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heroinkspots · 5 years ago

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Catharsis; Aizawa / Reader

SUMMARY ( You knew the man you loved could die. You were certain you had accepted it, had moved on from the constant anxiety that makes heroes insomniacs. But when you visit Aizawa in the hospital post-USJ Incident, you’re smacked with the reality there are some losses you can’t help but dread, yet zero you can prevent. )

One finger down.

Breathe.

Two fingers.

Breaking News: Erasure Hero Gets Critically Injured in USJ Aftermath, Current Condition Unknown!

Up next on Channel 86: at five o'clock, Dr. Oishi Hotaka and Dr. Yasuda Kurou broadcast live to discuss the recent developments about the USJ Incident and the repercussions for hero society going forward.

Three.

"I respect your opinion on this matter, Kurou-san, but I personally don't believe Japan can continue with the current status quo! UA's safety standards have declined dramatically in the past few decades, and their negligence will go on for as long as the public and the parents of these students allow it- which, I dare say, won't be long at all. Not long at all, my friend. We'll soon see that what we're giving these children, in UA and across the country in similar hero academies, is a subpar education, with more risks than benefits..and the most horrifying of these risks now includes the potential of their life being stolen from them at fifteen, sixteen years old."

”Well, that signals the end of our slot for tonight, viewers! Join us here next week for a live conference meeting of—"

F..four.

That announcer was right. He was scarily right. Civilians could turn off their television should they be the smallest bit uncomfortable while they were watching their heroes sacrifice their sanity, their every selfish human desire and sometimes even their lives to protect the masses that watcher belonged to.

To them, Shota was a headline. He was a vague concept, a will 'o wisp leading them home to a sense of safety, but he couldn't be felt with the hands nor seen with the eyes nor experienced with the heart. He was so underground you doubted they could recall his name without having it spoonfed to them by another copycat, know-it-all Dr. Oishi Hotaka reading off a script designed to spark outrage instead of reasonable thought. Introspection didn't sell well. Introspection didn't toss TV show hosts intriguing material to cover and it didn't grant jobs to reporters.

The truth was a bitter pill nobody liked to swallow. And if citizens didn't like the truth, they'd switch to a different channel to hear white noise that tasted good; and the Hotakas couldn't afford that, could they?

Five fingers you'd used up.

He had broken thirteen separate bones–nearly a third of the fingers you'd used so far for this stupid counting exercise. You had heard a summary of the damage from his doctors prior to standing where you stood now, and you had memorized it like a prayer of thanksgiving.

Shota couldn't be hurt if he was dead. Only a living man had the privilege of suffering pain. And dead..dead was your worst nightmare. The imaginary picture of his cold corpse made crippling injury seem like a reverie of inconceivable fortune in comparison.

Six.

Crushed orbital floor, fractured clavicle, nasal fracture, parietal bone oblique fractures, severe left elbow fractures (segmental break in his humerus bone, fractures half as destructive in his radius and ulna), one direct skull fracture—

Thirteen bones, thirteen of your fucking failures.

Seven.

You knew not to overreact. That was why you and Shota had gotten along brilliantly to begin with. You weren't a clingy partner who longed to ensure he was safe to your exacting requirements, but a fellow hero in his stead, laser-focused on furthering your ambitious climb to the top and holding down your position within the twenties once you had garnered your status. You respected him and how obviously reserved he could be, embracing his trepidation about placing himself in the spotlight as a virtue instead of a flaw..and for that, mutual respect bloomed into love in your second year of UA.

You and him had persevered because you were identically persevering personalities. You solved your arguments fairly and calmly, you conceded to his wishes and him to yours, crafting compromises and tempering spots of flickering flame before they could graze gasoline. You took pride in the fact that you knew the consequence of your professions, and you were willing to take his loss with his love.

Your logic couldn't have prepared you for USJ.

Shota Aizawa, that quiet, seemingly stern and uncaring, infuriating, loyal and self-sacrificing son of a bitch hadn't just gone out and danced with Death; he'd preformed a suspiciously intimate tango with her, gotten her number, invited her out for drinks and kissed her on the mouth when their date concluded.

And there was little logic to be found in the strong Pro Hero reduced to incomprehensible sobbing and bawling in the hospital breakroom mere minutes earlier.

Eight.

You'd cried so heavily you had to muffle your mouth with your sweater so passing staff wouldn't be alerted to the sounds of your emotional breakdown. Feeling that fabric grow damp and sticky with the flood of your agonized tears, the humilation stung at you, but it was faint and trivial when measured against the surge of your dominant emotions: anger–anger at yourself, anger at the villains who would target and hunt children purely to force a pathway to All Might, anger at this world which normalized casualty and tragedy; fear that this was the beginning of the so-called Villain League's attacks and that Shota, and by extension, you, would be at the forefront of countless battles; and the knowledge that your Pro license didn't do a damn thing for you.

Could you genuinely label yourself a Hero if you couldn't save your lover of a decade?

It wasn't a lack of faith on your behalf, or you discounting his abilities–you were aware of his skill. You saw how he built himself up to be the highly specialized, skilled Eraserhead; but regardless of how formidable the person, you would pity the unfortunate soul who had the might of Hell and high water bearing down on their head.

You would pity yourself in that situation too.

Nine. Last finger to put down.

You had counted so you could collect yourself, present a solid face to Shota when you finally entered his room, but your efforts were in vain. Your eyes were damp again, and you rubbed them furiously on your sleeve, the irritated rims puffing out from the blood rushing to your temple. Shota's voice rang out- you were effectively busted.

"Come in."

The abruptness made you release a watery chuckle. The recovery room's observation window was advertised as being "one-way," as if that would hinder your lover's keen perception of his surroundings. His demonstration of sharpness eased your concerns to a degree. After all, dead bodies were usually less talkative and dumber than he was being..but you wanted to, no, needed to see him desperately.

"I came as soon as I heard what happened." Your voice shook when your gaze locked with his, peering through the stiff bandaged cast at you, one eyelid firmly shut and quivering with the other parted lazily and projecting an unshakable confidence in your direction. Shota's resolve wasn't frigid indifference but rather reliability, a slowly seeping warmth you could fall back on whenever standing by yourself felt impossible. He looked at you as if you were the wounded party between the pair of you, as if he could tell you wanted to run and he was convincing you you didn't have to–because his relentless determination would stay permanently untouched, and so would he. Unchanging, reassuring.

"But I was already on the plane when I received the news, so I..dammit, I was helpless. I..I just sat there, Shota. Sat there and watched as the headlines rolled in, as the media scrambled for some coherent information to pump out. I sat there for an awful twelve hours– that's how much time it took me to get a one-stop plane ride back to Japan and land. And by then, USJ was completely cleared of people. I heard you were in the hospital and had to track you down out of all the fucking confidential hero hospitals you could potentially be in." You balled your fists in your hair, working a dent into the floor beneath you from your agitated pacing.

You nervously glanced at him before averting your eyeline to the walls. Shame curled within you. "I had no idea where you were located, whether you were dead or injured or comatose," you whispered weakly.

Shota cleared his throat, and although it was dry, scratchy and emerged mainly as a pained gurgling bursting from his chest, your attention was on him anyway. Your head snapped towards him and you flinched as you saw him struggling to prop himself up in the bed. You rushed forward to help, but he fared on his own, evenutally pushing himself into a sitting position with the pillows for extra padding to keep him stable. He stared at you wordlessly, his mouth drawn taut in a frustrated, sad grimace until he patted the bed beside him for you to sit.

You agreed.

"We've had this conversation before, you know," he mumbled into your shoulder. You startled, your muscles jerking at the tickling sensation of his bandage wrap. That minute detail almost caused you to tumble into hysterics once more. Shit, it was annoying and the reflex was inconvenient, but it was a beacon of hope that you could be annoyed–the rubbing and tickling told you Shota's going to be okay since, look, you had the evidence of repair brushing against you to remind you. Persistently.

"We have?" You promoted him, nudging him with the gentleness you would save for a young child.

Shota sighed, puffing air through his nose, and sobered up fast; his demeanor returned to serious thoughtfulness as he straightened, his stature strangely close to traditional etiquette despite being bedridden. You waited in anticipation for him to gather himself and speak.

"We have. When we were twenty year olds rookies with brains thicker than concrete. I was dwelling on a mother and son I had failed to save in a rescue from months before. But it was you who told me– 'the past is worthless until you use it to improve your future, Aizawa, and it becomes worse than worthless when you allow it to impede your future. That mother and her little boy wouldn't want their memory to hold you back from becoming the hero I'm certain you can be. It's doing a disservice to them if you don't take advantage of those mistakes to avoid repeating them.'"

You froze. "Shota, that's not the same situation and you know it's not. I..goddammit, I was lost and confused in a foreign country fighting for a way to get back and I couldn't contact you, I couldn't figure out who made it through, you or the kids or All Might. Or Thirteen. There's a considerable disparity between that and immediate, subconscious mistakes you make in the field. That was no mistake-that was a gaping lack of oversight on my part. That was failure."

Shota raised his brow, unimpressed. "Fine, then. You failed.”

"So what?"

"So you become better for the sake of the people you believe you failed."

You felt like smacking your head against the bed frame. Him and his logical ruses, God. Never giving ground to you, but countering you with few words delivered concisely and setting you up to arrive at a preplanned destination but changing your course before you could catch up to where he'd cleverly spun the talk this round. You couldn't muster exasperation when you glared at him, however–your glare melted into fondness at the minuscule grin he wore and the overwhelming exhaustion and tenderness beneath his layer of amusement.

You were tired and hungry, Shota was tired and hungry, and you ached to hug him and refuse to let go forever.

You could start on attaining your ideal existence by filling your stomach.

"Hey, do you want food?" Affirmative grunt. "Would you like me to go get some?" Equally affirmative grunt. With his enthusiastic approval, you left his designated room and wandered throughout the hospital. It took longer than you would have supposed, but you came back to greet him with armfuls of instant ramen, oden, and sugary treats you bought solely to indulge yourself but tried to frame as 'purchases for two'.

"I brought you the fanciest cuisine they have avaliable in their vending machines," you said. Shota snorted as you dumped the packages across the visitor's chair and gently dropped into your place beside him on the bed, careful not to hit him or disturb his wounds.

Your hand wound up to the crown of his head, where your hand tangled into the strands of his hair, fingers squeezing the tangled mess it was. "Can I tempt you?" You muttered into his ear.

He hummed noncommitally, his lips quirking. "I trust you." You had to restrain yourself from smiling so wide that you scared off your quarry, a pleased smugness rising from how naturally and freely he delivered that.

His humming turned from casual to an evident sign of contentment as your faithful ministrations endured for a while. It wasn't quite normalcy with how you tucked the pads of your fingers in so they wouldn't grace his forehead and circled a cautious breadth around all regions of his face, but it was adequate to drive your fears into some rarely ventured corner of your mind to torture you at a later date.

Definitely became more adequate when Shota passed out draped on your form. He was slouching, his nose buried in the crook of your neck and his unharmed right hand motionless on your leg. When you shuffled subtly to get a nicer angle and actually see the wonderful sight you had achieved, he groaned in protest, and you couldn't find it in yourself to attempt to leave when he was smiling. Deviously soft, and oblivious to your judgment–he was smiling in his sleep.

Most who had to deal with him would deal with Aizawa, the hardass teacher or Aizawa, the workaholic who could be seen bent over his laptop at ungodly hours of morning and night grading papers and drafting reports for his principal. Some unlucky fools would be pursued by him and would be petrified when Eraserhead's eerie crimson irises fell upon them, stripping them of the controlled sense of superiority they clung to as their refuge.

But you knew a secret an extremely select few were privy to. You knew that his shell was dense and tough yet brittle, a personification of intimidating traits he adopted when they served him, and he was a bleeding heart for the victims of the world who couldn't fight for themselves, for those children he taught who had glinting stars inside them he would never permit to be stamped out.

And that was why you were terrified. Because you knew he was breakable.

#bnha #mha #aizawa shouta #aizawa shota #aizawa x reader #aizawa #aizawa/reader #angst #is this my cursed trash brainchild #yes #do I hate it #it made me wanna cry #do I regret it..no #request from me #if you’d like #I promise I don’t bite #personal works #alternative tag could be self-indulgence

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