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Some days were mundane school days at U.A; days that had classes on literature, sciences, and language that had the students scrambling to dig pencils and notebooks from their bags. While somewhat dull in comparison to the heroic specific classes, there was at least the assurance that they wouldn’t suffer physical harm unless they dropped a textbook on themselves. Normal classes meant that the day was quieter, although some students found math to be more stressful than obstacle courses.
There was also the benefit of less pointed criticisms from the faculty, getting an answer wrong in literature felt less personal than failing to utilize their Quirk in an exercise. Aizawa didn’t often lecture them on their strengths or attitudes or futures on normal class days either; he simply called on them for answers and sucked on his juice box as if it was the only thing sustaining him.
But that wasn’t the case that day. While Aizawa had started in such a fashion, he had gotten steadily worse as the day wore on.
None of them could figure out why, either. No one was misbehaving; Bakugou hadn’t sworn in over an hour and Aoyama hadn’t sparkled for two. Yet Aizawa’s patience got shorter with every answer, and to everyone’s surprise, he actually brought up his old go-to threat of expulsion.
“What do you think is wrong with him?” Izuku asked Uraraka and Iida as they tidied up in prep for their next class. Aizawa had left briefly and returned looking even more peeved than before.
“I don’t know.” Uraraka looked at their teacher from the corner of her eye with concern. “He’s never this bad.”
“Perhaps his arm is causing him pain?’ Iida volunteered, moving his own in imitation. “He keeps moving it toward his chest like this and then dropping it, and whenever he does his mood appears to deteriorate farther.”
“Yeah, he has been doing that a lot now that you mention it. It’s almost like he’s reaching for something.” Izuku added.
“Wait, that’s exactly it!” Uraraka bounced on her feet, grinning at having solved the mystery. “He’s reaching for his eye drops but they’re not there! He must be out!”
All three of them swung around to look at Aizawa, who as if on cue, made as if to reach into his shirt and stopped partway through. He frowned and picked up another juice box instead of finishing the motion, chewing on the straw as it dangled from his lips. His eyes were definitely more bloodshot than on a typical day, and he rubbed at his scar on occasion as if he wanted to rub his eyes but couldn’t.
“But why wouldn’t he get more from Recovery Girl, if that was the case?” Iida asked, sitting down and opening his books once he had them organized.
“Maybe that’s what he did when he left at the beginning of prep time. Maybe she’s out too.” Uraraka whispered back, sitting herself.
“In that case he’ll probably try to go to a shop at lunch.” Izuku ducked his head to avoid catching their teacher’s attention, and lowered his voice. “So we just have to get through this class and then we’ll be in the clear for the afternoon.”
All the students tried to be as agreeable as possible leading up to lunch, and everyone in the class kept at least one eye on the clock. It seemed as if they would never finish the period, and even Todoroki began to fidget by the time the bell rang. Their relief was palatable when they were dismissed, and Izuku smiled when he saw Aizawa get up and lurch towards the door.
“Oh no!” Uraraka said, grabbing Izuku’s arm. “Tokoyami, no!”
Their classmate didn’t hear her quiet plea though, and stopped Aizawa with a polite request to speak to him. To their surprise, Aizawa didn’t refuse and sank back into his chair without a complaint. But he pulled his sleeping bag up around himself and, framed as they were by his dark hair, his eyes almost appeared to glow red from the profusion of veins.
“Midoriya, Uraraka!” Iida waved at them from the hallway somewhat frantically. “Let’s go to Recovery Girl and see if she can help!”
The three of them raced toward the infirmary, their shared sense of urgency so great that not only did Iida forget to admonish them for running in the hallways he did so himself. They could see Recovery Girl sitting at her desk from the doorway, and they didn’t even knock as they piled in and all called her name. Izuku tripped in his haste, but was caught by Iida and Uraraka and they skidded to a halt with a combined yelp.
Taking their inelegant entrance as a cause for concern, Recovery Girl was hurrying over to them when she caught sight of Izuku being supported by his friends. Her expression changed at once, and she rapped her cane against the floor sharply with a fierce frown.
“Absolutely not! I told you I wasn’t going to fix you again if you hurt yourself being careless!”
“What?” Izuku scrambled to stand straight without knocking over the other two, and blushed. “No, that’s not it, I’m fine!”
“It’s Aizawa!” Uraraka started. “He’s been really out of sorts today, and—”
“—we believe him to be out of eye drops!” Iida finished.
For a moment Recovery Girl just looked at them, utterly nonplussed as she processed their hurried explanation, but then she broke into a smile and sat back down at her desk. She nodded a couple times as she rooted around in the drawers, pulling out papers and putting them back as she checked different spots. The three students waited, doing their best to not be impatient, and Recovery Girl pulled out a folder that had the word ‘supplies’ written on it.
“That’s quite observant of you to have noticed.” She said. “He is out, but I’m afraid I am too.”
She flipped open the folder and pulled out a piece of paper that had different medical materials listed neatly on it, and tapped it. Along with gauze and bandages and antiseptics, eye drops were clearly printed near the bottom of the column.
“I’m out of a few things actually; I was going to send this off after school. But Aizawa said he’s going to go out at lunch, so don’t you worry about him.”
And ignoring their protests and attempts to explain, she shooed them out of the infirmary and closed the door.
“Now what do we do?” Izuku asked, scuffing his foot on the floor as the three of them walked back to the classroom.
“Perhaps Tokoyami was brief.”
“Yeah, Iida could be right.” Uraraka said, her voice overly-bright. “Aizawa might have already been able to leave…”
She trailed off when they got within sight of the classroom door and saw that Aizawa was still at his desk, although now with Tokoyami and Kaminari sitting with him. Retreating so they were out of sight, Izuku began to mumble to himself in his usual fashion while Uraraka and Iida tried to think of ideas.
“Maybe someone in class B has eyedrops?”
“It would be too time consuming to interview them all and check, even if they were cooperative."
“Well, couldn’t we run out ourselves?”
“Absolutely not! Uraraka, that would negate the entire idea of having us live on campus!”
“What about another faculty member?”
“It’s too late, there’s barely any time left in the break as it— Agh!” Iida, who was pointing at the clock, broke off mid sentence and jumped when Todoroki tapped him on the shoulder.
“I overheard.” Todoroki said. “Have you asked Yaoyorozu for her help yet?”
“That’s brilliant!” Izuku snapped out his mumbling to beam at Todoroi. “Do you know where she is?”
To their luck she was only down the hall a short ways, and Izuku, Iida and Uraraka explained what they needed as fast as they could as soon as they were within sight. Yaoyorozu, stunned by their sudden appearance, didn’t catch any of what they said and they had to repeat themselves several times. It was still a little too fast however, and Todoroki cut them off after the third time to do it himself.
“Making eye drops wouldn’t be hard, but I have to know what’s in them. Aizawa probably uses a certain type and I would hate to make him the wrong ones.” Yaoyorozu said, chewing on her lip.
They all deflated, having failed to consider that their teacher might have a solution that was specialized for his unique needs. Even Todoroki seemed a bit put out that they were unable to do anything after all. No one spoke and Izuku was just eyeing the clock, which only had ten minutes left of the break, when Iida made a sudden chopping motion with his hand.
“Wait!” He said, waving his arm. “Aizawa had some on him this morning, I remember seeing him use them and throw the empty bottle away!”
“And the bottle should have the ingredients on it!” Izuku said.
“So all we need is to get to the wastebasket!” Uraraka clapped her hands, and Yaoyorozu brightened.
“How are we going to, though?” Todoroki asked, and they all deflated again.
“Leave that to me!” Kirishima, who had been listening in, slapped Izuku and Iida on the back. “Aizawa’s dry eye acting up explains why he’s been on our asses all day, I’m more than happy to help out.”
“How?” Todoroki asked.
“Like I said, leave it to me!”
Kirishima ran off to the classroom with a whoop, surprising the others and causing them to scramble to catch up to him. He skidded to a stop a few steps from the door and motioned to the others to stay back, winking. Then he tore a page from his notebook and, grinning, walked into the classroom and lobbed the wadded up paper at the wastebasket.
The others held their breath, and cringed when Aizawa turned his bloodshot glare on the redhead when the paper missed by a good foot. Shamefacedly, Kirishima picked it up and walked over to the basket, leaning down. As he was using the desk to hide behind, Aizawa couldn’t see him reach in and take the bottle out as he dropped the paper in. As soon as he had it palmed, Kirishima walked back out of the classroom carefully, and then took off down the hall with the others in pursuit once again.
“Here, quick, quick!” Kirishima said, handing the bottle to Yaoyorozu. “We’ve got like five minutes!”
“I know! But how many should I make?” Yaoyorozu was scanning the ingredients list as she yanked her collar open. “One? Two?”
“I think two so he has a spare.” Izuku said.
“Yeah, in case he doesn’t want to go out today.” Uraraka said, and clapped her hands gleefully when two little bottles formed from the other girl’s chest. “Let’s go give these to him!”
There was an awkward pause following her words, and the students all looked at each other with varying degrees of embarrassment or uncertainty. They were simultaneously struck by hesitation, all wondering how they were supposed to go about actually giving him the eye drops. There was always the chance that he wouldn’t take their interference well.
“What if we snuck them onto his desk?” Izuku ventured, and Kirishima nodded slowly.
“We’ll need a distraction.” The redhead said. His smile looked a bit pained, and he put his hands in his pockets. “How about I ‘accidently’ knock into Bakugou or something? He’s been pretty on edge and that’s bound to get a big enough reaction out of him to draw Aizawa’s attention for a moment.”
“And in that moment we get the eye drops onto his desk.” Todoroki paused, and then waved to Tsuyu who was coming toward them. “Can you help with that, Tsuyu?”
“With what?” She asked.
They told her what had happened, with Izuku and Iida and Uraraka again being cut off so that Todoroki and Yaoyorozu could explain properly. The bell rang right as they finished, and Tsuyu nodded in agreement of their plan.
As they filed into the classroom, they all snuck looks at their teacher. Aizawa looked as if he was running on nothing more than fumes, and no one spoke as they settled in. Tsuyu had the bottles cupped in her hands, and the others who knew what was going on kept glancing between her and Kirishima. No one thought that intentionally antagonizing Bakugou was a good idea, but having Aizawa lose his cool instead didn’t seem much more appealing. Not to mention they were beginning to have a very real fear that he was causing damage by not having his eye drops. There was nothing they could do but wait, and trust that Kirishima knew what he was doing. Everyone chafed under the oppressive silence, and class was just about to start when he made his move.
Standing and making as if he was going to take off his jacket, he caught his arm on his bag and flung it with precision right into Bakugou’s lap.
And Bakugou, who had been restraining himself all day, exploded.
Literally.
It didn’t last long, a single bang and a hollered curse lit up the classroom for all of a second before Bakugou had nothing but smoke coming from his palms. Aizawa, who had obviously erased Bakugou’s Quirk to prevent rampant destruction, looked as if he was about to either pass out or explode himself.
He leaned forward, bracing his hands on his desk as he opened his mouth, and stopped abruptly when the movement knocked over one of the little bottles that had appeared there. Aizawa picked one up after a pause to inspect it. And his gaze immediately swung over to the Yaoyorozu and the others who were doing their best to look innocent and failing.
The bottles disappeared into his sleeping bag, and he picked up the textbook.
“You are to read pages 51-178. And be quiet.” Aizawa said, and sunk behind his desk without another word, much to the shock of the students who hadn’t been involved in the eye drops scheme.
He didn’t reappear for the rest of the afternoon, the only sign that he was still there at all being that they could see the end of his sleeping bag poking out. Bakugou calmed down after Kirishima apologized, and the students eventually felt confident enough to talk a little amongst themselves. Izuku and the others didn’t dare say anything out loud though, and settled for giving each other thumbs up and smiles before they got to work on the assignment.
At the end of the day, the students broke into groups to tidy and head out. Izuku and the others took the opportunity to gather and congratulate Kirishima on his plan and Tsuyu on her accuracy. Yaoyorozu scolded Kirishima for overdoing it, Izuku complimented his guts, and Iida, Todoroki and Uraraka expressed their admiration on how fast Tsuyu was.
They moved toward the door as a group, not realizing they were the last ones to leave, when Aizawa sat up from behind his desk. Uraraka jumped and Kirishima clamped a hand over his mouth and they traded worried glances.
“Hold up.” Aizawa said. “And come here.”
They all lined up in front of him, expecting the worst. Yaoyorozu began to fidget and Izuku began to sweat in seconds, but Aizawa’s expression was unreadable as he looked them over from behind his scraggly bangs. He didn’t say anything, and the longer the silence the stretched the more agitated they got.
The silence lasted for at least two minutes and Todoroki was just about to ask what was going on when Aizawa cleared his throat, and dumped a plastic bag onto his desk.
“…Have some juice.” Aizawa said, and shuffled out of the class as fast as a man zipped into a sleeping bag could go, leaving the students to stare at the juice boxes their teacher had left behind.
There was a long pause and they stared at the pile on the desk until Tsuyu reached out and took one, poking the straw through the top with nod toward the door.
“I think that was a thank you.”