The green man

The end of the beginning

Shota Aizawa sat behind the steering wheel of his car. His body was moving without much input from his mind at the moment. Sheer instinct and muscle memory allowed him to stop at every red light and turn whenever he was supposed to. He had driven this path hundreds of times in his life, possibly even thousands if he was being realistic. The Musutafu Police headquarters should only be a 15-minute drive from the UA campus. That was during the most chaotic hours of midday traffic; this late at night should have only taken him five minutes at most to return to school.

He knew this logically but couldn't help but feel like this drive was taking forever.

He shot a sideways glance at his passenger, cringing to himself silently. His student hadn't moved a muscle since he had entered the car when they had left the police station.

In his career as a professional hero, Shota had learned to listen to his instincts. A single second of hesitation was all it took to make the difference between life and death in a profession like his. But, unfortunately, he had seen too many lives lost, and many careers cut short because of a single second of hesitation. He swore he would never make that mistake.

"He's telling the truth..."

When the idea of a traitor in UA was first put forward, Aizawa didn't put much stock into it. It was just Mic being Mic, after all. But like a virus, he had let the idea affect his thinking, and soon he saw things that weren't there. Somethings that couldn't have been there.
He knew that now.

These past few months, he had been forcing himself to chase phantoms that didn't exist, that couldn't have existed. Paranoia had turned his own instincts against him.

"Hey, kid..." Shota said awkwardly as his car slowed down to a red light." You did good in there..."

The boy didn't answer.

Shota half expected Midoriya to retreat back into the shell he wore on the first day of class. That same nervous ball of anxiety he remembered from back before the USJ. A person who felt the need to apologize for accidentally shutting a door too loudly. A person who tried his best to melt into the background and shun the attention his fellow students instantly craved for one reason or another.

He expected Izuku to be a wreck...

What he didn't expect was this...

He was still and quiet, but he certainly wasn't relaxed. The boys' shoulders were too stiff, and his posture was too rigid. He certainly didn't look like someone relieved at being proven innocent of what he had been accused of. The usual excitement that radiated off of Izuku wasn't there either. Gone was the subtle twitch of his hands when he was nervous or bouncing his leg to defuse his excess energy. Whatever nerves Shota would have expected to see in a regular person, someone who had been thrust into a situation like this just wasn't there.

The underground hero shuddered when he looked back at his student in the backseat of the car. Those were not the eyes he had grown accustomed to seeing when he saw his student.

Of course not, you idiot. Shota thought to himself as he turned his attention back to the road in front of him as he bit back a curse.

"Midoriya." Shota said, his voice horse and strained. "If you want to talk about i....."

"Can you take me to my home instead of the dorms?" Izuku interrupted, his voice sounding more hallow than it did the last time he spoke during the interrogation." I think it would be for the best."

Shota froze, almost stopping the car in the middle of the street as his head recognized his students' words. He wanted to say something, anything, right now. Still, He found himself agreeing with the boy despite every instinct in his body screaming at him right now.