Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

With everything his nightmare class had been through, it seemed like it was hard for those who didn’t interact with them regularly to remember that, at their core, Shouta’s students were teenagers. They were still figuring out who they were, what they liked, and, unfortunately for Shouta, who they liked. They were still just kids, thrust into the big, bad world far before they were ready to be. Experimentation, therefore, becomes vital for teenagers. It’s the sure-fire way for them to figure themselves out, and as long as no one got hurt, Shouta was fine to let the kids do whatever they needed to in order to get a better sense of themselves. So when Kaminari all but ran into the classroom wearing a uniform skirt instead of pants, his only concern was for how blue his knees appeared. It was December, after all, and there were six inches of snow on the ground. Clearly whoever had let him borrow the skirt hadn’t cautioned him to wear tights or something underneath, or he’d forgotten. Shouta’s chips were on the latter.

Shouta dropped a paper on Iida’s desk with the day’s announcements as he passed. At the bottom, he’d scrawled “free period until English,” and he curled up under his desk in his sleeping bag. Finally, a damn nap. He vaguely listened to Iida rattle off the boring school nonsense- reminders of upcoming tests and papers, mostly. He closed his eyes, and let their excited cheers lull him to sleep. Good, let them be happy for once.

He hadn’t had his eyes closed for five minutes when his phone rang. He glared at the screen, cursing whoever dared to call a long, painful, agonizing death- Nezu. That damn rat. Shouta extricated himself from his sleeping bag and shuffled into the hallway before he answered.

“Eraser, thanks for picking up! Would you mind swinging by my office? I’ve had several… complaints about one of your students.”

”You and I both know Bakugou is a problem, I don’t see why we have to discuss it again.”

“It’s Kaminari.”

Well, shit. Kaminari wasn’t exactly Shouta’s brightest pupil, if one only looked at the gradebook, but he wasn’t stupid enough to deliberately cause problems for students in other classes. He hadn’t caused a power outage again, not since the horror movie marathons were banned, and as far as he knew, no one thought much of him, other than giving him a wide berth near bodies of water.

”I’ll be there in two minutes.”

“What did he do?” ”Sit down, Shouta, he’s not in trouble. I’m just fulfilling my legal obligation to inform you of the complaints.”

”I’ll stand. What seems to be the issue?”

“As I’m sure you’re aware, Kaminari is wearing a skirt to class today.”

Shouta could feel his blood pressure rising. “So?”

“My thoughts exactly. However, some students complained, so I am obligated to inform you.”

“Complained about what? That he’s exploring his identity?” Shouta rolled his eyes. “I’m not going to punish him. If I say anything to him at all, it’ll be to wear some damn tights so he doesn’t get frostbite.”

“As his teacher, I’m leaving that up to you. Technically, he’s in violation of the dress code.”

“I don’t I’ve a damn if he is or not, let the boy wear a skirt if he wants. None of his classmates seem to have a problem with it. Hell, most of them have worn skirts themselves.” He let out a long sigh.

“Like I said, Shouta. How you handle it is up to you. I just have to inform you.”

“Yeah, so you said. Are we done?”

“I suppose so.”

Shouta stood. “Thanks for letting me know.”

Once he was back in the classroom, Shouta reclaimed his place under the desk. Technically, they were already well into English, but Hizashi didn’t even glance his direction when he came in, droning on about prepositions or punctuation or something that started with a P. Shouta didn’t know, nor did he care. He said nothing to Kaminari, nor did he make some kind of grandiose, gender-affirming speech. Doing so would only embarrass the kid, or possibly out him before he was ready. The best thing for Shouta to do was absolutely nothing. Let Kaminari be Kaminari, complaints be damned. He wasn’t hurting anyone.

Well, his legs were still a bit blue, and he was shivering, but from under the desk, Shouta could see the bottom edge of someone’s blazer, just over the poor kid’s calf. Shouta closed his eyes. Kaminari would be alright. Though, if a pair of fleece tights showed up in front of his door the next morning, Shouta would deny putting them there.

Chapter Text

“Mr. Aizawa! The girls’ bathroom is on fire and all of them are trapped inside!”

Well, that was certainly one way to wake up from a nap. Of all the things that could have happened to these kids three days after they moved into the dorms- no, why was he surprised? These kids attracted trouble as if it was the only thing they knew how to do.

It took Shouta all of two minutes to get out of his sleeping bag, slide into his slippers, and make his way into the back of the common area, where- sure enough, white tendrils of something were snaking from underneath the door to the girls’ showers. Shouta sighed and let go of his capture scarf.

“They’re fine,” he declared to the gathering of boys, all watching him with a mix of fear and confusion on their faces.

“But, sir, there’s smoke coming from under the door!” Iida seemed to be the most worried of all of them. “The only person who can survive a fire is Todoroki, and he’s right here!”

Indeed, the poor boy looked ready to slap some of Sero’s tape over his eyes and charge into the showers. He could see the bruise forming on Sero’s forearm.

Shouta let out a long sigh and ran his hands through his hair. He should’ve seen this coming. None of these kids had ever lived with women other than their mothers and sisters, so it was unlikely that they’d picked up on the minute differences between themselves and their classmates of the opposite sex. It reminded him of Oboro and Hizashi the first time they’d gone over to Nemuri’s, and she’d practically boiled herself in the shower. He could assume that was what was causing the steam under the door; the girls had taken to showering at the same time to avoid Mineta. That in itself was another problem, but one thing at a time.

“If you’re going to live in these dorms, you’re all going to have to get used to the fact that girls… do weird stuff.” Well put, Shouta.

He barely heard a giggle and the slap of skin-on-skin from the bathroom door behind him. He didn’t blame them.

“Girls… take really hot showers. It’s just something that they do, for the most part. That’s not smoke, it’s steam. More than you’re used to, but it’s fine. No one is on fire, and if there was a fire in there, I’m sure they’d be able to handle it.”

The boys murmured amongst themselves. Good, they understood.

“Now, go back to whatever it was you were doing. I’m going back to sleep,” he waved them off, making his way back to the nap he was so rudely snatched away from.

“Mr. Aizawa?”

Aizawa didn’t stop walking. “Yes, Kirishima?”

“What other kinds of weird things do girls do?”

Shouta paused.

“Ask Midnight.”

Chapter Text

“Shou, babe, you will not believe what I just heard.”

Shouta let out a long-suffering sigh. Of course, the first thing his loving husband of five long years would say at five in the morning is, of course, something he heard through his gossip-girl grapevine.

“What is it, Hizashi?”

“A certain, um, student of yours told me she caught two of your other students in the common room… and their mouths were touching.”

Shouta had to hold back a laugh. Of course he’d say it like that. “So, Hagakure caught two of her classmates kissing.” That much was nothing new. Being invisible apparently gave the poor girl a front-row seat to everyone else’s private affairs. Not that she seemed to mind, of course, considering she was the primary source of gossip for the teacher’s office. Maybe he could use this to her benefit, send her on little gossip missions to get her stealth. Or maybe that was an abuse of power.

“You’re supposed to ask which ones, Shou.”

“As long as it doesn’t affect their schoolwork or their training, I literally cannot bring myself to care about who is kissing who.”

Hizashi frowned. “You mean who is kissing whom.”

“Shut up.”

Hizashi laughed as he made his way into their shared bathroom, dropping articles of clothing on his way to a much-needed shower. “Guess I’ll never tell you, then,” he teased.

Shouta groaned, running his hands through his hair as he followed his annoying, loud, irritatingly blond husband into the bathroom.

“For their own sakes,” he muttered, “this better be good.”

“So, what do you think?”

Hizashi’s eyes sparkled, like twin emeralds. Or grass that a dog had just peed on. Shouta kept that comment to himself.

“I’m… I’m surprised, but I’m not, you know? I mean, it was bound to happen eventually. Just thought they’d be, you know, not my problem when it did.”

“Shou, you have twenty hormonal, angsty teens all shoved into a dorm together. Forty, if you count Vlad’s side of the building. I’m honestly surprised it took this long for anything to happen.”

“I’m gonna have to talk to them.”

“Well, yeah. They’ll need the ‘don’t let this get in the way of your training’ lecture.”

“No, I mean- the other talk, Hizashi. We’re going to have to have that talk.”

Hizashi’s face broke out in a grin, and then he began to cackle.

“It’s not funny.”

“No, it’s hilarious! And you can’t pass this one to Nemuri. You can’t. This one’s all on you.”

“You’re enjoying this too much, Hizashi.”

“Please, please let me sit in. Please.”

Shouta sighed, a long, long, slightly over-dramatic one. He succeeded in getting every head turned in his direction.

He slid his goggles up and over his eyes. Better to not make any eye contact.

“Today’s lesson is going to suck, for all of us. Well, everyone except Mic.”

The stupid blonde was already trying not to laugh. Shouta regretted letting him tag along, “moral support” be damned. The only support Hizashi was giving was to his embarrassment.

“It’s come to my attention that there are some of you who… have engaged in romantic relations with a classmate.”

A snort from the back of the room. Shouta debated erasing his quirk, just as a warning. At least he wasn’t the only one embarrassed; Midoriya’s face was as red as a strawberry, and he was staring at his desk as if he hoped it could swallow him. If Hizashi hadn’t told him otherwise, he’d have assumed he was one of the aforementioned.

“The dorms have a very strict no-fraternization rule, as you are no doubt aware.”  Shouta never thought he’d be thanking the heavens for the rule orientation that seemed glued to the Iida genetic line. “This rule, however, mostly applies to… closed-door activities.”

More red faces. At least it wasn’t just Midoriya now.

“You’re aware that some hero programs forbid students from romantic attachments, like Shiketsu. UA does not, because we understand that even if we did forbid it, you’d just find a way around it. But even though it’s allowed, we still have… protocols for you to follow.”

Iida sat up a little straighter. Well, at least someone would get their hopes dashed today.

“So, there are these things called condoms-“

Hizashi roared with laughter, and Shouta sighed. This was going to be a very long fifteen minutes.

Chapter Text

“Sir, as class representative, I must report an incident between two of my classmates that has resulted in damage to UA property.”

Shouta sighed and pulled the required form from his desk drawer. “What did Bakugou and Midoriya break this time? Please don’t tell me it was Midoriya, it’s been three months since he’s broken a bone.”

Iida looked at him, and Shouta could see the apprehension in his face.

“You know your name doesn’t go on the file, Iida. What happened?”

The boy sat down, and folded his hands neatly in his lap, then rested them on his knees, then folded them again.

“A few nights ago, Mina- Ashido accidentally disclosed that she… she used her Quirk to melt a small hole in the floor between her and Hagakure’s rooms, for the purpose of, and I quote, ‘sharing gossip the proper way’ after curfew.”

Shouta raised an eyebrow. “The proper way?”

“Apparently, sir, gossip is best distributed by word-of-mouth, rather than through text. I assume it is because it doesn’t leave a paper trail, so to speak, though my knowledge of proper gossiping protocol is limited to what Min-Ashido tells me.”

Shouta sighed and pressed between his eyes.

“Iida, it’s fine. Honestly, I’m not surprised this hasn’t happened sooner,” he put the form back into the drawer. “As long as they repair the hole before you move into the next set of dorms, I really don’t care. They aren’t dying, and they aren’t hurting anyone.”

Iida still looked conflicted.

“Look, kid. You did the right thing in telling me, but no one is going to get in trouble, alright? This isn’t going to hurt your relationship with her, is it?”

The look on his face told Shouta everything he needed to know.

He’d been suspicious for a while, but that look all but confirmed it. Iida was definitely the type to take things slow, for sure, but the boy obviously had feelings for the one person who was the most opposite of him. Well, he couldn’t say much, not without being a major hypocrite.

“Iida, if you like this girl, ask her out. The worst thing she can do is say no, right?” He offered.

Iida looked down at his hands. “It would not be… appropriate of me to do so. I’m class representative, I should not seek out a relationship with one of my classmates. Even considering doing so has created a bias in me.”

“Kid, you’re… well, a kid. You’re at that age where you have crushes and things, it’s alright,” Shouta paused. “You know, Tensei dated in high school, too. You’re allowed to pursue romantic attachments, Tenya. Just because you’re class rep doesn’t mean you aren’t still a teenager.”

The boy- gosh, he really was still a boy, wasn’t he?- looked a bit better.

“Thank you, sir, I’ll be sure to keep that in mind.”

Shouta gave him a rare, genuine smile.

“Now, get out of my office.”

Chapter Text

It wasn’t like Shouta needed to sneak into the dorms when he returned from patrol. No one was supposed to be out of a bedroom after eleven, unless they were making a trip to the fridge. Shouta wasn’t a monster- sometimes, a person needed a drink of something that didn’t fit in the provided mini-fridge. And, after all they’ve been through, he wasn’t going to deny his students the comfort of sleeping beside another human. If he did, he was a hypocrite, as Mic’s room in the teacher’s dorms housed only the most outlandish members of Hizashi’s closet. As long as they didn’t, as Iida so eloquently put it, disrespect the school and themselves by acting in a, ahem, whorish manner, Shouta was fine with them snuggling.

He didn’t need to sneak, but Shouta took his boots off before he even made his way up the stairs. Jirou and Shouji likely knew he’d arrived before he’s opened the door, but he didn’t want to wake them. That, as Hizashi would say, would be very rude.

Shouta made it halfway across what the kids had dubbed the “living room” when he noticed something new. Tucked into the corner, out of the way but still in view, was a massive corkboard, like one from a detective movie. Shouta was surprised he hadn’t noticed it earlier; it took up most of the space between the two walls, and Shouta could clearly read the label at the top of the board.

Todoroki Shouto’s Conspiracy Theories  Facts

The original handwriting was Yaoyorozu’s neat, perfect script, though the edits, and most of what was on the board, was in Todoroki’s fast, angry scribble. Lines of yarn, as many colors as Shouta could think of, connected each piece card or photo in a small web, Shouta assumed by theory.

Shouta couldn’t help it, Hizashi’s waiting arms be damned. He made his way over to the board, studying it carefully.

Apparently, the dark green yarn connected Todoroki’s apparently very well-researched “All Might is Midoriya’s Dad” theory. Shouta had to admit, the boy’d done his homework. Somehow, he’d managed to find out that All Might had been hospitalized for injuries at the hospital where Midoriya’s mother once worked as a nurse, right around ten months before Midoriya was born. The next card posited that Mrs. Midoriya, feeling alone and abandoned by her husband, fell for the “charms of the Symbol of Peace” and, well. Shouta wasn’t going to read the rest of the card.

The other theories continued on the same path, down in little webs until Shouta reached the black yarn. The line hung in loose loops over a single peg, incomplete either because this was his newest theory, or because he hadn’t had time to finish it.

The label made his heart churn.

Todoroki Touya’s Death

Shouta had heard rumors of the eldest Todoroki child, a boy about ten or so years older than Shouto. The poor kid had died in a freak Quirk accident in Sekoto, something about his fire Quirk getting out of control and his father arriving too late to save him. According to Shouto himself, the two weren’t exactly close, with Touya blaming his little brother for his father’s sudden lack of interest in him.

The fact that Shouto was including it on his board concerned Shouta. The case seemed so cut and dry, an incredibly tragic accident. If Shouto had theories about it, it likely meant he hadn’t accepted his brother’s death. He would have been young when it happened, and given Endeavor’s tendency to shove mental health to the side, he probably had never explained to him what had happened, or helped him process his grief. Shouto likely hadn’t attended the funeral, even if he had understood that his brother was gone.

Shouta sighed and gently fixed the end of the yarn where a loop had fallen from the peg. He added a note to his mental list of Reasons to Hate Endeavor, and quietly made his way up the stairs, where his warm, snoring husband waited for him.

As he tried to fall asleep that night, Shouta couldn’t get the thought of poor Todoroki, on top of his other issues, never being able to properly say goodbye to his brother.

He’d tell Hound Dog about it in the morning. Maybe they could talk about it in their next session.

For now, Shouta would just have to trust that Shouto knew what he was doing. And, of course, keep an eye on him. 

Now, how was he going to explain that board to Nezu…

Chapter Text

Todoroki Shouto was not finished with causing Shouta to be concerned about him.

As the son of the number two, sorry, number one hero, Todoroki was no stranger to money. The kid regularly paid for his friends’ meals, often the entire class, with seemingly no concept of how to budget his money. As if the black card with his father’s name on it had a credit limit.

It started out as just meals. Friday nights were takeout nights, after all, and Todoroki never shied from whipping out that card when it was time to pay. In fact, he insisted on it. He had won a battle of wills with Yaoyorozu weeks ago thanks to that stubbornness that attached itself to his genetics, and he was not backing down.

Then came the Amazon packages. It wasn’t strange for his kids to receive mail- sometimes their parents sent them things they needed, or they ordered for themselves. If the package passed UA’s extensive customs inspection, the boxes were dropped off in each common room, sometimes sorted by student, sometimes set up as a kind of free-for-all.

Shouta was very, very thankful for Iida when that happened.

Todoroki’s packages were a bit more frequent than the rest of his classmates’, even Yaoyorozu and her inability to just make the things she wanted.

On this particular delivery day, Shouta entered the dorms after training to find a haphazard stack of packages on the 1-A porch, too many to fit in the designated area inside. The ones Shouta could see were all labeled “Todoroki Shouto,” and Shouta couldn’t help but be curious.

What could this child have possibly ordered that came in so many boxes, all in different shapes and sizes? And better yet, where was he going to put all of this? There was no way whatever this was would fit in his dorm room, remodeled or not.

His answer came from an excited shout from down the path.

“Todoroki! When you said you went all out, you really went all- oh crap, Mr. Aizawa.”

Oh, Kaminari. The only one who still, rightfully, feared him.

Shouta sighed.

“First, you’re all going to help move this monstrosity inside. Then, someone has some explaining to do.”

“Sir, please don’t hold my classmates responsible. This was my doing,” Todoroki said, ever the monotone.

Clearly, since his name was on every single box.

“Go on, Todoroki.”

“I went out with my brother Natsuo on our Family Day last month. My sister was supposed to come with us, but she had some last minute school thing. Natsuo told me… that since we have unlimited access to Endeavor’s money, the very least we’ve earned after everything he’s done is to spend that money, as much as possible.”

Ah. The old ‘make his pockets hurt’ tactic. Shouta was familiar with this.

“I decided to use that bastard’s money to do something nice for my classmates. I asked them all for something they’ve always wanted but never got to have, and I decided to get that for them.”

Okay, Shouta couldn’t lie. That was pretty sweet of him.

“I made the order a few weeks ago. Not all of the delivery dates matched up, so I wasn’t expecting everything to arrive at once. My apologies, sir.”

Spending hundreds, if not thousands in his father’s money was not an issue, apparently. Inconveniencing mail carriers and delivery drivers? That’s what Todoroki found unacceptable. Shouta, though officially he couldn’t, agreed with him. Even though Todoroki was an authorized user, he highly doubted Endeavor wouldn’t notice this on his card statement.

“Did you have permission to spend this much money?”

Todoroki smiled, a genuine one somehow rarer than Shouta’s.

“He said, ‘do what you want.’ So, I did.”

If Shouta heard Endeavor’s “SHOUTO!” exactly twenty minutes later? Well, he was very good at ignoring the number two hero.