Work Text:
Inko Midoriya was having a pleasant evening.
Lately she had taken to visiting her son’s dorms, occasionally staying overnight in one of the spare rooms. Originally she had only stopped for brief visits to check up on Izuku. Slowly but surely she had stayed longer each time, eventually staying too late one night talking with Izuku and his friends. They had insisted that she stay overnight, counting out all of the free rooms they had.
It had quickly evolved into her staying for a few days at a time, sleeping in one of the free rooms on the ground floor. Helping students with various things was common place for her - many of them were essentially living on their own for the first time, and everyone greatly appreciated her help. She enjoyed working with the students.
So here she was, sitting in a recliner, knitting resting in her lap, the common room mostly quiet. Her son was somewhere upstairs, messing around with his friends. Inko gave a content sigh and leaned back into the chair, taking a moment to examine her handiwork.
Meanwhile, on the couch next to her, Toshinori gave a quiet snore.
She would be deceiving herself if she didn’t admit part of the reason for her camping at the dorms was to make sure All Might took care of himself. He was so terribly thin and, to a certain extent, still recovering from his last fight as a hero. The two of them had quite a few late night talks, always starting out with their conversations centered around Izuku.
The man had stretched out on the couch a while ago, saying something about being exhausted and unwilling to go all the way to his room. He had slipped one of the throw pillows under his head and propped his feet up onto the armrest, keeping his head on the end of the couch closest to Inko. In a few scant minutes he had fallen asleep. Inko had thrown a blanket over his shoulders a while later.
She sighed when she saw the missed stitch, slipping her needle out of the thread and pulling out the yarn, working her way back to the mistake.
Somewhere behind her the elevator dinged. She turned and saw Kaminari, Kirishima, and Jirou walk out into the commons area, all three barefooted and dressed in casual clothes.
Kirishima saw her first, giving a hearty wave despite not being that far away. “Hi, Mrs. Midoriya!”
She grinned and held a finger up to her lips, pointing at Toshinori with her other hand. The students peered over the back of the couch, breaking out into smiles when they saw their teacher sleeping. Jirou and Kaminari moved on to the kitchen, schoolbooks propped under their shoulders.
Kirishima, on the other hand, draped himself over the back of Inko’s chair and looked at the knitting in her lap. “What’s that, Mrs. M?” He kept his voice quiet.
“Oh, not much.” She grinned at the boy above her, displaying her project. “Just working on a little bit of a blanket.”
“That’s really cool!” Kirishima moved around the chair, his eyes widening at all that she had managed to accomplish.
Inko smiled at the look of interest on the boy’s face. “I could teach you a few things if you want.”
“For real?”
“Of course! I think I have my spare needles in my bag.”
Kirishima looked excited as he gently dug through the tote Inko had resting at the side of her chair.
“Oh! And grab that skein of green yarn - you can use it to practice!”
“Thanks!” Kirishima gently withdrew a plastic bag of knitting needles and a sizable ball of green yarn. He sat down on the floor at the foot of Inko’s chair, looking up at her with an expectant face.
“Alright, now grab that pair with the red stripe around the end. You’ll want to hold them like this -” she said, flicking the end of her yarn over her fingers. “The yarn is going to rest like this.”
Kirishima sighed, looking at the mess he had managed to make of the length of yarn stretched from the ball to his hands. Inko looked over the boy’s shoulder, trying to find the mistake. “Oh, don’t worry! I do that all the time.”
Kirishima smiled up at her. “I think I’m figuring it out, though!”
Inko nodded, pulling loose a few threads from Kirishima’s knot and handing it back to him. “You’re picking it up pretty fast, actually.”
The blond lump on the couch twitched. Inko looked over, making sure Toshinori was still asleep. She smiled when he gave a sigh and shifted his head against the pillow, quickly settling back down into a deep sleep.
“How long has he been out?” Kirishima asked, looking up from the yarny mess in his hands.
“Oh, only about an hour and a half.” Inko looked down at the blanket down in her lap, counting the stitches of her last row. “He fell asleep pretty quickly, actually.”
Kirishima sighed. “That’s good. He always looks so tired.”
Inko nodded. “I don’t think he gets enough sleep at all.”
“Yeah, we don’t think so either. The entire class, that is.” He grinned as the knot fell away from his hands, the mess disappearing as the loose yarn pooled in his lap. “I mean, I’m on the fourth floor and his room is on the fifth, but he’s always up when Satou and I go and lift weights in the morning, and that’s really early.”
Jirou walked over, Kaminari making a quiet noise of distress when she abandoned him at the table they had been doing homework on. She sat down next to Kirishima, eyeing his handiwork. “And he always goes to bed late, too.” Her voice was gentle.
Inko smiled. “At least he has you kids looking out for him.”
The deep and slightly raspy breath coming from the couch hitched, and stopped. Inko looked over, seeing the furrow forming between Toshinori’s eyebrows. His hands gripped at the blanket and a muscle flexed along his jaw.
Almost without thinking about it Inko reached over the armrest of her chair, her hand finding the top of Toshinori’s head. He stiffened a bit at the touch. Inko made a soothing noise in the back of her throat, humming as she gently ran her fingers through Toshinori’s fluffy hair.
A moment later and he started to relax, sinking back down into the thick plush of the couch. Inko pulled the blanket back up his shoulders and tucked it under his chin, giving his head one final pat.
Kirishima looked at Inko. “What was that about, Mrs. M?”
“Hmm? Oh,” she said picking up her needle. “Well, I guess he has trouble sleeping sometimes.”
“How did you know to do that?”
Inko smiled. “Izuku used to have trouble sleeping at night. He always quieted down when he knew someone else was around.”
Jirou grinned. “That’s cute!”
Kaminari was looking at Jirou with a look of complete abandonment. With a final whine he gathered up his materials and walked over to everyone else. He sat down with a loud sigh, Jirou and Kaminari hurriedly sushing him with pointed glances at their sleeping teacher.
“Oh, sorry,” he wispered, far quieter than necessary. “Jirou, please, you gotta help me.”
“Fine, fine. Let me see.” Kaminari held over a paper, a look of faint hope on his face.
Jirou scanned his homework with a quick eye. “Well, for starters, you forgot to flip the ‘greater than’ sign here.”
The boy sighed. “Right.”
Kirishima grinned and turned back to his needles, picking them up and threading the yarn through his fingers. Inko gave a small chuckle and watched as Jirou helped Kaminari with his homework. She eventually turned back to her knitting, the soothing sound of voices and Kirishima’s occasional hiss of displeasure coloring the air.
A light sigh came from the couch. Everyone looked at Toshinori, whose blue eyes were flickering open. He gave a very long blink and yawned into the pillow. His toes flexed over the edge of the armrest as he stretched his legs. Toshinori slowly pushed himself up into a sitting position, the blanket falling from his shoulders.
Inko had to suppress a laugh. The pattern from the throw pillow had printed itself onto the side of Toshinori’s face, and his hair was frizzier and more wild than usual.
Still, he seemed relaxed and comfortable, only coughing a bit when he stretched his arms above his head.
“Sleep well?” Inko couldn’t keep the smile out of her voice.
Toshinori nodded, bringing his arms down and rubbing at his eyes with the palm of his hand. “Mmmmm. How long was I out?”
“Only about two hours.”
“Really?” He raised his eyebrows and blinked slowly. “I haven’t slept that well in months.” He covered another yawn with his hand.
“You were really out of it, All Might.” Jirou was leaning back on her hands, smiling at her teacher and ignoring the way Kaminari was frantically pointing at his math homework. “We’ve been down here a while.”
“Really?” Toshinori riased his brows and rubbed at the back of his neck. “Yeesh, if I can sleep through all of you -”
Inko laughed. “They weren’t really that loud, honestly.”
“Uh huh.” Toshinori lowered his voice comically. The wide grin on his face gave away his joking attitude.
Kirishima laughed and Toshinori looked over at the boy seated close to his feet, seeing the project resting in the boy’s lap. “What are you working on there, Kirishima my boy?”
“Oh, this?” Kaminari held up the small, uneven square he had made with pride. “Mrs. Midoriya is teaching me how to knit. Pretty neat, huh?”
“I’ll say so!” Toshinori sounded impressed.
Inko rested her chin in her hand as she watched Kirishima explain some things to his teacher. The large man seemed genuinely interested, asking a question every now and again. Whenever Kirishima didn’t know the answer the boy would turn to Inko, who would explain what Toshinori wanted to know.
Eventually Toshinori leaned back into the couch and rubbed his forehead. “It’s probably a bit complicated for me,” he said with a grin. He gave a slight shiver and wrapped the blanket back around his shoulders, tucking his chin under the edge of the thick fabric.
“It’s really fun, actually! Once you get the hang of it, at least.” Kirishima seemed pleased with his progress, gently running his hands over the yarn.
Toshinori smiled, the edges of his eyes crinkling. “Glad to hear that you enjoy it.”
“Do you want to try?” Inko asked.
“It seems a little delicate.” Toshinori absentmindedly flexed his hands, easing some of the usual ache in his fingers.
“If you like, I could show you how to crochet something? It might be easier on your hands, actually.”
Toshinori smiled at her and shrugged. “Sure, I’ll give it a shot.”
Inko grinned and pulled out some worn yarn and a hook. She stood and walked over to the couch, sitting down next to Toshinori. He took the proffered tools with interest, turning them over in his long-fingered hands.
“Alright,” Inko said. “You’re going to want to hold the hook like this.”
And so they sat, and talked, and made mistakes and laughed about them. All in all, it was a quiet evening.