Aizawa spun the top off the liquor bottle hard enough that it went careening onto the floor. He heard it hit and roll, and that was the last of that cap. Good thing he planned on finishing the bottle. He felt Momo watching him as he grabbed the bottle by the neck and put it to his lips, drinking as deep as he could stand.

"Do you know someone with a healing quirk you can call?" she asked as he lowered it down for a breath, nudging it away. His nose was on fire and he wanted to cough.

"No," Aizawa answered. "I'll handle it."

He steeled himself for another pull. If he drank enough, his hangover would be worse than the stab come morning. He caught a whiff of the liquor as he brought it up, and grimaced before drinking.

He'd need it to steel his nerves. Numb his pain. Steady his hand. He wanted to get this done and pass out, before he had the chance to make a decision he could end up regretting in a day or a month or a year.

Momo was here again in his apartment, and the energy between them now was far different from the last time she was here — because, fuck, he felt it, too. He couldn't even put a finger on what it was, but it was there and hard to ignore. He'd let himself put his hand on the small of her back as he escorted her from the car to his door. He might let himself do more if he didn't get sliding down the slippery slope of the liquor. He needed to bypass lowered inhibitions and go straight to passed out. Aizawa picked up the bottle again, tilting his head back to drink.

He turned his back on her and headed for his room, gesturing for her to follow. Dicey. He shouldn't have her there, but he also realized he shouldn't leave her out of sight in his apartment. Not for as long as this would take, at least. Too much for her to find.

"This way."

The remote for the television was sitting on the dresser; he grabbed it, switching the TV on before pushing the remote in her direction.

"What do you want me to do?" Momo asked, and he could see the concern in her eyes. He wasn't used to being worried about.

"You're going to sit there and let the TV babysit you."

"Where are you going?"

"Right in there."

He pointed with two fingers toward an open door; the lights were off inside. His bathroom. She didn't protest, as if she understood what he was getting at without him having to go through the trouble of spelling it out.

Aizawa squatted and began fishing underneath his sink. Out came a bottle of rubbing alcohol. A first aid kit. A clean white towel. He glanced at her through the doorway as he stood. She was watching him openly, as though she was tired of being discreet, too. His grip tightened on his supplies.

"Sit."

It was a simple command, but for a moment it was as though she didn't know where in his room was safe to do so — before she slowly lowered herself onto the foot of his bed. Only then did he turn away.

He went to tug off his shirt, and the motion hiccuped as he felt the wound smart even harder with the movement. He let his shirt fall to the floor gracelessly, and went on to start laying everything out.

What he had was, at best, rudimentary. Bandages. Needle. Thread, spool half gone. It'd been a long time since he'd needed to do this; long overdue, he supposed. There was a mild tremor in his hands as he threaded the needle and mentally ran through the stitch, remembering how to do it. Prepping his mind for the pain. Even if the liquor got going, and it wasn't yet, it was going to hurt. Worse than the stab by itself had, somehow. The doctoring always hurt worse than it did in the heat of a fight.

He peeled off the bandage, jaw locked, and heard Momo make a small sound. His eyes shot up to look out the bathroom door, and found her on the bed watching him, a hand over her lips. The self-consciousness was abrupt. Self-doubt loud on its heels. She didn't need to see this, and he didn't need to scar her further by having her observe. Couldn't leave her unattended, but couldn't do it like this, either.

"Change the channel or something," he gruffed, and nudged the door. It eased on its hinges, leaving a crack small enough that she couldn't see him anymore from where she'd been.

"Do you need help?" she called.

"No."

It was going to fucking suck, but he knew he could do it alone and it was going to be fine. Aizawa fished in a drawer for an elastic, pulling his hair back before washing his hands. Then he set about threading the needle. No more delaying, it was time to do it now. He'd bought the liquor as much time as he could before he would have to admit he just didn't want to deal with the pain. Bitching out. He wondered if he should get a stapler to use instead, then second-guessed if that would be better, or worse. No more delaying. Go.

He turned in front of the bathroom counter, evaluating the wound in the mirror. It was a longer cut than he'd expected from the switchblade, but he might have done that damage himself — opened it up more carrying bodies and shit. He inhaled deep into his chest, a deliberate and readying act, before he laid one hand near the wound to stabilize it and then slid the needle in.

White hot, why wasn't the liquor coming on yet, it was a full body sensation to insert needle so close to the already painful injury. The breath he took in came out in a rush through his nose, the muscles of his jaw twitching. Alright. And another now. Do it. He fingers shook as he moved the needle again, not sure if he even got it in the right place at this angle. It hurt like a son of a bitch, and as Aizawa went for a third, he cursed aloud and flinched hard as the pain got right in his face. He closed his eyes tight, trying to get his control back, trying to acclimate to the pain, but he couldn't get his mind to that place. He let go, needle still in his skin.

The bathroom door opened, Momo gently pushing it ajar, and Aizawa felt his eyes roll back in his head as he swallowed down another curse. His chest was heaving, short of breath, and before he could pull enough air into one place so as to tell her to get out, she was off and going.

"Is that elastic thread? You can't use that."

"It's worked just fine every other time," Aizawa objected, shifting away from her, and the radiating pain was almost too much to bear as he did. Fuck. No, couldn't make that move again. He reached to finish pulling the needle through, teeth grinding together as he felt every inch of thread following behind.

"That's enough!" Momo begged.

Momo raised her shirt and Aizawa hastily averted his eyes away from her exposed stomach and underbreasts, staring at the texture on the bathroom walls with groundbreaking interest. A moment later she was passing him items, one by one, and he dutifully reached his hand to take them and set them on the counter, still not looking directly at her.

"What's all this?" Aizawa asked, taking the spool between his fingers and tilting it to inspect, while behind him she got her clothes sorted out.

"Absorbable monofilament."

"And what are those?" he continued, setting the syringes on the counter next.

"Local anesthetic."

Aizawa finally let himself look at her then. The moment came with a haunting premonition of her future. Always being in the second wave, never with the main charge. She'd get rotated around every Hero planning exercise to be support. Creati, make this. Creati, we need that. And she would do it for the success of the mission, but she'd do it again and again and again until that is all people saw when they looked at her. They'd see a Hero who could make things, and never think any deeper into what her quirk entailed. They'd forget the immense intelligence it took to wield it, and they'd forget that she was anything more than someone to bring along to create impromptu supplies.

He'd remember, though. When he thought of Pro Hero Creati, it would be of how she'd successfully tracked and trailed him for fuck knew how long before he discovered it — and by accident, no less. He would think of how she'd investigated him on her own with no backup or reinforcements. How, in the heat of the moment, the ingenuity she drew from her vast knowledge was never less than a fearsome weapon.

And this, Aizawa realized at last, was why it had come to this. Why she meant something. They were equals here. They saw one another exactly as they were with no masks, no pseudonyms, no illusions. She knew his secrets and kept them, and she had shown she'd fucking hold out with the best of them. And he saw her. It had nothing to do with what she looked like and everything to do with the the mettle in her that was only forged by a roll of the dice.

"If you somehow end up as a mere support Hero," he breathed, wishing for her sake that his vision wouldn't come true, "I'm going to have no choice but to recruit you for myself." Aizawa paused. Then, "For how many times you're going to jab me with those syringes though, I could have this stitched up and done."

She glared at him, and he raised his hands in surrender before reaching for the syringes. "Whatever."

He bit down on the plastic syringe cap and pulled it off with his teeth, turning his head to spit it into the sink. It never crossed his mind that it might be something other than what she'd said; his trust in her was complete as he turned, straining his neck hard to check in the mirror that he had a good spot before pushing down on the plunger.

The injection hurt, but he didn't want to give her the satisfaction to know it had hurt less than the needle. The second needle went easier, and the third he didn't feel at all.

"If you want I can—" she began as he fished a small pair of medical shears out of his first aid kit, to cut away his first few sutures. He shook his head, pausing to give the wound a poke to be sure it was numb before proceeding.

"No, you won't. It's just in an awkward place, but I can manage."

It'd be easier if he let her. He knew that, and didn't want to give her the satisfaction of that either — but finally he was feeling the liquor a little. He needed to feel it faster, though, before he handed things over her to her told her to do it. Aizawa could feel her dark eyes needling him as he turned back to the mirror again, craning to find the gash again now that he couldn't feel it. After a prolonged struggle, he glanced at her. She was still staring, lips pursed to one side.

"No," he said again, firmer. "You aren't learning to do a continuous vertical mattress suture on me. I'm sure you've already thought of another solution anyway. Right?"

His brows went up expectantly, challenging her — and she was up to it, per usual. Momo began to raise her shirt once more, and his eyes slid away again until he heard her put something on the sink counter beside him. He glanced; it was a vanity mirror, and her fingers nudged it around with ease before she took a seat on the closed lid of the toilet.

That wouldn't do. He'd be better off alone in here, but the liquor was wear down his edge now. He was teetering into the territory of lowered inhibitions.

"Thanks. The TV is out there," he said, trying not to look at her reflection as he set up the mirror so he could see the wound more clearly.

"I'd rather watch you mutilate yourself."

He couldn't see his face, but knew immediately his expression must have betrayed him. She was still sitting there, smug and now comfortably defiant, but with a hand laid casually over her lips to hide her smirking.

"I'm glad you find this entertaining."

He supposed, though, it was better for her to find this all amusing at his expense than for her to crumple onto the floor at his injury.

Aizawa didn't speak again as he threaded the new needle and got to work, fingers deftly moving. With the new angle in the mirror, he could see he'd definitely widened the wound from what it'd originally been. Every stitch he got more comfortable — whether that was the liquor or muscle memory of needle in hand coming back. It was more clumsy than it would've been if he wasn't looking at the injury in reverse, but it was good enough for government work. He was bleeding again, now that he was messing with the cut in earnest, and his fingers were tacky with his blood. At last it was done, and he found the shears again to snip the sutures free.

"Thanks for the local," he said over his shoulder, not quite looking at her as he began to wash his hands. The blood in the sink first went red before it began to clear, foaming soap following it down the drain. Then, his reluctant admittance. "It made it easier."

He dried his hands on the towel then laid it back on the counter before he reached to take down his hair. The short vertical stretch, however, made him sway on his feet for a split second before he caught his balance. Thank fuck. He was dipping now, he could feel himself careening closer to the safety of passing out. All he had to do was phone Kobayashi—

Momo closed the distance between them with two steps, and she laid her fingertips on his chest. Aizawa tensed at her touch, hands still in his hair to look for the tie, then she went up on her toes and kissed him.

Every cell in his body stopped moving, shocked into stillness. Her eyes were closed, and his own felt so very heavy, too, lowering shut. His hands dropped to hover over her, but it was merely the last vestiges of his conscience's restraint whispering fading protests.

This was what he wanted. Badly. He'd been snuffing it out as best he could, but it kept finding air. There had been no killing it. He was tired of the internal war and struggle, tired of being awed and astonished by her and letting it rot in him. Decay. He wanted to kiss her back, kiss her senseless and put her up on the sink and kiss her more. Wanted hands on her hips, wanted to lay her in bed beside him and just have her there as he let the liquor take him. She could sleep beside him, spend the night again but with him this time, tight and secure in the safety of his arms. His reservations were eroding fast, the voice of those protests getting more slurred and quiet. Aizawa's hands found her shoulders, holding her, and the fucking head rush and adrenaline that came from finally giving in…His hands tightened.

Then she went to deepen the kiss, and cold poured down his spine, sobering him. The uncertainty in the movement, the lack of experience. If he did this…He would be stealing things from her that she could never get back. The trepidation of young romance. The thrill of a first date, holding hands with someone just as nervous and uncertain as she. All the cautious exploration that only inexperience could bring. He would be robbing her of all of it, to sneak around behind everyone's backs and keep secrets.

He couldn't do it.

"What are you doing?" Aizawa gasped, pushing her away, feeling the blood draining from his face.

Momo touched her lips. "I—"

"You are my student! You're sixteen!" he said, grabbing for any excuse in reach to drive this wedge. To push her away, once and for all…because he no longer could trust himself to be the one to keep the distance. "What are you thinking!"

"I thought — the things you've done for me, how you act toward me…" She was on the verge of tears. Yeah. Yeah, he'd let those lines get blurry, and he felt every punch of that guilt as he watched her eyes fill with tears. "I thought—"

"You thought wrong. There is no lifetime I will ever live where I am attracted to you like that. Never."

She was turning away, about to wipe her face, when he grabbed her hard and turned her back around to face him. A muscle in his jaw flexed as he manhandled her, taking her wrists in one hand and her face in the other. He made her look at him.

Her cheeks were flushed and red lips swollen, and those big eyes looked up at him with eyes that had come to trust him. Trust in its purest form was giving someone the power to destroy you, and believing they won't. He wanted to just kiss her, whisper against her lips that he was sorry, and that he was scared of what he felt, too.

He had to pull himself together for what he needed to do next. The thing he'd sworn long ago he was done doing when it came to her: lie.

"I want no business with children," he said. "That includes you."

He let her go then, and she recoiled away. Fuck. It was getting hard to breathe. His chest felt tight. Constricted. He had to keep pushing, and every word just hurt him more.

"Give me your burner and get your shit. You're leaving." She obediently pulled it out and set it on the counter, not looking at him through her tears, coming freely now. He snatched it up and shoved it in his pocket, then raised his arm to point through the row of doors back to the front door.

"Wait there."

He barely got Momo out his bedroom door, shutting it hard behind her, when he covered his face with his hands, pushing the heels of his fists into his eyes to keep that from happening. He could hear her crying on the other side of the door and it ripped him. He had to pull it together, before his resolve weakened and he tried to take it all back.

He hated himself and what he'd done.

His fingers were clumsy as he took out his own phone and dialed Kobayashi. Aizawa stalked away from the door, back into the bathroom with the bridge of his nose pinched between his fingers, waiting as the phone fucking rang and rang. Finally Kobayashi answered.

"I just finished, I'm on my way out of there now. What's up?"

"You need to come get her."

He could hear Kobayashi's surprise when he asked, "Why? What's happened?"

Aizawa didn't have the bandwidth left for more lies. "She kissed me."

"Wait, she—"

"Don't worry, I told her off. Just come get her and take her home."

"I'll text you when I'm there."

Aizawa put his phone away and sank onto the edge of the tub, dropping his face into his hands. His shoulders trembled.

She'd kissed him. No. They'd kissed. He'd wanted it just as bad as she had, it'd be a lie if he tried to make it out like all this had been one-sided. Like it had been all her, that would be wrong. If anything, this mistake was wholly his own.

Heavy was his hand as Aizawa opened the bedroom door, and saw Momo still lingering by the front door, waiting. He inhaled deep, opened his mouth to speak, and choked. He had to try again to find the words.

"Your ride's outside."

She didn't look back as she flung open the door, and left.