TW: Underage smoking, references to past child abuse (I purposefully made sure they weren't graphic, this fic isn't going to have any graphic depictions no sir), and vague references to addiction/past-addiction. Let me know if I missed anything!
Grief
Enrolling Midoriya in school had been just about the hardest thing Aizawa had ever done, his entire underground hero career included.
With previous kids, he'd simply enrolled them in the nearest public high school. The teachers and faculty there knew him and were familiar with his need for secrecy, as well as the kind of teens he fostered.
The elementary school Midoriya was zoned for, however, did not.
At first, the principal had been overjoyed to have a pro-hero in his building (although he'd also looked incredibly skeptical until he saw the official Hero license tucked in with Aizawa's identification), but when he'd gotten an extensive look at Midoriya's file, his expression had shuttered.
He'd glanced up at Aizawa, as if looking for the punchline of a joke. Maybe for the reality TV cameras to roll out from behind a screen, for Aizawa to laugh and say, 'got you good didn't I, Mr. Principal?'.
Aizawa did nothing of the sort.
He did threaten to call Nedzu, however, which'd had the balding principial sweating nervous buckets. Not even eight minutes later, Aizawa was walking out of Midoriya's new school with a freshly printed letter of acceptance in hand.
The principal's attitude hadn't made sense to him.
Sure, Midoriya was a foster kid with a bit of a checkered record, but most schools leapt at the opportunity to have such a situationally 'diverse' student.
It was good for their public rep, so why had the principal look so. . .disgusted?
The answer might've been in Midoriya's folder, but Aizawa did his best not to read past the necessary information: allergies, age, preferred pronouns, etc.
He didn't want his perception getting tangled up with the biases past foster parents or social workers might've had.
Sighing, he tucked the letter into Midoriya's folder and headed home. Although the kid had already been with him for a few days, Aizawa still didn't want to risk leaving him alone for too long.
That, and he was tired, and his bed was soft. Sleep called.
It was three in the morning and a criminal offense that Aizawa wasn't sleeping.
He was staring out his bedroom window at the green head of hair perched on the balcony below.
As that same green head of hair broke one of the only rules Aizawa had given him.
His charge had been leaning against the balcony rail for over half-an-hour now, wet snowflakes falling from the sky and clumping in his mussy hair.
Smoke curled through the chilled winter air, filtering up to Aizawa's cracked open window and pulling him back into memories he'd much rather forget.
Slipping out the broken door of his uncle's ramshackle house to steal a pack of cigarettes from the corner store down the street.
Getting caught smoking outside the school, the weight of a bruise against his cheek. Dark blood clogging his raspy throat. Bloody fists, a cut tearing them from knuckle to—
He tore himself out of it as the figure below shifted, wiping almost angrily at their eyes with the back of a thin sweater sleeve.
Aizawa didn't encourage smoking.
Quite the contrary, he'd quit immediately after his uncle lost custody of him and he got into the General Education course at UA. He hadn't wanted the smoke to affect his strength or stamina, and not even addiction could prevent him from his goal of becoming a hero.
Midoriya, on the other hand, clearly didn't share such a sentiment.
The boy took another drag, his form noticeably shivering in the chilled air.
Aizawa had bought him a jacket, one of the best the store had to offer, but the kid seemed intent on proving he didn't need Aizawa's generosity.
Although he certainly needed Aizawa's food, nearly eating enough katsudon last night to stuff a large horse.
Another gust of freezing wind buffeted against the house, worming its way through the open window and trailing icy hands down Aizawa's back.
If Aizawa was cold cocooned in a blanket from the safety of his bedroom, then the kid was probably on the brink of hypothermia.
Sighing, he pulled himself away from the window and grabbed the massive comforter from his bed. He'd been hoping Midoriya would eventually practice some common sense and come inside without prompting, but clearly the kid wasn't ready for that yet.
The freezing tile of the kitchen floor was torture on his bare feet, and he cursed into the darkness as he made his way towards the balcony.
(The kid was outside and couldn't hear him swearing. Aizawa intended to make full use of that while he still could).
He grimaced as his hand wrapped around the sliding door, the chill sinking into his hands and permeating up the rest of his arm. Extremely unpleasant, zero out of ten.
With one heave, he pulled the door back, its old rail squealing in protest. The sound was grating in the silence.
"What are you doing?" Aizawa had long since learned how to convey disappointment in a single phrase, and how to phrase a question like an obvious statement.
The kid jumped as he inhaled a particularly harsh mouthful of smoke, his legs twitching as if to run as he whipped around, eyes huge in the darkness.
Aizawa's paranoid mind thought he was about to tip off the balcony, his body moving before he could think better of doing so.
Midoriya choked on a breath, stumbling back from Aizawa's towering presence. His back hit the railing and Aizawa resisted the ingrained urge to whip his capture weapon out.
He wasn't even wearing it; the contraption was slung over the foot of his bed upstairs.
Still, his hands twitched forward, like that would even do anything if the kid really was about to tumble over, and Midoriya misinterpreted the gesture.
The kid flinched, a cough wracking his frame as the smoke screwed up his breathing. "I didn't—I didn't mean to do this. I don't even like doing this." he managed to wheeze out between his lung-hacking fit, and Aizawa was having none of that. "I swear. I swear I'm not lying!"
"Breathe," He bit out uselessly. The kid clearly needed help in that department. "Can I touch you?"
Panic flickered in the kid's violent green eyes, like that sentence held another meaning entirely, but then he seemed to notice Aizawa's lax posture. The way he was staying back, hands resting passively at his side.
Another gut-wrenching cough, then, "Y—please."
Izuku Midoriya had been expecting a lot of things when he first heard he'd be staying with the mysterious 'Shouta Aizawa'.
His new case worker, after the last one had quit barely a week into managing him, had said Aizawa was a final frontier; a "Last-ditch effort to keep you from running away, Midoriya. You can't keep doing this, don't you realize you're hurting peo—" then he'd tuned her out.
When the man came to pick him up from the train station, Midoriya had honestly thought he was homeless.
That, or some kind of predator.
The man, with his deep-set eyes and scratchy beard, looked like he hadn't slept in a week. Maybe even a month.
Possibly ever.
Aizawa was scary for the very brief amount of time Midoriya allowed himself to be scared. Then he was stuffing his emotions down again to a place where they couldn't bother him, just like how he'd done when his mother died.
There was probably some kind of fancy, psychological term for detaching from yourself like that.
If there was, none of his social workers had ever bothered explaining it.
Back when his mother died, two weeks before the doctor would have diagnosed him quirkless in another world—two weeks before his father would've left for America in another life, disgusted with his son—Inko had deviated from her usual path home and went to help an inebriated man collapsed in an alley.
This changed everything, although no one knew it at the time.
The man had stabbed her. Twice. Right in between her second and third ribs.
Inko was dead within minutes. The killer went unaccounted for until they found his body three months later, pumped full of street-drugs in the ever-growing trash heap of Dagobah beach.
Izuku didn't remember her funeral. Only that it had been sunny, and Auntie Mitsuki cried for the first time since ever.
Bakugou had been there, too. He'd hugged Midoriya, like he'd used to when they were younger kids, before the blond had gotten his 'amazing' quirk.
The other boy's eyes had been red and slightly swollen from crying, while Izuku's had remained dry. He didn't have any energy left for crying.
He'd hugged tearful strangers and his mother's many coworkers, all with dry, dry eyes, then gone home to take a nap.
And Izuku had been. . .not okay, exactly. But things kept happening. The world moved on.
He moved on, too, albeit a little unwillingly.
He went to school, Hisashi packed him a lunch. Sometimes. Most times he passed out on the couch after crying into a bottle of rice wine.
Midoriya got very good at making himself lunches.
And breakfasts and dinners and late-night snacks.
Then he was six, and his quirk still hadn't come.
The first few doctors said it was a trauma response, that he was just repressing his powers from manifesting, but the last one they went to—the one with the bug-eyed glasses—had taken an X-ray of his foot.
Quirkless.
Izuku couldn't find it within himself to be devastated. He hadn't dreamed of being a hero since the nice nurse lady had pronounced his mother dead.
She'd tried to be a hero, and what had that gotten her?
An express, all-expenses paid one-way trip to the morgue.
Hisashi, on the other hand, was very devastated that his son didn't have a quirk. He expressed this devastation by drunkenly burning three, perfectly circular holes into Izuku's shoulder with the butt-end of a cigarette.
That night, the Midoriya's' neighbours called the police to report a hysterical child next door. That same night, Izuku was removed from his father's custody and taken to a hospital.
The nice nurse lady who'd held him before as he cried over his mother's still-warm body hadn't recognized him as she bandaged his burned arm, a grimace on her face after she'd gotten a glimpse of his new 'quirkless' status. For some reason, that hurt almost as much as the burns did.
The next morning, the first pair of soon-to-be-many foster parents picked him up.
And life moved on from there.
Now he was standing on his most recent foster parent's balcony, watching grey smoke curl up into greyer clouds.
Izuku hated smoking.
In one of the last homes he'd been placed in, the one he'd run away from to land himself in Shouta Aizawa's 'last-ditch-effort house', the wife smoked. The fumes had crept their way into his lungs, had made him tremble when they were gone.
The woman noticed. One evening, when her husband was late home from work for the eighth night in a row (he always came home smelling of someone else's perfume), she'd studied his trembling hands.
She'd offered him a cigarette, a knowing look in her bruised eyes.
Izuku had accepted.
The trembling stopped. He started stealing them after that. After he ran away when her husband got a little too heavy-handed.
He drew in another breath, ignoring how the cold was slowly starting to feel warm.
Izuku had honestly meant to keep Aizawa's Golden Rules.
The man hadn't asked for much, just that Izuku, treat the cats with respect, clean up after himself, ask for help, and keep any illegal substances out from under my roof.
Izuku'd been confused when there wasn't more, nothing about chores or curfew or homework; Aizawa had just finished his spiel about 'any and all illegal substances' and gone right to bed.
It had been strange; Izuku was half still waiting for the other shoe to drop.
He went to inhale again, the cigarette poised against his lips, when the sound of the sliding door echoed out into the night.
His inhale turned into a startled gasp, the smoke cutting its way down his throat as if it were a blade. He coughed, feeling like one of his lungs was dislodging itself from his chest.
"What are you doing?"
The voice sent a jolt of sheer terror down Izuku's spine as he spun, coming face-to-face with Aizawa. Horror balled itself up at the back of his throat, making the already difficult task of breathing a near impossibility.
The railing pressed into his back uncomfortably, but the pain suddenly didn't matter as Aizawa took a step forward, one of his hands reaching out as if to grab.
Izuku winced, immediately cursing himself for the tell. He knew better than to reveal a weakness like that—a cough wracked his frame and, before he knew it, the fear-tinged words were spilling from his head and out of his mouth. "I didn't—I didn't mean to do this. I don't even like doing this."
He didn't. He really didn't. The smoke burned; his lungs ached. He just wanted to breathe again. Did Aizawa believe him? "I swear. I swear I'm not lying!"
At least Aizawa had stopped advancing, his hands carefully clenched at his sides. Weird.
"Breathe," The man said uselessly. Why didn't Izuku think of that? Oh, right, because he couldn't. Izuku almost laughed, but Aizawa's next words punched the amusement out of his empty chest. "Can I touch you?"
Sheer panic swamped Izuku's brain. Like an avalanche. Hands, everywhere. Hands on him. Hands around his throat, hands ripping at his hair. . .but then he noticed the way Aizawa hung back.
The man was just standing there, watching. Like an idiot.
Izuku hated him in that moment.
Izuku hated himself a little, too. He could multitask.
The 'no', was on the tip of his tongue, but the spots in his vision were getting darker, the tremors in his hands more pronounced. "Y—please."
Aizawa surged forward. The motion would've been startling if not for the calm, collected expression on the man's face.
One wide hand pressed against Izuku's chest, right above his heart. "Count after me, okay?"
"Okay," Izuku managed to breath out between two ragged wheezes.
Time seemed to drag by, but eventually his heart stopped beating at the pace of a hummingbird on crack.
He shuddered, the hand on his chest adding a little more pressure, like Aizawa could sense that he needed to be grounded.
Then the hand was gone, and the man was stepping back again.
It was nice and all, having his personal space respected, but Izuku almost wished Aizawa would crowd him. The man's hands had been warm, his eyes devoid of anything except worry and kindness.
Now Izuku stood there in the cold, a long-extinguished cigarette dangling limply from between two fingers and a head covered in snow, wishing for affection.
He shook his head scornfully. Since when was he so pathetically wishy-washy?
Wishing for affection. What was he, a Hallmark channel?
Izuku grimaced, squeezing his wrist to pull himself back into the moment.
See? He didn't need Aizawa to ground him. Izuku was managing on his own just fine.
"Let's head inside, yeah?" Aizawa's voice was gruff, blank. Izuku almost wished he sounded angry; he knew how to handle anger.
But Aizawa just stared at him, looking incredibly bored with the entire situation.
Izuku hesitated for a moment, the drop behind him calling. He turned, snow swirling, the cold eating into his bones and causing his mind to feel a bit like a fish in a bowl.
If he stayed there any longer, he might fall asleep. Fall asleep and see his mom, hold her hand. Feel warm.
Aizawa cleared his throat softly, raising a brow in such a no-nonsense, what-the-hell-are-you-waiting-for type of gesture that Izuku almost laughed at.
Squashing his smile behind a scarred hand, Izuku dropped the unfinished cigarette into the snow behind him and didn't once look back.
Aizawa watched as the kid turned towards the city skyline, as the wind ruffled his dark hair and yanked it around in messy curls.
His figure looked especially small against the towering buildings. Aizawa swallowed, feeling some dark, unidentifiable emotion.
(Protective. It was not unidentifiable, just unwanted; for statistics showed that Aizawa was no good at protecting people).
A shiver seemed to wrack Midoriya's frame and Aizawa wondered, not for the last time, what the kid was thinking. What had he been through to make him like this?
Then Midoriya swivelled toward him, eyes boring holes into Aizawa's, clearly weighing something. Calculating it. Absently, Aizawa wondered if the kid knew the limits of his own determination, knew how his silhouette stood out against an entire skyline.
Knew how much he already looked like a hero.
The cigarette dropped from the kid's fingers, plopping into the snow.
Aizawa twitched in surprise.
Midoriya's hand created a shadow against his mouth, but Aizawa still caught the barest hint of a smile there. "Okay. Let's go."
The second thing Aizawa learned about Izuku Midoriya was that he, somehow, inexplicably, inspired.
Inspired Aizawa to care.
(A/N): This is probably going to be the 'darkest' chapter content-wise, although they'll likely be unpacking quirk-discrimination next oof
Thank you for reading and reviewing the first chapter yall! I honestly didn't think anyone would be interested in this, so I was pleasantly surprised
Stay safe everyone! I'll see ya next time :))