Chapter Text
It isn’t often that Izuku slips into headspace. For one, he’s just too busy with training, homework, and acting as though he hadn’t spent most of his life isolated from his peers in a form of bullying and discrimination. For another, it was just a means to protect himself. No one except for his mother really knew he was Little. Izuku didn’t want to think of how his school life might’ve gone if he were the weird, quirkless Little who didn’t shut up about—
Anyway.
Izuku rarely subdrops into his headspace. He knows, objectively, that neglecting his Little side isn’t a good idea. It’s a terrible idea, actually. The physical and psychological stress of neglecting ones’ designation has, sometimes, long-term health consequences. Those consequences are doubled when the designation in question is Little.
The longer Izuku stays out of headspace, the more stressed he feels—but the more stressed Izuku feels, the less likely he sinks into headspace. It’s a vicious cycle, one that his mother frets about every time he responds negatively to her question of “And have you dropped recently?”
But Midoriya Inko isn’t a caregiver. She’s Neutral, strictly, though more sub-aligning than most of her designation. She’s equipped to raise her son, of course—but she doesn’t have all the tools she needs to raise a son who is also Little. Articles, and books, and advice blogs can only do so much, after all.
The stress of his first year thus far has built up beneath his skin. Izuku’s anxiety is to a point where it could potentially subdue a rampaging elephant. He knows, he knows, that he needs to drop—and he needs to do it before he erupts into a meltdown that he isn’t sure how to handle. If anyone could be able to handle.
There are caregivers in his class, of course—but unease knits in the pit of his stomach whenever he thinks of asking them to ease him into his headspace. It’s not like Izuku thinks they’ll be cruel or won’t agree, but there’s that small part of Izuku, who is still a tiny, bruised and terrified five-year-old, who remembers just how easily, how quickly, everyone had turned against him the minute they realized he’d never get a quirk.
That Izuku was “other.”
U.A. has the most CG faculty in – anywhere, really. It’s one of the reasons why Izuku was so drawn to the institution, if one also forgot their stellar academics and hero program. Izuku feels safest in its’ halls, knowing that there are seasoned caregivers who are comfortable and secure in both their instincts and their designations.
But – still.
There’s that part of him, that little child who had faced scorn and discrimination from teachers who were supposed to support him and cultivate his skills. Teachers who had only stomped him into the dirt with his classmates and laughed when he cried.
Nonetheless, the facts remained: Izuku needs to drop, and his headspace is small enough that he knows it won’t be a good idea if he dropped alone.
Izuku had plans to go to either Aizawa or Yamada and ask them to ease him into a drop—he could’ve asked All Might, but Izuku . . . didn’t want to bother the man; he was still adjusting to his retirement, and the last thing Izuku wanted was to cause his mentor, his number one hero, even more stress—but then Bakugou pulled him outside for a talk.
And then, before Izuku could even digest what was going on, they were fighting. They were fighting, and the little parts in Izuku were screaming about his behavior, and the stress and anxiety of his first year (of his whole life, let’s be honest here) pressed and pressed against his lungs.
Aizawa separates them once All Might marches them to his office, wanting to talk to them individually. Izuku sits in the common room area of the faculty offices while All Might just – stares at him. The man had said something about being disappointed, though understanding of the situation. Those little parts of Izuku kept getting louder in the face of his mentors’ disappointment, in the face of whatever punishment Aizawa saw fit to give him.
Bakugou storms out of Aizawa’s office, though halted by All Might asking him to “stay a bit for a chat.” Aizawa calls Izuku inside next, and Izuku goes, shutting the door behind him with a soft click.
“I expected better from you, Problem Child.”
Izuku brings his shoulders up to his ears at Aizawa’s stern tone. The lecture begins in a blistering tone that he tries to pay attention to—he does, he really does; but the stress, the disappointment, the scolding . . . it’s too much. His mind whirls with thoughts. Apologies melt on his tongue. His headspace sinks deep claws into his mind, intent to drag itself out of the box Izuku has been shoving it into for months, now.
“—Midoriya,” that sharp voice cuts through his muddled thoughts. Aizawa leans forward with narrowed eyes, forearms pressed against his knees. Stern homeroom teacher melts into stern caregiver when he questions, “Are you listening to me—?”
Unable to smother the cacophony of little inside of him anymore, Izuku bursts into tears. He sputters and cries something about being sorry, so, so sorry, about being bad but I be good, I be go-ood, about something, Izuku doesn’t know, but it all pours off his tongue. His vision whitens briefly, the accumulated stress and subdrop causing a slight blackout (it happens, and Izuku, unfortunately, is used to it), but when he returns, he’s curled in Aizawa’s lap.
Aizawa gently rubs Izuku’s scalp with one hand while the other is chained around Izuku’s waist, an anchor that grounds him to the present. Izuku sobs quietly against Aizawa’s collarbone, deep sobs that make his shoulders shudder.
“Shh, Izuku, shh.” Aizawa’s voice, while still stern (it was always stern), is soft; warmer and protective in response to Izuku’s meltdown. “Shh, it’s alright. It’s alright.”
The door opens and Izuku hears a distant “what the fuck is wrong with him” from Kacchan that makes another well of sobs press against his lungs. He squeezes his eyes tighter, enough that it causes a light headache, and burrows his face in the curve of Aizawa’s neck, as if to hide from the rest of the world.
“Bakugou, your language is both unnecessary and unbecoming,” Aizawa scolds and, even though Izuku isn’t the one being scolded, Izuku whines. Aizawa bounces him lightly with a soft hum. “I need one of you to prep a formula bottle for Izuku. Now.”
Feet scramble against tiled floors. Izuku hears another older caregiver mutter to themselves about how they didn’t know, they should’ve known, were you aware of his status, young Bakugou?
“Fu—No,” Kacchan responds. “I . . . he never . . ..”
“That doesn’t matter right now,” Aizawa says in a firm tone. “Whether we were aware of his designation or not is a moot point. He’s been stressed and anxious enough to subdrop, so that’s on us as his teachers. Nonetheless, Bakugou—there’s a pacifier on my desk, please rinse it and give to me.”
Izuku thinks Kacchan does as told (which – odd, since when do teachers order Kacchan around?) because there’s a gentle press of a bulb against his lips. He whines around another flurry of sobs, fingers curled into the front of Aizawa’s shirt.
“Shi—I mean . . . he’s really Little,” says Kacchan.
“Hm.” Aizawa hums in response before he lightly bounces Izuku, voice going softer as he asks, “Izuku, do you think you could take the paci?”
Izuku sniffles, hiccups, but he accepts the pacifier and lets himself be soothed by it. Aizawa continues his soft hushes, continues running fingers through Izuku’s hair. Kacchan is – oddly quiet. It makes Izuku scrunch his nose. Kacchan is never quiet.
“Izuku?” He blinks an eye open, vision blurred by his tears, to see Aizawa give him a quiet smile. “Can you tell me how old you are?”
It takes Izuku a bit, more focused on the sobs building in his throat, on the way his body aches, on the way he’s just so sorry. He holds up one shy finger.
“Oh? That’s a big age.”
Izuku giggles quietly, but it transforms into another hiccup. He calms down a bit by the time a taller figure appears – no, All Might appears with a bottle in his hands.
“Ah . . . for y-young Izuku . . .”
Aizawa takes the bottle but doesn’t remove Izuku’s pacifier. “Izuku, I’m going to take your paci and give you your bottle, okay?”
Izuku’s response is a slow blink, his mind digesting the information at a snails’ pace, before he nods his consent. While he makes a soft noise once the pacifier is removed, he doesn’t cry, and he hums in approval when the bottle is slipped inside his mouth. His fingers tremble, still, but he’s able to have a good enough grasp on the bottle that Aizawa doesn’t hold it for him.
He closes his eyes again as he drinks. He distantly hears Aizawa order Kacchan back to the dorms to begin his house arrest, and then order All Might to escort Kacchan to said dorms. It’s clear that both protest—or, at least, All Might does; why would Kacchan?—but Aizawa does something, probably glare, until they slowly shuffle out of the office.
“Easy, sweetheart.” Aizawa adjusts him gently so that he’s upright a bit more. “Don’t want you to choke, hm?”
Izuku hums around the bottle. His tears disperse by the time he’s mostly finished with it. The bigger parts of him say something about “getting the punishment over with,” and it makes Izuku whine because he hates being punished. He hated timeouts and lines and scoldings so, so much.
When he plops the bottle out of his mouth, Aizawa sets it down on the floor beside him. “How’re we feeling, Izuku?”
“Izu bad,” Izuku mumbles.
“No,” says Aizawa, and he raises Izuku’s chin so that they lock gazes. “You made a bad choice—but you? You’re good, Izuku. You’re good.”
Izuku’s bottom lip trembles as he shakes his head. “Nuh uh. Bad. Ev’ryone says so.”
“Everyone says so?” Aizawa raises an eyebrow. “And who is everyone, Izuku?”
Izuku quiets. He twists his fingers in Aizawa’s shirt and echoes, “Ev’ryone.”
“Hmm . . . well, I’m not everyone, Izuku,” Aizawa tells him quietly, but in a tone that demands no misunderstandings. It reminds him of his mom. “And I say that you are good. You have always been good, Izuku.”
The genuineness, the warmth, that stern no-nonsense—it’s too much. Izuku tips back into a tangle of sobs, but they aren’t as heavy as before. Aizawa returns back to hushing him gently, tsking when Izuku won’t reaccept the pacifier. After a moment, Aizawa says something about picking him up, and Izuku hiccups, a brief quiet, when Aizawa rises to his feet, Izuku securely in his arms.
If Izuku were bigger, he’d be surprised at how easily Aizawa carries him—but then he remembers that Aizawa could lift him and Kacchan with his capture weapon, and well . . .
“Oh~?” a new voice enters the scene as Aizawa carries him – somewhere. “What’s wrong with the listener?”
Aizawa explains the situation, adding a, “He’s too small to be left in the dorms. The other problem children are not equipped to handle a Little this tiny. Not to mention one that’s having a meltdown like this.”
“No doubt, no doubt,” says the voice. It sounds like Yamada. “Should I let Toshi-chan~ know he’ll be having a little roomie?”
“Please,” says Aizawa. “But let him know it doesn’t mean that it’s play time.”
“Got it, got it!”
“I mean it, Hizashi.”
Izuku presses his face back into the crevice of Aizawa’s neck, and cries some more. His throat aches. His stomach. His eyes. His head. He hurts so much, and he just wants to cry, and he’s still so guilty and sorry over what he’d done earlier. At some point, he soothes himself with two fingers—though that’s brief as Aizawa removes his fingers and replaces it with a pacifier and a firm, “Fingers have germs, Izuku.”
It makes him cry a bit more. There he goes, being bad again.
If he were bigger, he’d be inquisitive at the knowledge that he was in the teachers’ dorms. A few of them were in the common room, huddled around some sort of board game. He thinks he hears Midnight wonder what happen.
Aizawa explains the meltdown, and his actions, briefly. “I’m going to put him down for bed.”
“Let us know if you need anything,” says Midnight.
“Course.”
The sobs simmer low in Izuku’s throat by the time Aizawa pushes his door open. It’s not really a dorm, like Izuku (the bigger parts of him, at least) would’ve assumed. It’s styled like an apartment, equipped with a kitchen, small living room area, and two rooms. The farthest bedroom remains closed, but Yamada emerges from the second with a purple-haired Little on his hip, blinking slow.
“Hizashi.”
“He gave me the cutest little pout, Shouta,” Yamada says, pouting himself. “I couldn’t help myself.”
Aizawa mumbles something like were it not for the laws of the land and two Littles before he briefly readjusts Izuku and says, “Fine—but if Hitoshi’s cranky in the morning, you’re dealing with it.”
Yamada gives a salute. “Roger that, baby!”
The purple-haired Little—Hitoshi—blinks at Izuku. “S’at baby?”
“Yes,” says Aizawa. “And he’ll be staying the night, okay?”
Hitoshi lays his head on Yamada’s shoulder with a hum, “Kay.”
Inside the second room is a nursery dressed in warm pastels. The bigger parts of Izuku point out that while it looks like Hitoshi is their only Little, they have two beds. Izuku as he is right now just doesn’t care enough and wants to either keep crying or pass out.
“Want another bottle?” Yamada murmurs as he settles Hitoshi into the bed nearest to the door, wincing when the Little tugs on his braid. “No, Toshi-chan~. We don’t tug on braids, mkay?”
Hitoshi hums around his pacifier and retracts his hand.
“No, I already gave him one,” Aizawa says, but unlike what Izuku fears, doesn’t put Izuku in the empty bed. Instead, Aizawa settles on the rocking chair and, once again, repositions Izuku. “But you can give me a blanket.”
“Roger~.”
Izuku is bundled into a blanket before he can blink. His quiet noises are gently hushed as Aizawa pats his back and slowly rocks him in a soothing rhythm. Someone puts on instrumental music, quiet violin and piano that drifts through the air. Izuku distantly hears Hitoshi shuffle about in his bed to get in a comfortable position, but he quiets quickly enough and soft snores drift in the air.
His eyes close as Aizawa soothes him, hiccupping quietly but no longer crying. No longer five breaths away from a renewed meltdown. Aizawa hums in tune with the music as Izuku’s previously tight grip on his clothes loosen. Sleep murmurs tempting offers in Izuku’s ears.
“Izuku?” Aizawa whispers, but Izuku only gives a soft hum in response. There’s a warm chuckle, a hand passing through his hair again, and Izuku is momentarily lifted once again. He’s laid down on a soft mattress before his mind can register that he’s been moved and tucked in quickly. “Have a good night, kid. See you in the morning.”
Izuku drifts with a distant thought of how nice it is to have a (caregiver) teacher like Aizawa.