Just wanted to lay down some clarifications before the story starts
As with most mha fanfics the first bit of this is reiterating the first couple of eps, feel free to skim forward until you see new material (Izuku at home) I don't mind, I understand. Suicide baiting from Bakugo didn't happen, if the show hasn't addressed it by now I'm considering it retconned.
There isn't a ton of dialogue in this chapter as it mainly consists of characters sitting alone in their rooms, but I should have more dialogue next chapter. Chapter 3 at the latest.
This is mainly going to be a fluff fic, but we gotta get the bad day in here to start the upcoming fluff.
Today probably couldn't get any worse for Izuku. First day back at school, and he had already broken his record for most disappointments in a single day. Waking up only to discover he forgot to turn on his alarm was panic-inducing by itself, but in his rush to get dressed and ready for school he failed to grab his student ID. Something he would not notice for another two hours. Running to school wasn't so bad at first; he always enjoyed a good jog. But having the trains run late because a purse snatcher with a giant quirk decided to run amok and fight pro heroes definitely put a damper on any good mood he had managed to build up. A good hour of his day was wasted as he didn't yet have any school work to work on, he just had to stand awkwardly in the crowded station, arms pinned to his side by the overflow of commuters, so he couldn't even mess around on his phone. Upon finally reaching his school forty minutes late, he was stopped by an overzealous hall monitor demanding his ID causing him to empty his pockets only to realize he left it on his dresser. By some miracle, the office staff seemed to be in a good mood and just let him off with a non-official verbal warning, allowing him to go directly to class.
His tardiness to class caused everyone to stare when he walked in, but having had relatively the same classmates for three years now, they all quickly lost interest in him as he handed the excuse the office gave him to his new teacher. And now the day can get back to normal—a relaxing day of syllabus readings and other expectations for the year. At least that's what Izuku thought until, at the very end of homeroom, Mr. Kyōshi reminded everyone about high school applications, incidentally outing Izuku's plans to go to UA. He didn't blame the teacher; the guy was known for being a bit of an airhead of sorts. Good teacher, but sometimes he just said things he shouldn't say out loud. But still, that did not stop Kacchan from yelling at him. But after his rage simmered down classes could finally get underway, giving way to complacency and normalcy.
If only it were that simple.
The universe, outwardly intent on destroying his sanity today, decided he needed to almost die to a sludge man. As terrifying as that should have been, the green-haired youth never had time to really process what had happened to him with the sheer speed of the attack. Before he knew what was happening, he was being smacked awake by the number one hero in the world. ALL MIGHT! Excitement removed his ability to speak, and opening his notebook in hopes of him understanding what he wanted, Izuku found that he had already given him his autograph! It was the perfect ending to a really shitty day, and Izuku should have let it be. He really should have just accepted this gift for what it was and be satisfied. But… he had to ask.
The "flight" to the roof was somehow more horrifying than being suffocated by sludge. The city quickly getting further and further away from them, only to briefly rest at the apex of the jump, and then the ground seemed to be coming back way too fast. How did heroes have the heart to do those multiple times a day? Once they were safely on the roof, though, that's where things started to go downhill once more for the young Midoriya. He managed to ask his question, a question he asked himself every day and one that burned at his chest whenever he saw heroes in action. Finally getting it out in the open felt like the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders, a burden he had been unconsciously carrying for years. But how could he have known what was coming next? All Might shrank before his eyes, from a body that the ancient gods would have been jealous of to nothing more than skin and bone. He learned that the man the world all but worshiped was a shell of his former self and that there was a villain capable of permanently injuring the number one hero. And then he heard the words that he dreaded hearing.
"Pro heroes are always having to risk their lives; some villains just can't be beaten without powers. So, no, I honestly don't think you could be a hero without a quirk."
It felt like the whole world went dull. The air did not feel right, sound did not quite reach his ears, and he wasn't seeing straight as he walked. The only reason he was brought back to the world of the living was the explosion down the street from him. Peering over the crowd he almost had a heart attack. Kacchan, a powerhouse in his early years and a skilled fighter already, has been trapped by a villain. The same villain that previously had him unconscious in a mere moment. He couldn't tell anyone what possessed him to run in and start digging his former friend out of the sludge. He doubted he really knew himself, maybe some last-ditch effort at being a hero? All he could tell Bakugo as he frantically dug was that he looked like he was asking for help. He didn't offer much help in the long run; only a second later, All Might was by their side taking care of the villain for the second time that day. The teen attempted to slip away during all the chaos of the media and the cheering fans, but the other heroes caught him and made sure he got a good scolding before he was allowed to leave.
A shitty ending to a shitty day.
And thus, Izuku was finally in the safety of his own room. The day's events seemed to drain all his energy and left him staring at the ceiling, wondering what to do. Even after everything that transpired, the day was still young. He couldn't just go to sleep, but what else was there to do? He never really had much of a social life, and that did not appear to be changing any time soon. Being quirkless wasn't the most attractive prospect when trying to gain the attention of hot-headed teens. He did get bullied at school, but it wasn't that bad if he was honest with himself. Being ignored by everyone his own age didn't exactly feel great, but he had read the reports. Others in his shoes who had the misfortune of being in poorer areas, or just less tolerant areas, had to deal with much harsher abuse than not being invited to hang out at the arcade.
Not to say Izuku hadn't been beaten to a pulp before just for being different. In his first year of middle school, a group of third-year students decided they would chase him into town as a graduation gift to themselves. He managed to run a decent distance, even thinking he lost them a couple of times, but they managed to corner him and give him the beating they told him he deserved. And even then, he got off light compared to the stories he heard about other quirkless kids. A lot of bruises and a cracked rip were definitely painful, but he was alive.
He understood he had it better than most in his position, but he had to admit to himself that he was extremely lonely. 'How long have I just been staring at the ceiling?' Slowly rolling out of bed, uniform stiff against his skin, he decided that he would just spend his day online. The internet always seemed to be his go-to escape when the loneliness became unbearable. Even if they weren't in the same room, hell he didn't even know if they were in the same country, being in the same place as hundreds, if not thousands, of people felt relieving to him. He frequented plenty of forums, each one having its own appeal and its own focus of topics, but they all had one thing in common: none of them had a place in their bio to announce your quirk. It was purely an honor system, and he saw most people use that space as a joke, most commonly something along the lines of 'as strong as All Might' or putting down the quirk of their personal favorite hero, but he just did not feel right lying about it. And why should he have to lie?
His favorite forum, by far, was Analytica. He spent so much time there that his username had become somewhat well known to the community, and he was often invited to discussions asking for his thoughts about quirks or to add to a theory someone had made about more secretive heroes. Seeing the time as he waited for the site to load, he guessed there was a good chance he could catch a few familiar usernames before they logged off. He still wanted to ask Jackin-In for more band recommendations. Izuku never thought he would be into punk rock, but Jackin-In seemed to know his music tastes better than he did somehow.
But the second the site loaded he was bombarded with the last thing he wanted to see today. Post after post, link after link—it was all videos of the sludge villain incident. Most of them were from local news stations, but there were a surprising number of videos obviously captured on personal phones. Most of the titles were pretty basic: 'villain attack near me' 'All Might saves the day again' 'Heroes are so hot' but when Izuku clicked his way into his typical corner of the site, the titles became a bit more critical. 'Sludge villain tanking explosions but gets blown away by a punch? Thoughts on his properties?' 'Hostage taking or something else? Does he say invisibility cloak?' 'Mainstream reporting undermines other Pro Heroes by focusing primarily on All Might'. It was strange seeing himself from so many angles, and he saw plenty of comments about his sudden sprint into the danger zone, though strangely enough, they weren't all negative. Of course, he was mainly referred to as the stupid kid who almost got hurt, but there were more than a few who called him brave, speculating that he and Kacchan must have been friends from school based on their uniforms. A handful of comments even called him cute, nearly setting his cheeks on fire.
He was about to give up and head to another site when the other members noticed his presence. Immediately, he started getting tagged and DM'd, all asking for his input on the latest All Might victory. Damn, his reputation on this was really cornering him on this one. Looking at his username he couldn't help but give a heavy sigh. All Green.
On one hand, he didn't really want to comment at all. This had been the worst day of his life, and he didn't feel like delving into it in what he considered his safe space. On the other hand, he was paranoid about what the conclusions being silent would end up being. He was a prolific All Might fanboy; he commented on every video he was in, analyzed every fight he could find, and even used this site to track down rare merchandise and buy it from other users. If he was silent on this video incident alone, people may start to think he had to be silent because he was involved. Worse still, they may link All Green to the green-haired kid in the video. Feeling he had no real choice, he decided he would just write up a quick assessment of the incident, making sure that nothing he said couldn't be seen from the various videos as to not raise suspicion, and then make a quick exit to another site.
So he started a simple, clean write-up, but it didn't really feel right. After erasing the whole thing and starting again, he became more analytical and started asking questions that led to more questions, something he did a lot on this site as it led to a lot of discussion. It still didn't feel right, preventing him from posting it. Starting over, he started typing, not really having a plan this time around. The green-haired teen couldn't' really say why, but as his fingers started moving across the keyboard, the whole day's frustrations started washing over him. From simply waking up late to almost dying to being yelled at by a former friend to being told he couldn't be a hero by the leading authority on heroism, it all rose to the surface, his anger tearing away his filter and allowing him to type what he really thought.
He laid into the heroes not doing anything until All Might was forced to step in. Death Arms could have pulled the boy away and thrown him to the crowd or to the arms of another hero. Chances where he would have been caught instead, but he's a hero, not a civilian. He was trained to handle combat and high-stress situations; why would he force a middle school kid to suffer that in his place? Backdraft didn't even attempt to wash away the sludge, instead focusing only on creating barricades and putting out fires that were being reignited the whole time the hostage struggled for air. Kamui Woods refused to even try as his quirk was a "bad match". So should all fire-based villains start terrorizing his patrol route? It seemed like an invitation to him.
The only hero spared from his sudden wrath was Mount Lady, as not only was her quirk nothing but a hinderance to the situation, but this was her first day out as a pro. As the youngest one there, she was no doubt looking to her seniors to take control of the situation. As he finished up his rant, he hit post without thinking. He couldn't even bother to spell-check his work as he usually did, he just needed to get this into the world and away from him for some reason. It was as if he were physically removing all the stress and hatred from the day and throwing it out the window.
After sitting in his chair and trying to control his suddenly labored breathing, he heard the distinct sounds of his mother coming home and felt himself cheer up slightly. At least there was one person in the world he could always count on for company. He decided he would just let everything go for now and help his mother make dinner, though as he leaves the room, he misses the sounds of message alerts. It starts off slow, maybe once every minute, but it steadily grows until he is receiving ten messages a second.
Momo was having a rough day again. School has been going terribly lately. School work was easy as usual; there was nothing to keep her challenged and engaged, but she managed to stay focused. Even if her teacher was a bit long-winded and lacked any enthusiasm in her voice, making it hard for anyone to stay awake. But that was doable; she could sit straight and do her work like a young lady should. It was the other students that were driving her crazy.
She understood that she held incredible privileges in the world. With an amazing quirk that would allow her to follow her dreams of being a hero, and loving parents who supported everything she did, she possessed more money in her personal account than she knew what to do with, ensuring she would never truly have to struggle for anything in life. Even knowing that she had what most people fantasized about, she could not help but want one more thing. A single, genuine friendship with someone her own age.
All the other kids at her private school tried to be her 'friends', but they were all such terrible actors that it was a little pathetic. How quickly any conversation turned to money, shopping trips, or having their families meet was a dead giveaway about what they wanted from her. It had been years since she felt like she could truly relax around someone and just be herself.
Placing her new stack of text books on her desk near her computer, she felt conflicted about her own emotions. She wanted to change schools and be around new people, hopefully people who wouldn't see her as nothing more than an opportunity to climb the social ladder, but she knew that she could never convince her parents to let her transfer. She was enrolled in the most prestigious middle school in the nation; anything else would be a downgrade to her education, an education that she was already bored with due to a lack of challenge. And it's not like she would ever be allowed to try a public school; her parents were far too paranoid about potential kidnappers to allow that. They even convinced her current school to allow some of the Yaoyorozu's personal bodyguards to staff school security.
Letting out a weary sigh, she tries to distract herself with getting through her homework, but nothing seems to pull her out of her thoughts.
She loves her parents more than anything else in the world. She understands why they are so protective of her, being their only child after many failed attempts at conceiving, but she can't help but feel stifled. Does that make her a bad person? How selfish could she be for constantly wanting more?
She all but slams her notebook closed. She could do her homework later; it is not like it was difficult for her. Instead, she decided to spend some time on her favorite site, Analytica. The site loaded up and ready, she took a moment to look at her username and allow the feeling of envy to wash over her. Ordinary. On the internet, that is all she is: no special name, no expectations of greatness, she doesn't need a security team, she doesn't need to pretend not to notice when others insult her.
Ok, that last one doesn't happen too often as she tends to stay in the more sanitized and civilized corners of the net, but it's the principle of the matter!
One such corner being Analytica. Momo considered it to be the best-built site on the internet, at least as far as she has seen. The site was incredibly organized, especially for a site that mainly consisted of user created content and self-policing inside the micro communities that formed in these user created sections. Each topic had its own section, and each section was broken up even further into more specific topics. It was beautiful. She had even gotten a reputation on the site for hanging around the homework sections and all but tutoring people on their worst subjects, it was a small thing Momo liked to do, as sometimes people just needed a little help. She had been offered payment several times but she always refused.
But right now, she just wanted to talk to people. While she had no delusions in thinking that anyone here thought of her as a friend, these online strangers still treated her better than the teens at her school. Here, she wasn't constantly receiving questions about "hangouts" at the mall, where she would no doubt end up buying everything for everyone. Here, no one tried to set up meetings between their parents and hers. She was just… Ordinary.
The noirette decided to head to the general chat section, hoping to see something that would catch her interest. But seemingly the entire site has been taken over by a single video, one she recognized as a villain attack that had happened earlier today not too far from her. It would normally not make such a splash in the news if it weren't for the sudden appearance of the number-one hero. She searched for the longest video available, wanting to get as much context as she could before joining in the discussion. What she saw horrified her.
There was a poor, helpless, terrified boy being suffocated by a villain made of slime, all while several pro heroes just sat there and watched. In the few shots where there was a clear image of his face, he appeared to be holding back tears. The video continued for several minutes, with the boy panicking more and more until another young boy wearing the same black school uniform ran past the heroes and started trying to dig his friend out. Momo was torn; the heroes were not helping, but at the same time, this kid could potentially make things worse.
The video ended with All Might saving the day as he always did.
Momo was flabbergasted by what she just saw. She didn't want to criticize the pros too harshly, surely there were things she couldn't see, or perhaps they had prior experience that let them know that acting was the wrong decision. She wasn't even in a hero school yet, did she really have a leg to stand on when it came to discussing heroes making the wrong decision?
While she was stuck in an internal debate, Momo decided to head towards a section of the site that focused more on analyses. Perhaps someone there was already bringing up the points that she was currently battling with in her own head. After the page reloaded, she saw a username highlighted in all the organized chaos.
All Green was rather popular on this site; his analyses were always a joy to read, and he managed to break things down by asking questions upon questions that allowed others to take his posts and add to them with their own thoughts and further speculations. She had long ago set his profile to be highlighted whenever they were in the same online space, and it looked like he had a breakdown of the incident everyone was talking about.
Maybe this would give her a better perspective…
Authors notes;
I'm back. If anyone was waiting I'm sorry. Life isn't great right now, and only just now got the motivation to start writing again.
I don't really have a plan for this fic, I'll hopefully think of something as I wright it but for now this is just going to be a never ending fluff fic. Mainly centered around Izuku finding a life after heroics. And also shipping. Apparently I have a type when it comes to shipping, Awkward characters and height difference.
Izuku music head cannon, he either listens to basic but upbeats songs like happy and mr blue sky, or he is a total punk and has to keep his music down so his mom doesn't get worried.
There will be changes made to the world, I'll try to bring them up as they become relevant, for instance this is taking place on the first day of their last middle school year as to where in the show it feels more like they are closer to midterms. Nothing major, just small things like that.
As always, please leave a comment. They tell me what I did wrong, what I did right, and I just enjoy getting them.