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Chapter Text

Midoriya Izuku never expected to be anything more than the worthless Deku that he was.

Why would he? He was Quirkless. Everyone hated, even Kacchan, even the Pro-Hero that- nope, nope, nope. No going there, Izuku.

His father left when he was five - after it was one hundred percent certain that there was no way in hell that Izuku was going to get a quirk - so it was just his Mom, him, and occasionally Kacchan and his parents.

(Not that Kacchan ever paid much attention to him. Usually his childhood friend would just scowl at Izuku, and angrily tap on his phone when they were forced to be in the same room together while their parents hung out in the kitchen and lounge.)

There was nothing special about Izuku. Creepy was a better word to use, especially when it came to his notebooks on other people's quirks.

Sure, Izuku spent a large amount of his time online shifting through forums and getting feedback on his quirk breakdowns, had learnt how to hack through sites from an online friend, and had managed to find his way onto an Underground Pro-Hero chatroom. But those were things that anyone could do. If anything, it added to the creepiness factor of Izuku's.

There was nothing special about Midoriya Izuku.

So why in Thor's name did he end up with memories of another life on his twelfth birthday??

-*-

Hiccup had moved over in his bed, then paused, eyes blinking open vaguely in the slightly lit room.

He half expected Astrid to be next to him, but he came face to face with a wall. Which was strange. Hiccup didn't normally place his bed by a wall unless it was in his personal forge. Even then, he was usually dragged off back home by Astrid before he could even think about sleeping in that bed.

Then he made the extremely wise decision to roll over and see the rest of the room.

Hiccup froze, his eyes widened as he slowly moved into an upright position then internally freaked out as he pulled his legs out from underneath the blankets - that he vaguely recognized as some of his Hero merch -  the legs that just so happened to have both feet attached.

"What in Odin's name?" Hiccup murmured, half in a breakdown as he somehow managed to stand upright.

Feeling so wrong as he stumbled to a mirror - he would ponder on how he knew what it was called later - and his jaw dropped when he saw his reflection.

Hiccup clasped a hand over his mouth to at least muffle the scream he would never admit to later. 

His reflection showed someone else entirely. And while it did give reason to why he felt so weird, it still freaked him out.

His hair was curly , and it was green rather than his straight yet slightly messy brown hair, and his beard had gone - that one wasn't as surprising because the twins had been known to shave people's beards off in their sleep occasionally - he had a ton more freckles than he'd had when he had been a teenager, and while Hiccup's now-body was just as skinny and weak as Hiccup's old body used to be before he met Toothless, he could see the beginnings of muscle forming.

His hands were softer too, Hiccup clenched them, looking down at the foreign hands with wide eyes. Small calluses, but nothing like how his hands had been when he was younger.

Hiccup reached up and pulled at the strange hair again, and winced when he pulled too hard, "Definitely not a dream, then," he muttered to himself, taking a look at the clothes he wore instead.

A soft material that Hiccup had no name for - polyester and cotton mix, he vaguely recalled - that had been dyed white. With small black dye forming symbols over his chest. And loose light summer ocean blue pants of similar fabric.

The clothing was weird, and despite Hiccup's (current) body accepting it, he felt as if there were tiny Terrible Terrors climbing all over his skin.

"Izuku, you alright in there?" The sound of a woman's - his mom's - voice made Hiccup jump, eyes widening in panic for a moment as he looked for this "Izuku".

It may or may not have taken him a moment to realise that the woman must've been speaking to him.

"Uh, yeah," Hiccup coughed a moment later, half shocked at the sound of his own voice, "I'm fine. Just getting ready."

"Okay!" The woman called through the door, "Breakfast is ready when you're ready, Izuku."

Hiccup listened to her footsteps moving further away, and focused his attention on his reflection for another moment.

Taking a note of his surroundings, Hiccup ended up wandering over to the desk where he opened up one of the notebooks, "Quirk…" He didn't know how he was able to understand this language because it certainly wasn't Norse.

An idea lit in his head and he groaned unconsciously, "School," he muttered before pausing.

School… like a dragon school? 

He tried to recall a school, but all he could remember were glaring red eyes and sneering smirks. Hiccup ran his hands through the curly green hair and hesitated.

What was the name that woman called him again? Isamu? No. Isisah? No… Izuku? Yeah, that would've been the one.

Hiccup muttered the name under his breath, "Izuku, Izuku, Izuku," and wondered why it felt so right to him.

He closed his eyes as he tried to remember, Hiccup knew that there was something off about this entire thing. It definitely wasn't a Quirk that had hit him, did the Gods decide to toy with his life (again)?

No, that wasn't right either. Remember… remember.. remember…

Hiccup opened his eyes as he realized, it was Memory that he was missing as a factor here. If Hiccup really was Izuku , then it would mean that something would've happened to cause the shift.

Memory explained it. There had been whispered rumors of reincarnation in Berk while Hiccup had been growing up, tales of children who had seen the horrors of war before even seeing sight of a single dragon, and while Hiccup had dismissed them back then, it was the only thing that made sense now.

If this whole thing was tied to memory then it would be easily proven by the fact that Hiccup was here. Hiccup's memories could have overwhelmed Izuku's, and easily rewritten who Izuku is as a person.

But, if this was a quirk - which Hiccup didn't think it could be - there had to be some sort of safeguard for Izuku's memories. Like a keyword or something.

Hiccup sighed, looking back down at the notebooks spread out on the desk, and picking up one that looked like it had been hit by a Terrible Terrors' small flame.

The handwriting on the paper was just as messy as his got when busy entranced in a project, but Hiccup found that he could read it just as easily as his own handwriting.

He flipped through the pages, hoping for something - anything - to at least trigger a memory. There were mostly descriptions of quirks belonging to people Izuku must've known, as he'd written down their names, compared to the Pro-Hero ones.

Hiccup paused at the back of the book, three sets of pages given to someone called "Kacchan" - angry red eyes, clenched, popping fists - and as he was reading what was written in the columns of the pages, Hiccup found himself pitying this Izuku.

Half the notes were written in a blind hero-worship, but even then, Hiccup could see how Izuku had broken down and suggested ways to build the quirk back up to be better.

His fingers trailed over a word that took a moment for him to read, as if his body was fighting his will to read it.

" DEKU ". The word was written heavily in the margins, and usually followed by a small ramble how "Kacchan" was so much cooler than "Deku".

"Deku, huh," Hiccup muttered, and for some reason the word felt so wrong yet so right at the same time.

He wondered why "deku" was so important, but when he glanced at the student ID sitting on the edge of the desk, it clicked.

The written form of Izuku's name looked similar to the written form of "deku", meaning that someone had most likely misread the name, and it either stayed as a nickname, or it was used as… as a target for bullies.

Deku, deku, deku… Hiccup’s hands shot up to his head as memories pained his skull, explosions, more explosions, QuirklessQuirklessQuirkless, Worthlessdeku, nousetoscoiety, weak, pathetic-

Gods, no wonder he was such a mess of a human. Hiccup-Izuku let out a pitiful whine as the impact of both lives’ memories were forced upon him to relive.

DragonsQuirksDragonsQuirksDragons-

“Izuku?”

Green curls bounced as his head jerked towards the bedroom door, “Mom?” his voice cracked slightly.

“Izu, honey,” His mom opened the door, and her own green locks appeared with her worried face, “Are you sure you’re alright? Do you need to take the day off school?”

“No, no, no!” Izuku-Hiccup shook his head, waving his hands frantically at his mom, “I’m good, just running through notes for today’s test-” he sheepishly scratched the back of his neck, “-sorry, Mom.”

His mom just smiled, shaking her head, "Alright then, breakfast is on the table, Izu."

He gave her a nod and she smiled at him before ducking out of his room, and Izuku was back to half-freaking out again.

It made no sense, Izuku didn't have a quirk. There was no way in Hel that Izuku could even get a quirk, even if he was a late-bloomer. His dad had paid for all of the tests while he was still living with them all those years ago.

So why the Hel could Izuku remember being Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third???

Chapter Text

His mom’s cooking was as fantastic as always. But Izuku found himself struggling with the sweetness of the pancakes that she’d made, and chewing down the normally delicious breakfast.

Izuku knows that there’s nothing wrong with the food, or his body, it’s his memories that are affecting him this moment. While Izuku’s memories of being Hiccup have given him a confidence burst - his mom had given him a surprised look when he’d left his room, and commented on it - he felt strange in his own body now.

Izuku had felt Hiccup’s loss of his foot in the memories, and since coming out of his room, found it disconnecting to feel his foot there there used to be a Prosthetic. There was also the expectancy that he’d see Astrid sitting somewhere with her axe that she’d taken so much care of over the years. The shock of seeing normal everyday objects such as the TV, or the fridge startled Izuku for a moment when he first saw them, as if the memories of Hiccup himself were surprised.

Heading to school was worse.

Izuku kept noticing the smallest details about the place he’d grown up in, grimacing and wincing at the smell in the air, which, compared to the air Hiccup-Izuku could remember breathing, it tasted vile. 

Hiccup-Izuku couldn’t see anyone enjoying living here, let alone having to live here (Hiccup could barely figure out how Izuku had managed to live in this toxic environment for his whole life). It made Hiccup-Izuku glad that the dragons had retreated back to the Hidden World all those years ago. He wouldn't wish for Toothless and his family to be subjected to this world.

His heart arched at the thought of his best friend, even if Hiccup hadn't seen the Night Fury in decades before he died, even if Izuku knew that he had never gotten the chance himself to see the Night Fury.

The cars that passed Hiccup-Izuku made him jump occasionally, eyes widening in surprise before he ran through how they worked in his head, letting Izuku-Hiccup relax as his mind rambled.

Entering the school gates was worse. Every instinct from Hiccup's memories demanded that Izuku straighten up and walk with the pride of being a chief's son, but everything in Izuku's Mind, body, and heart screamed at him to make himself smaller, try to be less of a target than he already was.

Izuku was glad that there was no incident on his way to class. His desk was even marginally cleaner than normal! Even if he had to still clean off the words written in black marker, and there wasn't much that he could do to the words carved into the wood, 

Hiccup's influence raged at Izuku's classmates while he tried to keep the rage settled in his chest.

Righteous anger that Izuku hadn't felt in years made him clench his fingers into the palms of his hands to ground himself. He closed his eyes as his classmates tricked in, trying to focus on Hiccup's happy memories of flying Toothless as a couple classmates shoved his desk, slammed their shoulders into his, and laughed at him.

The teacher came in, ignored his classmates behavior towards him, and started the lesson.

The whole time, Izuku just scribbled away in his notebook, half paying attention to the lesson, the teacher and his classmates, half day-dreaming his way through HiccIp's memories, writing down occasional Quirk Analysis add-ons, drawing dragons in his notebook from memory, and just generally trying to avoid everything.

When the bell rang, Hiccup-Izuku jumped in surprise, but Izuku-Hiccup grabbed his stuff and ran as soon as he could.

Abuse from his classmates has taught Izuku how to keep his head down to not draw attention, memory has taught him how to hide in the shadows; to keep out of sight.

Dragons are- were dangerous creatures, one wrong move could set them off. It's the same with Izuku's classmates. While Hiccup was the son of the chief of Berk, Izuku was just the plain quirkless kid that no one cared about. His worth was zero compared to Hiccup's worth before he died.

That was just simple facts.

(Not once did Izuku-Hiccup stop to consider his worth now that he had Hiccup's memories with him.)

"Deku!"

Izuku-Hiccup flinched at the name and only tried to flee faster - runtweakwothless - but inevitably was forced to stop when warning pops were shoved onto Izuku-Hiccup's shoulder.

"Kacchan-" Izuku was cut off by a small explosion that he only took a moment to marvel at the amount of control Bakugo must've trained himself to have, before being forced to look into burning red eyes.

Hiccup-Izuku could compare the rage in them to the same rage that Snotlout used to have when Hiccup (finally) took his place as heir of Berk, in his own way with the Dragons. Or how jealous Snotlout looked occasionally when he glanced at Hiccup and Toothless together.

Izuku-Hiccup's eyes widened in realization, not paying attention to Bakugo as the blond spat at him.

Bakugou was jealous of him? Why? Bakugo had a Quirk, Bakugo was so much more useful to the world. Bakugo was going to be a hero, so why? What is there to be jealous of Izuku for?

"-listening to me, haaaaah?!?!"

Oh, right. Bakugo's talking. Izuku-Hiccup winced. Whoops.

(Of course, this was thought sarcastically. How else would Hiccup-Izuku think it?)

"Sorry, Kacchan," Izuku apologized quietly, gritting his teeth as crackles torched his shoulder this time.

"Tch," Bakugo scowled, turning away, "Useless Deku."

Hiccup's memories of all the names the Berkians called him behind his and his father's backs played through his mind. Runt, weakling, worthless, useless, mistake …

"Don't call me that."

The words just came out on their own, and Izuku instantly covered his mouth as his, and everybody else's, eyes widened.

Bakugo had stilled, fists clenching at his sides, and Izuku-Hiccup's body tensed as the blond slowly turned to face him. Pure unbridled fury that Izuku had never seen before.

"What. Did. You. Say. Shitty. Deku!?" Bakugo snarled, spit almost hitting Izuku-Hiccup as the explosive boy stormed towards him again.

A courage that Izuku knew only came from Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, Chief of Berk, Rider and Partner of the Night Fury Alpha, defeated of Dragon Hunters, the Red Death, Drago's Bewilderbeast, and taken down Grimmel and his dragons, a courage that Izuku had no right to. A courage that made Izuku straighten his back, let his shoulders move back slightly into a confident stance, feet moving apart, and arms crossing over his chest as he raised an eyebrow at Bakugo.

"I said: Don't call me that," Izuku rolled his eyes, "What? Have you finally started going deaf after all these years Bakugo-" whispers started at his use of Bakugo's family name, "-if so, my apologies, but you have no right to call me that. We're not friends, you're just a bully."

Bakugo's glare had only grown darker, even if he too had spluttered at the use of his family name, "Deku-"

"My name is H- Midoriya, Bakugo," Izuku interrupted, hoping that no one caught his almost slip, "You'd be best to start calling me that-" he paused to allow his eyes to cooly gaze at their classmates who mostly looked sheepish, but quite a few people looked angry, "-same goes for all you. Just because I'm quirkless does not mean useless."

His mind ran over all the statistics of Quirkless people, mainly the suicides that were encouraged by Quirked people. 

"Why should we listen to you!?"

"Yeah!"

Izuku would've backed down immediately, but Hiccup's memories of what it had been like before Toothless came to mind( and it was so much like what his own life had been until now ), and Izuku knows that he doesn't want to live that again.

"Why should you call me by my name?" Izuku paused (dramatically), placing a hand on his chin as if in thought, "I don't know… maybe because it's what any decent human being would do? It's what someone who is aiming to be a hero should do?"

Izuku rolled his eyes as Bakugo stood shock-still, obviously understanding the second one to be aimed at him, and Izuku walked away from the crowd that had gathered, ignoring the confused whispers as he escaped to the rooftop for the break.

(Izuku had a panic-attack later, freaking out about the whole incident. Wondering where the Hel he'd gotten the confidence to stand up to Bakugo of all people??)

(Even if it had turned out to be something good, as no one called him "deku" except for Bakugo, but when Izuku gave him a sharp glare, the blond corrected himself with an "Izuku", which Izuku guessed that he could accept, "Midoriya" probably reminded Bakugo of Izuku's mom (and, maybe Izuku's dad).)

Chapter Text

News of Izuku's standing against Bakugo had spread across the school easily during the period after break. 

Izuku ignored the stares with Hiccup's practice, focusing on his classwork, and when he ran out of given work to do, he moved onto recreating some of Hiccup's designs from the past. Altering them for the current materials that people had in this day and age.

(While Izuku may not be able to recreate Hiccup's dragon-scale armour or his sword that used Nightmare gel and Zippleback gas (and the sparks needed to ignite the gas), he could use alternate materials to create the same effect.)

Normal gas would work just fine for the sword, he might have to take apart a lighter for the spark, but Nightmare Gel would be slightly harder to replace. He’d probably have to find - or create - a chemical that stayed solid but burnt when he made the spark.

If he could get his hands on a bunch of molybdenum titanium, the metal would be able to withstand most of the heat from the blade itself, and if he-

Someone hissed at him to be quiet, and Izuku shut his mouth, not letting the embarrassment of his mumbles being heard get to him. 

(In fact, if he had looked up to see the expressions on his classmates’ faces, then he would’ve undoubtedly seen fear and horror on their faces as they had just listened to him mumble about creating a sword that could be lit on fire.)

Izuku kept his right hand on his jaw so that he wouldn’t mumble - as much - and used his left to scribble away.

He was going to need a long-distance weapon, bows wouldn’t work, knives maybe for mid-long distance, a gun perhaps? If he - somehow - got a gun, then he’d definitely modify the fudge out of it. 

He absent-mindedly itched at his prosthetic, then paused when Izuku remembered that he didn’t have a prosthetic. His leg tingled slightly as he closed his eyes to remember the feeling of Hiccup’s prosthetic, then he breathed out before getting back to work.

That’s pretty much how the rest of his day went. Doing classwork, then moving onto his own projects. And when the final bell ran, Izuku packed up his stuff and scattered before anyone else had left their seats.

Izuku didn’t bother going back to the empty house that he knew his mother wouldn’t be in, choosing, instead, to head towards the giant dump beach, Takoba Municipal Beach Park. It wasn’t on his way home, and Izuku barely headed that far from his neighbourhood unless he’d caught news of a Hero-Villain fight on his way home, 

He probably wouldn't end up leaving until he really had to. Hiccup-Izuku already had a bunch of ideas, and from memory, knew that there would be endless amounts of metal hidden under all the trash. And because of the sheer height of the rubbish on the beach, he could get away with making a fire to bend or melt the metal for his projects.

The stench from the rubbish made Hiccup-Izuku grimace for a moment - way worse than dragon dung - before he tugged off his gakuran's top and tied it around his face to at least keep some of the stench from reaching his nose.

And he got to work.

Occasionally when Izuku came across certain tougher patches of rubbish, he'd turn and go to ask Toothless for help, then Hiccup would freeze and panic for a moment before Izuku shoved it down, sadness lingering in his chest as he forced himself to keep working.

It was strange. Yesterday Izuku would never have felt like this - aching pain in his chest - to another being.

The only being that Izuku would think that he'd have this sort of emotional connection with would be his mother - and maybe Katsuki once upon a time before everything - and to think that Izuku's relationship with his mother paled in comparison to Hiccup's relationship with Toothless. It was shocking, but yet not at the same time.

How the Berkian Berserkers had treated Hiccup before the Red Queen's death was pretty similar to how everyone around Izuku treated him.

(Although, it was more on an extreme level when it came to his classmates. Snotlout and the twins might've been harsher on him than Fishlegs or some of the other kids when they were younger, their actions and behaviour were nothing in comparison to Izuku's classmates.)

It took him a great chunk of time to find some of the metal and by the time Izuku realized that it was getting too late, it was almost seven o'clock.

He'd hurriedly covered his pile of metal with other rubbish so that no one else would steal it before he would be able to come back.

Happy with his work, Izuku quickly made his way out of the trash beach and only just managed to catch the train back to his neighbourhood before it left.

He got strange looks for his messy uniform, and how much he stank, but Hiccup-Izuku barely cared as he scribbled more details down in his notebook. Izuku-Hiccup already had plenty of ideas of different equipment that he'd need to build to counter certain quirks, and despite knowing that there would be quirks he simply could not counter, Izuku wanted to be ready for almost everything that would be thrown at him.

His station was announced, which was the only thing that alerted Izuku that he was almost home. Otherwise, he would have stayed on the train for much longer.

Thankfully, Izuku-Hiccup didn't see Katsuki on his way home. Burn scars from explosions itching under his gakuran-

Izuku's mother wasn't home, so he quickly swapped out of his gakuran, put it on to wash in the washing machine, had a quick shower to try to get some of the lingering smell off of him, switched into pyjamas before making a quick and easy meal for him to eat.

Too many flavours and spices would make him feel sick, so he stuck to plain foods, rice, some shredded chicken from the night before in a small soup.

He ended up turning on the news while he ate, chopsticks in his right hand while he added shading to the picture of Toothless, Luna, and their kids, Dart, Pouncer and Ruffrunner, the Night-Lights.

Izuku was fascinated at the way he drew them - all too familiar lines that he’d drawn thousands of times in the past - and how each expression looked on each dragon. 

Toothless looked slightly annoyed as Dart lay on her father’s head, Pouncer was keeping close to his mother and Ruffrunner wasn’t too far between either parent, choosing to stay equal between Toothless and Luna.

(Astrid had ended up naming the Light Fury Luna after Hiccup tried to name her Máni, after the god of the Moon.

His wife had just shaken her head at his terrible naming skills.)

Izuku shut his book and focused on eating his food as he mind-numbingly watched pictures move on the screen of the television. Hiccup's curiosity peaked in his chest as he wondered how exactly the television worked on the inside.

Maybe he could do some research later and pull apart one of the various televisions that he'd seen at the beach. It might help him develop his various projects.

Izuku's mother got home after he had finished his dinner, and had moved to the computer to do research. A fresh notebook on the desk as he switched between writing important factors down, and reading articles/watching videos.

His mother was obviously too tired from work to really care was her - Quirkles, Useless, Weak, Pathetic - son was doing.

He welcomed her back home, and all she did was press a kiss to his hair before warily heading down the hallway to her room.

Izuku didn't bother feeling hurt at his mother's lack of reaction to him. If he wasn't being ignored, then he was being beaten up. If his mother didn't ignore him, how worse would his life get?

He didn't want to tempt fate.

"Time to shut off," He mumbled to himself after a while of seemingly endless research.

Izuku grabbed his notebook and somehow made it to his room where he crashed on his bed. He was taken by the grasps of sleep quickly, too tired from the day's events to bother with much else

Chapter Text

The first time Izuku-Hiccup accidentally technically broke the law was when he was walking home from the beach/dump one evening.

He hadn't meant to technically break the law - despite being Quirkless and effectively having immunity from the law because of his lack of Quirk - but, Izuku-Hiccup couldn't just let that man attack the pair of girls also walking home.

In either life, he'd never been physically strong in a buff sort of way, but Izuku knew physics and with Hiccup's experience with physics themselves, he had a pretty good idea how to angle a piece of metal at the right degree to knock the man out safely.

Hiccup-Izuku made sure to catch the adult male, and gently rest him on the ground before Izuku-Hiccup made sure that the girls were okay, forgetting that he had his goggles on, and his bandana over his mouth.

Thus the accidental beginning of his career in crime-fighting "illegally".

And it wasn’t as if Izuku-Hiccup meant to keep doing it. He just ended up jumping in to help before he could even think about running away, and if things got too bad he knew that he could rely on Hiccup's memories to guide him through some of the fights.

(Apparently fighting dragon-hunters back then was more than enough for Hiccup to have to learn how to fight physically, especially when Toothless wasn't there to back him up.)

Izuku was always best at pivoting on his right leg, mainly because of Hiccup's loss of his left one, but with the memories of the former Chief, Izuku found it easy to use both hands in combat and ordinary life. Hiccup had been left-handed, Izuku was right-handed. Izuku hadn’t even noticed that he was switching between hands until his Mother pointed it out during dinner when he was eating and writing at the same time.

Cue the surprise, and then a made-up fib that Hiccup-Izuku winced at, but Izuku-Hiccup knew that his mother would let it slide.

Like with everything else going on his weak, pathetic, Quirkless life.

After a few weeks of the technically illegal work, Izuku found out that people had started calling him Knockout, or K.O. for short. Simply because he took down the criminals before they could do anything too bad, and usually too quickly for the criminals to notice him until it was too late.

And Izuku got to hear about himself at school.

The other kids didn't talk to him, and if they did happen to chance a look towards Izuku-Hiccup, then they'd flinch and look away. But there was so much gossip and chatter that happened around him that Hiccup-Izuku didn't care for the reactions of his classmates to his presence.

K.O. was apparently known for his always changing outfit and weapons, while always having the same bright red shoes.

Nowadays, not too many people knew what the shoes meant. But people who knew people like Izuku probably could figure out what the bright red shoes meant.

Quirkless. Jointed toe.

Surprisingly none of his classmates had caught onto that fact quite yet. And Izuku was happy about that. He didn't want or need the attention when he was just doing what was right. Izuku-Hiccup usually only ended up helping when they came across the crimes while wandering to get out of the apartment that he and his Mother lived in.

(Lived in. Not home. Lived in.

Hiccup had a home once upon a time, and so did Izuku… before the Quirklessness came into his life.)

Izuku didn't get the chance to construct Hiccup's sword until he'd managed to make the sword itself over a weekend that he spent at the beach.

He'd probably need to upgrade it to a higher standard of metal later on, but for now, this was all he needed. Especially since it could shrink down. He could carry it everywhere with him.

(If people started talking about Knockout appearing with a sword that could light on fire, well, Izuku just wouldn't use his sword until he needed it.)

His mother was always busy working, so while Izuku guessed that she might have some sort of idea of what he was up to during the evenings, she didn't actually have proof of it.

Izuku was usually too busy in the short time that they had together in the evenings to converse with his Mother when she got home from work, and in the mornings before school and work, Izuku was too disoriented by the dream-memories that he had while sleeping to be his Mother's son.

("You didn't have to do this," a female voice teased by his ear.

He chuckled, "What? Make breakfast for my wife? The same woman who put up with my bullshit over the years?" He twisted his head to meet grey-blue eyes, "Of course I'd do this." )

And Izuku still found himself searching for people, and beings, that weren't there anymore.

By the time his thirteenth birthday rolled around, Izuku-Hiccup hadn't had a single beating from his classmates - abusers, bullies - in just about a year.

Yuuei entrance exam would be happening in two years, but Izuku was stuck between wanting to go into Heroics and knowing how much good he could possibly do in Management or Support.

If Hiccup still lived, but in this day and age, Izuku knew that the Viking would've been a great scientist or architect.

Before gaining the former chief's memories, Izuku knew for certain that he wanted to go into the Heroics. Now? With his room filled with "junk" that he'd made, notebooks scattered everywhere with various projects in them, a large amount were still part of his Hero analysis, pens and pencils hidden in corners of his room, and his mostly clean clothes in his wardrobe… Izuku wasn't sure if he wanted to keep loving like this, or change.

Change.

What a funny word.

Izuku found himself pondering over the word sometimes, wondering if he hadn't gotten Hiccup's memories, what would have happened?

He had muscle mass now, from all the work he did at the beach, but was still lean enough for running. Izuku had trimmed back his hair slightly, learning how to keep his wild curls from getting too messy. He didn't hide the various scars on his arms during school and caught several of his classmates pointedly ignoring him when he did so.

(Take that, dragon-dug morons!)

Yes, Izuku was technically using psychological attacks against his classmates. Would the - dumbass idiots - teachers be able to see or understand this? Probably not.

But, change.

It was defined as an act or process through which something becomes different. A process that makes (someone or something) different; altering or modifying them. Defined as replacing (something) with something else, especially something of the same kind that is newer or better; a substitute one thing for (another).

Was Izuku being substituted? The past Izuku for this Izuku, perhaps, but there must've been a reason he was given the chance to see the world with Hiccup's memories.

Izuku just didn't know why.

Chapter Text

It took Izuku just short of eight months to build his first computer. 

Hours of researching the parts needed, uncountable time spent looking at manuals and Youtube videos.

Hiccup had never built something like this before, neither had Izuku, who focused more on applying his knowledge in analysis than building stuff, so it was something new for both sides of him.

The computer wasn’t too bad, but there was no way in hell Izuku would get anything over four thousand yen for it. 

So guess what? He scrapped it, taking apart the more vital parts, and chucking out the more rubbish ones, deciding to rebuild it when he had the better parts later on, and Izuku turned his focus onto his other projects.

Mainly the flight suit that he was attempting to recreate without the Nightfury scales that Hiccup had used back when he still had Toothless. It was difficult, Izuku would admit easily to anyone who asked - but no one would - and he tried several materials with no luck so far. 

Which was how he ended up meeting and befriending one Hatsume Mei.

He’d been trying out one version of his flight suit, crashed the flight suit, and was discovered half-on-fire by a pink-haired girl who easily whipped out a fire extinguisher and put out the fire. 

A short introduction, a discussion of materials used, a chat about projects, and thus a wonderful friendship was forged by the love of inventing.

Also helped that neither Mei nor her family cared if Izuku didn’t have a quirk - unlike everyone else in his life - and he found himself going over the Hatsume household more often than not, the place being more of a home to him than the apartment with his Mother.

Also, being friends with Hatsume and her two mothers meant that Izuku-Hiccup had access to better materials, even if it wasn’t his intention, Mei helped him with his flight suit, and he eventually caved in when she asked to put jets on the suit.

(Well, it wasn’t like he was going to have a dragon to jump off in midair.)

Hmm, he really should have thought about that sooner.

“Izzzuuuuuu-kuuuunnnnn!”

Izuku stopped sketching, and looked in the direction he’d heard his name from his friend, putting his pencil down and scrambling up and heading her way before-

BOOM!!!!

Too late.

Izuku-Hiccup sighed, and ignored the smoking remains of the eighth door that had been replaced that week - it was only Tuesday - and stepped into the cluttered room. 

Not even Mei’s bed had been spared from various inventions and metals. Half the time that she actually slept, Mei crashed in the room that had been set aside for Izuku. And whenever he stayed over - which was four to five times a week, not that his mother noticed - they ended up sleeping in the same bed because the floor of his room was just as filled as Mei’s room. 

You know, if they got to sleep. And if they actually managed to make it to the bed, unless either of Mei’s mothers came and put them in the bed.

The only times that Izuku wasn't hanging out with Mei was when he had to go to school, or back to his mother’s apartment. Abuse or neglect? Take your pick.

“Fuck,” Mei grumbled, pouting at her currently smoking metal that had been the invention that she obviously had been working on. 

“May they rest in peace,” Izuku chuckled when Mei’s gleaming eyes turned onto him. Her green-yellow eyes zooming in on him.

“Izu-kunnn,” She pouted and he stopped chuckling, moving further into her room to pat her shoulder.

Hiccup had been on the end of failed experiments and inventions before, nothing like Mei’s version of “Not-Failed” and his had never been so explosive. If Mei’s quirk wasn’t Zoom, Izuku would assume that she had a quirk that allowed her to make explosives out of anything. 

Izuku helped Mei clean up as much of the mess as they could, and stayed to help with her inventions. With him around, at least twenty percent of her creations stayed intact instead of exploding at the first thing.

Goodie.

“Maybe you should calculate your effectiveness at explosions into your work,” Izuku teased, and giggled as he dodged the metal remains that Mei threw at him.

She stuck her tongue out at him, “Shut it, foolish bush! I’ll burn that plant off your head next time!”

“Go wild!” Izuku countered.

They stopped moving, picking up the mess to look each other in the eyes before bursting into maniacal laughter. 

Mei’s dad popped his head into the room, “Okay, who did you two murder?”

Izuku smirked, and he knew that Mei had smirked beside him as his friend’s dad paled even more, “No one,” they said together innocently. 

The man wisely retreated.

°°°

Izuku tried his best not to think of Hiccup’s life unless he needed small tidbits of information. 

But sometimes, that plan didn’t always pan out. 

Surprisingly often, Izuku got little-to-no sleep when Hiccup’s life replayed in his head. More often were the years that Hiccup spent with Toothless, and secondarily was the Viking’s time spent with wife and children in the village. 

Izuku wished that he’d gotten a chance at a similar type of family that Hiccup had gotten, before Izuku had gotten Hiccup’s memories, but he supposed that the life he was living now was better than anything he could’ve imagined. 

With just a little over a year to go until he and Mei could apply for Yuuei, Izuku was just glad that he could mostly differentiate between himself and Hiccup. Sure, a fair amount of the time, Izuku would get up in the morning, stuck in Hiccup’s memories and be so confused at where he was, and would actually be thinking along the lines of what Hiccup might’ve done if he was dumped into this era suddenly. 

While Izuku knows that he’s quirkless, there are times where he doubts it, how else could he remember being an entirely different person, back when Vikings existed with dragons?

And… DRAGONS!!

Izuku had taken his notebooks that he’d drawn the dragons in from Inko’s house, and carefully placed them in a space where they wouldn’t get affected by his inventions in his room at the Hatsume house. 

His collection of those notebooks only grew alongside his analysis notebooks. Quirks were still amazing to know about, but with Hiccup’s memories in his head, Izuku had space in his heart and soul for the longing he felt from Hiccup’s memories for his best friend. 

Probably the only thing that Izuku wished that he had. Toothless, or someone like him.

Mei was great, but Izuku and Hiccup had never been as good with human relationships as they had been with animals. Hiccup with his dragons, and Izuku with the wild cats and dogs that he often found when wandering about the city. 

He sighed, and Izuku rolled over onto his side, debating the pros and cons of turning on the light and drawing more dragons, half-hoping that it would fill the void in his chest. 

Unfortunately, Izuku was smart enough to know that he hadn’t gotten much sleep this month and that he better get some before he burnt himself out. So, he grumbled at his brain to shut up as he tried to get some sleep.

HE NEEDS SLEEP, PLEASE SHUT UP BRAIN!

It took Izuku far too long to fall asleep.

Chapter Text

Izuku shifted under the weight of the exam judges, and it was only his confidence that his inventions would work correctly that kept him from running out of the room. 

He'd added his blueprints for his-Hiccup's suit in his portfolio, the blueprints for his-Hiccup's sword, and his-their plans that were in progress for making a version of a dragon. Only a small model version of course, Izuku didn't trust himself or Mei to not cause a giant problem - her explosions, and his failures; but you only got better at something by trying again and again- with creating a large-scale sized version of the dragon. Izuku coding had become better since he'd met the Hatsume family, but he wasn’t the greatest at it yet. Who knew what he would accidentally program into it? 

Much better to have a smaller version that is less likely to destroy a house than a larger version that could possibly destroy a whole city.

Or, you know, the world. Especially since he and Mei would be working on it. 

(Izuku didn’t trust himself to work on a project like this without his best human friend. Mei had plenty more practice, and honestly, Izuku was slightly afraid that he’d cause something Bad to happen.)

"Interesting…" one of the judges that Izuku couldn’t recognize, but had guessed that they were either a support technician who was extremely out of the Limelight/mainstream media, or that they were someone from the HPSC, they eyed him with a curious look, "What inspired you to make these?"

Ah, yes. The question that everyone asked Izuku when they saw his-Hiccup's upgraded designs.

Mei's mother had asked him  Mei's father had asked him, Mei herself had asked him, their materials guy had asked him, and even some of his classmates who were still trying to get into his good books after Hiccup-Izuku snapped at Katsuki and the rest of them, had asked him.

Izuku had given everyone else different answers, shrugging, saying that he’d had a weird dream(not a lie, technically ), that he’d seen something on the internet(okay, that one was a lie and Izuku would admit it), or that they better mind their own business(this one was towards his classmates rather than to anyone else).

This time was no different. 

“I had this crazy idea as a kid,” Izuku gave the judge a sheepish smile, “That somewhere out in the world, that there were dragons like in fairytales and stuff, guess it stuck with me this whole time.”

He got a nod from the judge, and while the other judges didn’t seem to care much about his answer, Izuku didn’t like the look on the other judge’s face when they heard his answer. Like Hiccup had caused a  mess during a dragon raid again, but that was so long ago? So many years before Hiccup had found Toothless- and Izuku decided he didn’t like that judge. 

“Okay, that’ll be all, Midoriya-san,” Power Loader smiled gently from under his long orange-red hair. Izuku had been surprised to see the support teacher and Pro-Hero in a suit and tie, but he guessed that even Pro-Heroes had to dress up “appropriately” for things like this, “Thank you for sharing your designs with us.”

Izuku bowed and quickly scrambled to gather his few inventions, leaving the copies of his blueprints and Analysis breakdowns with the judges before the next examinee came in. 

It had been difficult letting Mei and her parents convince Izuku to present Izuku’s quirk analysis. He-Hiccup had enough pride and confidence in their inventions, but Izuku didn’t have any in the analysis while Hiccup didn’t know what to think; still muddled between now and then.

He’d gotten better at separating from Izuku and Hiccup, but when he was nervous sometimes everything got a little muddled.

Mei was waiting for him outside, as were the next examinees. His pink-haired friend was more excited to see him than the other examinees, but Izuku didn’t pay the others any mind, a grin already spreading across his face. 

“How’d it go, greenie!? Good, right? They loved your analysis, right?! They had to! I swear if they don’t let you in with me, I’m going to have to explode the scrap out of their labs-” Mei probably would’ve gone on if not for Izuku giggling, and dragging her away before the other kids could get angry at the both of them.

Izuku smiled at his friend, finally getting his giggling under control, “Thank you, Mei.”

His friend grinned back, “We’re going to have so much fun, Izu-kun!!”

°°°

They had to wait to find out if they got into the support course. 

Izuku had looked online, and most people said that their letters of acceptance - or failure - usually came within two to three weeks, which meant that he and Mei had two to three weeks of fun to do to keep Izuku’s nerves from playing up.

One of Mei’s tactics was taking him to the same rubbish-filled beach that they had first met. But someone had to have been cleaning it up because Izuku was sure that the mountains of forgotten rubbish had gotten smaller, and there were bigger patches of empty sand than there were a few months ago. 

He and Mei split up as soon as they arrived, divide and conquer and all that stuff. Mei was more knowledgeable in how to scale the mountains of rubbish, so she went right in, while Izuku stuck to the sides of the mountains, finding small, but important pieces that they might be able to use. 

He was humming an old Hairy Hooligan song that had been made while Hiccup’s children had grown up on New-Berk. One that was nothing like the songs that Hiccup had grown up on.

The song was about finding peace with yourself, and accepting others for who they were; a sly jab at how the rest of the tribe had treated Hiccup, that he’d gotten after hearing the song the first few times. 

A noise made Izuku pause - as it wasn’t the normal sound of metal or plastic, or glass, or any type of rubbish really, moving - and stop humming. But the other noise went silent. 

Huh, strange.

Izuku sang quietly, ignoring how wrong the words sounded in his voice instead of Hiccup’s, and followed the small noises that seemed to be mimicking the song. It took him five minutes, and more than a few pauses to catch his breath, but eventually, Izuku opened a drawer fully to find a small bundle of dark fur.

The bundle of fur was stinky as Mei after she’d gone a month in her “lab” without a shower, and dim green eyes blinked up at him when Izuku stopped singing in surprise. The bundle of fur was a large kitten or small cat, and the cat squished itself into the corner of the drawer to hiss at him. 

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Izuku promised, reaching into the drawer. He yelped and pulled his hands back when the small - but deadly - cat/kitten scratched his hand with sharp claws. 

He pondered on how to get the cat/kitten to trust him, watching as its green eyes watched him. Then, as if by magic - haha, if only - Izuku remembered how Hiccup had gotten Toothless to let him touch the dragon. 

It probably wouldn’t work with a cat, but was there anyone else around to give Izuku help in calming the cat down? No? Cool, so he’s gonna do what he wants. 

Izuku hesitated for a moment, angry red scratch marks glaring at him from his pale skin, then closed his eyes, turning his head away, and letting his hand just hang into the drawer. If this worked, then Izuku was going to do a ton of research into cats, and try to convince Mei’s parents to let him adopt a whole clowder of them.

He stiffened, then smiled when he felt messy, but soft fur touch his hand, a small tongue licking the scratches on his hand and he giggled. The small sandpaper-like feeling tickled, and Izuku peered back into the drawer to see the cat/kitten purring as he rubbed its fur softly, “What’s your name, little one?” Izuku smiled as the cat/kitten’s green eyes blinked up at him. 

He stuck his other hand in the drawer, and the cat seemed smart enough as it let him pick it up carefully. He accidentally got sight of what sex the cat was when it squirmed, and Izuku chuckled, patting down the ruffled fur, “Did you want a name?” he asked.

He didn’t get an answer, the cat purring in his arms as he brushed his hand over his fur, but Izuku smiled as the poor cat relaxed completely. 

Well, he did say that he had been missing Toothless the dragon, so why not Toothless the cat?

“What do you think about “Toothless”?” Izuku asked the cat quietly, and green eyes blinked at him through the cat’s purring. He chuckled as the cat purred more, “I’ll take that as a yes, then.”

Oh, frick, Izuku was going to have to check that it was going to be alright with Mei’s parents if he could keep the poor cat. Oh, well. Izuku kept their daughter under somewhat control, and helped her act “normal” sometimes, maybe that would tie into agreeing?

If not, then he could always claim Toothless as an emotional support animal. Odin knows that Izuku will need someone when Mei’s not around. 

“Okay, then,” Izuku smiled at the cat in his arms, “Hopefully Mei’s parents say yes.”

Spoiler alert; they did. With lots of cooing over the black-furred, green-eyed cat that claimed Izuku as his.

Chapter Text

Their letters from Yuuei did indeed take two weeks to arrive. 

Toothless the cat had won the hearts of Mei’s parents and eased into Izuku and Mei’s chaotic lifestyle relatively easy. Sure, the cat got startled at times, usually when Izuku or Mei accidentally caused explosions, but the black cat was quick to learn that not every loud noise meant that Izuku and Mei were dying. The first few times that it had happened, the poor cat refused to let Izuku go back to work, and he had to leave the room to go calm Toothless the cat down, leaving Mei to her own devices.

In fact, one day, Toothless the cat had gotten caught up in a small accident, so now he had a little scar on the side of his tail that was reminiscent of Toothless the Nightfury's missing tailfin.

(Izuku ignored the part of Hiccup that hid in the back of his head, the part that sobbed silently at night because he missed his family; humans and dragons alike.)

After Toothless had spent the night at the vet - for his injury on his tail. The vets just wanted to make sure that the cat would be alright - Izuku and Toothless had shared Izuku's bed every time they got some sleep. 

Unless Izuku was going to Inko's apartment or going to school for the last few things before High School, then people would be hard-pressed to find the cat and boy apart from one another. In fact, it was more likely to find Mei apart from them than Toothless away from Izuku. The cat was protective, and even if he was walking beside Izuku on the ground, or if he was getting a ride on Izuku's shoulders or in his hands, no matter the situation, Toothless was there for Izuku.

Actually, it was Toothless that had realised that their letters from Yuuei had arrived.

The cat had a sense of smell that was simply amazing, and managed to get Izuku outside to grab the letters from the mailbox - the green-haired teen had been so confused as his black cat led him outside until Toothless led him to the mailbox and he found the letters - and take them inside Mei's home to open with her and her parents.

Toothless the cat brushed his fur against Izuku's hand as the green-haired teen opened the envelope. His pink-haired friend doing the same across from him at the kitchen table, minus the cat, of course.

Izuku swallowed, eyes darting up to meet Mei's excited ones. They both slid several pieces of paper out from the envelope, the thinnest one on top, and Izuku opened it first while Mei opened the thickest.

He grinned while Mei groaned, opening her thinnest one as well.

It was a basic, congrats for making it in, hope that you enjoy your time at Yuuei, and see you in a month for the start of the first term. Blah, blah, blah.

But it was enough for Izuku to beam, pick up Toothless and spin the poor cat around as he squealed excitedly. Toothless looked sick and dizzy when Izuku stopped spinning. The green-haired teenager was quick to give his apologies to the cat who purred as the human brushed down the cat’s fur. 

Izuku smiled when Mei’s parents congratulated them, but he didn’t pay them much attention compared his attention to Toothless, who was purring up a storm.

If Mei and her parents glanced over and smiled at the two fondly, then Izuku didn’t notice.  

°°°

Maijima Higari had thought the two teenagers were brilliant. 

Midoriya Izuku was a strange boy who appeared to get lost in his head at times, while Hatsume Mei had a tendency for explosions, but otherwise, they were brilliant teenagers that he was looking forward to having in his class.

Until they walked into the 1-F class together, a black cat with green eyes perched on Midoriya’s shoulder, and the two teenagers were chattering away about what Higari remembered vaguely of Midoriya’s wingsuit project that the green-haired teen had submitted for his profile to be judged, then switching to Hatsume’s “jack-of-all-tools” which she had dubbed “the tool for every useless hero out there”. 

Then the two of them then proceeded to accidentally blow up their section of the lab when the class-time came for it, and the rest of Higari’s students looked terrified when the girl burst into maniacal laughter, the boy rolled his eyes at her while patting the cat’s back, the cat that didn’t look bothered being covered in soot and singed and instead was purring away under Midoriya’s hand.

Higari now understood what Aizawa meant by “problem children”.

Maybe he could convince the underground pro to take Midoriya under his metaphorical wing; the kid had a cat, after all, that might win the man over. 

Higari feared that he’d be sharing the same sort of mindset as Aizawa this year.

°°°

Izuku had only been at Yuuei for a day, but he already loved being in 1-F.

Toothless was happy as long as Izuku was happy and he got pats, and Mei was happy to be able to create all of her “babies” with the best materials that Yuuei could offer - as well as being able to make as many explosions as she could while having their part of the classroom still standing.

He was slightly confused as to why their classmates refused to be paired up with Mei - and consequently Izuku, because he was the one paired up with her - as it wasn’t that strange that her devices sometimes/often blew up. Mei was working with chemicals that if mixed incorrectly, then it'd blow up. Let alone actual wiring and coding that occasionally blew up when done incorrectly, or when they were in a rush and wanted to get the item done as quickly as possible to move onto another project.

(He wondered why Maijima-sensei seemed so nervous around him and Mei(and Toothless). It wasn't as if they had reached Mei's record for the number of explosions in one day yet.)

Now they were heading to lunch.

Toothless was perched on his shoulder as Izuku dragged a pouting Mei who was extending the full power of her crocodile tears that Izuku knew weren’t just crocodile tears, but real tears as well. But everyone else would see them as crocodile tears, so Izuku had to be ready to explain what really was happening. 

“Hey, Izu-kun?”

Izuku stumbled when the tears stopped, and he paused to look at his friend, “Huh?”

“Do we know any angry explosive blonds that look like he wants to kill you?”

"DEKU!!!!"

Izuku sighed, helping Mei stand upright as he curled a protective hand as a shield in front of Toothless. They faced the incoming wild blond, "What do you want, Bakugo?" Izuku raised his chin ever so slightly. 

Katsuki faltered for a moment, eyes widening at the obvious challenge Izuku was giving him, then he tched, “What the fuck are you doing here?! Auntie thinks-”

“That I’m off away in some safe school in Tokyo, which, newsflash, doesn’t exist for someone like me,” Izuku rolled his eyes, waving a hand aimlessly, “Just leave me alone in Support, and I’ll leave you alone in heroics.”

Toothless hissed from behind Izuku’s hand, while Mei crossed her arms beside Izuku, giving the other teenager a sharp glare. Izuku’s former childhood friend scowled before storming off.

Izuku let out the breath he didn’t know that he had been holding, and his shoulders slumped. Mei bumped shoulders with him, and Toothless meowed, rubbing his head against Izuku’s hair. 

“C’mon, Greenie,” Mei winked at him, an unusual air of calmness to her, “Let’s go plan the explosive pomeranian’s faulty gear.”

Izuku blinked, then laughed, “You can’t plan faulty gear, Mei-Mei! You’ll get in trouble!”

His friend grinned as they made their way to the cafeteria, “All the more fun, Izu-kun!”

Chapter Text

“Midoriya?”

Izuku popped his head up from under the table. He knew that he had to have been covered in soot by now, but it was nothing compared to Mei who almost looked like a shadow, the only differences were that she wasn’t a shadow and that her goggles glinted in the incandescent light coming from the lights above them. 

He looked at Maijima-sensei, the man waiting for him to respond, “Sorry, Maijima-sensei, what was that?”

The Pro-Hero sighed, and Izuku hid his amusement at how done the man seemed, almost like Eraserhead, but instead of just being tired, this teacher was just done with Mei and his explosions that happened regularly at this point. 

“Due to the uniqueness of your portfolio application for this school, Nezu-” Maijima-sensei shivered when he said the principal’s name, and Izuku slowly started to smile eagerly, if this was what he thought it was, then he was easily going to accept, “-would like you to analyse both 1-A and 1-B during their training this afternoon.”

“Yes!” Izuku cheered, not ashamed in the slightest when he jumped to his feet, squealing “like a little girl”. 

Mei stuck her head out of the newest baby she was working on, “What’s happening, Izu-kun?”

Izuku stared her dead in the eyes, almost a completely serious expression on his face that was only ruined by the slight curling of his lips at the edges, “Analysis,” he whisper-shouted dramatically.

His friend’s eyes widened, Toothless looked up at both of them from his cat-bed that Izuku had sworn to take everywhere with them for the black cat, and Mei giggled, “Have fun, Izu! Don’t drive anyone crazy!”

“That was one time!” Izuku protested, throwing a hammer at his friend that she easily caught - then used; because it was the tool she needed. 

Both teenagers didn’t notice how Maijima-sensei had paled in the background and had silently promised himself a whole six-pack of beer when he got home that night. 

°°°

Izuku’s leg bounced as he sat in the chair facing the screens. 

Unfortunately, he wasn’t allowed to make actual contact with the heroes students until he had finished his analyses, so he put in this medium-sized room that was covered in screens from the far side of the room until at least halfway to the entrance. 

It was amazing, and the whole experience alone of being able to do this - even if there was no specific course at Yuuei for the analysis, it went to show of Nezu’s power to be able to do things like this - kept the edge off from having to help Katsuki. Unfortunately, the blond was a part of 1-A, so that meant that he had to assist the angry teen.

Good news though, Izuku had years of data on the other teenager, so all he’d have to do was recall it, and compare it to what he saw today. Easy peasy. Whereas, on the other hand, Izuku had nothing to go off for the thirty-seven other students that were the combined amount of students from both 1-A and 1-B.

Apparently, 1-A’s teacher expelled two students on the first day. One of them because he sexually harassed the females in 1-A, and the other because they broke down under the pressure from the teacher on the first day. Poor fella.

All Might was running Class 1-A’s training; which was not training, but instead a horribly unrealistic (but could be realistic, just not as something that happened regularly enough for it to be completely realistic) scenario where there was a pair of villains and a pair of heroes with a bomb in an enclosed space.  

Izuku had the joy of coming across the man before, but the interaction between them had been so short that Izuku doubted that the man remembered him.

Toothless rubbed his head against Izuku’s cheek, and the green-haired male quickly reached up to his shoulder to give the cat the pats he desired, all the while, writing everything he could down in a notebook as he watched the current teams… fight - in the loosest of terms - against each other. 

(Izuku had done something like this with Mei to test her babies once, and they had done miles better than any of these teenagers.

One of them - Todoroki Shoto, son of the number two hero - just froze the entire building, which would’ve been fine, except he was going up against the acid girl, and the creation-girl. Izuku had a lot to say/write about him. Especially when he and his partner, the invisible girl, eventually lost.)

Izuku wanted to have words with All Might about how the man teaches his class, and then get Nezu to shove the man in teaching lessons, but Izuku didn’t have the power to even try to do that, so he’ll just keep his mouth shut. 

All in all, class 1-A had a long way to go, and Izuku hoped that his analyses would be somewhat helpful. 

Class 1-B weren’t as skilled as 1-A, but they had diversity. 

Where 1-A was mostly physical quirks, 1-B had more mental ones that would be more effective than the physical ones from 1-A. 

Izuku was obsessed with the male with the copy quirk, writing down hurried theories when it was the blond’s turn for a small spar against another student under Vlad King’s careful watch. Could Monoma copy and use more than one copied quirk at once? With training, could the other teen increase how long he was able to copy a quirk? Did Monoma know martial arts or something that didn’t require the use of a quirk? Could Monoma copy through loose DNA - like hair or a fingernail? - or did he have to make contact with the source?

There were so many possibilities for a copy-quirk, and Izuku wanted more than anything to rush over and bombard the teen with questions…. But…. he did promise Mei not to drive anyone crazy. 

(Today, at least. 

And while Izuku wasn’t exactly driving Maijima-sensei crazy, the man seemed to struggle to keep up with Izuku and Mei.)

Eventually, though, Izuku had four notebooks - two for each class - filled the brim with enough data for him to go through and organise. 1-B left the training area, and Izuku (with Toothless easily balancing on the teenager’s shoulder while napping) flicked through his notes in his notebooks as he headed to class.

Then bumped into someone. ‘Cause, that was just typical of Izuku’s luck.

He looked up to apologize, then stilled as he saw the Underground Hero that had been parenting him the last year or so.

“Well… fuck,” Izuku whispered as Toothless woke up, two sets of green eyes proposing innocence to the dark eyes narrowed upon them.

“Language,” Aizawa Shouta, also known as the Underground Pro-Hero Eraserhead, said immediately. He raised an eyebrow as he looked at Izuku’s uniform, “So, you chose to go to Support, Knockout?”

Chapter Text

Izuku grinned sheepishly at the man, "Sorry?" 

Eraserhead sighed at him, but Izuku didn’t miss how he was eyeing up Toothless - Izuku having caught the man pausing on his patrols to pet wandering cats - and the teenager grinned, "This is Toothless, he's been with me for a few weeks now."

"Ah," Eraserhead nodded, he glanced at Toothless, "May I?"

Izuku looked at Toothless - the cat hadn't gotten a chance to meet Eraserhead yet, usually sticking to the sidelines when Izuku went out "viglanteing" - and the cat blinked at him before abruptly jumping at the man. Eraserhead was quick to catch the cat, and cradled Toothless in his arms while patting the black cat.

Izuku would have laughed if he were someone else, but Izuku had been attacked with parental mannerisms from the Underground Pro-Hero, and in return, Izuku eventually let his "fanboy" hyper mode flow easier around Eraserhead when out on the streets at night.

(And, according to Eraserhead, Izuku wasn’t actually fanboying?

Izuku might’ve gotten more confidence in himself and his skills - wow, that makes him sound like a gamer - but back then, Izuku still doubted himself.)

“So,” Eraserhead looked up from Toothless, and raised his eyebrow again, “Support?”

“Yep!” Izuku chirped, he beamed at the underground pro, “My best friend is in there, and I’ve been learning heaps from her and her parents! Well, I already had some sort of idea of what I was doing, but their knowledge helped me further-”

“Midoriya,” Eraserhead sighed, interrupting him fondly, when the teenager frowned in confusion, he sighed once more, “I mean, why aren’t you in heroics?”

Knowing better than to question Eraserhead on how he knew Izuku’s name off the top of his head, the green-haired teen held his hands out for Toothless - Aizawa didn’t get an option when the cat leapt from him to Izuku - and frowned as he rubbed his fingers up against Toothless's cheek, "I was denied; they sent back my application form within a couple of days."

Eraserhead spluttered, "What-!?"

“It’s fine,” Izuku shook his head, and remembered the notebooks in his hand. He shrugged, then started walking past the underground pro, “I’ve got to go back to class, see you around, Eraser.”

“Midoriya-” the man called out, but Izuku broke into a run before he let Eraserhead stop him.

Izuku would never forgive himself if he let Eraserhead notice how upset just talking about it made him, rubbing at his eyes to get rid of the water in his eyes. Toothless meowed from Izuku’s shoulder, and he quickly rubbed his fingers over the cat’s head as he slowed to a walk now that he was far enough away from Eraserhead, “Sorry for running, Toothless,” Izuku murmured.

His best friend other than Mei merely purred, rubbing his face up against Izuku’s cheek. Izuku giggled and felt much better as he returned to 1-F where Mei waved enthusiastically to him.

Izuku giggled again as he rejoined his friend, already planning in his head on how he was going to format the information he had gained. 

°°°

There is a cat wandering the school's halls.

Hitoshi watched the black cat as it seemed to know exactly where it wanted to go, then it paused, sitting its butt down, and licking its paw.

Green eyes moved upward to stare at Hitoshi, and Hitoshi stared back.

The cat didn’t have a collar, but it looked well-cared for. Its coat was shiny and the cat’s fur looked so soft. Hitoshi wanted to snatch the cat for himself. Maybe give the cat a ton of cuddles, obviously offer some cat treats that he had in his bag - never leave home without them! - and maybe be able to smuggle it into class so that Hitoshi wasn’t as alone as he felt. 

The cat placed its paw on the ground and wandered over to Hitoshi who held his breath as soft, almost silk-like fur brushed against his leg. He slowly and carefully reached down to pet the cat’s head.

Purring from the cat made Hitoshi smile, the cat leaning into his hand as if to ask for more pets, and Hitoshi quickly brought his other hand down to rub against the cat’s fur. He wondered who the cat belonged to; if it belonged to anyone. 

Probably not a student, a student would get into trouble if they weren’t a heroics student who needed the animal for their quirk - and Hitoshi had gone through curiosity just to see if he could get his own cat into a school - which required at least fifteen pages of information and signatures for the animal to even be considered. 

The cat didn’t even have a collar!

Hitoshi sighed, “What’s your name, blackie?” he rubbed his fingers under the cat’s chin, “Someone obviously loves you, so why don’t you have a collar?”

The cat meowed, blinking at him innocently. 

Hitoshi only had two seconds to remove his hands from the cat, before it leapt away from him, turning its head when it paused by a corner, blinking at him. Hitoshi stood up, and the cat padded around the corner.

He frowned, walking after the cat - making sure to grab his bag so that no one messed with his stuff - who was going from one side of the hallway to the other side easily as if the cat had gone through it thousands of times before. Maybe the cat belonged to an older student? A second-year, or even a third year?

The cat paused to meow at him, before breaking into a run that appeared effortless.

Hitoshi wheezed as his lungs decided to punish him, moving faster after the cat, and once again wishing that he had done more fitness in the past. It might’ve helped him get into Heroics at least.

The cat seemed sadistic, leading him around what Hitoshi estimated to be all three floors of the Gen-Ed building, and eventually through the Heroics building. Hitoshi thought that the cat would stop there, but ended up being surprised when the cat led him back down to the first level - where the first-years like him, but in heroics, classes were - and out to the next building; the Support course building.

The cat slowed to a walk as it entered the building, and let Hitoshi actually breathe, to catch his breath. His legs felt like they would drop at any moment, and he was sure that the world wasn't meant to look so fuzzy and bright.

"What… the… hell… do… you… want from…. me?" Hitoshi wheezed out, half-glaring at the cat who licked its paw.

The cat meowed again, and got to its feet, tail flicking behind it before it padded off again. Thankfully at a walk, because Hitoshi didn't know if his body would be able to run again with him fainting.

Look, the Heroics exam had been hard enough, Hitoshi didn't need this cat to exercise him.

(Yes, Hitoshi saw the irony of a cat exercising a human. No need to rub it in, thanks.)

"Bitch be dead," Hitoshi muttered, leaning against one wall to support his body, and silently panicking when the wall shook suddenly under his hand.

He very suddenly feared for his life; on the other hand, the black cat didn't seem too disturbed as it led Hitoshi down a hallway, "Where are you taking me?" Hitoshi murmured quietly.

The cat stopped, sat its butt down, then stared at Hitoshi. Hitoshi stared back.

"Toothless!"

Hitoshi flinched as a green blurr appeared from behind him, the blurr stopping soon enough for Hitoshi to take in the appearance of a green-haired, green-eyed masculine person with freckles scattered all across his face in a way that was aesthetically pleasing to the eye.

Hitoshi then put together the cat, with the kid in a support student's uniform who smelt like smoke, and sighed, "Your cat led me on a wild goose chase."

The other kid blinked up at him. Then narrowed his eyes in a way that made Hitoshi want to squirm.

The other kid snapped his fingers, "A-ha!" He said triumphantly, "You have a mental quirk? Probably something common-folk discriminate against because it can appear villainous- '' Hitoshi stared, eyes widening with each word the other kid spoke, "-but definitely something that affects your sleep patterns; mind-waves? Affecting the brain? Hmm, emotions are always a possibility; but if that was true, then you'd be squealing with me in excitement - so brain-waves. Some sort of mind-control? Oh my God, people are so basic ."

The kid beamed at him, "So did I get it right? Brain-waves? Mind-control? Or something else?"

Hitoshi dumbly nodded, "Brainwashing," he jerked back when the green-haired boy squealed in happiness and spun around with the cat in his arms.

The cat - Toothless? - seemed to act as if this happened every day, and from what Hitoshi had seen so far, he didn’t doubt that cat's expression.

"Oh, my, God. You were the one Katsuki kept complaining about! Mei-Mei's gonna love you!" The other kid grabbed his wrist surprisingly gently and tugged him along carefully. Making sure that Hitoshi followed him, while also making it obvious that the purple-haired teen could leave at any moment.

The other teen brought him to 1-F, and he got a few moments to go "oh, shit" before the green-haired teen pulled him in, and led him straight over to a girl with pink dreadlocks.

"Mei-Mei!"

"Izu-kun?" The girl blinked.

The green-haired teen beamed, gesturing to Hitoshi who stood frozen, "This is the brainwasher! The one Katsuki was complaining about!"

The girl gasped excitedly, “Purple-kun!” she paused, looking him over, “Excuse me language, but why ze fuck are you not in the Hero course!”

“I know!” The green-haired male pouted, looking at Hitoshi as well, “At least he didn’t get rejected immediately! He got to-”

“The exam was robots,” Hitoshi interrupted.

Both support students instantly groaned.

“I could’ve done it!” The green-haired one complained, “Robots are nothing! Give me Katsuki to work with, and that’s a challenge!”

The pink-haired one patted the green-haired one’s shoulder, “So rude of them, Izu-kun is amazing. I taught him so much!”

Hitoshi blinked at each of them, confused out of his mind, and only just noticed Toothless the cat jumping easily from green-hair to the table to lick its paw. 

“New goal!” the pink-haired one announced, pointing her index finger at Hitoshi who startled, “Get Purple-kun into Heroics!”

Hitoshi stared some more. Blinked a couple of times, then finally managed to find some semblance of his voice, “What?”

Both support students cackled.

Chapter Text

There was a break-in by reporters during Izuku and Mei’s time in the support classroom at lunch, so they were forced out to the evacuation point where they had to be noted down as present - and still alive - before being released to return to their sanctuary. 

Purple-kun - Shinso Hitoshi - was their current project. 

Izuku had feared that his and Mei’s excitement to help another person follow their dream - after Izuku’s had been denied, and Mei was already living hers - had scared off the Gen-Ed student. But when “Purple-kun” came back to the Support class this morning (as requested by Mei and Izuku the day before), Izuku had almost cried. Happy tears, but still.

Purple-kun was rather attached to Toothless, and Izuku-Hiccup guessed that the cat was one of the main reasons he was still sticking around and letting Izuku and Mei "use" him as their project while also getting Purple-kun into the Hero course.

The cat was currently purring in Shinso's lap at the moment as the Gen-Ed student sat on a stool. 

Izuku was working on Hiccup-Izuku's flame sword, tinkering with small materials meanwhile Mei was building something further down the workbench, with much larger metals than what Izuku was working with.

"So, what is your guys' plan?" Purple-kun asked, his voice breaking through the quiet air of the workroom where previously there was only the sound of tools and metal being altered.

Izuku and Mei glanced at each other before looking at Shinso, "There isn't a concrete plan," Izuku said finally, wincing as Shinso narrowed his eyes on him, "More like steps with loose planning around them that will easily adjust with what happens in our surrounds-”

“So you’ve got nothing,” Shinso deadpanned, his hand pausing in his patting of Toothless for a moment as he sighed, “Nothing at all.”

“That’s a lie!” Mei declared easily, jabbing her index finger towards the Gen-Ed student, a glare on her face for one of the rare few times that Izuku had seen before, “Izu-kun is genius, and even if he doesn’t currently have the best of plans, his stupid-” “Hey!” “ -brain is already coming up with different scenarios that we each act and behave and how those outcomes affect possible futures.”

“We’re not that good,” Izuku muttered, missing how Shinso gave him an odd look for his wording, “Principal Nezu definitely, but most certainly not me. There are millions of possible outcomes that I can’t even think of. But!” he grinned at Shinso, “I can see some of them, which is more than enough for our aligning goals!”

““Aligning goals”?” Shinso echoed and stared as both Mei and Izuku shared a quick glance.

“Maijima-sensei was getting sick of our-” Mei paused and looked at Izuku, “What did he call it, Izu?” Izuku paused to think, tapping his chin ever so slightly as Shinso raised an eyebrow at him, ""Pointless waste of time that's taking years off my life", I think," Izuku said and Mei nodded.

"That," Mei pointed at Izuku, "So he gave us a project to do until after the Sports Festival."

"We were going to do something separately as an added challenge," Izuku explained, "I was going to make something small but deadly enough to destroy a whole city-"

"-and I was going to make so many babies!" Mei squealed happily.

"What?" Shinso stage-whispered while Toothless meowed.

Izuku rolled his eyes cheekily and Mei tossed a dirty rag at him that he dodged easily, grabbing a piece of metal and flicking it at his friend - making sure she had enough time to lift up a shield to protect herself against it. Mei gave him a mock-glare when his piece of metal embedded itself into the large sheet of metal she had used, "Izu! Don’t waste the materials!"

"Sorrrrryyyyyy, MeiMei," Izuku grinned and accidentally looked at Shinso who was staring at the sheet of metal, "What’s up?"

Shinso's eyes slowly moved from the sheet of metal with Izuku's small embedded metal, to Izuku, his face unnaturally pale, "How strong would you have to be to throw metal into another piece of metal?"

Izuku and Mei burst out laughing, and Shinso looked between them in confusion.

"That's nothing, anyone with or without a quirk in this generation can do that with enough strength training," Izuku explained after he managed to get his laughter under control, Mei still giggling, "Hell, even people before Quirks could do it, less than in this time, but it's not that hard."

"So that's why you said you could do so well in the entrance exam," Shinso said, nodding slowly in understanding.

Izuku shrugged, tapping a part of his invention with a finger and grinning when it didn't explode, "That, or I could've hacked into a single 'bot and used it to destroy enough robots to pass the exam. In this day and age, there is almost always technology around. Being Quirkless wouldn’t be able to stop me-" Izuku cut himself off, shaking his head, "-but never mind that. Our focus is to get you into the Heroics course while hiding the key activations of your quirk."

"How-"

"Currently a verbal response if answered to a question, allows you to "brainwash" a target," Izuku rambled off, "You put the target into a state of "fogginess" or "limbo" where they follow your commands. Currently, you can only command someone to do something physically, however, things like talking and higher brain power actions are unable to happen. You do appear to have some alteration of memories, at the least suppression if not completely removing a memory from the target's access pathways in their brain. I'm curious to see what type of "brainwashing" your quirk gives a target, but I supposed there are other days for that-"

"What?" Shinso's whimper made Izuku look up with Mei, both frowning in confusion and concern. The purple-haired teenager looked even paler, his eyes widened, and Toothless rubbed his head against Shinso's frozen fingers that trembled ever so slightly.

Izuku tilted his head, then almost jumped in surprise, Shinso was scared of Izuku. But why? Anyone could have figured out the quirk, it was rather obvious when Izuku got a couple of looks at how it worked.

"What?" Mei asked, raising an eyebrow at Shinso, "Izu knows what he's doing. He's got to if he's gonna help you with social relations and all the psychology stuff he has planned."

"Mei!" Izuku protested, flushing, "At least use the correct term; psychological counters to all things discriminative, Quirks or Quirkless!"

Mei stared at him, "Izu-kun, I love you, but that name…"

Izuku pouted and almost jumped when Shinso laughed. It wasn’t a mean laugh, just a tired yet relieved laugh, and the purple-haired Gen-Ed student looked like he had relaxed since he'd first come into the classroom that Maijima-sensei had let them use.

"But Mei's gonna make a mask-filter thing that allows you to change your voice while using your quirk," Izuku got back on topic, "I would love to try and do that, but my skills are lesser than hers in that area. Meanwhile, you and I are going to focus on your combat experience and psychological attacks with your quirk. Oh, and me and you, a lot of testing and growing your quirks strength."

"Huh?" Shinso blinked at him.

"It's more likely that you weren't given opportunities to strengthen your quirk," Izuku pointed out, and didn’t like the solemn nod that the Gen-Ed student gave him, "So we have a month to get you ready for the Sports Festival."

"Great," Shinso grimaced.

Then the security alert sounded, all the windows being covered by metal while a robotic voice warned students to remain calm in their classes until a teacher gave them the okay.

Izuku threw his hands up, "It wasn’t me!"

Mei didn't laugh like Shinso did, only narrowing her eyes at him, "Sure," she said, rolling her eyes.

"Am I missing something?" Shinso asked, confusion on his face as they all ignored the voice repeating again.

"No," Izuku said as Mei said "Yes."

Shinso looked between the two friends as they laughed.

Chapter Text

So, apparently, Katsuki's class was attacked while they were off the main campus. Izuku didn't really care outside the fact that Eraserhead had gotten vitally injured during the attack and had been fighting for his life in hospital while Izuku and Mei had dinner with Mei's parents.

It was horrible to find out the next day when Izuku couldn’t find Eraser, so he’d asked Midnight - a close friend of Eraserhead and his husband Yamada-sensei - where the man was, and she’d taken one look at him before hustling him into a private room to let him know that she knew that he was Knockout - which Izuku didn’t care about; he just wanted to know if Eraser was okay, or if the underground Pro was just ignoring him - when Midnight then told him about what had happened the day before.

Eraser had jumped into a fight that he couldn't win, and due to Thirteen being unconscious and All Might - if Midnight noticed how Izuku stiffened at the mention of the number one Limelight Pro-Hero, she didn't mention it - not being there, he was quickly injured fatally by the attacking villains. The only reason Eraser was able to fight for his life the night before was that a bunch of Katsuki’s classmates had managed to get the underground pro-hero out as All Might made it to the USJ just in time.

Izuku somehow managed to thank Midnight for telling him and escaped to the large library that Yuuei had. Toothless found him within moments of Izuku sitting down in the furthest corner of the library from the entrance and cuddled him with a quiet purr.

"I hate myself for this, but sometimes I wish you really were Toothless," Izuku muttered, burying his face into the cat's black fur.

Toothless just blinked at him, before rubbing his face against Izuku's cheek, purring growing ever so slightly louder.

They stayed like that until Shinso accidentally stumbled across them in their hidden spot. He probably would’ve kept walking if not for hearing Toothless's purrs.

"Hatsume said you might be in here," Shinso said quietly as he sat down approximately a meter away. A good position for someone who didn't know how another person would react.

"Mn-hm," Izuku hummed, not quite ready to remove his face from Toothless's fur.

Shinso sighed quietly, "I don't know what caused you to react like this, but maybe it'll make you feel better if you talk about-" he paused when Izuku shook his head furiously, "-it."

Izuku was thankful that Shinso was just finding the time wasted to be of some worth, but he really did not want to talk at the moment. If he did, Izuku feared that he’d cry some more.

Shinso made a small huff as he got to his feet and left for a bit before returning. Izuku glanced up for a second to see that the Gen-Ed student had gotten a fictional book and was now reading it back in the spot from before.

Shinso noticed Izuku looking, “You wanna talk?”

Izuku went to shake his head, then he noticed the small, ever so slightly sticking out in an almost unnoticeable way, scarf pin that Shinso had on his plain black bag, “You’re a fan of Eraserhead?” he asked so quietly, that Izuku feared Shinso hadn’t heard him until the purple-haired teen’s head shot up to look at him.

“You know about Eraserhead?” Shinso said in shocked awe. 

Izuku wanted to laugh. Did he know about Eraserhead? Hilarious; but he paused and half shrugged. “He teaches 1-A,” Izuku said quietly, and watched as Shinso’s eyes widened, “It was his class that got attacked yesterday.”

“What!?” Shinso whisper-shouted, ignoring the shhes coming from all around them, his jaw dropped ever so slightly, “How did you find this out?”

Izuku looked at Toothless, and Toothless blinked at Izuku. The human one then gave Shinso a sheepish grin, “Don’t go shouting it to the world?” he asked softly. 

“Shouting what?” Shinso narrowed his eyes at Izuku. 

“ImayormaynotbesupposedlylabeledavigilantecalledKnockoutandErasermayormaynothavesortaemotionallyadoptedme?” Izuku breathed out and sucked in a sharp breath to regain oxygen. 

He waited as Shinso blinked fast, then slow, then fast again, his jaw tensing and untensing before something akin to awe entered his eyes, "You're the Knockout?"

"Maybe?" Izuku hated how meek his voice came out. And Toothless's purring paused for a moment to look up at Izuku who winced.

Shinso made a high-pitched odd sounding noise. The book he had been reading was forgotten on the carpet of the library floor, "Midoriya, you saved me once."

Izuku blinked. Then blinked some more while frozen in mid-pat of Toothless's fur. He resumed his patting, then blinked at Shinso again. "What?" His voice was smaller than he'd heard it in months. 

( The last time Izuku had heard his voice this quiet, he'd gotten the courage to tell Eraserhead why the man wasn't legally able to arrest him. That the famous "Knockout" that ventured the streets at night was just a quirkless boy with insomnia from nightmares and dreams of a life he could never have. )

"Well, maybe not in a physical way in a moment, but you got Eraserhead to arrest the matron of the orphanage I lived at," Shinso said, way to happily for Izuku's comfort, "Turned out that she was raising a bunch of kids with villainous quirks to be destroyed by society and to help further the sigma about our quirks by guiding kids like me to Villainy. There's a semi-retired Pro looking after us now, and the other kids don't fear for their lives when they're at the orphanage now."

Izuku gaped, "Really?" He hesitated as he tried to remember just who it had been, "How long ago?"

"Just a few months ago," Shinso waved it off as Izuku blanched; a few months ago? That meant that Shinso had been in a toxic place like that for his entire life. "But the Pro gets some of her former work-mates to come in and actually teach us proper education that we weren't getting before; Yamada-sensei actually comes around quite often, that's how I know him so well."

Oh, Izuku had been wondering why Shinso's lunches had stickers from Present Mic's radio show on it. Guess that explains that.

"Someone should have stopped her sooner," Izuku whispered solemnly. Looking down at Toothless in his lap. He couldn't imagine living a similar sort of life as Shinso had. He could only just barely believe that he knew of a life where being without a superpower was the norm. Izuku struggled to keep his and Hiccup's lives from merging at times, but at least in both lives he had been sort of loved by people around him.

If Inko had been a bit too controlling, and if Stoick had been a bit too distant, then he-they would ignore that. At least their birth parents kept them; no matter the negligence Hiccup's father and Izuku's mother inflicted on them.

Shinso reached out to pat Izuku’s leg, and the green-haired teen glanced up at him, “Thank you, Midoriya. It doesn’t matter how long it took for something to happen, we’re all in a better place now.”

Izuku nodded, even if his heart and soul said to shake his head; that he should’ve done better, as a legal vigilante or as a former chief of a village. Shinso must’ve noticed it, because he let out a small sigh as he stood up, offering his hand out to Izuku on the floor, “Ready to head back?”

Izuku and Toothless looked at each other, and the cat climbed onto Izuku’s shoulder as Izuku took Shinso’s hand, the taller teen helping him off the floor. 

“And don’t worry about Eraserhead,” Shinso patted Izuku’s shoulder, “I’m sure that he’ll make it.”

Izuku chuckled, “The jerk loves his coffee and cats too much,” he giggled when Shinso gaped at him.

“He loves cats?” Shinso stage-whispered in barely concealed awe as they made their way out of the library. 

Toothless purred on Izuku’s shoulder, his claws sinking into Izuku’s uniform ever so slightly to make sure he stayed there as Izuku reached up to rub the cat’s head, “You should’ve seen him when he first met Toothless,” Izuku grinned, “His face went so soft, and he cradled Toothless in his arms like a revered treasure. It was adorable.”

“Fucking valid,” Shinso nodded, “Have you seen how cute Toothless is? One hundred percent agree.”

Izuku giggled.

Chapter Text

There was a sort of desperate tone to Midoriya’s actions. Higari found himself watching the green-haired analyst with wary eyes as only his pink-haired friend and his newly claimed purple-haired friend could manage to get the boy out of whatever had caused this frantic mood.

Midoriya’s “emotional support animal”, Toothless didn’t all too bothered about his human’s new attitude. Just watching the boy carefully, and Higari swore that he’d seen the cat move a vial that would’ve made an explosion if Midoriya had added it to his concoction, and the kid had grabbed the one next to it; the one he needed. 

There was something off about that cat, and Higari wasn’t sure he wanted to find out what exactly was different. 

But even the rest of the students had seemed to pick up on the rush-rush that Midoriya left in his wake. A mind going too fast that it spluttered out into mumbles and Higari only just kept up with the complex equations uttered quietly into the large noisy room as Midoriya flowed between at least three different projects at once.

He was working on something with Hatsume while also making new plans for his fire-sword that he’d submitted as a part of his application to Yuuei, and was making something for that Gen-Ed kid that he and Hatsume had joined forces as a project to get him into Heroics. 

Higari wondered if Midoriya was putting too much pressure on himself. And he wondered why Midoriya was putting this much pressure on himself, it was just the Sports Festival coming up. Nothing important for a support student. 

So, why?

°°°

Izuku couldn’t let himself lose focus, scribbling down calculations with ease into a notebook with his right hand, and carefully sketching out a draft of Shinso's mask - it wasn’t a muzzle, both Izuku and Hiccup refused to put someone who had suffered so much back into a weapon of abuse - that would allow Shinso to be able to change the sound of his voice, giving him an advantage in a fight.

Mei was making the prototype, further down the long table from him, just to make sure all of the mechanics worked, then they'd slim it down in time for either the Sports Festival, or for when Shinso was transferred into Heroics.

(Either Mei or Izuku could bring it in as one of their support items and if there was a team-up event, then they could pass it onto Shinso. Unfortunately, the Gen-Ed student would only be allowed to use it for that event. Which sucked because Izuku and Mei had spent so much time on it.)

Toothless was curled around Izuku's neck, his tail moving every so often on Izuku's left arm, and purring coming from beside his right ear as the cat half-slept and half-watched Izuku work.

He hated himself for it, but he'd put Hiccup's flame sword on the back-burner for a bit, the importance of helping Shinso get into Heroics greater than recreating Hiccup's sword with modern materials in this world/universe/alternative dimension/different time? Whatever it was. 

He’d even put aside his analysis for the moment, something else he hated to do but had to in order to focus on planning and analyzing the past Sports Festivals to predict what might be happening in this one. 

(If Izuku could predict this, then maybe he could turn his skills onto predicting villain patterns to stop any more future attacks on Eraserhead and his class.)

So far he’d easily gotten three to four events - depending on Nezu’s mood, sometimes there were five to six, but seven was the rarest - at least one teams event, but possibly two if the public wanted a more thorough elimination of the non-heroics students so that they could get to the one on one fights. 

Usually, the first event smashed approximately sixty-four percent to eighty-two percent of the student body, and the second event usually cut that down to leave about five to four percent of students for the third event. Fairly often it was one on one fights, but rarely they did two on two then going into one on one for the last four students. 

This means that there would be approximately a fifteen percent chance that Shinso would get through to the third event completely by himself, but because he had Izuku and Mei on his side, that percentage was increased to about thirty-two percent. Which was too low for Izuku’s liking. 

The last Gen-Ed student that had managed to come first in the entire Festival was the infamous Eraserhead in his first year. Izuku had managed to find some footage of Eraser’s Sports Festival and winced at the five percent chance that he’d managed to calculate. 

By all odds, Eraser had managed to win. Human nature maybe? Izuku knew that Eraser was quite determined - read as dramatic - when he wanted to be, or when something was on the line.

(Usually when Eraser thought that Izuku-as-Knockout was in danger. 

Izuku had laughed it off every time, if he-as-Hiccup had gone against dragons seven times the size of an average human then he-as-Izuku could defend against/attack an average sized human.)

But, there was a fairly good chance that Shinso would be able to use his mask in the Sports Festival. So all Izuku and Mei had to do was get it finished in time for Izuku to take into the Festival - Mei was going to take the main inventions for general use, while Izuku was going to take the more personal-specific items in.

A knock interrupted his thoughts, and the room quietened for a moment as Izuku’s classmates glanced up for a moment to see who was there. Izuku did the same after a moment, raising a confused eyebrow when he saw an upperclassman but quickly dismissed it, tilting his head back down to keep working. 

They only had a couple of weeks left until the Sports Festival, Izuku still had to help Shinso with some Quirkless combat moves after school, and then he had to head to Shinso’s home in the morning to help him with his fitness - only a few miles a morning until two days before the Sports Festival - levels. And Izuku really wanted to check out the orphanage that Shinso claimed that he-as-Knockout saved.

And Izuku still had to work on developing his Heroics classes analyses in his notebooks - coded of course into old Norse then into symbols that appeared jumbled up, but were actually symbols in relation to various features from dragons; so it would be extremely difficult for anyone to figure it out. (Izuku was kind of curious to see if Principal Nezu could) - and adding details to Katsuki’s pages. Not only that, but Izuku had to finish his own school projects, and he really, really wanted to finally get Hiccup’s modern sword finished. 

There was so much to do, and so little time- “Midoriya?”

Izuku jerked his head up too quickly for Toothless whose claws dug into Izuku’s shoulder through his uniform, and blinked at Maijima-sensei who was looking directly at him, the upperclassman still there, waiting. He rushed his hand up to support Toothless, “Hai, sensei?”

“Could you please go with Hayashida-san?” Maijima-sensei asked, and Izuku nodded, scrambling to his feet while quickly shutting his notebooks and stuffing them into his bag. 

He spared a glance towards Mei, and a short nod from his friend made him relax somewhat; the rest of his stuff would be looked after by his friend, so hopefully, nothing would get sabotaged while Izuku went with the upperclassman. Maijima-sensei didn’t give anything away in his facial expression as Izuku followed after the older student.

The grey-haired upperclassman gave what Izuku assumed to be a reassuring smile as they walked down the hallway, but all it did was make Izuku more nervous, “You’re friends with the pink-haired girl, right?”

Izuku raised an eyebrow, “Why is that important?” he asked cautiously. Izuku had been targeted by quirked people all his life. He knew that there were good people in this world, but he could never let his guard down. 

“No reason,” Hayashida grinned at Izuku. 

Toothless hissed, and Izuku reached up to pat the cat’s chest to try and calm him down. His own metaphorical hackles were raised just looking at the grey-haired, brown-eyed male that had to be a third-year student based on the third stripe on the older student’s uniform shoulder.

Izuku hadn’t hidden his quirkless status from anyone, but he hadn’t outright said it to anyone other than Shinso. Maybe this student knows someone who knows about Izuku being quirkless? Yuuei has anti-discrimination rules in place, but Izuku didn’t trust that there wasn’t some way for students to get around them. 

“Who wants me?” Izuku asked, tightening his hand around the strap of his bag. Toothless’s tail swished beside his neck. And he found comfort in the feeling of his closest companion’s fur.

Hayashida’s face actually faltered, and instead of the grin he had been sporting moments ago, it melded into a scowl for an instant before shifting into something more neutral, “Yamada-sensei asked for you,” he said stiffly, not saying anything else as they came up to the staffroom, “In there.”

Izuku nodded, not bothering to thank Hayashida for leading him there and ignoring the annoyed huff coming from the older student as Izuku knocked on the staffroom door. 

Present Mic opened the door quite quickly, “Midoriya! Just the listener we were looking for!” the pro-hero missed Izuku’s confused look as he turned to Hayashida, “Thanks for bringing him here, Hayashida!”

“Not a problem, sensei,” Hayashida grinned, in a much different way to how he grinned at Izuku, “I better head back to the library, gotta make sure I’ve got those words down for your test tomorrow!”

“Rock on!” Present Mic grinned, waving the third-year student off before turning to Izuku, “Heya, Midoriya, how you been holding up?”

Izuku almost asked what Yamada-sensei meant, but then he remembered the way that the English teacher had been missing after the whole 1-A attack, and his eyes caught on the very slight rise around Yamada-sensei’s shirt collar. A necklace; a high possibility of it being a ring on a string or chain.

“Fine, I guess,” Izuku shrugged as the blond moved aside so that the student could enter, “Sorry to be rude, but what is this about, sensei? I’m in 1-F.”

“Well,” Yamada-sensei grimaced, looking over at one of the couches, and Izuku followed his teacher’s gaze. Stiffening when he saw long black hair that had been cut a substantial amount from what it used to be, and the bandages covering the person were great in number.

If not for Izuku's skill in recognising people, then he probably would’ve just said that they were a mummy prank of some sorts.

His footsteps were silent as always as he slowly approached the man, in stunned, shocked horror and surprise. Tears swelling in his eyes, but not yet falling as he came face-to-face with a bandaged Eraserhead. Even the parental underground pro-hero's eyes were covered by the bandages.

It was easy to see Eraser swallow nervously, opening his lips carefully to speak, "Kid?" His voice was far too hesitant from what Izuku knew, "You there?"

Izuku was thankful for Present Mic leaving the staffroom as he let out a choked sob as he drew close to Eraser. Sitting next to the closest thing Izuku had to a proper parental figure that he'd had in years, and reaching out carefully to take the man's hand, "I'm here," he whispered.

Toothless let out a quiet meow, dropping onto the couch as well, and Izuku felt Eraser's hand tighten around his as he watched the bandaged face of the pro-hero turn towards him.

"I'm sorry," Izuku blurred, tears falling down his face silently, "I should’ve been there; I could’ve helped-"

"Izuku," Eraser pulled him into a hug, bandaged fingers running through Izuku's curls as the teenager sniffed, "Don't say that, please. If you had been there, I don't think that anything would have changed."

Izuku looked up, and hated that he couldn't see Eraser's facial expression, "What? Why?"

"They had this thing, specially designed to kill All Might," Eraserhead whispered softly and Izuku winced at the mere idea of something powerful enough to kill All Might, "So, please don’t ever tell me that you should’ve been there.”

The whole “they might’ve gone after you instead(because of your lack of quirk)” went unsaid, but Izuku nodded, ignoring the urge to press closer to Eraser in case he hurt the injured man further. This was probably the closest, physically, Izuku had been to his the hero. 

Eventually, Eraser grunted ever so slightly in pain, and Izuku drew back, sitting beside the hero again, “I’ll get you the footage of the incident if you want to look at their quirks,” Eraser said, offering Izuku something to make him feel helpful.

“Please,” Izuku said quietly, fiddling his fingers together as Toothless walked over Izuku’s legs and sat in Eraser’s lap. The man reached down to pat the cat despite the bandages covering his hands.

They stayed there in silence for a bit before Eraser spoke, "Maijima said that you were acting differently after the whole thing," he said carefully, "Kid, you know it's not your fault."

"Yeah," Izuku sniffed, wiping his nose on the back of his sleeve, he looked down at his hands. He'd already lost Stoick and Gobber and Hisashi, Izuku didn't know if he could lose Eraser as well. But he couldn't really mention that to the pro-hero. Izuku let out a heavy breath, "I just wanna help out, Eraser. Nothing more. No one can reliably predict the future.”

Izuku could tell that Eraser was frowning, or as much as he could under the bandages, “Nighteye-”

“Nope,” Izuku shook his head, already feeling slightly better as he corrected the other, “For some reason, Nighteye is insistent that all of his visions come true without any change. There’s a reason Nighteye only accepts certain assignments from the Commission and ends up succeeding in all of them. I checked, he has a ninety-five percent successful rate, but only after he separated from All Might five years ago.”

“What do you mean?” Eraser’s voice was slightly confused, and Izuku took pride in the fact that he was one of the few people who could confuse the infamous Eraserhead.

“When Nighteye was working with All Might, their success rate was lower, about eighty-seven percent, but they had better publicity, so they appeared to be doing better than they were,” Izuku explained, rattling off the numbers easily. He’d done a huge research frenzy half a year ago when he’d discovered a corrupt Limelight Pro-Hero and wanted more information on them; he may have fallen down a rabbit hole as he got more that he had originally thought he would, “But then All Might has this fight with a supervillain - who I’m pretty sure was the infamous All for One, but who’s going to trust the word of a kid? - that no one knows about, and aside from the property damage, everything gets swept under the rug? A few months later All Might’s Agency announces the split between Nighteye and All Might, and then he’s running one of the “most successful” agencies? There’s no way that Nighteye isn’t using his quirk on someone to determine the worth of each assignment the Commission offers him.”

“What,” Eraser’s voice was stunned. 

“Besides,” Izuku carried on easily as if he hadn’t just revealed one of Limelight heroics most well-kept secrets to an underground pro, “I legally obtained this information - so don’t tell me off - Nighteye’s quirk focuses on the most possible future! So if he brought in more people into his agency, he would be able to take on the harder assignments offered. And besides, if Nighteye and All Might had just gotten into contact with the Principal about the fight five years ago, Principal Nezu could’ve gotten in contact with you, and BAM!” Izuku clapped his hands together, a grin on his face, “No one superpowered vigilante-villain-whatever from two hundred years ago!”

Eraserhead reached up to his face, and Izuku panicked for a moment, but relaxed as all the man did was move some of his bandages to show his eyes, “What the fuck, Izuku,” his eyes showed how worried Eraser really was. For Izuku, and the information he had. 

“All for One? He takes and gives quirks?” Izuku shrugged, “If you were there, then he could access those quirks, then it would just be a matter of catching him and-”

“Stop, stop,” Eraser placed a hand on Izuku’s shoulder and it was only because Izuku had been living with Mei and her parents that he stopped the flinch and the instinct to move away from the one adult he trusted most, “Izuku, you can’t just go around looking for information like this. I don't even have the clearance to know about it.”

“That won’t be a problem, Aizawa-kun!” A chirpy voice said, making Eraser jump and Izuku just blinked at the bear-rat-mouse Principal of Yuuei. Principal Nezu looked extremely happy, and Izuku wondered why. 

“No, Nezu,” Eraser warned, his voice going harsh for a moment, “He’s mine. Go find your own.”

Izuku blinked between both of them, “Am I missing something?” he tilted his head. Already recalling everything he knew about the Principal - which was rather limited since Principal Nezu hadn’t really been in the hero scene for quite a few years now. 

Most information Izuku had on the principal was from former students that the creature tried to take on as his personal ones - Eraser was one of them - but most of them stopped after a few days to months. A large number of comments from them was how crazy and insane the creature was, but Izuku didn’t believe that. There was no way Principal Nezu was insane with those intelligent eyes. 

“No,” Eraser said as Nezu said “Yes!”

Izuku glanced at Toothless who just yawned.

Chapter Text

Hitoshi glared at the screen of his phone in the darkness of his room. The five-thirty alarm went off, and he’d almost fallen out of bed. He rubbed at his eyes as he sat up, yawning as he finally got out of the warm covers.

He managed to get into the kitchen - pausing like always every morning to awe at how brand-new it looked - and put the jug onto boil while getting the coffee out. No sugar, just pure coffee. 

His mug was a little too hot in his hands, but it was all too easy to ignore the pain as he scorched his tongue on his great saviour. His phone vibrated in his pocket, and Hitoshi debated ignoring it before logic won out and he unlocked the damn thing. 

Midoriya had sent him a picture of… him standing outside the orphanage. Great, now Hitoshi had no way of getting out of this. Hitoshi awkwardly took a picture of his coffee and his thumb hovered over the send button before pressing it. 

Hitoshi had no time to regret his decision because Midoriya had sent him a bunch of coffee emojis and an upside-down smiley face. He chuckled, and quickly downed the saviour liquid, putting the mug on the counter. He headed to the backdoor, struggling with his outdoor shoes, and stumbling out of the building, only just remembering to lock the door behind him.

It was easy to find Midoriya, the support student standing right where he’d taken the picture he’d sent to Hitoshi. Under a lampost that gave his face a shadowed look because of his bush-like hair.

Hitoshi didn’t even need to announce his presence, Midoriya had glanced up from his phone when he’d reached the sidewalk and had a smile that was too much for this early in the morning. 

“Morning, Shinso!” Midoriya chirped, horrifyingly happy for this time of night.

Hitoshi narrowed his eyes to squint at the Support student, who, for the first time that Hitoshi had noticed, was surprisingly muscular. The green-haired teen was still on the short side, but his muscles in his arms were massive compared to Hitoshi’s skinny noodle arms, and holy shit, Midoriya’s leg muscles were like comparing a tree trunk to a flower’s stem of Hitoshi’s legs. 

Midoriya might be Quirkless, but holy shit is he strong. 

Hitoshi grumbled, “Mornin’,” he stifled a yawn, wearing his insomnia like a second skin, “So what are you torturing me with?”

Midoriya grinned far too excitedly as he bounced in his bright red shoes while his cat meowed from on one of the orphanage's neighbour's fences, "Running! There's approximately a 98 percent chance that any of the three events involves long-distance running! If we can increase your stamina, then you might be able to last longer!"

Hitoshi sighed, fighting the urge to groan, "So how long is this run going to be?"

"Only five kilometres to start you off!" Midoriya beamed.

Hitoshi gulped, "To start off with?" He echoed, "How many do you normally do?"

The green-haired teen paused to think about it, "Not including my wandering around at night-" as Knockout went unsaid, "-about fifteen kilometres? I've been trying to reach twenty, but I'm not quite ready for that yet. Toothless always forces me to head back before I can go any further," Midoriya stuck his tongue out at the cat who licked his paw.

Hitoshi actually groaned this time, "Seriously?"

"Yep!" Midoriya clapped his hands, a sharp noise in the semi-quiet streets, "You ready? We'll aim to be back here in an hour."

"You really think I'll need that long?" Hitoshi asked.

Midoriya didn't even hesitate, "Yes," he said, looking Hitoshi up and down, and the purple-haired teenager winced but agreed anyway.

"Alright," Hitoahi sighed, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, "So, we just go?" 

"Walking first, to warm up," Midoriya said, taking the lead, and Hitoshi guessed that the support student had already plotted a track for them to, "Then just jogging for now. You might actually die if you do any sprinting to start off with."

"Thank you for considering my noodle legs," Hitoshi said drily and he got a laugh from the other as Toothless jumped from fence to fence to follow them.

Midoriya twisted his head to grin at him, "No problem," he teased, his stride lengthening so that for once Hitoshi had to lengthen his own to keep up with another person.

Oh, god, Hitoshi was going to die, wasn't he?

°°°

Aizawa Shouta scowled at the bandages still on his hands, the only things that kept him from actually feeling things with his hands, like the piece of paper that he was currently reading. 

He wanted to simultaneously bash his semi-healed head into the desk in front of him, and go murder the school’s board. 

His request to see Izuku’s denial letter had been accepted the morning of the USJ, so Shouta hadn’t had a chance to read through it until now; he couldn’t use his quirk, but he was allowed to use his eyes to read and see things now.

And simply put, the letter of rejection was pathetic, and other than Quirk(less) discrimination, there was no legal right for the school board to dismiss Izuku’s application so simply. Shouta would bet his scarf that only a meagre ten percent of the reasoning was if the school would have to face a lawsuit in case Izuku got hurt, while at least seventy-to-eighty percent would just be discrimination. The rest would either sort of side with Izuku or at least have some sort of empathy with the quirkless kid who wanted to be a hero- who already was a hero.

(Sure the kid was technically a vigilante in the eyes of the law, but he was a hero to all the people he had saved.)

Shouta sighed, reaching up to pinch his nose as he already felt a headache coming on. He let the paper flitter down onto the desk.

He reached for his coffee to take a sip as he looked through the nearest staffroom window, having a chance glance to see Izuku sheepishly grinning at a purple-haired boy that Shouta vaguely recalled as someone who had failed the Heroics entrance exam.

The purple-haired male was glaring - not meaningfully from what Shouta could tell. - at Izuku and making gestures with his hands while speaking to the problem vigilante.

The problem vigilante appeared to be torn between being apologetic and laughing. His cat looking almost smug on Izuku’s shoulders as he looked at the taller teenager.

Going off what the two were saying, Shouta raised an eyebrow, and just let himself watch the two teenagers be teenagers as they were joined by a pink-haired girl.

He wished them luck in the Sports Festival.

°°°

Izuku checked over the creation one last time, his classmates doing the same around him as they waited in the hushed waiting room.

Most of his and Mei's classmates wouldn't really care about showing off in the Sports Festival, but Izuku and Mei had a mission that they needed to complete.

While his best friend was kiting herself out with as many of her creati- er, sorry Mei, her babies,  as she could. Mostly because she'd created this magnetic glue that got removed with a little bit of heat, for easy holding, and she could remove any single one of her babies at once when she needed one.

On the other hand, Izuku had Toothless - who had a vest on with pockets that had snacks and other small inventions that Izuku had managed to put together in the last few days - was perched on his shoulder, had a bag designed by one of his classmates to hold dangerous materials as well as liquids and keeping fragile items protected, and a sort-of tool-belt that had loops and protects for easier access to smaller items.

You could say that Mei was going for big and bold while Izuku was going for small and sneaky.

A voice came over the speakers in the room, making every one of the support students jump, including Izuku and Mei, "May all students please make their way to the entrance of the stadium? The event is about to start," a robotic voice said.

"This is so stupid," someone muttered, but Izuku didn’t figure out who as he, Mei, and the rest of their classmates head out of the room, down the hallway to stand behind the second Gen-Ed class, the one Shinso wasn't in. But Izuku spotted the purple-haired teen further ahead and waved to him.

Shinso waved back but stopped when his classmates narrowed their eyes at him, making the teen look tormented, and making Izuku mad in the process.

Now he most definitely was going to do everything in his limited power to get Shinso out of that class, and even if it turned out similar in a heroics class, then at least Shinso would be in the department of his dreams.

Present Mic's voice came over the speakers, "And nowwwwww, the students of Yuuei! WELCOME CLASS 1-A!!!!"

Izuku had to stand on his tippy-toes to even try to see over the heads of the students in front of them to glance at the back of Katsuki's class's heads. They were Eraser's students.

He buried the guilt down in his chest as 1-B was called out with a lot less enthusiasm, then the two Gen-Ed classes, and the two Support classes.

(Management was exempt from doing the Sports Festival in person because it would be better to work from an outside perspective? Or so had someone from management said during the few times Izuku managed to make it to the cafeteria for lunch to overhear.)

Izuku was glad that he had earbuds to muffle the noise of the audience but glanced over at Shinso who was still with his classmates. The audience wouldn’t be good if they were trying to get Shinso into Heroics. 

Izuku was going to have to advise Shinso to make sure he could hide the trigger to his quirk through other means; oh, wait! Izuku caught the Gen-Ed kid’s attention, and quickly signed to the purple-haired teen.

Shinso’s eyes widened, and he glanced at the crowd before nodding at Izuku, meanwhile, Izuku wanted to hit his head against something hard. He was so dumb, they could’ve been using sign instead of writing everything down to each other while they were surrounded by others. 

"THE FIRST EVENT IS…. A RACE!!!!!"

Izuku sighed and hardened his resolve. They had this. They had to have this. For Shinso.

Chapter Text

As soon as Present Mic announced the start of the race, Mei darted over to Shinso as Izuku rushed forward, all three of them only just managed to push off from the ground - Mei and Shinso through use of Mei's jetpack, and Izuku simply jumping - as ice covered it. Only just getting away from the trap that one of the 1-A students set for everyone.

Izuku grinned at Toothless as the cat ran forward, extending his arm to let his partner have more power as he jumped forward to land on the ice, running forward.

The green-haired teen raced after the cat, tapping his watch to make sure that the tracker in Toothless's vest was working, switching his buds to the microphones that Toothless had stashed on his vest was working, then pulling down his goggles mainly to keep particles from irritating his eyes, but also to keep track of the scores that he couldn't really hear Present Mic calling out.

Todoroki Shoto was in first place obviously, it had been his ice that blocked the majority of students from entering the second part of the race, Katsuki - surprise, surprise - was behind the legacy student in second, and there was a trail of other 1-A and 1-B students behind them. 

“How are you doing, guys?” Izuku called out to his friends as Mei and Shinso caught up to Izuku and Toothless just before the drop with metal wires.

Shinso, honest to Kami, looked like a cat dropped in water, and now clutched to Mei as if she had picked him out of the water as if she was his saviour, "Help. Me," Shinso hissed fearfully as he clutched onto Mei so she didn't drop him.

Toothless made a strange hiss-cough that Izuku had come to associate with the cat's strange mimic of laughter, and Izuku giggled as Shinso shot the cat, that had already gotten halfway across the metal wiring, a glare.

Mei cackled, pressing a button on her glove, and taking the two of them across the gap. Shinso's startled, fearful scream made Izuku (and quite a few other students around them) laugh.

The comments of the Livestream were going crazy as people kept mentioning Mei and Shinso, Izuku struggled to maintain his thirtieth position as he struggled not to laugh, and dropped back to thirty-sixth by the time they got to the next part of the race, a stretch of ground that had explosives dug under the soil. 

The first thirty spots had already finished - Mei and Shinso a part of them - and Izuku followed Toothless through the maze of mines to finish in fortieth. Probably not the best placing for Izuku and Toothless - the cat climbing up to sit on the human’s shoulder, cleaning his paws as Izuku disconnected his devices from the ones on Toothless. 

“Thanks, bud,” Izuku murmured, reaching up to rub behind the cat’s ears, and smiling when Toothless purred in response. 

“Izu-kuuuuuuunn!!!!!” Mei’s voice called out, and only just gave Izuku enough time to prepare himself for his friend’s tackle-hug. Izuku laughed as he hugged her back, “We made it!” Mei beamed, “And you were right!”

Shinso made his way over, keeping his distance from Mei, “Damn right he was right,” the purple-haired Gen-Ed student raised an eyebrow at the green-haired male. 

Izuku rolled his eyes, "Anyone could've seen it if they looked," he said as Midnight announced the points system for the second event.

Immediately everyone's attention honed on Todoroki, Izuku and Mei shared a glance before rolling their eyes in sync. If there was anyone to be worried about it was their little project Gen-Ed kid. With Mei and Izuku on Shinso's side, it would be difficult for their plan to truly fall apart.

The second event was announced. A team-up Caverly-type event that required four people to make a team.

Anyone who knew what the two Support students and the Gen-Ed student had been up to, leading to the Sports Festival, wouldn’t be surprised to see how they immediately stuck together, heads lowered so that no one could hear them, or read their lips. Anyone who didn’t know what the three had been up to, didn't exactly care about a couple of Support students and a Gen-Ed kid.

Their loss.

No one else approached the three standing in a triangular formation, and if someone did, then Toothless raised his head to stare them down until they left.

All too soon for the students around the trio, their time to prepare was gone, and the event just about to start.

As much as Izuku wanted to bend the rules, Shinso - pouting as well - managed to talk him out of letting Toothless be their rider. In the end, Izuku, as the strongest, was delegated the role of "horse" while wearing one of Mei's jetpacks, and Mei was dubbed the "rider" because of her attention-seeking tactics.

Meanwhile, Shinso would be acting as a "spy" and running around, using his quirk to get people to hand over their headbands, and Toothless would sneak past the other student's lowered guards and take headbands as well.

Midnight did say that there only had to be one rider and one horse afterall. She never said that they had to have everyone carrying the rider. (And this was Izuku's way of bending the rules instead of using Toothless as the rider).

Izuku found himself enjoying running around with Mei on his shoulders, using the jetpack to push off the ground, and draw attention to them in the air. Mei happily fired off explosions that rivalled the ones Katsuki made from his hands and snatched a few headbands randomly enough that no one would take them seriously enough.

It was as if this event was made just for them.

So when the fun ended, students left confused as to where their headbands went, and the trio laughing - or cackling in the case of Izuku and Mei - as they took second place after Todoroki's team who only just managed to hold onto the ten million points headband.

(Shouta just sighed in the announcer's booth, a smirk struggling at the corner of his lips as he watched the trio and cat cheer as everyone around them appeared stunned.

Hizashi wisely turned off the microphone before speaking to Shouta, "The greenie is your kid, right, Sho'?"

Shouta snorted, "He's not mine," he protested half-heartedly, despite knowing that his partner was right.

"Suuuurrrrreeeeeeee," Hizashi grinned, and only narrowly just avoiding the other man's capture scarf, "Aw, come on, Sho', don't be like that!"

The underground pro-hero was so close to using his quirk as he glared at his friend, a faint pink peeking out from under his bandages "Just shut it, 'zashi.")

Then there was a break for lunch, and for the third event to be set up.

Izuku had Toothless on his shoulders as he happily chatted away with Mei about the second event, with Shinso shaking his head with an amused smirk as they walked along with the rest of the students to the cafeteria.

"DEKU!"

Izuku instantly shut up, his body stiffening, and he almost missed how his friends pressed closer, Toothless's purring exchanged for furious rumbles as the explosive blond that had tormented Izuku - not Hiccup. Katsuki had never hurt Hiccup, but that didn’t mean that Izuku hadn't had eight years of abuse from the other teenager - stormed towards them, ignoring the rest of 1-A behind him.

For the first time in months, Izuku swallowed and drew on the courage of Hiccup, a man who had faced down dragons and dragon-hunters before and lived to defeat them all who came after Toothless the Night Fury and his tribe. For the first time in months, Izuku needed Hiccup.

Within a moment, he had straightened his back, stopped the fidgeting of his hands, relaxed his stance in case of a possible fight, and raised his eyes to meet Katsuki's burning red ones.

"Bakugo," he said coldly, a voice Hiccup had only used in the worst of moments. Afterall, everyone knew that when a kind man was pushed too far, he would snap quicker than a glowstick. 

The blond faltered for a moment, and so did Shinso at Izuku's side. Right, the Gen-Ed student wouldn't have heard him like this before; there had been no need for Shinso to see the differences that Izuku and Hiccup could switch through moments before. Mei obviously had seen how Izuku and Hiccup moved before, having been there while they-he was struggling to keep his head right.

Katsuki managed to grit his teeth in a way that reminded Hiccup of how Astrid would when she was forcing herself not to yell at someone, and he raised an eyebrow at the blond.

“Say what you were going to say,” Hiccup-Izuku crossed his arms, “Unlike you, we would like to get to lunch, Bakugo.”

Katsuki growled through his teeth, “Call Auntie, you shity nerd, and stop trying. You’re quirkless, you piece of shit.”

Shinso scoffed at Izuku-Hiccup’s side, “This is one of the hero students?” he laughed sarcastically, “Gee, they’re really dropping in their standards if they let you in.”

Thankfully, Katsui didn’t start a physical fight with Izuku’s friend, just narrowing his eyes at the Gen-Ed student, not opening his mouth. Even if it did mean that Izuku was going to have to work another plan if Katsuki truly did know what Shinso’s quirk was. 

The blond jerked his gaze back to Izuku, “You’re never going to be a hero, deku, stop trying,” he scowled before storming back over to his classmates.

Hiccup-Izuku rolled his eyes as Shinso cough-laughed next to him, “Does he not know that you’re Knockout?” he asked Izuku.

Izuku-Hiccup just shrugged, “You two, Aizawa, and probably Nezu, are the only ones who I've told about that,” he answered as Mei skipped ahead to claim a table for them - by dumping all of her inventions down on it - while the two of them headed over into the line to get food for them and their friend. 

“So other people might know?” Shinso asked carefully, reaching up to rub between Toothless’s ears. The cat’s claws digging into Izuku’s shirt as Toothless held onto to make sure he didn’t fall off. 

Izuku shrugged, “Probably? It’s not as if I ever tried to keep it a secret from anyone, I was just wondering around at night, and stepping in to help out when I saw someone who needed help,” he didn’t mention the other part of his life that he did through a computer, helping police and Pros alike under another name. 

“Huh,” Shinso said, his tone giving away how he wasn’t not quite believing him. Not that Izuku could blame him, there was a lot Izuku wasn’t telling his friends. 

They were quick to make their way to the table where their friend was. Mei had already started working on her inventions, fiddling away at various parts.

Toothless jumped onto the table and curled up to nap, while Izuku and Shinso sat down to eat.  The interaction with Bakugo hadn’t gone unnoticed as they spotted several people glancing at them as they ate.

Izuku made use of the time they were given to make sure everything was in working order. A hidden surprise in Toothless's vest, tossing Shinso an extendable staff to play with as they waited and diverting Mei's explosions that she somehow managed to make - scaring the fuck out of anyone that wasn't their classmates - just by adjusting the settings on some of her babies.

Welcome to Power Loader's Nightmare.

To avoid other students figuring out what they were planning, Izuku and Shinso went back to writing things down and if Izuku had to explain further, they moved into sign language to further what the green-haired support student meant. 

It wasn’t foolproof, but it was the best they had at the moment. It wasn't as if Shinso understood Norse, and Izuku didn’t know morse code, so those were out, and English was common enough with Japanese students that there wasn’t much point bothering with using that.

And all too soon, the lunch break was over, and the trio had to join the other students in the stands to see who would be the first fight in the one v one fights. 

Izuku had a notebook before Shinso could blink, and he giggled when the purple-haired Gen-Ed student spluttered. Toothless napped on Izuku’s shoulders as Shinso and Izuku waited on the edge of their seats as Midnight came out to announce the order of the fights. 

Out of the four teams that made it, their team was the only one with only three students, so Midnight had gotten the fifth team to put forward a student for the one v one fights. A blond from class 1-B, Izuku thought he caught a glance of him at lunch, but he wasn’t sure. 

Midnight revealed the order, and Izuku raised his eyebrow at it. He was going up against someone called Koda?

He wondered where he’d heard that name before. Someone from the hero classes? They definitely weren't someone from the support department, and they weren't from Gen-Ed, with Management out of the Sports Festival, that just left the Heroics course.

Izuku wished that he’d brought his notebooks that he’d analysed 1-A and 1-B in, but alas, he’d handed those over to the Principal as soon as he’d finished. 

Mei was going up against Kaminari, someone who Izuku definitely knew was from 1-A, a kid with an electricity-generating quirk, while Shinso was going up against Yaoyorozu, who also was from 1-A. Izuku remembered her especially because she was the girl with a creation quirk.

Think about all the applications of her quirk!!

"So, any advice?" Shinso asked, bumping his arm against the mumbling teen's own arm ever so slightly.

The green-haired support student glanced up from his previous staring at the ground, and paused for a moment as he recalled the footage of 1-A's battle-fights, "One moment," Izuku reached up and pulled his goggles down, ignoring the way his friend/project watched him curiously. It was far too easy to rewind the Sports Festival footage to mentally note down as much as he could.

Then he searched the Web, because he certainly remembered something about the Yaoyorozu family; and bam! Rich family alert. This Yaoyorozu also managed to get into Yuuei through the recommendation exam. So, highly probable self-worth issues along with lacking confidence leading to panic.

So long as Shinso attacked that, and got her to respond while hiding his activation key for his quirk, then he’d do fine- but…

Izuku wasn’t sure he wanted to let Shinso destroy what little confidence the girl had. Maybe instead Shinso should encourage her by congratulating her on her achievements? But that might backfire…

"Midoriya?" Izuku blinked as Shinso's hand was waved in front of his eyes.

Izuku sighed, taking his goggles off of his eyes, "Yaoyorozu Momo, class 1-A, quirk; creation, status: high-class, position; Student Rep President, grades: B+'s to A's," he rubbed at his eyes, "She's got confidence issues due to her first public school attempt, there was a small article about it a few years back due to her parents' status in the rich community. But I don't think you should use that against her, with her already limited confidence, it will only drop, which would cause her to fail as a hero-in-training, and with her sort of quirk-"

"So she basically won the lottery before she was born?" Shinso scoffed, scowling as he crossed his arms.

Izuku frowned, jabbing a finger into Shinso's arm, and making the other yelp while jumping in place slightly, "Shinso, do we need to have the talk again?" 

His friend's purple eyes widened, "Nope!" Shinso almost screamed, only just keeping his desperate tone down, "No, no, I'm good!"

Mei snickered, all too knowing of the rant-speech Izuku had given their Project-kun when he found out about Shinso's discrimination towards people with "perfect-quirks" had managed to change Shinso's mind about them with a couple of examples of how not -perfect these kids with "perfect-quirks" had their lives.

Mainly focused on Bakugo Katsuki, but Izuku had managed to find too many kids with horrible lives and amazing quirks stuck in terrible situations while he was out as Knockout.

Basically, Izuku gave Shinso a healthy respect for some of the kids with "perfect-quirks". There were still a bunch out there that Shinso hated on sight, but Izuku hoped he was there to keep the soon-to-be former-Gen-Ed student on track.

"Good," Izuku smiled, Toothless yawning in his shoulder, "Anyway, maybe try and congratulate her on her progress so far, that's the best option I have at the moment with your quirk; unless you suddenly became a master hand-to-hand fighter overnight-" Shinso rolled his eyes as Izuku smirked at him, "-you should use that then dodge for a bit before getting her to go out of the ring after tapping her or something."

Shinso gave him a wary look, but nodded, "Thanks, Midoriya."

Mei cackled, making Shinso jump, "Electric-kun!" She called out before chasing after the Heroics student.

Shinso snorted, "I do not pity him."

Izuku raised an eyebrow, "Be happy you're not the one with an electricity-generating quirk."

"Point," Shinso nodded grimly.

°°°

After the first three fights - Katsuki won against a 1-B student, Shiozaki, all too quickly with the unfair advantage his quirk had over her vine quirk, Kirishima from 1-A held out slightly longer than Tetsutetsu from 1-B, and Monoma from 1-B with the copy quirk, managed to get Tokoyami from 1-A out of the arena after a lot of struggle in the approximately three to four minutes the 1-B student had with his classmate's quirks - it was finally Izuku's turn.

Apparently "Koda" was the male standing across from him that looked like he’d come out of the side of a cliff made out of clay. 

Not the strangest of "mutation quirks" Izuku had seen, but it was quite interesting as he knew that the 1-A student had his quirk registered as Anivoice; an emitter quirk that allows the user to communicate with and command animals through speech.

So everything physical was a secondary mutation, like Izuku's green hair was in his family from Inko's side.

He wondered if Koda was going to try and command Toothless. Then wondered if Toothless would remain loyal to Izuku, or follow the other's quirked command.

Midnight cracked her whip from the podium next to the edge of the arena, "Now, we want a good clean fight!" Her voice lowered, "Please don't cause a scene like Bakugo's match."

Izuku grinned innocently at Midnight while Koda just shrugged from the other side. Toothless purred next to Izuku's ear, and he chuckled, keeping a careful eye on the "animal-whisperer".

"Begin!"

Toothless leapt off of Izuku's shoulders as the green-haired teen shoved his goggles down over his eyes.

The hero-in-training raced forward, and Izuku grinned as the fight was basically quirkless. This was his element.

The crowd around them sounded torn between booing from boredom and cheering the two on as Izuku easily deflected each punch coming from the other.

Koda appeared to get frustrated, even if he didn't speak verbally aloud (unless he needed to), the other male was extremely expressive. It was like reading an open book in plain easy Norse for Izuku. Or Japanese. Both were his first language, so he guessed that it would make sense for Izuku-Hiccup to think of either one first.

The hero student finally snapped, speaking, and Izuku assumed that he’d used his quirk on Toothless. The cat's fur bristled as he listened to Koda, then Toothless hissed at Koda, making the hero-in-training freeze.

Izuku paused as well, confused as he looked between the cat and the other student.

Toothless hadn't done anything but hiss - Izuku assumed that was his way of responding back to Koda - but that seemed like enough to put the fear of Odin into the Heroics student.

"What’s happening?" Izuku asked, taking a glance at Toothless who hissed something else at Koda.

Koda looked even paler as he stuck his hand into the air, Midnight asked what was wrong, and the Heroics student signed his forfeit.

"Very well, Koda forfeits! Midoriya passes onto the next round!"

Izuku didn’t bother heading back through the tunnel he had come through, instead, chasing after the panicked hero-student as he went through the tunnel that he had used to get there.

Thanks to his night-time adventures as Knockout, it was too easy for Izuku to catch with the other teen, "Koda! Hold up," he signed as he spoke, and didn’t miss how Koda's eyes widened. Izuku had to finger-spell the words he didn’t know, but it was the effort that was appreciated, "What was that? Why did you panic? What did Toothless say to make you so scared?"

Koda glanced at the cat who had been trailing after Izuku by his heels. Toothless just blinked at the teenager.

Koda looked back up at Izuku from the black cat with the strange green eyes that mimicked the same hue as the human in front of him. 

The hero student didn't speak, keeping to sign - thankfully going slow enough for Izuku to translate the signs so he could understand - and Izuku made sure to give Koda his full attention.

"Toothless threatened to eat me," Koda signed hesitantly, glancing back at the cat for a bit, "After, of course, he warned me that he would claw my eyes out so I wouldn't have my sight, and then he’d destroy my hands so that I wouldn't be able to do anything with them-"

"Toothless!" Izuku hissed at his cat who blinked innocently up at him, "Why are you like this?"

The cat meowed, and Koda paled even further.

Izuku looked at Koda curiously, "What did he say this time?" He asked and signed.

Toothless purred from where he rubbed up against Izuku’s leg, and the green-haired teen just looked at the Heroics student.

"Can't say," Koda signed shakily, his eyes wide as he stared down at the black-furred creature.

Izuku sighed, not upset with Koda, but instead turning his green eyes onto his partner. He gave the cat an exasperated look and sigh, "Really? You're not even going to let him tell me? I can understand threatening him, but why isn't he allowed to tell me?"

Toothless merely blinked his own pair of green eyes back up at the Support student.

He sighed yet again, before giving Koda a smile, "Thanks for telling me as much as Toothless allowed you to, anyway," Izuku half-glared at the cat who licked his paw casually.

Koda nodded, "Maybe convince your friend to not eat me, next time he sees me?" He sighed worriedly.

Izuku held back his chuckle as he nodded, "I'll do my best," he told the hero student.

"Thanks," Koda smiled at him, before making his escape as Toothless managed to get onto Izuku's shoulder again.

Izuku turned his head to give the cat a fond-annoyed look, "You don't need to scare people off, you know that, right?"

Toothless meowed.

°°°

"What was that all about?" Shinso asked after his match with Yaoyorozu.

Izuku hadn’t made it back in time to meet with his friends after his match with Koda, too busy having a conversation with Toothless before he got spammed in one of the online chat rooms that he was in.

He, as Knockout, had only just managed to hack into Ingenium's comlink to warn him of the Stain threat that he'd been alerted to. Someone had overheard Stain talking to himself about the pro-hero, and passed the message on until it reached "Knockout".

Even if there were Stain sympathisers on the servers that Izuku was on, Ingenium was one of the more commonly liked Pros out there. 

Most Pros didn’t particularly care for the people as a whole - one of the reasons Izuku as "Knockout" got so popular so quickly, he cared about the people he saved and stopped - but the speedster was one of the few out there who took time to care for the "little people". Taking on more sidekicks than what was normal for an agency, Team Idaten was able to patrol in different prefectures at the same time. More patrols meant less criminal activity, meaning safer neighbourhoods.

Izuku couldn’t even begin to understand why Stain was going after the speedster in particular, but he knew that he had to get Ingenium's attention to get out of there.

Knockout didn't work with the speedster often, Iida Tensei working day shifts more than night shifts, but Izuku had grown a soft spot for the Pro.

He had tons of practice hacking into Pro-Hero coms, so it had just been a matter of working his way through Team Idaten's unquiet code, before breaking the news to the Pro - in a secluded spot, hidden away from the more populated areas of the stadium. 

(And Izuku and Toothless might’ve overheard a suspicious conversation between Endeavor and Todoroki, mentally adding to his list of things to do as he left before either of the Todorokis saw him and Toothless)

Izuku gave Toothless a short glare, “Koda has a quirk that allows him to talk to animals,” he explained to Shinso, whose eyes widened in understanding, “And Toothless threatened to eat him-” Izuku ignored Shinso’s startled laughter, “-and this bugger-” he jabbed a finger into Toothless’s side, and the cat rolled his eyes at Izuku, “-said something else that he’s not letting Koda tell me.”

Shinso snorted, “What? So your cat has some sort of big secret that he’s not telling you? The betrayal.”

“See?” Izuku gestured at the Gen-Ed student, locking eyes with his partner, the cat just yawning, “Someone else gets it!”

Toothless just shut his eyes and went back to sleep. 

“See what I have to deal with,” Izuku turned to Shinso. Then rolling his eyes as he noticed how the purple-haired teen was just hiding his laughter behind his hands. “The ultimate betrayal, from all of you.”

“What’s the ultimate betrayal?” Mei’s voice piped up as she almost seemed to appear from thin air. 

Izuku repeated what he’d told Shinso, and his best friend died via laughter. Not really, but it almost seemed like it when she dropped to her knees to cackle. 

While his friends were busy laughing at his misfortune, Izuku had a chance to go through the footage of his friend’s matches. Shinso had done what Izuku suggested, using Yaoyorozu’s accomplishments to get her to respond, then hiding that he’d already gotten her under his quirk as he and the heroics student engaged in hand-to-hand combat - which ended up being Shinso just dodging and Yaoyorozu trying to get a single hit on him - before Shinso tapped her hand away and commanding her to leave the ring. 

Mei, on the other hand, had decked out Kaminari in so many of her babies, that Izuku had been confused as to who she was “going up against” for a moment. Her match ended up just being an advertisement - as Izuku thought it would go - but Karminari seemed more than happy to show off the inventions for the pink-haired girl. 

Then his best friend stepped outside of the ring in a forfeit, and Izuku couldn’t help rolling his eyes as a bubble of amused fondness grew in his chest.

He and Mei didn’t really need to keep going in the Sports Festival, so seeing Mei forfeit wasn’t surprising. It was really Shinso who needed to keep progressing. 

Izuku wanted to prove that despite being Quirkless, that he could take on Katsuki. It was luck that put them against each other in the first half of the fights, so as long as both Izuku and Katsuki beat their next opponent, they would face off against each other. 

Izuku finished watching the videos, and rolled his eyes as he noticed his friends still laughing - actually feeding off each other’s laughter now. How in Thor’s name did Izuku end up being friends with these two again?

°°°

Izuku waited in the entrance tunnel, arms crossed over his chest as he watched grimly as Katsuki blasted the other 1-A student - Kirishima - with explosions. 

It was the right tactic to consistently use the explosion quirk to weaken Kirishima’s hardening, but Izuku couldn’t help but wince as the red-head was knocked out, and spotting how Katsuki’s palms looked blistered from quirk-overuse.

The blond looked triumphant, but Izuku had spent years around the other, and could easily spot the grimace hidden behind the sharp grin. His hands had to be hurting by now, so Katsuki would probably have to go to Recovery Girl, which meant that he’d be slightly weaker for the next match. 

Good.

Toothless was perched on his shoulder, tail flicking back and forth against Izuku’s back, and Izuku could hear the beginnings of a hiss-growl coming from his partner from right next his ear as Kirishima was taken off of the field by the medical bots, and Katsuki made his way toward the hallway that Izuku was standing in. 

Izuku placed a hand over the cylindrical object at his waist as he swore that he could feel Katsuki’s stomps vibrating from the ground, he was fearful, but tucked it under the confidence of Hiccup’s memories, and made sure to keep his eyes forward as the blond neared. 

He tightened his lips together as his former childhood friend paused for a moment beside him. Neither green nor red eyes met, instead looking straight ahead of them. 

“I’m not going to go easy on you, deku,” Katsuki said with a voice so confident that Izuku believed him.

Toothless hissed at the blond as Izuku answered in return, “Thanks, I won’t hold back either,” he stepped out into the light of the sun, and left Katsuki in the darkness of the shade that hid the entrance hallway. 

He faced another blond, from 1-B, Monoma, the kid with a copy quirk.

Izuku wondered how this would turn out; the kid that was quirkless against someone who was practically quirkless. Thankfully Izuku’s status as Quirkless hadn’t been announced yet - Present Mic was too busy being surprised at why Koda forfeited so quickly - but it was only a matter of time unti-

WAIT. Because Izuku is quirkless, would that mean when Monoma tried to copy Izuku’s non-existent quirk, that he would become quirkless? Well, at least until the timer on Monoma’s quirk runs out…

“So you’re the support student that beat one of 1-A’s famous students,” Monoma said, metaphorically and literally looking down on Izuku. Literally, because while Izuku had grown in the last couple of years, he was still on the short side of the height scale.

Toothless jumped onto the ground to lay down as Izuku shrugged when Midnight announced the start of their fight, letting Monoma rush forward as Izuku leapt backwards to avoid the outstretched hand, “A copy quirk, right?” Izuku smiled as Monoma stumbled for a moment, giving him enough time to slide past him into the centre of the arena, and avoiding touching Monoma still.

“Mutant quirks are obviously out,” Izuku mused thoughtfully, having already done this before, but using it as a distraction for the blond he was going up against, “Emitter would be better than mental because of the lack of time you had to prepare, so I’m guessing you used quicks off your classmates?”

“How…?” Monoma trailed off, his confidence faltering properly for the first time, causing him to miss an easy attack for him to touch Izuku’s skin and get his quirk.

“Oh, sorry, I’m just the poor Support student who only got into this fight because my opponent forfeited?” Izuku rolled his eyes, dropping down under the outstretched hand, ignoring how the crowd seemed disappointed at the lack of a show around them.

Toothless meowed from the side of the arena, and Izuku rolled his eyes at the cat, “Fine, I’ll stop playing,” he muttered, knowing well enough that the cat could hear him. 

Izuku rushed forward, on the offensive now, and startled Monoma enough that he only just grazed Izuku’s bare forearm. The blond’s periwinkle blue eyes widened as Izuku’s “quirk” activated.

“WHAT! YOU’RE-” 

The 1-B student didn’t get to finish what he was saying as Izuku ran forward to half-tackle the blond out the ring, only just managing to stay in the arena while the heroics student was outside of it. 

Midnight announced Izuku’s win as the green-haired support student offered his hand for the blond heroics student, “Sorry about that,” he said sheepishly. 

“But, b-but,” Monoma stammered as he took Izuku’s hand, the green-haired student helping the other up to his feet, “You’re quirkless,” he hissed the last word. 

“So?” Izuku raised an eyebrow, “I would’ve been able to pass the entrance exam if I had been allowed, meaning that I would’ve been able to be in the same classes as you, or 1-A.”

“What do you mean “if you had been allowed”?” Monoma looked horrified at the thought. 

Izuku glanced around them, before shaking his head, “Not here, come on,” he pulled on Monoma’s wrist and was pleased when the heroics student followed him back to the entrance hallway.

Toothless kept up easily, his paws almost silent as Izuku took Monoma to a more secluded part of the stadium. He checked to make sure no one was listening in.

“What did you mean that you weren’t allowed to take the entrance exam?” Monoma asked again, although it was more of a demand this time, his eyes narrowed on Izuku as the support student allowed Toothless to climb back onto his shoulders. 

Izuku shrugged, he was sorta over it by now, but that didn’t mean that it still didn’t hurt at times when he thought about it, “I sent in my application like everyone else, but I got a letter back the next day saying that I could apply for another department, just not the heroics.”

“That’s bullshit,” Monoma blurted out, and Izuku gave him a dry smile.

“Of course it is,” Izuku sighed, reaching up to rub Toothless’s head, “But it’s the world we live in now.”

Monoma frowned, looking at his hands, “So you’re going to prove them wrong by winning the Sports Festival?” he asked bluntly. 

Izuku snorted, waving the idea off as if it was a physical thing, “Nah, I’m content in support, me and my friend are trying to get Shinso into the heroics course by helping him win the Sports Festival. It’s sort of a project for us that Maijima-sensei allowed us to do since we were driving him crazy in class.”

“The pink-haired crazy girl?” Monoma asked warily, then shivered when Izuku nodded. The 1-B student looked at Toothless for a moment before giving Izuku a smile, “Well, I hope you get what you want in the end, Midoriya, it was an experience fighting against you.”

"Same back to you," Izuku grinned, the two (three, as Toothless was still on his shoulder) headed off to their separate friends.

Mei gave him a hug when he got back to her and Shinso, the other just giving Izuku a pat on the shoulder that Toothless hadn't claimed.

"Congrats," Shinso smirked, "We might actually get to go up against each other."

Izuku rolled his eyes, "Sure, if each of us beat the two strongest from 1-A."

Shinso paused, then paled as he realised what Izuku meant, "Right, I may have forgotten that…" He chuckled nervously.

Toothless snicker-hissed from Izuku's shoulder as the green-haired teen smirked for a moment, before getting back to business, "You know how to get Kaminari?" He asked, raising an eyebrow at the purple-haired teen.

"Sprout vines and memes," Shinso snorted, shaking his head, "He and Ashido were partially shouting them out during the matches."

Izuku and Mei glanced at each other, and Shinso frowned, "What?"

"Nothing~," Mei sang innocently while Izuku distracted himself by turning to look at Toothless as he patted the cat.

"Whatever," Shinso rolled his eyes at them. 

The three of them paused to watch as ice floated in the air as Uraraka and Todoroki went against one another. Izuku winced when the girl's arm got sliced by an iceberg as it formed next to her, Uraraka only just dodging it.

The girl didn't really have a chance against Todoroki. Izuku would say that she would be better off going up against Katsuki than Todoroki, simply because the rapidly cooling air from all the ice wasn’t helpful for either heroic student, or Uraraka's quirk.

The cold air compressed carbon, slowing down everything else and giving the potential of an explosion if there was enough of a spark.

If Todoroki used the fire half of his quirk, or if Uraraka accidentally brushed up against an ice piece that sped over to another ice piece to create that spark, then the whole arena would explode.

"Really?" Shinso's voice asked, and the support student glanced up to look at the pale-faced Gen-Ed student, "It would explode?"

Woah, had Izuku been muttering? It had been ages since he'd done that. Not since he'd gotten Hiccup's memories and learnt how bad it really was that he was just letting these details slip out. But Izuku supposed that he’d put a bit too much pressure on himself today, so he’d allow this slip just this once.

“Yeah,” Izuku nodded, keeping his eyes focused on the way Uraraka appeared to move past one of Todoroki’s icebergs, but in reality, she just fell over. A lucky fall. She needed more combat experience without the use of her quirk. And besides, Uraraka’s quirk had to do with negating gravity, if worse came to worse, Izuku hoped that his theories on her quirk were wrong. 

“Shit,” Shinso muttered beside him, making Izuku glance up at the other teen for a moment, Mei was happily tinkering away even if she wasn’t participating in another event, “Do the teachers know that?”

Toothless shifted on Izuku’s shoulder as the green-haired teen took a quick glance at Midnight and Cementoss who looked worried, but not too worried, “Doubtful,” Izuku shrugged, “They’re worried about the ice getting into the stands more than they’re worried about an explosion. I don’t even think that they’d realise the dangers of an explosion. Especially since Todoroki isn’t using the fire aspect of his quirk-”

“He has fire as well ?!” Shinso’s startled voice made Izuku glance up at him again, giving the Gen-Ed teen a nod. Shinso whimpered and Izuku tilted his head at the other.

“What’s wrong with that? It’s not as if he actually uses it. If anything, it gives you better opposites-”

“No, not that,” Shinso grimaced, his purple eyes looking pained, “I’m doing my best to enforce your lesson .”

Izuku was confused for a moment before it clicked and he ‘oh’ed. He smiled at the other, “Congrats, you’re on the path to being a better person!”

“Uh-huh, sure,” Shinso rolled his eyes. 

They turned back to the arena just in time to see Uraraka hold her hand to her mouth, pausing for a single moment that Todoroki took advantage of, sending a massive iceberg her way, and trapping her in it. Similar to what he’d done against his first opponent, Sero, from 1-A as well.

“Holy shit,” Shinso cursed, and Izuku glanced over to see his hands shaking slightly. Nothing compared to the nerves that Izuku knew he was feeling. 

“Well, you’ve just got to go against Kaminari first,” Izuku tried to consolidate, giving the Gen-Ed student an awkward grin, “Even if you don’t win against him, you’ve gotten this far. No harm in stopping while you can.”

Shinso shook his head, standing up, “I’ve gotten this far, I can’t stop just because of some kid with an overpowered quirk.”

“Don’t forget that he’s the son of the number two pro,” Mei chirped in, grinning when Izuku rolled his eyes at her, and Shinso paled even further, which was a feat, as the insomniac was already so pale that you would think that it was his quirk. 

“I’m going now, before you two scare me into quitting,” Shinso said, speedily making his way away from them. 

Izuku snorted, rubbing Toothless’s fur and getting the cat to purr easily. 

If his judgment of Kaminari’s character was correct, then this would be an easy win for Shinso. And an easy win for Shinso’s heart; go Kaminari!

°°°

While Shinso had easily won his match against Kaminari, Izuku had already made his way down to the entrance hallway.

He fidgeted with the bottom of his uniform shirt as Toothless purred next to his ear in an effort to calm him. The teenager's heart was pounding so loudly in his ears, he wondered if his opponent could hear it from the other hallway entrance.

Shinso helped Karminari through the opposite hallway to Izuku, glancing back towards the support student after he passed the explosive teen. A worried look on his face that Izuku could only just see from the distance between them, before he and Karminari disappeared into the darkness.

Green eyes met furious red, and Izuku quickly turned his gaze onto his red shoes.

"Next up is the Prideful, yet Powerful, Class 1-A's very own, Bakugo Katsuki!" Present Mic's voice announced as Katsuki left the other hallway entrance.

Izuku tightened his grip on Toothless for a split second, before relaxing his hand to rub his hand up against the cat's cheek, "Well, this is it. The one I was dreading."

Toothless meowed, claws digging into the skin under Izuku's shirt for a moment as the teenager made to move forward, "What’s wrong, Toothless?"

His partner hissed in the direction of Katsuki, then he meowed quietly as he rubbed his face up against Izuku's cheek. 

Izuku sighed, letting some of the tension in his body relax, "We'll get through this," he said, mostly to himself, but he glanced at Toothless, "Together, bud?"

Toothless, in an act of divine amusement, licked Izuku's freckled nose with his sandpaper tongue.

The support student giggled, pushing the cat's head away carefully, "Ewww," he smiled, "At least your tongue isn't large enough to leave a giant mess."

Toothless snicker-hissed at him as Izuku moved forward, his name being called over the PA.

"And facing the explosive hero student, we have Midoriya Izuku, the Support student who has somehow managed to make it this far! How ill he fare-" there was a screeching noise as feedback entered the speakers before Mic coughed, "-And his partner, Toothless the cat! This is all legal folks, all rules have been followed! So don't be giving us those "boo"s!"

Izuku rolled his eyes, but jumped when Katsuki's palms crackled, "Don't need a shitty partner to take you down, Deku."

"Emotional support animal," Izuku corrected, raising a slightly trembling finger up, "Officially, I have claim over him being here as an emotional support animal. You know, for all the anxiety you and all the rest of our classmates forced me to never grow out of. Thanks for that, you know."

Katsuki looked stunned for a moment, just staring at Izuku dumbly as if he hadn’t actually expected Izuku to talk back.

"Though, I suppose I can blame some of it on the memories, so I guess I'll give you a bit of doubt," Izuku said thoughtfully, despite damn well knowing that Katsuki would have no idea what he was talking about.

"Alright," Midnight looked between the two of them carefully, "No murder today, it's too much paperwork."

Izuku didn’t even bother responding to that. A fair amount of the staff actually had a bias against Quirkless people, even if it wasn’t anything like Middle School. It was simpler here, the staff underestimating him in class, trying to convince him to stay away from the explosion-prone Mei, and even going as far as to try and get him to sit out of P.E. and working on his inventions.

At least they treated him like a human being; if not, then just a weaker version than the rest of the kids around him. As if he had an illness that affected his physical ability (He tried not to think of how weak he and  Hiccup had been before both of them managed to prove themselves) or something similar. 

“And… start!”

Katsuki’s palms flung behind him, and he flew forward, propelled by his explosions as Izuku expertly ducked out of the way at the last second. 

Wow, he really was suicidal, wasn’t he? Living life on the edge - hehe, the Edge, ah, what good memories - with dragons, then living in this world where the majority of people had superpowers and a good number of those people would rather that he wasn’t alive. Not to mention, having Katsuki focused on beating him within an inch of life. Yep, Izuku might be a little suicidal.

(What? Going at night to wander dark streets when shady people were out and about wasn’t enough of an indicator for you, Izuku?)

Izuku lifted his arm to allow Toothless room to run and leap from him, the cat landing on the ground with grace that Izuku had yet to find out how he did it so gently, and the support student flashed a smirk towards Katsuki as the blond turned to face him, having only just kept himself from flying out the arena. 

“DEKU!”

Izuku snickered, “Have some of this!” he cackled, tossing what appeared to be small pieces of metal - which, they were, just they were applied in a different way in this situation - at Katsuki.

Just as Izuku expected, Katsuki blew them up, and the green-haired teen crackled as surprise lit up on the heroics student’s face as intumescent foam covered the explosive palms, crawling up his forearms to stop mid-way up his upper arms. 

Izuku didn’t know why he hadn’t used the formula sooner, it was one of the best negations to Katsuki’s quirk, and as long as he managed to get it to work the way he wanted it to, then it was perfect. 

It had taken him almost a month to figure out how to strengthen the original intumescent chemical formula to ensure that it hardened instead of softening and being easily wiped away. There had been a fair amount of fires in that month that had failed to go out. 

Katsuki’s red eyes bore into Izuku now, anger lit in his face. A spark that hadn’t been there, burning bright with the sudden increase of rage. The solidified foam had stopped, so Izuku assumed that the blond wasn’t actually able to use his quirk with the solidified foam stopping oxygen from getting near his palms so that his quirk could actually work.

Izuku had basically made Katsuki quirkless. Brought him down to Izuku’s level.

And unintentionally, but also intentionally, pissed his former childhood friend off. Izuku just hadn’t expected Katsuki to get this angry. But he guessed that he should have expected this. 

“YOU FUCKING SHIT!”

Oh, fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck .

Izuku struggled to avoid the solidified foam covered fist that was flung his way, only thankful that Toothless was running around dropping the next part of their plan onto the ground - small capsules that blinked green once before darkening - and staying out of Katsuki’s attention span.

“Is that all you can do?” Izuku jeered, grunting as he somehow managed to divert Katsuki’s full-powered quirkless punch away from his face. 

Katsuki growled, “SHUT FUCKING UP!”

Izuku knew that if the blond could, he’d be exploding like crazy. Literally, ‘cause he was already doing that figuratively.

He managed to get around Katsuki, and jumped into the air to use Katsuki’s back as a wall to push off of, feeling the air on his face as he backflipped away from the explosive teen. A small moment of peace before his feet touched the ground. 

He brought out the small device from one of his pockets, “Now, Toothless!”

The cat raced over to Izuku, and as soon as he was out of range, Izuku jabbed his thumb into the orange button on the device.

A gas came out of the devices, and Izuku quickly pushed the grey button on the side of the controller, a light humm sounded as the shield formed. It was large enough to cover most of the fighting area, giving Izuku a couple of meters before he would be pushed out, and trapped both Katsuki and the gas inside. 

Not the most dramatic way of taking down his abuser, because, yes, Katsuki was his abuser; Izuku knew that now, but it was one of the safer ways.

He ignored the concerned shouting coming from the stands, breathing heavily as Toothless purred by his ear. 

It was almost over, Izuku checked his watch, only a little bit longer before the gas would take effect-

Izuku startled when he heard a bang, looking up at the shield-barrier, only for his breath to hitch when he spotted Katsuki's furious face, the blond's fist rearing back to punch the barrier again.

Fuckfuckfuck -

Izuku really should've considered Katsuki's pure determination. He’d thought that the confusion would give Izuku those few precious moments that forced Katsuki to fall unconscious.

Quickly enough, Katsuki rained his fists covered in solidified foam into the barrier, cracks growing with each hit.

"Welp, it was nice knowing everyone," Izuku muttered, only for his ear to get swatted by a paw, "Hey!"

Toothless rolled his eyes at Izuku, the teen jumping when a loud crack sounded.

The whole stadium had gone quiet in anticipation, waiting on the edge of their seats to see if the Heroics student could break through the support student's final move. 

The green-haired teen held his breath as well, eyes darting up to find his friends in the crowd, but failing as another loud crack brought his attention back to Katsuki.

He gulped, quickly turning off the gas so it wouldn't affect too many people; and another punch had the entire thing shattering.

All too quickly, Katsuki had a burning hand - somehow managed to get rid of the foam while breaking the barrier - wrapped around Izuku's throat, Toothless tossed aside as the support student tried to breathe as he attempted to pry the burning fingers off of his skin.

"Think you're so fucking smart," Katsuki growled, burning his hand into Izuku's throat as he lifted the green-haired teen so that he was dangling in air, "Trapping me in a fish-tank to wait me out? Fuck you ."

Tears escaped Izuku's eyes as he struggled to get air into his lungs. Distantly hearing the outrage from the stands as he was forced to look at scarlet red eyes.

He pushed at Katsuki's arm, vision starting to go dark as fingers tightened even more. Izuku was sure that he’d gone unconscious for a moment, because the next thing he knew, he was coughing on the ground, sobbing his heart out as he greedily took in air despite how it hurt.

And when he glanced up, Izuku swore that he’d really gone crazy, because there was a Nightfury standing in-between him and Katsuki. Wings flung out protectively to shield Izuku from the explosive teen who had almost killed him on live television. Then Izuku noticed the Nightfury's tail. The tail with only one tail-fin.

"T-" Izuku spluttered into coughs that shook his body, "T-tooth-hless?"

The Nightfury spun around at the hoarse voice saying his name, and Izuku almost fell unconscious again, because this was Toothless. Toothless the Nightfury . Green worried eyes that Hiccup had seen time and time again, black scales that he'd become instinctively familiar with after years of seeing them by his side. Standing here with Izuku, and not back in the Secret World with Luna and the rest of the dragons. Here, thousands of years in the future.

Toothless made a low whine, gently bumping Izuku's face with his nose, and the teen giggled for half a second before coughing again, a hand reaching up to use his partner's head as a support.

The Nightfury whined again as he stood up on shaky legs, "Thanks, bud," Izuku whispered as loudly as he dared.

Toothless rumbled a purr-like noise as Izuku faced Katsuki, the blond supporting his top half as he sat up to stare at Toothless, outside of the ring.

Letting his hand retract from Toothless's scaled head, Izuku narrowed his eyes at Katsuki as he used his hands to sign instead of speaking.

"You tried to kill me," Izuku's hands shook with each sign. Despite knowing how much Katsuki hated him, he would never have thought that the other would actually want to kill him. He wiped at his eyes, ignoring the tears that he caught on the back of his arm, "You risked everything to get payback? Because a Quirkless deku, like me, could beat you? How- why!?"

He had to lean on Toothless again, his legs almost giving out and the Nightfury rumbled worriedly.

Izuku shook his head, only vaguely making sense of Present Mic's half-pained voice announcing Izuku's win, the crowd oddly hushed for the first time in this event, "You know what?" He signed, wishing that he didn't feel so weak; so vulnerable in this moment, not even thinking about the people around them, "It doesn't matter that you abused me for eight years until I finally stood up for myself. It doesn’t even matter that you just tried to kill -" Katsuki's face paled, something that was far too strange a look on the blond's face, "-me. I won; Quirkless deku won, and is changing the world, so go fuck yourself, Katsuki."

Izuku rubbed a circle onto Toothless's head and the Nightfury helped him out of the arena. His partner snapped at Midnight and Cementoss who offered their help, and Izuku couldn’t blame Toothless.

They just watched as Izuku almost died. He was only fifteen! Not even an adult in the majority of countries around the world.

As soon as they got to the hallway, Izuku collapsed against his partner, and Toothless let out a panicked roar-whine, his wings hitting the sides of the hallway as he flung them out suddenly to try and catch Izuku.

"IZUKU!" 

Izuku warily managed to spit a pink blob, and a purple blob rushing towards him and Toothless. 

The Nightfury hissed at the two blobs for a moment before relaxing and letting them close to Izuku.

He whimpered as a hand lifted his head up, and he heard Shinso hissed in sympathetic pain as Mei growled.

"Come on, Izuku," Izuku wondered when Shinso had started calling him by his first name, "We need to get you to Recovery Girl."

Izuku coughed, then grunted in pain, his head swimming as he shut his eyes. Toothless whined next to him, and he reached out without a thought to rub his hand against the comforting scales, he struggled to make his voice louder than a whisper, "T-Toothless," he wheezed after, trying to get air into his lungs once again.

"You think-"

"Of course," Mei said seriously.

Shinso sighed, but Izuku felt him and Mei manage to get his body onto Toothless's back. Honestly, Izuku probably should've just waited for the medical bots to come down and get him to take Izuku to Recovery Girl to get healed, but there was no way he was letting Toothless stray too far from him.

He was sure that he drifted in and out of consciousness because he struggled to remember getting to Recovery Girl's office, but he remembered a kiss being pressed to his forehead, and he remembered feeling warm and content as he slept, but he couldn’t remember anything else.

So when he woke up in Recovery Girl's office, surrounded by a warm body that Izuku-as-Hiccup had spent years living with, his first instinct was to go back to sleep, but then he remembered that he was Izuku and the burning pain on his throat, he was wake again quickly.

Toothless had curled around him, a wing acting as a blanket of sorts, as they lay on the floor of Recovery Girl's office.

When the woman noticed at he had woken up, she immediately rushed over.

"Oh, dearie," Recovery Girl took in Izuku's physical appearance, "You poor thing. I healed as much as I could, but you're going to have scarring from what that boy did."

Izuku gently raised a hand to his neck and winced even though most of the pain had subsided, it still hurt. He doubted that he would be talking anytime soon.

He gave her a smile to show his gratitude, and Recovery Girl gave him a sad one in return. He shakily raised his hands, "It's okay," he signed, repeating a couple of signs after his hands shook too much, "How long have we been here? Did Shinso win his match?"

The elderly woman shook her head at him, handing him some gummies and a glass of water that he took from her gratefully, even as Toothless watched carefully, "Of course you would be worried about your friends," she shook her head fondly, "Shinso-kun just won, not a moment before you woke up. I'm expecting to see him and Todoroki-kun shortly. Those heroic students don't when too much is too much."

Izuku nodded, and she took the glass from him. He swallowed, then regretted that a moment later as pain tore into his body.

This meant that he and Shinso were in the final. But it wasn’t as if Izuku needed to participate in order to get where he wanted to be. That was Shinso.

Just like Recovery Girl said, her medical bots brought a half-frozen Shinso into the office, followed by an unconscious Todoroki that was half-frosted and half-sunburnt.

(Izuku made a mental note to make sure he went and looked at the recording of his friend's fight.)

Shinso's teeth chattered away as Recovery Girl got to defrosting him, the purple-haired teen noticed that Izuku was sitting up, and managed to give him a wave beside his hand being stuck in the same ice that trapped half his body, "S-s-su-u-u-p-p," he chattered.

Izuku smiled, trying to show his amusement without snorting, laughing, or giggling.

Shinso must’ve realised, because he rolled his eyes at Izuku, "U-uh-huh-h, sure-e-e, laugh it of-f-f."

Toothless rumble-laughed next to Izuku, and the two teenagers cracked wider grins. Then Mei burst into the room, "IZU-KUN!"

She startled Toothless, but the Nightfury settled down from practice with the girl's personality, and the pink-haired support student joined her green-haired best friend who was willingly trapped by the dragon around.

"I love you, Izu-kun, but don't you ever do that to me again," Mei was unnaturally serious as she hugged him, and it was until he nodded that she stopped squeezing him.

Shinso chuckled from his quickly melting ice, "D-did you hear-r what-t-t was ha-p-p-pen-ing to Bak-u-go?" He asked, obviously asking Mei rather than Izuku.

His best friend hesitated, glancing at him before looking at Shinso, "1-A saw their homeroom teacher take him somewhere, but no one has heard or seen Bakugo since."

Izuku paled, oh, no. Katsuki's homeroom teacher is Eraser. He can only imagine how badly Shouta is going to destroy Katsuki.

Not only did Katsuki just attempt to murder someone on live television, but it was a quirkless person. And not only that, but it was Izuku that Katsuki tried to kill.

Izuku brought Mei's attention to him, raising his hands, "What about the final?" He signed, his hand slightly less shaky this time around.

Mei shrugged, "They gotta unfreeze the arena first. Then they have to wait for you and Hitoshi-" oh, they were calling each other by first names now? Cool, "-to get better for the match to even take place, despite almost everyone knowing that you're just gonna do something to get Hitoshi to win."

The green-haired teen shrugged, and would've chuckled if not for his throat, "Just 'Cause it's true, doesn't mean that you have to say it," he signed, getting a laugh from both his friends.

Izuku felt Toothless's own version of a laugh, and he smiled. He was surrounded by misshapen parts of his family right now, and he couldn't be happier despite the situation that had gotten them into this one.

°°°

Hitoshi had gotten unfrozen in no time, then he and Mei were practically forced out as Recovery Girl focused some last-minute healing on him before he left her care.

The door to Recovery Girl's office open, then shut just as quickly as it was opened. Izuku glanced over to see who had entered - obviously, someone both he and Toothless knew and trusted because the Nightfury kept up his purring that seemed to have passed on from him being a cat; which was an experience in itself when Izuku realised that Toothless the Nightfury had been Toothless the Cat this whole time - and felt what little tension that remained in his body, relax as his eyes landed on Eraser.

The man strode forward as Recovery Girl gave Izuku the all-clear to leave her care.

Izuku opened his mouth, then remembered his throat at the last moment. He lifted his hands, "Hi, Eraser!" He hoped that the Pro could understand his enthusiasm through his hands.

"Problem child," Shouta murmured as he sat beside Izuku on the bed, Toothless lifted his head off the floor as the Underground Pro-Hero stared at him for a moment, "As much as I'd like to ask why your cat transforms into a dragon-"

Izuku shook his head, "The other way around," he signed, much to Eraser's confusion.

"What- you know what, I don't think I want to know," the man shook his head before looking over Izuku, "How are you feeling?"

"Like my eight-year abuser put his hand on my throat and burnt me in front of trillions of people all over the world, so peachy," Izuku signed sarcastically.

He giggled ever so slightly as Eraser looked like he wanted to hit Izuku for a moment.

The man then rolled his eyes, "Well, I guess if you're making jokes like that, then you're feeling better…" Eraser paused, "So what you signed to Bakugo before was true then."

Izuku bit his lip, avoiding look at Eraser as Toothless flopped his tail onto Izuku's feet as a sign of comfort. 

"I don't like to lie," Izuku signed, keeping his eyes down so he didn’t have to see how Eraser reacted to it, "He did abuse me, I saw that after my twelfth birthday, and I got out of that toxic environment. I promise that I'm in a better place now, Eraser, you don't have to worry about that part of my life."

The man looked him over before nodding, and he let out a soft sigh, "Alright, Izuku. I trust you."

Izuku smiled at that, a warm fluttery feeling in his chest.

"Have you been watching Hitoshi?" Izuku asked, blinking when he realised that he’d given Shinso his own sign-name by accident, he'd have to double-check that it was alright with the other teen, "He's dedicated! And he's like us! Broken by society, but still wants to prove the system wrong!"

Shouta chuckled, "Nothing gets past you, does it?" He ruffled Izuku's curls as the teenager grinned proudly.

"You've been watching us whenever you can since the lead-up to the Sports Festival," Izuku grinned, glad that his hands weren't shaking as much anymore, "You have to transfer him into your class. You just have to!"

"Will it please you if I tell you I've had the papers for his transfer ready since you brought my attention to him?" Shouta asked, and chuckled as Izuku almost vibrated with happiness.

(The man didn't mention the other set of papers he had set aside for the teenager beside him, nor did he mention the second set of papers.)

"Hitoshi is gonna puke," Izuku giggled softly enough that it didn't cause him too much pain, "He's a massive fan of yours, too."

Eraser sighed, "I guess I can't win everything," he relented. 

The teen giggled, then had to cough a bit once his throat decided that it didn't actually like Izuku showing his amusement.

Eraser gave him a concerned once over, Izuku only noticed because Toothless went tense and he glanced at the underground pro-hero, watching as the man's eyes lingered over the half-healed burn over his neck.

"Are you sure you want to take part in the final? No one will blame you if you don't," Eraser said gently as if he was soothing a wild cat.

Izuku nodded. 

Honestly, if it wasn’t Hitoshi that Izuku was going up against, he might've dropped out, taking second place. But because it was Hitoshi, Izuku felt that his friend deserved it.

And even if his friend "didn't" deserve it, maybe they could apply for some comic relief; also show that Izuku was alright, and as a bonus actually get to show off inventions that Izuku hadn't managed to get to show off yet.

Shouta sighed, "Alright, Problem Child, but if anything goes wrong, I'm going to push for the match to stop."

Izuku scoffed without thinking, and avoided eye contact when Eraser frowned, "Kid?"

He didn't look up, focusing on how he twisted his fingers, linking them and unlinking them until Shouta placed a hand on his arm. Almost insisting silently that Izuku talk to him.

Izuku tightened his jaw. He knows that Eraser will care, but after going his whole life without proper care from adults, you could understand why he's a little distrustful of all adults.

"Midnight and Cementoss failed to stop that match, what makes you think that they’ll stop this one? Because Hitoshi has a mental quirk? Pfft, discrimination, much?" His signs were sarcastic as fuck, but Izuku couldn't bring himself to care.

They called themselves heroes, and yet he almost died under their care. Any sooner had he been trapped under those burning, sparking fingers, and Izuku knew that Ka- he would have burnt through his skin entirely, and left Izuku to bleed out.

And neither Midnight, nor Cementoss would have stepped in.

Izuku was only here because Toothless had gotten Ka- him away from Izuku. Because even a cat-dragon could see that he was going too far.

Izuku missed how Eraser's hands clenched into fists, how the man's jaw clenched as his eyes flashed red for a moment in his rage. He missed how Toothless met that red-eyed glare head-on and still remained a dragon.

He was pulled into a hug and stiffened for a moment then relaxed as Izuku breathed in the familiar smell belonging to his favourite adult. One of the only adults that Izuku could trust.

"I'll be having a talk with them, don't you worry," Shouta almost growled, but managed to get a handle over himself at the last moment, drawing back from the hug for a moment to give Izuku direct eye contact, "What they did was wrong, and will be corrected."

Izuku nodded but didn't dare hope despite it being Shouta who was promising this.

Toothless rumbled, and Shouta drew back away from Izuku as the teen looked towards his partner. The Nightfury got to his paws and plopped his head in Izuku's lap - he was just happy that Toothless hadn't gone ahead and licked him yet - and made a cooing noise that had Izuku smiling instinctively.

He coughed, hating the injury to his throat more than ever at this moment, "Thanks, bud," he whispered, well, more like breathed out, but it was enough for his partner who relaxed happily.

The man beside him smiled at the interaction, then patted the teenager’s shoulder as he stood up, “In case I don’t see you before your next fight, good luck, kid.”

Izuku tore his gaze away from his partner to give Eraser a smile to convey his gratitude, and the underground pro nodded before heading out. 

Izuku scratched under Toothless’s chin, and he grinned as the Nightfury relaxed further. They still had some time before the finals, they had time to just relax here. 

°°°

Izuku grinned at Hitoshi, leaning on Toothless to keep standing as the three of them ignored the crowd sitting in the stadium. 

The other teenager just deadpanned at the Nightfury at Izuku’s side, “Please tell me that I’m not going against your dragon,” Hitoshi’s tiredness seemed to have grown, and Izuku couldn’t blame him. 

The green-haired teen rolled his eyes, “Seriously?” He signed, “Only Bakugo is really worth being beaten by Toothless.”

Hitoshi sighed, and looked towards Midnight as she announced the start of their fight. The purple-haired teen moved forward in a stroll towards Izuku. The green-haired teen just grinned the closer Hitoshi got to him.

“Whatever,” Hitoshi sighed when he stopped a meter away from Izuku, well in Toothless’s tail-swatting range, “If this is what you really want.”

“It’s an easy game,” Izuku signed, smirking as his green eyes darted over to a confused Midnight before returning to his friend, “Three rounds of Janken; if you win two rounds you win. And vice versa.”

The purple-haired Gen-Ed student sighed, “Fineeee,” he dragged out the single word. He lifted his fist, and hovered it over his other palm, “Ready?”

Toothless was more than willing for Izuku to lean back against his body as Izuku mimicked the same with his own hands.

"One, two, three, Janken!"

Hitoshi breathed out as he won with paper while Izuku pouted with rock. "Again," Izuku signed.

The two teenagers reverted back to their starting positions, "One, two, three, Janken!"

Both Izuku and Hitoshi had scissors this time 'round and quickly repeated the game for Izuku to win with scissors against Hitoshi's paper.

Both boys looked up when someone screamed at them to hurry up and fight. Then glanced at each other to roll their eyes.

Present Mic's uncertain voice faded into the background as Izuku watched Hitoshi's hand carefully. The other might not know this, but he had a tick every time he went to do scissors and another when he went to do paper.

It happened, and Izuku relaxed as he pulled rock and Hitoshi flattened his hand to spread his fingers apart for paper.

Izuku pretended not to notice Hitoshi's narrow-eyed look as he gave the other teen his applause, the students and adults in the stadium clapping as well, taking Izuku's example for the winner. 

"And it looks like Shinso Hitoshi has won this year's first years Sports Festival!" Present Mic announced.

Since they didn't cause massive damage to the arena, they were hustled up onto the podium, Hitoshi on the highest one, Izuku on the second place one with help from Toothless, because the Nightfury refused to let any of the teachers help Izuku get up there, and Todoroki walked out a moment later to stand on the third place.

Izuku didn’t allow himself to think as to why Katsuki wasn't there, as everything seemed to blurr, the only thing Izuku could remember of the short wait was holding onto Toothless, and coughing into his shirt every so often. 

Then all too suddenly, All Might was offering his congratulations to Izuku - all the while, keeping an eye on the Nightfury beside the support student - and placing a medal over Izuku’s head.

He didn’t say anything back to the number one limelight pro-hero, but he didn’t need to. Just standing on the podium was enough of a statement.

However, he did manage to fight through the fogginess of his own brain to watch as All Might gave Hitoshi the first-place medal, and shared a massive grin with his friend as the Sports Festival prize giving came to an end.

Now there was no way in Hel that Hitoshi wasn’t going to be offered a place in the Heroics course. He just beat out everyone in the Heroics department for that spot; and if his friend didn’t get offered a spot, then Izuku and Shouta and Nezu would be having a talk.

Toothless rumbled curiously beside Izuku, and the teen scratched under the Nightfury’s chin, grinning as Toothless relaxed easily. 

“Thanks for everything, bud.”

Chapter Text

The dark-haired woman glared at her feet as she sat next to her co-worker. It was humiliating sitting in the same seats that her students sat in, but Nemuri guessed that was her boss' way of making her and Ken feel even worse.

She hadn't been allowed to don her usual Midnight outfit, so was dressed in casual wear. Well, casual for her. Shouta always saId that she let her life as the R-Rated Pro-Hero influence her own style of wear, but she knew better, because it was, in reality, the opposite way around.

If someone saw her on the streets, Nemuri had no doubt that they'd think of her as a hooker. Maybe someone who was going to the gym, but most people’s thoughts tended to lean towards the lustful ones, so she didn’t think that one would be common. But something along those lines would work.

Nemuri flinched when Nezu’s door opened suddenly, and she watched as the Bakugo family walked out. Bakugo Mitsuki looked enraged, and three seconds away from exploding, while Bakugo Masaru just looked disappointed, if not a little bit pissed off as well. Bakugo-kun was harder to read. Nemuri would’ve said that the kid looked guilty, if not for the fact that she knew that Bakugo-kun didn’t feel guilty about putting anyone down, and going off what she knew of the kid as his teacher, she would probably have to say that he looked angry-upset. 

She only hoped that Bakugo-kun’s parents got him the help he needed before he did anything worse - like actually killing Midoriya this time - and made his situation more dreadful. 

She and Ken didn’t know what Bakugo-kun’s punishment had been, just that he would be getting punished, but going off of how the family of three looked currently, it had been nothing good. 

“Kayama-san, Ishiyama-san, you can come in now!”

Both she and her co-worker shivered at the cold chirp of their boss’s voice, and Nemuri reluctantly stood up, brushing off the imaginary dust from her skirt before leading her co-worker into the office. 

She stiffened ever so slightly when she noticed Shouta, but she guessed that she shouldn’t have been so surprised. This meeting was about how one of his students had been allowed to harm another student from a different course, but she couldn’t help it, her friend(?) was looking at her like he did to Sekijiro when the man did something idiotic, which, simply put, was one of Shouta’s “nightmare” glares that she had only seen him give criminals, villains, Sekijiro, and few students that he expelled with their parents. 

Now it was turned on her and Ken. Now she definitely knew that this wasn’t going to be a good meeting.  

(Not that it was going to be a good one anyway, she had already seen the backlash of her inaction at the Sports Festival online. 

For fucks sake, you trust a kid to know his own strength - after all, Bakugo-kun had only knocked out his opponents in hero training, nothing like what he’d done to the poor quirkless boy - and have morals where he’s not supposed to actually kill someone, and you get fucked over by the rest of Japan.

Her rankings had already dropped, and her PR department was working around the clock to tamper down the raging metaphorical fires that people were setting.)

“Please sit,” Nezu used a paw to gesture at the three chairs placed in front of his desk, obviously the ones that the Bakugos had used. 

Nemuri took the seat in the middle, and Ken carefully sat in the one to the right, unfortunately, closer to Shouta, but she doubted that he had realised that until Shouta shut the door to Nezu’s office, and moved to stand beside the Principal's left side. 

It was a fearsome method of how the two showcased their bubbling emotions that Nemuri knew had been kept tightly under control since the first-year Sports Festival. Ever since Midoriya-kun had to see Recovery Girl twice during each day of the last two Sports Festivals, Nemuri had been watching as Shouta’s protective rage only grew whenever he came back from visiting his “problem child”.

Midoriya-kun’s two friends had been with him when he came to see the old semi-retired Pro-Hero, and whenever Nemuri tried to check up on them and Midoriya-kun it was a toss-up as to how the two would react. 

Hatsume-chan usually glared at her, but eventually, she rigged traps meant for Nemuri so she couldn’t go and see how Midoriya-kun was doing. Shinso-kun was another story. At first, he’d snapped and yelled at her, then eventually just started using his quirk on her whenever Nemuri tried to talk. Nemuri wasn’t going to ruin the boy’s chances at anything, he was just protecting his friend.

Then there was that cat-dragon. Most of the times Nemuri had seen him, the black being had been in his dragon form, curling around Midoriya protectively, green eyes glaring at her as he watched her every move. Always there no matter if Midoriya-kun’s friends were there to protect him from Nemuri or not. A loyal partner no matter what.

But seeing Midoriya-kun’s burnt, scarred neck had made the guilt that Nemuri had been feeling since the very start of this only bubble deeper in her chest. 

And now being stared down by her friend - she only hoped that she could still call Shouta her friend after all of this - and her boss, Nemuri only dared to hope that her and Ken’s lives remained intact after this meeting.

°°°

Shouta leapt to his feet and rushed out of the booth immediately, and Hizashi couldn’t blame him.

The moment Hizashi had seen Bakugo break through the support student’s trap, he’d known that it wasn’t going to end well, but seeing how the Heroics student hand lunged forward, his hand outstretched and grabbing onto Midoriya’s neck, then proceeding to use his quirk on the Support student - someone who officially didn’t have any battle training - while still touching Midoriya’s exposed neck.

Hizashi hadn’t seen a student look so angry, so violent, so glee-fun like Bakugo Katsuki did at that moment. The heroics student looked more like a villain at this time, than an actual hero.

He focused on trying to calm down the crowd, who was torn between protesting Bakugo’s actions against the “weak” quirkless kid, and fully supporting the Heroics student’s decision to attack Midoriya like this.

Wondering why neither Nemuri or Ken had stepped in, Hizashi moved his eyesight to the side of the ring where both of them stood. Nemuri looked confused, and slightly hesitant as her hand hovered over her outfit to release her quirk, and Ken glanced towards her, hesitant to make a decision. 

Anger grew in Hizashi, did those two not see what the rest of them saw? Did they not see Bakugo, someone with a dangerous quirk, attacking Midoriya in what was supposed to be a school-sanctioned event where no one was supposed to get grievously injured?!

A loud roar made everyone go quiet.

Hizashi only just managed to return his eyesight to where the teenagers had been, and - thankfully the mic was off - screeched in surprise when he saw that Bakugo had been thrown away from Midoriya, who was now limply collapsed against the creature that had appeared.

Scaled, four-legged body with bat-like wings spread out protectively in front of the boy that had fallen onto the dragon’s back. Green eyes narrowed into slits as Bakugo scrambled back in a case of unusual fear, leaving the ring as he did so.

Hizashi couldn’t hear what Midoriya was saying, but it seemed to calm down the dragon slightly, even if the black beast’s protective anger flared up whenever Bakugo moved. 

He was so busy watching as Midoriya stood up to face Bakugo, that he almost missed his husband appearing at one of the entrances to the arena. In the other entrance, Hizashi caught a glimpse of Shinso and Hatsume.

Paying attention to this, Hizashi didn’t see how Midoriya used JSL to speak with Bakugo, being recorded on live television all over Japan, instead, managing to see how a simple rub on the head from Midoriya calmed down the dragon enough to help the boy out of the arena towards Shinso and Hatsume. 

Hizashi quickly announced Midoriya’s win, and the start of the next break before tearing out of the announcer's booth.

°°°

“-too dangerous!”

Hawks shuffled on his feet, feeling slightly out of place just standing there, and waiting for his orders. The president wasn’t letting his handlers leave, so he was stuck there without instructions from each of his handlers, forced to listen with his heightened hearing as the president discussed the problem of Midoriya Izuku and his cat-dragon-thing.

The president’s high-pitched voice grated on his ears like normal as he listened to her discuss what they were going to do - each of his handlers, Taira Tatsuo who had a quirk that made them look similar to one of those mythical dragons from the pre-quirk era media, and Sakuma Yumiko, a woman with the ability to “convince” people of what she says as correct (Thankfully, for once, Hawks’ quirk gave him a slight immunity against his handler’s quirk), were high enough in the HPSC’s rankings that let them into the meeting - with the problem that Yuuei’s first-year support student had given them on live television.

Sure, there were people like Ryukyu and his handler Taira who had quirks that could them the appearance of a dragon (in the shape of an actual dragon; like Ryukyu’s western dragon from, or Taria’s scales covering their body with various other draconic features and abilities), but the fact that there was a cat our there who was able to transform into a dragon, and was so very loyal to a quirkless kid, it was apparently a national threat?

Hawks didn’t know how the president had figured that one out, he could see some of her logic, but wasn’t quite sure how she’d connected the dots in order to come to this conclusion.

Someone slammed a hand against a table, and Hawks stiffened with his feathers ruffling before he could stop himself. He was quick to flatten them into their normal positions as Taira rushed out of the room; Hawks swore that he could almost feel the anger coming off of them, then shook his head slightly when he recalled that their body heat rose with their strongly felt emotions.

“Uh-” Hawks didn’t even get to speak as Taira didn’t spare him a glance, already gone by the time the rest of the committee, the president and his second handler, Sakuma, came out of the meeting hall. He shut his jaw far too quickly when his handler narrowed her eyes at him. 

Taira was a fair bit nicer than Sakuma, or any of Hawks’ previous handlers, and perhaps their’s treatment toward Hawks had made the red-winged male a little more relaxed instead of the normal rigidity. Hawks didn’t mind it, he enjoyed it even, but anyone else from the Commission wouldn’t allow it. 

“Hawks, come,” Sakuma commandeered, a single finger raising up for the “come hither” motion that she did every time she called him to follow. 

Obediently, Hawks let his head drop ever so slightly as he tucked in his wings behind him, making his way behind the woman. 

Chapter Text

Shouta raised a hand and knocked thrice against the door. 

His ears picked up faint shuffling, then the quiet squeaking of the door’s hinges as it opened, and Shouta paused when the person came into view. If he hadn’t had so many hours spent with Izuku, then he would’ve thought that the person at the door was the teenager.

He was quick to notice the differences, the fact that this person was obviously a female, and she lacked Izuku’s curls, instead having straight hair that immediately made Shouta grimace when he caught sight of his own slightly greasy strands. 

He hadn’t had much of a chance to properly take care of himself in the last few days with the three different year-levels Sports Festivals, fucking Bakugo Katsuki, the aftermath of the shit-show that was Izuku’s semi-final, Shinso’s course transfer, dealing with the fallout of his co-workers then handing their punishment to them with Nezu - the Principal had been rightfully angry at the two, not just for the actions that led to the Izuku’s injury on live television, but also because this was a child; the creature had sworn to take every student that came into the school into his care(Not that the Commission noticed the weight to the being's words) and to protect them - in the creature's office, and now finally this.

Internally sighing with tiredness, Shouta tried to make himself seem more approachable, "Midoriya Inko?" 

The woman raised an eyebrow, "That's me," she said warily, "And you are…?"

"Aizawa Shouta," Shouta was slightly surprised to see no recognition in the woman's expression, "I'm a teacher at Yuuei-" the woman's eyes widened, "-and I wanted to speak with you and your son about the Sports Festival."

Midoriya-san stepped aside with a heavy sigh, and Shouta cautiously made his way into the apartment before she closed the door behind him, "I'll see if he's in his room," she said, leaving the Underground Pro to stand there in the living room/entrance room a little awkwardly.

He took note of the room and its contents. Frowning at the lack of personal touches to the space, he saw some photographs hanging up with the woman and a younger Izuku, the boy had to have been around five or six in the pictures. Shouta's problem child had such a big smile on his face, he couldn't help but wonder what had happened to that pure innocent smile that the green bean used to wear, the one he switched out for that tired, all too knowing grin that he used as a cover-up.

Midoriya-san's footsteps came back, and Shouta automatically looked towards the woman only to pause when he saw her expression.

The short woman looked torn between angry and disappointed, when she noticed Shouta look at her, her expression quickly changed to one of mild disappointment and resignation. She sighed, "He's not here… again."

That immediately set every nerve in Shouta’s body alert, “Again?” he asked carefully, warning signs all but blaring inside his head. 

“Yes,” Midoriya-san sighed, making her way to the kitchen with Shouta following a fair distance away, “He’s been off gallivanting with those friends of his from school, ever since his twelfth birthday, he hardly ever comes home now. Smelling like cars and dirt of all things.”

He didn’t say anything as he carefully kept an eye on Midoriya-san, the woman making a cup of tea, offering the Pro one, but being rejected politely, “I’ve never met Izuku’s friends, let alone that animal he keeps bringing into the apartment; as if I don’t know about it, the animal keeps leaving its fur all over the place! Izuku knows we’re not supposed to have animals in the apartment; we could get evicted!”

The worry in her voice was all too obvious, and Shouta wondered if the woman was playing up her worries or not. It was hard to tell with the way she behaved; her anxiety and nerves were obviously real, but it was difficult to tell just how much they were. 

“When was the last time you’d seen Iz- your son?” Shouta asked, hesitating ever so slightly on the problem child’s name before carrying on. He really didn’t mean to let slip the first part of the kid’s name; it wasn’t wise to allow his favouritism for the kid to get out to the woman in case of any worrying behaviours. 

Hopefully, Midoriya-san took it as a concerned teacher rather than a worried semi-adopting parental figure. 

Watching the woman, Shouta's eyebrows slowly rose as she actually had to stop and think about it. She pressed a hand to her chin as Midoriya-san looked upwards to the ceiling in thought.

Counting to three minutes and forty-two seconds, Shouta frowned at the time it took as the woman finally responded, "It had to have been shortly after he started high school. Izuku had been in and out until he got a letter, then he actually stayed home a bit more," she shook her head, "But as the term carried on, I ended up with more shifts at work, so I haven’t seen or talked with him much since then."

She sniffed, "My baby's growing up all by himself! I knew it was going to happen eventually, but I thought he and Katsuki-kun would stay younger for just a bit longer!"

Oh, shit. Shouta stiffened, his eyes widening as he came to the realization. No wonder Izuku hadn’t been around much if his mother still thought that he was friends with Bakugo-kun. Shouta had seen the (old) scars on his problem child's arms, so unless Izuku had worn long sleeves every single time he was around Midoriya-san, there was some neglect going on here. Maybe not a lot, but if Midoriya-san hadn't even bothered when she'd seen her injured son…

"Katsuki-kun and Izuku have always been good friends," Midoriya-san carried on happily, barely taking note of Shouta drawing out his phone to text Nezu, "Even when they started hanging outside more than coming over to their houses, I'm just so glad Katsuki-kun had been looking after my baby. Izuku managed to get himself so scraped up from playing, and without a Quirk, he just hurt more than the other kids."

Pausing slightly, Midoriya-san blinked at Shouta, her face growing pale all too suddenly, "So my Izuku is in General Education? How badly did he hurt himself during the Sports Festival? He shouldn't have participated in the event! My baby is far too easily injured to even think about that sort of thing!"

Shoura wanted to snap more than anything at that moment. 

How dare this woman say that Midoriya Izuju, second place winner of Yuuei's first-year Sports Festival, was weak and fragile!? That the kid under the Knockout persona, the kid who had gotten more arrests in a month than any new and upcoming rookie pro-heroes, all without the use of a quirk and the training that they received before even going out into the field. 

Shouta’s problem child had been through so much in this unfair world, and this woman tried to downplay it as due to him being Quirkless, and not the people around him causing Izuku this pain and suffering? Yeah, no.

(Thankfully, Shouta had more than enough self-control to not let his frustrations show.)

Stamping down the illogical logical anger, he gave her an answer, “Midoriya-kun successfully made it through the first two events of the Festival with little more than a scratch on him, he passed through his first two one on one fights in the final event with an ease I haven’t seen from my Heroics students in 1-A who have been training for almost two months, and have been in an actual villain threat-” he watched as Midoriya-san’s eyes widened in realization, finally knowing who he was, “-he only sustained injuries in his third fight because a student decided to attempt to murder Midoriiya-kun with his quirk.”

Midoriya-san didn’t look too surprised, only resigned, “Of course, Izuku is quirkless-”

“And still took second place overall at the Sports Festival,” Shouta interrupted, surprising the woman into stunned silence, her mouth dropping open slightly, “He didn’t place first because it was planned to get the first place to that spot. If your son hadn’t teamed up with Shinso-kun, he would’ve been the one to win the entire thing.”

“But…” Midoriya-san frowned, ultimately confused as she stared at her hands, her tea cup thankfully was safely on the bench-top, “Izuku is… he’s quirkless?”

“And that has nothing to do with his potential and talent,” Shouta let out a short sigh, all this quirk(less) discrimination over the last few days was really starting to wear him thin, “If anything, I’d have to say that Midoirya-kun being quirkless has only made him stronger, your son knows what it’s like to be at rock-bottom. He sees the best and worst in everyone, but is still willing to try and help people, if that’s not heroic, I don’t know what is, Midoriya-san.”

The woman nodded, still stunned, and Shouta waited for a response. 

When she hadn’t spoken five minutes later, Shouta sighed, “Thank you for your time today, Midoriya-san, we’ll be sure to contact you with details for Midoriya-kun’s future.”

He walked himself over to the door, ready to leave when Midoriya-san’s voice made him pause, “If you find Izuku, can you tell him I’m sorry? And that I’m proud of him?”

“Of course,” Shouta allowed, finally leaving the apartment quickly.

Now he just had to find the kid.

Chapter Text

Toothless purred as Izuku ran a hand over the cat's fur absent-mindedly, his focus on the misshapen materials in front of him.

They hadn't gotten a chance to use this project that Izuku had at the Sports Festival, but the few days off that students got while their senpai's got to have their Sports Festivals were a godsend for Izuku and Mei. They had extra time to tinker, fix up, remake and explode (in Mei's case).

Plus it meant that Izuku and Toothless could witness the mechanical wings that Izuku had built for the cat's small body to fly. The teen had also built a small ring that clasped around the cat's tail to expand when Toothless hit his tail against the ground to give the cat tail-fins like his Nightfury form.

Not that, you know, Toothless needed it anymore. Not when the cat could just shift to being a Nightfury. But it was the thought that counted. Besides, having the small wings and tail-fin ready for Toothless to use in cat form meant that there would be less attention drawn to him than if he was in dragon form. 

The tail-fin ring was working, but Izuku was just having some trouble getting the wings to work properly. 

The flexible nano-bot infused metals responded well to the microparticles that transmitted brainwaves from Toothless through the upgraded collar around the cat’s neck, but somewhere in between the instructions being sent to the metal that made up the wings, and the action of actually transmitting so that the nano-bot infused metal followed through with the order, something wasn’t working correctly. 

Izuku and Toothless had discovered a sixty-nine percent accuracy thanks to some testing that Mei’s parents watched over from behind the almost 100% quirk-proof glass that was enhanced with powerful materials to hold up the wall that surrounded the “explosion” testing room. 

(Mei’s parents had wisely installed it when Izuku had started coming around, and the number of explosions between both Mei and Izuku had increased dramatically compared to before Izuku was around. 

It wasn’t Izuku’s intention for that to happen, though, it sort of just… happened?)

But the wings weren’t working correctly, and that was the main problem. 

Because of the injury Izuku sustained from his second-to-last match in the Sports Festival, he’d essentially been grounded by Mei, Hitoshi, and Toothless. The Cat-Dragon refused to let Izuku leave for one of his night-time wanders. From making one of the loudest noises Izuku had ever heard from his partner's cat form, or just plain old sitting on him when Toothless was in his dragon form, the teen was forced to rest up.

Which was how Izuku had managed to convince his friends to let him do testing on the wings. 

As long as it didn't directly involve Izuku testing them directly, then it was alright. Hence, why Toothless was currently purring in Izuku's hand instead of scratching Izuku.

The green-haired teen hummed in frustration, his throat was still sore enough that he didn't want to risk speaking too much, as he dropped the flexible metal onto the desk, groaning ever so softly as he hit his forehead against the desk. 

No matter how much knowledge Hiccup had from his forging days, none of that really helped Izuku with the more modern materials and modern everything. Having the Viking's knowledge was helpful in giving Izuku a better understanding of these things, but Hiccup’s experience with projects like this was limited compared to someone like Mei.

But even his friend was stuck on why the wings weren’t working. 

Everything was in working order, by all means, the wings should be working fine. There’s just something stopping them from being one hundred percent complete. And it was very frustrating. 

“Izuku!” Mei’s voice shouted from down the hall, and the green-haired teen jolted upright, Toothless’s protest was noticed but left alone as Izuku held a hand out for the cat to jump onto so that he could perch on the boy’s shoulder.

They left the wings on the desk, and Izuku had to blink at the bright sunlight coming through the windows of the house as he left his dark room - he’d had a lamp on so that he could see, but otherwise, there had been no other light source in the room, the curtains pulled over the window in there - and stumbled over a couple of parts that Mei had left in the hallway before entering the kitchen. Mei didn’t look worried, but her parents looked like a mixture of confused, worried and upset. 

Which didn’t make sense, until Izuku drew his eyes over to where he eventually spotted Shouta. 

The only reason he had for Mei’s parent’s behaviour was if Shouta had informed them that Izuku wasn’t even going back to his mother’s apartment. Sure, he went back sometimes, but it wasn’t as if he needed to head back there. Everything he needed was here.

And Izuku had Toothless. He had Mei. He could always go out and see Hitoshi. He had his projects and experiments. Once he was back to full health, he could go out and wander again. He had the memories of Hiccup helping him out at times (even if he sometimes forgot that he’s Izuku and not Hiccup). Here was where he was trusted and accepted. 

Here, his quirkless status wasn’t a weakness, but a strength. 

And now, here was Shouta. 

The only person Izuku trusted more than Mei and Hitoshi. Toothless was the only one that Izuku and Hiccup trusted more than anyone in the entire world.

“Izuku,” Shouta’s voice wasn’t harsh, and more gentle than normal. 

Izuku signed a quick hello, pretending not to see as the hero glanced at the scarring over Izuku’s neck for a moment, and reached up to scratch under Toothless’s chin, smirking ever so slightly when Shouta’s eyes widened in fear? as he glanced at the furry being.

His internet had been restricted by Mei after the Sports Festival - so unfair! - so Izuku hadn’t gotten a chance to see how the world was reacting to Toothless’s ability to go between Night Fury and Cat. He was lucky enough that he and Mei had exchanged numbers with Hitoshi, so Izuku could use Mei’s phone to call the insomniac. 

"Why are you here?" Izuku signed, tilting his head ever so slightly in a way that he knew resembled a puppy. He had a guess, but there was always that chance that he was wrong. 

“I had the chance to meet your mother,” Shouta said drily. 

Not today! Said the universe when Izuku hoped he was wrong. 

Izuku didn’t outwardly react, and that was probably the thing that made the man aware of how much Izuku felt towards that topic. It wasn’t that Izuku had run away from home, nor was he being abused, but that Izuku just didn’t care about Midoriya Inko that much.

Izuku barely knew the woman other than the slightly controlling mother that she was, and Hiccup hadn’t grown up with a maternal figure. Sure Hiccup’s mom came back eventually, but it had always been awkward to discuss that part of their lives. With Izuku, even before he’d gotten Hiccup’s memories, he’d never trusted his mom enough to let her know about what the other kids were doing to him. What the other adults were doing to him.

He trusted Inko to feed him, and pay for his bills, but he couldn’t trust her to care for him aside from him being a fragile, quirkless, child that she still saw as her little four-year-old when they first got the news of his quirk status. 

When he got Hiccup’s memories, maybe they had played with his mind a bit. Making him take care to distance himself in case Inko did what Valka did, maybe he’d always been on this track. 

Izuku cleared his throat, eyeing Mei’s parents carefully, “Oh,” he said quietly. 

“You never mentioned your mother before, Izuku-kun,” Mei’s father, the more soft-spoken one in the family of three, said gently, not an accusation, but a simple statement. As if he was scared that he was going to send Izuku running. 

And the teen figured that was wise. Izuku knew he had a habit of ignoring his problems, either by leaving to go accidentally fighting crimes, or getting stuck in projects so that he didn’t have to talk to people. 

“Not much to talk about,” Izuku shrugged as he signed, “She sees me as weak because I’m quirkless, and she’s always busy at work- ” he paused to rub his fingers over Toothless’s ears, a small comfort for him, “-she never bothered about the scars and injuries that showed up on my skin, so I kind of just gave up on her. ”

Now, Izuku knows how he sounds, the levels of apathy he’s showing might not be natural or normal for him, but for one of the few times in his life, he simply doesn’t care. He’s too tired of how this society works, and he’s more than happy to ignore it as long as he gets to be left alone. Having Shouta poking around like this isn’t going to magically fix Izuku’s life. 

“Injuries!” Mei’s mom gasped, her hands flying up to cover her gaping mouth. 

Izuku hummed. “Kids can be cruel,” his fingers signed easily. He was proud that they didn’t shake like he thought they would.

He didn’t want to talk - or sign - about that part of his life. He’d made peace with it, and just wanted to move on. Yuuei was different. He wasn’t getting bullied every day anymore, and ever since he’d gotten Hiccup’s memories, he’d been able to escape his middle-school bullies with ease he hadn’t had before the memories. 

Mei gave him a look that clearly meant that he would have to talk about this to her later, and he sighed ever so slightly, glancing at Shouta to see how the Pro was reacting. 

The underground hero looked tired and pissed off. Uh-Oh. Izuku wasn’t sure how much Inko had told Eraser, but whatever his mother had said, or hadn’t said, was enough to make the normally logically calm hero angry.

“It’s fine now, I’m at Yuuei, ” Izuku signed, “The only one I had to worry about was K- Bakugo, and he’s been dealt with. So it’s fine. I promise.”

Mei’s parents had always trusted his word, and this time was no different. Sure, they still looked worried, but they must’ve been talking with Shouta for a bit before Mei called Izuku to come. 

Shouta sighed, running a hand down his face, “Anyway, I need to take  you to Yuuei, Izuku,” he said carefully, “You have another appointment with Recovery Girl before classes start back up.”

Izuku nodded, “Okay,” he signed, “Can I grab my stuff quickly? ”

Shouta nodded, and Izuku twisted around, heading back to his room.

He slipped his shoes on quickly and grabbed a few bits to shove into his bag before carefully folding up the wings to be placed into the bag as well. Izuku grabbed another hoody, knowing that it would be colder outside the house that was heated from both experiments (and explosions from those experiments) and heaters as well. 

Toothless meowed in his ear, and Izuku rolled his eyes fondly before grabbing the collar that went with the wings, letting them go with the wings in his bag, before grabbing the cat treats that Toothless enjoyed. 

Even as a cat, Toothless loved fish, so finding a cat treat that had fish in it was easy enough. But now Izuku had accidentally gotten the cat-dragon addicted to the stuff. 

Just before he left the room, he grabbed Toothless’s cat vest as a last-minute thought. Just in case, and besides, Toothless liked to wear it - not for long periods of time, but he still enjoyed it for short periods - so he squished it into his bag as well. 

Shouta was waiting for him at the door when Izuku came back out. 

He gave his best friend a hug before offering her parent’s his thanks and followed Shouta out.

Chapter Text

The check-up with Recovery Girl was thankfully very quick.

She just needed to check that the scarring wasn’t becoming too much - “Yuuei can afford to find someone else to heal, or even cover it up for you, Midoriya-kun-” “ No thanks .” - and pressed a quick kiss to his forehead to get her quirk working. 

Shouta had been in the corner of the room the whole time, and Izuku had been allowed to have Toothless in his lap, so his normal anxiety of being in a room with a doctor had simmered down easily. It helped that this was Recovery Girl, someone who had already given him her service before.

And with the elderly woman’s bout of healing, he could feel the difference her quirk made, breathing properly for the first time in days. 

“Thank you, Ma’am,” Izuku bowed his head. He would’ve given her a full at the waist bow, but he had a cat in his lap. Everyone knew the cat-law, if a cat chose you, then you weren’t to move until they did.

Recovery Girl just gave him a soft look, “It’s no bother, Midoriya-kun,” she said, wiping her hands on a cloth. 

Izuku nodded, shuffling his legs so that Toothless knew to jump onto his shoulder - whispering a quick apology to his partner for interrupting his nap - and took his stuff from Eraser when he held it out to Izuku. 

Izuku and Shouta thanked the elderly woman before they left; Izuku assumed that Shouta was going to take him back to the Hatsume house, but paused in confusion when his friend/mentor/adult guide/parental figure(?) led him down a hallway that Izuku had only walked past before. 

“Where are we going?” Izuku asked curiously, one hand tightening around his bag strap, the other brushing Toothless’s fur and getting purrs from the sleepy cat. 

Shouta sighed, a bone-deep mood that was very relatable to the kid with memories of two lives (one that he was living, and one that had already been lived), “The principal has requested to speak with you.”

The way Shouta said “requested” made Izuku curious, “Principal Nezu wants to see me?” Izuku had known that the creature was interested in him, thanks to Maijima-sensei, but otherwise, Izuku hadn’t given that much thought. 

Why would one of the smartest beings in the world want to speak to Izuku? Did he know about the memories that Izuku had? Or was he just curious about Izuku’s hobby?

Izuku glanced at Toothless, the cat’s green eyes were wide open instead of the sleepy droop they had been before. Izuku could feel the cat’s tail moving on his back, with Toothless’s wariness. Maybe Toothless had come across the principal before?

Probably. His partner had been rather exploitative the first few days of school.

Shouta led him to a door that seemed normal, but Izuku rolled his eyes at the small metallic pieces that one could see in the walls - cameras probably - and the advanced lock that didn’t actually have a door handle on it, so Shouta had to knock for the door to open smoothly. 

Izuku paused to glance at Toothless again, watching as the cat shuffled his paws uncomfortably on the teen’s shoulder, before following Eraser into the room. 

“Midoriya-kun!” A voice Izuku had only heard a few scattered times in his life, only twice in person. He ended up blinking at the familiar sight of Yuuei’s principal - from the number of times pre-memories Izuku had gone onto the school's website hoping for the quirkless ban to be lifted - who stood up on his chair to grin sharply at the teen with a cat on his shoulder, "Thank you for coming to visit! It’s exciting to finally get to meet you.”

He wasn’t sure how to react as Izuku sat down in a chair next to Shouta, but was mildly pleased when the principal asked to see one of his notebooks - he always carried one with him, and it may have taken him taking the wings out of his bag, but Izuku managed to get it out eventually - and while Izuku may have been focusing on Hiccup’s hobbies more recently, he still always made sure that he had time for his original hobby. 

Izuku’s hyperfocus after the USJ had meant that analysing had been put on a back-burner, even with some of the stuff he and Mei had done with Hitoshi. He felt guilty about it, but Izuku knew there wasn’t much he could do to change it, so he was more focused on fixing his mistake and working more in the future. 

“This is just as good as the ones you did for the heroics classes,” Nezu smirked, and Izuku grinned. 

Both of them ignored Shouta’s sigh. 

“I’d hope so,” Izuku said easily, “I admit, I haven’t been practising as much as I should have been recently due to the Sports Festival, but I’ve been going over the recent events to warm up again.”

The creature’s smirk softened, “What would you say to some lessons?-” Shouta groaned, but the principal kept going, “-Such talent should only be cultivated.”

“That would be good,” Izuku accepted, keeping his face calm yet excited, meanwhile the little part of Izuku that hadn’t quite grown up from that childish fanboy squealed in hyper -excitement. 

“I’ll alert Yamada-kun to this, you’re fluent enough in English that it wouldn’t matter if you missed a few classes,” Izuku didn’t even bother asking how the creature knew that he was fluent in English.

That childish hope that his biological father would return had long disappeared anyway. 

“In other matters-” Nezu looked really regretful for this, even giving Toothless an apologetic look that made the cat rumble-purr softly, “-your cat-”

Izuku chuckled, “Toothless isn’t a cat,” he grinned when both Nezu and Shouta looked confused, an amazing feat, truly. He was slightly proud of that, “Not really, anyway. He’s a Nightfury,” he said, letting Toothless rub his furry head against Izuku’s hand.

“A what ?” Shouta asked, eyes wide.

“A Night Fury? The unholy offspring of lightning and death?” Izuku couldn’t help the small giggle at the old Viking title for Toothless’ species. Toothless was too cute to be that, even if he was powerful and dangerous when times came for it, “He’s the last dragon of his kind, as far as I know. I don’t know how he got like this, but I’m not going to argue against it.”

The cat purred happily, rubbing his face against the teenager’s, and Izuku smiled.

“Unfortunately, for Toothless,” Nezu carried on, only looking slightly unsettled by the knowledge Izuku had given him, “There has been various inquires as to the safety of anyone who comes into contact with him, the Commission-” 

“-is bullshit” Izuku muttered quietly, but not quietly enough for Shouta and Nezu to not hear.

Nezu’s lips quirked up into a sort-of smile as he didn’t let Izuku’s comment stop him, “-has also requested that Toothless be removed from you, for safety protocols.”

Izuku tensed ever so slightly, “That’s never happening,” he said immediately, “On what grounds do they have to take Toothless from me? The Sports Festival? Where Bakugo almost killed me-” 

“Izuku,” Shouta’s sharp, but kind interruption made the teen bristle but settle down, “We’re not going to take him from you, we’re warning you.”

Izuku frowned, pausing to run over his thoughts silently, no mumbling as the principal and underground hero watched him. Did this have to do with why the Commission’s heroes had been moving closer to Yuuei recently? The forums had been buzzing with the knowledge that not only Hawks but a few of the Commission’s underground heroes had been spotted by various people moving closer to Musutafu.

He supposed if Toothless ever went “out of control” that the Commission and public had their reasons for setting heroes nearby so that they could stop the Night Fury, but Izuku wouldn't let them take Toothless from him. Nor would Toothless let them take him from Izuku, but Izuku knew that it would be better to have a few tricks up their sleeves. 

The world had only seen Toothless’ ability to change from cat to dragon, they knew nothing of Hiccup and Toothless’ ability to fly and fight together. 

“Sorry for my outburst,” Izuku said finally, calming down as Toothless resumed his purring, the teen hadn’t even realised that the cat had stopped, “And thank you for the warning. Was that all you wanted to speak with us about?”

Nezu’s grin somehow managed to look gleeful all while staying a respectable smirk, “Ah, yes, the fun stuff-”

Listening, Izuku only needed to hear what was offered before he was accepting.

°°°

He was thankful for the hoody he’d grabbed before leaving Mei’s house as he burrowed his nose into the fabric. Toothless curled around his neck like a scarf, with the hood of the hoody protecting him from most of the chill of the late-night air. 

Shouta hadn’t let Izuku out of his sight, and while it grated on the teen, he knew why the man was slightly over-protective at the moment. Hell, even he and Toothless could feel the eyes on them since they’d left Yuuei. 

Mei had texted him at some point during the meeting with Nezu, promising to see him and Toothless when they got back to school, so Izuku knew that Shouta had pulled some strings, danced a tune, and basically kidnapped him. Well, Izuku was willing, so was it really a kidnapping?

“So…” Izuku dragged out the word, and grinned when Shouta rolled his eyes before looking at him, “Where are we going? This isn’t the way back to Mei’s house.”

The man sighed, “We’re going to my apartment.”

Izuku blinked, huh? Why would Shouta be taking Izuku and Toothless to his apartment? Wouldn’t it be better for him to drop them off at Mei’s house, or even Inko’s apartment?

“Why?” Izuku asked, raising a singular eyebrow as Toothless’ comforting purrs rumbled next to his ear. 

The underground hero paused in his walking ever so slightly, and the green-haired teen furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. What did he say wrong this time?

“As grateful as I am to the Hatsume family to have been taking care of you, personally, I think that you should be kept under careful watch,” Shouta said, but Izuku got the feeling that wasn’t all that Shouta thought on the subject. 

Even with all these late-night escapes where Izuku accidentally became a vigilante and spent time with the Underground hero, it was difficult to get a complete read on the man.

So Izuku just quietened his presence, and followed Shouta as they left the train station - they’d only gone five stops from Yuuei before hopping off - easily moving around the people wandering the streets.

Toothless made his protest by burrowing back into Izuku’s hood, obviously missing the warmth that came from his Night-Fury form, and Izuku chuckled quietly even as Shouta diverted their path from the sidewalk and towards an apartment building. The teen paused as Shouta swiped a card through a lock that allowed them to enter the lobby. 

Making their way to the elevators, Shouta punched in a nine-digit code that Izuku filled away easily in the back of his head before they entered the small metal box - ignoring the quiet hisses from Toothless by his ear, and the uneasiness that Izuku felt (there had been a reason Izuku hadn’t used the elevator at Inko’s apartment complex since he was twelve) - where Shouta had to answer a question - “what is Nezu?” Shouta’s answer was “Demon-rat”, so Izuku guessed that there was some sort of system there - before the lift started moving.

Shouta glanced at Izuku when the teen made a grunt, using a hand to keep him upright, “Elevators?” the underground hero questioned.

Izuku shrugged, “You can’t see the sky,” he answered, and while Shouta might not understand just how much Izuku meant when he said that, but memories from dragons and underground caves had filled a large amount of the few nightmares that managed to form. 

Sure, he was better now, and Toothless managed to snap him out of the nightmares that did happen, but there were still triggers that Izuku had discovered that he had, and had tried his best to avoid them.

They got to Shouta’s floor quickly enough that Izuku had only just begun to feel the tightness holding down on his chest, but he quickly relaxed as he followed the man, letting Toothless rub his face against Izuku’s cheek in an effort to relax the teen, down the hall.

There were three doors on each side of the hallway, a large space between each of the doors, and Shouta led Izuku and Toothless to the one on the right, furthest away from the elevator - closest to the outside of the building on two sides - before simply unlocking the door with a normal-looking key.

“‘Zahi, we’re home,” Shouta called out, giving an almost drained sigh as he entered the apartment. 

Izuku warily followed after the dark-haired man, keeping alert as he took in the open floor planning of the lounge and kitchen combines, only separated by the tiles from the carpet and the island that had a bunch of papers spread across it - Izuku could only guess that it was used as a dining table as well - but what really stood out to him was the sheer amount of photographs on the walls.

He would never have guessed that Shouta would be agreeable, or even accept having photos from his teenage-hood up on the walls. A bunch of photos with only three teens - one obviously Shouta, while another was another male but with cloud-like hair, and the last was a blond whose hairstyle ranged in each one from a mohawk to what looked like a mimic of Ka- Bakugo’s explosion mess of a hairstyle, only with longer hair. And a brighter hue of blonde, of course - and a couple more with a fourth teen, a female with short choppy dark hair that seemed to grow in each photo. 

Glancing at the different photos, Izuku easily got distracted as Shouta shut the door behind them, and ventured further into the apartment.

Izuku slowly followed the photographs, seeing how even in the happiest photos, Shouta still looked like his dark, grumpy self. The second teen - the one with cloud-like hair - stopped appearing after a while, and Izuku was curious as to why.

Seeing the three teenagers growing up in the photos was so cool to Izuku’s small inner fanboy, even when he noticed just who the other two teens were; Present Mic and Midnight. The latter made him raise an eyebrow, not quite having expected that relationship (Izuku knew that it was platonic, obviously).

“Izuku?”

The green-haired teen didn’t show his startled state, the only thing that gave him away was the slight tensing of his shoulders as he turned to look at Shouta who had Present Mic- er, Yamada-sensei with him.

“Sensei,” Izuku said, widening his eyes ever so slightly as he reached up to Toothless, still hidden in his hood, watching as Yamada-sensei’s eyes widened ever so slightly. 

“Psshht,” Yamada-sensei waved him off, “Don’t have to add the “sensei”, lil’ listener, you’re Sho’s favourite!”

“I am?” Izuku stamped down his embarrassment to grin at the underground hero who grumbled at his partner under his breath, ducking the bottom half of his face into his capture weapon.

Even Toothless was amused, but Izuku was pretty sure he was the only one who could tell as the cat stuck his head out of Izuku’s hood to sneeze. Yamada grinned widely at them, even if a little wariness was still in his gaze as his eyes lingered on Toothless. 

“Great, so ‘zashi, no more spoilers-” Izuku snorted as Yamada chuckled at his husband’s mini-glare, “-the brat already knows too much-”

“The internet is such a wonderful place,” Izuku drawled, laughing when Shouta sent his capture weapon towards the teen half-heartedly, the teen easily dodging it as he helped Toothless escape the fabric of his hood; the cat perching on his shoulder.

Yamada snickered, “Shooooo-” Izuku was surprised when the loud blond smashed into Shouta in an odd sort of hug, “-you should’ve brought him here sooner! Seriously! Meeting at school was soooo difficult, I had to pretend not to know anything about him!”

Izuku winced, remembering how he’d been after the USJ incident, but just turned back to the photos while the two adults talked quietly, obviously not intending for him to hear them - despite being in the same room - as Yamada asked hushed questions that Shouta answered. 

He was happy to pretend to not hear them talk about why Shouta felt that Izuku should stay with them for now. 

A meow made Izuku look down, a cat that wasn’t Toothless rubbing up against his leg. Toothless made a warning hiss that made the cat on the ground hiss back before Izuku crouched down to run his hand over the cat’s fur. 

The cat looked like a mix between a ragdoll and something else - maybe a bit of feral cat? - and was so very fluffy. Izuku could stick his hand into the cat’s dark brown and white fur, and lose track of it as fur hid his hand up to his wrist. 

“That’s Bastard,” Shouta’s voice made Izuku glance up for a moment, before smiling back down at the cat.

Toothless grumbled in his own way, almost pouting as he turned so that he was sitting with his back closer to Izuku’s face - obviously upset that Izuku was paying more attention to Bastard than him - while the teen grinned, “Why “Bastard”?” he asked, continuing to pat the cat even as he rolled onto his back and Izuku’s hand ended up on his stomach. 

Yamada burst out laughing, and Izuku glanced up again to see the displeased look on Shouta’s face, “Sho’ brought him home from a patrol one evening, and almost scratched Sho’s face off when he tried to put the cat on the ground! The only time Bastard didn’t try to injure Sho’ was when he got the food out!”

Izuku smirked at that, remembering how long it took Toothless to trust him, and that had only been because Hiccup had taken so much fish for the downed dragon. Food really was a good motivator for creatures to trust humans.

“You’re not a bastard, are you, Bastard,” Izuku cooed to the cat that purred happily up at him. 

Shouta’s grumbles were hidden under Yamada’s laughter, the dark-haired hero complaining of everyone being turned against him while the blond hero just let his laughter flow, and Izuku spared the two adults a quick glance to watch Shouta grumbling while Yamada gave him a fond-amused look in between all the laughter. 

It was actually kind of nice. 

Izuku kinda wished that his parents - in both his and Hiccup’s lives - had been like this, complete with one another, able to live their whole lives together, and just simply being happy with who the other was. 

He dropped his gaze back down to Bastard, who nudged his hand and smiled. Well, even if his life hadn’t been the picture-perfect that he wished it had been, at least he had people who cared about him. 

He didn’t have that when he was eleven.

Chapter Text

His wings shifted uneasily on his back as Hawks stood at attention, arms crossed over his chest instead of the typical arms behind his back that most people preferred - how on Earth would Hawks manage that with his wings? - with his goggles perched in his blond hair so that his eyes were on display. 

He had to blink every so often, the small participles in the air irritating his eyes if he held them open for too long, 

Being stationed out around Yuuei had taken a bit of getting used to, the winds were a bit different - a bit looser, wilder with the extra space - compared to the ones back in Tokyo where the Commission had him before. (He had been on track to being ordered to head to Hosu after Yuuei's Sports Festival to go after Stain, but with Midoriya and his companion's reveal, that was cancelled; Hawks wasn't sure if he was going to thank the kid after this, or apologise to the kid.).

Handler Taira had been left in Tokyo, so Hawks had the pleasure of being under Handler Sakuma's direct oversight while the Commission found another Handler to help her.

Which meant that whenever Hawks didn’t have an official patrol, she insisted that he was to come along with her to the nearest Commission building where she would have meetings with the President and the other members of the Commission's board for instructions on how to move on. Hawks didn’t really pay attention if he was being honest. The device that Handler Sakuma used grated on Hawks' ears, so he did his best to avoid stretching his senses that far.

"Hawks," Ah, speak of the devil.

He raised his head from his phone - finishing off a few reports that he had to do for his agency - to give Handler Sakuma his full attention. Knowing better than to not to.

Her heels clacked against the floor, holding out a folder for him to grab, which he did after putting his phone in his pocket to stand up and receive it. Hawks raised a simple eyebrow at his handler, but opened the file without a verbal question, keeping his wings close to his back to avoid making too much of a mess.

He had thought that he had seen Midoriya's files, but seeing these ones was like realising that he'd been sold to the Commission again.

Hawks would compare Midoriya's official file to a children's picture book, while this unofficial file was a series of novels.

Apparently, in the last few weeks, while Hawks had been flying around, keeping an eye out for the kid, the Commission had gone through all of the kid's Internet history - even the deleted stuff - from his known devices at his mother's apartment and the ones at his friend Hatsume's house. And holy fuck was there a Lot.

The kid was on so many hero forums and servers that it wasn't funny. He had even run a small business where he analysed quirks for people, but quickly shut it down after a few months - there was no obvious reason why, but anyone with a brain cell could guess.

He was kinda scared, seeing all the text printed on paper in front of him. Midoriya had analyzed so many heroes, and from what the Commission had found, what the kid posted online was just the tip of the iceberg. Somehow they'd gotten into his private files to get the full copies of the analyses. Hawks would hide it until his dying breath, but his wings trembled at the sheer power of the knowledge that this fifteen-year-old had. Add this onto the side of that creature that Midoriya had loyal at his side. Then the kid's obvious friendships with Hatsume Mei - an up-and-coming support student who was also a legacy - and Shinso Hitoshi, a kid with a Brainwashing quirk who was being transferred into class 1-A under the guidance of Eraserhead. The kid was known for his closeness with the man from the mere short period of time that the Commission had seen the underground hero with the kid even taking the kid back to his home. And the kid was under Nezu's protection. Who knew what the creature would do with his claws in the kid.

This Midoriya Izuku was powerful, even if he didn't have a superpower, Hawks felt the urge to avoid the teen make his wings shift uncomfortably. What a predator.

"So I'll need to be on a higher alert when in reconnaissance," Hawks said finally, flicking through the printed posts carefully, "And he's with Eraserhead now?"

There were a couple of security camera images that had been printed out, displaying the close (platonic/parental) relationship that the hero and student had. Eraserhead wasn't known for his friendliness. Hell, it had been a surprise for Hawks to find out that the underground hero was married to one of the loudest pros out there.

"Yes, that was a surprise to us as well," Handler Sakuma said, crossing her arms over her chest as she frowned, "Aizawa hadn't shown any favouritism to him before he entered Yuuei, so there must be something we're missing in between the being of the school year, and just before the Sports Festival."

Hawks easily pretend he didn't hear the "damned rat" that his handler muttered under her breath, shutting the folder to keep the papers trapped inside, "Would I be authorised to hold onto this? It would assist greatly-"

"I gave you it for a reason, Hawks," Handler Sakuma raised an eyebrow at him, and he fought the urge to avoid eye contact as if he was seven again.

Goddammit it, how he loathed this woman.

"Alrighty then," it was far too easy for him to chuck a charming smile on his face, "Permission leave and continue the assignment from the agency?"

Handler Sakuma gave him a look over before turning away in obvious dismissal, and Hawks took his chance before the woman took the permission back. It wouldn't have been the first time.

But Hawks needed to let someone know about this: the Commission might own him and control him, but Hawks still had morals. This was a kid they were talking about kidnapping or even just hiring someone to assassinate him.

Perhaps… hmmm, wasn’t Starling in contact with Present Mic?

°°°

"What do you think, Melissa?"

The blond-haired girl tapped her pen against her closed lips, thinking as she watched the paused image of the green-haired boy on the TV screen.

Her papa was oddly serious for once, not that the David Sheild wasn’t usually serious - he worked in labs with dangerous technology, of course, her papa was able to be serious - but he was often a lot freer around her when they were in their apartment, away from everyone else. 

Yuuei’s first-ever Quirkless student had made it to the podium for their Sports Festival. Taking the second place of all things after springing back from the mess that was his match against the explosive boy. 

The creature that stayed by the Lace’s side look scary, but Melissa wasn’t going to admit that aloud, “He seems intelligent enough, he and his fellow support student had unique ideas. That barrier that Midoriya created was strong, not strong enough, but with the right technology and guidance, it could probably be strengthened enough for hero work,” she suggested. 

She missed the look her papa gave her as she went back to her book, thinking that it was all said and done. But of course, her luck was never that great.

“Did you have any problems with I-Island offering them internships?” Her papa asked, and she swears that her head jerks up so fast that she can hear her neck crack ever so slightly.

“Huh?” Her voice came out all garbled, and Melissa winced as her papa chuckled, “Why here? The Island doesn’t normally take interns from hero schools.”

Her papa frowned ever so slightly, “Let’s call it a personal favour that I owed.”

Melissa gave her papa a confused look, when did he ever owe someone a favour other than Uncle Might? She shrugged and sighed, “Sure, papa, it’ll be nice to meet another Lace.”

She hardly ever got the chance to meet other quirkless people while she lived with her papa on I-Island. Her papa had taken Melissa off the island a few times in the past to go to American Quirkless events, sometimes she even got to go with him and Uncle Might to Japan for one of her papa's meetings with her uncle. Nowadays, however, Melissa didn't bother with going off the island; she could keep in contact with the few quirkless friends that she did have (which was how she knew about the Lace and Baseline thing that was going on over in the English speaking countries) online.

Melissa refused to admit how curious she was about the Japanese boy. Most quirkless moved out of Japan, heading to Europe or the States rather than be subjected to Japan's horrible protection laws towards people without a quirk.

She let herself get trapped in her book to avoid thinking about it any further.

Chapter Text

Izuku was glad that Shouta had given him a pass for the scarf around his neck - he would’ve worn it anyway with or without the pass - as he felt many, many too many eyes on him as he headed to class.

He was just their quirkless support student who had come second in the first year's Sports Festival. The nobody who should "know his place", the kid that a (former) heroics student attempted to strangle to death while firing off his quirk.

Yep. Good times.

Toothless purred happily around his shoulders, half-burrowed in the fabric of the scarf as Izuku sighed quietly to himself. 

All the eyes on him reminded him of how he felt after the Red Queen's death after he’d woken up of course. Between the time of the Queen’s death, and his waking, sure, his village had gotten used to the dragons, but even after that adjustment period of time, walking through the village had been horrible to Hiccup who had been used to years of being glanced-over or scorned whenever he came to someone’s attention.

The attention made Izuku want to peel his skin off, and he couldn’t get to his class fast enough. Sliding into his seat just down the bench that he shared with Mei, he allowed himself to breathe properly. 

It was easy to take the wings out of his bag, chucking a few of his spare tools on the bench just in case. Izuku didn’t take off the scarf, even as his classmates - minus Mei - gave him wary-curious looks, and smiled as Toothless rubbed his face against Izuku’s cheek. 

With the tools that Yuuei offered Support Students to use, Izuku spent the time until class attempting to figure out what was wrong with the wings for cat-Toothless.

Mei passed him a couple of times, bumping her shoulder into his gently enough that he didn't register it as a threat, but as the female's way of quick comfort. He gave her a smile to convey his gratitude to which she winked back playfully.

Maijima-sensei entered the room a second before the bell rang, and Izuku his amusement at how done the man looked already. He did, however, wonder what had caused such a reaction.

(Honestly, Maijima-sensei looked like how Shouta had looked when he'd come to Mei's house to collect Izuku for his meeting with Recovery Girl then Nezu.)

"First of all, I hope most of you spent the two days off and the weekend working on any projects you might have," Maijima-sensei said, narrowing his eyes slightly at a few guilty-looking kids, "Secondly, I congratulate everyone who participated in the Sports Festival beyond the first round-" a few more guilty looks, "-some of you have received internship offers, no you do not have to take them this year, but it would be good to start getting a footing ready for when you eventually leave Yuuei."

Izuku glanced over to Mei who was busy with one of her babies, not really paying attention, and stiffed a chuckle as he burrowed the lower half of his face into the scarf.

Toothless' purrs went louder for a moment, and Izuku rolled his eyes as he stroked the cat's soft fur. 

What a spoiled dragon-cat. 

"Next," Maijima-sensei said, his tone making Izuku give his sensei his full attention, "Discrimination of someone’s quick or lack of, is illegal, and if someone is found discriminating another student for it, then Yuuei has grounds to suspend and if it comes to it, expel that student. So far this year, I have yet to see anything so far this year; Eraserhead isn’t the only Yuuei teacher to expel students, only the teacher with the highest expulsion rate.”

Izuku had already known those facts, hell, he’d spent months researching all he could about each and every one of Yuuei’s staff members. Some were easier than the others, but he’d gotten as much information as he could. 

But hearing about his favourite adult’s reputation being used against his classmates was entertaining, as Izuku knew how much of a softie the Eraserhead could be just as well as he knew how sCaRy the Eraserhead could easily switch into being, was so much fun.

(Even if it was embarrassing in the way it was used to show the teachers’ protection of Izuku and other kids that suffered similar to him, kids like Hitoshi.)

“Hai, sensei,” each student said when he gave them a pointed look, even Izuku whose throat was slightly sore still so his voice was a little raspy. 

“I’ll hand out the internship offers to those who got them,” Maijima-sensei said, picking up a very small stack of papers, “Feel free to continue with your work for now.”

Izuku snickered when their teacher didn’t even look at Mei - the girl had continued through Maijima-sensei’s talking anyway - but easily moved into working on Toothless’s wings. He was sure that he’d fingered out what was wrong with them, and just had to fix a few more things…

He flinched ever so slightly when a piece of paper was slid onto his workbench, blinking up at Maijima-sensei in confusion before the Support Hero headed down to Mei’s end of the bench to slide a piece of paper to her as well.

Izuku glanced at the paper, giving a hesitant glance to Toothless who meowed at him. The green-haired teen rolled his eyes at the cat before reaching out to grab the paper. It had been folded in half, and he quickly unfolded it to see a rather small list of names printed in black against the white. 

Small, because he glanced over to peek at Mei's paper - his friend hadn't even bothered with it, and as his right, as her closest friend, he assumed permission to look at her list - and rolled his eyes at the mass number of support companies that overwhelmed his own small list.

He sighed, unsure if it was Toothless that people were worried about, or the fact that Izuku is Quirkless. He had his bets on the latter, but not even Shouta and Mei had managed to hide the public's outcry over Toothless from him.

"Ugh, what's that?" Mei complained, looking over Izuku's shoulder, only pausing to scratch Toothless's head which made the cat rumble happily.

Izuku's lips quirked up ever so slightly because of course, Mei hadn't been listening, "Support internship offers," he chuckled when she groaned, "You don't have to go on one, but it's a good opportunity to get experience working in high-end support companies and build up your reputation-" his friend still didn't look too convinced, "-plus you could get to work with better materials for your babies."

And just like that, Mei looked excited about the internships, "So where are you heading, Greenie? Don't make me suffer from annoyances," she pouted, batting her eyelashes at him.

He snorted, rolling his eyes ever so slightly before humming as he compared the two lists of names, "Let’s see…"

While Izuku got to work, Mei jumped back into her babies’ work. Easily trusting the green-haired teen to make a choice that would benefit both her and him. 

There were only a couple that Izuku had that Mei had as well. An American-Japanese support company that was funded by both governments, one of the HPSC support companies had also offered to both of them - Izuku rolled his eyes, a scowl pulling at his lips as he crossed out them from both of their lists - but one company caught his eyes.

Well, less of a company and more of an organization of independents who had become so famous and powerful that they’d informally become their own country/island.

The famous I-Island. 

Izuku placed the end of his pencil on his lip - only just remembering to not bite on the end of it - as he eyed the second name that was next to the nicely printed “I-Island Research Academy” in size eleven, Times New Roman. A Dr David Sheild, Westen placing of the name was enough to remind Izuku of the short clip he vaguely remembered from watching when the footage aired online where one could see the man working alongside All Might.

“What do you think, bud?” Izuku muttered quietly enough that only Toothless or someone with a hearing quirk would be able to hear him.

The black cat purred before letting out a small chattering noise. Izuku smirked, “You’re right,” he said softly, snatching his slightly cracked phone out of his pocket, ignoring the notifications that blinked at up him. He opened up google, switching to English results as he tapped Sheild’s name into the search engine. 

Immediately Izuku got the man’s wiki page, he glanced through it before leaving it to check out Sheild’s published papers. It was actually kinda cool to see the man’s (ethical) research and experiments on Quirks. 

It made the small pre-Hiccup part of Izuku buzz with excitement, and the inventor from Hiccup iched to copy down the man’s designs (all the ones approved for the public) and figure out hwo to improve them. The Knockout part of Izuku urged him to pick the man for the internship to get more knowledge on how such an amazing place like I-Island existed; how he could use it to his and people like him’s benefit. 

Toothless butted his head against Izuku’s, and the teen shook his head to get rid of the conflicting thoughts crashing around in there.

“Thanks, bud,” Izuku whispered, rubbing his hand over the cat’s head as he purred at the teen.

“Did ya figure out which one, yet?” Mei jumped back into Izuku’s space 

He didn’t startle, just turned his phone around to the girl, and smirked when her eyes locked onto the project designs, a hungry gleam to her sharpening eyes as her quirk came into effect.

“Fuck yes.”

°°°

Hizashi flipped through the folder Starling had handed him before sneaking off back to her agency. Apparently, Hawks had given her the instructions to hand over the information piled into the folder to him, and Hizashi feared what that meant.

Simply taking a quick glimpse had his heart leaping into his throat as he struggled to swallow down his growing fear and worry. 

His partner was still busy with 1-A, of course - Hero Students weren’t as bad as them Management students when they got going, but the budding heroes were up there, nightmares, really - so Hizashi was going to have to wait for both his husband and Izuku - the kid stuck in the support labs, well, maybe not stuck, with his two gremlin friends Hatsume and Shinso - to be finished before they headed home.

Aw, man. Hizashi couldn't help the warm bubble in his chest when his thoughts drifted to the greenette that Shouta had dragged with him. His partner was such a dad, no matter how the grumpy man tried to refuse the title.

Seeing how his partner fussed over the still healing teenager was adorable. Usually, Hizashi only got to see this side of the man he loves when they had a stray cat stay for a while.

And having Izuku around made the already well-lived in apartment feel even more alive. The kid and his cat (dragon?) were quite chaotic, leaving parts around the apartment, both Toothless and Bastard following the green-haired teen around as Izuku either mumbled while he scribbled into a notebook or focused on one of the many items that Hizashi was slightly scared to ask what were intended for. Especially after the first one exploded somehow, and he ended up coloured lime green and smelling like the underside of a high school kids desk. (Don’t ask.)

But back to the folder in his hands.

Hizashi didn't work with Starling often enough for him to really consider her a friend. Their quirks didn't quite work with one another, and she was dipped into the underground more than Hizashi's spotlight time.

He'd been surprised when the other hero had handed it to him, but not shocked until he opened it in the safety of his office to see the complex profile compiled of everything Izuku had posted online over his lifetime. 

The frequency of posts dwindled around the time the kid turned twelve but just seeing what his partner’s problem vigilante was capable of doing, even four years ago, was just stunning. If Hizashi hadn’t known better, he would have guessed that the posts were from a professional analyst. 

Hizashi rubbed his forehead before glancing at the clock on the wall and groaning when he realised only three minutes had passed. 

Soooooooooooo much timeeeeee.

Chapter Text

The flight on the airplane was a different experience for Izuku.

He's never needed to go anywhere outside of Japan that didn't have a train or a bus to use, and while Hiccup had flown before, it was only with Toothless or another dragon. Being in a metal structure that was designed to fly long distances was strange enough as it was. 

Even Toothless was disgruntled the whole time. The cat-dragon had attempted to escape before they’d even gotten onto the plane, and Izuku had to trap his emotional support animal in his hoody so they could suffer together. 

This meant that Izuku was getting a lot of the silent treatment from his partner, which was alright, he guessed, as he and Mei were busy tinkering away. Mei was doing her thing, while Izuku was trying to connect a power core to the tiny Toothless (dragon) model. He’d gotten it to work a few months ago, but the core he’d used then was too strong and fried mini-Toothless the first. So mini-Toothless the second had been made from scraps in 1-F’s classroom - scraps for the support students, but pure gold for someone who had used materials from a junkyard for over three years - and now it was being adjusted to actually work. 

Izuku glanced up for a moment to spot Toothless looking out the side of the airplane, and spared enough time to look out another window closer to himself. His eyes widened when he saw their destination, “Mei!” Izuku sang playfully. 

The pink-haired girl raised her eyebrow for a moment, enough for Izuku to gesture to the window and for her to dart over to Izuku’s window to have a look as well.

It didn’t take long for them to land and disembark from the airplane then find their luggage - mostly Mei’s massive collection of babies she refused to leave behind because she was still working on them, which, fair enough, but was the seven cases really not enough? Mei was lucky that she’d designed a belt sort of thing to keep them together while she was pulling them with her, or else Izuku might’ve done something he might regret at a much later date(when he was in jail; he’s only half-joking) - and find the exit from the flight terminal to the main part of the airport. 

With the massive “exit” signs flashing in different languages, it only took them five minutes to get through the sort-of crowd that had built up and escape into the fresh air. 

Izuku and Mei ignored the few disgruntled people that got pissed off at her collection of cases, but the green-haired teen had to settle Toothless who decided to hiss at them. 

As much as Izuku appreciated both forms of his partner, they did not need to give the Commission any help in their stupid plan to take Toothless away from Hiccup-Izuku. They’d already been separated once - properly; temporary times didn’t really count - and both of them knew that they didn’t want that to happen again. 

Dealing with Toothless, it was easier for the blonde girl waiting at the front of the building to slip through Izuku’s attention span. (Toothless always came first.)

“Hi! You two must be the students from Yuuei!” The blonde girl grinned widely enough that it seemed polite and excitable, but still slightly unnatural enough that it made Izuku hesitate for a moment, “My father mentioned that you were coming, and I just had to welcome you!”

Mei didn’t look very interested in the girl with no obvious signs of a quirk for the pink-haired girl to work with, too busy looking around at the island around them, but Izuku could almost imagine the blonde was holding a clipboard in her arms, ticking off a list of things to do. Something that a manager, perhaps, might do?

He raised an eyebrow at the look she shot Toothless who was busy looking at their surroundings like Mei was, “Your Japanese is very good,” Izuku said, giving her a semi-false smile as well as he spoke in English, easily picking up on the mix of American and British accent in her words.

Her surprise was far too obvious for the not-technically-a-vigilante, “Your English is amazing! How long have you been practising it? It wasn’t mentioned in the files your school sent to father-”

“This is boooooring,” Mei complained, scowling ever so slightly at the other two, “When do we get to make babies? I wanna progress in invention! Izuuuu-kunnn, hurry upppp.”

“Hi- Midoriya Izuku,” Izuku held his hand out the western way, and he got a little pleasure in seeing the surprise flash across the girl’s face once more. Once again ignoring the slight slip of the instinctive “Hiccup Haddock the Third” that attempted to fall from his lips from so many times of saying it. 

The blonde tentatively grabbed his hand and shook it, a slightly smaller smile on her face as she peered at him curiously, “I’m Melissa Shield, uh, Shield Melissa, but feel free to call me Melissa, it’s what I’m used to, and since you’ll be working with my father…”

Izuku nodded, understanding easily enough. However, before anything could be said, Mei had obviously had enough, “And I’m Mei, let’s gogogogogogogo, PLEASE!”

The male snorted while the blonde girl startled, “Right this way, Mei.”

Again, it was easy to imagine the invisible clipboard that the blonde could’ve been holding as she led his eccentric friend towards the buildings in the slight distance. He shook his head to get rid of the thought before following after the two girls. 

°°°

Shouta sighed, dropping the folder back onto the coffee table that stood in front of the couch. It was hard to ignore the urge to groan but he somehow managed it as he rubbed at his eyes tiredly.

He’d known when he’d taken guardianship of Izuku, that there were going to be some problems trailing after the quirkless teenager. He’d never expected the Commission to be on his kid’s tail, even with all the not-quite-vigilantism that Izuku did as Knockout. The cat turning into a dragon was just the turning point, and now they had a folder filled with the very same, if not more, information that the folder on the coffee table held. 

Goddamn it. 

Shouta dropped his hands from his face to look his husband in the eyes, “ Starling gave this to you?”

Hizashi nodded, “And said that Hawks had given it to her,” it wasn’t the first time the blond had said this, but Shouta just needed to be one hundred percent sure. 

The dark-haired male sighed, “Does Nedzu know?”

Hizashi shrugged, “I haven’t told him but who knows-” he was interrupted by their phones buzzing, and the blond flipped over his phone to see the winky face text from their boss, “-he knows.”

“Well, at least Izuku has the rat on his side, this would be a whole lot harder without Nedzu,” Shouta admitted, sinking back into the couch with yet another sigh. 

Bastard jumped up onto the couch and claimed a place in the man’s lap, ignoring how Hizashi squawked in offence at the cat.

Chapter Text

Despite initial worries about Izuku and Mei sharing a room while on I-Island, both teenagers showed that the normal teenager hormones didn’t quite apply to them in the traditional way.

Firstly - not that anyone else knew - Izuku had the memories of another life, and while having particular urges , he’d already gone through it and knew how to handle it. Secondly, Mei had no interest in that sort of thing, thirdly, they both saw each other as siblings, and fourthly, Izuku would rather go jump into a group of anti-quirkless cults than do any of that to anyone he currently knew.

He was only sixteen - with an additional set of memories of a man who lived into his sixties (almost seventies) before the harsh environment back then took his life - and had his whole life ahead of him. He had Toothless at his side, and his mixed and matched family at his back ready to support him. Izuku didn’t exactly have time for the sexual escapes that his peers might be going through or would be going through eventually. 

But back to their room. 

Mei had claimed the right side of the room (looking in from the doorway), so Izuku had taken the left, while Toothless decided to claim his spot at the foot of Izuku’s temporary bed. His partner already napping as Izuku unpacked the wings that he’d almost finished with. 

Even though the cat had expressed interest in the metal wings, Toothless didn’t offer them any attention as Izuku sat down to tweak a few things. 

He hoped to get some advice on the wings before testing them out properly, one hundred percent complete, with Toothless the cat. Especially since the first time Toothless the dragon realised that he had a tailfin back, he immediately decided to go flying with a human on his tail - dragging his weight down and not helping the already wounded dragon - that ended up not even working. Imagine if Toothless the cat realised he could fly in this form.

Yeah, Izuku didn’t see that working out well.

A clang from Mei and a giggle-cackle split through Izuku’s thoughts, and he glanced up to see the pink-haired female hammering away at something. 

He rolled his eyes but chanced upon seeing his phone buzz - having forgotten he’d placed it on vibrate - and sighed when he placed the wings to the side to grab the device. He leant back against the bed frame and pillows while unlocking the phone to see what all the fuss was about. 

It was far too easy to snort and roll his eyes at Yamada’s slightly immature texts but grinned at the cute pictures the loud blond had sent of Bastard cuddling up to Shouta in the dark-haired man’s lap.

As if summoned by the mere thought of the other cat in Izuku’s head, Toothless appeared in Izuku’s lap, purring loudly enough to draw his attention from his phone. Izuku giggled, using his left hand to rub Toothless’s head while using his right to respond to Yamada. 

His teacher slash guardian sent a bunch of emojis that took Hiccup a moment to decipher, and Izuku rolled his eyes before twisting his body to take a mostly focused photo of the black cat in his lap. Grinning when Toothless opened his eyes to see what he was doing. 

Placing the phone to his side, Izuku glanced over at Mei.

She’d barely taken a moment to get a proper look at the two single beds the room held, a couple of bookcases on each half’s wall, and the fold-up-able desks that were perched in between the bookcases and the wall that the doorway to the room was before she was getting into her projects. 

Shield- er, Melissa, had left them to get settled, but now Hiccup-Izuku was itching to go exploring and figure out just what was on the artificial moving island. Other than the research/science labs and the infamous schools that had been made on the island, he had no idea what was available to him as a support student (and as a not-technically-a-vigilante) here.

“Hey, Mei,” Izuku smiled despite himself when his friend barely paused in her business, only the slight tilt of her head giving away her attention aimed at him, “I’m going to go explore, did you want to come?”

“Nope!” Mei said cheerfully, waving a hand over her shoulder at him, “Have fun!”

Izuku snorted at her before helping a half-sleepy Toothless onto his shoulders and making sure to grab his phone before zipping out the room in a way that would offend most people; assuming that Izuku was attempting to get away from them.

Despite the island being mainly founded for science, there was quite a lot of decorative gardens on it. 

Izuku made sure to keep track of Toothless when the cat wandered off to explore but otherwise walked through the gardens quietly. Just enjoying the fresh air that was so much better than being in Japan. Nothing like in Hiccup’s time, but it was easier to breathe here compared to back in Musutafu.

He might’ve lost track of time for a bit, because he wore that he blinked his eyes and suddenly the sun was a lot further across the sky than it had just been.

“Toothless,” He called, wandering back to the entrance of the garden. 

A streak of black zipped across the grass and Izuku crouched down in time for Toothless to throw himself up onto the human’s arm and curl around Izuku’s neck. 

A chuckle left Izuku’s lips as he stood up; offering the cat his hand for pets, before making their way out of the garden. 

They had the whole day to get settled, because where the island was currently had their time almost a whole day ahead of Japan. Which was… odd to think of. Even back in Viking times, they’d just followed the rise and setting of the sun. 

He squinted into the distance, seeing the English words and having to take a moment to translate them before he grinned. Izuku tilted his head slightly to look at Toothless, “What do you say about an anti-gravity centre?”

Toothless looked confused and conveyed this in a high pitched meow. 

Izuku snorted, “You’ll see.”

Chapter Text

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN MIDORIYA IZUKU AND HIS DRAGON IS ON I-ISLAND?!!!”

Wisely, workers of the Commission avoided the office where the surprisingly loud yell came from.

°°°

Melissa wasn’t quite sure how to act around Midoriya and his friend Hatsume.

Both were quite strange in their own ways; Midoriya fauxly managed to project an image of him expressing all his emotions and feelings in his body, expression and tone of voice while keeping all the rest of whatever he was hiding under tight covers. The few times you could see this change was when he focused solely on his cat-dragon-shifter and didn’t let anyone else interfere with it. 

Hatsume was eccentric, but whole-heartedly focused on whatever she was doing at the time as long as it included getting to work on her inventions - called “babies” for whatever reason - in the end result. She didn’t understand a lot of social cues, but she responded well to her friend’s slight nudging when he thought she needed it. 

One was open yet closed off, and one was closed off yet open. 

Melissa hated how the oxymorons ruined everything she had learned within a few simple minutes. She knew how to behave with her papa, when she was alone with him, or with others. She knew how to behave with her classmates when she did end up having to go to the school for exams and other activities she had to partake in. She knew how to behave with Uncle Might when he came to visit. She knew how to appeal to the media as the daughter of a famous scientist. She knew all of this, and yet in such a short time, everything she’d learned was shattered into pieces by these two (three, if you counted “Toothless” the “cat”.).

She’d heard about the incident the day before, where Midoriya’s animal ended up changing into a dragon while in the anti-gravity centre, and her papa had been grumbling about it when he returned to their home after having to tell the kid to get his animal under control.   

Melissa had seen the creature when it first appeared, then scoured the internet for more pictures and screenshots of the footage so that she could try and figure out just how the animal managed to change forms so fluidly in time to protect the green-haired teenager. It wasn’t natural; even animals that did was quirks that were similar enough to what the cat-dragon did, none of them came close to what she’d witnessed. 

But the footage of the dragon-cat thing that she’d managed to see from her papa’s computer was educational. There was no way that someone would be able to replicate the way the creature moved and breathed; through machines or otherwise. 

The dragon looked like it had come from another world but yet belonged here all the same.

A strange concept to get her mind around, but as she added the file to her folder before disconnecting her USB drive from her papa’s computer, she decided that she would get used to it. 

Slipping out of her papa’s office, Melissa’s thoughts shied back to the person that all of this stemmed from. One Midoriya Izuku.

She had no idea how he could be so confident with the shifter around his shoulders and neck on a day-to-day basis. She’d seen some of the security footage of him leaving his room with the shifter, and Melissa couldn’t help but worry every time the shifter’s claws went a little too close to the boy’s neck for comfort. She didn’t even have to be near the animal, and she feared it. 

Even when the boy was at Yuuei’s Sports Festival, he hadn’t been unsurprised to see the cat shift. Almost looking as surprised and frightened for a moment as the crowd in the background of the video. But he was too quick to relax when the shifter cooed at him. 

She opened her door, shutting it behind her almost as quickly, and let herself fall back onto her bed, staring up at the ceiling as her mind buzzed away.

°°°

The next day, Melissa got to watch the support students work together… or rather, not work together? They were very confusing. 

One moment Midoriya would be conversing with Hatsume on something they were working on together, the next they’d go back to their separate tasks. But one thing that reminded the same no matter which tasks the humans - and, wow, it was difficult to even class the confusing duo as humans with how strange they were - were working on, the shifter remained in his place on the table, surrounded by deadly items, half-napping away unless Midoriya asked for the shifter’s option.

Again… STRANGE.

Hatsume barely spared the shifter much attention compared to her friend. Occasionally she would reach out to give the shifter a scratch behind the ears, but otherwise, she was mostly obscured in her own projects 

When the teacher tried to understand what either of them was doing, Melissa saw the headache forming on the woman's face before the teacher even bothered to give up.

She’d never gotten that sort of response from a quirked teacher before, and Melissa wondered how the other two had managed. It wasn’t as if they actively frustrated the teacher, it just seemed to happen. 

Melissa had managed a peek at Midoriya’s notes during breakfast that her papa insisted that they share with the support students from Yuuei, and despite Melissa’s first language being English, her second Japanese, and her third Italian, she couldn’t work out what the majority of the symbols on the paper meant. Not even googling them helped, just some story from the early quirks days that an author wrote as a fictional piece of work. 

The author, Rick Riordan, had a massive fanbase when he was still alive and writing books. And even to this day, Melissa had found that there were still people out there who were reading his books despite the quirked would they lived in.

But that was off-topic. 

Some books written by a quirkless man almost three hundred years ago didn’t matter today for the situation Melissa had with the puzzling symbols.

Never would she have thought that Midoriya would just tell her if she asked, having been watching her just as she had been watching him.