Chapter Text
There’s something about the night sky that makes Midoriya Izuku feel comfortingly small and unimportant.
Here, far enough from downtown Tokyo that the light pollution stays low and to the east, where the stars are as vast and innumerable as the thoughts that ordinarily run through Izuku’s head. Here, five floors up on the roof of the third-years’ dormitory, so long as Izuku faces away from the main UA building there’s not another man-made structure in sight.
Here, it’s just Izuku. Izuku and the dark unfathomable expanse of space.
“What are you doing up here?”
Well, apparently that wasn’t exactly accurate this time. It was just Izuku and the dark unfathomable expanse of space… and Izuku’s classmate, Shinsou Hitoshi.
Shinsou’s voice came from behind him, but Izuku didn’t deign to turn around. Shinsou’s voice also came with that syrupy-sweet lilt, the nearly imperceptible musical undertone, that meant it was infused with his quirk.
Even knowing that, Izuku still answered. Maybe in later days he’d chalk it up to foolishness, or silently commend himself for the bravery of reaching out. But on this dark night, what truly mattered was that Izuku purposely and intentionally took the bait.
“What are you doing up here?” Izuku replied.
The moment the words passed his lips, he felt the serene calmness of Shinsou’s brainwashing quirk trickle over him. Ever since the first time he’d felt it at their first-year sports festival, Shinsou’s quirk had always made Izuku feel like he was able to silence his anxieties and worries and overactive thoughts and just exist for a few moments. The fact that the vestiges of One-for-All weren’t here this time was expected but bittersweet. Even so, paired with his view of swirling stars in an infinite sky, Izuku felt true peace in a way he hadn’t for a long time.
“Are you okay?” Shinsou’s voice had drawn closer, but was still several yards away from the lip of the roof where Izuku was perched.
“No,” Izuku said softly, bluntly, honestly. It was Shinsou’s quirk pulling the reply out of him, but there’s a chance he would’ve answered the same way himself if asked otherwise.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Izuku appreciated the sentiment, but he and Shinsou didn’t exactly have that kind of close relationship. Then again, Izuku didn’t really have that kind of close relationship with any of his classmates anymore. “Not especially.”
“Do you want company?”
“Not yours.”
Internally, Izuku hoped his answers wouldn’t hurt Shinsou’s feelings. He knew the other teen had his own meager social circle, just like Izuku did, but they’d never really connected. After the war, Izuku had barely been able to keep his own relationships intact; he certainly hadn’t had the emotional bandwidth to add more. But now, rapidly approaching the end of high school with only the tattered remnants of his original friendships left, Izuku wished he’d given more of an effort to connect with the rest of his classmates.
“That’s fine,” Shinsou said tightly. “Just one last question. If I go back inside, are you going to do something stupid?”
“Probably not,” Izuku said. “Besides—” even with One-for-All nearly gone from his system, certainly depleted enough that he could no longer intentionally manifest any of its quirks “—Float keeps kicking in before I hit the ground.”
From the scuffling gravel behind him, Izuku could tell that Shinsou had squatted down, probably pinching the bridge of his nose in the way he’d picked up from Aizawa-sensei. “For fucks’ sake, Midoriya. What the shit.”
Even under Shinsou’s quirk’s sway, it didn’t seem like that was an actual question, so Izuku kept silent. Kept staring at the stars. Kept feeling small.
Shinsou spoke again. “You realize I can’t just leave you up here, right?”
“Yeah, I figured. It’s okay. I won’t hold it against you.”
“You better not,” Shinsou muttered under his breath, before raising his voice. “Alright, follow me.”
While Izuku might have found the mental aspect of Shinsou’s quirk oddly comforting, similar to a weighted blanket with its unexpected pressure and presence, that did not extend to how he felt in a body moving under its own impetus. There was something horrifically unsettling about feeling his muscles contract and shift without his guidance, the eerie knowledge that he could just close his eyes and mentally drift off and it wouldn’t affect his course at all—though obviously he would never say as much to Shinsou. That was very much an inside thought.
Though right now, without being told to speak, all of Izuku’s thoughts were inside thoughts. Like the thought, as Izuku plodded passively across the gravel roof surface behind Shinsou, of exactly where Shinsou was leading him.
It was the last week of summer break between semesters, so summer internships had already wrapped up and most students were spending the week with their families. With Izuku’s entire family now in America, it didn’t make as much sense for him to visit for just a few days, though he would be able to see them over the longer winter holiday break. But the week break meant the dorm was nearly empty—in fact, until Shinsou had found him on the roof, Izuku had thought he was the only student still in the dorms.
Meaning that Shinsou wasn’t taking Izuku to his friends. Though would any of Izuku’s friends even want to deal with whatever was going on with him? Uraraka had cooled on him slightly after realizing they didn’t want the same things out of their friendship, which had triggered a self-doubt spiral in Izuku over whether she’d really been his friend in the first place; things had stabilized a bit after a heart-to-heart, but they weren’t as close as they’d been first year. Iida hadn’t managed to loosen up over the years, and his burgeoning relationship with Uraraka had turned his approach to Izuku awkward. And Todoroki, of course, was long gone; the stress of helping his father kill his brother had understandably been too much, and after a year-long sabbatical, Todoroki had quietly re-enrolled at Shiketsu as a second-year transfer.
At least Shinsou wasn’t going to take him to any of his other classmates, either. If Shinsou had tried to hand Izuku over to Katsuki… well. Izuku had zero idea how that would pan out. Katsuki was still competitive and abrasive, but had developed some weird clingy attachment issues following the war. If Katsuki was to see Izuku in this condition, to know how messed up he actually was… Izuku had seen Kacchan cry, but he’d never seen Kacchan cry over him, and he didn’t think he would be able to handle it.
Izuku followed Shinsou back inside through the roof access door, and down five full flights of stairs, and then out of the building entirely. The way the door alarms were silenced, and the door locks clicking open immediately for Shinsou, let Izuku know that Nedzu was watching. Watching, and approving of wherever Shinsou was leading him.
Either a good sign, or a terrible one.
The building Shinsou led him to was one he’d passed every day but never entered. Never wanted to enter, really.
Every student on UA’s campus knew where the teachers’ dorm was. Most students knew vaguely which floor their own teachers could be found on. But it was very much an emergency-only sort of thing.
Was this an emergency?
Apparently Shinsou thought it was, and entered the building. But Shinsou passed the second floor, where Vlad King, the combined year 3 class’s homeroom teacher, had his apartment. Went directly to the fourth floor, which was where—
Oh shit.
Aizawa Shouta, the pro hero Eraserhead. Formerly the homeroom teacher of class 1-A, now Vice Principal of UA—and, if rumors were to be believed, being trained by Principal Nedzu to take over completely in the next few years. Remembering his earlier promise to not hold this against Shinsou, Izuku grimaced internally; maybe that promise had been a tad premature.
There were four apartment doors on the floor, but Shinsou must have been there before. He bee-lined to a light wood door on the left and knocked twice, soft enough that it wouldn’t wake any other teachers on the floor.
(Izuku had no doubt, however, that it would wake Aizawa. The man could hear a 2mm screw drop on the floor from across the room, and be able to identify what style of eyeglasses it had fallen from.)
And yes, it was pretty obvious that Aizawa had been woken up.
“Do you have any idea what time it is?” the man grumbled without bite.
It had been a few weeks since Izuku had seen Aizawa, and even longer since he’d been this close to the older hero. And now, abruptly woken up at ass in the morning, Izuku couldn’t help but notice that Aizawa looked rough. Not just older, but grizzled. Without his eyepatch or prosthetic leg, leaning heavily on a forearm crutch Izuku hadn’t seen before…
The way the aftereffects of the war were physically evident on Aizawa’s once-proud figure was almost a mirror into the way Izuku felt them on his soul.
“Go sit on Sensei’s couch,” Shinsou ordered softly, flatly.
Unable to do anything but obey, Izuku pushed past Aizawa a bit roughly as he forced his way into the teacher’s apartment. Izuku found himself doubly-impressed: at Aizawa’s one-legged balance as Izuku’s shoulder shoved him aside, and at Shinsou’s strong hold—remembering their battle in the first year’s sports festival, that impact would have easily snapped Shinsou’s quirk’s hold only two years earlier.
“Seriously?” Even out of Izuku’s eyeline, Aizawa’s complaint about the brusque brush-by was clearly intended for Shinsou.
Izuku sat stiffly on the worn sofa, staring straight ahead at the plain cream-colored wall. The couch was comfortable, and the stray books and mugs on the coffee table made the space more homey than Izuku would have expected.
Shinsou didn’t bother to lower his voice so that Izuku couldn’t hear, an almost-kindness in not treating Izuku as fragile or a child. “I found him on the dorm roof,” Shinsou said. “Reading between the lines, it sounds like he’s tried jumping multiple times, but there’s enough of his quirk left to keep him alive.”
“Hmm.” Izuku couldn’t see the expression on Aizawa’s face, but he heard the tired sigh underneath the hum. “Thanks for bringing him.”
“Do… do you need me to stick around?” Under Shinsou’s question, the real ask was clear: did Aizawa want Shinsou to keep Izuku under his quirk’s control, to force him to answer questions Aizawa might have.
“Go back to the dorms,” Aizawa said, likely accompanied by a head-shake. “Try and get some sleep.”
A small shiver of relief passed through Izuku’s body. Shinsou was fine; he was clever, logical, surprisingly compassionate, and on track to become a good hero. But Aizawa—he had been fundamentally changed by the war, just like Izuku. Shinsou might know but he could never understand, not in the way Aizawa might.
In the periphery of his vision, Izuku saw a small orange cat jump onto the couch next to him, sniffing his pajama pants curiously. Izuku had never really been close to a cat before, but he really liked them in theory. If he hadn’t been under Shinsou’s control, Izuku would have offered a hand to it to smell.
Speaking of Shinsou, the other student’s voice reappeared, louder and closer, directly against Izuku’s right ear. “You’d better just… just fuckin’ let Sensei help you. Got it?”
The quirk-infused command had only begun to filter into Izuku’s programming when it was abruptly interrupted with a harsh slap to the back of his head. Izuku found himself once more thankful to Shinsou—while it might have been easier for Izuku to accept Aizawa’s help under an explicit order from Shinsou’s quirk, he also knew that the only way it could be genuine was on his own.
(Yes, Izuku realized that Shinsou hadn’t needed to physically smack him to break his quirk’s hold. But after the stress Izuku had obviously caused his classmate that night, Izuku didn’t begrudge him the small physical payback.)
As Shinsou and Aizawa traded pathologically-short goodbyes, Izuku kept staring at the wall, the only indicator that Shinsou’s quirk had been released was a slight hunching of his back. His hands clenched at his sides; sadly, Shinsou’s sudden slap had scared off the cat, otherwise Izuku might have reached out to it for comfort. And then Shinsou was gone, the door closed. Izuku was still frozen, and the silence was on the verge of passing from ‘awkward’ into ‘creepy’ territory.
Aizawa moved into Izuku’s sight, leaning heavily on his forearm crutch as he lowered himself to meet Izuku’s eyes. “Problem child…”
Izuku hadn’t seen Aizawa without the eye patch; the mass of jagged scar tissue was extensive but well-healed. And yet it was AIzawa’s other eye that gave Izuku pause.
Compassion. Pain. And understanding.
“Hi, Aizawa-sensei.”
A one-eyed wink, and a weary sigh. “This requires coffee. C’mon, kid.” And then Aizawa was out of Izuku’s sight, presumably heading towards his apartment’s kitchen.
After a brief pause to just breathe for a second or two, Izuku followed. His bare feet, undoubtedly filthy after the roof, were silent against the pale wood floors. Izuku hoped he wasn’t leaving marks on the otherwise clean surface. Maybe he should ask for guest slippers. Did Aizawa even have guest slippers? The floors would probably be easier to clean than slippers anyway.
(Next time he saw Shinsou, Izuku would have to remind him: if he finds a person on a roof, have them put their shoes back on before leading them down.)
Much like the living room, Aizawa’s kitchen was well-lived-in, small, and neat. Aizawa’s back was to Izuku as the man rifled through the cabinets, and Izuku stood awkwardly at the threshold for a few moments before taking a seat at the table. Izuku clasped his hands together lightly on its surface to keep from fidgeting in the silence.
The action only served to bring his own attention to them. Fingers gnarled, twisted, and scarred, joints swollen painfully with damage-induced arthritis. These were the hands of a grizzled veteran, of a seventy-year-old laborer ready to retire. They shouldn’t have belonged to a seventeen-year-old child, barely on the cusp of his career.
Aizawa’s soft rumble broke through Izuku’s musing. “Coffee? Tea?”
Without raising his head to look at the other man, Izuku just shook it ‘no.’ He was tense enough; no need to introduce caffeine into the mix.
For a few long minutes, Aizawa sleepily puttered around the kitchen. To keep his mind off of their looming conversation (or rather, off the absolute uncertainty of its outcome), Izuku strained his ears to follow Aizawa’s movements around the small space.
Rushing water as the man filled an electric kettle at the sink, followed by a click and a hum as he switched it on. Soft thumps as cabinets and drawers were opened and shut. A clink of a ceramic mug, a clank of a metal spoon. A gritty scratch as powdered instant coffee was scooped and measured.
A scrape as the chair across from Izuku was pulled back; a pair of thuds as Aizawa placed two mugs down onto the table, and a scuff as the man slid one over to Izuku.
Wait, two mugs?
Izuku looked up at Aizawa in surprise, making eye contact as the man eased himself into the other chair with a groan. And then Izuku looked down at the mug in front of him.
It wasn’t coffee. It wasn’t tea. It was hot chocolate—with fucking marshmallows in it.
“Seriously?” Izuku was surprised enough to be thrown out of his self-imposed silence.
Aizawa raised his one good eyebrow, blowing on his own instant coffee before taking a sip. “If you don’t want it…” he trailed off knowingly.
Well, obviously Izuku wanted it. He reached forward to grab the mug with both hands, grimace finally easing as the heat seeped its way into his sore finger joints.
The silence between Izuku and his former teacher was growing stifling, but Izuku found himself powerless to start the conversation.
Coming to the same realization, Aizawa sighed, a breathy exhale heavy with the weight of the world. “Why are you here, kid?”
Izuku raised his head, puzzled. “Shinsou-kun found me on the dorm roof and brought me here.” Or was Aizawa asking why Izuku had been on the roof in the first place?
Was Aizawa asking why Izuku liked to look up at the night sky, why he liked to feel small and insignificant?
“Why are you at UA, Midoriya?”
Now Izuku was genuinely confused. “So I can become a hero.” It’s all Izuku had ever wanted—where else would he be?
Apparently that was still the wrong answer, and Aizawa shook his head. “I know that your hero license’s probationary status was removed in special consideration after the war. And I have no doubt that if you were to take the third years’ final exams right now, you’d probably still wind up in your class’s top-five.” Aizawa took a slow, calculated sip of his coffee. “So tell me, problem child. What are you getting out of being at UA?”
Other than it being a lot of words to come out of Aizawa’s mouth in one go, Izuku couldn’t exactly say that the man was wrong in any way. There wasn’t anything left for UA to teach him, and even without a usable quirk, Izuku was functionally ready to begin working as a hero.
Izuku wracked his brain for other reasons. It wasn’t his classmates: once-close friendships had dwindled to casual relationships; he certainly still cared about all of them, but there were no connections close enough to make him stay.
Thinking broader, there wasn’t even a real reason for Izuku to stay in the area anymore. Shortly after the war, his mom had moved to America to be with his dad. And then a week later, All Might had followed, and Izuku spent a lot of time trying not to think about the odd relationship all three of his parental figures had wound up in.
He wasn’t even needed as a hero at that point. Following the war, nations all around the world had sent heroes on multi-year loan as Japan replenished those it had lost to early retirement, permanent injury, or death. And the tripled-in-size first year class at UA proved that the numbers would be replaced quickly.
At a patient throat-clearing, Izuku realized that Aizawa was still waiting for an answer. “Heroes don’t qualify for HPSC-sanctioned missions without a high school diploma,” he offered pathetically.
HPSC Civil Regulation 2216-4A Section 14D. Was that really the only thing keeping him there?
Aizawa took a slow sip of coffee as they both sat in the silence of his weak answer. The orange cat had returned, winding its way around Izuku’s ankles before jumping up on the table outright and flopping down just out of reach.
“If Nedzu were to allow you to take your exams early, to get your diploma early. You’d be out of here?”
Izuku looked down at the untouched hot chocolate in his hands. “You want to get rid of me that badly?” he said softly, bitingly, bitterly—a false anger to hide the utter hurt at Aizawa’s words.
“That’s not what I said,” Aizawa replied calmly, not rising to the bait. “I might not be your homeroom teacher anymore, Midoriya, but I still want what’s best for you. And to be honest, right now I don’t think that’s staying here.”
“So I’m just supposed to—what, just jump straight into working, find some hero willing to take me as a sidekick and pretend I’m not the absolute mess I am right now?”
Fixing Izuku with a steely one-eyed glare, Aizawa said primly, “Drink your hot chocolate before it gets cold. And then tell me whether that’s what you want to do.”
Apparently Izuku was still conditioned to obey the man’s orders, since the mug was already halfway to Izuku’s mouth by the time he realized his hands were moving. Which Izuku used as a nice reprieve as he considered Aizawa’s question. If he were to no longer be at UA, then was going straight into his heroics career really what Izuku wanted to do?
From a very early age, there had been nothing Izuku had wanted more—no, needed more—than to become a hero. It was his passion, his drive; it consumed every waking minute and every inch of his dreams. He’d been working tirelessly towards it since he’d learned what heroes were.
And yet now, being offered early access to that dream on a silver platter, he hesitated.
Those same doubts that visited him late as he tried to fall asleep. Those same itches he felt on the roof at night, of how vast the sky was, and how hard the ground’s impact would be. The unending aches of a broken body, and the unfathomable tiredness of a boy forced to grow up far too fast.
But all that was more complex than could ever be summed up in words, suitable only for a guttural cry of anguish. And so Izuku just said, weakly, “I don’t know.”
Once more, even without having to say anything aloud, Aizawa understood. “One more question. When was the last time you cried?”
“Sir?” Izuku tilted his head, puzzled at the non-sequitur.
“When was the last time you cried?” Aizawa just repeated.
Easy, it was… wait, when was it again? It had to have been recently, right? Or at the very least… hmm. His mom and All Might had moved away the previous year; he had to have cried then. Hadn’t he? Or had he just felt like crying?
“Well, there you go,” Aizawa said sagely. “That’s what you’ve got to do next.”
“I… huh?”
“Your first mission, if it makes you more comfortable to think of it like that. You need to cry, and then you’ve got to figure out what you actually want to do next.”
“You—my mission is to—what?”
“Have a good cry. Kid, when I first met you, you cried so much I was half-convinced you’d become dehydrated. And at some point you’ve stopped feeling your feelings.” Aizawa shrugged. “So figure out how to feel them again. Cry.”
“You don’t cry,” Izuku said dumbly, accusatorily.
“Of course I do,” Aizawa said, not unkindly. “I don’t cry in front of you, idiot.”
“Oh.”
So Izuku just needed to go… cry, and then figure out what he actually wanted to do with his life? That didn’t sound too hard. He did still want to be a hero, after all. It was just, after losing One-for-All, after the pain and violence of the war…
He wasn’t quite sure what it would really mean for him to be a hero anymore. What kind of a hero he would want to be.
“Yeah,” Aizawa said with a nod, noticing Izuku finally connected the dots. “Oh.”
“Where should I go?”
“Anywhere you want, kid. Anywhere but here.”
So, not UA? And staying in Mustafa was probably not a great idea either; heck, maybe even the greater Tokyo metropolitan area was out. But Izuku also didn’t think moving to America to be closer to (all three of) his parents would provide the clarity he needed. Which just left…
Nowhere?
Aizawa could see the struggle and doubt on Izuku’s face. “I—there’s one place I can think of that might be right for you. It’s a bit unconventional, but—” the man shifted, uncharacteristically uncertain, “—if you’ll trust me?”
“What a stupid thing to say,” Izuku blurted out, before gasping and slapping a hand across his mouth. “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry, Sensei! I meant, of course I trust you, why would you think that I wouldn’t, it was just such a ridiculous premise, and—”
To Izuku’s utter mortification, Aizawa was actually snickering at his rushed apologies. “I know what you meant.”
“Right. Sorry again.”
Aizawa waved him off. “Finish your hot chocolate, and then you can crash on my couch for a few hours until it’s light outside.”
Once again, the mug was at Izuku’s mouth before his brain had even processed the man’s words. The beverage was lukewarm but still comforting, and Izuku drank it all. Before he could move to try and wash the mug, Aizawa plucked it from his hands.
“Dishes can wait until morning.” Aizawa checked the clock on his stove, before saying, “Details can wait until morning, too. I’ll ask Nedzu about—”
A soft ‘chirrup’ came from Aizawa’s pocket, and the man fished out his cellphone, taking a few long seconds to process the text that had apparently just come in. And then Aizawa sighed, fake put-upon.
“It’s rude to eavesdrop in my personal rooms,” Aizawa said clearly and loudly, and very obviously not intended for Izuku. The cellphone ‘chirruped’ again.
“Um, Sensei?”
“Nedzu’ll give you tomorrow—or today, rather—off. Then your exams will be spread out over the next two days, and assuming everything goes well, we can get you out of here before the other students even start coming back.”
That was so soon! That was too soon, right? And shouldn’t he at least stick around long enough to tell his frien—well, his classmates goodbye? Was he just running away (again)?
“Okay,” he said, swallowing hard. Hoping he wasn’t making the wrong decision.
Aizawa placed a hand on Izuku’s shoulder and gave it a brief squeeze, an oddly paternal gesture from the man who’d been Izuku’s hardest teacher. “Let me grab you a pillow and quilt. The cat’ll probably attempt to smother you during the night—just shove her off if she tries.”
A seemingly benign statement, but Izuku knew what Aizawa was truly saying. An acknowledgement of the difficult decision to leave UA early. Near approval, in fact. If Aizawa were capable of admitting pride in his students, this would have been it.
“I’m proud of you, kid,” Aizawa said, handing Izuku the bedding before retreating into his own bedroom and closing the door behind him.
Well fuck. Guess there really was a first time for everything.