Aizawa Angst - Tumblr Posts

til death do us part - aizawa shouta

this is for my dearest @httptamaki and her fake dating collab! kar, congratulations on 1K, babe! to many more

warnings: graphic descriptions of injury, descriptions of death/dying, major character death, whump, hurt/"comfort," all angst - no plot and no fluff

Her supports were screaming at her, warning her that her pulse to be dangerously higher than her healthy maximum: as if she could be surprised about it. Her hair was matting to her forehead, her pupils filling up her irises to the near edge, and all of these indicating that the wound, a gash across her middle, was much deeper than she initially thought.

What was she meant to do?

Everyone has a reason for why they behave, hero work happened to be hers.

The only problem was, she was almost too determined, too prideful to stall and wait, even if she’d lose. The very good advice she had given to a few underlings was one she very seldom followed: sometimes the only thing to do is wait.

Other heroes could stand bystander at a burning building, but how could she sleep at night if all she ever did was wait, leaving the saving to those with flashier quirks?

She had severely underestimated that guy’s strength, and severely sustained damage in return. The wound to her honor was fatal in itself: some mediocre moron of a villain had taken her out. If you ever encounter an enemy with a foiling quirk, wait for support. If only that luxury existed in reality. Yet at the end of the day, the surrounding communities still stood, safe and sound, so her job was done, at least for now, and so was the utmost duty of a hero, all at the cost of health and sanity.

Nevertheless, she had tapped out after other heroes came to her aid; they had encouraged it with how bent out of shape she was. In addition to the wound, she’d surely broken her hand, if not half the bones in her wrist. Leave it to her to let her guard down in the name of justice. She’d never hear the end of it at an inevitable summons to the Commission.

She wandered the street for just a moment, letting the pain catch up to her as she replayed the events of the last hours. Shame, regret, and disappointment flushed the pain from her mind; the advice of her mentors, the fear that she had let them down, and the guilt of it all, numbing all feelings for just a second.

Lean into the opponent. Never turn your back on your enemy. Breathe on defense. It all makes sense when she was in school. She remembered thinking: Obviously I would never not do those things. She lost it back there, using up all of her stamina at the cost of her well being to deliver maximum damage, and all she could keep telling herself to cope was that sometimes, even heroes lose it.

The stinging in her gut was pulsing through the rest of her body. Instinct was telling her to find help, to call someone to get her, yet another force was pulling her around the bend, down an avenue into a semi-familiar neighborhood. Although she couldn’t mentally register why, or how, or even what she was doing; she was seeking someone out specifically, someone who would scold her surely, but ultimately, it was their presence she craved most in her dire hour.

He definitely lived somewhere around here. . . 5-2-1, 5-2-2, 5-2-3. . .

Mr. Aizawa Shouta

5-2-4. . .

Rapping frantically at first, she braced herself against the door frame and laid a few more forceful knocks before falling forward when he finally answered.

“About damn time,” she hissed before letting out a long groan and taking advantage of the fact that he’d caught her to bunch her costume up against the gash.

“Tell me I’m not forgetting something,” he grunted. “You’re heavy, better not be our anniversary. . . If I’d known I wouldn’t have ordered takeout…”

She didn’t need to look at him to see his expression: his brows knitted tightly together as he sighed out of the corner of his mouth, the muscles in his face flexing and making the scar under his right eye twitch with emotion. The small chuckle hurt her chest, a tight squeeze around her lungs following the puff of air.

She couldn’t stop herself from grabbing onto his shirt with all the strength left in her other hand, his warmth soothing the aches in her muscles and his scent calming her just enough to finally close her eyes, but not before she stole just one more look at him.

When she’d gotten her hero license, she would’ve done anything to make it onto the billboard charts, hence signing her name on the dotted line next to the seasoned hero like Eraserhead.

The details of the arrangement were now all fuzzy. At first, it was something about publicity, coupled with the fact that their quirks worked perfectly together: close combat and stealth. They were dubbed “happy couple heroes.” Now, it seemed he was all too keen on making what a publicity charade a nonfiction chapter in the book of life.

It was his perseverance she admired, if anything, and as if she’d actually admit it to him! No matter what she did, who she went out with, or how many times she did extra patrols by herself, he put up with her. Never complained (to her face), was always on time for outings, took the lead on patrol, supported her on missions as best he could, and then some.

She hated it.

Completely despised the fact that they had to wear matching costumes, and suffered through every press conference. Aizawa would do all the talking anyway, he played the role so perfectly, and that pissed her off too, but she was more puzzled than anything.

Worst of all were the intricate details.

The fact that even when they were patrolling they had to be together. She’d had to relocate, which was way over the line. Yet once again, he never seemed to mind any of it, not the chaste kisses for cameras nor a hovering hand at her waist. Although he never said anything on patrols anyway, spare a well-times dry remark to a villain’s hubris or to her own. Maybe all of that was because he never had to pull any of the weight; in fact, none of his tactics even changed, he technically did less work as a support hero, she took all the damage. At the end of the day, only Aizawa’s ranking rose to her chagrin.

As an established pro, he wasn’t even stuck the way she was. According to her publicity team, all she was to Aizawa was arm candy, a pretty young face to soften his image, make him more appealing to young women, and get him just a little higher on the radar. To the general public, she was barely on the radar. Until her team up with Eraserhead, the biggest villain she ever brought in was a convenience store thief, the rest being reckless drivers or vengeful neighbors.

She owed her 28th spot, her pay raise, her street credit, all of it to his agency, to him. Period. And so worst of all, without him, she didn’t even exist.

She went to school to become a hero, not a housewife. It was just all so dehumanizing, and he just went with it, as if it didn’t matter, as if he didn’t care.

Just how could he enjoy an arrangement like theirs? Being forced to act a certain way, a puppet of the public, and feel things you didn’t, like and for what? The pay? The duty?

She never counted all the nights she lay awake in bed, assuming they would sum to infinity, imagining what he just had to be imagining: hanging up her cape beside his scarf, brewing one last cup of coffee before they went to the same bed, waking up and doing it all over again!

“You’re lucky I love you,” she managed as he made his way to the kitchen.

He knew there was no further meaning behind the words, of course there wasn’t. Not to mention the bitter edge to her sentiment; her tone definitely indicated that the words were empty.

Ever since she had breezed into his office, curtly introducing herself by her real name, demanding he do the same and, and proclaiming that all she wanted was a top 25 spot, she occupied his every thought. He knew she’d tear the contract to shreds once she’d met her goals, and still he not once tried to stop himself from falling for her, in fact, he’d enabled it.

He started with courteous reminders to file her paperwork, neatly folded notes tucked into the edge of her computer screen signed with: Unprofessionally, Aizawa-san. Then he’d given her some contacts: good support companies and trustworthy agents. He would walk her to the station after work, never saying too much, and often he’d praise the small changes she’d made to their costumes to give them each their own look while still being complementary. On the tougher days, when neither of them could make it in time, he would take her home himself and stay just a few more minutes with her, hovering in the foyer of her apartment to make sure she’d be alright, and then he’d wait on her terrace until he saw she was sound asleep before returning home.

On patrols, he let her take the lead, her stubbornness taking the front and instincts driving her onwards, while he kept a clear head and a sharp eye as he brought up the rear. Things went the same during an altercation too, he did his part so she could do hers. He gave her all the credit, all the commissions, it was the least he could do. He thought the arrangement worked well, but he could sense how much she hated their situation, and in turn, how much she absolutely loathed him.

As Aizawa retrieved his first aid kit, he glanced back at the heroine he’d set atop the kitchen counter: resilient, stubborn, and beautiful like no other he’d worked with before, even as she lay dying on his kitchen counter. From the looks of her, even Recovery Girl would have met her match. He could feel anguish creeping in, his heart breaking more and more as seconds passed on while he realized his worst fears would come true in mere moments. He couldn’t stop his mind from wandering even if he tried, and even if he wanted to, it would be no use. He unwound his scarf from his neck, huffing through his nose and telling her that nothing else would be a suitable tourniquet.

All she heard was screeching ringing in her ears accompanied by her own blood whooshing as her head pounded. She let her head drop to nod, and found herself caught in his binding cloth as he wrapped tightly around her middle over the gash.

“I know you probably can’t speak right now, best not to try.” His voice was a low hum, somewhere between a sound and a song. “Please. Do try to keep your eyes open. Keep your eyes open and I’ll take care of everything else.”

I’ll take care of everything else.

I’ll take care of everything else.

I’ll take care of everything else.

“You always take care of me, Shou,” she had wanted to say. She had wanted to thank him too, ask him why he cared so much knowing that she didn’t, but as he predicted, the sounds never formed. Only a strangled cry left her lips as he popped a few of her fingers back into place.

“I can’t fix the break, but hopefully now that those are in place you feel a bit better. . .”

To him, it would never matter whether or not she felt the same, he was just happy to help; taking care of her gave him something to do outside of work besides sleep. It felt good, to care about something, someone, as if his life finally had a purpose.

Aizawa nearly drew blood from his lip when he heard her whine as he placed his hands against her belly.

“Still with me?”

“Shou.”

He nodded, shaking his hair out of the way before warning her he was about to start stitching.

He loved her so much he hated her. He hated how stubborn she was, how she insisted on doing so much, how she just had to go out by herself and get hurt like this! He was hurt now just as much, even more! So why couldn’t she see that? Why couldn’t she just let him take care of her? Why couldn’t she just let him love her? He knew that if she did, he would be so good for her: the best of husbands, the best of men, her everything, her hero.

If he was a better man, someone chivalrous with honest morals who deserved a woman like her, he would have patched her up, let her rest and continued to suffer in silence and so on for the rest of his life.

Aizawa Shouta was no such man, and so, in all of his laziness and self-righteousness, he sacrificed his ego and pride as the tears finally flowed forth onto his handiwork, and he sobbed:

“I love you!”

A loud gasp moved through her entirety, and her muscles, up to her eyes, regained their higher functioning. Those beautiful, stern eyes opened wide in what seemed to be a pleasant realization. He watched an understanding wash across her features and peace blanket her being. Her breathing was steady for a moment, the faintest hint of a smile twitching on her chapped lips. Her small hands weakly tugged at the shirt on his back, and he could only cry harder, nodding, insisting she rest but she shook her head.

“I know.”

“Shhh, shhh, shhh. That’s enough for now,” he scolded with a small laugh.

She nodded, closing her eyes once more, and taking in one last deep breath to be let out in a peaceful sigh with a smile of her own.

He clenched his teeth. Everything hurt. He felt a terrible pang inside of him, what surely must have been his heart bursting when he hopelessly told her how he felt.

The air hung heavy around them. He wallowed in the silence, his chest heaving as if to compensate for her shallow, gargled breaths that broke into the room no more than five times a minute. Once more, with more passion than he’d ever expressed in his life, he told her:

“I love you!”

At the second proclamation, there was no response. He let out a breath, and then it hit him. He said her name. Once. Nothing. Twice. The same. He could hear his heart racing in his ears when he shook her. She was gone and his hatred returned.

He was careful to set her down on the kitchen floor, stretching quickly before assuming the position above her and beginning a futile attempt at resuscitation, chanting the confession til it became his only thought, and only then did he look at her.

Her head had fallen to the side. Her skin was coated in a sheet of sweat. He moved up her body, lifting her from under her arms closer to him, but even then her head stayed lolling from side to side as her eyelids only fluttered in response to the cries of her name.

“I hate you!” he told her corpse. “If you do this, I hate you!”

He felt rage envelop his heart, felt it course through his arteries, his now boiling hot blood fueling his muscles start again, this time to push harder, harder than he’d ever fought, even harder when he felt her sternum snap, his eyes glowing red and a tornado of black swirling around him. It didn’t matter if his vision was obstructed, there was no enemy in sight, and even he knew he couldn’t nullify Death.

He hated her. He hated how she made him feel, how he’d given her everything in so few words yet nothing at all in reality, hated how he never got to show her all he wanted: how he never would. He hated her so much. He hated knowing he could never hate her, not even if she died on him, and that was the very last thing that crossed her mind when she did.

That and the hope that she hadn’t disappointed him.

Thinking again about how Aizawa saw the greatest tragedy of his life as a cautionary tale about hero work. Thinking about how losing Shirakumo propelled him to teaching in order to save Shirakumo in ways he hadn’t been able to by teaching his students how to survive. Thinking about how in the end he always believed that death was the ultimate ending for anyone in herowork. Thinking about how this changes when he starts getting too invested in his class and has to believe that there’s a bright future for them that doesn’t end six feet under. Thinking about how he takes up Shinsou and suddenly the greatest tragedy of his life that turned into a cautionary tale has flipped once again and becomes a story about how his friend helped and inspired him to be a hero and how he wants to do the same for Shinsou. Thinking about how when he gets Eri suddenly death as his ultimate ending is no longer an option and now there’s a future he needs to actively stay alive for and maybe love was the ultimate ending. Thinking about how Aizawa’s character arc is going from “passive resignation to cruelties of life” to “desperately clinging onto hope and love despite his better judgements and the pains of his past.”

i just need everyone to know that i'm thinking about Aizawa and everything he's been through again and i am NOT OKAY.