Chapter Text
When Izuku’s mama had asked if he wanted to go on a trip with his papa, he wasn’t expecting this at all.
He’d said yes, of course, trying to convince himself the twisty feeling in his stomach was excitement (“Mama! Mama! Did you know nervousness and excitement are the same emotion, it’s just if you feel good or not about the thing that’s making you feel it?”) but the accompanying sensation of reluctance made it hard.
It wasn’t that he hadn’t wanted to see his papa—he did! It’d been like so many months since he went to go work in America and Izuku really missed him!—it was just that, sometimes his papa didn’t like him. Izuku tries not to let his Mama know this, because it might make her sad like it makes Izuku sad, but sometimes his papa got kinda angry and mean and said things that made Izuku get all these bad feelings in his belly.
Mama had said that his papa asked to see Izuku though, so he thought maybe his papa had changed his mind and liked Izuku again and they can do fun things together, so he’d said yes, packed his bag, and met his papa at the train station the next day.
After dropping off his bag they’d gotten some ice cream at a little parlour near the hotel his papa had been staying in for the last week, and he’d even been allowed to get two flavours! Mama didn’t buy Izuku two flavours, she said he had a sensitive stomach and too much sugar would make him feel sick. Izuku didn’t tell this to his papa in case he changed his mind and only bought one scoop.
Then they’d gone to eat it in a park, but Izuku wasn’t feeling very well anymore. His papa got mad and told him to stop whining, they were having a nice day so he shouldn’t ruin it, and then he got extra mad when Izuku said he didn’t want the rest of the ice cream because his stomach hurt. His papa said to just eat it and not waste food, so Izuku really tried, but he ended up being sick in a bush when his papa wasn’t looking and really really didn’t want to eat anymore, so he pretended to drop it.
Papa looked mad all over at that, not just in his face like usual. He was angry in his shoulders and his hands and his feet and his voice, but he didn’t get a chance to yell at Izuku much before his phone rang. The conversation was short and even angrier than when Papa was yelling at him.
Papa said they were going back to the hotel room after that, and Izuku didn’t ask his papa to carry him no matter how much his stomach hurt or how fast he had to walk because he didn’t want to make Papa even more mad. Even so, Papa had slammed the door shut behind them and said, “you just had to ruin the day by being spoilt, didn’t you? It’s almost like you don’t want to have a nice day with your dad. Maybe you’d just rather go home to your bitch of a mother, eh brat?”
“No, no!” Izuku insisted, sniffling as he tried to keep from crying, because crying always made Papa more angry, running after him as Papa went over to his bed and started stuffing things quickly into a bag. Some clothes, but mostly it was lots of money, more money than Izuku had ever seen, more money than he thought there was in the whole world, tied together with elastic bands to make money bricks. Izuku was distracted for a second thinking about making a money house out of them.
Then he realised that his papa was packing. He couldn’t hold back his tears then, even as his papa got mad at him for it.
“Please Papa, I’m s-s-sorry, I w-won’t be spoilt-t anym-more or w-w-aste food. W-we can have more f-fun days I pro-romise, and I’ll not c-complain at-“ he wailed despite being told to shut up, up until he saw the gun.
At that he fell very quiet.
A police man had come into Izuku’s school once. He’s talked about a lot of things, one of them was that, even though they weren’t used much anymore what with quirks, guns were very, very dangerous and you weren’t supposed to have them without lots of training and special permission.
He’d then passed around a gun, but Kacchan distracted Izuku so he hadn’t heard the police man say it was empty.
One of the kids had asked the police man what a switch on the side was, and he’d told them it was the safety. If you didn’t turn that off, you wouldn’t be able to shoot the gun.
The kid had flicked the safety off and pointed the gun straight at Izuku, pulling the trigger.
No bullet came out, but Kacchan had used his quirk behind Izuku’s head to make it sound like it did. Izuku had screamed.
Seeing the gun now, Izuku didn’t scream. He didn’t vomit like last time. Instead, every muscle in his body froze, watching.
Strangely, around the same time, the ground started shaking.
His papa let out a frustrated growl, flames blooming out with his exhale, zipping his bag and and tossing it over his shoulder as he pulled out his phone again and rang. “God fucking dammit, they’re here already. You said I had more time, you mother fucking bitch, Idochi. I’ve got my damn kid here still.”
“Holy fuck, what?” A voice crackled through the phone speaker. “Damn. Boss won’t let you bring it, you know. He’ll shoot the runt on sight—on second thought, bring him, do your part for the environment and get rid of another piece of quirkless trash.”
Izuku waited for his papa to defend him, but he didn’t, just walked towards the door.
“I’m not taking him anywhere, he’ll just slow me down. Now where’s the bloody rendezvous site? You sending me help or not?” His papa snapped, wrenching open the door and stepping out. Izuku picked up his bag, still sitting by the door from when he first arrived, to follow his papa.
He straightened up just in time to see his papa slam the door shut, hearing it click as it was locked from the outside.
Oh.
He tried the handle, it didn’t open.
“Papa? Papa I’m still in here,” he said hesitantly.
The footsteps heading away paused, and Izuku held his breath, hoping- “if you know what’s good for you you’ll keep your mouth shut, Izuku.” Then they resumed, jogging down the stairs at the end of the hall by the sound of it.
Izuku tried the handle again desperately. He couldn’t breathe. Why couldn’t he breathe?
His vision shook harder, he wasn’t sure if it was because he was trembling or another wave of vibrations were going through the building.
He tried the door frantically, but it wouldn’t budge no matter how much he rattled the handle or threw himself against the wood. Black spots began appearing at the edge of his vision. He remembered his mama telling him he had to calm down, that panic didn’t help anything. He remembered her telling him that if he ever got lost, he should find someone who looked trustworthy and tell them, and try stay in one place.
Izuku looked around as he struggled to draw air into his constricting lungs. There, on the bedside table—the customer service phone. He stumbled over, but tripped on a jumper, and was fighting too hard for breath to get back up. Slowly he managed to crawl under the bed, making the last stretch over to the wall beside the bedside table.
He pulled the phone off, setting it on the floor with him as he curled up under the bed, struggling to ring it. Between his trembling fingers and the shaking ground and the tears blurring his splotchy vision, everything was moving too much.
And then things started exploding, people were screaming, and sirens were wailing. Izuku didn’t notice any of that, because the roof above him was collapsing.
——————
“Ow,” Izuku whimpered, eyes peeling open. Something wet was keeping one of them closed, sticking his lashed together. He let out a little cry as he twitched, pain lancing through him.
He looked around with his one open eye, but it didn’t make much difference, wherever he looked there was just black. He reached forward, choking out a sob as his body screamed at him in pain. His hands found only hard, jagged concrete and brick. His head hurt, nothing made sense, where was he?
He felt around more, whimpering through his teeth at the pain. He was surrounded in all sides—on one side of him was an intact wall, behind him there was the remnants of the wall dividing the room from the hall. In front and to his left him there was was felt like smashed wood, splintered and jabbing out at him, as well as torn mattresses and more rubble. Above him was cracked wood.
The bedside table was in front of him, smashed to smithereens. The bed was slanted overhead, as if the far legs had given out but not the ones over him. The wall beside him still stood, at least as far as he could feel, but not the one behind him.
Izuku stifled his cries because the noise was making his head hurt. He wished he could stop shaking because it was making his body hurt, but he was scared all over and couldn’t.
A whimper escaped him as he curled in a ball. His elbow bumped something and he froze. The room service phone.
Shifting as best he could in the tiny alcove of space, he pulled it over to him, running his hands over it blindly in the dark. He could figure it out, he could do this, he had to do this.
Izuku wasn’t sure how much time passed in the dark, pressing buttons on the phone. Once his ears cleared of the ringing, he could hear the sirens nearby. He’d read something once, in an article about All Might, that you’re more likely to survive a building falling down if you’re near the top, because there’s less debris to crush you and help will find you faster.
His papa’s room had been on the second of six floors. Izuku was going have to wait a while for help.
He startled when the phone began to buzz in his hands, before he beamed and pressed it to his ear. He’d made it work! Someone would pick up, and he’d be saved. They’d get his papa and he’d come and get Izuku out of this and apologise and buy him another ice cream, just one scoop this time.
No one picked up.
He rang again. Again the line went dead.
And again
And again
And a g
a
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a
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‘
‘
H
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“
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
In.
Out.
“H-h-h…”
In.
Out.
In.
“h-hi s-s-si-sir.”
“Oh. Holy hell. Um, hi. Are you in the hotel somewhere?”
Izuku started crying again. “Y-yes.”
“Okay. Don’t worry, we’ll get you out. Do you know which floor you were on?” The voice asked. Izuku couldn’t hear it very well, but he liked the voice. It didn’t sound like his mama’s voice, more like his papa if his voice was gentler, but it made him feel like his mama’s voice did. Safer.
“T-two-o. It-t-t’s-s da-ark-k an- an- and ‘m sc-scar-red. Is-s m-m-my- my p-pa-a-pa th-ther-ere?”
There was some muttered words, but Izuku’s ears were ringing again. Why couldn’t he breathe anymore? He asked the voice this, or maybe asked the voice to fix it, he wasn’t sure.
“Alright, alright it’s okay kid, we’ll find your dad for you, but first I need you to tell me what he looks like for that, and for that you need to be nice and calm okay? C’mon now, remember to breathe. It’s gonna be a little hard right now, but only because you’re scared, so can you be brave until we find your papa?”
Izuku made a choking noise, gagging on his next mouthful of air.
“Not so big breaths, maybe? Can you breathe out slowly for me? C’mon, I’ll breathe with you. One, two, three, four, like that, yeah? Okay, we can do this.”
One, two, three, four, Izuku counted in his head.
Four, three, two, one.
One, two, three, four.
Four, three, two, one.
“You’re good at this, little guy. Keep it up, just like that.”
One, two, three, four.
Four, three, two, one.
One, two, three, four.
Four, three, two, one.
“Can you tell me how old you are, kid?”
One, two, three, four, five.
“F-f-five.”
“Wow, I thought you were much older, with how well you’re handling this.”
“Th-thank-k you-u.”
“What’s your name?”
“M-Midori-riya Iz-zuku.”
“You said you were on floor two, right Midoriya? Do you know which room you were in?”
Izuku scrunched his face up, trying to remember while still counting out his breaths. “N-no s-sir. ‘M-m s-s-sor-sorry.”
“It’s okay, we’ll just check them all, don’t worry. I’m a pro-hero, little guy, and heroes are really good at saving people.”
His chest didn’t feel like it was squeezing so tight anymore. “O-oh, tha-at’s-s ok-kay then. Hero-oes alw-ways save the d-day. Wh-which h-hero are y-you?”
“Yeah we do. I’m Erasurehead, kiddo. You might not have heard of me, I’m an underground hero.” People were talking in the background, and Mr. Erasurehead said something back that Izuku couldn’t hear because it was too far away from the phone speaker, followed by a “a child-sized problem, trapped on the second floor.”
One, two, three, four, Izuku counted in his head.
Four, three, two, one.
One, two, three, four.
Four, three, two, one.
“E-er-r-ras-s-sur-reh-he-“ Izuku broke off, needing to count his breaths a few more times before he could talk
The voice was back to talking into the phone. “If you promise not to tell anyone, you can call me Aizawa, kid. That’s my civilian name, so it’s a bit of a secret, Mkay?”
“O-okay Aiz-zawa s-sir.”
“Alright, you sound like you’re doing much better. Do you think you can answer some questions for me?”
“Yu- yu-huh,” Izuku sniffled.
“Good kid. Alright, are you hurt at all? Can you tell me whereabouts?”
He tried to dry his cheeks, but dried stuff flaked off his skin in a way that hurt so he stopped. “M-my head’s al-l loud and sore, an- an I hurt in my chest-t, r-really bad—like it-t’s squ-squeezing-ng m-my hear-rt. S-so does m-my leg-g. I f-fe-feel really s-sick.”
“Okay. That was really good,” Aizawa told him before passing the information along to someone else. “Now can you tell me a little bit about what’s around you?”
“It’s-s really dark-k, I c-can’t see, b-but I can fe-feel a wall be-beside me an- and a broken o-one behind. L-lots of rocks and wood in f-front of me. I’m u-under a b-b-bed, but it’s kind-da brok-ken.”
“Is it hot?”
“U-uh-huh. S-super.”
Izuku didn’t think he was supposed to hear Aizawa telling someone that ‘I don’t think the kid‘s got airflow, he’s gonna be breathing in carbon dioxide soon’.
He expected to be given more questions about what was around him, where his room had been, how he was feeling, whether or not he felt dizzy, but Mr. Aizawa’s next question was simply, “what’s your favourite way to pass time, child?”
Izuku giggled at the ‘child’. “You don’t-t play with many k-kids, d-do you, Mr. Aiz-zawa-a?”
“No, thank god. Kids are little demons. I’m more of a cat person.”
Another laugh bubbled out of him. “My mama’s allergic to cats, but I like them t-too. And my favourite thing to do is to wa-atch hero fights!”
“Hero fights, eh? What’s so interesting about those boring old things?”
“Mr. A-Aiz-zawa! You are a hero.”
“Oh, am I? Hmm, maybe I am. Thanks for reminding me, kid.”
“You’re welc-come. And I l-like hero fights bec-cause they’re cool! And I get t-to see all the cool quirks being u-used. I love le-learning about p-p-peopl-ple’s quirks, they’re all s-so awesome. I w-wish I could be a hero, but I don’t have a quirk.” Fear lancing up his spine as he remembered the words of Papa’s friend, ‘do your part for the environment and get rid of another piece of quirkless trash’. Izuku couldn’t tell Mr. Aizawa he was quirkless, what if all the heroes left him here to- to- get rid of him. “—a- a- a strong quirk like theirs! One that makes me at good saving people and fighting,” he blurted out, panicking a little as he tried to bury his mistake.
“I’m sure your quirk is very cool, Midoriya. And anyway, it isn’t the quirk that makes a hero strong. A quirk is just a tool, a useful one yes, but not the only tool in the box.”
Izuku felt tears prickling at the back of his eyes again. “Y-yeah it is. Eve-ery-one-e say-ys I c-can’t be a hero b-bec-cause I d-don’t-t have a qu-quirk—uhh, a quirk th-that’s good f-for fighting, like K-Kacchan’s.”
“I don’t know what quirk this Kacchan has, but I can tell you those people are wrong. My quirk doesn’t help fighting at all, Midoriya, it’s not a strength quirk, and yet I’m still a hero. You like watching hero fights, you must know not all heroes have physical quirks.”
He paused, thinking hard. “You- your quirk really doesn’t-t help you fight? Does it m-make you su-super fast, or re-really smart, or g-good at rescuing?”
“Nope. My quirk is called Erasure—I can take away people quirks by looking at them, but they get them back when I blink”
“Woahhh, but that’s so cool! And so useful as well, you can stop villains that are out of your reach from hurting people and- and you can make the fight fair, and- there’s so many things you could do with it. I don’t have anything useful like that.”
“Hmm. Yeah, my quirk helps me sometimes, but not all the time. If I’m against someone with a mutation quirk, it doesn’t work on them, so I’m basically quirkless while fighting them. Even if your quirk isn’t very useful for hero work doesn’t mean you can’t be a hero. Hel- er, heck, you could be quirkless and still be a hero if you really wanted, and trained hard. Don’t listen to anyone who tells you otherwise.”
Oh.
Oh.
Ow.
Izuku’s chest felt all tight again, like it was squeezing, but it wasn’t bad-squeezing like it had been before, it was good squeezing, like when his mama gave him a big hug after he tripped over and hurt himself, or Auntie Mitsuki told him he was her favourite, or Uncle Masaru bought a special edition All Might action figure for him as well as Kacchan, or when his papa let him have two scoops of ice cream.
“I’m gonna be a hero!” He cheered, wriggling to try sit up, when something sharp and painful lanced through him, and then he coughed, wheezing a little as he let out a sob. “That’s- not good..” he whimpered. “Oww.”
“Kid? Midoriya? What’s wrong?”
“I- I moved an-and now I r-r-really h..rt,” he slurred a little, coughing again. Wet stuff came out. “‘M coughing… stuff up.”
There was the sound of swearing, and the constant background noise of scrabbling rocks and shifting debris sped up. “It’s gonna be alright kid, just try not to move anymore okay? Which side hurts?”
“M-my… left, b-but als-so my hear-rt-t..”
“Okay, okay shit, um, make sure to keep your breathing even kid. Can you- can you sit up, is there enough room there?”
Izuku listened as Mr. Aizawa talked him through what to do, following instruction as best he could.
“It-t hurts, M-Mr. Aiz-zawa-a,” he sniffled, hacking again, the movement making his chest sting fiercely.
“I know Midoriya, but you’re going to be fine. I won’t let anything happen to you. We’ll get you out and patched up in no time.”
“Has my papa come back yet?”
“What does he look like?”
“Uh. He has- he has white h-hair, and he’s super b-big, but not like All Might big. He can breathe fire! And he has big white splotches all over him, Mama called it… vertigo? But I think it’s like dragon skin, I have some t-too on my tummy.”
“Midoriya, is his name by chance, Cole Ashford?” Mr. Aizawa sounded very tense all of a sudden.
“N-no,” he sniffled, “his name is Midoriya Hisashi… but the friends he talked to on the train c-c-called him that I think. Th-they were speaking Eng-glish so I’m not really sure, b-but it s-sounded like that-t. Is h-he there?”
“…I haven’t seen him, but civilians aren’t allowed near the building. I’m sure he’s waiting for you nearby,” he said stiffly. Izuku’s face screwed up like he’d sucked a lemon and he began crying again.
“He h-hates me ri-right n-now th-though, tha-at’s why he left me in h-here. Wh-what if he isn’t there? How-w will I get b-back to my m-ma-ama? I can’t t-take the tra-ain by myself!” Izuku wailed, sobbing harder when it just made his chest hurt more. He coughed again.
“Shhh, remember you have to stay very still Midoriya. I’m really sorry. I’m sure your papa will be there, he’s probably really worried about you. Nothing you do can ever make your parents hate you.”
“B-but I did! He c-came all the way ba-back from America to s-see me, and I ruined the d-day by being sick an-and-d w-wasting food and then I wh-whined and he-he locked me in the r-room when it started sh-shaking. He doesn’t want me anymore!”
“Sweet Jesus. I’m going to kill this man.” Izuku didn’t understand the words Mr. Aizawa said, but he knew it was English because his papa had spoken English on the phone in the train ride. His papa had even said ‘kill’ too! Mr. Aizawa switched back to Japanese. “Midoriya, kid, that’s not- you didn’t ruin the day or make him hate you. It’s not your fault you were sick. Your papa shouldn’t have- have left you here, no matter how mad he was. That’s on him, not you, okay? You didn’t deserve that.”
“I do! I do!” He sobbed half-way hysterically. “I’m j-just a wa-waste of space-ce and P-Papa tr-tries really hard even-n though I’m-m w-wor-thles-s-s and he-e giv-ves me mo-ore than I des-serve anyw-way.”
“Midoriya, Midoriya! Izuku!” Mr. Aizawa sounded urgent, and also really mad, but most just worried. Izuku didn’t think Mr. Aizawa really knew how to handle kids. “Listen to me kid, you are five years old, right?”
“Y-yu-huh.”
“Five year olds are allowed to be upset and whine sometimes. Five year olds are allowed to be as annoying as they could possibly be, and good parents will still love them, because that’s what parents do. If one of your parents get mad at you for having a hard day, then that’s them being a bad parent, not you being a waste of space or worthless. You are so important, little guy, that all these heroes and police are currently tearing apart this entire building to find you.”
Izuku let out a wet little splatter of a cough, crying more now, though not just because of the pain in his chest. “Yo-you mean th-that-t, Mr-r. Ai-Aiz-Zawa-a? The-ey’re a-all look-king for m-e?”
“Yup. There was only nine people in the building when it fell and they’re- we found them all,” the gruff-voiced hero said, and if Izuku listened hard he could hear the shifting and clattering of rocks and people shouting to each other—some of them were even shouting his name—in the background, “now we’re trying to figure out where you are so we can get you out safely.”
Scrunching up his face, Izuku thought for a long moment. It was kinda hard, because his brain was doing cartwheels and bashing painfully into his skull, and his heart felt like it was going to explode because his chest was crushing it so tight, but he came to his conclusion. “M-mr. Aiz-zawa? If you ha-had a kid, would you le-leave him he-ere?”
“Absolutely not,” came Mr. Aizawa’s instant, knee-jerk response. He sounded mad at the thought, Izuku hoped he hadn’t upset him. “I’d make sure you got out, no matter what.”
“Even if it’d… sl-slow you dow-wn?”
“Doesn’t matter. You don’t leave any kid in danger, let alone your own. Not ever, under any circumstances,”
He thought maybe he knew this, inside. His mama never would have left him. “…I don’t-t th-think-k my pa-papa’s a ve-very good par-rent-t.”
The voice was all sad now, “no, I don’t either.”
Izuku fought to suck in another breath, coughing it out again along with more liquid. Blood, because his mouth tastes like metal. “I want my mama.”
“I’m sorry kid.”
“I don’t wanna die.”
“You’re not,” Mr. Aizawa’s voice came through the phone, fierce and determined. “I won’t let you. We’re gonna get you out, Midoriya, I promise-“ there was clamouring and Izuku heard someone yell, “we’ve got a location, Sonar found him!”
Dreadful, agonising hope clawed behind Izuku’s eyes as he stared into the dark around him.
A ragged, relieved sigh escaped Mr. Aizawa. “Hear that kid? We know where you are. We’ll get you out in no time.”
Izuku cried softly into his arms as he heard the scraping of rubble and footsteps overhead. “Are you-ou up-p th-there?”
“No kiddo, I’m not the most useful for excavation jobs like this, I’m watching from the sidelines.”
He wasn’t going to say it, he wasn’t going to cause any more problems, he wasn’t going to whine he wasn’t-
Five year olds are allowed to be upset and whine sometimes, he reminded himself, and blurted out, “I want you there. Please.”
Someone barked a—rather hollow—laugh near Aizawa, who in turn muttered a ‘fuck off Tsukauchi’ before replying to Izuku. “You’ll be in better hands with them, don’t worry. They’re good at their jobs, and you’ll be safe and getting patched up before you know it.”
Another wet cough rattled his small body, and Izuku didn’t even try fight the whine in his voice now. “I want you. I don’t want anyone else please Mr. Erasurehead Aizawa-sama sir please I don’t want to be alone. I want a huggggg.”
There was another half-genuine laugh and a hushed, slightly panicked ‘fuck. Tsukauchi?!’ And a ‘you can manage it, Erasure.’ Because Izuku could be kind of sneaky sometimes, he cranked up his soft sniffling into proper tears again.
“Uhh, sh- sugar. Ok, ok, don’t cry again kid, I’ll talk to some people and get as close as I can”
“But I want you h-here,” he croaked. Then the bed above him creaked and rocks tumbled and little shards of wall peppered him, stinging, and he let out a small shriek.
“Be more careful you fucking idiots, it’s a goddamn kid in there!” Izuku heard Aizawa snap at someone else.
Everything shuddered and shifted again and ‘are you okay kid?’ And Izuku felt the phone be pulled in his hands, the wire going taught before-
He shrieked as the wire snapped and the line went flat.
He was alone in the dark and he screamed. He didn’t scream like his papa was walking away from his crying mama. He didn’t scream like there was a gun pressed to his head. He screamed like it was the last handhold keeping him from tumbling into the endless nothingness surrounding him because if there was no one telling him he was still here, who’s to say he was?
There was scrambling and clattering but Izuku didn’t hear it over his scream, until a voice broke over the top, and he changed his scream into a sob of “Aizawa”
A bit of yelling and approximately three minutes later, light was pouring in and hands were reaching down, prying wood and rock away and lifting him out. Everything hurt, and the hands are pressing on his chest and he’s coughing up blood and someone is yelling more as he’s lifted out.
His vision swims with bright blotches of colour, and he can’t focus past them properly, but he can hear and he knows none of the words being spoken to him are Aizawa’s voice. He’s crying as he’s laid down on a stretcher but that just makes him cough again and choke on his own blood and he whimpers a soft Aizawa between hacking up fluid.
Izuku’s one open eye finally close as warm arms circle him and a familiar voice says, “see kid, I promised we’d get you out. A hero always keeps their word.”
The last thing he said as he drifted off was a soft, slurred, “‘m gon’ be a ‘ero j’s like ‘ou.”
——————
When he woke up under cold lights, Mr. Aizawa wasn’t there.
There was a doctor, telling his mama about a concussion, collapsed lung, internal bleeding, broken ribs, and some more big sounding words Izuku didn’t know, but that surgery fixed most of them, he just needed to rest for now.
There was a nurse fixing his oxygen mask, noticing as his eyes opened and giving him a smile.
There was his mama, sitting beside the hospital bed and holding his hand, eyes red and puffy but otherwise okay—until she saw he was awake and started crying again, pressing his hand to her lips because she couldn’t hug him.
There was Auntie Mitsuki and Uncle Masaru and Kacchan outside apparently, waiting for visiting hours to start.
But no Aizawa. Izuku didn’t mind too much—he was a little sad, but he wasn’t surprised, Erasurehead was a hero after all, an underground one even! He was probably busy saving other little boys from buildings. Izuku wished he’d got to say thank you though.
And he wasn’t even a little sad that his papa wasn’t here. In fact, Izuku didn’t even think of him, too busy yammering to his mama about his new favourite hero.