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Izuku stared out at the bleak scene before him, desecrated bodies and dark blood crusted around them. He took a step back and nearly collided with the dead body of Iida. A bloody hand came up to wrap around his wrist…
He woke up with a gasp, a cold shiver running down his back. There wasn’t a drop of sweat on his brow - it was too cold for that - but he felt the ghost of it anyway.
Izuku snapped awake, he wet his dry lips with his tongue and looked around, despite knowing that it was all a dream.
He rubbed at his head,
He didn’t think he could get to sleep now, not like this. He walked aimlessly towards the main community area. He didn’t particularly care that it was past curfew. He couldn’t care.
Not now.
He tried his best to remain quiet, he really did.
Unfortunately his Sensei was an omniscient demon made of coffee and intimidation.
He just appeared like some cryptic vampire, who even does that? He was using his quirk, Izuku could feel his own dimming. Still there but inaccessible.
So his eyes were glowing. Creepily.
His Sensei didn’t say a word and Izuku was forcibly reminded that the man who slept through homeroom and delivered his lessons in a stable monotone was, in fact, a pro hero. A good one, to be specific, and was thus very perceptive.
He sort of regretted coming outside to wander the hallways now. He was known as a rule follower (if nobody was in danger) and travelling like some wayward spectre was definitely out of the norm.
Aizawa only beckoned him and Izuku walked forwards without thinking. Some part of him distrusted this sense of calm, the idea that his Sensei wouldn’t harm him.
His Sensei had had plenty of opportunities to harm him. Aizawa would certainly not do it now.
He shouldn’t be this distrustful still. It had been a full year and then some of knowing Aizawa. They had fought in a war together for goodness sake.
The war. Izuku made it a point not to swear, that was Kacchan’s job, but nothing tempted him more than this moment. He stilled his trembling fingers, the remnants of his nightmare still impacting him through the newfound peace he had found meandering, and walked in line with Aizawa.
Aizawa stopped when Izuku stopped and walked when Izuku walked. He didn’t do or say much else and Izuku honestly appreciated the quiet. It gave him enough time to think.
So when they arrived at Aizawa’s room Izuku was quite surprised.
“Why did you bring me here, Sensei?” Izuku said softly, a quiet vibration that he wasn’t sure his Sensei picked up on at first.
He was about to repeat the question again when Aizawa replied, gruff but not aggressively.
“You shouldn’t have had to fight in a war, kid. It’ll be quieter here, and you can reach me easier if you need anything.”
Izuku would ask how Aizawa knew that he had dreamt about the war, what would’ve happened if they had lost; what happened even though they had won.
The scar on his cheek throbbed, haunting him with the memory of pain long dissipated.
Izuku knew that the war kept Aizawa up at night, he knew it because it ghosted the steps everyone took, and it followed everyone like a phantom.
He knew it in the way Tenya silently placed a picture of his brother, his hero, in costume on the top of his cupboard. Their smiling eyes watched Izuku every time he stepped into his friend’s room.
He knew it in the way Mina slowly grew her hair out, she would laugh and pretend it was on a whim, but he saw the way she styled it so it would spike out and he saw the way her smile would falter too quickly. He let her pretend.
He knew it in the way everybody in class called each other by their first names. Even Kacchan and Fumikage. They weren’t close before. They’re at most acquaintances now. But when you’ve fought in a war together, the least you could do is refer to each other by their first names.
So he didn’t have to ask why Aizawa instantly knew it was about the war. It was too easy to guess.
And when Aizawa entered the room, Izuku followed. Because his teacher was right. He couldn’t be alone right now. He didn’t want to be.
His bare feet made the faintest plodding noises on the carpeted floor. The room he entered as monochrome as the person who owned it.
He looked around the place he remembered as his teacher’s living room, catching the smell of coffee. It was a type of scent that wrapped around and smothered the whole place, though that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
It smelled like a habit, a small cup of coffee every day since the dorms were built. Though knowing Aizawa, it was likely a couple more than that.
It worked as a distraction, a way for Izuku to calm down and take a step back and he welcomed the familiar scent.
He walked further to a place he recognised as the bedroom. He paused for a second and, upon receiving no admonishment or deterrence from his teacher, stepped through the door and into the room.
It looked like a basic, nondescript room at first glance. It lacked any obvious personalisation and the bed was neatly made and appeared untouched. Like those workmen people hired to stage a room when they wanted to sell an old house.
But Izuku recognised the care his teacher had put into it. The subtle details that made it feel like home. He recognised the bedsheets Denki had gotten their teacher as a joke, if one flipped it over it would reveal a pattern of wide-eyed cats staring straight ahead, contrasting with the hot-pink that made up the backdrop.
He smiled a little as he remembered their Sensei's reaction. Instead of tossing it away, Aizawa had looked at it with a barely concealed smile and had shoved it under his arm. Izuku knew that they were a sucker for cats, but Denki was certainly surprised that it hadn’t appeared in any trashcan near the school.
The blonde had checked. And they had somehow roped the rest of the Bakusquad into helping him.
They had been certain their teacher would loathe it.
Aizawa calmly got into the bed, “You can sleep next to me tonight, if you want. Or you can sleep on the couch in the living room outside.”
Izuku chose the couch.
That’s what he would say. Anybody who said that he got up in the middle of the night and curled against his Sensei, siphoning the warmth off of them and breathing in the scent of coffee was a liar.
And a bad one at that.