Shouta woke up from his nap with a jolt sharper than a requiem. In the moments after his eyes caught on the ceiling panels above him, he was immediately aware of several things.
First, he was in the staff room at UA and had been sleeping on the expulsion paperwork for his entire class. Second, a room full of professional heroes trained to teach was not somewhere he could hide the fact that every single muscle in his body had tensed to the breaking point, even if he had yet to make a single sound.
Third and most important, the room also included Hizashi and Nemuri, who would not let professional courtesy stop them from asking if Shouta was alright (because they were his friends and not professional colleagues, damn it Shouta).
Forth, or perhaps three-dash-A, Hizashi in particular could not, under any circumstances, be allowed to talk to Shouta right now.
Shouta stood, paperwork falling off the desk haphazardly. Sound went distinctly funny the moment the pages hit the floor and the noise of Nemuri talking with Snipe as the man was drinking coffee stretched and warped. With the ease of long (too long) practice, Shouta ignored the muted volume of the world and eyed the distance to the door, the path around the yellow and black blur that was Hizashi whom Shouta wasn't looking at, and Cementoss who'd just entered the room with Powerloader at his back.
Shouta's chances weren't good, and if he waited much longer than Hizashi would be close enough that Shouta would have to look, might even meet his oldest friend's gaze, and that would break him.
Again.
Shouta threw himself out the window. He stumbled a bit as muscle memory didn't respond quite as he'd expected and his capture weapon had an almost unfamiliar kink in it, but his momentum was more than enough to get him seated in the windowsill on the level above the staff room.
He didn't settle long. A yellow line of what could only be Hizashi's hair poked out below. It probably wasn't a good thing that Shouta couldn't hear his friend's scream, despite being able to feel it's vibrations through the glass.
He was smoother this time as he used the window ledges and a convenient flag pole to lurch up another three stories. Sound rushed back with Shouta's knock on the glass, the sudden physical awareness of Hizashi's yelling and the day to day noises of a hero school slamming into him hard enough that his next knock had a more staccato beat.
Nezu opened the window casually, only lifting a brow when Shouta lurched inside, managing not to fall by dint of habits long ingrained in a man who preferred rooftops to sidewalks.
Shouta ignored his boss and staggered into the corner of the room to sit on a small purple couch that sat across from a black armchair beside a chess board. Somehow, this corner was almost always overlooked by visitors to Nezu's office and Shouta hoped it would give him an extra moment of peace in case he'd been outside longer than he'd thought and Hizashi and Nemuri burst through the door.
Except they wouldn't. Shouta ran away from people, not towards people, and Nezu counted as
people. Worse, Nezu counted as authority. No one, especially his friends, would expect Shouta to come here.
"I'm going to have a breakdown on your couch."
Nezu lowered his teacup, dark eyes dissecting Shouta's movements as the creature leaned back in his office chair.
Shouta ran one hand through his hair, then lowered it to stare at the tremble that was working its way through his fingers. "It's going to be bad, and I need you to not let Hizashi or Nemuri or anyone else find me while I do."
"You seem rather sure I'll do such a thing, Aizawa-san."
Shouta opened his mouth, ready to comment on the fact that Shouta had always made Nezu curious, even this far back, what with his hatred of the spotlight and ruthless tendencies. With the addition Shouta's really very odd behaviour, Nezu was hardly going to pass up a chance to puzzle Shouta out.
Shouta didn't say any of that. "You're safe," he said instead.
And Nezu was. He was territorial. He protected what was his with the animalistic ferocity he'd long convinced the world he didn't have and the intelligence he'd long convinced the heroes was his most dangerous trait. UA was his. The students were his. The teachers were also his.
Shouta was his.
Shouta heard the glass in his own tone, heard the shards cut up his words and present them to Nezu as an offering. "You're safe and I'm going to need help and you'll figure it out anyways." Shouta's breath shook out of his body. "This way I won't have to say it."
"Say what, Aizawa-san?" Nezu asked, because he cared but he also always pushed.
"Deku's dead." Again, the words weren't the ones that Shouta had planned on saying. He wasn't sure he'd ever planned on saying those particular words, to be honest (even as they burrowed into his lungs and scarred there, just like the image of One for All destroying Izuku's body as he gave it up for this one, impossible chance).
Nezu cocked his head. "I don't know who that is."
"Someone you would have liked." The answer poured out of Shouta, tearing out of his throat and bringing great wracking sobs as punctuation. He wrapped thin arms around his middle, bending in half and touching his forehead to his knees.
He distantly registered Nezu on the phone, cheerfully announcing to the person on the other end, probably Hizashi, that Shouta had been working on a case for Nezu and had a breakthrough that meant he would be absent for the next few days.
Shouta didn't bother to try and keep quiet. He knew (in the part of his brain that was still coherent, that never stopped because stopping was dangerous and dangerous meant death) that the acoustics in this corner were designed not to carry. He also knew that he wouldn't succeed, even if he did try. Nezu wouldn't judge, regardless; the not-rat knew what the aftermath of torture looked like (what it felt like).
It took a long time for Shouta to be able to concentrate on something other than the rattling in his
bones. Enough time, apparently, for Nezu to have made three separate cups of tea and placed them on the table by the chess board. Two were cold while one was just faintly steaming, the scent of jasmine attempting to wrap around Shouta and brace him long enough to breathe.
Nezu looked up from his tablet when Shouta reached for the steaming cup, humming approvingly and looking deliberately at a quilted blanket lying folded over the chess board.
Shouta smiled, or he would have, if he could get the muscles in his jaw to work properly. Instead he blinked, reaching out with a slow hand to grab the blanket and drape it's floral diamonds over his lap, idly distracting himself with the thought of punching everyone who'd ever said Nezu didn't have feelings in the face.
Nezu might sometimes have trouble acting on an emotional basis or on acting on other people's emotions, but Shouta currently thought the blanket and tea were pretty fucking great. He hadn't even noticed he'd been cold, but the warmth seeping into his skin was bracing.
He actually felt like he might be able to stop shaking at some point in the future, if he was very lucky and no one touched him.
"I don't remember earning this kind of trust."
Shouta heard 'trust' and translated it to 'loyalty,' knowing loyalty was what he'd shown. Sure, he'd trusted Nezu enough to breakdown in his office, but they both knew Shouta was capable of disappearing into the depths of the city or even the school to have his breakdown in peace.
Shouta had found a problem, a significant one, and come to Nezu for help in solving it (Shouta was territorial, too, and possessive besides).
"You have," Shouta told his tea.
Nezu hummed again, pressing small paws together. "How much time do we have before the first trigger point for the future you aim to prevent?"
And Shouta would die for this creature, he would, though he'd really rather avoid that outcome all told (Deku would be mad at him if he didn't). But Nezu believed Shouta, without Shouta having to have said a word, and, more importantly, he hadn't asked how long. Shouta wasn't sure he could bear having to say that he didn't know, that they'd stoped counting, towards the end.
Shouta thought back, sluggishly moving past the decay and the rot and the green, green, green to the days of being a regular teacher. He'd only ever expelled the entirety of his class once, the second year of his career at UA.
"Seven years." Seven years till he saw his hell class. His kids.
Officially. Like hell he was going to wait that long. Todoroki and Shinso in particular needed a check up.
And Deku. (It had just been Shouta and Izuku, in the end.) "I assume you have goals."
"Several."
"Excellent." Nezu clapped his paws together and reached for a notebook (Shouta's heart hurt). "If you tell me the ones I can help you with, we can prioritize our immediate efforts. I'll put it out to
the staff that you're using your newly clear schedule to help me out with a few personal projects."
"I guess some things won't change." Shouta snorted, watching ripples form in the tea. "You used this year last time round to discover a like for having an underground hero on call. I liked having information that was scarily accurate."
"Always happy to please." Nezu paused. "You'll have to disappear, lose contact for at least a month."
"I mean, that would be helpful." Finding Shigaraki would be a trick and a half, but Shouta had promised. Izuku had been pretty sure the future villain had spent several years on the street before All for One had found him (Izuku had been so sure the child could be saved without the monster whispering in his ear; Shouta wasn't as confident, but Izuku's smile could get him to do much worse than try to save a boy his teacher instincts already wanted to help).
"For the trauma, Aizawa-san. You won't be able to explain many of your reactions, particularly if what I've seen today is any indication. An extended stay in captivity would explain much of your behaviour. That is, if you don't plan on telling them."
"I don't."
Couldn't. Couldn't ever.
How he tell someone society had ended? That his world had basically stopped even as he breathed and fought and lost? How did he tell his friends that everything they did was futile? That it hadn't mattered, in the end? That they'd still died in his arms?
Shouta had survived because his kids had survived and would never stop fighting as long as any of his kids were alive. Even if each of his kids deaths had been worse than a missing limb, Deku had made it to the end, so Shouta had as well.
Shouta extended both his legs for a moment, wondering how long it would take to get used to the lack of a prosthetic.
He tilted his head. "Fuck."
Nezu hummed.
"We're going to need to talk to All Might."
Shouta didn't go missing for a month. Partly because dismantling All For One's mother-fucking empire took nine months, partly because he refused to do that to his friends.
He still hadn't seen them in nine months, but they had conversations. Short ones. Communications.
Hizashi was worried sick, which, really, was a reasonable response. Nemuri was furious. Shouta wasn't unaware that her recommendation for joining UA was supposed to help ground him and keep out of some of the more dangerous areas he'd been lurking in before his teaching job. It had even worked, the first time around.
Only the fact that Nezu had briefed the UA staff on Shouta's current placement with All Might gave Shouta some wiggle room and prevented his friends storming the country looking for him, as they'd threatened to do at least three times (he loved his friends so much). And that was more based on what Shouta working with All Might meant about the severity of the situation than the hype of All Might being the Number One Hero.
Shouta's friends had better taste than that.
The empire wasn't destroyed in those nine months, not completely. They were close. They'd reduced All for One to a handful of locations and avoided the battle that had crippled All Might entirely. Shouta felt he could leave the remainder of the battle to All Might and Sir Nighteye, particularly since all that remained were the large-scale takedowns that were much more Daylight heroics then the skulking, information mongering, and sabotage that Shouta had been doing so far.
That wasn't to say Shouta wasn't demanding constant updates, something that All Might himself was surprisingly willing to accommodate. The man was perhaps viewing the updates as a condition to Shouta's agreement to go home. All Might had prepared an entire bumbling speech about how they can handle the rest, Eraserhead had already done so much, they had an inside man, please go rest Shouta.
Shouta possibly had a hard time resisting such genuine care from the former scarecrow who'd maybe sort of been his friend once upon a time. The man also wasn't wrong, for all that Shouta couldn't tell Yagi that Shouta had burnt out years and futures ago.
So he was home.
He would go back to school tomorrow. He would go back to UA and walk into the staff room and see his friends. He was not ready. He wanted it more than almost anything and he was not ready.
He didn't flinch when the woman sat next to him and jolting him out of his thoughts, though he did close his eyes briefly. He knew this was coming. Really, a grown man cannot sit at park within sight of the play equipment all by himself and not expect someone to comment. Not with how frequently he'd been here in the last week as he wrapped things up and tried to get ready for school.
Shouta started to turn, hand already going to his Hero Licence and mouth opening to promise he wasn't some creep. Hi brain skipped however, at the feel of a cool hand over his and grass green, life green eyes meeting his.
"That's hardly necessary, Eraserhead. I know exactly who you are." Midoriya Inko gave his hand, the one holding his licence a gentle pat and withdrew, smiling softly. "You've long been my one of my son's favourite heroes. Both my sons' favourite."
She looked to where a small green-haired boy was laughing while being pushed on the swings. Midoriya Izuku looked like he was having the time of his life, babbling away at the older boy doing the pushing. Shimura Tenko, Midoriya Tenko the moment the paperwork went through, was snarking at his new brother but using his glove-covered hands with infinite carefulness to keep the swinging motion going.
Shouta wondered how long it had taken for Izuku to talk Tenko into touching him with the gloves. Probably not long at all.
"Tenko recognized you the first time you sat down, which involved a lot of staring, which tipped Izuku off. The only reason you didn't get mobbed by curious and grateful children is Tenko is
convinced you're here on a mission and refuses to let himself or his baby brother get in your way." "Ah," was all Shouta found himself able to say for a long moment. "You disagree?"
Inko hummed, watching the children with Shouta instead of looking at the man beside her. "I think you're mourning."
Breath froze in Shouta's lungs and he felt his muscles lock up in a faulty flight or fight response.
"I've lost all of my family except for my boys in one way or another," Inko continued softly. "The library I work at is barely a street away from the hospital. I know what grief looks like, Eraserhead."
She leaned forward, slightly, still not looking at him. "You saved my son. You saved Tenko from the streets and from the people who would never see him as more than a Villain. You saved him from himself. He remembers you and your words and your challenge to be better than the Heroes who ignored him. To be the Hero for the next kid like him."
Shouta wanted to close his eyes, wanted to run away, but he couldn't bring himself to move. He hadn't done much of anything. Sure, he'd found Tenko, dirty and angry and tucked into the shadows of an alleyway that was perfect for the murder scene of a big action movie. Sure, he'd talked to the kid as he'd fed him a couple meals, earning at least a little trust before dumping him into the system. Sure, he'd made sure the people in the system Tenko had met had been Tsukauchi, a therapist and quirk counsellor vetted by future knowledge and Nezu both, and Midoriya Inko herself.
But that was it. Shouta had fled afterwards. Had refused to interact with the face that was so different yet so similar to the one who been responsible for the deaths of many of Shouta's students (his kids, his family).
He'd watched, though. He'd sat on any one of the many park benches and watched as baby-Izuku (baby Deku) had cajoled and hugged and babbled the confusion and hostility out of his new big brother. His new big brother with the super cool quirk who understood what it meant to be ostracized by society, to be victim to casual cruelty.
Shouta had watched and forgiven. How could he not when he saw Tenko's spine go from the hunched rust that shrouded rage and fear and hurt to the delicate steel that formed the backbone a near-feral desire to protect this one good thing? How could he not when that one good thing was Izuku (not Shouta's Izuku, but Izuku)?
How could Shouta not when that was the same expression that he'd seen in the fucking mirror the last time he'd been able to bring himself to look?
"You brought me my son, a piece I didn't even know was missing from my family. I-" She faltered for the first time since she'd sat down. "I was considering- I wasn't sure I was going to take in any more fosters. Not after how the last one treated Izuku. Not after how easily their justified hurt and anger found an outlet in my son and how sad he was when not even his foster siblings wanted to be his friend."
She shook her head. "I know grief, Eraserhead. I know grief-stricken exhaustion. You saved my son, both of them, by giving them each other. I'm more than happy to listen, if you want."
Shouta didn't turn to face her. He didn't imagine he would be able to hold up against any version of the Midoriya eyes.
"Will you tell me about your child?"
"It-its not that simple. He isn't, wasn't mine. I-" The words caught in his throat which Shouta figured was fine since he hadn't meant to say anything anyways. He tipped forward and let his hair cover his face.
Inko hummed again, softly, like the opening bars to a symphony. "I imagine it is often very complicated with heroics and the quirks and motivations you must be exposed to."
They sat in silence for a long moment, watching baby Izuku take a leap of the swings and tumble to the ground laughing. Tenko ran to pick him up, immediately falling pray to baby Izuku's octopus arms.
Shouta thought about telling Inko about his Izuku, about his son because it was complicated but Izuku hadn't called Shouta anything beside Dadzawa in the end. Thought about telling her his son was quirkless because, for all the power of One for All, Izuku had always felt quirkless. Thought about telling her his son was a Hero, because Izuku had always been a Hero.
He thought about all the things he would never tell her: the nights holding each other after finding another classmate gone, the injuries patched up with an ever dwindling first aid kit, the look on Izuku's face when he figured out he could give up One for All for one shot at something as ridiculous as time travel.
"He liked green," Shouta said, voice layered with blood and ghosts and eulogies. "He liked green and yellow and had a sweet tooth much larger than he ever let on. He was smart and brave and so so kind.
"I miss him."
He missed his dad. His Dadzawa. He was never supposed to do this alone, he wasn't. He couldn't.
Except he would. He had to. A chance for his dad and his friends and his mom and all the hundred of thousands civilians to live without ever knowing the horrors of All for One? He'd do it.
He'd returned to the past in the same location as the one where he'd left the future, deep in one of All for One's lairs. There'd been fire and explosion and several dead. He taken advantage of the chaos: started yelling at the peons after stealing a white coat and ID from someone who wouldn't be getting up again. He didn't feel badly about it, not really.
He recognized the name, had done extensive research on the man as part of the failed efforts to bring down All for One in the future. Not only could he fake the deceased's intelligence quirk with relative ease but the world was much better off without that particular brand of cruelty.
Izuku had cleaned up the mess, let himself be shuffled to medical, and allowed his extensive injuries to be played off as being due to the incident. He'd have to hack into some of the records later to sift some things around, but he could do that. He could.
He could pretend to be a monster. He certainly no longer felt like a hero.
He stool in the room of the man's who identity he'd stolen. He stood and shook. Shook from the explosion, shook from the time travel, shook from the loss of One for All, shook from the pain, shook form the sheer utter loneliness of loosing the only person he had left.
(Shook from the image of his Dadzawa turning to face hundreds of low-level villains in a mockery of that first day at the USJ, blood in his teeth and ghosts in his bones as he bought Izuku the time to reach the equipment and sacrifice his borrowed quirk for this one last shattered chance.)
Izuku shook as he closed his eyes for a nap, barbed dreams already wrapping around his bones as awareness faded away.