Content & Warnings:
Reader has a quirk, slow burn, co-workers to friends to lovers, light angst, eventual romance, no use of y/n, other Additional Tags to Be Added
Summary:
She never made it into the Hero Course at U.A. High School, but a mind reading quirk still makes her valuable to the police. When a rise in the illegal drug Trigger begins turning petty criminals into unstable villains across Naruhata, she’s pulled into an investigation alongside underground hero Shota Aizawa.
Working late nights, chasing dead ends, and listening to thoughts she’d rather ignore is exhausting enough.
Working alongside Eraserhead, who notices far more than he says, is worse.
Aizawa x F!Reader │Originally written on AO3
Masterlist
Word count: 2.2k
Content & Warnings:
Reader has a quirk, slow burn, co-workers to friends to lovers, light angst, eventual romance, other Additional Tags to Be Added.
Summary:
She never made it into the Hero Course at U.A. High School, but a mind reading quirk still makes her valuable to the police. When a rise in the illegal drug Trigger begins turning petty criminals into unstable villains across Naruhata, she’s pulled into an investigation alongside underground hero Shota Aizawa.
Working late nights, chasing dead ends, and listening to thoughts she’d rather ignore is exhausting enough
Working alongside Eraserhead, who notices far more than he says, is worse.
─────────── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───────────
Taking a few days off had sounded reasonable in theory. After the attack, after the interrogation, after whatever the hell had happened in that room when her quirk had done something it had never done before, stepping away from work should have been the smart choice.
She knew quirks could evolve. It wasn’t rare enough to be unbelievable, especially under stress, but it still felt wrong in a way she hadn’t expected. She was twenty-three, not thirteen. She had lived with her quirk long enough to think she understood its limits.
For years it had been simple, irritating, invasive, useful, and exhausting, but simple all the same. She read minds. That was it. No hidden second edge. No dramatic awakening. No new ability is waiting for the right emotional breakdown to drag it out into the open.
Apparently, she had been wrong.
The worst part was that taking time off didn’t actually mean resting. She didn’t know how to do that, not really. Resting implied shutting her brain off, and her brain didn’t seem interested in cooperating. So instead of relaxing, she had spent most of the last few days planted on the sofa in her apartment with a laptop balanced across her thighs and half the case spread out around her in messy stacks.
Files covered the coffee table, the floor, and one side of the couch cushion. A notebook lay open beside her with pages full of hurried notes, arrows, question marks, and crossed-out conclusions.
On the coffee table sat a small radio murmuring at low volume, just loud enough to fill the space without demanding attention. Put Your Hands Up Radio drifted through the apartment in bursts of energy, Hizashi Yamada’s voice bright and unmistakable even when softened by distance. Loud, enthusiastic, and impossible to ignore if she actually focused on it.
Normally he wasn’t the kind of thing she would choose to listen to while working, but she liked his hero work enough to tolerate his radio personality, and the background noise kept the apartment from feeling too quiet.
Too quiet left room for thinking.
And thinking always dragged her back to the same place.
The interrogation room. The suspect’s face. His mouth moving before he wanted it to. Aizawa’s eyes flashing red as Erasure cut through whatever new thing her quirk had become. The dull, sick confusion that followed.
Her phone had buzzed more than once over the past few days. Tsukauchi, mostly. A call here, a message there, a pointed “still alive?” buried under his usual casual wording. She had ignored most of them and finally sent a short reply that she was busy.
That was enough for him. He knew her well enough to understand what that meant, and if he was irritated by it, he hadn’t said so. She didn’t dislike him. Quite the opposite, really. He was one of her closest friends, even if neither of them would ever put it that way out loud. He worried in his own quiet, annoying way, and she cared in hers. It worked.
At least, usually.
She pushed a file aside with the back of her hand and leaned forward, replaying a section of old CCTV footage on her laptop. Grainy black-and-white surveillance from a previous Trigger incident flickered across the screen, showing a man stumbling into frame before his movements sharpened into something more violent, more erratic. He lunged at someone just outside camera range, his body jerking with sudden force while people in the background scrambled out of his way. Standard trigger behaviour.
The reports on cases like this all said the same thing: once the drug hit, the user’s quirk output increased dramatically while whatever remained of their reason got burnt away in the process. Power up, judgement down. Chaos every time. The body couldn’t handle it. The mind handled it even worse. That was what Trigger did.
Except that wasn’t what she had seen.
The man from the interrogation room had been violent, yes. Stronger than he had any right to be, absolutely. But he hadn’t been mindless. He had been aware. Focused. Cruel in a deliberate way. Angry, but controlled. There had been no vacant look in his eyes, no confused animal panic, no collapse into instinct. He had known exactly what he was doing when he grabbed her by the throat. That detail had been needling at her since the moment the medical report came back clean except for signs consistent with repeated substance exposure.
She leaned back slightly and tapped the pen against her notebook. If Trigger usually stripped away self-control but this suspect still had his, then either he hadn’t been using the same form of Trigger as the others, or repeated use had changed the effect. Her eyes narrowed as she glanced at the quirk listing again.
Stat Boost.
Normally minor. Normally unimpressive. Normally nowhere near enough to snap reinforced restraints.
Unless the boost wasn’t temporary anymore.
Her fingers moved quickly over the keyboard as she added another note to the mess she was building for herself.
Repeated Trigger exposure may permanently alter quirk baseline.
Possibly stabilizes mental side effects over time.
Less rampage, more adaptation?
She frowned at that last line and underlined it anyway.
The radio crackled softly as Present Mic launched into another rapid-fire segment, his voice filling the room with more enthusiasm than the subject matter probably deserved.
She let it roll on in the background while opening another folder, this one with summaries from previous Trigger-related arrests. Similar symptoms. Similar patterns. Similar outcomes. But nothing matched the full control she had seen from the suspect.
He had confessed to regular use. Not once. Not accidental. Regular. That alone suggested access, distribution, and a supplier confident enough to keep someone stocked. Which meant the problem in Naruhata was bigger than a few random idiots taking mystery drugs in alleyways.
She rubbed at her temple and stared at the screen until the footage blurred slightly. Her head hurt again.
“Fantastic,” she muttered to the empty room.
The phone buzzed once more on the table. She glanced over without moving at first, then exhaled and reached for it. Tsukauchi again. She could ignore another call, but at this point it felt more childish than strategic. Besides, she had something worth telling him, even if it wasn’t enough to count as a breakthrough.
Instead of answering on her phone, she opened their chat on her laptop and hit the video call button.
The screen rang for a few seconds before his face appeared, the angle slightly awkward as though he’d answered mid-step. He looked exactly as she expected: neat, alert, and already halfway into concern the moment he saw her.
There was a brief pause.
Then he said, “You look terrible.”
She gave him a flat stare. “Good to see you too.”
“You’ve been dodging my calls.”
“I’ve been busy.”
He glanced at the scattered files visible around the edges of the screen. “Clearly.”
She shifted the laptop a little, not enough to clean up the shot but enough that she could sit back against the sofa. She was dressed in a plain T-shirt, her hair twisted up in a messy bun that had been falling for at least an hour. Not exactly the image she usually presented to anyone from work. Normally she looked put together even when she didn’t feel it. Today she looked exactly how she felt. Tired, irritated, and slightly sleep-deprived.
“I haven’t found anything concrete,” she said before he could say anything else, “but I think the suspect’s quirk may have been altered by repeated Trigger use. Not boosted temporarily. Changed.”
She turned the laptop just enough to show him the CCTV clip paused on screen along with her notes. “Every previous Trigger case we’ve got ends in the same place. Loss of control, unstable output, violent rampage, cognitive deterioration. But the guy from the interrogation room didn’t lose control. He stayed coherent. "Aggressive, but coherent.” Her fingers tapped lightly against the keyboard. “If he’s telling the truth about regular use, then maybe repeated exposure builds tolerance. Maybe it stops being just an enhancer and starts permanently altering the quirk itself.”
Tsukauchi was quiet for a beat, considering it.
“That’s not impossible,” he admitted.
“It’s not proven either,” she said. “It’s just the only explanation that makes sense right now.”
He nodded once. “It’s a good line of thought.”
She shrugged one shoulder.
“I know.”
That earned the faintest huff of amusement from him.
Then the angle of the camera shifted.
She frowned immediately. “What are you doing?”
Tsukauchi turned the phone a little farther, and someone else came into view behind him.
Aizawa.
She straightened so fast the laptop nearly slid off her knees. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Tsukauchi looked entirely unrepentant. “We were working.”
“That is absolutely not the point.”
Aizawa, standing a little behind him with his scarf draped loosely around his shoulders, looked as tired as usual. He also looked entirely unsurprised by her reaction, which only made it worse. Her eyes narrowed.
“You could’ve warned me.”
“You called me,” Tsukauchi said.
“Yes, and I called you, not—” she cut herself off with a sharp exhale and jabbed a finger vaguely at the screen, “—that.”
Tsukauchi’s mouth twitched. “That has a name.”
“I know his name.”
For the first time, she thought she saw the faintest change in Aizawa’s expression. Not a smile exactly, but something dangerously close to one at the corner of his mouth.
Her annoyance sharpened into embarrassment immediately.
“Oh, don’t you dare,” she muttered.
Aizawa’s voice came through calm and level. “You do look a little different.”
She stared at him.
Then at Tsukauchi.
Then back at Aizawa.
“I look like I got dragged through a filing cabinet.”
“That’s one way to put it,” Tsukauchi said.
“You are both deeply irritating.”
“Noted,” Tsukauchi replied, clearly not noting it at all.
She dragged a hand over her face. “Why is he even there?”
“We’re working the Trigger case.”
“We established that.”
“And I thought he should hear your theory too.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You mean you thought it would be funny.”
Tsukauchi had the decency to look only slightly guilty.
Aizawa, unhelpfully, said nothing.
That somehow made it worse.
She leaned back against the sofa with a groan, one hand still half covering her eyes. “I cannot believe this.”
Tsukauchi let her sit in that for all of three seconds before speaking again. “We where heading out for a coffee, come with us.”
She lowered her hand slowly. “No.”
“We’re taking a break.”
“No.”
“Its just coffee?”
She looked genuinely insulted. “After the week I’ve had?”
“It was worth trying.”
She clicked her tongue and sat up a little straighter. “I don’t need coffee. I need a drink.”
Tsukauchi blinked. “A drink?”
“Yes, a drink. Those are different.”
“You’re aware it’s barely evening.”
“A drink won’t kill us.”
He looked doubtful enough to annoy her further.
“There’s a bar the heroes go to all the time,” she said, waving a hand dismissively. “It’ll be fine.”
“That is a terrible sales pitch.”
“It’s better than coffee.”
Tsukauchi hesitated, visibly weighing the idea, then sighed in the particular way he did when he already knew he was losing an argument. “Fine. One drink.”
“Look at that,” she said. “Growth.”
Then her eyes flicked toward Aizawa again, suspicion surfacing immediately. “Wait. No. Absolutely not. Don’t tell me you’re inviting him too.”
Tsukauchi glanced over his shoulder. “Want to come?”
She let out a low groan, already regretting everything.
Aizawa shrugged faintly. “I was probably going to end up there anyway.”
That made her pause. “You go to bars?”
“Sometimes.”
“You seem like the type who says no.”
“I do.”
“Then why go?”
He gave the slightest shift of one shoulder, expression as flat as ever. “Because Yamada and Nemuri keep dragging me there, and apparently I’ve said no too many times this month.”
She blinked, then blinked again, her brain taking a second to catch up with what he had just said.
The image came immediately, uninvited and impossible to ignore, Hizashi Yamada’s voice echoing through her apartment, loud, energetic, filling the space while she worked.
Then she looked back at Aizawa, taking him in properly this time, the quiet, dry, permanently exhausted presence that seemed completely at odds with everything she associated with that voice.
Her eyes narrowed slightly.
“…You’re friends with him?” she asked, the surprise in her voice unfiltered.
“Unfortunately.”
He didn’t elaborate, didn’t react beyond that, which only made it worse. She turned her head toward Tsukauchi. He just watched her with quiet amusement, clearly enjoying the moment more than he should have.
Her attention drifted back to Aizawa, disbelief settling into something lighter, something closer to mild amusement as the idea finally clicked into place.
“…Huh,” she said after a moment. “Didn’t expect that.”
There was the faintest shift at the edge of his expression, subtle enough that she might have missed it if she hadn’t been looking directly at him. It wasn’t a smile, not really, but it was close enough to count.
“Eight?” Tsukauchi added.
She waved a hand in surrender, leaning back slightly in her seat. “Fine. Eight.”
The call ended a minute later, the screen going dark as the apartment settled back into its usual quiet.
She stayed where she was for a moment, the laptop still open across her legs, her notes scattered around her in uneven stacks that hadn’t gotten any more organized since she started. The case sat exactly where she had left it, unresolved and complicated in all the same ways, her questions still unanswered.
Nothing had been solved.
But for the first time in a while, that didn’t feel like the only thing that mattered.
At the very least, the night had direction.
And that was more than she’d had an hour ago.
─────────── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───────────
A/N:
Bit of a short chapter, sorry for taking so long, after chapter 4 I genuinely had no idea how I can continue the flow, I underestimated how hard it's going to be to properly write a long slow burn.
But don't worry! we're back, hope you enjoy it as always <3
Also finally we're getting out of the office and all the interrogations, Felt like we needed a small break + We can introduce more people to the story, I personally love Yamada and Nemuri and I'm looking forward to writing them.
Aizawa x F!Reader │Originally written on AO3
Masterlist
Word count: 3k
Content & Warnings:
Reader has a quirk, slow burn, co-workers to friends to lovers, light angst, eventual romance, other Additional Tags to Be Added.
Summary:
She never made it into the Hero Course at U.A. High School, but a mind reading quirk still makes her valuable to the police. When a rise in the illegal drug Trigger begins turning petty criminals into unstable villains across Naruhata, she’s pulled into an investigation alongside underground hero Shota Aizawa.
Working late nights, chasing dead ends, and listening to thoughts she’d rather ignore is exhausting enough.
Working alongside Eraserhead, who notices far more than he says, is worse.
─────────── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───────────
The station was quieter the next morning.
Not silent. Police stations were never truly silent, but the constant buzz of voices had softened into something steadier, less chaotic than the night before. Officers moved through the halls carrying stacks of paperwork or half-finished cups of coffee, conversations drifting through open doorways as the slow rhythm of another workday settled over the building.
She arrived earlier than usual.
The faint bruise around her throat had darkened overnight, an ugly reminder she had noticed immediately in the bathroom mirror that morning. She had considered covering it but ultimately decided not to bother. Anyone who asked would hear the same answer anyway.
It was handled.
Her office door clicked shut behind her as she stepped inside.
Someone had already cleaned up the worst of the mess.
The papers she had thrown the night before had been gathered into uneven stacks across her desk; the spilt coffee had been wiped away, though a faint stain still marked the wood. The broken mug had been replaced with a new one sitting neatly beside her keyboard, empty but waiting. The picture of her and Hitoshi lay carefully in the middle of the desk, the cracked frame removed.
She stared at it for a moment.
Tsukauchi.
It had to be him.
The thought almost made her smile, though the expression never fully formed.
She sat down slowly, rolling her shoulders as the chair creaked beneath her weight. For a few minutes she did nothing but look at the files stacked in front of her, letting the quiet settle around the room.
Then she reached for the headphones resting on the corner of the desk and slipped them over her ears.
The effect was immediate.
The constant whisper of surrounding thoughts faded into a distant murmur, still present but muffled enough that she could breathe without feeling like the world was pressing into her skull. It was the closest thing she had to silence.
Her fingers tapped lightly against the desk as she opened the first report.
Paperwork from yesterday’s incident.
She read through it slowly, correcting small errors in the officers’ statements as she went. The suspect had been transferred to a holding facility overnight, and medical testing had already confirmed what everyone suspected.
Trigger.
Another small-time criminal suddenly gaining strength far beyond what his body should have been capable of handling. Just another example of the strange pattern the city had been seeing more frequently. The reports described the same thing each time: erratic behaviour, sudden bursts of power, and bodies pushed past their limits by something artificial.
Her pen hovered over the page for a moment as the thought lingered.
Despite herself, Aizawa’s words from the night before drifted back into her mind.
That anger you’re feeling right now… I recognise it.
She frowned slightly at the memory and forced her attention back to the paperwork in front of her, though the quiet moment didn’t last long before a knock sounded lightly against the doorframe.
“Morning.”
Tsukauchi stepped inside without waiting for an invitation, a cup of coffee in one hand. His expression softened slightly when he noticed she was already working, the stack of reports spread across her desk making it obvious she had been there for a while.
“You’re here early,” he said.
She shrugged without looking up. “Couldn’t sleep.”
His attention shifted upward then, noticing the bruise around her throat almost immediately. His eyebrows lifted slightly as he studied it.
“That looks worse today.”
“It’s fine.”
“That’s not what I said.”
She exhaled quietly and leaned back in her chair, rubbing her temple before looking at him properly. “Do you have a reason for being here, or are you just checking if I’m still alive again?”
The tired sarcasm in her voice earned a quiet chuckle from him as he stepped further into the room and set the coffee down on the corner of her desk.
“Just making sure yesterday didn’t scare you off.”
She raised an eyebrow. “If that was enough to scare me away, I would’ve quit years ago.”
“Fair point.”
For a moment he simply stood there, hands resting lightly against the edge of the desk, his eyes drifting over the reports she had been working through.
Then his expression shifted slightly.
“Actually,” he said, “I did come here for something.”
She eyed him suspiciously.
“The suspect from yesterday is being transferred back from holding,” he continued. “Aizawa wants another interrogation before they move him again.”
Her pen stopped moving.
Tsukauchi watched her carefully before adding, “Specifically, he wants you there.”
She leaned back slowly in her chair, folding her arms. “Because I’m so charming with violent suspects.”
“Because you're our best detective.”
She didn’t answer immediately.
After a moment she pushed the chair back and stood, sliding the headphones down around her neck before grabbing the file from the desk.
“Fine,” she muttered. “Let’s get it over with.”
The hallway outside had grown busier since she arrived, with officers moving between desks while phones rang somewhere deeper in the station. She followed Tsukauchi down the corridor toward the interrogation rooms, flipping the file open as they walked.
The suspect’s information stared back at her.
Quirk: Stat Boost. Normally it was considered a minor ability, temporary increases in physical performance that were usually limited and inconsistent, the kind of quirk that might help someone run a little faster or lift slightly more than average, but nothing close to extraordinary. Certainly nothing strong enough to snap reinforced restraints.
Her brow furrowed slightly as she read the line again while walking beside Tsukauchi down the corridor, the quiet hum of the station filling the air around them.
"The medical report says no confirmed drugs in his system,” Tsukauchi said beside her, his voice lowered as they neared the end of the hall. “But Aizawa wants to be sure.”
She closed the file with a soft snap, her expression thoughtful as they turned the final corner.
Aizawa was already there.
He stood outside the interrogation room door, leaning casually against the wall with his arms folded across his chest. The capture scarf rested loosely around his shoulders. At the sound of their footsteps, he pushed himself off the wall and straightened slightly, his gaze moving first toward Tsukauchi and then settling on her.
For a brief moment his eyes lingered on the faint bruising around her throat.
It was subtle, but she noticed.
Then his gaze lifted again to meet hers.
“I’ll be joining you inside,” he said calmly.
She raised an eyebrow immediately, the reaction automatic. “Didn’t realise I needed supervision.”
“It’s not supervision.”
His tone remained level, almost indifferent, but there was a quiet firmness behind the words that made the meaning clear enough. “It’s a precaution."
Her eyes narrowed slightly as she folded her arms, leaning one shoulder against the wall across from him. “I can handle an interrogation.”
“I know.”
The response came without hesitation.
For a moment that caught her off guard.
Aizawa tilted his head slightly toward the door behind him, the faintest shift of his posture signalling the conversation was already moving forward in his mind. “But yesterday proved something.”
She frowned slightly. “What?”
“That something about this case doesn’t add up.”
His eyes held hers for a second longer than necessary before he continued, his voice lowering just enough that the words felt more deliberate.
“I asked for your help with this investigation,” he said, almost matter-of-factly, though his gaze didn’t move away. “So I’d prefer if nothing like yesterday happens again.”
The statement was simple, spoken in the same calm tone he used for everything else, but something about the directness of it caused a subtle shift in the tension resting across her shoulders. It wasn’t dramatic, and she hid it quickly, though the moment lingered just long enough for her to look away first.
“Great,” she muttered under her breath. “Nothing like a bodyguard to boost my confidence.”
The sarcasm came automatically, the same defensive edge she used in most conversations, but this time she didn’t actually argue the point. Normally she would have pushed harder, made a sharper comment, or done something to prove she didn’t need anyone hovering nearby. Instead, she simply adjusted the file under her arm and exhaled quietly, her shoulders relaxing by the smallest margin.
She wouldn’t admit it out loud, probably not even to herself, but after what had happened yesterday, the thought of someone else being in the room made the tension sitting in her chest ease just a little.
Aizawa didn’t react to the sarcasm. If anything, he seemed entirely unbothered by it, already reaching for the interrogation room door as if the conversation had served its purpose.
“Ready?” he asked.
She inhaled slowly, straightening slightly as the familiar weight of the investigation settled back into place. The file remained tucked under her arm, the questions waiting inside it still unanswered.
After a moment she gave a small nod.
“Let’s see if he talks.”
Aizawa turned the handle, and the door swung open.
The interrogation room felt colder than it had the day before. The suspect was already seated when they entered, his wrists secured with heavy quirk-dampening cuffs bolted directly to the metal table. Unlike standard restraints, these suppressed his quirk entirely, leaving him with nothing but his own physical strength. Apparently that was still enough for him to look comfortable. His grin appeared the moment she stepped inside.
“Well,” he said slowly, leaning back in the chair as if the entire situation amused him, “look who came back.”
She didn’t acknowledge the greeting. Pulling the chair out across from him, she sat down and opened the file in front of her with calm indifference while Aizawa moved quietly toward the wall behind her. The suspect’s eyes flicked toward him briefly before returning to her, the grin never leaving his face.
“Didn’t think you’d show up again so soon,” he continued casually. “Figured you might take the day off after yesterday.”
She flipped a page without looking up. “You’re not important enough for that.”
The man chuckled under his breath, though the sound carried a smug satisfaction. In his mind the thoughts were already moving, loud enough for her quirk to catch them. Look at her throat. Her hand paused briefly against the paper. He leaned forward slightly, just enough for the overhead light to catch the faint bruising around her neck.
“Looks worse today,” he said. “Didn’t realise I squeezed that hard.”
Behind the observation glass, Tsukauchi watched carefully. The shift in her posture was subtle, barely noticeable unless someone knew her well. Normally she entered interrogations like she owned the room. Calm, confident, and sometimes deliberately rude when it helped throw suspects off balance. Today something about her shoulders looked tighter. Across the table the suspect seemed to notice the same thing.
Her voice remained steady. “You broke reinforced restraints yesterday.”
He shrugged lazily. “Maybe I’m stronger than I look.”
“Your quirk is Stat Boost.”
“So?”
“That quirk shouldn’t have been strong enough to do what you did.”
He leaned back again as if the conversation bored him. “Guess I got lucky.” His thoughts betrayed him instantly. She won't get anything out of me. Her fingers tightened slightly against the edge of the table.
“You assaulted a police officer,” she said flatly.
“You’re still breathing.” His gaze drifted again toward her throat, the smirk returning. “You know, for someone who talks tough, you’re just an investigator. You’re not a hero. You can’t actually stop someone like me.”
The room fell quiet. Behind the glass Tsukauchi exhaled slowly, while inside the interrogation room her grip tightened against the metal table. The suspect saw it immediately, and his grin widened. “That bruise looks pretty around your neck,” he added with a smirk.
She leaned forward slightly, her voice lower now, edged with something sharper than before. “You’re not as clever as you think you are.”
But the confidence that usually carried her interrogations had thinned just enough for the suspect to notice. And somewhere behind her, Aizawa noticed it too.
The silence in the interrogation room stretched thin. The suspect leaned back in his chair, the same smug confidence slowly returning to his face as he studied her reaction. He had noticed the tension in her shoulders, the slight tightening of her jaw, and the way her posture had stiffened just enough to tell him his words were working. That small victory was all the encouragement he needed.
“You’re trying really hard,” he said slowly, his voice thick with amusement. “But you’re still just sitting there asking questions.”
She didn’t answer. Her gaze remained fixed on the file in front of her, though the words on the page had long since stopped registering. Behind her, Aizawa stood near the wall in silence, his presence quiet but immovable, watching the exchange unfold with the same unreadable calm he had maintained since they entered the room.
The man tilted his head slightly, his eyes drifting again toward the bruising around her throat. The faint marks had darkened overnight, ugly fingerprints of purple and yellow that peeked just above the collar of her shirt. His grin widened when he noticed her hand shift slightly against the table.
“Face it,” he continued, leaning forward a little now, clearly enjoying himself. “You’re weak.”
The word landed harder than the rest.
She felt it settle somewhere deep in her chest, sharper than before.
“You hear me?” he added, pushing further when he saw the reaction. “You’re weak.”
Her hands slowly curled against the edge of the metal table.
“You sit there acting like you’re in control,” the suspect went on, his voice rising slightly with each word. “But yesterday proved what you really are. Without him."
He jerked his chin toward Aizawa without bothering to turn.
"You'd already be dead.”
For a moment the room seemed to shrink.
Her heartbeat thudded in her ears, each pulse heavier than the last as the memory flashed through her mind before she could stop it. His hand around her throat. The pressure was crushing her airway. The helpless moment when she realised she couldn’t break his grip no matter how hard she tried.
Weak.
The word echoed again.
The chair scraped violently against the floor as she stood.
The sudden movement cracked through the room like a gunshot, both hands slamming down against the metal table with enough force to make it rattle under the impact. The suspect flinched instinctively, the smug grin slipping from his face as he blinked in surprise at the sudden change in her.
She leaned across the table, anger burning openly now as her breathing sharpened.
“Shut the fuck up,” her voice low and steady. She didn’t raise it, didn’t need to, but there was something dangerous beneath her tone, the kind of weight that settled into the room far heavier than a shout ever could.
The suspect blinked.
“What?”
Her fingers tightened against the cold metal surface.
“Cut the bullshit,” The anger that had been building since yesterday finally breaking free. “Where did you get that sudden power boost from?”
She was too angry. Being called weak by a man sitting in cuffs. Especially after everything that had happened yesterday, it struck deeper than it should have. The word dug into the same wound she had been trying to ignore, echoing the doubts she already carried about herself. Hearing it from him, after the way he had overpowered her the night before, only twisted the knife further, feeding the anger that was already boiling just beneath the surface.
Something shifted.
She didn’t notice it.
But Aizawa did.
The moment the words left her mouth, his eyes narrowed slightly, sensing something change in her demeanour.
Across the table the suspect opened his mouth to laugh again, the mocking response already forming in his mind.
But the laugh never came.
His body went still.
Confusion flickered across his face as something unfamiliar pressed against his thoughts, a strange weight settling behind his eyes that made it difficult to focus.
Her eyes had changed.
The colour had vanished completely, replaced by a blank, unnatural white that reflected the overhead light in a way that made them look almost hollow.
Behind the observation glass, Tsukauchi leaned forward.
Inside the room the suspect stared at her, the confidence draining from his face as the pressure in his mind grew stronger.
What are you hiding.
The words weren’t spoken aloud this time.
They were inside his head.
His breathing faltered.
“What the hell…” he muttered under his breath.
The pressure intensified.
Tell me.
He tried to focus on his own thoughts and tried to force the words away the same way he would ignore any other stray idea passing through his mind.
Don’t say anything.
But the command didn’t fade.
It grew louder.
Tell me what I want to know.
His mouth opened before he even realised it.
“I’ve been using Trigger,” he blurted suddenly, the words tumbling out of him before he could stop them. His eyes widened the moment he heard himself say it. “On a regular basis.”
The room froze.
For a split second the only sound was the low hum of the lights overhead.
Her expression faltered as the meaning of the words registered.
Across the room, Aizawa moved.
His eyes flashed red as his quirk activated, strands of his hair lifting slightly. The moment his gaze locked onto her, Erasure took effect.
The pressure vanished instantly.
The unnatural whiteness drained from her eyes as they returned to their normal colour, and she staggered slightly as the strange force that had surged through her mind disappeared.
“What…?” she whispered, her voice unsteady as her hands slipped slightly against the table.
Across from her, the suspect looked just as shaken, staring down at his own hands in confusion.
“I didn’t mean to say that,” he muttered, his voice suddenly uncertain. “I wasn’t going to say that.”
Behind the glass, Tsukauchi slowly exhaled.
Because whatever had just happened inside that interrogation room had forced the truth out of him.
Aizawa x F!Reader │Originally written on AO3
Masterlist
Word count: 2.7k
Content & Warnings:
Reader has a quirk, slow burn, co-workers to friends to lovers, light angst, eventual romance, other Additional Tags to Be Added.
Summary:
Y/N Shinsou never made it into the Hero Course at U.A. High School, but a mind reading quirk still makes her valuable to the police. When a rise in the illegal drug Trigger begins turning petty criminals into unstable villains across Naruhata, she’s pulled into an investigation alongside underground hero Shota Aizawa.
Working late nights, chasing dead ends, and listening to thoughts she’d rather ignore is exhausting enough.
Working with Eraserhead might be worse.
─────────── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───────────
The police station hummed quietly with the steady rhythm of a normal workday. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting a pale glow across rows of desks cluttered with reports, folders, and half-empty coffee cups. Somewhere down the hall a printer whirred, and a phone rang briefly before being picked up. It wasn’t chaos, and it certainly wasn’t the kind of hero work that made headlines. Most days, it was far less dramatic than that.
It was paperwork.
Inside her small office, she sat with her chair tilted back slightly, headphones resting over her ears. No music played through them. They were there for a different reason entirely. Even when she wasn’t actively using her quirk, stray thoughts brushed against her mind like static: passing officers, suspects in holding, and civilians waiting in the lobby. Small fragments of other people’s minds drifted by if she didn’t focus on keeping them out.
The headphones helped. They created a barrier, something psychological that allowed her to dull the noise without wasting energy suppressing it completely.
A mug of coffee sat beside her keyboard, half empty and already cold. She had poured it nearly an hour ago and forgotten about it entirely. Reheating it wasn’t worth the effort.
Her desk was buried under paperwork. Yesterday’s interrogation had turned out to be a complete waste of time, which meant today was dedicated to cleaning up the mess it created.
False detention forms, release paperwork, and internal reports explaining why a suspect had been held without sufficient evidence, all of it stacked neatly in front of her like a punishment.
The glamorous side of police work.
She flipped through the man’s file again, scanning the notes she had already read three times that morning. Eight years working at the same factory. No violent record. No suspicious financial activity. Everything about his life was painfully ordinary.
And everything he had said in the interrogation room had been true.
Not because she trusts people but because she had listened to his thoughts the entire time.
There hadn’t been a single flicker of guilt hiding behind his answers. No malicious intent, no buried panic about being discovered. Just irritation and anxiety about missing work and being questioned.
She sighed quietly and closed the folder.
Another dead end.
Her quirk wasn’t public knowledge. Only a handful of people knew the truth about it some trusted officers, a few pro heroes, and close friends. The department kept it quiet intentionally. Interrogations worked far better when suspects didn’t realise their thoughts were being monitored.
It also meant she could live a relatively normal life. Without the public exposure that came with being a hero, there were no cameras outside her apartment and no reporters digging into her personal business.
She could walk through the city without anyone recognising her, go out for ramen without being asked questions, and return home at the end of the day without worrying about headlines.
A knock sounded at her office door, pulling her out of her thoughts. She didn’t look up right away, finishing the last line of a report before setting the pen down.
“Come in.”
Two rookie officers stood in the doorway. Both looked slightly uncomfortable, shifting their weight like they weren’t sure if they were interrupting something important.
“Sorry,” one of them said. “We need you in interrogation room two.”
She leaned back in her chair, already annoyed.
“For what?”
“Convenience store robbery,” the second officer explained. “Guy fired a gun. Cashier got injured.”
She rubbed her temple.
Of course.
Most days in the police department had nothing to do with villains or large investigations. It was robberies, assaults, domestic disputes, the sort of crimes that never made the news unless someone died.
“Alright,” she muttered as she stood.
The rookies stepped aside while she walked past them, her patience already thin after yesterday’s failure with the Trigger investigation. Now she had to deal with some idiot who thought robbing a store was a good career choice.
When she pushed open the interrogation room door, the man inside looked exactly like she expected.
Mid-thirties. Average height. Bald head with cheap tattoos crawling across his temples and neck. The kind of rough ink that looked like it had been done in someone’s apartment kitchen rather than a proper shop. It was the sort of appearance people chose when they wanted to look dangerous.
He glared at her the moment she entered the room, eyes narrowing as she dragged the chair back and dropped into it across from him.
Instead of sitting normally, she leaned the chair slightly onto two legs and rested her boots on the metal table between them, the posture casual to the point of disrespect.
She didn’t bother hiding it either. The day had already been long and irritating, and she had no patience left to pretend otherwise. Glancing down at the file in front of her before lazily lifting her eyes back to him, she spoke in a flat tone that made it clear how little tolerance she had left.
"I'm not in the mood today, so don’t waste my time.”
The man scoffed loudly, leaning back in his chair with a crooked grin that tried a little too hard to look confident. “Who the hell are you supposed to be?” he shot back, watching her with the kind of defiant expression people wore when they believed they still had control of the situation.
She didn’t react to the tone, opening the file in front of her with slow indifference as if she’d already heard every excuse he was capable of offering.
“Guy robs a store, fires a gun inside a building full of people, injures a cashier…” she said calmly, her gaze flicking up toward him with clear disinterest. “And you’re asking questions. Bold strategy.”
Inside his head, his thoughts were already racing, rambling to himself.
They can’t prove it. No clear camera angle. No one saw my face.
But when he spoke, the words that came out were completely different. “I didn’t do anything.”
She let out a quiet sigh, leaning back further in the chair as though she had expected that answer from the start. “So we’re lying today.” The reaction in his mind was immediate.
Just keep denying it.
“I’ve got nothing to say,” he added, trying to reinforce the act with a shrug that suggested he wasn’t worried.
She ignored the statement entirely and began asking questions anyway, flipping through the paperwork while speaking in the same calm, steady tone.
Where were you last night? Did you enter the store? Did you fire the weapon? Every answer leaving his mouth was carefully shaped to sound innocent, denial stacked on top of denial, but the thoughts running beneath the surface told a completely different story. In his head the truth spilt freely.
Eventually the irritation boiling inside him finally spilled over. “You don’t have proof,” he snapped, leaning forward with frustration creeping into his voice.
She closed the folder with slow, deliberate calm, as if the conversation had already reached its conclusion.
“You’ve been providing proof the entire time.” The words hit harder than he expected, his expression twisting immediately as anger replaced the shaky confidence he’d been clinging to.
“What the hell does that mean, bitch?”
She rose from the chair without acknowledging the insult, already finished with the conversation. “It means this interrogation is over.”
The man’s face contorted with rage as both of his hands slammed down against the table, the metal cuffs around his wrists snapping with a sharp crack that echoed through the room.
For a moment she simply stared, the sound registering in her mind before the reality of it did. That wasn’t normal. Those cuffs shouldn’t have broken like that.
He stood so fast the chair behind him crashed onto the floor, and before she could react, his hand shot forward and wrapped around her throat, slamming her hard against the wall behind her.
The impact knocked the air straight out of her lungs as her head snapped slightly from the force, her fingers immediately clawing at his wrist in an attempt to pry him off.
His grip didn’t budge. “I told you,” he snarled, his face inches from hers, “you’ve got nothing on me.” Despite the crushing pressure around her throat, she glared back at him, refusing to show fear even as her lungs struggled to pull in air.
“You realise," she rasped hoarsely between strained breaths, “assaulting an officer adds a few extra years to your sentence.” The comment only made him angrier.
The interrogation room door burst open as officers rushed inside, shouting for him to let her go. One officer grabbed the man’s arm and tried to pull him away, but the suspect barely seemed to notice. With a single violent shove, he sent the officer stumbling backward across the room like he weighed nothing.
Another officer tried tackling him from the side and ended up thrown off just as easily, crashing into the wall with a grunt.
Superhuman strength.
Somewhere outside the room an emergency alarm was slammed, the piercing sound cutting through the station.
Down the hall, Tsukauchi stopped mid conversation as the alarm began blaring through the building. Across from him, Aizawa’s head lifted immediately, the change in the atmosphere registering before either of them spoke.
“That’s interrogation,” Tsukauchi said, already moving, and neither of them hesitated as they headed for the source of the noise.
Back inside the room her vision had begun to blur around the edges as the man’s grip tightened around her throat. Her fingers dug into his wrist again, trying to force even the smallest bit of space between his hand and her neck, but it was useless.
The door slammed open.
Aizawa stepped inside.
His red eyes locked onto the suspect instantly, and in that exact moment the man’s strength vanished as if someone had flipped a switch. The grip around her throat loosened abruptly, sending her collapsing to the floor, where she caught herself on her hands and knees, coughing violently as air rushed back into her lungs.
Before the suspect could even react, Aizawa’s grey capture scarf snapped forward and wrapped tightly around the man’s arms and torso; with a sharp pull he yanked him off balance and slammed him face-first into the ground.
Officers rushed forward immediately to restrain him properly with quirk-dampening cuffs, securing new restraints around his wrists while Aizawa kept the scarf tight.
The entire fight lasted only seconds.
She remained on the floor a moment longer, breathing hard as her lungs struggled to steady themselves, her throat burning with every inhale where the man’s fingers had dug into the skin.
Slowly she pushed herself upright, the world still spinning slightly as she forced her breathing under control. Tsukauchi stepped closer, concern evident in his expression as he asked if she was alright, but she brushed his hand away before he could help her stand.
“I’m fine,” she said, though the sharp edge in her voice made it clear the words weren’t entirely true.
Fear wasn’t what burned in her chest.
Anger was.
A deep, simmering fury that settled heavily in her lungs as the truth pressed against the back of her mind. She had been completely helpless. Her quirk read minds, and that was it.
No strength to overpower someone, no combat ability to rely on when things turned violent, no real defence beyond hearing the thoughts of the person attacking her. Just fragments of other people’s minds drifting through her head.
Standing there with the ache of fingers still lingering around her throat, the realisation felt humiliatingly clear.
No wonder she couldn’t become a hero.
The memory invaded her brain before she could stop it, sharp and unwelcome.
U.A. High School.
The roar of the crowd during the Sports Festival echoed through her mind as clearly as if she were standing there again, the stadium packed with spectators while students sprinted through obstacle courses, smashed through barriers, and leapt across collapsing terrain as announcers shouted excitedly overhead.
Everyone around her had been faster, stronger, and louder with their quirks designed for combat or spectacle, abilities that looked impressive even from the stands.
Hers had never worked that way. Her quirk didn’t make her faster and didn’t make her stronger. She could still remember standing in front of the giant scoreboard afterward, staring up at the rankings while the noise of the stadium rang in her ears.
Her name had sat near the bottom of the list, the number beside it small and meaningless compared to the others, and in that moment, while the crowd celebrated someone else’s victory.
The future she had imagined for herself had quietly started to fall apart.
Back in the present, she turned without saying another word and walked out of the interrogation room, the door to her office slamming shut behind her moments later. For several seconds she simply stood there staring at the desk buried under paperwork, reports, and unfinished forms, the silence of the room pressing in around her before the frustration finally broke loose.
Her hand swept violently across the surface, sending papers scattering everywhere as folders slid off the edge and hit the floor. Her coffee mug tipped over, cold liquid spilling across the wood as it rolled onto its side, and her hands slammed down onto the desk hard enough to rattle everything that remained.
“Useless,” she muttered under her breath, the word slipping out before she could stop it.
Her voice cracked slightly.
“I’m useless.”
Her breathing grew uneven as anger twisted tightly in her chest, a single tear slipping down her cheek before she even realised it was there.
Her gaze eventually dropped toward the framed photo shattered on the floor. Her and Hitoshi. He looked younger in the picture, standing beside her with a small, shy, awkward smile while she had one arm wrapped loosely around his shoulders, both of them frozen in a moment that felt impossibly distant now.
A knock sounded at the door, followed almost immediately by the handle turning. The door opened before she had the chance to answer, and Aizawa stepped inside without waiting for permission.
He stopped just inside the doorway, his gaze sweeping slowly across the office, the scattered papers across the floor, the overturned coffee mug leaking cold liquid over the desk, and finally her, standing there with red eyes and hands that still trembled faintly from the aftermath of everything that had just happened. Without saying anything, he reached back and closed the door behind him.
For several seconds neither of them spoke. The silence settled heavily between them as she quickly wiped her face with the back of her hand, trying to erase any sign of the moment he had clearly already walked in on. When she finally spoke, her voice carried a sharp edge of bitterness she hadn’t bothered to hide. “If you’re here to check if I’m alive, I am.”
Aizawa shifted slightly, leaning one shoulder against the wall as if he had no intention of stepping further into the room. “I noticed,” he replied simply.
Another stretch of silence followed, the kind that felt heavier the longer it lasted. His eyes moved once more across the room before returning to her.
“You broke department property,” he added after a moment.
She let out a quiet scoff, the sound humourless as she folded her arms across her chest. “Add it to my list of failures.”
“You handled the interrogation fine.”
She laughed under her breath, though there was nothing remotely amused about it. “I got pinned to a wall by a guy with store-brand tattoos.”
“You’re still standing.”
“Because you walked in.”
The blunt honesty of the response lingered in the air between them. She shifted slightly, crossing her arms tighter as if bracing herself against something invisible. “You didn’t have to come check on me.”
“I didn’t.”
Her brow furrowed at that, irritation creeping into her expression. “Then why are you here?”
Aizawa gave a small shrug that barely moved his shoulders. “Tsukauchi wanted to make sure you were alright.”
“And?”
“And I was already walking this direction.”
She studied him for a moment, eyes narrowing slightly as she searched his face. “You’re terrible at lying.”
The comment came automatically, though she hadn’t used her quirk. Reading people had long since become second nature after years of listening to thoughts she never asked to hear, and she avoided deliberately invading someone’s mind whenever she could. Controlling her quirk was something she worked at constantly.
“I’m not lying,” Aizawa replied.
Another quiet pause stretched between them before she finally exhaled and dropped into the nearest chair, the tension in her shoulders sagging slightly now that the anger had begun to settle into something heavier.
“My quirk reads minds,” she said after a moment, bitterness creeping back into her tone. “Great for interrogations, nothing more.”
Aizawa watched her quietly, studying her expression without interrupting.
“You think heroes only succeed because of their quirks?” he asked eventually.
“I think heroes succeed because they can fight,” she replied immediately, rubbing a hand over her face in frustration. “Because they can actually protect what matters.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
She let out a quiet breath, dragging her hand down her face before letting it fall back to the arm of the chair. “When I was at U.A., everyone around me had abilities that could smash buildings or run faster than cars.”
“And you could hear what they were thinking.”
“Which didn’t help me become a hero," she muttered.
Aizawa crossed his arms loosely, his expression remaining mostly unreadable as he spoke again. “My quirk doesn't give me strength, it doesn't give me speed, and it doesn't touch mutant types. It’s a support tool, nothing more.”
She glanced up at him then, confusion flickering briefly across her face as she tried to understand why he would bother sharing that with her at all.
“My quirk alone was never enough,” he continued calmly. “It's not what makes you a hero.”
“Yet here you are,” she replied, a little more bitterness slipping into her voice than she intended, “a pro hero.”
He shrugged faintly. “Yes.”
Then after a short pause he added, “But I never said it was easy.”
The words sat between them for a moment before he spoke again, his tone shifting just slightly, but enough to notice.
“That anger you’re feeling right now,” Aizawa continued quietly, “I recognise it.”
She looked up at him again, her expression tightening slightly.
His face hadn’t changed much, but his voice had softened just enough that the difference was impossible to miss.
Aizawa x F!Reader │Originally written on AO3
Masterlist
Word count: 2.2k
Content & Warnings:
Reader has a quirk, slow burn, co-workers to friends to lovers, light angst, eventual romance, other Additional Tags to Be Added.
Summary:
Y/N Shinsou never made it into the Hero Course at U.A. High School, but a mind reading quirk still makes her valuable to the police. When a rise in the illegal drug Trigger begins turning petty criminals into unstable villains across Naruhata, she’s pulled into an investigation alongside underground hero Shota Aizawa.
Working late nights, chasing dead ends, and listening to thoughts she’d rather ignore is exhausting enough.
Working with Eraserhead might be worse.
─────────── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───────────
Naruhata always felt different at night. Not quieter, just heavier. The streets outside the police station glowed under buzzing streetlights, their yellow haze reflecting off rain damp pavement. Neon signs flickered in the distance, advertising convenience stores, late night ramen, and places that probably shouldn't still be open at this hour. The city never truly slept, it just slowed down enough for the dangerous parts to breathe.
She shoved her hands deeper into the pockets of her jacket as she walked down the street. The cold night air brushed against her cheeks, clearing some of the fog left behind by the interrogation room.
Her headache still lingered, and for what? dead end… one after the other. She exhaled through her nose; people always thought her quirk made things easy.
Mind reading. It sounded powerful, impressive, and almost unfair. In reality, it meant drowning in thoughts that weren't hers.
She passed a vending machine glowing quietly outside a convenience store. Two high school kids stood nearby, laughing about something on a phone screen. Their thoughts drifted faintly toward her.
Did you see that video
Man, I hope the test won't be so bad
Normal.
Harmless.
She usually tunes them out automatically, a skill she had to master on her own. While she could control her quirk to an extent, overusing it caused the thoughts to come flood back in, always accompanied by a splitting headache. Most of her daily energy was spent simply maintaining that silence.
Her apartment building sat squeezed between a laundromat and a small ramen shop that smelled incredible at this hour. The warm scent of broth and garlic drifted through the air, making her stomach growl quietly. She paused outside the shop window for a moment.
The owner stood behind the counter wiping dishes. For half a second, she considered going inside, but then her headache reminded her she didn't have the energy for people.
“Tomorrow,” she muttered.
The apartment hallway light flickered above her as she climbed the stairs to the second floor, apartment 204... home. The key turned with a familiar metallic click.
Inside, the apartment greeted her with silence. It wasn't a large place, just a small living room connected to a kitchenette, a narrow hallway, and one bedroom.
The furniture was basic, to say the least, but comfortable. A worn couch faced a low table cluttered with notebooks, police reports, and empty coffee cups; a tall scratching post stood near the window. No cat currently occupied it... yet.
Petty crimes.
Drug deals.
Small time villains trying to prove themselves.
Still… It was home; she had grown up a few streets away. Back then the apartments were smaller, the hallways louder, and every night came with shouting, sirens, or broken glass somewhere down the street. But it's gotten better.
She still visits her family, mostly to check on her brother, Hitoshi. It's not that she didn't love her parents, but she got the rough end of the stick, which is also the reason why she moved out and lives alone.
And thoughts. Too many thoughts.
When her quirk first manifested, she had been eight years old. Most kids discovered their quirks with something flashy: fire, strength, or levitation. But not her, she discovered hers when she heard her teacher thinking.
Why can’t this child sit still for five minutes?
The thought had been so clear she thought the woman had whispered directly in her ear. Then another thought followed.
I forgot to bring my markers again.
Then another.
That test was too hard for them.
The classroom was filled with voices no one else could hear. She had cried a lot; her mother thought something was wrong at first, so the doctors ran tests, and teachers worried. Eventually someone suggested quirk counselling. Mind reading, that was the official diagnosis, mutation type. Constantly active.
She kicked her shoes off by the door and dropped her bag onto the couch. For a moment she just stood there. The quiet felt different here. No overlapping thoughts. No interrogation lights. No nervous suspects mentally screaming about forklifts and angry spouses. Just peace.
“Finally.” Her shoulders relaxed slightly. She stretched her arms over her head, joints popping softly, before wandering into the kitchen. The kettle clicked on with a quiet hum. She leaned against the counter while the water heated.
This neighbourhood had never been glamorous. Most heroes preferred working in the cleaner districts closer to the city centre. Naruhata got the leftovers.
The kettle whistled softly; she poured the hot water into a mug and dropped a tea bag inside, watching the color slowly bleed into the liquid. Her phone suddenly buzzed on the counter. A small smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. 'Hitoshi.'
She picked up the phone. “Hey.”
A moment of silence, and then a familiar voice answered.
“Finally. I thought you died.”
She snorted softly. “Wow. Good to hear from you too.”
Her younger brother sounded the same as always: sarcastic.
“You didn’t answer earlier,” he said.
“I was working.”
“Interrogation?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you catch the guy?”
She took a sip of tea. “Nope.”
“Dead end?”
“Dead end.”
Shinsou groaned dramatically on the other end. “Man. Your job sucks.”
“Tell me about it.”
She walked over to the couch and dropped into it, curling one leg underneath herself.
“So,” she asked, “how was school?”
A pause.
Then an annoyed sigh.
“Same.”
“Meaning?”
“People are still weird about my quirk.”
She frowned slightly.
Shinsou’s quirk, brainwashing, had always made people uncomfortable, even when he was younger. Kids heard the word "brainwashing" and immediately assumed "villain."
She had dealt with the same reaction growing up.
“You ignore them?” she asked.
“Mostly.”
“Mostly?”
“Someone asked if I was going to become a villain today.”
Her grip on the phone tightened slightly.
“And what did you say?”
“I told him if I were a villain, I wouldn't waste my time on middle schoolers.”
She burst out laughing.
“That’s my brother.”
“Yeah, well…”
His voice softened slightly.
“I’m still applying to U.A.”
She leaned back against the couch.
U.A., the top hero school in the country.
They talked for a few more minutes about school, homework, and random nonsense before hanging up.
When the call ended, the apartment felt quiet again.
Steam curled lazily from her tea as she sat back against the couch. Outside the window, Naruhata glowed under scattered streetlights and neon signs, the quiet hum of the city drifting faintly through the glass.
Her mind wandered despite herself.
U.A.
Even after all these years, the name still carried a certain weight. She closed her eyes briefly, and the memory returned clearer than she expected.
The morning of the entrance exam had been cold. Not winter cold, but the sharp early-spring chill that lingered before the sun fully warmed the air. Hundreds of applicants gathered outside the gates of U.A. High School, their voices blending into a restless buzz of excitement and nerves.
Some stretched their arms, preparing for the physical test. Others bragged loudly about their quirks, already convinced they would make it into the Hero Course. She stood near the back of the crowd with her hands shoved deep in her jacket pockets.
The noise wasn’t the problem; the thoughts were, pressing into her mind from every direction the moment she stepped into the crowd.
I’m going to destroy those robots.
My quirk is perfect for this.
There’s no way I’m failing.
Her temples had already started throbbing. When the gates finally opened, the crowd surged forward like a wave of ambition and nerves.
She moved with them, gripping the strap of her bag as she stepped onto the massive campus grounds. Even back then it had looked impressive, with wide training fields stretching across the distance and massive buildings casting long shadows across the pavement. She remembered wondering if she actually belonged there.
The written exam had been manageable, though sitting in a room with hundreds of other students had turned the quiet testing hall into a storm of overlapping thoughts. By the time the test ended, her head already ached.
The real problem came when the practical exam began. Students gathered inside a massive mock city training zone, with rows of empty buildings and broken streets designed to simulate disaster areas.
The moment the exam proctor finished explaining the rules, alarms blared through the training field, and the robots appeared. Massive mechanical machines crashed through the streets, their metal limbs tearing apart buildings as they advanced.
Around her, students exploded into motion. Fire burst across the field. Ice spread across the ground. Electricity cracked through the air. The battlefield became chaos within seconds.
She stood still for a moment, staring at the towering machine stomping through the street ahead of her. Her quirk didn’t destroy things. It didn’t immobilize enemies. It didn’t knock giant robots through walls. It listened.
She forced herself forward anyway, sprinting toward a broken wall and ducking behind it as a robot marched past. Her heart pounded in her chest while the ground trembled under its heavy footstep. Around her, students shouted and fought, their thoughts bursting loudly in her mind.
I got one!
Where’s the next robot?
This is easy!
She peeked around the wall and stared up at the machine towering above her. She focused instinctively, reaching out with her quirk and searching for some kind of thought she could use. There was nothing. Robots didn’t think.
“Of course they don’t,” she muttered under her breath.
She grabbed a bent metal pipe from the rubble and ran forward anyway, swinging it hard against the robot’s leg. The pipe bent instantly. The robot didn’t even slow down.
An explosion rocked the street behind her as another student blasted a machine apart, metal debris scattering across the pavement. She stood there for another second, staring at the robot she hadn’t even scratched. Her chest tightened. She already knew.
The buzzer announcing the end of the exam echoed across the training field not long after. Students celebrated around her, laughing and comparing scores while exhausted instructors began directing everyone toward the exit.
She simply stared at the machines being hauled away. She knew how this would end.
The acceptance letters arrived a week later. She opened the envelope at the kitchen table in the tiny apartment her family lived in. The letter was polite, even encouraging, but the message was clear.
She hadn’t passed the Hero Course entrance exam. Her score hadn’t even come close. For a few days she thought that was the end of it. Then another letter arrived. U.A. had offered her a place in the General Studies course instead. Not hero training. But still U.A.
She opened her eyes, the memory fading as the quiet of her apartment returned. The tea in her mug had cooled slightly in her hands. She let out a quiet breath and leaned her head back against the couch.
“Yeah,” she murmured to the empty room. “Robots really weren’t my thing.”
Still, as she stared out the window at Naruhata’s glowing streets, she couldn’t help thinking that maybe things had worked out the way they were supposed to.
She might not have become a hero. But she still helped people. Just in a different way. And honestly, she suspected she was better at it this way.
After a moment, she pushed herself up from the couch and walked toward the sliding glass door leading to the small balcony. The metal handle clicked softly as she pulled it open, letting the cool night air drift into the apartment.
She stepped outside, the concrete cool beneath her bare feet. The balcony wasn’t much, just enough space for a rusted railing and a small folding chair she rarely used, but it overlooked the street below.
She reached into the pocket of her jacket and pulled out a crumpled cigarette pack along with a lighter. The flame flickered briefly in the darkness as she lit it.
The first inhale burned slightly before settling into something calmer. Smoke curled upward into the night air as she leaned her elbows against the railing, watching the quiet movement of the city below.
Her mind drifted back to the conversation at the station.
Trigger.
If it were really spreading through Naruhata again, things were about to get messy. And now the police had dragged an underground hero into the investigation.
Her thoughts briefly returned to the man she’d seen in the break room. Messy hair. Permanent exhaustion.
Shota Aizawa.
She tapped ash over the railing. “…Weird guy.”
Not loud like most heroes. Not arrogant either. Just quiet. Observant. And strangely difficult to read. Most people’s thoughts drifted through her mind eventually if she stayed near them long enough. His hadn’t. That alone made her suspicious.
She took one last drag before crushing the cigarette against the metal railing. The ember faded quickly in the night air.
For a moment she simply stood there, looking out over the city. Naruhata hummed quietly beneath the stars.
If Trigger really was moving through these streets again, then tonight’s dead end at the warehouse was only the beginning. And something told her tomorrow wasn’t going to be any easier.
Aizawa x F!Reader │Originally written on AO3
Masterlist
Word count: 1.4k
Content & Warnings:
Reader has a quirk, slow burn, co-workers to friends to lovers, light angst, eventual romance, other Additional Tags to Be Added
Summary:
Y/N Shinsou never made it into the Hero Course at U.A. High School, but a mind reading quirk still makes her valuable to the police. When a rise in the illegal drug Trigger begins turning petty criminals into unstable villains across Naruhata, she’s pulled into an investigation alongside underground hero Shota Aizawa.
Working late nights, chasing dead ends, and listening to thoughts she’d rather ignore is exhausting enough.
Working with Eraserhead might be worse.
─────────── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───────────
Working for the police with a mind reading quirk sounded impressive on paper.
In reality, it mostly meant headaches, migraines, and hearing thoughts you never asked to hear. Thoughts that crawled under your skin like mosquitoes in a tent, buzzing and biting and never letting you forget how little control you had over your own powers.
Detective Shinsou leaned back in the stiff metal chair, the cold of the seat seeping through her jacket, her back pressing against the rigid frame. Across from her, the suspect shifted again, metal cuffs clinking softly against the table. His gaze darted nervously around the grey walls, avoiding hers as if making eye contact might burn him.
The fluorescent lights above flickered faintly, casting harsh, uneven shadows across the room. The faint smell of disinfectant mixed with the musk of fear, sweat, and cheap cologne. She hated this room. The table was bolted to the floor, the chairs were uncomfortable, and the silence… the silence was the worst. Silence made thoughts louder, and louder thoughts were headaches waiting to happen.
Her quirk had been active the moment she entered, spilling the man’s inner monologue into her mind like overlapping radio stations.
I shouldn’t have taken the late shift.
My wife’s gonna kill me.
What if I get fired for this?
She pinched the bridge of her nose, letting a small, exasperated groan escape. None of that sounded like someone hiding involvement in a criminal scheme.
She leaned slightly forward, elbows resting on the cold metal table. “So,” she said, voice casual, “let’s try this again.”
The man swallowed. His Adam’s apple bobbed nervously. “I told you already. I don’t know anything.”
I don’t know anything.
Why am I even here?
I was just unloading boxes.
She pinched her temple again. That… actually sounded genuine. Still, she pushed a little further.
“Third Street warehouse,” she said, letting the words hang in the air, casual, teasing.
The man blinked. “What about it?”
No panic. No spike of fear. Just blank confusion.
She narrowed her eyes. “You were there last night.”
“Yeah,” he said slowly. “I work there.”
Am I getting arrested for doing my job?
She let out a long, low sigh and leaned back again. Great. Another dead end. The faint buzz of the lights seemed louder now, pressing at the back of her skull.
“Did you see anyone suspicious?” she asked, already knowing the answer.
The man shook his head quickly. “No! I mean… just the usual workers. Trucks came in, we unloaded, and that was it.”
His thoughts were nothing but nervous rambling.
Please let me go.
My wife’s going to kill me.
She exhaled, a mixture of frustration and disbelief. The dull, throbbing headache behind her eyes protested. Twenty minutes of him mentally panicking about losing his job and disappointing his wife, Fantastic.
From the other side of the two-way mirror, officers leaned casually against the walls, whispering quietly among themselves.
Tsukauchi
](https://myheroacademia.fandom.com/wiki/Naomasa_Tsukauchi) tilted his head slightly. “Well?”
Next to him, Aizawa leaned back, arms loosely folded, eyes tracking Y/N’s posture with that uncanny ability of his, quiet, perceptive, and cold.
“Dead end,” he muttered quietly.
Tsukauchi smirked. “You’re quick.”
Inside the room, Y/N let her gaze linger on the suspect for a moment longer, observing the subtle tension in his shoulders, the twitching of his fingers. She gave a low, sarcastic hum.
“Alright,” she muttered.
The man’s shoulders lifted slightly in relief. “…Alright?”
“Yeah,” she said flatly. “You’re useless.”
He blinked. “What?”
She stretched her arms, feeling the stiffness in her back. “You’re not lying,” she said bluntly. “Which is great for you. Less great for me.”
knocking twice on the door. An officer opened it immediately.
Stepping into the hallway, she exhaled sharply, dragging a hand down her face. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, the faint smell of stale coffee wafting from the break room.
“Seriously?”
Tsukauchi emerged from the observation room, already recognizing the expression plastered across her face.
“Dead end?”
“Completely,” she muttered. “Guy’s clean.”
She rubbed her temple again, wincing slightly. “All I got was twenty minutes of him mentally panicking and disappointing his wife.”
Tsukauchi chuckled. “Could be worse.”
“Could’ve been shorter,” she shot back.
Her headache throbbed again. Long interrogations were the worst part of the job, right after listening to everyone’s thoughts without asking.
“I need coffee,” she said flatly, pivoting toward the break room, already imagining the bitter black liquid grounding her before she lost her patience entirely.
She didn’t wait for a response. Tsukauchi followed casually, the faint click of his shoes echoing off the linoleum.
The break room was quiet and nearly empty at this hour. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, and the faint smell of burnt coffee lingered. She grabbed a chipped mug from the cabinet, the faint scrape of ceramic against her fingernail sharp in the silent space. She filled it from the coffee machine, black, two sugars, letting the warmth seep into her hands before taking a long, deliberate sip.
The bitter taste hit her tongue, she exhaled slowly, savouring the moment.
Tsukauchi leaned against the counter. “So, nothing useful at all?”
“Nothing criminal,” she replied. “Unless worrying about your wife is suddenly illegal.”
He smiled faintly. “You’re sure he wasn’t involved?”
She nodded. “If he was, he didn’t know it. His thoughts were all surface level: work, bills, his wife yelling at him for missing dinner.”
She paused, letting her eyes drift to the ceiling as if it might somehow offer insight. “Whoever we’re looking for didn’t involve the regular workers.”
Tsukauchi nodded slowly. “That’s what we were thinking too.”
She turned sharply. “We?”
Tsukauchi tilted his head toward the doorway. “Someone wanted to hear your opinion.”
Her gaze followed his gesture, and her eyes landed on a man she recognized immediately: messy black hair, permanent dark circles under tired eyes, and a grey capture scarf draped loosely around his shoulders.
Underground pro hero, Eraserhead.
Her eyebrows lifted. “…You look more tired in person.” She took another sip of coffee, her tone dry.
Tsukauchi coughed, trying not to laugh.
Aizawa didn’t react immediately. He studied her, expression unreadable, before shrugging slightly. “Accurate.”
Eyeing him over the rim of her mug. “You were watching the interrogation?”
“Yeah.” His gaze flicked briefly to the hallway.
“You read his mind.”
“Unfortunately. Nothing useful,” she said, her voice carrying just the right amount of sarcasm. “Unless you’re investigating warehouse employee marital anxiety.”
Aizawa hummed quietly. “So he was telling the truth.”
“Unfortunately.” She set the mug down and crossed her arms. “Which means the lead Tsukauchi dragged me in for tonight just died.”
Her eyes flicked between them. “Which brings me to the real question.” She narrowed her eyes slightly. “Why is an underground hero sitting in on police interrogations?”
For a long moment, neither man spoke.
Tsukauchi sighed. “Because this case might be bigger than we thought.”
“How big?” she asked, rolling her eyes in frustration.
Aizawa’s dark gaze met hers. “Trigger.”
The word hung in the air. Her expression hardened. Trigger wasn’t just another street drug, it amplified quirks beyond their limits, often mutating the user and driving them unstable.
“Where?” she asked.
“Naruhata,” Tsukauchi said. “There’s been a spike in incidents over the last few months. Small-time criminals suddenly turning into what the media’s calling ‘instant villains.’”
She leaned back against the counter, letting the bitter coffee ground her thoughts. Her home was in Naruhata; she knew exactly what that meant.
“Blackened tongues?” she asked.
Tsukauchi nodded. “One of the side effects.”
She exhaled slowly. “Great.”
Aizawa’s eyes remained fixed on her, unreadable.
“Which means the warehouse could’ve been a drop point,” she continued. “But the workers didn’t know what they were moving.”
“Exactly,” Tsukauchi said.
Taking the last sip of coffee, she sets the mug down with a soft clink. “…And you brought him in,” she said, nodding toward Aizawa, “because if Trigger is involved, the people using it won’t stay small time for long.”
Aizawa didn’t respond immediately. Then he said simply, “Being an underground hero helps me blend in.”
She exhaled slowly, letting her sarcasm drip through the silence. “Fantastic.”
Tsukauchi smiled faintly. “Welcome to the investigation.”
