Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Is it just me, or are villains getting weirder?”

Mashirao chuckled as his classmates added their opinions to Tohru’s comment. He wasn’t sure this villain was weird, but...okay, maybe he was weird.

The villain looked like something out of Power Loader’s nightmares. His body was fused into a large machine, but Mashirao couldn’t quite figure out what kind of machine it was. It could have been an old-fashioned farming machine—like the threshers he’d seen out in the fields near his hometown, though this one was much bulkier. Those threshers had had rotating blades close to the ground, but this machine had two rotating cylinders with long, heavy spokes on the front. Kind of made him think of a giant egg beater.

The specifications didn’t matter, in the end. What mattered the most, was that this man was tearing up the pavement and crushing everything he got his hands...er, egg beater...on.

“Tailman, you ready?”

“Ready,” he replied, crouching low behind an abandoned car to watch Sero swing in above him. His classmate sent out streams of tape, tangling up the detritus the villain was churning up. The tape twisted between the beaters, so that chunks of pavement and rock got caught partway, grinding the machine’s destructive power to a halt.

“You’re up, Ojiro.”

He didn’t bother to reply, sprinting out of cover toward the machine. As he got closer, Mashirao could see that it was cobbled together from multiple pieces of equipment. Maybe the villain’s quirk let him fuse machines together?

There wasn’t time to study it. Mashirao got a foot on one of the spokes of the lower cylinder. It shifted beneath him, but held tight, and he kicked off to flip up and over the cylinders, aiming to jump his way up to the cockpit and catch the villain.

The cylinder shifted again. With a horrible crunch, it began to twist again. Sero’s tape ripped away, chunks of pavement churned beneath Mashirao’s feet, and he twisted in midair to try to kick away from the rotating cylinders.

Too late. His foot couldn’t find purchase to kick away, and he scrambled for a handhold on the front of the machine, desperate to keep himself away from the giant, twisting thresher beneath him. He slipped, flung out his arm to grab something, and bit out a sharp cry of pain as something yanked back on his tail.

It pulled him down, into the whirring crush of the spinning cylinders beneath him. He couldn’t tell whether he should tense his tail up to try to break his way out, or let it go limp to try to avoid further damage. Heavy metal bars—at least they weren’t blades—thudded against his body, pulling him in deeper no matter how he fought.

He’d watched this thing churn up asphalt like it was nothing. Who knew what it could do to a flesh and blood body like his?

Mashirao fought desperately to pull himself out. For every painful inch he managed to haul himself free, the machine would pull him in another two. It had one of his feet now, and he tried to brace the other against the other cylinder, praying by some miracle he could push them apart.

And then, it just...stopped. The cylinders slipped apart, knocking him off-balance enough that he crashed to the ground. Behind him, the machine was breaking apart in chunks, and Mashirao barely managed to roll out of the way as a long section came crashing down nearly on top of him.

Everything hurt. His tail was the worst, and he lay on the ground panting as waves of pain rolled over him. He didn’t have the strength to check if anything was broken, and he barely managed to get his hands beneath him to try to drag himself away from the broken-down machine.

There was a yell behind him, and Mashirao glanced over his shoulder to see Sero pulling a man away from the machine and wrapping tape around his wrists to bind them together. Tohru’s gloves floated in the air next to him as she helped him subdue the villain.

“Hang on, kid. I’ve gotcha.”

His body relaxed at the familiar voice, and he reached out to grab for Mr. Aizawa’s arm as his teacher crouched beside him. He’d forgotten Aizawa was supervising their patrol today, but he had to admit he was grateful to see him. “Thanks,” Mashirao panted. “Did you take him out?”

The man grunted. Careful hands prodded at Mashirao’s neck and back, then down his right leg to check the ankle that had gotten caught in the thresher. “His quirk was holding it together,” Aizawa explained.

Mashirao nodded. Pain was shooting through his body with every movement, sharp enough to knock his breath away. “How bad is it?” he ground out as he felt Aizawa’s hands on his tail.

“No obvious breaks,” his teacher replied. “You got lucky, kid.”

He wanted to laugh, but just collapsed against the pavement. “This is lucky?”

“You’ve still got a tail.”

Now he did laugh, though it broke off in a groan of pain. He’d strained the muscles in his chest and back trying to keep himself out of the thresher, and he thought he could feel every blow he’d taken to his tail and leg.

“Looks like bruises and deep tissue injuries,” Aizawa finally said. “Can you stand?”

He didn’t want to. He really didn’t want to. But this was still an active disaster scene, and containment officers were already rolling in to take the villain into custody. The sooner he got out of the way—and either back to Recovery Girl or on to the hospital—the better. “I think so.”

“Don’t push yourself,” his teacher warned. “Lean on me, kid. Come on, on your feet.”

Mashirao gingerly wrapped one arm around Aizawa’s shoulders and let the man help him to his feet. His entire body protested, and he had to stop to catch his breath. “Sorry,” he panted. “Um...am I too heavy?”

Aizawa sighed. “Kid, I’m not fragile. I could throw you over my shoulder and sprint back to campus without breaking a sweat. Now, can you walk, or do I start running?”

He started to laugh again, but it faded into a groan as he wrapped his free arm around his chest to cradle his ribs. “Sorry. Walking’s fine.”

“That’s what I thought.” Aizawa held him steady while Mashirao gritted his teeth through another wave of pain. Then they were moving, one step at a time, shuffling their way toward one of the school vans.

Aizawa was talking to someone, but Mashirao kept his focus on putting one foot in front of the other. He could barely put any weight on his right foot, and his ankle just buckled underneath him when he tried, but he forced himself to keep moving. The other option was letting Aizawa carry him, and...yeah, that wasn’t happening. He might be hurt, but he still had his pride.

“Chiiyo says hospital,” Aizawa finally said, and Mashirao glanced up at him in time to see the man tuck his phone into his pocket. “She agrees it’s probably just contusions and maybe some torn muscles, but a few x-rays wouldn’t hurt to rule out serious damage.”

He nodded, breathless from the effort of walking to the van. They finally reached it, and Aizawa all but lifted him into it, letting Mashirao curl up on the floor and breathe through another wave of pain.

“You good to wait while I check on the others?” the man asked, resting a hand on the top of Mashirao’s head. “I get a bulk discount at the hospital if I bring in three or more students.”

Mashirao groaned, curling in on himself. “Please don’t make me laugh right now, Mr. Aizwa.”

Aizawa grunted. His expression was gruff, as always, but the hand on Mashirao’s head was gentle. “I’ll be right back.”

He nodded. “Thanks.”

“You don’t have to thank me.” Aizawa straightened up, staring down at Mashirao for a long moment. “That’s two more gray hairs you’ve given me. At this rate, you’ll catch up to Midoriya by graduation.”

Mashirao spluttered, cradling his aching ribs with one arm as his teacher strode away. “That’s not fair,” he called after the man, as soon as he could catch his breath. “I said don’t make me laugh!”

Chapter Text

Shouta paused as Eri rushed ahead of him to hold the door open. He couldn’t blame her—he wanted to get out of this place too, and wash the smell of hospital off of his clothes.

He nodded to her as he walked past and reached for the next set of doors, only for Eri to scoot past him and grab that door herself, holding it open and staring at him with big, serious eyes.

Shouta sighed. He’d had one infection in his leg, and everyone was treating him like he was about to fall apart. He couldn’t blame the students—he’d passed out in front of them in their common room, and they’d had to take care of him—but now even Eri was treating him like this.

“Hey.” He crouched down in front of her, resting a hand on her shoulder. “You don’t have to do that, okay? I’m all right.”

She just stared at him and didn’t answer. He straightened up with a sigh, reaching out for her hand to walk with her toward the bus stop. At least he’d managed to talk Hizashi out of chauffeuring him today. He liked riding the bus. It was a good way to judge the population’s frame of mind. Since Eraserhead was an underground hero, most people didn’t recognize him when he was standing right in front of them, so he got a candid glimpse of what civilians were saying about heroes.

The bus wouldn’t arrive for a good half an hour, but there were some nice benches along the sidewalk in front of the hospital. Before the war they’d had floral trellises arching over them; now they looked a little forlorn and empty, but he was sure they wouldn’t look like this for much longer.

Shouta sat down on one of the benches, letting Eri climb up next to him. She was on his right side, still holding his hand, and he caught her staring at his knee.

“It’s all right,” he said. “It doesn’t even hurt anymore.” That wasn’t totally a lie. The pain was manageable enough, as long as he didn’t overdo it, and they’d adjusted his prosthetic socket so it fit more securely. He’d needed minor surgery to take care of some damaged nerves that they’d missed the first time—with disaster looming and war on their doorstep, there hadn’t been time to worry about his recovery—but everything was fine now. The doctor today had given him a clean bill of health, and a list of restrictions that Shouta had thrown away as soon as he left the office.

The day he needed someone else to tell him what his body could handle was the day he gave up being a teacher. Or a hero.

“It’s all right,” he said again. “I’m fine, Eri.”

Her hand clenched in his. “Maybe I can fix it,” she said softly.

He bit back a sigh. He’d been afraid this would come up, ever since Eri broke off her horn to save Midoriya. It’s not that he hadn’t thought about it—who wouldn’t want their leg or eye back after what he went through—but he’d made that sacrifice for his kids. All of them.

“You don’t have to fix it,” Shouta said. “I’m fine just the way I am.”

“But I helped Deku,” Eri protested, looking up into his eye. “A-and Lemillion, and Shouto’s brother. Why can’t I help you?”

He shuffled off the bench to crouch in front of her, taking both of her hands. There were tears in her eyes now as she looked down at him, and one rolled down her cheek when she blinked. “I knew what I was getting into,” he explained gently. The first time she’d seen him in the hospital, he’d joked about being run over by a garbage truck, but he hadn’t been able to keep the truth from her forever. “This is who I am now, and I’m happy with that,” he added, patting his right knee.

“But I could fix it,” she protested, one hand straying up to the stub on her forehead, “when my horn grows back.”

Shouta gently pulled her hand back down. “I don’t want you to.”

Tears were beading in her eyes and spilling down her cheeks. “But why?!” Pain choked her voice as she stared down at him, her hands trembling between his. “Why won’t you let me?”

“Eri….” Shouta rested one hand on the side of her face, wiping her tears away with his thumb. “It’s not like that. It’s not about you or what you can or can’t do. I knew what would happen; I knew this would be permanent, but it was worth it. It will always be worth it. It’s part of who I am now, and I don’t need to change it, okay?”

She nodded, but he could tell she still wasn’t sure. Shouta sighed and straightened up, shifting over to sit next to her again. He knew she dealt with a lot of trauma about her Quirk. Chisaki had abused her for so long, treating her like she had no value beyond her Quirk, using her for….

His heart dropped.

The Quirk-erasing bullets had been infused with Eri’s blood. One had pierced his leg, and he’d cut it off rather than lose his Quirk in the face of Shigaraki’s attack.

“Eri?”

She was crying in earnest now. Shouta tugged her close, letting her press her face against his side. “It’s not your fault, okay? What Overhaul made...what Shigaraki did...none of it is your fault. You hear me?”

“But it was my Quirk.” Her voice was so low he had to strain to hear it, and he hugged her a little closer.

“It’s not your fault,” he repeated. “You don’t have anything to fix, anything to repent for. None of this is your fault.”

She was still crying, and he rested a hand on the back of her head while he tried to figure out what to say. Eri never talked about wanting to be a hero, like most kids her age. But she loved music. She liked to sing along when Hizashi turned on the radio, and Shouta had seen her face light up when she heard a song she recognized.

There would be people in the world who wouldn’t understand that. People who wouldn’t see her beyond her Quirk, and would just pressure her into using it for one reason or another.

Shouta wasn’t going to be one of those people.

“You don’t need to use your Quirk on me, Eri,” he finally said. “I did this because I wanted to; and I’m living with it because I want to. I don’t blame you for anything, and I don’t need you to fix anything. I just want you to be happy, okay? That’s worth more than getting my leg back. Or my eye.”

Eri had quieted down a little, but she stayed leaning against him. “You’re sure?” she asked in a small voice.

“I’ve still got another one,” he replied, patting his left leg. “Legs aren’t that important anyway. If I lost ‘em both, I’d just make Hizashi carry me around.”

That comment earned him a tiny smile.

“He could keep me in a backpack, as long as he learned to run backwards so I can see where I’m going.”

She giggled.

“And we could skip all the lines in the amusement park. Do you think they’d let me ride the roller coaster if I didn’t have legs?”

“You’d fall out,” Eri protested.

“You’re right. Maybe just the bumper cars then. Oh, but I wouldn’t be able to reach the pedals, would I?”

She shook her head, giggling again.

“Hmm. What about the merry-go-round? I could still sit on the horse.”

“No, you couldn’t!”

“I think I could.”

“Papa Shouta!”

He kept up the conversation, sending Eri into peals of laughter as they talked. Eventually, the bus rolled up to the stop, and he pushed himself up to his feet and reached for her hand.

She was staring at his right leg again, and he jostled her hand until she looked up. “You’re really sure you’re okay?” Eri asked.

Shouta squeezed her hand. “I’m sure. Come on; let’s go home.”

Chapter Text

With a thunderous splash the water closed over Hanta’s head. He thrashed for a moment, unsure which was was up or down, water flooding into his mouth and nose, before he managed to break through the surface and gasp in a breath.

“Young Sero is out!”

He made a face and lifted his arm in a wave as All Might called his name. He’d thought today’s exercise looked simple enough, but that illusion was shattered as soon as they started. Clearly UA had taken inspiration from one of those obstacle course shows, and they’d faced everything from climbing walls to hanging bars to giant spinning cylinders suspended over the river.

The spinning cylinders had been his downfall. He’d made it almost halfway across, thinking he’d finally found the right rhythm, only for everything to slip out from under his feet when he stepped from the red cylinder to the blue one.

“Sero!”

The current wasn’t strong, but he’d already run two-thirds of the obstacle course before he hit the cylinders, so he was getting a little worn out. He lifted his head when someone called his name, finding Satou standing on the shore with one arm extended.

Hanta gratefully lifted an arm out of the water to grab Satou’s arm with a strip of tape from his Quirk. He let his classmate pull him out of the water, not complaining when Satou reached out to snag his collar to drag him to shore.

“You okay?” Satou asked, one hand on Hanta’s back to steady him.

He nodded, resting his hands on his knees as he tried to cough the water out of his lungs. He hadn’t inhaled much of it, but his throat and sinuses burned, and the sooner he got rid of it the better.

“They’ve got towels and stuff up the hill,” Satou was saying. “I’m staying here to help anyone else who falls in.”

“Thanks.” Hanta managed a grin, though he could still feel the cough trapped in his throat. “Maybe I’ll come back down and help once I dry off a bit.”

“That’d be great, but don’t push yourself.” Satou’s forehead was wrinkled with worry as he studied Hanta. “Do you need some help getting up there?”

“Just need a second to catch my breath. I’m okay.” He waved off any further assistance, thankful when Satou was distracted by another splash and All Might announcing that Shinsou was out.

He straightened up and gingerly walked up the hill, arms folded across his chest. His asthma didn’t usually bother him anymore, but for some reason he just couldn’t catch his breath today. He’d used his inhaler before the exercise started, so he should have been okay for a while, but his lungs just felt stiff and tight every time he tried to breathe.

“How far did you make it?”

The sudden voice startled him and he jerked to the side, the motion making his chest spasm. He coughed, one hand pressed to his chest, waving off Shinsou when he tried to help. “I’m okay,” he gasped. “I almost made it to the blue one.”

“I got one foot on the red one and it was all over.” Shinsou shoved his hands in his pockets, matching Hanta’s pace as they made their way up the hill. “Didn’t expect All Might to be so tough on everyone.”

“At least he’s not making us fight each other anymore,” Hanta replied, fighting to keep his breaths even. “Be thankful you weren’t here last year. Bakugou tried to kill Midoriya.”

“Isn’t that just a Tuesday in this class?” Shinsou drawled lazily.

“It is now,” he said, grinning at Shinsou. “Last year it was every day.”

Shinsou snorted and shook his head. They’d reached the rest of their class, just in time to hear another splash behind them and All Might calling Uraraka’s name. Hanta moved away from Shinsou, finding an empty spot on one of the benches at the top of the hill.

He tried to focus on slowing his breathing down. Why did it feel like it was getting worse? He was doing all the exercises the doctor taught him, he’d used his inhaler, he’d done everything right. But it was just getting worse.

Someone laughed nearby, and he thought he heard someone call his name, but it was hard to process anything over the noise of his own breathing. Hanta glanced up, finding a few worried faces watching him, and stared around at his classmates until he found the familiar profile of their homeroom teacher.

Aizawa was already moving toward him. His teacher sat next to him, resting one hand on his chest and one on his back. “Breathe for me, Sero.”

“C-can’t,” he managed to stammer. His chest was so tight, and his throat felt like it was raw from screaming. “I-I need….” Aizawa kept Hanta’s rescue inhaler on-hand, just in case, and this felt like just the situation for it.

“Emergency services are on the way,” Shinsou commented, peering over Aizawa’s shoulder with his phone pressed to his ear. “What’s wrong with him?”

“He’s drowning,” Aizawa said simply, sending a spark of fear straight to Hanta’s core.

He grabbed at Aizawa’s sleeves, his throat closing up before he could say anything.

“Stay with me, Sero.” Aizawa’s voice was firm, cutting through the panic. “You’re going to be just fine. Just keep breathing.”

Hanta nodded. His breath rasped in and out, and it felt like his chest was getting tighter and tighter. Aizawa’s hand on his chest was the only thing keeping him upright at the moment, and he barely noticed when Shinsou settled on his other side, phone still pressed to his ear as he explained something.

“You’re okay, Sero.” He felt like his vision was going dark, but realized he’d just closed his eyes. His world seemed to narrow down to the tightness in his chest and Aizawa’s voice in his ear. “You’re okay.”

…

Hanta blinked as the world slowly came back into focus. He was staring up at an unfamiliar white ceiling, dressed in a scratchy hospital gown, machines beeping at him from behind his head.

“You’re awake.”

He twisted his head to see Aizawa sitting next to him, studying something on his phone. The man tucked it away and leaned forward, his focus on Hanta now. “Do you remember what happened?”

His chest didn’t spasm when he took in a breath, though he could hear the hissing of a nearby machine. The air in the oxygen mask smelled too sterile, and the straps were pinching his face.

“Sero?”

“Sorry,” he whispered. “What did you say?”

Aizawa sighed, leaning in to rest a hand on top of Hanta’s head. It was comforting, and he leaned into the touch with a happy sigh.

“Why do you do that?” he asked.

“Do what?”

“You like to touch our heads. Why?”

Aizawa chuckled. “I can stop,” he offered, lifting his hand up. Hanta grabbed his wrist and pulled his hand back down, and Aizawa let out a snort of laughter. “It’s an old habit. Someone used to do it to me, any time I was hurt or in trouble, and I guess I just passed it on. Mic still does it, sometimes.”

Hanta hummed. He managed to flail a hand up to land on Aizwa’s head, though his teacher ducked away with a laugh. He frowned, staring at his hand. “Why did I do that?”

“They put you on something to help flush out your lungs, and it’s making you a little disoriented,” Aizawa explained. “Don't worry about it. Do you remember what happened?”

He thought hard. He remembered the start of the day, and that obstacle course All Might had made them run. He’d done fine until he hit the cylinders over the river, then he’d fallen in. And then….

Hanta frowned. He knew this...they’d studied it, right? “Um...second-hand drowning?”

“Secondary drowning,” Aizawa confirmed. “You didn’t inhale enough water to drown; just enough that it messed with your lungs. We caught it right away, so there’s nothing to worry about. They’ll probably clear you to head home in a couple of hours, as long as someone keeps an eye on you for the next day or so.”

He nodded and leaned back in the bed, closing his eyes. They’d studied this last year...maybe he’d look for his notes when he got back to the dorms.

Hanta suddenly opened his eyes. “Did Bakugou make it?”

“What?”

“Through the course,” he clarified, twisting his head to stare at Aizawa. “Did he make it?”

Aizawa was staring back at him, eyebrows raised. “He went way before you, kid. He’d already finished by the time you started.”

“Good.” Hanta sank back. “Then the dorms won’t be exploded. He doesn’t like to lose.”

“Sure.” Aizawa’s hand was back on his head, and Hanta gave a sigh as he leaned into the touch. “Why don’t you get some sleep. I’ll wake you when the doctor comes in.”

“Mm-hmm.” He was already dozing off. “G’night, Dad.”

Aizawa’s hand stilled. “No.” His voice was firm, and when Hanta peeled his eyes open the man was staring at him.

“But Kami gets to call you that,” he whined.

“Yeah, well, you can call me Dad if I have to adopt you, just like Kaminari. But last I checked, you didn’t want to leave your parents.”

“No,” he agreed sleepily. “My parents are great.”

“That’s good.”

“Have you met them?” He started to sit up, but Aizawa gently pushed him back down.

“I’ve met them.”

“Aren’t they great?”

“They’re great. Now get some sleep.”

“Uh-huh.” He closed his eyes again, settling back down against the pillow. Some distant part of his mind was screaming that he should be mortified for talking to his teacher like this, but he couldn’t be bothered. “What about Shinsou?”

“What about him?”

“Does he call you Dad?”

Aizawa sighed. “Sleep. Now.”

Chapter Text

“...here he uses reverse symbolism, citing a heaven beneath and a hell above,” Cementoss droned on, chalk scratching against the blackboard. “It’s a similar reversal to his poem, Of Blood and Snow, where the redness of blood represented purity while the pale white snow represented passion.”

Shouto flexed the toes of his right foot, keeping his focus on Cementoss’s lecture. His leg was aching again, pain traveling up from his heel to mid-thigh. He’d been careless last night and stayed out long enough for his body to be affected by the temperature, and now he was suffering the consequences.

It shouldn’t be affecting him like this. There was a time, not so long ago, when his Quirk kept him from feeling the worst effects of temperature fluctuations. He could heat or cool himself as needed, within reason, to stay comfortable. But ever since that day—or day and a half, to be more specific—things had been much more difficult.

“Don’t forget to log on to the class discussion board tonight to select your poem,” Cementoss raised his voice to be heard over the end-of-class bell. “If you haven’t selected one by tomorrow I will assign you one at random.”

Shouto set his bag in his lap to pack away his textbook and notes from class. A few of his classmates were complaining to each other about the assignment—what good was modern literature when they were going to be heroes—but didn’t join their discussion.

They had one more class for the day, and then he would be free to go home. To rest in his room, to convince his leg that it wasn’t still wrapped in ice. It had thawed and healed, leaving nothing but a lingering ache and memories of frostbite.

…

“Shouto!”

His father had found him. He rolled over, digging his fingers into the ground to pull himself along. The trees shook around him, and heat rushed over his back despite the frozen chill of his right leg. He couldn’t do anything, couldn’t defend himself, couldn’t hide. His fingers were torn and bleeding, and his arms barely had the strength to pull himself forward, but he couldn’t stop.

“Shouto!”

Flames roared around him now. His skin smarted from the heat, yet his leg remained a cold, dead weight. Shouto pushed himself up, twisted around, reached for the ice he’d wrapped around his leg as a temporary splint. He hadn’t had a choice. There hadn’t been anything nearby he could use, and he was injured and disoriented from the landslide. His only choice had been to splint his leg with ice, and even then he’d tried to remember to thaw it to let his leg recover before freezing it again.

He pressed his left hand to the ice to thaw it, conscious of the flames closing in around him. His leg was so cold it burned, the cold leeching into his hand as he touched it. The ice slowly melted as his father’s roaring voice came closer and closer.

He had to melt the ice first. Endeavor didn’t like it when he used his ice. If he could erase all signs of it, he’d only be guilty of getting lost on the mountain, of being injured by a landslide. Without the ice he’d be a disappointment. With the ice he’d be a failure.

“Shouto!”

His father’s voice was closer now; his shouts vibrating the air. The ice finally melted away, and Shouto stared down at his leg in horror. His skin was mottled black and gray, splitting apart in places to drip bright red blood onto the snow beneath him.

Snow?

Shouto looked up, alarmed to realize the forest had given way to a broad, empty snowfield. There was nowhere to hide from his father’s wrath; nowhere to run with his leg frozen and dead. He twisted around, trying to drag himself back into the forest, under the cover of trees. The snow stung his hands as he moved, frost crawling up from his fingers to his shoulders. The dead black of frostbite crept onto his hands, up to his wrists.

He couldn’t feel his fingers anymore. Couldn’t move forward, could only collapse in the snow and let the sharp, burning frost cover his body.

“Shouto!”

Endeavor’s landing shook the earth beneath him, and Shouto reflexively tried to crawl away from him. All he knew was the burn of the frost and the sharp, desperate certainty that this frozen hell was still better than whatever awaited him at his father’s hands.

“What have I told you about using your ice?” Endeavor demanded. He’d caught Shouto by the collar, lifting him out of the snow as though he weighed nothing. The flames on the man’s beard burst higher, a wave of fire scorching away the burn of the ice.

Shouto thrashed in the man’s hold, but it was useless. His right leg hung dead from his hip, and his hands were all but useless.

Fire washed over him.

He clenched his teeth, refusing to scream, refusing to show a sign of pain in front of this man.

“Do not defy me, Shouto!”

His right hand was useless, his fingers twisted and broken (he could still remember the way they’d snapped when Endeavor twisted them). If he used his left he’d only do what the man wanted, so he steeled himself and clenched his jaw against the pain, even as Endeavor threw him back down.

His right had was broken, his right leg frozen and dead. Frostbite crawled up his hip as Endeavor moved away, as though his father’s flames were the only thing keeping it at bay.

“You’re weak, Shouto.”

Had to hold out, just a little while longer. Aizawa was eight minutes away.

Pain flared across his back as the cane whistled through the air. His father pinned him down, one knee on his legs, snarling about beating the defiance out of him as flames roared up around them.

Eight minutes….

The frost had reached the side of his face, as though even Endeavor’s flames couldn’t keep it at bay. He was freezing solid, his skin mottling with black and gray as the frostbite spread. His father was above him, hands around his neck now, fire piercing through him as he froze and burned.

He had to hold on...just eight more minutes….

“Come on, kiddo. Wake up for me.”

Eight minutes….

“I’m here now. You don’t have to wait.”

Eight….

“You’re worrying Mochi, kid. Come back to us, okay?”

The nightmare seemed to shatter around him and he snapped his eyes open. Shouto turned his head, seeking out the voice he’d heard in his dream, and found himself face-to-face with a round orange cat.

Mochi gurgled at him, drool leaking down his chin as he pushed his head forward to rub against Shouto’s face. The cat didn’t wait for him to respond, flopping over onto his side and rolling up against Shouto with a raspy purr.

If Mochi was here, he wasn’t home. Well, no...he was home, he just wasn’t home. He was in Aizawa’s apartment, where he’d come to live after….

“You awake now?” Aizawa was sitting next to the futon, studying him closely.

Shouto nodded. He struggled to sit up, and Mochi happily rolled into his lap. “Sorry.”

Aizawa sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose with one hand. “Kid, I keep telling you-”

“I know.” Shouto looked down, focusing his attention on the orange cat’s smug, happy face. “I had a nightmare,” he offered quietly, after a few moments had passed.

“Mochi told me,” Aizawa replied, reaching over to scratch under the cat’s chin. “He has his uses, even if he’s an ungrateful little bastard.”

He still didn’t feel like smiling, but Shouto felt a warm fondness spreading through his chest when he looked down at the cat. Mochi had been Aizawa’s cat for several years before Shouto had come to live with him, and yet the cat seemed to bond with him almost instantly. He slept at Shouto’s feet most nights when he was home, and he must have sensed Shouto’s distress and gone to wake Aizawa up.

“Anything you want to talk about?” Aizawa asked.

“I don’t know where to start,” Shouto replied. “It was the mountain and my father...and my leg was frozen.” He rested a hand on his right leg, frowning down at it.

“Your leg?” Aizawa prompted.

“It was hurting today.” In the hospital, after Aizawa had rescued him from the mountain, the doctors had done their best to reverse the damage that the frostbite had done to his leg. If his body wasn’t naturally resistant to ice, they probably would have amputated his leg—and his natural resistance still wasn’t enough to avoid the long-term side effects. He was more sensitive to cold now (his hero costume had been redesigned to account for that), and fluctuations in weather or temperature could leave his leg stiff and aching.

“How is it now?” the man asked. He reached for Shouto’s ankle, and he shifted around to let Aizawa pull it close. Mochi made an irritated sound, but shifted around so he could drool on Shouto’s left knee.

“It’s better,” Shouto replied. Aizawa had both hands around his calf, fingers digging in to coax the tight muscles to relax. “Being home helps.”

Aizawa grunted. “I think Selkie owes me a favor,” he offered, working his way up to Shouto’s knee. The lingering ache was receding under his touch as the muscles finally loosened.

“I think...I think the world still needs him. Even if I don’t.”

His guardian gently lowered his leg and shifted around to sit next to him. Aizawa wrapped an arm around his shoulders and pulled him close, letting Shouto rest his head on his shoulder.

He thought he might be too old for this, but on nights like this it didn’t matter.

“Anything else?” Aizawa asked softly.

Shouto shook his head. Mochi shifted in his lap, stretching one foreleg out to hook his claws in Aizawa’s pants.

The mountain, the frostbite, and the fear were behind him. He was home now, and that was all that mattered.

Chapter Text

Mezou sat gingerly on the edge of the low wall with a weary sigh. One of his arms was cradled in his lap; deep red slashes in his pale skin still oozing blood. Another was wrapped around his chest for support, though he couldn’t tell if the deep ache in his ribs meant one was broken or just bruised.

People moved all around him, the night a confusion of rain and flashing lights. Heroes, students, emergency personnel...the scene was loud and chaotic, and Mezou hunched in on himself as he waited on the sidelines with the others who needed medical assistance.

A medic was moving down the line, assessing the injured heroes and directing them to where they could get further aid when needed. Mezou forced himself to hold his head up as the medic attended to the hero next to him. He didn’t recognize the hero—judging by their age they were a third-year from another school, or perhaps a recent graduate. They nodded as the medic explained something, then followed his directions to one of the open ambulances parked on the other side of the street, where uniformed paramedics were stitching wounds and applying other treatment.

He waited, holding himself up, forcing himself to meet the medic’s eye as he approached...and the man walked past him.

Panic spiked through Mezou’s heart, followed by a wave of shame. He’d hoped things would be better now for people like him, but maybe it was too soon to expect that. He waited for the man to finish assessing the Ketsubusu student beside him, then cleared his throat.

“What?” the medic snapped, focusing an icy glare at Mezou.

“I’m injured,” Mezou said bluntly, indicated his bleeding arm.

“So?”

He swallowed, eyes focused on the man in front of him. He had to assert himself, to be his own advocate. There would always be times when no one else was going to step in and stand up for him; he’d have to do it for himself. “I need medical-”

“Not my problem,” the man sneered as he cut him off. “If you won’t lick your wounds like the other mongrels, then go find a vet.”

The Ketsubusu student gasped, leaning away from the medic when he glanced down at her. “Th-that’s not,” she started to say, but the medic had already grabbed her shoulder and hauled her to her feet, shoving her toward the ambulances. She glanced back at the medic with wide, frightened eyes, then looked at Mezou and mouthed an apology to him before moving toward the lights across the road.

Mezou took in a deep breath. They’d been fighting so hard for heteromorphs' acceptance in society. Too many people still acted like this man. He forced himself to sit up straight, despite the pain in his chest, to look the medic in the eye (he didn’t stand, since at his height he would tower over the man, and he didn’t want to be treated as the aggressor here).

“I require your assistance,” Mezou said clearly.

“I don’t give a damn,” the man hissed back. “I’m here to treat injured humans. Not monsters.”

He kept his chin up and his gaze steady, though inside he was cringing away from the man’s words. Monster. How many times had that name been thrown at him over the years? He should be used to it by now, but it still stung every time.

Maybe he should just ask someone else for help. Mezou turned away from the man, scanning the crowd of emergency personnel swarming the attack site. He was in pain, but he could still walk the short distance to the ambulance on his own, even without someone assessing him first. It would be a little more complicated, since they weren’t all equipped for someone like him, but it was better than sitting here being ignored and insulted.

“No one’s gonna help you, freak,” the medic sneered, ducking around to get in Mezou’s face. “Freaks like you should’ve been drowned at birth. If you’d been my kid, I wouldn’t have stopped at you. Both you and the worthless woman that birthed you should be wiped off the face of the planet.”

Mezou’s fists tightened and he held himself perfectly still, staring straight ahead.. It was a trap. The man was trying to bait him into lashing out, either verbally or physically. There were no witness close by to hear what he was saying, and it would be his word against Mezou’s if anythning happened.

And what was he? A heteromorph. A teenager. A fledgling hero. Any one of those could be twisted against him, harming not only himself but the reputations of everyone who knew him. He forced that thought to the front of his mind as he endured the man’s verbal assault. He had to be calm. To not lash out. If not for his own sake, then for the sake of others like him.

“Say that again.”

The viciousness in that snarl broke Mezou’s concentration, and he looked up in confusion. The medic had been pulled back away from him, a length of fabric pinning his arms to his sides.

And Mr. Aizawa was there, grabbing the man by the collar to haul him in closer to his face. “I said, say that again.”

“L-let me go!” the medic struggled, but Aizawa just shook him back and forth a few times.

“You put a hand on my kid?” Aizawa asked. His voice was low, tainted with an unfamiliar anger. Mezou blinked, staring at his usually-stoic homeroom teacher. They all knew Aizawa would protect them—he had the scars to prove it—but he’d never expected this.

He’d never expected someone like Aizawa to get so angry on his behalf.

"I didn't touch him," the medic snarled. "Not that I want to. Freak like that-"

Aizawa flipped his capture scarf around, sealing off the medic’s mouth mid-sentence. He shifted his grip to the back of his collar, turning him away from Mezou, and scanned the crowd on the other side of the street. “Takamine!”

One of the paramedics—a young woman with short hair—slipped out of the crowd. “Eraserhead?”

“My kid needs help,” Aizawa said, nodding toward Mezou. “I need to find your superiors.”

“First ambulance. He’s the one with blue hair,” Takamine offered helpfully.

“Thanks.” Aizawa twisted to meet Mezou’s gaze. “I’ll be right back,” he promised, before shoving the medic in front of him and stalking toward the ambulance Takamine had indicated.

“Hi there,” the young woman said cheerfully, setting a bag down next to Mezou. “Let’s get you fixed up. Can you tell me what hurts?”

Mezou lifted his bloody arm and she took it without hesitation. He watched as she cleaned the wounds and wrapped them, dutifully checking the rest of his arms for similar injuries. “Does your chest hurt?” she asked, retrieving a stethoscope from her bag.

He nodded. “I was struck in the chest and collided with an abandoned vehicle.”

“Gotcha. Um…” she hesitated and looked up at him. “Are there any mutations to your internal organs I should be aware of?”

“No.” He shook his head, raising his chin as the paramedic leaned in to press the stethoscope to his chest. “I’m normal on the inside,” he murmured.

A hand dropped onto his head, startling him. “Normal on the outside, too,” Aizawa announced. “How is he?”

Takamine leaned back, draping her stethoscope around her neck. “Lungs and heart sound good,” she announced. Her hands moved along Mezou’s sides, and he fought back a wince when her touch sent a bright shaft of pain through his body. “Could be a fractured rib—portable x-ray’s setup at the end of the line, let’s get you over there and check out. Unless you want to go straight to the hospital?” she asked, turning her focus to Aizawa.

The man circled around, moving his hand from Mezou’s head to his shoulder. “What do you think?”

He swallowed hard. Takamine seemed nice enough, but the other medic had set him on edge. Who else in the hospital might share his beliefs?

He could still hear the words the man snarled in his ears, and he took a deep, steadying breath to try to push them away. “I think I’d rather return to campus,” he admitted, gazing up at Aizawa.

“Portable x-ray it is,” Aizawa agreed. He took one of Mezou’s arms and Takamine took another, and together they gently pulled him to his feet. Mezou stumbled, the pain in his side radiating across his chest, and Aizawa supported him with a hand under one of his arms.

“Ready?” the man asked.

Mezou nodded. “Ready.” He took a slow, staggering step forward, flanked by Aizawa and the paramedic, out into the rain toward the flashing lights of the ambulances.

Chapter Text

Their new house had a small garden outside, and Yuuga sat alone on one of the benches, staring down at his hands. His heart was pounding and he felt like something was lodged in his throat, but it wouldn’t move when he swallowed.

His stomach was a knot of nausea and anxiety. He couldn’t close his eyes without seeing the worried expression on his mother’s face as he left the table, his plate untouched again. His father’s hands shook when they reached out to him, always pulling back before they touched him.

It was all his fault anyway. If he’d just been stronger and accepted his fate when he was Quirkless, he wouldn’t have put his family through this situation. He couldn’t be a hero; but he wouldn’t have been a traitor either. The pain and fear and sorrow weren’t worth the joy and triumph he’d felt during his short time at UA.

“Aoyama?”

His head jerked up at the familiar voice. “Mr. Aizawa?”

Clad in his usual unrelieved black, Yuuga’s former homeroom teacher stood in front of him, hands in his pockets. “Doing all right?”

Tears prickled in the corners of his eyes, and he wiped them away in embarrassment. “I’m...ah, yes, I’m fine.”

Aizawa grunted. He grabbed another of the garden chairs and dragged it around to face Yuuga before settling down in it. “You’re a bad liar, kid.”

Yuuga lowered his head, fighting back another wave of shame and regret. “Actually I think it’s been proven that I’m a rather accomplished liar,” he whispered.

“That’s in the past,” Aizawa countered. “This is now. And now, you’re a terrible liar.”

He didn’t look up. He found himself staring at Aizawa’s knee, tears swimming in his eyes as he thought about the injuries his former teacher had suffered. All because of him. Because his selfishness in the past had followed him, all the way to Japan. 

“I hear you’re back in school,” Aizawa commented, breaking the awkward silence between them.

He nodded, but kept his head down. “Just regular classes for now. My father…he says there are other hero training programs I can apply for, but I don’t know.”

“Well, whenever you’re ready, just let me know. I can write a letter of recommendation for you.”

Now Yuuga looked up, though he could barely see the man through the blur of tears in his eyes. “Why would you do that?”

Aizawa shifted, leaning forward, almost close enough that he could touch Yuuga’s knee. “You might not be my student anymore, but you’re still my kid, Aoyama. Nothing can change that.”

Tears overflowed and streamed down his face, and he meekly accepted the handkerchief Aizawa held out to him. A broad, warm palm landed on his shoulder, and he buried his face in the handkerchief as he cried.

It hurt so much. Pain seemed to bubble up on the inside, trying to find a place to seep out of him. After everything he’d done, every friend he’d betrayed, they’d still chosen to believe in him and stand with him. He’d started leaving his phone off because he couldn’t cope with the countless emails and messages from his former classmates. He’d shut himself up in his room for hours, just trying to find a way to make the pain stop. 

Nothing helped. Nothing worked. Everything just caused more pain.

He calmed himself down after a few moments, clearing his throat before he tried to speak. “Did my parents call you?”

“They’re worried about you.”

Yuuga shrugged. He didn’t want to blame them, but sometimes he did. He couldn’t help it. They’d had the best intentions, they’d had his well-being in mind, but they’d still made a deal with the devil. Now, he had a Quirk his body wasn’t suited for, and he’d been forced to betray the only real friends he’d ever had. 

“Aoyama?”

The gentleness in Aizawa’s voice overwhelmed him. It was too much for someone like him. He didn’t deserve their sympathy and kindness. He shook his head, curling in on himself, and wrapped one hand around his forearm and squeezed.

Bright lines of pain made his hands shake. He tried to focus on that, to will the pain out of his body. It was all too much, like voices in his head were clamoring for his attention. Like he was wrapped in static, or filled with nails from the inside out. Everything hurt, and he needed...he needed….

“Kid, you’re bleeding.”

Yuuga’s eyes shot open, and he stared down at his arm in horror. He hadn’t meant...he’d just wanted to put a little pressure...now Aizawa would know, and he’d tell his parents, and everyone would see what a failure he was. This would be the true last straw and they’d all give up on him—and for the first time he realized he didn’t want them to.

“It’s nothing,” he whispered helplessly. “I’m fine.”

Aizawa was studying him, his dark eye bright with some unspoken emotion. Without another word, his former teacher started pushing one of his sleeves up, exposing the bare skin of his forearm. “They checked us at random, but they never went all the way to the elbow,” he explained gruffly. He shoved his sleeve up past the elbow, giving Yuuga a glimpse of thin, pale scars crisscrossing the skin above and below the crease of his elbow. 

Tears filled Yuuga’s eyes as he stared at the scars, his hand clenching over his forearm.

“I just want to help,” Aizawa said gently. 

Closing his eyes, Yuuga shoved both his sleeves up and held his arms out for Aizawa to see. He hadn’t been brave enough to try anything sharp, but he had his fingernails. Scratching had felt good, like he could finally control something. Like he could let a little of the pain out and make the rest easier to handle.

Aizawa gently took his wrists as the man leaned closer. “Have you cleaned these?”

Yuuga shook his head. He was still tense, trembling, as he waited for the condemnation to come. He was better than this. This was dangerous. He shouldn’t be hurting himself.

“Let’s do that first, then. Okay?”

“I’m sorry,” Yuuga whispered.

“It’s okay.” Aizawa squeezed his wrists before letting go. “I’ll be right back.”

He dropped his head, arms resting across his legs as he heard his former teacher’s footsteps retreat. Would he tell his mother? She’d be devastated if she knew her son was doing something like this, and he didn’t want to cause her any more pain. His father would be disappointed—but worst of all, they’d blame themselves.

Aizawa returned a moment later with a damp towel and the first aid kit from the bathroom. His hands were gentle as he cleaned Yuuga’s arms, applying antibiotic cream and wrapping a clean bandage around the scratches. Yuuga stared as he worked, feeling a twisting nausea rising in his stomach. 

He didn’t deserve this. Aizawa should be yelling at him. Threatening him. Telling him he was a disappointment, that he’d never be a hero. Warning his students to stay away. Telling Yuuga’s parents, his school—everyone. What would they do to punish him?

“Do you have someone to talk to?”

Tears filled his eyes again, but Yuuga angrily shoved them away. “Why aren’t you mad at me?” he demanded. “You should be...you should be mad.”

“Why would I be angry?”

“Because...because I’m letting you down.”

“This doesn’t change my opinion of you, kid. You’re just in pain.”

Yuuga broke down. He leaned forward without thinking, and Aizawa wrapped an arm around his shoulders and pulled him close.

He wasn’t sure how long he cried, but his head hurt and his nose was blocked up when he finally pulled away. There was a big wet spot on the shoulder of Aizawa’s sweatshirt, but Yuuga tried not to look at it.

“My school provided a counselor,” he finally whispered. 

“Is it helping?”

Yuuga shrugged. It was hard to trust somebody new, but the man who came to the school office to visit him seemed nice enough.

“Let me know if it’s not working out. I’ll help you find somebody else, okay?”

He nodded. “Do I have to tell my parents?” Yuuga lifted one arm, staring at the clean bandage wrapped around his forearm.

“Not until you’re ready,” Aizawa replied. “You can always call me, any time. You’re still one of my kids, Aoyama. Remember that.”

He was so tired of crying.

“I think I want to,” he finally said, though his voice was shaking with fear. “Can you…?”

“I can go with you.” Aizawa stood up, resting a hand on Yuuga’s back when he climbed to his feet. “I’ll be right behind you, okay?”

“Okay.” He swallowed hard, taking one shaking step toward the house. Fear still gnawed at his insides, but Aizawa’s hand on his back seemed to lend him some of the man’s strength and confidence.

If he could be brave enough to talk to his parents about this, maybe he could be brave enough to turn his phone on and reconnect with his friends.

Maybe he could even still be brave enough to be a hero.

Chapter Text

Tsu curled up tighter, the hot water bottle hugged to her stomach. She’d been trying so hard to handle this on her own, then Iida found her and lectured her all the way to Recovery Girl’s office. At least she wasn’t the only one—two students in class B had gotten sick from eating the same lunch as her, and rumor had it a few more had fallen ill before Lunch Rush discovered which ingredient was tainted.

The others had gotten help immediately, but Tsu had figured she could handle it on her own. After all, how bad could food poisoning be? She’d just be sick for a day or two and then back to normal, right?

Then she’d nearly collapsed on the way to class, crying from stomach pain and unable to keep anything down, and Iida had escorted her directly to the infirmary.

“How is she?” The familiar rumble of Mr. Aizawa’s voice was soothing, and Tsu lifted her head a little to listen to his conversation.

“She’ll have to wait it out, I’m afraid,” Recovery Girl replied. “Even if this was something I could take care of, her stamina is far too low. Make sure she gets a bland diet and keep an eye on her for the next twenty-four hours. Let me know if she gets worse.”

“Will do.”

Tsu stared at the curtain, waiting for Aizawa to slip through it. He looked down at her, his expression stern, and she found herself blinking back tears. “Sorry,” she croaked.

He sighed heavily, his shoulders slumping. “You’re doing that on purpose.”

She tried to smile, but her stomach cramped and she had to press her lips together to keep from crying out. “I really am sorry,” she finally whispered.

“I don’t know why I even try,” Aizawa retorted. Next thing she knew, he’d leaned down over her bed and lifted her up, cradling her against his chest. “Let me know if you need to throw up. I just washed this sweater.”

There was a coffee stain on his collar. The sharp smell seemed to help Tsu’s nausea, and she moved around until she could rest her head on his shoulder. “When was that?”

“Sometime last week. I think.”

Her stomach cramped again, cutting off any reply she might have made. Tsu let out a groan—the water bottle had started to cool so it wasn’t really helping anymore, except as something to hug. “It hurts,” she whispered.

“I know, kid. We’ll be there soon.”

She closed her eyes, trying to ignore the squirming, knotting sensation in her stomach. It was like her belly was filled with worms, even though it wasn’t really full of anything at this point. They squirmed around, biting her on the inside and crawling up her throat. She coughed, grabbing the front of Aizawa’s sweater. “I…”

He seemed to understand and dropped to one knee, holding her up with one hand and holding her hair back with the other. She retched emptily, the pain in her stomach nearly blinding. Tears and snot ran down her face as she coughed and gagged, and she was pretty sure Aizawa was the only thing keeping her up.

“I’m sorry.” She was crying now. She always cried when she threw up, and she hated it. Aizawa picked her back up, letting her wipe her face on his sleeve before he started walking again. “Your sweater….”

“Hizashi can wash it.”

Their teachers’ marriage was an interesting topic among their classmates. Tsu was pretty sure she understood it—marrying your best friend, even if you weren’t in love, sounded like a good thing to her.

“Doing okay?” Aizawa asked a few minutes later. She nodded, lifting her head to see how far they’d gone. The lights of the student dorms were closer than she expected, and she stared numbly at them as they approached the building.

Aizawa carried her through the door and settled her at one end of the couch, leaning over her to have a quiet conversation with Yaoyorozu, who’d rushed up as soon as she noticed Tsu.

Then there was a comforting sort of bustle around her. Someone hurried up to her room to find her favorite blanket, and someone else took the hot water bottle away to refill it. Aizawa waved her classmates off when they tried to crowd around her, letting her curl up under her blanket with the hot water bottle clutched to her stomach.

“Tsu? I brought you something to drink.”

She peeled back the blanket enough to see Ochako hovering worriedly in front of her, holding out a cup with a straw in it. Tsu looked past her to Aizawa, who nodded.

“You need fluids,” he said gruffly.

“It’ll be easy on your stomach,” Ochako persisted. “Trust me on that,” she added ruefully.

Tsu clumsily reached out a hand, but Ochako just moved the glass closer and steadied it so she could take a drink. It tasted a little bit like ginger ale with a hint of citrus, but there was a little bit of grittiness in the drink that made her think it also had a stomach medicine mixed in. Whatever it was, it was just cold enough that it settled her stomach, and just fizzy enough that it cleared her throat.

Between Ochako and Aizawa’s urging, she drank the entire glass, settling back down under her blanket as soon as she was finished. Her stomach was cramping a little bit less now, but she couldn’t quite keep back the morbid thought that if she got sick again she’d at least have something to throw up this time. It was awful to do it when her stomach was empty.

“Get some sleep,” Aizawa said, resting a hand on her head. “We’ll be here when you wake up.”

…

She slept quietly, her cramping stomach finally allowing her a few hours of peace. Something else woke her up, and she blinked around in confusion for a few seconds before spotting her friend napping in one of the armchairs.

“Ochako?”

The other girl startled, sitting up straight and rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. “Tsu? Are you okay? How are you feeling?”

Movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention—Aizawa was here, too. He was wearing a different shirt now, and Tsu wondered if he’d made Mr. Yamada bring him a clean one or if he just kept a spare in the dorms. None of them really knew what he did when he wasn’t teaching them.

But he was watching her now. “How are you feeling?”

“Better? I think?” Her stomach gurgled, but she couldn’t tell if it was cramping or if she was just hungry. The others heard it, and she felt her cheeks redden when Aizawa and Ochako exchanged an amused glance. “I need to go to the bathroom,” she added.

Aizawa stepped aside as Ochako helped her up and walked with her to the bathroom. She splashed some water on her face when she was finished, and Ochako found a comb one of the other girls had left behind and took a few minutes to tidy Tsu’s hair into a neat braid before they made their way back to the couch.

Tsu settled back on the couch, sitting up this time, and Ochako tucked her blanket around her before running to the kitchen to make her another drink. She felt well enough to hold the glass this time, and leaned her head against Ochako’s shoulder as her friend described what she’d missed in school today. The cafeteria was serving a limited menu until they could make sure everything was safe. A few students had tried to fake food poisoning to get out of class, and Recovery Girl had put the fear of Nedzu into them. Todoroki had checked on her twice while she was sleeping to make sure her water bottle was warm enough, and Midoriya had promised to take extra notes for her until she felt better.

She’d nearly dozed off again when Aizawa reappeared, laying a towel across her lap and settling a small bowl of porridge into it.

“Bakugou made rice porridge while you were asleep,” Ochako explained, grinning at her. “Totally not because you’re sick. He just felt like it. It has nothing to do with you, and he wanted to make sure you knew that.”

Tsu bit back a giggle as Aizawa gave a heavy sigh.

“Just eat what you can,” he said when she looked up at him. “There’s more if you want it later, but let’s see if this settles for now.”

She nodded, taking a small bite of the porridge and waiting for a moment to see if it would stay down.

It did, and she took another bite, enjoying the simple flavor of the porridge. He hadn’t seasoned it too heavily, which was nice, but he also hadn’t left it so bland that it was hard to eat.

Aizawa was watching her, eyebrows raised. Tsu paused for a moment, trying to see if anything felt different. Her stomach was still uneasy, but she thought it felt more like hunger now and less like sickness. “I think it’s okay?” she guessed.

“Okay.” Aizawa settled into one of the arm chairs, crossing one leg over the other. “Let’s hope it stays that way.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. There was egg in the porridge, which she definitely appreciated. She needed a high level of protein in her diet, so she was honestly a little touched that Bakugou had made it like this.

Now, if only his attitude could be more like his cooking.

Chapter Text

Natsuo rolled his shoulder and twisted his neck, letting out a sigh of satisfaction when he heard the bones pop. His train had been delayed, so he’d gotten to the bus stop too late—not that it mattered. He was just meeting the rest of his family (well, the ones he acknowledged) for dinner; it wasn’t the end of the world if he had to wait for the next bus.

Mom and Fuyumi were still living on campus, thanks to Dabi’s video, and of course Shouto was still there. He knew his mom was a little hurt that Shouto hadn’t wanted to live with her after everything was settled, but to be honest he couldn’t blame his brother. Their family was just too messed up, and he would have gotten out himself if he could’ve.

“Kaminari! Do not set foot off the curb!”

The name sounded familiar, and Natsuo craned his neck until he could see the group standing on the opposite side of the street. Sure enough, the sheepish-looking blond kid was one of the other boys Aizawa had taken in, and he was pretty sure the tall kid with glasses was also in Shouto’s class.

Then the door to the store behind them opened, and another familiar figure stepped out. Natsuo raised a hand in greeting as soon as Aizawa noticed, though he didn’t bother trying to yell across the street. They had to cross the street to get to the bus stop anyway, so he might as well save his breath.

He did wonder why Aizawa was escorting the two boys to a shoe store. What kind of trouble could they possibly get into just looking at shoes?

Traffic was pretty busy in this part of town, which was probably why the tall kid had been scolding Kaminari. Natsuo let his mind wander as the cars streamed past in front of him. It had been years since he’d had his mom’s cooking. He wondered if Shouto had talked her into making soba for dinner, or if Fuyumi convinced her to make something else.

He barely remembered their family before everything went bad. He’d helped her make croquettes a few times—though he’d been so young that he mostly stood on a stool next to her and watched her cook them. Fuyumi had just been learning to cook then, and he’d made her cry by making fun of her misshapen dumplings.

The traffic in front of him slowed, and he lifted his head to watch the light at the crosswalk change. Across the street, it looked like Aizawa was physically restraining Kaminari, who was probably saying traffic was slow enough that he could run across.

Someone knocked into him from behind, and Natsuo took a couple of staggered steps into the street to try to keep his balance. The light had changed—the street should have been clear—but someone screamed, tires screeched, and something collided with his left hip hard enough to knock him off his feet.

He rolled onto the hood of the car, shoulders slamming into the windshield, then back off it as the car swerved away from him and took off down the street.

Hands caught him before he hit the pavement, lowering him gently to the ground. Natsuo got a glimpse of the tall boy in glasses before he was off, fast enough that a gust of wind blew road grit into Natsuo’s eyes.

“Natsuo, don’t move.” Aizawa was there, too. Kneeling next to him, one hand on his shoulder. “Denki’s calling an ambulance. Just keep still.”

He spotted the blond kid behind Aizawa, face pale and eyes wide, but pain was rolling over him and he couldn’t spare any more attention.

“Did you hit your head?”

Natsuo sucked in a breath and coughed it back out. He felt like his leg was shattered, but there was no way the car was going fast enough for that, not on this street. The femur was the strongest bone in the human body; this couldn’t have been enough force to break it.

“Natsuo?”

“Not head,” he managed to pant out. “Hip and...and back.”

“You went up on your stomach and rolled,” Aizawa replied. “Come on, kid, you know your stuff. What kind of injuries does that cause?”

He licked his lips. Internal bleeding was one possibility. Bone fractures, muscle and ligament tears. “Can’t breathe,” he finally gasped.

“How about your stomach? Any pain there?”

There was a sharp pain in his side, and he was almost sure he was bleeding. Had he impaled himself on the car’s hood ornament? “Did you...get his number?”

“Iida’s running him down. Ambulance?” Aizawa called over his shoulder.

“Almost here—he’s still conscious, yes...no, my dad’s with him.”

He could hear the sirens now. Natsuo didn’t realize he’d reached out until Aizawa grabbed his hand. He swallowed, staring up at the man, words caught in his throat.

“You’re gonna be just fine, Natsuo,” Aizawa said evenly. “Just fine, all right?”

Then the ambulance was here. Uniformed paramedics took over, ushering Aizawa back. Natsuo tried to answer their questions, but his words kept slurring together. Panic and pain knocked together in his chest, making his head spin. They strapped a brace around his neck and rolled him onto a gurney.

The tall kid—Iida—had returned, and he and Kaminari were standing some distance away watching the whole thing. Aizawa was closer, and he stepped in when the paramedics prepared to load Natsuo into the ambulance. “Mic’s on the way to get the kids. Do you want me to come with you?”

He nodded. He was willing to grasp onto anything familiar—hell, if Aizawa had offered to just toss one of his kids in the ambulance to go with him, he’d probably have accepted that. His body hurt and his head spun and the events of the afternoon were swirling together. Had he been helping his mom make croquettes or was that just a memory? And why was Fuyumi crying? Where was Shouto?

“It’s family only, sir,” one of the paramedics said, blocking Aizawa’s entrance.

“I’m family,” the man replied.

“You can’t come with us, I’m sorry.”

“He’s...” Natsuo began, hesitating. Aizawa was...what? His brother’s legal guardian? Foster father? Aizawa was family in a weird, mixed-up way that had more to do with him pulling Shouto out of the hell their home had become than anything to do with Natsuo’s life. If anything, he was… “my stepdad,” he finished lamely, though even that didn’t make sense.

The paramedic stepped aside anyway, letting Aizawa into the ambulance.

“Is that the best you could come up with?” Aizawa whispered as they started moving.

“You’re complicated,” Natsuo mumbled.

…

“Your stepdad.”

Natsuo sighed, staring up at Aizawa. “I couldn’t think, okay? Was I supposed to lay out my entire family history?”

Fractured hip and two ribs. Internal bleeding. He’d managed to avoid hitting his head, but he’d sprained the tendons in his neck and torn a muscle in his shoulders. They were keeping him overnight for observation, then he’d probably be moving in with his mom and sister temporarily, since living alone while his injuries healed sounded like a bad idea.

“You know this means people will think I married Endeavor, right?” Aizawa asked. He was keeping Natsuo company while they waited for his family to arrive. Mom, Fuyumi, and Shouto were on their way, even though he’d told them they didn’t have to.

“Why couldn’t you have married my mother?” he countered.

“She’s way out of my league,” the man replied. “I mean, your father is too, but in the other direction.” He made a sharp downward gesture with his thumb, and Natsuo bit back a snort of laughter.

He relaxed into the bed, staring up at the ceiling. Aizawa said Iida had caught the driver, and the camera at the crossing had recorded the whole thing. The man who’d bumped into him claimed to have done so accidentally, but police were still looking into him just in case. Anti-hero sentiment was still circulating in their society, and being related to both the former number one hero and one of UA’s rising stars wasn’t doing Natsuo any favors.

“Stepdad.”

Natsuo groaned. “I said I was sorry.” He covered his face, but he couldn’t quite hide the smile in his voice. He’d never been able to talk to his own father like that. Maybe he didn’t need a dad the way Shouto did...but it was still kind of nice to have Aizawa in his corner.

“You know that’s how I adopted Kaminari, right? He called me dad one day, and that was it.”

“I’m twenty.”

“So?”

He tried to think up a reply, but there were footsteps in the corridor outside and then the door to his room was flung open.

And Fuyumi was there, tears streaming down her face, grabbing his hand and pestering and scolding him in turns. Mom was there, brushing his hair back to kiss his forehead, saying how glad she was that he was all right. And Shouto, standing awkwardly in the background until Fuyumi dragged him in.

Meanwhile, Aizawa watched on, apart from their little family yet somehow a part of it.

It was odd, but it worked for them, and Natsuo wouldn’t have it any other way.

Chapter Text

“You deserve this.”

Hitoshi sat on the roof of the dorms, back against the outer wall of the stairwell, head tipped up to star at the stars.

It was just one of those nights. One of his classmates would say something innocuous, but it would stick in Hitoshi’s head and spiral out into other thoughts. He’d pull away, tucking himself off in some out-of-the-way place until the voices quieted back down, so he didn’t end up snapping and exploding at everyone.

Uraraka had meant well. The scores had come back after their latest practical exam, and he’d scored high enough that no one could doubt he’d earned his place in the hero course. She’d been trying to congratulate him. They all knew he’d been working his ass off, but he hadn’t expected to score in the top ten.

But those words stirred painful memories in his soul, and he’d slipped away while the others were busy with dinner. They’d probably notice he was gone and look for him, but he’d barred the door to the roof so he wouldn’t be disturbed.

“You deserve this.”

Those words...snarled into his ear as rough hands tightened the muzzle straps. The six weeks he’d spent stealing the old hag’s weight loss shakes because his jaw was buckled down so tight he could only eat through a straw. Getting locked outside for being the last one home—curfew was a joke to the old bastard that ran that particular home. He didn’t care what time the kids came in, but whoever showed up last would find themselves locked out.

They said he deserved it all. For not being grateful for what was provided, for falling asleep at the table because he’d been up most of the night trying to finish the impossibly long list of chores he’d been assigned, for rolling his eyes when whatever sanctimonious asshole he was living with lectured him about how evil his Quirk was.

Hitoshi shifted around to dig into his jacket pocket, pulling out a familiar creased and dirty pack of cigarettes. He’d stolen it from a foster parent a few years ago, but he hadn’t bothered to smoke more than a couple of the cigarettes. The pack had been about half full when he grabbed it, and there were still six cigarettes in it now.

He’d held it so often it practically molded to his hand now. The last time he’d smoked had been right before the entrance exam, when his screaming nerves had finally gotten the better of him. He’d just been kicked out of a home and had spent the night on the floor of the welfare office while they tried to arrange his placement in Diet Tartarus. His new caseworker. Ms. Tsurino, had driven him to the exam and even let him leave his suitcase in her car. Then after, she’d driven him straight to Diet Tartarus and left him in another nightmare.

Still, it hadn’t been as bad as the cigarette house. 8 pm curfews and sharing a room with seven other kids was nothing compared to the cigarette house.

Hitoshi stuffed his hand into his pocket, the cigarette pack still clenched in his fist. The cigarette house had a basement, where you could get locked up if you misbehaved. If you were really bad, the basement had a closet.

He’d only been there a few weeks, but he’d spent an awful lot of time shut up in that closet. It was cramped and dark and damp, and you had no way of knowing how much time passed before they let you out. They’d forgotten him for a full day once and blamed it on him.

It really wasn’t any wonder that he preferred open places like the roof when he was feeling like this.

The cigarettes were out of his pocket again. He stared at them for a long moment, running his thumb along one of the creases.

He’d stolen the cigarettes on his way out of the house. Just grabbed the pack off the counter and stuffed it in his pocket when no one was looking. He hadn’t even wanted to smoke them; he’d just wanted to take something away from them. They’d probably barely noticed the loss and had only blamed each other, but he didn’t care about that. He’d taken something from them, after they’d taken so much from him.

“Are you just looking, or do I need to stop you?”

Panic flooded his system, and he shoved the pack in his pocket and tried to back away from the shadow standing above him. Excuses flooded through his mind, flashing between the thoughts of the usual punishments he received for something like this.

Basement. Muzzle. Chores. Words. You deserve this. The darkness, the pain, the silence, the shame, the fear...you deserve this...deserve this...deserve….

“Hitoshi.”

The voice broke through his spiral, and the shadow wasn’t standing above him anymore. It was near a roof light, squatting on its heels, the faint glow illuminating the familiar face of his current foster father.

“You’re panicking.”

“W-what?” Hitoshi’s voice was sharp to his own ears. He wasn’t panicking. He was just...he knew what came next, and...he wasn’t supposed to be here, wasn’t supposed to have these. “I wasn’t smoking.”

“That’s good. Can you come over to me? I’d come to you, but I’d have to stand up, if that’s okay.”

“Huh?” As he stared, Aizawa reached out a hand toward him. He was only a few steps away, and Hitoshi stared at his hand for a few seconds.

“We can stay apart if you want, but I know physical touch helps you. It’s up to you, though. You get to decide what happens next, okay?”

He licked his lips. Everything felt mixed up in his head—he knew Aizawa was safe, but part of him didn’t believe it. He didn’t deserve it anyway, after the way he’d just acted. Aizawa would see how screwed up he was and give up on him. He’d never be enough for anyone, and just get shuffled off to the next poor loser dumb enough to get stuck with him.

“I’m not moving until you do, Hitoshi. I promise.”

Slowly, he shuffled closer, reaching out until he could touch Aizawa’s hand. The man still didn’t move, and Hitoshi forced himself to move in even closer, until that arm could wrap around him and he could rest his shaking head on his foster father’s shoulder.

Except that wasn’t right, was it? “Did you really adopt me?” he mumbled.

“I did,” Aizawa replied clearly. “I’ve got the paperwork at home, whenever you need to see it. This is permanent, kid; you’re never going away.”

He nodded. “Sometimes I forget.”

“I know. It’s okay, I can always remind you.”

“Okay.” He felt strangely exhausted, like all the energy had been wrung out of him in the last few minutes. “How did you get up here? I blocked the door.”

“The day I need to be inside a building to get on top of it is the day I turn in my scarf,” Aizawa replied blandly. “I climbed.”

He tried to smile, but his face felt too tired. Aizawa moved around so he was sitting instead of squatting, still keeping Hitoshi tucked in against his side. “Wanna tell me about the cigarettes?”

“I don’t smoke them,” he explained quietly. “They’re just...a reminder.”

“Yeah?”

“We don’t always get what we deserve.”

Aizawa sighed. “That’s true.” He cleared his throat, and Hitoshi glanced up at him. “Did I ever tell you I had my own Diet Tartarus?”

He shrugged. He’d already figured out Aizawa had spent some time in the system as a kid, but he didn’t know how long. “You ever live out of a suitcase for so long you forget how to unpack?”

The man gave a soft chuckle. “When Hizashi and I were first roommates, right after graduation, he didn’t understand why I didn’t want to keep more clothes than would fit in one suitcase. Took me a while to figure out no one was gonna make me leave.”

Hitoshi smiled. “How many?” he finally asked.

Aizawa shifted. “I don’t remember. You?”

“Twelve, I think. There was this one group home I went back to a couple of times, but everything else was just once.”

The arm around his shoulder tightened, and Hitoshi let his head rest against Aizawa’s shoulder. “But no more, right? You’re not going anywhere. Right, kid?”

He closed his eyes, exhaustion threatening to pull him under now that his panic had subsided. “Right...Dad.”

Chapter Text

“You can do this, Ochako,” she muttered, staring at herself in the mirror. She’d followed the directions, disinfected everything, and marked her earlobes. “It can’t hurt that much, right? You’ve had worse than this.”

Two disposable piercing guns lay on the edge of her sink. She picked the first one up, lined it up with her earlobe...and hesitated.

“Come on, come on.” Gritting her teeth, she flexed her fingers a few times to try to relax her hands. “It’s not a big deal. People do this every day. This is what you wanted, right? You can do this.”

She held the piercing gun with one hand and her ear with the other, pinching the base of the helix, right above the lobe, to keep it steady. And then….

It felt like she’d heard a gunshot, even though it hadn’t even been that loud. Ochako dropped the piercing gun and leaned on her sink, teeth clenched and eyes squeezed shut.

“It’s not bad, see?” she hissed out. “Not bad at all. You can’t go back now, so stop being a baby about it.”

She picked up the second piercing gun and tried to line it up. This one was a little more awkward, since she didn’t want to switch to her non-dominant hand. No matter how she tried to steady her ear, her other hand just got in the way, so she had to settle for holding her hair back and hoping she could get this one right.

“One more time. You can do it.”

Another puncture. Another jolt through her body, another piercing gun discarded on the floor.

Ochako leaned against the sink and breathed for a moment, then lifted her head and tucked her hair behind her ears. Two dull metal studs now sat in her earlobes, the skin around them red and inflamed. She frowned and leaned forward, twisting her head one way and then the other. They weren’t perfectly even, but that was okay. No one would notice that.

Her right ear was bleeding a little. She grabbed a tissue and gingerly dabbed at the piercing until it stopped, then gathered up the used piercing guns and all the other garbage to tuck into her school bag. She could throw them away in one of the school bathrooms, and no one would know they were hers.

Iida definitely wouldn’t approve of her doing something like this, but he didn’t have to know. Her hair normally covered her ears anyway.

This could be her little secret.

…

Ochako rested her elbow on her desk and started to lean her head against her hand, but thought better of it. Her ears were still tender after her piercing, and she didn’t want to hurt herself in the middle of class. She settled for resting her chin in her hand instead, her eyes nearly glazing over as the lecture droned on.

She hadn’t expected the piercings to affect her life so much. It had been almost a week and they were still so sore, the skin around them puffy and hot even though she cleaned them every day just like the directions said. It made it a little hard to sleep at night, since she usually slept on her side or her stomach. She had to lie on her back now to keep from putting pressure on either ear, and that just wasn’t comfortable.

The bell finally rang, dismissing them from class, and Ochako stuffed her books and papers into her backpack before standing up to shrug it on. Her hand brushed her ear and she had to hold herself still for a moment as her entire ear flared with pain.

“Ochako?”

“I’m fine,” she replied, smiling brightly at Tsu. “Go on without me; I’ll catch up in a second.”

She hurried down the hall and ducked into the girls’ restroom. Grabbing a paper towel, Ochako wet it with cold water from the tap and gently pressed it to her stinging ear. She pulled it away when it got warm, frowning at the spots of blood on the paper towel.

“It’s only been one week,” she said to her reflection as she pushed her hair back to get a look at her ear. “The directions said to leave these in for six, so it’ll stop hurting once it heals. Right?”

Her earlobe was swollen and red and hot to the touch, and it hurt just looking at it. Ochako wet the paper towel again and pressed it to her earlobe, watching a drop of blood bead up around the piercing stud.

“I’m gonna be late,” she muttered, shoving her hair back into place and throwing the paper towel away before bolting out the door.

…

It was supposed to get worse before it got better, right?

Ochako’s earlobes seemed to throb in time with her pulse, and the pain seemed to travel up her ears to wrap around her brain. She had a headache almost all the time now, and she’d lost so much sleep she was starting to feel like she had the flu.

She’d been putting ice on them whenever she could, to help with the swelling, and that seemed to help as long as the ice was there. The moment she took it away, the pain came back in full force.

“I wonder what we’re doing today?” Ashido said cheerily. “It’s not just a normal practical lesson if they want us in our costumes.”

Ochako nodded, barely paying attention to the other girls talking around her. She tried to smile and add in her own comments, but her head was aching even more today and the heat in her ears seemed to have traveled to the back of her neck.

“Ochako?”

“I’m fine!” she replied, waving Tsu away. “Just a little tired. Haven’t been sleeping all that well, you know?”

Turning her back on the others, she fastened her costume up and strapped the breastplate in place. Boots were next, then her gloves, then her helmet. She shook her hair back and tugged her helmet on, then shoved it off with a gasp of pain.

Someone was calling her name, but she couldn’t answer. Her eyes were slammed shut, her body coiled tight as the throbbing in her ears seemed to crawl all over her head. She cupped her hands over her ears as her friends clustered around her, and flinched away when someone touched her hand.

They caught her wrist anyway, gently pulling her hand down and pushing her hair back. Someone gasped. Ashido muttered a word she’d learned from Bakugou—or maybe taught to him.

The girls were moving and talking around her, but Ochako just kept her eyes closed and her head lowered. Big, stupid tears burned in her eyes. She should have known this wasn’t normal. She should have taken the earrings out when they’d first started to hurt and forgotten about the whole thing.

“Ururaka?”

She opened her eyes, but didn’t raise her head. “This is the girls’ locker room,” she mumbled.

“I can see that,” Aizawa replied dryly. “Can you walk?”

Ochako nodded. She felt dumb and stupid. Like he was her dad and she was in big trouble. Aizawa said something to the other girls and ushered them out toward the training field, then placed a hand on Ochako’s shoulder to gently steer her out the other door.

“I can just take them out,” she offered weakly, once she realized Aizawa was ushering her toward the infirmary.

“I think we’re beyond that, kid.”

Tears rolled down her cheeks, but she didn’t try to wipe them away. It just felt so pointless. Her body was hot and heavy and her joints ached. “I’m sorry.”

Aizawa sighed. “Did you pierce these yourself?”

She nodded.

“Then I’ll allow it this once.”

Their steps finally led them to the infirmary, and Aizawa helped her sit on one of the beds while Recovery Girl finished some paperwork at her desk.

“And what do we have here?” Recovery Girl asked, peering up at Ochako.

“Looks like an infection,” Aizawa commented sitting in the stool next to the bed as Recovery Girl studied Ochako’s ears.

“Oh dear. Did you do these yourself?”

“Yeah.” She was feeling stupider by the moment.

“Ah, yes. You have to be careful with those, young lady. Those little disposable piercing guns aren’t always properly sterilized, and it’s very difficult to sterilize them yourself. I’m going to have to remove these earrings and clean your ears up before I can do anything about this infection, so just hold on tight.”

There was pressure on her knee, and she looked up to see Aizawa had rested his hand on it, palm up. She looked up further to meet his gaze, and there was a hint of sympathy hidden in his usual bland expression.

“Hizashi and...a few others tried these a few times in high school,” he commented as Recovery Girl set a tray of tools on the bed beside Ochako. “It usually ended like this.”

Recovery Girl’s touch was gentle, but Ochako still flinched when the nurse pulled at the stud in her earlobe. She squeezed Aizawa’s hand, screwing her eyes closed and clenching her teeth as Recovery Girl slowly worked the stud out.

“How long ago did you do this?” the nurse asked.

“Eight days.”

“Any headaches? Body aches? Feeling sick?”

“Yes,” she replied in a small voice.

“Your infection is quite severe in both ears,” Recovery Girl said, moving on to Ochako’s other ear. “There’s not much I can do for the infection beyond closing up these piercings and giving your body a little boost. We can do the rest with antibiotics, and you should be feeling much better in a few days. Take this as a lesson, Miss Uraraka. Don’t do this yourself. If you want to get your ears pierced, find a licensed clinic to do it for you.”

She opened her eyes, meeting Aizawa’s gaze with a rueful smile. “I just wanted to save some money,” she whispered. The piercing guns didn’t cost nearly as much as a visit to a clinic—and also didn’t require her parents’ permission. She’d just wanted to take care of it on her own.

“Some things aren’t worth saving money for,” he replied. “These could have gone septic.”

“They weren’t that bad yet, Shouta,” Recovery Girl scolded. “Mr. Shirakumo had it much worse, if I recall, and you and Mr. Yamada had to carry him in here.”

Ochako didn’t recognize the name, but one glance at Aizawa’s face made her hold her tongue. “I really am sorry,” she said, catching Aizawa’s attention.

He leveled a glare at her that could still stop any of them in their tracks, even if he was missing an eye now. “I gave you the first one, kid. You don’t get another.”

A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “But I-”

He held a hand up to stop her. “No.”

Chapter Text

“Bakubro, what’d you get for number eight?”

“Tell me your answer first.”

“Don’t be like that, man. I’m just asking.”

“You trying to cheat off me, shitty-hair?”

Mina yawned, trying to block out the sound of the boys arguing. She’d only asked to study with Bakugou and Kirishima because they were so loud they might help her stay awake, but it wasn’t working. “I’m gonna get a glass of water, you guys want anything?” she asked, breaking up their argument.

“I’m good,” Kirishima said cheerfully. “Thanks for asking.”

Bakugou glared at her suspiciously. “What’s up with you today? You’re spacier than normal.”

“I’m just thirsty.” She shoved her chair out and stood up. “I’m just getting some water. I’ll be right back.”

Mina turned away, walking toward the kitchen. She only had a few steps before it hit, and she definitely didn’t want to be facing the boys when it happened.

The dizziness started. It felt like it crawled up from her toes to her scalp. Her ears fuzzed over and her vision went wonky, so she closed her eyes and fumbled her way into the kitchen. She leaned on the counter for a moment, eyes closed, and tried to take a few deep breaths and wait for the dizziness to pass.

“Okay, Mina. Come on!” She slapped her cheeks and tried to shake the feeling off. It would be okay. She just needed to push through this week, then she could sleep as much as she wanted.

Her head was pounding now. She crossed over to the fridge and yanked it open, studying the row of brightly-colored energy drinks stashed in the door. Everyone said these were bad for teenagers, but Aizawa technically hadn’t said they couldn’t buy them, and as long as they kept him supplied with coffee he looked the other way.

“Thought you were getting water.”

She yelped, spinning around with a hand pressed to her chest. “You scared the hell out of me, Blasty!”

He stalked in, getting in a little too close for comfort to stare at her. “You’re looking more raccoon than usual. Wanna tell me what’s wrong?”

Mina pushed him away with a huff. “I’m just hungry, okay? I just wanted to get a snack...if that’s okay?”

“No.” He put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her out the door. “I’m making dinner. Get out of my kitchen and go sit back down with the idiot.”

“It’s not your kitchen,” she protested. He shoved a bottle of water into her hands and gave her a meaningful glare. Mina sighed. “If you’re making curry, I want okra,” she called over her shoulder.

“You’ll get what I give you and you’ll be happy about it!” he snarled back, sending her into a fit of giggles.

She didn’t head straight back to their table, making a detour for the girls’ bathroom instead. They kept a little cabinet stocked with some basic necessities—mostly feminine products and pain relievers. Mina fished out a bottle of migraine medicine and shook out a couple of pills, swallowing them down with a swig from her water bottle.

So what if Bakugou blocked her from the energy drinks? Migraine medicine had caffeine, and it would be just the boost she needed to get through the rest of the evening without falling asleep.

…

Mina smothered a yawn behind her hand, staring at the back of Shinsou’s head as the lesson droned on. Why did class even matter at this point? They were all war heroes now anyway...why did they still need high school? She could probably drop out right now, and there would still be agencies knocking down her door hoping to recruit her.

“Miss Ashido?”

Uh-oh, Ectoplasm was calling on her. She smothered another yawn, staring at the board. None of it made sense. “Um...three?”

Someone chuckled. Mina fixed a bright smile on her face, staring up at the teacher.

Ectoplasm gave a heavy sigh and turned back to the board. “Incorrect. If sine is the ratio of the opposite side of the hypotenuse, then cosine is the ratio of the adjacent side.”

Right. Triangles again. She rested her chin on her hand and stared at the board while Ectoplasm lectured, hoping she could just soak this stuff up subconsciously. Her conscious mind couldn’t seem to focus, and she kept finding herself staring off into space as time slid by around her.

Shinsou’s hair was a lot more interesting anyway. She didn’t think he gelled it into place, but it still stuck up every which way. Maybe Kaminari shocked him every morning to make his hair stand up like that.

“Miss Ashido?”

She jumped, staring up at Ectoplasm as he called her name. He’d drawn a triangle on the board and covered it with squiggles she couldn’t possibly read, and was tapping a blank space with his chalk.

“I don’t suppose it’s three?” she guessed.

“It’s not,” he replied sternly. “Mr. Satou, you seem to have been paying attention. What do you think?”

Mina let her mind drift again as Satou answered. She was a hero; she didn’t need to learn about triangles anyway.

…

She sat on the ground, cross-legged, trying to focus as Aizawa and All Might explained their next practical lesson. She’d been hoping they’d get to do another obstacle course...that had been fun, even if she’d gotten disqualified when she slipped off the climbing wall.

Well, it was fun except for the part where Sero got hurt and they had to rush him to the hospital. But All Might had talked about doing another one without a water hazard, for safety, and said he’d let them try out everything once class was over.

Her head was pounding, and the sunlight above seemed way too bright for this time of year. She’d managed to down an energy drink on her way to class, and was praying any second for the caffeine to kick in and wake her back up. Mina found herself relying more and more on caffeine to stay awake during the day, which made it harder to sleep at nigh, which made her need more caffeine during the day. She knew it was a nasty cycle, but didn’t see any way to break it until their next break.

It was just a couple weeks away. She could hold out until then. Then she’d cut caffeine for the whole break and do nothing but catch up on her sleep, returning to class fully rested and victorious.

“Ashido, you’re next.”

Whoops. She hadn’t really been listening, and didn’t quite know what today’s exercise was.

Mina climbed to her feet, already smiling, ready to apologize for not paying attention. Aizawa was used to that. He’d explain it again, and….

Static filled her ears. She stumbled, her vision blurring, hands reaching out blindly to catch herself on something. Anything. Her knees buckled, the static in her ears rose in pitch to a whine, and her vision went fully dark.

A hand caught hers. She lurched toward it, letting her savior grab her other arm to hold her up. The whine in her ears was deafening and she felt sick to her stomach. There was pressure in her nose, her face, her ears. Dizziness crawled over her head, leaving her hands and feet feeling weak. Too weak to stand, too weak to hold on to whoever was in front of her.

“We’re going down now. I won’t let you fall; I’m just helping you lie down for your own safety.”

She tipped back, a strong hand supporting her shoulders. Her vision had started to come back by the time Aizawa laid her down, and she found herself staring up into his concerned face.

“That was bad,” she whispered. Her head was pounding now. It was behind her eyes and across the bridge of her nose, echoing in her ears with her heartbeat.

“I need—thank you, Iida.” Aizawa had turned away for a moment, but Iida had already appeared at his side with a chair. He gently lifted Mina’s legs to set them on the chair—at least they were in their tracksuits for their practical lesson and she wasn’t flashing everyone—then accepted the ice pack Iida handed him to place behind Mina’s neck.

She draped an arm over her eyes, barely hearing when Iida announced that he’d called Recovery Girl, or when Aizawa sent the rest of her class off to finish their lesson with All Might.

“Wanna tell me what’s going on?” he asked, once the others had given them some room.

“I think I fainted,” Mina mumbled.

“Yeah, I noticed.”

“Thanks for catching me.”

He grunted. “When was the last time you ate?”

“Um...at lunch? I’m eating enough, I swear!” she pulled her arm down to stare up at him. “I had eggs for breakfast, and we all got soba for lunch because Todoroki seemed down this morning...oh, and I had a snack before class. I haven’t been skipping meals or anything, I promise.”

“It’s okay. I believe you.” He patted her shoulder, and she nodded with a shaky sigh. “How about sleeping?”

She froze. “I slept last night?”

“Are you asking me or telling me?”

“Um...telling you?”

“Ashido.”

“I did!”

Aizawa shook his head. “How long?”

Mina shrugged. “Enough.”

“Eight hours?”

She shrugged again. “Something like that.”

He was still staring at her. Mina fidgeted under his gaze, unable to hold eye contact with him. “Okay, maybe not that much.”

Aizawa didn’t answer. She bit her lip, still not able to look at him. “Look, I know it’s not enough, but I’m going to catch up on the next break, I promise.”

“It doesn’t work like that, kid.”

“It does! I’ll come back totally fine, and—”

“And keep fainting in the meantime?”

Mina looked back at him. She didn’t have an answer, so she just lay in the grass like an idiot while her homeroom teacher stared at her.

He sighed. “I’m excusing you from classes for the rest of the day so you can get some rest.”

“That’s not—“

“It’s a safety issue, Ashido. You need to sleep.”

Her body was buzzing from the energy drink she’d had before class, but it didn’t seem to reach her head. Everything was bright and sharp, and she covered her eyes again to block out the light.

“Do I need to tell Iida to keep an eye on you?” Aizawa asked.

“No,” she replied sulkily. It wouldn’t matter anyway. Bakugou would figure out what was going on and personally enforce a new curfew for her. “Can I go back to my dorm then?”

“After Recovery Girl takes a look at you.”

She could already hear the tap of the old lady’s cane. Mina heaved out a heavy sigh and rolled her legs off the chair, ignoring Aizawa’s offered hand to sit up on her own. He patted the top of her head, like she was one of the boys, and she sighed and rolled her eyes at him. He grinned back at her, and she couldn’t quite keep the smile off her face.

“What have your children done now, Shouta?” Recovery Girl scolded as soon as she came into view. “I warned you that if I found any of them passing out from exhaustion, I’d take it out on you.” She rapped Aizawa on the knee before crouching slightly to study Mina’s face.

“I—” she began, but the nurse cut her off.

“Well, I can help you metabolize some of that caffeine, but we’d better get you to the infirmary first so you can sleep it off. Shouta?”

Aizawa gently took Mina’s arm and helped her to her feet. She swayed a little, but he didn’t let go until she was steady. “Thanks,” she whispered.

He patted her arm. “Go get some rest.

Chapter Text

“Go, Riot! Get him out of here!”

Eijirou shouted his reply, ducking down to tug one of Amajiki’s arms across his shoulders. “Fat Gum says he’s got this; let’s go.”

Amajiki didn’t reply, stumbling to his feet when Eijiro pulled him up. His manifestations were fading away, leaving him on unsteady human legs. A handful of thin metal darts littered the ground around them, and Eijirou paused long enough to stuff a few into one of his belt pouches before half-carrying Amajiki away from the scene of battle.

“Sorry about this,” he finally mumbled, once they’d managed to dodge around a corner. “Leave me here. I’m okay.”

“Don’t even worry about it,” he said brightly. Amajiki had his head lowered and his hood pulled down over his eyes, and Eijirou was sure current attitude had more to do with what the villains had said than his situation. The villain—who’d been throwing the darts around with some kind of magnetic Quirk—had said they were big game tranquilizers perfect for taking down a monster like Amajiki.

Eijriou was pretty sure the villain had brought them to try to take down Fat Gum, but when they hadn’t managed to hit the hero they’d turned their attention to his sidekick and intern. The darts had just bounced off Eijirou, but they’d eventually found a weak point in Amajiki’s armor.

He finally found a shadowy spot in an alley, behind a delivery truck that was parked a little crooked, and lowered Amajiki to the ground. “You okay here while I go back?”

Amajiki nodded, trying to push Eijirou’s shoulder. “I’ll be fine.” His voice was slurring and he could barely keep his head up, but Eijirou hoped he’d be safe enough here. He patted Amajiki on the shoulder one last time before turning to run back to his mentor.

The hair on the back of his neck stood on end, and Eijirou threw himself forward, expecting something to collide with the wall behind him as he dodged. He miscalculated, and someone plowed into him from the side hard enough that he found himself embedded a few inches into the wall. Pain exploded through his left shoulder, and he clenched his teeth as he fought to keep himself focused through the pain.

He’d activated his Quirk a split-second too late. The collision with the wall had wrenched his shoulder out of place, and hardening himself had only made it worse. His arm was locked down in place, hanging uselessly at his side, but he forced that pain from his mind as he faced down his attacker.

The man in front of him was tall and muscular with broad, rounded shoulders. His hairy chest and forearms peeked out of the collar and cuffs of his T-shirt, and a wide set of low, curved horns sprouted from the bony mass on his forehead. A heteromorphic Quirk, then—some kind of ox, or maybe buffalo.

Eijirou ducked when the man charged him again. He had to shove his pain to the side, even though every move seemed to wrench at his dislocated shoulder. The ox villain spun on his heel, bringing a massive fist around in an overhand punch. Eijirou braced his legs and raised his right arm to block, strengthening the hardening on his body even though it sent another spasm of red-hot pain through his shoulder.

He had to stop this guy here. Amajiki wasn’t too far away, and Eijirou wasn’t sure how many darts had hit him. Even if he wasn’t unconscious, he wasn’t in a state to fight, especially against someone like this.

The ox villain let out a bellow of challenge and lowered his head to charge again. Eijirou waited until the last possible second then dropped to the ground, releasing his Quirk at the same time to reduce his size, and rolled to the side so he just missed the villain’s rampaging feet.

Then he was up on his feet again, his vision swimming when he reactivated his hardening, his fingers going numb as pain flared across his back and collarbone. “That all you got?” Eijirou hissed out between gritted teeth. He backed up a few steps as he issued the challenge—they weren’t too far from the alley’s opening, and he wanted to draw this guy further away from Amajiki.

Another charge. Eijirou feinted to one side, then took a step forward and swung his right arm in an uppercut to deliver a powerful punch to the villain’s solar plexus.

It wasn’t enough. He clenched his teeth, swiveling around to aim a kick at the villain’s neck, but the man seized his foot and swung him into the air. Eijirou let out a shout of mingled frustrating and pain, hardening himself again as the villain threw him back down the way they’d come—closer to Amajiki now.

He hit the ground hard. His vision went dark for a moment from the pain, but he managed to roll himself up to his feet. The ground was shaking as the ox villain charged, and Eijiriou braced himself for the attack. He shuffled closer to the wall, then launched himself out of the way just in time to avoid contact.

This time he didn’t bother to try to fight; he just ran. Toward the other end of the alley, praying Amajiki would stay hidden as they passed. He didn’t bother to glance over his shoulder, as he could hear the villain chasing him well enough. The pounding steps were getting closer and closer—this man was fast—and Eijirou braced himself at every step for another attack.

They reached the mouth of the alley, and Eijirou dodged around the corner as the villain made a grab for him. He fumbled with his pouch—he’d put the darts on the left side, but his left arm was useless. He had to wrap his arm around his body to reach it.

He’d grabbed three darts. One of them was heavier than the others, and he clenched that one in his fist as he ducked around to face the ox villain again. The man was covered in heavy muscle, but muscle didn’t mean armor. Eijirou braced himself, raising his right hand in a defensive position with the dart hidden in his fist. “That all you got?”

He’d already said that in the alley...but his shoulder was killing him, so it wasn’t like he was in a position to think up another challenge.

The villain lowered his head to charge. Eijirou hardened himself, turning it up as high as he could manage as the pain from his shoulder shot through him. He managed to hook his arm around one of the villain’s horns as the man plowed into him, bracing his feet against the ground to try to slow them both down. There wasn’t time to think, wasn’t time to look for the right spot, so he just lifted the dart in his hand and jammed it down against the villain’s neck as hard as he could.

With a pained grunt, the villain reared back, dislodging Eijirou. He fumbled at his neck, yanking the dart free, and stared from it to the teen. “What did you do?” he snarled.

“Hey, you can talk!” It wasn’t the brightest thing he’d ever said, but the edges of his vision were going black as the pain from his shoulder crawled across his body.

The villain bared his teeth, taking a step forward. “I can—”

His words were cut off as a length of pale fabric looped around his mouth, and a dark figure swung in to plant a kick against the villain’s back. The ox villain stumbled forward, but between the tranquilizer dart and Aizawa’s kick he had no hope of staying on his feet.

Eijirou nearly cheered when he saw the villain go down. “That was awesome, Mr. Ai—Eraserhead.” His knees started to buckle, but his teacher was at his side in a moment to support him and help him sit down. “I thought you weren’t supposed to be in the field anymore?”

“I thought you were supposed to be with Fat Gum?” Aizawa replied. “I can still run support, kid. I was in the area.”

“Uh-huh.” Eijirou’s grin widened when Aizawa rolled his eye. “You just happened to be in the area where Fat Gum was working because…?”

“Shut up or I’m leaving you here.”

As if his teacher would ever do that. Eijirou kept his mouth shut anyway, staring forward as Aizawa gently prodded at his shoulder. “Dislocated, right?” he guessed. “I think my Quirk made it worse.”

“Lie down.” Aizawa gently pushed him down, bracing one hand on his chest close to the dislocation and taking his left wrist in his other hand. “Deep breath, we’ll go on three.”

Eijirou took a deep breath. He knew what was coming—Aizawa wouldn’t count to three, he’d push his shoulder back before that, and he braced himself as Aizawa counted.

Nothing happened.

He glanced up at his teacher, opened his mouth to ask what was wrong, and Aizawa suddenly twisted and pulled and Eijirou saw stars. He groaned, rolling away from Aizawa as soon as the man released him, cradling his injured shoulder with one hand.

“Sit up, kid. Come on. Put your hand on your chest...that’s it.”

Eijirou numbly followed Aizawa’s directions, breathing through the pain as his teacher strapped his arm to his chest to stabilize his shoulder. “Thanks,” he finally gasped out.

“No problem. Just sit tight while I check on our friend, okay?”

“Wait!” He lunged up and caught Aizawa’s arm before the man could leave. “Amajiki—I mean, Suneater. He got hit with a tranquilizer too, can you make sure he’s okay first?”

“Down the alley,” Eijiriou explained, gesturing with his good arm. “I left him behind a delivery truck.”

“I’ll check,” Aizawa said, patting his good shoulder. “Call this in and wait for backup; I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“Okay.” Eijirou let himself slump down a little as Aizawa moved toward the mouth of the alley. “Yeah...I’m good at waiting.”

Chapter Text

“Go, Riot! Get him out of here!”

Someone yanked on Tamaki’s arm, and he forced himself to focus as he stumbled upright, leaning heavily on Kirishima. Silvery darts scattered across the ground as his manifestation melted away, leaving him on unsteady human legs. Kirishima was nearly carrying him now, moving him away from the battle so that Fat Gum could focus all his attention on the villain in front of him.

“Sorry about this,” he mumbled, once they’d ducked around a corner and gotten out of sight. “Leave me here. I’m okay.”

“Don’t even worry about it!” Kirishima’s voice was far too cheery for their current situation, and Tamaki nearly flinched away. He kept his head down, hood pulled low as he let Kirishima steer them along.

They’d called him a monster. He really should be used to it by now, but it still stung every time. The villain had brought tranquilizer darts to take Fat Gum out, but when the pro had proved impervious to those they’d turned their sights on the others. Kirishima, of course, could deflect darts like that, but Tamaki hadn’t had a chance. None of his manifestations could shield him forever, and he’d finally gotten hit and proved himself more than useless. Again.

Kirshima guided him into a shadowy spot in the alley, tucked back behind a delivery truck. “You okay here while I go back?” he asked, concern written all over his face.

He nodded, trying to shove Kirishima’s shoulder to get him moving. “I’ll be fine.” The world was fading in and out around him, but he mustered what strength he had to meet Kirishima’s gaze. The boy patted him on the shoulder one last time and turned to run back to the battle. Tamaki slumped back against the wall, pulling himself deeper into the shadow, trying to stay out of sight.

Then he heard a crash, loud enough to shake the wall beside him, and Kirishima cried out in pain.

“Dammit!” Tamaki braced himself between the wall and delivery truck and slowly shoved himself up to his feet. If he kept moving...if he kept going...maybe he could fight the tranquilizer off. He couldn’t leave Kirishima and Fat Gum without backup, just because he’d been clumsy enough to get hit by a dart.

He didn’t notice his eyes had slid closed until his knees buckled, then he was forcing himself awake and stumbling forward to stay upright. Couldn’t pass out now. Had to keep moving. Wouldn’t be much use, but if he could just stay moving….

Somehow, he was on the ground again. Groaning, Tamaki pushed himself up to his knees. His face stung where he’d scraped it against the pavement when he fell. His mind was swimming and his stomach was turning—even if he could manifest something to help, he’d be too sick to eat it right now.

The world seemed to swim past him. It felt like his mind was peeling open and his thoughts were drifting away. His eyes wouldn’t stay open, and every time he blinked he was afraid they’d just stay closed for good.

He was useless like this. Trying to help in this condition was a stupid idea, but now that he’d started moving he wasn’t sure how to get back to the hiding place Kirishima had found. Tamaki grabbed the wall and slowly, painfully turned around. His vision went double and his stomach flipped, and he sank to his knees as the world seemed to sway under his feet.

Keep moving. It had to be here somewhere. There was a truck...he’d been next to a truck. Tamaki pulled himself forward on his hands and knees, lifting his head to stare at the wavering world in front of him. His elbows wouldn’t work and he collapsed again, eyes sliding shut as time seemed to swirl past.

He forced himself awake with a jolt, gasping for breath. Tamaki fumbled with his pouch—what was the biggest manifestation he had? If he could transform, he could spread the tranquilizer out in his body and lessen its effects, right? That was...wasn’t that how it worked? The bigger the body, the more diluted the tranquilizer would be; that’s why they’d brought so many against Fat Gum.

His hand slipped, scattering whatever he’d managed to find across the ground. Tamaki closed his eyes, forced them back open, and took a deep breath.

Had to keep moving. If he stopped, he passed out for real. He groped his way to the wall, clinging to the rough brick to pull himself up. His legs would barely hold his weight, and he could feel his mind trying to shut down as he took a shuffling step forward. Then another. His knees buckled and he scraped the side of his face against the wall as he started to fell, but caught himself in time.

“What’s this?” Something snagged on his cape, dragging him back. “One of the little heroes trying to get away?”

Rough hands caught him, pulling him around. Tamaki’s head swum with the sudden movement, his legs barely keeping him up. The villain looked vaguely familiar—he had a glimpse of garish neon colors and distorted features, but some of that could have been due to the tranquilizer in his system.

A fist caught him in the gut, then another under the chin. He stumbled back, the hand around his arm the only thing keeping him up, and the man jerked him forward into another blow. Hideous laughter rang in his ears. It sounded too long and sharp, like it was stretched out as his mind tried to fade away again.

“Don’t pass out now!” The villain had him by both shoulders and gave him a shake. “We’ve finally got a hostage! Hey, how much blood will it take to make your boss back down, hmm? Should I just drain it all now?”

He had a knife. Tamaki jerked back from it and the blade scratched against his armor, unable to slice into it. The blade came toward his face next and he let his legs collapse, dragging himself down out and out of reach. The villain made a frustrated sound and raised the knife, blade down, reading to bring it plunging down into Tamaki’s shoulder.

Something whipped around his wrist and pulled it away. Tamaki crumpled to the side, the world tilting beneath him, as rough hands forced the villain to release him. He could hear the sounds of combat, but when he managed to pry his eyes open he only saw a dark shadow fighting a neon blur.

“Suneater? Amajiki? Hey, kid, open your eyes.”

Someone was shaking his shoulder. He slowly peeled his eyes open, wondering when he’d closed them, and looked up into a familiar face.

“Not you.” The words slid out of his mouth, and the man leaning over him grinned.

“Sorry about that,” Aizawa said, not sounding sorry at all. “Can you stand?”

“I don’t know.” Most of his body felt numb. He could hear his own breathing...did he always pant like that? “Red?”

“He’s okay. I’m taking you to him.”

“Hm.” He let Aizawa pull him up and support him. “I’m gonna pass out,” he mumbled.

“Try to hold on a little longer. We’re almost there.”

His legs were too unsteady. His feet kept trying to slip out from under him, and Aizawa had to pause more than once for Tamaki to regain his balance.

“Eraserhead?”

“I’m here,” Aizawa spoke. Tamaki flinched away...he could hear them both through his radio earpiece, and it was a little overwhelming with Aizawa right next to him. “I’ve got the kids; they’re safe, but we need medical evac.”

“My kids,” Fat Gum countered.

“Our kids,” Aizawa offered, shifting Tamaki a little higher in his grasp when his feet started to slip. “At least for the night. Truce?”

Fat Gum’s sigh hissed over the radio. “Just this once,” he replied, and Tamaki could just picture the grin on his mentor’s face. “Tetsu’s still mine, though.”

“Agreed.” Aizawa stopped for a moment, letting Tamaki fight to regain his balance. “Not much farther now,” he said. “Just a few more steps.”

Tamaki grunted. He could vaguely make out a red, blurry shape that could possibly be Kirishima, and a much larger shape sprawled out on the ground a short distance away that might have been one of the villains they’d been facing.

“Suneater!” Kirishima was surging to his feet, though he staggered back a step with a pained grunt. “Are you okay? What happened?”

One of Kirishima’s arms was strapped to his chest, and his shoulders didn’t seem to look right. But he was in one piece, more or less, upright and asking more questions than Tamaki’s weary mind could possibly answer.

His legs wouldn’t hold him up anymore, and he could feel Kirishima and Aizawa gently lowering him to the ground as a final thought drifted through his mind.

I wanna go home….

Chapter Text

Momo yanked her hand back as a sharp pain sliced across her fingers. She raised her head, studying the collapsed corridor in front of her in the light of her headlamp. Glass fragments could mean a broken light source, a picture frame...or a window.

She stopped her slow crawl for a brief moment to produce a pair of sturdy gloves to protect her hands, then carefully reached out again. Glass crunched under her hands, and she swept it to the sides as much as possible. Then she paused for a moment, closed her eyes in frustration, and slowly pushed herself back the way she’d come.

The corridor opened up a little behind her, and Momo had enough room to sit up. She stopped to check her radio, watching the screen of her frequency scanner for a few seconds. It was the only light around her, except for her headlamp, since the building had lost power during the first earthquake. “Is anyone there?” she called into the radio, though nothing but the hiss of static greeted her.

Her class had been on a rescue mission after an earthquake shook through Musutafu. Buildings that had been teetering on the edge of collapse after the war had fallen in, and she and her team had gotten split up looking for survivors. Then the aftershocks hit, and Momo found herself somewhere on one of the upper floors looking for a way out through a maze of collapsed hallways.

“This is Yaoyorozu—Creati,” she announced. It could be she was sending but not receiving, and she tried to give regular updates to her movements. “I’m still proceeding south, and might be close to an exterior wall. I still haven’t heard from anyone, so…” her voice cracked a little, and she cleared her throat and steeled herself. “That’s...that’s all.”

Momo closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She’d had to leave her book behind an hour ago, when the hallway was barely big enough for her to crawl through, but she didn’t need it for this. What she needed was…

Cutting gloves. She’d seen the commercials on late-night TV, and she’d bought a pair to study. A lightweight fabric that could deflect cuts from a knife...she pictured that in her head, shaping it into a shirt that would cover her exposed skin.

It slipped out of her body, and she slid it over her head and adjusted it. Then she rolled back onto her hands and knees, crawling into the collapsed corridor she’d been forced to abandon a few minutes ago.

It was slow going. The ceiling had collapsed far enough that she had to crawl on her belly, and though her chest and arms were protected she hadn’t made anything for her face or legs.

But she couldn’t double back again. The building was groaning around her, and a further aftershock could send the entire thing breaking down.

Glass crunched under her hand again, and she paused for a moment to take a deep breath. Her headlamp showed nothing but the darkness of the collapsed tunnel in front of her, but she thought she could feel a slight breeze of fresh air. Momo pushed herself forward, gritting her teeth when her legs slid through the broken glass.

She’d given herself knee pads in the beginning, at least, so it wasn’t as bad as it could be. She had to just ignore it and keep moving. A few scratches on her legs would be nothing if she could just get out of here.

The debris above her shifted, and Momo pressed herself down with her arms over her head. She braced herself, heart pounding, waiting for the building to shake around her—and praying it wouldn’t happen.

It settled, and she surged forward with a renewed sense of urgency. The building could collapse even without another earthquake, and she was still trapped in its depths. Glass crunched under her hands, ground past her belly, scratched across her legs. There was so much of it now, she had to be close.

“Yes!” Momo gave a ragged shout of triumph as her headlamp caught the gleam of a twisted metal frame. There had been floor-to-ceiling picture windows on this floor of the building. That had to be what she was seeing now. There was a faint glitter of light outside—she’d been in here long enough for night to fall, but the sweep of a searchlight passed by the empty window as she stared.

Momo could have cried in that moment. She was so close to freedom. She crawled for the broken window frame, grabbing it with both hands to pull herself closer. It was cold to the touch, warped and broken from the earthquake, but she leaned her forehead against it with a relieved sob.

It was too bent and broken to allow her to pass through. She studied it for a moment, then slowly pulled her legs in close and twisted around until she could sit up. “Creati here,” she said into her radio. “I’ve reached an external wall, but I’m not sure if I can get out. I’m on the...the eighth floor, I think? On the south side.”

Just static. She groaned in frustration and turned her attention back to the window frame. If she could bend it free...break it apart...clear enough space for her to slide out, maybe she could rappel down the side of the building to safety.

Beneath her hands, the building started to tremble.

She was out of time.

Momo braced herself and kicked at the corner of the window frame. It broke free, and she lunged forward and grabbed it. With a burst of adrenaline, she hauled the corner of the frame up just enough that she could slip under it, twisting around to keep her hands wrapped around the window frame as he feet dangled out in midair.

Bracing her feet against the building, she managed to lunge up enough to get her arm wrapped around the loose edge of the window frame. It pinched at her skin and probably left one hell of a bruise, but she ignored it. She tugged the glove off her other hand with her teeth and let it fall, then spread her fingers as a carabiner fell out of her hand, attached to the end of a rope.

Momo slung it over the window frame, keeping hold of the rope as she clipped the carabiner onto it. She got a good hold of the rope that was still coming out of her palm, and let go of the window.

Creating the rope as she climbed down was risky, but she didn’t have much of a choice. The entire building was shaking again, and she swayed back and forth and prayed that the window frame would hold.

She managed to twist the rope around her free hand to control her descent. The rope slid around her arm, finding the bare skin between her glove and her cut-proof shirt. It burned against her skin as she propelled herself down, bracing her feet on the side of the building whenever she could.

Had to go faster. A piece of debris fell past her, and she could feel the rope shaking as the window frame began to give. Momo risked a glance down—she’d made it to the sixth floor—and let the rope slide through her hands as she kicked away from the wall again. Her skin burned, bringing tears to her eyes, but she set her teeth and refused to let go.

Fifth floor. This one was less damaged, and she thought she could see movement through the window. She was going too fast to stop now.

Fourth floor. The ground was so close. If it wasn’t for the rubble around the building, she could let go and risk the fall.

Third floor. So close. Someone yelled up to her, but she could respond. Just a little bit longer...just a little bit more.

The building shook again, the rope suddenly slack in her hands. Momo was falling before she had a second to process it, staring up into the starlit sky above her as the building finally shook the window frame loose and sent it plummeting after her.

She collided with something hard enough that her consciousness left her, barely realizing that someone had swung in to catch her as she fell.

…

Momo gasped as her eyes snapped open. Her entire body ached, and her mind felt splintered. Was she falling? She’d been falling...she’d fallen out of the building, and then—

“Easy, easy, I’ve got you.” Someone had an arm behind her shoulders, gently pinning her arms down when she tried to throw herself free. “You’re safe. You’re alive. You’re not exactly in one piece, but we’ll take care of that.”

The voice calmed her immediately, and she stared up at the shadowy face leaning over her. “Mr. Aizawa?”

Seeing she had calmed down, he released her arms. “You win the grand prize, kid. Seeing you pop out of that window actually took years off my life.”

She tried to laugh, but it came out as a sob. Next thing she knew, she’d pulled herself up enough to bury her face in his shoulder and burst into tears. “I didn’t know what to do,” she sobbed. “The floor I was on collapsed, and I couldn’t get through on the radio, and it seemed like it was just going to cave in on me at any second. “

He held her up, gently patting the back of her head. “You did good. You got out of there.”

“But the others….”

“They’re fine. Todoroki and Kaminari were on the fifth floor, and the damage there was much less severed. Iida got Asui out before the first aftershock hit. Shouji was still on the roof; we picked him up first.”

She’d left Shouji up there to keep an eye on things while she checked the upper floors. They should have stayed together, but there had been too much debris for him to search the floors safely.

And if he’d been on the eighth floor when the aftershock hit, he wouldn’t have been able to crawl out with her, and she never would have left him behind….

Scenarios flashed through her mind. What if she’d been crushed when the corridors collapsed, what if she’d fallen from a higher level, what if Aizawa hadn’t been able to catch her in time.

“You’re okay, Yaoyorozu,” Aizawa said gently, his voice breaking through her frantic thoughts. “You’re safe now. You’re all safe.”

Chapter Text

“Kacchan!”

Pain. Bright, searing pain. Katsuki reeled back with a shout, hands groping at his face. His mask protected part of his face, but there was still plenty of exposed skin...and his eyes.

“No, Kacchan, don’t touch it,” Izuku warned. He’d grabbed Katsuki’s wrists and pulled his hands away from his face as he spoke—Katsuki gave him a token struggle, but had to admit the nerd was right about this one. Whatever that bastard villain had spat in his face was burning the hell out of his skin and eyes, and he might just make things worse if he tried to rub it off or whatever.

There was too much damn noise around him now. He couldn’t tell how many of their classmates had rushed back to circle around him and how many were chasing the villain. “Deku,” he ground out.

“I’m here.”

Yeah, of course he was. He was still holding Katsuki’s wrists, like he was his damn nanny or something. He had self-control. He could stop himself from rubbing his eyes or whatever.

He clenched his teeth. There were too many people around him; he was too vulnerable here. If they were staring at him, they weren’t looking out for that villain. “The villain…” he hissed out, stopping to catch his breath.

“Iida!” Izuku shouted, like he understood what Katsuki was trying to say. “The villain sprays some kind of acid; we need to get him under control before he hurts anyone else.”

There was a shout of acknowledgment, then Iida was drawing the rest of their class away and sending them off to hunt down the villain.

“Okay.” Izuku’s voice was trembling. “We need water. Where is...there has to be something.”

Katsuki growled under his breath and shoved the nerd away, pushing himself up as he did. There had to be a fire hydrant somewhere on this street. He could just blow the damn thing up and stick his head in it. That should be enough water.

His knees buckled when he tried to stand, and Izuku grabbed his arm to steady him. “We don’t know how bad it is. You should just wait here; I’ll figure something out.”

“Get the hell...off me,” he snarled breathlessly. He normally had a high pain tolerance, but this was taking everything out of him. His face and eyes burned, and it seemed like it was taking all his strength to keep his hands clenched at his sides.

“Midoriya!” The familiar voice sent a flicker of relief through Katuski’s body, though he tried to squash it down. “Bakugou, I’m going to touch your arm.”

His first instinct was to yank his arm away when Aizawa touched it, but he held back. “Midoriya, take his other side.”

Now he did struggle when Aizawa hauled his arm over his shoulders. “I can walk!”

“Knock it off.” There was an unfamiliar tightness in Aizawa’s voice, and Katsuki resigned himself to accepting his help. “Now, Midoriya. We need to move.”

And they ran. With Izuku on one side and Aizawa on the other, Katsuki’s feet seemed to barely touch the ground. He tried to figure out which way they were going, but he couldn’t seem to focus. Which way had he been facing when the villain had got him in the face?

They slowed to a stop, and he felt Aizawa shift his position before banging on a door. The door creaked open after a few seconds, and Aizawa practically lunged toward the sound. “Pro hero Eraserhead,” he announced. “We need to use your shower.”

The civilian or whoever stammered something timidly, but Aizawa barely paid attention. He hauled Katsuki inside, Midoriya right behind him. Katuski kept his head down, conscious of the acid dripping off of his face onto the floor. “Deku,” he whispered.

“I’ll clean it up,” Izuku promised. “Don’t worry about it—ma’am, do you have any baking soda?”

Izuku peeled away, to comfort and reassure the civilian, while Aizawa hauled Katsuki another few steps, through another door into a smaller room. “It’s a tight squeeze, kid. Bear with me.”

A shower hissed on, and Aizawa maneuvered Katsuki around until his head was in the water.

Aizawa was holding him up, getting soaked in the process, tugging Katuski’s mask away and tilting his head so the water ran across his burning eyes.

The relief was almost instant. His skin still burned, but it faded significantly as the acid was washed away. Aizawa cupped one hand under the flow, gently pouring the water over Katsuki’s eyes. “You gotta open them, kid, all right? One at a time.”

“I can’t,” he hissed out.

“I’ll take care of it. Put your arm around my neck, all right?”

He grudgingly did as Aizawa requested, trying to force himself to hold still as the man touched the skin around his eyes. It burned, and he flinched back, but Aizawa’s hands followed him. He gently pried one of Katuski’s eyes open, keeping his head tilted so the water ran across his eyes instead of blasting directly into them. Then the other. His eyes still burned, and now they itched, and he hadn’t realized he’d tightened his grip around Aizawa’s neck until the man patted his arm.

“We done yet?” Katuski ground out.

“We’re done.” Aizawa’s voice was gentle now. “You did good.”

He wanted to protest, but his eyes were still burning. He wanted to claw at his face, to dig out his eyes, but forced his hands to stay where they were. Aizawa hauled him around again, and he heard the sound of fabric tearing before something soft was loosely wrapped around his face.

“Mr. Aizawa?” Izuku’s voice called from beyond the bathroom door. “The ambulance is here.”

Katuski swore. Aizawa chuckled, patting his back consolingly as they made their way out of the bathroom. “I won’t let them keep you for too long, kid.”

…

Katsuki sat on the edge of his bed, bandages wrapped around half of his face. They’d kept him in the hospital until yesterday afternoon, making sure the acid was cleaned away and the burns on his face were treated. He was supposed to keep his eyes covered until he saw Recovery Girl this afternoon, when she could determine if this was something she could heal.

Either way, he’d make do. He could make it around campus with his eyes closed, and this wasn’t any different.

He pushed himself up to his feet, easily making his way out of the door and down the hall to the elevator. He didn’t want to wait on an empty stomach—and besides, who knew what those idiots would eat without him here. He could manage something simple, like onigiri.

Katuski reached the kitchen without issue. He knew where everything was—the rice was in this cabinet, the pots were kept here...fillings were a little trickier, but he was sure he could figure it out. He dumped rice into the pot and took it over to the sink to wash it. Granted, he couldn't see if the water was clear, but he’d done this enough times that he could guess.

With the rice washed and set aside to soak, he turned his attention to the fillings. He’d measured out enough rice to make an assortment of onigiri, so the extras could remember what food was supposed to taste like (someone said four-eyes had been in the kitchen, which made Katsuki shudder, but at least the class rep knew how to clean up after himself so the place wasn't a total disaster).

He opened the fridge and felt around until he found a stalk of green onion. Sero was a health nut, always asking for more vegetables, and Kouda was vegan. That was easy enough to start with. Katsuki let the refrigerator door slam shut, and felt around the counter for the cutting board and knife block.

“Bakugou.”

He hadn’t even raised the knife yet. He turned to glare over his shoulder—as much as he could with the damn bandages over his eyes. “What?”

“Give me that,” Aizawa said tiredly. He strode forward and plucked the knife out of Katuski’s hand. “I’m not letting you cut your fingers off.”

“Like I’d do that,” he snapped.

“What are you making?”

Katsuki folded his arms mulishly, staring off into the darkness behind his bandages. “Rice balls,” he finally ground out.

Aizawa grunted. The sharp chop chop of the knife striking the cutting board echoed through the kitchen. “How about I handle the knife and you put everything together?”

He snorted. “Whatever.” The rice had been soaking long enough, and he moved over to the sink to strain it.

“Do you need help with that?”

“Yeah, right,” Katuski scoffed. “I could do this with my eyes closed.”

Chapter Text

“No, no, no!” Minoru sobbed, ducking for cover to avoid the next hit. “This isn’t fair! Why did they leave this for us?”

“C’mon, Mineta. I thought you liked tentacles.”

“Not this kind, Kaminari!” he snapped back. The blond just grinned at him, rising from his own cover to fire a pointer at the writhing mechanical beast in front of them.

It wasn’t fair. This should have been fun. Aizawa had paired them all off for an exercise, and he actually got to work with Kaminari this time. They were bros. They were awesome together. But somehow Aizawa had found a giant mechanical octopus, complete with tentacles that shot lasers and missiles and stuff like that despite being far too realistic.

“It’s too hard, man, I can’t do it!”

“Well, yeah, it’s gonna be hard,” Kaminari shot back. “We’re second-years now, everything’s gonna get harder.”

He snickered. “Everything?”

Kaminari grinned as he crouched behind a row of boxes. “You know what I meant, dude.”

“Hey, puberty happens to all of us. It’s perfectly normal…” Minoru’s voice trailed off as Kaminari started snickering. “Never mind,” he muttered, feeling his cheeks redden. He’d only ever thought of Kaminari as a boy, so sometimes he forgot they didn’t have all the same parts.

But that didn’t matter now. What mattered was the mechanical octopus, and the way it was thrashing through the exam field.

“Any ideas?” Kaminari asked. He leaned up to shoot out another pointer, but the octopus deflected it. “Damn, I can’t get a shot to land.”

“Why would I have the ideas?” Minoru protested.

“You’re the smart one.”

“Well, you’re the brave one!”

“Ha! Says who?”

“Says—” Minoru broke off with a yelp as a tentacle crashed against the ground in front of him. He reeled back in panic, blindly yanking balls off his head to throw at the thing. “Kaminari!”

“I’m coming!” Kaminari called. Minoru still had his eyes open, so he watched Kaminari somersault over the tentacle and just barely stick the landing. “See? I said you’re the smart one,” the blond added, skidding to a stop next to Minoru and firing a couple of pointer at the tentacle.

The tentacle thrashed, but couldn’t lift off the ground or knock the pointers away. Minoru finally saw the purple balls holding the tentacle to the ground, and felt something like courage welling up in his chest. Kaminari fired off a bolt of electricity, and the tentacle shuddered for a moment before falling still, smoke leaking up from its joints.

The mechanical octopus roared. Kaminari shoved Minoru ahead of him as they sprinted for new cover, ducking behind the tilted skeleton of a burned-out sedan. “Aw, man, I thought that’d take out the whole thing,” Kaminari complained, leaning up to look at the monstrosity.

“Dude, it’s okay.” Minoru tugged on his arm, grinning when Kaminari looked down at him. “Hey, are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

Kaminari returned his grin. “I’ll distract them!” he called, vaulting through the empty window of the sedan. “You hold them down!”

“Wait!” He grabbed for his friend, but the other boy was already dashing off. “That’s not what I was thinking,” he muttered. He’d been thinking they could tackle the tentacles one at a time, luring them out away from the main body and disabling them. Instead, Kaminari was now dashing back and forth, hollering meaningless insults and shooting off random bursts of electricity.

“That’s why I’m the smart one,” he grumbled. Minoru rolled out of cover, keeping his body low to the ground as he raced for a stack of cargo pallets. Not for the first time, he wondered where UA got all the junk they used for lessons like this.

He waited for the right moment, when one of the tentacles started to slam down to smash Kaminari as the boy darted away, then steeled himself and ran out of cover to scatter balls beneath it. Kaminari let out a cheer as the tentacle was pinned down, disabling it with an electric shock.

“Six to go!” Kaminari called.

“Four!” Minoru reminded him. It wasn’t technically an octopus, since it only had six tentacles instead of eight...but calling it a sextapus had made them both laugh too much to focus. Squid probably would have been better, but...well, it didn’t matter. The point was, they had four more tentacles to trap.

Kaminari darted off again, waving his arms and yelling at the octopus. Minoru scuttled back out of the way, nearly getting smashed by another tentacle. He managed to catch it with a ball as he dodged, pinning the end of it down, and used a few more to secure the rest of it as it thrashed. “Kaminari!”

It was getting a little bit easier, now that they’d disabled three tentacles. Minoru managed to lay out a grid of balls around Kaminari, giving his friend plenty of room to escape while still setting a trap for the mechanical beast they were fighting. They managed to trap two more tentacles that way, and Minoru was just starting to breathe a little easier.

They could do this after all. Aizawa would probably still dock them points for their plan—for how sloppy it was and how long it took them to pull it off—but they’d actually managed to tie this thing down without either of them getting hurt.

Then the final tentacle reared up and, as Minoru stared in horror, the end of it split open to reveal a cannon.

“What the hell?” Kaminari scrambled back, then tripped with a yelp. “Dammit! I’m stuck!”

Minoru’s heart was in his throat. Kaminari had stepped onto one of his balls. His friend was furiously tugging at his laces to yank his foot out, but it was taking way too long. The cannon was aimed squarely at Kaminari, an eerie light building up around it.

There were still plenty of his balls scattered across the ground. Minoru took a running leap, bouncing off of one of his balls to propel himself forward. Then another, then another; hurtling himself toward Kaminari as he yanked more balls off of his head to press them together into a mass about the size of a basketball. He flung it to the ground when he finally got close enough—since it was bigger than the single balls he’d already thrown out, it could bounce him higher, and he let it shoot him into the air straight at the tentacle with the cannon.

He slightly miscalculated his trajectory and smashed against it rather than grabbing it. He’d kept one ball in his hand just in case, and managed to stick it to the tentacle before it could throw him off. The tentacle thrashed wildly, the cannon blast missing Kaminari by a mile. Minoru yanked off another ball—his scalp was starting to sting a little—and managed to jam it into the tentacle’s opening.

“Come on...closer….” The tentacle shook him around until he felt like his stomach was glued to his ribcage. He held on, swinging around the end of the tentacle until he could see the cannon.

It was glowing again. Minoru grit his teeth, bracing his feet against the cannon’s hatch and holding on with one hand while he yanked balls off his head with the other, shoving them into the dark opening of the cannon. This had to work. It had to.

“Mineta! Drop!”

He let go, watching the lights build in the cannon hatch at the end of the tentacle. Kaminari caught him, stumbling a little, throwing them both out of the way as the tentacle tried to fire.

The cannon exploded. The tentacle broke apart, its fragments scattering around them.

“Did we win?” Minoru asked woozily.

“Yeah, dude.” Kaminari flopped down next to him, panting for breath. “We won.”

A tone filled the air, signaling the end of their exercise. Minoru tried to stand, but a sharp pain made him lie back down with a groan. “I’m never looking at tentacles the same way again,” he complained.

“Yeah, I’m—I mean, I never looked at them in the first place!”

He looked up, grinning at the blush spreading across Kaminari’s cheeks as Aizawa approached them. As bad as it might be to be caught talking about this stuff with the teacher...Aizawa was kind of Kaminari’s dad now.

“Just leave me here,” he whined when Aizawa knelt down next to him. His teacher was frowning, of course...and he had his little flashlight in his hand. Minoru jerked away when Aizawa shone it into his eyes, then let out a whimper of pain when the man pressed a hand to the side of his chest.

“Congratulations,” Aizawa said dryly. “You’ve got a concussion and a possible fracture or two. You hit that last tentacle pretty hard.”

“You should see the other guy,” Minoru quipped, letting his body go limp and closing his eyes. Come to think of it, he did hurt all over. His head felt like it had been cracked open—and wasn’t that a charming memory—and his chest and legs hurt like someone had been jumping up and down on them.

He felt a pressure on his head, and opened his eyes to see Aizawa leaning in to rest his hand there. “Don’t get stuck,” he murmured.

“I think I’ll be okay,” Aizawa replied dryly. “I think we’ll wait to discuss your score until after Recovery Girl takes a look at you.”

“Aw, man,” Kaminari whined. “Why can’t you tell us now, Mr. Aizawa?”

Aizawa snorted. “Let’s just say you passed and leave the finer details for when Mineta’s back in one piece.”

“Oh, come on, it’s not that bad.”

“Shut up, Kaminari,” Minoru said, his voice light with relief. “At least you were working with the smart one.”

“Yeah, well, at least you were working with the brave one.”

“Says who?”

“Boys.” Aizawa cut in.

“He started it!”

“Don’t blame me!”

Aizawa’s eye flared as he glared between them. “Enough!”

Chapter Text

Ears ringing, Rikidou carefully picked himself up off the tunnel floor. He made it up to his knees, stopping to press a hand to his aching head.

It was too dark to see anything, but he kept a flashlight in one of his belt pouches for situations like this. He tugged it out and flipped it on, scanning the tunnel around him. They’d been on a rescue mission to help some civilians who’d gotten lost in the caves at one of the parks.

He remembered the walls starting to rumble and rocks hitting the top of his head. He’d been at the back of the line, to make sure everyone got out safely, and he’d all but thrown a couple of kids to Sero when they’d been frozen in fear. There was no sign of them now, but the tunnel in front of him was blocked from the cave-in.

Rikidou forced himself up to his feet, studying the tumbled rocks in front of him. He could probably dig himself out, but it might be better to wait for rescue. After all, Mr. Aizawa had been on this mission with them, and he—

Mr. Aizawa had been behind him.

He spun around, the beam from his flashlight dancing around the walls and floor as he panicked. “Mr. Aizawa?” Rikidou took a few stumbling steps forward, finally noticing a black shadow that didn’t clear away when he shone the light on it. “Mr. Aizawa!”

Dropping to his knees next to his teacher, he rested one hand on the man’s shoulder and scanned over the rest of his body. He was lying prone on the floor, one arm still curled protectively over his head. He was still breathing, and as Rikidou stared his teacher let out a groan and shifted his body.

“Don’t move,” he stammered. “We were in a cave-in...let me make sure you’re not hurt.”

“I’m fine,” Aizawa replied. “Just hit the floor too hard. You okay?”

“I think I hit my head, but I’m not bleeding,” he said. “Just...just hold on a second, okay?” Rikidou played the light down over Aizawa’s body, the panic in his chest building when he realized his teacher’s right leg was pinned under the rubble.

“I’m okay, kid,” Aizawa said. “Just give me a second.”

“You’re not, though.” Rikidou’s hands were shaking as he stared. There was so much rubble on top of him. He could have a serious injury, but didn’t feel it because of shock. His bones could be broken. He could be bleeding. “Your leg is pinned, Mr. Aizawa. Can you feel anything? Can you move your toes?”

“Kid.”

“We might need to apply a tourniquet...hang on, let me see if I can move any of this.”

“Satou!” Aizawa managed to catch Rikidou’s wrist, yanking him down so they were eye-to-eye. “My right leg is pinned.”

“Well...yeah.”

“It’s prosthetic.”

Rikidou stared at him for a moment, then looked away. Of course he knew that, he just hadn’t remembered it in the heat of the moment. Aizawa still seemed so indestructible now that they didn’t always remember he’d lost a leg in the war.

“Sorry,” he finally whispered.

Aizawa reached up and patted his arm. “Heat of the moment, kid. Don’t worry about it.” He tried to push himself up on his hands and reach back to his leg, but his position was too awkward. “Dammit,” he hissed out.

“Satou,” Aizawa said after a few moments. “I’m gonna walk you through detaching my leg. Think you can handle that?:

“Uh, sure?” He swallowed, not really sure at all, and sat back on his knees. “What do I do?”

“There’s a knife in my belt. Prosthetic starts below the knee, so you’ll need to cut through the pants there.”

Rikidou clenched his flashlight between his teeth as he carefully followed Aizawa’s orders. First cutting his pants away, then finding the release valve for his prosthetic socket, then finally holding it steady while Aizawa eased his way out.

“Good job,” Aizawa said, patting his shoulder. “What’s the situation?”

“We’re blocked in,” Rikidou replied. “Caved-in in front of us, too. Um...should we wait for rescue?”

“Let’s take a look. Can you give me a hand?”

He gently tugged Aizawa upright, letting the man lean on him as they made their way to the pile of rubble Rikidou had first seen. Aizawa had taken his flashlight and was quiet as he studied the breakdown.

“Do you want me to break through?”

“We don’t know how thick it is.”

“I’ll be okay.” Rikidou shot his teacher a smile when the man looked at him. “I didn’t need to use my Quirk for the rescue, and I’ve still got plenty of sweets.”

Aizawa studied him for a second, then gave a grim nod. Rikidou helped him sit down at the side of the tunnel, then turned his attention back to the rubble.

“Start over here,” Aizawa suggested, focusing the beam of the flashlight on one section.

He nodded. There was a big, triangle-shaped boulder wedged against the wall, and Aizawa was pointing to the section below it. If he was careful, he could clear out a space without letting that bigger rock fall, and it would keep more of the cave-in off of them.

Rikidou flexed, feeling strength flood through his body as his Quirk activated. He dug both hands into the rubble and hauled out chunks of rock, shoving them to the side of the tunnel across from Aizawa. Smaller rocks tumbled down to fill in the space he’d just cleared, and he scooped them out and pushed them aside.

And again. And again. Aizawa shouted out a warning when the rubble shifted, and Rikidou dodged back just as part of the breakdown shifted and several large rocks tumbled down. The triangular rock stayed, and Rikidou waited for a few moments to make sure the rocks had stopped moving to dive in and dig again.

His strength started to wane. Rikidou dug into his belt pouch and shoved a handful of candy into his mouth, crunching down and swallowing. He metabolized sugar pretty quickly, so it wasn’t long before he felt a burst of energy again.

Another handful of rock. Another shove back as the breakdown shifted. A piece a little bit smaller than Mineta slid free and, following Aizawa’s directions, Rikidou dug out a place for it to help support the triangular rock he was digging under.

His gloves were shredded and his fingers were bleeding. The strength seemed to be draining from his arms, and he reached for his candy again and again...until he just found an empty pouch.

They still weren’t through.

Rikidou set his jaw, forcing himself to keep going. It couldn’t be much farther. He had to get through. The air was starting to feel a little thin...he had to at least break through to get them some oxygen. His arms shook as he pulled every particle of sugar out of his body, pushing himself beyond his own limits in his desperation.

Had to get through. He was still worried Aizawa was injured and hadn’t mentioned it. His prosthetic leg had gotten pinned, but that didn’t mean he’d escaped unharmed. Something could have struck him and rolled away. His teacher had an astoundingly high pain tolerance—he’d cut through his own leg without even closing his eyes—it would be easy for him to hide a serious injury from Rikidou.

Another handful of rock. And another. His heart was pounding, his hands were shaking, and sweat was pouring down his body. He dug out another inch, another handful, and finally his fingers broke through. There was light, and he shoved more of the rocks away to get his first good look at the tunnel beyond the cave-in.

He could hear voices in the distance, but he didn’t have the breath to yell for them. Cold, fresh air washed across his face, and he pulled himself out of the hole he’d dug to tell—

“—tou? Satou! Kid, can you hear me?”

Rikidou blinked open his eyes. His head was still spinning, and in the dim light of the flashlight he could barely see Aizawa looking down on him. “What happened?” he muttered.

“You blacked out,” Aizawa said harshly. “Wanna tell me what’s going on?”

He closed his eyes, bringing one shaking hand to his forehead. “...sugar,” he finally whispered.

“You’re out of sugar?” Aizawa waited for him to nod, then heaved out a sigh. “I’ve got this, would it help?”

Rikidou looked up. Aizawa was holding a jelly packet. He reached for it, but his teacher held it out of the way. He tore the end open, then got an arm under Rikidou’s shoulders to hold him up enough to drink it.

The sugar flooded his system, and Rikidou let out a relieved sigh. He could tell it wasn’t much—but they didn’t have much more to go. “I broke through,” he said, looking up at his teacher. “It’s not much, but...I could hear someone.”

Aizawa shuffled away from him to pull himself into the hole. Rikidou heard rocks shifting, and he lifted himself up to stare at the man’s foot. “Mr. Aizawa?”

“I can get through.” Aizawa pushed himself back, sitting down to give Rikidou a stern look. “Get some rest, I’ll make sure they find us.”

“No way.” Rikidou tried to push himself up, but Aizawa easily held him down. He still felt dizzy and weak, even though the jelly packet had restored some of his sugar.

“I won’t go anywhere, kid,” Aizawa promised. “Just to the other side of the wall. When help gets here, they can widen the hole to get you out.”

He finally nodded, still too weak and disoriented to protest. He held the flashlight as Aizawa pulled himself into the gap in the breakdown, watching his teacher’s foot disappear.

“Satou!”

Rikidou struggled up to his hands and knees, crawling up to the hole. “Mr. Aizawa?”

The man thrust something in at him. “One of the kids dropped their bag, I don’t think they’ll mind if you take it.”

It was a paper lunch back, and when Rikidou opened it he found a juice box and a little bag of trail mix. There was candy in the trail mix. “Thank you,” he said, sitting against the breakdown to eat a handful of trail mix.

Aizawa grunted. “Just a drop in blood sugar? You’re not hiding anything else from me?”

“No, sir,” Rikidou replied firmly. “My head doesn’t even hurt anymore.”

“Good.” Aizawa sounded satisfied, and Rikidou could picture him sitting down, leaning against the rubble the same as Rikidou. “That’s why you’re my favorite.”

“Wh-me?”

“Yeah, but don’t tell anyone.”

Rikidou grinned, jabbing the straw into the juice box and taking a long sip. “I won’t.”

Chapter Text

“Get outta your head, Izuku!” The slap to the back of the head sent Izuku stumbling forward, and he angled his head to stare at the boy running beside him.

“That hurt,” he said simply, rubbing the back of his head.

Katsuki snorted. “Good. Now, you gonna keep up or fall behind?”

“What do you mean ‘keep up’?” he asked. “We’re already ahead of everyone else.”

“I meant with me, dumbass!”

Izuku sighed. “Not everything has to be a competition, Kacchan. Sometimes it’s just gym class.”

“Shut it, ya damn nerd!” Katsuki grabbed Izuku’s collar and hauled him along, increasing his speed. Izuku was forced to keep pace with him, or risk the damage to his track suit.

“What are you doing?” he asked wearily. It wasn’t that hard to keep up with Katsuki, but he hadn’t expected to work this hard today. He was fine being in the middle of the pack. He’d given up his Quirk, after all. If he still wanted to be a hero, he’d need to get used to his new limits. Cooperate with others. Find a niche for himself where he could still do good, even without One for All.

Katsuki snorted. “When’s the last time you went all out?” he demanded.

“Kacchan, you know I can’t do that now.”

“Not with your Quirk,” the other boy snarled. “I’m talking about you.”

Izuku slowed to a stop. To his surprise, Katsuki stopped too, facing him down with a furious expression. “I don’t have a Quirk anymore,” he said simply, staring at his hands. “There’s still something left—like the remnants of One for All that All Might talked about. I’m not sure what’s there or how long it’ll last, but I can’t—”

“Bullshit!” Katsuki grabbed Izuku’s collar, yanking him in so they were face-to-face. “You’re just using that as an excuse. You’re hiding behind the loss of your powers so you don’t have to try anymore. What the hell happened to the Deku that pissed the crap out of me every damn day with his theories and notebooks, huh? The Deku who ran head-first into everything, even without a Quirk, because the only thing he ever wanted was to be a hero?”

“I think he grew up,” Izuku said quietly.

Katsuki gritted his teeth. “It’s your power, isn’t it?” He shoved Izuku away, planting a hand on his back to push him down the track. “Use it, you damn nerd!”

The first group of their classmates had just rounded the bend behind them. Izuku let Katsuki’s shove push him forward, picking up enough speed to stay ahead of the others. They didn’t need to know about this. He didn’t want to tell them about all his doubts, or his concerns that he might not be able to be a hero anymore.

“Move!” Katsuki shouted, grabbing his sleeve to pull him forward. “Move your feet, Izuku!”

“I am,” he spat back, jerking his arm away.

“You’re weak. If this is the best you can do, you’re more useless than before.”

Frustration clenched in Izuku’s chest. He wasn’t useless. Things were different now, but even without a Quirk he still had his training. The strength training with All Might before he started at UA, the classes last year with Aizawa and the rest of his friends. He’d learned tactics and strategies. Found friends who would carry him along if he fell behind. He’d saved people and defeated villains.

Katsuki was reaching for him again. Izuku veered away, focusing on digging his feet into the running track. None of them were allowed to use their Quirks for this, so they could only rely on the skills and muscles they’d built into their bodies.

The track sped by under his feet as he picked up speed. Katsuki shouted out a challenge and chased after him, but Izuku ignored that and kept running.

He’d trained this body to wield One for All. Even if his Quirk was gone, that training didn’t disappear. The muscles that had once kept his legs from breaking apart were now pushing him forward. The stamina that let him use One for All without his organs rupturing now pumped blood through his vessels and oxygen into his lungs.

The fine control and reflexes he’d honed to keep from accidentally hurting his friends helped him dodge when Katsuki took a swipe at him as he passed, a feral grin plastered on his face—which was as good as a hug from his childhood friend.

Izuku grinned himself, determination lighting a new fire in his heart as he pushed himself harder. Maybe he didn’t have a Quirk, but he definitely wasn’t powerless.

…

The run with Katsuki had woken something up in Izuku. In Mr. Aizawa’s class the next day, he stayed behind as the final bell rang, waiting for his classmates to leave. Aizawa stared at him, eyebrows raised, and Izuku tried to smile back, but turned away.

His heart was thundering in his chest. He’d wanted to ask Mr. Aizawa’s opinion on him as a hero for a long time...but this was something completely different. This was something...he’d thought about it once or twice, but he’d never given it serious consideration until now. He’d been so desperate to be a hero he’d never had a backup career in mind, and even now he wasn’t sure he wanted one.

Kirishima was standing at Aizawa’s desk, textbook in hand, asking for clarification on some point from today’s lecture. Aizawa was trying to explain it but Kirishima looked more and more lost—until Katsuki grabbed the back of his collar and hauled him out of class, yelling back to Aizawa that he’d hammer it into Kirishima’s thick skull before the next quiz.

Then it was just the two of them. Izuku nervously gathered up his books and shouldered his bag before walking down the aisle toward the front of the room. “Um, Mr. Aizawa?”

His teacher looked up at him, face unreadable. “Is everything all right, Midoriya?”

“I wanted to ask you something.” He bit his lip and fiddled with the strap of his bag for a moment. “Do you, um...do you think I….” His voice trailed off as whatever courage he’d built up fled. “Never mind.”

Aizawa put an arm out to block his path. “Do I think you can still be a hero?” His voice always sounded gruff, but after more than a year Izuku had learned to listen for the gentleness he displayed. The care for his students, and the willingness to do whatever it took to help them. “I think that’s up to you, kid.”

“That’s not it,” Izuku mumbled. There was no getting out of it now. Aizawa’s stare was pinning him in place. “Do you think...I could be a teacher?” He said the last words jumbled together in a mumble, staring down at the corner of Aizawa’s desk instead of looking the man in the eye.

Aizawa tore a sheet off the pad of paper on his desk and started writing on it. “That’s not an easy question to answer, Midoriya,” he began. “You’re compassionate, and you’ve shown the ability to learn and retain information. But you also need discipline and control. Not for yourself, but for your students. What would you do if faced with, say, your class? At the beginning of last year?”

He shook his head. “I’d, um...I’d try to get to know them?”

“Would that have worked with Bakugou?”

Izuku felt his shoulders slump. “No, sir.”

“You’d have to be prepared for situations like that.” Aizawa set his pen down and handed the paper to Izuku. “You should be able to find these in the library. Memoirs by two of UA’s earliest teachers, a history of Quirk-based education, and stories from some of the teachers from the first days of the Quirk age and how they dealt with suddenly facing a classroom of super-powered children.”

His expression softened minutely as Izuku took the paper. “I’m not trying to discourage you,” he said. “Teaching is a difficult job. Just a difficult as being a hero.”

Izuku gazed into Aizawa’s eye. He still saw that day in his nightmares...after the bullet left Shigaraki, he’d just seen a splash of blood and hear Manual cry out. Then Shigaraki had broken through and attacked Aizawa, and the next thing they knew….

“Did you have a particular subject in mind?” Aizawa asked, breaking the silence.

“I wanted to teach here,” he admitted quietly. “To be a...a teacher and a hero. If I could.”

Aizawa grunted. “Like All Might?”

Izuku shook his head, though Aizawa had already looked away. “Like you,” he whispered.

The man went still. Izuku cleared his throat and backed away from the desk. “A-anyway, thanks for the book suggestions, Mr. Aizawa. I’ll check them out. Um...thank you!”

He turned and fled, missing the expression on his teacher’s face.

Chapter Text

“Nejire-chan!”

“I’m okay!” Nejire called over the radio. “Just, uh, need a minute!”

Her leg wouldn’t hold her up and her wrist was killing her, but she didn’t want to distract Ryukyu and the others right now. She could find a safe place to hide herself away until the battle was settled, then call in for evacuation.

That was it. She just needed to wait. Just wait.

Nejire tried to push herself farther back in the hidey-hole she’d discovered. It was tough with only one arm and one leg, and the pain was affect her stamina so she didn’t want to rely on her Quirk unless she had to defend herself. So no fancy flights to safety, no stunning SOS displays...just resting and waiting until the all-clear.

Although if someone could help her before that….

She sighed, shifting around to try to find a more comfortable position. That villain had managed to catch her by the wrist and twist her around a few times. She’d felt something pop, but didn’t know if her wrist was broken or dislocated. Her leg had gone when she landed...and same. It could be sprained, dislocated, broken...the best she could tell right now was that it was still attached.

The adrenaline of the fight was fading, and she was starting to feel aches all across her body. She was sure to have bruises up and down her back from this, and if she hadn’t kept her hair short after the war it would have been a tangled mess by now.

An explosion lit up the sky, and the shockwave from it rumbled the ground beneath her. Nejire hung on to the pallet beside her as best she could, cradling her injured wrist to her chest. Even if she wanted to get out and see what was going on, she only had one good leg. And one good arm, so it wasn’t like she could pull herself up. She’d been lucky enough to be able to crawl back here and hide herself between these two stacks of pallets—and hopefully nobody would notice her colorful costume amid all the drab and faded wood.

Nejire lowered her injured arm and gingerly tried to push her sleeve up and pull her glove off. It hurt to move or touch anything, so she gave up after a moment. She supported her arm with a hand near her elbow and tried to bend her fingers.

Everything was so swollen. She could move them a little bit, but it hurt. Ryukyu would definitely be taking her to the emergency room after this. Even if she wasn’t directly working for the dragoon hero anymore, Ryukyu was still a little protective of her. Kind of the way Aizawa was with most of UA’s students.

As though her thoughts had summoned him, a black-clad figure dropped into the gap between the pallets, landing a few feet away from Nejire. “I was just thinking about you.”

He grunted. “Ryukyu said you might be hurt.”

“My wrist.” She sighed and gently held the injured limb out for him to examine. “I think it’s broken.”

“I think you’re right,” he replied. “Are you hurt anywhere else?”

“My leg, but it’s not so bad now.”

“And you’re hiding back here because…?” Aizawa had pulled a temporary splint out of his first aid pack and was starting to settle Nejire’s wrist in it. She knew he was just trying to distract her from the pain, so she let out a sigh and leaned her head back.

“I got distracted,” she finally said. “I wanted to go out on my own—like Mirio—but I think maybe I should have stayed with Ryukyu a little longer. I didn’t want to be a sidekick, like Tamaki, but maybe it wouldn’t have hurt if I’d stayed with her a little longer.”

“What’s going on, Hadou—Nejire-chan?”

She bit back a laugh. “It’s okay, I’m not like Tamaki. I don’t mind if you still act like I’m one of your kids. It’s kind of nice sometimes….”

Her voice trailed off as tears pricked at the corners of her eyes. Being out on her own was so much harder than she’d expected. She was strong, there was no doubt about that, and she wanted to be a hero on her own instead of joining someone else’s agency, but she hadn’t expected it to be like this.

She missed the days when she was a student. When Ryukyu would assign her cases so she wasn’t pushing herself too hard, and when she could go back to the dorms at the end of the day and be surrounded by her friends. She’d been taking too much on lately, afraid to say no to any call for battle. Stretched thin, worn down, and just so tired all the time.

“You were always an exceptional student,” Aizawa said plainly as he finished securing her wrist splint. “You held yourself to a high standard and excelled at every level. You’re trying to do the same thing now that you’re a hero, but you can’t.”

“I can,” she countered. He’d moved down to her leg to examine her ankle, and she let her splinted arm rest on her thighs. “I can keep up with everyone else, I just need to get stronger.”

“You’re already strong.”

Nejire sighed. “I got thrown into a building by a guy who looks like he mutated from eating too much crab. I wouldn’t call that strong.”

“I wouldn’t call it weak. Let me ask you; how many days a week are you patrolling.”

“All of them?” she shrugged. “Crime doesn’t take a day off.”

“Full patrols? Eight hours? Twelve hours?”

She shrugged again.

“I think your ankle is just sprained, but I can splint it anyway,” Aizawa said. “You can’t keep going like this, Hadou. You’ll burn yourself out.”

“I’m a hero,” she protested weakly.

“You are,” he replied. “And heroes need boundaries. Take some time to develop your active area and patrol times. You should have gone over this last year—I know I teach it every semester.”

Her shoulders slumped. “I know.” But she hadn’t thought she needed to that. She was part of the Big Three, Ryukyu trusted her with so much, her Quirk had seemed nearly unstoppable. She’d been burned by Dabi’s flames and still be able to fight on. She’d helped hold back Shigaraki. She should be different.

She just wanted to make a difference. They all wanted that. Being a hero was supposed to be everything she always wanted. It was supposed to challenge her. It was supposed to be fulfilling.

But most days, it seemed like it just made her tired.

“I’ve had the same talk with Toogata, if that helps,” Aizawa said. “I’m sure Ryukyu would give you some pointers on managing your schedule.

“Yeah.”

“I can’t expel you anymore, but I will tell the boys what you’re doing if you keep exhausting yourself like this.”

Nejire laughed. Mirio would lecture her and show up during her patrols to make sure she was taking care of herself. Tamaki would give her a sad look and awkwardly sneak into her apartment to keep her fridge stocked. She would do the same for both of them, of course...that was just how their friendship worked.

Ryukyu announced the all-clear over the radio, then voices clamored over Nejire’s headset asking for her status.

Aizawa stood up and extended a hand. “You ready?”

She let him pull her up and leaned against him, limping as they made their way out of the alley toward the rendezvous point. “I think I might take tomorrow off,” she finally said, glancing over at him.

He grinned. “That sounds like a good idea.”

Chapter Text

Fuyumi giggled, resting her head against her mom’s shoulder as Natsuo told another story about his first roommate.

“And he only ate those packaged ramen noodles,” Natsuo was saying. “I never saw him cooking them; he just ate them straight out of the package.”

“Like crackers?” Fuyumi asked, unable to keep the laughter out of her voice.

“Worse.” Natsuo shook his head. “He’d make sandwiches with them. I can’t even remember everything he did—one time I saw him using tuna and ketchup.”

Fuyumi burst out laughing, turning to the side to bury her face against her mother’s shoulder. She could feel Rei chuckling, and on her mother’s other side Shouto was studying them all with a concerned expression.

“That doesn’t sound very good,” Shouto offered when Fuyumi made eye contact with him.

Rei smiled, reaching out to tuck a strand of hair behind her youngest son’s ear. “No, it doesn’t,” she agreed.

Natsuo shifted in his chair, a grimace of pain flashing across his face. He was staying with his sister and mother while recovering from his hit and run accident, and they were taking every opportunity to invite Shouto over so they could spend time together as a family. Aizawa usually came with him—Fuyumi didn’t ask why, but she assumed it was due to the threat of her father showing up unannounced—and was sitting a little apart from the family.

“He was still better than Renji,” Natsuo commented. “That was—I told you about him, Sis. Remember?”

“Was he the one who slept with his eyes open?” she asked.

“No, that was that exchange student. Renji was the one who collected rocks.”

As Natsuo launched into another story, Fuyumi felt her phone buzz in her pocket. She pulled it out and frowned at the name on the screen.

The room was suddenly quiet, and she could swear the temperature had dropped a few degrees. When Fuyumi looked up, everyone was watching her. “I’ll be right back,” she promised, pushing herself off the couch to leave the room. “I remember Renji now, Natsuo, you can tell this one without me.”

The kitchen was a few steps away, and Fuyumi was conscious of the silence behind her as she closed the door and held the phone to her ear. “Hey, Dad. This isn’t the best time.”

“Fuyumi. Where are you?”

She sighed. Her father knew where she and her mother lived, but thanks to Touya’s video they’d relocated back to UA’s campus for safety. “We’re safe.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“Dad, I can’t tell you anymore.” Fuyumi risked a glance at the door and moved further away from it, leaning back on one of the counters. “We’re all safe. Me, Mom...Natsuo and Shouto...we’re safe, okay?”

“Eraserhead brought you back to UA.”

“No, he didn’t,” she replied, sighing deeply. He didn’t have to. The principal had called to offer them lodgings, and another teacher had shown up to escort them back (she recognized him but didn’t know his name—a big man with white hair and protruding fangs). She suspected Aizawa had been involved at some point, but he hadn’t actually brought them here.

“Is that where you are?”

Fuyumi closed her eyes and swallowed. Her heart was pounding and her palms were sweating. She’d never been good at disobeying him—not like her brothers. She was too small and weak, too skittish to stand up for herself. All her life, she’d just been so afraid of making him mad, to the point that just hearing him raise his voice set her on edge.

The door to the kitchen quietly opened and closed, and she looked up to see Aizawa standing there. He didn’t say anything, didn’t reach for the phone, just leaned against the door in a silent gesture of support.

“I already told you; I can’t tell you anything,” she said. She wrapped one arm across her stomach and bit her lip, waiting for the explosion to follow.

“Fine,” Endeavor hissed out. “I want to see you, though.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“I can’t even see for myself that my children are safe?”

His children.

So not her.

He meant Shouto.

“I can’t right now,” she finally said. “I’m a little keeping Mom company and taking care of my brother after his accident.”

“What happened to Shouto?”

Fuyumi took a deep breath. “Not Shouto, Dad. Natsuo. He was hit by a car a few days ago. I wanted to tell you, but your agency isn’t taking calls and your voicemail is full.”

“You could have sent a message.”

“Oh, sure, that’s something I’d want to put in a text.”

“Watch your tone, Fuyumi.”

She bit back the apology before it could crawl its way out. Aizawa hadn’t moved, and his expression was unreadable. “I have to go.”

“Fuyumi, don’t.” Endeavor’s voice was softer now. Pleading. “I’m just tired, I didn’t mean to snap at you.”

She nodded, though she knew he couldn’t see her. He was like that. He’d get angry and lash out, but always have a way to say it wasn’t his fault. He was tired. They provoked him. He just needed some peace and quiet. They should know better.

“Fuyumi?”

“Dad?” She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, already feeling the tears forming. “I don’t think you should call me anymore.”

The phone was silent, but she could hear him breathing.

“Not for a while, at least.” Why was it so hard to explain? She’d worked it out in her head so many times, but had never had the guts to actually say it. “I just...I need some more time.”

“I am your father.”

“I know, it’s just—”

“You want to cut me out of your life just like that? Like Natsuo and Shouto? You’re the only one I have left, Fuyumi. You can’t turn your back on me.”

“Dad…” her voice weakened. She felt like the phone was growing hotter against her ear, like his anger was passing through the phone. “I can’t do this anymore.”

“I’m just not allowed to have any children? Any family? I made mistakes, Fuyumi, I admit that. Haven’t I paid enough? I have no career, no legacy, and you want to take everything else?”

“I’m not taking anything,” she cried. “I just...I can’t do this, Dad. I’m your daughter, I’m not...not a replacement. I’m not Mom, I’m not Shouto, I’m not Touya...not Natsuo,” her voice caught in her throat. Her father rarely mentioned her middle brother, and when he did it was almost always with thinly-veiled scorn.

“Fuyumi.”

“No, Dad. Enough is enough.” Tears were streaming down her face, but she couldn’t tell if they were from grief or anger. “I’m done. I just...I’ll call you when I’m ready to talk to you again.”

She hung up the phone and dropped it on the counter, covering her face as she burst into tears. Aizawa was next to her in a moment, a supportive hand on her back while she cried.

“That sounded rough,” he finally said, when her tears had quieted.

“He’s an asshole,” she replied. Her eyes ached and her nose was plugged up, but something inside felt strangely light. “An asshole and a bastard and I never want to see him again as long a I live.”

Aizawa chuckled. “You know, I think Selkie owes me a favor….”

That made her laugh, and she wiped her tears with the back of her hand. “I don’t know about that,” she admitted. “Can’t you just send him to Spain again?”

The man nodded. Fuyumi leaned in to hug him, and he wrapped an arm around her shoulders. She wasn’t quite sure when Aizawa had become an indispensable part of their little family, but she was glad he was here. “I’ll see what I can do,” he finally said when she pulled away. “I hear the weather is terrible this time of year.”

Chapter Text

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Kyouka muttered to herself as she stared at the bus departure board. “They’re done? Just like that?”

“Everyone’s understaffed. I’m afraid they’re just not running busses this late anymore.”

She stared at the train station worker, who offered her an apologetic shrug. “You’re welcome to stay here for the night,” he said gently. “I’ve been told our benches are quite comfortable.”

Kyouka turned away, stunned. All she’d done was head out to visit some family during a school break. She knew the train would get in pretty late, but there should have been a bus to take her back to UA.

Instead, she was stuck here until morning. Kyouka shrugged her backpack a little higher, glancing around at the waiting room the train station worker had pointed out to her. The benches weren’t too bad—they had backs and thick padding—but the room already seemed too crowded. There was a woman trying to quiet two crying children (Kyouka didn’t blame them; this situation sucked). A businessman sitting upright, arms folded, looking for all the world like he was used to this sort o thing. More students, some her age and some older, scattered around alone or in groups.

She really didn’t want to sleep in a place like this. Kyouka settled down on one of the benches, tucking her knees in close, and pulled her phone out. Maybe she could just stay awake until morning. If she explained things to Aizawa, he’d probably let her off easy for not making it back to campus. It wasn’t like she’d planned on spending the night at the train station.

Normally, she might try to walk back to campus, but things were still a little too chaotic for that. It was almost ten, and it would probably take her over an hour to get back, and a lot of the area was still pretty run down. The hotel wasn’t open, or she could’ve had her parents call to arrange a room for her. She could try for a taxi, but...it didn’t seem like anyone else was doing that, and she’d already had enough bad experiences with taxis.

Her phone only had half a charge, so she pulled her purse across her knees to dig through it. Her fingers closed around a slim plastic device, and she pulled it out to plug into the bottom of her phone. Kyouka still didn’t understand how she’d been pulled into the “Bakusquad”, but Bakugou had thrown the emergency phone charger at her one day and demanded she make sure “the idiot” kept it fully charged. It had helped her out of a pinch more than once, and it held more than enough juice to keep her phone powered all night.

She texted Aizawa about her situation first, then switched over to scroll through her friends’ messages. Their class had several group chats, and she pulled up the one for the girls and typed out her lament over her circumstances. The chat was immediately flooded with replies—from Momo’s carefully exact response, to Hagakure’s flurry of emojis, to Uraraka’s recommendation of train station vending machine food.

She smiled as she typed out her replies, settling down further into the bench. Tsu had gotten in on the chat now, and she and Uraraka were telling some of the worst jokes Kyouka had ever read.

Ashido sent her a private message, and Kyouka tapped on it to bring it up.

-Blasty wants to know if you’re safe.

Kyouka grinned. I’m fine, but tell him I appreciate his concern, she typed back.

-He says he’s not worried

Uh-huh

-No, really, he just doesn’t want Kaminari to do something stupid.

Right.

-There have been no suggestions about breaking curfew to get your dumb, skinny ass back to UA

I’m glad to hear that. Did he really call me skinny?

-Well, scrawny, but I still think it was a compliment

Kyouka chuckled, typing out another reply to Ashido. She couldn’t tell if her friend was really messing with Bakugou or if she was just trying to cheer her up, but that didn’t matter. Being an informal member of the squad had its benefits.

The bench settled, and Kyouka glanced up to see a man sitting down at the other end. “Is this seat taken?” he asked, smiling at her.

She raised her eyebrows. “Uh. Yeah.” There were still plenty of empty benches around.

“You don’t need the whole bench, do you?”

“Actually, I do.”

“Don’t be like that. I’m just being friendly.”

Kyouka rolled her eyes. “I’m good, thanks.”

He didn’t answer. Kyouka glued her eyes to her phone, swiping through the messages her friends were sending. Bakugou had messaged her, telling her to ignore everything Ashido was saying and that he didn’t actually care if she never made it back at all—which was a blatant lie, because she got the notification that he’d pinged her location a few seconds later. Aizawa had read her message but didn’t reply, so she assumed he understood her situation.

“How old are you?”

She glanced up. The man was grinning at her again. “Underage,” she shot back, looking down at her phone again.

“I bet you’re mature for your age.”

Ugh. What a creep. Kyouka rolled her eyes. “Look, man, I’m sure you’re nice or whatever, but I’m really not interested.”

“I’m just talking,” he wheedled. He’d shifted closer to her, and Kyouka realized she was trying to push herself further back into the corner. “We’re stuck here all night, right? What’s wrong with a little conversation?”

“I’m good.”

“Don’t be like that. Look, how about I buy you a coffee.” He’d slid close enough to put a hand on her knee. “You’re old enough to drink coffee, right?”

She brushed his hand away. “I just want to be left alone, man.”

“I’m just trying to be nice,” he insisted.

“So am I,” she replied through clenched teeth. Her temper was boiling. She wanted nothing more than to kick this guy in the nuts and walk away, but she was stuck here until dawn. “I said no, all right? I’m not interested.”

His hand was on her knee again. When she tried to push it off he grabbed her hand. “I just want to talk,” he said with a laugh. “What’s wrong with a little conversation?”

That was it. There had to be a hero agency somewhere around here. Surely they’d let a UA student crash for the night—or maybe even take her back to campus. “Let go, man.” Kyouka tried to pull her hand away, but the man held tight.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said in a low voice. “All I want is a little conversation.”

“I gave you a little conversation,” Kyouka snapped back. “I said no.”

“What’s with you?” he hissed. “We’re just talking.”

“You’re talking. I’m leaving.” She stood up, twisting her arm to yank her wrist away and taking a quick step back. He reached for her again, and she backed away. “Just leave me alone!” Kyouka raised her voice, hoping to catch someone’s attention.

He lunged forward and grabbed her shoulder. “Don’t be such a bitch.”

Kyouka rolled her eyes.

And kicked him in the balls.

He doubled over, groaning and cursing, and she spun around and raced for the bathroom. She hadn’t been at a good angle for that kick, so she didn’t think it would incapacitate him for long.

It didn’t take long before his footsteps were pounding after her, but she’d already made it to the bathroom. Kyouka slammed the door in his face, twisting the deadbolt into place before he could shove it open.

He was banging on it and yelling at her, and Kyouka slid to the floor with her back against the door. Why did this creep have to target her? What did she do to deserve this?

Her phone slipped out of her hand to skid across the floor. Kyouka stared at it for a second before picking it up, dialing one of her contacts.

“Aizawa.”

“It’s Jirou,” she explained shakily. “I know it’s late, but do you know someone who could pick me up?” She’d normally call her dad, but he was probably in bed by now. Besides, Aizawa had contacts all over the city. He’d know exactly who to call.

There was a strange burst of noise over the phone, but Kyouka could barely hear it over the guy yelling behind her. “Mr. Aizawa?”

“I’m already here.”

What?

She stared at her phone, but he’d hung up.

The yelling cut off suddenly. Eyes wide, Kyouka pressed a hand to the door and lowered an earjack to poke it through the space beneath. It sounded like the man was whimpering, blubbering out excuses...answered by a gruff, familiar voice.

No way.

Kyouka stood up, dusted herself off, and unlocked the bathroom door before gently pushing it open. “Mr. Aizawa?”

He was there, the creep wrapped up in his scarf, his expression unreadable as he turned to face her. “Hey, kid,” he said casually. “Ready to go home?”

“Definitely,” she whispered.

Aizawa dropped the creep, who was picked up by station security before he could scuttle away, then plucked Kyouka’s backpack out of her hands to sling over his shoulder. “Let’s go. Hizashi’s parked in a fire zone.”

Chapter Text

Hizashi rolled onto his side, eyes open in the darkness of the bedroom. He stared at the dark lump on the other side of the bed, his heart still pounding erratically.

“Shouta?” he finally whispered.

His husband rolled to face him and opened his eye, studying Hizashi’s expression for a moment. He held out an arm and Hizashi scooted in closer, burying himself in his husband’s embrace.

Shouta’s cheek was pressed against the top of his head. “Another nightmare?”

His breath stirred the loose hair near Hizashi’s forehead. He nodded, cuddling in even closer until he could rest his head against Shouta’s neck. “Sorry to wake you.”

Shouta grunted. “I’m not awake,” he muttered.

“Then I’m not sorry.” He tried to smile, but had to swallow down his tears instead. Shouta gently rested a hand on top of his head, then gently stroked down, smoothing down errant hairs in Hizashi’s braid. He shuddered, closing his eyes as Shouta repeated the simply, soothing motion.

“Do you need to talk?”

He appreciated that about his partner. It was never do you want to talk. Sometimes you didn’t want to, but you needed to. You needed to get it out of your head. You needed to share it with someone; let them carry part of the burden.

“I don’t know,” he finally said. “I just...I just kept losing everything. Oboro and Nemuri, the kids, then you. I tried to hold on but you kept slipping through my fingers. Crumbling away. No matter...no matter what I did.”

Shouta sighed. Hizashi scooted down a little, so he could rest his head against his husband’s chest. The steady beat of his heart soothed some of his worried, and he tightened his own hold around the other man. “You’re still here, right?”

“Most of me.”

“That’s not funny.”

“It’s a little funny.” Shouta’s hand resumed its long, slow stroke down Hizashi’s hair. “I’m not going anywhere.”

He nodded, feeling his body finally relax. “You better not,” he muttered. “You promised.”

…

Unlike Shouta, who’d been a confirmed bachelor with the social skills of a hibernating tortoise until they married, Hizashi had tried to have relationships before, though they’d never lasted very long.

He couldn’t help it. He loved falling in love—and Shouta used to tease him that he did it too easily—but that was all. Love and attraction were there, which made finding a partner and growing closer to them so alluring. Desire was not. No matter what he told them in the beginning, there would be...expectations...before too long.

It didn’t seem to matter who he was with. No matter the gender (or lack thereof). Some were respectful of his boundaries, but they just drifted apart after a while. Others were pushier. How could he know if he never tried? Maybe he just hadn’t found the right one? Did he really want to live the rest of his life like this?

And Shouta had been there. Every time. A shoulder to cry on, or lean on. Comfort in the form of a hot meal delivered with an annoyed sigh. An unspoken invitation to crash in his spare room. A box of herbal tea next to the coffee can in the cabinet. A spare charging case for his hearing aids in a drawer in the bathroom. All the little ways Shouta showed love without ever having to say it.

He’d given up on dating a few years ago, and thrown all his energy into his life at UA. There were so many kids who looked up to him, and he found so much joy in being their teacher. Even if Nedzu didn’t think he had the focus to be a homeroom teacher, he could still put all of his heart into teaching these kids. Whether it was for his own class, helping out with practical lessons, or even just being faculty advisor for a few clubs, he’d felt like he finally found his place.

And Shouta had been there. Complaining about his terrible coffee. Helping him check essays for plagiarism because “these little bastards will try to get away with anything”. Covering sick days, dragging him to the doctor when needed. He’d somehow found some ancient kids’ TV show, with these terrifying puppets trying to teach kids English...and sent Hizashi an episode every time he worried that he wasn’t cut out for teaching.

The other teachers had left their marks, of course. Cementoss didn’t always like to be touched, but they’d had long conversations about literature, both Japanese and English. Recovery Girl—she’d been here when he was a student, and never let him forget it—whacked him on the shins with her cane and reminded him to get enough sleep at night. Kan could get too enthusiastic planning out practical lessons for the kids, and he’d slapped Hizashi on the back hard enough to bruise more time than he could count.

And Nemuri. She’d understood his boundaries more than anyone else, except Shouta. She knew the line between desire and affection and never crossed it. They teased each other like siblings, and she’d kiss his cheek just to laugh at him while he tried to scrub her lipstick off before class.

(She’d also acted like he and Shouta were already married, and feigned surprise every time he reminded her that they weren’t. Maybe she’d seen something before they did.)

Then the war. Everything changed. They lost friends...lost family. Any sense of peace was shattered beyond recognition. Their kids came back a little older, a little quieter.

And Shouta...Shouta was still here.

…

Hizashi placed a plate in front of Shouta, before taking his place across from him at the table. He rested his chin on his hand for a moment, watching Shouta absently eat his breakfast while scanning through a report about recent criminal activity in the city. They were probably planning on sending the kids out again, and he knew his husband would already be planning the best places to deploy them.

Shouta caught him staring and paused, raising his eyebrows. “What?”

He shook his head. “Nothing,” he commented. “I’m just lucky.”

Shouta was still here. Would always be here. He would never expect Hizashi to be more than he was. He could burrow into this man’s embrace whenever he wanted, without the fear of being misunderstood. He could lavish Shouta with all the physical affection his heart desired, and know that his husband would never take it a step further.

“You’re a sap,” Shouta finally said dryly, turning his attention back to the reports. “How did you sleep? Any more dreams?”

“No,” Hizashi replied, focusing on his own breakfast. “I think you chased them away.”

Shouta grunted. “Good.”

Hizashi watched him for another moment, then reached across the table with his left hand. “Shouta?”

The other man glanced up at him, then down at his hand. He heaved out a sigh—but Hizashi could tell his heart wasn’t in it—and copied his gesture. Hizashi laced their fingers together, smiling at the gleam of their wedding rings under the kitchen light.

He’d never imagined a marriage could be like this. That they could just be themselves, with no other expectations. He squeezed Shouta’s fingers and looked up to meet his gaze. “I love you,” he said simply.

Shouta rolled his eye. “And I love the tax break,” he replied.

Hizashi laughed, releasing Shouta’s hand and returning to his breakfast. He might never say it, but he showed it in a thousand other ways. Protecting Hizashi when a partner had threatened to get violent if he didn’t sleep with them. Finding subs for his classes when he was too mired in grief to teach.

But it was more than that. It was in the way Shouta leaned on him, too. Asking him to move in when he was overwhelmed by the kids’ needs. Depending on him at the hospital. Accepting Hizashi’s help when he suddenly became disabled.

Those long, dark nights after graduation. Lying in the dark as Shouta whispered that he thought he was broken on the inside, because he never felt what other people felt. The horrible, aching loneliness in his best friend’s voice as Shouta wondered if he would end up alone forever. Hizashi’s promise to stay with him, even if he found his own family someday.

Well, in the end he’d found his own family...and it was Shouta.

He looked up again, smiling as he watched Shouta circle something on his report and jot down a note next to it.

Everything had changed, but some things changed for the better.

Shouta was still here.

...well, most of him.

Chapter Text

The first time had left bruises.

His father’s hands, big enough to wrap around his wrists, shaking with anger as they tried to untie the knots. Denki’s wrists felt chafed raw by the time the man finally cut the rope away; leaving him shaken, scared, and alone in the dining room, with a plate of food that had long gone cold.

Stomach cramping from a combination of hunger and fear, Denki quietly scooted closer to the table and reached for his fork. His own hands were shaking, and his heart was still thundering in his chest. He could still feel his father’s hands around his wrists, pinning his arm to the chair. They’d pulled the ties off the dining room curtains, knotting them so tight that he could already feel bruises forming.

He couldn’t wear bracelets to school to cover the bruises, so he’d sat very still as his mother smeared makeup around his wrists. She’d explained that they didn’t mean to hurt him. They wanted to help him. He just needed to learn to sit still, to be calm and quiet like a good girl, and they wouldn’t need to resort to such measures.

By the time he came home from school, the curtain ties had been replaced. His father never touched them again.

That night, his father had calmly grabbed two scarves from his mother’s closet.

At least he never left bruises again.

…

“Sir! Bakugou and Todoroki are still in pursuit of the villain.”

“No close-range attacks. Yaoyorozu?”

“I’ve got them—here, Iida, these should block out the gas, get them to Bakugou and Todoroki.”

“I’m on it!”

…

He tried to sit still, but it was so hard! His Quirk buzzed under his skin and left him twitchy and active. If he didn’t move, it felt like something was crawling through his veins. The best way to relieve that feeling was to let out a burst of electricity—but that would be even worse than fidgeting.

His mother forced him through endless visits with guests, parading him around in dresses and makeup like he was a doll instead of her child. Everything he did was wrong, somehow. Fidgeting. Swinging his legs. Picking at his clothes. Rubbing his face. Talking too much. Laughing too loud. His mother’s lips would press together, thinner and thinner until her mouth all but disappeared.

Then his father would come home, already angry. There were four scarves now, for his wrists and ankles, and his father had warned there could be a fifth if he didn’t shut the hell up.

He tried to sit still. He pretended he was wooden. Just part of the chair. Even then, his arms and legs still wanted to move, and if his focus slipped for a second he’d jerk against the scarves.

Tears were even worse. He bottled his emotions down until they bubbled under his skin with his Quirk. He’d sit still, burning eyes fixed on the edge of the table, until his father pushed his plate away and stood up.

Then they’d take the scarves away. His father would rest a heavy hand on his shoulder, gaze boring into Denki’s. Denki would feel his heart pounding again as fear weakened his limbs, until he could only nod in agreement to the man’s judgment. Until he was left alone to a cold, lonely dinner.

At least they never made him go hungry.

…

“Breathe, Denki. Come on. In and out, that’s it.”

“I-I only made oxygen...should I do something else?”

“Not until we know more. The respirator is enough for now.”

“Mr. Aizawa! The ambulance is here!”

…

They left him one night. Friends had dropped by, and his parents left the room to greet them.

He could hear their conversation from the dining room. Laughing and talking, while he sat alone and unmoving. Dinner was growing colder as his parents brushed off the interruption, saying they were almost done anyway.

When asked, they explained his absence away. He was with a friend; he wouldn’t be home until later. No, they didn’t need to pick him up, his friend was just a few houses away. He often stayed late—he might even stay the night.

Denki sat quietly, staring at the table in front of him. He could have yelled for help...but what would that accomplish? This was just discipline. They weren’t hurting him. He’d be causing a scene. Embarrassing them. If he could sit still, if he could be quiet, they wouldn’t have to resort to things like this.

He tugged against the scarves on his wrists, wondering if he could break free. He was just so hungry—he was surprised they couldn’t hear his stomach growling from the other room. They wouldn’t leave him here forever, right?

He closed his eyes as the evening wore on, startling awake at the touch on his shoulder. His father’s face was stern as he stared down at Denki. He tried to explain that he hadn’t done anything; he’d just been still and quiet, but his father’s face only grew darker and darker with disapproval.

At least they let him eat before they sent him to his room. He shoveled down as much as he could stomach, then followed his father up to his room and stood in the doorway for another lecture on proper behavior.

Denki couldn’t figure out what he’d done wrong. Were they mad he fell asleep? He hadn’t moved or made a sound—what had he done wrong this time? His father put a hand on his shoulder to push him into the room, slamming the door behind him. Blinking back tears, Denki wrapped a blanket around his shoulders and crawled under his bed. He felt a little more secure under there, though it wasn’t a very good hiding place. They’d still see him the moment they opened the door, but he couldn’t help feeling a little bit safer.

At least he wasn’t claustrophobic.

…

“What do you know about the gas?”

“He wasn’t breathing it out or anything. It was like it came from his pores. We’d only seen it come from his hands, but when Kaminari got too close to him he expelled the gas from all over his body. Yaoyorozu tried to get a sample….”

“It’s here. I didn’t get much, but if it’ll help….”

“Thank you. We’d better get moving—no, sir, you need to—”

“I’m his father.”

…

He’d really done it now.

Another night. Another silent dinner, his midterm scores resting on the table in front of him. Mocking him. The scarves were clammy against his skin.

He’d actually, stupidly, been proud of himself. He’d passed all of his written exams—sure, he hadn’t been in the top half of his class, but he’d never done that before! He didn’t need a makeup test or extra lessons—and even though he’d failed the practical, Aizawa was still letting him go to training camp with the others.

But it wasn’t good enough. It was never good enough. His grades would never be high enough, his friends would never be acceptable, he’d never be the daughter they always wanted.

Things were different now. He could almost feel himself growing at UA. He had friends who cared about him, no matter what he looked like under his clothes. Classmates who believed in him, who nearly burst into happy tears when they saw his passing grades. Teachers who pushed him to do better, to set his standards beyond just his survival.

Even if none of that mattered here, he could still hold it close to his heart. He could let it grow in secret, nurtured by the friends and family he’d found.

At least he finally had a place to belong.

…

Denki shifted. He felt too heavy, and his lungs were burning with every breath. He could hear machines hissing and beeping, and felt the all-too-familiar chill of the hospital.

A hand gently touched his face, and he pried his eyes open to find Aizawa studying him.

“Hi, Dad,” he managed weakly.

Aizawa didn’t answer. He let out a long, quiet breath and bowed his head. “They didn’t know when you’d wake up,” he finally said. “They finally got the toxin out of your system a couple hours ago.”

He nodded. He remembered the gas cloud guy, and the little pieces of conversation he’d heard while he was in and out of consciousness. “What happened?” he whispered shakily.

“He was apprehended, but he doesn’t seem to have a villain name,” Aizawa explained. He sat down in a chair next to the bed, taking Denki’s hand when he reached for him. “They’ve been studying his Quirk since they took him in. As best they can analyze, the gas he expels can lock your mind in your most traumatic memories.”

“Oh.”

Aizawa nodded, his face still troubled. “You said some things while you were out,” he finally said. “I know there are things you haven’t told me, but kid...Denki...I can’t help you if I don’t know about it.”

Denki found himself blinking back tears at this. There were plenty of times he’d wanted to tell Aizawa, but something had always held him back. He knew it wasn’t his fault, he could say it all day long, but those awful nights with his wrists and ankles tied down...they were humiliating. Like he’d deserved it, somehow.

Like he was everything they’d ever said he was, and if he told Aizawa then his new family would see it too.

“I won’t push you,” Aizawa said, when Denki didn’t answer. “I want you to know you can tell me, okay? Whatever it is...I just want to help.”

He managed to nod. Words and memories were twisting up inside of him, and Denki stared helplessly up at Aizawa. “I don’t even know where to start,” he managed to say.

Aizawa lowered the bed railing, then scooted his chair in close until he could slide an arm behind Denki’s shoulders. He found himself leaning into the man’s hold, like he was trying to soak up enough of his guardian’s warmth to banish the chill of the hospital.

“Start wherever you can,” Aizawa said. “It doesn’t have to be the beginning.”

Denki nodded. He cleared his throat, the words seeming to die in his throat before they could reach his mouth. “I could tell you about the scarves?” he whispered.

Aizawa’s arm tightened around his shoulders. “All right, Denki. Tell me about the scarves.”

At least he finally...finally...had a real father.

Chapter Text

The lunchroom was its usual maelstrom of sound. Tenya focused his eyes on Midoriya, who was describing the television special he’d watched over the weekend in between bites of his lunch, and tried to will the wall of sound away.

Someone a few tables over laughed. Loud and piercing, the sound sharp enough that Tenya thought he could feel it scraping its way into his ears. He had to fight back a wince, reaching for his glass of water to hide the momentary loss of focus.

“Iida?” Midoriya had paused, chopsticks halfway to his mouth. “Are you okay?”

“I’m perfectly fine,” he replied. “It’s just a bit loud in here today, don’t you think?”

Midoriya glanced around. “Doesn’t seem any louder than normal to me. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine. Now, please, continue.”

His friend sent him a dubious look, but did as he asked. Tenya focused on Midoriya, fighting to listen to him over the rising noise in the rest of the lunchroom. Two students were yelling back and forth. They had to be three tables apart, maybe even more. Why couldn’t they just walk over to each other?

The door opened with a bang as a couple of third-year students strolled in. A cellphone rang a few tables away. Someone...no, three people were playing videos on their phones.

The laugh again. He set his teeth and took in a long breath through his nose. It was just noise. Just his fellow students in high spirits. There was no danger here, no reason he should be so hyper-focused.

But he couldn’t turn it off. Every sound seemed to scrape across his nerves. It was like the noise around him had a physical presence, and he could feel his arms and legs tense as though he was expecting an attack at any moment.

Everything seemed to slow down, except for the noise. He tried to focus on what Midoriya was saying, but the other boy’s lips were barely moving and his words were almost inaudible. He was drowned out by the clink of utensils, the slam of a tray on a table.

Someone was standing behind him. Leaning against a wall, talking to their friend. Their words were somehow clearer than Midoriya’s, like his mind couldn’t help but focus on them.

“You’re level twelve? Oh, man, I’m already almost level thirty. Let’s link up; you’ll get more XP from the bigger monsters, and I can help you take them down.”

Tinny, electronic music. The digitized screech of a sword leaving its sheath. A tiny voice announcing the startup of Iron Fist Mobile.

“Iida!”

Tenya gasped in a breath, realizing his friend was staring at him. “I’m sorry, Midoriya. I was distracted.”

The sounds of combat. They were in the lunchroom. Why didn’t they turn the sound off? Did they really need to hear the death scream of every monster and the victory music from every battle? The sounds were all behind him, and he could feel them pushing everything else out. Midoriya was still watching him, but everything he said was swallowed up in the ocean of sound.

“No, you’re right,” Tenya finally said. “I think I need some air. I will see you in class.” He departed quickly, the sounds of the mobile game and three different videos and that laugh following him out into the relative safety of the hall.

He didn’t stop in the hall, leaning against a nearby wall with a sigh of relief. He kept his feet moving, following the well-known corridors to one of the men’s bathrooms. It would be quieter in there, away from the students coming and going to the lunchroom. He could wash his face, take a deep breath, have a moment of quiet solitude to let his nervous system calm down.

Even then, his hands were still shaking. Tenya curled them into fists, still resting them on the counter, and stared into his reflection in the mirror. “You have to be better than this,” he scolded himself. “It’s just sound. What will you do as a hero when something like this happens? You can’t just run away.”

No matter how much he wanted to. No matter how loud the world around him got, or how much it physically hurt when he got overwhelmed, he had to press on. He was a hero now. He had to be better than this.

He checked his watch—class would start in ten minutes. That was plenty of time to—

Someone ran past in the hall, shouting. Something hit the wall, then the floor, spinning around with the whub whub whub of something metal and circular, like the lid of a garbage can. More voices arguing. The scrape of metal against the floor as they picked up whatever they had dropped.

Tenya gripped the counter with shaking hands as the noises seemed to dive right into his body. They ran up and down his arms, into the base of his skull, crawling under his scalp. He wanted to stuff his hands into his ears to dig the sounds out, to get the away from his body, but he held on.

Why were they arguing right outside the bathroom? Their voices were to muffled to hear clearly, but the tones were coming straight through the wall. It was agonizing. Tenya held onto the counter, curling over the sink as the noise bore into him. It was taking everything he had to just breathe and not scream, not barge out there and demand that they move their conversation elsewhere. This was a school. People were allowed to talk.

Finally, another voice joined in. Power Loader’s distinct voice cut through the argument, and three sets of footsteps pounded down the hall as the teacher ushered the two students away. Tenya breathed out a sigh of relief, nearly falling against the counter as the noise finally stopped.

He checked his watch again—six minutes to class. More than enough time for a few minutes of quiet before he joined his classmates.

…

Ururaka was humming as she worked. Not a tune, just the occasional little hmm as she filled out her quiz sheet. Tenya fought to keep his focus on his paper and not on the classmate behind him. Not on the way her pen scratched against the paper, or the little sounds she made while she was thinking, or the tap tap tap­ of the pen cap against her chin.

Satou kept sniffing. His allergies were bad this time of year, and even with antihistamines and a mask he could still find his nose running at inopportune times. Like today. He sniffed. He coughed. He turned his head to sneeze and apologized softly. His pen scratched on his paper, then scribbled as he crossed an answer out.

Kouda never worked through his test front-to-back. He went through and answered all the questions he was confident in first, then went back through the test for the ones who gave him trouble. He said it was because he was afraid he’d get stuck on one question and run out of time before he got to one he could answer. Which was fine, and Tenya thought that was a wise attitude...but he kept flipping his paper. His pen would move, his wrist tapping against the desk as he wrote a sentence. Scratch-thump, scratch-thump, scratch-thump. Then a rustle as he flipped the paper over. Sometimes two or three as he went back and forth, looking for the next question he could answer. Back and forth, scratch-thump, rustle rustle.

Tenya stared at his paper, resisting the urge to cover his ears. He couldn’t concentrate. The sounds, usually so quiet and manageable, roared up around him to batter his nerves.

But he had to do this. Had to push through it. He knew the answer to the next question, and he quickly wrote it out, trying to ignore the way his hand was shaking. He was halfway through the first page now, with plenty of time to finish the rest of the quiz. He hadn’t seen the questions on the back, but he was confident that he—

scratch-thump, rustle rustle...hmm...rustle...sniff...scratch-thump

He exhaled shakily. These were normal, everyday noises. He heard them all the time. There was no reason for them to bother him now.

Rustle...hmm...tap-tap...cough...snap!

Tenya startled, opening his hand to drop his broken pen onto his quiz paper. He stared down at it, at the mess of ink on his desk, and started to raise his hand.

“Iida.” Aizawa was already next to him, his expression serious. “Step outside with me.”

Whispers followed them out as Aizawa led him around a corner to the empty hallway. “Wanna tell me what’s going on?” he asked bluntly.

“I’m all right, Mr. Aizawa,” Tenya replied. “Just a little tired.”

“You’re shaking.”

He curled his hands into fists and held them against his sides. “It’s nothing to be concerned about.”

“Look, kid...sit down, you’re too tall.”

Tenya managed a brief smile as Aizawa pushed him toward a few chairs set up in a nearby corner. It looked like some students had had their lunch here, and had forgotten to put the chairs away. He gently sat down in one, and Aizawa sat down facing him.

He was still taller than Aizawa when they were sitting down, but he didn’t want to mention that.

“I can tell something’s going on today,” Aizawa began, holding up a hand to keep Tenya from interrupting, “and I know you don’t want whatever this is getting in the way of your education or your career as a hero. So spill.”

He was still hesitant to speak. Aizawa made a certain amount of sense—this wasn’t something he wanted upsetting his goals as a student or as a hero. But it just seemed like a small thing. A thing no one else had a problem with.

“It’s too loud,” he finally said. Aizawa was still looking at him, and Tenya cleared his throat and pressed on. “Most days it’s fine, but there are some days where the world is just too loud.”

“Too loud how?” his teacher asked. “Are you ears ringing? Is it a specific sound, or a situation?”

“It’s…” Tenya shook his head. He raised a hand toward the side of his head but stopped, unsure of how to continue. “It’s like my ears are too big on the inside,” he explained. “Like too many sounds get it, and they’re too sharp, and they just...I feel like I’m under attack, but I know it’s just normal noise. Everyone else hears it, but it doesn’t...it doesn’t hurt everyone else. Does it?”

“Are you saying your hearing is too...good?”

He managed a laugh. “It sounds ridiculous when you put it like that,” Tenya admitted.

“Is there a specific sound that sets it off more than others?” Aizawa asked. He had his phone out, and Tenya could hear the faint tap-tap of his thumb on the screen as he used it.

He opened his mouth to say no, then paused. The game in the lunchroom had been particularly agonizing. “I think electronic ones?” he guessed. “Like ones out of phones. Sometimes voices in person are okay but voices over the phone or on television aren’t.”

Aizawa nodded, pushing himself up to his feet. “Let’s go see Recovery Girl. We need to rule out any possible physical causes first, then if she can’t find anything we can check for a support item that might help.”

“Sir?” Tenya stood as well, hesitant to follow him.

“Hizashi wears hearing aids,” Aizawa said simply. “He’s got special ones that dampen his Quirk without blocking out other sounds. Don’t see why they can’t make you something similar. Something to cut the noise down when you need it.”

“I don’t like earplugs,” he offered, hurrying to catch up with Aizawa.

“No earplugs,” Aizawa said, adding that to the notes in his phone. “Anything else?”

“No, but...what about the quiz?”

“You can make it up, I’m not worried about your grades.”

“Thank you, sir, but...what about the other students? If you’re not in class, then—”

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Aizawa said lightly. “I left them in good hands.”

…

Izuku swallowed hard, staring out at the eighteen other students of class 2-A. It would be easy, Aizawa had said, when he handed in his quiz. Just proctor the quiz until he got back.

His phone buzzed, and he found a message from Aizawa waiting for him. He pulled it up, his heart sinking when he read through it. Aizawa was taking Iida to the nurse’s office and probably wouldn’t be back by the end of class.

Someone’s hand shot up. Izuku took in a shaky breath before calling on them. “Yes, Kaminari?”

A wide, mischievous grin spread across Kaminari’s face. “Mr. Midoriya, can I go to the bathroom?”

Chapter Text

The darkness finally receded around him as Kouji fought to open his eyes. He coughed a few times, groaning around the pain in his chest. The air was still swirling with dust and bits of straw from the collapse of the old hayloft, and he fought to push himself up on his elbows before collapsing back down with a hiss of pain.

He managed to twist to look over his shoulder, his heart thudding in his ears when he saw the pile of debris behind him. A heavy beam lay across his legs, pinning him to the barn floor, and more timber had tumbled down on top of it.

Kouji lowered his head, resting it against the ground as he fought back the first trickle of fear. His team knew where he was. When he didn’t report back on time, they’d….

They’d look for him, right? They’d remember he was supposed to be on the truck with them, and not overlook his spot just because he was quiet...right?

He’d been left behind on a field trip to the petting zoo once, back in elementary school. He’d tried not to mind because it meant extra time talking to the animals, who didn’t judge him based on the way he looked. The workers eventually found him and helped him call his mother...who called the school...who hadn’t even noticed he was missing yet.

But UA was different. Someone would notice. They wouldn’t pack up and leave without him, leaving him pinned down in a broken-down barn like this.

Right?

Kouji shifted and tried to tug on his legs, but the movement caused a spasm of pain to shoot up from his knee and he had to lie back down and breathe through it for a few seconds. He didn’t want to cry here, no matter how much it hurt.

“He-hello?” he called, but had to stop and clamp a hand over his mouth when he had to cough through the pain in his chest. There was so much dust in the air that he’d stirred it up trying to shout, and he had to breathe shallowly to keep his chest from hurting.

Tears filled his eyes, and he clamped the shut to try to squeeze them back. He had to tuck his feelings away for now—fear and pain and isolation—and focus on getting out of here safely. He could cry later, when it was safe to let his feelings out.

He wore his radio on the right side of his belt, but that hip seemed to be pinned under the worst of the debris so he couldn’t reach it. He used to have an earpiece like the others wore, but it had gotten damaged during the war and he hadn’t replaced it yet. They had to be specially made for him, since his ears weren’t the same shape as everyone else’s.

Kouji rested his forehead on the ground in front of him and took in a slow breath. He didn’t breathe very deep, too worried about triggering the pain in his chest, but he tried to center himself and calm his emotions. Reach out with other senses.

There was movement somewhere in the barn. Tiny, lightning-quick minds, well fed and sheltered in the ruins around him. Kouji tried to call to them, feeling them approach him. Tiny claws scratched against the broken wood and scrabbled through the dirt, and he finally lifted his head to see three plump mice watching him.

He tried to smile. “I don’t have any food for you,” he whispered. One of the mice came in closer, resting little paws on the back of his hand. It chittered at him, and he had a momentary impression of acorns littering the ground under a nearby oak, and wild plants with tender stems and roots. He did smile now, his heart a little lighter at knowing how well these mice were thriving.

“I need some help,” he admitted as the other two mice came in closer. There was more scuttling in the wreckage, and he spotted another peeking over a half-rotted barrel. “I’m trapped here, and I need my friends to come get me out.” As his Quirk activated, he could feel his words shifting into something the mice could understand. Traps, danger, friends.

He pictured the rest of his team, giving the mice as clear an image as he could. They’d probably hear Bakugou or Kirishima before they saw them. Satou would smell like sugar and flour, while Ashido’s scent could be bitter depending on the strength of her acid. Tokoyami would look like a predator, but he wouldn’t hurt them.

The mice listened to his instructions, then ran off to find the rest of his team. Kouji lowered his head to rest, regretting he hadn’t asked one of the mice to stay. It would be nice to have some company while he waited.

Dust coated his skin as he waited. He tried not to breathe too quickly, afraid of stirring it up again and getting it in his lungs. The sun burned against his shoulders as the day crept on, and he reached out to the mice more than once to make sure they were still trying to accomplish their mission.

He wasn’t sure how long had passed, and was just starting to doze off again when an explosion tore across the sky. Kouji jerked awake with a gasp, coughing out a mouthful of dust even as his ribs spasmed from the pain. The explosion grew closer, and something landed in the dirt outside the barn.

“Kouda!”

Kouji weakly waved an arm, but he wasn’t sure if Bakugou could see it. He heard the other boy’s footsteps easily enough as Bakugou stalked into the barn, finally noticing him pinned under the debris pile.

“What the hell?” Bakugou snarled.

“I can’t get out,” he whispered.

“Yeah, I can see that. Hey! Candycrush! Get in here!”

A weary-looking Satou trudged in behind him. “That’s not—Kouda?”

Four plump mice were riding on Satou’s shoulders, and they jumped down to greet Kouji. He could see the sugar and crumbs on their whiskers, and couldn’t help but smile at the thought of Satou rewarding them for a job well done.

“Whatever,” Bakugou huffed. “See if you can lift that beam, then we can pull Kouda out.”

“Why doesn’t he have a nickname?”

“Because he didn’t want one, dumbass!” Bakugou snarled. “Now get moving before I decide to blow it all up!”

…

Kouji had never spent the night in the nurse’s office before. Recovery Girl had tended to his wounds, then left him to rest overnight for observation, just in case. It was quiet, and a little lonely, but a lot better than being pinned down in that barn.

A shadow appeared on the other side of his privacy curtain. “Hey, kid. Can we come in?”

We? He only saw Aizawa’s shadow, but Kouji shrugged the thought away. “Sure.”

Aizawa pushed the curtain aside to step in. He was dressed in black, as usual, but something looked funny in the dim light of the infirmary. As Kouji stared, a shadow in Aizawa’s arm seemed to detach and leapt at him.

“Sumi!” He caught the black cat gratefully, cuddling her close while she bumped her head against his chin.

“Recovery Girl said I could bring her with me, as long as she doesn’t cause any trouble,” Aizawa explained. He settled into a chair at Kouji’s bedside, studying him intently. “You okay?”

He nodded. He felt a lot better with one of his pets here. He wished Aizawa could have brought Yuwai as well, but maybe they were worried his bunny would be too skittish. She would have been fine...but Aizawa might not know that. He was thankful enough to have Sumi, and cupped a hand under her as she settled against his chest with a loud purr.

“You know, your mice showed up just in time,” Aizawa remarked casually. “When you missed the first check-in, Bakugou was already setting up a search parameter. On the second, he called the rest of the class for backup, but your mice beat them there by about ten minutes.”

“They were looking for me?”

Aizawa’s sharp gaze pinned him in place and Kouji flinched back. “Kouda?”

“Sorry. I’m just not used to it,” he mumbled. Sumi made a soft nose and butted her head against his chin, and he stroked her back. “Um. People don’t always notice when I’m not there.”

His teacher sighed, and Kouji looked up to see the man rubbing a hand over his face. “Anyone in particular?”

“Oh...oh, no, not here,” he shook his head. “Not...not now. Maybe in the beginning, but...not anymore.”

“Good.”

He nodded. Sumi was settling down to sleep, her claws flexing as she kneaded on Kouji’s nightshirt. “Can she stay all night?” he asked.

“Recovery Girl said I had to take her back when I left,” Aizawa replied. He’d stretched out his legs and folded his arms, head tilted back against his chair.

“Oh. When’s that?”

“Morning,” Aizawa said simply. “Get some sleep.”

Kouji smiled, relaxing against his pillow as Sumi settled down in his arms. “Thank you,” he whispered, though he wasn’t sure if Aizawa had heard him, and closed his eyes to fall asleep to the familiar rumble of Sumi’s purr.

Chapter Text

“Fumikage!”

He jerked his hand back down at the sound of Dark Shadow’s wheedling squawk. Crouched on the edge of the roof, Fumikage stared intently down at the street below them. He fought to keep his mind on the mission, though he kept getting distracted by thoughts of his other responsibilities.

They were doing more as a class now, between rounding up jailbreakers and other villains. While the chaos and anarchy he’d feared hadn’t quite come to pass, they were still facing a certain level of instability as a society. Now more than ever, it was important for UA students to be seen on the streets—to give the people hope and a sense of safety.

The pressure was immense.

He’d never wanted to be a frontline hero like this. Fumikage had always imagined himself working through the night, blending in with the shadows to protect the vulnerable. But now, he was too visible. Everyone who saw him knew his name and called on him when they needed help...for everything.

Villains and petty criminals were one thing. But they were being called to solve minor disputes between neighbors. Just today, he’d been flagged down by a woman complaining that her neighbor’s baby wouldn’t stop crying (the baby was sick and he’d been able to provide medical assistance, much to the displeasure of the woman who’d called him...was she expecting him to arrest an infant?). Then someone had reported a man taking more goods than he’d been rationed (he had elderly neighbors and was picking up food for them so they didn’t have to make the trip to the store on such a busy day). Another man reported for sitting at a park bench “too long”. Another complaining that the heroes weren’t doing enough, though he failed to mention where they were falling short.

His hand strayed up toward his head again, and Dark Shadow squawked and shoved it away. “Stop it!” his Quirk complained.

Fumikage sighed. Plucking was a nervous habit he’d thought he’d outgrown...but the last few weeks had brought it forward again. While it could be a normal part of grooming—feathers didn’t shed the way hair did, and he sometimes had to gently remove the damaged ones so that new ones could replace them—this was more an anxious habit that natural molting.

“No!” Dark Shadow curled around into his face. “You don’t want to be bald again, do you?”

He sighed and shoved the shadow away. He’d been paranoid about his appearance when he was younger. No school was without its bullies, and they’d been particularly cruel in his middle school days. They’d taken great delight in pulling and twisting his feathers, often damaging them, and he’d spent more than one painful lunch hour in the bathroom trying to remove a broken feather from the back of his head.

He’d never been bald. But he had been a bit...plucked.

“There!” Dark Shadow crowed.

“I see it,” he replied, letting the shadow settle over him as he leapt from the rooftop. The man had just managed to yank the purse out of an older woman’s arms when Fumikage landed. “You don’t need to do this,” he announced, bracing himself for the confrontation. “UA has the resources to assist you, should you require it.”

“What’s a kid like you know, birdbrain?” the man sneered.

Fumikage rolled his eyes. “What an eloquent insult,” he deadpanned, easily catching the man’s wrist when he lunged forward. “In fact, I believe that’s the first time anyone has called me that.”

“Bakugou calls you that all the time,” Dark Shadow retorted.

He sighed. “I was being sardonic.”

The man snarled at him, reversing Fumikage’s move to pull his wrist free. “Damn kids,” he spat.

“Language,” Fumikage said mildly.

He brought up an arm to defend himself when the man lunged forward, easily matching his moves as his opponent moved in on the attack. A crowd was beginning to gather around them—he saw cellphones out—and Dark Shadow tucked themselves in closer to his body in response to his anxiety.

Even when they were careful, there were still citizens who were scared of Dark Shadow. With none of their classmates or other heroes to back them up, the very real fear that someone would have a negative reaction to Dark Shadow’s appearance somewhat hampered their actions.

The man was more skilled than he expected. Fumikage found himself going on the defensive more than he’d anticipated, dodging several incapacitating blows. He finally got a grip on the man’s arm and twisted to throw him to the ground, but the man countered by grabbing onto the back of his head and yanking.

Tears sprang to Fumikage’s eyes as his feathers were pulled and twisted. He could feel them being torn away from his scalp as he pulled himself free, and twisted around in time to see the man drop a handful of broken black feathers to the ground.

“Dark Shadow, no!” he shouted as his Quirk reacted to his pain. They rose up above him, bristling with shadow and fury, claws extended.

The man stumbled back, fear written across his face, and Fumikage used the opportunity to press his advantage. He managed to pin the man to the ground, his arms twisted behind his back, and stiffly announced on his radio than he needed assistance.

Dark Shadow let out a hiss, which Fumikage recognized as his Quirk’s attempt at a calming breath. He felt some of the tension leave their form, and the stretched out to pick up the woman’s purse where the attempted thief had dropped it. “This is yours,” they announced, carrying it over to the woman.

She stared at them, wide-eyed, and shrank back. Dark Shadow held still for a moment, then set the purse on the ground in front of her and retreated into Fumikage’s costume.

“I’m sorry, Fumikage,” they whispered, just loud enough for him to hear.

“As am I,” he muttered back, relieved to see a couple of police officers pushing through the crowd to take his prisoner into custody.

…

Dark Shadow had crept over his head like a hood to cover his damaged feathers while he sat through the debriefing. He’d managed to keep his hands to his sides while he talked with the officers, resisting the urge to pull at his feathers.

Then he was finally released and able to return to campus...only to be intercepted by Aizawa before he could retreat to his room.

“I saw the video,” his teacher announced.

Fumikage felt his emotions twist in his heart. “Dark Shadow only—”

“I know,” the man interrupted him. “How bad are your injuries?”

He steadied himself, taking a step back. “They are not severe,” Fumikage finally answered. “I can take care of them myself.”

“It’s the back of your head, kid.”

“I’m used to it.” He froze, instantly wishing he could take those words back. Aizawa just shook his head, gently taking Fumikage’s shoulder to steer him toward the first-floor bedroom.

“Sit down,” Aizawa said, gesturing to a stool in front of one of the sinks. A first aid kid, spray bottle, towel, and soft brush were already waiting for them. “Can I see?” he asked—mostly to Dark Shadow, who was still covering Fumikage’s head.

“It’s all right,” Fumikage finally said, and Dark Shadow retreated.

Aizawa studied the back of his head for a moment, then reached for the spray bottle. “If you’d rather stick your head in the shower to rinse off, you can do that,” he offered.

Fumikage shook his head. “Just get it over with.”

The mist from the spray bottle dampened his feathers, and Aizawa picked up the towel next and gently wiped the blood and dirt away. “I tried to call Hawks, but he wasn’t available.”

“He’s a busy man,” Fumikage agreed. Hawks’ feathers weren’t exactly the same...but Aizawa was right in thinking he would have been more comfortable if his mentor had been here to assist him.

“You’ve got some damage here...hang on a second.” Aizawa pulled his phone out and snapped a picture, then handed the phone to Fumikage. “What’s next, kid?”

He studied the picture for a long moment. It wasn’t as bad as he’d feared. What he’d taken as a handful of feathers had only been a few broken ends. “Two of the broken ones should be trimmed—is the third one bleeding?”

“Yeah. Does it need to come out?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Got it. Hang on a second.”

He closed his eyes as Aizawa worked. Trimming the damaged areas of the broken feathers, then pulling the blood feather and applying styptic powder to stop the bleeding.

Aizawa didn’t stop there. He picked up the spray bottle and gently misted Fumikage’s head, then used the soft brush to smooth and settle the rest of his feathers.

“You did good today,” Aizawa eventually said.

Fumikage sighed. “Dark Shadow—”

“Had an emotional response but showed restraint.” His teacher finally set the brush aside, then leaned against one of the sinks to catch Fumikage’s gaze. “You did good,” he repeated. “Both of you?”

Dark Shadow had already emerged from their hiding place to examine Aizawa’s work on the back of Fumikage’s head. “You said you saw the video,” Fumikage commented.

“Yeah. And the comment section. You’ve got more support than you think, Tokoyami. A lot of people are praising the two of you for what you did.”

“They are?” Dark Shadow puffed up, and Fumikage glanced into the mirror to roll his eyes at their smug posture.

“Don’t let it go to your head,” Aizawa said. He rested a hand on Fumikage’s head as he turned to leave, then glanced up at a hovering Dark Shadow with his eyebrows raised. “What, you want one, too?”

“Yes, please!” Dark Shadow ducked down, nearly shoving their head at Aizawa, who let out a chuckle as he patted their head. They crowed in satisfaction, ducking back into Fumikage’s costume.

“Thank you, Mr. Aizawa,” Fumikage said. He gently reached up to the back of his head, running his fingers through his feathers. “That was much appreciated.”

“Yeah, well, don’t tell the others or they’ll all want haircuts,” Aizawa replied.

A brief smile flitted across Fumikage’s face. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

Chapter Text

Kouta looked up from his book when he heard his aunt sigh. “Aunt Shino? Is everything okay?”

She stepped back from the refrigerator, fixing him with an easy smile. “Everything’s fine. I forgot to buy coffee creamer, that’s all. We still have milk.”

He watched her prepare her coffee, frowning as he thought about it. “Can you go buy more?”

“Not until the end of the week, but it’ll be okay.” Aunt Shino pulled the jug of milk out of the fridge, held it up to study its contents, then quietly set it back in the fridge.

“You’re not using it?”

“I decided I wanted it black today,” she replied easily, tugging out a chair to sit next to him. He didn’t miss the way she spooned extra sugar into her coffee, his frown deepening.

“Did you finish your homework?” Aunt Shino asked. She’d taken a sip of her coffee, but Kouta guessed she didn’t like it this way as much. She’d usually drink her entire mug in one sitting, then go back for a second cup as soon as breakfast was over.

“Almost,” he finally replied, when he noticed she was staring at him. “I have some math sheets to finish.”

“Need any help?”

He shook his head. “Eri’s gonna help me.”

Aunt Shino raised her eyebrows, but Kouta ignored her and kept his focus on his book. He didn’t need any help, but he’d been letting Eri work on his homework with him. Eraserhead said she wanted to go to school, but she needed to do a little catching up first. Working with Kouta on his homework seemed to help.

“Is she going to be home today?”

“Yeah. UA doesn’t have classes today, so one of her brothers is gonna be home.”

Aunt Shino nodded. “Okay. Ryuko and I were going to look at some spots for a new agency office today, but we won’t be far. Call me if you need anything.”

“I know.” Kouta drained his glass of milk and carried it over to the sink to rinse it out. “I’m gonna go meet up with Eri,” he announced. They were temporarily living on the second floor of the faculty dorms at UA. Eri and her family lived on the third floor, so she was just an elevator ride away.

“Be back by dinnertime, Kouta,” his aunt called after him. He waved, slipping on his shoes and walking out into the hall.

The elevators were to the left. He stood in front of them for a moment, thinking about everything his aunt had done for him ever since she took him in. The sacrifices she was still making now. The way she drank black coffee this morning just so they’d have milk when he wanted it.

He decisively pushed the down arrow and stepped into the elevator.

The store wasn’t very far away. He could get her coffee creamer and be back before she even knew he was gone.

…

Kouta easily remembered the path they took to get to the grocery store. The bus was crowded, but he held onto the grab pole near the door so he didn’t get squashed. A few people gave him curious looks, though they didn’t say anything to him, and he was able to get off at the right stop without any trouble.

A wave of noise hit him as soon as he walked into the grocery store, and he froze up for a second inside the door. He’d been here before, but never by himself...Aunt Shino had always led the way. There were so many people going in and out, and he just shuffled to one side and stared at them for a minute.

He watched a frowning woman walk out of the store with a grocery bag in one hand and a screaming toddler in the other. A man walked right in front of him, and a wave of smell hit Kouta in the face hard enough that he started coughing. His aunt and the others didn’t wear a lot of perfume, but it smelled like this man had dumped every bottle Aunt Shino owned on the ground and then rolled around in it.

Kouta stared at the store around him, wide-eyed. While it wasn’t as full as it had been before the war, it was still a riot of colors and shapes. Brightly-colored boxes and cans filled the aisles that stretched down one way, while the other way held fresh vegetables—though they looked slightly more bruised and wilted than he remembered.

There was just...so much. All around him. He could only stare.

“Are you lost, little man?” A teenager—maybe Deku’s age—grinned down at him. He was wearing an apron with the store’s logo, so he obviously worked there. “Want me to help you find your parents?”

“That’s okay,” Kouta shook his head. “Can you tell me where the coffee creamer is?”

“You need coffee creamer?” The teenager wrinkled his nose as he asked.

Kouta rolled his eyes. “It’s for my aunt.”

“Ah. Gotcha. Follow this aisle straight back, and you’ll get to the dairy cases. Coffee creamer is between the milk and the eggs—yeah, be right there!” The teen straightened up, calling over his shoulder when someone shouted for him. “Sorry, kid, gotta go—good luck with the creamer!”

Kouta watched him go, feeling a pang of sympathy as the teen jogged up to a man who started to yell at him about one of the displays. He turned to head down the aisle the teen had pointed out—he thought his nametag had said Yosuke—trying to keep to his mission.

He got to the end of the aisle...and the scent of fish and fresh meat washed over him. Kouta took a step back with his hand over his nose, staring around himself in confusion. The dair was supposed to be down here...how had he ended up in the meat section? Did that teenage worker tell him the wrong aisle? Did he pick the wrong aisle?

Someone bumped into Kouta from behind, and he shuffled to the side with an apology. The woman started talking to the man behind the butcher’s counter, and he rolled out a large, rustling section of brown paper as she pointed at things in the case that she wanted.

The dairy section had to be here somewhere. Kouta turned and headed off in a random direction—surely all the aisles just led to the side of the store and he hadn’t gone down far enough. He finally got to the end of the butcher’s cases, only for a frigid wave of air to hit him as he turned the corner into the freezer aisle.

That wasn’t right either. Shivering, Kouta took a step back and turned around. There were more people behind him, and someone gave a loud sigh when he stepped in their way. He mumbled an apology and darted down an aisle at random—there were so many cans here, and so many people picking through them. Kouta kept his head down and managed to push his way through that aisle, finally breaking through to the other side.

Maybe he should just head back to the front of the store. That teen might be back there, or someone else who worked here. Maybe someone who could just walk him straight to the coffee creamer.

He couldn’t see over the aisles, but he was sure he remembered the way back, even if he was a few aisles over. He just needed to head down this one and….

It was the bakery. A man and a woman were unloading fresh loaves of bread onto the rack, while a few customers pushed or reached around them to snatch up the loaves as soon as they were set down. Kouta took a few steps back, eyes wide, and turned back around.

He almost ran into someone—the stinky man from before. Waves of perfume and cologne washed over him, and Kouta’s eyes instantly began to water. He stepped to the side, coughing, just as an argument erupted behind him. The lights suddenly seemed too bright, and the tinny music overhead screeched to a halt as a distorted voice announced the sales of the week.

Kouta shut his eyes and tried to back up again, but someone bumped into his shoulder from behind and nearly knocked him over.

More voices, above and around him. He’d backed into a group of women and they’d just carried on as if he wasn’t there. He covered his ears as they talked and laughed, all but dragging him along with them.

One of them was wearing floral perfume, almost as strong as the stinky man’s. Kouta finally managed to squirm away from the women, only to run face-first into a display of powdered laundry detergent. Several boxes tumbled off the shelf and one exploded outward, and Kouta shrank away from the mess as detergent settled onto his pants and shoes.

“What the hell?” Someone else had been walking by, and the detergent had landed on them. “Little brat...where are your parents?” They grabbed for Kouta’s arm, but he jerked away from them in panic.

It was too much. Too many sounds and smells. Detergent on his clothes. Someone yelling at him. Faces staring from out of the crowd.

He backed away, hands over his ears, and bumped against someone standing behind him.

They didn’t move, and a hand gently landed on Kouta’s shoulder. He looked up in panic, about to pull away, but recognized Eri’s dad—Eraserhead—just in time.

“He’s with me,” Eraserhead said blandly.

The person he’d spilled detergent on didn’t seem like arguing after that and scuttled off. Kouta practically melted back against Eraserhead’s legs, mumbling out an apology when an employee came by to clean up the mess he’d made.

The store was still too loud and overwhelming, and he was thankful when Eraserhead gently led him into an empty aisle and crouched down in front of him. “You okay, Kouta?” the hero asked, brushing the detergent powder off of Kouta’s clothing.

He nodded. “I’m sorry,” he finally whispered.

“It’s okay.” Eraserhead’s hand on his shoulder was calming, and the man even managed a slight smile when Kouta looked up at him. “Are you here by yourself?”

“We’re out of coffee creamer,” Kouta explained. “I wanted to buy some to surprise Aunt Shino,” he added again in a rush, when Eraserhead raised his eyebrows. “She doesn’t know I’m here,” he finished in a mumble.

Eraserhead sighed and straightened up. He held a hand out, staring at Kouta expectantly. “Well? Come on. Let’s see what we can find.”

He gratefully took Eraserhead’s hand, letting the hero guide him through the store to find the dairy section. Eraserhead waited patiently while Kouta tried to figure out which flavor his aunt liked (she had a bowl of peppermints on her desk, so he figured the peppermint one was safest), then took his hand again as they wandered back into the heart of the store.

“Mind if I grab a few things before we leave?” Eraserhead asked, hefting the shopping basket in his other hand. Kouta shook his head, sticking close to the hero’s side while the man finished his shopping.

He was too embarrassed to protest when Eraserhead added the coffee creamer to his own groceries, or to protest when the hero took his hand again to walk with him out of the store.

“Where are you going from here?” Eraserhead asked, once they’d reached the sidewalk.

Kouta stared at his shoes. “I was gonna do my homework with Eri,” he said quietly.

“Home it is,” Eraserhead agreed. “Let’s go.”

Eraserhead let Kouta cling to him until they were back on campus. He was still shaken up after everything that happened in the grocery store, and he was more than happy to hold the hero’s hand until they were safe inside his apartment where Eri was waiting.

…

Aunt Shino was blown away when Kouta presented the coffee creamer to her, after Eraserhead escorted him home (just in case). She’d been blinking back tears as she hugged him, laughing and crying a little as she asked when he’d gotten so grown up.

He’d pushed away from her, embarrassed, and nearly ran from the room to wash up for dinner.

(And if he heard Aunt Shino threaten to steal Eri if Eraserhead kept trying to steal him...well, grown-ups were just weird like that sometimes.)

Chapter Text

“Take your time; you can bring this back to the desk when you’re ready.”

Toshinori accepted the clipboard from the young man in the nurse’s scrubs and quietly shuffled over to one of the seats in the hospital waiting room. His hands shook a little as he read through the pages of forms the nurse had given him—too many words swirled across the pages, too many spaces to fill out.

He flexed his fingers, trying to will away the slight ache that settled into the joints on cold days like this, and picked up the pen that was attached to the clipboard. He’d filled out forms like these countless times, with countless specialists. The first page was common stuff—his health history and symptoms, whatever family history he could remember, medications he was taking. After that it got...complicated.

Surgeries. He couldn’t fit them all on the page, so he scribbled down his last six major surgeries, adding a note that he could give a longer comprehensive list if needed. Considering the specialist he was seeing today, they might need to know he’d had his intestinal tract repaired three times in the last five years more than the temporary pins to piece his broken wrist together.

Then more. A detailed list of his symptoms. One page just held the outline of a human body, with instructions to circle the areas where he experienced pain or other symptoms, and Toshinori considered just circling the entire outline.

Next were the waivers. Did he understand that this was a consultation that might not result in a course of treatment? Did he understand that no treatment carried the full assurance of success? Did he understand that no procedure was without risk, and that if he chose to continue this course of treatment he agreed that the hospital was not liable for his death, except in cases of human error? Did he have a living will or medical proxy?

Toshinori stared at the last section on the last page. Living will or medical proxy. That question was so much easier to answer a few years ago. Before Dave had gone to prison, before Nighteye had been killed in the line of duty. He couldn’t ask Gran Torino for something like this; his old teacher had enough on his shoulders as it was. It would be entirely inappropriate to ask Midoriya. The boy’s mother would probably take on this responsibility if he asked, but he couldn’t put that burden on her. Perhaps Nedzu? For all his vocal dislike of humans, the principal cared deeply for his teachers and sought to support them in any way he could.

He was lost in thought, and barely noticed the tap-step, tap-step of someone approaching on crutches. It was only when someone settled in the chair next to him with a heavy sigh that Toshinori looked up. “Oh. Hello, Aizawa.”

“Yagi.” The other man carefully leaned a pair of crutches against the chair on his other side before folding his arms and slouching back into his seat. “Everything all right?”

“I’m fine,” Toshinori replied. “Routine surgical consultation. My doctor hasn’t quite given up the hope that some up-and-coming youngster will find a way to rebuild a few of my organs.”

Aizawa grunted. He was a little pale, and he brought a hand up to press his thumb in the center of his brow, just above his nose. The man was good at hiding his pain, but Toshinori could see a tenseness in his body as he sat there.

“Are you all right?” he asked, setting his own paperwork down in concern. “Should I call someone?”

“Don’t worry about,” Aizawa replied, lowering his hand. “The eye gives me headaches sometimes. I don’t think it knows it’s gone.”

Toshinori made a sympathetic noise. He couldn’t say he quite understood it—he had no experience with phantom pains—but he knew how exhausting living with pain could be. “What about your leg?” He nodded at the crutches, noticing that Aizawa was without his prosthetic at the moment.

“Oh, this?” Aizawa snorted. “I’m just practicing for a three-legged race. That’s all.”

He sighed. “I’m not one of your children, Aizawa.”

Aizawa shot him a glance, then huffed out a sigh and shook his head. “Just needs a little adjustment. Haven’t quite gotten in sync with it. Nothing to worry about.”

“I see.” Toshinori nodded. While he’d—thankfully—never been through an amputation, he understood having your body change as you went through the healing process. It hadn’t even been a year since Aizawa had lost his leg; his body was still adapting.

He picked his paperwork up again and flipped through it uselessly. The silence between them stretched into awkwardness, and Toshinori glanced at the other man out of the corner of his eye a few times. “How is, ah, how’s married life treating you?” he finally asked haltingly, cursing himself for the question as soon as it was out of his mouth.

Aizawa twisted to look at him, eyebrows raised. “You see us every day, Yagi.”

“At work,” he stammered. “I just...I mean...you’ve never….”

“Yagi?” There was a warning note in Aizawa’s voice, but Toshinori’s mouth kept moving even though he tried to reign it in.

“You’ve never...seemed the type,” he finished lamely. He kept his eyes glued on his paperwork, pretending that the little box asking if any of his relatives had heart conditions was the most interesting thing he’d ever seen.

“I’m not.” Aizawa’s answer was plain and clear, and when he glanced up the other man had closed his eye again and settled back down in his chair.

“But you—” Toshinori began.

“Hizashi’s different,” he replied simply. “It’s always been the two of us, so...that’s that.”

“That’s that,” Toshinori repeated lamely. “I see.”

Aizawa was staring at him again. He laughed awkwardly and held the clipboard up for Aizawa to see. “My apologies. I suppose all these questions have made this old man a bit melancholy today. I seem to have so little family left in this world, while yours is thriving. I supposed I’m a little envious of you, Aizawa.”

The other man had straightened up, his brows furrowed in a frown. “What aren’t you telling me.”

“It’s none of your concern, I assure you.”

“It’s my concern if it affects the kids. You said surgery consult...what’s happening?”

Toshinori sighed. “It’s an experimental treatment. Organ reproduction.”

“Like cloning?”

“No, it’s...it’s a little different. They take tissue from your damaged organs—or healthy kidney, in my case—and graft it into a bio-organic replacement. Your own cells multiply and fuse with the bio-organic ones, and in the end you should have a perfect replacement for the damaged body part. Or, in my case….”

“A second kidney.”

Toshinori nodded. “It’s still very much experimental, and it might not even be medically viable in my case...but my doctor wanted me to try.”

Aizawa blew out a breath. Toshinori lapsed into silence, staring at the paperwork again. Before, when he had One for All, it had been too risky to accept a transplantation. His body had already been in flux, and the stress of his muscle form would probably have rejected any transplanted organ. Now that One for All was gone and All for One defeated, he still hadn’t wanted to accept one. His body was all but ruined, and he didn’t want to take away someone’s chance at a healthy life just to preserve his own.

But this...this would be replicating his own body. Not just his kidney, but his lungs, liver, intestines...it wouldn’t be perfect, and he’d never be a young man again, but he could have a chance at a normal, healthy life. One without constant monitoring. Without the shadow of pain or illness clouding everything he did.

He could see his students become pro heroes. Could continue guiding the next generation.

“Yagi?”

“Ah, my apologies,” he laughed. “I was lost in thought.”

“You left the last spot blank,” Aizawa said, gesturing to the final page.

“Oh, that. I just haven’t decided. Mirai—Nighteye, that is—was my medical proxy until...anyway, and I haven’t found another yet. I suppose Nedzu would stand in, if I asked him.”

Aizawa studied him for a long moment, then grunted and pulled the clipboard out of his hands. He braced it on his good knee, easily filling out the boxes before handing it back to Toshinori. “Done. We can make a formal agreement later, but this will do for now.”

He stared wordlessly at the form, where Aizawa had filled in his own information. A lump rose in his throat and he had to swallow it down before he could speak. “Aizawa, you...you didn’t have to do this.”

“I know,” the other man said simply. A nurse in scrubs had appeared in one of the doors, calling Aizawa’s name. He pushed himself up and settled his crutches under his arms. “You’d do the same for any of us, Yagi,” he said quietly. “It’s what we do, right? We look out for each other.”

Toshinori cleared his throat, fighting back tears as Aizawa moved toward the nurse. He looked through the paperwork in his hands one last time, signed his name on the last page, and finally stood up to hand it in at the desk.

Maybe he wasn’t as alone in the world as he thought.

Chapter Text

The front door of the apartment clicked open, and Mirio looked up with a smile as Eri hurried over to the door. Aizawa paused in the doorway, leaned down enough to hear the girl’s whispered comment, then nodded and shooed her back into the apartment.

“Toogata,” Aizawa said in greeting, barely hiding his sigh of relief as he sat in one of the padded armchairs in the living room.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Aizawa,” he replied brightly. Eri had run off to the kitchen, and he fought the urge to climb to his feet to follow her—he had to remind himself that she needed to do things on her own, and would never grow stronger if he followed her around to help her with every task.

“How’s she doing?” Aizawa asked quietly. He was hoping Eri could start school next year, or even next semester, but since Overhaul had done nothing about her education they had to get her caught up first. Mirio was helping tutor her, among others.

“She read a new book today,” he replied. “She had a little trouble filling out the worksheet that went with it, but we figured it out.”

Aizawa grunted—which really could have meant anything. He was rubbing his right knee and, as Mirio watched, casually reached down to grab the tab of a zipper that ran horizontally around his pantleg. He opened the zipper and a few inches of his pants came free, revealing the top of his prosthetic.

“I can go in the other room if this bothers you,” Aizawa offered, noticing Mirio staring.

“Uh, no! Nope, it’s fine!” He forced himself to look away, though he was conscious of what Aizawa was doing the entire time. The man worked for another few seconds, then pulled his prosthetic free to set it upright beside his chair, the loose bit of his pantleg still looped around it.

Mirio cleared his throat. “Can I put that away for you?” he offered awkwardly.

“Don’t worry about it.” Aizawa settled back in his chair, the tense line of his shoulders relaxing slightly. “It needs to be cleaned anyway; Hizashi can do it.”

He nodded. Mirio couldn’t quite keep his eyes from straying to Aizawa’s leg, though his pants were still long enough to cover everything. He made himself look away, trying to think of a conversation topic to cover the awkwardness of the situation...only to realize Aizawa’s eye was closed, like he’d just fallen asleep.

Guilt gnawed at Mirio’s stomach. If only he’d—what? Gotten there sooner? Been faster? Been better? How many people had suffered because he hadn’t been enough?

Would Midoriya have lost faith in himself and taken that darker path? Would Aizawa had dodged Shigaraki’s bullet and fought off his attack? Would the Todoroki family—well, they hadn’t been in a good place to begin with, but would they be better off if he could have stopped Dabi then and there?

He saw it in the faces of the citizens around him. In the other heroes. In the second-year students forced to grow up far too fast. The scars and trauma and nightmares...logically, Mirio knew he couldn’t have done anything more, but it still ate him up inside.

What if he’d dodged that first bullet? What if he’d never lost his power? What if Eri hadn’t needed to heal him, and had had that power for someone who really needed it? Best Jeanist had nearly lost his other lung. Hawks had lost his wings. So many others had lost something or everything.

It wasn’t his fault, of course. He knew that.

But he didn’t believe it.

Eri’s careful footsteps pattered out of the kitchen, and Mirio jerked himself out of his thoughts to give her a bright smile. She carefully carried a plate of snacks to the coffee table in front of the couch and set it down, then hurried back to the kitchen and returned with a canned drink, though Mirio couldn’t see the label to determine what it was.

“Papa Shouta?” Eri patted the man’s knee, staring up into his face when he opened his eye. “Here’s your drink.”

She passed the can up to him, and now Mirio could see the label—it was one of those healthy vegetable juice cocktails, the ones that were supposed to support all kinds of natural healing. Aizawa glared at it and tried to push it back into Eri’s hands. “I’ll just make some coffee.”

“Nu-uh,” Eri shook her head, not giving an inch. “Papa Zashi said, you have to drink your vegetables before you get your coffee. It’s the rules.”

Aizawa sighed and met Mirio’s gaze with a wry expression. “He’s trying to help,” he said blandly.

“It might help,” Mirio offered. “You know, tomatoes have anti-inflammatory properties, and—”

“Save it.” Aizawa held a hand up to stop him. He popped open the tab on the drink, stared at it mournfully, then tipped his head back to down it in one long swig. A shudder ran through his body when he reached the dregs, but he finally lowered his head and deposited the empty can into Eri’s hands. “Can you rinse that out and put it with the recycling for me?” he asked.

Eri nodded, taking the can and hurrying back to the kitchen. Aizawa watched her go, shaking his head as he relaxed back in his chair. “He means well, but his methods leave a lot to be desired.”

Mirio made a noncommittal sound and stared at the plate on the coffee table. He never used to run out of things to say like this...but he’d never come face-to-face with the evidence of his own failure before. Aizawa’s eye was closed again, so he didn’t risk trying to find a new topic of conversation and just leaned forward to grab a pastry and a couple of apple slices off the plate.

Eri soon returned, and knelt on one side of the table to happily enjoy her own snack. Mirio managed to keep up a lighthearted conversation with her while Aizawa seemed to sleep. She’d been so quiet and timid when he’d first gotten to know her, but now he could pull her into a cheerful conversation about the playground she visited with Deku and Kouta, or the clothes she’d picked out when Nejire, Uraraka, and Asui had taken her shopping.

Eventually Aizawa shifted in his chair, his eye opening, and Eri abandoned her place at the coffee table to pick up one of her new books and scramble into the chair with him.

“Are you done napping, Papa Shouta?” Eri asked innocently. Mirio winced inwardly—he could tell that Aizawa hadn’t really been asleep. His posture had been wrong and, even though he’d relaxed since coming home, he was still too tense.

Aizawa didn’t show any sign of discomfort when Eri settled herself on his good knee. “What do you have there?” he asked.

“Lemillion gave me some new books,” she explained, holding it up for Aizawa to see. “I already read one today...can you read this one to me?”

The man didn’t answer right away, and the silence stretched on long enough for Eri to look up at him with a worried expression. Aizawa managed to smile tiredly at her. “I would, but I have another headache, Eri,” he finally explained. “How about you read it to me?”

She stared at him, eyes wide, then finally nodded and settled against his chest to open her book.

Mirio watched them, grief and guilt spearing through his heart again. He knew...he knew this wasn’t his fault, but he still felt responsible. If only, if only, if only.

If only he’d been better. Faster. Stronger. If he’d dodged Overhaul’s bullet. If he’d taken Shigaraki’s bullet for Aizawa. If he’d gotten there sooner. If he’d done more. If he’d trained harder. If he’d followed Midoriya.

If he’d stopped Overhaul in time, could Eri have saved Sir Nighteye?

He should be enjoying this moment. Listening to Eri read, if a little haltingly. Seeing the smile on her face. Watching her scold her guardian into drinking a can of vegetable juice. Hearing her laugh, helping her learn...but he was so mired in his own uselessness he couldn’t even do that.

“Toogata.”

Mirio startled. He blinked, suddenly realizing he and Aizawa were alone. “Sorry, I must have spaced out,” he said with a laugh. “I should—”

“Spill.” Aizawa shifted in his chair, pinning Mirio in place with his stare. “Something’s eating at you, kid.”

He shrugged. No use dragging it out when Aizawa was staring at him like that. “I just wish I could have done more. I know I did the best I could, but I can’t help it. I feel like I let everyone down.”

Aizawa sighed. “I think you already know what I’ve got to say.”

“That I did the best I could?”

“It sucks, but it’s the truth,” Aizawa replied. “For better or worse, we all did the best we could. We’ve got losses, we’ve got regrets, but we have to keep moving forward.”

“How do you do it?” For one, awful moment, Mirio felt like his entire career was balancing on a wire in front of him. Would he feel like this every time he failed? Could he live with himself? What happened next time, and the next, and the next?

“One foot in front of the other.” Aizawa glanced down at the empty space below his right knee and gave a sardonic smile. “In a manner of speaking.”

“Do you ever—”

“The moment you think about quitting you’ve already given up.” The man’s gaze seemed to pierce through Mirio, highlighting every insecurity he’d been fighting. “You owe it to them—the ones you save and the ones you fail—to keep going. To grow stronger. It doesn’t matter if last time could have been different; what are you going to do next time?”

Mirio nodded. “You make it sound so easy, but….”

“It’s hell.”

“Yeah.” He managed a brief smile for his former teacher before pushing himself to his feet. “Thanks for the pep-talk, Mr. Aizawa.”

“If you want one of those, Hizashi’ll be home any minute,” Aizawa retorted. He snagged Mirio’s sleeve as he walked past, his gaze softening as their eyes met. “You did good,” he said firmly. “I know what it’s like to doubt yourself and have regrets, but you need to remember that. A lot of people would have died if you hadn’t been there. You’re a hero now, kid. You need to remember that.”

He nodded again, swallowing back his tears. “I should head home.”

“Eri’s in the kitchen. She says you owe her another hug for finishing her second book, and you can’t leave until you give it to her.”

Mirio chuckled. “Then I’ve Too-got-to go,” he announced, earning a groan from his former teacher. He headed for the kitchen, a genuine smile spreading across his face as Aizawa threatened to sic Mr. Yamada on him the next time he came over.

Chapter Text

Tooru dropped her gloves and kicked out of her boots before bracing herself to run. “Ready,” she whispered.

Midoriya nodded. “Remember the plan,” he whispered, turning toward Kirishima. “Just distract him while Hagakure sneaks past to get help.”

“I got it,” Kirishima hissed back. “Don’t worry, he can’t cut me.”

“Right. Go!”

She steeled herself, counted to three as Kirishima yelled out a challenge and charged into the open, then sprinted out of their hiding place in the opposite direction. The villain answered Kirishima’s challenge and turned to face him, and Tooru focused on circling behind him and staying out of range of his Quirk.

They’d been cornered by a villain with a wind-type Quirk. As best as Midoriya could explain, it looked like the man could create and control miniature cyclones. He hadn’t been hitting them with the wind as much as he’d been using it to throw debris and projectiles at them. He didn’t have great control over his Quirk, which could have been good news since he couldn’t directly target them...but he’d been compensating for it by throwing wave after wave of detritus at them until they’d found shelter down a narrow alley.

Kirishima, of course, could harden up to protect himself...but Midoriya and Tooru had no such luck. Midoriya still had some of his power even though he’d lost One for All, but that didn’t make him invulnerable, and Tooru’s stealth suit wasn’t exactly armored (though Hatsume had promised that was on the list for a future upgrade).

The villain roared as his first wave of projectiles bounced harmlessly off Kirishima’s raised arms. The redhead threw his head back with a laugh and advanced a step into the swirling winds. Fragments of broken glass littered his skin, but couldn’t cut through, and he kept moving forward even as the villain whipped the winds up into a frenzy.

Tooru cut as wide a berth as she could as she ran behind them. Even invisible, she still wanted to stay out of the villain’s line of sight. The ground was uneven, littered with debris from their fight, and she had to slow down to pick her way carefully through it. She’d left her boots behind out of habit, since she couldn’t make them invisible, but at least her stealth suit covered her feet...though she could feel it tearing as she dodged through a patch of rough gravel.

“Hagakure!”

Midoriya’s frantic shout caught her off-guard, and she spun around in time to see the villain throw his hands out to the sides. His focus was still on Kirishima, so he hadn’t seen her, but he was expanding the arc of his winds out further and further.

Tooru let out a panicked yelp and ran for the other end of the street. It looked like he was sweeping out with the winds to pick up everything that wasn’t nailed down to unleash in one massive wave at Kirishima—but she was in the middle of it now. Winds twisted around her, nearly tugging her off her feet, and a chunk of stone struck her in the arm and spun her around.

Sand scraped across her face, peppering her skin with tiny scratches. Dust clouded her vision, and she could only stagger in one direction and hope she was headed out of the maelstrom. Glass sparkled through the air, slicing across the back of her hand. Something hit her leg hard enough to buckle her knees, and she fell down with a sharp cry of pain.

Midoriya was still yelling to her, but she couldn’t pay attention. The winds still buffeted her, and she curled up with her arms wrapped around her head for protection. Something sliced across her shoulder, and she swallowed back her tears as a sob hitched in her chest. It hurt. It felt like she was being hit on all sides, like someone was throwing rocks—or shooting them out of a slingshot—at her.

Her body felt so scraped up and bruised, she was sure she was visible now. Not as herself, just as the bloody outline of a terrified girl. She felt coompletely helpless as the winds battered her, unable to even get to her feet to run away. Worst of all, the villain wasn’t even aiming at her; she was just a casualty of Kirishima’s fight.

Then, suddenly, the roaring winds cut off. Debris clattered to the ground around her, some striking Tooru along her bruised shoulders. She squeezed her eyes shut, fighting back a whimper of pain as the heat of an explosion washed across her back.

There was more yelling now, and Tooru relaxed as she recognized Bakugou’s familiar voice. They hadn’t been able to call for help, but she supposed the rest of her classmates couldn’t have missed the sudden whirlwind.

“Hagakure!” Midoriya dropped to his knees beside her, one hand gingerly searching for her shoulder. “Can you hear me?”

She groaned. “Ouch.”

“You’re gonna be okay. Everything’s all right now; Kacchan’s here, and Mr...uh, Eraser’s with him.”

“Why do I even try?” Aizawa’s wry voice eased a little more of Tooru’s panic. He crouched next to her and began gently brushing away the glass and other debris that covered her body. “Forget it, Midoriya. Hagakure?”

She should have figured their teacher had arrived when the villain’s Quirk stopped working. Tooru shakily tried to push herself up, and Midoriya found her arm to help steady her. “I don’t think it’s serious,” she said shakily. “But….”

Tooru held out her arms. Her blood stayed invisible in her body, but she could see it beading out of the scratches and cuts on her arms and dripping down into the dirt. Her face felt scraped up, and now that the battle was over and her adrenaline was fading she couldn’t stop the tears from welling in her eyes.

Aizawa took her wrist, frowning at the blood. “Can you show me?”

She nodded, though she figured he couldn’t see that. Tooru concentrated, focusing on shifting the light around her. She naturally refracted the light, which made her invisible, and thanks to her training she could reverse the process and finally...finally...be seen for who she was.

As he body slowly rippled into view, she cast a hasty glimpse down at her chest and stomach. The stealth suit hadn’t taken much damage there, thankfully—though she’d been practicing her “invisible bikini,” as Uraraka put it, to preserve her dignity when she didn’t have a way to cover up.

“Midoriya?” Aizawa shifted to sit down beside her, still holding her wrist. Midoriya seemed to understand his intentions, and immediately began pulling first-aid supplies out of various pockets and pouches on his costume.

Tooru sighed with envy, staring at the little pile of supplies Midoriya carried with him. Hatsume had promised her pockets, but they weren’t there yet. She had to depend on the rest of her team to look after her if she got injured (which totally wasn’t frustrating at all and never made her feel like a burden).

Aizawa sliced through the fabric of her stealth suit to expose the scratch on her arm, meeting her startled expression with a raise of his eyebrows. “What?”

She shook her head. The suit was ruined anyway—what were a few more cuts. Besides, Hatsume could probably recycle the scraps into the next one she made, so it wouldn’t be a total waste.

Her entire body felt covered in sand and grit. It had gotten between her suit and her skin, and she shifted uncomfortably while the other two tended to her arms. Cleaning and bandaging her wounds. Midoriya’s careful fingers, and Aizawa’s confident movements.

“I’ve got the rest. Go check on the others,” Aizawa said, once they’d finished with her arms. Midoriya obediently climbed to his feet and jogged away, calling for Bakugou as he did.

Once he was gone, Aizawa turned his gaze on Tooru’s face. “Where else are you injured?”

“I think I’m mostly bruised,” she replied, moving around a little to see if anything hurt. “My shoulders and my knee, maybe?”

Her suit wasn’t torn at her knee, but Aizawa cut through it anyway. Her knee was scraped and bruised and starting to swell, so he wrapped it up for support before moving behind her.

Gentle hands lifted her hair out of the way, and Tooru hastily gathered it to pull it over her shoulder. It was so tangled and filthy now...she needed to start putting it up when she got into costume. Maybe Hatsume could make her a stealth scrunchy to match her suit.

“There’s some glass back here,” Aizawa said. “Two pieces. Looks like I can get them out right here—brace yourself, kid.”

Tooru nodded, clenching her hands into fists. She sucked in a breath through her teeth as she felt something move around in her left shoulder blade, then a bright spark of pain as it was eased out. Then the second, though it didn’t move out as cleanly as the first. Tooru found herself blinking back tears as the pain bit into her back, and she sagged forward with a sigh of relief when Aizawa finally pulled the second shard of glass free.

“Thank you.”

He didn’t reply, too busy cutting her suit away to expose the wounds on her shoulders. “Not too deep,” Aizawa commented. “Let me tape them up, then we’ll head back to the transport.”

“Okay.”

She hissed and jerked away as the gentle spray of antiseptic fluid washed over her back. Aizawa worked meticulously, barely making a sound as he cleaned her wounds. “There’s one more, I missed it the first time. Sorry, kid, this’ll just take a second.”

Tooru nodded. Aizawa had reached for the tweezers from Midoriya’s first aid supplies, and she closed her eyes again as she felt them prod against the cuts on her back. They touched something that seemed to shift in her skin, and the sudden pain made her whimper.

Aizawa patted her arm. “Almost done here. Just a little longer.”

It shifted again, then seemed to drag against her skin as he pulled it out. Then more antiseptic, then a gentle prodding around the wound as Aizawa finished cleaning it. A smear of soothing ointment was next, then he was taping gauze over the cuts on her back before standing up.

“Ready to get out of here?” Aizawa asked, circling back to look down at her.

Tooru nodded, reaching out to be helped up. She let out a surprised yelp when he picked her up instead, turning it into a giggle when he cradled her in a princess carry to take her to their transport.

“What?” he asked, deadpan.

She shook her head, leaning against his shoulder with a smile. “I bet you do this for all your students, don’t you?”

He sighed, and she swore he rolled his eye at her. “Just the ones I can see, Hagakure.”

Chapter Text

Hizashi was bouncing his leg again, his heel striking the floor with a faint tap-tap-tap that gradually wore on Shouta’s nerves. He finally reached over to take his husband’s hand, resting them on Hizashi’s knee to pin it in place.

“You didn’t have to come with me,” Shouta murmured.

“Of course I did,” Hizashi scoffed. “If I hadn’t, you would have taken the bus, Shouta.”

“And what’s wrong with that?”

Hizashi shot him an incredulous look. “With the bus? Nothing. With you taking the bus today? God, Shouta, I don’t even know where to begin.”

“It’s just a follow-up, Hizashi.”

“It is not.”

Any further discussion was interrupted when the door was pushed open to admit Shouta’s ophthamologist, Dr. March. After the customary round of greetings and introductions, she settled behind her desk and tapped a few keys to bring up Shouta’s file on her computer.

“You were here a few days ago for headaches?” Dr. March asked.

“Headaches and pain in my eye. The one that’s not there,” he added, pointing to the patch over his right eye.

Dr. March nodded. “Did they perform a full enucleation after your injury?”

“They, ah, they said there wasn’t anything left.” Shouta shrugged uncomfortably. Hizashi’s hand tightened around his, and he squeezed back.

The doctor twisted the screen of her computer around, leaning further onto her desk to gesture at it with her pen. “This is from your MRI. Can you see this mass here?” She tapped the screen, zooming in on an irregular shape. “This is tissue from the eye that you lost. The trauma surgeon cleaned out your socket and cauterized the bleeding, but they missed ocular tissue here and here.” Dr. March tapped the screen again, indicating a second, smaller shape.

Shouta stared at the screen, numbness flooding his body. He barely reacted when the doctor asked him to move to the exam table, and woodenly followed her instructions to lie down on it so she could exam his eye.

“Can you remove your eye patch?” Dr. March asked.

Hizashi was holding his hand again, and Shouta squeezed it. “Don’t look,” he whispered to his husband, before slowly pulling the eye patch away from his eye.

It was ugly, and he knew it. He wasn’t a vain man by any stretch of the imagination, but there was a difference between scars and...that. Any time he looked in the mirror he could only see a festering wound. Scars left from Shigaraki’s fingers as the villain clawed his eye out with his bare hand. The pain, the way darkness had filled his vision but refused to take his consciousness.

The pain in his leg had been nothing compared to his eye. It was agony. Harsher and deeper than any pain he’d felt before. His knife had been ruthlessly sharp, and his adrenaline had given him the boost he needed to cut through his leg without hesitation. All he could think about was stopping Shigaraki. Holding him at bay. Protecting his kids.

But his eye?

He still woke up in the middle of the night, fighting back the feeling of those fingers digging into his socket. Blood vessels tearing, nerves snapping.

Dr. March’s touch was gentle, but Shouta still bit back a hiss of pain as she pushed his eyelid back. “Have you had any bleeding?”

“They said that was normal.”

“For the first few weeks, yes. How about your implant? Any discomfort?”

“It’s fine.” They’d said the spherical ocular implant was necessary, but he turned them down when they asked about a prosthetic. They’d said they could match his natural eye color and nobody would be able to tell, but he’d rather have the patch. He’d rather move forward than focus on the way his hero career had been all but wiped out that day.

“Look to the right for me?”

Shouta followed her directions, feeling the implant shift around as he did. She made a few comments that he didn’t really process, then finally stepped away and told him he could go back to his chair.

He sat up, twisting so he was facing away from Hizashi as he secured his eye patch. It was ridiculous. Hizashi had seen it before, and it wasn’t like he slept in the eye patch. But maybe...just maybe...he was allowed to have one little insecurity.

“There’s definitely some irritation and swelling, and it looks like the implant isn’t sitting in the right spot because of the tissue from your eye,” Dr. March said as they joined her at her desk. “I’d like to schedule a full enucleation to make sure we get everything out—the last of the ocular tissue, and any damaged nerves the trauma surgeon might have missed.”

“How long will that take?”

“It’s an outpatient procedure, but recovery can take four to eight weeks.” Dr. March was already bringing up her calendar. “I have an opening on Friday afternoon.”

Surgery. Again. When would it ever end?

Hizashi was holding his hand again.

“That fast?” Shouta asked.

“I’d like to take care of this as soon as possible,” the doctor explained. “The longer we leave that tissue in there, the more risk there is of complications. Your headaches will only get worse, you’re at risk for a serious infection...it’s in your best interest to get this taken care of right away.”

He squeezed Hizashi’s hand, grateful that he’d let his husband drive him to the hospital instead of taking the bus. “All right. Friday,” he agreed.

…

They put him under for the surgery.

As much as he hated anesthesia, he really didn’t want to be awake when the doctor started digging into his eye. Dr. March had explained the procedure in detail, including the risks and side effects...but at least he didn’t have to be awake when it happened.

He’d woken up with a dressing taped over his eye...and Hizashi holding his hand again. He stared at their interlocked fingers, wondering when such a thing had become so comforting to him. He was always the one taking care of others—the kids, other teachers—was this what it felt like?

Hizashi had been his anchor in the midst of everything. The first time he’d woken up, with nothing below his right knee and so many bandages wrapped around his face that he could barely speak, Hizashi had been there. Sitting on his blind side, describing everything that was happening when Shouta’s vision was still too hazy to focus.

Following him to every doctor’s visit like a clingy parent. Taking notes for him so Shouta could focus on the conversation with the doctor. Learning how to attach, remove, and clean his prosthetic leg, just in case. Nagging at him to cut back his caffeine consumption. Pulling him out of himself when the stress and trauma of the war tried to drag him under.

“Shouta?”

Hizashi had noticed he was awake, and leaned over the bed with a worried expression. His mouth wouldn’t quite cooperate when he tried to talk, so he settled for squeezing the other man’s fingers.

“They said everything went well,” Hizashi said, reaching up to hit the call button for the nurse. “Got all the bad junk out and put a new implant in. Doc says you’ll feel it for a few days, but you should have a smooth recovery.”

“Thanks, ‘Zashi,” he finally whispered. Hizashi grinned, scooting forward to plant a kiss on Shouta’s forehead and rest a hand on top of his head.

He closed his eye and a soft sigh escaped him as he leaned into the touch. No wonder the kids all liked it when he did this.

Dr. March entered a moment later, a nurse following behind her to check Shouta’s vital signs while the doctor explained how the procedure had gone. She left him with a list of side effects and after care instructions, with word that they’d send him home in a couple of hours if he had no post-surgery complications.

“Shouta? About the eye prosthetic?”

He sighed. They’d given him a basic lens, to keep everything in shape, but he’d never gone through with getting an actual prosthetic. “It’s fine.”

“I think you should think about it.”

Shouta twisted to face him. “It doesn’t really matter, Hizashi. I’d rather just cover it.” He started to reach up to tap his eye patch, then remembered it had been replaced with a medical dressing and lowered his hand.

“You could still cover it,” Hizashi said gently. “It’s just, it might help you...see yourself again.”

He frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“You never look in the mirror anymore,” Hizashi replied, his hand tightening around Shouta’s. “I know you’re a simple man with your thirteen-in-one shampoo, conditioner, and motor oil...but it feels like you’re not seeing yourself anymore.”

“I’m fine.”

“You are,” Hizashi agreed. He caught Shouta’s other hand, pulling them together. “No matter what happened to you, no matter what you lost, you’re still a whole person. I just...I just hope you can see it that way. Your eye, it’s...it’s not gross. Or ugly or unsightly or whatever. It’s just you, babe.” He pressed a kiss to Shouta’s knuckles, his own eyes shining with unshed tears. “Just you.”

“I know that.”

“Well, that’s good.” Hizashi released his hands and sat back with an awkward laugh. “Just think about it, okay? It doesn’t have to match your other eye, you could get anything you want...like a Sharingan!”

“No.” Almost against his will, Shouta felt a smile spread across his face.

“Think of all the students you could con with that, Shouta. They’d be terrified of you all over again.”

“I’m not conning my students, Hizashi.”

“Fine. Think of all the students you could logical ruse with that.”

“No. No Sharingan.”

“Boo! Shouta, you’re no fun!”