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In the gray dawn, Aizawa doesn’t notice the weather. The sky is hazy and the orange street lights reflect off of damp pavement and thick fog. His bones ache as he glares at his alarm clock and drags himself from the warm shelter of his bed, one he’d only fallen into a few hours ago after a long day.
Bitter coffee chases the chill and fatigue away, at least. It’s routine. Habit. The smell fills the kitchen of his dorm room, and he breathes it deeply, a few moments of quiet before be has to enter the lions’ den of class 1A.
It isn’t until the sun rises that any problems come.
The bell hasn’t rung yet, but he sits at his desk, checking his lesson plans and updating any necessary records. It’s only by chance that he glances out the window as his eyes wander, just for a moment, away from his work.
It’s a beautiful day. The sun shines brightly, though the shaking of leaves suggests a breeze that turns the weather somewhat crisp. The sky is a brilliant blue. And that blue contrasts the thick, fluffy clouds that slowly travel across the sky.
Whispy, white clouds. Just far enough apart to imagine separate shapes. Something in expression changes, his typical irritated exhaustion replaced with a nostalgic grief.
“Good morning, sensei!” The loud, authoritative voice of his class president jolts him from his thoughts. His head turns, and he nods towards the boy as he bows deeply, acknowledging both his greeting and the greetings echoes by the students following him. Uraraka punctuates hers with a smile and a wave, while Midoriya echoes Iida’s bow, albeit a much shorter version.
He isn’t caught off guard again, at least, though his eyes keep wandering. Each time he catches himself staring towards the clouds, he curses and insists to himself that he’s going to get blinds put up if he has to buy bedsheets and staple them to the windows himself.
The class slowly fills, both with children and with noise. They bicker, they joke, they laugh. None of that helps him focus. When his gaze drifts to the sky outside, he can hear a loud voice laughing in his ear, just as brash as he remembers.
The bell rings.
The class falls silent and turns their eyes to him. Aizawa sighs, then stands. At least they’re well trained. “Alright. Iida, would you care to give the announcements today?” With a vehement ‘yes sir!’ and a salute, the boy marches to the front of the class.
—-
He hopes that the sky will clear through the day, but it doesn’t. It’s the afternoon now,
and as he leads his class out to the training grounds, Aizawa glances upwards. It’s still a beautiful day outside.
“Alright,” he says, and his voice almost startles himself. The teacher holds one hand out, full of straws. “Everyone pick one, and find the person with the same color. That will be your sparring partner.” At least it’s an easy exercise.
As his students draw straws they chatter excitedly amongst themselves, excited and disappointed in equal measures. They obediently space themselves out in the squares drawn in the dirt. It’s an old exercise, easy. They know it. Go hard, but pull punches to avoid serious injury. Use your Quirk, but not enough to cause real harm.
All he needs to do is pay attention.
Aizawa’s gaze drifts. The clouds drift. He remembers laying on his back in the dirt, before a smiling face appears and offers a hand to him. ‘Keep it up, Shou-chan! You’ll get me this time, I know it!’
A scream cuts through the air, high and shrill and distinct from the typical sounds of heavy breathing and soft thuds and good natured insults.
“Shit.” It takes him a moment to find the source, looking between students as they all turn towards the source of the sound. He’s running before he’s even identified who it is.
“Goddamnit, you son of a bitch!” Bakugou is trying to stand up, but there’s a spot on his calf that’s smoking, presumably too painful to put any weight on. Aizawa can see charred, smoking fabric, and he’s guessing that there’s charred skin under it too. “You’re not supposed to fucking fry me during a goddamn sparring match, fuck!”
Kaminari looks absolutely stricken, frozen as he watches his friend try to brush the injury off. “I’m sorry! I’m really sorry, Bakugou- Aizawa! Sensei, I’m so sorry, I thought he could d-“
“Kaminari- tell Iida to go tell Recovery Girl what happened,” Aizawa says, cutting the kid off. Even as he speaks, he can hear their ever responsible class president kick his engines in and sprint. “I’ll be right behind you.”
“What? I’m not going to the old lady something this stupid!” Bakugou protests. “I don’t-“ He cuts off with an angry sound as Aizawa gently examines the wound to gauge its severity.
Nothing serious. He gently pulls at the burnt fabric and is relieved to find that it hasn’t stuck to the kid’s skin. “It doesn’t look too serious,” he informs Bakugou, politely ignoring how his student swears.
It’s only now that he realizes how harshly he compartmentalized his emotions. He barely even feels concerned for Bakugou, and that in itself is worrying. The world is dull and clinical, tunnel vision hiding the sky from him to avoid any distractions. He should probably care more about the sudden metal trap that’s put itself up, but instead, he pulls Bakugou’s arm around his shoulders.
“Keep your weight off your injured leg,” Aizawa says, then he stands, pulling the student with him. He ducks slightly, just to make it easier, and ignore’s Bakugou’s protests.
“What?! I don’t need you to carry me-“
“I don’t want you putting weight on that until it’s looked at. I don’t know how deep the burn is, and I’m not willing to risk you sustaining a permanent injury because of your pride,” Aizawa interrupts.
Bakugou falls silent, seething as Aizawa instructs the rest of the class to return to the classroom and take a study period until he can find someone to replace him.
—-
It was a first degree burn. Nothing serious, but Aizawa still kicks himself as he sits on the rooftop and watches the sky stain those white clouds orange. He takes a deep breath and holds it, letting cigarette smoke burn in his throat before he exhales.
Stupid. Something so stupid distracted him, allowed him to lose focus, and because of that one of his students was injured under his watch. A minor injury, at least, but a preventable one. Flicking the ashes of his cigarette off the end, Aizawa stares at the sky.
He quickly drops his smoke and steps on it when he hears a door open behind him, turning to see who had arrived. While he’s somewhat relieved to see that it isn’t a student, he definitely doesn’t relax to see Yamada standing there.
“Shouta, my man! I knew I’d find you up here.” The blonde walks across the space between them, pausing when he gets close. “Jeez, you reek. You know that’s against school policy.”
“I know,” Aizawa says curtly, reaching into his pocket to retrieve his lighter so he can continue smoking.
Yamada sighs with the patience of the long suffering. “Come on, Shouta, you know how important my lungs are-“
“Then leave.”
Silence hangs between them, heavy and sullen. Neither moves. Then, Yamada sighs and takes a seat next to the other hero.
“Nah. Not doing that.”
The silence becomes more companionable, now. Aizawa is polite enough to blow his smoke away from Yamada, and Yamada knows his friend well enough to allow him at least some silence. He has to break it eventually, of course.
“... shit happens, you know?” he says. “You can’t beat yourself up.”
Aizawa frowns, still glaring out towards the sky. “Shit happened because I wasn’t doing my damn job,” he retorts.
“Come on. Nobody’s perfect, so cut yourself some slack.”
“I can’t cut myself some slack, Yamada,” he snaps. “I’m lucky he wasn’t hurt worse than he is. I’m lucky nobody else was hurt, I’m lucky that nobody d-“
Yamada cuts him off. “Not everything is going to be the worst case scenario, man.” His tone is gentle, a sharp contrast to the desperate anger behind Aizawa’s. “This isn’t the same as back then, and you know it.”
Aizawa is silent for a few beats, swallowing hard. “It could be,” he retorts, half petulant. “How do I know that something couldn’t turn more serious?”
“You don’t,” Yamada says with a shrug. “You know how to look out for it. So does your class. They aren’t careless, you know, they’re pretty strong.”
“Shirakumo was strong too,” Aizawa murmurs, watching the clouds turn from golden to red.
Again, neither of them can find words for a long time. Yamada watches the sky with him, his expression unreadable behind his sunglasses. He takes a deep breath, then lets it out. Aizawa snuffs out a cigarette on the concrete and reaches for another one.
“Yeah. He was.”
Yamada’s neon eyes flit between Aizawa’s hand and his face, a frown curving his lips. He reaches across the small space between them and rests his hand over the underground hero’s.
“Do you think he-“
“Don’t,” Aizawa cuts him off, voice just a bit too rough. “... I know. But…”
He trails off there, but he doesn’t pull his hand away from Yamada’s. He doesn’t look at him, either. It’s impossible for him to tear his eyes away from the sight of red staining white, mingling into a sickening pink that splatters in uneven patterns. The sight makes his stomach churn.
“Yeah. I know.” He doesn’t need to finish his thought for Yamada to understand him. The blond has been beside him for years of self destruction and bad decisions. Every scrape he’s allowed to turn to infection, every night of too much drinking that Aizawa always forgets the next morning, and the apathy underlying it all. “I know, Shou-chan.”
The nickname is familiar from years ago. It makes Aizawa’s heart clench in his chest, and he finally bows his head, letting black locks fall over his face to act like blinders. His brows furrow, lips pressing into a tight line as he struggles to keep himself contained.
Finally, he lets himself close that distance between them, his head falling against Yamada’s shoulder.
The sky is red, until it isn’t anymore. As the sun dips below the horizon, the two men are left to bathe in the glow of buildings and lamps below. It’s a long time before they move again, but that suits their feelings just fine.