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Aizawa had been a hero for quite a while now, but he could safely say that he had never been in this situation before.
He and his student, Midoriya Izuku, had been part of a small covert group in what was supposed to be a low-stakes, short-term infiltration, sneaking into a criminal group’s base and freeing anyone held there while arresting any villains they came across.
It had immediately gone off the rails, Aizawa and Midoriya getting separated from the rest of their group, and then coming across a villain who had some sort of erasure quirk who, along with a couple of others, had managed to subdue and restrain the two of them. They had been taken to a nearby underground car park, blindfolded, and then led through a secret tunnel, which Aizawa was surprised actually existed in real life, and Aizawa had the horrible suspicion that the mission had been bad from the get-go, that somehow the villains knew, and were prepared. There was too much that had gone too wrong too quickly for anything else to be the case.
He and Midoriya had been driven for longer than he could keep track of, taken far, far away from the warehouse in Musutafu they had started in and to somewhere where the air smelt fresher than a city had any business being, and the loudest sound was the chirping of crickets and rustling of trees.
He couldn’t really get a more specific idea of where they had been taken because the blindfolds were still on, but he still grasped every detail he could just in case it was relevant later.
They were taken into an echo-y, large-sounding building and then down, down, down to somewhere that smelt of mildew and cold concrete, 59 steps exactly, uneven and crumbling in places.
First they were taken to a room with rough concrete floors and a squeaky door. They were shoved to the ground, in positions which meant they couldn’t wriggle themselves out of their bonds. Aizawa heard their captors murmuring and cursing at each other, clearly stressed and not completely ready for two hostages. They were left there, on the floor, unable to see, for what felt like a small eternity, but finally their captors came to some sort of agreement as to what to do with them, and they were pulled and dragged up from where they still lay on the ground, and taken back through the cold, echo-y corridors to somewhere new.
They were shoved into a room with what felt like a dirt floor, and then the blindfolds were ripped off their faces and bright lights shone directly into their eyes, the flashing of a red recording light registering through the blinding brightness.
A video message. How cliche.
There were angry, tense words, and then Aizawa’s head was being yanked back by the hair, a yelp of pain from his felt telling him Midoriya was going through the same, and then he felt the unfortunately familiar sensation of the barrel of a gun pressing against the back of his head, though luckily he didn’t hear the click of the safety being turned off.
Luckily, though, it ended pretty quickly, and then the blindfolds were back on and they were being moved back to the room they had been dumped in before, or at least he thought it was the same room.
They were once again shoved to the floor, but this time they were searched, had their things confiscated, their bound hands and feet were freed and blindfolds removed, and they were told by a gruff, angry-looking man to behave and locked in the room.
The room had no windows, and only two pathetic piles of blankets for beds, and the room had the kind of chill that found its way into your bones if you stayed there too long. Midoriya had a blank expression on his face as he rubbed his aching wrists, but Aizawa had a feeling that was just to mask how he really felt. How scared he was.
They sat there for a minute in silence, just absorbing what was happening to them, and the Aizawa began to check over Midoriya for wounds, because heaven knew this kid got hurt more often than he would like.
They talked quietly about potential ways to get out of this, to get home and maybe even catch these villains while they were at it.
At some point someone came in, gave them some surprisingly filling food, and explained that one of them was going to be keeping an eye on them, and would be sitting outside the room, and that it would mean they wouldn’t be able to use their quirks (they already knew. Both of them had tried, and it had only left them tearing up in frustration or with terrible dry-eye and no solution for either).
After that they were left alone, and there was nothing really to do except to sleep, so they settled in, and if Aizawa snuck one of his blankets into Midoriya’s pile while he wasn’t looking, then no-one except him had to know.
—
They were woken abruptly by someone slamming into the room and dragging a still half-asleep Midoriya out, yelling something about ‘that old fucker’ and then yanking on the kid’s arm tog et him to move.
Aizawa growled out protests and offers for him, but the villains apparently wanted Midoriya specifically, and so Aizawa was left alone in the room, bored and anxious, with distant muffled yells and screams his only company.
When Midoriya was returned what felt like an excruciating among of time later, he was on the verge of passing out, roughed up and covered in bruises, and Aizawa glared at the villains as they just dumped him on the floor and slammed the door behind them as they left. As soon as the door was closed, Aizawa rushed to Midoriya’s side and gently picked him up, settling him onto his pile of blankets before checking over his injuries and doing as much as he could to help them, though that was frustratingly little.
Once he was done, he left Midoriya to his sleep and slumped against the wall, taking a moment to breathe and let everything just flow through him, and then he settled in for a sleepless night of starting at every little noise.
—
This routine continued for what Aizawa assumed was several days.
They would be woken up, Midoriya would be taken away, and when he came back he would be hurt and exhausted, and Aizawa would be an anxious wreck.
Midoriya was getting more and more strung out, less and less put together, and Aizawa thought that that was far worse than the excruciating boredom.
One day, though, things changed.
Instead of Izuku, it was Aizawa they took that morning, and he finally experienced what his student had been going through for the last few days.
He was tied to a chair, then beaten and yelled at to answer their questions, and then he gave them vague answers they didn’t like, which lead to more violence and yelling about questions and some ‘old bastard’ he was pretty sure had something to do with All Might.
It wasn’t fun, to say the least.
When he was dumped back in their room, he made a concerted effort to make his own way to his blanket pile, not wanting to appear as weak as he felt in front of his student.
And if there was an extra blanket on his pile, then he would just be thankful and not acknowledge it out loud.
—
After that point, the villains kept changing things up, so they never knew if it was Aizawa or Midoriya they came for that morning, but a new and much more worrying pattern had emerged.
Every time they came for Aizawa, Midoriya offered himself up, and usually the villains accepted.
It was yet another mark mark in the ‘self-sacrificing tendencies’ list, and every time Midoriya came back with more injuries and less energy, Aizawa felt it stab at his heart, felt it add to the weight of the guilt he already felt at allowing them to end up in this situation in the first place.
Eventually, Aizawa managed to worm his way into the daily interrogations, and one of the villains remarked:
“Despite our best efforts your kid refuses to die.”
That was worrying for a number of reasons, not least the implication that on some level, this villain at least wanted to see Midoriya die, but also strangely comforting in that Midoriya was too stubborn to let himself be broken.
Time passed and blurred and Aizawa knew that if the heroes hadn’t found them by now, they probably wouldn’t any time soon, so he reassured Midoriya that they would be getting out, and settled in to bide their time.
—
Aizawa thought it must have been at least two or three weeks before an opportunity presented itself.
There had been an increasing number of shouted arguments just outside their room, muffled but just distinguishable as a woman getting annoyed at a number of different men, and yelling angrily about ‘being stuck on babysitting duty’. Aizawa guessed she must be the villains with the Quirk Cancellation Zone quirk.
At some point, she stormed off, and Aizawa decided to test something, thinking perhaps she had gone too far in her anger.
He got close to Midoriya and brought his hand close to his eyes, then looked at Midoriya. Midoriya stared back.
The red glow of his quirk activated off his hand, and Aizawa tried not to let the hope take over.
Midoriya obviously saw it too, because his eyes widened in surprise, and then he got to his feet as quickly as he could, letting his quirk spark around him, lighting up his face in determination for the first time in a while.
Aizawa stood back, carefully keeping his eyes off his student, knowing that Midoriya was much better suited to getting them out of here than he was, and let him get to work.
Midoriya smashed through walls and villains, and when Aizawa saw the Cancellation villain at the far end of the hall, a panicked look on her face, he quickly erased her quirk. Turned out they were still out of her range, because he saw her screech in frustration and Midoriya promptly threw a piece of rubble at her head, knocking her out.
From there, it was like a weight was lifted, and though the fight was tough, neither being in the best physical condition, they managed to make their way out of their prison and into the outside world.
Aizawa used his admittedly rusty carjacking skills to hotwire a vehicle, and once he had struggled with the satnav, managed to get them both on their way back to Musutafu. Aizawa was surprised and proud to notice that the first thing Midoriya did once they were on their way was to make a note of their starting address.
As they drove down endless country roads, windows open to enjoy the fresh air, Aizawa contemplated all that had happened, and that one comment from the villain that had stuck with him.
He was glad Midoriya refused to let this break him.
At least he thought it was, given the fact that Midoriya looked peaceful where he was slumped against the car window, fast asleep.