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“You’re leaving your right side wide open. Again.”
Izuku let out a slow breath, settling back into a low fighting stance. With a flick of his wrist, he spun one of his daggers around his finger in a familiar motion, grounding himself into the current fight. He’d been training a lot more with his knives lately, even if he wasn’t sure they were the weapons he wanted to bring with him into the Pro Hero world. It was best to be prepared and trained in as many styles of fighting as possible.
Across from him, Aizawa’s capture scarf lifted.
Without waiting another beat, Izuku flung both the daggers in his hands at Aizawa’s head in quick succession - both dodged, of course. Izuku wouldn’t have thrown them so fast if he wasn’t sure that Aizawa could get the hell out of the way. One clattered to the ground noisily while the other lodged into the plaster between bricks - Izuku internally lamented the resharpening he’d need to do after this.
Aizawa immediately returned the effort, sending his capture scarf snapping towards Izuku’s front leg. He skittered back out of the way, drawing a third knife out of his belt loops and brandishing it so that the flat of the blade was parallel to his forearm.
His knives weren’t long or fancy - just enough to get the job done. It was rare that he tried to actually cut somebody, instead going the route of pinning clothes to walls and using throwing knives as a way to back opponents into a corner. He preferred it that way - it would be much easier to keep casualties to a minimum like that.
The capture scarf snaked out again and Izuku moved just a hair too slow to avoid it wrapping around his other arm. Gritting his teeth, he let himself be yanked to the side, red sneakers squealing obnoxiously as they slid across the floor.
Izuku wasn’t surprised when one of the daggers he’d thrown came sailing back on a path to his forehead, but he was still fairly aggrieved. He launched himself backwards, cursing the weight of the capture scarf on his arm as his handspring was yanked into a sort of an off-kilter cartwheel. He managed to snag the knife with his teeth, however, and that had been what he’d been going for.
His arm was still twisted at an uncomfortable angle when he landed back on the ground so he rolled his shoulder sharply, making Aizawa stumble a few steps forward with the pull of his scarf. Izuku took advantage of his momentary distraction to snap his head to the side, burying the knife clenched between his teeth into the floorboards a few feet away from the mats they were sparring on, safely out of Aizawa’s reach.
One dagger in the wall, one in the floor. One out, brandished against his arm, and the other still in his belt loops. The arm wrapped in the capture scarf was as good as gone - his knives wouldn’t be able to cut through the material fast enough, and the way it was wrapped around him made it difficult to maneuver enough to weasel out of its hold. Aizawa was tensed and ready a few feet away, his hair raising in a way that signified that his Quirk was active.
Not that Izuku had anything to erase.
Aizawa always claimed that training Izuku was merely a way of training himself, of forcing himself to keep his eyes open for longer, even if nothing came of it in the moment. But Izuku had been able to see through that lie since the day he’d first started training - a mere week after Aizawa’s capture scarf had lifted him from the rubble of his burning apartment building.
It would be five years since then, soon.
Five years since Izuku and Inko had been forced to move, whisked away from Aldera Junior High before he’d even gotten a chance to go. Leaving behind Bakugou Katsuki and his legion of minions, and leaving behind the quiet suburbs for a cheaper apartment in a much seedier part of town.
Izuku’s new life had started not with moving into his new home, but with Aizawa spotting him during his patrol, walking home from the library by himself just as night had started falling.
He’d insisted on walking Izuku home, and Izuku had been far too awestruck to do anything but nod dumbly. At the door, Inko recognized him as the Pro who’d saved them from the home that had come crashing down around them and invited him in for tea, and everything had been picture perfect - until a slip of Inko’s tongue made Aizawa find out that Izuku was Quirkless.
And instead of wincing or laughing or giving him that dreadfully pitying look, Aizawa had stared Izuku straight in the eye and asked him how hard he was willing to work to be a hero.
They started training less than a day later.
And now, five years in the future, Izuku was lying on the floor, wrapped head to toe in capture scarf.
“Dumb mistake,” Aizawa said bluntly as his hair fell limp around him once more. “You dropped your guard on your right flank thinking the knife could keep you safe. It was way too easy to trip up your right leg. Learn from that.”
Izuku nodded, biting back a groan of relief when the scarf released him from it’s achingly tight grip.
The floors at the UA gyms were considerably more comfortable to land on than those in the dojo back in Aizawa’s house, but that didn’t mean it felt good to get the wind knocked out of him so hard his back had arched and spittle had flown from his mouth. Still, he relished the few days that he got to come in and train at the prestigious UA High School, even if it was only because of a miraculously coincidental series of events including Izuku having the day off of school, a guest teacher coming in to teach 1-A, and Aizawa getting his dojo refloored.
Maybe Izuku should think about trying not to lodge his daggers into the hardwood as much.
“One more round, then break. Get up,” Aizawa declared, not quite unkindly. He was a harsh teacher, sure, and very strict - but not cruel.
Even if you had to dig down very deep to get to the kind hearted part.
“Sir, yes sir,” Izuku mumbled, rolling back to launch himself into a crouch. His aching back protested loudly as he jogged over to the far wall to collect his dagger and he felt himself wince involuntarily at the twinge in his muscles.
Distantly, the sound of chatter filtered in from outside - the UA school day was probably over by now, even if only Hero Course students were attending. No rest for the best school in town, Izuku supposed, even if every other non-hero student in the country had the day off to celebrate the anniversary of All Might’s debut.
Aizawa narrowed his eyes as Izuku returned to the mat, drawing two of his knives and putting the third in his belt. The capture scarf lifted, as did the hair. Izuku settled into his fighting stance.
He flung both daggers again, though this time, he sent one to Aizawa’s feet and the other to his chest, both dodged, like usual-
And then someone screamed. Loudly.
Izuku faltered, stumbling forward with one hand on his belt while Aizawa whirled around to face the door to the gym, scarf lifting even higher.
Three people in UA uniforms crowded in the doorway, all wearing matching expressions of shock and horror. A guy with bright yellow hair with a dark lightning bolt on the left side, a lankier guy who leaned on the blond, with some sort of mechanism on his elbows - vaguely reminiscent of tape dispensers, if Izuku had to guess, his fingers starting to itch for his analysis notebook. Next to them was a girl with pink hair and pink skin - and is that her Quirk? A simple color mutation Quirk? With the horns and the eyes, it’s likely, but the only people on campus today are hero students, and it would be very difficult to get into the hero course if your Quirk is purely cosmetic-
Aizawa coughed pointedly and Izuku shoved a knuckle into his mouth, keeping his stream of consciousness firmly inside of his mind.
“What do you three want?” Aizawa asked tiredly, letting the scarf drop back to his shoulders.
“That guy just threw a knife at your face!” The blond guy shrieked, throwing an accusing finger out at Izuku. The other two nodded quickly in agreement.
Izuku raised his hand slightly. “It- It was at his chest, not his face-”
“That guy just threw a knife at your chest!” The blond shouted, correcting himself. The other two nodded again, more aggressive this time.
Izuku opened his mouth to correct them, to tell them that it was just training, but Aizawa got there before him.
“He’ll throw one at you, too, if you don’t get out of here.”
Izuku just barely stifled a laugh at the shrill screams of the students, trampling over one another to get back outside of the gym.
“Did you really have to scare them like that?” Izuku said, walking over to retrieve the knife that he’d sunk into the mats by Aizawa’s feet.
“I only scared them as much as you would asking them about their Quirks,” Aizawa remarked dryly. “You’ll see them all in action in the Sports Festival next week - interrogate them then.”
“Maybe I wasn’t going to ask about their Quirks,” Izuku replied defensively. “Maybe I just want to make some friends!”
“You don’t want those friends,” Aizawa said gruffly, readjusting the scarf around his neck. “Maybe the class rep and his group. But not them. I won’t let them taint you with their idiocy - not when you’re idiotic enough on your own.”
Izuku sucked in a gasp of mock offense as he tucked his dagger back into its sheath next to the others. Aizawa turned away, grumbling something about ‘prank wars’ and ‘midnight fast food’.
Izuku laughed, grabbing his final dagger from the wall before he settled back into his fighting stance. They hadn’t finished the round, after all, being interrupted by Aizawa’s students.
The scarf lifted. Izuku flung his first knife.
—————
“I’m telling you, Kirishima! Aizawa has a secret apprentice!” Ashido gushed, slamming her hands down on his desk. Eijirou just lifted his eyebrows, looking up at her disbelievingly. He was pretty much numb to loud sounds at this point, being friends with Bakugou.
Not that he regretted befriending him! Just... explosions weren’t exactly a subtle way of getting someone’s attention.
“Aizawa hates kids,” Jirou remarked from nearby. “Why would he take the time to give someone extra training?”
Ashido sighed dramatically, hanging her head. “I don’t know why, I just know that he is! He threw knives at us!”
“He threw knives at you?” Eijirou repeated a bit nervously. Who was this guy, going around flinging knives at people’s heads?
“Not at us,” Sero corrected, walking up to their group with his hands in his pockets. “He threw the knives at Aizawa. Then Aizawa told us that he would throw the knives at us next if we didn’t scram.”
“So we scrammed!” Kaminari chimed in brightly, jumping up energetically with his hands on Sero’s shoulders. “We scrammed so fast!”
Ashido nodded enthusiastically. “He looked so scary! He had dark green hair, all slicked back on top and longer and curly on the bottom. Like a half ponytail - and his belt had a bunch of knives and rope and stuff stuck onto it!”
“And he had a bunch of scars on his arms,” Kaminari added, voice low and menacing. “Maybe he was kidnapped by a villain and tortured! Or - maybe he is a villain, and we were watching a real fight! Or a reformed villain, trying to be a hero!”
Eijirou rolled his eyes, propping his chin up on his hand. “I mean, villain or not, he sounds pretty intimidating - which is super manly! I like him.”
“That’s enough for you to decide?” Jirou asked, twirling her earphone jack around a finger. “Just that he sounds intimidating?”
“Was intimidating,” Ashido corrected.
Eijirou clicked his tongue. “Well, anyone Aizawa picks out to train specifically has to be pretty powerful. And surviving one-on-one time with the scariest guy alive? Yeah, I’d say that’s pretty manly.”
“He’s probably got a crazy Quirk, too!” Kaminari interjected. “Maybe he has to train with Aizawa because it’s too powerful to be in a normal class with!”
Ashido hummed thoughtfully. “I’ve never seen him around school before…” she mused. “He looked about our age. I don’t think he was a second or third year, he was pretty short.”
“Maybe he’s a middle schooler?” Sero asked, a finger on his chin.
“Maybe he’s Aizawa’s secret love child.”
Every head in their little group snapped up to see Todoroki passing by on his way to his desk in the back of the classroom, face completely deadpan.
“What?” Eijirou asked, dumbfounded, but Todoroki just settled into his desk, quietly setting up his notebook and pen.
They watched him quietly for a moment, but he didn’t say anything else.
“Did I just imagine that?” Kaminari whispered loudly, eyes wide as they all watched Todoroki start doodling absentmindedly on the edge of his paper. “Did that really just happen?”
Eijirou had never heard Todoroki joke before - actually, he’d never heard him say anything other than an answer in class or his name on the first day of school.
“I mean… did it look like he could be Aizawa’s son?” Jirou asked after a moment, everyone’s gazes still trained on an oblivious Todoroki.
“...Maybe?” Sero hedged. “I mean… he had freckles, and his hair was curlier than Aizawa’s…”
“But the look in his eyes,” Ashido finished for him. “Totally similar.”
A moment of silence stretched between them, all silently contemplating the idea of Aizawa having a child.
“...That means Aizawa fucked,” Kaminari whispered softly, eyes wide, earning him a jab in the ribs from Jirou’s earphone jack while Ashido shrieked and covered her ears.
“It’s too noisy in here,” Aizawa announced suddenly from the head of the classroom, bracing himself against the podium he stood at.
Eijirou spun around in his seat as the rest of the class scrambled to their own spots. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Kaminari giving him a dramatic wink before he gestured with his head to Aizawa. Eijirou pressed his fist to his mouth to stifle his laughter, keeping his gaze firmly forward.
...Could Aizawa have a secret child? Eijirou had no clue who he would even have one with. Midnight, maybe? But they didn’t seem to be close like that… maybe a teacher from a different year?
Whoever the kid was, he seemed cool. Strong, certainly, and probably with a super powerful Quirk. Eijirou would be excited to meet him, if he ever came to class. Maybe they could spar, and he could see if his knives stood against Ejirou’s Hardening…?
“I trust you enjoyed having the campus to yourselves yesterday, as well as your guest lecture by Ryukyu. I sincerely hope you learned something,” Aizawa monotoned, looking supremely bored. “Now, as for today’s lesson…”
—————
Mina hadn’t thought about Aizawa’s maybe-child since that day in class, too overwhelmed by the idea of the upcoming Sports Festival. A chance to share her talents, and get scouted by the Pros! She was practically vibrating with excitement as she bounced on the balls of her feet, too antsy to sit down like the other students in Class 1-A’s waiting room.
That was until Kaminari came skidding into the doorway, Jirou hot on his heels.
“Aizawa’s kid is in the announcement box with him!” He declared breathlessly, a massive grin on his face. “Jirou and I saw him walking up there with Aizawa - and Present Mic was talking to him all casually like he knew him!”
Jirou nodded in agreement, putting her hands on Kaminari’s shoulders to steer him into the room. “It’s true. If you look up to the box, you can see three people sitting there, not just Aizawa and Mic.”
“Oh, my God!” Mina shrieked, throwing her hands up to cover her mouth.
Maybe they could actually meet him today - and ask if he was really Aizawa’s secret love child!
“Did he look the same as last time?” She asked, leaning forward and bracing herself on the back of the chair in front of her.
The entire class was listening now, sans Bakugou, who was scowling in the corner with headphones blasting rock music in his ears.
“Well, he didn’t have the knives,” Kaminari admitted. “But he had the same hairstyle, and he was wearing all black again!”
Mina exchanged a look with Sero, who grinned.
Uraraka stepped forward, a hand raised slightly. “I’m sorry, what are we talking about?”
“Aizawa’s secret love child!” Mina and Kaminari chorused in unison.
Jirou shoved Kaminari into a chair unceremoniously and leaned an elbow on his head. “They walked in on Aizawa training some guy the day Ryukyu was giving her guest lecture. Apparently, he threatened to throw knives at their heads. Todoroki thinks he’s Aizawa’s secret love child, and these two latched onto that theory.”
“Hey, I think it was a smart idea!” Sero chimed in. He elbowed Todoroki good-naturedly, who just nodded subtly. “They had the same look in their eyes.”
Mina nodded in agreement. The ‘logical ruse’ look was very distinct, and Knife Guy certainly had it, even if he hadn’t physically looked much like their teacher. Spiritually, they seemed identical.
“So Aizawa… has a child?” Asui asked, a curious finger on her chin.
“A secret love child,” Kaminari corrected.
“Wait just a minute!” Iida interjected abruptly, waving his hands around. “Now, now, classmates! Not only are we prying into the private lives of the staff, we are distracting ourselves! We cannot risk being at anything less than our best today!”
As if summoned by Iida’s scolding, a shrill bell rang over their heads, signalling the start of the festivities. Immediately, the room erupted into chaos, all talk of Aizawa and his maybe-love child forgotten in the midst of the excitement for the upcoming festivities.
Mina let out a little squeal of excitement as everyone started making their way to the door, pushing and shoving a bit before Iida started forcing them to make organized lines to walk down the hall.
She would have to put Aizawa’s child out of her head for now - she had a Sports Festival to win!
—————
Izuku’s handwriting was somehow ten times more illegible than usual, given that his hands were trembling with excitement. He gazed down onto the field as all the first year students gathered together, listening to their instructions.
It seemed like a promising batch this year, what with all eyes were on them since the incident at the USJ. Some powerful Quirks, too - not that that was a definitive marker of power, Izuku knew that fact intimately. But impressive Quirks and flashy displays of power had always been the big draw of UA’s Sports Festival, and Class 1-A seemed to have power in spades.
A few individuals caught his eye immediately - a bird head, the girl with pink skin from a few days prior, and someone with a comic book for a head were some of the most eye-catching of the first years, but Izuku knew better than to judge a book by it’s cover.
He watched intently as Bakugou climbed up the steps to give his speech - which went exactly as Izuku predicted it would.
“God, Kacchan, respect the festival a bit, would you?” He muttered indignantly after the hubbub following his brash statement had died down a bit, scribbling down a few titles in advance so that he wouldn’t have to do it on the fly.
“I’m sorry, did you just call Bakugou Katsuki Kacchan?” Yamada asked, leaning across Aizawa’s mummy wrapped form to peer over at Izuku.
Izuku didn’t even look up from his writing as he answered distractedly. “Hmm? Kacchan? Oh, yeah - we go way back. But I mostly just call him that to piss him off, now,” he replied, flipping through the rest of his notebook to try and estimate how many entries he could squeeze in.
Yamada whistled, impressed, as he leaned back in his seat.
Aizawa huffed a breathy laugh. “I can’t imagine the havoc you’d wreak on my class if they heard you call him that,” he said, sounding vaguely exasperated, but fond. Izuku couldn’t see his face through the bandages, but he could easily picture the expression of thinly veiled amusement he was wearing.
“I think Kaminari would pop a fuse,” Yamada agreed, gazing out over the field. “Not to mention Bakugou would explode you for bringing it up.”
Izuku chuckled at that before he went back to scribbling titles down as Kayama started explaining the rules of the obstacle course. He didn’t feel the need to listen - he’d helped design half the course, after all.
“I’m a bit bummed I won’t get to meet them today,” he remarked absently. “But Mom wants me home for dinner. One of her work friends is coming around, I think.”
“And we live to see another day,” Aizawa remarked dryly.
Izuku frowned down at his paper. “I don’t know why you’re so against me meeting your class - maybe we’d get along!”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m afraid of.”
Yamada laughed loudly as Izuku scowled up at his mentor. Though Aizawa didn’t say anything else, Izuku could’ve sworn his bandages twitched up as though he were smiling.
—————
“God fucking damn it!” Bakugou shouted, throwing his phone against the dorm wall so hard it put a dent in the plaster. “Fuck!”
“Whoa, dude!” Kirishima put his hands up placatingly, glancing nervously between Bakugou and the phone on the floor. “What’s up?”
Hitoshi watched in thinly veiled curiosity from the couch, feeling Kaminari perk up beside him. He made sure not to look too interested, settling to peer over from behind his book while the idiot next to him jumped up onto his knees, leaning over the back of the couch to get a better view.
“Shitty Deku is coming over to my house for dinner,” Bakugou seethed, looking on the verge of foaming at the mouth. “And I have to pretend to like him for an entire hour. How am I supposed to do that when he’s got the bedside manner of a fucking Care Bear on acid?”
“Deku?” Kirishima asked innocently. “Who’s Deku?”
Bakugou scoffed. “It’s a nickname, dumbass. He’s a Quirkless loser, so five-year-old me was smart enough to give him a name to match.”
Hitoshi bit back a scoff as he watched Bakugou stomp away angrily, leaving a stunned Kirishima in his wake.
“Have you not heard him complain about Deku before?” Kaminari asked, now full-on hanging over the back of the couch. “I hear him muttering about how stupid that guy is like… once a day. At least.”
Kirishima frowned, glancing up at the stairway Bakugou had just disappeared into. “Really? I always thought Deku was an insult for one of us. I just never figured out who.”
“Nah,” Kaminari replied, flipping over so he hung upside down. “He’s some kid from his neighborhood who moved away a few years ago, but their moms are super tight, so they still have dinner every now and again. Bakugou says he hates the guy’s guts, but he still shows up, so - who knows?”
Hitoshi regarded Kaminari with raised eyebrows. “How do you know so much about Bakugou’s family life?”
Kaminari flashed him a sly grin. “He didn’t realise I was in the room when he called his mom last week. His delivery of boxer briefs also came in last Friday, apparently.”
“You’re a real idiot, you know that right?” Hitoshi asked, dropping his book to his lap.
Kaminari heaved himself back onto the couch with a groan. “Yep! But, I’m an idiot who knows Bakugou’s secrets, so… You win some, you lose some!”
Any scathing retort Hitoshi had ready was interrupted by Bakugou loudly stomping back down the stairs, a coat over his arm.
“If any of you extras touch my protein powder, you’re dead meat!” He yelled over his shoulder as he slammed the door shut behind him.
All those gathered in the living room stared after him for a moment before returning to whatever time-killing activities they were fiddling with. Hitoshi picked his book back up, creasing out the spine.
“Deku… Another secret identity,” Sero remarked from the armchair to Hitoshi’s right. “How many mysteries does UA have?”
“I don’t care about who Deku is,” Ashido lamented from where she sat on the floor by Sero’s feet. “I want to know about Aizawa’s kid!”
Hitoshi rolled his eyes. He didn’t know much about Aizawa’s protégé, only having been personally training with the man since his fairly poor showing at the Sports Festival - coupled with the break they’d taken for summer training and the events at Kamino, and it really hadn’t been long at all.
Apparently, Hitoshi wasn’t ready to spar with the elusive Midoriya yet - all he knew about the guy was that he was a killer fighter who specialized in Quirk analysis, and that he’d been training with Aizawa for years. He didn’t go to UA for reasons Hitoshi didn’t know, but he was training to be an underground Hero, so he didn’t really need the flashy credentials.
Of course, Hitoshi wasn’t going to just give that information away to Ashido and the others. They wanted a mystery, didn’t they?
“I think he probably has Aizawa’s Quirk,” Kaminari declared, crossing his legs and leaning back. “Erasure. Because, you know - he’s Aizawa’s son.”
“What happens if you erase Erasure?” Hitoshi asked rhetorically, earning a punch from a slightly pained looking Kaminari.
Kirishima, who’d wandered over some time after Bakugou left, shook his head. “I don’t know… I think he probably has a super overpowered Quirk and that’s why he’s training with Aizawa - to learn how to control it.”
Ashido waved her hand in the air excitedly. “What if he’s, like, from an alternate dimension? Or a time traveller?” She suggested enthusiastically, drawing scoffs from both Jirou and Hitoshi.
“I think him having a time travel Quirk is even less likely than him being Aizawa’s son,” Kirishima replied. “Are you guys sure you didn’t see him using a Quirk when you watched him spar?”
Sero shook his head. “We only watched them getting ready to fight, then the second he threw the knives, someone started screaming his head off, and they stopped,” he explained, shooting a pointed look at Kaminari, who smiled sheepishly.
“C’mon, guys,” Jirou chimed in, glancing up from where she sat scrolling on her phone. “If Aizawa had a kid, he would have told us, wouldn’t he? I mean, I know more about Present Mic’s extended family than I do about my own at this point. I think if Aizawa had a son, we would know.”
Ashido huffed, dropping her head back to stare at the ceiling while Kaminari and Sero groaned loudly.
“You didn’t see him, Jirou,” Kaminari argued.
“I saw him at the Sports Festival,” she replied easily.
Kaminari just groaned louder. “That was literally just the back of his head! You can’t see the look in his eyes from there!”
Jirou’s earphone jack jabbed him right between the eyes for that, making him yelp like a kicked puppy. He dropped his head back as Kirishima pretended to fuss over him dramatically, drawing a chuckle from Hitoshi and bright peals of laughter from Ashido.
“Are we talking about Aizawa’s secret love child again?” Uraraka asked as she came padding down the stairs, Iida at her heels.
Ashido perked up immediately. “Yes!” She chirped enthusiastically, clapping her hands together. “Yes, we are indeed!”
“It is my responsibility as Class Rep to remind you all that this is an invasion of privacy-” Iida started to scold, swinging his stiff hands around, but Uraraka just grabbed his arm and tugged at it lightly.
Don’t be a buzzkill, Iida,” she whined, pulling him over to the couches. “We’re just talking! No harm done.”
Hitoshi almost laughed at the terribly pained look on Iida’s face, glancing around the room frantically.
“Think of it as a bonding exercise!” Uraraka suggested as they sat together on the couch opposite Hitoshi. “We’re solving a puzzle together - the mystery of Aizawa’s secret child!”
Iida furrowed his brows. “I suppose… this could be considered an exercise in our problem solving abilities,” he hedged nervously.
“Exactly!” Uraraka cheered, clapping her hands together. “Now, what do we know about him so far?”
“He’s not tall,” Kaminari said bluntly.
“He’s got freckles and curly hair,” Ashido added. “And he wears it in like a half-up, half-down style. It’s probably chin length.”
“He fights with knives,” Sero interjected. “And he’s pretty damn good.”
“Kinda plain looking, if you don’t count the scars,” Ashido mused.
“Green eyes and green hair,” Kaminari remarked. “And fairly tan.”
“No one has seen him use his Quirk, so it could be anything,” Kirishima chimed in.
“Including Erasure!” Ashido finished for him, looking pleased.
Uraraka hummed thoughtfully. “And no one’s seen him around school?”
Everyone shook their heads, giving various agreements and noises of assent. Hitoshi just watched them trade ideas that grew more and more far fetched as the afternoon stretched into night. They’d cycled through all the iterations of the ‘Aizawa’s child’ theory, and had quickly moved on to ‘Aizawa’s father from the past’, ‘reformed villain’, ‘Aizawa from an alternate timeline’, and (Hitoshi’s personal favorite) ‘a clone of Aizawa that he’s being forced to raise on his own like a child’.
Points for creativity, at least.
By the time people started to yawn, they’d gone through almost every theory that anyone could think of - except, of course, the theory that he was just a kid that Aizawa decided to take a chance on.
Hitoshi grinned to himself as he watched Kirishima half-carry a sleepy Kaminari back to his dorm room.
He’d have to tell Aizawa about this at training the next morning.
—————
Izuku leaned forward, relishing in the ache of his muscles as he stretched them out carefully. He switched legs after a moment, letting out a hiss from between his teeth as his hamstring slowly relaxed into the stretch.
Where was Aizawa and his class?
A glance at the clock on the wall showed that it was five past one, which meant that they were at least five minutes late. Maybe they were taking their time getting changed into their gym uniforms, or whatever else it was that fancy hero course students did with their time.
Something important enough to be five minutes late to their Practical Heroic class with a ‘guest teacher’ - which was the official name for Izuku coming in to help Aizawa whip his kids into shape.
Well, Izuku couldn’t really just sit around and wait...
I believe that time idle is time wasted.
Izuku grinned to himself as he remembered that All Might interview from a few years back, where he’d walked a local news outlet through his daily routine.
Just because Izuku wasn’t the diehard All Might fan he’d been at age ten didn't mean he didn’t watch every interview and read every article. Most of them twice.
Time idle was time wasted indeed, so Izuku stood, rolling out his shoulders. He might as well make the most of his time alone in one of the UA gyms, given that he didn’t get to train there often. He swept his gaze around quickly, landing on a target hanging on the far wall with a red bullseye design. He nodded to himself absently as he pulled out one of his daggers, closing his eyes and taking one slow, steady breath to ground himself.
The instant he opened his eyes, the knife was already sailing from his grasp with a sharp flick of his wrist, followed in quick succession by the next three on his belt.
He blinked, grinning at the sight of four knives wobbling slightly where they stuck out of the board, making a perfect circle around the center bullseye.
And then the clapping started.
Izuku let out a disgraceful shriek, whirling around to see Aizawa with a proud smirk on his face standing next to his class of students.
“Midoriya Izuku, meet Class 1-A,” Aizawa introduced gruffly. “Class 1-A... Midoriya Izuku.”
Silence for a moment. Then-
“Fucking Deku?!”
Izuku winced, gaze landing on Bakugou, who stood at the edge of the crowd. Sparks were already jumping off of his hands menacingly.
“Hi, Kacchan…” Izuku replied sheepishly, a hand on the back of his neck.
A few murmurs erupted throughout the group - probably about the nickname, which gave Izuku no short supply of satisfaction. The muttering grew louder and louder as more people started adding in, until the class had exploded into a tumultuous cacophony of sound.
“Hold on, hold on, hold on,” someone shouted - the blond from a few months ago? His name was Kaminari, Izuku remembered that from the Sports Festival - waving his hands in the air and effectively quieting down the group. “Deku - the guy that Bakugou said has the personality of a My Little Pony on steroids-“
“Hey!” Izuku interjected defensively, but the blond ignored his protests to point an accusing finger at him.
“-was actually Aizawa’s super awesome crazy badass secret love child the whole time!?” He finished, waving his finger around.
Izuku’s jaw dropped. “I’m sorry, secret what-”
“And you never told us!” Kaminari accused.
“Well I didn't fucking know, did I!?” Bakugou snapped back, glaring daggers at Izuku, who laughed nervously.
“But if Aizawa’s kid is Deku,” the girl Izuku knew as Ashido interrupted - and was no one going to explain the ‘Aizawa’s secret love child’ part of the story?
“Then that means he’s Quirkless!”
The group quieted down abruptly as every gaze suddenly landed squarely on Izuku. A more logical part of his mind desperately wished he had a knife to twirl in his hand - it had become something of a nervous habit.
Izuku felt his stomach drop down to his knees at the shrewd gaze of twenty Hero Course students. Looking. Thinking.
Judging.
“But- But you’re such a good fighter!” Kaminari protested, looking almost betrayed.
The words he’d left unspoken rang loudly in Izuku’s ears as the slightly embarrassed smile dropped off of his face.
You’re such a good fighter… despite being Quirklesss.
Despite being useless.
Despite your limitations, your setbacks, your faults.
And sure, he seemingly meant well. He didn’t look to be a bad guy - Aizawa hadn’t expelled him, yet. It was probably supposed to be a compliment, after all.
But Izuku was sick and tired of being treated like some kind of fragile kid, like a breakable piece of glass - always handled with care.
Unless, of course, he was getting beaten to the dirt by people who thought that he was worth less than the scum on the bottom of their shoes.
One or the other. Kiddie gloves and pitying glances, or a punch to the gut and no glance at all.
And Izuku was done choosing.
“You’re ignorant,” he said quietly after a moment, looking directly at Kaminari. “You’re so ignorant that you can’t even recognize that what you just said is completely insulting.”
Kaminari’s eyes widened, but Izuku didn’t give him time to reply.
“You look at me and you see a good fighter. A good fighter - despite being Quirkless. Am I right?” He asked. Kaminari nodded shakily, as did a few of his classmates.
“You’re wrong,” Izuku said bluntly. “I am not a hero despite being Quirkless - I am a hero and I am Quirkless. You mean it as a compliment - that I can fight, despite my limitations.My fault. My defects. But you’re ignorant in that belief.”
Izuku crossed his arms over his chest, furrowing his brows. “In fact, it’s because I’m Quirkless that I’m as good a fighter as I am. The Quirk that protects you from a bullet in the head does nothing if you’re drowning. The Quirk that saves you from a burning building is practically useless if you’ve been stabbed in the chest. You grow complacent - you rely on your Quirks to an extent that can and will be the reason you fail on the battlefield if you don’t recognize it and learn from it.
“And you all- you look at my lack of a Quirk and you remember the helplessness that you feel when Aizawa erases your Quirks, don’t you? You see me and you remember that feeling of being powerless. Of being weak.”
A few of the students shuffled around, sending nervous glances around at each other. Aizawa was grinning widely.
Izuku continued. “In that moment, when your Quirk has been erased, you aren’t weak because you’re Quirkless. You’re weak because you believe that your Quirk is the only way to be strong. You forget that your body, your mind - they existed before your Quirk manifested. They existed before Quirks manifested at all. So, no, I am not strong in spite of being Quirkless. To be Quirkless isn’t to be powerless. I am powerful because I have no Quirk. Because I trained and I worked and I learned to be powerful. I did that. Not my Quirk, or my lack of one. I did.”
The room was dead silent.
Izuku blinked, feeling as though he was coming back into his body after being a spectator, looking in on the outside.
All the things he wanted to say, the bitterness, the anger, the grief, everything he’d kept in for so long was suddenly on the table. All the cards were down.
Izuku shifted his weight nervously, once again wishing for a knife to spin.
“Anyone have anything to say?” Aizawa asked after a moment, his Chesire grin doing quite a bit to make Izuku feel better about blowing up at a bunch of people he barely knew.
“I’m sorry,” Kaminari muttered, looking thoroughly abashed. He ducked his head into a bow, a trend that was quickly picked up by the rest of his classmates until Izuku was left staring dumbfoundedly at the tops of nineteen Hero Course student’s heads - save Bakugou, who just gave him a gruff, but respectful nod.
“A-Ah, that’s alright, you don’t have to-” Izuku tried to backtrack, but Aizawa cut him off with a look.
“No. They made an assumption, and it was ignorant and rooted in a bigotry that they have to unlearn. They need to apologize,” he said curtly, his sharp gaze scanning over his bowing students.
Izuku flushed, rubbing nervously at the back of his neck. Aizawa shot him a subtle smile laced with pride as his students started to lift their heads again, and Izuku felt his chest warm with a gratified feeling of contentment.
“I do have to ask…” Izuku said once everyone’s heads were raised again, looking sufficiently scolded. “Why did you all think I was Aizawa’s… secret love child?”
Ashido squeaked and pointed a hand at Todoroki, whose lips twitched up onto a tiny smirk.
“Todoroki said it first, and we all thought it seemed likely,” the guy Izuku remembered to be Sero explained, elbowing Todoroki lightly.
Izuku stared at him, aghast. “Todoroki-kun… you’ve met my mom! You saw me Skype my dad, like, last week!”
Todoroki bit his lip, looking like he was barely holding back a laugh as Izuku continued to stare at him in utter betrayal.
“Wait, wait, wait,” Kaminari interrupted, waving his hands. “Todoroki, you know him?”
Todoroki shrugged. “Aizawa took him to the Hero Ranking ceremony a few years ago and I was the only kid there his age. He wouldn’t leave me alone. And his mom makes great soba.”
Izuku felt a sound of disbelief fall from his lips, eyes wide. “So you told them all that I was Aizawa’s son as a joke?”
“Secret love child,” Todoroki - the bastard - corrected, lip twitching.
The rest of the class seemed as dumbfounded as Izuku.
“Did we just get pranked by Todoroki?” Sero asked, looking at the boy in question like he’d never seen him before. “Did we actually get pranked by Todoroki?”
“Holy shit,” Kirishima whispered, looking vaguely awed.
“Who cares about the stupid Half N’ Half bastard!” Bakugou growled, pushing through the crowd. “You’ve been holding out on me, you shitty nerd!”
Izuku opened his mouth to defend himself, but Bakugou cut him off with a loud explosion from his left hand.
“Shut up! You’ve been training under my goddamn nose this whole time and you never fucking told me? Quirkless or not - I’ll pulverise you, Deku!” Bakugou roared, rushing forward.
Izuku grinned, settling into a light fighting stance instinctively and drawing a blade from his belt as he sidestepped Bakugou’s stampeding approach. Bakugou spun with him, immediately coming for him again.
Izuku skittered back, drawing another knife out and brandishing them both in front of him.
Bakugou’s hands crackled and popped as he launched a fierce fight hook for Izuku’s face - easily predicted and even more easily dodged. If Izuku hadn’t had both of his knives out, he would have flipped over his shoulder, but he had to pick his battles. He ducked under Bakugou’s explosive fist and spun in a tight half circle.
Bakugou stumbled forward, obviously not expecting his opening punch to miss. Izuku took that split second of confusion to launch his first blade, sinking the stiff material of Bakugou’s headpiece to the target he’s stumbled in front of. The second dagger sunk into the space between his gauntlet and it’s trigger, effectively pinning him to the target.
Bakugou looked on the verge of frothing at the mouth, screaming profanities as Izuku strode up to him, avoiding his free hand swinging around to deliver a series of sharp chops and jabs to a few specific points on his body.
Bakugou slumped forward, unmoving.
Izuku hummed, grabbing both of his daggers and letting the boy drop to the floor unceremoniously, looking for all the world like he was just asleep, sitting against the target.
Izuku tucked his daggers away as he turned back to face the class - all of whom were staring at him with expressions ranging from awed to horrified.
“What did you do to him?” A tall boy - Iida? Ingenium’s brother, right? - asked loudly, waving an arm around stiffly.
“l saw it in an old spy movie once,” Izuku said simply, cracking his knuckles with a casual air. “Brushed a couple certain nerves and knocked him out. He’ll be fine, don’t worry about him.”
The class seemed very worried about him.
Izuku sighed. “This is what happens when you rely on your Quirks. Kacchan expected to be able to explodo-kill his way through a sparring match - he wasn’t ready for me to fight smart. I have a feeling very few of you could actually fight me without your Quirks - and I’m not trying to be arrogant by saying that.”
The students exchanged nervous looks with each other, shuffling around a bit.
“Aren’t you underestimating us a bit?” Sero asked, before glancing down at Bakugou on the ground and wincing.
“Yeah,” the girl with the earphone jacks chimed in. “We are Hero Course students!”
“And look at how the top of the class faired,” Aizawa drawled lazily, a sly grin creeping it’s way back over his face.
The girl flushed, nodding her head and stepping back.
Izuku leaned forward a bit, bracing his hands on his knees and stretching out the backs of his thighs. “Don’t worry about it. You’ve been trained to think that Quirks are the way to be strong. But let me ask you this - how many of you have ever trained in martial arts? In any capacity?”
Six hands raised.
“How many of you have trained for more than a year?”
Three hands raised.
“More than two years.”
Two hands raised - Todoroki, as was to be expected, given his upbringing. Endeavor may have been a bastard, but he hadn’t exactly slacked off on training - and Ojiro, with the tail Quirk.
“How long have you trained?” Izuku asked, nodding his head at Ojiro.
Ojiro met his gaze firmly - good. “Six years, technically. I took a few years off in late elementary school.”
Izuku nodded back, straightening up and assessing the class before him with a keen gaze.
“Okay, then. Let’s start with the basics. I’m going to teach you to fight Quirkless. I’m going to teach you to be strong.”