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There were times where Izuku wished for a spontaneous villain attack. Just a nice, big group of villains teleporting in from nowhere and wreaking havoc. Maybe with a bit of kidnapping on the side—he would volunteer for that. Maybe that would give him a later date for his final exam and some more time to study…
With a groan, he tilted forward in his chair until his face smacked against the page filled with formulas on the architectural integrity of quirk-enhanced concrete versus rebar-enforced. Oh, sure, he knew that as a primarily strength-based hero, he would have to have some understanding of architecture and material so as to minimize property damage during fights, but this… this…
He turned his head and looked at the limited edition All-Might anniversary clock on his desk, pale blue numbers stating that it was half past one in the morning, and thus that he had a little more than thirty-seven hours left to memorise another four textbooks.
… This needed coffee.
The common room was not particularly crowded in the usual sense, but with Kirishima and Bakugou taking up one whole couch on their own, Ashido muttering about pH values in the other, and Kaminari snoring blissfully on top of an—Izuku paused and squinted at the text visible—electromechanical textbook, the room felt crowded. The kitchen, however, held only one occupant and was filled with the scent of the divine itself.
“Coffee?” Todoroki asked, holding out a mug of something hot, brown, and nowhere similar to coffee.
Izuku still happily took the cup and downed half the contents in one gulp. “More experiments?” he asked, taking a belated sniff at the mug. It smelled not entirely dissimilar to Bakugo after he had tried to be a one-man nuclear explosion, which accompanied the flavour of charcoal quite well.
“It’s an adequate substitute for sleep,” Todoroki replied, eyes only slightly bloodshot as he turned back to the beaker and bunsen burner, “and I think I’m onto something here…”
The ‘something’ was tar-black, gurgled ominously, and seemed less like it left residue on the sides of the beaker and more like it was slowly but steadily trying to climb out.
Izuku felt a bead of nervous sweat roll down his temple, a brief flashback flashing before his eyes to the sludge villain he had encountered what seemed like a lifetime ago—before U.A., before One For All, and before his entire life had gone down its current path. “This isn’t what you gave me, is it?”
And that earned him one of those soft and wry smiles, rare as they were. “You got a cup of the third brewing. This…” Todoroki gently tapped the side of the beaker, “is the twelfth brew.”
Izuku sipped the rest of his mug and reverently watched a slow bubble fight its way to the surface, pop as if in slow motion, and expel a tiny puff of steam in the shape of a skull. “... Will you accept volunteers to test it for you once you’re done?”
“Momo already called dibs on half a pot. And Mister Aizawa promised that if I could get it up to a fifteenth brew without it eating the upholstery or his stomach lining, and if it can keep him awake for a whole day, he will scale up my final grade.”
After watching another two bubbles struggle through the thick coffee-concentrate, and feeling the thrice-brewed coffee he had consumed making its way through his system, Izuku clambered onto the counter—at a respectful distance from the beaker, just in case its contents did decide to make a break for it—and flipped open his book. With fresh caffeine in his blood, the words started making more sense, and the demand for sleep was far less notable.
And if Todoroki happened to refill his cup twice in as many hours, well… He still had another three textbooks to get through, and there were only so many hours in the day.