Chapter Text
The transition went about as well as could be expected, the two dads were fostering Shinso with the hope of adopting him later on.
True to his word, Aizawa got them set up with a personal trainer that helped them put together age-appropriate workouts and beginners self-defense classes. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday the two would walk from their school to a private dojo/gym to do 3-hour sessions with Torikumu sensei. They found out that with a regular diet and (somewhat) improved sleep-schedule, Shinsou could pack on weight fairly quickly. Izuku on the other hand seemed doomed to be short and lean. In practice spars they learned to play to their individual strengths, Shinsou had a solid base that would improve as he grew and trained, while Izuku took full advantage of being difficult to catch and pin since he was so quick and small. Half the time he’d lose in a straight fight, but their sensei constantly reminded them that the goal was to get away from potential assailants and heaped praise on Izuku’s superior on-the-spot planning skills.
Ever since they’d begun training Izuku seemed to have an overabundance of cheer and confidence. No matter how many times he was thrown to the mat in their sessions, he’d bounce back up with a challenging grin, the determination that had previously only shown up when protecting Shinso began leaking into other facets of life. He’d been talking more in school, his smiles growing wider and less wobbly, and it was all due to the steps they had begun taking towards making their dreams of heroism into a reality.
After a few months, they moved on to more offensive styles and their sensei brought up the idea of incorporating weaponry to give them an edge in entrance exams. That was when Izuku had an idea that tipped over the next domino in a series of events that changed their lives irrevocably.
“Oh, come on, this’ll be great! We can start practicing with stuff closer to what we’ll have access to when we get to UA!” Izuku was practically bounding down the hallway of the mechanics/technical wing of their middle school, one they had never had reason to visit before now.
Shinso appreciated the confidence his friend had in their ability to make it into the top hero school, in fact, he was feeling more secure by the day that they would be able to make it based on some information his dads’ had “accidentally” let slip. If they’d had no warning, going up against a bunch of robots would have ended them both in General Education at best. As it stood, Shinso was making decent progress with his bo staff, and if all else failed he was planning on bringing in a giant fuck-off hammer as a back up.
Izuku hadn’t made a decision about what he would do, but his friend was confident that his analysis-geared brain was cooking up something impressive. Even if they didn’t manage to bash in enough robot skulls, they could always get moved up during the school’s sports festival. Huh, I guess Izuku isn’t the only one getting more optimistic.
That being said, he was nervous about throwing himself and his quirk at the mercy of some engineering kids who could outright refuse to help them. But he still found himself standing in front of a set of double doors labeled “Practical Engineering Lab” (the remnants of yellow caution tape and soot markings around the door did nothing to soothe his frazzled nerves).
Their goal was to find a teacher and ask if any students would be willing to take on building some mock weapons for them to practice with, instead, the doors were kicked outward by what appeared to be a pink mop with massive steam-punk goggles. They were both tackled to the floor as the girl (judging by the voice) shouted “Down, get DOWN, my baby is ANGRY” followed by a loud POP and angry swearing from an older woman and the telltale whooshing of a fire-extinguisher being emptied from behind the swinging doors.
The girl had already pushed herself off of the stunned boys by the time an older woman charged through the doors and picked up the girl by the collar of her outfit, “HATSUME how many times must I tell you to TAKE THINGS SLOW?! I’ve had just about enough of you blowing this room to pieces!”
Hatsume sported a crazy grin reminiscent of the time Present Mic had once tried the coffee from Shinso’s thermos. (‘The Incident’ was best forgotten by all those involved, and seeing the same mania present on this girl’s face made Shinso determined to tuck tail and run.)
“The QUICKEST and BEST way to learn is by DOING Sensei!” The girl answered, unconcerned with being dangled a foot off the ground. The exasperation on the older woman’s face made it clear that this was somewhat routine. She appeared to just now notice the two boys stunned on the floor and turned, Hatsume still swinging in her grasp like a misbehaving kitten.
“Sorry about all that, what can I do for you boys?” She asked.
Izuku unfroze first, talking while peeling himself up off the floor “We were hoping to see if any of your stu-stu-students would be willing to work with us on designing some gear f-for hero training, or if you could point us toward any mechanics willing to-“
Hatsume had seemingly teleported to within an inch of his face, (when had she been released from the grip of her teacher?!) “OH me, PICK ME, I will make you the bestest babies you’ve ever seen!” The boys exchanged panicked glances, "She calls her inventions babies" the instructor clarified exasperatedly. "My best guess is she took the phrase 'Mother of invention' a bit too literally and for some reason it just stuck."
The overexcited girl was dragged out of Izuku’s personal space by her sensei, “Legally you can’t have anything under the domain of ‘support gear’ until you enroll in an approved hero course or gain a provisional license,” Izuku slumped visibly, “however, as students you have full access to the engineering labs on campus during free periods or after school if you join the engineering club, and anything you make yourself can be taken home for private use so long as it isn’t deadly. God knows I could use another few sets of eyes on this one,” she shook Hatsume lightly as she said this, “and she’s scared off damn near everyone else.”
Hitoshi was wary of the girl, and didn’t want to accept the offer, but one look at Izuku confirmed that he would likely have to tag along to make sure that those two didn’t burn down the school, or accidentally take over the world with a modified microwave, anything was fair game really. He resigned himself to a life of exasperated coffee drinking and his new role as the voice of reason for the foreseeable future.
The last two weeks before their six-week vacation before second term started consisted largely of Hitoshi having to drag Izuku between homeroom, the lab, their dojo, and half-carrying the green boy home as he protested that he’s “not that tired really”. He was awakened to the reality that his best friend worked in a completely different way than himself, Hitoshi wore constant low-level exhaustion around like a second skin; Izuku was full of energy, giving no sign of flagging until his body literally gave out from under him.
Hitoshi swore that once Izu had fallen asleep on the weight bench and somehow kept pumping. In fact, Izuku had proven to be almost impossible to wake up. The tradeoff for having to half-carry his exhausted best friend home was getting free reign over his face with sharpies as soon as he’d been dumped onto his bed. Three sets of cat whiskers, a unibrow, and one rather magnificent handlebar mustache later Izuku seemed to have caught on, and promised to cut back to avoid overtraining.
The vacation shone like a beacon before him, sure Aizawa was going to be spending most of it at a summer camp with his students, but it was a solid block of time to focus on nothing other than napping and doing physical training.
Then Hatsume gave Izuku her phone number and told him she had a spot to get raw materials from, and some “really cool ideas for babies” after she’d read through a few of Izuku’s notebooks. He’d been having trouble describing something about a collapsible bo staff to Hatsume, following their resulting sketch-trading brainstorm over the open book, Izuku had allowed her a bit of access to his writing. The manic smile would return to her face periodically as she read, and Hitoshi had a private moment of silence to mourn the loss of sleep and sanity that was sure to follow.
With that phone number exchange, Izuku and Hitoshi officially made a new friend (yay), and Hitoshi said an internal weepy farewell to his idyllic lazy summer (very much not-yay).
The notebooks were something that had been increasingly bothering Hitoshi, they acted as more of an extension of Izuku’s body and thoughts than anything else, appearing in his hands in a flash whenever an idea struck (Hitoshi swore he saw smoke coming from where the pages met lead during one particularly frantic mumble-scribble-storm). He guarded those things with his life, never letting anyone other than Hitoshi and his mom look inside them before. Hitoshi hadn’t done more than glance through a couple of the newest ones because the mis-mash of psychological profile breakdowns, quirk analysis, mathematics, observed fighting details, sketches, and personal notes were impressive but most of it was illegible or went over his head.
There was no good way to ask “Are you sure you’re quirkless? Because I think you might be linked to a pocket dimension filled with notebooks, pencils, and never-ending determination.” So those thoughts ended up shoved in a filing cabinet in the back of Hitoshi’s brain labeled “Weird Izuku Things” which was steadily filling every day he spent near Izuku. Also in that cabinet lay the freaky grip strength and hand size Izuku had for such a twiggy boy, and the Energy Drink Incident. Both were to be remembered, but never considered at length for fear of the Implications inherent to their existence.
“So, why exactly are we meeting a psychopath on a creepy trash beach at ass-o-clock in the morning again?” Hitoshi wondered out loud, trailing behind his chipper companion and rubbing sleep from his eyes.
“She said this is a great place to get old parts and scrap metal for inventions!” Izuku’s eyes were darting to and fro, searching for the aforementioned psychopath.
“Helloooooooo hero boys! Welcome to the new birthing grounds of weapons of mass destruction!” Izuku bounced slightly in place, appearing equally pumped as the pink-haired demon.
Morning people, uhg. Shinso thought derisively, longing for the soft confines of his bed at the Yamada-Aizawa apartment.
“Okay! We need some things that the school either can’t or won’t provide, so here’s a list of electronics that are most likely to have the components we’ll need. Get to digging! Put those muscles to use, chop chop!” Hitoshi felt like there was almost a compliment there in the last sentence, if you squinted. Oh well, that’s about as much as one could expect from the mechanically-obsessed girl currently cackling on top of a trash pile before them.
Thank god for rubber gloves. Hitoshi thought, moving some unidentifiable appliance that was more rust than real metal at this point. Also, thank god for tetanus shots.
If you’d told Hitoshi a year ago he’d be dragging half a microwave across a trash beach while his two friends tried to cobble together an extra-strength taser from the pieces of two other microwaves, he’d have thought you were insane. Now, he’s pretty sure that the only insane ones are the pink and green kids in front of them. He’s pretty okay with that.
Oh, it seems the proto-taser has exploded. Joy.