Chapter Text
Shit. Shit. Shit.
He’s breached his limit. Sooner than he thought he would. The school bell hasn’t even rang yet to signal the day's end. He hazards a glance at the clock, tiny silver hands eking precariously slow along the roman numerals. Fifteen minutes left.
The itch has long begun, somewhere in the annals of his chest, patchwork lungs caked with blood and phlegm. Ground yourself, Yagi. Employ those breathing exercises. What was it again? Envision a square. Inhale and exhale at every sharp corner.
He stares at his ham-sized fist, knuckles straining white beneath thick, battleworn skin, nails digging crescents into the palms. Tries to suppress the urge to cough. Spent too much time crime fighting in the morning, and that carelessness has come back to bite him in the ass now. He feels the deep seated ache funnel through his nerve-endings, the fatigued drag of his feet. Pounds of surfeit muscle burden him, too heavy a load to carry.
He acknowledges grimly that it’s getting harder to keep this up. His capacity to wield One for All is weaning, faster than he knows how to manage. He gives himself a year at the most, before the symbol of peace is no longer. Maybe even less.
Against all odds he manages to hold out till quarter past, the school day blessedly winding to a close. Unfortunately, school might have ended but the flow of students loitering and traversing the halls does not taper till around half past into the hour, and in his constipated-looking stride towards the staff room, he is overwhelmed by a burst dam of what feels like the entire damn student populace, flung at him all at once. Most of them part like the red sea, awestruck. Others, the braver ones - and this school has no shortage of stupidly brave kids - block his path.
Seems every time he thinks he’s caught a lucky break, another one springs up. An endless mob of starstruck students who jump at the chance to have a conversation with him;
“All Might!”
“Can you sign my lunchbag?”
He just about manages to shake them, but then young Midoriya materializes, practically vibrating with excitement in those tired red sneakers, to tell him all about some new development in his training. Then Principal Nezu; chipper as ever, lightly yet pointedly reminding him; “Oh, there you are! That paperwork is due on Wednesday, All Might.”
That damn class report. Fuck. Completely slipped his mind. He piles it back on his ever growing platter, shoulders baying beneath the weight of it. Atlas buckling under the earth.
A group of tenacious kids suddenly have him cornered, excitedly pulling out their phones and asking for selfies. Frustrated, he momentarily considers barrelling through them like bowling pins - but then one of them starts crying, blubbering and gushing about how he’d saved their beloved grandma from a villain once, and Toshinori instantly feels bad for entertaining the thought. And God, he’d look like a real asshole if he just walked away from a crying kid, wouldn’t he?
So, he allows them to take their photographs, and gives the tear-sodden schoolgirl an awkward bear hug, at which the tap behind her eyes somehow produces more tears - Christ, this girl could give young Midoriya a run for his money!
They’re talking to him, but he can’t hear them anymore, all sound tempered to static beneath the ringing in his ears. He stares at the bunch of teens vacuously with a big, placid smile on his face, nodding but no longer retaining any information. His muscles ache and twitch, and the crater in his side throbs with vehemence. He can’t breathe, can’t think, except for the pain, the imminent panic of the facade falling.
His heart drops like a stone into his gut when he hears the telling hiss of steam, pent-up pressure releasing…
“Sorry – I… please excuse me,” Toshinori manages to choke out, dismissing himself abruptly, “…I have to... make a phone call.”
With that, he dashes round the corner and out of view, leaving the gaggle of pupils bewildered in the dust.
But he’s not out of the woods yet. From the other end of the hall drifts a cacophony of unintelligible voices, an after school kendo club of rowdy students rapidly advancing. Toshinori is seconds away from the process of deflating, body emitting a hazy vapour, hissing like a pressurised can fit for bursting.
The voices and footsteps are a hair's breadth off. Desperate, and with no other options, he tries the door to the nearest vacant classroom. 1-A.
By some miracle, Aizawa must’ve forgotten to lock up when finishing for the day. It unlatches beneath his palm, swings open without so much as a hint of resistance. Relief floods him. In he staggers, slamming the door shut with a jut of the hip, twisting the lock and tugging down the little window blind. He’s barely over the threshold before he’s relaxing his tensed muscles, bulky mass shrinking.
The school motto mocks him in jubilant yellow text from a poster pinned up on the wall. PLUS ULTRA.
He lets out what might well be the loudest groan of relief in his life as he tumbles forwards, bracing himself against the closest desk - Ojiro’s, he thinks, as he tries to catch his breath...
Jesus, that was a close one. Too close.
He'll just have to be more careful next time. Know his limits. Stop being such a pushover when it comes to entertaining fans. But damnit, it's hard to maintain a good relationship with the public when he's fit to drop half the time...
Fingers clutch at the fabric of his pantsuit, groping around the pockets for his keys and wallet. He's calculating the imminent, joint-aching walk home now, wondering if he should make a stop at the Hundred Yen store to stock up on white shirts again, grab some meal replacement shakes and groceries for dinner - the fridge was sad and bare, last time he'd checked - and that's assuming he's not too beat to even think about cooking when he gets home...
And then, out of the silence of what he’d thought was an empty classroom, a timid voice wavers in the air, shattering his mundane train of thought.
“...All Might..?”
He freezes. It had occurred to him, somewhere in the smog of his impaired mind, that it was very unlike Aizawa to not properly lock up after hours...
Shit.
Some choked-up noise between a yelp and a cough wheezes out of his mouth. Brittle, knobby knees buckle, palm splayed out on the desk to right himself. Horrified, he turns - and there she is; alone, sitting very still at the far end of the classroom corner, looking positively petrified as she gawks at his weak and feeble form.
The following silence is cavernous. Nobody moves. Nobody breathes.
It takes him a shamefully long time to even remember your name. Upon further scrutinization of your bewildered face, it comes gradually flowing back to him; glancing over your file on the class roster, recording your acceptance video and entrance exam review. An exchange student. Some sort of mutation, transformation creature quirk that had just barely scraped a pass for the hero course in the entrance exams.
He’s not proud of it, but Toshinori had forgotten you were even a student. You hadn’t even shown up for the first few months of the semester due to a family bereavement. U.A had offered to defer your entry till next year, given the circumstances, but you’d refused. So here you were, months late and perpetually stuck catching up on missed coursework in an effort to get yourself up to speed with the rest of your classmates. Shot in the foot and made to run a race. Toshinori can’t help but feel sorry for you.
He’s sure there’s some logical explanation to why you’re not yet tucked away in the dorms, but he’s so shaken up that he can’t seem to comprehend anything at the moment. Trying to string together coherent words and fumbled explanations proves an impossible task. He doesn’t mean to use profanity in front of a student, but it slips out ungracefully before he can compose himself.
“Shit...”
You jolt, and one might think the word was a slap in the face. Like you hadn’t even been expecting a voice to come out of the carcass of a man in front of you; sallow as death, fit for the crypt. He can’t blame you for being frightened, he thinks miserably. He is hard to look at, with his sunken eyes and the skull and bones beneath his aging skin growing more pronounced than ever.
No longer the Greek God, the Adonis, the blonde and bright-eyed heartthrob that the magazines once hailed him as. That man still exists, somewhere, but he is a facade, he is dying. Soon he will be a memory, antiquated in merchandise, old photographs and history books. People will mourn him, say that they loved him without ever really knowing him.
In the cold, wheezy mornings when he lathers his jaw in shaving foam and grates his five-o-clock stubble into the sink, he imagines slicing the aged skin off, shedding and growing it anew like a reptile.
In his self hatred, he’s broken a few mirrors. Tallied up years of bad luck. He remembers coming home from the hospital for the first time after his big injury, alone, and missing a good chunk of his vital organs to boot. In the cool bathroom light, washed pale against the ceramics, he saw the weight he’d lost; the startling imperfections, unkempt nest of blonde hair beginning to pepper with gray.
He tended to the sign of his own mortality with a box-dye, broke the mirror with his fist in a moment of frustration and split his hand open. The flesh rent apart, crimson and ragged. He tried to practice his smile in the fractured glass, like Nana taught him, and ended up weeping instead.
He avoids mirrors now, where he can. But it’s no good; mirrors are everywhere, mirrors are human. He can see the disgust, the turn of the mouth. The startled double take, horror reflected back at him in other people’s faces. Depending on the type of person he’s looking at, sometimes he’ll inspire pity. He can see it now, in yours.
There’s a long, uneasy blip of silence. Toshinori gives first. Expels a great gust of air from his crackling lungs, defeated. He sits himself down on the desk, slumps forward, half turned away from you - he doesn't want to know what you're thinking, doesn't want to see the reflection - broad shoulders curling in on himself in his yellow pin-stripe suit, now several sizes too large and swamping his angular body.
He says your name very gently. Asks; “Young L/N. Why are you here so late?”
He can feel your stare burning the skin of his neck; and it makes him shudder. He runs a palm over his hackles, smooths the prickling hair down. He wants to laugh. He wants to vomit. He can’t decide which, and he’s too exhausted for both. Typical.
You stammer out an explanation, voice thin and wavering. He realizes it’s the first time he’s ever heard you talk.
It’s a sweet voice. The nervous kind. He feels sorry for frightening you, and… ashamed… to be seen by you in this state. Even more regretful that you’re now going to be wrapped up in this sorry business, something you didn’t ask for. Through no fault but his own.
“I...I was just finishing up some classwork I missed from when I was absent! Mr. Aizawa, he said I could use the room. Gave me the key to lock up...”
Right. Of course. He still finds it odd that you’re not studying in your dorm, but then again he doesn’t know you, and for the life of him he can’t quite figure you out. From what he’s seen so far, you’re not very involved with the rest of your classmates, and rarely contribute to class discussions.
“Are you really… All Might?” the words come out hushed, revered, as though you are handling a very dangerous weapon in your mouth.
Toshinori pales. It’s a burden to harbor this secret. It’s sure to put fear in your heart, waver whatever faith and security you have in the dear symbol of peace’s longevity.
“I suppose I owe you an explanation, young lady,” he sighs. “I’m sorry. You weren’t meant to see that. If I had my say… if I hadn’t been so careless… I wouldn't need to have this conversation with you right now.”
Precarious, too… if this gets out…
But then he remembers your silence in the classroom, how you eat alone at lunch, walk the halls by yourself… who do you have to tell? Nobody, realistically. And besides, you don’t seem the type to spread rumours. He has no choice but to place his faith in you - rather, he has given himself no choice through his own negligence.
So, he opens the tightly locked box; calloused palm out, bared to the bone. He sidesteps around the gristle, keeps it vague. You don’t have to know about the specifics of One For All, nor the fact it no longer resides in his body. As far as you are concerned, he suffered a grave injury which has impacted his ability to wield his quirk for long periods of time - leaving his true form in this sorry state. That’s all.
He’s tried to lessen the blow, not let on the exact scope of the damage, but he still sees the concern, the understanding dawning behind your eyes. You’re a smart girl… smarter than, perhaps, he’s given you credit for.
“How many people know?” you ask him, a canine tooth worrying at the plump, cracked flesh of your lower lip.
“Only a very select few. The UA staff, for one. You too, now, I suppose…”
You hum, contemplative, revelling in the shock he’s thrown over you like a blanket. You’re looking at him - really looking, sharp, strikingly perceptive eyes trailing head to toe - and he’s not used to that anymore, not like this. The invasive, tingling sensation of being perceived.
He's looking at you too. It's the first time you've ever really seen eachother, in a deeper, more meaningful way than just a simple passing glance during class. He finds himself inexplicably warm under the collar, embarrassed. Fingers curl and flex at his sides, wiping his sweaty palms off on the thighs of sagging pin-stripe pants.
Your eyes return to his face, and you lean back in your seat, seemingly satisfied with your inspection. A smile inches its way onto your lips - slightly timid, yet playful.
You mumble something in English that he doesn’t quite catch. His hearing isn’t what it used to be, these days. He shuffles closer, stooping carefully, in the way one might approach a flighty animal. You're a skittish little thing, something about your big, nervy eyes that threatens to up and bolt should the breeze blow the wrong way.
“Sorry, what was that?”
Your face is pink, now, embarrassed. “I said… it’s kind of like Clark Kent and Superman, huh?”
That catches him off guard. His brow lifts in surprise, lighting up with a smile. How… retro. Do you like those old superhero franchises, too, he wonders? They remind him of when he was a boy, bright-eyed and quirkless, with dreams and a vision bigger than the sky itself.
Ironically, they’re not as big these days. Why cheer for Spiderman when you’ve got the real deal out on the streets, bona-fide superpowers every which way you turn? Peter Parker loses his appeal pretty fast when there’s a hundred guys just like him, he supposes. Still, he’s always been a sucker for those old Western movies and comic books, and he owes them a lot, deriving much of his All Might persona from between their colourful pages.
Toshinori chuckles, the sound stuttering out into a single wet cough that he dampens with the back of his hand.
“Well… yes,” he laughs, “I suppose that’s an apt comparison.”
The moment of light hearted reprieve ends all too soon, as All Might clears his throat and steels his expression. Your smile falls in unison, hands fretting at the fabric of your pleated skirt, pressing the starched folds back and forth like a paper fan. There's bruises on your knees, he notices, and a litter of still-red cuts and scrapes on the goose-pimpled flesh, horizontal, scabbing over. You keep picking at the clotting with the edge of a tapered, claw-like nail. Something in him wants to reach out, if only to still your anxious fidgeting. It's making him anxious, too.
“I must ask you, young lady, to keep this strictly between us. It's important that this doesn't get out,” Toshinori urges you, his gaunt face losing its humour. He’s gone stony, serious, thin mouth pressed in a grim line. “-- not to the public, to family, or to your classmates. Can you do that for me?”
“I understand,” you assuage him, tipping your head. “Your secret is safe with me, All Might. You have my word.”
Pressing a hand to your chest, you say it with such conviction that Toshinori can’t help but believe you.
So - one more person knows Toshinori Yagi. One more person who shouldn't. Whatever might follow this misstep, he knows the blame falls on him. But all is said and done, and the boundary has been breached.
It is the first of many lines that he crosses with you.