"Things are getting worse."

Shota Aizawa was not a man given to sentimentality of any sort. That wasn't to say he was the kind of man who considered emotions worthless; he knew well mental health relied on balance rather than denial. He was capable of laughter, of crying, of gnashing his teeth in a rage. He knew the aching touch of frustration, the lingering torment of grief, the brilliant surge of red hot fury. He knew what it was to laugh and how it was to smile, and he knew all of these things well.

But emotion was not sentimentality. Emotion was a natural chemical and psychological reaction to external stimuli. Sentimentality was often an unhealthy fixation of some sort. A weakness, rather than a strength, something you had to cover for and your enemy could exploit. Aizawa also knew he was sentimental in a few rare cases. He knew that anybody who hurt his students would die a painful death. He knew he wanted to drive a knife into Himiko Toga's chest, and the only reason he wouldn't was because that particular vendetta was owed to Izuku Midoriya first and foremost. He also knew Midoriya would never do such a thing.

He knew Katsuki Bakugou would. He just didn't care. Let Bakugou seethe. Better the boy be angry than listless.

"There's kids now." he continued, adjusting his posture against the tree trunk supporting his back, it's leafy boughs his shelter from the warm autumn sun. "Two of them. Twins. It's insane."

He looked over his shoulder for a moment. There was nobody there behind the tree. Nobody was listening to him but himself, and the person to whom he spoke. Oh, sure, there were others around, but they wouldn't hear much of anything at the moment.

"He's insane." Aizawa leaned back against the tree, eyes closing but ears wide open. "He wants to keep them. He's going to keep them because I can't stop him without being a hypocrite. Two babies. It's insane."

He knew he was repeating himself. He also knew his conversation partner wouldn't mind.

"Izuku worries me, and that worries me too." Aizawa admitted. "He's... he's in a bad place. A really bad place. And instead of letting anybody help him, he's shut himself up inside that bad place and locked the doors, boarded up the windows... he won't let anyone in. I've tried. I'm trying."

He felt tears pricking at the corners of his eyes.

"I'm sorry." he said. They were worthless, wasted words, but he said them anyways because he was. "I'm trying. I'm trying so damn hard. But he's impossible to get a read on. It's ridiculous. He cried once because Sato made a really nice batch of red velvet cupcakes in the dorms and he said they were the best thing he'd ever tasted... I guess he thought it was a betrayal to say something like that. He... he'll cry for that. He'll cry so much. But he won't let himself cry for you."

He looked at the gravestone of Inko Midoriya, which stood right beside the tree against which he sat.

"Okay... that's a lie." he admitted. "He cries for you all the time. Quietly. Behind closed doors. Shoji told me... you might not know Shoji. He's the one who wears the mask, really big. One of the most mature kids in the class. He and Tsuyu, Tsuyu's the green-haired girl with the long tongue, they're the only two I feel I can really trust."

Aizawa shook his head.

"I'm getting off topic." He took a deep breath. "He won't let himself mourn properly. You've been here for two weeks and I don't think he's visited once. He's had opportunities... All Might offers to bring him every weekend. Any of his classmates would come. Even Bakugou. Maybe not Jiro or Mineta, actually... but the rest would. It's worrying."

"I don't know if he's scared, or if he just doesn't want to... maybe both. Or maybe he just doesn't think he can do it. I don't think he's afraid of being attacked, at least. He leaves campus sometimes. He goes out for ice cream with Uraraka and Iida sometimes. He and Shoji went to meet Shoji's family once. He spent hours writing about Mutant-type Quirks in his notebook after that..."

Aizawa chuckled.

"Maybe he's just trying to build up courage." he wondered aloud. "Or maybe he's still... coming to terms with everything. He starts therapy in a few days, apparently. I don't know the therapist, though. Apparently I know her boyfriend, but... nobody comes to mind. Probably a former coworker. I'm rambling."

Aizawa stood up, climbing up off the ground and dusting off the backs of his legs. The gravestone stayed where it was, of course.

"I..." He looked down at it, a simple pillar of white marble. All Might had paid for it, he had paid for the whole funeral, but Izuku had asked for something simple. Apparently it was what Inko would have wanted.

Before he could finish his sentence, he heard footsteps approaching, fallen leaves crunching, and without thinking too much about it he leapt up on a tree branch and scaled to a decent height as quietly as possible. He wasn't sure who was coming, but he doubted the sight of his quote-en-quote 'hobo vagrant serial-killer ass' (thank you, Bakugou) looming over a gravestone was something the average person would react to sensibly. So he hid, and he waited.

Then he saw Izuku Midoriya clutching an arrangement of flowers, and he blinked as he crouched even lower on his branch, listening in. Part of him knew this was impolite, eavesdropping on a private conversation... but he needed to know. He needed this insight as to Midoriya's condition, the one thing he couldn't get by simply asking the boy. So he listened and watched as Midoriya laid the flowers down beside the grave, digging a little divot in the grass with his hand and placing the vase inside. Then the boy dropped to his knees and bowed his head.

"Hi..." he breathed, his voice barely audible, before speaking up. "Hi mom. I... I'm sorry I... I haven't been visiting. It's been... I wanted to, but... I-I just..."

A sniffle.

"I'm here now, though!" Midoriya looked up, a weak and watery smile on his face. "I... I came! I brought flowers, mom... a girl from another class actually made the arrangement. It's pretty, right?"

Midoriya fell silent for a moment.

"I... she was upset about something." Midoriya murmured. "I... something I did, I think. I don't really know. But then I... we didn't fight! We talked it out, j-just like you always liked to! And then she made this, and I kind of owe her for the flowers... she paid for them."

Midoriya sniffled again.

"I... I miss you, mom." he admitted. "It's been... it's been really hard. I try to be good, and be a hero and save people with a smile, I even saved some people this morning! There was a car crash, and I helped everybody and I got to work with Backdraft! He was there, and his agency was there, and we saved people. I... I saved people, mom."

Then Midoriya looked back down at the ground, his hands tightening into fists atop his knees and an ugly sob escaping him.

"But... I-I couldn't... save you..." The words were choked and half-audible, but Aizawa heard them clear as day. "I... she used... used your face and she.. I didn't want it mom but she used something in a needle I think and she took me upstairs and..."

Midoriya was crying now, an awful sound that made Aizawa's stomach curdle inside him. He wanted to leap out of the tree and comfort his student, but... that didn't seem like a good idea. Startling Midoriya right now tended to lead to spontaneous Full-Cowling punches and near-missed with decapitation. So he stayed in the tree and hated himself for not acting because he knew those prior excuses were a lie.

"She's pregnant, mom." Midoriya continued, speaking the words like a sinner at confessional. "She's pregnant, it's twins, I'm the father and she's pregnant and now the League has her and they're gonna hurt her and I should hate her, mom, I should want to kill her or hurt her but I'm scared because they're going to hurt her and I don't want her to get hurt..."

Aizawa's eyes went wide.

"I know it's stupid, I know I should hate her I know I should think she deserves it but I can't..." Midoriya was holding onto the marble pillar with his hands now, head pressed against the smooth stone as his tears fell into the newly grown grass below. "It's like Kaachan, mom, I should hate them but I can't. But it's worse, she hurt you mom, she killed you she took you from me and I can't even hate her for it because I'm so scared..."

Aizawa braced himself.

"I don't want to be a villain." Midoriya whispered, loud enough for his mother and Aizawa and nobody else to hear. "I don't want to be like Kaachan. I don't want to hate anybody else. I-I can't handle it, I couldn't hate them mom... I'm not big enough to hate that much. I'm so scared, I'm so scared and I'm only getting more scared..."

Aizawa made his decision then. He would jump out of the tree and take Midoriya and-

And help. Somehow. He had to. But before he could, the sobbing cut out, the words stopped falling, and Midoriya went silent.

"No."

It was a single word, spoken as Midoriya rose to his feet, wiping his face clean of all the mess crying makes.

"I... I won't be afraid, mom." he said, voice more controlled, more calm. "I don't have to. You're right. I... I'm going to be a hero. I'm going to save her. I'm going to save my... my kids. I'm going to save all of them. It doesn't matter if I'm supposed to hate them, or if I'm supposed to want her to suffer... I'm not like that."

Midoriya hugged the pillar, and then stepped back and nodded, a smile on his face.

"I'm Deku." he declared. "I'm the Hero That Can Do It."

He turned away at that moment, leaving the flowers by the gravestone and making his way back to the main path that would lead him to the graveyard gates. Aizawa watched him go for a while, until he crested a nearby hill and disappeared from sight. He dropped from the tree then, and took a deep breath. He looked back at the gravestone, reaching out and touching its top with a hand.

"I'm sorry." he whispered. "I'll protect him. I promise. Even if it kills me, I'll keep him safe."