Work Text:
As Aizawa’s eyes flutter shut, with sleep finally engulfing him in its darkness, he felt like something was pulling him. Thinking it’s just his mind imagining things, he lets himself succumb to sleep in a relatively short time, letting out a sigh as relief washes over him.
It’s only when he wakes up from a fresh breeze that shouldn’t have happened in his sleeping bag that Aizawa knows something is wrong.
Staying as still as he can be, he opens his eyes just enough to make out the form of a very well-equipped cave. There’s no one inside, if he doesn’t count the many bats that are suspended and… wait a second.
It’s with barely acquired consciousness that Aizawa realizes that he himself is suspended… and that for a cave that doesn’t have any lights on, he can almost perfectly make out everything in his surroundings, which shouldn’t even be possible for a human to do.
Aizawa comes with the dreading realization that he mustn’t be human if he’s capable to see through what he guesses is a very darkened cave. There’s no way someone can walk here without any lights all the while avoiding an accident.
The thought alone leaves him speechless, because what quirk could have caused such a thing? But he barely has time to think about it as sleep seems to surround him again.
He closes his eyes, and his mind calms down in a matter of seconds even if his last thought is about trying to find a way out.
The second time he wakes up, it’s to the sound of a voice echoing in the now dimly lit cave. Aizawa notices an old man standing in front of a younger one; one that Aizawa can easily guess is over thirty, maybe even nearing his forties if the strands of white hair were to tell. The man who’s speaking has an accentuated British accent, so he guesses that he must be somewhere in the United Kingdom.
But that doesn’t seem right. How can someone magically make him a bat all the while sending him to the United Kingdom? What benefit would this person have by doing that? Aizawa can’t fathom the why’s and how’s of such a ridiculous situation.
His thought process are stopped once he hears the voice of the other man, who is far from having a British accent but rather has a thick, rich accent that makes his status in society clear.
Aizawa refrains himself from swearing as he realizes that this ruins his basic ideas of where he is. That he might not be in the United Kingdom, but somewhere else. Maybe he’s in America, for all he knows.
But one thing that is clear is that they don’t know that he’s here. He doubts he would be in anything else than the cages he can make out from where he is if they knew that he was here.
The younger man is clearly the one in control here, but the older man holds a certain influence on him that Aizawa can easily see. His mind supplies that this looks like a father scolding his son, but the suit that the older man wears ― which resembles one of a butler ― tells a different tale than the one Aizawa has painted in his mind.
With as much fluidity as he can manage, Aizawa fly steadily towards the men, trying to get close so he can escape in their shadow.
"I am quite disappointed in you, Master Bruce." The older man says, a stern look present on his well-aged face. "One would have thought that you had learnt your lesson by now."
The man ― Bruce ― has the decency to look sheepish, even if it’s hard for Aizawa to tell with the mountain of dark rings that the man possesses. It’s easy to tell what this is about with the pile of paperwork scattered around the desk and cups of coffee piling on one another. Even the screen of the huge computer has countless tabs opened.
It’s one thing Aizawa can understand, being overwhelmed with work to the point of exhaustion. It’s what made him this tired for the past few days, and the one time he can go sleep for four full hours is the day he mysteriously wakes up in a cave as a batman.
He would have gone insane by now if he wasn’t actively trying to escape and not fall asleep for the second time here. Aizawa doesn’t know how long exactly he had slept, but if Bruce has been able to do this much work between the first time he woke up and now, he could say it’s easily been five hours at least.
But the man looked exhausted, on the verge of falling asleep if it hadn’t been for the little tic of his that seemed to keep him awake. One doesn’t look like that after only five hours of intense work.
Realization dawns on Aizawa as he realizes it’s the same look he bears when he does a shift of at least twenty hours. He can’t have slept for a whole twenty hours; Aizawa refuses to believe it.
It’s been five hours at least, and twenty hours at most. Hopefully.
"You should go to bed now, Master Bruce." Alfred says, and while he mostly comes off as stern, Aizawa can hear the fondness in his voice too. "This has dured for long enough."
Bruce grunts in answer, his shoulder slouching as a defeated look appears on his face. There’s still some fire left in the man's eyes that tells Aizawa that he’s ready to confront him, probably in hope of finishing some more work before being fully forced into going to sleep.
"But-," he starts to say before being cut off by a sharp hand movement made by Alfred.
Aizawa sighs audibly, feeling like he had enough of it all. He could understand one sentiment when it came to unfinished works, but he for once didn’t have the patience to withstand it all, not when he was located in an unknown area living in a bat form. There were far too many concerns for him to just sit still and wait for them to leave so he could follow them.
Though, it’s not like everything would bend to his every wish.
"Just go to sleep already so I can find a way out," he mumbles as he rolls his eyes, still hiding but not completely covered. Even if he had the abilities of a bat for the time being, he still couldn’t understand how they work.
Aizawa had been so lost in thought that it hadn’t occurred to him that, even as a bat, he still possessed the ability to speak, and that had been his voice. His voice that had said very real words because he had spoken aloud.
Not only did he make the men aware of his presence, but he also allowed them a view of his body since he had wanted to be ready to flee the second the chance presented itself.
"Alfred, I think you might be right." Bruce said as he eyed him, looking up and down at Aizawa now short body. "I should go to sleep."
The ‘because I may be hallucinating’ part went unsaid, but Aizawa could very much hear it ring in his developed ears.
Alfred nodded, faintly smiling as he turned around and motioned for Bruce to follow him. "Very well, Master Bruce," he said, looking over his shoulder to look for Aizawa’s bat form.
Truth be told, Aizawa hid himself from them the second both of their backs has turned away from him. He couldn’t risk making an appearance for a second time, not when his escape solemnly depended on his stealth.
As Aizawa flew behind them, he took notice of the exact moment a door opened, allowing the men to get out of this cave. Knowing he couldn’t just fly past them to get out as fast as he could, Aizawa let himself follow the butler shadow. It’s only when the older man has passed the threshold of the door that Aizawa allows himself to get faster, and…
He hadn’t been fast enough, the door closed on him as he was about to enter what looked like a study. The last thing he had seen as he looked up was the haunted look present on Alfred's face.
Since his escape route had been compromised, Aizawa guessed that the only thing he could do now that he was back all alone in the cave was to suspend himself among the bats. It’s the safest thing for him to do, as he now has been discovered. A little bit of camouflage wouldn’t hurt him as he would wait for another possibility to present itself.
If he falls asleep the second his body replaces itself like it was when he had woken up for the first time, it’s nobody's problem but his. Future him can deal with whatever this is supposed to be.
By the third time Aizawa wakes up, he finds himself back in his sleeping bag, like nothing had happened.
He can’t yet tell if this was an odd dream or something he had truly experienced, but he decides to not dwell on it for too long and to not tell anyone, as he doesn’t want to occupy someone with his problem.
Guess he’ll only find out if it happens again.