Chapter Text
“Do you know why I called you here, Midoriya?”
The boy shifts his weight from one foot to the other, fingers intertwining in what seems to be a nervous tick. Midoriya looks up at him, eyes doe and too wide, making him look perpetually surprised. Like an anxious chipmunk.
There is nothing particularly out of ordinary about Midoriya Izuku.
“Oh, I’m not sure, sir,” the kid says, voice clear and demure. His tie is a little crooked.
“Don’t torture the kid too much, Shouta,” Hizashi walks up easily to Shouta’s desk, putting a steaming mug of coffee next to his PC. He mock-whispers to the kid, “he’s a softie at heart, don’t worry.”
“Mind your own business, Present Mic,” Shouta says flatly, and then, gruffly, “thanks.”
Hizashi laughs. “See,” he says conspiratorially to the kid, “a softie. What class are you in, kid? I never saw you before! A freshman, aren’t cha?”
“1-C, sir,” comes the quiet answer.
Hizashi stops short, and blinks. “I just taught your class this morning,” he says, mildly surprised. “Huh. Well, I guess I’m getting old—my memory isn’t what it used to,” he shakes his head and sighs dramatically. “Youth is fleeting.”
“You’re thirty-one,” says Shouta pointedly, which is promptly ignored.
“Fleeting, I tell you. Play nice with him, Shouta.”
The kid merely smiles in that polite, timid sort of way at the teacher’s friendly jibe. Hizashi, undeterred by the lukewarm response, grins and winks at the kid before finally minding his own damn business.
There isn’t really any privacy in the teacher’s lounge. It’s noon, and the school will end in a few hours. Some of the teachers are prepping for Hero Studies that’ll start right after break, meaning they’re on break themselves. Nemuri was just trying to get everyone to have a taste of her fiancee’s cheesecake a few minutes ago.
Shouta sighs, and looks at the kid. Midoriya Izuku. There is nothing particularly out of ordinary about Midoriya Izuku. “You can sit down.”
“Um, okay. Thank you.”
His manner of speaking is soft. Well, everything about him is sort of soft-spoken, quiet. And yet.
“Would you mind telling me,” Shouta starts, “how exactly did you manage to get yourself lit on fire on the second day of school?”
“Um,” says Midoriya Izuku helpfully.
Nothing particularly out of ordinary, really. His grades are average, according to the files, in his previous schools. Little to no activities. There is hardly anything special about his background. Midoriya looks down at his shoes—red sneakers—as if they’re the most interesting thing in the world. His fingers are tapping restlessly on his thigh, like a nervous habit. Tap, tap tap. Tap tap.
His shy act, Shouta notes distantly, is getting old by the minute. He sighs for the nth time that day. “How’s your arm.”
Midoriya looks up at this, blinking owlishly at him. “They’re fine,” he mutters, and gestures at his left arm, the one that had been lit on fire (how ridiculous, really). They’re covered in bandages still. “Recovery Girl healed the worst of it. Um, it’s just a bit red right now.”
“And how did the incident happen, exactly?”
Midoriya pales, as if Shouta is going to expel him depending on his answer. Which, well. “Well, um,” Midoriya stumbles over his words like a child on pebbles. Tap, tap, tap, his fingers go. “Well, it was the first break period, and um, I went to ask for—” his cheeks heat red at this “—for Lunch Rush’s autograph, but he was busy ‘cause it was, well, recess, so I was um waiting for him by the side, but he was really nice and he gave me extra croquettes and let me try his new recipe and it was super amazing—”
“The point, Midoriya.”
His cheeks get even redder. He shrinks in on himself, which shouldn’t even be possible because the kid’s already so small, sinking under his immaculate, UA uniform. No wonder Lunch Rush gave him extra croquettes. “Sorry,” he mumbles. “Um, anyway, and then he gave me his autograph—and then there is this, uh, girl, she’s from the supports department, apparently, and her name is—”
Hatsume Mei. Who, on the very first day of the semester, has established herself as the problem child of the Supports Department. Shouta is familiar.
“—and she was, umm, she was trying to sell a flamethrower to Lunch Rush..”
Exhibit A.
“Sell a flamethrower,” Shouta redundantly repeats, “to Lunch Rush.”
“Yes, sir.”
If Shouta has Midoriya Izuku as his headache, it seems like Powerloader has his Hatsume Mei. “Right. Continue.”
“Um, okay. She claims that her flamethrower has the accuracy better than um, quote, Endeavor’s streak of flatulence—”
“Midoriya,” Shouta shuts his eyes close. “The point.”
“Er, yes, sir. She promotes her invention to be uh, excellent and highly efficient especially in making salmon mentai … um, any—anyway,” Midoriya hurriedly moves on as Shouta massages the sides of his temple throughout his exposition. “Well, Lunch Rush was impressed but was not, uh, inclined to make a purchase. So Hatsume-san proposes for a … demonstration.”
“Hence,” Shouta says slowly, opening his eyes, “the accident.”
Midoriya shifts under Shouta’s gaze, looks down. The kid is allergic to eye contact. “Yes..”
“And the fire alarm.”
“Y-yes.”
“On your second day.”
Tap tap tap tap, jitters Midoriya’s fingers anxiously. They just can’t seem to stay still. “Yes, sir..”
Nothing particularly out of ordinary about him. There is nothing even moderately outstanding about him either.
Except perhaps—ironically—the fact that he is Quirkless.
“Stop looking like you’re going to keel over,” Shouta says, and Midoriya looks up at him again. He really is a waifish child; his skin is somewhat sallow, the freckles washed up under the indoor lights. “You aren’t being punished.”
The relief that floods his face is instant, as if he really thought Shouta was going to expel him for getting lit on fire by some insane tech prodigy. “O-oh.”
Shouta takes a notebook on his desk and grabs a pen, writing down on a page. Tap tap tap, Midoriya’s fingers go. “The incident is indeed why I called you here, but punishment is not the case,” Shouta says. He can feel Midoriya’s eyes on his pen. “You do understand that I would be held accountable for you, in the—” supposedly “—unlikely event of accidents.”
“Of course, sir,” Midoriya says, softly. Always so soft-spoken. Always so quiet. Tap tap tap, his fingers steadily go, arrhythmical, continuous. “You’re my benefactor, after all.”
Tap, tap, tap.
Shouta puts his pen down. He rips the paper out and stares down at his notes for a moment, thoughtfully. His eyes shift to look at Midoriya, who is now staring back at him. Eyes that are almost too big for his softly-lined, childish face.
“Benefactor, hm?” Shouta echoes to no one in particular. The word, per usual, leaves a bad taste in his mouth.
Even though he’s the one who proposed the very idea.
“I would hate to cause you any trouble, sir,” Midoriya says, and smiles that bland, vague smile of his. “I’m very grateful for all sorts of opportunities you’ve given me ... I wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for you, Sensei.”
Shouta smiles back.
What, Shouta thinks, a little shit.
“I see,” Shouta drawls. “You are aware that I expect you to make the best of your opportunities, then?”
Their eye contact lasts for a heated, tense second. And then, like a deflated balloon, Midoriya looks down. His shoulders drop with his gaze, modest and reserved once more. “I understand, sir.”
It’s outstanding, Shouta thinks, how his body language shifts so fluidly by the flip of a switch.
Ah. There is nothing moderately outstanding about Midoriya Izuku, of course.
“Very well,” Shouta says. “I expect this—or anything like it—to not happen again. You may leave.”
“Thank you, sir,” Midoriya says, but he doesn’t leave immediately. His feet shift, an insecure language. His gaze, Shouta catches, is directed across the room: Hizashi’s table, where the man is currently having his share of Nemuri’s fiancee’s cheesecake. “Um, Aizawa-sensei … may I ask for Yamada-sensei’s autograph?”
Shouta doesn’t answer for a moment too long, it seems, because the boy then flushes a little and smiles this sort of small, self-deprecating turn of his mouth as he mutters, “nevermind, I’ll take my leave—”
Shouta averts his eyes. “Go ask him yourself.”
There is a pause. “Thank you,” Midoriya then mutters, before scuttling over to Hizashi’s desk.
There is nothing out of ordinary about Midoriya Izuku. Fifteen year old, skinny-limbed, waifish build. Nothing even moderately outstanding. Quirkless, with an adolescent adoration to Heroes just like kids his age. Nothing out of ordinary. Average grades, in his previous school. Hardly anything special about his background.
Hardly anything at all about his background.
Shouta watches from the corner of his eyes as Midoriya bows thank you to Hizashi—the latter laughing that familiar boom of a warm cackle. See you ‘round, little listener—talk to me if you need anything, alright?
Midoriya leaves the lounge without so much a glance to Shouta’s direction. Skinny-limbed. Small, waifish back of a figure. The way he walks is just like the way he speaks: mild. As if he’s trying to make himself as obscure as possible.
Shouta looks down to the notes on his paper. The dashes and the dots he’d scribbled for the past minute. Midoriya’s arrhythmical, continuous tap tap tap of his fingers.
Morse code shifted by vigenere cypher. Midoriya’s message reads: USJ.
Shouta ignores the urge to massage his temple. It’s only the second day of school, dammit. He takes the cup of coffee Hizashi had made him—cooling by the second. The taste is bitter and sobering in his mouth.
So he was right. His intel was right. This organization—this league—is making a move. A very bold one at that. A very, very ambitious one.
Shouta crumples the paper in his hand. He should burn it later. Shouta has got a long, miserable week ahead.
A plate of cheesecake slides itself onto Shouta’s desk. “Nice kid,” Hizashi says easily, next to him. “What’s his name again?”
“Midoriya Izuku.”
“Huh. Real quiet, though," Hizashi glances a look at him. "So that’s him, huh?”
And isn't that just the question?
“Yes,” Shouta says. “That’s him.”
There is a spy in UA. Shouta would know.
Shouta is the one who put him there, after all.