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Eraserhead finds a child on a rooftop. The night is dark but clear with a brisk, chilling wind, faint stars in the sky left pale by smog, and it matches the pallor of the child far too well.
It also matches the laces on the kid's discarded shoes. They look like they've been kicked off, one of the laces frayed and undone, and the other of the shoes is actually on the edge of the roof, toes and ball all the way off, dangling above a sixteen-story abyss. If it were to be nudged, it would probably fall right off. Worryingly, the same can be said for the kid themself.
Aizawa doesn't quite panic. It's not the first time he's met someone on a rooftop, far from it actually, and this kid seems far less... well, far less distressed than many of those people. (Oddly enough, or perhaps not because for several years now Aizawa has had a theory lurking in his mind, many of said people have had shoes rather similar to this child, and often with white laces as well.) So, no, he doesn't panic, but he does rush to the same rooftop, keeping himself audible the moment he's within capture weapon-range. He doesn't want to startle the kid into any rash decisions, but equally he doesn't want to alert them earlier than he can do something about it.
Luckily they don't seem inclined to panic, despite how haphazardly their shoes have been abandoned, and they don't even turn to face him, just tilting their head slightly, eyes sliding towards him.
"Hey, kid, what are you doing up here?" Their eyes are green - dark, dim like nightlit forests, left sundered by old fires - and their mouth twists. Oh, they have freckles, little golden-brown things. Cute.
"Dunno. Contemplating."
"Right." He doesn't know what else to say to that, because there's an eerie calm to it all, something unpleasant yet different to pretty much every person he's ever met on a roof before.
There's no intention behind it.
The hero is still processing that realisation, still trying to parse out how this kid is working, how they're thinking and feeling, when they speak again, that odd flatness to their voice persisting,
"Just leave."
They both sit there in silence for a long minute, Aizawa counting each of the kid's breaths (nineteen of them, nineteen more miniscule choices to stay alive) the whole time. But then the hero grows weary of it, and even more weary of how utterly blank the kid looks, sorrow rounding their shoulders and melancholy carving their shaking bones, apathy curling their toes against the ledge, so he speaks up once more,
"You didn't expect me to actually do that, did you?" There's something close to a sigh from the kid at that, a short exhale that speaks of aches beyond their age,
"Yes. Everyone else does." Well, damn, that's not exactly an encouraging response,
"Then everyone else are stupid, kid. Trust me. I've never met anyone who didn't deser-"
There's an edge to their snarl then, apathy giving way to a surge of something else,
"Even a Lace? Somebody Quirkless?"
Aizawa falters for half a moment, confused by the first term, but then he simply shrugs and answers how he would have without it,
"Kid, I won't lie, I don't know what you mean by a Lace. But being Quirkless, or having a Quirk that's viewed as weak or villainous, has no impact upon your worth as a human being. On you being a person." The kid's anger leaves him with every one of the hero's words, shoulders sloping and sagging all over again, breaths slowing into something painful but consistent. Reliable.
"Even when everyone automatically assumes I'm worthless? My M- My Mum loved me, but she's gone now anyway, so that doesn't matter anymore, and no matter how well I do or how hard I try people find ways to make me worthless again. A useless Deku, right?" The genuine self-deprecation there, on top of the raw-nerved grief, is awful to hear. And for all that they creak through his heart, they also set Aizawa's resolve, deciding his reply for him:
"Wrong."
The kid scowls then, maybe the most emotion they've shown this entire time, and they twist around, feet swaying above empty air, knuckles blood-bleached and rusted crescents trenched deep into their palms, a war all of their own, words bile-slick and acidic,
"Not wrong! I try and I try and I try, but nobody lets me succeed in anything, and all I do is lose people-"
"Then try again. It's shitty, kid, I remember being in a position that wasn't entirely different, and giving up won't earn you anything except pity." Their snarl doesn't fade. No, it twists further, tempest-dark and knot-tight,
"I know that, but you're a Track, not a L-"
"Then prove it." The kid freezes, something like shock icing over their anger, and Aizawa takes the opportunity for what it is, to provide the advice that he would have wanted, needed, if his life had been that tiniest bit worse, enough to tip him towards a ledge like this one,
"If you're Quirkless, or a Lace, prove them all wrong and do it smiling. Spite doesn't have to be pretty."
The smile Aizawa offers then is a Cheshire grin, verging on ugly in its toothiness, but the smile he gets in return is equally dark, bloody-minded and glass-sharp.
Because this kid, Quirkless and having to fight so hard to even be seen as worth something, let alone as hero potential, can't be All Might, can't be all sunshine and swooping in at the last second, but that doesn't mean that they couldn't follow a similar path to Aizawa himself. Someone who knows darkness like this night, they can be a figure in the shadows, whose smile is a warning rather than a calling, and who doesn't have to be pretty. They can do the dirty work, and still keep people safe. Maybe it's not as glamorous as limelight heroics, as all the expensive galas and ridiculously overdramatic rankings, but it's a damn sight more honest. Bloodier too, often, but that's part and parcel. For one more person safe to go home to their family, it's worth every drop and gasp and ache.
And those words, just now, were worth every fierce vulnerability of the hero's, because there's a light flaring back to life in those green eyes, brighter than a supernova. It's not awe, not hope, not joy, or at least none of them purely. No, it's perhaps sixty percent determination and thirty of spite, with the final ten percent dashed in with a child's wavering hand. More than worth it indeed.
"You're saying I could do it." Aizawa neither denies or agrees with that, because he said exactly what he said, and those were the words he meant, not any others,
"I'm saying that you have the motivation. The drive. It's skills you need to build up. Find alternative tools to those that Quirked people rely on."
"Tools like a capture weapon?" The brazen statement, spoken with glinting eyes and a toothy edge, is more than a contrast to the dull child Aizawa had first found up here. He likes the difference. Perhaps it's that change which prompts his reply, or simply something in the steel-certain vitality to a kid previously so deathly lost,
"If you can keep this drive, yes. Bad days are allowed, giving up is not." He's not going to dismiss the kid's mental health, nor assume it will be entirely fixed by a single vote of confidence from a hero. Equally though, he wants to avoid repeating a situation like this if he can.
To his Cheshire delight, the kid in question doesn't hesitate to nod, resolution straightening his shoulders,
"Sounds like a deal, Eraserhead."
"Deal, kid."
A brief stagnancy follows that, dragging out for several moments, a calculated lull, then the kid leans forward slightly, the single following word another rope forming the bridge between them,
"...Izuku."
"Aizawa. Or Sensei." He pauses for half a breath, gathering his thoughts around him before they spin beyond logic,
"Do you have a warm, safe place to go back to?"
"Does it matt- It does." And here that childish wonder creeps in slightly, and Aizawa reminds himself that this kid is at least a few years younger than his usual students, that he needs emotional leeway accordingly,
"Not really. But fine for tonight." Not exactly an ideal answer, but one that the hero can accept, albeit largely for the sake of trust rather than belief. If the kid comes to him injured tomorrow, then he'll have to limit that faith in the immediate future.
"Alright. Do you know Dagobah Beach?" It's the first place that comes to mind, and a good one at that. Lots of different options and approaches, relative privacy, no Nedzu digging his grubby paws in ahead of time... Definitely best.
"Yes?"
"Eleven tomorrow morning - or rather, this morning - I expect to see you there, the side steps rather than the main ones, your stuff included, unless you want picking up closer to your house?" The last offer is a deliberate one, because he doesn't want to dismiss the kid for being late or a no-show only for it to have been outside of Izuku's control.
"I-" The kid chokes off for a moment, forcing himself to take several deep breaths,
"That's all good with me. Thank you, Aizawa-san."
"Just Aizawa. And you're fine getting back tonight?" It's worth clarifying, and luckily Izuku doesn't hesitate to nod,
"Yes, Aizawa-sa- Aizawa. Thank you." Well, that requires only one retort, albeit a relatively soft one,
"And thank you for staying strong for this long. You won't be alone anymore." Those words elicit a suspicious sheen to the kid's eyes, but he doesn't start crying on the spot, and the hero only thinks enough to telegraph how he reaches forward then, giving Izuku enough time to duck away if wanted. He doesn't though. No, in lieu of shying away, the kid leans into the hand atop his head, and a single sniffle settles in the air between them, heavy yet meant to be ignored.
Aizawa, as a compromise to himself, begins to scratch his fingers oh-so gently against the kid's scalp, not looking over. It's enough. The ever-more erratic breathing smooths back out, and a metric tonne of tension evaporates to the stars above them. With the kid calm again, Aizawa retracts his hand, turning back towards him to meet those now-fierce eyes,
"I'll see you in a few hours, understood? Get some decent sleep, kid." Izuku nods, determined, and starts to reach for his shoes. With that sight kept tucked in his mind, right beside the supernova eyes and raw-sharp smile, the hero feels confident enough to let Izuku make his own way to whatever facsimile of a home he lives in, and Aizawa returns to his own flat, all cats and quiet and safety. The idea of a child taking up some of the space isn't too bad. No, it sounds quite good, actually.
(Several hours later, long after the sun has risen, Aizawa arrives at Dagobah Beach to find Izuku waiting for him, a rucksack and duffel bag in hand and a fire in his eyes. Yeh, he made a good decision: this kid is going to make a brilliant hero, no doubt about it.
And so he does. One of the very best, in fact. Whilst bloody and ugly their side of heroics might be, it is still heroics, and that's more than enough for one boy that had once been lost himself, who had found himself on a rooftop and a refuse-covered beach and a small bedroom in a flat filled with cat hair. Under the watchful eye of Eraserhead himself. Of his Dad.)