Hey everyone. I know it's been a while since I've posted anything. That's probably going to continue to be the case for most of my main stuff, as I am very busy right now. I am still working on it and hopefully I'll be able to post more of this kind of material in the time between, since it's mostly written already.

Of Quirks and Time Part 4

Later, Midoriya and Monoma found an abandoned apartment building. They were hardly the only people there. Izuku noticed that there were a lot of people with 'villainous quirks.' It seemed that some things never changed.

Still, no one bothered them and they found a small room that was unoccupied for themselves.

The two boys curled up and Izuku pulled out a sandwich and a few snacks he'd brought for lunch. He tore the sandwich roughly in half and offered the larger portion to Monoma. He then asked,"Apple or potato chips?"

After eyeing the apple for a moment, Monoma finally replied, in a tone that lacked it's usual tone "Chips."

Knowing what he really wanted, Izuku instead handed him the apple. After a short argument, Izuku managed to convince him to take it.

The boys ate their food and curled up together so that they could jump to attention if anything happened. Izuku pulled off his steel toed boots but pulled them close to his chest…they were killing his feet and could make fair weapons in their own right, either if thrown by hand or used as a weight with Black Whip, if he could get the latter to work for him well enough to hold them.

Monoma was the first to fall asleep, and unconsciously slipped from leaning against the wall to lying against Izuku's shoulder. Izuku wrapped his arm around the other boy and placed his head on top of the other's as he readjusted his shoes against his other side, making sure the steel soles were not touching him and drawing his heat away. Satisfied, he kept watch for a little longer before dozing off from exhaustion.

The next morning, Neito's first awareness was of a rhythmic thrumming of energy through him. He didn't know how long it had been going on but it felt nice. He enjoyed the sensation for a few more moments before alarm bells started going off in his head. This power felt familiar.

He cracked open his eyes to see a familiar glow across his cheeks as green electricity arced around him. But that was nothing. The world around him was like…being swallowed by a rainbow. He must still be dreaming.

He slowly craned his neck toward the form he was lying against, to find himself staring into a nebula. It was like he was looking into the depths of space, stars and…and was the nebula wearing a shirt? He glanced up to see a figure made of streaming lights, so bright he had to bring his eyes back down to the glowing red x of energy on his own nose, which glowed as brightly as the reds zipping across with the other…

Midoriya's Super Power

And in a blink, they were no longer inside a rainbow but the room where they'd fallen asleep. The nebula wrapped around him topped with streaming lights had become Midoriya.

Midoriya swathed in his quirk.

What the heck?!

As Neito made to move, he felt something shift against him. A warm weight rested on his head and was draped around his shoulder. He glanced over in disbelief at the arm wrapped around him, pulsing in time with his copy of the quirk.

He didn't know which woke him up quicker, the idea that someone had actually sustained physical contact with him—something most people tried to avoid because of the nature of his quirk—or that the other's quirk, which had the ability to blow this whole building sky high and break the user's arm at the same time, was active against him while said user was unconscious.

He decided that the latter was the more important. Yes, that power was currently draped over his shoulder and possibly leaking in to activate and interact with his weaker copy, if the pulsing was anything to go by. Just what the heck was this thing even stockpiling, anyway?

Careful not to move and startle Midoriya, Neito reached for Copy to shut down the duplicated quirk.

It wouldn't deactivate.

Well damn. No doubt, Midoriya's quirk was actually manipulating his own through the copy he'd subconsciously made. Which suggested it was more than just a super strength quirk, which he supposed the hallucinations he was seeing kind of already hinted at. Just what the heck was this thing even stockpiling, anyway?

He quietly called the 1-A student. "Midoriya?"

No response, except the arm pulled him closer against the nebula.

"Midoriya, your quirk's acting up and it won't let me shut down a duplicate I accidentally made."

The other boy immediately straightened, his quirk shutting off.

Neito's copied quirk responded in kind, shutting down before he even tried to close it off himself. Now it was still there but locked down so tight he doubted he could access it even if he wanted to.

Neito instinctively slipped from Midoriya's hold and turned toward the other boy. "What the heck, Midoriya? You just manipulated my quirk!"

Midoriya curled up into a ball against the wall, as if he expected Neito to hit him or something. "Sorry. I didn't mean to." Tears pricked at his eyes. "I'm sorry."

Neito took a deep breath, calming himself upon seeing Midoriya's confusing submissive behavior again. He took a step toward the other, who started trembling, and sighed. He sat down close to the other boy on the stained, patchy rug but made no move to touch him. "What was that?"

"My quirk does things on its own sometimes," Midoriya admitted. "Like during the tournament with Shinso…or what happened during our joint training session. It actually activated the night before our fight and despite knowing it was acting up, I fought you anyway…I should have said something. I knew something was wrong."

"Damn it. You mean it does this type of thing often?"

"I don't know."

"What do you mean 'you don't know?'"

Midoriya looked at him thoughtfully and glanced around before whispering, "I guess since we're in this together, you need to know. My quirk activated less than a year ago."

"What?"

"I'm…still learning about it."

If Neito hadn't been sitting already, he probably would have collapsed. "How many people know?"

"All Might and Recovery Girl for sure,"he whispered. "Kacchan, too."

"I didn't know that people bloomed so late. Especially quirks like…well as big as yours."

Izuku smiled shyly. "Yeah, it was like a dream come true. Especially after everyone said that a quirkless kid couldn't ever be a hero."

Oh…Oh! "Now it makes sense."

"What makes sense?"

"Why you don't behave like someone with a big, flashy quirk usually does." At Midoriya's confusion, he added, "The 'I'm the toughest guy in the room and no one can touch me' attitude. You don't have it at all."

Neito could see comprehension dawning in Midoriya's eyes.

Oh. Is that why he was bracing for blows?

"You have a ridiculously powerful quirk but you still think like a quirkless kid. And any regular five-year-old has more experience their quirks than you do." How did Midoriya get okayed for the hero course? He's clearly torn himself apart and could easily have killed half his class accidentally if his quirk had thrown a fit at the wrong moment.

Neito remembered when he'd elbowed the other boy in the cafeteria…his real first exposure to having Midoriya's quirk, even if he never actually got to use it. He'd been expecting the other to give a volatile reaction.

Instead Midoriya had just asked 'what was that for?' And what had just seemed like whiney annoyance now seemed like a near tearful confusion at wondering why he'd been singled out. Either way, he never got to taunt the boy with the copied quirk.

He was glad he didn't now. Because wow, did he feel like a jackass.

And now, Neito was the only support system Midoriya, with a quirkless mindset and a toddler's level of control over his obscenely powerful quirk, had. He suddenly envied himself from a few minutes ago, dreamily enjoying the thrumming energy somehow calming him as he laid clueless in a warm embrace.

"I need to go for a walk…" Neito stated.

Midoriya nodded, staring down at his feet as he said, "Don't forget my hoody."

Neito sighed and threw it on. "I'll be back soon."

As he slipped through the building and then out in the side alley, Neito finally calmed down to notice how tired he still was, and how his muscles were sore from sleeping awkwardly…and how gross he felt; he could use a shower and a toothbrush right now. As he walked past a television, he saw some footage that caught his eye. He looked up to see it was a news channel. He read the caption, describing the two young figures, himself and Midoriya, just popping into existence. Below, it warned that this was footage of a duo of dangerous villains and if seen, not to approach but alert authorities.

Neito stared. Villains. They'd been labeled as villains. He was glad the footage was grainy, but his hair was still pretty obvious. It was a good thing Midoriya's mask was up at the time and they must have been in an area with relatively little surveillance; despite all the comments about him seeming normal, his green curls and eyes made him easily recognizable.

Neito made it back into the side alley of the building he and Izuku had sheltered in before he started crying.

They were in another universe, at a time when they didn't exist. Where maybe even his parent's didn't exist yet, if they would at all, with the shift in reality. Now the government had just declared them enemies. Dangerous villains. Two high school freshmen, one with a second rate quirk and another with the quirk control of a toddler.

He just wanted to go home, but he didn't know if that was even possible.

Izuku sat in thoughtful silence after Monoma left.

Thinking about how One for All had hijacked Monoma's Copy. Thinking about the half truth he'd just told the other boy, the closest he'd come to the truth about his quirk without straight up saying it. He wasn't ready to tell the other boy his secret, but he needed something after what Izuku had just done.

He looked at the morning light shining through the window. A late spring morning…in another time…in another universe.

What if the quirk that had shot them to this world didn't wear off? What if they were stuck here?

Well, if they got here by quirk; maybe they could get back the same way.

Izuku shook his head. He was getting ahead of himself. For all he knew, they could find themselves being pulled home any minute. It seemed just as likely, if not more so.

Comforted for the moment, both by the thought of probably the quirk bringing them back home soon and having the nebulous beginnings of a plan if they didn't, Izuku rested and instead went back to worrying over the mornings events with Monoma as waited for the other boy to come back.

When Monoma came back in, his overconfident smile in place but his eyes oddly shiny, Izuku knew there was more bad news.

"Come on, let's see if we can find a more private spot for us. We can't stay here."

Izuku slipped on his steel toed boots and followed the other boy.

All for One stood across the street from the blockade along with a few other onlookers. This was where the "Teleportation" had happened and the young "Dangerous Villains" had landed. How ironic. He knew from their attire and trained movements that they were what they had claimed to be: Hero Students.

Hero students always had the best quirks. The cream of the crop. And quirks from the future tended to be more powerful with each generation.

He supposed it made for another reason to find the poor, lost children before the government did.

All for One decided he had better head over to the park where he'd asked Machia to meet him. He'd made the arrangements to stick around for a couple weeks, the absolute longest he expected it to take in order to track down two lost hero students.

He looked forward to the exciting new powers he might soon be adding to his collection.

So, here's the headcanon explanation for how Monoma's quirk interacts with One for All at the time I wrote this, although I'm sure it won't end up matching with the actual canon, if the subject is breached at all:

Monoma's use of his One for All copy is limited by what the current user wills him to have access to, not simply original quirk strength. My reasoning for this was that everything about the transfer of OFA in any manner is based off of the will of the current user.

I imagined that, in their fight during the joint training arc, Midoriya wasn't thinking about outright denying Monoma access to his quirk completely but in his concern, only allowed an amount of access that wouldn't hurt the other boy.

Here, with a copy of One for All, Monoma can interact more directly with the original quirk, since they both would have those mental interactive properties. Except, once again, the will of main user and the vestiges trump Monoma's control of the interaction. And, in this case Midoriya subconsciously wants to keep the other safe, as might the previous users. There might have been no conscious awareness of the connection established either.

Furthermore, Monoma isn't as deep as Midoriya, so he experienced something more comparable to the sports festival than what Izuku has now.

I thought that this would have been an interesting addition to this story for them working together later as well as some future interaction for All for One where the villain might have some trouble figuring out who the real OFA user is and might get jealous of said copycat, who has free access to it without even taking the quirk. Maybe even adding some extra anger in for AFO if Monoma managed to copy his quirk at the same time; possessing the one combo that the villain has desired and been unable to obtain for over a century.