Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"Midoriya, who the hell taught you how to fight?"

Izuku had been completely absorbed into one of his notebooks, but Aizawa's voice was enough to make him snap his head up and swivel to meet Aizawa's glare. "U-Uh...is it-is it bad?"

Aizawa's stare didn't waver. "Answer the question first and then I'll tell you."

Um.

Izuku looked around with barely disguised uncertainty and squeaked, "A-All Might."

"...Personally?"

"Yeah."

"How did you go about getting that done?"

Izuku very pointedly did not think of sewer slime, and crinkled his nose. Rough time, that was. "It's...It's a long story."

Aizawa made some sort of bit-off sighing noise. "Spare me it. To answer your question, it's not bad, but it isn't good either."

"What?"

"You only use a handful of tactics. Granted, they're not bad ones, but when you do hero work, you always want a bigger variety of tactics than you've got. Trust me on that, I know it's true first-hand."

Well. Izuku knew that much. He hadn't been studying heroes for years for nothing, after all. In fact, he'd been considering asking All Might if he knew any different fight styles soon. He knew it was good to stick to what All Might knew, since it most closely aligned with how his quirk functioned, but there had to be something more for Izuku to know, especially considering the differences in their...statures. Izuku looked down at his short legs pensively. Yeah, that word worked.

"Alright, sir. I'll make sure to take the time to ask All Might--"

Aizawa made another one of those bit-off sighing noises, but this time, there was a note of frustration in it that made Izuku look at him again. "No, kid--What I'm trying to say is, you need to branch out. Believe it or not, All Might can't teach you everything." Izuku resented that, but before he could make a quip, Aizawa finished, almost dully, "Because of that, I'm willing to help you."

"O-Oh." Somehow, Izuku hadn't expected that. "But, why?"

This was a good question, of course. Aizawa didn't usually engage with Izuku, typically trusting him to do his own thing for the most part. He watched Aizawa scrub his face tiredly, and lean against the door frame in an equally tired way. "I've just been thinking, 's all. You're a good kid, Midoriya, but out of all of my students, it's you that attracts trouble like a magnet. I've never been legitimately concerned for the life of one of my students, but congratulations, you've reached that. If you're free, meet me in the training room every Wednesday and Friday after school around six."

Izuku thought it was funny that Aizawa had framed that as a choice--he was pretty sure Aizawa would string him up by his toes if he didn't come. He gulped at the thought, and again at the next one--that Aizawa might just do that in general if they trained together. "Will it--Will it just be me?"

Aizawa shook his head. "No, it's going to be you, and one other kid. You already know him." Oh, good. There'd be a witness if Izuku did get strung up by his toes. "Be there and...keep this quiet, please."

...Sketch, but not unreasonable.

"Okay. Um, thank you?"

Aizawa looked like he very much wished he was taking a nap. "Just be there."

"...Midoriya? Is that you?"

Izuku jumped and whirled around to see a shock of purple hair.

"S-Shinsou-kun?" Izuku stammered, belatedly remembering Shinsou's quirk. Oh, oops. He hoped Shinsou wouldn't make him do something dumb--he didn't think Shinsou would, but they hadn't talked since the Sport's Festival. Izuku didn't know if he was holding a grudge or anything. 

It didn't look like it. In fact, Shinsou didn't seem to care at all, instead looking bemused. "What are you doing here?"

"I...uh…" Izuku opened and closed his mouth, debating whether or not to tell the truth. Maybe Shinsou was that other kid? "Aizawa-sensei told me to meet him here."

Shinsou quirked a thin eyebrow delicately. "You? You're the other kid he's teaching now?"

"W-What?"

"I'm the other kid he trains. Didn't he mention that?"

Oh, sweet. Izuku had been right.

"He did say that there was someone else, but he wasn't specific." 

"Figures. Well, nice to see you again, I guess. He'll be here in a few minutes. Be warned; it's not hard, but it definitely isn't easy." Shinsou sighed, leaning against the wall.

"I-I don't mean to pry, but is there any...any reason you're the other student he trains?" Izuku chanced after a moment of deliberation, leaning next to Shinsou. He was genuinely curious, after all. 

Shinsou blew out a long breath. "My fight with you was short, yeah, but it taught me something. If I want to be a proper hero, I can't just rely on my quirk. Because if someone knows what my quirk is, just like you did, I'm kind of fucked. I couldn't do anything to stop you from flipping me ass over head. I was frustrated over this and one of my friends mentioned that your homeroom teacher, Aizawa, worked as an underground hero who knew a lot of hand-to-hand combat. I sought him out, begged him to teach me, and here we are." Shinsou swept a hand feebly around the area in a general motion. "Is there any reason you're here?"

"Aizawa-sensei just said that the tactics I use for fighting aren't bad, but I need to branch out. I guess it's because if I don't, eventually people will pick it up them, and I'll have no other way of defending myself. Mostly he's doing this because, and I quote, he has never legitimately feared for the life of one of his students but I've reached that."

Shinsou huffed a laugh at that. "Yeah, he was telling me about that. He's right, you know."

"I...I do. That's why I'm here. How does this all work anyway?"

"On Wednesday, also known as today, we work with training dummies and strength building exercise. Friday is hand-to-hand combat with him. We practice dirty fighting on the dummies for obvious reasons, and practical fighting on him."

"Dirty fighting?"

"Like, gouging out eyes, groin kicks, throat punches." Shinsou listed, like he was just talking about the weather.

Goddamn.

Izuku edged a little away from Shinsou, mildly scandalized. Holy shit, that was brutal. "Those are horrible!"

"But they keep you alive." Aizawa's sudden voice from beside Shinsou and Izuku made them both jump. "Midoriya, I need you to learn right here and now that fighting dirty is not fighting dirty at all; it's fighting smart. It's frowned upon, and I think that's stupid because it stops you from dying. If you are ever unsure about an opponent, don't even hesitate. Throat punch them. Got it?"

Izuku stared up at Aizawa for a long, long moment and blinked hard. He looked at Shinsou. Back at Aizawa. At the ground.

Small yet heartfelt, he muttered to himself, "What the fuck have I gotten myself into?" Like he'd had a choice in the first place.

"Alright, throw the punch, Shinsou."

Thud.

"Ow, fuck."

"Shinsou, knuckles. Not the flats of your finger. Try again."

Thud.

"That felt better, but weird."

"Tighten your fingers a bit more."

Thud.

"Very good. Midoriya, your turn."

Thud-THUMP.

"...Jesus christ, don't knock over the dummy itself, kid."

"Midoriya, that dummy weighs 350 pounds. How in the hell-"

"Okay, throat punching. Shinsou, you go first. Show him how it's done."

"Midoriya, look. When you punch somebody in the throat, speed is everything. You want to go fast as hell so they can't duck their head, because hitting the face is stupid. Never go for the face-there's a lot of bones there and punching them there hurts you a lot more than it hurts them. You don't want to break their neck; you just want to knock the wind out of them and make them choke. Unless they're actively trying to murder you, then it's okay to break their neck. You can't be penalized for maiming someone trying to murder you."

"I...wow."

"Yeah. Like Aizawa said, don't hesitate, just do it. Watch out for the chin. Use your knuckles, not the flat of your fingers. Watch your wrist, keep it taut. And-"

WHAM.

"That...that looks really effective, actually. I could've used that against Overhaul; I was close enough."

"Who?"

"Just some villain guy I fought."

"...What the hell goes on in the hero course?"

Aizawa sighed. "A lot of bad things. Midoriya, your turn."

"Okay...fast, taut wrist, knuckles. Got it-"

WHAM-RIIIIP-THUD.

"..."

"..."

"...I'm sorry."

"Alright, uh...Aizawa speaks wise words but if you, specifically you, were to throat-punch anyone you'd knock their head clear off so maybe let's not do that. We can find someone else for you."

"..."

"Aizawa?"

"What the hell."

"A-Aizawa sensei!"

"Aizawa, what the hell is he made of?"

"I have...I have no idea."

"Should we...should we really let him physically spar with us? I think he might actually kill us on accident."

"...Yeah, I'm-I'm going to get him some limiting cuffs. Like the ones All Might had to use."

"Like who had to use?!"

Izuku collapsed onto the bench next to Shinsou and Aizawa some hours later, panting slightly with a thin sheen of sweat on his freckled forehead. "So, how did I do?"

"Midoriya, I'm going to ask you something and I need you to be honest. What in the ever-loving name of god spawned you?" Shinsou looked briefly haunted as he spoke, edging not-so-subtly away from Izuku. Oh, he hoped he didn't smell too bad.

He thought for a moment about Shinsou's question. What had made him the way he was? Well. "Ambition and spite, mostly." Izuku shrugged, swinging his legs cheerfully.

"You-" Shinsou blinked and shook his head. "I-Midoriya-wh-okay. Okay. That's...that's fair, I guess."

Izuku considered laughing, but he wasn't amused enough to do it.

"I mean, that's what spawned me too, so…" Aizawa hummed, resting his cheeks into his scarf.

"You hero course people...you people are truly a breed apart, you know that, right?"

Aizawa looked off into the distance, looking vaguely pissed off. "Believe me, I do." Aizawa heaved a sigh and made a pained face. "I really do."

Izuku reached over and patted Aizawa's knee. "Sorry."

"It's not your fault."

"That...that kind of makes it worse."

Shinsou looked between them. "I'm not following."

"You'd understand if you were a relevant character in this manga."

"What?!"

"What?"

"I-You-WHAT!?"

"Did I say something?"

"...Did you?"

"..."

"..."

"You fifteen year old children have no business being this creepy."

Shinsou returned to his dorm first, leaving Aizawa and Izuku behind. They walked in companionable silence for awhile, until Aizawa spoke.

"Midoriya, before I cut you loose, there's something you should know."

Izuku looked up at Aizawa. "Yeah?"

"Now, don't go running your mouth about this, okay? I was told none-too-gently that I'm supposed to be nicer to you guys, since...well, the dorms have been a rough transition. The point is, in case you didn't know, your teachers, including me...we are really proud of you." Izuku blinked, completely stunned, not even slightly put off by how Aizawa damn near gagged on the word 'proud'. "Seriously, kid. You've come a long distance in a short time, and I suppose it's been... impressive to watch. You do know that, don't you?"

Izuku's mouth parted and he gazed up at Aizawa as if he were seeing him for the first time. Holy shit. Aizawa looked like he was about to throw up, but also like he meant it. And that.

That.

"I...I do now."

"You've had us all worried for awhile with how often you'd get hurt. For a minute there, Chiyo was half-joking about putting a damn nameplate on one of her beds." He scratched the back of his head. "Anyway, we're glad you aren't getting messed up that much anymore. That's partly why I want to teach you how to fight in different ways; to stop you from getting overly damaged once and for all." Aizawa reached down and, with a grimace, he ruffled Izuku's hair. "But I can see that you've got a handle on yourself, now. If you want to continue, you're welcome to, but it's not necessary. Just keep working hard, kid."

And off he went, leaving Izuku standing there for a long moment outside of the dorm, gobsmacked. 

"DEKU! ARE YOU COMING OR WHAT?" Kacchan yelled from somewhere in the threshold of the doorway.

Izuku didn't look back at him, transfixed on Aizawa's retreating back. Slowly, he began to beam. "Yeah!" He called back. 

Chapter Text

Toshinori came into the break room with a weary sigh, leaning on the sliding door as he shut it behind him. Teaching was rewarding in its own way, but sometimes, he got to thinking that sometimes hero work had been easier. There hadn’t been nearly as much paperwork involved. 

Though, now that he was thinking about it, he had usually pawned that off on Naomasa. He sucked his teeth, feeling vaguely embarrassed with himself. He’d have to remember to get Naomasa a nice birthday gift. He made a mental note to jot that down in the recesses of his phones Notes app, where he'd undoubtedly see it in a couple months and think "OH SHIT" and do the task. Yeah, that sounded like a plan.  

“Rough day?” Aizawa’s voice came from one of the nearby couches, dry.

Toshinori looked over to see the man looking far worse than him. He was vaguely impressed by this.

“What happened to you?” He asked gently, easing into the room.

Aizawa’s eyes narrowed. “Midoriya.”

“Oh boy.”

What had his kid done this time? A million worst-case scenarios raced through Toshinori’s head, but he stamped them down―Aizawa didn’t look like he was worried. 

Instead, he just looked vaguely exasperated, and he watched as the man pinched the bridge of his nose with his forefingers.”Toshinori-san, I’ve got to know. Where did you pick that boy up? From the depths of hell?”

You know that one scene from Lilo and Stitch? That cute little Disney movie? The one where Lilo wished for the ‘nicest angel’ to come be her friend, and the scene immediately cut to Stitch yelling gibberish and then laughing hysterically, arms outstretched, over a horrendous pit of green fire and smoke? That was the vivid mental image Toshinori got, but with Izuku in Stitch’s place.

Which was quite the far cry of how they’d actually met, with that boy being a little more than a pale waif on the ground covered in sludge, but still. The image rang true now. He wasn’t sure how it happened, but sometimes Toshinori swore that boy had transformed into the mother of all gremlins. He couldn’t say the change was unwelcome, though―in fact, it amused him more often than not. It was funny to see the boy who used to stammer every other syllable screaming obscenities that'd make his mother faint as he played Mario Kart with his friends. Not that Izuku knew he'd seen that. 

He hadn’t answered Aizawa, though. All he did was sigh, slump on the couch next to Aizawa, and reported honestly, if a bit misleadingly,

“I yanked him out of sewage.”

Aizawa closed his eyes for so long and so tightly that Toshinori had convinced himself that Aizawa was trying to force himself to take a quick 45 minute power nap to process that statement before he spoke again. In the weariest voice he’d ever heard from the man, Aizawa said, 

“That explains so much.”

And it did, didn’t it? Toshinori huffed a laugh, tilting his head back. “So, what’d he get into this time?”

Aizawa didn’t say anything for a bit, but eventually he got out, “I was trying to train him. More battle tactics, since it seems like everything under the sun tries to murder him whenever I look away for longer than two goddamned seconds. He’s not bad at fighting, but he needs more variety. Just in case. Or so I thought.”

Toshinori raised an eyebrow, sensing this wasn’t the end of it. “Oh?”

“Toshinori-san. You know those ridiculous 300 pound dummies we used to make you move around for us? The ones that are more heavy and solid than an actual human body?”

Oh, those things. They were so annoying to move around. He could never get a good grip on them. “I’m familiar.”

Aizawa stared, looking haunted.

“He knocked the head clear off of one with one swing. One. SWING.”

Toshinori immediately burst into startled laughter, trying to muffle it with the fronts of his fingers when Aizawa cast him a withering, almost desperate glower. “I’m so sorry, that’s not funny―!”

“You’re right, that’s not funny! If he cold-cocked the average pedestrian, he’d decapitate them. Without his quirk.”

“That’s impressive,” Toshinori got out through his continued laughter, pushing off the urge to cough. “Really, I didn’t get to that point until I was 19. I’m proud!”

And that was true! Toshinori was impressed and proud. He really had only gotten that strong unassisted when he was 19. Midoriya, it seemed, had already surpassed him. That made him feel…a little sad, almost. He decided not to tell the boy, not yet. Instead, he listened to Aizawa audibly take a deep breath. It looked like he was counting in his head. 

“I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised, though.” Toshinori said suddenly once another thought occurred to him. “I mean, I was making him jog with refrigerators tied to his back. Sometimes with me on top! Little booger actually got pretty far on the beach, too. Couple hundred yards was his best. I expected him to sink in the sand, but he was a damn good sport about trucking it every time.”

Aizawa stared at him like he was absolutely fucking insane, which...Toshinori let the meaning of his own words hit him, and paused. Huh. 

You know, that actually was incredible.

Running in sand with easily 250kg of shit held on your back? Not even dragging on the ground? Retrospectively, Toshinori thought to himself, ‘Good job, kid.’ He’d have to get Izuku some cake, sometime. The boy more than deserved some―and some he could actually eat this time, since he couldn’t the last time Toshinori brought him any. He shouldn’t laugh at the memory―Izuku had been miserable after that zombie incident―but he chuckled anyway. What a good sport.

“What the fuck is wrong with you both?” 

Toshinori thought of Gran Torino, narrowed his eyes, and didn’t dignify that with a response.

What a night.