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“Morning everyone! Seats, please.”
A flurry of scuffing shoes and chair legs followed the arrival of the first-year student’s homeroom teacher. Izuku Midoriya, who was professional and tidy in a suit and smiling warmly around the room of eager prospective heroes, strolled casually behind his desk.
“I hope everyone had time to look over the readings on the basics of battle training last night. We’ll be at ground beta this afternoon running drills, so I expect everyone to be familiar with the terms from—”
He didn’t even have enough time to rattle off the first order of the day. The sound of stomping outside caught his attention, and he turned just in time to see as the door was thrown open by a gloved hand. That hand was attached to Katsuki Bakugo, fully decked out in his costume and, at least to Izuku’s eye, fully prepped for a day out on patrol.
“Dynamight!” He said through his teeth, falsely chipper as the Number 7 hero strolled in the door to the 1-B classroom like he owned the place. Not that that had changed since their days as students. Izuku heard swooning and excited chatter from several of his students, though he chose to ignore it as he glared into Katsuki’s red-eyed gaze. “What brings you here this morning?”
A pointed finger directly in Izuku’s face was followed by one brash command: “Fight me!”
Either he’d forgotten the students were there, or he was so adept at tuning them out he hadn’t even registered the whispers going on from the 1-B army of onlookers. At a desperate “Huh??” From Izuku, Katsuki said, “Icyhot told me I was getting sloppy. I’m gonna prove he doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about! So let’s hurry it up! My patrol’s in an hour.”
Izuku floundered, looking at his students and then back at Katsuki.
“Now? Kacchan, I’m in the middle of a class right now! I can’t just—”
“Sure you can!” Katsuki barked back, setting one hand on his hip and waving towards the classroom next door with the other. “Mr. Aizawa slept through half of our homerooms, you can take 20 minutes to let me kick your ass.”
“That’s not true!” Izuku exclaimed, putting his hands down on the podium and leaning into it. “We were always learning, even when—”
“Make it a demonstration then, whatever. We can show these brats how a real pro fights.” Punching into his hand with a grin, Katsuki turned and started out the door. Behind him, Izuku melted into the podium with a groan.
“Gym Gamma. Get a move on.”
Seconds passed as Izuku stared out into the hallway with an expression of deep exasperation. When he looked back at his students he seemed to be regretting…well, something, though they couldn’t possibly know what. Eventually he sighed, pushed himself off the podium, and started towards the door.
“Alright everyone. We’ll be holding a demonstration down in Gym Gamma, so follow me. Please be as orderly as you can.”
The students closest to the door heard a muttered, “This isn’t the lesson I had planned for this morning…” as he crossed the threshold.
And he heard the way his students erupted as soon as he was out of sight.
“Ohmygosh!” A girl with swirly, bubblegum pink hair down her back kicked her feet under her desk. “This is so cool!! We get to see a top 10 hero fight—right in front of us! Pinch me!!”
She pushed her arm in front of a girl at her left, whose dark brown hair was braided and set into neat buns on top of her head. She rolled her eyes, but still did the pinching.
The resounding “Ow!” was interrupted by a student with a mountain of freckles and big, round glasses saying nervously, “Shouldn’t we be worried about Mr. Midoriya? Dynamight’s kinda, uh…scary.”
Kota was already shaking his head as he stood up to follow their homeroom teacher. “No way. He’ll be fine. Come’on.”
The students filed into gym Gamma, then gathered in an excited clump to watch the fight. Dynamight was already in the middle of the room, and Izuku—Mr. Midoriya—no, Deku, was just walking up to join him. Once everyone was situated, Deku pulled off his suit jacket and began folding it to lay it neatly on the ground against one of the walls. He called over his shoulder, “You know the rules, Kacchan. No quirks!”
That sent a ripple of muttering through the 1-B students as Dynamight growled back, “I know that! Not my fault I had to wait for your slow ass.”
Dynamight began unhooking the cylindrical gauntlets over his wrists, setting them down by Deku’s suit jacket. The move was only met by more chatter amongst the students.
When Deku had rolled up his sleeves to his elbows and Dynamight had been thoroughly freed of any gear that could help to enhance his quirk, the two of them walked back to the center of the room to face off.
“Make sure you pay attention, everyone.” Deku yelled over to his students, who stiffened. They honestly thought they’d been forgotten amid the preparation. “It’s not often you get to see a top 10 pro in action.”
“They’re gonna see you in action every damn day, what are you on about?” Dynamight snarked, making Deku roll his eyes.
“Haha. Very funny.”
Dynamight wasn’t laughing. In fact, his jaw tightened at the mere insinuation of Deku’s quirkless, civilian status, but that didn’t stop him from lunging across the gap between them to throw a right hook. A feinted right hook, anyway, which Deku saw coming from a mile away and dodged. He ducked under the follow-up left swing, kicking out Dynamight’s leg from under him. It didn’t set him off balance for more than a second, but it was enough to allow Izuku to get in close and start a flurry of matched blows that, at least from what the students could tell, was going to go on for a while.
“What are they?” The girl with the bubblegum hair whispered at one point to the girl with the brown buns, her hand obscuring her mouth and her eyes serious.
The other girl stared at her uncomprehendingly. After a moment of waffling, she said, “Uhhh…Pro Heroes?”
“I know that!” Bubblegum girl used her free hand to swat her arm. “I mean like—“
She raised her eyebrows and gestured vaguely between them. The other shrugged her shoulders. Sighing in defeat, bubblegum girl went back to watching with a vested interest as their teacher planted a solid kick right in Dynamight’s stomach, forcing him to pause and stumble back.
From several bodies away, Kota had to choke back a snort.
“How’s he doing?”
Kota actually choked then, only out of fear. Aizawa was suddenly standing over his shoulder. After successfully freeing his airway, Kota looked skeptically back at the 1-A teacher and asked, “Aren’t you supposed to be teaching your own homeroom?”
“I heard the commotion and set them up with a pop quiz.”
A boy at Kota’s left, one who had a long horn protruding from his forehead, winced in sympathy. Kota, having seen many times over the harsh treatment Aizawa's students got, crossed his arms over his chest and instead tried not to look too smug as he said, “He’s kicking his butt.”
And Deku was. Most of his students had gone from wide-eyed eagerness to open-mouthed shock at the sight of their quirkless, mild-mannered teacher taking down Dynamight. Sensing the disbelief, and the teachable moment, Aizawa addressed Deku’s students.
“In spite of the circumstances, Deku is a Hero, and he doesn't slack off in his training. Dynamight might be in the top 10, but being a limelight hero comes with its own drawbacks. Namely? It’s easy to fall into bad habits and rely too heavily on your quirk. That’s what you’re seeing here.”
Deku’s students were hanging onto his every word, even though their eyes never stopped following the beats of the quickly escalating fight.
“You all know full well that Dynamight’s quirk could be considered one of the best in the country. But in hand-to-hand combat, no quirks?”
A grunt and a loud crash punctuated Aizawa’s point. Dynamight had been sent flying into one of the gym walls, leaving a sizeable dent in the concrete that he slid down until he hit the floor, chest heaving.
“Deku comes out on top.”
Bringing his leg down, breathing heavily, Izuku turned to see his students begin to jump and cheer in delight. If they hadn’t believed in him before, not quite confident that their teacher could pull out a win, they’d sure changed their tune quick. Kota gave him a thumbs up and a wink, and Izuku couldn’t help but rub at the back of his head sheepishly. It had been a while since he and Kacchan had gone all out. It felt pretty good.
“Good match. Midoriya, I’m taking your students back to your classroom while you get cleaned up.” Aizawa waved the students towards the exit, and Izuku gave a quick bow of thanks. “Let’s go.”
The kids all made disappointed noises, sounds that were met with a flicker of one red eye and dark hair that floated briefly above Aizawa’s head. Still, it was enough to silence the lot of them as they trailed along behind the other teacher. Kota lingered in the doorway, looking a little nervously over his shoulder but ultimately choosing to stay and watch as Izuku walked over to where Katsuki was still sitting against the wall. He spit out a mouthful of blood, and Izuku winced.
“I didn’t get you too bad, did I?”
“Bit the inside of my mouth. M’fine.”
Izuku stuck out his hand, and Katsuki took it without hesitation, allowing himself to be hefted up from the cement-strewn floor.
“Sorry Kacchan, I think Todoroki might be right.” Izuku was smiling as he let go and went to pick up his jacket. He swiped a few bits of cement and dust off of it, then carefully unrolled his sleeves and pulled it back on. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell him.”
Katsuki scoffed and put his gauntlets back over his wrists.
“Whatever. Now I know what I have to train to be able to beat you, that’s all. You can tell him whatever the hell you want.”
Izuku closed his eyes and made a sound close to a laugh. Close enough, anyway, because Katsuki’s head turned quickly to glare at the perceived offense.
“Don’t get too comfortable, you hear? Next time you won’t get off so easy!”
Katsuki stomped his way towards the exit, the sound echoing off of the walls of the gym. It made Izuku really laugh, though he still managed to call out, “No training tonight, then?”
“Not a chance!” Katsuki spat back, continuing towards the door without looking back. “Ask me tomorrow and I’ll think about it.”
Izuku’s laugh followed him out the door. When he slammed it behind him and started towards the gates that led out of the school, he paused. A suspicious Kota was standing off to the side of the building. The boy looked him up and down as he stomped to a halt, and was immediately met with a sneer.
“What do you want, nutcracker?”
“I told you to stop calling me that.” Kota snapped petulantly. "I was five."
After a moment of silence, his eyes quickly flicking to the door and back, Kota sighed and matched Katsuki’s already annoyed look. He seemed to weigh out his words before eventually blurting out, “Nothing. Just to say that I think you’re an idiot.”
Immediately incensed, Katsuki bore down on the unaffected teen with rage in his eyes and explosions popping in his gloved palms.
“And I know I’m your worst fucking nightmare, you little shit. Beat it.”
Kota, to his credit, seemed relatively unphased by the threat. He did do as he was told, scampering off towards the main campus building—though, as Katsuki quickly learned, it wasn’t out of fear of him. It was out of a fear of his homeroom teacher, who was standing in the doorway with an unimpressed look.
“Kacchan, why are you threatening my students?”
“He barely counts.” Katsuki grumbled. He must have expected the stern glare he was met with, because he rolled his eyes. “Tell him to stop being a goddamn brat, then. Or are you tryin’ to say you can’t control your own damn kids?”
“Kota’s a good student.” Izuku said, defensive on behalf of the little shit who’d been just about to get hit. “But I’ll talk to him if you think I should.”
Scoffing, Katsuki waved a hand dismissively and turned to go. “Whatever. I don’t actually care. I’m gonna be late.”
Izuku had already assumed it wasn't anything worth actually talking to Kota over. Plus, Kacchan already hated being late; let alone being late after having his ass handed to him. The thought made Izuku cough to hide another laugh as he gave Katsuki's back a thumbs up.
“Right. Hope you won’t be too sore for your patrol! …Sorry!”
He didn’t miss the stink-eye Katsuki shot over his shoulder.
“Who do you think you’re talking to? I’m fine.”
Izuku waved, his smile falling slowly as he watched Katsuki’s back get smaller. It had been too long since he’d seen his friends. He missed them. They were just so busy, and he was so—
“Training, tomorrow. We’re doing it.” Katsuki’s voice broke him from his thoughts. Glancing up from the spot he’d been fixated on without realizing, Izuku caught his eye. His brow was furrowed, his body half-turned, and his finger was pointed right at him. “And I’m gonna hold you to it. Got that, Izuku?”
His smile returned, bigger and brighter than before.
“Yeah!” He clapped his scarred hands in front of him, eyes alight. “You can show me some of your new moves, too! We should probably re-cover some basics, though, because seriously Kacchan, you're really overcompensating on your—”
Considering Katsuki had marched a good distance away before turning, he saw more than heard the storm of muttering that followed. He groaned and instinctually shouted, “Hey! Knock it off!”
Izuku immediately shut his mouth and dropped his hands to his sides.
“Tell me whatever it is tomorrow or else I’m gonna have to listen to half-and-half lecture me all goddamn day about being on time.” He turned around for the umpteenth time and started off at a jog towards the gate. “I’d rather get my ass kicked by you again than have to listen to that bullshit. I’m out of here.”
Waving goodbye again, more enthusiastically, Izuku made his way back to his classroom with a bit of pep in his step. There were only a few minutes left until their first class of the day, but he figured he could at least get through a few notes before the bell. The instant he opened the door to the 1-B classroom, though, he was all but blown back by a wall of sound. It was his students, bombarding him all at once with a million questions and eager praise.
As he stepped behind his desk, even though he had felt fully satisfied with his decision to become a teacher before that moment, he couldn’t stop the feeling of pride swelling in his heart. Being a Hero was about so much more than fighting; about being the best. It was about helping people in need. Doing everything in one’s power to empower others, the community, and future generations. It was about the greater good. They were the real reasons becoming a Hero had always been Izuku’s dream.
…but getting to kick Kacchan’s ass?
It was a nice bonus.