Midoriya walked into the common room and was hit by a wave of Ashido's rambunctious laughter.
"Oh my God, I'll look so ugly!!!!" Sero was choking out through fits of giggles, looking between the phone in his hands and Kirishima.
"You and me both, buddy," Kaminari said with the glee of someone who knew that whilst they were in trouble, they weren't in trouble alone anymore.
Bakugou was sat at the table eating breakfast, periodically yelling at the rest of his friend group to shut up, whilst they proceeded to ignore him completely and continue playing around with something on the pink phone. Eventually, Bakugou got sick and tired of hearing them and strode over, growling about how he wanted peace and quiet for his meal.
"Dunce face!! Why'd you bring this shit up now?????"
Midoriya slunk past them all and made his way to the counter to pick up his phone, which he'd left there by accident when he'd gone upstairs to do his homework. It was 9AM on a Sunday, and he was honestly surprised that Bakugou was up this late and that the others were up this early. He knew he had to get up at the crack of dawn for his daily run but he wasn't expecting such enthusiasm from the rest of the class only a few hours later.
As he slid past them a second time to get to the stairs, Kaminari called out to him.
"Hey Midoriya! Have you seen the new snapchat filter??"
Midoriya, admittedly, felt a little like a grandpa now. Social media wasn't his strong point, and he'd only downloaded snapchat to keep tabs on the heroes who also used it. Never to point the phone at himself and take a picture of his plain-looking face.
"What filter…?" He chuckled nervously, and Kaminari jumped into a description of it, effectively shutting up the rest of the group. Kirishima, Sero, Bakugou, and Ashido all stopped fighting over the phone – Ashido's it seemed – and turned to face him. Four sets of eyes burned into him like a branding iron.
"It's this filter that shows what you'll look like when you grow up!!!" Kaminari exclaimed. "Ashido, Ashido!! Show him the picture of me!!" He lifted his hand in a finger gun sign and placed his chin between his thumb and forefinger, winking. "I'm gonna look sooooo hot when I'm older!"
Bakugou scoffed and Sero snickered whilst Kirishima looked at Kaminari pityingly.
Ashido took her phone back and pressed a few things on the screen rapidly, before turning the phone around so that Midoriya could see it. The freckly boy gently raised the phone slightly so the light no longer bounced off of it, and he was met with the handsome (?) face of an older Kaminari.
"I see," he mumbled, "so the filter elongates the face slightly and makes the eyes smaller, it also gives you facial hair, unless…." He looked up at Ashido. "Do you have to tell it you're a woman?"
Ashido blinked at him and then coughed up a ball of laughter. "Are you mad???? How little-?? Do you really think that in this day and age snapchat isn't able to tell if you're likely to receive facial hair or not??"
"Well you could be non-binary, or a man with a mutant quirk that forbids-"
"This filter is the company showing off their top-notch tech!!" she continued right over him, "it not only scans your face, but needs a reference picture from when you were a child, and one from your mum, and one from your dad!"
Ah, well. There was a problem for Midoriya. "I don't have-"
"The nerd doesn't-"
This time it was Kirishima that interrupted them both, patting Ashido on the shoulder and reminding her gently that, "actually you don't need a picture from either parent, it's only more accurate it you do. I think the filter can give you a vague suggestion of what you'll look like in the future just based on how you've already developed from a child to a teen."
"It's not like it's gospel though, you bunch a morons," Bakugou reminded them grumpily. He crossed his arms and jut his bottom lip out in enragement. Midoriya could only guess what Bakugou's picture had made him look like.
As if reading his mind, Kaminari suicidally suggested, "do you wanna see Kacchan's???"
He tried to pry the phone out of Ashido's hands at the same time as Bakugou tried to pry Jamming Yay's head off of his body.
"You ended up looking like your dad with your mum's hair, didn't you?" Midoriya asked with a sense of foreboding, though the darkness in his voice was misunderstood by the group as being mocking.
"HHAHHH????" Bakugou screamed, "FUCK OFF! I AIN'T GONNA LOOK LIKE THAT!!!!"
So it was a yes then. Poor Masaru.
"Hey hey Midoriya!!" Ashido bounced up to him with Kaminari in tow, both of them grinning maniacally. "Text me a picture of you and your parents and let's see what you'll look like!!!"
Kirishima and Sero nodded twice, humming. Bakugou scoffed and stomped back to his food.
"Uhhh, yeah!!" Midoriya said shyly, turning on the phone in his hand and typing out a message to his mum to send him the three pictures.
"I don't actually have any on me but I've texted my mum sooo…"
"That's fine!!" Ashido cheered, and the other boys huffed and double-nodded sagely again.
Just as Midoriya's phone pinged with a text from his mum, Jiro walked in and the group of 4 sped off to barricade the doorway. Midoriya heard Jiro wailing about the fuss her classmates were kicking up, though it was muffled by said classmates' ceaseless stream of noise. You'd think there was a whole crowd of hero hooligans for the amount of chaos they brought with them everywhere they went.
He unlocked his phone and read the reply his mum sent him:
Mum 3: I don't have any pictures of your father.
Mum 3: Or at leats I cant find them.
Mum 3: I meant least! Sorry my love.
Mum 3: What do you need them for?
It's just for something silly with friends :Me
Don't worry about it :Me
Pls send me pictures of me as a child and of you from whenever though!! :Me
His phone pinged with an affirmative followed by a heart emoji. Following that came through two photos.
One was of Midoriya when he was around five or six. He looked awfully happy, despite Midoriya remembering the day of the picture very well. He was already openly quirkless at that point, so nobody had come to his birthday. In the end, his mother had assured him that the party was empty solely because nobody could make it, and that they'd have a day out together and his birthday would be postponed. Hence the lack of candles on the cake in front of him. He remembered that his mother must've called Mitsuki to ask why she didn't come, only to find out about Bakugou shredding the invitation before she could see it.
Bakugou did come to his postponed birthday in the end, and was forced to treat him somewhat civilly since there was no place to hide when they were the only kids. But as soon as Monday came around Bakugou had made sure to burn the festive cheer right out of him. Possibly forever.
He wasn't sure why the memory hurt still; he didn't really care about his past. Couldn't. Not so much because he'd made peace with it, but because he had more important things to care about, and it'd been pushed away out of necessity. Maybe that was exactly why reopening that wound hurt. Because it no longer felt like it was his.
It felt like he wasn't actually Deku, who'd survived years' worth of bullying and had become a hero against the odds; he was a beloved, quirked teen who'd just inherited the name after Deku-the-quirkless-child's untimely death. In honour of him.
If he hadn't received All Might's quirk, would he even still be alive? The moment he'd taken it he'd known that it meant closing the book that had been his life, and starting a new one. Sure he'd imported some features from the earlier novel, like Bakugou and trauma, but… still….
He wasn't Deku, Deku was just the one kid that he hadn't managed to save.
Well. That was gloomy, he thought.
"MidoriyaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAA!!!!!" Kaminari howled as he crashed towards him with the others following behind.
Midoriya brushed his unnecessary melancholy aside and smiled warmly. He did sometimes wonder what they'd think if he was quirkless still. But he hadn't the courage to ask yet. Besides, considering Todoroki's surprising passion on the topic, he thought he was in good hands.
He sent Ashido the picture of him beaming before his sad, lonely cake, as well as the much more joyful picture of his mum. He couldn't remember when it was taken, but she hadn't grown eye wrinkles yet, and she seemed taller than she actually was – an effect which Midoriya assumed came from the camera angle. Her face was plenty clear, so despite it being a full-body picture it was more than viable for their snapchat adventure.
Ashido crunched some pictures into her phone and then handed it back to him in time for him to watch as the photos of him and his mother finished uploading. Then they disappeared and he was met with his own face in the camera.
"Nothing's changed…" he said slowly, angling his face to see if the filter just hadn't activated right.
Ashido laughed at him. Sero sighed.
"I said the same thing too," he groaned, "turns out you actually have to take the picture before the filter applies."
Kaminari rolled his eyes behind him, but Kirishima just stood there with his fists close to his chest, looking much too pumped for someone doing nothing.
"I see…" Midoriya said, "am I-…… Should I do a specific expression…?"
"Yeah smile!!" Ashido cheered, bouncing on the spot.
"Nah don't do that," Kaminari brushed her off with a wave of his hand, "sometimes it makes it look creepy as hell, I don't know why though. I…." he trailed off.
"Maybe it sets the lighting off?" Kirishima suggested.
"Who knows?" Sero replied, "I just took a picture with a straight face, like a passport shot."
"That's probably why it looked crap."
"Oi!!"
Midoriya tuned them out, and focused back on the phone. He lifted it back up to his face and, sure enough, it was just him. Pre-filter. He faced the camera head on and took the picture whilst looking over the camera rather than the screen.
He didn't look back at the screen.
In his peripheral vision he made out Ashido's curious expression, as well as the image morphing in his hand, though he was too scared to look at it. Wait, why was he scared to look at it??
Maybe it was because it felt like tempting fate, in the same way as reading a tarot card sealed your future; maybe he was subconsciously worried that seeing his 'future face' would solidify it in reality. But that was ridiculous. Right? And yet he was terrified to look. He wasn't shaking in his boots per se, he just let himself lock up, with his arm partially outstretched, his eyes turned to the unblinking camera. So long as nobody interrupted this moment, he was content to just not look.
"Mido...?" came Kirishima's reluctant voice.
And now his heart was pounding.
His eyes widened, and he slowly let the phone (and the arm holding it) down. Sero had placed himself right behind Midoriya's right arm, so his was the first face he saw when he relaxed. His eyes were scrunched up a little, and the left corner of his mouth twitched.
"You ok there buddy….?" He slowly brought up a hand as if he meant to touch Midoriya, but didn't.
"Is it ugly???!!!" Kaminari beamed with waaaaaaaaaay too much enthusiasm for someone trying to be helpful.
It snapped Midoriya out of it.
"Ah! Well!" He grinned nervously, bringing his left arm up to scratch behind his neck as a gaseous little snake of purple nausea hit his heart. "I, uh…… haven't looked… yet….."
All four of them blinked twice in unison.
"Can we see?" they all asked, sounding like elementary school children asking teachers to turn the TV on, or whatever else children do in elementary school which Izuku didn't because he was trying to avoid-
"Yeah!" He mentally slapped himself out of those thoughts. It was weird how when he was getting attacked verbally (and sometimes physically by the resident king explosion murder) on the daily, he could just go home and forget about it. But now…. Why did it hurt so much worse after the fact? Probably because he now had the luxury to mull over it when he would've done anything to just act like it was old news by the time he got home when it was still going on.
He shook his head a little and caught their contagious smiles.
Whatever.
"You go ahead and see it first, tell me if it looks bad so I'll brace myself," he joked.
Sero reached for the phone alongside Ashido, but Kirishima, surprisingly, snatched it from Midoriya before the two had even considered him a competitor for it.
"I bet you'll look so manly when you're older Midoriya!!" he was saying, turning the phone over in his hand and then realising it had turned off. "You've got the spirit already!!"
He passed the phone back to Ashido who unlocked it with her fingerprint and wailed as she waited for snapchat to reload the image. "He's not gonna look manly when he gets older, he's going to stay all adorable and cute!!"
Cute??????
"Aren't you Midoriya ?!!!"
God he hated being put on the spot.
"Oh yeah! Of course!" he squeaked.
Nailed it.
He watched as Ashido brought the phone up to her and Kaminari's faces, eliciting anguished cries from Kirishima and Sero who 'can't see!! Let me see!!', and then a big smile from the acid hero.
"Oh. My-!!! Oh my-"
So evidently the picture looked awful, considering the hungry eyes Ashido devoured the picture with. Beside her Kaminari looked rather disappointed. So apparently he didn't look comic either, just awful. Duly noted.
"Goddammit pass the phone round!" Sero said, sounding strangled as he tried to pry the phone from Ashido's hands.
"NOOOO!! I want to keep looking at it!!" she hummed childishly.
Midoriya shrank back on himself a bit. Kirishima looked at him softly, always one to empathise, and then persuaded Ashido to hand over the phone to him and Sero so that they could actually pass a verdict on it and then give it to Midoriya.
She puffed up her cheeks but extended her right arm out to the side and let the two boys snatch it up like hungry pigeons. They both stared at it for a second with no reaction, as if they were reading something. Except there was no text, and he could not imagine what they were trying to process.
"Woah," Kirishima let out in a tiny voice.
"THAT'S IT??????" Ashido screamed, almost making Midoriya jump a foot in the air. "ARE YOU BLIND?? DO YOU SEE HOW HOT HE IS?????"
Eh?
"I mean yeah, my picture didn't make me look all grown up like that. The fuck?" Sero affirmed with a voice tinged with… awe…? Was that what it was? Not reproach????
"Man…." Kirishima breathed, his mouth slowly crinkling up into a mega smile. "I TOLD YOU HE WAS GONNA LOOK MANLY AS HELL!!!!"
"It's manly and cute!!!" Ashido gushed.
And Midoriya was having a really hard time dealing with that because what??? Was he not going to be plain looking?? Then what would his identity be? Who was he if not someone that could merge into the background? Would he have to anticipate people approaching him???
No. He couldn't be ridiculous, there was always the chance that they were trying to build up his confidence, or that they were just taking the-
"I reaaaaally hope he grows up to look like that, it'll be so good for my eyes. Especially since I'll have to see Kaminari's face-"
"Man, fuck off!" he snapped half-heartedly, "it's not my fault that not everyone is Mr. Glowup here."
Midoriya almost raised his hands to ask to speak, or – at least – see the goddamn picture, but they had completely forgotten he was there…
…And they were still saying nice things.
It… It was genuine…?
Well then. Better hope that this was indeed like tarot cards.
Please God, let me be exactly what's on the phone screen when I grow up. Let me have just this one thing.
He thought about it some more.
Well, this one thing except my quirk I guess.
"C-can I-…" Curse my nerves! I sound like I did at the start of the year. "Can I see the picture?" Midoriya asked meekly.
Ashido, Kaminari, and Sero stopped fighting for dominance over who got to see, and Kirishima walked over behind Midoriya. Presumably to get another peek of the photo over his shoulder. Ashido went a little pinker than usual and muttered out an apology, Sero did much the same, scratching the back of his neck. They handed Midoriya the phone, and he snapped his eyes shut.
He pulled the phone in front of him, so that it'd be the first thing he saw when his eyes opened, and he heard Kirishima gasp over his shoulder (despite having already seen the picture and it being no surprise to him).
He opened his eyes and stared at the phone.
All for One stared back.
Midoriya's eyes widened in horror. Somehow the app had decided to age him up by lengthening his face slightly, making his nose more prominent, and making his eyes smaller.
It wasn't like he was a carbon copy of the man who'd haunted his nightmares (he had green hair, All for One had white. Midoriya had green eyes and All for One's were always covered: by shadows or scars.) But there was some… unfortunate resemblance.
"Will I really look like this?" he choked out.
You know what – actually god, I think I take it back. I don't actually want to look like that-
"Yeah!!!!" Ashido cheered, clapping her hands, "I just knew you'd get emotional! Don't you see how smart you look!"
"I wouldn't call this-"
He was cut off by Ashido's fangirl noise and Kirishima's corresponding call.
"Man!" he sniffed passionately, "you're gonna look super manly! I'm so proud of you! And for you!"
Midoriya felt a drip of sweat trail down the back of his neck. "Thanks guys."
He looked around for an escape, he needed an excuse.
"Don't we have homework though?" he said.
The quartet blinked at him mindlessly.
I guess that doesn't make a lot of sense without the context that I'm trying to escape to have a mental breakdown in peace.
"Uhh, I mean! I'm really really grateful for all your compliments but, uh, I have to catch up on homework, what with the internships and all that-"
"Didn't all homework for that get cancelled because of the wa-"
"-So I still actually have homework from a year ago!"
"Wow, dude. And I thought I was behind!" Kaminari laughed.
Sero spiritually took on Iida's role and sighed, "Kaminari, you need to get a grip."
"Stop being a mum!"
"Dude, it's not manly to be late on homework! Did you get an extension?"
"Oh yeah!" he lied through his teeth, "So I need to go make a start on it!"
Kirishima gave him a thumbs up and Kaminari threw up a peace sign in solidarity. Sero and Ashido huffed in disappointment, either at his departure, or at Kaminari…. being Kaminari.
Regardless, Midoriya waved them all goodbye and then started to ascend the staircase. He thought he heard Ashido yell something but it was muffled, and it might not have even been for him, so he saw no point in embarrassing himself by turning back only to be shooed away.
He made it to his door in a fair amount of time. Nobody watching him walk (not that he suspected that anyone would be bored enough to bother but Aoyama was always a wild card) would suspect he was worried. Because he wasn't. There was nothing to be worried about at all.
He jumped as his phone pinged, and he pulled it out of his pocket as he reached for his door handle with his other hand.
Once inside his room he looked through his texts:
Acid: Hey hey Mido! You left before I could ask but
Acid: Well I did aks on the stairs but I think your deaf
Acid: But anyway you left before I could ask
Acid: did you want to see your pic?
Acid: I mean like did you want me to send it to u????
Before he could send her a firm no, she'd already sent it.
Acid: [image]
Acid: You look so cute!!!
He groaned.
Thanks Ashido!! :Me
Acid: Np!! :3
He almost put his phone away when another few messages rolled in.
Acid: Hey, weird question but
Acid: Can you send more?
Acid: Like???
Acid: Get the app,
Acid: And put in more pictures of your ma and u
Acid: And ur pa if you find one
Acid: or put all might or something ;))))))
Acid: Cos Kirishima wants to see more angles,
Acid: I think he wants to model his future look closer to urs
Acid: Not the hair but like
Acid: Contour
Absolutely not.
Acid: And Kaminari isn't buying that that's acc wat ur gonna look like sooooo
Acid: Take some other pics
Acid: Prove him wrongggg
Acid: And sned me themmmm!!!
Midoriya felt all of the energy he gained from breakfast seep out of him, and he flopped to his bed like a deflating whoopee cushion. His arm dropped to the mattress and his phone bounced off of it, buzzing some more as it landed.
What could Ashido want now?
But the phone kept buzzing, insistently. Then it stopped. Then it started up again. Then it-
Oh god someone's calling.
He turned onto his side and scooped the damn thing back up.
Incoming call: Mum 3
He picked up.
"Hey Izuku! You didn't actually tell me why you needed pictures of us…"
"Uhh.."
"Not that I'm upset!" she backtracked quickly, "I was just getting curious, and… y'know… I haven't much else to do except ponder."
Her voice took on a more fragile tone.
"Did-… Did you miss me and your father…? I'm sorry that he wasn't more present-"
"No, no! Not at all!" he declared and then mentally slapped himself. "I mean! I do care! I do miss you! But I'm not terrified and alone in need of pictures or anything!"
"Then… Why the pictures?" she asked again politely.
He took a deep breath. "My friends wanted me to try out some app," he explained, waving a hand around in the air. "It needs pictures of you and your family and then it edits a picture you take of your face with an estimate of what you'll look like when you're older."
"Oh! But I didn't send you any pictures of your father…"
"It's fine," he assured, it's not – look at what that bloody filter did to my face, "it can work off of one parent but the results might be a bit less accurate." He paused for a moment. "Not that it's perfectly accurate in the first place."
"Oh how interesting!" she giggled. "I've got to go shopping soon so this is only a quick call but–" he heard some rustling and the jingle of keys "–do send me those pictures, my love. I'll tell you if they look realistic or if you look completely unrelated to your father. Your father had a very memorable face after all, even if it was a bit plain!"
Actually that was…. a pretty good plan. She could see the picture, tell him that it looked absolutely nothing like his father, and then instead of taking more photos for Ashido, he could send her a screenshot of his mother's statement.
Yes, he'd let Kaminari win, but a victory against Kaminari came at too high a cost.
"Yeah! That'd be great mum!" He smiled, and then she kissed him goodbye and hung up.
He brought the phone away from his ear and wiped the screen clear of his cheek-print, before opening the cursed photo for hopefully the last time just to send it to his mother.
[Image] :Me
Delivered
He glared at the screen for 5 minutes before it became apparent that his mother wasn't going to answer; he'd sent the text just a little too late. She was probably out of the house right now, not looking at her phone because, well, this wasn't exactly an emergency was it? Except that it was. It definitely was. And now Midoriya had to suffer through another hour or so without confirmation that he would never look anything like the bastard. Shit.
He paced around the room three times, refusing to look back on the picture. But then he had to. He flopped back down onto the bed and stared at it. At the short, green mop of hair, the small green eyes, the long but angular face, the much more pronounced nose. It was all sharp angles and tiny curls. It was barely recognisable as himself. He thought that if he were to wipe away the freckles and change the hair's colour, it'd be a different man entirely. Though, could he not say the same for himself now? He did have a rather generic face…
He screwed his eyes shut and hit the back button on his phone repeatedly, until he was sure that he had to be at the home screen again, and then he opened his eyes and stared blankly at his All Might phone background.
He put the phone down.
Since Aizawa was notorious for giving them relentless amounts of homework, it was probably in his best bets to get a start on whatever monstrocity he'd assigned for the weekend now. Except that this turned out to be a mistake, because there wasn't actually that much maths homework and, as always when you actually want to spend time on something, it was over much too fast. He checked the other subjects; finished English (which Present Mic never gave that much homework for since he was a firm believer that it was useless beyond ensuring revision), and got halfway through an essay on the importance of some ancient artist whose name was lost to Midoriya the moment he closed his laptop. The room felt a little brighter than it had been earlier that morning, although maybe that was his exhaustion talking; he ought to look at the clock. He'd lost his drive to finish all his homework, but he'd only wasted….
Four hours?????
His mother had to have responded by now.
He wheeled his chair to his bed and snatched his phone off of it, clicking on the power button and watching the screen light up. A notification! he cheered internally, a message!! From…. All Might..?
He opened up the chat.
All Might: My boy! I managed to find more information about Float! Would you like to come down to have a talk about it with me? (I perfectly understand if you don't want to.) I'm free all of today and tomorrow so let me know if you're interested!
He stared at it so intently that his eyes began to water, and the message began flickering in his rippling vision like a flame about to go out. He opened his mouth to breathe and almost drooled on his phone. Ew.
Of course! Are you free right now? :Me
Well, I guess you said you were free all day so maybe that's a silly question, sorry. :Me
Of course if you found something better to do in the meantime them you don't have to talk! :Me
Then :Me
But if you're still up for it then I'm free now! :Me
Sorry I didn't answer before I was doing homework! :Me
I'm so sorry All Might! :Me
Is it still a good time, if you want I can do other times!! :Me
Typing...
All Might: I'll see you in the usual room in 5 minutes, my boy! :)
Midoriya clicked the phone off and shoved it into his pocket, grabbing a zip-up hoodie off the back of his chair and throwing it on as he made his way out of his dorm. Picking up the pace going down the stairs he debated whether or not to tell All Might about the picture. It could be a silly, fun conversation starter, or maybe it'd kill All Might. Who knew? In the end, he thought it best to just read the atmosphere once he was in the room.
He'd been in the room for quite a while now, though, considering the mental state he was in, maybe it hadn't actually been that long. He wasn't exactly dissociating and panicking out of his mind, but he wasn't super comfortable either. It hadn't been made any better when he started muttering loudly about the new information about Float in order to escape his own thoughts.
'I see, so if Float isn't so much a quirk that exclusively makes one fly and is actually more of a wind suction quirk, then can I choose a target to drag wind onto or into? Since part of Float is the inherent ability to create a barrier around yourself (which the wind drawn to the user then bounces off of, allowing them to fly) then can you activate the barrier without the wind? With enough energy from One for All could it be used as a reliable full-body wind shield (literally)? Could you make yourself bullet-proof? Perhaps if you were to mix it with a quirk which reverses the effects of other quirks, you could push wind away from yourself and deflect attacks by bouncing them back… Or maybe not, maybe it'd just be more like Inasa's wind quirk, which primarily pushes wind away from the self rather than pulling wind inwards, towards it-'
It would've been a great distraction if he hadn't snapped out of it halfway through to see All Might regarding him with something like terror in his wide eyes, his blue irises flickering.
"I-if you were to mix it….?" he said so, so quietly, "we don't-….. I don't think there is a reversion quirk in One for All…. d-did-… were you…. did you have one in mind…?"
"No…?" he answered slowly, letting himself taste the word in his mouth, soured as it was by confusion, "I meant, hypothetically speaking…"
"Oh! Of course!" All Might grinned brightly, slapping himself on the forehead and laughing his weakness off as if he were shrugging off a coat. But Midoriya didn't miss the moisture on his face, or how it trailed down his neck.
Nor did he miss how All Might flinched when his large green eyes trailed his collar with the sweat drop.
Great. So he's already threatened by me, he groaned internally, All the more reason not to tell him about-
And then he remembered that cursed thing again.
His phone burnt a hole in his pocket, and he spent the rest of their meeting feeling guilty. (The conversation got an awful lot less sweaty and stilted after another 5 minutes of Midoriya acting like the jittery, youthful, green boy All Might chose as a successor, and less like the analytical, cold boy that Gran Torino had commended.) In the end, and once they had both finished their tea, he told All Might that he was expecting a call from his mother, and that he should probably return to his dorm. All Might waved him off, apologising for being an old man, and for wasting his time.
"You're not old, All Might! And you're never a waste of time!" Midoriya pouted, and All Might let out booming laughter at it, spurting blood across the room enthusiastically. It was the type of laughter which had seemed to ring out less and less since his retirement. And oh was Midoriya happy to hear it.
"Whatever you say young man!" All Might chuckled, hunching over to retrieve their cups, and then standing and sidling up to the door to open it for him, acting every bit like the useless, ancient relic he believed himself to be.
Midoriya would've called him out on it, but right now he was in desperate need of motherly reassurance, so he just let All Might shoo him out with a:
"Don't keep your mother waiting on you, she'll have my head!"
Midoriya laughed, walking backwards just to see All Might smile back, his irises turning into little upturned semi-circles, ironically making him look very young and small, despite his act insisting that he was 3000 years old. If Todoroki had heard him say that, then he'd never stop thinking All Might was my father.
He waved to his mentor one last time, and then spun around mid-step to face in the direction he was walking in. The halls were supposed to be empty, but he wouldn't put it past Aizawa to silently slink out of the staff room just so that Midoriya could bump right into him when he least suspected it.
He made it back into his room and dug his hand into his pocket.
Don't check it yet, some paranoid part of him hissed, and voices started pulling him in all sorts of different directions, suggesting all sorts of rituals for 'good luck', or telling him to avoid 'misfortune' by taking the wrong steps. It felt like a confused witch was tossing tarot cards off the deck and dishing out contradictory commands in quick succession like a general. Midoriya growled and pulled his hand out of his pocket so roughly that he had to tap the outside of his clothes to check if his phone was still safely in its place or if it was about to fall.
Everything was fine. He growled to himself, balling his hands up into fists and bringing them up to his face. Why was he even pani-
That. That picture.
His mother's text.
What if she tells him that he-
No.
No No No.
NoNoNONO.
Everything's gonna be fine dammit!
His fingernails were leaving red crescents in his palm, he was sure of it. But he couldn't let go, his bones were completely locked in position. He almost went for his phone a second time, just to force his body to do something that wasn't self-destructive for three seconds. But then he remembered the flittering thoughts about bad luck and, in a moment of mental haziness which wouldn't allow him the luxury of just telling himself that bad luck was all imagined, stomped over to his bed robotically. He seated in one quick motion, hitting the bed hard without even flinching, his eyes wide and unseeing, his hands a mixture between Iida's robot arms and a boxer's fighting stance.
He unclenched one fist and reached for the confounded phone.
[No new text messages]
Huh….?
His other hand unfurled slowly, more out of confusion than peace, but still: crisis averted delayed. He brought his left hand up to his jaw and scratched it gently, his palms burning with general soreness as his fingers moved.
She'd had more than enough time to reply. Perhaps she'd just forgotten.
Hey mum!! Did you manage to get a look at the picture yet? :Me
My friends have been pestering me to know if it's realistic or not! " :Me
She didn't look at it straight away, which he expected; what he didn't expect was sleep slowly creeping up on him as he stared at the phone's unchanging display. He let his arm down next to him, and sighed into the mattress, so tired that he finally reached peak procrastination, and found himself mumbling, "I'll get into bed properly later."
"Go fish, idiot," came a female voice, followed quickly by:
"WHO'RE YOU CALLING AN IDIOT, DUDE???????"
Midoriya knew that voice from somewhere.
"I'M NOT AN IDIOT IN THE SLIGHTEST!!! I KNOW MY STUFF!! I CAN SMELL MY FOURS!!!"
Fifth. Oh Fifth. Midoriya knew where he was now.
"You already asked me for fours last time you moron-"
"AND YOU MIGHT'VE PICKED ONE UP SINCE THEN!"
"You would've seen me do it!"
"NOT IF IT CAME OUT OF THE DECK!"
Seventh opened her mouth to retort something else (probably something about how Fifth could have asked anyone else at the table for a four) but she was cut off by First.
"Oh, Ninth! You've dropped in!!" he said airily, with a wide but thin don't call him fragile he doesn't like being seen as fragile smile.
He was sat at the head of a low, wooden table, with two of the One for All group on either side. All Might was also present, right next to Seventh, but it was unclear whether All Might's shade was actually capable of walking or whether Seventh had dragged him there. He wasn't playing the game either way, and Midoriya had never heard him speak. His presence was slightly unnerving, but, in his (its???) defence, it would've been even creepier if All Might had been able to simultaneously exist inside and outside Midoriya's mind.
To the left side of the table were Seventh, All Might, and Fourth, and to the right side of the table were Sixth and Fifth. They had a card of hands each (aside from All Might) and there was a small deck of cards in the middle, alongside a toss pile. In the background, some rock music wafted in during the silence after Fifth's loud speech. The spirits of One for All seemed to be able to bring things in at will (which made sense since they could recreate entire memories) and Midoriya had eventually worked out how to do something similar himself.
Whilst he couldn't bring in real people, he could bring out anything from memory; it was just that anything which could act (anything alive) couldn't be tampered with in this world, it just went on its due course. Doing whatever it did in the memory it was pulled from. But things like food, paper, and his phone could be teleported in and used no problem. Of course the food the others ate here would almost definitely not be a proper substitute for real sustenance. Though he already imagined abusing this infinite stomach space to gobble up all the cake he could dream of without needing a diet. As soon as I get my mouth back….
"Would you like to play Ninth?" First said, bringing him back to reality. (If you could call it that.) His voice always made Midoriya smile; it was like a little fairy's voice. Whenever First spoke, he was reassuring and friendly, and it made people stop to listen to him, just to hear it, just to be encouraged. It was such a delicate, sweet sound, a lot like Midoriya's mother's voice, and completely unlike First's brot-
His mother. First's brother.
It flashed through his mind.
God damn that picture.
And just like that he'd remembered the damn thing again. He scowled.
First seemed to pick up on this and made an inquisitive noise, perhaps on accident, already growing into his role of the quirk's internal mother hen. He leaned forwards with his eyebrows drawn together, and Midoriya couldn't help but feel immediately guilty, shaking his head and a hand, and teleporting his phone in to type out a message.
'Hiya! Im sorry for interrupting ur game, looks like u were having fun! I just thought of something which made me sad today, that's all. Well, maybe not sad, but I don't have a better word for it if im honest.'
He debated typing the next part. Screw it.
'My friends wanted me to try out some silly photo app thingy which is meant to show wha-'
Nonono, he couldn't tell them…. He couldn't write that…. He almost cancelled it out, but then Seventh spoke up.
"Why're you so worked up, let me see." She held a hand out in an almost saintly manner, and the grand motion of it meant that her other hand also subconsciously turned over slightly, and Fifth leaned right over the table to scrutinise her cards. Sixth also peeked, but more discreetly. First missed it entirely, more focused on Midoriya, and Fourth just shut his eyes as if meditating and then said in a concise, deep voice.
"Nana. Your cards."
Fifth whipped his head up in time for Seventh to make direct eye contact with him, and then the whole table went flying and she kicked up a storm in her clumsy attempt to stand up.
Fourth caught the table in the air before it could land on any toes.
"YOU GONNA CHEAT, DIPSHIT???" Seventh challenged with a toothy grin.
Fifth also rose up without breaking eye contact; he squared up, and then jumped, springing backwards as his quirk (presumably) pulled him out of the scene.
"YOU-!" She hurled herself in his direction, and the cards that Fourth had been single-handedly trying to reorganise went flying off into the distance.
He blinked a few times at his empty hand.
"Oh. They're all… gone."
First smiled and leant past All Might (and ducked under the table) to pat him on the shoulder sympathetically. "That's all right, we'll just draw in another pack."
Fourth nodded and carefully put the table back down. Sixth snickered behind his turtleneck.
"Well, so much for cards!" First giggled, turning to look at each of them, as if to transmit his happiness to them.
It worked.
Guess I better delete the first half of the message then… Or all of it…
"You are uncertain. Rethinking constantly." Sometimes Midoriya wondered if Fourth's quirk was some sort of telepathy, but he still couldn't work out which type it would be: emotional, semantic, visual… he seemed to know everything…
There was always a chance he was just observant.
"For what reason do you suffer silently?"
Midoriya blinked up at Fourth, and then deleted the message he was typing. Might as well just show them the awful picture.
He gestured for Fourth to come closer and went to his gallery, tapping on the first picture in his camera roll. Fourth silently shuffled closer to the boy; Midoriya waited for him to lean in slightly before he turned the phone round and handed it to him.
Fourth took the phone with little fanfare and stared at the image on the screen. His face betrayed no emotions, but his eyes scanned the picture with the energy of someone in shock, so Midoriya wasn't sure if maybe he should have given context.
"What's he saying?" First asked politely, standing up with a cute little smile which had Midoriya wishing he could explain the awful picture before it killed him. He walked around to Fourth and sat behind him, obviously expecting to read something from over his shoulder, and instead being confronted with a distorted picture of his brother.
Midoriya watched the moment that his eyes widened before he blinked and schooled his emotions in a very Fourth-like manner.
He looked over to Midoriya, who could only imagine the expression he was making back to the man. "That's…. That picture of my brother…. He's making an uncharacteristic face… He was never remorseful for anything as long as I knew him…"
"He also has the wrong hair colour," Fourth duly pointed out.
Sixth got up, squeezed between All Might and First, and leant over to also peek at the picture on the phone.
"Huh," he said monotonously, the most expressive of all three despite having half of his face covered. He glanced between the photo and Midoriya with his brows furrowed. They made eye contact and he held it for a few moments, and then Sixth looked back at the phone without turning his head. His eyes flicked back up to meet Midoriya's again and he said, with a full face of confidence but a voice only half believing, "it's him."
All three pairs of eyes were now on Midoriya who quickly beckoned the phone back under their scrutiny.
Fourth handed it to him. "How?"
First's eyebrows were drawn together; his eyes were wide and downcast, and it looked like he might cry. Midoriya's heart broke at the sight of it; he desperately wanted to reach out and grab First's hand again, and reassure him that everything was fine, but it wasn't fine. This filter was ruining everything, and there wasn't much he could do about it. Especially when it wasn't really his fault.
He switched to his notes app and started rapidly typing.
'You guys know Snapchat right? It's been around for hundres of years now. Well basically, my firned wanted me to try out this new filter with it and well bacially um I had to put in pictures of me when I was a kid and a picture of my mum and then the app made as guess as to what Id look like in the future but I don't think or at leat I hope that this picture isn't actually accurate because the app didn't get a picture of my dad (which would have made it more accurate) because I don't have any pictures. Anyway I sent the pctre to my mum and she'll text me back to letm e know how similar to my dad I look so that we'll get a fell for how realistic it is?'
He didn't even had time to think about his abysmal spelling as he finished up his small paragraph.
'I think shell probably say that it's all worong haha. But ive been stressed about it all day.'
He agonised over whether or not he should spellcheck before promptly deciding to just shove the phone back in Fourth's face and hope for the best. Fourth took the phone off him and Midoriya's hands found their way to his knees, where they balled into fists.
With the same fear that he felt when waiting to hear All Might's opinion on whether his dream to be a hero was possible or not almost a year ago, he waited for the trio's opinion on the picture… and on him…
Sixth went first. "Oh. That explains a lot."
"Y-yeah…!" First agreed shakily, looking over at Fourth for confirmation.
Fourth was still for a moment before conceding, "I did think the expression was strange for All for One. The child having human emotions makes sense." He handed Midoriya back the phone. "Please bring the picture back up. I remember seeing a similarity between it and All for One, however, the two should not have looked so similar in hindsight."
Well that was reassuring.
'I guess so, All for One probably didn't have freckles', he wrote.
He let them read the message.
"Oh no, he did," First confirmed, much more sure of himself now that he was getting a second chance to face the monstrous picture.
Midoriya's grimace didn't go unnoticed by Sixth who giggled behind their turtleneck and mumbled something about All for One abusing the lighting to hide anything that made him look soft.
The youngest One for All user took the phone back and flipped through his apps to get the picture. First thrust his hand out past Fourth, and so Midoriya handed him the phone instead. Fourth turned around slightly and then he and Sixth leaned in closer to get a good look at the image.
"I guess it…" First mumbled to himself, "only looks like him… a bit…
"Or…. a lot….."
"I believe it's the jaw and eye shape," Fourth concluded. Sixth raised an eyebrow at him as he continued. "The colouration of everything is off. And the expression is one impossible for All for One to make. But the bone structure is undeniably similar."
Looking back at the phone, Sixth investigated the picture closely, really scrutinizing it, narrowing his eyes alongside First. Evidently, he found Fourth's analysis to be truthful, because he pouted in contemplation and then nodded. He got up, and went back to his own side of the table, weaving past All Might's glowing form, and then plopping down on the empty right side of the table.
He and Midoriya made eye contact for an awkward moment – Sixth didn't really talk much despite having more to say than Fourth when he actually did, and Midoriya couldn't speak. Sixth nodded at him, and Midoriya stiffly nodded back, his head rising back up at the same time as a strangled mixture between a gasp and a shriek made its way out of First's throat.
That wasn't good.
His head snapped up in the direction of First and Fourth, and he was met with the sight of Fourth's slightly alarmed but mostly impassive face as the background to the portrait of terror that was First's face. His eyes were still widening, his pupils shrinking. His breaths came out in pitiful little huffs; the sort that would create little puffs of steam in cold weather, but at the moment all that escaped his lips was tangible shock.
"Ninth," Fourth said, snapping First out of his trance. His hands shot down, pushing the phone to the shadowy floor, and he jerked his head round to face Midoriya, trembling slightly.
I'm sorry. Midoriya tried to say, but it didn't come out.
"Do not panic, Ninth," Fourth reassured again, though his reassurances fell flat considering that they were mumbled over the head of a previously smiley man, who was now stricken with grief.
Fourth's stoic face finally fell slightly and he nudged First. "Give him the phone."
Midoriya jumped as First raised an unbent arm up to the boy's face at an alarming speed. Midoriya's pupils practically met at his nose in order for him to focus on the close-up limb, but now that he was paying attention to it, he noted his phone being tightly clutched in First's unsteady hand. He took it from the ghost (the screen had been turned off during the panic) and unlocked it again, immediately noticing a message from his mum.
Oh no.
He opened it.
Mum 3: Oh my goodness sweetie you're identical! It captured your father and you perfectly even without his picture!! Technology really is something!
Mum 3: I thought you'd sent me a photo of him for a second, before I enlarged the picture and saw the hair.
Mum 3: You're so cute!! I'm sure your father would be ecstatic!
Good for him.
Mum 3: You must tell Katsuki to do one, I've shown Mitsuki your picture and she wants to know how similar to Masaru her son will look.
Mum 3: She thinks that he looks nothing like his father (I have to agree) so it'd be really funny if he ends up growing to look more similar!
Midoriya could already feel revenge at his fingertips.
Mum 3: Do tell him, ok?
This was his once in a lifetime chance.
Actually mum, he's already done it! :Me
His friends pressured him to. :Me
Just tell Auntie Mitsuki to text him and ask him for the picture. :Me
Also, I think that Ashido took the picture. She's Kacchan's friend. :Me
[Contact details: Acid] :Me
She's really nosy so I'm sure she won't mind having her number passed on to Auntie :Me
So long as she gets some family gossip. :Me
So if Kacchan doesn't reply, that's your backup. :) :Me
Hm... something missing.
Tell Mitsuki and Ashido to not tell Kacchan I told you anything. :Me
You didn't hear it from me. :Me
Done.
Confident in his job to ruin Kacchan's weekend, he put down his phone with a small smile and was met with First, slightly curled up, with a hand on either shoulder. Sixth was leant over the table and murmuring something to the other man, whilst Fourth nodded along, and kept his hand steady on First's right shoulder.
Oh right. The picture.
He'd put off the realisation for a moment, but now it hit him. His stupid, plain-looking father was obviously plain and boring enough to have a face mistakable for All for One's. And he would one day have that same face. And he'd one day sit at this table with them, with the face of their tormentor, their killer.
He pulled up the picture again and cringed at it. He brought his knees up to his nose and put the phone on the table so that he couldn't look at it anymore.
Just as he was burying his face into his knees he heard First's soft voice again. It was less tremulous than he expected.
"Ninth," he started, and Midoriya snapped his head up to look at him. He couldn't really read the emotion on First's face, it was something equal parts scared and fond, his pupils distant and shiny, dead like fish eyes, and in abject terror. His expression was otherwise slightly pinched, with eyebrows drawn ever so slightly, but his mouth curling into a tiny smile.
"I'm sorry…" The man started again. "You're not a bad person, you're not." He looked down. "To be honest, I should have seen this sort of thing coming…" He looked over to the side and grimaced, clearly morally juggling whether or not to tell him something. Midroiya leaned forwards slightly and nodded with wide eyes, hopefully transmitting the encouragement to continue.
First locked eyes with him for a second. "N-… Second and Third," he corrected (so they did know each other's names…? Why couldn't he know?), "didn't want to talk to you, I think they're afraid." The giggle he let out was as ambiguous as the rest of the conversation, like a candle in a blizzard: was it hot or cold?
"Not in a mean way but… You're sort of like what my brother would have been… if he wasn't evil." First made quick eye contact with Midoriya again, and Midoriya wasn't sure what expression to give. He just tilted his head. Content with that, First pushed on more confidently.
"My brother, when we were growing up, looked a little bit like you do. I… haven't really seen him as a child in… well, a century or so, so I'm not completely sure what similarities you actually have, and which ones I'm just projecting onto you. Still… Second and Third were pretty scared of your interest in quirks. Or, at least, Second was, and Third…" First rolled his eyes. "Third hasn't really got any balls, just believes everything Second says. I mean, he's usually right but, come on!"
He waved his arms around to punctuate his point, and then let them drop with a grimace in the silence that followed.
"They said they didn't want to talk to you – oh, but they'll be there for you like the rest of us!! – but… they don't… trust you yet. Which is silly! But…" He sighed. "That's how it is. Second said that you sounded too much like my brother did when I was still insisting that his quirk obsession and fearlessness towards quirked people was just him being accepting and open. His quirk hadn't manifested yet – actually, it manifested pretty late, around 17. Anyway, he'd always been a bit… off, in a way that you're not. So I should have seen it coming. I think. Regardless–" he waved a hand "–I can see both the superficial and personal similarities between you two, but Fourth and Sixth are right… You're a kind and wonderful person, and I can't blame you for being like my brother when I'm the one related to him."
He perked up suddenly, his back straightening, his face lighting up, and his whole demeanour changed in seconds.
"You'll be like the brother I never had!!" he beamed.
Midoriya wilted a little under his gaze, his fingers itching to type 'you mean the brother you wish you never had' onto his phone dryly, but he decided against it.
He wasn't really sure how to feel in this moment. First looked beyond pleased with his new revelation, and Sixth and Fourth both looked minorly amused. But to was hard to celebrate with them if his already existent similarities to All for One were scaring two of the previous One for All users away from him.
But now First's smile was falling, and he started to look guilty, his large, almond, doe eyes shiny despite the darkness all around them. The white haired man opened his mouth to speak but Midoriya quickly threw his arms up in some gesture of nervous excitement (?) and beamed like the sun. (It was very easy to fake a smile when they couldn't see his wince under the mist.)
First's open mouth let out a little bubble of laughter, and he leaned back and smiled giddily again, like a baby being handed back the rattle it dropped on the floor.
Midoriya spied Fourth giving him a pitying, small smile from over First's head, having no doubt already caught on to Midoriya's inner turmoil.
"Do you want to play cards with us, Ninth?" Sixth asked, already clapping his hands and manifesting a new pack of cards through the shadow-floor.
Midoriya looked back over at the other side of the table, where First and Fourth nodded fiercely.
"Nii-san! Let's be on a team together!" First said, fist bumping the air.
He's calling me brother already – and older brother at that, which isn't really true at all. Midoriya thought, followed swiftly by, it is cute though.
Before he could even nod, First had already begun tapping the table like an over excited elementary school kid, chanting something about team games and setting one up. Sixth, like a put-on older sibling, rolled his eyes and tried to wave the other man off.
"I'm trying to think of what team game-"
"TEAM GAME!" Slap. "TEAM GAME!" Slap. "TEAM GAME!" Slap. "TEAM-"
"-First, perhaps you would know what team game we could play?"
He stopped slapping to think about it. Then, like clockwork, his hand raised again. "THINK OF A TEAM GAME! THINK OF A TEAM GAME!"
Fourth's expression became pinched, but after a moment of silent prayer his mouth curved upwards. "Do you want to play Scopone? A friend from Italy taught me to play."
All three of the entirely present (sorry All Might, you're not included) other men looked at Fourth with varying levels of confusion, but none refuted the idea.
"It's a game you play with 4 people, and in pairs. It's generally played with Neapolitan cards but all you really need are aces and then 4 suits of 2-10s. It'll take a moment to go through the rules, but once you've got the scoring system down it's a very simple-"
His explanation was cut off by the sounds of wildebeest hurtling towards the table.
Midoriya watched as Seventh and Fifth returned from their…. match…. butting heads like pachycephalosaurus and trying to simultaneously pull the other close enough to prevent an escape, and push them out of their general vicinity so as to avoid counter attacks. Whatever grand show they believed they were putting on, if any, they were doing the opposite of; it seemed as though they were trying to win something between a three-legged race and a grappling match. Their shouts and grunts filled the air as they honed in on the table where Sixth was already kissing the cards goodbye with his glare.
The group at the table beheld in slow motion as the torrential duo tripped over each other like young buck deer with their antlers tangled together, and fell onto Sixth's side of the table in a heap. Their combined weight caused the back-right table leg to crumble and disintegrate entirely with a series of crunches. The whole thing flipped up like a seesaw, sending the cards flying once again, and, to add insult to injury, Midoriya's phone slid down the uneven table and hit Seventh on the head.
"OW!" she yelled, despite the tiny offending object being probably the least powerful force to hit her in the last few minutes.
Sixth pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed a long, dragged out sigh. They'd all done a lot of sighing today, perhaps too much.
"Nana," Fourth acknowledged as she got up off of Fifth, disentangled her legs from his jacket and wandered over to where First had been sitting originally, flopping down diagonally to All Might's spirit.
Evidently, when she got up Midoriya's phone must have slid down the diagonal plank of wood with three legs, because Fifth let out a grunt as it smacked him in the head too.
"You both deserve that," First pouted. Seventh whipped her head around in such shock that First quickly mitigated it with a nervous smile and a "I was just joking! Sixth makes mean jokes all the time! I wasn't serious!"
Seventh's gaze now locked onto Sixth's, holding it for a few seconds. "You're a bad influence on him."
"Says the rhinoceros who destroyed our nice table."
In the background Fifth was wobbling up into a seated position, grumbling something or another, and smoothing his hand over his bald head with a curled lip.
"WHAT EVEN HIT ME?" he murmured (?) and then picked up Midoriya's phone, which had somehow managed to stay on.
And then, in a small voice (one indescribably tiny for a loudmouth like himself) he let out, "what the hell?"
Sixth, being eternally helpful, side-eyed the phone and said nothing. Fourth looked too tired to intervene but opened his mouth anyway. First threw a hand out in front of Fifth and blurted out.
"Wait, that's Ninth-Nii's, give it back!"
"Ninth-Nii???" Seventh repeated with wide eyes and valiant horror. She scooted over behind Fifth so fast that it was highly possible her quirk was involved in the movement process, and then took in the picture, the words First had spoken scrolling like electronic, train-platform notice board alerts before her eyes. They passed right over her pupils and receded into her brain to be processed alongside the image on the screen which had, apparently, still not timed out.
Fifth twitched a little, his pupils shaking. Of course, his terror was probably not helped by Seventh who was breathing down the back of his neck like a dragon. Her lips curled back to reveal her gums as she reached some sort of conclusion.
She breathed in. "WHAT THE FUCK???????"
The hoarse scream caused Fifth to jump in place and toss the phone god knows where. Not that Midoriya had to worry about summoning a new one, because the abrupt noise frightened him right into the next dimension.
Midoriya woke up with a start.
He groaned and rubbed his face roughly with his hands. He stretched, popped a few bones in the process, and then relaxed his body. He could feel the anxiety rising through his body like a liquid being poured into him.
He had to tell All Might. He had to.
But he just… couldn't…
What would he even say? 'Hi All Might, I've just found out that my plain ass, ugly ass father actually managed to look similar enough to All for One for me to have a quite similar face to him. And according to both my mum and some stupid picture-taking app, I'm going to end up looking almost identical to him so yeah. Just thought you might like to know.'
He clenched his fists. He growled through his teeth.
What if the app is wrong?
A good question, really. And there was only one way to find out. Take more pictures.
He opened up snapchat, dumped in the pictures of him and his mum, and took a high-angle shot, low-angle shot, side-profile, other side, view, other view, front on, front on but mirrored this time. Smiling, frowning, straight-faced, laughing, crying, yelling.
Each one left him with the face of a man that should be long dead. Haunting his phone in hundreds of little passport photo reject styled pictures.
He wrung his hands.
The phone within them pinged. He almost jumped (he usually left his phone on silent, but he'd been so desperately waiting for his mum to text him back that he wasn't even thinking about villains, stealth, or privacy anymore) and then opened up his texts.
Acid: Hey mido mido mido
Acid: Where the pictres at????
Acid: u not sending them y?
Acid: r umaking them all pretty??
Acid: ok its been 5hrs now wtf r u doing
Acid: have u been online?
Acid: YES U HAVE.
Acid: u left me on read?? :cccccc
Acid: don't stare at ur pretty face too long ok?
Acid: ok its been three years now r u ignoring me
Acid: send pics
Acid: send pics
Acid: sned pic
Acid: ok its acc been a few hrs irl now r u just never on ur phone or u ghosting me?
He huffed.
Acid: kiri rlly wants to pictures and also kaminais being an asshole
Sorry Ashido! :Me
Haven't been on my phone in a while! :Me
Sorry to worry you! :Me
Acid: so he lives!!!
I'm just sending some pictures your way, just took them lol :Me
Yeah I do! :Me
Acid: ur a king, love u
[image x15] :Me
Here you go! :Me
Acid: AAAAAAAAAAA YASSSSSSS
Has it loaded? :Me
Oh good1!! :Me
Acid: LOV E U MIDO MIDO SEE U BYEEEEE
I'll see u around, Ashido! :Me
Acid: :3333333333
And with that she was offline. He heaved a great, debilitating sigh. He can always tell All Might tomorrow. Right?
His phone pinged.
All Might: My boy, Ashido has sixteen pictures of All for One with dyed hair and is insisting that it's you from the future. I haven't the heart to tell her who she's really stumbled across, nor did I particularly want to ask where she got them from, but she claim you took them.
All Might: I remember you saying that you could see the previous One for All users' flashbacks. Did you take the opportunity to photograph All for One for reference? I'm not sure why you'd bother considering that he looks like a wrinkled, over-watered potato, but I do have to ask why you sent the pictures to young Ashido.
All Might: I've heard of kids doing desperate things for attention, and whilst I do doubt that you are the type, you did seem a little jittery this afternoon.
All Might: You know you can tell me anything, right?
All Might: My boy?
All Might: Well.
All Might: Young Ashido has better explained the photo situation.
All Might: Will you really look like that?
All Might: She seems to think you'll look very handsome, but I'm quite terrified.
All Might: Could you text your mother and ask what your father looks like? He doesn't look anything like you in those photos does he?
All Might: Young Midoriya?
He could just tell him tomorrow, right…?