Deku and Toga were settled into one chair together in the corner of the laboratory. It was a tight squeeze, but the pair were both so small and thin that they managed to wedge themselves in. The Nomu floating in their tanks lined the rooms, their wide eyes unseeing as they stared out. Deku kept glancing over at the nearest one, feeling almost as if he was being watched.

Doctor Ujiko was flitting around the operation table that he'd set up in the center of the room. Compress was laid out on it, stripped from the waist up and devoid of his mask and hat. The charred skin of his shoulder slowly being cut away, leaving freshly opened wounds behind. The new robotic arm would be grafted on to the newly exposed nerves, allowing Compress to have full range of motion.

"Deku, my boy, go collect the parts I need for the arm. You know where they are, correct?"

Deku nodded at the doctor and hurried over to the workstation laden with various pieces of machinery. It took a few moments to find all the pieces he needed, but eventually, he found everything. He stood by the doctor and started to piece together the arm, preparing it to be attached.

"Very good, Deku. I always knew you would grow up to be a clever one, even when you were little," Ujiko said, referencing when he used to pose as Dr. Tsubasa and had diagnosed Deku as quirkless. "You understood everything I was telling you at just 5 years old. Understood it all faster than your mother did. Like I said, a clever one, you are."

"Is he going to be okay?" Deku asked, nodding his head towards Mr. Compress.

"He should be fine. Once I have the arm attached, I will put him on an IV to get his fluids up and to give him some blood. He'll be right as rain in no time."

Toga sniffed at the air before tentatively climbing from her seat.

"I think I can smell something weird. An infection maybe. You're going to need to give him antibiotics," she said, nodding towards Compress.

"Oh yes, that doesn't surprise me. The warehouse you were all in was hardly clean and neither is my lab. This is a place for experimentation, not surgery. You would all do well to remember that."

"Not exactly our fault this happened," Deku said, leveling Ujiko with a glare. "It's that asshole Overhaul's fault."

"Oh! What is this?" Ujiko laughed. "Curse words from Young Midoriya? I never thought I would see the day!"

"I don't go by that name anymore and you know it."

"Tell me, did you pick up that language from Toga? No, she hardly seems the one to curse that often. Was it from Dabi then? Perhaps it was from that little friend of yours. What was his name? Bakugou?"

Deku didn't respond, but from the way he forcefully fitted together some pieces for the arm, it was obvious that Ujiko had struck a nerve.

"Young Bakugou goes to UA now, doesn't he? Quite a prestigious school. I am sure the teachers there love his quirk, just as they did at your middle school." When Ujiko saw the slight confusion on Deku's face, he smiled. "Did you not think I kept an eye on him? I kept an eye on all my past patients. The interesting ones, that is. The ones with flashy, useful quirks. Or ones like you, with no quirks. I was always curious about what would happen if we were to give you a quirk, Deku. I discussed with Shigaraki and our Master about using Quirkless patients and there was some interest there. Have you ever considered -"

Deku cut him off with an ominous growl, his head hung low but his eyes glaring upwards, making direct contact with Ujiko's.

"Touch him or me with any of your experiments, and you will regret it."

"Protective of Bakugou, are we?"

"No. I'd just rather not see his ugly ass face around here. Shouldn't you be focusing on Compress?"

--

"Think long and hard before deciding whether you will be taking on a work study," Aizawa said, eyeing each of his students carefully to gauge their interest. Many of them looked excited, nearly bouncing in their seats.

Unsurprisingly, Bakugou looked downright bored. His eyes were dark, the bags under his eyes more pronounced than Aizawa would have liked to see. Ever since the call Bakugou had received during class, the boy had been nearly emotionless. Aizawa had forced the boy to start having sessions with Hound Dog to help with whatever depression the boy was going through, but it hadn't seemed to help much yet. It had only been a couple months, but Aizawa had been hoping for some sort of improvement by now. The only times Bakugou seemed to have any sort of reaction were when he got aggressive during sparring or when Kirishima managed to pry a rare smile from the other boy.

"If you have any questions, speak to me after class. You're all dismissed for lunch."

The majority of the kids scrambled up, gathering their things in a hurry. Bakugou was slow, as had become normal, and Kirishima hovered over him, talking animatedly.

One student caught Aizawa's attention though: Shinsou. Shinsou typically stuck close to Todoroki, the two having formed some sort of odd bond as two of the quietest, possibly shyest in the class. The two seemed to eat lunch and work well with Iida and Uraraka, but for the most part they kept to themselves. Today though, Shinsou waved Todoroki on ahead. As the last of the students filed out, Aizawa and Shinsou were left alone.

"Is there something I can help you with?"

"You vouched for me and got me into the heroics program."

That caught Aizawa by surprise. It was nearly enough to even get a reaction out of him. He didn't think that the young boy had known about that. After all, when he and Nezu struck their bargain a few years back to allow him to choose one student for heroics that had failed the physical entrance exam. The two heroes had agreed that the exam, while required by the Commission, was biased against mental quirks. There was, of course, the sports festival route, which was how Aizawa got into the hero program. But in Aizawa's opinion, that was just adding more hurdles for a student that already had the odds stacked against them. So he made a deal: if Aizawa could choose one student to be brought into his class, he'd stop expelling his entire class on the first day. That didn't stop him from expelling classes later in the school year, but it kept the students there for longer than a day.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Aizawa said, keeping a stern look on his face.

"Liar." Shinsou gave a rye smile. "I want to be an underground hero, remember? That means doing research on anything and everything I think can help me as a hero. You taught us that early on. I did some digging in school records. Every year, there is one student in your class who is awarded special 'stealth' or 'creative quirk use' points in the entrance exam. It is always just enough to get them into the hero course. Those points didn't exist until you started teaching here. And the students they are awarded to are always ones who don't have flashy quirks. I know it's you."

"What does it matter?"

"Train me."

"I already do."

"Outside of class. I want to do my work study with you."

That was even more startling than Shinsou figuring out the truth.

"You want to work for me? Why?"

Shinsou's smile grew. "It's only logical for me to want to work under a successful underground hero. So? What's your answer?"

Aizawa sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "If I say no, you're not going to drop it, are you?"

"Look at that, we already know each other so well."

"I'm going to regret this. Fine, kid. You can do your work study with me. I won't take you on every mission, since some are more extreme than someone your age needs to deal with, but I can take you on patrols and I'll bring you on the missions that I can. Have I made myself clear?"

"Crystal clear, Sir. Now, when do I start?"