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The Definition of a Hero (FMA x BNHA, 9)

Notes: It is important to me that Ed becomes friends with the other kids in Class 1-A. (LBR Al is already friends with everyone except Bakugou, who doesn’t know who he is. lmao) Also, it was high time that Todoroki get some of those backwards life lessons Roy likes to dish out.

The Definition of a Hero adapt: become adjusted to new situations

Recovery Girl appeared slightly at a loss as she stared at Ed sitting on top of the bed in her office, a cheerful if not sheepish smile on his face and one of his legs in his hands. Well, it wasn’t really a leg, Ed reasoned. It was a metal prosthetic that he’d been forced to wear since the accident with his quirk. Of course it was upgraded as he grew, which seemed to be slower than average, but after five years it was basically like his flesh and blood leg, minus the fact that it couldn’t bleed.

He could still injure it, which usually involved him doing something terribly stupid or rash. He’d known that attacking Kirishima head on would end badly, but he couldn’t have known how bad. It turned out that the other boy’s hardening quirk was a lot stronger than he’d anticipated. Had he been kicking with his real leg, he would’ve known when to stop, but Ed had used his metal leg in hopes that it would compensate against Kirishima.

It had not.

Instead, he’d managed to bust it bad enough that when Kirishima managed to get a lucky hit in, his leg had broken partly off. Realizing that he was basically done for but not willing to give up unless he passed out -- especially not after that insane battle between Midoriya and Bakugou -- Ed had done the only thing he could think of. He was in an almost blinding amount of pain, but it was only hanging on by a thread anyways, so he’d torn the rest of his leg off and whacked Kirishima over the head with it like a baseball bat.

That had worked at least. Kirishima had been so shocked by seeing Ed rip off his leg, which he hadn’t known was just a prosthetic, that he’d frozen and panicked. It not only had the effect of slowing him down, but Kirishima had let his guard down completely, releasing his quirk and shouting, “What are you doing!?”

His team had won the combat training exercise and now he was down a leg sitting in the nurse’s office next to an in and out of it Midoriya.

Worth it.

“I...don’t know what to say, young man,” Recovery Girl told him. “That’s not something I can fix.”

Ed laughed and set the leg down next to him. “No, I guess you can’t grow back limbs.”

It was still strange to feel the air on his skin where it had been amputated. He wore the prosthetic all the time, even when he was showering or sleeping. It was a part of him, connected to his body and mind like it was just another limb. That was the beauty of Winry’s skill and quirk. Sometimes even he forgot that it wasn’t real. He still got phantom pains in his leg and his prosthetic arm. They seemed to move just as quickly as the rest of him. The only difference was the weight. Made with the lightest metal, it was still more than bone and blood.

Recovery Girl got closer to inspect him. “This is an old wound.” Ed nodded his head. “And not your only one.”

Glancing around to make sure no one was there besides Midoriya and Recovery Girl, Ed pulled off white glove on his left hand to reveal metal. It wasn’t that he was embarrassed or even ashamed. He just liked to keep some things to himself. Midoriya was out of it right now, breathing softly in his bed while he recovered from the nurse’s quirk that was healing him slowly. Ed wouldn’t have minded him knowing, but for now, it felt good to not be seen as someone with a weakness, even if he himself didn’t think it was.

“I, uh, had an accident with my quirk,” Ed explained vaguely.

Recovery Girl tsked and stood up straight. “As long as you don’t now.” She waved a hand in Midoriya’s direction. “I have my work cut out with him already.”

No shit. Midoriya’s fight with Bakugou had been on a grand scale that seemed insane for a high school class. There had been a serious grudge match going on. That explosion from Bakugou was still bright in Ed’s mind. He didn’t know how Midoriya hadn’t freaked out then and there, but Ed supposed that out of everyone here, Midoriya was the one most equipped to deal with Bakugou and understanding him. What a fucking nightmare.

He still couldn’t believe that Mustang had jumped in to keep All Might from stopping Bakugou. It was mad. Bakugou had clearly gone off the rail. Was Mustang trying to teach them or get them killed? Still, Midoriya had beat Bakugou at his own game -- at the cost of some pretty bad injuries, of course. His quirk had broken his arm while Bakugou’s had burned his other.

It was really...enlightening, Ed thought, to see the way Midoriya fought. This wasn’t just a class to him or a way for him to fulfill his dream. It reminded Ed of himself when he’d really began pushing the limits of his quirk. In the end, he’d injured himself severely, but it wasn’t like Midoriya, whose quirk literally hurt him. But to see someone so willing to break themselves over and over again in order to be the best…

Well, it made sense to Ed.

“What can we do then?” Recovery Girl asked him.

Ed rubbed the back of his neck. “Uh, well, there isn’t anything really that we can do. If you could just, uh…” This was going to be painful. He hated doing this. The last time something like this had happened, she’d almost beat him over the head with his broken prosthetic. “You’ll need to retrieve Winry Rockbell in class 1-F. She designed and installed my prosthetics and any upgrades.”

“That’s quite an advanced ability,” Recovery Girl pointed out. She didn’t seem to doubt him though, as she reached for the phone.

“Yeah, she, er… It’s part of her quirk and her family’s business. Runs in the family. I got lucky.” It was a grave understatement and Recovery Girl knew it, but she didn’t call him out on it, instead making the call.

Ed focused on the leg, preparing himself for the worst, when a groggy voice behind him mumbled, “Ed...ward?” and he turned around to see Midoriya rubbing his tired eyes with the hand that been burned. His other hand and arm was in a cast, his quirk having broken it.

Swinging around so that he could face his friend, Ed put his hands on his thighs and greeted, “Morning, sunshine. Or I guess I should say evening. You’ve been out of it for a while.”

“I…” Midoriya blinked. “What happened?”

“You passed out after All Might announced your team won,” Ed told him. “You’re at the nurse’s office. I bet you feel like a train hit you.”

Midoriya groaned but then sunk further in his bed. “Basically.” He looked over at him, his eyes a little more aware, but he still looked close to falling back asleep. “What are you--?” If not for the severe injuries and a very serious depletion of energy, Ed was almost positive that Midoriya would’ve bolted out of his bed. “Your leg!”

“This old thing?” Ed pat the metal leg lying next to him on top of the bed. “It’s nothing. Winry will fix it in no time. I’ll be fine.”

“Winry?” Midoriya’s eyes went distant as he tried to remember and then it clicked. “Oh, yeah, your friend from the support course. She was nice.”

His eyelids began to droop again and Ed could tell that he was fighting against his own exhaustion. Ed knew it wouldn’t do any good though. When he’d been recovering from the surgery to remove his arm and leg and then the one to connect his new metal ones, it had felt like all he had done was sleep.

“You’re pretty wild, you know?” Ed told him. “Taking Bakugou head on like that. It was crazy. ”

“I had to do it,” Midoriya said, although he sounded almost regretful. None of the students had been able to hear what each team was saying while in combat. Besides those four, only All Might and Mustang knew and Ed had a feeling that even then whatever had been said between Midoriya and Bakugou was truly known to them alone. “I had to beat Kacchan.”

“Yeah, well, you did a damn good job of it,” Ed said. “He looked rocked.”

Still, Midoriya didn’t appear happy about it. Might have been because he was beat to hell. Ed could tell when the other boy drifted back to sleep and silence fell over the room. He was considering laying down and getting a bit of rest himself when the door was kicked open.

“Edward!” Winry shouted. “What did you do?”

Surprised by her explosive entrance, Ed wobbled on the bed in panic and almost fell off of it. “I-I can explain!”

“Quiet, you two!” Recovery Girl hissed. “If you’re going to have a lover’s quarrel, do it outside and not where I have a patient in desperate need of rest.”

That sucked the fight right out of them. Both Ed and Winry turned bright red, mumbling apologies and that they were absolutely not having a lover’s quarrel. Winry shut the door, a lot quieter compared to how she’d opened it, and then walked over to Ed’s bed. She was still red in the face and refused to look at him, which suited Ed just fine since he didn’t want to see her reaction to the damage he’d caused.

“What did you do to it?” Winry mourned quietly. “This was some of my best work!”

Ed gave her a weak grin. “Let’s just say that I pretty much kicked a concrete wall repeatedly for like ten minutes.”

Winry goggled at him. “What do they teach you in the hero class?”

Apparently it was how to take a beating right now. Ed had never felt so sore in his life, not even when he’d been spent hours training his quirk and sparring with Al. The last time he’d felt like this had been right after Winry had connected his limbs. He was not looking forward to that again. Still, as Winry inspected the damage and sketched out a plan for a new leg, he was confident in her abilities. He cast a quick glance back at Midoriya. Now he just had to be confident in his own.

*

“Yo, you’re batshit!” Kirishima exclaimed.

A grin cut across Ed’s face. “It was the only thing I could think of.”

Kirishima shook his head. “I about freaked. Like one second you’re kicking the hell out of me and I’m thinking, ‘Man, how is this guy’s leg not broken?’ and the next you freaking pulled it off!” His laugh was loud enough to echo down the hall, causing the few remaining students to give them weird looks, but he either didn’t notice or care. “I swear I almost pissed myself.”

This time, Ed laughed. “Now that would have been hilarious.”

“I wouldn’t have even been embarrassed,” Kirishima said. “You tore your damn leg off.” He snorted, somehow making it a sound of disbelief. “How was I supposed to know it wasn’t real?”

According to Al, everyone watching the screen had freaked out when Ed had resorted to using his own busted up leg as a makeshift weapon. No one but his brother had known that it was a prosthetic, so to everyone in the class, it was a horribly visceral scene. Even All Might had panicked for a second and was then overcome by pride at Ed’s ingenuity and tenacity.

Only Mustang had seemed unimpressed. “He wasted time and made himself useless to his partner.”

Useless, ha! What did Mustang know? Ed didn’t need two legs in order for his quirk to work. He still would’ve been able to fight and give support. Maybe not as good, but he hadn’t been done for yet. Besides, his team had won their combat simulation, hadn’t they? Mustang just had a stick up his ass and thought he was better than everyone. They hadn’t needed him today. They’d had All Might. What more could they need?

“Does it hurt now?” Kirishima asked.

Ed adjusted himself on his crutches. Winry would need to night to perfect a new leg for him. The more complex the robotic, the more time she needed. She could’ve done it in an hour or so, but he had told her to take her time and do what she wanted. It had been time for him to get an upgrade anyways, according to her, and she had some new ideas on how to improve it. He didn’t know what, seeing as how it functioned perfectly as it was, but if she wanted to tinker with it, so be it.

“Not really,” Ed answered. “It did at the time. I’m kind of surprised I didn’t pass out. I didn’t feel any pain until it busted and and broke off partly. It’s connected to my nerves.”

“So no pain while you were kicking me?” Kirishima asked and Ed shook his head. “No wonder you were going at me like a mad man.”

“It does make me act kind of rash, I guess,” Ed conceded. Winry had pointed it out to him before. He had to remind himself that he couldn’t always fall back on her. One day, she would be doing her own thing and he would be doing his and neither one of them knew if they’d be as close as they were now. Besides, she put a lot of work into his prosthetics. They were insanely complex. He didn’t understand half of it. “I’ve had it for five years so I kind of forget every now and then.”

Kirishima nodded his head. “It’s a good thing you’ve got a cute girlfriend to help you out.”

“What?” Ed yelped, his face turning almost as red as the other boy’s hair. Kirishima stopped and gave him a confused look. “Girlfri-- Winry isn’t my girlfriend! She’s just-- well, she was my neighbor-- we’re just friends!”

“Really?” Kirishima raised an eyebrow. “You two seem awfully close.”

Ed bit down on his tongue and then forced himself to slowly respond, “We’ve known each other since we were little. Our families were really close, so we grew up together.”

“Ah, like Bakugou and Midoriya,” Kirishima surmised.

“Minus the insane grudge match,” Ed put in. “I’m not a complete ass to her for no reason.”

Kirishima smiled. “Yeah, because probably she’d beat you over the head with your own leg.”

He was, by all definitions, right, but Ed wasn’t about to admit that. He knew that a lot of the kids in 1-A seemed almost confused that Ed and Al were friends with someone that wasn’t in the hero course, but he didn’t understand why they weren’t. U.A. wasn’t just made of one class of twenty-two. There were a ton of other students in the school, all of which were rivals or allies in some way, especially the support course. It was like many of them had secluded themselves. Ed wasn’t even sure that Bakugou was aware he had more than five classmates.

It didn’t occur until after he parted ways with Kirishima, who had popped in to check on him at the nurse’s office right when he was being discharged, that Ed realized that the other boy had never asked him why he had a fake leg. He hadn’t even seemed curious and there had been no attempts or hints at prying. It was like it didn’t matter. The only thing that did matter in Kirishima’s eyes was that Ed had done something unexpected and “manly,” which made him cool. It was surprising and felt good.

*

The class was still working on smaller, more precise attacks. Some were getting obviously better while others were struggling. It was clear that some students were quicker on the uptake or simply more talented in combat. He could see some of them slowly improving, but they needed to be better faster. Roy couldn’t help but feel like they were in a race, but he wasn’t for sure what it was or what the end even looked like. There were times when he felt like he was still running. Maybe he always would be.

Roy tsked. “Too big, Bakugou.”

A snap of his fingers and small burst of fire forced Bakugou to jump backwards away from Kirishima. The explosive teen shot him a seething glare, but grit his teeth and went at it again. If it looked like Roy was being particularly hard on him, it was because he was. Bakugou was so used to overpowering people with the magnitude of his quirk that his control would slip if he got angry and he’d start letting off larger explosions that made a few other students around him jump in surprise. With his hardening quirk, Kirishima made a good partner for him.

Still, Roy could tell that Bakugou was getting beyond frustrated. There seemed to be a permanent scowl on his face and he was grinding his teeth so badly that Roy was almost concerned there might be damage. Nitroglycerin-laced sweat dripped from his hands, like it was used to being used up completely and he was making too much. Every time Bakugou made too big of an explosion, Roy would dock points. Whoever had the most points by the end of the session won.

And Bakugou was definitely not winning.

Once again, Midoriya wasn’t using his quirk at all. He’d seemed particularly mournful over this lesson, but was still pushing himself hard in fighting back against Edward. Roy thought back to the punch that had nearly blown that building to kingdom come during the combat training simulation. Could Midoriya not do any less than that? If he could, he either didn’t want to or he was still too wary to use it. Anything close to what he’d showed so far would kill a person. It appeared as if he didn’t want to take any chances. Roy would have to dock points for not using his quirk at all though. Midoriya knew that, but kept fighting.

Ed was doing a particularly good job with this lesson. Now that all the students knew about his prosthetic leg -- and that had been an interesting way to find out -- he was able to show off another part of his quirk. He could transform the metal of his leg into a shield that he lifted up to block a hard kick from Midoriya and then back to normal. It would have been a better technique had it been his arm, which would’ve allowed him to maneuver more, but it was creative and clever. If they were somewhere other than a field, Ed would have free range of any metal around him to use his quirk on.

The next step would be to move them to an urban area where they would have to watch out not only for their opponent but also their surroundings. He’d beat caution and awareness into their heads if it was the last thing he did as a teacher.

Another student doing well was Todoroki, but that was to be expected of Endeavor’s son. Roy would expect nothing less than the number two hero to have trained his son extensively before he even attended U.A. After all, he had done everything he could to ensure that his progeny would be exceptionally strong and that didn’t mean just in quirk strength. Todoroki was years ahead of everyone else not just in strength, but also combat, fighting, and strategy. Clearly Endeavor had spent years cramming as much knowledge as possible into Todoroki’s head.

However, Todoroki was very obviously holding back himself and not just in the sense for the lesson. Roy had noticed it during the last class, but now it felt confirmed: Todoroki was only using half his quirk. He was completely ignoring his left side, as if it didn’t exist. He used his left hand and leg just fine in hand-to-hand combat against Tokoyami, but he was only using the quirk on his right side, his ice. It was the quirk he’d inherited from his mother. His fire he didn’t even consider bringing out, even if it would’ve made things easier.

Was it a conscious decision? Was he trying to strengthen his ice quirk more or did he just not want to use his fire side? Roy thought back to the way Todoroki had coldly eyed the sky when Roy had blown up the baseball in demonstration. There had been a strange look of determination on his face. Todoroki was very impassive for a teenage boy, especially in comparison to Bakugou and Edward, but there had been a hard set to his entire body in that moment.

“Uraraka!” someone shouted in shock.

Roy turned around to see the girl in question blinking wide-eyed up into the sky and followed her gaze. Iida was spinning around in a circle, his quirk unable to bring him back down to earth. Roy’s first instinct was to laugh -- the poor kid looked like a pinwheel -- but he had to push through that, only allowing an amused grin to appear. “Too much, Uraraka.”

“I--” Blush tinging her cheeks, Uraraka anxiously glanced at him and then back up to Iida. “Right, sorry.” She pressed her fingers together. “Release.”

When Iida crashed down into the ground, it was none too gracefully. Still, he stood up and brushed himself off without complaint. He knew that it was his own fault for allowing Uraraka to get a complete touch on him to activate her quirk and send him into the air. If he could learn to use his quirk in tandem with hers, it would be an exceptionally good trick. Maybe combo training would be something to consider later.

“Can you activate your quirk on only part of a person?” Roy asked.

“Um…” Uraraka put a finger under her chin to consider. “I’ve never really tried.” A light went off in her eyes and she held her finger up. “But I can do it only clothes and stuff. I did that during Aizawa’s physical exam to make myself lighter.” As quick as the idea came, the excitement faded from her face. “Which wouldn’t really make much of a difference in a fight.”

Roy shook his head. “Nonsense. Any advantage is still an advantage and even a small one can tip the scales in your favor in a fight.” Both Iida and Uraraka nodded their heads in understanding. Roy felt like such a...teacher. It was a strange realization. Maybe Nezu had been on to something. “Strengthening your quirk will help you expand it in other ways later on.” He held out his hands palm up and created a small flame a few inches from the left before it flew into an arch and settled over his right. “Do you think I had this sort of control right away over my quirk?”

Edward, ever the one to be unimpressed, rolled his eyes. “That’s child’s play.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Roy conceded.

The fire suddenly seemed to take on a life of its own. Though it didn’t grow wider in width, the fire did in length, snaking around the students in a spiral design. All of them froze and gawked at it half in fear and half in amazement. If it they moved towards it though, it wouldn’t hurt them. When Todoroki half reached out for it, Roy moved the line of fire a step away and Todoroki pulled his hand back. After holding it for a few seconds, Roy gently closed his right hand into a fist and the fire faded away.

“Wow!” Midoriya exclaimed. “That was so cool!”

Roy shrugged his shoulders. “It’s all about control. You’ll never be as strong as you like if you don’t have it.”

That sent Midoriya into a tailspin of deep thinking as he turned slightly away from everyone and began muttering to himself, something that apparently happened to him often judging from the way his friends looked at him sideways. Control was something he had to seriously consider and train, seeing as how one use of his quirk broke whatever part of his body that he used. Roy had little idea how to go about that. He’d had problems controlling his quirk and it had gotten even harder after figuring out the fire aspect, but it hadn’t been like Midoriya’s. His quirk had never turned against him.

Realizing that class was basically over, Roy went ahead and dismissed them. It was a good place to stop anyways, giving them all something to think about as they examined their quirks on a different level. There were many ways to strengthen a quirk. Looking at them differently -- like not that they were zero or all -- was one way. It was like working out a specific muscle instead of the whole body. It didn’t look like much progress, but it took time. Unfortunately for them, time was something a hero-in-training didn’t have an unlimited amount of.

As all the students gathered their things and began to leave, Roy noticed that Todoroki was going at a slower pace than normal, his mind elsewhere. Lost in thought, not all that unlike Midoriya, the boy’s movements were languid and his mismatched eyes were unfocused, which was very unusual for him. It was like he was on autopilot, slinging his backpack over his shoulder without even realizing it as his mind wandered. He didn’t even notice that he was the last student to leave.

It was as good an opportunity as any.

“I see your father trained you well,” Roy said mildly.

While neither he nor Riza could be certain exactly what Endeavor had put Todoroki through, Riza had found out through his older sister that Endeavor had been training him for years and that he’d isolated Todoroki from the rest of his family. When Riza had asked about the scar covering nearly half of Todoroki’s face, Fuyumi had not wanted to talk about it. Both Riza and Roy knew what burn scars looked like. All Fuyumi would tell them was that it had not been by Endeavor’s hand.

What had gone on in Todoroki’s childhood? Riza had been more disheartened after meeting her cousin in person than anything else.

Just as Roy expected, Todoroki halted at Roy’s words and snapped out of whatever fog he’d fallen in. His eyes snapped up to Roy’s and he pressed his lips into a thin line. It didn’t appear as if he was going to respond vocally, but he didn’t have to. Those eyes spoke volumes about his internal anger. It didn’t burn hot like wildfire like Bakugou’s or shine like hard metal like Edward’s. It was as cold as his ice quirk, as if he was smothering all the fire burning inside of him.

Knowing that Todoroki had no intention of responding, Roy continued, “But I couldn’t help but notice that you’re only using half of your quirk.”

“I don’t need my father to become a hero,” Todoroki responded in a flat tone. It felt as if he’d thrown up a wall with those words, blocking anyone from going any further. Too bad he was dealing with Roy instead.

“No, probably not,” Roy surmised, “but you won’t be the greatest one either.”

Todoroki’s eyes hardened like ice. “You don’t know that. You don’t know half of my strength. You’re forcing us to hold back.”

“I didn’t become one of the top heroes by going all out,” Roy pointed out. Before Todoroki could interrupt about how he was contradicting himself, Roy continued, “But I didn’t half-ass anything either.”

A mixture of emotions flittered across Todoroki’s face before he could squash them down: anger, confusion, and then disappointment. It was like he had known that this conversation was going to happen, but he was let down that it was actually going on. Of course he misinterpreted what Roy was leading into. Roy would bet his entire salary that Todoroki thought that Roy was going to try to force him or at least convince him to use his fire ability. He wasn’t, at least not in the way the kid suspected.

“I won’t use it in combat,” Todoroki swore. “I won’t be his puppet.”

“And I wouldn’t want you to be,” Roy replied. “All I’m saying is that by ignoring it completely, you’re only going to make yourself weaker.” He began to pull his gloves off one finger at a time. “I’m not telling you that you need to start lighting things on fire and blowing stuff up like Bakugou.” Todoroki rolled his eyes at the comparison. “I’m not telling you that you should even like a quirk that was essentially forced onto you.” Roy flexed his bare fingers like he was seeing them for the first time and then pocketed his gloves. “But if you don’t accept it, then you’ll never become strong enough to truly beat your asshole of a father.”

Todoroki blinked, the only sign of him being taken aback by Roy’s sudden harsh words that didn’t match the cool expression on his face. He gripped the straps of his backpack tightly and looked away. “What do you know of him anyways?” His voice was a little more heated this time. “You don’t know anything.”

“I know what it’s like to be pushed into becoming something I’m not for the sake of someone else’s dream,” Roy told him.

In more ways than one. Riza’s father had seen his quirk as something special and had convinced his foster mother that training Roy would be beneficial to him. A young Roy, so eager to become a hero, had jumped at the opportunity. Roy was who he was today because of that man, but it had taken years for him to realize that he had been used, even if it had also given him more power than he could imagine. That would have been Riza had she inherited her mother’s fire quirk. His life might not have been nearly as brutal as Todoroki’s, but he understood what it meant to be a tool for someone else’s goals.

Whether he liked it or not, ragged pieces of the Incident came to mind. A soothing voice in his ear, a kind hand on his shoulders, a gentle prodding forward into a dark abyss. “You know what you have to do.” The nightmares had gone away for the most part -- sometimes he couldn’t even remember what they had been about -- but the feel of those things had never gone away. The feel of being twisted and used never faded completely.

Endeavor might have been a total bastard and a terrible father for using his own son to complete his goals, but he wasn’t a villain.

“Do with it what you will,” Roy told him as he turned and headed back to the school building. “The choice will always be yours.”

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