Cleaning Chemicals

"No, that's not done, Deku. And I already did my share of bathrooms. I'm not about to do yours because you don't know how to use the cleaning supplies properly. And don't forget the corners this time, either."

Deku dejectedly walked back into the room he'd just exited. And Katsuki hadn't even pointed out his crap job on the window ledges yet! Even under normal circumstances he would be annoyed but while he had to work past his bumps and scrapes from the night before, he was completely devoid of any patience for this.

"Don't even try that doe eyed crap with me! Bathrooms. Now!" Once Deku was in there, Katsuki followed after him, determined to make sure he did a proper job this time. Sure, the nerd had been distracted when Cementoss came in right after lunch. He'd been asking that walking brick questions as he worked with the robots to make repairs on the walls that had been damaged last night. Honestly, Katsuki was relatively surprised that his fucking notebook didn't make an appearance. Still, in the time Katsuki had taken to cleaning up his room afterward, the other should've gotten his shit back together enough to do a proper job.

Katsuki had an idea for how to drive the point home about how important this damn cleaning job was. Honestly, he found it mind blowing that their teacher was willing to trust this task to them of all people, punishment or not.

"This is the same problem as using your med kit last night, only bigger," Katsuki stated before slapping his hand down on the sink, palm open with a loud 'smack' that caused Deku to jump. Now that Katsuki knew he had the nerd's complete attention; he lifted his hand away, and began to explain. "This spot's now coated in my sweat. What do you think'll happen if sparky gets startled and accidentally uses his Quirk right there if it's not cleaned right? Or if Half-n-Half uses some of his fire next to it?" He crackled his palm like a sparkler for emphasis. "Even if I don't actively use Explosion, my sweat might cause other problems. Did you know Nitroglycerin comes with short and long-term health issues? I'm always listening for assholes complaining about headaches and think about where my hands go, so I don't leave enough of the stuff around for anyone to build a fucking dependence on it!"

Katsuki wished he could trust everyone to keep up with cleaning the common surfaces around the place but what he'd seen so far didn't inspire confidence.

They did enough that it looked okay but not so that everything was gotten up. He'd exchanged a few glances with Raccoon Eyes, who could very much relate to his frustration over this.

Katsuki knew from the realization dawning in Deku's eyes that he'd driven the point home. The part of him that was driven to write his creepy ass journals was probably coming up with more Quirk related dangers within their class than he could ever imagine himself. Finally, the green-haired boy commented, "At least in science labs, they have a protocol for dealing with dangerous chemicals."

Katsuki gave a single nod. "Whole damn school's probably an ever-growing chemical, fire, biohazard and who knows what kind of danger zone." Katsuki gestured to the cleaning supplies. "And now we're living in a building full of active Quirk Users, some of which come with all sorts of fucking residue, energies and temperature shifts that could do who the fuck knows what when they mix. They should have fucking specialized bathrooms complete with neutralizers but no, we get regular public spaces to compound our fucking issues in. I usually clean up every time I'm in the bathroom but that doesn't mean I don't miss shit or that everyone else is as careful. I'm scared to put my hands down on most surfaces without wiping them down beforehand 'cause I'm fuckin' terrified of what might already be there."

"You've thought about this a lot."

"I basically spent my whole fucking childhood tracking every drop of it." Katsuki snapped, sparking his hands and saying, "I either had to burn it off, neutralize it or store it for later disposal." He recalled that once Deku had mumbled that the soles of his feet might have a dormant set of sweat glands comparable to the ones on his hands and rather than investigate, he'd done everything he could not to accidentally activate them because he couldn't afford to deal with the challenges of managing explosive foot sweat on top of dealing with his palms.

"You learned how to do household chores so you wouldn't hurt your parents?"

"You're damn right I did!" Katsuki snapped. "Now, I'm going to fucking walk you through how to clean this place right!"

Deku nodded, looking at the cleaning materials thoughtfully as he mumbled to himself. Katsuki wouldn't be surprised to see Deku picking up some chemistry books, so he could use information from them to add to his Quirk related knowledge. A whole new section in his notebook for how Quirks interacted, probably. Damn it, maybe he shouldn't've said shit and just cleaned up after the nerd's shitty job. As if Deku needed more Quirk shit to think about.

'Oh well, too late now,' Katsuki decided, as he sprayed down the spot he'd slammed his palm down on a minute ago out of habit before explaining proper cleaning procedures to Deku. Once he was done, he left the other boy to it. At least there'd be no doubt that the bathroom would get properly cleaned, now.

Deku was already mumbling to himself, as he got to work cleaning the bathroom thoroughly.

Katsuki made a beeline for a kitchen. He didn't want to spend the whole day cleaning. He had the assignments to work on, too.

As Izuku worked on the bathroom, he thought about what Kacchan had said about his Quirk. He was surprised he hadn't found out about that before. How hard must it have been, for Kacchan to deal with that, after his Quirk activated?

Looking back, Izuku recalled that although Kacchan had been extra harsh toward him, he'd set off his Quirk whenever anyone got too close. Had he been scared of hurting them?

Had Izuku missed Kacchan being in trouble when they were little? What type of friend was he if he couldn't even see that?

'…The same type of friend, who drags them into his problems, even if it puts them in danger. Obviously.' A small part of his mind whispered venomously, causing him to feel a new wave of guilt.

To distract himself, Izuku focused on the task at hand. As he carefully rewashing all of the spaces in the bathroom, he went a step further by considering other classmates. He thought about who might have issues related to their Quirk like the one Kacchan had talked about. Ashido immediately popped into mind, and he wondered how many issues she had. She didn't sweat like Kacchan did but still…

And if he wanted to think about factors beyond secondhand interactions, it couldn't be easy for Jiro and Shoji to share space with everyone. He wondered if they got soundproofed rooms. If so, it wasn't enough to keep them from hearing Kacchan and Kirishima last night. Just how much did they hear?

Izuku was now extra glad that Kacchan had cleaned the girls' bathrooms this morning. He didn't think he would have had time to do them properly before the class got back.

Instead, he decided to go back and redo the windowsills he'd done earlier, which he was also more careful about this time. He was working on that when he saw students starting to walk along the main paths back to the dorms. Was it really the end of the day, already?

Izuku noted that although the students stuck in smaller groups, he recognized his class easily because while those groups were present they moved as part of a larger mass, everyone sticking relatively close together. Seeing it from the outside, he realized just how different it was from the norm.

Now that he thought about it, he'd never seen any classes depending on each other like that at his old schools, either. Quite the opposite actually. Was there anywhere else he'd seen something like it?

Almost instantaneously, his mind summoned instances where he'd seen Class 1-B, after the end of the Summer. They functioned more like a single group now, too. Although maybe not to the same extreme as Izuku's classmates.

Huh?

In the time he spent reflecting on this, his classmates reached the building. As they entered, he noted that everyone seemed a little quieter than usual and did he imagine it or were the others glancing at him a lot? He knew he could get a bit paranoid sometimes and imagine things.

He heard a lot of them discussing things from their day, including an assembly, some extra tough morning classes —what the heck was a work study?— It had only been the first day of his punishment and, already, Izuku could already feel himself falling behind.

"Midoriya."

Izuku looked up to see Iida had approached him. "Oh, hey!" He was actually surprised that the other boy didn't look angry. Now that he thought about it, Iida usually got extremely upset when someone broke the rules, and was quick to let them know how frustrated he was with them.

Instead, he seemed worried.

"Is everything all right?" Izuku asked.

There was a moment of silence, before Iida finally said, "Mr. Aizawa told me to inform you that you're to report to the Principal's Office at four o'clock this evening. He said you should bring your books and assured me you'd know what he meant when I told you that."

"Oh..." Izuku replied and took a deep breath, before releasing it. So, they wouldn't even be in the same building, then. He could feel his eyes sting as he thought about it.

Iida came closer and said, "you realize that if you ever need to talk about anything, we're here for you, right?"

Izuku looked up at him and smiled. "Thanks. What brought this on?"

He hadn't even realized that Uraraka had approached until she said, "Mr. Aizawa switched your seat with Kirishima's."

"What?" Izuku asked.

"Yes," Iida added. "And we're aware that you and Bakugou had a history, even before last night."

"We're really worried," Uraraka stated. "Everyone is."

It made Izuku so happy to have friends who cared about how he was doing. He never had that before UA. The problem was, he really didn't know what to do with that. He certainly didn't feel like it would be right to pile his problems on top of theirs. Furthermore, he was scared of how they'd react if he started talking about his problems. Logically, he knew it was ridiculous but there was still that little part of him that warned that they'd reject him if he wined about every problem he had.

So, Izuku just chose to give them a reassuring smile as he said, "You don't need to worry. We were just working some stuff out, last night." He sighed, and said, "I didn't think Mr. Aizawa would move us, though." He wasn't sure how he felt about that. And he really didn't want to go into what he and Kacchan had been fighting about, so he decided to change the subject. "It sounds like a lot had happened in class today, what-?"

At this, Iida exuded an air of annoyance, more akin to what Izuku had expected earlier. "Mr. Aizawa forbade us from telling you anything from our classes."

"C'mon Iida. No need to be so harsh about it," Uraraka responded at his harsh tone.

"No matter the reasons, Midoriya and Bakugou left the dorms after curfew and got into a fight. Now, they must face the consequences."

Izuku gave a small nod in agreement, and said, "Mr. Aizawa told us the same thing. He gave me plenty of work to do in the meantime anyway. Hopefully, I'll be able to at least catch up on regular schoolwork by the end of the weekend."

This seemed to placate Iida, who said, "I'm glad you're taking this so seriously."

Izuku nodded. After everything he and Mr. Aizawa had discussed last night, he had to.

Satisfied, Iida declared, "I need to speak with our other classmates."

Ochako waited patiently for Iida to walk off, before taking a step closer to Izuku and saying, "I heard Iida mention something about bringing books to Aizawa. It's your notebooks he wants, isn't it?"

Midoriya leaned against the wall, and looked down at his red shoes. "Yeah... He learned about how I wrote them, last night. He decided they're too dangerous to leave out in the open."

Ochako felt guilty for the wave of relief hearing that brought her. Despite finding Midoriya's note-talking habit unsettling, she knew how much they meant to him. "Are you going to be okay?"

Midoriya sighed, and said, "yeah, I will. I just… Need a little time to get used to the idea of not having them with me, I guess."

"Well, like Iida said, if you need us, we're right here for you."

Midoriya smiled and said, "thanks..."

Since in a previous chapter there is talk about students' expectations to do the cleaning, I feel like putting in that I've had the first section of this chapter more or less completely written for several months now. It just so happens the conversation about student responsibilities was coincidentally brought up when it was.

I've had some thoughts about the chemical implications for kids with a whole bunch of different Quirks sharing a space and it's pretty worrying. It seems something Bakugou would always have to be aware of. I also wouldn't be surprised if it were because of his Nitroglycerin sweat that he first had to learn to do chores so thoroughly. And nitroglycerin freezes somewhere around 13C/55F, which means it might be left all over the place as a solid residue.

Honestly, if Katsuki didn't have heroics, Explosion would probably just be considered a liability. Sure, Nitroglycerin has medical application but he's essentially a walking bomb (in more than personality). And knowing that he can cause all these issues has to have some sort of psychological effect on him (although, once again, it does not excuse his behavior toward Izuku). It also wouldn't surprise me if he did so well in school in part because he had to deal with the math, science and terminology involved in understanding his Quirk and it caused him to learn a lot of stuff early.

And of course, once Izuku starts thinking about mixing Quirk effects, he won't be able to forget. Yay, a new thing for his analysis.

Although bathrooms are divided for use, in most places that isn't really a consideration in cleaning them, especially if there's no one around to use them while they are being worked on. I've cleaned stalls in boys' and girls' bathrooms in the past and coworkers have done it without consideration for the picture on the door (at some camps, those are often switchable, depending on the group present).

After seeing Izuku and Bakugou the previous night, witnessing Aizawa swap Izuku and Kirishima's seats and being told to instruct Midoriya to go to the principal's office all in less than 24 hours, I think Iida's concern for Izuku would trump and maybe even replace his anger. I decided due to the level of stress Izuku is obviously under, on top of all these other red flags that somethings wrong, this seemed like a good alternate time for Iida to let Izuku know that his friends are here for him. Of course, Izuku isn't nearly the wreck he was after however long he'd been working under Sir Nighteye in Canon so his reaction isn't quite as big.

Other than Bakugou, the only other person who I've noticed takes Izuku's notebooks seriously and seems uncomfortable with how he writes in them is Uararaka. After he talked about them during the sports festival, she seems hyper aware of their use.