It Takes Time

27

Aizawa was glad that when he arrived, his friends were already there waiting for him. The only place he could find was some dingy and really shady takeout place, but he knew that it would do. And maybe the smell of all the fat and grease and oil would somewhat cover up his own smell. He really needed to get a shower. Maybe he could head to Hizashi's place and shower there before getting back to his tent.

It would all depend on the plan they made, after all. Aizawa was more or less clueless. His only real ideas were kicking in the door or breaking a window. Maybe he'd be able to get his hands on a lockpick, but he had no idea how safe the lock on this door would be. He had taken a closer look at the door earlier and it looked like a heavy door. Not easy to kick in, and difficult to pick the lock which would be a problem.

Breaking the window was another option, but that carried the risk of getting injured. And Haruto would easily notice a broken window, so it was kind of the last option he wanted to go for. But he had been thinking and maybe Hizashi or Nemuri knew someone that had a handy Quirk for this type of thing.

Sure, it might have been illegal to hire someone for that type of thing, especially when it wasn't done with a valid court order or anything. But it was also illegal to hold your wife as a prisoner, so Aizawa didn't exactly feel bad about it. He knew that Tsukauchi would be able to sort him out after it was all done.

The only issue was to see if they knew anyone that would be able to get the lock open without any issue and that needed that kind of money urgently and was willing to work illegally. There were enough small-time criminals out there that would be doing jobs like this, but getting their hands on them without leaving traces was a whole different issue. It was a bit of a can of worms, Aizawa was opening.

Either way, he first had to go into a long explanation of how he had figured out that Y/N was there in the first place, which was something both of his friends seemed to have a burning interest in. Aizawa found it difficult to understand why they were so eager for the details. He had always thought that once the problem was solved, it didn't really matter how it had been solved. What mattered was the end result.

But for them he had to go into the whole story of how he had been camping out in the abandoned house, sleeping in a tent, dressed up like a homeless man (not that there was much difference to how he usually looked). How he had been watching Haruto and taking notes on what he did. How he noticed the excess food he seemed to be buying and the weird habit with the light being on at night for such a long time.

How he had seen the silhouette of a woman in the house one night and how he had been surprised by the two police officers, that were still green behind their ears. How he had convinced them that the entire thing was above board and how they had believed every word he said, just because he could produce a hero license. And then how he had been looking more closely at the house and how he had eventually seen Y/N.

How terrified she had looked, how she was crying, how the window was locked. The bruises on her face and shoulders. How they had to communicate by him holding text messages up to the window and her either nodding or shaking her head, just so he would know what was going on. How he had gotten away just in time and then how he had called them. And that's how they had ended up in this place.

Both Nemuri and Hizashi seemed a little stunned once he had finished his story. Aizawa was sure that under normal circumstances they would have had a lot to say to him about the ethics of all this, but fortunately for Aizawa the circumstances were anything but normal. So, they seemed to just accept the fact that he had done things that weren't exactly legal, but also not completely illegal. It was a grey zone.

"Wow. Okay, I didn't want to say anything to you, because I know how sensitive you can be, but... Dude, you smell." Nemuri finally said. Aizawa sighed. He knew that he wasn't smelling like a rose garden.