Archive of Our Own ^beta

Class 1-A milled about; the crowd they had gathered at their press event was large despite their status as first years. Midoriya supposed that was bound to happen because of all their exploits throughout the year so far. Aizawa had warned them that there would likely be a large number of journalists and fans coming out to their class meet-and-greet.

It was something all classes at UA did–something about goodwill and cooperation. Aizawa also said that they were likely to meet some of their fans who had seen them back at the sports festival at the beginning of the year, and had also likely heard about their exploits on the news. It was normally a great way to introduce fans in a normal way to heroes in training, but it would be a bit more intense for their class due to their well-known status already.

The class stood at the front of a large, grassy field. A tent was set up in the middle behind them all, where most of the teachers had set up, sometimes wandering around and offering advice to the class or chatting with the crowd. The class was in a loose, curved line around the tent, a line of varying lengths in front of them all.

There were times when Midoriya had finished talking and signing everything for the people in his line, and he glanced around. He could make out a few of his classmates, but even the ones on either side of him, ten feet away, were mostly blocked by fans and journalists.

Aizawa had been against this and warned the students to be on guard. It was highly unlikely the League of Villains would try anything today, but they couldn’t be too careful. Aizawa stood against the makeshift table under the tent, arms crossed, scarf coiled loose around his shoulders like a warning. He didn’t move from his position often, instead monitoring the event and students closely from his vantage point, and Midoriya could feel his presence like a net–quiet, watchful, and steady.

They’d been at this for hours already, and Midoriya had a new respect for All Might. He was already tired, but this was his dream. Each time he thought of that, a renewed vigor encompassed him, and he turned to the next person.

“You’re doing great, Deku!” a teenager said, accepting the paper with the hero’s signature back.

Midoriya grinned back at him. “Thank you!”

Just as the teen slipped away, Midoriya’s focus was pulled to the next man. He was older than the rest, maybe early thirties, with a small goatee. Nervous, Midoriya thought, watching him clutch a green notebook that looked… familiar. Midoriya had seen his fair share of nervous fans already, but something seemed different with this man.

“I… I’ve followed your story since I first saw you run out toward the slime villain to rescue that boy in his clutches,” he says softly, making Midoriya strain and lean towards him to hear him over the crowd. “You’re… so brave. No one sees what it costs you.”

Midoriya blinked, unsure for a moment how to respond. “Oh, um, thank you. I didn’t realize anyone would recognize me from that, it feels so long ago now.” He chuckles awkwardly, taking the notebook gently to sign. “What’s your name?”

The man paused. “You can just write ‘to your biggest fan.’”

That unsettled him a little. Not that it wasn’t uncommon–he’d actually written that to three others that morning already–but something about the way he said it made the skin on the back of his neck prickle.

Midoriya scribbled the message quickly and handed the notebook back, hoping they’d move on.

They didn’t.

“I knew you’d be just as kind in person,” the fan says, their fingers lingering on his. “I see you, even when no one else does.”

Midoriya pulls his hand back slowly, leaning as far back as he can without seeming too rude. “Thanks again f-for coming,” he manages to get out, hoping they would get the hint.

The fan glances to the side, and Midoriya follows his gaze to see Aizawa moving in with a subtle purpose. Midoriya lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding and watches the fan flinch and clutch the notebook to his chest before slipping away into the crowd before Aizawa reaches them.

Aizawa pauses once he reaches him, gaze tracking the direction the fan had gone. “You good?” he asks finally.

Midoriya nods automatically. “Yeah. Yeah, just… wasn’t expecting that, I guess. He was more intense than I thought.”

“It’s perfectly within your rights to set boundaries with fans. They don’t have a right to anything and if they make you uncomfortable, you can move them along and get to the next one or take a break. And this is always, not just now, okay?”

Midoriya nods again. “Yes, sensei.”

The next person walks up then and Aizawa stays until he knows Midoriya has regained his confidence. Midoriya, too wrapped up in talking with another teenager who shares his love of All Might, forgets about the strange encounter.

After returning to the dorms from the event, Midoriya had left to train with All Might while the rest of his class had settled in for the night or gone out to do their own independent training. It was late when he got back, and most of his class had already turned in at this point. He noticed Aizawa in the kitchen grading the papers they’d turned in yesterday, and Kaminari, Ashido, and Sero were having some sort of video game competition in the living room. The rest of the class was either still out or in bed.

The halls were dim as Midoriya wandered toward his bedroom, padding softly and rubbing his neck. His cheeks ached from smiling so much today.

It had been a great day, but his thoughts drifted back to the fan with the familiar notebook. It wasn’t what they had said–plenty of people said weird things today–but it was how he said it and how the fan was looking at him. Like he was… theirs.

He shakes his head as he approaches his door. That’s crazy. He was just a fan who didn’t know how to express himself. That’s it.

His door clicked open, and he froze in the doorway. His room was just how he’d left it. Notebooks were stacked neatly on the desk, All Might posters and merchandise straight and at attention all around him, his hoodie draped over the back of his chair.

But something was… off. He didn’t know what, exactly. A cold brush of air? A faint scent he didn’t recognize? Paper, or maybe, a different kind of ink?

He crossed to the desk, and there, sitting neatly on top of his journal, was a small piece of folded paper. Not an envelope, or a sheet of paper placed on top. Just a single, precisely folded square.

He paused. The corner of his mouth twitched as he unfolded it slowly.

It wasn’t his handwriting.

You look tired today. I hope you get home safely. I’ll sleep better knowing you’re okay. Don’t worry, I’m watching out for you. Always.

His breath hitched in his throat as he read.

No name. No address. No obvious threat, though. Something about it made his stomach turn. It wasn’t a fan letter, it was almost intimate, written like it came from someone who knew him and had been with him after the event.

His eyes flicked toward the window. Locked.

He checked the door again. Still sealed.

A beat of silence stretched as his mind raced.

It must have been one of his classmates. Aoyama has done weird stuff like this before, though it usually involves cheese. Maybe someone else is reaching out to him?

He stuffs the note in a desk drawer, out of sight, and pushes down the rising unease in his chest.

Suddenly parched, Midoriya stumbles out of his room and ends up back downstairs, entering the kitchen. He stops, seeing Aizawa continue on his mission to grade their papers.

Midoriya hesitates.

“Do you need something from me, Midoriya?” Aizawa asks, never looking up from his task.

Midoriya opens his mouth. Closes it. “No. Just… needed water.”

Aizawa hums, not pressing him as he pours himself a glass of water, staying silent, before returning to his room to turn in for the night.

It’s just a weird letter, he tells himself as he flicks off the light, draws his curtains closed tightly, and curls up under his sheets. But that night, he doesn’t sleep well.

The next morning, he finds his favorite All Might notebook, which he used to track his daily calorie intake and workout schedule, has been moved three inches to the left.

It was just before evening training the next day when Midoriya noticed the missing gloves.

They weren’t anything special. They weren’t part of his support gear, just a worn pair of compression gloves he kept in his drawer that he used for light sparring and warm weather. But they were gone.

He dug through the drawer twice. Checked his backpack, his laundry basket, under his bed. They had disappeared.

Weird.

He gave up on finding them, grabbed another pair that would suffice for the time being, and joined the others downstairs to head to training.

Midoriya had been thinking about the gloves the whole time he was training. He always put them in the same spot. And, sure, there was the occasional time he put them somewhere else, but it was always easily noticeable and he found them quickly.

He’d immediately gone to take a shower when he returned from training. He was sore and half-asleep when he finally managed to shuffle into his room, towel still over his hair.

Then he saw them.

The gloves sat, folded neatly, on his bed.

He froze in the doorway, and his stomach dropped. His room was locked when he left. No windows were opened, no classmates had any reason to be inside even if they could have gotten in.

Midoriya picked them up slowly. They were warm. Someone had touched them recently.

His fingers tighten around the fabric. His heart rate speeds up. This was… wrong. Something was wrong, and he didn’t know what, but he needed to do something.

Midoriya doesn’t remember walking there. He just finds himself plopping down into a chair across from his teacher in the kitchen, who was finishing grading their papers, as his hands clenched in his lap.

Aizawa glances up, studying him. “You look pale.”

“I…” Midoriya hesitates, deciding to fully trust his teacher and hoping he can understand what’s going on. “I think I lost something. Earlier. But now it’s… it’s back.”

Aizawa sets down his pen. “What do you mean?”

“I mean…” Midoriya searches for the words. “I couldn’t find my gloves earlier, but when I came back, they were just sitting there. Like someone put them back. But my room was locked, so…”

“Are you sure you didn’t just overlook them?” Aizawa asks. He wasn’t accusatory, just verifying.

“I thought I did. But it felt… wrong. They were on my bed. Folded.”

Aizawa’s gaze sharpened. “Was anything else out of place?”

Midoriya hesitates before shaking his head. “No. Maybe. I don’t know. I thought maybe yesterday my notebook had been moved, but I could have just bumped the desk and not noticed.”

And the note, his mind shouts at him to say. But he doesn’t. That, surely, was just a classmate of his, and he didn’t want to get them in trouble. They were either pulling a prank on him or the message was meant to be nice and just came across weird because of everything else that was going on. Like Aoyama reaching out to me with cheese on my balcony that first time.

He hated how he sounded already. Paranoid. Like he was jumping at shadows. He could just hear Kacchan’s voice in his head, calling him dramatic and a loser.

But Aizawa didn’t laugh. Midoriya didn’t know whether to be grateful or not.

His teacher leans forward slightly. “You’ve had a long week. Fatigue makes you second-guess things. But that doesn’t mean your instincts are wrong.”

“I’m not imagining this,” Midoriya says softly.

Aizawa immediately shakes his head. “I didn’t say you were.” A pause, a loud explosion of laughter coming from his classmates in the living room. “If anything else happens,” Aizawa says finally, “come straight to me, no matter what time it is. You still have my number saved in your phone?”

Midoriya nods.

Aizawa doesn’t press him further. He stays there for a while as his teacher returns to grading, just soaking up his presence and reassuring himself, until he finally returns to his room to go to sleep.

It had been several days since the glove incident, and nothing new had occurred despite Midoriya’s keen eye. He felt like there was sometimes a presence he couldn’t place when he walked around, or when he was studying in his dorm room. He tried staying out of his room as much as possible now, but the presence seemed to follow him after it realized he wasn’t going back.

He was exhausted. Not just tired, but bone-deep worn out. His limbs ached from training and his brain buzzed from overthinking and sleepless nights.

He still hadn’t told anyone about the note, and no one had come to him and let him know they had written it.

The whole thing was crazy, even to him. Still, he scanned every corner of the hallway as he walked back to his room that night. When he opened the door, the first thing he saw was another piece of paper, folded and sitting nicely on his bed.

His stomach sank even further.

You looked distracted tonight. You don’t have to pretend around me. I see the real you. The one behind the smile. The one who’s tired and scared. Let me in. You don’t need to be strong for them. I already know you’re mine.

He read it once. Twice. A third time.

His throat was dry and he felt nauseous.

The handwriting was neat. Precise. Every loop and line in the words held a sense of care, as if it were a love letter.

Midoriya dropped the paper, backing away from it as he turned and ran.

He finds himself sitting in the kitchen again. Aizawa isn’t here this time; he’d gone off to the teacher's dorm already. But Midoriya sat, hands clenched in his lap once more.

This… this can’t be a student, right? he thought. But what else could it be?

“Deku?”

He looked up. Uraraka stood across from him, a bowl of late-night cereal in her hands and eyes filled with quiet concern. “Are you okay? You’ve looked kinda… I dunno, off lately,” she says.

He forces a smile. “I’m fine, just tired.”

She frowns. “Deku, this is your fourth late-night zone out this week.” He flinches as she continues, “Talk to me?” She sits down gently across from him.

Midoriya opens his mouth, but the words get caught in his throat.

What was he going to say? That someone was stalking him? That they were sneaking into UA dorms without a trace? He’d asked Aizawa two days ago to “please check the security footage,” and nothing had come up. He’d just been given a slightly more concerned look from his gruff teacher before he apologized and ran off.

“I’m just dealing with a lot,” he finally says. “You know… just normal hero stuff we’ve all dealt with.”

Ururaka frowns. “Deku… if you don’t want to talk to me about it, that’s fine. But please don’t try to handle whatever this is by yourself. Talk to Iida, or Todoroki, or Aizawa-sensei. Please. We’re here to help you, too.”

He triple-checked the lock. He moved the chair in front of the door. The window was locked and bolted. The curtains were drawn.

It was 1:27 AM. Midoriya huddled on his bed, his lamp illuminating the room as he felt the weight of the second note that had been left for him – still lying in the middle of the floor where he had dropped it.

He was scribbling in his notebook, trying to focus on combat scenarios to distract himself, when he heard it. A tap on the window. Sharp, precise, like someone testing the glass with a fingernail.

He froze. Slowly, he turned.

Nothing there. Of course.

He got up, approaching the window. He pulled back the curtain to peek outside. The courtyard was still, dimly lit. No wind or movement out there to explain the sound.

It could have been a small bird or something, he reasoned.

Another tap, this time from behind him. He spun around to face… nothing. Just more shadows.

His breath came now in fast, shallow pants. The walls felt too close, pressing in on him.

He grabbed his phone for a flashlight, not willing to turn on his room lights and have someone possibly knock on his door and ask what he was doing, and began scanning corners. Closet: empty, other than his clothes hanging as he had left them. Under the bed: nothing but a bit of dust and pens that had rolled under. Curtains: undisturbed.

Wait–there! He saw it. A shoe print, on the inside window frame.

Ice flooded his veins. He snaps a picture almost automatically before his brain catches up to him and he bolts, scooping the note off the floor as he runs. Out the door, down the hallway, toward the teachers’ wing, wearing his pajamas and holding a phone with its flashlight still on. He didn’t even think, he just ran.

He forced himself to stop after three knocks, quick and urgent, despite his desire to pound on it until his teacher appeared. The door opened faster than he expected. Aizawa was already up, hair half-down, scarf around his neck, almost like he’d been expecting this.

“Midoriya?”

Midoriya didn’t say anything, just held out the second note he’d received earlier that day.

As Aizawa carefully grabbed the note and read it, eyes widening, Midroiya whispered, “They were in my room.”

Aizawa didn’t say anything for a long time while glaring down at the note after his shock began to fade. Midoriya hovered in the doorway, wringing the hem of his shirt between his fingers after tapping his phone to get the light off. His skin crawled, and his heart hadn’t quite slowed down yet.

Aizawa ushered him in, shutting the door and locking it behind him, but his eyes remained on the note. The room smelled like tea and something grounding and familiar. Something safe.

The words on the paper were still heavy in the air.

Aizawa finally looked up, eyes sharp even in the soft lamplight. “This was in your room tonight?”

Midoriya nods. “On my bed. The window was locked, but I swear-”

Aizawa holds up a hand. “I believe you.”

Such a simple sentence, but it made Midoriya’s throat tighten. He hadn’t realized how much he needed to hear it. And with that, he tells his teacher everything he hadn’t yet. The first note, the feelings of being watched, the moved notebook, the second note, the tapping, and the shoeprint.

Aizawa glances back down at the note. His expression doesn’t shift, but there is something colder there behind his eyes now. A stillness that makes Midoriya think of wild animals right before they strike.

Aizawa sets the paper down gently. “Show me the shoeprint.”

Midoriya takes a shaky breath and holds out his phone, the photo pulled up. The tread of a single shoe, pressed into dust along the inside of the windowsill. Faint, but clear enough to make out with certainty.

His teacher stares at it, jaw tensed, but only nods before walking to the counter. He messes with his phone for a moment before he pours two mugs of hot water into mismatched ceramic cups, dunking a tea bag into each one with practiced motions. He walks back, setting them on the table, motioning for Midoriya to sit.

Midoriya obeys, still trembling slightly, and gently takes a sip of the tea. For a few minutes, the only sound is the soft clink of ceramic and the sips they take.

“You should have come to me with the first note and your other suspicions sooner. I didn’t realize everything that was going on,” Aizawa says at last, tired.

“I know, I-I’m sorry. I just didn’t want to bother anyone,” Midoriya mumbles, looking down. “I thought maybe I was imagining it, or there was some logical explanation and someone in the class was messing with me. I didn’t want them to get in trouble. I… I thought I was just being paranoid and crazy.”

Aiawa snorts softly in disbelief. “You’ve got some hell of some sharp instincts. Don’t insult yourself like that, kid.”

Midoriya blinks at the sudden praise.

Aizawa sips his tea, unbothered, and continues, “Next time something feels off, you tell me the first time. Not the second, not the fifth. The first.”

“... Yes, sensei.”

Aizawa sets his mug down with a soft clink. “Make yourself comfortable. I’m going to contact the principal and the other pros on campus and give them more information after they search the premises.. We’ll figure this out, but you’re staying here for now.”

Midoriya settles in on the couch, feeling his shoulders sag as tension bleeds out just enough to make him realize how tightly he’d been holding himself together.

As Aizawa taps away on his phone, Midoriya looks to the windows. The shadows still felt too close, the silence pressing in too hard. But Aizawa was here, and for the first time in days, Midoriya thought he might actually get a few hours of sleep.

The couch wasn’t the most comfortable for sleep, but Midoriya didn’t care. He got actual, real sleep. The kind where the air isn’t thick with dread. The kind where he doesn’t wake up each time he drifts off with his heart pounding in his chest.

Aizawa’s room was dim and quiet, just the soft sound of the kettle clicking off and on again, and the hum of something mechanical outside the window. The light was on under the door to his teacher’s study, where he could hear him quietly talking on the phone, no doubt about him and this whole situation.

He shifted under the blanket. Then he heard it.

Click.

Not the kettle this time.

His eyes opened slowly. Something in the room had changed. The lights were still off, but the darkness was wrong. He saw a shape near the window, too tall and still to be his teacher.

He sat up. Too late. A hand slammed down over his mouth. The blanket tangled around his legs as he kicked, panic exploding in his chest. The figure leaned close, breath hot against his ear. “You shouldn’t have told him.”

Midoriya flailed. CRASH.

Aizawa’s office door burst open. There was a flash of movement: a white scarf, dark hair lifting, eyes glowing red.

“Get your hands off him,” Aizawa growled.

Midoriya gasped as the pressure on his mouth vanished, replaced with something sharper: pain.

The stalker moved faster than Midoriya thought possible. A blade, or at least something sharp like one, ripped across his side as they used him as a shield, drawing blood in a savage line.

Midoriya cried out, stumbling in the arms of his captor.

Aizawa’s capture weapon snapped forward, but the stalker moved again, dragging Midoriya toward the window. Glass shattered, air rushed in — cold, sharp, and loud.

“Let him go!” Aizawa was there, in the chaos, scarf whipping around the stalker’s leg, but something sparked. A flash of something he couldn’t make out, an explosive burst of light, and smoke detonated between them.

Midoriya coughed. He couldn’t see. He couldn’t breathe. His fingers clawed at the edge of the window, blood smearing the frame as he tried to hold on.

The last thing he saw was Aizawa’s hand reaching for him.

“MIDORIYA!”

Then everything went white.

Pain brought him back first. Not the sharp kind, but the dull, sick ache of his body remembering everything all at once. His side throbbed. His head pounded. His limbs felt wrong. Heavy. Slow. Muted.

He blinked. A low ceiling. Concrete walls. A single overhead light humming faintly. A thick mattress on the floor. No windows.

He tried to sit up and fell back immediately, dizzy.

The air was wrong. Thin and chemical instead of what he was used to. It stung faintly when he inhaled, like cleaning fluid or coolant, something artificial.

And then he tried to summon One For All.

Tried again.

Nothing.

His chest seized. No hum. No spark in his veins. No presence of the power that had become second nature. Just... silence. He felt quirkless again.

He tried again, harder this time, jaw clenching. Nothing.

His breath hitched just as the door opened. He flinched, heart hammering against his chest. He was too slow. He couldn’t get up. Couldn’t fight. His legs wouldn’t obey.

A figure stepped inside, silhouetted against the bright hallway beyond. “Oh, thank goodness. I was worried you wouldn’t wake up for a bit there.”

The voice was soft. Familiar. Too familiar. He couldn’t place it at first. Not with his head fogged, adrenaline crashing, but then he remembered the school event. The fan. The notebook.

He was smiling now, holding something that looked like a small cup. “I brought water. You were bleeding a lot. But I fixed that, don’t worry. Just focus on healing for now, okay?” They set the cup down on the edge of the mattress.

Midoriya stared. His mouth was dry, but he didn’t touch it. “Where… where am I?” His voice cracked, weak.

“You’re safe,” the stalker said, kneeling beside him like this was a hospital visit and not a damn kidnapping. “I know things got messy. I didn’t want it to happen like that. But you forced my hand, Izuku.” They said his name like a lullaby. His stomach twisted.

“You’re using quirk suppression somehow,” he said, forcing the words out through gritted teeth. He hoped the man would explain how so he could get some more information. It had to be something with the strange smell in the air that wasn’t quite natural. A gas, maybe?

“Yes, I am,” they said cheerfully. “Don’t worry, it’s not permanent. Just enough to help you rest.”

Midoriya pushed himself up, slower this time as he bit back a wince. “The heroes will find me. They’re already going to be searching for me.”

The man sighed. “I know,” they said, almost fondly. “They’ll try, but they won’t be able to find you. We’ll be moving someplace more secure soon, but not yet. And in the meantime…” He reached into his pocket, pulling out a paper.

No, it wasn’t a paper. It was a photograph. Of him. He was sleeping on the couch in his teacher’s dorm before he ended up getting kidnapped last night. A blanket was pulled to his chest, and he looked peaceful.

“I’ve never seen you look that calm,” he whispered, his fingers ghosting against the picture before tucking it away. “You looked like you felt as if you belonged there. That was your mistake,” he said gently. “That you thought they could protect you. I can protect you.”

Midoriya curled his hands into fists, now useless. Weak and shaking. “Someone’s going to stop you. You aren’t going to get away with this.”

“Oh, Izuku,” the fan sighs, almost sadly. “I’m not the villain here.” He stands and walks to the door. “You’ll see, I promise. In time, you’ll understand. Out there, those people… they just use you. Point you at some villain and watch you tear yourself apart. In here, you can rest, and I can take care of you. I’ll make sure you’re taken care of, all right? Now, get some rest.”

The door shuts behind him with a solid thump. Midoriya is alone again. Quirkless and bleeding. For the first time in so many years, he was afraid.

He sat on the mattress, staring off into space, waiting for some sign of rescue or his quirk returning. The lights didn’t dim, not even for sleep. It must have been at least a day, at this point. He’d gone to sleep from exhaustion at some point and woken up feeling more refreshed, but there was no way to actually tell how much time had passed in the windowless box he’d been dumped inside.

His side throbbed where the man’s knife had sliced him. It had been clumsily bandaged before he woke. Each time he shifted, he could feel the pull of the stitches. After waking up, he’d finally caved and drunk the water to quench his thirst. He couldn’t afford to be too weak when either help finally arrived or his quirk returned. But, he thought ironically, he was weak.

The man had come in twice now to drop off a tray of plain rice, bread, and more water. He didn’t speak, seeming distracted as he dropped the tray and hurried out. Midoriya picked at the first batch, barely eating anything. The second batch was immediately forgotten when the man left and Midoriya realized he hadn’t heard the lock click behind him.

He hadn’t locked the door.

Midoriya stared at it now, chest rising and falling as he forced shallow breaths to calm himself. It had to be a test, or a trap. But it could have been a mistake.

He got up, shaking and stumbling as his vision swam. His legs didn’t want to cooperate, but he pushed forward, toward the door, breath tight in his chest and hand pressed against his aching side.

The door opened. No creaking, no beeping. Just… open.

Midoriya slipped out into a hallway with more fluorescent lighting. More concrete, no windows. He turned, bare feet slapping softly against the floor and hand trailing the wall to help balance. Finally, he made it to a corner, peeking right and seeing–a staircase!

His heart rate spiked. This was it, this was his way out–

“Where are you going, Izuku?”

He froze. The villain stepped into the hall ahead of him, holding a cup of tea and taking a sip as if this were a dam casual encounter and a kidnapper blocking his victim’s one shot at freedom.

“I was hoping you’d rest more before trying anything reckless. They really did a number on you, huh? Making you push yourself so much.” He shook his head with a sigh.

Midoriya took a shaky step backward. Then another. “I’m leaving,” he said.

“No,” the man said gently. “You’re not.”

Midoriya turned and ran. Or tried to. He barely made it four steps before his side exploded in pain. Something ripped under the bandages, and warm wetness of his blood soaked through the gauze. He hit the ground hard, gasping for air. His vision blurred.

The villain’s footsteps approach, almost lazily. “Oh, Izuku…” he says, crouching beside him. “You’re hurting yourself. Again.”

Midoriya tried to push the man off as he reached for him, hand trembling, but the villain easily caught his wrist as he continued. “You always do this,” he whispered, brushing green curls from his forehead. “You carry too much. They put you in positions where you’ve hurt yourself so much that you think it’s normal. You don’t rest, you just throw yourself at the world and misguidedly call it strength.”

“D-Don’t touch me,” Midoriya rasps, weakly shifting his head away.

The man smiled. “Izuku, if you won’t take care of yourself, then I’ll have to.”

Midoriya watched, helpless, as the man grabbed a medical kit and pulled out disinfectant, gauze, and thread. “Please, don’t,” he says, desperately twisting as the man peeled back the bloody bandage, flaring pain locking him in place.

“I won’t let you fall apart,” the man whispers. “Not like they did.”

Midoriya, horrified, continues to watch as the man with no gloves, no anesthesia, and no hesitation, begins to stitch him up. Each pull of threat made his teeth clench. He bites the inside of his cheek so hard he tastes blood. When he can’t stand it anymore, he groans and shouts in pain, hating the man who then whispers reassurances to him.

The man hums while he works. He’s not sure what tune it is, but he knows it will haunt him.

“See?” he says when he’s done. “You just needed someone to really see you. That’s all.” He wraps a new bandage neatly around Midoriya. “Now, then. It’s time to rest,” he says, rising.

The man all but drags Midoriya into the room again, placing him gently onto the mattress and patting his knee gently as he stands. “Next time,” he says, walking toward the door, “I won’t be so gentle if you try to leave.”

The door clicks shut behind him.

Midoriya didn’t cry at first. He lay there in the silence, heart stuttering as the situation came full force down on him. The pain was sickening. The new stitches itch and burn. The bandage was too tight.

He curled onto his side. The cot smelled like bleach.

His hand moved weakly to the edge of the mattress, feeling for the cup of water he’d knocked over earlier.

Empty.

He pressed his forehead against the lumpy mattress and finally, the tears came. Not loud. Silent and slow, with shaking breaths.

He had nothing. No way to fight or call for help. One for All was gone, at least for now but maybe forever. Aizawa wasn’t here to protect him anymore. His other teachers and classmates… it was just him. He and a stalker who had a twisted mind and thought this was a form of love.

The crushing realization came next, that just maybe no one would find him before he either completely lost his mind or this man finally got sick of him and killed him.

How long had he been here now, playing this man’s twisted game? Three days? Five? Had it been a week already? He wasn’t sure. There was no clock, no sun. The lights never turned off. Food appeared randomly; sometimes he knew it had just been a couple of hours, and other times he was left starving for what felt like forever before more appeared.

The man would visit him occasionally throughout his time. Too casual. Too soft. His side had scabbed over beneath the gauze, but it still ached when he moved. Too tight, probably healing wrong. He didn’t ask for help, though. He didn’t want it, not from him.

He’d stopped answering when the man tried to speak to him. Sometimes he rambled about “progress” and how he was “opening up.” Sometimes they would just sit in silence, as if sharing the same space meant something.

He kept his eyes on the wall.

Occasionally, he missed his notebook. Any of them. All of them. That, more than the quirk loss, had broken something deep inside him. He’d always had one of his notebooks to distract himself throughout life and write down all the ideas he had. He didn’t realize how many thoughts lived in that battered notebook until it was gone and he was left desperately wondering what it was he had thought of.

Now, everything felt trapped in his skull, bouncing between panic and static. Thoughts just out of reach. He didn’t even dream anymore, just kept floating.

The next meal appeared later. He didn’t even wonder about how long it had been since the last one. It was more plain rice and some sort of meat. Lukewarm.

He pushed it around the bowl with his fingers. He was never allowed to have any utensil. He forced himself to eat just enough to stay upright. Tried to use One for All again. Nothing… He stopped trying after that.

He kept his back to the door most of the time now. A spot on the wall held his attention most of the time now. A chip in the paint shaped itself vaguely into a lightning bolt. He focused his whole attention on that to keep his thoughts in check.

Sometimes, he would imagine Kaminari’s laugh, followed by another of his classmates shouting at the boy for whatever he had unintentionally broken. That was better than the silence.

It was some time later, though he couldn’t give any estimation of how long at this point, that the door opened again. Light footsteps approached him.

“I brought you a gift,” the man said softly.

He didn’t look.

A crinkle of plastic, something being set beside him. “I know you, Izuku. I know you miss writing. I got you a new notebook.”

His body locked up. He turned his head, slowly, and there it was. It wasn’t his notebook. But it was similar, with a cheap pen tucked into the middle of the pages.

“I hope you’ll start to feel more like yourself again, only better this time,” he said. “You’re calmer now. I know you’re starting to see. To understand, Izuku. I’m so proud of you.”

He said nothing. The man left. He turned back to the chipped paint.

Eventually, with shaking fingers, he picked up the notebook, desire and curiosity getting the best of him. He flipped it open and stared at the blank page for a long time. Then, with deliberate care, he wrote two lines.

I am Izuku Midoriya.

They will come for me.

He hid it under the mattress.

Midoriya wasn’t okay, but he gained some fighting spirit back. He wasn’t his yet. He wouldn’t ever be. They were looking for him, and he would eventually be able to form a plan of escape and meet up with them. He was sure of it.

The lights flickered then. Only for a second – a small, stuttering blink. But it was the first change in days.

Midoriya sat upright slowly, trying to squash the hope surging through his veins. He stared at the ceiling and waited.

The lights steadied again soon after, the quiet hum returning. Nothing else.

A few hours passed, and he sat on the mattress, back against the wall, notebook in his lap. He’d written down a few pages worth of his favorite memories he wanted to hold on to no matter what. Names, places, strategies. Reminders of who he was at his core.

He’d flipped back to the first page and written, over and over, the same sentence.

They will come.

They will come.

They will come.

They will come.

He was just starting to believe it again.

The next time the lights flickered, it wasn’t just once. They pulsed with a stronge energy several times before the hum grew louder.

Midoriya froze. The air shifted. He pressed his hand to the floor.

Vibration. Soft, distant, like movement in the building above or below. Muffled, but real. His breath hitched as he realized this wasn’t footsteps. No, this was fighting. Chaotic, heavy, and fast.

He strained his ears as he sat forward and was rewarded with something else, a crackle of a radio. Soft and far-off, coming from the wall, perhaps the vent. It was hard to hear over the blood rushing in his ears but– “Section C breached, target is–”

He abandoned his notebook and lunged for the door. Still locked. But there was noise now. Still far off, but there. Shouting, explosions, muffled quirk impacts. The kind of destruction only a rescue team made when they weren’t bothering to be quiet anymore, he knew. How many people were up there? Were there more villains here than just his stalker?

His body trembled, legs turning to lead. But he stayed on his feet, pressing the side of his head to the door. Someone was coming, he could hear them.

The footsteps were quiet. not boots. Not battle-heavy. Not chaotic. Soft, deliberate, and familiar.

He backed away from the door, heart racing. The door handle turned, a shadow falling across the floor as the door opened.

It was him. The stalker stepped into the room as if his whole world wasn’t crumbling around him, as if maybe Midoriya were imagining the whole damn thing. But no, his smile was cracked, eyes wider than usual, sweat clinging to his forehead.

He closed the door behind him, locking it with another click. “Something’s happening,” he says quietly, as if Midoriya could have not figured that out already. “They’re here for you.”

Midoriya didn’t move, hoping the villain would talk long enough that the heroes could figure out where he was.

“I told you this wouldn’t last forever.” His expression faltered. “I gave you everything,” he whispered. “You were safe here. You were finally calm. They want to just take you back and put you back into that world.”

“You took my quirk,” Midoirya said before he could think better of it.

“I protected you.”

“You stabbed me. You trapped me.”

“You made me do those things!” he hissed, stepping forward in quick paces. “You let them get in your head. You let them ruin this. You... you never understood!”

Midoriya didn’t flinch. He was shaking, and the distance between them was shrinking. He was bleeding again, he could feel blood begining to seep into his bandage again. But he held his ground.

“You need to come with me,” he said suddenly. “Now. Before they get here. We can disappear and start over. This time, I’ll make sure you understand, Izuku.”

“No.”

“You don’t have a choice.” His voice was rising, cracking at the edges, hysteria leaking in. “I won’t let them take you and put your life in danger again – let them allow you to injure yourself over and over.” He reached behind his back, something small and metallic peeking out.

Midoriya’s stomach twisted. It wasn’t a gun or blade. It was an injector of some kind. Would it knock him out? Completely get rid of his quirk? Kill him? His shoulders hit the wall, out of space to run.

“Prove yourself to me now, Izuku. Come with me.”

He stared at the man, still trembling, but his voice was steady. “If you cared for me, you’d let me go.”

The man stared at him, and just for a heartbeat, there was something life grief in his eyes, before the door exploded inwards.

The sound shattered everything. His vision blurred. He saw concrete, light, smoke, and a flash of white across his vision. A scarf.

A voice, furious and raw: “Step away from him!”

The stalker spun toward the door, too slow before something snapped around their arm, knocking the injector loose. He screamed. The lights above them sparked, dozens of boots stamped across the ground, voices shouted commands he couldn’t make out, and finally, Midoriya crumpled to the floor.

The last thing he saw before his vision completely blackened was his teacher’s silhouette, stepping in front of him like a barrier. “I’ve got you, kid.”

The first time he woke up without pain, he didn’t trust it. His body had learned to expect the tight pull of a bandage, the ache behind his eyes, the pressure in his chest. So, when he opened his eyes and only felt tired, his brain panicked.

He sat up too fast, the room swaying in his blurred vision. White ceiling, steady beep. Hospital. A blanket slid off his chest as he stared in shock.

Someone stirred in the chair nearby. “Midoirya.”

Aizawa. Of course.

He blinked down at his arms, still bruised and bandaged. He’d lost weight, could feel it in the way the sheets hung off his shoulders, the ache in his joints.

Aizawa stood, stretching slowly, as if he’d been in that chair for hours. He probably had. “You’re okay,” he said simply. Not a question. Not a lie.

Midoriya nodded, or tried to. His throat was dry, but he forced himself to ask, “How long…?”

“Six days since we found you. You’ve been pretty in and out, but they stopped giving you the heavy doses last night.”

Midoriya closed his eyes. He’d been out of that place for six days. He didn’t want to think about how long he was in there yet.

Later, someone checked his vitals. A nurse said something softly, but he barely heard it, mind lost.

The medical team had confirmed the quirk suppression was temporary, and his power had started returning two days ago, but he hadn’t used it.

He wasn’t ready.

Nights were harder.

The nightmares weren’t about the pain. They were about the stillness. The quiet. The way the stalker spoke to him like they’d known him better than anyone else. Like he belonged to them and failed him by trying to leave.

That part haunted him more than the knife.

The door creaked once, during a shift change, and he work up fighting a scream down his throat.

Aizawa had been there. He was always there. Not touching. Just sitting and present. “Safe,” he’d said. “You’re safe.”

He still didn’t know how to talk about what happened, but he didn’t feel so alone anymore, and for now that was enough. Someone was almost always with him, Aizawa most of all. A quiet and deadly presence that comforted him.

The hospital room was quiet tonight. Too quiet. Machines hummed softly beside him as he lay on his side, curled under the blanket and staring toward the door. He hadn’t slept well since he’d woken here. He would eventually get to the point of exhaustion where his body would force itself into a restless sleep before something woke him, but even those moments were few and far between.

It was too quiet, the bed was too soft, the lights too steady, the air too clean. Every time he closed his eyes, he felt cold hands, smelled disinfectant, heard that damn voice in his ear–

“Still awake?”

He turned. Aizawa still sat in the chair, scarf draped loosely around his shoulders. His voice was calm and low, a kind of tired that had nothing to do with sleep. Midoriya understood it well.

He swallowed. “Sorry if I woke you.”

“You didn’t.” A beat of silence. “Can’t get to sleep?”

Midoriya nodded slowly.

Aizawa shifted, sitting forward. “Heard your quirk’s back?”

“That’s what they told me,” Midoriya replied, answering his teacher’s real question: Have you used your quirk yet?

Another pause. Midoriya’s hand tightened in the blanket. “It feels wrong.”

Aizawa didn’t push, simply waiting for his student to find his words and continue.

“I keep thinking about how powerless I was,” Midoriya says softly. “And it’s not just because I couldn’t use my quirk. It’s… I didn’t know who I was without it. I couldn’t protect myself. I felt so weak and like I couldn’t stop h-him. Like I didn’t matter.” His throat felt tight, but he forced out the words on his mind. “I kept htinking… if I was strong enough, it wouldn’t have happened.”

Aizawa stood up slowly, walking to the side of the bed and sitting on the edge. Not too close, but near. “You know that’s not true.”

“I know,” Midoriya said immediately. “But I don’t believe it yet.”

Aizawa nodded once, like he understood. He stared ahead, thoughtful, before saying, “You matter with or without your quirk, Midoirya.” He glanced down at the boy, voice steady. “You being powerless didn’t make this your fault. You being kind didn’t make this your fault. That villain made his own choices, and he’s suffering the consequences. Despite everything, you survived.”

Midoriya blinked fast, but the tears still came. Aizawa didn’t reach out. He never did unless Midoriya reached out first, but his presence was solid. Safe.

“You said you didn’t know who you were without your power,” Aizawa added softly. “But I’ve known the answer to that for a long time.”

Midoriya looked up.

“You’re still Izuku Midoriya. You’re still here. And you’re still going to become one of the greatest heroes.”

That broke something loose in Midoriya’s chest. He didn’t sob. He didn’t break down loudly. But he didn’t stop the tears from falling. And, for the first time since he’d woken up in that room bound, bleeding, and alone, he believed he was free.

The air smelled like grass and dust. Sunlight spilled over the training field, warm but not scorching. Midoriya’s hands clenched and unclenched at his sides. He stood at the edge of the field, heart pounding harder than any fight.

One for All was back, but it felt like a stranger now. He’d avoided calling it since he woke up. After a few days, as the quirk suppressants continued to wear off, he felt his quirk under his skin, begging to be used, and shoved it down as far as he could.

Aizawa stood beside him, arms crossed, watching quietly. “You ready?” he asked, voice low and even.

Midoriya swallowed. “I think so.” He couldn’t keep putting this off. His legs felt wobbly as he took a few steps forward, testing his balance.

The memories of captivity were still shadows in the corners of his mind – the fear, the helplessness – but something else was growing too: his stubborn spark.

He focused on the grass beneath his feet, the rhythm of his breath, the familiar hum just under his skin.

He raised a fist. Green sparks danced along his hand and down his forearm, tentative but real. He clenched tighter.

“Good,” Aizawa said. “Remember, start slow. You’re not the same as before, you’ve got to learn how to trust yourself and your quirk again.”

Midoirya nodded. He ran a few steps, careful, measuring the strength he unleashed. A small burst of speed, but nothing close to his usual explosive charge. It was still enough to make him smile as he turned to his teacher. “It feels… different,” he admitted.

“It will,” Aizawa assured immediately. “But you’re not starting over. You’re moving forward.”

Midoriya exhaled, shoulders loosening. For the first time in a long time, he didn’t feel broken.

He felt… ready.