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Very few people have Shouta’s personal phone number, and even fewer actually use it to contact him.
He’s never been a people person. Even before he’d become an underground hero, before he’d been a student at UA, all the way back when he’d been young and his quirk hadn’t even developed yet, he’d had a quiet and private personality. Some people would be eager to call him anti-social - Hizashi - but at this point, Shouta genuinely didn’t care. He worked well alone, and he’d never minded working alone, so he saw no reason to seek out more allies than the few friends he already trusted.
The more allies you had, the more people you had to lose. Shouta had already learned that lesson the hard way, and he wasn’t interested in learning it again.
So when his phone rings at 3:16am, on one of his rare nights off, Shouta wakes up from what was possibly the only genuinely restful sleep he’d been able to get in weeks, fully embracing the fact that he’ll be murdering his best friend. Hizashi calls and texts at all hours like he doesn’t know what night and day are or how to even read a clock, yet he berates Shouta for never getting enough sleep.
He sits up in his bed groggily, and slaps at his nightstand a few times before he finally manages to get his phone in his hands. The screen is too bright for him to look at yet, his eyes still dry and sensitive as ever, so he doesn’t even bother to check who’s calling before he answers.
“Hizashi,” Shouta grumbles, “If this is to tell me about some more knockoff merchandise of me you saw while going down some online rabbithole, I’m going to kick your ass.”
His answer is a soft, barely there sniffle.
Shouta snaps his eyes open, instantly wide awake, and yanks his phone away from his ear to look at the name of the caller.
[Unknown Number] stares back at him, searing white, burning into his eyes.
There’s only one person this could be, but it’s not like him to call out of the blue, and at such a weird time.
“Midoriya?” Shouta breathes. Then, more urgently, “Midoriya, what’s going on?”
The boy lets out a quiet sob, muffled, like he’s biting onto something to hold it in, “Eraserhead,” Midoriya whispers, desperate, “Eraserhead, please l-listen carefully. I c-an only say this o-once.”
Shouta shoves his blankets aside and swings himself out of bed. His head throbs angrily with exhaustion when he turns on the light, but he ignores it to hunt down a pad of paper and a pen, “Wait, Midoriya, just give me a moment.”
Midoriya hiccups, “I don’t h-ave a moment, Eraserhead.”
Shouta’s fingers freeze around the pen he’d found, “Are you in danger?”
“N-no,” Midoriya says, sounding uncertain, then, “It doesn’t matter, I just need yo-u to listen. P-please.”
Shouta’s jaw clenches, “We’ve been over this, Midoriya. Any information you have should never take priority over your safety.”
“I’m fine.” Midoriya says harshly.
It’s sudden, so sudden and completely out of character for the boy Shouta knows, that Shouta snaps his mouth shut in surprise. He has paper and a pen in his hands now, and he holds onto them tightly while Midoriya fills the silence between them with ragged breathing and choked on sobs.
“I’m fine.” Midoriya repeats, calmer after a few large, uneven breaths, “This is i-important. This is more important than me.”
“Midoriya,” Shouta starts.
“We’re wasting t-time.” Midoriya cuts him off, “I have a list of Sensei- I mean- I- All for One’s current quirks, and I n-need to tell you them.”
Shouta’s thoughts screech to a halt. That… that is important information. That’s information that could change everything . It’s practically the crown jewel of intel that the All for One task force has been trying to get their hands on. It would shift the tide of this terrible invisible war they’d been waging with Japan’s villainous underground and the League of Villains.
But an almost silent alarm pings at the back of Shouta’s mind; something isn’t right here.
“How did you learn them all?” Shouta asks Midoriya cautiously, quiet as he sets his pen and paper down on his desk. He opens his bedroom door just as subtly, pressing his thumb into the hinge to keep it from screeching.
“Y-you don’t want to know, Eraserhead.” Midoriya stutters, none the wiser to Shouta’s movements. “J-just, let me tell you.”
“Where are you, Midoriya? This information is too sensitive to be exchanged over the phone.” Shouta says. It’s not a lie, but it’s not the entire truth either. The lines Midoriya has to Shouta and to Tsukauchi, his two main contacts, are lines made secure and untraceable through weeks of hard work. Exchanging information over the phone is something they’ve done in the past, something they all got too comfortable doing.
Shouta grabs his capture weapon on his way towards the front door of his apartment, settling the layers of scarf around his neck mid-stride. The peace of mind that its weight on his shoulders usually gives him is absent, overpowered by the anxiety thrumming through his veins that Shouta is barely suppressing.
A heartbreaking sound breaks out of Midoriya, something frustrated and despairing all at once, “Just let me tell you!” Midoriya pleads again, “Just let me do this last good thing!”
The alarm at the back of Shouta’s mind is no longer silent. It’s ringing all too loud in his ears. So loud it’s almost deafening.
“You know it isn’t safe. Give me a location where I can meet you.” Shouta reiterates, as strict and as firm as he can, like he’s talking to one of his students and won’t accept any response other than ‘Yes, sensei.’ He can’t let Midoriya give him the information, he needs to keep Midoriya talking. Usually that’s not a difficult task; Midoriya is intelligent, and he’ll talk about a topic for hours to anyone who will listen, but right now Midoriya seems to be running out of words.
Midoriya’s situation had always been unstable, and Shouta had loathed from the very beginning how his fellow heroes had been so eager to leap on Midoriya and take advantage of the dangerous place the boy was in. An unassuming, quirkless boy, who had been manipulated into joining the villains and wanted out? A boy who had managed to slip away from the League once already to try and get help, who still looked at All Might like the hero hung the stars in the sky? It was too good to be true. Just helping the kid get his freedom and then letting him go would be wasting an opportunity to have a mole on the inside. Nevermind that Midoriya wasn’t trained for this, nevermind that they’d be sending him back into a pit of snakes every day. Desperate times called for desperate measures, wasn't that what people said?
And the way Midoriya’s eyes had gone dark with acceptance when Nighteye had relayed the plan to him - the memory of it still makes Shouta angry. He should’ve stepped in then and there. He should’ve stopped all this before it could get this far. That was his mistake.
“It’s okay. I want to do good. I- I want to be useful.” Midoriya had said, in the small voice of a child trying too hard to prove they could be strong and mature, “If I can help save people by staying with the League for a little longer, then I’ll do it.”
So caught up in what a boon having Midoriya for a spy was, along the way, everyone had forgotten that Midoriya still needed to be saved too.
They’d failed Midoriya, Shouta had failed Midoriya, and now, Midoriya was paying the price.
“I don’t want you to see me.” Midoriya whispers brokenly, “I don’t want to see you. I just want to tell you what I know and then be done. Please.”
“No can do.” Shouta says, trying to remember if Tsukauchi ever put a tracker on Midoriya’s latest burner phone like he said he would.
Even without a tracker, there are things Shouta knows about Midoriya that can help him choose a direction to start heading in. Musutafu is a large but sleepy city, the buildings and neighborhoods that it’s made of are spread over the land, rather than bunched claustrophobically on top of each other like Shibuya or Tokyo. On day one, Midoriya had told the task force his home address, looking like he was going to be sick as he meekly asked the gathered heroes and detective to please check in on his mother sometimes, and keep her safe while her son was off in meetings with villains.
So, although the reason makes Shouta furious with himself, he knows what neighborhood Midoriya left from. He’s certainly not there anymore; Midoriya never calls from home, never wants to risk his mother overhearing him talk about the morally dubious things heroes have asked him to do behind her back.
That leaves the surrounding forest, the neighborhood park, and any secluded streets that lead into the more urban areas of Musutafu, as places Midoriya might’ve run to. Which doesn’t really narrow down the options at all. He doesn’t have the time to check everywhere, and Shouta bites down on a frustrated growl, conscious of the fact that he somehow, miraculously, still has Midoriya on the phone. Midoriya, who is worryingly quiet.
Think, Shouta commands himself, as a hollow pit opens in his chest the longer Midoriya doesn’t speak, Think, damnit!
Where would he go if he was a scared teenager that wanted to hide himself away, like a wounded dog trying to find a secluded place to die?
Wait.
Oh.
Oh no.
That’s what the alarm in his head has been ringing about.
“Midoriya, still with me?” Shouta asks, shoving his rising panic aside so it doesn’t leak into his tone. It’s a difficult thing, what with the emotion clawing its way from his heart up his throat. Apartment buildings and houses blur together in front of his eyes as he pushes himself to run faster. He is not losing Midoriya tonight. He refuses to let it happen.
“...”
“Midoriya?” Shouta repeats, more severely.
“... yes. Eraserhead, plea-”
“Good.” Shouta cuts the boy off, as he rounds another corner and finally sees the sharp dip of the edge of the river he’d been searching for. “Don’t hang up.”
“There’s no time-” Midoriya tries to plead.
“Yes there is.” Shouta snaps, “There is always time. Do not hang up, Midoriya.”
Midoriya’s breath is heavy and loud through the speaker, but Shouta prefers it to not hearing any breathing at all.
“Midoriya, why did you call me. Why not Tsukauchi?” Ahead of him, a bridge materializes from the darkness.
Shouta hopes it’s the right one.
“I… I don’t know.” Midoriya answers weakly.
Shouta frowns and squints through the glare of the streetlights that line the bridge, and sees at the other end a tiny figure in a dark hoodie, hunched close to the ground and gripping the bars of the railing. He’s nearly swept away by the relief that floods through him, until he notices the pair of clunky red shoes set off at a distance.
“You wanna try again, problem child?” Shouta asks softly. His heart is still pounding rapidly with adrenaline, but he forces himself to walk slowly as he moves towards Midoriya. He picks up the bright red shoes on the way, and as he gets closer he can see just how intensely the boy is trembling.
“B-because, you’re a hero.” Midoriya says at last, like that answers everything. And in a way, it does.
“I’m a hero,” Shouta agrees, his phone beeping as he hangs up the call, and Midoriya jolts to look up at him with red-rimmed eyes that are tired beyond their years. “I’m a hero, and my job is to save people.” Carefully, calmly, Shouta crouches at the small boy’s side. He sets Midoriya’s shoes down in front of him. “Now, tell me again why you called me.”
For a moment, Midoriya is quiet, his eyes flicking back and forth between Shouta and his shoes, until he suddenly crumbles and breaks apart.
A sob, louder and larger than all the ones before it, tears its way out of Midoriya’s throat. He shrinks away from Shouta and curls over, pulling his arms in so he can wrap them tightly around himself and dig his nails into his elbows. Then he bends until his forehead touches the bars in front of him, and he wails.
“I don’t deserve it though,” Midoriya says, his voice loud enough against the muted sounds of the night that it’s almost a scream. His words crack and waver through the tears and snot running down his face, as he begins to work himself into hyperventilating, “I don’t deserve to be saved, not after I- I took a- he gave me a-”
“Midoriya!” Shouta says, sharper than he should’ve, and Midoriya snaps out of his downward spiral with a flinch. “Take a deep breath, tell me what happened.”
Midoriya gasps raggedly for a moment, before he manages to whisper, “He gave me a quirk.”
Shouta rocks backwards, “He gave you a quirk?” He repeats in disbelief.
“He said- because I’d been doing so well, analyzing heroes for him- and he let me choose,” Midoriya explains in stops and starts, “That’s how I know all his quirks. He let me choose.”
Shouta simply stares at the top of Midoriya’s head, horrified.
“I didn’t want to.” Midoriya lets out another harsh sob and presses his hands to his mouth, biting down on his knuckles and muffling his distressed words, “All my life I’ve wanted- I wanted to have a quirk so badly. And now I finally have one but it’s wrong.”
It hits Shouta then just how young Midoriya is. Of course he’s thought about it before, and acknowledged to himself that their “man” on the inside of the League of Villains is no older than most of his first year students, but that fact has never seemed so devastating until now.
Midoriya is just fifteen, and still so, so small. He should be goofing around in school with friends, should have a whole life ahead of him, but instead he’s crying in despair at Shouta’s feet, on the edge of a bridge with his shoes set to the side, crushed by burdens he never should have had to bear.
Sadly, Shouta reaches out towards Midoriya’s shoulder. The boy can’t see him, too busy now digging his palms into his already bruised and puffy eyes, trying to stop up the tears before they can fall.
When Shouta’s hand lands, Midoriya goes still.
“Midoriya,” Shouta says, mouth dry, “I’m sorry. We, as heroes, have failed you.”
Midoriya keeps his hands over his eyes, and drags in a loud sniffle.
“You don’t have to go back to the League. I’m putting an end to your part in this. You’ve done so much - more than we should have asked of you.” He squeezes the boney shoulder, tries to ignore the twinge in his heart as he realizes just how thin Midoriya is. Like he’s been letting himself waste away. “And you’ve done so well.”
At the praise, Midoriya peeks at Shouta through his fingers, lips trembling.
If he were All Might, now would be the moment Shouta would smile, bright and reassuring. But that’s not Shouta’s style. His smile is more likely to give the already traumatized boy in front of him nightmares, rather than set him at ease. Plus, he doesn’t think a smile would do Midoriya any good right now. They’re past the point where a smile and encouraging words can patch the tears in Midoriya’s spirit.
“You can rest now.” Shouta says. When Midoriya’s eyes flicker for a split second towards the dark water below them, he pulls the boy forward and grabs his other shoulder as well, grounding Midoriya and putting himself between Midoriya’s line of sight and the river, “But not that way.”
Midoriya starts to shake again, and a few tears slip past his fingers and down his cheeks. “B-but-” He coughs pitifully, choking on a few tears stuck at the back of his throat, and then starts again, “But w-what am I supposed to do now?” He asks, sounding lost.
“Oh, kid.” Shouta sighs, and he tucks Midoriya into his side, folding his arms around him, because he knows that right now Midoriya needs comfort more than Shouta hates hugging people. He can make an exception just this once, just for Midoriya. It’s the least Shouta owes him. “You don’t need to have everything figured out right now. I’ll keep you safe. You won’t be alone anymore, okay?”
Midoriya clutches at Shouta’s scarf hesitantly, and his small, shuddering breaths rock against Shouta’s ribcage.
Fifteen years old. He’s fifteen years old.
Shouta lays a hand on Midoriya’s head protectively, and keeps his back to the water.