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Shouta stepped over the threshold into the dorm living room, noticed the scene, and nearly turned around and walked back out. Shinsou had assured him that movie night required no effort whatsoever—that he could show up with his sleeping bag and nap through the whole thing if he wanted. That was what had convinced him in the end. It was hard to turn down a dark room and an activity that would safely occupy everyone. If something dangerous happened, or if somebody decided to do something stupid, he wouldn't even have to run very far.
It was probably that last thought that had jinxed it.
Bakugou had only been pinned for about three seconds before he threw Midoriya off, slamming him so hard into the coffee table that the leg broke. Shouta erased them, but neither of them were using a quirk, so it didn't have any effect. Midoriya tried to stand up, but Bakugou yanked him down by the hair. Midoriya simply pivoted his face and bit his arm.
Before anything else could happen, Shouta caught Bakugou in his capture weapon and pulled him away. Blessedly, Shoji stepped forward and caught Midoriya by the arms.
The rest of the class went silent—Shouta hadn't noticed their chatter until it stopped. Shinsou was standing among them, safely on the other side of the couch, holding a bag of microwave popcorn and eating one piece at a time.
"Please, this is your third year," Shouta said, and he wasn't sure if it was a reprimand or an actual plea. Two of his students had been fighting—the rest had just stood there and watched.
"Sorry Sensei," Midoriya said, in that apologetic tone that meant he felt genuinely terrible and would do it again next week.
"Don't talk to me," Shouta said, "You're old enough to use more sophisticated methods of conflict resolution. Start talking to each other. We aren't watching the movie until you resolve whatever this is."
A murmur rippled through the crowd, but nobody stepped forward to offer any useful information. Midoriya rubbed the side of his face, looking pensive. Bakugou was staring very hard at a blank spot on the wall.
"Bakugou," Shouta said.
"I started it," Bakugou said, and didn't elaborate.
"Okay," Shouta said, "Fine. Shinsou?"
"Bakugou told Midoriya to sabotage his own career," Shinsou said, popping another kernel into his mouth, "Midoriya refused."
"Shut up," Bakugou hissed, "It wasn't like that."
"Definitely sounded like that," Kirishima said.
"I said—I have to be number one," Bakugou said. He'd gone back to staring at the wall, and his eyebrows creased with the effort of the words, "Not Deku. He's too—stupid."
"What, don't think you can beat him out?" Kaminari said. He had his hands braced at the top of the armchair like he was getting ready to duck, but he was grinning.
Midoriya shook his head, "No—Kacchan, you hate winning like that."
Bakugou didn't respond for a while. When it became clear that he wasn't just trying to piece the right words together, Shouta tugged a little on the capture weapon. "Talking it out is not optional. Nobody's leaving until we resolve this—and that requires your cooperation."
"Yeah Kacchan," Kaminari said, "If you don't hurry you'll miss your bedtime."
Shouta turned to glare at him—this wasn't really the time—and tightened his grip on the scarf.
"Even when they have good intentions, it's hard for people to change," Bakugou said, voice quiet and steady, "And the longer things have been a certain way, the harder it is to move them. The next couple top heroes need to be very careful—because everyone says they're gonna support 'em now, that they won't put everything on one person to fix anymore." He shifted in the scarf, turning to look significantly at Midoriya, "But it's easy for people to fall back into bad habits."
"Insightful analysis," Shouta said, "Not a reason for Midoriya to do bad work."
"I'm not saying that!" Bakugou snapped, voice back to its normal growl, "I'm saying he should tank his ranking—make sure he takes out a lot of low profile villains or something."
"I'm not going to refuse to help with something just because too many people might see me," Midoriya said.
Bakugou had gone silent again. Shouta recalled his capture weapon to see if the fight would resume, but nothing happened.
"Alright," Shouta said, "You can agree to disagree. Additionally, one of you needs to fill out the maintenance request paperwork to get the table fixed. I'm not dealing with problems you cause on purpose like this."
"Right!" Midoriya said, looking nervous, "Where can we get the blank forms for—"
"You're almost adults," Shouta said, already moving toward the kitchen to look for coffee, "Figure it out."
He wasn't even out of sight before Bakugou turned to the crowd of his classmates. "Sero—"
"Way ahead of you," Sero said, bending down to tape the table leg back on.
Someone rapped frantically on Bakudou's door. Eijirou shifted to stand up, but Bakugou grabbed his shoulder and pushed him back down.
"We're doing homework," Bakugou shouted, "Stop interrupting."
Midoriya took this as permission to come in.
"Hey man," Eijirou said, moving his math textbook to make room on the floor.
"Remember when the wild wild pussycats dropped four hundred and nine places in six months?" Midoriya continued. He and Bakugou did that sometimes—jumped right into the middle of an interaction nobody else had the context for.
Bakugou furrowed his brows, and Ejirou had the sudden realization that he actually might not know what this was about.
"Kacchan," Midoriya said, crouching down beside them, "They dropped in the hero rankings from thirty-second to four hundred and forty-first. All four of them together. Because they're a hero team."
"Huh," Bakugou said, and flipped his textbook closed.
"Oh, I think I get it," Eijirou said. The tone came out all wrong, so he kept going to cover it. "With you guys, I just kind of assume you're always referring to an obscure All Might trivia fact or something—but this is about the coffee table argument, right?"
"What is it," Bakugou said, which meant he'd noticed.
Ejirou shrugged, and decided to accept the inevitable. "It's really not a big deal—but Kaminari's also forming a team. I was supposed to invite you."
Bakugou pushed him, but not hard enough to knock him over. "So invite Deku too."
"We should probably ask Kaminari first," Midoriya said.
"Okay nevermind," Bakugou said, "I'm forming a hero team with you two and Kaminari and whoever else he has can join."
Midoriya stood up. "We should go ask—how many other people was Kaminari thinking of?"
"I don't know," Eijirou said, stacking his books to push them out of the way, "Is there some kind of limit?"
"There's not a hard limit," Denki said through a mouthful of noodles, "I read up on the rules and stuff before I started organizing this thing—it's more a limit of how good you are at coordinating people. At some point it just gets too inconvenient, and it's better to form another team."
Midoriya sat down slowly in the seat across from him, face distant with thought.
"So you'll invite Deku," Bakugou said, like he thought he was in charge.
Denki crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair, bracing his foot against the table leg for balance. He was going to invite Midoriya—he was a cool guy, and it didn't hurt that he could probably keep an agency afloat single-handedly. But you had to maintain the right air of authority in this kind of situation. "I'll think about it," he said finally.
Bakugou snorted.
"What if we all teamed up?" Midoriya said.
Tsu raised her hand, and Yaomomo placed hers on Iida's shoulder to stop his monologue, then nodded toward her.
"I like this idea in theory," Tsu said, "But I'm planning to work with Selkie after graduation. And even if that doesn't work out, I'm not going to work in a city—my quirk is too suited to areas with a lot of natural water. The same kind of thing is true for all of you—you aren't all going to come join me on the coasts." She glanced over at the yellow form of Aizawa Sensei's sleeping bag and added, "So it wouldn't be logical for all of us to be in one team."
"Sometimes hero agencies will loan out a sidekick to another agency for a while," Midoriya said, fiddling with the piece of chalk he had been writing with, "There's already paperwork for that kind of thing. You could sign on with us to opt out of the ranking system, and then we could loan you to Selkie indefinitely."
"This seems too good to be true. Why hasn't anybody tried this before?" Todoroki asked.
"Why would they?" Bakugou said, leaning back against the podium, "Everybody else likes the ranking system."
"I think we should ask Aizawa Sensei for his opinion," Uraraka said, "My parents work with a lot of different kinds of professionals, and they've always said that organizing a big group is usually more hassle than you think it's going to be. But if Sensei thinks it's possible, then I'm all for it!"
"I think we should not ask Aizawa Sensei," Shinsou said, leaning back in his desk chair, "Until after heroics class this afternoon. He'll have finished his nap and another cup of coffee by then."
"Absolutely not," Shouta said, again resisting the urge to turn and walk away.
"Why?" Todoroki said, in that petulant tone that implied he would keep asking the same kinds of questions until you gave up and let him have what he wanted.
Shouta ran his hand over his face, sighing. "Okay, listen."
"So he didn't exactly say no," Toshinori said, pouring young Midoriya more tea from the thermos.
"He was just worried that it would cause us trouble if we tried it so early on," young Midoriya explained, fiddling with the cuff of his sleeve, "Just because there isn't a rule against it now doesn't mean the Hero Commission wouldn't see it as—as some kind of insult, and make a rule, and then we could never do it. He thinks if we waited until we were established heroes, it would be harder for the commission to move against us, because we would have a lot of clout with the public and could make them look stupid."
And they couldn't quietly fire any of you, Toshinori thought, but didn't say. He was too distracted by the face young Midoriya was making. "But you don't want to wait."
"No," Midoriya said, reaching to grab his tea, "Because if I'm—even for a while—Kacchan said habits are hard to break. And I think he's—he's probably right. When I first set out, whatever way I learn to—I just think it's going to stick with me, and—"
"Young Midoriya," Toshinori said, leaning forward and clasping his hands together, "There's something I've been meaning to tell you."
Ochako turned the corner and saw Deku at the water fountain splashing water into his face. He looked up at the metal surface behind the faucet for water bottles, like he was trying to discern the secrets of the universe in its opaque depths.
"Hey Deku," Ochako said, leaning over to get a better look at him, "What's up?"
Deku startled at her voice, eyes blown wide and hands trembling. He looked at her, opened his mouth to say something, and then he stepped back around the other side of the fountain and slid down the wall.
Ochako darted around to check that he hadn't fallen over, but Deku was only sitting there on the floor, head in his hands.
"Please tell me what's going on," Ochako said, crouching down beside him. She wouldn't put it past Deku to have run to the store during lunch break and encountered a villain or quirk manifestation or something on the way back.
"He's giving us the tower," Deku croaked.
"Why don't you just explain the whole thing from the beginning," Katsuki said, setting down his pencil. He was sitting on the floor, his homework and the maintenance paperwork spread out on the coffee table in front of him. It looked like he'd have to wait to finish them.
Behind him, someone in the mass of his classmates started whispering, and Iida shushed them.
"Well," All Might said, leaning forward in the armchair, "I'm sure young Midoriya has—"
"Deku hasn't said anything," Katsuki insisted, "He can't. You broke him."
"Sorry," Deku said from the crowd. He was still covering his face with his hands.
All Might cleared his throat. "Right—this afternoon, young Midoriya informed me that all of you would like to form a hero team, but lack the required experience and infrastructure. I, on the other hand, have an entire agency's worth of experienced staff who are running out of issues to resolve for me. They've always done good work, and I don't want to let any of them go, so I've been looking around for something to throw at them."
"You want them to organize us?" Katsuki asked.
"He wants us—to take over." Deku choked.
"That's what shocked you?" Katsuki demanded, jumping to his feet, "I'm sorry—did you not notice you were a legacy student?" Now standing up, Katsuki thought desperately for some other violent movement to step into. He needed some kind of outlet, or he was going to start shaking too.
"Hawks doesn't think this is wise," Tokoyami said, pushing to the front of the crowd. It was an annoying non-sequitur, but Katsuki was thankful for the distraction. "He says it's impossible for us to do this quietly, since we'd probably rank number one within the year. The commission will shut us down before that can happen."
All Might nodded. "I may be able to help with that. Did Hawks give any other advice?"
"Not really," Tokoyami said, "But he did say he wants to join."
Shouta stood on the other side of All Might's desk, glaring down at him the way he would with a troublesome student. "I can't believe you," he said.
"I'm sorry to hear that," All Might said, still focused on his computer screen, "Is there something I could do to earn your trust back?"
"This new project that you're working on," Shouta continued, choosing to ignore this blatant misinterpretation of his words, "This project you've just announced to every news station. The one to do with your old agency."
"What about it?" All Might said, the picture of innocence. He still wouldn't look Shouta in the eye.
"It wouldn't have anything to do with my students, would it?"
All Might finally glanced up from whatever he was pretending to work on. "I thought you said they were our students. Haven't you been encouraging me to step up as a teacher?"
Shouta sighed. There wasn't anything else for him to do. That was the thing—you couldn't just say no to All Might.
Not even if you were the Hero Commission.
Izuku sat on the edge of his bed and frowned, staring down at his ringing phone. Before he could overthink everything, he picked it up and answered.
"Hi Midoriya!" Mirio exclaimed, "How's it going?"
"It's—things are good!" Izuku said, standing up to pace around his room, "I'll be graduating soon and—did you mean to call me? On purpose?"
"Yeah!" Mirio said, "But if this is a bad time—"
"No no no, it's fine!" Izuku insisted, "I just—I knew you had my number, but you never used it much and I didn't know if maybe it was an accident that—"
Mirio started laughing. "You always were a little nervous. Listen—I'll just tell you right away. We want to join your hero team."
"We," Izuku repeated, "Wait, aren't you and Hadou and Amajiki already already a team?"
"Sure are!" Mirio repeated, "And we'd like to keep doing things kind of the way we always have—if we fill out all our own paperwork, and then send you guys a copy after, would that be enough to work everything out?"
"I don't actually know," Izuku said, sitting down at his desk. The All Might sticker on his lamp grinned up at him. "I'd have to ask—I mean, I'm sure we could figure out something that would work—but won't it cause you extra trouble?"
"Probably!" Mirio said cheerfully, "But in other ways it will be easier. If you ever needed our help with a situation, you wouldn't have to formally request it—you could just tell us to come! We'd already be part of your team after all. And if some of you or some of us needed to stakeout a situation, or patrol an area to prevent crime—or something else really helpful that doesn't earn a lot of money on its own—"
"With our shared resources, you could focus completely on doing your jobs," Izuku said.
Mirio laughed again. "You're catching on! Of course, you could always kick us out if you thought we were freeloaders."
"I'm sure you would never," Izuku insisted.
"And anyway," Mirio said, "Hadou was saying that Uraraka and Tsu said you guys are doing all this because you don't think the hero rankings are a healthy part of the system. Can't say I disagree!"
"Right," Izuku said, turning a stack of sticky notes over and over in his free hand, "That all makes sense. I'll have to talk to everyone though, and—"
"Of course!" Mirio said, "Let us know what the verdict is—or if we need to send in something more formal. Either way, we're excited to see where you guys go with this!"
Izuku squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again. The view from the agency window still spread out before him, the way it had used to look in cartoons.
"Hey Midoriya!" Kaminari said from behind him, "Bakugou said not to tell you that he found another room of unorganized boxes. We're pretty sure there's merch in there somewhere."
"Okay," Izuku said, not even sure what to do with that information. He kept thinking that one of these days he was going to get used to the way everything he had ever dreamed of kept falling into his lap. It hadn't happened yet.
"Also, I was planning to ask you," Kaminari said, stepping forward to get a better view out the window, "Does our hero team have a name?"
Izuku bit his lip. As far as he knew, there wasn't a name yet. They were already moving into the building. How had they missed that?
"Because I was thinking we could call it after your quirk—since that's also all about teamwork, and this is kind of your idea."
"Um," Izuku said, "Well—I don't know if that makes sense? It's not one person for all anymore."
"Oh, good point," Kaminari said, leaning back against the glass. He must not be afraid of heights. "Maybe we could just change it a little? All for all? No, that sounds silly. Okay—maybe we should come back to that. I have a second question."
"Okay," Izuku said, smiling. Kaminari had a way of putting people at ease.
"So we're probably going to be the number one hero the next time the rankings happen—we'll at least make the top ten. And they have that ceremony, with everybody standing in a line."
Izuku glanced over to the table at the other end of the room where Shinsou was stacking accepted applications. There were about fifty of them now. Izuku had caught a couple of office workers by a printer, speculating that if growth kept up like this, the agency would have to start coordinating a lot of efforts which used to be handled by the commission.
"There's no way we'll all fit on that stage," Izuku said.
Kaminari nodded. "Which is why we need to pick a representative."
"We could send All Might," Izuku murmured, cupping his chin in one hand.
Paper rustled from across the room as Shinsou held up one of the applications. "You know what would be hilarious?"
Shouta squinted into the audience, trying not to look like he didn't want to be there, or like he was ignoring everything happening around him. Unfortunately, the best way to do that was to pay attention and try to care.
"In second place is Manual," the announcer said, somehow managing to be even more obnoxious than Hizashi. She wasn't shouting his ears off, but there was something plastic in the inflection of her voice. "Manual, you've also had an incredibly successful season—you've jumped all the way from two hundred and twenty second to second place!"
Manual shifted on his feet and cleared his throat before speaking into the mic. "Between you and me, I think I can climb even higher."
"That's the kind of attitude we're all looking for!" the announcer said, "Have anything to say to the competition?"
Manual glanced at Shouta, and had the grace to look a little sheepish. "Well—I have some paperwork in progress."
It took every bit of Shouta's willpower not to grin.
"Thanks for all your hard work!" the announcer said, stepping forward to reach Shouta. "And for the number one spot, the hero Eraserhead is here to represent his hero team, Yoichi! Eraserhead, do you have any insight into your team's name?"
Shouta leaned down a little to make sure his words would catch properly in the microphone. Hizashi would lecture him if he ignored something basic like that. "Well," he said, "Several of my teammates feel very strongly about being number one."
"So it's a pun!" the announcer said, and Shouta had to respect the way she kept a straight face, "Is Ms Joke in your ranks as well?"
"Yes," Shouta said, and did not add unfortunately.
"Well congratulations on your achievement! Is there anything you would like to say to Japan?"
Shouta took a deep breath so that if it seemed like the announcer was going to interrupt he wouldn't have to stop for air and give her the chance. "As an educator, I've found that competition is a powerful way to motivate students to achieve things they would not have dreamed were possible. That's why U.A. holds a sports festival every year. But sometimes, competition motivates people to push down their competitors, or to neglect their own health, or to seek out inappropriate ways to win. These things are not logical. So even during this celebration of competition," Shouta said, pausing to glance across the audience, "Please continue to support us, just as we seek to support each other, and remember that the formal scoring system does not always indicate the best way to win."