Chapter Text
When Izuku was whisked into the car, new capture weapon, knives, and his current notebook in his bag, he wasn’t sure exactly where they were going. He knew it was for training but Shouta wasn’t saying anything. No hints or nudges as to where he was being taken to train.
It made him a little ruffled because he wanted to know. Hmph. So he kept up his little pouty act for a bit, all until they took one particular turn where only one series of buildings resided.
His dad was taking him to train at Yuuei.
Izuku was going to Yuuei.
To train. To be a hero. With his dad.
The near ear piercing shriek that he let out was only moderately forgivable but completely expected. All his dad did was smirk at his excitement. Izuku was vibrating in his seat, body buzzing with eagerness and elation.
As soon as they parked in the teachers’ lot, Izuku threw himself out of the car. Only barely grabbing his bag before he slammed the door.
Holy shit.
“The fact that so many of Katsuki’s habits are rubbing off on you is mildly concerning.” Shouta grumbled as he walked to his side, steering them towards the giant double doors. Izuku squeaked, he didn’t think he said that out loud. Oops.
Izuku stared for a long moment before racing ahead of his dad. This is the place he dreams of going to. Katsuki and he had been talking about going to Yuuei since they first heard of it and found out it was the school the number one hero went to. They’ve been working to get there ever since. Izuku honed his analysis and Katsuki got into learning to control his quirk and building upper body strength.
Walking the halls of Yuuei felt surreal to Izuku’s little brain. He was finding everything fascinating from the wall of achievements to the patterns in the floor tile.
After Izuku had almost wandered off while inside the giant building, his dad had taken to keeping his wrist wrapped by his capture scarf. Effectively using it as a fucking leash for Izuku, which he may have minded more if he wasn’t so preoccupied by taking in everything around him. Being kept close like that just gave him the excuse to not pay attention to where he was going, trusting his dad to not let him run straight into a wall as his eyes flickered between everything.
When they reached one of the many training gyms he was guided to a certain area and Shouta explained exactly what they were doing today.
Today, they’d start with the throwing knives, how to hold them and how to aim them, and then move on to trying the capture weapon and seeing where Izuku’s base control started.
Izuku was fine with anything. Eager to please and eager to do.
He set his bag down against the wall, setting up a little station with all his things and pulled the box out. Then carefully took the throwing knives from their place. His dad had kept them out of reach until today, not trusting Izuku to not get too in over his head and hurting himself in the process. Which was a rather wise idea.
As he walked back over to where his dad was standing he turned one of them over, a bit mesmerised by the light glinting off the steel.
He paused.
Along this other side of the blade, there was an engraving.
Aizawa Izuku was engraved into the blade.
He quickly checked the others, they all had the engraving. His mind played back to how his dad had stopped him, subtly, from checking the blades over completely when he was given them. He was presented them that morning, before the adoption officiation was revealed.
Oh. He had planned this. Okay. Alright. Okay. Whatever, it’s fine. This isn’t going to make him cry, absolutely not.
“These say my name.” Izuku said intelligently, not really knowing how else to breach the topic than by just coming straight out with it.
Shouta nodded, a proud smirk playing at his lips. “They do. They’re yours.”
They stared at each other for a moment before Izuku nodded, blinking back tears. He really needed to work on his automatic response of crying when he felt big emotions.
Once they truly started training Shouta helped to show him how to hold the knives. Giving him pointers and directions on why it was important to do it this way and why it worked better. Izuku quickly got the hang of it. The part where he had to aim and use the right momentum and angles was a bit more tricky. It took plenty of tries of him hitting his target much too low or much too high, occasionally not even reaching the target at all when he let go too late.
The first time he pitched it correctly and hit the target dead center, it made him feel euphoric. He could do this. Izuku’s excitement was contagious as he jumped around celebrating his success, Shouta smiling amusedly at him and encouraging him to try and see if he can do it again.
When he landed it about 15 times, all at least hitting somewhere along the board, they moved on to the capture weapon. Izuku noted the gleam in his dad’s eyes as he told him how to wear it and adjusted where his grip was placed on it.
It resulted in Izuku being completely tangled together and on the ground like when a kitten played with yarn and it went south. His dad was practically cackling as he watched it happen.
“Help.” Izuku said pitifully. It only made Shouta laugh more.
Thankfully, he did help him after he regained his sense of self. Izuku glared at him the whole time, which was completely justified in his opinion. When he could stand back up he tried again and again and again. Slowly but surely he gained a measly sense of control, not enough to do anything with it though. Izuku had a feeling this would take quite a while. It did give him some ideas though, about what he would like better or wanted to try.
“Hey dad?”
Shouta hummed.
“What if I like… divide it? Like instead of the one really long one I half it and have it wrapped around my arms instead of as a scarf? Would that work?” Izuku inquired.
“It would. It would probably be harder to learn control over it, though, since there would be two separate ones. But if you’re up for the challenge, I could get it modified for you.” Shouta said back, ever supportive of all Izuku’s ideas.
“I think I’d like to try it.”
For a while Izuku attempted making the capture weapon do as he desired with only a little luck, his dad called for a break soon after.
During the break he took a much needed sip of water and sat down by his bag to start writing all of his observations and ideas down. He flipped to a new page and labelled it as needed before becoming completely enveloped in his task. As he was writing he didn’t notice another person joining them, only when he was addressed did he look up from what he was doing.
It was Nedzu.
“I see you two are training! Any good progress today?” The mammal asked politely, eyeing the notebook Izuku had temporarily abandoned.
Izuku nodded enthusiastically, going off into his explanation of how he did with the throwing knives and his ideas about the capture weapon. Nedzu seemed interested in it and didn’t tell him to stop so Izuku went full force into his tangent, eventually falling into one of his mumbling storms. His dad took over talking then, letting Izuku simmer in his thoughts. After a while, the attention focused back on him.
“Izuku.”
His head snapped back up, Nedzu was closer now. An almost dangerous glint in his eyes as his ears flicked. Izuku tilted his head in lieu of acknowledgement.
“What exactly do you write in that notebook of yours?” He asked. Shouta let out something akin to a hiss in the background making Izuku somewhat confused before he answered.
“Oh! I write analyses and some of my ideas in here! I have a lot of them but this one focuses more on techniques and such so I brought it for today.” He finished with a smile. Nedzu smiled back, a hint of something dangerous in the edges of it.
“Ah, I see. Would you be willing to show me some of your analysis?”
As soon as Izuku passed the notebook over and Nedzu flipped through it, reading some entries and skimming over others, he unknowingly applied for a position that was rarely able to be filled. He let his eyes look to the side, to look over at his dad, only to see the man looking stricken at what was playing out right in front of him.
Nedzu gently closed the notebook when he was finished, holding it back out to Izuku who took it back slowly, bewildered by what was happening to make his dad look like that.
“Izuku, would you like to become my personal student?”
He barely thought about it for a second before he answered, he knew this was a once in a lifetime opportunity.
“Yes.”
His dad made a wounded noise, Nedzu cackled.
Summer break happened next, letting Izuku have over a month of break from school. Most of his time was divided between training, personal lessons with Nedzu, video games, and hanging out with Katsuki.
Somehow he managed to talk Katsuki into getting Animal Crossing so they could play together, the blond thought he would hate only to become extremely dedicated to having the absolute best island. His best friend was on a mission for a 5 star island. Izuku was simply happy with his messy three star island, no one can take away his fruit trees no matter how many times Isabelle tells him there’s too many.
His lessons with Nedzu happened twice a week on Wednesdays and Fridays. It consisted of so many things. There were tests on his prior knowledge, lessons on how to use his observational skills in a more sophisticated manner, ways to decipher and make code, at one point Nedzu brought him down to the lab to show him how to combine certain chemical compounds to make certain effects and even explosives.
It was crazy. He loved it.
Training with his dad got easier and harder as time went on. He was given a training butterfly knife to learn how to use it properly so he didn’t accidentally lose a finger when he tried the real thing. His capture scarf turned into two separate wraps that he kept around his arms. Shouta told him he was happy to make it into two, to let Izuku make something they shared into his own tool. Once his training with the weapons was at a certain level they moved on to hand to hand combat and introduced implementing the weapons into it. Developing short and long range techniques for himself.
Sometimes Katsuki would come along for training. A test of skill and teamwork as his dad called it. They would spar against one another and then turn to developing moves they could perform together. It was so freeing when they fought side by side, years of knowing one another making it second nature to work together. It was seamless and fluid. Everyone that came to watch was impressed by their work and progress so far for how young they were.
Near the end of summer break was ‘teacher’s week’ where the staff would have meetings to go over the rest of the year and any changes. Making lesson plans and suggestions to better the facilities for the students. Izuku tagged along a few times. The staff seemed to love it when he showed up with his dad, claiming he made this boring process all that easier by just being there.
Some of them even offered to help train him in different subjects. Snipe had offered to teach him to shoot, as long as Shouta was okay with it. Hizashi wanted to work on long-range attacks with him. Recovery girl wanted to teach him advanced first aid since he knew all the basics due to his... past and still somewhat current circumstances. What excited Izuku possibly the most was when Power Loader wanted to teach him how to make things and give him open access to the workshop so he could learn to build and create.
Izuku was excited and he was becoming more and more prepared for heroics. Life outside of school was going wonderfully for him.
As the school year started back up he and his dad came up with a schedule to help manage his time but still gave him enough time to chill out and be a kid. It was nice. Izuku had never felt so supported before.
It all passed by in a blur. He would train and learn and hang out with Katsuki and play with Coffee Bean and talk to his dad and sleep and he couldn’t think of a better way to spend the year.
Near the middle of second semester, around November, his dad’s 26th birthday passed.
He spent the morning and afternoon with Izuku. Izuku had made him a homemade card and had given him a special, sleek watch that he made with Power Loader’s help. It had the time, obviously, but also mods that allowed communication and a location tracker for emergencies. Izuku had a matching wrist band for himself. One of the special features of it was that if you pressed it for three seconds at a certain pressure, it would buzz on the other person’s wrist. A little reminder of ‘hey, thinking of you’ or a question of ‘hey, you’re still there right?’. Shouta loved it.
That night he didn’t have patrol and spent it out with Hizashi. Izuku had a sneaking suspicion that they were becoming more than friends, he didn’t push to know though. Not wanting to assume or force them to open up about it. They would tell him when they wanted to, if something really was transpiring between the two, and Izuku knew that.
The school year slowly began to close. Preparations for middle school and choosing where to go. Izuku followed Katsuki into going to Aldera Junior High, going through all the paperwork to stay in the district and move forward.
Exams and placement tests happened. Final grade cards and parent-teacher conferences came up.
Izuku’s parent-teacher conference was awkward and horribly stilted. Shouta had pressed them about how Izuku’s grades didn’t make sense for the work he was doing. Shouta checks it over almost every time, he knows his kid is smart and the grades he’s coming home with don’t make sense. His teacher, of course, denied it all. Claiming Izuku must make last minute adjustments to his work that aren’t correct which change the grade to something lower.
It was embarrassing and frustrating and Izuku simply sat by his dad’s side, silent. Not interrupting or correcting anything the teacher said because he knew there was no point.
Shouta’s final words to her were spiteful and mean but Izuku felt the same. He shared the sentiment deeply. The scornful words of I’m so glad he’s never coming back to this god awful school after this.
Izuku felt that deep in his bones. He would finally be free from Aldera Primary School, moving forward to Aldera Junior High where he hoped and prayed that it would be better. That once all the new students gathered together something would change. Maybe he would make new friends finally. Maybe since they were all older they would finally stop holding his quirk status over his head.
He could only hope.