Work Text:
Something was wrong with Aizawa-sensei. The class noticed it slowly, over the course of three weeks. The usually short-tempered man was even easier to set off, his irritation seeming to flare at small annoyances that would have previously gone ignored. It was Kaminari who brought it up first.
“Has anyone else noticed that Aizawa-sensei has been a little… tense, recently?” He asked while they were all gathered in the common room of their dorm.
“Oh Kami, yes!” Mina immediately agreed, throwing her head back against the couch cushions dramatically. “I feel like I’ve been walking on eggshells around him all week!” She complained.
“He has been stricter than usual.” Iida added, frowning.
“Do you think he’s sick?” Momo asked, Several of them immediately shook their heads while others hummed noncommittally.
“It’s been going on for a while now, and it just seems to be getting worse, but it doesn’t seem like he’s sick, just… easily irritated.” Midoriya answered, his hand coming to his chin in thought. “Maybe something happened? Or the teachers are planning some kind of test? Those always seem to irritate him.”
“He doesn’t like that he needs to interact with the other teachers.” Kaminari agreed quickly.
“Instead of just sleeping he needs to socialise.” Bakugou huffed. The others nodded along, agreeing with that assessment, and that was the last they brought it up.
Until they overheard Present Mic and Midnight talking about it that is.
It was a few days later, during a training lesson on how to navigate debris in an active rescue zone, Both Mic-sensei and Midnight-sensei were there to help instruct and supervise the training exercise. Aizawa-sensei had just finished lecturing them all on how poor their first attempts at the exercise had been when he left them to go set up the arena for their second attempt.
“This is the worst I’ve seen him in years.” Mic said as he leaned closer to Midnight, trying and failing to keep his voice down. Midoriya, Todoroki and Uraraka, the closest to them, immediately stopped their chatter to eavesdrop.
“I know, he’s so tense!” She exclaimed. Her voice was quieter, but the now silent students were able to hear, the chatter of the rest of their class behind them hiding their silence, allowing them to listen in unnoticed.
“How much longer will she be away for?” Mic asked as he looked away to make sure that Aizawa wasn’t returning yet.
“She’s deep undercover at the moment. Last I heard, she isn’t due to finish her mission for at least another two weeks. Maybe even longer than that.”
“Another two weeks!” Mic hissed.
“Minimum.” she winced.
“If he gets any worse we’ll need to call her, see if she can return early, even for just a few hours.”
“She’s the only one that can handle him when he gets like this.”
They were both silent for a while, both seemingly in agreement. The whole class had now noticed the conversation and were openly staring.
“Who’s ‘she’?” Mina asked, bouncing over.
“No one, little listener.” Mic quickly replied, flashing them one of his bright smiles. “Just try not to take anything Eraser says to heart for the next little while, ya dig?” he brushed off.
“Just try not to do anything that’ll set him off. Last time he got like this he expelled three students for breathing too loudly.” Midnight warned. Mic shot her a rare glare.
“That was years ago, and he likes you all a lot more than he’s liked any of his previous classes!” he soothed, but his smile wavered at the end. “But try to keep out of his way.” he concluded.
They all went silent as Aizawa returned. It wasn't brought up again that day.
The next they heard about it was almost a week later. He was in an even fouler mood and rumours could be heard circulating around the upperclassmen. There were three of them huddled together in the cafeteria, sitting at the table directly across from the Baku-squad.
“He used his quirk on a vending machine this morning. Nobody knew why. The vending machine had apparently won.” One of them said, shivering to themselves. “I thought it was going to die when he turned to glare at me after.”
“He wouldn't actually kill a student, would he?” Their friend asked, but even he sounded unsure of the answer as he asked it. It took a good minute before one of them replied.
“He's so tense! This is the longest I've seen her be away for. She needs to come back. Soon.” They all nodded.
“Before he actually snaps and we end up featured in a cautionary training video.” They stood up. Before Bakugou could ask who ‘she’ was, the upperclassmen had picked up their trays and left.
“A therapist?” Kirishima guessed.
“Whoever she is, everyone seems to think she can stop Hobo-sensei from going full murder mode. She needs to be someone scary or powerful to be able to stop him.” Bakugou said as he sat back down.
“His parole officer!” Kaminari exclaimed suddenly.
The horrifying part was that nobody dismissed the idea immediately.
The UA staff tried to help with varying levels of success. Mic-sensei acted as a buffer between Aizawa and the students, acting as a middle man for communications and trying to anticipate any corrections the students needed before Aizawa could comment.
Ectoplasm-sensei offered to answer any questions they had on their homework or assignments, even if they weren't his subject. Vlad-sensei just tried to keep as far from Aizawa as possible, going as far as to hide in an empty classroom until he passed by. Mina, who witnessed the whole thing, eagerly shared what she witnessed with the whole class.
Their efforts were working, Aizawa not getting any less on edge, but he was snapping at the teachers more often than the students. It seemed like, for the most part, they would all survive the two weeks until the mysterious ‘she’ returned unmaimed.
Then, at the end of the week, during yet another joint training exercise where more teachers than normally necessary were participating, Midnight made a comment that made every teacher within earshot freeze. The students quickly followed, although they had no idea why.
“You know, if you’re this tense, Sho, you should let someone else help you relax.” She mused, unaware of just how still Aizawa had gotten. No one else missed it though, and the whole room went eerily silent. She continued, digging her grave deeper with each word. “I know several people I could recommend to you, they’d love the chance to-” she was abruptly cut off by Aizawa’s capture weapon wrapping tightly around her.
She squawked as she was reeled in. Aizawa’s quirked glare made even Mic take a step back, for once not daring to get between Midnight and him.
“I- I- I was joking!” She quickly backtracked. “It was a joke! A joke!” She repeated over and over, trying to wriggle free from his hold.
Without a single word, he slowly let her go. His red eyes still glaring hard at her before he turned and stormed out the room.
“Nemuri!” Mic scolded her as soon as Aizawa was out the door.
“I know, I know.” She was grasping her chest, her breaths coming out as quick, harsh pants. “I saw my whole life flash before my eyes.” she shuddered.
“What on earth possessed you to make such a suggestion?” He continued to chastise her, his voice missing its usual cheery inflection. He took a step towards her, but stopped himself with a quick glance towards the door that Aizawa had left through.
She didn’t answer, but she did drop to the ground, her legs seeming to finally give out on her.
None of the students dare ask what had just happened.
It was only a few days later that class 1A finally got answers to their questions.
They were in the middle of their hero ethics lesson, Aizawa up front writing on the black board, his shoulders so tense that the chalk squeaked as he wrote. It was arguably one of the harder classes to keep in their sensei's good books.
Especially now that whatever was wrong with him seemed to reach its boiling point. His tension had finally rolled over into barely contained wrath at any tiny incompetence.
If they moved too much, asked the wrong question, even breathed too hard, it seemed to make his eyes twitch and the chalk in between his fingers creak. It was so out of proportion and illogical for the current context that someone almost brought it up. But no one dared risk his fury.
He was mid sentence, chalk placed down as he gestured towards the Venn diagram he'd drawn, when the door to the classroom slid open.
The woman who entered didn't knock, didn't announce herself, she just strode into the room, the confidence of a woman who knew exactly where she was and what she was here to do.
She wore civilian clothing, dark and practical, and had a large duffle bag slung over her shoulder. Her brown, suede, leather jacket, old and worn, hung open at the front, the belt undone and hanging behind her like a tail. She had deep bags under her eyes and looked exactly like you'd expect someone who just finished a months-long undercover mission to look.
Her black, blue-tipped, hair was uncaringly pulled back into a braid, half of it falling out, but her cobalt blue eyes were locked onto Aizawa.
Aizawa who had stopped talking.
The class watched as Aizawa attempted to pull himself together in real time. His eyes noticeably brightened and his lips turned up slightly before he caught his expression, and schooled it back into his usual bored look. It took him a whole two seconds.
“This is a closed class session.” He said flatly, his tone giving nothing away.
“Mm.” she hummed, continuing towards him, pace unhurried.
His eyes narrowed. “I'm in the middle of a lesson.”
“I can see that.”
“Then you understand that-”
“Shota.” she interrupted him, her tone gently but firm.
Aizawa’s mouth clicked closed.
The class had stopped breathing to listen.
The woman reached him, tilting her head back to look up at him as she stepped into his space, their chests almost touching.
She reached up, curling her fingers around his capture weapon, and gave a soft tug.
Aizawa’s head dipped forward an inch, following the pull as if he couldn't help it. His eyes closed briefly as he took a deep breath before he opened them again.
“I have a class.” He said. His voice had changed. It was softer, almost like a whine.
“You do.” She agreed. She tugged again and his body swayed forward.
“But, the lesson plan-”
“Will still be there when you get back.”
“Kayama doesn't know the second half of the-”
“She'll improvise.” She smiled at him and he fell silent. “We both need this.”
Aizawa said nothing.
“Come on.” she said, softer, just for him, though the room was entirely silent and the class heard every word. "Let's go.”
And Aizawa Shota, who had terrified not just his class, but the entire school, for nearly a month, made the faintest sound in the back of his throat, stumbling after her as she led him from the room by the scarf.
The door clicked softly behind them.
Thirty seconds of absolute silence, then Midnight strolled into the room looking unbearably amused.
“Good news,” she cheered. “Your ethics lesson is being postponed.” Silence remained for another few seconds before Iida shot to his feet.
“Midnight-sensei, who was that?” Midnight moved to the front of the room with unhurried ease.
"That," she said, "is someone who has been on a very long mission and who has a husband who does not handle periods of extended separation particularly gracefully."
Dead silence.
Then, from the back of the room: "Sensei's married?!"
"Happily," Midnight said, her smile still in place, though looking more amused now. "Going on six years."
The room erupted.
Midnight waited for them to get most of it out of their system before she spoke again.
"He'll be back in a few hours. He just needs some time to…" she paused, and her smile turned toothy "... destress.”
The way she said destress left no ambiguity.
Faces flushed bright red and Yaoyorozu buried her face in her notebook.
“A few hours?” Kaminari choked. Midnight's smile somehow became even worse.
“Wait,” Bakugou said as he rose slowly to his feet. “So, the reason he's been so… “ he trailed off, struggling to find the right word. “uptight, is because he was…” he trailed off again.
“Horny, yes.” Midnight finished for him.
Somewhere in the distance, a door slammed.
The entire class collectively decided they did not want any further details.
Aizawa returned to work the next day looking fully rested and in a much better mood.
Class 1-A never recovered.