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Shouta should be starting his evening rounds right about now. He needs to check that the kids are following curfew, but it’s a Friday night and he’s had a terrible patrol and the roof, cool and empty and so so familiar, is where he wants to be, so he supposes the kids can have fifteen extra minutes. It’s not unearned.
He hears the door creak behind him, the sound of footsteps, confident and then halting, and then an exhaled, surprised little, “Oh—”
Shouta doesn’t need to turn to place the voice. He makes no indication that he heard the kid, giving him a few seconds to decide if he wants to fade back down the hallway and into his room, where he should be. Instead, there is only silence as the kid waffles.
“It’s a bit late for you to be out of the dorms, Midoriya.” He cuts his gaze, cool and painfully neutral, over his shoulder.
Midoriya is dressed in his pajamas, a pair of sleep-worn black joggers and a light blue t-shirt with kanji on it. Shouta smiles, just barely, and it’s enough to startle Midoriya into motion.
“Oh, Mr. Aizawa. I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were up here.”
Shouta raises a thin eyebrow. Midoriya seems to backpeddle. “I’ll just—” he points over his shoulder, his head drooping in resignation.
Shouta clears his throat. “I didn’t say you had to leave.”
Midoriya freezes. It gives Shouta an opportunity to really look over the kid. He looks…tired. Kicked down. Shouta swallows past the part of his chest that lights up in recognition. Shouta knows that look. Has been leveling it at the UA quad for the past five minutes. But Shouta’s an adult, he’s an underground hero, and he just had to report the body of a six year old kid, deceased in a bar alley way, to Tsukauchi.
Midoriya isn’t any of those things. He shouldn’t be a mirror-image of his jaded teacher.
“I just wanted some fresh air,” Midoriya says, and the words are trance-like.
Shouta finds himself at a loss. Technically, curfew started two minutes ago. Technically, Midoriya shouldn’t be here but neither should Shouta. If he wants his class to understand their weaknesses, to know when they need comfort and when they need space, he has to cultivate their chances to seek that out.
Midoriya is in the dorm, he’s just not in his room. And right now, Shouta acknowledges, he’s with his teacher.
So, Shouta nods and gestures casually at the empty space next to where he’s leaning on the railing. If Shouta can give himself grace, can understand that what he needs right now is to not be doing rounds, he can let Midoriya do the same.
“We’re going back in five minutes,” Shouta says, once Midoriya has settled next to him.
Midoriya is blushing, slightly, and his thanks is a little muffled but it's there.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Shouta offers. He’s trying not to look at the kid, trying to maintain whatever sense of privacy can exist on a roof this small.
In his periphery, he sees a smudge of green as Midoriya shakes his head. “No,” Midoriya says, his voice wet. “If that’s alright.”
“Of course,” Shouta says. He doesn’t want to talk either. Doesn’t want to lay his demons out on the table for others to dissect. He’ll talk to Hizashi later. In the morning, maybe, when he doesn’t feel so exposed, like someone has cut through Shouta’s ribcage to bare his beating heart. “If you want to talk about it later, you know where to find me.”
Midoriya’s eyes, green and semi-hopeful, stare at the side of Shouta’s face. He hears the kid swallow thickly, see the way his hands shake, even where they are wrapped around the railing. Shouta holds his breath and waits.
“I know,” he says, and then, so quiet Shouta can barely hear it over the wind, “thank you.”
Shouta doesn’t acknowledge it, pretends, instead, he didn’t hear it. He doesn’t think Midoriya needs Shotua’s reassurance, just his presence and his permission. This hero’s pact that is okay to fall apart, as long as you know how to put yourself together.
Shouta just has to hope all his lessons, everything he’s put together for these kids, has taught them that. How to know when you need help, how to find it, and how to utilize it. It took Shouta far too long to learn any of those things.
He doesn’t need people following in his footsteps, without also knowing how to make them lighter.