Chapter Text
They hadn’t seen each other in years, through awkwardness and shame. So, when he met her again he grimaced; she was brash and used him as the punchline for her joke.
Marriage.
The thing they both had every intention of doing until they both let everything get in the way, and couldn’t stop the barriers coming between them. He watched her clown about with that big smile stretched over her face as she introduced her students and greeted his. Aizawa could feel a numbness spreading throughout his body, she joked about what could have been like she wasn't the one making herself sick from the heartbreak. He watched carefully, picking up on every cue that betrayed her pretend strength; even now he still knew when she wasn't being honest with her giggling.
Shouta did find her annoying, he found her crass and publicly too demanding. She seemed to want all eyes on her, which wasn’t really the case because she didn’t revel in the lime light, she just refused to wither under it. He thought she was inconsiderate with her loud jokes that weren’t funny, and he thought it rude that she always tried to get him to laugh at things that weren’t his taste. Emi was a handful, truly. But the dislikes were so minimal, that maybe they were always excuses to stay guarded, because nothing was worse for a Pro Hero than someone who could get to their weaknesses without even picking a fight.
It was a comedic tragedy that he had fallen in love with her, he had no intention of it happening then. He definitely had no intention of it happening again, not now, not when she teased and his students watched.
The curse of being a Pro-Hero was that life would come with joy, but disaster would come three times over. Saving the general public left a lot to be desired and was not without sacrifice. Their fling had blossomed into something quiet and beautiful when they worked at neighbouring agencies; it was like a well watered flower. The time and attention was all that was needed, and it helped that she was the sunshine that wouldn't stifle his growth.
Aizawa's stealth was as damning as Fukukado's precision was chilling. She was cunning through her smiles, he was decoding in the same breath. Missions together were frightening, they played good-cop-bad-cop without even realising that they naturally fell into the roles and trusted each other to play along. Running circles around the villains in the depths of the alleyway's shadows, then in a blink of the eye the culprits were bound and taunted by the bright orange of Ms Joke's bandanna. Her face would be so close to their's that Aizawa had warned her on many occasions that one day someone would try to bite her nose, and she almost dared them to.
There was a manic thirst in her eyes, they would get so close and at the very last second she would activate the quirk. They would panic as the hysteria raced through their bodies and the laughter forced itself from their throats. Hard laughter that dried out the mouth and tightened the lungs. Some would just struggle through their choking and spit in an attempt to breathe, some would cough up blood and that's when Eraserhead would step in to pause her quirk. She would whine, but it was part of their plan, even though he genuinely believed that sometimes she had the perfect skills for a villain.
Emi was still bubbly back then, but much less invasive than some of his colleagues, and as a rational man he picked the lesser of two evils. They spent lunch together, sometimes patrolled with one another and on occasion found themselves spending time with each other outside of hero work.
Whenever he played their time together in his head, he couldn't dismiss the feeling of warmth and comfort. He understood what people meant by love making a house a home, because the more time they spent with each other the more at ease they felt. She became quieter because she learnt that he wouldn't hate her for the moments of silence between them, her whole being had eased into one that was refreshing to her. He couldn't help but smirk at how sardonic she was when she wasn't throwing up a mask of sweetness. He had become softer, and spoke more because he learnt that she needed validation that he had never sought after. They were two parts of the same puzzle, their differences fit together and their opposites clicked.
Their voids couldn't be filled forever, love isn't something heroes have the luxury of experiencing in long bursts; in fact, anything more than lust is a miracle in itself.
The death of comrades made them both hard to reach, Emi and Shouta seemed to be opposites to those who only took them at face value; in some respects that worked in their favour. Emi wasn't as optimistic as her quirk feigned, Shouta wasn't as cynical as his tired scowl seemed. They both struggled to communicate properly, grief didn't make it easier, and no matter how far they had come in understanding each other, they quickly backpedalled when their fears surfaced.
They had both fought to be heroes, to prove that their unconventional quirks were valuable... to prove that they were useful. Loss after loss around them made it harder to stay hopeful, but it also made it harder to hold onto love when they truly believed they would just be risking the other's safety.
They lived with each other but no one knew, and whilst it was nice to have a divide between the business and pleasure, Shouta couldn't deny that it was a pleasure to see Emi in her element. Self-doubt was the biggest villain in their lives, and whilst they tried to persevere, sometimes they couldn't see past the current hardships. Emi in particular couldn't cope with the thought of being too incompetent to save Shouta. Once Emi changed agencies, their team work was limited to the bigger city missions that only called for them to work together when very specific skills during infiltration and interrogation were called for. He was supportive, but that didn't mean there wasn't some tension between them because of how reactive she was with career choices.
Eraserhead loved the reaction on everyone's faces when they saw that the Smile Hero was taking part in a high-risk mission; they didn't mince their words or hide their lack of faith in her ability. He loved how she'd have a saccharine smile as she reminded them how many people prayed to die of laughter, and how that was exactly her forte. He was reminded of the goddess Persephone; sharp and graceful with a power that could restore all that was good, but also destroy with the same hand.
He hated being the butt of the joke, because her humour was a weapon, but the more she spoke the more he learnt it was about her and her own doubts rather than him. She joked about marriage because it was funny and hopeless for any hero to stay pro and have a healthy relationship. She joked about marriage because she had awful luck in matters of love. She joked, because what would he ever see in his polar opposite? Didn’t feeling a magnetic pull to someone who would only hold you at arms length in public mean something other than love?
It was harder to maintain whatever they had between them, the dates were further apart. Even though they lived together, their haphazard working hours became harder to balance. Shouta settled into his night owl ways and Emi became more of an early bird than she knew. They were human, life continued to pull them apart, but they both held on even when the bickering began to taint their relationship.
Especially when Emi took up a teaching role in Ketsubutsu. Aizawa felt his stomach turn, she couldn't even tell him to his face, she told him through text. They'd fallen so far apart that he didn't even realise she was still pursuing a career in teaching. He knew she loved to be around children, but they had talked about having their own, not her becoming an academic surrogate for some strangers. They had two parts of the same heart; both wanting to save to world and be the growing force behind the future generation of heroes, but their dreams were at a fork in the road.
When they were together, they were attached at the hip, as though they were counting down the minutes to their inevitable end. He would let her use her quirk on him, but she wouldn't be so cruel to him, she wouldn't ruin their last tender moments with fake joy. Shouta knew better than to stand in her way, and he refused to take back the ring, because he didn't want it to lose it's meaning and just become another piece of jewellery.
The countdown turned sour when it reached the last hours. She kept the cat and he couldn’t stand it. He kept their favourite blanket and she was fuming. The last argument went too far and was grossly out of both of their natures, they had spent so long protecting each other emotionally and physically that the strain had finally bubbled to the surface and their last day together was bitter, almost vengeful. Had they really spent three years together trying to prove themselves, to prove that heroes were capable of holding onto love in such a dire world, only to be the ones to throw their love out of the window in a screaming match?
Emi packed in angry silence, Shouta helped but not without being ignored or huffed at. She took the first train the next morning. Shouta walked her there even though it looked like she would cry or scream at any moment, but there was no way he wasn't seeing her off after everything they had been through. Bitter or not, he would regret it if he didn't kiss her good bye and he flinched, ready for her to push him away, but the push never came. Selfishly he wondered what would have happened if he asked her to stay, if he had proposed with a plan in sight instead of a vague promise.
Time passed, wounds healed and left their mark. They had texted each other to stay polite. Happy Birthday, Merry Christmas and the inappropriate drunk confession every so often; but they both loved each other enough to refuse to reply. Left on read until it was the next one's turn to send wishes of sentiment and heartache. Oh and it did ache, hearing about each other through Hizashi, who had no intention of cutting ties just because two lovebirds had burnt their nest. When Aizawa expelled a whole class Fukukado had booked a train ticket and had every intention of visiting him to scold him and take him to some sort of teacher counselling. When Emi had a scandal that reached the front page of every hero gossip magazine, Shouta couldn't help but buy every copy he could just to destroy them and save her some face.
But here she was.
In front of him for the first time in more years than he wanted to admit. His body stiff upon hearing a voice that he use to love in the morning, the only good thing about mornings. Her panic forcing her to joke with him, pointing at him in jest and he'd be lying if he said he hadn't noticed his ring amongst the others on her glove. Their students were watching the display on tenterhooks, but they were both above being honest and vulnerable. They had to keep up the facades they'd spent so many years perfecting, part of it was out of complete fear that the other wouldn't be able to say, "I still love you."
But as soon as the students were gone, she forgot herself. Following after him to the stands and reaching for him as they moved through an underpass. She squeezed his hand, to make sure he was still there, but also to remind him that she hadn’t left his side. She remembered the first time he took her hand all those years ago, and how she almost put him off with all the jokes... how he could feel the bundled nerves ricocheting in her body, and right now was no different.
“If we weren't a joke, don’t joke.” He said it so simply that she almost thought he was being harsh; but he was only being fair. All this time she had let her lost love manifest itself in childish teasing, and it turned out it wasn’t unrequited at all. It was still there, desperately buried.