Chapter Text
Aizawa was a lot of things, stupid was not one of them. He also didn’t believe himself to be necessarily better than anyone, either. While he knew he had more sense than some people, he knew that sometimes people just needed to be nurtured in the right way to optimize all their potential. That was his job as a teacher, and he took pride in that. Pride that his students could and would become great heroes in the future. Pride in that while there have been many bumps in the road, they have powered through and become stronger versions of who they were at the beginning of their journey.
So he gave his students all the training and advice he could provide. While some people would consider his teaching style harsh, he preferred to think he was preparing them for the real world. The real world wouldn’t baby them, and villains definitely wouldn’t take it easy on them because they were young. Taking the easy way would only hurt them in the future.
Aizawa also knew that many other teachers had that same sense of pride for their students. The other teachers at UA did, and so did many others, whether they’re teaching heroes or regular students who would enter the workforce.
So he would be lying if he said his interest didn’t pique a little when he checked his email one afternoon and had an email outside of the school’s domain. So naturally, he clicked on it and skimmed it, ignoring the AI overview. Reading the email, he notes how the teacher from the school sending the message wanted to have a small joint training program with the UA first years with their own set of first years.
So, he followed the email’s domain to do some light research. During this little dive, his urge to collaborate with this school was slowly dwindling. Throughout the years, the school was consistently ranked near the bottom in grade averages and graduation rates. Their hero program wasn’t doing any better, placing at the very bottom of all the high school hero programs in Japan. While he wouldn’t say that his students wouldn’t gain anything from a small collaboration, he wasn’t too thrilled about wasting his time on better opportunities given UA’s prestige.
Still, he was curious about the audacity of this educator who had contacted the best hero school in the country, especially by emailing the homeroom teacher of one of the hero classes directly. So in his curiosity, he went directly to the school’s website, where he was presently surprised. On the homepage was the latest issue of their school newspaper, where an entire class was lined up and dressed in what was likely hero costumes. He inferred that the older-looking man at the end of one of the lines in the corner was probably their teacher. Furthermore, the title caught his eye:
“Entire Heroics First-Year Class Passes Hero Licensure Exam”
This led him to search for the heroics tab under their academics section, where, lo and behold, he found almost nothing. Just some general info and interest forms along with the contact of their head teacher in the heroics department. Comparing the email on the website to the one in his inbox, he found they matched.
Obviously, he knew he probably wouldn’t find any personal info about the students because that would be breaking many laws, but he was hoping for a little something. Maybe even a welcome video with a cheap intro explaining how their program worked. So, going off of what he punched the name of the head of the heroics department into Google. Their teacher, Phil Watson, was a British superhero named Philza, but besides that, he found nothing noteworthy. A few news headlines about some defeated villains, and that was about it. So what was a British hero doing teaching in Japan?
So he thought to himself, "Why not.’ Opening his email, he checked his watch. ‘4.53’ Still within the business day, so he decided to write out an email to discuss setting up an in-person meeting about this joint training exercise.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
CC: [email protected]
Dear Mr. Watson
Regarding your email about an inter-school exercise for our hero programs, I would like to discuss this further and set up an in-person meeting. Please respond at your earliest convenience with your availability.
Best Regards
-S. Aizawa
Heroics Department
Sent 4:55
After sending the email, Aizawa began packing up his desk in the teacher’s room to go home, when to his surprise, his email dinged again. Glancing over, he sighed, opening his inbox and clicking on his newest email; his head filled with dread already.
—
At exactly 4:00, the door to Nezu’s office swung open. Out stepped a decently sized blonde man. He was more scruffed up than his headshot on the school website Aizawa looked through, but that was fine. He was dressed pretty formally, obviously wanting to make a good impression, or maybe he was compensating. But the one thing that Aizawa noticed right away was the pair of grey wings sticking out of the man’s back.
He also looked very tired, not just the tired people look after traveling, but the tiredness that comes with age and stress. Aizawa could relate all too well.
“Mr. Watson, welcome!” Nezu started, “Come in, take a seat, make yourself comfortable.” Gesturing at the two seats in front of his desk.
“Of course, thank you,” Phil responded, taking the only empty seat left.
“Would you like some tea or a glass of water perchance?”
“Ah, no thank you.”
“Alright, let’s get down to business then, Aizawa, if you may.” With that, Aizawa opened a folder he had in his hand
“You contacted us, or rather just me, regarding a joint training exercise between our students.” Aizawa stared directly at the folder, flipping through a few of the pages. “While I am all for my students getting experience with others who will be working in the same field as them, I did some research after receiving your email.”
Phil sighed, slumping into the chair. “I can imagine what you found.”
“I was intrigued to say the least. It’s impressive that all your students earned their hero licenses on the first try, as you claim not even my class could do that. While I don’t intend to discredit any of their achievements, I was rather put off when I saw the state of your school’s hero program.”
“Yeah, I’ll admit our school’s facilities aren’t… the best,” Phil laughed awkwardly. “But you've got to understand I’ve been teaching heroics for a while now, and let me tell you I have never seen a unique group of students in my life. The way they’ve been working and the sheer amount of passion and drive in their hearts and minds, it's absolutely incredible. There is this undeniable fire behind their eyes, and if I don’t do my best to get them as far as I can, then I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“I’m sure you students are great,” Aizawa responded. “But I’m not going to set this up simply for formality. You are very clearly putting your students first, and so am I. I did more research than simply going on your school website. Reverse image searching was doing some wonders, and can you guess what else I found? These.” Aizawa proceeded to spread out a bunch of news headlines and articles.
“Ah. I figured as much.” Phil sank into the chair more than he thought was possible.
“And these are just the ones that were made public. I’m not just thinking about my students’ hero careers; I'm also considering their safety. The sheer amount of destruction and calamity that has been reported by your students is rather worrisome.”
Phil straightened up, slowly he smoothed out his shirt, and took a deep breath. “Mr. Aizawa, listen, my students haven’t always had the resources necessary for their growth, whether that be physically with their quirks, academically, emotionally, or socially. And that has affected them… a lot. Surely you can relate. I've seen the sports festival, and you have some destructive quirks that I would put on par with some of my students.”
“Yes, but the difference is that UA has been able to accommodate them. I doubt your school has been able to do the same for your students.”
“While it’s true that we haven’t been able to do it to the same degree as UA, you have to understand that’s what I’m here to do. One exercise that’s all I ask, one exercise, and you see just how much potential these kids have. Potential that would be wasted if you don’t see for yourself.” Phil kneeled right in front of Aizawa and Nezu. “Please, I’m begging you, I’m trying my best, but I can’t do this myself. I’m begging you to give them a chance.”
“If I say yes, will you get off the floor?” Aizawa sighed, putting his forehead into his hand. Phil looked up and shook his head. “Fine, I guess we can organize something.”
Phil sprang up from the floor, grabbing Aizawa’s hand and shaking it violently. “Thank you so much! I promise you, Aizawa, you will not regret this!”
“Yes, ok, we’ll see about that.” He awkwardly took his hand back. “We can get in contact about something later. For now, we can just get some basic info together.”
“Right of course, mate. We can get all that ready right now if you need.”
—
After a while, Phil finally left Nezu’s office, leaving Aizawa to collect his thoughts with some more peace. “God, this is gonna be exhausting.”
"At least he looked like he was having fun.” Nezu chimed in, sipping some of his tea.
“Fun, yeah, fun.” Aizawa sighed one final time, grabbing the folder that had grown significantly heavier after the meeting finished.
“Aizawa?”
“Yes?”
“You didn’t tell me he was British."