บท 874: 42
Chapter Text
It was early in the morning when Midoriya found himself rolling from his dorm room bed, a scream stuck in his throat and his lungs burning for air. A short gurgling choke was as far as Midoriya got before he lurched from his hands and knees to his nearby trashcan and emptied his throat and lungs of the viscera and bile that came with the nightmare. Faces flashed before his eyes. Too many, far too many, eyes all smiling as their faces screamed in agony, the sound of artillery and bells rang in his ears as the wails of women and children echoed around his room. He could smell the poignant, rancid scent of the collapsing village. Feel the fire on his skin.
It took too many minutes by Midoriya's count, too much time to pull himself together. Nothing would be gained by lingering on the thoughts, nothing could be changed. Time spent thinking about it was time wasted. He had work to do. Too many civilians lives were on the line for him to lo-
Midoriya froze, catching his own thoughts even as they spiraled around him. You aren't there anymore. There is no war. No one's in danger. Midoriya knew he was lying to himself, even as he dragged himself down the dorm stairs and into the bathroom. He was always there. He couldn't escape it. Even now, the people around him weren't safe. Kyoka was attacked due to his inaction.
Himiko's sister was safe with his mother on one of her business trips to New York. There were always rich people to cook for. His sister now, as well, he supposed, and that wasn't ever going to not be a strange thought. Himiko, his and Mei's ward, and her little sister, who was now his little sister. Midoriya couldn't help but think of their biological parents. The abusive monsters rotting in the prison system. The abusive monsters that could still get out. He should have killed them, tied up the loose ends. He knew better, knew what loose ends could result in. But he'd chosen to abide by the law, had chosen to take the heroic action. Look where they are now. Now they weren't safe, either. No. They'll both be safe as long as I'm around. I'll wrap up those loose ends when I can. Midoriya knew that even if he kept them safe, it wouldn't absolve his guilt. Wouldn't wash the blood from his hands. Wouldn't protect those that he couldn't. Can't keep them safe. Can't keep anyone safe-
Midoriya dunked his head under the faucet of the bathroom sink and just tried to breathe through the tightening plaguing his chest once again. Weak. Look at what we've become. The answer is right there. It's so simple. We know how, we have the resources. We can do more, but you're too much of a coward. Fingers gripped his left shoulder, and it had him spinning in place, water whipping from his drenched hair and face. His right hand drew the combat knife from its sheath at the small of his back. He never pulls the sheathe off. What if he didn't have his sidearm, like he didn't now?
The blade whipped through the head of the figure and embedded itself into the tile wall. Shimura stared at him, wide-eyed, as she sucked in a breath and looked at the knife. When her head turned back to Midoriya, his eyes were vacant and his breathing shallow.
Voices rang in his ears. Hers, his, someone else, another. Never alone, never alone, never alone. His fault. Always his fault. Midoriya rocked back into the dorm bathroom's wall, sliding down it, a high keening sound emitting from his throat.
…
Aizawa wasn't sure what to think of his students this year. Not entirely. They were dealing with Midoriya's hell training, so he couldn't say they weren't motivated. Being told to run some twelve miles, about half a marathon, before they'd even started in on the weight training or any of the other slew of exercises that were Midoriya's idea of "basic" conditioning. Whether it was a testament to Midoriya's very careful planning or the students' own conditioning before U.A., they'd had a shocking lack of injuries.
All the same, Aizawa had resolved to talk to Midoriya about the regime. If they weren't careful, the students would burn out, and he had hopes for this batch. Midoriya wasn't exempt from that thought, either. The damned rat had given him the problem children from hell. Nedzu's personal student or not, supposed "assistant student teacher" or not, hell, incompetence of the number one hero and, by extension, school board or not, Aizawa was not about to let Midoriya burn them all out in the first two weeks. They were his responsibility.
His responsibility. Each of them. Aizawa scoffed as he stepped back into the dorm. It had been a long patrol, and the only thing he wanted to do at the moment was to go upstairs to his apartment, lock the door so none of the problem children could bother him, and collapse into bed. He wouldn't really care if they needed something, of course. He was usually a hardass on his students. They needed it, needed to know what was waiting for them. But this group was different. They were already having the sick truth thrust in their faces, and they were barely into the semester.
One of his students had been maimed, another had been removed, and he'd come close to expelling him entirely. That wasn't even touching on what he'd noticed with the rest of the class. Toga was a bit too keyed into something darker. Jiro had something akin to hero-worship going on with Midoriya, a bit too willing to do what he asked of her. Midoriya was supposedly both quirkless, which he found hard to believe, and ex-military. Which would also be hard to believe, if he hadn't seen how the kid fought on occasion. Two couldn't control their quirks, one was afraid to use her quirk in a fight, and another of his students looked like he was waiting for all of his classmates to turn on him. None of that even touched on Todoroki. Problems socializing, showing emotions, with fast movements, clear physical scarring, and a painfully obvious issue with using the fire half of his quirk. All of it pointed to only a few reasons and, frankly, Aizawa disliked all of them.
He'd ask Midoriya what he knew, but depending on the boy's mood, and it had been downright foul these last couple of days, he'd either charge him an arm and a leg for the information, or he'd give him the run around before eventually giving up his files on the subject, still for the cost of his limbs. He really didn't want to try to pry what would inevitably be sensitive information from the calculating broker, even if Midoriya was damn good at it. Aizawa contemplated asking Nedzu for a minute before groaning to himself at the base of the stairs. God damn it. I'm going to have to ask Midoriya, aren't I? Aizawa was as likely to get something from the rat as he was a brick wall. The amount Nedzu was hiding from his supposed unofficial vice president was something that Aizawa didn't even remotely have the energy to think about at the moment.
This class needed something else entirely, and he honestly wasn't entirely sure how to give them what they needed. He didn't do soft. That had always been Hizashi. Hizashi, who he was probably going to wake up by accident, again, when he slumped into their bed. It was always an annoying conversation when the students that were left in his class figured that tidbit out. One silver lining about Midoriya's hell regimen, Aizawa supposed, was that the students were too tired to care to figure it out.
Thoughts of how to avoid waking his husband evacuated the hero's mind as the wall shook and a crash echoed through the first floor of the dorm. Adrenaline dumped into Aizawa's system as he bolted towards the sound of… something. It sounded like a wounded animal in the men's bathroom, but unless Koda had let something into the dorms, which he somehow doubted the shy young man would do, there was something else… going… on.
Aizawa's thoughts ground to a halt as he stepped through the entryway. Fragments of tile sprinkled the ground from where they'd been shattered by most of a seven-inch blade being driven into the wall. The sink still ran, steam rising from the water and misting the mirror above it. But the thing that stood out starkly from the white porcelain was the sheer amount of blood that had been splattered across it. Curled under the sink and snarling out at Aizawa laid one of the students he had just been worried about.
The scent of copper and iron hit Aizawa's nose as his hands came up. "Hey there, kid. Easy, it's just me." Midoriya bared his teeth, displaying- Fucking hell, why does the kid have fangs? A thump from behind him almost had him turning, but every instinct he had was telling him not to turn his back on Midoriya right now. Viridian eyes glowed through slits, even as bloody fingers- claws- dug further into his bleeding skin.
Aizawa heard a quick breath being sucked in behind him, and a hand pressed softly against his shoulder blade. Lowly, a woman—Hatsume, he realized belatedly—spoke from beside him. "Aizawa, I'm going to need you to back away to the other side of the room when I move forward." Hatsume stepped forward slowly, crooning to the boy. She was here, everything was fine, she was there.
Aizawa didn't step back as Hatsume'd asked him to, too concerned with the potential threat the boy seemed to present at the moment. He was still too slow when Midoriya lunged forward at the young woman. His capture weapon got halfway to Midoriya by the time Midoriya was reaching Hatsume. It was lucky for everyone that Midoriya didn't have any plans to hurt Hatsume. Instead, he wrapped himself around the woman, face buried into her collarbone, and they both slid to the floor bonelessly. Hatsume was still speaking softly, even as she ran fingers through the young man's hair. Even as blood seeped from the fresh cuts on his arms, chest, and neck, staining her pajamas.
It stayed that way for a long moment before anyone spoke, before it clicked that what Aizawa had just witnessed was a panic attack. "We need to get him over to Recovery Girl. Those scratches are going to need to be tended." And just where the hell had the kid gotten such extensive scarring from? Handprints, burns, blade wounds and gunshot holes. Incisions marks lined his skin, as if someone had used him as a lab experiment.
The white scar tissue traced his entire body, standing out starkly against the black ink of intricate tattoo work. Letters of flowing script, almost runic in nature, if not for the way they glided into one another, wrapped around a tapestry of artwork ranging from mediocre in skill to breathtaking.
Hatsume slowly shook her head as Midoriya burrowed into her and emitted some kind of low howl from the back of his throat. She spoke softly, even as her fingers carded through his hair and his fingers dug into her back. "They'll heal soon enough."
"That's his quirk, then? Whatever this is?"
The sigh was full of loathing, but Hatsume's voice revealed something else of her thoughts as she spoke. "He has no quirk. Why can't you damn heroes just accept that what you see isn't always what it seems."
The venom in the words was concerning, but the bloodied student in front of him was a bigger one at that moment."He threw a ball to Hawaii."
"And turned the bones in his arm to dust and shredded the muscle fibers in the process."
The flat tone had Aizawa's attention, but the admission had the hero hissing under his breath. "And you expect me to believe that he was fine after that?"
"Izu's no stranger to experimental medical procedures." Again, the flat tone. He was learning more in this short conversation than he had in years of poking and prodding at the behest of the rat.
"You don't approve."
"I don't approve of a lot of things, Aizawa. But we're partners. I'm not his keeper."
"What are you doing here, Hatsume?" He wasn't going to get anywhere with that line of questioning, so he switched tracks.
"Kyo and Himiko get nightmares. Sometimes it helps for them to sleep together. It's the contact, you know? It's a familiar presence to anchor you. And to be honest? You don't get paid enough to care about one extra student in the dorms." And God, didn't Aizawa know it. He also knew how much a familiar presence could help. He couldn't count how many times Hizashi had been there when he woke up from a bad memory, as he had for him.
"That doesn't answer my question." Even if it was a good piece of information to file away for later. All the more reason to see about getting his problem children into a meeting or ten with Hound Dog.
"Doesn't it?" Hatsume's eyes dropped back to where the large man pinned her in place. "We knew this was coming, really. It's shocking that it didn't happen sooner."
"You knew Midoriya was going to break a wall and claw his own skin off?" He had a few guesses as to who the "we" was, but that didn't really matter at the moment. Hatsume chuckled darkly at the deadpan question.
"No. It's not usually this bad. But he hadn't slept since before the training exercise, and even then he was overdue for a night's rest. He was pushing it to get this far without collapsing."
Wearily, Aizawa let his own body slide down to the floor. "What the fuck, problem children? Why exactly hasn't Midoriya slept since he had a building collapse on him?"
"He has his reasons."
"That you are going to tell me?" Aizawa spoke hopefully, staring blandly at the young woman.
"Those aren't my secrets to tell, Aizawa." The fact that she knew them was left unspoken.
"Fine. Say I believe you. That this, whatever the fuck this is, isn't a quirk. What is he then?"
Hatsume bristled but did her best to remain calm, even if the phrasing was lackluster. "It depends on who you ask."
"I'm asking you, aren't I?"
"I think he's whatever he has to be." And isn't that a loaded statement.
"Not exactly what I was asking, and I think you know it."
"Not my secrets to tell, Aizawa." Once again, Aizawa changed tracks.
"And what about you? You certainly seem to have a calming effect on him."
"You don't have to worry about a student finding him like this first. I was alerted as soon as Phoenix couldn't get him to respond."
"Not what I was asking, Hatsume." Aizawa scowled before rubbing his face and sighing.
"I'm a constant for him. He knows I'll never turn on him." And that was getting somewhere. That was also far too certain for his liking, even with teenage love. That theory was looking rough, he supposed. Hatsume scowled before snorting. "You can stop thinking that right now. There's no relationship between any of us."
Aizawa shifted uneasily in place. He wasn't easy to read, or at least he didn't think so. "And how do you know I was thinking about such a thing?"
A low chuckle. "You forget Ai-za-wa," Hatsume stressed his name, dragging it out the same way Midoriya enjoyed doing."While the rat has had you observing us, we've been observing you." Her face dropped into melancholy before she spoke again. "No, there's nothing between any of us. Kyo thinks she likes him, but he saved her life and he'd never believe the feelings were genuine. Not with how he is now. Himiko is basically his sister now, and that throws him. I-"
The words choked in her throat, and she took a shuddering breath. "I think he'd take me if I asked, but I can't do that to him. Not when he's given me everything already and kept on giving. We're family, Aizawa. He's already long earned our absolute loyalty, and before you ask, no. Not-"
"Your secrets to tell. Yeah, I gathered that, Hatsume." The girl took another shuddering breath before nodding.
"I'm sure you have your theories, just like Nao does. If you really want to be certain about some of them, ask Nedzu."
Consternation was what crossed Aizawa's face as his eyebrows scrunched together. "What do you mean, Hatsume?"
"Izuku will do whatever it takes to protect his own and has the power, money, and influence to do exactly that. He's not just an information broker. If you threaten him or his, then he's dangerous. Nedzu is the same. He's dangerous, Aizawa, and not all of your coworkers have the same morals and ethics that you hold yourself to. He's more than happy to make use of that. He's lacking in human empathy. Oh, he understands what it is, how to emulate it, but he struggles because his empathy isn't human. Before we ever came here to stay in his territory, there were dozens of discussions and agreements to be made. He knows far more than he's evidently told you, if these are the questions you're asking."
Hatsume shifted to look him in the eyes when she spoke next. "He. Is. Dangerous. But he calls us his students and has decided to teach us without reservations. So we will call him teacher and turn our eyes away from his actions, just as he does for us." Hatsume let her head roll back, and she stared at the ceiling. "Good luck getting anything out of the damn chimera, though. He's as twitchy about compartmentalization as Izu is." Again, isn't that the damn truth. "Go upstairs, Aizawa, and crawl in bed. You look like you're about to fall asleep on the bathroom floor with Izu here."
Aizawa groaned as he realized, indeed, that Midoriya had fallen asleep curled into Hatsume. All the same, he stood and shook his head. "I'm not leaving you two on the floor, and I'll need to have this mess dealt with."
"Go to bed, Aizawa. We're well versed in repair and cleaning operations at this point. It'll be all dealt with before you wake up." Aizawa stared at the young woman that he had watched grow the last couple of years. A brilliant mechanic, an even better engineer. A half-decent fighter, and a terrifying shot with a rifle.
Aizawa looked to where Midoriya now laid curled against a woman he evidently considered safe, considered family. It was yet another jolt to his system when he realized the tattoo work was gone, and with it, many of the scars. For the first time in a long time, Aizawa decided that he didn't want to know right now. He'd already had too much for one morning.
"Fine, anything else I should know before that?" Please don't say yes.
"Yes," Fuck. "I spoke to Midoriya about it, and he'll be pulling back on the basic training. Decided it wasn't viable with hand to hand and quirk training coming up." Oh, that's not too bad. "Also, Bakugo is going to be coming back Monday."
Warily, he narrowed his eyes. "Yes, I do believe so. He'll be in general education, though."
"I'm aware of his terms. I'm just wanting to warn you. Don't let Bakugo near Izuku, this last incident was the last straw. The next time Bakugo picks a fight, I don't know if he'll walk away alive." Aizawa's stomach did a flip as he realized there was no humor in her eyes.
Aizawa walked away and made his way upstairs. He crawled into bed, cursing soft apologies as he once again woke his husband, who simply stared into his eyes with concern. The sleep Aizawa did get that morning was fitful and left him more tired than when he'd gone to bed. When he stepped into the men's bathroom that morning, he found Hatsume hadn't been lying. Everything was cleaned and repaired. As if nothing had ever happened at all.
Notes:
Warnings for:
PTSD
Panic Attacks
Minor Self-Harm
Minor Blood
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