Chapter Text
Katsuki had always been careful. Cautious, maybe not, but careful. His moves were calculated, his anger directed. He had kept his secret for two years at UA, which is why he was so pissed at himself for getting caught. For getting himself pulled into the fucking teacher's office. He sat, arms and legs crossed, on the opposite side of the table from Aizawa. Aizawa who was staring him with that dead-eyed-but-somehow-stupidly-intimidating gaze. He wanted to look away, but given his current situation he knew that would only make things worse. He needed to be able to see Aizawa's mouth.
"How long have you had trouble hearing?" Aizawa asked placidly.
'Fuck.' Katsuki thought. Of course Aizawa had figured it out. Observant bastard.
"Since middle school," he admitted reluctantly. Back then, it had just been a mild inconvenience. Missing a word here and there, difficulty with volume control. Nothing he couldn't handle.
"And you never got it checked out?" Aizawa asked, looking unimpressed.
"I did, they told me to go easy on the quirk, to wear earplugs and shit," Bakugou sneered.
"And you didn't." It wasn't a question. If he had, he wouldn't be in this mess.
"Nah. Needed to be able to hear what was coming during practices and exams. Didn't expect it to get this bad," He shrugged, hoping to come across as cool and unaffected. In reality he was terrified. Failing to disclose something like this could get him expelled for putting himself and his classmates at risk. But if he had disclosed it going in, they might have disqualified him from the hero course. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. He decided to take his chances.
"You realize...could...you." Aizawa said.
Damn it. Bakugou hadn't been paying attention. He did not want to have to ask-
"Can you repeat that please?" he asked through gritted teeth.
"I could expel you." Aizawa's lips moved firmly.
Bakugou nodded. He was aware.
"I don't want to do that. But you need to take care of yourself. I'm calling your parents." He turned towards the window and picked up the phone.
Bakugou clenched his jaw. His mom was going to be so pissed.
Izuku ran his hand across the Braille display attached to his laptop.
"Schematic for high frequency amplification."
He sighed. Not what he was looking for. Izuku had been searching for papers for an hour with no success. It was time for a break. He took a deep breath and crawled his fingers up onto his laptop keys, listening to his screen-reader through the single earbud in his left ear as he tabbed to his email window. During their final year at UA, students in the Support Course were expected to take requests from students in the Hero Course as part of their weekly assignments. Izuku's specialty was acoustics and audio augmentation, which was admittedly pretty narrow and he often didn't have anyone come to him for help. Regardless, he checked his email inbox every day for requests. He scanned the new messages.
"Homework assignment for-" Nope.
"Your order from-" Not it.
"New Student Request." Bingo. Izuku listened to the satisfying electronic pop as he selected the message.
"Message from: Present Mic" the robotic voice read. Izuku smiled. Present Mic was one of his favourite staff at UA. He had introduced him to the support members at his previous agency, and helped him get a supervisor for his senior project. Izuku switched to his Braille display and started reading.
"Hello Little Listener! I hope that your week is going fantastic. Just wanted to give you a heads up that Aizawa is sending you a student from his class today for support gear. It's an emergency order, sorry about the short notice. I know you have walk-ins today so I told him you could help. He should be there around 11:00. Let me know how it goes."
Eleven o'clock. Izuku reached over to touch the watch on his left wrist. 10:59. Good thing he had opened the email, or he would've been totally caught off guard. The student could be there any moment. Right on time, the bells on the Development Studio door jingled as someone walked in.
"Is anyone there? I'm here for the audio specialist." The person said, slowly and slightly uneven. "I'm Bakugou Katsuki, from the Hero Course."
Izuku went cold. "Kacchan?" he whispered hesitantly.