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Shouta had a bad feeling about today. There was nothing particularly special about today. He'd woken up to his husband's back pressed all along his arm, his own face turned into Hizashi's hair. He'd breathed in, the smell of coconut shampoo and clean sheets comforting. He'd rolled onto his side, wrapped his arms around his lover, and had woken him up how he pleased before they got ready for the day together.
But still, somehow, someway, Shouta knew that this week would end in tears. He wasn't sure whose, but he was becoming quite familiar with the idea of it. It was no secret that Shouta had a soft spot for Class 1-A, and as he'd grown on them almost as quickly as they on he, there was a certain level of trust between him and his students that contributed to their propensity towards coming to him for guidance, for comfort, for love and support.
He was sure that at least half of these kids had loving homes they could turn to instead, but nonetheless, he was somewhat begrudging but happy to provide.
So when Shouta slid into class that Tuesday morning, he raked his students suspiciously. They were all already seated, greeting him enthusiastically despite his glare. When he was satisfied with his inspection, he straightened.
"Right..." He could not trust these smiling faces. "Today we'll be studying the infographics behind the concentration of crime in cities." (At this, there was a collective groan that Shouta pointedly ignored.) "We'll be discussing common motives behind crime. Not personal motives, but general ones. How poverty, drug-use, and lack of mental health resources in communities can lead to increased crime. Firstly..."
As the hour passed, Shouta became increasingly aware of a restless energy hovering over a portion of the class. It leached from a select few students: Kirishima, Kaminari. Sero, Mina, and Midoriya, and it infected the rest of them like a poison. Kirishima was first. It was a set of shifty eyes, looking up from his notebook to glance across the classroom briefly before looking back. For Kaminari, it was the line of his mouth, thin and worried. He tensed every time he felt Kirishima's eyes on him from behind. Sero and Mina were of a similar sort of disquiet, and their unease infected half the class at once. With the compromise of Midoriya came the unrest of all of his friends: Asui, Ururaka, Iida, Todoroki.
By 9am Shouta was teaching a bunch of ghosts.
As the bell rang and the lot of them began to file out, Shouta caught Iida on the shoulder just before he stepped from the room. He pulled his student back just slightly. "Is there something going on that I should know about?"
Iida hesitated, which never boded well for anybody ever. "It's not my place to say," Iida settled on saying, after a moment of tense silence.
"So that's a yes?"
"...It's not a cause for concern, Sir," was Iida's chosen reply.
Shouta sent Iida on his way. He had a sinking feeling that whatever was being kept from him was, no matter what his well-meaning Class Rep had to say about it, going to turn out to be a whole lot more than just cause for concern. Shouta was already concerned. He was sure that something was coming to a head, and whatever it was was going to require more than just concern.
As it happened, Shouta was right. Cause for concern morphed readily into cause for implementing safety measures, enforcing disciplinary action, and sending multiple students to the infirmary as the day went on. At the center of it all? One Bakugou Katsuki.
Class 1-A had heroics with All Might that afternoon, under Shouta's supervision, and just twenty minutes in, Kirishima had been laid out and sent to the infirmary with gruesome injuries. His hardening flickered across his upper body as he drifted in and out of consciousness. Behind him stood Bakugou, fuming in the arena, popping and smoking from the hands. He was tense, panting. Thoroughly furious.
As this was the nature of heroics training, Shouta had to work at not getting upset. The students were meant to give their all in fighting one another. It was how they improved. And Bakugou and Kirishima were a trustworthy match. They could handle each other. Bakugou wasn't one to take it easy on his peers when it came to training. But Shouta was already worked up from the shitshow that was homeroom, and this just felt like another puzzle piece sliding into place.
Needless to say, he pinched the bridge of his nose so hard he saw spots and sighed so aggressively he felt his lungs shake. The rest of Shouta's useless class were standing around, stiff as boards. He swept his eyes among them.
"I don't need an explanation for him," Shouta said, pointing one finger, shaking with anger, back towards Bakugou. "I need an explanation for why the rest of you look like deer in headlights."
At the guilty silence that swamped his class, Shouta swung accusing eyes towards the Class Rep. "Iida? What happened to this not being a cause for concern? One of my students is unconscious in the infirmary and the lot of you look like you're responsible, when I was sure the guilty party was behind me in a ring. Should I not be concerned? Or would you like to rectify your previous statement?"
Iida would not meet his eyes. Instead, he was staring hardly at Bakugou, who was refusing to meet the eyes of anybody. "No, Sir," Iida said, finally. His nostrils were flared, jaw working around the inability to tell the truth and stubborn refusal to lie.
The last thing of any noteworthiness during the entire altercation was the look on Izuku Midoriya's face. He sat crouched by his duffel bag, slowly adjusting the compression sleeves on his arms. He watched Bakugou silently, knowingly, like the truth was privy to them all but understanding was granted to him and him alone. This in particular was a can of worms that Shouta refused to prod at. The relationship between Bakugou and Midoriya was a fractured, patchworked thing, and there was a history behind their fragile friendship that Shouta wasn't sure either of them themselves knew what to do with.
Shouta himself was content not to try.
So that was more or less that. Kirishima forewent classes for the remainder of that day but was returned to the dorms that night. During his nightly checkup on his class, Shouta found him bright eyed and energetic, as per usual, and he was hanging off of Bakugou with an insistence that suggested he was trying to be reassuring. There was still an air of agitation surrounding his class, and it was this that bothered Shouta so intensely.
Not a student in the infirmary- that was to be expected. Not a temperamental Bakugou- that was standard. What itched at Shouta was the obvious anxiety of every one of his students and their refusal to come to him with it. He'd spent the recent months proving himself a trustworthy figure, or so he thought. And to put it plainly, there was a need within himself to soothe away this distress, as he'd always done with them prior.
"So you want to help," Hizashi said to him, later that night. Shouta was curled up in his arms, exhausted and drained and feeling very, very, blindsided by a bunch of teenagers.
"No, I want them to stop keeping secrets from their teacher."
"Yes, so that you can help."
Shouta clamped his teeth around the sensitive skin on the inside of Hizashi's arm and pushed away from the responding batting at the back of his head. Now they were both annoyed.
"I don't see why you can't just admit it. You care about them, you want to know what's bugging them so you can ease their minds. That's natural after all you've been through with this class. I'm sure they want to tell you, too," Hizashi said, after a moment of quiet.
Swinging his head back around to face Hizashi, Shouta snapped, "they don't. Iida is their spokesman, and he has told me twice now that it's none of my concern."
"You sound hurt."
"I'm not hurt by a bunch of teenagers, Hizashi. I just want to know if they're hiding something illegal that I could be prosecuted for. Like a dead body. Or drugs."
"Whatever helps you sleep at night."
"Alright," Shouta began, pushing back the covers.
"Aw, c'mon," Hizashi whined. "Lay down-"
"No, no. Don't let me keep you up with my problems. You won't take me seriously anyway-"
There was a cool hand on his arm pulling him back into the bed where he'd already sat up and swung his legs over the side of it. "I'm sorry, honey, but I can't take you seriously when you won't take yourself seriously. You and I both know those kids would never break the law and not own up to it. They are good, honest kids, and you know that. Admit that you aren't worried that they've done something wrong. You're worried that they're not okay."
Shouta pushed his head back into his husband's chest, feeling small and petulant and known too well. "So what do I do about it?"
Hizashi drew back for just a moment to press his lips onto the crown of Shouta's head before squeezing him tightly, reassuringly, around the shoulders once. "Shouta, sweetie," he said, "talk to them."
XXX
Although Shouta had allowed himself to be placated in the moment by his husband, it did not erase the fact that he was thoroughly unused to offering preemptive reassurances. He was more of an in-the-moment kind of guy. Present him with a teary-eyed kid, shaking on their feet and trembling to be held together, and Shouta's got reassuring platitudes for days. Stick him in front of his class, looking wide eyed and expectant and mostly fine, and he's completely at a loss.
Luckily enough, Shouta was an advisor at heart, and that was the route he decided to take with his bunch of monsters.
"Listen up," Shouta began. He was laying on that gruff, no-nonsense tone that these kids always seemed to see right through. "Yesterday, I noticed some disquiet among the class, and it affected both your learning and your training. There were accidents, injuries, bad decisions— all of which will not fly when you're pros. Some anxiety is natural; however, leaving it unaddressed is not. If you continue to let it fester among you, especially on the job, you could wreak havoc on your society, the people you're meant to protect." Shouta took a deep breath, allowed that to ruminate in his students' minds for a moment. "That said, if any of you find yourselves in need of assistance, any at all, please remember that I am here, as your teacher, to provide."
For a moment, Shouta allowed himself to stare hardly at the kids in front of him. He wanted this offer to sink in, after all. But no matter whose eyes he tried to meet, nobody would look at him.
Shouta pressed his lips into a thin line, attempting and failing to hide his disappointment. "That's all."
With that, the interrogation was over, and the thick air of tension in the room snapped. Shouta felt rather than heard a collective sigh ring among the kids.
"Thank you, Sir," Kirishima said eventually, but he was looking at Bakugou as he said it, who stared at his desk with calm apathy.
Shouta let his eyes bounce between them intently, until a few other students speaking up caught his attention.
"Yes, thank you, Mr. Aizawa!" Someone said.
"We'll keep that in mind!"
"Your support is always appreciated!"
The bell rang.
"Get the hell out of my class," Shouta muttered, waving them off. He didn't care for their thanks. What he wanted was their trust.
XXX
Over the next few days, some of the trepidation among the students died down. The only individuals still acting off were those in Bakugou's inner circle, and the only sign that it was even happening was that they continuously shot their friend nervous glances, concerned glances, expectant glances. Like they were waiting on an outburst that was long overdue.
Bakugou, stubborn as ever, was seemingly refusing to indulge. For three full days including Tuesday, he rarely spoke. Shouta did not call on students unless they were misbehaving, and, unwilling to speak up himself, Bakugou did not talk in his class. According to Hizashi, when called on, he would mutter the answer, always correct, and not respond at all to any resulting praise. It was as if he couldn't be bothered.
In training, he was mechanical. He won all of his matches with a bored sort of ease and seemed to take no satisfaction in it. Seeing as he wasn't causing any problems, Shouta had no reason to approach him, but the lack of problems was the problem in an of itself. He was used to a burning passion from Bakugou, in everything he did. It didn't matter how easy a match was; he took pride in winning, in doing so efficiently, in affording each match the same amount of respect and diligence no matter who it was he was facing down. But now? It was as if the spirit, the life, had been sucked right out of him. He had been made quiet.
But Shouta did not initiate comfort. It was easy to overstep as a teacher, vital to maintain boundaries with students, and one of Shouta's was that he required his students to come to him if they needed help, especially of a more intimate nature. And what was he meant to do, really? Approach Bakugou and say, 'Hey, you're being less intolerable than usual. What's up?' So for three days, Bakugou Katsuki remained quiet.
The breaking point, at least in Shouta's opinion, was when Bakugou and Midoriya had been pit together for a match. It was a cruel test on Shouta's part, one sort of indirect, last ditch effort to see if he could draw out any of the passion and anger that made Bakugou Bakugou, because if one person was to get Bakugou fired up, it was going to be Izuku Midoriya.
However, the match had the opposite affect intended. Shouta leaned against the entrance to the ring the two sparred in, arms crossed and eyes narrowed as the two of them brawled. There was no heat in the match. Midoriya attacked, Bakugou defended. The latter's own attacks were predictable, practiced, safe, and Midoriya dodged them like the ease of it was insulting.
Shouta was in the process of turning his back to the match, having given up the thought that this might change anything, when he heard it.
"WHY WON'T YOU FIGHT ME?!"
It was screamed out among the building, desperately pissed off, and it was followed by several explosions as Midoriya attacked, attacked, attacked with enough fervor for the both of them and Bakugou dodged, dodged, dodged with all the indifference of a sitting duck.
Bakugou didn't answer.
"AM I NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU ANYMORE? AM I NOT WORTHY OF YOUR BEST EFFORTS? C'MON, KACCHAN, FIGHT ME ALREADY!"
Still, Bakugou was silent, mechanically on the defensive, until Midoriya had him cornered and was hitting him with all the power of full-cowling, over and over again.
"QUIT FEELING SORRY FOR YOURSELF AND GIVE ME YOUR ALL! BEAT ME! COME ON, KACCHAN!"
Bested, Bakugou went lax, took the hits with an uncharacteristic acceptance of defeat, until finally, Shouta had to step in.
"Midoriya, that's enough," Shouta snapped, feeling his hair lift from the nape of his neck as he cancelled Midoriya's quirk and strode into the ring. Midoriya still sat over Bakugou, panting, livid, arms hanging by his sides like deadweights as he gave up on the match. Bakugou was unconscious beneath him. "Come on," Shouta grunted as he hoisted Midoriya up and off his classmate, got him settled on his feet behind him as he knelt by Bakugou, checking injuries. He'd already paged for help and, within moments, two bots bearing a stretcher had entered the ring.
With Bakugou taken care of and on his way to Recovery Girl, Shouta turned his sights on Midoriya, who was staring at the ground like it was to blame for all his frustration. Shouta got a hand on the kid's shoulder because, fed up or not, he could see the tears building in the kid's eyes, could hear those quiet little tell-tale sniffles, and something in him refused to leave a kid alone like that.
"Are you ready to tell me what that was all about?" He asked, and was disappointed but not surprised when green curls shook back and forth in a no. Shouta sighed. "Then why don't you head on back to the dorms."
Midoriya sniffled. "Sir-?"
"No. You're done for the day, Midoriya. Go back to the dorms."
"I'll take him." And there was Kirishima, the usually bright lines of his face hard and pinched with stress. He was standing in the entrance to the ring, and Shouta figured he'd just come from watching his best friend get wheeled from the training grounds.
Shouta felt his eye twitch. "Very well. But you're to come straight back, Kirishima."
"Yes, Sir." Kirishima's face was stormy, but he approached Midoriya with an arm open, wrapping it around him in comfort, which Midoriya melted into readily. Initially, Shouta had thought the dark look on Kirishima's face was anger, directed at Midoriya for his actions against Bakugou. But now Shouta realized that no. He wasn't angry at Midoriya. He was frustrated with Bakugou. They both were. And now they were sharing in it, together.
Shouta stepped to the side to let them pass, somewhat bewildered. Kirishima did not remove his arm from Midoriya's shoulders as they walked. He suspected that the support was the only thing keeping Midoriya upright and felt his own jaw work.
When were these kids going to tell him the truth? And how much more hurt was it going to take before they did?
XXX
The fourth day was beginning to take shape much like the previous three. Bakugou had been fixed up by Recovery Girl and had returned to class just as silent as before, only now, the tension from Tuesday had returned tenfold, this time centered around him and Midoriya and seeping from them like a chemical spill. It infected their classmates more severely than before, almost as if something else had happened. Something new, besides the match with Midoriya, that had all of them collectively on edge.
Shouta resigned himself to these being his students from now on. He would grieve them in Hizashi's arms, later. Homeroom ended with little fanfare. Halfway through, Shouta had given up his lecture to slump away in his sleeping bag. He was thoroughly exhausted.
Teenagers, he thought.
By some unfortunate event, Shouta wound up with his Class 1-A again at the end of the day. It was normally his free period, but Ectoplasm had called out with a sudden sickness, and so it was up to him to take on his class in their math teacher's absence.
The period passed with a despondence that Shouta was becoming all too familiar with, and by the time the last bell rang, Shouta was ready to chalk this up as day four of absolute misery and foreboding silence from the usually temperamental and overly opinionated Katsuki Bakugou.
He'd put his head down on his desk as soon as the bell rang and refused to watch as his students filed out. So when Shouta finally gathered the energy to lift his head again, he was surprised to find Bakugou standing in front of his desk. His hands were shoved deep in his pockets, and his expression was entirely impassive.
Shouta stared at him, eyelids hooded, eyebrows raised. He didn't want to do this right now. He wasn't sure what it was, but he didn't want to do it.
"Did you mean it?" Bakugou asked, but he said the words more like he was demanding the answer as opposed to asking for it. When Shouta didn't answer, unsure what the boy was referring to, Bakugou continued: "That you'll provide assistance. If we come to you."
Shouta's eyebrows cleared. Finally. God, finally. He could cry. "I did," Shouta affirmed, nodding once. "Is there something you need assistance with?"
"Don't pretend like you don't know," Bakugou hissed. The words were sudden and volatile, bloated with resentment and untapped fury, said like a snake strikes, but they flooded Shouta with relief, because this was Bakugou. Angry, demanding, upfront and unafraid to expose conflict, and Shouta was ten times more prepared to deal with this Bakugou than the shell of himself he'd been since Tuesday.
"Alright," Shouta allowed. "Then why don't you tell me what it is you need assistance with?"
The amendment soothed Bakugou slightly, and he relaxed around the shoulders a little, though that stoic expression he'd been holding onto for four days had gone and couldn't seem to come back. His eyes now were tortured with the pent up pressure of whatever it was he wouldn't say.
"I don't-, know," Bakugou managed, like the words hurt him physically to get out. "I don't think you can help me."
Shouta got comfortable. "Try me."
Bakugou shifted uncomfortably. He wouldn't look Shouta in the face. "I-"
"Do you want to sit down?"
Possibly at being interrupted, Bakugou shucked his backpack off and threw it to the ground, slamming himself in a desk up front and gripping the sides of it. His hands started to smoke as he sat, fuming, like he was trying to calm himself down.
"Did something happen that's bothering you? Maybe on Monday night?" When Bakugou didn't answer, Shouta continued. "You know, you may not think I can do something to help you, but when I offered my assistance, I meant that I'm here even if all you need is to talk. Is there something you'd like to-"
"It's my mom," he blurted out. His lower lip was already starting to tremble, even with that complicated anger still in his eyes, and Shouta felt his heart pinch, even as his mind speed-ran him through memories. The one time he'd met Bakugou's mom, the woman had been harsh, aggressive, loud, even violent. It was clear where Bakugou had learned his abrasive nature from, but even still, Mitsuki Bakugou did not seem to tolerate the same behaviors from her son that she herself had raised him on. She had smacked him into submission the one time Shouta met her.
If that was how she treated her son in front of people, Shouta did not want to know what she did behind closed doors.
Shouta nodded at his student to continue.
"She-" Bakugou began, but cut himself off like the words were choking him. "God this is stupid, this is so stupid," he muttered, shaking his head. He ran his hands back through his hair until they rested behind his ears, panicked, pained.
Carefully, Shouta said, "It's not stupid if it's hurting you this much, Bakugou."
That seemed to make all the air rush out of him in a defeated breath. Shouta hadn't even realized that the kid had been holding his breath and felt his own eyebrows furrow. This was verging dangerously into panic attack territory, and Shouta tried to concentrate a little harder on both Bakugou's words and his mannerisms.
"I went to visit her over the weekend," he said. "All Might signed off on it for me. I know I should've-, I was supposed to ask you, but she was, and I, and-."
"Alright, alright," Shouta interrupted, though this time, it was appreciated. Bakugou started trying to catch his breath. He was slowly folding himself over the top of the desk, one hand clutching at his shirt, right over his heart. The other had gone back to white knuckling the side of the desk. "So you went to go see your mother. Was your father there also?"
This brought a sob out of Bakugou's chest, and Shouta winced as the boy shook his head, wide eyed with panic. "He was-, working," Bakugou choked. "And without him there, my mom and I, we just spent the weekend screaming at each other. And it got so bad that she, that she-"
When Bakugou started to gasp, Shouta stood from his desk at once. He took the seat next to Bakugou's, got a hand put on his shoulder, which Bakugou jerked away from violently. "Stop!" He spat. "I don't need that, I'm not weak."
Shouta pulled his hand back at once. This was hard, because Bakugou was likely to take any form of help as an insult, but at the same time, Shouta could not let him alone to panic and cry like that. Instead, Shouta held out his hand, face up. An offering, that Bakugou could accept or refuse as he said, "This doesn't make you weak, Bakugou. You came to me for help, and I want to help, but you have to let me. Can you do that?"
Bakugou sniffled, hiccuped himself quiet. He didn't answer verbally, and he was glaring intensely at Shouta as he did so, but he moved his hand from where it was clawing at his heart to hold tightly to where his teacher's had been offered, and that was answer enough.
"Now tell me what your mother did over the weekend," Shouta requested calmly.
"She hit me," the boy said quietly, and Shouta's heart dropped to his stomach. "She hit me a lot, bad." Bakugou was crying again, angry tears that he was barely breathing through, these choked off cries that he tried to shut up before they were even halfway out of his mouth. His grip on Shouta's hand tightened, and he folded more over the table, curling up on himself. "And without my dad, there was no one to stop her, and she just kept going, and I-," He turned a little more fully, sat up straight, and finally, for the first time in four fucking days, looked up to meet Shouta's eyes. "And all I could think was how badly I just wanted my dad."
Now able to see his face more clearly, Shouta saw the immense amount of agony on Bakugou's face behind the showy displays of anger.
"Oh, kid," Shouta breathed, and leaned forward to catch Bakugou as he fell forward, sobbing hard through clenched teeth like the world was ending.
Bakugou held tight to him, one hand curling up under where Shouta's arm was outstretched, holding him, to grip at Shouta's shoulder, catching his scarf in desperate fingers just a little bit. He buried his head next to his own fingers, right in Shouta's shoulder, and let out a couple of deep, choking sobs. "I want my dad," he cried, and then said it again. "I want my dad,"
"Alright," Shouta said softly. "Alright, I'm gonna call your father for you, okay?"
"Don't you think I tried that?" he shouted. He was hostile, frustrated, but Shouta knew better than to take it at face value. Under all of that was an insecure little kid needing reassurance. "That's what happened on, on Monday. I guess he finally got home, and-" Bakugou pulled back a little bit for some breathing room, room to talk some more, and Shouta loosened his arms. Bakugou sniffled, rubbing his forearm across his eye aggressively, like he resented himself for crying. Knowing his mother, he probably did. "I guess he got home sometime after I left, because she picked up his phone, and I didn't, I didn't realize. I called Dad and when it went through, I just started talking. And when I finished, she blew up. She was shrieking, telling me I was being overdramatic, and making all that up, and." Bakugou looked down at the floor again, even as more tears dripped down his cheeks. "It was so loud that some people heard. They were knocking on my door, asking what was going on, and."
Shouta took the brief pause to hold out his hand again, and Bakugou took it readily.
"And I just started yelling at them. And then I was-, my quirk it-," his throat tightened up again. "I went out of control. I was so mad, and my mom was being so awful when all I wanted was my dad, and I... lost it. They opened the door when I didn't want them too, because she wasn't supposed to hear it, and they weren't supposed to see it, and so I blasted Kaminari and Iida and Deku, and then Kirishima came in, and he, he, he just sat down, and he made everyone go away, and he sat with me and hardened his skin while I blasted the shit out of him, and even then, he made sure that none of them would tell you, because." Bakugou paused to sniffle, try and get a hold of himself. "Because I didn't want anybody to know, and then they all knew, and my mom knew, and Kirishima knew but he knew that I didn't want anyone else to know."
Shouta was beginning to lose track of all this knowing that seemed to be going on in the intricacies of Bakugou Katsuki's fraying psyche. "Didn't want anyone else to know what, Bakugou?"
Bakugou glared at him mistrustfully, like he thought Shouta was playing dumb just to humiliate him. "That I'm weak," he ground out. "That I can't handle my own mother, that I missed my dad like a fucking kid, that I can't control my own damn quirk, that I'm pathetic!"
Shouta felt understanding rush through him at once. Of course Bakugou's friends would want to protect his privacy, especially after he'd been forced to give so much of it up. And of course Bakugou would assume this meant he was weak.
"And then, then Deku beat me in that fight," Bakugou continued, and Shouta turned his attention back to the boy in front of him. "And I wasn't, I wasn't myself, I know that, so it didn't count. It didn't. But Recovery Girl called my mom to let her know of my injuries, and she. She called again that night. Last night. And she called me stupid for letting myself get injured, told me she'd withdraw me from UA since I clearly wasn't getting any stronger, since all I was doing was causing trouble, and I was so tired, I asked her to put Dad on the phone, and she. She-,"
He was crying again. Hard. Even as he spat out the words like they were poison in his veins. "She wouldn't. She was just yelling at me, saying all I do is ruin things, and I wanted my dad, I wanted my d-" Shouta, unable to help himself, took Bakugou back into his arms again, felt his cries go muffled against his shoulder, sobbing that he wanted his dad, and Shouta felt each word like a stab to his heart.
"Hey, shh, shh," Shouta murmured. "Shhh. It's all gonna be alright. Here's what we're gonna do, okay? Right now, we have your mother's phone number as your first emergency contact, and your dad's second to that. We're gonna switch those alright? Next time you get injured, your dad'll be the first to know. No more UA calling your mom. Does that sound good? Is that a good place to start? Shh, kid, just shhh."
Shouta was desperate. He was trying to keep it out of his voice, he really was, but the kid was crying hard, utterly bawling like the world was ending, and Shouta would do anything to soothe him in that moment. He'd taken to smoothing his hand down over Bakugou's hair, rocking him just slightly back and forth, and the kid was so upset he didn't even take it as an insult. He just needed it. He just needed to be held. Shouta severely questioned whether he was even aware of anything happening.
"Ssh, you're okay," Shouta hushed. "Just take it easyyy, everything's gonna be okay. I'm gonna make everything better. I'm gonna make everything better, okay?"
Shouta heard a weak, broken little, "okay," mumbled into his chest amidst sniffles and cries. His heart squeezed at how pitiful it sounded, and he tightened his arms, rocked just a little bit more gently. "Shhh, shhhh," he hummed, just as a backdrop to it all. He pressed his palm to the back of Bakugou's head, held him snug and secure, and rested his chin over the boy's head. He almost couldn't take the thought that this was his most abrasive student, violent and loud and aggressive, crying in his arms like a little kid.
Several minutes went by like that. Bakugou had decided to trust him with his vulnerabilities, no matter how hard it was for him, and now Shouta was going to hold him and cradle him like the child he was until he figured out what else to do to calm him down. After a bit longer, the idea came to him:
"Hey, honey, I'm gonna try calling your dad. Is that okay?"
Bakugou shot back from his arms at that, watching him with a teary sort of alarm.
"If your mom picks up, I'll say it was a misdial. Does that sound alright? You won't have to talk to her."
"...What if he doesn't answer at all?"
The insecurity in the boy's voice was too much to bear, and Shouta put a hand over his cheek, wiping at some of the wetness smeared all over. Bakugou only tolerated it for a moment before jerking away, though it was less in anger this time and more in apprehension. He watched Shouta like he expected him to grow another head and start screaming at him. Shouta drew his hand back. "If he doesn't answer, I'll try again until he does."
Bakugou went quiet, so Shouta dug for his phone.
"What if he's mad at me?" The kid said suddenly, and Shouta looked up from where he was dialing the number. "What if I got him in trouble with my mom? What if he just yells at me too?"
Shouta blinked. "Does he usually yell at you?"
More silence. Eventually Bakugou looked away aggressively and muttered, "No."
Shouta dialed the number.
Masaru Bakugou answered on the fourth ring. "Hello?" He asked.
"Hi there, Mr. Bakugou. This is Katsuki's teacher, Shouta Aizawa. I'm calling because I have your son here with me. He'd like to speak to you."
"Katsuki's there?"
"He is. Are you free to speak with him for awhile?"
There was a shuffling of papers on the other line, the sound of a chair creaking as if someone was getting up. "Yes, yes of course. I'm right here. Let me just..." A door opened and shut. "Okay. Put him on for me."
Shouta handed the phone over, and Bakugou grabbed for it like Shouta would take it away if he didn't act fast enough. "Dad?" He asked, voice tortured.
Shouta stood to leave the room, give his student some privacy, but not before he heard a warbled, "Hi, sweetheart, what's the matter?" from the other line just before he shut the door. He missed Bakugou's reply, but when he looked back one last time through the window, he saw renewed tears sliding down Bakugou's cheeks as he spoke into the phone, eyebrows furrowed in concentration as he listened to whatever was coming back in reply, clutching the phone close to his ear with both hands. Shouta looked away.
Leaning against the wall outside of his classroom, Shouta stared up at the ceiling, heaving out a long, long sigh, and waited.
It was maybe another twenty minutes before his classroom door was creaking open beside him, and Shouta rolled his head to the side to look at Bakugou as he exited the room, holding out Shouta's phone. He took it slowly and put it back in his pocket. Bakugou was wearing his backpack again, face mostly cleaned up of all the mess, though his eyes were still red in the corners. "That go okay?" Shouta asked.
Bakugou shrugged. He seemed embarrassed, now that his dad had calmed him down.
"I'm sorry," Bakugou said, after another moment of silence. Now, the harsh notes of his voice, those little bits of anger, seemed more directed inward, towards himself. "For how I've been acting in class. For how everyone else was acting because of me." He was glaring at his own feet again.
Shouta got his hands on Bakugou's shoulders, forced the kid to look up at him. "Hey. You do not need to apologize, do you hear me? You handled everything to the best of your ability. The rest of the class acted how they did because they care about you, and I find it deeply respectable, even if it was inconvenient. But next time, I want you to come to me, okay? You can always come to me."
"...Yes, Sir," Bakugou mumbled, and was entirely unprotesting when Shouta reached for him, folded him into his arm one last time. They sat there for a long few moments before Bakugou withdrew. His eyes were strangely damp again, and Shouta had to try not to smile. Not even Bakugou could escape the phenomenon that was crying more even after all your hurts had been comforted.
"Do you need someone to-"
"Kacchan?"
Shouta and Bakugou turned at once to find Midoriya coming down the opposite hall, holding the straps of his backpack as he walked.
"What do you want, Deku?" Bakugou snapped, at once thoroughly annoyed and with all of his usual heat, and Shouta felt that last bit of worry ease from his mind at the normalcy of it.
"I was having tea with All Might!"
Shouta's eyes narrowed. He was sure Bakugou would display a similar sort of skepticism, but the boy only went: "Without me? What the hell's that about?"
Midoriya blinked at him. "I'm sorry, Kacchan! I thought you were too busy pitying yourself to join us. You know, since I beat you in our match and all."
"WHAT?" Bakugou roared indignantly. "No way, I let you win!"
"Yep, sounds pretty self-pitying to me," Midoriya replied, smiling haughtily as he began to walk back off down the hall, towards the dorms.
Bakugou chased after him at once. "Well I'm gonna beat you tomorrow, you stupid nerd!"
"If you say so, Kacchan."
The bickering followed them down the hall as they chased each other out, and Shouta watched them go with a tired sort of fondness. He was going to refuse to think about the implication that the two of them regularly had tea with All Might and was going to instead focus on the brash sort of camaraderie developing between them. Before Midoriya had appeared in the hallway, Bakugou had still been tentative. Unsure how to act, how to get back to himself after such intense vulnerability. Midoriya was the one to pull him back from that ledge, get him back on his feet again, and drag him into his usual self.
"Hey, Sho!" Said a voice from behind him, and Shouta turned to find his husband standing there. "I was just coming to get you. Ready to head home?"
Shouta didn't even answer. He slumped forward and planted his forehead against Hizashi's shoulder, who stumbled backwards dramatically and wrapped his arms around his husband lovingly, swaying them a little.
"What's this about? You finally work everything out with your students?"
Shouta nodded his head silently.
"Oh, good! And just in time for the weekend, too."
At once, Shouta realized it was Friday, and he let out a tired set of laughs that probably sounded more like cries into Hizashi's chest, who paused in concern. "Shou?"
"Praise Jesus," Shouta said, and that was that.
Next time he had a premonition about a day turning sour, even if it was just a random Tuesday in March, Shouta was going to stay in bed.