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Midoriya had been dreading this day for a whole month. Don’t get him wrong, he was ecstatic that he was finally realizing that his middle school years were not the best and it’s not like he ever wanted to go back. He may have forgiven Kacchan but the rest not so much, being in therapy definitely helped him understand that he didn’t have to forgive anyone unless he wanted to.
This brought him back to today and why he’d been dreading it so much, he’s going to find evidence on Aldera and finally shut that school down. The only problem with that is that he decided to go to the school in person to get said evidence.
As you can probably guess, that was not his brightest idea.
Since the school didn’t know his true reason for being there he actually had to be professional. So he decided to be petty with what he wore. He decided on the piercings he would normally take out on formal occasions, two studs in each of his ears and a bar piercing on his left ear. He also wore a deep green loose-fitted button up and black jeans.
“Hey babe, I know that you’ve been dreading today but you can’t put it off.” Shouto called from the living room of their shared apartment. They moved in together after a quirk incident finally got Midoriya to confess his feelings in their 3rd year at U.A.
“I know,” he called back. “I said I would do this and I'm going to go through with it!” And he was going to go through with it. If Aldera did what it did to him who is to say they did or are doing it to someone else.
They walked out of the apartment together and went down to the street. There Shouto kissed him on the cheek to say goodbye which made him blush a bit. Even after being married to the man since they were 25 he still never got those butterflies out of his stomach every time Shouto showed affection.
They split off and went in separate directions, Shouto towards their shared agency that they founded when they got married and Midoriya towards his old middle school.
As he walked he couldn’t help but let his mind wander. He’d be turning 30 soon, he would have been doing hero work for almost 10 years now. It was crazy to think that he used to be a little kid breaking his bones during his first year at U.A. and now he is a full-fledged hero ranked 27th even though he is a twilight hero. Being ranked so high had its perks but also its downfalls. One being that people now recognized him and came up to him for autographs.
Being a plain looking person in his opinion made it baffling to him that he could no longer go under the radar. He guesses that his hair doesn’t help, he cut it after one to many missions made it hard to see. The shaved sides of his head, in the style of an undercut, held his unruly green hair at the top, just one more aspect of him that makes him more noticeable now.
Even with the people that stopped him periodically for autographs he still made it to Aldera way quicker than he liked.
Classes hadn’t started yet so he could see the middle schoolers all around the school. Almost all of them were using their quirk in some type of way, either to show off to friends or just because they could.
‘Mark one for Aldera’. He thought, as he took photos of the unlicensed quirk usage.
Suddenly the bell rang and all the students scrambled to get to class, almost looking like the rats from that one scene in the pre-quirk era movie Ratatouille.
Midoriya walked into the school calmly, he looked around at the grounds and the school itself seeing how much had changed. Disappointingly almost nothing had, it's the same grounds, the same building, the same people that let most of his childhood be a living hell. As he walked into the lobby he walked up to the receptionist and cleared his throat expectantly.
The lady didn’t even spare him a glance, “If you are here for a kid you need to set up an appointment.” After that she practically dismissed him.
“Ma’am I’m not a parent.” When the lady finally looked up at him. It looked like it took a second for her to recognize him before she started apologizing profusely.
“I’m so sorry! I didn’t know you would be visiting here today! What do you need?”
“I’m here to get a tour of the school and see the students?” Midoriya questioned the lady.
“Right! We will get on that right now.” She turned back to her computer and about a minute later she looked back at Midoriya, “Someone should be here in a few minutes to give you a tour around the school.”
Midoriya walked around the lobby and as he looked around he saw a wall of pamphlets all promoting quirk help. They had lines like “Having trouble with your quirk? No problem! Just come by the Quirk Counselor office to ask for help” and others of the like. It was almost sad how nothing had changed in regards to how the school saw children and quirks.
After looking at almost all of the pamphlets and taking photos of them a woman walked into the room and spoke, “Ah! Hero Deku! It’s an honour to have you at our school, I am vice principal Yakamura Yui and I will be showing you around the school and some of our brightest prospects for heroes to be.” Her sickly sweet tone was almost nauseating.
“Please just call me Midoriya.” He didn’t want his hero name being spoken by someone who worked for a school like this.
He followed the woman as she took him around the school that he would never be able to forget. He still remembers the best places to hide from bullies when they would come after him.
She took him to a nondescript door and knocked. Midoriya looked through the window on the door and saw exactly what he expected, a whole bunch of middle schoolers firing off their quirks in the class and the teacher doing nothing about it.
‘Mark two’. He thought, taking out his phone discreetly to not alert the vice principal and taking more photos.
The teacher walked over to the door and spoke to the class as he opened the door for Midoriya and the vice principal. “Everyone, we have a very special guest today.” Midoriya waved to the class as they all clambered and yelled about a rank 27 pro hero being in their class.
After a solid 5 minutes of this the teacher finally went to calm the class down enough to be able to speak again.
“Alright everyone settle down, you will each stand up when it's your turn and say your name and quirk.”
At that point Midoriya zoned out and started thinking about all the charges Aldera would be charged with once he had given all the evidence he had collected right now to the police.
It is then that he notices a little kid at the back of the class, they were looking out the window. It reminded him of himself back when he used to do the same thing to get away from everything. The teacher looked back to Midoriya and said “That is everyone.”
Confused Midoriya questioned, “Who are they?” And pointed to the student looking out the window.
The kid looked around, seeming to only realize now that other people were in the room. When their gaze landed on Midoriya their eyes were dull, but there was a fire behind them that Midoriya knew very well since he himself had that same fire within him at their age.
“Nobody important.” The teacher dismisses.
“Nobody important?” Midoriya repeated. “Wow that amazing” he walked up to the kid and crouched down to be at eye level with them. “Did you know that in all my time as a hero I’ve never met anyone who wasn’t important before.”
The student looked close to tears as Midoriya stood up and asked, “Hey kid, what’s your name?”. The teacher and vice principal try to tell him that they were no one and not worth his time but he just ignored them.
The kid looked up at Midoriya and in a very confident tone said “Hitama Kouma''. Midoriya turned to the vice principal and said in a tone that offered no room for argument “This kid will be my student from now on”.
The kid looked up at him in shock and said in a small voice, almost a whisper “But I’m quirkless”. He looked back down at the kid and in the same tone as when he spoke to the vice principal said. “Kid quirks aren’t everything, they are just a tool” and in a quieter voice he continues, “do you want to know a secret?” The kid nodded their head fervently. “I was exactly where you are now once” he turned back to the teacher and principal and spoke louder. “I used to go here, it’s not surprising you don’t remember me since when I was here I was quirkless just like Hitama”.
The entire class looked at him in shock and disbelief. “For 14 years of my life I was quirkless” He continued, “and I learned a lot from that. I learned that not all men are created equal and that some can and will push you down. I remember walking these halls running from bullies who wanted to ‘put me in my place’, I remember seeing teachers turn a blind eye, I remember what it was like to feel powerless. My quirk now does not change what happened then, but it can change what happens now.”
Midoriya looked directly at the vice principal and the teacher and stated as clear as day. “You should probably start looking for a new job because from what I see you are not fit to be educators.” Midoriya looked back to his new student, “Come on kid, you are not staying here any longer”. Midoriya walked to the door as the kid scrambled behind him to get their stuff and follow.
After they left the school Midoriya finally processed what he just did. Oh shit I just kidnapped a kid! Speaking of said kid they were looking up at him with a look in their eyes, like they wanted to ask him something.
“What’s up kid? Looks like you want to ask me something.”
The kid startled and blurted out what had been on their mind “Can someone quirkless be a hero?” That sentence brought out a big sense of nostalgia and bad feelings. He will not let this kid feel the same way he feels now when hearing that sentence.
“I won’t lie kid, it will be hard and you will be at a disadvantage but yes I do think someone like you, someone quirkless, can be a hero.”
At those words it seemed the floodgates that the kid had been desperate to hold back finally fell and the kid let out a giant sob. “Thank you” they said in the most broken tone Midoriya had ever heard.
Once he was able to calm the kid down some he had to ask them a very important question, “Hitama” they looked up at him “I have a very important question to ask you and I need you to be completely honest with me, can you do that?” The kid nodded after a second of hesitation.
“Are you safe at home?”
At that the kid stopped in his tracks. They seemed to contemplate something before their face turned determined, they looked back up at him and in a shaky but firm force said “No”.
With that admission Midoriya immediately pulled out his phone and called his favourite detective. The line rang for a bit before the call picked up, “What is it now Midoriya?” Midoriya laughed. “Come on now Tsukauchi, I'm not that bad.” The line was quiet. “Ok maybe I am that bad. But that not the point right now, I got a case for you, child abuse.” At that Tsukauchi went into what he liked to call ‘work mode’ “Name and place of residence?” Midoriya put the phone to his chest and turned to the kid “What’s your address?” The kid replied “XXX Mustafa.”
Midoriya went back to the call, “Kid's name is Hitama Kouma and they live at XXX Mustafa.” Midoriya could hear typing on the other end of the line, then it stopped and Tsukauchi spoke again, “Police and a social worker will be at their door in 20 minutes. Got a place for the kid to stay in the meantime?”
Midoriya chuckled, “Well I haven’t cleared it with Shouto yet. I thought calling you first would be best but I was thinking that they could stay with me.” Next to him the kid almost fell at how surprised they were. “Alright.” The detective said. “If you need anything else or anything new comes up just called back.” In the background Midoriya could just barely hear him mutter, “This kid is going to kill me one day with the amount of paperwork he makes me do.”
Midoriya chuckled as he hung up the phone and looked down at the kid. “You’re really going to take me in?” They ask in an uncertain voice.
“Yes.” Midoriya responded with as much conviction as he could muster (which was a lot), “Well as long as my husband says yes.” That comment seemed to have raised multiple questions in the kid but he just raised a finger and said “Later.” The kid nodded.
After a surprisingly short call with Shouto, he and the kid were now walking to the kid house to get his things. The kid's voice raises up from beside him startling him slightly, though he didn’t show it, “Why did you help me? Why are you still helping me?”
Midoriya looked at the kid sadly, knowing that he too once felt the same way they did, “Because you needed saving and I’m a hero. Also what I said back at the school still stands, you remind me of me, sad, scared, alone, but so full of determination and potential. I kind of know how my old teacher feels now when he looks at me, cause I feel the same when I look at you.” He chuckled slightly at the thought of Aizawa-sensei (though the man told him to just call him Aizawa now since he wasn’t his teacher anymore. Midoriya never complied).
The kid's eyes widened and they stared at Midoriya.
“You good kid?” They nodded, still staring at him. After a couple minutes of walking without any conversation Midoriya started one up again.
“Got any questions for me? Better get them all out now.”
They started jumping on their feet in excitement and fired off questions one after another. “Whose your husband? Are they a pro hero too? Did you really go to Aldera too? Were you actually quirkless? Are you-“
“Kid”
“Do you know that one fight-“
“Hitama”
“And what about-”
“KUOMA”
The kid looked up at him in fright for a second and Midoriya thinks he messed up big with that but then the kid relaxed and looked at him expectantly.
“You need to take a breath every once in a while, kid. My husband is the Pro Hero Shouto, so yes he is obviously a hero, I did go to Aldera and yes for 14 years of my life I was thought to be quirkless.”
Hitama looked up at Midoriya again with a shocked expression on their face and whispered, almost unheard, to the hero, “You actually listened and didn’t tell me to be quiet.” The awe in their voice almost broke Midoriya, was he really like this too at one point? This just went to show how much he must have grown from that powerless kid he once was.
“Hitama-“
“Call me Kouma, I don't really want to be associated with my parents anymore, besides I’m living in your house now right?”
This kid was going to be the death of him he swears.
“Right well Kouma I just want you to know that no matter what I'll always listen and I’ll never tell you to stop talking about something you’re passionate about.”
It was at this time that they finally made it to Kouma’s house. The police were outside escorting a man and woman, presumably Kouma’s parents, off property. Midoriya and Kouma walked up to the door to the house and stepped into it. Midoriya followed the kid as they walked to their room. When Midoriya got a look in the room he was floored, there was barely anything in it, just a small bed, a desk with nothing on it and a wardrobe. There was nothing on the walls, the room had no personality almost as if no one actually lived in it.
“When you get your stuff settled at our place we are going out to buy you decorations.”
Kouma looked back at him with a panicked look on their face, “I can’t ask you to do that! You’ve already done so much for me, I don’t need anything else.”
Midoriya walked up to the kid and put a hand on their shoulder, making sure to telegraph his movements knowing that it always helped him when he was younger. “This is non negotiable Kouma, you barely have anything here. If it still bothers you so much just think of it as my treat.”
With that Kouma reluctantly nodded and went back to packing their little amount of possessions.
After what was definitely not enough time to pack a whole room Kouma said that they were finished with everything. There was only one bag in Kouma’s hand, Midoriya promised himself that that would change soon.
They left the house and started on their way to Midoriya and Shouto’s appartement. The walk was quiet but not uncomfortably so, it was nice. When they finally got to the front of the apartment building Midoriya motioned for Kouma to follow him.
They went to the front of the door to their appartement and Midoriya took out his keys and opened it. Midoriya stepped in the appartement but stopped when he noticed Kouma was not following him in.
When he turned back to look at Kouma the sight he saw would stay in his mind forever.
The kid was looking at him with the brightest smile he had ever seen and said, “Thank you.”
It might not have been what he set out to do today but he can’t be mad that he met the kid. His family had grown one larger and he wouldn’t have had it any other way.
How Midoriya looks:
