Chapter Text
You can expect your average teacher to look to the days following the Midoriya and Bakugo situation and hope some peace and quiet. Just a little because even they won’t bother expecting more than that. Aizawa is not the average teacher. Aizawa knows better than to even expect that much.
He fully expects the next school day to consist of fun activities such as making accidentally stabbing your friends into a fun class hobby or for Kaminari to discover that you can, in fact, create what is basically a human electrical circuit. And for that discovery to immediately go horribly, horribly, wrong. Or maybe even a classic broken bone or five. And yet… Somehow. Against all odds and expectations… a few quiet days is exactly what Aizawa gets.
Nothing more than the usual bruises and scrapes typical of a rowdy group of teenagers. The fine jar collects a few fines here and there but nothing significant. It’s… nice. Quiet. Peaceful.
Aizawa doesn’t trust it for a minute.
“C’mon, Shou, let yourself enjoy it while it lasts.”
Aizawa scowls at his coffee like it holds the secrets for how and why is class is being so… quiet. “That’s exactly the problem. The second I let my guard down something insane is going to happen. Like the dorm blowing up.”
“Why would the dorm blow up?” Mic groans, throwing his hands up. Aizawa stares flatly at him until he thinks that one over.
“Oh. Wait. That might actually be a concern.”
“No. Really? Explosions? A legitimate risk? In a class with a human bomb, a human lighter, someone who can generate whatever she wants-including incendiaries, and- oh, that’s right! Did you know that some forms of acid are highly flammable?”
Just saying it out loud makes Aizawa want to go check that none of his students have managed to set themselves or anyone else on fire.
Midnight leans back from her desk to chime in with a helpful “Fun fact! Flour can also explode!”
“There is nothing fun about that,” Aizawa hisses. Midnight snickers at him as Mic pats him reassuringly on the back.
“But you can’t deny it is a fact!” she says smugly, waving a chocolate covered doughnut at him. Eyes narrowed, he snaps his hand forward and snatches it from her, stuffing it into his own mouth before she can do more than squawk. He doesn’t even like the damn things but sometimes sacrifices must be made to speak in a way that will be understood.
It’s thanks to Mic’s ability to use his lanky limbs to keep the two of them from killing each other while also dialing in an emergency doughnut delivery that Aizawa makes it back to his class with both of his hands. But it was worth it.
He returns to his suspiciously peaceful classroom and waits for a shoe to drop that just keeps refusing to drop. It’s not until the students are filing in after lunch that he gets his first real hint of what’s happening.
Shinsou bumps into Hagakure. It’s not too surprising. He’s not as used to navigating around an invisible classmate as the others. It’s just unfortunate that he’s also carrying a cup of very hot coffee that goes right down Hagakure’s back.
“Fuck- shit- are you okay?” Shinsou asks her, one hand clutching the mostly empty cup and the other hovering like he can’t decide what to do with it.
“How burnt are you?” Aizawa asks, already heading over.
“I’m-” Aizawa braces for the dreaded word but Hagakure pauses. “Um, uh, I’m a bit scalded, I think,” she admits in a small voice. Aizawa stares. Squints a bit.
“I swear that’s all I think it is!” Hagakure blurts out, sleeves waving frantically.
“Okay,” Aizawa says slowly, unable to stop staring. “I’ll write you a hall pass to visit recovery girl.” He turns to Shinsou, eyes the hands now both clenching the mostly empty cup of coffee and the brown stains along his cuffs. “Shinsou?”
Shinsou opens his mouth. Stops. Closes it again. Purses his lips. “I. scalded my hands a bit. Trying to catch it.” he glances over at Hagakure, lips thinning further. “Sorry, again. I should be more careful.”
“It’s okay! It was an accident!”
“Still. I won’t let it happen again.”
He sends both students off to Recovery Girl, keeping in mind a mental note to make sure Shinsou doesn’t fall into a guilt spiral over this. But from the way Shinsou’s shoulders have eased by the time the pair return with freshly healed skin and new uniforms he doesn’t think he’ll have to worry about that. It’s a surreal feeling. So much so that he almost doesn’t realize he’s almost certain that this is the first time since the implementation of the fine jar that someone has gotten significantly hurt and no one has had to pay the jar.
And then, not long after that, Aoyama startles Kaminari so badly he accidentally shocks Kirishima. Which causes Kirishima to bite his pencil in half with so much force shards of it launch across the classroom. There’s not a single person who doesn’t have the instinctive reflex to dodge but Shoji has the misfortune of having too much bulk and too little room to get properly clear.
“Everyone alright?” Aizawa asks. And to his utter shock Shoji raises his hand amidst the chorus of yeses and says “Not quite.” Aizawa’s eyes fall to the lightly bleeding webbing stretching between Shoji’s limbs and the spray of yellow pencil shards across it. It’s not too bad. The worst is the rather large shard of the head of the pencil completely piercing through one the webbing. It’s also the only one really bleeding.
“I can get most of these out myself but Recovery Girl will probably want to look at the big one.”
“…Go to recovery girl,” he says slowly. Shoji nods and stands, accepting the pass when Aizawa hands it to him.
The rest of the class manages to avoid mangling themselves and each other- another minor miracle he doesn’t trust- until joint training with class 1-B at the end of the day.
It’s not a mandatory session since the entire goal is to foster voluntary cooperation. But even so not a single one of either class has opted out. He and Vlad stand back, watching their students intermingle. Keeping a careful eye on the match ups to try and head off any issues. Neither of them expect a problem from Ashido and Bondo sparing. Not until it’s too late.
An unexpected chemical reaction and Ashido utilizing a lesser version of her Acidman super move- one with just enough acid to coat her skin- ends in a burst of flash fire. He and Vlad are both moving the second they see the first spark but it’s Yaoyorozu and her nigh godlike knowledge of chemical compounds that saves the day.
He’s incredibly glad she’s sparing with Kendo just a few feet away. It only takes her a second to process what’s happening and react, throwing out her hands and spewing the correct solution to nullify the reaction.
“Ashido, are you alright?” Yaoyorozu asks.
“I’m fine,” Ashido hisses through her teeth. Aizawa barely has time to open his mouth before she follows it up with “oh, dang it! No! I wreaked the streak!”
“The what?”
“Uhhh…” Ashido exchanges nervous glances with Yaoyorozu and blurts out “I can’t be the one to explain because I have to go to recovery girl! And pay my fine!”
Aizawa raises an eyebrow at Yaoyorozu. “Are you explaining that then?”
Yaoyorozu actually raises her hand and says “I have to take Ashido and Bondo to the nurse!” Aizawa stares at her long enough to let her sweat a bit before he nods slowly.
Yaoyorozu hovers as the nurse bots load the injured two onto the stretchers and follows them out the door. The uninjured members of class 1-B eagerly follow Vlad in escaping to start clean up while the remaining members of Aizawa’s class give each other nervous looks and hope someone else will step up and fill Aizawa in.
“So… who wants to explain what that was about?” he asks the class. Eighteen pairs of eyes suddenly find the gym to be the most interesting building they’ve ever seen. So interesting, in fact, that they simply can’t look at their teacher. Aizawa huffs and crosses his arms. He drags his eyes slowly across his students until they fall on the weakest link.
“Class President? Would you like to explain?”
Iida jolts to attention, as expected. “Ah. Well. Sensei. You see…” Iida stops and forces himself board straight.
“We realized that the purpose of the jar is to teach us to have better care for our own health and properly relaying the level of our injuries so that we can be efficiently treated. And… and as such we came up with a way to… to increase the efficiency of the jar.”
Aizawa’s eyebrows rise higher and higher. “You… what did you do, exactly?”
“We started keeping track,” Asui answers.
“Of time between fines?” he asks
“Of how long it’d been since we forgot we’re important too.” she answers.
“That we aren’t just heroes, that we’re people too.” Uraraka adds. “And we mater just as much as the people we save.”
Ah, Aizawa thinks. Because that’s it, isn’t it? He never stopped to put it into words when he was nearly ripping his hair out that first month. He was watching them bleed and break and brush it off in the same breath. Ready to push forward until they dropped.
It was agonizing to watch. Because he cares about these damn kids. Because they mater, more than just heroes. More than just for what they can give.
They mater when they’re not doing anything more than watching a stupid movie and inhaling junk food to be healthy. They matter when they’re playing hide and seek in the pitch black of the early morning hours because no one could sleep. They just matter. Every second of every day. As constant and steady as breathing.
But he didn’t have the words to say that, even to himself. And so there was a jar. A cheap plastic thing with a slightly sloppily placed handwritten label slammed on a table with a little too much force. A silent plea for them to understand something he couldn’t articulate so much he didn’t even realize he was trying to.
And they did. His stupid, brilliant, students managed to figure it out. I am not going to cry in front of them, he thinks. And when that doesn’t quite quell the urge he thinks I am not going to cry in front of Vlad. Which works better. Enough that he trusts himself to speak without sounding like he’s going to cry.
“I see,” he says, surprised he manages to make it come out so evenly.
Hagakure slumps into Ojirou. “Man… now we have to reset our count! We were so close to our first milestone! I really thought we could make it!”
Ojirou pats her back. “We’ll get there eventually, I’m sure.”
"Yeah, if we work hard maybe we’ll manage it before graduation,” Jirou says with a sarcastic drawl. The whole class groans and slumps.
“Noooo! Don’t jinx us! I want to at least make it to the one month milestone!”
“Milestones?” he asks.
“Yeah!” Kirishima says, eyes lighting up. “It’s like, you know, the carrot and the stick! If we manage to go long enough without having breaking the streak we get a reward! Like an extra movie night or a special meal!”
“I’m baking a cake when we hit one month!” Satou says.
“Just three more days and we’d have hit a week… my extra movie night… it was so close…” Sero slumps so low Aizawa worries he might just fall straight over. Tokoyami puts a hand on his shoulder and pulls him back upright with a solemn look.
“Hold steady, the hour of the horror movie extravaganza will come again.”
“… And the stick part? Or is that just the fine itself?”
“We decided that our system needed it’s own penalty- as it technically exists outside the fine jar system,” says Iida. “Everyone came up with their own punishment for themselves for if they’re the one to break the streak. Ashido will have extra dish duty for a month.”
Ashido hates doing the dishes. Hates it. She has to wear elbow length rubber gloves to wash them to prevent the possibility of accidentally contaminating them with residual chemicals from her acids. It just goes to show how seriously they’re taking this.
“We also did research into retraining your mind to a healthier mindset and we also have to write a reminder of why our injury mattered and read it out to someone in class!” Midoriya adds.
“I still don’t get why we can’t just double up our penalties instead!” Kaminari groans. Iida whirls on him, arm already pivoting.
“The reminder is not meant to be a punishment! It is meant to help you internalize the thought through verbal reinforcement and validation from your peers!”
“I knoooow but it feels so awkward!”
“It’s not supposed to be comfortable, it’s supposed to challenge your current mindset or whatever,” Shinsou says.
Aizawa tucks his face into his scarf as he fights a smile. “It sounds like a good system. Even though I wish you’d told me before I spent half of this week convinced this was the lull before we got hit with hell month three.”
That gets him a bunch of ducked heads, sheepish smiles, and a wave of “Sorry, sensei!”
He huffs, trying to hide the fondness in the sound, and waves them off “Alright, alright… go help class B clean up and then you’re all dismissed for the day.”
The class scatters, joining the other class in tackling the various areas of disarray. They do their best to clean up what they can. Aizawa supervises, mulling over just how much he’s underestimated his class this time. At least this time it’s a positive, he thinks a little wryly.
Vlad slides up next to him in a way that isn’t subtle at all. He turns his head and raises an eyebrow at him. “Sooo…” Vlad says slowly, completely ignoring the look. “That jar of yours…” he trails off there. Aizawa huffs in impatience.
“What about it?”
“I don’t suppose you’d be willing to, y’know, share the details?”
Aizawa crosses his arms, leveling an unimpressed look at Vlad. “The students are about done cleaning up and I know we both have better things to do than shoot the breeze. So if you wouldn’t mind getting to the point?”
"Gods, you’re impatient,” Vlad says, rolling his eyes. “But yeah, sure. Lotta my kids overheard stuff about that jar of yours and they want to co-opt the idea for our class.”
Aizawa blinks, surprised. “Sure,” he says with a loose shrug. “But you’ll have to talk to my students to get all the details.”
Vlad shoots him a curious look and Aizawa turns his face away before Vlad can catch the half smile tugging at his lips. “All I had them doing was paying a fine into a jar when they downplay their injuries. Then they went Plus Ultra while I wasn’t looking and developed a whole system of punishments and rewards for how long they can go as a class without breaking their streak.”
He glances over at Vlad to find the man’s eyebrows so high they’re nearly to his hairline.
Aizawa can’t help but add on “They’ve even gone as far as to add a whole encouragement system too- did their own independent research into it and everything.”
Vlad whistles low and soft.
“Ok, well, I mean… I still think my class is clearly better but… I can admit you’ve got some impressive kids on your hands, Eraser. That’s some serious dedication.”
He doesn’t even try to stop himself from grinning into his scarf at that. “I know.”
Once the students have cleaned up and cleared out he goes back to his own dorm room to try and get as much paperwork done before his patrol as he can. It’s an uneventful patrol and an uneventful school day following it but now that he knows it’s not random chance causing it but the effort and dedication his students he’s not worried.
Luck is fickle. Hard work has substance, a foundation to build on. And Aizawa knows a thing or two about building on that foundation.
There are normal bumps and bruises and little injuries to be expected when you're in regular fights even if those fights are just friendly if competitive training. The kids do pretty good on their efforts to curb their bad habits and reach their first milestone. There are still slip ups, still set backs. But these are his kids and now that Aizawa knows what they're doing it's easy to encourage it, waiting a moment before asking if they're okay so they can form an answer consciously instead of instinctively. And it's no time at all before the kids reach their first milestone.
"One week! One week! One week!" chants the class. Aizawa tunes out the cheering and quells the swell of pride urging him to smile. It still makes for a much more upbeat Monday than usual.
Normally he takes a nap and do some paperwork before his patrol. But today he follows his students out the door, though at a much slower pace.
Eri is just as excited as his students for the party and the class is more than thrilled to include her in the planning process. He can give up a little bit of sleep if it means making her happy.
Between Eri’s arrival at the dorms and the high of the incoming party, the entire class is nearly vibrating with energy. He’s torn between wanting to get the hell out of dodge as fast as possible before the extrovert energy overwhelms him and staying to make sure they don’t blow anything up or set anything else on fire.
It’s a close internal battle but in the end his sense of duty and belief that his students can refrain from dangerous activities for one night for Eri’s sake wins out.
“Alright,” he says and each of his students snap to attention. “I’m heading out for patrol, you lot know the rules. Eri, make sure they don’t blow themselves up.” She nods like this is a deadly serious task she’s been entrusted with and not Aizawa joking.
Well. Half joking. He’d rather his students not blow themselves up if at all possible but he isn’t about to make that Eri’s responsibility.
He has a perfectly average patrol. He takes down petty criminals, discourages the rambunctious youths prowling the nights from causing too much trouble, and makes it home in time to pick Eri up and put her to bed at a decent hour.
The rest of the week passes in similarly mundane fashion, marked only by the slowly ramping up energy in the classroom as Friday edges closer, heralding in the Saturday of the party. The only other thing even close to noteworthy is Aizawa’s own growing tiredness.
With Eri visiting the dorms every night Aizawa can’t take as many naps as usual and his post patrol routine is just a little bit longer, stealing just a sliver more precious sleep from him. But its worth it to see both his students and Eri light up. He doesn’t mind being more tired than usual if it comes with listening to Eri excitedly chatter about helping Satou prep ingredients or helping Midoriya sketch out party decor placements.
When the heavily anticipated Friday finally comes he picks Eri up as per usual. Nezu now has her on creating branching back up plans. A very practical lesson even if it’s slightly terrifying to watch Nezu plan out a veritable chessboard of counter plans for an imagined governing body that worryingly resembles the hero commission.
…Best not to worry about that one. Either Nezu is just letting off steam or, well. Aizawa has enough on his plate without making that his problem. Nezu will get him involved if he needs him.
As he’s dropping Eri off with the class for one last party prep session, Yaoyorozu stops him.
“Oh! Um. Sensei. Before you go… Sero is making cupcakes for the party and we were wondering if you have a favorite flavor?”
He blinks slowly. “Shouldn’t you be picking your own favorites?”
“Oh we’re going to make everyone’s favorite! That’s why we were wondering- well. I mean. We- we know you’re busy and you spend more than enough time on us as it is but. Well… we wanted to thank you, even if a few cupcakes aren’t much, really.”
“It’s not necessary. I’m your teacher, I have a duty of care for you all.”
Yaoyorozu fidgets.
“Still. Not every teacher does even half as much as you and, well, we all feel you’ve gone well beyond anything that would be expected of you. And- And your part of this class too, and we’d like to share this with you, if you’re willing.”
Ah. Well. He can’t really say no to that, can he?
“I haven’t really had cupcakes in a while, I’ll have to give it some thought.”
Yaoyorozu brightens and nods quickly. “Of course! There’s plenty of time still! And if there’s anything else you’d like to add to the party we’d welcome your input!”
“I’ll think it over.”
“Thank you, Sensei, have a good patrol!”
He’s not smiling as he leaves with a quiet nod. He’s also not smiling when he finishes getting ready for his patrol and sets out. Not even a little bit, nope.
Patrol is, for the most part, fairly tame. A few would be muggers. An attempted petty robbery. And one set of teenagers he catches in the middle of vandalizing something. He puts the fear of god in them and then hands them off to be lectured and assigned community service hours. The most exciting his night gets is when a couple of drunks get a little too rowdy and decide it’s a good idea to bring their quirks into a bar fight. And even that is quickly broken up. Drunks don’t make for a difficult fight.
He worries about his students. He muses about the party. His mind even wanders to paperwork and grading it’s so boring a night. Stupid of him. It’s exactly the kind of night and exactly the kind of mindset to set him up for a rookie mistake.
He’s so distracted, so bored, so lost in his thoughts that he doesn’t notice when muscle memory fails him and his movements drift off course. Just off course enough that when he casts out his scarf for the next swing he’s off enough to do something he hasn’t done since he was a high schooler.
He misses.
There’s no time for anything but shock and surprise as he’s falling. A roof breaks his fall and several of his ribs at the very least. He rolls off it, bounces off a fabric awning, and hits the ground shoulder first. His arm shrieks in pain in time with his ribs. He’s hurt himself enough times to know they’re both broken. His hip and leg aren’t much better but the cacophony of pain isn’t the right pitch for them to be broken. Badly bruised but not broken.
Fuck, he thinks. And then once more for good measure, Fuck.
Ok. Stay calm. You know what to do here. Hit your emergency signal and stay as still as possible.
And Of fucking course he’s laying on the emergency beacon. He tries to move as little as possible as he wiggles his good hand under himself until he can reach it. It gives a comforting little vibration when it’s active. He sighs in relief.
Laying on the ground, waiting for back up to come, there’s plenty of time to think. And the thought that stands out the most isn’t the fact that this is his third broken arm this year or the pain he’s in. It’s shit the party.
Recovery Girl is… thoroughly unamused with him. She’s even less amused when he asks if it’s possible for her to completely heal him in one night.
“You know perfectly well that I’m no miracle worker!” she says, looking like she’d dearly love to be whacking him over the head. If he weren’t already so injured she probably would be.
“You have six broken ribs, you’ve bruised the bone on your hip and your leg, your entire side is one mass of surface level bruises and scrapes, and you have multiple stress fractures along the impact points! What could possibly justify putting the level of strain on your body needed to heal that in such a short period?”
“1-A just reached a milestone for the fine jar. The reward is a party… which is supposed to be tomorrow. They want me to be a part of it.”
Recovery girl sighs. “You’re worried they’ll cancel if you can’t come.”
He nods. “They worked hard for this, I don’t want to ruin it for them.”
She stares at him for long enough a moment that he worries she’s going to say no. Then she sighs and pinches her nose.
“When exactly are they having the party tomorrow?”
“They were planning on leaving the morning for training and homework, setting up during the afternoon, and having the party in the evening.”
Recovery girl mutters to herself, too softly for Aizawa to parse out what she’s saying. Finally she groans and rubs her hand over her face.
“I think I can fix your arm and some of your ribs tonight. And maybe get you down to at least bruises. Against my better judgement.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t. I’m only entertaining this because the last thing I want is to discourage those kids from learning good habits. If it weren’t for that I’d have you sedated until Monday- especially with that stunt you pulled after usj.”
She gives him a dirty look he does his best to avoid as she leans in to press a kiss to his forehead. The exhaustion hits him as hard as he hit the pavement tonight.
He can… probably hide whatever Recovery Girl can’t fix before the party. At least until the end of the party. He can probably even duck out of it early if necessary. Hopefully not so early that the students think he doesn’t want to be there.
Tomorrow is going to be… challenging. His students are clever. The slightest slip up and they’re sure to latch on and start digging. He just has to be sure they don’t get that chance.
Except, well. Things don’t work out that way.
Aizawa wakes up to birdsong and sunlight clawing it’s way through a crack in the curtains and straight into his eyes. He grumbles and turns his head away into something warm at his side that tickles his nose.
“Sorry, Sensei,” Hagakure whispers “Let me get that for you.” the sunlight vanishes and he relaxes with a soft huff, ready to let his exhausted body sink back in to sleep.
It takes Aizawa a good solid moment to realize what, exactly, is wrong here. He forces his eyes open a crack. The first thing he sees is waves of white and a single stubby horn. Eri is curled into his side on the cot, a vaguely familiar blanket tucked around her.
Groggily, he leans back and looks around the room to find what looks like the majority of his class scattered about the room. It’s clear they had to get creative to fit even this many of them into the room.
As many chairs as can reasonably be expected to fit in the room while still leaving it possible to navigate are crammed in. Some are the type Recovery girl keeps in her infirmary though there is only supposed to be two in this room. The rest are a mish mash of ones he’s pretty certain are borrowed from the dorms and ones he doesn’t recognize at all. Yaoyorozu’s work, most likely. That or his students ransacked the city for spare chairs. He’s not sure which he prefers.
Even with all the chairs there’s still students left without. Some have commandeered the other cots in the room, bundling as many of themselves as can be expected. The others…
Hagakure reveals the location of the rest of the class when she finishes readjusting the curtains, turns around, and reaches a hand up to the ceiling. A familiar pink padded hand reaches down to high five her. Aizawa follows the hand back to it’s owner and finds the remaining students hanging out on the ceiling. He stares. Uraraka blinks innocently at him and hands Hagakure a melon bread. It looks homemade, marking it as most likely Satou’s doing.
“Good morning, Sensei,” she says.
“… Good morning. What are you doing?”
“On the ceiling? It’s good practice.”
“Oh is he awake? Good morning, Sensei!” Hagakure says, turning to wave at him. Bits of crumb fall to the floor. Aizawa watches them fall and raises his eyebrow at her.
“Recovery girl said it’s fine as long as we clean up after ourselves and don’t break anything,” Hagakure says, shyly reaching up to cover her mouth- well, presumably.
“And she said all of you could be in here?”
Kaminari beams from the blanket for built over a cot in the corner and occupied by himself, Jirou, and Yaoyorozu. “She said that it was fine since us being here meant the likelihood of her needing all of these beds went way down,”
Iida clears his throat. “I believe her exact words were that if we’re quietly watching over our teacher then she won’t need to worry about us mangling ourselves while you’re out of commission and have the entire class taking.”
“At least I know I’m not going to have to face down Recovery Girl. Though that doesn’t explain how you all knew to come here.”
Twenty pairs of eyes find something to look at other than their teacher.
“Sorry…” Eri mumbles. Aizawa glances down to find her sheepishly worrying the hem of her dress. “Yamada-san came to get me and I got worried because you weren’t there so he said you had to stay overnight with recovery girl and I got scared-”
She stops her panicked ramble when Aizawa puts his hand on her head and gently ruffles her hair.
“Sorry for scaring you. I’m fine-”
“JAR!” echoes from twenty one voices. Aizawa freezes and stares at Eri and his students. For a moment they’re frozen in their nerves. Then the explode into movement.
“You said it yourself! You agreed! Jar rules apply to you too!”
“You told Eri-chan you’d do it!”
“You must not break your oath to the fairness princess-”
“Sensei I apologize for the ruckus, however, we are correct that you did agree that the rules of the Fine Jar apply to you as well and they clearly state that-” Iida’s arm chops vigorously as he lectures. Uraraka floats over his head, counting on her fingers. She reaches down and grabs Iida by the shoulders.
“How much does he owe the jar? Help me do math!”
Iida pauses his lecture to confer with her, tallying just how much he owes the jar now. Aizawa opens his mouth to get them all under control. Before he can make an attempt the door slams open.
“I take it from the commotion you lot aren’t supposed to be making that he’s awake?” Recovery girl taps her syringe cane and the class comes to attention, silencing themselves and straightening. “Well, at least the noise let me know he was up. Run off now, I need to have a word with your idiot teacher while I patch him up some more.”
The kids are quick to evacuate, lest they insecure Recovery Girl’s wrath. Eri says a quick goodbye as she’s plucked up and tucked under Midoriya’s arm. His other hand is busy acting as a tether for Uraraka, who reaches down and taps Eri so she can play human balloon too.
“Don’t forget you owe the jar like 700 yen!” Uraraka says as she’s towed out the door, careful to make sure Eri doesn’t bump into the frame.
Silence falls as the last student vanishes behind the swinging door. Recovery girl turns back to him, sighs, and then settles onto one of the chairs by the bed.
“So, first things first. Give me a rundown on how you feel this morning. And don’t say fine because I’m not above snitching.” Aizawa tries to tell himself he doesn’t feel intimidated. He fails.
After she finishes evaluating him Recovery Girl settles back in her chair with a soft huff.
“Well. That little plan fell apart completely.”
Aizawa can only nod as he mentally kicks himself for forgetting to account for Eri’s reaction.
“A good thing, I suppose, we both gave those kids far less credit than we should have.”
“Somehow I always manage to. Did they say anything about their party?”
“Well it’s nearly the afternoon now. But they did their homework while waiting for you to wake up. Then their plan is to train and do whatever prep work they can tonight so they can have the party in the morning. Which will give them plenty of time to wind down and clean up before Monday. And gives me plenty of time to get you in party condition.”
…That is an extremely simple solution for something that didn’t even once occur to him in his panic last night. “…Well now I feel stupid for not thinking of that.”
“Stupid and about 700 yen shorter! Though, to be perfectly honest, I almost feel like I should be paying something to that jar for going along with it.”
“I think the students were thinking more of buying you something with the money, rather than having you pay in.”
Recovery Girl snorts. “The only reward I need is seeing those kids develop less destructive habits towards their health.”
He gives her a flat stare.
“… Nezu bought me a very nice bottle of my favorite gin awhile back.”
He coughs back a snort. Figures. Nezu is always on top of any given situation. Always.
“Speaking of favorites, your students wanted to remind you that they wanted to know what kind of cupcake flavor you wanted for the party.”
Aizawa pauses. Between his accident on patrol and the chaos of this morning he there wasn’t time to give it too much thought. It’s a bit of a silly thing to think so much on, all things considered, but it’s also such a small thing for his students to ask of him. Too small to ignore. He wracks his brain for the last time he bought himself anything cake related. Other than the doughnut he stole from Midnight recently. He ate that out of spite more than genuine enjoyment. And he doesn’t think there are doughnut cupcakes. Or if there is he really doesn’t want to know.
He’s never been one for sweets, really, so it’s no surprise he comes up empty. He thinks further back, trying to shake any idea loose, and is rewarded with an old, dusty, faded memory. It’s a little painful in the way all old griefs are. But there’s good things there too. Things that he might be ready to have again.
A rooftop, two old friends, and a misunderstanding. Aizawa’s jelly packets aren’t fruit flavored but Hizashi and Oboro didn’t know that. And they’d wanted a cake they all could enjoy to celebrate their provisional licensees.
“I don’t remember the name. But it was some kind of sponge cake with powdered sugar on top and strawberry jam and buttercream between the layers.”
Recovery Girl hums as she takes out her phone and taps a message out. After a moment she shows him a picture of a cake that looks reasonably similar if much less squashed and obviously homemade than the one presented to him by his friends.
“Yeah that looks like it.”
“Victorian sponge cake, very classic,” she tells him as she types on her phone again, presumably relaying this to one of his students.
“Tell them they don’t need to go out of their way if they don’t have what they need to make it.”
She raises an eyebrow at him.
“Iida is already at the store with a few other students, picking up last minute supplies.”
Aizawa freezes, looking at her with trepidation. His class do not have a good tract record with shopping trips.
“Midnight went along to prevent any incidents.”
He breathes a sigh of relief.
Recovery Girl lets him leave with strict instructions not to over do it. No training, no patrol, no physical hero work. He’s on strict paperwork duty. Plenty of hours between now and the party to catch up on some paperwork. Horrifying.
The first thing he does isn’t paperwork. It’s visit the dorms to pay his fine. He did give his word, after all.
Aizawa opens the door to 1-A’s dorm and finds party prep well underway. The whole class isn’t there but there’s a good number of them dotted about helping Satou with his baking and getting underfoot of Bakugo’s cooking all while Yaoyorozu directs her classmates in decorating the common room for the party. What students aren’t there he assumes are probably out training or with Iida on the last minute party supply run.
He spots Eri helping Sero hang streamers just as she spots him. She drops the roll she’s helping hold and slams into his leg. He huffs, laying a hand on her back.
At the dorms, he finds roughly half the class plus Eri setting up for the delayed party. The other half, he assumes, must be either with Iida or out training.
They swarm him the second they notice him in the doorway, tasks abandoned and occasionally going flying. Eri slams into his leg, he settles a hand on her back with the smallest of smiles sneaking onto his face.
Questions fill the air as his students crowd around. He can hardly tell who asked what or what they even asked.
By the time the crowd of worried students disperses Aizawa is somehow on the couch with tea in one hand, a plate of food in the other, and 700 yen less than he came in with. He blinks, watching his own bewildered expression in the surface of his tea. He lets out a little huff of a laugh and settles back against the cushions. He drinks the tea and eats, watching the mild chaos of his students and Eri preparing for the party.
Streamers are hung in wild twists and curls. balloons are filled and dotted about in colorful bunches. Brightly colored tablecloths are laid out.
He catches sight of one particular pattern and nearly inhales his tea trying to choke back laughter as he recognizes banana mic in all his glory. A closer inspection reveals that all of the tablecloths are various designs from that old "Fruity UA Heroes!" set.
He wants to go take a discrete picture of it to torment Hizashi with later but the just the thought of getting up and walking over is exhausting. His eyes droop and he feels himself listing off to the side. He can’t bring himself to care.
He doesn’t notice the student that slips over and slides the empty cup and plate out of his grasp. Or Eri slip up the stairs to the boys’s side of the dorm. The patter of tiny feet barely reaches him until he feels something soft fall over him.
Aizawa blinks open heavy eye. Eri determinedly arranges a familiar blanket over him. She catches sight of him looking and squirms, looking strangely nervous. He hums softly at her, blinking slowly like she’s one of the nervous street cats he needs to soothe from time to time.
“This is my favorite blanket so Deku said I could borrow it whenever I wanted,” she says, pulling it up over him and tucking it in with tiny hands. She looks up at him, oddly nervous.
“Is that good? You always make sure everyone is comfy. Deku says Recovery Girl’s quirk makes you super tired. I don’t want you to have to do stuff while you’re really tired.”
“Yeah, s’good,” he manages to mumble. Sleep takes him before he can stop to process exactly how embarrassed and touched he wants to be.
He wakes up to soft voices and the sound of a shutter clicking. He grumbles and cracks open an eye. Most of his vision is full of white hair but he can make out Nemuri and Hizashi hovering over him, grins on their faces.
“What?” he grumbles.
“Shh, you’ll wake her,” Hizashi whispers. Aizawa glances down to find Eri curled in his arms, sound asleep. He sits up, smoothly and gently shifting her with him, and stands. A blanket pools around his feet. He blinks down at it. Ah, he thinks with all the airs of a man who knows it’s too late and his doom is already here.
“How many did you take?” he whispers, careful to keep his voice smooth lest he wake Eri.
Nemuri’s lips twitch.
“So many,” Hizashi answers, smug.
“And unless you want to wake Eri there’s nothing you can do about it,” Nemuri adds, waving her phone mockingly.
He gives her a narrow eyed glare but she’s right. They’re both right. He won’t risk waking her. And based off how dark and quiet it is the day is over, his students have finished their party prep, and everyone is asleep. He doesn’t want to wake them up and cause a ruckus, especially not before the party they all worked so hard for.
“… You two live. For now.”
Nemuri sticks her tongue out. Hizashi snickers softly.
Aizawa carries Eri home and puts her to bed before putting himself to bed as well. The next time he wakes up it’s to Eri sitting at the end of the bed, staring at him as she silently and patiently waits for him to wake up in spite of how she’s almost vibrating with excitement.
He manages to contain her long enough to get her clean, fed, and dressed but he isn’t so cruel as to make her wait while he checks in with Recovery Girl. So he puts her in Miro’s capable hands to deliver her to the dorms while he gets his clean bill of health from Recovery Girl.
By some act of cosmic mercy, the party goes off without a hitch.
He eats his cupcakes, ghosts of old friends and all. The kids do party games and somehow manage to convince him to join at least a round or two. The party winds down with a movie marathon. For once Aizawa isn’t the one tucking his class in and turning the TV off. He’s too busy snoring away alongside them.
“He fell asleep too, huh?” Mic says softly. Midnight hums as she snaps a few quick pictures of Aizawa, Eri, and the class slumbering away. Not for blackmail material- well not only for it- but for the memories.
Later will bring tomorrow. And the day after that and the day after that. And every tomorrow will bring new problems. New struggles. New failures and triumphs that don’t always feel like they outweigh them.
New friends. New enemies. New people to grieve. But there will be days like this one too.
Days where sweet cream and strawberries swallow down beside an old grief that doesn’t feel quite so hard to swallow around and doesn’t go down as bitter as it does yesterday.
Today is a celebration. And if tomorrow is an ordeal it will be one Aizawa goes into confident that his students will do all they can to meet it with every intention of coming out of the other side as intact as possible. And if not intact then at least prepared to repair and rebuild as best they can.
And it does.
And they do.