"Ready or not, here I come!" Toru hollered as she sprinted towards Izuku. She was supposed to practise being more 'visible' today, as part of her self-confidence training, but she decided that being loud and annoying was close enough. Besides, it was way more fun to chase after her friends. Especially Izuku, the king of freaking out whenever she was about to catch him. Honestly, it was almost too easy - he'd zigzag all over, only to end up in a headlock time and time again.

"Toru! Quit it! I-I couldn't see you!" Izuku protested, still trying to catch his breath.

"You couldn't see a floating shirt and shorts?" Toru asked, as she raised an eyebrow that no one could see. "I'm gonna tell mom to work on your sitchy-ashunal awareness."

"What's that?"

"Dunno" she shrugged, which also no one could see.

Izuku smiled, "Yeah well, you can't get me up here!" he said before running to the nearest wall and beginning to scale it. In the 2 ½ years since he discovered this aspect of his quirk he had gotten very good at climbing walls. Being barefoot was certainly helping on this occasion, before Toru could try and drag him down he was already at the top of the wall with his hands and heels glueing him in place. He stuck his tongue out at her, "Nehhh!"

"That's not fair! You can't just hide up there all day!" Toru complained as she searched around for something to throw at Izuku. Curse her mother for not allowing shoes in the training room!

Izuku smiled smugly and taunted, "Hey, it's been working out great for me so far!"

"Moooom! Tell Izuku to get off the ceiling so I can beat him up!"

Emerging from the bathroom, with Mina in tow, Toru's mother stepped in to mediate. "Guys, can this wait a moment? Mina, are you feeling better?"

During some sparring Mina's quirk got away from her momentarily, and she'd melted a small hole in the wall. Not enough to cause any structural damage, but accidents like this always made her feel terrible.

"Yeah, I think I'm better now... Sorry about the wall," Mina said, rubbing her eyes and staring remorsefully at the still smoking hole.

"No worries at all, hon. Controlling your acid is precisely why you're training here. I wouldn't be much of a teacher if I got mad every time a student melted a hole in the building," Hagakure said, gently patting her shoulder. "Besides, we've got three more walls to spare."

Mina smiled gratefully, "Thanks, sensei."

With Mina running off to tackle Toru to the floor, the translucent trainer clapped her hands together and announced today's plans. "Alright, it's training time! Izuku, today let's focus on turning your quirk on and off," Hagakure suggested, looking toward the ceiling where Izuku clung.

"Oh, like my deep breathing exercises that help me unstick?" Izuku inquired, demonstrating his technique by closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, 'gracefully' detaching from the ceiling and promptly crashing to the floor with a thud and a groan. Clearly, he still needed to work on his landing skills.

Hagakure nodded, offering him a hand to get back up. "Exactly! But we want you to be able to do that instinctively, without even thinking about it."

Izuku scratched the back of his head nervously, "Are you sure I can actually, you know… Do that?"

"Absolutely! All you need is to believe in yourself and your quirk!" Hagakure replied, beaming with encouragement. "And, well, some padding wouldn't hurt either..."

"Your quirk is kinda like mine, Izuku!" Mina said, as she joined the conversation. "There's like… levels, y'know? I can make my acid suuuuper strong or reeeeeally weak. And if I couldn't do that I might melt through the floor and end up burning to death in the earth's core." She finished dramatically, with wide eyes.

Hagakure sighed, "Maybe not quite so extreme, but Mina has a point. She can control the strength and viscosity of her acid to - usually - keep things at a safe level. Your stickiness could work in the same way, it's just that right now you're working at 100 or nothing."

Izuku nodded, as he thought about it. "Oh, yeah, that makes sense… I guess I just always think of it as being on or off."

"I figured it out, so I bet you can too." Mina said, as she gave him a thumbs up.

Toru eyed her friend sceptically. "Didn't you just burn a hole in the wall, like, 5 minutes ago?"

"I'm 6 years old, cut me some slack!"

"Anyway," Hagakure interjected, trying to get the conversation back on track, "We know that when things touch your skin, they get stuck—"

"Hey!" Toru interrupted, "Not everything sticks to him!"

"Yes, thank you, Toru. I was getting to that," Hagakure replied, extending her hand to pat where she assumed her daughter's head was.

"Ow! You just poked me in the eye!"

"Oops, sorry dear. Now, let's focus. Your clothes don't get stuck, you don't stick to yourself, and most importantly..." To illustrate her point, she took Izuku's hand in hers, "Other people don't get stuck. That's what we're going to work on. You clearly have some subconscious control over your quirk to avoid making your life unmanageable. We just have to figure out how that works."

"Don't forget as well, I can't unstick things with my own hands when my quirk is on, but others can do it for me! I bet there's a way I can make things stay stuck to me, which would be so awesome for a hero!"

"You could catch villains by hugging them!" Mina yelled.

"Then that's our first goal!" Hagakure declared. "Girls, grab the softballs! I just had a brilliant idea for a new game."

—

A few moments later Izuku's arms, legs and face had every square inch covered by a red foam ball, looking like a walking raspberry with limbs. He could still see, but that was only because their teacher wouldn't let Toru test if his eyeballs were sticky too. Part of him felt like he could get hit by a bus right now and he'd probably just bounce off. …Or he'd get stuck to the front of the bus?

Hagakure had her three students line up in the outdoors playing field, and walked in front of them like a drill instructor. "Alright kiddos! The aim of the game is to grab as many of the red balls from Izuku as you can. Izuku, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to not let that happen! Any questions?"

"What if I can't keep hold of any of them?" Izuku asked, a little worried he'd disappoint.

"If you can't do it, then think of this as dodging training. There's no pressure, so just have some fun with it. Any other questions?"

"Does my hair look pretty?"

"Yes Mina, it looks lovely. OK! Izuku, you get a 3 second head start. Girls, don't be too rough. THREE, TWO, ONE, GO!"

Izuku broke off into a sprint, but even with the head start his friends were still faster. Both Mina and Toru lunged towards Izuku, their hands darting out to snag one of the foam balls - and easily doing so.

"Hey, that's cheating!" Izuku protested, knowing full well that it wasn't. He had to try something else. He closed his eyes and clenched his muscles, hoping to make the balls stickier. "Think sticky! Think sticky!" he chanted, sometimes slipping into "thick stinky", which made him giggle.

In his attempts he lost another few foam balls to his relentless friends, but he really wanted to try hard today and do well. Right at the moment he was thinking that, Mina's hand connected with a sphere on his shoulder… Which stayed put.

"Wha..?" She stuttered, looking at her empty hand and then at Izuku in disbelief.

"I did it!" Izuku exclaimed, jumping up and down, "I did it I did it I-" The ball fell off his shoulder. "...aw man."

The rest of that round went about as badly as possible for Izuku, though he still enjoyed himself.

—

Snack break! Izuku had a cheese sandwich! And some apple juice!

—

Red Ball Riot Round 2! Mina and Toru had so much fun during the first round that they couldn't wait to play again, but Hagakure had asked the two of them to not be quite so relentless this time around.

This time Izuku wasn't playing around, he was going to be the stickiest boy since sticky the stick insect got stuck! He didn't really know what that meant, but it was something his mom kept quoting to him.

"Okay, Izuku, I have a suggestion for you," Hagakure said, interrupting Izuku's fierce focus. He relaxed his arms a little and listened.

"I'm ready!"

"Well, I've noticed that when you use your quirk you get super stiff, like you're constipated or something. Have you tried being more chill? Like when you want to turn your quirk off, but not all the way off. Can you do that for me?"

"Um, okay I'll try it…" Izuku felt his shoulders droop and he lifted his head slightly, eyes closed, and took slow breaths. He felt his pulse slow, but he told himself don't unstick, stay sticky…stay sticky… And to his relief, he managed it.

"Toru," Hagakure nudged her daughter, "Go try and grab one of the balls from him."

"What?" She said, puzzled, looking at her mom, "Aren't we supposed to run after him?"

"Go on, just try."

"Meh, fine, but it sounds boring…" She sauntered over to Izuku with her hands in her pockets, reached out and pulled on one of the foam balls. Which ripped in half, leaving a chunk of foam stuck to Izuku's arm. "IZUKU!" she shrieked in his ear.

"AGH!" Izuku snapped out of his trance, and some of the balls flew off his body and rolled on the ground. But not all of them! "Did I do it!? Did I stay sticky?!"

"Yeah! You nailed it!" Mina clapped and cheered, proud of her friend.

"Awesome work, Izuku, you've improved a lot today! Do you want to keep going or is that enough for the day?" Hagakure asked.

"Uh, I'd love to keep going but, I think my feet are stuck to the pavement." He said, looking down, and trying to wiggle one of his feet but failing miserably.

"…Oh, that's not good."

Mina wasn't allowed to use her acid to free him from the floor, but luckily the dojo had a crowbar.

—

Later that evening, as Izuku worked on turning his sticky powers on and off, Inko was on the phone with Mitsuki Bakugo for their usual evening chitchats.

"So, how has little Katsuki been doing at school?"

"Top of the class, or so he tells me."

"You think he might be pretending?"

"I wouldn't put it past the little shit!"
"I'm not pretending, I'm the freaking best!"
"Katsuki says hi, by the way."

"Mom?" Izuku tried to interrupt their conversation as politely as he could, "Can you ask Kacchan if he wants to come to the dojo with me next week? I want him to meet my friends."

"Sure sweetie, I'll ask. Izuku wants to know if Katsuki wants to go training with him next week?"

"I'm not going anywhere with that sticky nerd!"
"He says he'll think about it."

Katsuki stood up from his dumb easy jigsaw puzzle on the living room floor and made his way to his room in a huff. Why would anyone think he wanted to train with dumb Izuku and his dumb worthless quirk? So he could stick to things, big freaking deal, it's not like it's cool that he can climb walls or anything. Katsuki could climb walls if he wanted to, but he doesn't because it's stupid.

He kicked over his lego and walked over to the Best Jeanist punching bag that he got for his birthday last year, and gave it a good smack.

"Your punches are stronger than stone-washed denim" The digitised voice praised him.

"Damn right they are…" Katsuki grumbled under his breath. Katsuki Bakugo was gonna be the best hero ever, and nobody was gonna stop him. Asking him to go train with Izuku… Why would Katsuki even need training? His quirk was already the best in the whole world, so, what was happening there? Did the sticky nerd think he needed his help?! He was looking down on him, pitying him! There was no chance he'd let Izuku get away with this, so he'd better watch out at school tomorrow…

—

"Kacchan! Stop chasing me!"

"Come down here and face me like a man!"

"We're six!"

"That's how many times I'm gonna kill you, you worthless nerd! Now get off the wall!" Bakugo yelled back, explosions popping off in his palms. Even at this young age, they could do some real damage.

"Why would that make me more likely to come down!? What's with you today?! Stop messing around, Kacchan!"

By now a small crowd had formed, which only served to annoy Bakugo even more.

"What's going on, Katsuki? Did Izuku get stuck up there again?"

Stupid extras were gonna get in the way of him teaching the sticky nerd a lesson. He had to think strategically about this…

"Come…Come down here, Izuku." He said in his best fake friendly voice, "I've uh…Baked you a cake, and I want us to eat it together."

Izuku narrowed his eyes and looked at him sceptically, "...What kind of cake?"

"Who cares what kind of freaking cake you stupid-!" he took a deep breath, "It's chocolate cake."

"Eh, I don't really like chocolate."

"Fine! Fine. It's strawberry. But if you don't come down here soon, I'll let everyone else eat it instead." He gave an absolutely terrifying smile.

"Oh cool, Katsuki made us a cake?" One of the other kids said excitedly.

"Get outta here you dumb extras, that cake is for me and Izuku!" Katsuki yelled at them, shooing them away with his blasts. Ugh, he's starting to want cake…

"Alright, I'll come down." Izuku began to slowly descend the wall, before jumping down when he got to a safe distance. "I was getting a little worried you were trying to beat me up but-AGH"

Izuku's thought process was halted by Katsuki's fist flying to his cheek. Katsuki's thought process was halted by his fist staying there.

"What the hell?! I thought your stupid quirk didn't work on people!"

"It usually doesn't Kacchan, I swear!" Izuku said in a panic, "I guess it's because of my training!"

"Well, turn it off! I can't get free!"

In what was not one of Izuku's smartest moves, he tried to pull Kacchan's hand off his face by grabbing the angry boy's sleeves and pulling. "Oh, oh that isn't good…"

"What have you done?!"

"...My hands are stuck to your sleeve." He admitted quietly.

"THEN UNSTICK THEM!"

"Okay okay, I'll try! I'll try!"

"JUST FREAKING DO IT!"

Izuku tried to take a deep breath like he did at the dojo, but it was a lot harder under these circumstances. He breathed in….and out….in….and out.

"FREAKING HURRY IT UP!"

"I can't, I can't concentrate, I need, I need to-"

"RRRRGGGHHH"

"Owww! Don't pull!"

Eventually, through a lot of trial and error, the duo managed it. Despite their differences they worked together and solved their problem, growing closer as friends.

Not really, Izuku and Katsuki had to awkwardly walk their way to the nurses office, call their moms to take them home, and Izuku had to take a sleeping tablet to unstick Bakugo.

They did not grow closer as friends.