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Perhaps it was an embarrassing skill to admit to having gained, but whether he liked it or not, Shouta Aizawa was growing to be very talented at dealing with his students' various emotional turmoils. He was beginning to coin the title of "Class 1-A's Dad," courtesy of Hizashi, who was quick to spread the moniker around to every teacher within earshot at any given moment.
In private, Hizashi called him tender.
It wasn't as though Shouta specifically sought out his students in their most vulnerable moments. It was moreso that he seemed to just find them, and that was how it happened one night after classes had finished, the sun had set, and patrol was being patrolled.
As Shouta made his rounds through Heights' Alliance, stopping to circle his Class 1-A's floor, he caught sight of a distinctive shadow moving about in the common room, preceded by the light of a flashlight. Shouta went still, hands going towards his scarf with the absence of thought that only comes from familiarity, and slowly crept towards it. But as he got closer, the shadow clarified, and Shouta dropped his arms, straightening slowly.
What was Tokoyami doing up past curfew?
Please don't let it be satanic rituals, please don't let it be satanic rituals, Shouta prayed, because while he'd admit to being tender, against all humiliation, he was quite sure that he was not equipped to deal with the occult.
Shouta rounded the corner, still somewhat wary, in case the figure was an intruder that just so happened to look exactly like Tokoyami, but when he had said boy in his actual line of sight, he relaxed. Tokoyami was rummaging through one of the cabinets of the entertainment center, pulling out, after a moment, a pack of batteries. The flashlight from before laid on the ground behind him, directed at himself. Upon closer inspection, Shouta noticed his shoulders hiking irregularly, back expanding in time with audibly shaky breaths.
"Tokoyami?" Shouta asked into the quiet.
Tokoyami startled so badly that Shouta himself jumped a little bit. But Tokoyami didn't turn. His breathing had been at once contained, and Shouta could visibly see how hard he fought to steady his own breathing. He left the pack of batteries where he'd dropped them on the floor in his fright.
"Listen... it's late, kid. You should be in bed."
"Apologies," Tokoyami said, voice crackly.
Shouta inhaled through his nose, let it out through his mouth. He had a sinking feeling about what was going on here, about why the flashlight was pointed directly at his own back, why Tokoyami had been so terrified to hear a voice and had at once tried to contain his own fear, why he was still so uneasy. Despite his own presumptions, Shouta still asked, "What's going on, Tokoyami? Is everything alright?"
When there was no answer, Shouta came closer, bending down to retrieve the battery pack. As he raised his head again, he was able to catch a glimpse at Tokoyami. Still cradled in his hands was a little purple bulb with a plug attached to the back.
The common room was silent as Tokoyami dropped back to sit on his bottom. Without looking at where Shouta was still crouching, he reached over and gently took the batteries. He shook a few out and popped open a disk on the underside of the bulb. He replaced a set of batteries there and clicked the compartment shut. Then, leaning forward, he plugged it into an outlet on the wall. At once, it lit up with a glowing purple light.
"It is a nightlight," Tokoyami explained quietly. "For Dark Shadow. In case something happens in the middle of the night, and I lose control."
Now that he could finally get a closer look at Tokoyami's face, Shouta was able to see indented lines in the feathers on his head, down his cheeks, and at once, Shouta realized they were the result of tears, moisture having dampened the feathers in streaks.
"Did something happen?" Shouta asked carefully, heart squeezing at the thought of a repeat of what happened at the training camp, this time with no friends or teachers to help his student. All alone and terrified that his own body had turned on him, and the one thing staving it off not working.
Tokoyami shook his head. "No," he said, voice breaking. "But I awoke; I'm unsure why, and-, and my room was, was pitch black. The batteries had gone out."
Shouta shifted so he was sitting as well. He leaned in a little, turned on his tender voice, and asked, "Did that scare you?"
The boy nodded, and his eyes screwed up, and tears welled up in his eyes only to disappear into streaks down his feathers. He turned to Shouta, and the movement was mutual as Shouta got a hand on his back; Tokoyami opened his arms; Shouta opened his, and within seconds, Tokoyami was tucking his head into Shouta's scarf, holding on tight and crying silently.
There were no wails, no sobs, no gasping cries. Just thick sniffles and the shaking of his student's shoulders, accompanied by the periodic quick intake of breath, telling Shouta that Tokoyami was trying hard to stay quiet, maybe to save face, maybe not.
"Hey, hey," Shouta said softly, "Nothing's happened; you're alright. You're safe. Dark Shadow is safe. Everyone is safe. Just shh, everything's okay, Tokoyami."
Tokoyami shook his head, sniffled again before speaking: "It isn't-, It isn't solely for Dark Shadow's benefit," he admitted. Shouta felt Tokoyami's fingers clench self-consciously in his sweater as he buried his head a little deeper into Shouta's scarf.
"Hmm?" Shouta asked, eyebrows furrowed. He brought a hand up to the back of Tokoyami's head, beginning to smooth down some of the ruffled feathers there.
"The nightlight. It's not just to keep Dark Shadow from corruption. It's for me, too. Because I'm, I'm afraid of the-, I'm-" Tokoyami's voice cut off, dissolving into weak sobs against Shouta's chest.
The realization was a stab to Shouta's chest. "Tokoyami, are you afraid of the dark?"
Though his voice was gentle, entirely nonjudgmental, the answering sob was still ashamed, humiliated, horrified.
"Ever since the training camp," he managed quietly. His voice crackled in the way of someone who was still very much crying, and Shouta tsked once sympathetically, bringing Tokoyami closer, holding him tighter. He was reminded again of how young his children still were. How it was entirely plausible for one of them to be scared of the dark, to use a nightlight, to cry when they wake up to a dark room after it's battery dies, because they were still just kids.
Shouta shuddered to think how long the poor boy had laid in his bed, crying and afraid, before he'd gotten the courage to get up and escape his pitch black room.
"Hey, that's okay. Hey, shh, shh. It's okay."
"It is pathetic," Tokoyami said, voice muffled.
"Hey, no, no." Shouta squeezed the boy in his arms, bringing him up a little further into his lap. He felt Tokoyami's arms disappear from around him so he could curl up closer, wind his fingers into his scarf. Shouta would have smiled in a different atmosphere; he was beginning to enjoy the way people found comfort in his scarf and was all at once appreciative that he'd chosen to keep it a soft material.
Shouta settled a hand over the top of Tokoyami's head, slowly stroking downwards. There were still ruffled feathers from his fright earlier, and Shouta was determined to soothe away the fear he'd caused. As he smoothed Tokoyami's feathers, the boy became more relaxed, and Shouta squeezed him tight with the arm he had around his back, rubbing up and down there a little too.
"Now I want you to listen to me, Fumikage. It is in no way, shape, or form pathetic to be afraid of the dark. Especially not after what you've been through, do you hear me? It's okay to be scared. It's okay." Shouta said as Tokoyami began to pull back a little, enough to look up at his teacher, and then look away again just as fast.
He continued to stare off to the side as he admitted, "I'm just so scared I'll go out of control again."
"That's okay, kiddo, we can-"
"It isn't!" Tokoyami interrupted. Tears of frustration had welled again in his eyes, and he scrubbed over them angrily with an arm. "The darkness is who I am; How can I be afraid of who I am?"
Shouta let his eyes lead Tokoyami's to where Dark Shadow had appeared hesitantly at his side. "I think you already are."
Tokoyami's eyes flickered to where Dark Shadow had appeared, and his eyes widened, going instinctively to the still lit flashlight behind him and the nightlight still plugged into the wall. Those were the only two sources of light in the room besides the moon, which illuminated the room only slightly. It was still mostly dim, and that fact seemed to be overly present in Tokoyami's mind.
"Hey," Shouta said, softly.
Tokoyami looked at Shouta, and whatever he found on his teacher's face caused guilt to swell in his eyes. He looked to Dark Shadow.
"I can't help being afraid of us," he whispered ashamedly to his shadow. "I know it's not right."
"It's not your fault, Fumikage," Dark Shadow croaked back to him. "I'm afraid too." With that, Dark Shadow took one look around the room, at the measly lighting, pressed his forehead to Tokoyami's neck, and retreated again.
When Dark Shadow had gone again, Tokoyami seemed to lose all sense of composure. His quiet, contained cries from before gave way to rough, hiccuping sobs. Ones that sounded like they hurt in the chest, and Shouta scooped his student back up and held him close once more.
"I don't want to be afraid anymore," Tokoyami cried.
"Shh, I know, I know," Shouta hushed. He had half a mind to start rocking his student then and there, but with Hizashi's teasing voice in his head, settled for a firm hand cradling his head and another rubbing circles into his back. "I know you don't. We're gonna work on it, okay? That's why you're in school. It's so you can learn, and grow, and you know what? I'm your teacher. You know what that means?"
"What?"
"That I am going to teach you. Do you trust me?"
Tokoyami sniffled. He settled his temple on Shouta's left collarbone, breathed uneasily a few times, and said, "Yes."
"Then trust me when I say that it's okay to be afraid. And that I'm not going to let this be the end. We're going to work on it, and it's all going to be okay. I promise. Does that sound like something we can do?"
"Does this mean harder training?" Tokoyami asked.
Shouta chuckled a little. "Oh yeah," he said, somewhat sarcastically. "We're really gonna put you through the ringer, kid."
There was a small laugh from Tokoyami and then a moment of silence before Shouta spoke again. "No, really. We'll go as slowly as you need to, okay? But we are gonna work through this. To help you become a better hero, a better student-,"
"A better friend."
Shouta was not sure friend was quite the right word to use for Tokoyami and his Dark Shadow. If anything, the word brother got closer. Nonetheless, Shouta smiled and pulled back to look his kid in the eyes. "The best you can be," he affirmed.
Tokoyami smiled, and then yawned immediately after. It seemed that all his tears and the late night were catching up to him. Shouta rubbed the boy's back one final time and began to stand, pulling the nightlight from the wall and picking up the discarded flashlight as he did. It was flickering in protest to being kept on for so long. It was bound to need a battery replacement here soon too. When he turned back, Tokoyami had gotten to his feet, and Shouta handed over the nightlight carefully, keeping the flashlight in his other hand.
"Do you still think you need this?" Shouta asked carefully, but it seemed that Tokoyami was more than ready to make the first step towards learning to trust himself.
"I'd rather you keep it."
With a little smile that he refused to label proud, Shouta led his student to the kitchen and quickly filled up a glass of water for him to sip at. "Are you feeling well enough to head back to bed?"
Nodding, Tokoyami finished drinking and wiped at his mouth, fending off another yawn. He'd put the nightlight in the pocket of his pajama pants, but now he fished it out again, smoothing a thumb over its surface in contemplation. "I am. But I'm not ready to give up the nightlight. Is that..." Tokoyami looked away somewhat insecurely. "Is that okay?"
Shouta bent a little to get on his student's eye level, putting his hands on Tokoyami's shoulders. "It's more than okay. Overcoming fear is a process. I want you to use your nightlight for as long as you need to. It's all okay. Now let's get you back to bed. Sound good?"
"Yes Sir." Tokoyami's voice was stronger now, less shaky, and Shouta got a hand on his back, rubbing a little as he guided his student back towards the elevators. Shouta paused just outside of them. He couldn't leave this floor while on patrol; he had to get going and soon. He set his hands on Tokoyami's shoulders again.
"Will you be okay to head back up alone?"
Tokoyami nodded, but there was a moment where it almost looked like he had something he wanted to say.
"What is it, kid?" Shouta asked.
"Do you think it will go out again?" He asked, voice absolutely dripping with uncertainty.
It took a moment for Shouta to figure out that he meant the nightlight, even as the boy began to fiddle with it in his hands. Would it die again, he was asking. Would he be forced to wake up to an utterly black room with the threat of chaos and destruction thrumming under his skin? Would he be made to feel that paralyzing terror, that kind where you're afraid to move a single muscle for fear of awakening the darkness? Would he be consigned to crying in fear again with no way of helping himself? Shouta felt his lips thin.
"If it does, you have my number," Shouta said, voice soothing. "You call me, and I'll be right there in a heartbeat, do you understand? Even if Dark Shadow shows up. I'll be there, and we'll make everything just fine again. I promise."
"Thank you," Tokoyami mumbled, but still, he didn't turn back to the elevators. Shouta cocked his head.
"Would you... like a hug?"
In general, Shouta was not in the habit of asking his students whether they would like that sort of comfort. He preferred to let them initiate it, or to act on instinct in times of distress. However, he couldn't bring himself in the slightest to regret asking as Tokoyami nodded, eyes down, looking horribly insecure. And when Shouta stepped forward, folded his student back into his arms slowly and carefully, he could feel just how much the gesture was needed. Tokoyami slumped into the hug like all the fight had drained out of him, nestling himself back in comfortably, even as his shoulders took up a weak tremble again, letting out those last overwhelmed tears that Shouta was becoming so familiar with.
"Shh, shh," he hummed. "Shh, relax. Everything's okay, just shhh."
Irrevocably, Shouta gave into his inclination towards the rocking. Just barely, side to side as he hushed and hummed and quieted and soothed, feeling the shaking slowly melt away.
Tokoyami went lax. Pulling back just barely, Shouta peered down to see shut eyes and a slowly expanding chest.
Shouta gently eased the nightlight from his loose fingers and tucked it away into his own pocket before bending slightly and carefully scooping Tokoyami into his arms. It seemed he would be leaving this floor after all.