Dinner with All Might (Yagi Toshinori, actually. How many people can claim to know All Might's name?) is...

Well, it's something, alright.

He doesn't eat. Izuku wonders if it's rude to notice that. It's probably something to do with his injury... come to think of it- no, stop muttering!

But still, it's almost a little creepy how he sits at the table, just sipping tea occasionally. At least, it probably would be if he were anyone but All Might.

And oh yeah, now he's sitting with Izuku's mother, asking for a girl named Midoriya Izumi, who as far as she knows doesn't actually exist-

"I do have a few distant family members who might have a girl named Izumi," she says, after an unreadable glance at her son. "I could try to contact them sometime and find out, would that help?"

Wait, really?

"That would be greatly appreciated," Yagi-san says, All Might's speech patterns leaking through a little if Izuku squints hard enough. The sudden image of him inflating into his muscly form, upheaving table and chairs and leaving mom utterly gobsmacked plays through Izuku's mind, and he has to duck away for a moment to straighten his face.

"Is there any particular reason you need to see this girl?" she asks, eyes narrowed. "I know you have the records, but what has you so interested in her?"

"I told you I'm All Might's secretary?" at their twin nods, his face sets, and he pulls out a familiar notebook - Izuku doesn't need to see the cover to know what it says. "Y- Midoriya Izumi left this in m- excuse me, in his possession when they met, almost a year ago. It contains some information about All Might that isn't supposed to be public knowledge."

"That he's injured?" Izuku and Yagi-san blink in sync. A trickle of blood escapes the latter's mouth. "That's a yes, then," mom continues, undeterred.

"How on earth..."

She shakes her head with an exasperated smile. "Oh, please. You come here on behalf of All Might, sporting bright blond hair, shadowed blue eyes and the need to duck whenever you enter a room. You look like you haven't eaten a thing in months, clutch at your side every other second, don't eat anything despite it being dinnertime and you outright tell me you were injured in a villain attack? At that point, it'd almost be stranger if I didn't put it all together, All Might-san."

"I don't see where this is- oh." Yagi-san stops short as the words finally seem to register.

Then slowly, deliberately, his forehead makes contact with the table.

"I wasn't exactly sold on the guess, but then you mixed yourself up when you were talking about the notebook," She finishes. He lets out a long-suffering sigh in return. "Do you mind if I read it?"

He shrugs helplessly, handing it over. "There's nothing in there that you haven't already figured out, I suppose. If anything, this only proves you're related to young Midoriya."

Mom takes a long look at the cover, and then glances towards her son. "This looks a lot like Izuku's writing," she mentions - Izuku's heart turns to stone for a moment - flipping through some pages. "I suppose it must run in the family."

Something clicks.

Yagi-san leaves without any further incident, and Izuku doesn't know whether to be thankful that he didn't leave the book with a stranger, or upset that he didn't leave it in Izuku's reach. Still, they were prepared to never see it again back when they gave it to him, so even just a glimpse is more than they were expecting.

But that's not especially important right now.

"Mom?" he asks. His throat clamps up, but he swallows resolutely, trying not to let his voice break. "How long have you known?"

Her eyes sharpen and she blinks in clear surprise, before it's masked with a good impression of confusion. "Known what?" she asks, and despite all the evidence he's very tempted to believe her.

Words fail him for a moment. Instead, he changes and Izumi is left shifting awkwardly in his place.

...

Why isn't mom saying anything?

"...Mom?" Izumi eventually prompts, glancing up for a moment.

She can't contain a gasp of laughter as she finds herself engulfed in a warm, heavy blanket of a hug.

"Oh Izuku, you look so good!" mom gushes when she finally releases her. "Or... Izumi, is that what All Might called you?"

"...So I take it I was right then?" Izumi asks dryly, voice conspicuously high-pitched as it breaks the house's quiet. She suddenly feels self-conscious as mom leans around her to better take in her form.

"You were, you were," she replies distractedly, still inspecting Izumi for damage. She gazes critically at her hair. "We need to take you for a haircut. You're supposed to have it cut regularly or it'll tangle up and get split ends, you know. And you need to brush the ends first, otherwise the knots bump into each other and you end up with one big knotted mess."

Izumi shrugs, running her hand experimentally through her hair and wincing when it catches. She files the info for later, vowing to take better care of it from now on.

"Is there time to get a haircut before UA?" she wonders aloud.

Mom hums. "We... should have time tomorrow actually, if you're willing to cut your training a little short. And your hair too, I'm not sure it's salvageable."

That sounds like a good deal. One day won't do any harm, anyway, as long as it's a special occasion. And a special occasion this certainly is.

Wait, she even knew about their training?

Exhaustion forgotten, the two spend the rest of the evening together on the sofa, watching television and talking, and by the end of it Izumi's voice doesn't feel quite so misplaced in the presence of their mom.

They don't end up returning to the topic of the secrets they both kept. But in the end, they're family. Are a couple of white lies really enough to change that?

...Why were they so worried in the first place?

"Woah."

Izuku reverently brushes imaginary dust from the shoulder.

"I wasn't sure whether to make you this or the cyan one," he dimly hears mom say from behind him. "So I went with both!"

The basic design is almost the same as the one they wore to UA, plus some protective gear. The separating lines are a bit wider than the original design, and it's made in something a fair bit more durable-seeming, too.

The main difference, though, is in the colors.

The top half of the suit is a bright, sunny yellow. The dividing lines stay white, and now have some matching gloves. The pants are purple, which part of Izuku feels should be too loud, but he can't deny that it works. All the extra gear - boots, pads and toolbelt - are a leathery black, with a vague tint that reminds them of the Midoriya hair.

The colors of the non-binary pride flag.

"I have another version planned for your other form too, but I put all the work into this one since I wasn't sure when you'd tell me and..." she devolves into murmuring about measurements and materials and protective gear...

"I love it," they breathe.

Mom glows.

Today's the day!

The sky is clear, the plants are green, and even the promise of a future sunburn can't get Izumi down!

Mom knows about their quirk and still loves them as much as ever; they have a new hero costume just begging to be completed by the support department; her fluffy, newly-tamed hair bobs just a little under her chin...

And oh yeah, it's the first day of UA!

By the time he's made it into the halls of UA, Izuku's tie has been the victim of so many nervous grips and futile attempts to fix the damage done that he gives it up and just allows it to hang around his neck like a tangled handkerchief.

Whoever thought these bright red affronts to nature were acceptable wear for a teenager deserves whatever's coming to them. As long as whatever's coming to them is extremely unpleasant and preferably humiliating.

Okay, so maybe they're a little nervous.

He stops short at the sight of class 1-A's gigantic doorway. Idly he imagines Mt. Lady's first day here, getting stuck halfway through a regular door and forcing the staff to replace it with this one.

The door's unexpectedly light, he finds out the hard way when he attempts to slide it open with his body weight, and succeeds a little too well.

The floor's expectedly solid, he discovers a moment later.

"Is this just how things are gonna be, here?" he asks the room at large with surprising vocality. He thinks he spied Nice Girl on the way down, so maybe that's why he feels so at-ease.

Sure enough, he feels a five-fingered tap on the shoulder and is able to right himself with a pop of displaced air. "Hi, Nice Girl!"

"Hi yourself, Dekiru-kun! I hope we don't always meet like this." She looks him over and double-takes. "Oh, I like your hair!"

"Thanks!" He grins at the reminder, pulling a newly pitch-black strand in front of his face and admiring it. "I was getting it cut anyway, and it fits better with the hero costume I'm planning to wear. We even got it quirk-dyed, so it didn't get damaged!"

"Oh, I'm so jealous!"

As she leads him to the back of the room, a thought strikes him. "Sorry I didn't end up calling," he says quietly. "Long story, but I thought I failed the written part and I... wasn't really ready to deal with it."

Her mouth makes an O shape. "I actually forgot I gave you my number! The written part seemed pretty tough at first, but I got more points than I thought."

"Yeah, it was surprisingly simple in the end," he unthinkingly agrees, immediately feeling utterly unqualified to do so as one of the few to have failed, no matter the circumstances. "So anyway... are we just gonna keep calling each other by our nicknames?"

She shrugs. "I totally forgot your name so I just kept calling you Dekiru in my head," she tells him bluntly, smirking. "So I'm gonna do that."

"Then you're still Nice Girl," he decides. "I don't think I even heard your name, actually. My brain was a bit fried at the end there."

"Well I'm not telling you again!"

"I wouldn't want to know anyway," he grins without missing a beat.

Is this what friendship feels like?

Kacchan's in the front row, seething as Angles-boy tells him off, Izuku discovers when he deigns to inspect the class.

He isn't as worried about that as he thinks maybe he should be.

"You know, I'm a little surprised we haven't been mobbed by our classmates yet," Nice Girl suddenly says.

He blinks at that. Logically it would make sense for the class to idolise the two highest-scoring examinees (condolences to Kacchan) and want to talk to them as soon as possible. But it's possible that they've been intimidated by the sight of both the top-scorers together, or they think teaming up is cheating and want nothing to do with the cheaters, or maybe they're just waiting for an opening to talk without risking getting in trouble-

"I hope you see the irony in muttering so loudly about getting in trouble," deadpans a dull voice from the front of the room, and Izuku freezes up, peering over the heads to see-

Is that Eraser Head?!

"You're well-informed, at least." The unkempt hero negligently tosses something big and yellow to the corner of the room, saying as he does, "It took you all 14 seconds to quiet down. Time is limited. You are not rational enough."

Belatedly, Izuku feels four fingers on his shoulder and whispers an apology to Nice Girl, who was trying to snap him out of it.

She nods, gesturing back to the teacher.

"I'm your homeroom teacher, Aizawa Shouta. Nice to meet you," the teacher says like he wishes he brought a bed with him- wait, was that yellow thing- "It's kind of sudden, but put this on and head to the field."

Izuku glances back as he dazedly files out of the room behind his classmates.

It is a sleeping bag!

He picks at his new uniform in worry. A Quirk assessment? On the first day?

"What about the entrance ceremony? And the orientation?" Nice Girl voices his own thoughts.

"If you're going to become heroes, you don't have time for such frivolities," the teacher dismisses unceremoniously. "UA has few restrictions in my teaching of you. It's one of UA's biggest selling points. This is what you signed up for."

A murmur makes its way through the class. Izuku knows that the UA website mentions the lack of teaching restrictions, but he also knows that it isn't one of the 'main selling points' in the slightest - merely a side-mention among the promises of all-star teaching staff and an incredibly high budget.

At least, not to the students. Maybe it's different for the teachers.

"Midoriya," Aizawa-sensei says as a hand jabs into his side, snapping him out of it. From the sound of it, the teacher's already tried to call on him a few times, and the blood rushes to his face as fast as apologies rush from his mouth. Aizawa-sensei ignores them all. "You scored the highest on the practical exam."

Izuku abruptly becomes very aware of the furious blond payload a few meters to the left. He takes a subtle step forwards, into Eraserhead's area of effect, and feels a little better.

Not much, but a little.

"What was your best ball throw?"

He blinks, temporarily distracted from Kacchan. "I... don't remember. Less than 50 meters."

Izuku feels the eyes of everyone boring into the back of his skull as he steps further forward and Aizawa-sensei hands him a baseball. "No using classmates' quirks, and no leaving the circle. Other than that, do what you want to throw the ball as far as you can."

Well, there goes plan A of just asking Nice Girl for help.

He steps into the circle and thinks.

The most obvious choice is to just teleport-swap to a couple hundred meters away, mid-jump; throw the ball as Izumi; then shift back into the circle before she hits the floor. Izumi wouldn't be very visible to everyone else, since she'd be so far away.

On second thought, maybe not so obvious. But that's the first thing they thought of.

Of course, that showcases teleportation as part of their quirk. And Kacchan's in the crowd, and he'd piece things together before the day's up. And maybe that would count as leaving the circle, anyway, even if they don't hit the floor. AND Izumi has a different hair color to Izuku now, so they can't pull off that kind of trick so easily.

Plan C then.

Two plates from UA robots are stabbed into the ground, a few feet apart. He makes a small hole in each, then a 10ft pole (for emergencies) is threaded between the two as an axle. Finally, a convenient long-handled dustpan is tied onto the mop.

It's no work of art, but it should function.

Ball goes in dustpan, slam the other end down with a hunk of robot, and off it goes! A (barely) functional catapult!

"Know your limits," Aizawa-sensei says boredly, holding up a screen to show Izuku's score. 150m exactly. Not amazing, but not bad either. "That's the foundation for a rational hero."

There are quiet murmurs from the class, mostly amounting to 'What's that quirk?', and Izuku spots an opportunity. "Sensei, is it alright if we explain our quirks to the rest of the class?"

Aizawa-sensei gives him an extremely put-upon look, but nods shortly, and Izuku is reminded that he has to actually explain their quirk.

"Um... I'm Midoriya. I can store objects light enough to carry, and then un-store them later," he speaks quickly, scratching the back of his head. Then, hoping others will mention their weaknesses in kind: "Using it too much gives me a headache."

As he bends down to re-store the parts of the catapult (the mop handle is splintered, so he doesn't bother with that), he hears a series of mutters - is that disappointment? - before a loud masculine voice overpowers them with "Hey! Relying on your teammates is Totally manly!"

Oh, they were probably expecting some amazing super-quirk from the practical exam record-holder.

...He appreciates whoever stepped in, but... why 'manly'? Any other compliment probably would've been more accurate. And what part of teamwork is inherently masculine?

"Dekiru? You've gone quiet."

"Wha-oh, just thinking," Izuku says, still kneeled in the circle, staring dazedly at where the catapult used to be. "Thanks."

Nice Girl smiles, extending a hand to help him up. "What're friends for?"

"EXPELLED?!" the class choruses in horror, dull in his ears.

Izuku shakes some of the fear away - there are plenty of opportunities for their quirk to shine here - and forces himself into analysis mode.

It's a quirk apprehension test. Everyone's done the same test before in elementary school, just without the quirks. Students go a couple at a time, watching when it isn't their turn. So it's an exercise to demonstrate the versatility of quirks, their usefulness in situations that might not appear to lend themselves well to a certain quirk.

But why the threat of expulsion-? Oh, so people with 'weaker' quirks will be motivated to find uses for them! It must be a bluff- well, maybe if someone doesn't bother trying their best, it won't be a bluff, but surely someone like Aizawa-sensei understands how useful an invisible girl would be even if she can't compete with everyone else when it comes to physical exercises. Surely he understands that sticky balls can be incredible for villain containment, even if the owner is too short to keep up with everyone else.

Or maybe he expects them to show ingenuity. The invisible girl can run seconds before the start signal. The boy with the sticky hair could turn his shoes into mini-trampolines, if he stuck balls to the soles and covered the bottoms with a cloth, or sand or something.

Maybe the teacher genuinely will expel the student to get the lowest score... but if they all show potential, can he really be justified?

Izuku watches the class, tallying the students who might struggle. Small-and-Purple. Invisibubble. Shocker. Sound of Silence. And... uh... Ear-Plugs. Sure.

The teacher focusses on the students taking the test, and in the background Izuku slides alongside each student on his list.

"Hey, what if you started running before he says you can? He'd never know, right?"

"I... guess he wouldn't. Thanks!"

Invisibubble's 50-meter dash score: 2.92 seconds.

"What if you shocked the grip tester?"

"Woah man, that's smart! I could light the whole display up at once!"

Shocker's grip score: 888.88kg.

Nice Girl gets in on the action too. "I guess you could just pull yourself up with your earlobes, couldn't you? Or pull yourself down for the toe-touches."

"Oh, that's gonna suck royally tomorrow. Thanks though."

Ear-Plugs' situps score: 45.

Izuku's own quirk is far more limited in this situation than they'd hoped. The 50m dash he passes on his own two feet, vowing to place roller blades - or at least an assortment of wheels with which to make those sorts of things - in storage at the earliest opportunity.

Meanwhile, the Creation student fabricates her own pair of roller blades from nothing. Izuku's almost jealous.

Almost.

Shaking himself, he returns to the problem at hand. How can he launch himself without teleport-switching?

This is something that he knows should be possible. The other tests are all about speed or power and there's a limit to how high he can score there.

But the standing long-jump is something they can work with.

He could propel himself using air again- no, not without Nice Girl's quirk. He could use something as a springboard, but the only boards he has are brittle ones from the UA robots. He could teleport-switch- No, he just decided that that wasn't an option! What's wrong with him?

And then an idea strikes him, so simple yet so utterly insane that he desperately wants to try it just for the sheer spectacle.

And if it works... Oh, if it works.

He's vaguely aware of his peers' eyes on him as he weaves together the 10ft poles at a 90 degree angle using robot cable, but he ignores them and winds it around again for good measure.

He's just lucky that Aizawa-sensei didn't specify a time limit, or he'd probably have taken last place.

The winding done, he unstores a lightweight tarp (they'd actually forgotten they were carrying this for a while, which is strange given that their quirk seems to rely on their memories to function. Perhaps the memories are subconscious or something? Or perhaps they've made some wrong assumptions somewhere along the-), cuts it down to size and ties a corner to each of the four free ends of the poles.

Perfect.

He lifts the impromptu kite over his head and jogs over to the standing long-jump pit. The air collapses around him as he goes, cracking against his skin with each volume he stores.

And then, when he's up twenty volumes, he jumps.

He locks his legs and an arm around the vertical pole. His other hand stretches into the centre of the kite, and he releases a blast of air.

A giddy laugh escapes him as the sand pit glides out from under him. Another few hits and the wind catches him briefly, dragging him a few feet to the left and he almost overbalances but he saves it at the last second with a well-paced air shot.

He's down to three bursts remaining and is just preparing to draw more from the surroundings, when one of the tarp's corners come loose and the air rushes out and he slams into the grass with the force of an angry god.

But still, even as he rubs his aching spine and stores the undone mess of poles, wires and tarp, he can't wipe the smile off his face.

They can FLY!