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Izuku came back to his dorm exhausted. It had been almost a month of training with Aizawa after school. Five hours a day, six days a week. He had gotten extremely proficient in hand to hand combat, and was pretty good with a capture weapon. He and Shinsou had both had some pretty embarrassing fails, but Aizawa had assured them that they had both picked it up much quicker than he had. That didn’t stop accidentally wrapping themselves together while hanging from a branch any less mortifying. He and Shinsou couldn’t look each other in the eyes for a week after that.
Despite that, he was feeling pretty good about everything. He had made a lot of progress, and him attempting to use One For All almost never happened anymore. He was laying in bed, scrolling on his phone, when someone knocked on his door. He opened it to see Mina.
“Ashido?” Izuku asked, trying to mask the total confusion he felt. He considered all of his classmates friends, but he wasn’t particularly close with Ashido specifically. “Do you need some help with the homework? It seemed like you got it, but if-”
“Mido. Chill.” Ashido said with a giggle. “We’re just having a girls night and we wanted to invite you. You aren’t a girl, but we want to extend the invitation to you. This time.”
“I- you- we- why-?” Midoriya stumbled over his words. He was very confused. “What’s going on?”
Instead of answering, she just grabbed his arm and began dragging him. The door closed behind them, and Mina dragged him across the dorms. A few of the boys laughed at the sight. Midoriya, looking like he’s about to explode, being dragged by Ashido, like a child who refused to walk. Mineta shouted some stuff about how lucky Midoriya is and how it should’ve been him. Mina gave the boys (minus Mineta) a smile and a peace sign. After not long, they ended up at the room where the girls were hanging out.
“I got him!” Mina announced, barging into the room. Midoriya collapsed on the floor the second the door closed. No one would have thought it possible, but he was even redder than before. “He’s a little broken, but it’s fine.”
“Mina! You can’t just do that to someone!” Yaomomo chastised her. “Midoriya, are you okay? You don’t have to stay if you aren’t comfortable with it. However, if it’s for our sake you need not to worry.”
“I- it- I- jus- I just…” Midoriya stuttered. “Isn’t against the rules for me to be here? J-just me a-alone with… Sorry!”
“Bro, calm down.” Jirou said. “It’s not like we’re doing anything weird. We just wanna hang out with you. And some of the girls here wanted to have a… discussion about your self-care habits.”
“O-okay.” Izuku said, calming down at the news. “So about it?”
“You don’t do it, kero.” Tsu said.
“Yeah, it’s a little concerning honestly Deku.” Uraraka added sheepishly.
“Yes I do!” Izuku defended. “I work out! And I do analysis! I like doing those things!”
“Do you have any hobbies that aren’t productive in some way?” Hagakure asked. “Things you just do for fun? Video games, fancy baths, watching reality TV?”
“W-well…” Midoriya trailed off.
“Also, what are you putting in your hair? It looks like it should be the same texture as me. But it also looks like the poor baby is almost dead.” Mina said.
“I-I just sort of…” Midoriya said. He winced as he finished his next sentence.“Buy whatever the cheapest 2-in-1 I can find is.”
“You what?!” cried several of the girls.
“Oh this won’t do at all!” Momo said.
“Come on Mido, really?” Mina added desperately.
“Why didn’t either of your parents tell you how to take care of your hair?” Hagakure asked.
“My mom has straight hair and my dad left after I was diagnosed as quirkless.” Izuku explained. Now it was the girls’ turn to wince.
“Don’t worry, we’ll fix it right up!” Mina said. “I’ll show you how to take care of it. If you can’t afford it, you can borrow mine. Or Yaomomo or Todoroki would be willing be buy it for you.”
“Don’t hesitate to ask.” Momo said. “Your appearance as a hero is very important. And dead hair is more easily flammable. I have more than enough to buy this for you as often as you need me to.”
“Yeah, and Todoroki would do pretty much anything for you.” Hagakure said. “He basically follows you around like a puppy. It’s kinda cute, in a weird sort of way.”
“T-that’s not true!” Midoriya protested. “He doesn’t follow me around! We just hang out a lot! If anything, I’m probably following him around!”
Uraraka tried to hold in a chuckle, but failed and began giggling uncontrollably. Midoriya turned to her, looking rather like a confused dog looks at a person.
“I’m sorry, it’s just… You really don’t see it?” She asked, “Ever since the Sports Festival he basically stays by your side whenever he can. He started hanging out with us all the time. It’s nice.”
Just then, Mina came back with a tub of products. Midoriya looked at everything and gulped. Hair care suddenly seemed more overwhelming than ever. Mina noticed his worried look and gave him a smile.
“Don’t worry, this isn’t as bad as you think. I only needed this tub so we could wash your hair. There’s only a few things in here that you really need to worry about.” She said. Then, she began to set up. The girls all set up a seat for him to sit in that would let Mina wash his hair. He sat down and leaned back. Izuku zoned out for a second, lost in his own thoughts and the feeling of his hair being washed. It was nice. He felt calm. Safe, and cared for he hadn’t experienced from anyone other than his mother.
“Hey Deku?” Uraraka asked tentatively. Izuku made a small noise to let her know to keep going. “If All Might gave you your quirk the day of the entrance exams, doesn’t that mean you already knew him before school started? How did all of that even happen?”
“Oh, um. It’s kind of a long story.” Izuku said.
“We’ve got time.” Jirou said. “That’s sort of the whole point of this kind of thing. Telling each other long stories.”
“Um, so basically I was walking home from school and I was attacked by a slime villain and All Might saved me.” Izuku explained. “Then, when he was leaving I grabbed onto his leg. He landed on a building, but he hit his time limit right then. So he had to explain his form and his injury to me. Then I asked if I could be a hero without a quirk and he said no. Then he left. After a minute I left too. I heard an explosion as I was leaving. I don’t know why or how, but I guess I walked over there. I pushed to the front of the crowd and saw that the slime villain that had gotten me earlier had Kacchan. There were heroes there, but none of them had quirks suited to the situation. And without thinking I rushed in. I started trying to free Kacchan but it didn’t work. Luckily, All Might came in and beat the villain. Then he told me that I can be a hero and told me he wanted to pass his quirk on to me. I had to train first, otherwise the quirk would have killed me. So over the next ten months, I cleaned Dagobah beach. Then he gave me his quirk on the day of the entrance exams.”
There was silence for a moment. Izuku opened his eyes, because Mina’s hands had stopped moving. He saw shock on her face. Then, suddenly, the room burst to life.
“That’s it. I’m killing All Might.” Jirou said.
“Not if I kill him first.” Uraraka replied.
“What?! No!” Izuku exclaimed. “It’s all fine! What’s the problem? Everything worked out fine!”
“Midoriya, that story…” Momo began. “It’s rather… concerning.”
“You could have died!” Uraraka said. “The quirk, and the exams, and- Oh my god. All For One! He probably wants you now too!”
“Everything you say is more concerning that what you said previously, kero.” Tsu said bluntly.
“I’m fine!” Izuku reassured. “Besides, All For One probably isn’t interested in me anymore, now that I don’t have One For All anymore.”
“Wait…” Hagakure said. “Your quirk was called One For All?”
“All For One and One For All?” Jirou asked, unimpressed. “Like in that pre-quirk movie?”
“Y-yeah.” Midoriya admitted, letting his eyes close as Mina started again. “All For One, who wants to take all of the quirks for himself, and One For All, one quirk used to save and protect everyone.”
“How about we talk about something less depressing, huh?” Mina suggested. “Literally anything else.”
“You know, I just realized…” Hagakure said, mischief in her voice. “We all know each other’s childhood crushes. Except for Midoriya’s.”
“H-Huh?!” Midoriya said, prepared to do anything to avoid this topic. “W-why do we need to know that?! P-plus I don’t know any of yours so it’s even!”
“He’s right.” Jirou said. “Guess there’s only one thing to do…”
Because of where Izuku was, he couldn’t see the silent agreement that all of the girls were making. As they were looking around, Mina finished rinsing his hair for the final time. She patted his hair dry-ish with a towel, before walking around in front of him.
“All done!” Mina told him. “Try not to mess with it too much, and make sure you don’t fall asleep until it’s dry. Now! My childhood crush was…”
Izuku blanched as the girls took turns talking about childhood crushes. Their names, what they looked like, why they had a crush on them. Izuku was slowly realizing that he no longer had an excuse to hide his childhood crush. Eventually, the only person left was him. Everyone looked at him expectantly.
“Um…I- My- Uh…” Izuku stammered. He struggled for a while, before making an admission. “My childhood crush was Burnin.”
Several of the girls began giggling. Izuku was happy he didn’t have to share his real embarrassing crush. After a moment of giggles and laughter, Jirou looked at him.
“We didn’t say celebrity crush.” Jirou said, smirking. “As interesting as that pick is, it still doesn’t count. Who was your real childhood crush?”
“I-” Izuku froze. He had never admitted this to anyone before. But the girls had already told him theirs. And he trusted them, he just had never planned on telling someone the truth. “I… I… I HAD A CRUSH ON KACCHAN!”
The girls froze. They were looking at him. Izuku wished he knew what they were thinking. He was starting to panic, when suddenly;
“Wow, you have really bad taste.” Hagakure said, simply. Suddenly, every girl in the room was laughing. Izuku sighed with relief. Everything was okay.
“Why him!?” Jirou managed to ask through giggles.
“He wasn’t always like this okay!” Midoriya defended. “He used to be nice…er. And I know he always has gremlin face, but when he isn’t doing that he’s really pretty! And he was my first friend! Besides, he's super cool!
“OH MY GOD YOU REALLY DID!!!” Mina gasped through laughter.
“Bakugou? Pretty?” Hagakure said incredulously. “No shot.”
“Here, I’ll prove it!” Izuku said. He ran around, grabbing a pen and paper. He focused on them, drawing Bakugou smiling, with great accuracy. As he focused, his tongue stuck out of his mouth a little and face scrunched up. Eventually, he seemed satisfied. He turned it around to show everyone. “See! If he just didn’t make his face… like that… he would be super pretty!”
“Wow.” Uraraka said. “He really is. That’s crazy.”
“This is really good, Midoriya!” Momo said. “You have quite the talent for artistry.”
Izuku blushed at Yaomomo’s compliment. He stammered out a thanks and then stopped talking. They all talked for a while, about tons of things. The subject eventually turned to hero costumes, the girls just wanting to complain about theirs for a while. They should have realized that of course Izuku would have strong feelings about the subject.
“I mean it’s insane!” He ranted. “Heels? In every heroine’s costume? That’s so impractical! Not to mention the oversexualization of them! Obviously, if that’s the design they want it’s more than okay. But they will purposely misconstrue or flat out ignore information to make the costumes ‘sexier!’
“No offense, but most of your costumes fall into this too! Tsu and Jirou’s costumes make the most sense, even if there is basically no protection. I mean, they could change the material to something a bit sturdier without changing the weight, design, or feel of the costume and make it better. Uraraka’s is okay, but it still isn’t great. It’s unnecessarily clunky, too tight, and it has heels. Obviously, a baggy hero costume is a liability. But skin tight isn’t exactly a good idea either. And the design of boots is cute, but totally impractical for moving in. Heels that get massive at the bottom? Make it a little smaller and take away the heel and boom. Fixed. Mina’s is basically just regular street clothes. There isn’t anything to make the material resistant to her acid, even though that’s totally doable. Plus, you could cover basically the entire body if you infuse the material with her DNA. Which brings me to the two worst costumes. Hagakure and Yaomomo. I don’t even just mean the worst in our class. I mean the worst hero costumes. Period. Why are they designed like that? Yaomomo is basically completely exposed, wears heels, and has a shelf on her back? If she gets pushed into a wall with basically any force, it could paralyze her! Just give her a tablet or a smartwatch or something! And once again, infuse her DNA with the cloth and she can make things and have it pass through the fabric! Hagakure has it the worst though. I mean just gloves and boots? Seriously? That’s insane! I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Infuse. Her. DNA. It’s not that hard.”
The girls all stared at him. He chuckled and scratched at his face nervously.
“Heh… Sorry for ranting like that.” He apologized.
The girls all cheered him on. He blushed as they thanked him and all added on with their own comments and complaints. Eventually, they all settled down. At some point the girls began doing face masks and mani pedis. Afterwards they put on a movie, and all bunched together to watch it. About halfway through the movie, Izuku felt his eyelids start drooping. He wasn’t able to finish the movie before he fell asleep.
Izuku woke up to several unknown weights on him. He wasn’t sure what they could be, so he opened his eyes to look. That was when he remembered what happened the night before. His face exploded into a blush when he realized what the weights were. They were his classmates, asleep on him. Leaning on his left shoulder, was Uraraka. On his right was Jirou. They had Tsu and Momo leaning on them, respectively. Hagakure was snuggled up against him and Uraraka, while Mina was passed out on his lap.
Izuku was trying not to panic. Not only had he been in a girl’s room after curfew. He’d slept there! He barely avoided leaving UA before! Now he’s definitely getting expelled. He’d ruined everything. Aizawa told him he could be a hero, and he turned around and did this!
Jirou began stirring. Whichever of the girls she was leaning on was breathing really hard. That was when she started really paying attention. They were breathing, really hard. And fast. Too fast. Then she noticed it sounded like they were sniffling. Her eyes snapped open, and she remembered who it was. Midoriya. It looked like he was having an anxiety attack. She turned and started trying to calm him down.
“Hey, Midoriya. Look at me.” She said, but he was too deep in his own thoughts. “Izuku. Look at me.”
The use of his first name seemed to work, as he turned over to her. He was still barely paying attention though.
“Hey, it’s okay.” Jirou said. She wanted to help, but she had no idea what the problem was. “There’s nothing to worry about. You’re okay. You’re safe here.”
The other girls began waking up now too. Between Izuku’s movements and Jirou speaking, they all started stirring.
“No, it’s not okay.” He said, tears falling down his face, unable to wipe them due to the still waking girls remaining on top of him. “I ruined everything. All Might took One For All back because I wasn’t good enough. I’m still weak. Too weak to save anyone. Useless. Defenseless. Pathetic. He was right. I’m not worthy. Even after Aizawa-sensei took a chance on me, I go and betray his trust by breaking the rules like this. I’m gonna get expelled and no one’s gonna want the quirkless kid who got expelled from UA. I fucked everything up. Like I always do. No matter how much I train, and work, and try, I’m always just gonna be the same worthless waste of space I’ve always been.”
At this point the girls were all awake. They had moved off of Izuku, and were all around him, trying to comfort him. Some had their own tears watching their friend, someone they trusted more than almost anyone, someone who they had seen face down villains without hesitation, have a breakdown like this.
“Hey, you have nothing to worry about.” Momo assured. “Aizawa gave the okay. He saw that you were already asleep. All he said was to make sure that if you were gonna spend the night, it needed to be a full girls night and all of us had to agree. Then he left.”
“And you aren’t any of those things you said about yourself.” Mina said. “You’re one of the strongest people I’ve ever met. You never hesitate to give your all. Whether it’s a test or a fight for our lives.”
“You’ve saved everyone in this class at least once, kero.” Tsu added. “If it weren’t for you, most of us wouldn’t still be here. Not to mention all of the civilians you’ve saved. You destroyed your arms, just to save one little boy. Most pros wouldn’t even do that. You’re already an amazing hero, kero.”
“Deku you’re probably the nicest person I’ve ever met.” Uraraka told him. “You have compassion for everyone. Even people who treat you terribly. You never retaliate, and you always want to give them a second chance.”
“You’re the only person I’ve ever met who always notices when I walk into a room.” Hagakure said. “Not even my parents can do that. You always acknowledge me too. You wave, or smile, or say hi. I used to feel like I wasn’t even there sometimes. Like I was just empty space. But you changed that. I feel like I’m there. Like I’m finally important enough to pay attention too.”
“We’re all here for you man.” Jirou said, noticing how his breath hitched at the word man. She decided to file that for later and focus on the matter at hand.
“We all love you Mido!” Mina said. “You’re our friend. The class wouldn’t be the same without you. And at this point, I’m pretty sure that if you got expelled every person in 1-A would leave with you.”
Izuku’s breathing steadied, but he began crying harder than before. Everyone was so nice. He didn’t deserve this. But here he was. Being reassured by his clas… his friends. Yaomomo was rubbing his back reassuringly. Mina and Hagakure were massaging his hands. Uraraka leaned against his shoulder again.
“Th-thank you everybody.” Izuku said, his voice raw and quiet. “And s-sorry.”