Chapter Text
Aizawa’s been teaching long enough that he can usually tell what he’s going to find in a student’s records after a short time of knowing them, but even so, Hitoshi Shinsou’s file raises the hair on the back of his neck. They put this kid in a residential care facility for children with dangerous Quirks at age seven. A kid with a newly developing brainwashing Quirk, abandoned by the people who should’ve been nurturing him and teaching him right from wrong and dumped into a facility with dozens of other children, minimal oversight, and rampant abuse. Those places make villains, not heroes.
“What’cha reading?” The couch cushions shift as Hizashi flops down onto the couch next to him, a sprawl of long limbs and blond hair. It’s his night off, which means the fuzzy corgi pajamas are out. Which means that any second the cat will abandon Aizawa’s lap in favor of a softer napping spot.
He sighs, stroking the little tabby between her ears. “Admin sent me the records for that student from General Studies I’ve been training. It’s…not great.”
His husband sits up a little straighter. “What flavor of ‘not great?’”
“Nine years in and out of residential care,” Aizawa says. “Never more than six months in a foster home before being sent back like a defective toy. You could set a clock by the drop in his grades.”
Hizashi leans in to read over his shoulder. “Shit.”
“Yeah.”
“How does a kid like that get into UA?”
“Stellar test scores and sheer force of will, near as I can tell.” There are gaps in these records, lines to read in between and things the social workers don’t comment on or don’t know. Aizawa has spent long enough working with kids and their trauma that he can hazard a few educated guesses. He knows that when you give a child a Good job and a pat on the shoulder, they aren’t supposed to flinch. He also understands that a few short weeks of intensive one-on-one training isn’t enough to earn him the unwavering trust of a teenager who has rarely, if ever, been able to count on adults.
“Any red flags?” Hizashi asks.
Aizawa smirks. “This kid is nothing but red flags. But no, he’s not showing up to class injured or sick. He’s in a foster home not far from campus, which is probably the best case scenario here.”
“Hm,” Hizashi says, reading quietly.
He doesn’t need to say it. They’ve been together in one way or another for more than half their lives, and Aizawa can read that little sound like a dissertation.
Hm. He reminds me of you, painfully independent and about as trusting as a kicked dog.
Hm. You’re going to get over-invested in this one. I would’ve put money on it being one of your own students, probably Asui.
Hm. So this is the next student who’s going to break your heart.
“Don’t,” Aizawa says.
“I wasn’t,” Hizashi says, leaning casually back with his hands innocently in the air. The cat follows him, because of course she does, curling up on his chest like it’s the only place in the world she wants to be. Aizawa leans sideways, allowing himself to rest his head on Hizashi’s shoulder.
Hizashi runs long fingers through his hair and presses a kiss against his forehead. “Just…” he starts quietly, and holds his breath as Aizawa tenses. “Shouta, just remember you don’t need to save every kid all by yourself. If you run into trouble, tell me. Call Nemuri. Heck, even Yagi—” He breaks off laughing at Aizawa’s scowl. “Okay, maybe not Yagi. But can you let me help, at least, instead of shouldering the weight of the entire first-year class?”
It’s strangely difficult to just say fine. Which annoys Aizawa, which makes him actually want to say it, because like hell is he letting one little word get the better of him. “Fine,” he bites out, pushing himself back upright. “I have work.”
Hizashi gives him a quick kiss. “Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
He leaves his husband with their traitorous cat and gets ready for his patrol shift.
***
People have been telling Shinsou he’s scary since he was a little kid, and at some point, he started to believe it. It’s not like he can just stop having the ability to mind control people—and oh yeah, he’s tried. He can’t stop kids from hissing “Villain!” at him in the hallway or keep people around him from shying away when he comes near. Hell, he can’t even get adults to understand that he can hear them when they’re talking about him over his head. He’s always been scary Hitoshi Shinsou with the scary Quirk, and he probably always will be, if the whole hero thing doesn’t pan out. So he brushes his scary teeth and rubs his scary eyes and tucks himself into his scary secondhand Pokemon bedsheets and tries to ignore the way he can’t fully breathe when he stares at the ceiling at night, counting down the hours until morning. Until UA.
This foster home is okay. The Watanabes are a quiet, kind older couple who’ve been fostering for decades, and their household is small and hectic. They don’t touch him like they touch the littler kids—no hugs or whatever—but he’s the only teen anyway, and he guesses teens don’t need that kind of treatment. It’s not like he asks for it. He asks for as little as possible. When he was placed with the Watanabes, his case manager told them he was the easiest kid in the facility. (He knows, he was there for the whole conversation.)
So Shinsou tries to be easy. He does every chore assigned to him—especially cooking, which has always been his favorite. He helps with the toddlers. He barely talks at home, because conversations are hard. He used to watch the news with Mr. Watanabe, until that time a villain with the musical theatre Quirk turned the bystanders in a downtown street into a chorus line and the old man raised his eyebrows at Shinsou and said “Like you, eh?” He used to chat with Mrs. Watanabe while he helped her with the little ones, until the day she wondered aloud whether he was using his Quirk to make the toddlers more amenable to bath time.
He wasn’t. He wouldn’t. The last time he used his Quirk against another person outside of UA training, it was self-defense, and it sucked, and he felt nauseous for the whole three days he was in confinement after.
Now, he figures it’s easier to just disengage. He’s not getting beaten or starved, so it’s fine. This is the best place he’s lived since—well, it’s pointless to think about that. He is helpful and polite and mostly silent. He tries to smile, even though he’s been informed by other kids from the facility that he’s got “serial killer eyes.” He doesn’t make trouble. He goes to school, comes back to the house, helps out with dinner, and does his homework alone at the dining room table after all the kids are in bed. Except now, three evenings a week he trains with Mr. Aizawa.
Scary Shinsou gets to train with Eraserhead. E R A S E R H E A D. That fact spins off into space every time he tries to ground it and make it feel real. Eraserhead was one of his favorite heroes growing up, even though he didn’t have merch and was more of an urban legend than a public figure. His Quirk was mind-based and invasive in a way Shinsou’s own Quirk was, except that people understood it as good.
That’s all Shinsou ever wanted to be: Good.
So when he told Mrs. Watanabe about his schedule change, he made the mistake of letting a little bit of that excitement through.
“He’s a pro hero with a Quirk kind of like mine, and he was impressed enough with my performance at the Sports Festival that he wants to train me so I can test into the Hero Course! Isn’t that amazing?”
“Gracious,” his foster mother said, and took off her glasses to clean them on her shirt. Or to avoid eye contact. Both, maybe. He felt cold suddenly, like maybe she was about to tell him he couldn’t do the training.
“That’s quite an opportunity,” she said instead, her voice quiet. Then, the bombshell: “If Father asks where you are, we’ll tell him you’re being tutored. We saw your performance at the Sports Festival on TV, and he, uh… Well, I had to talk him down from rescinding your placement.”
Shinsou felt like he was standing over a chasm, like a cartoon character who’d run off a cliff but hadn’t looked down yet. It shouldn’t be a surprise. Every other placement he’d had had ended either in disaster or with his foster parents sending him back for fear of his Quirk.
Shinsou forced his face into a neutral expression. “He’s afraid of me.”
“It’s not—“ his foster mother started, and shrugged. “Imagining you is very different from seeing you in action.”
“I understand,” he said, biting down the question Are you afraid of me, too? The way her posture shifted while talking about his Quirk answered it clearly enough.
“So let’s just keep this between us,” she said conspiratorially, like they were plotting a surprise together, not hiding the greatest accomplishment of his life so far.
Shinsou nodded. It was okay. It would be okay. This was nothing new.
It is okay, he tells himself every time he shows up in the gym to work with Aizawa. He can do this work, learn to be a hero, test into the Hero Course, and then tell his whole foster family the truth. If anything, it’s motivational shame.
He puts every ounce of that shame into a roundhouse kick at the dummy in the middle of the gym, and if the sound that wrenches out of his throat is a little loud and raw, well, that’s just the fucking scariness working its way out of him as he moves toward becoming a good guy.
***
Aizawa likes to think he’s got a good rapport with his students, even if that rapport sometimes includes threatening to expel them if they don’t stop chatting through his lessons. Or practicing sparring moves in the hallway between classes. Or tossing office supplies at Minetta’s head to see what sticks, which was honestly pretty entertaining, but he’s not going to let them know that. The point being he likes to think he’s good with his students. But this new protege, Shinsou, is such a closed fist that it’s hard to tell if the kid even likes him.
Which…Aizawa is not the kind of person who needs to be liked. He survived the nation’s most rigorous Hero Course as the school’s first trans student, with no physical Quirk and an inseparable best friend who was a walking Rickroll. He defaults to politeness with most people, because they live in a society, but as a general rule he assumes that most people will not like him, and that’s okay.
But he wants this kid to like him. It’s ridiculous. The other day he heard himself make a pun to try and get a laugh out of Shinsou. A pun. He’s losing his edge. Or his mind. Possibly both.
If the kid liked his awful pun, he didn’t show it. He’s intensely focused on the training at hand at all times, brow furrowed and spine straight. Occasionally his gaze will go faraway in the middle of sprints or blocking practice, and Aizawa can’t tell if he’s on autopilot or dissociating.
“Sit,” he says during their next lesson, taking a cross-legged stance on the floor himself. The kid follows suit and stretches his neck like he always does before a meditation session, and Aizawa corrects: “We’re not meditating today. At least not right this minute.”
Shinsou is quiet. He’s always so quiet. It’s almost uncomfortable, as much as Aizawa lives in quiet when he can.
“Today,” he says, “I’d like to test the bounds of your Quirk. On me.”
Shinsou’s eyes widen, and his shoulders curl inward just slightly. “You want me to brainwash you?”
Aizawa nods. “We’ll set parameters for tasks you can make me do, and I’ll resist you as best I can. If I’m going to train you up for the Hero Course, I need to know what your Quirk can really do. Seems like the best way to examine it is from the other side.” He retrieves a folded piece of notebook paper from his pocket and hands it to the boy. “My spouse wrote an agenda of five tasks, so I won’t have any prior knowledge of what you’re making me do.”
Shinsou takes the note and frowns as he opens it, reading.
“Don’t tell me any details, but can every task be performed in this room?”
“Yes, sir.” Shinsou’s expression returns to that serious focus as he studies the agenda.
“Good. That’s our first rule: We don’t leave this room while I’m under your control.” Aizawa sets his eyewear and capture weapon in a safe pile on the floor, with his phone face-down on top. “Rule two: Maintain your Quirk until all five tasks are complete, I’ve broken free, or your Quirk gives out, whichever occurs first.”
“But what if—” Shinsou starts.
Aizawa looks him in the eye, challenging. “Kid, if something else comes up that I haven’t thought of, you’ll figure it out. I trust your judgement.”
That seems to shock him more than the assignment. His fingers curl hard against the paper, crinkling it. He stares down at the floor for a long, unreadable moment, then gives Aizawa a tentative smile and says, “All right. When do we start?”
“We can start right now if you—” Aizawa’s voice halts in his throat just as his body seems to freeze. Excellent. Shinsou stares back at him wide-eyed and small, like a child anticipating punishment, and it takes Aizawa a moment to realize he’s left him just enough control to move his head—one last out, in case he needs it. Smart. He nods and sees Shinsou’s expression harden into resolve.
“Okay, Mr. Aizawa,” Shinsou says, taking a deep breath. A little smirk tilts his mouth. “Let’s dance.”
Being brainwashed is an odd feeling. It’s like nothing at first, just an absence of motion, but the moment Shinsou cranks it up to full power, it becomes a physical sensation that’s impossible to ignore. It reminds Aizawa of the first prickles of pins and needles in a limb that’s fallen asleep, or the fuzzy discomfort of restless legs in the middle of the night. Meanwhile, his body moves with him in the backseat of his mind, fully aware that it’s doing the fucking Macarena, because of course Hizashi would want to make him dance. He doesn’t resist for the first task, just observes the sensation. Once Shinsou has sent him through the full dance twice, he throws his mind against the wall of discomfort and shoves as hard as he can.
The Quirk roars back in response. It feels like the crackle between radio stations sounds, like the itchy phase of healing his eye socket where he wasn’t allowed to scratch or slap it, like the mental static he used to get on bad dysphoria days, those sticky-hot July days before top surgery when the choice came down to binding or being able to do his job without heat stroke, and he chose work every time, no matter his own—
Oh. It’s so easy to go down mental rabbit holes under the brainwashing Quirk and lose time. Interesting.
Aizawa resists and resists, but Shinsou’s Quirk is stronger than he anticipated. After nearly fifteen minutes, all five tasks are complete and he’s lying on his back on the polished hardwood floor, catching his breath and settling back into his own body like he’s been on vacation from it. His elbow is aching, and there’s a stitch in his side from running laps.
Shinsou crouches a few feet away, staring at him with big, anxious eyes. He’s flushed and out of breath from the exertion of maintaining his Quirk against a pro level opponent, and his hair seems somehow wilder than before.
Aizawa pulls a hand through his own hair. “Incredible,” he says, shaking his head. “UA’s testing system did you a disservice.”
All the air goes out of Shinsou. For a second, it looks like he might cry. Then he slips down to the floor and rolls onto his back, too, a few feet away from his teacher. An actual giggle bubbles up out of him. They lie there on the gym floor in their own thoughts for a minute before Shinsou says softly, “Thank you.”
Aizawa lets his head sink to the side so he can see his protege’s face. Shinsou is staring up at the gymnasium ceiling, his expression relaxed and smiling. He looks like a fifteen-year-old for once, instead of an intent hero in training, and Aizawa knows he can’t waste this moment of openness. He assesses his options. Personal questions would be pushing too hard. School and training are safe topics, but too safe.
Aizawa opts for self-deprecation, which seems to at least be a commonality here.
“If you tell any of the faculty I had to lie down after a brief cardio session,” he says, “I’ll have to hunt you down.”
“I doubt you could catch me,” Shinsou fires back immediately, then shrinks a little.
Aizawa blinks slowly. Did this withdrawn child just sass him? A grin spreads across his face. His laugh echoes around the gym. Shinsou relaxes again.
“I hate sprinting, anyway.” Aizawa gives the kid half a glance as he lets slip, “Hizashi wrote it into the agenda to torture me.”
Shinsou is observant—moreso than a kid his age should have to be. The pieces click into place before the sentence is even out. “You’re married to Mr. Yamada?”
“Last I checked,” Aizawa says casually, because it isn’t a big deal. It shouldn’t be a big deal, coming out. But it was one of the scariest things he could imagine when he was a student here himself, and that old fear is always tugging at his sleeve, just like all the other ghosts on this campus.
He watches the information settle on Shinsou’s face. The boy shrugs with his eyebrows. “He’s…loud.”
Fair assessment. “Present Mic is loud. My husband isn’t always. Some pro heroes have a greater divide between their hero personas and their personal identities than others. It’s up to you how much of yourself you want to put into your hero persona.”
Mentioning heroing is a misstep. Shinsou pushes himself up to sit on his knees, his expression closing off again. Aizawa follows suit but keeps his limbs relaxed, trying to mirror a less fraught version of his student’s energy.
“Did being brainwashed hurt?” Shinsou asks suddenly, staring hard at the floor.
It occurs to Aizawa that with a Quirk like his, he likely hasn’t had much direct coaching on it. Not a lot in the way of feedback from adults he can trust.
“Not really,” Aizawa answers. “It’s a discomfort that gets stronger when you try to resist. Like cognitive dissonance, or an itch deep inside your brain.”
Shinsou chews on his thumbnail for a moment, then glances at his phone and says, “I should get home. Thank you for your time.”
Aizawa resists the urge to stand up with him and follow him to the door. His window closing, or maybe already closed, he throws out one last hook. “It’s truly a remarkable Quirk you have. Your foster parents should be proud.”
“They are,” Shinsou replies quickly, flashing a smile that doesn’t meet his tired eyes. He gives a quick bow before leaving out the back exit.
***
Shinsou is shaking when he gets home from one-on-one training. It’s always tiring to use his Quirk for extended periods, let alone against a pro hero, but this isn’t just that. He helps prepare dinner, his hands on autopilot at the stove, and gets the toddlers ready for bedtime and does his homework and can’t seem to—
His pencil lead snaps against a worksheet page, and for some fucking reason he snaps too and bursts out crying. His hands clap over his mouth, and his eyes dart to the doorway between the dining area and living room, where Mr. Watanabe is half asleep in front of a cable news channel.
There’s nothing to cry about. He used his Quirk on his teacher with full consent and got positive feedback. Nothing bad happened. Maybe it’s the first time he’s used his Quirk on an adult since the last time he was kicked out of a foster home, but this time he was invited to do it, not threatened into it. He’s at UA explicitly because of his scary fucking Quirk, and he’s going to become a great hero someday because of it, and everyone who’s ever avoided or abandoned him because of it will come begging for his forgiveness.
As long as he’s imagining impossible scenarios, he might as well have a pony, too.
He so does not have time for this. If he finishes his homework before 1:30am, he’ll still be able to get a good five hours of sleep. All he’s got left is a short English paper, which is Mr. Aizawa’s husband’s class, which sends his brain off on a new and different tangent about things he doesn’t have time to have a breakdown about. Maybe when he’s a celebrated pro hero with a pony he’ll take these thoughts out and examine whether he would also like a husband.
He presses the heels of his hands hard against his eyes, until his eyes are sore and all he can see are dim nebulas of misfired color receptors. The pain makes the tears slow. His breathing goes back to normal. In the next room over, Mr. Watanabe snores in his chair.
Shinsou tucks his tangled emotions away and goes back to work.