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“Todoroki?”
Todoroki is soaked, rainwater and mud matting hair and saturating his dark hoodie. Instead of looking at Aizawa, his eyes point toward his untied shoes, which are as muddy and sopping as the rest of him. His hands tremble.
Aizawa clenches the door handle tighter, until the shape is bruised into the pads of his fingers and he knows he’ll feel its phantom for days.
“What are you doing here?”
Todoroki flinches despite his even tone, and it makes him look even smaller. “I’m sorry,” he strains. “I’m—I’m really sorry, Aizawa-sensei—”
“Save it, get inside.” Aizawa backs out of the doorway, suppressing a shiver at the icy air outside. How long has Todoroki been out in this weather? At this hour? “You’ve got to be freezing, hurry before you catch a chill.”
Todoroki blinks up at him with wide, uncertain eyes—eyes that a child should never have—before he nods wordlessly and accepts the invitation in. Aizawa shuts and locks the door behind him. A rhythmless chorus of dripping breaks the silence of the small apartment.
“Wait here,” Aizawa says, and waits for Todoroki to nod before power-walking out of the room. He heads into the bathroom and grabs as many towels as he can reasonably carry, then one more, before returning to his front door and student. The dripping is now accompanied by a bell, as Dusty gallops over to inspect the newcomer and complain about the cold air that’d gotten through the door. Todoroki jumps.
“Sorry if you hate cats,” Aizawa says, crossing the room and kneeling down at the edge of the genkan, releasing the armload of towels beside him.“But you'll need to grin and bear it because you are not going out in that storm again.”
“N-No, I like cats,” Todoroki says, voice wavering. Aizawa can’t tell if it’s because he’s cold or if there’s another issue involved. Dusty flinches away from his hand at first (he is soaked, after all), but she rubs her face into his cold, dripping fingers anyway, and she’s only been known to do that to very specific people in very specific situations, usually when the person in question is distressed, scared or hurting. Todoroki apologizes for the rainwater (to Aizawa or to the cat, it’s unclear) as he scratches her behind the ears, and Aizawa sets about unfurling one of the towels.
“You could have told me you were coming.” Aizawa spreads one of the towels out on the genkan and gestures to it. “Take off your shoes and sit down.”
Todoroki doesn’t reply, just does as he’s told (which is concerning in its own right, but he’ll save that thought for later). The shoes and lone sock are left beyond the towel while Todoroki sits on top of it and crosses his legs. Beads of water roll down his face from his hair, and he makes no move to wipe them away.
The dip between the genkan and main floor means they’re nearly eye-level, and without a thought, Aizawa whips a second towel and tosses it over Todoroki’s head. Todoroki squeaks a sound very unlike him, but Aizawa ignores it and works the towel against his scalp, careful not to pull his hair while still trying to dry it as best he can.
“You know you can text me about anything,” Aizawa says with half a mind. “Or come to me after school. Or before school. Just because I’m hard on you lot doesn’t mean I don’t want to know if something’s wrong.”
Dusty is at Todoroki’s side again, and he pets her weakly with a trembling hand. Aizawa sighs and pauses long enough to wrap another towel around Todoroki’s shoulders.
“Keep that there, would you? Dusty’ll end up in your lap soon enough, I think she’s just pissy because you’re soaked.” A beat. “But if she’s too much to deal with right now, I can—”
“No, I like her.” His voice is small, but considerably less shaky. He clings to the towel around his shoulders with one hand, but leaves the other hand buried in Dusty’s thick, gray fur. “Sh-She’s fine. Don’t make her leave.”
It’s partially just Todoroki’s blunt nature, but it also sounds like a plea. Aizawa doesn’t comment and pulls the towel off Todoroki’s head. His hair sticks up in odd directions and isn’t completely dry, but at least it isn’t dripping wet anymore. That much isn’t, anyway. The rest of him leaves a lot to be desired and Dusty seems to have wanted in on that action, too, because she couldn’t help herself and is now in his lap, playing with the ties on his hoodie. She does this for some time, until Todoroki exhales sharply from his nose in what could very well be the first time Aizawa has heard him laugh.
He takes it as a cue of sorts to press the remaining towel into Todoroki’s arms and rise to his feet.
“I’m going to finish some paperwork in the study. There’s a bathroom down the hall, only door on the right; I want you to leave your clothes here and go take a shower, it’ll help warm you up a little. I’ll throw them in the dryer and leave them outside the door. Sound good?”
Todoroki takes his time blinking up at him, processing slowly. Aizawa ruffles his damp hair.
“Take your time. Give me a shout if you need anything.”
And then he spins on his heel, because there’s nothing more he can do here, not yet, and he leaves the door of the study cracked.
He waits until the shower is running to leave the study, just long enough to gather the towels from the door as well as Todoroki’s sopping clothes (he actually folded them and the towels) and toss them in the dryer. Ideally, they should be washed and then dried because, he will admit, there is an impressive amount of mud, but he doesn’t have time for that now, so simply drying them will have to do. It’ll definitely be better than nothing.
Judging by the lack of bell collar in the living room, Dusty probably followed Todoroki into the bathroom (and hopefully not the shower, because Dusty’s fur takes forever to dry). He hopes the cat offers some sort of condolence; Todoroki seemed comforted by her enough before. Aizawa keeps himself busy with paperwork if just to keep his mind from wandering (he’s decided resolutely to make no assumptions until he can talk to Todoroki properly), and when the dryer dings half an hour later, he gathers the articles and leaves them outside the bathroom door as promised. The shower is on. Aizawa hasn’t heard a sound from Todoroki otherwise.
He raps his knuckles on the door twice. “Hey, kid, your clothes are outside.” No answer. “You alright?”
“M’fine.” It’s muffled, not just by shower water, but by a choked thickness that wasn’t there before. “Th-Thank you.”
Aizawa forces himself to breathe. He wants to press further, but now isn’t the right time. “Alright. Let me know if you need anything.”
Todoroki gives a small noise of acknowledgement and Aizawa turns away.
There’s some spare blankets in a closet in his bedroom, and usually he saves those for himself on nights like this, when the weather is brutal and the chill is hard to bear, but Todoroki is priority right now. The living room is the warmest spot in the house so he sets up on the couch, leaving as many blankets as he can do without as well as the one extra pillow he owns. It isn’t ideal, but it’ll work for one night. Hopefully that’ll be long enough for Aizawa to figure out (and solve) whatever this problem is.
The shower cuts just as Aizawa dumps two cans of soup into a saucepan, and he’s pouring that now-warm soup into two bowls when Todoroki emerges, taking slow, measured steps across the carpet. Dusty is at his ankles, of course, winding herself between his footsteps all the while purring like he’s the best thing that ever happened to her. Usually Aizawa would feel betrayed, but this time he’s just relieved. Especially when Todoroki bends down and Dusty leaps into his arms.
“I’ve got soup,” Aizawa says when he recalls it, and he dips a spoon in each bowl before taking them to the coffee table. “I don’t have a ton of blankets around here, but this should be enough. It isn’t supposed to get much colder tonight.”
Tonight… What time is it? He sets the bowls down on the coffee table and glances back over his shoulder at the clock. 2:14am. Lovely.
“Oh, um.”
Aizawa turns around again and Todoroki meets his eyes with an… interesting look. Aizawa wants to call it sheepish, but there isn’t enough of it to really tell what it is.
“My Quirk usually keeps my temperature regulated unless I’m sick,” Todoroki says. “I’ll be fine tonight. Sorry.”
Ah, he should have thought about that. He ignores the apology, since he’s already told Todoroki not to apologize and telling him again isn’t going to change it, and shrugs. “Well, guess you just have a lot of blankets anyway, then. It’ll make up for how crappy the couch is.”
“It isn’t crappy.” And like he’s going to somehow prove his point (which he can’t, and Aizawa will die on this hill), he sits down on it and lets Dusty lie in his lap. She doesn’t seem to have hopped in the shower with him considering her fur is only marginally damp. “Thank you for letting me… stay. I’m—I’m really—”
Aizawa presses one of the bowls into Todoroki’s hands. “Eat first. Then we’ll talk, and then you’ll sleep.”
Todoroki tilts his head toward the soup with a thousand-yard-stare, eyes empty and features otherwise unreadable. Dusty tries tipping the bowl over with her paw, which breaks the trance, and it isn’t long before they’re both eating, with Aizawa on one end of the couch, and Todoroki pressed into the other.
The soup isn’t anything special, just cheap chicken noodle Aizawa grabbed last time he was out when he heard the weather report, but at least it’s something warm. His typical midnight snacks are usually something more along the lines of black coffee and toast if he’s in a mood, but it’s better for Todoroki this way.
Todoroki eats slowly, taking long, measured moments in between bites to look down at the bowl with a look indecipherable. It isn’t nearly as distant a look as when he first arrived, but it’s close. Aizawa isn’t even sure he could call it contemplative, because it’s emptier than that.
But eventually his spoon scrapes the bottom of the bowl, and he lowers it into his lap and stares more intently, though no more thoughtfully. Aizawa already finished his soup a while ago and takes both bowls, settling them on the coffee table.
“Thank you,” Todoroki says quietly.
Aizawa shrugs. “It’s a can of soup. Not a whole lot there worth thanking me for.”
“I meant for all of this.”
“Ah.” Aizawa nods. Then he shrugs again. “I still wish you’d’ve texted me first or at least brought an umbrella, but this isn’t worth thanking me for, either. I’m glad you came.”
Out of all his students, Todoroki is probably the least likely to bring an issue to Aizawa. He would sooner talk to Iida or Midoriya or, honestly, any of his classmates, and while that’s fine, and Aizawa isn’t offended at all, to say it hasn’t concerned him before wouldn’t be true.
Actually, it isn’t just him. Todoroki doesn’t seem to want to bring issues to any of the U.A. faculty. Any of the adults.
“I’m sorry I didn’t text you.”
“Don’t apologize, just don’t do it again,” Aizawa says. “I could’ve met you at the station with a car or something—” A realization, followed by a beat. “Did you walk?”
Todoroki swallows and crosses his arms over his stomach, fingers clutching fistfuls of sleeve. “I… ran part of the way and walked the rest of it.”
The Todorokis live in the more wealthy, populated sector of the city, which makes sense because Endeavor does like to be the center of attention, but that isn’t the problem here. The problem lies in where Aizawa lives, the cheap sector of the city where rent is low and crime rates are an… adventure. They’re opposites in prestige and in location, one on one side of the city and the other, on the other side of the city.
“You ran.” Aizawa knows he heard right, but there’s still a part of him that wants to say it isn’t so. “Ran.”
Todoroki doesn’t look at him. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t know what else to do.”
Aizawa turns to face Todoroki, crossing his legs. “Can you tell me what happened?”
Todoroki bites his lip and turns, slowly, mirroring Aizawa’s position until they face each other. Dusty keeps playing with the strings of Todoroki’s hoodie. “I don’t know where to start.”
“I’m gonna be real cliche with you here and say ‘from the beginning.’”
“No, what I mean is more… I don’t know how to start, I think. I.” He turns away again, tugging his knees close to his chest and hugging them tight. “I don’t know.”
Things click in places Aizawa wishes they wouldn’t, and all the thoughts and clues and hints he didn’t want to think about come rushing to the surface in one, decisive wave.
“Is it Endeavor?”
Todoroki doesn’t move.
“I never liked him,” Aizawa says. “Always thought his personality contradicted himself. He talks of ‘being a good hero’ and ‘keeping the public safe,’ but it’s hard to tell what’s for popularity and what’s genuine.”
Todoroki rests his chin on his arms, looking ahead. “I don’t think he should be a hero.”
There’s more to it than that, but Aizawa knows better than to jump from zero to a hundred. This is good. This is enough. “Is he as much of an asshole at home as he is to the general public?”
Todoroki fidgets, rounding his shoulders and curling against his legs. “... He isn’t not an asshole.”
“It can’t be easy having the number two hero for a father.”
Todoroki swallows hard and keeps fidgeting, tapping his sleeved forearms and dragging his legs closer. “There’s a lot of pressure.”
That’s vague enough that it could very well mean anything. “From him or from the public?”
“Well, both. But mostly from him. He’s…” Todoroki’s shoulders hunch further, and he squeezes his knees. “Intense.”
That can also very well mean anything, but the insinuation speaks of something deeper. Aizawa is still trying to figure out what to say next when Todoroki goes on.
“His training regimens are never with our good in mind, even though he says they are.” He pauses again, ducking his head into his arms. “I know it’s just my word against his. He’s a lot more trustworthy than I am as far as the rest of the world is concerned.”
“I trust you.”
Todoroki tilts his head, just enough to meet Aizawa’s eyes. “... Why?”
Aizawa rolls his eyes. “I’m your teacher. I’ve always been able to trust you, and you’ve always been reliable. If you say your father’s methods of training are harmful, I believe you.”
That isn’t what he wants to say, but it’s one foot after the other here until Todoroki says it himself. Todoroki blinks, then averts his gaze again.
“... Thanks.”
Aizawa nods. “Who else knows?”
“... Midoriya. But I don’t tell him all of it because I don’t want him to worry or do anything… irrational.”
That makes sense. Truth be told, Aizawa wants to do a few ‘irrational’ things right about now, too.
“Was it wrong?”
Aizawa is snagged back to the present, off-put by the tone of his voice. “Was what wrong?”
Todoroki hesitates, and suddenly looks incredibly small. “That I told him.”
“No, of course not,” Aizawa assures firmly. “It would have been ideal of you to bring it to me or another teacher, but I understand why you didn’t.” Why you felt like you couldn’t. “It’s good that you told someone.”
Todoroki nods, but he has a distant look in his eyes again. “I… I told him to tell someone if—if it got so bad that I couldn’t—cope, anymore. He’s been wanting to tell someone for a while, and lately I’ve been—” He trails off, though, and ducks his head toward his knees and twists locks of hair around his fingers. “Did I mess up?”
“No.” Aizawa settles a hand on Todoroki’s shoulder and gives it a squeeze. “No. You haven’t done anything wrong.”
Todoroki shudders beneath his hold and curls further into himself. Aizawa doesn’t let go.
“Would you feel better if you called him?” Todoroki stiffens, and a moment passes, but then he nods shakily. “Alright.” Aizawa squeezes his shoulder one last time before rising to his feet. “I’ll let you do that. But then you really do need to sleep.”
“I will.” Todoroki fumbles with his pockets. “Where—”
“Oh.” Aizawa fishes the phone from his own pocket and hands it to him. “Sorry, forgot to give it back. I didn’t think it’d appreciate being in the dryer.”
Todoroki takes the phone, and Aizawa scoops up the bowls and heads into the kitchen. The apartment isn’t exactly tiny, but it’s modest, and he can hear everything that goes down in the living room from here whether or not he means to.
“... Hey, Izuku? It’s—Me.”
Izuku, huh? That's interesting.
Aizawa tries not to listen and he tries to focus on loading the dishwasher instead, but even with his hands occupied, he can’t keep his mind from tuning in.
“I’m sorry for calling so late, I—No, it isn’t ‘technically morning,’ Izuku, that doesn’t make it better—What? … No, it’s not like that, it’s…” A pause, then a shuddering exhale. “Do you… Remember that talk we had? About … Yeah. Yeah, that one.”
There’s another pause, a longer one this time.
“—Izuku, you’re moving too fast. —No, I’m fine … What? —Yeah, I—I’m safe. I… wound up at Aizawa-sensei’s place, he’s letting me stay the night … Thank you, I appreciate that, but I’d feel bad imposing on you and your mom—I … Thanks. Again, sorry about calling you so late, I just wanted to let you know what’s going on, and, it’s… always great to hear your voice. Yeah … Thanks. I’ll see you on Monday? —Oh, maybe. That sounds like fun. Yeah, okay, text me in the morning—Goodnight … You, too. ‘Kay. Bye.”
The timing is just about perfect, as Aizawa starts the dishwasher around when Todoroki hangs up. He returns to the living room.
“You guys alright?”
Todoroki nods. Some of the tension in his shoulders is gone. “He wants to take me out to soba tomorrow.”
“Sounds fun. You going?”
Todoroki nods again. “Midoriya is... special.”
Aizawa snorts. “That’s one way of putting it.” He gets up to fill Dusty’s water bowl, not because it was empty, but because he needs to do something. “His heart’s bigger than his head sometimes, but he’s a good kid.” He’s glad Todoroki has someone like Midoriya, someone who cares with his whole heart and someone Aizawa knows will tell him the moment he thinks Todoroki may be in harm’s way.
“He’s worried.” Todoroki is quiet again. “I keep worrying him.”
“You worry about him, too, it’s nothing special. Part of life is worrying about the people you love. You’re gonna get a lot of that, especially in this line of work.”
“But I’m not in danger.”
“Are you?”
Todoroki’s breath hitches. “What?”
“Are you in danger, Todoroki?”
“I don’t—”
“Todoroki.” Aizawa sits across from him and puts his hands on Todoroki’s shoulders. Todoroki starts hard. Aizawa finds his gaze and holds it tight and Todoroki tighter. “Is your father hurting you?”
He doesn’t need the answer, he already knows. As good at disguising his feelings as he is (how long has he had to do that? Since when did he have to do that? When did he start hiding?), all of that is gone now. Every mask, every wall, every toxic stronghold he’d thrown up just to protect himself. It’s all gone, and what’s left are ghostly eyes and bated breaths.
Todoroki blinks twice. Dusty purrs between them. Aizawa grips his shoulders.
There’s a moment like the space in between heartbeats, a moment like a flickering shadow. Todoroki bites his lip, hard, and presses the heel of his hand into his left eye. The other hand twists into a fistful of Dusty’s fur and trembles. Beneath Aizawa’s palms, Todoroki caves, sobs, then shatters.
“What am I supposed to do?” he heaves, hunching over and clutching his face. “I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to do—”
Aizawa tugs him forward and holds him, loosely in case he doesn’t want this (the last thing he’s going to do is put him in a situation where he feels threatened or uncomfortable because god knows the kid doesn’t need any more of that), but Todoroki digs his head into Aizawa’s shoulder, and even though he doesn’t hug him back, he doesn’t pull away.
“I’ve been trying—” He stops like someone strangled him, chokes on a sob, then cries harder. “I’ve been trying to get evidence for—for years, years but I can’t—”
Aizawa wraps an arm around his shoulders and squeezes his upper arm. It doesn’t feel like enough.
“No one would believe me,” Todoroki gasps, and grasps at his hair with both hands this time, pulling harshly. “No one would believe me because I’m a student and he’s—he’s Endeavor, he’s a hero—he’s supposed to be a hero, he’s supposed to be my hero, why does he—” Again he stops, and again he struggles to keep going. But this time he can’t. Aizawa hesitates just a moment before bringing his other arm around Todoroki, and tries not to think about how hard he’s breathing, or the tears that mat Dusty’s fur, or just how long Todoroki has wanted to say something and couldn’t.
“I believe you.” It’s a promise, one he wishes he could prove now, when Todoroki needs it the most. “I don’t care what anyone else says or who anyone else believes. I’m for you. I’m not going to let him hurt you again.”
Todoroki dives at him, colliding with his chest so hard it stills his lungs for a moment, but Aizawa forces the moment to end and hugs him back just as tightly. He can’t fight Endeavor, he can’t bring him to justice—not now, not yet—but he can hold this kid. And he’ll hold fast and keep holding, until Todoroki can feel safe and smile and laugh and all of this is a thing of the past.
There isn’t a lot Aizawa can catch after that. Most of Todoroki’s words are swallowed up by his tears or muffled by Aizawa’s shoulder, and he’s babbling more than anything—Aizawa has never heard him talk this much in his life—but he does catch things here or there. Things about his mother. Things about his siblings, how much he loves them and how he can’t protect them. He’s afraid of his father, and more afraid of becoming his father.
It’s unclear how much time passes. But time does pass. Eventually. And eventually Todoroki pulls out of Aizawa’s hold, before Aizawa is entirely ready to let go. Todoroki’s inhale shudders, but he’s breathing steadily enough aside from that, and uses the back of his hand to scrub away what tear tracks remain.
Aizawa doesn’t hesitate this time and reaches out to tuck some of his hair behind his ear. “You okay?”
Todoroki nods immediately, if a bit shakily. “S-Sorry.”
“Nope, we aren’t doing that again.” Todoroki lifts his head and Aizawa meets his eyes. “No more apologizing. Alright?”
“I—” Todoroki stops himself, though, and a beat and a half later, he nods again. “... Alright.”
“Good.” Aizawa ruffles his hair. It’s still damp from the shower and sticks up at funny angles. “You need to sleep now, though. You’re exhausted.”
Todoroki laughs hoarsely (laughs) and nods, wiping at his eyes one more time. This would be Aizawa’s cue to stand and start turning out the lights, bid Todoroki goodnight, make sure all the doors are locked, but leaving doesn’t feel like the right thing to do yet. Or maybe it’s some deeper part of him—one he doesn’t always care to admit exists—that doesn’t want to leave Todoroki alone.
“Hey, kid, I have a proposition for you.”
Todoroki lowers his hands, blinking at him. His eyes are still red, but the iciness is gone, and now he just looks curious. “What is it?”
“Picture this.” Aizawa pretends to be idle, picking at a loose thread in the couch. “Say I were to… contact Endeavor and tell him that I’m impressed with your developments thus far and would like to take you even further, and that, due to the influx of villain attacks and the need for uprising heroes, you would be studying under me for a while as an… apprentice, of sorts. Indefinitely. Could be a few weeks, could be a few months…”
He looks back. Todoroki is staring at him like he put the stars in the sky.
“Hypothetically,” Aizawa goes on, “what would you say?”
“Before I answer, is—Is this really hypothetical?”
“Depends.” It’s hard not to smile when Todoroki has this sort of look on his face, anticipation mixed with excitement mixed with hope. “Do you want it to be?”
Todoroki smiles, too, and it’s a bit hysteric and very rough around the edges. But it’s just one smile of many. He’ll be well practiced in it soon enough, if Aizawa and the rest of Class 1-A have anything to say about it. “I would— love to be your apprentice.”
“Then it’s settled.” Aizawa stands, now, ruffling Todoroki’s hair again on the way up just because he can. “I’ll deal with the logistics of it tomorrow and give our most cherished number two hero a call, and then it’ll be official.”
“You mean it?” Todoroki’s eyes are still wide, wider than Aizawa has ever seen them and filled with so much… everything. It reminds him in the bluntest way he’s had thus far that Todoroki is a kid whose not even sixteen yet, who deserves to be excited, and to smile, and to feel more than fear and hurt and betrayal and anger. “You mean it.”
“I do.”
“I—” Todoroki begins to move, but hesitates at the last second, and some of that weight shines through again. “Sorry, I know I just—cried all over you, and—”
“If you want to hug me, you can.”
It doesn’t take any time for Todoroki to leap to his feet and into Aizawa’s arms again, though this time Aizawa is more prepared for it and the knockback isn’t as intense. Still, he cups the back of Todoroki’s head and draws him in close, and in his heart he swears that Endeavor is going to get what he has coming to him, just like any villain who hurt his students would.
“Thank you,” Todoroki breathes, and it brings Aizawa back. “I won’t let you down.”
“I know you won’t. Just keep doing what you're already doing and you’ll be the best apprentice anyone could ask for.”
Todoroki sleeps soundly with Dusty curled between his neck and shoulder, purring nonstop. Aizawa had planned on returning to his bedroom to sleep, but the rain has worked up a few old injuries, and besides, it’s not like he has to go to the school tomorrow, it being a Saturday and all. He gathers his paperwork and sets up at the living room coffee table with a pen and a cup of strong coffee. Dusty gets up every so often to poke her head under his arm and say hello, or to demand food (it’s hard to tell), but she stays mostly glued to Todoroki’s side, beit curled in his neck, shoulder, chest, and once, his hair.
When Todoroki wakes up around eight the next morning (which isn’t as long as Aizawa hoped he’d sleep, but it does make sense), Aizawa offers him a bagel and coffee, both of which he accepts gratefully. Midoriya texts him about thirty minutes later and asks when he wants to be picked up; Todoroki tells him any time is good (after non-verbally confirming with Aizawa) and Midoriya says he’ll be there around 9:30.
Aizawa is still finishing paperwork at the coffee table when Dusty more adamantly and more obviously declares her desire for sustenance, and after she bites him on the arm for the second time, he decides asking for ‘five more minutes’ won’t make a difference anymore.
“You mind refilling Dusty’s food dish for me? There’s canned food in the pantry, you should be able to find it.”
Todoroki nods, and the look in his eyes suggests he’s doing this out of willingness to help and not obligation from fear, which settles a few of Aizawa’s nerves. He fully intends to let Todoroki house with him indefinitely until something more permanent can be done of his situation, but for now this is what they have, and he’s glad Todoroki trusts him.
“Where’s the can-opener?”
“Drawer under the microwave.”
The drawer opens and shuts. Something clicks, Dusty’s eyes blow wide and she springs into the kitchen fast enough to kick up the corner of the rug. Aizawa rolls his eyes. For some reason, it reminds him to text Nedzu about all of this; he wonders how much he should say about Todoroki’s situation.
“Did you really mean what you said?”
“About what?”
“About me being your apprentice.”
“Of course I did. Why?”
“No reason.” Except, there is a reason, and Aizawa can hear the elation behind Todoroki’s voice, and doesn’t need to ask.
The doorbell rings thirty minutes later, Todoroki seated on the couch on his phone and Aizawa bending over a folder on the coffee table, and Dusty actually pounces onto Shouto’s lap and hisses at the entryway, which she hasn’t been known to do but makes sense given how protective she’s been. Shouto just lifts her into his arms, says, “It’s probably Midoriya, I’ll get it,” and makes his way toward the door. Aizawa finishes the word, sets down the pen and follows him just as the door opens.
“Shouto!” Midoriya hugs him, tightly and briefly, though Todoroki’s arms are too full of cat to properly reciprocate, though Midoriya doesn’t seem bothered at all. When he pulls back, he’s smiling in a way so characteristic of himself, with a nagging little something behind his eyes, something like gravity. Weighted, fiery, angry gravity.
“Sorry for the short-notice,” Midoriya says, rubbing the back of his neck. “How are you?”
“I’m fine,” Todoroki says. “Aizawa-sensei let me stay the night.”
“And he’ll be studying under me as an apprentice,” Aizawa says, moving to stand behind Todoroki at the door. “Which means he’ll be staying with me a bit indefinitely unless he dictates otherwise.”
Midoriya blinks at him, they share a knowing look, and then Midoriya has turned back to Todoroki like nothing happened at all. “That’s great!” he says, beaming. “I can’t wait to hear all about it. You ready to go?”
Todoroki nods, but glances back over his shoulder at Aizawa anyway. Aizawa shrugs. “Your choice, kid.”
“I’m ready.”
They both offer Aizawa a bow on their way out, but Midoriya in particular mouths thank you the moment Todoroki turns his back. Aizawa doesn’t know how much Midoriya knows, or how much Todoroki told him over text this morning, but he certainly knows enough. He probably knows more than Aizawa.
In response, Aizawa just shakes his head, and makes a mental note to thank Midoriya himself, later, for looking after Todoroki like he has.
Once the door is shut, Aizawa sighs, and reaches down to scratch Dusty behind the ears when she wraps around his ankles. Now that Todoroki isn’t here, he’ll be able to make the really fun phone calls—of course Nedzu, but also to the devil himself. Wonderful.
He swipes his phone off the table and takes a seat at the couch, not giving himself time to hesitate. The numbers are punched, he drags a long sip of coffee, and a click reaches his ear.
“What do you want, Eraser?”
“Ah, Endeavor.” Aizawa leans back into the couch, kicking one leg up over the other. “It’s been a while.”