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The highest point of his teaching career, had undoubtedly been, the class of 2024, where he'd had the pain and the great privilege to teach not just the top ten heroes in the making, but the new symbol of peace himself; the number one and number two heroes of Japan. And number five and nine and twenty-three among other ranks.
That ragtag, impossible, infuriating, incandescent group of first-years who had stumbled into his homeroom on trembling legs and left it carrying the weight of a nation on shoulders still growing into their strength.
Midoriya Izuku, who had taken All Might’s torch and somehow made it burn brighter, steadier, kinder, until the world no longer needed a single unshakeable pillar because a generation had learned to stand together as one.
The highest point of his personal life had also come in those years, and he had realised that along with a teacher, he had become many, many other things. Things that he never been arrogant enough, ambitious enough to imagine himself occupying, let alone deserving.
Teaching them had changed him just as thoroughly as he had changed them, because somewhere in those years he had realized that he had become a steady presence in hospital waiting rooms, a late-night phone call answered without question, a silent witness to grief that had no proper words, a figure who stood behind them at press conferences not to be seen but to be there, anchoring them with nothing more than the certainty that someone older was still looking after them.
He had always been, a keeper of secrets, of fears spoken only in the small hours when bravado failed, of doubts whispered by voices that would later command crowds, and he carried those confessions carefully, never mistaking them for weakness, because he had seen what it cost to keep moving forward while the world demanded perfection and gratitude in equal measure, and he knew already that his task had never been to mold them into heroes so much as to ensure they survived becoming them.
Aizawa had not entered the profession with any illusions about shaping futures in neat, inspirational arcs, had not believed in speeches or shining moments where a single sentence changed everything.
What he believed in instead were margins, the thin lines between disaster and survival, the fraction of a second where a student hesitated and chose not to leap, not to fight or not to give up, and he understood that his job was to stand there in that fraction of a second, exhausted and unglamorous and unthanked, and make sure the ground did not vanish beneath their feet.
To be a teacher, to Aizawa, was to watch constantly. Eyes always open even when his body begged for rest, noting the way a child flinched when praised, the way another burned too bright and too fast, the way fear wore different disguises depending on who was carrying it, and to respond sometimes with gentleness, with cruelty, with the deliberate restraint of someone who knew that pushing too hard broke things and holding too loosely let them fall apart, and so he learned to balance on that narrow edge where concern sometimes sounded like irritation.
Every year, students passed through him like weather, loud and sudden and gone before he could name all the changes they’d carved into him, and still he stayed, stayed even after the losses that taught him what it meant to fail someone in ways that could never be fixed, stayed because leaving would have meant admitting that the risk was no longer worth it, and Aizawa had never been able to accept a world where the answer was to look away.
Teaching meant remembering names long after faces blurred, meant adjusting lesson plans not for the curriculum but for the quiet kid in the back who hadn’t slept, meant learning how to say live without saying it at all, meant trusting that even if they cursed his methods and rolled their eyes at his rules, something would lodge itself inside them anyway—an instinct, a warning, a stubborn refusal to die, and that, he thought, on the nights when the building was empty and the lights were low and his scarf lay slack around his neck, was enough to justify everything.
Yet, beneath the stoic facade that earned him the moniker of Eraser Head, Aizawa carried the echoes of his own formative years, memories of a time when he too had been a student grappling with the isolation of an unconventional quirk, the sting of societal dismissal pushing him toward underground heroism, and it was this personal odyssey that infused his pedagogy with authenticity, transforming lectures on quirk ethics into profound dialogues on identity and purpose, where he encouraged his charges to embrace their uniqueness not as a weapon but as a beacon, reminding them that the essence of teaching—and indeed, of living as a hero—was to illuminate the darkness in others' paths even as one's own remained shrouded, a selfless cycle that, in its quiet profundity, made every weary step worthwhile.
As the seasons cycled through the school's rhythm, spring bringing fresh-faced entrants wide-eyed with ambition, summer forging their mettle in the heat of internships, autumn scattering leaves like forgotten regrets, and winter cloaking everything in introspective silence—Aizawa's life became an unending vigil, his apartment a sparse refuge where he collapsed into fitful sleep only to awaken with thoughts of his students invading his dreams, pondering how to shield them from the villains who lurked not just in the streets but within the corrupt crevices of hero society itself, for to him, teaching was the ultimate act of defiance against a world that commodified heroism, a way to sculpt a new generation that valued integrity over idolization, empathy over ego, and in those long, contemplative nights, he found a quiet beauty in the burden, knowing that each scolding, each erased quirk in training, each rare nod of approval was a brushstroke in the masterpiece of their futures.
Or so he liked to think atleast.
Then came Bakugou Katsuki and Midoriya Izuku, and Aizawa noticed right away that these two were different. Well, Midoriya, because he was All Might's legacy but Bakugou Katsuki was something else entirely.
Aizawa had rarely encountered a student whose raw ability felt so innate that you couldn't help but believe that some people truly were chosen ones.
To teach them both, Aizawa realized as he erased Midoriya's quirk mid-leap to force adaptation and barked at Bakugou to stop treating every exercise like a declaration of war, was to walk a knife's edge between nurturing incomparable gifts and safeguarding the fragile humanity beneath— one boy learning to wield a godlike inheritance without losing himself to it, the other burning so brightly he risked incinerating everything in his path, including his own future.
Aizawa knew these two, in their starkly divergent yet profoundly intertwined ways, would demand more from him than any class before, testing not just their limits but his own unwavering belief that even the sharpest blade and the brightest flame could be forged into heroes who destroyed rather than saved.
The first time Aizawa assigned them a partnered exercise, expecting explosions and tension and perhaps light property damage, he instead got Bakugou bristling at the entire class before announcing, “We already work together. Don’t slow us down,” and then proceeding to execute the cleanest, most efficient maneuver Aizawa had seen all semester, Midoriya narrating strategy under his breath while Bakugou adjusted on instinct alone, like they were sharing a single brain cell and had long ago agreed on visitation rights.
During lectures, Bakugou pretended not to listen—feet kicked up, expression sharp with boredom—but Aizawa clocked how he corrected Midoriya’s notes without looking, how he slid his own notebook across the desk when Midoriya realized he’d missed a point, how he scowled viciously at Kaminari for leaning too close and distracting him, only to immediately soften when Midoriya whispered a flustered apology that made absolutely no sense in context, because Bakugou Katsuki, apparently, was capable of gentle things as long as no one acknowledged them directly.
Once, when Aizawa called on Midoriya unexpectedly, the boy froze mid-thought, spiraling visibly, and before Aizawa could even intervene, Bakugou kicked his chair and hissed, “Oi. You know this. Start from the second example,” and Midoriya did, grounding instantly, delivering a precise answer while Bakugou nodded like a proud menace, and Aizawa made a note to himself that whatever this dynamic was, it worked far better than fear ever had.
There were smaller moments too, ridiculous ones: Bakugou showing up late because Midoriya had forgotten his lunch and Bakugou “wasn’t letting him starve, dumbass,” Midoriya falling asleep during study hall only to wake up with Bakugou’s jacket draped over him and Bakugou aggressively denying it while tugging the sleeves tighter, Bakugou asking exactly one question per class—always the hardest one—then glancing at Midoriya like he expected praise, which he inevitably got in the form of bright eyes and whispered enthusiasm that made Bakugou sit a little straighter.
Aizawa never commented on any of it, because teaching had taught him when to interfere and when to let things be, and this—this strange, lopsided tenderness wrapped in explosions and muttered insults—was not something to disrupt, especially when it resulted in two boys who watched each other’s backs without hesitation, who learned faster together than apart, who trusted so completely it bordered on reckless faith.
It became glaringly, inescapably obvious to anyone with functioning eyesight—and perhaps even to a few whose vision was quirk-enhanced—that Bakugou Katsuki and Midoriya Izuku were no longer merely best friends who occasionally held hands under desks or caught each other mid-air like it was choreographed; they were a couple.
By the time the first-year training camp rolled around—a multi-class joint exercise held at a remote mountain facility—Aizawa had already fielded three separate, awkwardly phrased questions from other teachers (“Are those two… official?” “Should we be scheduling separate rooms?” “Do we need to prepare a talk about appropriate hero conduct?”), and he had answered each with the same flat, world-weary monotone: “They’re teenagers. They’re idiots. They’re also stupidly stubborn. Handle it like you would any other hormonal disaster waiting to happen.”
Privately, he had hoped it would work.
When room assignments were handed out, Aizawa made sure—very publicly, very deliberately—that Bakugou and Midoriya were placed on opposite ends of the long dormitory hallway, separated by no fewer than six other students and two emergency exits. He announced it during the pre-camp briefing with all the ceremony of reading a grocery list.
“Bakugou, room 108. Midoriya, room 127. No ‘accidentally’ getting lost on your way to the communal bathroom at 2 a.m. I will know. I always know.”
Midoriya turned the approximate color of a traffic light and stammered something about respecting boundaries and professional conduct.
Aizawa didn't know if the boy was being genuine. But regardless, he was aware of the sheer power Bakugou had on him and despite Midoriya's personal ideals about not breaking rules, in the company of Bakugou Katsuki, he would. Anyone would.
That first night, he patrolled the hallways himself—mostly because Principal Nezu had raised one furry eyebrow and suggested “preventative maintenance” in that singsong way of his—and sure enough, around 1:17 a.m., he rounded the corner to find Bakugou leaning against the doorframe of room 127 in nothing but sweatpants and a scowl, one arm braced above Midoriya’s head while the green-haired boy peeked out, hair sleep-rumpled and eyes wide.
“Sensei!” Midoriya yelped, yanking the door almost closed behind him.
“Tch. We were just talking.”
“Through a closed door?” Aizawa drawled, capture weapon already uncoiling slightly from his shoulders like a sleepy snake. “At one in the morning. In your pajamas?”
Aizawa stared at them both for a long, exhausted moment, as the boys came up with increasingly dumb excusees.
Then he sighed—the deepest, most bone-weary sigh in his considerable repertoire—and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Five minutes,” he said finally. “You get five more minutes of ‘terrain analysis.’ After that, Bakugou returns to 108 under his own power, or I drag him there myself. And if I catch either of you attempting to climb through windows, scale balconies, or bribe any of your classmates to switch rooms, I will personally assign you both to kitchen duty with Lunch Rush for the rest of the camp. Every. Single. Meal.”
“Five minutes,” Bakugou repeated, already stepping inside and nudging the door mostly shut behind him. “Got it, hobo.”
“Four minutes now,” Aizawa corrected, turning on his heel.
He didn’t go far.
As he pushed Bakugou out of the other boy's room, he sort of felt bad. He remembered what it was like to be a teenager and in love and how he hated the obstacles he had to face. Occasionally, he decided, occasionally he will turn a blind eye.
Aizawa waited until Bakugou disappeared around the corner, then looked at Midoriya.
“Door closed. Lights out. Sleep.”
“Yes, Sensei,” Midoriya said meekly, already retreating.
Aizawa turned a blind eye because he knew the difference between discipline and cruelty, because he had learned that some bonds did not weaken focus but sharpened it, and because every time he considered cracking down harder, he remembered what it was like to lose people who had anchored you to the world, and how foolish it was to demand distance for the sake of appearances alone.
Being tired or losing sleep for a few days never did hurt anyone after all.
Besides, he was pretty certain All Might was fully aware—the man was a terrible liar—that those two shared a room every other night and the man let them. Aizawa needs to be the strict one, so he still scolded them, of course, habit was difficult to unlearn after all, and still reminded them of boundaries in the clipped, joyless tone of a man doing his due diligence, but when he passed by and heard muted conversation through thin hotel walls, or saw Bakugou wordlessly pulling Midoriya closer during a late-night briefing, he did not stop, did not intervene, did not pretend he was unaware.
Teaching, Aizawa had learned, was not about enforcing every rule to the letter, but about knowing which ones could bend without breaking the people they were meant to protect, and with Bakugou Katsuki and Midoriya Izuku, he chose intentioanlly, to let them hold on to each other, because some lessons were better learned through trust than control.
One time—mostly to amuse himself, and partly because long years of teaching had taught him exactly where harmless chaos lived—Aizawa decided to comment on Midoriya’s fashion sense when the boy came up to submit his work, hovering politely at the edge of the desk like he might evaporate if acknowledged too directly, green scarf wrapped carefully around his neck despite the room being perfectly warm.
“I see you like my style,” Aizawa said casually, eyes flicking with deliberate slowness to the scarf, then back to Midoriya’s face, where the reaction was immediate and spectacular.
Midoriya's eyes widened to cartoonish proportions, freckles standing out starkly against the sudden tidal wave of red that flooded his face from collarbone to hairline. The stack of papers on the desk seemed to be the only thing keeping him upright as he opened and closed his mouth like a particularly flustered goldfish.
The words dissolved into a high-pitched squeak that trailed off into something completely unintelligible, a rapid mumble of apologies and explanations that sounded like gibberish.
Aizawa leaned back slightly, crossing his arms, the smirk deepening into something almost fond. The boy was adorable, really—nineteen kinds of earnest, ridiculously easy to fluster under very specific circumstances, namely anything involving All Might or Aizawa himself, and yet capable of staring down villains without blinking twice. It was only in moments like this, when the armor of composure cracked under something as innocuous as mild teasing, that Aizawa allowed himself the petty pleasure of poking just a little harder.
Midoriya backed away slowly, still beet-red, clutching the ends of the scarf like a lifeline. "Thank you for grading my paper, Sensei! I'll—just—go now!"
Aizawa watched him go, then glanced down at his own 'scarf' not identical in function and not in exact shade, and allowed himself one quiet, private huff of amusement.
The kid was too easy.
Did he think Aizawa himself in his teenage years, hadn't used his scarf to hide a hickey or two?
"You two. Stop making eyes at each other during attendance. It's distracting the rest of the class, and frankly, it's distracting me from my nap—I mean, from educating you."
Bakugou's head whipped around so fast his spiky hair nearly created its own sonic boom. "We weren't—! Tch, what the hell are you even talking about, you hobo-looking bastard?!"
Midoriya's face achieved a new shade of crimson previously undocumented in color theory. "Kacchan! Don't call Aizawa-sensei that! And we weren't—we were just—um—discussing strategy! For the upcoming practical!"
The class collectively held its breath; Kirishima whispered "manly" under his breath in awe, while Kaminari mouthed "they're so busted" to Jirou.
Bakugou crossed his arms, scowling with the force of a thousand suns, yet his ears remained traitorously pink. "Mind your damn business, teach. Maybe if you slept more than three hours a week you wouldn't hallucinate crap."
"I sleep exactly as much as required to keep you idiots alive," Aizawa countered without missing a beat, "which, judging by how often one of you tries to carry the other bridal-style out of training, is apparently not enough. Midoriya, last week you nearly concussed yourself doing a flip you didn't need to do. If I have to witness one more slow-motion hero-romance catch from Bakugou, I'm assigning you both individual quirk counseling with Hound Dog. Separately. For a month."
He turned around signalling the end of their little 'argument' and curled into his sleeping bag as the students worked on their respective worksheets.
As he slept rolled halfway into his sleeping bag, scarf bunched under his chin and one eye open he took note of the other couple in class.
Kirishima Eijirou and Ashido Mina.
He had only a handful of words to describe them, sharp and unsparing even in the privacy of his own thoughts: loud. vulgar. very likely to fail—if not their classes, then at least the delicate art of subtlety, and definitely in their premature relationship.
Unlike Bakugou and Midoriya, whose relationship had settled into something almost disarmingly calm, and strangely stabilizing, this one screamed teenage romance in neon letters three meters high.
Kirishima was overly friendly to a fault, the kind of boy who got enamored by anyone with a pulse and a dream, his shark-toothed grin disarming villains and classmates alike; Ashido was simply too brilliant, too kinetic, too acid-bright to stay tethered in one place for long, her laughter ringing like shattering glass and her every movement leaving imaginary trails of pink sparkles and half-formed dance steps.
Together they were amplification incarnate. They were optimistic to a fault, both of them, painfully loud even when separated, always encouraging each other on in a feedback loop of enthusiasm that turned routine drills into impromptu parties, and somehow worse together, spurring each other on into ever greater chaos, louder laughs, bolder dares, less clothing, more skin, more noise, more everything, and while neither of them individually matched Bakugou Katsuki’s capacity for loudness, they also lacked what Bakugou had—Midoriya’s steadying presence, that quiet counterbalance—because together Bakugou and Midoriya became a rather quiet couple, while Kirishima and Ashido amplified each other until the room itself seemed to vibrate.
They were vulgar, too, unapologetically so, both of them opting for the least amount of fabric possible at all times, and Aizawa found himself idly wondering—staring at the ceiling through half-lidded eyes—how much of that was a genuine fashion choice and how much of it was a constant reaching outward, a need to be seen, validated, admired, anchored by attention, and he suspected the answer was an uncomfortable mixture of both.
It reminded him of an argument he’d had not long ago with another teacher, one that had escalated far more quickly than necessary, about Ashido’s outfits being “distracting,” a word that had immediately set his teeth on edge.
“Distracting who,” Aizawa had asked hotly, and without bothering to soften his tone, because he already knew the answer would irritate him, and when the vague gesture toward the class came, he had shut it down just as flatly. “Don’t tell me it’s distracting the class sensei, because it isn’t.”
And it wasn’t.
The students were decent. Good, even. Save for Mineta, of course—but Mineta would have been distracted by the mere presence of a feminine boy, so he didn’t count, and Aizawa refused to tailor policy around a problem child’s inability to behave like a human being. Kaminari, admittedly, became wayward when seated next to Mineta, a fact Aizawa had addressed with what he considered elegant efficiency by ensuring they were always placed on opposite teams, opposite sides of rooms, opposite ends of any given activity, because Mineta was a bad influence on the dunce and Aizawa did not believe in letting bad habits breed unchecked.
The other teacher had sputtered something about professionalism; Aizawa had simply stared until the man backed down.
From inside his sleeping bag, Aizawa listened to the pair pass by the open door—Ashido's bright cackle followed by Kirishima's booming "Yeah, babe, let's acid-punch the vending machine again!"—and felt the familiar twinge of resigned amusement.
He wasn't plotting their downfall. Relationships like theirs burned hot and fast, often crashing spectacularly before senior year, but they weren't his to sabotage. They were just... louder. Less likely to survive the long grind of hero work without learning control.
With that thought, Aizawa Shouta let himself sleep, one eye closed at last, trusting that morning would bring noise, chaos, and students exactly as they were—and that, somehow, he would keep them all alive anyway.
He noticed, dimly and with the mild irritation reserved for patterns forming where none had existed before, that Uraraka and Tsuyu were also wearing scarves, not his exactly but close enough in spirit to make something behind his eyes tighten, and he wondered—briefly, reflexively—why, before the answer presented itself with almost embarrassing clarity the moment he caught Uraraka’s not-so-secret glances slipping toward Midoriya, soft and hopeful and entirely unsubtle to anyone who had ever once been young.
Ah, he thought. That.
It was simply a teenage girl trying, adorably, clumsily—to impress a crush. The scarf was camouflage and signal all at once: look at me, I'm cool and composed and maybe a little like the teacher everyone respects, the one who doesn't fluster easily. And Tsuyu, ever the steadfast friend to Uraraka, had joined in he supposed, probably because that's what girls did—things in groups, small acts of solidarity that turned individual crushes into shared adventures, turning "I like this scarf" into "we like these scarves" so no one had to stand alone under the spotlight of potential teasing.
And yet the realization hit him with a faint, alarming thought. If this caught on—if more girls and boys started draping scarves around their necks in some misguided bid to channel Eraser Head coolness—he was going to have a problem. A very visible, very mocking problem. Hypocritically, he thought of the fact that the other teachers would never let it die. Midnight would coo about her "influence" and start wearing coordinating ones just to torment him; Present Mic would probably blast a morning announcement about "the new U.A. uniform accessory inspired by our very own sleepy sensei!"; even Cementoss might quietly start sculpting scarf-shaped statues in the courtyard.
Still, as Midoriya passed by Uraraka's desk and offered a "good morning," and she responded with a flustered wave that nearly knocked her own scarf askew, Aizawa allowed himself one tiny, grudging concession. Atleast Midoriya could somewhat pull it off.
Besides, if the boy ever did master that scarf-tying technique, Aizawa might even compliment him.
Maybe.
Probably not.
But the thought alone was entertaining enough to keep him from immediately napping.
Shouta Aizawa sat beside Midoriya Izuku with the kind of stillness that had once been his only defense against a world that kept trying to take everything he cared about.
The war itself had been nothing to him, merely another long night in a lifetime of long nights during which he had loved fiercely, lost brutally, and learned to stand ready for any cruelty fate could devise because he had made his peace with the idea that anything could be taken from him at any moment, and yet as he stood there watching his two greatest students die in front of him—watching light dim behind familiar eyes, watching bodies that had never learned how to stop fighting finally go still, it had suddenly meant everything.
And in that unbearable instant he had wanted to vomit, had wanted to tear his voice apart screaming to the gods, to fate, to anyone at all who might be listening, had wanted to drop to his knees and scream at the indifferent sky that if someone had to be taken then let it be him instead, let it be the man who had already spent his life erasing pieces of himself so others could shine brighter, because there were bargains he would have made without hesitation if anyone had offered.
Miraculously, impossibly, they had all survived.
And in the days and weeks that followed, as bandages yellowed and casts hardened and monitors beeped their monotonous lullabies, Aizawa watched with something like wonder, with the most genuine and unguarded admiration he had felt in years, as the kids picked themselves back up afterward, bruised and broken and stitched together with sheer stubbornness, because even then—especially then—they laughed and complained and argued and refused to stay down, and he learned again, watching Kirishima grin obnoxiously through split lips and make a joke that earned groans from everyone within earshot
Aizawa knew then, with certainity. that there was an enormous amount to learn from the youth of this battered world, that children—when given even the slimmest chance—could do anything, could rebuild not just bones but hope itself.
He felt it then, a surge of protectiveness so fierce it nearly stole his breath as he looked around the crowded hospital room where his entire class had somehow crammed themselves together, some sitting on the floor, some perched on windowsills, some leaning against walls—while their tired parents waited in cars outside, headlights cutting soft yellow paths through the night.
In the middle of that fragile tableau he watched how Katsuki’s crimson eyes never once left Izuku’s face, and how Izuku’s eyes had never once met those eyes directly, and from the bottom of his weary heart Aizawa hoped, with a sincerity he rarely allowed himself, that they would work, that this thing they had forged in fire and forgiveness would hold.
Katsuki, stubborn even in recovery, brought life back into his injured right arm through sheer refusal to let it be useless, and in doing so brought life back into Izuku’s eyes as well, and Aizawa felt himself breathe properly again for the first time since the battlefield when he caught that shy smile on the green eyed boy's face.
They were going to be just fine.
And when Izuku later opened up to him—quietly, haltingly, over bitter hospital coffee as they sat side by side in the dim early hours, Aizawa felt a gratitude so deep it surprised him, because trust like that was not given lightly, and he accepted it the only way he knew how, by listening, by staying, and by carrying yet another piece of his students with him as he always had.
“Drink your coffee, Problem Child. It’s getting cold.”
Izuku squinted down at it. “You know, you used to actively prevent us from drinking these, Sensei.”
“Fighting a war grants you certain privileges,” he replied dryly, lifting his own cup in a mock toast before taking another deliberate sip, as though daring the brew to offend him further. “Consider this my gift. One terrible cup of victory sludge at a time.”
Izuku laughed.
“Gee,” he said, blowing on the surface of the coffee, “I wonder how many wars it’ll take for you to sit in a bar like this and let us drink alcohol.”
Aizawa glared at him playfully. “I know you all already have, so stop trying to fool me.”
Izuku’s eyes widened comically, freckles standing out against the sudden rush of color that flooded his face.
“This is bait,” he accused, pointing an accusatory finger with his good hand. “You’re baiting me into confessing something incriminating so you can hold it over our heads for the next decade.”
Aizawa shook his head, and—miracle of miracles—a soft, genuine chuckle escaped him.
“Do you really think Kotaharu only started selling vodka to teenagers when your class showed up at his izakaya?” he asked, leaning back in the chair until it creaked in protest.
Izuku’s mouth fell open. It didn’t seem possible, but his eyes widened even further, green irises practically swallowing the pupils.
“No way, Sensei! You—wait—you got your alcohol from Kotaharu too?!”
“Not too,” Aizawa corrected, rather haughtily, rather childishly, “Kotaharu only started selling because Oboro convinced him to.”
Izuku gasped, one hand flying to his chest. “A trailblazer.”
“A menace,” Aizawa replied.
“We thank you for your services,” Izuku said solemnly, bowing his head just enough to be ridiculous.
Aizawa snorted into his coffee.
“Truly. The underground heroes owe you a medal. Or at least a lifetime supply of decent coffee.”
“Don’t get sentimental on me now, Problem Child. You’re still on thin ice for that time you tried to ‘borrow’ my capture weapon to impress a third-year patrol group.”
Izuku winced, but the grin refused to leave his face.
“In my defense, it was for science. And I returned it. Mostly untangled.”
“Mostly,” Aizawa echoed, deadpan. He set his empty cup on the side table, then glanced toward the door where the hallway lights had dimmed to a sleepy gold. “Bakugou will be back any minute with whatever vending-machine contraband he’s managed to extort from the machine. If he catches you looking this smug, he’ll assume you’ve been plotting against him again.”
Izuku’s expression turned soft, almost shy.
“How are you two?” Aizawa found himself asking.
“Kacchan's good,” he said, looking down at his cup. “He's a bit of a mother hen sometimes, always watching me.”
“Good,” Aizawa said simply. “Because if he ever stops watching you like that, I’ll have to start worrying. And I’m retired from worrying.”
Izuku’s smile was small, luminous, the kind that had once lit up battlefields and now simply lit up the room.
“Thank you, Sensei. For… everything.”
Aizawa looked away.
“Don’t thank me,” he muttered. “Just let me attend your wedding in a capture scarf and a sleeping bag. I hate suits.”
Izuku laughed, the sound startled out of him, warm and unguarded. “I wanted to ask Yamada-sensei to officiate it.”
Aizawa’s eyebrows shot upward before he could school his expression.
Izuku kept going, voice gentle but steady now. “Back when we faced Shigaraki—right in the middle of everything falling apart—I kept thinking that if we somehow made it through, if there was ever going to be an after, I wanted Hizashi-sensei to be the one to marry us.”
“He would love to,” Aizawa said automatically, and then paused, surprised at himself, because he had expected the words to feel indulgent or unrealistic, expected to brush it off as teenagers speaking into the dark, but instead he found himself taking Izuku seriously, the way he always had when it mattered, because Izuku did not speak lightly when it came to promises he meant to keep.
“I almost said it out loud then. I thought it was my last chance to ask.”
Aizawa felt a strange hollowness in his heart, hearing those words. “Are you okay?”
“No,” Izuku said immediately, shaking his head, the honesty in it raw and unpolished. “Every night,” he continued, voice trembling despite his best efforts, “Kacchan’s body comes back to me, exactly how it looked, and the blood—” He swallowed hard. “How do you do it, Sensei? How do you—”
Aizawa didn’t answer right away. Instead he reached out, placed one calloused hand carefully on Izuku’s knee, grounding, steady. Then, after a heartbeat, he slid his other arm around the boy’s shaking shoulders and pulled him in. “Oh, child,” he murmured, the words slipping out softer than he ever let them in daylight. “My dear boy.” He rubbed slow, firm circles across Izuku’s back, the same way he had once done for a much smaller problem child who had cried himself raw after his first real failure in training. “It will be okay. I promise you that much.”
“He was dead, Sensei.”
Aizawa only nodded. He remembered that day in perfect, merciless detail, the exact second he had watched his number on pupil, his star student, fall in battle, and knowing—knowing—there was nothing he could do but witness.
He eased back just enough to cup Izuku’s face with both hands and brush the tears away with calloused thumbs. In those wide, glistening green eyes he saw his own grief mirrored back at him.
“He fought beautifully,” Aizawa said quietly.
“Of course he did,” Izuku breathed, a broken little laugh escaping. “It’s Kacchan.”
A long silence settled between them. Then Izuku spoke again, smaller this time. “Will you tell me what happened sensei? The therapist keeps saying I shouldn’t watch the footage—not yet, maybe not ever—and honestly I don’t think I could handle seeing it anyway. But I need to know… I need to know what happened. Please.”
Aizawa exhaled through his nose. “Your Kacchan stormed the field like he always does. He was the only one in the strike team who managed to close the distance and go one-on-one with Tomura Shigaraki. His goal was never to win. It was to stall for you to arrive. That’s why he went in so recklessly.”
Izuku’s eyes filled with tears. “He must have hated it so much,” he whispered. “He hates waiting. He hates feeling powerless.”
“Your name,” Aizawa said, voice steady despite the memory pressing in, “was the last thing he said.”
Izuku’s eyes squeezed shut as if in pain.
“I can’t imagine what he felt like,” Izuku said, voice cracking open. “I can’t even imagine it without breaking.”
“Then ask him.”
Izuku shook his head immediately. “I can’t,” he said, pained. “If it hurts this much for me to think about it, I can’t ask him to relive that day.”
“Has he tried to talk about it himself?” Aizawa cut in gently. “Has he come to you?”
Izuku looked down at his scarred hands. “He doesn’t know I saw him.”
“Oh.”
“I feel like I failed him sensei.” Izuku wasn't crying, which made Aizawa feel strange, because not too long ago the boy would've been a crying mess, and just what had the war done to this poor boy?
“Kacchan was always there when I needed him and the one time... the one time he...”
“Hey, hey no. Cut that out.” Aizawa said sternly. “Izuku, it is not your fault. He is alive now. That is all that matters.”
They were silent for a few more minutes before Izuku's breathing evened out.
Izuku swallowed hard, then managed a small, trembling smile.
“Will you really come to the wedding in a sleeping bag?”
Aizawa did not, in the end, arrive at the wedding in a sleeping bag—though the temptation had lingered like a half-formed protest right up until the moment he stood before the full-length mirror in his sparse apartment, staring at the unfamiliar reflection of a man who had somehow been convinced, cajoled, and outright bribed into looking presentable.
Much to his quiet dismay, Hizashi—Yamada Hizashi, Present Mic in all his radiant, golden-haired glory had intervened early and loudly and with far too much enthusiasm, emerging dressed rather offensively well in something Aizawa only knew was expensive because when he checked the label—purely out of spite—he blanched at Christian Dior and refused to comment further.
The blond had grinned like a cat with cream when he caught Aizawa’s expression, twirling once with exaggerated flair and declaring, “Only the best for officiating the wedding of the century, Sho! Gotta look the part when I’m marrying our problem children!”
Aizawa did not dignify that with a reply, choosing instead to shave properly for once with a real golden razor courtesy of Yaoyorozu Momo, a birthday gift; deciding that perhaps looking a little younger was not such a crime when age had begun to make itself known in stiff joints and slower mornings, and tying his hair back carefully, pinning loose strands away with strange little silver clips gifted by the other girls— yet another birthday gift.
He wrapped himself in the new capture weapon Katsuki and Izuku had commissioned Hatsume Mei to design for him—sleeker, smarter, absurdly over-engineered in ways he pretended to resent and secretly admired—feeling its familiar weight settle around his shoulders. He removed it as he finally joined Hizashi beneath the warm spray of the shower, steam fogging the mirror and he allowed himself a small, private smile, because standing there, clean-shaven and clipped together by gifts and patience and years he never thought he would live through, he realized he was surrounded completely by the love of his students.
“They’re waiting for us. Our boys are waiting for us to make it official.”
Aizawa glanced at their reflections one last time, two men who had survived too much, loved too quietly, and somehow ended up here, dressed in finery gifted by children who refused to let them fade into the background.
He reached out, curled his fingers around Hizashi’s wrist, and squeezed.
“Let’s go marry them, then.”
Hizashi laughed, soft, bright, the sound that had always been Aizawa’s favorite alarm clock and together they stepped out of the apartment, into the late-afternoon sun, surrounded not just by the love of their students but by the certainty that this time, when the world tried to take something from them, they would all be standing shoulder to shoulder to keep it safe.
He wrapped his new designer capture weapon tighter around him. While he was not allowed to go in a sleeping bag, there had been a compromise.
After all, what was he without his iconic scarf?
The late-spring garden venue sprawling beneath a canopy of blooming cherry trees whose petals drifted lazily onto the white aisle like confetti thrown by the sky itself, and as Aizawa took his seat among the rows of folding chairs draped in soft ivory linen, he allowed himself a single, quiet moment to simply breathe it all in.
The wedding was beautiful, in the way that mattered, in the way that settled into the chest rather than dazzling the eyes, though it certainly did plenty of that too, because the girls—and a few of the guys, to Aizawa’s quiet surprise—were dressed in fine dresses that moved like water when they laughed, and although he strongly suspected, judging by Kaminari’s pale face and unsteady gait as he tottered past in heels far too ambitious for his balance, that the poor man had lost a bet.
The others seemed perfectly comfortable, radiant even, in their dresses, turning what could have been awkward into something joyful and unapologetically themselves.
He wondered whose idea it was (because while Katsuki was a menace, Izuku too had a wicked sense of humour) to put the men in bridesmaid dresses, but he thought it made the whole event rather memorable.
Izuku had told him once, months ago during one of their late-night hospital talks that had stretched into dawn, “I always dreamt of a large wedding, Sensei—something big enough that everyone who ever believed in us could be there, so no one feels left out,” and now, surveying the sea of familiar faces—Class 1-A scattered among pro heroes, former teachers, civilians they had saved, even a few reformed villains who had quietly rebuilt their lives—Aizawa nodded to himself, satisfied. Well, the boy had definitely accomplished that; the garden overflowed with laughter and murmured greetings, with old rivalries softened into handshakes and children who had once been students now standing tall as adults who had carried the world and set it gently back down.
Katsuki had grumbled to him separately, arms crossed and scowl firmly in place, “Large weddings are tacky as hell, old man—too many people, too much noise—but I want ours to be glamorous, you know? Something that says we made it, that we’re not just survivors, we’re winners.” Aizawa had smiled then and thought how much he loved seeing his students act like children sometimes, petty and dreamy and young in the ways war had tried so hard to steal from them; they had grown up far too soon, but here, in this sun-dappled moment, they were allowed to be gloriously, unashamedly twenty-something and in love.
He sat down next to Uraraka, who was already dabbing at her eyes with a lace handkerchief, cheeks flushed and lower lip trembling. “I just hope he doesn’t trip,” she sniffed, voice thick with happy tears.
“Izuku’s been practicing his walk all week.”
Aizawa let a rare, genuine smile curve his mouth.
“He tripped three times during the rehearsal,” she told him quietly. “Once because he got distracted waving at his mother, once because Kacchan yelled that sex toys were-" she gasped as she realised who she was talking to and re-directed. "And once because he tried to do a little spin for dramatic effect and nearly face-planted into All Might’s lap.”
Uraraka snorted a laugh through her tears, then looked up at him properly, eyes widening.
“Wow, Sensei,” she said. “You look very smart.”
“Christian Dior,” Aizawa replied drily.
Uraraka snorted, shoulders shaking.
“It's very expensive, did you know that?”
She giggled again, wiping her eyes again, and for a few minutes they traded more anecdotes about the disastrous preparations—the cake tasting that ended in a frosting fight, the time Izuku tried to “help” with the seating chart and nearly started a war over who sat next to whom, the midnight panic when Izuku woke up thinking he’d forgotten to write his vows and Aizawa found himself relaxing in his very expensive suit.
Uraraka's lavender bridesmaid dress caught the last of the sunlight in soft, shimmering waves, and her cheeks were still flushed from laughter and perhaps one too many toasts, but what truly arrested Aizawa was the way she looked at Izuku.
The silly childhood crush that had once colored her every glance toward him with shy, hopeful pink was gone, and now she looked at the man the way almost every other person in the world did: with open admiration.
Aizawa felt the corner of his mouth lift, a small, private smile that no one else would notice amid the celebration.
She had grown into a fine hero herself.
Number nine in the rankings now, yes, but more than that: the woman who had once worried about money for her parents’ home had built programs that lifted entire communities off the ground—literally and figuratively—using her quirk to rebuild what disasters tore down, turning zero gravity into zero excuses for giving up. She mentored younger heroes with the same gentle determination she had once used to keep herself afloat, and she did it all without ever losing the warmth that had made her the heart of Class 1-A from the very first day.
The war had taken so much, but it had not taken this: the ability of his students to look at one another with love that had evolved beyond possession into something purer, something shared, something that made the world feel a little less broken.
He watched Uraraka wipe a stray tear from her cheek with the back of her hand, then laugh softly at whatever Kirishima had just shouted across the floor, and felt that familiar swell of quiet pride settle deep in his chest.
They had all grown into fine heroes.
And somehow—against every odd stacked against them—they had also grown into fine people.
When the music began, soft strings swelling into something triumphant yet tender, he stood with the rest of the guests, and already he felt the telltale sting behind his eyes, the prickle that warned tears were coming whether he liked it or not.
There was not even a hint of annoyance on Katsuki’s face today; the man stood at the altar in a sleek black tuxedo edged with crimson embroidery that echoed his explosions, hair still spiked but somehow softer in the golden light, and every line of him radiated nothing but soft smiles, unguarded adoration, as though the man were temporarily incapable of anything else, the kind of expression Aizawa had once thought impossible on that angry boy who had stormed into his classroom all those years ago.
Izuku took his place beside him moments later, white suit with green accents, freckles standing out against flushed cheeks, eyes shining so brightly they could have lit the entire garden—and the ceremony began.
Katsuki, it turned out, was a poet, and Aizawa wasn’t really surprised considering how often he had caught the boy with dog-eared copies of Dazai Osamu tucked into his hero bag, but to hear him wield those words in front of a gathering was breathtaking, and Izuku, who had always been wonderful with language in his own earnest, devastating way, answered with vows that pulled tears freely from the room, until Aizawa’s napkin was completely soaked and he’d given up pretending otherwise. Around him, sniffles rose in a gentle chorus, Kirishima openly sobbing into Ashido’s shoulder, Uraraka clutching Tsuyu’s hand, even Todoroki’s eyes suspiciously glassy.
They were the first in their class to get married after all.
Then Aizawa watched the love of his life—Hizashi, resplendent and beaming—step forward, voice ringing out with theatrical joy that somehow managed to be perfectly sincere: “And you may now kiss the groom!” The crowd erupted in cheers as Katsuki cupped Izuku’s face with both hands revrently, and kissed him like the world had just been given back to them, slow and deep and unhurried, petals raining down around them like blessings.
Aizawa felt the swell of happiness in his chest expand until it hurt.
His students—his boys—had made it. They had survived, they had loved, they had built something beautiful out of the ashes, and now they stood together under cherry blossoms, married, alive, whole.
He wiped his eyes one last time, tucked the ruined napkin into his pocket, and rose to join the receiving line, the new capture weapon draped across his shoulders like a quiet promise that he, too, had been part of this miracle.
He had not dreamed of this, had not reached for it, had not believed himself worthy of such proximity to greatness, and yet it had found him anyway, threading itself through his days until he could no longer separate the man he was from the teacher he had been, until the distinction stopped mattering altogether.
If that was the price of caring, Aizawa Shouta thought—lying awake years later with memories heavier than any scarf around his neck, then it had been a price he would pay again, without hesitation.
He adjusted his capture weapon one last time, let his gaze linger on the newlyweds a moment longer, then turned to find Hizashi in the crowd—golden-haired, beaming, already waving him over with exaggerated gestures that promised terrible dancing and worse jokes.
He went without protest.
The night was still young, the music was still playing, and for once, there was nowhere else he needed to be except here, surrounded by the people who had taught him, far more than he had ever taught them—what it meant to keep showing up.
Izuku had found him at the bar later—long after the wedding, long after the photographs had been framed and the suits put away and life had resumed its familiar, relentless forward motion.
“It took only one war after all.”
Aizawa laughed.
“Drinks on me sensei.” Izuku said brightly. “I've always wanted to say that.”
“I hope you stay forever silly, my boy.”
“I had a question sensei.”
“You’re married now, Izuku. You’re allowed to call me Shouta if you want. But go ahead—ask.”
Izuku smiled, small and shy despite everything, then took a breath as though gathering courage for a much larger leap.
How to be a good teacher?
Aizawa did not answer immediately, because it was not a question that respected haste, and instead he returned a week later with a thin, unassuming file slid across the table between them, the tab worn, the corners soft with age, the title typed plainly on the front: Notes from the Back of the Classroom