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Having a family, Toshinori Yagi thinks, is a lot harder than not having one.
He never had much of a family – both parents passing away before he had even reached high school and no grandparents to speak of. He was only able to attend UA by staying with a distant cousin of his mother’s. He thinks he got close to having a family of his own, not once but twice – with David Shield during his time abroad, and then back at home with Sir Nighteye. He knows quite well that it was himself that sabotaged both of those attempts. So after nearly 25 years of being more-or-less alone, Toshinori sometimes finds it hard to adjust.
Luckily for him, Izuku Midoriya is easy to care for, and easier to love. He jumps with his whole heart into everything he does and reminds Toshinori so much of himself as a young hero. Midoriya is more than happy with every praise Toshinori heaps on him, and takes every criticism and adjustment in stride. Whatever he had going on with Bakugo still escapes the former number one hero, but he thinks he can understand its current iteration enough.
What he isn’t used to, he isn’t sure he’ll understand, is Midoriya’s relationship with Gran Torino.
He knows he hasn’t explained. He trembled with so much fear just handing over his old mentor’s contact information to his pupil in his first year, Toshinori doesn’t know if he could manage to get it out. He wants to tell Midoriya of all the times Gran beat him into the ground to teach him to stand back up, the long days of intense combat training he’s never been subjected to. He wants to explain that he can never measure up in his mentor’s eyes because they both are still too bogged down by the grief of the loss of Shimura. He wants this boy, his son, to understand why he doesn’t visit the run-down agency.
For all his public speaking ability, Toshinori Yagi cannot find the words to say.
How can he, when his Gran and Midoriya’s are two different people?
It would be hard not to notice. It becomes painstakingly clear to Toshinori following the second-year sports festival. Midoriya had placed third, right behind Bakugo and Yaoyorozu, and was boasting about the rest of his classmates’ growth with stars in his eyes, sunlight glinting off the bronze medal as the two made their way out of the stadium and into the maze of booths set up outside. Toshinori listens, adding comments where he can when Midoriya runs out of breath. They buy street food and eat it in the shade of the stadium walls. It’s nice.
It’s shattered by his student breaking away from his side with a yell, and running straight for the approaching Gran Torino.
Toshinori stands behind them as Midoriya greets the elder, all beaming smiles and proudly displaying his medal. While his successor is talking quickly about his final match, he braces himself for the inevitable, which comes only a moment later.
“Ah, you finally mastered that power. I’m sure it wasn’t easy with Toshi leading the way.”
He lets his head hang. He knows that his first semester, no, his first year of teaching was a disaster. He said too much he didn’t follow through on, and did too little to actually help. He let Midoriya break himself over and over to achieve a goal, encouraged it even.
The boy, his boy, speaks up for him, “No, All Might was a big help!” Midoriya goes on to explain how Toshinori had helped him wrap his head around some new concept, Gran Torino’s face blank. He knows that trying to change his mind is a fruitless endeavor.
He stares into Toshinori’s eyes when he says, “You didn’t need him to figure it out, kid, you’re quite smart.”
Midoriya doesn’t notice, too busy being distracted by the compliment to realize it’s not for the both of them. The rest of the conversation continues on in much the same way. For each accomplishment that Midoriya proudly displays before Gran for approval, he fashions it into a weapon to throw at Toshinori. Its no different from their conversations before, except for the boy. He shows Midoriya every kindness, while leaving barbs in his wake for Toshinori to cut himself on.
He supposes, bitterly, that if he was acting as Midoriya’s surrogate father, as was so often joked, then that would make Gran Torino into his grandfather. He’s never thought of Gran as his father, truth be told. He knows that a father is supposed to be proud of his son, to simultaneously lift him up and be the support net to catch him. In all his years, he doesn’t think he’s ever heard his former mentor be fully pleased with anything he’s done, and he definitely didn’t help him get up when he made a mistake as All Might. There was always some way he could do it better, do it faster. There are no such complaints with Midoriya’s growth.
He thinks that maybe some people are better off as grandparents than as parents.
He’s confused, to say the least. For all that Gran Torino complains that Midoriya is just like him, he doesn’t treat them the same. He sees the same pattern that makes up the fabric of his being plastered over Midoriya. It’s a large part of why he chose the boy to inherit his power. The same bight pattern that means he wants to be a hero to save others, that he will stop at nothing to do so. But the longer he looks at that pattern, the easier it is to see the difference. Its easier to see that Midoriya’s colors are brighter, not faded from decades of hero work. He doesn’t see the same seams where he had to put himself back together after losing Nana, after every training session, after losing half of his stomach. He tries not to look at the gaping hole where people who love you should be, where a mother’s love and a father’s pride should be. He’s lucky he’s the only one of them who’s missing both. Midoriya, too, has rips that don’t mirror Toshinori’s. Sure, they both experienced the bullying that comes with being Quirkless, but its so much rarer in his successor’s generation that the wounds are deeper, more crudely sewn back together. He sees the places burned away by a friend turned bully, by a long-gone father spitting fire. He tries not to look too hard at the place where he had ripped Midoriya’s soul apart, only to stitch t back together with the thread of One for All.
Toshinori thinks a lot about the circumstances that shape a person. He thinks a lot about patterns and cycles and giving Midoriya the proud father he never had.