it's a friend's birthday, so please take this fic lovely called "meena beefday" in my drive.
"Midoriya, are you All Might's secret lovechild or something?"
Bakugou freezes. That definitely was not what he was expecting.
Ignoring Deku's panicked denial of the subject, he took a step back from the wall, hands lifting into a fist. The cheers from the sports festival overhead provided a backdrop of noise, allowing him to let out a small snarl. It made him insanely angry to think about, and he had to breath deeply to prevent his hands from sparkling in anger and give away his eavesdropping but-
It made sense.
It was needlessly impossible but all the pieces were there. Deku's dad was never around. He was obsessed with All Might but always avoided answering questions about his dad. Bakugou's mom told him he was working overseas when he asked as a kid, and later in middle school he overheard some classmates teasing Deku for having a deadbeat. Bakugou assumed the same thing.
But.
What if All Might was Deku's dad?
Physically, they looked nothing alike. Bakugou has an All Might poster plastered on his wall and he found an old photo of Deku and him playing as kids. You could argue that All Might's slicked back hair could be curly, but there were photos of All Might at UA and it was more wavy than curley. Their eyes weren't the same shape. Their smiles pinched in different places. Deku's skin was way darker and he had a lot more freckles.
They even hugged differently. When All Might hugged him it was like an elephant trying to not squish a mouse. When Deku tried to hug him in elementary school it felt like trying to pull a tick off your skin.
But Bakugou looked nothing like his dad. He took everything from the basis of his quirk to his looks to even the texture of hair from his mom. It's just how quirks worked. Everyone looks like their mom. He only saw a glimpse of a few of his classmate's parents at the sports fest', and they all looked like their moms.
It's just how quirks worked. It was the perfect cover.
Bakugou groaned and threw an arm over his head, before turning and screaming into the pillow. The All Might poster stared at him.
So, Deku could still be All Might's secret lovechild, but still look like his mom. That tracks. Auntie Inko looked exactly like Deku.
Katsuki got a mutated quirk from his parents, but most of his friends didn't. His friends in middle school, Eyeballs and Fingers, had the same quirk as their moms. Fingers was technically a mutation since he could produce more finger joints then his mom, but it was still basically the same thing.
Katsuki can't remember Aunti Inko's quirk. It was for sure as hell not super strength though. She was a programmer or something, so maybe her quirk had something to do with computers. Or maybe it was completely unrelated.
Katsuki yelled into his pillow again. His mom yelled at him to stop yelling. He yelled back, she yelled louder, and they only stopped when his dad shushed the both of them.
Katsuki gets up and stomps over to his desk, shaking his mouse to wake up his PC. He has three new emails, but ignores them. Instead he does a quick google search for a popular website.
Mighty Tracking.
Despite its name, it didn't actually track anyone aside from All Might. Fans uploaded photos with geocodes and dates, so people could increase their chances of running into All Might if he was in the area. Katsuki had it set for notifications until All Might started teaching classes at UA, in case he could meet him on the streets or something.
But it had a second function. It kept track of confirmed places All Might was at certain times, going back years.
He arranged the website so it would be around Izuku's birthday. July 15th, 2x99.
He wasn't even in the same prefecture at the time. Apparently he was in Aomori, taking a selfie with some girl with an elephant mutation.
Wait.
That's not how babies work.
Oh Hell no.
Bakugou seriously contemplates blowing up his computer, but instead opts for yelling as many cuss words as he can at the top of his lungs until his mom slams the door open, throws his shoes at him, and yells at him to go outside if he's going to scream at nothing.
So he does.
He slams the front door behind him, flipping off his house, and huffs his way through his neighborhood until he finds a park, climbs a tree, and yells some more. Some parents frantically gather their kids from the park and leave the area.
Pardon him, but he does NOT want to think so hard about Deku's. Yaknow .
But he still takes his phone from his pocket, opens the app, and searches for All Might during the date of AAAAAAAAA.
He pauses once to scream again, does some math, screams a little more, and hits enter. October 2x98.
Nothing on the 1st through the 10th. He was even farther away on the 11th, but returned to Tokyo on the 12th, stayed in the area until the 29th, and left for Hokkaido on the 30th. None of those locations are anywhere near Shizuoka. All Might is famous for not being very good at civilian disguises, as he always gets recognized no matter what by his bulk and his bright hair. Even in disguise, someone is always bound to notice his face. So there was no way he was able to sneak around to Shizuoka enough times to make a whole baby.
With that thought, Bakugou blew up his phone. That's enough thoughts for today.
"Mom," he yelled as he reentered his home. "Can I have Auntie Inko's number?"
"Like hell you need it for!"
"Fuck off!"
A lot happened in the next few weeks. He went to summer camp. He got kidnapped. He ended All Might. He fought Deku and just barely won.
He got answers.
Some answers that thank WHATEVER god watching him did NOT involve thinking about Deku's. uh. yaknow .
"Kacchan," Deku squeaks, covering his face with his hands. "I can't believe you and Todoroki thought the same thing! That's so awful!"
"What's awful is that I searched Mighty Tracking for the entire month of October in 2x98, looking for when all Might was in Shizuoka!" Bakugou angrily swept the hardwood floors, sending the crumbs from breakfast into a neat little pile.
"Wait, that's not my birthday at all. I was born in 2x99. Surely you didn't forget my birthday?" Deku lowered his hands in confusion, before realizing exactly why Bakugou was searching in October and not July and made a gagging noise, flushing a brilliant red. "Kacchan, that is disgusting. That is my mother ."
"Ohho? Who's fault is this? It's not my fault you and All Might are out here acting like the number one father son duo-"
"KACCHAN-"
"I'm surprised you haven't gotten him a goddamn mug-"
"Kacchan you bastard. I was born a month premature."
Bakugou pauses. "What."
"Yeah, I was born early. I had to be in, like, this clear box for a while because I was really small-" Deku begins, before Bakugou cuts him off by chunking a sock at his face.
"What the hell does being born tiny have to do with anything?" Aren't all babies small anyway? It's not something Bakugou ever thought about. Babies were babies. They were small and then they could talk and then they started school and became brats.
"That means you should have uh." Impossibly, Deku's face went even redder. "You should have searched in November instead."
There was a pause.
Then Bakugou exploded the broom he was holding into several pieces and started to chase Deku around the common room with the charred remains of the handle.
"KACCHAN, STOP-"
"I HAD TO CLICK. THIRTY ONE TIMES-"
"KACCHAN I AM SORRY-"
"YOU HAD TO POP OUT A MONTH EARLY, HUH?"
"I'M NOT THE ONE WHO HAD TO DO THE MATH TO FIND OUT WHEN MY MOTHER AND FATHER-"
Bakugou let out a string of explosions before Deku could finish that cursed cursed sentence.
"Oi, Half n' half!"
Bakugou attempted to kick the door, his hands full of papers and balancing a bowl of soup. Todoroki chose that moment to open the door right now, so he got a swift kick to the stomach instead.
"Ow." He mumbled. His face was plastered with sweat and his usually parted hair was mussled to one side. Bakugou couldn't even see his pajamas because he was wrapped too tightly with his entire futon, which muffled Bakugou's kick. Ice coated one side of the thick blanket.
"I brought your homework, shitlips."
He was about to shove it into Todoroki's hands when he caught sight of a corkboard with a red string drawn between different faces. He didn't recognize many, but he did see a green tuft of hair he could recognize anywhere.
It was Todoroki who originally thought Deku was All Might's kid first.
Goddamnit. This is what he gets for being nice. First he has to protect the secret of a nine generation quirk being passed on to defeat a great evil. Then he has to deliver soup. Now he has to stop whatever the fuck this is.
"Is that a conspiracy theory board?" How did he even get a printed picture of Deku?
Todoroki turned around, and then stepped aside, getsering with his head. Bakugou took it as a permission to come in. He set the papers on the ground and shoved the soup into Todoroki's hands. His pajamas had cats printed on them.
"I have Midoryia's entire family tree mapped." Todoroki said, seemingly oddly proud of himself. "All Might was the son of a hero named Nana Shimura, whose lineage I can trace back at least seven generations to a quirk that had minor stockpiling. None of these relatives had this stockpiling but rather a different entire set of quirks. All Might's birthday admittedly doesn't line up with any time Nana Shimura would have had with her husband, but she did have a son she gave up to the foster care system when she died that was ten years younger then All Might. And although All Might didn't live in Shizuoka-"
"What the actual fuck." Bakugou rubbed his forefinger and thumb on the section of skin between his eyebrows. "Okay, first off, what the actual fuck. Second off-"
"I'm only showing this to you because you are his friend and knew him at a young age."
"You want me to fucking- what? Check your notes?"
Todoroki nodded quite seriously. His face was flushed with fever and he should be lying down. He looked frail enough that one good kick to the shoulders would knock him to the mats under their feet, and since he had chosen to wrap his futon around him like a blanket Bakugou wouldn't have to worry about making sure he was actually in bed. He was wearing his pajamas anyway, so anywhere he laid would be, technically, a bed.
Bakugou considered his options. He could throw himself out the window. He could just leave. He could set the board on fire. He could kick Todoroki in the shoulders, which always made him happy.
But somehow, Todoroki Shouto in his fever-addled state completely discovered the secret of One for All. For all the wrong reasons. And because Deku and All Might weren't here to do damage control, he had to step up and do his duty as the self appointed protector of One for All. Because he owed it that much to All Might, since he ruined his career. So instead of kicking Todoroki, he held back a sigh and a scoff and looked at the stupid corkboard.
It was easy to find mistakes. The past users weren't actually biologically related in any way, so he could add things like "Yoichi and his husband didn't have children" or "En is Deku's grandfather, but not All Might's." Todoroki attempted to take frantic notes, but it just looked like scribbles. Bakugou wondered if he could steal it when Todoroki wasn't looking and gaslight him into thinking the whole conversation was a fever dream. He would have to do something about the corkboard too.
Then he saw it. October 2x98. Todoroki had All Might tracked to a ward near their hometown, somehow. Probably not using the same tracker Bakugou used, which was much more reliable than the actual hero stats on their websites. He grinned.
"Deku was born premature, so this date is wrong."
Todoroki's eyes narrowed. "No it's not. He was born in July. It says so in my phone contact for him."
"Yeah, he was born in July, but he was premature."
Todoroki's face only looked more blank. "He's more mature than most of our classmates."
"No, he was literally born premature. Like smaller than normal? He had to stay in the hospital for a few weeks because he was too tiny and weak to handle the harsh realities of the outside world." Bakugou snickered.
Todoroki considered this. "So I should have searched in November instead."
"Yep." Bakugou popped the "p." He watched Todroki's face go from slightly flush with fever to one side going fully red.
Todoroki slowly turned towards his hard work, gently pressing a palm onto the corkboard.
Then he set the whole thing on fire.
Midoryia woke up to some minor shuffling sound in his room. He was instantly awake, One for All curling under him like a shield. He threw his blanket in the direction of the sound to temporarily blind them, and then kicked his curtains open with a gush of wind so he could have a better visual on the target.
"Midoriya, good, you're awake." Todoroki said from under Midoriya's blanket. He was wearing a flu mask and had a damp washcloth plastered to his face. He smelled like smoke. "I was wondering if you could tell me the exact dates of your mother's pregnancy."
"GET OUT!"
"Understandable. Have a nice day."
The next morning was peaceful. It was Sunday, so Midoriya slept in an extra hour before going out to jog around the UA campus with Ochako. The morning was crisp with the autumn air, and it was just the right temperature to exercise.
Midoriya had explained the events of last night to Ochako. After laughing at him so hard that she tripped over her own two feet, activated her quirk on herself, and proceeded to float three meters in the air while she gasped for breath. Giggles still shook her body. Midoriya pointedly refused to help her get down.
"Forreals though," Ochako says through her hands, her laughter and voice muffled. "It just sounds like he went into the 'All Might is Deku's Dad' Conspiracy."
"There's a conspiracy theory?"
"Yeah," Ochako shrugged, a very difficult move to pull off while in zero g. Deku finally jumped high enough to tug her down to deactivated her quirk. "There's like three youtube videos about it. Mostly clips from the sports festival comparing your quirk to his. It's a stretch, but it's got a niche following. There's always one of those that comes out every year every time someone with a strength quirk shows up in the sports fest'. I think Satou even has one. I think people just dunk on it for shits and giggles, like the 'Trees are not Real' theory."
"Wait, like actual trees? Nevermind, three youtube-"
"Yeah, its dumb. Clearly you're Aizawa's secret lovechild." Ochako rolled her eyes.
"I am not anyone's secret lovechild!" His dad was just a deadbeat bastard who couldn't handle having a quirkless kid, but it's not like he could tell anyone that!
"Uh huh," Ochako said, opening the door to the dorms. "Keep telling yourself that."
Midoriya threw up his hands, and went to the kitchen to grab some water. Ochako followed, clearly intent on teasing him more.
He was just lifting the glass to his lips, about to take a fuckin sip babes, when a familar groggy-with-sleep voice interrupted.
"Midoriya." Midoriya's heart froze.
"Yes?" He squeaked in a very strong and manly way that will totally impress girls. Ochako snorted.
Todoroki looked better. He wasn't as pale and he was standing upright without support from his friends. He also wasn't wrapped in a blanket, but he was still in his pajamas. He had a bundle of burnt papers under his arm, tied up with red string that also looked a bit charred.
"I apologize for my behavior yesterday. It was very inconsiderate of me to ask about your mother's pregnancy. I also want to apologize for all the research I did on your family, as it was none of my business." Todoroki bowed his head, and handed the bundle to Midoriya, who cautiously accepted it. It smelled like a campfire, and most of the papers were browned with heat and unreadable.
"Todoroki, did you set this on fire?" Midoriya asked, carefully. Is this why he smelled like smoke? He untied the bundle, trying to see if he could read any of the text that was written on it.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I was frustrated when I discovered the circumstances of your birth." Todoroki said evenly.
Midoriya and Ochako looked at each other. "You mean because I was born a month early?"
"Yes." Todoroki's voice had no twinge of embarrassment. "I burned my research out of frustration because it meant that none of my dates lined up anymore."
His eyes caught something.
Nana Shimura. Quirk: Float.
Fear gripped his heart.
"How the hell do you know this name?" He flipped the bundle around, pointing to Nana Shimura's name. "What was on this paper?"
Todoroki blinked owlishly. "To be perfectly honest, I did all of this research in a haze and I have no idea. I think I tried to connect several unrelated heroes and vigilantes together in a family tree."
Breath in. Breath out. Ochako tried to muffle her giggles.
"I do apologize for the breach of privacy, both breaking into your dorm and attempting to research your family tree." Todoroki looked so sincere. His eyes were hardened but his lips trembled. He was clearly concerned about the state of their friendship. "I believe I was under the impression your paternal family were all heroes devoted to justice."
Well, he was almost correct. If you thought of One for All like a bloodline, that's exactly what it was. Also if All Might was his dad. God, he wishes. His secret fanfiction of All Might fanfiction consisted almost purely of getting accidentally adopted by All Might, before he deleted it in a wide scrub of his internet history when All Might ACTUALLY adopted him. Sort of. By forcing him to eat his hair.
If Midoriya wasn't so insulted by this obvious breach of privacy, he would be impressed.
"I truly am sorry. This was a horrible violation of the trust you put in me."
Todoroki doesn't lie. And he valued his friendship with Todoroki too much just to throw it away over a flu-induced research dive into a conspiracy theory. Midoriya is guilty of doing that very same thing on too many occasions.
He shudders to think back to his last research dive into a conspiracy theory. He believed birds were fake for almost a week.
Midoriya flipped through the bundle again. "How did you get a photo of me?"
"No idea."
"Well," Midoriya sighs. "I can't really fault you for being curious. You were sick and weren't thinking straight. You aren't the only one guilty of accidentally getting too deep into a conspiracy theory. I forgive you."
Todoroki didn't smile, but did a slow blink like a cat. "Thank you, Midoriya."
He remained while Midoriya took a sip of water. He looked like he still wanted to speak.
"What else?" Midoriya asks, with a bit of a bite of frustration and tiredness.
"Blink twice if you want out of the generational tradition of being a hero."
"Get out."
"Understandable. Have a nice day."
When Todoroki returned to his room, Ochako was floating on the ceiling, arms crossed.
"Your theory was shit."
"How did you get in my room?"
"But I have a vital clue that will add more substance to your theory than anything else." She clasped her hands together.
Todoroki closed the door and sat crossed-legged on the mats. "Please, continue."
Ochako deactivated her quirk and landed on his futon. It smelled of sweat and was slightly damp. She almost immediately rolled off of it, gagging at the stench.
"Okay," She began. "So you know how Shigaraki held Deku hostage that one time at the mall? And it sucked?"
Todoroki nodded.
"Well, I guess he got scared or something when I came up to him and he basically tried to leave. But Deku stopped him, just for a moment."
She breathed in. She's only ever told the cops this, because it seemed so personal.
"He asked, 'What is All for One planning?' And I didn't know this at the time, but that's the name of-"
"The man who can take quirks." Todoroki's eyes widened. "None of us knew who he was at the time. But if Midoriya-"
"-Was part of some sort of secret vigilante bloodline devoted to defeating this guy-"
"-He would know who he was and who his connections were."
"Do you still have your research?" Ochako asked.
Todoroki pulled up the mat he was sitting on and pulled out another folder. "Don't tell Midoriya, I don't want him to be mad at me."
"I just really think this is an invasion of privacy," Midoriya finished, rubbing his forefinger and thumb against his brow. "Like, that's my mom and dad. Who I know haven't uh. Yaknow."
Bakugou shrugged. "Just tell 'em you are All Might's secret lovechild. But like, ironically. It'll totally throw them off."
"No, Kacchan."