Work Text:
Only a thin beam of bluish-gray light illuminated the patchwork kitchen tile stained with blood.
A steady drip drip drip peppered the silence of the otherwise pitch-black room. For a moment, Midoriya thought he forgot to turn the sink off. But the chrome glittered from the uncovered window behind it, and no water fell from the spout.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Midoriya sat at his kitchen counter, and his hands were folded on top of it like he was at a business meeting. Never mind the hero uniform torn by ragged claws and fraying at the seams. Ignore the crust of blood starting from his jaw to well past his knees. Ignore the fresh liquid dripping from the elbows of his soaked gloves.
In the dark, to Midoriya, his white gloves could have been black.
Why did it happen?
His mind slowly worked to comprehend the past few hours—the crash, the booms, the screams.
Shadows danced across his vision, darted just beyond his sight across the linoleum floor. Small faces, happy faces. Children who flew to Neverland, never to be anything but children.
Why did it happen?
The promise— I’ll save you! —the pain, the crack, crack, cracking of bones beneath hundreds of tons of cement.
A feeling pressed against Midoriya, in all the places the blood was, the feeling of a small body wrapped in a hero’s arms. Midoriya saved thirty-five people when the building toppled on them.
And he lost thirteen others.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Midoriya swallowed a growing lump in his throat when one thought emerged from the black hole of his kitchen. Maybe I should have never become a hero.
All Might never got everyday citizens wrapped up in his work-life. In fact, he saved everyone he was in reach of. Midoriya barely managed to drag himself back to his home, and he didn’t even bother to find a light switch. Thirteen souls crowded in the darkness, pressing around him, reminding him.
You failed. You failed us. You were supposed to protect us.
Midoriya’s heart throbbed painfully.
You made a promise.
He had promised those children he would protect them. And they were the first he discovered in the wreckage.
“I’m no hero,” he whispered.
All that time fighting against Bakugo, against UA, against fate, were pointless years wasted. They did nothing but build him up into the weak, fragile mask in the shadow of an even greater hero, pretending he could one day grow beyond it. He was the same old Midoriya. Too in over his head.
Midoriya moved his hands without thought, and he reached into the pocket of his torn uniform. His phone felt like a heavy branding iron in his palm, and his fingers trembled ever so slightly as he dialed a number.
The one person who would tell him he was not cut out for it. Who would tell him to give up, stay home, and hang his suit in the closet.
Each ring was a needle into his heart, and it was overwhelmed by the resounding drip, drip, drip until a click sliced through his thoughts.
“Eraserhead,” the gruff voice said. “What?”
Midoriya blinked, and it took him a while to comprehend it wasn’t a terrible voice recording.
Oh.
“Aizawa…sensei?” Midoriya said.
A soft wind filtered into the speaker. I’m probably bothering him. Stupid Izuku.
“I’m sorry. You’re probably out on hero work, aren’t you? I can call back, sorry to—”
“What have I told you?”
Midoriya’s thoughts instantly ricocheted to the thirteen people, to the sound of the building collapsing, the supports crunching under the force.
“It’s been over five years since you graduated,” Aizawa continued. “Stop calling me sensei. I’m not your teacher anymore.”
Midoriya descended rapidly from his thoughts, but his stomach gave a sinking flip from the mental drop. “Ah, sorry…! I’m so used to calling you that.”
“Mh,” Aizawa said. “I’ll let it slide, I suppose. And I’m not working. Technically, anyway. I couldn’t sleep, so I went out on patrol.”
“Oh, yeah…?” Midoriya said. He wished he could inject more enthusiasm in his voice and hide the horrible feeling in his heart, but everything came out dejected and pathetic. “Why can’t you sleep? Is Yamada-sen—Yamada keeping you up?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
They lapsed into an uncomfortable silence. Midoriya shifted slowly to lean back in his chair, and the wooden seat creaked.
“I saw what happened,” Aizawa said, suddenly. “On the news, before I left.”
Aizawa always had a way of cutting right to the chase, no matter how many scars it left. Midoriya unintentionally tightened his grip on his phone, and he had to check himself before he crushed it.
“I...I see…”
The emotions of those hours flooded back in seconds from hearing his sensei. The pain. The raw scream that took him seconds to realize was his own. The tears he wished he could cry but was too afraid to give himself the privilege.
“So I want you to tell me about it,” Aizawa said. “Not the news. What happened, Midoriya?”
The tears were in his eyes, hot and heavy, before he could stop them. They burned and blurred his vision to the point Midoriya could barely tell where his countertop ended and his tile floor began.
“I messed up,” Midoriya said in a whisper. “The villain caught me off guard, and he used that chance to topple a building. I let them die.”
Every word tasted like bile, and Midoriya was so sick he could throw up in his seat.
“I can’t be a hero, Aizawa-sensei. Not when I let so many people die needlessly.”
The darkness pressed around him, twenty-six hands reaching for him, the screams we didn’t have to die, we didn’t have to —
“Shut up,” Aizawa demanded. “Say another word, and I’ll go to your house and beat you up myself.”
A jumble of words caught in Midoriya’s throat. Even if his sensei denied it, sometimes, Midoriya felt like he had never left UA and became a pro. Sometimes, he felt like the same student that walked those halls.
And Aizawa felt like the same sensei, too.
“Sensei—” Midoriya started.
“I said, shut up. ”
Midoriya’s protest faded into silence. He’s right. I have no room to talk after everything.
“Even after all this time, you’re still dense,” Aizawa said. “You really think you don’t deserve to be a hero?”
“Thirteen people died, sensei.” The tears fell from Midoriya’s eyes and drip drip dripped onto the countertop. “I couldn’t save them.”
“You know, I didn’t keep you as a student because you had All Might’s power,” Aizawa said. “I could care less if you’re quirkless or God. If you don’t have the right stuff, I would have never let you graduate to begin with. Simple.”
Midoriya blinked. “Right stuff...?”
“The right motivation, stupid. Heroes are people, and people are always motivated by something. Money. Passion. Greed. Heroes that succumb to any vice are people that don’t need to be one.”
Does getting people killed count as a vice? Midoriya swallowed. What if this happens again?
“You have the heart of a hero, Midoriya. Most people strip themselves of their feelings to make it through the day. Just like doctors do. But the best doctors, like the best heroes, do their job while keeping their heart.”
“But it hurts,” Midoriya whispered. “It hurts so much.”
“Then hurt,” Aizawa replied. “Push it away and become something you’re not. Accept that pain and make yourself stronger from it. You are not going to save everyone, Midoriya. That is a reality you’ve finally faced as a hero. But if you stop now from this tiny setback, then stop being a hero. Everything everyone did to get you to this point would be wasted. Or instead, you can choose to step out there and face it. What will you do, Midoriya?”
What will you do, Midoriya? Did Midoriya even deserve a second chance to make it up to the people, after everything that happened? Part of his heart said no.
But the other part pleaded for a yes.
“Have…you lost people before, sensei…?”
All Might’s record was practically pristine of any marks. He was the perfect model of the perfect hero. But Midoriya proved today he wasn’t a perfect hero.
So he couldn’t use a perfect model, either.
There was a crackle on the line, and for a moment, Midoriya thought he had lost the connection and the only answer that would push him through the void.
But a soft “yes” found its way to his ears. “I have lost many people. Many innocent people.”
Aizawa, someone he admired greatly, made the mistake he had.
“But I don’t feel like I should be forgiven…”
“They’re gone, Midoriya,” Aizawa said simply. “They can’t forgive you for what happened. They can’t resent you, either. They can only watch and see what direction you’ll take. So I’ll ask again. What will you do?”
It would be so easy to lay down his hero uniform, to give up, and walk away after a tragedy. But what was all that work? All that passion and drive and late-night training?
If being a hero was so easy, everyone would do it.
But not everyone did.
“I’ll go to work tomorrow,” Midoriya said. “And I’ll get stronger.”
A snort. Did Aizawa-sensei just laugh?
“I suppose I’ll give you an A minus for the answer,” Aizawa said. “Only because it was late being turned in.”
Midoriya’s facade cracked just a little with a small smile. “I thought you said you weren’t my sensei.”
“I’ll tell you to shut up again, if necessary.”
His smile widened more and continued to puncture the dreary feeling surrounding him. For once, the kitchen seemed bright with the glow of the moon to shine on it.
“Hey, Aizawa-sensei?”
“Hm?”
“Thank you. For listening to me.” Midoriya pushed himself to stand. “It helps more than you know.”
“I know,” Aizawa answered. “That’s why I couldn’t sleep. I stayed up all night because I knew you would call.”
Warmth blossomed in Midoriya’s chest. He waited for me? But before he could answer, the call clicked.
“He...hung up on me?”
And just saying it out loud was enough to draw a chuckle from Midoriya. He glanced at the moon climbing in the sky beyond the window.
Thank you, sensei. He wondered if the man he considered one of his favorite heroes was looking at the moon, too. You’ve done so much for me. I wouldn’t be the person I am today without you.
The phone call with Aizawa was only more proof that Aizawa believed in him, believed in his ability to jump this hurdle with everything he had.
There were no longer thirteen screams of anguish.
But there were thirteen reasons to keep going.