Chapter Text
The list of 1-A students who are good at cooking is as follows.
Bakugo is good. Surprisingly good. He’s one of the only ones who can consistently make edible food, and he seems to enjoy it well enough. The rest of the class tries to put him on dinner duty as often as possible. The problem with that is they’re a class of twenty growing teenagers in intensive hero training and it’s hard to cook the food they all need to sustain themselves, so a one-man kitchen team is impractical, and the problem with that is no one likes to cook with Bakugo. Kirishima and Denki can usually last the longest, but even their infinite patience wears thin after an entire night in the kitchen with Bakugo, because if he’s angry on a regular basis then he’s livid when he feels like someone’s getting in his way when he’s cooking.
Iida is also not bad, and cites cooking with his brother as the source of his knowledge. He’s not the most creative with his dishes, but his technique is impeccable, the food is always filling, and he’s fast - perfect for a quick and simple dinner after a long day of training.
Tsu’s good at cooking, and she’s good at cooking in very large amounts - which is perfect for such a large group. On rainy days she grabs Uraraka - who is also good at cooking simple but hearty meals - and they’ll throw together a big pot of soup that everyone eats on the couch while they watch a movie.
There is a secondary, backup list, when one no one on the first is available. This list is everyone who isn’t great, but isn’t terrible either. They can put together something quick and easy, and everyone will get a meal in before they go to bed, even if it’s not the most delicious thing they’ve ever tasted.
Kirishima, Kaminari, Midoriya, and Mina were on neither of those lists. All four of them were solidly on the ‘do not leave unattended in the kitchen under any circumstances’ list, so Mina’s not really sure how they ended up on dinner duty together tonight, but here she is, looking at some of the least-qualified cooks in 1-A, herself included, act like they know what they’re doing.
“It says here we need two carrots!” Midoriya says from where he and Kirishima are bent over his phone. “And... two eggs! And four cups of rice.” Mina nods, dragging the rice out of the cabinet and dropping it on the counter with a heavy thunk, then going to dig through the fridge for carrots and eggs.
“But that’s for like, just a few people right?” Kaminari calls from where his head is mostly lost in their pots and pans storage. There’s a very loud clanging noise as he drags assorted cooking utensils out and lays them out in front of him like if he stares at them long enough he’ll know which one to use. “We’re a whole lot of people, we gotta multiply it to however many servings we need, right?”
There’s a second of silence, and then every head in the room swivels at once to face Midoriya. He pays it no mind, still reading the recipe and mumbling it to himself until the silence actually registers, and then he blinks up at the others, face turning bright red when he sees them all looking at him.
“Uh...” He says, and then nothing else, waiting for them to explain what exactly they want from him.
“You gotta calculate how much we actually need to make, Midoriya!” Mina says.
“Me?” Midoriya asks.
“Yeah dude, you’ve got one of the highest grades of all of us in Mr. Ectoplasm’s class. The recipe says it makes... four to six servings? So definitely not enough. We’ve gotta multiply it.”
“And the rest of you can’t do basic multiplication?”
Mina leans forward into Midoriya’s space. “Can’t you?”
“Not with all of you staring at me!” Midoriya cries, and turns his back on them to read the recipe again, mumbling under his breath. Mina hopes this time it’s calculations. She grabs whole armfuls of carrots and two full cases of eggs just in case.
Kaminari seems to finally make a decision between his assorted frying pan options and put the others away. “Let me know when you figure that out,” he says, putting the pan down on the stove.
Mina shuts the fridge door and spins across the kitchen to stand by Kirishima and Midoriya. Or she tries to, but there’s a small pool of water on the floor and her foot hits it and slips out from under her and she drops with a shriek.
“Woah!” Kirishma yells, jumping to catch her. Midoriya inhales sharply and jumps, spinning around to see what happened.
Kaminari yelps, startled, and then a second later he’s yelling again, shouting “Shit!” and jumping backwards away from the stove.
Mina twists in the air even as Kirishima grabs her, and all of them spin to face Kaminari and the small fire flickering to life on the stove.
“Oh, shit,” Kirishima sets Mina back on her feet and then sprints to the sink. He fills a glass with water and then starts running back to the stove.
Kaminari blinks at him. Midoriya makes a choking sound. Both of them call out half-formed protests.
“Stop.” Aizawa’s capture scarf whips into the room from behind Mina, wrapping around Kirishima and pulling him backwards, hard.
Kirishima stumbles and hits the ground, hardening on the way so he’s unharmed but the glass he’s holding slips through his fingers and shatters on impact with the ground. Aizawa pays neither Kirishima nor the glass any mind, striding past him as quickly as he can without breaking into a run. He rips open a cabinet and grabs the lid of a pot, slamming it over the fire. After a moment he lifts it up again, just in time to watch the fire finish sputtering out, and tosses it aside.
They stand there, for a second, in a very tense silence. Aizawa turns ever so slowly, and it’s been a while since he glared hard enough to legitimately frighten Mina, but she shivers when his gaze pauses on her briefly, after he takes in Kaminari but before he finishes turning and settles on Kirishima.
“Kirishima,” he says, voice dangerously low. “You do not. Ever. Put an electrical fire out with water.”
Kirishima swallows. He still hasn’t dropped his quirk, careful of the shards of glass scattered on the floor all around him. “Sorry sir, I didn’t--”
“If you didn’t know basic safety measure, then you should not have been in charge of cooking.” Aizawa sighs, but it’s less tired than it usually is and more frustrated, sharper. “I would rather not have to take any of you to the hospital tonight. Just.” He pinches the bridge of his nose and shakes his head. “Kirishima, clean up the glass. Midoriya, the stove. And then get Asui or Iida in here to put something together, I don’t trust any of you with hot stoves or sharp objects.”
“Yes sir,” they chorus in unison, eyes on the ground.
Aizawa leaves, pausing to pat the top of Kirishima’s head on the way in apology for knocking him over. Midoriya grabs a bottle of soap, and Kirishima begins picking up the pieces of glass. Mina waits until Aizawa’s well out of earshot before muttering a teasing, “Okay dad” under her breath. Kirishima’s eyes go wide. Midoriya chokes on air and the soap he’s spraying goes wide, hitting the wall as well as the stove. Kaminari freezes halfway through tiptoeing across the kitchen. They all stare at her, frightened for a moment that Aizawa heard her somehow. Then, when nothing happens after a moment, Kaminari cackles, loudly, and doubles over laughing. It’s only by sheer luck that, when his feet drop fully onto the floor they completely miss the glass surrounding them all.
Kirishima chuckles even as he winces, and uses one hardened hand to sweep pieces of the glass away from Kaminari’s feet just in case.
“Careful Mina,” Kirishima huffs, smile on his face. “Don’t let him hear you say that.”
“Am I wrong?” she asks, grabbing Kaminari’s arm and helping to lead him out of the kitchen.
“Definitely not, but he won’t be happy if he hears you making fun of him!”
“You shouldn’t-- He’s not-- You can’t just--” Midoriya’s indignant defense of their teacher is cut off on its own, like he’s not really sure what he was going to say.
“I did, though!” Mina laughs, and dances out of the room. “Tsu! Can you take over dinner? We had an accident and Aizawa kicked us out.”