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The room is too clean.
Too bright. The overhead lights buzz like they’re mocking him, bouncing off the sterile whiteboard and polished desks. Izuku Midoriya crosses his arms, hoodie sleeves pulled over ink-stained knuckles, and narrows his eyes at the semi-circle of desks already occupied by students in identical uniforms. U.A. students. Future heroes. Golden children.
He kicks the chair in front of him before sitting, legs sprawled and expression unreadable.
Aizawa doesn’t even flinch. “Sit down, Midoriya.”
“I’m sitting, teach.”
“You know what I mean.”
Aizawa turns his dead-eyed gaze on the rest of Class 1-A, who’ve gone very, very quiet.
Midoriya notices. Not in the nervous, self-conscious way he used to back when he was still clinging to being normal—but with that calculating edge he’s picked up living in villain dens and safe houses, learning how to survive with people who sharpened knives for fun.
Their eyes skitter over him like he’s a bomb someone forgot to defuse.
He’s used to it.
“Midoriya is joining you for today’s study session,” Aizawa says, rubbing his temples. “Because someone failed their last math assessment with a forty-eight.”
Izuku shrugs. “My priorities are different.”
“And someone else,” Aizawa continues, “needs to stop pretending he understands basic algebra.”
Kaminari sinks lower in his chair.
Aizawa gestures toward the front of the room, already packing up his sleeping bag. “Figure it out. No one leaves until at least three of you pass the practice quiz.”
“Wait—he’s not even in our class,” Yaoyorozu says, brow furrowing. “Shouldn’t he be working with his own—?”
“I dropped out,” Izuku says simply.
A pause.
“What?” Iida blinks. “But—but—”
“Midoriya’s current academic status is none of your concern,” Aizawa mutters as he steps out. “Good luck.”
The door clicks shut behind him.
Fifteen seconds of awkward silence.
Someone breathes too loud. The heater wheezes.
Izuku pulls his hood back and props his chin on his hand. “Alright,” he says. “Who’s dumb?”
A chorus of offended gasps and sputters erupts, but Kaminari—traitorously, shamefully—raises his hand.
“Don’t call yourself dumb,” Yaoyorozu says automatically.
“No, I’m pretty sure I’m dumb,” Kaminari mumbles. “I’ve done the same equation wrong five times.”
Izuku reaches for the marker. “Let’s see it.”
The board squeaks as he writes, looping numbers in quick, messy scrawls. Kaminari hesitantly recites the problem. Izuku listens, then frowns at the board.
“No wonder. You’re treating x like it’s a constant.”
“But it is constant—”
“No, x is a hostage,” Izuku says, circling it in red. “And y is leverage. You don’t negotiate with hostages, you manipulate the leverage.”
“…What?”
A blink. Silence.
Todoroki, deadpan: “He’s right.”
“Wait, what?”
“If x is being held, then the only way to isolate it is to neutralize y,” Todoroki says slowly. “That… actually makes sense.”
Izuku turns, visibly surprised. “Huh. You’re not bad.”
Todoroki blinks back. “Neither are you.”
The tension in the room shifts slightly.
Kaminari leans forward. “So wait—if y is leverage, and it’s added to the other side—do you, like, swap it with a new variable to negotiate terms?”
“You remove the leverage,” Izuku says, grinning now. “With equal force. Balance the power. That’s how equations work.”
Bakugo stands up so fast his chair screeches across the floor.
“Absolutely the hell not.”
Everyone turns.
“You?” Bakugo snarls, stalking toward the door. “Explaining math?”
Izuku raises a brow. “Bye.”
“I—!”
Bakugo slams the door behind him.
Fifteen minutes later.
The door swings open again, much calmer this time.
Bakugo walks back in, dragging a chair behind him. He stops next to Izuku and plops it down—loudly.
He sits. Arms crossed. Scowl locked in place.
“…Teach me.”
Izuku doesn’t even blink. “Say please.”
“LIKE HELL—!”
“Then fail.”
“YOU SON OF A—”
“Language,” Todoroki says mildly, flipping a page in his textbook.
Yaoyorozu covers her mouth. Iida tries to intervene. Uraraka whispers to Mina, who’s just giggling into her sleeve.
Bakugo glares for a long, heated second.
“…Tch. Fine. Please, nerd.”
Izuku smirks. “That wasn’t so hard.”
He picks up the marker again and starts drawing little diagrams—hostages, villains, hideouts, escape routes. Somehow, it all loops back to solving for x.
By the end of the hour, Kaminari’s eyes are sparkling, Todoroki is taking color-coded notes, and Bakugo is furiously scribbling down formulas like he’s trying to beat them into submission.
Izuku stretches and leans back, looking far too pleased.
“Study group, huh,” he mutters. “Not bad for a bunch of future cops.”
Silence again.
And then—
“…Can you explain ratios using heist metaphors?” Kirishima asks, eyes bright.
Izuku grins wide. “Oh, absolutely.”
_____
“Okay,” Mina says, slapping her notebook closed. “So we all agree on this, right? That was kind of… fun?”
There’s a beat of silence.
Then:
“I actually understood math,” Kaminari whispers like he’s seen God.
“I didn’t fall asleep,” Jirou says in disbelief.
Todoroki, eyes distant: “I didn’t even zone out. He made linear equations feel like war crimes.”
“I aced that practice quiz,” Sero says, holding it like it’s sacred.
Kirishima flexes his biceps for no reason. “Midoriya’s kinda hardcore.”
Everyone’s quiet again.
And then someone says it.
“I think I… like him?”
“…We’re not supposed to like him,” Yaoyorozu whispers, horrified at herself. “He’s literally a dropout. He’s—he was involved with villains. I heard he hacked a quirk registry for fun.”
“I heard he blew up a black market warehouse in Hosu,” Jirou adds.
“I heard he broke Spinner’s arm with a stapler,” Kaminari offers helpfully.
“He’s—!” Iida starts, eyes wide behind his glasses. “He’s not—! He—!”
They all stare at him.
“…He taught Bakugo math,” Iida finishes weakly.
Mina nods. “That’s practically a miracle.”
Meanwhile, Izuku is perched on the roof.
He leans against the railing, earbuds in, hoodie zipped up to his chin. The wind bites, but it feels better than sitting inside with Aizawa silently grading tests while All Might looms in a painting or whatever.
U.A. is still too clean. Still too safe.
He’d made them laugh. He’d made them learn. He doesn’t know how to feel about that.
The door creaks behind him.
“I said I don’t want to talk to anyone.”
“Good,” Bakugo grunts, walking past him to sit on the ledge.
He tosses Izuku a protein bar. Izuku catches it without looking.
They sit there for a long minute, nothing but the wind and the low hum of electricity from the training fields below.
“…You’re good at it,” Bakugo says eventually.
“Being a menace?”
“No. Teaching. You don’t talk down to people.”
Izuku opens the bar. “I was taught by people who’d kill me if I wasted their time.”
Bakugo grunts again. “Figures.”
They lapse into silence again.
And then Bakugo snorts.
“What.”
“You made Todoroki laugh.”
Izuku blinks. “Did I?”
“Yeah. When you said ‘ratio is how many bags you get out of a vault before backup shows.’ He nearly smiled.”
“…Damn,” Izuku mutters. “Didn’t think I still had it.”
The next session is weirder.
Izuku walks in like he owns the place, throws his bag at Bakugo, and starts drawing out systems of equations before anyone’s even sat down.
And no one flinches.
Yaoyorozu still stiffens when he jokes about “interrogating y for information,” but Todoroki nods along like he’s taking an advanced philosophy course. Kaminari has three pens tucked behind his ears. Mina’s doodling little villain mascots in the margins of her notes.
Uraraka raises her hand.
“Can you explain exponents using crime lords?”
Izuku blinks. Then slowly grins.
“Oh,” he says. “You get me.”
Later that evening, Aizawa finds Present Mic sitting in the teachers’ lounge, sipping coffee like it’s sedated.
“You look weirdly calm,” Aizawa says.
Mic shrugs. “1-A asked for more group sessions.”
“…Voluntarily?”
“They called Midoriya their ‘war tutor.’”
Aizawa sighs. “I regret everything.”
“Pop quiz,” Izuku announces, slapping a stack of papers onto the desk with all the casual energy of someone who’s about to ruin lives.
“WHAT?” Kaminari yelps, halfway through a juice box. “You never said anything about a—”
“You think villains give warnings?” Izuku cuts in. “You think they hand out study guides?”
Uraraka chokes on her water. “Are you comparing a math quiz to getting mugged?”
“No. I’m comparing it to a hostage negotiation gone wrong. Now write your names at the top.”
Groans echo around the room. Only Todoroki looks unbothered. Bakugo’s already grabbing a pencil.
Izuku strolls between desks like a general inspecting his troops.
“Iida,” he says, glancing at the tense boy’s paper, “no need to panic. No one dies for getting a D. Well—unless your parents are really dramatic.”
Iida twitches.
Izuku continues.
“Kirishima, good confidence. Bad answer.”
Kirishima deflates. “Dang it!”
Mina’s just started drawing devil horns on the ‘x’ variable and whispering to it like it betrayed her.
Sero raises his hand. “What’s the square root of a cover-up?”
Izuku doesn’t hesitate. “Four, if you kill everyone who knew.”
Jirou gives him a slow nod. “That’s horrifyingly helpful.”
Twenty minutes later
Everyone’s dead-eyed. Todoroki’s paper is perfectly neat. Kaminari looks like he aged a decade. Kirishima is still writing even though time’s up.
Izuku gathers the papers. “I’ll grade these and report back tomorrow. Depending on how I feel.”
Mina raises her hand. “Can we… bribe you?”
Izuku pauses. “Go on.”
“I have gum.”
He stares.
“It’s grape,” she adds quickly.
He takes it. “You get five extra points for effort.”
Yaoyorozu gasps. “That’s not fair!”
“Life isn’t fair,” Izuku replies. “But I do like gum.”
Later that night, Bakugo corners him behind the gym.
“Quiz. I failed, didn’t I.”
Izuku looks at him. Slowly tears open the protein bar he’s been saving. Takes a bite. Then says, “You didn’t.”
“…What?”
“You passed.”
Bakugo blinks. “I—I—what?!”
“Shocking, I know. You actually understand math when you stop trying to beat it into submission.”
“You take that back—!”
“Nope. You did good, Bakugo.”
The silence that follows is brutal.
Bakugo looks like he just got hit by a truck made of emotions.
He doesn’t say thanks. Just grumbles something incoherent and walks away stiffly.
Elsewhere, Aizawa stares at the quiz scores Izuku sent him. Top three: Todoroki, Yaoyorozu, and… Bakugo. He slowly puts his head down on the desk.
Mic peers over his shoulder. “You okay, man?”
“…I think Midoriya’s turning them into criminals.”
Mic squints at the villain-based answer key.
“…Or geniuses.”
Aizawa sighs. “Those aren’t mutually exclusive.”
The next tutoring session is ten minutes in, and Bakugo’s already threatened to blow up three people.
One of them was a chair.
Izuku doesn’t blink.
“Today,” he says, unfurling a series of flashcards like a street magician, “we’re doing moral math problems.”
“You mean word problems,” Yaoyorozu corrects.
“No, I mean moral problems. Because numbers have consequences.”
Aizawa, lurking behind a bookshelf like a sleep-deprived gargoyle, sighs quietly.
Problem One:
“You have 4 hostages, 3 demands, and 1 angry villain. If the hero responds in 10 minutes but only completes 2 of the 3 demands, how many people get punched?”
Todoroki raises his hand. “Is the villain emotionally stable?”
“No,” Izuku replies.
“Two, then.”
“Correct.”
Problem Two:
“Bakugo throws 6 explosions during a math test. If each explosion breaks 1.5 windows, and the school has 10 windows total, how many tests will he be allowed to take unsupervised again?”
Bakugo growls. “Trick question. I don’t need supervision.”
“No, you need therapy,” Jirou mutters.
“AND I’M NOT GETTING THAT EITHER.”
Mina leans over to Kaminari. “I’m kinda starting to like these. It’s like if math and a crime podcast had a baby.”
“Yeah,” he agrees. “And Midoriya’s the scary aunt who teaches the kid how to build pipe bombs.”
Izuku, without looking up, says, “I heard that. Accurate. But rude.”
Later
“Alright,” Izuku announces, slapping a paper on the whiteboard. “Bonus round: Ethics.”
Groans ripple through the group.
“Extra credit for anyone who doesn’t cry during this part.”
Iida straightens. “Ethics is essential! A moral hero must have a strong foundation—”
“Great. Then you’ll love this.”
Problem Three:
“You have a Quirk that can erase people’s memories. You learn that your best friend is planning to commit a crime to protect their family. If you erase their memory, the crime never happens, but your friend suffers. What do you do?”
Silence.
Uraraka stares at the board.
Todoroki frowns.
Yaoyorozu’s pen hovers, unmoving.
Jirou exhales slowly. “This is… heavy.”
Izuku just waits.
Kaminari finally says, “What does math have to do with this?”
Izuku shrugs. “Morality’s just math with higher stakes.”
Bakugo grumbles, but doesn’t argue.
Yaoyorozu quietly writes: Is there a way to solve this where no one suffers?
Izuku reads it. Says nothing. But for the first time all day, he looks… almost human.
_____
Later That Night, Bakugo finds him alone outside, tossing a stress ball up and down.
“Hey.”
Izuku doesn’t look up. “You okay?”
“Those problems sucked.”
“They’re supposed to.”
“…Still wanna beat your face in.”
“You’d miss me if I was gone.”
Bakugo doesn’t answer. Doesn’t need to.
They sit in silence. It’s not friendly. But it’s not hostile either.
It’s… something.
In Aizawa’s Office, he scrolls through the day’s quiz answers. One catches his eye.
“I would erase the memory. Then stay. So when they remember, I’m still there.”
Aizawa shuts the file.
For the first time, he thinks maybe—just maybe—this chaotic mess of a kid might belong here.
It starts with a fire. Technically, a small one. In a trash can. In the corner of the study room.
Caused by Bakugo, obviously.
“THAT WAS AN EXPERIMENT,” he insists as the smoke detector screams.
“An experiment in what?” Yaoyorozu coughs, waving away smoke with a clipboard. “Spontaneous combustion math?”
“No,” Izuku says. “Thermodynamic tantrums.”
Aizawa arrives in two minutes, eyes glowing red, scarf twitching like it wants to strangle someone.
“What happened?”
Everyone points at someone else.
Izuku just lifts his hand and says, “Detention, please.”
_____
Detention (A.K.A. Study Group: Night Edition)
Aizawa drops a stack of textbooks on the table with a thud. “Two hours. No talking. No drama. No explosions.”
He stares at Bakugo for a full ten seconds.
Bakugo glares back, silently swearing vengeance.
Izuku opens his notebook and starts doodling something that looks suspiciously like a villain lair with algebraic labels.
Jirou leans over. “Are those—are those booby traps?”
“Y equals pain,” he mutters.
Somewhere around the 90-minute mark, something strange happens.
People start…working together.
Yaoyorozu and Todoroki quietly debate an ethics prompt.
Kaminari tries to solve a logic puzzle without crying.
Mina draws emotional support doodles in the margins of everyone’s notes.
Iida adjusts the thermostat and hands out study snacks with the air of a man personally restoring order to the universe.
Even Bakugo reads. Sort of. Upside down. With a scowl. But it counts.
By the end, the room is a quiet hum of effort and tired scribbling.
Aizawa blinks once, slowly. “Huh.”
“Surprised?” Izuku asks, not looking up.
“Disgusted,” he replies. “But in a hopeful way.”
Later in the Dorms, Midoriya walks the halls with a file in his hand and a calculator in his hoodie pocket like a weapon.
He pauses outside the common room.
Inside, the others are still talking. About ethics problems. About Quirks. About him.
He listens.
Yaoyorozu: “He’s definitely unhinged.”
Todoroki: “But functional.”
Mina: “I think I respect him. But I’m also scared.”
Jirou: “He reminds me of those horror movie kids who are too smart for their own good.”
Kaminari: “Honestly? I’d die for him.”
Bakugo: “YOU’D WHAT?!”
A chair hits the wall.
Izuku snorts and walks away.
The Next Morning. He’s early to class. Like, Aizawa’s still half-asleep in his sleeping bag early.
Aizawa blinks at him from under a burrito of yellow fabric. “You live here now?”
“I have graphs,” Izuku says solemnly. “And emotional damage to quantify.”
A pause.
“…Fine,” Aizawa says. “But no fires.”
_____
Class 1-A Group Chat (Unnamed, for Legal Reasons):
Mina: okay but be honest
Mina: is anyone else kinda into scary smart midoriya
Jirou: i think it’s trauma
Todoroki: he explains pain using charts. i respect it
Kaminari: do we… keep him?
Yaoyorozu: he’s technically ours now
Bakugo: HELL NO
Bakugo: HE’S NOT OURS
Bakugo: …
Bakugo: i call him for math tutoring tho
Uraraka: :)
Iida: Group etiquette reminder: NO explosions in the study room this time.
Midoriya: No promises <3