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As Aizawa Shouta observes the hero classes he has taught over the years, he considers that one part of having a powerful quirk that most people forget is that those with such quirks are not given immediate control over them when they first manifest.
Most of the people who get onto the hero course are the kids which grew up with quirks which are difficult or awkward to control. Or they’re kids with mutant quirks which, although more accepted than they were when they first appeared, are still looked down on. Still make children noticeably different
Aizawa has noticed in his time as a teacher how many kids seem like they’re afraid to touch other people, especially after quirk accidents which are common during training. How much they look like they want a hug but are terrified to ask for one for fear of what might happen if they do.
He thinks the worst case has been this year. His disaster Class 1-A.
Despite what both they and other faculty may think, he does pay attention to his class. As distant as he can seem, he is still their teacher, and if he is to assist them in becoming the heroes that are required, he must first understand what they require of him. And so Aizawa observes.
At the start of the year, especially after the USJ and the sports festival, he noticed how they began to become more comfortable with each other once they knew they were in similar company. And how watching this happen showed how unaccustomed to touch and physical affection many of them obviously were.
The majority of his class, he realises, have grown up with either very powerful or very alienating quirks which separated them from their peers for a variety of reasons. He observes the way the ones like Tokoyami, Shouji, Ashido, Hagakure and Ojirou, all with physically obvious mutation quirks who would have grown up looking different to everyone around them, behave towards their peers. He’s not a fool, he knows about bullying, was on the receiving end of it himself for having a quirk that scared people. He knows about how hideously children can behave towards each other when not taught otherwise. He also knows there’s a likelihood that many of his kids, and as much as he hates it they are his kids, were picked on for being different. Something which becomes abundantly clearer following the move to the dorms as he catches more moments of them during their downtime.
He sees it in how Ashido will try to hug all of her friends when they come back from breaks, like she’s on a mission from All Might himself. It make him wonder if there was a time when her appearance made people afraid to do the same to her. And the way that Tokoyami and Shouji always look surprised when they’re included in her path of affection, but then begin to be the ones that hold on longest as the action is repeated practically daily.
The way Hagakure wears bright colours when not in uniform and always asks to hug or touch other people before doing so; the way she uses the additional jingling of jewelry, like the bracelets on her wrists, when she does, as if trying to make it as clear as possible where she is. Quirks like Hagakure’s add a whole other layer of stress for him to deal with when planning for training, considering all the ways something could easily go wrong, a reality she has no doubt had to learn. He can’t imagine the stress of not being able to be seen when so many people rely solely on sight to navigate the world.
Eventually, he picks up on how careful of touch so many of the kids are. Even the ones like Kaminari and Ashido, who are constantly hanging off their classmates, occasionally he sees a hesitance or faltering when reaching out an arm or trading blows in training that will last for less than a second, or sometimes several depending on the day.
People forget that his students are still kids. They’re kids with powers that have made the villains they’ve encountered afraid, but it doesn’t occur to the rest of the world that that kind of power could make the ones who wield it afraid as well. Ashido can throw corrosive acid from her hands and Kaminari could kill someone probably the easiest of any of his students if he used his quirk slightly wrong. As much as it pains him to think of in connection with his students, those with quirks which cause death so easily can often become afraid of themselves.
There were stories from the time when quirks started showing up of some people who had incredibly powerful quirks and used them to be on the top of the social order; but there were others of those who secluded themselves away. Unsure of how to learn to use their quirk, or those who had hurt others, they decided that it was safer to seclude themselves.
There are some people who still think that, but more often now those ideas are coming from those who have been unfortunate enough to be the victim of such quirk users. And he can’t truly blame those people for that.
That line of thought makes Aizawa sigh as it reminds him of his three primary problem children. One who, if what he’s gathered of Midoriya and Bakugou’s relationship is correct, used his quirk on the other in the way people fear powerful quirks will be abused. Though he does take some small comfort in the fact he has seen very little evidence of this dynamic carrying over to their time in his classroom, aside from their fight at ground beta.
Another who, thanks to Todoroki requesting to spend some of his breaks at the dorms rather than going home,he feels sure has seen firsthand what happens when someone with a powerful quirk wants to throw that power around. The way Todoroki had spent months tense and cautious when someone touched him unexpectedly, and how much his friendship with someone like Midoriya, who was obviously committed to making sure no one was lacking physical affection if he had any say, benefitted him.
Midoriya, who is a puzzle all of his own. Although his quirk is powerful he doesn’t have the same hesitance to initiate touch with other classmates, but he does react similarly to Todoroki when others come too close to him unexpectedly. Aizawa thinks this might be why his and Todoroki’s friendship is so effective; Midoriya is unafraid of reaching out to others, especially those with powerful quirks going by his old connection to Bakugou, but for the same reason he knows how touch can hurt. All of which appears to combat Todoroki’s fear of touch from others, and probably of his own due to the capability of his quirk to cause damage. Especially his fire. A point which Aizawa mentally files to take into consideration in his future interactions with Endeavour.
Todoroki is also of the group that he feels he has seen far too often. Students like Todoroki, Yaoyorozu, and Iida, who come from wealthy or prestigious families and hero lines.
They exhibit the same behaviours he has seen so many times as the children of powerful heroes are sent to UA. The way those kids seem to lack something, a stiffness they have around their peers as the pressure to do well weighs on them like a physical burden that they must hold their back straight in order to bear. A legacy to live up to coupled with growing up without the soft domestic presence of family which did not have high expectations for them from the time they were born.
And then there’s the ones that don’t have the marks of that domesticity for all the vastly different reasons he is far more familiar with. Shinso had come into his custody as soon as Nezu had okayed his transfer to the hero course so that there wouldn’t be a conflict of interest before then.
And even then, it still took the kid so long before he seemed to trust Aizawa as anything more than a mentor who most likely wouldn’t let him down. And he had seen it in the way the boy was cautious around him even as they trained, or how many of their early training sessions started with Shinso disguising his surprise that he had apparently continued to show up like he had said he would. It made him want to find whoever had let this boy down enough times that he doubted someone would do something for him without wanting anything in return, and do so reliably. He was pleased to then get Shinso into his custody by the time he transferred into the class to replace the spot Mineta had vacated. That boy had had far too much of the opposite problem with physical touch.
It went more smoothly than expected, especially as it only meant him moving dorms, his appearances around his and Hizashi’s apartment had been consistent since shortly into his training so the only noticeable change was that Shinso had begun looking less like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop and Aizawa to disappear from his life like a mirage fading back into the desert sands.
As time went on though, he found the student which surprised him in this area most to be Bakugou.
He saw the way the boy was similarly cautious of unexpected touch as Todoroki and Midoriya but his lack of fear to throw his quirk around assayed his fear that he was one of those afraid of it like Kaminari, as well as his confidence and physicality in training and fighting made it seem as though he was perhaps just sensitive to his space.
After the home visits following Kamino Ward though, it appeared those behaviours merely disguised the signs he hadn’t thought to pay attention to. Then the way Bakugou shied away from touch made more sense. The way when he saw Kirishima offer physical affection he seemed split between the desire to lean into it or away.
Aizawa hates the way he can see that so many of his kids have suffered and he can do so little about it.
But as their teacher, and with the dorms now, a part time parent of sorts, he could let them know he was there if they needed him. That he wouldn’t leave, and that he wouldn’t be scared of them.
That was at least one thing his quirk could provide when the odd occasion would arise where a student's quirk acted out. He could help them to not be afraid of themselves for as long as he kept his eyes on them. Even when it his eyes burned he would not look away from a child’s need to not feel dangerous when they had no control. When they looked at him, small and fragile and every bit the child they still are. And he can do his part to let them feel safe. Even if it is by erasing their quirk for long enough for them to calm down until they're no longer afraid of hurting someone. It's why he had wanted to teach, to help these kids learn to value their quirks, including the ways they were a part of them and how to use them without fear.
Occasionally he lets himself dwell on it, like now, and thinks about how much he wishes his kids had been hurt less, despite how he knows it turned them into the people they are today. The kids that he thinks of as his own and cares about more than he would admit.
At least they can support each other, he thinks. He feels warmth bloom in his chest every time he sees it in the dorms, in their movie nights and ‘family dinners’ and the quiet conversations punctuated by sniffling that he catches late at night in the common room when he gets back from patrol. Their disjointed but stable little family which they formed with each other, integrating even the most prickly members of 1-A. Aizawa was glad that his students had a place where they could feel safe, and in a way even more than UA was able to be to him when he had been a student here. And he will fight until the last to protect that. To protect them, he realises.
Aizawa may only be their teacher for a few years before they become heroes that he hopes- no, that he knows he will be proud of. As well as doing his utmost best to make sure they are able to get there.