Chapter Text
By the time Aizawa reached the hospital, it was nearly eleven at night, his eyes felt as though someone had packed sand beneath the lids, and Todoroki's doctor had used the phrase nothing to be overly concerned about three times.
In Aizawa's experience, doctors only repeated that sentence when there was, in fact, something to be concerned about.
"He wasn't injured by the quirk itself," the doctor explained, flipping through the chart on the tablet in his hands. He was an older man with rectangular glasses and the irritatingly alert expression of someone who had either started his shift recently or possessed a healthier relationship with sleep than Aizawa did. "We've done a neurological examination, bloodwork, and a basic quirk-factor assessment. Everything is within normal parameters. No sign of lasting damage."
"And the temporary damage?"
The doctor glanced up at him. "I wouldn't call it damage."
Aizawa stared.
After a moment, the man cleared his throat. "Temporary alteration, then."
'Better.'
Beside them, Tsukauchi made a suspicious noise that might have been a laugh. Aizawa ignored him.
Through the narrow window set into the examination-room door, Todoroki sat on the edge of the bed in borrowed hospital clothes. His hero costume apparently suffered enough damage that someone bagged it, though Todoroki himself looked untouched. His back was straight, his hands rested loosely on his thighs, and his expression was the same placid neutrality Aizawa saw across a classroom five days a week.
If the quirk had done anything to him, it wasn't immediately apparent.
"The perpetrator calls the quirk Disinhibition," Tsukauchi supplied, leaning one shoulder against the wall. His tie had been loosened and the top button of his shirt undone, though otherwise he looked irritatingly put together for this hour. "Physical-contact activation. Skin-to-skin, apparently, though we're still confirming the specifics. Todoroki was clipped across the jaw during the arrest."
Aizawa's gaze sharpened. "He let someone get that close?"
"He didn't let anyone do anything." Tsukauchi's mild tone carried the familiar warning that Aizawa was being unfair to his student. "There were four suspects, one civilian in the middle of it, and the quirk user came at him from behind while Todoroki was restraining another suspect. The patrol leader's report says he handled it correctly."
'That didn't mean Todoroki wouldn't blame himself for it.'
Aizawa looked through the glass again.
Todoroki hadn't moved.
"What exactly does Disinhibition do?"
The doctor tucked the tablet against his chest. "Essentially, it interferes with emotional inhibition. It doesn't create emotions or alter cognition. Your student is still himself—his judgment, memories, personality and moral reasoning are intact."
"So it's not a truth quirk."
"No. That's important." The doctor adjusted his glasses. "He isn't compelled to answer questions or reveal information. He can still decide what he says and does. What's impaired is his ability to suppress the emotional response accompanying those decisions."
Aizawa waited.
The doctor seemed to recognize that this wasn't sufficient explanation.
"If something amuses him, he may find it considerably harder not to laugh. If he's angry, maintaining a neutral tone or expression may be difficult. Fear, embarrassment, excitement, affection—all the ordinary responses are still ordinary. There's simply less distance between experiencing them and expressing them."
"Hm."
"Most affected individuals describe it as losing their emotional filter."
Aizawa's gaze drifted once more to the boy sitting motionless on the other side of the glass.
Todoroki Shōto's emotional filter could probably withstand artillery fire.
"How long?"
"The perpetrator claims twelve to eighteen hours. Previous victims reported effects lasting as long as twenty-four, with the severity diminishing toward the end. We have no reason to expect anything longer than that."
"And his quirk?"
That made the doctor's expression turn more serious.
"Indirectly, that's our primary concern. His quirk itself is functioning normally, but strong emotion can affect concentration, respiration and autonomic responses. For someone whose quirk requires the degree of regulation his does, significant emotional distress could make precise control more difficult."
Aizawa's shoulders tightened beneath his capture weapon. "How much more difficult?"
"We don't know."
'Of course they didn't.'
"If he becomes significantly distressed, remove unnecessary stimulation and encourage him to regulate his breathing. Don't force him to suppress whatever he's experiencing. Based on the accounts we've collected, attempting to forcibly contain the response can actually increase distress." The doctor glanced at the closed door. "Otherwise, familiar surroundings are preferable. People he trusts. Low stress. No hero work or strenuous quirk use until the effects have resolved."
Aizawa could manage that.
More importantly, Todoroki could manage that.
Of all his students, there were few he trusted more to remain composed when something unexpected happened. The boy had stared down villains, family trauma, Midoriya at his most self-destructive, and several of Bakugō's more impressive tantrums without so much as raising his voice.
"Todoroki isn't particularly expressive to begin with," Aizawa said. "I doubt we'll have much trouble."
Tsukauchi turned his head.
There was something deeply irritating about the slow smile spreading across his face.
"You know," he said, "saying things like that is generally how trouble starts."
Aizawa gave him a flat look. "I don't believe in tempting fate."
"Fate believes in tempting you."
"You're enjoying this too much."
Tsukauchi's smile only deepened. "You'll survive."
"And yet you keep saying that like it's reassuring, Nao."
"You're still here, Shō."
"Do you have anything useful to contribute?"
"As a matter of fact, I do."
Tsukauchi pushed away from the wall and pulled his phone from his pocket. The suspects were in custody, he explained. Four in total, all connected to a string of robberies involving support-item shipments. The arresting agency had been tracking them for nearly a week. No civilians had been seriously injured, and the worst injury among the heroes was a fractured wrist that had already been treated.
Todoroki, despite being struck by an unknown quirk halfway through the encounter, had continued assisting until all four suspects were restrained.
"The patrol leader didn't even realize he'd been affected," Tsukauchi added.
Aizawa glanced through the window.
Still nothing. Todoroki had shifted enough to look toward the clock on the opposite wall, but his face remained unreadable.
"Neither did Todoroki?"
"Oh, I think he knew something was wrong."
Something in Tsukauchi's voice made Aizawa look at him.
The detective's mouth twitched.
"What?"
"One of the suspects attempted to bite him."
Aizawa waited for the relevance of that statement to become apparent.
The detective's smile widened. "Apparently Todoroki called him an asshole."
Very slowly, Aizawa turned toward the examination room. "Todoroki."
"Direct quote."
"He called someone an asshole."
"The patrol leader was very specific."
Two fingers came up to rub at the bridge of his nose. It wasn't that Todoroki was incapable of swearing. Aizawa wasn't naïve enough to think seventeen-year-olds lost access to profanity around teachers. Still, the kid generally approached insults with the same baffling literalism he applied to everything else. He was far more likely to calmly inform someone that their behavior was irrational than call them an asshole.
"He apologized afterward," Tsukauchi added.
His hand stopped.
"To the criminal?"
"To the patrol leader. Apparently he said, 'I'm sorry. That was unprofessional.'"
There it was.
Normal Todoroki.
They would survive one night.
The doctor finished the discharge paperwork a few minutes later, and Aizawa pushed open the examination-room door. Todoroki's eyes immediately shifted toward him.
Up close, there was still no obvious difference. The split red and white hair was slightly disheveled, and fatigue had darkened the skin beneath his eyes, but otherwise he looked precisely as he had when Aizawa had watched him leave campus that afternoon.
"You're discharged."
"Yes, sir."
"Get your things. We're leaving."
Todoroki stood immediately and collected the plastic hospital bag containing what remained of his costume. No argument, no complaint, no unusual expression. If anything, he seemed quieter than usual.
Tsukauchi was waiting outside. Todoroki stopped in front of him, bowing his head slightly.
"Thank you for helping tonight, Tsukauchi-san."
"You did most of the helping. Get some rest, kid."
"I will."
'Completely normal.'
As Todoroki continued down the hall, Tsukauchi caught Aizawa's eye and lifted both eyebrows, the ghost of that earlier smile returning.
"Not a word."
"I didn't say anything."
"You were going to."
That smile widened.
Aizawa turned and followed his student before the detective could become any more insufferable.
The drive back to U.A. did nothing to change his assessment.
Todoroki sat in the passenger seat with the hospital bag tucked between his feet, watching streetlights smear across the dark window as they passed. The radio remained off. Aizawa preferred silence while driving, and Todoroki had never been someone who filled empty space simply because it existed.
For ten minutes, neither of them spoke.
"How do you feel?" Aizawa asked eventually.
"Fine."
He glanced sideways, but Todoroki remained turned toward the window, watching the lights slip past.
"That's not what I asked."
A brief silence followed. Todoroki's fingers shifted against his knee, his thumb rubbing absently along the side of his index finger.
"Embarrassed."
That pulled Aizawa's attention from the road for a second.
It wasn't the emotion itself that surprised him. Todoroki was perfectly capable of embarrassment, despite what some of his classmates seemed to believe. It was the admission without prompting that was unusual.
"About?"
"I allowed myself to be hit."
There it was.
Aizawa exhaled through his nose and returned his attention to the road. "You were blindsided by an unknown quirk during an active pursuit while restraining another suspect."
"I should have noticed him."
"What, you think you should have eyes in the back of your head?"
Todoroki fell quiet beside him, apparently giving the question far more consideration than it deserved.
"That could be useful."
The solemnity of the answer pulled a tired sigh from Aizawa. Definitely normal.
"Don't mention that to Hatsume."
"I wasn't planning to."
"Good."
After that, the silence returned, easy and familiar.
By the time U.A.'s gates came into view, Aizawa had mostly stopped checking the passenger seat. The doctor had been clear that the effect varied by temperament and baseline emotional regulation. Perhaps Todoroki simply didn't have particularly demonstrative responses to suppress. Perhaps the quirk would manifest as a few inappropriate comments and an occasional visible irritation.
Compared to some of his students, that qualified as an ordinary Tuesday.
They parked near Heights Alliance, and the night air had turned cool enough that Aizawa shoved his hands into his pockets as they crossed the path toward the dormitory. Light still spilled from several ground-floor windows.
Of course it did.
A quick glance at the time confirmed it was already 11:34. Wonderful.
Aizawa stopped outside the entrance and turned to his student. "No training tomorrow."
Todoroki's lips parted, but Aizawa cut him off before he could get a word out. "No."
"I didn't say anything."
"You were going to."
A faint crease appeared between Todoroki's brows. "I was going to ask whether light training would be acceptable."
"And the answer is still no."
"What about—"
"No."
Todoroki's breath escaped in a quiet huff. It wasn't quite a sigh, and there was enough irritation in it that Aizawa briefly wondered whether that was the quirk or simply Todoroki being seventeen.
"Stay on campus," he continued. "No unnecessary quirk use. If anything feels wrong, you tell me. If your control starts slipping, you call immediately. I don't care what time it is."
"Yes, sir."
"And don't intentionally test the effects."
"I wasn't planning to."
Aizawa studied him for a moment and found nothing that suggested otherwise. "Good."
He reached for the door, only to pause when Todoroki spoke behind him.
"Aizawa-sensei?"
There was an unusual softness in his voice. When Aizawa glanced back, he found Todoroki watching him with an expression he couldn't quite place.
"Thank you for coming to get me."
Aizawa studied him. Something was different—not enough to name, but enough to notice. Todoroki wasn't smiling exactly, but his mouth had softened at the corners and some of the habitual tension had disappeared from around his eyes. His shoulders had dropped, leaving something strangely young and open in his expression that Aizawa couldn't remember seeing before.
Then again, it was nearly midnight. They were both exhausted, and Todoroki had just spent several hours being examined in a hospital after getting hit by a criminal's quirk.
Aizawa dismissed the thought.
"It's my job."
Something flickered across Todoroki's face.
So quickly Aizawa nearly missed it.
His gaze dropped, and the softness disappeared behind something Aizawa couldn't name.
"Oh," Todoroki said.
Aizawa frowned. "Problem?"
"No, sir."
He considered pressing. The doctor had specifically told him to watch for emotional distress, and whatever he'd just seen hadn't looked entirely positive.
Then someone shouted inside the dormitory.
The answering crash was immediately followed by several voices yelling at once.
Aizawa closed his eyes with a weary sigh while Todoroki glanced toward the source of the commotion.
"No," he muttered, mostly to himself. "The problem is in there."
He pushed open the door, and a wall of noise greeted them.
The common room was still occupied by a sizable portion of Class 2-A despite the hour. Midoriya had claimed one end of the dining table with three open notebooks and the expression of someone desperately pretending the surrounding chaos wasn't happening. Iida stood nearby in sleep clothes, chopping both hands through the air while informing everyone that some people were attempting to maintain responsible sleeping schedules. Bakugō's voice came from the kitchen, promising murder if anyone broke another mug.
None of that appeared to concern the three students currently responsible for most of the noise. Ashido knelt backward on the couch with her elbows hooked over its back, while Sero had somehow managed to tangle himself in a length of his own tape. Aizawa decided he didn't want to know. Between them stood Kaminari, hair mussed, one sock missing, radiating the manic energy of someone who had passed tired twenty minutes ago and emerged somewhere on the other side.
"I'm just saying," Ashido insisted, pointing at him, "you have absolutely zero survival instincts."
"False." A hand slapped dramatically against Kaminari's chest. "Slander. Character assassination."
"You tried to jump from the third-floor balcony onto Sero's tape."
"It worked."
"You screamed the entire way down!"
"That was a battle cry."
The wheezing sound Sero made did nothing for the headache beginning to pulse behind Aizawa's eyes. Behind him, the door clicked shut as Todoroki followed him inside.
Good. Familiar environment, familiar people, no immediate responsibilities. Exactly what the doctor had recommended.
Apparently, Kaminari had decided his defense required a demonstration. He climbed onto the edge of the couch, ignored Iida's outraged demand that he get down, and spread his arms wide.
"I have excellent survival instincts. You know what my survival instinct tells me whenever something dangerous happens?"
"Run?" Sero suggested.
"Cry?" Ashido offered.
"Call an adult?" Midoriya added without looking up from his notebook.
"Exactly!" Kaminari pointed at him before sweeping one hand grandly through the air. "Find the nearest responsible adult and make the problem their problem."
His searching gaze traveled around the room and stopped dead on Aizawa.
The grin that followed immediately made Aizawa regret walking through the door.
Both arms flew toward him with all the theatrical grandeur of someone unveiling a national monument. "BEHOLD! I HAVE SURVIVED!"
Aizawa stared at him.
Beside the couch, Sero snorted hard enough to start coughing. Ashido's reaction landed somewhere between a shriek and a laugh as she snatched up the nearest cushion and hurled it at Kaminari's head.
"Go to bed," Aizawa said.
The cushion landed harmlessly against Kaminari's chest, but reality had apparently stopped being relevant several minutes ago. His eyes went wide. He staggered backward, clutching the cushion to himself with one hand pressed dramatically over his heart.
"No," he breathed.
That sent Ashido into another fit of laughter.
With all the dignity of a mortally wounded soldier, Kaminari collapsed lengthwise across the couch, one arm hanging limply toward the floor. "Tell my mother..." A trembling breath left him. "Tell my mother I died as I lived."
"Stupidly?" Sero offered.
His head snapped toward Sero, wounded outrage transforming the face of a man supposedly moments from death.
"Beautifully."
Then, from beside him, came a sound so small it nearly disappeared beneath Ashido's laughter.
Aizawa glanced over.
Todoroki was staring at Kaminari with an intensity that would have been perfectly ordinary if not for the way his lips were pressed tightly together. There was tension gathered strangely around his mouth, his cheeks drawn taut with the effort of holding something back, and his eyes were brighter than they had any right to be.
The corner of his mouth twitched.
Aizawa blinked.
Across the room, entirely oblivious to the scrutiny, Kaminari draped the back of one hand across his forehead and sank deeper into the couch. "Don't let them remember me for my mistakes."
"That doesn't leave us much to remember," Sero said.
"You bitch."
The sound came again.
This time there was no mistaking it.
Todoroki's hand flew to his mouth as his shoulders gave a sudden jerk. For one absurd second, Aizawa thought he was coughing. Then another breath escaped through his fingers, thin and strangled, followed by a second that shook on the way out.
His shoulders trembled.
He ducked his head as though he could hide whatever was happening behind his hand, but the effort only seemed to make it worse. A helpless little noise slipped through his fingers—warm, breathless, unmistakably amused.
A laugh.
Aizawa stared.
He'd heard Todoroki laugh before, technically—those rare little breaths of amusement that barely qualified.
He had never heard him sound like that.
And Todoroki, judging by the startled widening of his own eyes, hadn't expected it either.
Then Kaminari lifted his head from the couch and looked directly at him.
His expression was one of such profound, slack-jawed confusion that whatever fragile control Todoroki had managed to retain shattered completely.
The laugh burst out of him.
Not the quiet exhale Aizawa had occasionally heard when one of his classmates managed to amuse him. Not the tiny smile that appeared so rarely that Midoriya reacted to it like a wildlife photographer documenting an endangered species.
This was helpless.
Todoroki doubled over as another wave of laughter tore through him, one arm wrapping around his stomach while the other remained clamped uselessly over his mouth. His back struck the wall behind him, and he stayed there as if he needed it to remain upright, shoulders shaking hard enough that his hospital bag slipped from his fingers and landed forgotten on the floor.
The common room went silent.
Even Bakugō stopped shouting in the kitchen.
For a long moment, Aizawa could only stare.
The boy tried to breathe—genuinely tried—but a thin inhale made it only halfway into his lungs before another laugh caught and shattered it. His hand finally fell away from his mouth as he folded forward, eyes squeezed shut, whatever remained of his control giving way completely. The sound came freely now, warm and breathless and so astonishingly young that something about it caught Aizawa off guard.
Tears gathered at the corners of mismatched eyes before spilling freely down flushed cheeks.
Around the room, the others seemed to have forgotten how to react. Ashido's mouth hung open. Sero's hands had slowly lowered to his sides, and even Iida's arms had gone completely still. At the table, Midoriya had abandoned any pretense of studying and was peering over his notebook with eyes roughly twice their usual size.
On the couch, Kaminari pushed himself upright.
Eventually, Todoroki managed to open his eyes, finding Kaminari's gaze.
That was apparently a mistake.
The blond was staring back at him in utter disbelief, hair sticking out in every direction, the forgotten cushion still clutched against his chest as if he needed it for support. The sheer bewilderment on his face proved too much.
Todoroki's expression crumpled.
A strangled wheeze escaped him.
Then he lost it all over again.
Aizawa had known Todoroki Shōto for more than a year.
He had seen the boy furious enough to fill a stadium with ice. He'd seen him injured, frightened, stubborn, grieving, determined, spiteful and, on rare occasions, quietly content. He had watched him stumble through friendships with all the instinctive social grace of someone assembling furniture without instructions. He had even seen him smile.
Aizawa had never heard him laugh like this.
Apparently, neither had anyone else.
For nearly a minute, the only sounds in the common room were Todoroki's helpless laughter and his increasingly desperate attempts to drag air back into his lungs.
Eventually, painfully, he managed it.
The laughter faded into little huffs that still shook his shoulders. He remained against the wall for a moment, breathing hard, before dragging the heel of his hand beneath one eye.
It came away wet.
Todoroki stared at it.
Then, very slowly, he seemed to become aware of the silence.
His gaze lifted.
Everyone was staring at him.
Aizawa watched the realization travel across his face with a clarity that was almost unsettling.
His eyes widened, his lips parted, and color bloomed rapidly across his skin.
Not the faint dusting Aizawa had occasionally seen when Todoroki was embarrassed. His entire face went red, the flush spreading rapidly across his cheeks and all the way to the tips of his ears. He straightened abruptly, wiping at the tears beneath his eyes with both hands now.
"Sorry."
The apology came out rough and breathless, frayed by the laughter he was still trying to get under control. Todoroki scrubbed the heel of his hand beneath one eye and then the other, wiping away the last traces of tears as the silence stretched around him. The flush across his face had only deepened under everyone's attention, and he seemed to be making a concerted effort not to look directly at anyone.
Iida recovered first, although the uncertain adjustment of his glasses suggested he wasn't entirely sure what to do with what they had just witnessed. "Todoroki, while I understand the circumstances are unusual, laughing at a classmate rather than with them can be quite hurtful—"
"No."
Todoroki's head came up so quickly that Iida stopped mid-gesture. The embarrassment was still there, bright across his cheeks and ears, but something almost alarmed had overtaken it.
"I wasn't laughing at Kaminari." His gaze darted toward the couch before dropping again, brows drawing together. "I mean, I was, but not at him." The distinction apparently frustrated him, and his fingers curled into the fabric at his side. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean for it to seem like I was making fun of him."
"Oh." Iida's raised hand slowly lowered as understanding dawned. "Then it seems I misunderstood your reaction."
"Yes." Another shaky breath escaped Todoroki, carrying the faintest remnant of laughter with it. He wiped impatiently at the dampness beneath his eyes once more. "I just thought Kaminari's joke was funny."
The silence that followed felt markedly different from the first.
Aizawa watched several faces change at once as the meaning of that statement settled over the room. Ashido's eyebrows shot upward. Sero's mouth slowly curled into a grin. Midoriya looked from Todoroki to Kaminari as though he had just encountered a piece of information that contradicted several months' worth of collected data.
From the couch came a strangled little noise.
Kaminari had gone completely still, staring at Todoroki with the forgotten cushion balanced precariously across his lap. "You thought my joke was funny?"
Todoroki finally looked at him, confusion beginning to edge out some of his embarrassment. "Yes."
The cushion slid from Kaminari's lap and landed softly on the floor without him seeming to notice. "You think I'm funny?"
"Yes."
Something extraordinary began happening to Kaminari's face. Aizawa had watched the boy receive praise from professional heroes with less visible delight than what was currently spreading across his features. His eyes widened, his mouth dropped open, and one hand rose to point incredulously at his own chest.
"Me?"
Todoroki blinked at him. "Yes, Kaminari. You."
"Oh my God."
A delighted squeak escaped Ashido, but Kaminari either didn't hear it or had temporarily lost the ability to process anything that wasn't Todoroki. He scrambled off the couch, caught his heel on the discarded cushion, windmilled briefly, and recovered without ever taking his eyes off him.
"Since when?"
The question changed something.
Aizawa saw it in the way Todoroki's shoulders drew in and the lingering red across his cheeks crept higher toward his ears. His gaze dropped to the floor, fingers worrying restlessly at the hem of his shirt.
A cold thread of unease worked its way through Aizawa's exhaustion as the doctor's explanation returned with uncomfortable clarity.
He isn't compelled to answer questions.
That had sounded reassuring in the quiet sterility of a hospital corridor. Standing in a common room full of curious teenagers who had just discovered that their notoriously unreadable classmate was, for the next several hours, considerably easier to read, Aizawa was beginning to appreciate the potential problem.
"September," Todoroki admitted.
For half a second, the room seemed to collectively stop breathing.
Kaminari broke first. "SEPTEMBER?!"
The shout shattered whatever restraint remained. Ashido pitched forward over the back of the couch with a shriek of, "Wait, September? As in last September?" while Sero started laughing beside her.
"That's almost the whole school year!"
Even Midoriya looked genuinely bewildered, his notebook forgotten on the table in front of him. "You've thought Kaminari was funny since September?"
The questions came too quickly for Todoroki to answer. His gaze jumped from one classmate to another as voices overlapped, the flush across his face deepening and his shoulders creeping higher with every demand for clarification.
"Yes," he managed when there was finally enough room to get the word out.
"Dude." Kaminari sounded personally wounded, though the enormous grin splitting his face undermined the performance. "You have never laughed at one of my jokes."
That brought Todoroki up short. His brows drew together as he stared at him. "I have."
"No, you haven't."
"I have."
"When?" Kaminari demanded, laughter creeping into his voice. "Name one time. I have been working my ass off for months trying to get even a pity chuckle out of you, man. Nothing. Not once."
Todoroki opened his mouth, then stopped. The crease between his brows deepened as he considered the accusation with the same grave concentration he usually reserved for tactical problems. Another unconscious shift brought his shoulder against Aizawa's arm, but he seemed not to notice the contact at all.
Then understanding softened the confusion on his face.
"Oh."
Aizawa experienced the sudden, powerful conviction that whatever came next was going to make his night significantly longer.
Still pink from the tips of his ears to the collar of his shirt, Todoroki met Kaminari's eyes and explained with complete sincerity, "I laugh internally."
For several seconds, nobody seemed to know what to do with that.
"You..." Kaminari stared at him, mouth hanging slightly open. "You laugh internally?"
"Yes."
"At my jokes?"
Apparently relieved that they had finally cleared up the misunderstanding, Todoroki nodded. "Frequently."
The common room exploded.
Ashido made a sound dangerously close to a scream. Sero folded over the back of the couch, laughing hard enough to nearly slide off it, while Kaminari immediately demanded examples of jokes Todoroki had secretly found funny. Midoriya started asking something at the same time, Iida raised his voice in an attempt to restore order, and Bakugō shouted from the kitchen that if everyone didn't shut the fuck up, he was going to do it for them.
Aizawa pinched the bridge of his nose and wondered, not for the first time, what exactly he had done in a previous life to deserve this class.
Then he felt Todoroki go rigid beside him.
The change was subtle enough that he might have missed it if the boy weren't already standing unusually close. What had been an accidental brush of shoulders had become firm pressure against his upper arm, and the laughter and embarrassment from moments ago were gone. Todoroki's breathing had quickened. His gaze moved restlessly around the room, trying to follow every voice, every question, every person demanding his attention at once.
"Todoroki?"
"I'm fine."
The answer came too quickly, tension pulling the words tight.
Before Aizawa could respond, Ashido called another question across the room. Kaminari immediately talked over her, Sero burst into laughter again, and Todoroki flinched at the sudden swell of noise. His shoulder pressed more firmly into Aizawa's side.
The doctor's warning returned with considerably more urgency than it had possessed twenty minutes ago.
Don't force him to suppress the response. Remove unnecessary stimulation.
"That's enough."
Aizawa didn't raise his voice. He didn't need to. The noise began dying almost immediately, questions trailing off as his students noticed his expression, but not before he felt a faint tug at his side.
Something had caught in his shirt.
He looked down and found two of Todoroki's fingers hooked into the fabric near his waist.
His gaze traveled from the pale fingers clutching his shirt to Todoroki's face, but there was no sign the boy knew he had done it. His attention remained fixed on the room, jaw tight and shoulders drawn in. When Kaminari moved suddenly near the couch, those two fingers curled more securely into the fabric.
Aizawa wasn't entirely sure what to make of that.
Todoroki had never been particularly touch-oriented. He tolerated casual contact from his classmates far more readily now than he had during his first months at U.A., but Aizawa couldn't remember him ever deliberately seeking physical reassurance from a teacher. Then again, tonight was rapidly becoming an extensive list of things Aizawa hadn't known about Todoroki.
The grip tightened.
Whatever it meant could wait. Right now, the kid was overwhelmed.
Rather than force him to let go, Aizawa lifted his arm enough to give him room. The response was so immediate it nearly made him pause. Todoroki stepped into the space without hesitation, settling against his side until his shoulder rested beneath Aizawa's arm and some of the rigid tension left his posture.
A strange feeling lodged somewhere beneath Aizawa's ribs.
He ignored it.
Across the room, Midoriya had gone very still. His eyes moved from Todoroki's hand curled into Aizawa's shirt to the arm now held awkwardly around him, and the bewilderment on his face slowly gave way to concern.
"Aizawa-sensei?" he asked carefully. "What's going on with Shōto?"
Every face in the room turned toward them at once.
Todoroki's fingers tightened.
Aizawa sighed. So much for getting him upstairs quietly.
He gave them the abbreviated explanation. Todoroki had been struck by a quirk during patrol that temporarily interfered with emotional inhibition. It would likely wear off sometime tomorrow, and while there was no indication of lasting harm, overstimulation and distress could make the effects harder to manage.
More importantly, none of this made Todoroki a convenient source of entertainment. He wasn't under a truth quirk, wasn't compelled to answer questions, and didn't owe anyone information simply because his reactions were easier to read than usual. They were going to treat him normally, give him space when he needed it, and stop turning every visible emotion into an interrogation.
That last part was delivered while looking directly at Ashido and Kaminari.
Both had the decency to look chastened. Kaminari's grin disappeared altogether as his attention shifted back to Todoroki, concern replacing the delighted disbelief from moments before.
"Is he okay?" he asked.
The question was quieter than any of the others had been.
"He's fine," Aizawa said, feeling Todoroki shift slightly beneath his arm. "And he'll continue being fine if all of you stop shouting questions at him."
Kaminari winced. "Right. Sorry, Todoroki."
Todoroki glanced at him.
"It's okay."
The answer came softly, but some of the tightness around his mouth eased. Kaminari smiled at him—not the enormous, manic grin from before, but something smaller—and Todoroki's expression immediately softened in response.
Interesting.
Aizawa filed that away for a time when he possessed enough energy to care.
"For now," he continued, sweeping a tired look across the room, "the doctor recommended rest and familiar surroundings. So you're all going to do the most helpful thing you've done tonight and go to bed."
Several mouths opened.
"By normally, I mean leave him alone."
The mouths closed.
"Go."
Iida immediately took up the cause with renewed enthusiasm, directing everyone toward the stairs before curiosity could overcome self-preservation. Sero caught Ashido by the shoulders and physically steered her away when she glanced back with one last question visibly trembling behind her teeth. Midoriya lingered a little longer, concern still creasing his face, but a pointed look from Aizawa finally sent him after the others.
Kaminari was the last to move.
For a moment, he simply stood beside the couch looking at Todoroki, and Todoroki looked back from beneath Aizawa's arm.
Then, without warning, a tiny smile tugged at the corner of Todoroki's mouth.
Kaminari lit up like someone had connected him directly to a power grid.
Aizawa pointed toward the stairs. "Bed."
"Yep." Kaminari backed away, still grinning. "Going. Totally going. Good night, Todoroki."
"Good night, Kaminari."
Another tiny smile.
Kaminari nearly walked into the wall.
Aizawa waited until he had disappeared upstairs before looking down at the student still pressed against his side.
Todoroki was holding his shirt.
Not lightly anymore, either. Somewhere during the commotion, those two hooked fingers had become a loose fistful of black fabric.
"You can let go now."
The effect was immediate.
Todoroki's fingers released the fabric as though it had burned him, and he stepped back half a pace. Something pinched across his expression, small and fleeting, but unmistakably hurt.
Aizawa frowned. That wasn't what he'd meant, and the brief flash of hurt made him regret how the words had come out.
"I meant because we need to move."
"Oh."
Relief softened Todoroki's expression almost immediately. He reached out again, only to hesitate before making contact, his fingers hovering uncertainly near Aizawa's side as though he was no longer sure he had permission.
For a moment, Aizawa looked between the waiting hand and Todoroki's face. Apparently they were doing this. Rather than make the kid ask, he shifted closer and watched the hesitation disappear as Todoroki quietly curled his fingers back into the fabric of his shirt.
"Come on."
They crossed the common room together, their pace made slightly awkward by Todoroki's refusal to put more than a few inches between them. Their shoulders bumped twice on the way to the elevator, and each time Aizawa expected him to correct the distance.
He didn't.
If anything, the muffled voices drifting down from upstairs made him move closer. By the time the elevator arrived, Todoroki had progressed from holding a fold of fabric between his fingers to carrying a proper fistful of Aizawa's shirt.
The doors opened with a quiet chime. They stepped inside, and as soon as the doors slid closed behind them, shutting out the last distant sounds of Class 2-A, Aizawa felt the change.
Todoroki exhaled.
It was a long, slow breath, and with it some of the tension seemed to drain out of him. His shoulders lowered from where they had been bunched near his ears, his grip loosened, and the rigid line of his body softened until he was simply standing there beside Aizawa, tired and quiet.
Still holding his shirt.
The elevator hummed around them as the illuminated numbers above the doors began to climb.
Aizawa had spent more than a year teaching Todoroki Shōto. He knew the boy's combat instincts and his bad habits. He knew the particular stubborn set of his shoulders that meant he was about to disregard perfectly reasonable medical advice. He could usually tell when Todoroki was angry despite the level voice and blank expression, and he had learned the difference between the silences that meant I'm thinking and the ones that meant I don't want to talk about this.
He had thought he was reasonably good at reading him.
Tonight was beginning to suggest otherwise.
Beside him, Todoroki shifted. His grip remained loose now, no longer desperate, but instead of creating the distance he usually maintained, he leaned until his shoulder rested lightly against Aizawa's arm.
There was no noise to overwhelm him anymore. No classmates crowding him, no questions coming from every direction. Nothing, as far as Aizawa could tell, that required reassurance.
Todoroki stayed there anyway.
Aizawa looked down at the top of his head, puzzled by the quiet contentment that had settled over the boy's features.
Then he faced forward again and let him.
The elevator deposited them on Todoroki's floor with a soft chime, and the hallway beyond was blessedly quiet. Aizawa expected the hand in his shirt to disappear once they stepped out.
It didn't.
He said nothing about it.
They made their way down the hall at an awkwardly close distance until Todoroki stopped outside his room. Only then did his fingers finally loosen, slowly uncurling from the fabric as though he had only just remembered they were there.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
"You heard what the doctor said," Aizawa said eventually. "Don't fight the quirk."
Todoroki looked at him. "I'm not."
"You are."
A faint crease appeared between his brows.
"You tried to stop yourself from laughing until you could barely breathe. Then you tried to hide being embarrassed. Downstairs, you were overwhelmed for several minutes before you said you were fine." Aizawa folded his arms. "You're treating this like something you can overpower if you concentrate hard enough."
Todoroki's gaze dropped.
That was answer enough.
"The doctor specifically warned against suppression. Every time you try to force something down, you're making it harder on yourself." He paused, searching for a way to phrase something he ordinarily had very little reason to say aloud. "If you're happy, be happy. If something annoys you, be annoyed. If Kaminari says something stupid and you think it's funny, laugh."
A flush immediately began creeping back into Todoroki's cheeks.
Aizawa pretended not to notice.
"It's temporary. Stop trying to win against it."
"I don't like not being in control."
There was no hesitation behind the admission.
Aizawa studied him. "Expressing an emotion and losing control aren't the same thing."
Todoroki went very still.
Something about the way he looked at Aizawa then made him wonder if he'd said more than he intended.
"You're allowed to have visible reactions," he added, considerably less comfortable now. "Even when you haven't been hit by a quirk."
The silence stretched long enough for Aizawa to reconsider attempting emotional advice at nearly midnight. He was a teacher, not a therapist, and there was a reason he generally left conversations about feelings to people with more patience and significantly fewer sleeping problems.
"Within reason," he amended at last. "Don't start throwing furniture."
"I don't usually want to throw furniture."
"Good. Keep it that way."
Something shifted in Todoroki's expression. The corner of his mouth pulled upward, tentative enough that Aizawa might once have missed it, but after the spectacle downstairs he recognized the beginnings of a smile. There was a brief moment where the boy seemed instinctively inclined to flatten it away; then, apparently remembering the advice he had just been given, he let it remain. It was small and tired, softened by the late hour, but unmistakably there.
"Good night, Aizawa-sensei."
"Get some sleep."
Aizawa had made it only a few steps down the hallway when that same unusually soft voice stopped him.
"Sensei?"
There was becoming a pattern to that tone.
He glanced back to find Todoroki still standing outside his room. One hand rested on the door handle, but he hadn't turned it. The little smile from moments before was gone, uncertainty settling in its place as he watched Aizawa from the other end of the hall.
"Are you going to be here tomorrow?"
"At U.A.?" Aizawa asked, brows drawing together.
"Yes."
"I work here."
"I know."
"Then what are you asking?"
Todoroki looked down at the handle beneath his hand. His fingers tightened around it, knuckles paling, and for once his silence didn't seem deliberate. He looked like he genuinely couldn't figure out how to put whatever he wanted into words. A breath left him, faintly frustrated, before he finally looked up again.
"Can you..." The words faltered. His mouth tightened, and he tried again. "Can you stay close tomorrow? Just until this wears off?"
Aizawa stared at him.
Of all the strange things Todoroki had done that evening—calling a criminal an asshole, laughing himself breathless at Kaminari's nonsense, clinging to Aizawa's shirt through the common room—somehow, that quiet request caught him most off guard.
It was such an unlike-Todoroki request that Aizawa's first instinct was to assume he'd misunderstood. Todoroki didn't ask people to stay close. He barely asked for help unless the problem was practical, and even then Aizawa sometimes had to drag the request out of him. Yet here he stood, visibly uncomfortable and unable to hide how badly he wanted the answer to be yes.
Maybe that was the quirk.
Maybe the loss of his usual emotional control had left him feeling vulnerable, and Aizawa had simply become the nearest familiar authority figure after several hours in a hospital. There were a dozen perfectly reasonable explanations.
None quite explained the quiet relief that appeared on Todoroki's face when Aizawa answered.
"I'll be around."
His shoulders dropped.
"Okay."
Aizawa hesitated before adding, "If you need me, call."
"I will."
Normally, Aizawa would have doubted that.
Tonight, strangely, he didn't.
Todoroki finally opened his door, but before stepping inside he looked back once more.
"Thank you, Aizawa-sensei."
"Get some rest, Todoroki."
The door clicked shut between them.
Aizawa stood in the hallway for several seconds longer than necessary.
Then he looked down at his shirt.
The fabric at his side was still wrinkled where Todoroki had spent the better part of ten minutes clutching it in his fist.
Aizawa smoothed the wrinkled fabric absently with one hand, unable to shake the sense that something about the night was bothering him in a way the quirk itself didn't. The emotional overload downstairs was straightforward enough; the doctor had warned him about it, and Aizawa knew how to manage an overwhelmed student.
What he didn't understand was the way Todoroki had relaxed the moment Aizawa put an arm around him, or how quickly he'd reached for him again after being told to let go. Most of all, he couldn't quite dismiss the quiet uncertainty in his voice when he'd asked, Can you stay close tomorrow?
His gaze lingered on the closed door for another moment before he exhaled through his nose and headed back toward the elevator. He was too tired to untangle what any of it meant tonight.
Given the way this evening had gone, tomorrow would probably give him plenty of opportunity.
Knowing Tsukauchi, he'd already let himself into Aizawa's rooms and gone to sleep, blissfully unaware that he'd been completely fucking right. By the time Aizawa finally crawled into bed beside him, he intended to enjoy whatever remained of the night before Tsukauchi woke up, took one look at him, and became insufferable.