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“You know, people are saying our class is haunted.” Izuku tenses, but doesn’t look up from his light novel. He’s sat just back enough that he can hear Mina talking, but close enough that no one really thinks he’s avoiding socializing.
“Really? Aside from maybe Monoma, who’d be talking about our class like that?” Hanta’s voice is doubtful, but the fact that he’s asking is proof enough that he’s interested in carrying out the conversation.
“I mean, look at what’s happened this year. The school got broken into, we’ve been attacked by villains twice now… no, like four times now? Cause there was that time in the mall, and then weren’t a bunch of us in Hosu when those weird things attacked?”
Izuku turns the page, then takes a moment to take stock of who is in the room. The ‘Baku-squad(™)’ minus Katsuki himself are all in the kitchen around the table, and Rikido is mixing something green that was probably the mint cookies he’d been experimenting with all week. In the rest of the common room were Ochako, Tsu, and Tenya around a table with their notes, Fumikage and Mezou in the corner trading their phones showing each other things, and Momo and Shouto had their chairs turned out to look outside. Koda had his rabbit on his lap on the couch, half watching the movie that Hagakure and Jiro had on.
“Yeah… Mido-bro, weren’t you and Todoroki in Hosu when his Dad took down the Hero Killer?” Izuku whips his head back towards the kitchen, Eijiro’s words snapping him out of his sensus.
It feels like people are tuning in, so he just answers as quickly as possible to shift the attention off him. Because one of those people is Tenya, whose head whips up fast enough that both Ochako and Asui start to pay attention. “Um… I mean, yeah? I was on a train with Gran Torino, and Shouto was probably with his dad or one of his sidekicks.”
The oven door squeaks as Rikido puts in a batch of cookies, and Mina points at him like he was helping her point. “See? We all keep ending up caught in the middle of villain attacks!”
“Yeah… though Mido-bro seems to get it more often.” Izuku blinks, Eijiro’s comment seeming to get people’s gears turning.
Ochako, her critical thinking suddenly triggered by Tenya’s suspicious behavior, unfortunately adds to the tension. “Yeah! Didn’t Shigaraki target you specifically, Deku? Like, I get he was probably going after one of us, but it keeps ending up with you in their crosshairs.”
The tv pauses, and the three on the couch turn to look at the conversation. And with all the eyes roving over the conversation, it was like someone dumped a bucket of ice cubes down the back of Izuku’s shirt. “Um… well, I don’t think I was really targeted…”
“Izuku’s Noble Spirit invites trouble in the moment, not through any premeditated schemes on the villains' part.” Fumikage offers what should be defusing words, but Izuku hides the frown that tries to form. The conversation is interesting enough to get the usually quiet bird child’s attention, meaning everyone is probably paying attention.
“Yeah, that Muscular guy from the training camp wasn’t originally supposed to attack him, yet Midoriya had to have surgery to repair the damage.” Even Shouto chimed in, and Izuku shifts in his seat. His long sleeved shirt covered the scars on his arm, but with even Shouto and Momo tuning in, it felt like someone had wrapped a thick rope around him, and it was getting pulled tight enough to restrict his breathing.
“I mean, we are supposed to get used to stuff like this, I get that. But none of the other hero courses have dealt with stuff like this, even the higher years.”
Denki nods, pointing at Mina as she speaks. “Yeah, right? I keep over hearing third years talking about how we’ve dealt with a lot more stuff they have. Even Aizawa’s older classes haven’t had to deal with stuff like this.”
Izuku looks to Tenya, wishing he would do something as the Class President to cut the conversation. But he’s just rubbing his chin like a noir detective, moving the pieces around like a puzzle. And that feeling of something wrapping around him tightens, and it’s actually getting harder to breathe. ‘No… they couldn’t possibly put it together, right? It’s fine… just stay calm…’
Momo suddenly speaks, and her words manage to release that pressure enough for Izuku to quietly suck in a breath of air. “Now now, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We just covered Logical Arguments in Present Mic’s class, so take a moment to reasonably assess the situation. Besides our lack of information on the villains, just because a number of events are happening doesn’t mean they have some overarching connection.”
Izuku feels himself nodding, and it feels like the conversation almost loses its steam, and that pressure is loosening…
“Maybe it’s All Might.”
And just as soon as that pressure left, it came back hard, almost knocking the air out of his lungs at Shouto’s calm musing.
Momo starts to admonish him, but the Bakusquad starts walking in, save for Hanta who takes their plates to the sink. Mina points at Shouto, jumping as something clicks for her. “That’s it! Think about it; it’s his first year teaching us, and suddenly all this weird stuff starts happening to Yuuei students.”
Everyone nods, half considering the idea, until Asui calmly stabs that balloon with a needle. “So, you’re saying All Might is a curse? Or he’s cursing the class?”
Everyone turns on Mina, who waves her hands wildly. “Woah, I wasn’t saying that! It’s just…”
Momo, Izuku’s angel in these trying times, swoops down to strike down Mina without leaving her chair. “Again, consider our Logical Arguments. All Might becoming our teacher doesn’t translate ipso facto to all these villain attacks. Besides which, Nedzu would have considered such risks to us before hiring All Might, so questioning that decision is questioning Nedzu’s judgment.”
That gets the conversation almost in the ground, both Mina and Denki shuddering with flashbacks to their test before the summer camp. And Izuku finally relaxes back into his chair, and props his book up to read…
“Besides, saying those things about Midoriya’s dad in front of him is really rude.”
Someone does a spit take, audibly covering the number of bones breaking as people snap their gaze over to the Shouto. Izuku looks up at him, and he has this weird look on his face that was someone trying to be smug when they didn’t really know what that looks like. “Todoroki, I keep telling you it isn’t like that…”
“And I keep saying you have to say that. So unless you have some evidence against it…”
“Wait wait wait…” He turns to Mina, seeing faintly out of the corner of his eyes Rikidou walking in, a wet patch on his shirt. “All Might’s your dad?”
Izuku lets the book drop, shaking his head. “No, he’s not. Todoroki just saw him taking me aside during lunch to talk about my Quirk, and he thinks he knows something that isn’t true!”
His voice creeps up higher towards the end, but that’s just because everyone’s eyes are on him. The couch crew is watching while eating the popcorn they’d made, Toru eating one kernel at a time so fast she should choke.
Tenya stands, and waves his arms at Shouto. “Todoroki, the continued spreading of rumors about classmates despite their direct request to stop is not becoming of a future hero!”
Shouto looks at him, and crosses his arms. “I know what I saw, and Midoriya has done nothing to convince me it’s wrong. If anything, he does nothing but dodge the question.”
Everyone is looking back and forth, and Izuku’s nerves have been stretched way too much from all of this today. He is desperate for an out, anything…
“Izuku…” Asui speaks up, and he braces for her to say something terrible. “...Didn’t you say your father works in America?”
She stops there, and Izuku nods. “Yeah, he moved overseas when I was four. I haven’t seen him since, but he and my mom talk sometimes over the phone.”
He hopes that would put it to bed, but Denki rubs his chin. “So he’s never around, and we can’t talk to him to confirm? I don’t know, that sounds kinda sketchy…”
A couple of people nod, but Ochako tries to jump to his defense. “Guys, why would Izuku lie to us? He doesn’t have anything to hide, and we’re just dragging him through the mud over nothing?”
Izuku refuses to let the sudden nervous laughter bubble up to his throat, and his cheeks flush as he nods. He tries to get up and go to the kitchen, his throat getting scratchy and dry…
“What was his Quirk?”
Izuku stops, and turns to Shouto with a shrug. “My mom says he can breathe fire; we have pictures from family cookouts and camping trips.”
He waits a second, and Shouto tilts his head. “And you don’t have a Quirk that has to do with fire at all? Strange.”
Izuku blinks… and Denki and Eijiro both silently gasp as they come to a conclusion. He looks over, and they both give him weird looks.
He decides to walk into the kitchen anyways, and quickly fills a glass with water. He takes a minute in the privacy of the kitchen, trying to control his breathing and just keep his emotions under control.
There’s almost a moment where he considers going with it, and hope that maybe if he sends them off in one direction, maybe they won’t just accidentally put together One for All… but Tenya loudly speaks up, and all thoughts flee his mind when the words process. “Kaminari, stop spreading rumors about Midoirya’s questionable conception!”
Izuku blinks, then leans around the corner. “Wait, what?”
He looks into the room, and Rikidou quickly moves out of the way so he can look in at everyone. Izuku looks up at him as he passes, and the big guy gives him a sympathetic look before rotating back into the kitchen.
The Baku-squad(™) is at the table with the Deku-squad, Denki squatting between Mina and Asui due to the lack of chairs. Everyone looks over at Izuku, and while Eijiro awkwardly looks away, Denki raises his hand. “Your dad left when you were four, when your Quirk would have manifested. When it wasn’t like his or your moms, he left. And you’re weirdly defensive about this All Might theory; maybe the base idea is right, but the person is wrong…”
Izuku blinks, and carefully sets the glass down while looking around. Everyone is watching him, and it’s like dozens of weights are getting taped to his arms and shoulders, weighing him down. “Guys, that’s not… just forget about it, okay?”
Everyone seems to register that the statement isn’t a defense at all, but Kyouka leans up with her jacks moving through the air. “Izuku, I think you should sit down.”
Izuku shakes his head, and he tries to go to the stairs. His chest is starting to burn, and it’s harder to breathe as he starts putting together what they were saying…
He reaches the bottom of the staircase, a timer going off in the kitchen, when Ochako comes up behind him with her work in her folder. “Deku, let me walk you up to your room.”
Izuku shakes his head, that word’s old meaning hitting him when he wasn’t ready for it. “I… no, I’m just going to turn in early tonight. If you need to finish assignments…”
She shakes her head, and he turns to go up the stairs before he notices he’s out of breath. He holds the handrail for a minute, and Ochako just carefully rubs his shoulder before leading him up and out of the common room.
---
Kyouka listens as the two go up the stairs, Toru’s crunching of popcorn making it just hard enough to focus that she couldn’t hear if they were saying anything. The invisible girl stops for just a moment, elbowing her with a smile on her voice. “This is so much better than the movie.”
Tenya stands up, and begins waving his arms at everyone. “Kaminari, please refrain from referencing this subject in the future! Clearly we’ve overstepped Izuku’s boundaries…”
“Yeah, but we have to be onto something! Besides, it isn’t even all that important to hide, but he’s so defensive! Isn’t Aizawa always like, ‘you have to be able to trust your teammates in the field’ and stuff like that?”
Denki actually raises a halfway decent point, which throws Tenya off just enough for the others in the Baku-squad (™) all start whispering amongst themselves.
Shouto just nods, pulling out his phone. “I have other evidence for All Might being his father, but maybe I’ve been so focused on one outcome I haven’t considered the other possibilities. And he was very nervous… we must have gotten close to the truth somewhere in the discussion…”
Kyouka chews on the bottom of her lip, trying to think of how to say what was on her mind. But surprisingly, Fumikage picks up his materials in a quick and messy manner, and stalks up to the staircase while ‘muttering’ loud enough for people to hear as he goes. “Carrion Scavengers in a Mad Banquette of Darkness, Knives Out and Beaks Bloody.”
Everyone watches as he leaves, and Kyouka takes the chance to get up and go into the kitchen. Rikidou is carefully fanning the cookies on the countertop with a spatula, a few already on a plate next to the pan. He had a few crumbs hanging from his lips, and a slight grin to his apparent success. He looks up at her, and furrows his brows before nudging his head up to everyone. “Did you see his face when he came out of the kitchen?”
Kyouka shakes her head, but takes the plate meant for Izuku before whispering. “No, but I could hear him nearly having a panic attack half the time. You think any of the conspiracy they’re talking about is true?”
Rikidou shrugs, and grabs another plate before loading it with the rest. “Maybe, maybe not. But until they get a straight answer, Nothing is going to be the same.”
Kyouka nods, and goes towards the stairs with the plate in hand. ‘Yeah, nothing will be the same. Cause there isn’t a satisfying answer to that question.’