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Izuku wakes up exhausted, which just really isn't fair. Then again, neither is the horrific nightmare he just had, all visions of his own hands, bloody and broken, wrapped around a pale throat of a stranger, and of his friends with spines bent at the wrong angles or with eyes wide and too-reflective, grey like the rubble around them, or with heads and stomachs split open like watermelons, too much red spilling out, staining the ground-
It had been a literal and metaphorical nightmare. Izuku is still trembling terribly.
He doesn't really think before he's stumbling out of bed and shoving his feet into his slippers, heading for the door already. He knows that Ai-tou isn't home, not yet. It's not four o'clock yet.
(He hadn't been obviously annoyed by being called away for an emergency patrol, but Izuku is used enough to trying to read his expressions that he got the impression that Ai-tou wasn't exactly pleased about it either. Which, well, is fair. An unexpected six-hour shift from nine at night til three in the morning isn't much fun, doubly so when you have to teach class from around eight onwards.
Maybe Izuku should go and take a nap with his Dad at lunch time today. Hopefully that way they can both get some more sleep in.)
He doesn't think much more before traipsing into Ai-tou's room, grabbing one of the blankets, the thick grey one that his Dad sometimes burritos them both up in together on really bad days, folds it clumsily in half twice (his fingers can't stay steady, and he's still more than a little bit asleep, shadows clinging to the edge of his vision, to his ankles and wrists and ribs-), and promptly drapes it around his shoulders like a cape.
The lingering adrenaline begins to run out by the time he's gotten to the front door, keys in hand, but he forces himself to keep on moving, to turn around and grab his phone from his bedside table, just in case, before leaving their flat. (He wants to know if someone calls him to say that his Dad has been injured, or if something else has happened like an attack on one of his friends or something else similarly awful-)
Shivering, feet shoved half into his shoes because he couldn't bear the thought of trying to get them on properly but walking around barefoot is dangerous with double toe joints, even at like three o'clock in the morning on the outside staircase of their block of flats, Izuku makes his way up to the roof, managing to jump from the proper staircase to the fire escape easily enough despite his exhaustion, his weakness; it's a bit too well-practiced.
From there, he lest himself sink into the sound of his feet clanging against the metal and the cold air against his face, beating back some of the fevered heat still lingering in his bones. The heavy blanket around his shoulders helps a little too.
Finally he's on the roof, buildings surrounding him, the faintest hint of stars among the smog-smothered sky above him, the air cool and sharp. His lungs burn, slightly. But it's in the best way, the type of breathing that makes him feel alive, like he's here and alive and not trapped in a nightmare. (Nor in a memory, a fragmented moment of his past, of the people he loves suffering, of an innocent falling victim to a villain's hands and Izuku is too slow, never enough-)
He sighs, long and heavy, the air not quite cold enough to mist up with the force of it, and unfolds the blanket around him slightly so that he can wriggle properly into it, letting the thick layers fall around him until he's mostly warm and settled.
Izuku wishes, deeply and briefly and truly, that his Ai-tou was here with him right now.
But his Dad isn't, because he's on patrol, and Izuku could ring him, ask him to come home, but he's not going to. He wouldn't. Couldn't. (Ai-tou is out there being Eraserhead, being what so many people need, to save their lives or their hopes or their futures, giving sandwiches to homeless people and taking down villains, or finding kids like Izuku used to be and getting them to safety.
Izuku is more than old enough, at sixteen, to be able to handle a stupid nightmare by himself. He really is.
Equally, it's so much easier when he has his Dad to help him through it, particularly with one as bad as tonight's. Izuku can't blame himself too much for wishing for Ai-tou to be with him, even if he knows he won't ask.)
He distracts himself easily enough with attempting to count the barely-there stars, laid out on his back, only curled up the tiniest bit in the little corner between some of the vents. Flicking the keys around and around on the keyring preoccupies his hands too, which helps. They jangle faintly, the little silicone cat-face accessory his Dad bought him six months ago, the front door key, the spare key to the guest room window, the tiny keycard that would let Izuku get onto UA campus even without his own student card, because Nedzu likes to look after the family of his heroes. There's a tiny crochet broccoli, too, that Tsuyu made for him, on a little silver chain loop that Yaomomo created so that he wouldn't be as likely to lose it.
Izuku is okay, like this, enough so that he drifts for a while, vaguely coherent.
Fortunately, he's just about aware enough that when a figure approaches, one roof at a time, all dark shadows and flares of moonlit-silver, he looks over, smiling slightly.
"Kid?"
"Hey, Ai-tou," he murmurs, a little hoarse, a little rough, very much sweet. He can already feel the worry emanating from his Dad, the concern and the faint edges of confusion.
His hero is crouching next to him within a blink, eyes warm, hands open, palm-up, in a silent promise of safety. Of assurance. There's a smudge of dirt on his cheekbone.
For a few breaths, they both remain in silence. But Ai-tou's jaw shifts slightly, his shoulders hunching in the tiniest bit,
"Nightmare, kiddo?"
"Mmhm."
"That's shit." If he was feeling more together right now, Izuku would laugh at the candidness, but as it is he just leans closer into his Dad, even whilst the man continues speaking,
"You need to stay outside for longer?"
"Don' min'."
Ai-tou stares at him then, analysing, assessing, but never unkind. Finally though, he just tips to the side, feet twisting beneath him, until he's pressed shoulder to shoulder with Izuku, all warmth and weight and steady breathing. He's just there.
Izuku adores him for it.
They stay settled for quite a long time, then. The sky, along one edge, starts to seep into purple, then into pink, a candyfloss-sweet stain that shifts and sweeps further and further into the darkness. It's still pre-dawn, but true dawn isn't that far off either.
That realisation is enough to have Izuku shifting, slightly, thunking his head lightly against his Dad's shoulder.
"Than's."
"Of course, kiddo." The words are soft, heartfelt. They are spoken as though there is no easier thing to be said, no more casual or sincere a truth.
It's enough to have Izuku curling in closer to his Ai-tou for a long few moments, before he starts to shift, trying to get up on stiff, mildly aching limbs. There's a hand bracing against his back, slightly off-centre but that's probably because Izuku is still swaddled in the thick blanket, and his Dad is following him up.
"Did you bring anything else up with you?"
"Mhm," he denies, the syllable a loose thing but enough for his point to get across.
"Okay then. Ready to head back home?"
Izuku doesn't bother replying this time, just starts walking, albeit without straying far from his Dad's side. He lets his hero help him back down to their little flat, to the two bedrooms and the navy sofas and the kitchen counter with two bar stools, to their cats and their blankets and the way that Izuku always feels so safe, so warm, when he's home, in a way that he has hardly ever known before.
Ai-tou doesn't shuffle Izuku off to his room, although he wouldn't blame the man if he did; no, he just guides Izuku as far as the living area and lets him decide from there. Which means that Izuku ends up on the sofa. He doesn't have the energy for anything more, and no matter how much he loves his bedroom, it just feels too distant right now, too without-his-Dad. It isn't their living area. Their safest space.
His hero settles down right beside him, a short time later, smelling faintly of soap and cats, two more blankets in his arms.
"Contact, proximity, or space?" It's a semi-common offer, one that he's familiar with, that he knows his answer to will be respected,
"Cu'les?"
"Cuddles it is," Ai-tou confirms, his tone low and gentle and, if anything, pleased. Izuku, for his part, just hums a quiet, content acknowledgement of his own.
From the way that Ai-tou drapes himself against and over and around Izuku then, he isn't the only one content.
The silence settles over them as well, then, comfortable, easy, before his Dad eventually speaks, quiet yet sincere,
"I wouldn't have minded you ringing me to come home." Izuku simply breathes for a long few moments, trying to pull together his coherence and words without slurring too much,
"Mm, bu' would'a in'errupte'."
"Technically, yes," Ai-tou agrees, drawing away the tiniest bit so he can look Izuku in the eye, to get across how serious he is, how sincere, when he continues, his words a nigh-on promise,
"But not something I would have been upset or burdened by."
"Mh."
His hero leans in even closer then, briefly nudging their foreheads together before looking Izuku in the eye once again, the hints of a smile to the soft edges of his expression, the crinkles around his eyes. He looks... adoring. In that Ai-tou way of his that is, subtle and sweet and certain.
"Silly kid, don't you know I love you?" The question is breathed against Izuku's temple, evidence of his Dad being here, alive, loving him. The weight and warmth of it all only confirm even more what his hero is saying.
"Always, Ai-tou. 're mine," he adds on. It's a little bit of a joke, but mostly honest. Ai-tou just leans even further onto him, a smile more in his voice than on his face,
"I am, kiddo, I am. And you're my kid."
That pledge is more than enough to help ease Izuku back to sleep. He knows that he won't be having another nightmare tonight, and that's not just because of the, what, maybe two hours they have left to sleep; he trusts that his Dad's presene will be enough to keep the horrors at bay, and even if that fails, then he will be woken up and comforted before he can even fall apart too terribly.
His Ai-tou is with him once again. Izuku is okay now.