it's been actual years

i went to ao3 for a while but the my hero academia fandom there seemed to lack quality content, so im posting here now

plz be nice

ANGST, SOME SAD THEMES, SOME SEXYTIMES, THIS IS RATED M FOR A REASON

but seriously this is probably a good story

also cross-posted to ao3 because i haven't given up hope yet

"'Gone to work this evening, I'll be here by eight but dinner in the fridge in case, Dad'…"

Izuku sighed, and pulled the note from the bulletin board. "Again?" He asked, staring at it tiredly.

He decided to prolong the inevitable, and went to his room. He set his backpack by his desk, changing out of his school uniform before he went to the fridge. Inside was a prepared bento and two pudding cups. A spoon with an All Might hair topper on the hand end was taped across both pudding lids, a message scrawled across in rushed marker.

'SORRY! THEY'RE BOTH YOURS'. Izuku reached for the ramen, but grabbed the pudding.

He plopped down on the living room couch, turned the TV on, pulled the spoon from the lids. The TV droned on some news channel while Izuku popped the lid off of one of the cups. Izuku scooped some, but his hand paused when he fully registered the All Might topper.

"I'm sorry, but…"

Izuku shoved the spoon into his mouth, and sniffed. He ate furiously, even when his pudding started tasting more salty than sweet.

When he emptied both cups, he thought about eating the bento, but only felt sick at the thought of eating more. So he thought about going back to his room. His homework awaited him, menacingly.

"Can he even do the assignment? He's Quirkless, y'know…"

"I hear they're dumber than the rest, because they aren't as evolved as us…"

"...no way I'll get this done with him as my partner! He may get good grades, but he has bags under his eyes for a reason. He struggles."

Izuku stood, threw away the pudding cups, and went to his father's room. He doesn't even like pudding.

His father's room was locked, as usual, but Izuku jiggled the knob like an idiot anyway. He wasn't allowed in alone. He was brought in, sometimes, when he was younger, but he hadn't been inside for years since.

He jiggled the knob again, like an idiot, and wondered if he could pick the lock. He wanted his shell.

His mom sent his dad his seashell when Izuku was nine; he found it when his dad was out of the house, and knew immediately that he was supposed to have it. He hasn't felt that completeness since, because his father took it.

"Your mother wanted you to have this, but…"

Izuku shrugged the feeling off, retied his coat around his hips, and went to his own room. Even if it was magic, he didn't really need it, did he? Even if it did make him that happy, his dad took it for a reason.

He sat at his desk, pulled out his homework, and acted like he was really doing it before he picked up his phone and played a game. Or two. And then he started scrolling through Yotube. And then he glanced at the time and saw that three hours had passed. 'Dad should be home in an hour,' Izuku found himself thinking. 'But…'

Izuku dug through his bag, and produced a paperclip. Guilt dug its claws into his insides, but he was getting desperate. He really wanted his shell. He had it once, and it made him so happy…he needed it again.

Something to get this weight off his shoulders.

It was the weekend, anyway; his homework could wait. So he wiggled the knob again, biting his bottom lip. The knob turned, but the door gave only a bit.

Izuku blinked. He pushed harder. It gave a bit more, but not enough. Only a sliver of darkness was visible - there was something blocking it. Izuku pushed, with all his might, but the door still only gave an inch.

Izuku scowled in frustration. Why couldn't he just have one thing go his way…?!

"A pro should always be ready to risk his life."

He slid down, putting his back to the door, and glared through his blurring vision. Why couldn't he...?!

"He can't do anything."

"Without power, could one become a hero? No, I should think not."

Why couldn't he…!?

"Uwah!" Izuku felt something loosen with a snap, and the door swung open. He fell back, and blinked at the ceiling in shock. He sniffed before rolling onto his stomach and getting to his knees. He frowned deeply - the entire carpet was soaked with water.

"You need more control over your power. Until then, you cannot use this."

Izuku rubbed his nose and sniffed again. His father's room was filled with stacks of boxes soaked at the bottom and ruined papers lay strewn everywhere; in front of him, a soaked slip of paper was hand-written up-down, right-left, in mysterious characters. Izuku frowned, certain he'd seen them somewhere before…but that wasn't what he was in here for. He was here for his shell. His white coat glowed dimly in in the darkness of the room.

He got to his feet, sliding his arms into his coat sleeves. Izuku frowned, hoping his father didn't put it in one of the boxes. The need for his shell grew within him, but he still wasn't committed enough to start going through his father's things. Izuku took a few steps into the room, guilt starting to claw at his insides again. He wanted to give up.

But still, he pushed further into the room, the water in the carpet seeming more and more concentrated until he was walking in a puddle. Eyebrows furrowed in confusion, he noticed the water was pooling around his Dad's bed. He took in a breath sharply, and went to his knees, and reached under the bed.

He reached around blindly, hope rising in his chest. His coat got warmer, glowed brighter. He felt a smile growing on his face.

Izuku reached just a bit further, and, with a sharp intake of breath, felt something like a box. He grabbed it, pulled it out, and opened it before he even thought about what he was doing.

Inside was his seashell, almost floating in the water that spilled from the box. He stared at it in an almost lost wonder, losing his place in time and space. The shell was colored with a pale green over the white, darkening into beautiful, actively moving, swirls and lines. Izuku couldn't help but admire it. 'Definitely magic.'

He eventually couldn't bear just staring at it anymore, and picked it up with gentle hands. He had to sing. 'I have to…sing…'

He put it to his lips, and blew. Somehow, he knew exactly what to do, and the full, joyful sound was heard over the click of the door as it was unlocked and opened.

Inko sighed. "He did? Oh, I'm glad. I was starting to get a bit worried…" The woman smiled warmly. "I'm so glad he found it."

Hisashi laughed a bit. "I am too." He quieted in thought, eyebrows furrowed. "I was beginning to think I wasn't doing my job right, y'know? Maybe I messed up…"

"Oh, no!" Inko shook her head. "You work so hard. I should help."

Hisashi scratched his head, and sighed. "I think it would be better for Izuku to be there, with you. I'm not exactly the greatest father."

Inko looked at him through the magical hologram with concern. "I don't doubt you're ability as a parent, Hisashi; I don't want you to strain yourself to be both the greatest diplomat of all time and the greatest father ever. If he won't mind…"

Hisashi sighed, and rubbed the back of his neck. "I'll ask him."

Izuku's head tilted a bit. His chopsticks paused on the way to his mouth. "Huh?"

"Your mother," Hisashi repeated, getting a prepared udon meal from the refrigerator and starting to reheat it, even though eleven at night. "Do you want to live with her?"

"Really?" He blinked. He knew his mom wasn't human, and didn't live on Earth, but that's about as much as he really knew about her. Whether he believed that depended on how real the coat around his shoulders was…and he did think it was real, for lack of any other explanation. "Really!?"

Hisashi nodded. "Yeah. She wants to see you, before you get too old."

Izuku stood suddenly, ramen forgotten. "When? Am -" His mind backtracked violently. "-live with her?"

His father looked at him strangely. He shook a salt shaker of glowing "not-salt" as Izuku called it. "If you don't want to, then that's fine. You only have to visit for now, if living there now is too sudden."

Izuku shook his head, but stopped. "What about you?" He didn't like some of the things his dad did, but overall, he didn't hate him. Even if he didn't know what his dad did for a living, he knew it had to be important.

"I'll be fine," Hisashi chuckled, sitting at the table in front of Izuku. "I'll have to live on a diet consisting completely of instant foods, but I'll live." He smiled to himself. "Your mother…really is amazing. You'll love her, I know it."

"Where is she?"

"Pangaea."

Izuku's eyes narrowed in puzzlement, and widened, and his head cocked to one side. "…huh?"

"Pangaea," Hisashi said, around the udon in his mouth. "It's a planet in an alternate universe, is the working theory. No one really knows..." Hisashi paused, put down his chopsticks, and put up his hands to better illustrate with. "It's a planet like Earth - just a bit smaller - with rings, and a moon like Earth's…"

"Rings?" Izuku asked, shoving down his confusion. Izuku's father nodded.

"Rocky ones. Spectacular past. All kinds of legends." Hisashi paused again, in thought. "It has days like Earth, nights like Earth. A double sunrise. You'll get used to it."

Izuku stopped in his tracks. "A double sunrise?!"

"Yeah. It orbits a binary system of yellow stars."

The green-haired boy tried to think of an Earth with two suns, and failed. "A ring…and two suns…" The most mind-blowing thing he could think of before today was something like the amount of incidents All Might and Endeavor combined have solved, but going to a planet with two suns and a ring nearly blew that out of the water.

"You'll get used to it," Hisashi said flippantly. "That is, if you want to."

Izuku stared blankly at his cold ramen. "Sure. Why not?"

And the next day, Izuku woke up at ten in the morning and immediately assumed last night was a dream, but saw his homework still laying on his desk, under his seashell.

He sat there like an idiot for longer than he'd ever want to admit. The thought of school chugged through his mind, but crashed someplace on the way to realization. Ugh, he didn't want to think about school. He never wanted to go back to school.

A hero without power…

What future does he have here?

So his second instinct was to ask his dad if he was serious about his mother, which he did. His father had fallen asleep on their couch, which Izuku found a bit troubling, but he didn't mention it.

"Oh, yeah," His father said, still looking suspiciously half-asleep. "Yeah. Are you sure you want to go?"

"Yeah…" Izuku said, quietly. He briefly reconsidered staying on Earth. The train of thought died where the one about school did. "When?"

"Today, if you want," Hisashi rubbed his hands over his face. "It wouldn't be a problem, I think."

"Today?" Izuku blinked, eyes big as saucers. "Like, now? Can I come back?"

"Whenever you want."

Izuku way beyond everything going on, frankly, but had found himself pretty much accepting it in stride. He'd probably have an existential crisis about it at three a.m. someday, but for now, he wanted to ride out this new reality as smoothly as he could.

Which meant. Packing. He's packing. To leave for. A new…planet? Dimension? Universe? He shoved his confusion down and unearthed his suitcase from the back of his closet, because he probably wouldn't really need moving boxes or anything like that, right? Right? He should probably stop thinking so hard or he'll have his crisis now.

Izuku packed clothes, his hero notebooks, his All Might figures and posters and DVD interview specials (as opposed to the Blu-ray ones - he wasn't sure if they had Blu-Ray DVD players on Pangaea.) toiletries, his laptop; things like that. Essentials. Anything else he'd pack into his backpack. He readjusted his coat around his waist and sighed.

"You ready, kiddo?" Hisashi said, standing in Izuku's doorway, looking refreshed. "We're going by portal, so I'm quite happy we haven't had breakfast yet.

So, here's what happened;

Izuku got over himself and Hisashi prepared his magic for portal creation right there in Izuku's room, which is a very strenuous magical exercise indeed; and the circle of Izuku's floor under them reformed into a rather gelatinous substance in the process. Izuku lost his footing in shock, and his coat touched what used to be his floor.

And at that moment, Izuku felt a sudden pulling sensation, as if someone was pulling something out of him - but through his coat. Izuku went from being hyper-aware of his coat to being hyper-aware of the floor; and Izuku's floor, which had long since lost solidity, suddenly given up entirely on staying in this plane of existence and gave way to what Izuku could only logically describe as darkness. But it was much more than that.

Space - meaning, a general area - seemed to curve toward and away from him at the same time, impossibly, many times over in a single second in a single place.

And then it stopped. Izuku, stomach thoroughly bottomed out, feared to open his eyes. Someone -his father - groaned next to him. "Ugh, it's been way too long, hasn't it."

"Yes," Another voice said. Izuku initially immediately tossed this from his mind to process the absurdly soft sand under his butt and the sound of waves nearby, but reconsidered it after a minute.

He decided to slowly ease his eyes open, for fear of seeing something mind-bending again, and registered three things immediately. One, the woman standing before them on the beach was probably his mom; two, she was beautiful; and three, they were on a beach.

"Ah…" His father said to the sand, lying face-down. "Ah, yes. The one thing I missed so dearly…the sand. There's nothing quite like it…Earth just can't compete. With this sand, right here."

"Hm, yes…" Izuku's mother said, amusedly. "I wonder who takes care of this wonderful coastline?"

"It's a real mystery, indeed…if you happen to meet her, make sure to tell her that she's doing a seriously amazing job."

The woman chuckled quietly. Izuku thought about formally introducing himself, but his body still hadn't found his stomach yet, and he ended up passing out instead.

"Oh!" Inko quickly reached for him, and pulled his head into her lap. "Oh…the first time really is a shock, isn't it?"

Hisashi huffed a groan, and got to his feet sluggishly. "It's terrible. Make sure he doesn't stay out too long, yeah? All of my bones hurt."

"You don't have to leave immediately…?" Inko said, sprinkling grains of pixie dust across Izuku's unconscious form, eyebrows knit in her concern. "…I do miss you."

Hisashi tapped a kiss to her forehead and smiled softly. "For you, I can afford as long as you need."

"Really!" Inko burst, flushing suddenly. "Really! I might end up reconsidering…!"

"Oh, no!" Hisashi laughed, pulling Izuku's floating form into his arms. "Oh, I'm wounded! You've hurt me, milady!"

Inko smiled, her blush still warm. "Oh, Hisashi."

Izuku dreamed of lollipops and sugar rolls