Fair WARNING: This is a very Mitsuki-Negative fic. Don't like, don't read.
Having said that, for those of you who still want to read... This was tremendously fun to write. I hope you guys enjoy it. :D
Fighting Villains
Aizawa Shota stared at the slip of paper in his hand for a long time before moving.
He sighed.
Obviously, he had known this was coming. It had been inevitable from the moment the parental releases had been signed, the ones allowing the students to move into the on-campus dorms.
In fact, Aizawa had no one to blame but himself for this particular… Problem.
Yes, teachers now had to send periodic reports on their students' grades and progress. There had been long meetings about it and it meant dealing with parents much more than in the past.
But Aizawa had been the one to request that a few of his students had alterations made to their parental release papers...
Bakugo's had been the most significant.
At the time, Shota had been fully prepared for a fight but thankfully, it hadn't turned out to be necessary: Nezu had agreed immediately. Though he had also alerted both the PR and legal departments.
That seemed entirely logical.
This had every chance of getting ugly, especially in the current climate of unrest and distrust towards heroes in general and UA in particular, but preparation could serve as a powerful deterrent.
Aizawa sent a text to All Might advising him to be vigilant. The former Number One Hero wouldn't be surprised either. They had discussed the potential ramifications of this move before committing to putting themselves in the line of fire, as it were.
Nezu would already have been alerted to the message, so Aizawa would report in after the... Altercation.
He picked up the phone and dialed.
The line connected before the first ring ended.
"Uhhh, moshi-moshi, this is Aizawa Shota, Katsuki's homeroom teacher." Aizawa rubbed his eyes. He'd need a nap after this. Preferably with at least four cats on top of him. "I received a message that you had concerns to discuss?"
"Yes, thanks for calling me back, sensei," came Bakugo Mitsuki's cheerful voice from the other end. "I haven't heard from Katsuki since you people snatched him away into those dorms of yours." She laughed lightly to make it sound like a joke but there was anger behind those words. "As a parent, you can understand my concern."
"Katsuki is doing very well in both his hero and general studies," Aizawa said. "He continues to score at the very top of the class."
"Yes, yes, that's not what I'm worried about," Mitsuki said, uninterested. "Will he be coming home for winter break?"
There was tension in her voice, though she tried to hide it.
She had read the contract.
In fact, it was probably lying open in front of her right now.
She was feeling him out.
"We're discussing a system of chaperoned visits so the students can travel home for at least a day but..." Aizawa paused. "It won't be mandatory."
Silence filled the line for several seconds.
"Well, we're so close by, it wouldn't make much sense for Katsuki to stay in an empty dorm over break." Her voice hadn't lost its artificial brightness yet.
It would once she realized her position.
"The dorm won't be empty," Aizawa corrected her. "Several of the students will certainly be unable..." or unwilling, but Shota didn't say that, "to travel to see their families for various reasons. Supervision will continue as usual, I assure you."
"You're his teacher, you can advise him to come home, can't you?"
There it was.
The first, experimental swing.
Aizawa didn't say what he was thinking.
That he would never advise a student to return to an abusive situation.
That, technically and legally speaking, Bakugo already was home.
Instead he said, "It's up to him."
No answer.
"You should discuss this with Katsuki," he pointed out.
"He won't return my calls," she returned, cheerfulness gone.
Planning her next move.
"That's his prerogative," Aizawa stated.
"He's a child," Mitsuki scoffed. Aizawa tried not to focus on what she thought that word meant. "You talk as if he's running the show. Believe me, I know he can be headstrong. He always thinks he's the one in charge but I didn't expect someone teaching at UA to fall for it so easily." She paused threateningly. "Maybe I should talk to management about pairing him with a more qualified teacher..."
Aizawa suppressed a snort of amusement, because it wasn't really funny: she'd meant for it to hurt and had spent so long abusing her power over those weaker than herself that she couldn't help but miscalculate now that she finally found herself up against an adversary her own size.
But it was absurd that she thought a Pro Hero, a teacher at UA, could be so easily manipulated.
She clearly hadn't done her research.
"You misunderstand," Aizawa corrected her. "If he insisted, I would consider a fully supervised home visit…" He paused to let the emphasis sink in. "But for my part, I see no need to upset his progress at the moment by exposing him to that type of... Environment."
There was a long, heavy silence.
"Who the hell do you think you are?" Mitsuki asked eventually. Her voice was cold but there was that explosiveness beneath her tone which Aizawa had long since become familiar with in her son.
Clearly, Bakugo had inherited a lot from his mother: the calculating intelligence, the natural charisma, the looks, the temper.
But Bakugo, unlike his mother, had learned that winning wasn't easy.
He'd absorbed a lot of other very damaging lessons along the way, too, but there was time to heal those wounds, now that the source of the poison had been removed.
"Who am I? Per paragraph twenty-two, clause three," Aizawa clarified, weary of the charade, "one of your son's two legal guardians as long as he attends UA."
Mitsuki was quiet.
"It's on…" Aizawa flipped through the contract on his desk. "Page seventeen, if you're having trouble finding it."
He had no doubt that the contract was already open to that page on her end of the phone.
"How dare you," Mitsuki hissed into the receiver.
Aizawa's eye twitched, instinctively feeling the urge to activate his Quirk in self-defense.
He could understand how Bakugo was still intimidated by this woman. It wasn't just the years of abuse and systematic humiliation.
Even with miles between them, Aizawa had faced off against villains far less terrifying.
"I'm only thinking of what is best for your son. You should do the same, for a change." He'd meant for it to come out as logical advice, but it ended up sounding a little more personal than he'd intended.
It wasn't a good idea, showing weakness in front of opponents like Bakugo Mitsuki.
But she missed her opening.
Overconfident.
Instead, she swore at him. "You think you can keep my own child from me? You're nothing, not even a real hero. Who's ever heard of Eraser Head?"
Aizawa wasn't about to dignify that with a response. "I'm sure you're thinking of calling a lawyer," he stated. "I'll warn you that UA's legal department is very well funded and you'll have trouble winning the case, considering you and your husband did sign the papers. Plus," he added, "there's the massive amount of negative publicity which would surely surround a case of that nature."
"Then I'll go to the media," Mitsuki said with a note of triumph. "I'm his mother," she said, tears choking up her voice on cue.
Aizawa shook his head in disgusted wonderment.
The woman was a classic sociopath.
No wonder Bakugo had so much trouble trusting others.
"How do you think everyone will react, when they hear how my son got kidnapped twice in the span of two weeks?" she continued, the arrogance only slightly marring the expertly-hitched breaths.
If the League of Villains had been looking for a recruit, they had gone after the wrong Bakugo.
"I suppose this time, it was his fault, in a way." The words were out before Shota could stop them, his tone bitter.
He grimaced.
He was getting too emotional.
Shoving Mitsuki's own victim-blaming of her son back in her face would accomplish nothing.
Unsurprisingly, she couldn't even place the reference.
"Huh?" she said after a moment.
Mitsuki firmly believed she was in the right, that whatever she wanted was hers to take, however that might hurt those around her.
A trait she shared with a lot of people Aizawa ran into in his line of work, though not as colleagues.
She was clever and naturally gifted, and thus had been successful up to a point.
Still, she had chosen the easy path, a life without adversity.
She wasn't ready for the counterattacks which came with battling opponents at her own level.
Let alone when she was at a disadvantage.
"Before you take that step, I should warn you," Aizawa told her, equilibrium regained, "we had the PR department draw up a detailed press release as soon as you signed the contract." Bakugo wouldn't be happy to see his personal life splashed all over the headlines, but if Mitsuki forced his hand… Well, Aizawa had decided months ago that he would do anything to protect the budding young heroes who were depending on him.
Whatever the cost.
They'd be here to help Bakugo through the aftermath, if necessary.
Though Shota certainly hoped this could be resolved less dramatically.
There was a growled curse from the other end and the sound of a fist slamming into a table, followed by the frantic rustling of papers.
That was promising… But this battle could still go either way.
Aizawa waited a few seconds before volunteering the next logical move. "Of course, you could always pull him from UA," he said. There was stillness as Mitsuki listened. "The contract hinges on his position as a student here, so if that status changes, the agreement you signed becomes void."
"Don't patronize me," Mitsuki's voice responded angrily, pride clearly wounded. "You think I need you to give me the answers?"
"I'm sure you had already thought of it," Aizawa told her, quite honestly, "though it would be your last resort. But in the interests of wrapping this up as quickly as possible, I'd like to assure you that it is, in fact, your only resort."
"So tell me, Eraser Head," she drawled, voice now sticky-sweet. "Why wouldn't I do that?"
Aizawa scratched at his perpetual stubble, unfazed. "Because I think you see further ahead than that. Pulling Katsuki from UA would win you the battle, certainly, and save your pride but… You'd lose the war. The whole purpose of this is for your son to become a Pro Hero, correct?"
Aizawa could almost see red eyes under blonde hair glancing off with a sulky frown.
An expression he knew very well.
"Will you really let all these years of preparation go to waste?" he queried, not expecting an answer. "Even if the media didn't discern the frankly obvious convenience of your Quirk and your husband's combining to create your son's…" He closed his eyes briefly to regain control. "You know very well that UA has the top Hero Course in the country."
It was unquestionably the sole reason the Bakugos had moved to Musutafu in the first place.
"So?" Mitsuki countered coolly. "Katsuki could be successful anywhere. I didn't raise a loser."
She sounded so proud of herself.
Of what she'd done to her child, of the damage Bakugo and the people who cared about him would have to spend years, decades undoing...
Of the pain she had caused to someone who had depended on her for everything.
A pain that would never entirely be erased.
Aizawa stifled the rage so that he could spell it out for her.
"It's true, at this point Bakugo will be one of the top heroes no matter what you might do to sabotage him." There was a choked sound at the other end which Aizawa didn't stop for. "But there's no guarantee that you will benefit from that if you alienate him any further."
Mitsuki drew in a sharp breath.
She must have realized instantly that he was right.
As he had hoped.
"Regardless of your methods," he continued, pressing the advantage, "your son's upward trajectory towards being a truly legendary hero is now assured. UA simply wants to make sure he reaches his full potential, whatever that might be. In short," he sighed, summing it up, "your situation has changed. You should start thinking about repairing your relationship with your son, instead of attempting to control him."
There was dead silence for so long that Aizawa wondered if Mitsuki had put the phone down and forgotten to hang up.
"Mrs. Bakugo?" he intoned eventually, sitting down.
This conversation had been more exhausting than the press conference.
He'd be entirely happy if it was over without another word from him.
No such luck.
"Let me talk to him."
Her tone was more reasonable now. That was a good sign.
"Uhhh, I'll see if he's available," Aizawa groaned, standing again to make his way towards the 1-A dorm. "Please hold."
He kept the phone to his ear as he walked, so he could hear her flipping through the contract, probably desperately looking for loopholes.
She wouldn't find any.
"Who the hell is Yagi Toshinori?" she muttered to herself, clearly looking at the other signature under the legal guardians clause.
Aizawa didn't answer, preferring to let her figure that one out for herself.
He entered 1-A's dorms, finding the common room relatively peaceful, only a few of the students scattered around grabbing snacks or wandering to or from training.
The teen in question was lying on the couch, taking up ninety percent of the space while Shoji had somehow squeezed his massive but flexible frame into the remainder. They were both staring impassively at their phones and seemed entirely comfortable ignoring each other.
Aizawa could relate.
"Bakugo," he said.
The boy froze, glancing warily in his teacher's direction. "Huh?"
"A moment," Aizawa said simply.
Bakugo's eyes widened in a poker face which Aizawa had come to recognize as denoting concern and the boy stood without a word, slipping his phone into his pocket as he followed his teacher a short distance away.
"Your mother is on the phone," Aizawa said without preamble.
Shoulders hunched defensively and the blond head lowered in an aggressive response which must have been entirely automatic at this point. "What does she want?" he growled.
"She read the contract," Aizawa responded.
Bakugo's eyebrows shot up.
Aizawa saw a flash of movement. Midoriya and Uraraka were in the kitchen, watching intently from around the corner. Aizawa sent a warning stare in their direction and they disappeared.
"And?" Bakugo gulped.
Aizawa frowned, troubled by the fact that even though he and All Might had discussed this with the boy, he was still frightened enough of his mother's power that he didn't feel safe in his new home.
It hadn't been that long…
The damage couldn't be undone overnight.
But it was important that he believed his teachers had his back.
"I explained the situation," Aizawa said quietly. "There's nothing she can do. She understands that now."
He reached out to squeeze his student's shoulder. Bakugo nodded, scratching at his arm uncomfortably as the faint, caramelly smell of nitroglycerin filled the air.
He was preparing to fight for his life.
It wasn't necessary, not this time.
He had other people to fight this particular adversary for him now.
Ururaka and Midoriya headed quickly towards the elevators.
Midoriya froze in his tracks as he saw the interaction between his teacher and his friend. Wide green eyes locked onto the two, mouth open, caught in the act of popping a piece of fruit into it.
Aizawa shook his head disapprovingly and dropped his arm. Bakugo turned to follow the teacher's gaze. He didn't seem surprised by who he found at the other end of it, but the death glare he sent in Midoriya's direction caused the younger boy to nearly jump out of his skin, green hair quivering.
"Ah, sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry… Sorry." Uraraka, blushing heavily at the awkwardness, marched back to grab Midoriya's hand and drag him away, still frantically apologizing.
Bakugo rolled his eyes impatiently, but without the rage he'd shown towards his childhood friend earlier in the year.
Their relationship was improving by leaps and bounds.
Considering how much the rest of the class looked up to both of them, Aizawa was extremely pleased for all twenty of his students at that development.
Whatever All Might had said to them that night after the Licensing Test, whatever they talked about in their "secret" meetings… It was working.
Aizawa heard a vague sound from the phone at his side.
He unmuted Mitsuki and raised the device to his ear. "Please be patient, I'm with him now."
He heard a muttered string of curses.
This family…
Bakugo was staring at the phone with naked dread, as if afraid to let it out of his sight in case it unexpectedly attacked.
"Do I have to?" Bakugo asked.
Aizawa never made the mistake of forgetting that his students were children, but it would have been painfully obvious to anyone in that moment.
"No," Aizawa said. "It's your choice."
Bakugo nodded, considering. His usual scowl was absent and it was hard to tell what he was thinking, though the intelligence behind the red eyes was obvious.
Aizawa had his own theories about why the boy worked so hard to hide that.
"Ok," Bakugo concluded seriously. "Then you can tell her…" And with that, he proceeded to launch into a long and colorful string of expletives in at least four different languages.
Behind him, Shoji nearly dropped his phone and raised five ears in stunned surprise.
Aizawa drew in a long, slow breath in the dead silence that followed.
"Bakugo," he said.
The boy grinned back like a maniac as Aizawa raised the phone to his ear again. "He says now isn't a good time," he told Mitsuki, still glaring thoughtfully at 1-A's resident delinquent.
"You see what I have to deal with?!" Mitsuki shouted into the phone.
"He'll be reprimanded, I assure you." Aizawa glowered at the teen, who still looked far too pleased with himself. "You'll see the details on his next progress report. We'll continue this another time," he told her and hung up the phone without waiting to hear what else she might have to say in reply.
Aizawa took a moment to consider the problem child in front of him.
Bakugo was usually better behaved when adults were present.
Aizawa understood.
Bakugo was trying to take his power back.
He was attempting to feel in control after years of being victimized and belittled.
But still.
"Bakugo," he said sternly. "That kind of language will not be tolerated."
"She deserves it!" Bakugo bristled.
"That may be," Aizawa conceded, "but I won't allow it."
"Fine," Bakugo relented, face wrinkled up in annoyance.
"We'll discuss a suitable punishment later," Aizawa said.
They'd both dealt with enough in the last few minutes.
Bakugo shrugged and resumed his spot on the couch.
"Hey, sensei," he said, scrolling through his phone again. "She sounded really mad." The words were accompanied by what might have been a laugh, although in the six months Aizawa had known him, he had never once heard Bakugo laugh, so he couldn't be sure.
"She was," Aizawa sighed. He really, really needed a nap.
There was no further response until he was about to exit.
"Thanks, sensei," he heard quietly from behind him.
"No problem," Aizawa replied.
"Mind your business, Arms!" the shout sounded through the closed door as Aizawa stepped out into the too-bright sunshine.
He sent a brief update to All Might and Nezu, promising more details after he'd recovered.
On his short walk to the teachers' dorms, Aizawa scrolled through the messages which had accumulated since he last looked at his phone: mostly random memes from Mic and the massive number of pictures which were inevitable every time Togata spent time with Eri.
So… Every day, essentially.
In most of the pictures, Eri looked somewhat confused. She had a lot to catch up on, and Togata's enthusiasm could be difficult for anyone to keep up with.
But occasionally, Togata would capture a moment of Eri with a blissfully unselfconscious smile on her small face; the kind of expression a six-year-old should have the chance to wear.
Aizawa lingered on one such image, the ghost of a smile playing over his own lips.
He'd be sure to back up these latest pictures tonight. He didn't want to lose those moments.
He sent Mic and Togata a quick message, just to check in.
And also so they wouldn't bombard him with too many texts for the next hour while he tried to sleep.
Having made it back to his own room, Shota sat on the edge of his bed and ran a hand over the cat who was most insistently nudging him for attention.
Aizawa was exhausted ninety percent of the time. He was pretty sure he hadn't gotten a good night's sleep in decades.
Mic continually yelled at him to take better care of himself, even after all these years.
But how could he rest when he was still needed? When there were so many people depending on him?
When there were children who needed to be protected, who deserved the chance to grow up?
That was why, despite often wanting nothing more than to be left alone, despite the constant over-stimulus of interacting with noisy teens every day of the week... Aizawa had never once regretted the sleep he had lost by choosing to make sure his kids were safe.
Bakugo would need to be disciplined. Aizawa pulled up the zipper of his trusty sleeping bag and lazily turned over the options in his sleep-deprived brain.
He was tempted to have Bakugo lead a training session with some of the Class's less physically-gifted students.
A supervised session, obviously.
It might be too soon, but…
Well, he'd discuss it with All Might.
When the former Number One Hero insisted that someone had leadership potential, it would be the height of irrationality not to listen.
All Might had actually seemed surprised that Aizawa hadn't noticed.
Aizawa was slightly surprised himself. He generally considered himself a pretty good judge of character.
He may have made some biased assumptions about the sulky, introverted boy with the outgoing friends endlessly trying to pull him from his shell...
An error.
Personally-based assumptions could be dangerously misleading.
Whatever the reason, he had missed it at first: Bakugo mostly kept to himself in class, seldom initiated interactions even with his friends, preferred to fight alone in hero training exercises.
But having watched more closely, seeing the way his friends followed him around, how they looked up to him…
Aizawa had reevaluated.
Bakugo would need to find a way to come to terms with where his talents were leading him.
Sometimes, the role you preferred wasn't the one you ended up playing.
Embracing that reality was never easy.
It was Aizawa's role to make sure all his kids got there safely.
It would be a long road…
At the very least, Aizawa decided sleepily, he would have Bakugo write an apology for his language. No, two apologies: one to his teacher, one to Shoji.
None to Mitsuki, though.
Bakugo had already suffered enough at her hands; he owed that woman no apologies. And Aizawa had never found humiliation to be an effective teaching tool.
Besides, Bakugo was right: she did sort of deserve it.
Aizawa would be the worst type of hypocrite to condemn Bakugo's anger: he himself had far worse things he wanted to do to the people who hurt his children.
Unfortunately, some situations called for restrained telephone conversations rather than physical combat.
It wasn't something Aizawa liked. He'd never been suited for that sort of thing.
But he'd decided… He'd do whatever it took to protect his class.
And no one ever said being a hero was easy.
Well, no one who knew the sacrifices which that life demanded, anyway.
A long road…
Whether it was being a hero or being a teacher, the work was never done…
The key was to pace oneself, to take any chance you could to rest.
There would be emergencies. And with so many lives depending on his guidance, unexpected needs would surface.
It was simply part of the job.
Whenever that happened, Aizawa would drop everything until he knew his kids were protected from the threat which had reared its ugly head… Whatever form that might take.
Sometimes it was villains. Sometimes guilt or self-doubt. Sometimes it was the media, the authorities, or even the parents.
All these enemies demanded slightly different approaches, but in the end, the goal was the same: fight for the children until they had grown strong enough to fight for themselves.
Feeling reasonably confident that everyone under his care would be safe for at least the next hour or so, Aizawa curled up on his bed surrounded by a satisfyingly large number of purring cats and closed his eyes to take a well-earned nap.
The End