Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Midoriya couldn’t lie, being rejected from UA’s heroic course sucked ass. It sucked that he was so fucking close, but the worst part was the smug looks shot his way for the remainder of his time at Aldera by his classmates who had the same intelligence level as a juice-less orange. 

The only condoling factor was that Nezu had requested a meeting with him during the break and, as Midoriya checked over his shirt again just to make sure it was suitable, he realised quite how thankful he was for it.

 It had been tough, the sting of denial burning eternally inside of him, but this, this was a chance at something, anything.

(Midoriya didn’t know what, though, as the letter had lacked a large amount of detail, such as why he wanted a meeting in the first place.)

After a brief moment of consideration, Midoriya stepped out of his house, braving the outside and beginning his journey.

To say the teenager was anxious would be quite similar to calling a car crash in an action film simply ‘chaotic’; a violent understatement only explainable by being there.

UA’s building itself was just short of terrifying (Though not ‘short’ in any other way); towering over Midoriya and casting a menacing shadow.

Just in front of the gates Midoriya caught sight of a passerby simply passed out from the sheer presence of the building. He couldn’t fault them for it, having almost succumbed to a similar fate.

Staggering against the unbridled power emitting from the building, the teenager (barely) managed to enter, slapping his guest pass on the scanner like it’d insulted his mother and untied his shoelaces.

Finding the principal’s office wasn’t too difficult, but he did think the seven fucking riddles he was required to answer were a bit much. He shakily opened the door, cautiously poking his head around the corner and freezing as he made direct eye contact with Nezu himself.

“Ah, Midoriya! I’ve been expecting you!” He spoke cheerily, skillfully ignoring the boy’s damp and dishevelled appearance.

“Please, take a seat!” 

With the same hesitation one might adopt when approaching an agitated badger with a concerning radioactive glow, Midoriya crept into the room.

(Not, however, without checking for any possible traps. His singed hair hadn’t forgiven him for the rookie ‘pressure plate floor tile’ trap several corridors ago. Midoriya had to remind himself he wasn’t in a saw trap.)

“Apologies for the, ah, difficult entry,” Nezu offered Midoriya a comforting smile, “It manages to eradicate most intruders.”

To preserve the little safety he had, Midoriya nodded frantically.

“Would,” He gulped, “Would it be okay if I were to ask what you wanted to talk about?”

Nezu clapped his paws together, “I saw your performance in the written exam, Midoriya, and I must say, it’s a rather impressive score.”

The teenager responded, rather intelligently, by blinking one eye at a time. A brief flash of silence settled over the two.

“I can tell you have a heroic spirit too, and I’d like to offer you a rather unique opportunity.”

“Right.” Midoriya nodded in understanding.

“Recovery Girl has agreed to offer you a placement for an internship, if you’d like to accept.”

He tugged on the knob of one of the many drawers on his side of the desk. It did not open. He tried again, managing to move the drawer a mere inch with a violent squeak. He glanced up at Midoriya, who’d made the wise decision to take a spontaneous interest in the ceiling as if nothing was happening.

Placing his hind paws on the main body of his desk, Nezu bared his teeth at the furniture and scrabbled until the drawer reluctantly popped open, leaving Nezu to slide to the ground with a sad whimper.

After some more difficulty, he managed to retrieve the items he set out for, placing them on the table.

“Should you choose to accept, I have a tool belt, personalised t-shirt and across-the-shoulder first aid kit for you.” His whiskers twitched as he awaited a response.

Midoriya leaned forwards, a single eyebrow raised, “Personalised t-shirt, you say?”

Nezu copied the motion, although it left his hind legs dangling over the edge of the desk, “In addition, I have a small experiment, if you’d call it, about something I’ve noticed about most quirked people.”

Midoriya let out a relieved sigh, “You noticed it too‽”

“I don’t think I’m able to observe as much as you, considering,” He gestured to his head, “I’m part of the issue here.”

Midoriya hadn’t wanted to bring up how he could simply, just a thought, completely lock up the school when it wasn’t in use instead of, for a completely random example, wasting government money on flamethrowers and pitfalls. (It was only for his own health that he refused to mention it.)

“I’d like you to pretend to be one of my trusty Med-bots.”

“Okay,” Midoriya responded slowly, “Do I wear a costume, or,” He trailed off.

Nezu, with an excited smile on his face, unfolded the t-shirt he’d pulled out from the drawer, unveiling it like a priceless painting.

Midoriya took in a deep breath, staring at the ‘Certified Med-bot’ printed on the shirt in the iconic comic sans font, shuddering slightly on the exhale, “It’s beautiful.”

“Do you accept my offer?” Nezu questioned, tilting his head slightly.

“Fuck yes.” Midoriya breathed, handling the t-shirt like an ancient artefact. Nezu clasped his paws together, ignoring the gentle purr emitting from his throat.

“Wonderful! I think that concludes our meeting, Midoriya, I’m excited to see how long you can keep this up for!”

(Nezu never managed to shut his drawer again, instead opting to saw it off after hitting his head on it one too many times.)

(Midoriya was sent home with video footage of actual Med-bots interacting with students and, fuck he was excited for his assignment.)

(By the time the first day of school arrived, Midoriya was ready. Weeks of planning, research and concerning firefox searches had all led to this moment. He pulled on his shirt, staring at his reflection with pride he’d never even thought possible prior. Midoriya stepped out of his door and into the world outside.)

(He tripped over almost immediately.)

Chapter Text

UA was a lot less scary during school hours, Midoriya decided, keeping a cautious eye out for the Riddlemaster just in case. His trip to Recovery Girl’s office had been uneventful (Midoriya hadn't decided if that was a good thing or not yet), but he really hadn’t expected Nezu’s shirt to be effective enough to influence every single person he came across.

He was innocently making his way back towards the Nurse’s office for his first lesson when he was stopped in his tracks by a concerningly familiar underground hero.

“Ah, Eraserhead,” He started, gracefully ignoring the growing anxiety forming in his chest, his mind attempting to convince himself that (Somehow) Aizawa would be able to see through his highly effective disguise. “How may I assist you?” 

“I need you to accompany my class to Ground Beta? All Might’s planned out a battle trial.” He rolled his eyes.

“In the first week? Is he trying to catch a child endangerment case?” Midoriya responded, almost instinctively.

Aizawa sighed, “I tried to veto him but,” He trailed off with a shrug. Midoriya offered the hero a consoling look before pulling out his map and beginning his long, long journey.

After wandering around campus for the better half of an hour, Midoriya finally found ground Beta, only ending up fifteen minutes late for the lesson. Rather thankfully, All Might was struggling to keep the class under control and next to nothing had occurred during his absence.

“Hey,” Bakugou began, frowning, “Don’t I recognise you?” 

“No.” Midoriya countered, a distinct lack of hesitation present in his voice. A student with a black streak of hair elbowed his classmate jokingly.

“His shirt says ‘Med-bot’, dude, why would you know a robot?”

“For once I think Denki’s right.” Another student piped up, the rest agreeing in a manner not dissimilar to that of a gaggle of geese communicating.

“Well,” All Might attempted to regain control of the class (As if he had control in the first place) with a clap.

Gradually, attention turned towards him, and the hero made the wise decision to pull out his flashcards he’d made in advance. The issue with that, however, is that he hadn’t made them in advance.

“Where’d the words go?” He whispered to himself fearfully, glancing at the students suspiciously as if one of them was guilty instead of himself.

With intelligence matching that of a quirkless five year-old, All Might bravely made the choice to continue without his plan and simply make it up as he went along.

“Right! Uh, this will be a simple exercise of heroes versus villains! To start we’ll draw teams.”

All Might made no move to put this skeleton of a plan into action, standing awkwardly as he waited for the students to figure it out. The students who just so happened to be waiting for the teacher in the situation to make the first move.

(Midoriya was glad he was holding a notebook or he’d have ended up half bald by the time the practical part of the lesson actually began.)

The first team to enter the building as the ‘villains’ were Kaminari and Jirou, the pair barely talking to each other before bringing the fake bomb to the roof, where the hero team could quite easily see it.

They waited awkwardly at two separate staircases until Shouji and Hatsume entered the building together.

“So,” Hatsume began, “The bomb’s on the roof, right.” Shouji turned to look at her, eyes wide.

“It is?” Hatsume nodded, “So we could scale the outer wall to reach it whilst one of us goes inside to distract the villains.”

She looked him over, “Does your quirk help with climbing at all?” 

Shouji thought about it for a moment before deciding on a response.

“Nah, don’t think so.” 

(In the viewing room, Midoriya could be seen sobbing in the corner, his notebook left open mid-sentence.)

“Well then, I suppose you can distract our classmates then!”

And with that, she skipped out of the building and began to calculate the shot of her grappling hook.

(It didn’t go very well, considering the fact she was barely a foot away from the base of the building and hadn’t even considered stepping back for an easier aim.)

Kaminari blinked as one of the hero team approached his set of stairs, wandering up until they bumped into each other.

“Oh! Sorry, Kaminari, would it be okay if I could pass you?” Shouji managed to force out despite his growing anxiety.

“Sure, dude, good luck!” His classmate called after him as he continued his leisurely stroll to the top of the building.

(The match ended in a draw, after Shouji tripped and knocked over the bomb in the same second the match ended.)

Midoriya pulled out another Dinosaur print plaster to stick on Hatsume’s face, wincing slightly at the unrecognisable teenager in front of him.

“I better work on an improved grappling hook.” She grumbled, crossing her arms in frustration.

“Perhaps one that doesn’t fall back on top of you when you don’t latch on to anything?” Midoriya suggested.

Hatsume hummed, “That’s a good idea, Mister Med-bot.”

The second round was over quite quickly, all things considered, with Yaoyorozu leaving a trail of nesting dolls (For a reason stupid enough for Midoriya to force himself into forgetting it) which ended up being the perfect ammunition for Uraraka to pelt her and Satou with until Ojiro managed to bitch-slap the bomb with his tail.

Mina and Mineta ended up creating a new element, deciding that it was a good idea to mix the latter’s hair with the former’s acid, ending the match early to avoid any injury to Iida and Sero. 

(The heroics team was disappointed, having planned out a web of tape that Iida would supposedly manage to get around whilst using his quirk and simultaneously baiting the villain team into. Safe to say Midoriya was quite happy they hadn’t gotten to that part.)

For an unknown reason, Toru and Aoyama had decided to stick together, managing to make it a solid three steps into the building before Bakugou sent them right back out, his teammate Tokoyami leaving with them due to the rather large light-show the explosive teenager was creating.

The last match was arguably the worst, Midoriya thought, Todoroki freezing the entire building from his place directly next to Asui, who was visibly struggling with the low temperatures before Kirishima and Koji had even stepped foot in the building.

It was then that Midoriya called the match, swiping All Might’s microphone to return the students to the viewing area.

“You microwavable twat, do you have any idea how dangerous it was to use your quirk so carelessly‽”

He pointed to Asui, who was still shivering under his coat and Yaoyorozu’s blanket.

“Do you lack the self control to realise that such overkill was completely unnecessary and, in a real-life situation, could have ended so much worse?”

He poked the taller boy’s chest angrily.

“If you don’t fix your control issues, you and I are going to have a serious conversation.”

And with that, Midoriya left, carrying Asui carefully to the Nurse’s office to receive proper care with Hatsume trailing behind.

“Your coding must be highly unique.” Hatsume leaned closer to Midoriya, tapping his head with one of her fingers, “I gotta get me a look at it at some point.” She grinned widely, ignoring the way the plasters pulled on her face. (Midoriya leant back, mildly concerned for his safety.)

Asui was slowly recovering from Todoroki’s quirk under Midoriya’s watch, and Recovery Girl was off helping the support course students with a situation Midoriya suspected had something to do with Hatsume’s brief disappearance from which she’d returned smoking slightly.

(Midoriya didn’t know whether to be thankful that it had nothing to do with the Riddlemaster and his traps or not.)

(After recalling just how stressful his original visit to UA was due to the aforementioned Riddlemaster, he decided that he was quite relieved.)

He shot Asui one more concerned glance before standing up to herd Hatsume out of the room and back to the lesson she was almost certainly missing.

With one final push, he finally managed to remove her iron grip from the side jambs of the doorway.

“And stay out!” He called after her, shaking his fist like an old man attempting to rid children from his front garden.

Once the chaotic being was finally out of his room he allowed himself a deep sigh, inhaling the same air mere moments later as a blond student he didn’t recognise popped into existence less than an inch away.

Quite instinctively, Midoriya screamed, punching the boy in the face in his startled state. As soon as he calmed down, he winced at the small trail of blood that was now leaking from the teenager’s nose.

“Ah, shit, sorry dude.” He offered, grimacing as the floor was stained with red droplets as he carefully led the student to one of the free beds.

“Can I ask how you were injured?” He questioned, pulling out far too many tissues and stuffing them in the stranger’s face. “You know, before I hit you?”

“Concussion. I ran into a wall.” Came the muffled response. 

Well, Midoriya didn’t exactly help that, did he.

“Okay,” He sighed, “Can you look into this light for me?”

“I’m Monoma.” His patient spoke, completely unprompted.

“That’s nice?” Midoriya cringed at his lacklustre reply, clicking his pocket torch off and slipping it safely into his back pocket.

“Right. Good news, it’s not brain damage. Also good news, you get to miss maths.” The student concluded.

Monoma shot him a wide smile, “Just being in your presence has practically healed me.”

Midoriya blinked owlishly, unsure how to formulate a response.

“No, actually, Mister Wall-magnet, eat this,” He handed the boy a small handful of Recovery Girl’s gummy bear stash, a few extra included. “And don’t leave your bed until I say so, alright?”

“Anything you say.” Monoma attempted to shoot Midoriya a wink; a task he did not manage to complete before being lost to the realm of unconsciousness.

(When Monoma informed his classmates of a particularly intriguing bot, absolutely none of them believed him. He eventually accepted the event as a concussion fuelled dream.)

(When Midoriya checked Recovery Girl's supply of animal themed plasters, he wasn't too surprised to find that Hatsume had managed to snag a large quantity of them.)

Chapter Text

It would be a lie to say Midoriya was surprised when Hatsume was dragged into the infirmary by PowerLoader, still smoking from whatever shenanigans she’d been up to.

“-Not even in my course!” Majima exclaimed, “How do you keep getting into the classroom?” 

The teacher looked close to tears, and Midoriya would have had sympathy for him if it weren’t for the fact that the door had sensors that kept students of other courses out that had simply never been activated. 

(Midoriya supposed he should feel slightly guilty for bestowing his friend with a t-shirt decorated with the words ‘Support course student’ that managed to prolong her inventing time.)

(Well, until it was inevitably destroyed in one of her many explosions and promptly discovered.)

Behind the pair followed a short trail of what Midoriya could only assume were the actual support course students, all in varied states of ‘singed’.

Midoriya glanced between the injured students and the free beds; it didn’t take a mathematician to figure out that the numbers weren’t compatible.

“Right. Is everyone here injured?” He started, already spotting a few students who appeared relatively unscathed.

“No.” PowerLoader responded, earning him a vicious glare from Midoriya.

“Could any uninjured pupils please return to class?”, he turned to the teacher, “you should go with them, I can handle the rest.”

(It was a bold faced lie, of course, but nobody needed to know that.)

Roughly half of the class trailed out, and Midoriya turned to the remaining few.

“Right, you.” He grabbed the arm of the nearest student gently, “Where are you hurt?”

“I have a headache.” They boldly proclaimed, and Midoriya responded by forcing a gummy bear into their hand and shoving them out of the door, “You, what’s wrong?”

Trembling, the student raised their hand to display a burn.

“Okay, can you hold your hand under that tap for a few minutes?” He turned his focus to one of the other teenagers, “With the cold water on!” He added as an afterthought.

“I have a paper cut.” Midoriya glanced at the bloody cut on the boy’s arm, raising an eyebrow, “Are you sure about that?”

With some disinfectant and a clean bandage, he sent another student out of the room, leaving only three.

“Hatsume.” He sighed, “You pyromaniacal, short-sighted screwdriver wielding wonder.” He led her to the remaining bed and (after some struggle) pried her hands off of the burned remains of her failed experiment and checked her over for any injuries other than the obvious.

“Looks like it’s mainly your hands, and…” He took a brief moment of silence, staring at what he could only assume used to be her fringe. “You can clean up your face with this,” He offered her an antiseptic wipe, “Whilst I sort this out.”

He headed over to the sink area and dried off the students hands cautiously before applying a thick layer of burn cream. “You’re good to go!” He whispered, turning to the final student.

“Monoma?” His eyes widened, “How did you get caught up in this?” 

“I didn’t,” The teenager admitted, “I just wanted to see you.”

Midoriya attempted a grin, but like many times before it was distorted into a grimace, “Oh, that’s…” He trailed off, looking at the boy’s desperate expression, “Nice?” 

“I know,” He sighed dramatically, pressing the back of his hand to his forehead, “Love between a robot and a human,” Midoriya blinked widely, “It’s forbidden!”

A tear escaped from the corner of Monoma’s eye, “But I cannot deny my feelings.”

“I’m in love with you, Mister Med-bot!” He cried out, grasping Midoriya’s hands with his own.

The apprentice skillfully ignored how red his face had turned the more Monoma spoke, “I-”

“I know you can’t return my feelings, Mister Med-bot,” The student continued, “But I thought you should know.”

He turned away, having successfully rejected himself, “Farewell, my beloved.”

And with that, the boy ran out of the room, leaving Midoriya to process his words.

“What.” Midoriya responded, too late for Monoma to hear, “What?” He repeated, turning around.

He blinked once, twice, a third time for luck, and turned to Hatsume.

“Right, let’s get you sorted.” He brandished his burn cream.

“You’re coming on our trip.” Aizawa stated, offering Midoriya a handful of batteries.

“Okay,” The teenager responded, graciously accepting the offering.

“Make sure to stock up on supplies, you’d be surprised by how many students are injured during rescue training.”

Midoriya nodded, “Should I bring some other Med-bots too?” It was a valid question, although Midoriya was painfully aware that his absolutely amazing disguise was slightly less effective on machinery. (Very less effective, actually.)

“Maybe two more?” The teacher suggested. “And make sure you’re fully charged. The last thing we need is the most useful bot to die.”

“Right.”

At this point, Midoriya had been recruited for so many 1-A lessons that it honestly began to feel like he was part of the class. He wasn’t complaining, of course, but it was a bit like making a cake but being unable to consume it; so close to perfection yet so, so far.

His attention was stolen as Hatsume jumped on him from behind, sending the pair crashing to the floor.

“Ow.” Midoriya deadpanned, slowly managing to stand again.

“You know, you’re probably the least robotic robot I’ve ever met.” Hatsume claimed, staring at Midoriya so viciously it felt as if his soul were being bared.

“Like you said, I have very unique coding.” He shrugged, “One of a kind.”

In an attempt to shake his possible friend off his tail, he began to head to the infirmary, hoping that once, just once, Recovery Girl would be there. (Honestly, at this point he wouldn’t be surprised if she’d forgotten about him completely.)

(To the surprise of absolutely nobody, his plan failed miserably, and Hatsume diligently followed him the whole journey.)

Much to Midoriya’s chagrin, upon arrival he was greeted with the sight of Monoma lying in one of the beds, eyes red.

“Oh, what are you in for?” Hatsume questioned, saving Midoriya from asking the same.

“A broken heart.” Came the sad, wet response.

Midoriya sighed deeply; It was going to be a long day.

Midoriya checked over his backpack again, just to make sure his supplies would be enough in case the entire class managed to get injured. After a moment of consideration, he tied an additional three First-aid kits to his belt and hesitantly approached the Med-bot storage room.

(It wasn’t that the ‘other’ Med-bots bullied him or anything, (It was, actually) it was simply that keeping up a supply of batteries to keep them from revealing his secret human identity was gradually becoming more expensive.)

“Right,” He began, garnering the attention of the robots successfully. “Barry, Carl, you’re coming with me for the 1-A field trip.”

“Oh yeah? Who ran out of charge and made you the leader?” Barry challenged, raising an imaginary eyebrow.

“I’ll give you five triple A’s.” Midoriya countered, whipping out several batteries and shamelessly flaunting them in front of the robot.

“When are we leaving?” Barry switched up, and the teenager grinned.

The pair of robots trailed out, following behind Midoriya reluctantly. Only a few students were there by the time they arrived at the bus, and that gave Midoriya plenty of time to fold up the two Med-bots and shove them in the storage area.

After managing to get Carl into his space saver form (With only a sad ‘Tell my creator I love her!’) he moved on to the slightly more challenging task of transporting the surprisingly heavy cubes to the side of the bus.

Quite thankfully, this wasn’t his first time doing such a thing, and after the first few attempts it began to get slightly easier. (Midoriya wasn’t sure if he was getting stronger or if it was simply the Med-bots warming up to him.)

Once he had managed the herculean task, Midoriya managed to locate a lovely spot at the back of the bus that was relatively out of sight, stiffly sliding into it mere moments before the first of the students began to pile on.

His genius strategy of keeping still lasted him through the quick trip, slinking out after the other teenagers and opening the bus storage area, lugging out the actual Med-bots.

“Hey, why weren’t you cubed?” A student, Aoyama, his mind supplied, questioned, striking a dramatic pose.

“I’m claustrophobic.” Midoriya replied, brushing off Barry and Carl and straightening the latter’s head plate.

“Huh.”

The towering doors to the building were pushed open, revealing the spacious inside of the structure. “Welcome,” Aizawa began, “To the USJ.”

Inside was none other than Thirteen, standing just in front of the stairs towards the atrium with what Midoriya could only assume was an excited expression.

“Hello, class 1-A! I-” They cut themself off, looking at their empty hands in the same way one might stare at an empty packet of sweets, an expression of distraught despair plastered on their (hidden) face.

“Where?” They mumbled, trailed off.

Midoriya could only assume they were looking for their notes, which were written on the back of their helmet in what looked like morse code.

“Uh,” They turned back to the students, panicked. “Don’t kill people with your quirks?”

A wave of murmurs washed over the class, consisting mainly of ‘Yeah, that’s fair’ and the occasional mildly surprised ‘huh!’. 

Thirteen was about to speak again, doubtlessly a similar statement to the groundbreaking words they’d somehow managed to improvise several seconds earlier, but was (Quite thankfully) interrupted by a small smudge of purple appearing behind them.

“What’s that?” Midoriya pointed out, taking a sensible step back.

“Is this part of the exercise?” Someone asked, the indigo mist spreading at a quick pace.

Midoriya was about to look for whoever had asked the question (He just wanted to talk!) when a hand emerged from what was now quite clearly a portal.

Much to Midoriya’s disappointment, the rest of the human exited after, the portal widening as more and more criminals stepped out, most of them appearing lost.

“Wait, this isn’t the Krill-n-Grill!” One of them muttered, glancing at their companions. 

“Apologies for dropping in uninvited,” The non-solid being spoke, “But we have a rather important task to complete.” His glowing eyes flared and, before Thirteen was able to react, his portals engulfed the students, shrinking back into nothingness.

“Wh-” Midoriya blinked owlishly, untouched in comparison to his robot companions. (Later Carl and Barry would be found, rusting away slowly at the bottom of the shipwreck section. Despite being almost entirely unknown by the pupils, over half the school ended up attending their ‘funeral’)

“You forgot the stuffed animal ass Med-bot, Kurogiri.” One of the villains spoke, rolling his eyes in annoyance. “And some of the students, it seems.” He scowled, glaring at Hatsume and Iida who were still loitering by the doors, having crouched behind a glass information plaque. 

“Unfortunately, some of them were out of range, Shigaraki Tomura.”

The freshly dubbed Shigaraki Tomura turned towards his companion slowly, eye twitching slightly.

“Do you think you’d be able to make it back to UA to warn the teachers and get back-up?” Midoriya whispered to Iida, picking up a rather spherical rock and testing its weight.

“Well, probably, but I can’t get past the doors.” Iida indicated to the large glass entrance that had been locked when the attack had begun. 

“Well, good thing I’ve got lock-picking in my coding.” Midoriya retorted, mere moments before flinging his rock through the glass and shattering it. He stepped to the side with a flourish, “Ta-da!”

“Huh. I’ve never seen that method of lock-picking before.” Iida mused.

“It’s an old coding language secret.” Midoriya shrugged, “Now, please, hurry!” 

Iida nodded, determination set on his face as he took a single step back before beginning to run.

“Maybe use your quirk?” Midoriya shouted after him, grinning as the boy suddenly increased speed.

“Right.” He muttered, turning back to the more pressing matter, “This better fucking work.” 

The teenager took a deep breath, stepping closer to the large group of criminals that remained in the atrium.

“Time out!” He yelled, holding his hand up in a stop motion, clenching his eyes closed desperately.

When he finally gathered up the courage to look again, the entire USJ had paused. Aizawa turned to watch him, mid kick, the criminal he was fighting clutching his knife, motionless.

Most shockingly, however, was Shigaraki, who’d managed to stop fighting with Kurogiri and was, relatively, still, looking at Midoriya expectantly. (Midoriya didn’t miss the annoyed looks he was shooting his companion when he thought the student wasn’t looking.)

“Why are we listening to this?” One of the criminals in the shipwreck area whispered to his friend.

“It’s a Med-bot,” They responded, “They’re like, higher authority than teachers! Didn’t you hear about that UA student who disobeyed one?”

“No?”

“Neither, but, like, it probably happened once.”

“Uh,” Midoriya blinked, “Could you get into lines, please?” He clarified, “Three, preferably.”

“I think you need to tell them more detail, Mister Med-bot.” Hatsume whispered, elbowing him with more strength than needed.

“Hired help there,” He pointed towards the left side of the atrium next to the earthquake area, “Students and staff there,” Midoriya indicated to the right side, just in front of the shipwreck section, “And ,” He paused, searching for the right word, “The conspirators in the middle?”

After a moment of worrying silence, the occupants of the building began to, albeit reluctantly, fall into line. Shigaraki roughly shoved one of the hired help out of his line, glaring at the man in the same manner one might expect from a disgruntled badger. (Middle line: Population two and a half)

“Okay.” Midoriya huffed, rubbing his hands together as he cautiously walked towards the right side line, clutching his first-aid supplies tightly.

Thankfully, most of the students were unharmed, only a few with concerning injuries that Midoriya was still able to patch up accordingly.

After minimal depletion of his supplies, he moved on to Aizawa. Thirteen had managed to keep any long range weapons away via their quirk, and none of the criminals had managed to get close enough to do any damage, which was perfect for Midoriya to focus on the less uninjured Aizawa.

During the short amount of time that he was fighting, the man had managed to not only get stabbed, but slightly singed on his left forearm. Thankfully, it wasn’t anywhere near a fatal wound; a few butterfly stitches and a few bandages fixed up the main injury, and his hair had taken the brunt of the burn.

Midoriya stared at the teacher’s smoking hair, his vision blurring. “You fought well, soldier.” He whispered, before bringing out his scissors.

(It was a tragic event that haunted the teenager for the rest of his life.)

Once the first line was taken care of, Midoriya moved onto the middle.

“Right, is anyone here fixably injured?” He started in an attempt to thin out the numbers.

“My arm came off!” One of them screamed, waving the severed limb in the air. Their companion slapped the back of their head.

“That’s literally your quirk!” The original speaker paused as realisation dawned upon them.

“Huh.” Midoriya rubbed his brow in frustration as he fought back tears.

“Any broken bones? Burns? Bleeding?” He tried, to a much more successful outcome.

“Oh, yeah, I think I got cut here.” They held out their arm to display a small scratch.

Midoriya slapped a dinosaur plaster on the injury and moved on to his next victim. 

After he’d finally finished combing through the hired criminals Midoriya stared at the final line. A mere three people with few visible wounds. By all means it should be the easiest of the lines; yet considering the fact that the only reason the criminals weren’t stabbing the students was due to his supposed authority as a Med-bot, he wasn’t exactly looking forward to it.

With a deep breath, he approached the group. There was nothing he could do but get it over with as hastily as possible.

“You will not need to tend to me, Med-bot, I managed to remain unharmed.” Midoriya raised his eyebrow at Kurogiri.

“Here’s a bear.” He handed the criminal one of his gummy bears as a reward for saving his time and stepped closer to Shigaraki.

Midoriya tugged a bandage free from his first-aid kit and cautiously wrapped it around the man’s neck, careful to avoid the jerking hand movements at the cool fabric.

Once it was secured Midoriya gave the villain a thin layer of moisturiser across his hands and face, “You need to drink more, you nocturnal, dehydrated donkey.” Midoriya muttered under his breath as he stuck yet another plaster onto his arm.

Shigaraki squinted at the teenager with muted curiosity, observing every movement in the same manner a cat might stare down another invading feline intruding upon its territory.

“Right.” Midoriya stepped back to admire his work. Before he was able to fully appreciate the artistry of his plaster placement, however, he was rudely interrupted by the arrival of reinforcements.

Despite one of the large entrance doors being shattered already, All Might had decided to instead go through the only unbroken one, bringing a shower of glass fragments to the ground with his entry. 

He turned back to the large group of villains before waving his hands in a mystical manner, “You want to get arrested, you want to get arrested so bad.” He dragged out his words as he spoke in what he hoped was a spooky manner.

“Fuck, man, I think I want to get arrested.” One of the many cannon fodder mused, enticing a chorus of agreements from the other hired help.

Shigaraki, on the other hand, looked rather dubious.

Behind All Might was a small army of police officers, armed with various long range weapons and a plethora of quirk-cancelling hand-cuffs, cautiously approaching the building.

“Damn, I could go for a strong drink after this shift.” Midoriya muttered, rubbing his eyes in exhaustion.

Shigaraki glanced at Kurogiri, “We have strong drinks. Do you think he’d appreciate one?” The latter nodded, casually creating a small portal which the pair slowly disappeared into.

“Somewhere, somewhere, there’s some concentrated juice with my name on it.” He whispered, as if speaking a prayer, failing to notice the missing villains.

As the first of the criminals were escorted out with worryingly light moods, Midoriya turned back to the students.

“Are you all holding up okay?”

Hatsume squinted at him with suspicion, following the rest of her classmates out whilst still maintaining eye contact with Midoriya, tripping over at least three times as a consequence.

Midoriya let out the breath he’d been holding. He had a strange feeling Nezu’s little hypothesis may be coming to an end soon, whether the rat-scallion liked it or not.

Midoriya bowed his head as he stood in front of 1-A’s students, a whirlwind of emotions twisting up inside him like a reconstructable balloon animal.

“I… I have something to confess.” He spoke, raising his head to address them properly, “I’ve deceived you all. I’m not your trusty Med-bot. I’m not a Med-bot at all.”

A wave of gasps passed over the class, Koji bursting into tears at the sheer betrayal. (He skillfully ignored Hatsume's victorious 'I knew it!')

“I may not be who you thought I was, but I’m still Mister Med-bot, just…” He sniffed dramatically, “Without the ‘bot’.”

“How could you!” Ojiro cried, wiping his eyes angrily. After a brief moment, a thoughtful look passed over his face, “No, actually, how could you possibly pull that off?”

“Nezu gave me a perfect disguise.” He pulled off his ‘Certified Med-bot’ t-shirt to reveal another t-shirt underneath, instead labelled ‘New 1-A student (Cool edition)’.

“But in order to join you as an equal I was forced to break your trust.”

The doors to the storage cupboards at the back of the classroom were kicked open, and Monoma burst out theatrically, “Does this mean our love isn’t so forbidden?”

Midoriya blinked owlishly, “Maybe?”

(And with that 1-A gained a new student, and Monoma.. Hope.)

(Monoma’s affections would only grow after Midoriya saved him from the Riddle-Master after breaking into the school for forgotten homework.)

(Nezu grinned widely, “Ah, yes… All according to plan!” The principal began to cackle, scribbling out the actual plan and replacing it with the correct timeline of events. “All according to plan.”)