Chapter 7: adjustment period

With these new allies under her belt from class 1A, Akane did her best to settle back in to life at U.A. She couldn't find it in herself to relax completely, or God forbid let her guard down, but she had to trust Aizawa. Aizawa trusted his students, and she trusted him. For now, that would be enough.

Unfortunately, the close calls became inevitable, especially with a short-tempered guy like Bakugou in the mix. The first time happened during training, where, this time, in the one-on-one battles, Akane got paired with Kirishima. Earlier, All Might and Aizawa had spoken about how to approach training now that he knew Akane wouldn't use her quirk, but in the end it was decided to proceed as normal. They couldn't treat Akane differently from the others, not without raising suspicion. Besides, Akane assured them both she could more than hold her own.

As promised, Akane kept Kirishima on his toes during the match. She knew it would be pointless to land a blow on him while he had his hardening on, so she waited, wearing him down, until he'd completely tired his quirk out.

Stupidly oblivious to her plan, Kirishima grinned. "C'mon Akane, you really think you can win without using your quirk on me?"

Akane didn't let herself get provoked, but it turned out, she wasn't the person Kirishima needed to worry about.

From the crowd of 1A spectators, Bakugou growled, storming directly into the middle fo the match before All Might could stop him.

"What the hell did you just say to her?" He demanded, fast advancing on Kirishima. "You think you can bait her into using her quirk if she doesn't want to?"

Kirishima's face fell. "What? Dude, come on, I'm just talking smack!"

"You idiot," he snarled. "Quirk or not, she's nailing your ass, and you don't even know it!"

Finally, All Might stepped in. Giving a tight laugh to hide how nervous the whole situation made him, he steered Bakugou by the shoulders out of the ring. "Now, now, young Bakugou, if I didn't know any better, I'd say someone's got a crush!"

The entire class giggled. It wasn't every day their resident hot head got taken down a notch like that, especially for something so out of character as defending a fellow class mate. Maybe All Might was right — had someone finally chipped away at Bakugou's fiery exterior? True or not, he certainly didn't give his class much room to speculate, snapping their heads off threatening to blow their asses straight to hell.

But, it was just as he said — even with the warning, Kirishima ran out of energy, finally giving Akane room to counter attack. He was down within seconds, panting like crazy, and looked up at Akane with pure astonishment.

"Holy crap, Akane, you're awesome!"

Akane blinked, unprepared for such enthusiastic praise. Unsure of how to respond, she simply held out her gloved hand and helped him up, before promptly exiting the ring.

Her friends were very excited upon her return, beaming and bouncing around.

"That was so great, Akane!" Midoriya said.

"Indeed!" From Iida.

"Uh, Akane?"

Akane turned to see Todoroki in the corner of the room, looking weirdly sheepish. He asked, "Think you might have some time to spar later? My technique could use some work, and you…seem to know what you're doing."

Meanwhile, Bakugou, still seething and embarrassed over All Might's teasing, kept his distance with his arms tightly folded. He'd made enough of a fool of himself for one day.

xxx

The next close-call occurred during a lunch period. Akane had just begun to pack up her stuff so she could head to the roof when Iida, Midoriya and Uraraka approached her again. She stiffened and hoped they wouldn't notice — she didn't want to be rude, she knew they were only being friendly, but she needed some space.

"Hey Akane!" Uraraka chirped.

"Care to join us for lunch?" Iida asked.

Akane picked up her things. Her voice was soft. "Not today. Sorry."

She could sense herself growing more and more uncomfortable. The stress of the day — close-quarters with her classmates in a space that still didn't feel entirely secure — was catching up to her. If she didn't get this lunch period to breathe and get herself together, alone, she was going to fall apart. Caught up in these thoughts, she caught her shoe on a chair leg and dropped a couple books.

Instantly, she dropped to collect them. Unfortunately, so did Midoriya. Their hands brushed as they went to pick up the same book, and out of nowhere Akane froze. Her breath caught.

God, why now? Why did someone have to touch me now?

Midoriya stopped. His eyes popped. "Uh, sorry, I didn't mean —"

"I need to go."

Completely abandoning the books, Akane stood and darted out of the room. Iida, Uraraka and Midoriya watched her go, but only Uraraka was left feeling confused. The other two just looked at each other, deeply concerned and wanting somehow to help. Of course, Midoriya couldn't suppress his guilt, either. He of all people by now should've known to be more careful around her. Someone who had experienced that much death, trauma and abuse….of course she didn't want to be touched out of nowhere. Of course she needed space.

He decided to leave Iida and Uraraka to lunch and went to find Mr Aizawa. He'd know what to do. Midoriya didn't know the full extent of Aizawa's relationship to Akane, but he knew his teacher cared for her.

Midoriya approached the staffroom door and knocked. All Might opened, and beamed at the sight of his protege.

"Young Midoriya!"

"Hi All Might. I was wondering, is Mr Aizawa around?"

All Might tilted his head. "Is everything alright?"

"I'm…" Midoriya looked down. "Not sure."

All Might took a moment, and nodded. "Please, come in."

He lead Midoriya to Aizawa, who was sitting at his desk with a big cup of coffee. Aizawa arched an eyebrow at the sight of him — more specifically, his big puppy dog eyes filled with worry. He frowned.

"What happened?"

Once All Might gave them some privacy, Midoriya explained what had gone down. The more he spoke, the darker Aizawa's face became. The homeroom teacher sighed, rubbing his temples.

Midoriya gulped. "I'm really sorry, Mr Aizawa, I didn't mean to bother you, something just felt really wrong and I wanted to do something, you know?"

"I'm glad you told me."

"Really?"

Aizawa stood up. "Where is she?"

"I think Kacchan said she spends a lot of time on the roof."

He nodded. "Thank you, Midoriya. I'll take care of it."

Without another word, Aizawa was off. Behind him, Midoriya sure didn't look happy, but he was at least glad he'd told someone. If he couldn't help Akane, hopefully Aizawa could, once again making up for his personal failings.

Akane was exactly where Midoriya suggested, hanging out on the shadows of the roof, out of sight. She was completely alone, just as she wanted, and trying to calm herself down. Her eyes were glossy and faraway and she'd made her body small, huddled into the corner. Aizawa breathed a small sigh of relief at the sight of her. She was okay. Definitely in the midst of an absent panic attack, but otherwise okay.

Carefully, he approached her, and offered a gentle smile. "Hey, you."

She took one look at him, trying to focus. "Midoriya?"

"Kid can't keep his mouth shut to save his life."

She hummed her unhappy agreement.

Aizawa continued, "I'm glad, though. You come up here a lot?"

She shrugged, still mostly absent.

"You know," he said, "it's okay to take a break. Having all those people around must get to you."

"I…didn't want you to worry."

"You're my kid. I'm gonna worry."

Akane sighed. She looked out at the sky, trying to use its blueness and clearness to bring some semblance of clarity back into her mind. Besides, every time she looked down, she'd see her arm and the place where Midoriya had accidentally touched her. It really wasn't his fault — sometimes, touch bothered her a lot more than others. This just happened to be one of those times she was at her most vulnerable. He couldn't have known.

She said, "I freaked him out, didn't I?"

Aizawa hesitated. "Probably. But, in fairness, it really doesn't take much to spook Midoriya."

Seeing her face, he could tell how hard she was trying to ground herself back to earth. Every instinct screamed at him to take her hand, or her shoulders, or something, to pull her back down, but it was too risky. She wasn't ready yet.

So instead, he said, "If you need to go home, I'll excuse your absence."

Akane shook her head.

"You don't have to push yourself this hard."

"Yes." She looked at him. "I do."

"Akane —"

"If I don't, nothing will change for me. Life won't ever get easier, for either of us."

"You know I don't care about —"

"You might not, but I do. I don't want you to have to leave school early every time I freak out, or have to keep a special eye on me all the time. I don't want to make these poor kids so scared just by being around me. If I can't fix myself, I'll never be…normal."

Aizawa recoiled. "Fix yourself? Listen to me — I didn't adopt you, or bring you to U.A, hoping you'd be 'fixed'. I brought you here because I know what an asset you are — you're strong, and determined, and you know more about the world than any student here. You belong here, Akane, as much as the next person."

Akane blinked. "Really?"

"Really. And by the way, broken or not, nothing is ever going to change until you accept the help that's there." Finally seeing her loosen up, Aizawa reached out and held her by the arms, staring down at her in earnest. "I'm here for you, just like those kids you're so worried about scaring off. Akane…you don't have to fix yourself. You're perfect as you are. All you have to do is let us in."

Finally, and before she could let herself tear up, Akane smiled.

Aizawa ruffled her hair. "Now for God's sake, eat something. You look like you're about to pass out."