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It started after the provisional licensing exam, or so Shouta’s been told. He didn’t find out about it until much later, but Midoriya swears to hell and back that the incidents during that exam set the whole thing in motion.
Shouta would be lying if he said he didn’t notice the change his kids went through after coming back from the test. They carried themselves with more suspicion– Midoriya especially, since Toga had attacked him in particular. The dorms went eerily quiet, and people kept their secrets to themselves in fear of an imposter. Uraraka curled in on herself, probably feeling guilty for letting Toga get some of her blood in the first place. Guilty for putting Midoriya in danger.
It started small. A huddled conversation between the self-proclaimed Dekusquad at lunch. A harried and exhausted Midoriya asking– pleading– for the five of them to come up with some sort of code, a phrase or something that they could use to identify each other. The biggest secret since All Might’s skeletal form. Something individualized, something like–
“My bones are crackling and I am cackling,” Izuku suggests. He doesn’t know why he says it– maybe because he’s tired of the nervous stillness that’s been dragging the corners of everyone’s mouths down. Something needs to change the mood.
It has the intended effect. Uraraka snorts, spewing rice everywhere, and slaps both hands over her mouth as half of the cafeteria turns to look. “Deku-kun,” she snickers. “That can’t be yours.”
“How about, ‘I miss my hospital bed’?” Tsu suggests, handing Uraraka a napkin.
“That joke is getting old.”
“No– no, I’ve got it,” Todoroki says gravely. “Yours is ‘enigma wrapped in a secret love child.’”
Izuku pauses, hating that he actually kind of likes that. Mostly because it’s so ridiculous Toga could never come up with it on her own. “Okay,” he agrees, making Uraraka snort again. “That’s mine. Your turn.”
Tipping his head to the side, Todoroki says, deadpan, “Can mine be, ‘soba, cold as my father’s soul’?”
“That is highly unprofessional!” Iida squawks.
“That can be yours, kero,” Tsu says, setting her index finger on her chin. “I want ‘I still have my stomach.’”
Iida chokes.
Uraraka raises her hand. “Mine is, ‘I’m headed off to space, guys!’”
Izuku grins. “Perfect.”
Of course, Shouta wasn’t there for that conversation. It wasn’t until after the yakuza raid that he first saw the codes in action.
Midoriya was sprawled out on the ground, Eri draped over his shoulder, blue hair spilling into his hands. As soon as he could move, Shouta was on his feet, moving to make sure both kids were okay. Uraraka stopped him. “Deku-kun?” she called out warily. “Check in?”
Shouta didn’t know what was going on, and he had half a mind to threaten Uraraka’s expulsion if she didn’t get out of the way– not that he’d ever carry through with it. She had too much potential for that. With two kids injured, though, she needed to move.
But then Midoriya grunted, “Secret love child,” and Uraraka visibly relaxed, finally letting Shouta past.
“I’m headed off to space, guys,” she muttered and Midoriya lifted his head to smile shakily at her.
At the time, Shouta couldn’t spare the energy to interrogate them about their weird love languages, so he put it out of his mind until he could dedicate the proper amount of brain cells to it.
That moment came as soon as Midoriya was released from quarantine. Shouta motioned him and Uraraka over, crossed his arms, and said bluntly, “Check in?”
“An enigma wrapped in a secret love child,” Midoriya said, presumably without thinking. Uraraka burst out laughing immediately as he turned bright red.
“Explain,” Shouta demanded as Uraraka covered her mouth with both hands to suppress her giggling.
“Well, Sensei,” Midoriya said tentatively, expertly avoiding eye contact. “It started like this…”
He explained, and Shouta wondered why on earth this kid wasn’t going underground.
To be honest, he still wonders sometimes.
After that, he started to notice the phrases popping up more often. Whenever a member of the Dekusquad went off campus, the first thing they said before getting close to the rest of the group was their phrase.
One day, in the middle of a battle simulation, Midoriya started panicking about something and Iida screeched, “That is highly unprofessional!”
Appalled by such lack of tact from a top student, and the class president no less, Shouta started to step in, but froze when Midoriya visibly relaxed, thanked Iida, and then continued the fight.
When he questioned them about it later, Midoriya blushed beet red again and stammered out, “Oh, that’s Iida-kun’s check in.”
Late that night, attacked by the insomnia monster yet again, Shouta glowered at his lesson plan for the week and thought about the Dekusquad’s codes. The idea had a lot of merit. An individualized phrase for check ins could be really handy in the field – something no one knew other than teammates. It would be effective against all sorts of impersonation quirks – voice quirks, technological quirks, puppeting quirks. It was effective against Toga too.
Most heroes had some sort of phrase they used when sounding off after a battle, but it was usually just their hero name, sometimes with a distinguishing style to the statement, but often not unique at all. Having class 1-A make their own phrases would be incredibly proactive, and in this case could be life-saving.
The next day he passed out whiteboards and told the class to make passphrases to use with each other as an identity check. Something that didn’t need to be written down to be remembered. Something unique.
Chaos ensued for the rest of homeroom while people started making phrases. Bakugou insisted that his needed to be “I’m Lord Explodokill Murder,” and then seemed affronted when people accepted it immediately. Jirou spent a good chunk of time telling Kaminari that his should just be ‘wheyyyy’ so he could check in even if his brain was fried. He stuck his tongue out at her and chose something else, to Shouta’s relief. Ashido spent the entire time trying to think of a pun off breakdancing, with minimal success.
The phrases started showing up in class more and more often. Building collapse practice? Hagakure told them, “I’m stealing the spotlight.” Incredibly intense game of dodgeball? No worries, Jirou was “still learning the drums.”
Shinsou was brought to the joint training battles against 1-B and immediately got initiated to the rituals when Kaminari shrieked, “I can charge your phone!” and Kirishima answered, “This is manlier than my hair dye.”
Kan sent Shouta a strange look and he just hid a proud smile behind his capture scarf in response. No one could match his kids in levels of useful stupidity.
It hurt him to watch as paranoia settled deep in their souls, clutching at their hearts, and they started to ask for a check-in every time they saw each other. Everyone got used to calling out their codes as they walked into class in the morning, to prove they were real.
A few weeks after the phrases were made, Shouta called roll call and all the kids responded with their codes almost without thinking about it, like they’d telepathically come to a group decision that this was the safest way to make sure everyone was safe. They kept it up until everyone seemed to know each other’s phrases as well as they knew their first names. Even Shouta knew them all, and he wasn’t engaging with the codes nearly as much as his students. Every time someone left the room, for anything, the first thing they said when they got back, before even a simple hello, was their check in phrase. Toga could be anywhere– anyone could be anywhere, and the students of 1-A were terrified.
All of 1-A had their phrases. And Toga hadn’t impersonated anyone yet, so they assumed it must have been working… right?
And then it happened. The war started, and Shouta called for a sound off, and when it was her turn, Uraraka squeaked, “Um… Deku-kun’s cute?”
Deku stumbled, proving that it is, in fact, possible for someone to trip in midair.
“All right, thank you,” Shouta said wearily. “Who’s closest?”
“I got it!” Tsu croaked.
A second later the distinct sound of a scream came across the comms. Everyone else finished sounding off. Yaomomo had just finished when Uraraka’s voice came back, this time without the strange Toga-like lilt to it. “Sorry, sorry, sorry! Um, I’m heading off to space, guys!”
“Tsu-chan, verify…”
“I still have my stomach, and yeah, that’s her.”
Shouta took a moment to remember how to breathe again, and refocused on Midoriya and Shigaraki’s battle. He couldn’t lose focus. Not when there was so much on the line. He’d keep his goddamn eyes open until they shriveled to crisps if it meant saving his kids.
The final battle came, and then it ended, and Shouta called out raspily, “Sound off.” He held his breath, waiting for seat one. They habitually did the sound off in order of their seats by then, after all that practice during roll call.
Finally, a weak cough sounded over the comms. “I’m… still… sparkling.”
Sounding relieved, Ashido’s voice came on. “It’s breakdancing not break… Fuck, that doesn’t work either. Well. Um, Alien Queen, sounding off!”
A pause before, “Kero, I still have my stomach…”
“That is highly unprofessional.”
Another cough. “Uhh… I’m headed off to space, guys.”
“Ninjas are born… with tails,” Ojirou said wearily.
A confused, “Are they, though?”
“Kaminari-kun, answer sound off professionally please.” Shouta couldn’t help his fond eye roll, though. Luckily there was no one around to see it.
“Right! Um, I can charge your phone!”
Moving on, Kirishima grunted, “this is manlier than my hair dye.”
“An army of ants are at my side.”
“I’ll make cakes for us all later!”
”Is it Tentacole or Tentaswole?”
“And I’m still learning the drums,” Jirou said, with false exasperation. “Seriously, why is it so hard?”
Tired giggles over the comms and Shouta would be lying if he said he didn’t love this class. He’d protect them all until he died, if he had to.
“People, consider: Rip-off spider-man.”
“That… was a mad… banquet of darkness.”
A little sigh. “Soba, cold as my father’s soul.” A lot about why Todoroki picked that for his phrase made much more sense now that all the Dabi allegations had come out.
“I think…” Hagakure groaned. “I think I’m stealing the spotlight, you fools.” More tired laughter from the class.
”I’m Lord Explodokill,” Bakugou growled over the line. “And Midoriya’s out. But he’s still a fucking enigma. Shitty nerd.”
“I love boo–”
“Nope. Cutting that short before it gets too far. Living encyclopedia, checking in.”
“Literal queen,” Ashido laughed.
“How can you cut him any shorter though?”
“Ohhhh burn…”
“Let’s use the comms professionally, everyone.”
They made it through. All of them safe, and accounted for, although Midoriya was out of it. Then again, what else is new?
Shouta let himself relax again. It felt like the first real breath he’d taken in ages. They were all safe. Unbelievable, but it was true.
The next year passed in an anticlimactic drag of normalness. No one in 2-A was complaining, though, not in the group chat which Shouta is still an ‘honorary member’ of, and not in their perfectly normal, villain-free classes. It was good. The class needed a break from all that.
After weeks– months, even– of clinging to the dregs of paranoia, the class gradually turned the passphrases into the biggest inside joke the UA hero course has ever seen. Somehow they turned something with an ugly history into a thing of joy. They dropped them casually into conversation and then burst out laughing. “No, really, Monoma-kun, I can charge your phone!”
Then one day, just as the second year was closing up in a nice trend of predictability, Sero went missing.
‘Went missing’ might have been a bit of a dramatic way to put it, since he was only actually gone for three hours, but he went to the grocery store, the time for him to have reasonably come back to the dorms came and went, and he still wasn’t back.
Shouta was anxious, and he could tell the rest of Class A was nervous about it too, from the glances they all kept sending to the time.
“He really should be back by now,” Yaoyorozu murmured, distraught.
“And he’s not answering his phone…”
“Wait wait wait– group chat!”
Shouta obligingly checked the group chat, which he still manages to stay caught up on just because it’s incredibly entertaining. Midoriya’s midnight rants are illuminating, Shinsou has a dry humor no one can combat, Todoroki’s conspiracy theories are ridiculous but good food for thought, and the entire dynamic of the Bakusquad is hilarious.
Sero had sent one message. “Consider this: ripoff spiderman.”
“He forgot the hyphen,” Kaminari whispered, sounding affronted.
About half of the class relaxed, because if Sero had sent his check-in phrase, that must have meant he was okay, like it always had. Shouta didn’t think that, and neither did Midoriya, who pointed out hesitantly, “But why would he use that phrase when he could just tell us he’s okay? We only use that after we’ve been in trouble, right? I think… we should track his phone.”
Shouta didn’t make any move to stop them, so they all huddled around Kaminari, who had the best programming skills out of all of them, and waited for him to track Sero’s phone.
When it showed he was a full two-hour drive away from UA, everyone groaned at once. There was no way he could have gotten out there by himself in that amount of time, which meant he’d probably been kidnapped.
“At least it’s not Midoriya-kun this time,” Kaminari said brightly.
Midoriya made a quiet wailing sound. “I don’t have stuff happen to me that often!”
“Yeah right,” Shinsou snorted. “Your check-in phrase should be ‘I’m a reckless villain magnet.’”
Midoriya shoved him.
An hour later, all of 3-A was fully decked out in hero gear, standing over the unconscious bodies of twenty upstart villains who thought they could take on a bunch of kids who’d fought and won a literal war. Shouta was shocked by the illogical reasoning of villains sometimes.
Sero was fine. A little traumatized, but so was everyone else, so it evened out. He said he was glad his message got through to them, and Todoroki said pointedly, “I think we need to have a lesson on how to interpret cryptic messages, because between you and the I’ll-take-on-the-hero-killer-by-myself duo, I can’t keep up.”
Midoiya made another wounded noise.
After sending the villains off with the police, they helped Sero out of the warehouse and headed home.
“You are kind of a rip-off Spider-man,” Kaminari said abruptly on the drive back. Jirou swatted the back of his head.
And with that, the check-in phrases suddenly had a new purpose.
Shouta’s seen it in action a few times, but the one time he was an active participant was when Shinsou managed to talk his way into an underground bar and promptly realized he was way out of his league with the shady people that tended to frequent places like that. Shouta got an abrupt message just after midnight, Shinsou’s phrase, “Maybe the cat doesn’t need coffee, but he wants it.” And he was moving before he was even done reading the message, going to find his kid and break whoever decided to mess with him.
But his kids use it all the time, even if it’s not directly to him. He sees it in their group chats, he hears them telling the stories over and over again, cracking up as they retell the lore of 3-A…
Mina goes on a blind date and barely five minutes in, she sends the group chat a text message. “Idk, something about breakdancing.” Her date gives her a strange look, but doesn’t think much of it, not even when Uraraka calls a few minutes later and starts hysterically pretending to cry, making up some crisis so Mina can easily excuse herself. And she does. And if all of Class 3-A laughs about it long into the evening in the dorm they’ve never quite been able to convince themselves to move out of, well, no one’s the wiser, really.
Except Aizawa. Mina gets the feeling he knows everything that happens in the dorms, even if he pretends to be uninterested.
While Todoroki’s going on a visit home, where he’ll inevitably have to meet his father, all of Class 3-A gets a text notification at the same time. “Cold Soba.”
Everyone looks at Deku, and he nods, picking up his phone. “Who wants to break up this time?”
“It was me and Shinsou-kun last time, and Hagakure-chan and Bakugou-kun the time before that, so it’s gotta be someone else,” Ochako says, tapping her chin with one finger and squinting around the room. They take turns participating in fake relationships frequently, so they can get Todoroki away from his dad. Endeavour probably thinks the 3-A dating life is pretty complicated by now.
“Ah that was a harrowing minute and a half that Bakugou and I were in a relationship,” Hagakure says, shaking her head.
“Shut up!” Bakugou snaps. “It was fake!”
“People!” Deku says, drawing attention back to the issue at hand. “Focus!”
“I think it should be… you and the hospital bed,” Jirou suggests, smirking.
“That joke is really getting old, but okay.” Deku makes the call, wailing convincingly to Todoroki about how his hospital bed had to get replaced again and couldn’t Todoroki just come home and tell Recovery Girl that Deku just couldn’t be separated from the hospital bed– not again, please not again–
Todoroki’s out of the house in minutes, sending very relieved and slightly exasperated texts to the class.
After graduation, the girls go to a bar for old time’s sake. They end up split up, all of them separated over the bar, talking to different people, and then all the sudden five of them get a text at once. “Living Encyclopedia, checking in.”
All five go on high alert at once, and find Yaomomo being cornered by some… Mineta-like men. Ashido runs up and grabs Yaomomo’s hand excitedly, telling her about something or other and gently pulling her away from the predators. She’s backed right up by the rest of the girls and they leave the bar immediately.
Probably the most entertaining time Shouta’s ever seen Class 3-A use their phrases like this was during one of Midoriya’s interviews. Everyone who knows anything about Midoriya knows he hates interviews, but he attracts them like moths to a flame, if all the moths were incredibly aggressive and rude.
Shouta’s watched the video a hundred times by now, and it still makes him cackle.
The interview starts as most of Midoriya’s interviews do– he’s nervous, he fidgets, and he freezes up at every question. This interviewer apparently didn’t know how to handle an interview with pro-hero Deku, because she kept pressing him for answers, which some of the more experienced vultures know to avoid when interviewing him in particular.
Eventually, probably put out with the entire situation, Deku looks straight at the camera and says slowly and clearly, “I am an enigma wrapped in a secret love child.”
The interviewer laughs nervously, glancing off screen, and continues with her questions.
Someone made a meme out of it.
Someone also made a meme of what happened less than two minutes later, when Bakugou got caught on video exploding through the door to the studio, marching across the floor, and grabbing Midoriya by the scruff of his neck.
“You are an idiot,” he tells the interviewer, and then he drags Midoriya out, flipping the cameras off with his free hand.
Shouta’s probably watched the video too many times for it to be healthy, but it’s incredibly entertaining. The interviewer looks stunned. Midoriya’s expression is equally priceless, a little smug under the shock.
Bakugou ranted about it in the class chat afterwards, a proud tone to his brash texts. It gets brought up every class reunion, because it was, as Ashido says, iconic.
It started after the provisional licensing exam. It started small, became big, and now… it’s something else.
Class A looks after each other. And they’re not going to stop any time soon.
Omake, due to popular request
Class reunions are always one of Shouta's least favorite events of the years, not because his students are generally obnoxious - although that does play a hand in it - but because it's hard, watching them all grow up. At least when they're at school and he's teaching them, he can pretend to be growing with them. But every time they come back to UA to celebrate another year gone by, he can feel himself getting further and further out of touch with them all.
Eri's been snickering behind her hand all night, and he'd be a very bad hero if he didn't realize something was up, but he doesn't know what is up, and that's frankly concerning. Class A has a knack for getting past his defenses. He'll have to be extra vigilant tonight.
Uraraka beckons him over to a huge group of Class A kids and he sighs the long-suffering sigh of an overworked UA heroics teacher and walks over, pretending to be oblivious to Eri's giggles.
"We got you something," Uraraka says, grinning.
The rest of his class suppress laughter as Todoroki, stone-faced, draws out a small cardboard box.
"All these years, Sensei," Sero says solemnly, "And you never gave us your own check in code."
"We made one for you," Hagakure says, and even if Shouta can't see it, he can hear the grin in her voice.
Shouta can see where this was going and it screams both cringey and cheesy. He starts searching for an escape, but his hellish students have formed a circle around him and there's no way out. Even Bakugou is participating, albeit begrudgingly, next to a vibrating Midoriya.
Curse this class.
Todoroki holds out the box and, barely keeping in another sigh, Shouta takes it. It's heavier than he expected, like a paperweight. Suspicious. He looks at the eager faces of his past students, tries not to think of how many more gray hairs he'll have by the end of tonight, and carefully peels back the layers of cardboard and tissue paper in the box.
Inside sits the definitive shape of a mug. It's incredibly large, more of a bowl with a handle than a mug, really. It has a big destiny ahead for being a very important part of his mug collection, he can sense it.
Shouta would never admit he's almost flattered that his students remembered his endless love of caffeine. Never in a million years. Even if it is slightly, very slightly, true.
"You have to actually pull the mug out," Ashido hisses. Shooting her a glare, Shouta digs into the box and pulls the mug out.
Written on the front are the words "Number One Class Dad" in an attrotious font and an even more disgusting shade of yellow. Someone splutters out a laugh from behind him and he hears the distinctive sound of a back being slapped. A quiet apology from Shinsou. Traitor.
"This is hideous," Shouta says.
"It's the color of your goggles," Midoriya pipes up. "I matched it off of fanmerch."
Problem child.
"Now if you're in any trouble ever, old man," Kaminari says, stepping into the circle to pat Shouta a few times on the arms, "just give us a call and say the phrase 'Number one class dad,' and we'll come running to help."
"You're all problem children, all of you," Shouta says, but he doesn't fully mean it and he is not crying, he is not. He has eye issues. Years of heroics do that to a person.
It's a horrible gift at any rate.
And if he puts it on display in his living room, no he doesn't. He'll deny it for the rest of his years. It definitely doesn't make him feel a funny sort of warmth inside when he looks at it. Nothing like that at all.
It's just... a really nice mug. And a very good code phrase.
So he places it on display for practicality reasons, really. And he looks at it every day, because that's the logical thing to do. And he pretends, even to himself, that it's not because he cares deeply for those kids, and it's not because he feels nostalgic for those hectic days in class.
Sometimes he even feels like he really is the Number One Class Dad.
But you didn't hear that from him.