Work Text:
“Shinsou, can you stay for a moment?” Present Mic calls out when the bell rings and immediately Hitoshi feels paralyzed with fear.
His grades aren’t slipping, he knows this, he makes sure that no matter what is going on in his life they aren’t, and he didn’t cause any trouble in class and he wasn’t disrespectful to his teacher either.
That can only mean that he’s in trouble for something else and the thought makes him sick to his stomach.
“Sure,” he whispers out, certain that Mic-sensei can’t even hear him but he stays seated just like Mic-sensei asked him to.
Hitoshi’s classmates throw him glances when they walk past, but predictably no one speaks to him and no one stays behind to wait for him, because why would they. It’s not as if he’s on speaking terms with any of them, after all.
Way too soon the last student has left the classroom and it’s only Mic-sensei and Hitoshi. Hitoshi tries to sink as deep into his chair as he can, but Mic-sensei’s whole attention is on him and there’s no escaping it.
“You’re not in any kind of trouble,” Mic-sensei starts with once he closes the door to the classroom and then he takes a seat in front of Hitoshi, before he slides something over to him.
It takes Hitoshi a moment to gather the courage to look at whatever is currently laying on the table between them.
And then it takes him a moment to understand that it’s a key on the table. Just as Hitoshi has confirmed that yes, it’s a key, a mystery key, Mic-sensei puts a piece of paper right next to it.
“What is–” Hitoshi starts and then bites the questions off because they are no longer in class and adults–and especially teachers–don’t like it when he asks questions.
Aizawa-sensei is kind of an exception to that but even then Hitoshi wouldn’t want to push him by asking questions outside of training.
“It’s a key,” he says instead and Mic-sensei snorts out a laugh.
“Astute observation,” he comments and taps his finger on the table. “You can totally ask questions, kiddo, don’t even worry about that.”
It’s a nice sentiment, but Hitoshi’s entire being is made out of worry, so it’s highly unlikely that he can follow that order. And besides; Hitoshi knows better than to believe stuff like that. It might just be a test, after all, and Hitoshi is no stranger to failing those.
“This,” Mic-sensei taps the table again, “is a key to my apartment.”
Hitoshi freezes, because there is no way Mic-sensei just said that. It makes no sense at all.
“I don’t understand,” Hitoshi whispers out, instead of asking just what the fuck is going on, but he can’t quite bring himself to tear his eyes away from the key.
“Aizawa’s told me that you’re real evasive about some questions,” Mic-sensei quietly starts and before Hitoshi can feel speared by the stab of betrayal that rushes through him at hearing that he goes on. “And he told me because he’s worried, just like I am. But I also know that–” Mic-sensei cuts himself off with a harsh breath and Hitoshi drags his eyes up to him only to see him with his lips pressed together, entire expression unhappy.
“It might be too soon. There are things we want to push about, things we’ve seen that are–alarming, but pushing you might have the opposite effect of what we want.”
There are so many things Hitoshi is confused about that his head spins but he knows that he has to say something.
“What do you want?” he finally forces himself to ask and Mic-sensei gives him a small smile.
“We want you to trust us. We want you to tell us, because if you don’t, then there’s nothing we can do.”
“But if you’ve seen things–”
“We can file a report, sure,” Mic-sensei agrees and just the thought makes Hitoshi’s stomach roll with unease. “We can do a house visit. We can take you out of the family, until the inspection is over. But if we push you to this and you decide not to trust us, if you decide that there’s nothing to tell, then you’d have to go right back. And we would have only made the situation worse. That is not something we want to do.”
Hitoshi hates how right Mic-sensei is. He’s pretty sure that if a police officer or his social worker were to raise questions right this moment, he’d probably lie straight to their face and for what? Only to go home and have his foster parents beat him again?
It’s so stupid, completely irrational, but Hitoshi can’t bring himself to speak up, not yet, can’t trust in his teachers, even though he knows they want that.
“So, hence the key,” Mic-sensei says and pushes it a bit closer to Hitoshi. “The address is on that paper, so please keep them separate, I do not want a mob of reporters or villains to catch me after work.”
Mic-sensei says it with a wink but Hitoshi doesn’t miss the trust he puts into Hitoshi. He trusts him not only with his home address but also with a key to his own apartment. Something that could be used to kill him, in the wrong hands and he trusts Hitoshi with it.
“But why?” Hitoshi whispers out. “Why give that to me?”
His fingers itch to take the key before Mic-sensei can take it back, unreasonably thinking that maybe he’ll change his mind in the next few minutes and it will leave Hitoshi with nothing again, but once more Mic-sensei only pushes it closer to Hitoshi.
“So you have a safe place to go to, until you trust us enough to help you. You are free to come by whenever you want. No matter the time or day, you can always, always drop by. And the reason doesn’t matter, either. I promise you, I won’t push, not if you don’t want me to. You can come by because you don’t want to go home, or because you can’t or because you aren’t safe. You can also come by just because you want to and you can stay for as long as you want to. But, Hitoshi?”
Hitoshi jerks when Mic-sensei uses his given name, because it’s been too long since he has heard it and it makes an almost unbearable longing flare to life in his chest.
“What,” he mutters out when it’s clear that Mic-sensei is waiting for an answer.
“Promise me that you’ll use it,” Mic-sensei says, his voice intense in a way Hitoshi isn’t used to and he realises that Mic-sensei really means it.
It’s not an empty offer. Hitoshi is not going to stick the key into the door and find out that the lock has been changed. It’s not a prank or anything else cruel; it’s just an offer, because Mic-sensei is worried and he wants Hitoshi to be safe.
Hitoshi can’t wrap his head around any of this.
Still, Mic-sensei is waiting for a response so Hitoshi forces himself to nod.
He’s not sure if he can promise something like that, no matter if he believes it’s real or not. It’s just–this is a good thing; something he’ll cherish forever and good things just don’t happen to Hitoshi.
“Okay, kiddo,” Mic-sensei mutters, clearly not trusting Hitoshi’s answer completely, but he doesn’t prod.
He just nods towards the key and waits until Hitoshi has pocketed it, before he gets up.
“Just know that Aizawa and I always have your back. We’ll believe you and we’ll do everything in our power to help. And we’re two pros, so there’s a whole lot we can do, just remember that, alright?”
Mic-sensei pats Hitoshi’s head and then leaves him be, the knowledge that maybe these two really do want to help and the heavy weight of the key in his pocket burning inside of him.
~ * ~ * ~
Hitoshi futility tries the door again. It’s stupid, he heard the lock snap into place, but he still tries, his hands shaking from fear and pain and cold.
The door stays locked and there’s no sound behind it, meaning his foster parents already retreated to the living-room, fully prepared to leave Hitoshi outside for the night. It’s not the first time, not by far, but his face throbs from the backhand he received and it’s well into November already, which means it’s too cold to stay outside with only the clothes he has on at the moment.
If he has to sleep outside, Hitoshi will be nothing but a corpse in the morning, he knows that, and he lets out a harsh breath that sounds too close to a sob, even to his own ears.
He stands in front of the door for a moment longer, before his hand comes up to reach for the key around his neck. He fiddles with it, wondering if he should really use it, if he can really use it, but Hitoshi knows that he doesn’t have another choice.
And he doesn’t want to spend the night outside anyway; it’s the reason why he’s wearing the key on a necklace and doesn’t just carry it around in his pockets. Like this he always has it with him and the address he has long since memorised.
There is nothing stopping him from taking Mic-sensei up on his offer; nothing but Hitoshi’s own treacherous mind and his pride.
But does it really matter? He’s going to die out here if he has to stay in nothing but his socks, sweatpants and shirt and Mic-sensei isn’t even home.
He has his radio show today, so he won’t even know. Hitoshi can slip in and out before Mic-sensei comes home and like that he’ll never have to know. He’ll just sit in the hallway, he won’t touch anything and then he’ll leave.
It’ll be fine.
Mic-sensei doesn’t live that far away from Hitoshi so he arrives at his building twenty minutes later and Hitoshi is surprised to see how pleasant it looks.
The building Hitoshi lives in is run down and in desperate need of some renovation, but this one is just nice. He guesses it’s only fair, after all Mic-sensei is a pro hero and a teacher and a radio host. He could probably afford something much, much nicer than this.
The sight of the building initially makes Hitoshi stop dead in his tracks, but when a shiver wrecks him, he gets moving again.
He’ll just sit in the hallway; he’ll be relatively warm and he’ll definitely be safe and around five he’ll leave, so Mic-sensei won’t know that he’s been there. Like that he’ll only have to kill one hour before he can return back to his foster parents, and that’s not too bad. Twenty minutes of that he’ll spend walking and Hitoshi survived worse.
It’s the perfect plan.
It’s the perfect plan, until Hitoshi actually opens the door and is met with a warm, soft light.
It makes him freeze in the doorway, unsure if Mic-sensei cancelled his show, or if there is someone else here, or if he simply left the light on, but then a cat dashes towards him and Hitoshi closes the door on reflex, before it can slip past him.
Mic-sensei has a cat.
He has a cat.
Hitoshi can’t quite wrap his head around that, because Mic-sensei doesn’t seem like the pet type. Hitoshi has never heard him talk about any animals he particularly likes, unlike Aizawa-sensei who makes no secret out of the fact that he prefers cats over humans on any given day.
“Who are you?” Hitoshi whispers as he crouches down to the cat that is currently curiously sniffing at his legs and he feels like crying when the tiny head is shoved into his hand without any hesitation.
Hitoshi might prefer cats over humans, too.
The cat meows curiously after a moment and Hitoshi pats its head again.
“I’m just going to stay here for a few hours, don’t mind me,” he whispers, but he can’t quite relax, not with the warm glow of the light still raising questions.
Maybe–maybe he’ll take a quick look into the room where the light comes from. If there’s a person there–fuck, Hitoshi doesn’t even want to think about that because he was not ready to meet anyone and he doubts that whoever is there will be happy with him for barging in this late at night.
But maybe–maybe Mic-sensei just left the light on for his cat. Maybe it could be as simple as that, Hitoshi desperately thinks as he inches closer and closer to the doorway of the illuminated room.
He doesn’t dare to look around too much because it feels intrusive to check out Mic-sensei’s apartment while he isn’t even there but he does spot the kitchen opposite of the room the light is coming from.
Hitoshi carefully sticks his head out, peering into the room and freezing completely at the sight he is met with.
“Hey, kid,” Aizawa-sensei says, curled up on the couch with a soft-looking blanket, another cat curled up on his legs and a book in his hands.
Hitoshi opens and closes his mouth several times before he simply huffs out a breath, because he has no idea what’s going on or what he’s supposed to say to any of this.
“Cat got your tongue?” Aizawa-sensei asks with a smirk before his eyes fall to Hitoshi’s bare arms. “Your room is the second door on the right, there should be some spare clothes in there. Go put on something warmer, you’re not dressed for the weather.”
Hitoshi blinks, confusion washing over him, but when Aizawa-sensei raises an eyebrow at him, he does as he’s being told. He wouldn’t want to upset his teacher after all, even though he’s sure the man is fucking with him.
Your room, he said, as if Hitoshi lived there. As if there was space for him here.
He’s proven wrong though, when he opens the door Aizawa-sensei mentioned and he comes face to face with what could have been a guest room at one point. As it stands right now, it looks more like a room that’s just waiting for a teenager to inhabit it and instantly, tears run down Hitoshi’s cheeks.
He angrily wipes them away as he makes his way to the closet and true to Aizawa-sensei’s word there are some clothes in there. Clothes that look like they could be a perfect fit for Hitoshi.
Hitoshi takes a deep breath that does nothing to steady him before he puts on a sweatshirt and thick, fluffy socks and then he creeps back towards the living-room where Aizawa-sensei clearly hasn’t moved yet.
“If you want to drink something warm, there’s a kettle in the kitchen and tea bags are in the first drawer on the left,” Aizawa-sensei says without taking his eyes away from the book. “If you’re hungry there should be something edible in the fridge.”
It’s–so nice that it rips another sob from Hitoshi’s throat and that finally gets Aizawa-sensei to look up at him.
“Why are you so–okay with this?” Hitoshi gets out and he can’t even think about the fact that he just asked a question. “Are you not going to ask?”
“Hizashi told you we wouldn’t pry if you don’t want us to, didn’t he?” Aizawa-sensei asks in return and marks the page before he puts the book to the side. “And he gave you that key with the express purpose of it being used. We agreed on that. He said you promised. Of course I’d be okay with you being here.”
“But the room–”
“You really think we’d invite you into our home without having the space for you? Hizashi mentioned that you could stay for however long you wanted, right?”
“You–I–what are you doing here?” Hitoshi blurts out instead of processing anything else Aizawa-sensei just said and that prompts a snort from the other man.
“Trust him to offer you our entire home without even telling you we’re married,” he fondly says as he rolls his eyes and Hitoshi needs a moment to comprehend that.
Married. Aizawa-sensei and Mic-sensei are married. Eraserhead is married to Present Mic.
The longer he thinks about it the more natural it seems and so Hitoshi only nods when Aizawa-sensei gives him a searching look.
“And you–don’t mind,” Hitoshi mutters, worrying the hem of his sweatshirt. The sweatshirt Mic-sensei and Aizawa-sensei probably bought specifically for him.
This is all too much.
“I do not mind at all, kid. In fact, I was very enthusiastic when Hizashi suggested this and he’ll gleefully tell you that we didn’t even have to replicate the key, because I’d already done it a few days before. We’re very much on the same page about this.”
Aizawa-sensei tilts his head, clearly thinking something over before he speaks again.
“Do you mind? Me being here? You clearly didn’t expect me.”
“No, no, it’s fine,” Hitoshi rushes out, because if there is an adult Hitoshi trusts besides Mic-sensei then it’s definitely Aizawa-sensei, so this is completely fine. It’s just– “I’m surprised, is all.”
“Clearly,” Aizawa-sensei drily gives back before his eyes hone in on the mark on Hitoshi’s cheek. “Does that need medical attention?” he asks and narrows his eyes when Hitoshi shakes his head. “Does your head hurt? Any dizziness?”
“No, it’s fine, it was just–” a slap, he wants to say but bites back the words. Aizawa-sensei doesn’t need to know that.
“Are you hurt anywhere else? Anything that should be treated?”
“No,” Hitoshi denies, and for tonight, it’s even the truth. His foster parents were too busy pushing him out of the house to hurt him more than this, at least this time.
Hitoshi braces himself for the questions, for the prodding but when nothing comes, he locks eyes with Aizawa-sensei.
“Alright,” he simply says and then nods towards the couch. “Now, are you going to sit or are you going to bed?”
To bed. In his room. The room Mic-sensei and Aizawa-sensei specifically readied for him, that has clothes that fit for him. In an apartment where he’s allowed to get things from the kitchen and sit with an adult in the same room. An adult who hasn’t yet snapped at him for asking a question.
Hitoshi’s head spins as he stumbles over to the couch, though he’s careful not to throw himself into it, scared of upsetting the cat still sleeping on Aizawa-sensei’s legs.
“Great,” Aizawa-sensei says and it’s so sincere that it makes Hitoshi’s eyes burn. “The remote is there if you want to watch something, feel free to do whatever,” Aizawa-sensei says and then opens his book back up again.
It’s so surreal that Hitoshi doesn’t know what to do with himself for a moment and so he startles badly when Aizawa-sensei throws a blanket over him. Hitoshi clutches it to his chest as he stares at his mentor.
“Are you not going to ask?” he whispers, because this is so not going like he expected it to but Aizawa-sensei only shrugs.
“Do you want me to?” he wants to know and Hitoshi remembers what Mic-sensei had said.
That they are not going to prod if he wasn’t ready, if he wouldn’t give a testimony against his foster parents. Hitoshi hasn’t really considered it, not before but now–this easy acceptance of him in their space makes him want to.
“If–” Hitoshi swallows heavily, “If I do that and I get taken out of that family, what then?”
Aizawa-sensei looks at him as if he just asked if the sky is blue and Hitoshi squirms under that gaze.
“Then you move into your room,” Aizawa-sensei says, as if it should be clear, as if Hitoshi should have known that. “We are licensed foster parents. You’d stay here, with us.”
“Oh,” Hitoshi breathes out, feeling as if all the air has been sucker punched out of him.
“Hizashi didn’t mention that either,” Aizawa-sensei fondly says and Hitoshi shakes his head.
“But you didn’t either.”
“Fair, kid,” Aizawa-sensei agrees with a smile but then he grows serious again. “Now that you know that, I’ll ask again. Do you want me to ask?”
“I–” Hitoshi looks around the room. Takes in the warmth of the place, the way Aizawa-sensei is curled up on the couch, how the cats laze around in the room. He notes how homey this place is, how welcoming Aizawa-sensei has been, how concerned and worried Mic-sensei has been and a lump forms in his throat when his eyes fall on what Aizawa-sensei called his room.
Hitoshi knows that there is only one answer but it feels wrong to do it now.
“Ask me again when Mic-sensei gets here,” he whispers when he turns back around to Aizawa-sensei and he wasn’t prepared to be met with such a soft expression.
He didn’t even know Aizawa-sensei’s face could do that.
“Sure, kid,” he simply says and Hitoshi can’t believe that it could be as easy as this.
But it seems that for once in his life, he might get lucky.