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All of 1-A gathered in the common room. Aizawa had been napping, but when Jirou told him very seriously that she had something she needed to say, he didn’t hesitate to call a dorm meeting. He might be tired, but he cares about his kids. When everyone gathered, he handed the floor over to them.
“So, I’m sure a lot of you are probably going to have been expecting this, but it’s… it’s really important for me…” Momo stood up and joined Jirou in the center, “For us, to tell you all this.” They looked at each other for a moment before Jirou took Momo’s hand.
“I’m bisexual,” Jirou stated.
“I’m a lesbian,” Momo announced after her, “And... we’re dating.”
Once they said those words, Aizawa could feel the weight both lift and fall on their shoulders. They’d gotten it out, but how would others react?
“Oh my god! Finally!” Mina exclaimed immediately. The rest of the class started saying their reassurances, thanking them for trusting them and other statements of support. Tears formed in the newly out couple’s eyes. Then, when the teenagers finished giving their support and love, the duo noticed that their teacher had yet to say anything. He was simply staring at the group, his face characteristically blank, though in that moment its unreadableness was nerve-wracking.
“Sensei?” Jirou prompted nervously. It was nice to have their classmates’ support, but Aizawa-sensei was almost like a father to all of them. To lose his support, no matter how stupid the reason, would be heartbreaking. Everyone quieted, knowing how important a moment this was for the girls.
Aizawa, for his part, looked like he’d been shocked out of thought. Then he walked up to the pair, placed a hand on either of their shoulders, and after an excruciatingly long moment, let his face soften just slightly.
“I’m proud of you both. Thank you, for telling us,” he reassured them sincerely, even offering one of his rare smiles. He knew how terrifying it was to come out to an authority figure who’s stance was unknown. He was shocked when the girls both stared at him for a moment before bursting into tears, hugging him. His arms stuck out for a moment before he gave in and hugged them back. In this moment, he could get away with showing his softer side. Ducking his head closer to theirs, he rubbed their backs as their tears and snot soaked the front of his shirt.
“You never have to be scared to tell me who you are. I’ve got your back,” he muttered to them, though he made sure the other students could hear as well. Even though he wanted to seem stern, he didn’t want them to think they couldn’t trust him. His words triggered another wave of tears throughout the entire class and, with the silent invitation from Aizawa’s open palm, the rest of the children joined the hug. After a little while, he pulled away, but fixed them all with a solid gaze.
“If anyone ever gives you trouble for something you can’t control, you tell me, okay? There are few things I will not tolerate, and bigotry is one of them,” he declared firmly, making sure to meet each one of them in the eyes. They all nodded with a chorus of ‘Yes, sensei!’
With their most significant people told, the couple quickly started showing affection during school. Holding hands as they chattered through the halls, sharing quick kisses when they could, even feeding each other during lunch on occasion. Aizawa made sure to keep an eye on the pair. He knew all too well how closed-minded people could be.
He didn’t have to worry too terribly much though. The girls’ classmates took it upon themselves to act as their bodyguard entourage. Nothing seemed able to touch the twosome. Months went by, and Aizawa heard no tellings of trouble for the duo. Eventually, the semester ended and everyone went home for the winter holidays.
Shouta’s winter break had been wonderful. He spent lazy mornings with his husband, went out with his kids. They took Eri to ice-skate and then went to see Santa Claus at the mall. She had been buzzing with happiness by the time they left for home, bag packed with presents she’d picked out for her dads and brother. Even Hitoshi had been excited to see the jolly man. Though he knew that he was just an actor in a suit, it was an experience he’d never gotten when he was younger and naive, and he was glad to see his sister get that moment.
They baked cookies, decorated the tree, wrapped presents, and watched Christmas movies. They danced and sang to silly Christmas songs, and Hitoshi even slipped some mistletoe in the kitchen doorway, leading to twin ‘ews’ as the couple shared the traditional kiss, and laughter as the children fought the kisses pressed into their cheeks. When Christmas day came, Hitoshi had egged Eri to wake their fathers with joyful exclamations of ‘It’s Christmas’ and bouncing on the bed. They shredded the careful wrapping Hizashi had done, and hugged their parents when they found the exact thing they’d wanted. For him, it was the most wonderful Christmas of all.
Coming back from break, however, was a different story. The couple that had been so happy the last he saw them, looked wilted and sad. They didn’t talk to each other, sat miles apart during lunch. He’d seen that happen plenty times before in previous classes; teenagers always mope after a break up; but this class wasn’t like previous classes. He had a connection to them beyond teacher and students: after going through what they had together, he simply could not maintain his usual distance. So after about a week of watching the girls slug about, he decided he couldn’t continue to stand idly by.
“Yaoyorozu, could I speak with you?” Aizawa appealed when he spotted her sitting alone in the common room. She looked up from what appeared to be that day’s homework.
“Yes, sensei?” she replied. He walked over to sit beside her on the couch.
“Is everything alright? I couldn’t help but notice you’ve been upset lately,” he queried gently, his voice soft. The reaction was near instantaneous. Tears welled in her eyes and she turned away, sniffling.
“Jirou and I broke up,” she answered, her voice cracking slightly. As he’d assumed.
“What happened? You two were so happy before winter break,” Aizawa prodded.
“My parents. Her parents. We… we told them when they picked us up at the gate,” the girl answered, wiping at her eyes with her sleeve.
“Did they… did they not approve of you two being girls?” he asked. It was the worst when parents turned out to be bigots. She shook her head.
“They didn’t care about us being girls but… what about the public? Would we even be able to have careers and be together? When was the last time you heard of an openly queer hero? I can’t… I won’t put her career in jeopardy because I… I love her,” she conceded, deflating.
“Yaoyorozu…” he mulled his words for a moment, “Did you think about whether she would be willing to do that without you asking?”
“What do you mean?” she questioned. Again, he rolled the words in his mouth before speaking.
“When I was around your age, I had a boyfriend, and we had this same dilemma. Do we stay together and risk our careers or do we end our relationship despite desperately not wanting to? I mean, I was head over heels for him. He was the one person who actually understood me, and accepted me, severe introversion and all. And I knew that I would risk my career for him but I didn’t want to ask that of him, and he felt the same,” he explained.
“So what happened?” she pressed. He shrugged.
“We broke up. For the rest of our third year, we didn’t talk to each other, and we were both miserable. I cried every night for the first month we weren’t together, and then I just… went numb. And then, at graduation, our friends insisted on having a graduation party, just the four of us. After several rounds of illegal shots, we played truth or dare, and Midnight, actually, was the one to shove us together. Because of her, we actually communicated, and told each other the truth and realized we were both idiots. And now… now we’re married with two wonderful kids and far too many cats for his liking, but he puts up with them because I adore them, and a dog even though I don’t like dogs because he puts up with my cats, so I’ll put up with his dog. And yeah, there’s risks with us being together, but I trust him to take care of himself, and he trusts me to take care of myself. And if the public find out, then the public find out because we shouldn’t let society dictate our happiness,” he leaned a bit and took her hand.
“If you love her, then let yourself love her, and let her love you. Don’t let fear of what society will think about her or you stop you, because in the end, if you two can’t be heroes because they’re being bigots, it is their loss. I know that you two are going to be fantastic heroes, and you two make each other better. If we let fear keep us from trying, we’d never succeed,” he reassured her.
“That’s quote-worthy,” she said tearily.
“Well, that’s because it’s a quote from the smartest idiot I know,” he joked, earning a half-hearted chuckle.
“Gonna guess, your husband?” she teased. He let out a chuckle of his own and nodded, pulling back his hand.
“He can be a real dumbass sometimes,” he griped fondly, “But he has his moments.”
By the end of the week, the girls were in their little world again, and with three other couples joining their ranks.
Todoroki and Midoriya, Bakugou and Kirishima, he’d seen coming; they reminded him of himself and Hizashi in different ways; but he hadn’t expected a sixsome to appear: Tenya, Aoyama, Sero, Tokoyami, Shoji, and Ojiro. Different pairs branched from the main group, but he was glad that his adoptive nephew had found people who cared for him.
Still, though, his conversation with Yaoyorozu had stuck in his mind. Specifically about the openly queer heroes. She was right. The only out hero he could think of was Tiger. He knew Thirteen was nonbinary, but even though most people use gender-neutral pronouns for them, they’re not out. Same with Nemuri, and Tensei. He knew they were ace and pan, but no one in the public knew. He could name a dozen and a half queer heroes, but they weren’t out, himself and his husband included.
“Zashi?” he searched one Saturday night. They’d already settled into bed, but his mind refused to cease buzzing.
“Hmm?” his husband hummed sleepily.
“Should we come out?” he asked suddenly. He felt his husband shifting and turned to meet him.
“What brought this up?” Hizashi investigated, his voice wonderfully rough with sleep.
“My conversation with Yaoyorozu. She mentioned that openly gay heroes are pretty much nonexistent, and she’s right. There’s Tiger, and sort of Thirteen, but that’s it,” Shouta explained.
“So you want to come out,” he stated.
“Be honest with me. Do you think we would’ve broken up third year had there been even one gay hero in a relationship?” Shouta proposed. Hizashi pondered that for a moment before shrugging as best he could laying on his side.
“Probably not. It’s a lot less scary to follow the precedent than be the precedent,” he conceded.
“Exactly… Zashi, we’ve had over a decade as heroes. We come out, we set the precedent, or at least make room for them to set the precedent. Even if we get shunned out of being heroes, we’ve had our time. We’ve been talking about retiring anyway. Why not give it a shot?” Shouta beseeched.
“Alright, listeners, this next song is very important, because it is a special day for me. You see, ten years ago today, I married the love of my life, and I could not be more excited to spend the next fifty with him. He is my best friend, my twin flame, and he makes me better. So, Starlight, man of my dreams; I know you’re listening; let’s take a trip down memory lane,” Present Mic gushed over the radio.
“Wait, Mic-sensei has a husband?”
“Did he say ‘he’?”
“Everyone shut up,” Bakugou yelled over the mutterings through the common room. Once they quieted, the music his husband chose reached Shouta’s ears, and he immediately started chuckling and singing along.
“But not because we’re gay,” the radio sang as he danced ridiculously in his seat.
“No, not because we’re gay,” he echoed back, before joining the recording, “We’re close, but not that way. The only man that I love is my dad.”
He continued being silly to their song until it finished.
“Now, a lot of you are probably confused as to why I chose that song of all songs. Well, my husband has always been the introvert to end all introverts, so when I met him in school, I did what any self-respecting extrovert would do: I immediately claimed him as my friend and no, it was not up for negotiation. Now, when you claim an introvert, its absolutely like trying to get a feral cat used to being inside. It’s a lot of hissing and scratching, but in the end they won’t let you go to the bathroom by yourself. But you have to find common ground. With us, that common ground was musicals. Mamma Mia, Little Shop Of Horrors, Sweeney Todd, the likes. We started with classics. But one day, he was having a particularly bad day in terms of people being jerks, and just needed some fun. So I put on a bunch of fun ‘dance and be silly’ songs from musicals and just acted a fool till he was smiling, then laughing, and then I made him join me. Just so happened Sincerely, Me was the next song, and it just became our ‘we had a bad day, let’s be dumb’ song. But also, we were both crushing hard and useless homosexuals, so we always made a point to emphasize the ‘not gay’ bit. When we finally pulled our heads out of the sand, we found it hilarious, so now it’s just our song and sometimes we dance around the house singing musicals and that song is a must. I guess it keeps us from taking ourselves too seriously. I mean, you can’t be serious while singing ‘no homo’ at your husband. It’s just not possible. I hope you got a good chuckle out of that, Starlight. I’ll see you when I get home,” Shouta didn’t get to hear the rest of Hizashi’s message because the students’ heads all snapped back to him with an audible ‘whoosh’.
“Sensei?” Mina scrutinized. He let his gaze flick to each student before going back to Mina.
“What? I’m not allowed to be silly to our song?” he needled. The common room exploded with noise. All the students made loud declarations of ‘I knew it’ or ‘You’re gay’ or ‘Mic-sensei?’, every one of them trying to be louder than the rest.
“You can ask us both questions, tomorrow,” he bellowed over them, before lowering his voice to a normal level, “Today, we’re going to enjoy our anniversary.”
Just in time, Midnight arrived. Spying the chaos, she tried to slip out, but she’d already been spotted.
“Midnight is going to be supervising you for the rest of the evening. Don’t burn down the dorms while I’m gone,” he rushed, practically bolting to the door.
“Thank you, Nem. Love you, Nem,” he added as he sped by her, kissing her cheek quickly before disappearing out the door.
As he barreled down the path, a giddy smile crept onto his face.