Chapter Text
The classroom of 1-A was noisy as ever, everyone finding something to talk about despite it only being Monday morning. Izuku was sitting at his desk, chatting happily with Iida while Todoroki and Uraraka plotted on how to max out his father’s credit card. Just as the bell rang, Iida shouted for everyone to be in their seats while the door banged open. No one was really surprised when Aizawa walked through, having grown used to their teacher’s horrible mood at the start of the week, though this time he seemed more exhausted than usual.
“I have some news for you, class,” Any idle chatter died down as Aizawa leaned on the podium, looking a few minutes away from collapsing. “Several members of the League of Villains have been captured and chosen for a new program. The Villain Rehabilitation program started up recently, and 1-A has been selected to deal with rehabilitating the LoV because we’ve had the most experience with them. So when I call them in I know I can’t expect you to immediately trust them, in fact I hope you don’t, but you will have to treat them like any other classmate. They’re going to train with you from now on, and I expect no discrimination, no matter what grudges you may hold. It’s a hero's job to save people, and while they may be villains, they will need to be ‘saved’ from the path they’re falling down. You can come in now-”
“I’m offended you think there’s something here that needs saving.”
The face of Shigaraki Tomura came walking through the door, and some students bristled angrily while others shook in their seats. He smirked at Aizawa as he walked through and stood at the front, quirk suppression bracelets around his wrists. He crossed his arms and leaned onto the chalkboard while more villains appeared.
Dabi, Toga, and Twice looked around before returning to whatever conversation they were having before. The students caught onto the words ‘burn it with fire’ and ‘then it makes it taste like ash’ when Aizawa covered the three villain’s mouths with his scarf, migraine visible in his face. Toga giggled while Dabi smiled at the class, looking towards Todoroki with a weird expression and Twice’s face couldn’t be seen behind his mask, which was still in place (for reasons unknown to the class but we know those reasons *wink*)(if you dont, its because of dissociative identity disorder that twice has, google it).
“I am in absolutely no mood to deal with these guys, at all,” Aizawa glared at the whole room, including the villains. “And thank god Nedzu decided that my duty as a teacher meant I was too busy to be babysitting these absolute children. So by some crazy stroke of luck he told me to do a random draw to pick a student to ‘help’ these guys around the school. Give ‘em a basic tour, have a dorm room next to theirs, help make sure they get to classes on time, whatever.”
The class outburst into noise at that, and Izuku stared blankly at the front as he watched Shigaraki. He looked… sad. He cocked his head to the side, trying to understand the ‘villain’ standing at the front of his class, when Aizawa pulled out a box of names.
“Firstly, I’ll pick who’s taking care of Shigaraki and Dabi. I know that there’s four of them so four of you should do it, but we decided it would be better for them to be paired with someone who’s familiar, just so that they don’t snap or whatever it was Nedzu reasoned,” Aizawa shuffled the box while Shigaraki started whispering to Dabi. “Whelp, Midoriya Izuku, have fun. You can take them on a tour tomorrow, and maybe today to get them used to the area, but you gotta wait til’ this period is over, we still have a lesson to go through. Just wait for me to draw the next person...”
Izuku shot out of his chair, eyes wide as he stared at his teacher. He could feel eyes on him and he flushed, sitting back down swiftly while Uraraka and Iida shot him sympathetic looks. Everyone could hear Mineta shouting about how disgusting murderers shouldn’t be allowed in a school, though everyone had learned to tune him out at that point. When he heard Bakugou get called out as the other person to help the villains around, he hunched over, making himself smaller while Bakugou exploded.
“I don’t wanna look after shitty extras!” The popping of his quirk filled the room and Aizawa merely glared his quirk away, watching the ashy blond slowly move back to his seat. “Pick someone else, I refuse.”
“Midoriya didn’t refuse, are you saying you can’t handle a few villains?” Aizawa’s glare cut through the tension in the room and Bakugou glared right back before huffing, the closest to agreement you could get.
“Ok, so you can all go and sit by your respective ‘tour guide’s’ now,” Aizawa shooed them away from the front, leaving Izuku to deal with the two villains who were awkwardly leaning against the wall next to his desk, Shigaraki sighing before sliding down the wall and onto the floor. He caught their eyes and hesitantly smiled, facing back to the board soon after, utterly oblivious to the wary shock on their faces as he turned back to the board.
As Aizawa began to drone on about villains and how to analyse their fighting styles and quirks, Izuku began quietly muttering to himself about it on his own. Aizawa merely looked at his student, cutting him off before he could go down into a tornado of mumbling.
“Is there something you’d like to add, Problem Child?”
Izuku gulped when he was called out, looking around before he spoke up.
“I was just thinking that Shigaraki’s quirk could be really useful for rescue…” Izuku knew he was getting weird looks from his classmates but Aizawa’s face urged him to continue. “He could disintegrate any rubble that could have trapped someone, and if he’s worried about disintegrating the person then we could get him fingerless gloves, the ones that have two fingers covered or something… Then there’s Dabi, who’s quirk would be great for heroism too. I mean, Endeavour is an asshole but he’s still a hero. And Dabi would be great for underground work. He co uld use his scars as part of his disguise and work undercover or as a spy on the inside since even if villains don’t recognise him as someone from the League of Villains then he’d be a convincing villain just from the obvious trauma that comes from having too many scars and- ”
As the class stared at him like he’d grown two heads, Aizawa cut Izuku off once more before he passed out from a lack of oxygen. The villains in question glanced at each other while the class started whispering about how crazy he was to have seen the good in bloody murderers. Izuku hunched over in his seat, reminded of the days when Aldera first found out about his quirklessness. He looked down at his notebook, his body feeling numb as he began picking up habits that had been left behind in Aldera. His eyes focused and unfocused on his book and his nervous, embarrassed expression faded away into a blank, empty look. The class’ whispering dulled to a mere buzz, and he stayed silent, ignoring them while he numbly began to write out his train of thought at speeds that should have been inhuman. Dabi stared at Aizawa, wondering if he would do anything about the blatant disrespect while Toga and Twice sat off to the side, obviously sitting away from the explosive blond. Shigaraki decided to poke Izuku, wondering what the bushy-haired kid was up to.
Aizawa could see the way Midoriya’s eyes clouded over, and he made a mental note to bring that up at a later date. He saw Dabi stare and him, and he stared back for a second when the burnt male gestured towards his class. He sighed, rubbing his nose as he cleared his throat. He saw that he had the attention of the class, except for Midoriya, and he couldn’t help but sigh again. Aizawa saw Shigaraki poke Midoriya on the ankle, and he hid his smile behind his capture weapon when he saw his student focus back into the present. He missed the way Midoriya smiled down at the ashen man, turning his notebook towards him. He turned to the class and decided that it was the perfect time to tell them all why the program was made.
“The whole reason why the Villain Rehab program was for exactly what Midoriya said,” That certainly got the whole class to shut up. Good. “We should all know that quirks don’t define who we are, and just because they have a quirk that you might think is bad does not mean it’s a villains quirk. If there was a knife sitting on the kitchen table, would you call it evil? It’s not hurting anyone and it can’t hurt anyone. It’s an innocent blade, but as soon as someone picks it up, it could go several ways. It could be used to hurt someone, but even then it can’t be the one at fault. It’s just a
tool
, and that is exactly what a quirk is. A quirk is just a tool that has become a part of society, but it can’t be evil unless you choose to use it like that. Even if these people have used their quirks in such a way it could be villainous, they can use them to be heroic just like Izuku said. Same goes for you; you could all easily kill someone with those quirks, and you don’t see me mocking anyone for helping you use them in more heroic ways.”
He could see the looks that the four villains were giving each other, and then he moved his eyes to Midoriya. Midoriya who was looking at his notebook, words strewn across the page while he rapidly filled it, thinking up ways that the villains could help with rescue or hero work despite what the class just did. He found it somewhat concerning, the way Midoriya could so easily lose concentration and ignore anything anyone said in class, yet reacting whenever Bakugou spoke. He really should have looked into it a while ago, why did he only notice it after the villain program was implemented? Either way, something was going on.
As the bell for the end of class rang out, Izuku packed up his bag, planning to begin the tour for the two villains, when he heard Twice and Toga begin giggling loudly at each other. Bakugou’s growling could be heard as he quickly grew impatient with the two. Izuku froze when a boom sounded across the classroom, flashbacks to Aldera flooding into his mind. Bakugou’s voice shouting at the villains to shut up were drowned out by his pounding heartbeat and the echoes of explosions that used to burn against his skin. He quietly ducked his head, bag falling to the floor as he subtly covered his ears.
Izuku heard Twice yelp, probably from surprise at Bakugou, and Izuku saw the way his hands began glowing brighter before he jumped out of his seat. He ran over, knowing from experience that no one ever did anything, and he moved in front of Twice, letting Bakugou’s hand fall and explode on his shoulder instead. The class fell silent as Izuku worriedly checked over Twice, noting that the forearm of the man’s costume was burnt away, but he was relatively uninjured. Izuku sighed, straightening up Twice’s mask that had lifted up slightly, and didn’t notice the way Toga stared at him, or the look of concern on Aizawa’s face.
“Hey so, can we go to lunch sensei?” Izuku looked over to Aizawa, who nodded slowly in response to his question, and he smiled, rubbing his neck awkwardly. He looked down at his shoulder, confusion obvious on his face as he realised. “Oh…”
The class was openly staring at the steaming flesh of Izuku's shoulder, most of them horrified.
Shigaraki’s face twisted into conflicted anger. “Did you not notice the third degree burns that are practically covering a quarter of your torso?!”
Izuku’s face seemed to dull as it set into an oddly fake smile. “It’s fine, it doesn’t hurt me.”
Dabi silently passed Izuku’s backpack to him, and with a smile, Izuku walked out the door, beckoning for Shigaraki and Dabi to follow. Instead, all four villains ended up walking out the door, awkwardly following behind him.
Izuku smiled as he slowed his pace, walking in the middle of the group.
“Hope you don’t mind us leaving early,” Izuku poked his shoulder, trying to get a feeling back in his arm. “I can’t stand the smell of nitroglycerin, and I probably would’ve gone into a panic attack if I was in there for any longer. The atmosphere reminded me too much of middle school.”
Inwardly, Izuku was wondering why he felt like telling the villains this. He knew that Aizawa said he’d prefer it if he didn’t place in the people who tried to murder him previously, but he couldn’t help it. Their faces said it all, he knew that they’d understand.