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Tenya pushed his glasses further up his nose and sighed for the third time, scribbling away at his homework with his other hand. Study and homework time was amongst Tenya's favourite parts of his scheduled day, mind satiated that he had finished all work he needed to do and left him feeling entirely relaxed.
However, even when all of his work is finished, he has exhausted himself through workouts and cooked and ate dinner, he still wasn't able to relax - all as a result of his encounter with Stain. He was, of course, no stranger to PTSD. From a family of heroes, he knew the ins and outs of the dreaded diagnosis that was PTSD. It haunted his brother many nights growing up, hearing his shouts and fitful turning from the room next door, all throughout his childhood. And whilst his parents had since been helped for their PTSD, it infrequently came back in flashes of panic attacks and meltdowns that the other parent helped them through. So whilst he didn't exactly know everything about PTSD, he did have some experience with it.
That is precisely why he knew he was dealing with PTSD. The nightmares, the flashbacks, hearing voices when none are there, even panic attacks. They never happened often, with it being a good few months since the incident, so it never came up in conversation with Aizawa-Sensei or Present Mic, the two that class 2A adopted as their fathers. In fact, he didn't even want to tell them. This was something he could deal with on his own, with a bit of help from Google.
The dorm walls were thick enough that no one commented on his midnight outcries of pain and school days were often busy and distracting enough that he didn't feel encroaching fear around every corner, so panic attacks didn't come till nighttime, when dark thoughts settled in. Therefore, he didn't want anyone to know. It was manageable.
He sighed again, dropping his pen on the table and rubbing his sore arm. It hurt sometimes, a deep bone ache where the incident with Stain left him injured. It was his dominant arm, unfortunately. The broken bone and bruising had long since healed, but the pain never left him. It ached more on rainy and cold days but writing too much in one day caused it to hurt too. He had a pass to be able to type his exams, given by the Nurse Chiyou, but he didn't want to use it. He just wanted his arm to be healed, dammit.
He sat back in his chair, tilting his head back, blinking back tears of frustration and anger. Sometimes, Tenya really couldn't be bothered to go on, anymore.
Everything was so tiring, these days.
He stood from his chair and stripped from his uniform, getting into his pajamas and clambering into bed. He was prepared for another sleepless night, filled with tossing and turning. There was no point in trying to stay awake; he tried and it turned out to be the worst night of his life. Every little sound make him flinch, even the AC turning on when it hit 28 degrees. He'd even tried meditating himself to sleep, but all he could see were flashes of Todoroki's ice and Deku's skilled punches and Stain, oh god, Stain.
He wouldn't consider himself weak, persay, so when he felt a deep panic settling into his bones, he took a few good deep breaths, sipped some of the ice cold water by his bedside and turned the light off. The dark instantly overtook his sight and Tenya blinked rapidly, making out some shapes in the distance. Moonlight shone through the slits in his curtains, allowing him to see slivers of his carpet, but he could make nothing else out. That didn't scare him, though. What did eek him out was the dead silence of the room. None of his classmates were awake, or at least not that he could hear. Even the owls were quiet tonight and with it being nearly winter, the AC wasn't turned on, usual hum breaking up the quietness of the room.
Sometimes he debated playing some gentle classical music, but it always kept him awake more than the nightmares. In the end, the best thing was to do was the pull him comforter over his head and think about something, anything other than what happened in his past. It wasn't easy and he rarely succeeded.
Tonight was no exception.
As soon as he slid his tired eyes shut, he was mentally assaulted by a barrage of memories - running breathlessly to find support at USJ, fighting at the Sports Festival, being told his brother was critically injured and visiting him in the hospital, finding Stain during the Hosu Incident, having his shoulder stabbed by Stain's damn sword, not being able to move. That perhaps scared him the most, being paralyzed whilst his friends suffered. Poor Native, being paralyzed too. It was such a mess.
Maybe he should get help, afterall. Maybe it was too big of a mess to deal with himself. That thought, however, was for another day.
For now, he would try to sleep, even if it was futile. That's all he could do.
-x-
A mere week later, Tenya was seen knocking quietly on the door to Aizawa-Sensei's room in the dorms. Not frantic, exactly, but a little rushed. It was 2am and Tenya just escaped a massive panic attack in which he believed his arm was gone at the shoulder, leaving only a little stump, with an odd pain associating it as if it was actually chopped off. It ached and burned and only intensified Tenya's panic to the point of him running, utilizing his Quirk, all the way to Aizawa-Sensei's room.
The door creaked open not a few seconds later and Tenya immediately froze.
"I am sorry, Sensei," Tenya began with his usual tone, edged with a slight waver that wasn't normally present, "I do not... know why I am here, exactly-"
"Iida, calm down. Come in," Aizawa muttered, pushing the door open further and gesturing his student into the room.
Tenya hesitated, but gave in, wandering into the room on shaky legs. He sat himself down in the plush armchair that Aizawa pointed to pulling his pajama-clad legs up to his chin and wrapped his arms around them. His engines dug into the bottom of his thighs a bit but if anything, it helped calm him down. Another sensation other than the exhaustion deep in his bones and phantom pain in his shoulder.
Aizawa-Sensei sat himself across Tenya, not yet in his pajamas with papers and folders spread out across the small table between them. Probably staying up marking, Tenya thought absently.
"What brings you here, Tenya?" Aizawa began, startling his student with the use of his first name. That hadn't occured since his youth, when he was running after Tensei, Aizawa and Present Mic in the local park or playing card games with them or eating too many snacks whilst watching movies, wanting desperately to be like the aspiring heroes and idols he so dearly loved. And yet here he was, breaking down for the third time in a week and over 20th in the last month, failing his one dream of becoming like his brother. God, he was such an idiot, such a weak, pathetic idiot-
"Tenya, breathe. Look at me." The gentle commanding voice of Aizawa broke through his thoughts and he blinked, looking up from where he was glaring at the floor, tears burning his eyes.
"I'm so sorry, Sensei, I'm so sorry. It wasn't supposed to happen like this, it was never supposed to go like this!" His voice crescendoed, ending loud and painful when Aizawa reached a hand out, grasping Tenya's arm.
"Breathe, Tenya! Please, calm down!" Aizawa's tone took on a note of desperation and Tenya seemed to pick up on it, gripping Aizawa's hand with his own, clenching tight.
"I'm sorry," Tenya whispered brokenly, "that I'm not the student you probably imagined I'd be. I'm sorry that my grades are failing and I'm not taking on the Ingenium role as I should. I'm sorry that I can't stop thinking about Stain and how pathetic I am and how I should've seen it coming, I should've seen him coming... I'm sorry that I keep falling asleep in class and I'm not training as well, I'm sorry that-"
He would've gone on to tell Aizawa-Sensei about how sorry he was that he kept flinching at loud noises and couldn't eat sometimes, or even about how he thought about giving everything up a little too much, but his voice was suddenly muffled by a chest being pressed against him.
Oh. Aizawa-Sensei was hugging him, something he'd never done before. Oh.
"Tenya. It's okay. I promise, it's okay. I'm not sorry at all for the way you are today and you shouldn't be either because you are an amazing model student and class rep. Your grades are absolutely fine and your training is going as well as it could be. I have absolutely no complaints, except that you perhaps need more help than you're letting on."
Tenya huffed, a humourless laugh. "You're right, Sensei. I'm sorry for not coming to you earlier."
"You should stop apologizing so much, Tenya. You haven't changed at all in all the years I've known you, y'know. I know your brother would be as proud of you as I am, as Mic is. You're doing good, Tenya."
With those words, Tenya all but collapsed into Aizawa's arms, exhaustion finally hitting him. "I think I need help," he whispered.
Aizawa nodded. "We'll get you that help, Tenya, I promise."
Tenya finally allowed the tears to fall, gripping Aizawa's clothes in tight fists, letting the feelings overcome him.
-x-
The morning after, Tenya - having stayed the rest of the night in the armchair, with Aizawa falling asleep on the couch opposite him - was dragged to the nearby therapist facility by Aizawa-Sensei and Present Mic, his idols since his was a toddler. They'd reassured him throughout the visit as a parent might to a child, with utmost love and care, and he left the session feeling better than he had in weeks.
Soon, he was attending weekly sessions with a good therapist and by Christmas, he was a frequent visitor to Aizawa's room, not just in times of need but times where both he and Aizawa, occasionally even Mic, reminisced their childhood and teenhood together. It was just the thing he needed - stability, somewhere to realize that what happened was in the past and shouldn't need to haunt his present, that he was safe and able to grow and progress.
Tensei healed enough to visit the dorms, participating in the nights in Aizawa's room, further strengthening the bond they'd formed over many years.
Although Tenya occasionally experienced a familiar symptom of his PTSD, a diagnosis he received not long after starting therapy, they were now few and far between, manageable and easier to overcome as time passed.
Although it'd take time to heal from what happened, he'd take each step as it comes, with family by his side.