Work Text:
Midoriya wasn’t new to large buildings, but the USJ really took the cake, along with the rest of the metaphorical picnic items.
The oversized dome was split into different sections, of which Midoriya could only assume held selected disasters for his class to attempt to navigate around. Despite the overwhelming size of the structure, the teenager found himself trembling slightly with excitement.
Thankfully, he wasn’t the only one suffering such emotions, as the rest of 1-A appeared to be similarly awestruck, only Aizawa with an expressionless face.
“Welcome,” Thirteen began, “To the USJ.”
Midoriya discreetly glanced over to one of the few friends he’d managed to make so far, barely holding back a smile when he saw the wide grin on Uraraka’s face.
“We just have a couple things to go over first,” The hero added on, “Well, more than a couple, but-”
What was foreshadowed to be a lengthy speech was brought to its untimely demise before it began as a small purple swirl spawned into existence in the middle of the dome.
A plethora of villains spilled out of the inky mass, scattering across the centre of the atrium like dropped marbles.
Midoriya opened his mouth to speak up about the issue at hand, but was beaten to it by Denki.
“Hey, is that part of the lesson?” Now, Midoriya would, somewhat, consider himself (partially in theory, less in execution) a pacifist. That, however, did not change that fact he felt strongly urged to throw something at his classmate.
Unfortunately, (or, rather, fortunately for Denki) he was denied the chance, as the source of the purple substance teleported itself directly in front of the group of students.
“I must apologise for our interruption, but-” He was unable to finish his sentence, as Midoriya had instinctively summoned a can of liquid cement and hastily lobbed it at the intruder, knocking him out cold.
Aizawa glanced at him, raising an eyebrow, “What?” Midoriya defended, “He startled me!”
“Work on a way of finding an exit, Thirteen and I will hold off the villains.”
Yaoyorozu took to the task with the required urgency, attempting to break through the glass with a concerningly large hammer and an equally concerning excess of violence.
Midoriya took a step back for his safety, ignoring the fact that it left him slightly closer to what he could only assume were probably murderers. (He was still safer that way, however.)
Midoriya was aware that his quirk wasn’t the most useful for opening doors, or creating DIY doorways in walls, and instead opted to turn around to see how Aizawa and Thirteen were holding on.
Considering the fact the pair were up against nearly half of the villains in Musutafu, it would be an understatement to say they were managing the situation well.
That was, however, until Midoriya caught a flicker of movement in the corner of his eye, turning to find the first villain to leave the portal lunging for Aizawa. Midoriya skidded forwards, materialising a simple can of some popular energy drink and lobbing it at what he hoped was the intruder’s head.
The deities must have looked kindly down at his pathetic throw, as somehow it managed to make solid contact, introducing the man rather thoroughly into the wonderful world of unconsciousness. (That was not a common effect of such a caffeinated beverage, but one could suppose this was a special case.)
“Fuck yeah!” Midoriya hissed in victory, although it was only heard by Aizawa, as that was the exact moment his classmates managed to get through to the outside world. (And, more importantly, the internet.)
(It turned out that his teacher wasn’t too happy about Midoriya placing a potential target on himself, but considering all the intruders ended up in custody Aizawa mainly let it slide. (With, of course, the exception of a targeted comment every few lessons.))
Midoriya did not last long in the Sports Festival.
He knew he was right to fear Yaoyorozu at the USJ, and his near phobia was only further confirmed after he was slammed into a wall by her rushed attempt to escape the narrow hallway. This was followed up by being held down by a large burst of ice, and by the time it had thawed Midoriya was more than ready to go home.
His urge to curl up into a ball and (optionally) die was, unfortunately, overridden by the fact all contestants were forced to reach the end of the course to be released. Midoriya managed it, eventually, sore and drenched and exhausted.
He grasped a can containing an alcoholic beverage, going to open it only to be stopped by Midnight slapping it out of his hands with a judgemental look. (Midoriya wasn’t holding a grudge, he was simply maintaining a non-positive opinion of the teacher.)
Somehow, his short-lived appearance had managed to get him an internship offer from Manual. (He honestly didn’t know how, considering his face hadn’t even made it into any of the footage.)
Despite the origins of the saying, Midoriya wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth, and hastily accepted the offer. That short chain of events (Perhaps more adequately described as a single link) led the teenager to Hosu, paired up with Iida.
His classmate had been acting off the whole internship, looking at his clenched fist at least five times in their current outing alone whilst muttering under his breath, and he’d even gone as far as to turn down Midoriya’s offer of orange juice.
Midoriya shot him a concerned look as the staring-at-fist count raised to six. He’d heard about his classmate’s brother, and offered a shoulder to cry on (He said ‘cry’, but he’d prefer it if his heroics outfit remained tear-free in perfect honesty) but Iida was declining any and all assistance. Midoriya wasn’t above knocking him out if he made any stupid decisions, however.
He opened his mouth to speak, simply to request a brief break so the three of them might get a short break from the patrol, but, in a rather inconvenient and rude manner, was cut off by an explosion relatively close by.
Midoriya blinked one, twice, a third time for luck, before rushing to the site alongside Manual. The hero began using his quirk to dampen the fires, and Midoriya happily assisted him with well aimed cans of foam water to extinguish the flames before they could cause any major damage.
Out of seemingly nowhere a large creature emerged (Although Midoriya could swear he saw a short figure pushing it out from behind a bin) and, like an unsupervised toddler, immediately started on the self assigned task of obliterating Hosu.
As if summoned by the destruction, several other heroes emerged from the woodwork like speedy ants to combat the Nomu, and the beast was brought down in surprisingly little time, averting what could have been a disaster completely.
“Well,” Midoriya began, “I’m glad there was only one of those guys.”
(The deities did not forsake him, nor strike him down with ill timed back luck, instead opting to retreat for another day.)
Manual squinted at him, “I swear there used to be two of you guys.”
It was only then Midoriya noticed that Iida was gone. He set out to find his classmate at a light jog, cautious not to pull a muscle due to his lack of a warm-up. After exploring the city via the streets for long enough, the teenager hoisted himself up onto one of the many roofs to avoid the growing crowds drawn to the site of the explosion.
His new method was much more efficient (ignoring the several times he’d almost fallen to his demise) and after a couple of minutes he heard the sound of Iida’s voice, loud and distinct.
The student crept closer, peeking over the edge of the building only to see his book-smart classmate facing off against a murderer.
“Oh, I’m so bringing this up when he calls me out for swearing.” He hissed under his breath.
His plotting, however, was interrupted after he noticed the reflection of a blade being drawn. With no hesitation, he jumped down, pushing Iida to the side in time to be greeted with a sword impaling his arm.
Against his better judgement, he paid no attention to the undoubtedly fabulous craftsmanship of the weapon, deciding to take a step back out of the killer’s range instead.
He gritted his teeth, glancing at Iida’s now unconscious form and the Hero Killer’s elongated tongue before summoning a can and hurling it at him.
The only defence Midoriya had was a simple theory, and at that moment he hoped the spider he’d seen earlier had been during the time period considered the morning. (He knew it was around midnight, but wasn’t awake enough to remember the specifics)
Stain sliced the can in two, his face splattered with a thick red liquid. He froze, perfectly still, and Midoriya grinned.
“Ha! Suck on that, blood boy!”
He’d seen a post online by a user called ManByDayWhoreByNight that the Hero Killer’s quirk revolved around blood ingestion, and after putting that together with the man’s interesting tongue length it didn’t take a genius to figure out the basics of the villain's power.
“Look before you lick, in the future,” he added on as a cool parting statement, before dragging Iida out of the alleyway.
Iida, as it just so happened, had regained consciousness several minutes before, and Midoriya was thanked for his efforts profusely.
(It was roughly fifteen minutes into unbroken dialogue that Midoriya realised his classmate had a concussion, and the pair of them were taken to the nearest hospital after informing the nearby police officers of what had taken place and where to find the incapacitated murderer.)
Midoriya’s injuries weren’t that bad, and after a few stitches, the required quantity of bandages and several painkillers he was laying in the hospital bed without a care.
Iida glanced at him, gaze softening, “Thank you, Midoriya.” He spoke, honesty dripping from his words.
“It’s okay, Iida, just..” He trailed off, chasing after his train of thought like it was the last one running for the night, “Make sure to take care of yourself, okay? Your brother loves you, and we love you, and you’re so, so important.”
Midoriya chose that moment to promptly burst into tears, and Iida attempted to rush over to comfort him, but was chained in place by his traitorous IV.
(The news that the Hero Killer was taken down by a UA student was a hard pill to swallow for some (Endeavour) but the only major changes it brought around were the selling of the Can Do It hero: Thydrate and the lack of email addresses available containing ‘Midoriya’ ‘Izuku’ and ‘Thydrate’)
After the heroics training camp, Midoriya found himself with a plethora of free time, and had taken to hunting down the small quantity of All Might figurines he didn’t own yet on vague websites that had only given him several dozen viruses.
So far he’d managed to cross off half of his list and was running low on possible places they would be sold, which led him to a relatively unknown website that was slightly more critical of heroes. It made sense to Midoriya that there was a small chance someone might be selling merchandise on the site, and he was right.
After a mere three hours scouring the website he discovered exactly what he was looking for. The most hideous figure ever to offend his vision stared at him, misprinted face horrifically lopsided, limbs indistinguishable from each other, droopy hair coloured neon yellow and his smile more of a pained grimace.
It was beautiful, and Midoriya needed it.
With a concerning lack of hesitation, he purchased it, grinning widely the whole transaction.
Midoriya began to scroll down again, pausing again near instantly in pure disbelief.
A user under the name of GIVEMEOFAPLS had written a long paragraph of All Might’s failures. That on its own would be bearable if it weren’t for the fact that every point stated was complete bullshit. Midoriya took a deep breath and clicked on the user’s profile to begin to scour through their post history.
All For One was minding his own business in the bar he’d rented out, wondering when Shigaraki and Kurogiri would finally return from their raid on UA.
His pondering was interrupted by the doorbell of the establishment ringing.
“Ah, that must be them!” He smiled, walking over to the door and opening it.
He was met by a short teenager who was decidedly not Shigaraki.
“Hello?” All For One spoke. The child grinned, and it took a moment for the old being to realise that it was not a grin, and the boy was, in fact, baring his teeth. By the time the wires had connected in his head it was too late.
Midoriya struck, pelting the man with cans of salt water relentlessly. All For One cried out for help, but there was nobody around to hear him.
When Midoriya finally brought the man into the police station All For One was more than happy to go with the officers, practically sobbing in relief as he was taken to Tartarus.
(After All Might was informed that his arch nemesis was taken down by Midoriya he granted the student the rarest piece of All Might merchandise of all.)
(Several budding criminals made the wise choice to turn themselves in for rehabilitation after hearing the legend of the vengeful viridian teenager.)