Yaoyorozu Momo, future Pro Hero. Only daughter of Yaoyorozu Asao. Veritable genius, and certified pain in the ass. She slept peacefully on his couch.
She felt safe with him.
Aizawa did not know what to do. It was expected for students to feel secure in the presence of their teachers, but she looked at him and she saw. She saw him without the visor and the teacher's badge. She saw him behind his desk with his screwdriver, and she saw him as the creature he was.
She trusted him anyway.
Tonight, he wrote it off as naïveté. He wouldn't look past the surface, and there was no need to. Not tonight. Watching her sleep on her stomach on his couch, wig askew, breaths shallow, he didn't know what else to make of it. The word wouldn't come to him for many months still, when the barren winter passed for its seed to blossom. Loyal. Tonight, however, the word he heard was, Protege.
Endeavor claimed his son as his heir, and All Might had made it clear that Midoriya was in line for his throne. Aizawa allowed his thoughts to unravel the fibers of a darker thread. Taking her under his wing, sharing all that he knew until his day came. And Momo had been right, it would come — there were no old, free gangsters. And on the day his last footstep vanished, whether it was to by succumbing to death or being forced to retreat forever from the light that his Hero title cast on him, the mantle of duplicity would fall to her. His protege.
Guilt, unexpected, came down hard.
To groom her for the ranks of Yakuza would be little better than to groom her for sex. It would be no better to press upon her his own ideals than it would be if he were to brush her hair back and touch the small of her spine, and let her believe she had initiated it all. For the good of the syndicate, his mind reasoned. But the last vestiges of virtue held firm as Aizawa watched her sleep. Not at that cost.
He left his chair to check the window and locks, and took a hasty shower. His clothes had begun to stink and cling to him, crunching with sweat as they dried on his body. It was a fucking relief to shed them and wash. He was still mostly wet as he pulled on sweats and a long sleeve, and brushed damp locks of his hair back as he checked the window again. The car was still there, but the reflection of the moon on the tinted windshield prevented him from seeing inside. So he went back to his room and loaded his gun, putting it in the waist of his sweats, and drew all the curtains — before he gathered the blanket from his bed in his arms.
Aizawa covered Momo, and he paused as she sighed and burrowed into it. She had the audacity to feel safe in his presence.
When had he last been himself, half oyabun and half Hero, in front of someone else?
Never.
She shouldn't be here, though.
Aizawa cleared the end table, replacing the ash tray with his capture tape. Then he returned to his chair, and the seat was still warm from when he'd left it. He settled himself back in. More awake and more comfortable. Alert. Ready, in case anything happened. The survivalist in him was imagining the exit strategy in case the net closed in. The windows would be off-limits. How would he get Momo out? The bedroom had an exterior-facing wall. The bathroom did, too, and it didn't have a window, unlike the bedroom. It'd buy necessary seconds.
Seconds.
They tk-tk-ticked by, and he paid only cursory attention to the TV. He let his head fall, tucking his chin to his chest, and let his fingers tp-tp-tap on the arm of the chair while his thoughts ate. Are his insecurities and his doubts. Feasted on his second-guesses like a ravenous cannibal.
He heard Momo inhale.
Aizawa opened his eyes when he heard her sit up, and she watched him from across the room in her sleepstruck blurry daze. The darker thread tugged again. He ignored it. No, he insisted to his cup of stars as he checked the time, she could not be his protege. She was too naive, too trusting, and it would be too wicked.
But what he wanted didn't matter, some sinister voice whispered. Because, when dealing with a girl as smart as Momo, it wasn't up to him at all.
He put the gun away at his back next, tugging his shirt over it, and sat up straighter.
"Thank you," she said as she folded the blanket. "Where does this go?"
"My room. I'll take care of it."
"Did anything come of the car?"
"Highly sus, as you kids say. The person stayed sitting in the car until a little over an hour ago, then they left."
"What time is it now?"
"Almost five." He saw it. The stars in her eyes, unguarded in her surprise. He saw those cogs. This, he knew, he had to stop. "Don't," Aizawa warned. "Don't romanticize it."
"I wasn't! I would never."
"You need to learn to lie better."
Her hot embarrassment, however, was easy to read. He hoped that pointing it out, telling her he could look, too, would discourage her. Aizawa stood and gestured toward a door. "There's the bathroom if you want it, then tell me where you want me to drop you off."
He felt uncomfortable treating her like a one night stand, but this was a boundary he needed to enforce. She was his student. No matter the bond they had grown, this was a line that they couldn't cross. There was no fucking world where he wanted to deal with a teenage student simping over him.
She'd changed her clothes when she emerged, but she still had the wig on. It was an unassuming, innocuous look. Momo offered him the clothes she'd slept in and asked him to trash them, and gave him the address for a breakfast cafe he could drop her off at.
He looked at her once, only as she climbed out of the car. Aizawa watched in the rear view mirror as he drove away until she was inside, then circled back to parked down the block where he could watch the cafe. He was prepared to not see Momo leave — she could have easily switched to another disguise. But it was only a short while later before she emerged, and met Ashido Mina at the cafe door.
Smart fucking girl.