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Snow drifts from the dark sky, settling over the world like quiet over a sleeping town. It crunches softly under Izuku’s heel, but any tracks he leaves are quickly filled, erased.
He can’t remember being out this late before. Certainly not since moving to the dorms. He watches his breath come out in thin, white puffs, disappearing up towards the stars. They barely shine through the cloud cover, blinking in and out of sight as the wind starts to pick up.
Footsteps crunch across the snow, the sound carrying on the wind. Not one set, but two. Izuku turns, eyes scanning the dark. “Hello?”
The footsteps stop abruptly. He thinks he hears breathing, whispering, but it could easily be the wind whistling through the bare tree branches.
He takes his hands from his pockets and curls them into fists.
Crunch.
“Is someone there?”
His instincts cannot decide if he should run or if he should stay and fight. He stares into the dark tree line and asks himself what, or who, would he be fighting?
He turns in a circle, trying to keep the building behind him. He takes a step back, then another. He should go inside, wake a teacher. If someone is out here — it could be another student, just out to clear their head, but —
Crunch.
He runs, heart in his throat. Not for the first time he finds himself sorely missing the speed of One For All, the power, the security of it. He nearly trips in the snow, but stumbles forward, hands held out in front of him, head pounding in the cold.
The tips of his ears are numb by the time he makes it into the building, locking the door behind him, painfully aware that it won’t stave off a potential pursuer for long. Then he thinks that it could be one of his classmates out there, one of his friends, and his chest goes tight with guilt.
He flies up the stairs, leaving a white trail on the floor. His fingers grip numbly at the banister as he pulls himself up. He strains, listening for footsteps, for whispers, for any hint that someone might have followed him inside.
All is silent by the time he makes it to Aizawa’s room. He hesitates for only a moment before pounding on the door.
No answer.
He pounds again, wincing; if he’s wrong about what he heard, if he wakes Aizawa up for nothing…
No, better safe than sorry. Aizawa himself taught them that.
“Aizawa-sensei,” he calls, still rapping his fist on the door. His knuckles are beginning to hurt so he turns his hand to the side.
Has something happened to him? Did someone get to him already? Fear grips at Izuku’s heart. If Aizawa is incapacitated, or — no, he can’t even think that.
Footsteps creak up the stairs behind him and his fist freezes against the door.
“Who’s there?” he asks, whirling around, staring down the hallway at a tall, dark figure, indistinguishable in the shadows. He raises his fists, settling into a wide stance.
“Midoriya? Is that you? What on earth are you doing?”
Aizawa reaches out and flicks the lightswitch. The fluorescents cut through the dark, revealing them to one another. Izuku feels his shoulders slump with relief.
“Aizawa —”
“Hey,” he says, jogging towards him, “hey. Relax. Breathe.”
Izuku’s hands are shaking, not only from the cold. “I — I heard something. Someone. Out there.”
Aizawa stops next to him and regards him with an expression like stone. “I was out for a walk just now. Could that have been what you heard?”
“I — maybe. Were you with someone?”
His eyes harden. “What did you see?” he asks carefully, crossing his arms. A half-melted clump of snow tumbles from his long hair.
“I didn’t see anything. I just — I heard footsteps. More than just one pair.”
Aizawa leans his head down. “Perhaps it was just echoing off the snow. I can assure you, I was alone. Either way, you shouldn’t have been out so late.”
Izuku shifts. “I know. I just — I needed to clear my head. Sorry.”
His teacher’s expression softens. He reaches out and pats Izuku once on the shoulder, a somewhat rare gesture of affection from him. As he moves Izuku spots a dark bruise on his neck, then another, quickly covered by his hair.
“Did you fall?” he asks, taking note of the snow crusted on his dark clothes, the bruises. Aizawa squints at him.
“Go to bed, Midoriya.”
He nods. “I — you’re sure it was just you out there? Nobody else?”
“There was not a single living person out there with me,” Aizawa drawls, “except for you.”
“Oh, um. Alright.”
He starts toward the stairwell, glancing back at Aizawa, who is standing by his door without making to go inside.
“If it makes you feel any better,” he says, catching Izuku’s gaze, “I can go outside and double check the perimeter.”
“And you’ll come get us if you need help, right?”
“Sure,” says Aizawa, in a tone that clearly indicates how unnecessary he thinks that will be. He follows Izuku down the stairs, waiting on his floor to make sure he goes back to his room.
“Goodnight, Midoriya,” he says, nodding. Izuku nods back, pressing the door gently shut. He collapses on his bed, still unable to convince his pounding heart that everything is under control.
He starts to pull off his coat, then thinks better of it. Quietly he unlocks the door to the balcony and steps out, squinting against the wind’s frigid assault. He leans over the edge, craning his neck to see further into the darkness.
There’s no movement to speak of, aside from the bare trees dancing in the wind. The wind itself makes strange whistling, howling sounds as it passes against Heights Alliance, bending and twisting around the building's sharp edges.
Voices echo, indistinct, from somewhere in the distance; he recognizes Aizawa, he thinks, but there’s someone else —
He was right. He was right. There was someone else out there, someone Aizawa is now confronting.
Alone.
Izuku leaps off the edge of the balcony before he can even think. He’s only on the second floor, so the drop isn’t too high, but still he barely manages to roll at the last second. His fall is broken by the snow, and he wastes no time running, chasing after the voices carried on the wind.
There are tracks here, fresh and already disappearing. They start only a few feet away from the tree line, heralded by a large disturbance in the snow. Maybe Aizawa found someone out here when he left to check the perimeter, and they began to fight — but wouldn't he have left tracks on the way over? They couldn't have been filled in by the snow already, Izuku is sure of it. It's only been a few minutes.
The footprints leading away from the disturbance start somewhat uniform, like two people walking side by side, but quickly become chaotic, as if one of them had stumbled into the other. Or tried to hit them, maybe? After a few steps, the two trails become horribly indistinct; Izuku feels a sense of urgency as he follows them, hoping Aizawa was able to subdue whoever it was he found out here.
If he did, Izuku is sure to get an earful. But if there's any chance that Aizawa was overpowered, or caught unawares…
He's still getting used to fighting on his new leg, and Izuku doubts the thick snow has been of any help. Not to mention that Erasure is weaker, too, with only one eye to work with. Aizawa may be a seasoned pro, but he's alone, in the elements, in the middle of the night.
Izuku forges ahead into the trees, following the voices now growing louder; he sees a light, just a few feet ahead, and he follows, unsure what he might find, but prepared for a fight.
It’s —
It’s Aizawa, alright.
And —
“Kurogiri?” he sputters, coming to an abrupt stop.
The two of them pull apart, and Aizawa hits him with the fullness of Erasure, which of course does nothing but reveal his own shock.
Kurogiri — Oboro, Izuku reminds himself — blinks, eyes glowing yellow behind a thin haze of smoke. He looks much better than Izuku had last seen him, but of course, he's pretty sure the man is supposed to be monitored 24/7 — which does not mean making out with Izuku’s homeroom teacher in the middle of the night.
“Midoriya, I told you to go to bed,” said homeroom teacher seethes. His cheeks are flushed — and not from the cold, Izuku gathers — and with his hair floating, Izuku can see the bruises on his neck again.
“Oh,” he says, suddenly understanding. Oboro reaches up to scratch the back of his neck. “Um.”
“Maybe I should —”
“Stay,” Aizawa says to Oboro. “Midoriya: Go. To. Bed. I will deal with you in the morning.”
Izuku nods, pressing his lips in a tight line. “Right. Yes. Um. Sorry.”
No one will ever believe him, he realizes. Not a single soul. He doesn't even believe it, and he just saw it with his own eyes, is still seeing it.
Oh, hell, he's so getting put on house arrest after this. He turns on his heel, marching back through the snow. The tips of his fingers are starting to go numb, so he shoves his hands in his pockets and balls them into fists. He should have just listened to Aizawa and gone straight to bed, trusting that he would do his job and keep everyone safe.
He can't believe it. Does Present Mic know? Or Midnight? They must know. Do they? There's no way Aizawa will tell Izuku if he asks. He'd probably give him detention for his audacity alone.
Quiet settles over the world again, save for the pounding of his heart and his racing thoughts.
A moment after he clears the tree line he hears from behind him a burst of laughter, carried on by the wind.