Chapter Text
By the time he clicked his alarm off, he was already out of bed. Usually, it took him so much longer to get out of bed, reluctant to go back to school. Today though had him excited to go. His last day at that rotten to the core school and he was gonna push it till it was creaking and barely holding on to its tilted pillars.
His mom was already sitting at the table with two dishes ready for breakfast and he grinned at her. The grin that had been born yesterday, the same naive grin but just that that much sharper. It felt more natural than the smile that he had always plastered on his face, the one he gave to reassure people as an ode to Number One.
He was done treating that smile as his normal.
"Oh dear, you look even more like your father now."
It came out with an amused chuckle.
"I do have some advice for you if you want to surprise everyone at Aldera"
He had just put some toast in his mouth so he hmm'd as best as he could.
"Don't let them know what you are gonna do before you do it. Maybe let it slip a little bit to build tension."
The idea of hiding his happy, determent grin made him slightly uneasy, but the idea of using the imitation of the Number One's smile to lay in wait behind, made him buzz in excitement.
"...yeah, I can do that mum."
He grinned sharply and then slowly softened it to a smile with just a pinch of the original. Just barely different enough to set someone on edge that knew what that smile used to be.
Inko couldn't help the pride she felt when her son finally came into his own, with bits and pieces of his parent thrown into it. She knew Hizashi would have been just as proud as she was.
"Oh! It's already time. If I don't go now I will be late. I don't want to be too late on my last day."
He scrambled to eat the last bit of toast and quickly put on his bright red shoes.
"Izuku..."
He turned around just before stepping out. A normal smile that was just a bit sharper than his people pleaser smile on his face.
"You look great."
He flashed her his real grin.
"See you later!"
During the train ride, he practiced his facial expressions. Grinning, smiling, and everything in between. Innocent, too innocent, and devilish. It was making him giddy and after a while, he couldn't stop grinning his new normal grin. It didn't help that a woman with two kids was subtly shielding her kids from seeing him and at a later stop, she almost ran out of the carriage. He was definitely telling his mom about that encounter.
When he arrived at the gate of the school, he took a moment to take in how crappy the school really was. It was all crickety and it seemed to lean to the side like a bad imitation of the tower of Piza. The colors had faded to grey and bloomed to yellow in patterns that made it look even worse. It also looked smaller... No, it looked less imposing than it had yesterday. His perspective has shifted, he stood taller than whatever this school had to offer.
He was about to walk in when a shoulder slammed into his back.
"Out of my way, Deku!"
"A-ah Kacchan. Isn't it a good day... humph."
Bakugo had walked off without looking back. Of course. How could he forget? He was still the useless worthless Deku to them. Even when he didn't think like that for himself anymore. Now that he was honest about his emotions they reacted more than they had before and just that thought was lighting him up. He... He wanted to have his payback but he wasn't certain anymore if he could get it. Not for a lack of trying on his part but the ignorance on their part.
He took reassurance in the fact that nothing was riding on his success or failure here. The school wasn't going to be punished by a few words spoken by him. He would have to think of a way to bring justice to those that deserved it.
The school bell went off signing the start of the day.
Oh no, I'm late. Wait a second... I don't have to be on time. I think I'll take the scenic route. He couldn't help but chuckle to himself.
Arriving at his classroom, he saw the teacher hadn't even arrived yet and he got here sufficiently late. It was a perfect chance to try something.
Instead of sneaking to his table, he walked up to the board and wrote down;
Definition of a villain
Somebody who uses their quirk to commit a crime
The class hadn't noticed him yet and he could only think about one way to gain their attention. So he did it. He picked up the chalk, brought it up to the board, and made the most irritating, grating, shrilling sound that the earth has to offer. He saw his classmates cringe and some put their hands over their ears to block out the sound. They all looked in his direction after they had recovered from the sound.
He put on his brightest smile and began.
"Now that I have your attention, I want to point out what I wrote on the chalkboard. Ito, have you ever seen this definition?"
It looked like his classmate was still dazed from the earlier sound and he shook his head, looking really confused.
"That's okay, maybe Kumara has seen it?"
Another shake is what he got.
"What about you Ryuru?"
Yet another shake of the head.
"And you Kirumo?"
The same reaction.
"What about you Katsuki?"
He would have never gotten away with asking this of Bakugo without getting his head blown off (or something close to it) without confusing and confounding him. That's why he strayed off from his usual nickname and instead used his first name.
Apparently, it worked as he got another shake as an answer. He nodded towards the class.
"I had expected this outcome. Because if anyone here knew of the definition and the consequences, our school time would have been vastly different."
He waited for a moment to let confusion sink in. He couldn't wait too long though because Bakugo looked like he was about to recover and explode.
"All of you have used your quirks to assault me, destroy my property and so many more things... All things that fall underneath the category 'crimes'."
He wrote multiple relevant crimes underneath said word.
"If the footage ever finds its way to the police, you would be tried as juvenile villains and you would have to say goodbye to your future's. Most of your future's. Though the most prominent is the future of becoming a pro hero. What hero school will take on a student with a record... Not a lot of them."
He could hear footsteps through the door and casually but hasted cleaned the chalkboard.
"You have a lot to think about so for now I am done."
And he made his way to his desk and seated just before the teacher came in.
The class was completely silent and all were a bit paler than normal. Even Bakugo looked a weird sort of angry(?) that could be best explained as confused-angry.
Luckily for him, the man had started without paying much attention to the class, hurriedly picking through his bag and making up excuses for why he was late that nobody believed anyway.
The morning continued as normal, but Izuku wasn't paying attention to any of the material. It wasn't like he didn't know it already anyway. No, he was searching for a moment where he could jump in again and cause some chaos. And make people regret their life choices. It was making him all kinds of giddy and bubbly and still smoldering hot and he had trouble keeping his smile innocent. He had managed to uphold the expressions through his whole impromptu lesson but now it was threatening to slip.
And then came an opportunity he had been waiting for. Their sensei was distributing their latest test and answer key to check their own mistakes. He had received fifty-five percent even though his test was a hundred percent correct.
He let his smile slip into his grin for just a millisecond before pushing it down again and raising his hand.
"Sensei?"
The man sighed before looking up. He looked like he was already done with him. The feeling is mutual.
"Yes, Deku?"
"According to the answer key, I should have a hundred percent, not the fifty-five percent you marked on my paper."
He could see when the man noticed what he had done. It could have been the smile that quirked into something sharper for a moment or it could have been the sound of pop-pop-pop reaching their ears. Either way, he grew visibly paler.
"What the shit Deku!? There is no way a quirkless Deku like you could get higher than me!"
He let the edge fall of his smile before he turned to Bakugo with a face too innocent for what he was doing and flailing his arms like he used to do involuntary under his permanent angry gaze.
"I'm not lying Kacchan. Here, look."
He held out his test and Bakugo ripped it from his grasp before slamming it on his own desk beside his answer key. The snarl on his face kept deepening the further he got.
"Sensei must have done it on purpose to not let you feel worse for not being the best like he always says. I don't blame him or anything."
He didn't think Bakugo actually heard the second part, the rage clearly defined on his face. He saw Bakugo march towards sensei and grinned a little at the man, no one had eyes for him with Bakugo being the point of attention. It felt almost too easy to build the tension in the room. He only had to point at any little wrongdoing to Bakugo and it would be primed like a bomb (sometimes more literally than others).
"What the fuck is this, teach!?"
The man had no idea what he should say to not let this escalate further and stammered out something unintelligible. Luckily, he was interrupted by one of his students speaking up and he could not be happier for the intervention. When he looked up to see who he wanted to give extra credit to, he felt his heart plummet.
"Kacchan! Don't blame sensei for underscoring every one of my tests! Every sensei we've had since I was diagnosed quirkless has underscored my tests!"
If he wasn't trying to fool every person in this room he would have doubled over laughing. They all looked like some higher being had pushed their pause button. A look on the clock showed him the lunch bell was about to ring in a few minutes and realized he could just leave any time he wanted... it was time for his exit words. He knew what he wanted to say wouldn't be as satisfying as it could be. But that was not gonna stop the satisfaction or the judgment that would come for them later. It was time to plant the seeds of doubt into them and duck out.
He let the laugh bubble out. Not his typical nervous high laugh, but a louder belly laugh (that annoyingly still sounded higher than he wanted it. Damn puberty).
Every person in the room slowly turned towards their collective punching bag.
The smile of his faded into his real grin and he could see the confusion on everyone's faces.
"The senseis always gave those who had lower than my lowered test percentage, a higher score. They didn't want you all to feel bad for scoring lower than the useless dumb Deku. Your whole school career is one fabricated lie that they built for you. And instead of trying to help you learn they cranked up your results and let you live on in ignorance."
He looked the teacher in the eyes.
"You pick up a lot when you are constantly put in undeserved detention. Teachers talk like I'm not there, it's just the worthless, quirkless Deku, what is he gonna do. Cry like a little baby?"
The word cut across the room like a sword. The space darkening around them.
"This is my goodbye, but it is not the last you hear of me. Your past will catch up on you, I'll make sure of it."
And with one more glance at everyone in the room, he walked out with his head held high, just as the bell rang, sounding more ominous than it ever had.
The lunch had just started so the hallways were still empty. It made him feel calm. It felt like a part of him had already discarded this part of his life and was ready for what came next. He knew there was only one more thing to deal with before he could carry on. He just had to wait a moment for it.
He made it to the schoolyard uninterrupted and couldn't help but think of a lesson he thought he learned. When he was four, he learned that not all men were created equal. The only thing is that he interpreted it wrong. He wasn't worth less at age four, that was just what he thought as he had laid there on the ground below his (to-be) bullies. They tried to put him down, but he never broke. He stood up for what was right while they committed crimes over and over again, not strong enough to be their own person, only following a leader like a flock of sheep.
He wasn't lower than them as he had believed for so long. He had always been the better person, the stronger person. Like the hero in the stories that had been beaten down again and again and again, but then they had stood up and pushed back.
It was his time to push back and let the world know he was done with them. In whatever way he chooses, it was time to make his life, his.
He stood before the gate but stopped when he heard hurried footsteps behind him. Glancing behind him told him he was correct in who he thought had followed after him. Bakugo.
"Deku where do you think you are going!?"
The scream was accompanied by a steady pop-pop-pop.
"I'm leaving a toxic environment. That's where I'm going. Then I can actually work on myself without being sabotaged and looked down on every second."
He looks over his shoulder and he can't muster any kind of smile. The rage and anger he felt at All Might's stupidity bubble up again and he let it. He lets himself feel it but he does guide it. Harnesses it.
"Useless Deku, you've always looked down on me-!"
And then he lets it go.
"No! Bakugo. You have always looked down on me. Get it right for once! You say you are going to be the number one hero one day, but you'll never get there. All Might is the number one hero because he makes people feel safe, you make nobody feel safe. He uses his quirk to beat up villains and criminals, not to put down everyone who is weaker than him."
Tears spill over and track trails down his face.
"Everything you have done after getting that god damned quirk is hurting people, hurting me! That's not what heroes do. It's what villains do. I hope you can finally understand that. Goodbye."
He turned around and crossed the gate for the last time, his footsteps more forceful than usual. He hadn't expected to feel the bubbling heat he had felt during his conversation with the Number One to pop up already. His head was clear but it was still clawing at his insides.
He wanted to be home...
And hug his mom.
Yeah, that would do just fine.