In Your Shadow [Chapter 18]

[Chapter 17]

Shouta fished out his Hero License as he approached the door, holding it up to the little security camera pointing down at him, and waiting silently. After a moment, the receptionist’s voice echoed from the speaker near the camera, welcoming him back, and the door clicked, sliding open on a wide, spacious lobby. He was still a little impressed every time he visited, when he set foot on the clean, marble tiles, watching sidekicks glance his way from big, soft armchairs as they waited for their patrols to begin. They all whispered about him as he arrived, speculating about who he was or why he was there, though a few of the longer-serving sidekicks recognised him by now. Once upon a time he’d known everyone in that building, most of them by name and face and quirk and everything else, but the agency had just continued to grow and grow, and Shouta’s help had been less and less needed.

Not that he minded. It seemed like every year he got called to fewer and fewer emergencies, and he seemed to be increasingly well-rested as time went on. He knew what that likely meant for his old problem child, but it was practically a rite of passage for a hero, to exhaust yourself taking way too much onto your plate, crawl your way back up out of that pit, and have to figure out how to manage everything and balance it all, going forward – all the words in the world wouldn’t teach Midoriya that lesson, but one good burnout would do the job.

Eventually.

“I don’t have an appointment,” he said knowingly, when he reached the reception desk. “I was just hoping for ten minutes to buy Midoriya a cup of coffee and catch up with him. Can you let him know I’m here?”

“Of course, Sir.”

The receptionist seemed sceptical – and Shouta didn’t blame him. He didn’t recognise the man, so he had to be a newer hire, and Shouta wasn’t surprised that the man didn’t know who he was, beyond the hero name stamped on his ID card. He’d clearly just glanced at it, typed it into a computer, seen that it already existed in their visitor database, and hit him with the canned ‘welcome back’ response as he buzzed him in, just like everyone else who visited. But Midoriya had made Shouta one promise when he’d left school: not that he’d stay out of trouble, or do his best to stop breaking bones – those were lost causes he refused to lie about – but that if Shouta ever needed him, he’d make the time to see him, no matter what.

“He says you can go up to his office,” the receptionist said, the surprise clear in his tone even though he tried to remain professional. “Shall I get someone to escort you?”

“That’s fine, I know where I’m going.”

He didn’t wait for another response – he was already taking enough time out of Midoriya’s day without keeping him waiting, after all – he just walked on past to the elevators, hitting the button for the fourth floor and letting it shoot him up to an empty hall. There were only a few doors on that floor, and the patrol leaders rarely used the little office spaces they shared, so it was always eerily silent when Shouta stepped out of the elevator and headed for Midoriya’s door, his knock echoing despite how gently he did it.

“Come in, Aizawa-sensei!” the familiar voice called brightly.

He pushed the door open, and managed a fond smile when he saw Midoriya beaming up at him, quickly rising from his seat to greet him excitedly. No matter what the day, time, reason, or amount of warning given, Midoriya always acted like seeing Shouta was the best thing that could have happened to him. It was no wonder he’d gotten to number one so young – not only was he a force to be reckoned with, but he was sweet, and charming, and so genuine compared to most heroes. No one even believed Shouta when he told them how much trouble Midoriya had caused him back in high school; very few people knew what a little shit he could be, and Shouta wasn’t sure if he felt privileged to have that knowledge, or rued the day he’d agreed to put him in Class 1-A.

“Do you have time for a cup of coffee?” Shouta asked. “I was hoping we could have a quick chat, if you can spare a few minutes. I’m buying.”

“I promised to be on-site as patrol back-up, one of my heroes called in sick today.” Midoriya cringed as he said it, looking apologetic, but he gestured toward his computer. “Can I talk you down to coffee here at my desk while we chat? I’ll even put my work away so I’m not distracted, just for you.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

He sat back down, and Shouta joined him across the desk, watching him type out a short message and hit send, before he closed his folders of paperwork to give Shoutahis undivided attention.

“I wanted to chat with you about Bakugou,” Shouta said, even though he was sure Midoriya had guessed it already. “To thank you, first of all, for taking him in. In the few days he’s been back at school, he’s had this renewed drive to work hard and improve in everything. He’s even stopped getting in arguments in class, he just sticks his head down and focuses on his work, and even helps other students when they get stuck instead of sneering at them for asking silly questions. You did him a world of good in those two weeks you had him, and I can’t thank you enough for that.”

“Of course, Aizawa-sensei! I always make time for the people who need me, I’m a hero! But especially when you and All Might tell me to pay attention to someone. You’ve both done so much for me, I wouldn’t have gotten here without you, so the least I can do is take a look at a kid who you think I’ll like. Although I should be giving you a hard time for not telling me he grew up in the same neighbourhood as me, I felt like an idiot for not realising it!”

“Sorry, I assumed you knew.”

“Well, no harm done,” Midoriya laughed. “Really though, I’m glad you told me about him. It was really interesting to meet him and work with him, at least what little I got to do.”

“I know it must have been hard to get through to him so quickly, I’m quite impressed with your work. I might have to nag you to take interns more often, from now on.”

“If only I had the time,” Midoriya sighed, and smiled apologetically. “I’ve been thinking about adding interns to my patrol leaders’ rosters though. They already mentor our new sidekicks, and they all ended up loving Katsuki, so I think they’d all be keen to take one on every so often, when it comes up.”

“They did?”

“Like him? Of course! So did I, he’s such a funny thing. Very diligent, super quick learner, but so stubborn too. It’s like he can’t stand to let anyone think he’s a nice person, even though he wants to be a hero.He made me dinner one night when my eating habits had gone to hell, and he got all embarrassed about it when he brought it to me, it was actually very sweet. And our sparring match! I was worried about hurting him, but he was just so enthusiastic about it, I couldn’t help but get into the spirit.”

“He’s definitely an interesting student,” Shouta agreed. “I think he’ll make a great hero one day, with the right guidance, and I’m doing my best to provide as much of that as I can manage.”

“I couldn’t agree more, I told him so myself. I think you’re a great influence on him, keeping him in check the same way you tamed me over the years.”

“No one has ever tamed you, Midoriya, and I doubt they ever will.”

A knock on the door interrupted their chuckles, but brought them their coffee, Shouta’s mug made exactly the way he liked it – he wasn’t sure if Midoriya had specified that in his message or if they kept everyone’s coffee order on file, but either way it was quite a sweet touch.

When the staff member left, Shouta hesitated, and Midoriya just smiled knowingly, waiting for him to find the words.

“I found a timetable he’d made himself, today. He dropped it, and when he came back to get it, he told me you’d been giving them to him each day to help keep track of where he was meant to be, and he thought it was a good habit to get into, for when he was working weird hours again and needed to keep himself organised. He’s really trying to use all the lessons you taught him, even the small ones.”

“I expected him to be more challenging, after the things I’d heard, but he was actually pretty respectful once I’d set out my expectations for him. He had a few slip-ups, of course, but he learned from them, and that’s what really matters. I probably could have been less strict with him, in the end, but I figured it was better to be clear and firm about what I wanted from him, after the stories.”

“He would have appreciated that. He’s a very direct person.”

Shouta took a deep breath, and Midoriya remained silent, eyes shining a little as he sipped on his coffee – he knew the words that were coming anyway, he clearly just wanted to see how long it would take for Shouta to break and ask first. Damn problem child, refusing to put him out of his misery.

“Would you consider keeping him on, long-term? As a work studies student?” he asked finally, watching Midoriya’s eyes light up with triumph. “Even if it were just a few hours a week, as it fitted in with you, I think it would do him a world of good.”

“Well, that’s up to him,” Midoriya said, his tone laced with amusement. “If he keeps behaving, I personally don’t see any reason to get rid of him.”

“Does he know that?”

Midoriya remained silent this time, and Shouta sighed – communication had never been Midoriya’s strong suit, after all. He still remembered many a time that Midoriya had gone off on a strange tangent, mumbling up a storm and expecting his classmates to follow it, then been surprised they weren’t all immediately on the same page.

“I haven’t said anything to him,” Midoriya confirmed eventually. “I was a little curious to see what he would say, how he would react if I didn’t. Would he ask? Would he let it go? Would he get mad? I just thought it would be interesting to see his reaction, I suppose. I thought he’d cave and ask me on our last day, but he wouldn’t lower himself that far.”

“He came to me and said you hadn’t asked him, and wanted to know about alternatives, how he could find somewhere else to go. He doesn’t want to be stranded without a spot in his final year. I warned him he might only get bad offers on such short notice, and he told me he could learn things from anyone, no matter how low-ranked or overworked.”

“That’s a good start,” Midoriya mused. “Makes a change from sulking about working with people who weren’t me.”

“Did he sulk a lot?”

“Not a lot. He tried some half-hearted plots to make me pay attention to him, but I nipped it in the bud pretty quickly when he started deliberately being disrespectful to my staff. Honestly, he’s super interesting, so if he’d just been sensible from the start I probably would have found time for him a lot sooner.”

“And now?”

“You know how flat-out I am, Sensei. It won’t be any different.”

“He asked me if he could go to one of your sidekicks, for work studies. He thought one of them might be willing to take him, after his work with them, if they could get permission from you to do it. But he’s afraid you might shut it down and not want him back at all.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because you didn’t ask him.”

Midoriya paused again, thoughtful, and this time Shouta just waited, drinking his coffee – it was excellent, he had to say.

“I still want to see if he comes to me,” Midoriya said softly. “If he’ll ask for an offer, or a referral, or even just for feedback on why I haven’t offered him one. I guess you’d call it my last test for him, seeing if he approaches me in a respectful way, or just complains behind the scenes and goes elsewhere because it’s easier than hearing the answer.”

Shouta had to admit he understood the urge to find out, he’d said himself that Katsuki might have to humble himself and ask someone, but it took everything in his power not to go back into teacher mode and tell Midoriya he was being cruel and unnecessary. Damn his attachment to his students.

“Please don’t say anything to him,” Midoriya requested. “Or to All Might, he’dspill the beans immediately. I need you to let me do this my own way, Sensei.”

Reluctantly, and despite every instinct screaming at him for it, Shouta agreed. He just had to hope like hell that Katsuki would cave to his innate need to know things, and would reach out, in some form. Ideally, before it was too late and he took an offer elsewhere – he could learn from any hero, sure, but some were definitely more beneficial than others.

They finished up their drinks, catching up on general goings-on with work and families in their last few minutes, and finally Shouta excused himself, smiling softly when Midoriya beamed at him again, thanking him for coming by. Midoriya was the one with a triple-booked schedule at all times, but he still never failed to act like Shouta was doing him a favour by coming to visit.

He really had been lucky with his students.

─────

When Shouta got back to the U.A. campus, it was full of students enjoying the warm weather. Spring had brought a wave of colour to the campus, flooding the gardens with bright green leaves and a rainbow of flowers, and with Summer now taking over, all his students were making the most of that in-between state, doing their homework outside in the grass, or taking afternoon naps under the shade of broad trees. It was a surprisingly pleasant place, when everything was going right, and he couldn’t blame any of the kids for being out there instead of locked in a classroom or library, even if they’d have benefited from the extra study.

U.A. had always felt a lot darker to him, back when he was a student, and even in his early years of teaching – somewhere they trained for bad things to happen, knowing they’d likely get hurt over and over again as they tried to fix them. Things were looking brighter these days, with the villainry levels on a steady decline, and Shouta even found himself wondering if, one day, hero schools wouldn’t even be needed anymore.

As he headed for the staffroom to grab some papers to mark, he glimpsed a familiar shock of blond hair through a tiny window, pausing to look closer. Bakugou and Ashido stood together in one of the small studios the school sometimes used for fitness classes and sports clubs, with surprisingly contented looks on their faces, arms and legs held in precise, matching positions as they stared at themselves in the mirrors. As he watched, they both rose to their tiptoes on one foot, the other leg rising to their sides. Ashido completed a perfect pirouette, landing gracefully back where she’d started, but Bakugou stumbled a little, putting his foot down too early and almost losing his balance.

Ashido said something to him, gesturing, and to Shouta’s surprise, Bakugou did exactly what she directed – he lifted his leg back up, letting Ashido move it into the right position, and nodded along solemnly as he listened, taking it all in. He didn’t complain, or argue, or make excuses, he just listened, and nodded, and when he tried again, he didn’t fall out of his turn.

Shouta shook his head in disbelief, watching for a minute more as they continued, then hurrying away before either of them could see him and get embarrassed. He grabbed his papers, sat down at his desk, and reached for his phone before he could get too invested, pulling up a phone number that he rarely used, other than sending or receiving a happy birthday or a good work on that capture yesterday every so often. He contemplated for a minute, then tapped out a short message, hitting send before he could think better of it.

I won’t say anything to him, but if he doesn’t reach out, I really hope you will.

[Chapter 19]