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It started when Aizawa accidentally added Bakugou’s hot pepper powder to his coffee one morning. His students were running around getting ready to go on a field trip to a museum so most weren’t paying attention. Iida was berating his classmates, telling them they should’ve gotten ready the day before, while Yaoyorozu made sure they didn’t forget anything. Todoroki, Shouji, Tokoyami, and a few others watched their classmates frantically gather their things before the bus arrived (Aizawa had said once the bus got there they’d be leaving “with or without you,”), occasionally saying something about not procrastinating which just sent the more lazy students like Kaminari, Ashido, Hagakure, and Sero into a fit about wanting to have fun.
Aizawa watched them with disinterest, took a long sip of his coffee, and ignored the startled gasp that escaped the Problem Child’s mouth. What he couldn’t ignore was the conversation Midoriya had with Bakugou that took place moments later.
“K-Kacchan!”
“I know,”
“But he-!”
“I saw,”
“Aren’t you-?”
“No, of course not! Shut the hell up, you damn nerd!”
“Attention, class!” Iida suddenly exclaimed, chopping his hands through the air. “The bus has arrived! Please gather your things and line up in seating order!”
Soon enough, twenty students and three teachers (Aizawa, Yagi, and Kayama) were all piled in one of the UA buses and on their way to their destination and the odd exchange between the two Aldera Middle School graduates was forgotten by the underground hero, never to be retrieved . . .
At least, not until a month later.
Aizawa inhaled another food pouch and tossed the trash into the garbage as he exited the staff room, looking for a good place to take a much-needed (and deserved) nap. He nodded a greeting to the former Symbol of Peace and the small teen who always seemed to be following the man around when he passed them by. Some instinct he had obtained through years of being in a constant state of apprehension told him to take one look over his shoulder and what he saw was . . .
. . .
. . .
. . . Well, it was weird .
Midoriya was straightening up beside the garbage can with Aizawa’s discarded trash in his scarred right hand. A thoughtful look overtook the greenette’s features before he slipped the item into his pocket.
To say Aizawa was slightly shocked would be an understatement, but . . . it wasn’t like Midoriya was doing anything illegal, right? The kid was constantly trying to improve, so maybe he was thinking about changing his diet to something more convenient. The pouches wouldn’t work for him, though. Midoriya needed a lot of food to maintain the muscles necessary for his quirk to work without breaking him.
“Don’t know why he didn’t just ask me for help instead of digging around in the trash . . .” Aizawa muttered, entering an empty classroom and crawling into his old yellow sleeping bag.
It was a few days after that incident that Aizawa started to worry. For whatever reason, Principal Nedzu had thought it would be a good idea for each teacher to eat at the very minimum one meal with their homeroom class a week. And it was on one such night that, while eating the food Midoriya and Bakugou had prepared (the two worked well together in many capacities when they weren’t fighting), he noticed it.
Midoriya’s emerald eyes were watching the teacher closely as he ate, his own food completely forgotten in front of him. The teen would look over at his explosive classmate from time to time, often getting an eye roll and a non-committal grunt in return.
Once Aizawa was aware of Midoriya’s (and possibly Bakugou’s) change in demeanor, his mind ran through his memories to discover the cause. As with most things in life, he only spotted the change in the two students after that meal. Memories of the usually jittery boy asking Aizawa to try different foods he’d made over the past few weeks, always with an intense look on his face and a new notebook and pen in his hands. Midoriya would write down everything Aizawa said in those moments with the same determination he had when analyzing heroes.
The teacher remembered running into Bakugou and Midoriya, the latter apparently trying to convince the former of something every time without success. Their conversations always stopped when Aizawa’s presence was made known.
Aizawa wished he’d had the thought to listen in then.
The mystery was given an explanation two weeks later. It was a Thursday and classes had just gotten out for the lunch period. Hizashi and Nemuri were trying to get Aizawa to go to lunch with them and a couple more coworkers while other teachers chose to eat lunch at their desks.
Aizawa refused his friends’ request (as he always did), pulled out another pouch of sustenance, and jumped when the door was suddenly thrown open, the small form of Midoriya standing on the other side with a bowl of food in his hands.
“Sensei!” He said, marching straight to his teacher’s desk and all but shoving the bowl in Aizawa’s face. “Eat this!”
Aizawa blinked in surprise and slowly leaned away from the offering. “Midoriya, you’re not supposed to take food out of the cafete-”
He was cut off when his student force-fed him a slice of beef soaked in an unidentifiable sauce. Aizawa managed to swallow it with little problem and made the mistake of opening his mouth to berate the teen only for another type of food to enter his mouth. This happened two more times before Aizawa decided to just eat Midoriya’s food. Clearly, his friends weren’t going to stop the teen from doing whatever the hell he was doing and Midoriya was intent on having Aizawa try the food, so it was only logical that he play along. For now.
Oh, but Midoriya was most definitely getting detention.
Ten minutes later, Midoriya finally ran out of food. He stood in front of Aizawa’s desk and stared into the empty bowl with a frown on his face. Aizawa studied his student in silence along with his fellow teachers, who all looked either extremely amused (Hizashi and Nemuri) or exceedingly shocked (Yagi, Maijima, and Kan).
“. . . Sensei,” Midoriya said after a while, raising his head just enough to look the man in the eyes. “You . . . you can’t taste anything, can you?”
Ah. Aizawa hadn’t thought of the possibility that his student was trying to figure out something so mundane. There was a collective gasp from the adults in the room (should Aizawa feel proud that his student figured it out or disappointed that his friends of over fifteen years didn’t? ).
“Ageusia,” Aizawa said after a long moment. Midoriya nodded.
“I thought so,” The teen nodded, but didn’t explain any of his thought process which annoyed Aizawa because why the fuck didn’t Midoriya just talk to me about it instead of forcing me to eat his weird food!?
Aizawa’s eye twitched.
“Midoriya,” He said, rising from his chair. “Come with me.”
The man exited the room and made his way to his office at a fast walking pace, not caring if his student would be able to follow or not. Once they were alone, Aizawa closed the door and turned to Midoriya. The teen’s eyes grew wide in fear, a glint of Aizawa’s red reflected in them.
“You have six minutes to explain your actions before I expel you.”
“I- I, uh,” Midoriya panicked for a second before that quick brain of his vomited the information he’d held onto for the past few weeks. “It started when you added Kacchan’s special spice to your coffee,” He began and the memory of the incident appeared in Aizawa’s mind, more vivid than anything he’d remembered before. “At the time I thought you just liked it like Bakugou does, so I-” he looked around, nervously. “-I kept slipping different spicy things into your food. But, sensei, you- you never reacted to anything! And then I saw you toss that gross stuff-” a look of disgust “-you’re always eating away andIfisheditoutofthetrashand-” Midoriya gasped for breath and glared at his teacher. “Did you know it was expired!? That thing you drank had expired two weeks before and you drank it like it was nothing!” The teen’s hand rose to his mouth in his signature “I’m thinking” style while words continued to flow out of him.
“That’s when I started wondering if maybe you just had a good poker face. So I started making these really disgusting things and asking you to eat them and-” green eyes snapped to Aizawa’s again, his arms waving around the more he talked. “-and you ate them! All of them! Without even batting an eye! And then--AND THEN!--I thought, ‘ maybe he just can’t taste anything!’ It wasn’t too far-fetched, in my opinion, and it made more sense than my other ideas and so I…”
Realization dawned on Midoriya’s face. “I . . . could’ve just asked you,” He said, burying his reddening face into his hands and sinking to the floor. “I could’ve- Oh my gosh, I’m such an idiot. I’m so sorry, sensei, Idon’tknowwhatIwasthinkingIjust-”
“Midoriya, breathe,”
“-itdidn’tevenoccuretomethatIcouldjusttalktoyouaboutit-”
“Midoriya?” Aizawa frowned at his student.
“-Iguessit’sbecauseI’veneverhadateacherwhoIactuallythoughtfeltlikecaredaboutme-”
“Midoriya!” Aizawa knelt down and placed a hand on the boy’s shoulders in an attempt to calm him down. It worked, to some degree, as Midoriya finally inhaled, but the teen had a terrified look on his face as if he was afraid that Aizawa was going to do something to him--that he was going to hurt him.
“I-” Tears began flowing from his emerald eyes and all Aizawa could think was Fuck! Because he wasn’t prepared to handle an emotional teenager. That was Hizashi and Yagi’s job. “I’m sorry,” Midoriya lowered his head and leaned forward until the fluffy curls of his hair were pressed against Aizawa’s chest.
Midoriya clearly needed some kind of emotional support and Aizawa was almost certain that literally anyone else would be a better fit for the situation than him.
But they weren’t there.
Aizawa Shouta was.
The man tentatively wrapped his arms around the teen in what he hoped was a comforting embrace. In all honesty, he wasn’t too upset about what Midoriya had done, he just needed the boy to understand why it was wrong and learn from it.
Aizawa remained there for a good two minutes as his student soaked the front of his shirt with his tears. He didn’t offer any words of comfort (he never understood how heroes could promise things to people they couldn’t be sure would come true).
“I’m sorry, Aizawa-sensei,” Midoriya said once he’d calmed down. He made no effort to pull away, so Aizawa didn’t either. “I just . . . sometimes when I think about things, you know, logically, I forget about- about manners and stuff. Mom says I get that from my dad.”
Aizawa sighed softly. “It’s . . . fine. Don’t worry about it. However,” He pulled away to look into Midoriya’s eyes. “I’m giving you two weeks detention and I expect a written apology and a ten-thousand-word essay about why you should respect people, even those you know well, and how you’re going to work harder to take other people’s personal comfort into account. Got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Now come on. Lunch is almost over and I know you haven’t eaten yet.”