AN: Time to tip my hand and tell the people a little bit about how our resident boys landed in the past. Let's do this thing!


Izuku still was still reeling from the revelation. "Dynamight? Is it really you?"

"The one and only" Katsuki grinned. "Now that that's settled, what'd you do to get us here in the first place?"

"I didn't do anything, Kacchan! I fell asleep, talked to All Might and Nana, and woke up here!"

"All Might and N–" He stammered. "You went back into the vision world before you flatlined?"

"Yeah, but all we did was say goodbye. Why, did you see something happen on your end?"

"So to be clear, the lightning and the rainbows and the explosion, none of that was your idea?"

"I don't even know what you're talking about, Kacchan!"

Katsuki sighed. "What time does your mom get back from work?"

He took a minute to think about that one before answering. "She didn't start taking those after-school hours until elementary. She'll be in the car outside to pick me up until I'm 'old enough' to be left alone. Why, what's that got to do with anything?"

"We'll just have to be careful with the conversation then. Luckily for you, I already got it cleared with my parents to go to your house. Come on, I'll explain everything when we have some privacy."

"Well, when we do get there, would you like some tea?"


Flashback

"Goodbye, Kacchan."

Katsuki gave a light grunt of affirmation before Deku drifted off to sleep. His own eyes were squeezed close in dread and what was left of his heart started pounding. He'd never admit it to anyone, but he still had a lot of regrets in his life. So many people who he didn't truly value until they were gone, so much left unsaid and unresolved. The least he could do was be there for Izuku when he passed on.

Within minutes, the sound came that he wished he would never hear again: Flat line.

It was over. His oldest and closest friend was finally put to rest. A heavy lump formed in Katsuki's throat and a sick feeling came to his gut. A single tear fell down his face.

He was about to call a nurse and tell them what had happened, but he was stopped by a low humming noise. He turned around, curious. The humming seemed to be coming from Midoriya's body. Izuku then began to glow a familiar golden color with neon pink lines to highlight the nerves beneath the skin. Why was his quirk turning on now?

Suddenly the illuminated body began to glow brighter and change its hue rapidly. From the classic gold to a sunrise orange, a fiery red, a royal purple, and a chilling blue, and then into a green far richer and more vibrant than his hair had ever been. The humming got louder as the body continued flashing through its rainbow coloring. The neon colors mixed and matched until multi-colored stripes ran across the body in a shimmering, technicolor display. 'Did he have a disco ball quirk or something?' Katsuki idly wondered in the back of his mind. For a moment he dared to hope Deku had some dormant healing quirk they never knew about, and he might be blessed with a few years more with his friend. He reached out for Midoriya's hand again and squeezed it. The rainbow coloring then exploded outward in a massive blast, blinding Katsuki. For a moment, the world went dark. No sound, no vision, no reality.

"Katsuki get your butt out of bed! You're gonna be late!"

The nagging voice sounded eerily familiar, but the source of it was long gone from this world. Katsuki opened his eyes to find himself in his childhood bedroom with his mother towering over his bedside, looking like she was 30 again.

"Mom?" Katsuki murmured. "What happened? What are you doing here?"

"Where else would I be? You need to get out of your jammies and get some food in you before school."

If she was present, was he dead too? Had whatever Deku's body done been enough to kill them both off?

"Mom in the nicest way possible, why are you alive?"

His question was met with one of the pillows on the side of the bed plucked up and tossed back in his face. Not hard enough to actually hurt, but enough to show Mitsuki was annoyed with him. He probably deserved that.

"Mind your manners, brat! I'm not gonna tell you again, get up!"

Katsuki looked down at his own body and quickly realized he was tiny, like a kid. But even better: as he kicked the blankets off, he realized that this meant all his bodily functions were working again.

"Holy shit" he whispered under his breath. His legs were moving on their own again!

At that, Mitsuki bent down and looked at him with a serious expression. "Where'd you learn that kind of language, Katsuki? ... You didn't hear it from me, right? I thought I was being extra careful not to cuss in the house, Masaru and I agreed until you were older…" That last part seemed more to herself than to her son and drifted off quickly.

What exactly was the play here? Try to explain the situation? That Deku had a quirk accident and sent him back here in a child's body?

'Hey, you old hag! The reason I thought you were dead and I know how to curse now is because I'm actually from the future! This whole thing is probably All Might's fault because he gave Deku a quirk and never bothered to tell us it could make you time travel! Oh and by the way, I took your advice to get laid and I pumped you out some grandkids, and then you got leukemia and dad had heart failure before you both could meet your great grandkids!'

Like that would ever go off well. No, his best course of action was to play along and try to find Deku to see if he knew what was going on. Until he got to him, he just needed to deal with his mom's current issue. In his younger years he would usually meet her stubborn attitude with his own and let the situation resolve itself through a shouting match; but his wife had convinced him to try to be nice to people to deescalate problems, and sometimes it actually worked. Time to see if it would work with his cranky mother in her youth.

"I heard some old timer say it on the street, and I thought it sounded cool. I guess the dead thing would sound pretty disrespectful too. Sorry if I upset you, mom." Simple, direct, to the point. That should appease her.

Mitsuki blinked. "That's very mature of you to say, Katsuki. Inko's kid must be rubbing off on you real good."

"Sure, let's go with that." Two birds, one stone. "Speaking of De- Izuku, is it alright if I go over to his house today?"

"That's fine with me. I'll text Inko later and let her know I'll pick you up before dinner."

"Thank you. Now, do you mind getting out so I can change?"

Mitsuki put her hands up. "Alright brat, just be quick. Breakfast is getting cold. And when you get down here, your dad and I are probably gonna talk to you about using cuss words. Alright?"

Before she closed the door, Katsuki started thinking about how he felt after she had died. "Hey mom?" She paused and glanced back. He was never good with being tender, but he wanted to try. "You're a pretty cool mom. Thanks for, everything you do for me."

His pride had kept him from admitting things like that for years, but the smile on her face made opening up totally worth it.

As he reached for a t-shirt and pants from the dresser, he took the chance to jump around and kick his legs while in the air. It was nice to be able to stand again at all.


The pair had made their way back to the Midoriya house. Inko was doing laundry in the basement, so Izuku took the liberty of making them tea while Katsuki told the story.

"What'd they say about your language? I can't imagine Aunt Mitsuki telling you off for swearing with her vocabulary." Izuku said.

"She said it was a healthy way to express anger, but to respect the people who don't like hearing it and don't use it in school. Same stuff the fabric guy said to me when I worked for him back in the day, minus the junk about acting classy. Is that really the most important thing right now though?"

"Sorry, please continue."

"When I got to school, you were absent in the first couple hours. When you showed up after naptime talking about being smarter and you drew that sketch in class, I realized you were the Izuku I knew. That's why I used the name Deku, I wanted to tip you off that I knew what was really going on. Anything in that story ring a bell for you?"

"Sorry, I still got nothing." Izuku took the time to internally process what that meant for him. "If One For All activated after my death, then it seems likely that it's responsible for this whole thing. I've never heard of a quirk that resets your timeline and the people touching you."

"Didn't the past users tell you about their quirks and how to use them during the war?" Katsuki asked before sipping his tea.

"Most of them, yeah. But we managed to beat All For One and Shigaraki without unlocking the second user's quirk, and he never told me what it really was. He insisted that it didn't matter if I would never need to use it. He was a real stubborn piece of work like that."

"So he had some kind of universal reset button, and he never bothered to tell you about it? I've got a few choice words for that guy."

Izuku laughed. "I'm pretty sure he's dead now, Kacchan. Good luck finding him again."

"You still don't have the quirk then?"

"Nope, it's just plain old me now."

Katsuki snorted. "Emphasis on old. So what's the plan here?"

Izuku tilted his head. "Plan?"

"Yeah. I'm thinking we lay low here for a couple days, play nice with the preschoolers, and then start working out! We can do some crunches and pushups – you know, get into shape like the old days – and then we kick some villain ass! Somewhere on the way, we'll get All Might to give you his quirk so you can get back in the void and beat the tar out of Two for not telling you this stuff! After that it's just a crapshoot until we're in the Top Ten. Maybe we'll stop for a beer somewhere in the middle."

Izuku reached for the teapot and filled his cup again while he replied: "Katsuki, we're kids. I don't think our bodies have the motor skills or upper body strength to do anything you just suggested."

"Then how do you explain the drawing you did at school? You're holding a teapot as big as your head right now!"

Izuku paused and stared at the chinaware. It was true that he was lifting it with one arm, even as the liquid sloshed around inside. It was slightly heavy, but manageable for him. Could a normal kid do that? Could even a gifted 4-year-old have done that sketch? How much muscle memory and motor skill had made the jump with them?

"Okay, say that you're right and some of our skill sets came back with us. It doesn't change the fact that we're really small and have zero connections. Without hero licenses, we can't actually fight villains; and I doubt the Commission is going to give us some just because we claim we're from the future."

"Then what do you suggest, nerd?"

"Well, I agree that we should start by testing the basics of what our current physical frames can handle. After that, it'd be a pretty good idea to do some research and figure out where everybody is. If we can alter fate, we should have a pretty good idea where all the pieces of the puzzle go first. Then I guess we can either start gaining allies, or resume life as per usual until we can realistically get on the hero train. There isn't a lot we can do in our current state."

"You can't be serious right now! We've got a chance to do some real good here, and you just want to sit on your hands and do nothing? We. Are. Heroes, Deku! It doesn't matter what bodies we're in! All Might tasked us to save people and beat all the villains, and I'm gonna do just that no matter what I look like!"

"I'm not disagreeing with you here, I'm just trying to be realistic!" Truthfully Izuku did like the sound of that – it was great to hear Katsuki talking like his old, heroic self again – but the issue still remained. "We need to start thinking about this problem from different angles and try to figure out what we can do with our knowledge of the future. I'll concede that in the grand scheme of things, vigilantism is a small price to pay for guaranteeing everyone's safety. But until we've got some allies, we need to find a way to help everybody without getting into the forefront ourselves."

How could they save lives without directly beating all the villains? Who even was considered a villain at this point if they're in before the League rises to power?

Wait.

"So about your idea, buddy: who says we necessarily have to defeat the villains to stop them?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"The League of Villains, right? Most of them aren't technically villains yet. They're just normal civilians living their lives and dealing with their trauma. But if someone were to come along and convince them there was a better path, All For One would have a much smaller lineup to pick from in the eventual war. The Liberation Front would be down several lieutenants, and maybe the heroes could get some new candidates out of the affair."

Katsuki rubbed his chin. "I'm following you so far."

"In fact, there's a lot of people that might have had some happier endings if they just had someone there early on to help them work their issues out, not just the villains. If we can find a way to travel Japan a bit, we could find some of our friends and acquaintances from the future and give them a better shot at hero work."

"Well, I do like telling people they're wrong. Beats doing nothing." His face scrunched in thought, and he followed up with: "This is semi-related, but you think we can we get those bastards at HNN while we're at it?"

Izuku laughed. "I don't recall them saying anything against you, Kacchan. I mean, they accused me of being a mass murderer in high school, but that's my biggest gripe."

"I was listening to them on the radio last night while I drove to the hospital. They said that you became Number One in high school and stayed there for 70 years straight! That's such a bald-faced lie, I probably would have sued them for slander if I didn't end up here!"

"Is that why you were so ticked off when you visited me? You were mad they didn't credit you for the years you beat me in the rankings?"

"It wasn't just for me, Deku! That spot was shuffled around a ton over the years.: I know you had it the most, but IcyHot had it, the Million guy had it, and yeah – I had it too. Your own wife beat you one year, you remember that?"

"She never did let me forget that, no. But I do see what you're saying; the media wanted to paint a picture of another unbeatable symbol like All Might, so they shafted other good heroes in the process."

"Yeah. And I'm real happy you had your 'Symbol of Hope' thing and you had everybody calling you 'greatest hero of them all', but if we're doing this again I'd really like to make sure everybody's getting their proper recognition. They can hate me for all I care, but I'm sticking it to the man that you're not the only one helping people."

"And I'll be right there with you telling them, Kacchan."

Before they could talk further, they heard the basement door open and the sound of the laundry basket hitting the couch. "Izuku, Katsuki, where are you both right now?" Inko called.

"We're in the kitchen mom!" Izuku shouted back.

"Mitsuki said she was picking Katsuki up before dinner, but I did buy enough groceries for 3 today, so you're more than welcome to stay for–" She paused and sniffed the air. "What's that smell, dear?"

Katsuki answered first. "Izuku made tea, Aunt Inko. Do you want to join us for a cup?"

"You, made tea?" Inko seemed very confused. "You mean, you filled the pot with warm water and pretended it's tea?"

Izuku started walking to the shelf and used a stepstool to reach another mug. "No no, I used the jasmine tea in the cupboard. Here, have a cup." Izuku discovered in adulthood that he was particularly fond of green tea, but they didn't seem to have any in the house on that particular day. He poured the tea, extra careful not to spill it or drop anything, and handed the mug to his mom.

Inko looked at it hesitantly. She was probably expecting it to taste like bath water or something. Nonetheless she took a small sip. Once she got that sweet flavor on her tongue, she took a much larger drink. "Mmm. Izuku, that's really good, but how did you make this?"

Izuku bashfully rubbed his neck. "The key ingredients are patience, love, and a steady hand. Fortunately I had all three in spades thanks to a wonderful mother!"

"Deku, you're gonna make me throw up."

That got a chuckle out of Inko, interrupting her cooing from Izuku's compliment. "Oh Katsuki, you're so much like your mom! Maybe one day you'll find yourself a nice girl to settle down with, and then you won't think the mushy stuff is so gross."

That made Bakugou turn his head away, likely to hide a pained expression. Izuku was quick to change the subject. "So mom, did you have a nice day at work?"

This got the conversation rolling as the two boys sat and talked with Inko about their day. She was as amazed as everyone else by Izuku's drawing, asking if he wanted to become a professional artist. Izuku laughed and told her that he didn't have plans for it, but it wasn't off the table completely. All in all, a pleasant conversation with the remarkable woman that raised him (and is now raising him again without realizing).

After a few hours, there was a knock on the door.

"Oh, that must be your mother, Katsuki. I completely forgot to ask her if you could stay for dinner! Sorry dear, maybe you can stay for dinner tomorrow. Please gather your things while I let her in."

Katsuki nodded his head and reached for the small backpack by his chair.

"So when you come over tomorrow, we'll start testing the limits and discussing our strategy from here. That work for you, Kacchan?" He got a nod from Katsuki, so he assumed the conversation was finished. But then the blonde did something unexpected: He walked close and put his hand on Izuku's shoulder.

"Hey, Deku" he said, his voice low and quiet. "Before I go, I just wanna say…" he looked like he was really struggling to find the right words, "I'm glad you're not dead, and I'll be glad to work with you on this."

"Is this gonna be a regular thing for you, Kacchan? Are you finally listening to your wife and being nice full-time?"

"Don't get too comfy, nerd. I've got a bunch of insults I didn't get to use before you died, and I fully intend to get them all out there now! Stay sharp, 'cause the Great God of Explosion Murder's on the job again!"

"Looking forward to it. Take care!"

And thus the Symbol of Victory was out the door with Mitsuki. Izuku smiled, glad that things with his old friend were getting back to the way they were meant to be.

Inko stepped back into the kitchen. "Izuku, I just talked it over with Mitsuki. The weather's going to be very nice tomorrow, so we thought you might want to go with the Bakugou's to the park. After that, I'd like to make some katsudon for dinner and bake a cake to celebrate your quirk coming in. Does that sound good to you, dear?"

'She's so thoughtful!' "That would be great, mom. Thank you so much!"

Izuku had missed having his mom with him. He'd need to spend as much time with her as he could while he tried to save the world. But that goal could wait one more day while he had dinner with her.


To be continued…

AN: Once again I have to thank you all for being so kind and supportive on the first two chapters. When I was doing YouTube full-time, my comment section there was a barren wasteland and it always left me feeling unsatisfied. Not to sound insecure or hammy, but I wouldn't be able to do this kind of thing if you guys weren't there with me every step of the way!

That's all I got, so see you guys next time. Peace!