Chapter Text
***
They’re having a melee style battle. It’s mostly for fun, which is unheard of at UA, but the other option was to let to the students have their fun on Sunday at one of the school’s training fields and Aizawa does not need to spend his weekend minding these hell children. So he cuts a class or two with the other teachers’ permission and they let the kids have a game of last man standing. For 2-A and 2-B it’s compulsory but anyone from the second year has been invited to join. Quite a few students from other departments have turned up, to unleash their quirks if nothing else. There has to be near a hundred students scrapping on the field.
Aizawa raises an eyebrow when he sees Jirou be not the first student out, or even the first few, but certainly lower than he would have expected. A quick glance shows him the rest of the class is still in and that makes him frown.
But off to the side Jirou is giving her head the odd shake and massaging her ears as if they’re ringing. It wouldn’t be surprising if they were; the whole field is alight with the sounds of quirks and yelling. Bakugou is, unfortunately, both. There’s Yaoyorozu making canons, Bakugou firing off explosions, Kirishima smashing through Todoroki’s ice walls to crash into Tetsutetsu, the roar of Iida’s engines. And that’s just his class.
Seeing Jirou look his way, Aizawa beckons her over with a wave of his hand. “Yes Mr. Aizawa?” she asks.
He gestures at the field. “Shouldn’t you still be out there?”
Jirou’s eyes immediately find the ground. “Ah, probably…”
She’s scratching her neck sheepishly but that’s when Aizawa sees it; the blood coming from her ears. He remembers reading the report of something similar when Jirou had gone up against Hizashi in last year’s end of term practical exams. He’d assumed at the time it was because of Mic’s quirk and maybe it was but he now thinks it might have had something to do with Jirou’s too. He pulls her up when she makes to leave, eyeing off the other students still “fighting”.
“Your quirk gives you a general hearing enhancement, doesn’t it?”
Jirou pauses and then nods.
Aizawa hums in thought. “I take it the sheer volume of noise is too much right now.”
His student flushes but doesn’t back down. “I’m still learning,” is what she says, and she says it firmly and without room for questioning. “As a hero, I won’t be able to pick and choose my situations. I have to learn to deal.”
“Maybe so,” Aizawa says, leaning back and folding his arms, eyes on Midoriya as he launches into the air and swings a kick around. “Or perhaps, like Kaminari and other classmates, you could talk to the support department.”
It’s Jirou’s turn to frown. “I can’t cancel out of the noise; hearing is part of my quirk.”
“Does Bakugou come across as deaf to you?” he asks bluntly.
Jirou looks taken aback. “No…?”
Aizawa makes a “there you go” gesture. “Then go and see the support department. He has; to protect his ears from the sounds of his explosions. You’d be surprised what the support department can do these days.”
He moves off then as Satou limps off the field but it doesn’t escape his knowledge that Jirou pays particular attention to Bakugou for the rest of the exercise. He isn’t surprised a week later either when Jirou turns up to their hero practical lesson with a modified costume - specifically some new, sleek earmuff looking devices. Aizawa doesn’t grin as he leaves the monitors. He doesn’t.
***
The front door opens and Aizawa frowns, eyes flicking to the clock on the microwave. Too early for Hizashi and school isn’t on break which means it won’t be Todoroki. That leaves only one person.
“Who let you off school grounds?”
“Dad,” is the single syllable answer.
Aizawa sends his eyes skyward because of course it was. He hears footsteps down the hall and then the loud flump of a body hitting the sofa. There’s then some jingling of bells and cooing and ah, the cats have arrived.
“I’m making tea. You in?”
He gets a grunt of affirmation, which has Aizawa frowning. There’s unsociable and then there’s this. He’s at the couch in seconds, peering over the back. He’s met with stiff shoulders and a clenched jaw. Aizawa doesn’t even need to think before leaning over and massaging a shoulder gently. It gets him a deep sigh that almost sounds like it hurts. His frown deepens.
“Migraine?”
“Headache.”
That isn’t much better because that’s where they always start. Still, Aizawa takes the kettle off the boil and pours two cups, making one both decaffeinated and green. He shuffles back to the sofa, sets the cups on the coffee table, and then lifts the offending head up long enough so he can sit down.
“You’ve been using your quirk too much again.”
“I’m in the heroics department now. I don’t get a choice.”
Aizawa grimaces because it’s true. His hands toy with rough hair softly. His nephew-cum-son tilts his head enough to scowl at him, Aizawa just rolling his eyes. “Sleep.”
That earns him a sly grin. “Sorry Dad, that’s my quirk, not yours.”
Maybe not, but Aizawa has something better.
“Hitoshi.”
His son immediately backs down, flopping into his lap and closing his eyes. No, he may not have a brain washing quirk but he thinks being a father works just as well.
***