Chapter Text
Izuku starts the day vibrating in excitement, hurrying to get ready for his second day at UA. Today, he is going to be given a new schedule to help him out with All Might's his quirk, it's his quirk now—it's going to take a while for him to get used to that, actually having a quirk. Having the exact thing that people hated him for not having for an entire decade. He takes a deep breath, trying to calm himself down. He will learn to make this quirk his own. Izuku hoped All Might would be a better mentor seeing as he has had literal decades of experience in dealing with this quirk, but his teaching skills...leave something to be desired, so Aizawa-sensei would be the next best bet! (He still very much likes All Might as a hero, but he didn't get into UA to become a hero that breaks himself every time he wants to save someone, he is tired of hurting himself to please others).
Izuku leaves his house after his mom attempts to smother him with her hug, saying how proud she was of him and to tell her his new schedule when he comes back home (some part of him feels bitter that just because he has a quirk now, his mom is now so supportive as opposed to before he had a quirk—what's next, his long lost absentee father shows up?). Izuku shakes his head to get rid of the bitter thoughts, so what his mom didn't believe in him before he had gotten his quirk—at least she believes in him now, most people don't have a mom like he does, so he should get over it.
He walks towards the train station that will take him near UA and does some breathing exercises that he's seen online to ease his anxiety-filled thoughts.
When he finishes, he pastes a smile on his face and steps onto the train, almost dizzy with anticipation to see what today has in store for him.
He steps into the classroom with ten minutes to spare, he doesn't see Aizawa-sensei's yellow sleeping bag anywhere so he heads towards his desk quickly avoiding Kacchan. It's only the second day of school, he hopes that Kacchan doesn't try anything, so he doesn't have to see if his new classmates will be anything like his old ones.
Soon after he settles into his seat, the door slides open and Aizawa-sensei shuffles in, yellow sleeping bag in one hand, the other hand is quickly moved into his pocket. The class quickly grows quiet as the man moves to the podium. He takes a remote out of his pocket and clicks it. A projector screen drops down over the chalkboard. As the screen boots on, a slide titled 'Intro to Hero Ethics' appears.
Izuku is quite excited for this presentation and he quickly pulls out a notebook and pencil while muttering internally about what they might learn. His classmates with the exception of a few individuals, all groan at the thought of doing normal school things during their time at a Hero School. Honestly, Izuku wasn't sure what they were thinking. Heroes need an education too.
The following classes are only interesting because of the Hero teachers, even though Izuku is still mildly distrusting of authority figures. The distrust kind of dulls (does it?) when Present Mic walked in to teach English; when Cementoss started teaching Modern Literature, even when Midnight started teaching Modern History. He wanted to ask them questions about their quirks to write it down in his current Hero Analysis for the future Vol. 14 notebook (since Vol. 13 was rendered useless, take a swan dive off of the roof—), but didn't want to disturb them, so he looked over his new schedule instead.
Aizawa-sensei handed it to him when his class was over and he didn't get a chance to look at it because he got distracted when Present Mic walked into the classroom.
It looked like Foundational Heroics (well, the practical part) was going to be off of his schedule for the foreseeable future and replaced with Quirk Counseling. Honestly, he almost forgot why All Might didn't recommend him to go to Quirk Counseling—his quirk had to seem natural, couldn't let anyone catch on. However, when Izuku thought about it, why couldn't he tell Aizawa the truth? It's his quirk now, well almost. He feels like until he could control One for All, it doesn't exactly fit well with his body and he needs to make it, he refuses to go back to being a Quirkless nobody.
The class door slams open, startling Izuku out of his thoughts. He looks up just in time to see All Might run in.
"I am...COMING THROUGH THE DOOR LIKE A NORMAL PERSON!" Although his entrance was anything but normal, the class goes wild with excitement anyways.
"All Might is really teaching us?!"
"Is that his Silver Age costume? Or Bronze Age?"
Izuku lips twitch as he hears the rambunctious clamoring of his classmates. Although he has been having mixed feelings towards All Might since his meeting with Aizawa (that may be the feeling of finally seeing what a semi-proper authority figure looks like), he is still ecstatic to see him (that may be the hero worship talking) since he won't be participating with his classmates.
This is something his classmates figure out when All Might pushes a button on a remote that reveal cases with their supposed hero costumes are and his is nowhere to be found after they gathered their cases (he is mildly confused to see that Kacchan's case number doesn't match his seat number like everyone else's, then he notices that the number has been switched with the cheerful, red head which makes Izuku breathe a sigh of relief at the implied seat change).
When asked Izuku stutters out that he has supplementary classes to help get his quirk under control. Iida (the only name that he remembers besides Kacchan and the nice girl, Uraraka) loudly exclaims something about him being glad that Izuku is working to become a great hero, while he basks in (read: is flustered by) the compliment, Izuku spies a classmate looking at him as if contemplating something. He realizes this is the classmate is the one who sits in the first seat with a heavy French accent and a quirk that hurts their stomach. Maybe they should get supplementary classes as well?
All Might says his bit and his classmates are doing Battle Trials, it would be best for him to sit this one out. His French classmate glances back at him with a glint in their eyes, although it was not showing on their face, Izuku can see the envy and anxiety.
And Izuku would not truly be Izuku if he did not meddle.
So after he arrives to Gym Delta where he is supposed to meet his quirk counselor and homeroom teacher—who knew that Aizawa-sensei was a licensed quirk counselor, although it makes since with his quirk and all—he brings up the fact that there may be other students in the class whose quirks may hurt them.
As he is stretching according to Aizawa-sensei's instructions, Aizawa-sensei asks what he should do about it. Despite asking, it was, in fact, a rhetorical question, at least to Izuku's understanding it was.
"They've had 10 years to get their quirks under control while you have had less than 2 months."
And yes, Aizawa-sensei makes sense, however, Izuku feels like this is a societal matter and not a personal one. Who knows if they had a good quirk counselor or not while growing up or if they could afford them? School is a place to learn even if it's teaching us how to use our quirks all over again.
Aizawa-sensei looks at Izuku with raised eyebrows as Izuku unthinkingly rambles while doing butterfly stretches. When Izuku finishes his rant, he flushes because he did not just ramble on and try to tell a teacher how to do their job.
"I am so sorr-!"
"You made some good points. I'll take use of tomorrow's Foundational Hero Studies class to help you all learn how to properly use your quirks. It'll replace rescue training." Izuku looks at his sensei with wide, slightly teary eyes because this is the second time, the second time that Aizawa-sensei had listened to him. Feeling slightly uncomfortable under his stare, Aizawa clears his throat to get Izuku to stop staring. "Now finish stretching so we can get started."
Izuku quickly unfolds his legs out of the butterfly stretch and begins to stretch his hamstrings with a fervor. After completing his last sets of stretches, which included the evil that is toe touches and Izuku is barely flexible.
"Yagi has already told me the situation with your quirk." Is what first comes out of Aizawa-sensei's mouth and although Izuku was planning to tell him anyways, it still startles him. Who is Yagi and why does he know about my quirk?
"Yagi?" Izuku questions, glad he was still sitting because he was sure that he would have fallen if he had been standing. Aizawa-sensei groans and pinches the bridge of his nose in annoyance. Izuku still flinches even though the action wasn't directed towards him.
"He hasn't even- ugh. All Might. Yagi Toshinori is All Might's name." Hearing the name from someone else and not from his mentor himself makes Izuku feel...yucky, for a lack of a better word. Not that Aizawa-sensei is bad! It's just that...All Might didn't trust Izuku enough to tell him, so he had to find out from another party.
"Oh." Is all he says to Aizawa-sensei, looking down at his hands. Perfectly normal hands, with calluses from picking up different things from Dogabah beach. Looking at them, Izuku feels like they shouldn't be this way, so straight and unmarred, but Aizawa-sensei clears his throat so he looks up at him and accidentally makes eye contact so he looks at his ear instead.
"Anyways, so I already know about your quirk and from his description it's basically just a bunch of energy that you control to make yourself stronger, right?" Aizawa-sensei asks which makes Izuku pause. Well, when he puts it like that, it's much simpler than I made it out to be. Sure enough, he is an amazing quirk counselor!
"That sounds about right." Izuku settles for saying instead. Aizawa-sensei quirks an eyebrow at his sheepish look before continuing.
"So for people with quirks like yours that deal with an excess amount of energy, we usually have them meditate to find the source of said energy." Aizawa-sensei gestures towards him and then points to a corner filled with colorful cushions and other hero-themed soft toys from what Izuku could see. When did that get there— "Now, I would usually be dealing with 4-10 year olds who have trouble controlling their quirks, but you and anyone else who would get this quirk after you would be exceptions. I would have bought other things, but I figured you wouldn't mind those childish toys."
He's not wrong, but did he really need to say it outloud—
"Yes, now get over there." Aizawa-sensei replies, startling a, now, embarrassed Izuku, who squeaks and quickly makes his way over to the comfy corner.
He quickly plops down on the cushions, nearly falling over for a second before quickly righting himself before Aizawa-sensei could notice. Why am I such a mess? Get it together, Izuku! Remember like everyone else basically says, your anxiety isn't real!
Izuku sits up straighter, folding his legs into the standard meditative position that he sees most often on TV. When done he looks up at Aizawa-sensei with contemplation.
"You are too tense, Midoriya. Meditation is about relaxing and looking deep into yourself, you're not being thrown into a fight." Although criticism is something that Izuku fears with a passion, he understands, as dread crawls up his throat, that this is something that he needs to learn in order to be able to use One for All properly. He reigns in his emotions under Aizawa-sensei's seemingly looming stare as he tries to relax. He tries, he really does, but years of fearing for his well-being or his property has trained him to always be alert and to never let his guard down because he is just a useless, quirkless Deku.
These instincts have been engraved into his brain for close to a decade, how could he relax that easily?
He thought he was over this; he was at a new school with new teachers (Pro-hero teachers, at that!!), a new quirk and even new friends (possibly). So, why can't he get over the past?
Is it because his main tormentor is still around? Or does he subconsciously still believe that he has not changed whatsoever? That he will always be worthless?
"Midoriya, breathe with me. In and out. 1, 2, 3. Keep going." Is what Izuku suddenly hears over the cotton that had seemed to be stuck in his brain. Where was he again? Oh yeah with Aizawa-sensei...he had a panic attack in front of Aizawa-sensei! "You were doing good, Midoriya, keep going! Keep breathing with me."
Izuku opens his eyes, confused as to when he closed them. He wipes the tears that have left him and sniffles quietly. Aizawa-sensei breathes in a sigh of relief and stands up from where he had squatted down in front of him.
"Had me worried there, kid. You don't have to relax if you don't want to, but it'll make meditating harder."
Izuku shakes his head rapidly. He has to do this.
"N-no, I! I'll tr-try to rel-relax!" Before he could freak out about being disrespectful to a teacher, Izuku quickly made his body go limp (a tactic that he used to make bullies stop beating him after a while). He started to think about things that made him happy. My notebooks, Quirks, mom's katsudon, getting a limited edition All Might figure, helping people.
As he thought about the things that made him happy (rainy days, that one oversized hoodie—), Izuku felt himself start to relax after who knows how long. The more he relaxed, the more weight he felt lifting off of his shoulders. Is this how normal people feel all the time?
"Okay, Midoriya," He hears Aizawa-sensei voice over the cotton-y mess that his brain has become after it has relaxed for the first time in nearly 10 years. He hums in response to let his teacher know he's listening. It's a lazy little sound that makes him look and sound like one of Aizawa's many cats. If Aizawa didn't know any better, he'd think that his student was about to fall asleep. "I want you to look deep within yourself and see if you could find a ball of foreign energy, then I want you to slowly attempt to make contact with it. If anything goes wrong, I can stop it before you get hurt."
"Okay." Izuku mutters, feeling airy and like a liquid at the same time. Like he was being weighted down but like he could fly away at any moment, fortunately, he didn't. Concentrating so he could find any foreign energy within him, Izuku attempts to expand his consciousness to his body in order to find this, alleged, ball of energy.
For a few minutes, he's alone with his thoughts nothing but a bleak landscape in front of him before a dim light appears in the corner of his eyes. As he draws his attention to the light, it dances into his full view, beckoning him closer like a lighthouse to a ship in the middle of the sea. The bright prism of colors that made up the energy washed over him like a tentative, warm hug.
He reached out to it.
He burned.