Archive of Our Own ^beta

It was quiet in the teacher’s lounge of U.A. Then again, Toshinori thought, what else could it be?

Across from him, Aizawa stood, just as quiet as Toshinori was as he made himself a cup of coffee. Aizawa was likely about to go out on his nightly rounds of U.A. With the school effectively turned into a shelter, he couldn’t afford to go much farther than the U.A Barrier, though Toshinori was sure he wanted to… Toshinori himself certainly wanted to. But… tonight, if nothing else, Toshinori needed to stay here. To stay within the walls of U.A, a bulwark against the ever-encroaching darkness that was threatening to consume Japan.

Once upon a time, it would’ve been him going out there, doing something to bring light back. Now… now.

Toshinori didn’t like thinking about the now. When he lingered on his thoughts for too long these days, it almost felt as though he, too, were about to be enveloped in that very same darkness. His only reprieve was that Midoriya, his beloved protege, his boy, was finally back home. And he… wasn’t the one to bring him back. He tried - oh, Toshinori tried - but he wasn’t enough on his own.

In the end, it was Midoriya’s classmates that brought him home. Home, to U.A, surrounded by his family, friends, loved ones. This was where Midoriya belonged. Where all of the kids belonged. Not… out there.

“You look like you ate a lemon,” Aizawa said suddenly, breaking Toshinori from his thoughts. The exhausted man dropped into a chair beside him, leveling him a cool, questioning look. A silent invitation to explain, to vent, if he needed. He’d learned to read the man a lot better since the beginning of the year.

“I might as well have. My missing stomach can’t handle them any more,” Toshinori muttered, eyes downcast to where his scar rested underneath his shirt. “I can’t handle much of this, either.”

Aizawa raised an eyebrow. “‘This’ being what, exactly?”

“What else?” Toshinori laughed dryly. “This. This entire situation. This… inherited war I thrust onto Midoriya, onto all of these kids, these civilians.”

“You blame yourself?” Aizawa asked. He leaned back in his seat and sipped at his coffee, his expression neutral as he took in what Toshinori was saying. Considering, careful.

Toshinori pressed a hand to his scar, aching with phantom pains of a battle he thought he’d won a long time ago… a lifetime ago. A hero’s folly, if ever there was one. Even if nobody else knew the truth, he did, and that was enough. “Who else would be to blame? I failed to kill All for One years ago. If I’d done things right the first time, even the second time at Kamino, they wouldn’t be in this mess. They’re children, Aizawa. Kids. And the world, us, we seem perfectly content to throw this entire thing onto their shoulders! Onto Midoriya’s! He might have One for All, but we’ve seen what driving him this far has done! He… he doesn’t…”

Toshinori covered his misting eyes with his other hand. He recalled how Midoriya had looked the day he’d tried just to get him to eat. How Midoriya had fought against his own friends, people he should’ve been sitting in a classroom with, smiling together and joking around like normal children. This wasn’t… it shouldn’t have been their jobs, let alone what they felt to be their duties.

“Of course it shouldn’t be on them, but it’s not something we can change,” Aizawa murmured. He took another sip of his steaming coffee, and Toshinori wished not for the first time that he had Aizawa’s capacity for calm in these types of situations. “You’ll run yourself ragged too, thinking about it like that. Whether it’s your fault or not, All for One and Shigaraki are out there right now, and the kids are involved whether we like it or not. That’s all there is to it. We have to face the future with an unwavering heart - if we can’t, how can we expect them to? They’ve seen enough people give up on them for one lifetime.”

As he usually was, Aizawa was bluntly and pragmatically correct, and Toshinori hated it. While they got along and understood each other better these days, they were simply different, and they likely always would be. Toshinori was easily emotional and driven by his heart, while Aizawa was logical and driven by duty. It gave them two very different perspectives, but that didn’t mean Toshinori always had to appreciate a new point of view.

Still, he always knew when his fellow teacher was right, and this was one of those times.

“I just… I just don’t want to do this any more. I don’t want to send them out there any more, I don’t want to see them forcing themselves to pretend everything is okay, I don’t want to see them coming home injured, starving, unwashed, and hated by the very people they’re giving their childhoods to protect!” Toshinori found his voice rising against his will, slamming a fist against the chair he sat in. His fist felt so weak against the arm of the chair. The very hand that failed to stop All for One, that failed to end things when he had a second chance, that failed to bring home his boy.

Aizawa’s voice was uncharacteristically soft in comparison to Toshinori’s anger. “I know,” he replied. “I feel the same way. I just don’t have time to wallow. Neither do you. We have jobs to do - and right now, doing those jobs will be doing more for those very kids than anybody else is.”

Toshinori stared down at his clenched fist. His hand was thin, bony. And yet… Aizawa was right. Toshinori had a job to do. How could he have forgotten? No matter how things were now, no matter how much he hated and raged and became filled with regret, there were still things he could do now. He would still reach out that thin, bony hand of his to people who needed it, no matter how many times it might be slapped away.

Being a hero was not something easily dismissed, quirk or no quirk. He wished he’d understood that a long time ago - a lifetime ago.

“I might not want to do this any more… but I have to,” Toshinori amended, his voice just as soft now. Aizawa nodded once and downed his cup of coffee.

“But you have to,” he agreed. “And we’ll be helping. All of us at U.A - we’re a team. That means you, too. Don’t forget that. Those kids are looking up to you.”

Toshinori looked up from his fist with eyes like steel. “I won’t forget. No matter how small… I’ll help however I can from here on out.”

Those kids were looking up to him, as Aizawa said. He couldn’t afford to let them down.