(How To)Forgive and Forget

Mistakes(Were Made)

It's Sunday.

He and Eri have been spending more time inside because of the weather, but today is warmer than most, so he gives Eri a jacket and they go on a walk. Todoroki joins them, silently trailing behind them with a thin jacket and shorts.

After a few minutes of walking a little ahead of Todoroki, she turns around and walks over to Todoroki, who stops and looks down at her with confusion. She holds her hand out to him, little fingers stretching up.

"Do-Do you want to hold my hand?"

The red and white haired boy's expression morphs into surprise, and Izuku grins, his chest warming at the adorableness. Todoroki hesitates for a minute, but nods and places his hand in Eri's.

She smiles and turns around, pulling him forwards and taking Izuku's hand. He smiles, allowing Eri to pull them down the paved path. Beside him, Todoroki wears his 'I'm panicking but I'm trying to stay calm' expression, which makes Izuku giggle. The little girl holding his hand pulls him forwards, and the sun shines down on him, warming his aching hands, and all he can think of is how grateful Eri came into his life when she did. She made everything brighter, muted the crawling feeling of cameras monitoring him all the time, and of his sense of impending doom. She gives him hope, and that's all he's ever needed.

___________

"Today, we'll be taking a trip to the USJ to train with the rescue heroes, the Wild Wild Pussycats."

The room's collective mood takes a dive, and even the students who are regularly chatterboxes go silent. Aizawa notices their discomfort, and sighs.

"The USJ's security features have been upgraded since the attack, and we've included devices that will send a message to the school as soon as the signal stops, or the device is destroyed."

The unease doesn't die down at that, and it continues to hang in the air, even as they change into their costumes and get in line to board the bus. Eri notices it and sends Izuku a questioning look, but he's too busy fighting a sense of guilt in his gut.

He'd...well, not forgotten about the start of the year attack, but he'd moved past it.

He doesn't really think of Shigaraki in that context any more, not when he knows that the man role-plays as a girl online to catfish old men, and that Kurogiri freaks out over his kitchen utensils being chipped or cracked. The other League members did some bad stuff too, but he didn't really think of them badly because of it. He knows what they do for a job, but that's what it is. A job. It's not their personality or life mission to be the greatest evil the world's ever seen, they're just...people.

But...his classmates are people too. Not always kind or mindful ones, but people nonetheless. He can't help feeling some guilt that someone he was close with had scared them so badly. Then again, he doesn't think the attack was Shigaraki's idea in the first place. If he had to guess, it was the mysterious 'Sensei's' idea. They held a clear grudge against the hero system as a whole, and judging from Shigaraki's opinions(which he suspected were built off of his masters), they didn't like All Might all that much.

Izuku couldn't really blame them, though. The day All Might was given One For All was the day he fell victim to his hero complex, and it's been controlling his life ever since.

He sighs, holding Eri a little tighter as he settled into a seat in the corner of the bus.

The bus ride is silent, tension building the longer they sit there. Once the bus slows to a stop, the mood turns somber and grim as they file out of the bus and into the platform of the USJ. A sense of familiarity washes over him when he sees Thirteen waiting for them. Behind them are a group of brightly dressed, cat-themed people with smiles on their faces. And behind them, Izuku spots a tuft of spiky black hair poking out from under a red hat with yellow horns peeking out of it.