You Belong To Me---Dabizawa One-shots

⚠️fall away⚠️

The flames, the voice, there was something so hauntingly familiar.   Aizawa  shook his head and tried to focus back on the paper he was grading.  This was hopeless, he had read the same paragraph three times now and still had no idea what it was about.  With a sigh he shoved the papers aside, it didn’t need to get done today.  A glance at the clock told him that if he didn’t move his ass, he was going to miss the last train home.  

The train was nearly empty, the only other person in his car was an overworked business man who was nodding off, head against the window.  There was nothing to distract him and his thoughts again turned back to the forest, to the encounter.  He didn’t even think of it until days later.  There was so much clean-up work to be done, making sure students were okay, heroes were debriefed, reports written and filed.    

Then he had come awake in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, thinking about flames, blue flames.  Fire quirks were a dime a dozen but he had only known one person who burned with a passion and hatred so deep, that they could summon a fire the color of broken sapphires.  Ever since that night, he couldn't get it out of his head, couldn't shake the feeling that it was the same person.  A person he had known, a person he had failed.    

It was stupid, he couldn't blame himself.  Hell, he had been little more than a kid  himself , fresh out of college, hired by one of the most prestigious schools and completely, horrifyingly overwhelmed.  Even though he had wanted it, teaching had been his dream.  It did not come easily to him.  His students either found him frightening or took him as a joke and the work load.  He had not been prepared for it.    

Enter the sullen Todoroki, messy red hair always falling into his face, shirt untucked and tie loose.   Touya  had tried to get a rise out of him at every turn.  Smoking cigarettes at lunch, smirking and flicking the butts at him when he was told to report to the office.  The thing that had infuriated  Sho u ta  more was his potential.  No matter how he tried to hide it as the bad boy fuck-up, he was smart, he was talented.    

He had tried, he told himself he had, tried to reach the boy that was only a few years younger than himself.  He should have known, should have seen the signs but they were both so young and stupid.  The disrespect, the striking out,  Touya  had been asking for help and he had ignored him.  The bruises, he should have known.  Now he did, after having a steady stream of  Todorokis  come through his doors.  Their home life was miserable, either ignored and deemed worthless or abused because they might be worthy of Endeavor’s throne.    

Then one day the boy was gone, disappeared into the unforgiving maw of the city.   Aizawa  had actually been thankful, happy that he no longer had to deal with him.  It was only years later that he realized what a mistake he had made.  He had vowed then to never let it happen again and he thought he had done fairly well since.  He hadn’t even thought of the eldest son until, well until now, blue flames and the voice.  The last vestiges of carefree youth fallen away, hardened by too much smoking, too much drinking and too much darkness.  Yes, it could be.  

So began his strange obsession.  He would spend hi s  nights pouring over crime files and  “ borrowed ”  police records, searching for any mention of the patchwork man, the villain that only went by  Dabi .  It didn’t take him long, he was shocked at the haphazard trail of bread crumbs that he uncovered, the shoddy police work that let the criminals lurk in the shadows.   Accounts that has been recorded yet never followed up on.  It seemed that his  presence had been spotted at a particularly seedy convenience  store that was already rumored to be a villain hideout and front.  A lead that had never been followed up on yet.