I Am HERE! With chapter 2! Lol, jk. this fic is not about All Might, it's about Dadzawa, but still, here is chapter 2 for you all! I had thought about posting it tomorrow, since I posted the Prologue last Saturday, but I'm not used to posting things separately. This is actually the first fanfiction where I haven't posted it all at once. Plus, what I gave you guys before was just a prologue, so I figured I could post the next chapter already. I'm great at making excuses for myself, am I right? lol. And I also just really wanted to give this chapter to you all soon, since you were all super supportive with your favorites, follows, and reviews! Thank you so much!
So yah, this is where the story actually starts happening. I really hope you enjoy!
The atmosphere in the dorms was chaotic, but happy. The students were getting a week long break from school, and so were going home to spend it with their families, and they were all excited. Well, almost all of them: Izuku was dreading it.
When he was at the orphanage, he was alone. He sat in his room, or sometimes went out around the city. He had to sneak around to avoid being noticed, and even to get food, use the washrooms, or do his laundry, which he normally did in the middle of the night, so he wouldn't run into anyone else using the machines.
Over his years of being at the orphanage, he had almost forgotten what it was like to live normally, to feel safe in your own home, and to feel loved. And while Kacchan was at the dorms, Izuku hadn't felt scared around him in a while, especially with all of the students around. And, while Izuku didn't know if he quite felt loved, he definitely felt more affection and happiness than he had in a long while. He had friends, and even though he wasn't completely relaxed around them, he had been doing better.
So, now that he had to go back to the orphanage for a week, he was sad, upset, nervous, and scared. And all of those together were making him feel sick. They had one more day of class before the weekend, and then they would be going home.
Most of the students were leaving the next day after class, but some of them were leaving Saturday morning, if they had a longer way to travel to get home. And Izuku was leaving with them. Technically, the orphanage was in Musutafu, which was right by UA, but he had said that his mom was on another business trip, and wouldn't be back until Saturday. He would do anything to get that extra day at the school.
Friday morning, when he woke up shivering, and with his blankets and sheet kicked off around his ankles, he thought nothing of it. He chocked the headache up to stress, and the sore muscles he passed off as just having trained too hard. It wasn't until halfway through the day, after his temperature kept fluctuating, and his headache had worsened, that he realized him feeling sick before might have been him actually getting sick.
The thought crossed his mind that he could postpone his going back to the orphanage since he was sick, but then he realized that the school would probably either make him go anyway, would drop him off if necessary, maybe, or would ask his mother to come pick him up. The first two were pointless, since they would end up with him being in the orphanage anyway, and the last one wouldn't work because he didn't have a mother to pick him up. Guess it was back to the orphanage tomorrow.
After classes that day, he said goodbye to most of his friends, trying to act cheerful and excited like them. He had no doubt that Kacchan wasn't fooled, but they had known each other for forever, plus Kacchan knew about him being an orphan.
That night supper was quieter, and he just went up to his room after, not bothering to hang out downstairs with the few students left. He did some research on heros, and wrote in his notebooks, but he couldn't focus as well.
He had started feeling worse and worse throughout the day. Now, his head was pounding, he was either too hot or too cold, any movement he made made him feel like he had just ran five kilometers, and he was so tired. Finally closing his notebook, and shutting his computer and packing it away with his bag for the week, he prepared for bed, and went to sleep, dreading tomorrow.
Of course, he had no idea of how bad it would actually be.
Shouta wasn't worried. He wasn't. Sure, Problem Child had seemed more upset than usual lately, and yes, he had seemed even more off yesterday, but that didn't mean Shouta was worried.
Why would he care if Midoriya seemed tired, distracted, and pale yesterday? And why would he care if he had seemed sad for the past week, but tried to hide it? Well, it was for the same reason that he was worried about the Problem Child all the time, whenever he flinched at a touch, or a loud sound, whenever he seemed nervous around the teachers and other students.
Yes, Shouta had noticed all this, but he couldn't understand it. There was the possibility that he was bullied in school before, but with his powerful quirk, that didn't seem like it would have happened. The only other thing he could think of was that he had a bad home life, but that didn't exactly seem like something that would make him hesitant around teachers and students.
Of course, the suspicion wasn't helped by the fact that none of the teachers had ever actually seen his mother, let alone spoken to her. It was suspicious, but Principal Nezu seemed fine with it, and accepted the emails as their form of contact.
Shouta had never liked the situation, but he couldn't defy the principal, and he didn't want to intrude into Midoriya's life. Actually, scratch that, he did want to, but he knew that Midoriya wouldn't want that, and he wanted to respect the boy's wishes.
Of course, that didn't stop him from getting attached to the boy. He always cared for his students, at least, the ones he didn't expel, but this year's class was special. He didn't know if it was because of how much danger they had been in, and so how much he had protected them, and wanted to protect them more, or if they were just a bunch of good kids. But either way, he cared about them, and Midoriya most of all.
The boy was just so friendly, and kind, and smart; he was energetic, and eager to help anyone. He was also skittish, hesitant, nervous. He didn't trust anyone, which Shouta himself understood, since he tended to avoid getting too attached to people. However, Midoriya was just a kid. He was supposed to be attached to his friends, and, yes, he was friends with the whole class, even Bakugou, somehow, but he didn't let anyone in.
Shouta knew this, but wanted it to change. He wanted the boy to be able to trust people, to be able to trust him.
Okay, so maybe he was a little worried. But the boy would be fine. He had never showed signs of physical abuse that would show he had an unsafe home life, and he hadn't seemed too scared about going home, more just... uncomfortable.
Knowing that he wouldn't be able to figure out anything more without disregarding said student's privacy, Shouta just sighed, and continued on with his job. He was going through the dorms to make sure that everyone was out and on there way home, and didn't have any problems.
He checked a few more buildings, all of which were empty, except a couple students whom he saw leaving, before locking up. Finally, the only one left was the dorm building for 1A, which was one of the classes that had the most students staying the extra day.
As he was walking up towards the building, he saw Iida heading towards him from the direction of the school buildings. Shouta turned and waited for the boy as he hurried towards him.
"Mr. Aizawa," Iida greeted with his usual energy, chopping his arm through the air, "I was looking for you. I and the other students from our building are all ready to go, and the others have already headed out, I believe. That is, all except Midoriya. I haven't seen him all morning, and believe him to still be in bed. We tried knocking, but weren't sure whether he had left already, or was just still asleep. My train is leaving soon, but I am worried about him."
Shouta felt a small amount of panic jolt through his chest. Okay, now he was worried. "It's alright, Iida, you go catch your train, I'll make sure Midoriya gets up and ready," he said, making sure to keep his voice level and normal, not wanting to scare the boy. He was sure Midoriya was fine, although the greenette had never been one to sleep in.
"Yes, sir!" Iida said, bowing stiffly before hurrying away, suitcase rolling behind him. Shouta didn't wait long before hurrying up the pavement to the building. Everything inside was neat and tidy; the living room was in order, and he could even see that the kitchen was clean, although he didn't take the time to look closely.
Heading for the stairs, he made his way up them quickly, not bothering to take the elevator. He trusted himself to get there quicker than the slow moving elevator. When he got to Midoriya's floor he slowed his steps, not wanting to scare the boy in case he had just slept in.
Midoriya's door was closed, and when Shouta paused outside for a second, he could hear something rustling around in there. As he took a deep breath and let it out, Shouta tried to get rid of the worry. The kid was fine, Shouta would just wake him up, and make sure he got on his way. And then everything would be back to normal.
Knock knock knock Shouta's knuckles made a loud sound on the door, and he heard another rustling sound from inside, which must have been the blankets, but nothing else happened. There was no clumsy teenager tripping over his feet and anything else in his haste to get to the door, no answer saying that he would be right there, just nothing. No, wait, there was something, although Shouta didn't like what he heard.
In seconds, the underground hero was whipping out his master key card to the building, and sliding it across the scanner. No, he hadn't heard right, there hadn't been a soft groan from inside, it was just the wind shaking the building.
As much as he told himself that, Shouta didn't believe it. His years as an underground hero had heightened his senses, and he was positive that he had heard a groan, and not just a sleepy one: it was one of discomfort.
The door swung open, helped along by the force of Shouta pushing against it. As his eyes adjusted to the dimmed room, the worry and panic returned in full. Midoriya was sprawled across his bed, his face half buried in the pillow, and with his blankets and sheet thrown off, half of them laying twisted around his feet, and the other half falling off onto the floor.
But that wasn't even the worst of it. The worst wasn't even the stuffy heat of the room; the worst was the pained gasps escaping the boy irregularly, the sweat Shouta could see built up on his face, which was already way too pale. The worst was the small whimpers that escaped him, too quiet to hear unless you were only a couple feet away. It was the way his eyes moved beneath his eyelids frantically, and the way he would twitch as he slept, almost as if he was trying to get away from something. And honestly, that wasn't too surprising, considering all that these kids had been through in the last half a year, especially this kid in particular.
Shouta, after taking this all in in a second, was over beside the bed, kneeling on the floor beside the crumpled blanket, and reaching his hand out to his student's face.
As his hand made contact with Midoriya's forehead, two things happened. Shouta grunted at the unhealthy heat he felt there, and Midoriya jerked away, whimpering, and retreating across the bed to curl up against the wall in a fetal position, tucking his face to his chest and covering them both with his arms.
Shouta took his hand back quickly, shocked at the sudden movement of his student. Then he scowled at himself. Of course Midoriya would react like that. The boy already felt uncomfortable with being touched, and so touching him out of nowhere, when he didn't know anyone was there, and when he was already delirious from the fever, would scare him.
Settling for words, Shouta spoke quietly, but loud enough to be heard over the boy's whimpers and gasps. "Midoriya, it's Mr. Aizawa. I'm not going to hurt you, you're safe," Midoriya didn't reply, but he did uncurl a bit, and Shouta could see his face peeking out from between his hands.
Without Shouta even saying anything else, Midoriya uncurled fully, crawled across the bed, and dived into his teacher, throwing his arms around his neck and burying his face in the capture weapon. His legs stayed on the bed, since Shouta was kneeling right beside it.
Shouta rebalanced himself to accommodate for the extra weight, and then blinked a couple times, surprised by the sudden movement. For a boy who always seemed at least uncomfortable with physical contact, if not scared of it, he was sure holding onto the older man tightly. Shouta slowly raised his arms up and returned the hug, feeling another pang of worry at how warm the kid was.
"Midoriya, are you alright?" He asked gently when the boy started shaking in his arms. His student shook his head violently, causing the fabric of the capture weapon to rustle with the movement. He coughed a few times, but they came out shaky with how much he himself was shaking. "I need you to calm down, Problem Child." The name slipped out without his intent, but he supposed he had gotten used to calling the kid that.
"D-dad." Shouta actually startled at that, hearing the scratchy word come out of his students throat in what was almost a whine.
In Midoriya's file, it said that his father left when he was little, way too young for Midoriya to remember him, so, why was he calling out for a person he didn't know, and had never talked about?
"Dad, make it s-stop, erase it-t, p-please, it h-hurts, Dad," Midoriya's voice was frantic as he mumbled, clutching tighter to Shouta's shirt.
Shouta's eyes widened at what his student said. He had thought Midoriya had just been calling out for his father, perhaps just because of instinct, or maybe because he thought about his father a lot. However, when he had asked Shouta to erase it...he knew who he was talking to, knew that he was hugging his teacher, and...he called him "Dad".
"I...what hurts, Midoriya?" All get got was a whine in response. Shouta felt like tearing his hair out, he was so frustrated with himself. How could he have not noticed Midoriya was this sick? Yes, he had known that he was acting off, but this was insane. It must have gotten worse yesterday evening, and then throughout the night, and of course Midoriya wouldn't have gone to see Recovery Girl. "Problem Child, what hurts?" He asked again, not bothering to hide the urgency and panic in his voice.
He knew that it was most likely just a flu, but the boy was burning up, hallucinating, and Shouta just didn't know what to do. Sure, he had dealt with sick kids before, mostly just by sending them to the nurse's office, or making them skip class in some cases, but this had never happened before, plus, it was Midoriya. He needed help, and he would have normally just brought him to Recovery Girl, but the healing hero was away during the holiday, like many of Shouta's other coworkers.
Deciding that he definitely wanted to call her, Shouta put his hands on Midoriya's shoulder and pushed him away a bit, balancing him as the boy's head drooped, him having already been half asleep again. "Midoriya, I'm going to lay you back down, alright?"
That woke the boy up. His head snapped up, and his eyes, too bright with fever, stared at Shouta, panic clear in them. 'N-no," he said, "don't leave, p-please, Dad!"
Shouta felt something stab his heart, but he pushed it down, and also pushed Midoriya back down on the bed. "I'm not going to leave, Problem Child, I'm going to be right here."
He started to pull his hands away, but was stopped when he felt a force pulling him back. Looking down, he saw that Midoriya had grabbed his sleeve, and wasn't letting go, even as he stared at him, eyes pleading.
Realizing that he had gone soft, Shouta climbed up onto the bed beside Midoriya, sitting up against the headboard. He was just going to sit there, to assure the boy that he wouldn't leave, but it seemed Midoriya had other ideas. He scooted over a bit from where Shouta had pushed him down, and laid his head down in the older man's lap.
Shouta reached out a hand, hesitated for a moment, and then rested it on the boy's head, his hand automatically moving to smooth the hair away from his sweaty forehead. Midoriya hummed in what almost seemed like comfort, but there was still a hint of pain in it.
"Midoriya, I need you to tell me how you feel. What hurts?" He asked again, knowing that he would need that information for when he called Recovery Girl.
Midoriya didn't answer for a few seconds, and Shouta was starting too worry that he wouldn't, but then it came. "My...my head hurts," he swallowed thickly, "and 'm dizzy, and it's h-hot, and 'm tired," his voice was starting to slur heavily, but he kept going, and Shouts kept stroking his hair. "And...mmf... everything hurts, and...'nd...don' leave..." His voice faded off at the end as he fell asleep, but his breaths were still heavy, he was way too hot to the touch, and when Shouta lifted up his wrists to feel his pulse, it was too week and too fast. He really needed to call Recovery Girl now.
Shouta shifted around a bit, careful not to let Midoriya's head slide off his lap, and managed to grab his cellphone from his back pocket. He opened it up and went into his contacts, finding the one he wanted near the top. After he clicked on the healing hero's name, he put the phone to his ear, and waited for her to answer.
"What do you need, Aizawa?" She said immediately. Unfazed, Shout replied, "Midoriya's sick." "Sigh," he heard over the phone, "Can that boy never stay out of trouble?" Shouta felt frustration bubbling up, but pushed it down. After all, he often had similar thoughts about his Problem Child. "Alright, what are his symptoms?" Recovery Girl asked. Shouta listed off the ones Midoriya had told him, as well as what he could tell for himself. "It sounds like just a bad case of the flu. There's not much you can do except wait it out. Even my quirk won't work on sicknesses. And...shouldn't he be with his mother this week? You can get her to pick him up, if you need, and I'm sure she will know what to do. But, just so you know for the meantime, keep him hydrated, and comfortable, and give him some fever reducers, whatever you have on hand. It's pretty basic, Aizawa. The fever is the most worrying thing, so keep an eye on it. If it gets too high, consider ice packs wrapped in a towel, or cool clothes, or something. And, I doubt it will be necessary, but if it gets too bad, you can always take him to the hospital." Shouta took a mental note of what she told him, said, "Thanks," and hung up.
He plopped his phone down on the bed beside him and used that free hand to rub his eyes. He really wasn't prepared for this. But, Recovery Girl was right, he didn't have to be. All he had to do was contact Mrs. Midoriya, tell her that her son was sick and ask her to pick him up, and hand him off to her. The thought was relieving, but also disturbing. He still had never met her, and the thought of handing Midoriya off, when he was this sick, wasn't a natural one to him. No Shouta, you're not his parent. He berated himself.
Sighing, he picked up his phone again, and scrolled through the school's information on the students, going through Midoriya's section and selecting his mother's email. He started typing out a message to her, making sure to keep it short and to the point, while still putting in all the necessary information.
After checking what he had written, he pressed send, and closed his phone, going to put it down again. However, his hand hovered in midair, him not finishing the motion, as he heard a beep come from the desk beside the bed, where he saw Midoriya's phone resting.
Midoriya was still asleep, his head resting on Shouta's lap, and his hair covering most of his face. Shouta hesitated, knowing that the timing of the notification could have been a coincidence, but either way, it could be important. He completed the action of putting his phone down, and grabbed Midoriya's off the desk.
The screen lit up, showing his notifications, and the time and date. Shouta's heart skipped a beat, and his eye widened, glancing from the phone, to his sick student, and back to the phone, where a little notification sat, popup information stating that it was an email from "Aizawa Shouta" to Midoriya Inko's email.
Shouta looked back at Midoriya, still holding the boy's phone in his hand. His student was curled up and asleep, seeming so innocent. And yet...Shouta knew that he had just uncovered a secret, and he somehow knew that things would never be the same when it came to this boy.
DUm Dum DUM! The suspense! Lol, Actually, I don't know whwther it was suspenseful or not. It was meant to be, and I feel like I would think it is a little bit, if I was the one reading it, but...? Anyway, so now Aizawa knows, kinda, maybe? What do you think will happen next? Feel free to tell me what you thought of it in a review, and if you have any ideas for something you would like to see in this story, let me know, and I'll see what I can do. But, I do already have the next five chapters written, just waiting to be posted. I could always insert something, or put it in after what I have done, though. ;)
Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed!