Not every chapter is Aizawa emitting full Dad energy, sometimes it's the kids making up for it. Featuring Shadow!
Comments always appreciated, and I hope you enjoy!
Stitches
Aizawa had come back to the dorms injured before. He'd done more times than either Chiyo or Yamada or any of the staff would have liked. Or knew. Simple injuries like the slash of a knife were easy to take care of when he got back. He always kept a first aid kit easily accessible in most rooms of the dorm, as well as the apartment, just in case. He'd have thought someone would be paranoid if they did something like that when he was still younger. But it'd proven too useful for him to judge anyone for owning more than one, or even two, first aid kits.
The first time he pulled one out from under the couch he got some of the funniest reactions from the kids—it had been well worth it to hide it there. He'd moved it to one of the cabinets of the TV stand after that, though. It was a little hard for some of the bulkier of them to reach it without lifting the entire couch.
He came through the front door silently, locking it behind him. He leaned on the doorway as he slipped off his shoes. Either his legs were weaker than he'd thought, or his shoes were surprisingly tight, as he had to fight to get them off. He breathed as evenly as he could as he made his way to the kitchen. With the first aid of the living room in the TV stand now, the kitchen's was the closest option.
He pulled it out of the cabinet, clutching at his side with his free hand with a pained grunt.
The knife wound wasn't deep, he didn't think it went deep enough to puncture any organs, at the very least. He'd managed to grab at the blade itself before the guy could stab him too badly. He'd gotten a pretty bad cut to his palm because of it—and there was probably some questionable logic to letting his bleeding hand apply pressure to his bleeding side—but he could wait until he could see Chiyo tomorrow. Besides, the bleeding from his palm was starting to subside regardless.
The officers at the precinct had been a little apprehensive in letting him go without seeing someone there, but they couldn't stop him from leaving. Even though they tried. Minimally.
He unclasped the first aid kit, trying to ignore how shaky his hand was. He was starting to feel a little sick, but he'd been patrolling the entire night, and it was almost four in the morning. He was just grateful it was his day off tomorrow. His stitching skills were, despite years of stubbornly stitching himself up for a night, shoddy at best most of the time. He could make it good enough, and that was all he cared about most of the time. It kept him from dying overnight and that was good enough. He knew how to do a good stitch, just in case he couldn't get to any medical assistance in a timely manner, but he just didn't have the energy to do that every single time when Chiyo had to take them out to properly heal him anyway.
He grabbed the needle and thread. He didn't have to do a great job. He just had to get it closed until he could sleep it off a few hours and see Chiyo. Same old, same old.
He debated if he should do his hand first. Logically it was the less severe injury, and had mostly stopped bleeding, so he opted to start on the spot that was going to hurt more. First, he bunched up the bottom of this shirt and tied it off so it was out of his way. Then, he grabbed the bottle of disinfectant and poured it over a clean towel. Dabbing it onto his side, the sizzling pain was enough to wake him up and steady his brain a little so he had a calmer hand when he started to stitch.
He was correct that it wasn't that deep, but it ran along his side further than he thought it had. It was almost five inches across his side. He would have to bend around to get all of it, and he already knew how much that was going to hurt. He wasn't going to mess with that. Maybe he could just do it through feeling—
"Oh, my—sensei?!"
Aizawa tilted his head up and around, ignoring the wave of vertigo that overcame him briefly when he did. Uraraka was stood in the doorway of the Girl's Dorm, hand hovering just under her jaw as she stared at him. He wasn't sure what was so shocking, they'd seen him without his shirt on before, hadn't they?
Except he was actively stitching his side this time. He was still bleeding, too. It wasn't as bloody as before, but the towel he'd used was stained red for the rest of its life. Alright, he might have lost more blood than he had thought.
"What are you doing up?" he asks dryly. Literally—his mouth was a little dry.
"Wh—what am I..? What happened?!" Uraraka asks, her voice quiet and wavering. It broke his heart a little.
"A villain on patrol," Aizawa groaned, starting in on the stitches. He hissed as he started to pierce his skin. Uraraka was beside him, her hands laying over his gently.
"L-Let me," she says. Aizawa sighed, handing over the needle. He kept his hand on her own at first, garnering her attention enough that she could look away from the wound.
"Let me sit down first," he says. Uraraka nodded numbly and kept the needle and thread from pulling on his skin as they slid to the floor.
"Ocha, are you okay? You yell…" Aizawa cracked an eye open to where the voice came from. Jirou stood at the counter, looking down at the two with wide eyes. Uraraka's hands were shaking slightly when she turned to her. "…ed…"
"Can you get me a glass of water?" Uraraka asks. Jirou moved a little sluggishly at first, but found her usual speed easily enough.
"It's not that bad," Aizawa says. Uraraka lightly smacked his leg. He couldn't help but smirk—they all reminded him so much of the other staff members sometimes.
"I'm going to start, ok?" Uraraka says. Aizawa nodded.
He preemptively clenched his fist before she'd even begun. He didn't need her to see any more signs that he was in pain every stitch she laid when he'd be hissing and biting back swear words the whole time. Jirou came up beside them, setting the glass of water down beside Uraraka.
"The fuck? Who left the light on?"
Oh, great, another one, Aizawa thought. At this rate the whole dorm would be down there.
That made some lick of sense, actually. A handful of the students would be up at this time, anyway. He'd probably gotten the time wrong. Maybe it was closer to five. It made sense that Bakugou was up at this hour, at least. He held a good sleeping schedule.
"Language," Aizawa sighed, closing his eyes. Uraraka had already given him three stitches, working quickly. He wouldn't be surprised if she told him that it was because she was trying to out pace the shaking in her hands.
"What the hell happened?" Bakugou asks.
Aizawa didn't bother to even open his eyes, resolving to just wave at Bakugou idly. There was a pensive silence as Jirou looked from Aizawa to Bakugou.
"Do I need to get Recovery Girl?" Bakugou asks sternly.
"It's not deep," Uraraka says. "But it's really long. Was it a Quirk?"
"Knife," Aizawa droned, his eyes heavy.
He was dozing. His breathing was evening out as his body started to feel a little more weightless. It was arguably within his top three favorite things about sleep. The "falling" part. Where the tension in his body started to melt away, no matter how tight his muscles were, mimicking the closest he'd get to a sensation of floating outside of swimming or being affected by Uraraka's Quirk.
Did she feel weightless all the time? Would she even know? That was a Midoriya question.
"Hey, Sensei."
"Hm."
"That villain. Did you get him?" Bakugou asks. Aizawa cracked an eye open. Bakugou was staring at him with a strange mix of intensity and curiosity. Aizawa let the corner of his mouth twitch up.
"I knocked him on his ass," Aizawa says. Bakugou snorted and Aizawa intended to pinch his brow, but his hand had other ideas about whether or not it wanted to move out of position on his forehead. "You didn't hear that."
"Wanna bet?" Bakugou asks.
Aizawa paused a moment and then sighed. "I'll circle back to that."
At least the tension that had steadily been growing in the room had started to dissipate.
A few more sets of feet came down the stairs on either side of the room. Aizawa blocked out most of the conversation that occurred. Mostly just students asking what had happened, if he were alright, if he needed to see Recovery Girl—he'd see her, just not at six in the morning or whatever god forsaken time it was.
"I'm done," Uraraka says.
Aizawa looked down at the handiwork. It was sloppy, with more stitches in some areas than necessary, and they were in uneven rows. But, it was good enough until he could get to Chiyo later that day. She'd have to remove the stitches before she could use her Quirk, which was going to suck, but he knew that when he'd prepped himself to stitch. It was easier than trying to use super glue.
He'd done that method once; when he was stuck out in the docks during a raid and couldn't reach any medic from HQ. Lacking a needle, much less any thread, he'd found the super glue in an abandoned office of a warehouse, and it did the job for the few hours he had to use to get back to HQ for proper treatment. Chiyo had had a field day with him. After Nemuri and Yamada, of course. Frankly, he was certain that he'd chosen the better option than risk leaving a blood trail everywhere he went.
It hurt like a bitch to remove, though.
"Okay," he said, gathering up whatever strength he had left.
He grabbed the glass of water and downed over half of it before shoving it back into Jirou's hands. He braced himself on the opposing counter, intending to hoist himself up. Uraraka held her hands out to him, and hesitated. She looked to Bakugou. He rounded the counter, ducking under Aizawa's arm. Uraraka ducked under his other arm.
"What—"
They hoisted him up and Aizawa grunted in pain. He rested his hand on their heads, letting his palm hit their scalps with a little more weight than he intended. "That hurt."
"Would'a hurt more lifting yourself on your own, dumbass," Bakugou grumbled.
"Watch it—"
"Fight me on it!" Bakugou snapped, forcing them to walk around the counter. He wasn't leaving Aizawa much choice in the matter if he didn't want to stretch his stitches any further.
Aizawa opted to ignore it for now and looked up to see Satou sheepishly on standby at the couch, with Todoroki draping a large, and worn out, blanket over the couch. Todoroki looked up and made eye contact as they started to near the couch.
Kami, I look like I'm dying, Aizawa thought wryly. His expression was looking more exhausted than anything else, but there was a palpable sense of irritation in his eyes.
"You're haggard," Todoroki says flatly.
"I was stabbed," Aizawa responded, just as flat. Todoroki's lips pursed a little.
"More like they stabbed and then swiped," Jirou mumbled.
"You're not wrong," Aizawa grunted.
"You should see Recovery Girl," both boys say.
Aizawa shot them both a look and they snapped their mouths shut. Bakugou set him down on the couch and Satou draped the other blanket over him. Ah, brought back memories. Except this time, he could actually see the weighted blanket, and it was covered in some weird aesthetic pattern. The girls or Aoyama probably picked it out.
"S'not necessary," Aizawa grumbled, letting his head fall back on the back of the couch. He felt someone lift his head and place a pillow under it. Midoriya's voice greeted him with a strained tone.
"Say that when you're not looking like a ghost," he says.
"Hello, Problem Child."
"Hello, sensei. I'll get Recovery Girl," he says.
"Problem Child, if you wake her up you're going to get a cane to the crotch," Aizawa says flatly.
"SENSEI!" Uraraka shouted.
"I'm right," Aizawa asserted.
"...is he delirious?" Jirou whispered.
Aizawa furrowed his brow, and then immediately started to kick himself in the rear mentally. Crap. Got too comfortable. Backpedal. Backpedal, backpedal, backpedal.
"Just..." he rested his palm over his eyes. "Ignore everything I say."
"That is impossible," Satou says.
"You just warned Midoriya he'd receive a crotch shot from an elderly woman for waking her up too early, and you expect us to forget that?" Jirou asks.
"It's an order, not an expectation," Aizawa corrected her.
"Wanna bet?" Bakugou asks again.
Aizawa lowered his hand to send the boy a half hearted glare. Bakugou raised his arms in challenge. Well, fine, then.
"Fine, then I won't forget whose idea it was to try and cook food using your Quirks, or who thought they could hide a surround sound system in the dorms with Present Mic on the grounds, or who thought it was a smart idea to replace all the salt with sugar, or who thought that floating the trash to take it out was a good idea," Aizawa says, lifting a finger with each example. Uraraka fell to her knees at the end of the couch.
"It was one time!"
"OR who keeps breaking all their bones," Aizawa stressed. Midoriya looked away in shame.
"You made your point," Todoroki grumbled. Aizawa's hand dropped to his side.
"Good," Aizawa sighs. A new weight jumped up onto the couch beside him, purring up a storm as it took up space on his lap. "...Hello, Shadow."
"Oh, sure, the cat can do whatever it wants," Jirou grumbled.
"It's only because he can't get any black mail on you, you little shit," Bakugou growled. Shadow gave him a look that screamed 'do something about it', and her tail flicked.
"Just set a timer," Aizawa sighed. "I'll get up in an hour."
He did wake up in a hour (ahead of the timer by a few seconds), and Shadow was still taking up his entire lap. While his body was stiff from not moving for so long, his side had grown numb at least. And all the children were awake now, because he could hear all of them in the common room and kitchen, spread out across the first floor. There was some movement on the blanket on the side of his stitches as someone lifted the blanket. Shadow's head whipped around and 'murped' in annoyance.
"Shh!" Uraraka's voice whispered. "See, I did as well as I could, but it just-"
"I think it looks pretty good!" Ashido whispered.
"Better than me," Aizawa croaks. Ashido shrieked, jumping back. Uraraka shot up, floating halfway to the ceiling before Asui caught her in her tongue.
"SENSEI, STOP DOING THAT!" Ashido wailed.
"Stop trying to sneak up on me when I'm sleeping," Aizawa clapped back. He sighed, sitting up, and biting back a pained grunt from the stitching in his side. He undid the tie of his shirt and let it fall ragged to his side.
He had a question brewing in his mind. And he already knew there wasn't going to be any avoiding it. So, he treated it like a band-aid.
"Okay. Who's coming with me this time?"
"Me!" Kirishima shouted, sprinting into the common room. "And Iida. Sir."
He was smiling, Aizawa was certain he could hear it.