#bnha x greys anatomy | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

sipsteainanxiety · 3 years ago

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say the word (and i’ll be there) || katsuki b.

pairing: bakugou katsuki x doctor!reader

word count: 6k+

mentions: no pronouns mentioned i think!, umm fluff, and angst, bit of an ambiguous ending lmao, bittersweet maybe?, screaming i am screaming, lowkey all over the place but idc, pro hero au btw

a/n: this one’s for my homies in premed/med. i will say that my (limited) med knowledge comes from watching greys anatomy when i was 12 tho LMAO

White, you found, was such an unassuming color.

You saw it everywhere you went, painted onto a variety of different buildings, walls, and pathways. Highlighting specific decorations that needed particular attention beyond the glass windows of stores. Adding a modicum of innocence and freedom to the suits adorned by the pro-heroes you watched patrolling along the cemented streets. You saw it in the halls you walked every day, bright, unassuming white coloring everything you could see. From the tiles of the floor to the fluorescent lights on the ceilings. It was everywhere.

It was the color of the lab coat you pulled over your significantly darker clothing every day. The color of the paper you scrawled on whenever you were taking care of a patient. It was even the color of the rubber case covering the small sanitizer bottle you kept in your pocket.

Unassuming white.

Bustling down the halls, you hummed under your breath as you checked the watch on your wrist. It was nearly time for your shift to end. You just had to check on a few patients before being able to clock out. Your feet ached from standing around all day, but it was a feeling you were accustomed to.

A nurse wearing dark navy scrubs shuffled a bit ahead of you, about to enter one of the rooms you were heading for. You caught them by the shoulder, startling them slightly, before you told them you would handle the patient within. They gave you a grateful nod, exhaustion clearly lining their face, and you watched them continue to shuffle down the hall and around a corner. Then, you turned to the closed door, opening it and practically waltzing into the room.

“So, Dynamight,” you drawled as you headed straight for the base of the hero’s bed. He was sitting up, legs thrown over the side of the bed as crimson eyes glanced over at you. You ignored him momentarily to pick up the clipboard holding his charts, eyes skimming the information upon it. “Couldn’t stay away, huh? Looks like you took some naaasty blows today.”

Said hero grunted, watching as you looked up from the clipboard and eyed the white bandages around his arms and head. He was still wearing his hero suit, the black material around his torso a bit scuffed and ripped, but still intact. You hummed. “Doesn’t look like it was too terrible, though. Villain give you a tough time?”

He scoffed and you grinned, putting down the clipboard to round the bed and position yourself directly in front of him. He was slightly shorter than you thanks to the height of the bed, so he had to look up to meet your eyes. “Ain’t nothin’ I couldn’t handle.”

“I’m sure,” you told him amusedly, hands already reaching out to check the bandages on his arms. They were still clean, tightly wrapped around his bulging forearms. You tapped his hands, turning them over to make sure they weren’t damaged. You hummed a bit as you moved to check his face, delicate hands cupping his chin gently as you turned his head this way and that. There were a few stitches along his cheek. Your eyes moved up to the bandages around his head, and you let go for a moment to reach into your pocket and pull out a small flashlight.

“Look right here for a moment,” you instructed, pointing to the center of your forehead. He obliged, burning gaze nailing right into you as you shined the small light into his eyes to check his pupils. With every little observation you made on his well being, the tension in your shoulders eased bit by bit until you were gently cradling his face once more in your hands, thumbs tracing his cheeks.

“You really like to worry me, don’t you,” you whispered to him, closing your eyes for a moment before opening them to see him watching you carefully. His hands, by now, had moved to rest on your hips, pulling you just a tad closer.

“S’part of the job,” he replied just as quietly, thumbs toying with the fabric of your coat. Your eyes roamed around his face, once again making sure he was okay. “‘Sides, I always win.” He said it with such a firm conviction that you felt the corners of your lips quirk up.

“That you do,” you sighed, then pulled away with a glance to the still open door. His hands hesitated before they dropped away as you stepped back and straightened your clothes. “I’m gonna assume your patrol’s been canceled for the rest of the day, right?”

Katsuki clicked his tongue against his teeth, a disgruntled expression sliding across his face. “Shitty hair’s orders,” he grumbled, crossing his arms across his chest in a manner that reminded you of a petulant child. You gave him a smile, thinking about how long Kirishima must’ve had to argue with Katsuki to get him to just relax and take it easy.

“Great!” you said cheerfully, glancing at your watch again. “My shift ends soon, so I can drive us home. Just go ahead and sign yourself out, I’ll meet you outside in a bit.”

You turned on your heel to make your way to some of the other rooms you had to check on, a grumble from behind you causing a smile to linger on your face.

---

The cup of tea you held was warm between your palms, steam wafting up gently from it to curl into the air. You blew slightly on the liquid, then took a tentative sip, sitting at the island counter of your kitchen as you watched the news playing on the television in the living room. Sunlight poked through the curtains on the farthest wall, bathing the room in a warm light that reflected off the screen.

The channel you were on was doing a segment on pro-heroes and you watched with slight interest as some of the past victories of your friends were shown one after the other.

There was bright and beautiful Deku, darting around in a blur of electric green as he saved dozens of people in the way of a collapsing building. His white cape billowed out from behind him with every movement he made, a gentle smile on his face as he told each and every survivor that they would be all right.

There was warm and sunny Red Riot, Japan’s literal sweetheart, activating his quirk to its fullest potential as he stood in the path of a small child, taking the brutal force of a high-powered laser-beam to the chest. The harsh lines and angles of his face were grit in determination, the laser so high-temperatured that it melted nearly everything around him in a ten-meter radius.

There was cool and collected Shouto, swiftly gliding along an ice-crusted path formed by his quirk as he dodged attacks from a villain with a gigantification quirk. He used his ice to slide the remaining civilians to safety before encasing the villain in a thick layer of ice so quickly and suddenly that the sudden massive rush of cold air against the hot air of summer caused rain clouds to form.

And then, there was loud and determined Dynamight, his face set in a crazily wicked grin as he blasted his way rapidly through the air. Each boom from his explosions got louder and louder until it started to mess with the audio input of the camera recording him. And then he let out an explosion so big, so intense at a villain that it lit up the sky in shades of tangerine and blood red that lasted for hours.

The difference, you’ve long come to realize, between heroes who battled villains and heroes who battled injury or disease, was stark. It was something you’d come to accept, even before getting your medical license. Where the pro-heroes spent their days fighting people who dared disturb the peace with danger, you spent yours bundled in your little white lab coat, treating injuries and comforting families.

You weren’t incensed by it, oh no. You’d made your peace with it a long time ago. You were content with staying away from publicity and all of its consequences. And besides, you knew that society has always and would always have a need for doctors, no matter what little recognition you received.

A door clicked open down the hall leading away from the living room, the soft pads of steps greeting your ears before a familiar figure emerged, bathed in the golden sunlight of dawn. Like this, his face and hair looked so soft, especially with his expression pulled into something that was akin to relaxed.

“Mornin’,” Katsuki greeted you in a still sleep-crusted voice as he rounded the island to give you a chaste kiss on the cheek. You hummed a greeting, not-so-subtly eyeing the way he was dressed in a form-fitting, white tank top with loose grey sweats. He liked putting his crazily buff arms and shoulders on display for you, knowing you appreciated the view. The bastard.

“We still on for lunch later?” you asked him as you took another sip of your tea, listening to him poke around in the fridge for the overnight oats he’d prepped last night. He plopped down heavily onto the seat next to you, a spoon clutched in his hand.

“Yeah,” he grunted, popping open the lid to his oats before he started to mix it. “Noon, right?”

You nodded, glancing back at the television to watch part of the segment on Pinky and Chargebolt’s most recent villain takedown. The silence that encompassed the two of you was comfortable, the occasional clink of Katsuki’s spoon against his container mixing with the sounds of the narrator on the screen.

“Hopefully Shitty Hair won’t fuckin’ bother us again,” he grumbled a bit later as he tugged on a light jacket near the door. You chuckled as you handed him his sunglasses and tucked some of his blond hair into the shadows of his hood.

“Aww, you know he means well,” you told him with a soft smile, letting out another laugh when he just scoffed. Most of Katsuki’s friends still got excited whenever they saw you two spending time together -- even after all the time you both have been a couple. They just liked to tease him a lot, which you certainly understood.

But this, you thought to yourself as you gave him a kiss goodbye before he left for his agency, this was something you could get used to. This domestic feeling between a doctor and a hero, a duo you thought was a bit funny.

And yet, you mused as you eventually left your shared apartment for your shift, it just made sense.

---

“Back again so soon, Deku?” you teased the number one pro as you entered his hospital room with a smile. He was still decked out in his hero suit, a couple of tears and rips here and there as he sat on the bed. A sheepish grin slid onto his face, his eyes crinkling as he rubbed a scarred hand against the back of his head.

“You know how it is,” he told you as you hummed and started prodding at the bandages that covered his arms and face. Midoriya was the type of hero to put himself in harm’s way at any chance he had when it came to saving civilians. It always landed him in the hospital with fresh bruises and scrapes, though he never once was terribly concerned about it.

Heroes, you thought to yourself as you rolled your eyes in good nature. Always so self-sacrificing.

“I know,” you sighed out dramatically, pulling out a roll of bandages from your coat pocket so you could redo a set on his arm that was already stained with blood. You carefully peeled the medical tape away, then started unraveling the white material. “Well at least it gives me an excuse to talk to one of my favorite patients,” you told him with a wink before leaning in closer to whisper conspiratorially into his ear, “but don’t tell Katsuki that. I’d never hear the end of it.”

He blushed a little before stammering out something about keeping his lips sealed and you grinned, pinching his uninjured cheek. It was funny to you how flustered Midoriya got at the simplest of things. The literal Symbol of Peace. Strongest hero in the world.

“All right, you’re all set,” you said a bit later after you were done checking his injuries and rewrapping any cuts he had. You patted him on the shoulder as you stepped away, glancing at your phone to check the time. It was almost time for your lunch date with Katsuki. “You can sign yourself out and go back to saving the country now. I’ve gotta head out for lunch with Katsuki. He always gets all grumpy whenever I’m late.”

“Actually!” Midoriya spoke up as he hopped off of the hospital bed. You glanced at him with an eyebrow raised, silently telling him to continue. “I was thinking about heading over to Kacchan’s agency, too!”

You blinked then squinted your eyes at him in a suspicious manner. “This isn’t about you pestering him to do that long-term mission with you again, is it?” Katsuki had been pushing off talking to Midoriya about it for a few weeks now, seeing that it would force him to be with the Symbol of Peace for weeks -- alone -- and also halfway across the world. You didn’t think it was a good idea to leave Japan without its top two heroes for nearly a month, despite how strong all your other friends were. But also, Midoriya was stubbornly persistent. It was only a matter of time before Katsuki would (reluctantly) agree.

“N-no!” Midoriya stammered out in response, a bead of sweat suddenly appearing on his forehead. When all you did was squint at him even more, he looked away as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Maybe…”

“You know he’s just gonna tell you to fuck off again, right?” you sighed out, gesturing to him to follow you as you walked him to the receptionist’s desk to sign him out. “Personally, I think he would just miss his friends too much.” It was a nice thought to imagine, even though you knew it was something Katsuki would never admit out loud.

“I’ve just got to keep trying!” Midoriya said determinedly once you’d both set off down the street. You’d given him your sunglasses to wear, though it did little in the scheme of him adorning his hero suit. “He’s bound to agree eventually!” You only gave him a shrug at that, knowing it was likely true. You still didn’t know how to feel about being without Katsuki for a few weeks. You’ll survive, but it’ll suck.

One of the perks of working at the hero hospital you were situated in was that it was rather close to the Ground Zero agency in Musutafu. It was a nice walk for whenever you wanted to stretch out your legs. You chatted idly with Midoriya as you both made your way to a familiar five-story building, pushing open its doors to enter into the bustling space.

“Oh, hey guys!” a voice almost instantly greeted, and you turned your head to see Kirishima waving his hand from near the elevators. You called out your own greeting as you and Midoriya walked past the receptionist’s desk to join him. “Looking for Bakugou?”

“Yep,” you replied, glancing at your phone once more to see it was a few minutes past noon. Nice. “I’m having lunch with him and Midoriya here wants to pester him about that mission to the states.”

“Good luck with that,” Kirishima told Midoriya with a grimace, the elevator doors opening to let all three of you on. You pressed the button for the fifth floor. “Bakubro’s been grumpy all morning with the reports he’s had to redo.”

“I keep telling him to do them properly,” you rolled your eyes, “he never listens.”

“He’ll say yes,” Midoriya firmly restates once you all got off the elevator and started to walk toward Katsuki’s office. His door was firmly closed. There were a few other people walking around who greeted you before hurrying off to take care of other hero-related business. “He has to. I’m sure of it.”

“Whatever you say, man.” Kirishima shrugged before pushing open the door to Katsuki’s office, letting out a loud “Yo! Bakubro!”

You liked Katsuki’s office since the entire left wall was made of reinforced glass, allowing you to see more of the city. It also let in a lot of natural light, which made the space look absolutely gorgeous with all of its mahogany furniture and neat bookshelves. You raised a hand in greeting once you made eye contact with Katsuki, then walked off to the mini fridge he had stashed in the corner of his office.

“Shitty Hair,” Katsuki grunted in acknowledgement from behind his desk before his eyes landed on Midoriya. He scowled. “Deku. Fuck off.”

“Told yoooou!” you sang out as you grabbed the two bentos from the fridge and gently kicked the door closed with your heel. You turned just in time to see Midoriya pout at you. You made your way over to Katsuki’s desk, setting them down on an area that wasn’t covered in paper, before you pulled over the chair he had for you and plopped down in it. You were starving, so you wasted no time in opening your bento and prying your chopsticks apart.

“But Kacchan!” Midoriya protested, walking closer to Katsuki’s desk. “You know it’s a mission that we could get done well together--”

“I said fuck. Off,” Katsuki snarled as he stood up abruptly and glared at his childhood friend. You rolled your eyes before batting away Kirishima’s hand that’d been trying to sneak a piece of teriyaki from your bento. “Ask someone else.”

“Aww, maybe you should give it a chance Bakugou,” Kirishima piped up, successfully managing to nab a piece of chicken from you as you gave him the stink eye.

“No. Both of you, get out.”

“But--!!”

“I said out or I’ll fucking kill you.”

Midoriya sighed and Kirishima walked over to him to give him a clap on the shoulder, muttering something indecipherable to him. Katsuki glared at them until they were out of the door, only to scowl when Midoriya stuck his head back in with a determined expression. “I’m not giving up, Kacchan! Think about it!” Then he was gone, only to be replaced with Kirishima’s head.

“Chief of Police wants those reports in by the end of the day, by the way,” he said and Katsuki grunted in response. Kirishima then grinned widely, his sharp teeth on full display. “Have fun on your lunch date!” he teased, only to duck away as Katsuki threw a pen at him. The redhead laughed loudly, then thankfully shut the door, knowing when to take a hint.

Katsuki let out a sigh, plopping down heavily onto his chair before he rubbed at his temples. You swallowed down the rice in your mouth and patted his shoulder sympathetically. “You know, he’s just gonna keep pestering you until you agree.”

“I fucking know,” he groaned as he grabbed his bento and pried it open. He viciously snapped his chopsticks, then started shoveling rice into his mouth. You hoped he wouldn’t choke. “Damn Deku never knows when to give up.” He scowled deeply, a grain of rice stuck to his cheek.

You picked it off and wiped your finger on a napkin from your pocket. “And? Have you thought about it?”

“I’ve been thinking about it,” he sighed, running his free hand through his hair as he glared at one of the reports on his desk. You knew anything Midoriya said or did was not without reason. You also knew that Katsuki knew this as well. Besides, he was right; they both did work extremely well together -- which was surprising, given their past and how much they squabbled even as adults.

You hummed. “Well, then you know what you have to do, don’t you?”

Katsuki’s crimson eyes turned to look at you, a frown pulling at his lips. He exhaled, then looked back down at his food with a glare so strong you thought you saw smoke rising from the piece of salmon he was staring at.

“Yeah,” he grumbled. “I do.”

---

“So this guy came in,” you said, leaning forward a bit as you relished internally at the eyes glued to your figure, “and he was like ‘I think I’m pregnant’. I took one look at him and the man looked like he was in his third trimester. Naturally, my first reaction was ‘Well, what the fuck?’ because his sex was male, and the nurses who were also looking after him were absolutely stumped.”

“He wasn’t actually pregnant, was he?” Kaminari asked, looking as though he was hanging on desperately to every word that left your mouth. His face was slightly flushed from all the alcohol he had consumed within the last few hours. “That’s impossible, isn’t it?”

“Well, yes,” you replied, taking a short sip of the drink you had clutched in your hand. “But get this. I ordered an ultrasound for him, and you know what I found?”

“What?” Kirishima breathed, eyes wide in anticipation. You paused for dramatic effect.

“Teeth,” you said simply. “And hair.”

“So he was pregnant!” Kaminari exclaimed, bolting upright so suddenly that some of the sake in his glass spilled over onto his hand. “I knew it.”

“Don’t be fucking stupid,” Katsuki scoffed. You glanced besides you just in time to see him roll his eyes. He was slumped onto the couch next to you, an arm thrown over the back of it. You could feel his hand playing with the cloth on your shoulder, rubbing the material between his fingers. You let out a small laugh at the pout that appeared on Kaminari’s face.

“But then, what was it?” Kirishima asked, his expression twisted in a look that made it seem like he was thinking very hard about it.

“It was just a massive tumor,” you said with a grin, waving your free hand around. “They do that sometimes, you know? This guy was just unlucky enough that he had it right on his abdomen.” You patted your stomach with your hand, watching as Kaminari’s face fell slightly.

“So he wasn’t pregnant,” he sighed out with a frown, staring down at his drink as though it had betrayed him personally.

“No,” you laughed slightly when Kaminari flopped over onto the floor, disappointed. “It was very strange though. Even made it to the news.”

“Man!” Kirishima suddenly exclaimed, clapping his hands together from his position sitting next to Kaminari. “The medical field has some pretty interesting stories!”

“Oh yeah,” you smiled as you leaned back against Katsuki’s chest, “I’ve got loads of stories. They’re probably not as impressive as some of the things you guys have done, though.” You could feel Katsuki’s fingers stop moving as he watched you carefully from the corner of his eye. You tried not to look at him.

“Pssht, hero-ing has its boring parts too,” Kaminari waved his hand as he sat back up sloppily, “Sometimes you just capture the villain and nothing exciting happens. Other times you just sit in your office doing all the piles of paperwork.” He took a sip of his drink. “They don’t exactly advertise that part to the public.”

“Yeah!” Kirishima nodded his head in agreement. “Lots of background stuff you gotta do. And sometimes nothing happens on patrols.”

“It gets so boorrringggg when nothing happens!” Kaminari whined out, inevitably spilling some of his drink onto the floor. Katsuki glared at him as he attempted to clumsily wipe it with his shirt sleeve.

“Oh boo-fucking-hoo,” Katsuki growled, “you knew what you were signing up for. Suck it up.”

“So mean, Kacchan!” Kaminari sniffled and you figured that was a sign to wrap things up for the night. You helped Kirishima pick up an inebriated Kaminari from the floor and walked them down to his car, waving farewell as they pulled away. When you got back up to your apartment, Katsuki had already cleaned up, so you joined him in your bedroom, where he was laying down, staring up at the ceiling.

You crawled into bed next to him, propping yourself on your elbow before you poked his cheek. He glanced over at you. “Penny for your thoughts?”

“Just thinkin’ ‘bout leaving tomorrow,” he said quietly, turning on his side so he could properly face you. Your eyes flicked over his visage, memorizing all the tiny details that made up his face as though this was the last time you would ever get to see him. “You gonna be fine on your own?”

“What am I, five?” you joked, laughing a little when Katsuki only frowned at you. A small smile tugged at your lips and you ran a hand through his soft hair before letting your palm rest on his cheek. “I’ll be fine. It’s you I’m more worried about. Sure you won’t miss me too much?” You were teasing him, trying to get him to stop looking so contemplative. He mumbled something under his breath, then sighed, bringing his hand up to rest over yours.

“We’ll finish that fucking mission so fast you won’t even have time to miss me,” he told you instead, and you rolled your eyes when a small smirk formed on his lips.

“Yeah, yeah,” you told him, leaning closer so you could press a kiss to his forehead. He closed his eyes momentarily, then opened them when you pressed your head against his, your noses rubbing together slightly. You inhaled, then exhaled slowly, ingraining the smell of caramel apples into your brain.

“Just make sure you come back in one piece,” you whispered against his skin.

---

Katsuki’s absence in the following weeks was loud. Almost too loud, at times.

You would sit in the living room of your shared apartment, and notice just how quiet it was without him bustling around in the kitchen or grumbling to himself at a news report. You tried not to let it bother you too much, focusing on work and chatting with the friends who were still in Japan. But they were also busy, since -- as expected -- villain appearances increased with Dynamight and Deku out of the country. It was terrible in the first few days they were gone, but your friends were quite strong, and they’d managed to reel everything back in order pretty fast.

You still went to the Ground Zero agency to have lunch with Kirishima or Kaminari sometimes. Occasionally Ashido would be there as well, though it was rare with how busy she was. They told you Katsuki would be back before you knew it, and you appreciated it, you did. You were a patient person anyways. It was only a matter of time.

You still kept in contact with him, of course. Whenever he or you weren’t busy, you’d call or text. It was a bit difficult, though, with the time difference. He couldn’t tell you everything about the mission he was on either, but you knew it likely had something to do with quirk-related drugs, since they’d been popping up everywhere and sending their users to hospitals.

“Deku’s been jumpin’ all over the place meeting with U.S. heroes,” he told you one night when you’d called him to say good night -- though he had just woken up for the day. “The nerd’s never been more excited. It’s disgusting.”

“Aww, let him have this,” you chided him with a small laugh, thinking about how eager Midoriya probably was at getting to meet American heroes. The mission was probably also kind of diplomatic as well. “And how do you feel, huh? About the new people?”

“I can kick all of their asses in my sleep,” he declared and you laughed louder this time, a fond smile stretching across your face.

“I’m sure you can,” you told him amusedly, and he huffed in a way that told you he was pleased. “Well, make sure you do whatever you gotta do and get back home, all right? Japan needs its best heroes.”

“Yeah,” he went quiet for a bit, “...I miss seeing your shitty face.”

You chuckled, eyes crinkling slightly as you smiled even wider than before. “Yeah, well, I miss your ugly face, too.”

---

You’d been checking the hospital’s stock of epinephrine when you found out.

A nurse slammed open the door to the cool storage room you were in, navy scrubs askew as they looked at you, their face dripping with sweat and their chest heaving from the effort it took to find you. You immediately dropped the clipboard and pen you were holding, your body on autopilot as you ran to the emergency department of the hospital even before they could finish telling you what had happened.

“Doc, i-it’s Dynamight. He’s in critical condition in the E.R.--”

You couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe even as you rapidly scrubbed your hands and tugged on your white gloves, bolting through the door into the surgery room housing Katsuki where there was already a swarm of doctors milling about, shouting and yelling above the rapid drone of a heart monitor.

And white, you thought so brokenly as you finally saw him covered in bandages and sheets, was not an unassuming color when it was tainted in dark burgundy. When it was saturated so deeply with the liquid signifying death. His blood. His.

“You shouldn’t be here,” one of the other doctors told you when she finally noticed you standing frozen at the door. “You know you can’t treat him like this, it’s not allowed.”

You knew that. You knew you couldn’t; doctors with any kind of relationship to a patient couldn’t treat them -- not when it was so serious like this. It was different than you doing those simple check-ups you’d been doing before. But you had to be here, you just had to. You couldn’t take your eyes off of him, at the large piece of metal protruding from his torso. Your heart sank, a cold feeling spreading throughout your body. The color was nearly drained from his skin, an oxygen mask attached firmly to his face as his breathing stuttered from time to time. There was no way he would survive something like this. Once that piece of metal was removed, he only had minutes left before he would die.

He would die.

You felt cold.

“No, wait,” another doctor spoke up when they saw you. They said your name. “I-I think you might have to use your quirk for this. It’ll give us more tim--”

“He won’t survive something like this even if we had our best surgeons,” a nurse interrupted as she looked at the heart monitor. It was slowing down. “Even if it did give us time, what could we do?”

“Keep trying,” you whispered out, then cleared your throat and spoke up louder, catching the attention of most of the doctors in the room. There was a numb feeling spreading throughout your body, but you ignored it. “We keep trying, and we look for someone who can help.” If there is someone. You tugged the gloves off of your hands and stepped towards Katsuki’s bed, positioning yourself right by his head.

“I’ll do it,” you said firmly as you smoothed spiky ash-blond hair from his damp forehead. You looked up at the doctors in charge of the surgery. “Remove the metal. We don’t have much time. Japan’s number two hero isn’t gonna die on our watch.” You said that last bit firmly, willing yourself to believe it.

Seconds seemed like eternities as the surgeons carefully removed the chunk of metal from his torso. You watched, stroking his hair gently, as it left his body. Then you sprung into action, resting your hands against the gaping hole that spanned nearly the entire length of his abdomen. You concentrated, the sounds around you fading away to a low hum as your hands emitted a warm, peach light.

The wound started to shrink, muscle and skin knitting together rapidly under your gaze as you put all your energy into closing him up.

It took you two minutes and thirty-five seconds until he looked good as new. A glance at the clock on the wall told you it was midnight.

As soon as your hands left his torso, you collapsed backwards onto the floor, breathing heavily as the doctors around you leapt into action. You looked up at the heart monitor as it stabilized, accepting the assistance of a nurse as they helped you up. Katsuki let out a deep sigh in his sleep, and you wiped sweat from your face as blood bags were hooked up to the crook of his right arm. The color was slowly returning to his face.

He’s fine, you assured yourself as you accompanied the doctors pushing him to a vacant room. You sat down near his bed, one of your hands clutching desperately onto his own warm one. He’s fine.

You swallowed heavily.

Everything still felt numb.

---

Sometimes you wished Katsuki had never gone on that stupid mission with Midoriya.

It was a completely rational thought, even as you lay in bed, listening to his heartbeat as he slept away. You’d found out from Katsuki one night that he’d gotten impaled trying to save Midoriya from a blow that would’ve pierced through his heart. They’d been attacked as they were traveling back to Japan, and Midoriya just barely had enough time to get Katsuki to the hospital you worked at. To you.

Stupid heroes, you thought to yourself, wiping a hot tear from your eye. Stupid heroes and their stupid self-sacrificing bullshit.

Maybe Midoriya had known you were Katsuki’s only chance to survive, you thought ruefully, tracing circles into the tank top Katsuki was wearing. Maybe you were. But it didn’t feel like it. You glanced at your phone. Midnight.

You sat up in bed just in time to see a dark spot of red form on the white of Katsuki’s tank top. Inevitably stained, once more. Carefully, so as to not wake him, you peeled the shirt back, seeing a small wound start to form on his abdomen. You glanced at his face to see it start to twist in pain as the wound started to get steadily larger and larger, blood threatening to spill onto the white sheets of your bed.

You sighed and placed your hands against it, concentrating once more as that familiar peach light enveloped your hands and his torso. After two minutes and thirty-five seconds the wound disappeared, and you felt more than saw Katsuki’s body relax against the mattress. His breathing continued on, undisturbed.

It was the same song and dance every night. Directly at midnight.

“You really do like to worry me,” you exhaled in a whisper as you grabbed a wet wipe from the nightstand beside you, wiping the blood from your hands before tossing it in the small trash can near your side of the bed. It was almost full; you would have to empty it soon.

You carefully lay back down, resting your head on his chest to listen to his heartbeat, steadily thumping away. Thump, thump, thump, a reassurance. You closed your eyes.

You often wondered how long this would need to continue; this seemingly never ending cycle of injury and healing. You never wished so strongly for a better quirk than at this moment. A quirk that maybe wasn’t so useless. So temporary. Would you be trapped in this loop for the foreseeable future? You didn’t know. Still, you pressed through it, hoping that one day you wouldn’t have to anymore.

His life was in your hands.

You wished it wasn’t.

#bakugou katsuki x reader #bakugou x reader #katsuki x reader #bnha x reader #mha x reader #bakugou imagine #reader insert #boku no hero academia x reader #my hero academia x reader #bakugou x you #that tumor story i literally took from greys anatomy #tho i think it was real actually #idek if i wanna be premed this shit suckkss

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daswarschonkaputt · 2 years ago

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WIP Wednesday Aizawa/Harry Potter One Night Stand AU

okay, so when i wrote this i was deeply nostalgic for a period of fanfic where you just sort of dumped harry into whatever fandom you wanted and shipped him with someone. (did i read a lot of twilight x harry potter crossovers in my youth? yes. i am only slightly ashamed.) and i was like, you know who would be great? unlikely fandom sex symbol, aizawa. so that’s where this fic comes from.

Summary

A wizard and a pro-hero walk into a bar. It’s only the start of their problems.

Content warnings: attempted suicide and discussion thereof (minor character), suicide baiting (same minor character), implied/referenced animal abuse.

“Two mojitos, and a—what do you want to drink, Shouta?”

Aizawa blinks, looking up from the menu he’s spent the past ten minutes supposedly engrossed in. “Water’s fine,” he says.

Beside him, Nemuri rolls her eyes. “He’ll take an old fashioned,” she says. “On me. I’m not letting you spend your birthday sober.”

The better present, Aizawa can’t help but think, would have been to let him sleep. He sighs, but accepts the drink when it’s handed to him, and dutifully follows his friends to a table at the back of the bar. He doesn’t even complain when they take the two seats facing the bar’s entrance, leaving him with the tactically unnerving position of staring at a wall.

“How goes the uphill climb?” Hizashi asks, sprawled in his seat. “You’ve got how many left now?”

“Three,” Aizawa says.

Nemuri’s eyes widen. “Three? It was four yesterday.”

Aizawa shrugs. Takes a sip of his drink, which seems to mostly taste like whisky.

“Man, you heroics tutors really have it easy,” Nemuri says. “You know how many kids get expelled from the management track? I’m lucky if I lose even one – let alone seventeen.”

“I’m not mad about it,” Hizashi says. “Seventeen fewer assignments to mark. Seventeen fewer times I have to look like an asshole for calling out obvious copying. Do you know how many of your kids supposedly mistranslated manual labour as a hand job, Nemuri? Fifteen. At least Shouta’s hellions are too dysfunctional to cooperate on cheating.”

Nemuri’s laugh is tinged with something close to pride. “Yeah, the little bastards are pretty industrious,” she agrees. “But – come on, Shouta. Don’t leave us in suspense. Which one of your brats got the axe this time?”

Aizawa swirls the amber liquid of his drink. “Yamakawa.”

Nemuri taps the table thoughtfully. “Blonde kid, cutting quirk, costume that looks like a peacock?” At his nod, she tilts her head. “Huh. Any reason?”

Aizawa sighs. He doesn’t especially want to get into this right now. “Penchant for animal abuse.”

“Ah.”

It hadn’t been a particularly fun call to receive – a police detective calling him in at five in the morning on the day of his birthday, because one of his wayward students had been picked up for illegal quirk use on stray cats. Listening to Yamakawa’s stuttering justifications – how else was he meant to learn control? – had been somehow even less fun. Hauling his exhausted body back to campus to try and drill some semblance of sense into his remaining students had honestly felt like twisting the knife.

Happy fucking birthday, Aizawa guesses.

Nemuri puts her empty glass down on the table with an audible clink. “Another round?”

Hizashi nods. “Maybe grab two, whilst you’re up.”

“Shouta, you good?”

Aizawa indicates his drink – barely touched.

She grabs her wallet off the table, then pauses, and undoes two buttons on her shirt. Her smile is wicked. “Cleavage discount,” she explains with a wink – and Aizawa momentarily regrets every second he’s ever known her.

As she saunters over to the bar, a noticeable swing in her hips, Hizashi’s relaxed smile falls.

“So,” he says, voice unusually quiet as he leans in towards Aizawa. “What was it this year?”

Aizawa momentarily considers downing his drink to avoid having to have this conversation – but he doubts alcohol would help much with it at all. “A watch,” he says, words stilted. “Patek Phillipe. Very expensive.”

“Engraved?”

He hates that Hizashi knows to ask. “To her darling Shouchan. There was a note. She wants me over for dinner.”

“You’re not going to go.”

Aizawa shrugs.

“Shouta.”

“I’m not stupid, Hizashi,” he says, because it’s easier than putting into words the gut-wrenching, sickening hope that he’d felt when he ran his fingers over the handwritten card. “She’s never going to divorce him.”

“Even if she does,” Hizashi says, “it doesn’t erase—”

“I don’t want to talk about this,” Aizawa says.

“What aren’t we talking about?”

Aizawa doesn’t jump, but it’s a near thing. He contents himself with shooting a scathing look at Hizashi – as the one with the vantage point, he’s the one whose job it was to watch out for Nemuri’s return.

Hizashi smiles apologetically at him, before picking up a glass. “Online dating,” he lies smoothly.

Nemuri laughs as she unloads the tray of drinks – a veritable armada of cocktails, all various degrees of lurid. “For Shouta?” she asks. “Really?”

Aizawa sighs. Trust Hizashi to pick the worst possible lie. “I work two jobs,” he says. “I don’t have time to date.”

“Please, I work like five, and I still find the time to take out a pretty lady or two,” Hizashi says.

“And two jobs is stretching it a little, given your class size,” Nemuri says. “It’s more like – what, twenty percent of a job now?”

“Fifteen,” Hizashi corrects absent-mindedly.

“Anyway, the whole point of online dating is that you can work it around your schedule,” Nemuri says. “Hizashi and I could even put together your profile for you. Just send me a photo of your abs and you’ll have to beat them away with a stick.”

Aizawa can’t think of anything less appealing than having a photo of his bare torso posted anywhere online, much less in Nemuri’s possession. “No.”

“C’mon, Shouta, live a little—”

“I’m not interested.”

Nemuri sighs. “Fine. But only because it’s your birthday.” She drains another drink, pushing it towards their slowly growing collection of empty cocktail glasses. Given the assortment she ordered earlier, Aizawa can’t help but wonder if she’s trying to complete some sort of collection. “You hear the rumours about All Might?”

“What, that he’s retiring?” Hizashi asks. “I’ll believe it when I see it. He’s been supposedly on the brink of retirement for the past ten years.”

“I meant more that I heard he’s considering a post at UA,” Nemuri says.

Aizawa raises his eyebrows. That is new. “Where did you hear that?”

“My sources are many and varied,” Nemuri says. “People tell me all sorts of things.”

Aizawa stares at her.

“Fine. I saw that skinny blond guy that works for him leaving Nedzu’s office.” She reaches for another cocktail. “Not many reasons why a hero’s secretary might be wandering the halls of UA – especially not one that looks the way that guy does. He looks like he’s a few sharp coughs away from losing a lung. All Might should let the guy retire – or at least hire him an assistant.”

“Pros like All Might don’t tend to be that plugged in to the concerns of their staff,” Aizawa says flatly. “It probably hasn’t even crossed his mind that his assistant might need help.”

“Careful Shouta,” Hizashi says. “Your anti All Might bias is showing.”

Aizawa opens his mouth to refute that, but is cut across by Nemuri. “Ugh,” she says. “Don’t make a scene, but I’m pretty sure the guy at the bar has clocked me.”

It’s a hazard of hero work, getting recognised off-duty. Aizawa knows some pros relish the fame, but the three of them try and stay fairly low profile. Aizawa has always eschewed the spotlight, and Hizashi looks completely different out of costume – so the only one of them who ever really gets approached is Nemuri, for whom scandal had come early and viciously, and never really left.

Curious, Aizawa subtly cranes his neck to glance behind them. He picks out Nemuri’s hero fan with ease – he’s not even trying to hide the fact that he’s staring at them. He’s—well, the first thing that comes to mind is handsome. He certainly stands out, that’s for sure. He’s not Japanese, but he isn’t white either, and Aizawa doesn’t know enough to guess at his background without embarrassing himself. Aizawa clocks the rest of his features absent-mindedly: average height; lean build; a mess of jet black hair barely restrained by a short pony tail at the base of his neck; large, circular glasses; and, behind them, a pair of vivid green eyes, the kind of intense colour that you don’t see often without some kind of quirk behind it.

“Why do you sound so mad?” Hizashi asks. “He’s hot, and he’s a fan of yours. Just your kind of man. Go forth and—sluttify, or whatever.”

Nemuri swats him. “It’s Shouta’s birthday,” she says. “I’m not about to abandon him for a nameless hook-up.”

“Ah. So you’re mad because he’s hot.”

“Don’t put words in my mouth,” Nemuri says. “It doesn’t matter if he’s hot. Who cares what a guy’s face looks like if you’re just going to sit on it?”

Aizawa glances balefully at Nemuri and Hizashi’s accumulated empty glasses. Three each. What, exactly, was the alcohol content in those things?

“I’m certain I don’t want to know the context,” comes a voice from behind Aizawa, and he tenses a little; he didn’t hear the approach, “but I’ll cop to curiosity.”

Aizawa turns around as conversation stalls. It’s the guy from the bar – the unknowing subject of Nemuri’s crude attempt at wisdom.

“I’m Harry,” the guy says. “And I was wondering if I could buy you a drink?”

Aizawa turns to Nemuri, ready to be appalled by however she decides to dismiss ‘Harry’ – but she’s frozen, eyes wide, mouth open. Aizawa looks back to the guy – and that’s when he realises that the question was directed at him.

Oh. Oh. This is… New? Unusual. Strange.

The thing is, Aizawa knows he’s not without appeal. He has good bone structure. As Nemuri frequently points out, he has abs. He even cleans up nice, on the rare occasions he decides to make an effort.

But – and this is the real kicker – Aizawa’s not trying to be attractive.

He doesn’t iron his clothes – doesn’t really see the point, when he never has the time, and the only people he ever sees are his students, who know to fear him regardless of his clothing, his co-workers, none of whom would be fooled by a pressed shirt, and the villains he arrests, who are generally far too pre-occupied trying to kill him to notice his outfit. On a similar note, he doesn’t own anything that’s not black or dark grey, because anything lighter tends to accumulate bloodstains which he doesn’t have the patience to try and remove.

His hair is long, because he finds cutting it more of a chore than simply pulling it into a scraggly bun when he needs it out of his face – and it’s full of split ends because he uses whichever shampoo is on sale whenever he gets the time to go to the store. He shaves when he remembers to, which is rarely, and it probably wouldn’t be an issue if his facial hair had gotten the memo that he was in fact 30 years old, and not a teenager delighted with patchy peach fuzz.

As Nemuri put it once: he looks just a little bit homeless.

Faced with objective, undeniable interest in him, Aizawa’s first thought is, This man is after something. Which, his rational brain points out, whilst paranoid and ridiculous, is probably at least partially true.

Just – the something this guy is after is probably sex. With Aizawa.

And not the drunk and slutty Aizawa who trawled gay clubs with Nemuri in his early 20s, desperate to prove himself and validate his sexuality – not even the well-groomed and professional Aizawa who’s been called into court to testify – no. This guy is into the scruffy, tired, post-patrol, post-five-AM-callout, post-teaching Aizawa who would rather be sleeping than drinking and looks like it.

Aizawa doesn’t really know what to do with that.

The guy is still staring at him, waiting for an answer. Aizawa opens his mouth, not even certain what he’s going to say when he starts. “I—”

“Get him something with coffee,” Nemuri cuts across him. Her shock has melted away to an almost predatory eagerness. “An – what’s the cocktail with espresso in it?”

“An espresso martini?” Harry says. He says the cocktail name in perfect, lilting English that has Hizashi tilting his head. Something in his accent then – something not American. Australian, most likely, but possibly British.

“That okay with you?”

The question is once more directed at Aizawa, who looks to Nemuri and Hizashi. There’s a palpable air of excitement between the two of them, now that Hot Foreigner’s target has been revealed to be Aizawa. They’re probably about two drinks away from stripping him naked and dropping him into the guy’s lap.

It surprises him when he realises that he’s actually considering it. Am I really going to do this? he asks himself.

The answer, when it comes, is deceptively simple. Yeah. Because I want to. Maybe this is the universe’s version of a birthday gift – or at the very least an apology. Good job on soldiering through those thirty years, Aizawa. Now go get dicked down like you deserve.

It’s the type of thing—

Never mind.

“You know what?” Aizawa says, standing. “How about I come with you and order for myself?”

Harry smiles.

As Aizawa follows him away from the table, he turns back to Nemuri and Hizashi. They’re practically vibrating in their seats, just waiting for Aizawa and Harry to leave their earshot, so they can explode into a thousand different conversations about what just happened.

Aizawa smirks at them, and turns back to Harry.

“I know it’s a cliché, but I have to ask,” Harry says, as they wait for the bartender to make his drink – which Aizawa had chosen blindly off the menu. He knows very little about cocktails. “Do you come here often?”

“No,” Aizawa says. “I’m not much of a drinker.”

“We have that much in common,” Harry says. “I’m only here because I’m staying at the hotel across the street. I haven’t even been drinking alcohol, though I think this is the most I’ve ever paid for a glass of orange juice.” He leans against the bar, somehow still graceful when he’s all but slouching. “So, do I get a name?”

“Aizawa,” Aizawa says simply. He’s not in the habit of giving out his full name – professional paranoia, if nothing else.

“Just Aizawa?” Harry asks.

“Just Harry?”

Harry laughs. It’s a nice sound. Easy. The laugh of a civilian. Aizawa doesn’t know many pro-heroes who can laugh like that. “Okay, okay, but you’ve got to give me a little more to work with than ‘Aizawa who doesn’t like drinking’.”

The bartender finishes making Aizawa’s drink and slides it over to him. Aizawa takes a sip. It’s sweet, with a sour kick – not his usual fare, but pretty good. “I never said I don’t like it,” he says. “Just that I don’t do it much.”

“There’s a difference?” Harry asks, leaning in towards him.

“I only drink socially,” Aizawa says. “And I’m very busy.”

“Aren’t we all?” Harry asks lightly. “What’s your particular brand of busy, then?”

“Teacher.”

“Troublesome students?”

If only he knew. “Saying that implies the existence of non-troublesome students,” Aizawa says, because it’s about the most neutral thing he can manage after the mess with Yamakawa.

Harry smiles again. “I want to refute you, but I wasn’t exactly a shining beacon of obedience in my school days.”

Aizawa takes another sip of his drink. “You seem to have turned out fine.”

“What’s adolescence without a little skulduggery and civil disobedience?”

“Easier on your teachers,” Aizawa says. “And you?”

“And me what?”

“What’s your brand of busy?”

Harry shrugs. “Depends who you ask,” he says. “If I tell you I’m a lazy, useless layabout, frittering away my youth and inherited wealth, will you walk away and never talk to me again?”

It’s said lightly, and with an air of self-deprecation, but Aizawa isn’t entirely convinced it’s true. Lazy, useless layabouts do not fly to Japan, turn up in bars wearing business casual, and decline the opportunity to drink. Aizawa would know. Half of his childhood friends turned out like that.

“Inherited wealth,” Aizawa says, instead of any of that, “usually comes with an accompanying burden of grief. So I’d say no, and I’m sorry for your loss.”

Harry blinks at that, his easy-going demeanour faltering slightly. “Thanks,” he says, after a pause.

It’s a little too personal for both of them. Aizawa drains the remainder of his cocktail, and puts his glass down at the bar. “Close your tab,” he tells Harry.

Harry raises his eyebrows.

“You have a hotel room across the street,” Aizawa says. “How about you show me it?”

Aizawa is awoken by a loud, persistent buzzing. There’s a pleasant kind of residual heat in his muscles, the kind he gets after a good workout, or a patrol that passed without any rough landings. An arm is slung over him, fingers curling loosely somewhere near his hipbone.

Aizawa closes his eyes, letting the memories of last night wash over him.

Harry. The bar. Harry. A fancy hotel room. Drinks from the mini fridge. A hand brushing his hair from his eyes. A wicked smile. Letting himself be pushed down onto the bed. Harry’s huffing laughter in his ear.

It was almost nice. Nicer than these things typically run.

The buzzing sound continues, coming from the floor across the room.

“You going to get that?” It comes from Aizawa’s side, raspy in a way that has Aizawa’s stomach coiling. He know who put that rasp in Harry’s voice. “Good morning, Aizawa-san.”

Aizawa turns his head, taking in Harry’s appearance. In the morning light, there’s something softer, less guarded, about Harry. Without the suit and easy charm, he looks younger.

“It’s a bit late for honorifics,” Aizawa grunts, rolling out of the bed. He picks up the first item of clothing he finds – Harry’s suit jacket – and puts it to the side.

“Eh,” Harry says, waving a lazy hand. “Formality and I only really have a passing acquaintance, even in English. Keigo baffles me.”

Aizawa finds his pants behind the television, and digs through his pockets until he finds his phone. It buzzes plaintively in his hand, screen alight with a call from an unknown number. Aizawa sighs and answers it.

“Is this Aizawa Shouta?” a woman asks.

“Speaking,” Aizawa says. He sees Harry mouthing ‘Shouta’ with a grin, and turns away from him.

“I’m calling from Mustafu General Hospital,” the woman says. “Last night a student of yours was brought in. Normally, we’d call the parents, but you were listed as her emergency contact.”

It’s standard UA procedure to list a hero student’s homeroom teacher as their emergency contact. In cases where a student has been injured during a work study, or targeted by a villain, it’s useful to have UA staff notified as soon as possible following the incident – and civilian parents don’t tend to have the forethought to call their child’s school teacher in times of crisis.

Truthfully, it could be any one of his students – past or present – but Aizawa has a bad feeling. “Name?” he asks.

There’s a pause. “Toukei Hayaka.”

Aizawa closes his eyes. Of course. Because it was too much to ask for one night off.

Toukei is one of his Class 1A hellions, a meek and mild-mannered girl who has spent her time at UA quietly keeping her head down, and as such has dodged the worst of his ire. Arguably, she has the most potential of her remaining classmates – she works hard, she cares about people, and, critically, she listens, which automatically places her a cut above the rest. Her one flaw has always been indecision. She second-guesses herself, and hesitates.

In hero work, hesitation can get you killed.

Aizawa really hopes it hasn’t killed her just yet.

Glancing at Harry, who isn’t even pretending to hide his eavesdropping, Aizawa refrains from asking for any further details. He’s not about to broadcast a teenager’s private medical information to his one night stand. “Okay,” he says. “I’ll be down there soon. Is she awake?”

“No, sir.”

“Have someone available to brief me when I get there,” he says, and hangs up.

Aizawa shoves his feet into his pant legs, zipping up his fly, and hunting for his boots. Something dark appears in his field of view, and he flinches – before he realises it’s Harry, offering him his shirt.

Aizawa takes it. “Thanks.”

“Duty calls?” Harry asks, sitting on the edge of the bed.

“Something like that,” Aizawa says.

“Hm,” Harry says. “Well, this does disrupt my plans somewhat. I’d planned to ply you with breakfast in bed and intelligent conversation—”

“I really have to go—”

“—before asking for your number.”

Aizawa pauses, halfway through lacing up his boots.

“So?” Harry asks. “Can I get your number?”

Aizawa opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again. “I—”

“You didn’t,” Hizashi sounds far too appalled for how hungover he must be. “C’mon, Shouta, he was hot!”

“He was charming,” Aizawa corrects as he exits the cab, slapping his UA expenses card onto the reader without even glancing at the amount. “People like that don’t get told no often.”

“So, what, you decided to turn your morning after into a teachable moment?”

Aizawa rolls his eyes. “I wasn’t interested in furthering our relationship,” he says.

“That’s cold, Shouta.”

Aizawa sighs pressing his phone into his shoulder as he flashes his Hero ID at the receptionist of Mustafu General. “Toukei Hayaka.”

She nods, tapping away on the computer. A few moments, and she tells him the ward and bed number. Aizawa smiles at her and heads for the elevators.

“I told you last night,�� he says, bringing the phone back up to his ear. “I don’t have time to date, not even conventionally attractive foreigners from—” He pauses, realising that he never actually managed to find out where, exactly, Harry was from.

“England,” Hizashi finishes for him. “He could have been after something casual.”

The elevator arrives before Aizawa can formulate a response. He boards, plugs in the floor number the receptionist gave him, and thinks over what, exactly he wants to say to Hizashi. Truthfully, Aizawa knew that Harry was likely only after a bit of fun – nothing serious, nothing involved. Inherited wealth or no, hotels like Harry’s aren’t usually affordable on a semi-permanent basis.

And that had made something in Aizawa curl. “I don’t do casual,” Aizawa says, after a moment.

“Your track record says you don’t do anything—” Hizashi starts, but at that point the elevator doors open, and Aizawa sighs.

“Hizashi, I’ll call you back.” He hangs up the call, dropping his phone into his jacket pocket, and walks over to the bench of seats directly opposite the elevator. Curled up, clothes soaked in blood is Gentoku Akira. 1A Hellion #2.

“So,” Aizawa says, and Gentoku flinches, eyes going wide at the sight of him. “Are you going to tell me what you’re doing here, or do I have to guess?”

Gentoku’s fist is white where it’s clutching his bloody shirt. “Sensei, I—” he stammers. “Hayaka-chan, she—” He looks at his lap. “I couldn’t—I tried, but I couldn’t—”

Aizawa suppresses a sigh. He’s probably not going to get much out of him at this juncture, but it’s probably not a good idea to let Gentoku leave – not until Aizawa has figured out exactly what has happened. “Here,” Aizawa says, handing Gentoku his phone. It’s locked, and Aizawa’s not on call, so he’s unlikely to get any sensitive phone calls. “Look after this for me.”

Gentoku takes the phone and clutches it like a lifeline.

“If Present Mic calls, feel free to answer,” Aizawa says. “Anyone else, reject the call. I expect you to still be here when I get back. If you run off with my phone, I’m going to be less than pleased.”

Gentoku nods jerkily.

Time to turn the screws a little. “I’m trusting you with this, Gentoku.” The guilt trip isn’t the kindest thing Aizawa has ever done, but it does the trick. Gentoku looks rooted to the spot, hands clasping Aizawa’s phone like his life depends on it. Likely, he believes it does.

With one last glance back at Gentoku, Aizawa walks through the sliding glass doors into the hospital ward.

“A suicide attempt,” Aizawa echoes dully. He looks through the sliding glass doors to where Toukei lies, pale and motionless, wires and tubing surrounding her body.

“That’s what we think,” Dr Hanabe says, fiddling with her glasses. “She was brought in by a classmate with a stasis quirk – he probably saved her life, even if he neglected to call an ambulance. He carried her across the city, and then promptly collapsed from quirk exhaustion. We got him hooked up to an IV, but he checked out AMA.”

Aizawa closes his eyes. “Has she said anything?”

Dr Hanabe shakes her head. “She had a brief moment of consciousness a few hours ago, but she was intubated. Couldn’t talk. She showed signs of distress, so we sedated her. She’s been asleep since.”

This is… a huge mess, frankly. Aizawa wouldn’t be surprised if there was an internal investigation at UA following this. A suicide attempt on his watch – he’s supposed to be better than this. More aware.

“I know it’s a long shot,” Aizawa says, “but did she have anything with her when she was brought in? A note, or a keepsake, or even her phone?”

“If she had anything, her classmate likely took it with him when he left,” Dr Hanabe says.

“Have you called her parents?”

Dr Hanabe shakes her head. “She’s a UA student, and you’re her emergency contact. Protocol says we wait for your arrival – just in case this is wrapped up in something sensitive.”

“You can call them now,” Aizawa says. “I’m going to be in the area all day. Let me know if she wakes up. If she’s up to it, we need to have a talk.”

“Of course, Eraserhead,” Dr Hanabe says.

It’s times like this that remind Aizawa why he doesn’t drink alone.

When he exits the ward, he finds Gentoku in the same position he left him. He’s staring at Aizawa’s phone like it’s a puzzle he can’t figure out.

Aizawa holds out his hand for his phone. Gentoku blinks a few times, and then hands it over.

“Sensei,” Gentoku says, after a moment of hesitation. “Are you gay?”

Aizawa raises his eyebrows. “I take it Present Mic called,” he says.

“Yeah. He, uh. He had a lot to say about someone named Harry,” Gentoku says. “He shut up when he realised it was me. He’s—he was very nice.”

Aizawa sighs, dropping into the seat next to Gentoku. “I heard what happened from the doctor,” he says. “You saved Toukei’s life.”

“I should have called an ambulance.”

“Probably,” Aizawa agrees. “But she’s still alive. No-one died, this time, and you’ll do better next time.”

“I don’t want there to be a next time,” Gentoku says quietly.

“Neither do I,” Aizawa says. “But there always is.”

Gentoku sits in silence for a moment. “Am I in trouble?”

“What would you be in trouble for?” Aizawa asks.

“I—I froze Hayaka-chan using Stasis Touch,” Gentoku says.

“Yes, and?”

“I don’t have a heroics licence.”

Aizawa sighs. “You have a medical quirk, Gentoku,” he says.

“It’s—I guess, technically—”

“Toukei would have died if you didn’t freeze her,” Aizawa says. “You saved her life, using your quirk – precisely the kind of situation that the medical exemption subclause of the vigilante laws is designed to protect. You didn’t do anything illegal.”

“So, I’m not getting expelled?” Gentoku looks like he might cry.

Aizawa sighs again. “No, you’re not getting expelled. Forgoing the ambulance was stupid, and I’m not pleased that you checked out of hospital against medical advice, but none of those are fatal flaws. You still have potential. I’m still willing to teach you to be a hero.”

Gentoku looks down at his hands. They’re still covered in blood – much like his clothes. Aizawa wonders why no-one at the hospital thought to grab him some scrubs.

“What if—” he pauses. “What if—I’m not willing?”

Aizawa looks at him closely. “That’s your choice,” he says.

“It’s just—” Gentoku looks up at him, and meets his eyes properly for the first time since Aizawa got to the hospital. “I don’t know if I can do it,” he says. “When I found Hayaka-chan, it was—it was the worst day of her life. She—she’d never have wanted me to see that. And I realised that heroes—all you see are the worst days of people’s lives. And I don’t think I can do that and still—” He shakes his head. “I don’t think I can do it, sensei.”

Aizawa leans back in his chair, looking at the ceiling. Truthfully, he’s not built for this kind of thing. He’s always struggled with the softer side of heroics – learning how to save someone with your words, rather than your quirk. Hizashi and Nemuri find it effortless – and that, more than anything else, is why he went underground, instead of into the spotlight.

Sitting in this cheap hospital chair, in the midst of losing one student, having already lost one today, he feels his inadequacy keenly.

“Heroics isn’t for the faint of heart,” Aizawa says at length. “You’re right. You see a lot of bad things – many more than you manage to stop. But the driving force of every hero is believing in the inevitability of gradualness. You have to have faith that just by doing your bit, by chipping away at the problem, you can make some small difference. That you can make the world better one person at a time. Not everyone can do that. And if you can’t, it’s better you figure it out now, than ten years down the line when the stakes are much, much higher.”

He lets that sit with Gentoku for a while.

“Sensei,” Gentoku says suddenly. “Hayaka-chan, she had her phone with her when she—” he breaks off, turning his head. “I didn’t mean to look at it, but the messages kept coming in. They were—they weren’t good.”

Aizawa accepts the subject change gracefully. “You still have it?” he asks.

Gentoku nods. He pulls it out of the front pocket of his hoodie and hands it over.

“Gentoku,” Aizawa says. “Regardless of whether you choose to stay in 1A, I want you to know I will not allow the matter of Hayaka-chan’s suicide attempt to be brushed aside. There will be an investigation, and there will be consequences for those involved.” He puts a hand on Gentoku’s shoulder. “You can rest now, Gentoku. I’ll handle it from here.”

He stands up.

“Are you leaving?” Gentoku asks.

“We’re checking you back into the hospital,” Aizawa says, “and we’re calling your parents. Quirk exhaustion’s no joke.”

Selfish bitch.

Just kill yourself already. No one wants you here.

Everyone knows you’re just a villain waiting to happen. Do us all a favour and—

A polystyrene cup of coffee appears in Aizawa’s field of vision. He looks up, following the hand up to its owner. Hizashi smiles sadly at him.

Aizawa puts the phone down on Toukei’s bed. “Thanks,” he says, taking the coffee.

“Any time,” Hizashi says. He leans against the wall next to Aizawa. “Anything of note?” he asks, nodding at the phone.

“A diatribe of harassment and suicide baiting,” Aizawa answers. “All from private numbers, or anonymous accounts. I’ll hand the phone over to Nedzu tomorrow. He’ll have more of an idea what to do with it.”

“How’d you get her passcode, anyway?” Hizashi takes a sip of his own cup of coffee.

“Touch ID.”

“Ah.”

It’s quiet in Toukei’s small hospital room. It’s just them, Toukei, and the one-to-one nurse assigned to watch her.

“Did you notify the hospital about her quirk?” Hizashi asks.

“It was in her file,” Aizawa says. He nods at the tube lodged in Toukei’s mouth. “Hard to hold your breath when you’re intubated.”

Toukei’s quirk is equal parts understated and terrifying. It freezes perception of time for people within her field of vision, so long as she holds her breath. Aizawa had been eyeing her for a future in underground heroics, but there’d been some mumblings between her and Gentoku about forming a hero duo that Aizawa had neither encouraged nor discouraged.

“You going to keep her in the class?” Hizashi asks.

“I can’t,” Aizawa says. “Not after this.” He swirls the coffee in his cup, watching the harsh hospital light glint off it at different angles.

“She could make up the missed hours once she’s done with treatment.”

“That’s not it,” Aizawa says. He lowers the cup of coffee without drinking from it. “Pro-heroes put their life on the line daily. I’d have no guarantee that…”

“That she wasn’t just waiting for a socially acceptable way to die,” Hizashi finishes.

Aizawa nods. Maybe another teacher at UA would have a different answer. Maybe Kan, or Nemuri, or even Hizashi would know themselves capable of supporting a student like Toukei. But Aizawa knows himself, and he knows what he swore, when he took his job at UA. He would not be complicit in sending children out to die.

He sighs, and finally brings the cup of coffee up to his lips for a sip. Oh. Yikes. “This is awful.”

Hizashi grins. “Yeah, I know. I was waiting for you to drink it.”

Aizawa feels something warm bloom in his chest. In an hour’s time, Toukei’s parents will be here. In an hour’s time, Aizawa will haul his body out of this chair, and bow to ninety degrees, and apologise for his failures as a teacher. In an hour’s time, he will calmly answer any questions they might have, and he will accept their reaction, whatever it may be.

But he won’t be doing it alone.

The afternoon is melting away into night by the time Aizawa arrives on Anzu Street in the suburban edges of Mustafu. He’s changed out of his casual black clothes into the only suit he owns – black, a little rumpled, usually reserved for funerals and weddings – and forced a brush through his hair. The end result is not quite professional, but presentable at the very least.

He inhales, flexes his knuckles around the handle of his briefcase, and then knocks on house number 38.

There’s a pause – the sound of footsteps – and then, the door opens.

He grimly meets the eyes of Aomori Shizuka. 1A Hellion #3.

Her eyes go wide. “Aizawa-sensei?” she asks. “What are you doing here?”

“Are your parents here?” Aizawa asks.

“My mother is,” Aomori says. “What’s…”

“I need to speak to you both. Can I come in?”

Aomori’s mother is pretty – she has that much in common with her daughter – and apparently baffled by everything about him. She gives him a polite, if confused, greeting, and invites him to sit at their kitchen table.

“Do you want some tea, Aizawa-san?”

“No,” Aizawa says.

“Or some water, or juice – I know it’s a bit late for caffeine.”

“Aomori-san, please sit down.”

Aomori’s mother falters. She sits. Her daughter hovers in the doorway of the kitchen. “You too,” Aizawa tells her.

With some reluctance, she does.

“Aizawa-san,” Aomori’s mother says after a moment, “is something wrong?”

Aizawa reaches into his briefcase and pulls out a manilla folder. He slides it across the table to the two women. “These are copies of messages that your daughter sent to another student,” he says. “Last night, the student in question attempted to end their life.”

Aomori’s mother goes very, very pale. She flips open the folder, eyes scanning down the pages of messages. “This isn’t—” she looks up at him. “This isn’t my daughter’s user name. Or her number.”

“Some of the messages were sent using UA’s campus wi-fi,” Aizawa explains. “We require students to login to our internet services with their details. We were able to track these messages back to her digital profile.”

Aomori’s mother is quiet. “The other student – are they okay?”

“They’re alive,” Aizawa says. “I’m not authorised to share any more details of their condition.”

“Will there be charges?”

Aomori jolts. “Mom—”

“Be quiet,” her mother snaps. “Aizawa-san, do you know if they intend to pursue charges?”

“The family of the student do not intend to seek criminal or civil charges against your daughter,” Aizawa says. “For now, they are focused on ensuring their child’s wellbeing, and a court case would not be conducive to that. That may change, a few months down the line. I have not advised them either way.”

Aomori’s mother clasps a hand to her mouth. “Thank you,” she says. “Thank you, thank you, thank you—”

“There will, however, be consequences for this,” Aizawa says. “Given the conduct of your daughter, Aomori-san, UA has decided to proceed with expulsion from our hero course. We will not, at this time, be extending the offer of a place in one of our other departments.

“This incident will be included in your daughter’s permanent record,” Aizawa continues. “We have also made the additional decision to personally inform future schools your daughter may choose to attend of her conduct.”

Aomori’s mother looks—ruined. “Aizawa-san, please—”

Aizawa stands. “Thank you for your hospitality.”

“Aizawa-san—” There’s a thud behind him. He turns back, just slightly, to the sight of Aomori’s mother on her knees on the kitchen floor. She sinks into a deep bow, her head colliding with the floor with an audible smack.

“I have taught my daughter poorly,” Aomori’s mother says. “Please preserve her future.”

“Mom,” Aomori says, tugging at her mother’s arm. “Mom, get up. Mom, please don’t do this.”

“I have taught my daughter poorly,” her mother says again, rising, and then lowering her head once more. “Please preserve her future.”

Aizawa sighs. He kneels down, and pulls Aomori’s mother up, out of dogeza, and to her feet. “Aomori-san,” he says gently, “as a teacher, I understand your desire to protect the future of your daughter. My first concern is always to protect the future of my students.”

He notices that she’s crying. “Then—”

“But as a pro-hero,” he says, “I have a duty to more than just your daughter. I have a duty to protect the future of the student currently lying in a hospital bed, following a suicide attempt. I have a duty to protect the future of the student who found them, and saved their life. I have a duty to protect the futures of other vulnerable students your daughter may encounter. I have been as lenient as I can be, given all these things.”

Aomori’s mother looks at him, and then collapses into sobs.

“Thank you for your hospitality,” Aizawa says again. He turns and leaves.

It’s as he’s sliding out of the Aomori household’s slippers and back into his dress shoes, that Aomori the younger finally approaches him.

“Toukei-chan,” she says. “Is she really going to be okay?”

“I don’t know,” Aizawa answers honestly.

“I—I didn’t really want her dead.”

Aizawa looks at her. Even now, he doesn’t know why she did it. Doubtlessly, there’s some deeper reason – but he finds he doesn’t care. “For someone who didn’t want her dead,” he says, finally, standing up, “you were very convincing.”

“It’s a little impressive frankly,” Nemuri says. “Three students to none in 24 hours. You really are the picture of efficiency, Shouta.”

She reaches across their table and steals a piece of pork out of Aizawa’s bento. Aizawa, who has been subjected to this kind of vulgar behaviour for nearly fifteen years, lets it happen without a fight.

“What did Nedzu have to say?” Hizashi asks. He also dips his chopsticks into Aizawa’s lunch, but he’s after the red peppers.

“The investigation is still ongoing,” Aizawa says. “On the request of the auditing team, I’ve been temporarily suspended from teaching.” He pulls a few bamboo shoots out of Nemuri’s own lunch – fair is fair.

“Did he give you a prognosis?” Nemuri asks.

“He didn’t seem to think I had anything to worry about,” Aizawa says, “but it might take a couple of months. The team wants to re-examine my history of expulsions.”

Hizashi snorts. “A couple of months might be understating it in that case,” he says.

Aizawa shrugs. There’d been a little more to it when Nedzu went over it – some concern from the internal panel that his ‘trigger-happy expulsion policy’ (a direct quote) might have contributed to a toxic classroom environment – but Aizawa, much like Nedzu, isn’t worried about it. He follows UA policy to the letter, and he always strives to be fair – if not forgiving.

“You going to pick up a few more shifts as Eraserhead, then?” Nemuri asks. “Anyone else, I’d think vacation, but I know you’re congenitally incapable of downtime.”

Aizawa ignores the jab at his – non-existent – work-life balance. “I’ve been requested on a case,” he says. “International quirk trafficking. They want me full-time on the investigation team. I was going to turn it down, but it’s apparently a big deal to have been asked. It’s a joint task-force with foreign heroes.”

Hizashi wrinkles his nose. “Sounds like a bureaucratic nightmare,” he says. “Those joint efforts always end up tangled in red tape.”

That had largely been Aizawa’s perspective when he was first approached, a month ago. At the time, he still had half a class left – and they were working hard to make up for their deficit in numbers with pure stupidity – and it had been easy to tell the investigators he had too much on his plate. Now, Aizawa’s starting to feel that red tape might be a fair price for something to do.

“Don’t be so cynical,” Nemuri says, swatting Hizashi. “It sounds like a good opportunity.”

Aizawa shrugs. “We’ll see.”

The briefing room is fairly standard as these things go. Pale walls, rough carpet, tables arranged in rows with chairs pointing at a large screen. Aizawa is neither early nor late, but the room is only half-filled. He recognises a few underground heroes, and raises his eyebrows when he spots Hawks, off to the side, chatting with Abyssal, an underground hero who started out as a vigilante.

“A pretty good turnout, all things considered,” comes a voice from Aizawa’s left.

Aizawa turns. “Detective,” he nods.

“It’s been a while,” Tsukauchi says. He looks much the same as he had when they first met, all those years ago: like a salaryman who stumbled into a police precinct by mistake and stayed out of some sort of masochistic civil obligation. It’s an impression that Tsukauchi never quite manages to step out of – even when he’s competently sweeping rooms in full riot gear, he still looks a little like an accountant having a very dull day. “UA treating you well?”

Aizawa shrugs. “Can’t complain.”

“It’s good to have you onboard,” Tsukauchi says. “We’ve had issues getting heroes involved, even with the foreign cooperation angle.”

Aizawa privately thinks that Tsukauchi’s sales pitch must need some work if it relies entirely on the universal appeal of bureaucratic nonsense. “Joint ventures like this are rare.”

Tsukauchi smiles tiredly. “Hopefully a little less so, once we’re done here,” he says. “We’ve had some success cooperating with America, thanks to All Might, but this is one of the first times we’ve ever worked this closely with the British. It’s a big deal, even if the case is a little—”

“Okay, everyone,” comes a voice from the front. “Let’s take our seats.”

There’s a flurry of movement as everyone filters into chairs. “We’ll talk later,” Tsukauchi says quietly, before he shuffles across the room to a larger group of police officers – his team, most likely. Aizawa simply pulls out the chair closest to him and drops into it.

As more people sit down, the owner of the voice becomes visible. She’s plain-faced, with dark blue hair that’s pinned in a tight bun behind her head, and dressed in a navy pantsuit the exact same shade as her hair. She has an ID badge pinned to her lapel, but Aizawa can’t make out much more of it than the HPSC logo superimposed over it as a watermark.

“Good morning,” she says. “I’m Tanaka Mayumi, the lead investigator on this case. I work for the police, but I also hold a hero licence, hero name Vector. Potter-san, do you want to say anything?”

“Sure.”

Aizawa turns to the source of the voice, and feels his mind go blank. ‘Potter-san’ unfolds his body from where he’s been leaning against the wall, all long limbs and lithe grace. Aizawa watches it happen like he’s someone else, somewhere else. Suit and tie. Messy black hair. Vivid green eyes.

“I’m sure by now, you’ve heard that this is a cooperative investigation between Japan and the UK’s hero forces,” Harry says, with that same easy charm. “I represent the UK side of that equation. I’m Harry Potter, codename Fractal, but you can call me whatever combination of those names makes you most comfortable. I know I look young, but I have over a decade of experience in villain apprehension. I look forward to working with you all. For now, I’m in your care.”

He bows.

There’s some polite applause, but Aizawa can’t move. Harry rises out of his bow, and as he brings his head back up, his eyes catch.

Aizawa knows he’s been made.

Harry’s face twitches a little, eyes going wide with shock, and then—

He meets Aizawa’s eye and smiles.

Fuck.

[tbc??? maybe]

#kaputt wip weds #kaputt writes stuff #bnha fic #harry potter x bnha crossover #harry potter fic #this fic brought to you by: the greys anatomy one night stand trope #suicide mention cw #aizawa's actually my favourite bnha character #i know we're two for two on the bnha fic from this week and last week #i'll pick something else next week lol #you ever have a character that you like writing because they get to be inappropriate in a way you never permit yourself?#that was me writing nemuri she's so much fun #fic: one night stand au

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