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shibaraki · 2 years

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PENUMBRA ┊ AIZAWA SHOUTA

synopsis: navigating life with two identities is no easy feat. falling for the underground hero known as Eraserhead makes keeping your worlds separate that much harder. it was bound to fall apart at some point.

tags: AFAB GN reader, strangers to friends to lovers, secret identity (reader is a vigilante; wears a mask; reader has a quirk), minor oc characters, morally conflicting relationships, romantic + sexual tension, cats + coffee, hurt/comfort, canon typical violence (weapons; quirk brutality; kidnapping; villain gun quirk), quirkless discrimination, criticisms of hero system, blood loss + injury (bruises, fractures, bullet wounds, reader gets stitches), mutual pining, making out + heavy petting, I promise this is fluffier than it sounds, mild angst with a happy + hopeful ending

wc: 20k

It happens between blinks. Always a forgiving, dreamless sleep.

When you wake to the obnoxious wail of your alarm the honeysuckle sun has already unsheathed itself from the horizon. “Fuck,” you groan, smacking your lips in displeasure at the dry, cotton feeling in your mouth.

Three and a half hours was better than none at all. You had fifteen minutes to make yourself moderately presentable — wipe away the sand from your cornea with cold water, lethargically brush your teeth, appraise the shadows beneath your eyes and twist in the mirror reflection as you try to map out any fresh bruises.

You paint over the purples and blues, wincing as you go. Most were easily covered up by your shirt but you couldn’t take any chances; not the slip of your sleeve, or the dip of your collar. Nocturne’s remnants littered your body, and he would surely recognise them at first glance.

Your lips shape slowly around the consonants and vowels. “Aizawa,” repeated again and again as you dress yourself. Not Eraser now, just Aizawa. Kill the latter part of yourself, saved only for the night. Don’t slip up. You tuck your rudimentary wings back into thick, woolly socks pulled up over your ankles, snug around your calves. Wearing just jeans and a sweater always feels unnaturally light the morning after a patrol.

The key eases into the lock. You turn it clockwise, and try the handle once more before you leave. In passing you can hear your neighbours beginning to wake and get ready for their day. Hasty footsteps echo throughout the stairway as you descend it, too behind on time to even think about waiting for the lift.

You start down the road towards the cafe and tug your jacket closer to your chest. The pavements are wet, rainwater fed into the uprooted cracks. Tired as you are, there’s a restless giddiness building in your chest, and it spurs you on further. Aizawa is a creature of habit — he would be there, rumpled and windswept, as he always is.

The mundane routine wasn’t something you disliked. Not everything had to be exhilarating or dangerous for it to be worthwhile. Life was an accumulation of small victories. When the sun is up, that is when you get to enjoy the fruits of your labour; people in your community with relaxed smiles, unrestrained laughter, going about their day without the burden of worry.

You enter through the back door of Meowtini. Waiting diligently for your arrival, as soon as they hear the click of a lock the cats are flocking to the staff room, a cacophony of yowls of every pitch. “Okay, okay! I hear you!” you laugh, pushing them away gently with the tip of your foot as you try to get to the kitchen.

One leg after the other, you step over the security gate. “No kitties in the kitchen,” your voice threads together in a sing-song cadence, hands busy at work collecting the tubs of cat food from the pantry. “I promise it’s comin’!”

It couldn’t have been more than ten minutes since your handover, Hideki, had left, and still they behave as if they’d been abandoned for weeks.

At the cafe there are three rotations. The morning shift runs from eight till twelve. During lunch the doors would be locked, allowing the feline residents reprieve from the public. Second is the afternoon, three till six, and third is the late night shift, reserved strictly for employees able to bake and restock the display cases for the following day.

You always took the morning shift, without fail.

A quiet bell sounds by the entrance and all ears in the vicinity perk up. Aizawa enters at eight on the dot just as he does every Friday, still in the all black jumpsuit and weighted capture weapon you saw him in only hours ago, now with his usual work bag slung over his arm.

You straighten self consciously and smooth down the front of your apron. His furtive stare finds yours through the second security door, peeking over top the new missing person poster tacked front and centre, slightly obscured by the dark hair curtaining his face.

Some of the older cats slink out from their hiding spots, mewling like kittens. They’re only ever like this with him; their internal clockwork has synced to his arrival, you think. It’s only natural — Aizawa spoils them more than any other regular.

They shuffle back as the door pushes inward, and he slips through the narrow space into the warmth of your cafe. You watch with inundated fondness as he takes a moment to breathe in the scent, those broad shoulders lifting, chest expanding with his lungs.

Aizawa bends forward like a puppet cut free of its strings and proffers his hand to the feline closest to him. Ren, an older long haired cat with a black coat to match his own. You get a glimpse of the muscle hidden under that plain fabric, as it slips forward over his bruised collar, and you swallow thickly.

“G’morning,” you call to him, turning to busy yourself with his usual order. A red eye — black coffee with one added shot of espresso — and a glass of cold water. You massage the ache in your knuckles as the coffee drips steadily into the shot glass, conscious of the broken skin on your third and fourth knuckle that you’d covered with concealer.

You hear his gruff response, voice low and rough with fatigue in a way that prickles at the nape of your neck. There’s a familiar, pointed weight at your back that fades the moment you turn, his stare now set firmly on the baked goods in the display counter.

“Want one?” his eyes flicker up, meeting your own as you set the coffee on the surface. “You can give up the bit, Aizawa. I’m already well aware you’ve got a secret sweet tooth”.

It’s still odd interacting with him like this — as yourself, plain clothed and unmasked, voice as clear as the bell by the door. The first time he had stepped foot in the cafe you’d been overwhelmed by trepidation and fear, only to realise he didn’t recognise you at all.

“You pick something,” he murmurs, reaching across. Your fingers are still looped through the handle of the mug, and they brush against his rough skin as he takes it from you. There’s coarse, dark hair on the back of his hand, you notice. “So long as it’s warm”.

Pleased, you hum an affirmative, picking up the pair of tongs behind the counter and plucking one of the croissants from the shelf; crust crisp with a soft yielding centre, brushed with golden egg.

“Hard week?”

Something indiscernible shifts in his expression. He considers you, “What makes you say that?”

This is another of those fleeting instances that you think he may have connected the dots. Face pinched in quiet suspicion, he visibly weighs the possibilities. Your pulse throbs on the back of your tongue as the blood rushes to your ears. You warily telegraph your movements and ignore the urge to turn away from prying eyes.

“Just making conversation,” you smile, though it is strained despite your efforts, and gesture to your collarbones. “I saw the bruises, so…”

A beat of silence passes, and you are forced to exhale on the off chance that your quirk activated itself amidst the one sided panic. When Aizawa accepts your flimsy excuse with a lazy nod you are forced to temper the immediate relief that follows.

“I did run into trouble. Though not the kind you’re thinking,” he continues to speak, bending to pet one of the younger cats. Suzu, judging by the broken mewl. He sounds… unbearably fond. “Just someone that likes to get on my nerves”.

Blunted teeth sink into your tongue. The toaster oven pings behind you, startling you out of your gentle astonishment. Taking the croissant out of the oven, the hot air plumes upward to sting your eyes, and you set it onto a small plate.

“That’s hardly distinct. I’ve heard you say that about everyone in your life,” you tease lightly. “Starting to think you enjoy it”.

“I wonder about that,” Aizawa huffs, sliding the plate across the counter and stepping around the flock that has inevitably gathered at his feet. He hugs the coffee mug to his sternum, glancing toward his usual spot.

Despite being the only person to arrive this early, he always checks. Recently, he has also begun to ask, “Too busy to join me?”

Weeks ago, you’d taken an early break and graded some papers for him while he slept, and he had yet to forget it. “You do a guy's work for him one time,” you laugh, head shaking amusedly. No doubt there were enough poorly written student essays in that worn leather bag to fill your skull with cotton. “I have to feed the cats”.

Do your own job, Hero. The comment sits right at the tip of your tongue, and it takes conscious effort to smother it, pressed up against the back of your teeth. Too much like Nocturne.

Aizawa levels you with a playful glare — playful by his standards — and his nose wrinkles above the ribbons of carbon alloy coiled around his neck. Then he sleuths off to his booth, gait heavy as if he were wading through wet mud.

Now you’re free to enjoy the sides of him Nocturne doesn’t get to see; the man you knew as a force to be reckoned with, the voice of reason and stickler for the law, draping himself across the booth like he was part of the furniture, where he could just be; embedded into a scene that gently unfolded around him.

Ren leaps up onto the cushioned seat, stretching her limbs across his thighs with toes spread. The pro hero slumps down and slips his fingers into her thick fur, head tipping back as the rigidity bleeds from his body. You drink in the way his throat shifts when he swallows, how the dark stubble on his cheeks shadows the underside of his jaw, and quickly cast your eyes to the countertop.

Aizawa Shouta is unbearably handsome in all manner of ways. You’re sure he would regard you with flat disdain if ever you told him so. The unkempt, rugged appearance was all purposeful — being overlooked or underestimated was the whole point. But you liked it. A lot.

You recall the whiplash of seeing him during a press conference all those months ago; hair brushed and neatly styled into a half up do, a youthful face freshly shaven, his suit cinching tight in all the right places. Thankfully his facial hair is as stubborn as he is, and you never needed to grieve it much.

Paradoxically, you are far more masked standing behind the cafe counter now than you were in your gear. There was caution and forethought in every word, every movement; constantly weighing the possible outcomes came with a lot of mental fatigue. You wanted to reach out and touch him, to grasp every version of yourself and overlay them in his mind until it painted a full picture. Look at me.

Maybe it’s silly, with him sitting so close. But you missed him. You wanted to banter with him again, poke and prod until he got a little rough.

Eventually a pair of friends trickle in, bringing a brief gust of cold air when they greet you. The dewy morning sun is bright as it peeks over the surrounding buildings, glittering faintly where the condensation clings to the window panes and casting dappled shadows across the floor. You serve them together and make idle conversation, sneaking quick glances at the weathered hero. He rested against his fist, squishing the fat of his cheek.

“Thank you. Here, since you’re new, take a few bribes too,” you restrain a smile at the sight of him nodding off over his paperwork as you press a few small tubes of wet cat treats into their open palms. “It’ll help warm them up to ya”.

When the coast is clear you gather some for yourself, fiddling nervously with the packaging and approaching Aizawa’s booth. He’s awake again now. Coffee cup empty and croissant half eaten. The man is a grazer; when he eats Aizawa will nibble around the edges and save the centre. You hear the rough scratch of his pen across paper. Spine arched and tail quivering happily, Ren spreads her toes as she pushes up into his equally heavy handed back pats.

You know well enough that he’s aware of your presence. Subtle, his shoulders roll back, opening his chest, chin tilted toward you and hair tucked behind his ear to show he’s listening while he works, leg unfolding from beneath his body and stretching until the tip of his toe taps the opposite seat.

That’s just how he is. Eraserhead’s intentions are largely unspoken. A test, in a way. Tuning into the body language of others and deciphering it is what kept you alive most nights. Hearing the question, the bid for more explanation, the silent praise behind his less-than-expressive expressions had been child’s play.

Not here though. You needed to maintain a level of ignorance to keep his guard down. Standing at the end of the table you ask if you can sit despite knowing you can. He answers again by gesturing his pen over the table, never lifting his gaze.

You slide across from him. “How’s the pastry?”

“Groundbreaking,” he concedes dryly before tearing off another bite.

“Good answer,” you snort, resting your elbows on the table and leaning forward to shamelessly read what he’s working on. The handwriting is barely legible. “What’s the assignment about this week?”

“Overlap of ethics and law. It was supposed to be a two thousand word essay on any case study of their choosing,” he bends back the corner of the papers laid out in front of him to emphasise the thickness and deadpans. “This is all from one student. Five times the word count I set”.

“Midoriya again, I presume?”

The long suffering sigh is all the answer you need. You decidedly do not watch the slow swipe of his thumb across his mouth. His lips part and he sucks the remaining crumbs. Heat flashes through your body that almost makes your tea seem cold.

“Should never have clarified that the word count was a soft limit,” he mutters, clicking the end of his pen twice. “Kid is terrible at cutting down his own work. I advised him to only include the key sections of the essay he said ‘but Sensei, it’s all important’”.

“Sensei,” you repeat, mimicking his voice. “Why did you become a teacher again?”

“I regret it every day,” he replies. You can tell it’s without malice, and not just by the fondness there. He doesn’t mean it — never does. Aizawa Shouta is forthright and honest about everything but his personal feelings.

“Sure,” your cheeks hurt with the effort not to laugh; amusement hidden safely behind the rim of your mug. The tea burns, and you feel it all the way down to your stomach as you swallow. “If you say so”.

Dark eyes narrow in on you. It becomes another of those moments where the proverbial walls are closing in. Pushing back is useless, so you have learned to sit and wait. He’s always… surveying you. You think, deep down, his instincts are telling him things that he desperately wants to put a name to.

“I do,” he rumbles, absentmindedly circling his pen against paper. He twirls it between each knuckle with ease, staring at you for a long while before he says: “You remind me of somebody I know”.

Bracing yourself for collision does not lessen the impact. As expected, this is when the guilt invites itself in and replaces your fear of being caught with the nauseating shame that too often comes with lying to someone you care about. “Is that a good or a bad thing?” you ask, rubbing at that frantic, skittish thing behind your sternum. “I can never tell with you”.

Aizawa laughs. More of a snuffed out, breathy sound than anything, but a laugh all the same. You feel it echo to every nerve ending, simmering into a pleasant buzz. He didn’t do it much, and as Nocturne you knew it was embarrassingly obvious how hard you tried to pluck the reaction from him. So much so that you’d started to suspect he repressed it on purpose.

“It’s a good thing,” he murmurs, overturning another page of Midoriya’s work. Your heart jumps at the unfettered warmth in his tone. Then, following a short pause, he adds, “Mostly”.

You’re semi content to watch him work. There are always questions, but you’re afraid of what he might see in you if you ask. Forgetting yourself would lead to a lapse in control. Disturbance in the deception might not create an immediate break, but restless, inquisitive Eraserhead would not be able to keep his nails from picking at the frayed thread until the tapestry fell apart.

Names do not often come up in conversation, only ever by accident. Mostly, he refers to the majority of his class and his daughter with half-baked terms of endearment. You already knew many of the students at UA — albeit not personally, but it was clear that maintaining a strict level of anonymity for his kids was important to him.

So you dance around the lines he had so boorishly lain, flirting with them a little, but only if you can’t help it. It’s a repetitiveness you’ll never tire of, it’s scripted exchanges and the subtle coaxing until he’s there, in your magnetism. You liked how he’d smile as he receives the tube of cat treat, even if it is a private exchange with the cat in his lap and not you.

How’s work, how’ve you been sleeping, did you shave again?

Work is work, sleeping hours should be longer, do you often pay attention to my shaving habits?

People filter in as the time passes. You return to your place at the counter soon enough, kept in place by one of the newer, clingier kittens, Suzu, sprawled on the top of your right shoe.

You call out to Aizawa as he saunters toward the door. Once again, his stare lingers for longer than necessary on the missing person poster you had tacked to the window. He slouches further into himself at the volume, hands deep in his pockets when he turns to squint with displeasure.

Wearing a sheepish grin, you wave the little powder blue stamp in the air. When Aizawa leaves his face is flushed and hidden behind the sturdy material of his capture weapon, yet another ink impression of a cat on his pink point card.

Exhaustion catches up to you near the end of your shift. Your coworker, Saeko, a young woman fresh out of college, had arrived miraculously early. She gave you a playful, disapproving once over, smiling til a crooked tooth peeks from between her thin lips.

“Senpai. With all due respect, you look worse than I did during my final exams last year,” she snorted, jaw rolling as she idly chewed a fresh stick of gum. The teasing jab is fermented with fresh mint. “You can totally dip, if you want. I got it from here”.

“Are you sure?”

A wet smack of her lips. She shucked off her coat with a shrug, untucking the ends of blonde hair caught in the collar. It fell just below the hemline of her skirt, and you saw a faint ladder stretch in her dark tights when she stretched to hang it in the staff room. “Yea, it’s cool. Unless you’re still stickin’ around to wait for Melatonin-san? Thought he usually came at the ass crack of dawn”.

“That’s not his name and you know it,” you laughed, bundling yourself back up with a passing glance to the back window. Trepidatious, dark clouds make your little concrete world a smidge duller. “But no, I’ve got nothing left to do. Aizawa already stopped by”.

“Aizawa,” she recites, brows wiggling suggestively. “He asked for your number yet?”

“No, Saeko”.

“Want me to get it for you?” she pressed the tip of her index finger to her left eye. There’s gold tinted circuitry in the sclera paving toward the iris. It is vivid orange, without a pupil, and it appears to pulse like the lense of a camera. “On the house. Maybe if you get laid you’ll actually be able to sleep”.

Jacket wrapped close to your chest to brace for the incoming gust, your hand tightened around the door handle. “No, Saeko,” you repeated with feeling, as though you were chiding a toddler. “I mean it. No illegal data syphoning at work”.

Her voice carried through into the side alley, all the way onto the bustling street. Suit yourself, she cackled. The glaring implication that Aizawa could be interested in anything beyond pleasantries fed yarn into that ever-present knot of anxiety in your gut.

As Eraserhead he entertained Nocturne just fine, but that relationship was more akin to that of a kitten latched to his pant leg than anything else.

Even if it was a possibility of something more, that flame would be diminished as soon as he found out who you were.

You rub your hands together, creating heat with the friction and massaging it into your cheeks. The cold bites at the tip of your nose. Falling back into your normal route is natural. Sewn into muscle memory, your legs carry you back home and the thoughts wash over you.

The apartment seems less welcoming when the sun is up. You thought it might be the clutter, or the sound of your upstairs neighbours slow dancing in the kitchen. Creaky floorboards groan under your feet, above your head, as you find no reason to avoid the weak spots. There were things that needed to be done, and little time to do it.

Redress the wounds which have not scabbed. Throw some food into the air fryer and scrub your gear clean while it cooks. Eat well, press on all the areas of your body that feel tender and decide to take a painkiller. Plug in your phone and your mask, turn on the TV and listen to the news report as you stretch. Check your costume on the clothes horse, spend close to an hour examining for tears or concerning damage before laying it out on the end of your bed. Nap.

Blearily, you wake in a dark room, remnants of the day barely visible where it has slipped beneath the horizon, and wash your cotton mouth down with a glass of water. The news cycle is repeating, a red banner rolling bright across the lower half of the screen with urgency. Sidekicks from the Endeavor agency had pursued a villain from the Shizuoka border to the Meguro line on the Shuto Expressway, effectively destroying, in part, one of the main arteries into central Tokyo.

Not your jurisdiction. Not theirs either, if you think about it. Typical. You pat around aimlessly for the TV remote, lowering the volume to a whisper with a heavy sigh as you scoot toward the edge of your bed.

Unsteady on your feet, you amble toward the pinboard kept on your accent wall. An oeuvre of loss. You run your fingertips along the pins until they stop on one particular thread. Ono Mizuki. There are others — lines of every colour, yellow, blue, green, orange, interwoven and connected, overlapping from point to point until the pattern becomes clear.

Tonight you’d patrol further east of the prefecture. There’s one specific neighbourhood in which all the threads crossed. This area was the only other similarity between the victims aside from quirk status, or lack thereof.

Shadows pleat across your floorboards. The room is always a bit stuffy after you’ve squeezed into your gear. The kevlar strapped securely around your torso beneath the layers of clothing is weighted, and you’re quietly comforted by its sturdiness.

Strapping on your utility belt is the fun part. Three pouches secured either side of your hips — tucked into each are a basic first aid kit, flash bombs, smoke bombs and a few nightsticks. In the holsters is a granite baton and a small combat knife. Cuffs confiscated last week, all you have righ now are zip ties. You sniff petulantly. Eraserhead’s fault.

Even on the nights you don’t run into him during a patrol, Eraser’s presence is ubiquitous. A veritable shadow. He could be anywhere, could be anyone, and it was comforting in an odd way. You supposed that is what made him such a renowned underground hero. The possibility of being caught by him was enough to deter most criminals.

That sentiment was not unlike the legacy left by All Might, yet comparing the two — comparing him to any other daylight left an unpleasant taste in your mouth. Less bitter-sweet, more bitter-resentment.

By definition, heroes are not supposed to be human. Humanbeings are multifaceted. Messy. Heroes are scrubbed to the bone, puritanical, manufactured to symbolise something bigger. A bright, special kind of person in a black and white landscape; an iron club wielded by the voices of the people; the displacement of their personal responsibility.

To be a hero is to be the penultimate. A moment of choice, gestures of grandeur against one great foe that unites the people. They answer fears, like a God would.

It’s theatre.

You found solace in Eraserhead’s own translucence. His stubborn humanity set him apart. You had the unique opportunity to see Aizawa from other angles, to observe the ways in which he illuminated the facets of his soul. He was not all that dissimilar to you.

The lackadaisical man openly bore his heart on his sleeve only to convince you it’s a trick of the light. A hero that could shoulder accountability and admit fault. He’s well meaning and rough around the edges to ward off those he deems intolerant. Quiet when he knows to be with the memory of a fox — the ears of one, too. Carelessness wouldn’t be easily forgiven.

Thoughts of him carry you across a grey landscape, towering rooftops and buildings that dwarfed you. The sound of your feet hitting the gravel barely echoes. It had taken months to learn to lighten your footsteps, and even longer to know where to put them. Eraserhead wasn’t the only person that liked to remind you that your fighting stance needed work.

Dropping into the narrow alley below, you begin to weave through the prefecture's interconnected veins, senses attuned to your surroundings and prepared; any sudden noises, a shift in atmosphere, an item out of place, your breathing came to a stand still.

Something prickles under your skin as you approach the singular street where all the victims had once been. There is the innate feeling that something wrong has happened here — the kind that beats against your breast bone and begs you to turn back. At first glance the area isn’t overtly suspicious. Some of the buildings are boarded up, broken into or covered in anti-HPSC graffiti, but that wasn’t necessarily a red flag.

More often than not, areas that received less government funding tended to receive fewer patrols from heroes, and when they did, compensation for damages was rarely offered. It would need to go through the courts, and every day people did not have the means to fight a branch of government when they were busy with mouths to feed. Causation aside, their anger was natural, understood.

The true source of your discomfort comes from a warehouse at the far end of the road. A big, hulking structure, outer paint peeling to reveal varying layers of sun baked hues, encircled by fire escapes fastened firmly to each floor that gave it an almost skeletal appearance. Creaking in its decrepitude, you hear groans echoing throughout the empty rafters. That unnerving emptiness follows you in, finding a wide empty space entrenched in shadows.

Except, it feels strangely lived in. Touched by something. Light filters through the window panes enough to outline the tall pillars, looming and evenly spaced. Rubble has been swept into the corners, faint lines from the bristles in the dirt, and tread marks left by the wielder.

There’s an elevator in the back that you daren’t risk using. You apply some of your weight to the floor and it yields as though it would plummet. You come across a trash bag full of beer bottles and food tubs, which upon closer inspection, are mostly filled with needles and bloodied fabric.

Tipping the contents onto the floor would only alert someone if they returned later. You wanted to rummage through it piece by piece, maybe bag some of it up to hand off, but as thick as your gloves are you didn’t want to chance being pricked or contaminating something.

Your shoulder sag with a deep sigh, the sound crackling through your voice changer. One thing that does catch your eye is a bracelet — or what was once a bracelet. The chain has snapped and most of the beads are lost, but a few remain caught by the thicker part of the clasp. They’re speckled like granite and warm coloured, brown, green and orange. You can make out some kanji script etched into the beads. It is not a name you know, but an instinctive urge encourages you to keep it.

The bracelet is bagged and heavy in your utility belt as you peruse what’s left of the space, passing various rusted machinery covered in tarp. There’s a vice fixed to one of the work benches. The wood is stained dark, smatterings of dried blood dotting the lever. You try not to think about it.

Tension slips notably from your muscles as the distance lengthens between you and the warehouse. Heading back west, this route winds through the busier parts of the city. People of every shape are weaving around one another in every direction, filing out from the clubs and bars in a chorus of raucous laughter. Non locals might call this the heart but you know the heart lies in where they’re going — home.

You stick to the rooftops to maintain a vantage point. The air is thick with the bitter smell of alcohol and street food. Vendors made good money on nights like this; you feel your stomach twist in hunger, mouth watering at the sight of browning yakitori sizzling just below.

A woman stands off to the side, picking off the morsels of meat from her little stick, visibly unstable on her feet. The glow of satisfaction on her flushed face dims with discomfort when her foot narrowly misses the curb, and she bends to rub where the strap of her heels crosses over her ankle.

Your attention is magnetised to the figure near her. Unremarkable at first glance. The two stand out clearly, both immovable against the tide of civilians stumbling toward Futoura station, much further up the road. He’s watching her intently. Beady focused, unblinking. You notice another pair above his— no, a mimicry of them. Eyespots blending into a close-cropped head of hair.

His movements are carefully telegraphed as he begins to follow her. In turn, you do the same. The pace picks up when she nears a corner, mostly vacant, forking off into an alleyway that leads to the back of a club. Quicker than you could’ve expected, he throws a look over his shoulder before crowding her into the shadows.

The arch of your boot meets the ledge. You take a deep, deep breath. Desperate and obstructed by a large hand, her frightened yelp is cut short by the abrupt freezing of time.

You fall through it. The sensation is odd, as if you can feel every atmospheric thread breaking around you like spun sugar. Gravity is merciless. Untouched by your quirk, you drop hard as a stone, and you exhale.

Everything resumes. The dissonance of stepping into a frame and suddenly being written into it is hard to explain. You buffer and snap forward like a band into the maw of the alley. Startled by the impact, the pursuer swings his elbow back and reaches you first. They often do. Your quirk was good for gaining an advantage or getting away, but it did nothing to enhance your own speed.

Your balance is terrible, Eraserhead murmured blithely in the back of your mind. Ground yourself. Keep your upper body aligned over your lower.

“Fuck—!”

Blood is pumping frantically through your veins. Every pained grunt rings loud in your ears, tuning out the muffled cries coming from behind you. There’s a tenderness blossoming across your left side, and it throbs by the fifth and sixth rib.

While you might be well adjusted to fighting in the dark now, you’re still human. Living, breathing, feeling. Your body and your mind must be split at times like this — two creatures on your shoulder, one that begs to run and live, another that wills you to fight.

The assailant dives forward in one sluggish motion, rewarded with the sharp chink of your armoured glove as his fist connects with hard steel. He reels away in pain, cradling the injured hand to his chest while the other frantically reaches into his coat pocket.

Polished silver glints in the moonlight. Your boot meets the hilt of his knife and it pirouettes into the shadowed alley, skidding across the gravel. A look of pure rage crosses his face and his mouth splits open. Fangs. You’re ready when he charges, arms flailing heavily, a roar pushed from deep in his gut.

Your lungs bloat, and again, you hold. Everything freezes in time and the sound cuts out. A large hand caked in dirt hovers only a hairsbreadth from your nose. His skin smells of cheap alcohol and cigarettes. You step aside and draw your arm back.

Exhale. One fast, hard punch to the man’s unprotected jaw and his head whips to the right, body arching sideways as all his momentum snaps backward like a rubber band. Time resumes and you power through the sudden sensory overload as his body collapses to the floor with a weighted thud.

The lack of movement doesn’t deter you from dragging the knife forward with your foot, eyes focused on the unconscious stranger as you crouch to pick it up. A sharp sensation shoots through your muscles as you twirl the weapon between your fingers. It’s clearly new and not well kept. His stance had been entirely amateur.

After tying his wrists together with multiple zip ties, you turn your attention to his victim. “Are you physically unharmed?” you ask with a gentle tone that still bleeds through your voice changer.

The woman he'd pinned to the brick wall is curled up by the dumpster, knees tucked protectively to her chest. She has her phone held to her ear with a shaking hand, the fear visibly wracking through her form, stuttering her words.

“Yes, I— are you—,” she stammers, tears spilling over her pink cheeks. There’s an insistent, tinny voice coming through her mobile speaker, but she appears unaware of it as she appraises you, her eyes wide with what looks to be gratitude. “Are you a hero?”

“Not really,” you smile at the question and hope she can see the assurance in the happy squint of your own.

Flipping the knife to pinch the blade, you beckon her to take the hilt. Sirens wail in the far off distance. Shuffling closer in careful, considerate movements, you murmur encouragement as she takes the weapon from you.

Blue and red cut through the darkness, flashing interchangeably and obscuring her vision. As you move to leave the scene you tell her, “Ask whoever’s on dispatch Nocturne said to send Eraserhead. He’s the best hero I know”.

Inhale, hold, flee. You are gone from the canvas before anyone can blink.

The night is alive with a muted bustling. People on all walks of life filter out into the neon lit streets, worn by the day and rushing home to their warm beds. A sense of calm settles around your bones, bleeds into the ache left by old wounds and quietens the restlessness that you permanently house in your body.

You’re teetering on the precipice of an old office building — a publishing house, if you remember correctly. The cement beneath your boots shifts like a loose tooth as you lean forward, heart reflexively crawling up your throat at the drop, pulse rocketing in your ears.

Here, you are simultaneously burning and at ease. There’s a satisfaction that comes only when you are standing exactly where you belong. Freedom tastes like three minutes to midnight; crisp air and the faint scent of oncoming rain gathering in the dense cumuli above.

You smile behind your headgear, adjusting the straps drawn tight around your masked hood with thick gloved fingers. The carbon fiber is an extension of you now, a permanent part of your skin, leaving behind a phantom pressure face even when you have stored this part of yourself away.

That yearning for self is constant and comes with the setting sun. You exhale and feel the warmth of your breath stick to your cheeks. Swaying against a gust of wind, steadied by a practiced hand, your arms spread wide in a welcoming embrace.

Like every night before, you whisper to the place you grew up in: “I’m home”.

Amidst your reverie, you sense a shift in the atmosphere. Barely audible footfalls. Boots scuff against loose gravel. The new presence clouds your senses, as if it has physically reached out to strum the dipole between you and him, and you’re turning before his feet make contact with the rooftop.

Poppy red eyes scan drag over your form. The clothing you wear is padded and loose fitting for concealment, but still you find yourself conscious of the shape of your body. Humming under your skin is the urge to cock a hip, maybe tilt your head in a manner that is coy, to close the distance between you.

“Surprise?”

“Hardly,” he drawls. “There’s really nothing I can say to stop you from bothering me on my patrol, is there?”

“You catch on quick,” you reply with a grin. He may not see it behind the mask, but he hears it. “Only took you… what, six months?”

He looks rightfully exasperated, “Seven”.

Stepping down from the ledge with barely a sound, your hands clasp against the small of your back and bouncing on your toes despite yourself. “You’ve been counting? That’s cute, Eraser”.

Warmth trails behind him and plumes into the air as he exhales tiredly. You follow his movements as he comes to a stop at your side, hand flexing into a fist and out, overlooking the busy streets below, much like you had. “The woman you saved earlier asked me to extend her gratitude,” he returns, ignoring your teasing comment.

His words temper the playful atmosphere. A quiet bud of pride begins to bloom and your smile wanes into something bashful. Saved, he’d called it. As exhilarating as fighting was, the most fulfilling part of being Nocturne may be receiving gratitude.

The gleam in Eraserhead's gaze wasn’t so bad to be on the receiving end of, either; half lidded in a way that suggested he was at ease, the scar cutting over his eye and another across his cheekbone, slightly curved. “She wasn’t injured, was she? I didn’t get the chance to check her over,” you fret.

Another chill dances across the roof and he tucks behind his capture weapon, comically burrowed into the nest of cloth and thick hair. “No, just shaken up,” he reassured. Watching closely from the corner of his eye, he adds, “Refused to tell the detective which direction you ran, though. Quite intent on protecting you”.

You don’t like the suspicion bleeding into his tone — not that you can blame him. Still, “You think I’d ask a civilian to cover for me?”

Eraser sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose with a thumb and forefinger. “No. But you know it doesn’t matter what I think,”— it does, you want to insist, staring as his fingers spread to rub roughly over his closed eyelids — “the victim insists they don’t recall you using a quirk, so you’re in the clear. But you need to tread carefully. The guys at the precinct aren’t happy”.

“Then they should do their job better so schmucks like me don’t need to step in. Didn’t they receive a pay increase just last year?” you respond bitterly. “I don’t need you to lecture me, Eraserhead. I need you to help, because you’re the only one that ever does”.

The steel toe of your boot meets the ledge with a dull thud, chipping off some of the old brick, and you cross your arms defensively over your chest. You release a hiss as a painful throb pulses through your knuckles where they’re tucked into the crook of your elbow.

There’s no hiding it. You flinch as he catches your wrist in one quick movement. Struggling is fruitless, you know that better than anyone, but still you like doing it for show. It has the grip reflexively tightening, keeping you in place with a bid for compliance, authoritatively murmuring come here.

You enjoy it when he touches you. Maybe more than you should. He’s careful, uncharacteristically gentle as his fingers slip beneath the cuff of your glove. Anticipation zips through you and settles in your stomach like a fluttering kaleidoscope. Fingertips brush your palm and suddenly, breathing becomes a conscious act.

Inhale. Exhale. Each greedier than the last. The temptation to draw out this moment is too great. You wanted his hands on you for a little longer.

The night air bites at your skin. Aizawa turns your wrist over in his grasp, delicately tracing the ley lines stitched into your frigid hand, rubbing over the faded bruising by your third and fourth knuckle.

“Seems like the fractures healed nicely,” he stated. “Still should’ve rested it longer”.

You can’t look away from his face; softened like wax to a flame, his frown smoothed out in a way you rarely get to see with the mask on. All of that subdued concern and care directed at the point where your bodies connect — at you.

You reel yourself in. “I am capable of looking after myself, you know,” his tired eyes lift to pin you with a sceptical stare that has your hackles rising. “I am!”

“Right,” he drawls. His touch lingers on your wrist after he lets go, and you cradle it to your chest. Before you’re able to retort, his eyes dim and he steers the topic to something sombre, “Have you heard anything more about the missing civilians since I last saw you?”

You rub idly at your pulse point and it beats rhythmically under the skin. You can still feel him. Even when reminded of such sobering circumstances you can’t help but wish, in the deep recesses of your mind, that he had kept his hands on you.

A young couple stumbles down the lamp lit street. They are hand in hand and sharing unabashed laughter. It’s the sound of freedom; loud and ugly in a way that is wholly human. They stop in a circle of concentrated light and you smile as one man spins the other, their improvisation sloppy in a way that’s heartwarming.

“A young woman by the name of Ono Mizuki disappeared two days ago. Her father is in fits about it,” you shift your weight between each foot, shoulder bumping against him. Eraser doesn’t move. He listens to you attentively as he watches the very same couple dance with one another, and when you think you feel him leaning into your warmth, you decide to put it down to imagination.

“She’d been on her way home from cram school when she was taken. He reported it to the police that night but she hadn’t been missing long enough. They said she probably ran away”.

Eraser releases a heavy breath. “Quirkless?” he asks.

“Yeah”.

“Thought as much”.

You shiver, instinctively seeking shelter from the cold, and Eraserhead lets you press to his side. As the couple walks out of sight, the unattainable image of you bundled up in his arms flashes unbidden through your mind. Hastily, you continue to speak, “I followed her usual route home a few days ago and found her rucksack tossed in the trash with her ID and such. Took it to her father”.

“That’s good,” he murmurs. You try not to preen at what sounds like genuine praise. “Anything unusual at the scene?”

“No,” you step away to turn and face him with resolve. “But I’m going to keep trying to find her. And the rest of them”.

Above your heads, the plume of cloud is severed into two, crisp moonlight spilling through the fissures. Eraserhead hums as he lifts his chin to survey the everchanging canvas and you find yourself following his line of sight to a cluster of stars shaped vaguely like a scorpion.

“And what’ll you do when you find them?” he says after a few beats of comfortable silence. There’s a teasing intonation to his words. “Will you restrain their captor with another zip tie you found at the hardware store?”

You play along, scoffing as he dodges an elbow to the ribs, “You’re making fun of me. You, the reason why my newest pair of cuffs were confiscated in the first place? Who cares what I use. It did the job, didn’t it?”

Eraserhead does not like heroes without potential. Those who act thoughtlessly; who do not know their own strengths and weaknesses; who put others in danger with their insatiable greed. Quirks may have birthed a new world, but power or not, humans would always be the same. Special power, not special people.

Which is why his sudden lightheartedness felt so significant. Eraser trusted you, in his own way. If he didn’t you would’ve found yourself on the receiving end of another tiresome lecture. In the early days he’d even cited one of his young students' quirk law essays, dubbing you ‘more troublesome than a fourteen year old’.

“He was over six feet tall with a strong arachnid quirk. It only worked because you managed to knock him out cold first”.

It’s hard not to preen as he appraises you from his periphery, almost proudly. You let yourself grin; concealed, yet so wide that it’s obvious, “Correct, I apprehended a guy three times the size of me —

Slowly, you exaggerate your point further by winding up your middle finger, and waggling it in his direction in time with the mocking punctuation of your voice,

— And I didn’t even need a fancy scarf to do it”.

His hand wraps around the offending finger and gently pulls it back, applying just enough pressure to cause discomfort. “A little respect goes a long way,” the threat falls flat, his voice entirely amused and lacking malice. “I could easily break this again”.

You exhale a breathless laugh, still making no move to get away from him. “It can’t be much worse than dislocating my shoulder”.

Bingo. Abject regret flits across his features and he lowers his chin behind his capture weapon. “I’ve already apologised for that,” he grunts.

It sounds as if he’s pouting. His grip pulses once, like he couldn’t help himself.

“Actually you reset the bone, handed me an ice pack and threatened to arrest me if I got in the way again,” you recount fondly, your smile widening as he retreats further into his carbon alloy cocoon. “Then you said sorry”.

“That’s what happens when you jump into a fight without announcing yourself,” he mutters, loosening his grip on your finger. Distracted by the new, gentle rub of his thumb into your knuckles, you almost miss it as he tacks on a quiet, “Troublesome”.

Laughter bubbles in your chest, partially conjured by the nerves as he cradles your hand, “You act like I do it on purpose. My body just—”

“—moves on its own,” he interrupts you, finishing the sentence with a light shake of his head. You mourn the loss of heat when he lets go of your hand. The arm falls limp at your side and you feel him tense as it brushes his hip. “You really didn’t use a quirk against the suspect back in the alley?”

“Who knows”.

The topic of your quirk came up every so often — though lesser now that you’d formed some sort of camaraderie. You evaded answering each time he asked. At first it was a matter of trust; your meta ability was rare and easily found in the quirk database should he focus his search on your prefecture. Now it’s purely for security.

As an underground hero Eraserhead played nice with vigilantes, most of the time. There were others, like Knuckleduster, a grievously-injure-first and ask later kinda guy, whom he wasn’t a fan of. But he never tattled on anyone or turned them in, to your knowledge, as long as they abided by the law. If he knew you’d been using your quirk, he was then still legally obligated to report it. Eraser had a lot to lose by keeping secrets on your behalf.

That first night you met this other half of him had been surprisingly startling, because so much of him is unchanging. Eraserhead and Aizawa truly were one in the same. His expression so nonchalant and frayed with exhaustion, eyes narrowed and red rimmed, the incredible manner in which he carried his body — somehow simultaneously lazy and graceful, like an old cat.

Suddenly being wrapped up in white lengths of metal alloy and sent careening into the concrete had been another surprise, albeit less pleasant. The reminder makes your shoulder ache. You recall how his knees straddled either side of your hips, one large hand gripping the nape of your neck while the other bent your uninjured arm at an awkward angle. He’d leaned forward, the full weight of him, hair draping over his shoulders and falling into your vision like a black curtain, mouth rough against the shell of your ear.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

You revisited that particular moment a shameful amount. It was as if his voice had rewritten the memory into one of fondness, and somehow the immense pain you’d endured was merely a blip in the story. Eraserheads gruff, bumbling method of apologising had only endeared him to you more.

Then came the hunger. Voracious, you would finish your less-than-legal nights of patrol with a twisting sensation in your stomach beside the kindling satisfaction. You weren’t willing to seek him out. The Aizawa you know wouldn’t respond well to such an intrusion. Rather, you broadened your routes into the next district over — an area you knew he frequented — and prayed it would play out naturally.

“You’re being quiet”.

You blink out of your stupor as the memories retreat, “What?”

“You’re being unsettlingly quiet,” he repeats. “What are you thinking about?”

The whole of his face is visible now. In the time you were reminiscing he had tucked his hair behind his ears and risen from the confines of his capture weapon. Outlined by cool moonlight, casting a shadow of his lashes against pale cheeks and exaggerating the bags beneath his eyes.

Plainly, “I think I’m realising I'm in too deep”.

Your success at worming into his good graces can only be attributed to your persistence. It helped that you already knew most of his tells—

Exasperation slips from his expression in favour of subdued wonder. His eyes burn red, and you thought if he stared any longer you’d be reduced to nothing but ash.

You hold his gaze and purposefully exhale. His jaw shifts as he swallows, and the air around you is unbearably thick. The pager on his utility belt sounds off once more in staccato beats.

All heroes available within a five kilometre radius please attend.

“Go,” you chide with a wry smirk, “do your job, Hero”.

He grits his teeth and abruptly reaches for his capture weapon in preparation, motions stilted as he glances back at you once more.

“We’re tabling this for later,” he insists firmly, teetering over the weathered rooftop edge. You nod and offer a complacent wave as he leaves, all too relieved that your disappointment is hidden by the mask.

—and kept him unaware that he, too, knew many of yours.

Fatigue wears on you through the night, and you find yourself ambling home at around three in the morning with aching permafrost chipping away at your bones. You wondered if the world fell silent might your joints audibly creak, straining under the weight of your self imposed responsibilities.

Your thighs protest as you leap over to the next building, heart squeezing in anticipation as your lack of force shortens the distance of the jump. Landing hard with a haphazard roll, your body unravels itself and you lay spread out as you catch your breath.

There’s a question you’ve been asked many times by both civilians and public servants alike: Why you?

As you pass yet another missing persons poster, Ono Mizuki’s young, heart shaped face smiling back at you, the only answer left to give is: If not me, then who?

The stairwell leading down from the roof is only slightly warmer, illuminated by a single stream of moonlight from a small broken window. You keep your eyes closed as the door shuts behind you with a resounding slam, blinking them open slowly as your vision adjusts to the darkness.

Piloted by your subconscious, you can hardly recall reaching your apartment, keys held between your trembling knuckles. It takes three tries before it slots into the keyhole, turning with a resolute click. The familiarity of home lowers your inhibitions with such abrupt immediacy that you could collapse.

The protective gear you wear works so well because it is armoured, padded, layer upon layer of protection sewn to fit you perfectly. While you’re grateful, you hated how difficult it was to take off. As you lumber further down the hallway you peel away the clothing bit by bit. Mask left atop the shoe rack, boots kicked off haphazardly after a weak attempt at untying the buckles, your soiled jacket left strewn across the living room floor.

“Shower…,” you mutter aloud, your unaltered voice still foreign to your ears. The police scanner is nestled beside the television and habitually, you turn the volume in passing, overlapping tinny, static voices echoing throughout the space. You enter the bathroom and tug at the string light, flinching when you’re blinded by the cheap fluorescence.

Instinctively, your eyes are drawn to the reflection in the mirror. Left only in your thermal under wear, you look as tired as you feel. The impression of your mask curves over the bridge of your nose and across your cheeks. You trace it lightly with the tip of your finger.

Stripped naked, you stand beneath the spray and let the sharp pressure unravel the knots in your spine. It’s hot against your cooler skin. Soon the rhythmic pitter patter dwindles into numbness and you urge yourself to get out despite the protest from your muscles.

You fall onto your half-made bed wrapped in an old bath towel, hair still damp, fighting a losing battle to keep your eyes open. Your consciousness blurs as soon as your head hits the pillow; you find yourself pulled into the recesses of sleep, ever sinking.

The week passes with disturbingly little fanfare. Not wanting to abandon your regular patrol routes, specific days are allocated to observing activity in the far eastern parts of Musutafu. No other people have been reported missing, thus your pinboard remains unchanged, and the investigation stagnant.

Eraserhead offered no new information, and could sense some pent up restlessness in you. Suddenly your roles have been reversed, and he is seeking you out frequently with the sole excuse of keeping you in line. He begrudgingly allows you to assist him in smaller takedowns; public quirk usage, purse snatchers, drunken brawls. Tasks for fingers much greener than your own, but placating his concern was more important than pride.

Your abject indulgence in his company feeds the guilt hollowing out your bones. He felt better having you in his sights, that was clear. You are brittle, weathered by his appreciative glances and quiet praise, slipping away whenever you get the chance before he can see the cracks.

It’d be simpler if you could tell him everything. About yourself, your quirk, the warehouse, the blood, the bracelet. Eraserhead had taken part in numerous trafficking raids, and that experience is invaluable. But understanding and leniency didn’t mean the rules that bound him were miraculously undone.

He would be required to inform the PD and hand over any evidence. Your involvement would be revoked, and his report would likely be shucked to the bottom of the pile, ‘quirkless individuals’ typed bold and underlined in red pen.

Six were already missing, and those were just the people you were aware of. There could be more out there. Other families left wondering, unanswered grief persisting. You had the ability to meddle before you were shut out, and bring them closure.

Losing an underground hero's tail was a uniquely difficult task. He remained in your periphery in the nights leading up to Friday. His presence was poignant, beguiling in a way that demanded your attention. If the wind changed you could taste him. There was no doubt — for reasons unbeknownst to you, you had escaped capture all this time because Eraserhead chose to let you leave.

“Gotta admit, you’ve been a bit annoying this week,” you accused. He presses something into your palm in lieu of a response and exhales a short, snuffed out little noise that might’ve been a laugh, or close to one.

You peer down at the small box of salmiakki and pout as you weigh it between your hands. Salty licorice. “Is this supposed to convince me not to put out a restraining order? I’ll be honest, it’s doing the exact opposite”.

Aizawa clicks his tongue. His profile is outlined in soft, dewy moonlight, egregious yellow goggles pushed back into his hair. “Salmiakki is good. I like things a little bitter,” he griped.

You watch him push a piece of the licorice from his own box and tear at it gracelessly with his teeth, strong jaw shifting as he chews. There’s a dry itch in the back of your throat. Averting your gaze to the moon breaking through the stretches of cirrus cloud, you said, “I bet you add extra espresso to your coffee”.

There’s a shift in tension and you instinctively hold your breath. He’s staring at you, and the intensity seems to worsen the longer time is frozen. Fleeting, you wonder if his quirk makes him sensitive to the use of others. You’d never needed to activate it in his presence before.

Exhale. Unaffected, Aizawa blinks slowly from the corner of your vision. “My regular is a red eye”.

“Not a dead eye?”

He hums, “That’s not as on the nose”.

You laugh just like you did the first time he ordered it, reflexively tucking your chin to hide the surge of affection despite being concealed. You roll the licorice between your fingers before bringing a piece up to your mouth. It thunks deliberately against your mask, once, twice.

“Guess I’ll have to save it,” you spin on your heel to leave, pausing when he follows close behind. “Gonna stalk me home, too?”

“You’re up to something,” he insisted solemnly. “I’ve dealt with my fair share of impulsive people. Jump first, think later. You’re going to get yourself killed”.

“I’m not one of your students, Eraserhead. You don’t need to feel responsible for me. Unless…” the hero doesn’t move when you take a step towards him, then another, “you’d miss me?”

The teasing intonation doesn’t translate well through your voice changer, a strangely eldritch quality to it. You think he hears it all the same. His expression pinches into a tired glare, but he doesn’t refute your comment and it pleases you; warms you from the inside out.

Quiet befalls you. You worry your lip and tug at the velcro around your wrist. The sound rips through the silence. When it’s loose enough you pull the glove off, hissing under your breath at the sudden chill. “Okay,” you falter, lifting your pinky finger into a hook and holding it out between your bodies. “I’ll pinky promise to try and be careful, then”.

Despite offering, you’re still a little breathless when Aizawa reciprocates. Cautious, finger twitches at first, before slowly wrapping around your own. His skin is expectedly rough in comparison. You’d seen the scar tissue and callus build up before, uneven on his broad palms, a little dry on foggy mornings.

He gazes softly where you connect then back up from beneath half lidded eyes and emphasises his next words with a firm squeeze, “I’m holding you to this. Behave yourself, because if you keep meddling you’ll end up with more than just fractured bones”.

You return the pressure to solidify the promise, bending your wrist slightly until the heels of your hands kiss. A new ache spreads throughout your wrist that you dutifully ignore. I promise.

There’s no purposeful intention to break it — but he speaks like his word is law, and when have you ever adhered to that?

Friday morning starts gradually. You struggle to pry your eyes open, the forces of gravity exerted on you from all directions, keeping you pinned like a butterfly to the mattress under your thick winter duvet. The sun is barely out of bed herself, dusky horizon bludgeoned with hues of orange and pink, a glow bleeding around your curtains, filling the room with warmth.

Everything is palpably insipid. Exhaustion dulls your senses, vision barely focused as you pull up a pair of loose pants, only realising they are backwards when they bunch up awkwardly between your thighs.

The lifeless reflection in the bathroom mirror glares back at you. Running a cloth under cold running water, you press it to the swelling around your under eyes until the puffiness lessens. You haven’t taken a single break this week, too fixated on all the things that could happen if you did, and your body was paying for it.

Meowtini is a welcome sight. Being greeted at the door by a gaggle of excitable, nagging cats would never get old. Suzu, five months old, demands to be held and doesn’t settle until you’ve tucked her into the front pocket of your hoodie.

“Better hope we don’t get any surprise health inspections,” Hideki smirks, nodding pointedly at the inconspicuous smoky blue lump. Rarely do you cross paths, but admittedly you’re a little late, and you’ve caught him on the end of a long night.

“I’ll put her in one of the hammocks and wash my hands before I handle anything,” you huff, hanging your coat up in your locker. The stretch draws your sleeve to your forearm. “Fuck”.

“Hm?”

“Nothing. Actually, can you hand me some of the disposable gloves?”

Suzu yowls in complaint as you gather her up and set her on the cool tiled floor prematurely. Hideki sidles beside where you are standing, examining your bruised hands under the fluorescent light, and hisses sympathetically.

“Didn’t know you threw hands in your spare time, Senpai,” he comments with genuine curiosity, tilting his head, pink framed glasses slipping down the bridge of his nose with the movement. “Ah. Hiding them from your boyfriend out there, s’that it?”

“Not my boyfriend,” you mutter reflexively, eyeing his palms face up where they wave in surrender. You snatch the gloves pinched between his thumb and forefinger, pausing as his words finally register. “Fuck, is he out there already?”

Hideki’s face wrinkles with the effort of keeping his amusement concealed. Restless, he tucks the silvery springlets of hair hung over his eyes back behind his ear, only for them to stubbornly bounce back into place. “Got here early, actually. And you’re kinda late, so he’s grouchier than usual”.

Pulling on an apron, you tie it into a sloppy bow at the back of your neck with stiff fingers, then repeat around your waist. Rushing to the kitchen sink with careful steps around the gathering felines, you call over your shoulder, “Did you serve him?“

The water is soothing over the tenderised flesh. It isn’t your knuckles this time — the bruising is obviously new, and begins from the side of your pinky, past the heel of your hand to the bump by your wrist.

“Course not,” Hideki answers genially from the doorway, perched on the balls of his feet and swaying slightly as he tries to stroke every cat within reach. “The coffee I make tastes like piss compared to yours”.

“He did not say that to you,” you laugh, tugging the polythene gloves on one hand at a time, fingers wiggling until the material sits comfortably.

“He did. With his face,” pushing his glasses up to sit on his crown, Hideki’s features flatten into a blank expression, devoid of emotion, and he stares at you unblinkingly with an air of disdain.

“Come on, that doesn’t mean anything. Aizawa always looks like that,” you try not to grin, biting the soft inside of your cheek between your teeth as you bend to flick his frames back onto his nose.

It wrinkles as he pouts, pushing up to stand and brushing nonexistent dust from his knees, “Not with you”.

You head out onto the main floor. Cats and kittens alike tottle over on their paws, coiling their bodies up and around your calves, fur clinging to the dark material of your pants. To prolong the inevitable, and stew a little longer in cowardice, you dip to individually scratch under their chins in greeting.

“Sorry I’m late,” Ren’s pupils are needle thin, her big eyes blinking up at you as she registers the whisper, blunt claws kneading your thigh like dough. “You’ll help soften him up for me, won’t you?”

She’s about as impressed as he is, you’d say.

Rather than ask, you speed straight to the coffee machine. Aizawa glances over from the corner of your eye. Memory guides your hands — you needn’t think twice about it, having made this drink more times than you can count. Still, your movement stutters under the blatant intensity of his stare.

The gloves pull uncomfortably at your skin and irritate the bruising. You tuck a surreptitious grimace into your shoulder, self conscious of how your shape changes under the cheap recessed light; whether you can’t shake your own shadows, no matter how hard you try to conceal them.

Approaching sheepishly, you feel the hot cup sting against the pads of your fingers. He has pointedly returned his gaze to the papers in front of him, pen tucked between his knuckles and flicking back and forth. It makes you think of a cat’s tail.

“Morning,” you say, apology clear in your voice as you set the red eye down beside him. Ren is under the table, curled up in the space between his ankles. Her lacklustre effort is appreciated.

A grunt in return. Aizawa taps the ballpoint to paper, leaving a speck of red ink. Beneath it are hastily written characters, something illegible about the overarching qualities of justice and virtue. He spares no glance to the coffee percolating beside him. Instead you are caught in a leaden snare, his eyes sharp as they skim over your form.

They linger on the pair of powder purple gloves. “Did something happen?”

“Aside from oversleeping and almost forgetting to brush my teeth?” you reply bemusedly, allowing some of your fatigue to bleed through. Lies are easier said when there’s a little bit of truth in them. “I’m alright. Made it here in one piece”.

Now that you’re looking, the lines around Aizawa’s eyes are more pronounced. His skin is pallid as if he’d bathed in moonlight. It is common for Aizawa to be tired but this is different. Worn, there’s a distinct tightness in his shoulders where they knot beneath his ear, flesh and bone brick and mortar, woven with his stubborn concern.

Casting a quick glance across the empty cafe, you slip into the seat opposite. “Are you?” he peers up through windswept, unkempt bangs. A thick strand is draped over the small bump in his nose. An old break. Sunlight refracts through the grey in his right iris, bouncing against flecks of artificial red.

“You look more exhausted than usual, and that’s saying something,” you continue lightheartedly, hoping to whittle at his exterior. Tap, tap, tap. His knee bounces restlessly beneath the table. A long breath of contemplation and the first chip flakes off when your eyes meet once more. He looks as tired as you feel.

“People from this prefecture have started going missing, one as recently as two weeks ago. I’m sure you’re aware,” Aizawa murmurs. There’s something underlying those words. Your mind flickers to Mizuki’s poster in the window. You remember how her father had bumbled, shrouded in palpable grief and nails bitten blood-black.

It clicks, “You thought I might’ve…”

The tension briefly pulls taut, as though bracing for whatever impact came alongside the mere thought of you being missing, and then it drains from his body. You ponder, is it possible to be jealous of yourself?

Little feet pad across the room. Suzu leaps onto your lap and her light weight anchors you. Gloved hands kept away from her fur, you lean further forward onto your forearms, shortening the distance. He watches your fingers flex toward him — pinky extended, wilting, returning to the cradle of your palm.

“I’m sorry,” you tell him, apology unsettlingly sincere; it is overarching, overreaching, large enough to cover every minute from the first time you’d met him to the very last. Sorry for what you had done and for what you would inevitably do.

Aizawa doesn’t so much shrug as he does visibly let go of the resentment. The underground hero looks somewhat diffident at his own pettiness. “As long as you’re being careful,” he says.

“I am”. As good a time as any, you take the opportunity to pry with both hands, “Is that what you’ve been working on the past few weeks?”

“You know I can’t share that information”.

“Right”.

He brings the coffee cup to his lips, swallowing a mouthful without bothering to cool the surface. From behind the rim, he relents, “Yes. I was brought into the investigation just over a month ago”.

Suzu kneads at your stomach, giving a muffled mewl as she rolls adipose tissue between her paw pads. Your mouth curls into a small smile only to thin with melancholy, “Ono-san asked that we put Mizuki’s poster up in the window not too long ago. Had it not been for him, I think most people in our community would still be unaware of the other five missing”.

Aizawa weighs his response carefully, slouching until he is fully ensconced in the booth cushions. You feel the briefest of touches beneath the table as his thighs spread. “The relationship with the local PD is pretty poor, I assume?”

You offer a rueful grin, “If by poor you mean non existent, then yeah”.

He exhales thoughtfully through his nose, ruffling the hair curtaining his cheeks. While he did always listen to what Nocturne had to say, it was almost as if he needed to feign suspicion to disempower your claims. With you, here, his expression is one of genuine frustration.

“Why do you think that is?”

Answering his question in a way that wouldn’t arouse suspicion could be hard. You glance toward the large window, spanning the front of the cafe floor. There are various cat trees and shelving fixed across the clear pane for passers by to see. Beyond that is the main street — overcast by a passing cloud, world a little greyer — and a bus shelter directly opposite Meowtini.

A large digital billboard flicks through the latest advertisements of Mt. Lady, her latest hair product now covered in iridescent cracks branching from a fist sized hole in the glass.

Mount Lady has never even stepped foot in this part of Musutafu.

“Y’know, I read that before the sudden appearance of quirks, public servants were usually labelled as heroes,” you absentmindedly snap the glove against your inner wrist to quiet your nerves. “Serve and protect, same shit HPSC peddle now, but with no special abilities”.

Aizawa is entirely silent. Even the felines littering the cafe have fallen decidedly quiet. It accentuates your voice, and feels as though you are carrying something much bigger than yourself. “This area is known for petty crime, assault or drug dealing — mostly. Not the type of stuff that brings notoriety. That’s why heroes rarely pass through here anymore”.

You continue, slow spoken in an effort to properly articulate yourself. “But I think a lot of the police force harbours hidden resentment for those same reasons. Not to suggest they’re… upset by a lack of villainy. But the current hero system has created a hierarchy for crime. There’s no recognition, funding or gratitude working here, so they only really exert themselves when it’ll get them a good headline”.

Aizawa’s gaze falls on the papers laid out in front of him, a deep wrinkle in his brow. “A serial kidnapping case wouldn’t do that?”

“The victims are quirkless,” you reply, because that was all that needed to be said. He sighs in defeat and you know that he understands. Tentative, you shift your feet, knee knocking his own. Neither of you move away.

Just as you are debating returning to the counter with his empty cup, he asks, “What about vigilantism?”

You swallow air and strain with the effort not to choke on it. “What about it?”

“Do you think positively of them?” he clarifies, hunching forward to rest his forearms on the table, mirroring your position. The change sees his knee slide along the outside of your thigh, close enough to feel his natural body heat. “There are a few I’ve dealt with who are local to Shizuoka”.

Heartbeat loud in your ears, you are far too fixated on the press of thick muscle against your right leg to think about the consequences of toeing such an irreversible line. “They’re quite well loved. At least in these parts they are,” you mused, wringing your fingers together. Soreness radiates across the heel of your hand. “I liked The Crawler, back when he was more active”.

“Yeah?” Aizawa’s brow arches. “He saved my life, once”.

You sit up straighter. “Really?!”

Low, he hums an affirmative and you feel it reverb into your chest. All the while he’s watching you carefully, that invasive stare always coming back to your eyes. He holds and tells you, “Most recently it’s been Nocturne pulling my pigtails”.

Spluttering, you repress a noise of embarrassment with the press of your hand, “That’s how you’d describe it?”

He snorts. “How else can I? They follow me around the city like we’re in a playground, do things to get my attention and disappear into the night”.

Your dignity might’ve folded itself into a paper crane if it were not for Aizawa’s gaze softening imperceptibly. The wrinkles by his eyes smoothen, sinew relaxed under the skin, life returning to his cheeks; his expression is one of far off affection, as though his thoughts had strayed to you despite himself.

“Irrational and impulsive,” he adds, notably warm. “Above all, they’re irritating”.

“Hate to have to tell you, Aizawa, but your voice completely gives you away,” you pose, canine teeth sink into the corner of your mouth, afraid you might smile so wide your cheeks will split. “Admit it, you’re a little fond of vigilantes”.

“Shut up,” he mutters indignantly, and you laugh. Too loud, too giddy, Aizawa’s lips react to the sound by pulling into a grin, all teeth, that he quickly tucks to his sternum.

Ren and Suzu startle in tandem when you gasp, crossing your arms and leaning into the teasing atmosphere, “When you said I remind you of someone, was it…?”

He pointedly does not look at you — pointedly does not speak. The tip of his index finger slides the empty cup in your direction, an unspoken request for more as his pen returns to paper.

“Not even going to talk now?”

The hero makes a twisting motion against the seam of his mouth. Lock and key. Your voice completely gives you away. You cradle the coffee cup to your chest, surprised by the adrenal shake, your heart rumbling as though the interaction had created a tectonic shift.

Two plates converge closer. He liked you enough, bipedal creature of the night; you had felt your identities overlap and saw the possibilities it could foster. If you told him everything it might wipe away the emotional constipation from his face.

Then again, it may also make it worse.

So you brew his coffee again, this time plucking one of the freshly made tarts from the display case and setting it onto a plate to sate his sweet tooth. He eyes you perceptively, eyebrow lifted in question, but then a group of college students is stumbling in through the security door, arms interlocked and giggling as they run from the sudden onslaught of rain, saving you the trouble.

Aizawa remains in his spot for longer than usual, unashamedly staring. You can taste the acrimony. Your excitable thoughts have soured, and again you can only wonder what he’d do once he finds out the truth. Nebulously, you know he wouldn’t have you outright arrested, you’re too careful about quirk use. But the knowledge will burden him enough to tighten his leash on you. It wouldn’t ever be the same again — and that was the best case scenario.

Reality is rigid. There are expectations, clear borders and assigned roles. Anything outside the confines of right and wrong is looked upon with contempt and misshapen to fit one or the other. Fantasising about Eraserhead is exhilarating, a secret world kept safely between you and I, but more importantly it isn't real.

You forget yourself. He’s still a hero, and there are is too much at stake for you to be distracted by the intricacies of your relationship.

The night is daunting in a way you cannot put your finger on. Black as a chasm, not a star to be seen, covered by another blanket of dense rain clouds. There’s petrichor in the air, crisp as you breathe in, puddles splashing up the inside of your boots.

Retracing your steps, you’ve made your way back to the warehouse. It stands eerily in the distance. You circumvent the surrounding buildings with ease, pace quickening at the undeniable flicker of light through the broken windows.

Just additional reconnaissance. Nothing more.

But there’s somebody inside this time. You stick close to the shadows and wait with bated breath at the slightest of sound, conscious of the broken bracelet tucked in your zip pocket. At-su, they read; neat kanji lovingly inscribed onto each remaining dainty bead.

You count three guards circling the entrance and exit. Their steps are leaden, deliberately loud as the gravel crunches underfoot, and you watch their movements until a pattern forms. They mustn’t expect anyone to pry; notably lax, stopping together in alcoves to bum a smoke, laughing about whatever it is they did that day. You are grateful, in part. It makes slipping by much simpler.

Navigating the fire escape is a challenge in and of itself. The thing has been corroded beyond belief, left to fend for itself against the elements, loose at the hinges and too loud for your liking. Even so, you land in one sinuous movement and exhale a shallow sigh of relief when the structure accepts your weight with a meagre groan of complaint. Your gloves are covered in flakes of rust, abdomen still coiled tight to brace for the possibility of falling.

You wait silently until the muffled voices continue, unperturbed by your arrival. Could’ve been worse, you reason internally, glancing up the ladder steps toward the source of conversation.

There’s a narrow, tilt and turn window left ajar on one of the higher levels. You curl up beside it and peek down into the warehouse floor. The angle causes strain behind your eyes, obscured by the bulk of your mask. It appears empty, just as you’d found it.

Distantly, “No… call me in… fucked… First Atsushi, now… Mizu...”

Atsushi? At-su, maybe? You lean in closer and slow your breathing to listen, instinctively feeling for the accessory in your pocket. The sounds soon sharpened and coalesced into words, frighteningly calm despite the obvious fury lying beneath them.

“…I told you to be careful. Look at what you’ve fuckin’ done”.

“Sorry sir,” a meeker voice replies, tone sheepish rather than apologetic. “Y’know I can’t help it when they start squirmin’! It pisses me off—!”

An abrupt yelp is caught, the reply bubbling in his throat until the man is wheezing for air. You can’t see a thing, but you imagine he’s being choked. “Ya feel that, Morita? Your body fights instinctively, just like theirs do,” a chill frissons down your spine at the genuine vitriol echoing through the rafters. “Leave any more marks on them and I’ll put both your arms in the vice, got it?”

‘Morita’s’ strained acquiescence is barely heard over the blood rushing in your ears. Theories and assumptions filter through your thoughts, flipping through pages of a book, every new possibility too unthinkable to put your finger on. The needles, the blood, the tattered clothing— the bracelet. Bodies, he’d said. Not products, but people, and more than one.

You’re shaking. You step back, reaching blindly for the rail. Dread swoops through your stomach when it groans loudly and starts to bow under your grip, like it were about to give. “Shit, shit, shit—!”

“Oi!”

There is a hulking figure running across the rooftop towards where you’re hunched. You were careless. Their gait is heavy, movements slowed by the weight of their arms, silhouette unnaturally thick and bulging. For survivals sake you assume it is to do with their quirk and duck when they swing their arm in your direction.

Something zips past your cheek, then. It is so fast that it whistles through the air like a bullet, and lands unceremoniously on the concrete behind you when it loses momentum. Oh. You inhale sharply. It is a bullet. Ivory white, slightly knobbled, shaped like a pellet.

You fall into a crouch with a dramatic inhale and scoop it up into your hand, breath held. Afforded time to glance back at the pursuer, you find him closer than before. Uncomfortably so. Close enough to see the tips of his five fingers unscrewed, hung by a thread, exposed like the barrel of a gun.

He shoots again. And again.

Your lungs burn furiously as you leap over the railing and run, the sensation spreading wildly through your chest to your oesophagus, urging that you exhale. Blood thunders in your ears, you can feel the vessels sweltering under the skin of your cheeks as tears gather along your lash line. There’s pressure behind your eyes — bloating, fervourently pushing at the bars of your rib cage.

Using all the strength in your thighs, you catapult yourself from the next ledge. Your pulse rockets at the momentary loss of stability, held suspended in the air for a fleeting few seconds.

Your right foot meets the next roof. The impact ripples through your body and forces all the air from your lungs. More guards are converging in the alleys below, chasing. A bullet whips past your shoulder. Cold dread washes over you as the frost dances over your skin, causing you to stumble. It had torn open the sleeve.

This is your black ice. The weaker ankle that twists, the skidding of a dull tire, the loss of control. For a fleeting moment, you have no edges. Swallowed by darkness as you careen into the stomach of the city, there is a nauseating moment of surprise in which your body tries to readjust. Your heart thunders as your subconscious spins out and you think, this is it.

“You won’t get far, little mouse,” the voice booms through the night, dripping with vitriol and promise. Your bones rattle as you scramble to move. “We’ll find out who you are!”

There’s no time to consider the abrupt flare of pain in your hip. You need to keep running. You need to regain control and use your quirk, but the gasps keep coming; fast bids for air hiccuping in and out, refusing to slow. Bated breath activates and the world around you pauses in short, staccato beats.

It’s enough to increase the distance. More and more until the landscape changes. Despite that, your body maintains a state of flight, blood pumping forcefully throughout your veins, legs moving even as they ache and tear. You’re bleeding, undoubtedly. Heat is pouring out, saturating your suit, the fabric sticking to your skin as it congeals.

Thoughts filter frantically through your mind in search of a safe place to go. You weren’t often injured enough to warrant a visit to the clinic — technically unregistered with a much appreciated no questions asked policy — but tonight you’d strayed too far, unable to get there before you inevitably passed out.

But Aizawa— Eraserhead had two places of residence. For the sake of convenience he now spent most, if not all, of his time in the UA dorms; stays at his old studio were improbable but not impossible. Like reading from a celestial phone book, you mentally called to every deity that tonight was one of those unlikely instances.

You shouldn’t. You shouldn’t.

In the thick of your lightheaded, bleary eyed attempt at clinging to consciousness, you see a dim glowing light from the fourth floor of the next building's quaint balcony and stumble with relief. Your fingers are wet, leaving behind smears of red where they slip along the window sill, the squeeze into the open crack made easier by fresh blood.

“Sorry,” you whisper into the absent night, feeling tendrils of guilt in your gut at the mess you were making. There’s really no time to consider the loss of your voice changer, or the broken mask hanging askew around your jaw, or how you are barely inches away from revealing yourself.

The window itself is aged, wood splitting under your fingertips, the kind that expands more with every winter and lets in a cold draft you can never quite find. It jams on the first try, loosens a little on the second rattle. Your body protests as you try to lift it open.

When the pane slides up it is sudden and with far too much ease. The abrupt loss of resistance jars your balance, careening forward into a graceless fall as you roll onto the living room carpet, yelping like a pup, only to be met with the sharp end of a knife at your throat.

Hand fisted tight in the material of your hood, Eraser’s face is thunderous. Anger unrestrained and dark in a way you’ve rarely seen, an expression you have never been on the receiving end of. His cheeks are slightly ruddy, quirk blazing as his hair stands on end. He forces your head back and mercifully, you are too out of it to be ashamed by the sound you make.

The blade lowers when he freezes in recognition, the tense atmosphere dissipating while he keeps a tight grip on the hilt. You move with him as he yanks you upright, noticeably gentler than before. “What are you doing here?”

Your eyes are drawn to the tendons flexing in his forearm. There’s a swath of pale skin by his hip where his waistband has slipped. You’ve never seen him in such comfortable, casual clothing before. The black sweatpants are loose with an egregiously neon print of Present Mic’s signature slogan down the side of his right leg. If memory serves you correctly, an exclamation of ‘yeah!’ should be splashed in blocked lettering across his ass.

“Hey. ‘Raser,” blood loss must’ve contributed to your lack of brain to mouth filter. The words are slurred in your ears, thick with amusement as you point at his lower half and try to whistle. Your hand is trembling with the effort. “Turn around for me f’r a sec”.

Aizawa’s jaw shifts as he takes a long, deep inhale. Broad shoulders rise, expanding with his ribs, your mouth drying at the steep dip of his collar where it falls just above his pecs; his muscles defined enough to create a faint shadow of cleavage, darkened by his chest hair.

You’ve changed your mind. He shouldn’t turn around, not at all.

Then he exhales, drawn out and slow. The exercise does nothing to lessen the irritation woven into his expression, “How did you find this apartment?”

A hot, sticky sensation is spreading through the layers of thermal underclothing. Fatigue has draped itself around your bones. You press the heel of your hand harder against the open wound, biting back a pained hiss. Faux bravado prevails even as you are bleeding out on his living room floor.

“I followed the smell of black coffee and despair,” you rasp, licking away the dregs of copper lingering between your teeth. “All perfectly legal”.

Blinking away the frustration, his eyes flicker from your bloodied mouth to your shoulder. The fabric is darker, a disquieting shadow spreading through the threads as it soaks up the weeping wound. “You’re injured,” he notes with a quiet curse. Being bundled up in his arms isn’t so bad, you think. Eraser helps you on your feet then, a hand resting at your waist as he takes most of your weight.

The apartment is quaint. Small. Not enough to feel closed in, just enough to be described as cosy. It is deceptively bare. At first glance you might’ve made a teasing comment about him being a minimalist — but then you look again, eyes racking over the homely touches and trinkets. A pair of old slippers with worn cat ears, cacti kept in matching orange spotted pots, an open book laid face down and full of sticky notes, a framed picture drawn with crayon hung in place of his high school diploma which has been left on the small desk to collect dust.

“…So cute”.

You’re jostled at his side as he reaches over the back of the couch with the click of his tongue to pull over a threadbare blanket, covering both the cushions and another notably nicer, newer blanket that soiled fingers should not touch.

He manoeuvres you in his embrace and circles your lower back, cradling the nape of your neck to lower you with unerring care. “Focus,” you hear him say. “Keep your eyes open”.

Had they been closed?

Two fingers are clicked an inch from your nose, startling you into blinking. The world moves without permission; suffusing into a blur of mosaics, bloating with vertigo that sparks a chilling sense of dread in your chest. Starkly warm blood is saturating your shoulder. “I’m leaking,” you croak, breaths coming quicker. “‘Raserhead. I’m— leaking”.

“Yeah. All over my couch,” he returns. “And I’m going to help you, but I need you to sit still. Can you do that for me?”

There’s not really any choice in it. Your motions feel lethargic as you recline against the cushion, sinking further. Your body flinches, perceiving it as free fall, and Aizawa smooths the flat of his palm over your unwounded shoulder. “I’m going to cut away your gear and stem the bleeding,” he begins.

“No…” you groan at the dryness in your throat, swelling, like your stomach has pushed its way up into your oesophagus. Your cognition rolls to a stop. Suddenly, spoken word is not within reach. All you can say is, “Not… Not the mask”.

At mention of it, his gaze skims over your poorly concealed face, lingering on the oval shaped device tucked under the fabric where it nestled beneath your jugular. The voice changer had devolved into broken static somewhere between being shot at and being found. Had you been able to keep a conscious grasp on your thoughts, you might’ve known to shut your mouth, all too recognisable.

“Not the mask,” he concedes. Mercifully. A large pair of scissors glides through the padding around your middle. You can feel the weight of Nocturne peeling away, tepid air meeting damp skin as the sharp blades nick on your thermal wear, right above your breast.

No longer are you a shadow within a shadow — your formless body takes shape. Bumps and curves and imperfections. Scar tissue, old and new. Aizawa’s fingers brush over a new bruise, collarbone purpling, unspooling a tender whine where it sits in your chest.

“This next part is going to hurt more,” he warns with genuine regret. A little breathless underneath it. You aren’t paying much attention; there’s cloth soaked in antibiotic ointment swiping over the open injury, washing away the dried blood. It cracks like mud, splits into uneven flakes, and creates downstream pathways as the wound overflows.

You hiss at the sting and force yourself rigid, ignoring the urge to squirm out of his hold. The graze runs through the side of your arm, tissue torn into a natural curve around your shoulder. “You’re lucky this doesn’t need stitches,” Aizawa mutters. His brows are drawn tight, dry bottom lip pinched between his canines as he reaches for something to dress the wound with.

“Are you hurt anywhere else?”

Cold settles in your bones but there’s heat curling in your belly. That same feeling after you get a taste and find yourself craving more; you’ll go home and think of this between seconds, when your mind isn’t crowded with lies and excuses. Selfishness is such a human trait. It reminds you that pro heroes are expected to be anything but.

The pads of his fingers are hot, rough yet purposefully gentle. You lean into the touch and hope that they’ll cut through you like smooth, warmed butter. “I think,” there’s saliva pooling beneath your tongue and you wet your lips in hopes it’ll cushion your next words. “I think one of the bullets got my hip”.

An embarrassing noise slips from your mouth when he pulls away. He’s hot even when he’s scowling, you think. Oh, now he’s blushing. Can he read minds? Hey, Eraser. Can you—?

“Stop. Talking,” Aizawa fumes. The order comes through clenched teeth. He rocks back onto his heels, pinching the bridge of his nose as he often does. Continuing under his breath, “You got shot at. Shot. God knows what I did in a past life to deserve this”.

You pout, “Most of them missed, actually”. He could at least praise you for that. “I saved one. Think they were made of bone. How cool”.

“We’ll get to that later. Shoulder’s done. Push your pants down,” he sighs, ignoring your dazed comment. The various bottles, packets and containers clank together as he rifles through the first aid with haste. It stops when he zeroes in on you, and your lack of movement. You are told with gritty authority: “Now”.

You bite your tongue and swallow the suggestive comment waiting idly on it. Trembling, you unbuckle the straps around your waist and open the clasp of your belt to tuck your thumbs under the waistband. There’s an obvious slash through the material, mapping out the bullet's path. A lot of the blood has dried and is sticking to the inflamed skin, pulling at the soft hair on your thighs.

It is as if you’re tearing off another layer of yourself. Jostling the deep wound, fresh blood trickles over the curve of your exposed hip. Aizawa soaks the cloth again, rinsing the exposed tissue then offering quiet instruction to keep it held there as you squirm. He ducks into the kitchen. Your eyes wander at the sound of running water, desperate for an adequate distraction from the disquieting, restless discomfort building in your chest.

You don’t mean to croon out loud. He returns, catching you staring at the framed picture. Stick figures drawn in crayon; depicting him, long black hair scribbled around his large, misshapen head; a small girl at his side coloured in silvers and pinks, waving around what looks to be a candy-apple; green, a boy at her side with a beaming grin, to large to fit his outline.

“It’s good,” you rasp. Aizawa glances between you and the picture, a ephemeral, fiercely protective look passing over his face as quick as it came. “Even drew your scars and eyebags. I love... the commitment to detail”.

He softens. “I’ll let her know you like it”.

And you nod happily, satisfied with that, incognisant of the sterilised thread he is looping through a needle. “Breathe,” you hear him say, feeling the cool press of the forceps once he pulls back the cloth, “Looks like you’ll only need three stitches. I’ll make this quick, alright?”

“...Yeah,” your answer comes shakily, senses already flooded with adrenaline as your body reflexively braces.

It is unlike any pain you’ve experienced. You cry out at the piercing, burning sensation spreading through your left side. Nausea washes over you, overcome by dizziness as your vision litters with black spots. His voice anchors you; uncharacteristic rambling, jaw set in determination, steady hands working.

“Almost done. Deep breaths, just one more to go”.

Words form but they aren’t aired. You are swimming in the depths of your own consciousness, vision wavering, his concerned face duplicating into three. The timbre of his voice probes the sea, familiar vibrations bypassing your ears.

“Hey. Look at me,” and you do, head lolling onto your shoulder. “You with me?”

All that’s left is an unpleasant tenderness. Hip throbbing in time with your heart, the nausea gradually recedes. Aizawa accepts your hand around his wrist, overturning until your fingers entwine, and he squeezes.

Eventually, you croak, “That fucking sucked”.

“It did,” he concurred, equally weary. Three dull taps to the mask barely guarding your mouth, loose on its hinges. He wants to take it off, you realise. The now-jagged ridge has cut into your swollen cheek.

Fear prickles cold over your scalp. “I—I can take care of that myself,” you frantically demur, the remains of your confidence slipping. There are pleas cloying in the back of your throat. We can keep pretending. Let’s stay ignorant. But he waits, he knows— he has known, and he isn’t as generous as you wished he’d be.

Cautious, his thumb slides over your cheekbone and back, tracing the lower curve of your eye socket. It doesn’t hurt, though you think it should. The swell is enough to somewhat obscure your vision. But there’s no pain when he loosens the straps cinched around your hood, no discomfort with the abrupt loss of pressure.

Aizawa pulls down the lower half slowly. The cotton stuffed into your sinuses isn’t enough to dull the anticipation of being seen. You wondered if he hadn’t already heard your voice, would he have known you just from the shape of your lips. Did he ever look long enough to notice?

A part of you hoped that he had.

Everything is heightened. You can feel every spring and divot impressed against your back, his breath stirring in your hair. The sofa dips under him. Chest to chest, his lungs expand with a deep inhale, pushing up against your breasts.

Cautious, his chin lowers, fingers sliding from your temple to your cheek. Your skin pulls. Further still, his touch ghosts over your ear. Infuriatingly slow with it, as if he wanted to discover and memorise each individual reaction. Your fingers tighten at his waist, and he isn’t saying anything.

The light refracts dimly in his irises, still a glimmer of red where it bends, glowing as he looks at you. Aizawa is always suffused with brilliance despite his avid attempts to appear apathetic. Like an old oil lamp turned to low, his gaze is soft and warm, and you’re inexplicably drawn to it like a moth to a flame.

He angles his head. Your mouths could align, and his eyes are murky. You think that he might—

“That should be enough to stop the bleeding,” he says. There are butterfly bandages on your cheek, now, applied amidst his distraction. Layers upon layers of armour can not hide how his voice resonates through your body.

“Oh,” you breathe, awe visible as it dances in the cold night air. “You… weren’t going to kiss me just now”.

Eraserhead’s expression is schooled into something carefully blank. His tongue reflexively dips forward to wet his dry bottom lip and your eyes follow the movement. Exasperatingly, he says, “No, I wasn’t”.

You’re still close, enough that you really could kiss at any moment, feeling a little dazed and justified for it. The anticipation of being touched urges you to chase when he rolls back onto his haunches, legs straightening to stand, but the sharp pull at your shoulder stops you in your tracks.

Aizawa is half bent, tilted to meet your gaze. He’s flushed. The intimate moment is broken instantly at the call of your name. A surprising wave of relief follows as you are doused in the harsh, cold reality. You resurface and scramble for some semblance of control, hold out your upturned wrists and sigh with forced bravado to cover your earlier faux pas, “Put me in cuffs, chief”.

Aizawa snorts, batting you away to present the sterilised bandages in his grasp. You watch the fluid motions of his fingers as he unrolls them, “Not even going to attempt to lie?”

You are half naked. The overlaying waistbands of both your thermal wear and your pants draw tight around your thighs — you’re ensconced in the plush couch cushions, practically splayed out for him, letting him reposition you to wrap your stitches. A strained sound bubbles from your chest that was definitely supposed to be a laugh, “I’m too tired for subterfuge right now, Eraserhead”.

“Shouta,” he corrects. Calloused knuckles knock against your temple, fist unfurling until fingers brush over your crown, hesitant to hold before returning to dressing your wound. “Might as well use my name, now, if I can use yours”.

None of this makes sense. In the many outcomes you had accounted for, this ambivalent kindness wasn’t in any of them. Shouta, above all, is a rational man. A logical man, not known for being led by his emotions, and yet, “I don’t understand why you aren’t…”

“Angry?” he supplies tiredly. “Do you want me to be?”

You push through the balls of your feet when he coaxes you to lift your hips, “Obviously not!”

“I want to understand why you’ve been doing this before I waste any more energy,” he says, focused on tying the bandages. They sit tight, like a second skin. A third. “Why didn’t you just get your licence? You’re clearly capable”.

“Because I didn’t want to be a hero, Shouta! I just wanted…” your burst of frustration tapers, words steadily lose confidence, thoughts scattering and making your voice unsure. “There are always lines you say you won’t cross. But then you cross them, and everything you do becomes a little grayer”.

Your brow furrows, unable to meet his eyes, “When you know you can cross, it becomes easier to do it. Over time, that clear black line starts to fade, until it isn’t there anymore. I can’t go back anymore”.

He gazes at you in quiet contemplation. You feel your defences soften when his fingers brush along the dip of your waist. “I wanted justice for my community. Nobody was doing anything so I… I did it myself”.

“And what is justice to you?”

“Justice is fairness,” you blink at the unexpected question, and your tongue feels unnaturally swollen in your mouth. “That doesn’t always mean a happy ending, but it— it means you had a chance. Same as anyone else. I don’t… care if you think it’s too idyllic. People deserve that much. To feel safe, and to have a community they can depend on”.

He hums. While monotonous, it’s his genuine attempt to listen that silences your frustration, “Then, do you think anyone should be able to commit vigilante acts so long as it works in their favour?”

“Obv—obviously I don’t,” you mutter blithely. Such a broad statement allows for too many loopholes; ones easily weaponised. “But there’ll always be situations that require immediate action. I exist because our… current system doesn’t account for that. People slip through the cracks too easily and they’re forgotten about”.

“So you are the one exception?”

The corner of his mouth twitches. He does a poor job of flatten his voice, even still it drips with warmth until you’re soft with it; sounding suspiciously like respect. Aizawa glides his fingers across your navel. You shiver, soft hair raising.

“Now you’re just being annoying,” you huff. Talking shouldn’t require so much exertion, but it’s enough to distract from the searing pain at your hip. Aizawa works fast, fingers tearing the end of the bandages to knot it above your hipbone. “The law isn't always a clear indication of what is good or bad”.

“No?”

“No,” you emphasise with a heavy nod that knocks something loose in your skull. Suddenly, everything blurs together into long streaks of light, edges softening and diffusing until you aren’t sure where one thing ends and another starts. You flinch and force your eyes shut, face twisted into a grimace.

Over the incessant beat of your heart you hear a low, concerned murmur, “Careful. I’m not done interrogating you”.

You groan, “You’ve got shit bedside manner”.

“Never said otherwise,” he replies plainly, rising to his feet and setting a knee on the cushion beside you. The sofa dips with his weight, and he takes your jaw into the cradle of his hand. You nuzzle into his touch, ready to employ the excuse of delirium.

He says your name again, pauses for a fraction of a moment, “You mentioned the pre quirk era, back at the cafe. What’d you mean by it?”

You huff heavily through your nose as the scabbed skin pulls under his fingers. “It’s just— with quirks, Pro’s became another kind of a bandage on an open wound, right?” his eyes are half lidded, lazy as always, sharp with interest. “People act as if they can fix everything. But ordinary things are what keep us all together, quirk or not. Everyday people who, despite their own hardships, would stop to help another person, are real heroes. To me”.

The warmth of his touch lingers as he pulls away and you quell the urge to chase it. “And Pro Heroes can’t be that?” he asks.

“Being a Pro Hero has been bastardised. It’s like a big celebrity cop game show. I do the same thing they do, and you don’t see me advertising bottled iced tea with my likeness, or plastering my ass on billboards”.

Aizawa clicks his tongue. Your blood has dried under his fingernails. “Not iced tea. You’d probably be on some fizzy drink that gives me heartburn”.

“And I’d sooner see your face in a one hundred yen store,” you grumble, turning up your nose to stare at the ceiling. “Bet you’d do well advertising grubs”.

The corner of his mouth curves into a faint smirk. “And you were behaving so well for me until now,” he murmurs, then reaching forward and slowing with contemplation. Clasped gently around your forearm, you let Eraser guide it under your shirt. After slipping your arm back through the sleeve, he tugs it into place at your wrist. That small gesture should not charm you as much as it does.

“I like this”.

Aizawa hums in response, a bid for clarification. You focus on the space between his brows rather than his eyes when you mumble, “This. I like it when you pay attention to me”.

“Yeah?” his face twitches, as if he were repressing a reaction to your words. “Is that why you enjoy making my life harder?”

You laugh breathlessly in lieu of a response, and Aizawa settles properly at your side, drawing you into him. There’s a bloodied half-hand print staining the blanket behind his shoulder, air still tinged with a distinct copper smell, forgotten at the first hint of his cologne.

“You know,” he intones wearily, soft spoken and enunciated as though he were picking each word with care, “I have my own dislikes for how the current hero system works. Justice shouldn’t be profitable, and something does need to change. But it’s also true that heroic acts, even when done under false pretences, leave some good in the world, too”.

“I have hopes for my students,” he continues. “This is the only full class I’ve ever had make it through an entire school year”.

“Even with Stain, the League and everything?”

Tousled hair slips forward over his shoulder as he nods, tickling your cheek. “They've been exposed to a lot more truths than most graduated heroes I know. It’s…”

The pride in his voice wanes then, rough with guilt. “It’s been rough on them,” he says. On all of us, you hear. “Bettering society shouldn’t require so much blood shed. They’re just kids”.

Your façade feels brittle, whittled away. Lips pursed thin and pulled into a sad smile. There was so much he claimed responsibility for — fretting about things out of his control, just like any parent would.

“It’s inevitable that changing the world will come with some growing pains,” before doubt creeps in, you reach up to cradle his face in your palm and skim the scar tissue surrounding his right eye as it closes. He accepts the touch and leans heavily, like he hadn’t realised how much he needed the comfort of another.

“You’re a good teacher, Shouta. You’ve more than done your part”.

“And your part?” he monotoned. He’s teasing you in his own way, peering through one half open eye. “I have more grey hairs now than I did an hour ago”.

Your abdomen jumps with your short laugh, getting caught in your throat as you suddenly hiss. “Ah. Sorry,” you wheeze, air filling your cheeks. His finger pokes at the swell and they gradually deflate, breathing through the throbbing pain. “I didn’t plan on coming here. Honestly I can barely remember— I just ran to the nearest safe place”.

“I can’t believe it was you all along,” he mutters. His head cocks, stubble rubbing against your skin. “No, I can. You had so many obvious similarities but I could never put my finger on it”.

“You even mentioned my coffee order. Brat”.

Fully spent, you recline against his chest with an apologetic hum and look up. You’re surprised he lets you, heart stuttering when you find him watching you with a glimmer of intrigue.

For a moment it’s just the two of you. Blood pumping, beating like a swans wing; in your ribs, your pelvis, the crook of your neck. Those worn eyes flicker down to your mouth. It’s almost physical, the way they trace over the unique dips and curves of your lips. Instinctively, you feel them part, wet, a coy attempt at holding his attention. He doesn’t stray as he murmurs, “It felt awfully one sided”.

Nose drawing across the bridge of your own, breath ghosting skin. “I’m sorry,” you echo, wedging closer. “Would you’ve preferred not knowing?”

You’re not afraid of his silence. Knowing him, knowing you, he isn’t thinking of a way to let you down gently. Aizawa Shouta is honest, maybe a little too honest — though his tongue is less sharp these days.

Rather, he is entangled in his own reasoning and weighing the trouble of telling you. Pink splotches are spreading up his throat. His upper lip curls. “It’s a relief to know I don’t need to pick between one or the other”.

“Oh,” you whisper in awe, tilting as he is drawn forward. “Are you going to kiss me now?”

Anticipation coils hot in your belly when his mouth grazes your own. Tongue dipping to wet your lips, hand curling into the fabric of his shirt. You shiver as they move, forming his reply.

“No”.

A whine is pulled from the depths of your being when he moves away with a toothy grin. You fall onto his shoulder and turn into his throat, “Why not?”

“Tell me what you were running from first,” he says.

“What I was—Oh!” he startles at your outburst. You pat frantically around your pockets, producing the bullet and the bagged bracelet. You hold them out to him, “I got some intel”.

Frustration wrinkles between his brows. “And why the hell didn’t you lead with that?”

“I was literally bleeding out when I got here and then you got all handsy,” you protest, continuing through the affronted glare he gives you, “It is not my fault you look so cute in Present Mic’s merch”.

“Give me those,” the baggy and the bullet are taken from your grasp with unnecessary force, driven by Aizawa’s obvious embarrassment. He squints at the beading. “At-su?”

“I think it belongs to someone named Atsushi,” you begin. “Are they on the missing persons list?”

Mind no longer a foggy cacophony of unfinished thoughts, every detail comes pouring out into the open. All the things you held close, tucked away in the recesses of your brain, reluctant of who could be trusted with it. He gives you a sheet of paper and you map out your pinboard. You are still shaking from the fatigue, but he doesn’t comment on the janky lettering as you write the warehouse coordinates.

He knows names, better still he wants to hear them from you and more; asks for your theories and hypotheticals, picks through them, gives each one equal consideration. “I know what I heard,” you insist, circling the address over and over until he’s stilling your hand, covered by his own, the other thumbing away at his phone screen.

You can feel the two lives you had cleaved clotting back together. Strings of connective tissue, taut and thickening. Like any scab, you’re tempted to pick at it, to see if anything lies underneath. You weren’t expecting him to take to your identity so quickly — to be treated as though you were an equal.

“I’ve sent the information to a detective I trust,” he states, glaring at the phone until the backlight automatically blinks out. You follow his movements as he pockets it. “That No Name’s gun quirk rings some bells. There’s a group Fourth Kind was keeping an eye on a while back that disappeared. Could’ve moved prefectures”.

You’ve worked tirelessly to find the answers he’s freely giving you; yet the second somebody accepts the weight you’d been carrying, you feel your knees buckle, and all you can think about is kissing him.

“Good. That’s good,” you answer dazedly. “There was a lift in the warehouse. Maybe they’re being kept underground?”

There’s a determined look on his face. You can see the undertones of excitement beneath it. Glowing, hard demeanour turned gauzy and warm. True, you weren’t made to be a pro hero. Aizawa is excellent at that — denying himself the things he wants. You're not. It’s a perfect fit.

When he sets the device down alongside a sigh of relief you take a chance. His chest expands under your hands as you rest them against his collar. Slow, they slide up over his shoulders, then back around to toy with the short hairs on the nape of his neck.

He shudders, but lets you guide him down. You don’t want to disturb the stitches, so he goes willingly, shapes around you as he ducks into your space. Finally, laid in the crook of his arms like a bouquet, your heart is full of him.

Aizawa is all rough edges and purposeful touch. He’s gentle when you need it, teasing when you don’t. The kisses start by your jugular and you’re bereft by it. You can feel a grin broadening against your throat. Mouthing at your pulse point like it could kiss back.

“Shouta,” you whine, nudging your nose into his hair. It’s softer than you expected it to be. He leaves a trail of wet pecks in his wake, following the curve of your jaw to your ears, kissing the delicate shell. It scratches and you tremble, a warm feeling diffusing throughout your body.

The baritone in his voice rumbles through you as he murmurs, “Yeah?”

You bury into his scalp, fingers curling insistently. Seeking more of him your leg moves to hook over his hip, to which he stills, holding you in place. You’re certain the hot impression of his hand splayed over your bare inner thigh will linger for days.

“Can you just…” worse, it moves again, tantalisingly slow. You’re soft between his fingers. His thumb grazes the hem of your underwear while he turns to press an innocent kiss to your cheek. “Don’t do this to me”.

“Do what?”

The air is stifling. His touch dips under the fabric, too quick to register. Your thighs flex beneath the palm of his hand as you pulse. “Fuck. Stop being unfair,” you feel it as he smiles, pressed to the corner of your mouth. “I know you aren’t going to do anything to me while I’m like this”.

A drawn out, pleased sound rumbles in his throat. Almost as if leaving you teetering on the brink was the point, he takes your words as permission to pull your pants back up — both pairs, stretching the waistband carefully over your wound.

You are disturbingly endeared by it and pouting all the same. Giving a warm laugh, knuckles brushing along your cheek, Shouta angles himself just so, and brings you into a kiss.

The seam of your lips part to meet his tongue and he sighs languidly into your mouth. You fist the fabric of his shirt with a sharp inhale, feeling the firm muscle behind it. He kisses you again and again. Chasing, wanting; an ode to your cat and mouse relationship.

Heat prickles over skin. Between breaths, you mumble, “Want you”.

The soft pressure of his hand to your lower back brings you closer. You wanted more. Light handed fingertips walk the length of your spine, murmuring appreciatively as it bows, arching into his chest.

“I’ve wanted you,” he echoes, leaning until your foreheads press together. You watch his eyes fall shut and hear the sotto voce remark, “We shouldn’t be doing this”.

If not for the amused, sanguine tone in his voice, you might’ve started to panic. But he kisses you again. Soft and chaste and shorter than the last.

“What now?” you smile feebly. The adrenaline is tapering off and you can no longer ignore the ache radiating throughout your body, nor the reality of what you are doing.

“Now, you need to take it easy,” he instructs with finality, thumb smoothing over your kiss bitten lip. “I’ll get on the phone with Fourth Kind and see if he’ll cooperate”.

“And the rest?”

Everything is there, in the small, covetous slant of his grin. All the patience, affection, respect and desire. He chooses all of you, said so himself — you’re fine as you are.

“The rest comes after”.