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Part 1 of Bullets in the Gun
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Warning Shot

Chapter 30: Joining Class 1-A

Summary:

Izuku is welcomed into Class 1-A and tries to get used to his new schedule

Notes:

Hello everyone, it has been *checks watch* 3 weeks since I last updated after telling y'all I would be back on my usual weekly bullshit. I'm not quite sure what happened in all honesty because time isn't real and I just realized we're halfway through April. Which means we're almost a 3rd of the way through the year. Wild.

Fair warning, the author's note at the end of this chapter is atrociously long. I apologize in advance for my word vomit. Believe it or not, I cut out entire paragraphs of ranting before saying "no no no, pull back. This isn't a ted talk."

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Leaning against the wall outside of 1-A, Izuku tilted his head closer to the cracked door as he waited for ‘the signal’ as Aizawa called it. The pro hero had intercepted him on his way to class and instructed him to wait outside of view until Aizawa said otherwise. He wasn’t entirely sure why but something that he had figured out about Aizawa is that he would never pass up a chance to mess with his students. It was one trait that him and Snipe shared. Unfortunately.

“Okay, we will get started with homeroom. We have a lot to go over so please don’t interrupt me.” Aizawa said.

“Sir! Both Bakugou-kun and Mineta-kun are not present and no one has heard from them.” Iida reported without any prompting.

Izuku furrowed his eyebrows at Aizawa’s sigh. Kacchan is never late to class…. “Bakugou is currently talking to Principal Nedzu about his performance at the Sports Festival. He will be joining us afterward.” Aizawa answered in a bored tone. I wonder what Nedzu has to say to him…it can’t be anything good. Shit. 

“As for Mineta, he will no longer be a part of 1-A. Due to his poor performance and other disciplinary warnings, it was decided by the administration to move him down to General Studies unless he chooses to test into one of the other courses.” 

A single beat of silence echoed through the room before a flurry of noise and overlapping voices broke out. They stopped as quickly as they began and Izuku could only assume that Aizawa had activated his quirk to get everyone to quiet down. The cue must be coming soon. He didn’t tell me what it was though. Just that I would know it when I heard it.

“To answer your insistent questions, his spot will be filled by someone that has already proven themselves capable of being in the Hero Course despite being admitted into UA as a support student. Come in now, problem child.”

Of course that’s the cue. With red cheeks thanks to that nickname, Izuku pushed open the larger door and quickly made his way inside. He kept his gaze on the ground until he stood directly in front of his new classmates. Then, with a wobbly smile, he bowed to a ground of shocked and excited faces.

“H-hey guys! Long time no see?” He said in only a mildly shaky voice, thank you very much. He was met with exactly one beat of silence before the room erupted into a cacophony of noise. There wasn’t any way for him to actually hear the words any of them were saying, but Aizawa only entertained their nonsense for a moment more. Izuku saw the telltale movement of his teacher’s bangs and then the room fell silent. That’s an interesting method of classroom management, but if it works, it works. 

With a heavy sigh, Aizawa gestured towards the empty seat directly behind Hitoshi with a look of displeasure. “Please take your seat, Midoriya, and don’t make me regret not changing the seating chart.”

Izuku nodded quickly and walked over to the last row of desks with a beaming grin directed at his friend. As he passed by Hitoshi’s desk, he gracefully danced out of the way of a half-hearted punch to his shoulder.

“Surprise.” The green-haired boy whispered once he was seated. The only response he received was an eye roll and a quiet snort. Aizawa glared in their general direction and Izuku took that as his cue to sit back in the seat and attempt to be a good student. He knew that Aizawa was a much stricter teacher than PL, mostly because he had to be in order to keep the hero students in line. The threat of less Studio time was more than enough to keep the support students from being complete hooligans in class and Izuku couldn’t help but think that the same method probably wouldn’t work for the hero students.

“Now with that out of the way, we have a special hero information class today,” Aizawa stated calmly. Instantly, everyone around him snapped to attention as if something bad was going to happen. …why did the tension in the room just increase? He hasn’t even said anything bad was going to happen yet. What did Aizawa do in previous homeroom classes that made them so nervous for announcements? 

“Code names. You will be picking your hero name today.” Izuku jumped as the entire class around him shouted with excitement. 

Are they always this excitable? I knew it was going to be a big shift with my classwork, but I didn’t think the entire demeanor of the class would be that different. I guess heroics classes do have more reasons to get excited about things like this on a regular basis.

Aizawa activated his quirk for just a split second to quiet everyone down before continuing. “This is directly related to pro hero draft picks I mentioned the other day. The draft begins in earnest during your second and third years after students have gained enough experience to become immediate assets to the pros, so these offers are more about these agencies showing that they’re interested in your future potential. They are often canceled if that interest dies down before graduation.”

“So we still need to prove ourselves even once we are picked?” Hagukure asked earnestly.

“Correct. And this is the totals for those offers.” Aizawa clicked a button and soon enough, the board was filled with a bar graph showing a rather unequal share of offers. 

At the top of the graph were Todoroki and Kacchan with a frankly astounding number of offers, followed by Tokoyami, Iida, and Hitoshi with decent numbers in the 300s. Kaminari, Jirou, Yaoyorouzu, Kirishima, Ururaka, and Sero rounded out the rest of the list with much smaller numbers as the list went down.

“In other years, it’s been more spread out, but all eyes were on these two for this year,” Aizawa said with a simple tap on the board near the top two. Izuku nodded along, pulling out his tablet to note down the difference in numbers as quickly as possible. I wonder if this is going to affect the others' future rankings since Todoroki-kun and Kacchan gathered a majority of the interest this year. I’m sure they will have time to catch up, but it will probably change some of their ranking trajectories after graduation. 

He was vaguely aware of the others reacting to the news around him but didn’t actually tune in until he heard a light rapping on his desk. Hitoshi raised an eyebrow at him. “How the hell did you not get any offers?”

“Yeah, why didn’t Midoriya-kun get any offers? He won the whole thing after all!” Kaminari asked in a louder tone. Izuku blinked and turned to look at Aizawa for help.

“Simply put, he was not a Hero Course student at the time of the draft picks and therefore wasn’t eligible for them. As a transfer student, he will not be participating in the hero internships like the rest of you.” Aizawa answered with more patience than Izuku thought he had. “Midoriya will instead be doing a specialized internship that has already been approved. You can bother him about it during your breaks.”

Several pairs of eyes immediately flashed toward him at the pro’s words, but thankfully, Aizawa didn’t waste any time finishing his explanation. “As I said before, you will participate in internships regardless of if you received offers or not. You already got to experience fighting villains firsthand during USJ, but this is your opportunity to observe the pros at work.”

“So that explains the hero names!” Satou said. Next to him, Uraraka pumped her fist into the air with a giant grin on her face.

“Things are suddenly getting a lot more fun!” She added. Izuku smiled at their enthusiasm. Maybe he should follow their lead when it came to stuff like this. He had spent so long focusing on getting into the hero course and hoping to defy the odds that it still felt a little unreal he was here. Like if he dropped his guard for too long and let loose, someone would come and take it from him.

“These are temporary hero names, but if you’re not serious about it-”

“-You’ll have hell to pay later!” A feminine voice called out as the door slid open once more. All eyes turned to watch as Midnight strolled her way into the room, followed by a subdued Bakugou behind her. The blond quickly found his seat without a word, but Izuku couldn’t help but stare at him.

What did Nedzu say to him for that to be his demeanor? It’s so strange to see Kacchan this quiet. Not that he’s always loud, but this feels different.

His attention turned back towards Midnight as she stood next to Aizawa, who pulled out a familiar yellow sleeping bag from nowhere. “When you give yourself a name, you get a more concrete image of what you want to be like in the future, and you get closer to it. This is what they mean when they say ‘names and natures often agree’. Like All Might, for example.” He said with some finality before disappearing into the sleeping bag.

Soon enough, boards and markers were passed from the front of the class and Izuku stared at the empty space with gleeful anticipation. After that day on the roof, he had been a little lost on what his potential hero name would be since most of his old ideas revolved around his old idol. Snipe had already told him that hero names were more important than people thought since that would eventually be his entire image and brand. Too often, people didn’t think that through and then would have a rough time later on with their publicists and PR agents.

It had taken him watching that Foxglove interview about his own hero name to figure it out. He wanted a name that not only paid homage to those important to him in subtle ways but also let him be his own kind of hero. Something that would be easy to market if he went spotlight but wouldn’t reveal too much about what he specialized in. He had settled on his final decision right before the Sports Festival and had run it by Snipe for his opinion.

His mentor had let out a snort when he had said it aloud but agreed that it would be a good name for Izuku. “A little cutesy for a gunslinger though.” And well, he wasn’t wrong about that. Izuku wasn’t going to change it though. Especially not after he had just designed his entire costume with it in mind.

With confident strokes, Izuku wrote out the full name and smiled.

“Okay, let’s start presenting these names starting with those that are ready.”

His smile immediately dropped at that. Well shit, this would be a lot easier to do in costume than now but I guess this is what’s happening.

One by one, the students of 1-A walked up to the podium and presented their hero name ideas with some…mixed results. The first couple was a rough start, but once Tsu presented her name ( Froppy is so marketable, especially with Tsu’s overall cute aesthetic and- ) the rest of the class seemed to fall in line pretty fast. Red Riot, Earphone Jack, Tentacole, Cellophane…these are all great names! And I’m sure Kacchan will come up with something better than…whatever that was. 

The lilac boy in front of him slowly rose and made his way to the front once Uraraka ( Uravity is so clever!) took her seat. Once he got to the podium, Hitoshi casually flipped over his board to show the rest of the class with his usual shit-eating smirk. “The Hypnotizing Hero: Siren.” 

Midnight let out a hum of consideration. “That would be seen as a female name traditionally. Are you sure about that?” She asked.

“Gender is a social construct,” Hitoshi answered automatically with a shrug. “Besides, the more wrong assumptions villains make about me, the better.”

The Pro grinned at his answer and clapped her hands together once with finality. “Then I think it’s perfect. Siren it is! Midoriya-kun, are you ready?”

Izuku looked up and nodded firmly. With his board gripped firmly between his hands, he made his way to the front and turned to face everyone with his hero name proudly displayed.

The Versatile Hero: Jack Rabbit

“Jack Rabbit?” 

Izuku grinned at Kaminari’s confusion and nodded. “Yeah, it’s a hare that lives in the western part of America. I’ve been compared to a rabbit several times when fighting so why not lean into it? It’s also a play on words a bit. Jack of all trades, you know?”

“It’s adorable, even if it’s not something I would expect for a gun-wielding hero.” Midnight said with a twinkle in her eye. “Jack Rabbit approved!”

— — — — — — — —

 

Hitoshi waited until lunch before he finally turned to face Izuku with a curious gaze. “So what kind of internship are you doing?”

“Oh, it’s with IHAO. They’re letting me intern at the Hosu branch while Dad is helping out with cases. Since it’s technically a Support company, it doesn’t count as a traditional hero internship, but it will be a cool experience regardless.” Izuku answered, biting his lip as he contemplated revealing more. “...we’re actually going to be working on the Hero Killer case while I’m there, which will be interesting, to say the least.”

“Wait, you’re going to be working on the Hero Killer case? With your dad?” Jirou asked from her seat, twirling around to join their conversation. Soon enough, it felt as if everyone was staring at him and Izuku shrunk back.

“Um yeah, I am. The Hosu branch requested his help since they figured that his skill set would be the best for the current situation.” He said hesitantly. Without meaning to, his gaze drifted towards the other side of the room until he made eye contact with dark eyes. Iida stared at him with an undecipherable look and Izuku carefully cleared his throat. “I won’t be going into the field or anything. Mostly, it’s going to be analysis work to figure out his quirk and potential patterns. We’re hoping to be able to get far enough that we can set up several different capture strategies before another hero gets hurt.”

He winced slightly when Iida looked away with a simple nod and left the room without another word. The news about Ingenium had taken him by surprise, especially when his father had said that his attack had put the Hosu police on red alert. After all, if a speed hero like Ingenium wasn’t fast enough to avoid being paralyzed, how did the other heroes in Hosu have a chance? Izuku wasn’t sure how exactly Iida was taking the news, but it was clear that he was acting a little off. His family is going through a lot. I’m sure he’s just trying to fall back into a routine to distract himself. Hopefully, he will reach out if he needs anything...hopefully.

Shaking his head, he turned to face the others. “Have you guys made a decision about your internships? It must be really hard to just pick one!”

“I’ve decided on mine!” Uraraka responded happily.

“Really?” Ashido said in disbelief, walking closer to the group with Oijiro not far behind her. “Where?”

“Battle Hero: Gunhead’s Agency.”

Izuku’s eyes widened at that and he grinned. “Gunhead’s a huge battle type! That will really take you out of your comfort zone, huh?”

He heard Hitoshi ask Uraraka something about her internship, but his focus shifted as soon as he felt a familiar warmth at his shoulder. Turning slightly, he smiled at Todoroki and turned to give him his full attention. “Where are you going? You got a lot of offers to choose from.”

Todoroki nodded, leaning in closer so as not to draw attention to himself. “I’ll be interning with my father as well. I need to learn how to use my left side and he’s the best person to learn it from.”

And well, Izuku wasn’t really expecting that. With a look of concern, he lowered his voice to a whisper. “How has he been the past couple of days? Snipe never said how dropping you off at your house went…”

“He’s not any worse than usual. He was happy to see me use my fire but less than pleased that I lost. Especially after he found out about your quirk status. It’s been…tense. But tolerable.” Todoroki answered carefully. Izuku bit his lip, but didn’t respond. He wasn’t even sure how to. Was he supposed to say that was good? Walking on eggshells around someone because they could explode on you any moment? Words didn’t feel like the right thing to offer Todoroki right now.

So instead, he simply held out his hand to the other boy. Todoroki didn’t hesitate in taking it, fixing their grip until they could comfortably intertwine their fingers between them. With one small squeeze, Izuku turned back to the conversation at hand and ended up staring directly into Ashido’s knowing eyes. She looked between the two boys and their intertwined hands as if she was watching her new favorite gossip channel and opened her mouth as if to say something.

Nope, not today. Divert attention.

“So Hitoshi-kun, who did you get offers from? And have you picked one yet?” He asked quickly. Hitoshi gave him a weird look but didn’t comment on the urgent nature of his question.

“A few underground agencies that Aizawa-sensei has mentioned before...and then one for Nighteye’s.”

Blinking twice in disbelief, Izuku suddenly leaned over his desk so that he could read the paper in Hitoshi’s hand, inadvertently dragging Todoroki along with him. His eyes skimmed the words until they landed on the last name on the list. Nighteye Agency.  

“Oh my god, that’s amazing Hitoshi-kun! Nighteye doesn’t take on many sidekicks or interns, so this is like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! Are you going to accept it?” He exclaimed, all but vibrating with excitement. Snipe had told him about other specialty heroes who didn’t fall into strict categories like himself and Sir Nighteye was one that he had praised quite heavily. 

“I think I would be an idiot not to,” Hitoshi answered honestly, if not a little bashful. “It’s too good to pass up, especially as a first-year. I’m gonna talk to Aizawa-sensei after school to get his opinion on it, but it would be a great chance to learn something about counterintelligence and potentially make connections with some of the other agencies that he might work with for cases.”

Izuku couldn’t help but bob his head in agreement. This is such an exciting way to start the week! Maybe the transfer process won’t be as bad as I thought.

— — — — — — — — — —

 

Wednesday

Getting used to the hero course was both easier and harder than he had expected. Assimilating into the class had been easy enough after that first day. Sure, his new classmates were more excitable than 1-H was, but they were arguably way easier to handle. 1-A was more predictable in what they did, even during heroics lessons. It was a little strange to know that the only explosions happening in class would be the ones Kacchan made and he wasn’t letting them off like usual. If anything, he was still acting in that strange subdued manner that put Izuku’s nerves on edge. But Izuku had other things to worry about. Like the clear discrepancy between the material taught to the different departments.

He knew that the hero course had a different class distribution compared to the support course. After all, the support course had 9 studio times throughout the week compared to the Hero course's 4 heroic lessons. He just didn’t think they would be in completely different units for their ‘regular classes’.

From what he had compared with Hitoshi and Todoroki in between classes, it seemed that the support course was ahead by about 3 units in Math, Science, and Physics, behind 2 units in English, and using a completely different textbook for Computer Tech and Home Ec. He was eternally grateful that he was basically fluent in English at this point or he would have been totally screwed.

Getting used to a new class schedule, in general, was rough, but his extra training had shifted around too. Snipe had decided to cut their training days to only 3 times a week, solely focused on weaponry since he couldn’t learn that in class. His mentor also was planning on switching their focus to sniper training almost exclusively so that he could start practicing for his endorsement test that he would take in the fall.

He was only going to go to Araki-sensei’s studio once a month now since he would be getting more than enough time to keep up with his flexibility during hero lessons and gym. And boy was having this many gym lessons something to get used to. He had come to enjoy exercise and training, but to go from 1 class a week to 4 was an adjustment, to say the least. He would adapt to it sooner or later

Learning to deal with the public was a completely different matter altogether. He has been lucky yesterday since he had to come in early to set up the new round of therapy sessions with Hound Dog that Nedzu was insistent on. It was another calm morning of empty train cars, followed by a peaceful ride home thanks to him staying late for Studio time to work on his newest programming update for his visor.

The peace couldn’t last forever though and so this morning, Izuku got on his usual jam-packed train and carefully tucked himself near the exit door to avoid any unwanted attention. It was at times like this that he appreciated his rather plain appearance. I get why Snipe has the mask now. I just want to get through this train ride without an incident. 

“Excuse me, are you that Midoriya kid from UA? The one who won the Sports Festival?”

Every day, the universe tests me.

Glancing up from his daily scrolling of the morning hero news, Izuku gave the man a small smile and nodded his head. The less he said, the better. The man returned his smile and gave him a thumbs up. “You did really well for a support course student! Keep up the good work.”

“Oh, uh, thank you,” Izuku responded with a little hesitance in his voice. Maybe he works in the support industry. That was nice of him to say-

“Didn’t you hear? He stole a spot in the hero course from some poor kid because he managed to cheat his way through the festival.” A voice from behind him whispered to someone else. He tensed immediately but didn’t turn to see who said it. 

“It’s bullshit to allow a quirkless kid into a hero program. How do they think he’s going to survive out in the field? It’s just a diversity gimmick in my opinion.”

“I mean, he did win the festival. I’d be more worried about what that says about UA’s program. It must have gone downhill for a quirkless kid to sweep both classes.”

With a clenched jaw, he turned back to his phone and tried to tune out the whispers around him. Nothing he could say was going to change their opinion and the last thing he needed was a viral video that portrayed him in a bad light. The best thing he could do at that point was just prove them wrong with his actions. 

That interaction had left a bad taste in his mouth for the rest of the morning, but he didn’t really have the luxury to dwell on it. Not when he was trying to catch up to the rest of his peers notes-wise. His friends had been a godsend with their heroics notes since that was the class he was the furthest behind in and so that meant copying down month-old notes during lunch was in his future for the next couple of days.

Writing with his right hand, he took another bite of rice with his left and was once again grateful that he forced himself to be ambidextrous when he was a kid. Next to him, Hitoshi watched him with amusement.

“If I saw anyone else doing this, I would be concerned, but now I’m just impressed that you can multi-task so well.” He joked. Izuku didn’t bother to look up as he turned the page to continue.

“I used to do this for my analysis work. It’s not that hard actually if you-” His words were promptly cut off by a hand slamming down right between the two, making him jump. The familiar wrist band ( yellow day ) told him all he needed to know. “Tash, what the hell?”

He knew his tone was more tired than normal but that didn’t seem to move the support student. Instead, they continued to stare at him with cold expressions. Which wasn’t normal for Tash. Izuku carefully turned in his seat to see Zaki standing behind her with a similar expression. Almost immediately, the twisting ball of nerves began to form in the pit of his stomach.

“Why-” She began slowly, leaning forward to block his view of everything else. “-the fuck is your costume not 100% knife proof? Do you have a fucking death wish or did you just decide that you didn’t want me to sleep for the next week and a half?”

Oh. Blinking twice, a grin fought its way onto his face. “Wait, did my costume get delivered today? Can I see it? Did they-”

“No no no no! Don’t avoid the question!” They interrupted. “Why would you specifically request for your jacket to be knife proof but not request your tights to be made out of the same material? Make it make sense!”

“And I have a personal bone to pick with you about the tights and shorts combo in the first place,” Zaki added. 

Izuku frowned at their obvious displeasure with his decision. “It’s comfortable and fits the streetwear aesthetic that I was going for. And I needed to make sure that my thigh holster fit properly. As for the material, I knew that the knife-proof material would be too stiff for functional tights, so I compromised. Most hero costumes aren’t knife-proof so what’s the problem?”

“Okay then, Miles Morales wannabe.”

“Most heroes aren’t wielding knives that boomerang back!” Tash hissed at him. “You said it yourself in the notes, which they forwarded to us by the way! You’re more likely to go head to head with armed villains and need flexible protection that others overlook.”

“Why does no one understand the concept of properly tailored combat pants? It’s always spandex or some awful tracksuit material-”

Izuku sighed as he realized that the two of them weren’t going to let it go. He knew that Tash would probably disagree with his material, but he didn’t think Zaki would be this up in arms about the bottom portion of the costume. “Fine, I get it. How long would it take for the two of you to come up with an alternative?”

The two costume design students shared a look before Zaki shrugged. “You’re better at fabric customization and we don’t have anything on deck. I got a pattern in mind already.”

“I’m gonna have to get Seyama to help me out with the polymer make-up since we need something more flexible than the stuff currently on the market. I’ll also need to talk with one of the 1-F students since I think they are working on something similar right now.” Tash stated, biting her lip. Izuku could see them mentally calculating the time frame in their head for a few minutes before nodding. “I’ll see what I can get done before the end of the week, but I’m not a miracle worker. Realistically, we wouldn’t have anything ready until after you’re gone on that little internship thing. So don’t get stabbed between then and now.”

“Let me take that off my weekly to-do list then.” Izuku deadpanned. “Are you holding my costume hostage or can I work on reprogramming some of the tech included in it?”

Zaki snorted at that. “More like Mei is holding it hostage. She saw the shoes that they designed and has been on a build bender ever since then trying to fix their mistakes. It’s a code orange situation.”

“...did the company mess up that bad?”

“It’s Mei. She would burn down the lab before she trusted another company with this kind of shit.” He said plainly. Izuku winced but nodded. “We’ll leave the tech stuff at your station for you to work on whenever you come back to the Studio. Stop by during Saturday lunch for a full fitting. She should be done with everything by then.”

With that, the two support students saluted goodbye and walked away without another word. Izuku turned back to return to his meal and notes, only to notice that his friends were staring at him. 

“What?”

Uraraka blinked rapidly at him in disbelief. “Are all support students like that? They were so…blunt?”

“It comes with the territory,” Izuku answered honestly. “Tash is actually one of the nicer students. Zaki is on par. We don’t like to waste time so it's just easier to get straight to the point.”

“So many things suddenly make more sense,” Tsu said cryptically. “Do you need help with the collateral damage laws?”

Izuku immediately perked up at her offered help and nodded. It was so nice to have such helpful friends.

— — — — — — — — — — 

 

Thursday

The bouncing melody that echoed through the lobby of the dance studio quickly put Izuku at ease. He hadn’t been to the studio in so long thanks to the Sports Festival and it was clear now how much he missed this place. Walking towards the source of the music, he made sure to stand just outside the threshold of the barre room as the girls did what looked like their last practice run of the day.

I wish I had more time to come to the studio, but between classes, training, therapy, and Studio time, it was a miracle that I could make it today. 

The music slowly faded away as the girls froze into their final position, careful not to move until Araki-sensei clapped her hands twice. “Good job girls! I can see everyone has been practicing and that was a great run-through. At this rate, we should be more than ready for the summer recital next month. We’re done for today.”

At once, the girls broke formation and chatter filled the air. Izuku decided it was time to make his presence known now that he wouldn’t be a distraction. Knocking twice, he waved sheepishly as everyone turned to look at him.

“Hi guys?”

“Mido-chan!” A chorus of voices called over each other as several of his dance sisters ran towards him. Seto made it first and didn’t hesitate to pull him into a hug.

“Oh my god, you were amazing during the festival!! We had a little viewing party at my house and we lost our minds when you won!” She exclaimed.

Ando touched his arm gently, a worried expression on her face. “You’re okay, right? That last fight looked really bad.”

Izuku nodded rapidly as he returned Seto’s hug. “Oh yeah, I’m all healed up! It probably looked a lot worse than it was. How have you guys been? It’s been a while since I’ve seen all of you.”

Seto opened her mouth to launch into what Izuku assumed was going to be a comprehensive breakdown of the past few weeks when someone cleared their throat. The green-haired boy looked up to see Araki-sensei smiling at him expectantly.

“It’s good to see you again, Midoriya-kun. I thoroughly enjoyed your performance during the festival, but you are here for your refresher lesson now. We will need to get started soon if you want to leave at your usual time.” She said calmly, not affected at all by the chorus of complaints that went up at her words. “I will give you 10 minutes to catch up with the girls and then we will start. Only 10 minutes, okay girls?”

Everyone answered in agreement before turning back towards Izuku. Sasori's eyes gleamed with mischief as she leaned against Ando.

“We have so much to tell you, but first; have you seen any of the memes people have made about you yet?” She asked gleefully. Izuku stared at her with wide eyes, making her crackle with laughter. Oh, I’m in danger.

— — — — — — — — — —

 

Friday

Letting out a sigh of relief as the final bell of the day rang out, Izuku took a moment to stretch in his seat before gathering his things. The week was almost over and he was still trying to get used to everything. He had gotten the missing notes he needed for the past couple of weeks, but now he had to actually study them if he was going to absorb any of the information. Not to mention the homework from today, which I’ll have to do after training. And I still need to finish the last of the programming on my to-do list before I leave next week. There are not enough hours in the day for all of this….

He was half lost in the thoughts of his ever-growing to-do list that he didn’t realize the shift in tension as he stood and bumped directly into Kacchan. Izuku moved back as quickly as he could, an apology already on the tip of his tongue when Kacchan cut him off.

“We need to talk. In private. Now.” He said gruffly, leaving no room for argument. Izuku paused at that. A week of silence and now he wanted to talk? About what? Maybe he will tell me what his meeting with Nedzu was about.

“Um, I have training with Snipe in 20 minutes so it would have to be a fast talk but sure?”

Hitoshi cleared his throat in a very aggressive manner and stood up, placing himself between the other two boys. “Are you sure you want to waste your setup time on that? You know Snipe hates it when you’re late and I doubt Bakugou has anything of actual importance to say to you. Unless it's an apology of course.” 

Kacchan immediately bristled at that and bared his teeth at the lilac boy. “Why the hell would I need to apologize to fucking Deku-”

“Don’t call him that. His name is Midoriya.” Todoroki said, cutting Bakugou off as he moved closer to the trio. Izuku glanced between his two friends in confusion. What…what is actually going on? Why are they acting like this?

“I can call him whatever the fuck I want and this doesn’t concern you!”

Wanting to defuse the situation before it could get out of hand, Izuku stepped forward and around Hitoshi. “I really don’t care if he calls me Deku. And I’m sure Kacchan wouldn’t ask to talk to me if it wasn’t important so let’s not make a big deal about-”

“Actually, how you treat Izuku does concern us seeing that he’s our friend and we care about his well-being.” Hitoshi continued on as if Izuku wasn’t talking. “And you seriously don’t know what you need to apologize for? It’s a laundry list of bullshit at this point, but let's start with the scars, huh?”

Oh no. Izuku’s eyes widened as he realized just where this conversation was going. There were still other classmates in the room, classmates that he knew were watching them as they created a scene. It would only take one person to say something and then his deal with Nedzu would unravel. Panic bloomed in his chest like poison ivy, crawling to every portion of his body as if to consume him.

“Hitoshi-kun, I don’t really want to-”

“What about his scars?” Kacchan asked, his face screwed up in confusion. “He knew what he was getting into when he stepped into that ring with me.”

“Can we please drop-”

“Not those scars. I’m talking about the other ones. You know, the ones he got when you-”

Izuku moved without thinking as the anxiety of the past coming to light choked him. One second, he was watching the two of them argue in each other’s face and the next, he had Hitoshi pushed against the desk with his hand covering his mouth. Shocked violet eyes stared at him with a mixture of emotions, but Izuku was currently more concerned about trying to get out of the vice grip that was about to be a panic attack.

“S-stop. Please.” He managed to get out, even if his voice cracked at the start. Glancing over at an equally shocked Todoroki, he swallowed heavily. “Both of you. Stop it. I-I don’t want to get into this right now, especially in front of our classmates. I can handle myself so just quit it with this white knight shit, okay?”

With a slow once over of the entire room, Hitoshi reluctantly nodded and Todoroki followed his example a moment later. Once he got their confirmation, Izuku removed his hand from Hitoshi’s mouth and took several steps back. Hitoshi wiped his mouth with a look of distaste.

“First, don’t do that again. I hate when people do that to me, regardless of who it is.” Hitoshi said. “Second, we still need to talk about what you said in the infirmary. Because I need an explanation for why you continue to defend him after all of that.”

Izuku nodded, wincing at the thought of that conversation. “After internships.”

That answer didn’t seem to make Hitoshi happy, but he didn’t argue the point. Instead, he simply grabbed his bag, saluted to Todoroki, and roughly shoved past Kacchan in order to exit the classroom. His movement seemed to snap everyone else out of the shocked daze and they returned to packing up their things, still keeping an eye on the remaining trio just in case something happened. Izuku let out a shaky sigh and reached for his bag on his desk. Backpack in place, he turned to face Todoroki with a heavy smile.

“I really don’t care if Kacchan calls me that, Todoroki-kun. We’ve known each other all of our lives and have called each other these names since we were 4. In all honesty, it would be weird if he called me by my family name.” He said half-heartedly. Todoroki’s expression was painfully neutral, even as his gaze flickered back towards the blond standing behind Izuku.

“Be careful. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Todoroki finally stated, clearly holding back whatever he actually wanted to say. Any other day, Izuku would push for him to share his thoughts freely. Now though, the thought of knowing exactly what his friend was thinking made him want to vomit.

He turned around to face the original problem of the afternoon and glanced up at the clock. Shit. “We got 15 minutes before I need to report for training, so this needs to be fast. Let’s go.”

Kacchan scowled at him but left his verbal complaint at just an annoyed click of the tongue. He roughly grabbed his own bag and stalked out of the classroom without a second glance, clearly expecting Izuku to follow him. With one last shaky breath, Izuku did just that.

Notes:

Inspired by: So the idea behind Hitoshi interning with Nighteye's agency comes from "Light My Fire" by mhwright. This story is so great and I highly recommend it! I love their take on quirk theory as a whole because it's so fascinating. Hisashi in that story is not a good father, so just a heads up, but the entire story is so worthwhile. Anyway, in the story, Nighteye is fascinated by Hitoshi's quirk and his interactions with the Pro Hero are to die for. IMPORTANT NOTE: this is not a completed story and it hasn't been updated in several months. Just so that you know that ahead of time.

Izuku and Hitoshi have hero names now! Yay! I know that I've read a story where Hitoshi's hero name was Siren, but for the life of me, I can't remember the name of the fic. If you know it, please let me know!

As for Izuku's name, I had compared my list of potential names with the ones y'all submit waaay back when and the names Jack Rabbit and Long Shot were the top candidates. I ended up going with Jack Rabbit mostly because I like the idea of a hero with a cute aesthetic like a rabbit throwing villains off their rhythm when he pulls a gun on them.

An honorable mention that I just want to publically acknowledge is the hero name Zenari that was submitted by Forbes. I was absolutely obsessed with the idea of Izuku also going with a fox theme to pay direct homage to Foxglove and your explanation of it was so amazing! Thank you to everyone who submitted a hero name! I really did enjoy getting input from others and seeing your ideas.

Izuku: yeah, my dad and I are working on the Hero Killer case!
1-A who still thinks he's related to Snipe: Is...is this an assassination attempt? Is Snipe gonna shoot this man in his kneecaps or something?

I have zero faith in UA's ability to standardize teaching across the courses, mostly because it would be stupid to do so. Support Course doesn't need to be fluent in English, but they do need a more advanced science course. Management kids would find gym classes to be useless, but I bet they are taking some advanced statistics and analysis courses. Mix in the course-specific classes like hero ethics or studio time and you got a clusterfuck of a school-wide curriculum.

You can pry the headcanon that Izuku taught himself to be ambidextrous from my cold, dead grasp. He is the type of kid who would have done that for fun so that he could write in his journals comfortably no matter what.

Did I design the costume for Izuku? Yes, like months ago. Did current me look at the design and go "wow, they would roast him for these things" and decided to slip that into the story? Absolutely I did. Fun fact: there are indeed knife-proof and bullet-resistant fabrics, but they are extremely expensive and aren't exactly flexible fabrics from what I could gather. They did make a bullet-resistant (I refuse to say bullet-proof bc I don't believe them) business suit that was based on John Wick's suit. It's really snazzy.

So, that last scene was not how I originally planned it at all, but this is probably more realistic. I actually asked my sister, who is currently in high school and has seen MHA, what she would do in Hitoshi's situation to gauge how if I was portraying teenagers accurately. Her words were, and I quote, "It's on sight. No questions asked, I'm swinging because fuck that bullshit. Don't mess with my friends." Now, Hitoshi is less of a physical confrontation person than my sister so that's how we got this.

Side note: Hitoshi was never muzzled or anything like that in this story, mostly because Kazumi would destroy a person's entire family legacy if they did that to her son, but it was unfortunately common for kids in his class to put their hands over his mouth to stop him from speaking. His father did that to him exactly once and had the unfortunate luck of Kazumi seeing it and well...it wasn't pretty. The divorce proceedings started not long after that.

I know I keep on putting off this confrontation between the boys but I have plans. There are a lot of balls in the air plotwise for this story and so some things have to simmer on the backburner for a bit before they're ready. Okay, rant over! As always, feel free to yell at me in the comments below. If you want to yell at me elsewhere or see the random thoughts that pop up in my head while writing, you can find me on Twitter (@GreeksvsGeeks). There are no extra scenes this week! I have a general plan to post the next chapter a week from now. We will see what happens. See y'all later!