Chapter Text
13,027. That’s how many unread emails he has. He only made this email last week, seconds before the games even started.
Among them, 5,347 are for Todoroki, one is asking for his credit card information, and 5,346 are for Bakugo. Most of them overlap, sent by the same agencies with the same content, save for the students they’re addressed to, and perhaps the single disparity is Todoroki’s own father. This of course makes no difference to Bakugo.
“How ‘bout him?” The kid asks. He jabs his finger against the screen so hard the laptop clacks back. Shouta pulls it closer to himself and gives him the fuck is wrong with you look, but he answers all the same.
“Rock Lock’s got no sidekicks so he does all the paperwork himself” He’s the only asshole Shouta approves of. “But he’ll complain the whole time that he’s gotta get home to his kid.”
“So what, he’s a softie?”
“No, his kid is the only kid he likes.” Shouta says. “Though I imagine he’ll like you a lot more than others if you being there gets him home earlier.”
Bakugo looks disgusted, like he always does whenever paperwork is mentioned. “So he wants free labor.”
“Kid, they all want free labor. Difference is none of them hate unskilled children as much as this guy does; consider his email a compliment.”
That seemed to get Bakugo to lower his walls a bit, actually inspecting Rock Lock’s profile rather than saying “pass” to every hero whose ranking fell below 50. Even then he only eased up because Shouta reminded him that whoever was 50 could’ve easily been one of ten tied with 50. The rankings were funny and stupid that way, and he’s positive the only two heroes who’ve fully earned their ranks are All Might and Endeavor.
“Where’s he work?” The kid asked.
“Downtown, center of the shopping area.”
“When’s his patrol?”
“Bit later in the day than the others but he’s never around when I start my shift, so.”
“So?”
“So you’ll make bedtime? Choose already.”
Bakugo gnawed at his bottom lip and the pencil cup on Shouta’s desk started to tremor, a consequence of the kid’s bouncing foot. Finally he breached the silence.
“Did he ask for Icy Hot too?”
Shouta slapped the computer shut at the same time Bakugo slouched deeper in his chair, “Regardless of whether or not—“
“What, I can’t ask now—“
“This isn’t a valid reason to turn down—“
“I’m not gonna be someone’s second—“
“Kid.” Bakugo shut up. It was an odd enough occurrence that Shouta swore to make the most of it. “You can’t turn down every offer that comes your way, you know that. I don’t think you would’ve badgered me for a personal meeting if you didn’t know that.”
And they were gonna get to this later, but for someone as outspoken as Bakugo he sure needed help learning how to use his words. The kid hadn’t even said anything to him, just stood in front of the door when he tried to leave and herded him towards his desk. Shouta had half a mind to call a child psychologist.
“I’m not turning down every offer,” Bakugo said, his face all scrunched up, “I’m narrowing them down.”
“By what standard? Todoroki? Bakugo, they’re—“ He cut himself off and started over, testing just how far he wanted to go with this. “These agencies don’t know any of you, they don’t know about your background, and there’s a good chance they’ve forgotten half your names.”
“Not mine, though. And what else do they gotta know about me besides what I can do?”
“Nothing. They cast these wide nets after sports festivals for anyone they think can break the top 100 rankings, that’s their only standard, so you’re shit out of luck if you’re looking for any half decent agency that didn’t offer Todoroki a spot, too.” Bakugo’s whole head rolled with his eyes and Shouta tilted his own to keep up; like shit he’ll be escaping this particular lesson. “The fact that you fell into so many of them leaves a positive outlook for your career, but this isn’t gonna last forever.”
The kid scratched his neck, doubt written all over his features. For as much as Shouta discouraged the kind of glaring ego some heroes had, it did make class more interesting. Now, though, he wanted to slap it out of him. “So, what, they won’t take me if I leave them hanging too long?”
“Worse, they’ll forget about you, then the offers stop coming in altogether. Then your jobless. Then you’re poor. Then I’m fired and I’m jobless and I’m poor.” He thought it’d be hard for anyone to forget about Bakugo, as if he’d even let them, but he wasn’t gonna take any chances with someone’s career. “I’m not saying you can’t have standards, but be smart about it, would you? UA—hero school is just a… a way to get your foot in the door, it’s a game, and you’ve just won, so ride the wave.”
Bakugo stared at him for a moment, “I won?” He asked.
It was obvious what he was asking, even what he was asking for. An official order for Todoroki to have a rematch, some kind of punishment for what he did that day, or rather what he didn’t do, but Bakugo certainly wasn’t asking for reassurances.
If he wanted brutal honesty, Shouta had a lot to give. He thought Todoroki never should’ve sat there on the ground and faked defeat, he thought the security guards should’ve done their jobs and kept Endeavor from shouting at the stands and fucking with his son’s mind, he thought he should’ve gone through with faking a bomb threat to the festival before it even happened. None of that was helpful, though.
“You could’ve.” Shouta tells him, because it’s true, because would’ve is an empty word, no matter how much he believes that, too. He opens the computer again before Bakugo can pry any further for a better answer, because pry enough and he just might get one that Shouta can’t ethically say out loud. “If it’s a no on Rock Lock there’s always Fourth Kind. Judgemental, smells like a factory, but you’d be set for—“
He pauses, narrowing his eyes at the black border of the screen. The laptop’s between him and Bakugo, slightly angled towards the door so both of them could see it. And apparently, so could the fucking shadow figure.
Shouta looks towards the door just in time to catch Shinsou looking away, a clueless expression on his face while his eyes flitter to every object except the one right in front of him. The bandaid over his nose is still visible from the side.
“The fuck?” Bakugo breathes. Shouta couldn’t agree more.
“Language.”
“The shit?” He says, angrier, and Shouta can hear the gears turning in his head, correctly placing Shinsou’s face against the brat who’d crapped all over him before the festival. Nonetheless, who replaces fuck with shit?
“That’s—?” He gives him another seriously, did something happen to you look but he’s drawn back away once Shinsou shuffles a little closer to the door. Did he think he was being subtle? “Yeah, just…” He vaguely waves his hand at the kid, “Stay here. I’ll be back.”
He gets up and, as if there matching poles of a magnet, Shinsou is repelled away and out of sight from the doorway. Shouta strides around the corner to find him shifting his weight from side to side by the wall, and privately he’s relieved the kid didn’t honestly expect him to chase him around the school seeking out a conversation he didn’t want. It would’ve been a harrowing experience for both of them.
“You need me to call a parent?” Shouta asks. Shinsou’s eyebrows crinkle at the greeting.
“What?” A beat. “No?”
“You sure? Because it’s after hours, there’s no clubs today, and you’re in the heroics sector.” He nods towards the obnoxious sign hanging from the ceiling that says exactly that. “I figured you needed me to have someone collect you from customs.”
Gone is the confusion on his face, replaced with pure snark, and suddenly it feels like they’re back in Recovery Girl’s office trying to cram in as many swipes at each other before someone more level-headed walks in. Jesus, was Bakugo seriously the level-headed one in this situation?
“Not all the clubs,” Shinsou smiles, “Sports are still on.”
His eyebrows raise. “You’re in sports?” Then they furrow. “UA doesn’t have sports.”
“Doesn’t—? Yeah we do. We have, like, tennis. Volleyball. Swim team.” He sounds unsure now. “Water polo.”
“Is this what you were loitering for?”
“No, I just had a question.” He does a full body shrug and rubs the back of his neck, “Some questions. Not all questions, though. Like, about things.”
Shouta sighed. He was regretting coming outside already.
“I still don’t know what you meant.” He says abruptly, like this was actually weighing on him. Shouta tried not to look too perturbed by it. “When I sh— trash talked Baku—“
“Hey,” He jerked his head towards the classroom and the kid very much still in it.
“Sorry. And I asked if you were gonna kill me on his behalf, and you were like no,” His voice dropped comically low. He’s gonna kill this little shit. “On behalf of myself. That. What’d you mean by that?”
Shouta shrugged, “Don’t know.”
Shinsou stilled, the hand scratching his neck now locked in place, “What?”
“I don’t know what I meant.”
“You can’t just not know what you meant.”
“I can barely even recall saying that.” He says. It’s a lie, straight bullshit, flowing from his mouth like water from a fountain. “Probably meant whatever you think I meant.”
“I don’t know what you meant, that’s the problem.” He stressed, his voice painfully level like it took all his effort not to yell.
“Okay,” Shouta clicks his tongue and begins to turn, “That’s it then.”
“What? No. I—I mean I had an idea, I guess? I thought maybe you meant that you…” He trailed off in hopes of Shouta finishing his sentence; he was sorely disappointed. “…You won the sports festival. You know, in days of old.”
“Days of old,” Shouta rolls it around his tongue and nods, “Haven’t heard that one yet.”
“Sorry.”
“Why? I love aging.”
“Probably won’t be saying that in your fif…” He pauses again, his eyes going wide; he does that a lot. "Wait, was I right?” Shouta stares at him. “You won? Seriously?”
“You can take off the bandaid, you know.” Shouta says instead, eyeing the bridge of Shinsou’s nose and tapping his own. “Your cut’s gone by now. What do you think Recovery Girl’s salary is so high for?”
“SERIOUSLY?” He says again, crazed. Can’t have that, Bakugo’s drawn to loud noises.
Shouta makes to move and Shinsou just about jumps in front of him to block him off, it’s both insulting to his own physical capabilities of bypassing a toddler and horribly reminiscent of how Bakugo managed to sit down with him earlier. It’s also not necessary in the slightest.
He raises a single eyebrow and side steps him, continuing down the hallway. “Gonna stand there all day?” Hurried footsteps follow suit behind him. Good, he’s already hustling.
“So, you won.” Shinsou says to himself, eventually. Five minutes in and already he’s a broken record. “But then what’s your quirk?”
Shouta throws him a weird look, “It wasn’t obvious?”
“Well sure, the erasure part is.” The erasure part? “But is that it? I mean didn’t your hair kinda—“ His hands do a quick brush up in the air while he breathes out a shwoop sound. Kids are so embarrassing. “I thought you might have some telekinesis thing up your sleeve.”
“People have strange side effects all the time, doesn’t mean they’re all dual quirked.”
“But are you?”
“Not really.” His hair floats, so do his clothes sometimes, hence the belts, and so does his capture weapon, but it’s not like that made learning how to use it any easier. So until he can close a door in someone’s face using just his mind, he’s not gonna go around crying telekinesis. “You?”
“Nope.”
“Maybe think about it longer than a half second.” Shouta notes the numbers on the doors they pass. 401, 403, 405. “Side effects don’t always have to be physical, either.”
It’s silent for a beat, but eventually the kid chimes in, “I guess I feel things.”
Shouta waits, then waits some more, then rolls his eyes, “Wow.”
“Their emotions,” Shinsou retorts, “Like when I made a guy stop pissing on my trashcans, I felt all bubbly. He was probably high.”
“Hopefully.”
“And then during the sports festival, the cavalry thing with the tail guy, I was really excited whenever I saw one of your kids. Like I actually knew them.” He says it with a half hearted gag built up in his throat, one he swallows by the next sentence. “Green kid was just kinda angry, though.”
“Can’t imagine why.” 411, 413, 415. Maybe he’s just looking at the doors so he doesn’t have to look at the kid looking at him. “I’m guessing you’re not secretly an empath, though.”
“Nope.” Shouta can hear the sharp grin in his voice. “Wouldn’t help anyway, empathy can’t throw things across rooms. Neither can brainwashing. That’s why I lost to him.”
There’s something heavy here, a water balloon hanging over their heads, ready to pop whenever it catches on Shinsou’s spiked up hair. It feels like there’s always something heavy hanging around these kids lately, real ticking time bombs that’ve been counting down since the festival’s award ceremony, and they always expect him to be the one to set it off.
He can’t give Bakugo a clear cut victory, the one he either should or shouldn’t have had but at least he’d have something. He can’t give Shinsou the answers he wants about how someone like him won, how he got in, because they’re not real answers so much as they are detestable, dirty tricks. He can’t do a goddamn thing.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Shouta says. He thinks of the tai chi he sees old men doing in the park on some days, the way they push away towards something that isn’t tangibly there, and he imagines himself doing the same thing. He’s pushing away from Shinsou, from the sports festival, from the entrance exam, from the past 12 years. “I’m sure there were plenty of other reasons. Maybe you looked at him funny.”
“Maybe.” Definitely. “I’m kinda leaning more towards the—“
“There were other reasons.” He states. 417, 418, 419. “You talk about quirks a lot, you know that? You want to know what my quirk is, you want to hate whatever Midoriya’s quirk is, you’ve created a whole ecosystem around yourself that lives and thrives off brainwashing people, and just cause it gives you the barest of necessities you don’t even bother looking beyond it. But kid,” He finally meets Shinsou’s eyes. “Your punch never even landed.”
420.
He’s been deathly ill since the day Hizashi’s personal request for this room got approved, but he’ll admit it’s memorable.
Shouta twists the knob and sweeps the door open, letting it ricochet off the wall and creak back and forth for a little. Inside, Hizashi’s at his desk, poured over worksheets and chopsticks loosely gripped between his fingers. He stares at the two of them dumbly, a stray noodle sticking out the side of his mouth, but Shouta expects him to reboot any second now. Unfortunately, Shinsou beats him to it.
“Fuck’s sake.”
“Language.”
“Shou. And Shinsou!” Hizashi cheers. “Shhho…cker.” His face is doing something weird, like he’s scared shitless of whatever brought them here together. “What’s, um, up?”
“He got lost on his way to water polo.” Shouta supplies.
“Did not.” Shinsou snaps, he shoots a look towards him and there it is, again, the nurse’s office. The scent of antiseptic wipes, caramel candies sealed forever within their wrappers, pleading stares gone unanswered. “And, wait, I wanted to ask you about how—“
“Tell his mommy he’s okay,” He cuts in, and it’s enough to finally shove Shinsou off the edge.
“Oh boo.” Old fuck goes unsaid, but all three of them heard it.
He leaves Shinsou there under Hizashi’s jurisdiction to do… something. He doesn’t know, really, but that’s not his job, is it? Hizashi’s a gen ed homeroom teacher, this is his problem. If Shinsou’s got any sense he’ll book it home before the guy pulls out a movie or whittled down crayons, but he can’t count on that. He can’t count on anything, he realizes, and Bakugo’s gone by the time he gets back.
At 9:35 P.M on a Tuesday, Iida accepts the offer sent in to him by team Idaten. They’d sent in their request this afternoon, and Shouta only approved it an hour ago, but he’s already accepted it. He holds the phone with cold fingers as he reads, the screen lighting up in red, then blue, back and forth while the police clear the scene of a mission he’d just finished up with some others.
Fatgum looms over him to read the notification and gives him a strong pat on the back once he does, some vague compliments thrown towards the kid that he’ll remember to pass along one day. Privately, Shouta thanks him. Even more privately, between he and himself, he seeks out Ingenium from the crowd with his eyes and stares him down.
Iida Tensei. He had heroes for parents, that’d been the big thing back when they were still at UA. Nemuri played a game with Hizashi called give me a name and I’ll tell you if I’d go to a party at their house or not, and she practically swooned whenever Tensei was mentioned. She hoped he’d have a wine cellar, or a basement lounge, or a pool with one of those fake waterfalls and really cool parents.
Nobody knew he didn’t take the entrance exam until the Spring Fling in their second year, when people were going story for story about those fucking robots and he didn’t have a clue what they were talking about. One or two kids called him a nepo baby for getting in through his mother’s recommendation, but nobody took them seriously. All Shouta could think about, though, was how fucking cool his parents were. That sentiment only got stronger once Iida got into his own class, Ingenium listed as his backer.
Then there was something else. Admiration and something else. His fingers feel colder, the screen’s gone to black and he’s only staring at himself now, and if he looks back up this building nausea in his chest is gonna rip a hole straight through him.
He looks up again and Tensei’s staring right back at him. His armored hand raises in a wave and Shouta can tell he’s got some brilliant smile under that mask. That’s a hero, someone who knows the kid and how to help him, who’d never let the next three generations of Iidas bash their way through those hunks of metal.
Shouta nods back. What a wonderful fucking brother.
An hour later, he approves the Endeavor agency’s request. Only a minute passes before Todoroki accepts it.
“Not hungry?”
Shouta’s sitting on the hallway floor, the ridges of his spine pressed uncomfortably against the tiled walls. He recalls standing at some point, but not when exactly it was he slid down here; maybe around the ten minute mark of Majima being a no show. And he was doing a swell job of ignoring the pain until All Might casted a shadow on the entire corridor. He considers bringing up the way he ditched him over the weekend in that car, and then wouldn’t talk to him for three days, but ultimately decides against it.
He glances up and nods towards the stainless steel door just slightly to his right, “Waiting.”
“Oh, for who? Majima?” All Might’s smile twitches at the sounds of occasional harsh clanging coming from inside, “Is that not him?”
“No,” Another CLANG. “No, thank god.”
He thought now would’ve been the perfect time to talk to Majima; lunch time on a Wednesday, when he’s allergic to the menu and uses that as an excuse to eat the junk he keeps in his lab. Then Shouta would hold a bag of shrimp chips above his head until he tells him everything he knows about equipment built for people who can’t stop breaking themselves. Seamless.
What Shouta didn’t consider was the fact that Majima might prefer starving over spending another minute in there with the pink haired metal freak.
“Hm, well.” And then he does the most horrific bodily contortion known to man: he slides down right next to him. Shouta has to scramble away just the slightest bit to resist the gravitational pull coming from his ten ton mass. Should he run? He wants to run. “I noticed your lesson plans for today had the kids listed for outdoor drills again. Same ones as yesterday?”
“Basically. Except they’ll be doing them on each other this time.” Dummies gave them too much security, dummies don’t tell on them if they used the engines in their legs to power an extra strong kick. Shouta looked straight ahead as he did his part in the conversation, “Why?”
All Might shrugged, “I’m reminiscing. I always hated those, the drills, I much preferred the- how do I put it? Spontaneous things?”
“Ah, yeah,” Shouta knew what he meant. Spontaneous, exciting, experimental—he meant the games. “Like a makeshift obstacle course in one of the destroyed metropolis training grounds.”
He couldn’t relate, he always liked the drills far more than the other shit his teacher would throw together. They were standard, a guaranteed path to success with enough repetition and care. Games were stupid, counterintuitive to learning any real lesson and just made people so mad. He’s played enough games at UA, he thinks.
“That’s—That’s specific, but right.” All it took was a couple laughs from him to send vibrations through the wall, but Shouta didn’t think about that as much. He’d never seen him do a laugh that quiet. “Have you done that lesson yourself?”
“Others, but not that one.” And only when Hizashi would finally force his hand. “I did that one as a second year.”
“Oh? Where?”
God. Dickhead.
“Here.” Everything on All Might’s face widens and Shouta smiles at the sight, it’s a sharp, jagged thing. “I know. Can you believe it?”
“What? Yes, no, of course.” He’s floundering. So, he didn’t know. Or he knew, but forgot. Or he’d have never guessed unless Shouta dug out his diploma from all the junk at his place and personally shoved it in his face. “I guess they do that for all of us then! Did you—“
“Don’t bother,” Shouta said, but it came out too mean, too honest. He swallows down the blades on his tongue, “I know the kids are getting antsy. They do a really shit job at hiding how bored they are.”
And he means really shitty. Complaining-to-the-heavens-in-locker-rooms-with-no-sound-proofing kind of shitty. Not that it changes anything. Drills are the only thing he can think to fill the time with while he figures out what to do about Midoriya, the only thing he can justify banning quirk use in. Probably not the best teaching method, but what else does he have to work with? Now whenever Kaminari has a complaint he just blows his whistle.
“Ah,” He’s a little more erratic than usual, still in the aftershocks of learning they had the same alma mater. Shouta can only imagine the look on his face if he ever found out they were both first place winners, too. “So is this a, what is it you call it, logical ruse then? On purpose?”
“What?” Shouta blanches, finally giving him all his attention. Fuck does he think he is, Nezu? He doesn’t foreshadow shit in his own head all the time. "No, I just didn’t have the time to build a fun little obstacle course. And all the gyms are taken,” He lowered his voice to a mutter as he looked back away, “Fuckin’ C classes and their piss poor advanced notice.”
What’s All Might even good for if he won’t throw his weight around to get his class some benefits?
“And anyway,” He continues, “It’s fine. It’s practice.”
"But does it work for everybody?" The man asks, slow and sincere. It’s somehow much worse.
“What, like suited to their own quirks and fighting styles?” He gets a nod and shakes his head, "Doesn’t matter, they’ve gotta master it anyway.”
Shouta guesses he was thinking of Midoriya when he asked that, he was probably thinking of Midoriya since the moment he joined him on the floor. Thinking about that kid is all he really does.
Did they know each other from before or was it just a random affinity? Did All Might do a double take at the boy’s smile and decide they were far too alike to simply leave him be? Or was it the quirk?
They’d all huddled around the computer that day after the exam, rewinding the footage from when Uraraka slapped Midoriya’s leg to when the robot when down, then rewinding again.
Cementoss said strength augmentation on the first watch, but Nemuri pointed out that he would’ve taken down twenty more robots if it were that simple. By the second watch, Hizashi said it might be a Jack-in-the-Box kind of thing, he knew he needed time to build up that kind of strength so he used it all on the final boss.
On the third watch they looked to All Might, who offered nothing but a smile, but he’d be a world class orator thirty minutes later talking about rescue points. Then they looked to Shouta, who really offered nothing and would later nod along to all that shit about rescue points, eyes locked on the girl below the rubble.
But even then he was sure they could all see it, just how similar All Might and the kid’s quirks were, minus the bone breaking.
“You’ve got similar quirks don’t you, you and Midoriya?” He asked suddenly, left with no other way to kill the time, “Almost identical.”
Strength quirks are like that sometimes, indistinguishable up until the moment they’re thrown in a foreign environment and suddenly it’s obvious that one of them completely lacks any strength below the arms. Asking might be stupid, since all quirks are bound to be different in some way, but it’s his only lead.
“Yes,” The man says after a beat, even slower. He’s the one staring straight ahead now. “It does seem that way, that’s actually why i tend to… pay a little more attention to him.”
No, Shouta thinks, you hover over him and he’d do the same if he were three feet taller.
“Does that help?”
"Well… I try to pass some stuff along, you know?" He answers, talking with his hands now, which appear just as lost and confused as the expression on his face. “The drills that helped me when I was his age, breathing exercises-“ Aggressive haa-HOO-haa-HOO sounds pushed out of his mouth while Shouta watched in horror. That’s not a breathing exercise, that’s a fucking panic attack. “Sometimes it helps.”
“Not all the time though, I’m guessing,”
“No, I’m afraid I haven’t been able to crack that particular issue yet.” Suddenly All Might’s facing him again, his head snapping too fast in his direction for Shouta to escape his gaze, “If I had to guess, I’d say that’s why Midoriya-san wanted a second opinion about her son, some more ideas to get us going.”
Midoriya-san. Red rimmed eyes, stray threads like exposed nerves sticking out from her sweater, no sense. The more he remembers her the angrier he gets.
"That’s what she wanted?” He asked. “Couldn’t tell."
"Yeah, yeah, little hard to read, but she loves her son, that’s clear.” All Might was smiling. It was the worst sight in the whole goddamn world.
“I guess.”
Except he doesn’t, and anyone could’ve heard that from a mile away, so All Might tries again, “Really, she-”
“Clearly the bone breaking isn’t a real side effect,” He cuts in, trying to replace the image of Midoriya’s mother in his head with the kid himself. It’s comedically easy. “Or else he wouldn’t have been able to make the shift from his arms to his fingers.”
“Yes, exactly, it’s-!” He silences himself with a more controlled smile, “It’s not the most popular opinion among the other teachers here, but I—given how similar our quirks are—I believe there’s more to it. If he could do that then there’s no reason not to believe he could stop the bone breaking altogether. Maybe with some more training—“
Shouta shook his head, “He didn’t stop anything, he redistributed it.” He remembers this from Shuzenji’s report, the point of comparison she made with the last time the kid came to her unconscious. “The bones in his fingers weren’t just broken, not like his limbs after the exam, they were shattered. It’s not irreparable but it’s much more severe, could even lead to nerve damage if there’s ever a day Recovery Girl isn’t here.”
A day that’s coming, pawing and scratching at the door Shouta prays he can hold shut. And it’ll keep coming unless one of them figures out how to stop it, unless Midoriya-san wakes up and pulls her kid out of—
“Anyway, that’s all I wanted to know: whether or not you had any more insight. But if it’s reached a standstill then—” He shrugs, then pivots. Maybe that’s it then, drills, at least for now. "I can’t tell if it’s better or worse that Midoriya doesn’t have any internship offers.”
“Hm? Yes he does,” All Might says, breaking the trance. Shouta frowns, the space between his eyebrows wrinkling while the other man’s face stays perfectly composed.
“Since when? I didn’t get any emails.”
“No, no, you wouldn’t have, this one got lost in the mail.” He chirps. “It should be on your desk right about now.”
“In the mail?” Shouta echoes. Five years, no hero has ever mailed him anything. Then he backtracks, “You saw my mail?”
All Might’s eyes bug out, “Hm? No. What? No, the mailmen… shove things in my face sometimes,” He’s talking slowly again, “I really couldn’t tell you why.”
Oddly enough, Shouta can kind of believe it.
He studies the larger man’s red tinted face for a little longer before flicking his eyes to the door, the way it shakes ever so slightly with the muffled bangs from inside. It’s been almost twenty minutes, hasn’t it? If Majima hasn’t shown up by now he probably never will, and can always ask him later, he supposes. Lunch is probably too short of a period to have this kind of conversation in full, anyway.
Shouta looks back again, “My desk?”
All Might beams.
When he gets to the office, a rat’s sitting on his desk, crawling around his things and sniffing at papers. He might’ve chewed through his wires, Shouta wouldn’t be surprised.
“Aizawa Shouta. Otherwise known as the Erasure Hero: Eraser head,” It squeaks. “Known to colleagues as Eraser, to his students as Aizawa-sensei, and to Yamada and Kayama-sensei as-“ It cuts itself off. “I don’t think I can say that one.”
“You can’t. Get off my desk.” Shouta replies.
“Yeah,” Shinsou uncrosses his legs and twirls around, hopping off and immediately falling into his chair. Horrible, but an improvement. The kid brings his knees up and props whatever he’s reading from on top of them. “Independent hero. Formerly classified under the man-hunting sector of heroics until the commission renamed it ten years ago due to bad press. Yikes. Erases a person’s quirk by looking at them, 183 centimeters tall, deterred by loud noises.”
“That’s so impressive.” He narrows his eyes at the things scattered around his desk. Shinsou had the decency not to sit on top of anything, but at least then their position would’ve been preserved, if not slightly flattened. “Did you see a letter anywhere when you were shoving around my things to make room for yourself?”
Shinsou sighs, dropping his knees, “You’re not reacting the way I expected.”
“What’d you expect?”
“I don’t know. Confusion. Fear.” He tilts his head, pretending to look thoughtful, “The satisfaction of finally being seen.”
“I am confused,” Shouta relents, dragging Vlad’s chair up to the other side of his desk and twisting the monitor around so he can see the kid. He lifts his keyboard and peeks under it as he speaks, stealing a glimpse of the cover of that notebook while he does. “I didn’t know Midoriya let people touch that thing.”
“He doesn’t, but I couldn’t catch all his mumblings so I had to steal it.” He sniffs, “Necessary evil.”
“I’m sure he’ll understand.”
“Plan’s all gone to crap now, though.” Shinsou frowns, picking at the corner of the page, “I was gonna come in here, read a bunch of creepy facts off so you couldn’t be all elusive, and then get to my main thing.”
“What’s the main thing?”
“Were you lying about winning the sports festival?” He asks. Shouta looks up at that, still and unresponsive. “Because it’s, miraculously, not in Midoriya’s notebook, there’s no mention of you online, and you don’t really… fit the vibe.”
He’s got a million snarky comments lined up to say to that, some of them clogged up and repressed from several days prior, but this isn’t some flashy D-bag talking to him right now, it’s Shinsou. Shinsou, who doesn’t seem to talk unless it could inconvenience someone and who’s already made his beliefs about sports festivals winners fairly clear. He’s also a child, and Shouta has a good streak of not bullying minors. If he didn’t know any better he’d take it as a compliment.
He doesn’t feel very complimented being called a liar, though.
“The sports festival is nothing to lie about,” He says instead, “Barely even worth the time of day it must’ve taken you looking into it. And of course there’s no mention of me, I’m underground.”
If he could pick one word to describe handing in that legal notice to Nezu requiring all records of his victory to be erased from public access, he’d choose euphoric. Whoever was there might remember, and there may be stray photos and UA newsletter clippings lying around in some filing cabinet to prove it happened, but no one else would ever know. Unless of course they were Shinsou, but did it count if he didn’t believe him?
“What’s that mean anyway, underground?” Shinsou asked, scanning the pages again, “That’s what they changed the term man-hunting to but Midoriya never goes into it.”
That’s because Midoriya thinks everything is common knowledge, and once he realizes it isn’t he’ll go off on a ten minute tangent to explain its ins and outs. It’s endearing, it’s also remarkably entertaining to watch that simple default bring several training exercises to ruin. He’s filled with inexplicable glee imagining how a conversation between the two of them would go.
“What’s it matter?” Shouta asked, “I think you’ve already got your heart set on me being full of shit.”
“Maybe because you never answer any questions.” Shinsou says with faux sincerity. He might have a bit of a point, though.
Shouta tilts his head from side to side, fully considering his next words now that he really doesn’t know where All Might’s mythic letter is. “Answer one of mine first, why do you care about all the pro hero lingo?”
“Cause I want to be one,” Shinsou says unhesitatingly, absolutely, without a trace of that snark he’s gotten to know so well. One would think he’s nonchalant, but he’s also rigid, his slight twitching all the more obvious now that he’s intentionally trying to stop it. He’s nervous.
If he’s being honest, Shouta kind of already gathered that, he was just waiting to see how long he could go without having to bring it up. Gen ed kids advance the rankings in sports festivals all the time, but it takes a special kind of motive to get to the one on one matches, especially with parents like Endeavor wishing their kid would fry them on live television. So yeah, he knew, but it’s one thing to assume and something else entirely to hear it from the kid’s own mouth.
He’s a bit disappointed, as much as he realizes it’s not really his part to feel anything about it, but he doesn’t know why. Maybe for once he was hoping there was something else to wanting to win, something as simple as bragging rights. God, wouldn’t that be refreshing? It’s more real now, though, now that he’s said it, harder to escape from.
Nonetheless, he’s not that shaken, no one teaches here for as long as he has without someone proclaiming their dreams to them.
“Why?” He asks. Shinsou just blinked at him for a little. “What, you don’t know?”
“Shhhh!” Shinsou was all frizzed up and ultra focused. Shouta’s hands raised in surrender, fuckin hilarious. “Let me think, I don’t usually get this far.” He looked down at the desk like he could pulverize it with his eyes for a few seconds before settling on an answer. “Because nobody thinks I can.”
“Huh,” Shouta nods, “That’s a terrible reason.”
“Screw you!” Old fuck, he hears, it’s like he can read his mind. Maybe he’s been spending too much time around him. “What’s yours then? Actually answer this time!”
Shouta doesn’t even have to think about it, “Just had to. How can I have a quirk like this and do anything else?”
That might be all he’s good for, hurting people who deserve to get hurt, tussling in grimy alleys with muggers and drug lords, always in the dirt. His eyes catch on something below his pencil cup, the corner of some cream-colored paper sticking out. Quickly he swipes it out, holding it up to the lights like a 10,000 yen note.
Shinsou just stares at him, astonished, not even congratulating him, “That’s even worse than mine!”
“Maybe,” Shouta admits distractedly, turning the envelope over and getting a good look at both sides. There’s a plus ultra stamp on its right corner. “But which one of us is the pro hero?”
“You,” Shinsou says brusquely, “That’s what I don’t get. Your quirk doesn’t work on inanimate things either but you passed the exam, your motive is trash but you’re a hero, and you never answer any questions about anything but you’re a teacher?”
He’s waving the notebook around now, his rage rivaling an angry mother on a budget at the supermarket, up and down and outwards. Shouta literally has to dodge to protect the envelope, if not himself.
“This is the problem with the hero—No, the education system!” He said, voice raised but still more respectful than a yell. Considerate, he guesses. “Everyone says passing is about your quirk but you say there’s more to it, you say there’s more to it but you never actually say what that is, they say if you win you’ll join the hero course but they don’t say what you guys even do, and—!”
Shouta yanks the notebook from his hands, holding it so far out and above his reach that Shinsou recognizes the losing fight almost immediately, giving up on getting it back after just a couple seconds of pathetic stretching. Only then does Shouta speak up.
“Then join,” He says.
Shinsou stills again, “What?”
“Pull the sick card during gym and sit in on a training session tomorrow,” He settles the notebook down on his lap and goes back to peeling open the envelope. “Pester the kids and get whatever answers you need out of them, since apparently I’m so terrible. See if you learn something.”
“…Why?” Shouta shrugs in response, no real answer to give him; even he doesn’t know why.
“Why not?”
Shinsou nods dumbly, leaving it at that like this agreement rested on paper thin ice, but the way the kid’s narrowing his eyes at him makes him think he just narrowly avoided having to make a blood pact against any taksies backsies. Shouta hums, satisfied, and takes the momentary silence to slide out and unfold the letter.
The look on his face is so disgusted that Shinsou lost all reservations in his curiosity, rolling his chair around the desk until he was almost on Shouta’s side, just close enough to read the obnoxiously large, handwritten in all caps letter.
“DEAR AIZAWA-SAN,” The kid reads out from off the page. Shouta just barely refrains from flinching, viscerally glaring at him. “MY NAME IS GRAN TORINO AND I AM KINDLY REQUESTING TO BE MIDORIYA IZUKU’S INTERNSHIP MENTOR. PLEASE GET BACK TO ME AT THE ATTACHED NUMBER. THANK YOU. Wow.” Shinsou looks the letter up and down again before throwing Shouta a weird look, “Did this guy win the festival, too?”
He folded it back up, tightly pressing down on the edges, “Why are you even here? Shouldn’t you be eating with your hordes of fans?
“Nah, my fame wore off pretty quick,” He said, slouching back in his chair and pushing against the floor. Shouta’s eyes track him as he rolls around the office, he’s certainly made himself comfortable. “But it’s fine, I’m not desperate for their company either. I like the garden here, that spot between the forest and the… gigantic All Might statue.”
“Huh. Does that thing still spit water out of its mouth?”
“What?” Shinsou pauses, a psychotic smile breaking on his face, “No. What?”
Shouta shakes his head, unwilling to dredge up any more memories of it, something about not speaking ill of the dead. He passed by that thing a few times when he was a student here, simultaneously captivated by the idea that Nezu actually approved of this and deterred by the possibility of accidentally making eye contact with it. He wonders if this is how some catholics feel about towering crucifixes hung up in their church.
Still, as reluctant as he is, he thinks of Shinsou in the garden, eating lunch there behind UA while that hulking thing stares down at him, literally stuck between a rock and a hard place.
“When does this period end?” He asks. Shinsou blinks at the shift but answers nonetheless.
“1:15. Got like ten minutes left.”
“Hm.” Shouta’s already made some strange, inexplicable decisions today, hasn’t he? If not this whole week. What’s one more just to top it off?
He stands up suddenly, willing his body to move before his brain can catch up with what he’s doing, and motions for Shinsou to follow before heading out, trusting the kid actually will. And if he doesn’t, Shouta’s fine with that, too.
His feet carry him back around the corridor until he reaches the stairs, then up a flight, then up three more until he has to slow down for the world’s most unathletic teenager, and then finally he reaches the rusted door at the very top. He forgets for a second that it’s locked, twisting the knob and slamming into the door when it refuses to open.
He sighs, willing himself to remember where it was, then pauses as his eyes catch on a brick in the wall, just slightly out of place. He slides it out ever so carefully to find the key taped to the other side, the sticky residue almost entirely gone by now as it hangs off. He doesn’t know why he still bothers with all this shit; he’s a teacher, he could just get the key whenever he wants.
Still, he unlocks it, shoving the door open in time for a harsh breeze to push through. Shinsou locks up and resists the urge to shiver at his side, eyes blinking away the cold sting.
“Today’s a shit example, it’s usually much warmer than this,” Shouta says, feeling the need to explain himself. “Just don’t jump off the balcony and it’ll make for a nice spot.”
That gets another wide eyed look out of the kid, “I can come here?”
“Sure.”
“Why?” So many questions, too many questions. Shouta has half a mind to stop answering them altogether, but he guesses he put himself in this situation.
“You won’t have to see that eye sore statue as much. I won’t have to see you as much. Plus, it’s quiet,” He says, staring out at the clouds, the frigid air a faded sensation by now, “It’s not like anybody else is using it.”
“Because it’s not allowed?” Shinsou asks.
He sees Shouta toss him something and scrambles to catch it, his hands gripped tightly together around the cold feel of metal in his palms.
“Because they don’t have a key.”
People don’t use gym Beta because there’s no air conditioning and it smells a storage facility, metal with hints of cardboard. It’s still a room, though, with lights and locker rooms and 6,600 square feet of unused space. He barely even notices the lack of air during Fall, anyway.
Shouta drags his finger over one of the mats stacked in the corner and finds dust coating the pad when he pulls away. How many of these would it take to build something good? Thirty? A hundred? He lets more of his fingers rest on the faded blue mat until his whole hand is planted down, inches away from the gray strap sticking out of its side.
It’d take a hundred mats, maybe, to get the children off his back. Then finally they’d have fun, stop being bored, they’d jump around like monkeys while the other class did drills, learned, advanced. They’d only be hurting themselves, didn’t they get that?
Neon red digits caught his eye in the top left corner of the gym. 7:43 P.M. Patrol. His shift. His responsibility. He’ll be late for his responsibilities.
His hand flew up like it’d been burnt and quickly he felt around the wall behind him for the light switch, flicking it downwards and standing still as the darkness drew closer one-fifth of the room at a time. He stalked backwards and yanked the door shut, a small breeze fanning the stray strands of hair from his face as he did.
Fuck games. Fuck All Might.