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Aizawa slumped against the wall. He felt… exhausted. Not in the “I need to sleep for 10 hours” kind of way, but in the kind of way where everything just feels too heavy to hold. His students’ lives, the lives of those civilians who lived in his patrol areas, Hizashi… there were so many people counting on him. So many lives that he held in his hands, whose fate depended at least partially on him.
His homeroom class hadn’t been anything especially exhausting this morning, so Aizawa wasn’t sure why it was hitting him so hard right now. Sure, Bakugo had yelled and tried to blow a few things up, but he always did that. Mineta made some inappropriate jokes, but that was normal. Just everyday interactions between teenagers.
Teenagers who had also fought for their lives and seen each other lying broken and bloody on the ground.
Aizawa sighed. Part of him wanted to just expel the entire class. Then they would be safe, at least.
But, he couldn’t. Not when he’d seen the sheer determination of his class. His kids. They might be a handful in the classroom, but they were electric and terrifying on the battlefield. Each of them understood the gravity of what it meant to fight to protect the people, and they had seen the risks firsthand. He couldn’t deny them their purpose, and he also knew how desperately Japan needed more heroes who could truly do their jobs.
He wanted to cry, but tears weren’t something that came to Aizawa very often. Instead he just felt the bone-deep exhaustion, and the fear that had wound itself into the depths of his soul. These were familiar to Aizawa. And he’d learned (or been forced) to coexist with them while he balanced two jobs and the unpaid caretaking of his kids, because so much work trying to make ends meet and keep people alive left very little time for Aizawa to take care of himself. (And, maybe, he wasn’t sure how to take care of himself. But he didn’t even really dare admit that to himself, let alone to anyone else).
Ding. Aizawa looked down to find a text from Hizashi.
Zashi: “You free? Midoriya ran out of class and I’m not sure where he is or if he’s okay.”
Sho: “Mmmph”
Zashi: “Thank you thank you, I’d go myself but I’ve got an entire class of kids to teach and they’re not gonna learn English on their own!”
Aizawa closed his eyes for one brief moment, trying to somehow breathe life into himself. It didn’t really work, but he stood up anyway. He could hold himself together and be there for his kids. He always did.
Aizawa’s kind of ashamed to admit it, but he almost gave up after searching in every bathroom and empty classroom. This wasn’t the first time he'd gone in search of Midoriya, but it was the first time the kid hadn’t been sitting in an empty bathroom or classroom, usually having a panic attack.
Something tugged at the back of Aizawa’s brain, though, nudging him to look on the roof. There was no logical reason Midoriya should be on the roof. No security alarms had gone off. Midoriya hadn’t seemed overtly suicidal, though many of his kids had survived enough trauma that suicide was something they coexisted with. Midoriya also wasn’t a kid to break the rules and go hang out in places he shouldn’t.
It seemed far more logical that Midoriya had just gone back to his dorm room. Or even off campus somewhere, which posed a whole other set of security concerns.
Even so, checking the roof couldn’t hurt. Aizawa texted Nezu to let him know that he was checking for a student on the roof, so that he wouldn’t set off the alarms, and then set off for the stairs.
Aizawa didn’t really have conscious thoughts when he opened the door to the roof and saw Midoriya standing on the edge, green hair tussled slightly by the wind. As an underground hero who patrolled underserved areas as well as navigated his own personal pile of trauma, he was no stranger to suicide. He’d talked with countless people — both strangers in the streets and close friends — as they walked the line between life and death.
Was it different when it was his student? Maybe. But that was just something Aizawa would have to process later. He was too exhausted to feel anything right now.
Midoriya had stiffened just slightly when Aizawa opened the roof door, so Aizawa knew that the kid had heard him. Midoriya didn’t move from his position at the edge, though.
“Hey, kid,” Aizawa said quietly. Tiredly. “Mind if I come sit by you?”
He didn’t get an answer.
A minute or two later, though, Midoriya sat down on the roof, legs dangling off the edge.
Aizawa kept his distance. He let Midoriya have the control, but simply offered, “I’m here if you’d like to talk. About anything.”
They stayed there together in silence for a little while longer. Aizawa standing, breathing, feeling the brisk wind against his face. It was grounding in its own way. Midoriya sat at the edge, silently.
Finally, Midoriya scooted back slightly, half turning to face Aizawa. Tears poured down his face.
“I don’t know if I can keep doing it,” he whispered. “…I’m sorry...”
“You don’t have to apologize to me, kid... I know it’s hard. It’s okay for it to be hard.” Aizawa sat down, back against the roof door.
“I shouldn’t be here. I was never meant to be a hero, all I am ever going to do is hurt the people I care about. Other people always told me that… someone just told me that today. I should have listened to them.”
“No, kid… I’m glad you didn’t listen to them. It’s exhausting, sometimes, to feel that you’re only ever going to hurt people. I've been told that too, countless times. But I see how you fight. I see you work so hard to save other people. And I trust you as a hero.”
…
Aizawa wasn’t sure how long he spent talking with Midoriya on the rooftop, listening to all of the pain and hurt and abuse the kid had faced. He was beginning to form some pretty serious opinions about Bakugo, too, that he’d need to discuss with Nezu. But that would wait until after his kid was safe.
Eventually, Midoriya had calmed some, stopped crying, and agreed to walk back to his dorm room.
“You gonna be alright tonight, kid?” Aizawa asked softly as they walked up to Midoriya’s bedroom door.
“Yeah, I think so,” Midoriya replied. He’d been messaging a couple of his friends, letting them know he was okay after running out of class so abruptly. “Todoroki is going to come watch a movie with me when he gets out of class, and Iida said he would help me catch up on what I missed.”
Aizawa nodded. “Call me or come find me if you need, Midoriya,” Aizawa reminded him. “I’m serious. I care about you, and I’ll walk through this with you as much as you let me.”
Midoriya bowed his head slightly. “Thank you, Aizawa-sensei. And…. thank you for understanding.”
Aizawa just nodded. He opened his arms, offering a hug if the kid wanted one. Midoriya quickly accepted and wrapped his own arms tightly around the teacher.
They held each other for a few moments. Aizawa felt Midoriya’s warmth, allowing it to strengthen him, while at the same time carrying the weight of everything Midoriya had shared.
“Get some rest tonight, too, if you can.”
Midoriya nodded, and released his hold on Aizawa. “I’ll try. I’ll see you tomorrow, sensei.”
Aizawa heard the unspoken promise in those words. The commitment to keep fighting to live another day. “See you tomorrow, Midoriya,” he replied.
Aizawa closed the door to Midoriya’s room, and trudged back to his own apartment that he shared with Hizashi. He was done with teaching for the day, right? That seemed correct. Yagi was teaching the kids combat this afternoon, so Aizawa didn’t have any responsibilities other than grading and preparing his lesson for tomorrow.
Once he got safely inside of the shared apartment, Aizawa just laid down on the floor. He didn’t care that it was the cold hard tile of the kitchen, and not his bed. His bed felt too far away right now.
He was exhausted. So deeply, utterly exhausted.
Some part of Aizawa wondered if he should cry. That’s what you were supposed to do when sad things happened, after all. And a kid wanting to die (trying to die) probably counted as a sad thing.
But Aizawa couldn’t cry. He couldn’t really think, either. He should probably process what had just happened, but his brain didn’t seem capable of that right now. Instead, he just drifted.
He wondered if he would be able to keep doing this. Protecting his kids, protecting the people in the city, training future generations of heroes, trying not to lose his mind…
On some level, it didn’t matter if he was able to keep doing it. He had to, because no one else would. That was why he’d become a hero in the first place.
He wasn’t blind to all of the ways his current life was harming him. Not really. He just also didn’t know what could truly be done about it.
Usually, he just held it together. Carried the weight of other people’s lives and his own trauma as he fought to protect the most vulnerable.
And, some days he wasn’t really able to hold it together anymore, although no one would ever know that except for Hizashi. And maybe Nezu, because he’d never been able to hid anything from Nezu.
But that seemed okay…
It didn’t matter, as long as people stayed safe…
“Hey, Sho?”
Aizawa came back to the present when he heard Hizashi’s soft but worried voice. “Mmmph,” he mumbled, blinking at his partner.
Hizashi sat down on the floor next to him.
“Thank you for saving Midoriya,” he said.
Aizawa was vaguely surprised to see tears in Hizashi’s eyes. He’d told his partner briefly what had happened, let him know that Midoriya was safe in his room now. But Aizawa hadn’t really felt anything besides exhaustion.
He just nodded, briefly. Heavily. Hizashi would understand everything that nod carried.
Hizashi’s arms found their way around his body, gently lifting him into a sitting position while propped against Hizashi’s chest. Aizawa sighed.
“I’m going to make us some soup, okay?” Hizashi whispered.
Aizawa grunted, not really able to form words. Soup would be good, probably. He wasn’t sure when he’d last eaten.
Hizashi eased himself out from under Aizawa, leaving the dark-haired man leaning against the kitchen cabinets. He puttered around the kitchen, humming softly to himself. Aizawa only watched. He was so grateful for these wordless times where Hizashi quietly helped him care for himself. Hizashi was the only person who’d ever stared into the depths of Aizawa’s pain and not run away in horror. The only person who Aizawa could truly unmask around. They understood each other, and showed up for each other in the ways that mattered.
Soon, Aizawa was holding a bowl of warm soup. Hizashi sat back down on the floor next to him, their thighs and shoulders touching. Aizawa briefly tapped his head on Hizashi’s shoulder in thanks, then began to sip at his soup. It tasted good. And, it required little energy to eat.
Once they had both finished, Hizashi rose again and cleaned their bowls. “Ready to go to bed, Sho?” he asked.
Bed sounded nice, but Aizawa shook his head. “Have to patrol,” he forced out. “Tonight.”
Hizashi just looked at him. There was no pity — only genuine love and care.
“No, you’re not patrolling tonight,” he said simply. “We’re taking care of you tonight, so that tomorrow you can still be able to teach and then patrol.”
Aizawa wanted to argue. Wanted to tell Hizashi about the young mother he needed to go check on, the houseless kids who wandered the streets late at night who he protected, the drug dealers who he kept an eye on lest violence breaks out.
But he was so tired, he couldn’t form the words. And, Hizashi knew, anyway. So if Hizashi was telling him to stay home, he should trust Hizashi.
Aizawa didn’t say anything else, just stumbled to his feet and followed Hizashi into their bedroom. As they curled up under the blankets together, Hizashi wrapped his arms around his partner tightly.
It didn’t take away the exhaustion. But Aizawa relaxed into the feeling of being safe, held, and not alone. The heaviness lessened, just slightly, as Aizawa drifted off to sleep.