Work Text:
Aizawa shouta was in a situation he'd never been in before.
He was on patrol,hopping from roof to roof while tailing a villain, which wasn’t new by any means however, the constant stream of information back and forth of his coms was novel. While he works with others on a regular basis for raids or big takedowns, more often than the average underground hero in fact due to his versatile quirk, he typically would never be considered chatty by anyone half saine. But here he was encouraging the flow of analysis and giving his input as he saw fit.
Because on the other end of the line was one Midoriya izuku. His intern.
He'd never had an intern before, always thought he'd have enough hero hopefuls to deal with on a regular basis to ever even consider a long term internship. Last year he'd had shinsou, who had been a work study student as he hadn't had his Provisional Hero license, and he'd only taken him on a handful of patrols, mostly to get his parcour up to par. But this year, having properly integrated class 2A and gotten his PHL early in the first semester, he'd immediately turned to shouta to ask to be his intern. Shouta however had refused, afraid that his student's clinginess would result in him being unable to work under other underground heros and potentially developing Shouta’s bad habits. Despite the jokes, shouta didn’t actually want a mini him, he wanted his student to be as well rounded and well adjusted as he could be. So instead shinsou is interning with a hero shouta trusted, just outside musutafu.
So really, shouta didn’t think he'd ever willingly take on an intern. But 2 and a half weeks ago he'd been in an empty teacher's lounge while a newly appointed vice class representative problem child had come in to deliver a stack of paper. (When he realized a vote was going to turn out the same as last year, shouta had had a flashback to the stain incident before deciding attempted murderers probably shouldn't be class rep and saying he'd choose the reps this year. Yaoyorozu the newly enthroned queen momo as class president and his problem child as vice president, he was really hoping the kid grew a spine outside of life or death situations.)
They'd been talking about internships and his problem child had confided in him that he'd always wanted to be an under growing up but felt as though his quirk pigeonholed him into an limelight hero seeing as he literally glowed when his quirk was active.
And shouta was about to sadly agree when he was hit by the sudden image of a criminal sneaking around at night, and whirling around at a crack of thunder on a cloudless night only to be met with a dark figure back-lit by the moon on the roof above with toxic green eyes and the smell of ozone. And his only thought, despite himself was fuck, that would be cool.
And so, without really thinking it through he said "intern under me and try it out".
But if he had thought it through he would have remembered how painfully well rounded that kid was, only for him to use brute force when push came to shove. The kid was an analyst at heart, a strategist like shouta had only rarely seen. He excelled in quirkless exercises and more than held his own in stealth. Yet for some reason, he punched himself out of problems more than anything else like he didn’t see value in himself past his quirk. And shouta was determined not to churn out another Allmight. So shouta would have made the same offer all the same
So here he was, roof hopping, tailing a villain with a sleep quirk while Deku a few blocks away was tailing and analyzing another villain with a powerful, unknown, mutation quirk. For the first time ever Eraserhead had an intern, an intern who happened to be objectively better matched to the most dangerous of the 2 foes they faced, logically this was the better choice, and yet a part of him was screaming that this was wrong, that he was the one that was supposed to be protecting his student. But in the end logic and faith in his student won.
So shouta focused on his end of the plan, he was supposed to corner his opponent when they reached the rendezvous point and take him down, while deku herded his own villain away from said rendezvous point and took him down 3 blocks away. They were to engage their villains separately for the plan to work, the mutant villain was immune to the sleep villain's quirk and would be able to block Shouta’s ability to negate the sleep quirk which means this was the best course of action, it was logical. It didn’t mean shouta liked it, he couldn't keep an eye on his problem child, nor could he help him if things went wrong, but they shouldn't, this should be well within his kid's capabilities.
.
.
.
.
.
Shit.
Shit.
Fuck.
Shit.
This wasn’t going well. At all.
He was bleeding heavily and facing three very not-detained-at-all villains. One of which was the villain with the sleep quirk, that shouta needed to keep from using his quirk on him lest he be at the complete mercy of the three villains in front of him.
And worst of all his com was broken.
When he'd initially engaged the villain, all seemed to be going fine until 2 more villains popped out of the woodworks. One had a tech quirk and a very pesky knife. Meaning he'd only been able to grunt over the line before it went dead and a knife was buried in his side. The third villain had some sort of barrier quirk, and while it appeared he couldn’t keep up said barriers for long, they were just annoying enough to slow or trip up all of shouta's attacks and dodges.
So shouta was fucked.
He was injured, bleeding out, outnumbered and losing his balance as tried to evade another knife to the knee. He stumbled into a barrier. Fuck. He managed to catch himself but the knife embedded itself into his thigh anyway. Double fuck.
At this point he was out of options, he couldn't retreat, but by gods he couldn't pass out. He had to stay awake, he had to fight, he had kids to protect, students to teach, an intern to work with. But with one hand pressed to the knife in his side and the near inability to stand, he knew he couldn't fight.
The knife villain was reading to go for another strike and shouta could only grit his teeth as the other lunged.
Shouta, despite his resolve, blinked, and when his eyes opened again there was no villain running at him. No. Instead he saw green.
Green. And for a moment that's all he could focus on, green, the green that was kind, and awkward, and strong, and smart, and safe and brave to the point of near stupidity.
The green that was hope.
Shouta knew as he looked into those assessing eyes, no doubt taking stock of his injuries, and at that vicious lighting, that he would be just fine.
And in the next moment things exploded back into movement as Deku lunged and then it was all a blur to shouta until he blinked again and the movement stopped. Distantly he knew that it was blood loss causing him to lose time but for now he slowly realized there was pressure on his side and thigh, and he felt … wind?
“-to be okay. I've got you sensei.”
.
.
.
.
.
.
When he woke up again this stupid fucking beeping was-
Wait. Right, villain, stab wounds and green.
He tried to open his eyes and shut them immediately and groaned.
“Oh God sorry sensei!” He heard in a whisper squeak. This time when he tried again it was much darker, and he saw green, Viridian not toxic and he smelled petrichor not ozone. It was safe, it had to be. “Welcome back sensei.” Midoriya said softly to which he groaned again and tried to sit up.
After helping him sit up and getting him some water, Midoriya sat back in his chair. “So, that went to shit” Shouta’s voice was scratchy. Midoriya snorted.
“Big time.”
They laugh, because they're safe now, because that went terrible but when does it ever go right, because this is what they signed up for and for now they're going to be OK. And shouta doesn't say “thanks for saving my ass” and he doesn't say “you'll make a badass underground hero if that's what you want” he doesn't even say “you know the glow just adds to the mystique”
He will eventually.
But for now he says
“Well problem child, status report.”