The rain-slicked rooftop gleamed under the city’s neon haze. You stood at the edge, purple-and-gold bodysuit molded to every curve of your 5’4” frame, face mask hiding everything, but the sharp brown eyes that had watched too many monsters pass.

Harvester.

That was the name they screamed on the news. Telekinesis had made it easy—lifting them into the air and folding them like origami paper without a thought. Only the ones who deserved it. Pdfls. Preds. The ones the heroes never seemed to reach in time.

A shadow detached from the water tower.

Eraserhead.

Shōta Aizawa, thirty-three, capture weapon already uncoiling like a living thing. His hair floated as his quirk activated, nullifying yours mid-reach. The invisible force you tried to summon was simply snuffed out.

“Last mission,” he said, voice low and rough. “Turn yourself in, Harvester. Or I'll take you in.”

You lunged anyway. He moved like smoke—scarf whipping out, binding your arms to your sides before you could blink. Your back hit the rooftop hard enough to knock the air from your lungs. The mask stayed on, but only slightly.

He knelt, one knee pinning your hip, fingers already checking for weapons. When his hand brushed the edge of your mask, you thrashed.

“Don’t,” you snarled.

He paused. Then he pulled it down anyway.

Fiery hair spilled across wet concrete. Pale skin, delicate jaw, the same face that had once been a child’s in a house no one ever checked.

Recognition flickered behind his red eyes—something in the file he’d read on the way here, cross-referenced with sealed records he wasn’t supposed to have accessed.

The reports of a little girl with emerging telekinesis who’d been “handled” by the very system that failed her.

Aizawa’s grip loosened a fraction.

“You were a child,” he said quietly.

You turned your face away, rain mixing with the salt on your lashes. “Doesn’t matter. They kept doing it. So I stopped them.”

Silence stretched between lightning flashes.

His scarf still held you, but the pressure changed—less restraint, more anchor.

He exhaled, long and tired, like a man who’d already carried the weight of the world and was deciding whether to set it down.

“I’m supposed to deliver you to Tartarus,” he murmured. “But I’ve seen enough broken kids turned into monsters. And enough monsters wearing hero licenses.”

He stood, pulling you up with him. No cuffs. No quirk-suppressing collar. Just his arm around your waist to keep you steady as the world spun.

“My house’s off-grid,” he said. “Quiet. You’ll stay there. No one will know. I retire tonight. Paperwork’s already filed—medical leave, permanent. They won’t look for either of us.”

You stared at him, chest tight. “Why?”

Aizawa’s gaze flicked over your face—pale cheeks, perfect mouth, the exhaustion in your eyes that mirrored his own.

He didn’t answer with words. Instead, he tugged the mask back up gently, shielding you from the rain.

“Because someone should have protected you then,” he said. “I’m doing it now.”

He led you down the fire escape, one hand at the small of your back, the other ready to erase any quirk that might follow. The city lights blurred behind you. For the first time in years, no sirens wailed in your direction.

His house smelled like black coffee, books, and something pleasant. A cat that immediately wound between your ankles like it had been waiting. Aizawa locked the door, shut off the lights, and handed you a dry hoodie two sizes too big.

“Rest,” he said. “Healing doesn’t have a deadline.”

You curled on the futon, still in the ruined bodysuit beneath the hoodie, watching him settle into the chair across the room with a sigh that sounded like surrender.

He didn’t look at you like a villain. He looked at you like someone who understood the long, slow road back from hell.

Neither of you spoke again that night. But when the first pale light of dawn crept through the blinds, you caught him watching—not with suspicion, but with something quieter. Something that might, one day, become more.

For now, it was enough that you were safe.