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“How are you feeling?” Aizawa hears his husband's voice and rolls his eye. Hizashi has visited him every day since he was hospitalized after the war, always at the same time and always asking the same question.
"Same as yesterday." He answers, and listens as Hizashi lets out a sigh.
"I wish you would lie to me sometime and tell me you're feeling better, you know?" The blonde sits on the stool next to his bed and grabs his hand, giving it a small squeeze.
"I'm not good at lying." Aizawa responds, returning the squeeze.
They remain silent for a while. It's not uncomfortable, it's just silence. Aizawa is grateful that his normally noisy husband understands that he is not too keen on putting up with loud noises and prefers to relax while he recovers, as tedious as it can sometimes be.
However, it is never completely silent. The noise of the crowd gathering at the hospital entrance is a stark reminder of the situation, that he is not here because of a minor villain who has managed to stab him again, but because of a war they have lost.
Of a villain they couldn't stop and a society they couldn't protect.
"Still there." Aizawa says, turning his head slightly to look out the window. He can't see the crowd from the bed, he's on one of the upper floors and the angle doesn't allow him to see anything other than the buildings in front.
It seems like it's going to rain.
Apparently his husband doesn't need him to specify who he is referring to. "Yes. They've been a lot more violent lately."
"I can't blame them." He responds as he changes his position to look at the ceiling. "If I were a civilian, I would also be upset to know that the heroes have sent students to a war." He reconsiders, thinking for two seconds. “I am upset about it.”
"Oh." Aizawa hears the obvious surprise in his husband's voice. "Did I not tell you?"
"What?"
"They have manipulated the reports. No student has fought any villain."
Aizawa sighs and shifts his gaze to his leg, the one he no longer has. "The Commission can't admit a mistake it hasn't made, can it?"
“I guess not.”
They fall back into silence, Hizashi's thumb forming patterns on his hand, probably trying to calm himself. Aizawa doesn't know why.
When the first drops of rain begin to hit the window, Hizashi lets go of his hand.
"You're leaving already?" The underground hero (can he still be called a hero?) looks at his husband, not bothering to hide the surprise in his voice. The blonde is never in his room for so little.
"Huh? Oh. No."
Despite the answer, Hizashi gets up and approaches the backpack he left at the door. Aizawa looks at him curiously. From one of the outer pockets, the hero takes out an envelope, looks at it for a few seconds and then connects glances with Aizawa, who can clearly see the discomfort on his face.
“What is it?”
Hizashi doesn't really know what to answer, so he stays silent for a couple of seconds, looking between the envelope and Aizawa every so often. Then he looks out the window and sees that the drizzle has turned into a storm, and he can't help but squeeze the envelope.
"Uh... Yagi asked me to give you this." Finally, the blonde hands him the envelope, and Aizawa takes it, hesitantly. "It's Midoriya's."
"Why would Problem Child give me a letter?" Aizawa looks at the white wrapping, with nothing written on the outside, frowning. Suddenly, after absorbing what Hizashi said, his eyes widen. "Wait, is he awake?"
"Uh... Yeah. He woke up from the coma a couple of days ago." Aizawa can't do anything but breathe, the tension he didn't know he had leaving his shoulders as he hears that the only one of his students who hasn't woken up yet has done so.
" Stupid Problem Child. " Aizawa smiles slightly, a relief he didn't know he needed coursing through his body. " I'm going to go gray before I'm 35. "
That relief disappears as soon as he reads the letter.
"Shota, please, you're missing a leg ." Hizashi tries to stop his husband, who has decided that the lack of a limb is not enough reason not to go in search of Midoriya.
"I have to find him. I can't let a student go around town alone playing vigilante." He responds, ignoring the tug on his shirt.
"He has help. He's not alone and in your condition you can't do much for him." Hizashi nearly fell when Aizawa stopped pulling, stopping abruptly and giving him a look that could scare the most hardened of heroes.
" Who is helping him?" Hizashi swallows, the lack of his right eye making the raven-haired man's features even harsher.
"Endeavor, Hawks, Best Jeanist and All Might. They weren't going to let the boy run away alone." The blonde sighs. He already knows that Shota is not going to be satisfied with that answer.
And he’s right, just by looking at his husband's face he can tell that he's not going to sit back with that answer.
"Where's Yagi?"
Now, that’s an awkward silence.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“You’re not going to torture the old man to get Midoriya’s location out of him.” Hizashi warns, ready to lift up his husband and take him to bed.
"Who says I'm going to torture him?" Aizawa answers with another question, but it doesn't fool Hizashi.
"I know you, Shota."
"You clearly don't know me well enough." Aizawa doesn't mean it and Hizashi knows it.
But the answer still takes him by surprise, and that moment is what the black-haired man uses to escape.
As fast as he can go with two crutches, that is.
He doesn't need a guide, he knows this hospital like the back of his hand. Being an underground hero means that in his guard he finds the worst kind of villains, murderers, rapists, traffickers, pimps, and none of them hesitate when trying to kill him.
He has taken a few stab wounds over the years.
So yes, this hospital is known, and in the early days he made sure to know the room of each of his children.
It seems that Hizashi gives up trying to stop him and resigns himself to accompanying him.
"Midoriya is not in his room."
"I know." Aizawa responds, without looking at him. "But I know Yagi, he'll be writhing in his misery."
"How do you know that...?" The stranger tone is obvious in the blonde's voice.
"He's always had an obvious favoritism for Midoriya. I didn't know why before, but now I understand." Aizawa frowns, turning the corner and entering the hallway that he knows is the room where Problem Child was hospitalized. "He may be helping him, but that doesn't mean Yagi agrees with what he's doing."
"But why would he still be in the room...?"
"You always go back to the place where you made a mistake."
Hizashi doesn't seem to fully understand, but he doesn't ask anymore. Not that it matters, when Aizawa arrives and opens the door, he sees the former number 1 staring out the bedroom window, straight into the storm.
Toshinori looks at him surprised when he hears the door open, his eyes go down directly to his stump covered by the hospital pants and then up to the patch that covers his right eye.
"Aizawa, what...?"
"Where is he?"
Yagi grimaces, the question doesn't seem to take him by surprise, but it does seem to make him uncomfortable.
"You have read the letter." The thin man isn't asking, so Aizawa doesn't deign to answer.
"Where is he, Yagi?"
"He's fine, if that's what you're asking."
"Where is he?"
All Might seems to understand that he's not getting away from the younger hero's interrogation, so he simply pulls out his phone. After a few minutes, he looks up from the device and answers.
"He's roaming around Hosu right now. Hawks and Jeanist are following him closely."
"What exactly is he doing?" Aizawa's tone of voice seems calmer, he is a little relieved that Midoriya is located at all times.
"Mostly capturing villains to send them back to Tartarus."
And again that relief went out the window.
"Are you telling me that my student is hunting the most dangerous villains in this country alone ?"
"He’s not exactly alone. He has help."
"I don't give a shit who's helping him. One of my 16-year-old kids is doing the job that professionals should be doing while being hunted by the biggest villain this country has ever given birth to." Aizawa is not going to hide his anger. "And all because you chose a child to pass your burden on."
"Shota." Hizashi tries to calm him down, holding his shoulder.
"How old was he when you gave him your quirk?" Aizawa doesn't bother to hide the growl coming from his throat either. "He crushed his bones, Yagi. He could have lost the use of his arms."
There is an awkward silence that only makes Aizawa angrier, he knows he's not going to like the answer he's going to receive.
"He had just turned 15 when I gave him One For All. One day before the entrance exam."
Aizawa can only remember how he almost expelled the boy in the Quirk Apprehension Test, thinking he was another good-for-nothing with a quirk too powerful to bother training. He remembers thinking, on the entrance exam, that Midoriya looked like a 4-year-old who had just gotten his quirk.
And it turns out it was exactly that.
"What the hell were you thinking?" Aizawa asks, trying to understand the man's motivations, he has to give him some credit.
"That I was running out of time." Yagi answers sincerely. "I was being selfish. Although it wasn't that I was looking for young Midoriya as a successor specifically."
"What do you mean by that?" This time it's Hizashi who asks.
"I applied to UA as a professor to look for a successor. Nighteye recommended young Mirio to me and I came with the intention of checking out my old friend's choice." Yagi looks out the window again, seeing how the storm showed no signs of stopping. "On the way I ran into young Midoriya, and he asked me if someone without a quirk could become a hero."
Aizawa already knows the answer he gave.
"I answered no, even though I myself had been born without a quirk."
"I understand that." Aizawa responds, progressively calmer. "But why did you change your mind?"
"Because the boy jumped to save his childhood friend without thinking, even when the heroes couldn't do anything." All Might responds, his blue eyes shining with dangerous determination. "The boy had already suffered enough up to that point, who the hell was I to crush the little hope he had left?"
"You could have helped him in another way, not by putting the weight of the world on his shoulders." Aizawa replies, he thinks he understands the man's intentions, but he needs to hear it from his mouth.
"As I said before, I was running out of time, and I didn't waste the heart of a hero when I saw it."
Aizawa looks at the ground, thinking. "You could have warned me, I thought the kid was a good-for-nothing."
"Few people knew about One For All at the time, it was dangerous. Not that it matters now."
"You could have trained him more."
"Believe me, I did train him. You should have seen the kid when I met him, he was a bag of bones. I made him clean the entire Dagobah beach to prepare his body for One For All. If I had given it to him before he was ready, his bones breaking might have been the least of our worries." Yagi explains, his gaze softening.
When the former number 1 sees Aizawa's clenched jaw, he lets out a sigh.
"As much as it hurts me, Aizawa, little could have been different. I ask you to please stop thinking about what could have been done. I accept my fault in this, there is no need for you to remind me of my mistakes."
"I'm not..." Aizawa lifts his head and swallows, searching for words to express himself. "I'm not looking for excuses or purging responsibilities. I'm trying to understand why the fate of the world depends on one of my kids."
"Shota..." Hizashi grabs his hand, Aizawa doesn't need to look at his husband's face to know that he is looking at him with concern.
"He's 16 , Yagi. He should be studying for his finals, not risking his life." The underground hero approaches the now empty and disinfected bed. "I feel like we've failed them all."
"It's what we all feel." All Might approaches him and sits next to him. "It was never my intention to put a child's life at stake. I thought, I really thought, that I had more time."
Aizawa looks at him, and all he sees behind Yagi's eyes is pure regret. "I know, Toshinori, I know."
"What do you mean he has faced Lady Nagant ?"
Aizawa really, really , wants to keep his hair black until he's 35 at least.
But apparently he has a son who has set himself the challenge of making his gray hair appear prematurely.
He asked All Might, when the man had to leave because it was his turn to watch over Midoriya, to please inform him of the boy's whereabouts. If he has to be stuck in the hospital bed until they bring him the prosthetic leg, the least they could do is let him know that his Problem Child was okay.
But it seems that now All For One's circumcised penis head is sending assassins after his son's head and swears that if he keeps this up he's going to start getting microinfarcts.
Lady Nagant is a former professional hero. The best in her field. Her shooting skills are the best, not even Snipe, who can’t literally miss the target he aims at, is able to match them. He doesn't know what the woman's intentions are, and he doesn't want to know them.
But he's downright terrified .
It's not simply for Midoriya's safety, that will always weigh like a burden on his shoulders. It's because of Midoriya himself .
The boy has been able to defeat a hitwoman for the Commission (Hawks hasn't minced words when it comes to talking about them, now that they don't exist), a professional heroine turned villain with an impeccable reputation. A boy who should be starting his second year as a student.
And he has defeated her.
"How strong have you gotten, Problem Child?"
"He's hurt, but he's okay." All Might's voice echoes on the other end of the phone. "He's been shot and Jeanist is treating him. Other than that, the self-destruct quirk AFO implanted in Lady Nagant hasn't done much of anything to him."
"How is she?"
"Bad. We'll take her to the hospital, although I can't guarantee she'll make it." Aizawa can hear the annoyance in All Might's voice. "Hawks is enraged."
Aizawa doesn't respond to that, he doesn't think it's necessary.
If he knows his student as well as he thinks he does, he knows that Midoriya is just as angry as Hawks.
"And now what?"
"Nagant was able to talk to us before she passed out." Aizawa hears some murmurs in the background, probably the other heroes accompanying Yagi. "All For One has sent more assassins after him. None of them are ordered to kill him, only to take him to a cabin in the Haibori Forest."
"What are you going to do?"
"They're going to the cabin. They're leaving me behind, I won't be any help." The murmurs return. "Kamui Woods, Mount Lady and Edgeshot will accompany them."
"I understand." That's all he says. Aizawa doesn't know what else he can say.
It doesn't seem like he needs to say much more. The second he speaks, the murmurs behind the phone grow louder, Endeavor's voice is heard clearly.
"We have arrived."
"Aizawa, I have to leave you." Yagi tells him. "They are going to start planning the course of action."
Before the blonde can hang up, Aizawa stops him.
"Toshinori."
"Yeah?"
"Make sure the kid eats, please."
He doesn't have to see the hero's face (because yes, Yagi is still a hero), to know that he is smiling.
"Of course."
With that, the call ends.
Aizawa can't help but have a bad feeling.
He doesn't know if it's because of the trip to the cabin or because he just knows that Midoriya isn't taking care of himself, but he has a bad feeling.
He hopes to be wrong.
He wasn't wrong.
And he hates it.
The moment he hears how the cabin was a trap, his heart skips a beat. When he hears that everyone came out safe (that his son came out safe) from the explosion, his heart starts to beat again, at least for the moment.
Then he hears that Midoriya defeated the second assassin with ease and can't help but be proud despite everything.
Finally he hears how the boy left All Might stranded, refusing to eat or get help and all he wants to do is strangle Problem Child until he begs for mercy.
He just knew that Midoriya wasn't going to take care of himself, that he was going to neglect his health to the point of no return because he's so stubborn and so selfless and so careless and so-
Ah, like father, like son.
Aizawa has the letter in his hand again. He has read it more times than he can remember, he thinks he can recite it front and back without looking.
“Aizawa,
Thank you for everything. I felt that I had to reveal my secret to everyone in class A. So I'm leaving these letters for you guys. My unique power was passed down to me from All Might, which is why Shigaraki and All for One are now coming after me.
Thank you for teaching me everything you could this school year. I'm not just talking about how I can improve my quirk, but what you told me when we went to rescue Eri.
I know I'm acting recklessly again. But I hope you understand why I do it. I will assume the consequences of my actions.”
The letter feels so impersonal and so personal at the same time that Aizawa wants to crush it and throw it out the window. He wants Midoriya to tell him everything he has to say to his face, not through a piece of paper that clearly shows that it has been written in a hurry and that barely works as an apology .
'I write this because I feel I owe an explanation that I don't want to give.' That's exactly what it sounds like.
Although knowing the child, he probably does want to give an explanation, but the situation and the environment do not allow it to feel as certain as it should feel.
He's not stupid, he knows that Midoriya doesn't know how to communicate or be honest with his feelings. Yes, the boy gives very good motivational speeches and knows how to reach people's hearts, but his words scream "I'm projecting" every time he says them, as if he doesn't know how to talk about himself without using others as an escape.
The letter feels exactly like that, it's not completely honest with what the boy is feeling, but rather it seems more like a stupid and hasty attempt to give an explanation that he doesn't know how to give.
Midoriya needed therapy for yesterday.
He repeats. Aizawa is not stupid. Yagi said it clearly in the short interrogation he subjected him to. Midoriya was born quirkless. And that in this world is a death sentence.
Okay, maybe not that exaggerated, but it does make your life much more difficult, and Aizawa, like the underground hero that he is, knows very well what the sewers of society look like. He knows how cruel human beings can be.
Midoriya's attitude, the one he normally shows in class, shy and defensive and quite complacent, is a clear sign that the boy has suffered the same thing as many like him, bullying.
The statistics are alarming, even as they are declining. Because this decrease is not precisely based on an improvement in the situation, but rather on the fact that fewer and fewer people are born without quirks. In fact, they are only decreasing if you compare the raw numbers. If you compare the ratio of totals, they are increasing.
The suicide statistic in quirkless people and, above all, in teenagers is high enough to make you vomit when you read it.
8 out of 10 people without a quirk commit suicide before the age of 25, of those 8, half do so during high school. All because of bullying.
This is not to say that there are not quirkless people who are allowed to grow and become something in life. He knows several quirkless police officers who could go toe-to-toe against the odd villain with a quirk, but it's not normal, it's not general. And that's what scares Shota.
That the Problem Child could have entered that statistic, and become just another number.
And he doesn't even want to think about the implications of all this. If Aizawa were to start purging responsibilities, he knows he will reach people he doesn't want to reach.
Aizawa hates everything this situation entails.
His phone rings with a message. From his position he can see the screen light up with Nedzu's name.
A shiver runs down his spine, the devilish rat never writes for anything trivial.
Aizawa leans over a little and grabs his phone from the table next to the bed and turns it on, opening the message at the same time.
"Your kids have tricked Endeavor. They're going in search of Midoriya."
Aizawa can't stop a laugh from leaving his lips, damn his children and how stubborn they can be.
"Then we will have to prepare everything for when the Problem Child arrives."
Aizawa is sure that his class will bring his classmate back. He has raised determined children with everything they do, this will not be less.
"I'm on it."
It is the last message that Nedzu sends him before the door opens. Hizashi enters accompanied by several doctors, one of them with a box in his hands.
"Ready to get that leg back?"
Aizawa smiles.
Aizawa wants to strangle every single civilian who is stopping Midoriya from entering the school.
He does not hear exactly what they are saying, through the thick glass of the bedroom windows only screams and an incomprehensible acoustic of complaints come.
He glances back out of the corner of his eye, towards Monoma, who is preventing Eri from approaching the window to see what is happening. He internally thanks the student, Eri doesn't need to watch as hundreds of civilians gather to send her hero back to the streets, to a purge that at this rate will end with Midoriya dead, and all of them behind him.
From his seat he can see the horrified faces of his students and he can see Midoriya's impassive face.
God, he looks worse than Aizawa imagined.
His suit is torn and covered in dirt, mud and what appears to be blood. It is broken in many places and underneath he can see wounds that are still healing. He can't even begin to imagine how long he's gone without eating or resting.
His eyes are sunken and have the biggest dark circles Aizawa has ever seen on a student. He's thin, too thin for his taste, the suit that once fit him like a glove now hangs loose in some places.
The worst thing, without a doubt, Aizawa thinks, are his eyes.
Midoriya's eyes are bright, full of hope. Looking at them was like looking at a child, it was looking and being able to believe that everything was going to turn out well. No matter how bad the situation was, it didn't matter that you were facing the worst villain known. Midoriya's eyes always urged you to get up and continue.
You could polish an emerald for decades and never get it to shine brighter than Midoriya's eyes.
Midoriya's eyes urge you to be better .
Now those eyes are dead.
Aizawa clenches his fist, he wants to wrap his boy in a blanket and make him sleep for a whole century.
His heart stops for a moment when Midoriya turns to leave, and Aizawa is about to rush out to clear that noisy crowd and drag the boy to his room.
He relaxes a little, as much as he can relax in this situation, when Uraraka stops him and jumps .
He doesn't need to stay and watch, just by seeing the megaphone in his student's hand he knows exactly what is going to happen.
He trusts his children with his life.
He turns and walks over to Monoma, putting a hand on his shoulder to get him to move away from the girl. Eri looks at him strangely and nervously, her small body shaking.
"What's going on? Is Deku-nii out there? Is he okay?"
Aizawa crouches down to be at her height and gives her the slightest smile he is capable of, enough to reassure his girl.
"Midoriya is outside, he will come in in a moment. Do you want to prepare his room with me?"
"Yes!"
It doesn't take them long to go up and prepare the room. There is less to Midoriya than it may seem at first glance. It's all overloaded with All Might merch, but it's decorative. The only useful thing it has is the bed and the closet, so apart from dusting a little and changing the sheets there is not much to do.
When they finish and go down the elevator, Midoriya is already inside.
"Deku!" Eri screams and runs, Aizawa doesn't have time to stop her before the girl jumps into the green-haired man's arms.
Despite Midoriya's complete dead face, he manages to greet the girl with a smile and catch her when she jumps and clings to him like a koala.
"Eri-chan." That's all Midoriya says, and Aizawa grimaces when he hears it.
Not only does he look dead, his voice sounds dead too. As if he had run his vocal cords through a hair straightener.
Aizawa can see the dried tears on Midoriya's cheeks, as well as the blemishes gathering in the corners of his eyes. He has been crying not long ago, which may be why his voice sounds hoarser than normal.
"Midoriya."
The boy seems to flinch when he hears her voice, but he doesn't look up. He stares at the ground while Eri looks at him worried.
"Midoriya." Aizawa tries again.
"Deku-nii?" This time Eri verbalizes her concern.
"Eri." The girl looks at him when he calls her, worry not leaving her eyes. "Can you stay with Monoma for a moment? I have to talk to Midoriya."
Aizawa notices again how Midoriya shrinks, but doesn't say anything. Eri, after looking at the boy a couple of times, decides to listen to him and get out of his arms. Midoriya does not try to stop her and the girl approaches Monoma until she is standing next to him.
"Come on, Problem Child."
Aizawa doesn't stop to check that the boy is following him, he knows perfectly well that he is. Midoriya may be disobedient at times, but he knows what is good for him.
They do not leave the building or go to any particular room, they simply move a little away from the crowd inside the building towards an emptier and relatively more private area. Aizawa doesn't feel the need to have a private conversation, but he also doesn't want the boy to get nervous about possible prying ears.
For a few minutes they both remain silent in front of each other. Midoriya doesn't look at him at any time, he just looks at the ground. Aizawa, for his part, does not look away at any time, his eyes absorbing every detail of his student. Every stain on his suit, every tear, every wound and every mark.
He won't say it out loud, but he's afraid that if he looks away, Midoriya will run away.
"You are thinner." It's the first thing Aizawa says.
Midoriya has never been extremely big or robust. The boy has muscles, yes, but his build has always tended to be thinner and more wiry. He is not like Iida, for example, who is a walking bag of muscles.
If Midoriya stands out muscularly in any aspect, it is in his legs, and even they look thin.
Despite that, Midoriya remains silent.
"You haven't been eating." Aizawa speaks again.
This time he gets a small reaction from the boy. It probably made him remember how he refused All Might's food (yes, he knows, Yagi told him everything). Besides that, he doesn't get any more reaction.
Sighing, Aizawa walks over to him, pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket. Midoriya flinches a little when the piece of paper touches his face, and it's at that moment that Aizawa finally manages to get the kid to look at him.
His eyes look even more empty up close.
"You need a bath." He says, scratching his cheek a little as he tries to clean the mixture of dirt and tears staining his face.
"Aizawa-sensei..." Midoriya finally speaks, but Aizawa interrupts him.
"If you're going to apologize, don’t." ' Do it, apologize. ' "I don't want to hear it."
He can see the question in the boy's eyes. His nervous nature doesn't let him ask, his throat has probably closed up.
So Aizawa does the only thing he can do. He removes the handkerchief from his face and puts it back in his pocket, he will throw it away later. He places both hands on the boy's shoulders and with all the seriousness and understanding he can muster in his gaze, in his eye, he speaks.
"How do you feel?"
It seems like that was all the boy needed to break. As soon as the question leaves Aizawa's mouth, Midoriya bursts into tears, his hands going directly to wipe away the tears that won't stop coming.
Aizawa lets him be, he doesn't tell him not to cry or try to comfort him, he just lets the boy vent, God knows he needs it.
Holy shit, he looks so young.
He is crying for a couple of minutes. It doesn't make any noise, other than the occasional sobbing and hiccups, you can't hear much. You would have to get closer to them to see that the green-haired man was even crying.
When Midoriya manages to regain control of his breathing, he returns his gaze. His eyes are still dull, but there's an underlying glow that makes Aizawa perk up a little. Crying works wonders sometimes.
"I'm sorry." Midoriya says between sobs. "I'm truly sorry." Aizawa simply looks at him as the hero-in-training scratches his eyes. "I thought it was for the best. I didn't want anyone to get hurt because of me."
"Kid." Aizawa cuts him off, giving his shoulders a little squeeze. "Nothing. Nothing that happens from now on will be your fault.”
He can see the denial on the boy's face, he's not believing a single word Aizawa says to him.
"No matter who dies, who gets hurt, none of that will be because of you." He repeats, he will do it until Midoriya believes it.
"But I" He tries to say, but stops as soon as he sees the determination in his teacher's eye.
"Izuku." Midoriya freezes at the use of his name. "I don't know if anyone has told you yet, but you’re not responsible for any of this."
Obviously, from the look on his face, no one has told him, but he doesn't believe it either.
"You're a kid. You shouldn't be dealing with any of this, much less be the damn center of it all." He gives it another light squeeze, trying to get his message across. "This burden has been put on you, you haven't earned it. I'm completely ashamed of having to depend on you."
Midoriya seems to want to protest. By the look in his eyes Aizawa can tell that he intends to argue with the fact that they put the burden on him in the first place.
Just like Atlas holds the world, Izuku holds their hopes.
"Symbol of Hope, that's a great title."
"You're not to blame for anything, Izuku." Aizawa squats down and takes one of his student's hands. "It's not your fault that you were born quirkless, it's not your fault that All For One is alive, it's not your fault that Shigaraki is a villain, you're not to blame for anything ."
That surprises Midoriya. "How do you know I'm...?"
"Yagi said it, but it wasn't difficult to deduce either." He answers, trying to make the boy realize that he's not just referring to the fact that he's quirkless, but to everything that came from that. "Izuku, I really mean it. You are not responsible for any of our failures."
"No matter how much you say it, I still think I could have done more . I'm responsible for that ." Izuku protests. "And the worst thing is that I don't know what to do."
“You didn’t deserve what you’ve gone through, you know?” Aizawa tries again. “You didn’t deserve the harm they did to you.”
“I don’t think they treated me that badly.”
Now is when Aizawa knows Midoriya is lying. If he weren’t, the look on his face wouldn’t be that miserable.
“You know they did.”
“How can you tell?"
“You wouldn’t be crying if they didn’t.”
Midoriya seems to notice he was crying and hurries to clean up the tears. No that it matters, Aizawa has already seen them, but if it gives the kid some sensation of control, then he’ll let it be.
“I’m tired.” Aizawa leads them both to a nearby sofa and sits there. He’ll give the green-haired boy all the time in the world. “I’m tired of fighting. I’ve been fighting all my life.”
“You need to rest. You deserve to rest.” Aizawa agrees with him. “But unfortunately, and as far as I want you to do so, you can’t. Not yet. I’m sorry kid, I wish things were different.”
“I know you are.” Midoriya looks at him. “I’m sorry I’m not stronger. I’ve never been.”
“You needn't to be stronger, kid.” Aizawa grabs his hand. “You needed to be protected. I’m sorry anyone was there for you.”
“That’s funny.” The little laugh Midoriya lets out doesn’t do much to cheer Aizawa. It’s a sad, tired one. “That’s the exact reason I wanted to become a hero.”
“Uhm?” The pro hero hums, urging the kid to keep going.
“I want to be there for people who haven’t got anyone.” He says, clenching his fists. “People like me, like Shigaraki.”
“Heroes can’t save everyone.” It’s a sad reality, but a reality after all.
“You don’t need to be a hero to save someone.”
That's when Aizawa realizes that no one was there for Midoriya. The boy is right, you don't need to be a hero to help someone.
And many times helping means saving.
"Your former teachers didn't do much, did they?"
“If by ‘much’ you mean ‘nothing’, yes.” Midoriya sighs. He is trembling. Aizawa doesn’t know if it’s because of his memories or the cold he gets from the wet clothes. “They barely looked in my direction, and straight up looked away when the aggression started.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Yeah, of course you are.” The bitter tone is obvious, Aizawa doesn't blame him.
"For what it's worth, you're already a hero."
"You've already helped people." It's what Aizawa doesn't say. Instead, he looks at the people on the other side of the room, at a little boy with red shoes and a little girl with a horn.
And it seems like Midoriya gets it. The look he gives Aizawa is one of surprise and understanding.
His eyes shine again.
Even if it's a little.
“What do I do now? I’ve caused so much trouble. I don’t even know how to speak to them…” He’s referring to his class, Aizawa notices.
"You can start by cleaning yourself and looking presentable." Aizawa says when he realizes that at least, for now, he's not going to get the boy to stop thinking that only he can carry the burden he has.
"Yes..." With his free hand, Midoriya wipes his nose. "I can do that."
"Then go, you stink, Problem Child."
He manages to get even the slightest laugh out of the boy and that counts as a victory in Aizawa's diary.
As the boy turns to leave, the hero stops him by placing a hand on top of his head. "If at any time you feel like it's too much, come see me. There’s always an empty chair at my table if you want to come for dinner sometime."
He feels his body shake a little and hears a sob. Aizawa does not care about it.
"Yes. Okay. Thank you, Aizawa-sensei."
Aizawa isn't completely satisfied, but he feels like he's made a little progress.
“Ah… This problematic son of mine.”