Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Things don’t go back to normal, because that’s probably not even possible, to be honest.

       “You student-taught a class of well-known baby gremlin Heroes,” Yuki points out via video call, already graduated, installed in the UA teacher dorm full-time and wreaking untold havoc in her role as a traveling Science teacher. Next year, she’ll probably get a Homeroom class of her own baby gremlin Heroes, and then the world will end, most likely. “And then you helped them fend off an invading team of villains. Like, I don’t know what you were expecting life after that to look like.”

            Masahiro knows that, objectively. It’s just that his fears of being clocked, of being seen, and analyzed by eyes that he can’t read the intentionality of don’t go away with one lonely act of courage. He’s not magically cured of the greenish fear that curls inside his blood like acid just because he managed to use his powers to throw a single (poorly executed) punch. Part of his work this extra semester of classes, outside of completely re-working his Capstone essay at zero hour of his academic career like a champion, is finding a specialist to assist him channeling his Quirk in more productive ways. Masahiro is pretty sure this was Principal Nedzu’s suggestion, even if he can’t recall a definitive moment when Principal Nedzu actually suggested it. Masahiro mentioned to Aizawa in their semi-regular emails back and forth since Masahiro’s student teaching that he’s going to need tips on how to manage conversations with Principal Nedzu upon his actual assignment to UA.

            Aizawa’s response to this was a single-sentence email, which read: The tip to managing Nedzu-conversations is to accept that you will never be able to manage these conversations.            `

            So. That’s promising.

            But even though things don’t go back to normal, Masahiro himself is so spectacularly unremarkable that even starry-eyed Education Track freshman stop approaching him after a few weeks. The events of his time student-teaching at UA lent him a temporary aura of interest. At first, people approached him and Yuki with questions, with curiosity. And when Yuki was there to field it, people left satisfied. But then, Yuki graduated and left for UA, leaving Masahiro behind to his extra semester of classes. And Masahiro’s tendency to fumble answers, or to shut down completely into overwhelmed non-responsiveness, drove most of the still-curious away. He still gets the occasional question. But mostly, he gets whispers when he walks by, and that’s doing absolutely nothing for the twanging, acid-bright ribbons of his Quirk that want to escape his hands at any moment.

            “You are remarkable, though,” Yuki likes to point out, and then trap Masahiro in place while he tries his instinctive attempts to escape nice words. “Like. Masahiro. You punched a villain in the face and through a wall. You survived and thrived under the notoriously crazy Aizawa-Sensei. Once, when we were twelve, I watched you re-route a burst of your Quirk energy through sheer force of will because you withering the plants I’d bloomed would have ‘made you sad’.”

            “Please stop,” Masahiro begged, squirming under the weight of Yuki’s restraining leg. He has so many inches of height on her, but she has the power of her determination to make Masahiro believe nice things about himself. “Please. I’m going to get hives.”

            So, even if things don’t go back to the way they were, people are mostly content to leave Masahiro alone to his studies and his Capstone writing and his sweaty attempts to answer the occasional question someone dares to ask. It’s not peaceful, but it’s peaceable enough, and Masahiro thinks that he might actually make it to graduation without making any further waves on his college campus.

            And then, in the final twenty minutes of his “Pedagogy of Heroics Instruction” seminar on a sunny Tuesday afternoon, the lecture hall door bangs open mid-‘best utilizing curriculum to strengthen Quirk understanding’, and two little heads appear around the wooden frame like a herald of doom.

            Masahiro has one, single, windblown second of shock to numbly process ‘that’s Uraraka’s head’ before the head question grins like a shark, and then bellows down the hallway, “MASAHIRO-SENSEI! GUYS, WE FOUND HIM!”

            “Booyah,” cheers the second head, which Masahiro belatedly realizes belongs to Kaminari.

            “Did you take the bus here,” Masahiro hears himself ask from somewhere far away, calling out the assorted bullshit of Class 1-A already muscle memory even after only five weeks with them. “Are you cutting class. Did you break into this building.”

            He doesn’t even bother putting question marks at the end of these sentences. That would be a pointless exercise.

            Also from somewhere far away, Masahiro recognizes that the lecture hall has fallen silent. That even the professor is staring at Masahiro in confused alarm. It’s understandable. The kids are in street clothes; aren’t always immediately recognizable outside of their Hero costumes or class uniforms.

            What is immediately recognizable is the silhouette of today’s apparent chaperone, a tall and spindly shadow in the classroom doorway that commands just as much presence as he did when he was muscled and massive.

            As Masahiro feels every ounce of blood leave his face, his cognitive functions sent spinning away to very distant lands, he hears someone in the classroom hiss out, high and frantic, “Is that All Might?”

            Masahiro can’t feel his toes. Or his fingertips. Of the frenetic whine of his Quirk, which’s he locked down on total instinct.

            “Uraraka,” All Might says, low and filled with good humor. “Kaminari. I believe we’ve interrupted Masahiro-Sensei’s class.” All Might bows a little in the instructor’s direction. “Our apologies. The students were anxious to see their Masahiro-Sensei again.”

            The instructor makes a noise like a long-used squeaky toy caught in the death throes.

            “We didn’t break into the building,” Uraraka announces. Everything about her sentence implies ‘but I could have—mere mortal locks cannot contain me’. “We’re on a field trip.”

            “So this is, like, a college classroom,” Kaminari adds, eyes darting around curiously, talking at his normal pace of ‘aggressively caffeinated typewriter’. “Wow. Bet if I sat in the back Aizawa-Sensei couldn’t hit me with chalkboard erasers when I fall asleep.”

            “Actually,” says a new voice, and then Midoriya’s fluffy green head appears around All Might’s side, all overbright eyes and wide smile. “Aizawa-Sensei’s stats indicate that he could hit you with a chalkboard eraser from an entire building away. So I don’t really think there’s a classroom big enough for you to hide your desk-napping, Kaminari!”

            “Eh,” Kaminari says, apparently resigned to his forever-status as ‘chalkboard eraser target’.

            “Fucking nerd,” adds a lower, gravely voice. Bakugou appears on Midoriya’s heels, as he often does even though he’d immolate the first person to suggest it out loud, a veritable storm cloud of a teenager who fears neither death nor All Might. This is evidenced by the way he jams an elbow against Midoriya’s ribs and says, “Shut up, shitty Deku. You’re so loud.”

            “How many did you bring with you?” Masahiro numbly asks All Might (All Might, the eternal #1, the Symbol of Peace, standing right here in Masahiro’s lecture hall and staring him right in the face).  

            All Might does an exhausted kind of head count. This is very relatable. Class 1-A consists of 20 students. Theoretically. Aizawa liked to say that at any given moment, the number of them could multiply exponentially. Masahiro didn’t understand what that meant until the first time he was assigned to check in on their Dorm after school hours, and suddenly there seemed to be 200 students to wrangle instead of the agreed-upon amount.

            “Six,” he says. “I think, six?”

            An unspoken tremor goes through the classroom. It’s the bone deep terror, shared between two people who know exactly what 1-A are capable of, having clocked that there are only currently 4 children in attendance, and are now sharing the same thought of ‘oh shit, we’re missing two, where are they and what havoc are they wreaking’.

            Masahiro’s terrified understanding of this only grows into actual alarm bells when Midoriya blinks his big, baby animal eyes around the room and says, “Huh. Where did Todoroki go?”

            “Their classroom teacher just let them go?” whispers one of Masahiro’s classmates. “Away from class, on a bus, in the middle of a school day?”

            All Might flashes a warm smile at Masahiro’s whispering classmate. Explains, good-naturedly, “I believe their classroom teacher’s exact words were ‘get these six gremlins out of my classroom before I capture-weapon them to the ceiling to stop their whining for their Masahiro-Sensei’.”

            Masahiro’s classmate lets out a dying-squeaky-toy sound of her own. Masahiro feels his skin flush red, warm and pleased, in spite of the fact that a decent chunk of Class 1-A is here, in the hallowed halls of higher education, which is in no way equipped to handle the chaos that accompanies them like some kind of fairytale curse.

            “I know it’s incredibly rude,” All Might continues at Masahiro’s instructor. “I just needed to borrow a moment of Masahiro-Sensei’s time. I didn’t mean to interrupt your lesson. Please; continue. We can wait until you’re done.”

            “Can I participate in the rest of the lesson, All Might-Sensei?” Uraraka asks in the sugar-sweet tones of someone who will listen for exactly five seconds, and then start intentionally toppling long-held academic principles. Masahiro wonders if she and Yuki have spent any meaningful time together yet. What it means for the world once they do.

            Faintly, in the tones of someone who doesn’t even remember what a ‘lesson’ is in spite of having a PHD in advance pedagogical practices, Masahiro’s instructor says, “No, I…I think we were done. Done for the day.”

            There’s still fifteen minutes on the clock until class end time. The professor stopped mid-point. But Masahiro is not about to remind the instructor of this—not when the other alternative is letting Uraraka invite herself to lesson. Not that Masahiro wants to bar her from learning. Not that Masahiro thinks he even could. Mostly because the instructor already looks like she might lose her grip on sanity, and Uraraka’s involvement would do nothing to improve that particular situation. Aizawa is her homeroom teacher for a reason, and it’s mostly because he was able to stare her dead in the face when she said ‘Aizawa-Sensei, if I learn math super well, does that mean I can calculate the exact amount of force needed to break noses with my kitten heels’ without flinching.

            What follows the dismissal of class is a brief interlude of Masahiro’s classmates approaching All Might like some kind of wonderstruck, drifting cloud of admiration. All Might handles this with the grace and warm-natured good-humor of long practice.

            Of course, this leaves the students of 1-A unattended, which they immediately take advantage of. Masahiro is totally engulfed, at various rates of speed (Uraraka and Kaminari are there immediately, Midoriya follows shortly after, and Bakugou drags his feet over to billow at the edges of their group like he doesn’t want to be there, which…Masahiro doubts that Bakugou can actually be sent anywhere he doesn’t want to go, but the trick to him as a person is never pointing out that his presence in your space is actually voluntary). Todoroki is still lost in some as-of-yet undetermined place (Masahiro imagines they’ll pinpoint his location shortly, either by the sounds of explosions, or people fleeing the total devastation of his deadpan responses). And there’s still one student unnamed and also unaccounted for. Masahiro doesn’t know which one, but in terms of ‘total chaos factored’ it actually doesn’t matter.

            “Masahiro-sensei,” Midoriya sings out. “You’re okay!”

            “Is there a reason I shouldn’t be?” Masahiro asks back. He did miss them dearly; seeing them again fills his heart like gentle morning sunshine. But Masahiro refuses to allow the fondness swelling inside his chest show on his face. This is also a tip Aizawa gave him, and explains the man’s total lack of facial expression 98% of the time. Masahiro is not nearly as good at it as Aizawa; he suspects that his face betrays everything he feels, and that Uraraka is using this as an excuse to be totally unapologetic about her presence here today.

            “I mean,” Kaminari says. “The last time we saw you, Teach, you were still wrapped up in bandages from punching a villain in a face and getting rocked into a wall.”

            “Badly,” Bakugou mutters. “Badly punching a villain in the face.”

            “Your hand’s okay?” Midoriya continues, all earnest sweetness. His eyes are very large. This is a particular ability of his, and one that Masahiro suspects Midoriya doesn’t even know to be Quirk-levels of effective.

            Masahiro presents his hand for examination. There are scars; there always will be. The sudden surge of using his Quirk after so many years totally repressing it led to a burst of power that battered his hands, scorched some of his nerve endings. Masahiro can’t bend his pinky fully in half anymore and he suspects he’ll never be able to again.

            But these are Hero course students. Which means they don’t fret and freak out and yell about ‘acceptable working conditions’ like Masahiro’s classmates did when he returned to campus after his time at UA. Masahiro found their reaction extremely off-putting. Like his insides were recoiling from it. He couldn’t quite put his finger on why until Yuki helped him puzzle it out.

            “It’s different,” she said, alone in her apartment later that night, nursing bandages of her own from barring the classroom door before the villains could get to her own students while Ectoplasm was out of the room. “These weren’t…these kids didn’t scream or cry or even get visibly scared. Mine would have blown the door down and gone to fight had I not threatened to tie them up by their ankles with pretty, pretty flowers if they tried for it because not all of them have Provisional licenses. Yours did go, no questions asked. We’re told, as teachers, that we’re supposed to protect our kids. But that looks different with kids like these.” Yuki held up her arm, cut deep from wrapping vines around her biceps and straining to keep the doors closed against battering arms and feet and Quirks. Those would scar, too, Recovery Girl said. Masahiro wonders, he really does, when studying his own soon-to-be-scars, how Principal Nedzu knew this about them when selecting student teacher candidates. “Protecting these kids doesn’t mean ‘no hurts’. It means we minimize the damage as much as we can, while knowing that we can’t protect them from everything, and it’s hard for some people to understand that difference.”

            It’s true, Masahiro reflects. Midoriya alone, as he studies Masahiro’s hands with concern but not distress, has more scars at fifteen-years-old than many adults will accumulate in their entire lifetime. It’s hard, as a teacher, to consider your own hurts when you know that your students’ scars will outnumber your own.

            “Aizawa-Sensei says you’re coming to teach at UA,” Kaminari announces, all bright and crackling excitement. “Like, full time.”

Masahiro gives him a tiny pat on the shoulder to remind him to calm down a little, lest he accidentally fry the lecture hall’s electronic equipment. Masahiro’s Pedagogy professor is a brilliant woman who quails in the face of technology more difficult to operate than a standard projector. The University has apparently been threatening to update the lecture halls with technologically advanced whiteboards for a while now, and Masahiro fears his professor’s implosion should Kaminari hurry that process along with his Quirk.

“I have to finish my own classes first,” Masahiro reminds him. “And submit my Capstone essay. And then Principal Nedzu needs to interview me properly. So, nothing’s assured yet. But it is my goal, yes.”

“Like your entire student teaching experience wasn’t a job interview,” Bakugou sneers. “If Principal Nedzu didn’t want to hire you, you never would have gotten twenty feet from the school.”

Sometimes, Masahiro remembers how he thought, during his very first day with Class 1-A, that Bakugou was acting up because he didn’t understand the academics of the Hero Track and was embarrassed about it. Remembers how—after one attempt to check a paper which resulted in a blistering rebuke that took off entire layers of metaphorical skin—he realized that every one of Bakugou’s answers was correct and that bad temper, for him, was a personality trait without any real root cause.

“Thank you for your support,” Masahiro says with a gentle smile, because he knows this about Bakugou now, too. How to dig underneath the blister-fire of his words and find the real meaning.

“Will you work with us?” Midoriya asks.

“That’s for Principal Nedzu to decide,” Masahiro explains. “It depends on open positions.”

But Masahiro has his suspicions. Yuki was given the traveling Science teacher position for Year 3 students, which meant she was able to continue working with the students she’d had during her student teaching. And, when he was at UA, Cementoss audibly announced that he was looking for a reduction in his traveling History teacher duties, in order to more evenly split his time between his Homeroom students and his Hero patrols.

“You like History, don’t you, Masahiro-Sensei?” Masahiro remembers Principal Nedzu asking, during their initial meeting. “I believe your college transcript shows a strong preference toward supplementary classes of that nature.”

“He knows everything,” Masahiro remembers blurting out to Aizawa one night, fifteen hours into a ten-hour day and deeply crazy with it. “Just…everything.”

“Mmhmm,” Aizawa agreed, with the placid tones and quietly crazy eyes of someone who knew this already, and has long since come to terms with it.

“It was Principal Nedzu who requested that I come see you,” All Might explains, having gently dispatched the last of his devoted fans and drifted his way toward their group.

Standing in All Might’s immediate presence, Masahiro immediately feels small. Not in a bad way—Masahiro knows all too well what it feels like to be bad-way small in the presence of others, words shriveled up by fear, quiet vocal cords rattling together like strips of jerky with no way to force anything past them. Stoppered up by anxiety, trapped inside your own skin, and so unable to contribute in any kind of present, purposeful way that you shrink as a result.

But, with All Might, Masahiro’s ‘small’ means ‘able to be protected’. In spite of the fact that, in All Might’s present form, he’s entire inches shorter and far lankier than even Masahiro and his ever-present elbows and knees. It’s an aura, or an energy, that just rolls off of All Might in waves. ‘I am here, and I will protect you—no matter what I currently look like’. A certainty, Masahiro supposes. All Might seems incredibly certain, even in the way he carries himself, and that is deeply bewildering for Masahiro, who has never been certain of anything save for his own ability to mess things up.

Masahiro tries, to the best of his ability, to muster up some kind of coherent response. He still sounds like a slowly deflating balloon when he manages, “Oh, I…really? What for?”

He can see Uraraka smirking sympathetically at him in the corner of his eye. But, as Aizawa once said, ‘Don’t acknowledge it. Ignoring the attitudes won’t make them go away, but it will make it so that you can believably claim innocence ten years from now when outraged officials are coming our way demanding to know what the hell we taught 1-A to make them like this.’

Masahiro has preemptive pity, sometimes, for the people who will have to deal with 1-A in their terrifying, final-form, adult capacity. He also has doubts about Aizawa’s attempts to claim unawareness—Masahiro has seen some of the man’s personal records, after his time at UA. He knows things now. Aizawa might not be teaching his students behaviors directly, but things are definitely being picked up regardless. Things might be being put down on purpose, but quietly enough to maintain plausible deniability.

“Principal Nedzu mentioned that you were looking for a tutor in better controlling your Quirk,” All Might explains. “I asked if he considered my services acceptable enough.”

Masahiro has a single, airless second to process that All Might is here because apparently All Might is going to work with Masahiro directly on managing his Quirk.

But he doesn’t get more than a single second to process this, Quirk just starting to pop in his chest like tiny, agitated fireworks, because three things happen next in rapid succession.

1. There’s the sound of a small, contained explosion somewhere in the immediate vicinity
2. Uraraka says, “Oh, found Todoroki. Was it a bad idea to leave with Hagakure, do you think?”
3. And Midoriya beams, all shiny-bright earnestness, and says, “All Might’s been working with me, too, Masahiro-Sensei! We’ll get to work together—won’t that be fun?”

Masahiro gapes at everyone assembled, brain fully blue-screened and headed toward total shutdown, hands cradled protectively against his chest.

Chapter Text

            Masahiro starts his second round of UA Adventures much the same way he began his first; sitting inside Principal Nedzu’s office and deeply, tragically confused.

            They’ve been talking about Masahiro’s final semester of study for the last fifteen minutes. All genteel, polite, genuinely interested questions. But Masahiro somehow feels like he just defended a doctorate thesis in front of a panel of his peers during a four-hour session with zero water breaks. He is wrung out, gasping for air after discussing the minute details of Quirk-specific pedagogy even if he did it in a cozy chair, with a cup of exceptional tea and a biscuit in hand.

            (“Be lucky he’s asking you himself,” Aizawa will tell Masahiro later, only a little wild-eyed. “My job interview consisted of robots that asked me questions about my capstone essay in between shooting lasers at my face.”)

            “I’m wondering, Sir,” Masahiro finally manages, twenty minutes in and squeezed dry like seaweed after it’s been rinsed and ready to die right there on the office carpet.

            In a terrifying display of how he can possibly read minds, Principal Nedzu says, “Wondering why I assigned All Might as your Quirk tutor?” even though Masahiro has not brought this up even once and Principal Nedzu should have had no idea what he was about to say.

            “I thought it expedient,” Principal Nedzu continues, after Masahiro stares at him in mute ‘why do you know everything’. “All Might’s already here on campus, and this is still where you’re planning to apply upon graduation, correct?”

            Masahiro nods. Has a vague wondering if he’d even be allowed to apply anywhere else and imagines, with something that feels like certainty, that applications to any other institution would end up mysteriously and unexplainably ‘lost’.

            “Better to keep things in-house, then,” Principal Nedzu says, all good cheer. He smiles from behind the rim of his teacup. “Besides. All Might is a member of our faculty, and one you interacted with very little during your student teaching, correct?”

            Correction: Masahiro interacted with All Might absolutely not at all during his student teaching. This was a tricky feat, considering All Might works with all of the students, and 1-A in particular. It involved a lot of ducking behind walls and convenient objects whenever All Might was near, to the silent (Kouda, Jiro) and out-loud (Hakagure, Asui, Aoyama) judgement of his students.

            Principal Nedzu smiles his most benign, kindly smile, which raises every single hair on Masahiro’s arms. “I’m sure there’s so much All Might can teach you, then. About your Quirk, and otherwise.”

            And then, having only vaguely hinted at whatever master plan he’s inevitably enacting, Principal Nedzu releases Masahiro into the wild of ‘possible emotional fulfillment? What is happening here??’.

In spite of his incredible ability to repress past trauma and his twenty-three year track record of successfully doing so, Masahiro still worried that returning to the UA campus might be…an experience. That he might stop, stutter, lose his breath on a punched-out wave of memories (the total darkness in the classrooms, the steadfast faces of his students, the villains creeping through the hallways with snarls and actual determination to do harm to those he’d come to care for).

But weirdly, walking across the grounds of UA again feels like a sigh of relief. Like finally letting out a breath he’d been holding for far too long, compressing tight against his ribs.

            “Maybe I’m better at it than I thought,” he muses to Yuki, who flies out of Doorway 3 to meet him.

            “Maybe you should stop answering the question ‘what’s a healthy coping mechanism’ with ‘repressing everything until I eventually go off like a bottle rocket’,” Yuki shoots back, before tackling Masahiro in a hug, flowers blooming in her eyes and the grass around their feet.

            Masahiro returns the hug, gives a newly blossomed vine curling around his wrist an affectionate pat, and blithely ignores Yuki’s subtle insinuation that he deal with his issues in a manner other than ‘shoving them where they can’t see the light of day’.

            “I’m…actually amazed that you’re here alone,” Masahiro says. “Not that I…not that the kids need to come and greet me…just based on my knowledge of who they are…I thought…”

            “Yeah, I covered their classroom door and windows with vines like three minutes ago. It won’t keep them away for long, but I’m exercising best friend privileges, which means I get to hug you before the gremlins do.” Yuki gives him a little shoulder knock. “So, quit it with the sad ellipses implying that your students don’t love you anymore. My guess is that we’ve got maybe another thirty seconds before Bakugou, Hagakure, or Todoroki blows out a windowpane and leads the way to you.”

            Almost as if on cue, there’s the distant sound of shattering glass.

            “Gosh, I just love them so much,” Yuki beams. “I almost hope they keep me as a Year 3 teacher, so I can have them in that final, batshit year before they’re released upon the world.”

            Masahiro thinks that this idea does not bode well. For the world.

            They cross the grass to greet the slowly gathering cluster of Class 1-A. Some of them hang out the classroom window, waving brightly (Sero, Kouda, Yaoyorozu). Others jump straight from windowpane to the stretch of dirt beneath it (Midoriya, Uraraka, Kirishima). Someone inside is clearly torn between greeting Masahiro loudly at the top of his lungs while also bewailing the ‘tragic impracticality of broken glass’ (Iida, bless him).

            Aizawa’s exhausted, bedraggled head pops out of a non-broken window, still mostly covered in flowered vines. He turns eyes too tired to be haunted on Yuki and says, “Yuki-Sensei?”

            “It was a training exercise,” Yuki shoots back, bright and immediate. “I know how much your kids thrive on unplanned, potentially dangerous opportunities to use their Quirks.”

            “How kind,” Aizawa says, voice so flat that dropped marbles wouldn’t roll. His eyes turn to Masahiro and maybe Masahiro is imagining it, but he thinks he sees a tiny softening, an infinitesimal warmth to that blank expression. “Welcome back, Masahiro-Sensei.”

            Masahiro drops into a bow, immediate and instinctive, always ready to respond to what might be a genuine emotion with rigidly awkward politeness. “Ah, I…thank you, Aizawa-Sensei.”

            “Masahiro-Sensei!” Kirishima tugs on his shirtsleeve a little. Not a single seam tears, even in Kirishima’s perpetually-iron grip.

It amazes Masahiro, and always has, the dichotomy of this boy. Kirishima hides a heart of pure and gentle joy underneath a near-constant shout and the ability to become a moving boulder. Sometimes, in the quiet moments after a long day of student-teaching, Masahiro would think about how the students had already resigned themselves to being known by what they could do instead of who they really were, and had to curl his hand around the invisible hurt of Kirishima’s gentleness getting scrubbed from public perception by the power of his Quirk. Same for Yaoyorozu’s breathtaking ability to intake and memorize the information necessary to produce items, her detailed and studied knowledge of Chemistry, Biology, Physics.  Same for Ojiro’s quiet, steely, steadfast work ethic. Uraraka’s sharp edges, her ability to cut without a weapon, all washed away by her cute persona. All of these kids, reduced to an end result, and already okay with it, already over it like they were already over a myriad of other things that Masahiro has never had to consider (who is he to wonder after how history will remember him when he’s worked so hard to not be remembered at all). Masahiro had some restless, fever-skinned nights during his student teaching, tossing and turning in bed as he grappled with this new awareness of 1-A, compressing a curious rage like a storm in a bottle.

He never really asked Aizawa if it ever gets better. If this secondhand anger ebbs and flows across the years, or if it’s especially intense with these students because of what they know 1-A will become.

He knows better than to even ask if there’s any coping mechanisms for it. Masahiro can pretty well intuit, just by looking at the UA faculty, that there is not.

“Masahiro-Sensei,” Uraraka carols. “Are you coming up to class?”

“Please come up to class!” Kaminari calls from somewhere inside the classroom. “You’re much nicer than Aizawa-Sensei when I forget something! You’ve never once thrown an eraser at my face or thrown me out an open doorway!”

“That was a Quirk demonstration,” Aizawa says, totally deadpan. “I was demonstrating a capture technique.”

“How far did he throw him?” Masahiro murmurs to Yuki.

“Oh, at least half a hallway,” Yuki carols back. “Super entertaining. But he made sure to aim for a pile of practice mats for the landing. Big, grouchy, vaguely destructive teddy-bear. Kaminari ended up bouncing and giggling loud enough to wake the dead.”

Over Yuki’s explanation, Aizawa reminds the kids that; “Masahiro-Sensei isn’t here to student-teach this time. He’s here for specialized training with All Might. Remember that.”

“Yes, of course,” Uraraka says, in the sugar-sweet tones of someone who has definitely said the word ‘fuck’ in front of their teacher at least once. “I’m sure we’ll all be very respectful of Masahiro’s training schedule and stay politely away from it.”

Inside the classroom, Bakugou lets out a loud, abrasive, entirely rude, ‘HA’.

“Sorry, sorry!” calls a new voice. And there’s All Might himself, rushing across the grass, a spindly and somehow still imposing figure. His tie is askew. His suit bags on his skeletal frame. But his smile is warm enough to power several cities, and Masahiro marvels at it, he really does. “I got held up with some of the second-year students.”

Above them, Aizawa makes a tiny, disgruntled, exhale of sound that Masahiro suspects might mean ‘stop running, you idiot, your lungs are essentially made of tissue paper’. All Might tosses a little, crooked smile up toward the window, like he also has an Aizawa-Noises Dictionary stuffed inside the back pocket of his terrible suit.

“I’m going to steal Masahiro-Sensei for a little while,” All Might informs 1-A. “Please forgive me.”

A sizeable portion of 1-A (and Yuki, which—why) makes a collective sound that could best be described as ‘possibly a growl’.

All Might, having worked with these students before, simply laughs where other people might have responded with an audible ‘?!?!’. “I’ll bring him back to say goodbye once we’ve finished!”

“You’d better, All Might-Sensei!” Hakagure shouts. Casually threatening the #1 Hero. Only Class 1-A.

“Kacchan and I will be along in a little bit, too!” Midoriya adds. “So, we’ll see you soon, Masahiro-Sensei.”

Masahiro considers that Midoriya and Bakugou are probably going to arrive on whatever practice field All Might will take him to just in time to see Masahiro crying, failing to use his Quirk entirely, or both at the same time. He thinks wistfully of the days when Baby Education Track Student Masahiro sat in class and listened earnestly to the lectures and thought that he might be able to someday earn respect from his future students.

“I’m sorry for this,” All Might says, as they leave 1-A and Aizawa and Yuki behind. “I’m sure it was…jarring, when Principal Nedzu asked me to be your Quirk Coach.”

“Um,” Masahiro offers, and resigns himself to being incredibly stupid in front of this man just as a default setting. “Sure. Yes, I…yes.” Masahiro’s agreement is immediately and brutally screamed down by some internal siren that shrieks ‘RUDE RUDE YOU’RE BEING RUDE TO THE SYMBOL OF PEACE’. “Not that I’m not! Grateful! I am!”

All Might smiles. It is a very self-deprecating thing.

“The truth is, Masahiro-Sensei, that I’m actually a pretty terrible teacher,” the #1 Hero confesses, complete with a rueful chuckle and an embarrassed hand to the back of his own neck. “I never even went to college—all of my pedagogy classes have been supplemental, and mostly after…well…” All Might gestures good-naturedly at his shrunken frame. “I’m sure any of our wonderful students could tell you where I’m lacking, when compared to their esteemed Aizawa-Sensei and other teachers.”

Even in the midst of Masahiro’s screaming internal meltdown, the thought ‘any of our wonderful students would throw themselves directly in front of an incoming comet for you with zero hesitation’ rings through his skull, clear as a bell.

“I’m not sure how I can help you, really,” All Might confesses, as they finally reach the Practice Fields (Masahiro’s mortal enemy; even standing on the grass where he once watched Shoji punt Mineta directly into the stratosphere sends shudders down his spine). “I’m not sure I completely understand myself why Principal Nedzu chose me to be your tutor. But I have learned its best to just sit back and trust his judgement in most things!”

What a remarkably peaceful way to live your life; just refusing to analyze any of Principal Nedzu’s machinations. Sounds restful. Masahiro (and Aizawa) should probably give it a try, to be honest.

But Masahiro is already wondering what it is Principal Nedzu wants him to learn here. The words ‘can teach you so much about your Quirk—and otherwise’ keep sounding in Masahiro’s head like a tornado siren. Principal Nedzu’s actions always have some long-game final result, and last time that meant ‘blasting a villain through a wall to realize I can actually use my Quirk in defense of my precious students’. Masahiro feels justified in his wariness. Also, if Principal Nedzu’s endgame here is Masahiro engaging in any kind of combat with All Might in order to prove the validity of his Quirk, Masahiro is just going to save everyone the trouble and punt himself into the stratosphere.

“Tell me a little about your Quirk,” All Might invites. He even…sits down, right there on the grass in the practice field. Which, okay. Sitting. Masahiro can do sitting. He lowers himself down gingerly.

“Oh, it’s…,” Masahiro stumbles, flushing for no good reason and hating every second of it. This is what attention does to him. This is why it’s terrible. “Ah, nervous energy. I can convert nervous energy into some kind of tangible power.”

“Fascinating,” All Might says, leaning forward with genuine interest.

Masahiro braces for the inevitable follow-up question: “Can I see?” Wearily starts the teeth-grinding process of convincing his muscles to loosen, his bones to relax, bleeding out his knee-jerk resistance by agonizing millimeters. It’s an old, familiar process that Masahiro hates every second of every single time he’s asked to demonstrate his Quirk.

But All Might sits back again and just. Doesn’t ask?

Instead, he says, “But Principal Nedzu says that last time you used it, you ended up with physical side effects. Abraded skin on your palms from the power output, damage to some of your nerve endings, a broken bone, things like that?”

“I. Well. The broken bone was from engaging in a fight in the first place; it’s not like I…I have no idea how to throw a punch. Correctly.” Masahiro fidgets with his glasses, pointlessly adjusting and re-adjusting. “But the other side effects. Yes, those were from my Quirk.”

And it’s embarrassing, isn’t it? Shameful. A full-grown man who hasn’t even grown past the ability to use his Quirk without damage to his body.

“It’s more normal than you think,” All Might says with a warm, knowing smile. Which—okay. Is mind-reading also a pre-requisite for UA employees? Is this something Masahiro is going to have to develop before he can start teaching here? Because, if so, he’s never, ever, ever going to be able to be in the same room as Midnight ever again.

All Might spreads his arms wide and continues with, “Look at me, after all. Isn’t this also a physical side effect?”

Every single atom in Masahiro’s body recoils from the idea of taking what happened to Masahiro (throwing one poorly executed punch and messing up his body by way of his own stupidity) and comparing it in any way, shape, or fashion to what happened to All Might (burned up his own body in a desperate, heroic, incredible bid to hold back a villain with his own two hands, purposefully sacrificing himself in order to save others in a brilliant blaze of nobility and still able to hold up a comforting, victorious fist up in the aftermath).

It’s probably the epitome of rudeness, but Masahiro can’t actually stop his mouth from saying, “It’s different. Of course, that’s different.”

All Might’s smile doesn’t waver, even if Masahiro is definitely going to scream into a pillow later at his own audacity. If anything, All Might’s smile softens, becomes a warmer thing.

“I think if often feels that way,” he says. “It’s so easy to consider your own battles insignificant when comparing them to others. Right?”

“I…don’t know what you mean?” Masahiro says back.

“Hmmm. You’d agree that I’ve fought a lot of battles in my lifetime, right, Masahiro-Sensei? All different kinds of battles?”

“I…of course. You’re…I mean…”

Kindly, All Might takes over Masahiro’s sputtering, half-formed words. “I know how easy it is to turn them into comparison points. To make them bigger or smaller inside my head depending on what I’m trying to prove, or disprove, to myself.”

This is starting to ring with something like ‘I know this’, spooking cold and uncomfortably familiar across Masahiro’s bones.

“It can be so difficult,” All Might concludes. “To see our own battles clearly.”

Masahiro wants to bleat out, forlorn and lost, ‘WHAT ARE WE TALKING ABOUT RIGHT NOW’. This whole string of conversation makes very little sense outside of ominous wording and that vague, uneasy feeling of recognition. But nothing concrete. Nothing Masahiro can get his hands around and…explain? Agree with? Disagree with?

All Might looks like he might elaborate, but just then, Midoriya and Bakugou arrive on the scene. Loudly arrive on the scene. And not just because Bakugou is Bakugou and loudness exists around him like a traveling thunderstorm, complete with its own sonic booms and lightning displays. But additional, non-Bakugou loudness because every single member of Class 1-A trails after Midoriya and Bakugou like ducklings, bobbing and skipping and entirely, smugly pleased with themselves which bodes well for exactly nobody.

“Did you all trap Aizawa-Sensei inside his sleeping bag again?” All Might asks, audibly amused and endeared.

“Would we do that?” Aoyama asks back, with a rapid flutter of his lashes and the most innocent of expressions. Even a tiny bit wounded, like he’s saddened that All Might would ask. It would be a fantastic tactical diversion if presented to someone who didn’t know 1-A and wouldn’t know that—yes. Yes, they would absolutely do that.

“Aizawa-Sensei deeply values his naptime,” Iida agrees, complete with a pious nod of his head. “It is our duty, as his students, to honor this.”

Masahiro didn’t get it at first. Back when he was student-teaching, why Aizawa used to look at Iida with an extra layer of outrage. It’s this. It’s Iida’s ability to shit-disturb while talking, all the while and with 100% believable conviction, like actually he’s above the entire institution of shit disturbance. He’s going to be an absolute menace in the field, when presented with politicians and red tape and dissenting news outlets. Someday, he, Aoyama, and Uraraka are going to realize the unbelievable chaos the three of them could wreak together, and then there’s going to be a mass shattering of long-held, antiquated institutions.

“Apologies, Masahiro-Sensei,” All Might apologizes. “It seems like our lesson today will be a group one.”

“I understand,” Masahiro says, because truly, he does.

But it doesn’t stop the quiet, curious relief Masahiro feels as he rises to his feet and lets the students swarm him, All Might’s words still rumbling in the back of his skull like a storm warning.

Chapter Text

            It’s easy to tell when there’s a right answer. Masahiro believes this. He’s (almost) a teacher. He was the student who always preferred Math to Language classes because subjectivity makes Masahiro anxious, and Math more frequently asked only a single answer of him.

            But that preference for objectivity also makes Masahiro acutely aware when he doesn’t have the right answer. Like right here, right now, staring at the Symbol of Peace across a freshly mowed practice field and absolutely failing to understand what All Might wants from him.

            “It’s not a problem to be solved,” All Might keeps saying, in different words, when talking about Masahiro’s Quirk.

            And Masahiro just…doesn’t understand. Could never understand. His Quirk, and the panic that powers it, has been something to fix his entire life.

            They’ve been working for an hour, and thus far this work has consisted of All Might gently suggesting that Masahiro try to channel his power, Masahiro attempting to do just that, panicking about the very idea of it, and reacting to the few tiny, greenish sparks he’s managed to produce with increasingly hitched inhales.

            He’s frustrated, he’s afraid, and his ribs ache wildly from his conflicting attempts to channel his Quirk while also repressing it entirely.

            “I used it before,” Masahiro finally snaps, eighty-two minutes in, when he’s slick with cold sweat and increasingly furious at his own inability, fingers tingling from attempting to channel his energy and failing every time. “I did. But I can’t…it just won’t…I don’t understand. Why it’s here in the first place. What I’m supposed to do with it. How I’m supposed to do anything around it.”

            “Progress is hardly ever linear,” All Might points out. Still so gently, and that’s great, because if he expressed even an iota of any negative reaction, Masahiro would burst into ugly, messy tears for sure. But the gentleness is starting to put Masahiro’s teeth on edge as well, so really, there’s no winning here, short of Masahiro just flinging himself into the sun. “You can move forward and not feel like you are. Discernable progress depends entirely on the expectations we place upon ourselves.”

            “What does that mean,” Masahiro snaps, worn thin by his own frustration. He immediately, immediately wants to die for daring to raise his voice at the Symbol of Peace.

            But All Might has been dealing with Class 1-A for an extended period of time. Which means that anything short of ‘explosive, destructive, gleeful rage’ barely registers on the ‘emotions I should worry about’ radar. This is understandable. In his final semester as an Education Track student, a teacher from a nearby middle school brought some of her students by for a kind of panel discussion about kids today, and what they were thinking. Masahiro remembers the teacher apologizing for her students afterward, red-faced and horrified, and not really understanding why. Nobody had blown anything up (Todoroki, Hakagure), started a battle royale (Midoriya, Bakugou), toppled an academic institution (Iida, Uraraka), or driven an authority figure past the sanity threshold with a blank face and a relentless barrage of blunt statements (Asui, Tokoyami).

            And what’s both worse and better is the attendance of 1-A students at Masahiro’s training sessions. Most often Midoriya, Todoroki, Tokoyami, and Yaoyorozu with the occasional guest star experience of someone else who is definitely not supposed to be there and is definitely cutting class via dubious means in order to attend. Bakugou is a near constant presence—he doesn’t actively participate in the training, but he billows up and down the edges of the practice field, eyes creased angrily in Midoriya’s direction. He is occasionally secreted away by All Might for a private sparring session with Midoriya, safely away from Masahiro’s still-tender nerves. Uraraka also turns up some days, relaxed backwards on the grass or goading Bakugou into white-out, ear-shattering rage for no discernable reason outside of her own entertainment. Sometimes Iida shows up, always ready with some noble, stalwart excuse for why he’s not where he’s supposed to be. More frequently Ashido, Kaminari, Kirishima, and Sero, who bother with exactly zero excuses whatsoever.

            It’s better, to have the students there, because for all that Class 1-A is a chaotic, teeth-grinding turbine of energy and sound and casual Quirk usage that once caused a minor rock slide (the apparently terrifying combined powers of Jiro and Kouda, what the hell) and sent a more fragile Masahiro into tearful hysterics—for all of that, they are also a grounding presence. Even at fifteen years old, these kids are the kind of foundation that castles will be built upon someday. Steady, unwavering, willing to stand against the eroding waves of time and ceaseless injustice.

            But it’s worse, too, because the kids who have been chosen for All Might’s special training right alongside Masahiro have clearly been chosen for a reason. A unifying factor that Masahiro doesn’t really want to examine too closely, but also can’t escape. It’s there, in the way Yaoyorozu’s breath hitches mid-spar, when everything gets loud and fast and impossible to control. It’s there in the terrified exhaustion in Tokoyami’s eyes, as he practices calling Dark Shadow and putting him away again, over and over. It’s there in Todoroki’s tiny, almost imperceptible wince every single time he calls his Fire to life. He still calls the fire, but he flinches back from it every time he does, and that is somehow infinitely worse. And Midoriya—Masahiro is starting to suspect that Midoriya isn’t there for the exact same reasons as the other three. But even he stops sometimes. Almost like the enormity of what he’s been asked to shoulder hits him every now and again, full weight, and Midoriya has to stand there for a moment and find a way to breathe around it.

 But they run exercises right alongside Masahiro and are often, predictably, far better at producing a result. Masahiro frequently finds himself torn between a warmish kind of pride that feels uncomfortably like ‘my babies’ when examined closely, and the need to remind himself that he is a fully grown man very nearly in possession of a degree, and so trying to one-up his fifteen-year-old students would be petty and ridiculous (and impossible—Masahiro is comfortable in his awareness that any one of Class 1-A could obliterate him into the ground with either their Quirk or a single mean word).

            But there’s something…there’s something about the exercises. They’re often entirely different, but sometimes they’re the same. Sometimes, All Might sits them all down in the grass (All Might himself included) and asks them to channel their Quirk, or close their eyes and reach for a concept, usually something amorphous and impossible to explain.

            “You’re not looking for peace, or calm,” All Might told them once, like it was the most logical thing in the world. “That’s…that can be hard to find. Too big. It’s overwhelming. Look for quiet instead. Search your bones for it. Just a tiny pocket of quiet. A lot of times, that’s enough.”

            Like ‘quiet’ was a searchable internal feature, and not something typically found in the external world. Like Masahiro was supposed to take the variables of ‘peace = too big, but quiet is pocket-sized’ and somehow solve for the answer of ‘Quirk stability’.

            If there was any comfort to be found that day, it was in the stoically resigned expression on Todoroki’s face. The one that said ‘what is this bullshit’ so that Masahiro didn’t have to.

            “I just don’t get it,” Masahiro whines to Yuki one night after these training sessions, awash in horrifically cheap wine from the nearby convenience store and an ocean of self-pity. “I don’t understand what I’m supposed to be working on.”

            Yuki hums a little, multi-colored eyes distant as she grades a paper. Masahiro strongly suspects her of leaving comments behind like ‘what is this shit, Akira-kun’ in pretty purple ink but he’s not brave enough to call her out on it directly.

            “You’re still there working on it, though,” she points out. “You’re there, and you’re making the effort even though it sucks and it’s uncomfortable and unfamiliar, and I think that’s half the battle here?”

            “Ugh,” Masahiro burbles back at her. “Don’t be reasonable. It’s unsettling.”

            Masahiro finds himself turning All Might’s lessons over and over in his mind. At night when he’s totally failing to sleep. During his university lectures, he doodles pictures of All Might’s face with speech bubbles that say things like ‘feel it, don’t force it’ (along with jagged, disruptive lines that Masahiro eventually comes to realize are supposed to represent his own Quirk). When he’s watching Class 1-A work through their own exercises. He struggles to find the thread while failing to understand the necessity, all the while swallowing anger and frustration at watching Yaoyorozu’s hitched inhales, Tokoyami’s fear-bright eyes, Todoroki’s tiny winces.  

            “Is it hurting them?” he finally asks Aizawa one night after class, when he absolutely can’t stand it anymore.

            Aizawa doesn’t look up from the papers he’s grading. Big, red marks, just like before.

            “Is it hurting you?” he asks back.

            “Oh. That’s not the—”

            “Not the same? No, it never seems to be.”

            Masahiro feels the reverberations of that all the way down his spine.

            “It could be hurting them,” Aizawa adds after a moment. “Can’t say it isn’t, for sure. But I guess you have to consider what hurts more. The lessons or leaving it alone.”

            “There’s no right answer to that.”

            “Of course there’s not. No one answer is right for every single person.” Aizawa squints at the paper beneath his pen in a way that implies it’s either a) Kaminari’s paper and he used the word ‘bitching’ to describe a Quirk yet again or b) Bakugou’s paper, and he ended the essay with ‘and then I murdered everyone for being so very fucking stupid’. “These kids have their answer, it seems. Doesn’t mean it’s right or wrong, just that it’s right for them. We all have to find that same ending point of being okay, even if the road to get there is different for everyone.”

            Masahiro remembers a conversation in the quiet of his student teacher dorm room, Aizawa with his eyes ringed black from exhaustion and saying ‘they scare me, too’, so soft and honest that Masahiro felt it like a physical punch.

            “Are you okay?” Masahiro asks, quiet now, that bubbling frustration softening to a simmer.

            Aizawa cuts him a look. His eyes are still shadowed. Maybe they always will be.

            Aizawa says, “You can hit the ending point of ‘okay’ and realize that you still have a ways to walk. That’s the thing about this road. You know?”

            Masahiro stares down at his own hands. Thinks back to snapping out at All Might that he didn’t understand, that he’d used his Quirk once, so why couldn’t he use it again.

            “I know,” Masahiro says, and leaves Aizawa alone in the dark of his classroom, his footsteps sounding down the hallway like a drumbeat, like something echoing, like something that might go on forever.

##

            On a random Friday, Masahiro is once again assembled on the practice field with All Might, Midoriya, Todoroki, Tokoyami, and Yaoyorozu. Today, Uraraka, Kirishima, and Bakugou are also in attendance, lounging on the edges of the field (well, Uraraka and Kirishima lounge—Bakugou paces up and down looking like he might chew a tree in half with his own teeth). The wind whispers soft and warm, rustling the grass beneath their feet, the sun beats warm overhead, and there’s that special Friday Feel in the air, when the world seems full of possibilities even if only for the moment.

            Masahiro feels…settled, for once. He managed two whole sparks of his Quirk without panicking, and while that’s objectively not a lot, on this specific Friday afternoon it feels momentous. He and All Might hover in the center of the field and watch the kids practice their Quirks. Yaoyorozu sits cross-legged in the grass, face scrunched as she reads through a Chemistry textbook in order to understand the components of what she’ll summon next. Tokoyami seems to be having some sort of fight with Dark Shadow halfway across the field, but today it feels more comical than something to be feared. Based on what he’s able to hear and decode from hand gestures, Masahiro suspects that Dark Shadow might want Tokoyami to climb the nearest tree. Tokoyami seems disinclined. There was mention of ‘but my cape’. Todoroki, taking a break from calling his flames, creates little ice flowers and gives them to Uraraka and Kirishima. It’s hard to say who’s more delighted by it—Uraraka laughs but Kirishima hugs the flower to his cheek and hollers ‘my BRO’. Todoroki has that subtle, sly look on his face (told in the tiniest shifts of expression, Masahiro has learned) that implies he might be considering giving an ice flower to Bakugou, solely to witness the dazzling, explosive fallout.

            Midoriya, ever the earnest one, works on Quirk forms and fine-tooth control across the field. Stance, channel his Quirk, and then a physical blow to the practice dummy. The tiny knot between his eyebrows indicates that he’s feeling out the amount of Quirk usage, that he’s trying to find the balance between ‘just right’ and ‘too much, I took out a tree again’.

            It happens so quickly that, later, Masahiro will barely be able to process it. A subtle shift of Midoriya’s weight, maybe, or possibly a solitary moment of distraction. Whatever it is, Midoriya misjudges the amount of Quirk he channels into his next punch. But this time, there is no admitted hilarity in an obliterated practice dummy and a sheepish Midoriya. Instead, there is a loud crack and then a yelp of pain, quickly stifled.

            Masahiro is amazed that so many people can move so quickly, and all at once. Sharing the same instinct like that—that’s got to be some kind of rare. And he and All Might are fast, but not nearly as fast as Uraraka and Bakugou. They arrive at Midoriya’s side almost before Masahiro can blink, almost before his heart has that swoop-sick feeling that comes with seeing one of his students hurt.

            “Your hands,” Uraraka snaps.

            “You IDIOT!” Bakugou adds at her side, at a considerably louder volume. “What kind of shitty punch was that?”

            Uraraka’s face is furious, intense, as she snatches up Midoriya’s hands. Turns them this way and that, inspecting them for damage, running her fingers over already existent scar tissue and apparently momentarily immune to Midoriya’s splutters and blushes.

            “I’m fine,” Midoriya swears. “Honest! I mis-judged the Quirk output, that’s all. But I pulled it back last second.”

            “Why,” Uraraka demands. She cranes Midoriya’s fingers back and forth, checking their mobility. “Why would you do that?”

            In the tones of someone who knows they’re probably about to get their ass kicked, Midoriya admits, “Well, there was that thing about the training equipment budget.”

            “The BUDGET!” Bakugou howls, at a decibel that frankly shouldn’t be possible.

            “Do you think I care about the budget?” Uraraka asks. She sounds calm, almost casual, and Masahiro knows after decades sent with Yuki that this is actually her most dangerous tone. “Do you think that I will not round up every practice dummy in this stupid school and force feed them to you one by one?”

            “Uraraka,” Masahiro cuts across. If allowed to spiral, she and Bakugou might start one-upping each other in who can sound more pissed off. “Midoriya, are you hurt?”

            Midoriya twists his wrists a little. Flexes his fingers. “Bruised knuckles, maybe. But that’s it! I swear!”

            Cool as milk straight from the fridge, Todoroki says, “All Might-Sensei isn’t here.”

            Masahiro glances around and realizes that, yes, in the absence of a bigger voice, he defaulted to Teacher in Charge mode. All Might was at his side. Now, he’s nowhere to be seen.

            “I think he went to get water,” Todoroki adds. And then he…stares. Directly at Masahiro. For an unsettling and silent length of time. Without blinking.

            “O…kay,” Masahiro tries. “I’ll…help him? Go and help him get the water?”

            Todoroki finally blinks. Masahiro wheezes a little.

            He abandons Midoriya to Uraraka and Bakugou, in spite of Midoriya’s silent, pleading request that Masahiro not leave him alone.

            There’s a water fountain tucked inside a nearby tunnel that leads from the campus grounds to the practice fields. It’s the closest one, so Masahiro assumes that’s where Todoroki was directing him.

            He expects to find All Might beaming reassuring smiles, paper cups balanced in his spindly hands.

            Instead, he finds the crumpled, curled inward shape of a man. Braced against the tunnel wall, so tucked out of sight that Masahiro almost misses him entirely. Shoulders bent so low that Masahiro’s breath catches, that instinctive tears prick against his eyes. He feels like he can see, maybe for the first time, the impossible, unimaginable weight those shoulders have carried. Carried while smiling and standing tall, would still carry if they had the option.

            Masahiro furiously ponders his options in the span of two seconds. A loud, screaming, on fire corner of his brain wants to flee. To give All Might his privacy and let him recover in peace. The same part of Masahiro’s brain that beats ‘don’t want to be perceived, being seen is dangerous’ on a daily basis.

            But Masahiro also thinks of All Might’s smiles across the years. The way he smiled at Masahiro, too, and spoke to him so gently about things that Masahiro sees with sudden clarity he must have experienced himself. The way All Might has given everything of himself for so long, and never asked for anything in return. Masahiro’s blood curdles at the idea of leaving him here. Alone, tucked away in a dark, damp corner, without anyone to smile at him for once and tell him everything will be okay.

            Masahiro’s hand on All Might’s shoulder is so tentative it might as well be a butterfly landing.

            “Sir,” he says. Croaks, more like. He clears his throat and tries again. “Um. All Might. Sir.”

            All Might looks back at him. His face is…it’s a lot. On the daily, the marks of strain and exhaustion are there, but mostly concealed behind an indomitable mask of good cheer and blinding smiles. But this is the strain and the hurt without the mask. This is decades worth of fear and pain deeply gouged in his face, his eyes.

            Masahiro may…throw up? Faint? From the sheer force of that hurt. But that will have to later’s problem, because if he does either of those things on the Symbol of Peace, he will probably roll himself like a sausage in Principal Nedzu’s fancy office rug, never to emerge again.

            “Masahiro-Sensei,” All Might croaks back. “Apologies. Did you need something?”

            Like a moron, Masahiro says, “Todoroki said there was water.”

            “Ah.” All Might blinks back in the direction of the field. “Shouto always did see far more than he ever lets on. Clever boy.”

            Todoroki didn’t want All Might to hurt alone, but probably felt a little bit helpless as the student to do anything about it. It makes Masahiro’s chest ache to think of what else he sees, what else the others see.

            “Of course, I’m happy to bring water if the children want it,” All Might says. He pats Masahiro’s hand on his shoulder once, and then heads for the paper cups in a dispenser next to the water fountain. Starts filling little cups of water while Masahiro fiddles in place and panics because…okay. Is he supposed to…pretend he didn’t see anything? Offer to help? Offer a full-body, horrifically awkward hug?

            After a silence that feels like it lasts a whole eternity, All Might quietly asks, “Izuku. He’s alright?”

            “Bruised fingers,” Masahiro replies. Way too quickly, but he’s so grateful for a task. “That’s all. Uraraka and Bakugou were, um. Shaking him down when I left.”

            “As to be expected,” All Might says, with a curl of that usual warmth. And then, softer, he adds, “And I’m grateful for it. He pushes himself too hard, that boy.”

            Masahiro wonders how often All Might looks at Midoriya, shining bright, and sees a reflection of his own hunched shoulders, a kind of fearful image superimposed.

            Masahiro is going to cy. Right here, in this tunnel, he’s going to cry.

            “I’ve lived a life with the same fear,” All Might continues, conversational. “Bigger and more terrifying than any villain I’ve ever faced. A fear of trying to help and hurting instead. Some of the hardest battles I’ve ever fought have been in the quiet corners of empty rooms, entirely inside my own head.”

            Masahiro swallows hard. It feels like swallowing gasoline already lit.

            All Might smiles at Masahiro over his shoulder. “So frustrating, when compared to the tangibility of a physical fight. When so much of the work is directed inward, and takes a painfully long time to show actual output. Wouldn’t you agree, Masahiro-Sensei?”

            Masahiro can’t breathe. Or think, really. His entire body feels like the aftermath of a lightning strike, still crackling blue and blinding. But All Might’s eyes flicker down to Masahiro’s hands, and a slow smile spreads over his face. Which is the very first moment that Masahiro realizes that all of this anxious, unsettled energy in his body is sparking off of his fingertips. But only sparks. And Masahiro…he didn’t even notice.

            All Might finishes filling seven glasses of water. He balances four of them in his long-palmed fingers and leaves three near the water fountain. Exits the tunnel without a hitch in stride. You’d never know that he was crumpled over mere moments before.

            Left alone, Masahiro isn’t sure what to do. The crying, screaming route he’d been contemplating a moment ago seems attractive. So does marching into Principal Nedzu’s office and making incoherent sounds (although, according to Aizawa, this is less effective than you might think).

            In the end, he blinks down at his hands. It still…it makes his stomach to see his Quirk. Just out in the open. Uninvited. But he pushes past the nausea for a teeth-grinding two seconds, and manages to maintain the sparks. He doesn’t quite find the ‘quiet’ that All Might spoke of. Not yet, anyway. But he manages to dull the perpetual siren in his head just enough to keep the sparks going for two solid heartbeats.

            And then, shaking and sweating, he allows the sparks to fade. Takes a moment to saw in a breath, before picking up the paper cups that All Might left behind, and following him back to the practice field.

Chapter Text

Five Years Later

            He’s never actually going to be good at the dead-inside poker face. Five years after his first start and countless subsequent hours of (now Principal) Aizawa’s training down the drain.

            Case in point: one of Masahiro’s baby, first-year Hero Track students currently blinking up at him with big, innocent eyes like Masahiro can’t see that the entire desk behind their back is now stuck to the ceiling tiles.

            Masahiro bites viciously on the inside of his cheek to keep the laugh caught inside his throat. He musters up a sigh instead and says, as disapprovingly as he’s able, “Kira.”

            “Yes, Sensei,” Kira chirps back. They blink those pink and orange eyes even faster.

            “What did I tell you about Quirk etiquette inside the classroom.”

            “Not to use my Quirk superglue to stick Maka to the ceiling, Sir!”

            “And yet?”

            Kira snaps Masahiro a jaunty salute. “Sir, Maka is not on the ceiling, Sir! Only his desk!”

            Masahiro casts a long-suffering look around the room. The rest of his students are either (badly) pretending to be busy with their actual school work, or watching intently without even bothering to hide it. There is one noticeable absence.

            Masahiro sighs again. “And Maka is currently…?”

            Kira dimples at him, like the absolute menace that they are. “Superglued inside the storage closet. So, technically, Masahiro-Sensei, I didn’t break any rules!”

            Masahiro pinches the bridge of his nose underneath his glasses. He can already sense the email he’s going to get from Principal Aizawa about this. It’s going to contain a single question mark, and no subject line.

            “Taki,” Masahiro says. “Go free Maka. You know where the dissolvent is.”

            Taki, who is perpetually sleeping on his desk but can generally be trusted to do what he’s told, if only because causing trouble is so much work, yawns and then also salutes. “Sure thing, Teach.”

            Masahiro turns back to Kira. “Kira. No more super-gluing Maka anywhere inside the UA buildings. No more super-gluing his desk to any surface at all. Understand?”

            Kira hums thoughtfully. Masahiro can already see the gears turning in their brain, undoubtedly finding ways around Masahiro’s newest directive. Masahiro can expect, in the next 7-10 business days, to find Maka superglued to the tree outside the classroom window and Kira earnestly explaining that Masahiro forbade indoor supergluing only, and so the tree doesn’t count. But Masahiro learned, somewhere around Year 2 of his teaching career, the importance of parceling out your battles. ‘Not supergluing to the foliage, either’ is future Masahiro’s problem, and something to address in that exact moment for maximum impact.

            Taki comes in a few moments later with Maka in tow. Maka is his normal, outraged, blustering self. He and Kira are really like oil and water; Maka uptight and married to the rules and never willing to set a toe out of line. And Kira, who treats the word ‘no’ like something small and cute and optional, who once snuck into Aizawa’s office and superglued every third object just to see if they could. The two of them have amazing potential for fieldwork team-ups, if only Masahiro can get them to stop acting like mortal enemies first. Aizawa is zero help. During their last check-in meeting, Aizawa recommended leaving them alone in a forest for a week with only a lighter and a canteen of water, and was totally, completely, deadly serious about it.

            “Your students don’t seem to have a healthy fear of you, Masahiro-Sensei,” Aizawa observed.

            Masahiro knew—he knew—that he was being provoked. But that knowledge didn’t stop him from snapping back, instinctive and real, “Students should not be afraid of their teachers.”

            And then Aizawa gave that sleepy-eyed hum, like he knew that Masahiro felt that way from the get-go, or else Masahiro wouldn’t actually be employed at UA. Aizawa and Masahiro do this once a month or so. Masahiro still can’t decide if these meetings were more or less infuriating than meetings with Principal Nedzu used to be.

            Of course, this determination to be respected instead of feared does lead to some daily struggles. Like getting Kira to stop supergluing their classmates (mostly Maka) to random objects when they get bored. Like getting Hiro to stop using his increased gravity Quirk to launch spitballs that turn into actual boulders mid-flight. Like getting any of them to do anything come Language lessons, because they hate Language with more passion that they’ve ever shown toward potential Villains and they know Masahiro is soft.

            All of this is only exacerbated by the fact that 1-A (the 1-A—it’s unfair to all the other 1-A classes they’ve had in the past few years, but in Masahiro’s mind, there has only ever been one Class 1-A) still likes to drop in and visit their old teachers when their insanely busy schedules allow.

            Not often. One or two of them might come knocking every few months, and rarely ever Midoriya, Bakugou, or Uraraka. Class 1-A stepped into the spotlight before they even made it out of their first year of high school, and so by the time they graduated, they kept right on running, using that spotlight attention to enact real change, take on structural inequalities, call out long-held industry biases. They’re also the biggest targets on the gameboard, subject to the worst and most publicized villain battles and sometimes, Aizawa and Masahiro meet in Aizawa’s dorm after dark and share two neat fingers of whiskey without speaking, newspapers abandoned on the table behind them.

            But 1-A is, and always has been, genuinely good kids at their core. And so, they still trip their way across the UA campus whenever they can, kicking in Aizawa’s door, before meandering over to see Present Mic, Yuki, Masahiro.

            Today, it’s the little circle of core Deku friends in their entirety—including, unbelievably, Midoriya himself. Midoriya, who carries so much of the Hero World on his back in spite of his young age, the way everyone who’s ever met him knew and worried he would some day. The four of them creep through the open doorway in the middle of Masahiro’s History lecture, and Masahiro’s students are immediately, immediately, ecstatic like multiple tuning forks whacked against a countertop all at the same time. Masahiro promptly makes a mental note to re-teach this entire concept at a later date, because his kids are not going to remember a single word he's said thus far.

            “And what professional duties are the four of you skipping?” Masahiro inquires.

            Uraraka grins at him, entirely unrepentant, in a way that implies ‘so many’.

            “Keeping in contact with former educators is also a public service,” Iida informs the room at large, pious and stalwart. So, he’s definitely ignoring at least two politicians and possibly a police chief to be here today. “It’s only right that you pay homage to those who raised you so well.”

            Iida is hilariously awkward around school age children. One time, he brought a bag of sugar-free candies as a treat because he thought kids liked candies but also worried about potential cavities. He lectured about proper dental hygiene the entire time he passed out the treat. The children, in turn, find this wildly endearing and make sure to pester him an extra amount.

            Uraraka has her chosen favorites (aka, Masahiro’s biggest sources of chaos in the classroom) that flock to her side the second she darkens the classroom doorstep. Midoriya loves all of the kids with all of the good will in his body (which is a lot) but has a soft spot for the quiet kids, the kids who hover on the edges of the group.

            And Todoroki. Hilariously, perhaps predictably to those who know him, Todoroki is adored by every single child in the UA complex. Todoroki takes one step on campus, and somehow immediately has a trail of student-ducklings following his every move, hanging off of his arms, despite the fact that Todoroki’s expression never changes, that the press sometimes paints him as stone-cold and terrifying. Once, Masahiro caught him letting a gaggle of kids warm their hands over his flames when he visited an outdoor training session in the winter months, and had to duck into a nearby alcove to cry about it a little.

            Someday in the far-off future, Masahiro suspects that he may be the Aizawa to Todoroki’s student teacher.

            “You’re alright?” Masahiro finds a quiet moment to ask, in between the cacophony of his current students shrieking, Midoriya’s group subtly (or not—Uraraka) goading, and Kira asking, deadly serious, ‘Uraraka-san, do you want to watch me superglue Maka to a tree?’ which means that Masahiro is going to have to amend that rule sooner than expected.

            “We’re okay!” Midoriya promises. Probably lies—the four of them are off active duty for a reason and Masahiro is pretty sure he caught Midoriya correcting a limp on his way into the classroom. It’s fine—Masahiro will tattle to Aizawa later, and the man will loom Midoriya into visiting Recovery Girl before he leaves. “Are you okay, Masahiro-Sensei?”

            Masahiro opens his mouth to answer, but is interrupted by a loud bellow (Maka) and then a sudden spray of Kira’s superglue, probably more violent than normal because they’re excited. It’s heading right for Midoriya. Midoriya, for all that he’s the current #1 Hero, actually has no defense against ‘overly excited 15-year-old’. And Masahiro is not, NOT, putting up with Present Mic dragging him to hell and back on his radio show for being the reason why the new Symbol of Peace had to get his trademark hair (adored by the press and Midoriya’s many fan clubs) shorn because Masahiro let his student gunk it up with extra strong superglue.

            And so, Masahiro pivots neatly in front of Midoriya. Calls his Quirk until its glowing red in his hand, and then cuts neatly through the spray of glue. The glue sizzles mid-air and then dissipates.

            Masahiro’s kids laugh, go ‘ooooh’ and clap, the way they do every single time Masahiro is forced to dissolve Kira’s glue mid-air (this is not a new or even strange experience—this is at least once a week, and Masahiro despairs). Masahiro shakes out his hand, the glow easily extinguished. Masahiro neatly tucks away the little bright pop of ‘oh no’ that accompanies his Quirk usage—that probably always will. But after years of steady, supported work, that pop is a pinprick, present but easily managed. It can still become a wave, on rare occasions, when the fear slips past Masahiro’s painstakingly built defenses. Masahiro does not have a magical cure. But he does have tools, tips, ways to handle it when it gets bad again.

            Masahiro turns to Midoriya.

            “I’m okay,” he says. And it’s such a small word, maybe—it’s not ‘great’ or ‘amazing’. But ‘okay’ is something that Masahiro means, and something that felt unachievable before. It’s maybe a tiny victory that feels momentous, and something Masahiro will always be grateful for.