Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Mom? Mom!”

Izuku was lost.

Worse still; he was lost at the UA Sports Festival!

He was going to miss out on the second half of the event!

The boy was about ready to burst into tears from the frustration. 

After all the effort his mom and dad had gone through to get him a ticket!

His phone had run flat about an hour in, since he’d forgotten to charge it last night looking at all the previous year’s footage and spent most of the first half recording videos with it.

Stupid!

He’d tried to reach a lost and found he had seen earlier, but the rush of the crowd trying to re-enter the stadium after the first two events had only pushed him further away from potential help and into a section of the stadium that he didn’t recognize.

Not to mention, somewhere in all that, someone had spilled their drink on his clothes!

What a pathetic sight he must have been...

Stupid, stupid, useless Deku! 

He could almost imagine Kacchan pointing and laughing at him. 

On the verge of tearing his hair out, Izuku looked around the nearly featureless hallways as he strained his ear for voices, or to come across a sign or a map or something !

Thankfully, it was at this moment that someone found him.

“Hey, what’re you doing here, sweetie?”

His head whipped around and he almost froze in place. The voice was female and soft, but behind those honeyed words carried a weight of authority.

Though not any menace. Ten years as a quirkless Deku had made him able to pick that out all too easily.

When he turned around, his eyes widened and he relaxed, if only a little as he recognised the owner of the voice by the hero costume she was in..

“Y-you’re the R-18 rated pro heroine, Midnight!” He managed to stammer out.

The heroine grinned, and struck a pose that made Izuku’s cheeks feel hot. 

“Yes, and you are our mystery trespasser, from the looks of it!”

Oh.

Izuku immediately started bawling.

“I’m sorry! I got lost, and the crowd pushed me in here, and…” The greenet launched into his explanation at top speed, gesturing wildly as the pro heroine paused and felt a little guilty. 

His innocence was apparent ( in more ways tha- no. Bad Nemuri!) as was his distress.

The pro heroine walked over and crouched down in front of him, bringing both parties eye-to-eye.

“Shh, it's okay, sweetie, I’m not mad at you. Did you get separated from your parents?”

“Y-yeah, mom is sitting in section E. My phone ran out of batteries so I couldn’t c-call her, and…”

“Aww, sounds like you had a rough time, young man.” Midnight pouted sympathetically, and her smile turned sultry for a moment before the heroine made an effort to bite her tongue. Nope, not gonna go there with a... twelve year old? Thirteen?

She instead winked, and Izuku flushed an even deeper crimson.

The heroine laughed, not unkindly, as she stood up and pointed further down the corridor. 

“I have some of my friends - other heroes - waiting down that way. I’ll leave you with them for now, because I’m due to announce the next event, and then during the next break they’ll make sure you reunite with your parents, okay?”

“Th-thank you, Miss Midnight!” The boy smiled - bright and brilliant and blinding .

Then he stopped, for a moment, before considering… and looking up at her with a determination that she could scarcely believe had been in him all this time.

“Uh… if… if you don’t mind?”

Izuku offered up his notebook, opened to a fresh page, along with a marker pen.

Nemuri smiled, accepting the notebook and pen.

"Well, anything for a fan…” She winked at him, before accepting both the notebook and pen from him. “So, what’s your name, kid?”

“Izuku, Miss Midnight! Midoriya Izuku.”

“Well, Izuku, I hope to see you at UA soon, perhaps in one of my art history classes!” Midnight smiled, and it was only long practice that kept her poker face up as she saw the boy tried to hide the little crack in his smile.

Much like someone who had heard a branch break underfoot, the pro heroine kept her expression carefully pleasant.

She finished signing and puckered her lips, before briefly kissing the paper and leaving a prominent lipstick mark just underneath the signature.

It got the effect she wanted; the crack in his smile and any nervousness evaporated in teenage mortification.

Midnight laughed, and handed the notebook back before flashing a reassuring smile.

Oh you poor thing...

“C’mon, Midoriya-kun, I’ll drop you off with some other Pros that can keep an eye on you until we can get a hold of your parents, okay?”

The boy’s smile shone so bright that she swore that she was going to need sunglasses.

Meanwhile

“That was quite the fall you had there, young lady.” Recovery Girl’s smile showed a strained worry that reflected the greenette’s own as she finished checking over the adult's ankle; while nothing serious, it did mean that Inko was going to be on a bed the rest of the afternoon, surrounded by chattering hero students - who were already starting to organise a betting pool on who would win the next event.

"Gambling is still illegal, kids." Chiyo barked waving her cane around menacingly.

Thankfully, the initial rush of injuries and boo-boos from the sports festival so far had already calmed to a trickle, and with the next events being one-on-one dueling, Chiyo had enough resources to spare for an injured guest.

It just wouldn’t do for a heroic academy like UA to just let one of their guests hobble around on a sprained ankle, was it?

The woman who had fallen down some stairs in the post-lunch rush wrung her hands. “Yes, I’m so sorry for the trouble, I was just trying to find my son, you see. Has he turned up at any of the lost and found stations? I haven’t been able to reach him on my cellphone and...”

“Don’t worry, I’ve already sent out a message to the rest of the heroes running security at the Sports Festival today.” Chiyo reassured the mother, handing the tearful lady another glass of water and setting a box of tissues on the table beside her bed. “They’ll report back to me as soon as they find your son; our campus security isn’t anything to sneeze at either, so we’ll track him down soon enough.”

“Thank you, I’m just afraid…”

Chiyo smiled reassuringly. “Your son will be just fine, Midoriya-san. You'll be seeing each other before you even know it.”

And like someone had been listening for a cue, the TV they had installed in the infirmary snapped to the announcer’s booth.

Present Mic’s voice boomed over the television speakers as the camera zoomed in.

“WELCOME BACK TO THE SECOND HALF OF THE UA SPORTS FESTIVAL, LADIES, GENTLEMEN, AND THAT LOVELY RAINBOW IN BETWEEN AND BEYOND! HOPE YOU HAD SOMETHING TO EAT AND DRINK, KEEP THAT HYPE LEVEL UP...”

“...BECAUSE HERE’S THE THIRD EVENT!”

There, center-camera, two teachers and a familiar looking tangle of green hair sat at the announcer’s table, practically vibrating in his seat from sheer excitement.

Chiyo blinked.

Speak of the devil (an adorable devil that was practically glowing as Eraserhead leaned slightly away from the booming Mic) and he shall appear.

“Midoriya-san, I’m going to take a wild shot and guess that’s your son?”

There was a ding as her cellphone got a notification on the local HeroNet;

Death Arms: I think I found your missing child.

Snipe: Ya think?

Chapter Text

Ten minutes earlier

Shota didn’t flinch as the door behind him was thrown open and Midnight came strutting into the room like she owned the damn place.

He did, however, deign to look up and level his fourth best glare at the pro heroine as she cheerfully tossed a jelly packet at his head. 

Catching it, the underground hero checked the flavor (mango) before deciding that Midnight could live for another week for her offering.

As she loudly exchanged greetings with the man who had hours - perhaps even minutes - left before Shota was ready to murder him, the Erasure hero tuned out their rambunctiousness and popped open the seal to the jelly packet.

That was around the time he saw the teenager that had followed her in.

Aizawa immediately knocked three days off the pro heroine’s projected lifespan.

He looked at the kid’s emerald eyes and huffed. “Oh look, a security breach. What’re you doing here, kid?”

As soon as the words left his mouth, he felt the mood in the room shift as Midnight’s chattering with Mic came to a screeching halt, her eyes widening as she shot him a look.

The kid surprised him more with an expression of utter panic, his body tensing under his loose clothes as he looked ready to bolt but remained rooted to the floor, frozen in fear.

His eyes closed and he looked slightly away from Aizawa.

Those are definitely not good signs.

“AHAHAHA AIZAWA YOU UTTER JOKER!” Forced laughter was followed shortly by a slam as Midnight crashed into him, curling an arm around his neck and squeezing him.

Mic was there to make an attempt at a save as he shot a pair of finger guns at the child. “Yeah, ha-ha-ha right kid, Ne- Midnight let you in, didn’t she?”

The kid nervously shuffled his red shoes as he tried to fight for words.

“Yes, he did.” Midnight filled in for him, and bopped Aizawa on the head. “Poor kid just got lost and I brought him here. Aizawa-kun here shouldn’t make assumptions, because that’d be irrational , right? ”

“But I don’t belong here? He’s right.” The boy offered, confused.

Aizawa nodded. “Midnight invited you, kid. It’s okay.”

“Yeah, don’t worry about it. It’d take more than a little kid to rattle pro heroes, right? C’mon, green bean, you can relax here until we can get a hold of your parents.” Mic’s voice grew a little quieter - and a lot more serious - as he dropped his hands onto his knees and leaned forward, offering a soft smile. “You’re safe here, okay? I promise you that as a hero.”

The greenet nodded, though he didn’t offer much in the way of reassuring signs.

“R-right…”

Cautious.

Hm. Now how to make up for that...

Aizawa glanced off to one side, before reaching over towards a nearby chair. “Why don’t you come take a seat?”

The words surprised him as he pulled out one of the chairs at the announcer’s table, dragged it to a spot between himself and Mic, and turned it around in an open offer to the nervous child.

Apparently it surprised Mic and Midnight too, given how they looked at him.

He arched an eyebrow at them, daring them to try and countermand him.

Neither did. In fact, Hizashi was the one that spoke up first, and it was in support.

“Well, I’ve got no problems with having the little listener around!” Mic announced, grinning and sticking up a pair of thumbs. “C’mere and take the seat, kid, and why don’t you tell me your parent’s phone number - we’ll get them to come pick you up.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Midnight giggled, sweeping up Mic into a quick hug before strutting back towards the door. “Well, you boys get along now, I’m going to run off and do my job!”

“Say hi to Cementoss for us!” Hizashi called after the retreating Midnight, before swinging around - and around - and then ending up sitting beside the nervous greenet.

Shota left the kid-wrangling to Hizashi as he turned back around and started organizing his notes. “Tell us your name, too; I’m Aizawa, he’s Yamada, but I’m guessing that you know him as Present Mic.”

“Ah, yes I do, Eraserhead, sir!”

That got Aizawa to blink, even as Mic’s smile widened a little bit more as he cackled mischievously.

“Are you sure that’s Eraserhead, kid?”

“Oh, is he not? I was sure he was... Not a lot of heroes use anything like that capture scarf as a support weapon, and only Eraserhead is known to have a scarf like that AND operate in the region! His eyes also flashed red, which I heard in a forum was one of his trademark quirk tells, and since he introduced himself as Aizawa, that meant that he didn’t want to introduce himself by his pro hero name, and Eraserhead is a pro hero who is notorious for protecting his privacy, and since he’s the only underground heroes in UA, that means that...”

The boy’s ramble suddenly stalled, his eyes widening.

“Oh, you didn’t want to tell me you were Eraserhead because of your privacy! Uh, I’m really sorry, Eraser-no, Aizawa-sens-no, Aizawa-san!”

Mic dissolved into amused cackling as Aizawa pinched the bridge of his nose.

That set off the greenet’s apologies into high gear, and as his face slowly reddened from the embarrassment, Aizawa couldn’t help but feel like he shared in some of it.

Before he could open his mouth, though, Mic waved his arms frantically as he tried to take control of the conversation and forestall any further self-flagellation by the kid.

“Uh, look… um.. kid? What’s your name again? I can’t keep calling you kid, we’ve had a whole-a… err.. A whole conversation!”

“I’m Midoriya Izuku! Please take care of me!” The kid’s bow was formal and a little stiff, but at least he was talking - good old social conventions being the fallback of all fallbacks. Aizawa and Mic bowed back.

“Aizawa Shota, pro hero Eraserhead, pleased to meet you. I’m impressed at your deductions. ” Aizawa returned formally, although his capture scarf was hiding an amused smile. “If only half the kids in my class were that observant.”

“Ooooooh, that’s a pretty high compliment coming from Eraserhead!” Laughed Hizashi. “Hizashi Yamada, theeeee Voice Hero, Present Mic!”

Midoriya perked up. “Hizashi? Hey, my dad’s name is Hisashi!”

This immediately distracted Hizashi. “Oh, really? Cool, can I meet him? I haven’t met a name buddy in so long!”

“Ah, no, I’m sorry but he’s in Europe right now, only my mom is here…”

“Awww…” Mic didn’t sound too defeated, though, as he started opening and closing drawers, rummaging around in them as he tried to find something. “Speaking of parents, though! Hey, little listener, what kind of phone do you have? We’ve got some charging cables in the drawers here, so…”

Aizawa tuned out the following shenanigans as he went to his phone and checked the time.

Uh oh.

“Heads up, Hizashi, they’re going to start the next event in twenty seconds. Phone call will have to wait.”

“Right, hey, I found a bunch of chargers here, why don’t you see what fits your phone, Midoriya-kun?”

“Ah, thank you!” Midoriya reached into his pockets and pulled out a dinged, older phone.

“Ooh, cool, I used to have that same mode-"

“Mic, focus .” Hissing at him like they were sitting next to each other in class 1-B again and he could almost see the punishment laps about to be dished out. “We’re live in five seconds!”

Mic let out a quick hiss of disappointment, and nodded. “Okay, okay, jeez, 'Zawa. Let’s get shakin’, kid!”

He sucked in a deep breath as Izuku watched on, hands clenched, waiting, his seat rattling.

Aizawa hid a smirk as he pointed out the ‘broadcast’ button. “I think Mic wants you to press that button for him, Midoriya-kun.”

Izuku, grinning, reached over and did so right before Mic belted out a greeting at near full volume.

Meanwhile, in suburban Musutafu:

“WAIT, WHAT THE HELL IS DEKU DOING THERE!?”

Chapter Text

“ALRIGHT FOLKS, THANKS FOR THE WARM WELCOME BACK FOR OUR COMPETITORS THIS AFTERNOON! NOW, WHO’S READY TO FIND OUT WHAT WE’VE GOT LINED UP FOR OUR SECOND YEARS!?”

The crowd roared , excitement crackling through the air, the windows of the announcer’s booth rattling as the audience cheered and hollered.

“FOR THE THIRD AND FINAL CHALLENGE, WE’VE GOT ONE-ON-ONE BATTLES!”

As Shota sat back and let Mic go over the rules of how the elimination tournament would go and then go on to draw the initial pairings, he finished his jelly packet and… 

Huh.

Watermelon?

Aizawa examined the packaging; yes, it was mango...

So why could he smell watermelon?

He wasn’t having a stroke, was he?

(Wasn’t that burnt toast? Why was it specifically burnt toast?)

Eraserhead sniffed the air, cocking his head first one way then the other before turning towards the green haired guest. “Hey, kid, do you smell watermelon?”

“O-oh, that’s me.” He admitted shamefully. “I bumped into a man and he spilled his drink on me when I got lost in the rush to get back into the stadium. It was watermelon flavored. Sorry.”

Aizawa nodded and made a dismissive gesture towards the mango flavored packet of jelly he had just finished. “No, I was just wondering why I smelled something other than mango. You look like you’re soaked.” 

The kid flushed red again, and ducked his head like he was ashamed. 

“Ah, no I’m fine.” He said, irrationally.

Aizawa let out a breath as if he knew this was coming. Why did he always get the problem children? “Kid, you might be fine now but that juice is going to start to dry and leave you a sticky mess. Get up, go over to those cupboards at the back there and grab some spare clothes, we have them on hand for when students get their uniforms damaged or destroyed during exercises.”

Midoriya nodded, and walked over to the cupboards in question. Aizawa turned his attention back towards Mic: First drawn was Amajiki Tamaki, who Mic had dubbed the 'Consuming Chimera'. He then got set up to fight against 'the One Man Shield Wall', barrier quirk user and defensive specialist Tate Mamoru.

The swirling energy blaster Hadou Nejire was drawn up next, though he had missed who she was facing off against as he heard an astonished squeak from behind him. Mic the showman didn’t break stride, but glanced at Aizawa, who nodded and turned around to see what was going on. 

This kid was turning into a distraction, being a bundle of nerves as he was.

"What’s the matter, nothing fit?”

“Ah, no, I found some that did, but I can’t wear them ! These are UA gym uniforms! Not to mention they’re the fourth revision type that only came out last year, so these must be new, too! I mean, I’m not even a student here! I don’t deserve to wear these, not to mention that these uniforms are so expensive as wel-”

Aizawa fixed him with a stare. "Midoriya, we had several giant robots get blown up in the second round. Each of those costs UA upwards of five million yen in raw materials and off-the-shelf components alone. Both rounds resulted in several students needing new sets of gym uniforms anyway. Not to mention how they get damaged over the course of a school year. Thinking logically, this means that UA's budget is big enough that one more set of clothes isn't going to even be noticed. Am I wrong?"

Midoriya flushed redder - had that been possible - starting to look more and more like a fuzzy slice of watermelon (especially with those freckles on his face). “No! I mean, yes, you’re right, but… I-I can just go wash off my shirt, and…”

“Kid, I’m telling you now as a UA staff member - as a heroics course homeroom teacher - that it's okay for you to take this and wear it, and that we’re happy to give you a set, because you’re currently soaked in fruit juice. It would be pretty unheroic of me, as a hero, as a teacher and as a representative of UA, to not try and make you comfortable while you’re a guest here on the campus.”

“B-but I’m…” The boy looked pinched for a moment, before relenting, bowing and promising; “I’ll make sure to return them later.”

Problem child just won’t give up, will he? Aizawa found himself closing his eyes and counting to five as he conceded the point. “Please just go and get changed. There’s a locker room just down the hall to your left. You can get cleaned up and changed there, okay?”

The boy hesitated, one more time. "If you’re sure…”

" Yes, I am. Now, please go before we miss the first match?” Eraserhead didn’t quite let out a sigh of relief when the kid finally snatched a medium-sized uniform set and all but sprinted out the booth and into the hall.

As if to punctuate this, Mic announced the last pairing of the finals: Mirio Togata, the ‘Strongman Streaker’ of class 2-A, and his opponent; 2-B’s recommended student with a line-of-sight teleportation quirk, ‘Mr. blink and you’ll miss him’, Taki Maba.

For now, Aizawa resolved to keep those observations to himself until after the Sports Festival.

Then, Eraserhead would do some digging into what made the boy flinch and stutter so much.

He trudged back over to the seats, sitting down… no, he swapped the seat that Midoriya had been sitting in for a fresh one that didn’t have juice on it, and then he sat down.

Mic leaned over, grinning as he did so. “So, the little listener okay?”

“A little too nervous about wearing a uniform when he wasn’t a student.” Aizawa said. “Didn’t feel like he deserved it.”

“Well, he’ll get a chance to earn one soon enough, right? He’s… what, thirteen?”

“I didn’t ask. Maybe you can ask him when he gets back?”

“Ah, I’m fourteen, Present Mic-san.”

“Oh, welcome back, little listener!”

And boy was Midoriya back; looking at his face, Shota was willing to put money that the boy had either experienced a religious experience on his return trip from the changing room, or his attitude towards the uniform had done a complete 180° turn and his parents were either going to have to drag him out of that gym uniform or be forced to frame it on the wall.

Probably both.

Ah, the power of fanboyism.

“Looks good on you, kiddo! Can’t wait to see you wearing the uniform next year!” Mic shot a pair of finger guns at the boy, and for a moment Aizawa was afraid that his friend had spontaneously manifested a gun-fingers quirk because it looked like the boy had been shot.

Fortunately, that wasn’t the case and the boy instead ducked his head and shuffled forward, back into his seat.

“So, since you were gone, here’s the matchups for the next event. We’re going left to right on the tournament chart there.”

“Oh, I missed the drawings for that.” Midoriya chirped.

Mic turned to Eraserhead. “Well, first up is the resident shyguys.”

“So, Suneater and Shieldwall.”

“Yup!” Mic popped the ‘p’, grinning as he did.

“This’ll be interesting. They have such contrasting quirks.”

“Especially since Amajiki-san’s quirk is all based around food.” Came the reply as Midoriya leaned forward on top of the chart, looking it over and… where did that notebook come from? “Since we’ve just come back from lunch break, that means that he’s going to be as powerful as he gets, depending on what he ate and how quickly he can access the biological components to be manifested. Does it work on DNA? If so, I wonder how much DNA material he needs before he can manifest something as a part of his quirk? Would eating raw food make it more effective? Food for thought. Which makes me wonder what he’s decided on doing, compared to Tate-san’s more consistent quirk; I’ve heard you mention that he stockpiles the material from what he eats as well, as well as his own energy reserves to ‘shape’ the steel when he manifests it, so both have quite similar energy reserve limitations.”

Hizashi grinned. “Care to tell us more about your predictions here, little listener? You seem to have a lot of thoughts around Amajiki-kun’s quirk.”

“Well, Amajiki-san’s quirk, Manifest, showed huge versatility in the earlier rounds; using the wings and hind legs of a chicken gave him excellent mobility during the relay race event, not to mention his use of oyster shells as a defensive shield and his octopus arms as a way to make tighter corners. And this isn’t just a powerful quirk; Amajiki-san would have had to have planned ahead on having these manifestations ‘in stock’ either during breakfast or dinner the night before, assuming that his body’s… urr.. nutrition cycle works at about the same rate as a baseline human’s. That shows a lot of foresight, and both practice and experimentation to have settled on these particular animals in his diet - and arsenal.”

Aizawa glanced at Mic, pointing at the control panel, but Mic just grinned and waggled his eyebrows as he egged on the student. “What about the other competitor, Tate Mamoru? His quirk seems a little skewed to the defensive, don’t you think?”

“Tate’s Shieldwall quirk may seem to favor the defense on the surface, but that doesn’t discount him in the offensive category, either! After all, getting hit in the face by a shield is just as bad as being punched, especially if he makes use of the edge like many arms manuals did in the ancient and medieval era, which he clearly has studied as we’ve seen in the past few hours! Not to mention, he’s shown the ability to adapt the types of shield constructs that he manifests to the type of attack that he’s trying to block and - as we all saw during the obstacle course - the ability to throw them as a medium-ranged offensive option; something that Amajiki-san hasn’t got many of. We’ve also seen him make great use of slanted armor during the relay race to deflect Hado-san’s energy blasts, rather than trying to ‘tank’ them head on, which means that he’s able to use his shields with as much thought and creativity as Amajiki-san’s arsenal. Not to mention that the materials he manifests seem to resemble metals, which are difficult to break through when your baseline options are mostly based on animal biology - not impossible, though!”

“So you think he’s pretty evenly matched against Amajiki-kun?”

“In a way, they’re quite a contrast; between a versatile quirk and a specialized one, which is better to have in this fight? Both are being used by such talented students, so it’s quite the even matchup!”

Mic’s eyes gleamed as he bounced off Midoriya’s words. “Oooh, I like your thoughts there, Midoriya-kun. But I’m still curious; if you had to pick a winner, who would it be?”

Midoriya shone . “I wouldn’t know, they’re both amazing quirks with clever heroes using them! It all comes down to who can work out an effective plan first, or just plus ultra their way to victory!”

Aizawa felt his hand clutch at his bottle of eye drops as Midoriya’s smile blossomed across his face. Gods, it was like looking at the sun.

It took a moment for the boy to realize something though; “Hey, why is the stadium so quiet?”

Ah, there’s the first shoe…

“Well, lil’ listener, I think you’ve been leaning on the broadcast button.” Mic coughed. “That was a great analysis, though, couldn’t have done better myself.”

Izuku’s face went very pale then just as suddenly very red as the other shoe dropped.

“Oh.”

= = = = =

WentTooFarWest: @RatGod where have you been hiding this kid? Can I get dibs on sending him an internship?

= =

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject Line: [empty]

Nezu, 

As I am currently on patrol, I will keep this brief.

I would like to extend an offer of internship to the student currently in the announcer’s booth.

Please expect a more formal and complete email to follow.

Apologies for the aarghjsdnbpo8h4239499494877777777777777777777777777arhm

= =

@OfficialHeroNet · 1m

Who’s the new kid on the block? Find out what we know about the U.A. Second Year’s Sports Festival’s unexpected dark horse here.

= =

Midnightie: @RatGod Can I keep him?

= =

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject Line: Offer of Internship from the Nighteye Agency

Principal Nezu,

That student currently talking with Present Mic is showing some potential with analysis and investigation.

He does also appear to have difficulty handling a crowd which speaks of some public speaking difficulty, though I hope Present Mic will continue to guide him in this matter.

I’d like to offer him an internship, if you would be so kind as to tell him, and also I would like to request that you exempt me from the usual ‘one hero, one intern’ rule.

If not, Bubble Girl has expressed an interest in taking on her first intern and I believe they will be well suited to each other as both have similar analysis specialization.

Kind regards,

Sir Nighteye

= =

HeroWatch @HeroWatchOfficial · 2m

Gang Orca arrests two villains while trying to keep his phone #unsmashed.

https://herotu.be/QqWoPMLmrno

CONTENT WARNING: CONTAINS JUGGLING AND SWEARING.

= =

AizawaShota: @RatGod Ms Joke just sent me an internship request and thinks I’m trying to pull her leg when I told her that Midoriya was a spectator that got lost. She’ll be sending you an internship request directly to you so ignore it and tell her to believe me.

AizawaShota: I just realized you’re probably not going to listen to me so this is a preemptive ‘I told you so’ for when this blows up in our faces and everyone is trying to request an internship for a middle schooler.

Chapter Text

“Oh gods everyone heard me, didn’t they.”

The stadium had fallen silent as Izuku’s hands left the control console like it was about to burn him, wrapping his hands around himself and sinking into his seat.

Everyone heard him rambling about quirks like the muttering creep he was.

Kacchan and the others had already said that he was creepy when he did that kind of thing, and now he had done so on national television .

He wasn’t ever going to be able to leave home ever again, was he?

He’d forever be that creepy kid from the UA Sports Festival.

He should talk to mom about moving to Korea.

Wait, he’d seen Korean responses on some of the HeroFight videos. They’d know him too.

At least Togata-san, who accidentally phased through his clothes in round one, would be able to live a normal life as a hero.

Positive thoughts, Izuku. Positive thoughts.

“You alright, kiddo?” Mic leaned forward, before a sharp cough made him hesitate. He dropped his voice to a whisper. “Can you at least nod and tell me you’re still alive?”

Izuku gave him a quick, sharp nod, but he glanced up and immediately buried his face again.

A camera was being pointed at the stage, and it was zooming into Izuku’s tomato-red face as he sat there, frozen and mortified.

Seeing himself through the screen, there was a detached part of him that recognised the signs of a panic attack coming on. He could feel a hand press against his back from Eraserhead, comforting and grounding, rubbing his back slowly in circles.

Izuku closed his eyes, and focused on that sensation.

The silence in the stadium was broken by someone else with a voice quirk.

“YOU’RE DOING GREAT, KID!” A female voice screamed across the stadium from the right, where a number of heroes were seated, sectioned away so that they could watch the festival in peace. “KEEP IT UP! DON’T WORRY ABOUT IT!”

A smattering of other - less loud - voices rose up to add their agreement, shouting encouragement as Izuku sank into his seat further in embarrassment.

“Oh, Amplifier was watching? She didn’t tell me she was around!” Mic’s head snapped up as he recognised his fellow vocalist.

Oh. 

Pieces fell into place as it clicked why; he was wearing a UA gym uniform, at UA.

They didn’t know.

They probably thought he was a student here with some kind of analysis quirk.

Or any quirk… 

They didn’t know he was a quirkless, useless deku .

They had mistaken him for someone who deserved to be at the sports festival.

St-

“ Hey . Hey, Midoriya.”

Izuku tried to block out the voice, but Aizawa persisted.

“I know what it looks like to have bad thoughts running around your head, Midoriya, I want you to look at me. Please.”

Izuku forced his head up, just enough that his eyes met with Eraserhead’s.

“Listen to that crowd.” He said. “They think your analysis was great.”

Izuku let out a choked little sound. “ They think I’m a student here. I tricked them and-”

“You could be a student here next year! Just doing things a little out of order is all.” Mic laughed, reaching out and scrubbing Izuku’s hair with a warm smile. “Also, no; you didn’t trick anyone. We didn’t introduce you as a student, right, Eraserhead?”

“No we did not.” Eraserhead agreed, his voice slow and soothing.

Behind them, the crowd let out a collective ‘aww’ as they watched, though Izuku made a quick glance at the broadcast button to make sure it was off.

(There was a little part of him that didn’t want this dream to end just yet.)

Eraserhead interrupted his next thought. “Do you know about the heroine Ms. Joke?”

Izuku nodded. “Yeah, she’s a hero teacher like Present Mic-san and you.”

“She texted me, asking if you were interested in being her intern. She really likes the idea of having an intern that could analyze quirks and work out their strengths and weaknesses.” Aizawa held up his phone, and Mic let out a delighted squeal as he read the messages.

“Ooooh, she also sent you an invitation to her wedding, Shota!”

“As the groom.” The hero replied, letting out a tired sigh. “That’s not important here. I’m also going to guess that several other heroes have done the same with their contacts at UA. People - heroes - have been so impressed by that breakdown that they want you to be the one intern they get from the UA Sports Festival. You have to get a special exemption to get more than one, you know that right?”

The middle schooler nodded. “Yeah.”

Eraserhead gave the kid a rare smile. “There’s a lot of people who want to see what you can do, Midoriya.”

Izuku made a choked little sound at that.

Mic jumped into the exchange again. “So shake yourself off, let the nerves pass, and keep doing what you’ve been doing! I love your analysis work, kid, and I’d be happy to have you on my talk show sometime so we can talk about quirks, no cap.”

Izuku blinked, turned to Eraserhead, and mouthed ‘No cap?’.

Eraserhead shrugged.

When he turned back to Mic, the voice hero looked on the verge of laughter.

“Look, if you want to sit at the back of the room, we’ll let you do that… or.” 

Mic leaned in and grinned.

“Or you can go plus ultra and encourage the rest of the students here like you did with the first two. Because let me tell you a secret; both those guys think they have weak quirks, and they're super shy, which is why we call them the shyguys.”

“No they aren’t!” Izuku immediately shot back. “They have great quirks!”

“Exactly, and you reminded them of that. Now, our job as commentators is to make sure that these guys are just as hyped as the crowd. I’ll lead, and turn to you for analysis, okay? Think of this as the practice run for our podcast episode together.”

“Mic, you should have done it the other way around. A one-hero podcast is not the same as a nationally televised event.”

Present Mic ignored Eraserhead and passed over some tissues to Izuku, who accepted them with tearful eyes. Well. More tearful.

Once he had scrubbed his face from the worst of the tears, Izuku looked up at his heroes, and nodded. He was ready.

He could do this.

“Thanks for giving us a moment there, ladies, gentlemen and those that tick the ‘other’ box! Our green bean’s a little nervous since it’s his first time on stage here, but what a wonderful breakdown of our two competitors, right?”

The crowd cheered their agreement, and Izuku’s stomach fluttered with hope.

“And we all want to hear more from him later, can I hear you all scream?”

A louder roar, and more cheers. Someone whistled.

Mic grinned. “See, kid, they love you!”

(Aizawa added a couple days to Mic’s projected lifespan. Only a couple. Maybe he’d earn a week by the end of the day.)

“So, without further ado, let’s get to the first round of our final event; TATE MAMORU vs AMAJIKI TAMAKI, the ONE MAN SHIELDWALL meets the ONE MAN ALL-YOU-CAN-EAT BUFFET! ”

(Tamaki looked across at Mamoru; both noted that the other looked about ready to throw up. SO MANY PEOPLE.)

“HEROES (in training), ARE. YOU. READY!? MIDNIGHT, TAKE IT AWAY!”

= = = = =

“YOU HAVE GOT TO BE FUCKING KIDDING ME!”

“Calm down, calm down...”

Masaru sighed as he helped his wife wrestle down Katsuki, preventing him from blowing up anything more than the cup he had been holding.

“BUT THAT SHITTY NERD! THAT DAMN DEKU IS… AAAAAAARGH !”

The screaming continued, incoherent, as the first contestants clashed.

= =

Beeeeeeees @BeeHappyBeeSafe · 6m

@OfficialHeroNet Like seriously who is this kid, I spent 4 minutes reading through your ‘article’ which TLDR’s is “We don’t know either.”

Does anyone have a time travel quirk I want my 4min back.

#UASportsFest

= =

Nekonini @NekoNekoNi · 5m

My cousin is in the business course at UA and he says they know he isn’t one of the 2-A and 2-B’s students so this kid didn’t come from the hero track. Maybe he’s from the support course with an analysis quirk of some kind?

#UASportsFest #GoGreenie

= =

Nezu had several phones. 

He had one pair dedicated to hero work, listed as his contact numbers on the national hero registry. Heroes could contact him through either of these phones, not to mention representatives of the HPSC and Japanese government. Since the start of the Sports Festival, those had become functionally useless as requests and emails flooded the phone’s notifications  so that it resembled a slot machine more than a personalized newsreel.

Another pair were related to his work as the Principal of UA: again, heroes and government agents would contact him as the Principal rather than as the Hero, and other school-related contacts (such as, unfortunately, the head of the board) were able to get through to him via the second phone, which rarely saw any meaningful traffic but the idea that you could call up the UA Principal was enough to soothe a certain breed of human.

The second was simply for internal staff, including the teachers’ group chat.

Both phones were similarly incapacitated, for similar reasons as the first; asking about various students during the sports festival.

One green-haired boy in particular.

Which left him with the last of his phones, one he kept for personal use - only a very select handful of people (and one very, very bored young man in Hokkaido who had texted his phone number neighbors and had gotten a reply from the principal of UA) knew how to get in touch with him through that phone.

Currently, that particular phone was the one he was using, the rest had been tossed into a drawer and forgotten about, where they rumbled like a hive of angry bees (and didn’t that light up certain primal parts of his brain!).

Opening another social media app, the principal of UA continued scrolling as laughter began to bubble up to the surface.

= =

DiggyDiggyHole: @RatGod boss, who the hell is that in the booth with Eraser and Mic? I have people asking if he's a support student of mine, and he's not.

Chapter Text

Pro Hero Hawks @HawksOfficial · 9m

@UA_Official is it okay to put ‘kid in the announcer booth’ under name, because I don’t actually know his name? #UASportsFest

[Attachment (picture): A half-completed internship application offer form with the student’s name filled out as ‘kid in the announcer booth’.]

Pro Hero Mirko @Mirko · 5m

@HawksOfficial what is your bird brain ass actually going to teach the kid? He looks like an analysis specialist and I know you can’t analyse if your own front window is open or not.

[Attachment (video): Security camera footage of Hawks slamming through a closed window. Cut to a second camera angle showing him skidding across the floor and into a swimming pool. Hawks thrashes in the pool for a few seconds before realising that it's shallow enough to stand up in.]

Pro Hero Hawks @HawksOfficial · 4m

@Mirko that clip was from my internal security cameras. How did you get that footage? Delete that now!

Pro Hero Mirko @Mirko · 4m

@HawksOfficial classified.

[Attachment (picture): Bugs Bunny smiling smugly at the camera]

Pro Hero Hawks @HawksOfficial · 3m

@Mirko hey, remember that time I visited your agency? You had a nice fridge full of carrots there, would be a pity if something were to happen to it.

Pro Hero Mirko @Mirko · 2m

@HawksOfficial OH YEAH YOU WANT A FIGHT, BIRDBRAIN!?

Pro Hero Best Jeanist @DenimDelights · 2m

@HawksOfficial @Mirko I thought UA students were supposed to be doing the fighting-each-other-thing today, not full-fledged pro heroes.

Apparently not.

Hiro To Help @Moriyama Hiro · 1m

Hello I need the police I just saw @DenimDelights murder @HawksOfficial and @Mirko over the custody of a child.

#HeroShenanigans #UASportsFest

= = = = =

Midnight finished her countdown, and both hero students reached for their quirks.

“AND THEY’RE OFF! Whoa look at this, Tate-kun’’s going to have to hold his ground as Amajiki-kun strikes first with a GIANT CRAB CLAW, look at the size of that thing! Shieldwall has whipped up a big round shield there, deflecting the blows! Suneater’s using his superior range to make a few quick attacks but Tate-kun’s holding him off! With that initial clash, it seems like our students have decided to back off and feel each other out here! C’mon, you two, it’s a pretty straightforward situation, just fight !” 

Mic was practically bouncing in his seat as he watched that action unfold, and Izuku’s hand gripped his pencil tightly as he took notes.

Aizawa, meanwhile, seemed less than impressed - at Preset Mic . “Mic, let them go at their own pace.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah… oh, looks like Tate’s taking the initiative and stepping forward here, and he’s summoned a big ol’ shield in his hands!” Mic whipped around in the room, fast enough to scare Izuku, before he pointed both of his pointer fingers at him.

“Kid, analysis!”

Izuku’s head snapped up as he glanced out at the monitors showing full 8k resolution imaging of the clash between the two hero course students, and sucked in a breath. 

Okay. 

He can do this!

“W-well, T-tate-san has summoned a large round shield, which looks to me like an, um, a Greek-style shield. These shields were found in phalanx formations in ancient times, though those are normally made of wood, but Tate-san’s shields are far tougher in terms of material! The major benefits here is that this style of shield is curved, meaning that it could deflect most piercing attacks like the crab claw thrusts coming from any angle, and its rim allows Tate-san to rest its weight on his shoulder, letting him conserve energy while still keeping his torso protected and his legs free to move.” 

“That’s right, kiddo, and while it might seem to be a passive decision, we can see that his right hand is free, leaving it open to summon more shields!” Mic finished Izuku’s thoughts, patting him on the back discreetly.

Well done, kid!

“So Amajiki-kun’s gonna have to think of something to answer for that, won’t he?” Mic prompted the green haired caster. 

“Yes and no! Amajiki’s use of a crab claw is a well thought out answer to shields; the jagged pincer would mean that he could grab and pull away a shield, that’ll force his opponent to let go or be dragged across the ground. If he lets go, this opens up Tate-san to follow up attacks, or force him to expend more energy re-summoning shields. However, it may be better to let him keep his shields, since Amajiki-san doesn’t know what kind of shield Tate-san will summon next, it means that his opponent is more predictable.”

Aizawa cut into the conversation now. “Not to mention that these two have been in the same class for over a year now, and both are quite familiar with the others’ fighting style. Their caution is telling of how much each student respects the other’s abilities.”

Or that the shyguys were too nervous to properly engage, but he’d give them the benefit of the doubt.

Instead, though, Tate suddenly lowered his shoulder and charged forward, his other hand summoning a shield as his left flicked aside the snap-reaction stab with a crab claw. Tate swung his right arm backwards, before throwing a rising right hook with the much lighter-looking kite shield he held in his hands, punching upwards and cracking the crab arm at its elbow.

Mic and the rest of the crowd roared in approval. “ Wowwee , look at that! Tate-kun goes on the offensive, breaking Suneater’s crab claw at the weak point! Amajiki doesn’t look phased, he’s already grown several squid arms and he’s putting those suckers to great use! Kid, hit me again!”

Midoriya jumped up in his seat, straining to get a better look as the gladiators clashed once again.

“There’s a number of squid arms there, and he’s controlling them all independently! Amajiki-san’s body doesn’t normally have so many limbs so this shows just how much practice he has done with the squid manifestation! Tate-san’s responded using a shield that’s got spikes on it, along with a big rectangular one that - WOW ! - that’s just sliced off one of Amajiki’s squid arms! ”

“So it seems that Tate-san’s control over his shield-manifestation does include adding sharp edges! He’s closed the distance and switched to a new pair of, NO! He hasn’t pulled out any new shields, he’s just tackled Amajiki-san, picking him up off the ground!” Izuku gasped with the rest of the crowd, not quite realizing he was getting into the casting role so much.

Smoothly Mic slipped in as Izuku ran out of breath. “They’re so close to the edge of the arena! Tate’s going for a ring-out throw with just his bare hands!” 

“Showing that he isn’t a hero that relies entirely on his quirk.” Aizawa observed dryly.

“Exactamundo, so what’s Amajiki-kun going to do n-HOLY MACKEREL, ERASERHEAD!”

There was a snort that Aizawa’s microphone picked up. “That’s a tuna, Mic.”

Izuku let out an impressed gasp. “Amajiki-san turned his upper body into a giant blue-fin tuna to increase his mass and change his center of gravity! The tuna half is thrashing around and throwing Tate-san off balance!”

“LOOK AT THEM GO DOWN! And are those squid arms pinning Tate-kun to the floor?” Mic shouted, slamming his hands down onto the table. “Our shield wieldin’ student looks like he doesn’t want to play this squid game, and he’s going to have trouble breaking out of that grip right now!”

“Amajiki-kun is a slippery opponent when he needs to be.” Aizawa noted.

Izuku squealed in delight as he watched Amajiki’s quirk at work. “Squid arms are made of almost pure muscle, and he’s blown them up to the size of Tate-san’s waist!”

“Looks like this might be it! Amajiki-kun rolled the two contestants closer to the corner, getting the mount on top of the shieldwall! Tate’s got a hand free, he’s made himself a tiny little shield AND PUNCHES AMAJIKI IN THE JAW! That one look like it rung his bell but it’s far from over yet!”

Izuku’s blood was pumping as he saw Tate curl a knee up to his chest and push Amajiki off, the other student shaking his head to recover before his head was suddenly swallowed by a giant mussel shell right as Tate swung again with the buckler.

“Oooh, bet Tate-kun’s glad he didn’t try that with bare knuckles.” Mic cackled over the mic.

“Yes, but now he doesn’t have a way to knock out his opponent… and Amajiki’s blinded himself.” Aizawa hummed thoughtfully. “Kid, what’s your thoughts?”

The mussel shell cracked open a slice, and Izuku realized what was going on.

“Amajiki has manifested his mussel shell at an angle, so that he could open it just enough to get vision from one eye.” Izuku realized. “But that means he’s sacrificed depth perception for his ability to protect his face from further shield bashes to the head.”

“True, but if he’s fighting hand-to-hand at close range with Tate, it wouldn’t matter that much.”

“Guess that’s my inexperience showing then, huh, Eraserhead-sensei?” Izuku quipped… and froze.

… where did that sensei come from? Izuku felt steam shooting out his ears as he went still and flushed red. He was enjoying this too much, he guiltily realized. He was enjoying pretending to be a UA student.

When h-

Mic grabbed his shoulder, alarming the greenet from his panic, but the middle schooler saw him smiling encouragingly even though the professional hero didn't break stride as an announcer. “Tate seems to be taking advantage of that vision restriction, he’s throwing his shields at blinding speed!”

In the arena, Amajiki had summoned a pair of mussel shells as shields of his own, but each shield that was hitting him was knocking him off balance as Tate opened the distance between them.

“Looks like Amajiki’s abandoned the mussel helmet and brought out some big, literally beefy muscles for his arms! I can see the cow spots from here!” Mic continued, patting Izuku on the shoulder. “Kid, hit me with another analysis here!”

Ah, prompting him to continue.

That little spark of hope flickered in his chest.

“Tate’s responding with… wow, that’s a big shield!”

Yeah, that was probably pretty obvious.

A  massive rectangular shield the size of a truck was now hovering over the arena, created mid-swing by Tate as he let out a roar of effort.

“Tate-san’s taking advantage of his quirk to pull out a physics-defying attack!” Mic cackled as he stood up, sending his chair reeling back until Eraserhead caught it with a blind grab. “With the Shieldwall going for a big crushing attack, can Amajiki evade!? Yes, he’s seen enough scary movies to know you run at ninety degree angles to the big crushy objects, rolling out of the way at the last second!"

“That’s only logical.”

“Tate-san’s made himself a pair of smaller shields now.” Izuku observed, leaning around the pole set into the middle of the announcer’s booth window. “Whether this it’s because of his quirk’s limitations after that giant shield bash, or if he’s decided that they're the best tools for the job right now, I think this will be the deciding exchange.”

“You may just be right! Both of them are running along the edge of the arena as Amajiki manifests himself some big ol' lobster claws and the two charge each other down!"

There was a clash of shell against steel, a sound that reached the announcers booth unaided, and all three of them (and the rest of the stadium) got on their feet to see. 

Amajiki bashed past the shield and grabbed at Tate, lowering one shattered lobster claw to grab his opponent around his chest with the other. 

With a shout of effort, the chimeric UA student hurled his opponent out of the ring, a final shield bouncing off his chest as the other boy landed heavily on the grass.

“TATE MAMORU, RING OUT!” Midnight declared.

“AND WITH A SLAM DUNK TATE’S OUT OF BOUNDS! THE ONE MAN BUFFET WINS BY A BEAUTIFUL RING OUT!” Mic screamed as the spectators went wild.

“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, GIVE IT UP FOR 2-A’s AMAJIKI TAMAKIIIIIII!”

And the crowd roared with him.

= = = = =

Hisui @Hisu1Unofficial · 14m

I dunno about you guys, but when we zoomed into the announcer’s booth, did you see how the student was all curled up on himself and he looked like he wasn’t breathing right? 

Doesn’t that look like a panic attack to you guys?

Breathe, buddy, breathe… we’re all rooting for you! 

#GoGreenie #UASportsFest

Hisui @Hisu1Unofficial · 2m

Woo, shine you analytical little emerald!

#GoGreenie #UASportsFest

= =

AtsuTake @AtsuTake2399 · 7m

The hell is this kid doing in the sports festival announcer’s booth? Leave it to the pros! (Literally!)

#UASportsFest

Wawanko @Wawawawawanko · 5m

Making a name for himself, like the rest of the students are trying to do? Makes sense if he has an analysis quirk that he’s using it at the announcer’s booth rather than trying to fistfight a guy who can grow giant lobster claw arms or the girl who can fly around and shoot energy beams.

#UASportsFest #GoGreenie

= =

ExtendoEyes: @WingedHeroTsubasa-sama holy shit that’s Deku at the UA sports festival

WingedHeroTsubasa-sama: What, did you see Deku in the stands or something?

ExtendoEyes: No, he’s one of the announcers for the final tournament!

WingedHeroTsubasa-sama: Naaah, pull the other wing, Eyeballs.

ExtendoEyes sent a picture

WingedHeroTsubasa-sama: HOLY SHIT that’s Deku at the UA sports festival!!!

WingedHeroTsubasa-sama: Why the fuck did they let him in there?

ExtendoEyes : We should tell someone! This is an emergency! 

Chapter Text

“Hoooly s- ( “Mic!” ) -t kid, I’m so proud of you!”

Mic spread his arms out high and wide, and Izuku blushed red and ducked his head, ears burning as the voice hero seemed to do a happy dance without leaving his chair, the gloved hand of the pro hero hitting Izuku squarely on the back and rubbing in quick scrubbing circles.

“That was amazing! Like, I could totally get you to grade my third years’ analysis essays amazing! Oh my god you’re crying, are you crying happy tears? Please tell me those are happy tears! Can I hug you? I really want to hug you!”

“S-sure!” Izuku managed to squeak out, before Mic wrapped his arms around Izuku in a bear hug and lifted him out of his seat.

“Kid, you did great! No training, no previous experience, and you f-( “MIC!” )-ng nailed it!”

Whatever he was about to say next was cut off by Aizawa reaching across the booth, around Izuku, and cuffing Mic’s ear, causing the excitable voice hero to yelp in surprise. 

“Mic, stop swearing in front of the kid.” The Erasure hero growled slowly, menacingly.

It honestly wasn’t that bad compared to Kacchan, but Izuku figured that they wouldn’t know Kacchan.

“Yessir, mister Eraserhead sir!” Hizashi squeaked, and Aizawa sighed as he sat down and pulled open a drawer.

“You want some water, kid? We got other drinks too. It’ll be a moment for them to clear up the field and get the next match ready, so if you need to take a drink and toilet break, now’s the time.”

“Aa-yes, I’ll just go and do that, actually! Thank you so much.”

Mic shot his finger guns again, and this time Izuku smiled back. “No worries, kiddo!”

“You did well, Midoriya. Be back here in five minutes, okay?”

“Y-yes, Eraserhead-sensei!”

As the two heroes settled down and the boy ran down the hall, Mic’s grin grew as he reached over and poked his best friend on the cheek.

“Shota, the kid called you sensei .”

“He did.” Aizawa hid a smirk under his capture weapon, but Yamada knew.

= = = = =

AlienQueen @MinaAAAAA · 11m

AHAHAHA @RockHardRockOut did you all see that clip of Present Mic and the analyst kid interacting and the other teacher looks so completely done with the two?

#UAnalyst #GoGreenie #UASportsFest

= =

Analysis Abridged - S. Kudo @SKudoAnalysis · 7m

As a pro analyst with 10 years of experience, this kid does good ‘tactical’ analysis work. Nothing you’d see in a real formal quirk writeup but that’s because he needs to come up with his analysis on the fly and without any equipment aside from Mk 1 Eyeballs. 

Welcome to the world of pro analysis, kid!

#UAnalyst #GoGreenie #UASportsFest

= = 

Hero Net - All Your Hero News! @OfficialHeroNet · 5m

Does the #UAnalyst have a name? Find out here.  

#UASportsFest #GoGreenie

Beeeeeeees @BeeHappyBeeSafe · 2m

Ooooh no you don’t, @OfficialHeroNet , I’m not falling for this again.

TADA!shi @TadashiH4m4d4 · 1m

@BeeHappyBeeSafe thank you for the warning, kind person.

= =

ExtendoEyes : Have you gotten through to anyone at UA?

WingedHeroTsubasa-sama: Uh, no, I’ve only been getting ‘line busy’ tones for their public help contacts. And they left my text messages on read. I’m writing an email now, just making an anonymous email to use.

FingerMaster: I’m gonna try and call my uncle. He says he works for the HPSC, but he isn’t picking up right now.

WingedHeroTsubasa-sama: Should we go to the police in the meantime then?

= = = = =

Inko was handed another tissue by the UA second year student currently sharing the couch with her. Now that her sprained ankle had mostly healed, she had bid Recovery Girl goodbye (though not before begging her for an autograph she could pass onto Izuku later) and had fallen under the care of Sakurai Hanako of the second year General Education course. 

The tall girl had volunteered to wheel her around in one of the wheelchairs to a student common room where they could watch the sports festival on something more comfortable than bleachers.

The green haired mother had ended up sharing a couch with two other students.

“You must be so proud of your son!” Chirped Akizuki Subaru, a hero course student with a duck wing mutation on her back. “I would have loved to have had his help in our analysis assignments, he’d totally ace them when he gets into UA!”

“Oh man, does anyone know a time traveller that could help me meet Midoriya-kun a week ago? We had a nasty assignment to start the year with Eraserhead!” Kohaku-chan hadn’t given her last name when introducing herself, but the bee-themed girl had also sprained an ankle during the first round, and had gathered here to take it easy and watch the rest of the event with other contestants eliminated in the first round.

“Yeah, Aizawa-sensei is usually pretty tough, but it looks like he’s really getting along with your son, Midoriya-san!” A pink-haired first-year (Fuwa-san, wasn’t it?) laughed as she settled into her older sister’s hug a row behind Inko.

“Yeah, and so is Mic-sensei!” Akizuki beamed.

“Zuki, everyone gets along with Mic-sensei.” Laughed another.

A girl with sea-foam colored hair tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Except villains.”

“Well, yeah, who gets along with villains though?”

“Other villains!” Another boy shouted, from the other side of the room.

“Not always, dumbass, don’t you remember that report paper we had to do about inter-gang fighting!” A hero course student barked back.

“Now now, kids, let’s not start any more fights, okay?” Inko made a placating gesture as the kids remembered themselves and settled down.

“Aye aye, Midoriya-san! Sorry about that.”

“Yeah, let’s leave the fighting to Togata and Taki.” The stern-faced class president of 2-A announced, her voice firm as she adjusted her glasses. “And leave our honored guest in peace!”

“Class prez-dono, you’re being too loud.” The voice of Inko spoke.

Inko blinked. Had she said… no, she didn’t, did she?

“Oh, I am so sorry, Midoriya-sa- HEY, KOE-CHAN, STOP MIMICKING OUR HONORABLE GUEST’S VOICE!”

The mimicry quirk laughed as she ducked under the president’s grab, and Inko joined the students, her tears renewed by laughter.

But her pride in her son remained.

= = = = =

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

CC: [email protected] ; [email protected]

Subject Line: URGENT IMPORTANT ALERT!!!

To whom it may concern,

I’m writing today concerning Deku, real name Midoriya Izuku, who is the impostor currently in the announcer’s booth at the UA sports festival.

I don’t know how he managed to break into UA, but he probably used the large crowds to sneak in and steal a UA uniform.

HE IS NOT A STUDENT AT UA.

HE GOES TO ALDERA MIDDLE SCHOOL.

HE IS A QUIRKLESS!

Kindest Regards,

A. Benefactor

= =

WingedHeroTsubasa-sama: Oh shit, I used my school email address instead of the anonymous one.

FingerMaster: HAHA YOU IDIOT TSUBASA.

WingedHeroTsubasa-sama: @everyone does anyone know how to delete an email?

ExtendoEyes : I wonder what Bakugo’s up to. He usually replies when we tag him.

WingedHeroTsubasa-sama: @KingExplosionMurder ?

= =

“Mitsuki, honey? I’m afraid that was the last of the duct tape.”

On the ground, Bakugo Katsuki thrashed around in his rather easily containable rage.

“LET ME GO!”

“We’ll let you out when you calm down, brat!” Growled the Bakugou matriarch. 

“Now tell me, what did you mean by ‘Deku’?”

= =

Principal Nezu played back the security camera footage from the announcer’s booth as he continued to make notes. Clearly, the boy was adapting to the role thrust upon him, meeting the challenges he was facing with the plus ultra attitude that his school held up as a core value.

An email chimed in, and Nezu saved it; looks like the tentative scholarship offer was already finished. He saved it with a smile.

Miss Shimakaze was a magnificently efficient secretary!

He fired off a quick thank you email, and contemplated his second screen upon which sat every piece of publicly available information that he could pull up on one Midoriya Izuku, starting from the personal information that he had provided as a part of his Sports Festival ticket purchase.

It wasn’t much, that boy either didn’t use social media all that much, or valued his privacy and didn’t leave all his information online and interconnected like some people did!

So Nezu had started digging deeper. Midoriya hadn’t included any details about his education on any of his social media profiles, and without the proper warrants or justifications, Nezu couldn’t legally use some of his more far-reaching databases and intrusive search engines - those were reserved for villain investigations, and Midoriya was anything but a villain!

The bearer of High Spec hummed thoughtfully as he sipped his tea, tapping on the keyboard that was built into the arm of his chair.

He began to widen his search, casting his net out towards potential classmates and other social media feeds - potentially inefficient but at least that would yield results eventually - as he absentmindedly fired off replies to some of his contacts, clearing his inbox from the veritable torrent of messages he would be receiving from all over Japan as the second year students performed.

His eyes flicked over to his email inbox as a new email came up from an unexpected email address.

Oh?

What’s this?

Curiosity piqued, Nezu moved the mouse cursor over with a flick of his paw and opened the email.

He read it a few times before bursting out laughing, and then forwarding it to one of his contacts for some extra-academic activities that he participated in.

Then he started seeing what was publicly available from Aldera Middle School, humming a tune as he brought up a new window.

= =

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: Stardust 14-7

Look into this, please.

[Attachment: Email]

Chapter Text

WentTooFarWest: Alright, so I call dibs on the green kid okay? @RatGod

Midnightie: @RatGod I want it on record that I saw him first. <3

YEAAAAH: no

YEAAAAH: I want him on my radio show!

WentTooFarWest: Okay, so he can intern with me then do your radio show, you only need him for one night don’t you?

YEAAAAH: wait shit you’re right

SwearJarBot has deducted ¥100 from YEAAAAH’s next paycheck. Reason: Swearing

YEAAAAH: … hold on, when did we get a swear jar bot?

Thirteen: Last week.

YEAAAAH: fuck, is that even legal?

SwearJarBot has deducted ¥100 from YEAAAAH’s next paycheck. Reason: Swearing

YEAAAAH has changed their nickname to NOOOOO

= = = = =

Izuku stepped out from the bathroom as he fussed over the sleeves of his UA gym uniform, dabbing the wet patches where water had splashed from the sink onto the blue material.

Huh.

His UA gym uniform.

Had he only been wearing this uniform for… twenty minutes? Fifteen?

It felt like it had been longer than that.

It had felt like he belonged in one, now.

Oh boy, you’re already getting attached, Izuku. He chided himself, smiling ruefully as he used tissue to dry off the wet patch on his sleeve. The greenet walked back towards the announcer’s booth, feeling light as he thought about the events that lead up to him being here.

Had it really been only… half an hour? Forty five minutes? 

It would be easy to say that his entire world had been flipped completely on its head by Midnight finding him, and all the events that happened after it. The inner hero fan was still squealing in delight at everything that was happening to him, but another part of him was sadly counting the seconds until this dream was over.

He closed his eyes, breathing in and out.

There was a third part of him that pushed him to do his best, and continue dreaming.

Because maybe - just maybe - if he did make the most of it, the dream could continue.

“Oh, I was wonderin’ when I’d run into you.”

Izuku froze in place, turning around to see a man in a hero costume; a broad stetson-like cowboy’s hat with a roughly s-shaped buckle protecting his forehead, his face hidden behind a tan gas mask, red cloak, a huge revolver at his hip, and knee-high boots with stirrups?

“Ah, you’re the gunslinger hero, Snipe!”

“Tha’s right. Midoriya, right? I got your name from Miss Midnight.” He chuckled. “Shall we walk and talk? Figure you’d be headed back to the announcer’s booth, ain’t you?”

“Th-that’s right, sir!” Oh gosh, a pro hero remembered his name! His hands dug into his pockets, and pulled out his notebook and marker.  “Um, do you mind… signing this?”

The gunslinger hero let out a snort but reached over to take the notebook anyway. “No problem. By the way, I wanted to pass on the word; your ma’s sitting with the second year kids in one of the common rooms. She knows you’re safe.”

“Oh, that’s good to hear! Thank you so much for telling me!” Izuku bowed, and found a hand ruffling his hair. Surprised, he looked up to see that Snipe had reached over to give him a head pat.

“You’re a good kid.” Snipe laughed, handing the notebook back to him. “C’mon, let’s get you back to Eraserhead and Mic.”

“S-sure!”

Izuku tamped down on the urge to ask Snipe about his quirk; they must be busy, running security for the event, and probably didn’t want to be pestered about homing. But still, he did want to ask a lot of questions; like, he obviously didn’t have to touch an object to make it homing, otherwise he’d have to remember which bullet was in which chamber. 

Snipe had once said in an interview that had questions about his quirk that he ‘locked on’ to targets to home in on, so was it an automatic thing that happened - if something was leaving his influence it would automatically home? And did things continue to home in on an object until he released the ‘target lock’? How strong was the homing force, could he curve bullets around a corner? How much control does he have about his homing? Could he switch targets in mid air to make the bullet go in an ‘s’ shape?

“Well, pretty much, yeah.” Snipe nodded as Izuku realized he had been thinking out loud. Again. 

Izuku’s cheeks heated as he walked with the cowboy-themed hero.

“I did some testin’ back when I was studyin’ at Shiketsu. Turns out, my quirk can only start influencin’ an object if it is about a foot - that’s around thirty centimeters - from my hands for me to control it with Homing. I can keep a lock for as long as I have line of sight, so that sunk the idea of doing any around-the-corner shooting… though this suddenly gives me the idea to try... y’know, see if I can’t shoot around glass or other transparent materials.”

“That way, you could always try to hit things from the side, like in a hostage situation!”

“Well, I wouldn’t try that exactly but it's the right idea. However, if I try to control th’ trajectory, I lose power real quick, so with my bullets I would have to sacrifice a lot of power. Fact is, it’s better for me to just shoot two bullets rather than to try and switch targets in midair. Not to mention, bullets shoot so fast that they’re outside my ‘influence’ by the time I can even think to switch.”

“Which means you’re basically stuck with whatever you’re locked onto.” Izuku observed.

“Not a bad thing as far as disadvantages go, it hasn’t been an issue so far. Those are pretty good questions, kid! Even if you don’t make it into the hero course I can already tell you’d make for one hell of an analyst in the future.”

Izuku blushed and bowed again. “Thank you, Snipe-san!”

Snipe chuckled. “You want to be a hero though, don’t you?”

Izuku hesitated, then nodded.

“That’s right, sir.”

“It’s alright, everyone does!” The gunslinger hero flicked Izuku’s shoulder, causing him to jump in surprise. He chuckled, and pointed at his arm. “But I tell you what: You gotta train your body, kid.”

“Huh?” 

Where was the question about his quirk?

The cowboy just continued to laugh, though it was without any heat. “You’re a noodle, kid. Have you done any physical training to prepare for the hero course?”

“N-no. I haven’t.”

“Say, how fast can you sprint a hundred yar-meters?”

When did he even run a hundred meters? Was it during the last physical assessment day? When had that been? 

Well, he was pretty good at running, but... 16 seconds? Maybe? Izuku wasn't sure. “Uh…”

“Doesn’ matter, actually, cuz the point is; you should start runnin’ or joggin’ in the morning, and do pushups at home, whatever you can do to increase your physical fitness. Most of the flunk-outs we have in the first semester is due to a lack of physical fitness, students thinking that a strong quirk is enough to get them through.” Snipe lectured, though he did maintain a kind tone. “People call me ‘th’ gunslinger hero’ but four times out of five, a villain takedown I’m involved in don’t even need me drawing my gun, and even half of those where I do, I don’t even pull a trigger.”

He turned to face Izuku, and even behind the glass lenses of his mask, Izuku could feel himself being fixed by the man’s gaze. “You can’t fight villains if you’re just a twig, kid. Even if you want to be just an analyst, being healthy and fit will do you wonders.”

Izuku nodded, shyly. “I will, sir.”

Snipe chuckled. “Hey, if you want any help with that kind of thing, just flick me a message. I’ll help with what I can, alright? I can help you with your quirk too.”

The greenet went stock-still as Snipe scratched his gas mask filter.

"Say, what is your quirk anyw-"

“OI, MIDORIYA! THERE YOU ARE!” Mic hollered. “C’MON, KID, WE’RE ABOUT TO GET STARTED!”

(MIC, YOU SAVED ME!)

“Better get goin’, Midoriya! I’ll see you around!” Snipe saluted, tipping his hat, and Izuku bowed again and sprinted towards the booth’s entrance.

That was close!

“No wonder it took you so long to get back, kid, that guy can really ramble!” Laughed Mic, jumping back into his seat.

“Welcome back, Midoriya.” Nodded Aizawa, and the greenet shook off his nerves as he took up his own seat - and was that a third microphone just for him?

“Alright ramblers, let's get ramblin’.” Mic grinned, sucking in a deep breath as he grabbed the microphone and pulled it up to his lips. “GENTLEMEN, LADIES, AND PEOPLE THAT NOTICED I SAID IT THE OTHER WAY ‘ROUND-”

= = = = =

FingerMaster: Just got off the phone with my uncle.

ExtendoEyes: Did he alert the rest of the HPSC?

FingerMaster: So it turns out my uncle works as a janitor at an HPSC building. 

FingerMaster: He’s not an HPSC administrator or anything. 

WingedHeroTsubasa-sama: HAHAHAHA

FingerMaster: All he said was that he worked for the HPSC! 

FingerMaster: He said it was MY fault for assuming! 

FingerMaster: Asshole! 

FingerMaster: I’m going to tell everyone about this.

ExtendoEyes: Well shit, so are we calling the police next? 

WingedHeroTsubasa-sama: Maybe the media?

ExtendoEyes: Eh, let’s just watch the next match first, that swirly girl is pretty hot.

= = = = =

“...AND NEJIRE-CHAN BLASTS HER OPPONENT OUT OF THE RING IN THE FASTEST ROUND OF THE FINAL EVENT!”

“Mic, it’s only the second round…” Grumbled Aizawa.

“STILL THE FASTEST, ERASERHEAD!” Shot back the voice hero.

“But it was still an impressive display of precision and control!” Izuku pointed out, feeling more confident now in where he needed to step in, which Aizawa seemed to appreciate. “Hadou-san knocked her opponent barely a meter or more from the edge of the arena, rather than blasting her clear away! Clearly she’s used to regulating her energy spirals, since we can see how damaged the arena is when she boxed in Maki-san and prevented her fire spirits from being able to reform a defense!”

Unlike a certain exploding blonde.

“I WAS PRACTICING POWER REGULATION A LOT!” Shouted Nejire from the edge of the arena, waving at the announcer’s booth. “THANKS FOR NOTICING!”

Izuku froze up.

Oh. Gods. 

A girl was talking to him!

Aizawa saved him from having to respond, tapping his own broadcast button. “Thank you, Hadou, please clear the field so Cementoss can fix it up.”

“ALRIGHT!”

Izuku didn’t react even when Mic reached over and poked him on the cheek with a pointer finger.

“Kid, you alright?” He hissed.

The greenet was still bluescreened.

Well that don’t look good.” Mic said unhelpfully.

Eraserhead looked him over, and then shrugged.

Mic’s expression looked more and more worried. “Oi oi oi, is he really okay?”

The Erasure hero sighed. This kid was a real hero nerd, right?

Aizawa raised his arm, pointing out towards the far side of the stadium. 

“Hey look, it’s All Might.” He said, deadpan.

Izuku immediately snapped back to attention, notebook and marker pen in hand. “WHERE!?”

Mic snorted.

“He’s fine.” Aizawa confirmed with a nod.

“Hahahaha, thanks for the scare, kid!” Mic barked out a laugh, and pointed at Izuku’s notebook. “Say, did you want us to sign that?”

Aizawa instantly answered. “I don’t do autographs, Mic.”

“Yes plea-oh.” Izuku said simultaneously.

Mic autographed the book quickly, before spinning it around and pushing it over to Eraserhead, giving him a very expectant Look. 

The Erasure hero glared back at Mic, then at Izuku’s hopeful expression and hesitated for only a moment before uncapping the offered marker and flipping the book over to the page Midoriya had opened it to.

Huh, that was a pretty good drawing of himself. He saw writing, though, talking about his costume - and especially his capture scarf, noting how its use didn’t seem to rely on his quirk, and that even a quirkless person could use one with enough skill and practice.

Which was entirely true, but… he felt like that observation was important.

Eraserhead signed the book after chewing on his lip for a moment, before passing the notebook back to Izuku.

The greenet he quickly stepped out again, his adequately-charged phone dialling his mother.

As he did, Aizawa pondered.

Why did Midoriya’s notes mention a quirkless person using my capture scarf, specifically?

The buzz of his phone - with an echo from Yamada’s - interrupted his thoughts.

He shelved it for later as he opened up the teacher’s chat. 

= = = = =

RatGod: Well, we already do have the facilities to, well, facilitate a competition.

Thirteen: It sets an unhealthy precedent, not to mention it’ll be resource intensive for little gain.

Inui: I’m just saying, it’d be a perfect way to sort out who can take on Midoriya-kun as a mentor, right @everyone ?

AizawaShota: So, while we’re still repairing after the round, let me get this straight; you all want to set up a post-Sports Festival deathmatch tournament/battle royale/survival game to decide on who gets to be Midoriya’s internship mentor?

WentTooFarWest: yes

Midnightie: yes

NOOOOO : yes

NOOOOO : goddammit

SwearJarBot has deducted ¥100 from YEAAAAH’s next paycheck. Reason: Swearing

NOOOOO has changed their nickname to YEAAAAH 

YEAAAAH: yes

YEAAAAH: also, g*ddammit isn’t even a swear word!

SwearJarBot has deducted ¥100 from YEAAAAH’s next paycheck. Reason: Yes it is.

YEAAAAH: … wait

YEAAAAAH: @RatGod you’re just messing with me aren’t you.

RatGod: That is correct!

YEAAAAH: Oh thank fuck .

SwearJarBot has deducted ¥50,000 from YEAAAAH’s next paycheck. Reason: You’re still going to get swear jar notifications, Yamada. It's not good to swear around children.

YEAAAAH: He isn’t even in the same room!

WentTooFarWest: Where did he go now?

YEAAAAH: He’s talking to his mom, catching up. Sounds like she’s really proud of him, cuzI can hear him crying from here.

Midnightie: Aww

Inui: Awww

RushHours: Awww

Thirteen: Awww...

AizawaShota: Anyway, can’t we just let the kid decide?

YEAAAAH: No, because I already gave him my autograph and Snipe would just bribe Midori with his.

WentTooFarWest: …

YEAAAAH: You totally would don’t you fucking dare lie to me.

SwearJarBot has deducted ¥69 from YEAAAAH’s next paycheck. Reason: Swearing.

Midnightie: nice

WentTooFarWest: nice

Inui: Nice.

YEAAAAAH: nice

Thirteen: Nice.  

Thirteen: Still, can he even do an internship? Those are meant for hero course students and he isn’t even a student here!

RatGod: I am working on resolving that situation.

RatGod: Given that I’ve already received over 50 offers for internships from various pro hero agencies, I would be remiss as an educator for him to miss out on such an opportunity to grow.

Thirteen: Awww <3

RatGod: That being said, IF Midoriya decides to intern with a hero, we obviously will not be throwing Midoriya-kun into a traditional limelight/frontline hero internship.

RatGod: Rather, we will be looking for a mentor who will be able to help him prepare for the UA entrance examinations or develop his analytical skills, preferably both.

RatGod: Several who have completed an intern request forms that include Midoriya-kun are appropriate for this role and have been advanced to the next stage of consideration.

WentTooFarWest: But I called dibs first, @RatGod . 

Midnightie: I saw him first!

WentTooFarWest: In that case, I invoke shotgun .

Thirteen: Shotgun only applies to car seats though?

WentTooFarWest sent a video file.

[Video: Snipe picks up and racks a pump action shotgun]

WentTooFarWest: Hand over the green bean intern and nobody gets hurt.

Thirteen: Oh.

YEAAAAH: o

Midnightie: Oh my

Inui: Oh

AizawaShota: He’s not even an intern yet!

SwearJarBot has deducted ¥100,000 from WentTooFarWest’s next paycheck. Reason: He’s got a gun!

Chapter Text

DiggyDiggyHole: ...

DiggyDiggyHole: The hell have you lot been up to?

= = = = =

Izuku’s tears splashed against his shoes and the concrete floor beneath.

His mother’s voice was firm with pride and more than a few tears of her own.

“You did a really good job, Izuku!” She let out a wet sniffle. “I’m really proud of you.”

“Th-thank you, mom…” The younger Midoriya wiped at his eyes with a sleeve, lips wobbling as he held the phone to his ear. “It’s been really fun! The students have really cool quirks! And S-snipe-san talked to me about his quirk, too!”

Inko let out a wobbly little giggle. “I’m just so glad the teachers can see how smart you are, Izuku...”

“The h-heroes have been really nice to me, ma.” Izuku confirmed. “I even got Eraserhead-san’s autograph! He never gives those out!”

“Oh you lucky, lucky boy.” Mama laughed, and quietly said ‘thank you’ (had someone handed her tissues? Izuku needed tissues…)

“I know, they’ve all been… they’ve all been so nice.” The middle schooler hiccupped, cupping his phone in both hands; his body was trembling so much that he wasn’t sure that he could keep his grip with only one hand. “Are you okay? I’ve heard Aizawa-sen- san complain about how rowdy they can get.”

“No, no, the second years have been behaving. They’ve been very nice.”

Distantly, Izuku could hear a male voice join the call as he shouted, “DON’T WORRY, MIDORIYA-KUN, YOUR MAMA’S SAFE WITH US! HERO TRACK STUDENT’S HONOR!”

A chorus of laughter and ‘aww’s filtered in from around Inko. Izuku realized that the rest of the room could probably hear her.

Those could be my senpai next year , came the thought.

If you had a quirk , hissed another.

There was some chatter, indistinct to him, but following soft laughter Inko spoke into the phone again.

“Honey? Some of the students want to say hello and speak to you.”

“Ah? S-sure!”

“Okay, I’m handing you over now.”

There was a rustle on the line.

“Greetings, Midoriya-kun, I am Mifune Tsuna, class president of class 2-A! A pleasure to meet you! On behalf of the student body at UA, I must thank you for your supportive commentary of my classmates and your analysis of their quirks, which no doubt will contribute to the attention paid to them by pro heroes. I hope to see you at the welcoming ceremony next year!”

Izuku tensed, but not as much as before.

How could he feel the formal bow from Mifune-san? Fresh tears sprang to his eyes as he locked up again.

He didn’t have time to lock up at the girl’s voice as he did with Hadou, however, as another voice burst into the call.

“AND HELP ME WITH MY ANALYSIS HOMEWORK OKAY!? I’LL GIVE MY EMAIL TO MAMA-DORIYA!” Shouted one of Mifune’s male classmates. The trembling silence gave way to uproar as Mifune let out a scandalized noise.

“You’d better be paying Midoriya-kun for that privilege, Raikou! And cut it out with that overly-familiar nickname, Midoriya-san is an honored gue-” 

Izuku pulled the phone away from his ear as others began shouting, and things sounded like the room had descended to chaos from there as other second years shouted at the phone as well, some calling for help with their homework and others saying things about their quirk (Izuku had always had a sharp ear for when the word ‘quirk’ was mentioned) as the phone line degenerated into a rowdy mess.

Izuku stared at his phone for a moment, not sure what to do.

The indecision was taken from him as a request came through to change the voice call to a video call.

He quickly accepted it with a swipe, and positioned the phone in front of his face.

His mother’s face appeared on screen, smiling with unbridled amusement as she looked at something off screen.

“The class president is really strong.” She whispered, laughing with her eyes.

The camera switched from the face camera to the rear camera, and Izuku found himself looking at a tableau of chaos, centered around a girl with short brown hair. Despite her petite frame, she had both her arms wrapped around a pair of much larger students’ necks, wrestling both down as she stomped a third (a student with a panda mutation) down with her foot.

All the while, the girl - who he presumed was Mifune-san from earlier - was shouting louder than everyone to calm down and leave his mother to make the phone call in peace.

The student currently pinned by her left arm tapped her elbow. He had pale red hair that was almost pink, worn short and spiked as what looked like an emitter/enhancer quirk was glowing just beneath his collar - something that the brunette was overcoming, though Izuku figured that nobody was treating this like a real fight. 

“Oh hey, Mifune-iinchou, Mamadoriya’s recording. Say hi to YouTube!”

“Hi YouTube!” Shouted the other student currently in a headlock, a dark haired student with even longer spiky hair.

“WHAT!?” Mifune’s head snapped up and locked onto the camera, and the call suddenly cut as Inko yelped.

He stared blankly at the screen, wondering if he should call back.

“Uh...”

= =

Pro Hero Hawks @HawksOfficial · 8m

Oh man, Hadou-chan, great fight, but more importantly I want to race sometime! @UAOfficial can we have a try? Maybe that green kid can be an announcer too!

#UASportsFest #UAnalyst

Pro Hero Ryukyu @Dragonator309 · 6m

Oi, that’s my intern you’re talking about, @HawksOfficial . Hands off.

Bandit230Angels10 @TopGunFan2022  · 4m

Wow Hawks really did wake up this morning and thought it’d be a great day to start picking fights with every other top hero.

= = 

Tsubasa was not having a good day.

That fight with Nejire-chan hadn’t lasted more than a few minutes!

Not only that, but everyone was ignoring him!

“Man, that’s the third reporter that hung up on me today.” He lamented, tossing his phone away.

Just how hard was it to let people know that Deku was the sports festival announcer, anyway?

The winged boy flopped back, looking over to his hero posters.

Hawks, of course, dominated the wall, his red wings and smiling face mixed with other heroes and heroines that had wings like his.

Hm.

Hawks?

Tsubasa reached over to his discarded phone and pulled it up, opening his Twitter feed.

He felt a spike of jealousy as he saw that #GoGreenie was trending, but started swiping through anyway.

= = 

So, as you all know, there’s a green head of broccoli currently covering the fights at the #UASportsFest but there’s basically no info about him. 

If anyone can get me some deets that leads to him interning under me, I’m willing to pay a bounty of ¥10 |

… hmm.

Takami Keigo, Pro Hero Hawks, scratched his chin as he thought about how much to put out as the ‘bounty’ for information. Was 10,000 yen not enough or too much? Should he offer more?

He leaned into a dive, skimming just below traffic light level as he curled his wings in between a pair of trucks, and then flared to land on a purse snatcher.

As he sat on the would-be thief, he had another thought: Wait, was this even legal?

Maybe he should check with someone.

Keigo thought for a moment, trying to think of who he could call. Someone who knew what they were doing. Someone he could also annoy.

Ooh, that’s who he should ask.

He leaned back, grabbing his earpiece and looping it over his ear. Switching apps on his phone, he tapped a few buttons and started up a call to someone who would know. After three short rings, the call went through and connected. 

“Hey, Rumi, you’ve done bounty hunter type stuff before, right?” He immediately opened, cutting off the brusque ‘what?’ that she liked to open with.

“... yeah, what about it, birb?” By some miracle, Usagiyama Rumi didn’t immediately hang up on him. Did she suspect that this was a business call? 

Her loss, grinned Keigo. “I’m trying to get info about the green bean.”

“Green b- what the fuck do you mean?”

Keigo laughed as he waved at his sidekick, and left him to deal with the purse snatcher, kicking off the ground and beating his wings to gain altitude. 

“Aren’t you watching the UA sports festival?” He asked, teasing.

"What? No! I’m working right now, birb! Do you really think I’d give two shits about little kids playfighting?”

“Oh, the green bean didn’t fight.” Grinned Hawks, even as he waved at some of the passers by as he ascended back up to rooftop level.

There was a bark of laughter from Rumi.  “You already told me about this green bean, and I’m about to shove it up your ass, whatever it is.”

“Green bean is a kid. Very cute, he’s like twelve years old and they dressed him up in a UA uniform and everything.”

There was a frustrated growl from Rumi’s end. “... so what’s this about a bounty?”

Hawks grinned. If Mirko could see him now, she would have told him that it was perfect for shit-eating. Or kicking.

“Well, I wanted to put up a bounty for information about the kid. If someone gives me the info, I’d pay them… uh, how much would be right? Like, would five be enough? Should I pay more, maybe ten? Twenty?”

Rumi let out a sigh, connecting the dots. “You’d better be paying me twenty just for the air I’m wasting talking to you, Keigo.”

“So twenty sounds about right?”

“Yeah, sure, I guess?”

Hawks smirked as he opened up his app and flicked Rumi ¥20.

There was a pause on the line as Rumi checked her phone. He could imagine her unlocking it and finding the notification.

There was a muffled sputter, and then, “Motherfucker!”

Rumi hung up to the sound of Keigo’s laughter.

He pulled out his phone as he settled down on the rooftop, opening the social media app and... 

Hello, what’s this?

Keigo’s eyes shot up into his hairline as he read through the notification, a grin spreading across his face.

= =

WingedHeroTsubasa @WingedHeroTsubasa0903333 · 1m

@HawksOfficial , I have information about the kid announcer at UA, he’s an impostor, please DM me!

#UAnalyst #fake

= = 

He rang Mirko again.

One ring, two rings… the call connected!

Huh, she didn’t have caller ID, did she?

“What?”

“Hey, Rumi, if I didn’t post the bounty but someone came to me with info anyway, do I still have to pay them?”

Mirko hung up the call.

Keigo snorted, and sent her another ¥20 consultation fee.

= =

Pro Hero Hawks: @WingedHeroTsubasa0903333 hey, buddy, why don’t you tell me what you know.

WingedHeroTsubasa0903333 is typing…

= = = = =

Eraserhead’s capture scarf is incredibly versatile, with applications in defense, capture, mobility, and rescue. Despite this, it doesn’t interact with his sight-based quirk nullification quirk, leading to the conclusion that even a quirkless hero could use it with enough practice.

Those worlds rolled around in Shota’s head as he pondered on the phrasing of Midoriya’s notes.

The memory was annoying him like a piece of tape stuck to the underside of a cat’s belly.

He paid careful attention as Midoriya settled back into his chair ( his chair, Aizawa chuckled to himself. How quickly had they accepted that the chair had become his ?) at the announcer’s booth and plugged his phone back into the charger.

“Everything okay with your mom, Midoriya?” Hizashi asked, screwing the cap back onto the bottle of water he had been drinking from.

The greenet nodded nervously. “Y-yeah, just things got a little rowdy at the end, with the rest of the students.”

“Troublemakers,” Shota grunted sagely, thinking of the number of times he’d had to use his quirk on his students to quiet them down.

Erasure is simply a quirk that levels the playing field; Eraserhead fights quirkless, and forces others to do the same (barring mutation quirks).

Quirkless.

Mic, meanwhile, leaned over, concerned. “Do I need to speak to anyone?”

“N-no, Mifune-san had everything under control.”

Mic hummed happily. “Good girl, that one. She’ll make a great hero!”

“Y-yeah, does she have an enhancer quirk or something? She was wrestling down like three other students!”

That’s because she’s been training with aikido and judo since she was seven . Shota’s mind retorted, but Mic answered Midoriya’s question.

“Nope, her quirk is actually called ‘Wind Edge’; she can create a solid object around something she touches, usually her hand or a sword she uses as part of her hero costume.” Mic explained. “She also can make it a rougher shape, or rounded, so that she can blunt objects that are normally sharp, or sharpen objects that are normally blunt by wrapping a construct around it!”

Izuku’s mind raced as he thought of the possibilities that the class president could do with her quirk, but then Mic leaned over.

“But hey, kid, I’ve been curious: what’s your quirk?” Mic asked.

Izuku flinched, eyes squeezing shut in pain, as if he had been physically struck.

Or like a student who didn’t have an answer to a question.

Shota’s head whipped around as everything fell into place.

= =

Izuku’s eyes were shut, and in his ears he could hear ringing, a ghostly screech like after he was too close to one of Kacchan’s explosions.

He was - just barely - aware of Mic asking him, repeating the question? He wasn’t sure.

Just tell them you’re quirkless, Deku.

Let the lie go, Deku. Dream’s over.

Because it's time to wake up.

And if you’re really lucky, when you open your eyes, it’ll be the morning of the Sports Festival and mom’s downstairs getting ready to go.

When he did open his eyes, however, he could only see Aizawa-sensei’s - Eraserhead’s - concerned eyes, glinting red as they knelt down in front of Izuku.

Erasure causes Eraserhead’s eyes to glow red. He remembered.

But there’s no quirk to nullify, was there?

Your quirk won’t work, Eraserhead.

So why?

Instinctive activation due to stress response?

He’s about to strike.

RUN!

Izuku ran.

Chapter Text

Izuku ran.

Mic was practically bowled over as the fourteen year old middle schooler, the quirkless fourteen year old middle schooler that had spent the last two matches gushing about quirks , sprinted out the door with a surprising alacrity.

“Fuck!”

Shota didn’t bother saying anything to Mic as he sprinted after Midoriya, following him out into the hall. Faster than he imagined that the scrawny middle schooler could move, Midoriya was gone , opening up the distance in the long, slightly curving hallway, disappearing from sight.

Aizawa muffled the temptation to sprint after him at full speed and simply snatch the boy up with his capture scarf. He broke into a run, intent on catching up to Midoriya. 

The boy was a scared victim, not a villain to be taken down, and it would be far better for Izuku to calmly listen rather than give into blind panic and struggle.

By the time he turned the corner, the boy was already turning the next, and Aizawa ran after him. 

Despite having worked at this school for a better part of five years, however, Izuku quickly lost him, turning too many corners and his footsteps mixing with the hub-bub of the spectators above and the sounds Midnight calling up the next matchup.

He keyed into the local heronet, and started speaking on the broadcast frequency set up specifically for UA teachers. “Nezu, Eraserhead.”

The hero teachers of UA, when rallied, had a convention of dropping rank and seniority. It didn’t matter what your billboard ranking was in an emergency, and this was something that they tried to instill in the students as well. 

After all, there was an oft repeated saying in this kind of situation: a hero in motion outranked one doing nothing, and the Rat’s voice came on immediately, clipped and professional and devoid of his usual cheek. 

“Receiving, Eraserhead, go.”

“Midoriya bolted, probably having a panic attack. He ran out of the announcer’s booth and to the right, I need eyes on cameras, searching for him. Last sighting was near…” Shota checked the nearest door. “Near supply closet 3-44, running northbound.”

Nezu made an affirmative hum. “Copy, Eraserhead. Starting search now.”

“Is the little listener okay?” Crackled Hizashi's voice, heavy with worry and guilt. 

“I’ll update you when I can. He’s not physically hurt.” Shota promised. “Mic, handle the commentating. Might need a floater if he tries to sprint out the building. Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Mic replied.

“Snipe here, I can float. What happened in th’ booth?” Snipe asked.

“The kid’s quirk status came up. He’s quirkless.” Eraserhead reported. “Kid got a shock and bolted.”

“... ah shit .” The cowboy swore. “I was about to ask him about his quirk, earlier. Fuck .”

Shota turned the corner, and found himself at a stairwell. He stopped, closing off his other senses as he tried to listen… 

“I’m headed up to level 4, I think I heard him go up the stairs.”

“Understood, Eraserhead.” Nezu’s voice was all business as the rattle of keyboards filled his end of the line. “I’ve activated search-and-track on the motion detectors. Will update when I find him. I’m linking Miss Shimakaze into the line to help.”

“Understood, Nezu. Moving now.” He slowed to a jog, eyes scanning for Izuku.

Damn, kid, you’d better be alright.

= = = = =

Hisui @Hisu1Unofficial · 1m

Hey, where did the green kid go? 

#UASportsFest #GoGreenie

Analysis Abridged - S. Kudo @SKudoAnalysis · 1m

Eraserhead is also gone. Could something have happened?

#UASportsFest #GoGreenie

= = = = =

Nezu’s eyes flickered across all six of the massive screens in his fully deployed workstation. 

Camera angles snapped from camera to camera, triggered by motion as he searched for a head if messy green locks in a UA gym uniform.

Twenty seconds into his search and three hits registered on the UA security system. He discarded the first because it was on the wrong end of the stadium, and the other two were very close to each other.

“All points, Miss Shimakaze, Eraserhead, I’ve located Midoriya. He’s in the fifth floor outer hallway, clockwise from Eraserhead’s current position. He’s slowed considerably from his initial run. He’s about to hit a blind spot between the two seating sections, so I will attempt to box him into a private space.”

His paws flew over the controls, locking doors and sealing rooms so that Midoriya would remain undisturbed; Eraserhead would get his one-on-one, heart-to-heart with the boy.

“Understood, Nezu. Eraserhead moving to catch up.”

The conventional words were ‘still in pursuit’, but the rat/bear/dog smiled in appreciation of Aizawa using his words to set himself and the other listeners in the right frame of mind.

“Affirmative, Eraserhead. Best of luck.”

= = = = =

Pro Hero Hawks: So he’s quirkless?

WingedHeroTsubasa0903333: Yes, always has been. And surprise, surprise, he’s also a liar about everything. I’d bet you he snuck in and stole a UA uniform to pretend to be a UA student because he couldn’t take being a loser.

Pro Hero Hawks: And, he’s actually a middle schooler?

WingedHeroTsubasa0903333: At Aldera Middle School, yeah. We’re in the same class, actually, and Deku keeps annoying everyone with his muttering!

Pro Hero Hawks: Deku is his nickname, but his real name is Midoriya Izuku?

WingedHeroTsubasa0903333: Yes. 

WingedHeroTsubasa0903333: Also, my name’s Garaki Tsubasa, by the way. I have a bat wing quirk that lets me fly like you!

Pro Hero Hawks: Sweet, now I know what to put on the internship request form.

WingedHeroTsubasa0903333: Really!? :D

Pro Hero Hawks: Yeah, by the way, do you happen to have any of his socials?

Pro Hero Hawks: Also, gotta go, there’s an alert nearby.

WingedHeroTsubasa0903333: Sure, I’ll pull up what I can, Hawks! Talk to you soon!

= = = = =

WingedHeroTsubasa-sama: Guess who’s getting an internship offer from Hawks, guys?

FingerMaster: What?

ExtendoEyes: You’re joking.

WingedHeroTsubasa-sama sent a screenshot.

ExtendoEyes: What the fuck?

FingerMaster: Holy shit.

WingedHeroTsubasa-sama: He was so impressed with the information I gave him on Deku! I told him everything!

ExtendoEyes: Damn I wish I thought of going to Hawks.

WingedHeroTsubasa-sama: But you didn’t, eyeballs, but I’ll recommend you guys to him after my internship is finished.

FingerMaster: Hey, did you see how Deku’s missing from the announcer’s booth now? Present Mic is still there's no sign of Deku!

WingedHeroTsubasa-sama: Hah, they must have apprehended him once Hawks called UA with the information I gave him.

FingerMaster: Fucker deserves it.

ExtendoEyes: Now that that’s taken care of, let’s enjoy the rest of the Sports Festival, Deku-free!

= = = = =

Izuku was breathless, wheezing as his heart felt like it was ready to break his ribs and punch out of his chest. His knees were shaking, and sweat beaded down his forehead as he slid to a stop. 

So many locked doors!

They’re herding you .

He pushed open a room, which wasn’t locked, and a small multipurpose room with a bunch of two-person desks and chairs arranged into a classroom configuration, with a podium and a more solid-looking desk up front for a teacher to stand at.

Break line of sight.

That was important. He managed to stagger over to the large desk, and slumped down behind it, out of sight from someone poking their head into the room.

Then he started to cry.

Uneven, shallow breaths.

Hiccuping through his tears.

Izuku cried like the deku he was.

= = = = =

Yamada Hizashi held two phones in his hand as he juggled commentating and typing on a phone keyboard. One belonged to Midoriya Izuku, and the other was his own.

YEAAAAH: @everyone any updates on where the little listener is?

Thirteen: Still searching for him.

YEAAAAH: Shota’s going to be first contact, yeah?

Thirteen: @YEAAAAAH correct.

YEAAAAAH: Can anyone make a pickup for a phone at the booth?

WentTooFarWest: @YEAAAAH on my way.

YEAAAAH: Where are you right now, @AizawaShota? This needs to get to Midoriya.

AizawaShota: Level 5, C-block room 32.

AizawaShota: About to walk in and talk to Midoriya now.

YEAAAAH: Good luck.

DiggyDiggyHole: good luck

Midnightie: good luck

Inui: I’ll be listening on the net if you need me.

= = = = =

Muffled though it might have been, Izuku could hear the roar of the crowd as the next match continued.

They probably didn’t even notice you being gone .

He sucked in a deep breath, and slowly let it out.

Dammit.

Dammit!

He wanted to punch something.

Footsteps rang out down the hall, and the door to the room opened.

“Midoriya?”

Izuku curled up tighter, and tried to breathe as quietly as he could.

Eraserhead stepped into the room, and closed the door behind him, because of course the heroes would know where he was, they’d be tracking him through the security cameras he had seen everywhere as he had run, stupid deku!

There was the scrape of a chair being pulled up, and the rustle of the costumed hero sitting down.

The Erasure hero said nothing, sitting there in silence for a moment.

Was he waiting for Izuku to confess?

Izuku was happy to put off hearing the Erasure hero’s judgement for as long as he could.

As pathetic as it was, every second that he could cling to the dream he had been living for the last hour was worth the pain that would come, seemingly intent on being sooner than later.

He didn’t know how much time passed, but eventually, Aizawa let out a breath and spoke.

“I’m sorry we weren’t more considerate.”

Izuku bit his tongue. More considerate? The pro heroes had welcomed him to the booth, let him wear a UA uniform! They’d invited him to ramble on and on with his creepy analysis and told him that it was perceptive and insightful!

They’d let him pretend, for just an hour, that he wasn’t a useless, quirkless Deku!

And they said they could have been more considerate?

It would have driven him to tears, if he wasn’t there already.

“We didn’t think about how painful it would have been for you to answer that question. For that, I hope you can forgive us.”

The greenet curled in on himself as he slumped against the table.

“I didn’t put enough thought into why so many of your notes on me were focused around the quirkless and applying support gear for heroics without a quirk.”

Aizawa stood up, and walked over to Izuku. He sat down in a fluid motion, and leaned against the wall - a mirror of Izuku’s current repose. The Erasure hero’s mouth was hidden behind his capture weapon, but his eyes met with Izuku’s, both half-hidden by their messy mops of hair.

“You were planning on being a quirkless hero, weren’t you?”

Izuku didn’t trust himself to give a coherent answer, so he just nodded, squeezing his eyes shut.

He was ready to hear what would come next.

Deku was used to being told his dreams were unreachable.

“I didn’t pass the heroics course entrance exam when I first applied to UA.” Eraserhead recalled. “I was in the general education track until I could show what I could do at the sports festival. Had to kick Mic’s ass to get into the hero track.”

His eyes were smiling in nostalgia.

“The UA heroics course is not impossible to get into for anyone, even if they don’t get there using the fastest route, or succeed on the first try.”

“I think you have a better chance than I did.”

“You have a quirk.” Izuku whispered.

“And you have more than half the teachers here ready to eat out of your hand.” Eraserhead offered a rare, bare smile. “We won’t cheat results for you, Principal Nezu wouldn’t allow that even if we were willing, but we can train you, help you prepare. You know he’s already having to explain to actual pros that you aren’t a UA student yet?”

Yet?

The PA crackled to life and a chipper voice filtered in. “Sixty three offers, and that’s excluding the ones ineligible to train you, Midoriya kun!”

Aizawa shrugged as Izuku looked at him in askance. “Beyond that? Even if you don’t get into the toughest hero course in the country, you can still be a hero, Midoriya.”

“But… why would anyone want a quirkless hero?” Izuku murmured, spite laced in his voice.

“Why not? There’s people who already do want a quirkless hero.” The answer came, but it wasn’t from Aizawa.

Izuku nearly jumped in surprise as Snipe came in through the door, spurs jingling. 

The gunslinger hero slid the door closed behind him, and it sealed with a quiet click.

“You should have a read of your phone, Midoriya.” He said, reaching out with a hand. Izuku recognised the cracked screen of his phone and accepted it as Snipe sat down between himself and Eraserhead. 

“There’s more than one hero that already wants you to be their intern, just based on your actions , let alone whatever other talents you have under the hood. Hell, I’m one of them.”

Izuku read.

And read..

He cried.

He laughed.

He cried again.

He wouldn’t be a Midoriya without the tears.

= = = = =

Pro Hero Hawks: Hey, Midoriya, right? Midoriya Izuku?

Pro Hero Hawks: This is Hawks. #5 Pro Hero.

Pro Hero Hawks: You’re the kid from the announcer’s booth at the UA Sports Festival?

Pro Hero Hawks: I got your details from a classmate of yours. 

Pro Hero Hawks: He came to me about it, actually. 

Pro Hero Hawks: So I know you’re not actually a UA student!

Pro Hero Hawks: Aldera Middle School, right?

Pro Hero Hawks: I sent an application form anyway.

Pro Hero Hawks: You might be asking: why?

Pro Hero Hawks: It's because… *drumroll*

Pro Hero Hawks: There’s a lot of dangerous quirks out there that my support team analyses.

Pro Hero Hawks: They help out a lot of other heroes as well.

Pro Hero Hawks: So you’ll get to meet all kinds of heroes! Maybe even All Might!

Pro Hero Hawks: Yes, this is naked bribery.

Pro Hero Hawks: I’d love to have a chance to work with someone with a brain almost as fast as mine, especially in the field of analysis and investigation.

Pro Hero Hawks: I don’t get to do enough of that stuff, y’know?

Pro Hero Hawks: And a lot more villains can overpower heroes these days.

Pro Hero Hawks: So we heroes have to fight smarter, not just harder.

Pro Hero Hawks: And we can solve crimes together! 

Pro Hero Hawks: I’ll make sure you’re investigating non-violent stuff like drug trafficking.

Pro Hero Hawks: …

Pro Hero Hawks: wow that sounds bad

Pro Hero Hawks: sorry

Pro Hero Hawks: Oh look, a change of subject!

Pro Hero Hawks: Do you know any green birds?

Pro Hero Hawks: We need to set you up with a codename that’s bird themed yknow?

Pro Hero Hawks: Even if it’s just for the internship.

Pro Hero Hawks: Especially if you don’t like birds.

Pro Hero Hawks: Actually, if you don’t like hawks, that might be a dealbreaker. 

Pro Hero Hawks: I like hawks. 

Pro Hero Hawks: Because, you know.

Pro Hero Hawks: *points at wings*

Pro Hero Hawks: Anyway, point is. 

Pro Hero Hawks: Look me up when you wanna be a hero.

Pro Hero Hawks: I’ll show you all the tips and tricks!

Pro Hero Hawks: Btw, I know you’re quirkless. 

Pro Hero Hawks: Would be pretty good to see a quirkless pro on the scene.

Pro Hero Hawks: And its not like I need my interns to fly! 

Pro Hero Hawks: I’m just too fast anyway hahaha

Pro Hero Hawks: We could get you a jetpack though, or a helicopter.

Pro Hero Hawks: Can fourteen year olds get a helicopter pilot license?

Pro Hero Hawks: At this point, I’m going to assume you’re busy.

Pro Hero Hawks: Have fun living it up with the pros at UA, or maybe some of the students. 

Pro Hero Hawks: Please don’t take internships from them.

Pro Hero Hawks: Especially the students, btw, they are literal amateurs.

Pro Hero Hawks: More importantly, none of them are as cool as I am.

Pro Hero Hawks: I repeat; don’t take internship offers from them.

Pro Hero Hawks: Unless it’s Midnight, because I was 14 once too.

Pro Hero Hawks: Would not blame you for that at all.

Pro Hero Hawks: So when you see this spam of messages, call me back okat6gyhbuj

Pro Hero Hawks: dropped my phone hehe

Pro Hero Hawks: okat*

Pro Hero Hawks: oksy*

Pro Hero Hawks: okay? *

= = = = =

HeroWatch @HeroWatchOfficial · 1m

CAUGHT ON CAMERA!

Gang Orca and Hawks go head to head in an epic... street corner collision.

Don’t walk and text, people!

https://herotu.be/GgwUenaQqlM

CONTENT WARNING: SWEARING.

#GangOrcaGang #HawkWatchers #GangOrca #Hawks #ProFails

= = = = =

Izuku was laughing through his tears again, re-reading the messages from Hawks (THE Hawks!) when he heard Mic declare the winner of the next match.

“So, Mifune-san’s match is up next.” Aizawa mentioned, sounding almost casual despite the tears that had been shed just now. “Would you mind helping us out to do the quirk analysis for that match, Midoriya?”

Chapter Text

Izuku blinked, his lip trembling as Snipe quietly bid him goodbye.

“I’d love to stick around, Midoriya, since I reckon it's best if everyone gave you some space for now.”

“Thank you, Snipe-san.” He answered weakly, though he still managed to pull together a smile.

“I’ll be around the rest of the day.” Snipe nodded. “And - just some advice - a good way to let off some of steam is to go and shoot some guns, so how ‘bout th-”

The cowboy’s voice died in his throat as Aizawa leveled him with a glare.

Snipe sloooooowly backed away from Eraserhead, in the same way one would back away from a wild animal about to pounce. “Right, right, I’m goin’ now. My offer’s still open! See ya, Midoriya!”

The cowboy retreated with a quickness once he was out of striking distance, leaving Aizawa and Izuku alone.

“He means well.” Eraserhead shrugged, before glancing up at the little device sitting on a corner of the ceiling. “And so do the staff. They’re impressed with your work. Not to mention other heroes all over Japan, Midoriya.”

“Snipe wants me to intern with him! Present Mic wants to have me on his radio show!  Hawks wants me to intern with him! They’re all amazing heroes… and...”

“And they all know you’re quirkless. The offers are still there.” Eraserhead smirked, and sat down. “In fact, I wouldn’t mind taking you on as an intern, either.”

Izuku hiccuped in surprise.

“Knowing him, the Rat’s already compiling a list of heroes you can choose from.” Aizawa drawled, not quite smiling but Izuku could see the shine in his eyes. 

“Surprisingly, in a world of quirks the kind of tactical analysis you can give is illogically rare. Analysts are not that common, and analysis quirks are rarer still. So many won’t bother to look at other quirks when they have their own quirk to worry about. As a result, the analysis industry is small, for how much emphasis our society puts on quirks, and people with those talents can demand quite high prices.”

Izuku nodded; his parents had poured a significant amount of money in seeing therapists with analysis quirks to try and discover one that he wasn’t even there.

“So, my point is… you’re wanted. By heroes, to be a hero .” Eraserhead got up, and offered his hand to Izuku. The boy nodded, reaching up and hauling himself up as the pro pulled him to his feet. “You might not go on to be the next All Might, Midoriya. Gods know who the next number one will be, but you’ll certainly be the kind of hero who can figure out how to knock them down a peg or two.”

Izuku sniffled, a wobbly smile appearing on his face.

“We should get going, Midoriya. Mic’s getting lonely.” Eraserhead walked out the door, quickly grabbing his phone and texting the groupchat.

“S-sure!”

= = = = =

AizawaShota : @everyone all clear. Midoriya’s safe. 

AizawaShota : I’m bringing him back to the announcer’s booth.

YEAAAAH: YEAAAAH!

Snipe: Good to hear.

Thirteen: Good job, Eraserhead.

YEAAAAH: Well, at least we know someone’s safe from expulsion next year~

AizawaShota : Shut up, Mic.

Midnightie: I would like to point out to everyone that Shota didn’t even try to deny it.

AizawaShota: @RatGod I would like it to be on record that I hate you, Nemuri.

= = = = =

After the excited hugs from Mic, Izuku had found himself in the middle seat once again, his (once again drained) phone charging on the table beside him as he pulled out a fresh notepad from the supply closet and clicked a pen into place.

His cheeks had flushed cherry red at Mic’s newest request, though.

“C’mon, kid, you can do it!”

“N-no, I can’t!” Blushed Izuku, his eyes hesitating over the broadcast button. Mic wanted him to announce the beginning of the next round! Why!?

“Just do the announcement, it’ll be the best way for you to tell everyone about your return!”

“Mic, if the kid keeps picking up more work I’m going to tell Nezu to give him your paycheck.”

“Fair enough!” Grinned Mic. “He can have my pay for today, kid's earned it, anyway!”

“For the week.”

The voice hero’s smile faltered. “HEY!”

Izuku bit back the words ‘I don’t feel like I can’ before they could leap off his tongue. Instead, he swallowed a breath, held it, then exhaled. His nerves were getting the better of him once again, but Aizawa hadn’t chased him through the hallways of UA for nothing.

If he was going to be a hero and talking about quirks, he could at least start doing the second one.

Heroism could come later.

The greenet reached over to the broadcast button.

His hand hovered over it as Mic and Eraserhead’s argument fell silent behind him.

“...”

He squeezed his eyes shut, committing the names of the next competitors to memory. It helped that one was a student he had previously met, and he knew her quirk.

“ You can do it kid. ” Came the whisper. He didn’t know if it had been Eraserhead or Present Mic that had said it. It could have been both.

His eyes flicked to his notes. His fingers pushed the button.

(Huh. The broadcast button was green when it turned on.)

“W-welcome back, everyone! Now presenting the next matchup, class 2-A’s president, the Serene Samurai, Mifune Tsuna-san! Across from her is a student from class 2-H of the support course, the Mistress of Missiles, Nagase Kairi-san!”

The stadium cheered, including Mic, right up until he realized that Aizawa was texting the groupchat.

= = = = = 

AizawaShota: Since Midoriya is doing Mic’s job of commentating, I vote that we give Midoriya his next paycheck.

YEAAAAH : I agreed to no such thing!

AizawaShota: It's logical, though.

RatGod: Agreed! I’ll make arrangements now. @ShimmyShimmy can you please contact Midoriya regarding his bank account details?

YEAAAAH: @Inui I’m being bullied!

YEAAAAH: @AizawaShota Actually, oi, you’re not commentating either! If anything, Midoriya-kun should get your paycheck!

= = = = =

Hisui @Hisu1Unofficial · 0m

Whoo! It's the return of the green bean!

#UASportsFest #GoGreenie #UAnalyst

= = = = =

ExtendoEyes: Wait, what’s DEKU doing back in the booth?

ExtendoEyes: Didn’t you say that the heroes were going to do something?

FingerMaster: I thought you said Hawks was going to get him arrested, Tsubasa!?

WingedHeroTsubasa-sama: He did! 

WingedHeroTsubasa-sama: I sent you the fucking screenshot! 

WingedHeroTsubasa-sama: Deku must have lied his way out of it!

FingerMaster: So, now what?

ExtendoEyes: Why should I fucking know?

= = = = =

Mifune-san had a rough start with her opponent, who had tried to rapidly overwhelm her with capture foam-packed missiles. But the descendant of samurai ended up cutting her way through volley after volley of missiles - even the trick missiles that her opponent had started mixing into her volleys - and powered through the thunder-and-lightning of Nagase’s final ploy, a short-range bombardment of what she called ‘thunderhead’ missiles.

That match had ended after Nagase’s equipment had been all but dismantled by the hero in training, whose Wind Edge quirk gave her hand chops a razor’s edge that let her cut through the straps of the missile storage pods strapped to the support course student’s body. 

In victory, the class president had not lost her grace and had offered her hand to the downed support student, and both had proudly walked off the arena together to the cheering audience.

Izuku’s heart felt lighter. Maybe he was getting used to commentating? 

He felt time slipping away as he saw so many quirks with so many exciting ways of applying them being used in front of him. Yamada-sensei and Aizawa-sensei (they both told him to use ‘sensei’ for the rest of the day!) were just as excited to talk to him as well, not calling his analysis creepy like the other teachers had. Instead, Aizawa-sensei focused his commentary on the fighting style on the students, while Yamada-sensei fell into a role that emphasized memes.

Apparently he thought it was important, and a quick lecture from the Voice Hero showed that, on social media, that there was a direct linear correlation on a hero’s popularity when compared to the memes being posted about them.

“Correlation is not causation, Mic.” Aizawa had groaned.

The next match was a blonde student who could permeate through solid material, and a fellow hero course second-year who could teleport within his line of sight. Such difficult to control quirks resulted in a few mishaps and overshoots that Mic capitalized on in the commentary, but since nobody got ringed out the match continued. By the endgame of the fight, even Aizawa had to admit that teleporting from the other end of the arena into a punch to the face was a nasty move that few could correctly counter. Eventually Togata Mirio (the ‘Tintin looking ghost from the ground!’ as Mic had called him) had managed to land a right hook right as he tried to teleport, which ended the fight with a self-inflicted ring out and calls for someone to get a jetpack to get him down from one of the flagpoles atop the stadium.

Izuku was left in awe as the blonde student recollected his shirt and jacket, which had slipped off his body about two thirds of the way into the match. Such a creative applications, using every aspect of his quirk; as Aizawa had explained, Togata's quirk had a lot of 'rules'; he was launched out of any solids when he let go of his quirk while phased into them, for example, which lead to its exploitation as a mobility aid.

Izuku felt like he was ready to start a whole new book on that quirk alone!

It would have taken so much training and dedication to bring that rowdy quirk into the powerhouse of a hero that he saw now.

Because if he hadn’t been able to launch himself like he had, it would have been a difficult match against Hadou - his next opponent. Precision control had allowed him to surprise her from below, plucking the helical heroine from the air and bringing her down to the ground, before grappling against her into a… tickle takedown?

“They’re good friends, along with Amajiki-kun.” Aizawa had explained. “But they should still take this seriously.”

“The takedown had been exceptional up to that point, though.” Izuku thought out loud, before realizing that wow, he was openly contradicting a pro hero on a national broadcast . His anxiety spiked, but Aizawa quietly whispered ‘go on’ and the middle schooler closed his eyes and pushed through. “Even more than just a quirk, Togata-san’s training in hand-to-hand would have made a takedown trivial once he had gotten Hadou-san to the ground.” 

“Are you assuming that Hadou’s combat training was weak?” The Erasure hero prompted, with another of his rare smiles.

Izuku felt his head heat from his neck up to his ears, but persisted.

“Eraserhead-sensei, Togata-san’s quirk lets him punch through a block, something he can and has demonstrated against all of his opponents so far. Once he got Hadou-san on the ground and turned this fight into a grapple on the floor, he fulfilled his win condition.”

“Mhmm, and what could Hadou-san have done?”

“Unfortunately, she was already using her best plan; to keep in the air and not get caught. If this was a villain takedown scenario, however, she would have had to resort to tactics that involved injuring Togata-san, but that would have disqualified her from the Sports Festival for excessive force.”

“Meaning that both are amazing heroes?” Mic cut in.

“They are both noisy students.” Aizawa huffed.

Perhaps it was no wonder that he would go on to become the winner of the Sports Festival, using permeation to make wrestling moves hurt a lot more than they did on TV.

(Just what was a ' Heavenly Potemkin Buster' , anyway? Izuku wished his phone wasn’t charging so that he could look it up. He settled for jotting down a note to look up what Mic had shouted.)

= = = = =

Pro Hero Sir Nighteye @ProHeroSirNighteye · 2m

On behalf of all the heroes and staff at the Nighteye Agency, I would like to pass on our congratulations to Togata Mirio, winner of the #UASportsFest. 

Your hard work and dedication to your training has borne the first of many fruits.

#Lemillion

= = = = =

Pro Hero Hawks @HawksOfficial · 2m

Aaaaaaaand I got his name right first, because of course I’m the fastest there is. That means I get the green kid’s internship, right? @UAOfficial ?

#UAnalyst #UASportsFest #GoGreenie

= = = = =

WingedHeroTsubasa-sama shared a link.

WingedHeroTsubasa-sama: WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS!?

ExtendoEyes: What?

WingedHeroTsubasa-sama: WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS!?

WingedHeroTsubasa-sama: WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS!?

WingedHeroTsubasa-sama: WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS!?

ExtendoEyes: Dude, stop!

WingedHeroTsubasa-sama: WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS!?

FingerMaster: What’s going on?

WingedHeroTsubasa-sama: WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS!?

WingedHeroTsubasa-sama: WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS!?

WingedHeroTsubasa-sama: WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS!?

WingedHeroTsubasa-sama: WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS!?

WingedHeroTsubasa-sama: DEKU STOLE MY INTERNSHIP!?

WingedHeroTsubasa-sama: I’M GOING TO FUCKING KICK HIS ASS!

= = = = =

“Aww, man, I can’t believe that the sports festival’s over already,” whined Mic, slumping into his seat and spinning as the awards ceremony had ended. Already, Nezu and Midnight were stepping off the stage with the rest of the top three medallists. “Best sports festival I ever had, though!”

“I know…” Izuku murmured ruefully, smiling quietly as he mimicked Mic. “First time at a Sports Festival, for me.”

Despite the fact that he hadn’t actually participated, it still felt like he could reach up to his chest and feel a medal there. 

“Oh no, how’re you going to top this one, little listener?” Mic gasped in playful shock.

“Clearly, by winning the next sports festival you attend,” drawled Snipe as he poked his head in. “You alright to have visitors, guys?”

Izuku squeaked.

“Yeah, I just gotta do some follow up announcements so I might need you guys to be quiet every now and again.” Mic said, clearly oblivious to the hypocrisy of his statement.

The voice hero reversed his spinning, looking up at the ceiling as he spoke. “Oh, right, kid! I need your phone number! We gotta do a podcast or something! Talk all night about heroes and quirks!”

Having considered that as an alternative career point (and consequently making appearing on his show a bucket list item), Izuku found his vision blurring with fresh tears, but before he could say anything a phone had been thrust into his hands: Present Mic’s phone, which had been opened to a New Contact page.

He blinked, tears falling from his eyes.

“Th-thank you, but I’m sure that you have other more important people to pull onto your show, Mic-sensei!” Izuku whispered, awestruck.

(Wait, what was that #UAnalyst tag that had just appeared on Mic’s alerts?)

“There it is again. Stop thinking that people are doing this just to be nice, kid.” Snipe tsk’d, snapping him out of his thoughts. “You bring a lot to the table with your analysis skills.”

“Yeah, exactly!” Mic grinned. “Kid, you gotta-”

Whatever the voice hero was about to say was cut off as the door opened again, this time with a more familiar face to the greenet.

“IZUKU!” Inko was in tears, wobbling in on a wheelchair that was being pushed by Mifune. “You were amazing up there. I’m so proud of you! Oh, my baby! ”

“Mom, I met so many heroes. ” Izuku beamed. Then he looked down and blinked. “HOLD ON, MOM, WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR LEG!?”

The class president looked a little rough around the edges, but was smiling brilliantly with the bronze place medal around her neck. “Midoriya-kun! I have brought your mother! She sprained her ankle when she missed a step, but is otherwise unharmed!”

Izuku flushed as Mifune carted Inko over to him. His mother all but leaped out of the wheelchair, hobbling over the last step while still favoring her injured ankle, and throwing her arms around her son.

The waterworks began immediately.

As the Midoriyas tearfully reunited, a blonde head popped in, the gold medallion around his neck matching his blonde hair. “Oh hey there he is! Nejire! I found him!”

“REALLY!? OOOH, HEY THERE, SENSEIs, GREEN BEAN!”

“Hey, kiddo, h-wow it's busy in here!” Midnight shouted.

“Hello.” Hound Dog was a moment behind her. “I have come to visit and finally see Midoriya. Please show me the child.”

Izuku’s eyes widened as he saw the two teachers appear. “M-Miss Midnight! Thank you so much for bringing me here! It’s one of the best things that has ever happened to me! A-also, Hound Dog-san, I love your rainy day playlists.”

Hound Dog’s mane of hair bristled as he made a pleased sound. “Thanks, kid! I loved your commentary! So does the principal!”

Midoriya Inko gripped her son protectively. “He does!?”

“Oh my, how auspicious!” Mifune gasped.

Aizawa sucked in a breath as he saw the immediate future, with a lot of noise. 

He let out a resigned sigh and crawled underneath the commentator’s table, muttering as he grabbed his sleeping bag and tried to find a ventilation shaft to escape with.

A part of him hoped that Midoriya’s future with UA would be quieter than today.

A more realistic part of him knew that this was wishful thinking at best.

= = = = =

Bloody King: Sorry, things were busy and I didn’t notice the pings until now. 

Bloody King: I was with the perimeter security team, there was some trouble with this guy trying to get in without a ticket and he had an illusion clone quirk.

Bloody King: What were all the pings about? 

Snipe: read up lol

Inui: So, Midnight found this lost kid.

Bloody King: Right...

Inui: So she took him to stay with Mic and Eraserhead in the announcer’s booth.

Bloody King: Oh shit, that won't end well. Is the kid okay?

SwearJarBot has deducted ¥100 from Bloody King’s next paycheck. Reason: Swearing

Bloody King: … Wait.

Bloody King: We have a swear jar now?

Snipe: Yes

LunchRush: yes

AizawaShota: Yes

Midnightie: yeah

Inui: Yes

YEAAAAH: That’s right

= = = = =

(Izuku, early in the following morning, would snap awake and realize: oh gods I ghosted Hawks. )

Chapter Text

UA Heroics School @UAOfficial · 2m

Thank you to all those who visited today! With the end of the Sports Festival, we hope that you make your way home safely! Please make sure to visit the stalls set up by our business course or the demonstration fields organized by our non-participant support course students!

#UASportsFest

= = = = =

Much like a kicked anthill, with the formal end of the Sports Festival the UA stadium had rapidly emptied, its occupants vented out into the spaces around the campus in a barely controlled exhalation.

Spectators flowed into the maze of stalls set up around the stadium building, filled with vendors hawking merchandise or selling food and drink as people flowed into the streets like water trickling downhill. 

Decades of such events had refined this from a mad rush of bodies into something that could pass as something civilized, despite the efforts of the entrepreneurs attempting to slow down the process in their endeavors to separate the hungry, thirsty, excited event goers from their money using such enticing traps such as festival food and activities, or merchandise. 

Meanwhile, the tired but still dutiful students (under the watchful gaze of the student council and class leadership) began the process of cleaning up the stadium itself: Bags, gloves, and tongs for rubbish collection were quickly distributed, while the support course students unleashed a horde of cleaning bots to help take care of the fields and larger spaces. 

Finally, student engineering crews (as well as some of the more rescue-oriented hero course students) limbered up their cutting tools and marched out of their workshops. These teams were corralled by Power Loader, each set on the task of breaking down and salvaging the robots which had been smashed up over the course of the festival.

The festival was over, but for many people, that was just the beginning of things.

= = = = =

Pro Hero Sir Nighteye liked 

Lemillion @LemillionOfficial · 4m

POWERRRR! w @NejireChan @MifuneTsuna3, Tamaki and the #UAnalyst!

[Picture: Togata Mirio taking a selfie with the UA Analyst, Nejire Hadou, Amajiki Tamaki and Mifune Tsuna. Teachers and parents are scattered in the background.]

= = = = =

Far from it all at UA’s main admin building sat a principal-shaped dog/mouse/bear(?), whose beady black eyes watched the cameras inside the commentator’s booth. 

The space was usually empty by this stage of the festival, but it had spontaneously become the first of many parties celebrating the Sports Festival that night. The centerpiece was not the three medalists who were all packed in there, but a freckled, green-haired boy. 

Midoriya Izuku’s smile slowly becoming less and less guarded as he was handed a bottle of green tea and a tray of takoyaki from the stalls outside - back-of-paw calculations estimated that the calories in that meal were not enough to completely replace those expended during the events of the day, but it would be enough to take the edge off his hunger until he reached home.

He cackled as he watched the boy timidly pushing his hand into Togata’s face while it was under the effects of his quirk, and while tinged with fear there was a delightful wonder on Midoriya’s face before pulling it back out and flexing his fingers in awe. 

Nezu grinned as he read the boy’s lips, watching question after question flowing from him as naturally as breathing. 

Such a curious soul! 

If nothing else, he was confident that the boy’s intelligence would carry him through the written exam and gain him entry into UA - if one of the heroes the boy was inevitably going to intern under didn’t write a recommendation letter for him.

Watching the festivities and long ago having dismissed his delightfully competent secretary for the evening, Nezu was at a loss as to what to do about the boy.

He opened the internship requests, along with the contact information he had for Aldera Middle School.

Even in the early evening, it was clear that Midoriya’s inbox would be quite full by the time the registration of interest period was finished tomorrow evening.

For now though, the principal settled into his chair and continued to read.

= = = = =

StrayVertex @StrayVertex · 20m

So, real question here; has anybody figured out who the UA Analyst Kid is?

#UAnalyst #GoGreenie #UASportsFest #UAAnalystKid

Hisui @Hisu1Unofficial · 4m

@StrayVertex Well, apparently Hawks has his name, though he’s keeping tight-lipped about it because he thinks it’ll improve his chances at getting the internship.

#UAnalyst #GoGreenie #UASportsFest

MirkoThighClub @MirkoThighClub3911 · 2m

@Hisu1Unofficial He knows that isn’t how it works, right?

#birdbrain

Mirko @Mirko · 1m

@MirkoThighClub3911 Damn right it doesn’t.

I’m stealing this hashtag. #birdbrain

MirkoThighClub @MirkoThighClub3911 · 0m

@Mirko Jk;ohsadgljk;sa4tnlkvj9dfjkasjlsadfhr MIRKOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

= = = = =

Izuku had woken up early, and spent the last ten minutes staring at the neatly folded UA gym uniform on his table.

Even the sight of that hadn’t let him shake the sense of dread that he felt hanging overhead.

The feeling had first manifested when he had woken up last night, realizing that he had completely left the #5 Pro Hero, Hawks, on read.

Realizing that answering at 3.42am wasn’t going to be much better, Izuku had tried to go back to sleep, but a notification had caught his curiosity. 

Now, at 8am, the boy stumbled downstairs as he fumbled through his phone and opened his social media messenger app to the spammed messages from Hawks, smiling as he read over it again.

Hawks!

Hawks wanted him! As an intern!

Though, investigating drug trafficking sounded like… well, like a disaster waiting to happen.

Izuku swallowed his nerves and began to type.

M.Izuku: Dear Hawks, first of all my apolog-|

No, that wasn’t right. Izuku deleted the message before it was sent.

M.Izuku: Dear Hawks, I’m really sorry about not answering you promptly, as I was in the middle of a-|

No. Not that, either.

Gah, why was talking to heroes so hard!?

Maybe it was the fact that they were the demigod-celebrities of modern society?

That’d be it.

Present Mic’s laughter wafted in from the lounge, and Izuku perked up, his footsteps picking up as he rushed the rest of the way into the living room.

Rather than the Voice Hero himself, however, the noise was coming from a rerun of the Sports Festival playing on the TV, showing the final bout between Hadou and Togata.

Prominently featured in the corner, though, was a picture-in-picture video feed of the commentator's booth, with Eraserhead on the left, Present Mic on the right… and ‘the UA Analyst Kid’ in the middle.

The boy that was, unmistakably, him . 

A quirkless little middle schooler, leaning forward in wonder, rambling on about the hero students’ quirks as the swirling spirals fairy and the ghost of Tintin duked it out.

(Who was Tintin, anyway? He’d have to look that up)

"That wasn't just a dream, was it, mom?"

Midoriya Inko, currently behind the kitchen counter and mostly healed thanks to a quick trip to the Recovery Girl Clinic on their way out of the UA Campus, smiled. "No, it was real. I couldn't stop watching you. I haven't seen you being this happy in so long, dear. Warms my heart, you know?"

"I… I guess so," Izuku murmured. "I'll make breakfast, though, okay? I know Recovery Girl healed you, but she did tell you to stay off that foot!"

Inko made a show of putting her weight on her other leg, sticking her tongue out as she used her quirk to pull the whisk back towards her. "Yes, Izuku, I'm staying off it!"

"Mo-om!" Izuku whined as he stepped up to the kitchen to help, and both dissolved into familiar, pleasant laughter.

Inko leaned into her son’s shoulder as he took over, watching him fondly as he whisked the egg.

It took the two cooks longer than if either of them would have needed on their own, but in the end the breakfast they prepared was traditional, familiar, and delicious .

Half an hour later, Izuku slung his bag onto his shoulder and headed to school.

= = = = =

Unfortunately, it was only when he sat down at his desk that he realized that he still hadn’t responded from Hawks, and…

Huh.

No, he hadn’t said anything out loud.

So why was everyone staring at him?

Izuku ducked his head down and opened his books.

= = = = =

The Open Mic @TheOpenMicFanClub · 12m

Ahahahaha I was watching reruns and saw this clip of Present Mic and the UA Analyst Kid debating about how ‘permeation’ was pronounced.

Kid, he literally has an English degree? But the Open Mic still loves ya!

[GIF: Present Mic and UA Analyst Kid gesturing wildly at each other as they continue arguing in the commentator’s booth. Eraserhead has decided to take a nap face-down on his notes.]

#UAnalyst

= = = = =

At the UA staff meeting, a room full of pro hero teachers scratched their collective heads, and Aizawa could already feel a headache coming on. 

He thanked Shimakaze as she set down a black brew to his right, and scanned through the first page on the tablet, taking in the summaries that she and Nezu had compiled about events since the last bi-weekly meeting.

It was logical that Nezu would want to start by making sure everyone was on the same page.

“Now, we have to discuss the second year students’ internships.”

Already, Hizashi was making a show of rolling up his sleeves.

With the end of the second year sports festival began the most contested internship sorting period: they were the most sought after of the heroics course students by the pro hero community; the first years were usually too 'raw' to draw attention (with exception of the finalists, usually), and the third years were already established with a more full-time mentorship, that wasn't always the case for second years.

But like the second years were that middle ground of talented and uncommitted.

Nezu had once brought up the spreadsheet; out of the graduating heroics track students over the last decade, 72% of the hero students had gone on to become a sidekick under the hero that they had interned with during their second year.

“I’m happy to note that a large number of the finalists have already attracted the attention of pro heroes that they intend to stay with. Togata-kun with the Nighteye agency, Mifune-chan with the Sashmono agency, Hadou-chan with the Ryukyu agency, and Amajiki-kun with the Fatgum agency have been confirmed prior to the sports festival. This information has been distributed to the pro hero network so that they can adjust their internship offers accordingly.”

There was a brief moment where the slides on the projector and on their tablets transitioned.

“The rest of the students who have internship offers are seeing average numbers this year; students who haven’t shown a prior interest are all getting a number of heroes to choose from, while enough of our standbyes have confirmed their availability. As with last year, we should have no problems getting all our hero track students into internships, so long as we follow the usual vetting procedures.”

It was at this point that the rodent-like principal decided to address the proverbial elephant in the room.

“However, as you are all aware, we do have an anomaly this year.”

The tablet in Aizawa’s hand shifted to a familiar freckled face. Namely, that of one Midoriya Izuku.

As Nezu read out a quick dossier about Midoriya, Eraserhead paged through the profile and sighed, dreading the work that would follow. In addition to the invitations Midoriya received on the day itself, more offers had flowed in overnight as heroes got off shift or watched the Sports Festival reruns. Even with Nezu vetting a significant portion of the applicants - almost a third! - it had still over tripled the internship offers that Aizawa had mentioned in his little heart-to-heart with the boy, ballooning them up to a final sum of 193.

Which would have been below average for a student that had made it to the final round, but Izuku hadn't made it into the sports festival as a competitor at all, on account of being a member of the audience.

Not to mention a middle schooler, at that.

Inui whistled as the current tally of internship offers came up on screen, impressed (and impressive, given his muzzle-mask was on). “So, a fourteen year old middle schooler just talked his way into a little over two hundred internship offers.”

“More, actually, but I eliminated some of the usual suspects.” Nezu confirmed with a nod.

Snipe held up a hand. “Y’all remember I called shotgun, right?”

“I saw him first, though!” Midnight immediately shot back.

“What are you going to do for an internship, anyway, take him to a gun range?” Vlad King drawled.

“To start with, why not?  Shoot guns, talk quirks, see heroes. Sounds like a pretty fun afternoon to me.” Snipe shrugged.

“Snipe, you’re meant to be teaching him how to be a hero, not trying to replace his father.” Aizawa quipped, not looking up from the list of heroes that had submitted internship offers for Midoriya.

Mic laughed. “As long as I get him on my show at least twice!”

“You do realize that you don’t even need to get an internship for that, right?” Power Loader said. “Just send the kid an invitation, Mic.”

MIc’s face stalled, for a moment, before he grinned. “Oh, yeah, right!”

There were several sighs in the room.

Midnight cocked her head to one side and raised her hand. “Problem; is it even legal for a fourteen year old that isn’t even enrolled at a hero school to be taken on an internship?”

“Yes, that is a barrier to him becoming an intern.” Nezu nodded towards the heroine. “I’ve spoken to some members of our legal team; their initial conclusion is that so long as the boy’s caregivers and current place of education consents to it, young Midoriya can intern under a hero in a support capacity, much like our own internships work, but with an outright ban on combat.”

“Well, whoever’s stupid enough to try and get a middle schooler to stop a mugging shouldn’t have a license in the first place.” Growled Inui, and several heads nodded in agreement.

“Correct.” Nezu confirmed, and went back to his notes. “That being said, Midoriya-kun seems to be a more analytical type, anyway, so it may be better to offer him an alternative to the traditional internship format.”

Finely conditioned instincts got the assembled heroes to still; they were all too aware of Nezu and his schemes, after the amount of time they had spent working for him.

It was Midnight that tested the waters first. “Such as?”

“I propose that we allow Midoriya Izuku to choose who and when he wants to do the internships - he’s not constrained by the UA curriculum, after all - and when he does, its will work out as a rolling internship period where he gets to spend a weekend - or afterschool time - working with various hero agencies. Some of it will be remote work, which we will facilitate, while others will involve working directly at the agency in question.”

Snipe let out a wail. "But I called shotgun!" 

"I call automatic chaingun turrets." Nezu deadpanned, locking eyes with the cowboy. Never breaking their intense eye-to-eye contact, the principal leaned over until his paw was hovering over a red button on his chair arm.

There was a rapid evacuation of the chairs on either side of Snipe.

The gunslinging hero held up his hands in surrender. "Aight, aight! I withdraw shotgun, you whisker-faced heathen."

Aizawa glared at the screen, knowing just how much paperwork that was going to require (and since he had already taken a chunk out of his first year class, he knew who would be given that workload). “Isn’t that excessive? Putting so much on an untrained kid?”

Ectoplasm hummed thoughtfully. “It is, but is that going to become a problem? He’ll be filling an analytical role rather than a frontline hero role. Plus, the kid sounds like he’s a real hero nerd; who are we to take that opportunity away from him?”

“But what about his life outside of school? Doesn’t he deserve a chance to spend time with his friends, just a kid?” Midnight asked.

Given how he reacted to us, I don’t think he’s got much of a life outside anyway. Aizawa’s cynical side supplied.

“All three of you have raised good points and given me much to consider.” Nezu acquiesced with a flick of his whiskers. “Let’s table this discussion until we can open communications with the Midoriya family and Aldera Middle School for their input. After all, we mustn’t discount their own wishes.”

There was a general murmur of agreement and Nezu nodded.

“Very well then. May I have volunteers to go to Aldera Middle School this afternoon to open a line of discussion with them?”

Aizawa, to his own surprise, found himself joining several others as they raised their hands.

= = = = =

Morning period classes had been strange, to say the least.

It was obvious as to why; it wasn’t every day that the quiet, weird, quirkless kid spent half of yesterday on national television with two pro heroes commentating on the UA Sports Festival.

The rest of the class had been, to pick a word, cautious with him. 

Staring.

Whispering.

But not a single one had dared do anything to him.

Even the teachers seemed to ignore him as they tried to figure out what to do with the quirkless kid.

He wasn’t sure if this was a relief or not.

Izuku knew that he was at the bottom of the pecking order in the eyes of the kids at school, but yesterday had shaken that perception.

For the most part, the other students didn’t seem to know what to do with him, and he had kept a lid on his muttering, chewing on a pencil to keep his mouth shut .

So they had left him alone, their uncertainty holding them back from the usual routine.

It was like everyone was holding their breath, waiting for something to happen.

Or rather, waiting for Kacchan to do something.

Because while Izuku was at the bottom of the totem pole, Kacchan had been placed at the very top and by some miracle the explosive blonde hadn’t done anything. Instead, Kacchan had spent the day looking at him, red eyes boring into Izuku’s face whenever he turned around to check on the blonde.

That had made him more nervous than the rest of the class’ actions combined.

Kacchan hadn’t said a word to him. None of his shouting, calling him Deku, or anything! Instead, the blonde had spent all of physics and chemistry staring at him and looking, and Izuku was silently worried if this pressure would boil over explosively.

His memories brought up a standoff that Snipe had with a gun-wielding villain, about six months back.

The standoff, where both were standing on either end of a convenience store, ready to draw their weapons, had the same feeling as the tension that he was feeling in the air now.

= = = = =

She had been expecting something, a little knot of worry fraying her nerves, so when her phone began to ring, Inko let out a breath she hadn’t realized she had been holding, and reached out with her quirk to bring the gently vibrating cellphone to her hands.

“Hello? This is Midoriya Inko speaking.” 

“Ah, Midoriya-san, a pleasure to meet you! This is Shimakaze Hatsue, I’m a secretary at UA.” The female voice on the other end of the line was soft and feminine, and put Inko at ease with how light and gentle it was.

“Oh? I see, how can I help you, Shimakaze-san?”

“Well, we were hoping that you wouldn’t mind being able to come to Aldera Middle School with us? We were hoping to kill two birds with one stone by having one meeting with all parties present regarding your son’s internship offers.”

Inko blinked. “Excuse me, internship offers with UA?”

“In a sense, yes. You see, he’s garnered some attention in the hero community, and several want to make him an intern to support their agencies, like they do with the students here.”

“Ah, but Izuku isn’t a hero student at UA, is he? Is that even allowed?” The knot of worry tightened in her chest again.

“We’re confirming on the finer details, but given that your son will be there as a quirk analyst rather than a hero, he won’t actually fall afoul of any of the usual laws and restrictions around minors acting in a hero job.” Shimakaze assured her, and Inko felt a sigh of relief loosen her shoulders.

“That’s good to hear, Shimakaze-san. When will the meeting be?”

“Today, actually. We were really hoping to pick you up on the way to Aldera, and discuss a few things about Izuku on the way there.”

“Ah… that’s really no trouble, Shimakaze-san.”

“Midoriya-san, you sprained your ankle on our campus only yesterday. Please, allow us to assist you.”

“If you’re sure.” She relented. “I’m actually at home right now, took the day off, you see. Do you have my address?”

“I’m afraid we don’t, but I do have a notepad right here. May I have your address, please?”

Inko quickly recited her address, and Shimakaze confirmed it.

“We will be there soon, Midoriya-san. Perhaps in an hour? Would that be enough time for you?”

“More than enough.”

“Thank you for being able to come on such short notice, Midoriya-san. I’ll see you there soon!”

Inko got up to start getting dressed.

= = = = =

“Two heroes, a principal and a secretary walk up to the car.” Mic narrated. “I feel like there should be some kind of punchline here.” 

The blonde cockatoo lookalike chuckled as he got behind the wheel and rummaged for the car keys, buckling up as he touched the keys to the sensor and started the car up. “Maybe we should ask your girlfriend, Shota?”

“Ms. Joke is not my girlfriend.” Aizawa answered as he strapped his seatbelt on at the front passenger seat and checked that Shimakaze and Nezu were similarly buckled up before hitting the remote to open the garage doors and pulling up the GPS function on his phone.

“Ah, but you knew exactly who I was talking about!”

“Out the front gate and take a left.” He read off the screen, pointedly ignoring the Voice Hero.

Mic nodded, grinning at his friend as he took the parking brakes off and coasted them out of the UA motor pool, past a pair of two-pointer exam bots. “Have you ever considered making a GPS voice pack, Shota? I bet you’d improve Japan’s driving immensely. People would be too afraid to disobey your instructions!”

“Never have. Take the second right.”

"I think Aizawa-sensei has an excellent voice.” Shimakaze offered, and Nezu didn’t hide his cackle as he continued to tap away on his phone from the back seat.

The Erasure hero let out a long-suffering sigh. “Please don’t encourage him.”

He checked the app once again; only twenty minutes’ drive to get to the Midoriya residence, then from there to Aldera Middle School.

Twenty minutes too long, in his opinion.

= = = = =

It was pure coincidence that his long range patrol would take him to Musutafu, home of UA.

Pure coincidence, he’d tell anybody.

Definitely not motivated by the fact that the UA Analyst Kid probably lived nearby.

It wasn’t like one of his classmates had told him which school the Analyst was.

And it wasn’t like he was going to drop in and say hi so that he could grab a selfie to send to Rumi.

That’d be unprofessional , after all.

Hawks smirked and red wings beat in the air as his eyes scanned for the school, his GPS telling him that it should be coming up in a minute or two...

= = = = =

“Deku, you lying piece of shit! ”

Izuku yelped as he was roughly shoved against the wall by a furious Tsubasa. The boy’s wings were flapping, clearly agitated as they flexed and thrashed. 

Other students in the hallways paused, uncertain and gawking, forming into a half-circle around them.

Trapping him in.

What was Tsubasa going on about!?

“What did you tell him, huh? What quirk did you tell Hawks you had? Did you say it was some stupid analysis quirk or something?”

Pieces began to fall into place as Izuku struggled to pull the boy’s hand from his collar.

"N-no! I didn’t lie to him! I didn’t even talk to him about quirks! He knows! He knows that I’m quirkless!”

There was a flash of memory; of the timestamps on the messages that had been sent to him when he had read it.

The timing of the messages - heck, the messages themselves! - hadn’t occurred to him as being odd until now.

Honestly, he was so relieved that he didn’t think about it in the first place.

How did Hawks know how to get in touch with me?

How did Hawks know that I was quirkless?

“SO WHY THE FUCK DID HE ASK YOUR QUIRKLESS ASS FOR AN INTERNSHIP AND NOT ME? ” Screamed Tsubasa.

Izuku blinked, the words springing off his lips faster than he could think as he looked, bewildered, at Tsubasa.

“... you were the one who told him who I was?”

The boy’s wings flared, almost knocking over another student that had gotten too close. “Wh- the hell are you on about, Deku?”

“Hawks started messaging me out of nowhere… uh, well, I… didn’t think that it was because someone had given him my username.”

“Wha- sh-shut up, Deku! You’re lying again!” The winged boy snarled. “You probably went bragging to him and a-a-and… and then lied to him! You lied to him and...”

The window behind Izuku’s head went dark, before it was pulled open.

They were on the third floor!

Which meant...

“Sup, kids! Having a school hall fight?”

Chapter Text

NightAyeeeee: Mirio-kun, what do you think of that analyst boy?

Lemming-llion: You mean Midoriya? I got to meet him right after the Sports Festival ended! We had a little party in the commentator’s booth!

Lemming-llion: He was great! Like Tamaki but green! :P

NightAyeeeee: Yes, that’s him. 

NightAyeeeee: I was considering adding him to the team roster as another intern, if UA allows us to.

Lemming-llion: We’re getting a kohai for me? Really, Sir?

NightAyeeeee: Since I’m planning on having you become a more active patroller next year, it’ll be good to have you start building up support contacts for things like quirk analysis.

Lemming-llion: Really? That’d be awesome! He had so many new ideas about all of our quirks!

Lemming-llion: And about quirkless fighting styles like yours!

Lemming-llion: Because he is. You know, quirkless.

NightAyeeeee: Quirkless?

NightAyeeeee: Impressive to know that he’s doing his analysis purely through his own talents.

NightAyeeeee: You mentioned ideas? Is it something that we haven’t gone over before?

NightAyeeeee: And yes, if he does join up with us I’d be happy to teach him a thing or twenty.

Lemming-llion: Ha, or thirty! ;P

Lemming-llion: I was going to wait until we were in a gym to try it out, but one thing he wanted to try was to see if relative mass influenced depermeation launch vectors or if it was fixed to me!

Lemming-llion: For example, if I was to use one of your plus ultra dense stamps and depermeate while it was in my arm

Lemming-llion: would my arm be launched backwards as if I was depermeating inside a wall, or would the weight be launched like a bullet?

Lemming-llion: I can’t wait to try it out during quirk training today! I’ll keep you updated! :D

NightAyeeeee: That sounds incredibly useful, especially since we’ve been struggling to give you a ranged offensive option in your repertoire. 

NightAyeeeee: Especially one that doesn’t get left behind the moment you forget to permeate it through something.

NightAyeeeee: On an unrelated note, we found those missing pants of yours in the crawl space between the gym and the showers.

Lemming-llion: Oh. Haha? Really? Funny that they’d end up there… ;^)

Lemming-llion: I can’t believe that we haven’t thought to try it out before! D:

Lemming-llion: He also had so many questions about you.

Lemming-llion: I think I got maybe half of it?

Lemming-llion: And that was before the cola got to him. XD

Lemming-llion: Then things got squeaky. :D

NightAyeeeee: … squeaky.

Lemming-llion: Oops, next class is coming up now! Gotta ghost!

NightAyeeeee: Have a pleasant day, Mirio. Talk to you later.

Lemming-llion: :D :D :D :D :D

Closing the app, Sasaki Mirai laughed as he put away his phone. 

He glanced at his second monitor, which was showing a replay of the now-named Midoriya at the Sports Festival commentator’s booth concurrent with the footage of Mirio fighting down the teleporter Taki Maba, his first match in the final event.

Certainly, that boy had caught his interest when he had first seen him on the Sports Festival broadcast.  

All in all, it was finally a pleasure to put a name to the face he’d been glimpsing for the past seven years.

Just who are you, Midoriya Izuku?

= = = = =

Principal Hayasui Ichiro was ready for this meeting.

That was what he kept telling himself.

He had, after all, time and again rehearsed the day that dignitaries from UA Heroics Academy would arrive at his humble little middle school. The man had it all planned out! First, a strong welcome! Second, a tour of the facilities during their walk to his office! Third, tea!

And then, to talk about Bakugo!

Except things had, however, gone a little off script when principal Nezu’s secretary had mentioned that the whole point of the visit was about the quirkless little Midoriya Izuku, rather than a more talented student such as the explosively talented Bakugo Katsuki.

At first, the man had worried that the boy had broken into UA or done something similarly stupid, but as it turned out that he had not only wormed his way into the commentator’s booth wearing a UA PE uniform, but the brat had also spent the latter half of the Sports Festival gushing about quirks.

Not only had the crowd loved it, but so did UA.

Again, something outside of his expectations, but principal Hayasui considered himself an open minded, progressive man; what UA liked, he liked!

Even then, he was still feeling like he was sweating bullets as the UA-marked car pulled up to the visitor’s parking lot, driven by none other than a pro hero, who was loudly chatting with…

Why did the UA dignitaries pick up a hobo on the way here?

The principal recovered as the car came to a stop, and plastered on as pleasant a smile as he could manage as the receiving party (the principal, the vice principal, and several other teachers not occupied by lunch duties) walked out to watch the disembarking pro heroes.

Present Mic exited first, opening the rear door to let out… huh, a woman in a dark blue business suit with her long blonde hair tied back by a black headband. She didn’t seem like a pro heroine, but the next person to step out was definitely the infamous Principal Nezu of UA, followed shortly afterwards by Midoriya’s mother.

Trailing behind them was the hobo.

“Ah, Principal Nezu! On behalf of Aldera Middle School, we welcome you!” He bowed, formally, and Nezu did the same, as was appropriate, and both parties followed suit on their respective leaders.

Even the hobo.

Hayasui didn’t stare.

You’re doing great, Hayasui! He mentally cheered himself.

“My name is Hayasui Ichiro, and while I’m familiar with Midoriya-san, perhaps we should do introductions for the rest of your group first?”

And perhaps get them to notice the hobo?

“Absolutely! This is my secretary, Shimakaze Sakura, and you have of course met Midoriya Inko before?”

To discuss her son’s inappropriate behaviour… but I’m not going to mention that!  “Ah, yes we have met. In the past. About Midoriya-kun.”

The little principal of UA had a gleam in his eyes as he did so.

“And finally, may I introduce the pro heroes Present Mic and Eraserhead? They were the two who interacted most with Midoriya-kun during his stay on our campus. You may remember them as the commentators of the Sports Festival.”

Oh. That wasn’t a hobo?

Hayasui rallied quickly and bowed again.

“A pleasure to meet you, ladies and gentlemen! Now, may I introduce the Vice Principal… ”

= = = = =

The hallway was silent, and all the attention had been sucked to a single point just above and behind Izuku’s head.

He knew that voice - had heard it in interviews, in recordings of hero fights - and closed his eyes in silent thanks.

Slowly, the greenet turned his head to find that yes, yes indeed; Hawks was balanced on a windowsill, one hand braced on the window frame above.

Hawks leaned forward, and all the students recoiled back.

“Gonna borrow the green bean for a sec. See ya!”

Izuku yelped as he was grabbed by the collar and hauled out of the window in a smooth, uncannily practiced motion. His body didn’t scrape along any glass and his feet didn’t bang on the windowsill.

Aside from a small grunt of effort, the entire thing had been nearly silent as he was pulled out of Tsubasa’s frozen fingers and out into the air as Hawks jumped backwards.

Just how much experience does the Pro Hero Hawks have with silently pulling people out of windows?

He thought of the reasons why the Pro Hero Hawks might know how to do this so effortlessly, and decided that he didn’t want to know.

And even with his wings flared behind him, that ground was coming up fast.

So fast!

A beat of the wings slowed them at the last second, however, and Izuku managed to keep a hold of his breakfast from falling out the bottom of his stomach or from shooting back up and out where it had come from, so he considered it a success.

“Oh shoot, you aren’t used to the g-forces are you?”

“Nnngghhhh.” Eyes bulging, hands clapped over his mouth, and looking distinctly greener than his own hair, Izuku whimpered.

“Whoopsie. Sorry there, kid. You alright? I’m gonna touch your back, is that okay?”

The greenet nodded, even though he was half-bent over. “Y-yhs...”

Hawk’s hand on his back, gently rubbing soothing circles, helped. Izuku closed his eyes and focused on not throwing up.

“Shh. ‘s all good, kid. It’ll pass real quick. Hey, is there like a head honcho around here, right? Like a principal?”

Another nod.

“Okay, how about you lead me to him?” Hawks cocked his head to one side much like the birds he was named after. “Uh, if you’re up to walking.”

Izuku nodded again, and once he had gathered himself up he glanced up at the window, where a dozen heads were lined up and looking , before walking off in a hurry.

The entire way there, they were drawing stares.

Of course, when you were in middle school and had the number five pro hero walking alongside you, it was kind of hard not to draw stares.

Izuku’s eyes never left the floor as he nervously walked alongside Hawks.

The winged pro felt like he was walking casually, though his head swivelled this way and that much like the birds that he was named after. Most students shrunk away from his gaze.

Others got a wave back and a smile; sometimes it was an arm that waved, other times it was his wings.

“So, y’know, I never went to middle school.” Hawks said as they walked down the stairs and into an empty corridor. “I mean, I’ve visited some, for like, meet your heroes type stuff. There was also that one hostage situation. But yeah, never went to middle school as, like, as a student , y’know?”

Izuku blinked. “Y-yeah?”

“Mhmm. Got put into a special training program when I was your age. ‘S the reason I was able to get such a head start but, y’know, you miss out on a few things.” Hawks nodded sagely. “Say… is that how schoolyard fights are supposed to go?”

Izuku considered for a moment.

“No. Because, uh… Usually, a pro hero doesn’t come to save you.”

“Oh. Well… you’re welcome, then.” Hawks chuckled, reaching up to scrub Izuku’s hair. 

Izuku didn’t stop the little giggle that escaped his lips. 

“T-thank you, Hawks.”

= = = = = 

Hizashi trailed behind as the principal continued his little tour. He wasn’t sure that the principal was aware that they blew up buildings more impressive than this minimalistic but functional school in Training Ground Beta on a semi-regular basis, but he was willing to follow along as Hayasui gave them the sales pitch on Aldera.

As if anyone in the group had a child that wasn’t already attending.

Then again, they did spring this visit on the principal - maybe he was stalling for time while someone cleared out a conference room or something for them to arrive at?

“... and this brings us to the… what the? Who-”

“Oh hey, it’s the rat!”

Rounding the corner with Midoriya-kun in tow was another pro hero, with a pair of very distinctive large red wings, who grinned and waved as he spotted the tour group. 

Half the teachers (namely, all the Aldera-associated teachers) froze in place. Hayasui made a strangled noise.

“Why, if it isn’t the pigeon!” cackled the principal. “Hawks, hasn’t it been… what, two years? You hardly visit!”

The blonde hero laughed. “You kept shooting missiles at me!”

“Well, you did try to drop in uninvited! The UA Barrier needs that information!”

“You kept shooting missiles at me!”

“Miss Nagase got a lot of test data out of it!”

Hizashi found himself laughing at the exchange, even though Shota was palming his face and muttering something.

Nezu broke away from the group as Hawks did the same with a stunned-looking Midoriya.

Hizashi gave the boy a little wave, which returned some of the color on his pale face.

“Hey, little listener! How was school? Anyone asked for your autograph yet?”

There was something in the way that Midoriya nervously smiled - and his rumpled state in general - that put both the UA pro hero teachers on edge.

Hawks perked up from where he had crouched down to shake principal Nezu’s hand. “Oh, dibs on that! I want his autograph!”

Midoriya blushed redder, and so did Hayasui, who sputtered as recognition finally dialled in. “P-pro hero Hawks? Who’s next, Endeavor?”

Hizashi heard a familiar sigh behind him as Shota adjusted his capture scarf. “Hope not.”

“Well, Midoriya-kun here made quite the impression, after all.” Nezu smiled, showing teeth. “Speaking of: Hawks, you did realize you only have to fill in one internship request form, correct?”

“Ah, ‘kid in the announcer’s booth’ didn’t have the same ring to it as Midoriya Izuku, y’know?” Hawks grinned. “I didn’t want to miss out because I got his name wrong.”

“You also filled out three more forms with Midoriya-kun’s name listed as ‘green bean’, ‘broccoli head’ and ‘you know who I mean by now’.” Nezu countered, causing Midoriya to let out a squawk of indignation. “Which makes me wonder how you got a hold of his name with that last application, Hawks.”

“Wait just a moment here, you actually want Midoriya?” Blurted out Hayasui, drawing everyone’s attention. “But he’s quirkless .”

Everything stopped, and silence reigned.

= = = = =

Bakugo Katsuki watched as the extras milled around in confusion, blabbering on about Hawks appearing out of nowhere (of course that’s how it’d look like, Hawks was one of the fastest heroes around, dumbasses) and De- Izuku .

Midoriya Izuku.

Katsuki growled as he dug into his lunch and took a sip of water.

“The hell are you doing, calling Izuku names like that? Does that sound like something a hero would do, brat!?” screamed the hag.

Things had been… loud… in the Bakugo household last afternoon, and it had gone into the evening.

Even dad had been eerily firm with his voice as he sat his son up and started to unravel the duct tape they had used to pin him down.  

“Katsuki. I want you to tell me what upset you about seeing Izuku in the announcer’s booth.”

Why had he been angry?

Because useless fuckin’ Deku thought he was better because he got into that booth and had been lording it over him.

“Did he really? Did he wave at the cameras and say ‘hi, Kacchan, look at where I am and look at where you are’?”

“No, of course he didn’t! But I know he was thinking it!”

“Was he thinking it, or were you?”

He hadn’t had an answer to that.

The room had - blessedly - fallen silent for a moment before Mitsuki finally spoke again.

“Why the fuck would you think that, huh? Every time I see him he’s gushing about how strong you are. Izuku adores you.”

Well, yeah, he was gonna be better than All Might! The next number one! Of course Deku would know that.

So why would he think he’s better than me if he does?

“Just how long have you been calling him that, anyway?”

His parents had not liked the answer.

“Really, Katsuki? Is treating other people like that really how you become a hero? Sounds more like a way to end up a villain!”

“What would you know, dad? I don’t exactly see you on the hero billboards!” 

Fuck off, he wasn’t going to go villain! Those guys were weak! They were losers!

Katsuki hurled his plastic bottle across the room and into the recycling bin - because litterers were villains - and scowled.

“Fuck.”

He had a lot to think about, didn’t he?

= = = = =

Things had rapidly gone downhill after Hayasui had shot his mouth off.

Nezu’s smile had frozen as clues collected in the past twenty four hours (give or take an hour) had slotted into place after he had reviewed the boy’s actions on cameras, reading his lips and expressions and interactions.

Midoriya-kun’s nervousness.

His skittishness around authority figures.

The boy’s fear of his own quirklessness.

Shockingly low self-worth and self-esteem.

It was time for him to roll up his sleeves, it seemed.

“I believe we must clarify a few things.” Nezu said, and despite being half the height and less than a third the mass of the smallest of the assembled humans (that being Midoriya Izuku), the full weight of his authority as the principal of the premier heroics school in Japan drew everyone’s eyes towards him.

Ah, humans .

All that effort in learning human social codes and conventions had been worth it, if only because it meant that he could break them into tiny little pieces.

“We are here to invite Midoriya Izuku into a special program where he interns with several of the heroes that applied to do so, something that all of our hero course students participate in over the school year. So yes, we do want him as an intern. Several heroes want him as an intern, something that not all of our hero course students get .”

Hayasui looked like he was having trouble breathing. “But he’s-”

“He’s quirkless?” Nezu finished for him. “I understand that’s quite a disadvantage for a hero, to not have a quirk.”

“Yes, exactly!” The middle school principal nodded before stopping again.

Really, it was as if he wasn’t even trying.

Nezu’s nose twitched, and he let out a thoughtful hum.

“I would still take him on.” Aizawa interrupted, a surprised ripple spreading around the others. “Midoriya-kun’s got a good head on his shoulders, thinks things through, and has come up with a wide number of ways for other students to improve. With training, I wouldn’t mind having him as a colleague in the hero business.”

“And Eraserhead here isn’t the only one.” Hawks chirped. “Even after lil’ Tsubasa told me he was quirkless, I still would pick him over some of the other interns I’ve had from other hero schools.” 

“I have a standing invitation that he could come along to my radio show.” Mic added. “Honestly, if it goes well we might even make it a weekly thing! If Mamadoriya approves, anyway.”

“And those are just three of… what was it? Nearly two hundred offers for hero internships?” Nezu smiled at the little squeak Midoriya the younger produced at the casual dropping of that fact. “Why does his quirk status disqualify him from being invited to a hero agency internship, Hayasui-kun?”

The diminutive suffix stung like a barb driven into his hand’s soft tissue, Nezu could see. The principal of UA allowed himself to smile, but only internally.

No answer came out of the man’s mouth. The Aldera principle seemed to realize now that his words had brought him leaning over the edge of a precipice, hanging on by just his flimsy thin necktie, and Nezu was holding onto it. 

All the mouse, dog, bear(?) had to do was let go .

After all, the word of the principal of UA carried a lot of weight, after all, and that wasn’t even beginning to consider the other resources that were available to him. Recommendations could be made to school boards, talk of how unpleasant the visit had been.

Hayasui’s plans to impress UA had failed. Spectacularly.

All Nezu would need to do now was turn around and leave, say the right words, and he could crush this school.

But he didn’t.

There were some three hundred and forty seven students in Aldera, spread out across its three grades, and despite the teachers’ attitude towards Izuku, the school’s statistics showed that it did provide an adequate education for the vast majority of its students, with a good number of its students moving on to top-class high schools even if it hadn’t had any students make it into UA.

If it weren’t for them, that would have been the end of Aldera.

However, Nezu wasn’t willing to displace so many students right after the beginning of a school year, right after students had started to settle in. Especially those who were in their graduating year. There was simply not enough capacity in the neighboring middle schools, and not enough teachers that could be hired to replace them without losing months of precious time to study for their crucial high school entrance exams; and being able to get into the best possible high school truly was something that would affect the students themselves and their future families.

As much as he enjoyed inflicting this nightmare upon the teachers, he would stay his hand from further action, if only for the sake of the students and keeping the students here from having to re-learn a new school again.

So he satisfied himself with this, for now.

But nothing was written in stone, not even the conclusions Nezu had drawn.

If they didn’t change, Aldera would not be razed by barbarians. That was too quick, too clean.

It would be the slow death of a besieged village, its members picked off, one inadequate teacher at a time, squirming as they huddled around a dying hearth and wondered; who would be next?

So the word would travel. Aldera would not be the only school where changes were made .

And Nezu wasn’t so selfish as to not allow Midoriya the chance to have at least one bite at this apple, either.

For today, though, he would have to satisfy himself with vindicating the young boy’s talents.

“I am waiting for an answer, Hayasui-kun.” Nezu prompted, snapping his middle schooler counterpart out of his trance.

“W-well. He’s only fourteen? Hero work is unsuitable for him!”

Hawks stared at the man, but kept silent.

An adequate answer. Nezu flicked his paw in what humans would interpret to be a dismissive gesture. “Yes, that much is true. Let me reassure you: Midoriya-kun will not be acting as a full-time frontline hero intern, as UA has done with our other internships. At least, not until he’s had adequate training and been cleared for duty, and that will likely be as a UA student, rather than one of a middle school.”

Hayasui boggled, as did the other teachers, their minds straining to catch up as Nezu casually clobbered them with revelation after revelation. “Instead, we wish to at first allow him a chance to meet his heroes and work with them in quirk analysis, both of heroes and of villains.”

Before the Aldera principal was about to open his mouth again, Nezu interrupted him again. 

“That is, after all, what drew the interest of the pro heroes who wrote to me within hours of Midoriya’s unplanned debut, such as Hawks here, as well as Gang Orca, and Sir Nighteye.” Nezu beamed, delighting in the way Midoriya’s eyes lit up in recognition. “I do hope I’m correct in my presumption that you are familiar with Midoriya’s penchant for analysis? Perhaps his homeroom teacher?” 

Nezu whirled around to face another teacher. Several recoiled away from him.

They were afraid? 

Excellent .

“Ueda-sensei, was it? I believe you were introduced to me as Midoriya-kun’s homeroom teacher.”

The bespectacled, middle-aged Ueda looked white as a ghost as he found himself under the combined stares of multiple pro heroes and teachers from the top school in the country (and there was quite significant overlap between the two). “Y-yes. I… auh… am. Familiar. We, uh, have discussed Midoriya-kun’s quirk analysis in the past.”

Nezu nodded, eyes predatory. “Mhmm. And helped him nurture it, I hope?”

“W-well. Y-... aah… well. Midoriya-kun has, uh…” The man squirmed as his gaze flicked over to a serene-looking Midoriya Inko. She knew. She knew what he had said about her son’s ‘rambling’ and ‘distraction’ in the past. He knew that the wrong words would cause her to step forward.

In short, he was trapp-

“Perhaps Ueda-sensei here is a little overwhelmed.” Inko interrupted. “After all, it’s not often that we have such well known people visit this little school.”

‘Oh no. ’ 

Nezu bit the inside of his cheek to suppress a cackle, he could almost read the words off Ueda’s face.

“But I do recall a few things he had to say about my Izuku when we had our parent-teacher meetings.” She smiled.

Oh yes . 

Nezu’s eyes gleamed as he watched the man look like he was about to melt in front of his eyes.

Hayasui attempted to save his colleague. “Ah, I’m sure they were quite complimentary, Midoriya-sa-”

“They were not .” Had Inko’s words been a blade, Nezu would have needed to have done a lot of scrubbing that evening to get all the blood out. “He has, multiple times, called Izuku’s analysis a distraction, saying in at least one case that he had no business worrying about others’ quirks. While I’m sure this is valid had Izuku been in class at the time, I do believe Ueda-sensei recommended that I also punish him for doing quirk analysis whenever I came across it, ‘to drive the lesson home’.”

Nezu’s amusement at Hayasui and Ueda’s faces barely won out over the incandescent rage that he felt stirring in his chest. Instead, the mouse/dog/bear suppressed a giggle as he remained quiet and let Midoriya Inko take the first bite out of the Aldera apple.

New plan; time for the Musutafu school board to be given an object lesson.

He glanced to Izuku, who seemed to be openly shedding tears.

Nezu grinned at the boy as his mother began to tear into the teachers, airing grievances that must have been almost three years in the making.

The greenet returned a wobbly little smile.

Good enough.

= = = = =

The meeting fell apart quite quickly after that, Shimakaze Sakura thought; the Aldera staff were quickly reduced to distressed, blubbering messes ready to agree to anything that the UA staff and Midoriyas demanded. 

Nezu quickly took control again with a polite nod to Midoriya Inko, and after a quick transfer into a conference room, Sakura’s attache case was opened and the necessary paperwork was hurriedly stamped with their seals, essentially signing off all of Izuku’s ‘heroic’ education to UA.

Izuku was sent off with Aizawa to collect his belongings; clearly today had been distressing, with how he had been crying silently half the time as the meeting happened, and he’d be sent home with his mother.

“So, I take it that you’re not going to be calling my dad off?” Shimakaze drawled with a wry smile, pulling the recording device from where it had been sitting underneath her shirt collar and carefully depositing it in her attache case.

Nezu laughed as he walked to the car with her. “Oh, of course not, my dear. Do send my regards to Taruki when you next see him?”

= = = = =

Aizawa followed Midoriya to his classroom, accompanied by Hawks, wading through the students as they tried their best to get out of the way.

Voices from the students followed.

“Do you think I could ask him for a Hawks autograph?”

“Wait, Deku’s got two pros with him now?”

“Who’s the other one? I don’t recognize him.”

“Uh, I dunno, could be an underground hero or maybe he’s some new guy?”

“I thought he was some hobo?”

Aizawa turned to glare at the last one, causing the boy’s eyes to literally fall out of his head.

“Ah, that’s his quirk, Aizawa-sen- san .” Midoriya explained. “His optical nerves are wrapped by an additional set of muscles rather than the typical extraocular muscle groups, allowing him to detach them from his eye socket and move it around. Kind of like a squid’s tentacle.” 

Hawks chuckled, leaning over to Midoriya. “Wait, if I get you as an intern, does that mean you have to call me Hawks-sensei?”

“Uh… I guess?” Midoriya turned to Aizawa, who returned a flat stare.

Kindness, he could do. That was just what decent human beings did.

Shenanigans, however, was right out.

“Let’s get your stuff, alright?”

“S-sure.”

Midoriya slid the door to the room forward (smaller than what he was used to) and stepped inside.

Most of the classroom stopped and stared.

Izuku froze in place.

“Kid,” whispered Aizawa, his lip movements hidden behind his scarf. “You good?”

Izuku nodded and making a visible effort stepped forward. Avoiding the gazes of his classmates, he went to his bag and collected his things.

(Aizawa didn’t miss how ragged and torn up his desk looked)

“Excuse me? Hawks-san?” whispered one of the girls sitting nearby. Aizawa’s gaze slid off of Midoriya to check on the new voice. It was a silver-haired girl, her long locks wavering in the air as if they defied gravity.

“Yeah, something the matter?” Hawks answered, though his eyes never left the greenet’s back. His posture was tense, like he was expecting trouble.

“Is Midoriya-kun in trouble?”

Hawks spared her a glance, and a small smile. “Nah, he’s just had a rough day. Plus, there’s a bunch of heroes who want him as an intern.”

“Mmhm. He’ll be back tomorrow, most likely,” Aizawa confirmed.

“That’s great!” The girl’s shoulders sagged slightly in relief and she smiled, her voice dropping down into a whisper that only the two pros could hear. 

“It’s about time something good happened to him.”