Chapter 4: Aizawa Needs A Nap

There were plenty of kids in the class Shouta had expected to refuse to spar with Midoriya. Tenya Iida wasn't one of them. Tensei Iida and Shouta had been friends since their time as students at UA so he'd watched Tenya grow up. He'd never seen any indication the younger Iida brother held any quirksist beliefs and the older was so outspoken against discrimination that Shouta had never thought Tenya would approach him and refuse to spar with Midoriya. Which was why he'd paired them up to begin with.

Then at the end of Ojiro and Uraraka's match Tenya quietly approached him and, eyes glued to the floor, asked, "Sensei, I would like to concede my match."

Shouta raised an eyebrow at his pseudo nephew, "Are you injured?"

His eyes finally met Shouta's, wide with shock, "No, I just don't think it fair for me to fight a quirkless person. I don't want to injure my classmate in an uneven fight."

Shouta put on his most unimpressed expression. "Need I remind you that quirkless person beat your score in both the entrance exam and the quirk apprehension test? Now I'll allow you to skip the sparring match," Tenya clearly forgot everything he knew about Shouta in that moment, his body sagging in relief, "but you'll be taking home paperwork for your transfer to general studies and I'll be personally calling Tensei to let him know about his brother's quirksist views."

Tenya slumped, accepting his fate with a mumbled that's not necessary . The teenager stormed onto the mat with Shouta's eyes heavy on his back. It was hard for the man to hide how pleased he was with his nephew's defeat after basically declaring Midoriya to be weak because of his lack of quirk. He was watching Tenya closely, gauging his reaction so he would know if he needed to have a long talk with the boy about his beliefs or if, hopefully, losing so soundly had knocked some sense into him. Then Sero was asking about the fairness of the fight.

Shouta wanted to sleep so badly. How had he managed to get a class with so much potential for once, but every single one of them had their heads so far up their own asses? Before he could even open his mouth Midoriya had a hand on his hip and started ripping apart the statement. Every single point he made was spot on and Shouta didn't hesitate to back him up. Of course Uraraka hadn't learned that she was on thin ice already and jumped at the chance to tear down her classmate.

He was so close to expelling her right then, tired of the headache she was becoming, but Midoriya went on the most well informed rant one could expect from someone so clearly frustrated with a situation they shouldn't have to deal with. Honestly, he was happy to see the boy standing up for himself. When he'd called dibs on the quirkless kid at the entrance exams he could see Midoriya's potential and determination, but he'd expected to get a timid, broken kid he'd have to teach self worth to. It was obvious how close Midoriya and Bakugo were and Shouta suspected being friends with such an over confident, loud kid had done wonders for Midoriya's confidence. There was still work to do, he could already tell the boy was answering questions wrong on homework purposely and refraining from calling attention to himself by not answering questions in class he clearly knew the answer to.

That would be handled in time, first he needed to earn the kid's trust. And right now he had to assign these little idiots an essay on the importance of support equipment. Both to help them realize how much they needed to think about what items they should be requesting and to teach them that they shouldn't be running their mouths if they didn't have the facts. He was a practical man, two birds with one stone and all that.

The grumbles about Shinso's quirk didn't escape his notice, but Kaminari distracted the boy from his classmates' displeasure until he could rejoin Midoriya and Bakugo. Shouta was pleased with the budding friendship between the three, the brainwasher could really use the self confidence from hanging out with Bakugo and maybe the two would push him harder in his physical training. The boy had promise, but he needed to focus more on his strength and fighting skills.

Thankfully, the end of the school day came quickly after that and Shouta could go home to collapse on the couch next to his amazing husband. Hizashi was humming quietly while they both graded homework, the sound soothing Shouta's frayed nerves. Eventually he was calm enough to bring up his frustrations, "Zashi, Tenya tried to refuse to spar with Midoriya today."

Hizashi set down the papers he was working on to turn to his husband with angry eyes, "Are you serious? After all the discussions we've had about discrimination?"

He huffed, "Yeah, apparently he didn't want to hurt his weaker classmate." Hizashi's indignant noise had a smile threatening to appear on his face. "Midoriya won their match in under two minutes."

That had the blonde grinning wide, "Knew the little green bean had it in him. How did Tenya take it?"

Shouta shrugged, "He seemed baffled but not angry. Then two of their classmates jumped down my throat about how unfair it was that Midoriya had support items and how they didn't count as support items because he doesn't have a quirk, like that matters at all. Midoriya has more backbone than I expected, though, he shut that down real fast." He sighed in a bone deep tired way, "I'm probably going to have to do several lectures on discrimination with this group and I don't know if it will make it better or worse for the kid, but I can't have them going out as heroes with this kind of attitude."

Hizashi nodded, "It will probably be hard on him, but we can keep an eye out to make sure no one goes too far. Do you think you'll have to expel anyone?"

"Not sure yet, but Uraraka is toeing the line at best."

His husband looked a bit shocked, "It's always amazing in the worst way who can hold these kind of opinions. She seems like such a sweet girl you wouldn't expect her to be biggioted. But it just shows how deep this nonsense runs in our society." Shouta made a noise of agreement and rested his head on Hizashi's shoulder. They went back to grading work while occasionally throwing out ideas on how to smack some sense into his class.