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There were two problems with this year's students, and it was frustrating Shouta, although he couldn't let it show.
The first was the predictable, logical problem he ran into every time he had a class of first years. They thought the idea of cutting loose with their quirks was fun. It was his job to disabuse them of that notion as swiftly as possible, which led to his standard threat of expelling the lowest performing student. As expected, that sucked all levity from the rowdy bunch, and they got serious quickly. As hero students should.
The second problem was more puzzling. One of his new students wasn't using his quirk. Not at all. That wouldn't necessarily be a problem if it weren't for the fact that they were testing quirks, and he was looking to see how creative they could be with them. Several of his students had already shown impressive applications, such as the obnoxious blond with bombs for hands who literally used them to fly for both the dash and the long jump.
Hell, even the invisible girl had managed to use her quirk to lie about the number of side steps she'd taken.
If the kid had a nonphysical quirk, that would be fine, but he hadn't shown any evidence of anything at all. And Shouta needed to see something to justify keeping the kid in the course, because he'd just been… entirely average. There was nothing wrong with being average, of course, but average wouldn't cut it as a hero.
Not for the first time, he wondered if he should change his policy of not reading student files until after he finished all assessments. Maybe then he'd have a better idea of what Midoriya could do, but without having done that…
The kid had gotten in almost entirely on rescue points, helping other examinees out of dangerous situations, including using scraps of metal to pry a giant rock off of Uraraka to get her away from the Zero Pointer. It had been inspiring to watch, but now? In practice? The kid wasn't showing him anything.
With a small huff, he manipulated the final scores before he posted them. Without having done so, Mineta would have been last. Now, it was Midoriya. Maybe this would work, and if not…
If not, he'd have to make good on his threat.
"In last place, Midoriya." He kept all emotion out of his voice as he said it, and he waited for the student's response.
The kid's eyes went wide and immediately began to water. His lips began to move, soundlessly. Shouta thought he heard the words, "But I—"
He perked up. "Yes?" Was this what he needed? Would Midoriya show him the fight he needed to?
No. Midoriya fell completely silent and the tears spilled down his cheeks. He trembled where he stood, his hands clenched into fists.
Even though Shouta waited, he said nothing more.
Shouta sighed. "Expelled, Midoriya," he said, covering his regret. "Go see the headmaster." The kid would never have made it as a hero if he couldn't even stand up for himself.
The explosive blond started to laugh, saying something about a deku, and Shouta rather wished he hadn't done so well on the test. His quirk might be strong, but his personality was clearly trash.
Midoriya fled, and Yaoyorozu seemed particularly startled by the fact that he hadn't been joking. There was always at least one who thought he was.
He waited a reasonable amount of time for Midoriya to get clear of the changing rooms, then he dismissed the students for the day. It hadn't gone the way he'd wanted; he'd had such hopes for the kid with mostly rescue points, but maybe he'd get what he was missing after a few weeks in Hizashi's class. If it was a self esteem issue, Hizashi would handle that better than him anyway.
It wasn't even twenty minutes after he'd dismissed the class and gone to the teacher's lounge to start working on his plans for the following day when an automated alert went out. Someone was on the roof of the northern tower of the school, where no one was supposed to be.
Most staff were still in the orientation assembly, which left Shouta as the only one available to go and deal with whatever the problem was. It had better not be one of his new students exploring and getting into trouble on the first day, or they'd find themselves expelled with Midoriya.
He took off at an easy jog and took the stairs two at a time until he reached the roof. It wasn't an easy run, even for him, but he still managed it without being too out of breath.
What he found when he stepped out onto the roof took his breath away all the same.
"Midoriya," he said, the name barely more than a whisper. "Can you come away from the edge?"
The kid was just sitting there, his feet dangling over the side of the building. His shoulders were still shaking with silent tears. His bag, Shouta noted, was near the door. An envelope was sticking part of the way out of it. He didn't need to open it to know what was inside.
"There's no point." Midoriya's voice was clogged with tears. "You don't have to be up here, Aizawa-sensei." And then he laughed. It was bitter. "Aizawa-san, I guess. I made sure to mention that this wasn't your fault."
Shouta approached on silent feet, never more grateful for his stealth training than in that moment. "I'm kind of feeling like it's my fault," he admitted. It was the truth. Even if he wasn't entirely at fault, his expulsion had clearly been a breaking point of some kind.
Midoriya just shrugged. He didn't move, not away from the edge, but also not making a move to push away from the roof, either. Shouta was close enough now that he'd have one chance to catch him with his capture weapon if he jumped. One chance was normally all he needed, but in this instance, he hated those odds.
He'd never seen a child look smaller than Midoriya did, framed by all that blue sky.
"Can we talk about how we got here?" he tried. He inched ever closer. He wanted to grab for the child, but he wasn't quite close enough yet for that. And startling a kid on a ledge was never wise.
Midoriya laughed again, something broken in it. "Really?" He shifted just enough to look at Shouta, still not moving away from the edge. His little face was streaked with tears and his eyes were dull. Dead. "You really want to ask me that?"
"Kid, I know that it might have seemed cruel, removing you—"
Midoriya was on his feet and stalking towards Shouta so fast that he almost missed the movement, and Shouta was so relieved to see him away from the edge with a spark of life in him that he almost didn't realize how angry the boy was. "Cruel?" Midoriya echoed. "Do you know how many high schools in the prefecture take students like me? One. UA. And I'm the first to get in. They don't give your tuition back when you get expelled, Aizawa-san. Mom could barely afford to send me here in the first place, so what's she gonna do now?"
Shouta was stuck on what Izuku said. Students like him. First to get in. What the hell did he mean?
Midoriya advanced, tears streaming down his cheeks, his tiny body trembling with rage, grief, or both. Shouta couldn't tell. "There's only two other schools in the country that take kids like me, and one of them costs more for a term than Mom makes in a year. The other—" He huffed out a broken laugh and scrubbed at the tears still streaming down his cheeks. "The other would treat me like I'm a disabled freak. One who'll never have a job, never help anyone, never make a difference. Never do anything! Even if we could afford it, even if— What's the point? There's no reason!"
Three schools, one impossibly expensive, one for the disabled? There were pieces there to a puzzle, but Shouta couldn't put them all together. Not when his attention was so focused on the shattered child in front of him, the one that he'd inadvertently broken. What the hell had he done?
"I should have just been realistic, like All Might said that day on the roof. People like me can't be heroes, right?" He smiled at Shouta, but he was still crying, and it was a broken, grief-stricken thing.
Shouta got ready. "I don't think that's true," he tried. "I just—"
"You just care now that it might blow back on you." Midoriya let out another hitching sob. "Don't worry. No one ruins the careers of even wannabe heroes for useless dekus, much less actual good heroes."
"No one is useless," Shouta tried with increasing urgency as the kid took a step away from him toward the edge once again. Midoriya was still close enough; he'd be able to grab him, but god knew that wasn't the point.
"I am." Midoriya laughed again, the sound jagged like shards of glass. "I've never been anything but. I should do what Kacchan said. Take a swan dive off the roof and pray for a quirk in my next life." He turned and sprinted, but Shouta was faster.
He had the kid wrapped up, safe and secure, in his capture weapon even as the pieces to the puzzle slammed into place. Realization made him sick, and he almost dropped the kid.
"You're Quirkless," he breathed, even as he wrapped his arms around the sobbing teen and dropped to his knees.
Why hadn't— Nezu knew he didn't read his files before the tests, so why didn't the stupid rat warn him? Of course a Quirkless kid wouldn't challenge someone in authority! Midoriya had likely spent his entire life being beaten down by a system designed to fuck him over.
What was it he'd thought about Midoriya not showing the personality to be a hero? Not having the grit? Fuck. Just waking up some days was enough, much less applying for UA. Shouta couldn't name another Quirkless kid who'd ever even tried, and the kid was right. He was the first to be accepted.
Shouta eased himself the rest of the way down, still holding tightly to the child in his arms. Midoriya was still crying, but he wasn't struggling, and apparently he was so desperate for comfort that he didn't mind that it was coming from the man who'd expelled him. Kid didn't even know that he'd only been removed to Gen Ed, since he'd clearly never made it to Nezu.
That was fine. Shouta wasn't letting his own expulsion stand. He'd fucked up. Time to be the adult.
"I have a long-standing policy of not being influenced by other people's opinions," he started, keeping his voice carefully even, his arms still tight around Midoriya. Who was going to have so much therapy with Inui after this, the poor kid. "In the past, it's worked well for me. It's kept me from having other people's illogical prejudices clouding my brain."
Midoriya was settling in his arms, his sobs quieting. His fingers were still curled tightly in Shouta's shirt, though, and his breathing still hitched. He wasn't looking up.
"In your case, I've made a terrible mistake, and I'm so sorry." He made his sincerity fill his voice, something uncomfortable and unnatural for him, but something that Midoriya deserved.
"W-what mistake?" Midoriya finally stopped crying, and he looked up at Shouta with a spark of life in his eyes. A glimmer of curiosity.
Shouta smiled. Not his demonic logical ruse smile he hadn't used on the class yet, but the softer one he used for victims and for his husband. "I don't read the files of my students until I already form an opinion. I had no idea you were Quirkless, Midoriya, until the very second you almost jumped."
Midoriya let out a disbelieving little laugh, his eyes going wide. "Seriously?" He scrubbed at his face with his much-abused jacket sleeves. "Then why—" He stopped and bit his lip hard enough that Shouta could see a drop of blood.
"Why?" he prompted.
Midoriya shifted, the fingers of the hand still tangled in his shirt going white-knuckled. "Why did you change my score? I shouldn't have been last." His voice was very small at the end, and his hand was shaking. He could barely meet Shouta's eyes, but he still did.
There was a wary, fragile hope there that Shouta was going to nurture. He was going to fix this. He was going to help Midoriya be an amazing hero, if he could only earn his trust back first.
"I was trying to spark a reaction from you," he admitted.
This time, when Midoriya laughed, there seemed to be some genuine amusement in the sound, even if he did hide his face in Shouta's shirt once more. "You got one," the kid said, his voice muffled by the fabric.
Shouta snorted. "I sure did."
He let himself sit there for several long moments, basking in both the warmth of the sun and the warmth of Midoriya's weight, small and alive, in his arms. If he'd been any slower… if he'd said the wrong thing…
Things could have gone so very, very wrong. But the kid was still here. He could still fix things. He just had work to do, and Shouta was no stranger to hard work.
He carefully levered himself off the ground, not letting go of Midoriya as he did so. The kid's breathing had evened out, and he was pretty sure he'd either fallen asleep or passed out. Fair. Attempting suicide and being stopped by the asshole who caused the initial breakdown had to be exhausting.
It would make it easier to get him to Shuzenji, at least. He grabbed the kid's backpack on the way down the stairs and slung it over one shoulder, the weight negligible, just like Midoriya's. Did the kid get enough to eat? He'd mentioned money troubles for his mom.
Maybe he and Hizashi could find a way to lend a hand there. After all, he was invested now. The kid had fallen asleep on him after crying on him.
If he went by cat rules, he basically had to take care of him, right? The kid falling asleep on him was a sign, he was pretty sure. Hizashi wouldn't argue, anyway. Midoriya was adorable, and the only thing they both loved as much as each other were adorable things.
Besides, he had a lot to make up for. Midoriya wasn't going to know what hit him.