Work Text:
Midoriya was, with utmost certainty, not supposed to be on the internet. It was three in the morning and his mother had been asleep for six hours, so she was less than aware that he’d snuck downstairs to the family computer to visit his usual hero forum.
Of course, his mother had technically never specified that he wasn’t allowed to be online, so was he really doing anything wrong?
The child frowned at the screen; the user he had been arguing with for the past two hours had not given up yet, resuming his stance that All Might was a subpar hero and describing the man as ‘A man matching the intelligence of only the most incompetent koala whilst being a rip-off lookalike for a hairless rabbit.’
Now, Midoriya did not understand most of the statement, but he was aware that it was most definitely an insult. So, like any normal child, he messaged back, ‘I hope you get hit by a car at the most inconvenient time possible, you stained carpet. I bet you share your personality with your floral wallpaper.’
Apparently, that had been enough for his opposition to finally log off. Midoriya smiled in success, turning off the computer and settling down to finally go to sleep.
Across Japan, All For One glanced at the floral wallpaper behind him.
“How the fuck did they know?” He whispered to himself, turning his computer into a large pile of dust to prevent his enemy from spying on him anymore.
Weeks later, he smirked widely at the number one hero.
“Come to join your mentor, All Might?” He taunted.
The hero growled, pulling his fist back in preparation.
Unfortunately for him, he was unable to punch his archnemesis, as a yellow car flew across the levelled area, sailing towards All For One and taking him out of action for a while.
Glaring at his restraints, the villain recalled his online enemy’s last words.
“Curse you, AllTism.” He hissed, unable to shake his fist in anger as most of his bones were still broken.
Midoriya glanced up at the man in front of him, wrinkling his nose in distaste.
“You look really bad in yellow.” He stated, skillfully ignoring the knife the aforementioned man was holding.
“What?”
Midoriya patted his arm, the arm that was currently wrapped around his neck semi-loosely.
“It’s okay, it takes the attention away from your haircut.”
The criminal tightened his hold on the child, moving the weapon closer to his neck.
“What’s wrong with my haircut, huh?!” He growled, attempting to seem more threatening but failing in a rather miserable manner.
Midoriya looked the man up and down as much as he was physically able to, a pitying expression unfolding across his face.
“...Nothing.” His voice was strained, perfectly conveying his falsely reassuring tone.
The man’s face contorted in a curious mix of worry and rage, but Midoriya did not react. He had schooled his expression into a blank canvas, testing his self restraint at not laughing at the glorified bowl cut (Referring to the abomination on his head as a bowl cut was, without a doubt, putting it nicely.)
Midoriya’s little hostage situation was fixed a few minutes later via police intervention, but apparently one officer had a few words for him.
“Listen, kiddo, you can’t just shit-talk-” He cut himself off, remembering that he was speaking to a child.
“You can’t just insult people who are holding you hostage, okay? You could get hurt, okay?” Sansa placed a reassuring paw on the child’s back, but it was brushed off.
The child stared directly into his eyes as he spoke.
“I hope you never catch a mouse again.”
Sansa paled.
“What?” But Midoriya was gone.
Sansa cursed loudly as the man with a mouse mutation managed to escape him for the third time that week, slipping into the crowd and vanishing from sight.
He was certain he could have caught the villain if he’d just been able to get in touch with Nezu to see how he kept escaping from him, but Nezu was never available at the right times.
(Sansa was beginning to wonder if the principal was avoiding him, but he couldn’t figure out why.)
Bakugou scoffed, rolling his eyes.
“Please, the most useless hero is obviously Wash, I mean, what does he even do?”
Midoriya’s head snapped in his direction.
“I hope,” He began, as calmly as he was able to, “That your shoelaces become untied at the most important moment possible.”
Bakugou smirked, “How about you hope for a quirk instead?”
Instead of verbally responding, Midoriya smiled eerily, shifting his attention back to his schoolwork that he really should have done before the day it was due.
“I’m not surprised Midoriya likes Wash, they’re both so alike, after all.”
A pencil snapped in the teenager’s hands, but he simply retrieved another from his bag, taking deep breaths in order to prevent the loss of another stationary’s life.
The violent action was calming, and temporarily took his mind away from the absolute bullshit that his classmates were conversing about.
By some miracle, Midoriya managed to restrain his emotions, and soon enough the topic of conversation shifted to something slightly less stupid.
Bakugou swore loudly as he tripped over violently, losing any semblance of balance he’d previously owned.
He glanced down hastily, only to discover that his shoelaces, the shoelaces that he’d superglued together ever since he’d pissed off Midoriya, had become untied.
He shuddered, mind flooding with possibilities of what might have happened if his classmate had decided to say something more extreme.
(In Tartarus, All For One groaned, twitching slightly at the itch he was unable to get rid of before resigning to his uncomfortable fate once again.)
(“I think I’ll go out to buy some Wash merchandise.” Bakugou calmly spoke after the exam before exiting his house with far too much money.)
Midoriya was excited for his first day at UA. He had many reasons for that, and all of them were valid. For one, it was UA. Secondly, Bakugou wouldn’t be in his class.
With the utmost honesty, he wasn’t sure he could put up with any more of the teenager’s insults towards a certain hero.
(Although Midoriya knew the large amount of Wash merchandise that had appeared at his door was because of the aforementioned teenager, he was allowed to hold grudges.)
His new teacher, however, was dubious.
He squinted at the man as he shot a student a scathing look as they were sent to the changing rooms. Near instantly, Midoriya was suspicious.
Midoriya shot his classmate a concerned look, but Shinsou simply smiled in return. This, however, did not curb his concern in the slightest.
When the quirk assessment was announced, it took everything in the student to not burst into tears. In all honesty, he didn’t fully know how he’d managed to get into UA.
True, he’d managed to slam a chunk of concrete into the robot’s off switch, (It turned out that the bots could turn themselves back on during exam hours, but with enough determination he’d managed) but Midoriya still doubted himself.
(It turned out that it was commonly known as imposter syndrome. Midoriya was interested to learn that.)
“Shinsou. You’ve failed to fully utilise your quirk to its full potential. Give me five reasons why I shouldn’t expel you.” Aizawa spoke, smirking slightly.
That was the final straw for Midoriya.
He stood in front of Shinsou, narrowing his eyes.
“There are multiple students who also haven’t done their best with their quirks, Shinsou isn’t the only one here.”
Aizawa raised an eyebrow.
“Oh?”
“It’s unfair to single out Shinsou as the only student who didn’t do the best he could, and, considering the fact that most teenagers rarely have the opportunity to fully use their quirks due to the legal issues, it’s unfair to assume that they can even know what they’re able to do.”
Aizawa opened his mouth to speak, but Midoriya didn’t let him get that far.
“Before you say anything, I’m aware that the world is not fair and the multitude of natural disasters and crime as a general are not fair, but as a teacher, a heroics teacher at that, you should be one of the few people to actually show that fairness so that we, as students, can learn from you.”
Midoriya stopped, breathing slightly heavily from lack of oxygen.
He stepped away from Shinsou, “Apologies for speaking for you.”
If the teenager had even glanced back up at Aizawa, he would see the proud look that overtook his features, but after all the issues with previous teachers, he couldn’t be blamed for avoiding eye contact with authority figures in the same manner of a mongoose avoiding a determined snake.
“Well,” Aizawa began, only for Midoriya to mutter under his breath.
“I hope you’re chased by geese for a whole month.” He hissed; only Shinsou was close enough to decipher the words.
“I’m proud of you, Midoriya.”
Midoriya blinked, one eye at a time.
“What?”
“Most students wouldn’t speak up for someone they just met, especially against a teacher.”
“Technically,” Midoriya began, “We met at the entrance exams.”
Aizawa nodded slowly, “Right. Shinsou here gave me permission to use him as an example before lessons began. You could consider this a test, but I’m only saying this to reassure you all that in no way will you be judged for your quirks. I understand that some of you will be more experienced with your quirks than others, if you feel that you’d like any assistance we have additional support programs. Don’t be afraid to speak up.”
Midoriya felt his face colour in subtle embarrassment, but a reassuring hand on his back from Shinsou dispelled a decent amount of it.
The class returned to the inside of school property just in time to narrowly miss the swarm of geese that flooded the area they were just in.
(Aizawa swore loudly as the group of geese came back into sight. He had been running from them for half an hour and they were somehow keeping up. He’d barely managed to take down the criminal he’d intercepted before the gaggle had caught up. Aizawa was beginning to question if Midoriya was actually quirkless after all.)
Midoriya was stressed. His teacher had requested a meeting and Kami he was not looking forward to it.
So, like anyone else in his situation, he decided to distract himself by spending far too much money in an arcade.
Now, Midoriya was not the best when it came to finances, the opposite, actually, so he’d brought a limited amount to prevent accidental overspending.
Once he entered the arcade, he immediately made a beeline for the claw machine. Although he was less than decent at the game, but practice was crucial for improvement, and he was steadily getting better.
He was mere moments away from finally managing to claw up a particular velociraptor plush that he’d had his eye on for weeks when a hand reached into his line of sight and pulled it from the machine, the claw bumping uselessly against the ichthyosaur underneath.
Midoriya turned towards the owner of the aforementioned hand, who was holding the plush victoriously.
“Uh-” Midoriya began, staring at the hole that the stranger had decayed in the side of the machine in order to ruin his day.
Whilst making direct eye contact with Midoriya, the man gripped his hand tightly around the stuffed dinosaur and it crumbled like Midoriya’s hopes and dreams of ever gaining a velociraptor plush.
The teenager narrowed his eyes, unadulterated rage flashing in his pupils, “I hope both sides of your pillow are warm every night this year.” He spat, shortly before turning in the other direction and refusing to look back.
He skillfully ignored the confused response from the man as he left the arcade with an unfortunately smaller amount of money than he’d entered with.
Midoriya would return another day in the hopes of locating another velociraptor.
(He would not succeed.)
Shigaraki swore loudly as he turned over his pillow, baffled by the heat emitting from it.
“That fucking kid.” He hissed, gripping his dinosaur covered blanket and inadvertently turned it into dino-dust.
(A month later he pulled his pillow from the freezer, only to discover that it was the same temperature that it was before it entered.)
Nezu raised a non-existent eyebrow at his opponent.
The turn they’d just played had cost them the whole match, not that he was surprised. Online chess was, after all, online, which meant that almost anyone was free to play, so it made sense that other users might not be as adequate as he himself was, but Kami, this opponent was atrocious.
He frowned, typing up a message to send the user. (Mainly out of concern.)
StoatE
Good game! How long have you been playing for?
AllTism
Thank you! I’ve only been playing for three weeks, but I’m hoping to improve, I just have to focus on school at the moment.
StoatE
I wish you the best of luck with both your chess improvement and education.
AllTism
Well, I hope this week is the best of your life!
Nezu chuckled lightly, gently shutting his laptop screen. Pulling up a draft email on his desk computer, he bared his teeth. The principal was feeling lucky.
Nezu stared down at his tablet, eyes wide. The Hero Commission had sent him an email allowing him to finally change the heroics entrance exam into something that was actually worth the stupid amount of money it cost.
Instead of typing a long response, the principal simply sent back a thumbs-up emoji. He was so good at social interactions.
As it turned out, Midoriya had also taken the time to respond to his email, agreeing to the meeting he’d requested.
At this rate, Nezu was considering purchasing a lottery ticket.
He kicked his feet in excitement, narrowly resisting the urge to spin around in his chair. The meeting was in only five minutes, and every passing second felt like an hour. In all honesty, he was considering calling Aizawa to send his student down earlier.
Patience, however, was crucial as both a hero and a teacher, so he (barely) managed to wait.
A hesitant knock snapped Nezu back to attention, calling out “Come in!” whilst his ears twitched erratically. With the same amount of caution as an anxious opossum approaching a parliament of owls, Midoriya pushed open the office door, stepping inside.
“Uh, I hear you wanted to see me, Nezu-Sensei?”
Nezu clasped his paws together, grinning widely, “Yes, take a seat, please!”
Midoriya pulled out the chair opposite the desk, slowly sitting down.
“May I ask what this is about, apart from the obvious.”
“Oh? What would you say ‘the obvious’ is?”
The teenager shrugged noncommittally.
“How bad I am at chess?”
Nezu paused, sucking in a breath. “Ah. Whilst that is one of my major concerns, it’s not the topic of this meeting. My main concern is your quirk.”
Confusion flashed across Midoriya’s face. “My.. Quirk?”
“Yes. I have reason to suspect that you aren’t quirkless.”
Sighing deeply, Midoriya dragged a hand down his face, “Yeah, that makes sense, I was wondering why Bakugou was suddenly sucking up to me.”
“If I may, what do you think your quirk is?”
The student shrugged, “Something to do with bad luck, I suppose.”
Nezu hummed, “Would you like me to tell you my thoughts on the matter?”
After spending a moment pondering, the principal was given a definite nod in lieu of a a verbal response.
“Well, firstly I have this.” He pushed a file across the desk to -his son- his student.
“Oh. Oh no.” Midoriya cringed.
“I’m afraid that when you told an online user that you hoped they were hit by a car and likened them to a stained carpet, they were, in fact, hit by a car. Thankfully, however, they did not transform into a stained carpet, so I suppose we should take that as a win.”
“Were they a good person?” Midoriya questioned reluctantly.
“Oh, Kami no, they were known as All For One, they killed countless people and committed multiple crimes involving the use of floral print wallpaper. You most likely prevented All Might from severe injury and saved multiple lives. You were five, correct?”
Midoriya nodded numbly.
“The second piece of evidence I have here was reported by Tamakawa Sansa,” Midoriya coughed, sounding suspiciously like the word ‘traitor’, “You said you hoped he never caught a mouse again.”
Another nod was given in response to the statement.
“He’s been unable to get a meeting or interaction with me ever since, and has had to switch to a trackpad computer as he’s unable to hold on to a computer mouse.”
“Ah.” Came the boy’s intelligent reply.
“Thirdly, I believe that Bakugou’s trip during the heroics exam was due to you too.”
“Yeah, but he had it coming for insulting Wash like that.”
Nezu slid another paper across the table.
“Aizawa Shouta has been stalked by a gaggle of geese for the last two weeks, both on patrol and off.”
Crossing his arms defensively, Midoriya retorted, “He was picking on Shinsou, anyone would have done the same.”
“Right. Do you have any other incidents that this has brought to mind?”
With less than no hesitation, Midoriya spoke again, “I told this dude that I hoped both sides of his pillow were warm, but he absolutely deserved it and I don’t regret it in the slightest.”
The teacher hummed thoughtfully.
There were still papers in his paws, even though he’d covered all his main talking points.
A closer glance informed him that they were, to his surprise, adoption papers.
“Hm.”
“I believe that these are for you to sign?”
Midoriya squinted at them, “Adoption papers?”
Nezu smiled innocently.
Shrugging, Midoriya whipped out a pen and signed the sheets.
“Can I have a sticker for making it through this meeting?” He asked, hopefully.
The teacher grinned widely, “Of course! Take the whole sheet, son!”
“Fuck yes!” The newly adopted child hissed in excitement, cackling evilly as he snatched the stickers and scuttled out of the office to probably cause more chaos with his new-found quirk.
(Well, it was certainly the best week of Nezu’s life, that was for certain.)
(Midoriya made the decision to visit All For One in Tartarus, bringing along a single yellow hot wheels car.)