Chapter 27 - Empty Spaces

~3rd Person POV~

There was no knock.

No sounding announcement came as the front door clicked open in the dead of the night, swinging freely on its hinges and allowing two dark figures to pass over its threshold. One had his arm looped around the shoulders of the other, his body sagging under his own weight as the latter half-carried, half-dragged the both of them over and inside before swiftly kicking the door closed behind.

Grunting with a mixture of irritation and exhaustion, the figure shifted his hold about his heavy laden cargo, a hand sweeping out towards the wall as he muttered into the cumbersome quiet, "Dark in here."

"No. Don't."

The hand paused at the muffled command, as though confused by the strange order.

Beside him, his companion raised his head to stare into the inky blackness. Somewhere a clock ticked idly, its unseen face showing the early hour. Not a single light was on in the house. Not a single sound of life. Not a sound except for the heated breath that blew past Mic's lips as his hand withdrew back to reclasp the bulky cast hanging about his neck.

"Alrighty then. Don't know how you can expect to see anything in this pitch black."

"Stairs are twenty feet straight ahead. Fourteen steps to the top. Then turn left."

Aizawa started forward, trudging through the open darkness, taking slow but sure dragging steps across the wooden floor.

"It's weird you bothered to count all that." Mic muttered, repositioning Aizawa's arm over his shoulder as he shuffled along with him.

"It's not the first time I've stumbled home in the dark." Aizawa replied hoarsely, the words smothered by the thick layer of bandages covering his face.

A single blond brow lifted high. "Piss ass drunk, or after fighting one too many villains?"

Nothing but hollow silence came as a reply to the barb and Mic loosed another barely restrained sigh, turning to stare at the vacant darkness ahead of them. The floorboards creaked beneath with every step, breaking the stillness of the house and crying out the alarm to the pair's intrusive presence.

"We really shouldn't be here, y'know." Mic grumbled. His eyes then dipped to Aizawa pointedly. "You shouldn't be here. Look at you! You can barely walk-"

"I need to be here." Aizawa replied. A hard thunk sounded at their feet, and Aizawa's head dipped down. The stairs - right where he said they would be. Finding them was easy. Now came the hard part.

Aizawa lifted a foot, gritting his teeth as he hoisted himself up onto the first step. His body nearly crumpled right then and there, and he let out a pained wince.

Mic heard it and scowled.

"No. You don't." He ground out through his teeth, positioning himself between Aizawa and the stair wall. "You need to be in a hospital. One healing session from Recovery Girl isn't enough-"

"She's going to run."

Mic immediately went rigid. "What makes you think that?"

"What would you do if you were about to be sent to Tartarus?" Aizawa panted out, his jaw clenched as he forced himself up another step.

Mic collected himself quickly, climbing the two steps up and joining Aizawa on the third. "That isn't going to happen." He hissed, unwilling to say the prison's name aloud. "We," he stressed the word, "are not going to let that happen to her."

"Saying it isn't going to make it true."

"Which is why-" Mic grunted, left hand swinging out and digging into Aizawa's side as he helped haul him upwards by the waist, "-I've been calling in favors all over the city. Telling our colleagues to take the night off. If the Commission can't reach them, then they can't reach her."

Aizawa grimaced at the not-so-gentle handling. "It's not a permanent solution, Mic."

"It's as sure as hell better than what you're doing." Mic bit back, right hand clenching harder into the cast slung about his neck. "You're putting her at risk being back here! If the bastards find out you're here, they'll order you to hand her over."

A low chuckle came in between the ragged breaths. "They can try, but I'm off duty right now. Will be for a while."

"I doubt they'll see it that way."

Aizawa didn't offer a response which only sent Mic's irate expression to new exasperated heights. Together they managed another two steps before Mic finally asked, "So are you gonna tell me the real reason why you feel the need to be here? Why I had to drop everything to make sure your ass didn't become roadkill when Recovery Girl phoned me to say that you were halfway out the door, loaded up on painkillers, and hellbent on coming back here?"

The response was as slow as the arduous climb. "Eve, she - she needs someone…to be with her. To keep an eye on her." Aizawa's legs shook under him and with his left arm he seized the handrail.

"You mean to keep her from running." Mic rephrased sharply, still not convinced. "Well, if that's all you're concerned about, don't be. She's not going anywhere. Not tonight. Not even if she wanted to." There was a question in the following silence and Mic added on a bit softer, "She wasn't exactly together when I left her."

Aizawa's body tensed as he claimed another step. "All the more reason why she shouldn't be alone right now." He said.

There was some measure of truth to that. Mic couldn't deny it. It had nearly broken him to leave Eve sitting there on the floor alone, confused, and afraid - that last part most of all. But if he had stayed, if anyone had stayed, things would be far different right now. Yet, Mic seriously questioned if the asshole he was currently helping up the steps was the one Eve needed the most right now.

Anger flowed freely from Mic's mouth as he spoke. "Yah, well - don't expect a warm reception when she sees your mummy-mug back here." A cold pause, a warning dripping with all the ire of the night. "You messed up, Shota. Big time."

The blow struck true and Aizawa's head slumped against his chest. "I know."

They continued the climb up the stairs, one step after another before it was Aizawa's voice that punctured the dark quiet. "But even so, I need to be here. For her. Cause they won't see Eve for who she really is."

Mic's gaze slid to him, the two words resonating loud and clear.

For her, he had said. Aizawa needed to be here for her.

Not because he was concerned about her running away, though Mic had no doubt that played no small part into his neurotic paranoia. No - it was because he still cared.

Aizawa's stone-cold silence back at the hospital had made Mic believe that that particular hope had been lost. But perhaps it was still there. Hiding just under the surface just like everything else he hid away. For why else would a man broken and bruised as he was, willingly leave his hospital bed to drag himself back to this place for a single person who no longer wanted him? There was only one word for it.

Mic's focus drew upwards in the direction of Eve's room and whatever anger he felt towards Aizawa faded out.

Whatever that word was, it was now completely one-sided. Mic had seen the change come over Eve - the crack and the fall, and finally the total nothingness. Never before had he seen such vacancy in a person's eyes. Mic had wanted to deck Aizawa in the mouth the moment Aizawa had let Eve walk out without a word, but Mic had already dealt his blow. Made sure that Aizawa knew just how badly he had messed up. But that was over and done with. All that mattered now was that Aizawa had come. For her.

Sad pity laced the Voice Hero's tone as he asked, "Just so we're clear, who is she then?"

Dark strands fell across Aizawa's face like a curtain, a breath falling into a strangled grimace as he said back, "Someone who deserves more."

The stairs gave way to the small landing and together they halted. No light shone under Eve's bedroom door save for a sliver of pale moonlight that caught the scratches and grooves in the wooden floorboards. All was dark. Quiet.

"Guess she was finally able to get some rest." Mic murmured in a relieved whisper, careful to keep his voice low as to not wake the occupant inside.

Aizawa made a soft hum in agreement, his eyes lingering on the door before turning away. He took one lumbering step and froze.

Across the landing in front of his own bedroom door lay a small bundle of cloth neatly folded. His clothes. The same ones he had lent Eve on her first night when she had asked for something to sleep in. Instantly his mind painted the sight of her standing there at the top of the stairs - the same spot he was now standing. Her hair was wet, silver trails kissing her skin as his clothes hung in places that he had never bothered to notice before. Never until then. He remembered the way the world had stilled and all the thoughts had emptied out of his head.

Trouble. Aizawa knew trouble when he saw it, could name it from afar, but this - this he had no name for except that it found its way into his home and he was so very, deeply in it.

Alarm bells sung out over the memory, dragging him from it as dread slipped into his veins and pooled in his stomach. He blinked, his focus settling back on the bundle of cloth. If his clothes were there, then-

Aizawa turned about roughly, shoving off Mic who in turn threw him puzzled looks as he passed by. Aizawa reclaimed the step back to Eve's door, already reaching for the rounded handle. A heavy clunk met his hand and the door rattled against its frame. And did not open.

Perplexed, Aizawa looked down, seeing the thick casts blunting his arms.

He couldn't grasp the handle. Couldn't open the door. His arms - his hands - they were useless to him. But there was more than one way to open a door.

He stepped back, shifting weight to his feet as he gauged the force necessary-

Mic quickly stepped in front of him, spreading his body out like a shield. "What are you doing?" He hissed angrily. "You're gonna wake up the girl."

Aizawa's gaze moved past Mic to the door as if he could pierce it with his very stare. "Open it, Mic."

Green eyes narrowed at the urgency in the tone. "Why?"

Aizawa fixed Mic with a look. "I need to know if she's in there or not."

Mic met that look, considered it, and parried. "Calm down." He whispered as he rose back up from his defensive stance. "You're being paranoid. We checked before we left the hospital, remember? The tracking device says she hasn't moved for hours."

"Then you won't mind opening the door to confirm that."

Mic cocked his head behind him towards the said door in question before his eyes glazed back to Aizawa. "That is a woman's bedroom, y'know."

"Your point?"

"We can't just barge in there. She could be doing…anything."

"Exactly why I'm concerned. So open the door, or I will be forced to and it won't be quiet."

Mic's lips curled into a frown, unfazed by the threat. "I think you missed my meaning."

Recognition dawned for a split moment before Aizawa's gaze hardened into steel. "It's three a.m. in the morning. If she's doing anything else besides sleeping, then I'll be the one to apologize, but right now I need that door opened. I will not ask again."

Mic studied him closely, measuring just how serious Aizawa was about carrying through on that threat. If it was even possible for him to do so. He looked over Aizawa from head to toe, eying his casts, his ravaged body.

What his friend currently lacked in power, stubbornness would more than make up for - stubbornness that would end badly for all involved. And after everything Mic had seen that night, Eve did not need to be woken with the breakdown of her door. The scare alone - well, Mic didn't want to think about that. Didn't want to ever see that face again.

"You're a bastard. Y'know that, right?" Mic scowled bitterly.

Aizawa shifted back. "Noted. Now open the door."

Mic turned, seizing the door handle and opening it with a soft click. The fact that it wasn't locked was the barest of notions before his head plunged through the crack and disappeared inside. He didn't bother opening the door any further, and Aizawa's mouth tightened into a thin line but otherwise remained quiet as Mic swung his head right then left, scanning the room. A subtle stiffness locked into Mic's shoulders and he repeated the motion again. Twice. Thrice. Each time quicker than the last.

Tension coiled in Aizawa's chest like a fist.

Something wasn't right.

Too long. It was taking too long.

"Mic." Aizawa spoke out impatiently.

Light flooded the room, spilling out onto the landing as Mic flicked on the switch and stepped inside. "Aizawa," He said, his voice no longer quiet. "You better get in here."

That fist in Aizawa's chest tightened further with the words and he limped after Mic, stopping dead upon the threshold.

There were boxes. The same ones that had paraded through his home only days ago, courtesy of an obstinate Midnight, now repacked and clustered against the immediate wall. The only other objects to be counted in the room were the dresser towards the back, but that hadn't moved, and the spare futon on the adjacent wall - folded. It's sheets laid out on top. And utterly empty.

The room was empty.

There was no Eve. No woman sleeping soundly where she should have been. She was gone.

Eve was gone.

The sum of all Aizawa's fears crashed down upon him in one fell swoop, the heart in his chest slamming against his bruised ribs as adrenaline rose above the numbness of the drugs coursing through his system. The doctors had filled his body with everything on hand to counter the pain of his mending bones, but in doing so they had also dulled his senses. And in that moment, Aizawa would have given anything to have the full brunt of the pain back if it meant figuring out where Eve had gone. And how.

Aizawa took a step further into the room, ready to tear through it if need be.

"Take a look at this."

Aizawa snapped to Mic as his friend straightened back up from the boxes. Within his hand he held a sheet of paper and Aizawa's dark eyes narrowed wholly on the singular piece, breath tight in his lungs. "What is it?"

Mic unfolded the scrap of paper between his fingers, scanning it before a frown creased the corners of his lips. "It's a letter...to Midnight."

Aizawa stiffened. "Midnight?"

"Yah, Eve's-" Mic's eyes darted left and right across the page, reading, "-apologizing for destroying Midnight's shirt, and authorizing her to withdraw money from her account to pay for it. She's also thanking Midnight for-" Mic abruptly stopped, his face freezing as a tinge of pink shot across his cheeks.

Aizawa's brows lifted high under the bandages. "Mic?"

His friend refolded the paper quickly and stuffed it into his pocket. "It's nothing." Mic said thickly as he coughed into his hand, clearing his throat. The pink on his cheeks, however, remained.

Aizawa followed the paper down as it disappeared into the pocket. Whatever Eve had written, whatever it was that made Mic look like a blushing idiot, it didn't matter. The note hadn't divulged where she had gone, only her final farewells. And at that Aizawa shifted his focus sideways to the rest of the items that had been left behind, the empty space that remained.

Coldness leeched in, icy, freezing, and barren.

There was no denying it now. Eve was missing. Protocol dictated what must be done. What he must do. But, before that-

Aizawa's voice was tight. "Hizashi-"

"Way ahead of ya." Mic declared, his hand already retrieving the phone from his pocket and calling up the screen. His fingers swept across it, pinching and zooming until he found what he was looking for. Suddenly his lips locked together into a concentrated line.

Aizawa stood silently, watching and waiting as Mic's focus darted back and forth across the display frantically. A moment passed, then another. An agonizing wait that stretched out to eternity.

"Where is she?" Aizawa demanded, his voice a terrible calm. How far had Eve gotten? How long had it been? His mind was turning, already planning out the next steps - the call he would have to make.

Mic glanced around the room. "It says that she's still here."

Aizawa's eyes widened a fraction. "Where exactly?"

"Right here." Mic brought the screen closer to his face, lifting his spectacles as his nose scrunched, his eyes trying to make sense of the pulsing red dot and its position on the map. "We're right where she's supposed to be, but I don't see her." Mic scanned the room again, his gaze flitting over the space as if Eve would magically appear out of the floorboards.

Aizawa pivoted, swiftly exiting the bedroom.

"Hey! Where you going?" Mic raced after him, pocketing the phone as Aizawa braced himself at the top of the stairs.

"To check something."

Shouldering himself against the wall, Aizawa managed the first step clumsily, a slow, heavy boot colliding with the wooden tread as he lowered himself further and further down. Every step was an effort, marked by the roaring fire in the muscles of his legs that were threatening to give the closer he came to the bottom. But they would hold. He would make them hold. Because he needed to reach the bottom. Because he needed to know.

The tenth step came and went without incident. Then the eleventh. The twelfth. He was so close. On the thirteenth his legs buckled out without warning from under him. Aizawa tipped forwards, the bottom racing up to meet him until arms seized his waist, pulling him back.

"Damn it, Aizawa! I'm here, y'know. I'm right here! Would it kill you to ask for help?" Mic panted harshly into the small of Aizawa's back. His body was near parallel to the stairs, his rear planted two steps above after having crashed backwards in his haste to catch Aizawa.

Aizawa wobbled on the step, a cast thrown out against the wall as he steadied there. A ragged exhale left his lungs. "It might," he finally admitted, the words a breathy, rusty groan. But then the next words swept in on a much softer breath, "Thank you, Hizashi."

Surprise ripped Mic's face upwards as he stared at the length of Aizawa's back. "Huh? Oh…yeah. No problem."

Bracing himself against the wall, Aizawa dared the next step down only to pause, a scowl twisting the bandages. "You can let go of me now. I can stand on my own."

Mic blinked, as if only just realizing that he still held him. That his arms were still entwined around Aizawa's waist, keeping them together - and rather intimately too.

The hold vanished in the next instant. "Right."

Aizawa limped the final two steps down, reaching the first floor and immediately veering left into the darkened kitchen. Mic trailed closely on his heels, wary and waiting in case Aizawa stumbled again. Yet, he never did. Some nameless force was driving him forward as he stalked past the kitchen and into the living room beyond.

The place was as dark as the foyer, the kitchen window cover tightly drawn shut with a handful of minuscule appliance indicators scattered here and there to cast the faintest digital light. Definitely not enough to be of any help to Mic as he blindly strode after Aizawa, not wanting to lose sight of him. If he could see him at all. The blackness swallowed Aizawa. Swallowed him too.

He couldn't see anything, not the space in front of him nor the reason why Aizawa had come down here, so he asked again, "Aizawa, what are-"

The words were suddenly cut off with a loud bang as Mic's foot rammed into the kitchen table's legs. The wooden structure gave out a hair-raising shrill screech, its four large legs jostling against the floor on impact.

Mic released a silent curse, hopping back as his face scrunched in pain.

"Mind the table." Came Aizawa's voice through the dark.

"Yah, thanks for the warning." Mic seethed, testing his sore foot against the floor before taking cautious, experimental steps forward. He spread his hands out before him, waving them around as he followed the sounds of Aizawa's shuffling footsteps further into the room. "Lights would be helpful, y'know. Ever heard of 'em?" He vented heatedly. "Some of us don't live our lives in the dark."

His grumblings were met with further silence.

Then there were no more footsteps. Aizawa had stopped and a stillness had settled into the space.

"Aizawa?" Mic called out.

"Here."

Mic used the word to guide him through the shifting dark to Aizawa's side, bit by bit his eyes gradually adjusting to the dim light. Ahead of him he picked out Aizawa's shadowed form standing by the singular couch, utterly still and staring down. Mic approached just as a swimming shaft of moonlight broke through the curtains of the sliding glass doors, falling across something silver, something breathing, something completely human.

Eve.

Mic stalled by Aizawa's side, speechless.

There on the floor, nestled between the couch and coffee table, Eve slept, curled on her side and tucked in tightly into the cramped space. Soft, even breaths left her parted lips, making her unbound hair flutter gently across her face. A deep sleep held her captive for surely she would have heard the pair of them entering, their mutterings up and down the stairs, Mic's concussive joining with the dining table. But she had not. Nothing had woken her and both of them knew then that nothing will. She was out.

Mic was the first to tear his gaze away to the ceiling, to where Eve's bedroom lay above, to the place where the tracker had said she'd been. It had been right. If only the blasted thing had bothered to mention her elevation too.

"She didn't run." He muttered softly in relief. But that relief became lodged in his throat as he looked back down on the sleeping woman. Tomorrow was a mere few hours away, and for all of his faith and promises that they would find a way out, the latest update from Nezu had not delivered good news.

A helplessness gripped him as Aizawa staggered past, slowly rounding the edge of the couch and taking a seat. He was careful not to touch or disturb the sleeping woman, even as he lowered his body onto the first cushion, the leather offering a gentle sigh. Mic watched him closely, the way he moved - like he was settling in. Content to just sit there and wait for morning.

Mic frowned.

That wasn't quite right. Aizawa wasn't just calm and collected. He was sure of something.

Then it clicked.

"So what's the plan?" He asked as he dug his hands into his pockets, casting a shrewd eye towards Aizawa. "You have one, right?"

Aizawa leaned over his knees, regarding Eve in the dim light as she slept. "We renegotiate."

Mic squatted down, following his friend's gaze to the sleeping woman. "Normally I would agree with you, but Nezu's been trying that all night. Still trying. They won't listen. Stubborn assholes." His mouth twisted to the side in bitterness.

"They will once they realize what Eve could be for them."

The words sounded like a devil's promise and Mic stiffened, whirling to Aizawa.

"You're not suggesting what I think you are."

There was no emotion in Aizawa's reply. "It's our only option."

"No!" Mic shook his head, jumping to his feet. "No way. Think of something else!"

"Do you have a better plan?" Aizawa turned to stare at Mic.

Mic's mouth dropped open, hanging there as a tide of possibilities swelled up inside. Desperately he turned each one over, searching, searching through them for a way, but - there was nothing. He didn't have an answer - nothing that would stand a reasonable degree of success. Nothing that would save Eve and force the Commission to leave her be. If Nezu hadn't managed to convince the Commission by now, then nothing will. Nothing but perhaps this.

Aizawa knew it. It was the very reason why he even suggested it. But still - to go so far to make Eve into…that.

Mic's mouth slowly closed and the low creak of leather shuddered through the room as his fists bunched at his sides. He turned his gaze to the far wall and fell eerily quiet.

Aizawa felt his friend's silence, the flux of emotions rolling off of him that didn't know where to go. He felt the despair, the anger, the desperation. Knew them all for he had felt them too. The moment Eve had recounted the attack, what she had done, he knew the ramifications - the punishment that would fall down on her head. A punishment that she was blissfully unaware of because of him.

He should have told her. He should have told her everything. Everything that was at stake. But a hope had held him back - a hope that she could get through the three years of schooling without the weight of Tartarus to send her falling into the depths beneath. That he could offer her some shred of normalcy within the walls of U.A.

How brilliantly that had exploded in his face.

Now it was up to him to save Eve just as she had saved him. Even if it meant that things that had been broken would never be fixed. But that was fine. It was what he deserved.

A solid weight settled into him, sinking him further down into the couch and sagging his torso ever lower. He had a clear view of Eve, the way her body curled in on itself, her back to the couch, her front pressed in by the legs of the low lying table. It was purely a defensive position, as if she had hidden herself away in this tiny, cramped space while she was rendered her most vulnerable.

Although the sight of her had eased the knot within his chest, something else had taken its place. Something beyond the guilt of his own failings. Like he wanted to reach down and touch her, to take her back upstairs, back to her bed, back to something soft and warm and safe. Something that was not the cold hard floor where she had chosen to lay her head.

Aizawa was already reaching when he stopped his outstretched hand. He had moved without thinking, the need blaring at him to do all those things. But he couldn't. Not now - not when he seriously doubted he could even get himself back up those steps again - all fourteen of them.

Defeat was as cruel as reality as he retreated back, but not before his attention snagged on the coffee table. Glittering there softly in the faint moonlight was his laptop, its silver anodized surface slightly askew and lying close to the edge. And completely not where he remembered putting it down last.

Suspicion whispered in as he leaned forward and eased the lid open with the tip of his cast. A black screen greeted him, the battery long since dead.

Dead - or completely used?

Aizawa's gaze flashed to the camera poised at the top.

The computer was password protected and firewalled to prevent anything outside from getting in, yet - there had been that pizza on his doorstep that first night. Unprompted and bearing the letter E on top. It had been a message - for him and for Eve. That she wasn't alone. Someone out there was watching over her, listening in, keeping tabs. The nameless, faceless partner who had hacked into the Commission's mainframe and reached out to Nezu to save Eve afterwards.

For some reason it gave him no comfort to know that Eve had ready and waiting support on the outside. No. It only served to cement his misgivings that Eve was operating under a plan. That she was going to run.

And if that happened, there would be no more chances for her.

Aizawa let the computer's lid drop shut as he sat back. Mic stood motionless by his side, eyes glued to the wall as his brows continued to twitch and furl. A storm raged across his face that would break and form like the crashing of waves against the immovable shore, only to start again as a fresh new idea took root. He was still trying to think of something better, a better future for Eve where she would not be subjected to the Commission's whims. If such a future were even possible, then-

The storm in Mic's green eyes stilled.

"We could just - y'know," Aizawa angled his head as Mic spoke slowly into the air, as if suddenly wary that the walls had grown ears, "...let her go."

"Mic-"

"No-no, hear me out." Mic spun around to Aizawa, jerking his thumb behind him to the front door. "My car's parked out front. We could just take her and go. Make it look like she slipped her collar sometime during the night. We take her far away to someplace remote where the Commission would never think to look for her. There's loads of places in the countryside we could hide her away in."

Aizawa turned away in dismissal. "Barring the fact that we too would become wanted criminals and no longer be of any help to her - it's not a life, Mic."

"Neither is what you're suggesting." Mic snapped, teeth flashing in the dark.

"No," Aizawa agreed with him, "but it is a chance." He gave a soft groan and his head dropped back against the cushions, hair splaying out in a tangled mess of dark waves. Tired. He was so tired. "Which is more than what we currently have at the moment." He finished, staring at the ceiling above. Soft blue light crept across the dull white paint, waning and brightening as the curtains rippled under the A/C unit. Soon that light would grow into pale morning and force him to face the next slew of challenges - the most problematic of them all currently lay at his feet.

"She will hate you, y'know." Mic said carefully after a short while. As if they both didn't already know that.

Aizawa closed his eyes. "She already does. Nothing I do will change that."

"You can't? Or you won't?" The question bore an accusatory tone.

"Does it matter?"

"It does if you're giving up."

Aizawa felt the heated rise of annoyance. The busybody was digging his nose into something that didn't concern him.

He cracked open a single dark eye, pinning it on Mic. "If you have something to say, then say it." Say it and be done with it, so he can finally get some blessed sleep.

"Fine then. I will." Mic closed the gap between them and seized the front of Aizawa's costume, jerking him so close that their faces were a hair's breadth apart. Aizawa started as Mic's face transformed into a blazing righteous fury. "If this plan of yours is Eve's only chance, then - bro, when I say this, I say it because I love you - but man-the-fuck-up. Now's not the time to throw in the towel. You're thinking you already lost her, so why even try? But she's right there, Aizawa!" He motioned his chin towards the floor where Eve slept. "And as long as she is, you and her are going to be tied together. She may not be very happy with you right now - frankly none of us are," so word had made its way to the rest of the faculty, "-but you need to earn her trust again." Mic gripped Aizawa's front tighter, shaking him roughly as if to drive his point further in. "You did it once. Do it again. Not for your sake, but for her's. She needs someone, Aizawa, or else this plan of yours is going to fail. Maybe not tomorrow or next week, but sometime down the line it will fail." He promised. "Everyone needs someone, or why else do anything at all?"

Aizawa narrowed his eyes. "Are you sure that that someone isn't you?"

Mic scowled and immediately let Aizawa go. Aizawa's back hit the couch and bounced once as Mic glared down from above. "She didn't choose me." He said simply as he readjusted his gloves back over his palms. "She chose you. For some strange, strange reason she chose you. So I suggest you figure out how to win back her trust before something like today happens again."

Another attack. Mic was referring to another attack. It didn't seem likely, but neither had yesterday or the previous attempt on the campus. One attack was unusual. Two were a warning. He was right. Something bigger was coming and they needed to prepare beyond the increased security measures. Eve needed to prepare - and without the use of her quirk to make things doubly difficult.

After everything the Commission would never permit her to use her quirk again, even under strict supervision. At least not for a good while until they cooled down. And time was something they were desperately short on.

Mic's words sunk in like an anchor, and Aizawa's face stilled into thought, eyes slipping back down to Eve. For her he had said on those stairs. Somehow no longer just words, but a reverent promise. For her he would do everything in his power and then go beyond to keep her safe.

Because she was someone who deserved more.

So he would become someone more.

If only he knew how to go about it. The first time with Eve had been a fluke, and he held no expectations that he would be so fortunate a second time around.

If she would even feel the same way again.

No. Aizawa shook himself of the thought. He wouldn't allow himself to hope for it. Earning back her trust would be enough. It would be his penance.

And his deliverance.

He knew what he had to do.

Aizawa lifted his gaze back to Mic, the one person who could offer some insight on the way forward from here. "Got any tips?"

Instantly he regretted asking the question as Mic's lips split into a grin.