Work Text:
It had been a long night for Aizawa so far. He just came back from patrol and was now on his way to the 1-A dorms to check if all the students were sleeping and nobody was out of bed after curfew.
The moment he entered the building he noticed a soft light and the faint smell of coffee coming from the dorm kitchen. Wondering who was up after curfew again he started his walk to the kitchen. There could be a few students up at this time, Tokoyami often couldn’t sleep because dark shadow kept him up at night, Todoroki sometimes had nightmares and went to get a glass of water, Shinsou, who joined class 1-A after the midterm holidays, often had problems with insomnia and also consumed excessive amounts of coffee, which would explain the smell.
What Aizawa didn’t expect was seeing Midoriya, the normally so happy and upbeat boy was now sitting at one of the big tables in the kitchen, the rest of the table was covered in various books and papers in the middle of the table was a laptop, and in front of that laptop sat a very stressed and anxious looking Midoriya.
While approaching him Aizawa noticed he was wearing headphones and probably listening to music, that would also explain why he hasn’t been noticed yet, it could also just be his naturally quite steps, a habit after so many years as an underground hero.
Aizawa slowly sat down across from Midoriya, who still hadn’t noticed him, and after a few seconds it was clear that he probably wouldn’t notice him soon. So Aizawa stood up again to make himself a cup of coffee.
After that he went to sit down again but only this time Midoriya seemed to notice him immediately, his whole body flinched, like he was so concentrated on his work that he completely forgot all about his surroundings.
And while concentrating on your work can be good it is certainly dangerous for a pro hero, or a pro hero in training in Midoriyas case, if a villain were to attack at this moment Midoriya would be completely unprepared and would have noticed it way to late.
“Ah Sensei- “Midoriya startled and looked at him with wide eyes. At first it almost seemed like he was scared. But Aizawa needed to know why Midoriya was up after curfew, nevertheless.
It seemed like Midoriya got the memo after Aizawa just looked at him expectantly for a few moments. “Uhm I was just doing some homework and stuff.”
And while doing homework seemed like a good thing to do at first glance, it was less so when you considered it was currently almost three o’clock in the morning.
“In the middle of the night?” Aizawa asked a little disbelieving.
Midoriya looked down at his laptop briefly, as if to check if it really was that late.
“Well, you see Sensei, uhm, I was just, ah- “, Midoriya stopped briefly, likely to think about what he was going to say.
“So, I kind of didn’t notice how much time passed.”
“You didn’t notice it was already the middle of the night?”
“Basically yeah,” Midoriya made a short pause there, “It sounds a little dumb when you say it like that.”
And Aizawa may be a strict teacher, but he wouldn’t just let his student talk about himself like that.
“It isn’t dumb at all Midoriya, but you also have to understand that the curfew exists for a reason. To become a strong hero, you need enough sleep.”
Although Aizawa was sure Midoriya knew that, surely, he was told that enough times by Iida already, and heard it in school as well.
“I know that of course, but I can’t help it I can just concentrate better at night when everyone is sleeping. And I also need to finally hand in this one assignment, and I have maths homework, and I need to write this essay in English about- “And Midoriya was looking kind of desperate right now, as if he wanted Aizawa to understand exactly why he was still up.
“Midoriya, calm down.”
“Sorry Sensei, I didn’t notice I mumbled again.”
And he said that like this mumbling was inherently a bad thing, even though it was always very interesting to listen to, Midoriya had seriously insightful and smart thoughts, and everyone always seemed to tell him that. So Aizawa didn’t really understand why Midoriya thought of it as something bad he needed to apologise for.
And because with every second of silence that was going by, Midoriya seemed to look more nervous and unsure of himself, Aizawa had to quickly think about something to say.
Finally, he just settled on a simple “No need to apologise.”
After that there were just a few minutes of comfortable silence, although Midoriya still seemed quite nervous. Midoriya slowly started to continue with his work, and Aizawa just thought about some things.
Even though Aizawa wouldn’t admit it, his new class really grew on him. His colleagues even said he had a soft spot for them, which was of course completely not true. But seeing one of his students like this, not taking care of himself and doing all of his schoolwork in the middle of the night and shooting a glance at his watch seemingly not planning on sleeping anymore tonight as it was already 3:30 in the morning, just made him feel like he needed to take care of and protect all of his students way more than he already felt that way.
Alright maybe he really grew a little soft on these kids, but it wasn’t like he was admitting anything about that to his colleagues.
Hoping he could bring Midoriya to get at least a little bit of sleep before school he got up, put his cup in the dishwasher and softly started talking:
“Get some rest Midoriya, you can finish your work tomorrow. I’ll talk to your other teachers and tell them you’re going to hand it in a little late, okay?”
And right as he said this, the exhaustion started to show on Midoriya, he had eyebags that could almost rival his own, and looked like he could just fall asleep on the spot.
“Alright Aizawa-Sensei, thanks.”, Midoriya was clearly trying to supress a yawn while saying this.
Midoriya had already almost left the room when Aizawa said: “You know you can always come and talk to me.”
Midoriya only turned his head and smiled at him, he must have been really tired.