Archive of Our Own ^beta

There is a box in the back of Izuku's mind. A place where he shoves the ugly things that he doesn't like to think about.

He shoves things there more than he would like to admit. The days when he wears laces as white as the scars on his hands get tucked in beside the little moments where his mother looked at him with a grief bordering on pity to her eyes, and alongside the way that he had once dug a kitchen knife in along the seam of his toe until there was blood and an agony that somehow still couldn't match the pain in his heart and mind.

Izuku keeps his box pushed far away yet always just within reach, close enough that he can scramble to put something new in it at any moment that he might need to, the instant that something awful happens, or even something not so awful that he cannot and will not willingly deal with in the moment that it happens.

Like right now. It isn't anything big, really he's just being pathetic, this is stupid, but he can't help it. Because, here and now, he's completely fine, really he is, except he also isn't because the older year is talking about how their little sibling has been diagnosed as Quirkless and how worried they are, how rare it is for people their age to be born Quirkless, and they aren't sure how their aunts and uncles and cousins are going to take it, and they sound so concerned, so worried for their sibling, and Izuku has something ugly rising up in him, an edge of shadows that catch like barbed wire.

He doesn't like the idea of being jealous of some little kid. Particularly not when he knows that the kid is going to have a lot of very, very awful things to live through.

And so Izuku shoves it away, pushing it down, crushing it, hiding it away from himself until he doesn't have to acknowledge it himself, until there is smooth ivory-paper-stars layered over the dark thoughts, the cruelty that bubbles up from the abyss in his guts, and he can laugh and smile and chat with his friends without so much as a blink in the direction of the older students.

(He can still hear them, can still hear the words that are so kind and are so awful to hear; Izuku can't help how his heart thumps double-hard at every mention of worry and fear and 'I just love them so much I don't want them to get hurt'-)

It's fine. Izuku is fine, really.

Except he realises, as they're leaving the canteen, that the box is curving at the seams, straining, bulging, threatening to burst.

Not only that, but somehow it doesn't actually get any better through the day. Normally he can squash it tighter and tighter until he can hardly breathe, hardly feel anything else much either, but he wouldn't fall apart until he allowed himself to, when he could sob tear-less silence into his pillow, and pretend that his eyes aren't still burning as he tries to sleep not even an hour later.

Today it just won't be squashed. No matter how hard he tries, at that. No, Izuku's thoughts keep on circling right back around to the idea of this kid, of their parents and siblings that love them so much, that worry so very much about them, who want to support this little four year old who will be such an outcast. That little kid is going be adored, still, despite being labelled as a freak by society. They will learn, surely, what a Lace is, what they are, and perhaps their family will find out too, yet they will only be encouraged to wear black Laces on their shoes, perhaps grey sometimes too, secure in the way that they are loved, that they have a safe place, that they are worth something.

They will not get half so many pairs of white laces ruined with spots of blood.

It is these spiralling thoughts that keep him paralysed in class, trying to take notes and faltering constantly, leaving gaps and stops and half-scribbled words that trail into nothing, train of thoughts and understanding of the lecture fading in and out enough to lost half of many of his words. He tries, don't get Izuku wrong, he doesn't want to let himself be useless now, not when he's literally in the middle of a class, Heroics and Ethics at that, Aizawa-sensei a steady presence that doesn't really help no matter how much Izuku tries desperately to focus on it.

Falling apart in class, of all places, is likely the one he least wants to start crumbling in. Because Izuku does not want to worry his teachers or friends, nor, frankly, would he want to answer the inevitable questions, particularly in a moment where he's being so pathetic in the first place.

So, when his box continues to fall apart, when he can feel a corner give way, the lid slipping, Izuku decides that he cannot bear to let the emotions escape in front of everyone, not like this, and with that he raises his hand, just about manages to ask to go to the bathroom in a normal way, and tries not to stumble or gasp for breath or meet anyone's eyes as he leaves the room.

It's thoughtless, how he heads for the second-nearest bathroom, still caught up in tangling anchor-ropes, weights that wrap around his limbs and mind and drag at his eyelids, pull at his aching fingers.

His box is falling apart. Izuku is falling apart.

He slams into the toilets, and then into the second-furthest stall, because the furthest away place is the most obvious one to hide in, but also he doesn't want to be closer to the entrance; he doesn't think he could bear the vulnerability of it. Not when his heart is shuddering, and his marrow is a molten, overheated thing searing through every single bone, scarred or not, all of it just adding to how his box, the thing he has had for years and that has kept him safe, has protected the people around him from his ugliness, is shatter-unspooling, its edges unravelling like so much string and bone shards, digging into the soft parts of his chest, tangling around his bones, letting all of the shadows seep out, dripping ink and oil onto his vulnerabilities.

Izuku is disgusting, inside-out, and he knew it, always has known it, but never has it been so overwhelmingly obvious as right now.

Time is lost to his shadows, then, to his darknesses. Izuku sobs, perhaps, or his breathing is just messy, he doesn't really know, just burying his hands in his hair and tugging until it helps ease the burning of his eyes and the drag of air in his throat.

Until something changes. There is a noise, distant footsteps and the slide of a door moving, enough that Izuku catches his breath, his entire being a thing of frost and unmoving glacier because he- he can't have this. He can't be found like this.

"Anyone in here?"  The call is low and calm, yet Izuku still startles, because he can't- he doesn't want Aizawa-sensei to see him like this, to find him falling apart over all of fucking nothing. 

(Except it is everything, to Izuku. It is weeks and months and years of being hurt, of seeing others hurt and being unable to help them, and it is a day that is a step too far because that child is getting everything that Izuku didn't and he is so, so glad for them but he is also so incredibly envious, because why couldn't that have been him? Why did his Dad leave, and his best friend lash out, and his Mum become so paralysed?

Why didn't Izuku get that support? Was he really just a Deku, so much worse even than the other Laces, a useless fool in amongst a group of people already so hated that half of them fucking kill themselves by the time they're his age-)

"Midoriya, kid?"  Izuku- Izuku didn't think that he had made a noise, but then again he was so lost in his head that he might have done, maybe (he doesn't know it but his gasps, whilst quiet, are riotous in the silent bathroom, his panic a palpable thing laying heavy, a smog in the air-), and now his teacher is going to see him like this.

Aizawa-sensei is going to know. Izuku isn't sure that he can handle that. Not now, not on top of everything else.

Not ever, really.

Although that choice might not be his, because he can hear footsteps and it has his breaths catching, the iron-wrought ivy around his ribs tightening its hold to a point beyond cruelty, beyond suffocating.

"I'm with you, Problem Child."

"N-no-"  Izuku doesn't want anyone with him, doesn't want to be so exposed, so weak and pathetic and belly-up vulnerable, not even with someone as kind as Aizawa-sensei.

"You can have time, kid, but I'm not leaving you alone right now." Izuku barely comprehends those words, just about understanding them but not truly feeling able to make sense of that, not with how he's still falling apart, still awful inside-out, and he just needs to be alone, needs to be better, but he can't guarantee any of that, and if Aizawa-sensei tries to shove into the stall, tries to see him, to help him-

Oh, his teacher has... The hero has settled against the stall door, maybe? It has shifted against the latch, but he clearly isn't trying to break it either, and Izuku can't hear heavy breaths or footsteps or really anything much at all. 

"I'm still with you, kiddo, but you can take your time. I'm willing to wait. It'll be okay, Midoriya, just give yourself some time. Try to slow your breathing down for me."  Izuku... Izuku listens to that, because he doesn't really have any other choice, to his own mind, he doesn't want to worry the man more than he blatantly already is.

(Honestly, he's just glad that the hero hasn't forced his way into the stall, or tried to pull Izuku out of it, because if he had to be seen right now, let alone grabbed, he isn't sure he would be able to handle that, no, he thinks that he would have to run in that moment, that he would have to let his Quirk that he never deserved halo him and run until he couldn't breathe, until his bones are threatening to shatter within his paper-thin skin, until he's alone and safe and doesn't have to face the idea of anyone knowing just how awful he is inside and out-)

But as much as Izuku tries to calm himself down, to ease up some of the agony in his chest, it isn't working, nothing that he tries to pull himself together, to count his own breaths. It isn't working.

"-o, three, four; one, two, th-"  Izuku fades in and out of full awareness, but the numbers follow him throughout both, as does the odd tapping noise that takes him a very long time to comprehend. It's knocking. Or tapping, maybe? His teacher is rapping a matching beat against the door, in time with the words, and it helps too, maybe even more so than the words, because it oh-so faintly reverberates through the door to the wall that Izuku is curled up against, and he can maybe just about feel it, or so he thinks. Either way it helps. Izuku's breathing begins to settle down.

Eventually he moves, shuffling forwards, tapping gently against the door to forewarn his teacher before he slides the lock back open. He- He doesn't really want to leave, still, but he's breathing, and he has no good justification to make the hero waste even more time on him than he already has. Izuku should just pull him together. (He doesn't want to be a burden, an inconvenience, not like he always used to be, not like he keeps making himself every time he gets injured-)

"Hey there kiddo."  Izuku, for a long second, doesn't know how to respond, how to process the way that Aizawa-sensei's expression has a soft edge, something concerned to it.

"Want to go and sit somewhere more comfortable, kid? I have a free lesson now, we could settle down in my office, maybe get you a drink of water or something, if you'd be comfortable with that. We could go to the faculty room instead, if you would rather, but it would be less private."  The words are level, calm, and utterly firm. Izuku knows that Aizawa-sensei won't be taking no for an answer.

"Yours, please."  It's the only semi-okay option; Izuku definitely doesn't want even more people seeing him like this, doesn't want them to know how weak he is. How he is broken, falling apart.

And it's with this that he's grateful for how Aizawa-sensei keeps a steady pace just a little faster than his usual amble, because Izuku might be stumbling, his breathing still not settled properly, but at least this way he can hide away again soon enough. He won't have to look anyone else in the eyes.

Fortunately, at this pace it doesn't take them long to get to the man's office, and the door is pulled gently shit behind Izuku. He doesn't mind at all, for the sake of privacy, particularly when he's quickly enough distracted by being gestured to sit on one of the sofas, his focus going into keeping his breathing steady, or as close as he can get, as he perches on the edge of the cushions. Moments later, a nutrient pouch (it's watermelon flavour, just like Izuku's favourite sweets-) gets placed on the coffee table in front of him, and it has Izuku glancing up in time to see the man opening up a new bottle of water, just getting the hardest initial turn of the cap done, snapping the plastic, before that gets put down in front of him too,

"Drink some of this, slowly, and have this if you can stomach it, got that kid?"

"Mmhm," Izuku manages, abruptly nervous all over again in a very different way.

This feels too much like care he doesn't deserve, and not only that but it also feels like the set up for a conversation that he really, really doesn't want to have.

He isn't wrong, judging by how the hero sits down directly opposite him, not speaking or staring at Izuku yet, attention on his own nutrient pouch. If nothing else, the teen is glad for the lack of immediate pressure. Even if, within a minute, that heavy gaze is on him, and there is a question that cannot be ignored,

"Can you tell me what triggered this, Mi- Izuku?"  And, no, no, Izuku can't, Aizawa-sensei has already seen far too much of his wrongness today, it's too much-

"I- I don't-"

"It's alright, you can take your time, but I think we need to talk this through as much as we can, as much as you're able, to try and ensure it cannot happen again. Understood?" Izuku still cannot bring himself to answer, so he makes do with a jerking nod that spikes a brief ache down his neck but that's okay. At least his teacher is looking at him with approval rather than disappointment.

Maybe he can at least try? Aizawa-sensei seems to be taking his messy emotions and still-lingering panic fairly well so far.

Yet Izuku finds his shoulders hunching, the curling-in of a flower against cold moonlight, feeling far too vulnerable, far too exposed, all raw-nerve edges and trembling hands. His tongue clings to his teeth, the tackiness of half-dried blood,

"It- It pro'ly won't happen 'gain."

"Can you guarantee that, kiddo?"  It's something of a challenge, except it is soft, a beckoning, coaxing sort of thing as well, and Izuku knows it isn't intended to be mean or judgemental, even as it has the teen flinching slightly.

"No."

"Then I'd like to be able to prevent, or at least help you avoid, whatever the situation was should it happen again."

It's logical. That is perhaps a redundant statement, given that this is Aizawa-sensei, but still, it's irrefutably logical, and Izuku is almost completely certain that the man just wants to help, that he means well, that he is being honest.

So even whilst his riotous heart tells him to be terrified, and whilst his breaths still catch in a way that genuinely hurts, Izuku tries to pull words together, tries to find the balance of words that doesn't feel wrong, that doesn't feel like bile on his tongue to merely contemplate. It doesn't quite work. But he starts speaking all the same,

"I- At lunch, one of the second years was talking about their Quirkless sibling and I- It hurt to hear about."  It's both more and less than he wanted to say. Izuku- He just doesn't know how better to say it, how to be truthful without letting all of his ugliness be laid bones-bare and brutal, because he doesn't want to lie to Aizawa-sensei, yet he cannot stand the thought of being honest either. Doubly so when this is all borderline secrets that speak far too much of his own childhood, and far too much of secrets not his own.

"Alright. Were they being discriminatory?"  That, somehow, has a well of absolute rage welling up in Izuku, a burst of magma that sears his tongue to the roof of his mouth, a reminder of his bitter jealousy that is too sharp to beat down,

"No! No, they fucking weren't, and that just made it even worse!" 

He didn't mean to yell. He didn't want to let his emotions run so high (he would rather shove it all back in his box, would rather float upon clouds, far aware from his body and feelings, where he doesn't have to be weak-), didn't want his teacher to be witness to the ragged, illogical crumples of his mind, yet here they are. The stillness, the silence, is a millstone condemnation that tugs Izuku's stomach into instant knots. Surely Aizawa-sensei must hate him. Or, at the very least, he must think that Izuku is stupid and horrible and cruel.

The tableau is broken soon enough, however, and the hero is leaning forwards slightly. Izuku, the coward that he is, just closes his eyes so that he won't have to meet that dark gaze, the one that will surely pick him apart, will judge him.

Izuku can't help how, no matter how well-intentioned Aizawa-sensei surely must be, he is utterly and overwhelmingly terrified.

"Kid. Izuku, please, you don't have to look at me, but listen to me, alright? Just listen."  There is a steady

"It's okay to have feelings that aren't perfect or pretty; you cannot control your emotions. They don't have to make sense."  Izuku doesn't, can't, respond to that, can't even blink, can nary so much as breathe, and Aizawa-sensei's rhythmic tapping stops too, hand flat against the coffee table, everything paused, until there is one more sentence, one more weight, one more blow of kindness:

"Your emotions don't have to be heroic."

It hits Izuku far, far harder than it by any rights should. Because he- he knows that he is so far from Heroic in so many ways, that he fails far too often, that he is too weak and disgusting and he's still, in all truth, a Lace in his heart and mind and toes. Izuku is bad. He is trying, has always been trying, to be heroic as best he can, has always hoped that how much he tries to help people might mean something good, but, still, Izuku thinks that his efforts can only do so much.

So if his ugly parts don't make him bad, if his horrible, selfish feelings don't make him unheroic, then maybe... maybe Izuku hasn't needed his box quite as much as he thought. Maybe he's something like okay. (But then why did everyone hate him? Why did nobody want to help him in the same way that the second year wants to help their sibling-)

The thought of it doesn't feel real, frankly. It seems ridiculous, and unrealistic, and like Izuku's entire world is a lie, one mostly of his own desperate making, but equally Aizawa-sensei doesn't lie either. 

Fuck, but Izuku is confused.

"But- But I shouldn't be jealous of a little kid. It's just gross. And stupid of me."  Aizawa-sensei's knuckles are still steadily rapping a rhythm against the table top, even as the man shakes his head slightly,

"No, it isn't. It's natural to wish for something you needed but didn't get."

"I-" There are no words for Izuku then, for how his entire being is still struggling to comprehend this, to wrap his mind around the mere possibility of what he is being told.

"Izuku, kiddo, you don't have to agree and understand with all of this today, it's fair if it's a lot. Just know that it's true. I wouldn't be so illogical as to lie to you, let alone about something as important as this."  Izuku certainly isn't able to argue with that fact, because it's one of the only things that he has been able to rely upon in this entire afternoon, but he also just- It doesn't make sense.

Maybe... Maybe that really is okay though. Maybe he doesn't have to understand it all right now. Maybe he can look up at his teacher, and the dark gaze that he meets will be kind, will be understanding, will be patient.

"It's okay, Izuku. You're all good, kiddo, I promise." The words are kind yet absolutely firm, unrelenting, then that hand is palm-up and right on the edge of the coffee table, and Izuku looks down from those warm eyes to that callused hand, to the offer it is tacitly presenting.

"I can try." And to match the words, he settles his own trembling fingertips atop that hand, lets Aizawa-sensei shift their hold until their grip is a gentle, warm thing, a grounding point that Izuku centres his entire being upon.

"That's all I would ask, Izuku." 

He finds himself genuinely believing the hero. Partially to his own surprise, admittedly, because he's used to not being enough, but when it's Aizawa-sensei he would just say if he needed more from Izuku, so there's a security to it all. A surety. It helps keep Izuku calm when the man speaks up once more,

"I would like to talk through more of this with you another day, kid, or help you find someone else to talk to about the reasons behind this and any further incidences, understood?"

"Do we have to?" Izuku hedges, tone far wobblier than he intended. Aizawa-sensei only offers him a sympathetic glance and a set jaw in return,

"I can't outright force you to, kid, but I believe it would benefit you, and when you join an agency you will have semi-regular mental health checks; if you fail them you will be pulled from active duty for a period of time."

Oh. Izuku isn't blind to the implications of that, to what Aizawa-sensei is trying to say, yet equally that doesn't matter right now, surely? He- He's fine, mostly. Today is just a bad day.

Although maybe Aizawa-sensei can tell that this is the teen's thought process, because he squeezes his hand ever so slightly,

"In other words, Izuku, if you can start to get a handle on your triggers, coping methods, and general health now, rather than later, then it will benefit both you and others long-term."

"I... Okay. That makes sense."

"I should hope so," Aizawa-sensei agrees, wry, and his Cheshire grin helps ease some of the tension still sharp along Izuku's shoulders.

Maybe things will be okay. Maybe Izuku can afford to not be perfect all the time, and maybe even though he's a Lace he can still be better than the Deku that he has long-since felt he is (that he has been called, carved into by fists and words and blood on white laces-), and maybe it's not a problem if he doesn't always have the perfect response to things, or if he feels things that he doesn't think are good, or heroic, or kind.

Izuku is glad that little kid will still be supported. He likes to think that he might get that sort of support now as well, with how gently Aizawa-sensei holds his hand, and how earnest his gaze is, that he might not have to think about blood on his laces, that maybe he will share some of his truths and still have a teacher that wants to help him at the end of it, a hero.

Things might just get better; Izuku might just better. It's a nice thought.