Work Text:
Eraser Head:
“— and that—”
SMACK.
“— and that, class, is—”
SMACK.
“— is why accidental quirk usage in public—”
SMACK SMACK SCMACK.
Shouta sighed long-sufferingly. “Midoriya,” he said as he looked down at his favorite least favorite student. What are you doing?”
Midoriya was currently sitting on the ground in front of Shouta, his hands tangled in his teacher’s capture weapon. He had been batting at the loose strands for the better part of ten minutes, and Shouta could only keep his patience for so long.
“Playing.”
“Why? Why with my weapon?”
“Because it fights back!”
Shouta sighed longer and louder. “That’s because it’s not a simple piece of ribbon like most cat toys. My capture weapon is a special mixture of cloth and alloys to allow for maximum strength, flexibility, and durability. It can only be controlled by me, as it has a biological component. It’s a scientific and engineering masterpiece, it’s not to be used as a toy.”
“It’s a really wonderful toy.”
“It’s expensive, problem child.”
“A high quality toy.”
“I will expel you if you don’t return to your seat.”
Midoriya batted at it one more time. “But will you?”
He wouldn’t. Midoriya knew this. Shouta knew this. The entire class knew this. He had to keep up appearances and at least try to fight it. He wasn’t sure why he even tried at this point; everyone knew that he was going soft.
“Fine. I’ll buy a leash for Bakugou and I to use at our discretion.”
Midoriya’s ear twitched. He had been fighting back against the whole leash thing since he was a child. His mother was always on the fence about it, she didn’t like the image of using a leash on her child, but she also understood that he was… difficult to deal with on the best of days. She had given both Bakugou and Shouta permission to do whatever necessary to keep Midoriya in line and safe.
“… fine.” Midoriya stood up, pouting. He glanced back at his teacher every few seconds as he made his way to his seat in the back of the class. He hoped that at some point he would change his mind, but he didn’t. He sat on top of his desk, legs crossed and tail hanging low.
With his problem student finally at his desk, Shouta released the breath he had been holding. It took every ounce of his willpower to not submit to the cat-boy’s desires. He honestly didn’t mind that he had been playing with his capture weapon, his own cats did it very often. He had to put an end to it because it was distraction for the other students, especially the ones with already short attention spans.
Shouta was only so strong. “Midoriya, if you manage to pay attention for the entire class period, I will let you play with my capture scarf during your Heroics class.”
It’s not like they learned anything useful with All Might anyway, right?
All Might:
“… why is young Midoriya tangled in Eraser Head’s capture weapon?”
The students looked between Midoriya and Eraser Head. Eraser Head was currently dancing the capture weapon around Midoriya’s head while he attempted to catch the various loose ends. His legs and tail were tangled, but it seemed that the young boy was unaware.
“Is that… is that really the only question you have?” Ashido asked. “You’re not gonna ask why Mr. Aizawa is playing with him?”
Toshinori looked over at his coworker. Seeing him like this was… unnerving. Toshinori was used to Aizawa glaring at anything and anyone. That, or he was sleeping. But seeing him like this? Grimacing Smiling? Playing with a student that was the embodiment of sunshine and kittens?
It was terrifying.
“Well now… uhm… I feel as if it isn’t my place to… question my coworkers on their teaching techniques.”
The disbelief of the students was almost tangible.
“Well, is there an answer?”
“Mr. Aizawa promised that he could play with his capture weapon if he paid attention for the entire class,” Kirishima said. “He did it… somehow.” Kirishima obviously didn’t mean it in a bad or mean way, but Midoriya wasn’t known for his attention span. He was simply saying what everyone was thinking, even Kaminari.
“That… that’s rather impressive,” Toshinori said softly. At least, quietly enough so the mentioned student wouldn’t hear.
That is, if the mentioned student didn’t have a cat mutation quirk and could easily hear everything.
“Hey!” Midoriya looked up from where he was on the ground, wrapped up like a mummy. “I have an amazing attention span!”
“No, you don’t.”
“Nope.”
“You have a worse attention span than Kaminari.”
“Nah, sorry bro.”
“You’re just lying to yourself.”
“… now, now students. I think he gets the point. No need for everyone to gang up against him,” Toshinori said as he tried to regain control. “Anyway, let’s get started! We’ll be doing a rescue race today!”
The class groaned in unison. “Really? Again? We already did that last week!”
“It’s important to continue building these skills! They’re vital for heroes.”
Aizawa narrowed his eyes from where he was on the side. While Toshinori had been talking, he freed Midoriya from his capture weapon cocoon. “You’re making them do a rescue race because you couldn’t come up with a new lesson plan, didn’t you?”
Toshinori started to panic. “Wh-What? Of course not! I just think that… that the students should get more practice with rescuing citizens!”
Aizawa’s eyes narrowed more.
“… let’s get started!”
Toshinori began to herd his students towards the course that he had created for them. All things considered; it was rather impressive. He had clearly spent time in setting it up for them. But honestly? The students didn’t care. They had done this same exercise with their teacher multiple times.
It was clearly a go to, just like the battle trials.
Everyone was divvied up into teams and happily chatted while they waited for Toshinori to tell them the specifics of the exercise.
“Alright students! There are various dummys hidden around Ground Beta in dire need of rescuing. Each team will send out one member at a time to rescue one of the dummys. Once you have one, bring it back here safely and the next team member—”
Sniff.
Sniff.
Sniff Sniff Sniff.
“… young Midoriya, what are you doing?”
“You smell weird,” he said as he sniffed the air around his teacher. “You smell like someone else I know.”
Toshinori took a cautious step back. “… okay? Can you stop?”
“I need to figure out who you smell like!”
Under normal circumstances, this would have been unusual and strange in all social situations, but this wasn’t a normal social situation. Any social situation including Midoriya was unusual. Class 1-A was very used to his shenanigans and quirks by now. In fact, they often encouraged them.
“What does he smell like Mido?” Kaminari asked. He was genuinely curious but did also want class to be delayed. “Describe it.”
“It’s salty and sour? But also, fruity? It’s very confusing.”
A few of the students pulled out note pads. “Okay, can you decipher any individual notes?”
Sniff. Sniff. SNIIIIIIIIIFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF.
“I… I smell beef. He smells like beef?”
Pens started to scratch as they wrote. “Okay, that explains the salty, but not the sour or the fruity. Well… not unless he ate like… a sour and fruity steak? But that’s gross.”
“Okay, so… we have beef? What does he eat a lot that would leave the smell of beef?”
“Meat buns! I saw him at a corner store eating meat buns after one of his fights!”
“Meat buns have been added to the list,” Kaminari said. “Continue, Midoriya.”
Sniff Sniff Sniff. Sniff.
“Okay okay… I can smell something fruity, but it’s real specific. It’s not just one fruit, it also has some spicy undertones… I think it’s cologne?” Midoriya took in a large breath of Eau de All Might. “If I’m correct… I think it’s one of the David Shield brand colognes… I think it’s #5 The Scent of Freedom.”
“Yeah, that checks out. I’m not surprised,” Ashido said with a laugh.
“Eraser Head, are you got going to do anything about this? They refuse to start their lesson!” Toshinori looked to his colleague for help.
Alas, Aizawa was looking at the students with genuine interest. “They’re not my problem during your class. Besides, I want to know just how bad you smell.”
“Meat buns, David Shield Cologne #5 The Scent of Freedom… what else? That can’t be it. We have the salty and the fruity.”
“Come on Mido-bro! You got this!”
Midoriya took in one last deep breath. “Blood and sweat. Like… some major BO going on. After that, I think he uses bad quality 3 in 1 shampoo”
The class cheered as the rest of the list was filled out.
“Damn,” Kaminari said in amazement. “This dude really smells bad for a number one hero.”
The rest of the class murmured their agreements. A few students could be heard talking about how they were planning on selling this Certified Hot Gossip to HeroWatch.
He knew this class would go nowhere, just like every other class he tried to teach.
“At least pretend to participate, alright?”
A few students snickered. “I don’t listen to people that use 3 in 1 unironically.”
Toshinori sighed. At least young Midoriya didn’t figure out his true identity?
“You smell like Mr. Yagi!”
There goes his identity.
Present Mic:
Hizashi had come to accept that class 1-A would be… an interesting bunch. They were very amusing, don’t get him wrong. But… they could be a bit much at times. Just this once, his class was going well. The students were paying attention and sitting quietly.
It was going well… until it wasn’t.
EUCH.
HURK.
EUCH.
“… Midoriya? Are you okay?”
The mentioned student was in his seat, gagging badly. Hizashi had just walked past, helping students as they worked on a worksheet. All he had done was walk past, nothing more and nothing less.
“You— hurk— you smell like— euch— you smell worse than All Might.”
Hizashi… Hizashi took offense to that. “L-Little Listener?! What the heck dude?” He had smelled All Might before. Not on purpose, but that dude had a personal stink cloud around him. The man used 3 in 1 for Pete’s sake! Hizashi showered regularly and used the best he could reasonably afford (his hair didn’t look this good using liquid garbage).
Bakugou raised an eyebrow. “Worse than All Might? You must be on something Deku.” Bakugou took a tiny sniff. “He just smells like oranges. Why oranges?”
“It’s my new cologne…”
“Well, that’s your problem. Cats can’t stand the scent of citrus. I use citrus spray to keep the idiot out of my stuff.”
Hizashi stared at the blankly, Midoriya gagging in the background. “Seriously?”
“Seriously,” Bakugou said with a smirk. He was clearly very amused. “Only way to get him to stop gagging is for you to walk away.”
Hizashi took a few steps away. With each step he took Midoriya gagged less.
Dammit.
“Well… that’s about 8000 yen down the drain…”
HURK.
“Oh, come on! I’m on the other side of the room now!” Hizashi was starting to get desperate. There were a few sympathetic gaggers in the room. Every gag Midoriya made, they would gag in return. He was honestly getting close to vomiting just at the sound. “Okay okay. Bakugou, please take him to Recovery Girl’s office. I can’t have all of my students vomiting.”
Hizashi gagged.
“Alright. Let’s go Deku,” Bakugou said as he helped the boy to his feet. As they walked to the door, they went right past Hizashi.
Midoriya turned to his teacher. “S-Sorry Mr.—”
There’s vomit. On his shoes.
Vomit.
- HIS. SHOES.
“It… It’s okay Little Listener,” Hizashi said through the pain. “Just… go to the office.”
The poor boy nodded pathetically before being shuffled away by Bakugou.
He vomited on his own shoes before the door even closed.
Nezu:
Nezu knew how humans worked pretty well. He knew exactly how they would react to certain stimuli and certain situations. Humans were complicated and simple at the same time.
All humans were easy to understand… except for Izuku Midoriya. Nezu was sitting in on a class, just to see how the teaching styles of the different teachers varied. He was in the middle watching a modern literature lesson taught by Cementoss when everything started to go wrong.
Midoriya was staring at him. Intensely. The kind of intensity that a predator uses when stalking its prey. He wasn’t scared per say… but he was uncomfortable. He squirmed a bit in his seat.
Soon enough, the two were locked into a staring competition.
Nezu always tried to make his presence unnoticeable when watching a class. He didn’t want to distract the teacher or the students, he wanted to watch them as they would naturally interact. But that didn’t happen this time. This time, everyone began to watch him and Midoriya.
Staring.
Neither stopped staring.
“Uh… Mr. Ishiyama? Should you do something about that?”
Cementoss turned towards his students and took in the sight before him. He looked between his boss and his student. He was very unsure as to what he should do.
“Uhm… I’m sure Principal Nezu has it handled…”
Yaoyorozu looked between the two of them, very unsure. “I don’t know… it looks like Midoriya wants to eat him…”
Bakugou sighed and let his head drop onto his desk heavily. “Just assert your dominance, you rat bastard.”
Nezu kept staring. Assert him dominance? He had never had to do that before, at least, not in this type of situation. He was normally able to assert his dominance with his intelligence and by underhandedly belittling those around him.
He had never dealt with a natural predator like this.
“… alright.”
Without looking, he reached into his bag. He felt around for the container he had brought for his snack and opened it. The students near him tried to look in the container, just to see what he would use to “assert dominance.”
“I hear that Midoriya doesn’t like citrus, just like most cats. Correct?”
“Yes… but please don’t bring out any citrus, he already vomited like three times today from citrus!”
“Oh no no no, don’t worry. I don’t have citrus,” Nezu said lightly as he pulled out a piece of sliced vegetable. “What I do have is cucumber.”
Without any particular grace or power, Nezu chucked the piece of cucumber at his student.
The effect was instantaneous. Midoriya immediately began to hiss, backing away from the slice. He seemed torn between pushing it away from himself and being scared of touching it. It was rather amusing.
“Stay back you foul beast!” He threw another slice.
And another.
And another.
And another.
Midoriya was soon backed into a corner, cowering away from the vile cucumber that surrounded him. He looked rather pathetic, but no one felt particularly bad. Everyone was laughing too hard to feel sympathetic for him.
“I have more where that came from. I am not your prey. Behave yourself or I’ll get more cucumber,” he threatened happily. “Now, I believe Mr. Ishiyama has a class to teach?”
Cementoss was visibly unnerved as he began to teach again. He glanced back at his cowering student from time to time, but soon fell back into the rhythm of his teaching.
Midoriya was rescued from the vile cucumber only after Nezu had left.
Nezu made sure to write some… personal notes in Izuku Midoriya’s file. Just for future reference.