Chapter Text
The locker door let out a quiet squeak as Hanta slowly swung it closed, putting more energy into his sigh than his lock. 3 months. 3 months since they were told to make free use of the gym. He followed the guidelines to the letter, in no small part to avoid Aizawa’s wrath. One day on, one day off, follow the meal plan.
Use your hips when dead-lifting. Don’t let your back take over when you squat. Break parallel. All of it worthless. The wide mirrors in the locker room making it hard for him to hide from the basic fact that he just wasn’t keeping up with his class. A handful of the hero class boys milled about, even a few gen-ed class guys were taking advantage of the world class facilities.
The lanky boy sighed again as he picked up his bag to head out. Of course most of his friends were still on the gym floor. Even Denki had taken to strength training better than he had. “At least I’ve still got time to change my name” he mused to himself. The Taped Toothpick! The 50 Kilogram Revenger! Sticky Stickman! Adhesive Anorexi...not that's too on the nose.
Too busy with bullying himself, Hanta managed to walk right into a wall instead of the door, which is fine! It’s just another failure, he had more than enough room for another one of those today! At least until the wall started chopping into the air in front of his face. Snapping back to reality just enough to see what’s in front of him, he finally realized the wall was his class president, in full safety announcement mode as he gesticulated at random. “Oh wow I must be out of it if I managed to turn the Emergency Exit into a wall” Hanta chided himself, a heartbeat passing before he realized that was his voice, not in his head.
Iida eyes widened, hands freezing in the air at the unexpected insult. Hanta felt his stomach fall into the floor as his classmate tried to regroup. He wasn’t a huge fan of the class prez, no one should have that much of a stick up their ass, but he did nothing wrong. And he should be saving his snark for Denki and Bakugo, not that they ever appreciated it. Well, at least this should be fixable, just fake a smirk and play it off.
Or at least that was the beginnings of his plan when Iida grabbed his wrist, stepping directly into his personal space and getting directly into his face. “Ok woah woah I was out of line man, no need to fight about this, right?” Dropping his bag, he tried waving his free hand like a white flag. “It’s just a bad nickname Iida, I just won’t use it again, ok? No need for punching, right?”
“Your eyes are red Sero, are you feeling alright? Do we need to visit Recovery Girl?”
“Your right, I’m a jerk and I’m sorry and wait what?”
If anything, Iida looked sad instead of angry. “You look like you’ve been crying.” If Iida thought he was being too forward he certainly didn’t show it, simply keeping his grip tight and refusing to even lean back.
Hanta couldn’t help but focus on the feeling of his hand trapped in the officious grip of the class president, and now he was supposed to just blurt out his feelings?
Admittedly, this is Iida, he’s probably a safe bet? Denki or Blasty wouldn’t understand him, and he’s tried getting useful advice out of Kirishima or Mina but it’s hard to take advice from a guy who has never had to worry about the concept of injuries or a girl who doesn’t understand that some people aren’t naturals at every physical activity.
Decision made, Sero let out his breath and faced the annoyingly larger boy in front of him squarely.
“Every time I come to the gym I feel like a failure because I’m skinnier than half the girls in our class and I’m supposed to be a hero but I can’t even take a hit because I’m barely more than a skeleton and no one seems to be able to give me advice and I’m going to fall behind and I’ll have to leave the hero program because eventually Aizawa will notice I don’t even have big enough arms to fight off a kitten and I’ll go home a failure.” As soon as he was able to get his mouth to physically stop he screwed his eyes shut and waited for the laughter to begin.
After far too many moments of silence Hanta opened his eyes to see Iida looking surprisingly unfazed. “So I take it this is not something where you are looking for a few pointers?” Iida had taken his hand back, although he managed not to start flailing them again. “Because I may be able to help you, although I need some time to make a phone call.”
“Uhhh, alright? I guess? Thanks?” Hanta had no idea what Iida was talking about, and he should be wondering who he’s calling, but priorities. Run away and find a hole and hide for an hour.
At least he managed not to slam into anyone else on the second attempt at using a door.