Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When Akantai Kumiko is 9 years old when she makes the best decision of her life. She runs away from home.

Now, in most cases, this would be the worst decision an 9 year old can make. 

But if Kumiko hadn’t run away on that exact day, at that exact time. She would have never met her brother, never become All Might’s successor, and never become Japan’s greatest hero.

Kumiko knows she shouldn’t run away. But she’s 9, and she’s tired. Tired of Kacchan and the other kids bullying her at school, tired of being “quirkless” because mom keeps feeding her quirk suppressants even though her quirk isn’t like dads, it’s just a fire quirk. Tired of being scared dad will come home and hurt her again.

So when mom leaves for work in the morning, she packs her biggest All Might bag full of food, clothes, money, and her favorite All Might plush and blanket, and leaves. That way she’ll have the most time to find a place to stay. Even if her school called her mom to tell her that Kumiko didn’t show up for school, she doubts her mom would do anything at least until she got home and saw that Kumiko wasn’t home.

Kumiko doesn’t know where she’ll go, but she knows it’s better than home. She’s already used to being hungry (mom said that she didn’t deserve food) so she’ll be okay. 

She walks for a long time, just turning down random streets in hope that she’ll spot somewhere to stay. She doesn’t know what she’s looking for necessarily, but she’s sure she’ll know when she sees it.

She turns down a road she knows she shouldn’t, its in one of darker parts of the city, where only underground heroes patrol, but its also somewhere her mother would never look for her.

Todoroki Touya is 16 when he runs away from home and is successful. He’s also 16 when he meets his brother for the first time. And though for years and years he missed his biological brothers and sister, he wouldn’t give his brother away for anything.

The only thing Touya regrets is leaving Shouto behind, but he couldn’t get Shouto alone for long enough to sneak him out, the combined efforts of their father and the doctor had kept them from getting together long enough for Touya to sneak him out.

He hadn’t been able to convince Natsou or Fuyumi to leave with him either, they were scared. They didn't want to leave the “comfort” of the Todoroki house, they didn't want to have to go hungry or be stuck in the cold. But for him, anything was better than there . So he left them behind. They weren’t often in the path of their father’s rage, so he hoped they’d be okay.

But outside of his siblings, he’s really only going to miss his homeroom teacher- Aizawa and his boyfriend, Yamada, though most known as The Voice Hero: Present Mic. They were probably the only people outside of his siblings that actually cared about him, they had single handedly restored his faith in heroes. they let him into their personal life- showing him what a family was supposed to be like. He’s sure that if he hadn’t been forced into UA, he would have ended up a villain. Or dead. Or both.

And if he’s being honest, he’s second guessing running away now, but it’s too late to go back. Not when he knows Aizawa has already read his “suicide note.” He almost wishes he could have just told Aizawa about the abuse, but he was afraid that nothing would or could be done. Or that Aizawa wouldn’t believe him. And it was easier to just leave than to worry about that.

He knows that the HPSC won’t do anything even if Aizawa shows them his suicide note, they’ll protect his father from anything, he’s the #2 hero and brings in a lot of revenue. There’s no way they’ll let him face justice unless there’s someone forcing them too.

There’s a little girl walking towards him, curly green hair pulled back into ponytails, absolutely adorable but not someone who should be walking alone in the darker parts of the city.

“Hello,” he says to her, “Is your parent around? You shouldn’t be out here alone?” She makes a face of disgust at the mention of her parents. Oh god.

“No,” She answers “I’m running away, I don’t like my parents. They hurt me.” Yep, his kid now. There's no way this little girl will survive with her pigtails and All Might backpack.

“Oh, I am too, actually. Do you want to come with me?” The little girl thinks about it.

“Do you like heroes?” She asks. Touya furrows his eyebrows.

“Some.” Ones like Eraserhead and Present Mic.

“Do you like All Might?” He didn’t theoretically have anything against the man, by all means he was a good hero, but his father had spoiled the man's name. But if it’ll get the girl to stay with him.

“Sure…”

“How about Dragon?” Touya, admittedly, didn’t know much about Dragon, besides that his father had worked with him before.

“I don’t know… He seems cool I guess?” is his answer. The girl thinks a bit longer.

“Okay! I can come with you! My name's Kumiko!” 

“I’m Touya.”

Aizawa Shouta is 24 when he loses someone important to him for the second time. And it being the second time does not make it any easier.

It starts off like any normal day, Shouta rolls out of bed to eat breakfast with his boyfriend, downs a pot of coffee, and then rolls up to school just in time to give Todoroki the breakfast he made him. The kid seemed to need more calories for his quirk to use, and if Endeavor wouldn’t provide it, then he would.

He doesn’t care if Hizashi and the other staff calls him soft (he’s not ) because it’s logical. Just like letting him spend time after school at Hizashi and his apartment from time to time is logical. Hizashi had favorite students, why can’t he? (He ignores a voice that sounds like Hizashi saying that Todoroki is more of a son go him than a student)

The first thing that notifies him that something is off though, is that Todoroki isn’t in class that morning. By itself, this wouldn’t be a red flag. Students missed class all the time, but Todoroki usually texts Shouta if he’s going to be absent. And while it was possible he was just running late (for Todoroki, as he was usually at school way before most students) it seemed unlikely.

But Shouta shrugs, and begins setting up the desk for his lesson.

It’s there though, that the day really unravels. 

On Shouta’s desk is a neatly folded note with his name written on top. Almost identical to the one he got in his first year of high school, holding a love confession. He has a feeling this one won’t have similar contents.

The first paragraph has his heart dropping to his stomach.

Aizawa,

I’m sorry you had to learn about this like this, but I was just so tired, and there’s no escaping this. 

By the time you read this, I’ll be long dead, in an alley somewhere no one will find me or turned to ash by my own quirk. I placed this on your desk last night after school, there's no use in trying to find me. I’m already long gone.

I wasn’t even going to leave a note, just let myself disappear. But I know you’ll worry, and I don’t want you to worry.

All I’ve known in my life is abuse. Father hates me, he created us just to fulfill his dream of being the #1 hero. He would “train” me daily until I passed out until Shoto’s quirk came in, and then he did the same fo him. Mother, before she hurt Shoto, couldn't stand to look at me.

I know no one who can do anything about it will, and anyone that wants to can’t, and that’s why I’ve decided that the best thing for me to do is to end my life.

I just want to thank you for saving me, I think without you and Yamada I would have become a villain. At least I can say I’ve never become like my father.

You’ll be a great father, should you choose to become one, your already one to me.

love, your son student

Todoroki Touya

Shouta… doesn’t know what to do. He feels like he’s drowning, like Oboro’s death all over again. Logically, he knows he needs to tell Nezu, and probably the police. But the dominating thought in his brain is ‘ Ineed Hizashi.’ And so he folds the note back up, places it in his pocket, and forces himself together long enough for him to find Hizashi hanging in his office, where he, of course, can immediately tell somethings wrong.

“You alright babe?” Shouta doesn’t think he can open his mouth without crying right now, so he instead wraps his arms around his boyfriend and rests his head on his chest.

“Babe? You’re worrying me. Are you okay?” Shouta shakes his head, unable to explain anything. Hizashi rubs circles on his back for a while, giving Shouta that time to calm down a bit. And when he is, he fishes the note out of his pocket and hands it over to Hizashi, eyes beginning to well up with tears.

“I went to give Touya breakfast, this was on my desk.” Shouta watches as his boyfriend’s eyes fill with shock, then sadness, with a hint of anger, and eventually tears.

“Oh Sho,” he says, tears beginning to stream down his face. He wraps Shouta in a hug, and that's when the tears start to roll for Shouta. They’re quiet, he’s never been much of a crier, but it’s a lot for Shouta.

“I failed him ‘Zashi, I failed him and he’s dead.” He says, voice cracking.

“Hey hey, none of that. You didn’t know. You had no way of knowing, and it seems like Todoroki knew that we couldn’t do anything.”

“I could have tried ”

“I know babe, but you know how the HPSC is, I’m just glad you gave him a good family while he was here.”

Shouta sobs, curling his hands into Zashi’s jacket. He swore he wouldn’t fail like this again when Oboro died, but here he is, failing again.

(Another shrine in the Yamada-Aizawa home, and the flowers on Touya’s grave are refreshed every week.)

“First things first, we have to dye our hair.” Touya tells Kumiko. 

“Why?” she asked

“Because when people try and find us, they’ll be looking for white and green hair, dying it will keep us hidden.”

“Oh! That's smart.”

Touya takes the girl to a corner store, where he buys two boxes of cheap black hair dye. Will they absolutely destroy their hair, probably. But if it’s between fried hair and being sent back to abusive families, they’ll both take fried hair.

“We should probably cut your hair too,” Touya says “It’ll be easier to maintain.”

“Can we cut it short like yours?” She asks “Mom won’t let me cut it short even though Kacchan has his short,”

“Sure”

And so Touya spends the next hour listening to a little girl tell him everything she knows about All Might, which is a lot considering the fact that she’s 9, while he cuts and dyes her hair.

Being homeless is not as hard as Kumiko thought it would be. Sure it sucks, they're hungry and cold a lot. But if she’s being honest, it’s not that wildly different from living with her parents. She spends most of her time in the public library reading while Touya does odd jobs for extra cash.

She still hasn’t told him exactly who her father is, it’s been over a year since they met, and she’s now 11, but for some reason she’s afraid to tell him. She knows he should know, considering hiding from a top 100 hero is different from hiding from your run of the mill abuser, but what if he doesn’t believe her? Dragon was a beloved hero, he was good at that, pretending to be a good person.

“Hey Miko,” Touya’s voice says from behind her “Ready to go home?” ‘Home’ being a tent in a long abandoned warehouse.

“Yeah, but um. I wanted to talk to you about something?” She avoids his eyes, instead looking at her fidgeting hands.

“Did something happen?”

“No… um. I just thought you should know that my dad was-is a pro hero.”  It’s quiet and Kumiko squeezes her eyes shut, bracing herself to be called a liar.

“What hero?” is what Touya says instead, sliding down to sit on the floor.

“Um… Dragon.”

“Damn… my father’s Endeavor.” 

“What's with fire heroes and being abusive fathers?” she blurts out.

Touya laughs at that.

Touya is 18 when he gains a brother, though it’s honestly not in the way he expected to gain a brother. It’s about the time Touya is collecting money to buy fake ID’s for him and Miko. He should have known something was going on, because the last couple of weeks Miko has been acting off. At the time he attributed it to trauma.

“Touya? Can I talk to you about something?” She says

“Sure kidoo, something wrong?”

“Um… Kinda I mean…” She’s fidgeting with her hands, a sure sign that she’s anxious.

“Whatever it is, your still my little sister”

“Well… um actually. I’m a boy? Um I um. I’m trans so I’d actually be your brother?”

Oh… 

“Okay,” Touya smiles at his brother “Do you have a name? Or are you sticking with Kumiko?”

“I was thinking Izuku?”

“I like it.”

Chapter Text

Turns out, the hardest part about being homeless was not finding food or money or housing. Not that that was easy, but it was just a lot easier than things like periods, controlling a quirk that was suppressed (both with quirk suppressants and from trauma) for 6 years, and deciding whether to be male or female on legal documents.

If Izuku decides to go with male, he’ll be both true to his gender and be able to do things like wear the men’s uniform and use the men’s bathroom, but it’ll be much harder to eventually start hormone therapy. He'll probably have to use either less-than-legal avenues or re-do all his fake documents.

But if he goes with female, he’ll be addressed as a girl and people will question the name ‘izuku,’ but… he’ll have a much easier time gaining access to testosterone and top surgery. 

After a week of debating back and forth and pestering his brother about it, he decides on just putting male. It’ll make life easier for him, HRT is a problem for future Izuku.

He also decided that he'll only attend high school in real life if he gets into UA (which is surprisingly still a goal to him despite knowing of two abusive top 100 heroes and seeing the worst parts of Japan) and if he doesn’t get in, he’ll just continue online school. 

“I’m off to work!” Izuku calls over his shoulder, he was technically not old enough to work, but they couldn’t afford a 2 bedroom apartment, food, utilities, Izuku’s schooling, and everything else Izuku and Touya needed with Touya’s minimum wage jobs, and Izuku had been lucky enough to find someone to look past that, even if he only worked 3 days a week. He turns 15 in a couple of months though, and then he’ll be able to work legally.

“Be safe!” Touya calls back.

Izuku’s job is quite far from their apartment, near the school he used to attend. And probably the school he would attend should he have stayed with his DNA donors.

There are a few students in gakurans and seifukus walking together in the streets, school must have gotten out not too long ago. He even recognizes a few of the kids from his elementary school too, some of them either look exactly like they did back then, just older, or are what he remembers their parents looking like. 

Nervous about being recognized, despite the fact that he looks like an entirely different person, he takes a detour. It won’t add much time to his commute, so he’s not worried about being late.

It’s a nice day, for the time of year. 70F (21C), sunny with the slightest breeze. Izuku wishes it was one of his days off so he could just sit in the park and work on his analysis notebook. Or maybe do some dog walking for extra cash, they were a little short on cash this month, and having a little extra would mean the difference between 2 meals a day and 3.

The detour does force him to walk under a bridge, which is significantly cooler than the sunny sidewalk. He’s glad his uniform has long sleeves. 

“Geez it’s cold,” he mutters to himself. He’s almost out at the other end of the tunnel when he hears a sound behind him, curious, he turns around to see a person made of …. sludge? 

The person pounces at Izuku, and he in turn begins to run out into the light. He doesn't make it through, and the sludge person begins to force themselves down his throat.

“Calm down,” They say “It’ll only hurt for about 45 seconds. Thanks for your help, you’re my hero.” Izuku claws fruitlessly at the sludge in an attempt to stop himself from suffocating. Izuku feels like he’s dying, his ribs are screaming in protest of the sludge reaching down his throat and into his lungs, his binder keeping them from being able to fully open up. 

Izuku’s starting to fade, the world at the edge of his vision is starting to black. And he’s scared. For so many reasons, he doesn’t want to die, he doesn’t want Touya to have to bury the only family he has left, he doesn’t want the poor person, hero or civilian, to find his body, he doesn’t want this villain to do whatever they plan to do with his body. 

Izuku, in a latch ditch effort to get away from the villain, uses the last of the strength to summon a moderately sized ball of fire and shoves it into the villain. It doesn’t work, and the villain just screams and continues forcing themself down Izuku’s throat. The smell of burning sludge brings back memories of burning flesh, and Izuku thinks that this might be his last moment on earth.

“FEAR NOT KID! FOR I AM HERE” a booming voice announces from the other side of the tunnel. There’s a blast of air, and the villain is forced out (and off) of Izuku. 

Izuku’s last thought is of burning flesh and rough hands.

-

Izuku wakes up slowly and to aching ribs. The same kind of aching ribs he gets when he wears his binder for too long or forgets to take it off and falls asleep on the couch after work. For a second, he thinks that what happens and that the whole sludge villain thing was just a weird nightmare. But then-

“Oh! You’re awake!” says a familiar booming voice. Izuku is lying on his back, a familiar face leaning over him.

“All Might?” Izuku says before he can think.

“Are you okay, young,” All Might pauses for Izuku to give him his name.

“Midoriya!” Izuku says, his voice high, he coughs “Midoriya Izuku!”

“Alright Young Midoriya! I have called an ambulance to come and make sure you’re alright!” There’s a distant sound of sirens “They should be here soon!”

“Can you sign my notebook?” Izuku asks the hero, fishing his analysis notebook out of his bag.

“Sure thing young man!” Izuku watches, mesmerized as the man signs an empty page of Izuku’s notebook and hands it back.

“Thank you so much!” While Touya, with his past, didn’t really like All Might, Izuku still adored him. Even Touya would admit the man seemed like a good person.

The sirens get louder and a police car and ambulance pull up on the street next to them.

“I must be going young Midoriya!” All Might says, and Izuku, who has one more thing he needs to ask of the hero, makes both the dumbest and best mistake he’s ever made in quite some time, and grabs onto All Might’s leg as he jumps into the air.

-

The hero lands on a roof not far from where they took off. Izuku’s mouth feels like it’s full of cotton, and he licks his lips in an attempt to get the moisture back in.

“That was very reckless young Midoriya, you could have been seriously injured,” All Might says, beginning to walk away “I’m sure if you talk to the people downstairs, they’ll let you out.”

“I-I’m sorry I just,” Izuku takes a deep breath. “I wanted to know if I could be a hero, without a quirk. A hero like you. I want to save people with a smile that shows no  fear!” Izuku closes his eyes, and the sound of All Might walking away stops.

“Without a quirk?” All Might asks, and then there's a groan and Izuku opens his eyes to see… steam? And no All Might.

“Huh?” the smoke clears to reveal a skeleton of a man. Skin stretched thin across his bones, dark eyes set deeply into the gaunt face.

“Wait- huh? What happened, where’d All Might go?”

“I assure you, I am All Might,” the man says “ You know how guys at the pool are always trying to retain their abs at the pool right? I’m like that.”

“This can’t be real,” Izuku says in disbelief, “All Might saves everyone with a fearless smile” The man sighs.

“There’s plenty of fear behind that smiles” He admits, sinking to the floor of the rooftop “I’m counting on you keeping your mouth shut. Don’t go talking about this online or telling your friends” All Might lifts his shirt to reveal a horrid scar on the right side of his abdomen, branching out from a central, sunken point.

“Pretty ugly huh? This scar is from a battle I fought 5 years ago.” Izuku flinches at the sight “Result: semi-destruction of my respiratory system, and total removal of my stomach. My face is emaciated and haggard; my eyes are the side effects of the surgeries. Currently, I cannot work more than 3 hours as an active hero.” Izuku's heart sinks, if this is what they’re doing to the symbol of peace...

“5 years ago? The fight with Toxic Chainsaw?” All Might had taken a 2 month long vacation not long after that fight, there had been much speculation about why. Some said he was involved with someone, some said he was just using up his (much deserved) vacation time, some even said he dies, but no one knew anything for sure.

“You know your stuff huh. But a punk like that? No, this fight was not made public. I asked that it wasn’t made public.” All Might coughs, wiping away the blood dripping from his mouth. 

“As for your question, I’m sure I saw you using your quirk against the villain. Was that not it?”

“No, um that was my quirk.”

“Then I do not understand why your asking, if you have a quirk, you should use it.” Izuku has half a mind to just trauma dump on this mind and tell him about the quirk suppressants and abusive father with a fire quirk, but he decides it. The man didn’t need to hear Izuku’s sob story.

“Thank you, All Might”

And with that, All Might leaves.

-

Izuku barely manages to make it to work. After running in to save Ka-Bakugou from the same sludge villain (Izuku doesn’t even know how they got away) and the All Might saving the day, again. Then being poked and prodded by EMTs (that was a little dramatic, but still) while being scolded at, before finally being allowed to leave. Izuku wants to curl up into a ball and cry, being yelled at by heroes was one thing he just couldn’t deal with. 

That, combined with Izuku’s aching ribs (he’ll have to take his binder off at work, he’s glad he carries around an extra sports bra for emergencies) and his dead social battery, Izuku wants nothing more than to go home and curl up under the covers. But, he needed the money. So while his boss did offer to let him have the day off after Izuku explained why he was late, Izuku had refused.

Izuku instead forces a smile and takes orders from customers, which lucky for Izuku, are few, far in between, and all normal people who don’t yell at minimum wage employees for things out of their control.

He’s a little more than halfway through his shift though, when a familiar skeleton enters the cafe.

“Hello sir, what can I can for today?” He asks, hoping that it’s a coincidence and that All Might just happened to pick this cafe, and didn’t come here specifically to find Izuku.

“Ah, I was wondering if I could speak to you?” Oh god, hopefully, All Might doesn’t yell at him. He doesn’t think he could take that emotionally.

“My shift ends in about 2 hours,” Izuku tells the hero, “Would you like to order something in the meantime, though?”

“Sure, what would you recommend?”

-

Izuku swallows the lump of anxiety in his throat. He meets the hero out of the cafe, hoping he hadn’t really found Izuku, and waited 2 hours just to scold Izuku. He just wants to get home and sleep right now, he’s surprised he’s still standing up straight actually.

“My boy,” All Might starts “I wanted to thank you. If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have been spurred to act.” Izuku stares at the man in disbelief. “ You know, most top heroes have tales from their school days. Most of their stories have one thing in common. And you know what they all say? ‘My body movies without hesitation.’ This is what happened to you, right?” Izuku nods, tears starting to gather in his eyes “I have a proposition for you. There’s been much speculation about my quirk, tabloids call it ‘superhuman strength’ or ‘boost’ and I’ve dodged every question about the matter in interviews.” It’s true, All Might’s quirk has been a topic of discussion since the hero debuted. Even Izuku had speculated on the matter.

“My quirk is called One For All. It is a sacred touch passed down from generation to generation.”  

Izuku blinks. “One...For All…?” a quirk that can be passed down? Sure it’s not impossible, nothing is impossible with quirks but it seemed so… unlikely. Like something out of a shounen manga.

“Exactly! And, if you’ll accept it...then this power is yours!” It’s official, Izuku must be dreaming. All Might, Izuku’s favorite hero, the subject of Izuku’s special interest , is offering Izuku his quirk ?

“I’d understand if you want more time to think about it,” All Might says, “It’s a hard decision to make-”

“I’ll do it!” 

Chapter Text

Izuku makes his way home with both bone-deep exhaustion and a fire burning in his heart.

‘A phone call.... is here! A phone call... is here!’ his phone rings out. Izuku immediately knows who it is and what it’s about, he only has his ringer on for one person. Izuku fishes his phone out of his bag and answers it.

“Izuku!” Touya says on the other end “I don’t even know what to say! I got home after work, turned on the tv to see who? My 14-year-old brother running into a villain attack! I thought I told you to be safe!” Izuki cringes, at the time he hadn’t really thought about how his brother would react.

“I know but it was Bakugou, and he looked like he needed help,” Seeing Bakugou, someone both from his past and someone he always remembered as strong (overpowering, cruel, remorseless) look so helpless, had forced his body to move. To reach out and help. Plus he was like 90% sure it was his fault the sludge villain got away anyways.

“Are you at least okay? Why didn’t you come home afterward? Or call me?” 

“I’m fine Touya, got checked out by the paramedics afterward and everything. I didn’t go home cause I had work” He shrugs “You know we can’t really afford to miss a paycheck.”

“Izuku. I could have just picked up an extra Saturday shift. Or you could have gone in on one of your days off. And I didn’t just mean physically, I meant mentally too.” When was he ever mentallu fine?

“I’m fine Touya, I promise” Touya sighs.

“Alright, There’s nothing we can do about that right now. I’ll see you when you get home, okay? I’m going to go to pick up some food, I don’t think either of us feel like cooking tonight. Do you want anything in particular?”

“Katsudon? Or maybe shabu shabu?”

“Alright, don’t get into any more trouble on the way home.” Touya teases.

“I won’t” Izuku grumbled, it’s not his fault he’s a trouble magnet. “I have something to tell you when I get home! See you then.”

“Bye,”

There's a click, and the phone line goes dead.

The rest of the walk home is uneventful, no slime villains trying to stuff themselves down his throat, no ex-friends/bullies in hostage situations, no top 10 heroes offering a quirk and training and (probably) government secrets. In fact, it’s fairly quiet.

Touya is home when Izuku arrives, setting down their takeout on the table. The apartment is warm and filled with the smell of katsudon. 

“I’m home!!” Izuku calls as he opens the door “And you're not gonna BELIEVE the day I had.”

“Running into a villain fight wasn’t the most interesting part of your day?” Touya says, raising an eyebrow.

“Nope!”

“Kami, Izuku what the fuck did you get up to today?” Izuku smiles at his brother and pulls out a chair at the table, glad to finally be off his feet.

“It wasn’t all bad though, I met All Might and he offered me his quirk!” Touya, who was in the middle of opening up the takeout boxes, stops and just stares at Izuku.

“Back up Izuku, you said All Might, the #1 hero, offered you a quirk ?” Izuku nods, reaching for the katsudon.

“Yeah! His quirk is super interesting. It’s called One For All and it’s a stockpile quirk that can be passed down! It’s been around since the appearance of quirks and All Might is the 8th holder! I wonder what his original quirk was though, I assume it has to do with his true vs All Might form, but I can’t be sure. That could be part of One For All, though. Would it be rude to ask?”

“Izuku” Touya says, still just staring at him “You’re going to have to explain a little more than that.”

A blush flashes across Izuku’s face.

“Oh, sorry.”  Touya shakes his head and finally unfreezes, taking out his food and grabbing a pair of chopsticks.

“It’s alright, I know how excited you can get.”

So Izuku begins to tell Touya about what happened after he left the house that evening. He watches as Touya's face twists in horror as Izuku describes being attacked by the sludge villain. And then even more in horror when Izuku tells him about grabbing into All Might’s leg.

“You really have to get that impulse control down, Izuku,” he mutters.

“I know, I know. My brain just doesn’t work like that sometimes.” 

He tells Touya about running to save Bakugou, how he looked like he needed help, how none of the heroes were doing anything, and how his body seemed to work on its own. (Touya scowls at the mention of the heroes doing nothing.) About the heroes scolding him (Touya’s scowl deepens at that,) and then finally, the number one hero finding him at work and his offer.

“And you said yes?” Touya asks

“Yeah? Touya there will literally never be an opportunity like that again.”

“Yeah, but I also know how impulsive you can be, did you think about it?” Admittedly, he really didn’t. He just knew that with another quirk, he wouldn’t have to rely on his fire quirk as much, and that was honestly a good enough reason for Izuku to accept. And he tells Touya as much.

“Izuku…” 

Touya has been trying to help Izuku accept and use his quirk. Has been for years, and while they’ve made progress, Izuku still refuses to use it in full. Lighting his hand on fire is about as far as he’s willing to use it.

He’s just got too many bad memories surrounding his quirk and fire quirks in general.

He knows there are other fire heroes besides Dragon and Endeavor, element control quirks are fairly common, but the fact that the only 2 fire heroes in the top 100 are abusive pricks makes Izuku not want to be a fire hero.

Even if his quirk was fundamentally different from his fathers, it was similar to Endeavors, and that was enough of a reason for Izuku to not use his quirk.

“I know Touya, but what if this is my chance to completely start over?”

-

Touya, ever the overprotective older brother, accompanies Izuku to the beach to meet All Might the morning training starts 3 days later. He’d asked All Might if he could tell his brother, of course, so he’s not worried about All Might being mad at him. If anything, he’s worried about Touya.

Despite both time and (minimal) faith in (some) heroes, All Might can still be a trigger on Touya’s worse days. Izuku knows that, even if he never says it, on Touya’s worse days, All Might reminds him of things best left in the past.

But there’s also no way Touya wouldn’t make sure All Might wasn’t a fake trying to kidnap him. Which means he just accidentally set his protective older brother onto his favorite hero. Kami, he might have to warn the man.

Touya might not have become a hero, but he was still in the hero course for over a year. He could kick ass, and he’s not sure if All Might could fight in his smaller form. Plus Touya is more of a long-range fighter and All Might is a close to mid-range fighter. There’s a slim chance Touya could actually beat All Might, especially if All Might was reluctant to fight his successor's frail-looking older brother. Just a couple of well-aimed hits with his quirk and the man would at least be down for the count. Combined with their knowledge of All Might’s injury...

Why is he thinking about this? Izuku shakes the thoughts from his brain. Everything will be fine. And Touya wouldn’t try and fight All Might without a very good reason. And even then, he’d probably try and get away, not take the hero down.

“You okay?” Touya asks.

“Yeah, just thinking.”

“Mind if I pick your brain?” Izuku blushes.

“Oh, it was really nothing. Just a little nervous about training with All Might,” Izuku would rather not tell his brother he was thinking about how he could win in a fight against the number one hero.

“I’m sure it’ll be fine Izuku, and if it’s not, I know how to hide a body.”

“Touyaaa, you can’t kill All Might!”

“Yeah yeah, but I know people that can”

“No I mean like, you could kill him if you really wanted, I mean not without injuring yourself because you would have to use mostly your quirk, but I mean you can’t like-”

“I know what you mean little bro,” Touya cuts him off, ruffling his hair. Izuku pushes his hand off, to which Touya laughs.

The rest of the trip to the beach is silent, a comfortable silence that both Touya and Izuku are used to. It’s a little early too early in the morning for anyone else to be out, besides the occasional jogger or businessman. So it’s fairly quiet besides the occasional car, bike, or shout from a nearby apartment.

All Might is already at the beach, in his smaller form, when they arrive.

“That’s him,” Izuku tells Touya, gesturing to where All Might stands.

“You weren’t kidding when you said he was a skeleton,” Touya comments.

“Young Midoriya!” All Might greets “And you must be his older brother.” he says, extending his hand towards Touya.

“I am. My name's Midoriya Touya,” Touya says, taking All Might’s hand.

“Nice to meet you!”

“Izuku said you're going to train him and give him your quirk, what does that entail?” Touta asks, getting straight to the point.

“Well, I made a personalized training schedule and meal plan for him, we’d be cleaning this beach to build muscle, and when he’s built enough muscle, and honestly probably some weight too, I’ll give him One For All. It functions as a pretty simple strength enhancement.”

“Cleaning the beach?” Izuku asks, wouldn’t it be easier to have him like… lift weights every day? Go to the gym? Things normal people did to gain muscle.

“The young crop of heroes are obsessed with flashiness when the essence of being a hero is helping people. So we’re doing community service, this beach used to be beautiful until the currents dumped a bunch of trash on it. People took advantage of that and it became an illegal dumping ground.”

Izuku can cheer to that! Touya can too, by the look on his face. It’s good to know that All Might is a hero for good reasons and not money, you never actually know these days. And even though he’s always loved and admired the number one hero, he’s always been concerned that his hero persona didn’t hold an ounce of his real personality. 

Touya nods, and Izuku can tell he’s relaxed the slightest bit. Good to know that his brother is thinking the same things

“And once he gets One For All?”

“At that point, he can do what he wants with it, I assume he wants to become a hero,” Izuku nods furiously. “But once it’s his, it’s his . I can’t tell him what to do with it, even if I wanted to.”

That's actually… really reassuring to hear. Izuku’s already got enough trauma to do with quirks to last a lifetime, he doesn’t need someone else controlling him because of his quirk.

“Alright,” Touya says “That all sounds okay with me,”

Izuku smiles at his brother. Touya and All Might chat a little bit longer about schedules and junk before Touya has to leave.

“I gotta get to work, be safe, don’t run into any more hostage situations,” Touya says.

Izuku blushes, pushing his older brother back towards the street. Of course, Touya has to embarrass him in front of his favorite hero.

All Might laughs as Touya jogs away with a wave.

“So… what are we going to do today, All Might?”

“Call me Yagi in this form, my boy. Today we’ll start moving some of the smaller trash. You ate breakfast, correct?”

Izuku nods.

“Then let's get started!”

-

Training is fucking tiring, and they’ve been a little tight on money with the new meal plan requiring more and more expensive food. Izuku’s also been saving up for UA fees, while there are ways to get things at a discount for low-income families, not everything is free. Plus it’s a little too far for Izuku to walk or bike to, so he’s also saving for transportation.

Izuku also might be overworking it a bit, and that combined with his sleep schedule being fucked and not exactly sticking to the meal schedule (ends of the months are hard, Touya got sick and missed a few days of work, and Izuku’s not necessarily used to eating 3 large meals a day. He doesn’t think he’s had 3 meals a day every day since he was like 4) it’s… well it's not the best. He probably should have told Yagi something, at the very least about their financial situation. But Izuku has very fickle trust in adults, and while he trusts Yagi not to hurt him, he doesn’t entirely trust the hero to care or to do something or not be like every other adult he’s met in some sense. Old habits die hard, he guesses. He does want to trust Yagi, it’s just hard. Touya was the first person to care about him, and they met when Touya was 16.

Anyways, all Izuku thinks of when his legs finally give out (after a week of little to no sleep and microwavable ramen) is ‘oh no, what if he decides he doesn’t wanna give One For All to me now.’

Both Izuku and the cooler he’s carrying crash to the sandy ground.

“You alright, young Midoriya?” Yagi calls from where he's watching Izuku haul trash. Izuku rolls onto his back and lays starfish in the sand.

“Yeah!” he calls back but makes no actual effort to move. Maybe if he just closed his eyes and fell asleep, the ache in his bones and muscles will go away. He stares up and the sky for a while, trying to hype himself to get off the ground, but his body refuses to move. It’s nice and sunny, and Izuku almost thinks he could fall asleep like this. Soon, though, there’s a familiarly gaunt face peering down at him.

“Are you sure?” the man quirks an eyebrow.

“I’m just takin’ a little rest.”

“Have you been sticking to the meal and exercise plan?” the man asks. Okay, maybe Izuku hasn’t. But most of it was out of his control! He couldn’t help it if was hard, especially in the beginning, to eat 3 full meals a day. He’s been starving since he was a kid! He’s not used to that much food. Or Touya getting sick and not being able to afford 3 meals within the meal plan a day for a little bit. Plus Touya’s been stressed trying to get them financially back on track, and Izuku’s gonna have to start working more soon, and running or lifting weights helped him forget that if one thing went wrong, they could go back to being homeless. Had Touya been attempting to keep how bad their financial issues actually were? Of course. But Izuku was smart, and his brother couldn’t hide everything. The fridge being a little more empty than usual and the extra Saturday and Sunday shift Touya had taken up had been enough to clue Izuku in that things were not going well. But! Izuku turned 15 soon and then he could work legally! And that means he can start working longer hours and more days!

But it’s not like he really wants to tell All Might all that. Should he? Probably. Well, maybe not the “back” to being homeless… Or starving for most of his life… so maybe just about having financial issues.

Or maybe he’ll just do what he’s always done. Fake it ‘till you make it.

Yagi’s sigh brings him out of his thoughts.

“You have, haven’t you?”

“Sorry?”

“Overworking yourself is only gonna slow you down, my boy. And you need protein to gain muscles, and not to mention weight.” Izuku’s been working on that weight part, but being malnourished and not knowing where his next meal would come from for most of his life had made it a little hard. He actually couldn’t stick to the meal plan to a T, it was meant for someone who was just underweight, not malnurished. Not that he could tell Yagi that, too many questions Izuku couldn’t answer. At least without causing too many issues neither Izuku nor Touya want to deal with.

“I know,” He does know, but as mentioned, there’s a lot of factors out of his control. Like that bitch from Touya’s work giving him a stomach bug that caused him to miss 3 days of work. He wants to tell Yagi as such, he really does want to tell him that he’s trying but his body is so used to going days without food that now, even though they can afford multiple meals a day, he physically can’t stomach it. But there’s not a way to really tell the man that without him becoming concerned, and it honestly wouldn’t take much digging for Yagi to figure out something was wrong, especially with his connections.

And while Yagi might be a good person, there was no way he’d side with the 14 and 22 year olds he’s known for a couple months over the #2 and #55 heroes.

Yagi holds out a hand, which Izuku takes. The man helps him off the beach floor, and Izuku see’s stars when he’s finally standing all the way up. Yeah, that probably wasn’t good.

“Come on, my boy,” Yagi says “We’re taking a break. Do you like ice cream?”

-

Yagi takes him to an ice cream shop a little down the street, and even though Izuku insists otherwise, pays for Izuku’s ice cream.

“Do you want to tell me why you're overworking yourself?” Yagi asks. Izuku does, he really does. But there’s so many overlapping layers that are harder to explain or impossible to explain in full. Yes, the “growing up poor” would explain a lot, but not everything. And even though he wants to, trusting people is hard. There’s never been anyone for Izuku besides Touya, how does he know Yagi won’t turn out like his dna givers, or his teachers from before, or every other person who turned a blind eye to the ‘quirkless’ kid being abused.

“I’m so behind everyone else,” Izuku finds himself saying, it’s not a lie, he really is. He doesn’t know much about his quirk besides that he can create fire. He’s really only used it to light his hand on fire. He doesn’t know if it's closer pyrokinesis or just the ability to create fire.

“I  need to work harder than anyone else to make it, I’ll never catch up otherwise.”

Yagi’s expression softens.

“You still have 7 months left, and you’re making great progress already, my boy,” Yagi says, Izuku flushes a little at the compliment. He feels a little guilty, lying to the hero, but he just… doesn’t trust him enough to tell the truth right now. And besides, what could he really do? There wasn’t a way Yagi could make his body accept more food. Or for Touya to have a well paying job. Besides, he was working on the food part, it was just going to take time.

“I know but…” Izuku trails off, not really knowing what to say. Yagi places a hand on his shoulder and gives him a soft smile.

“You’ll do great, my boy.”

-

Izuku doesn manage to keep from overworking himself again. Touya got a raise, easing their financial stress quite a bit, and he stopped running when stressed, instead opting to get back into his childhood hobby of analysis, which he had abandoned a couple years ago.

He doesn’t quite meet the weight goal by the day of the entrance exam, but it’s close enough that Izuku doesn’t feel the need to mention it. And he’s proud of his weight gain, he’s a healthy weight for the first time since he was an infant. And no longer being malnourished caused him to (finally) gain some height as well. Not much, of course, the trauma and genetics weren’t on his side for being any taller than maybe 170cm. But it was still something.

He also manages to clean a whole section of the beach! Which means, this morning, he finally got one for all.

(“EAT THIS”)

Hair does not taste good. Or go down easily

He runs home after eating the hair (again, gross), the UA entrance exam in an hour, meaning he has just enough time to get dressed, eat, say goodbye to Touya, and make it to UA with some time to spare.

He quickly changes into a baggy long sleeve shirt and sweats. He’d gotten comfortable enough around Yagi to wear short sleeves, he never seemed to question the scars (admittedly there is only a handful, and most of them are small) but the cold combined with the fact he’ll be around thousands of people he doesn’t know is a nerve wracking to say the least.

He has a quick breakfast of white rice with egg and miso soup, gets a hug and “good luck” from Touya, and then is out the door. Heading for UA, the school all the most successful heroes attended, All Might, Best Jeanist, Edgeshot, Miruko, Crust, Kamui Woods, etc etc. But most importantly, it’s the school his older brother attended and were Eraserhead and Present Mic teach and graduated.

When Izuku had learned that Touya had attended the hero course at UA , he practically begged him to tell him what it was like. And with those stories, of course came talk of the heroes that saved him. And Izuku had grown to love those heroes like he liked All Might.

Eraserhead and Present Mic had kept Touya afloat just like All Might had kept Izuku afloat, even if it was in different ways. Eraserhead and Present Mic were physically there for Touya, but before meeting him this last April, All Might was only a figure of strength and happiness for him.

Either way, he’s both so nervous he thinks he’s gonna puke, and so excited he thinks he’s gonna puke. Maybe he’s just gonna puke? He better not.

Then he see’s Bakugou and he’s almost sure he’s gonna puke. Seeing him at the sludge incident hadn’t produced this reaction to him, but he assumes that was from the adrenaline. Now that he’s seeing him in a calm and school setting…. well things come flooding back. (burnt flesh and caramel have no business being together, but it’s the mess of Izuku’s childhood.)

But Bakugou pays him no mind, and Izuku has to remind himself that to Bakugou, he’s just another kid taking the UA entrance exam. Just a kid he doesn’t know, and probably doesn’t care to know. And that thought helps him relax a little.

This is it, he tells himself, starting towards the doors. The first step to becoming a hero. A wish he’s held since he knew what heroes were. A wish he’s held onto despite experiencing the worse heroes had to offer.

And with that, he promptly trips over his own feet and falls towards the ground.

It’s over. He’s done for. Forgive him Yagi and Touya, but he’s going to die of embarrassment right here on UA’s doorstep before even being able to take the exams.

But then, he stops.

Mid-air, he just… stops.

He stares at the ground, inches away from his nose, not certain of what happened or what to do.

“Sorry for using my quirk on you!” a bubbly voice says from behind him “I just thought it would be bad luck to trip before the exam!”

“Um…” Izuku says unintelligently.

“Oh!” the voice says again, and Izuku is put back on his feet. Izuku faces a girl with chestnut brown hair and a smile that could rival the sun.

“I have to go inside! Good luck on the exam!” she runs off, leaving Izuku still slightly confused in her wake. He blinks one, twice, and then he follows her into the building.

Chapter Text

Shouta hates the entrance exam. Not just because of how biased it was, but because of how boring it was to watch either overpowered kids run around like chickens with their heads cut off destroying robots with no regard for their fellow participants, or kids with ‘useless’ or mental quirks trying their hardest, only to fail over and over. He hates watching their confidence and self-esteem melt away in front of his eyes. Of course, there are kids squarely in the middle, most people are, but they never really caught his eye like the other two.

Plus this year they had All Might- or Yagi Toshinori he guesses- on staff. Hizashi said he had an “illogical hate” for the man, but Shouta didn’t like the way the man went around carrying the weight of the world on his back. And he was loud. (Shouta, you may be saying, aren’t Hizashi and Nemuri loud too? Wasn’t Oboro equally as loud? He didn’t entirely have a choice in befriending them.)

In the first category, someone with an explosion quirk. Who so far, hasn’t scored a single rescue point. His recklessness has given other participants several chances for rescue points. Probably enough to pass without any combat points. But there were only a few that took that opportunity. Which was, sadly, normal. Not many aspiring Heroes thought about the rescue part of heroics.

In the other category, there's a kid with purple hair. They probably have a mental quirk of some sort. They’ve managed to pull apart a handful of robots with their bare hands. Which is certainly better than Shouta managed to do. And he thinks they’ll manage to gain a few rescue points. Perhaps enough to pass, though just barely.

Nezu releases the zero-pointers. Shouta sighs and watches as 99% of the participants run in the other direction, often with disregard for the other participants. There’s someone stuck into some rubble in one arena, and there's a kid who seems to be running towards them.

That's not something that happens often, plenty of times Nezu has had to stop the Zero pointer from killing some poor kid. Too many just relied on UA to save the kid and turned their back in favor of getting more combat points. And so Shouta, and most of the staff, turn their attention to the kid.

The kid, who if he’s being honest has no outstanding features, uses their quirk to jump and then punch the zero pointer, destroying it in one punch. For a second, Shouta wonders why he hadn’t seen the kid running around, destroying robots left in right, putting people in harm's way. They certainly have the quirk for it, by all means, they should have been closer to the brat with the explosion quirk.

And then Nemuri hisses, and Shouta notices that the kid broke both his legs and arm. And Shouta winces. That kid has one of the worst quick backlashes he’s seen in a while. Hopefully, it’s because they overused it, and not just because used it at all.

They watch as the kid enters a free fall, and Shouta thinks for a second that they might have their first actual death in the entrance exam. Recovery Girl could only do so much, and a fall from that height would do more damage than she could fix. And there’s no way any of them could get out there fast enough to save them. But in a stroke of luck, the kid stuck under the rubble manages to use their quirk to save them. 

Shouta has no idea how many rescue points that action will give them, but he’s almost positive it’ll be enough to pass. Especially if they have any combat points. And knowing Nezu’s sadistic streak, they’ll be in Shouta’s class. Students with destructive quirks always were. Mostly because Shouta could sort through the ones that could and would learn to control their quirk and the ones that had a stick up their ass and wouldn’t last a day in the field better than Kan could.

Shouta runs a hand through his hair. Just knowing that both the bone-breaking kid and the youngest Todoroki kid will be in his class has him exhausted. 

He’s been waiting for a while, 5 almost 6 years hoping that one of the other Todoroki kids would attend UA so that he and the staff could try and help. At least in terms of just giving them a place to go where they don’t have to deal with Endeavor in any sense. 

Year after year though, there were no Todoroki’s. Not in either exam. And year after year Shouta lost a little bit of hope. 

This year though, Endeavor paraded his youngest around the recommendation exam like a show pony. At least that’s how Hizashi described it.

Most of the staff didn’t know what was happening with the Todoroki’s. Nezu and Shouta agreed that for now, the fewer people knew the better. Less of chance Endeavor could find out they knew and find a way to bury his crimes deeper than before. A lot of them didn’t even know what happened to Todoroki Touya, just that he… disappeared. Actually, no one really knew what happened to Todoroki Touya. For obvious reasons, Shouta couldn’t show the note to too many people, much less Endeavor and the police, and because no body had ever been found, he was only assumed dead. 

But several of them had a problem with Endeavor’s behavior at the recommendation exam. And were very vocal about it. Perhaps they would let a few more people know about their expose Endeavor conspiracy.

Hizashi announces the end of the exam, and Recovery Girl begins to make her rounds. Shouta is done for the day, Nezu and the board will put together the classes with minimal input from Shouta. 

On his way out, he catches All Might-Yagi-whatever with a smile, and wonders what that’s about.

-

The entrance exam goes terribly, at least in Izuku’s opinion. First, some blue-haired person calls him out on his mumbling in front of Present Mic and the entirety of UA’s hero course test takers. Then the same blue-haired person accuses him of trying to ‘distract’ the nice girl that saved him not 30 minutes later.

He only managed to get 14 points, using only his hands and fire quirk. Touya tried to convince him to use it more, but he just couldn't. He managed to use it a little more than he normally would, but it’s still not a lot.

Than One For All manifested and broke 3 out of 4 of his limbs. At least he managed to save the nice girl from the beginning of the exam. Not that she needed it, UA wouldn’t have let her die. Probably. They have Recovery Girl so she would have been fine. Most likely.

He arrives home later than expected, having passed out after Recovery Girl healed him. He’s missing work, though it luckily won’t be a problem. Working4 days a week instead of 3 and Touya’s raise has given them a little more wiggle room than they’re frankly used to.

Yagi texts him a ‘proud of you, my boy!’ and Izuku wants to cry. Both because of the praise and because he knows he’ll eventually have to let the hero down. And then Yagi will probably ask for his quirk back and give it to someone who will actually become a hero. But for now, he just texts back a ‘thank you!’

He hadn’t applied for any other hero school, he should have. But he just didn’t think he could trust any of the staff at the other schools. UA had Eraserhead and Present Mic. Two heroes he knows are trustworthy. It’s the school his brother went to, the school he used to fantasize about going to when he was a kid. There were hundreds of hero schools. But UA was the top one. Arguably in all of Asia. The next best was Shiketsu, the school his father went to. Which was enough of a reason for Izuku to avoid the school. (He doubts the school produced only abusive pricks, but it’s the principle of not being like his father. Plus he’s heard his father visited the school yearly to talk to 3rd years. Izuku would have a breakdown if he saw the man in the hallways.)

“How’d it go?” Touya asks when he gets home. Izuku groans from his place face down on the couch.

“Tripped at the front gates, got yelled at twice by this blue guy, once in front of Present Mic and every single person taking the exam. Got 14 points and broke both legs and an arm. Then passed out and didn’t even get to thank the girl who saved me from eating shit.” Touya’s quiet for a beat.

“You broke both legs and an arm? How did you- Izuku!”

“One For All. I can’t use it without breaking bones. Not that that matters anymore. I didn’t get into UA and I didn’t apply for any other hero school.” 

“You won’t know until you get the letter. And I think Seijin and Isamu are still accepting applications.”

“When are their entrance exams?”
“Isamu’s tomorrow, Shiejin’s in 2 hours.”

“I’ll try Isamu’s. I don’t think I’ll be able to make Shiejin’s.”

“Don’t give up yet Izuku, you still have a chance at UA,” his brother winks at him, before retreating into the kitchen. What the fuck is that supposed to mean?

-

He has a much better chance of passing Isamu’s exam. It was far easier than UA’s, which should have been a given. UA had thousands of participants for the hero exam alone . They had to widdle that down to 36 . Even with the other departments, there were only a little over 200 seats in each year total. (exactly 220, but 4 of those were pulled from recommendations, so only 216 are from the exam.)

Isamu had a much smaller pool of participants, maybe 500 total. They didn’t have to turn away so many people, so the test was astronomically easier. Sure, the school didn’t have Present Mic or Eraserhead, but it was a hero school, and if Izuku wants to become a hero, he needs to attend a hero school.

The weeks wait for acceptance or rejection letters is almost torture. Touya keeps insisting that Izuku still has a chance at UA, even with his measly 14 points. Izuku knows Touya wouldn’t say that if he didn’t mean it, but Izuku doesn’t understand how. Anyone else he heard talking about points had at least double his.

They arrive the same day. 

“Izuku! Your letters arrived!” Touya calls from the front door. And Izuku, who was peacefully scouring the internet in his room, practically races down the hall to tear them from Touya’s hands. Touya, who is an asshole, holds them out of his reach and laughs as Izuku jumps to get them.

“Hold your horses, let’s sit down first.” Izuku resists the urge to pout. It should be illegal for Touya to use his height like that. Touya just enjoyed being the tall one for once.

“Fine,” he huffs with a roll of his eyes. They sit down and Touya hands the UA one over first.

Izuku eagerly opens the letter, a small round disk clattering onto the kitchen table, a hologram flickering to life. 

"I AM HERE, IN HOLOGRAPHIC VIDEO FORM!" It was a pre-recorded video, depicting Yagi- Well All Might- in front of some yellow background. 

“I thought this was from UA?” Izuku mutters. Touya looks surprised too.

“Mine was a hologram as well, but Nedzu did mine.”

“Sorry for not being in contact! There’s been much to deliberate on.” To be honest, Izuku had barely noticed that Yagi hadn’t texted him but once or twice. He’s been too busy worrying about entrance exams.

“I’m in town for one reason only. I’ve come to teach at UA!” Both Touya and Izuku’s eyes widen. The hero glances off-screen, perhaps receiving instructions from someone else. "AHEM, WELL. Young Midoriya Izuku, you passed the U.A.'s written exam with flying colors! Congratulations! But not only that. You also exceeded my expectations, you earned 14 combat points in the practical exam! Sadly this would not be enough to pass” Izuku’s heart sinks, he knew that, why is he so upset? “If that was all there was to the exam! There's something I think you'd like to see!"

Another video burst to life in the corner, depicting the girl who saved him from eating shit and falling to his death. She appears rosy-cheeked and lively again, approaching Present Mic with a sheepish look on her face.

“She came to see us right after the text.” All Might explains.

"Uhm, excuse me, Mr. Present Mic? Sorry to interrupt, but... do you remember the curly-haired boy" She gestured at her head, "with lots of freckles? He was really plain-looking.” Touya snorts at the ‘plain looking’ and Izuku, in turn, punches him in the arm.

“I heard him say that he didn’t have enough points to pass, I wanted to ask if it'd be alright if... I maybe gave him some of my points? He gave up on his chance to earn points to save me! And it wouldn't be fair if he didn't pass and I did even though he was the one who saved me. That boy, he saved my life!" 

“We weren’t just watching for combat-based points!”  All Might says, and Izuku turns to look at Touya, who had a shit-eating grin on his face,

“I’m afraid we can’t give him your points,” Present Mic says on the recording, patting the girl, who he still doesn’t have a name for, on the head “But there shouldn’t be a need for it, my little listener!”

“A hero course that rejects those who do the right thing is no hero course at all!” Yagi says dramatically.

"Seems you made quite an impression, does it not? You, young Midoriya, choosing the safety of others first, going around helping other examinees, and saving that girl even though those actions weren't demanded in the exam, even though you had nothing to gain." All Might turned to face the camera directly, his face pulled into a shining grin. "Rescue points were also a factor here! A second factor was voted on by a panel of judges. And for that reason, I am proud to say you passed with 60 RESCUE POINTS!" All Might flashed a thumbs up, beaming at the screen.

"You passed the exam my boy, 74 points!. Your heroic actions, bravery, and selflessness are now there for the whole world to see! Welcome, Midoriya Izuku to your hero academia" the video pauses and glitches out as Izuku wipes tears from his eyes. He made it. 

Touya lets Izuku stop crying before he hands him the letter from Isamu, but Izuku doesn’t really care what that one says. 

Still, he opens it and skims through the contents. He was accepted, but considering he was also accepted into UA, Izuku’s gonna have to turn them down. Touya pulls him into a hug.

“I’m proud of you.” 

-

Izuku meets Yagi at the now clean beach that night. And seeing the man again reminds him how long it’s actually been since they talked. Really, besides a couple of texts, they haven’t talked since the day of the entrance exam, when Izuku was given One For All.

“Yagi!” he yells

“Young Midoriya! Congrats on passing!” Izuku smiles “You should know that I haven’t told the school about our relationship. You seem like the type that would worry about favoritism.” Admittedly, Izuku was a little bit. Before Izuku was ‘diagnosed’ as quirkless (really he was just a late bloomer with double pink joints and that had been ‘so rare’ that the doctors hadn’t bothered to check for a quirk factor) every adult had treated him like a god because of his father. It was something, even at 5, that he didn’t like. 

“So you’re a teacher at UA?” Yagi nods

“I couldn’t tell anyone until the school made it public knowledge. I figured I could take the job while searching for a successor.” Izuku is once again reminded about how lucky he is. It was just chance that he was attacked by the sludge villain. It was just chance that the sludge villain got away. It was just chance that the sludge villain got Bakugou next and that Izuku happened across him.

“I can’t use One For All without breaking my body,” Izuku tells him. Yagi sighs.

“I thought that might happen.”

“Huh? You knew?”

“It was a possibility. If someone suddenly grew a tail, it’s not like they’d be able to do tricks with it right off the bat. For right now, it’s still all or nothing. I suggest you stick to using your original quirk and only use One For All when you need to until you can use it without breaking your bones.” Yagi looks thoughtful for a second.

“What is your original quirk? I don’t think you’ve ever mentioned it.”

“Oh,” Izuku produces a small flame in his hand “It’s just a fire quirk.” he shrugs, extinguishing the flame.

“That’s a fine quirk, my boy” Please don’t compare him to Endeavor or Dragon, please don’t compare him to Endeavor or Dragon, please don’t compare him to Endeavor or Dragon.

“I know plenty of heroes with fire quirks, Endeavor and Dragon come of mind first, of course, but there are many others.” Goddamn it.

“What was your quirk? Before One For All?” Izuku asks, hoping to steer the conversation away from his quirk.

“Me? I was quirkless my boy.”

“Really? I thought it would have something to do with your All Might form,” Yagi shakes his head.

“Nope, After gaining One For All I thought that might have been the case and got checked for a quirk factor. I’m 100% quirkless.” Izuku knows that Yagi probably didn’t go through everything Izuku did while quirkless, even just 20 years ago there were way more quirkless people. But still… Izuku repressed the urge to grimace.  

“Really! I was a pretty late bloomer, so everyone thought I was quirkless until I was 8.” He tells the man.

“I haven’t met many quirkless kids in your generation,” Yagi notes. Izuku nods, there weren’t many. Despite not being quirkless, Izuku still kept up with quirkless news. There were plenty of them, more than people thought, but they were spread thin across Japan. You were lucky if there was another quirkless person in your school.

“There’s not too many. I only ever knew one quirkless person who wasn’t my parents or grandparents' age, and he was still 4 years older than me.” That person being Todoroki Natsuo, even though Izuku had never actually met the man, he knew a lot about him from Touya. Yagi looks a little concerned. He supposes someone who grew up with at least a handful of other quirkless people their age wouldn’t really understand what it was like being quirkless nowadays.

“It’s getting late my boy, you should probably be heading home.”

“Oh, yeah!”

The weeks between getting his acceptance letter and the first day both seem to stretch on forever and pass before a blink of an eye. He goes to work, does his schoolwork, and keeps up with fitness. His coworkers and boss congratulate him n making it into UA, and Touya treats him to some mochi. Conversations with Yagi are still sparse, but he figures the man is getting ready for the new school year.

Soon enough, Izuku wakes up at 6:30 am and puts on a school uniform for the first time in years . And it’s there he realizes that he’s never worn a tie before… and has no idea how to tie one. He spends 2 minutes trying on his own, then another 3 following an online tutorial before he gives up and decides to just ask his brother.

“Touya!” he yells “I need help.” Touya knocks before sticking his head in Izuku’s room.

“How do you tie a tie?” He asks. Touya begins to laugh, probably at the monstrosity that is Izuku’s attempt to tie a tie.

“Shut the fuck up,” Izuku pouts “I didn’t grow up wearing ties.”

“You look pretty stupid,” he laughs, “But I’m a good brother so I’ll show you how to tie it.” Touya shows him how to tie it, though it still takes several times for Izuku to be able to do it himself. 

“Alright now get going. You don’t need to be late on your first day. Good luck” Touya ruffles hair and Izuku pretends he hates it and pushes him off.

“Yeah yeah. You’re not hiding anything from me like you did with the rescue points are you?” Because if his brother likes anything, it’s a dramatic reveal.

“Maybe. You won’t know until you get to school. Now get going.” Izuku rolls his eyes but grabs his bag and downs a bowl of rice and egg before grabbing a couple of onigiri for the road.

“Bye Touya!”

“Bye Izuku! Stay safe!”

The walk to the train station is nice, a few people give him smiles or do a double-take once they see his UA uniform. But luckily, no one tries to talk to him. There are a handful of other people in UA uniforms, a couple who he even recognizes from the entrance exam. Including the person with several arms who was in his arena, a blonde-haired and blue-eyed person, and someone with a bird head. He wonders what their quirks are and if they’ll be in his class.

Speaking of class, Izuku wonders who his homeroom teacher would be. Eraserhead had 2B, at least when Touya was at UA. Izuku could potentially do the math to see if Eraserhead would have a first-year class, but he still wouldn’t know if he had the A or B class. Plus that would ruin the surprise! And even if he didn’t get the hero for homeroom, he’d have Present Mic for English so that was good enough for him. He’d see Eraserhead around the school.

Izuku gets lost in the halls fairly quickly. The halls are long and the layout is confusing, so by the time he finds the heroics wing, after being directed by several upperclassmen and even a few teachers, there’s only a handful of minutes before the bell.

He hopes the person who saved him is in his class. And that Bakugou and the blue-haired person aren't. He can hear people talking inside the classroom, but he doesn’t know what they’re saying until he opens the door and-

Comes face to face with the blue-haired person yelling at Bakugou.

“Remove your foot from that desk! Such an action is insulting those who came before us as well as the craftsmen who made the desk!" the blue-haired person says.

"Like I care, what middle school did you go to, extra?" Bakugou stares at them with a smirk. Looks like he hasn’t gotten over calling everyone ‘extra.’

“I attended Somei Private Academy. My name is Iida Tenya,” Izuku recognizes that name from somewhere, but he can’t seem to remember from where.

“Somei? A stuck-up elitist then? I should blow you to bits.” Bakugou grins. 

“That’s cruel! Do you really wish to become a hero?!” It seems like most of the class is watching them. Back and forth, almost like a tennis match. Izuku tries to walk past them, just wanting to avoid them and sit in his seat, but he ends up getting stopped by Iida. 

“Oh, it's you! Greetings, my name is Iida-” He starts

"I um, I heard. I'm Midoriya Izuku. It's, it’s nice to meet you, Iida!" Izuku says with a shaky smile. Please don’t yell at him again

" Midoriya, you perceived the true nature of that practical exam." Izuku did not “I misjudged you! I hate to admit it, but you were the superior candidate!” Iida bows deeply at Izuku.

“Oh- um thank you?” now please let him get to his seat.

“The plain-looking boy!” A familiar voice behind him. He turns to see the girl from the entrance exam.

“You got in! Just like Present Mic said! MAkes sense though, that punch was awesome!” Izuku flushes

“No, I mean…I have to thank me for speaking on my behalf,”

“Huh? How do you know about that?” she asks. Before Izuku can answer though, a movement out of the corner of his eye catches his attention, and so he freezes. Outside, laying in front of the door is a teacher(?) in a sleeping bag.

“If you’re here to socialize, get out,” They say. The girl, who he still doesn’t have a name for, turns around.

“This is,” The sleeping bag person pokes their hand out of the sleeping bag, holds a jelly packet up to their lips. “The hero course.” He sucks the contents in one suck. Then they stand up like a demented caterpillar, unzip the sleeping bag, and step out. It’s fucking Eraserhead .

Izuku, if he had his way, would be jumping in place from happiness right now. He doesn't stop himself from smiling though. While he knew it was a possibility, there are still 6 homeroom teachers for the heroics course, and Izuku didn't have the best of luck.(His excitement keeps him from noticing the way his homeroom teacher’s eyes linger just a second too long on him.)

“It took 8 seconds for you to quiet down. Time is a precious resource. You lot aren’t very rational, are you?” He says, glancing around the room.

“I’m your homeroom teacher, Aizawa Shouta. Pleased to meet you.” Izuku can feel his classmates’ confusion, but Izuku is just about hopping in place (“like a bunny,” his brother’s voice says in his head.) Aizawa produces one of UA’s gym uniforms from his sleeping bag and holds it out.

“Quickly now, change into your gym clothes and head out to the grounds.”

-

Izuku changes in the bathroom stall, along with the person with the multiple arms (Izuku can’t wait to see their quirk!) and Touya’s brother, Todoroki Shouto. He then sends a quick text to his brother (TOUYA AIZAWA IS MY HOMEROOM TEACHER) and puts his uniform into his locker. Izuku forces himself not to hunch over to hid his chest. Several guys have bigger pecks than he has boobs (namely Kirishima, Iida, and Bakugou) plus it makes him look smaller. (He’s not the smallest assumed male student to his surprise, Tokoyami is shorter than him.

Once all of 1A is out on the field, Aizawa turn to them

“Today we will be doing a quirk test,” Aizawa states.

“What about the entrance ceremony? Or Guidance sessions” Uraraka asks (he finally got her name.)

“No time to waste on that stuff if you want to become heroes. UA is known for its ‘freestyle’ education system. And that applies to us teachers as well.”

“Softball throwing. The standing long jump. The 50-meter dash. Endurance running. Grip strength. Side-to-side stepping. Upper body training. Seated toe touch. You did all these in middle school, yes? Your standard, no-quirks-allowed gym test.” Izuku did not, he went to online school. No PE for him.” This country still insists on prohibiting quirks when calculating the average of those records. It’s not rational. The department of education is just procrastinating. Bakugou, How far could you throw in middle school?”

“67 meters,” Bakugousays proudly

Aizawa gestures for him to step into a circle drawn on the ground and hands him a ball.

“Great, now try it with your quirk this time. Dow whatever you need to. Just don’t leave the circle. Give it your all.”

“You got it,” Bakuou grins. He stretches and….

“ DIE,” He screams, launching the ball into the air with an explosion. Izuku flinches at the sound and covers his ears, but he doubts anyone can tell from the fucking smoke cloud Bakugou creates.

“It’s important for us to know our limits. That’s the first radical step to finding out what kind of hero you’ll be.” Aizawa states, turning the device around so the class can see.

‘705.2m’ it read

“Hold on, this is awesome!”

“705 meters? Seriously?”

“So we can use our Quirks for real! Man, the hero course is great!”

“This is gonna be fun!”

“Fun, you say?” Aizawa asks softly. And Izuku freezes, that softness does not mean anything good, it’s the voice people used before doing something they knew was bad, but just didn’t care because he was quirkless (useless) “You’re hoping to become heroes after three years here, and you think it’ll be fun and games?” He drawls, looming over the group. “Right. The one with the lowest score across each of the eight events will be decided hopeless and expelled.” Izuku knows that threat is real, even if he didn’t just tend to know when people lied, Touya had Aizawa, and Touya told stories of kids being expelled for not living up to Aizawa’s expectation or being unwilling to put in the work.

“Stick to using your original quirk and only use One For All when you need to,” All Might had said, Izuku didn’t think he’d be using it so quickly. 

“Expulsion?” someone shrieks

“We’re free to do what we want about the circumstances of our students. Welcome to the UA hero course!”

“But it’s the first day of school! No, even if it wasn’t the first day of school, this is too unfair!” Uraraka complains.

“Natural Disasters, big accidents, and selfish villains. Calamities whose time or place can’t be predicted. Japan is covered in unfairness. Heroes are the ones who reverse those situations. If you wanted to go talk with your friends at Mcdonalds after school, too bad. For the next three years, UA will do all it can to give you one hardship after another. Go beyond. Plus Ultra. Overcome it with all you’ve got. All right, demonstration over. The real thing starts now.”

Chapter Text

Izuku’s kinda fucked. He can’t use One For All and his original quirk certainly isn’t powerful to do anything grand. He’s not jacked enough to completely make up for his lack of quirk, so he just has to hope and pray the little he can use his quirk and his training put him at an advantage over at the very least the person with an invisibility quirk.

50-meter dash, grip strength, standing long jump, repeated side steps, distance run, seated toe-touch, sit-ups. Izuku can’t use his quirk on any of them. In fact, the only one he can see using his quirk on at all is the softball throw. He’s glad that he’s been training for almost a year now, because most of his classmates rely too much on their quirks. He is faster and stronger than a lot of them, so when they couldn’t use their quirks, he beat them. 

He just hoped it was enough to keep him from being last.

He averages at the bottom middle for the 50-meter dash, grip strength, standing long jump, and repeated side steps. He just needs a good score for at least one, and he should be in the clear.

Aizawa calls Izuku up for the softball throw, the one test he can use his quirk in. Aizawa hands him the softball and Izuku steps into the ring.

The ball is light, and Izuku won’t have trouble giving it a boost, especially since he hasn’t used his quirk at all today. Izuku stretches his arms and readies his throw.

Izuku goes cold. He falters, and the ball goes less than 40 meters. He’s not so cold he’s shaking, at least not yet, but he’s still cold. Which means something was messing with his quirk. Did One For All do something? He wasn’t even trying to use it. And this didn’t happen before, though he might have noticed at the time.

“I erased your quirk,” Aizawa says, and Izuku almost sighs in relief. He thought something bad happened to his quirk.

“I saw what happened at the entrance exam, you can’t use your quirk without incapacitating yourself. Were you hoping someone would step in to help afterward?” Izuku wants to be offended. Actually, that makes him feel kinda like shit. This was Touya’s favorite teacher? 

“I-I”

“Whatever you were planning, it would have inconvenienced those around you.” The cold is starting to make Izuku shiver now, he’s always known his quirk had an effect on his body temperature. He was warmer than average and the cold affected him more, but he didn’t think that it controlled it this much. He doesn’t know what will happen if Aizawa keeps erasing it, but he does remember being sick and cold all the time as a child. He thought it was a side effect of the quick suppressants, but maybe it was because his quirk was being suppressed.

“Way back when, a certain hot-bloodied hero saved over a thousand people during a disaster, he made himself a legend,“ Aizawa continues “You’ve got the same-”

“Can I have my quirk back?” Izuku squeaks. Aizawa looks offended and angry. Uh oh. Izuku has fucked up so many times today alone he’s going to go home, lay on his bed, put some background noise, and stare at the wall until he no longer can feel the shame spreading through his body.

“Excuse me?” His tone is dangerous and Izuku can feel his heart race as he tries to put the correct words in his mouth.

“I-um, my quirk controls my body temperature? And-and it’s- I’m shivering?” Aizawa sighs, but blinks and Izuku’s quirk comes back to him. He immediately feels warmer and stops shivering. Okay, that’s good. And Aizawa looks slightly less angry.

“How does a strength enhancement quirk control your body temperature?”

“OH, um it’s a dual-type. I have a fire quirk as well. That part controls my body temperature.” Aizawa stares at him for a beat. Did he not know about his quirk?

“Give it another go,” Aizawa finally says

Izuku retrieves the ball from the field with a slight blush on his face. His classmates are talking quietly to each other, quiet enough that Izuku can’t hear them, and he finds his ears heat up even more at the whispers.

Once again, Izuku readies his throw. He sends a heavy stream of fire (as heavy as he can afford to make) after it, and for good measure, uses the tiniest bit of One For All in his finger.

‘296.8’ Aizawa’s device reads. His finger isn’t broken either, sprained for sure, but not broken. Izuku smiles at his teacher. 

The rest of the tests go fine for Izuku, he gets 16th in the distance run, 14th in the grip test, 13th on the seated toe-touch, and 13th in the sit-ups. Being 9th in the soft ball throw will guarantee he doesn’t get last, especially since the purple-haired kid hasn’t gotten higher than 16th. Izuku feels bad, they obviously don’t have an offensive quirk, but if they’re not willing to put in the work then... well. He’s sure Aizawa knows best.

“It would be illogical to call out the scores one-by-one,” Aizawa says blankly, “So here are the scores.” a hologram materializes in front of them out of the device Aizawa had held.

1 Yaoyorzu Momo          11 Kouda Kouji

2 Todoroki Shouto        12 Sato Rikido

3 Bakugou Katsuki          13 Asui Tsuyu

4 Iida Tenya             14 Aoyama Yuuga

5 Tokoyami Fumikage    15 Sero Hanta

6 Shouji Mezou        16 Kaminari Denki

7 Ojiro Mashirao      17 Midoriya Izuku

8 Kirishima Eijiro          18 Jirou Kyouka

9 Ashido Mina          19 Hagakure Tooru

10 Uraraka Ochako    20 Shinsou Hitoshi

Aizawa turns towards Shinsou. They look… well, they look like Touya the few times they’ve seen the other Todoroki children out. Eye’s empty of emotion, like they’ve pulled away so that everything hurts less. Izuku likes seeing it on a near-stranger just as much as he likes seeing it on his brother.

“Give me a reason not to expel you right now,” Aizawa says. Shinsou looks up at Aizawa with muted surprise.

“My quirk only works on people,” Shinsou says “so I couldn’t use my quirk for the tests.”

Aizawa hands them the softball again with a smirk.

“Use your quirk to throw this. Think outside the box.” Shinsou glances back and forth from the scores to the group of students.

“Yaoyorozu?” They call out

“Yes?” Yaoyorozu answers, before going stiff, eyes glazing over. Shinsou hands them the softball.

“Use your quirk to throw this ball as far as you can without hurting yourself.” Yaoyorozu then creates a canon and launches the ball.

‘1,687.4’ is Shinsou’s new score. Yaoyorozu’s eyes go back to normal. Holy fuck what a cool quirk. Izuku wants to know everything about it.

“I was lying about expelling someone. It was a logical ruse to pull out your best performances,” Aizawa says with a, frankly, sadistic smile. Which 1, Izuku can now see why Touya loves Aizawa so much and 2, what the fuck? He definitely wasn’t lying about expelling someone. So what made him change his mind?

“C’mon you guys, use your brain. Of course, it was just a ruse,” Yaoyorzu says as the rest of the class freaks out.

“Anyways, we’re done here. Your syllabus and such are back in the classroom. Give them a look.” And just like that, Aizawa leaves 20 confused students to fend for themselves.

After leaving the students and having a brief conversation with All Might, the buffoon who clearly has some connection to Midoriya, Shouta goes directly to the front office Midoriya’s file. Shouta didn’t usually read them, he wanted to meet his students without any preconceived notions of who they were and anything he absolutely needed to know would be told to him.

But Shouta had a feeling something was fishy. A 15 year old who seemed to know nothing about their quirk? Who was this kid's quirk counselor? Why wasn’t Shouta told that Midoriya’s quirk regulated his body temperature? He wouldn’t have erased his quirk for so long, or possibly at all, if he had known. 

He’d been going the dramatic ‘scare the shit out of kids to keep them from destroying themselves’ route, it was usually the most telling and effective start. It told him who was willing to listen and get creative, and who just gave up when confronted with hardship. They were 15, they didn’t need coddling, not in the field they were preparing for. Sure, by the end of the 3 years Shouta would ‘soften’ (as Nemuri and Hizashi put it) but that’s neither here nor there.

Anyways, Midoriya's file. It’s been a heck of a long time since he’s looked in his student’s files this early in the year. Several other staff members, including Nemuri, raise their eyebrows at Shouta, but he just glares at them and they back down. He scans through the documents in search of the kid’s quirk counselor. 

He doesn’t find one.

He goes through the stack 5 times. There is no quirk counselor listed.

“Everything alright, Shouta?” Nemuri asks, clearly sensing his confusion and frustration.

“Midoriya doesn’t have a quirk counselor listed.”

“What? Let me see.” Shouta passes her the file. She looks through it several times.

“I mean, you’re probably going to have to call his,” She glances at the pages again “Brother?” She hands it back to him with the ‘emergency contact’ page on top.

Shouta sighs and puts his head in his hands. He hates talking to his student’s families. He tries to avoid it as much as possible. Sadly, as a homeroom teacher, he has to do it often.

He dials the number on the form (the fact that his only 2 contacts are his brother and Yagi Toshinori bothers him, but that's something for later). It rings one, two, three, four times before it’s picked up.

“Midoriya Touya,” a gruff voice answers from the other end.

“Hello, this is Aizawa Shouta, your brother’s homeroom teacher, there’s an” Aizawa hesitates “issue with some of the paperwork. We have no listed quirk counselor.” There’s a pause from the other man.

“Oh, yeah. A couple of years ago while I was fighting our parents for custody, they destroyed a lot of the documents they had, and neither of us can remember who his counselor was. And then we switched to online school, which doesn’t have a school quirk counselor. Sorry about that.” Fighting for custody, destroying documents- Kami.

“It’s alright, thanks for clearing that up,” 

“No problem.” Shouta hangs up the phone and sighs. He’s not going to push that right now. Maybe at a later date, but just the knowledge that he fought their parents for custody opens up a whole can of worms. No one sues their parents for custody of their siblings unless it’s bad.

“And?”

“Parents destroyed the kid’s documents.”

“WHAT?”
“According to his brother, a couple of years back he was fighting for custody and they destroyed a bunch of documents.”
“Kami,”

“My thoughts exactly.”

Izuku is lying on the kitchen floor when Touya gets home. Maybe for other people that would be weird, but it was pretty typical for Izuku. Touya doesn’t understand why, but Izuku likes laying on the floor more than sitting in chairs or couches.

“How was your first day?” He asks, stepping over Izuku to get to the fridge.

“I hate you.” is Izuku’s answer. Touya stifles a laugh and nods with a smile.

“Sure.”

“You didn’t tell me Aizawa-sensei was so sadistic.” Ahhhhh, Aizawa. He loved him, as a teacher, as a hero, as a father, but the first day with him was… an experience. 

“It is best to experience Aizawa-sensei without any previous knowledge.” It’s true. Plus, warning him would take away the experience of being Aizawa’s student.

“You just like to see me suffer.” Touya laughs, grabbing last night’s leftovers from the fridge.

“How was it, besides Aizawa-sensei being a sadist?”

“Okay. I made a couple of friends. And Bakugou and your brother are in my class!” Touya pauses at the mention of his brother. It shouldn’t surprise him, Shoto was their fathers ‘perfect creation’ of course he was in the hero course. But in Touya’s mind, Shoto is still 8 years old. 

Touya hopes and prays that Aizawa had believed him and just couldn’t do anything. He hopes that they plan to help Shoto, even if he knows that Shoto will be much, much slower to trust.

“I didn’t get to talk to either of them.” Izuku continues. Touya hums in response, stepping back over Izuku to get to the kitchen table.

“Are you going to keep lying on the floor or are you going to get something to eat?” Izuku groans, but he does pick himself off the floor and to the fridge.

“Oh yeah, Aizawa-sensei threatened to expel the person who came in last, but then after he said it was a ‘logical ruse?’ didn’t he expel like half of your class?” That actually catches Touya off guard.

“He did. Who came in last?”

“Someone named Shinou. They had a mental quirk. Do you think that had something to do with it?”

“Probably, Aizawa-sensei has a huge soft spot for kids with mental quirks. Especially if they managed to get through the entrance exam.”

Touya thinks as he watches his brother smile and gesture widely while telling him stories from his first day of high school, and knowing that Shoto has some of the few people he trusts to do with the information of Endeavors abuse on his side, that their luck might finally be turning around for good.

The hour after school is Hizashi and Shouta’s designated ‘nap time.’ Well more so Shouta than him, but he always got dragged in. 

“How was your class?” Hizashi asks. Shouta groans and buries his face deeper into Hizashi’s chest.

“That bad huh?” It was a pretty typical response. Especially for first years. He’d pretend to hate them, and then by the second year, he’d put himself down as an emergency contact and be their 2nd father. Just like clockwork. 

“You remember the kid with the self-destructive strength enhancement quirk?”

“The one that destroyed the zero pointer? Yeah, why?”

“He also has a dual-type quirk. Fire and strength enhancement. AND when I erased his quirk, I didn’t get to finish my whole speech because his quirk controls his body temperature. Then I had a bad feeling about whoever his quirk counselor was, so I went through his file to find it, not only did he not have one on file, his only contacts were an older brother and Yagi Toshinori , and his brother said that their parents destroyed his documents while in the midst of a custody battle with him.” Okay. Not what Hizashi was expecting. 

“Kami,” is really all he can think to say.

“I’m gonna need extra strong coffee this year.” Hizashi laughs, running a hand through his husband’s hair. Hizashi this year will be good for them.

Chapter Text

At UA, the normal high school classes, Modern Literature, Art, Math, English, etc are taught in the morning, and then they have a lunch break, and then the course-specific courses (Hero basic training and heroic ethics and Laws for first year hero students) are in the afternoon. All (and he means all) of the staff are pro heroes. And it takes all of Izuku’s self control to not squeal in excitement every time he meets a new teacher. Present Mic is still the first year English teacher, meaning he has all 3 of his favorite heroes as teachers. 

Izuku doesn’t remember liking school much, even online school. He hated elementary school. Middle school was… okay. Izuku likes UA though. It’s probably because he not only has a quirk, but friends as well. The pro hero teachers definitely help too.

At lunch, Uraraka and Iida invite him to sit with them. He tries to wave Shinsou and Todoroki over, but they both ignore him. It doesn’t sway Izuku’s desire to befriend them. Izuku can be stubborn when he wants to. He’s sure he’ll wear through their walls and become friends with them eventually. He may be rusty with making friends, but he’s managed to befriend Iida and Uraraka, so he must be doing something right.

After lunch is their first hero basic training class. Their first class with All Might as a teacher. Even though Izuku had been personally trained and became close (?) with Yagi, he’s still excited to learn from him.

The classroom is filled with low chatter and the slow but heavy breathing of Shinsou behind him. (Did their quirk affect their sleep cycle? Izuku has a working theory about mental quirks and insomnia) He’s about to devolve into mutters about said theory, when the door opens with a bang (which Izuku involuntarily flinches at) and All Might walks in.

“I am COMING THROUGH THE DOOR LIKE A NORMAL PERSON!” The door opens and All Might struts into the room, not at all like a normal person. Izuku bites back a laugh. Behind him, Shinsou picks his head up to stare at their new teacher.

“It’s All Might!” Kaminari yells in awe “He really is going to teach us!”

“That's his silver age costume,” Kirishima comments "It's so manly!"

“Welcome to basic hero training! The class that’ll put you through all sorts of special training to mold you into heroes! No time to dally! Today’s activity is,” All Might flashes a card with 'battle' written on it “Battle training!”

“Battle training?” Bakugou grins.  

“And to go with that are these!” All Might points at a plain white wall and suddenly shelves pop out “Costumes! They’re based on your quirk registrations and requests you sent in before school started. Looking good is an important part of the spotlight ladies and gentlemen! After you change, come out in ranking order to ground beta!”

Well, turns out getting changed into a hero costume in a stall is a lot harder than he thought. Especially since there are a lot more… pieces than he thought. 

Izuku spent quite a long time agonizing over his hero costume. He didn’t want his suit to resemble his father’s or Endeavor’s at all. Which meant reds, yellows, and oranges were almost entirely off the table. Instead, he went with turquoise and red and black accents. One of the benefits of growing up around pro heroes was that he knew costumes. Plus Touya had been in the UA hero course for 2 years.

His costume was simple. A turquoise fire-proof jumpsuit that ended at his elbows but had stirrup style bottoms with a small band of red flames at his elbows and just above his combat boots. He wore black combat boots, black knee pads, black elbow pads, and a red tool belt. There was also the hood, which Izuku is convinced Touya added as a joke thinking Izuku would see it before submitting it and erase it. Because it looks like it has bunny ears. They, like the rest of the jumpsuit, were turquoise, but the tips of the ears were red. Izuku blushes as he puts it on, he probably should have looked it over more before turning it in. 

But as he looks down and admires his costume, he feels a swell of happiness in his chest. He hops in place and flaps his hands for a minute, letting himself fully embrace the happiness in the fact that he is becoming a hero. One that is fully detached from him . No one here will see him as anything more than Midoriya Izuku. No will one ever see him as ‘Dragon’s daughter’ again.

He joins the rest of his classmates outside in ground beta, a mock city similar to the one from the entrance exam. He admires the costumes of his classmates. And he’s really glad he’s legally male. Because he’s sure if he’d been legally female, his suit would be skin tight and revealing no matter what he put down. Gross. He’s honestly a little dysphoric just thinking about it.

“Midoriya!” Uraraka says, turning around to greet him “Cool costume! Really practical looking! I wish I had been more specific on my request form, the suit’s so puffy and curvy.” She blushes and rubs the back of her head.

“I’m sure if you talked to the support course they could fix it for you! Most people make changes to their costumes before and after going pro.”

“Really? I’ll tell Yaoyorozu about that! She was complaining about her suit in the dressing room.” She points to Yaoyorzu, and Izuku cringes in sympathy. Her suit was… bad. Even just aesthetically. Who designed it? A 35 year old incel?

“It’s better to get the kinks out now than later, right?” 

“It’s time for battle training!” All Might announces, catching the attention of the class.

“Sensei!” Iida says from his suit of armor costume “This appears to be the same field used in the entrance exam. Will we once again be performing cityscape maneuvers?”

“Nope, you will be moving onto step two! Indoor anti-personnel battle training. Villain battles are most commonly seen outdoors but statistically, the most heinous villains are most likely to appear indoors. Between confinement house arrest and black market deals, in this hero-filled society of ours, the cleverest villains out there lurk indoors.

“You’ll now split into villain and hero teams and face off in two-on-two indoor battles.”

“So no basic training?”

“Today’s exercise is so I can get a grasp of where everyone’s quirk and hand-to-hand combat skill level is! Plus low-stakes practical experience can be one the best teachers!”

“Are you threatening to expel someone as Aizawa-sensei did?” Uraraka asks.

“What determines victory?”

“How do we proceed to divide ourselves into teams?” Iida, the only one to raise his hand as he spoke, asks.

“Isn't my cape fabulous??” Aoyama asks, pulling his sparkly purple cape around his body to show it off.

“One at a time!” All Might calls. “My quirk isn't super-hearing!!” The class quiets down and waits for the number one hero to explain. “Here's the deal. The villains will be hiding a nuclear weapon in the hideout. And the heroes have to go in and take care of it! The heroes have a limited amount of time to either capture the villains or secure the weapon. The villains must either capture the heroes or protect the weapon until the time is up. Your battle partners will be decided by drawing lots!!” All Might says, bringing out a yellow box with 'lots' written on it.

“No, I will not be expelling anyone, and yes, your cape is fabulous, Aoyama.”

“Is that really the best way?!” Iida asks.

“It makes sense,” Izuku answers for All Might, “Pros often have to team up with heroes from other agencies on the spot during emergencies.”

“I see! I apologize for getting ahead of myself. My mistake!!” Iida says, taking a 90-degree bow.

“It's fine!” All Might says, punching the air. “Let's just get to it!!” His smile grows. If that was even possible.

Izuku gets paired with Shinsou on team A. Izuku honestly can’t believe his luck. He finally had Shinsou in a situation where they can’t run off and not talk to him.

“Hi!” Izuku greets Shinsou “I’m Midoriya, he/him!”

“Shinsou, any pronouns.” Is all Shinsou says.

“Like switch it up and or stick to one any?”

“I don’t care either way.” Izuku smiles at her and gives him a thumbs up.

“First to go are,” All Might says, reaching his hand into two boxes “Hero team is A and Villain team is D!” Izuku searches for team D, his eyes land on Iida and… Bakugou

Great. Izuku’s known since day one that he’d have to interact with Bakugou at some point. He would have preferred it to be in a safe and controlled environment and not during a faux battle.  But whatever. He’ll live. He’s sure as hell not going to say anything. 

Besides, it’s not like Bakugou will recognize him. It’s been like 6 years, Izuku now passes as a guy, has black hair, has a quirk, and an entirely new identity. He doubts Bakugou will recognize him like this. (Izuku thinks deep down that he wishes Bakugou would recognize him, but that's something to unpack at a later date.)

“The villain team goes in first! The timer starts in five minutes when the hero team sneaks in. The rest of us will watch via CCTV.” All Might turns to the villain team “Iida, Bakugou, you two need to adopt a villain mindset. This is a practical experience, try not to hold back, go all out. Though I will stop you if you take things too far.”

All Might hands both teams a pair of earpieces and a map. Wishes them both good luck and leads the rest of the class away. Now just to plan.

“So… My quirk is dual faceted, strength enhancement and fire. You have some sort of mind control quirk, right?” Shinsou nods.

“Great! How does it work?”

“It puts someone in a state where they are forced to obey whatever I command. It has to be intentionally activated through a question.” Izuku knew Shinsou’s quirk was one of the coolest! Probably the best quirk for heroics ever actually.

“That’s so cool! Wow, we’re definitely gonna win this! With Bakugou’s irritability, it should be easy for you to get him under the control of your quirk, and then it’ll be two on one. But Iida will probably be easy for you to take down as well. I don’t think he knows the activation for your quirk.” Izuku devolves into muttering. There are so many different ways for Shinsou to do this alone, but Izuku doesn’t want to leave it up to him.

“Um… Midoriya?” They ask, shaking Izuku out of his mumbling.

“Sorry!  We should probably stick together. I can distract Bakugou and Iida, and you can use your quirk on them. Then one of us can use the capture tape on them. If that’s okay with you, of course!”

Shinsou nods.

“That’s fine with me.” Izuku grins at Shinsou. They’re definitely going to be besties by the end of the class. Izuku will make sure of it.

They run into Bakugou almost instantly. Well, it’s more like Bakugou comes screeching down the hall, quirk blazing. He immediately throws an explosion at them. Izuku just barely manages to jump out of the way in time. He can still feel the heat though. Maybe he could have asked to go against someone else? He’s not ready to face Bakugou like this yet. He needs therapy.

“Nice dodging!” Bakugou says, but it doesn’t sound like a compliment. 

“What did you say?” Shinsou asks. And either Bakugou doesn’t hear her or doesn’t care to answer. Bakugou instead throws a punch at Izuku, who’s closer to the boy than Shinsou. And lucky for Izuku, he’s had some basic self-defense and hand-to-hand combat training. He managed to catch the punch and swing Bakugou over his shoulder and onto his back. Bakugou is back up in an instant and throwing an explosion at Izuku’s face. Izuku can tell Shinsou is trying to get Bakugou to answer, but Bakugou has locked onto Izuku.

“He’s not going to answer you! Go get the bomb, I’ll distract him!” Izuku screams at Shinsou.

“Are you sure?” No, but it’s the quickest way to win the exercise, and therefore the quickest way for Bakugou to stop attacking him.

“Yeah!” he says instead. Izuku has plenty of experience dodging and losing people. Bakugou has been beating people up for a decade, but he’s never fought someone who’s spent their whole life dodging and hiding. Izuku even manages to get in a few hits.

Izuku uses his small stature to his advantage, aiming for low areas with small, but effective, balls of fire. And once he manages to get Bakugou off of him, he turns around and runs into the halls. Bakugou follows him.

They play cat and mouse for a while, Izuku turning down random halls and Bakugou following on his heels. He just needs to distract him long enough for Shinsou to get the bomb. Eventually, Bakugou manages to corner him. He blocks the exit, breathing heavier than before. 

Come on Shinsou. Izuku just needs to distract him for a little while longer.

"Do you know what these gauntlets do?" Bakugou smirks, holding up an arm and aiming it at a confused Izuku. They’re almost like grenades, alligator-skin, and green. Do they store something? They’re connected to the gloves- oh. Sweat. They store Bakugou’s nitroglycerin sweat. Izuku pales. He can’t be serious.

“Bakugou stop it! You could kill him!” All Might says at the same time that Shinsou says “I found Iida!”

“I won’t kill him if he dodges!” Bakugou says at the same time Izuku tells Shinsou to get the bomb.

Bakugou aims at Izuku and pulls the detonator. All Might yells at him to stop, and the world around him explodes. Izuku’s known fire and explosions his entire life. He knows the pain of burning skin accompanied by the smell of burning flesh. His father had a fire quirk, his brother has a fire quirk, he has a fire quirk. But this fire is different. Different from even the explosions that used to scar his skin.

The explosion hits his left side.

“Young Shinsou secured the bomb! Heroes win!” All Might yells, sounding somewhat frantic.

Izuku collapses against the wall, his heart beating erratically. The exercise is over, his suit took the brunt of the explosion, his only burns are on his arms and a couple on his face. Nothing that will scar. He can barely feel them. 

But Izuku can’t move. He can barely hear, the ringing in his ears is too loud. Bakugou hasn’t moved from his spot across the hall. Izuku is 8 again. And he is no longer in a safe environment, there are no longer people who will stop people from hurting him.

Just him and Bakugou.

Just Kumiko Izuku and Katsuki 

Just Deku and Kacchan.

Just Kacchan with the strong quirk, and weak, quirkless Deku. 

Izuku can tell someone is talking to him. But he can’t make out the voice. There are several people around him, talking to him. To each other. 

And then they’re helping him onto his feet and walking him somewhere. But can’t focus long enough to know who. Every time he tries, a wave of memories and emotions comes crashing down, and he’s forced back down.

Izuku is pushed down onto something and then moved somewhere else before he’s again helped onto his feet, pushed onto another surface. A wet kiss is placed onto his forehead, and he’s overcome with exhaustion. 

He lets the exhaustion take over, and he slowly drifts off into the dream world

Hitoshi didn’t know what happened to Midoriya. Physically, he didn’t have more than a few burns and scratches. But he also was catatonic. He hadn’t responded to Hitoshi, Iida, or even All Might. 

Eventually, all they could do was help him to Recovery Girl’s and hope he’d be okay.

Bakugou is taken to the principal’s office, and All Might ushers them away to discuss the exercise. Hitoshi is honestly half-listening as he’s crowned the ‘MVP.’

The rest of the rounds go on without incident. Midoriya never shows back up.

“Do you think Midoriya will be okay?” he overhears Uraraka ask Iida.

“I’m sure he’ll be fine!” Iida responds “Recovery Girl will be able to heal him! He is probably just resting!”

They’re all just waiting in the classroom waiting for school to end. Or maybe for Midoriya to come back. Maybe both? Either way, most of the class is just kind of waiting in the classroom, chatting amongst themselves. Or in Hitoshi’s case, scrolling through social media.

“Oh, Midoriya’s back! Welcome back, man!” Kirishima says, and sure enough, when Hitoshi looks up from his phone, Midoriya, back in his school uniform, is stepping into the classroom. Where he is pretty much immediately ambushed by Kirishima, Ashido, and Sato.

“That was such a wild battle!” 

“Nice dodging”

“We were all super pumped after that crazy first round!” Hitoshi can’t tell who says what, but Midoriya looks a little overwhelmed at the 3 of them yelling and getting up in his face.

“Give him some space,” Hitoshi calls over them.

“Sorry, dude!” Kirishima says. They all take a step back, and Midoriya relaxes.

“Are you okay Midoriya?” Uraraka asks

“Yeah!” Midoriya says “Recovery Girl got me all fixed up, it just knocked me out for a while.” he rubs the back of his neck with a sheepish smile.

“Oh good!” Midoriya glances around the room, his eyes pause a moment at Hitoshi, and he smiles brightly at her.

“Hey, Shinsou! Do you know where Bakugou is?” Hitoshi is surprised at the question, but he shakes his head anyways.

“No, last I heard he went to talk to principal Nezu.”

“O-okay!” Midoriya doesn’t look relieved, but he doesn’t necessarily look worried either.

“Um, isn’t class over? Why are you guys just waiting here?” Midoriya asks. Shinsou shrugs. They were just kinda doing what the class was doing.

“We wanted to make sure you were okay, kero,” Asui responds. Several other classmates shake their heads in agreement 

“Yeah! 

“Oh, um, thank you! You didn’t have to do that.” 

“But we wanted to!” Ashido says

“Yeah! You were so manly out there!” Kirishima keeps calling things manly… Hitoshi wonders what that's about.

“Oh, thank you!” Midoriya blushes at the statement.

The door slams open, causing Hitoshi to flinch, and Bakugou walks in with his head down and hands shoved into his pocket, scowling deeply. Midoriya jumps at the noise. Bakugou pauses when he sees them.

“What are you extra’s doing in here?” 

“We were waiting for Midoriya to come back from Recovery Girl,” Ashido says. Bakugou gives them a dirty look, and pushes past them to reach his bag.

Midoriya flinches when Bakugou passes him. They stop and stare at each other for a second, before Bakugou continues his task and leaves the room tenser than before.

Izuku doesn’t know why he flinches so hard when Bakugou slinks past him. He supposes today unearthed some trauma he buried deep inside. He should probably talk to Touya about that but… he had a feeling Touya would stalk up to UA and kill Bakugou himself.

He knows UA didn’t call Touya, probably because he didn’t get too hurt (physically) because there were no ‘I’m going to strangle Bakugou’ texts from his brother. Nor did he hear screaming and fire alarms. 

The apartment is empty when he gets home. As usual. Touya doesn’t get off until almost dinner.

But Izuku… he doesn’t like it. He needs someone there, because his past is sitting front and center in his brain. And he doesn’t want to spiral until he convinces himself that everyone knows, or that the past couple of years are fake.

So he calls his brother.

He picks up almost instantly.

“Is everything okay?” Touya immediately asks. Izuku doesn’t call Touya when he’s at work often, not unless something happened. Or there’s a new hero debut that Izuku needs to info dump about. 

“Bakugou attacked me during class today. I’m just… I don’t know. I'm just,” Izuku can’t really explain how he feels “I just don’t want to be alone right now.”

“Okay, I’ll talk to my manager about going home early. Do you want me to stay on the phone?”

“No, I’ll be fine.” 

“Okay, I’ll text you if I can come home. I love you,”

”Bye, I love you too,” Touya hangs up, and Izuku waits in the silence, slipping off his school clothes and binder, and into a too-large hoodie and basketball shorts.

It's not 5 minutes later that he gets a text from Touya.

Touya

Sorry Izuku, I can’t get off until 5:30. Do you have anyone else you can call or hang out with? Maybe one of your friends? Or Yagi?

Me

I mean maybe. But your the only one that knows what’s going on

Touya

You can tell them what I told Aizawa if you want?

Or maybe that you have pyrophobia

I don’t think they’ll try and dig too deep

Involved in a villain attack is also a good one

Or you can tell them nothing. You’re not required to tell people your tragic backstory to hang out

Me

Okay. I’ll call Yagi.

Touya

I love you Izuku, call me if you need me

I’ll quit if I have too

Me

Love you too

Toshinori hadn’t been unable to catch young Midoriya after school, which is why he immediately agrees when Midoriya asks if they can meet at Takoba beach. The way Midoriya had gone catatonic after the exercise was concerning, to say the least. Recovery Girl said he didn’t talk about why.

Toshinori has rescued many victims from villain attacks. And most of the time, the people who had that sort of reaction were people who were repeating old trauma.

By the time he arrives at Takoba, Midoriya is already there, sitting on a bench. He’s out of UA’s uniform, wearing a hoodie and shorts.

“Hello,” Midoriay greets Toshinori.

“Hello,” Toshinori greets him back, sitting down on the bench next to him “Are you alright, Young Midoriya?” Midoriya shrugs.

“I’ve been worse.” Toshinori smiles softly. So not amazing, he guesses. It's the same response Toshinori has given to doctors and colleagues the past 5 years.

“Do you want to talk about it?” 

“Kinda? Touya says I should.”

“Does it have to do with what happened today?”

“Kinda? Um,” Midoriya messes with his hoodie sleeves. Toshinori lets the boy gather his thoughts. Clearly whatever was bothering him was heavy, 

“Me and Touya’s parents weren’t... great. They were pretty bad actually. Bad enough that when Touya turned 18 he managed to get custody of me. Um, our dad had a fire quirk, and well… Today was kind of triggering.” He shrugs again “I really didn’t want to be alone and Touya can’t get off of work until late.” The boy doesn’t look up from his hoodie sleeves the whole time. Toshinori’s heart breaks a little for his successor. Toshinori himself hadn’t had the most amazing childhood, in and out of mediocre foster homes for most of his life. And while Midoriya hadn’t gone into details, Toshinori can tell that whatever happened was horrible. Both for his successor and his brother, having a child at 18 is hard, and having to fight your own parents to keep your brother safe must have taken a mentally and physically toll of the both of them.

Domestic abuse is one of the worst crimes, in Toshinori’s humble opinion. But also one that often went unnoticed. It wasn’t often that a hero could barge in and save the victims, sometimes even if they knew what was going on. You could stop a man from robbing a bank, you can’t stop someone from abusing their kids in the quiet and privacy of their own home. And even if you can, the impact it can have on people's mental health is astronomical. No matter how long the abuse went on for.

Toshinori wraps an arm around his successor, and the boy leans into his chest. Toshinori might have never had a family (besides Nana), but he thinks this is what that would be like.

“I’m sorry you had to go through that. Thank you for trusting me enough to tell me.” The boy starts to shake, and Toshinori realizes he’s crying. Oh. He runs a hand through the boy's hair, letting him cry it out.

“I’m sorry,” Midoriya says with a sniffle.

“It’s quite alright my boy.”

Shouta isn’t expecting a call from Recovery Girl on their second day of class.

“What happened?” Shouta asks, straight to the point.

“Midoriya was injured during today's exercise,” Recovery Girl usually doesn't call about injuries unless it’s bad enough that they’d need to call parents, especially if the injury didn’t occur during his class. So Shouta immediately sets towards the nurse’s office, worry settling in his gut.

“How bad?” he asks

“Not bad, you don’t need to call family.” Shouta stops in his tracks.

“Then why’d you call?” he asks, confused. She doesn’t call unless he’s needed. And he isn’t needed unless they need to call family. Or law enforcement.

God, he better not have to call law enforcement.

“I was looking at the boy's medical history. There’s nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

“Nothing?” he asks.

“Nothing,” she confirms. Shouta had said he was gonna push a little more on his student’s history, but he hadn’t meant that time to be so soon. Because even if the story he was told, there should be years worth of medical records. Yes, the kid may have never needed to go to the doctor, but he would at least have a primary care physician, and an abused kid should have seen a doctor at least once for trauma. 

“I’ll talk to Nezu, there might be something going on there.”

“There’s something else to be concerned about,” Recovery Girl starts again, sounding somewhat hesitant to tell Shouta the information “And it might be connected with the lack of medical history.  Bakugou used a support item that collected his sweat in order to create a bomb of sorts, and while it barely hit Midoriya, he was completely catatonic afterwards. Didn’t seem to comprehend anything that was going on around him.” That’s extremely concerning. That combined with the previous information is painting a very concerning picture.

There are not many reasons a young teen would only have a young adult as their only family, no medical history, and a reaction like severe dissociation. And none of them are good.

Chapter Text

Izuku wakes up the next morning with that annoying feeling of guilt that comes anytime he vents to anyone. He wasn’t upset that he told Yagi, nothing had gone wrong. Yagi was understanding and let Izuku cry in his arms and didn’t say anything weird or push Izuku to talk about it more than he wanted to.

But Izuku knows he’ll probably avoid Yagi today when he can. For no other reason than to get the guilt in his stomach to calm down. It’s stupid, but Izuku doesn’t like the guilt so he’ll do what he can to lessen it.

Touya is still home when he gets up for school, they even have time to eat breakfast together.

“Third times the charm, even our luck gives us the occasional break,” Touya says “What are the chances that something else happens today?”

“Don’t jinx it,” Izuku jokes. 

“Yeah yeah, get going, you don’t want to miss your train.”

“You just want to get rid of me.” 

“And if I do?” Touya raises an eyebrow at Izuku, who in turn rolls his eyes.

“See you tonight,” Izuku calls as he shuts the door behind him.

“Stay safe,” 

The trip to school is calm, right up until he arrives at the gates. Which is surrounded by reporters and camera crews.

Touya jinxed it. 

Izuku’s glad he has plenty of experience hiding from people in plain sight, especially within crowds. Being short does have its advantages. 

He passes Iida, who’s giving a speech to a reporter, who looks like he regrets asking him. Izuku on the other hand, makes it past the gates without anyone stopping him.

At the gate, he passed a pissed off looking Aizawa and Present Mic. Izuku’s followed both Eraserhead and Present Mic’s careers for years, and there was one thing that their hero persona’s had in common. They both hate the paparazzi and media. It was less often for Present Mic, but it wasn’t hard to find videos or articles of him bashing pushy reporters and paparazzi. There was even a video of him stealing a camera.

“I hate reporters,” someone says from behind him “I don’t get how heroes can deal with them every day.” It's Shinsou.

“Well, I’m sure you get used to it. Plus underground heroes usually don’t.”

“How’d you manage to avoid them? Even I got stopped,”

“Oh, um I have some practice avoiding people.” Izuku shrugs. 

“Some practice,” Shinsou says with a raised eyebrow. Izuku almost quips back with a ‘being a runaway does have its benefits,’ but bites his tongue at the last moment. He’s not talking to Touya here. 

“Yeah,” he says instead.

The class quiets as soon as the bell rings and Aizawa walks in. Bakugou is missing from class.

“Good work with yesterday’s battle training. I looked over your grades and evaluations.” Aizawa says “Bakugou is suspended for today, he’ll be back tomorrow. Now onto homeroom business. Sorry for the sudden announcement, but today you’ll pick a class president.”

The class explodes with noise as most of the class declares their desire to be class president.

“Quiet down everybody! Leading the many is a task of heavy responsibility!” Iida says “But ambition does not equate to ability! The sacred office demands the trust of its constituents. If this is to be a democracy, then i put forward the motion that our class leader must be chosen by election!”

“This is a classroom, not congress,” someone mutters, earning a round of laughs from the class.

“But Iida, we haven’t known each other long enough to build any trust,” Asui says

“And everyone will just vote for themselves.”

“That's precisely why anyone who manages to earn multiple votes will be the best suited individual for the job! Will you allow this sensei?”

“However you do it, just make it quick.” Aizawa says, zipping himself into his sleeping bag “wake me up when you decide.”

Izuku ends up with 3 votes. Yaoyorozu with 2. Iida looks slightly distressed that he got 0 votes, but nonetheless congratulates Izuku and Yaoyorozu.

Aizawa emerges from his sleeping bag and gestures for Izuku and Yaoyorozu to come to the front of the class. Izuku stands nervously next to a calm and collected Yaoyorozu.

“So your president’s Midoriya and your vice president is Yaoyorozu.” Aizawa says. Izuku’s in shock, he didn’t think anyone would actually vote for him. He’s too nervous to be the class president. Not to mention he needs a script to do anything and he hasn’t been in school for so long that he hasn’t the slightest clue what that script would even look like. And even if he did, UA and a normal public school are probably different right?

“You guys shouldn’t have voted for me,” Izuku says over lunch at the cafeteria; he, Iida, Uraraka, and Shinsou (who he finally convinced to sit with them) share a table “I’m not suited to be a leader.” Iida shakes his head.

“Midoriya, your grit and decisiveness in a punch makes you perfectly suited to lead us all, that’s why I voted for you,” He says

“Didn’t want you to be president too, Iida? You’ve got the glasses and everything.” Uraraka says, causing Shinsou to choke on his drink, spilling water on the table. Iida ignores this. Izuku hands Shinsou his napkin.

“Ambition and suitability are different matters. I humbly made the choice I thought was best.”

“Humbly?” Izuku mumbles

“Iida, are you a rich kid?” Uraraka asks.

“I don’t like people knowing, so I try to hide it but,” Iida blushes “Yes, my family is a renowned hero family. I am the second son. Do you know to the Turbo Hero: Ingenium?”

“Of course!” Izuku says “He employs 65 sidekicks at his office in Tokyo! So you’re…”

“How very informed,” Iida interrupts “But yes, he is my brother! He leads people with his unwavering adherence and regulations. A truly beloved hero! It’s my admiration for my brother that’s inspired my own desire to become a hero.” Izuku wonders if his father hadn’t been abusive, if he’d feel the same. If he’d be becoming a hero to be more like his father, and not to spite him. (among other reasons of course.)

“Though I realize I’m not yet ready to lead anyone,” Iida continues, “As the superior candidate, it was right that the role should go to you, Midoriya.”

A loud, piercing alarm blares overhead. Izuku covers his ears, hoping to muffle the sound. He fucking hates loud noises, alarms just happen to be the worse offenders as well. Everyone at the table stands up around him.

“Security level 3 has been broken,” a mechanical voice says over the comms “All students, please evacuate in an orderly fashion.” 

No one evacuates in an orderly fashion. Around him, students break from the exit, screaming and panicking, adding to Izuku’s already overwhelmed panic. 

“WHATS SECURITY LEVEL 3?” Iida asks a passing third year.

“IT MEANS SOMEONE’S INFILTRATED THE BUILDING!” They answer.

Izuku hands are still over his ears, and he’s still sitting in his seat as the sea of students surges around him. Everything is muted, but still too loud. 

“Midoriya,” Shinsou says, lightly pulling at his arm “We gotta move.” But Izuku can’t, he’s already nearing sensory overload with the noise, adding being pushed around by and bumping into the hundreds of students, most of whom are taller than him? No thanks. A panicking crowd is not the place to have a meltdown. Trust him, he knows. Izuku shakes his head. Shinsou frowns at him. (This always happens, he starts getting over stimulated, and his voice just goes.)

“Midoriya, someone’s in UA, we have to get out.” 

Izuku wants to tell Shinsou that he will have a meltdown if he has to run shoulder to shoulder with students way taller than him and try not to get run over, but his mouth is glued shut. All he can do is shake his head.

“EVERYTHING’S FINE!” A familiar voice sounds over the others, the crowd immediately slows to a stop. “IT’S JUST THE PRESS! THERE’S NOTHING TO PANIC ABOUT, WE’RE FINE! THIS IS UA, BEHAVE IN A WAY BEFITTING THIS GREAT INSTITUTION!”

The crowd quiets down, some third leaders taking control and evacuating the students in an actually orderly fashion, and Izuku is able to relax and uncover his ears, and evacuated from the building.

Izuku hands the class president title over to Iida after everyone gets back into the building. He just thinks that Iida is better suited, he’d hate for another incident like lunch happening again and Izuku being too overwhelmed to do anything.

(Besides Uraraka was right, Iida did have the glasses and everything.)

“Ahhh, man, I’m so excited!” Kirishima says; they’re on a bus, heading towards an off-campus rescue training grounds. “Rescuing people is really what being a hero’s all about! I can’t wait!” Everyone is in their costumes, par for Izuku, whose costume is still being repaired, and Yaoyorozu, who took his advice and is getting hers re-designed. They both have their gym uniforms on. 

Izuku also has his shoes, knee pads, elbow pads, and tool belt, which all survived the explosion.

“I usually say what's on my mind,” Asui says to Shinsou.

“Hmm?” They hum.

“What is your quirk?” she asks “You used it during the quirk assessment and battle simulator, but I don’t actually know what it is.” Shinsou looks uncomfortable, and Asui must understand because she quickly adds “If you don’t want to tell us, that's okay. I was just curious.” 

Shinsou shakes his head.

“Nah, you’d find out anyway. It’s brainwashing.”

“Really!” Kaminari says “That's so cool!”

“I bet it’s super helpful! You can do all sorts of stuff with that,” Kirishima says “Not like my hardening, I’m good in a fight, but it’s really boring. I think that’s super neat though, your quirk’s more than enough if you want to go pro.” Shinsou blushes at the praise. 

“Don’t forget that heroes also have to worry about popular appeal!” Ashido says

“My navel laser is both strong and cool. Perfect for a pro.”

“As long as you don’t blow up your own stomach!” Aoyama glares at Ashido.

“You wanna talk about strong and cool? That’d be Todoroki and Bakugou.”

“But Bakugou is so unhinged, he’d never be popular.” 

“WHAT’D YOU SAY FROG FACE?”

“See?” 

“We’ve only known you for a couple of days and you’ve made it abundantly clear that your personality is hot garbage,” Kaminari says, earning a round of laughter from the class. Izuku’s never seen anyone make fun of Bakugou, sure it’s been years since he’s been in the same class as him, but he remembers everyone bending over backward to be Bakugou’s friends. He doesn’t think that changed much. Bakugou doesn’t seem that different from elementary school, so he doubts people stopped praising him for every action.

“We’re here,” Aizawa grumbles, silencing the class as the abandon the conversation and stare out the bus windows.

The building is huge, much bigger than most of the buildings Izuku has been in, including his apartment complex, with a rounded glass-panel rooftop. The class is silent with awe, Izuku included. 

“Is this Universal studios Japan?” someone asks

Izuku chuckles at that, along with most of the class.

“Close, it’s the Unforeseen Simulation Joint,” Thirteen says  “There’s a flood zone, land-slide zone, conflagration zone, fire zone, every disaster and accident you can imagine! Welcome to the USJ!” They announce

Besides Izuku, Uraraka is gushing.

“It’s Thirteen” She squeals “I love him!”

“He’s a gentleman hero who does his best work in rescue scenarios!” Izuku’s always loved rescue heroes, they were the least likely to be corrupt, and more likely to have “villain” quirks, meaning they usually did some sort of quirk activism. Plus Thirteen was trans! 

“Hey Thirteen, where’s All Might, he’s supposed to be here by now,” Aizawa asks, glancing around the building. Izuku frowns, he heard Yagi was supposed to be here as well.

Thirteen responds out of earshot, but she shows Aizawa 3 of their fingers, so Izuku guesses Yagi ran out of time. Aizawa sighs and says something under his breath.

"Before we begin, let me say one thing, or two... or three... four... five... six... seven…” Thirteen start, the class giggles a little

“Before we get started there are a few things we need to go over. As you are all more than likely aware of, my quirk is called Black Hole; anything that gets caught in its suction will turn into nothing but dust.”

“Your quirk is perfect for rescuing people and removing wreckage from a disaster zone,” Izuku comments

“Yes, that is true. However, one must keep in mind that a powerful quirk like this could easily be used to kill people. One slip up or mistake is all it would take to end someone’s life. Some of you have quirks like that too, right? Quirks have been certified and stringently regulated. There are many quirks that can easily kill with one wrong step.“ Besides him, Shinsou tenses. Izuku doesn’t think he needs that talk at all. (Izuku doesn’t really either, not after feeling the burns to his father, a hero, and Bakugou, the golden child and now hero in training. But no one would be able to know that just based on his quirk alone.)

 “During Aizawa’s physical fitness test, ” Thirteen continues “You learned of your own hidden potential. Through All Might’s battle training, you experienced the danger that your quirks can pose to others. Here, you'll learn to use your quirks to save people's lives. Your powers aren't to hurt others, and I hope you'll leave understanding that your quirks are here to help others. That is all, thank you for listening" Thirteen ends with a bow

“Bravo!” Iida exclaims and claps loudly.

“Great first of all, Aizawa starts, before trailing off, looking suddenly towards the floor of the USK

By the fountain in the middle of the USJ, a portal opens, and a single man steps out

“DON’T MOVE” Aizawa snaps. dozens of portals spring up around the rest of the USJ, and hundreds of villains spill out onto the main floor. Izuku’s stomach sinks to his stomach.

Those are- those aren’t supposed to be here. This is rescue training, not battle training. Which means-

“THIRTEEN, PROTECT THE STUDENTS.” Aizawa says, slipping on his goggles. Without another word, Aizawa runs, leaps over the stairs, and charges at the villains. (There are dozens of villains, Aizawa is outnumbered. Izuku knows that, he bet/ Aizawa knows it too. But right now there's two pros and 20 students to hundreds of villains.)

“What’s going on?” Kirishima asks “More robots like in the entrance exam?”

“No,” Thirteen says, worry evident in her voice “those are real villain”

Chapter Text

Why did All Might have to be such an idiot Shouta thinks, angrily, as he slams the body of two nameless villains against each other. Of all the days All Might could use up at 3 hours of his time limit, it had to be today. They would be outnumbered even with the hero, but Shouta would count him as at least 10 people in this fight. But without, their 2 pro heroes, one who specializes in rescue work and one who works best against 3 villains at most, and 20 hero students vs 100’s of villains who have no qualms about killing some kids.

The opposite of ideal. 

But either way, Shouta has to try. Just because he works best against small groups, doesn’t mean he can’t win this fight. It just means it’ll be messy and tiring. He just needs to hold it out until backup arrives.

He can’t afford many glances back up to the platform he left thirteen and his students, but the few he manages make his heart sink deeper. They’re still inside, and at his latest glance, only a handful of kids and thirteen remain at the platform.

They’ve been scattered. His first years, who have been at UA for less than a week , have been scattered inside the USJ.

“That Eraserhead,” one of the villains says “you dumbasses, he can cancel out your quirk just by looking at ya!” Shouta calls his capture weapon back to him, leaving the villains knocked out.

“He cancels quirks?” another villain laughs “let’s see if it works against us mutant types.”

“It doesn’t,” Shouta says, bored, and punches the man in the face. He stumbles back, and Shouta wraps his capture weapon around his ankle, causing the man to fall on his back.

“But, statistically, guys like you tend to favor close-quarters combat” He dodges another punch, wraps the man with his capture weapon around his waist, and throws him into a small group of villains like a bolling ball into pins.

They all seem to pause, seemingly have underestimated him. Which gives him a second to breathe, but not long, because it’s only hesitation before 3 more come at him.

Toshinori furrows his eyebrows, still staring at the failed to send. He hasn’t been able to get in contact with neither Thirteen nor Aizawa. Or even Young Midoriya, in a last-ditch effort to figure out what was going on.

But his message to Naomasa goes through.

There’s a rock in Toshinori’s stomach, he still has some time left, though not long, maybe if he just hopped down real quick and made sure everything was okay…

The door slides open.

“Yagi! I do wish to talk to you for a bit,” Nezu says. And Toshinori knows better than to argue with the principal, so he makes himself comfortable on the couch, waiting for Nezu to finish brewing tea, and hoping the anxiety in his stomach is just nerves from having to talk with Nezu and not foreshadowing.

“Twenty-three seconds,” Shouta hears who he assumes to be the head villain say.

“So you’re the boss?” Shouta asks, throwing his capture weapon at the villain.

“Twenty-four seconds.” he says, not responding to Shouta’s question “Twenty seconds” Shouta dodges a villain, continuing towards the head villain.

“Seventeen seconds.” Shouta pulls the villain towards him with his capture weapon and elbows him in the stomach.

“It’s hard to tell when you’re scampering around but,” the villain says “there are moments when your hair falls in front of your eyes. And your max duration is getting shorter and shorter.” his elbow explodes in pain, and he watches the skin crack and crumbles under the man's fingertips.

“Don’t overdo it now, Eraserhead.”

Shouta bites down a cry of pain, he has to stay together, if not for himself, then for Hizashi and the students.

He punches the villain in the face with his free hand, and jumps back as he crumbles to the floor. And then he dodges two more villains, using his capture weapon to throw one into the other.”

“Your quirk… it's not good in long, group battles, huh?” the villain says, picking himself off the ground “This is kinda different from your usual work, yeah? You specialize in quick sneak attacks. Yet you jumped right into this fight hoping to make the kids feel safe. So cool, so cool.” The villain sounds utterly insane, if that wasn’t made clear by the fact that he decides to attack a hero school.

“By the way, hero . I’m not the boss here.” Shouta barely has time to think before a giant hand obstructs his vision, smacks him to the ground, and breaks his arm.

“Meet the anti-symbol of peace. The bio-engineered nomu.”

The thing - Nomu- whatever, squeezes Aizawa’s arm, causing them to crack and for Izuku’s teacher to cry out in pain.

Shinsou has his hand over his mouth in both shock and in an attempt to stop any sound from coming out.

Izuku finds himself forcing himself to stay tethered to his body. Now is not the time to disassociate, he has to be present, he has to make sure everyone makes it out safe, has to make sure Aizawa lives. But still, he, along with Tsuyu and Shinsou, are frozen in place with fear.

“Canceling out quirks. Pretty cool, but nothing special. Up against crazy strength, you might as well be totally quirkless.”

Aizawa attempts to move, but the Nomu reaches out and crushes his other arm, again causing his teacher to cry out in pain. And then it reaches for Aizawa’s head, picks it up, and smashes it into the ground.

“This is bad.” Shinsou whispers, voice shaky. Izuku nods, guilt, and anxiety, and horror churning something fierce in his stomach.

The warp man appears in the plaza

“Shigaraki Tomura.” He says

“Kurogiri, is Thriteen dead?” no

“He’s incapacitated,” oh thank god “but there were some students I couldn’t wrap away, and some of them managed to escape.” Oh thank god. He hopes Kurogiri is talking about Iida. But even if it’s not, the promise of backup coming calms Izuku’s nerves. They’ll be okay. Aizawa will be okay.

“Huh,” Shigaraki says, scratching at his neck “Kurogiri, if you weren’t our ticket out of here I’d turn you to dust. We won’t stand a chance against dozens of pros. It’s game over. We’re leaving.” They’re leaving. Oh, thank the heavens above. Thank All Might, and whatever gods may or may not exist it’s over  

“Did they just say that they’re leaving?” Shinsou asks

“I think so.” Izuku answers.

“But before that,” Shigaraki starts again “Let’s leave a few dead kids.” And Izuku’s heart drops back down to his stomach.

“To wound the symbol of peace,” he says, and before Izuku can even process what’s happening, Shigaraki reaches his hand, the same hand that disintegrated Aizawa’s elbow, towards Tsuyu’s face. Izuku only has time to turn towards Tsuyu before it makes contact and-

Nothing. 

“You’re cool, Eraserhead.”

“Hey Midoriya,” One of his coworkers, Oshima, says. They’re sitting on the curb outside of the restaurant on their lunch break, smoking “Didn’t you say your brother got into UA?”

“Yeah?” Oshima and Touya aren’t more than work acquaintances, so the questions come from out of the blue. They don’t talk about much more than work and occasionally music.

“What class is he in?” 

“1A? Why?” She purses her lips and hands him her phone.

UA hero class attacked during field trip, 4 injured and hundreds arrested

Touya’s heart immediately drops to his stomach. The article is new, but not that new, and while it does detail the injures of, the homeroom teacher-Aizawa and rescue teacher-Thirteen, who had been critically injured, and All Might had been only mildly injured. It does not mention the injured student by name nor does it detail their injuries. (Touya tries not to think about the possibility of Aizawa dying. He tries not to think too much of Aizawa these days as it is, but the thought of him dying makes him feel like a small child again. If Aizawa dies then he can never- no. Touya erases those thoughts from his mind. It’s too late for that now. He has Izuku to take care of.)

“Holy shit,” he says. He ignores the shakes in his hands as he crushes his cigarette under his heel and fishes his phone out of his back pocket. (Izuku’s fine, he tells himself. He has to be, and besides, they would have called him by now if Izuku was seriously injured)

But of course, just as he finishes sending several texts to Izuku asking if he’s okay, he gets a call from a number he recognizes as UA’s.

“Shit,” He curses under his breath 

“Is everything okay?” Oshima asks. He purses his lips, and answers the phone, ignoring her question.

“Midoriya Touya,” He answers, anxiety and worry bubbling in his stomach.

“This is Recovery Girl, your brother was injured during the attack today.” 

“How bad?” he asks. 

“He just broke his legs and a finger, he’s okay, just asleep. I was able to fully heal him.” She says. Touya relaxes a bit. His brother is fine. (Which he knew . He’s just being overdramatic for no reason).

“He’s in UA’s infirmary,” She continues “You’re welcome to come by, but if you can’t I’ll give you all call when he wakes up, though it shouldn’t be long.”

“I’ll be there in 30 minutes,” he says. He’ll quit his job if he has to.

“How bad?” Oshima, who’s been quiet for the entirety of the conversation, asks.

“Not too bad, broken bones and a mild concussion,” he says. (Aizawa was Izuku’s homeroom teacher. Aizawa was in critical condition. Aizawa could die and Touya won’t be able to- Touya shuts that line of thought down. Everything will be fine. Everything is fine. Touya is happy with the decisions he made and Aizawa is too stubborn to die. Yamada won’t let him.)

“I’m going to ask Hashida for the rest of my shift off,” he says, pushing himself off the curb.

“Good luck,” Oshima calls after him.

He does manage to convince his manager to let him take the rest of his shift off. Which means he’s now at UA, being led to the infirmary by a staff member he doesn’t recognize.

“Come in, come in,” Recovery Girl says, opening the door to let Touya. Part of Touya expects her to hit her cane against his ankles and berates him for overusing his quirk again. But she doesn’t, because he’s not Todoroki Touya, 2B student, he’s Midoriya Touya, the sole guardian to one of 1A’s students. She just lets him into the room and shows him to Izuku’s bed.

Izuku is already awake, but he isn’t the only one in the infirmary, it takes him a beat to recognize the other person in the room as Yagi. He figured the man would be at a hospital, but he guesses the injuries weren’t severe enough. Which was good, because while it had taken Touya a while to get… used to the man, especially with the knowledge that he was All Might, but he eventually did and has since grown fawn of the man. Plus Izuku had definitely grown attached.

“Touya!” Izuku says, there’s relief in his eyes when Touya steps into the room. 

“Hey bugger, how are you feeling?” Touya asks

“Fine,” 

“How are you, Yagi?”

“Just fine, thank you for asking.” 

“He’s already spoken with a detective, so after a quick final examination, he should be good to go.” Recovery Girl says

“Do you know how Aizawa and Thirteen are?” Izuku asks. (Touya is glad Izuku asked, he thinks the anxiety of not knowing would kill the both of them.)

“They’ll both be fine,” she says. And the anxiety in Touya’s stomach dissipates. 

“A-Are you sure? Aizawa looked r-really bad and-”

“They’ll be fine, my boy. Aizawa is too stubborn to die.” Yagi says, and finally, Izuku relaxes. (It’s true, Aizawa was too stubborn to die. And if he did, he knows Yamada would rain hell and raise the hero from the dead to kill him himself.)

“Why don’t we do the examination so you can go home.” Recovery Girl says

(Izuku will stay put together until the lock on the front door clicks shut, and then he’ll fall apart. And Touya will rub circles on his brother’s back as he mumbles things Touya can’t make out. And his eyes will burn but he’ll keep his shit together because he’s an adult, and his kid brother just went through something traumatic. Touya will keep it together as he tucks his brother into bed, and he’ll keep it together as he asks for the next couple of days off, even though he knows he won’t get them all, and he’ll even keep it together as he showers. It’s not until he crawls into bed, staring at the beige ceiling in the dark, will he finally let himself cry quietly.)

When Toshinori receives a call from Nezu asking him to come to UA for a meeting with Aizawa, Naomasa, and Chiyo, he figures it was about the USJ attack, considering it was only days ago. He thinks it’s cruel to make Aizawa, who’s just gotten out of the hospital and still has two broken arms and butterfly bandages on his forehead under his eye to attend a meeting about the event that gave him such injuries, but he’s not in charge of that stuff. Toshinori is the last one to arrive.

“Welcome Toshinori,” Nezu greets “Would you like some tea?”

“No thank you.”

“Nothing that’s discussed in this room can leave it,” Nezu says. Toshinori nods.

“Recovery Girl and Aizawa recently brought up some concern with the Midoriya’s” Naomasa says “And because you are close to the both on them, you might have some further insight,” Toshinori thinks he knows what this is about, and he’s glad that he does have the information that could clear their conscience. 

“Midoriya Izuku is a fake identity,” Aizawa states bluntly. And nevermind. He has no clue what's going on.

“What?”

“Midoriya Izuku does not really exist. And neither does Midoriya Touya, they’re fake identities.”

“We thought it might be mostly innocently at first,” Naomasa says, continuing like they hadn’t dropped a bomb on Toshinori “but with the recent attack, we can’t be sure.” Toshinori just blinks at the man, attempting to digest the information put in front of him.

“I know you love those boys like sons Toshinori, but there’s a possibility they’re villains, or have ties with villains. What can you tell us about them? We can’t clear their names until we find out their real identities.”

Toshinori swallows. He knows, in his heart, that the Midoriya’s had nothing to do with the attack, but they don’t know that. They don’t know his boys like does. 

“I don’t know too much that could be helpful. Midoriya’s quirk came in late, around 8, and was perceived quirkless before that, false negative. His brother also has a fire quirk, though he doesn’t use it much more than an occasional light source as it’s self-destructive, and that they were both abused by their father, who also had a fire quirk.”

Nezu’s eyes widen, a sure sign he has an idea, and he turns towards Aizawa.

“I know what you’re thinking, but he’s dead, Nezu,” Aizawa says firmly. And once again, Toshinsori finds himself completely out of the loop. 

“They never did find a body,”

“Because he burnt himself to dust. ”

“Shouta, Touya would be the same age and he had a similar quirk. Not even mentioning the name”

“He’s dead ,” Aizawa repeats.

“Toshinori, Chiyo, does this man bare resemblance to Midoriya Touya?” Nezu asks, turning his monitor around to show the two of them a picture of a young man in a UA with white hair. An almost perfect image of what Toshinori thinks the eldest Midoriya would look like as a teenager, just with white hair.

“I thought he looked familiar,” Chiyo says

“Yes, who is that?”

“Nezu,” Aizawa says. Nezu ignores him.

“This is-“

“Was” Aizawa interrupts

“Todoroki Touya.” Nezu continues. Aizawa stands up without a word and leaves. Chiyo starts to stand, presumably to go after him, but stops when Nezu puts his paw up.

“Let him go, this topic is sensitive for him.” Chiyo sits back down “6 years ago Todoroki Touya presumably committed suicide. His body was never found. Aizawa was close to the boy and was the one to receive a note.”

Toshinori’s eye’s widen. He’s never even heard of the eldest Todoroki child’s death. (Something in the back of his head reminds him that Midoriya claimed both of them were abused by their father. But he ignores it, sure Endeavor might be rough around the edges, but he wasn’t a monster )

“So you think he faked his death?” Chiyo asks.

“Perhaps. He also might have failed the attempt or didn’t go through with it and decided not to come back. But as it is, there's too much evidence to throw the theory out.” 

“Todoroki Touya committed suicide?” Naomasa asks “I was under the impression he left one morning for school and disappeared.” Nezu pauses, as if remembering something.

“May I speak to the detective alone for a moment?” he says. The hair on the back of Toshinori’s neck stands up, and both he and Chiyo all but run out of the room. He ignores his friends’ quiet please for help, he should have known what he was getting into questioning Nezu.

Shouta is going to strangle the fucking rat once he gets these stupid casts off. He knew how much Shouta had cared for Todoroki Touya. He knew how sensitive of a subject it was. Him being alive and so close is something out of a dream, even thinking about it made Shouta hurt in all the ways he could never understand. He was dead, and he was going to be dead for the rest of time. Shouta would never get to rescue him from his abuser, he would never get to apologize for not doing so earlier, and he’d have to accept that. Nezu bringing up false hope on a series of coincidences was evil, even for Nezu.

Should have he walked out of the meeting? Probably not. But he didn’t care. It was… too much, thinking about the possibility of him being alive and just under his nose.

Death was final. And Todoroki Touya was dead.

Two days from now will mark exactly 6 years since Touya disappeared. Shoto has long lost hope of his brother coming back and “saving” him (well, except a tiny, tiny part of him he’s learned to suppress.) 

Everyone else, including his father and siblings, believed Touya was dead. But Shoto believed otherwise. His brother had talked about running for years , even just days before his disappearance asking him, Natsuo, and Fuyumi to run with him. 

But everyone just seemed to agree when their father had said he was dead. They would tell him he was crazy, or seeing things, or in mourning, when he mentioned he saw someone who looked exactly like his brother on the street. They would tell him there was no way for Touya to survive that long on the streets if he mentioned Touya’s plans. If they believed him at all they would tell him the only way for Touya to still be alive was for him to have resorted to villainy. (They didn’t know his brother, he wouldn’t become a villain. Sure he might have stolen food or clothing, maybe done some shady business for money, but that made him a criminal, not a villain. And Shoto was becoming a hero, wasn’t it his job to save people?)

But Shoto knows he isn’t crazy, and when he finally hits 18, he’ll look for Touya himself and prove to them that he’s been right all along.

Chapter Text

After a brief 'what happened after I childishly stormed after the meeting' meeting with Nezu, confirming with Tsukauchi that what Nezu told him about Touya was correcting, and furthering to threaten the man into keeping it on the downlow for at least the moment, he finally heads home, more tired than any meeting, even with Nezu and All Might, ought to make him.

The thing about “none of this will leave with room” is that Nezu knows damn well Shouta would be telling Hizashi just about every detail. Why Nezu didn’t just include him in meetings? Shouta will never know. There were only select situations where Hizashi wouldn’t be in the know, and this was definitely not one of them. Besides, he already knew Midoriya was a fake identity. Shouta had told him almost as soon as he started to suspect it. And as soon as Tsukchauchi and Nezu confirmed that ‘Midoriya Izuku’ and ‘Midoriya Touya’ were not real people, Hizashi was hearing every detail.

“How’d the meeting go?” Hizashi asks from the couch. Shouta was lucky he’d gotten to attend the meeting period. Hizashi had been overprotective since USJ. Something about Shouta ‘almost dying’ and ‘still being injured.’ But Shouta had managed to convince him by reminding him that it was at UA, in Nezu’s office, and All Might, Recovery Girl, Nezu, and Tsukauchi would be there. There was almost no place safer for Shouta than that room. He sits down next to his husband with a huff.

“Nezu is the devil.” he says, pressing his face into Hizashi’s shoulder “He thinks Midoriya’s brother might be Touya.” 

“What? Pretty side Touya’s dead.” Hizashi says, eyebrows furrowing in confusion.

“That’s what I told him.”

“Why would he even think that?”

“Well, Midoriya’s brother’s given name is also Touya, he has a self-destructive fire quirk, their backstory includes an abusive father with a fire quirk, they’d be the same age, and according to All Might and Recovery Girl, they look similar. But I’d say that’s all taken out by the fact that he's dead.”

“Babe… he does have a point there.” Shouta shoots Hizashi a look, who puts his hands up in faux surrender.

“All I’m saying is that Nezu had a point, that doesn’t mean he’s right,” Hizashi says. Shouta is too stubborn to admit that Nezu might have a point, albeit an incredibly small one. Plus neither of them deserves the satisfaction. So instead he kisses his husband on the cheek and heads into the kitchen to make himself a coffee.

“Babe!” Hizashi says from where Shouta left him on the couch. Shouta smirks, turning on the coffee maker.

"Sorry love, can't hear you over the coffee maker." It's not long before he feels Hizashi wrap his arms around Shouta's stomach and rest his chin on Shouta's shoulder.

"Are you okay, though?" Hizashi asks.

"Hmm?"

"Well, I know Touya can be a particularly sore subject. And Nezu bringing up a theory that he's alive?"

"I-I" he's not fine. But he's not, not fine. 

"I'll be okay."

"If you're sure babe." Hizashi says "But there's nothing wrong with being upset over this."

"I know. I love you,"

"I love you too,"

Despite both Recovery Girl, Touya, AND Yagi’s almost constant reassurance, Izuku was still worried 

about Aizawa. He hadn’t seen him, so it was possible they were lying to him to make him feel better. Maybe not likely, but still probable. It was also possible that they didn’t really know how Aizawa was and had just believed he’d be okay. And the news hadn’t been helpful on Aizawa’s condition. Sure there’d been no news about his death, but there also hadn’t been any about him having recovered.

Yagi’s text on Saturday about having seen Aizawa in person did help ease all of Izuku’s worries. He’s almost certain that Aizawa was fine. But that didn’t actually stop him from worrying. It was in his nature to worry. He worried about someone finding out who he and Touya used to be, worried about All Might deciding to take back One For All, worried about becoming like his father, worried about the people he loved being hurt. Long story short, he was a chronic overthinker who probably had an anxiety disorder. So he can’t be completely sure Aizawa’s okay until Izuku sees him with his own two eyes. Which should be in a week or two, considering how injured his teacher was. But Touya said that Aizawa never missed class, even if he was sick, and that he should expect Aizawa to be in class.

“Everyone!” Iida says “Morning homeroom is about to begin! Please sit in your seats!”

“You’re the only one up…” Sero notes. Iida, in turn, turns a bright red. Just as the bell rings, the class door slides open and Aizawa steps in. He looks better than Izuku expected, only one of his arms in a cast, he has a plaster on his forehead, almost entirely covered by his hair, and butterfly stitches under his left eye. His eye bags aren’t any worse than Izuku remembers, so all in all, Aizawa is okay.

“Morning” Aizawa greets them, voice as monotone as ever.

“You're back already Aizawa sensei!” Ashido says.

“Glad to see you doing well, sensei!” Iida says with a bow.

“If you can call that 'doing well'” Uraraka mutters. Shinsou stifles a laugh behind him.

“My welfare isn't important,” Izuku frowns at that “Because your fight is far from over” Aizawa pauses, and the whole class holds their breath. For a moment, the only sound Izuku can hear is the sound of his beating heart. Before Aizawa’s face splits into a grin.

“UA's sports festival is fast approaching.” and all at once, the class relaxes. Something relatively normal. With how the year had been going so far, he wouldn’t be surprised if they had to like… fight in a war or something. Which, yeah is a little ridiculous, they’re 15 and it’s only the second week of school, but Izuku’s always liked being just a little overdramatic. But it’s just the sports festival. 

Excitement is at an all-time high come lunchtime. Even Shinsou’s, who’s usually calm and collected, is visibly excited.

‘Huh’  Izuku thinks. He never did as Uraraka or Shinsou why they wanted to be heroes.

“Hey Uraraka, why did you want to become a hero?”  

“Oh, uhh” her face is a bright red, and Izuku suddenly feels like he asked the wrong question.

“You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to!” He says frantically. 

“No no… it’s just… It’s money, mostly.”She says, looking uncomfortable. Izuku’s heart drops and his stomach starts to church with anxiety. He knows it’s unfair and frankly cruel to compare everyone who wants to be a hero for money or fame to them. Not everyone like that is evil and abusive, he knows that plenty of them are perfectly fine people. He just can’t help it sometimes. It’s probably the trauma if he's being honest.

“You wanna be a hero for money?” Iida asks as Izuku tries to wrangle the anxiety back into its box at the center of his chest. 

“Ultimately, yeah.” She sheepishly rubs the back of her neck “Sorry I know it seems basic. and it’s really embarrassing considering Iida’s noble motivations as all.

“Why? There’s really nothing wrong with seeking a more comfortable lifestyle!”

“Yeah, just a little unexpected,” Shinsou says with a shrug. Izuku nods in agreement, though it doesn’t stop the churn of anxiety in his stomach. He knows, realistically, that at least one of his classmates was becoming a hero for money or fame, and there was nothing inherently wrong with that. But it always left a bad taste in his mouth. He knows not every money or fame chasing hero is like them , but it didn’t stop him from worrying. Uraraka is nice. A good friend. She won’t end up like them. (He’ll see to it.)

“My family runs a construction company but. Business is bad. we're poorer than poor.” Izuku softens a bit. That's… understandable. Relatable even. Izuku won’t pretend he hasn’t fantasized about finally having enough money to finally stop worrying and letting Touya take a goddamn break. “Don't mention that to anyone okay?”

“If you got permission to use your quirk, wouldn't that cut costs?”

“Right! That’s what I said to my dad way back! But…” She trails off like she’s remembering something distant and painful “So I’m gonna be a hero. I’ll make that money so that my mom and dad can have easier lives.” The anxiety in Izuku’s stomach has all but disappeared. That’s actually… really sweet. And he tells her such.

“What about you Shinsou?”

“Me? Oh. Nothing grand. Spite mostly. Just want to get back at every person who told me I couldn’t be a hero because of my quirk.”

“That’s fair,” Izuku says. He’s partly becoming a hero out of spite. 

“What about you, Midoriya?” Uraraka asks. And Izuku stalls. He’s got… a lot of reasons for becoming a hero. To spite everyone Before, for one. To prove he could be a hero without becoming cruel (something his mother had once told him. It was one of the few things that still stuck with him) because Touya had wanted to become one (Izuku thinks he might still want to, but had to forget all his dreams once he ran away and became Izuku’s guardian). To be like All Might. To help people. It would be simple just to say ‘to help people,’ but it didn’t feel like that to Izuku. Yes, it was part of it, a huge part of it, but it went right along with the whole ‘I pretty much had to save myself’ trauma. 

“Midoriya, my boy!” All Might calls, appearing around the corner and almost shyly holding up a bento wrapped in a blue and white bunny-printed handkerchief that looks too cute and small for his hulking form. “Would you care to have lunch with me?”

“Um, Yeah! Of course.” he gives a quick glance back at his friends, who all give him thumbs up “Um, bye guys!” he waves to his friends, who look a little confused but have back nonetheless, and follows All Might through the corridors to a private room. It’s there that the hero deflates into his smaller form.

“Sit, my boy. We’ve got much to talk about.”

Toshinori had spent most of the weekend thinking about the Midoriya’s. Fake identities, possibly being the son of his colleague “Me and Touya’s parents weren’t… the best” won’t leave Toshinori's mind. It’s possible that only one of their parents were abusive, but still. The more he thinks about it, the more he looks, the more Todoroki looks like an abused child. The mannerisms are so similar. Maybe he should talk to Nezu about it. or Aizawa. runaways, possibly faked deaths, suicide. What had he gotten caught up in?

Toshinori was not stupid, according to many people he was very intelligent. He knew that whatever had happened to force his boys out of their homes and onto the streets probably hadn’t been good. The more the thought about it, the more the pit in his stomach grew. Midoriya hadn’t seemed like he was lying when talking about his past abuse, and it did make sense, considering how the Midoriya’s acted. Skittish, flinching at loud noises, disassociation. But that could also be attributed to just about any traumatizing event. Homelessness, for one.

He didn’t want to believe his successor was lying about much more than his name. He knew his successor and his brother. They were both good people. Good kids. His kids. He’s sure there’s a personally logical and understandable explanation for all this. And Toshinori will continue to support them both until they figure everything out. There aren't many reasons children volentareely leave their homes for the streets. And while it would be easy to ask 'why didn't they ask for help?,' Toshinori is not blind to the flaws in the hero system. There were heroes, too many heroes, who would turn a blind eye to things like abuse, especially if you payed them off. He loves being a hero, but he's not unaware of the problems a hero society has created. But there was nothing All Might could do to change everything by himself. Certainly not in the maybe year or so tops he had before his retirement.

“My time has gone down to just 50 minutes,” Toshinori informs Midoriya, letting his thoughts detor from darker thoughts and to the sports festival, and pouring the both of them a cup of tea. 

“Just 50 minutes?!”

“Yes, my time limit is getting shorter by the day” and overdoing it at the USJ definitely didn’t help. Not that he regretted it, no he’d do it over and over again if asked.

“It’s that bad? Sorr-“

“Don’t apologize,” Toshinori interrupts with what he hopes is a kind smile, “You and I are a lot alike,” He adds as an afterthought. Too alike, sometimes. Toshinori worries about the boy. There are certainly many things Toshinori regrets doing in his early career, not making many friends is a big one, but being so... determined to hold the whole world on his shoulders was another one. He doesn't want to see Midoriya do the same. 

“I really wanted to talk to you about the sports festival. How has your progress on your quirks been?” 

“Ah. Not great? B-But there was one time, when I attacked that bird brain villain, there was no kickback. And during Aizawa’s quirk test, I managed to only fracture my finger.” 

“You did mention that, what was different?”

“I used it against someone else for the first time.”

“Hmm. Sounds like you managed to pump the brakes without even knowing it. In any case, it’s progress. Glad to hear it.” And Toshinori is beginning to realize just how little he actually knows about mentoring. God, how had Nana managed to make it look so easy?

“The whole country will be will be watching the sports festival,” God, how does he put this “And as my successor, it’ll be the best chance to tell the world ‘I am here!’”

"'I am here?'" Midoriya repeats. Toshinori nods. 

"Show off, show the world who you are, and have fun too, of course." Midoriya nods, a shy smile sneaking onto his face. 

Touya manages to buy sports festival tickets. Yes, families get discounts, but they're still expensive and hard to get.

But it's Izuku's first sports festival. Babies first festival. Touya remembers his own fondly. He didn't get very far, but it had been fun nonetheless, just hanging out with friends, splurging his father's credit card on food and merchandise for friends and classmates. The thrill of walking onto the field for the first time was one he thought of a lot, these days.

He even makes plans to go out for dinner afterwards with Yagi.

It should go perfectly. Even if he has to ignore the pangs of hurt watching Present Mic commentate, and possibly catch the occasional glance of his former classmates, and god watch Shouto. Izuku will have a great time, and he'll have a great time because Izuku will have a great time. 

He'll unpack his feelings sometime that night. And he'll be just as fine as always.

Chapter Text

Touya is… nervous. He sits alone in the crowd, next to a family who are very loudly supporting their daughter, who’s in the support class. Yagi is in the hero stands, and Izuku is competing, so it’s just him. (Endeavor and Dragon are also in the hero stands, but he can pretend to ignore them.) He doesn’t see any of his other siblings among the crowd, but he can see Shouto standing among the rushing hero students. Not that it was hard to spot him, with his split red and white hair.

He hasn’t seen Shouto in quite some time. He’s taller than Touya was at that age, though Touya has always been the shortest among the Todoroki siblings. 

Shouto stands alone. He stands tense. And he stands searching the crowd for something or someone. Probably their father, possibly for his siblings. Natsuo and Fuyumi hadn’t come to his first sports festival either. Though, they’d been just kids then, They’d be full grown adults now.

He wonders why they didn’t show up to Shouto’s.

Maybe he should just be glad he won’t have to run into them. He doesn’t know what he’d do if he saw them here, in UA, especially when he knows Yamada and Aizawa are sitting just up in the announcement booth.

It had been easier to carry the guilt of his… departure when he didn’t have to think about them. Easier when they weren’t within arms reach, easier when he didn’t have to think about how they could call him at any moment. Easier when Aizawa wasn’t getting injured while saving his kid brothers.

The possibility of contact, of reconnection, lights back up the child inside of him. It drags the teenager he had buried years ago out, the one that dreamed of Aizawa and Yamada finding out about the abuse and adopting him. The one that tried to convince his siblings to run away with him. The one that was convinced it would get better if he could get out of that god forsaken house. (It did get better, he repeats to himself, over and over again. He’s not in that house anymore. He has Izuku. He’d take a deadend job and never ending bills over that house. He’d take Izuku and living on the streets over that house.)

Touyas shakes the thoughts from his head. This isn’t about him. This is about Izuku.

There is a man that looks like Touya in the crowd. Shoto doesn know how he managed to spot him in particular, amongst the hundreds of thousands of attendees, but for the brief moment the camera pans to the crowd, Shoto spots him. 

The man’s hair is black, but he still looks like Touya. (He looks like Fuyumi, like Natsuo when he went through his emo phase and dyed his hair black)

It’s probably a coincidence, but a small part of Shoto is whispering that Touya came to see him, that Touya wanted to watch his little brother compete in the sports festival. He allows himself to believe it. Maybe not that that man in particular is Touya, but that Touya is somewhere out there, whether in the crowd or somewhere in Japan, cheering Shoto on. It’s a comforting thought, and it gives him something to focus on that isn’t his father’s overbearing presence. 

(He wishes it was Touya there, in the crowd. He wishes it was Touya, Fuyumi, and Natsuo instead of his father. He wishes they had run away together when Touya had proposed so many years ago. He wishes for a lot of things, but right now, with the stadium lights shining down on him and his classmates, the cheering crowd, and the cameras, that his siblings were here cheering him instead of his father. He wishes he had a family. He wishes for a lot of things that will never happen, he’s accepted, mostly, that it’s only his father now, but that doesn’t stop him from dreaming.)

“Bakugou Katsuki of 1A!” Midnight calls, snapping Shoto’s attention back to the festival.

Bakugou Katsuki was… an interesting person. He growled at anyone who so much as looked at him, he called people extras, and Shoto wasn't even sure if Bakugou knew any of his classmates' actual names. 

The crowd splits so the Bakugou can move up towards the stage. Shoto can hear whispering, but none of it is distinct enough for him to make out.

“I’m going to win,” Bakugou says, flat and cold.

The crowd (of both students and spectators) erupts into boos.

“Don’t push your luck class A!” a student yells

“Why do you insist on making our class look bad?!” another one, Iida, Shotot thinks.

“You’ll all make fantastic stepping stones!” He yells, at the crowd this time, though the microphone still picks it up and broadcasts it around the stadium. And then he marches back into the crowd, a crowd he’s pissed off.

“This kid’s unbelievably overconfident. I’m gonna be the one to crush him.” Shoto hears someone say.

“All right then,” Midnight starts “with that we can move onto our first event!”

The crowd cheers.

Shoto attempts to find the man that looked like Touya in the crowd again, but he does not. Instead he sees himself reflected on the screen. He’s a few steps away from his classmates, looking bored as most of his classmates smile widely.

“Onto the preliminaries! This year's first round issss,” Midnight says, stepping back so that the screen behind her is visible. It flashed through what Shoto assumes are different options for the first round before finally stopping on-

“AN OBSTACLE RACE!” Midnight announces.

At the back of the stadium, a gate opens, presumably to said obstacle race.

“It’s a race between all 11 classes! The course makes a nearly 4km around this stadium!” Around them the crowd cheers as the students begin to turn around and make their way to the back of the stadium.

“We always sing about our freedom on campus fufufu…” she patters on “Well this is what it’s all about! You’re free to do anything so long as you remain on course!” 

Most of the students have made their way to the front of the gates now.

“So let's get cracking,” Midnight says, though Shoto can’t see her “On your marks… get set…” Both crowds quiet in anticipation. Shoto wonders if everyone else has had the anxiety in their stomach swell with each step and second.

“START!” Midnight yells as the bell rings, causing the crowd to burst into cheers and for all 220 students to rush forward.

Toshinori knew Endeavor didn’t like him, he knew Endeavor was hot headed, but when asked he’d always laugh and say “he gets the job done.”

Privately, he’s never liked Endeavor’s tactics. There was often too much property damage and injuries for Toshinori’s taste. But it didn’t look good for the #1 hero to trash talk the #2. So he didn’t.

Still, knowing what he knew now, he wondered how much of that violence bleed into his daily life. He knew Endeavor had a wife, and a few kids, but he knew next to nothing about them. (Now that he thinks about it, he remembers hearing that his wife had been institutionalized. He’d given Endeavor his condolences. He remembers Endeavor sneered and hadn’t reply)

“Endeavor!” Toshinori greets Endeavor, who is starting down the stairs, “It’s been far too long! We haven’t talked since our little chit chat ten years ago, right? I just thought I'd say hi since I saw you.”

Endeavor looks annoyed, when he turns around. 

“Do you need anything?”

“I was… uh… I was wondering if you had any advice!” He finds himself blurting out “I’m dying for your how-to on raising the next generation of heroes!”

“You think I’ll teach you anything?” Endeavor asks. Not anything useful Toshinori thinks not about teaching, at least.

“You’ll never give up that easy-breezy attitude of yours, will you? How annoying.”

“My bad…” 

“Just remember,” Endeavor, a few more steps down the staircase now, turns, glares, and sneers up at him “That someday I’ll have made him a hero that will surpass you. That is the reason I made the boy.”

“What?” Toshinori asks, appalled.

“That boy is going through his rebellious phase right now, but he will surpass you. I will make him.” And with that Endeavor continues down the staircase, leaving ‘the reason I made the boy’ ringing in his ears.

That. That hadn’t been what he thought Endeavor would say.

Someday I’ll have made him a hero that will surpass you. That is the reason I made the boy’ repeats somewhere in the back of his brain, over and over and over.

Toshinor had been a hero long enough, hell he’d been in the foster system long enough, to know red flags when he saw them. Endeavor had always been a red flag, but Toshinori had always given him the benefit of the doubt. He won’t do that any longer.

“So… What did you want to tell me?” Izuku asks, bouncing nervously on the balls of his feet.

Todoroki had grabbed his arm as he was leaving with Uraraka and Iida to get lunch and asked to talk to him. (Maybe ‘asked’ was too nice of a word, it was more of a demand. But Izuku would have gone either way, this was his brother’s brother. That made them family.)

“You blindsided me.” Todoroki says “So much that I broke my own pledge.” He hadn’t used the fire part of quirk, even when it would have benefited him.

Izuku… could relate. He’d gotten… better at using his quirk when he needed to. Though, if he was being honest, it was because he couldn’t use One For All yet. Once he got a hold of it, he’d probably just shelve his original quirk. 

“Neither Iida nor Kaminari nor Yaoyorozu nor Tokoyami nor Uraraka ever felt it. Only I felt it. After all it was only me who’d seen All Might at his full power, up close.”

“Soo…?” 

“I’m saying what I felt from you was the same,” Todoroki pauses before- “Are you All Might's illegitimate child or something?” 

“Huh?” Izuku asks after a beat of silent, and then he breaks out in laughter.

All Might? His father? God what a fucking dream. 

He doesn’t know entirely why he’s laughing, it is funny that Todoroki thought All Might was his father, but it’s not that funny.

He still finds himself keeled over with laughter. 

Maybe it’s just that his father is a well known Pro-hero, one who’s also in the crowd watching right now. Maybe it’s that his father was an abusive piece of shit (just like Endeavor). Or maybe it’s that he does see Yagi as a father-figure. 

“No, no, no,” he says between fits of laughter “nothing like that!” Todoroki looks at him like he doesn’t quite believe him, but he doesn’t say anything.

“Why…why are you so adamant about beating me?” Izuku asks.

“You must know my father is Endeavor,” Todoroki says, and even though it’s not a question, Izuku nods “He’s been the number one hero forever now. If you’re connected to the number one hero, that means I need to win it all more. He made name for himself during his career, but nothing he’s done has been enough to outpace a legend like All Might, who was an unremovable mite in my father’s eyes,” Todoroki takes in a deep breath and continues “and because he knew he could never beat him with his own power, he devised a plan.”

Izuku’s heart drops to his stomach. He thinks he knows what’s coming, Touya didn’t like to talk about his past, but he had told Izuku enough for him to get most of the picture.

Still, he only knew about it through Touya’s perspective. And Touya had left 6 years ago.

Izuku doesn’t say anything, he can’t think of anything to say.

“You know about quirk marriages, right?” Izuku does, he hadn’t when Touya had told him about his parents marriage. But he did now.

And so he nods.

“My father has always had money, and so he bought my mother when she was still a child ” He spits out ‘bought’ with more rage and contempt than he’d heard from anyone in quiet a long time “All he wanted was a blank slate he could manipulate into completeing his life goal,” He laughs, shallow and bitter but soft “Fuck him, I’ll never be that piece of shit’s tool.”

Izuku knew Endeavor would have bought their mother. He knew that, he knew she would have been young, but he didn’t know she had been a child.  

“In my memories, my mother is always crying,” Todoroki continues before Izuku can entirely process what he’d just said. He looks far off, reaching up with his hand to touch the edge of his scar “My father broke her. She told me that my left side was unsightly, and poured boiling water on me,”

Izuku inhales sharply, he knew that. He’d asked Touya, cautiously, one night years ago if Endeavor had given the youngest Todoroki his scar. Touya had told him the truth- no, that bastard would never give his masterpiece such a visible scar. Our mother did that during a psychic break - but still. It wasn’t an easy story to hear.

“The reason I’m aiming to beat you is a personal triumph. I will beat you without using my old man's shitty quirk. I will become the number one hero without needing it. This is my total disownment of him,” Todoroki says, turning to leave Izuku like he hadn’t dropped the biggest bomb in Hero history. He’s lucky Izuku knew enough before hand to process it right here!

“I believe you Todoroki,” Izuku starts, Todoroki up at him in surprise, stopping in place. “I understand, in some ways. My father was… abusive as well. And powerful. He also had a fire quirk. I also struggle to use my quirk. But it’s not my fathers quirk. It’s mine. Same with you. It’s your quirk. Not your fathers, not your mothers, yours.” 

“Was?” Todoroki asks. Which. That’s not what Izuku wanted him to get out of that.

“Y-yeah. He, uh, my older brother, Touya, got me out of there.”

“I had an older brother named Touya,” Todoroki says, so small Izuku can barely hear it, “He tried to get us out. It never worked.”

“O-oh. I’m sorry,” Izuku says, his heart twisting. He wished he could tell Todoroki that their Touya’s were one in the same. That Touya still loved him, still thought about him, was still alive and breathing in the very building they stood in.

But he can’t, because that’ll bring up too many questions they don’t want to answer. It’s safer like this, even if it hurts. 

“Thank you for telling me.”

“Of course. And- and um. If you ever want to get out of the house or something you can hangout at my place? My brother won’t mind and you don’t have to tell him anything if you don’t want but he’d definitely believe you and he wouldn’t do anything you don’t want him to,” Izuku says in a rush.

Todoroki looks at him strangely “After I beat you.” 

Izuku smiles, “We’ll see about that.”

Todoroki leaves after that without another word, but Izuku swears he sees the briefest of smiles on his classmates face.

Izuku can’t wait to tell Touya.

He gets lost, trying to find the bathroom, and finds himself in an endless sea of near- if not completely- empty corridors.

Goddamn it, why did UA have to make everything so big? And why was it built like a maze? Why did he need a map to find his way around the sports festival grounds?

“Midoriya Izuku, right?” a familiar voice sounds through the hall.

No Izuku thinks He shouldn’t be here

“Your performance out there was great! It’s nice to see 2 fire users in the hero course this year,” He says with a large toothy smile.

How did he even find me?

Izuku doesn’t say anything, he can’t. Not when he’s staring into the face of Akantai Hisashi- of Pro-Hero Dragon- of his father.

Chapter Text

Izuku can barely breathe. He can barely think, past the alarm blaring in his head.

He is talking, Izuku can see his mouth moving, wide in a friendly grin, but he can’t hear him, the words won’t register in his brain. All he can register is the instinct to run, to find safety among the crowd, to find his brother, who he knows would protect him without second thought, without hesitation or fear of consequences.

He doesn’t see him move, not really. He just knows that every single atom in his body is screaming for him to run, to hide, to get away from him.

And so he does, he hears a yell behind him, but that doesn’t stop him. He runs like prey, turning down corridors at random until he finds himself somewhere else completely unrecognizable.

He breathes heavily, whirling his head around to see if he had followed him. When he doesn’t see or hear anything, Izuku slips his phone out of his pocket with trembling hands and calls his brother. 

“Touya,” Izuku says, panicked, once the ringing ends and his brother picks up. He glances behind him again. There’s still no one else in the corridor, good..

“What's going on?” Touya asks. Izuku opens a door at random, slipping inside the dark room and sliding down the wall behind the door with shaky, fast breaths. 

“Breathe, Izuku,” Touya says. He tries, but the panic has him by the throat, and a wave of memories and half-formed panicked thoughts threaten to pull him under. His chest tightens with a terror he hadn’t felt in a long time, and it throws him back to Before. The tide sweeps him under and he can’t breathe.

“He found me, he’s going to take me back.” Izuku cries between gasps “Please don’t let him take me back.” He can’t go back. He can’t live like that, he can’t be pulled away from the life he’d built with Touya. It wasn’t perfect but it wasn’t there. He’d sooner rather die than go back there. 

“Izuku, I need you to breathe, In,” Touya says, breathing deeply over the phone. Izuku tries to follow, it’s better than before, but not great “Out,”

Another sobs tears itself from his throat.

“I don’t want to go back there, you can’t let them take me,” he sobs

“I won’t, Izuku. I promise. You’re safe, I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Izuku turns the call on speaker and places it in his lap, and curls around it. Touya continues to guide him through his breathing and reassurance, even as sobs rip through his body, even as he trembles and begs for Touya to keep him safe from his father.

“You’re safe,” Touya repeats “He won’t hurt you again, I promise.”

But eventually, his heart calms and he breathes normally.

“Where are you? What did he do?” Touya asks, once Izuku’s sniffling has died down. There’s a cold anger in Touya’s voice, one he recognized but rarely heard.

“Nothing,” Izuku says timidity, embarrassed by his reaction to just seeing his father. “He just said hi, basically. I just panicked. And I… don’t know where I am. Some storage room, I got lost.” He can hear Touya sigh with relief on the other end.

“Okay, that’s good, I’m glad he didn’t hurt you, do you need me to come find you?” Touya doesn’t ask why Izuku got so worked up over, especially, nothing. He doesn’t hang up, now that Izuku has calmed down. He doesn’t chastise him about wasting his time.

“No, I don’t think so. I don’t think you could even get back here.”

“If you’re sure…” Touya says, and Izuku can tell that he’d probably find a way to him if he asked. But Izuku didn’t think he needed him. The panic had passed, he'd be fine as long as there weren’t any more surprises.

Izuku still didn’t understand why Dragon approached him, though. He hadn’t really done anything interesting yet, just barely… used his quirk.

“Are you-“ Touya starts.

“Oh my God I have a fire quirk,” Izuku says suddenly, cutting Touya off.

“What?”

“My father, he,” Izuku sighs and runs a hand down his face, “everyone in his agency has a fire quirk, even the custodians and secretary. He sends internship offers to every hero student with a fire quirk. He beefs with Endeavor about it.”

Touya laughs on the other end “No shit?”

“He’s always been weird about it,” Izuku says “That’s why he… approached me.”

“Well, I’m glad it’s nothing to worry about, and I’m glad you called me,” Touya says, dispelling the worst of the anxiety Izuku had about wasting Touya’s time.

“Oh, and I uh, talked to your brother! He told me about Endeavor and your mom.”

“He did?”

“Yeah,” Izuku says, nodding his head even though he knows Touya can’t see him “He also said he wasn’t going to use ‘his fathers quirk,’ meaning the fire aspect of his quirk. And he asked me if I was All Might’s secret love child.”

Touya huffs a laugh, but it comes out more sad than anything.

“I also… kinda told him about you and my father,” Izuku continues, when Touya doesn’t say anything.

“You did?”

“I mean, I told him I had an abusive powerful fire quirk user as a sperm donor and that my ‘older brother Touya’ helped me out. And then he, uh, told me he also had an older brother named Touya who tried to get him out.”

Touya doesn’t say anything for a moment, but Izuku can hear a few shaky breaths.

“Sorry,” he starts, a sort of guilt building up in his chest “I shouldn’t have even mentioned it.” He knew Touya found it hard to even think about his life before he’d run away. He knew it was way hard on Touya that Izuku even went to UA, much less had his former teacher-turned-parental-figure as his teacher and had his little brother in his class. But Touya loved him, so he bit back those feelings and let Izuku stay. And Izuku didn’t think he’d ever be able to make it up to him.

“No, no,” Touya says “It’s good that you and Shoto are opening up. I just miss them, you know?”

“Yeah, I know,” Izuku says. He often felt guilty for separating the Todoroki siblings. Even though he knew Touya would tell him that he’d done nothing wrong, that it was Endeavors fault, that Touya had chosen to run away, he knew that at the end of the day, Touya kept his distance because he was afraid that Izuku would be taken back to his parents. That if they knew Touya was alive, they’d find out Izuku was too, and who he was. And he’d have to go back. And so if Izuku wasn’t in the picture, Touya could have his family back.

“Don’t get any ideas,” Touya says “I’m perfectly happy with the life I have.”

But Izuku knows that's a lie. Touya couldn’t be happy, when they were always one unexpected bill away from being homeless again. When his family was so close but still entirely out of reach. 

“I know,” Izuku says “I think I’m okay now, I’m going to try and find my friends again. Wish me luck.”

“Okay, good luck Izuku. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Shouta moves quickly out of the corridor, heart and head racing.

What the fuck.

Part of him thinks he’s dreaming. That he’d fallen asleep during the intermission and had some horrible nightmare that Midoriya Touya really was Todoroki Touya and had somehow ended up adopting Dragon’s missing child.

He pinches himself to be sure.

“Is the little listener okay?” Hizashi asks him once he steps into the announcers booth.

Shouta had always thought Akantai Hisashi was an interesting person. His hero persona was almost a straight copy of All Might, but it had seemed more genuine than most of the All Might copy cats out there. As such, Hizashi talked to the guy regularly enough that they probably could be considered friends. 

Which is why Akantai had contacted Hizashi about a concerning interaction he’d had with Midoriya Izuku. According to him, he’d seen Midoriya in the halls and stopped him to talk about a future internship. Midoriya had panicked and fled. He asked for someone to check on the kid.

Maybe not the most normal interaction, but it hadn’t necessarily brought up any red flags. At least, not about Akantai.

“Is something wrong?” Hizashi asks.

Shouta opens his mouth to explain, but he can’t put his thoughts in order and so nothing comes out. How does he even begin to explain what he overheard? How does he explain that they had 2 top 100 heroes who were child abusers? That Touya was alive and within arms reach. 

(Hadn’t Shouta talked to Midoriya’s brother the first day of school? He tries to remember anything about the person on the other end, but all he can remember was what he’d told him.)

“Shouta?”

“Nezu was right,” Shouta says, eventually. It feels like a bucket of cold water was thrown over his head. Touya was alive, according to Yagi and Chiyo he seemed physically in fine health. Touya was alive and he was raising on of his students, had been, for at a minimum of 4 years. 

Touya was alive.

“What?”

“Touya is alive, he is Midoriya’s brother,” Shouta says, sliding down in his chair in defeat.

“ What ?”

Shouta wants to punch something or someone. Ideally, Endeavor. Instead he leans over, placing his head in his hands and breathes deeply. He can’t unravel right now, he’s in public, and the third round will start soon, there's not enough time to spiral. 

“And that's not even the end of it, do you remember Akantai’s missing kid?” He continues.

“Yeah?”

“That’s Midoriya Izuku.”

“What?” Hizashi asks, eyebrows furrowed “Are you sure? I thought his kid was a little quirkless girl?”

Shouta frowns. He hadn’t remembered that. But he didn’t know how else to interpret what he heard. He sits back up in the chair to look at Hizashi.

“I mean, he could always be trans. And he does partly have a fire quirk, it’s possible he was just suppressing it and was misdiagnosed.”

“Not that I’m doubting you, but what exactly happened?”

Shouta sighs, rubbing at his uninjured eye “I found Midoriya in one of the storage rooms on the phone with his brother. It sounded like he’d just finished having a panic attack, or something. He mentioned his father’s hero agency being all fire quirks and him giving internship offers to hero students with fire quirks, but that ‘he beefed with Endeavor about it.’ He called Todoroki his brother's brother, and mentioned Endeavor by name in that context too.”

“Okay,” Hizashi says, rubbing at his temples  “Okay. You’re probably right, then,”

“Midoriya described his father as a ‘powerful abuser with a fire quirk,” Shouta says, the words hang heavily in the air for a moment as Hizashi inhales sharply 

“Shit.”

“Shit,” Shouta echos.

“What- what do we do now?”

“Talk to Nezu, probably.”

“You’re sure he doesn’t already know? He had cameras and microphones everywhere.”

Shouta shakes his head “He’s running the 3rd year’s festival, I assume he’s not watching or listening right now.”

“Okay, do you want me to call him now?”

Shouta thinks about it for a moment, but the Midoriya’s weren’t going anywhere. They had no reason to believe anyone had caught on. They didn’t need to act quickly, it could wait until after the festival. They didn’t need to cause the brothers any unnecessary stress.

Shouta sighs “No, I’ll talk to him after the festival. There’s no reason to interrupt him right now, they’re not going anywhere.” And that thought calms Shouta. They weren’t going anywhere, at least not fast.

Hizashi nods “Okay, then how are you doing?”

“Hizashi-“ Shouta starts with sigh, but his husband gives him a look that tells him he’s not going to get out of this.

“Not… great,” he relents.

“Do you want to sit out for the rest of the festival? I’m sure Nezu would understand.” 

Shouta shakes his head “I’ll be fine. We’ve still got a few minutes of intermission.”

Hizashi gives him another look.

“I’ll be fine ‘Zashi. Promise.”

“I’m holding you too that,”

Izuku’s heart has long stopped trying to escape his chest when he finally finds his way back to his friends. He barely makes it in time to grab lunch

“Midoriya!” Uraraka calls, from where she, Iida, Shinsou, and Asui sit. Izuku slides into the empty seat next to them.

“Where’d you go?” 

“Todoroki wanted to talk to me.”

“What did he want?” Uraraka asks.

“He wanted to know if my dad was All Might, and then I got lost trying to get back,” Izuku admits with a shy smile.

“Is he?”

“What?”

“Is All Might your dad?” Shinsou asks. Izuku blinks at him, was he being serious? Did his whole class think All Might was his dad?!

“What? No! Why do you think that?”

His friends all exchange glances “Er, well you’re definitely his favorite, and you do have a crazy powerful strength enhancement quirk,” Uraraka says.

“And you’ve never mentioned your family,” Shinsou adds.

Iida nods “You have lunch with All Might quite often,” 

Okay. Izuku… could maybe understand where they’re coming from. That wasn’t… the most outrageous conclusion to jump too. At least when they put it like that.

“Oh, uh. No, I'm not related to All Might at all. My only family is my older brother,” Izuku admits, a blush creeping up his cheeks to his ears. He knew people would be curious if they knew he admitted he didn’t have parents or grandparents or aunts and uncles, just a single older brother. And he… didn’t want to talk about it. Yagi and Aizawa both had been told that they’re parents had been abusive, or at least that their father was. He couldn't stray from the lie now that it had been told, but it was too close to the truth for comfort. 

“Oh,” Uraraka says “Sorry for-“

“It’s fine!” He interrupts “You didn’t know, and I understand where you're coming from.” Izuku shrugs.

“So what is going on between you and All Might?” Shinsou asks. Uraraka elbows him in the side.

“What?! There’s clearly something going on between them.”

“It is obviously Midoriya’s personal business!” Iida says, chopping one hand in Shinsou’s direction

“Fine,” Shinsou says with an eye roll. “If he doesn’t want to talk about it he doesn’t, I was just curious.”

He catches Izuku’s eye and smiles mischievously, and Izuku’s heart skips a beat. 

“Oh!” Uraraka says “The rereational events are starting soon! Are you guys playing?”

Iida and Izuku shake their heads. Izuku’s too tired after that panic attack to do anything but rest, and not playing won’t effect his placement overall.

“Sure,” Shinsou says with a shrug.

Asui nods “Yeah, ribbit.”

“Lets go then! See you two later!” Uraraka says, linking arms with Shinsou and Asui.

“See you later and good luck!” 

“Good luck!” Iida echos.

Despite Izuku’s insistence that everything was fine, that Dragon hadn’t really recognized him, that he’d just panicked, Touya’s stomach churned with anxiety and worry. 

Of course, it was unlikely that Dragon did recognize Izuku. He’d be looking for a 15 year 6old quirkless girl, not a 15 year old boy with a dual fire and strength enhancement quirk, if he was even looking for him at all. Izuku was most likely correct in his assessment. Dragon probably had no clue who Izuku was. He probably wouldn’t carr if he did.

But that didn’t stop Touya from worrying.

He couldn’t lose Izuku.

He pulls another cigarette out from the box, ignoring the obvious glances from one of the patrolling heroes. Most of the people who’d left for a smoke break had left after smoking one, maybe two, before heading back inside to their friends and/or family, leaving Touya mosty alone outside the venue.

Neither Izuku nor Shoto were participating in the recreational part of the festival, and Yagi was with all the heroes, so Touya didn’t think he was missing anything.

Sometimes, he regretted letting Izuku go to UA. It was a horrible, selfish feeling that he hated himself for having, but he couldn’t help but have it.

It was so damn hard, being here, seeing Izuku get so damn near the life he wanted for his younger self. It was hard seeing Aizawa, and Yamada, and Shoto, and his former classmates knowing he couldn’t talk to them. Every time he saw the UA uniform half hazardly tossed on Izuku’s floor, he wanted to cry. Just hearing about Izuku’s day was hard, most days. And too often he found himself imagining what would have happened if he had stayed, or had told Aizawa what was going on. (Of course, if he had done that Izuku would probably be dead, or worse, he’d remind himself.)

But God, it was worth it to see Izuku bloom. Izuku had never had friends, there weren’t many kids his age on the streets, and with online school…Izuku never really had the chance to connect with anyone. UA had given him that chance. UA had filled Izuku with a light Touya had never seen in him before. 

And so he dealt with it. Maybe not particularly well, if the almost empty cigarette box is anything to go by, but it wasn’t like he could afford a therapist. And even if he could, it’d be hard to explain what was going on without… legal consequences. ( Legally he might have kidnapped Izuku. And faking your death wasn’t exactly legal either.)

Touya crushes the last of the cigarette under his heel. The 1v1’s would be starting soon, and he wasn’t about to miss that. No matter how much of him wanted nothing more than to sit out here and avoid having to confront his past.