It's Not a Muskateers Reference!

I Can't Break Free

5 days till Sports Festival

Izuku collapsed to the floor, leaning against the wall. He had just come home from school that day, and he was freaking out. He had stolen the quirks of multiple buissness students by accident, because he had tripped and fell onto them. Worst part was, they wouldn't even let him give the quirks back!

Well, maybe that wasn't the worst part.

No, the worst part was that during extra training, All Might looked so very ashamed of him. Izuku decided that he absoulutely loathed that expression of pure dissappointment.

The quirks were still there, but Izuku so badly wanted to get rid of them, wanted to give them back to their original users. Inko didn't know about it yet, and Izuku honestly hoped that she wouldn't find out.

He bit down on his lip, trying his best to hold back tears. He didn't want to disturb his mother.

Honestly, he felt like such a bad person, to be upset over this. After all, he was the one who did wrong, not the buissness students whose quirks had been stolen! But, the feeling of guilt simply had that affect on him.

Izuku pressed his head against his knees, a few drops of salt water leaking out of his eyes.

All Might was right about me..

I'm such a monster...

Maybe I should just take Kacchan's advice...

No, how would mom feel then? You can't just abandon her..!

I don't deserve someone as good as her...

I just keep weighing everyone down..

His lip shook slightly, but he refused to let the sobs out. Only silent tears were allowed to leave, and those were quickly wiped away. He could take care of himself, he didn't want to disturb his Mom.

She would end up fussing over him if she was aware of what was happening with him, and he didn't want to burden her like that!

He pulled himself off the ground, still holding back the sobs. Might as well be productive and work on his hero notes while he was in here.

+++++

Inko stared at the device in her hands, unsure of what to do with it. She had just recived and email from Aizawa, saying that they needed to talk about Izuku. That was worrying to Inko.

Usually speaking, when she got an email like that, Izuku had been wrongly accused of doing something he hadn't.

And seeing as this was UA of all places, that couldn't be a good thing.

Eventually, she sent the simple reply of, "What is it that we need to talk about?"

+++++

Aizawa was frustrated. Very, very frustrated. For one thing, All Might just wouldn't shut up, which was very annoying in itself. Aizawa wasn't even sure what the man was talking about anymore.

Listen, when his boyfriend Yamada went on his rambles, there was at least some logic in what he said. The same could not be said for All Might, which only made it more annoying.

Then there was the fact that the whole Midoriya situation had only gotten worse. You would think that everyone would have dropped it after a week or so of gossiping about the poor boy, but it just kept going. And not to mention, Midoriya seemed to get more anxiety filled every moment. (Keep in mind, Aizawa was not in anyway frustrated with Midoriya himself, just the situation) It was saddening to see one of his most determined students deteriorate into a studdering, panicky mess so quickly.

His lack of coffee probably didn't help it much either.

So, when he heard the dinging of his phone, he seriously wanted to throw the thing for a few good seconds. However, he knew that there was a slight chance that the notification was actually important. Or Yamada was sending him cat memes again, which Aizawa considered somewhat important. They were cats, after all!

The notification was indeed something important. More specifically, Inko had replied to his email. He didn't expect the response to be as fast as it was, but who was he to complain?

Aizawa typed out a response, and put the phone down on a nearby table.

+++++

A simple overview of the conversation that took place would be as follows:

Aizawa pointed out the fact that Izuku has been having multiple panic attacks, and seemed to be constantly on edge. He then suggested that Izuku should get some form of therapy. Inko agreed that therapy would be a good idea, but said that it was too expensive for her to afford. So, Aizawa said that he could probably arange something with Inui. Inko told him she'd ask Izuku how he felt about the idea, and that was where the conversation ended.

Which led to where Inko was now, standing in front of Izuku's bedroom door. Admitably, she was somewhat nervous about this. She had never been in a situation quite like this one. However, that wasn't going to stop her. She was going to be there for her son, because no one else would.

She knocked on the door, but no response came. She knocked a second time, but once again, no response.

"Izuku, honey, I'm coming in there, okay?" For the third time, she got no response.

She opened up the bedroom door, expecting to see Izuku writing in his hero notebooks.

She did not expect to see what she really saw, though.

Pages of notebooks and homework scattered across the floor, bed, and desk, accompanied by a few broken pencils. And I mean broken as in, broken in half. The bed sheets were all over the floor. Videos of hero fights were playing on Izuku's computer.

Izuku was curled up under his bed, shaking imensely and whimpering.

Inko walked over to the computer to pause the video. She noticed that the video seemed pretty grusome, and the hero was being far more aggressive than the villain. There was lots of blood and destruction on the screen.

Inko frowned at that, but only paused the computer.

She turned to look at Izuku, only to see that he was no longer in the room.