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Keith leaned against the doorframe, silhouetted by the glowing lights that lined the halls of the castle at night. He looked in on the child, a lightly snoring lump on the bed. He tried not to smile at the way Shiro pressed his face into the stuffed animal Coran had dug up from storage for him, his little cheek smushing up and leaving his lips slightly parted as he breathed evenly. For some reason, the damage to his nose affected him less in this smaller form. He was almost silent, chest rising and falling gently underneath the piles of blankets he had tangled himself in.
Keith didn’t know if he’d ever seen Shiro so peaceful. Even before, at the Garrison, Shiro barely slept. He had always been one for twenty minute power naps throughout the day, falling asleep on piles of schoolwork or in the corner of the hangar, taking rest wherever he could get it. Whenever Keith confronted him, he’d laugh and say “ This is how Batman sleeps, Keith. I’m Batman .” Keith would pout and cross his arms, as Keith always did, mumble something about it being unhealthy, and Shiro would grin, returning to his work, black bangs falling over his face.
Sometimes Keith forgot what a cheeky little shit Shiro used to be. He was always the first to crack a joke in class, always under his breath and always in such a way that his hard-ass teachers couldn’t hear, but just loud enough to get the people around him laughing. It was hard not to love him, back then. That was one thing that hadn’t changed. It was impossible not to love Shiro, even as the person he became. After the Galra, he didn’t smile as much and hardly ever laughed. He didn’t make jokes about being Batman, now. His jokes cut a bit deeper than they used to; they were all too close to death for jokes about it to make them laugh. He was stern and stiff in a way he hadn’t been before; despite it all, the entire team loved and respected him with all they had.
The child, currently asleep, wrapped around a teddy bear little smaller than he was, was absolutely impossible not to adore. He was everything pure about Shiro. He had all the peace that Shiro, either before or after the Galra, never had. He wasn’t constantly working to reach the stars; he wasn’t constantly working to hold himself together. He didn’t care about image the way that Shiro, who basically grew up in the Garrison’s spotlight, did. This version of Shiro cried sometimes; this version of Shiro laughed; this version of Shiro sang in the shower, yelled about dumb little things, made funny faces in the mirror that made him giggle; this version of Shiro rested.