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Shouta Aizawa thinks that keeping expectations low in life can only be a good thing. He has lived by this creed for as long as he remembers, it taking him through his school years into adulthood with ease. If things go right, then he is only happy to appreciate such a thing with the awe it deserves; and if they go wrong, well…it’s not going to take him by surprise, now is it?
Shouta isn’t sure what he expected to find when Midoriya woke, but he finds the boy wrapped in hospital sheets and surgical gauze, eyes glassy and far away when he walks into the cold and unwelcome room. He isn’t sure if he kept his expectations low this time or not; it all feels a little too raw for him to get a read on his own feelings on the matter.
“How are you feeling?” Shouta asks as he draws near, hiding the inherent trepidation he feels. Midoriya hasn’t been conscious in days, and Shouta feels his teeth set on edge at the memory of just what this boy has been through within these bare, expressionless hospital walls—all he has been through after a fight Shouta was not present for, with a villain named Muscular.
The name feels rotten in his mouth.
Midoriya’s eyes stay unfocused for a long while, and his mouth twitches but remains closed, almost as if he’s reacquainting himself to how his own tongue feels. Shouta leans forward, attempting to enter the line of sight Midoriya seems intent on maintaining. The ceiling must hold some secret Shouta is not aware of. “You’re in the hospital. It’s been two days. You’re on the mend, but your arms…” He doesn’t know how much he’s at liberty to say. Would Midoriya prefer the cool detachment of a doctor, or Shouta’s well meaning but rather blunt way of revealing bad news? Or, perhaps maybe the more gentle approach of his mother? He doesn’t know.
His silence makes the choice for him.
“Can’t use them. Need to be…careful,” the boy says, whispering into the sharp, chemical-scented air. “It’s okay. I knew…it would happen.”
Shouta thinks it to be the farthest thing from okay.
While Midoriya suffered through seizures and fevers, his body desperate to heal but too strung out to know exactly how, Shouta had thought. He thought himself into knots and tangled circles, his lack of information like sandpaper on an already-bleeding wound. He thought as reports trickled in of a villain, captured, happy to give his account of how he nearly beat a child to death, all with not one ounce of remorse. Then there was Kota, through tears, telling Shouta firsthand how the fight had gone down, his own guilt that was far too big for his little body shunting itself into Shouta’s heart, to rest painfully behind his ribs. Visions of Midoriya have plagued his mind ever since—of the fear the boy must have felt, the desperation, the slowly dying hope that someone would come save them atop that precipice.
Did he hope Shouta would come running, like the hero he is? Did Midoriya hope his best was enough?
It very nearly wasn’t.
None of this passes Shouta’s lips now, however.
Midoriya’s eyes slip shut, back into the blissful respite of sleep, and Shouta finds he can’t fault him for it. But he is surprised. He expected panic, fear, a desperate need to know about Bakugou’s whereabouts and just what was being done to retrieve him.
He gets none of that. Midoriya forgoes consciousness like if he doesn’t it will harm him. Shouta can’t say for sure that such a thought is wrong.
The plans for Bakugou’s retrieval are well under way, Shouta fielding what he thinks must surely be endless calls concerning plans and speeches and who should be where and when. He has it all straight, just what role he will play in all of this; a distraction, put plainly. He feels he deserves it, to be under the scrutiny of the public while his colleagues put back together the mess he has made in the shadows. He wasn’t there for his kids when they needed it most, and the hatred he feels for dressing in a suit and making sure his hair is put in its place feels fitting. Let him be someone else tonight, on Musutafu’s televisions. Let the discomfort scratch at him and pull at the self he wears like armor. His discomfort is such a small price to pay, after all—nothing compared to what Bakugou has been through, locked away in some corner of the city.
Nothing compared to what Midoriya seems to be suffering through, in silence.
Shouta has never known him to be so quiet.
Shouta cannot always be there in physical form but he watches over the boy from afar, knowing him to never truly be alone. Between Midoriya’s friends, his mother, All Might, and any other straggling people who have taken it upon themselves to care for him, Shouta doesn’t fear Midoriya suffering any loneliness. Still, he has his own ways of keeping tabs.
Mrs. Midoriya tries to soften what she feels must be weaknesses, or things that don’t quite meet the status quo over the phone when he calls and asks about Midoriya's health. Or perhaps, going off of how Midoriya acts at times—shrinking himself when he thinks it would benefit others—instead, maybe she thinks it a kindness not to bother Shouta with the gritty details. He asks her for them anyway.
It is a few hours before the rescue, when he visits again.
Entering the room is never easy, no matter how many times he does it. Seeing Midoriya wrapped in bandages and listless against the pillows makes his stomach feel wrong, turned inside out. He swallows the feeling, drawing close and sitting in the chair he draws up near the edge of the bed. Midoriya looks tired, even though Shouta knows how much he sleeps.
“The other children seem a bit disappointed at times, when they come by and Izuku…well he’s not always up for company…” Mrs. Midoriya tells him over the phone.
Shouta simply hums. “Is he eating? Sleeping?” Shouta himself knows just how much insomnia can take over his life when the harder things seem too close, like the good will never come again.
There is an uncomfortable pause over the line. “Ah…yes, I’d say he eats. Not as much as I would like, but I am his mother. I feel that is to be expected.”
“And sleeping?”
Another pause. “He sleeps…plenty.”
Shouta tries to keep his sigh quiet, familiar with how it feels to be danced around in conversation. “I’m not trying to pry, Mrs. Midoriya. You know I care about all of my students, and their physical well-being is important to me.” He also knows this to be an understatement, and he can hear Hizashi snickering about it even if he’s nowhere near him at this time.
Mrs. Midoriya sighs, herself. “Oh yes, I know. Oh goodness, it’s just– Well he sleeps too much, Mr. Aizawa. I’ve asked the doctors about it and they’ve lowered his pain medication, and I know he’s healing, of course I do! But it seems to be more than that. Psychological, or something…” she says, clearly unsure.
Shouta hadn’t truly been surprised, following up her concerns with the suggestion that she simply keep a clear line of communication between herself, her son, and qualified medical professionals. He told her it was bound to get better.
Walking in now, however, Midoriya’s mouth held open in a soft shape, he wonders when that will be. As he gets closer, the boy’s eyes look unfocused and clouded, lost in storms that Shouta cannot see. Well, he hopes to do something about that.
“Hey, kid.”
A moment of silence passes. “Hi, Mr. Aizawa.” His head doesn’t move, not even blinking as Shouta sits down.
It’s unsettling. To see Midoriya awake and yet so checked out…Shouta has seen it before. PTSD is not a new friend in the business he has chosen, but seeing it in young people will always tear the soft parts of Shouta to ribbons.
“How are you feeling?”
Midoriya is pale, his lips dry and cracking as if even wetting them is too Herculean a task. “Fine.”
Shouta sighs. He’ll leave it, for now.
“I thought you’d like to know, we’re retrieving him. Tonight.” Retrieve—Shouta’s attempt at professionalism so that he himself does not feel his fears or faults too keenly here.
Shouta knows what he is doing, of course. He says this to Midoriya as a last ditch effort for some kind, any kind, of reaction from the boy who normally glows so bright but now has become but a shade of his former self.
Shouta watches with bated breath as his words seem to click, deep within Midoriya’s mind. The boy’s face twitches so minutely that Shouta is sure Midoriya is unaware of it and as he turns his head slowly, the movement almost unnatural, his eyes widen by increments. His cheeks look sallow and slack, his freckles pale upon a drawn face. His throat clicks when he says, “...Kacchan?”
Shouta nods. It seems to be enough.
Midoriya shudders, his entire body shaking in a wave beginning from his shoulders and reaching to his toes. The blanket resting over him moves and Shouta can hear as his teeth begin to chatter, Midoriya’s eyes drifting off to the wall somewhere behind Shouta.
Shouta himself rises, sitting gingerly on the edge of unclaimed mattress, placing both hands where Midoriya’s shoulders meet his chest, which has begun to rise and fall rapidly. “That’s it, it’s alright, Midoriya.” He thinks of the numbness and the silence, of Midoriya sequestered into a corner of his own mind, most likely too scared to let himself feel the fear of his classmate’s disappearance or the uncertain future of his own health.
But Shouta knows just how damning such self-afflicted quiet can be; no thoughts are so loud as those a person keeps hidden away inside, after all.
Shouta hums gently, “It will be alright. You can feel this, kid. You can.” He wants to tell him that he’ll only be stronger for it, that the relief will be worth the discomfort of letting his worries and (if Shouta knows him at all) his perceived failures, wash over him.
The shaking worsens and Shouta only presses into Midoriya’s clothed skin tighter, his thumbs rubbing absent circles into the hospital gown the boy wears. Midoriya’s chattering teeth give way to pained sobs, breathy and cracked, as if his body has forgotten how to cry. Tears roll down cheeks that have taken on the flush they have missed for days on end. It hurts Shouta to see, but just like he knows it must feel for Midoriya, it loosens the knot in his chest bit by bit.
“I know it hurts, kid, but this will pass. You’ll see.” Green, tear-filled eyes cling to him then, like a drowning man to a raft, and so Shouta talks. He speaks about their plans for Bakugou’s rescue in layman’s terms and focuses on the after—when Midoriya and his friends will return to school and resume their classes, going so far as to plot out new lesson plans on the spot for Midoriya to analyze and examine. While he speaks, not once do the boy’s eyes stray from his face.
Slowly Midoriya seems to tire, exhaustion and the pain medication still running through the IV in his hand calming him more than his own will, but still Shouta stays. It is only once he finds his hand already placed on a sweaty forehead, swiping damp curls from Midoriya’s face, that he realizes how close he is. Slowly, Shouta withdraws his hand. He must admit this isn’t the first time he has let himself get a bit too familiar; at least Midoriya doesn’t seem to mind.
Though his chest still shudders, the boy’s breaths even and his body goes slack. When he speaks, it’s more a whisper than not. “S-sorry, Mr. Aizawa.”
Shouta shakes his head. “It’s alright, Midoriya. You needed it I think.” The boy’s eyes fall away, embarrassment apparent on his face and Shouta runs a hand down his own freshly-shaven cheek. “I think we both did. It’s been hard seeing you like this.”
Another tremor makes its way through Midoriya’s entire body. “I’m sorry…I don’t mean to worry anyone–”
“Kid, you’ve got to stop apologizing.”
Midoriya looks up at him in mild surprise. Shouta holds up his hands in his own concession. “Sorry to be so blunt, but I really can’t take any more. Can we just agree to only apologize for actual wrongs that have been committed? Geez kid…” This boy would apologize to his attacker for getting stabbed, Shouta is almost certain. Maybe he should add that to the lesson plans.
A small smile quirks up the corner of Midoriya’s mouth and Shouta could never put into words what such a sight does to him after so long without seeing it. “I’ll try. No promises, though.”
“I’ve never expected perfection, Midoriya,” he smiles right back.
Shouta feels about half a ton lighter, and by the way Midoriya lets his eyes slip closed he assumes it is the same for his student. As Shouta rises to leave, he stops just inside the doorframe, looking back just once to watch Midoriya’s peaceful form. All at once, he feels the weight of the boy’s trust that they will save Bakugou, his sleep like a flag waving in surrender to his teachers and the men and women who have sworn to protect the corner of existence that they call their own. Shouta feels stronger for it.
He will play his part, and if he feels a bit more willing to do so now, well it’s just another way the boy shows heroism in the smaller moments of his life.