit suicide, he couldn’t do that to his mum, but he knew his classmates were right about him being better off dead. At least if he died this way it would be declared a freak accident and not a suicide.
So, at the first signs of lightning, he would pick a tree at random and climb it. Most of the time no trees were struck, and when they were they always missed him. Despite knowing that he likely wouldn’t get hit anytime soon, he still did it as it had become a form of comfort. When he survived another thunderstorm, he took it as a sign that he should keep living. As well as that, sitting with his legs dangling and his back against the cold trunk of a tree always helped him relax, the rumbling of thunder and lightning keeping him company.
He would sneak out in the middle of the night sometimes during thunderstorms when he couldn’t sleep, which was a common occurrence. As Izuku had gotten older, his mum had been taking longer and longer shifts at the hospital as his dad’s payments became less and less. This meant that the nights he climbed out the window and didn’t return for hours, or even until the morning, it wasn’t noticed as she was either working or passed out in bed from exhaustion.
<(*)>
He’d continued this habit, but the only thunderstorms which had occurred while he was in the dorms at U.A happened during the day, when it wasn’t suspicious to leave. Now, at past midnight, he was having to hold himself back from leaving. Aizawa would no doubt follow him outside to get him to go back into the dorms. Then, he would be scolded, maybe even given house arrest, and made to explain himself. Which, if he ever had to, he had no clue how he would go about it. How do you put such a thing into words and not get immediately labelled as suicidal?
Izuku had been looking around his room, looking for something else to potentially distract himself, when the movement of his curtains caught his eye. He’d left his balcony door open earlier to let in cold air to negate the stifling heat. It was then that he realised that he could climb of his balcony. There wasn’t as high of a chance of Aizawa being alerted and he was only on the second floor so it wouldn’t be too difficult.
So that’s what he did. He gripped the railing of his balcony and climbed over the other side. He slowly lowered himself as far as he could before letting his fingers uncurl, leaving him to freefall to the ground below. He bent his knees to cushion his landing as he dropped onto the grass. As he stood up and felt himself gradually get wet from the rain, he realised he hadn’t changed out of his pyjamas before following through with his plan, maybe he had been a bit too eager to get out. Luckily he had slippers on, so at least he wasn’t barefoot.
Shaking himself off, he started running as fast as someone can in slippers towards the small woods located on campus. He kept running further into it for a couple minutes until he stopped and picked a tree at random. The foliage on the trees was thick enough that no rain passed through. Izuku found a patch of dry moss to dry of his hands off so he could get a better grip on the wood. He heaved himself up a few branches until he was a reasonable distance off the ground.
Now sitting on the dry bark he took notice of how his hair stuck to his forehead, both from sweat and rainwater. His clothes stuck to his skin, his white t-shirt becoming see-through. It was quite uncomfortable and cold. He decided not to dwell on it though and instead leaned back against the tree, focusing on the sound of thunder and lightning.
<(*)>
Meanwhile, Aizawa had been interrupted from marking essays by an alert on his phone. He picked it up to check what it was.
Student ‘Midoriya Izuku’ has exited Class 1-A dorm building through balcony
Of course it was the Problem Child. Despite his exasperation, he felt concern lacing into his thoughts. What could Midoriya possibly be doing outside at this time? Especially with the ongoing storm. Whatever the reason was, it likely wasn’t good.
Aizawa pulled out his laptop to check the security cameras. He wasn’t going to do something as illogical as chase after his student with no idea of where he went. He rewinded to the correct time to see Midoriya drop himself of his balcony. After landing, he stopped for a second looking at his clothes with a look of dismay, which conveyed Aizawa’s thought of his outfit choice perfectly. Once he’d ran out of frame, he switched over to another camera. Aizawa eventually lost track of him when he sprinted into the woods.
With a general idea of where he had to go, Aizawa grabbed his capture weapon and took off in pursuit. He ran most of the way, still worrying about why his student ran away. After all, there could be no good reason for it.
Finally, he reached the edge of the woods and slowed down a little bit. He made his way in and began his search for his student.
<(*)>
Midoriya startled when he heard the sound of crunching leaves and snapping twigs approaching him. Someone was coming. He knew the logical assumption would be that it was his sensei, but he couldn’t ignore the niggling feeling in the back of his head that said it could be a villain.
He peered down from his position, searching for any sign of movement. He could still hear their footsteps but couldn’t see them yet. After a few minutes, he spotted a flash of grey to his right and immediately powered up One For All. The light created by his quirk notified the intruder that he was there. As the suspected villain raised his head to look at him, he realised it was his homeroom teacher. He let go his quirk and continued to keep eye contact with his teacher. Izuku was definitely not making the first move, he’d let Aizawa do that. It seemed like Aizawa had the same idea as they sat in silence for what felt like an eternity.
Finally, Aizawa broke the silence.
“Problem Child, you are going to explain yourself.”
Izuku went to say something, but was cut off.
“But firstly, you need to get the hell out of that tree. In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s been a thunderstorm raging on for the majority of the night.”
Oh, of course Izuku had noticed. It was the entire reason he was out here.
He hesitated for a second before catching a glimpse of Aizawa’s capture weapon twitching. As much as he didn’t want to get down, he knew if he didn’t get down himself, he’d be dragged down. Preferring the easier option, he started to make his way down to the forest floor. He stood stiffly as his teacher ran his eyes over him.
“You’re soaking. Let’s go back to the dorms and you can get changed. Then we’ll talk,” Aizawa said before turning on his heels and walking away, supposedly in the direction of the dorm building. Izuku was about to remark about Aizawa being just as wet, but thought better of it. He didn’t seem to be in a great mood right now and he didn’t want to make it worse.
Taking that as his cue, Izuku began to follow him whilst fidgeting with his wet pyjama sleeve. He really didn’t want to talk about this. He didn’t know how to. Especially with Aizawa.
The walk back was spent in stiffling silence. Izuku found it incredibly uncomfortable, but he couldn’t find anything appropriate to say to break it.
Eventually they made it back and Izuku left to his dorm room to dry off. While getting changed, he contemplated just never returning to the common room to speak to Aizawa. After debate, he decided against it. Aizawa wasn’t going to let this go anytime soon, better to get it over and done with now.
He made his way downstairs and sat down opposite his teacher. Again, Izuku waited for him to make the first move.
“So, why did you sneak at the dorms at nearly 1am?” Aizawa questioned.
Izuku shrank in on himself a little bit, moving his eyes to look at where his hands were fidgeting. Relunctantly, he realised he was going to have to be honest as any lies would likely be caught.
“Um, t-the thunder and lightning was t-too loud?” Izuku said. Why did he phrase it as a question? It was the truth. It was probably the nerves catching up to him.
He looked for a split second to see Aizawa looking at him, expecting him to continue his explanation.
“I couldn’t block it out or ignore it.”
An exasperated sigh released from Aizawa’s mouth.
“And why did that mean you had to sneak out?”
This was the part Izuku didn’t want to explain. How did he say used to like to play a game of death lottery but now uses it as a way of comfort without sounding crazy? He ran through many responses in his head and their outcomes. The only idea that stuck out to him was to just start the explanation from the beginning. When he was seven and hiding from bullies.
So he did. At some point, he’d started trembling, trying to hold back his cries, before falling apart and sobbing whilst recounting why he’d started the habit. By the time Izuku had finished, he was being hugged by his teacher as he tried to slow down his tears. When he was calm, a wave of exhaustion overcame him as the lack of sleep and emotional exertion caught up with him. If he fell asleep that night in his teacher’s arms, who’s to know?