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Izuku Midoriya had not, that he could remember, ever been happier than he was at UA. All he had ever wanted was to be a hero and, despite everything, that dream was coming true more and more every day. Not only that, he had friends. Actual good, genuine friends who liked to spend time with him and didn’t care that he was quirkless or an omega or sometimes couldn’t stop himself from muttering up a storm or talking their ears off about quirk analyses.
He had people he knew that would politely talk to him, other omegas who went to the same dojo as him who would ask about his day and chat, but there had always been a distance between him and them, almost always because he lacked a quirk. And no one at school would have dared to ever be that polite to him. But at UA, none of his classmates looked down at him in a truly negative way – he received comments, of course, expressing their disbelief at his strength or making tone-deaf comments about how commendable he was, doing the same work at a large disadvantage, but they came from places of ignorance instead of malice and had, by and large, stopped by the third time Izuku had sent someone sprawling in their heroics class.
Almost all of them greeted Izuku and treated him like an actual person, and not a genetic abnormality with a body stuck in the evolutionary past, and the ones closest to him - the ones he could, for the first time in a very long time, consider friends – actively sought him out and enjoyed his company. Uraraka and Iida, and then Tsu too and now, against all odds, Todoroki all liked him and treated him as an equal even though they knew he was not only quirkless, but also an omega. It was overwhelming, how happy that made him feel.
He knew he owed a great deal to Mr. Aizawa, for setting the standard that Izuku would be treated like any other student and that any and all discrimination was unacceptable. Izuku had teachers in the past who had said similar things – that discrimination was wrong and people should be accepted despite their differences and all other sorts of posterboard sayings that made people feel good to say, even if they actually meant very little – but not a single one of them had ever actually acted on their words. The closest had been Aldera putting their foot down on the physical bullying and even that had been done because they were afraid of how bad it would look for the administration to be seen allowing omegas to be mistreated and not because of Izuku’s personal well-being.
Mr. Aizawa, however, never failed to show up. Literally. He had been a shadowy presence behind All Might every single heroics class since Izuku had been excluded from the first, quietly watching to ensure Izuku was treated equally and stepping in whenever All Might had a misstep. He watched, like a hawk, for any misbehavior and was quick to correct or call out even the smallest of off comments. He even called out Kacchan whenever the boy’s words had gone too far.
It was no surprise to him, really, that it had been his friends and his teacher that were on his mind when he had begun baking over the weekend. Midnight too, he was incredibly touched by her advocacy for him during the festival; they all went alongside his mother and auntie and uncle and Master Aoki, and by the time his preheat was over and school was about to begin again, Izuku had easily doubled the amount of gifts he normally made.
He had been so happy, even through all the nerves and anxiety that the gifts wouldn’t be accepted – that was always devastatingly humiliating - when he had brought them all to school alongside the cookies he had made for the rest of the class. And watching everyone accept them, knowing his affection for his friends, even his newest one, was not unwelcome and even reciprocated, had been nothing short of euphoric.
Izuku truly had never been happier than he was surrounded by his friends with teachers that actually supported him, on his way to becoming a hero.
Which, he supposed, was why the universe had to send him crashing back down only the day after the elation of having his gifts all accepted.
Mr. Aizawa had, as promised, dropped folders containing everyone’s offers on their desks right before homeroom began, looking far more exhausted than even his usual. Izuku’s file had been slim, which was disappointing but not unexpected. He had known he had signed the possibility of any offers away when he had made the split-second decision to yell some sense into Todoroki’s head, but he still hoped he had done well enough that the forty agencies committed to taking on UA students would decide to accept him as well.
He had expected to open the folder to see a paper containing the names of all the agencies willing to have him and maybe some notes from Mr. Aizawa giving advice about each of them.
Instead, he was greeted by a single piece of white paper, bare except for a hastily scrawled “meet me after class” note in Mr. Aizawa’s still shaky writing. Izuku blinked quickly to keep his eyes dry as he hastily shut the folder before anyone else could see its contents, his heart plummeting alongside his hopes.
He had really thought he had at least done enough to gain the acceptance of the forty agencies; he’d made it to the semifinals of the Sports Festival and hadn’t even officially lost. He tied with Todoroki for just barely not making the podium. Yet, his folder was bare. What other reason could there be for a blank folder and a meeting with his homeroom teacher, than that all of the agencies had refused to work with him?
It didn’t matter, really, how much UA supported him and accepted him as a heroics student, if the rest of the world still couldn’t do the same.
Izuku fought back the desire to cry with every trick he had ever learned from his mother as everyone around him broke into excited chatter. He didn’t want to admit anything was wrong, didn’t want to show anyone the shame that was welling up within him, didn’t want to bring down any of his friends’ good cheer with the crushing weight of an all-too-familiar disappointment.
Maybe a UA teacher would have to intern him, in order for him to complete his graduation requirements, but the idea of being an unwanted burden on any of them made his stomach roll unpleasantly and brought a fresh sting to his eyes.
He had done everything he could and it still hadn’t been enough.
Unfair didn’t even begin to cover it.
“Today, we will be going over one of the most important decisions of your heroics career.” Mr. Aizawa’s voice, blessedly calm amongst the downward spiral that was Izuku’s thoughts, called out. Izuku hadn’t even realized the bell had rung. All around him, the excitement was replaced by an immediate tension. It was hard to tell, with Mr. Aizawa, whether he was about to put them into a serious, potentially life-altering training session or have them pick the colors they wanted the decorations for Parents’ Day to be. “You will be deciding your hero names. Midnight will be observing.”
Everyone but Izuku breathed a collective sigh of relief as their teacher sat back down, only to cry out in alarm when the door of their classroom burst open, revealing Midnight in all her beaming glory. Izuku hardly reacted though, and he listened with a half-hearted ear as Midnight cheerfully explained the importance of hero names and picking the right one.
It was hard to be excited about picking a name that no one in the world wanted him to use. Even as he accepted the marker and whiteboard Midnight had asked Shoji to pass out to everyone, he found himself unable to find the motivation to come up with a name.
When he had been very little, before he had found out he would never have a quirk, Izuku used to fill cheap, brightly colored, wide-lined training notebooks with sloppy, crooked hero name ideas that his mother helped him write. Small Might, Mini Might, Might Jr. – anything that paid homage to Izuku’s then-favorite hero had all been popular contenders. Others - Fire Master, Tele-Ku, Dragon Boy, Mr. Levitate – had been centered on what he thought his quirk might be, based on his parents’ quirks. After he had found out he was quirkless, he had stopped trying to come up with names for a while. His attempts had briefly resurged, after some time, but he gave up writing them down the third time Kacchan had found a page of half-constructed names and exploded them. And without the physical reminder of them, Izuku’s interest in picking a name had faded away.
He hadn’t thought of a name seriously in years and it was hard, incredibly hard, to find inspiration for a good one in the wake of his internship news. It wasn’t like he would need one, despite what Midnight said, when he wouldn’t even be able to find an agency to give him a chance.
Izuku stared at the blank white board and blinked away more tears before they could fall. All around him, markers were squeaking against boards as his classmates turned their aspirations into inspiration. They all had amazing quirks to play off of and in just a few days, heroes would be calling them those names, inviting them to one day be on equal footing as them.
Izuku wouldn’t have that; no matter where he went, most heroes would not accept him, not fully. He would forever be considered the weaker option, the frailer option, better at home than on the field where he could get hurt. No matter how far he went, no matter what he did, there would be people – a good majority of people – who would look at him and think feeble, vulnerable.
Useless.
Just like that, something snapped inside him. He uncapped his pen without a second thought and scrawled the damning word across his board in thick, unavoidable marker.
It was a reckless name, one that would almost assuredly get rejected, Izuku would probably regret it once he was in a better frame of mind, but in that moment, it felt right.
If all the world was going to see him as nothing more than a deku, than he would simply have to keep showing them what a deku could do.
The class, for once, had been utterly speechless when Izuku stood up to share his name. Even Midnight, who had already shot down Kacchan and Mina without hesitation, seemed too shocked for words. Izuku took their silence as his chance to explain.
“A-all my life, I’ve been thought of useless or weak because I didn’t have a quirk.” He couldn’t help but look down at the whiteboard, not quite willing to meet anyone’s eyes as he spoke. “I-I used to think of this name as an insult, and I hated hearing it which only made it more popular. I-I don’t think most of the other students in elementary even knew my actual first name, it was so common.” He could feel Kacchan’s gaze, weighted with the constant promise of violence, boring into him and forced himself to raise his head to meet it.
Kacchan had given him the name, years ago, and maybe Izuku picking it was a defiance against everyone in the world, but it was also about his old friend. It was about the toddler he played heroes with and huddled together among fuzzy blankets and comfortable scents to watch All Might movies, about the boy who had sneered at him and left him in the dust once life got a little more complicated.
It was a declaration, a demand that Kacchan pay attention to him the way Izuku had been watching him. A declaration for the other boy to watch him as he threw all the words back into his face.
“B-but,” declarations of war would be so much easier if Izuku could manage to not trip over his own words, ”r-recently, I’ve done a lot of things that the same people who called me Deku told me I could never do, and I’ve got friends now,” he took a moment then to glance at Uraraka, who was watching him with a brightness in her eyes that looked very similar to pride, “who call me the same thing but mean something completely different. Friends who think “You can do it!” instead of “you’re useless” and I want to be that hero. The one who people can look up to and think their dreams are possible too, that they can do what everyone said was impossible too.”
Perhaps it was cheesy, perhaps Izuku’s words weren’t saying what he needed them to say, perhaps no one in the class would understand. But they felt right to him; they didn’t erase the sting of disappointment or sadness the offers had brought him, but they lessened it and brought it back into a place that Izuku had control of.
People were going to call him useless no matter what he did, he might as well take control of the narrative as much as possible.
“Are you sure, Midoriya?” Midnight finally spoke, her words softer than he’d ever heard from her before and her face abnormally serious. “If it’s a negative word for you, it could affect your mental health to hear it all the time.” Izuku thought about it for a moment, before nodding. He had already heard it, over and over, for years of his life by people who meant to hurt him. It was past time to reclaim it and mold it into something new.
Midnight searched his face for another moment, looking like maybe she would say no or ask more questions if she saw even the slightest amount of doubt in his expression, before suddenly beaming and loudly declaring, “well then, let me introduce to everyone the newest hero of class 1-A, Deku!”
The class, even the ones who had seemed the most hesitant, cheered at that and even Kacchan had nothing to add as Izuku quickly made his escape back to his seat. He could feel the other boy’s heavy gaze stay on him even as Uraraka bounded forward to proudly display her name.
Izuku tried to act as though it didn’t matter; if Kacchan had a problem with Izuku reclaiming the name, he shouldn’t have started calling him it back in preschool. The reckless part of him, spurred on by the internships and years of degradation, urged him to thank Kacchan for giving him his hero name all the way back then, but the wiser, self-preserving part had him sinking just slightly in his chair to make himself harder to see.
Izuku could be daring, sometimes, but he knew purposely antagonizing Kacchan had never been good for his own wellbeing. And he had other concerns to worry about.
He spent the rest of the period trying his best to act excited for everyone as they came up with their names while his mind did it’s best to tug up all the worst possibilities Mr. Aizawa had to talk to him. He didn’t really believe that Mr. Aizawa would have no choice but to force him out of the program because no one wanted him as an intern, but the fear was still stubbornly wedged in the back of his mind, an aching, pulsing sore that he hid behind a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes as Kirishima excitedly shouted his thought process for his hero name.
The fear wouldn’t leave even as he watched more and more of his classmates stand up and reveal their names. Izuku tried really, really hard to be excited for them – the names everyone was coming up with sounded so cool and perfect for them! – but it was excruciating to think about how, by the end of the week, his friends would be using their names out on the field, being called them by actual, full-blown pro-heroes, maybe even by some civilians they’d meet and help. It wasn’t their fault, Izuku knew, and he was happy for them. But he could be happy for them and sad for himself at the same time.
He just couldn’t show them. His friends would have been outraged on his behalf, he was sure, Tsu and Todoroki in their quiet ways and Uraraka and Iida in their loud, but it wasn’t their problem to deal with and he couldn’t bring them or any of his other classmates down with him. Probably, Mr. Aizawa had a plan; he had enough trust in the man to know, logically, he wouldn’t leave Izuku to fend for himself in this situation. But, emotionally, Izuku couldn’t help but be afraid this was one situation Mr. Aizawa couldn’t change or make better.
So he kept a smile on his face as the last of the students displayed their names – Iida listlessly showing off his own first name had been mildly concerning but the look on his face seemed to make it clear he wouldn’t want to talk about it – and he tried his best to not look obviously upset when Midnight said her goodbyes and Mr. Aizawa rose from his sleeping bag to pierce Izuku with his sharp gaze.
“Midoriya, with me.” Izuku couldn’t help but let out a quiet squeak as everyone’s attention immediately swiveled onto him and he couldn’t help but duck his head down as he quickly stood up. “The rest of you get your English out. Mic will be here –“
“Hel-lloo little Listeners!” Present Mic’s voice was just barely not loud enough to drown out Mr. Aizawa’s tired sigh as he came barreling into the classroom.
“-now. Mic, stop trying to scream the whole school down, the kids are all right here.” Mr. Aizawa’s words were only met with a bright grin and finger guns, and he sighed again before continuing, “I’m borrowing Midoriya.”
“You got it, Eraser!” More finger guns and a tired eyeroll. Izuku knew Mina and Denki had a running bet on how long it would take before Mr. Aizawa finally snapped on Present Mic, convinced that the two diametrically opposed heroes must secretly hate each other, but he disagreed. There was never any malice in Mr. Aizawa’s words, no matter how sharp his tongue was – a courtesy that not every faculty member received unless Izuku had imagined all the times Mr. Aizawa’s tone had gotten downright scary when talking to All Might - and Present Mic always had a spark in his eye, hidden away by his tinted glasses, whenever he saw Mr. Aizawa.
Even on the memorable occasion when Mr. Aizawa had shut Present Mic’s quirk off because he had been trying to sleep and the other hero had been loudly and gleefully singing some American pop song off-key, neither had seemed truly angry. Izuku, although he refused to put any money on it both out of respect and fear for his teachers and because Iida would have never let it go, thought they were actually very close, probably at least friends since their days together as students at UA. Midnight too, Izuku was pretty sure, was close with Mr. Aizawa and Present Mic. He was fairly certain he had even seen Mr. Aizawa, one day that he had stayed late training and had to pass the teacher’s lounge to leave the school, hand Present Mic and Midnight some of his jelly packs while they graded together
Mr. Aizawa definitely didn’t seem the type to share his food with people he didn’t like.
Izuku was aware, in the back of his mind, that he was hyper-fixating on Mr. Aizawa’s relationship with Present Mic as a way to avoid thinking about the actual issues at hand. It really wasn’t important, whether Mr. Aizawa disliked Present Mic and his loud personality or was best friends with him, but it kept Izuku from the dangerous chasm of dread and anxiety just waiting to swallow him up as he silently followed a step behind his teacher through the broad halls of the school.
Mr. Aizawa led him to one of the small break rooms sprinkled throughout the school and Izuku tried not to look too afraid as he carefully sat on one of the loveseats and gingerly placed the damning folder on the table in front of him. There was silence, for a moment, as Mr. Aizawa took his own seat in the loveseat opposite Izuku, as though neither knew how to broach the topic. It probably wasn’t easy, even for a teacher as skilled as Mr. Aizawa, to know how to tell a student there would be no internship for them.
Izuku simply couldn’t take the silence for another moment. Words began pouring out of his mouth at an unrestrained and probably completely indecipherable speed as the panic and frustration of the morning finally had an outlet, “M-Mr.AizawaI’mreallyreallysorryIdidn’tdowhatIneededtodoattheSportsFestival. It’smyfaultIdidn’tgetanyoffesorchangeanyoftheagencies’mindsaboutacceptingmeandifthatmeansIcan’tgoonaninternshipIunderst-“
Mr. Aizawa held up a hand to stop Izuku he immediately cut off mid-word. “Breathe, Midoriya.” Mr. Aizawa advised, his hand moving up to rub at his temple as though Izuku had given him a headache. Izuku obediently took in several deep breaths and Mr. Aizawa didn’t speak again until his breathing had become regular once more. “I’m going to bypass the fact that I actually understood everything you said and get to the root of the problem here. I did not mean to make you fear you don’t have any internship opportunities and I apologize for giving you that misconception.”
It took Izuku a moment to understand what his teacher’s words meant. Izuku did have internship opportunities? Did Mr. Aizawa mean a teacher was going to take him on – he highly doubted the man himself was cleared for such an activity, still half-mummified as he was, but he might have pulled some strings with another, Izuku wouldn’t mind working with Midnight although her status as the “R-Rated hero” might cause some issues. Present Mic wouldn’t be bad either, but Izuku was pretty sure he was way too busy considering he regularly juggled three jobs; Cementoss and All Might were out of the question – no way All Might would want him and Izuku still didn’t know how he felt about Cementoss, knowing that the hero argued against Midnight about letting Izuku return to the arena during the Sports Festival. He had his reasons, surely, but Izuku would still feel uncomfortable working around someone who did that without being a medical worker. He didn’t know Vlad King or Powerloader very well and although Recovery Girl was nice, Izuku feared working with her would restrain his future to noncombative fields –
“You really need to get your mouth under control Midoriya.” Mr. Aizawa sounded ten times more exhausted as he spoke and Izuku blushed red as he closed his mouth with a low snap. He hadn’t even realized he was speaking aloud. “No, I didn’t mean a teacher was going to intern you, although if you asked Midnight she would probably love to, potential corruption and all.” Mr. Aizawa looked as though the very idea of Izuku interning under Midnight was what his nightmares were made out of but continued anyway, “I meant that not only did the majority of the agencies who expressed unease reach out to say they had changed their minds and would allow you to intern with them if you so chose, you also receive two offers. I wanted to talk to you about them because you are in a unique position. I apologize; I should have made it more clear in my note.”
Mr. Aizawa sounded tired, but his apology was no less sincere for it. Izuku would appreciate that, later, when his mind wasn’t fully stuck on the other things his teacher had said. Izuku had gotten offers? Actual, official offers to intern from heroes typed out on professional letterhead by real agencies? Him?
Two of them?
While Izuku tried very hard not to freak out – or worse, burst into tears yet again in front of his teacher – as his entire day reshaped itself in his mind, Mr. Aizawa pulled out another folder, still slim but not nearly as empty as the one he had dropped on Izuku’s desk, and opened it on the table between them.
“The offers you were given are unusual, not just because of your personal circumstances, but because of the agencies who sent them as well. Before we get into them, though, I want to make some things very clear.” Izuku’s gaze, which had been drawn to the folder the moment Mr. Aizawa had set it down, snapped up to his teacher’s face.
Mr. Aizawa looked as serious as ever, giving nothing away with a carefully neutral expression except his usual exhaustion, but there was a glint in his eyes Izuku didn’t see often. A sharp something, perhaps anger, maybe indignation, maybe just a reflection of the twinging pain his teacher’s still healing body must have been wracked with. Whatever it was, it made it impossible for Izuku to look away even as every nerve in his body longed to know who the offers were from, who thought he was worth the trouble, worth helping become a hero.
“You received a pitifully small amount of offers compared to people who came before you in the Sports Festival and even your fellow classmates.” Izuku couldn’t help but stiffen, even as he couldn’t bring himself to break eye contact. He had expected this part, even though he dreaded it. He had done everything he could but it hadn’t been enough, it made sense for Mr. Aizawa to scold him for it. That didn’t make the feelings of shame and guilt any better to deal with.
Mr. Aizawa continued and Izuku braced himself as well as he could for the hard words he knew were coming. “By all accounts, you should have received a fair share of the offers who went to competitors knocked out in the first round and even from ones who made it to the second round like you did.
Do not take this situation as a sign that you should’ve worked harder or done more. You did everything you could to place well in the Sports Festival and quite a few things you shouldn’t have. You should look at your performance with pride. Even in your fight with Todoroki – which never should have happened while you were in preheat and if you ever do anything like that again I will not hesitate to expel you – you displayed clever tactics, a strong ability to think on your feet, and an impressive amount of physical strength and the skills needed to properly utilize it.
Had you been any other student, had you had any sort of quirk or if your secondary sex was anything else, you would have received significantly more offers. This is because of the prejudices in the field, not because of anything you did wrong. It’s the fault of every idiot agency who is blinded by and towards those prejudices. It is not rational and it is certainly not fair, but it something you have dealt with before and it is something you will have to deal with the rest of your career. I won’t pretend it will be any different or get any easier, because it is not and it will not. But I will tell you that you are more than enough to be a good, if not great, hero and it does not matter if hardly anyone in the world believes it, because it is the truth and anyone too stupid to see the glaring obvious in front of them is hardly worth wasting your energy dwelling on.”
Well, the attempt to not cry had flown right out the window. Izuku had been tearing up by the time Mr. Aizawa had said he should have gotten more offers, he was outright flooding the couch he was sitting on by the time Mr. Aizawa had finished speaking.
Mr. Aizawa did not waste his breath telling Izuku not to cry – he had already met his mother and must surely know by now that telling Izuku to control his tears was a lost cause – and instead just waited until the flood of tears had puttered to a slow trickle and Izuku’s gasping attempts to speak had turned into actually decipherable words of thanks before continuing, tactfully pretending that the boy had not just had a full blown sobfest right in front of him for the umpteenth time.
His teacher was getting frightfully adept at telling when Izuku’s tears meant he needed comforting and when he would rather pretend they hadn’t happened.
“Like I said earlier, you received two offers. Because of the nature of the offers, as well as your unique position, both the principal and I found it far more logical to speak with you in person about them rather than leave notes.” Mr. Aizawa was all business again and Izuku found himself trying to nod along as he wiped the rest of the tears from his face and sat up fully to look at the open folder before them.
“The first offer was from the Wild Wild Pussycats.” Mr. Aizawa plucked the first page out of the folder and turned it so Izuku could see. True to his words, the bright and colorful faces of all four of the Pussycats were beaming up at him from the page. Even with that, a wave of disbelief ran through Izuku.
“B-but the Pussycats don’t – they don’t take interns?”
“Normally, no. They, as I’m sure you’re well aware, specialize in mountain search and rescues and the rural nature of their work makes it almost pointless to have an intern for only a few days so they generally do not take on any UA students. You are the first they have ever reached out about in the entire ten years that they have been an official team.”
Izuku was torn between confused and honored. He was the first they had ever reached out to? There were so many heroes and UA students who were so well-suited for their type of work though, far more suited than Izuku. Koda, for example, would be absolutely fantastic at mountain rescues – he could convince creatures to lead him to missing people and he was shy, so a rural work environment wouldn’t overwhelm him while the exuberant personalities of the Pussycats would help him become more comfortable with his own hero persona. Shiozaki from 1-B too, would do really well with her vine quirk and gentle demeanor. And Kamui Woods was only recently debuted, why wouldn’t they have reached out for someone like him during his school days –
“Midoriya.” Mr. Aizawa sighed, lifting one hand up to rub against his temple. Izuku blushed as he slumped back down in his seat. He really needed to get a hold of his muttering, he normally was much better about keeping it in check in school.
He was getting too careless. He was too used to only his mother tolerating it so being around people, adults and his friends alike, who didn’t scold him immediately or mock him mercilessly had made him too comfortable to be fully aware of it.
“The Wild Wild Pussycats did not send out an offer to anyone before because there hadn’t been anyone that caught their attention like you did. It is as simple as that. Don’t second guess yourself or your internship will fail before it even begins.” Izuku nodded resolutely as his fingers clenched into fists against his uniform pants. He would try not to make his own doubts so obvious; Mr. Aizawa was already taking time out of his schedule to go over his offers in person, the least Izuku could do was not make him waste his time on Izuku’s own problems.
“There are several pros and cons to working with the Wild Wild Pussycats. The rural nature of their patrols means that, from Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon, you will only be around them with likely little chance to work with many civilians. They will undoubtedly take you on a few patrols through the common mountain trails, but a lot of the training will be focused on you personally. The Wild Wild Pussycats are all well-experienced in quirkless hand-to-hand which will help deepen your fighting skills. More valuable for you, however, is that Ragdoll is currently the only active, openly omega spotlight hero.”
Izuku had pulled out a pen – he had never quite broken the habit of keeping one in the pocket of his school uniform even though no one in UA had ever tried to steal his pencil case – and begun rapidly writing notes down on the note Mr. Aizawa had left him but he faltered there. Izuku, of course, knew that Ragdoll was one of two active omega heroes and the only spotlight one. He had become a fan of the Wild Wild Pussycats because of her, and even had a sizeable cat plushie dressed in her hero costume and face paint markings – from their third marketing line, a gift from his mother after his first preheat – that lived in a special corner of his nest. Ragdoll was amazing, in her own right.
She was also almost completely noncombative, staying back and providing support in almost every single fight the Wild Wild Pussycats had been in, and Izuku couldn’t help but fear, as much he admired her, what interning with her would do for his own career. He didn’t want to be noncombative or support, as important as those roles were, and there was a very good chance working with Ragdoll, much like Recovery Girl, would corner him into similar jobs.
Mr. Aizawa seemed to sense Izuku’s sudden uncertainty. “Interning with anyone at this point will not constrain you to whatever role your mentor has. In your case, if you ever decide or if it is ever publicly revealed that you are an omega, there will undoubtedly be a media outcry and the expectation for you to take a noncombative role, as Recovery Girl and Ragdoll have both done before you, will be strong. That would not change whether you intern with the Wild Wild Pussycats or a different hero agency. Ragdoll can offer you more advice and tips to navigate the media and general spotlight world of heroics than either Recovery Girl or I, so I strongly advise you do not discount the Wild Wild Pussycats solely because you are afraid of how it would look to be an omega student interning under an omega hero.”
Izuku knew Mr. Aizawa did not mean anything bad, he was giving Izuku honest advice, but he couldn’t help but feel a wave of guilt crash over him. Ragdoll was a fantastic hero and more than that, she really could offer him invaluable advice. She had gotten so much backlash for even doing what she did, daring to go out on the field and rescue people. Izuku remembered watching the debut of the Wild Wild Pussycats – severe Spring storms had caused a landslide to trap a dozen hikers on popular trails and the Pussycats had worked for fifteen hours straight to pull all of them out of the mud. Every single one of the hikers had survived, a miracle for the ones the deepest in the slide, but it was the image of Ragdoll fireman carrying a grown man with six inches on her and a broken leg that had gotten the most attention.
When Izuku had first seen it, as a bright-eyed and avid four-year old, he hadn’t understood the disapproving comments from the news anchors or the veiled insults or the admissions of surprise that had followed – Ragdoll was a pro-hero of course she could carry someone, it shouldn’t have been a big deal and no one had anything but praise for her three teammates, all doing the exact same thing, apart from a few who had said they should have known better than to allow Ragdoll on the scene. When he had been older and newly into his Wild Wild Pussycats obsession, he had understood a lot more.
He had watched her media interviews, then, and had been drawn into the way she handled all the backlash with a wide grin and graceful cheer. Izuku had pages of notes on her media handling, convinced even then that he could learn from her and hopefully apply her same tactics for his own hero career.
It would be utterly stupid of him, to then go around and decide not to work with the Wild Wild Pussycats just because Ragdoll was an omega.
It was terrifying, sometimes, how easy it was to fall into the exact same social stigmas he tried so hard to fight against.
“Ragdoll,” Mr. Aizawa continued once Izuku had taken up his notes again, the fervor back in his hand as though he had never doubted, “handles not only her media presence, but that of the whole group, she is an expert at it and is one of the most adept heroes when it comes to dealing with the media. Whether you ultimately decide to keep your secondary sex private or not, she can offer you valuable training in how to handle the vultures.” Izuku nearly choked on a surprised laugh. He knew Mr. Aizawa didn’t much care for the media but it was still surprising to hear him actually say a bad word about them. He normally at least tried to keep such opinions buried down.
Mr. Aizawa ignored Izuku’s reaction and continued. “Apart from the media training and the quirkless combat training the Wild Wild Pussycats can give you, Ragdoll’s quirk would also be useful for you. I assume you know what it is?”
Izuku had brightened up at the word quirk and with the barest hint of permission, he was off. “Ragdoll’s quirk is officially named “Search.” In the official description available to the public, it is defined as the ability to sense and monitor multiple people at once within a certain radius. For privacy and safety reasons, the exact parameters of Search have never been disclosed but, as shown in videos of the Fuji-Hakone-Izu Park disaster, she can easily keep track of at least seventy people, possibly more, up to several kilometers. Natural obstructions like rock, stone, or trees do not hinder Search, and she has been known to be able to find people who took caves as shelter during storms, villain fights, or other disasters. Search is not like other vision quirks in the fact that she can not physically “see” through barriers to find people, but rather senses the presence of people through these barriers.
Videos of the Wild Wild Pussycats fighting often show Ragdoll yelling aid to her three teammates. These are always precise, on-the-fly analyses of their opponents and occur even before they fully engage in fighting, often including information that regular observation would not be able to see, like the hairline fracture that was on the shoulder of Kuma that Tiger was able to exploit in their fight last Spring. This implies that Search also allows Ragdoll to pinpoint certain weaknesses in the people around her, further suggesting that the quirk is some amalgamation of a vison-enhancing type quirk and a –“
“A simple yes, Midoriya, is all I needed.” Mr. Aizawa’s voice was dry but he wasn’t wearing the pinched, displeased look that crossed his face whenever he was actually upset so Izuku didn’t feel the need to apologize even as he instantly fell silent. “Ragdoll’s quirk does, as you stated, allow her to perceive the weaknesses of anyone within her radius. She has trained this aspect of her quirk by intensely studying quirk analysis and is uniquely suited to helping you further hone your skills.”
Mr. Aizawa added something very low under his breath, then, that Izuku couldn’t quite catch and Izuku was torn between asking what his teacher said and letting it pass when he continued, “all in all, while an internship with the Wild Wild Pussycats won’t give you everything that you might be looking for, they are a well-rounded group that you would benefit from greatly. The other internship,” Mr. Aizawa’s voice had an edge to it that Izuku didn’t quite recognize and he paused in his writing to look up at his teacher.
Mr. Aizawa looked disgruntled as he flipped over the Wild Wild Pussycats offer to reveal the second, as though there was something wrong with the offer that he couldn’t quite hide. It was clear he preferred the first offer, with the Pussycats, and Izuku was almost tempted to say he would just go with them – normally, Izuku would scour over any and all choices regardless of if there was a clearly better one but he also trusted Mr. Aizawa’s judgment – when he caught sight of the second offer.
His pen clattered against the table as shock ran through his entire body.
Mr. Aizawa must have gotten the offers mixed up. There was no way that offer was meant for Izuku.
There was no reason for Hawks, the current number three on the hero billboard and the youngest hero to ever even break the top fifty, to want to intern Izuku.
“-is from Hawks. He has also –“ Izuku could recognize that Mr. Aizawa was still speaking but his words were like raindrops on the windowsill for all the sense they made in Izuku’s mind. He had spiraled into a thousand thoughts the moment Mr. Aizawa had said the hero’s name.
There was no way Hawks would want Izuku. If the Wild Wild Pussycats were known for not taking interns, Hawks was the next level. The hero rarely even worked with other heroes apart from large-scale disasters. He had an entire agency that he’d built after going pro and he didn’t even have any full-time sidekicks. There was no way Izuku of all people would change that.
It must have been some sort of joke. Not from the hero himself, of course. Izuku had seen all sorts of things about the number three and although “flippant” and “cocky” had been common words to describe the man, mainly from older, more traditional voices, nothing had even come close to suggest the level of cruelty a joke like this would require. But that didn’t mean there wasn’t some bored or malicious assistant at his agency who would think it hilarious to prank the foolish quirkless kid with an offer far too good to be believable. And a joke request would explain Mr. Aizawa’s grumpiness – he would hate anyone that didn’t take heroics as seriously as he did and especially anyone who went so far as to send in a fraudulent offer.
It wouldn’t be the first time Izuku had someone do something like that, although it would be the most elaborate. He just didn’t understand why Mr. Aizawa didn’t throw away the offer immediately – unless, of course, there hadn’t been enough evidence to prove it was fake so he had to show Izuku. That would –
“Midoriya, are you listening at all?” Mr. Aizawa must have noticed Izuku had never picked up his pen to take notes and, therefore, had not heard a single word of what he had been saying.
Izuku had enough awareness to look ashamed. “Sorry, Mr. Aizawa.” His voice was small and Mr. Aizawa must have sensed the reason immediately because he sighed loudly before speaking again.
“I understand this offer must seem hard-to-believe given the general stupidity of the participating hero agencies, but I assure you both me and Principal Nezu confirmed it was sincere with Hawks’ agency.” The sheer disbelief must have still been written all over Izuku’s face because Mr. Aizawa sighed again before pushing the offer over so Izuku could see it more clearly.
Despite the official wording and the tiny Hawks smirking up at him in the corner, Izuku still couldn’t quite believe it was real.
What would the number three want to do with a quirkless omega student? No matter how hard Izuku worked, he knew there would be little chance he ever made it as far on the rankings as Hawks or fought as powerful of villains. An offer from anyone in the top ten was for people like Todoroki or Kacchan, powerhouses almost guaranteed to break the top 100 in their first year and who were future contenders for the elusive number one spot. Izuku had long ago let go of the fever dream that was the number one spot; he just wanted to help as many people as he could, preferably with the permission to do so.
He was just simply not the type of shining, rising star that would attract a hero like Hawks.
Yet there was the offer, staring up at him, tempting him with a long-buried, forcibly half-forgotten dream.
“I won’t say this offer isn’t good.” Mr. Aizawa must have thought Izuku had been given enough time to accept an impossibility as he began speaking again. “For a spotlight hopeful, it’s about the best offer you can get. But there are issues with this internship that would be illogical to hide from you. Any top ten offer is newsworthy. Especially with a hero as popular as Hawks, you won’t be able to hide from the press. The worst of them will dig up everything they can; as a matter of privacy, such things as your real name, your family, and your medical history will be kept under lock and key and I have never met a media vulture who could get past Nezu for that sort of information, so all of that will likely be safe. Your quirk status, however, would not.
There has never been a quirkless hero and you taking this internship will open a media firestorm. Everything you do from the stitching on your costume to the directions your hair curls will be scrutinized and likely found wanting. UA and Hawks will also be placed under fire. Questions of competency will be rampant; they will question your worth, your abilities, your intelligence and they will question our and Hawks’ sanity and credibility for entertaining the thought of you as a hero student.”
Izuku tried not to shake as Mr. Aizawa laid out the stark horrors the worst of the media could unleash on him. It wasn’t like any of that was a surprise. Or completely foreign from anything he had experienced before. He had expected that he would have to deal with the backlash, had prepared himself as well as he possibly could before the Sports Festival, convinced that his quirk status would be released then. But the idea of bringing UA under fire, of jeopardizing the school’s standing, and of doing the same to Hawks, was enough to terrify him beyond anything he could fear for himself alone.
“That being said, whatever you decide, you will go with the full support of the school. This wouldn’t be the first controversy UA weathered, and while it would be illogical to speak for Hawks, I strongly doubt a man of his standing would not consider the media implications of his offer. I am not saying any of this to warn you off Hawks’ offer, but you need to know everything you would be getting into by taking it. Do not make the mistake of turning down the offer because you are worried about UA or Hawks’ standing in the media but make sure, if you take it, that you are ready for everyone to know.”
It was amazing, really, how well Mr. Aizawa could read Izuku. Better than anyone he’d ever encountered, besides his own mother. His words didn’t quite make Izuku feel better – Izuku doubted anything could, really – but they released an increment of the tension he’d been feeling.
And everyone would know eventually, about his lack of a quirk. It was a miracle that the secret had survived both the USJ and the Sports Festival, and there were no guarantees it would survive an internship with the Wild Wild Pussycats, either.
“I just –“ Izuku tried to put his thoughts into words,” I want to know – why?” Why him? If it wasn’t a cruel joke, was it something else? Was Hawks like All Might? Did he want to show Izuku how dangerous the job was, firsthand, so he would quit? Did he just want to humiliate him in the guise of helping?
Mr. Aizawa’s expression didn’t soften, but there was something sympathetic in his normally sharp gaze as he read between the lines of Izuku’s words. “I’m not going to lie and say I know why, Midoriya. Or that you’re wrong to be worried about it. Hawks is a unique hero, handpicked by the hero commission and trained outside of the heroics schools. Most of who he is unknown, locked down nearly as tightly as All Might. I cannot say what is going on his mind or whether if him picking you was his own decision or one from the hero commission.”
That – that didn’t make any more sense. Izuku knew what the hero commission was, of course. Any hero-hopeful had to, considering they handled all sorts of hero-related business, including the provisional hero and official hero licensing exams. But a lot of what they did was classified – Izuku had tried to find more information on what exactly the hero commission was responsible for when he was younger but so much of the information, even in declassified reports available to the public, had been redacted or hidden behind government security walls, that he still didn’t have a clear understanding of what the commission really was.
He knew UA was unique amongst the hero schools for existing almost exclusively outside the commission – only connecting with them for licensing exams and blatantly disregarding Commission-issued guidelines Principal Nezu didn’t agree with – and that the school only got away with it because of the results they showed, sending out top heroes after top heroes without fail. And he knew the commission, despite being closely linked to the heroics field and playing a large role in the governing of pro-heroes, generally kept a distance between themselves and individual hero agencies, only stepping in when an agency or a hero was in breach of laws. They had to - in order to maintain the checks and balances between their own government agency and others, no one entity could have too much influence or power over the hero agencies. That was why heroics agencies were also closely linked but ultimately independent from the police force and other first responders.
Izuku knew all that general information but beyond that and the licensing programs, he knew very little else about the commission. He hadn’t even known the commission had ever trained any hero, let alone the current number three. And he definitely didn’t see why they would have any interest in him.
The question must have shown on his face because Mr. Aizawa began answering before he could even say anything. “The hero commission has never liked the way UA operates; they are, at their foundation, a traditionalist group and they do not enjoy change unless it is carefully orchestrated by them. They did not like it when Nezu’s predecessor accepted Recovery Girl as a student, and they disliked it even more when Nezu tripled the amount of omega heroes by accepting me and then Ragdoll. They did not like it when Nezu opened the school, and more importantly, the hero program to quirkless students.
They definitely did not like Nezu’s acceptance of you, but they probably would have ignored it, had you performed at a mediocre level and made no waves. But you didn’t. You not only made it to the semifinals of the tournament, you didn’t even have the decency to lose and took the most favorable competitor out with you in a draw. Even without many offers, you made headlines.” Izuku knew there had been articles about him, talking about how much of an upset he had been for the tournament and speculations about what quirk he must have, but he had done his very best to ignore them and there hadn’t been an overwhelming amount, considering he hadn’t even won.
It was almost laughable to imagine that he had somehow maybe caught the attention of the hero commission because of it.
“The hero commission does not like headlines they don’t control and they do not like things that can shake the status quo. You are both, and it is not beyond reason to believe they may have requested Hawks intern you so they had a change to observe you at a closer level than Nezu would ever allow.” Izuku was beyond confused.
“I’m – I’m not special, though? I only took Todoroki out because of a trick, and I wouldn’t have won the competition. I don’t understand why the commission would be so interested in me.” Izuku still struggled to get All Might to treat him equally most days and he’d only received two offers. He was certainly very far away from threatening the status quo of the entire heroics field.
Mr. Aizawa looked torn between tired annoyance and sympathetic understanding. It was an odd look Izuku was certain only his teacher and his specific brand of eyebags could pull off. “Do not discount your own abilities. The moment you were accepted into this school, you created a change. What happens with that change and how far it ripples out depends on you and your choices, but it has already begun. The hero commission may hope to constrain that change or at least organize it in a way that is favorable to them – that is their general way of things. Then again, Hawks is, above almost all else, an obstinate brat who likes creating chaos and it is just as likely that he took a liking to you for dragging Todoroki out with you and decided to stir the pot on his own.”
There was a level of disdain in Mr. Aizawa’s voice that had Izuku wondering exactly what Hawks had done to earn such a strong reaction from his teacher. “Hawks is, however, also very good at his job. Regardless of his personality, unlike many other top heroes, he made it to number three by putting in the work and he isn’t a media darling just because he smiles a lot. He is smart and he can teach you more about urban heroics than the Wild Wild Pussycats; he can teach you even more about handling civilians and his rescue statistics and general popularity are both higher than Endeavor’s. Disregarding the media circus and the potential meddling of the commission, interning with Hawks would undoubtedly be beneficial to your career.”
“I-I-“ Izuku was beyond feeling much of anything besides confusion now. There had been too many twists and turns for him. From the crushing disappointment from thinking he didn’t have any offers to the realization that he had received an offer from Hawks of all people, from worrying about ever being accepted as a hero to the terrifying possibility that the hero commission of all things might feel threatened by his existence, everything was just too much.
He hadn’t even taken notes on the pros and cons of interning with Hawks and he was certain already that he had forgotten some of the valid points Mr. Aizawa had made about the Wild Wild Pussycats.
Would it be better to take the Wild Wild Pussycats’ offer? Could he dare pass over Hawks’ even with all the terrifying risks?
His mind was beyond jumbled, and he knew, with a distant and foggy realization, that he was swaying slightly, the distant echo of the overstimulated rocking he had done as a small child. It was a miracle he wasn’t mumbling up a storm along with it, as everything Mr. Aizawa had presented rocketed around his mind in a cacophony of confusion.
“You do not need to decide now.” Mr. Aizawa spoke again and the calmness in his voice was a boon for all the thoughts ripping through Izuku’s head. You have two days before final choices are needed. Take what I told you and think over it. Talk with your mother about it. Get advice from your friends. Do some research about both. Come to me if you want to talk through the options more. Go to Midnight or Present Mic, if you want a second professional opinion. You do not need to decide alone, do you understand?”
Distantly, Izuku felt himself nodding. Mr. Aizawa watched him for another moment, perhaps wondering if Izuku had been broken by an overload of information. Izuku himself wasn’t sure if he hadn’t been broken, a little, by the overwhelming conversation, but he pulled himself together enough to fake a smile and gather all the paperwork that had gotten sprawled across the table with almost steady hands.
He had two days to make this decision. That was plenty of time.
Two whole days to decide if he should go with the safer, more practical path with the Wild Wild Pussycats or take a terrifying risk with the opportunity of a lifetime, interning under Hawks.
That was basically no time at all.
And Izuku hadn’t a single clue which way to go.