AN: For some reason, I really struggled with what names to use in this fic! I ended up going with "Aizawa" for when writing from Aizawa's perspective, because referring to himself as Aizawa felt a bit more right when I was writing it? But from Mic's perspective, Eraserhead is Shouta, and Mic himself is Hizashi to both of them. Hopefully that won't be too off-putting...
His vision is swimming, blotchy with red where his own blood drips from his eyelashes to the cracked concrete. Pain blossoms in his shoulders and his arms and his head like a fiery crimson flower, twisting and coiling with thorny vines that run the length of his body as Noumu slowly crushes him. He's woozy, consciousness trying to flee, but he refuses to let his eyes close. He can't, the children need him—
"And I was looking forward to finishing this today!"
Shigaraki. He forces himself to pay attention, to listen.
"Dammit. It's game over. Let's go home."
Relief floods through him, bringing with it a release of all the pain he'd been ignoring with only partial success. It's tentative relief—this isn't over yet, some part of him knows—but if they're leaving, the worst of it is over. He swallows the choked whimper that wants to escape (there's no time to focus on the pain, there's no time, ignore it even though it hurts, oh, god, does it hurt) and tries to raise his head.
Shigaraki's back is to him, facing Black Mist, and beyond them—
Aizawa's heart shudders to an abrupt stop.
What are they doing here?
Standing, petrified, in the water. Midoriya, Asui, and Mineta. Frozen, horrified, terrified. Even with blood streaming into his vision he can see Mineta's tears, Midoriya's stricken expression, Asui's shock. They're all staring at him. He wasn't supposed to fall, he was supposed to be stronger than this, he's supposed to protect them—
"Oh..." Shigaraki starts, and from the interest that's piqued in his voice, Aizawa knows he sees them, too.
His heart sinks faster than a stone even as he gathers his strength in trembling, broken limbs. Don't touch them don't touch them don't you fucking touch them! I'll kill you myself, don't you touch them!
"Before we leave, let's make sure the Symbol of Peace is broken," Shigaraki says, his voice dripping with a sick relish that kindles a spark of protective rage in Aizawa's core. Slowly, biting his tongue to keep from crying out at the pain and drawing attention to himself, he lifts his head. "Let's wreck his pride. Let's make this hurt."
He lunges forward, his hand outstretched reaching for Asui—
NO!
—and nothing happens.
Aizawa grits his teeth against the pain and the blood dripping into his eyes that makes him want to blink, keeping his head up, eyes wide open. He's in no position to fight, still pinned effortlessly under Nomu, but he can—he can save them, if he just tries harder…
Shigaraki sighs as if experiencing a minor disappointment, then turns. "You really are such a cool guy, Eraserhead."
Those words are the last thing he hears before his head is yanked up painfully and then slammed down with an explosion of pain, and then his body can't take it anymore and despite himself, he succumbs to darkness.
"Man, these guys were a breeze!" Present Mic shakes his head. Under different circumstances, he might have laughed, but breeze or no breeze, these dudes were trying to attack his students, and that's no laughing matter. Actually, the ease with which these villains are going down makes him nervous. There's gotta be another part of the puzzle that they're not seeing yet—Iida said something about them intending to take down All Might, and however they're planning to do that, this is obviously not gonna cut it.
But at least there's one less thing in the mess of nervousness in his stomach—he hasn't seen Shouta since he got here, but he's less worried about him after fighting these thugs. His boyfriend can handle himself, and if these are all he was up against, then there's nothing to worry about.
"This sector is clear," he announces, more or less to himself, because all the villains are quite incapacitated and all the students better have gotten out of here when he told them to.
Right, then. Time to get a move on.
The majority of the students are back at the entrance with Midnight, while most of the other teachers like himself are scattered throughout the different zones, taking care of any stragglers. After a second's deliberation, Hizashi decides to swing by the central area, where All Might was earlier. He knows Cementoss went down that way, but just in case they need backup or anything, it can't hurt to check.
It's not too long of a jog, and he arrives barely winded at all, which is good because there's still breath in his lungs to be knocked away when he sees the pool of blood on the broken ground. Worry comes back in full force—was that All Might's? Or one of the students'?
"All Might?" he calls, finally tearing his eyes away and looking around. He blinks a few times, squinting against the swirling dust cloud, and thinks he can make out a silhouette sitting on the ground in the opposite direction from the blood. "All Might, that you?"
"Yamada?" The figure straightens a bit as he comes closer, the crimson puddle behind him, and he realizes with relief that it is All Might.
"The one and only," he says by way of greeting, standing in front of the other man. "Need a hand? Where's Cementoss?"
"He's getting young Midoriya to the others," All Might says, groaning as he pushes himself to his feet, one hand pressed to his side. "He said he'd come back to get me, but you being here works just as well."
"No problem," Hizashi shrugs, offering a hand and letting All Might drape an arm over his shoulders. "C'mon, let's get going then."
He's a little disoriented because of the smoke, but a quick glance upward reveals that the entrance is back the way he came, so they start walking back that way. Hizashi glances at All Might's side and lets out a low whistle.
"You sure lost a lotta blood," he comments, not looking at the blood on the cracked ground as they start to walk past it. "I'm almost surprised you're still conscious!"
All Might looks at him oddly. "It's not that bad," he says. "I'd have to lose more blood than this to—"
He stops, both speaking and walking, his mouth almost comically caught open in the middle of a sentence as his eyes dart to the puddle. Some sort of realization dawns over him.
"Yamada," he says quietly, then coughs. "That isn't my blood."
Alarm spikes again. "Then whose is it?" Hizashi asks worriedly. "One of the students? We gotta get them to Recovery Girl then—"
"It's not a student's either," All Might cuts him off, and Hizashi frowns, because this beating around the bush is uncharacteristically not very like All Might. He glances at the blood again, less horrified and more bemused, analytical, than when he first saw it, and frowns some more before something catches his eye, something that he didn't notice earlier when looking for All Might. Something yellow. Yellow, cracked, splattered with red.
His breath catches in his throat.
"No," he whispers, horrified. When he steps forward to pick Shouta's ruined glasses from the ground, he notices his hands are trembling.
"He should be all right," All Might says, not sounding very convinced. "The students were getting him away. He should be all right."
"He—he's with the students?" Oh, hell, his voice is trembling, too. Not that he's surprised—he can't remember the last time he felt this terrified. It's a special kind of fear, too, mixed with helplessness and uncertainty and a bit of guilt (you weren't here, you were too late) because when he woke up this morning, it never crossed his mind that today might be the day he loses Shouta. "What… what happened…?"
It's a pointless question, more rhetorical than anything, because he knows more or less what happened. This was a plot to kill All Might, but apparently Shouta took the brunt of the beating first.
"Yamada. We should get back to the others," All Might says, a gentle note in his voice that pulls Hizashi out of his thoughts at least for the moment. "…He should be with them, too."
"R—right, of course," Hizashi agrees, hoping he doesn't sound as shaken as he feels. Enough, he tells himself, trying to calm the frantic beat of his heart. He's alive. He's alive, and All Might says he should be alright. Calm down.
He helps All Might back to the entrance, and though he'd never say it the slow pace they have to keep is excruciating. Part of him feels guilty for thinking that when he's here, helping his friend and colleague who needs that support, and isn't that what it means to be a hero? But most of him is still focused on that pool of blood, on the cracked glasses placed gently in his pocket, on …
He pushes those thoughts away. They aren't helping anyone.
They'll make it back to the entrance. He knows they will. That doesn't make the apprehension any more bearable.
When they get there, he hands Yagi off to Kayama and heads toward the students around the corner. But when he gets there, heroic professionalism be damned, Hizashi can't help the cry that tears itself from his throat (luckily, not quirk-amplified).
"Shouta!"
God! There's so much blood!
He's at Shouta's side before he even realizes that he's running forward, dropping to his knees next to his boyfriend where the students have laid him down, his bloodied head pillowed on someone's folded jacket. Oh, god, his arms, his head…
Careful not to jostle him too much, he lifts Shouta into his arms, cradling him against his chest in a protective gesture that seems far, far too late. Shouta's arms are both broken, he realizes, hoping the sick horror inside doesn't show on his face. He doesn't want to upset the students further.
"…'za…shi?"
Shouta's lips barely moved, and even Hizashi could hardly hear him. He looks down in astonishment.
"You're awake?" he asks, then freezes. "Don't—don't answer that. Don't talk. I'm here. It's okay."
Shouta tenses a bit in his arms, shudders slightly against him. "Th… stud'ns," he breathes. His eyes aren't open. Hizashi fights back another surge of horror as he carefully brushes back the blood-soaked hair and sees how crushed Shouta's nose is, how his eyes are bloodied and sunken into his face, how his face looks like it's been crushed. His mind's eye flashes back to the broken concrete near the blood, and his gut twists.
"The students are fine, Shouta," he murmurs, fighting down all sorts of emotions—helpless rage, against what was done to his beloved; bottomless fear, for what might become of him, and hopeless love, because this man is bleeding to death and his first concern is for others and yes, that's what it should be, but oh, god, Hizashi loves him. "It's okay, you hear me? It's okay now. It's over, everyone is safe. Don't talk."
Shouta doesn't respond to that, either unconscious or merely obedient—Hizashi figures it's the former, knowing him—and falls silent completely, limp as his blood continues to seep into Hizashi's clothes.
He stands, Shouta cradled carefully in his arms, and looks around. Some of the students are close by, still staring at Shouta with mixed apprehension, horror, and fear; most of the teachers have made their way back here by now. The principal is talking to Midnight, but he waves at Hizashi when he sees him looking.
"Present Mic!" he calls. "Please, get everyone who needs medical care out of here—all of you, that is, please help out! Midnight and I shall hang back and double check all of the USJ with the police, so don't worry about leaving this place unguarded."
"Sounds good," Hizashi answers. He looks around and sees Cementoss carrying Yagi's boy—Midoriya—while Yagi himself has vanished, avoiding being seen by the students. Ectoplasm is with Thirteen. The three of them start to head for the door.
"Um… Present Mic?"
He turns to see Asui looking up at him with wide eyes. There are dried tear trails down her cheeks, he notices, feeling a surge of rage at the villains for attacking children before he tamps it down. This isn't the time for that.
"Is… is he gonna be okay? He saved my life, but then they—they…"
She sniffles once but doesn't break down, leaving the sentence unfinished. There's no need to say anything else, after all, since the evidence of what 'they' did is bleeding out next to his heart. He pastes on his best confident smile.
"Don't you fret, Asui! I'll get him to the hospital and he'll get fixed right up, A-okay!"
Hizashi isn't sure if he believes those words himself, but they seem to give Asui some strength, because she nods and scampers back to her friends. He turns away and starts walking again, faster.
"You'd better be okay," he mutters, not looking down. "I don't wanna lie to the kids, Shouta. I told them you'd be okay, so don't you dare be anything other than okay, y'hear me?"
Shouta's head lolls against his shoulder. He does not respond. Warm blood soaks through Hizashi's shirt as he walks, and he feels it pooling against his skin.
His heart sinks (ironic, isn't it, that his heart is drowning in a sea of blood), and he walks faster.
Everything is pitch black, the next time Aizawa is aware of anything. That's good, though. Black is the color of rest and calm. It's dark and that means his head doesn't hurt as much. –It still hurts like hell, of course, but light would hurt it even more.
And it's good that it's dark, too, because he's exhausted and sleeping more… that sounds good.
He shifts slightly, letting out a breath as a deep sigh, and—well… he doesn't close his eyes because he never opened them, did he? No, he's pretty sure he didn't. But it's dark anyway, so that doesn't matter.
There's a soft sound to his right, like the rustle of fabric against fabric. Someone's clothes.
He tenses. …but why is he tense…?
Memory comes flooding back like a punch to the gut and he gasps, trying to sit up and struggling despite the massive wave of pain that crashes … everywhere, as he tries to move. But that doesn't matter. The students—the—oh, god—are they—
"Shouta!"
It's Hizashi's voice. Some of the panic recedes.
Hizashi is here. Good, that's… that's good.
"Are they safe?" he asks, and is startled by how raspy and weak his voice is. He barely can get the words out, and god, his throat is dry—but he has to know.
"Wh—oh, the kids! They're fine, Shouta. Relax. It's okay now!"
A hand gently touches his shoulder and guides him back down onto the pillows. He takes a moment to breathe, because now that the terror for his students is gone, the adrenaline is gone too, and the pain would be blinding him if it wasn't already dark. He just has to breathe.
Hizashi's hand moves from his shoulder to gently, gently stroke his hair away from his forehead, touch lighter than a feather, but lingering. "It's okay now," he repeats, a little more quietly. Aizawa isn't sure which of them he's talking to.
After a few minutes, he thinks the pain is at manageable levels. "Why are you sitting here in the dark?"
There's a pause. "It's not dark," Hizashi says after a moment. "You… just have bandages over your eyes."
"Oh," Aizawa says, and leaves it at that. Then he pauses and almost frowns, except that that would hurt, he can already tell. "This isn't our bed."
Hizashi almost laughs. "Welcome to the hospital, sweetheart. D'you want some water?"
That… would make a certain amount of sense. He doesn't know exactly what the extent of the damage to himself was, but considering how much everything hurts, it was probably considerable.
"Yes, please," he rasps. There's some more shuffling around, and then one of Hizashi's arms slides under his shoulders and helps him sit up a bit as a cup is pressed to his lips. He drinks most of it, tries to breathe through the pain again, and sighs wearily as Hizashi lays him down again.
"I'm going back to sleep," Aizawa tells him.
"Of course," he snorts. "I'll be here when you wake up, don't worry."
I didn't ask, Aizawa doesn't say, because they both know he didn't ask simply because there was no need to.
The next time he wakes up is longer, and his mind is less fogged by exhaustion and painkillers. He still can't sit up, and there are still bandages over his eyes, but he's not alone while immobilized, so it's not as bad as it could be.
Right now, Hizashi is telling him what happened the evening after the attack on the USJ. He's gotten past all the serious parts and is now trying to lighten the mood by relating the tale of how he had to ask the neighbors to take care of their cat, who is notorious for liking very, very few people.
Aizawa takes a long moment to answer. When he does, it's not about the cat or the neighbors.
"You've been here for almost twenty-four hours?"
"Huh?" Hizashi sounds surprised, and then there's the sound of cloth rustling again, and then something hard, which was probably Hizashi's phone being placed on the table. "Whaddya know," he says. "Looks like I have!"
"You should go home and get some rest," Aizawa tells him. "'S not like I'm going anywhere."
He expected a laugh, or at least a snort. Usually Hizashi always laughs at the stupidest jokes—the ones so stupid that Aizawa doesn't think they actually count as jokes at all. But this time, there's just silence.
"…Hizashi?"
"Sorry," his boyfriend says immediately, contrite. "I just, ah…"
He trails into silence for a few long moments, long enough that Aizawa nearly tries to sit up and shoulder these goddamn bandages off his face because he needs to look at him, but he speaks up again just before he can move.
"You really scared me back there, y'know?"
He pauses. "Hizashi…"
"No, no—" and then there it is, a laugh, but it's not a humorous one, "—sorry, I forgot you can't see me right now, I was trying to be all like, 'talk to the hand, Shouta'. I know, this is the life we signed up for when we wanted to be pro heroes. I know. But that doesn't change the fact that I don't think I've ever been more scared in my life than when I saw… saw you like that, saw what they did to you…"
"I wasn't going to lecture you on what being a hero means," Aizawa says after a moment, wishing that his arms were intact so he could reach out and touch him, if he can't see him. "You're not a student anymore. I know you already know that. I was just going to say… I know, and I'm sorry."
A humorless snort comes then, to match the humorless laugh. "You don't need to apologize for getting beaten up, dummy. Anyway, the point I was trying to make is that you don't gotta bother with trying to make me go home, because I'm not leaving you here alone. At least not for a while."
"And why not, exactly?" Aizawa lets some dry sarcasm seep into his voice. "You told me yourself that All Might defeated Noumu." He's not sure if he should be ashamed of himself for nearly stumbling over the name. "I'm perfectly safe."
Hizashi's featherlight touch returns, stroking his hair away from his face ever so gently. "You silly man," he sighs. "Both of us know that's not the reason I'm staying."
Aizawa sighs wearily. "Yeah," he says. "I know." They fall silent for another few moments, but Hizashi is still stroking his hair and it's good, because when he can't move and he can't see, it's hard to feel like he's entirely there.
"They said you can probably come home in a day or two, with Recovery Girl's help," Hizashi says after a few minutes, as if he knows exactly what Aizawa is thinking. "So I'll just stay here with you until then."
"Or you could go home and get some proper rest yourself," Aizawa tells him in an already-defeated voice. Then without thinking, he tries to reach up to touch Hizashi's hand, and boy is that a bad idea because pain rockets up from his wrist up his forearm all the way to his shoulder, and he can't help letting out an agonized gasp. Hizashi's hand freezes in his hair.
"Sorrysorrysorry—did I hurt you? Shit—"
"No, you didn't," Aizawa cuts him off quickly. "I just—do me a favor and move these damn bandages. I want to see something other than black." I want to see you.
Vaguely, through the haze of pain and exhaustion, he feels Hizashi stiffen.
"I… don't know if that's a great idea, babe," he says, trying to sound cavalier as usual, but not quite managing it. Aizawa can read his voice too well.
"Why not?" he asks through teeth gritted against the pain in his arm. Stupid, should've remembered not to move it… he just wants to see something other than darkness, wants to see his damn boyfriend.
Hizashi takes a deep breath. "Shouta… They also said you might be blind. It's not … certain yet… but…"
Blind?
A thousand panicked thoughts whirl through his mind at once, combining into a maelstrom that culminates in a resounding, terrified question—
How can he protect his students if he can't use his quirk?
He pushes that panicked thought away quickly. There is probably a way to use his quirk even though his eyes are damaged; he'll just have to re-learn everything. That's not so bad. He learned everything once, he can do it again! He can do that. He'll just have to… he has to… there's so much he has to do—
"Help me up," he commands, begs, trying to sit up again despite the waves of nausea and pain.
"What?! No, you're staying put!" Hizashi gently but firmly pushes him down again, this time keeping his hand on Aizawa's chest, near his heart. "I didn't nearly lose you to that monster just to see you kill yourself by falling down the stairs or something!"
"Hizashi," he pleads. "I have to—I have to know—"
Hizashi sighs deeply, breath coming out in a whoosh. His hand vanishes (no don't go don't leave me!), and then the mattress sinks as he sits down on the side of the bed and carefully slides his arm under Aizawa's shoulders, like he did to help him drink the water earlier. Aizawa gingerly lays his aching head back down, leaning his temple against Hizashi's chest. His world expands from just the pillows and sheets to include his boyfriend, too, and he drinks up that comfort as desperately as a man trapped in the desert would water—there's so much to process and he can't see and can hardly move, so he clings to any element of familiarity.
"I shouldn't have told you yet," Hizashi murmurs. "I didn't mean to scare you. I just hate hiding things from you, y'know…"
"I know," Aizawa mumbles. "It's fine. I'm fine."
"You're not fine," Hizashi contradicts. Then he pauses, and when he speaks again Aizawa can hear the lazy smile in his voice. "Well—I mean, you are fine, if you catch my drift. Because daaaamn…"
"You're incorrigible," Aizawa grumbles, feeling a bit numb despite the attempt to distract him. Blind? Is he never going to see that lazy smile again?
He nearly panics again, desperately holding the image of Hizashi's gentle smile, the one reserved for Aizawa himself, in his mind's eye, from the bright, tender warmth in his eyes to the way his hair tumbles in messy waves around his shoulders in the morning. God, he wishes he could move, could at least touch his boyfriend's cheek and feel the same way he feels when Hizashi smiles at him like that.
"That's why you love me," Hizashi agrees, drawing him out of his thoughts. His hand starts the hair-stroking again, slow and rhythmic, and Aizawa relaxes a little bit, focusing on the sensation instead of the fact that he can hardly move and he can't see and—No, he tells himself. This won't help you. "Don't worry so much, Shouta," Hizashi says, breaking into his thoughts again. "There's still a good chance it's only temporary and your eyes will be fine."
The words offer only a hollow comfort, but when Hizashi leans down and kisses the top of his head with the same gentle, tender touch, he feels a little better despite himself.
The first time he's awake when they change the bandages, he realizes he can see.
Hizashi has stepped out of the room in search of a vending machine, since he slept in the chair by the bed again, but that's okay because it's not like Aizawa is going anywhere (he nearly snorts at the thought). The nurse is waiting, too, because today, Recovery Girl and the hospital staff have cleared him to go home, and they just want to discuss a few tips for his care with Hizashi before they leave.
Now, the bandages wrap around his head but not over his eyes, which he can actually open. Things are blurry, but definitely there, and his relief rivals that which he felt when Hizashi reassured him the students were okay, because now it means he hasn't utterly failed, and he can go on to protect them.
His head still hurts, but much less now; there's still cartilage damage, but the bone has all grown back together properly, thanks again to Recovery Girl working her magic. The doctors are sending him home with some prescription-strength painkillers and specific instructions on how long he needs to wear the bandages.
The door opens and Hizashi walks in, then stops short, surprised. His features are still incredibly blurry, but he moves in just the right way that screams Hizashi and Aizawa is momentarily overcome with the urge to hold him because as soon as he realizes Aizawa is looking at him, he suddenly looks like an excited puppy.
"Shouta!" he exclaims. "Your eyes—can you see?"
In answer, Aizawa blinks up at him. "Your hair is down," he comments, and Hizashi's eyes grow wide as dinner plates as a grin spreads across his face. Then he leans down and kisses the top of Aizawa's head, golden hair spilling over his shoulders and brushing the bandages on Aizawa's forehead.
"It certainly is," he says, and then finally notices the nurse waiting. She looks slightly uncomfortable, but not too much, to give her credit, and smiles when Hizashi turns the full force of his beaming face on her. "Ah! My bad! Were you waiting on me?"
"Yes, but it's alright—no need to concern yourself," she says briskly, then launches into her spiel. Shouta dozes off for most of it, but wakes up around when she's done talking, because Hizashi is laughing and Hizashi has always had a loud laugh.
"Well, Shouta," he says, beaming down at him, "whaddya say? Ready to go home?"
"I miss our bed," Aizawa answers, and as a reward for his honesty he gets to hear Hizashi laugh again. It's a good sound. He blinks again, trying to clear the blurriness, and then carefully sits up, with help.
Time to go home.
Hizashi has an arm carefully wrapped about Shouta's waist as they wait for the elevator in their apartment building. It's been there since they left the car, since Shouta says he still feels kind of dizzy and has fuzzy vision and can't use either of his arms, and the last thing either of them wants is for him to fall and crack his head open again, but at least now they're just about home.
Shouta leans into him slightly, and Hizashi looks down with a mixture of fondness and concern. "Tired?"
A slight nod. "Ready for bed."
Oh no you don't. "Dinner first," Hizashi corrects. "I'll make soup. You can nap in the meantime, if you want, but you're going to eat something. Otherwise how do you expect to keep up your strength and get better?"
He can tell his words get through the exhaustion at least somewhat, because Shouta sighs and nods slightly again. "Fine," he says, and Hizashi winces at how weary he sounds.
The elevator finally arrives, opening with a cheery ding as always, and Hizashi guides Shouta in before pressing the button for the fourth floor. They ride up in silence, Shouta still leaning against him, and slowly walk down the hallway once they get to their floor.
"After dinner, you're supposed to change the bandages for me," Shouta reminds him quietly, watching him fumble in his jeans pocket for the keys. Hizashi nods, groping around—ah, there they are—and then opens the door.
Shouta seems to sag in relief as they cross the threshold, and Hizashi's arm tightens around him in response. He doesn't really know why he says it, but as he stuffs the keys into his pocket again and closes the door, he murmurs, "Hey. It's gonna be okay."
"I know," Shouta answers. He lingers for a moment, as if he wants to say something else, but then he just steps away and heads for the couch. Part of Hizashi wants to follow him, to hold him all the way there, to make sure he doesn't fall or trip and hurt himself, but he restrains that urge because he knows being coddled is the last thing Shouta wants while injured. And while stairs might be a struggle right now, he's certainly capable of walking across his own living room.
So instead of just standing there like an idiot and fretting, Hizashi heads for the kitchen, tying his hair back in a sloppy bun as he does. He pulls out his phone and puts on some music—not too loud, of course, because Shouta is resting—and gets a pot out of the cabinet next to the stove.
Chopping vegetables and measuring seasonings is rather midnless exercise, which is fine because it gives him a little while to think and to calm himself down. Shouta is okay, he's okay, and even if the few hours of sleep he's gotten over the past two days were troubled and restless from worry, that's in the past.
Unwittingly, he thinks about the pool of blood and then the sight of those red-splattered glasses (they're still in the pocket of his other jacket) and flinches so violently that his knife slips, cutting into his thumb instead of the carrot next to it.
"Shit," he hisses, stepping over to the sink and running cold water over his hand to wash off the beads of blood. It's not a deep cut; once it's cleaned off he presses his index finger and thumb together to keep pressure on it while he goes and fumbles at the drawer that has band-aids in it, kept in the kitchen for precisely this reason.
"…'Zashi?" Shouta's voice drifts in from the living room. "Everything okay?"
"Yeah, all good!" he calls back, finally getting the goddamn band-aid out of its packing. "Just slipped and cut my finger, 's all!"
"Mm." It's barely a response, and Hizashi shakes his head once before going back to the cutting board. Luckily, there's no blood there, so all he has to do is wash the knife and get back to business.
When the soup is ready a little while later, he ladles generous amounts into two bowls and heads to the living room, setting them both down on the coffee table in front of the couch before kneeling next to Shouta, who's lying on his back, eyes closed. He looks tired and vulnerable and sad, and Hizashi knows he promised himself he wouldn't be overbearing and doting and coddling, but he can't help leaning down to press a kiss into Shouta's hair. He nearly died two days ago, for god's sake, so it's understandable that Hizashi is still a bit shaken over the idea of losing him, right?
Anyway, Shouta must have only been in a light doze, because that kiss is enough to wake him. He stirs, groans, and blinks a few times.
"Good morning, rise and shine, my goldenrod sunshine!" Hizashi grins down at him, making an effort to push aside his own upset feelings so that he can cheer Shouta up. After all, of the two of them, Shouta is definitely the one with more reason to complain right now. "Dinner's ready."
"I don't know what part of the evening it is, but it's definitely too early for this," Shouta grumbles, and Hizashi laughs.
He helps Shouta sit up, and then takes turns spoonfeeding him and sipping his own soup. It's slow going, and he can tell Shouta is getting agitated with his own helplessness, but he doesn't say anything until both bowls are empty.
"I almost wish I could just still have the intravenous drip," Shouta mutters as Hizashi leans over to put the bowls back on the coffee table.
He casts Shouta a playfully hurt glance. "My cooking isn't that bad, is it, honeybunches?"
Shouta sends him a dirty look that's only emphasized by the way most of his face is covered in bandages, and he laughs again.
"Okay, okay. Sorry… honeybunches."
"I thought you make a point of not repeating ludicrous pet names consecutively." The glare is less, though, and Hizashi isn't completely sure but he's pretty certain that Shouta's trying not to smile now. Luckily, making Shouta smile (at least a little) is something he's pretty good at.
"Oh, man, you are completely correct, sweetiekins. Looks like I'm getting lazy!"
"I'm pretty sure no one has ever actually called someone they care about 'sweetiekins', ever."
Hizashi grins and leans in close, wrapping his arm about Shouta's waist again. "Well, my beloved peachie-poo," he croons right next to Shouta's ear, "there's a first time for everything, hmm?"
Shouta huffs out a reluctant laugh, shaking his head. "You're ridiculous, Hizashi."
He flashes his most winsome grin and a finger gun (it would be finger guns, but one of his arms is still wrapped about his boyfriend). "It's why you love me!"
"Yeah," Shouta sighs into the bandages, shaking his head. "I do. Unfortunately. You know, though, I don't know why you keep flirting with me. We might as well be married already."
Hizashi grins. "Isn't that the point?"
Shouta makes a noncommital sound, giving up on the conversation, maybe, and just leans against him. They sit like that for a few moments, listening to the silence.
"Oh, hey," Hizashi suddenly remembers. "Bandages. Hang on. Let me go get the new roll." He lets go and smoothly stands, taking the empty bowls to the kitchen again on the way. When he returns with the bandages, Shouta obediently sits still while he removes the old ones.
They come away to reveal a mottled swirl of bruises, interspersed here and there with stitches from the surgery to set his bones properly, almost a rainbow from purple-black to green and yellow, especially dark under his right eye. Hizashi blinks, and Shouta blinks back up at him, obviously expecting him to say something.
It is horrific, and the swirling pain and upset emotions from earlier come rushing back, but Hizashi ignores them. That's not what Shouta needs right now. Instead, he cups Shouta's chin and studies his face for a moment, then nods to himself.
"…What?" Shouta finally asks, sounding a bit guarded.
"It'll work," Hizashi answers, then cracks a grin. "I'm making additions to the list of ludicrous pet names… plumcheeks!"
The guardedness drains away, replaced by another long-suffering sigh (there's fondness buried under that, Hizashi knows). "…At least you'll have to retire that one pretty soon."
"Don't worry," Hizashi reassures him as he starts wrapping bandages around Shouta's head again. "I'll have enough time to think of new ones by then!"
"Your creativity," Shouta drawls sarcastically, "never ceases to astound me."
It's good, Hizashi thinks, that it doesn't really take that much to cheer him up. Shouta always has preferred looking at the future instead of the past, and he's not prone to wallowing in self-pity, either. He is prone to smacking Hizashi with the nearest pillow and/or sleeping bag when the nicknames get too terrible, but that's a habit Hizashi is willing to let slide.
"I try," he answers cheerfully. They sit quietly until the rest of the bandages are on properly, and then Shouta starts to lie down again. Hizashi catches him and frowns.
"C'mon," he says. "Let's go to bed."
"Too much work. I'm fine here," Shouta mumbles, leaning away so he can lie more comfortably.
Well, that just won't do. "Who's the incorrigible one now?" Hizashi grumbles back as he slides his arms under Shouta's shoulders and legs and scoops him up, carrying him just like he did at the USJ. But this time Shouta isn't bleeding, and he isn't terrifyingly silent—
"It's why you love me," he says tiredly, and the only mildly irksome part is that he's right.
Swimming out of a haze of sleep, Aizawa takes a few minutes to fully register that he's even awake at all, lying in bed with blankets tucked up around his shoulders. It's very warm and cozy, except that he's the only one in the bed and that isn't right.
He blinks a few times, trying to get his eyes used to being open again, and looks up from the bed to see the energetic gold-and-black blur that is his boyfriend brushing out his hair as quietly as he can.
"…'Zashi?" he mumbles groggily. Hizashi whirls around.
"Shouta! You're awake!" he exclaims, a bit too loudly, then immediately looks sheepish and pipes down. "I mean… hey, good morning, babe, how're you feeling?"
"Tired," Aizawa grunts. He just woke up and his head already hurts from exhaustion. Fantastic. "Wha' time's it?"
"Almost seven," Hizashi answers as he returns to brushing his hair. "I'll make you something and leave it in the kitchen before I leave—"
"Wait, what?" He forces himself upright, incredulous, and through pure stubbornness shoves the headache and the throbbing wounds and the tiredness, the urge to just sleep it all off to the back of his mind. "Why didn't you wake me up? We'll be late!"
He's struggling to untangle himself from the sheets with two cast-encased arms when Hizashi's hands alight on his shoulders, gently pushing him back to the pillows. "Shouta," he says, looking confused, "I didn't wake you up so that you could take the day off to rest and recover. You don't have to go to work today, you know."
"Bullshit," Aizawa growls, finally getting his feet freed. "I can teach." He owes at least this much to his students after what they had to go through. He isn't going to make them worry, and he is going to do his goddamn job.
Hizashi looks more than a little skeptical. "Silly man," he says, gently but firmly pushing him back down, "no one would blame you for not being there today. We can cover your classes."
"I'm going." He swings his legs out of bed and channels the headache into a glare that Hizashi honestly doesn't actually deserve—he's just trying to look out for him, after all—until his boyfriend sighs and steps back.
"Alright," he says. "If you're sure."
Aizawa doesn't answer, too busy ignoring the waves of pain radiating through his head as he stands. Before he goes to the bathroom to rush into getting ready, though, he pauses, looks at Hizashi, and softens. "Stop fussing," he says quietly. "I'm alright."
The skeptical look doesn't vanish, but it's diminished by the little smile creasing his lips. Hizashi is always smiling. "Mm… if you say so," he teases gently, reaching up to smooth Aizawa's hair back and tuck it behind his ears. His touch is light and even though his head is a throbbing ball of agony, Aizawa appreciates the gesture.
Of course, getting ready takes longer than usual because of the damn bandages and casts and everything else, and they end up running late, but they make it without too many minutes lost.
When they part ways, Aizawa squares his shoulders as best as he can, and is pleased when he manages to walk to his classroom on his own, and only stumbles once.
It's not until lunch break that Monday that Hizashi realizes in the process of rushing out of the apartment this morning, he grabbed the wrong jacket.
Or, well, it's not that there's something wrong with the jacket, it's just that since he was at the hospital pretty much all weekend, he was in a hurry doing laundry and forgot to empty the pockets, and, well… the goggles are cracked and broken (at least the blood is mostly gone), and they're still in his pocket.
He stares at them for a long moment, glad that at least his hand hadn't brushed against the lump in his jacket until after the students all filed out of the room to eat, and swallows hard against the sudden tightness in his throat, the memory of that pool of blood and Shouta bleeding out in his arms and—
He quickly shoves them back into his pocket, not wanting to look at them, takes a deep breath to remind himself that everything's fine now, and decides he might as well spend lunch break with his boyfriend.
Sauntering down the hall to room 1-A as casually as he can without putting his hands in his pockets, he sticks his head in and looks around. "Hell—ooooooo!"
Shouta is sitting at his desk, staring at the lunch bag Hizashi packed him this morning. He looks up, but if he raises an eyebrow or smiles or anything, it's incredibly hard to tell given the combination of his hair and bandages covering his face.
"It's funny," he says after a moment. "I just got rid of my concerned students who weren't sure I have enough use of my arms to eat on my own yet, and you show up."
"Students after my own heart," Hizashi says lightly, feeling some of the weird numb tightness that appeared around his heart when he saw the broken goggles vanish from his chest, now that he's here and Shouta is, well, not fine, but okay. "Remind me which ones so I can give them extra credit!"
Shouta scoffs, rolling his eyes. "No."
Hizashi laughs and moves closer until he's standing behind his chair, and instead of going to his pockets, his hands find their way to Shouta's shoulders and neck, careful to avoid his wounds as he starts gently massaging tight, stiff knots of muscle. "How're you feeling?"
"Mm…" Shouta relaxes under his touch and forgets to respond for a long moment, and Hizashi can't help but smile fondly down at him. "I'm okay. My face hurts."
"…Gee, who'd have thought," Hizashi says with a hint of Shouta's usual dry tone. "Have you taken your medicine yet?"
A slight shake of the head. "I haven't eaten lunch yet, and I would prefer to take them after eating."
"Good idea," Hizashi agrees, a bit hypocritically because he always forgets to eat when he has medicine to take. Actually, he always forgets to eat in general. Shouta usually has to remind him. "Can you do that on your own?" He pauses, then grins. "Because y'know, it kinda looks like you—"
"Do not," Shouta attempts to interject.
"—need a hand!"
Shouta groans. "Remind me why, exactly, I'm still with you, again?"
He stops rubbing Shouta's shoulders for a second and the man actually lets out a little whine in protest, then immediately catches himself. Hizashi almost laughs, but manages to hold it in, and starts up his ministrations again.
"Because," he answers, "you love me."
"Tell me something I don't already know," Shouta says. If Hizashi didn't know him so well, it might have sounded dismissive, but all he hears is you're right, I do love you, and he grins. Not that he didn't know that, and it's definitely not like they haven't said it before, but he never gets tired of hearing it!
"Hmm," he pretends to ponder. "You already know I love you too, you adorable little grumpykins, you, so that's out."
"Grumpykins?"
He can't help laughing at his boyfriend's incredulous tone. "No, baby, that's you."
Shouta makes a disgruntled noise and doesn't say anything in response, letting a comfortable silence fall. Hizashi switches the direction of the little circles he's rubbing into his shoulders, and Shouta sighs softly.
"Thanks," he says, after a second, and just in that one quiet word, Hizashi knows he's talking about more than just a shoulder massage. It's more of a "thanks for taking care of me", really.
"You'd do the same for me," he answers, smiling.
Shouta sighs and swivels his chair around to look up at him, and Hizashi gives him a little wave and smiles. He leans forward until his head bumps Hizashi's chest and stays like that for a moment. It's the closest they can easily get to a hug, for now, and Hizashi smiles more broadly as he pats Shouta's back.
Shouta shifts against him. "You've got something hard in your pocket, and it's poking me," he complains. "I thought you put your wallet in the other side."
"I do? It's not in that p—oh," and suddenly he remembers what is in his pocket. The tightness in his chest comes back, though not as badly as before because at least now Shouta is right here, as he reaches into the jacket to show his boyfriend what it is.
It's only half of the goggles—the other half is god knows where, somewhere in the USJ wherever it got flung—and it's dusty and chipped and crisscrossed with thin cracks and here and there it's still splattered liberally with dried blood that didn't fully wash off in the laundry, and it feels far too heavy as it rests in his palm. Shouta stares at it for a long moment, expression unreadable, and then without a word he stands up, leans in close, and lays his head on Hizashi's shoulder. He even awkwardly tries to wrap his cast-covered arms around him, with limited success.
"Hey, hey, careful there, sugarmunch," Hizashi murmurs, gently hugging him back. It feels good to hold him, especially after seeing those bloodied goggles again, and though he doesn't let himself hold on tightly, his grip isn't exactly loose, either. "Don't hurt yourself!"
Shouta's voice is a bit muffled both by bandages and Hizashi's collar when he mutters, "You've definitely used that one before."
Hizashi blinks in surprise, looking down with a little smile. "Okay, first," he says, "I have to admit part of me really didn't expect you to actually keep track of the names. Second, though, and more importantly, I never said I couldn't reuse them! Just that I'll never use the same ones back to back. That make more sense, plummykins?"
Shouta pulls away and sits back down. He's never been one for public displays of affection—where public is defined as "anywhere that isn't home"—even when no one's around, although Hizashi kind of doesn't want to let go of him yet. "I would say I keep a running tally of which name is the worst you've come up with, but honestly, they're all awful," he says with no rancor in his voice whatsoever. Then, more quietly, he asks, "Hizashi… Why do you have that?"
Hizashi swallows the playful retort and the smoochums on his lips and tries to find his voice, which has apparently decided to desert him. "I found it," he says after a moment. "I was helping Yagi out of the central battle area and we walked past this… this big puddle of blood. And right next to it, there was half of your goggles. And it's not like I could just walk right on by and leave it there, y'know? So I picked 'em up and put 'em in my pocket and then I found you with the kids and I forgot they were there until just now, actually."
Shouta is silent for a long moment. "Sorry you had to see that," he says softly. "I didn't mean to scare you."
Hizashi shrugs exaggeratedly, trying to restore some levity to the mood because him being upset about Shouta getting hurt is one thing, but Shouta being upset about him being upset is another entirely. "As all our old profs used to say, blah blah life of a pro hero yadda yadda danger," he says. "And all that jazz. Right?"
"…Right," Shouta agrees drily. Then he shakes his head. "Anyway, since you came all the way down to 1-A, care to join me for lunch?"
Hizashi clasps his hands together and grins. "I thought you'd never ask, my sweetest honeypie!"
Shouta just sighs.
When they get home that evening, Hizashi removes the bandages for him again. The wounds have mostly dried and they don't need to be changed as often anymore, which is a relief; by the end of the sports festival, Hizashi figures, Shouta be able to just stop wearing them at all.
"Can we wait a few minutes before putting them back on?" Shouta asks. "They make breathing annoying."
"Sure thing, babe," Hizashi acquiesces. He settles down on the couch next to him and wordlessly opens his arms; Shouta leans into his chest and relaxes. Hizashi starts stroking his hair, like he did at the hospital, and Shouta sighs softly, closing his eyes. It's quiet, neither of them saying much as the television mindlessly rattles on, and Hizashi lets his thoughts wander until he realizes his boyfriend fell asleep on him.
Slowly, he sits up as smoothly as he can and retrieves the lotion from the table where he set it earlier, next to the bandages. He squirts some into his palm before he starts carefully, carefully rubbing it into the dry, cracked skin around the stitches, just like the nurse instructed before they left, and then he rewraps Shouta's bandages, thankful that none of this woke him up. Of course, given how exhausted he's been because of Recovery Girl's treatment, it's not that surprising.
Carrying him to the bedroom once again, Hizashi mutters, "You gonna make a habit out of this or something? Better not…"
Shouta is still asleep and doesn't respond, but he does seek out Hizashi's touch again when Hizashi lays him down in the bed, curling up with a little frown on his face when he doesn't find it. Hizashi chuckles at that and heads to the bathroom to take a nice, long, hot shower.
Forty minutes of steamy, fruit-scented goodness later, he emerges, sleepy and content, and re-enters the bedroom to find Shouta tossing, turning, and whimpering in his sleep.
"Stop," he begs, and in the dim light from the hallway Hizashi is startled to realize he can see tears darkening the bandages near his eyes. "No, n-no, no more…"
"Shouta," Hizashi says, striding forward and flicking the lights on. "Shouta, wake up, it's okay!"
"No, stop," Shouta whimpers, the distress in his voice wrenching at Hizashi's heart. "D-don't…"
Hizashi kneels at the bedside and lays a hand on his shoulder, about to gently shake him, but the second he touches him Shouta's eyes fly open as he flinches violently, recoiling and defensively curling in on himself. Hizashi yanks his hand away as though burned.
"Hey," he says quietly, holding his hands up as if to show he's harmless. "Hey, it's me. It's okay, Shouta, you were having a nightmare, but you're safe now, it's—"
"The students," Shouta says hoarsely, his voice still full of muted terror as he blinks up at Hizashi. "What happened to them?"
"They're fine," Hizashi assures him quickly. Sheesh, he probably should have opened with that. Part of him just assumed that the nightmare must have been about Noumu, the monster he only saw later when the police had it in custody, and its brutal attack on Shouta, but of course it wasn't about that—it was about the students. Asui did say Shouta saved her life when they attacked her; he might have been dreaming that he was too late. Knowing him, he probably was.
Shouta is silent for a few moments, a storm whirling behind his eyes as he slowly gets his breathing back under control.
"Do you want to talk about it…?" Hizashi prompts after a few minutes of silence. Shouta hesitates, and Hizashi can't resist leaning over and carefully thumbing away a lingering tear at the corner of his eye. He freezes.
"Hizashi," he murmurs, something raw and vulnerable in his voice. "Hold me?"
Hizashi needs no further prompting. He sits down on the bed and pulls Shouta into his arms, leaning back against the wall and letting his boyfriend lean against him heavily. "It's okay," he repeats, feeling like a broken record stuck on repeat, because no matter how well he knows Shouta, he wasn't there and he doesn't know exactly what happened and he doesn't know how to comfort him about it.
Shouta doesn't reply. He tucks his head under Hizashi's chin and stays there, curled up between Hizashi's legs, only moving to pull the blanket up over both of them. Hizashi clasps his arms around him and wishes not for the first time that he could hold him tighter.
It only takes a few seconds for him to realize Shouta is crying, quiet little sobs that wrack his entire body and somehow make him seem much more fragile than the gruff face he puts on for the world. Hizashi gives him a gentle squeeze, rubbing his back, and doesn't say anything yet; Shouta will talk if he wants to, and only when he's ready. There's no use in pushing him—that only makes him clam up and avoid help. Hizashi is just glad that after so many years together, they've gotten past the days when Shouta avoided his help entirely, convinced he had to deal with everything on his own.
That doesn't mean it's any easier to hear him cry, to see him hurt, and Hizashi wishes more than anything he could just wave a hand and make everything okay, but he can't. All he can do is sit here and offer what meager comfort he can.
"It's okay," he murmurs again, lips brushing Shouta's messy hair. "It's okay, babe, it's okay…"
Shouta chokes on another sob and presses himself closer, his shoulders hunched as if to protect himself. "I—I failed them," he gasps out after a few seconds. "I wanted to p-protect them and I couldn't!"
"Yes, you did," Hizashi contradicts, frowning down at him. "You even hearing yourself, honeymuffin? You did literally everything you could, and you kept all of them alive."
Shouta shakes his head slightly. "He attacked them. He almost killed Asui. I should've—I should've stopped him, he shouldn't have been able to touch her—"
"Shouta," Hizashi sighs the name, rubbing soothing circles between his boyfriend's shoulderblades, "she's alive thanks to you. And, correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't you already hurt by then?"
Shouta flinches.
Ah, Hizashi thinks guiltily. So you aren't as okay with that as you're pretending to be.
"Sorry. I—Shouta," he murmurs again, pulling his boyfriend closer and laying his cheek against his temple, "what I'm trying to say is, it's okay that you were scared. And it's… it's okay. You did everything you could."
No response.
What else is he supposed to say? He's already said it's okay enough times that he might as well be a parrot. You did your best already sounds like it would fall flat. I'm always going to be here for you seems redundant, considering that he is in fact being there at the moment, and it also might be a lie. "Always" is a tricky word in hero business.
"I love you," he offers lamely, mumbling into Shouta's hair. Not the most helpful words, maybe, but the best he can come up with.
"Love you too," Shouta mumbles. He takes a shaky breath, then lets it out. "…I think I need new bandages again."
Crying would get them all messy, Hizashi supposes. He sighs—he doesn't really want to get up yet—and starts to move, but Shouta tenses against him.
"Don't go yet," he says, his voice small and plaintive and not very like him at all, because normally Aizawa Shouta prides himself on how little he depends on others. But this—the bandages, the broken arms, the USJ incident—this isn't normal. Hizashi settles back comfortably and starts rubbing his back again.
"Bandages aside, I still have to get up at some point," he reminds him. "I left the light on in the hallway."
"I can see that," Shouta mutters, a trace of his usual dry tone entering his voice. "I have some kind of bullshit trauma response going on, not vision loss."
Hizashi snorts. "Right, my bad," he says, making the circles he's rubbing on Shouta's back a little bigger. Shouta is slowly relaxing against him, which is a relief. "Don't you fall asleep on me before I change those bandages again, though."
"Would I ever," Shouta deadpans, lifting his head to look up at him.
Hizashi raises his eyebrows incredulously.
Shouta meets his gaze evenly, and he just shakes his head.
"You, my darling sugarplum, are incorrigible."
"Shoutaaaa!"
He groans, rolls over, and clumsily pulls the blanket over his head as best as he can with both arms in casts. It's too early for this.
Hizashi's laugh drifts through the haze of sleep. "Shouta, c'mon, get up! We'll be late!"
"You say that every morning," Aizawa grouses as the blanket is pulled back and unwelcome, bright sunlight floods into his sleepy, cozy, dark world. He blinks groggily. "But we never are."
"That's because I make you get up every morning," Hizashi says cheerfully. Just like every morning, Aizawa finds himself questioning why he had to go and fall for a morning person, exactly? "If I left you there, you'd totally be late."
"Would not."
Hizashi grins like the cat with the cream, and Aizawa only belatedly realizes that he's boxed himself in. Either he rescinds that statement to try to go back to sleep, in which case Hizashi will just drag him out of bed, or he has to make sure he isn't late, which means dragging himself out of bed.
"Oh yeah?" he asks smugly, folding his arms. "Then why don't you get up and prove it?"
Sighing as he swings his legs over the side of the bed, Aizawa sits up (it's way more effort than he wants to be exerting, especially with his arms so useless) and glares through a curtain of hair. "I hate you."
Hizashi laughs again and drops a quick kiss to the top of his head. "I'll make you a latte," he says, and then pivots on his heel to head for the kitchen, still-loose golden hair flying about his shoulders. Aizawa watches him go, sighs again, evaluates the likelihood of Hizashi just dragging him out of bed if he tries to go back to sleep, and then makes his way to the bathroom.
When he trudges to the kitchen a little later, still bone-tired with the numb exhaustion that over the years he's grown to associate with Recovery Girl's powers, there's a latte, eggs, toast, and his incredibly handsome, irritatingly cheerful boyfriend all waiting for him.
"Morning, sunbeam," Hizashi cooes, reaching for him, and as has become routine, Aizawa stands still until he gets the bandages unwrapped. Hizashi inspects him for a moment longer, then grins. "You probably haven't seen the mirror without these on your face, but the bruises are clearing up nicely," he says. Then his lips twitch, and a laugh bubbles out. "…You look like a mummy! Wandering around wrapped up in bandages and like, only half alive!"
"I hate you," Aizawa repeats, shuffling forward to press a clumsy kiss (stitches and bruises make this, like so many other things, more difficult than it should be) to Hizashi's cheek.
Hizashi just laughs warmly and returns the kiss. "C'mon," he says. "Breakfast time. Nobody likes cold eggs."
In class that day, Aizawa is just tired.
Sure, he's always tired, but he's more tired than usual, which is really saying something. He knows it's just the side-effects of Recovery Girl's quirk, but knowing that doesn't make it any better when he slips into a dream for half a second when he sits down at his desk and closes his eyes, only to suddenly jolt awake, adrenaline and terror coursing through his veins because a shadow just fell across him just like it did before Noumu came and—
It's Yaoyorozu standing in front of him, papers in hand. She came to ask him something about the classwork he just assigned. And now he's staring at her, eyes wide and heart pounding, before he quickly schools his expression into a more neutral one. Hopefully she didn't notice.
"…Aizawa-sensei?" she asks, concern entering her voice. "Are you alright?"
"Don't concern yourself over me," he says dismissively, forcing himself to sit up straight and ignore how his heart is still pounding and his body still thrums with the need to flee. Stupid. Don't show weakness in front of them, it'll only worry them unnecessarily. "What do you need?"
She looks unconvinced but is too timid to pry, which suits him just fine. "I just had a question about the assignment," she says instead, holding out the papers in her hand. "On number three…"
By lunchtime, his dry eye has faded because he's so exhausted he's close to tears, which he finds kind of funny in a bitter, annoying way. He almost never cries—last night was the first time in… in a long while—but he's so tired right now he might as well be bawling his eyes out.
As soon as the last students (it's Yaoyorozu and Jirou, who both finished their work and then got into a riveting conversation and proceeded to not notice the time) finally file out of the room to go to the cafeteria, he slumps down in his chair and closes his eyes. God, he's so tired…
He doesn't realize he's fallen asleep until a light touch on his shoulder makes him jerk awake again, eyes wide. Damn, he's jumpy.
"Aizawa," All Might greets, then tilts his head to one side. "Are you quite alright?"
Not quite trusting his voice yet, Aizawa just offers the most flat, deadpan look he can muster, and is gratified when Yagi backpedals awkwardly.
"Er—I mean, aside from your injuries," he clarifies, grinning sheepishly (although, since he's always grinning, it's kind of hard to tell…) and waving his hands. "You seem a bit out of sorts, is all I meant to say. Is everything alright?"
"I'm tired," he answers.
"Would you like some coffee?" All Might asks, his head going to one side again. Aizawa starts to say no thanks, leave me alone, I want to sleep, but then the question registers and he blinks.
"Actually… that sounds good."
All Might laughs his booming laugh, and Aizawa hides a wince. Does the man have to be so loud? "Of course, of course!" he exclaims. "Would you like to accompany me to the teachers' lounge, or should I just bring it back here?"
Aizawa has to admit, he's not entirely sure why All Might is insisting on making him coffee, but this entire day has felt kind of weird and surreal because he's so tired, so maybe this is just part of a weird dream or something. Nonetheless, he makes a noncommital sound and then reluctantly gets to his feet.
"I'll come to the lounge," he says. "The couch in there is more comfortable than this chair, anyway." Plus, after lunch he's supposed to go see Recovery Girl, and the teachers' lounge is closer to the infirmary than Classroom 1-A, which means less effort later.
"Good, good," All Might seems pleased. He holds the door open politely and waits for Aizawa to exit into the hallway. They walk in silence, side by side, until they get to the lounge, where Aizawa all but collapses onto the overstuffed couch and closes his eyes for a second. All Might, in the meantime, busies himself preparing coffee.
Aizawa figures he must have drifted off for a few minutes, because suddenly All Might isn't bustling his way around the coffeepot, he's standing in front of him and offering a mug, in his true form rather than the hero form.
"Here you go," he says, and Aizawa blinks in surprise before awkwardly accepting the mug with a hand that's in a sling now instead of a full cast (he's going to get his arms healed the rest of the way today, in less than an hour, actually).
"Thanks," he says, taking a careful sip. It's steaming, but that's how he prefers his coffee—really hot, black, no cream, no sugar. Hizashi always makes such a fuss about it, claiming that plain black coffee is disgusting to the point that he bought an espresso machine to make lattes, but Aizawa has been doing this since high school.
They sit in silence for a minute or two. If he was more awake, Aizawa would have called it awkward, but as it is, his full attention is on the coffee and on drinking it without dropping it everywhere thanks to his not-fully-healed arm. Then, finally, All Might speaks up.
"Aizawa," he says, looking troubled. "About the attack… I can't believe that it took me so long to get a chance to talk to you about it, but I am deeply sorry I wasn't there from the start. I should have—"
"Stop," Aizawa cuts him off tiredly. "You didn't come because you exhausted yourself prematurely and had to rest. Under normal circumstances, it wouldn't have made a difference. But none of us could have predicted that the villains would attack, or that they would have such a formidable force."
Taking blame onto yourself won't help anyone, he thinks reproachfully, but doesn't say, partly because he is too tired for an argument with All Might and partly because if he said it, he would be a hypocrite. Sure, he knows that he had no way of knowing what was coming, but part of him can't believe that he wasn't prepared anyway, and part of him thinks that he should have known anyway, should have been able to find out instead of being lax and relaxed and not suspecting a thing.
"You're right in that we couldn't have predicted it," Yagi says, folding his bony arms across his chest, "but that doesn't mean it was any less irresponsible of me to use up all my time before performing my duty to our students. So, once again, I am deeply sorry for not being there. If I had, you wouldn't have had to try and take on Noumu by yourself."
Aizawa frowns and takes another long sip of coffee. Do they have to talk about Noumu when he's this tired? It's not like he sleeps well regardless, but still.
(concrete scraping his skin, even through his clothes—an awful screech right in his ear—the explosion of pain and numbness and pain as his shoulder slammed into the ground and his arm splintered and shattered under a crushing weight—blood running down his face, pain, pain, pain—the children—)
"Whatever," he says, a little too quickly. "I'm too tired to argue this with you. Apology accepted."
Yagi lets out a bark of laughter. "Alright then," he says. "That was more or less all I wanted to discuss with you…"
Aizawa inclines his head and carefully tips the coffee mug in acknowledgement as Yagi stands to leave, no doubt to track down someone else to smother with concern. Just as the taller man reaches the door, though, Aizawa lifts his chin slightly. "Hey," he says.
Yagi turns around, one angular eyebrow raised.
"Thanks," Aizawa tells him quietly. It's not for the coffee this time.
A slight smile curves those thin lips. "Of course, Aizawa," Yagi says. "I'm a hero. It's in the job description. And more importantly, beyond that… what else are friends for?"
He shifts into his hero form before he steps out the door, leaving Aizawa to stare into his coffee and ponder when exactly they became friends. To his surprise, he's not completely averse to the word. Some part of it, even if not the entire word, seems to fit.
The day of the sports festival arrives, and Hizashi couldn't be more excited! He woke up extra early this morning (much to Shouta's displeasure) and made a big breakfast and everything. This might be his favorite event of the year! The thrill, the drama, the excitement… all of it is just so fun. Plus, seeing the students showcase what they're learning is always a treat. Especially with Shouta's ridiculously over-the-top powerful class, he's finding out.
Lunch break is a mostly quiet affair, since Hizashi stepped out to grab food for both of them while Shouta took a quick nap. Now they're just waiting for the festival to start again, sitting in the announcers' box with the mics all turned off and music playing instead. Hizashi leans back in his chair and stretches indolently. They have around ten, maybe fifteen minutes to kill.
"You called me 'Mummy Man' twice in a row." Shouta suddenly speaks up, accusingly, but when Hizashi glances over to him, he looks so adorably disgruntled that Hizashi can't help but laugh.
"I did," he agrees genially. "But if you remember, babe, I only said I don't repeat affectionate nicknames! Are you telling me you view Mummy Man as a term of affection?"
Shouta glowers. "I'm not even going to answer that. Or answer to that."
"You just did," Hizashi points out.
Shouta, paragon of maturity that he is, kicks him in the shin.
"Hey!" Hizashi protests. "You kicked me!"
"You deserved it."
"I did not!" he defends, hand over his heart in affected affront.
"You did," Shouta snorts, leaning back and slouching down in his chair. "How long until the festival starts again?"
Dropping the playful act, Hizashi glances at the clock. "Twelve minutes," he says. "You wanna take a nap again?"
Shouta looks like he's seriously considering it, then shakes his head. "No," he answers. "I don't want to be too tired to watch the tournament carefully."
"Hah! Yeah, though I don't know how you could be tired, watching that class of yours go at it! Seriously, what are you teaching them in 1-A? Those kids are something else!" Hizashi shakes his head. Shouta's class is intense.
Shouta pauses for a second. "They have a lot of potential," he agrees, which Hizashi knows is Shouta-speak for I love these kiddos and I think they're great. (Okay, maybe he took a little liberty with the translation, but still. It's more or less accurate!) "They also still have a long way to go in terms of how well they can tap that potential, but they do have it."
"Awww," Hizashi croons. "That's gotta be the highest praise I've ever heard you give a bunch of kids! You big softie, you."
The withering look Shouta sends him could freeze hell itself over. Hizashi blows a kiss at him in return, then turns away to make sure all the sound equipment is set up properly for when the festival begins again.
It's so nice to finally not have to wear bandages all the time. Now that the remaining stitches have been removed, Aizawa feels like he can breathe again.
He's lazing on the couch, idly grading the papers he assigned last week, when a key turns in the lock and Hizashi finally walks in, more than a bit soggy from the downpour outside. It looks like he forgot his umbrella, because he's pretty much soaked through, his hair falling limply around his shoulders instead of swept up in its usual style. But he perks up immediately when his eyes meet Aizawa's.
"Shouta!" he exclaims, lightly kicking the door shut behind him and rushing over to the couch. "I'm sorry I couldn't pick you up from the hospital, babe, I got held up at work—"
"Don't worry about it," Aizawa shakes his head and waves a hand dismissively. "I know how it gets."
Hizashi moves the stack of graded papers to the floor and plops down on the couch next to him. He starts to wrap an arm around Aizawa's waist, but Aizawa makes a disapproving sound and stops him, reaching over to pull the leather jacket from his shoulders.
"You're all wet and cold," he grumbles. "And this jacket is spiky."
Hizashi grins sheepishly and shrugs it off, tossing it to the other end of the couch to be dealt with later. "Better?" he asks, reaching for him again.
"Good enough," Aizawa says before he leans in and kisses him, finally able to do it properly now, without having to worry about stitches and unhealed wounds. Now all that's left is a bit of faded bruising, and that's much, much less important than the happy little surprised sound Hizashi just made against his lips.
The kiss turns clumsy like all the kisses before today, but this time it's Hizashi's fault, because apparently, he can't stop smiling. Aizawa pulls back slightly and frowns at him.
"Stop being so ridiculously cute," he says. "I'm trying to kiss you here."
Hizashi laughs, the hand that isn't wrapped about Aizawa's waist gently brushing his jaw before opening to cup his cheek. "You know, if you want me to stop smiling, you probably should take your own advice, Shouta!"
"I'm not cute," Aizawa huffs, leaning his cheek into his boyfriend's touch. Hizashi just raises an eyebrow at him.
"Of course not," he grins. "Cute isn't a strong enough word for you. No, no, you're not cute. You're my adorable little fluffmuffin!"
…Every time I think he's finally hit rock bottom with the nicknames, he finds a way to surpass himself. It's almost incredible. "Never mind," Aizawa tells him flatly. "Go back to being cute if you want. I'm not trying to kiss you anymore."
Hizashi laughs again, and it really isn't fair that even after being together for so many years his laugh still does funny things to Aizawa's heart. "Ouch, baby. Shot straight to the heart!"
He dramatically claps his hand to his chest and falls forward, pushing Aizawa onto his back and lying on top of him, pressing his face into his neck. Aizawa sighs with exasperated fondness and loosely wraps an arm around his shoulders.
"If I shot you in the heart," he says, "you should have fallen away from me. Simple physics, Hizashi."
Hizashi doesn't even raise his head, just airily waving a dismissive hand. "Eh, physics-schmysics," he says. "I'm an English teacher, Shouta."
Aizawa rolls his eyes and slides his hand up from Hizashi's shoulders to start carefully combing through his damp hair. It's kind of tangled, so he makes sure to be careful, and after a minute he's rewarded with Hizashi's content hum.
Another few minutes lazily drift by. Aizawa seeks out the last of the tangles and smoothes them out, then starts twirling locks of hair around his fingers. Hizashi shifts slightly, his chilly nose bumping Aizawa's neck, and breaks the silence. "How're you feeling now?"
Aizawa shrugs one shoulder. "Alright," he answers. "Tired. And now damp and cold." With the last words, he directs a pointed look down at the damp and cold body sprawled out on top of him. Hizashi meets his gaze and offers a smile that's far more unrepentant than sheepish.
"Sorry," he says, not sounding very guilty as he nuzzles his cold face against Aizawa's neck.
"You should go take a hot shower," Aizawa tells him grumpily. "…And then you should come back here."
Hizashi's smile broadens. "I can do that," he says, getting to his feet and grabbing his jacket. Then he strikes a dramatic pose, one hand over his heart and the other arm, jacket draped over it, extended toward Aizawa. "Will you wait for me, my love?"
Aizawa snorts. "Since you didn't call me a fluffmuffin that time, I guess so," he says. "Hurry up."
He gets another ten papers graded by the time Hizashi gets out of the shower, walks back to the living room, and plops down on the couch again. Then he shifts until he's pressed against his boyfriend's side and Hizashi drapes an arm around his shoulders.
They sit in a comfortable silence for a few minutes as Aizawa goes through the eleventh paper, Hizashi glancing over his shoulder and occasionally making a comment here or there. Fairly soon, the rest of the stack is finished, and he closes his eyes for a second, weary. When he opens them again and glances over, Hizashi is regarding him with an unusually pensive expression.
"What?" he asks.
"Nothing," Hizashi says, blinking. "Just thinking, I guess." He lifts his hand, fingers gently brushing Aizawa's face, lightly skimming just below his eye. There's a dark line there—the actual wound is all but gone, but it left a scar. Aizawa remembers seeing it when he looked in the mirror earlier.
"Thinking about what?"
Hizashi doesn't answer immediately, instead tucking Aizawa's hair behind his ear and then dropping his hand back to his lap. Then he smiles again, despite the fact that it's obvious that he's clearly thinking about the USJ. Aizawa just sighs—the silly man is much easier to read than those papers he was grading—and places his hand on top of Hizashi's.
"Stop that. We're alright," he says, simply. Hizashi's fingers entwine with his, and this time the smile is softer, smaller, and a lot more genuine.
"Yeah," he says. "I guess we are."