Chapter Text
Izuku had been in the class for a week, and he had to say he wasn’t hating it. He still had no idea why he was there, and no one was allowed to tell him why he was there.
He was living his dream.
It was his father who had constantly beaten down his desire to be a hero, and while he agreed to a point. Izuku knew his father loved him, and he loved him too. Sitting watching the UA grounds whiz by as they travelled to an unknown location, Izuku contemplated his place in the hero school. Being taught by heroes, being surrounded by heroic people and people of such great power and prestige.
There were a couple of students milling around, and he watched them watch the bus. As if they knew it was full of delinquents, thieves, and people like him.
Heroes in the making, and Izuku would never fit in with them. Had accepted that, had agreed with his dad.
But he still really wanted to be one. It had hurt to realise that someone quirkless couldn’t be a hero, that two very important men in his life hadn’t believed in his goal as a hero.
His father he understood, to a point – he was still upset of course. He had heard the story of his uncle hundreds of times growing up, along with the tight look of what might have been anger or what might have been fear and he heard the strain in his voice whenever he spoke of All Might in the last few years.
How his company in America had been caught up in a fight, and he too had been severely injured. Enough so that it made travelling such long distances very difficult. At first to Izuku it had sounded like a lame excuse, that his father was finally tired of his longing questions of when he was coming home, and his pathetic quirkless ways. Until their first video call back, and Izuku was his father, but his father didn’t see him.
He had not asked to video chat since, the images of his father's scarred and eyeless face haunted his nightmares for months, so badly that his mother had tried to take him to the doctors.
Eraserhead actually believed in him. And helped him. And was an actual teacher who taught things without thinking he was a delinquent or defective, or anything like that.
All-might was also there, which was less great, and there was a suspicious look in his eyes that never seemed to dim. A look that wasn’t there before. Which was fine, at least his room wasn’t a shrine for the man anymore, it was awkward to look at when the man had left him on the roof and crushed his dreams and heart and everything he had wanted.
But Eraserhead was supportive. In his own caustic, sarcastic and sometimes quite mean way. But it did seem like he did care, and if Izuku remembered there was a sandal about five years ago about UA hiring an unknown hero as a teacher who had also been in the school reform program. Now Izuku couldn’t check, due to his denied access to the internet – apart from Minecraft, where he had just got a wonderful new dog – but he knew all of the other teachers, and to his obsessive nature, he had documented all staff changed to UA in the last ten years, and everyone who came out was someone he knew, they were mostly twilight or limelight heroes.
Aizawa was the only underground teacher hired. He was like an older, less angry, and more tired Kacchan.
Who was also there.
He was kind of the same as he used to be, angry, loud, and mean. But Izuku was used to that, so it didn’t really seem that weird. What was weird was the way it now seemed supportive. And he was now friendly – it was very new; but it was also sort of déjà vu. The only person Izuku remembered Kacchan talking to like that was him when they were 4. None of the other people in their year were anything other than extras. It was rather nice and Aizawa had to keep on reminding him to, “keep hands off, Bakugou, you haven’t passed your anger management classes. Midoriya, don’t look at me like that, I don’t write the rules. Midoriya if you keep on looking at me with those eyes I will be adding Minecraft to the list of things you are banned from, be very careful.”
It was very routine, and it happened every day. Trying to be supportive, from Kacchan was sometimes very loud and violent. But there were others who were less violent and loud.
Izuku actually had friends now. Which was nice, not everyone in the class, but at least a few. More than he had ever had before, especially considering the people he had considered aquatanses had told Kacchan that they had pushed him off the roof of the school.
Now at least he wasn’t going to be locked in a bathroom on school trips again. Which he was now heading to, in a bus. With other kids his age, he was being included in their conversations.
“So Midoriya, I am known for being kind of blunt. So I am going to ask, why did someone like you get into 1-A?” Asui- Tsu, as she had been asked to be called, said.
“Dude you can’t just ask someone that.” Kirishima said, in a way that Izuku could imagine that if he was in a more open space, he would have flexed his arms. “That’s totally not cool! My cousin is quirkless and totally rocks! Taught me everything I know about gymming!”
He would have totally flexed his arms again, Izuku thought privately – not even absorbing the topic of conversation as Kirishima kept on, but in a totally male wife way.
“That was not what I meant. Kero. I meant, you are so nice. And smart, and you are not mean or aggressive, like Bakugou.” A- Tsu said, again pointing at Izuku. While he enjoyed being involved in their conversations, he did not want to be the main part of them and started to flounder a bit in response. How would he be able to explain that he didn’t know either. And it wasn’t like he was exactly smart enough to figure it out.
“Yeah not like Bakugou over here, real garbage steeped personality for the win.” Kaminari crowed from near the back, which caused Izuku to gape open mouthed at. Never in his life had he ever heard Kacchan be talked about in that way, let alone to his face. And for other people to laugh at the good-natured teasing.
“SHUT UP EXTRA. DEKU I CAN SEE THAT LOOK ON YOUR FACE WIPE IT NOW, THIS ISN’T FUNNY!”
“Bakugou, do you have to come and sit up at the front?” Aizawa asked passively as everyone exploded into giggles, and moved the conversation on.
Izuku could get used to this. Even if he was technically a criminal.
The trip they were going on as Aizawa described it was a rescue training of some sort, was the first they were allowed out for, and boy did it cause some excitement in the bus. While it wasn’t off campus, the villains of UA were now officially leash kids instead of imprisoned.
Mina was very creative when it came to names, and the leash-kids of 1-A was a trend she started one evening when bored. For a very successful jewellery thief she had no eye for nicknames.
Iida, the only one who was even trying to be a model student, was desperate to get everyone on the bus in order, and when he got on and saw the bus was not a normal seating he had to sit down with his head in his hands for a few moments.
He was the least villainous villain in the class, and in Izuku’s opinion he wasn’t exactly wrong in what he did. Just a little stupid. Stain was an adult, who had killed and maimed several highly trained and very dedicated heroes, and Iida wasn’t even a high school student who was driven by anger.
Stupid he may be, but he was very dedicated to being a hero and he wanted to make sure everyone else was on the same level. But even when they left the bus and stood around 13, he had given up trying to corell them, only Todoroki and Shinsou – the two loners of the class and not for lack of Izuku’s trying – were not actively talking. They were not listening in, however, completely happy to stand there staring off into space.
“Alright I can tell you aren’t listening, lets's just get into it shall we! Right here are the groups.” And as 13 was handing out the pieces of paper, Izuku caught a misting of purple from the corner of his eye.
“Mr Aizawa what is that?” He asked pointing at the growing purple, “there’s something in there.”
There was a tense moment as the class took in what he had said and turned to look at the looming smoke, the smoke now spitting out people – villains – in the area surrounding the fountain.
“Is that- are we starting the simulations?” Kaminari asked nervously, his voice shaking, it was the most uncertain Izuku had heard him. His face was hard and scared, but his body was surprisingly relaxed, Izuku thought it could be that Kaminari had a constant low level electric current which caused his body to relax in high stress situations. But that would be bad for hero work, so it must have been something else.
Maybe he knew the villains? Maybe that was why he didn’t look scared but felt like he needed to act as he did.
But why would a cookie miner know the kind of villains that would be able to invade UA?
“Izuku, stop mumbling and more moving we have to go. Aizawa is holding them off while we run. Hurry the fuck up.”
“Wait what?” Izuku asked train of thought is violently derailed by the fact that his ambush hunter teacher, the only adult other than his parents who have even shown a hint of kindness to him is running to his death.
As the students huddled around each other in fear, Izuku noted two classmates flank him especially. They were pulling him along. “Wait! Aizawa! Eraserhead your not- ” Whatever he was trying to say was lost as they dragged him from the distant form of their teacher.
Izuku could count the number on one hand the amount of time these two had talked to him and he had always gotten the feeling that Aoyama thought he was too plain or was not enough. Izuku would have thought him heroic to pull him away from the villains, but that did not seem like the boy at all.
Kaminari was a separate issue; he was shaking in fear and Izuku could feel that as he crowded him surreptitiously behind him, so perhaps the earlier relaxed stance was something that Izuku misinterpreted. This did seem to be a worse issue than faked or not faked fear; Izuku did not expect him to be quirkest. Especially with a face that looked, rather than scared, wiped of emotion. That he wasn’t even thinking, just grabbing what he perceived as the weakest and running. Izuku was sure he wanted to be a hero for a reason, and that he would be a good one, he was just somewhat confused why he was trying now to be a hero when there were two there protecting them.
The words were echoing in his head.
“No,” Aizawa said seriously, “they are villains.”
Just like them.
Izuku had never known chaos like what had opened with that warp quirk—tossed around like a cheap salad. He, Shinsou, and Tsu had landed in the shipwreck simulation. They had quickly taken stock of the situation and had managed to make their way out of the too quiet area.
With the adrenaline pumping through his veins Izuku barely realised that his two hitchers, Aoyama and Kaminari had been separated from him. Izuku marked this as a great thing in this situation, neither Aoyama nor Kaminari would have helped as much as Tsu or the purple one, Shinsou.
They both would have been very, very helpful if they did run into villains. Tsu, having a water-based mutation quirk would have eliminated any threats in the water, and with what Izuku thought must have been a mental quirk due to Shinsou’s fluffed up hair, would have most likely warded off, or gotten rid of the others she could not.
It didn’t really make sense, why they were alone, and that they did not reach resistance until they made it to the plaza. After a few minutes of strategy, and trying to work the boat engines, and to see if the radio still worked, they decided to move. This was helped along by the boat starting to sink. With this, however, there was one lifeboat still viable to work. They, however found out when they got on that it did not have any working engines.
It took a while, but Tsu had to kick them to shore, swimming behind them and pushing them forward. Izuku tried to help by paddling off the side, but Shinsou stopped him with a hand on his arm and a shaking head. It was probably the right move; he was more likely hindering than helping anyway.
If the adrenaline had faded during his time on the boat, and he could have reflected then and there. Then he would have thought over the strange reactions of his two lost classmates. As they stood there, corralling him, and protecting him, their stranger reaction to seeing the man with the hands would have stood out in his memory. How they had almost unperceptively relaxed and had stepped away from Izuku. As if they didn’t need to protect him anymore. As if he was safe.
But he was wrapped up in his anxiety to have realised that, and he sat there much too focused on controlling his breathing. And due to the stress of the traumatic encounter with real, not kid reformation villains, villains those little details which might have helped set up a bigger picture later on, were forgotten.
He grew more and more nervous about doing something when the far shore came closer, since the sinking of the ship pushed them away from the central plaza, they drifted slightly to the far wall of the USJ. Drifting them closer and closer to another zone. Izuku was sure he could see villains there and Tsu said she saw some in the other zones. While on the boat.
Shinsou also piped in with his assent, but he had been watching Eraserhead too closely to really add two cents to the conversation.
There also seemed to be an abundance in the plaza, where Eraserhead had fended them off. Until that large monstrous figure of a villain stepped forward.
The sound of snapping and something slamming hard onto the ground would echo in his ears for years to come.
Shouta Aizawa was not a man easily fooled or sneaked up on. He was a pro underground hero with nearly 15 years under his belt. He was too good to get the jump on.
Yet the one person who he would not have expected blood thirsty, attempted child murderers to know would be Midoriya.
And it seemed to him, as he lay healing and pondering in his hospital bed – the one that they always give him, in the room with the view of a pretty pond, that Izuku Midoriya did not know why either. The commission assigned blank cheque on Midoriya’s past, and that knowledge was burning in his mind’s eye, what was he hiding. What were they hiding?
That boy, blue haired and with hands covering his face would not stop asking him why Izuku was there. Kept on asking and asking and asking. Was he so secret that the commission had even banned his name on an official document.
Shouta was sure that there had to have been a mole of some kind, just the fact that they got the information in the first place made that certain.
He would have to ask Nedzu, he knew these kinds of things, whether the Commission wanted him to know them or not.
Perhaps he would even know why that boy seemed to need to understand why Izuku was there. Why he had been taken to the class.
How his Sensei would hear about that.
It was what probably saved his life, the boy – Shigaraki was distracted, and made some sloppy mistakes when Izuku showed up. As if moved by invisible strings the villain lurched at him. And it was at him; Shouta saw the course correction halfway through his run – even if he was delirious with pain.
Shigaraki was running to Izuku. And then he changed to Asui.
It would spell trouble; these kinds of things always did.