Work Text:
“It's really not your fault.”
Bedsheets rustle as I tuck myself closer to Shota, golden morning sun peeking through the gauzy curtains Kayama had given us as a housewarming present all those years ago.
“It isn’t,” I insist again when he doesn’t reply. “You did everything you could to protect those kids.”
“I know,” he sighs. “Logically, I should know that, but I…” He goes quiet, thinking. His hand cards through my hair and I lean into the soothing motion as I wait for him to speak. I can’t help but relish in the intimacy of this quiet closeness. Even when we first started dating, Shota had been so afraid of that closeness, that connection. It was not until we moved in together that he began to truly reciprocate and even seek out more physical contact as a form of affection.
I could never help likening him to a cat (fitting, as we had two): shy until he really got to know you, a bit grumpy especially after waking up in the morning, an incredible amount of love he had trouble expressing in a conventional way, and just a little bit of an asshole on occasion. He had softened a little I could admit, largely in part to this year’s class of ‘problem children’. It was evident he cared for them all even as he came home gripping and grumbling about how Midoriya had hurt himself in training again, or that Uraraka had provoked Bakugou into another shouting match just for the fun of it.
However, that softness, this connection to these children that seemed to attract trouble like magnets made him all the more worried for them, all the more terrified of the ways things could go wrong. What if someday he could not get there in time; what if one day the pain and sorrow became too much and his children snapped like a twig in the wind? They had all been through so much already, more than what others their age had by now (and that was the root of it all, wasn’t it - that they were nothing more than kids at the end of the day and yet they had had to endure things that would break grown men, and still they smiled and laughed as they played games together in the common room.
But however bright their laughter, however cheerful their joking exchanges in and out of the classroom were, Shota could see the toll life had taken on them. He confessed to me sometimes, over the dinner table or laying in the dark of night curled together in bed, that he could see the strain of grief, the price they had paid for survival. It was in their eyes, he said, and the way they all huddled in the common room most nights with blankets and pillows and the comfort of everyone breathing and alive in the same space.
“How can they even trust me?” He whispered eventually. “I couldn’t protect them when it mattered the most; when they lost friends and family to a war they never should have had to fight in. A war they had to fight in because the people meant to be fighting it for them failed or refused. How can they trust me so much even after all that? I don’t—” his voice broke but he continued on. “Kaminari called me Dadzawa the other day, did I tell you that? How can they just trust me when I’ve failed them so badly; how do I even begin to become the kind of person worthy of that trust?”
I could tell he was near tears now. To most people, Shota Aizawa was a stoic man who rarely showed any kind of emotion. To those who knew him, however, and had learned the tricks and tells, his feelings were evident enough.
“Oh, Shota love,” I propped myself up on an elbow to lean over and meet his eyes, gently grasping his chin to turn his head. After getting him to meet my gaze, I let my hand rest in its place on his jaw, thumb stroking his cheek. “You already are that person. Those kids love you, they feel safe with and because of you. Despite the overwhelming odds, the never ending losses, you stayed. And you fought. For them and with them. These kids…so many people left them. But you stayed, and so determinedly I might add. Even when you felt like a failure, you still tried your hardest and they saw that.” I brought my forehead to rest on his, lingering in the shared breath.
“You are a good man, Shota Aizawa,” I said softly. “And we are all so lucky to have you.”