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Toshinori blinks awake all at once.
Even without being fully aware of what all has happened and how exactly he got here he can immediately tell exactly where he is.
Hospital.
The old injury on his side is on fire in a way it hasn’t been since the day he’d first received it, and almost without thinking Toshinori moves to sit up so he can inspect the damage.
A familiar hand presses down on his shoulder, its grip exerting the perfect amount of pressure to keep Toshinori from getting up without causing any pain, and Toshinori immediately sags back down against his pillows without complaint.
“How bad is it?” he murmurs, his eyes half slipping closed again from the way his side had flared anew with his foolish attempt at movement.
A moment of silence as the question hangs and Toshinori finds himself holding his breath.
“…not as bad as it could have been.” Naomasa finally says, his hand moving to release Toshinori’s shoulder, and then hovering there like he wants to touch and hold and soothe but isn’t sure where to start.
Toshinori resists the urge to roll his eyes and grabs for his partner's hand himself. “Is everyone else alright?”
Naomasa’s face twists, his mouth flinching to one side and he squeezes Toshinori’s hand carefully. “No.”
Toshinori’s face falls.
His partner looks away. “The kids are okay. Mostly. Gonna need some therapy for sure, especially the ones that witnessed Thirteen going down. And uh.” He starts, stops, shakes his head before continuing. “Midoriya has some broken bones. But that’s to be expected, all things considered. Self-inflicted, the lot of them, the villains didn’t even touch him.”
Toshinori chokes on a wince. Quirk inflicted or not, it’s still All Might’s fault for failing to be there. It’s still Toshinori’s fault for making the wrong choices on his way to work.
The guilt rising up is practically fit to swallow him whole.
“And the rest?” Toshinori rasps through a throat gone burning and dry. “What about—“
He breaks off with the sudden urge to cough, hacking harshly into his elbow and staining the white of it red as he does.
Naomasa practically leaps to his feet to help Toshinori sit up.
He helps him drink, pats at his back soothingly, and even curls himself around Toshinori’s head so the exhausted hero can press his burning forehead into the smooth coolness of his partner's dress shirt.
And through it all Naomasa doesn’t say another word.
So as soon as Toshinori can manage to speak again, he asks once more. “What about the UA staff?”
Naomasa is quiet but pressed against his chest like this Toshinori can’t see his face to gauge his reaction.
“Thirteen will be just fine. Like I said before, the kids who had to hold her together were way more affected by it, all things considered.”
He takes a deep breath then and Toshinori thinks he’ll say something more but all Naomasa does is pull back enough to offer him a sad smile. “Let’s not forget about you Tosh. The way the kids told it when I took statements, you were almost cut in half today.” His finger flicks lightly against Toshinori’s forehead as he says, “maybe try prioritizing your own health for once hm? Leave the questions for when you aren’t spitting blood.”
And see… it’s almost enough to get him to lay back down, almost enough to convince him to rest.
However…
If Naomasa had already told him everything… then why would Toshinori still have questions to leave for later?
“You’re hiding something from me.” Toshinori whispers, his cold brittle fingers wrapping around Naomasa’s warm wrist as he pleads, “Who else got hurt?”
Naomasa’s face twists again, “I– Toshi listen…”
He trails off without saying anything else and Toshinori’s heart drops into his stomach.
No.
“Nao…” he croaks. “Please.”
“I… It’s… Aizawa is—“ Naomasa turns away, his free hand scrubbing down his face like he’s trying to physically push his emotions down. “He’s– He’s in critical condition. They say the Noumu smashed his face in repeatedly. They don’t even know how bad the damage and head trauma will be yet. That’s the worst of it. Everything else is practically superficial in comparison.”
Toshinori’s mouth opens and closes as he tries and fails to process. “A-Aizawa? Aizawa is…”
It doesn’t compute, it can’t compute. How can Aizawa, the young nightlife hero Naomasa has been gushing about after work for years, how they work together on cases, exchanging information in a mutually beneficial relationship.
How can that very same Aizawa be lying in the ICU?
How can he be so badly hurt all because All Might had run out of power, because Toshinori had been late.
The guilt crawls up his throat, choking him from the inside out. Naomasa doesn’t talk about anyone like he talks about Eraserhead. Favorite colleague doesn’t even begin to cut it.
Toshinori himself hadn’t understood it. He’d accepted the conversations easily, smiled over his meager dinner as Naomasa had gushed and gestured excitedly with his chopsticks till his rice had fallen off. By the time Toshinori had joined the faculty at UA himself he’d thought he already knew all there was to know about Aizawa Shouta Eraserhead.
He’d been wrong.
Meeting him in person had been a clash of ideals, the picture Naomasa painted refusing to coalesce with the hero actually in front of him. But then he’d observed him in action and he’d begun to understand.
They don’t make heroes like Eraserhead anymore, that resourcefulness, that grit, that determination to keep his students from dying as heroes no matter what it takes.
Even the mere fact that not a single student save Midoriya had been injured at all, is a testament to Eraserhead’s refusal to allow it to come to pass. A hero of his caliber, a hero of his quirk, did not stand a chance against the sheer numbers standing against him.
But Aizawa had refused to fail his students.
And so he hadn't.
He alone sits in the ICU, the sole critical casualty because at the end of the day it was better him than them.
That’s something Toshinori too understands on a personal level.
And now…
All because of Toshinori’s recklessness and inability to manage his time properly Aizawa might…
He might…
How could Toshinori have done this to him? How could he—
Naomasa flicks his forehead again and this time the smile on his face is a touch less sad and a tad more genuine. “I can hear your thoughts whirring from over here Tosh. Knock it off before you hurt yourself.”
“This is my fault Nao. If I hadn’t run out of time I would have been there–”
“Maybe. And maybe you would have died anyway because you were there before Todoroki finished up in his zone to help you out with the portal. Don’t let what’s already done drag you down. What ifs can be the death of you.”
“But I–”
“Yes,” Naomasa nods, cutting him off firmly with a solemn and serious tone. “You did. There’s no changing that.”
He leans in close and presses a kiss to Toshinori’s forehead next.
“If you’ve truly learned the error of your ways then…
Just be sure to be there for him next time.”