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.