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The man who did it wasn’t even a professional villain.
He was a random man on patrol. That was it. That was all. Even their interaction was something simple, casual, that happened a thousand times again and again and only today had just come up as a problem. It was something that Aizawa would have thought was perfectly safe, perfectly normal. If they had gone on patrol on any other day, at any other time, even, then it wouldn’t have happen. They would have just been able to move on and pretend that nothing had happened. They could have gone through with the typical patrol and just…never been aware that could have even happened.
The only reason he knew who it was? A random shop’s CCTV. He didn’t even remember the man who did it. He had been standing right next to Midoriya, and he hadn’t even been able to process who the guy was. The dude definitely didn’t have a ghost Quirk. He wasn’t even that nondescript—he was tall, pale, bald with a short brown beard and blue eyes behind round glasses. He was wearing a pale blue button-up shirt with some sort of logo on the front pocket, pens sticking out of it, and khaki pants with some work boots. Nothing too nondescript, especially because Aizawa knew the CCTV would be able to zoom in and enhance it.
They had just managed to stop a dude trying to steal from a jewelry store, Midoriya had just pinned the guy to the ground to keep him from running. When the police had arrived, they had managed to draw a crowd because it was Deku. To be fair, Aizawa was there supervising, he was the one who spoke to the police while Deku worked on networking to and reassuring civilians that it was okay. That was part of what Deku was known for—he didn’t just fight with a smile, he checked in on people afterwards. He wasn’t the only one in class who did that, either. Bakugou did part of that naturally (he fought with a smile without even thinking, but he also could be a bit too aggressive when it came to checking on people naturally). Shouto forgot to do it. They would have to choose what they wanted to be marketed as before they graduated, because marketing was as much a part of a Limelight hero’s image as the fights they won.
Still, Midoriya had ended up chatting with the man because he walked up and held out his hand. Being himself, Midoriya of course shook the man’s hand. He had smiled at him. Aizawa remembered that much.
But he didn’t realize the real danger, and neither did Midoriya, apparently.
They had moved on, continuing to walk. They were continuing on their patrol. The sun was going down—Midoriya had gotten the late patrol with him, four o’clock to eight o’clock. An easy patrol for now, though they would get to longer and longer patrols until they were third years and the infamous “Hell Patrols” came up. (Aizawa wasn’t looking forward to those, either. He knew the kids were dreading them, too. Twenty-four-hour patrols were never fun. Technically, they didn’t even happen. The closest they got was really what happened with the Shie Hassakai raid. When they were looking, they had been searching for long, hard hours. It was nonstop. It was constant. It was about as grueling as those Hell Patrols could be, which was exactly why the students needed to have experience with them.)
“Did you know that Uraraka and Ashido have the same favorite movie?” He prompted. Turning to him, Aizawa hummed. The prompt did exactly as intended, because Midoriya continued, “They both love Alien. I wonder if that’s why Ashido wanted to go with Alien Queen as her original name.”
“I imagine if she was an Underground Hero, it would be a fantastic name for her to utilize. Themes are important for heroes, Underground and not. Not as important as allies, of course.” Nodding, Midoriya raised a hand to his mouth. He paused when he looked at his glove and seemed to realize how dirty it was. Pulling it away, he frowned and looked at Aizawa. “Something wrong?”
“There’s a hole in my glove. I don’t remember landing on any glass, though.” He frowned again.
“Hand.” Aizawa held out his own. Reaching out, Midoriya placed his hand in Aizawa’s. “Help me take your glove off. I don’t see any glass, but we should make sure you didn’t get hurt underneath.”
Nodding, Midoriya peeled off his glove. He tucked it into his belt, flipping his hand over again. Frowning, Aizawa studied his fingers, his knuckles. There didn’t seem to be any scrapes or cuts, not even any bruising—the padding in his gloves was definitely working well. Then, he flipped his student’s hand over again—
“Do you remember there being any garbage you placed your hand in?” He asked, pinching Midoriya’s right forefinger gently. A bit of blood beaded up on the pad of his finger. “It looks like you’ve been pricked by something. Hold on, we’ll end patrol early.”
“But we still have an hour and a half…” Midoriya paused, frowning. Patient, Aizawa looked at him. “Right. We need to make sure I don’t bleed anywhere, especially if I got pricked by a needle or syringe.”
“Unfortunately, we don’t know where it is or what it was. You must have put your hand in it and not realized because of the glove.” Shrugging, Aizawa added, “We’ll take you to the clinics, get you checked, and then handle things from there. As long as we can get it treated fast, there shouldn’t be any issues.” He pulled out some bandages and an alcohol wipe, using the latter to clean the injury. Midoriya hissed softly, cutting it off in the middle with a frown. Looking at him, amused, Aizawa asked, “Does it hurt that much, Problem Child?”
“No. Force of habit—” Midoriya’s face had gone a bit pink. There was a slightly nostalgic look in his eyes. “Eri’s been playing nurse lately. So sometimes I play it up to make her feel better. I guess. Maybe I picked it up from Uraraka—she used to babysit a lot and they would do the same thing, so I started doing that with Eri, I guess.”
“That makes sense. I know exactly what you’re talking about.” Aizawa mused, glancing up as he finished. That nostalgic look was still in Midoriya’s eyes…there was something wrong.
That wasn’t nostalgia.
That was something else. “Midoriya?” He prompted. Looking at him, he reached out, went to touch his shoulder. Hazy green eyes went to him.
Midoriya slumped, eyes dulling already.
Somehow, all of Aizawa’s training, all his years of working in the Underground, failed him. He didn’t catch his student. He would like to say it was just because of how fast it happened. One moment, Midoriya was on his feet. Then, though, he was gone, he’d dropped, hitting the concrete with a heavy thud of teenager and hero costume. Aizawa’s hand hovered over where his shoulder had been a second before.
Then, Aizawa was working, triggering the emergency alert on his communicator and already feeling for Midoriya’s pulse.
Nothing. He spent several seconds feeling, pressing his fingers deeper into Midoriya’s neck to make sure that he wasn’t breathing, that he didn’t have a pulse, before he went about breaking his ribs and hurting him. Still, there was nothing. No pulse, no breathing, none of it, which was not good and was something he needed to fix immediately. Alright, fine. Let’s fix this, kid.
You’re graduating whether you like it or not.
He fell into the motions. This, he knew. He knew how to do this, he was able to do this. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation was something he was originally going to teach his students in the last half of their second year. As he heard Midoriya’s ribs creaking under his hands—if they broke that’d be normal, Midoriya was thin and he was also a teenage boy, they were at higher risk for things like broken ribs and even commotio cordis. Hero course students were no different than the typical victims of such things. Sports players, mostly. Reckless kids who might be throwing themselves into dumb situations.
Aizawa heard the ambulance arriving, heard the footsteps of the paramedics and the wheels of the gurney as they ran up. He didn’t quite process it until one of them was right next to him. “What happened?”
“I’m not sure. We found what might be a needle wound on his right hand, his forefinger. We’re not sure when he gained the injury or what might have been in the needle, just that it happened. We were just about to call a car to head back.” Frowning, the medic leaned over Midoriya. Another one switched in on the CPR for Aizawa. Sitting back on his heels, he watched her as she moved.
“Kogane! Help me out over here!” She barked over her shoulder.
Someone hurried over, dropping down beside him and reaching out. They had black hair, violet-gray eyes, a long scar across their nose. Eyes narrowed, they held a hand over Midoriya’s chest and their coworker’s hands.
“He’s overdosed on something.” What? He looked at them. Eyes narrowing further, Kogane grabbed their coworker’s hand when she reached for Naloxone. “Don’t. It’s not that kind of drug. It’s…this is Quirk-made.”
“Someone’s Quirk is a drug?” The medic doing CPR exhaled, frustration leaking into their voice. “Who uses it on a hero student?”
“Someone who has villain friends. We have—Takashi’s Quirk should neutralize this. I’m going to call ahead.”
Aizawa looked back at Midoriya.
Shit.
Izuku woke up with one hell of a headache.
“Shit.” He mumbled weakly. Cracking his eyes open, he tipped his head to the side. There was an IV in his arm with something. At least he didn’t have an oxygen mask. His head still hurt like hell. Sniffing, he glanced around. His eyes landed on three people, one after the other—Aizawa, his mother, and Kacchan. Shit. Mom’s not going to like that.
His mother looked at him and sighed softly. “I’m going to let that one slide, Izuku. How do you feel?”
With a sheepish grin, face burning, he glanced around. Kacchan glanced up over the edge of his book. It was a romantasy, Izuku knew that for a fact—mostly because he had bought that book for Kacchan. It was an English fantasy romance involving a morally gray female assassin, an assigned marriage, and a character who felt like she was unlovable because of her rage. It was also from the pre-Quirk days, and it had cost a shit ton of money, but Izuku had seen it and immediately thought of Kacchan, so he bought it. The whole thing was in English because Kacchan had mentioned wanting to read in English to practice it. Anyone else in the class either didn’t know what he was reading, or knew what it was and just hadn’t said anything about it. As for Izuku and Kacchan, they were meant to meet up and discuss the latest chapter after Izuku had gotten back from his patrol with Aizawa.
Then, finally, Aizawa. “Do I need to get any shots?” Izuku asked.
“They have you on some meds already to make sure you don’t have any issues,” Aizawa began, gesturing to the IV. Izuku stubbornly kept his eyes away from where it connected to his arm. If he even thought about the pinch in his elbow, then he was going to start crying. “Otherwise, you’re fine. The guy who attacked you was the one who shook your hand.”
“Him?” With a frown, Izuku said, “He didn’t seem to have any weapons on him…was it his Quirk?”
“His name’s Shirogane Sincline. His Quirk is, quite aptly, named Drug. He can make any medication he wants to using the water in his own body, which he can inject with needles in his fingertips. He gave you a very powerful sedative, similar to the barbiturates used in euthanasia for animals. He used to be a nurse.”
“He does have a good Quirk for it,” Izuku admitted.
“He does,” Aizawa agreed, “until he decided to use it to kill people. He got charged with multiple murders because his patients kept mysteriously dying. We’re figuring out why he targeted you, but we still don’t have any answers at the moment.”
Shrugging, Izuku turned to look at Kacchan, “What happened in Chapter Three?”
Kacchan made a sound that was half-snort and half-scoff, rolling his eyes behind closed lids as he shifted how he sat. Leaning forward, he turned and placed an elbow on the bed, showing Izuku the pages. “Why don’t you reread it yourself, nerd? I can’t be here to give you reviews every time you get hurt. We’d spend more time giving you reviews in the hospital than we would actually reading the damn thing. Anyways, Amira…”
Kacchan began reading, pointing to different sections of the text and giving Izuku the information anyways. Smiling, Izuku leaned over his shoulder. He saw red eyes dart to him, Kacchan dropped his shoulder to give him even more space. He glanced at Aizawa for a brief second. There was a look in his teacher’s eyes, then he nodded towards the book.
They’d have a conversation later, but for now he got the message.
For now, Izuku just needed to focus on that book.