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Aizawa looked up from the papers he was grading, distracted from marking Kaminari’s latest essay on heroic ethics by the soft rustling of fabric. Looking up, he saw sparks of green electricity flickering up from the couch where his number one problem child slept fitfully.
The mystery that was Midoriya Izuku had been a puzzle that Aizawa had been trying to piece together from the first time he’d met the bone breaking hero hopeful. The kid had exceeded his expectations by rising to his quirk test challenge and showing that he did have potential.
The kid didn’t act like a typical powerful quirked kid. He was all nerves and anxiety. A stark contrast from the usual loud confident kids with powerful quirks he’d delt with in the past.
At first, he’d passed if off as high school jitters. And part of it was.
After a while, Midoriya had seemed to come out of his shell a bit, quickly making friends with his classmates. Yet, still lacking the confidence and pride of a typical powerful quirked teen. He’d fluster and brush off any complement his friends paid him.
Then there was Bakugo’s strange aggression towards him.
Yet, now that he had all the pieces, everything fit together and explained itself perfectly.
Another spark of green lightning rippled across Midoriya’s sleeping figure as his hands gripped the blanket draped over him as his brow furrowed. A small whimper came from the kid.
Setting his papers aside, Aizawa pulled himself up from his seat, ignoring his cracking knees as he crouched next to the couch.
“Hey, hey kid?” Aizawa prodded the kid’s shoulder.
The kid’s eyes shot open and Aizawa activated his quirk on instinct as a powered-up fist shot towards him. He blocked the punch with his hand gripping hold of it.
Midoriya’s face morphed from a terrified one into a confused and fearful one as he saw who he’d almost punched. “A-Aizawa-Sensei!” He yelped in shock, launching up into a sitting position and letting the blanket fall onto his lap. “I’m s-so sorry, Sensei!” He quickly apologized, breaths coming in short gasps.
“Hey, deep breaths kid. You’re all right.” Aizawa deactivated his quirk pressing the kid’s hand against his own chest while taking deep exaggerated breaths. Midoriya calmed down pretty quick, his breathing slowing back to its normal pace. “That’s it…”
“I-I didn’t hurt you… Right?” Midoriya asked anxiously. That’d be the icing on the cake, hitting his teacher.
Aizawa shook his head. “No, not at all kid… What was that? Nightmare?”
The teen nodded, not making eye contact instead looking down at his hands in his lap.
“…Yeah… Wait, how long was I asleep?” He glanced towards the teacher’s lounge window. Outside it, the sun was setting in a deep orange and red sunset. The kid startled at the realization that he’d slept for most of the afternoon. “Sorry Sensei. I’m sure you had other things you needed to do.” He apologized quietly.
Aizawa reached out poking the kid in the forehead startling him out of his thoughts. “None of that Problem Child.”
“But I’m fine, you should’ve woken me up-” Midoriya protested.
Aizawa shook his head. “From what I can tell, you haven’t been sleeping well, have you?”
With the events of the kids’ first year, Aizawa wasn’t surprised he had been having trouble sleeping. He’d found quite a few of his students had regular nightmares about either the USJ Incident or the Summer Camp Attack. His students had been involved in both incidents with Midoriya being in the middle of both.
Midoriya looked away guiltily. “No… not really…”
“Right. Thanks for telling me.”
“But still- you’ve been stuck waiting for me to wake up, haven’t you? You could’ve woken me up.”
“Kid. I had a whole bunch of papers to grade. I could’ve left anytime I wanted. I want to help." Aizawa reminded him.
“Right sorry.” Midoriya ducked his head bashfully.
“Nothing to be sorry for.” Aizawa corrected him.
“Ah sorry-”
“…Stop saying you’re sorry, there’s nothing to be sorry for.”
“Right sor-”
“Don’t finish that sentence.” Aizawa held up his hand to silence him causing Midoriya to giggle quietly.
Aizawa pushed himself to his feet stepping around the table to retake his seat on the armchair where he had been marking. “I talked to All Might.”
He had talked to All Might indeed, having dragged the man off in his capture weapon to do so.
“You did?!” Midoriya exclaimed in shock. “Then- he knows that you know now?”
“Yes.”
A conflicting expression passed over Midoriya’s face. “…He isn’t mad at me… is he?” He asked in a small voice.
“No, he isn’t mad at you kid.”
Midoriya seemed to slump in relief. “That’s- That’s good… Where is he?”
That was not something Aizawa currently knew. He’d kicked the man out of the teachers’ lounge about an half an hour prior along with Hizashi and Nemuri. He hadn’t wanted them to accidentally wake the Problem Child, so he pulled out the intimidation tactics Nedzu had taught him to scare them off.
They had worked quite well, as he hadn’t seen hide nor hair of either his friends or the retired number one hero. They had mentioned something about dinner and picking up pizza for their students as a treat, so he had suspected that’s where they disappeared too. He just hoped Hizashi had gotten his message and was also picking up something for Aizawa’s Hell Spawn as well as his own 1-C students.
“He’s out picking up food for your classmates.” Aizawa responded. At the mention of food, he heard the faint rumbling of the kid’s stomach. “After we talk, are you up to heading over to the dorms for food?”
Midoriya nodded. “Yes, I should be Sensei.”
“Alright then.” Aizawa agreed. “To start, I owe you an apology kid.”
Midoriya’s face morphed into one of confusion. “Wait what- but you didn’t do anything wrong Sensei!”
This kid… Aizawa stood and bowed towards his student earning an even more shocked expression. “Midoriya, as your teacher, I should’ve done better.”
“But Aizawa-Sensei, you didn’t know… I never told you anything…
“There were signs, I just misinterpreted them.” Aizawa replied sitting back down in his chair.
“Huh?” Midoriya tilted his head in confusion.
“You and Bakugo were never childhood friends, were you?”
Midoriya’s eyes shot wide, and he tensed. “Wh- What does Ka-Kachan have to do with this-” He stammered out suspiciously.
“He wasn’t your rival, He was your bully. Wasn’t he.” Aizawa pressed.
“That was a long time ago!” Midoriya protested, leaping to his feet.
“Proven by him dragging you off to Site Beta after curfew to fight.” Aizawa deadpanned.
Midoriya shook his head. “I mean… We kinda reached an understanding… He’s a lot better than he used to be. At least, we’re proper rivals now.”
“When did he start bullying you?” Aizawa asked rubbing his dry eyes.
“…After my quirkless diagnosis.” Midoriya looked away staring out the window instead, fists clenching at his sides. “It was mostly just name calling though…”
“So, he did use his quirk though?”
“Not until our final year of elementary school. It was mostly to scare me…” Midoriya replied. “I got burned a couple of times in our final year of middle school, but it was mostly just name calling, Sensei.”
“Didn’t your teachers ever stop it?”
“They did a little in elementary… They’d stop him If he tried to use his quirk but didn’t really stop the verbal stuff. No one cared in middle school though… A- A few encouraged it…”
It looked like Nezu was going to have a school to burn after all. That is, if there was anything left after Aizawa was finished with it. It was just his imagination, but part of Aizawa could already hear the rat? Mouse? Bear? (He still didn’t know…) Anyway, he could imagine the Principal’s cackles and they already unnerved him.
“You can’t expel him though!” Midoriya cut though his thoughts. “It’s not his fault…”
“You’re going to need to explain that one kid.”
“…Everyone always told Kacchan that he was going to be the best… No one ever told him that what he was doing is wrong… They’d encourage him. He wasn’t told any different until he came to UA…”
“I’ll have to have a talk with Bakugo before anything’s decided, kid.” Aizawa replied standing up from his seat to stand in front of Midoriya.
Midoriya… wasn’t wrong… Unfortunately. Being raised in an environment where you’re constantly told that your better than everyone else definitely hadn’t done Bakugo any favors, sure, some pride was a good thing, but the adults in his life had encouraged his bad behavior leading him to believe it was perfectly acceptable to put down his classmates.
The Aldera School system had failed both of his Problem Children.
Reaching out, Aizawa placed a hand atop Midoriya’s head. “That’s enough for now. Ready to head back to the dorms?”
Midoriya looked up at him through his bangs. “Yeah… I think so.”
“Good.” Aizawa let his hand drop to his side before he put them both in his pockets and huffed. “There’s only so many times I can chase your classmates away before I give them all Suicide Sprints in class tomorrow.”