Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Izuku’s first day at UA had gone… poorly, to say the least, but he was determined to make sure his second would be better.

Sure, his teacher already didn’t like him, and he still didn’t know how to use One For All without breaking all of his bones, but he would make the best of it! Things could only go up from here, he was sure.

Probably.

The grin on Aizawa-sensei’s face when he got their attention to begin class was not a good sign, however.

“UA prides itself on being rigorous in all aspects of its curriculum, not just on the Heroics side of the equation. As such, we expect the best out of every one of our students. Yesterday, I tested you on the physical aspect of being heroes. Today,” he pulled out a large stack of papers from somewhere, “we’ll see if your minds are up to snuff.”

Izuku practically vibrated in his seat as the teacher handed out the thick exam packets. Yes! His brain was one thing he could always be proud of, even if he was the only one who knew the full extent of his knowledge. This was his wheelhouse, and he was happy to meet this new challenge head-on.

He could hear a couple of his fellow students groaning, asking if Aizawa-sensei was serious or if this was another logical ruse, but Izuku disregarded them, too busy speculating on the content of the test.

Once Aizawa returned to the front of the room, he announced, “You have until the lunch bell rings. You may begin.”

Izuku and the rest of the class were too busy flipping over their tests to notice the worrying gleam in their teacher’s eye as he watched them get their first look.

The test was just as challenging as Izuku would have expected from a school as prestigious as UA, certainly much harder than anything Aldera had ever offered. Still, Izuku reasoned, that was to be expected. Aldera wasn’t exactly the peak of middle school academic achievement.

The questions covered a wide array of topics, but tended to put concepts in the context of quirks and heroics. The math and physics questions were about calculating the distance a hero could run in a certain time or the forces exerted on the body as they used their quirk, the chemistry questions were about the chemical makeup of substances produced by a quirk and how they would react with other substances in the environment, and so on and so forth. It was like writing an entry in one of his analysis notebooks but with someone else asking the questions, and it was great fun. Even the things he didn’t know outright he tried to logic his way through the best that he could with what he did know, and he had to keep the hand not scribbling away lodged firmly between his teeth to keep himself from mumbling.

He happened to glance up just in time to meet Aizawa-sensei’s intense gaze before it slid off of him, and a jolt ran through him, his pencil pausing for a moment. Of course, he chastised himself, how could he forget the consequences of doing too well?

Aizawa-sensei already didn’t like him, that was made abundantly clear during the Quirk Apprehension Test, and teachers never liked it when he forgot himself and did a bit too well on one of their exams. The beginning of the year was always a balancing act, finding the teacher’s sweet spot of scoring well enough to not be publicly shamed while also scoring poorly enough to not be pulled into their office and accused of cheating. Again.

It was a miracle UA even considered his application with the number of academic misconduct claims that must be in his record. He figured All Might had something to do with that.

With Aizawa-sensei, he thought, it would be better to err on the side of too good considering the speech about UA’s academic rigor. So he was careful to only mark a couple of the questions intentionally wrong as he continued, and not to try too hard on the questions he didn’t know outright. That would keep the man from accusing him of cheating while also preventing the possibility of being expelled for not meeting UA’s high standards.

He knew that Aizawa-sensei claimed that he wouldn’t have expelled anyone, but Izuku had seen the look in his eyes when he’d canceled his quirk during the ball throw. He knew for a fact he’d escaped expulsion by the skin of his teeth.

Izuku was so caught up in the test that he barely even noted the passage of time, and so it felt like it was all too soon before he was doing a final flip-through of his test, absently calculating his projected grade in his head, and the lunch bell finally rang.

Izuku took a moment to close and turn over his testing booklet before he turned his attention to the front of the room, slowly becoming aware of his surroundings once again.

It was then that he discovered he might have made a… miscalculation.

Every single one of his classmates looked as though they’d just been through one of the most harrowing experiences of their young lives. Uraraka’s hands were trembling and her breathing was ragged, Kacchan’s knuckles were white from how tightly he was gripping his desk, even the usually cold eyes of Todoroki looked haunted. Mineta was curled up in the fetal position in his chair, quietly crying.

Aizawa’s unfeeling facade broke, his face splitting into a wide, sadistic grin. “That, class, was what has been dubbed the Hell Test, written by Principal Nezu himself. It is an abbreviated, simplified version of a test he gives his personal students before they graduate. Doing well on it as non-genius-level first years is by no means expected. You are, however, meant to try your hardest. Now everyone, go eat lunch.” His eyes took on a more vicious sheen. “Except for Mineta, you stay behind.”

Yeah, Izuku thought to himself as he tried to quell the shaking in his hands, he was fucked.

~~~

“You may begin.”

This, Shouta reflected, was his favorite part of starting the school year. The Quirk Apprehension Test was a close second, but watching the pure despair spread through the room with no effort on his part felt like a reward for all his hard work.

(No, he was not a sadist, Hizashi.)

The Hell Test, given to every first year at UA on the first day following the opening ceremony, existed for two reasons. The first was to test the incoming students’ capabilities. Students came from all across the country and even the world to attend UA, and each of their previous institutions had different curriculums and standards. The entrance exam ensured that none of the students admitted were by any means dumb, but it tended to focus more on creativity and problem solving than general knowledge so as to give students from disadvantaged communities the opportunity to succeed. That being said, a lack of general knowledge needed to be caught now, so students didn’t continue to fall behind. It also helped catch students who might be above and beyond in certain subjects, due to their quirk or circumstances. Such as Yayorozu, whose quirk relied on her knowledge of chemical structures and was thus leaps and bounds ahead of her peers in that subject. Nezu wanted to make sure all of his students were appropriately challenged whenever possible.

The second reason for the test applied mostly to the Heroics students, but any student who showed promise in this area was noted. The Hell Test was a test of will, of determination to keep going even in the face of an impossible task. How would students react in a no-win scenario?

Most homeroom teachers, even Vlad King, told their students that the test was challenging and assured them that they weren’t expected to know everything, but Shouta thought that detracted from the point. By throwing them in the deep end without so much as a heads-up, Shouta got to see their natural responses to overwhelming odds. Would they freeze? Give up? Or would they buckle down and persevere?

As much as his husband liked to joke about his sadistic tendencies, he knew the other man understood.

A poor reaction to stress was the quickest way to die in their industry, after all.

Shouta was pretty sure the secret third reason for the test’s existence was the rat’s desire to get petty revenge on humanity, but that was neither here nor there.

Shouta blinked, bringing himself back from his musings to enjoy the chaos unfolding in front of him.

One by one, he watched the students’ focused looks morph into confusion, and then frustration, and then fear. It was an interesting study in the part personality played in how one traverses the five stages of grief, he mused as he watched Bakugou jump almost immediately to anger, while Iida stalled a long while in denial, staring at the first page trying to make any of the questions make sense.

He was amusedly watching tears begin to form in Mineta’s eyes (his perverted tendencies hadn’t gone unnoticed, and Shouta was pretty sure this would give him the opportunity to kick the little perv to the curb) when his eyes caught on a mop of wild green hair.

The kid was leaning so far forward Shouta had almost missed him entirely in his scan of the classroom, but when he looked closer, he realized that it wasn’t in despair like he’d been expecting. Instead, Midoriya was happily scribbling away, pencil barely pausing. It was like he hadn’t even noticed the impossibility of the task set before him.

Now, Shouta knew genius children existed, and were much more likely to be at UA than anywhere else. He’d even taught a couple of them over the course of his tenure at the school. But the geniuses were always, always snapped up by Nezu before they even made it through his classroom door. Not that he’d never see them of course, they were still in his homeroom, but Nezu would always make him aware of their status and call them away at certain times for private lessons. There was a special, harder version of the Hell Test just for them that they’d take with Nezu during the designated block. Shouta didn’t know what was on it, but he did know they tended to come back looking even more traumatized than his regular students.

All that is to say: why was Midoriya sitting here, taking this test, if he was smart enough for it to not faze him?

It was possible it was some sort of false bravado, or the kid simply didn’t know what he didn’t know, but that didn’t line up with any of the things Aizawa had observed about the student.

This was just one more piece added to the puzzle that was Midoriya Izuku. When Shouta had seen the footage of the entrance exam, he’d assumed the kid would be cocky, overconfident, a spoiled little hero brat through and through. He’d clearly had no training, in combat or in his quirk, so it was logical to assume he’d expected to skate by on a powerful quirk alone.

And then he’d met the kid and realized he’d never been confident about a thing in his life, much less overconfident.

Then he’d assumed the kid was a coward, too scared of the potential consequences of his quirk to use it, or was simply reckless, not caring about the damage he did, even to himself.

And then, during the Quirk Apprehension Test, Midoriya proved Shouta wrong once again. First by having the restraint to not immediately break every bone in his body to complete each of the tests, and then again when he displayed a freakishly high pain tolerance by barely flinching as he broke every bone in his index finger.

Technically, the fact that he would have broken his entire arm if Shouta hadn’t erased his quirk could count towards the reckless theory, but it seemed more like the kid didn’t have another way to use his quirk, instead of him recklessly using it at the highest output to get the best results. Besides, a certain amount of recklessness was to be expected in all teenage boys, especially the ones in training to become heroes.

Shouta was out of theories, and left with even more contradictions than he’d started with. The kid was driven, but he’d never trained. The kid was analytical, but hadn’t found a way to use his quirk without hurting himself. The kid had a powerful quirk, the kind that would put him at the top of any social hierarchy, but he was skittish and unsure of himself. The kid was intelligent, but hadn’t caught Nezu’s attention.

Shouta got the feeling that he was missing something huge, that would make every other scrap of information fall into place. He also had a feeling he wasn’t going to like the image that formed.

He’d need to set up a meeting with the kid, after school today maybe. Nezu would fasttrack the grading of the test if he voiced his suspicions that the kid was personal student material, so he could kill two birds with one stone and get Midoriya set up with proper training for both his quirk and mind at the same time.

He considered pulling him out of the first practical Heroics class that afternoon, but decided against it. The first class was always going over safety procedures, reviewing costumes, and maybe some basic hand-to-hand instruction. How could the kid possibly get hurt doing that?

Now that he has a plan in place, he thought as Midoriya glanced up for a moment and they locked eyes, he might as well enjoy the rest of the class’s reaction to the Hell Test.

He was just in time to watch Mineta curl up in a ball and begin to sob.

Shouta smiled, mentally checking “expel Mineta” off of his to-do list. Life was good.

~~~

Shouta rubbed a hand over his face as he stared down at the student in the infirmary bed before him.

Goddamnit all, he jinxed it.

He wasn’t quite sure who he was the most pissed off at. All Might, for not following the lesson plan? Bakugou, for not knowing the meaning of the word restraint? Whoever in the support department approved the giant grenades in a first-year’s costume, for obvious reasons? Midoriya, for once again recklessly putting himself in danger? Himself, for allowing all of this to happen?

Yeah, let’s go with “e. All of the above”. Plus Nezu for good measure. Cryptic rat definitely knew more than he was letting on.

At least he’d graded the test promptly and gave Shouta the go-ahead to talk to the kid about alternate lessons, both for his mind and his quirk. Which he was going to do as soon as Midoriya woke up, because he was not putting it off and risking the kid getting himself injured again.

Really, he couldn’t blame the kid for getting hurt this time. He’d exhibited some amount of restraint, only using his quirk when he thought it was absolutely necessary, and most of the damage he’d sustained was inflicted by Bakugou. He’d done a better job at approaching the exercise from a strategic point of view than some of his classmates, even if he was worryingly self-sacrificial.

Something about the way Midoriya and Bakugou interacted set off Shouta’s instincts, danger bells ringing in his head, but he couldn’t put a finger on what it was.

And then there were Midoriya’s exam results. As expected, the kid was a borderline genius, though he seemed to have some self confidence issues. Several times Shouta could see eraser marks indicating that the kid had gone back and changed a correct answer to a wrong one. Overthinking, most likely.

There was so much shit that he needed to do, like rip All Might a new one for breaking protocol this badly, but all that could wait. He sent off a text to his husband that he’d be home late before pulling out his sleeping bag and taking a well-deserved nap on the floor.

~~~

Izuku’s first thought when he awoke to the sight of the tiled ceiling of Recovery Girl’s office was not again.

His second thought was Bakugou is going to kill me.

Welp, time to get up and face the music. Maybe he’d been asleep long enough that everyone was gone home? No that would be worse, he’d just end up cornered in an alley, away from the safety of UA’s security cameras.

He groaned as he levered himself up to a sitting position, his arms still aching even after Recovery Girl’s quirk, but froze when his eyes landed on a familiar yellow sleeping bag.

The pile of yellow fabric quickly stirred and transformed back into his teacher, the bag somehow vanishing. “Good, you’re awake. How are your arms feeling?”

“They’re f-fine, Aizawa-sensei,” Izuku squeaked.

The man gave him a considering once-over before shooting a flat look at him. “I don’t believe you, but I think you’re well enough to talk with me at least.”

“T-talk? Right now?” Izuku had a sinking feeling he knew exactly where this talk was going to go. But it was fine, he’d been through this before, he could do it again. He just hoped his teacher didn’t immediately expel him.

“Yes, right now. The last time I put it off you ended up hurt, again, so I’m not taking any chances.” Aizawa plopped down in the chair by his bedside, pulling a file from somewhere (seriously, how deep were the man’s pockets?).

Izuku… didn’t know what to make of that. The way it was phrased was strangely caring, but he couldn’t mean it like that, could he?

So he ignored it, pushing himself back against the headboard and sitting cross legged in an attempt to feel less like an invalid.

It didn’t work very well.

“Alright, so, first things first, you scored incredibly well on the Hell Test, leaps and bounds above your classmates, so good job on that. Nezu would like to pass along an offer to become his personal student, which while it isn’t mandatory it is very much recommended. Either way you’ll need to do some more testing to figure out where exactly you are academically. You understand?”

“Yes, Aizawa-sensei,” he responded on auto-pilot, his anxiety skyrocketing. He most certainly did not understand. He… wasn’t in trouble? ”This isn’t right. That’s not how this is supposed to go. Is Aizawa-sensei not going to accuse me of cheating?”

“No, Midoriya, I’m not accusing you of cheating.” Aizawa was frowning, but the tilt of his brow seemed more concerned than angry. “What do you mean by ‘this’? How does it usually go?”

Damn his mumbling habit. Izuku shrugged, trying to play it off, saying “Teachers don’t tend to like me.”

“So they accuse you of cheating.” Aizawa’s voice was flat, making Izuku hunch his shoulders.

“Only when I do too well on things. But I’m usually good at avoiding that.”

Aizawa’s face flicked between several unidentified emotions before he closed his eyes, rubbing a hand over his face. He took a deep breath before opening his eyes once again, seeming more calm. “Midoriya. I’m not upset with you, but I need you to understand that neither I nor any of the teachers here will ever accuse you of something like that without performing a thorough investigation first. What your past teachers did was not normal, nor was it right, and I’m sure Nezu is currently opening up an investigation into academic misconduct on your behalf.” He shot a look at the ceiling, and when Izuku followed his gaze he found a small camera.

Izuku’s eyes widened as the man’s meaning hit him. “O-oh that’s not necessary, he doesn’t have to-” he said, flailing around a bit.

“It is absolutely necessary. Keeping a student from reaching their full potential due to petty dislike is cruel and any teacher who subjected you to that should lose their license.” The teacher leveled him with a glare, daring him to disagree.

“But that’s not…” he broke off, frustrated. His previous teachers hadn’t treated him like they had because of petty dislike, they’d done it because he was quirkless, but he couldn’t tell Aizawa-sensei that. So he wasn’t sure how to convey that it was different when it was him.

“Hey.” Aizawa waved a hand in front of the thin infirmary sheets he was glaring holes into, making him meet his teacher’s eyes. “Whatever you’re thinking right now, stop it. I can practically see you trying to rationalize their behavior. No matter what their reasoning was, it doesn’t make their behavior any more appropriate.”

They stared at each other for a moment, Izuku’s doubt-filled eyes meeting Aizawa’s reproachful ones, before his teacher huffed, burying his face in his capture weapon for a moment. “Okay, we’ll come back to that later. I have one more question for you about your test before we move on.”

Aizawa shuffled the papers in front of him around, pulling out a familiar packet. “You said you’re good at avoiding doing too well. Can I take that to mean you would purposefully answer incorrectly to avoid getting too high of a score?” Izuku nodded reluctantly, not liking where this was headed. “Did you do that on this exam as well?”

“Yes?” he said, the word coming out more as a question than a statement.

An expression Izuku couldn’t make sense of crossed Aizawa-sensei’s face as he raised his eyes heavenward. He heaved a sigh before speaking. “Okay kid, I’m making an executive decision here. Lessons with Nezu? No longer optional. You need to learn to use that big brain of yours, and the rat will be good for your self-confidence anyway. Just promise me that once the two of you take over the world you’ll keep the chaos to a minimum.”

Izuku laughed a little, assuming his teacher was joking, but it died out as the man just continued to look at him, completely serious. “Okay Aizawa-sensei, I promise.”

“Good. I’ll hold you to that.” Phew, Izuku thought to himself, he’d made it through that minefield of a conversation. “Now there’s one more thing I need to talk to you about before you leave: your quirk.”

God fucking damnit.

Izuku sputtered. “M-my quirk? What about it?”

“It keeps hurting you. Gravely.” Aizawa gestured around them. “This can’t keep happening, and I need to know what’s going on so I can keep it from happening again.”

Izuku shrank back into the headboard, curling in on himself. “Are you going to…” He couldn’t bring himself to say it.

Aizawa-sensei held up a hand. “I’m not going to expel you. You’ve more than proven your potential, but there’s clearly something else going on here that needs to be addressed.”

“W-what do you mean, something else?” he hedged, wondering if there was any way to get out of this with his secrets still intact.

Aizawa shot him a flat look. “You’re clearly intelligent, incredibly so according to this test, and driven to become a hero, more so than most of your classmates. But your quirk is ridiculously untrained. It’s almost as if you’d never used it before starting at UA.”

Izuku paled. Fuck, there was no getting around this, was there? Even if he somehow managed to dodge the question well enough to satisfy his teacher, the man was likely to be a part of the investigation into Aldera and his previous teachers (he didn’t really understand what the big deal was, but with Nezu involved the investigation was inevitable), so he’d find out about his previous quirkless status then. He couldn’t lie his way out of this one.

But what if he told the truth, just not the whole truth? The best lies are just the truth repackaged, after all.

“My quirk… manifested late. Really late.” he said slowly. “I was told if it had come in any earlier it probably would have blown my limbs off.” he added, trying to distract the hero from the obvious next question.

But Aizawa was undeterred. “How late?” he asked, eyes narrowed in suspicion.

Izuku grimaced. “The entrance exam?”

~~~

The entrance exam.

All at once, the puzzle pieces clicked into place, and Shouta did not like the picture he saw.

Quirkless. The kid had been quirkless.

The skittishness. The lack of control. The discrimination. The dangerously low self-esteem. All of it finally made sense.

Damn, the kid needed so much therapy. Shouta knew the statistics, knew that the life expectancy of a quirkless kid was well under 18. He’d even talked one or two down from a rooftop in the early hours of the morning.

(He tried not to think about the ones he couldn’t save. He didn’t always succeed.)

When he thought about the hell his student must have gone through, he was caught between being sick and white-hot fury. How could they treat his student like this? How dare the world be anything less than covetous of the child sitting before him?

“A-aizawa-sensei?” Midoriya’s voice snapped him out of his thoughts, and he looked up into eyes filled with fear. Fuck, his anger must have bled through onto his face.

“Not angry at you, kid. Just angry at the world on your behalf. You didn’t deserve any of the,” fuck not swearing when this pissed off was hard, “stuff you must have gone through, when everyone thought you were quirkless.”

Midoriya nodded. “Because I have a quirk now.” It wasn’t a question, just a quiet statement of fact.

Internally, Shouta snarled. Someone was going to die for teaching this kid that his life mattered less than his quirk. He just barely managed to keep that rage from showing on his face and scaring the kid even more. “No, not because you have a quirk now. Because you were, and still are, a child. I might not know much about your situation, but I’m an underground hero, I can put the pieces together. No one, especially not a child, deserves to go through that.”

Tears welled up in Midoriya’s eyes, and Shouta had just enough time to think oh fuck before the kid burst into loud, heaving sobs.

Fuck, crying children were not his strong suit. Where was Hizashi when you needed him? He was much better at this sort of thing.

As it was, all Shouta knew how to do was hand Midoriya the box of tissues on the nightstand and awkwardly stare at the wall opposite the bed in an attempt to give the kid some privacy.

Eventually, the sobs quieted to whimpers, then ceased. Midoriya wiped his eyes and blew his nose one more time before turning to Shouta, embarrassed. “Sorry, sensei.”

“Nothing to be sorry about, Midoriya. That was some emotional stuff we were talking about, crying is a perfectly natural reaction.” Shouta assured his student before something else occurred to him, something that made his stomach sink. “ I don’t want to push you any harder today, but I need to ask. Are you safe at home?”

The kid looked confused for a second before realization dawned. “Yes! Yes of course, my mom would never hurt me.”

Shouta scrutinized him for a moment, but he looked sincere, even a little miffed that he’d asked. That didn’t take abuse off the table completely, but it did make Shouta feel comfortable enough to send the kid on his way after they were finished. “Good. If you ever feel unsafe, at home or otherwise, tell me.” It was not a question, so he didn’t wait for a response. “I think that’s enough emotion for one day. How about we just work out a training schedule for you, and then you can go home.” He decided to save his suggestion of therapy for another day. The kid wasn’t the only one who was wiped out.

“A training schedule?” the kid repeated blankly.

Shit, he’d gotten sidetracked on the whole ‘entrance exam’ thing and forgot to tell the kid about the quirk training. “Yeah, you’re going to be working with me on finding ways to use your quirk that don’t harm you. It’ll also double as quirk counseling, since I’m guessing you haven’t had any of that. Considering the circumstances, I’d recommend we meet daily for the foreseeable future.”

Shouta expected the kid to protest that, but apparently he was also feeling the toll of the bombshells that had just been dropped because he just nodded along as Shouta outlined his proposed schedule.

Training once a day, during Heroics when the class was doing a practical exercise and after school otherwise, with Sundays as rest days. There were no protests, just a mumbled, “I’m always free after school,” which made Shouta’s heart twinge.

(The little Hizashi in his brain was laughing at him. He wasn’t sure why.)

As Shouta watched the kid scurry out of the room, mumbling something that might have been a thank you, he thought about the kid’s test results. Not the formal ones, those were obviously outstanding, the ones that never made it into any gradebook. Midoriya responded to an impossible task by simply not noticing it’s impossibility.

And that wasn’t just a fluke due to his genius. The kid’s entire existence was one impossible task after another, and he faced each one with the kind of hard-headed determination that was going to make him a great hero someday.

If it didn’t kill him first.

Shouta was determined to beat some survival instincts into the kid before that could happen.

Shouta groaned. He really had his work cut out for him, didn’t he?

Chapter Text

Izuku spent a good minute in a staring contest with the principal’s door before he could summon the courage to knock.

He’d spent the rest of the previous afternoon, and well into the night, convincing himself that his meeting with Aizawa had been some sort of stress induced hallucination, or that there had been some mistake. There was no way Nezu, the Nezu, wanted him as a personal student. The idea was laughable. He’d been too off balance at the time to say so, but afterwards it was all he could think about.

But sure enough, after homeroom Aizawa-sensei had handed him a hall pass and told him the principal wanted to see him. He’d managed to slip out the door before his classmates could descend on him, but he resigned himself to a lunch period spent answering their questions instead of eating.

At least he’d managed to refuse the class president position by claiming he was too busy for the added responsibilities. He just hoped he hadn’t lied to his classmates.

Homeroom had managed to distract him from his thoughts, but staring at the nameplate on Principal Nezu’s door, doubt started to creep back in. What if this was all some sort of elaborate trick? What if Nezu had actually changed his mind and he was going to be expelled?

He shook himself. There was only one way to find out, he reminded himself as he raised his fist to the door.

Which opened before his knuckles could even make contact with the wood. Izuku jumped, then flushed as he realized Nezu had known he was there the entire time. He pushed the door the rest of the way open, hurrying into the room, his eyes down, shoulders hunched, lip held between his teeth to avoid muttering. He’d been to the principal’s office plenty of times, he knew how to behave. “I-I’m sorry for making you wait, Principal Nezu-sama.” he said, bowing.

“Oh, no trouble at all, Midoriya-kun!” replied a cheerful voice, “And please, call me Nezu-sensei, you are my student now, after all. Tea?”

Izuku’s eyes jerked up, meeting a pair of beady black ones. Nezu was smaller in person. He’d known that the rodent (? Man? Mammal? Being? Yes, being worked) wasn’t large, but knowing that the principal was under 3 feet tall and seeing him perched in front of a desk that seemed much too large for him were two very different things.

Then the words registered and he was hit with a wave of shock. Nezu asked him to call him sensei. Nezu wanted to teach him. Nezu wanted to teach him! Izuku’s world tilted on its axis.

When it righted itself again, he found himself sitting in a comfortable chair in a little nook off to the side of Nezu’s desk, tea in hand, with only a vague sense of how he’d gotten there. Nezu sat in the chair across from him, smiling.

“Back with me, Midoriya? It seems I lost you there for a moment.” Nezu waved him off when he tried to apologize. “You’ve had a trying couple of days. You’re entitled to a moment in your own head.”

It was an incredibly kind way of describing a borderline dissociative episode, Izuku thought.

“Anyway, down to business! Today you’ll be taking another exam, I’m afraid. This one will be more extensive, and will likely take the whole day. Once I can properly judge your abilities, I’ll come up with a curriculum that will challenge you. I’m unfortunately quite busy and therefore can’t teach you everything, so you’ll be going to classes with the rest of your homeroom for the most part, just doing alternate assignments. Your free period will be spent with me, learning additional skills to help you in your journey to becoming a hero. Make sense?”

Izuku nodded, mind spinning. He still wasn’t entirely sure if this was for real, but either it was or he was having a break with reality, so it was best to just go with it. “Yes, Nezu-sensei, I understand.”

“Excellent! Oh, but first, your test results suggest you possess a large amount of niche knowledge, in the sciences especially.” Nezu leaned forwards, eyes sparkling, “Could I ask what made you seek out that information? I can’t imagine it’s something one simply stumbles across.”

That snapped Izuku out of his daze a bit. He hesitated, jaw clenched hard enough to make his teeth creak to keep his thought process from slipping out once again. Nezu had been kind, but he was still the principal, which meant he was dangerous. And talking about his analysis with anyone had always been the surest way to earn their scorn. (Saying he was quirkless was faster, but the reactions to his analysis were more consistent.)

That being said, Nezu was both an intellectual and an animal. Which meant he valued knowledge and likely had less of an attachment to human social conventions, so he was less likely to see Izuku’s notes as overly invasive. Still, it was a huge risk. Handing over his notebook was tantamount to entrusting his very heart to the hands of another person, and he wasn’t sure he could handle the damage being rejected would do.

Aizawa’s voice from yesterday flashed through his mind. I’m sure Nezu is currently opening up an investigation into academic misconduct on your behalf, he’d said, his trust in the principal unwavering and absolute. Izuku hadn’t known the man for all that long, but he had a feeling that that trust was not an easy thing to earn. If Aizawa trusted Nezu, then maybe Izuku could too.

“I… I like to do quirk analysis, on heroes mostly. It’s just a hobby, so it’s not super well done or anything, but I really enjoy it.” Even with his resolve, his voice was still barely above a whisper.

Nezu clapped his paws together, an excited gleam in his eyes. “Oh excellent! It’s wonderful to see a student take such initiative with their learning. Would you mind at all if I read over your work sometime?”

Might as well get this over with. “I h-have some of it with me now, if you - if you’d like to see,” he said, already reaching for his bag.

Nezu nodded, looking almost gleeful as Izuku handed over the pretty worse-for-wear notebook. At least there was less charring on this one than the last, he thought ruefully.

Watching the principal leaf through his notebook was one of the most nerve-wracking experiences of Izuku’s life, right up there with the entrance exam and the first time his middle school principal had threatened to expel him. The being’s face was entirely indecipherable, though the few humming noises he made sounded positive.

After what felt like an age, Nezu carefully closed the notebook, clearly mindful of all the damage that had already been done. A grin spread across his face as he met Izuku’s eyes. It was not a nice smile. It reminded Izuku of the look a predator gave its prey right before it pounced, and Izuku wasn’t sure what side of the claws he was on.

Then the moment passed, and Nezu spoke. “It seems I have made a wise choice in taking you on as my student! You have an incredible talent for analysis, especially for someone your age with no formal training.”

Izuku’s eyes widened. “Do you r-really think so?” he couldn’t help but ask. He knew he should just accept the compliment, that was the right way to respond, but he needed to be sure.

Nezu-sensei’s eyes softened. “Yes, I do. In fact,” his voice took on a more mischievous tone, “I’ve met many a professional analyst whose work isn’t half as thorough or creative as your own. With some training in proper formatting and the like, I daresay you’ll be giving them a run for their money in no time.”

Izuku wasn’t so sure about that, but he decided to keep the thought to himself. “Thank you, Nezu-sensei,” he mumbled, ducking his head a little.

“Do you mind if I borrow this for a bit longer? I’d like to study it in more detail if that’s alright with you.”

Izuku hesitated for a moment before he nodded. The prospect of leaving his notebook in the hands of a virtual stranger was terrifying, but it seemed unlikely that Nezu would harm it.

Almost as if Nezu read his mind, he assured him, “I’ll return it to you tomorrow, safe and sound,” before bustling back to his desk, depositing the notebook in a drawer and pulling an intimidatingly thick packet of paper out a different drawer. “Here’s your exam, Midoriya-kun! You can take it over there,” he waved a paw towards a desk sat in the corner. “Like I said, you have all day, and if you have a question feel free to ask, though I might not always answer! Oh and Midoriya-kun,” Nezu grew serious for a moment, “please try your best on this. I understand why you felt you couldn’t before, but your circumstances have changed. You don’t need to hide anymore.”

“Yes Nezu-sensei,” Izuku mumbled as he took the testing booklet and retreated to the offered desk, happy to do something he was comfortable with instead of navigating a conversation with an authority figure.

Nezu-sensei had been nice, but his cheerful demeanor reminded him a bit too much of the way his past teachers would smile at him while doing their best to tear him down. It was off-putting, making even their positive conversation feel like a ticking time bomb.

Sighing, Izuku opened the booklet and got to work.

The test was hard, harder than anything he’d ever done before. There were questions that he didn’t even know where he was supposed to start, and ones with so many elements his brain got scrambled, and ones that might as well be in a foriegn language for all he understood the jargon.

It was probably the most fun Izuku had ever had at school.

He loved picking apart the questions, cross-referencing with questions that were based on similar concepts, logicing his way through things that he was familiar with but hadn’t studied the specific concepts. It was like a giant puzzle! Maybe if he didn’t know that it wasn’t a graded assignment he’d be panicking, but knowing it was a placement test made it much less stressful. Instead it just made him excited for the years of learning to come.

Nerd, his inner Bakugou said, but it didn’t hold the same bite that it had in the past.

The difficulty of the test combined with his conversations with both Nezu and Aizawa-sensei left Izuku feeling bold enough to throw himself properly into the work, no extra thought required to calculate his grade and figure out what to get wrong. There was still a chance that this would blow up in his face, but he decided that the risk would be worth it in the end.

Time melted away. Izuku was vaguely aware of the door opening a couple times over the course of the morning, but he didn’t bother to look up, too enthralled with his work to bother. The bell rang a couple times, but he lost track of which period it was almost immediately, so it wasn’t until he heard Nezu calling him that he realized that it was lunchtime.

He handed his partially completed exam over to the principal and made his way to the cafeteria, feeling much better than when he entered the office that morning.

~~~

Nezu flipped through the battered pages of his new student’s notebook, smiling to himself. He’d been administering the Hell Test for almost as long as he’d been principal, but this was the first time it had yielded such drastic results. Thinking of the way his student had been treated made him want to growl, but he was attempting to drown out the righteous anger coursing through him with pride in Midoriya’s abilities.

It wasn’t working very well.

Unfortunately, Nezu was too busy with the start of the school year to enact any sort of revenge. He’d sent the case off to the police, but he doubted anything would get done for a while yet due to the nature of the case. He could call in a favor with Detective Tsukauchi, but truthfully Nezu was feeling a bit selfish. These people had messed with his student, and Nezu wanted to make them pay personally.

Well, the school would still be there in a week when things calmed down, though who’s to say about the week after that.

Nezu sighed, putting down the notebook. The work inside truly was incredibly impressive. Midoriya teased out the mechanisms behind quirks he’d seen only once at a distance with ease, and theorized about ways to make quirk use better in ways Nezu had never even considered. The formatting was rough around the edges, more stream of consciousness than anything, and the boy had a habit of going off on tangents in the middle of analyses, but all that could be easily fixed. Teaching him to organize his thoughts and make split-second observations in the middle of a fight would be trickier, but Nezu had full confidence in his student.

Nezu glanced at said student’s test, paws itching to open it and read over what the boy had written, but he restrained himself. The test was only partially finished, maybe two thirds of the way through from what he could tell, not counting any answers that might need to be reexamined. Grading the test prematurely would defeat the purpose of the retest, and once Nezu picked it up he knew he wouldn’t be able to resist grabbing a red pen and starting to make corrections.

From what he could make out of Midoriya’s muttering, the boy was having fun, which was a feat in and of itself. Nezu refused to put a damper on the boy’s enjoyment, given how little positive experiences with education he seemed to have had.

So Nezu valiantly resisted the urge to take a peek and turned back to his actual work for the day. Grading Midoriya’s test would be a reward for a day spent doing tedious administrative business.

~~~

“Deku-kun! Over here!” Uraraka waved her hands energetically from her place in the sea of bodies that was the cafeteria.

Izuku stifled a flinch as he made his way over to her, weaving his way through the tables. As much as he liked the idea of reclaiming Deku as a friendly nickname instead of a cruel taunt, in practice it just made him forget where he was for a moment, thrown back into the body of his middle school self. The wounds were just too fresh, but he wasn’t about to tell his first friend since he was four that. He knew better than to make a fuss over something so small.

“Hi Uraraka-san,” he said, nodding at Iida across the table as he sat down next to her.

She slapped him playfully on the arm. “You don’t need to be so formal! Just call me Uraraka. We’re friends now, right?” Izuku nodded bashfully. “Right! So are you gonna tell us what you were doing all morning?”

“I would also like to hear! It must have been important for you to miss such valuable learning time.” Iida interjected, making chopping motions with his arms for emphasis (? Izuku didn’t really get Iida’s chopping thing, but to each their own, he supposed).

“Oh, um…” he fidgeted, “I was with Principal Nezu, doing some extra testing?” he said, his voice sounded more like a squeak than anything by the end of the sentence.

Uraraka winced sympathetically. “Ooh that sounds rough. The Hell Test yesterday was bad enough, I can’t imagine having to do more of that.” She shivered.

Izuku ducked his head, mumbling, “It wasn’t that bad. Kinda fun.”

Uraraka stared at him in shock. “Fun?! You must be some kind of masochist.” she shook her head in disbelief. “Why is Nezu giving you extra testing, anyway?”

“Well, uh…” Izuku had no idea how to say this. “You know how Aizawa-sensei mentioned that the principal gives a harder version to his personal students?” Iida caught onto the implication immediately, his eyes widening, but Uraraka just nodded and motioned for him to continue. “I-I’m Nezu-sensei’s new personal student.” He tried to smile but he could tell it looked more like a grimace.

Uraraka gaped at him, words failing her for a moment, before she launched into a flurry of questions.

Izuku was saved from having to explain any more by the bell.

Or, well, the level three security breach alarm, but it’s pretty much the same thing, right?

~~~

After the whole ordeal with the media break in, the rest of the day flew by. Upon returning to Nezu’s office at the end of lunch, he was promptly shooed back out, test in hand. Nezu apologetically told him that there would be too much going on while the stuff with the media was squared away for it to be a good testing environment. Izuku was pretty sure that that was the polite way of saying that he’d be in the way.

He spent the rest of the day sat in the back of 1-A’s classroom, furiously scribbling away and attempting to ignore the looks his classmates kept shooting him. He still had some time to spare after he finished the test and looked over his answers, so he pulled out an extra notebook (that was meant to be for English, but he was mostly fluent anyway so it didn’t really matter) and began scribbling in that instead.

Soon enough, the final bell rang and everyone began packing up their things. Izuku waved off his friends when they asked if he wanted to walk to the train station with them, telling them he’d fill them in tomorrow. The rest of the class exited quickly after that, leaving Izuku alone with the yellow lump that was his homeroom teacher.

“Um, sir?” he called when it became clear that the man was not going to get up without prompting.

Aizawa-sensei rolled over, cracking an eye and studying him for a moment before making a production of getting up off the floor. Watching his teacher stretch like a disgruntled cat really took away some of the intimidation factor.

And then the man shot a glare at him as if daring him to say anything, and it became clear that slightly less intimidating didn’t mean not intimidating at all.

“It’s fine for today, but in the future just go to Gym Gamma and wait for me. I’ll teach you some stretches today for you to do while you wait.” he started towards the door before pausing. “Oh, and just stick your test on my desk. The rat can come fetch it himself when he has a moment.”

Izuku obediently placed his packet on the desk and trotted after the teacher, following him through the twisting hallways of the school while keeping careful track of where they went so he could do it on his own later.

A few minutes and a change of clothes later, Aizawa walked Izuku through a series of basic stretches. His teacher frowned a bit at his lack of flexibility, but didn’t comment.

“Okay, in these sessions we’ll be alternating between quirk counseling and quirkless combat training, at least until you find a way to do combat training safely. There will be no,” the man glared, “no bone breaking, under any circumstances. If I think you’re in danger of hurting yourself I will cancel your quirk, but do not use that as an excuse to be reckless. If you break this rule I will-” he broke off, narrowing his eyes in slightly annoyed thought. “Usually this is the part where I’d threaten to expel you or cancel these private lessons, but Nezu would never let me do that to his new favorite student.”

He thought for a moment longer before he seemed to come to a conclusion, returning back to glaring. “If you break this rule, I will be exceedingly disappointed in you, and you’ll be spending our sessions running suicides until you feel like your legs are about to fall off, for as long as I think it takes for the lesson to sink in.” The sadistic grin he wore while saying the last part made it very clear he was not exaggerating, and he had no mercy. “Understand?”

Izuku squeaked. “Y-yes Aizawa-sensei, no breaking my bones, I understand.” he said, nodding rapidly.

“Good. Now, today’s a quirk counseling day so no physical activity, but I want you to do the stretches every day no matter what we’re working on.” Aizawa plopped down, sitting cross-legged on the floor and motioned for Izuku to do the same. It was surprisingly comfortable. “Alright, explain to me what you know about your quirk. Type, mechanism, why you think it developed so late, anything you can think of. You never know what could be useful.”

“One- I mean, Superpower is an emitter type stockpiling quirk that augments the user’s muscles, allowing me to have super strength.” Izuku rattled off what he knew, both from what All Might had told him and from his own observations. “I’m pretty sure the reason it developed late is because my muscles wouldn’t have been able to handle the strain. About ten months ago I started a pretty intense workout regime, so that’s what changed.” It was only slightly a lie, really.

Aizawa nodded. “Okay, that makes sense. Can you walk me through your routine? It’s not that important for quirk counseling, but I’d like to know anyway.”

“Okay.” Izuku detailed his workout schedule, down to his diet and rest days.

Aizawa sighed. “That schedule sounds more like you were prepping to be a bodybuilder than to be a hero. Flexibility is just as important as strength, and you need hand-to-hand training.” Izuku flushed, embarrassed. “But I understand that sort of stuff isn’t obvious when you’re a kid.”

Izuku wisely didn’t mention that All Might had been the one to give him the schedule.

“Anyway, back to your quirk. What does it feel like to activate it?”

Izuku fidgeted, not really understanding the question. “Um, painful? Well, tingly and then painful.”

“Not what I meant, but good to know that it doesn’t immediately hurt you.” Aizawa paused, looking thoughtful. “How to explain… how do you visualize activating it? In my mind, activating my quirk feels like flipping a switch. Present Mic describes his as turning a dial on an old radio. Do you have something like that?”

“Um, no. The first time was all adrenaline, and during the quirk apprehension test I just sort of remembered what it felt like and tried to copy it. The Battle Trial was a mix of both.” All Might’s advice of “clench your butt and yell smash” had been entirely unhelpful, the egg in the microwave metaphor even less so.

“And you haven’t tried activating it at any other time?” Izuku shook his head. “Usually I’d call that laziness, but considering the circumstances I’d say that was a wise choice.” Aizawa deadpanned, which made Izuku snort. The man’s sense of humor was as dry as the desert, but it was nice to know he had one.

If he was even making a joke. It was hard to tell

“Alright, onto the next step. I want you to activate your quirk, but not do anything with the energy. Just concentrate on what activating it feels like, then deactivate it immediately after.”

Izuku’s breath caught in his throat for a moment before he swallowed down the instinctual fear of pain, but Aizawa-sensei noticed anyway. He shot him a reassuring look, or what passed for one on his perpetually “done with your bullshit” face. “I’ll cancel it before it hurts you, I promise.” Izuku nodded, but still hesitated. What if he didn’t notice, or couldn’t stop it in time?

His thoughts must have been visible on his face (or he’d been mumbling again), because his teacher was quick to come up with a solution. “How about this: the first couple times, I’ll cancel your quirk no matter what, with longer intervals in between every time. So the first time I’ll cancel it as soon as I notice it activate, and if that goes well you’ll hold it for five seconds before I cancel it, and so on. And obviously if it looks like you’re in pain I’ll cancel it right away.”

He thought that sounded reasonable, so he nodded, and when his sensei gave him the go-ahead, he shut his eyes and concentrated on activating One for All in his left arm, the one that he hadn’t broken yet.

The semi-familiar feeling of pins and needles had barely begun to crawl up his arm before it vanished. Having his quirk erased felt… odd. Like fingers closing around air instead of the object you’d been reaching for, or stepping a bit too hard at the top of a staircase because you thought there was one more stair. A sudden, disorienting absence, but one he wouldn't have noticed if he hadn't been looking.

“You okay, kid?”

Izuku opened his eyes, shooting his concerned teacher a smile. “Yeah, sorry.”

Aizawa deactivated his quirk at that, hair lowering and eyes returning to their regular color. “No need to apologize. Ready to try again, for a bit longer?”

Izuku nodded, and they started once again. It took less time to call on his power since he knew what it felt like, and in no time at all it was gone once again.

They repeated the process a couple more times, the duration increasing with each iteration. Every time, Izuku could feel more pressure building up in his arm, the energy screaming for a place to go, but it never got to the point of pain. When they got up to a 30 second interval, Aizawa said, “Okay, this time I want you to deactivate it on your own. Do you think you can do that?”

He barely even hesitated. “Yeah, I think so, “ Izuku smiled tentatively before he activated his quirk once again.

The strange tingling, almost-but-not-quite-burning sensation flooded his veins, and he held onto that feeling for a moment before concentrating on stemming the flow. It took a second, but turning it off took much less concentration than turning it on, and soon enough it was gone.

“Good job, kid. Do you have a sense of what it feels like now?”

Izuku nodded. “Yeah. It’s like there’s a well of energy inside of me, and activating my quirk is like drawing up a bucket of energy from that well. The problem is, I have no control over the size of the bucket.”

“Okay, good. That’s a good visualization, and it gives us a concrete thing to work towards: decreasing the size of the bucket.”

“But how do I do that?” Izuku asked, a little bit of a whine seeping into his voice against his will. “I’m already trying to use less energy, why does imagining a bucket change anything?” He knew he was being disrespectful, but his frustration got the better of him. When he realized how rude he sounded his head shot up, an apology on the tip of his tongue, but Aizawa didn’t look mad.

The man was definitely laughing at him, though. Not out loud, in fact his expression barely shifted, but Izuku could tell.

“Have you ever meditated before?” He said, humor still dancing in his eyes.

“No, why?” Izuku furrowed his brow, confused by the seeming non-sequitur.

“It’ll help you get better at your quirk, that’s why,” the teacher smirked at him for a moment before taking pity. “Meditation is all about getting in tune with your mind and body. The more in touch you are, the more precise your visualization will be, and the better control you’ll have over your quirk. Now, close your eyes and concentrate on your breath.”

Izuku spent the next half an hour sitting and breathing, with varying degrees of success. Who knew something so simple could be so challenging? His mind was always moving, always working through some problem or making some observation, and turning that off was harder than he’d expected. By the end of the session, he felt like he’d made little headway, but Aizawa-sensei still clapped him on the shoulder and told him that he was doing a good job.

They wrapped up with a couple more stretches, despite having not done any actual exercise, but before Izuku could head off to the locker rooms to change, Aizawa-sensei stopped him.

“Tomorrow, the rest of the class is going on a field trip during their practical heroics class. I’m chaperoning, so we can’t have our private lesson.” Izuku felt his face fall, but Aizawa continued before he could say anything. “But I’ve decided you can participate with the rest of the class.”

Izuku perked up again, chirping an excited “Thank you sensei!”

Aizawa snorted. “Don’t get used to it. It’s only rescue training. Not even you could get hurt during that.”

With that, they both went their separate ways, unaware of just how much they’d come to regret those words.

Chapter Text

As Izuku watched the heroes swarm the USJ, too late to do anything more than clean up the leftover villains scattered across the facility, the first thought that popped into his mind as the adrenaline crash hit him was Aizawa-sensei is never going to let me go anywhere ever again.

Hysterical laughter began bubbling from his lips as the image of his teacher lying prone in a pool of his own blood danced behind his eyelids. The laughter was the only thing that kept him from sobbing.

Aizawa-sensei had to survive. The man dying simply… didn’t compute. He was too stubborn to die, not now, not after it was all over.

The calm he’d been clinging to since the moment the villains first appeared was crumbling away. I almost died today. The thought echoed through his head over and over, and it took all of the energy left in his body not to break down completely.

The next couple minutes passed in a blur as he was hustled off to Recovery Girl. Apparently he was hurt the worst among the students, which was good to hear, though he didn’t get to see any of them. He was transferred with All Might, so seeing them would mean them seeing the number one hero’s skinny form. Izuku suspected they were transferred together so All Might could have a Talk with him about keeping his small form a secret, but that didn’t really apply to him since he’d already known about it.

It did give him a good opportunity to talk to his mentor, though. They hadn’t gotten to really talk since the school year started, and he could use the distraction. At least it seemed he was too tired to work himself up to a proper panic attack.

After Recovery Girl looked them over, planting a kiss on Izuku’s temple and berating them both for their recklessness, she bustled off again, leaving them in silence. It was All Might who jumped on the opportunity first.

“How are you enjoying UA so far, my boy?” All Might tried to shoot him a grin, but it came across more as a grimace in his small form. Or maybe the hero was just feeling the awkward atmosphere.

Izuku tried weakly to return the grin nonetheless. “I-it’s good, All Might. The teachers are a lot nicer than what I’m used to.”

“That’s good to hear, young Midoriya, though that does surprise me. Aizawa-san isn’t known for being nice among the staff.” All Might winced, rubbing the back of his head as if remembering something embarrassing.

(He was. Aizawa had given him quite the reaming out over his mishandling of the Battle Trials, and he was both determined to do better going forward and kind of scared of the man now.)

Izuku’s eyes lit up. “Aizawa-sensei is the best! He’s giving me extra lessons to help me get control of One for All, and I think they’re really going to help.” Unlike the ‘lessons’ you gave me, he didn’t dare say.

He expected his mentor to match his excitement, but instead he furrowed his brows, abruptly turning serious. “Young Midoriya, you know you must keep One for All a secret, yes? Even from people like Aizawa-san. If it were to get out…”

Izuku immediately rushed to reassure the hero. “Of course! I wouldn’t put him or you in danger like that. I just told him my quirk came in late.”

All Might relaxed a bit, but didn’t look completely placated. “Just be careful, Young Midoriya.”

He smiled. “I will, All Might.”

“Oh, there was one more thing I wanted to talk to you about,” All Might ducked his head, fidgeting a bit in a way uncharacteristic of the hero, “I’d like to apologize to you for how I handled the Battle Trials. It was irresponsible to let you students fight each other with no training on how to do so safely, especially when I had no way to stop you if anything went wrong. My shortsightedness led to you getting hurt, and for that I am sorry.” He bowed low in apology.

Izuku panicked internally at the sight of the number one hero bowing to him. “O-oh it’s okay, sir. You don’t need to apologize to me.”

All Might brightened. “Ah, thank you for your forgiveness, my boy! I’ll work hard to make it up to you during Heroics lessons in the coming weeks.”

Izuku blinked. “Oh, Nezu-sensei didn’t tell you? Aizawa-sensei’s private lessons are replacing the Practical Heroics block in my schedule, at least until I have my quirk under control. Today was an exception because it was a rescue field trip.”

All Might’s eyes widened, before the surprise triggered a coughing fit. Izuku awkwardly patted the man’s back until he could get it back under control, and passed him a tissue for the blood. “Is that really necessary?” he said weakly, wiping blood from his mouth. “Learning to work as a team is important for young heroes, and you can’t do that in private lessons.”

Izuku shrugged. “It’s not forever. Aizawa-sensei says I can rejoin the class when he’s sure I won’t hurt myself. And he might let me go on more field trips, though probably not for a while given how this one went.”

All Might laughed a little. “That might be for the best, my boy. You do seem to be a bit danger-prone.” He paused for a moment before an odd look crossed his face. “Did you say Nezu-sensei?”

“Oh yeah,” Izuku smiled bashfully, looking at his hands, “I did well enough on the beginning of the year exam that Nezu decided to make me his personal student! I’m really excited to learn from him.” When Izuku looked up, he noticed All Might looked a little sick. “All Might? Are you feeling okay? Do you want me to get Recovery Girl back in here?” He asked worriedly, hands fluttering around him as he tried to figure out what to do.

“I’m quite alright, Young Midoriya.” All Might waved him off. Izuku was skeptical, but before he could press any more, a plain looking man entered, introducing himself as Detective Tsukauchi.

By the time Izuku was finished giving the detective his statement, his mom had arrived to pick him up and the opportunity to talk with his mentor had passed.

~~~

Toshinori and Naomasa watched Midoriya as the young man left, giving them a small wave before shutting the door to the infirmary behind him. “That’s him, isn’t it? Your successor?” Naomasa was the first to speak.

He nodded, sighing a touch dramatically. “Though I’m not sure how good of a job I’m doing at it. Someone else is having to teach him how to use One for All without breaking all of his bones.”

A deep, burning jealousy had taken root inside of him the moment he’d heard the boy say so, which had only grown as the conversation continued. Midoriya was supposed to be his protege, but Aizawa was the one teaching the boy to use the quirk they shared. It made him feel like dead weight, a feeling he was long out of practice with.

And then there was the fact that Nezu had taken him on as a personal student, which was utterly terrifying. He held a healthy fear of the being, as everyone should, and who knew what he’d teach Toshinori’s innocent successor?

It seemed everyone was getting to teach Midoriya something but him.

“Hey,” Naomasa knocked him out of his thoughts with a nudge. “No brooding. Isn’t it a good thing that he’s getting the help that he needs?”

“Well, yes, but…” Toshinori tried to figure out a way to say ‘but I wanted to be the one to teach him’ without sounding like a petulant child, and came up short.

Naomasa had that knowing look in his eyes that told Toshinori that his friend knew exactly what he was thinking. “But you’re feeling jealous and possessive of your student.” Naomasa cut it down to the crux of the issue, as he was so good at. Toshinori usually respected the detective greatly for his ability to cut out all the bullshit a witness spouted, even when no actual lies were spoken, but it was just as devastating when turned against him as it was on criminals.

He flailed. “What? No! I’d never-”

All the detective had to do was raise an eyebrow, and Toshinori deflated like a popped balloon. “Yes, alright, I’m jealous. I know I should be happy for him, but I wanted to be able to guide him, like Nana did for me. Is that so wrong?”

“Sounds to me like it has less to do with Midoriya or Aizawa, and more to do with your own feelings of inadequacy.” Naomasa said, not unsympathetically. “Don’t take it out on the kid, or your colleagues. Helping Midoriya is all that matters.”

Toshinori made a face at the comment about his feelings of inadequacy, but didn’t comment. “I guess I can see what you mean,” he said reluctantly, but the detective wasn’t done.

“You need to learn to rely on others, Yagi. For more than just your teaching. You used up all your time this morning doing things that other heroes could have handled, and it meant you weren’t there when your students needed it. Symbol of Peace or not, you’re not the only hero in Japan, and you better remember that.”

As much as he hated to admit it, he knew his friend was right. Children could have died today due to his negligence. “I’ll… try my best to remember. Thank you, Naomasa.”

“Hey, any time. Somebody needs to come fish your head out of your ass every once in a while, and I’m the best man for the job.” the other man teased, eyes sparkling.

Toshinori squawked at the crude language and they bickered for a bit, content to put aside the awfulness of the world if only for a moment.

~~~

As Izuku left Recovery Girl’s office, he pasted on a smile and braced himself for the whirlwind that was his mom when she was worked up. Sure enough, the moment she saw him she practically bowled him over with the force of her worry.

“Oh my poor baby, I was so scared when I got the call that your class had been caught in a villain attack! They told me you were hurt, are you feeling okay?” She fretted over him, looking about two seconds from patting him down to check for injuries herself.

“I’m okay Mom, just got a little banged up. Our teachers kept us safe. No villain even touched me, I promise.” The practiced smile felt familiar on his lips. He wasn’t even lying this time! He’d only had self-inflicted injuries and near misses. (He pushed away the image of sharp teeth, of a muscled fist, of a chapped hand coming right at his face, of panic terror fearfearfear.)

He continued smiling as his mom relaxed a bit. “My brave boy. Are you sure you want to be a hero? I’m not sure my heart could take this stress every day.”

“Yeah Mom, I’m sure. I’m going to get strong so I can keep you safe, remember?” Izuku echoed words he spoke years ago. It was an old memory, from before he was diagnosed, but it never failed to put a smile on her face.

(An ugly part of him whispered why do I have to be the strong one why can’t you keep me safe but he pushed it down into its designated pit with practiced ease.)

He smiled all through the train ride home, and through the evening after that, even as his mom continued to fuss, even as tears began to well in her eyes and he felt his own grow damp in response, even as she began to tell him that she wouldn’t survive losing him. He smiled right up until the moment his bedroom door closed behind him and he collapsed on his bed to sob.

It was a familiar routine, a path he had walked over and over since he was four and his dad left (because of him, all of her problems were because of him). He had to be strong for his mom, had to shoulder all the burdens that she couldn’t. He knew how this worked, had done it enough times over the years that it was practically second nature.

Why did he think it would be different now that he had a quirk?

He cried into his pillow for less time than usual before sleep claimed him.

~~~

Izuku shot up in bed only a couple hours later, a scream caught in the back of his throat and his mind filled with images of gruesome what ifs, of corpses piled high around him.

He panted as he willed the nightmare to fade, taking on the blurry, soft-around-the-edges quality that memories of dreams always seemed to have, but it seemed like every time he closed his eyes he found his classmates staring back at him with lifeless eyes.

His pulse calmed and his breathing grew more even, but he knew sleep was a lost cause for a while. It’s not like he had school in the morning to worry about, he thought sardonically as he levered himself up off the bed. School had been canceled for the rest of the week so ‘measures could be taken to prevent any repeat occurrences’, according to a statement UA had released that evening.

Both a blessing and a curse, really. It was nice to not have to show up to school like everything was normal, but it also meant he needed to find something else to occupy his time.

Nezu had returned his notebook that morning as promised, so he could find some newly debuted heroes to take notes on, but the thought of doing so made his stomach churn. (He tried not to think about why that might be, pushing back memories of a world painted red.) Not right now, then. He hoped that wasn’t a permanent thing.

He tried surfing the internet, but everyone on his usual hero forums was talking about the attack on UA, and everything else refused to hold his attention. Even watching old All Might fights, his usual method of relaxation, filled him with nothing but anxiety.

In desperation, he googled ‘how to relax’ and clicked on the first link he saw. It took him to a long list of different relaxation techniques. The first couple were all food related for some reason, but he felt way too queasy to eat anything, so he scrolled past. Then his eyes alighted on the word ‘meditate’ and he felt like smacking himself. Meditation was well-known as being soothing for people with anxiety, and he’d been practicing it with Aizawa just the other day! That meant he would be doing homework and relaxing at the same time.

The article linked to some guided meditations, so he popped in his earbuds and settled down to follow along.

Four videos later, he was no closer to the inner peace the narrators promised and was starting to get frustrated. The feeling of a stranger’s voice in his ear left him feeling antsy, and some of the visualizations they had him focus on just felt silly. Any time he felt himself starting to get into it, the narrator would say something like ‘align your inner chakras’ or ‘you are a tree’ and he’d be thrust right back into his body, only marginally more calm than he’d been beforehand.

He tossed aside his earbuds, ready to give up, when it occurred to him. Aizawa had talked about visualizations when it came to quirks, and these recordings talked about visualizations when it came to meditation. So the obvious solution was to use his quirk visualization in his meditation practice! Grinning, he took a deep breath and pictured a well.

Twenty minutes later, he was just as frustrated and twice as mad at himself. The image of the well was… slippery, for lack of a better word. Izuku was no stranger to not being able to keep his focus where he wanted it, but this felt different. It was like something in his brain was actively fighting him, refusing to form the image he wanted it to.

Finally, he threw up his hands. “Fine, if you have such strong opinions, how about you do it?” he hissed, careful to keep his voice down despite his frustration. His mother didn’t need to know he was up at this hour, yelling at his own brain like an idiot.

He was about to give up and just try to sleep again, nightmares or no, but some of the frustration seemed to bleed away at his words. He decided to try one last time.

This time, he closed his eyes and centered himself, reaching for that place where he’d been picturing a well before. But instead of trying to impose an image of a well, he just… waited. For what, he wasn’t sure.

He didn’t have to wait more than a moment before his mental eye was flooded. In place of the well, there was an ocean of golden light. The surface of the water was not still, waves clearly visible, but it wasn’t turbulent either. He could feel the waves responding to the wind of his breath, falling into a gentle rhythm. It was soothing, and he just sat there breathing for a while before opening his eyes, feeling much more centered than he had before.

He could hit himself for his stupidity. Of course One for All wasn’t a well! Wells didn’t have nearly enough water to represent the unbridled power that the quirk contained. An ocean made much more sense: unfathomably vast and strong, yet deadly to any fool who approached it recklessly. His subconsciousness must have recognized that and fought back against the image he was trying to superimpose onto it.

Satisfied with that explanation and calm enough to rest once again, Izuku fell into a dreamless sleep.

~~~

When Shouta woke up, he knew exactly where he was. The annoying beeping, the antiseptic smell that made his nose burn, and the floaty, disconnected feeling that was a staple of heavy duty painkillers all pointed directly at a giant sign that read ‘hospital’. Now if only he could remember what he’d done to land himself there this time…

It wasn’t until he opened his eyes, or rather attempted to open his eyes, that he began to feel concerned. Worse was when he tried to reach up and grab whatever was blocking his vision (something had to be blocking it, right?) and he found he couldn’t move his arms. He distantly noticed the beeping get faster as he tried to move his legs, to no avail. He couldn’t be like this, he had to protect- something. What was he forgetting? Who did he need to protect?

His students! Memories of the disastrous USJ trip came rushing back to him. The last thing he remembered was the villain with the disintegrating quirk reaching for Asui’s face, Midoriya right beside her. Were they-?

“Shou!” his husband’s voice broke through the fog of drugs and panic. “Shou, you’re alright, you’re safe.”

Shouta opened his mouth to ask about the kids, if they were safe, but all that came out was a croak. Luckily, Hizashi knew him well. “The kids are all fine, nothing more than a couple scrapes and bruises between the lot of them, for the most part at least. You and Thirteen were the worst off, but they’re stable and going to make a full recovery.” Shouta let out a breath and let his husband fuss, opening his mouth obligingly when he felt a cup press to his lips. He let Hizashi give him a few more sips of water before he tried to speak again.

“My eyes?” he asked, voice hoarse.

“Your eyes? Oh!” Shouta could practically feel the soft look his husband was giving him. “Your eyes are going to be just fine. They had to do surgery, said it was an orbital floor fracture. Your vision is undamaged, but they said it’s likely your quirk duration will be hindered. They’re not sure the extent of that just yet, but it shouldn’t be enough to affect your ability to do hero work once you’re recovered.” Hizashi recited, before his voice took on a more embarrassed quality. “Sorry honey, I didn’t think of how much waking up without your sight would freak you out.”

Shouta grumbled. “Not freaked out.” He could feel Hizashi’s disbelieving look even without being able to see it, so he changed the subject. “So when can I get out of here?”

Hizashi huffed an exasperated laugh. “Shou, let the hospital staff do their jobs for once in your life. You could have died.”

“But I didn’t.” He deadpanned jokingly, hoping to return to their usual post-injury banter.

Hizashi didn’t respond right away. Shouta could hear shuffling noises as he moved, but it wasn’t clear what was happening before he spoke again, voice thick. “I almost lost you, Shou. I don’t know what I’d do if I’d lost you.”

Shit. Hizashi was crying over him. He hated when his husband cried over him. “I’m right here, Zashi. I’m not going anywhere.” He soothed, or at least tried to. Not being able to see or move made being comforting hard as hell.

“Seeing you lying there… I thought you were already dead.” The other man let out a sob.

Shouta didn’t know what to say to help the man he loved, except, “I’m here, love. I’m alive. And I’m gonna make damn sure I stay that way.”

Hizashi choked on a laugh. “You better.” he sniffled a bit more before gathering himself. “And that means actually letting your body recover. You’re not allowed to push yourself too hard, or there will be hell to pay.” Shouta could feel the man glaring holes through his bandages.

“Yes, Zashi,” he sighed, resigning himself to putting up with his husband’s fussing for longer than usual. He loved his husband, but he was such a mother hen. “What happened after I went down?”

Hizashi obligingly recounted the events of the USJ that Aizawa hadn’t been present for, as told by the students, sparing no detail. When he got to the part where Midoriya got involved with the main villains, a finger already broken, Shouta groaned. “That child, I swear. Anytime there’s a problem, he always has to be right in the middle of it.” Huh. Problem Child. It was a fitting nickname, not that he’d call him that to his face. The kid had too much trauma around teachers to understand the affection behind the nickname.

Hizashi laughed, the traitor. “Sounds like somebody has a new favorite student.”

“I do not have favorites.“ Glaring at his annoying husband was challenging when he was covered practically head-to-toe in bandages, but Hizashi seemed to get the idea anyway. That did not mean that the man stopped teasing him, unfortunately.

“Just keep telling yourself that, love. But I can tell.” He could picture the smug little grin on his husband’s face with perfect clarity.

Shouta glared for a moment longer before giving in. “Yes alright, I’m attached. I can’t tell you much, confidentiality and all that, but the kid’s been through a lot. It’s a miracle he’s even here right now.”

His observant husband picked up on his word choice immediately. “Here as in at UA, or here as in alive?”

“Either. Both.” Shouta heaved a sigh. “Now it’s my job to make sure he stays that way.”

“He’s the one you’re giving private lessons to, right?” He’d told his husband that he’d be staying after school to give one of his students remedial lessons, but he hadn’t specified which one. Of course Hizashi had figured it out anyway.

“Yeah, but I think keeping that kid alive is going to involve a bit more of a commitment than some quirk counseling and a couple hand-to-hand lessons.”

“So what I’m hearing,” Shouta didn’t trust the lilt of his husband’s voice. “Is that we’re adopting a kid.”

“What? No!” he curled his fingers against his casts, resisting the urge to try to smack the ridiculous man.

“But Shou, I know how much you love picking up strays!”

“There’s a big difference between a cat and a teenager, Zashi.”

“But you don’t deny you want to!”

“I do not!”

This ridiculous argument was cut short by nurses bustling into the room to check on him, but he had a feeling that this wouldn’t be the last time that Hizashi brought up adopting Midoriya.

~~~

The thing about impromptu long weekends, Izuku found, is that there was absolutely nothing to do but sit around with your thoughts. Sure, he could write another notebook’s worth of notes on some new hero fights (he was delighted to find that he was able to do so again without feeling sick), and he did spend a while doing just that, but invariably his thoughts would return to the panic and fear of the USJ.

He thought about analyzing the villains from memory, but a lot of it was too jumbled to draw any conclusions. It was like trying to take notes when the only source he had was a recording from a shaky civilian cell phone where half the time the filmer was too scared to actually pay attention to what the camera was shooting, so most of the footage was of a wall slightly to the left of the fight. That is to say, the broad strokes of what had happened were obvious, and there were flashes of detail, but not enough to be of much use to an analyst. He’d seen enough videos like that to recognize a lost cause when he saw one.

Videos of Eraserhead’s fights were almost always like that. No underground hero had well recorded fights, but Eraserhead’s were always the worst for whatever reason. Izuku should know, since he’d watched every single one he could get his hands on. The idea of a hero that not only fought quirkless, but could make his enemies fight quirkless, had always filled him with a strange, guiltily vindictive joy. On bad days he had liked to imagine Eraserhead swooping in and canceling his bullies’ precious quirks, leaving them as useless as they always accused him of being.

(On the worst days, the fantasy continued with the hero beating them up, giving them a true taste of their own medicine.)

Wait, what had he been thinking about again?

Oh right, boredom.

At least his friends had demanded his number the morning before the USJ trip, after he’d explained to them about his remedial quirk training with Aizawa-sensei and a little more about his private lessons with Nezu-sensei. Texting them provided some boredom relief, though having friends to text was still a little surreal. Iida had even set up a class group chat for the purposes of checking in on everyone after the attack, which had predictably devolved into memes around five minutes into its existence, much to the other boy’s chagrin.

The whole class had found out about Izuku’s private lessons at some point between him telling Uraraka and Iida and the formation of the group chat, but instead of acting jealous or suspicious like he’d expected, they’d seemed impressed. Mina had even joked about him being some kind of god for being smart enough to be Nezu’s student and tough enough to withstand the presence of their prickly homeroom teacher, and it quickly became an on-running joke.

He was pretty sure a couple of his classmates were legitimately founding a cult in his honor, but he decided he was going to ignore that for as long as he possibly could.

Is this what friendship was like? It was a lot different than anime made it seem.

Kacchan, his only other experience with friendship, hadn’t participated in any of it. Someone had gotten up the courage to get his phone number, so he was part of the chat, but he hadn’t said a single thing. He hadn’t left, either. Izuku wasn’t sure what to make of that.

When he wasn’t texting his friends and doing analysis, he meditated. The more he did it, the more natural it became, and the easier it was for him to find that place inside him where the golden ocean resided. He’d done some research on meditation practices, and tried out some other visualizations, but doing so always left him feeling off balance and grumpy until he went back to picturing the ocean.

Honestly, sometimes it felt like he wasn’t actually the one in control of the ocean. It was almost like it had a mind of its own, its temperament unpredictable. Sometimes the waves were calm, almost completely still, and other times the current seemed to be tugging him in playful circles. Still other times it was like there was an invisible storm raging, the waves churning in his mind’s eye.

Izuku figured it had something to do with his subconscious mind influencing the mental scene. Or maybe One for All was influencing it somehow? All Might would have told him if the quirk could do stuff like that, right?

Well whatever it was, it passed the time until school started again that Monday, which was all that mattered.

Chapter Text

When Shouta breezed into his classroom on Monday and found 19 pairs of eyes staring back at him, he could feel himself relax ever so slightly.

It wasn’t that he didn’t believe Hizashi, or Recovery Girl, or Tsukauchi, or the several other people he’d asked, when they told him that the kids had escaped mostly unscathed. But he still needed to see it for himself. It had happened to him before, with Mic and other coworkers and occasionally with victims. Sometimes the only thing that could settle him after a big fight was being able to see with his own eyes that the people he considered under his care were safe.

Hizashi called him a mama bear. Shouta always shoved him off of his chair when he did, but he never denied it.

(They never talked about why, but they both knew. They could both remember in vivid, agonizing detail the one time their precious person hadn’t made it out.)

So he carefully scanned his students, noting with satisfaction that he could see no visible injuries, as they burst into noise. There were calls from multiple places asking if he should even be teaching right now, which he brushed off.

He knew Hizashi had only let him come in so he could see the kids. His husband might be protective, but he understood. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be a force in this world that could convince the man to let him leave the bed for anything more intensive than a bathroom break. He wasn’t afraid of playing dirty, either. Last time he’d been injured, Hizashi had hid the coffee until he agreed to take time off work. In high school, Hizashi had had a habit of sitting on him until Recovery Girl showed up.

By contrast, when Hizashi was injured or sick he was happy to stay put until he was better, but he whined about it nonstop. The man was a drama queen normally, and it became a thousand times worse when he wasn’t feeling well. It was annoying, but it was surprisingly endearing at the same time. Not that Shouta would ever admit that.

Anyway, with that part of the day over, it was time to move on.

“Your fight isn’t finished yet.”’

Shouta grinned behind his bandages. Never let it be said that he wasn’t a dramatic asshole.

He explained that, yes, the Sports Festival was still on, and that it was approaching fast, only two weeks away. He didn’t exactly agree with having the thing after such a large scale break-in, but he understood the logic of it. They had to show that UA was still strong after what had happened. Nezu had assured the staff that precautions had been put in place to ensure the safety of everyone on UA’s grounds, including during the festival.

Shouta just hoped it would be enough.

~~~

Shinsou Hitoshi strolled down the hallways of UA, leaving class 1-A behind. He thought his whole ‘declaration of war’ thing had gone pretty well, all things considered. He’d made an impression, that was for sure, and he’d gotten a bit of a sense of their personalities. He had ideas of how to get some of them to talk, and he could scope the rest of them out in the halls and cafeteria to get a better sense of their personalities. He knew their faces now, so they’d be easier to pick out of a crowd, instead of looking for the ones that looked like they had powerful quirks.

Hitoshi glowered. Lucky bastards, born with quirks that made their lives so much easier than people like him. He knew that he wasn’t owed a place in the hero course or anything like that, but he’d like to have a chance. Of course the exam had to be robots. When had anything in his life ever gone his way?

So caught up in his dark thoughts, he wasn’t paying much attention to his surroundings. Which came back to bite him in the ass when he rounded a corner and was almost bowled over by what looked like a green ball of fluff.

The fluff resolved into curly green hair, attached to a boy who looked to be about Hitoshi’s age. Really, he probably would’ve guessed he was younger by the roundness of his cheeks, but he was clearly a UA student. Hitoshi immediately dubbed the boy Greenie in his head, for obvious reasons.

He steadied Greenie before he could knock them both over, holding him by his shoulders.

“You should probably slow down,” he said amusedly, before noticing the unfocused look in the guy’s eyes. “You good?”

Greenie startled in response, jerking in his grip, before his eyes focused on Hitoshi’s face. His expression morphed into one of fear, and he immediately assumed a very familiar defensive posture as stuttered apologies began spilling from his lips.

“Ah! I– I’m so sorry, I didn’t m-mean to, please, please don’t– I’m sorry,” the jumbled words quickly devolved into incoherent mumbling. Shit, he’d managed to trigger the poor guy. It didn’t even look like he was seeing him at all, breath coming in shallow gasps and eyes searching desperately. Hitoshi’s hands fell away from his shoulders, but it seemed the boy was too worked up to notice he was no longer restrained.

Later, Hitoshi wouldn’t be able to explain why he did it. It was stupid, using his quirk on people always, always led to bad things. Nobody was ever grateful, just afraid or upset or angry. It had happened before, and the result was always the same. Detention at best, a beating at worst.

But, well, he wasn’t just trying to be a hero for spite, no matter what he told himself.

“What’s your favorite ice cream flavor?” he blurted out the first innocuous question he could think of. His quirk didn’t require a question, but it did make the connection just a little bit stronger. And a random or out of the ordinary thing might be able to cut through the fog of a panic attack better than just asking his name or something.

Probably.

Sure enough, the boy made a confused face, saying “I don’t–”

The moment Hitoshi could feel the string connecting his brain to the other boy’s, he grabbed it and yanked, watching Greenie’s eyes go white. “Calm down,” he ordered. “Match your breathing to mine.” Hitoshi took several deep breaths, watching with a careful eye as the boy tried to copy him, his breaths going from hitched and short to deeper and more even with each repetition. His hands relaxed their white-knuckled grip on the straps of the garishly yellow bag he was wearing, and within only a minute he seemed calm. Or at least calmer. It was hard to tell how much better he was without being able to ask him, and Brainwashing didn’t work like that.

Now, Hitoshi was left with a dilemma. The best choice would be to walk away before releasing his quirk, or maybe to tell the kid to go wherever he’d been going before they’d run into each other. (Could he even do that? It’s not like he’d had many opportunities to experiment.) Either way, not being nearby when his quirk was released was the best way to avoid a beatdown.

But leaving him alone just felt wrong. The kid had clearly been bullied, maybe was still being bullied (Hitoshi was skeptical about the ‘anti-bullying policies’ his teachers kept talking about). Who’s to say there wasn’t some asshole lurking just around a corner? And it’s not like Hitoshi had used Brainwashing like this before. He wasn’t sure if Greenie would immediately spiral again the moment he was let go.

So, do the heroic thing, or save his own skin?

He cursed his damned hero complex as he dropped his quirk.

Hitoshi watched warily as the other boy’s eyes returned to normal, looking much more clear and focused than they had earlier. Good, it didn’t look like he was going to spiral again. Hitoshi braced himself to flee, but before he could, Greenie’s eyes focused on him.

“Was that your quirk? Thank you!” he said, bowing, before shooting him a beatific grin.

That… was not the normal reaction. “You’re not mad at me.” He said, careful even as baffled as he was to phrase it as a statement. He knew better than to ask a question to someone who knew what his quirk was. Nevermind that it didn’t work like that, the reaction was always the same.

The boy tilted his head to the side like a kitten. It was strangely adorable. “Why would I be mad at you? You calmed me down from a panic attack in, like, a minute. I guess you did use your quirk on me without asking, but it’s not like I could give you a proper answer in the state I was in.”

“I brainwashed you.” He couldn’t help but argue. This was probably the most bizarre interaction of his life.

Greenie scrunched his nose up. “Is that what your quirk is? I would’ve called it hypnosis. I thought it was a calming quirk at first, but I realized you had to tell me to calm down verbally. So a voice-based mind control quirk, with a call-and-response activation. That’s really cool!” The strange boy looked weirdly excited. More like an All Might fanboy at a convention than a person who’d just had his free will taken away.

“You don’t think it’s villainous.” This conversation didn’t feel real. “I could have told you to do anything. I could’ve made you hurt someone, or gotten you to reveal your darkest secrets. You don’t think that’s villainous.” Why was he arguing against himself here? Why couldn’t he just stop looking this gift horse in the mouth and accept it instead of trying to talk the other boy out of it?

(He knew why. Because nothing was ever this good, and if he got the kid to change his mind now it would hurt less than accepting it and being hurt later.)

“Well, yeah, you could have done those things. But you didn’t.” Greenie was looking at him like he was the stupidest person alive. “If I spent all my time thinking about the things people could do to me, I’d never trust anyone.”

“But, my quirk is villainous. That– that’s how this works!” The argument sounded weak even to his own ears.

“No, it isn’t.” The other boy’s voice took on the tone of a lecturing teacher. “Quirks are tools. The only thing that makes a quirk heroic or villainous is how it’s used.”

“So you think I could be a hero. With a Brainwashing quirk.” Hitoshi shot back, accusing. Daring the guy to back down, or tell him some half-hearted little platitude that he could be a hero despite his quirk. He hated that word. Like his quirk was something he had to overcome instead of an integral part of himself.

That wasn’t what happened. Instead, Greenie’s eyes lit up. “Yeah! Your quirk would be perfect for heroics. You could diffuse hostage situations so easily, and cut collateral damage to basically zero! You could even calm panicking victims down like you did for me, and get information out of suspects since you said your quirk lets the subject answer questions. How many people can you have under your control at once? Depending on how many, crowd control could be a possibility, bystander casualties have been going up in recent years due to crowding around hero fights…” It didn’t even seem like the guy was talking to him anymore, his rant devolving into muttering that Hitoshi could barely understand. Something about his quirk’s usefulness, he was pretty sure.

Not that he was paying very close attention to what the kid was saying, a little busy having a mini existential crisis. This random guy thought he could be a hero. Not just that he could, that his quirk was ‘perfect for heroics’. “But– I– what?”

The muttering stopped, and anxiety returned to Greenie’s face as he registered Hitoshi’s presence once again. “Oh! I-I’m sorry, I know the mumbling thing is creepy…” the boy fidgeted, avoiding eye contact. Hitoshi was blindsided by the change. Where had the confident boy who’d just rocked his entire world gone?

“You actually believe all that? That I can become a hero?” He let his voice rise at the end, becoming a question, just to see if the boy really wasn’t afraid of him.

“Yeah, of course you could! U-unless you don’t want to be, I m-mean. I don’t want to presume…” The boy fretted.

“I’ve wanted to be a hero my entire life. You’re the only person who’s ever told me that I could be, with my quirk.” That… was way more honest than he’d meant to be, but that’s what he got for not having a plan for what to say when he opened his mouth. As much as it was the truth, it made him sound pathetic. Pitiable.

But there was no pity in the boy’s eyes. Just a wry understanding. “Yeah, I know what that feels like.”

But before he could say anything more, the bell rang. “Crap, we’re late for lunch! Let’s go!”

The boy grabbed his arm and dashed off… in the exact opposite direction of where Hitoshi had been headed.

Okay, maybe he didn’t actually know his way around the school all that well yet. They were barely a week in, sue him.

He tried to keep up, but the boy was remarkably fast and he was remarkably unathletic, so he was quickly huffing and puffing. “Hey,” he called between breaths, “can we stop, for a sec?”

Hitoshi almost landed on his face when the boy skidded to a stop. “S-sorry for grabbing you like that,” he stuttered as Hitoshi bent over, hands braced on his thighs as he tried to regain his breath. “Oh! I forgot to introduce myself, didn't I? I’m Midoriya Izuku.”

Hitoshi choked on a laugh, still panting. “Your name is literally Green? Like your hair?”

“Uh, yeah I guess,” the newly-named Midoriya said, laughing awkwardly. “Ironically I got the name from my dad and the coloring from my mom.”

Hitoshi schooled his face into mock seriousness, standing from his bent over position. “I hate to be the person to tell you this, but your mom married your dad solely so her name would match her hair.”

Midoriya burst into giggles. It was, frankly, adorable. “That makes sense, honestly. It would explain why he’s been ‘working in America’,” he did air-quotes, “since I was little.”

Hitoshi laughed. “Daddy issues, nice. I’m Shinsou, by the way. Shinsou Hitoshi.”

Midoriya smiled at him. “Nice to meet you, Shinsou-kun.” He paused, looking contemplative. “Does this make us friends now?”

“I… Think so?” Hitoshi hadn’t made a friend since his quirk came in, so he didn’t know exactly how this worked. He’d told himself when he got into UA that he wasn’t there to make friends, but Midoriya seemed to understand in a way that no one ever had before. Hitoshi couldn’t bring himself to throw that away.

The other boy’s smile was like staring into the sun. “Yay! Okay, what do we do now?”

“Well first we could probably get to lunch.” Hitoshi pointed out dryly. “Maybe at a slower pace this time?” A plaintive note entered his voice against his will, but the other politely didn’t acknowledge it.

“Okay!”

They walked in silence for a few awkward moments before Midoriya spoke again. “So, who’s your favorite hero?” he asked in a clear attempt at small talk.

“Eraserhead,” Hitoshi answered simply. Fosters and social workers and other adults who were forced to be polite to him asked that question a lot, but smalltalk made him want to carve his eyes out with a rusty spork. The answer was the truth, but it discouraged further conversation.

But instead of saying ‘oh I don’t think I’ve heard of that one’ and at best shutting up or at worst going into a long ramble about his own favorite (All Might from the look of the bag), Midoriya smiled. “Oh wow, really? He’s one of my favorites too!”

Hitoshi’s eyes widened. “Holy shit! I don’t think I’ve ever met anybody else who even knows he exists.”

“I know, right? But it’s just proof of how good he is at his job! Underground heroes need to be anonymous to be as effective as possible.”

“Yeah! Eraserhead’s so good he hardly ever gets caught on camera, too. And when he does it's usually just a blurry shot of his back.”

“Tell me about it! Trying to find good footage of him to analyze is such a pain. And when it exists it’s always titled ‘hobo kicks butt’ or something.”

Hitoshi laughed, before noticing something. “Analyze?” He honed in on the word. “Are you an analyst?” He could see it. The guy had a pretty unique outlook on quirks.

Midoriya blushed red. “N-not really? I-it’s just a hobby, not anything too serious.”

Hitoshi had a feeling he was underselling his talents, but he let it go. “Ah, okay. I thought maybe you were in the support course. What class are you in, by the way?”

“Oh, I’m in 1-A.” Midoriya said.

Hitoshi froze.

The other boy made it several more steps before noticing that he’d stopped. “Shinsou-kun? Are you alright?”

“You’re in the hero course.” he said slowly.

Midoriya shrunk under his gaze. “Yes?”

Betrayal shot through him. He’d thought that they were in the same place, at the same level, but evidently not. Was Midoriya just humoring him? Or playing some sort of mean prank? There was no way any hero-hopeful with a quirk strong enough to get them into the top hero school in Japan actually wanted to be associated with the villain kid.

But then he took another look at Midoriya and saw the resigned tension of someone who was waiting for a blow they’d taken too many times to count. He wasn’t being fair, was he? Sure, Midoriya was lucky enough to get into the hero course, but that didn’t mean that his life hadn’t been miserable in other ways. It was obvious that the kid had issues, the kind that only came about from a lifetime of trauma.

So Hitoshi shook off his shock and started walking again, patting his new friend on the shoulder as he passed. “Congrats, man. It’s cool you made it in.”

He watched out of the corner of his eye as Midoriya sagged in relief. He smiled again, a smaller, more subdued version of the sunny grin he’d seen earlier. “Thanks, Shinsou-kun.”

“You got any tips for someone who ‘s trying to move up from gen ed?” Hitoshi asked, only half joking.

“Well first of all you should probably work on being able to run for more than thirty seconds at a time.” Midoriya said, his eyes teasing but his posture screaming hesitance.

“Hey, I can run! Not my fault you’re apparently a little speed demon.” Hitoshi teased right back.

Greenie smiled shyly, before turning serious once again. “But seriously, you should work on gaining some muscle, maybe learn some hand-to-hand skills. You can’t always rely on your quirk. Are you training that, at least?”

He winced. “No, not really. I haven’t exactly had people lining up to help me with it.”

“Well,” a stubbornly determined expression crossed Midoriya’s face, “You have me now. I’ll help you.”

“Midoriya, you’ve known me for a grand total of, what, five minutes? Ten? Why would you go out of your way for me like that?” Hitoshi wasn’t that familiar with how friendship worked, but this seemed like too much, too fast.

The ridiculous boy just shrugged and said, “I like helping.”

Hitoshi wanted to protest some more, but that was the moment they arrived at the cafeteria doors. They eyed each other for a moment before Midoriya said, “You can come eat lunch with me and my friends if you want.”

Hitoshi was about to say no, but it wasn’t like anyone else was offering. So he nodded and followed the boy inside.

He hadn’t anticipated the awkwardness of sitting with several of the students he’d challenged (and sort of threatened) not even an hour ago.

~~~

Izuku didn’t really get why introducing his new friend to his classmates had been so awkward, but nobody had started shouting or trying to blow each other up, so he counted that as a win.

He and Shinsou had exchanged numbers, promising to text later to figure out a schedule for their quirk practice. Izuku had a lot of ideas to help the other boy that he was itching to write down, but first he had to get through the rest of the school day.

The rest of the class had practical heroics with All Might, so Izuku made his way down to Gym Gamma for his own training. Though with his teacher so thoroughly covered in bandages, he wasn’t sure what training they’d be able to do.

Izuku arrived in the empty gym and immediately got down to business, running through the stretches that Aizawa-sensei had given him. Just as he finished up, his teacher entered, looking even more tired than usual. “Makes sense that he’s tired, healing is tiring even without Recovery Girl’s quirk. Is her quirk less effective on him because of his chronic sleep deprivation? It would explain why he’s still so bandaged even though it’s been several days. Or maybe it’s an intimidation tactic? What–”

“Kid. I can’t make out what you’re saying when you talk that fast.” Izuku jerked back to look at the man in question, who was clearly trying to hide his amusement in his capture scarf. It had the opposite effect since his mouth was already covered by bandages and Izuku had already realized that he had a habit of burying his face in the weapon when he wanted to hide positive emotion. It was an interesting trait, since it implied– Wait, no. Izuku, Focus.

“S-sorry, Aizawa-sensei. I know the mumbling is creepy.” he said, head lowering in apology.

Aizawa waved him off. “Not creepy, just hard to understand. I was pretty sure you were talking to yourself, but I wanted to double check.”

“Oh.” Aizawa-sensei was so considerate. It was weird.

“Anyway.” His teacher said puedo-casually, only the steel in his eyes giving him away, “I heard you broke a finger at the USJ.”

Ah. That. Izuku ducked his head in shame, thinking back to what Aizawa had told him during their previous lesson. “I’m sorry for disappointing you, sensei. I’ll try to do better next time.” It was odd. He’d been disappointing teachers for almost as long as he’d had teachers, he should be used to it by now, but something about it being Aizawa-sensei made it so much worse.

“Hey,” the soft call, so contrary to what he’d been expecting, startled him into locking eyes with his teacher once more. The understanding glint he found there was jarring. “I’m not disappointed in you.”

“But you said–” Izuku started to protest, but Aizawa cut him off.

“I know what I said. I hadn’t taken into account the possibility of extenuating circumstances. Which, really, I should have been expecting. You are a trouble-magnet.” Aizawa shot him a look that was almost… fond? That didn’t make any sense. “So no, I’m not disappointed. You used your quirk to keep yourself safe, and I’m proud of you for that.”

Izuku felt tears welling up in his eyes. Damn his overactive tear ducts, he really didn’t want to be crying right now! Luckily, his teacher ignored his waterworks and continued on. “I would also like to apologize, to you and the rest of your class, for not being able to protect you. I failed as a teacher and as a hero, and for that I am deeply sorry.”

“No, don't apologize!” First All Might, now Eraserhead? What was up with all his favorite heroes apologizing to him recently? “You didn’t do anything wrong. You protected us as best you could, even with how outnumbered you were! And besides, we’re hero students, we can look after ourselves.” He tried to shoot his teacher a reassuring look, but it didn’t seem like the man was buying it.

“Hero students or not, you are still children. You shouldn’t have to look after yourselves. It was the job of the adults in the situation, namely me and your other teachers, to keep you safe, and we failed.”

At that, the tears in his eyes spilled over. How long had it been since someone had looked after him? Even his mom was always praising him for his independence, always so proud of him for being able to take care of himself when she worked late. He’d known for so long that he was on his own; he wasn’t sure he knew how to be looked after.

Aizawa turned his back, seemingly inspecting some random bit of equipment. Izuku was grateful for the moment to collect himself.

But when his teacher turned back around, Izuku knew he wasn’t going to like what came next, judging from the look in his eyes. “All that being said, you did break my one rule. Your sentence is lighter due to the circumstances, but I can’t let you get away with it completely, now can I?” Izuku gulped. Did he mean… “What are you waiting for? Get running. I’ll tell you when I think you’ve learned your lesson.”

Izuku resisted the urge to grimace. “Yes, sensei,” he said as he jogged to the indicated line.

~~~

Izuku wasn’t sure how long he had been running for, but he did know it was too damn long. The sharp turns necessary for the drill made it feel like his brain was getting knocked around inside his skull, and the fact that which line he had to run to alternated left him unable to just mindlessly complete the exercise. It didn’t help that his teacher kept calling out ‘encouragement’ (read: heckling him).

The moment he heard Aizawa-sensei tell him he could stop, he collapsed onto his back, panting. Footsteps approached him, and a pair of feet came into his peripheral vision. “Well, kid, do you think you’ve learned your lesson?” Izuku just nodded, too winded to form words. “Good. We’ll close out today with some meditation practice once you can move again.” Aizawa placed a water bottle next to his head and walked off.

It took a few minutes, where he had to resist the urge to guzzle down a gallon of water and make himself sick, but soon he was feeling better enough to toddle on shaky legs over to his teacher.

Meditation practice went significantly better than it had during their first lesson, Izuku was proud to admit. When asked, he shyly told his teacher he’d been practicing at home, to help him relax. That earned him an approving look. Aizawa-sensei wasn’t allowed to use his quirk for at least a week while he recovered, so any real quirk practice was off the table for the time being.

While Izuku was doing his cool-down stretches, Aizawa broached a new topic. “One more thing, before you go. I obviously can’t train you in hand-to-hand right now,” he said, muttering something that sounded like ‘Zashi would kill me’. “So we have some options. Either we can turn this into a more theoretical training for the time being, go over some combat techniques and stuff. Or I could bring in another teacher to help you.”

Izuku hesitated. He really wanted proper, hands-on combat experience before the Sports Festival, but the idea of having another teacher in these lessons made him uneasy. He was mostly sure Aizawa-sensei was safe, but everyone else was a giant question mark. “Who would the other teacher be?”

“Present Mic. I can vouch for him as one of the most trustworthy people I know, and he’s much more skilled in hand-to-hand than you’d expect of a long-range fighter. He can be a bit much at times, but he’s safe.”

“You promise?” Izuku said in a small voice. He knew he sounded like a child, but he needed the reassurance that a promise from his teacher gave him.

“I promise.” The solemn sincerity in the man’s voice is what made up Izuku’s mind.

“Can we… try it? And if it goes badly, we’ll do something else.”

Aizawa nodded. “Good idea, kid. Now get back to the classroom before I decide you haven’t learned your lesson just yet.”

Izuku was pretty sure it was a joke, just to cut the tension, but he was not going to take that risk. He fled.

~~~

Izuku knew it had to happen eventually. Trying to put it off would just make it worse. And he’d known it was coming, ever since he woke up after the battle trials in a panic.

Still, knowing didn’t stop a shiver from running down his spine when he heard the shout as he walked home that day.

“Oi, Deku!” Kacchan yelled from behind him, making him turn, as quickly as possible. He knew better than to make Kacchan think he was ignoring him.

“Y-yes, Kacchan?” He stuttered, hunching his shoulders instinctually.

“We need to talk,” the other boy growled, before turning on his heel and stomping away. Izuku followed quietly behind. Arguing would just make it worse.

Kacchan led them to a familiar empty alleyway, one he’d been up close and personal with too many times to count. He wasn’t sure why this one, maybe because there was hardly ever anyone back here, isolated even in the middle of the busy city.

Without warning, Kacchan turned and slammed him into the wall. Izuku let him, the routine almost comforting in its familiarity. He braced himself, anticipating that first right hook, but it never came. Instead, the other boy spoke, fingers still curled in the lapels of his jacket.

“What the fuck, Deku?” He growled, furious.

“Kacchan, what–?” He stuttered, honestly confused with what the boy meant.

“Don’t give me that shit! What the hell is up with you? First you show up with a quirk, and now they’re saying you’re some kind of super genius when we both know your grades have always been shit. What else have you been fucking hiding from me?”

“It-it’s not like that, Kacchan! I just–“

“Bullshit! Stop lying to me.” He spat, tiny explosions popping in his palms, singeing Izuku’s uniform.

“It’s true!“ Izuku’s voice shook. He knew arguing with Kacchan was bad for his health, but he didn’t want his friend to think he was a liar.

“Bull. Fucking. Shit. You’ve always looked down on me, and now I know why. You’ve been laughing at me behind my back, huh? With all your secrets, pretending to be weak just to fuck with me.” The boy’s rant continued, but Izuku tuned him out.

He thought about all the friends he’d made over the past weeks, how he couldn’t imagine any of them talking to him the way Kacchan did. He thought about Shinsou, the look of baffled awe on his face as he encouraged the other boy in the way no one had ever encouraged him. He thought about Aizawa-sensei telling him that he didn’t deserve what he’d been through, that no child did.

All of that passed through his mind, and he felt something in him shatter.

“Do you ever think that maybe not everything is about you, Katsuki?” Izuku’s voice was low and dangerous, biting in a way neither of them had ever heard before. That tone, or maybe his full given name, made the boy pause, his grip loosening just for a moment. Izuku used the distraction to shove his friend-turned-bully off of him, reversing their positions and grabbing his wrists, pressing them against his own chest so any explosion he made would burn holes in his clothes at best, injure him at worst.

“I don’t owe you shit, not after everything you put me through, but I’ll explain anyway because you never learned how to mind your own goddamn business.” Most of the anger had drained off of Kacchan’s, no, Katsuki’s, face. All that was left behind was confusion and distress. Good. It was Izuku’s turn to be angry. “My quirk came in late. That’s all, no big secret I’ve been keeping from you.” The lie tasted sour in his mouth, but like hell was he going to tell the boy the truth. “As for my grades? Yeah, I did worse than I could’ve on purpose–”

Katsuki began thrashing in his grip at that. “I fucking–” Was all he could get out before Izuku clapped a hand over his mouth.

“Let me fucking finish! My grades have nothing to do with you. I did worse than I could’ve because it was that or get dragged in front of the principal and lectured on how cheating is wrong! All because I’m ‘less evolved’ or whatever, so I couldn’t possibly do better than their star student.” He spat out and watched Katsuki still, eyes going wide. “You really never noticed?” He asked incredulously, before scoffing. “Of course you didn’t. Everything always has to be about you. Well newsflash, asshole: I have a life that has nothing to do with you. And not even you can ruin it anymore.” With that, he pushed away, stalking out of the alley and back into the street before his former friend could move.

Izuku walked home in a daze, head full of nothing but static. He thought he heard the telltale sound of explosions and yelling from behind him, but it was faint. It was hard to tell if that was from distance or the ringing in his ears, but either way the sound quickly faded and the rest of his walk passed without incident.

He went through the motions of arriving home, unlocking the door and taking off his shoes, faintly grateful that his mom was working late that day. He wasn’t sure he would’ve been able to act as if he was alright if she’d been home.

It wasn’t until he collapsed onto the living room couch that the thoughts came rushing back in.

Oh god, he’d really said that, hadn’t he? He’d never allowed himself to even think things like that, well aware of the consequences of such thoughts.

But was it really how he felt? Yeah, he reflected, it really was. Kacchan had been accusing Izuku of looking down on him since they were little, no matter what he did or how many times he told him that the opposite was true. No matter what happened, Kacchan always assumed that anything Izuku said or did had something to do with him. This most recent incident was just one more in a long line of similar events.

It wasn’t fair. Katsuki hurt him, and belittled him, and isolated him, and he had no right to do any of that.

And it felt so good to finally think those things, the dark place he’d been shoving those thoughts since he was four finally broken wide open. The Kacchan he remembered from his childhood was long gone, replaced by a bitter, angry boy who’d been making his life hell for so long he could barely remember the time before.

It still felt wrong, to be angry. He’d been told almost his whole life that Bakugou Katsuki was going to be an amazing hero, and that meant the way that he treated others was acceptable. Especially how he treated Izuku, the quirkless weakling. But Aizawa-sensei was a hero, and knew that he’d been quirkless, and still told him that the way he’d been treated was wrong.

All of that left him with a single question: was Katsuki actually going to be a great hero? Or would he be nothing more than a state sanctioned bully?

Chapter Text

Being injured sucked.

Shouta hated not being able to do his job as a hero, and it was so much worse when he was hurt. Not being able to go on patrol always left him feeling antsy, and with how injured he was there was no other outlet for that energy. So he spent long hours pacing back and forth across their small apartment, alternating between playing with the cats, attempting to clean, and simply walking.

Shouta would compare himself to a caged lion. Hizashi called him a child on a rainy day.

His husband put up with all sorts of nonsense from him, but Shouta knew that he was as close to reaching his limit as Shouta was, if not closer. Hizashi was being a good sport about the whole thing, but they both knew a fight was imminent if something didn’t change.

So when Nezu sent him an email asking him to come to his office that morning, Shouta didn’t drag his feet even a little. The rat had to know how restless he was, so maybe he had something for him to do that would use up some of his excess energy.

Shouta didn’t even bother knocking. It was too early in the morning for pleasantries. “What is it, Nezu?” he asked as he barged into the room.

“Ah, Aizawa-san! Come in, come in. Tea?” Nezu started pouring him a cup before he could answer. The rat knew he didn’t drink tea, he just liked being a pain in the ass.

Shouta took a seat, waiting until Nezu was done pouring them both a cup before asking again. “Why did you call me in here?”

Shouta knew that whatever it was, it was serious, when Nezu didn’t laugh and chide him for his manners. “I have a task for you.”

Well that didn’t sound good. “What is it?” he asked suspiciously.

“I need you to investigate Aldera Middle School.”

That was the most to-the-point thing Shouta had ever heard the rat say. What was so special about this school to prompt such a reaction from the principal? Unless…

“That’s Midoriya’s former school, isn’t it.”

Nezu inclined his head, humming in agreement. “I was planning on handling it myself,” the implication sent a shiver down Shouta’s spine, “but I unfortunately have too much on my plate at the moment. You have the free time for it, and I thought you might appreciate the opportunity.”

The thought of taking down the school that played a part in putting the wary, distrustful look in Midoriya’s eyes filled him with vindictive joy. “I’m in.” Shouta grinned a predator’s grin, and Nezu bared his teeth back. “What do you need me to do?”

“First, I need you to sort through Midoriya-kun’s file and mark anything suspicious or contradictory. Someone also needs to ask Midoriya if he will consent to be interviewed, and possibly testify as well.”

“I’ll see if I can ask him sometime soon.” Shouta nodded, thinking of how he’ll broach the topic. It would be tricky to ask without making the kid panic and shut down. “And the file?”

In response, Nezu just reached into his desk and pulled out a stack of papers as thick as a full-length novel. Shouta grabbed it, leafing through the papers briefly. Even just catching a glimpse of the words, he knew he was in for a long, infuriating time. But still, it had to be done. He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Thanks, I guess. I’ll keep you updated.”

“You’re very welcome, Aizawa-san!” Nezu chortled. Creepy rat.

It was too early for this shit.

~~~

Three cups of coffee and four class periods later, Shouta was feeling significantly more awake, though no less annoyed at existence. But that was pretty much his default state, so it was fine.

It was lunchtime, and Aizawa was camped out in the teacher’s lounge, counting his lucky stars that he didn’t have lunch duty. Usually he’d be napping, but not having patrols meant he was actually getting enough sleep, so he had some time to kill.

He passed the time by contemplating the giant stack of paper he had squirreled away in one of the many pockets in his costume (he was pretty sure the support department had used some kind of dimension warping technology in his costume, because he swore his pockets made no sense). There had to be dozens of incident reports in that file. They couldn’t all be cheating allegations, could they? Of course not, he thought scornfully. They probably found all sorts of shit to blame on the kid. He wondered how Midoriya’s file compared to an actually problematic student, like Bakugou–

Wait. Bakugou.

Realization slammed into him like a truck.

Shouta was an idiot.

He’d known they had attended the same school. He’d known they had an antagonistic relationship. Hell, he’d seen Midoriya flinch every time the explosive blond even twitched! And yet, when he learned that Midoriya had spent his middle school years believing himself to be quirkless, he hadn’t reevaluated what that meant for the power dynamics between him and his classmates. Classmates like Bakugou.

Bakugou, who called Midoriya a cruel nickname at every opportunity. Bakugou, who had tried to attack Midoriya on the first day of school. Bakugou, who had sent Midoriya to the nurse’s office during a school-sanctioned training exercise, who could have killed him.

Bakugou was Midoriya’s bully. Shouta would put money on it.

How had a bully even been allowed into UA? Nezu liked to run thorough background checks on every student who walked through their gates, especially the hero students. If Bakugou really was a bully, he shouldn’t have passed. Right?

Maybe seeing Bakugou’s file would clear things up. Shouta didn’t usually read his students’ files, preferring to draw his own conclusions, but he did have access to an abridged version of his homeroom class’s files. So he set about finding the folder he’d stuck them in.

Five minutes later, Shouta was even more sure he was correct. Not because of what was in the boy’s file, but what wasn’t there. Namely, anything that sounded even remotely like Bakugou. It was filled with things like ‘a pleasure to have in class’ and ‘such a kind, considerate student’. Every single review glowing, and every single one dripping in bullshit.

He needed to schedule a meeting with the Bakugous, and talk to Nezu about the situation.

But first, he needed to talk to his Problem Child.

(The. The Problem Child. Not his.)

It was too early to ask him much about Aldera, but Bakugou was a UA student and thus fair game to investigate, even outside a formal interview. And Shouta needed answers.

~~~

Izuku was having a strange day. After the confrontation yesterday, he’d gone about his evening on autopilot, soon finding himself in bed. Sleep didn’t come for quite a while, though, his mind swirling as he stared blankly up at the ceiling.

He felt like the floor had been yanked out from underneath him. It was like his entire world had been turned upside down. And at the same time, he felt stupid for not realizing earlier. He knew what made a good hero, not just a successful one but one that truly deserved the title. He knew that hurting people just because you could was the opposite of heroic. And of course he knew Ka– Kastsuki hurt people, not just him but anyone who got in his way.

But Izuku hadn’t – no, refused to connect those dots. Because, he reflected, believing that Katsuki would make a great hero one day had kept him from breaking down entirely. Now that he had other things to lean against, people who cared about him and a goal within his reach, he could finally acknowledge the truth: unless something major changed, Bakugou Katsuki would make a terrible pro hero.

He felt like a Jenga tower. A piece had just been forcibly yanked out of him, leaving a yawning gap that could have left him tumbling down. But he was still standing, just a little bit less whole.

…That was a weirdly deep metaphor about a children’s game. Fuck, he needed sleep.

He was a mess of nerves the next day, spending a little too much time staring at the back of Katsuki’s head, waiting for him to explode. Instead, the boy was oddly quiet, refusing to even look in his direction.

The difference was not reassuring.

He distracted himself with his classwork and by texting Shinsou to coordinate quirk training time. They decided to meet up the next day, after school and Izuku’s quirk training, and Izuku promised to ask if they could borrow a gym for an hour or two after his training was finished to maybe get some physical training in.

During lunch, Shinsou immediately picked up on his mood and dragged him into a heated debate on whether underground heroes should have merch (they both agreed that they shouldn’t, but it was fun to argue over something small like that). Uraraka and Iida both weighed in at several points, but they clearly didn’t know nearly as much as Shinsou and Izuku, who quickly devolved into sharing their favorite fan-made merch sites.

Izuku was grateful for the distraction, and knew that the afternoon would be equally distraction-filled, with Aizawa-sensei teaching (Mic-sensei had classes to teach, so he couldn’t join them until the next day). It would be nice to put aside his existential crisis for a while.

But when Aizawa-sensei made his way into Gym Gamma, the first thing he said was, “Before we get started, I need to ask you some questions about your middle school experiences.” Well there goes his plan for a distracting afternoon. At least it wouldn’t be about– “Bakugou Katsuki.” Nevermind. But it’s not like his teacher knew– “He was your bully, wasn’t he?”

Fuck.

“I– He, Kacchan was,” Izuku was tongue tied and panicked. It was one thing to admit to himself that Kacch– that Katsuki hadn’t been his friend in a long time, and acted more like a bully towards him than anything, but saying it out loud was an entirely different beast. He wasn’t sure what he was more scared of: that Aizawa wouldn’t believe him, or that he would. No teacher had ever believed him, especially when it came to Kacchan, but Izuku knew that Aizawa-sensei was different. Or at least had been different so far. What if this was the breaking point?

And if he did believe him, what would happen then? He didn’t want to be the reason Katsuki didn’t become a hero, if only to save himself from the beating that would most definitely occur if he ever found out.

After a couple moments of sputtering, Izuku subsided, staring down at his hands as he wrung them in frustration. He didn’t know what to say. Any answer felt like the wrong one.

“Okay,” there was no annoyance in his teacher’s voice, just understanding. “Do you not want to talk about it, or do you just not know how to say it?”

Izuku considered for a moment, grateful for the out Aizawa was giving him. It was tempting to say he didn’t want to talk about it and move on, but he realized that he really, really did. He needed to get the thoughts he’d been having ever since yesterday out in the open, or they were going to eat him alive. But he had no idea where to start. “The second one,” he admitted after a long moment.

“That’s alright. How about I ask you some questions about your relationship with Bakugou, and we’ll go from there.” Izuku nodded his consent, and the hero continued. “First up, how long have you known Bakugou?”

That was an easy one. “As long as I can remember. Our moms are old friends, so we met when we were babies.”

Aizawa had taken out a notepad and pen at some point, and began writing as Izuku spoke. “Next question,” he said as he finished his note-taking, “why does he call you Deku?”

“I-it’s an alternate reading of my name. When Kacchan was learning kanji, he learned that the first kanji in my name could be read as ‘Izu’ or as ‘De’, and it’s been my nickname ever since.”

“And the fact that ‘Deku’ is an insult meaning ‘a useless person’?” Aizawa’s tone was light, as if asking about the weather instead of poking at years-old wounds, which Izuku was forever thankful for.

It gave him the courage to speak the simple, unadorned truth. “It made it really convenient when he found out I’d been diagnosed– misdiagnosed,” he corrected himself, “quirkless.”

“So he does mean it as an insult.” It wasn’t a question, so he stayed silent, watching as Aizawa wrote a couple more lines. “Does he insult you in other ways?” Izuku nodded, but didn’t elaborate. He didn’t want to repeat the awful things Katsuki had said to him over the years. “How often?”

“Every day.” It was an almost automatic response, but he realized it wasn’t entirely accurate. “Or, he used to. After the Slime Villain Incident, he started avoiding me more.”

“Why would he…” he watched as realization dawned in his teacher's eyes. “You were the other kid involved in that, weren’t you? The one who ran in.”

“Um, yes?” he hadn’t realized he’d never been identified after that.

“Of course you were.” Aizawa sighed and shook his head. “When was the last time he used insulting or derogatory language towards you? Besides the nickname.”

“Yesterday,” he answered casually. Izuku realized that that might have been a mistake when the man’s head jerked up.

“Was this on school grounds?” The tone wasn’t suspicious, just considering, so Izuku relaxed a bit.

“No? He cornered me after school.”

Aizawa looked him over, as if searching for something. “Could you tell me what happened?”

Izuku fidgeted under his teacher’s intense gaze. “We just… talked. I told him off a bit, and then left.”

Aizawa looked at him skeptically, the expression obvious even through the bandages, but dropped it. “Okay. Has Bakugou ever physically harmed you? Punching, kicking, shoving, tripping, anything like that?”

Izuku nodded slowly, habitual shame coloring his cheeks. He didn’t think Aizawa would look down on him for not being able to protect himself, but it went against everything he’d ever been told about heroes to be so in need of saving.

“Nothing to be ashamed of, kid.” If he wasn’t so familiar with Aizawa’s quirk, he’d assume the man could read minds. He flashed Aizawa a grateful smile, which he acknowledged before continuing. “Has he ever used his quirk on you?”

“Ah, yeah.” Izuku rubbed at the starburst shaped scars that dotted his arms. “A lot. I’ve got the scars to prove it.” he mumbled, not quietly enough from the way his teacher was looking at him. But he just made a note and moved on.

“Judging from the way you talked about your past teachers, they didn’t help you when you tried to tell them what was going on, did they.” It wasn’t a question, not really.

A bitter snort escaped Izuku against his will. “‘Didn’t help me’ is putting it mildly. They blamed me for it. I don’t know how many detentions I got for ‘starting fights’ or ‘attention seeking’.” It was the first time he’d ever said it out loud, the first time he truly acknowledged the wrongs done to him. It felt… weird. Good.

It was quiet for a moment, not even the sound of a pen on paper filling the silence. Izuku looked up from the spot on the floor he’d been staring at to see the hero sitting rigidly, tension filling his body. “Kid, I’m a professional hero. I’ve dealt with plenty of scumbags. But I have never wanted to punch someone in the face as badly as I do right now.” He paused for a moment. “I… shouldn’t have said that to you. Let’s just pretend I didn’t, okay?”

Izuku giggled, enjoying the image of his second favorite hero and favorite teacher punching his old teachers. “Your secret’s safe with me, sensei.”

“Okay, good. Moving on.” The moment of levity was forgotten as Aizawa returned to business. “Was your mom aware of what was going on? You said she and Bakugou’s mom were friends.”

Izuku shook his head in vehement denial. “Mom doesn’t know. She can’t know. I can’t be a burden on her like that.” Not any more that he already was.

“Midoriya.” Aizawa looked at him steadily. “Having problems doesn’t make you a burden. It makes you a person. Does she tell you you’re burdening her?”

“She doesn’t have to. It’s obvious.” Izuku slouched, crossing his arms and hoping desperately for another subject change.

“Obvious how?” No such luck.

There were a million different examples that he could use, but it all boiled down to, “She worries about me. All the time. I have to be strong for her, so she doesn’t need to worry as much.”

A pained expression crossed Aizawa-sensei’s face. Izuku quickly scanned his bandaged frame, looking for any evidence that the man was aggravating his wounds, but he didn’t see anything.

“Kid, we’re getting you set up with appointments with Hound Dog, as soon as possible.”

“Huh? Why?” Izuku said, startled by the sudden change in topic.

“Because, frankly, your childhood thus far has sucked major–” Aizawa cut himself off, clearing his throat before continuing, “has sucked majorly, and what you just described is not a healthy thought process. That kind of thinking can be dangerous in the field, and it’s best for heroes to nip it in the bud as soon as they can.”

“If it’ll make me a better hero…” Izuku said uncertainly. He knew therapy was good in theory, but he wasn’t quite sure what it had to do with hero work. Still, he trusted his sensei.

“Okay. I still have a couple questions about your mom, though.” Dang it, Izuku had hoped they were done. “You said Bakugou hurt you, pretty regularly from the sound of it. How did you explain the injuries to your mother?”

Izuku shrugged. “I didn’t, usually. I got pretty good at patching myself up, and what I couldn’t hide I told her I got by being clumsy.”

“And she never noticed? Not even when you ran out of stuff to treat yourself with, or when your uniform got damaged?”

Izuku shifted uncomfortably. “It’s not her fault. She works a lot, and I was careful.”

Aizawa wrote something down at that. More than what he’d said, Izuku was sure. He had a bad feeling about that. “Okay, I’m going to set up a parent-teacher conference with your mom. I know you don’t want her to know what’s been going on, but she needs to know so she can support you like you need. That make sense?” Unfortunately, it did, but the line of questioning had made it sound like…

“She’s not in trouble, is she?”

Aizawa looked at him for a moment, studying his reactions, before he answered. “To be honest with you, I’m not sure yet. Her not noticing that you were getting injured so often is concerning.”

“I guess.” Izuku was pretty sure he was just a good liar, but they’d find that out in their investigation, and then things would be normal again.

Except then she’d know, and Katsuki…

“What’s going to happen with Katsuki?”

“Well, that depends on a few things, but he’s not going to be staying in the hero course if I can help it. Either he’ll be expelled or moved to gen ed. Or you could press charges, you know.”

Izuku shook his head. “I don’t want to do that.” It felt wrong, disrespectful to the Kacchan of his memories. “Can I make a request?”

“Sure kid, go ahead.”

“Don’t expel him.”

“Why not? I figure, with all he’s put you through, you’d be happy to see him go.” There was no disapproval in Aizawa’s tone, just quiet curiosity. It made explaining himself just a little bit easier.

He took a deep breath, and did so. “My entire life, I’ve been told that Kacchan is going to be a great hero. That his quirk is too strong for him not to be. And because he’s going to be the best, he gets to do whatever he wants.” He looked down, ashamed. “I didn’t even question it until yesterday. Is that bad?”

“Course not, Midoriya. You were a kid. Learning that not everything adults tell you is true just comes with the territory.” Aizawa stretched his arm out before hesitating. “Is it okay if I touch you?” Izuku nodded, and was rewarded by his teacher tousling his hair. It was kind of nice.

“Anyway, my point is that Katsuki has been told the exact same things. He has no reason to believe that he’s in the wrong. I think he deserves a chance to get better.”

Aizawa chuckled, shaking his head. “Only you, Midoriya. Only you.”

“I also don’t want him to go villain,” he admitted. “It’s a real possibility if he’s expelled.”

“Fair enough.” Aizawa made another note before speaking again. “Alright, any more questions?” Izuku shook his head, before hesitating.
“I do have a question, but it’s not about any of the stuff we were talking about. Is that okay?”

“Of course kid. What is it?”

Izuku fidgeted, nervous at the idea of making a request. “So I have this friend. He’s in Gen Ed, but he wants to be moved up to the hero course, so I offered to help him train. Do you think we could borrow the gym for a while after my training finishes tomorrow?” He bit his lip to avoid rambling, staring hopefully at his teacher.

Aizawa thought for a moment. “I’ll do you one better, he can come to your training. Mic won’t mind having another student, and it’ll be good for you to have a sparring partner who’s your age.”

Izuku gasped in excitement, eyes sparkling. “You and Mic-sensei really wouldn’t mind?”

“Nope. I’d rather keep an eye on you, anyway. Does he need quirk training, too?”

“Yeah, but he has a mental quirk, so you don’t need to worry about it getting out of hand.”

“Good. Just don’t do anything stupid.” Aizawa leveled him a warning glare, and seemed satisfied by Izuku’s quick agreement. “Now, time to meditate.”

Today, looking out over the golden ocean filled him with a forigen feeling of pride, and the phantom sensation of someone ruffling his hair.

(Also a very faint urge to spartan kick someone off a cliff, for some reason.)

~~~

Shouta knew Midoriya’s records were going to be bad. Terrible, even. It was going to be long, and infuriating, and awful.

Even still, knowing all of that didn’t prepare him for the sheer amount of rage and heartbreak reading through the file filled him with.

Every single incident in that file was covered in bullshit. There were reports of detentions for disrupting the class with his ‘annoying muttering’, detentions for writing rude things about himself onto his own desk, detentions for ‘attention seeking’, even detentions given only for ‘not knowing his place’.

The worst were the ones where they claimed Midoriya had started a fight. They would often note that the boy had been hurt in said ‘fight’, but they never said to what extent, and there was never a matching report from the school nurse. The other kids involved were unnamed, and Shouta would bet nothing ever made it into their files.

The cheating allegations were tame in comparison. They tended to cluster at the beginning of the school year, and then drop off as it continued, presumably because Midoriya quickly figured out what each teacher considered ‘too well’ for a quirkless boy. Usually, a cheating investigation was serious business, involving the child’s parents and serious consequences, but there was no record of an actual investigation into any of the claims. The worst that would happen was detention for a couple of days, and there was no record of a call home. Which was proof that the faculty didn’t actually think Midoriya was cheating, they just wanted to scare the poor kid into doing worse than he could.

It made Shouta sick. Every time he imagined his sweet, hardworking Problem Child being subjected to that treatment, he wanted to scream or cry or punch something.

He had been right when he’d told Hizashi that it was a miracle the kid had survived long enough to meet them.

When his husband came home from his shift at the radio station, he found Shouta with his head in his hands as he sat at the kitchen table, papers scattered around him. “Shou? What’s wrong?”

Shouta took a moment to groan before answering. “I was right about something, and I’ve never wanted to be wrong more in my life.”

“Is this for that thing Nezu gave you this morning?” Hizashi asked, coming over to stand by his shoulder.

Shouta leaned back, taking comfort in his husband’s presence. “Yeah. It’s bad, Zashi. It’s real bad.”

“Can you tell me what it is?” Hizashi wrapped his arms around him, pulling him closer.

“I probably shouldn’t, but god do I want to. I don’t know if I can deal with this alone.”

“Babe.” Hizashi looked down at him worriedly. “I’ve seen you not react half as intensely to human trafficking cases. What the hell did Nezu give you?”

Shit. He didn’t want to break the kid’s trust, but he needed to get this off his chest. “He gave me a student’s file.”

“It’s Midoriya’s, isn’t it?” Of course Hizashi came to the right conclusion immediately. The man was far from an idiot, contrary to what he let people believe.

Still, better to preserve confidentiality, or at least the illusion of it. “I won’t confirm or deny.”

“Oh no, poor little listener.” Hizashi said, taking his non-answer as the confirmation it basically was. “Judging from the sheer number of papers here, whatever he’s been through must have been awful.”

“That’s the thing, Zashi. According to all of this,” he flapped a hand in the direction of the mess on their table, “Midoriya is a disruptive, attention-seeking, fight-starting liar.”

Hizashi furrowed his brows, confused. “That doesn’t sound like the Green Bean at all.”

“Exactly.” Shouta closed his eyes, not speaking until his husband poked him, silently urging him to elaborate. “Every single word of this file is bullshit. What isn’t outright lies is heavily biased against the kid.”

Hizashi’s eyes widened, staring at the veritable mountain of paper. “Shit, Shou…”

Shouta nodded minutely. “I know. I think it’s thicker than mine.” He said, his voice barely above a whisper. It was a good thing that the rat knew how to read between the lines, otherwise who knows where he’d be now.

“But why? With a quirk like his, you’d think he’d be top dog, even with his control issues.”

Shouta just shook his head. “Not my place to say. I’m already breaking his trust by telling you this much, but…”

“But you couldn’t handle this on your own.” Shouta opened his eyes, staring up at his husband, who looked back with soft eyes. “That’s okay, love. You don’t need to do this by yourself.”

“God, Zashi, that kid’s been dealing with all this on his own for so damn long. If he can do it, I should be able to.”

His husband gently flicked him on the forehead. “Not how this works, sweetheart. You’re modeling good behavior for the kiddo.”

Shouta huffed, knowing his husband was right but wanting to argue anyway.

Hizashi didn’t give him the chance to. “C’mon, let’s go cuddle on the couch and watch that show you claim to hate. We can get takeout from that place you like, too.”

Shouta allowed himself to be coaxed onto the couch, unabashedly basking in his husband’s love and attention.

He glanced at his phone while Hizashi fiddled with the TV settings. He had an email from the rat. Nezu had contacted Bakugou’s parents, and they were coming in in the morning to ‘discuss his behavioral issues’.

He sighed, before turning his attention to the truly awful reality show Hizashi had put on. That was tomorrow’s problem. Today, all he had to worry about was enjoying a pleasant evening with the man he loved.

Chapter Text

Katsuki was furious.

Not that that was anything new. Katsuki was furious a lot. He even had a punching bag in his room for occasions just like this, which he was currently wailing on as he thought.

But this time, something was different. This wasn’t straightforward anger, with an easy target.

No, he was confused, and it was pissing him off.

Deku’s words from the other day kept echoing in his head, taunting him. I did worse than I could’ve because it was that or get dragged in front of the principal and lectured on how cheating is wrong! All because I’m ‘less evolved’ or whatever, so I couldn’t possibly do better than their star student. It didn’t make any sense. Katsuki was the best, everyone said so. So how was Deku smarter than him?!

The thing was, he could see his teachers doing it. Spineless bastards were always obsessed with sucking up to him, making him out to be some sort of saint during parent-teacher conferences just so he’d like them more or something. It made perfect sense that they might do the opposite shit to Deku. But he’d never considered that they might be fucking with their grades.

It was making him doubt himself, and he hated it. Was he actually as smart as he knew himself to be, or had his middle school teachers artificially inflated his grades for whatever reason?

No. No, he was still fucking smart. He got into UA, and he was doing better than his classmates, from what he’d heard in class so far. Maybe he wasn’t some kind of freaky super-genius like Deku apparently was, but he knew his own brain.

Still, it felt like he was suddenly standing on unstable ground, after believing he had solid footing for all his life. Deku had a quirk. Deku was a genius. People thought Deku was special. And at UA, Katsuki wasn’t.

He knew his quirk was powerful, everyone told him so. But his classmates’ quirks were just as powerful, if not more so. And the battle trials had showcased that a powerful quirk wasn’t everything about being a hero, a point that had been underscored by the damn hobo several times in the theoretical heroics classes he taught.

At UA he didn’t stand head and shoulders above his peers like he had at Aldera, and he didn’t know what to do with that.

Because if he wasn’t the best, then what was he?

At that moment, he heard the old hag yell his name from down the hall.

“What do you want, damn hag?” he yelled back, stalking over to his door and pulling it open.

“Your principal just asked us to come to an emergency meeting tomorrow. What the hell did you do?”

Katsuki was hit with the sinking sensation that everything was about to go terribly wrong.

~~~

Sitting between his parents in the principal’s office was pissing Katsuki off. Especially since he had no fucking clue what he’d done wrong. He clenched his hands into fists, his gut churning, but stayed quiet. He had a strong suspicion that yelling would just make things worse.

“Welcome, Bakugous! I’d say it’s a pleasure to meet you, but with the circumstances being what they are…” Principal Nezu smiled at them as he trailed off.

What the fuck was that supposed to mean?

At least the damn hag was on the same page about that. She glared. “And what does that mean? You didn’t exactly give me much to go off of on the phone.”

“I’m afraid there have been allegations of bullying made against your son, both currently and at his previous school.”

“WHAT?!” he and the old hag yelled in unison, springing from their chairs.

Katsuki continued, ranting angrily. “I’m not a fucking bully. That’s villain shit, and I’m not a fucking villain. I’m–”

“Katsuki.” The old hag said, not yelling, but speaking in a low, dangerous tone.

Oh fuck. He knew that tone. That was his mom’s ‘I’m not fucking around’ voice, the one she used when she was angry enough to kill a man. He’d only heard it a handful of times, but he knew to sit down and shut up when he did.

He sank back into his chair sulkily. He didn’t like that the old hag wasn’t defending him, but arguing with her now would just get him grounded for life. He’d yell about it later, once this was all cleared up.

(He wasn’t a bully. He wasn’t.)

“Good choice.” she said to him, before returning to her own seat. “I apologize for my and my son’s outbursts, Principal Nezu-san. Please continue.”

“Thank you, Bakugou-san. UA takes accusations such as these extremely seriously.” The rat shuffled some papers around on his desk. “We have evidence of name calling, belittling, threats of violence, an unprovoked attack, and excessive force during a school exercise, all on school grounds. We also have spoken testimony from a student that similar behavior occurred repeatedly when Bakugou-kun was attending Aldera Middle School.”

Katsuki bristled, realizing who must have been the one making the accusations. He couldn’t stop himself from yelling again. “Fucking Deku! I’ll–” He cut himself off when he saw the venom in the hag’s glare, but he still muttered, “Shoulda kept his fucking mouth shut.” Fucking Deku, telling the teachers his little sob story, making him sound like some kind of monster. Yeah, maybe he’d knocked the brat around a bit, but that didn’t make him a fucking bully.

His mom shot him a look that he couldn’t make sense of, before turning back to the fucking rat. “But how is that possible? I never received any notification about reports of bullying when he went to Aldera, and his teachers always said he was a perfect student.”

The principal’s eyes darkened, sending involuntary shivers down Katsuki’s spine. “We believe that Aldera’s faculty was allowing the bullying to take place due to quirkism, and were falsifying records to make your son appear to be a better student than he was.”

“But why?” Katsuki’s old man spoke up for the first time. “Why would they hide behavioral issues like that?”

“I can’t say for sure, but I do have a theory. I believe that the faculty wanted to have the accreditation that comes with having a student get into a prestigious hero school such as ours, so they ignored issues that would lead to your son being unable to attend.”

“That’s awful.” His mom looked horrified. “That has to be illegal.”

Personally, Katsuki didn’t see what the issue was. So they didn’t tell people that his personality wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows, what was the big deal?

“It very much is.” The sparkle in the principal’s eyes was freaky. “Rest assured, there is a case being put together against them currently, and we will do our best to keep this from happening to any more children.”

“Good.” the old hag nodded decisively. “Now, what happens with Katsuki?”

“Your son is a bit of a unique case. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t have even been accepted into UA, much less the hero course.”

“WHA–” His mom clamped a hand over his mouth without even looking.

“Shut up, Katsuki. You are in severe hot water with me right now, and every word out of your mouth is just going to make it worse.” She glanced at him for a long moment before lowering her hand. Katsuki stayed silent. “Good. Please continue, Nezu-san.”

Nezu continued as if the interruption had never happened. “The obvious answer is expulsion,” Katsuki dug his nails into his palms and bit hard on his lip to keep from yelling again, “But as has been stated, Katsuki-kun’s previous school was an incredibly toxic environment that not only did nothing to stop his behavior, but actively encouraged it. As such, he has had no opportunities to grow, and we believe that UA is the best place for him to do so.”

Katsuki blinked. He wasn’t being expelled? Then what was the point of the damn meeting?

The hag spoke. “Thank you, Nezu-san, that is very generous of you. More than my brat deserves, I’m sure.” She shot him yet another glare. What the fuck was her problem?

Nezu smiled at her, kinder than his eyes had been since they’d entered the room. “I’m glad you think so. It seems clear to me that while Katsuki-kun may have inherited his rougher personality from you, he did not pick up some of his more problematic traits at home.” The rat stopped to take a sip of tea. Being talked about like he wasn’t in the room made Katsuki want to explode something, but he couldn’t do anything without losing every privilege he had and potentially his spot in UA. He clenched and unclenched his hands, keeping his palms from sparking only from sheer force of will.

“Now, there will of course be punishment for your son, as well as efforts towards mitigating further damage. First and most important is that, effective immediately, Katsuki is no longer enrolled in the hero course, and is instead being moved to general education. He will also receive mandatory therapy and anger management, either from our school counselor or an approved therapist of your choosing. He is also barred from participating in this year’s Sports Festival, and is suspended for a week. Does this sound reasonable?”

No, it didn’t. Not to Katsuki. He felt frozen in his seat, his heart pounding. It felt like everything was happening underwater. He couldn’t be losing out on being a hero. He couldn’t! It didn’t make any sense!

He still didn’t understand what he’d done wrong. So he’d picked on Deku a bit, what did it matter? That’s how the world worked. He was strong and Deku was weak, and that meant that Katsuki had every right to put the annoying little fuck in his place.

Right?

Still, he stayed silent, gnashing his teeth in frustration and anger. His sense of self preservation just barely outweighed his desire to scream at the unfairness of it all.

Instead, his mom answered. “Yeah that makes sense.” She bowed, as low as she could while sitting. “Thank you, Nezu-san, for giving my brat another chance. He’ll get better, I’ll make sure of it.” She threatened, shooting him another dark look.

That was around the moment that Katsuki began to tune out the adults’ conversation. He knew all the important stuff, all that was left was the padding that adults liked to add to their conversations to be polite or some shit.

More importantly, if he listened to them talk about him like he wasn’t there for one more minute, he was likely to blow them all sky high. Contrary to what some people might say, he did have some self restraint, thank you very much.

This was all stupid Deku’s fault. He must have run to the teachers to snitch after their talk the other day. Katsuki remembered the look of pure fury twisting the boy’s features, it only made sense that he’d want to rub it in Katsuki’s face that he was better, that he held all of the power and Katsuki had none. Deku was finding one last way to look down on him before ruining his life completely.

Well just because he had a quirk now didn’t mean that Katsuki wouldn’t kick his ass for this shit. Deku had better watch his back.

He was still plotting his revenge on the other boy when his mom nudged him, none too gently. “Now, thank your principal for taking pity on your sorry ass and not expelling you outright.”

He glared at her, but she glared right back. Knowing that he couldn’t win against her, not like this, he ground out a “thanks” from between clenched teeth.

There were more words exchanged that Katsuki once again tuned out, and then he was dragged out of the principal’s office, his mother’s death grip on his shoulder just short of bruising. He chanced a look at his dad, but saw no support in his eyes, just barely leashed anger.

That was the moment that he knew he was fucked.

~~~

Izuku’s day had been weird.

The moment he’d walked into class and seen Katsuki’s empty chair, he knew it was going to be an odd one. It wasn’t bad, per say, not like the day before. Talking to Aizawa-sensei had left him feeling more stable and less like his world was falling down around him, and the full night of sleep had also done wonders. But all through the day, he could feel the tension in the rest of the class at Katsuki’s unexplained absence. Kirishima had even tried to ask Aizawa-sensei, but the man refused to answer.

It wasn’t until the end of the day that the rest of the class learned what Izuku already knew.

“Bakugou has been moved to general education due to disciplinary reasons.” Aizawa-sensei announced unceremoniously. “I won’t answer any more questions, so don’t ask.” He promptly got out his sleeping bag and curled up on the floor, leaving 1-A in complete shock.

There were only a few moments of silence before the entire room erupted into gossip, speculating on what exactly Katsuki had done to get himself kicked out of the hero course.

“You think he got into a fight or something?” asked Kirishima.

“If he did, it wasn’t on school grounds. We would’ve heard about it.” said Sero.

“Maybe he joined a gang!” Mina put in, seeming oddly excited about the prospect.

“I doubt it, kero,” Tsu croaked. “If he’d been caught doing something like that he would’ve been expelled.”

On and on it went, Izuku’s classmates spinning wilder and wilder tales that came nowhere close to the truth. Izuku ignored them, until, “Hey Midoriya! You knew Bakugou in middle school, right? What do you think?” called Kaminari.

Izuku shrugged, trying to keep his cool while panicking internally. “I-I don’t know any more than you guys.”

“C’mon, you have to have some kinda theory. Everybody knows you’re the smartest kid in class.” Sero wheedled.

“Yeah man, help us out! At least give us a hint?” Kaminari scrambled out of his chair and began crowding around his desk, followed by several more students. Izuku shrunk back as his classmates unintentionally loomed over him as they begged for information. A couple of the quieter kids even came over to see what the fuss was about.

“W-well, um…” Izuku fidgeted nervously. He couldn’t tell them the truth, but he didn’t want to lie, either. What was he supposed to say?

He was saved from having to make a decision by Iida, pushing through the small crowd while lecturing about respecting his classmates’ personal space and privacy. The other kids groaned a bit, but allowed themselves to be herded back to their desks, then out the door once the bell rang. Izuku allowed his heart rate to calm while the rest of the class filed out, leaving only Uraraka and himself behind.

Uraraka came bounding up to his desk. “Hiya, Deku-kun!”

After the rough few days he’d had, caught up in old memories and coming to terms with what his friendship with Kacchan really was, he couldn’t help it. He flinched, pulling back from his first friend since he was four. Stupid, he berated himself, it was just one little word. How could it still hurt so much?

She noticed, of course. How could she not? “Deku-kun? Are you alright?” she asked, concern filling her eyes.

“F-fine.” He shot her a weak smile, but she didn’t seem convinced. “Really, it-it’s nothing.”

“You know you can tell me anything, right Deku-kun? That’s what friends are for!” She smiled, the enthusiasm of her words dampened by the worry that she couldn’t quite hide.

Was it really? He’d never found that to be true, but to be fair he’d had precious few friends, and he was pretty sure Katsuki didn’t actually count. It was hard, hearing her proclaim them friends and in the same breath use that hated nickname. But she wasn’t trying to be cruel , not like the times in middle school when people would pretend to be his friend. She didn’t know how much it hurt him. He hadn’t told her, how was she supposed to know if he didn’t tell her?

It would hurt twice as much, if he asked her to stop and she didn’t, he knew that from experience. But maybe, just maybe…

“Can you, can you not call me that anymore? Please?” He said, staring down at his lap, hands clenched tight. It was impulsive, and stupid, and he regretted his words the moment they were out of his mouth, but he couldn’t take them back now. He just hoped this didn’t result in losing one of his only friends.

“Oh! You don’t want me to call you Deku anymore?” There was no anger in her voice, just confusion, and when he looked up, he saw the same on her face. She bounced from foot to foot, filled with nervous energy. “Is this because Bakugou left? I know it was his nickname for you first. Or, or do you not want to be friends anymore?” The final question was laced with distress, which immediately made Izuku feel guilty.

“No!” He waved his arms as if to wipe that thought from her head. “No, I still want to be your friend, Uraraka. Of course I still want to be your friend.” He subsided, saying quietly, “I just, that nickname, it reminds me of some stuff I’d rather not think about.”

Uraraka’s eyes widened in realization, but she didn’t look any less upset. “Oh no, I’m so sorry! I forgot that you said it wasn’t a nice nickname. I’m sorry for forcing it on you like that.”

He rushed to reassure the girl. “No, no, it’s okay! I said you could use it. I know you didn’t mean it like that, but I couldn’t think of it as ‘you can do it’, like you said. I’m sorry.”

“Why are you saying sorry? I’m the one that called you by a name that made you feel bad!” She exclaimed, gesturing broadly with her hands.

“Because I couldn’t stop feeling bad, even though you liked the name.”

“But that’s not your fault!” She slammed her hands on his desk, and the loudness of the sound in the empty classroom threw both of them off. They just sort of stared at each other for a long moment, neither sure how to proceed, before Uraraka seemed to get an idea.

“Izu-kun,” she said, nodding her head decisively.

“W-what?” He asked, confused.

“That’s what I’ll call you. Izu-kun. That way I can call you a nickname, and you won’t feel bad about it!” She looked very proud of herself before concern clouded her face again. “If that’s okay? If that makes you uncomfortable too, just say so. I can just call you Midoriya, if you want. I don’t want to make you feel bad, no matter what.”

Izuku promptly burst into tears, which did nothing for Uraraka’s nerves. She fluttered her hands about, not sure whether to comfort him or leave him alone.

It took a few moments, but he finally got enough breath to stammer out, “I-it’s okay! They’re happy tears.” Which caused Uraraka to fling herself at him in a tight hug.

“Thank you, Uraraka.” he whispered, which caused her to pull away for a moment.

“Nuh-uh, if I’m calling you by your given name, you have to call me Ochako! It’s the rules.” She said, pinning him with a mock-serious look, which only caused him to cry harder.

They stayed like that for a few moments longer before they heard a voice drawl. “Not to break up this touching scene, but you’ve got training soon, Midoriya.”

They jumped apart, flushing at being caught embracing by their homeroom teacher. They’d both forgotten he was still in the room, what with him being in his standard position curled up on the floor. “Yes, sensei!” They yelped in near perfect unison, before gathering their things and heading for the exit.

Shinsou was waiting outside the door, and gave them both a dubious look before clearly deciding it was none of his business. “Ready to train, Midoriya?” he asked, and Izuku bobbed his head excitedly, quickly saying goodbye to Ura–Ochako and pulling his other friend along behind him.

~~~

Hitoshi wasn’t sure how to feel about all of this. Midoriya offering to help him train was weird enough, but teachers voluntarily offering to train him? That was downright bizarre. It sent his hackles up and the alarm bells in his head ringing, no matter how many times he reread the text Midoriya sent him assuring him that they were safe.

As they got to the doors of Gym Gamma, Hitoshi slowed down, pulling at the other boy’s grip on his wrist. Sensing his hesitation, Midoriya turned to look at him. “Everything okay, Shinsou-kun?”

He paused before asking, “Are you sure they’re, you know, safe?”

Midoriya nodded. “Aizawa-sensei is. I’m one hundred percent sure.”

“And Mic-sensei?” Present Mic was his homeroom teacher, but he hadn’t been able to get a good read on the man under the over-the-top hero persona.

He paused for just a moment before answering. “Aizawa-sensei says he is, and I believe him.”

Hitoshi still wasn’t convinced. “How can you be so sure?”

“Aizawa-sensei has proven his trustworthiness to me.” the other boy said, stubbornly vague, before changing the subject. “Let’s get changed and stretched out before the teachers get here.”

They didn’t exchange another word as they made their way to the locker room, politely keeping their eyes down as they changed into their gym uniforms. It wasn’t until Midoriya was leading Hitoshi in a series of stretches that the other boy spoke again, breaking the silence.

“I told Aizawa-sensei about – about what happened, at my old school.” Hitoshi glanced at the boy’s face, but it was a blank mask, no indication of what had transpired when he was in middle school. “He opened a case against them pretty much on the spot.”

“But that’s just what they’re supposed to do, right? Mandated reporting, I think it’s called. Doesn’t mean anything is actually going to get done, or that he actually cares.” Hitoshi shot back. It had happened to him a couple of times. He’d tell someone what was going on, either in his most recent foster home or at school, they’d reassure him that they’d report it, and then nothing would ever come of it. Except maybe some extra beatings, if whoever he’d reported had caught wind that he’d done it.

“Aizawa-sensei isn’t like that, I promise. He really means things, when he says them. He was so mad when I told him, but not at me, at them.” There was a note of incredulous awe in the other boy’s voice that Hitoshi could understand, even if he wasn’t entirely convinced. Midoriya must have been able to tell he didn’t believe him, because he added, “He even told me he wanted to punch my old teachers in the face.”

Hitoshi snorted at that, but before he could respond, he heard a choked noise from behind him. Both boys spun around to find that the doors had been pushed open, and standing in the doorway were two figures. The first was Present Mic, who looked about two seconds away from keeling over from laughter. The second was fucking Eraserhead.

“Eraser, you said what? To a student?” Mic-sensei wheezed. “And you say you’re not–”

The man was cut off by a swift elbow to the gut. “That was supposed to be a secret, kid.” Eraserhead said dryly as his coworker coughed.

“Sorry, Aizawa-sensei.” The kid looked genuinely abashed, but there was a small smile at the corners of his lips that told Hitoshi he was enjoying the banter.

Not that Hitoshi was paying that much attention, brain busy freaking out at being in the presence of his idol.

“You didn’t tell me Aizawa-sensei was Eraserhead,” he hissed at his friend, who smiled at him awkwardly.

“Oops?” he offered, to which Hitoshi just glared at him. “Sorry! I forgot.”

“You forgot? How do you–” Hitoshi was winding himself up for an epic rant, but Mic-sensei cut him off before he could get going.

“Shinsou-kun! You must be the little listener’s friend. Good to see you taking initiative! Now, are you boys stretched out?” Mic bustled in, barely giving the boys a chance to answer before jumping right into the lesson.

The first hour was spent learning to stand, fall, and take a hit.

“You’d think with the number of hits I’ve taken, I’d be better at this,” he groaned during their break, Midoriya voicing his agreement from where he was lying on the floor nearby.

(He didn’t notice the way the adults’ expressions tightened at that, or how they exchanged a single, meaningful glance before Mic called them back for more practice.)

Next, they moved on to dodging, which both boys unsurprisingly picked up in no time at all. Mic spent the rest of the hour teaching them to throw a proper punch without damaging their hands. Something about the way Mic emphasized not hurting themselves when attacking came off as strange to Hitoshi, but he shrugged it off.

Finally, it was over and Midoriya was leading him in some cooldown stretches while the adults conferred in the corner. Hitoshi couldn’t tell whether they were having a serious conversation or gossiping.

“So,” he started, “you still up for quirk training?”

And he swore Eraserhead materialized out of thin air, right behind them. Hitoshi just about jumped out of his skin when he heard the man repeat, “Quirk training.”

Midoriya’s eyes widened. “Not my quirk!” he rushed to reassure his teacher. “We’re training Shinsou-kun’s quirk.”

What the hell was the kid’s quirk, to invoke that reaction from the hero? It had to be powerful, he’d passed the entrance exam after all, but Midoriya had mentioned remedial quirk training when they’d scheduled this. If it were anyone else, Hitoshi would scoff about lazy hero students, but the other boy was anything but lazy. So what gives?

He wasn’t going to ask, though. Not yet. If his past was anything like Hitoshi’s own, then asking would just scare him off.

Eraserhead stared at Midoriya for a few more moments before nodding. “Okay. But you’re doing it here, where I can keep an eye on you.”

“Oh, you don’t have to do that! We’ll be fine on our own.”

“Midoriya.” Eraserhead leveled a deadpan look at the boy. “You’re the most trouble-attracting person I have ever met. Forgive me for not taking that chance.”

“I’m not that bad, am I?” Midoriya frowned, looking to Hitoshi for support.

He just shrugged. “I’ve only known you for a couple of days, but that checks out.” He smirked at the boy. He was fun to tease, but it was also true. He’d agreed to help him with no hesitation after knowing him for ten minutes; Hitoshi would hate to know what else the boy had jumped headfirst into.

Midoriya honest-to-god pouted in response. “Mean. If you keep being mean to me, I won’t help with your quirk!” he threatened playfully.

Hitoshi laughed. “Yeah yeah, I get it, no teasing the guy who’s helping me out. So what do you need from me?”

Mic took that moment to interject as Midoriya dashed off to retrieve his backpack. “I’ve gotta head out now, listeners, but you’re in good hands with Eraser!” Eraserhead immediately contradicted that claim by pulling a yellow sleeping bag seemingly from midair and curling up on the floor. Confused and vaguely disturbed, Hitoshi shot a glance at Midoriya, who didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary, absently waving at Mic-sensei as he fished around in his bag.

After a moment, he pulled out an almost pristine notebook and flipped through it as he rejoined Hitoshi. “I have some observations about your quirk already from my first experience under it, but I’d like to hear it in your own words. Include as much detail as possible, please.” His tone was oddly professional.

So that’s what Hitoshi did, describing in as much detail as he could what he could do. It seemed like woefully little, especially once Midoriya started asking questions. “How many people can you hold at the same time?” At least four? He’d never tried more than that. “How long can you hold someone for?” He knew he could do five minutes without strain, other than that he didn’t know. “Would that decrease if you were holding more than one person?” Presumably? “How long can you wait between someone responding and you activating your quirk?” He had no idea. “Can you command someone nonverbally?” He didn’t think so?

Midoriya assured him that this was all baseline stuff, and they’d experiment with his limits, but that didn’t make him feel any better about knowing so little about his own quirk.

Finally, Midoriya said, “Okay, one more question and then we can start experimenting. How do you visualize your quirk, when you use it?”

Hitoshi blinked. He hadn’t thought much about how he imagined his quirk, not since he was five years old and going to quirk counseling. “When someone responds to me, it forms a string from their brain to mine. To activate it, I pull on the string.”

The other boy nodded, writing something down. “And when you give someone a command? Do you have a visualization for that?”

Hitoshi shook his head. “I just say something, and they do it. No visualization needed.”

Midoriya nodded, continuing to write. “It might be useful to have one, since it could lead to more precision when you’re in control of more than one person, and maybe allow you to command someone nonverbally.” The other boy stopped to look over his notes, deep in thought.

Hitoshi waited several long moments, but when the boy stayed silent, he prompted, “Anything you want to share with the class?”

He hummed thoughtfully. “I know you said you can’t access higher brain functions with your quirk, but it didn’t feel like you were only in control of my body. It felt closer to hypnosis than puppeteering, and people can still speak and answer questions under hypnosis.” He let out a slightly frustrated sigh. “I’ll do some research and get back to you on that.” He perked up again. “Anyway, testing time! Here, I have a list of commands in my notebook. Put me under and have me do these one after the other, then hold me under for as long as you can without straining yourself.”

Hitoshi took the notebook while Midoriya set up his phone to record. He scanned the pages, but it appeared to be written in gibberish. “Uh, Midoriya? I have no idea what any of this says.”

“Hm? Oh!” The boy sheepishly scratched the back of his neck. “Sorry, Shinsou-kun. Flip to the next page, you should find the commands there.” Sure enough, on the next page were around ten neatly written lines of Japanese, with space in between presumably to record the result.

“Okay, but why is your notebook filled with gibberish? That wasn’t any language I’ve seen before.” It didn’t look like any language at all, seemingly comprised of some Japanese characters, some characters from the latin alphabet, and a few that he didn’t recognize at all.

“It’s a coded shorthand that Nezu-sensei helped me develop. I’m not very quick with it right now, but once I’m a bit better I’ll be able to write my thoughts almost as quickly as I think them!”

“Midoriya,” said Eraserhead, having sat up from his spot curled up in the corner, still wrapped in the strange yellow sleeping bag. “You’ve barely been his student for a week, and you’ve already developed and mastered a code?”

“Well,” the boy shrunk a bit under his teacher’s piercing gaze. “I-it’s a pretty simple code, just letter replacement combined with a shorthand method that I already used occasionally when I didn’t have time to write everything I wanted to. I’m working on something more complex, but right now Nezu-sensei said it’s okay as long as I burn them after copying them onto the computer. He set up my firewalls and stuff, but he says that our next unit is cybersecurity, so I’ll be able to do it on my own soon.”

Hitoshi didn’t know what part of that to address first. The “simple” code that contained at least three alphabets? What the hell a “more complex” code would entail? Midoriya being advised to burn his notes? No, the obvious answer was, “Nezu-sensei?”

“Oh yeah, I forgot you didn’t know,” Midoriya flushed, ducking his head a bit. “I’m Principal Nezu’s personal student.”

“Principal Nezu, as in the smartest creature in Japan, if not the world? That Principal Nezu?”

“Yes?” Midoriya smiled awkwardly.

“Midoriya. You are officially the most terrifying person I have ever met.” Hitoshi shook his head in disbelief.

“Sorry? I’m not trying to be scary.” The other boy was clearly confused and a little nervous at the attention.

“Whatever, just know that I am sincerely glad you’re on the side of good.” Midoriya looked like he had no idea what to say to that. “Let’s get on with this.”

The next hour passed by in a blur of tests. Every time Hitoshi thought they were done, Midoriya would find something else to test. Most of it didn’t make any sense to him. What did it matter the difference between telling someone to stand on one foot versus telling them to stand on their right foot? But he didn’t complain, dutifully completing the tasks assigned to him. Or rather, having Midoriya complete the tasks assigned to him.

They didn’t stop until Hitoshi started feeling pressure build behind his eyes, a migraine looming on the horizon. Hitoshi would’ve kept going, but Midoriya gave him a swift and thorough scolding about listening to his body when he noticed his discomfort.

(He thought he heard Eraserhead snort at that, but he couldn’t be sure.)

Midoriya finished off the session by cheerfully telling him that he’d send over a document with his findings in a day or two, and extracting a promise to train with him again soon.

Hitoshi walked out of school in a daze, feeling better than he had in a long time.

(Midoriya sent over the document that night. It was 20 pages long. With a tiny font. Hitoshi hit his head against the keyboard, thinking what have I got myself into?)

Chapter Text

The next week flew by in a blur of training, training, and more training, with some meditation thrown in to mix things up. Mic-sensei cheerfully beat combat techniques into both boys, while Aizawa moved on from teaching Izuku to meditate to having him run grueling obstacle courses while staying in a state of half-meditative focus, aware of the golden ocean in his chest but not looking out over it. Nezu-sensei put him through his paces as well, teaching him to improve the clarity and speed of his analyses while under pressure.

(All of it was a good distraction from the empty desk that sat in front of him. He hadn’t seen Bakugou since… since, and for that he was grateful. He didn’t know what either of them would do when they saw each other again.)

Izuku learned a lot in such a short amount of time, but the most shocking piece of information was one he discovered all on his own.

One For All was sentient.

Or at least semi-sentient? It didn’t talk or act independently like Dark Shadow did, but it definitely had feelings.

At first it was barely noticeable, just an odd sense that some of the feelings he felt while meditating didn’t line up with what was going on in the rest of his mind. He thought that the meditation was dragging up some feelings that he was repressing, like pride in his own accomplishments or anger about his past experiences. But sometimes he wracked his brain for what could be causing a particular emotion and came up short. He shrugged it off as weird brain things and tried not to think about it too hard.

Then the feelings began to linger, even after he’d stopped meditating. At the start it only lasted for a few minutes, but the more it happened, the longer they stayed. Sometimes he’d come out of meditation and want to scream and rage and punch something. Other times he’d come out feeling despondent, like he was grieving an old friend. Still other times, he’d suddenly be bored out of his mind, needing to get up and do something, but doing the things that usually kept him entertained had no effect. Then, slowly, the emotion would fade, leaving Izuku feeling strangely bereft.

It took him tripping and falling during one of Aizawa-sensei’s obstacle courses, only to feel amusement mixed in with his humiliation, for him to realize that the unexplained emotions weren’t his at all, but his quirk’s.

Izuku could hit himself for not thinking of that earlier. He’d known that One For All was strange, unlike any quirk he’d heard of before, but he’d dismissed the concept of it having a mind of its own out of hand the moment the prospect first occurred to him. In hindsight, it was the obvious conclusion.

He wasn’t quite sure what to do with that information. Should he try talking with it? Was it smart enough for that? It was a little off-putting to think that there was something else living in his head with him. Maybe once he could use the quirk properly he’d be able to communicate with it better.

All of that left him buzzing with excitement when Aizawa-sensei finally announced that Recovery Girl had cleared the hero for quirk use, which meant he could actually use One For All for the first time since the USJ. The moment Aizawa gave him the go-ahead, he sank into meditation, conjured a mental bucket, and began hauling quirk water.

Or rather, attempting to. The bucket was… slippery, for lack of a better word. He kept losing grip on the image the moment it touched the water, or if it managed to stay, there would be no liquid in it when he pulled it up. A couple times, when he concentrated very, very hard, he managed to pull up some water and activate the quirk, but it dissipated the moment he tried to push it into his arm. He got more and more frustrated, much faster than he normally would. It took him a while, but he realized that the quirk was actively fighting against him, and their frustration was building off of each other, creating a feedback loop.

Finally, Izuku threw up his hands. “Fine! Clearly you’re not liking what I’m trying, so how about you do it?”

The moment he said that, the invisible storm that had been raging around him quieted. He felt his attention calmly redirected to the dam that he was pretty sure hadn’t been there a second ago. He watched as a small vent (Was that what it was called? Izuku didn’t know anything about dams.) opened up at the base of the dam, and golden water began to flow through it, at a pace that could generously be described as a trickle. Abruptly, he was kicked out of his meditative headspace and back into the real world.

He blinked his eyes open, and found himself staring at his own arms. Green electricity arced across them, dispersing only to be replaced with more. He clenched his fist, and could feel his muscles react to the new power flowing through them. It didn’t hurt, not at all. Not even the tingling, almost-pain he felt during his first lesson with Aizawa. He knew that he could throw a punch, or a kick, or do anything he wanted with this energy, and there would be no backlash against him.

Izuku spent a few more moments marveling at the beauty of his quirk, the smugness that he felt clearly belonging to One For All, before the quirk apparently decided it was finished with its demonstration and turned itself off. He basked in the feeling of accomplishment for a moment more, not quite sure who it belonged to, and then collapsed onto his back, announcing to the room, “I’m an idiot.”

“Kid? What just happened?” Izuku jumped, having forgotten his teacher was even present.

“Oh! Aizawa-sensei, I figured it out!” he propped himself back up into a sitting position, vibrating with excitement. “The problem was, I changed my visualization, right? From a well to an ocean. Did I tell you that? I think I told you that. But I was trying to use the old visualization to activate it. I was trying to draw water up from an ocean like it was a well, which just left me with more water than I knew what to do with. But if I picture it like a dam that I’m letting some water flow out of, then I can regulate that flow point with more control.” Dissatisfaction welled up within him, and he was suddenly sure he’d missed something. He thought for a long moment before he realized: he’d just been trying to activate it in his left arm, but it activated across his entire body! Without realizing it, he began to mumble. “I guess it could be a concentration thing, so if it’s spread across my entire body it’s less likely to hurt me, but that doesn’t feel right. Maybe if I keep thinking about it like water…” His eyes widened. “Maybe when it’s in my body, it’s like a stream, and I was creating a dam, blocking off the rest of my body and flooding my arm, causing damage. But if I concentrate on directing the flow instead of blocking it off, I can use it safely!” Izuku flailed his arms in excitement, not even caring that he was pretty sure his quirk was laughing at him.

“Midoriya.” He jumped. Again. He’d forgotten that he’d started out talking to Aizawa-sensei. “That’s not what I meant.”

Oh no, his teacher sounded scary. Izuku settled a bit, turning to face him completely. “Sorry, Aizawa-sensei. What were you asking?”

“I was asking, who were you talking to?” The man’s eyes were a bit wild, and his voice contained more strain than Izuku had ever heard from him. “You threw up your hands, said something about someone else doing it, and then didn’t respond when I called your name. Then suddenly you were sparking. I was about to erase your quirk when you turned it off on your own.”

Oh shit. Well there goes one more secret, before he even decided whether or not he should keep it. Izuku ducked his head sheepishly. “I think my quirk might be, kinda, semi-sentient?” The moment he said that, he could feel his annoyance spike. It was clearly his quirk, but what was it so annoyed at? “Or, fully sentient?” He hazarded a guess. The annoyance faded away. “Fully sentient, apparently.”

“Explain. Now.” Aizawa leveled a glare at him. There was an undercurrent of something in his expression. Izuku liked to imagine that it was worry.

(Hound Dog said he should focus on best-case scenarios, instead of just worst-case ones. It helped, a little bit.)

So he explained from the start, going into detail about how he’d begun to feel his quirk’s emotions, and why he knew that they weren’t his. There were several points where his own words filled him with surprise, so apparently the quirk hadn’t known the extent of the emotional transfer. When he got to the point where his quirk took over his visualization and turned itself on, he saw Aizawa-sensei’s shock, so obvious on the usually blank-faced man that it was the equivalent of slack-jawed incredulity from anyone else. “So either my quirk is alive, or I’m losing it.” He concluded.

Aizawa closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Excuse me for a moment,” he said before walking over to the closest wall and leaning his head against it. Izuku could hear him mumbling something under his breath, but he couldn’t make it out.

(It was mostly curses, along with some quiet exclamations of why me?)

After several long moments, his teacher took a deep breath and straightened back up, walking back over to Izuku. “All right, first things first,” Aizawa activated his quirk, eyes turning red and hair floating up, “Does that feel any different?”

It did. It was like the empty sensation he felt after the foriegn emotions faded, but more intense. He told Aizawa-sensei that, and he nodded. “So, good news and bad news. Good news is you’re not losing your mind. Bad news is I have no experience with what quirk counseling for a person with a sentient quirk looks like. So we’re just going to go back to what you were doing before, and I’ll do some research before our next session. Sound good?”

Izuku nodded, and they got back to work.

One For All apparently decided that it didn’t feel like offering any more assistance, so Izuku was on his own. Visualizing a dam was a lot more challenging than visualizing a bucket. He kept getting distracted wondering about the intricacies of how a dam functioned, and then the image would slip through his fingers. The first few times this happened, he was irrationally afraid that all of the quirk’s energy would rush into his body like a tidal wave without a dam to hold it back, but he reminded himself that this wasn’t real life, so it didn’t have to follow real life rules. The dam was a tool to help him access his power, nothing more.

It was that thought that helped him overcome his stumbling block. The dam wasn’t real, it didn’t have to look or function like a real dam.

The first time he managed to hold the picture of the dam in his head long enough to open a small hole, he was so startled it worked that he lost hold of the image immediately. The second and third time, he lost it when he opened his eyes. The fourth time, he lost it when he tried to move. After that, he concentrated on holding it for as long as possible while sitting perfectly still.

Something niggled at the back of his mind as he stared at the electricity racing across his skin, but whenever he tried chasing the thought down, he lost concentration and had to start all over again. So he ignored it for the time being, working on getting used to the feeling and the image, trying to improve how long it took him to activate it every time.

It was mentally exhausting, but he left the gym with a huge grin on his face, filled with elation at finally taking the first step to master his quirk.

That thought sent a jolt through him. When had he started thinking of One For All as his quirk, and not All Might’s?

It was a while ago, he realized. He had to call it his quirk out loud when Aizawa was training him, and he guessed he’d internalized that at some point. It didn’t help that the way he and All Might experienced the quirk were so vastly different. All Might couldn’t offer him any more advice on controlling it than he could anyone else with an enhancement quirk. Which meant Izuku had had to develop his own way to use it from the ground up. He hadn’t even bothered to ask All Might how he visualized using the quirk.

He felt guilty even thinking that. He was All Might’s protege, his successor! It was his duty to continue All Might’s legacy, not just take the man’s quirk and run.

Nezu’s voice chimed in, repeating words from one of their first lessons. Follow your train of thought to its logical conclusion, He’d said when Izuku had gotten caught up in speculation, jumping between theories rapidly. Depending on where you end up, it’ll give you more avenues to follow or disprove your claim. Either way, you’ll have learned something.

It was good advice. Izuku had utilized it a lot over the past week, and it really helped him discard unlikely options and narrow his focus. Maybe it could be useful here, as well.

Izuku felt guilty that he was taking All Might’s quirk as his own. But One For All hadn’t been All Might’s originally, had it? He’d had a mentor who had passed it down to him, and then he’d passed it down to Izuku. In fact, All Might had said he was the eighth holder, which meant there were seven users before him. So according to Izuku’s logic, it wasn’t All Might’s quirk, or even his mentor’s quirk. It only belonged to the first holder. But that logic clearly fell apart, because All Might’s quirk was All Might’s. It was his, completely and irrevocably. Which meant he’d made it his, completely and irrevocably.

Ergo, Izuku could do the same. He could make One For All his own, and that was okay. Expected, even.

And that simple fact was mind-boggling in its own right. He’d come to terms with having a quirk, but thinking of it as his, truly his, still felt wrong. But the logic held up, no matter how many angles he looked at it from.

Welp, he thought, time to go lie face down on the couch and have a crisis.

~~~

When Hizashi got home from his shift at the radio station, he found his husband lying facedown on the couch, which he only did when having a crisis. “Shou?” He called, “everything okay?”

The only answer he received was an inarticulate groan.

He decided to leave Shouta alone for the moment, putting away his things and changing out of his hero gear and all that. When he returned, his husband was lying in the exact spot he had been when Hizashi had gotten home, and he suspected, when Shouta himself had gotten home.

Hizashi kneeled on the floor by his husband’s head, running his fingers through his hair. “C’mon love,” he coaxed, “tell me what’s wrong.”

Shouta let out another groan into the pillow under his face, but he wiggled around until he was lying face up instead. He looked tired, the kind of emotional exhaustion that had nothing to do with the amount of sleep he’d gotten. He ran his hand over his face and announced, “The Problem Child’s quirk is alive.”

Whatever Hizashi had been expecting, it wasn’t that. “I– What?”

“Midoriya’s quirk. It’s alive. Fully sentient, according to him. It shouldn’t be possible, it’s not possible! It’s a strength stockpile, it shouldn’t be able to have a goddamn consciousness. But the kid’s too smart to be imagining it, and he’s too polite to be pulling a prank. It’s the only logical conclusion, but it’s also batshit insane.” Shouta ranted, his hands flopping around as he started to gesture but gave up on the motion halfway through.

“Okay, how about you start at the beginning. What happened, exactly?” Hizashi tried to keep his voice soothing and free of skepticism, and he must have succeeded because his love only shot him a grateful look and launched into the story.

“During our lesson today, the kid was having some trouble getting his quirk to activate. It makes sense, it has been over a week since he’s been able to use it, and we only had a single lesson before the USJ. I was just about to tell the kid to try something else when he threw up his hands and said something like ‘if you don’t like what I’m doing, you do it’. And then he just went back to meditating, as if nothing had happened. I tried talking to him, but he didn’t respond. Then, just as I’m getting up to nudge him, his quirk activated. But this time, it looked completely different. He looked like Kaminari when he lets off his quirk, but instead of going everywhere, it just stayed around his skin. And it was green, for some reason. I,” Shouta broke off for a moment, looking slightly ashamed, “I didn’t know what to do. It wasn’t hurting him, but I had no idea what was going on. Just as I made the decision to erase his quirk, it vanished.” He fell silent again, looking pensive.

“Okay,” Hizashi said slowly, “I’m glad the little listener figured out how to use his quirk properly. But what does that have to do with it being alive?”

“I’m getting there, be patient,” his husband said, slapping at him distractedly. “When I asked him what had just happened, he started babbling something about visualizations and… dams? I couldn’t really tell what he was saying, to be honest. When I pushed him about who he’d been talking to, he told me it was his quirk. Apparently he can feel what it feels when he meditates, and it can control his meditative headspace and activate itself. It was the one who showed him how to use it. Which,” Shouta turned his head to look imploringly at him, “that’s not how quirks work. That’s not how quirks work!” He threw an arm across his face and groaned. “If it were any other student, I’d give them a lecture on Quirk Theory and not anthropomorphizing their quirk, but the Problem Child has forgotten more about Quirk Theory than I’ll ever know. If he says it's alive, then it’s alive.”

“Oh.” Well, that’s… something. Hizashi had no idea what to say to that. Well, there was one thing that came to mind. “What the fuck.”

Shouta snorted. “My thoughts exactly. It was a miracle I kept a straight face for the rest of the lesson.” he looked away, staring up at the ceiling. “Zashi, I don’t know what I’m doing.” he whispered like it was the greatest secret he’d ever told. “I’m so afraid of fucking up, and fucking the kid up more than he already is. I don’t know how to be the kind of teacher he needs.”

Ah. Hizashi was wondering when this was going to come up. He’d sensed it brewing since that first training he’d helped out with, and it made sense that it was boiling over now, with the craziness that had just happened. “And what kind of teacher does he need?” He prompted gently.

Shouta just shrugged a little, and Hizashi poked him in the cheek in response. “No, I want you to actually say what you’re thinking, out loud. I’m not a mind reader.”

Shouta glared at him, but relented after an intense staring contest. “He needs someone kind. Understanding. Someone to build him up, instead of tear him down. Someone he can trust.”

Hizashi nodded. “So he needs someone like you.”

His husband shot another glare at him. “Zashi, I’m not any of those things. I’m an asshole.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. He loved his husband, but he was well aware of the man’s faults. “But not to that kid, you’re not.”

“Huh?”

“Shou, love, I’ve seen you two interact. You’re softer with him than you were with that stray cat you found in a dumpster that one time. You talk to him more than you talk to me most of the time, because he needs you to talk to him. And believe me when I say he trusts you more than anyone else.”

The scowl Shouta leveled at him would have a lesser man reeling, but Hizashi knew his husband. He could see the insecurity layered under that anger. “And how can you be so sure? I’ve seen how he is with you, too. He trusts you, and you’re easier to trust than me.”

“Love,” he spoke softly, reaching over to run his fingers through his husband’s hair once again, “He trusts me because he trusts you. Didn’t you see him during that first lesson, glancing over at you every couple minutes? He was making sure you were still there, still watching, still keeping him and his friend safe. He didn’t relax around me until he was sure that you were relaxed as well.” Hizashi resisted the urge to make a comment about how much the Green Bean was like his son. He knew it would just make the other man shut down, no matter how true it was.

Shouta just huffed, but Hizashi could tell it was a huff of acknowledgment, not denial. The other man didn’t fully believe him, not yet, but he wasn’t going to argue. “Doesn’t mean I know what I’m doing.”

“Even so, you’re doing a great job.” Hizashi knew his love had reached his limit on emotional conversations for the day, so it was time to cut the tension. “Now move your butt,” He said, shoving at his husband’s shoulder. “I’m too old to kneel for this long.”

It sparked a heated round of bickering, just as he’d planned. The serious atmosphere was forgotten, but Hizashi could see the wheels turning in his husband’s head every time conversation died down for the rest of the night.

~~~

It wasn’t until Izuku was through with his crisis, dinner, and his homework, and was lying in bed trying to sleep that he remembered that niggling feeling he’d gotten staring at the electricity his quirk produced. What had been up with that? How was it any different than the light he’d seen the other times he’d used his quirk?

And then it hit him. The energy had been emanating from his body, but had existed outside of it, unlike the previous times he’d used his quirk, where it had just lit up his skin.

It was a subtle distinction, one that wouldn’t even register to someone who hadn’t been studying Quirk Theory for most of their lives. But to Izuku, it completely changed the way he looked at his quirk.

He’d been assuming that at its core, One For All was a fairly standard strength enhancement quirk, because that was what All Might used it as. The stockpiling element just meant that it had more power to use, beyond what a normal quirk would be capable of.

But the thing was, energy from strength couldn’t exist outside the user’s body. Giving off light or heat as a byproduct from using one’s quirk was fairly standard, especially for a quirk as strong as One For All, but it was always limited somehow, usually to the person’s skin. And electricity as a byproduct had never been observed in a person with an enhancement or transformation type quirk at all. It had only been observed in people with difficult-to-control energy manipulation quirks.

Energy manipulation… Was that what One For All was? The more he thought about it, the more it made sense. The reserve was so vast that it wouldn’t make sense if it had just been siphoning off of the user’s physical strength, even after eight generations. It probably pulled from the environment in some way, which would mean it could be used more freely than just as an enhancer.

Now that he thought about it, All Might didn’t use it purely as an enhancer, either. He also used it to transform. Some might consider it purely a semantic difference, but pure enhancers only strengthened the muscles already present. They couldn’t create muscle mass on their own.

So, One For All was an energy stockpiling quirk that could be used in several different ways beyond strength enhancement. Transformation was one example, and electricity was another. What else could it be used for?

Doing research into the previous holders would probably help with that. Which meant he needed to talk to All Might.

Satisfied with his discovery, Izuku rolled over and promptly went to sleep.

~~~

The next day, he begged off lunch with his friends and found himself knocking on the door to the teacher’s lounge.

Mic-sensei was the one to open the door. “What’s up, little listener? You need something?”

“I-I’d like to talk to All Might, if he’s available,” he asked, fidgeting nervously with the bento in his hands.

“Ah,” the man looked nervous, for some reason, “I’m not sure if he’s here right now. I’ll go check for you. Stay right there!”

Mic closed the door, and Izuku could hear shuffling and hushed voices. He figured All Might was in his shrunken form, and Mic-sensei was asking if he had enough time left to see a student.

Soon enough, All Might emerged, in his puffed-up form.”Ah, my boy! Good to see you. How about we go find a place to eat while we talk.”

Izuku allowed himself to be hustled out of the hallway, and into a small sideroom, with a couple chairs and a coffee table. As soon as the door was firmly shut behind them, All Might deflated.

“This room is soundproof, so we can talk in here without being overheard.” the hero explained. “What’s on your mind, Young Midoriya?”

Izuku took a deep breath. Might as well start with the good news. “I can use One For All without hurting myself, now.”

“Oh!” All Might beamed at him. “Congratulations! I’m so glad to hear that. How did you figure it out?”

He smiled weakly at his mentor. “That’s the thing, All Might. I didn’t figure it out. It showed me.”

The smile fell off the hero’s face, and he furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, One For All is sentient, and it taught me how to activate it without hurting myself.”

All Might’s jaw dropped, and he stared wide-eyed at his student for a long moment, before the surprise triggered a coughing fit. Once the man had regained use of his lungs and wiped the blood from his lips, he spoke. “H-how is that possible?”

For the second time in two days, Izuku found himself recapping the process of finding out that his quirk was alive, and explained exactly how it had shown him what to do to safely regulate his power output.

“Huh,” the hero looked thoughtful. “I suppose if it helped you like that, I can’t argue against it. Now that I think about it, I do remember my predecessor mentioning that her mentor would tell her stories of One For All guiding its users, but I always assumed it to be a metaphor.” All Might developed a faraway look in his eyes as he said so, staring off into the middle distance.

Izuku’s eyes sparkled. That made it sound like he wasn’t the first user to discover the quirk’s sentience! But All Might apparently hadn’t been aware of it. He wondered why that was. But before he could devolve into a mutter storm about his theories, he forcefully shifted his focus. “About your predecessor, who were they? Could you tell me about them?”

All Might jolted from his distracted state at those words. “Ah, what makes you ask? It is a bit of a sensitive topic, you see.” He shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

Izuku wrung his hands, nervous about asking anything of his mentor, but he pressed on. “I wanted to do some research into the previous holders and how they used One For All. I know I just learned how to use it without hurting myself, but I want to explore my options, especially since it’s not a strength enhancer like I thought.”

“What do you mean?” All Might was distracted from his discomfort for a moment, leaning closer. “One For All enhances our strength, does it not?”

“Well, yes, but strength enhancement is just a single aspect of it, as evidenced by the transformative aspect it takes on when you use it. It seems to have abilities beyond that as well, judging by the lightning it gives off when I use my new technique.” Which needed a name, now that he thought about it. Oh well, that would be a topic for later.

All Might still looked confused. “Transformative aspect, my boy? I’m not sure I follow.”

“You know, how you transform from your small form to your big form.”

“Ah yes, that. I see how you would come to that conclusion. But I’m just gaining muscle, so that would still make it a strength enhancer, wouldn’t it?”

Izuku had to resist the urge to stare at the number one hero as if he were an idiot. “That’s… not how that works. Strength enhancement and muscle growth are two different quirk categories, and a quirk that is strictly one shouldn’t be able to achieve the other.”

“Really? I guess I don’t know as much about One For All as I thought I did. I’m sorry, my boy.” All Might ducked his head in embarrassment.

“It’s okay, All Might!” Izuku reassured his mentor, “I’ve studied Quirk Theory a lot more than you have, so it makes sense that I know some things that you don’t. But,” Time to get the conversation back on track, before lunch ended. “I would like to learn more about One For All, and knowing more about the previous holders would help me a lot. Will you tell me about them?” he stared up at the hero hopefully.

(Unbeknownst to Izuku, he looked almost identical to a puppy begging for a treat, and not even the number one hero’s decades of avoidance could hold up to such a face.)

“Ah, yes, of course.” Izuku settled in, looking expectantly at his mentor. “My predecessor, and the seventh holder of One For All, was Shimura Nana. Her hero name was Aerie, and she was the best hero, no, the best person, I ever met.”

All Might regaled his protege with tales of his grand-mentor until the bell rang.

As they both scrambled to pack their things, All Might apologized to Izuku for not knowing more about the other holders.

“It’s okay, All Might!” Izuku smiled at him. “I have enough information to do my own research now.”

(The smile sent a shiver down All Might’s spine. It was disturbingly close to what his boss looked like when he had a new project in mind. Terrifying.)

Chapter Text

Aldera Middle School looked exactly like every other middle school Shouta had ever seen. It was a squat, ugly building made primarily of cinder blocks that smelled of body spray and hormones. He hadn’t even stepped inside yet and he was already wrinkling his nose in disgust. School had let out for the day (no way was Shouta taking time from his actual job to come to this run-down hellhole of a school, and the principal had been all too accommodating), but there were still some students milling about, talking and laughing and shooting him suspicious looks. Judging by the sneers, he looked just as homeless as ever.

In the week since Nezu had handed him Midoriya’s file and told him to get to work, Shouta had made frustratingly little progress. And by that, he meant he made the exact amount of progress he’d expected to make. Cases like this moved a lot more slowly than he was used to, after all. It had taken a full week for him to go over the Problem Child’s file, picking out the exact locations and likely timestamps of as many of the listed incidents as he could. Tedious, but worth it for all the time it would save him when he actually got his hands on the security tapes.

(Honestly it only took him that long because of the frequent breaks to snuggle his husband and/or scream. It’s called self care.)

He had been assuming that they’d need to wait for a warrant to come through to actually get the footage, but when he’d said so to Nezu, the rat had just laughed. Turns out, the plan was to just show up on their doorstep and ask. No warrant necessary, just a school reaching out to another school about a mutual student.

The rat probably could have just asked for the footage over email, but he said that it would be best to surprise them, to not give them a chance to edit or alter it in any way. Going in person also allowed Shouta to do a bit of investigative work, as well.

Nezu had set up a meeting between him and the principal of Aldera, but no reason for the meeting was given. With any luck, Aldera’s principal would draw his own conclusions and say more than he would have if he knew the actual reason for the meeting.

Shouta strode through the doors, making a beeline for the front office. When he entered, the secretary gave him a disdainful look and began to open her mouth, likely assuming him to have wandered in off the street. He cut her off before she could try to shoo him out.

“I’m a representative of UA, here to meet with the principal.” He flashed his UA staff badge.

Immediately, her demeanor changed. She sat up straighter in her chair and put on the fakest smile he’d ever seen. “Of course, of course! I’ll let him know right away. We’re honored to be hosting a representative of such a prestigious school. Is there anything I can get you?” Her tone was so sickly sweet it made him want to gag.

He grunted out a “no” and went to sit in one of the nearby chairs to wait for the principal, the ones usually reserved for naughty children. He slouched down, slitting his eyes and trying to forget the situations in which he was the naughty child in a chair just like this one.

It wasn’t long before the door to the principal’s office opened and a man stepped through who, Shouta thought, much resembled the building he resided in. Plain, squat, and slightly unpleasant smelling. It was an uncharitable thought, but Shouta wasn’t in a charitable mood.

The man paused for a moment when he saw Shouta’s disheveled appearance, but to his credit he recovered quickly. “Ah hello! You must be Aizawa-san. Welcome to Aldera Middle School! It is such an honor to have a representative from an institution as esteemed as your own come to our little school. Would you like a tour?”

“No thank you.” Shouta said shortly. Politeness did not come naturally to him, but he needed to put in an effort to be cordial, at least for the time being.

What followed were the longest thirty minutes of Shouta’s life. The man wouldn’t stop simpering at him, no matter how much Shouta treated him to the deadly combination of judgemental silence and the stink eye. He’d made full grown pro heroes flinch before, but this guy didn’t even bat an eye, just kept talking. He didn’t even bother asking why they needed the footage, too busy tripping over himself to make himself look good.

It took all of Shouta’s self control to not do something drastic, especially when the man started making “jokes” about the “villainous” kids that went to the school, but eventually he had the drive with the footage in hand and he could get the fuck out of there. He didn’t bother saying another word when it had finished downloading, he just grabbed it and walked away. The man hadn’t even said anything incriminating, either. Just talked about Bakugou like the sun shone out of his ass and seemed to conveniently forget Midoriya even existed.

Unfortunately, he thought to himself as he texted Nezu that he had the goods, that was the easy part. Now he had to actually watch it.

~~~

The next morning, he was exhausted, physically and mentally. Reviewing the footage was just as taxing as he expected it to be, and he’d pushed himself harder than he probably should have. He knew it was a bad idea, but today was the meeting Nezu set up with Midoriya’s mom, and he needed to have real, tangible evidence to show her. He’d sat through enough interrogations, of criminals and parents, listening to the accused deny anything and everything and demand proof to not come prepared.

So he’d cherry picked the worst of it, the most dramatic moments he could find so there would be no ambiguity. Of course, that meant subjecting himself to those moments as well, but he reasoned that he was going to have to see them anyway, might as well get it over with.

Still, all the logic in the world didn’t make it easier to watch his kid get whaled on by a group of boys in a classroom until a teacher walked in, only for the teacher to come over and exchange a few words with the bullies before leaving again. The footage didn’t have any sound, but it was obvious the boys were not getting a lecture on the dangers of bullying, considering they went back to beating up their victim with gusto. Midoriya had received a writeup for his “disheveled appearance” during his next class from the same teacher, who noted seeing him “roughhousing” with some unnamed other boys. One of whom was clearly Bakugou, who of course had no matching mark on his record. Shouta spent hours editing together several such incidents and resisting the urge to commit arson.

Needless to say, he spent most of the morning ensconced in his sleeping bag, half dead to the world. By the time the meeting rolled around, he even felt mostly human again. Mostly. Eh, he needed to get back to his usual nocturnal habits at some point, better to do it now than when he’s back on patrol.

Midoriya Inko arrived at precisely the appointed time, though she rushed in apologizing for being late. She looked exactly like he would’ve expected Midoriya’s mom to look like, had he thought about it at all. He could see his student in her green hair, rounded face, and sunny smile, and in the way she wrung her hands nervously as she listened to Nezu speak.

“Midoriya-san! So nice to meet you! Your son is an absolute delight, he told you I’ve taken him on as my student, yes?”

She dipped her head in a nod. “Yes, he told me. He’s been so excited about it. It’s nice to see him so passionate about school the way he’s always been about heroes.”

Shouta raised an eyebrow at that. Something in the implication of that rubbed him the wrong way. Nezu clearly picked up on it too, though someone who didn’t know him wouldn’t have noticed the slight change in posture. “Ah yes, that is one of the things we would like to discuss with you today. We noticed there is quite the gap between his academic abilities that we’ve observed and his middle school grades. Could you share any insight as to why that might be?”

She smiled sadly. “Izuku has always been a smart boy, but he’s easily distracted when it comes to things not related to heroes and villains. Even things like eating and sleeping.” She chuckled a little to herself. “I’d say going to a school where everything is about heroes has made a huge difference.”

A not illogical conclusion. Entirely wrong, but not illogical. Still, “did you ever talk to his teachers about those difficulties?”

Midoriya-san jumped as if she hadn’t known he was there, despite the fact that he’d been standing in the corner since she came into the room. It wasn’t even a particularly dark corner! Not to mention he wasn’t exactly easily overlooked at the moment, given he looked like a department store mummy the day after Halloween.

Civilians. No situational awareness whatsoever.

She looked at him for a moment, clearly trying to formulate a polite way to ask ‘who the hell is the hobo?’ He had heard many iterations of that question over the course of his career, some more tactful than others, and he made it a point when he could to not introduce himself for as long as possible for that reason. You could tell a lot about a person by how they reacted to someone they deemed lesser than themselves.

Unfortunately, Nezu broke in before she could gather her thoughts. “Ah, I seem to have forgotten introductions! Midoriya-san, this is Aizawa Shouta, your son’s homeroom teacher.”

“Oh!” She brightened, shooting him a beaming smile that made the family resemblance even more obvious, “It’s nice to meet you , Aizawa-san! Izuku talks about you a lot. He said you’re his favorite teacher he’s ever had.”

Shouta blinked once, then again. If they hadn’t already started this whole investigation, that would have been enough to kickstart it in his eyes. Him? A kid’s favorite teacher? The bar must be in hell.

He mentally shook himself. He could unpack that whole can of worms later. Now, he just grunted something vaguely resembling a thank you and repeated the question.

“Oh! Yes of course I talked to them about it. They said that his grades were to be expected given his situation and not to worry about it.”

“And what situation is that?” Nezu asked, only his twitching whiskers giving away how agitated he was. They all knew what situation she meant, but it's always better to not let implication or sidestepping stand.

“Well, with his quirkless diagnosis, and his dad leaving, and his difficulty making friends…” she trailed off.

Well that was vague. It didn’t sound like quirkism, but he might as well ask, “So you believe he’s doing better because he has a quirk?”

“Well I suppose his quirk got him into UA, so in a way you could say that,” she said, giving no indication that she understood the quirkist undertone of his statement.

Was she serious? He searched her face, but he couldn’t spot any hint of deception. Was this woman really that ignorant to the prejudice her son experienced?

Moving on, then. “Did the school ever contact you about any behavioral issues? Cheating, fighting, distracting others, anything like that?”

She shook her head vehemently. “Izuku would never! He’s always been a very good boy. Or, well…” she paused, “there were a couple times in elementary school that I got called because he was starting fights, but that turned out to be a misunderstanding.”

“A misunderstanding? Could you explain that more?” Nezu chimed in again.

She launched into a slightly rambling story that basically boiled down to ‘the teachers said he picked a fight, I showed up and argued with them about it, turns out the other kids started it so he didn’t get in trouble’. Apparently this happened several times, though she was unsure of the exact number, throughout elementary school. She couldn’t recall ever being contacted by Aldera Middle School for anything beyond scheduling parent-teacher conferences.

Again, Shouta couldn’t detect any lies in her face and body language, and her story matched up with what they’d found in Midoriya’s file. Time to break out the big guns, then.

Unceremoniously, he pulled out the Problem Child’s file and dumped it in front of the elder Midoriya, interrupting a small anecdote about the last time she talked to one of her son’s teachers. She stared at the towering stack of paper in front of her for a long moment before opening her mouth, presumably to ask what she was looking at. “That,” he cut in, “is your son’s file, as provided to UA by Aldera.”

She gazed at it anxiously, her hands hovering as if she wanted to touch but didn’t know if it was allowed. “Are student files usually so… large?”

“No.” He answered, refusing to elaborate when she glanced at him inquiringly. Nezu jumped in, but only to tell her she’s welcome to look through it.

It was another test, of course. Shouta had suggested it, and Nezu had agreed. Just another iteration of his favorite ‘present people with information and let them come to their own conclusions’ strategy of information gathering. The rat tended to prefer talking a person into logical corners, because he was a sadist, but they both agreed that this was the best course of action in this situation.

Shouta had met many a manipulator who could pick out exactly the reaction that was expected of them and act accordingly, and even sound entirely genuine. By presenting the information in a way that made the intention unclear, they were more likely to see Midoriya Inko’s true character.

And so two pairs of eyes watched intently as the woman began flipping through the file, confusion growing with each page turned, her eyes darting across the pages as she flipped faster and faster, searching desperately. After several long moments, she raised her head, looking between the two of them in bewilderment.

“There… There has to be some sort of mistake here. None of this sounds like anything Izuku would do! I- I swear, I know my son, and he would never, what, cheat? Start fights?” she flipped to a new page, “‘deface public property’? That’s not him!” Nezu started to speak, but she didn’t let him, growing more frantic with every word. “And I know what you’re going to say. Children don’t tell their parents everything, and I know that! But I know my baby boy, and last month I found him crying at the concept of snakes not being able to hug their friends. Not people with snake quirks, snakes! That’s not something a child with ‘violent tendencies’ does. And besides, if this were true I would have been contacted, surely. Why would they not call me? I’ve never…” she trailed off into incoherent mumbling, clearly having forgotten that she’d been speaking with them to begin with.

Ah. So this was where Midoriya got it from.

“Midoriya-san.” Nezu did not raise his voice, but the words may as well have been shouted for how they silenced the woman in question. Gently, he told her, “we don’t think your son is capable of any of this either. In fact, Aizawa-san has done some investigating, and we believe that his middle school teachers would file false or severely biased reports as a form of discrimination because of his alleged quirkless status.”

Her eyes widened at the declaration, understanding flashing for a moment before being replaced with hesitance. “Um… I don’t want to call your research into question or anything, but are you sure? It’s just that,” she bit her lip, her eyes flitting away, “I met Izuku’s teachers, several times. And they all seemed so kind and understanding of Izuku’s situation…”

The rat opened his mouth to make some assurance or placation, but Shouta interrupted before he could. “I have video evidence. Do you want to see it?”

She looked startled for a moment, before falling into a thoughtful frown. “I think,” she said slowly, “If what you’re saying is true, if this isn’t some kind of misunderstanding, I need to see. For Izuku.”

Shouta nodded approvingly and fished the drive out of his pocket and handed it over to Nezu. With only a couple button presses, the footage he’d spent the night compiling was pulled up and ready for Midoriya Inko’s viewing pleasure.

A better person would have warned her, given her some sort of heads-up to what she was in for, but Shouta was not a better person, so he stayed silent.

He quickly learned two things: his student’s crying was a hereditary trait, and his mother was an even louder crier than he was.

There was no faking the look of abject horror on her face as she watched her son experience abuse from students and staff alike. A waterfall of tears cascaded down her face as she stared, flinching at every blow, every sneer, every insult hurled, so obvious even without sound. It wasn’t a particularly long video, only a handful of clips and each only a few minutes long, but Shouta didn’t think she blinked the entire time. He almost felt bad for using the worst clips he could find on such short notice.

Almost.

Even after the video ended, it took several minutes for her to pull herself together. Shouta took the time to examine the rat’s office decor, determined to not make any accidental eye contact with the hysterical woman. Sue him, crying people still made him uncomfortable.

Finally, the sobbing quieted, then stopped. She sniffled, dabbing at her eyes with tissues from her purse, then spoke, “I- I’m sorry for crying like that, a-and for doubting you. B-but I need to ask, why didn’t Izuku-” her voice broke in another sob, “why didn’t he come to me? Why hide it?”

“I think that’s a question you need to ask him,” Nezu said gently. She nodded, accepting that answer with another sniffle. “Now, are you ready to continue our meeting?”

“W-what else do we need to discuss?”

“Well, we’d like to talk about what you’d like to do next. UA is pursuing a criminal case, but would you want to press charges against the school, or any of the individual students or teachers?”

“I, um…” They were two seconds into the legal part of this discussion, and it was already clear that Midoriya-san was overwhelmed. Shouta shot a look at Nezu, and subtly shook his head. Now was not the time to push her.

“Or how about this, you can go home and talk to your son, and I’ll send over an email with a breakdown of what your options are. You can email me back in a couple days with what you decide.” The email was probably already drafted. The rat always prepared for every eventuality going into any meeting.

Midoriya-san obviously took the offer to flee, thanking them profusely and scurrying off in short order. The moment the door closed behind her, Nezu turned to him. “What do you think?”

Shouta scoffed a little. “Well, she’s not winning any parent of the year awards, that’s for sure, but she’s not illegally bad. It’s not illegal to trust what people tell you about your child, especially when one of them is the child in question. Though I’d send some info on local therapists along with that legal packet. It seems like she needs it.”

Nezu nodded decisively. “My thoughts exactly. We’ll have to keep an eye on the situation, but I don’t foresee having to intervene.”

Shouta agreed, but there was a lot that could happen behind closed doors where they could do nothing to stop it. There was no denying that what they did today would have a huge impact on the Midoriyas’ lives. He just had to hope that it would be for the better.

~~~

Izuku didn’t bother calling out an ‘I’m home!’ as he walked through the door that afternoon. Mom wouldn’t be home for hours, having had to rework her schedule to attend the meeting that morning. Izuku was guiltily grateful for that. Even after spending an entire session talking it over with Hound Dog, he still didn’t know what he was going to say to her.

He was a little distracted as he headed into the living room, planning on making a beeline for his room and a fresh notebook to write out some options. But as he caught sight of the couch, he stopped dead. There was his mom, poring over an old photo album.

“Mom?!” he squeaked, “W-what are you doing here?”

She looked at him and immediately burst into tears, not for the first time that day judging by the number of tissues scattered around. Izuku immediately rushed over to her, tears welling in his own eyes, and she pulled him into a hug, gripping the back of his school uniform and chanting “I’m sorry, I’m sorry” over and over again.

Izuku felt like he’d been thrown back in time to his four-year-old body, being hugged like a teddy bear as his mom sobbed and apologized for something that wasn’t her fault. That day was the first of many, and it wasn’t long until he started trying to comfort her, telling her everything was okay, he was fine, it wasn’t that bad, it didn’t even hurt, on and on like that. More often than not, it was a lie.

When he’d told Hound Dog that he was tired of lying to his mom, the hero looked at him for a long moment before stating, “then don’t.”

“But it’s not that simple!” He’d argued back, to which Hound Dog had responded simply.

“Isn’t it?”

This spurred a minutes-long not-argument in which the man got him to admit that he thought that his feelings were less important than his mom’s, then pointed out every logical fallacy he used when trying to justify it. In the end, Izuku threw up his hands and admitted defeat, unable to come up with a logical argument but still unable to admit to the truth of Hound Dog’s words.

“You don’t believe me yet, and that’s fine.” Hound Dog’s voice softened, and his eyes shone with understanding. “Just keep it in mind, okay? You deserve to prioritize yourself.”

And he was keeping it in mind. In fact, the thought hadn’t left his head. He’d decided on the way home that he wasn’t going to lie to his mom anymore. The only problem was figuring out what that meant.

Which led him back to this moment, standing in his mother’s arms, scrambling to come up with a game plan for the coming conversation.

Unfortunately, he didn’t have nearly enough time before she recovered and pulled back from the hug, more evidence she’d been crying for most of the day. He passed her a nearby tissue box and blurted out the first thing he could think of. “Shouldn’t you be at work? I thought you took the late shift today.”

“I did, but-“ she paused to blow her nose, “I took the day off. After this morning… Well I didn’t think I’d be able to concentrate.”

“So they told you, about the-“ it was still hard to say out loud, “about the bullying.”

Mom looked like she was about to burst into tears again, but managed to hold it in. “Yes, they told me. And Izuku,” the devastated look on her face broke his heart, “why didn’t you come to me? I could have helped.”

He smiled sadly. “I didn’t want to upset you.” It was the truth, but… “And there wasn’t much you’d be able to do, anyway.” There, that was closer to the whole truth.

“But I helped when you were little, remember? Back in elementary school, when they said you were starting fights?” She argued back, almost pleading with him.

It would be so easy to just agree with her, to say ‘yes, but…’ and come up with some excuse for how middle school was different. But that wasn’t the truth, and he’d promised he was going to be truthful with her this time. But there was no softening this blow.

Luckily, after he had argued him into a corner, Hound Dog had prepped him for this exact situation, to make himself feel better about being mean to his mom. “Mom, I’m going to say some things, and they’re going to sound mean, but I’m only saying them because they’re the truth, okay?” Mom must have seen something on his face, because she didn’t say a word, only dipping her head to show she understood.

Izuku couldn’t bear to see her reaction, so he stared at the wall a little above her head as he began to speak. “Mom, there was no misunderstanding. Everyone knew full well that I wasn’t starting fights. They called you because I’d tried to stand up for myself and they wanted to humiliate me.” He shuddered as he remembered the jeering, taunting words of his classmates. The beatings weren’t too bad at that point, but some kids get good at hurting your feelings real young. “I learned that lesson pretty fast, so they stopped calling you. Not that that stopped them from siccing my bullies on me instead when they thought I deserved it.”

Finally, he looked back at his mom and came face to face with wide, watery eyes, her hand clamped over her mouth to keep her from audibly sobbing. He gave her a weak smile, and she fell back into his arms. Quietly, almost completely muffled by the way her mouth was pressed into his shoulder, he heard her say, “And Katsuki? Did he…”

“Yeah, Katsuki bullied me.” That launched her into another round of sobs. Izuku was starting to feel awkward about being his mom’s comfort object. He was 15, not four! After another minute or two of standing there, he managed to disentangle himself from his mom, mumbling something about making them tea as he slipped off to the kitchen.

When he came back, she had sat back down on the couch and was looking a bit more composed. Or, as composed as one can look with red rimmed eyes and tear-stained cheeks. He handed her her tea and took a seat on the other end of the couch, clutching his own cup of tea close to his chest. Before he could gather his thoughts enough to speak, she beat him to it. “Izuku, I’m so sorry that happened to you, baby. But you should have told me about how your teachers were treating you. We could have had you transferred to a different school.”

“But that would mean enrolling me in private school, which would cost too much, or moving to a different district, which would mean you’d be farther away from your job and Auntie Mitsuki along with costing more. And there’s no guaranteeing it would be any better somewhere else! I just,” He sighed and took a sip of his tea, “I don’t want to be more of a burden on you than I already am.”

“Oh Izuku,” Her hands twitched on her teacup, clearly wanting to reach out to him, “You’re not a burden on me. It’s my job to take care of you.”

At that, he felt something inside him break down. It was like it was when he confronted Katsuki all over again. The box that he’d been shoving his resentment, his bitterness, his anger, crumpled into dust and all those emotions flooded through him, and it was all he could do not to laugh in her face. “Take care of me? Mom, I’ve been taking care of you since I was little! Ever since Dad left, It’s been my job to make sure you’re happy. Practically everything I say to you is for the express purpose of making sure you’re not worried. Not that it takes much, I’ve been taking burn cream from the medicine cabinet since I was seven and you’ve never questioned it once. And-” he broke off, hissing as some hot tea splashed onto his hand as he made a too-large gesture. The sensation snapped him out of his rant, and he carefully put the teacup back on the coffee table. The tidal wave of anger subsided once again. He sighed, leaning his head back against the cushion and closing his eyes. He didn’t particularly want to look at his mom’s face right now. He knew if he saw her, he’d be begging for her forgiveness in no time flat, and right now he didn’t want to apologize. Nothing that he said was a lie, and it felt good to finally say it out loud. But he also didn’t think he could stand watching her cry without doing something.

It took what felt like an age for his mom to gather herself again. “Izuku…” she paused, but when he didn’t move, she continued. “I’m sorry I-“

Izuku’s head shot up, and he glared, anger reignited. “No.” He said forcefully, not quite yelling. “I don’t want you to be sorry.” She reached out to him, but he jerked away, shaking his head. “It’s not my job to comfort you when something bad happens, much less when it happens to me. I’m not gonna hug you and let you chant “I’m sorry” at me this time. I don’t want you to be sorry.” He paused for a moment, taking a deep shuddering breath before meeting his mom’s eyes once again. “I want you to be better.”

It was one of the phrases that Hound Dog had suggested he use, that had been bouncing around in his head all day. He hadn’t planned on saying it, or at least he thought he could gentle the blow a bit, make it sound less like he didn’t want her at all. But instead he’d doubled down and made it hurt even more.

The guilt was already starting to creep up his throat, but he couldn’t bring himself to take it back. So he mumbled something about homework and beat a swift retreat to his room.

God, he’d really made a mess of this, hadn’t he?

~~~

Inko felt numb. She’d spent the day crying her eyes out, trying to make sense of the world after it had been tilted on its axis, but now that it had shattered completely she found she couldn’t muster a single tear.

Where had it all gone so wrong?

Just that morning, everything had been fine. Izuku had been happy, and she’d been, if not completely happy, then at least content. Inko knew herself, and so she knew there was always something new to worry over, some new potential catastrophe to keep herself awake at night fretting about, but it was okay. She had been dealing with it.

Or had she?

Inko was well aware she could be overbearing at times. She’d heard it from friends and family alike over the years. But Izuku had never seemed to mind, had seemed to embrace her smothering nature wholeheartedly. She thought she’d been blessed with the best child a parent could ask for, one who looked out for her just as much as she looked out for him. It was them against the world, wasn’t it? She couldn’t help but feel the sting of betrayal.

Maybe he didn’t mean it. People say things they don’t mean when they’re upset all the time, right? Maybe he’s finally going through that fabled angsty teen phase where they scream and slam doors and wear eyeliner. But when she remembered the look of pain on Izuku’s face, she couldn’t convince herself that it had been nothing more than teenage rebellion.

Her mind was going around and around in circles with no end in sight. She hadn’t felt this lost in a long, long time. On autopilot, she pulled out her phone and dialed the only person who could make her feel better when she felt like this.

“Bakugou Mitsuki speaking.”

“H-hi Mitsuki,” she said, her voice coming out as more of a croak.

“Inko? You sound like shit.” She could hear rustling in the background as Mitsuki dropped whatever she was doing to listen to her, as she always did. “Are you alright? What’s going on?”

She opened her mouth, and it was like the story just fell out of her, her words growing faster and faster as she recounted the events of that morning. She dimly remembered that Mitsuki might not know about her son’s actions when she heard the other woman suck in a ragged breath as she described what she witnessed on the security footage, but she couldn’t have stopped even if she had wanted to. It wasn’t until she described leaving the meeting that she stopped to take a breath, almost panting from the physical and emotional effort.

Mitsuki took this pause to mean she had finished speaking, and jumped in. “Inko, I’m so sorry for my brat’s part in all this. I swear I had no idea, I only found out last week at my own meeting with the principal, but I know that doesn’t make it better. Whatever you need, I’m here for you. I’ll pay for your kiddo’s therapy, I’ll help you sue that shitstain of a school, anything you need, just ask.” she said, and Inko could hear the desperation in her friend’s voice.

“Mitsuki…” She almost took the unintentional out Mitsuki was offering her. It would be easy to get swept up by the other woman’s unending energy, letting herself get distracted by apologies and lawsuit logistics, but if she let that happen the sinking dread would be back the moment she hung up the phone. She needed to be brave for once in her life. “Thank you, really. But I wasn’t finished.”

She wasn’t sure if it was something in her voice, or Mitsuki’s own guilt, but she didn’t protest, only settled in to hear her out.

The rest of the story came in fits and starts as she tried to articulate what, exactly, had happened. When she spoke them, the words Izuku had said to her felt so much smaller, lacking the weight they carried when they hit her for the first time, so she tried to compensate, describing every detail. Finally, she fell silent.

The silence stretched on for several long moments before she heard Mitsuki sigh. “Shit, Inko. We really fucked up this whole parenting thing.”

Inko choked out a sound that could reasonably pass as a laugh. “Y-yeah. I guess we did.”

“I mean, shit ‘ko, I raised a fucking bully!” She let out a deep, pained sigh. “You should hear the way he talks, sounds like a little quirk supremacist. ‘I’m strong and they’re weak, so it’s okay for me to make their lives hell,’ that kinda shit. He reminds me of, oh what was his name…” Inko could hear a faint snapping sound as Mitsuki tried to prompt herself to remember, “fucking, short guy, had a muscle quirk so he was almost as wide as he was tall?”

“Sugihara Takeo?” She remembered him. He had liked to go on long, quirkist rants in the middle of the lunchroom, saying he was ‘genetically superior’ to people with weak quirks. Like Mitsuki and her.

“That’s the bitch! He and his cronies used to make our lives miserable, and hearing my own brat talk like that? I almost slapped him.” Inko heard some shuffling on the other end of the line, and imagined her friend plopping down into a chair after pacing the room. “Hearing him try to justify why it wasn’t bullying was the weirdest part. I of course taught him bullying was wrong, but that damn school apparently got it in his head that only villains bully, and since he’s going to be a hero then what he was doing wasn’t bullying.”

Another long sigh, then she continued, with a little false cheer forced into her voice. “So needless to say he’s grounded ‘til he’s 30, and I’m working on getting him the best therapy money can buy. Turns out waitlists can just disappear if you throw enough money at them.” Mirsuki’s chuckle was strained and hollow, but Inko echoed it, not knowing what else to do.

They lapsed into silence after that, and the only sounds coming from the phone were the other woman’s breaths. Was she supposed to say something? What did she even say to that?

Mitsuki saved her from having to think of anything by speaking again, voice much softer. “And how are you feeling about all this, ‘ko?”

Inko thumped her head back against the couch cushion, staring sightlessly at the ceiling. “I-it’s a lot. It’s bad enough that my poor baby was getting picked on by his classmates, but by the teachers too? I met his teachers! They were always so kind and understanding, and knowing that they were hurting him, it’s hard to wrap my head around.”

“And what about what the munchkin said about you?”

“I… I don’t know what to feel. I haven’t seen Izuku so upset with me since his terrible twos, and I don’t know how to fix it.” And his terrible twos hadn’t been that bad as compared to some kids. Inko had spent most of it trying not too coo at her adorable baby boy as he screamed about wanting to watch All Might.

She was jerked out of her thoughts by Mitsuki, who said, “You want my advice? Therapy, and lots of it.”

“Oh, Izuku’s already in therapy–”

Mitsuki talked over her. “No, not for the kid, for you.”

Inko hesitated, before saying, “I don’t know, do you really think that’ll make it better?”

“Inko, I say this with all the love in the world, but Jesus Christ. Yes, you need to go the fuck to therapy. You’ve been treating your kid like a therapist slash emotional support animal for the past decade and it's clearly not good for either of you.”

“That is what he said…” she hedged.

“Oh god please don’t tell me you’re about to pull a ‘I’m sorry that’s how you feel’ on him right now.”

“No it’s not like that, just… People say things they don’t mean when they’re angry sometimes, right? Maybe it was one of those times? And with the amount of stress he’s been under recently, it makes sense that he’d lash out.”

“If you say that to him I’m going to come over there I swear to god.” Mitsuki muttered before sighing. “Apparently today is the day for hard truths for you, so congrats. Inko, I have no doubt that you’ve been relying on your kid for support because you’ve been doing it since we were kids. Your entire coping strategy has been ‘tell somebody I’m feeling bad and they’ll make it go away’ for the entire time I’ve known you. You did it with me, with teachers, hell I bet it’s why you stayed with your shitstain of an ex for so long.”

“I- I don’t…” Was that really true? She didn’t remember it like that. But Mitsuki wouldn’t lie to her, right?

“You need examples? I’ve got plenty.”

Inko nodded mutely, before remembering that her friend couldn’t see her and whispering, “yes please.”

She listened as her friend laid it all out. She had examples spanning almost the entire length of their friendship, from middle school to her marriage to Hisashi. Times where Inko thought problems had been resolved, times she hadn’t realized there even was a problem, times she couldn’t even remember, Mitsuki relentlessly outlined her pattern of behavior: encounter a problem, get anxious about it, listen to someone tell her they were handling it/it wasn’t a problem/she didn’t need to worry about it, calm down. Inko kept opening her mouth to argue, only for her point to be shot down before she could even make it. She could only sit there and take it as her entire personhood was picked apart and found to be wanting.

Finally, Mitsuki sighed. “Listen Inko, I’m not saying you’re a horrible person. And I’m not saying I’m innocent here either. I never tried to stop you from doing this when we were kids, and once we were adults I was too caught up in my own shit to notice how bad it had gotten. When the asshole left, I was too busy with work to do more than call, and I let myself assume that you’d stopped latching on to people like that.”

Inko was quick to jump to her friend’s defense. “No, don’t say that! None of this is your fault. My actions are not your responsibility.”

“No,” she answered, sadness coloring her tone, “they’re yours.” Inko flinched, but Mitsuki wasn’t done. “Now what are you going to do about it?”

That hit her like a punch to the gut. What was she going to do? She had, to take a page out of the other woman’s book, fucked up. Badly. What could she even do? Izuku was all she had, the light of her life, the center of her universe. She always thought she’d do anything to make him happy, but now it was her he was unhappy with. How was she supposed to make this better?

“Inko, I can hear you spiralling from here,” she startled at the sound of Mitsuki’s voice, fondly exasperated. “You need to stop feeling sorry for yourself and talk to him.”

“But what am I supposed to say?” She said, voice bordering on a whine. “He made it perfectly clear what he thinks of my ‘sorry’.”

“You can figure it out. I’ll help.” Mitsuki said firmly. Her tone was almost daring her to say no, she doesn’t need help, she can do it alone, but Inko just felt grateful that her friend was on her side.

“Okay. Where do we start?”

As Mitsuki (with the help of several online articles and a self-help book) walked her through how to craft the perfect not-really-an-apology apology, something in Inko finally settled. For the first time that day, it felt like everything wasn’t falling down around her. Yes, things were broken, but they weren’t ruined beyond repair. She could pick up the pieces and make something out of the scrap. Something better.

She grabbed onto that hope with both hands. She was going to need it.

Chapter Text

When Izuku’s alarm went off that morning, he considered rolling over and going right back to sleep. It had been a rough night, full of tossing and turning as the events of the day turned over and over in his mind.

But unfortunately he still needed to go to school. So he dragged himself out of bed and into the bathroom, sighing a touch dramatically.

As he went through his morning routine on autopilot, his thoughts invariably turned once again to his mother and the events of the previous night.

After he had stormed off, leaving his mom alone in the living room, he’d spent a long time going back and forth between feeling relief and guilt over what he had said. His feelings were finally out in the open, but at what cost? What if his mom hated him for it? What if she hated herself? What if she decided he wasn’t worth the effort and kicked him out?

He wasn’t sure how long it had been before there was a knock on the door, and when he went to open it, he of course found his mom standing on the other side. She looked nervous, her hands clutching something in a white-knuckled grip. He opened his mouth out of sheer habit, to apologize or repudiate her some more he honestly wasn’t sure, but she beat him to the punch.

“You’re right.” His jaw dropped. Out of all the words he’d been expecting to hear out of her mouth, that hadn’t even been an option. “I haven’t been the best mother to you, and I can see that now. I’m not-” she let out a shaking breath before squaring her shoulders and continuing, “I’m not going to apologize, because you already know I’m sorry, and I’m not asking for forgiveness, because I don’t deserve it yet. Right now, all I’m asking for is your patience. I-I’m not going to be perfect, right away. But I’m going to try. So please, sweetheart,” she shot him a wobbling smile, “give me a chance?”

He hadn’t known what to say. It had felt like their entire relationship hinged on that moment, like if he’d said the wrong thing, everything would come crumbling down. His eyes darted around anxiously and snagged on her hands, fidgeting with… “Are those index cards?”

The tension had been broken as she embarrassedly admitted Auntie Mitsuki had helped her make cue cards.

And then it had been… okay. Awkward, but fine. He’d told her that he’d give her a chance, and that he loved her, and they hugged. And then it had been an evening of awkward small talk, both of them unsure of where they stood but too emotionally exhausted for more conversation about it.

He’d fled back to his room the moment dinner was over, and he did manage to get some homework done before bed, throwing himself into his work so he didn’t have to think about anything more important than differential equations.

But then it was bedtime, and the thoughts crept back in. As he’d stared up at the ceiling waiting for sleep to claim him, he’d been struck with a thought: he loved his mom, but he didn’t trust her. And what’s more, he hadn’t trusted her in a long time. You don’t lie to people you trust, not as much as he’d lied to his mom over the years.

The difference between then and now, the thing leaving him feeling so off balance, was that in the past, his mom’s behavior was predictable. He knew exactly how she’d react to pretty much any situation he could think of, and therefore he could carefully plan his responses. Now, he had no idea how she was going to act, and that was leaving an uncomfortable squirming sensation in his chest.

Unfortunately, discovering the exact reason for his anxiety didn’t actually make him any less anxious.

So there he was, standing under the spray of the shower, rehashing the same conversation for the millionth time in the past eight hours. He shook himself. He needed to concentrate on school, not his family drama!

He sighed and got back to scrubbing.

~~~

Despite his best efforts, he spent the morning distracted, having to yank his attention back to his schoolwork every couple of minutes. It was even worse than after Katsuki left, because at least Katsuki didn’t live in his fucking house! It had been a while since he’d dreaded the end of school like this. He’d spent many days in middle school experiencing the same building dread as he was feeling now, but at least those times had only ended in getting a little roughed up, not potential emotional devastation.

(Were his priorities weird? Probably. But you know what they say: ‘sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will leave deep emotional wounds that may never heal.’)

Even with all that, he thought that his preoccupation wasn’t too obvious and no one would be paying close enough attention to notice. It became obvious he’d been wrong when he sat down at their lunch table and was immediately pounced upon.

“Izu-kun!” Ochako cried, “what’s wrong? You’ve been acting off all day.”

“Are you feeling well?” Iida chimed in, “you should report to Recovery Girl immediately if you’re ill! It’s important for us as hero students to be in peak physical condition.”He punctuated each sentence with his signature chopping motion, clearly gearing up for a lecture on the importance of taking care of oneself, again. The last one had been directed at Shinsou when he mentioned he hadn’t been sleeping well, and had lasted the majority of the lunch break.

(Incidentally, Shinsou had texted him just before lunch saying that he was going to find a place to nap during lunch today. Either the boy had internalized the last lecture or just didn’t want another one, and Izuku knew where he’d put his money.)

Izuku was quick to assure him, hoping to nip the topic in the bud before the other boy could get going. “Oh don’t worry, it’s nothing like that. I feel fine.”

“But something is wrong.” Tsuyu observed in her usual blunt manner. Izuku reviewed his words and winced. Yeah, he’d walked right into that one.

But still, might as well give denial one last chance. “R-really, it’s nothing. I’m fine.”

“It’s not nothing if it’s bothering you.” Ochaco glared at him for a moment, before softening. “We’re your friends, Izu-kun. We just want to help.”

Izuku wilted. How was he supposed to say no to that? But, how was he supposed to tell them? He ducked his head, burning with shame. They were going to judge him, he was sure. Kids were supposed to respect and listen to their parents, not yell at them. But with all three of them giving him earnestly concerned looks, he couldn’t say no.

(Did this count as peer pressure? Or was it only peer pressure if they were pressuring you to do drugs? The PSAs he’d watched in middle school were useless here.)

“My mom and I got into a fight.” He admitted quietly.

“Oh is that all?” A voice exclaimed from behind him, startlingly close. He whipped his head around to find Mina plopping down in the seat to his left, obviously eavesdropping. She continued, making a dismissive gesture. “I thought your dog had died or something.”

…What? Izuku stared at the girl incredulously. All he could think to stutter out was, “I-I don’t even have a dog.”

She waved away his protest like a particularly pesky insect. “That’s not the point. The point is, fights with parents happen! I fight with my parents all the time.” Mina said in a smug, almost bragging tone.

Seemed like a weird thing to brag about to him, but okay.

From the dubious look on her face, it seemed like Ochako shared his opinion. “All the time?” She echoed. “That seems like a lot of fighting.”

“Well, not all the time, all the time. But, like, a lot.” She looked around at their faces, each looking some combination of skeptical and concerned, and was quick to explain. “It’s not always about major stuff. It’s usually just ‘Mina, wear a jacket!’ when it’s not that cold out, or ‘Mina, where were you? We’ve been worried sick!’ When I told them I was going out with friends. They just worry a lot, you know? Like this one time, when I was like eleven…”

She launched into a story about how she had wanted to be a beauty influencer on HeroTube, but her parents had said no, no matter how much she begged. She had given them the silent treatment for a while after that, but she admitted her parents had probably made the right call. “There are a lot of creeps on the internet. I probably wouldn’t have attracted the kind of attention I wanted.”

By that time, several of their other classmates had joined them, including Kaminari and Kirishima, who each had their own story to tell. Kaminari’s was about the time he really wanted to try parkour, but his parents said no. He did it anyway, broke a bone, and then wasn’t allowed to train alone for a month. Kirishima followed that up with the first time he tried to dye his hair, where basically everything in the bathroom had ended up red except his hair. His mom had made him scrub the entire thing spotless and replace her hand towels with his pocket money, but then she’d taken him to go to an actual professional hairstylist. Tsuyu had even chimed in with her own story about smuggling a kitten into her house even though her entire family was allergic, including herself. When her parents found out, they didn’t let her keep it but did make sure it ended up in the care of a neighbor instead.

With each story, Izuku got more and more uneasy. He had assumed that the whole “teens regularly get into fights with their parents but still love and respect them and they make up in the end” thing was made up for TV. He knew other families fought sometimes, he’d overheard his classmates complaining about how awful their parents were. But those classmates were pretty awful themselves. In his mind, either you were a good kid who respected and obeyed your elders, or you were a delinquent like his middle school classmates. (Katsuki was a notable exception, because yelling was very much the norm in the Bakugou household.) And yet here all these young prospective heroes were, talking about the times they yelled at their moms, not like it was some kind of unforgivable sin but because it was funny!

His thoughts were interrupted by Ochako saying, “Iida-kun, I’m surprised you’ve been so quiet! I expected a lecture on obeying our elders.” The boy in question perked up while the rest of the table good-heartedly groaned about her ‘awakening the beast’ or something.

“On the contrary, while I may not approve of your actions, I understand the importance of disobeying one’s parents during this time in our lives. It is important for development.” Iida said, chopping the air.

“Is it? I wish you’d tell my parents that!” Kaminari replied, to a chorus of agreement.

“It is! It says so in a book called It Is A Phase, Mom: The Importance of Rebellion in The Social Development of Youth. My brother got it for me for my birthday several years back.” Iida puffed up his chest a little, preening under the attention. “I can lend it to you if you like.”

“But wait, if rebellion is so important why are you always yelling at us not to cause trouble in class?!” Mina said indignantly, which immediately devolved into an argument.

As he tuned out Iida’s passionate rant about the sacredness of the classroom, Izuku had to stifle a chuckle. He would bet money that Iida’s brother only gave him that book so he’d stop getting lectures on fighting with their parents.

And then his words registered, and it was all Izuku could do not to gape. Here was Iida, class co-president and most uptight person he knew, saying not only was fighting with your parents not terrible, but it was expected? Encouraged, even? He felt like he’d stepped into some kind of opposite world.

He closed his eyes for a moment, sucking in a breath. He didn’t know what to believe. Nezu-sensei’s voice echoed through his head, repeating words from their lesson just a couple days ago. When in doubt, weigh the evidence. What side can you support most easily? On one hand, the evidence rocking his world right now was only a couple of anecdotes and a quoted book by an author he didn’t know the credentials of. On the other hand, his only evidence of his existing worldview was his own personal experience, which he already knew wasn’t exactly normal. But without any unbiased sources, he couldn’t come to a conclusion. So what he needed to do now was research.

His fingers were itching for his phone, but before he could pull it out, he heard a thunk followed by a low groan. He looked up to see Kaminari facedown on the table, looking like the picture of abject misery. Izuku looked around, hoping to get a hint of what was wrong through his classmates’ faces, but they seemed just as baffled. “What’s wrong, Kaminari-kun? Are you feeling alright?” Ochako asked, looking about three seconds from rushing him off to Recovery Girl.

Kaminari let out another groan before mumbling, face still smooshed into the table, “just remembered the Sports Festival is in two days.”

Izuku jolted. Was it really? That didn’t sound right. But when he did the math… today was Thursday, the Sports Festival was on Saturday… yeah that’s the day after tomorrow. But really, should he be so surprised? It felt like it had been a lot longer than two weeks since the USJ. The passage of time was weird like that.

While he mused about time, his classmates attempted to comfort Kaminari. “What are you so worried about? it’s gonna be fun!” Mina cried, fist pumping the air.

“Yeah, we’re gonna show the whole world how manly we are!” Kirishima cheered, matching Mina’s enthusiasm. Kaminari did not seem to be having it, though. He turned his head just enough to glare at Kirishima.

“That’s the problem! I’m gonna get my butt handed to me on national television and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.” Kaminari wailed.

“Aw c’mon, it won’t be that bad! You’ve been working really hard these past few weeks, I’m sure you’ll do great.” Ochako tried for comforting, but in Izuku’s opinion veered a little too far into pity. Kaminari seemed to think so too.

“Everyone else has been training just as hard. And what am I supposed to do against Todoroki’s hugeass icebergs, or Ojiro’s martial arts moves, or Midoriya’s… Midoriya-ness.”

Izuku squeaked and tried stuttering out a denial, but Kaminari just looked at him. “Dude. I’m 100 percent sure you could take me down without using your quirk at all, with your freaky mind powers alone.”

He opened his mouth to protest, remembered Kaminari’s quirk could be defeated by wearing a good pair of rubber boots and/or waiting a couple seconds, and quickly closed it. He flushed as his classmates laughed, but it didn’t feel like mean laughter, like they were laughing with him instead of at him, as cliche as it sounded. It was a novel feeling. Kaminari didn’t seem offended either, just nodded and put his head back down, content to go back to his crisis.

“Oh! That reminds me,” Mina turned her eyes to Izuku, “how’s your training going, Midoriya-kun?”

“Yeah, you break any more bones recently?” Sero seemed a little too enthusiastic at the prospect.

“Um, n-no actually? I figured out how to use my quirk without hurting myself.” Izuku was irrationally worried about disappointing them, but he shouldn’t have been. The whole table immediately erupted into chaos as they all talked over each other in an attempt to be the first to congratulate him. Ochako was shaking him a little. Even Kaminari gave him a thumbs up from his spot on the table, though Izuku was pretty sure the boy was mumbling something about how doomed he was.

Fortunately, Iida was able to wrangle them all into some semblance of order relatively fast. Unfortunately, he followed it up by asking, “so tell us, what changed? how did you get control of such a volatile quirk so quickly?”

The weight of his classmates’ eyes threatened to lower his head and curl his shoulders, but he valiantly resisted. This wasn’t the same attention that he was used to, he told himself. These people actually cared about him. So he launched into the story of his latest breakthrough, dancing around the whole “my quirk is sentient and told me how to use it” thing because that was a bit too hard to believe even for him, and it was his life!

“So yeah,” he shrugged, “that was Monday. I’ve spent the last two days figuring out how to use it properly. I can finally move around while it’s active, but only for a couple minutes at a time.”

“But what does it… do, now?” Ochako asked hesitantly. “If it’s spread all over your body, can you still…”

“Can I still punch really hard?” She smiled sheepishly and nodded. “Not as hard as before, but yeah I can. Right now I’m using it as a general enhancement quirk, so I’m stronger, faster, more agile, all of that.”

“Right now? Does that mean you could do other things with it later?” Tsuyu asked.

“Oh yeah! I’m pretty sure I’m going to be able to do all sorts of stuff once I figure out how to manifest the stockpiled energy outside of my body. But I can’t work on that until I master utilizing it while it’s inside my body, so I’ve got a while to go there.”

He looked around and realized all of his classmates were staring at him like he’d grown two heads. He heard someone whisper, “what the fuck,” but he wasn’t sure who.

Mina was the first to break out of her trance. “Are you saying that your quirk is going to get even more OP than it already is?!” She screeched, voice high pitched enough to make him flinch a little.

“Um.” Izuku wasn’t sure how to answer that.

At that moment, the bell went off and he seized the opportunity, scurrying away as fast as he could.

At least next up was Practical Heroics, so he could avoid any more awkward questions about his quirk for a while.

~~~

When he got up to the classroom, ready to put his lunch stuff away and grab his bag, he found Aizawa-sensei sitting at his desk, rummaging through some papers and grumbling to himself. He stopped in the doorway, unsure what to make of the unusual sight.

“Midoriya.” Izuku startled. He hadn’t realized the man knew he was there, but he supposed he couldn’t be too surprised considering the man was Eraserhead. “Midnight had to go home early and I’m the only one available to sub on such short notice, so you’re going to be with the rest of the class today. Here,” Aizawa fished a paper out of the pile in front of him and thrust it in Izuku’s general direction.

He stepped closer, grabbing and examining the paper. “A… roommate agreement?”

“I want you to try filling that out with your quirk. Doesn’t have to be complete, most of the stuff on there isn’t going to apply all that much anyway, I just want you to open up some kind of line of communication between the two of you. There’s not a lot of research into sentient quirks, but what does exist says that communication is key.”

Izuku wrinkled his nose. “But, how? We can’t exactly talk.”

Aizawa levelled him with a look. “I’m sure you’ll figure something out,” he said, tone as dry as the desert.

From anyone else, it would have been insulting, but Izuku knew it just meant his teacher believed in him. So he just smiled and chirped, “yes, Aizawa-sensei!” That earned him another look, but it was only a moment before the glare melted into something more assessing.

“You seem more energetic than you were this morning.” The statement itself was fairly neutral, but Izuku didn’t think he was imagining the concern he could see in his teacher’s eyes.

He wilted a little at the reminder of yesterday’s events, but once he thought about it, he realized the feeling of dread in his gut had lessened. It wasn’t gone entirely, but hearing his friends talk about fighting with their parents made it clear that one little argument wasn’t going to irreparably damage their relationship. He loved his mom, and he knew she wouldn’t try to hurt him on purpose. By accident was a different story, and that was still scary, but he could handle it.

He hoped.

Either way, he had more important things to focus on, like training for the Sports Festival. His family drama could wait until later.

But he couldn't say any of that right now, with a handful of his peers not-so-subtly gawking as they gathered their things, so he just shot his teacher a small smile. “I’m okay, sensei,” he said in a low tone, just above a whisper.

The man’s eyes narrowed as he gave Izuku a final once-over. Whatever he was looking for, he seemed to find it, because he nodded sharply and spoke. “Good. Then I’ll meet you at the usual place for training after school. You can spar with your classmates if you finish early, but no quirks! And don’t think I’ll go easy on you just because you did a little bit of extra work.” With that, the man turned back to his paperwork, which upon closer inspection seemed to be Midnight’s lesson plans, effectively dismissing him.

He shot the man another grateful smile and went back to his desk. By that point, more of his classmates had started to trickle in, shooting baffled glances at their teacher and occasionally at him as well. He wasn’t sure if it was just due to his proximity to the teacher, or if word had already spread about their conversation at lunch, but he didn’t want to take his chances.

He grabbed his stuff and made his way back out of the room in record time. Ochako caught up to him after a minute, looking a little frazzled. “Seeing Aizawa-sensei like that was scary! Do you think he’s planning something?” She glanced around nervously, as if their teacher was about to jump out at them like a zombie in a haunted house. Or maybe a mummy would be a better analogy.

Izuku snorted. “Only an art history lesson.” At his friend’s questioning look, he explained. “He’s filling in for Midnight-sensei this afternoon. Which means I’m with you guys for training today.”

Ochako whooped. “Hell yes! I’ve got first dibs on sparring you.”

“Oh, um. Yeah. Let’s do that.” Izuku flushed with embarrassed pleasure, still not used to the fact that not only did his friends tolerate his presence, they actually wanted to spend more time with him. He ducked his head to try and hide his undoubtedly embarrassing expression, and his eyes caught on the piece of paper still clutched in his hand. Oh right, that. “I have an assignment from Aizawa-sensei that I have to do first though. But he said I can spar afterwards!” He proffered the piece of paper at her as evidence.

She squinted, peering closer to read it. “Why did he give you a roommate agreement? Do you even have a roommate?”

Shit, he should have seen that coming. But did it really matter if Ochako knew? She was his best friend, after all. ”Uh, not really? I recently figured out my quirk is sentient.” He had to fight back the urge to downplay just how sentient, remembering how annoyed it had been at him the last time he’d done that.

“What.” Ochako stared at him with wide eyes, going quiet instead of loud like she normally did.

He gave her a quick rundown of the situation, which took until they were standing in front of the wall between the girls and boys changing rooms. His friend’s jaw was hanging open, wide enough to make her look more like a cartoon character than a real person. But as she pulled herself together, her gaze turned more considering, then amused. “Only you, Izu-kun,” she said, shaking her head. ”Only you. Now let's get changed before Iida-kun starts yelling at us.”

You know what, that was fair. His life was ridiculous like that.

He hurriedly got changed and made his way out onto the training ground where class 1-A had been training for the past two weeks. It was mostly empty, with some spray painted lines marking places to spar and some more marking distances, presumably to test one’s range. All Might had clearly gotten word from Aizawa-sensei about his assignment, because one of the corners was fenced off a bit haphazardly with chairs, a sign with the words “mental quirk training, do not disturb” written in All Might’s large, blocky handwriting.

Smiling at his mentor’s thoughtfulness, Izuku made his way over to the little area, forgoing any of the scattered chairs to sit in the soft grass.

It took him a couple minutes to tune out the noise of his classmates training enough to meditate properly, but soon enough he found himself sitting on the surface of the now-familiar golden ocean.

Now was the hard part: talking. “Um. Hi?” The ocean did not respond. How did conversations usually go again? “I’m Midoriya Izuku. Which you know. Because you’ve been living inside my head.” God he was so awkward. He was suddenly struck by a thought. “Oh my god, I’ve been incredibly rude by not introducing myself properly! I mean, it was understandable before I realized you’re sentient, I didn’t know you were there. But it’s been, what, a week since I realized? Two? And I never even bothered saying hi. I’m sorry, I hope you can forgive me.” He bowed low at the waist, an awkward position since he was sitting cross legged on the ground but he managed.

Faint amusement broke through his panic, and the wind flowed through his hair, ruffling his curls. He sat up cautiously, but when no outpouring of anger came he relaxed. “I’m going to take that to mean you forgive me.”

The only response was more wind swirling around his head. Izuku frowned. “We need an actual way to communicate.”

The amusement gained a small, bitter edge, as if it was saying “if you have any suggestions, I’m all ears.”

Was it weird that Izuku kept imagining that the semi-immortal being living in his head was sassing him?

(It was not, because that was exactly what was happening.)

But never mind that, how was he supposed to talk with the thing in his head when it couldn’t even speak? He considered the issue for a long moment. The first step, he decided, would be being able to ask yes-or-no questions, since they only need one thing for yes, another thing for no. Easy peasy. But what to pick? Positive emotions for yes, negative for no? But that ran the risk of being too subjective, and could get confusing if the emotional response to the question didn’t actually line up with the answer.

Then he thought about the breeze still fluttering around his head. Maybe they could use that, like blowing one way for yes and another for no. But it seemed to enjoy playing with his hair and flitting about, so that might not be the best indicator. Maybe if he had a little flag? But then he’d need a prop for communication which could be inconvenient. He put that idea aside for now.

All the while, the golden ocean lapped at his feet, not still but placid. He idly traced a finger through the water, which produced a strange double-sensation of water and grass, layered over each other. It also produced ripples, just the way real water would, which got him thinking. “You control the water, right? Make the waves and stuff.”

He paused, and a larger wave came up and crashed over him in answer. Izuku laughed, shaking off the odd feeling of wet-not-wet. He doesn’t even bother responding to the wave, treating it like the ‘yes’ it clearly was. “Okay, cool. Can you do smaller things, like you know when you throw a rock into water and it makes those little ripples, can you do something like that?”

The water went still for a moment, then resumed its usual waves, besides in one small area directly in front of him which stayed mirror-smooth. After another moment, it was like an invisible stone had been thrown, rings of ripples appearing and moving outwards. It was even accompanied by a plop sound.

Izuku grinned, enthused. “Right! How about one of those for yes, two for no, that make sense?”

Another plop and resulting ripple, and he threw his hands up in excitement. “Yes! Now we can actually talk. Though we’re gonna have to figure out a more elaborate system at some point, yes and no can only get us so far…” his hands itched for a notebook, but no, he needed to focus. He had an assignment to complete and hopefully some friends to spar with.

So he picked up the piece of paper and started to read. And immediately ran into his first roadblock: the agreement started by having you write the names of the participants. Names. He groaned. “I can’t exactly call you-“ Izuku remembered just in time that he was speaking aloud, though he was sure none of his classmates were listening to him mumble to himself, “the usual thing, can I?”

A plop-plop signified his quirk’s agreement. He could also feel faint disdain, and imagined it saying “that would defeat the purposes of all the secrecy, obviously.”

“How about Superpower? It’s what’s on the quirk registry.”

Another two ripples appeared, with no hesitation.

“Oh-fa? Like OFA but pronounced like a word.”

This time the denial was accompanied by a feeling that Izuku could only describe as like when a teacher says something unintentionally inappropriate and you’re not allowed to laugh. He decided that even if he could understand the answer, he still wouldn’t want to know.

Well there went all of the quirk-related ideas he had. Maybe he could go with something descriptive, like Dark Shadow? “What about Goldie?” He winced, immediately regretting that choice. He was naming a 200 year old quirk, not a goldfish!

The quirk in question clearly felt the same way. It didn’t even bother responding, just pushing the feeling of judgement at him.

He huffed. “Well would you like to offer up a suggestion, then?” If he was going to get sassed he might as well give as much as he gets, even if he deserved that one.

Not expecting an answer to his question, he was startled to hear a single little splash before silence returned. He stared as the ripples spread and faded, only for more to take their place. Five little plops in a row, drawing a diagonal line towards him, and then back up in a mirror to the other side. It took him a moment to understand what he was seeing: an English letter ‘v.’

“Oh! That’s a great idea. Especially using the Latin alphabet, it’s a bit simpler than Japanese characters tend to be.” he mumbled the last part to himself, rummaging around in his pockets to find his pencil, then carefully drew a v on the line labeled ‘participants.’ “So it starts with V…”