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The world was dark, as if he had woken up in the middle of the night.
The world was dark, but he could still feel the warmth of the sun against his skin.
Aizawa lifted his hands, fingers brushing against the bandages that were wrapped around his eyes. Everything hurt, every fiber of his body ached, a dull throb in his joints, along his spine, behind his eyes. With each beat of his heart he became more aware of the world around him. The sounds that began to fill the room; the sounds of wheels and of rushed voices, of beeps of machinery, and the faint whir of electrical instruments. The smell of antiseptic filled his nose, the sudden rush of oxygen as he breathed in caused him to cough, his head becoming light, foggy, as if his mind was vibrating.
“Shouta?”
That was a voice he recognized, one he would never, could never forget. He made an attempt to reach out to him, his arm would not move. One was immobilized, one was not. It was coming back to him as his awareness increased. The USJ, the League of Villains, his- “Are they okay?”
“They are.”
“Are you?”
“I am.”
“What about Thirteen?”
“Thirteen will be fine.”
Aizawa let out a breath, allowing himself to relax back against the pillows. His students were safe, Toshinori was safe, Thirteen was safe. That was what mattered him. His broken and battered body, his vision, that would all be a plus. In the back of his mind he knew he had pushed himself too hard to protect his students. They were his duty, his responsibility.
It wouldn’t be for several weeks before the bandages were removed. His arm would still remain bandaged for a long period of time, a brace for his bruised spine. And his eyes… The first thing Aizawa saw was Toshinori looking over Recovery Girl’s shoulder at him. The second thing he saw was that his right eye was blurry, completely blurry. He could see shapes, vague outlines and light, but there were no clear features.
Lucky, that was what he told himself that he was by the time he and Toshinori eventually made it home. He was lucky. It could have been significantly worse. It could have been that he would no longer be able to walk, it could have been that he was no longer able to see. Yet he was. The wounds to his body would heal with time, the scars would form and he would be okay with that because it could have been worse. It could have been so much worse.
The marks told the tale, the gashes along his skin, the significant wound under his right eye. There were others still ones he could not see beneath the cast on his arm, or the ones he knew were along his back. Each one was a part of him, as they had been since he was a child. They were reminds of what he had gone through, all the lessons he had learned and proof of his dedication to his students. This was his life, the life of a hero. It was the part of their work few talked about, what happened to the heroes after the battles were over, when there were no cameras.
The cameras did not need to see the pain or the suffering, the cameras did not need to see the quiet moments between family and lovers. All they saw was what they wanted to see, the heroes working hard to save lives and stop the villains. The public was blissfully ignorant of the scars that Aizawa had, though maybe they shouldn’t be. Why should he let the scars stop him from being who he was? The one under his eye was the concern to him, it could signal to villains he was losing his sight.
As he sat on the couch, watching Toshinori in the small kitchenette dodging Smokey the cat as he made tea for the both of them, Aizawa let out a sigh. No, he would not hide the scar. Toshinori had one he hid because it would mean his life. The one under his eye? That was not the case. It was a sign that he had done his duty, and he would do so again. Each day, he would wake up, and he would go to UA. He would be the teacher that his students needed, he would make sure that they understood what it meant to be a hero, what it meant to have those scars.
His fingers touched the scar below his eye. They would have to leave for UA soon, back to the normalcy that came with being a teacher of young heroes. The questions and the glances. His sunglasses were on a shelf, had been for years. How easy it would be for him to reach up and slip them back onto his face. It would be easy for him to do it again, to slip them onto his face but he wouldn’t. No longer would he hide, never again. He had made that promise. His nights were still haunted by the nightmares, his days becoming sluggish, finding it hard to function.
Aizawa refused to let it stop him, refused to let it defeat him. One day at a time, one foot in front of the other. All he had to do was move forward, and one day everything that was meant to happen would happen. There was no trick, no silly set of rules to follow. The scars would heal, the wounds would stitch together on their own time. The bore the lesson that was difficult to remember, but an important one that he was reminded of as he stood up moving into the kitchen to wrap his arms around Toshinori’s waist.
“We’ll be okay,” he whispered to him, his chin resting on his thin shoulder. It was the same phrase that he had said when he was sitting by Toshinori’s hospital bed after the first fight with All for One that had left him so badly wounded there were fears that he would not survive, and by his side for each surgery after that. The scars reminded him that they were alive, that the fought and they fought like hell for what they believed in.
It reminded him, that they were heroes, and that thought alone was enough to help him heal.