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Chapter Text

The day had been relatively quiet so far, which probably should have been Aizawa’s first indication that shit was about to hit the fan.

A normal day in Class 1-A just didn’t happen, and he had come to (begrudgingly) accept that fact - a typical disturbance could lie anywhere between Kaminari short-circuiting himself, Ashido dozing off during class and accidentally melting her desk when her quirk activated during a dream, or Midoriya losing control of his quirk like he used to and having to be sent to Recovery Girl, spilling tears and blood and apologies the entire way. So, to be fair to Aizawa, even if he had realized shit was about to hit the fan, he probably would have figured it to be nothing atypical (not that he could have prevented it, anyway).

He was so, so wrong, he later realized as the school phone in his class rang, interrupting him in the middle of a lecture on the legal repercussions for vigilantes under quirk laws. Shooting the device an irritated glare, he continued his lesson, some of his more engaged students having to lean in to hear him over the shrill ringing that eventually ceased after about a minute. Aizawa’s shoulders lost a little bit of tension as the irritation ceased, only for him to stop speaking completely as his cell phone rang from his sleeping bag stuffed behind the teaching podium - because what the fuck, his cell phone was off. 

A few of his students giggled softly as he made his way towards the offending device, fully intending on shutting it off. A whisper somewhere along the lines of ‘no phones during class’ came from somewhere in the room, the rule he’d given his students early on in the year coming back to mock him as Aizawa made a mental note to work Kaminari extra hard in training tomorrow to make up for the comment (no one ever said he wasn't petty). He reached into his sleeping bag, fishing for his phone, but as soon as his hand made contact with the smooth plastic his classroom door flew open. 

Aizawa looked around the podium at the door with a scowl at whoever had intruded without knocking first, and found himself unsurprised at the ridiculous blonde hairdo that immediately caught his gaze.

“What is it, Mic?” Aizawa asked bluntly, irritation lacing his voice as he brought his phone out of his sleeping bag and went to turn it off -

“WAIT!!” Present Mic shrieked, causing 1-A to flinch and Aizawa to use his own quirk in response to bring the man to a more reasonable volume as he continued. “Don’t turn that off, Shota! It’s Nedzu, he says it’s important and you weren’t picking up the class phone.”

Aizawa’s glare turned to the offending device in his hand, and at least now he wasn’t surprised that his phone had somehow turned itself on.

“Do whatever you want for a minute,” he told his class as they perked up at the prospect of a small break, “just don’t be too loud and don’t break anything.” Aizawa hit accept call on his phone as Bakugou got out of his seat, making eye contact with his teacher and muttering ‘bathroom’ under his breath. Aizawa nodded to the boy as he left, Mic still lingering in the doorway to talk to Aoyama and Ashido who’d both caught his attention. Nedzu’s voice suddenly came from the other end of the line, not even waiting for Aizawa’s greeting before he began talking.

“Shota,” he began, and Aizawa tensed a little at the underlying tone of urgency mostly masked by the principal’s typical carefree tendency. “Midoriya Hisashi is on his way to your classroom right now.” 

Aizawa tried not to let his face show the shock he felt at those words. “Is that-?” 

“Midoriya Izuku’s father?” Nedzu finished his question. “Why, yes, in fact he is. He managed to argue his way past the front desk, and they just called me with the light warning that his disposition is rather-“

“Unpleasant?” Aizawa interjected.

“Like the personality of a snake,” Nedzu responded with uncanny cheer. “He should be at your class shortly. I’ll be watching the cameras in case you require security.” With that Nedzu hung up, and Aizawa turned to his class to see them watching him warily. Either he wasn’t schooling his expression enough, or his class really just knew him too well by this point in the year.

“Everything all right, Shota?” Mic asked with a hint of worry in his voice, Ashido and Aoyama turning to look at their homeroom teacher with similarly wary expressions.

“Midoriya,” Aizawa addressed his student instead of responding to Mic’s question. He didn’t know how much time they had before Hisashi barged in, and from what Shota had heard of Midoriya’s father - or rather, the lack thereof - coupled with Nedzu’s warning, he wasn’t prepared to assume the elder Midoriya’s appearance would end well.

The class all glanced at Izuku, who’d gone still and looked nervously at Aizawa as he continued, unsure of what to say and so being blunt by default. “Your father is here.”

Izuku’s mouth dropped open in shock, and small noises of disbelief made their way from Iida and Uraraka, with Todoroki’s expression darkening.

“My- my father?” Izuku inquired haltingly, and if not for the circumstances Aizawa might have inwardly groaned at the boy’s relapse in stuttering. “What….” The boy trailed off, and Aizawa wished he had an answer for any of the questions that were no doubt springing to the tip of his tongue.

“In the middle of class?” Yaoyorozu frowned. “That seems rather rude… oh, I hope there’s no emergency!” She exclaimed, her face expressing her worry as Midoriya’s had slowly drained of color since Aizawa had made his announcement.

“Indeed,” Iida replied in a voice that sounded somewhat strangled, as if he felt the need to second the sentiment to be polite but didn’t quite believe it were the case. Aizawa’s questioning gaze fell upon him, and right as Iida started to squirm the man heard a small 'oh' come from Mic as he moved out of the doorway to make room for a man he hadn’t seen before.

“Sorry! Hope I’m not interrupting anything too important,” the man said with a wink towards Aizawa, though something in the other man’s voice made the pro hero doubt that he was really sorry at all. “My name’s Midoriya Hisashi - I’m Izuku’s father,” he introduced himself and shot another wink at Izuku across the room where he sat, and something about the way Izuku seemed to shrink down in his seat immediately made Aizawa wary.

The man was slightly taller than average, with curly black hair and freckles dotting his cheeks and a smirk glued to his face. He was dressed in a cheap suit with a pack of cigarettes hanging out of his back pocket, and his yellow eyes bore straight into Aizawa’s own. Standing in the doorway of class 1-A, Midoriya Hisashi gave off an unsettling, almost sleazy aura. The man had only winked twice while he was there, and yet Aizawa’s stomach recoiled with the feeling of something innately wrong when he did.

Being an underground hero and a teacher, Aizawa had to be a pretty good judge of character right off the bat - and everything he’d learned in both his careers was warning him to tread cautiously with Midoriya Hisashi; that he wasn’t to be trusted.

“I see,” Aizawa said slowly, seeing Iida and Uraraka slowly moving towards where Izuku still sat in his peripheral vision, the both of them having gotten up to stretch their legs while he was on the phone with Nedzu. Todoroki was leaning towards Izuku so hard that the pro was surprised he hadn’t fallen out of his seat yet, and was likely to follow the other two in their migration towards their very clearly uncomfortable friend. “Unfortunately,” Aizawa continued almost lazily, though both Mic and some of 1-A undoubtedly picked up on the caution underlying in his tone, “we’re in the middle of a lesson right now. If you wish to visit your son -”

“Ah, I’m not here for a visit!” Hisashi grinned, interrupting the other man with no hesitation. He took his hands out of his pants pockets and placed them on his hips in a power stance as he clarified, “I’m here to pick Izuku up - I decided the boy could use an early day out, with how hard he’s been working and all.”

Aizawa frowned at the man across from him and tried not to squint as he responded. “As that may be, students are only excused from class if their parent has signed a form at least two weeks in advance of the absence, or if a family emergency has occured. Seeing as I haven’t received any form, is there an emergency?” Aizawa inquired, slightly irritated when Hisashi shook his head but kept the arrogant smirk on his face.

“No, luckily - I just thought-” He started, only to be interrupted by Aizawa.

“I’m afraid you didn’t,” Aizawa responded coolly, taking slight satisfaction in the irritated twitch of Hisashi’s eyes and the slight drop of the corners of his smirk, and decidedly ignoring the collective 'oooooooh' from most of his class. “If there’s no emergency, Midoriya has an obligation to be in class.” At those words, Izuku relaxed a bit, Uraraka, Iida, and Todoroki all standing near his desk at this point. 

“Ah, come on, Mister…?” Hisashi cocked his head in a question, and at Aizawa’s rough grumble of his name, the other man continued. “Mister Aizawa, can’t Izuku just take a day off with his old man? It’s been a while since we’ve gotten to spend some time together,” he finished, and Aizawa heard what sounded suspiciously like ‘understatement of the decade’ come from the corner Izuku sat in.

“If you wish to spend quality time with your son,” Aizawa retorted, a bitter taste in his mouth at the word ‘son’, as if it just wasn’t right - “I’d recommend you do it during one of his days off. The standards of this school are stricter than others, and in gaining admittance here -” 

“Still don’t know how Izuku managed that,” Hisashi joked, clearly trying to get Aizawa to loosen up but achieving the opposite effect as a few members of the class gave small gasps of indignation under their breaths, and all the instances where the boy in question had pushed himself to the absolute limit to improve himself flashed through the teacher’s mind, steeling his resolve. Hisashi must’ve seen that he said the wrong thing, and turned towards Izuku. “Come on, Izuku, I’ll sign you out at the front,” he beckoned as the boy in question immediately stood up as if it were ingrained in him to obey his father’s order, feet slowly moving him towards the older man even as his expression screamed that his feet weren’t listening to his brain, Iida and Uraraka giving small noises of disbelief at their friend’s movements as Todoroki’s face darkened further. “Inko’s making katsudon for lunch - your favorite!”

Aizawa watched as Izuku’s expression darkened and he stopped walking, the trio behind him immediately resuming their place by his side protectively as a scowl crossed the boy’s face. “Mum’s on another twelve-hour shift until nine tonight, covering for one of her friends.” Hisashi momentarily faltered as he tried to fix his mistake, but Izuku continued: “And katsudon hasn’t been my favorite since I was four.”

The implication hung in the air as the rest of the class stiffened and turned towards Hisashi with clear distaste in their faces, 'Not that you'd know - it hasn’t been my favorite since you left' ringing loud despite not being spoken.

Aizawa turned to the boy’s father, who’d now lost his smirk and wore an expression of mild annoyance, as if all this proved no more than a minor inconvenience. “You cannot take him from class unless it’s a family emergency approved by the principal,” Aizawa informed him for what was hopefully the last time.

Hisashi quirked an eyebrow. “So now the principal has to approve?”

“Again, standard procedure. Parents were briefed on this at the PTA meeting after their children were admitted to U.A. Also,” Aizawa continued before Hisashi could interrupt as he looked like he was about to, “I hold the authority to run any questionable decisions or… persons... by the principal for security reasons.”

An insulted expression crossed Hisashi’s face, and he crossed his arms as he shifted his weight. “Excuse me, Mister Aizawa, but I don’t think you should be talking about security implications, here.”

The entire class froze, and their homeroom teacher’s blood ran cold with anger as he prayed for the other man’s sake that Hisashi wasn’t implying what Aizawa suspected he was implying. “Pardon?” He responded coolly, to which the other man smirked before responding.

“Oh, I don’t know…. The USJ?” Hisashi replied almost lazily, a predatory grin beginning to cross his features as he believed himself to gain the upper hand when Aizawa had to work to calm his breathing from his ire. “Or how about the training camp, hm? I can cite several instance where security - in my son’s safety, specifically - have fallen painfully short of the standards I’d expect to see from an institution this highly accredited-”

“What the fuck.”

The class startled as Bakugou stood in the doorway, the boy simply staring at Midoriya Hisashi with a blank look on his face, which - okay, knowing Bakugou, that was far more concerning than his usual scowl.

Hisashi’s face brightened a bit at Bakugou’s appearance, and he straightened up a bit as he held a hand out to the younger boy for him to shake. “Ah, young Bakugou! It’s good to see you-”

“What the fuck.”

“Bakugou,” Aizawa warned lowly, before the boy turned to Izuku with something blazing in his eyes that Aizawa hadn’t seen before.

“Deku, what the fuck?”

Izuku looked helpless at Bakugou’s demand, though not in the usual timid way he usually responded to the other boy’s violence. This was far less familiar, and something far more young. And Bakugou…Bakugou had a look in his eyes that almost matched Iida’s, Uraraka’s, and Todoroki’s.

“I see you’ve kept quite a mouth on you, son,” Hisashi barrelled on, abandoning the attempt at a handshake and going in for a hug that Bakugou instantly and violently recoiled from, shooting the man such a disgusted look that Aizawa was ready to use his capture weapon on either one of them should the situation escalate.

“What the actual fuck, don’t touch me, and don’t fucking call me ‘son’, you slimy piece of shit," he spat at Hisashi, whose face darkened. Aizawa tried to interrupt with another warning or a strict order for the boy to go back to his seat but found himself speechless as the boy continued with as much conviction as his teacher had ever seen from him. “That word shouldn’t even come out of your mouth, you bastard.”

“Come, now, Bakugou-” Hisashi said lowly, but it seemed the other boy wasn’t done.

“No, you lost all rights to that when you fucking left ten years ago.” Another few gasps from the class, though these were closer to outrage than any of the previous, and a few students moved to comfort Izuku as he burst into tears at those words.

He’s always been a crybaby, Aizawa thought, but I doubt even Toshinori would fault him for this.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about-” Hisashi started, but was once again cut off by the boy in front of him, whose fists were now clenched and sparking in an admirable attempt at controlling his quirk.  

“No, don’t give me that bullshit, you fucking dick. You don’t know what you're talking about,” Bakugou shot back, shoving a pointed finger into Hisashi’s chest with enough force that he stumbled back a step and had Aizawa activating his quirk on the boy, wondering if Nedzu was going to send that damn security so he wouldn’t have to resort to physical force on his student’s father in front of him. “You have no idea what happened after you left, so you don’t get to fucking tell me that I don’t know what I’m talking about,” Bakugou raged. “You have no idea how long and hard Auntie Inko cried, no idea what it was like listening as she asked my mom what she’d done wrong, no fucking idea what it was like watching Izuku’s face when we heard Auntie Inko insist it had to be something she did, because there’s no way the person who was supposed to love her most in the world would actually leave just because their son was diagnosed Quirkless.”

Izuku’s breath hitched in another, more violent sob at that, and his legs gave out as his friends caught him and ushered him into Kirishima’s chair while the boy covered his face in an attempt to subdue the violent gasps now wracking his body.

“I’m going to have to ask you to leave, sir-” Aizawa tried to interject, willing the other man to just go so he could take care of his students, but he was unsurprisingly ignored in favor of Hisashi responding to Bakugou, who was halfway to where Izuku sat, stalking towards the boy without questionable intent for the first time since the two had entered Aizawa’s classroom.

“You're one to talk about treating Izuku differently because he was Quirkless,” Hisashi retorted in a low voice, and Bakugou froze with his back to the man. Aizawa was ready to restrain his student from throwing a punch when Izuku spoke for the first time in what felt like eons.

“K-K-Kacchan’s cha-a-nged,” the freckled boy managed to get out in gasps, tears still streaking down his face but the expression on it schooled into one of determination. Hisashi gaped at his son as he continued. “H-He’s changed-d, he’s b-b-beco-ome a better pers-son,” he got out through hitched breaths. “He’s-s work-king on being-g better, a-and he’s still-ll a kid, and I-I’d trust-t him with my li-ife far easier th-than I’d walk out-t th-that doo-or with y-you,” Izuku spat conclusively, and Aizawa didn’t have to be able to see Bakugou’s face to imagine the range of emotions probably flashing across it against his will right now - though all of that could be unpacked later.  

“What’s to say I'm not a better person, huh, Izuku?” Hisashi asked, moving to step towards Izuku but stopping as Aizawa blocked his path and the small herd of students around his son tensed in preparation for battle. Cocky though he might be, the man obviously realized that he stood no chance against a pro hero, much less eighteen of them, albeit eighteen in training.

“You’re not,” came a cold voice that Aizawa recognized as Todoroki’s, the room temperature dropping just a degree or two as the boy wrestled against the anger evident in his voice for control of his quirk.

“And who are you?” Hisashi asked in annoyance before his eyes widened in realization. “Wait, aren’t you Endeavor’s son-”

“He’s not Endeavor’s son any more than I’m yours”, Izuku spat viciously for probably the first time in his life, and Bakugou muttered something about 1-A being the class of ‘shitty fathers’ under his breath.

And man, if Bakugou saw enough of Hisashi before the man abandoned Izuku to compare him to Endeavor's parenting, Aizawa wanted him out of this classroom yesterday.

“Izuku, my boy,” - and damn if that didn't sound wrong, the absent father from his childhood using the same moniker as the father he’d found in Toshinori - “You’re my offspring, just as that boy next to you is Endeavor’s - I watched the Sports Festival, you know, though you obviously don’t know enough about biology-”

“You obviously don’t know enough about family!” Ashido cried in indignation, though a warning look from Aizawa quieted her down (not to say he didn’t agree with her, but still - it was rather counterproductive in trying to de-escalate the situation).

“Young lady-” Hisashi tried, only to be interrupted again, this time by Yaoyorozu, surprisingly enough.

“No, she’s right - family is who you choose to share your life with, not just who you have the misfortune of being born to,” Yaoyorozu said firmly. 

“Every person in this room is my family except you,” Izuku said quietly to his father, who frowned at the boy. And, okay, maybe Aizawa’s heart warmed a little at the realization that that included him, and Midoriya was always specific when he said something, but - now wasn’t the time for that, Hisashi looking at him almost mockingly. 

“Do you always let your students speak so freely and outlandishly?” Hisashi asked condescendingly, and Aizawa just narrowed his eyes at the other man.

“Only when they’re right,” came his smooth response, and he might have been enjoying the look of outrage on the other man’s face, but he still caught the collective intake of breath from the whole class and the quiet 'holy shit, dude' that likely came from Kirishima.

Hisashi’s face clouded over at that, though his anger was still visible. “Izuku is my son,” he stated lowly, “that boy with the quirk powerful enough to become a top hero belongs to me.”

Suddenly, everything cleared, and Aizawa bared his teeth openly at Hisashi as everything was revealed in a new light. Some of the other students must have gotten it too, judging by the soft, disgusted 'oh's of realization that came from behind him, and the growl that probably came from Bakugou.

“So now that he has a quirk that you can profit off of, you decide he’s worth your time,” Aizawa accuses, disgust clear in his voice as the other man’s expression becomes even more openly hostile as he growls out his response.

“That kid that I watched almost win against Endeavor’s son in the Sports Festival - the one you failed to adequately protect in the USJ attack, if I’m not mistaken -” Aizawa tensed at Hisashi’s words as the man continued, “- that kid is mine, not yours.”

“Wrong,” Shouta responded simply, continuing before the aghast man in front of him could spew out any more bullshit. “Look at ‘your’ kid right now,” Aizawa said, pointedly looking back towards where Izuku was trembling, surrounded by half the class and counting, all their faces displaying worry for Izuku, contempt for Hisashi, or some mixture of the two. “Look at that kid right now,” Aizawa spat at Hisashi, “And tell me he’s still yours.”

Hisashi sputtered for a minute before schooling his face into something unreadable. “I could sue,” he said quietly. “For negligence regarding my son’s safety. I’ll sue.”

“No, you won’t,” Aizawa responded evenly and with complete confidence, crossing his arms and not moving from his position between this man and his students. Hisashi’s rage had made him momentarily mute, which Aizawa - usually not a fan of talking - used to his advantage to continue. “You say that Izuku is yours, but one of us has continually risked life and limb for his safety, and it’s not you.”

“So he’s yours?” Hisashi asked incredulously.

“If anything,” came a deep voice from a tall figure that suddenly appeared to loom behind the man, “Izuku is mine.”

Aizawa fought the urge to facepalm as Hisashi turned to face Toshinori’s emaciated frame, Izuku’s mortified (in a good way, if Aizawa knew him) whispers of 'Oh my god this is so not the time is this really happening oh my god’ almost covering up Todoroki’s mutter of 'I knew it', and - right, Todoroki was convinced that Izuku was All Might’s secret love child or something. That was a thing.

“Pardon?” Hisashi asked, astonished, at a loss for words.

“I believe you heard me,” Toshinori responded coldly, the fire in his electric blue eyes doing nothing to warm the chill in his tone. Behind him Aizawa saw Mic appear, panting slightly but giving his friend a thumbs-up, and Aizawa silently thanked him - or Nedzu for telling Mic to bring backup, but whatever.

“Also,” Tsuyu piped up, bringing Aizawa’s attention back to his students, and he got the distinct feeling she was about to probably say something better left unsaid, “I’ve seen All Might’s contact info in Izuku’s phone.” Izuku frantically waved his arms at Tsuyu to stop talking, though she either didn’t notice or did a great job pretending she didn’t. “It’s ‘Dad Might’.”

"Oh my god," Izuku groaned as he buried his face in his hands and Aizawa at least thanked small mercies that the boy’s face was blotchy from embarrassment now instead of tears, even if he was still sniffling.

“That might be me,” Hisashi defended, and honestly, why was he even still trying? If Izuku inherited any personality trait from this man, it was likely his stubbornness - even if Inko was a force to be reckoned with, this was something else entirely.

“No,” Bakugou cut in with a satisfied smirk on his face, “yours is ‘Deadbeat Asshole’.”

Hisashi gaped in indignation while Izuku sputtered in confusion as he checked his phone and confirmed what was just said.

“I changed it when you weren’t looking,” Todoroki said with a smug smile, accepting Sero’s offered high-five.

Hisashi was silent for a moment, and Aizawa hoped the man had finally run out of things to say and might leave, though he was proven wrong when the man turned to Toshinori, looked him up and down, and said threateningly, “Your quirk is long gone, All Might. How much of a fight over my son could you really put up?”

“Did you really just threaten the most beloved pro hero of all time, in a school full of heroes? Literally every student in this room, and then me, would kick your ass before you could even try,” Aizawa deadpanned.

“I could literally punt you into the sun,” Uraraka provided helpfully, smiling with all her teeth and not bothering to mask the fire in her eyes at the prospect.

“Yes, thank you, Uraraka-” Aizawa responded in a lightly scolding tone before being interrupted.

“I could burn you alive, kill you from hypothermia, or suffocate you in a block of ice,” Todoroki added dully.

“I could blow out your eardrums permanently,” Jirou put in, and then the entire class was voicing their (honestly, somewhat creative) ideas on how they’d kill Midoriya Hisashi, both with and without quirks. 

“I've always wondered if I could electrocute someone to death.”

“I could tape your airways shut, or suspend you from a high place and then cut your line.”

“My acid could melt every one of your limbs, though your face would be my first shot - it'd leave you awfully disfigured, if nothing else.”

“Pretty sure my tail is strong enough to break your neck, to say nothing of my black belt in karate.”

"I just learned how to angle a blow to shove someone's nose into their brain, and I kinda wanna try it out."

“I’ve wanted to blow up your fucking face for years.”

“My navel laser would cut right through you, non?”

“Dark Shadow would love to have a plaything at night.”

“G-guys!” Iida scolded, though his delay in reprimanding them meant he was probably enjoying their speculation a little more than he let on.

“The best part is,” Uraraka piped back up sweetly, “we’d know how to make it look like an accident.”

“If they even found the body,” Ashido muttered, and okay, Aizawa didn’t like Hisashi either but this was getting a little out of hand. 

(Though some voice in the back of Aizawa’s head notes that this would make a good lesson, somehow. The killing agents of quirks part, not the hiding bodies part. They were already creative enough for that, though they’d never need it if he had his way.)

(Another voice in the back of Aizawa’s head realized that Izuku was nearly laughing - he looked slightly horrified, but he was still on the verge of laughter - and that voice popped up and suggested his students knew exactly what would cheer their classmate up, he resolved for their scolding to be a little less severe than he had initially planned.)

“Your students are psychopaths,” Hisashi muttered in horror, and Aizawa just shrugged.

“They’re teenagers, they love to rebel. What can I say,” Aizawa said lazily, putting his hands up as if he had no control over the situation, though he would definitely be scolding them later for going overboard, even if it had been pretty funny - not that the pro hero would ever admit that.   

A last glimmer of hope surfaced in Hisashi’s eyes, and Aizawa internally groaned, just wanting the encounter to be over.

“If UA can neither protect my son nor provide him with a stable educational environment,” Hizashi threatened lazily, “I should probably withdraw him from the school.”

And at that, both Izuku and Aizawa actually tensed, because while the teacher could keep the man from taking his son out of class during school hours, he still had the parental right to withdraw Izuku from the school, and -

“No, you can’t do that either,” Toshinori responded equally lazily, and Hisashi, Izuku and Aizawa all looked at him sharply when he offered no further clarification.

“And why not?” Hisashi finally asked. “I’m well aware of UA’s withdrawal policies, and any parent or guardian has the right to withdraw their child from this school.”

“True,” Toshinori responded, “But students with married parents need the signatures of both those parents to withdraw them. Since you decided to leave Inko without a way to request alimony or child support since you didn’t officially divorce her before you left, she’d have to sign too, and having met her, I know she’d never do that.”

“She could be convinced,” Hisashi said confidently, and there was so much wrong with that, but then realization crossed his face and he asked hesitantly, “...'officially'?" 

At this, Toshinori beamed and stood up straighter, smirking smugly and going in for the kill. “I have a few friends in high places from my years as the top hero in the country, Hisashi. The thing is, if a spouse hasn’t been in contact with their partner for a certain amount of time, that spouse is able to apply for a divorce without the consent of their absent partner.” Toshinori smiled at a slightly tearful Izuku as he continued. “So Inko filed for divorce, I helped her speed up the paperwork, and - well, you know that there’s no joint custody of children here in Japan in the event that their parents divorce, and seeing as you couldn’t be reached…” The gaunt man trailed off, leaving Hisashi to piece together the rest.

When the other man realized what was implied, he erupted. “No! Izuku is my son, you can’t just -”

“I have the legal documents right here,” Toshinori said calmly as he brought a manilla folder out from under his arm - and that’s probably what took him so long to get here, Aizawa mused, if he had to grab the folder from his desk - before handing it to Hisashi. “You’re welcome to parse through them, per Inko.”

Hisashi took the folder numbly, starting to accept his loss as the sound of flipping pages filled the otherwise silent room. After a few seconds, he looked up dully. “Shouldn’t you be teaching?” He asked lamely, and Toshinori just grinned. 

“It’s our free period,” he said, gesturing to himself and Present Mic, and at that Hisashi was completely defeated.

“I’d like to ask you, for the final time, to leave before you make me escort you out physically,” Aizawa said in a low tone, and Hisashi nodded numbly, trying to make eye contact with Izuku before he left, to no avail. He turned and started towards the door, Aizawa accompanying him as Toshinori went to check on Izuku. As Hisashi left the room, Aizawa called after him, and the man turned around.

“What is it?” He asked tiredly, and Aizawa looked him straight in the eye as he responded quietly.

“Cutting Izuku out was the worst mistake you could have made in your life. He’s intelligent and his heart's in the right place, and I’ll be damned if he doesn’t become the next top hero. And I hope that when that happens you see it, because I hope you spend the rest of your life regretting what you did to that boy. I know this won’t bother him anymore, but it’ll never stop bothering you.” Hisashi stared blankly at Aizawa, and finding that the other man had no retort, Aizawa finished. “If you ever step foot on this campus, near Inko, or near any of my students again, I will know, and I will find you. And you know what my students got right?” Aizawa put on his most unsettling grin, and was satisfied at the shiver he saw run through the man in front of him.

 “They’d never find your body.”

Aizawa returned to a room in quiet chaos, every one of his students fussing worriedly in their own way over Izuku - even Bakugou, though his method was more standing to the side and keeping an eye on the boy, though considering his gaze wasn’t full of distaste, Aizawa still counted it as a win.

Toshinori sat on the floor in front of his son, apparently student, wiping away some of the boy’s tears and handing him a tissue silently. Izuku smiled in gratitude before wiping his face, looking up at Aizawa with a silent question as his homeroom teacher re-entered the room.

“He’s gone,” Aizawa assured him quietly, and most of the class turned to look at him in eerie silence that lasted a few moments. Right when he was beginning to get unsettled by his kids, a whisper came from thin air (or Hagakure, more likely).

“Guys, Aizawa-sensei is our fucking dad, holy shit.”

And then the class erupted, and if nothing else, Aizawa can pinpoint that as a moment that shit hit the fan.

(He didn’t smile, and the testimonials of nineteen scheming kids plus one senile retired pro hero are, of course, to be ignored.)

Chapter Text

Dinner that night was a bit of a subdued affair.

Most of the time, Aizawa subtly encouraged the kids to have dinner together. Part of it was strategic - if these kids were going to be working together to become the best heroes they could be over the next three years (and, hopefully, beyond), it would benefit all of them to get to know each other well.

Another part of his reasoning - not that Aizawa would readily admit it - was that he knew . He knew the kids had been taken away from living with their parents years earlier than anticipated, and he knew it weighed on them more than they’d likely admit.

So maybe Yaoyorozu acted as an almost interim mother with her gentle care and occasional scoldings. Maybe Aizawa joined most of their class meals under the guise of controlling imminent chaos, but ended up teaching Izuku how to properly tie a tie (since he obviously didn’t know how) while the kids set the table and snickered at Izuku’s blush. Maybe Ochako and Hagakure asking Tsuyu to braid their hair while they sat at her feet in front of the couch reminded Asui of her younger siblings. Maybe Satou loved teaching his classmates what he’d learned in the kitchen, and maybe Iida’s strict requirements on balanced meals were a bit like an old man would request.

Maybe 1-A was just moving from old families to a new one, but if you asked Shota, he had nothing to do with it.

But tonight, as the class set and gathered around the dining table, a few students going to serve themselves first from the steaming pots and pans holding dinner… Tonight, Aizawa looked Izuku’s face, a gentle smile spreading across his otherwise weary features. Tonight, he remembered how Izuku had said earlier that day that everyone in that classroom was his family.

And tonight, Shota might’ve admitted his plan if someone asked him, because he was feeling soft, and it seemed his plan hadn’t excluded himself when it aimed to strengthen the relationships of everyone in the dorms.

Last year he had expelled every one of his homeroom students, and right now, he was passing the salt to Hagakure, awkwardly holding out his hand and waiting for her to take it as her short-sleeved shirt didn’t let him see where her arms (much less hands) were.

How irritating , Shota thought, but the corner of his lips quirked up just a bit when no one was looking as Hagakure took the salt.

Living with each other meant that they learned mundane things about their friends, things like favorite foods. So when Satou and Bakugou announced that dinner was ready, no one was surprised that it was tonkatsu, because it was Izuku’s favorite.

Maybe the boy was blushing a bit as he served himself, but the slight upturn at the corners of his mouth were proof that the effort hadn’t gone to waste.

Dinner was quieter than normal, though not uncomfortable, surprisingly. Izuku offered to help with the dishes, but Ashido, Shoji and Iida denied his offer. He looked ready to argue until Uraraka swiftly jumped in with the suggestion of a movie night, and the next moment High School Musical had been queued up. Izuku’s hands covered his red face, and everyone settling down in the living room sniggered because he’d let it slip once on accident that it was his favorite, and they’d never let it go.

(Good-naturedly, of course, because when it came down to it almost everyone knew the words to every song, even if a few pretended they didn’t.)

The dishes were halfway done by the time they got the movie queued up, enough popcorn to feed a small army, and so many blankets and pillows that most of the students had to have brought them from their own rooms. Bakugou had, unsurprisingly, stalked off when the movie title was announced (“Oh, fuck no, I’m not watching that pansy-ass shit,” he’d scoffed, ignoring Kirishima’s insistence that the way Troy was open about his dual interests was ‘so manly’ and instead going to his room to work on an essay due the next week). Other than him, though, everyone was still downstairs and getting ready to watch the movie - Tokoyami had tried escaping but Shoji had pulled him back down with a stern glance, and they’d at some point invited Shinsou over from his own dorm building to join them.

So when Aizawa brought out his briefcase from his room and settled down at the dining room table to start grading papers and his students cried out indignantly, he glanced up wearily.

They had the first scene paused, the karaoke scene hardly yet begun, and almost all of his students were looking back at him with offended looks on their faces. Midoriya looked just as confused as Iida, Kouda was giving him a sad look, Asui one of disappointment (that was…. strangely effective), and he couldn’t tell what expression Hagakure was making, but the rest of the kids gathered around the television all looked at him expectantly, not saying a word.

After a few moments of expectant silence, he asked dully, “Yes?”

His only response were fourteen pairs of eyebrows raised in expectant unison, a few heads jerking from him to the television, and Izuku and Iida both mumbling questions to their neighbors as to what was happening. He could’ve sworn the sparkles surrounding Aoyama grew.

He held out for a few more moments before conceding defeat, rolling his eyes and capping his red pen as he got up out of the chair. Kaminari and Sero whooped while Uraraka gave Kirishima a grin and a high five. “You’re all little terrors,” he accused halfheartedly as he took his coffee mug and a bowl of MNMs from the counter and made his way towards the sofa, looking at the kids sitting on it with a deadpan glare.

“If you’re going to make me watch this garbage, I refuse to sit on the floor,” he stated dully, somewhat amused as Iida and Izuku insisted he didn’t have to join as they realized what their classmates had done and ignoring Kirishima and Sero’s insistences that it was not garbage, and how dare you.

In a moment a spot on the couch had been cleared for him right in the middle (oh, joy ), and he settled down, draining his coffee mug and placing it on the corner table as the kids around him got comfortable once more.

They’d moved the center table to the other side of the room, leaving enough space in front of the TV for the rest of the class not seated on one of the couches to spread themselves out, and a bean bag had materialized in between the two couches, probably brought down from someone’s bedroom. On one couch sat Kouda, Kaminari, and Sero, with Satou and Ojirou at their feet. The larger couch had Ochako at one end, with Mina next, then Aizawa in the middle, next to Midoriya and Iida, the latter of whom took up the other edge of the couch. In front of Ochako sat Tsuyu and Hagakure, with Jirou and Yaoyorozu taking up their seats in front of Aizawa and Mina’s legs. Ojiro and Tokoyami were sitting in front of Aoyama, who’d claimed the bean bag (it must be his, Aizawa mused, since it was sequined). Kirishima sat in between Satou and Shouji, reclining on a veritable mountain of pillows, while Todoroki sat in front of Izuku and Shinsou rested in between Iida's feet and the bean bag Aoyama was perched on.

After everyone was settled and the popcorn and MNMs had started being passed around, the blankets were distributed and Mina dug out the remote control from under her seat and hit play with a small cheer.

Twenty minutes into the film, Aizawa was horrified to realize just how many of these songs he knew almost verbatim, per Hizashi’s drunk karaoke selections when the two went out to drink with Nemuri. At one point he’d accidentally started mouthing the words without thinking, and Todoroki, who’d twisted in his seat to grab some more popcorn from Midoriya, caught his eye. He raised a single eyebrow in either disbelief or amusement - the kid almost had a better poker face than Aizawa - and the pro hero immediately realized what he was doing and stopped. Before Todoroki could turn back to the movie, Aizawa mouthed ‘no one will ever believe you’ at him, to which the boy just shrugged nonchalantly but grinned just a little bit.

His kids were nuisances.

At every song there were at least eight people singing along, some students knowing some songs while others knew the rest. Midoriya knew them all since he had a soft spot for the film, but Aizawa was surprised to see that Jirou was familiar enough with them all to sing them as well, and Tokoyami was mouthing along to almost every lyric. Every once in a while, Mina’s enthusiastic commentary - when not shushed by Iida - was interrupted with a little yawn.

Shota was so, so glad Hizashi wasn’t there to see him right now.

About a third of the way through the movie, Shota moved to get up from the couch, causing dramatized whines from Ochako and Hagakure, both Yaoyorozu and Jirou leaning forward so their teacher could throw off the blanket that at some point had been draped over his lap (Hagakure was a likely suspect) and stand up, stretching. Mina fished the remote out from the sea of blankets and paused the film, looking up at Aizawa with narrowing eyes.

“You’re not bailing on us, are you, sensei?” She asked suspiciously, hitting the remote against her hand in a vaguely threatening manner that made Shouta roll his eyes.

“I’m sure Aizawa-sensei is very busy with the affairs of our class!” Iida scolded the pink girl, Izuku dodging some of the boy’s chopping motions with ease after having known him for a while. “If he wishes to leave, he can certainly do so!”

“Kinda lame, though, Sensei,” Jirou muttered under her breath with a small frown.

Before Iida could reprimand her, Shouta interjected. “I’ll be back in a few minutes, I just need to use the restroom. Don’t bother pausing it, I’ve seen this movie before anyway.” He carefully picked his way through the sea of students, half of their jaws having dropped at his last statement.

“You’ve seen High School Musical before, sensei?!” Kaminari crowed in glee, while Sero elbowed him in the side gently.

“Hizashi had a key to my apartment before we moved to the dorms,” Aizawa deadpanned.

Small noises of understanding came from most of the students, with Yaoyorozu looking to fight back a smile and Tsuyu making no effort to hide her own. Shouta made it to the stairs before Satou called after him.

“Why don’t you use the restroom on this floor?” He questioned, and Aizawa didn’t stop as he called back his response.

“My eye drops are upstairs. Just play the movie.”

As he made his way up the stairs, Shouta could have sworn he heard Hagakure say, “I bet he has two-ply up in his bathroom and he doesn’t want to use the sandpaper that they give us .”

Well. She wasn’t wrong.  

As Aizawa made it to his floor, he stepped out and started searching through his pockets for his access card. Once he pulled it out, he looked up and was surprised to find Katsuki frozen in front of his door, one hand raised as if he were about to knock before Aizawa had come up the stairwell, and the other grumpily tucked into his sweatpants as per usual.

A second or two passed before Aizawa moved forward, Katsuki backing away from the front door as the pro hero unlocked his room and left the door open behind him in a silent invitation for Katsuki to enter. He walked over to his nightstand and dropped some solution into each eye, feeling the cooling relief wash over them as the sound of Katsuki entering and closing the door came from behind him.

Setting the eye drops back down, Aizawa turned to find Bakugou with both his hands stuffed in his pants, his look of obvious discomfort warring with his default scowl. The man sighed before sitting down at one of the two chairs at a small table he used for grading, gesturing Bakugou to sit at the other. The boy did so hesitantly, scowl intensifying as the silence wore on.

“....Bakugou, I’m not the one who was standing in front of your room. I’m not the one with something to say, here.”

Bakugou’s face scrunched up in frustration before he crossed his arms and glared at the ground.

“....So, is he banned from campus, or is that gonna happen again?” Bakugou finally huffed out, and Aizawa leaned back in his chair and sighed.

After a second of scrubbing his face with his hands, he glanced at the other boy wearily to see that his student was now looking at him as opposed to the floor. “I can’t imagine Nedzu didn’t have him put on a blacklist at the reception desk, and I’d be surprised if he didn’t put Hisashi’s data into the security cameras’ facial recognition systems. He knows he's not welcome around UA or Inko any longer.”

“So that fu-” Bakugou stopped himself before continuing, and a small part of Aizawa appreciated that he at least tried to tone down the language when it came to his teacher. “That guy isn’t coming back, then? He can’t bother Deku anymore?”

Aizawa let the question hang in the air for a second before pointedly ignoring it and remembering, “You called him Izuku in front of his father.”

Bakugou stiffened, and the next moment, he was standing up, his chair rocketing backwards and stopping just shy of falling over. “Whatever,” he bit out, turning to leave. “I just wanted to make sure he wouldn’t be back.”

“You knew him,” Aizawa called to the boy’s retreating back before he could get to the door, and Bakugou froze.

“Of course I knew him,” he scoffed, turning around and crossing his arms, shoulders slightly hunched in. “Deku might be a nerd and an idiot -” Aizawa’s warning look didn’t interrupt Katsuki as he continued, “- but he’s not a liar. We knew each other when we were young - I’d go over to his house sometimes, I’d see how that piece of garbage would treat him and Auntie Inko.”

“Sounds like you two were more friends than acquaintances,” Aizawa said cautiously, slowly folding his hands in front of him at the table. This was uncharted territory - there had always been some obvious tension between Izuku and Katsuki, but Aizawa had never really gotten anything concrete until now.

The look on Bakugou’s face twisted into something akin to distaste and he scoffed. “Whatever,” he replied, and - he didn’t deny it, Shouta realized, which meant he was right. After a moment, Bakugou seemed to get impatient with the silence and turned back to the door, but Aizawa called after him again before Bakugou could take another step, though his voice was quiet as he spoke.

“Why don’t you want Hisashi to come back?”

Bakugou stiffened once more, and replied without looking back, though he didn’t keep walking. “You’re kidding, right? You saw what happened today, it was irritating as hell.”

Aizawa said nothing, and Bakugou turned to look at him warily. The pro hero continued to say nothing, and Bakugou scoffed before continuing, “Plus, it interrupted the lesson and I don’t need some loser coming in and distracting me from being the best hero anyone’s ever seen.”

Aizawa gave a small, almost imperceptible nod, but still said nothing, bringing his hands up under his chin and steepling them as he stared Bakugou down.

A few minutes passed that way, with Aizawa willing Bakugou to actually be honest, and Bakugou standing in the middle of the room, his hands shoved in his pockets and his posture getting more and more defensive until he gave in.

“You didn’t fucking see what he was he was like to them, okay ?” Bakugou’s voice cracked halfway through his sentence, and between his look of frustration at having shown weakness and Aizawa’s focus on what he’d actually said, the teacher didn’t scold the boy for his language. Aizawa wouldn’t say it out loud, but when it came to Hisashi, he felt it was somewhat appropriate to use some less than savory words, and the man wouldn’t deprive his student some cathartic swearing on an issue that he seemed so disturbed with.

So he simply gestured for the boy to continue, and with a scowl Bakugou sat back down in the chair he’d just vacated, making no move to bring it back closer to the table Aizawa was sitting at.

Shouta was a bit surprised when Katsuki continued without being prompted, as if he’d been wanting to admit everything for a while, but couldn’t. “The way he treated them,” Katsuki ground out quietly, “it just wasn’t right. I knew it even at that age. Whenever I was at Deku’s place, we’d always hear Hisashi shouting in the kitchen, and then he’d go silent and we’d hear Auntie Inko trying not to cry. Damn walls were paper thin, and we could hear every awful thing he said to her.”

Aizawa nodded solemnly. “And Midoriya?”

Katsuki frowned. “Never heard that bastard say anything positive to Deku. Whenever I was over Hisashi would always tell him how stupid he was, or how he’d never wanted a kid, or that he was worthless, and he’d make Deku just stand there and take it until he left and ran crying to Auntie Inko. And then when he was over at my place he’d always avoid my old man, and if he ever said anything nice to Deku the idiot would light up like pops had hung the fuckin’ moon, or something.”

Well , Aizawa mused bitterly, I guess I know where some of the self-confidence issues stem from.

Aizawa let the silence sit for a second before asking the question he was dreading. “Did it ever culminate in anything physical?”

Bakugou’s scowl deepend to the point of visceral disgust, and Aizawa was reminded of how the boy had shown more conviction earlier that day in telling Hisashi off than in anything else Aizawa had seen in the boy.

“If it did,” Bakugou finally responded, voice laced with hate, “that asshole was smart enough not to leave anything visible, and to never do it in front of me or my parents.” His face darkened, and he said the next words almost on instinct. “Izuku didn’t start flinching because of me, you know.”

Now they didn’t have time to unpack all of that, but Aizawa couldn’t just ignore the obvious insinuation that at some point, Izuku had kept flinching because of Katsuki.

Bakugou seemed to realize what he’d just admitted to, because he paled and went rigid in his seat, though to his credit he didn’t try to leave this time.

“You have history,” Aizawa said quietly, willing some coffee to appear in front of him on the table because he cared about these problem kids too damn much.

“.... I said Deku wasn’t a liar, and I meant it,” Katsuki finally responded vehemently, choosing his next words carefully.

“I haven’t always been the best to him. Fuck, I’ve been -” Katsuki wiped at his face frustratedly. “I’ve been awful to him, and god knows why he doesn’t hate me by now. But - he’s right ,” Katsuki said almost desperately, looking Aizawa in the eyes and giving the teacher the feeling Katsuki was begging the pro to believe him. “He’s right, I’ve changed. Or - or at least I’m changing, fuck ,” he rasped, swiping furiously at the angry tears springing up and glaring at the table once he was done.

Aizawa took care to be gentle in a way Katsuki wouldn’t interpret as pity when he responded. “Midoriya was also right when he said you were a kid, Bakugou.” The child in front of him looked up with eyes full of raw emotion, desperate for his teacher, for anyone to reassure him he wasn’t the villain he was so often assumed to be. Aizawa remembered the coarse comments made by the media about Bakugou’s potential as a hero back when the boy had been kidnapped, and inwardly cursed every like-minded adult that had perpetuated the notion that the boy in front of him wasn't good enough to follow his goal. As if Shinsou weren’t a good enough example of how damaging it was to be constantly told you were destined for villainy, Bakugou sitting in front of him just added more proof as the boy leaned in closer to his teacher’s words.

“I’ll say it again, because it’s important that you remember this: you’re just a kid ,” Aizawa stressed. “I meant what I said in that press conference - the League of Villains were mistaken when they saw your determination to be the best and interpreted as malicious intent. The entire world saw you raging on the podium that day at the Sports Festival, chained up like a goddamned animal - because sometimes Nedzu is an imbecile when he’s convinced that he’s right - and some idiots got into their minds the notion that you’d always be raging just like that, that you were stagnated in your development.

“I’ve worked with kids for years, and if there’s one thing I can say with absolute certainty, it’s that you're constantly in flux. People are constantly in flux, and kids haven’t even finished their development yet. Every one of you kids have improved your quirk in these past few months. Every one of you has learned more about the world of pro heroes than you knew before you came to UA - too much, though I can’t change the past. You’ve changed, too, Bakugou, and I’m not the only one who sees it. Ashido and Kaminari and Sero and Kirishima have seen it, because they consider you their friend, and they’re all good judges of character when it comes down to it.” Aizawa stood up, walked over to where Bakugou was trying to hold back more tears, and kneeled down in front of the boy, looking up at him as he continued softly.

“Midoriya has seen you change and has put his trust in you - and while he might be too trusting for his own good, he’s also one of the most intelligent people in this class. Regardless of what your history is,” Aizawa continued as Bakugou cringed a little at whatever memory popped up in his head, “what matters is the person you choose to be from here on out.” Aizawa put a hand on Bakugou’s shoulder as the boy in front of him dropped his head and rubbed furiously at his face, waiting patiently for the other boy to recover. After a few moments, Aizawa straightened, popping his back with a small groan as he stood up and away from his student.

The silence wasn’t uncomfortable, but Aizawa broke it anyway. “That being said,” he commented as Bakugou looked up at him, composure mostly regained, “if I see a problem halt the development of either of you or put you in any kind of danger - physical, emotional, or mental - I will step in. Am I clear?”

Bakugou nodded and stood wordlessly, Aizawa going to escort him out of the room with a comforting hand on his shoulder. As the two stood outside Aizawa’s room, Bakugou looked up at him curiously.

“Not that I care,” he started gruffly, voice rough and of course he’d have to start a question like that - “but what are those idiots doing downstairs? I heard noise from the stairwell.”

“....we’re watching High School Musical,” Aizawa admitted tiredly, and the grin that split Bakugou’s face was almost worth having to admit it in the first place.

“They dragged you into it?” Bakugou snickered as he walked towards the stairwell. “Have fun listening to Izuku sing every damn word.”

He disappeared down the stairs, and Aizawa let out what felt like his hundredth sigh of the night, turning around to use his restroom before going back downstairs.

“Sensei!” Kirishima called as Shouta made his appearance at the bottom of the stairwell. “You missed some of the best parts, where were you?”

“Yeah, sensei, you were in the bathroom for a while. Are you… y’know, okay ?” Kaminari asked hesitantly, and while Aizawa sensed some genuine concern in the boy’s question, he also got the distinct feeling that none of his students wanted to hear the answer to that question. His hypothesis was confirmed when Iida squawked in wordless indignation at his classmate’s inquiries regarding his teacher’s bowel movements.

“One, that’s an incredibly inappropriate question,” Aizawa sternly responded, and Kaminari had the decency to look ashamded before he continued, “... though I appreciate the concern even if I wish you hadn’t asked, and two, I had other business to take care of. So yes, I’m fine, please play the movie,” Shouta grumbled as he picked his way through the sea of students once again and plopped down in his previous space. He grabbed an abandoned blanket and pulled it over his lap as Mina yawned hugely, leaning against Aizawa a little as Hagakure, who now had the remote, hit play.

(He was not singing along to ‘We’re All in This Together’. He was not .)

(...He was.)

Chapter Text

As the credits to the movie rolled on screen, most of the kids on the ground and a few that had occupied the couches made to get up, stretching their backs and yawning hugely. Some of them were rubbing their eyes as if they’d fallen asleep at some point during the movie, and as Aizawa looked down to throw the blanket off his lap, he realized drily that they weren’t alone. 

Living together made you pseudo-family. Being pseudo-family meant you learned little things about your pseudo-relatives. 

And Aizawa’s pink pseudo-kid was completely asleep on his torso (and definitely drooling). 

His lips curled up in slight disgust as he stopped removing the blanket, it being the only barrier between him now and him with a saliva-soaked spot on his tracksuit pants. A small giggle came from somewhere in front of him, and as he looked up he saw Yaoyorozu covering her mouth daintily as she laughed but making no effort to hide her grin at the scene in front of her. Soon other people started to take notice and chuckle as well as Aizawa rubbed a hand over his face tiredly (and maybe somewhat affectionately). 

“Come on, kid,” he said gruffly, poking one of Mina’s horns to see if she’d get up. He was met with no such luck, and he sighed dramatically as he shook her shoulder, gently at first and then with more vigor as she refused to wake up. 

“Ashido,” he said sternly, starting to worry for his legs and their lack of circulation. “C’mon, kiddo, get up. The couch isn’t your bed, and my lap is not your pillow. Go drool in your own room.” 

His demand met no response, and Aizawa had just given up on shaking her awake and was trying to weasel out from under her when her arms shot out with surprising speed for someone who still remained asleep. 

“......Ashido, I swear if you don’t let go of me right now, you’re expelled.”

Almost all the students who were still in the common room were laughing now, and Tsuyu blearily eyed him as Mina’s grip around his neck only grew stronger even as her head lolled to the side absently. 

“She’s a cuddler, kero ,” Tsuyu informed him helpfully, yawning as she grabbed her blanket and a green pillow from the small mountain of soft objects the students had created earlier before heading towards the stairwell. “She won’t let go unless she gets another one of her plushes to hang onto, sensei. Good night.” With that she disappeared up the stairs, leaving an indignant Aizawa behind who finally managed to stutter out his response. 

“I don’t appreciate the insinuation that I’m a plush.” He looked down at his snoozing student in irritation. “Ashido get off of me right now or I promise I’ll -”

He was interrupted by a loud snore, and if he hadn’t been so convinced that the girl now drooling directly onto his lap was actually asleep, he’d have scolded her for being so dramatic. 

Most of the students had shuffled up to their rooms by now, a few surreptitiously snapping photos of the scene when they thought their teacher wasn’t looking.  

Aizawa considered his options for a few seconds before groaning and inserting his arms under Ashido’s knees, wiggling her around a bit before standing up. The blanket that had been draping off Aizawa’s lap when he was sitting tumbled to the floor as the teacher adjusted hefted his student bridal-style, stepping carefully around the blanket now pooled at his feet so he wouldn’t trip and drop them both. 

The giggles that had echoed around the room a few seconds prior had quieted down, and Aizawa looked around the room to find that most of the students still there were looking at the scene with barely-masked fondness in their eyes, warm smiles on their faces. 

Hizashi would definitely hear about this from someone (and probably get some of those earlier pictures the kids took, too), but if that was the price of the contented warmth in Aizawa’s chest, the pro supposed he could deal with the other man’s teasing. 

(It’s not like Hizashi would be wrong when he pointed out Shouta’s weak spot for the kids of 1-A, but professionalism and a stubborn streak a mile wide would never let the homeroom teacher admit it.)

Rolling his eyes dramatically at the kids around him, Shouta adjusted his grip on Ashido again and looked to the stairwell, sighing a little under his breath when he realized Ashido was on the fourth floor. 

“Ah, I can take her up to her room if you’d like, sensei,” came Ojiro’s voice from Shouta’s left, and the older man turned to see his student holding his arms out in a similar bridal carry, floating sweatpants and a tanktop curled in a way that told the teacher that Hagakure had probably fallen asleep at some point in the movie as well. 

“It’s fine,” Aizawa reassured Ojiro gruffly, lightening his resting scowl to show that he appreciated the offer nonetheless. “You look like you already have your hands full, and I have access to all the rooms in case of emergencies.” A thought occurred to him, and asked, “Do you need me to unlock Hagakure’s room?”

Ojiro shook his head as he maneuvered around the small pile of blankets and couch pillows on the floor - something Aizawa would make sure was cleaned up the next day. “Uraraka told me that Hagakure usually leaves her room unlocked when she’s still in the dorm building so she doesn’t have to remember her key, so it should be fine.”

Shouta inwardly grimaced at that - what was the point in keeping the students in safe, on-campus housing if they were going to leave their doors unlocked? - but nodded to Ojiro, starting towards the stairs after his student. They parted at the third floor, where Ojiro left the stairwell with a nod and a muted ‘good night’ towards his homeroom teacher. One more flight of stairs and Shouta was standing in front of Ashido’s door, juggling the girl in his arms a bit to reach the all-access key in his pocket. Fishing it out and flashing it over the card reader next to the door, Aizawa pushed the door inwards after hearing the small click of it unlocking. 

Walking into Ashido’s room was… a bit unsettling, to say the least. 

Aizawa had heard about the ‘room contest’ at the beginning of the year (and some of the specific horrors and obsessions his students apparently harbored), but he hadn’t been prepared for the amalgamation of colors, patterns, and textures that assaulted his senses when Aizawa hit the lights. Zebra print clashed with leopard spots and bubbles and plaid and who-knows-what kinds of patterns. Aizawa might not have been a fashion icon like Hizashi - as evidenced by his choice of clothing for Eri, though even he would admit that he was partly joking, there - but at least his apartment didn’t look like Lisa Frank art had gone radioactive and then vomited interior decor. 

Ignoring the eyesore that surrounded him as best as he could - a favor to his eyes as much as a nod to Ashido’s right to privacy - Shouta picked his way through the girl’s room to her bed, walking around the small desk by the entrance and a few clothes strewn across the floor. Some nit-picking part of Aizawa’s mind felt like scolding Ashido when she woke up on keeping her room clean, but he determinedly pushed that down - carrying his student to bed was uncomfortably parental enough for one night, thank you very much. 

(Another part of Shouta’s mind pipes up and points out just how soft he’s gone for this class - had any of his students from last year fallen asleep on him at any point, the man’s response would have ranged from standing straight up with no regard for whether or not said student fell on the floor, to shoving them onto a classmate and pretending it had never happened. He’d never have sat through an entire, non-educational movie with any of his classes - especially Disney singalong - and the only time he’d ever have carried a student anywhere would be in the event that they couldn’t walk on their own to Recovery Girl. 

Then again , he reasoned, none of my classes were attacked by villains even once, much less twice - more if you count individuals. None of my students were almost killed in front of me. I’ve never lived with any of them. 

So, he reasons, it’s understandable that his homeroom class this year has earned a special place in his heart.)

With a small sigh, Shouta finally made his way to the Ashido’s bed and bent down, gently laying the girl on the mattress. When her iron grip around his neck still refused to relent, the man sighed in a mixture of fondness and exasperation before grabbing her pillow and pushing it towards her. Immediately, Ashido’s arms left him in favor of something easier to cuddle, and a small snore made its way out of her. 

Grabbing a few blankets and placing them on top of his student, Aizawa was silently thankful that they didn’t have school the next day - he drew the line at finding (and then setting) an alarm clock. Satisfied that he’d done every reasonable thing to make Ashido comfortable, the man picked his way back across the room, turning off the lights and closing the door as another snore made its way over to him, far louder than her previous ones as she settled in for the night. 

It’s probably a good thing that I put two rooms in between her and Uraraka, if for the noise alone , Aizawa noted with slight amusement as he made his way back down the stairs to retrieve the papers he’d left on the dining room table. 

Shouta was going down the last few steps to the first floor when he heard voices drifting in from the kitchen, slowing his pace out of curiosity when he recognized the muted voices of two of his students that rarely conversed in a reasonable volume.

“Oi,” came the rough voice of Bakugou, and Aizawa moved into the stairway opening to see him and Midoriya in the kitchen, the former standing in front of the fridge with a hand outstretched and the latter standing in front of the cupboard that held the cups. “Pass me a cup, loser.”

“O-oh, Kacchan!” Midoriya spun around with a cup in each hand, apparently unaware that the other boy had been behind him. A cup slipped out of his grasp, and he fumbled to catch it before Bakugou snatched it the second before it hit the ground. Midoriya grinned sheepishly. “Sorry about that,” he murmured, hands fidgeting on the cup left in his grasp. 

Bakugou scoffed and rolled his eyes, though his resting scowl was degrees less intense than it usually was. He turned back to the fridge behind him and jammed the cup up against the water dispenser until it filled, then moved so Izuku could do the same. 

The two orbited around each other silently, both sipping silently as they leaned against the granite kitchen countertops across from one another. The moment was silent and almost awkward, nothing at all like the tense atmosphere of expectation Shouta had come to expect from the two when left next to each other in any capacity. Thinking the moment over, he took a step forward, though a second later Bakugou’s gruff voice came once again from the kitchen, causing the older man to pause before intruding. 

“Talked to Caterpillar-sensei,” Bakugou started, and Aizawa’s eyebrows furrowed together in a mixture of irritation and amusement at the nickname. Midoriya spluttered around his water, so it seemed that the moniker had caught him by surprise, too. Bakugou paid him no mind as he continued. “Shit-sashi ain’t coming around anymore.” The blonde took the rest of the water in his cup in one gulp, opening the dishwasher and placing the cup in the top rack a little more forcefully than necessary before closing the machine again and turning back to Izuku. “Thought you’d like to know.”

Midoriya’s eyes shone wetly, and Bakugou must have seen it, too, because he balked and talked right over the other boy as he tried to speak. “Thank me and you’re dead,” he warned. 

Izuku laughed weakly and rubbed at his eyes with the heel of his hand, the other holding the water cup and trembling so slightly the boy probably wasn’t aware of it himself. “I definitely don’t appreciate it, then,” Izuku joked weakly, and Bakugou simply rolled his eyes before shoving his hands in the pockets of his sweatpants and turning to leave the kitchen. 

“Katsuki-kun.” Izuku called out softly, and it’s a testament to how far Bakugou’s come just this year that he stopped and waited for the other boy to continue speaking without any rude gestures or interruptions. Izuku continued quietly, Bakugou’s back still turned to him but obviously listening. 

“This- this will probably sound lame -” Izuku laughed wetly, wiping away some moisture from his eyes as he continued, uncertainty lacing his voice. “But, um, it’s been a while and - I, uh -”

“Spit it out, nerd,” Bakugou shot back, gruff but not unkind as he turned just a bit to catch Izuku’s eye. 

“It was nice to hear you call me Izuku, again,” the green-haired boy murmured somewhat sheepishly, though the honesty in the confession was unmistakable. Bakugou must have noticed it, too, because from his angle of observation Aizawa saw a range of emotions cross Bakugou’s face in the few seconds it took the boy to form a reply. Shock, discomfort, guilt, anger - they all merged into each other before Bakugou finally responded.

“Yeah, well,” Bakugou huffed, turning around to face the boy fully once more, hands still in his pockets as he leaned against a countertop and looked everywhere but Izuku. “We’ve known each other our whole lives, calling you by your surname now just doesn’t make sense,” Katsuki grumbled. “And since it seems that you’re stuck with ‘Deku’ as your stupid hero name, and I’m sure as hell not calling you that until you’ve earned it.”

‘Until’ , Aizawa noted, not ‘unless’. Despite all the claims Bakugou might have made about Midoriya never being able to be a hero - and, from what Shouta’s heard, there have been many - it seems the explosive boy no longer harbors any doubt that his classmate can and will do whatever it takes to reach their shared goal. It’s refreshing, Shouta thinks, and the small, vulnerable smile that crosses Midoriya’s face makes him think that his student noticed it, too. 

It’s gone in a second, however, replaced by a look of uncertainty that Bakugou notices if his impatient huff is anything to go by. “What, got something else?” The teen demands, “You know I like to go to bed early, and it’s getting late. Spit it out, nerd.”

Well. Another point to Bakugou’s improvement that he’s asking about a problem instead of just blasting it away or ignoring it until it comes back to bite him in the ass, Aizawa supposes. 

Midoriya stumbles over his words again, but something seems different this time, and Bakugou must sense it too because he doesn’t snap at the other boy to get on with it, waiting until Midoriya seems to find the words he needs. 

“I - today, what you did with my - with Hisashi,” Midoriya begins, face twisting at his father’s name as if it tastes bad in his mouth, “I’ve… never been able to do that. To him. And, uh, you - you know that, and - I just wanted - um, I know you don’t - I’d prefer not to die for thanking you, but -” Midoriya huffs out a frustrated sigh, brows furrowing and eyes glaring at the floor as his brain fails to provide him with a way to express his thoughts coherently. 

Bakugou, likely sensing approaching emotion , lets out a similarly frustrated sigh before carding a hand through the back of his hair in what Aizawa’s come to recognize as one of the boy’s few nervous tics. 

“Look, I’m only going to say this once, so pay attention,” Bakugou cautions Izuku, obviously attempting to present an uncaring front but struggling with keeping his voice steady. He rubs his face wearily, lets out a small groan, and glares at one of the cupboards above Izuku’s head before taking a deep breath and letting out his thoughts all at once.

“I’ve been shitty to you. I know that.” The genuine surprise and borderline panic that crosses Izuku’s face, along with aborted hand-motions, almost trip Bakugou up, but he plows on. “No, shut up, I have been and we know it and I’m not gonna repeat it so shut up and listen close.” Izuku’s mouth, previously gaping, snapped shut and he nodded twice as Bakugou continued. 

“Our history is fucked up, and that’s on me, but I - fuck , I want to be a hero, and despite all the crap I pulled with you, a hero can recognize when something’s wrong, and the way your dad treated you and Auntie Inko was wrong . Sure, you might have been irritating, and you might have been quirkless-” Izuku flinches, but says nothing - “but hell, we were fucking kids , and that didn’t warrant him dropping everything and leaving and fucking you both over like that. If anything, your mom certainly deserved better, and we both know that for a fact. So listen up, idiot,” Katsuki growled, taking two steps forward until he was face-to-face with Izuku, stabbing a finger into his chest for emphasis. 

“We’re both gonna be heroes, and heroes don’t sit back and let that kind of bullshit continue, got it?”

A wobbly, watery smile spread across Izuku’s face slowly but steadily, until his grin was so wide his eyes crinkled at the edges. Katsuki huffed and took a few steps back from his childhood friend, shoving his hands in his pockets once again and looking away to hide the red appearing at the tips of his ears. 

“Kacchan-” Izuku began, only to be cut off by a menacing growl from Katsuki. 

“If you hug me I swear to god I’ll explode your fucking face, dipshit.”

Izuku let out a laugh, but Aizawa just shook his head with a weary smile. Ah , he thought to himself, there’s the Bakugou we all know and begrudgingly tolerate. And I believe that’s my cue.

“You know,” Aizawa begins dryly as he appears from the stairwell, stalking towards the papers he left on the table earlier that night and appearing to both of his students as if he’d just come down the stairs and hadn’t been lurking during their spontaneous heart-to-heart, “I’d really rather you didn’t. Lots of paperwork for me, really.”

Bakugou scoffed as Izuku laughed nervously, the explosive boy scrunching his shoulders up to his ears and muttering a ‘whatever’ as he headed towards the stairs. 

“Good night, Bakugou,” Aizawa called after him, somewhat pointedly. Bakugou paused on the second step of the stairwell before flashing a Totoro-esque grin scarily similar Shouta’s own. 

“Good night, Caterpillar-sensei,” he called back before climbing the stairs to his room, ignoring the frown on his homeroom teacher’s face and the way Izuku choked on his final gulp of water at the comment. 

Aizawa gathered his papers in silence as Midoriya recovered his composure and put his empty water glass in the dishwasher. Once his kids’ homework was in his arms, he turned towards the stairs himself, fully intending to end the hectic day with some grading and then a nap before getting up for the next day. 

Of course, his problem child never let his plans go as they should, but Aizawa likewise shouldn’t have expected his escape to be quite that easy, he supposed as Midoriya called his name when he was halfway to the stairs. 

“Sensei?”

Aizawa inhaled deeply and prayed for patience before turning around. “Yes, Midoriya? Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

Midoriya flushed a bit, twiddling his thumbs as he answered. “Y-yes, sir, I was just getting a glass of water before sleeping, but I - um -” the boy steeled himself before looking Shouta in the eyes earnestly. “I wanted to thank you for earlier today. My father…” Midoriya trailed off at this, uncertain of what to say next, his flush now reaching the tips of his ears and crawling down the back of his neck. 

Aizawa considered his student for a moment before shifting the papers in his arms and responding. “That man’s not your father unless you want him to be. I think we made that abundantly clear today, don’t you?”

Midoriya nodded, and as the conversation stalled, Aizawa turned back to the stairwell before hesitating one last time. 

“And… Midoriya?”

“Yes, sensei?”

Aizawa considered his next words carefully, fully aware of how easy it would be to not say them, but determined to do the right thing instead of just the easy one. “You know, Yagi-san and I were talking a lot earlier today about who you belong to, but -” Aizawa turns and looks at Midoriya, making sure his next words hit home, “ - you’re your own person. I think you know that. You make your own path regardless of biological right. The circumstances of your birth are irrelevant. It is what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are.”

Midoriya blinked once, twice, and then smiled. “Thank you, sensei.”

Aizawa grunted in acknowledgement and was about to turn to head back to his own room to finally grade the papers in his arms before he noticed his student shifting hesitantly in the corner of his vision. 

He sighed for what felt like the millionth time that day, warding off an oncoming headache before asking in his usual monotone, “Is there anything else, Midoriya?”

Said boy jumped a little before stuttering out an answer, wringing his hands nervously as he spoke. “Can… can I hug you, sir?”

“.........”

“ It’stotallyfineifyoudon’twanna-” Midoriya stumbled over himself to apologize, face beet red as Aizawa resignedly put his papers down on the sofa and held his hand out placatingly. 

“Shut up and come here, kid,” he grumbled, and the face-splitting grin he was rewarded with before Midoriya shot into his arms and gave him a near bone-crushing hug was enough to quell the voices that usually scolded him for getting too attached. 

Aizawa tentatively wrapped his arms around his student in a return hug, willing to comfort the kid but not entirely sure how to do so. After a few seconds of contented squeezing, Midoriya’s arms went slightly slack before he looked up at his homeroom teacher in awe. 

“...I’m sure I’m gonna regret asking you this,” Aizawa huffed, “but why are you looking at me like that?”

“ You watch Pokémon ,” Izuku breathed as if he’d just found the lost city of Atlantis, and Shouta’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion as he extricated himself from the now-pliable grasp his student had on him.

“What are you talking about now?” Aizawa asked wearily, wondering why he was even asking instead of going upstairs to do the work he’d been attempting to start since the end of dinner hours prior. 

“You just quoted Mewtwo two seconds ago, sensei,” Midoriya insisted, slightly embarrassed but determined as always. “‘ I see now that the circumstances of one’s birth are irrelevant; it is what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are. ’ You totally just quoted Pokémon, oh my god.”

“Correction,” Aizawa grumbled, “I quoted Hizashi . Unwittingly.”

“Oh, that makes much more sense,” Midoriya mumbled under his breath before Aizawa cuffed him lightly on the back of his head, snapping him out of his mutterings before he could start. 

“ Go to bed , child,” Aizawa commanded exasperatedly, to which Midoriya just nodded and gave a shy thank-you sort of smile before making his way up the stairs, slippered feet thudding softly up the staircase until the sound disappeared. 

Shaking his head, Shouta bent down to pick up his stack of papers, and when he straightened up - 

“ Shit ,” Aizawa cursed, immediately releasing Toshinori from the chokehold he’d caught the former number one hero in. “Sorry,” he mumbled in apology as he bent down to gather the papers he’d dropped and scattered on the floor. “You should know better than to sneak up on an underground hero like that, though.”

“Yes, right,” Toshinori rasped, rubbing a bit at his throat as he kneeled to help Aizawa collect his papers. “My apologies, I wasn’t thinking.” Aizawa hummed in vague acknowledgement before the older man continued. “I wanted to let you know I called Inko earlier - she was concerned about what happened, obviously, but I convinced her young Izuku was fine thanks to the help of his friends, and that she didn’t need to come see him tonight.” Aizawa nodded in thanks as Toshinori handed him the last of the stray papers, and the two straightened up. “She will be taking him out for the weekend, however.”

“Thanks for doing that,” Aizawa grunted, to which Toshinori nodded and said nothing. Looking up, the underground hero saw his coworker glancing at him peculiarly, with a sort of hidden smile in his eye and Aizawa was so ready for this day to be over already.

“What?” He demanded, to which Toshinori waved his hands frantically - a habit he seemed to have picked up from Midoriya. 

“Nothing, nothing! I’ll leave you to your grading,” he replied as he stalked hurriedly towards the stairs, and if that wasn’t suspicious then Aizawa was damned. 

“Toshinori,” Shouta called after his friend, a warning low in his voice as the man in question stopped short in front of the stairwell. “I’ve had a very long day, so tell. Me. What.”

Toshinori turned around sheepishly, rubbing a hand against the back of his neck  (and was that a habit he got from Midoriya, or the other way around? The two acted so much like the other, it was hard to keep track) as he replied. 

“You said you’d kick his ass for me,” Toshinori admitted, a proud blush on his face and a happy look that even his teasing couldn’t erase. 

“Oh my god .”

At the beginning of the first day of the following school week, class 1-A had a very unhappy homeroom teacher. Rumor had it in the teacher’s lounge that his kids had somehow coerced him to watch both sequels to the original High School Musical - and then The Pokemon Movie (the original, at Midoriya’s request) - the previous nights, arguably so they had a reason to keep their giant pillow fortress intact in the living room. 

This meant that it had been a late night disassembling said fortress, an even later night grading yet more papers, and an even later night when one of said papers was missing and found under the sofa after searching into the wee hours of the morning. On top of that, someone had gotten a little too aggressive with the coffee machine - investigation as to the culprit’s identity was underway - so there was one very tired, very un-caffeinated Aizawa Shouta come Monday morning. 

Things got considerably better after lunch. Most students assumed this was because when Shouta disappeared to the teacher’s lounge during lunch break, he’d taken a nap and gotten a cup of coffee before returning to class. 

The students of 1-A, of course, had no way of knowing that Shouta hadn’t gotten any caffeine since the coffee pot was malfunctioning, with third year support students trying their best to fix it. Said students were also simultaneously attempting to convince the teachers to let them build a new machine - a unanimous  ‘nay’ (Power Loader, being biased, did not count) on the front that support students needlessly add self-destruct buttons that look exactly like power buttons. 

The students of 1-A likewise had no way to know that Aizawa had been working through the entire lunch break and had, unfortunately, not had the time to nap. 

What the students did know, according to their flamboyant English teacher, was that during lunch, a picture had mysteriously popped up on their homeroom teacher’s desk in the teacher’s lounge.

What the students did know, if Yaoyorozu was to be believed (and if she wasn’t, what was the world coming to?), was that after lunch, Aizawa had quietly pulled her aside and requested - if she didn’t mind - that she make a simple photo frame. She didn’t mind, of course.

What the students did know, from Sero running something to the teacher’s lounge to deliver some lesson materials to All-Might (courtesy of Cementoss), was that Aizawa Shouta now had a framed photo on his desk - one that certainly hadn’t been there before, given the man’s obvious distaste for frivolous decorations or anything that didn’t serve a specific function, especially in the workplace. 

And what the students discovered , crowding around Shouta’s abandoned phone on the lecture podium during a small break, was that the picture looked a little like this:

A television screen showed kids on cafeteria tables, halfway through High School Musical ’s “Stick to the Status Quo”. Shinsou, Todoroki, Satou, and Shouji were the closest to the television, the glare from the screen reflected in their eyes as they reclined on the floor. Kirishima, reclining on a mountain of pillows, was halfway through a fist-pump, shark teeth grinning broadly, Tsuyu looking up at him amusedly as she tried to braid Hagakure’s invisible hair. Ojiro was absentmindedly petting Dark Shadow, who was trying to sneak up on the unattended bowl of popcorn in Tokoyami’s lap. Kaminari had the USB end of a phone charger in his mouth, small sparks lighting up the edges of his grin as Sero’s phone charged in his lap, Kouda looking content sitting next to them. Aoyama somehow glittered even more than the sequined beanbag he was perched upon, and if you squinted it almost seemed like Jirou and Yaoyorozu were holding hands. Ochako was cross-legged munching on a bowl of MNMs, and Iida had his arm around the back of Midoriya’s seat, while Midoriya himself had eyes wide with excitement for the movie in front of him, mouthing along to the lyrics along with half the class. Mina was halfway to being asleep in Aizawa’s lap, the man surrounded by the only class to have somehow wormed their way into his heart. (With a picture like this as evidence, it wasn’t hard to see how.) 

(In short, the picture showed a family, with Aizawa in the middle.)

The way the students of 1-A discovered this, huddled around Aizawa Shouta’s unattended phone?

He’s not sure. After all, it definitely is not his new phone wallpaper. 

But all the students knew for certain was that their homeroom teacher was in a far better mood when he came back from lunch. Rumor says he was even smiling when he checked his phone before class started.

He was checking it, of course, for the time, and most definitely not to look at his new phone wallpaper, which was most certainly not a picture of the kids he hasn’t gone soft for. 

This is what Aizawa tells himself as he plugs his phone in to charge that night, the lock screen lighting up and pulling at the corners of his mouth. 

(He’s not smiling, he tells himself sternly, only to give up five minutes later, drifting off to sleep with a small, genuine grin on his face.)

...

Yeah. He guesses they’re family now.