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“Midoriya?” Aizawa gently tapped his knuckle against his student’s closed door. “Are you there?”
No answer.
The man sighed quietly to himself and closed his eyes. He’d never been good with kids. Especially teenagers, which was why he’d been surprised when Midnight asked him if he wanted to be a teacher at UA. But, as it turned out, Shouta was pretty good at teaching the little brats how to be competent heroes, despite the fearful looks they gave him after they graduated.
“Are you asleep?” he tried again, knowing that if the boy was, he wouldn’t be able to answer. He waited a few seconds anyway. Midoriya had missed every one of his morning classes and none of the other kids had admitted to seeing him at breakfast. If it had been any other student, Shouta might’ve let it slide. But Midoriya never missed class. Hell, half the class had to drag him back to the dorms once so he could rest when he had a bad cold. Literally. And then all those kids got sick, too.
“Midoriya, can I come in?” though he tried to mask it, Shouta could hear a bit of fear creep into his voice. It just wasn’t like the boy not to answer. Not unless he was hurt or . . .
Shouta forced himself to do a quick breathing exercise before trying one last time.
“If you don’t answer, I’ll take it as a yes,” the teacher didn’t want to intrude on his student’s privacy, but . . . Dammit, this was Midoriya! And Midoriya was almost always wrapped up in some kind of trouble. He didn’t know what kind of danger the kid could get into when he’d been on campus for the past two weeks, but he was sure something must’ve happened. Midoriya might be badly injured. Or dying. Or de-
Shouta shook his head and placed his right hand on the doorknob. He took in a breath and slowly opened the door. Almost immediately, his eyes were accosted with the smiling form of All Might. Every inch of every wall had a poster of the former number one hero in one pose or another. The desk, dresser, and bookcase had figurines of the blond and there was even an All Might rug in the middle of the floor.
Shouta held back a flurry of curses (how could anyone be okay with seeing Yagi’s face that much?) and focused his eyes to look for the green of Midoriya’s hair. When he found it, his heart dropped.
Lying in his bed, emerald eyes staring straight at Shouta, was an unnervingly still Midoriya.
For a terrifying moment, the man feared the worst as the teen didn’t move to show he’d even registered that someone had entered the room. His chest didn’t rise or fall with his breath. He wasn’t blinking. And his eyes looked . . . vacant. Almost like there was no one home.
A chill ran down Shouta’s spine as his mind raced with worst-case scenarios of why Midoriya was lying lifeless in his bed (in his dorm--In the one place he was supposed to be safe!) when the teen’s chest heaved slightly and those horribly empty eyes moved away from Shouta’s dark ones to the white ceiling.
The only place in the room that didn’t have All Might’s face on it.
Shouta released the breath he was holding and entered the room, closing the door behind him. Midoriya was alive. There was still something wrong, but Shouta had learned to appreciate the little things in life and, in his expert opinion, not losing his student to some unknown fate was absolutely fantastic.
The teacher took a second to gather himself and moved beside Midoriya’s bed. In a fluid motion, he nabbed the teen’s desk chair and brought it over to sit in, all the while keeping his gaze on Midoriya.
At first glance, the teen seemed fine. Physically at least. There were no obvious bruises or broken bones, from what Shouta could see. No blood-soaked the blanket or dripped onto the floor, pooling beneath his bed.
“Midoriya, what’s wrong?” Shouta asked, his voice surprisingly gentle after the heart-stopping scare earlier. No answer. The corners of Shouta’s mouth turned down in a frown. “Midoriya, can you hear me?” Nothing. The teacher bit back a sigh. “Midoriya, please. If you can hear me, you need to let me know. I don’t care if it’s verbal. Blink twice. Move your ahead. Just do anything !” he pleaded, subconsciously grasping the fabric of the blanket in both hands and clenching it tightly.
Two seconds passed. Then three.
Midoriya’s eyes flickered over to Shouta’s briefly and returned to the ceiling. Another second passed and he did it again.
Was that . . . ?
Was that the sign?
“Midoriya . . .” Shouta breathed, unsure of what exactly he wanted to say. At length, he settled on another version of the same question he’d been asking since before he opened the door. “Midoriya, is something wrong?”
Emerald eyes flickered again. Which meant nothing to Shouta.
“Okay, um,” the man reached into the farthest corners of his mind to come up with a solution to the silent problem this child had given him. And a solution did come. It was old and he hadn’t needed to use it in years, but it was a solution. “Can you give me your hand?”
It was at this moment Shouta realized it was a bad solution. Sure, it had worked with Hizashi back when the blond got self-conscious about how loud he was being, but Midoriya hadn’t moved his body since he entered the room. In fact, it was entirely possible that he couldn’t move. Shouta was about to rescind the request when a small, scarred hand found its way into his. It happened so fast that, at first, all Shouta could do was stare at it. “Uh, thanks,” he mumbled, gathering the rest of the solution from his brain. “Midoriya, I’m going to ask you a couple of yes or no questions. If the answer is no, squeeze my hand. If it’s yes, tap my wrist. Okay?”
Two seconds passed. Midoriya tapped Shouta’s wrist.
Shouta nodded, knowing the teen understood the instructions. “Alright. Now, is there something wrong?” He waited ten seconds for an answer but received none. Midoriya’s eyes flickered again.
Maybe Shouta needed to be more specific?
“Are you hurt, physically?” he asked. He didn’t think this was the case, but he wanted to make sure. Midoriya squeezed his hand. “Alright. What about mentally? Are you feeling okay?”
The briefest flash of emotion appeared on the teen’s face before he tapped Shouta’s wrist once and immediately squeezed his hand afterward, answering both questions in order.
“I’m sorry,” Shouta felt the need to give some kind of reassurance. Midoriya squeezed his hand again, differently from when he had answered the questions. Like he was trying to comfort his teacher. A quiet assurance that it wasn’t his fault.
Sometimes Shouta couldn’t believe how selfless the kid was.
No words of comfort appeared in the man’s mind, so he just returned the gesture and let his free hand brush some of the unruly curls out of Midoriya’s face.
“Did something happen?” Shouta asked after letting the silence fill the room for a moment.
A squeeze.
“Did you wake up like this?”
Tap.
Shouta’s brows drew together in another frown. “Has this happened before?”
Tap. That’s not good.
“Do you need anything?”
Another tap. Shouta bit his lip.
“Alright, if-if you can tell me what that is, I’ll go get it for you,” he glanced around the room, hoping maybe he’d just . . . know what the teen needed.
Midoriya tightened his hold on Shouta’s hand and pulled it over his chest before closing his eyes. The request seemed pretty obvious to the teacher, but just to be sure, he asked,
“You want me to stay?”
Tap.
“Okay,” Shouta nodded. “I’ll stay as long as you need me to,”
Shouta wasn’t good with kids. But he was a good hero. And sometimes, that was enough.