Energy (D.P./M.H.A.)

. 4 1 .

Midnight and Cementoss didn't show up for training like Danny had said they would. Instead of coming along to the training fields with the whole class, they pulled Tucker and Sam aside and into another building, with the excuse of it being a lesson for 'a special project slash training exercise'. Danny was kind of nervous about being split up, but with Bakugou yelling at him to just roll with it and don't 'be a wuss about it' which was 'worry' in his vocabulary, and Midoriya softly pulling at his sleeve, he joined the others in the changing rooms.

His case felt unusually light, with all of the extra equipment still in Hatsume's care at Power Loader's lab. The only thing he had got to keep was the suit. The gloves, the belt, his shoes, all kept at Hatsume's for reference. 

He sighed as he put the case down and opened it. There were some sturdy-looking boots instead of his usual ones, the empty slots in the felt left by the gloves and equipment belt making their absences even more prominent and real, now. 

"Danny, where'd all your things go, man?" Kirishima asked as he walked past towards his stuff. "You're usually all geared up with all those fancy-looking things!"

"Did you lose your equipment!?" Iida chopped at him. "That would be very irresponsible and worrying, Fenton!"

"Iida, chill," Sero sighed from where he was putting on his helmet. "Maybe he broke them during training and they're at repairs?" He shot a thumbs-up to Danny, who was glad for the save. 

Danny wished he knew.

"They're at the labs, don't worry, Iida," he answered instead. 

Sero walked out of the changing room, followed by Kaminari who was yelling about how excited he was for training. Kirishima wasn't too far behind and was already telling Mina, who had joined the group outside, how he'd been training extra hard lately. She sounded proud and Danny heard her gave him a high-five to show her excitement.

Iida turned from the doorway to look at Danny, who wanted to be anywhere but where he was right then. "I apologize for jumping to conclusions!" Iida exclaimed as he bowed and immediately stood back up straight again. "Please, forgive me, and hurry, because training will start soon." With that, he also left the room.

Danny sighed in relief of being left alone for a few moments and finally having time to pull on his outfit. With training starting in a few minutes, he wasn't surprised when Midoriya suddenly emerged from somewhere, also not having finished changing yet. "If Aizawa's gonna pull another stunt, I swear..." Danny grumbled as he tied the laces of his boots. 

"I'm sure he means well," Midoriya piped up as they walked out of the changing rooms and inside the exercise hall. "And even if he is a little harsh, it's good training nonetheless. We learn how to handle bossy superiors, which we will encounter much more often later in our hero careers, don't you think? I find it quite exciting!"

Midoriya suddenly reminded Danny of Dani's childlike positivity and excitement, and he had to shake the image out of his head physically to be mentally present as well. He'd been way too reminiscent lately.

"Midoriya and Fenton, you're up first," Aizawa said just as they joined the rest of the class in half a circle around him. "If you're late one more time you're getting extra work."

'Don't we already?' Danny thought with a sigh. 

"If you could just move with me to the other building, that'd be nice. Someone else will take over here." Aizawa shuffled away from the now yelling teens, demanding an explanation, but as soon as All Might entered the room, they all started yelling about that instead. Aizawa huffed at the excitement and trotted off. Midoriya shot Danny a panicking look, and Danny shrugged before following after Aizawa.

"Mr. Aizawa?" Midoriya asked, in that extremely innocent and curious voice of his as he stumbled behind them, "Why are we taken apart from the rest of the class? Are we being graded? Tested? Or--"

"This is just like any other sparring match, Mirdoriya. You aren't being graded," the man sighed as they walked into the second building. The lights flickered on as Aizawa turned and let his gaze fall on the two teens. "Nezu asked me to observe you two fight in particular, so I decided to take you apart from the class so I could focus on you two instead of the rest of the class's screaming at me."

Danny couldn't help but snort at that. Aizawa didn't seem like a very funny person, Danny had thought. He was more the sarcastic type to mope around and complain about everything. But Danny had enough experience with Sam's moping and all of their sarcasm. It was familiar, instead of the constant strictness of Iida, or Bakugou's violent screaming.

God, he sounded like Jazz.

Sam seemed to appreciate Aizawa's sense of humor as well. She'd been carefully trash-talking All Might before class once before the man had apologized, and Aizawa hadn't tried to stop her in the slightest. Apparently he had some sort of problem with the number one Hero but didn't say anything about it. Sam had laughed that Aizawa could just listen instead of saying it himself, and silently agree.

It was a bit of a stretch, but still. 

Even though Danny sometimes agreed with Sam, and sometimes Tucker's additions, he found it a bit...wrong, somehow. They didn't know everything about the guy, or what he'd gone through, so there was a bit of guilt gnawing at him whenever they said something. It was probably just him projecting himself onto others again, but that didn't help with the feeling he should stop them after a bit. 

He had said sorry about the whole 'thing' incident, so Danny liked to think they were back on neutral ground. Sam was still a bit fed up with All Might for even starting that conversation, so she promised to keep her moping to a minimum.

"Pick wherever you wanna stand and start," Aizawa said as he moved towards the side, near the wall.

Aizawa's sighed instruction broke through his inner monologuing, and Danny blinked.

"But Mr. Aizawa, you haven't told us the rules?" Midoriya looked at Danny as if he had heard the instructions and knew something, but he just shrugged.

"If you'd been in class on time, you would've known."

"So..we do what know? Do we make up our own?" Midoriya frowned, Aizawa's signal to start flying straight over him.

"Oh hell yes!" Danny turned to Midoriya with a grin. "No pulling punches today, Midoriya."

"I wasn't going to," he swiftly replied, dropping into a defensive stance.

Midoriya closed his eyes for a second and thought back to last week. The things Danny'd said, what Bakugou had yelled at him. How he'd been training and finally got moving in the direction that was his eventual goal.

The sensation of the energy slowly spreading over his body was still a new feeling to him, but he started to get the hang of it after a few days of training on how to control it. Danny had helped immensely with the control over it, and he wasn't sure yet on how he would repay him.

'Just show me what you've learned.'

Danny's words echoed in his ears as he opened his eyes and zeroed in on his opponent for the match. Aizawa seemed to be getting impatient with the lack of attacks being thrown back and forth but did nothing more than roll his eyes and wave his hand to get it started. Danny raised a hand at Midoriya and made a 'come at me' motion with his hand.

The lightning erupted from within and he charged forward.