Shame curls inside the pit of his gut as gently as Midoriya's hand over his on his chest. Paul nods, eyes shaded down, and brings himself close to Midoriya's ear after a quick, merciless inspection of their surroundings, even though he knows they're as relatively isolated as they were before. He may have been waving people away - emphatically.

Then shame fades, along with most other feeling, as Paul slips into the recall-response loop that comes so easily to him he forgets, in his willingness to accommodate a friend, will be a novelty in a moment that calls for familiarity.

When he opens his mouth to repeat back Midoriya's words precisely as he heard them, Paul's mind hums as cleanly and automatically as clockwork, thoughts transformed to mechanical algorithms. It's as if a pond's surface skimmed over all at once with thin, glass-clear ice - nothing unpleasant, but unexpected, and changed.

"That's all," Paul says, sitting back on his heels, and the ice thaws back into lightly wind-frothed waves.