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Aizawa Shouta watches his class scatter. Today’s hero training was originally planned to be something a little more hands on but the pro knows himself. He would not have been able to handle it.
After the silent and bloody Midoriya had staggered into the teacher’s dorm at 2am, trembling and bloody, Shouta and Hizashi had immediately sprung into action. Well, Shouta had anyway, pushing down his warring panic and relief at the sight of his missing student to inspect his various injuries and get started on slowing the bleeding. The boy had shivered and clung to him when he’d gotten close.
Hizashi had wasted time panicking like the drama king he is before finally making himself useful and sounding the alarm.
Midoriya had said nothing.
He’d said nothing as Yagi had arrived.
He’d said nothing as Recovery Girl had taken some of the blood from his face as a sample to be tested.
And he’d continued to say nothing as they’d taken him down to the infirmary to get cleaned up and checked out.
His grip on Shouta had gotten progressively tighter and tighter though, and he’d shaken when Yagi reached for him.
His eyes had remained glazed and distant, no recognition anywhere in their dulled depths.
Izuku hadn’t let go of his teacher until he’d finally passed out.
Shouta shakes his head and takes a long drink from his coffee.
He needs to focus on his other students.
It doesn’t matter that Midoriya had been missing for over a week.
It doesn’t matter that he’d requested permission to go home for a weekend and then left campus without any of his things.
It doesn’t matter that they’d found his phone in his room where the last message he’d received was a picture of his mother, bound and gagged and terrified, sent from her own phone to her son’s.
It doesn’t matter that the blood on his face came back as Midoriya Inko’s or that the blood on his clothes came back as his own.
And it especially doesn’t matter that Midoriya Izuku, heavily injured and silent, doesn’t remember anything, not even that that is his name.
Shouta gathers it all up and shoves it into a box in the back of his mind.
He can deal with it later.
Right now he needs to focus on his class and whether or not to tell them that Midoriya has been—
Screaming.
His eyes rapidly scan the security feeds, heart jumping into his throat and he almost expects to see Midoriya struggling with black whip even though he knows his problem child is still sleeping in the infirmary.
There’s an explosion.
Smoke.
An ice tower.
Shouta doesn’t know where he needs to look, flicking through the cameras rapidly, eyes peeled for anythi– there!
He’s up and running almost before the image of a seizing Kaminari sinks in.
***
Class has been quiet. Subdued.
Hanta had been pumped for this old-school, no teams, full out brawl. It was a welcome distraction from the constant worrying and he knew he wasn’t the only one putting on a brave face and embracing the opportunity to let out some aggression.
Rules were simple.
Fight with the goal of stealing as many headbands as you can.
Everyone started out with only one so for a long-range, high-air specialist such as himself it should have been a breeze.
And then he’d cornered Kaminari.
The blonde had grinned, (though Hanta could tell it was mostly pasted on over his anxiety for his missing boyfriend,) and fired a bunch of his lightning rod disks in Hanta’s direction.
Hanta wasn’t worried though. He knew his friend’s output levels and was confident Kaminari was overreaching to be aiming so high. He’d honestly felt bad about denying Kaminari the win when the boy probably needed one right now but Kaminari wouldn’t be happy if he found out Hanta let him win.
So Hanta shot some tape towards Kaminari as a distraction and then…
And then Kaminari had activated his quirk as Hanta was flipping away and then there was nothing but pain.
Someone is screaming and Hanta thinks it might be him but can’t tell for sure over the ringing in his ears.
His tongue feels weird, thick and heavy in his mouth, and his fingers are numb and the tape holding him up is gone— burned to nothing in the blast, and the ground is rapidly rushing to meet him as he struggles to move his limbs.
He should be panicking but his thoughts are syrupy and he can’t think what he needs to do over all this pain and noise.
Ice shoots upwards, massive and instantaneous in an awful parody of the sports festival but this time instead of trapping him in an icy prison, Todoroki is riding it to catch him before he can hit the ground.
Hanta blinks slowly, mind sluggish and lacking focus. There is a terrible taste in the back of his throat and he’s waiting for the screaming to stop, expecting Todoroki to put him down now that the danger has passed.
Todoroki doesn’t move.
Lightning races over the ground and Hanta must be dreaming because Todoroki tightens his hold reflexively and swears under his breath as he leaps off the ice moments before the electricity would have hit them.
Crackling lines of brilliant yellow energy are shooting off everywhere, the tower of ice shattering from the force as Todoroki immediately shoots flames to melt the falling shards before it can hit them.
And in the center of the chaos, flat on his back, Kaminari jerks and twitches and screams.
His shoes scuff at the ground as his fingers dig into the dirt but his usual method of grounding has no effect this time and his back arches as he shrieks.
His quirk explodes everywhere, power arcing towards the disks he’d shot earlier, stray bolts running wild as they zip through the air, brighter and faster than ever before.
Todoroki notices with just enough time to throw them away from the buildings and to the ground, his body covering Hanta’s protectively.
And then everything stops as Sensei’s eyes flare and Kaminari, pale and shaky Kaminari with blood dripping from his nose and ears, chokes out a shaky “wha’s happenin t’me?” before slumping over unconscious.
***
Shouta was scared.
He didn’t get that way often but damn was today’s training accident giving him heart palpitations.
Sero was okay, thankfully. Recovery Girl had checked him over, murmured something about him being lucky he’d been in the air and kissed his after effects away.
He’d likely be affected by the incident mentally if not physically but Hound Dog was already talking him through it.
Right now it was Kaminari that was the problem.
“He’s back?” The boy whispers, tone reverent at the sight of Inko Midoriya bustling down the hall to the private room next door, a bag of Izuku’s things dangling from her fingers.
“Yes,” Shouta responds shortly but not unkindly, “he is. But for now we’d like to focus on you”
“Your quirk seems to be operating under some form of enhancement currently,” Yagi adds gently, though Shouta can see one of his fists clenched at his side, “is there anything you can think of that could have done this, anyone give you something perhaps?”
Shouta narrows his eyes at his coworker for insinuating that Kaminari would somehow get ahold of Trigger and dose himself before class. Grieving a missing boyfriend or not, this line of questioning is totally out of nowhere. Not to mention inappropriate.
Kaminari’s throat works soundlessly before, “the night Izuku left,” he croaks, fingers still twitching where his hands lay on the blankets, “he came to see me. I think.”
‘Huh. Maybe Yagi was onto something after all.’
Shouta waits patiently while his exhausted student pieces his story together.
Yagi is slightly more impatient. “Why did you not mention this earlier Young Kaminari?”
Shouta elbows him lightly but the teen merely sinks deeper into the mattress.
“Thought it was just a dream…” he murmurs.
His eyes close and he seems to drift for a minute before coming back to himself.
“Zuku said, said he had to give me something, wouldn’t say what. So I let him in and he.”
His cheeks flush and he grips the blanket tighter. “He kissed me. But it wasn’t. It was more… Like not so... It was a bit…”
Shouta presses a hand to his face. He can fill in the blanks for himself.
“He held my face tighter than usual, like he didn’t want to leave… And then I woke up.”
It’s silent and for some reason Yagi has a horrified look on his face, though Shouta can’t think why that would be.
“And then you woke up?” He instead questions. ‘Perhaps it was a dream after all?’
“Yeah.” Kaminari’s eyes are closed again and his voice is quiet and sleepy. “Could have sworn he stepped back from the kiss and pulled me into a sleeper hold. Crazy right?”
“Yeah… crazy…” Shouta stares Yagi down but the former hero avoids eye contact.
Recovery Girl sighs and checks that Kaminari is finally out again before gesturing them into her office. “This. Does shed some light on things. Like the fact that Midoriya returned to us quirkless.”
“Quirkless???” Yagi jolts in his seat before twisting to fix wide eyes on the nurse. “But that cannot be! Even if he had passed the quirk to Young Kaminari, it’s only been a week! Surely some embers should have remained for him to—“
He cuts off coughing, red staining a hastily grabbed tissue.
“He’s empty Toshi. No memories. No quirk. No voice. He’s like a little child, an injured and scared child who’s clearly been put through the wringer. If he’d had any embers left he must have squeezed himself dry getting himself out.”
Shouta’s eyes flick rapidly between them as the two converse as if he isn’t even there. And perhaps they have forgotten about him. That would explain the secrets positively rushing out.
“That makes no sense! My own embers lasted from the entrance exam all the way to Kamino!”
“That was different Toshi and you know it. You were only using it for a limited amount of time a day. For all we know, the boy has been fighting constantly the entire time he was gone. That would explain how clearly traumatized he is. He must have returned here on autopilot with the very last of his strength…”
There are multiple lines jumping out at him, begging to be addressed but he’s an underground hero and a damn good one. He knows how to listen to crumbs of truth and deduce the rest for himself.
“Holy shit.” He breathes as it all comes together into one big picture.
Yagi and Recovery Girl jump but he honestly can’t be bothered with that right now.
“You. Looking for a successor was literal??? You gave him your quirk???”
He whirls around, gesturing wildly at the door behind which his two unconscious students lay. “And Midoriya gave it to him??? Enhancement you said. Kaminari’s quirk’s been boosted??? Are you all insane? How could you keep this—“
“Aizawa,” Recovery Girl’s voice is quiet. “Not here. You will disrupt my patients’ rest.”
Against his better judgment Shouta allows himself to be pulled from the room by his sleeve, trailing behind Yagi as the man practically drags him to his room in the teacher’s dorm.
It's hard to remain pissed when his colleague looks so anxious and distressed at what’s become of his student successor but Shouta crosses his arms and pastes his fiercest glare over his own worry. “Explain. Now.”
He listens intently to the whole story, not daring to interrupt even once though he’s practically bursting with follow up questions.
When Yagi finally falls silent Shouta drags a hand down his face. “Well I guess I know now why the league went to all that trouble. I couldn’t figure out why they’d bother stealing Mrs. Midoriya’s blood from a recent blood drive or why they’d take her phone but not grab her while they were at it. They must have known you’d assume it was them trying to blackmail the quirk out of Midoriya and that you’d dismiss the possibility of a connection once Midoriya was missing but his mother was found fine at home. I suppose we should be grateful Midoriya thought to leave his phone here and that Kaminari knew his password or we wouldn’t have even seen the supposed ransom text. I only looked into the blood drive at all because she had nothing to do with the picture they sent Midoriya and hadn’t been attacked at all which meant Toga would have needed an alternative method.”
“Yes, that is true. And I must offer my sincerest apologies again Aizawa for keeping the truth from you. We were being cautious with the secret to prevent something like this from happening but I know that it showed a gross lack of trust and that as Class A’s homeroom teacher, you should have been told from the start.”
“Damn straight,” Shouta grumbles, failing to muster any heat to it at Yagi’s absolutely gutted expression.
The silence stretches before he heaves a sigh and averts his eyes as he offers a tentative olive branch. “I did most of the investigating myself so… Was there any part of the case you had questions about?”
Yagi perks up immediately, though his expression remains drawn and contrite. “Uh, yes actually. I understand the need for haste and secrecy, especially concerning the nature of the ransom requested. But why would Young Midoriya not reach out to me? Why go see Young Kaminari but not one of the teachers? And, not to complain since as you previously mentioned, him leaving his phone behind was instrumental in piecing together the reason for his absence. But why leave it behind? If it was purely to leave us a clue, would he not have disabled the passcode himself instead of assuming we’d know to ask Young Kaminari to unlock it?”
Shouta opens his mouth and then closes it. Honestly those are better questions than he was expecting. He’s spent years assuming All Might was nothing more than an attention seeking musclehead. It’s hard to remember sometimes that the man possesses a brain sharp enough to keep him in the number one spot even after he’d needed to cut his hours down.
He clears his throat roughly. “All of your questions are answered by the existence of the same text. Immediately following the image of his mother, the villains sent a message stating they’d piggybacked off the image being received to hack his phone, and that they’d therefore be able to tell if he called or texted anyone. They then gave him an address and a time limit to get there. He didn’t have enough to come all the way to the teacher’s dorms, and attempting to change or remove his passcode was something they might have been able to detect. As far as I can tell, he didn’t use his phone again after receiving that message though he did take the time to scribble a note on his desk to use the connection created by their hack to trace their location. That’s how we found their hideout in the end, though Midoriya was already on his way back to UA by then.”
“Was the address in the text not enough?”
“No. That place was recently vacated by the time we arrived. They probably moved once they saw him show up without his phone.”
Yagi sighs and deflates into his seat as if that one exhale had leaked all of his energy into the air. “I still don’t understand,” he murmurs pained, “how could he have burned through the entire stockpile in only a week.”
Shouta thinks of the hideout he’d found, the members of the league strewn about in various states of injury, the very building looking on its last legs. He has pictures– had needed to take them for his report while waiting for the police and ambulances to arrive– but somehow the thought of whipping them out and making Yagi see what their student had felt desperate enough to do feels cruel.
“You didn’t see it,” he settles on, leaning back to stare at the ceiling tiredly, “they clearly outnumbered him and could afford to challenge him in pairs, tapping out and taking breaks if they got tired– probably only after Midoriya realized his captured mother was fake but still. He was likely running hot the entire time just to survive.”
Yagi pales, clasping his hands and leaning his forehead on them. “I see…”
Running hot. The term they’d come up with for when Midoriya powered Full Cowl to his top level without injuring himself and then held it for a prolonged period of time.
There’d been impressions in the walls and ceiling of the League’s destroyed base and Shouta can just picture Midoriya bouncing around without pause at his max speed in the manner of the retired Gran Torino’s fighting style.
Recovery Girl had been appalled at the boy’s state when Shouta and Hizashi had managed to bring him to her. He hadn’t broken anything– well, his quirk hadn’t broken anything– but there were obviously still consequences to running hot for that long.
No food, no sleep, no rest from the constant thrum of rushing power coursing through his veins.
His skin had been hot to the touch and it had taken many long hours before Recovery Girl could get his fever to break.
So, how did he consume the entire stockpile in the span of a single week?
In Shouta’s opinion the answer is simple.
His body had resorted to consuming the energy in the quirk for sustenance even as he’d also utilized it to fight and run.
Thinking of it like that, it’s no wonder he’d drained it dry.
And without possessing the quirk itself any more...
There just wasn’t a way for him to replenish the stores.
Shouta opens his mouth, takes in Yagi’s sobbing form and closes it again.
The question had been rhetorical.
Yagi already knows.
***
Denki is dreaming.
It starts out like any other.
Denki in his hero costume, posing dramatically while staring down a vague villain.
He says something witty and clever and lifts a hand to fire up his quirk.
And then he’s burning.
He looks down at his hands and they’re glowing, brighter and brighter till they’re too bright to look at and it hurts! Denki drops to his knees with a scream and presses his hands to the ground but even digging his fingers into the dirt hard enough to ache the power just flares brighter and the very ground beneath him flashes white and he opens his mouth to shriek.
He’s jerked off the ground by what feels like a fist clenched in the back of his shirt and then he’s dangling in the air as he slowly turns to look up at what grabbed him. It’s a woman with dark hair in what looks like a hero costume. She’s smiling at him, something soft and sad and Denki tries to open his mouth, tries to ask who she is and what’s going on but that’s when he realizes his mouth is gone.
His eyes widen as he mentally shrieks but without a mouth it’s soundless and does nothing to drown out the woman when she says, “Peace Kaminari Denki, there is not much time and I have much to tell you.”
She’s talking like a character from one of his favorite animes about to name him the chosen one, but it's odd and stilted as if she somehow knows he’d listen to her better this way but isn't fully comfortable talking like that. It reminds him of movie scenes where a character has an earpiece in while their friends tell them what to say.
“Izuku needs you.”
That gets his attention. He might not be able to speak without his mouth but maybe his hands?
He tries to move, to poke the woman to get her attention.
Nothing responds and when he looks down his entire body is shrouded in dark mist.
The woman looks rueful. “Izuku was only ever unable to speak but I suppose you would be more negatively affected having received the quirk post singularity. You’re lucky you possess a modicum of immunity to the effects of your quirk or you might have been seriously hurt.
Denki thinks of the pain and panic and pure power running through him hot enough to burn and lifts an eyebrow.
The woman laughs, “Yes, point taken. Still. It could have been worse. Much worse.”
A silence falls as the two continue to drift across a star filled sky, the woman floating gracefully and Denki being pulled along by her grip on him.
“Listen well Denki and remember my words for this is not a dream. This quirk, you cannot keep it. Izuku entrusted it to you as he took steps he thought would mean his end but it cannot remain with you. We are the quirk and we have chosen Izuku. No one else can keep us as we are now. You must give us back.”
‘Us?’ Denki thinks but almost as soon as he does he catches a glimpse of shadows following along with them. ‘Counting the woman there are seven.’
“Izuku was the ninth,” the woman says, almost as if she’d heard his thought, “the quirk was never meant to be passed to a tenth. It’s too much to handle now.”
Unbidden Denki remembers the joint training exercise with 1B and the black energy whips that sprung from Izuku’s arms without his control. One of the shadows becomes almost clear enough for Denki to make out as he thinks about the incident but then he blinks and the moment is gone.
‘Oh. Huh.’
Something pulls at him suddenly and then he’s falling falling falling before jerking to a sudden stop as the woman manages to catch him again.
“We’re out of time!” she gasps, looking strained as she clasps his shadow wreathed arms and leans in close, “Second’s quirk! It was second’s quirk! He wanted to use it to forget about giving you his quirk, wanted to be sure he couldn’t tell them about you if they pushed! But it was his first time using it and he accidentally–”
Denki jolts awake in his infirmary bed, heaving for breath and it takes him a minute to register Aizawa-sensei staring him down with red quirked eyes.
Denki runs trembling fingers through his hair as he shakes. That must have been what ended the not-a-dream. His boosted quirk was probably going haywire and Aizawa-sensei must have been called to erase it.
Speaking of Aizawa-sensei, the teacher is talking to him, Denki can see his lips moving and everything, but the sound seems far away as Denki focuses on throwing off his blanket and pushing himself to his feet.
The woman had been cut off before she could finish talking but Denki doesn’t need to be a genius to figure out what she was saying.
‘But it was his first time using it and he accidentally–’
“forgot everything,” Denki mumbles. “Dumbass, why didn’t you just tell me?”
Aizawa-sensei grabs his arm and it takes everything Denki has not to accidentally shock him.
He’s speaking again, trying to get Denki to wait, to get back to bed, to tell him what happened, where he’s trying to go, but Denki is a man on a mission and he won’t be deterred.
“Izuku,” he says, like that answers everything.
And maybe it does because Sensei lets him go and even steps back as if to give him some privacy and so Denki stands up as straight as he can, ignoring his protesting muscles and his aching body as he leaves the main infirmary and walks as fast as he can to the private room next door.
Denki slides the door open and then hesitates.
Izuku is sitting on the floor, scribbling in a notebook quietly, markers scattered all around him and Denki is struck by the obvious differences from the last time they’d seen each other.
Izuku’s curly green hair is cropped short now– presumably so Recovery Girl could deal with a head wound. And his hands are moving slowly, with a care and hesitance that he’d never shown before.
It’s one thing to have been told what happened but it's another to actually see it and Denki can’t hold back a soft sound at the sight.
Izuku looks up.
His eyes are drawn and tired, dark circles prominent underneath. He’s lost some weight and his lips are frowning and Denki has to force himself to release the doorjam and take a careful step inside.
“Izuku…” He says it softly, with all the love and care he can pour into the word. “You’re okay…”
Green eyes watch him carefully as he moves steadily closer.
Denki only stops when he’s a small distance away and then he crouches to sit in front of this stranger who he loves. “I’m so glad you’re back,” he chokes out, and then, because Izuku’s eyes are wide and frightened, he forces himself to smile.
They stare at each other, silence only broken by the ticking of the wall clock and then Denki is reaching towards the floor slowly and picking up one of the scattered marker/pens. It’s one of his own though Izuku wouldn’t remember that now.
He rolls the green cap between his fingers before slowly reaching for Izuku’s crooked and scarred hand, telegraphing the movements so the other can pull away if he wants. “I know you don’t remember… but I thought this might... You used to like it when I…” Denki has to stop and swallow convulsively a few times before he can finally manage a croaked, “Can I touch you?”
Izuku’s expression can only be described as childlike and he stares at Denki in open wonder as he carefully places his hand in Denki’s waiting palm.
Denki holds it gently, making sure not to squeeze or slip his fingers between Izuku’s like he desperately desperately wants to. He swallows again and blinks the moisture from his eyes before pulling the arm closer.
And then he begins to draw.
Izuku had mentioned once that he thought this hand ugly and deformed and Denki had drawn intricate swirling designs on it until Izuku had stopped crying.
This Izuku might not remember but.
But maybe…
He loses himself in it.
Time stops meaning anything and nothing exists outside this moment and the feel of Izuku’s hand and the patterns crawling their way up his arm.
When the interruption comes it's low and shaky and enough to make him cry.
“Denki?” Izuku’s eyes water and slowly overflow. “Denki?”
He caps the marker slowly and meets Izuku’s wet eyes with teary eyes of his own. “Yeah Zu. It’s me.”
He cups Izuku’s cheeks and presses their foreheads together. “Welcome back Izuku, I’ve got something for you.”
And then slowly, ever so slowly he pulls his boyfriend in for a kiss.
There would be time to talk later.
Izuku would explain the ransom text he’d received and how he’d thought it best not to take One For All with him. He doesn’t remember much after the first day. Once they’d realized he couldn’t be blackmailed into handing over the quirk they’d tried to get the name of his successor and Izuku- well he didn’t remember much beyond losing control. He knows he was fighting on an intellectual level, knows he got hurt but he doesn’t really remember it. He vaguely recalls thinking about the Mind Palace quirk and how he couldn’t get desperate enough to betray anyone– couldn’t be tortured for names– if he couldn’t remember what he’d done. His next memory after that was arriving at the teacher’s dorm and latching onto the first person who showed him care.
But there would be time to talk about all that later, as much as they could possibly want.
For now Denki tightens his hold on his boyfriend as they collapse together into a sobbing tangle on the floor and wonders how to tell Izuku that ‘The Quirk’– and man does it need a better name than that– has electricity in it now.