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Stats:
Published:
2020-06-24
Updated:
2022-07-27
Words:
111,790
Chapters:
44/?
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8,439
Kudos:
29,351
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throw me a goddamn rope - just enough to hang myself with

Summary:

Shouta’s plan had been ill-defined and desperate from the start, but he figures the important shit boiled down to, “Change as little as possible, make sure Midoriya doesn’t get himself killed, and stock up on lychee jelly pouches because that flavor got discontinued three years from now.” Keeping it simple’s always better, and he’s normally good at improvising.

Somewhere along the way, he must’ve fucked up since now he has:

A quirkless problem child hanging off of his every word

His best friend going through a sexuality crisis thanks to said problem child’s mom

His other best friend clinging to him like a security blanket

Some two-bit mob boss threatening him with bouquets of daffodils

To wring the number one hero’s fucking neck for not telling him anything useful before sending him decades into the past

All he did was walk Izuku Midoriya home. It wasn’t meant to turn into whatever mess this is.

Notes:

sending everyone a ton of love during the wild times we're living in - i've pretty much spent the last few months treading water and trying to keep afloat, so this is the first writing i've done in a decent bit (thanks to bnha for being a new fandom to dive into during quarantine and being GREAT at distracting me from thinking about how scary everything is right now!!! appreciate it babe)

hope you enjoy! i'm not sure where this is going or how far i'll go with it, but i hope everyone enjoys it in the mean time~

Chapter 1: problem child is now tiny problem child

Chapter Text

Shouta Aizawa has regrets. Not that he’s an outlier in that - it’s not exactly an uncommon occurrence in anyone who has made it past their teenage years. 

He looks at his phone - a phone nearly three decades older than what he’s used to - and he tries to reassure himself that he’s at least over teenagerdom in this year. Last he checked, he was approaching sixty but he had long given up on keeping track. For all he knows, he had been closer to seventy than not. 

Now, he thinks he’s in his twenties. Maybe. He was born in…Around… Whenever. Whatever. He’s pretty sure that the math says that he’s twenty-three.  

He doesn’t know if he feels twenty-three. 

If he’s twenty-three, that means that he’s more than allowed to semi-regret the fact that he only went far back enough for Deku to be ten. Not ideal, but it’ll be more time to train him to satisfactory levels before he gets into U.A. Remembering how subpar he was the first time around - Shouta thinks that he can understand why Inko Midoriya was always so stressed out. That quirk of his must’ve been a nightmare at this age. 

Is he even a teacher yet? His phone doesn’t give many hints to what stage of life he’s in. His call log is primarily unsaved numbers that he doesn’t recognize. He has a number of missed calls from Hizashi and Nemuri, but not enough for him to pin down if past-him was in the middle of the depressive episode that eventually led him to apply for a job at U.A. and start getting his teaching degree. 

Not that it matters. He knows what he has to do to stop Shigaraki’s rise and reign of terror. It never would’ve gotten as bad as it did if Izuku “I somehow magically have seven-ish quirks” Midoriya hadn’t been ill-prepared for battle, and it wouldn’t have happened at all if Midoriya had met even half of his potential by the time he met All for One for the first time. 

His problem child won’t die this time. Shouta spent way too long trying to save the world before realizing that it was too late and had been too late for decades. 

Things started much, much earlier than Deku’s death. That was the nail in the coffin for them all, but there’s a reason why Shouta went back as early as he could manage instead of just going back to that day and jumping in front of the kid. 

His phone rings. Hizashi again. 

“Weirdo,” he mutters, sending the call to voicemail. “Now. What was their school’s name? Aldera? Ordera? That’s a middle school though, so if he’s ten…” 

It starts raining - or, it had been raining, but Shouta only notices now. He’s in a park that looks like just about every other park in existence, some trees and flowers and water fountains and screaming kids. The usual. 

He doesn’t remember where he lives at this point in time. Doesn’t remember what he was doing on this specific day, wandering around a park in the middle of the day with only his phone and wallet on him. It seems out of character for him at any age. 

God, he’s tired. 

It’s a park, so there’s benches. He finds one that isn’t occupied, ignores his buzzing phone, curls up on it, and passes out almost immediately. 

.

 

.

 

.

 

..

 

...

 

..

 

.

 

.

 

.

Shouta comes to a few hours later. There’s someone walking towards him with tiny, tiny footsteps. He doesn’t sit up right away because he’s basking in how few aches and pains he currently has. It’s been decades since he woke up in such a good mood. 

“‘Scuse me, sir? Are you okay?” 

Aw. 

That’s sweet. Annoying since it woke him up, but sweet.  Kids sure are something.

“‘M fine. Go play somewhere else, kid.” 

“O-okay! Sorry for bothering you!” Those tiny footsteps run in the opposite direction. Presumably off to pick dandelions or eat dirt. 

Shouta rolls over and watches a head of fluffy green hair dart to the jungle gym. Blearily, he wonders what the likelihood would be of there being two green-haired children that have more kindness than is good for them. After pondering that for a beat, he sits up and decides he isn’t nearly that lucky. 

There’s half a dozen kids hanging around and playing innocently when he starts walking in the direction his problem child went off in. 

Of course, his problem child isn’t one of those peaceful kids. His problem child is the one getting chased by three other non-peaceful kids. Midoriya is already bruised and panting, and his tiny (tiny! Deku’s never been very tall, but this one is so small. Shouta wonders if he guessed his age wrong, because that kid looks way too small to be ten) legs are pumping as fast as he can make them go. The kids chasing him are obviously brats - one of them is flying overhead, circling and spitting on Midoriya when he passes. Another is throwing rocks, the third is cackling like a hyena, and the last one is, unsurprisingly, Bakugou Katsuki. 

Bakugou is the one who catches Midoriya, who in return is already crying. Shouta gives up any hope that this is some heroes vs. villains play-fight when the hand gripping Midoriya’s wrist sparks and burns pale - already scarred - flesh. Midoriya yelps and tries to jump back, but Bakugou’s holding onto him too tightly and already preparing himself to set off another explosion with his free hand, right near Midoriya’s face. 

Shouta sighs, activates his quirk, and says, “It’s my day off, you know. I shouldn’t have to be babysitting some villain wanna-bes.” 

“EH?” Bakugou yells, charming as ever. “Whaddya want, old man?” 

His cronies chime in with, “Yeah!” “What, old man!” “Old man!” 

“I want you to stop harassing and bullying this kid,” Shouta says bluntly. “But for now I’ll settle for you going away before I call the cops for illegal quirk usage. Or beat your scrawny asses for annoying me.” 

Bakugou lets go of Midoriya, who collapses to the ground and scrambles away from his tormentor. The brat stalks forward and holds his palms up threateningly at Shouta. “I’m gonna be a hero, you know! I’ll beat your ass!” 

“You won’t be a hero with that kind of attitude. Beating on someone who won’t fight back is what villains do.” Bakugou snarls, then snarls louder when his quirk continues to not work. Shouta is unimpressed. “Scram, kid.” 

There’s some more hemming and hawing, but when it’s clear that Shouta won’t budge, the brats grumble and send some parting shots (“Freak needs a fucking hobo to save him, what a loser - “) before disappearing across the street. Midoriya is trembling on the ground and still a bit teary, but it’s mostly overshadowed by the way he’s looking at Shouta with a mix of apprehension and adoration. 

Weird. 

“Kid, let me see your arm. That looks like it hurts.” 

Midoriya swipes at his eyes and shakes his head. “It’s okay! Kacchan does this all the time, ‘m used to it. S’not so bad.” 

In three sentences, Shouta has now learned more about why his problem child is such a problem child than he did in two decades of teaching and working with the man. If he wasn’t equally reticent when talking about his past, he’d wonder why Midoriya never brought this up to him the first time around. 

Shouta crouches down next to him and carefully reaches out for his arm. Midoriya looks like a confused puppy, head tilting this way and that as Shouta peers at the burns on his arm. “You know that it’s wrong of him to do that, right? He shouldn’t hurt you.” 

“Oh, well. K-kacchan’s gonna be a hero, y’know, and I’m just. Me.” 

“Heroes don’t hurt people.” Shouta pauses, considers the fact that he just blatantly lied, and corrects it to, “Well, they don’t hurt people like that. You should punch him back.” 

Midoriya sucks in a sharp breath. “Oh n-no, no. No. He wouldn’t like that. And I’m just. He’d be r-really mad! Really really mad. It’s really not that bad, really.” 

Shouta raises an eyebrow, then holds up Midoriya’s bright red arm. There’s multiple layers of burns in varying stages of healing, and more than a few scars. “Really?” 

His face flushes as red as the burns on his arm. “Um.” 

“Well, regardless. A pro-hero shouldn’t encourage illegal quirk usage, but if you did use your quirk against him, I wouldn’t fault you for it when he’s clearly been using you as a glorified punching bag for awhile.” 

He wilts immediately. Slumps, tugs his arm out of Shouta’s grip, and backs up a few steps. “Oh. I. Well, I couldn’t even if I wanted to. I’m quirkless.” 

Shouta's mouth says, “Fuck,” before his brain can catch up. 

Midoriya curls in on himself further. “Um. Sorry?” 

“What are you apologizing for? You didn’t do anything wrong. I just didn’t realize those kids were bullying you because of that. That’s way different than them just not liking you. Do your teachers know? They should have the kids in counseling for quirk discrimination.” 

The kid glances up. He recites, with the certainty that comes from being told something frequently, “Teachers say it’s not their responsibility to coddle sensitive kids like me. I need to toughen up, especially since I’m already at a disadvantage and weaker than the other kids, so it won’t benefit me if they fight my battles for me.” 

Shouta wouldn’t claim that he’s a great teacher - he’s cold and stern in a way that intimidates even the boldest kids. He expels more kids than he teaches, but those that he teaches, he thinks he does a decent enough job. Thus, he feels more than qualified to say, “You’ve had shitty teachers. That’s fucked up.” 

He shrugs. For a young kid who just admitted he has been discriminated against for a number of years, he seems remarkably unbothered. Even now, minutes after he had been harassed by a bunch of punks, he’s brushing himself off and perking up. 

Shouta's been in the past for, at most, a few hours, and he’s learning more about his problem child than he learned in literal decades of knowing the brat. He wishes Deku was around so he could kick his ass. 

Instead, he’s stuck with a knobby-kneed, traumatized child who thinks he’s quirkless. 

“Sir, um. C-can I ask you something?” 

“You already did, but I can spare another. What is it?” 

The kid visibly steels himself. Clenches his fists, straightens his shoulders, and looks him in the eye. “Um. Your quirk. You used it to stop Kacchan from using his? So, um, was it dependent on eye contact or just concentration?” 

Scratch that. He’s stuck with a knobby-kneed, traumatized child genius who thinks he’s quirkless .