A/N: hi! just a few things before this chapter starts. i realized as i continued writing this fic that some things from the first chapter wouldn't work as well as i previously thought. because of that, i went back and edited a few things.
1.) timing !! instead of izuku time-traveling to right before the final exams arc with all might & bakugou, i'm making it so that he time travels to right after the kamino ward arc, right before the provisional licensing exams.
2.) aizawa knows about one for all. i decided that this would be the best course of action for this fic. i wrote it in but never quite specified how he knows & on ao3, someone pointed it out in the comments. to clear it up(i hate confusing my readers ahhh), in this fic, aizawa was there for fight between bakugou & midoriya. thus, learning about one for all through that. that may be mentioned in the future, it may not, but just keep it in mind as you read!
3.) midoriya had physical changes !! i went back and wrote that in because i wasn't quite sure what kind of time travel i wanted for him. i always knew it wasn't the shared conscious kind of time travel where he transfers into his future selves body but i still wasn't sure so i never wrote it in. however, now i know lol so i went back and just wrote some of that.
okay i think that's all?? maybe?
enjoy!
-
For all the years Shouta has been teaching, he's never had to deal with a situation quite this severe. Even with all the villain attacks that this year's class 1-A has suffered through, nothing compares to this. There is truly nothing more deadly, more scary than a person— a kid no less— who has lost the will to live.
Izuku lies pliant in his arms, cheeks damp and head tucked against Shouta's chest. His kicking and screaming had ceased about twenty minutes ago, and now they just sit here, on the top of U.A's roof.
He's curled in on himself, and Shouta feels his heart break because he's just so small. Shouta's arms fit all the way around Izuku's figure, and now that the black-haired man gets a good look, he can clearly see the physical changes within the boy. He's more petite than before, his hard-worked for build replaced with skinny limbs. He did seem a bit shorter as well, and he looked... younger. With baby cheeks, sunken in and dotted with freckles, and dark bags that hang below his student's eyes, the boy is the of an anomaly: young yet so, so old. This isn't the same boy who saved Kouta from a terrifying villain, no this is a boy who is exhausted and tired from this world.
Albeit the kid falling asleep five minutes ago, Shouta knows that even in his slumber, Midoriya Izuku cries. He cries for the loss of the child within him, long forgotten years and years ago; he cries for the hatred that envelops himself; he cries for the boy who once idolized heroes; he cries for himself, rather than others.
And Shouta, for the first time in twenty years—since Oboro— cries with him. He cries for the boy who felt so utterly useless, so worthless that he thought the world would be better off without him; he cries for the fact that Shouta, as his teacher, hadn't even realized just how much his student was struggling; he cries for the boy because he's sure that Izuku has never had this— a person to cry with and for him in understanding and empathy rather than in pity.
The first tear fell when Izuku stumbled into his arms after being tugged onto the roof. His student screamed and thrashed in his own arms, pleading to Shouta to just let him die. Shouta had never felt what he had in that very moment, but now he knows what is: pain. It's raw agony clawing at him to know that Izuku, the boy who always seemed to smile brightly, is so brittle and broken from society's faults.
It's painful because he didn't even notice.
Where did Shouta go wrong? Why didn't he realize and help sooner? How didn't he see?
But it's too late now. Because here he is, with a very shattered Izuku in his arms. He tightens his hold; he's scared, so scared, that this fragile boy with slip from his grasp. That he'll fall right between his fingers and become one with the ground.
Aizawa Shouta has never felt fear so strongly before.
The feeling wraps around his heart in tight, steel chains that rattle with his racing pulse. The thumps beat loudly in his ears, and it's a cacophonous sound that mixes with his own anxieties and doubts.
He doesn't know where to go from here. He's taken classes on how to deal with teenage suicide and self-harm but now that it's happening, right before his eyes, he's terrified. He's so fucking scared. He doesn't want to mess up; he wants so badly for Izuku to live, to see his whole life through. But how does he get Izuku to want that too?
What happened just now showed just how done Izuku truly is. Those cries, those screams, they were from the mouth of a dead person walking. A shiver runs down Shouta's spine, the dreadful noises echoing throughout his mind.
Shouta swears that he will do everything in his power to protect and help this boy.
(He's terrified of what would happen otherwise).
-
Izuku wakes with a start. He first feels a tingling in his foot, and then inhales the clean antiseptic scent of, what he assumes to be, Recovery Girl's infirmary. He wants to sleep forever, to just fall into a deep, deep slumber and never rouse from it.
But alas, the world despises Izuku because he never gets what he wants.
He opens his eyes slowly and the fluorescent light blinds him. He shuts them once more. He hears shuffling to his right and then a hand(it's rough, he notices, calloused) grabs his own. Izuku wants them to let go, to pretend they never noticed him wake up, so that he could just go back to sleep and hopefully not wake up this time.
They squeeze his hand.
Izuku tries once more, even slower, and opens his eyes. The light filters through, this time gentler. "Morning, kid."
It's Mr. Aizawa. Of course it is. He's the person who saved him. How very selfish of him. How very very, irritatingly selfish of this man to show his face right in front of Izuku.
Izuku shuts his eyes closed. Mr. Aizawa lets out a huff of air, "I know you're awake."
Izuku doesn't respond. Instead, he slips his hand away from his teachers grasp.
"Midoriya..." His teacher's voice is soft, like coaxing a scared kitten out of a box.
Izuku hates it, he hates this, he hates him. He was supposed to be dead a week ago, and he wasn't. He was supposed to be dead yesterday, and he wasn't. Why can't anything ever just work for him? Why does everything have to go wrong?
"Please, go away," Izuku croaks, slinging his arm over his eyes to block away the wetness that dots his cheeks from Mr. Aizawa's sight.
Mr. Aizawa sighs, "you know I can't."
"No, actually, I don't. You have legs, you have arms, use them to walk yourself to the door, open it, and then walk out," Izuku spits with a fire. He almost feels bad for the attitude pointed towards the only teacher who ever liked him. But he's just so tired, so incredibly exhausted from the world. He wasn't even supposed to be alive by this point, yet here he was.
What a joke.
A sick, cruel joke.
Mr. Aizawa is silent and Izuku can hear him open his mouth only to close it. "Why are you even here?" Izuku asks quietly.
His teacher contemplates his words before settling on, "I want to help you, Midoriya."
Izuku's eyes shoot open and he sits up at an alarming speed. A bitter laugh rumbles from deep down in his chest. The air turns cooler, a bone-chilling atmosphere filling the room. "Help me? The best thing you could've done to help me was let me splatter onto the ground like I planned to. Mr. Aizawa, you have done anything but help me."
"Midoriya, don't say that," Mr. Aizawa grimaces, a frown etched onto his lips.
"Don't say what? That I'd rather be dead? Aren't teachers supposed to teach their students to always tell the truth?" Izuku retorts sarcastically. Mr. Aizawa flinches.
This isn't him, he knows it, this isn't who he is. But how else is he supposed to deal with this anger that's eating at him? It's consuming him whole, from the inside out, and he feels like merely a host to the parasite that resides within him.
"You're angry. I understand that-"
"Angry? Angry? I'm fucking furious. The first failure, fine, whatever. It was nice seeing this world but I don't belong here. But of course, this time, I still can't do a single fucking thing right because I'm still breathing." Izuku clenches his fists, his voice raising considerably.
Mr. Aizawa doesn't speak, he doesn't even open his mouth. Instead, he just pulls Izuku into a tight hold. He allows himself to be pulled, to cry in his teachers arms for the second time. Because Midoriya Izuku is weak. He has and always will be.
He's a crybaby, he's defenseless, he's hated, and most of all, he's quirkless.
"It's just not fair," Izuku sobs, and it's not, really. It really isn't fair.
"I know kid, I know," Mr. Aizawa whispers and pets his head. He strokes Izuku's hair gently, like the wind had caressed his locks on that beautiful Tuesday evening.
Izuku cries himself to sleep for the upteenth time, but only the second time in his teacher's arms.
-
"Well, this is quite the situation we have on our hands here, isn't it?" Nedzu states with a voice too prim for the topic at hand.
Shouta gruffs, staring at the sleeping boy. Before he could say anything, Toshinori Yagi bursts into the infirmary. His small, shrunken form is shaking and he bends over, puts his hands on his knees and pants heavily. He coughs up a bit of blood before wiping it away with the back of his hand.
"Is... is Young Midoriya okay?" He heaves in between breaths. His eyebrows are furrowed with concern, wrinkle lines loud and on display.
Shouta has many things against All Might, but he will never deny the kinship that he and Midoriya share. "He's... unconscious as of the moment. Poor kid cried himself to sleep," Shouta replies, mouth pulled into a taut line.
The blond man inspected his student, blue eyes searching for injuries. "What happened? I was only told that he was in the infirmary and that it was urgent but he doesn't seem harmed," Toshinori points out.
Shouta inhales a deep breath as a sharp pang shoots throughout his chest and spreads. "Midoriya..."
"Let's save it for the meeting. The other teachers must be informed as well," Nedzu interrupts.
Toshinori's eyebrows furrow, "meeting?"
"Correct! The matter at hand is not one to be taken lightly. It seems that there are things U.A can improve on to help Midoriya and students just like him."
Shouta glances over at his sleeping student. There is no way in hell he'd be leaving Midoriya's side any time soon. "When's the meeting?"
"In approximately five minutes. We better hurry to make it in time, yes?" The mouse-rat hybrid claps his hands together twice.
"What about Young Midoriya?" Toshinori voices Shouta's concerns before he could himself.
"Don't you worry. I'm having Recovery Girl watch over him."
Shouta purses his lips together, "I already know the situation at hand. I'm not needed at the meeting. I'm going to stay here."
"Oh but that's just more reason for you to come. You have the first-hand experience. You're his homeroom teacher. We need all the details possible in order to help Midoriya to our fullest!" Nedzu reasons and while Shouta knows he's right, his chest constricts at the thought of being away from the green-haired boy.
Midoriya Izuku almost fell out of his grasp and it could happen again so easily. Shouta wants to cry again; he wants to curl up in his mom's arms like a child and sob his troubles away. He wants to scream out his fears into the night sky— to let the anxiety that consumes him ride away in the clouds.
But Shouta is not a child. He hasn't been for a while now.
Shouta relents, "fine."
-
The three of U.A's most valued staff make it to the meeting with just one minute to spare. When the wooden door slides open with a creak of despair, chatter ceases and an odd pressure fills the air. It pushes down on Shouta and weighs on his shoulders. He allows them to sag and his posture to drop. He's too tired to do otherwise.
"Hello staff," Nedzu says and though it usually would've come out cheery, today it only sounds serious. The whole room tenses up.
No one in the staff is unfamiliar with Nedzu's scary aura. The rat-mouse hybrid oftentimes lets the ever-lasting blood lust shadow in the background— present, yet hidden. But today, it hangs heavy, spiraling all around him. Despite it not being angled at any one of them, it still sends shivers down each of their spines, Shouta's included.
"Right, well, let's get down to business. Around 4:15 pm today Midoriya Izuku attempted to take his own life," Nedzu states matter-of-factly. Because the truth is, it is a fact. And it punches Shouta right down to his core.
All other teachers blank at the principals words. An uneasy tension rests upon them and concern fills every pore in their body. Toshinori visibly gasps, the sound filling the void of silence the room sat in. "W-what?" He whispers, barely audible— like he couldn't believe the words that left Nedzu's mouth.
"Thankfully, Aizawa was there to stop him. As of right now, he is physically okay and sleeping in Recovery Girl's room. However, that doesn't mean Midoriya isn't still suffering from serious mental trauma. This meeting is being held to decide where to move forward and how to handle this situation."
Shouta watches as Toshinori's eyes become glassy, filled with unbelieving tears. His lips quiver and he just looks so broken. He stares at his open palms, before resting his shaking head in them. Even after his fight with All for One, the man has never looked like this. Shouta has to look away.
The meeting lasts well over an hour. Shouta had to retell the past couple of hours— and weeks leading up to today and the changes within Midoriya— to all of his coworkers as if it didn't affect him in the slightest. He tries to keep it factual, because if he doesn't, he's just going to cry in front of everyone.
But the fact is: Aizawa Shouta is an emotional man. He doesn't wear his heart on his sleeves, in fact, he buries his heart underneath layers and layers of clothes and skin. But when he cares, he cares. It doesn't matter if his heart is laying at the bottom of a deep, trenching ocean. It will always float up to the top.
He knows it. His coworkers know it.
So if he chokes on his words and has to take a breather every so often while talking, then no one mentions it.
The meeting results in this: mandated, free therapy for all students, not just Midoriya Izuku. Even if certain cases are not as alarming as Midoriya's, that doesn't make them any less important. Every child deserves to have an outlet; every kid deserves to have help and a guiding hand.
Hound Dog, as a licensed therapist, will be one option for the students. For those who don't feel as comfortable sharing things with a teacher, there will be four different psychologists brought in. Shouta knows, from experience, that not every therapist is a perfect match. It took him five different therapists to find one who truly helped him. That's why he vouched for that, and no teachers disagreed with him.
For now, though, regarding Midoriya himself, he will be under intense watch for the next couple of weeks. While there was talk about putting him in a mental hospital, it was largely voted against on the note that research has found that those hospitals often make things worse rather than help.
Midoriya will have his choice of a therapist, one that could even be outside of U.A. The school would handle all expenses for whom ever he chooses.
(Shouta almost wants to become his therapist. He wants to help so, so badly. But he knows not only would that not be beneficial towards Midoriya, but to himself as well).
They have to inform Midoriya Inko. Shouta wants to vomit the moment that's brought up. The bile rises so quickly in his throat, it catches him off guard. He coughs and swallows it back down, but the horrid taste lingers on his tongue.
The thought of having to tell big-eyed, overly emotional Midoriya Inko that her own son tried to kill himself commit suicide made him sick. He already knows that her son is her whole world. He knows from the times she's come into the police station after a villain attack, wrinkles etched into her skin with her constant stream of tears. He knows from the way she calls Izuku every two days to check in on him. He knows just from the way she looks at Izuku: with pure adoration and motherly love.
Shouta's heart clenches.
It was decided she would be called after the meeting ends.
Most importantly, they need to talk to Midoriya himself. It seems this isn't his first attempt, if the words "the first failure" were anything to go by(Shouta ignores the pain but his voice still tremors when he says it and his hands still shake underneath the desk).
By the end of the meeting, Shouta's head pounds and exhaustion tugs at his eyelids. He just wants to sleep this all away, to wake up and find out it was all just a terrible nightmare.
(It's not, he knows it's not. He still closes his eyes for a second longer than usual and opens them to see if it is).
He refuses to sleep, though. Not until he knows the kid is okay. And despite him sleeping safe and sound in the infirmary, Shouta knows with everything within in that Midoriya Izuku is far from okay.
He resigns himself to another sleepless night and walks back to the infirmary, hands shaking in his pockets and head hanging low. He's not sure where to go from here, but he's more than willing to figure it out to help his student.