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Midoriya wasn’t the best at social media. He posted rarely, only for his small circle of online friends, so when he snapped a simple photo of himself in a game store with his thumb up directly in front of a large wall of games asking which one he should try out, he thought nothing of it.
Sure, he may have gotten a few more notifications than normal, but that wasn’t his main focus. He hadn’t previously noticed the man in the background, black hoodie fading into the carpet with little to no issue, but after multiple comments mentioning the USJ incident that had occurred a week or so before, he swore quietly.
Midoriya personally made it a mission to never post other people online without their permission; a few too many memories flashed in his mind of being laughed at by his classmates on digital forums.
He turned around, barely managing to catch sight of the man’s back as he exited the shop.
Midoriya speed-walked after him, determined to obtain permission or confirmation to delete the image.
It was after following the man for roughly five minutes, too scared to run to catch up, yet too short legged to walk any faster.
Once he reached a dead-end alleyway, Midoriya thought he finally had his chance, somehow speeding up slightly.
This, however, was not the right choice to make. As Midoriya would later discover, by ‘The man from the USJ incident.’ people did not mean a man who was almost murdered, like the teacher perhaps, but the person who was trying to do the aforementioned murdering.
The stranger swung at him, hand outstretched and open wide as he thrust it directly towards Midoriya’s unguarded face.
Midoriya squeaked in alarm, ducking beneath the blow and darting to the side.
Just to be safe, he lightly kicked the man towards the wall he was already heading towards, simply aiding him on his journey. This action did not have the exact intended effect, and the man crumpled to the floor like a sad tissue paper aeroplane.
Midoriya stared, paused in place like a startled stoat. It took him a moment to remember that he should probably call the police.
It didn’t take long for the police to arrive, an officer with a feline head pulling out a notebook and approaching Midoriya much like one might approach a young raccoon out in the rain.
“Hey, kiddo. You doing okay?” He asked, voice soft.
Midoriya nodded, “Yeah.”
“Well, I’m Sansa, and I’m here to take your statement. If you have anything you’d like to make this more comfortable for you, please mention it now.”
The teenager shrugged, and the officer clicked his pen.
“Would you mind explaining what happened?”
Midoriya cleared his throat before he spoke, “I took a photo and didn’t realise he was in it, so I went after him to ask if it was okay.”
His expression shifted to ‘mildly annoyed’. “Then he tried to shove his hand in my face, so I dodged.”
Sansa’s face soured, “His hand? Are you aware of his quirk?”
The teenager shook his head, curiosity piqued.
“He has a decay quirk with five point activation.”
Midoriya sucked a breath in through his teeth, “I’m guessing it’s focused in his fingers, then.”
Sansa nodded, shooting his coworkers a glare as they cautioned a step closer, resulting in the officers skittering away, unconscious criminal in hand.
Midoriya grimaced at the new information, “Well, that sucks. Am I in any trouble? I didn’t mean to knock him out, it just happened.”
Sansa smiled softly, “Of course not, I’ll take care of it from this point. You don’t need to worry, just take care of yourself.”
And with that, Midoriya was released, responding to his friends’ concerned comments with a simple ‘I fixed it lol’.
(It turned out that the user AllTism gained a decent amount of popularity for his concerning post, along with the fact he managed to catch a known criminal, of course, but mainly the post.)
Midoriya hummed contemplatively as he stared down the HeroCard display. It was in the middle of the store, and he didn’t think twice before snapping a picture and asking his friends which pack he should choose.
It took a moment before one of his closer friends, known to Midoriya by the username ‘ManByDayWhoreByNight’, commented on his post, mentioning that the man he’d accidentally photographed in the background looked out of place in the store, and also recommended the pack on the top right corner.
(Another comment from LocalLoserLesbian contained a screenshot of his previous post, adding ‘I wonder if he’ll ‘fix this’ too?’ as a caption. Midoriya did not see this, and entered the situation assuming that the man was just another civilian like himself.)
Midoriya hesitantly approached the man, who was seemingly attempting to disintegrate the All Might merchandise with his steely glare alone.
“Hi, I’m so sorry to bother you-”
The stranger whipped around, looking the student up and down. Midoriya missed the fact that his gaze focused on his shoes for a second too long.
“I accidentally got you in the background of a photo, and I was wondering if you’d like me to crop you out?”
He did not focus on Midoriya’s words, instead making highly uncomfortable eye contact with the teenager, who was on the verge of tears from the horrors of social interaction.
“I don’t mind, but may I ask what you’re here for?”
“Oh!” Midoriya, who had never learnt even the basics of stranger danger, jumped at the chance to talk to someone about his interests, “I was just trying to decide what HeroCards to get.”
He chuckled awkwardly, “I’m gonna get back to that now, I suppose.”
Midoriya took a step back to return to procrastinating his decision, but found himself unable to due to a firm hand on his shoulder.
“Actually, I’d prefer it if you came with me.”
Midoriya frowned, “No?”
However, he did not have much of a choice, as the stranger whispered to him, “Would you prefer to sacrifice the lives of everyone in the store?”
Midoriya did, in fact, not prefer that, and, reluctantly, allowed himself to be escorted out by the creepy guy.
“Do you know how difficult it is to find someone quirkless in these times?” The man asked, tightening his hold on the student’s shoulder.
“I mean, I guess if you’re not actively looking for us, it probably isn’t easy.” He spoke dismissively.
“Well, wasn’t I lucky, finding you.” Midoriya cringed away as much as he was able to, resisting the urge to sock him in the face and be done with it.
A different man, dressed well in a fitted suit, brushed past Midoriya’s captor, slowing after he passed.
Midoriya blinked owlishly as the original creepy guy frowned, patting the wall next to him in a concerning manner.
He spun around, glaring at the second creepy guy as if he’d stolen his mother’s favourite tea set, turned it to dust and replaced it with her ashes.
“What’s wrong, little Overhaul? Is your quirk not working?” The man pouted demeaningly, soon switching the expression for a smug grin.
“What did you do?” It wasn’t so much a question, but Midoriya was released, hastily stepping back a metre or two.
“You decided to take something of mine. I simply returned the favour.” And with that, the suited fellow casually swung an arm, a large malleable mass following his action and firmly removing the newly dubbed Overhaul from consciousness.
“Huh.” Midoriya stated, risking a step forwards to kick his body.
“Thanks, mate.” He forced a smile onto his face.
“Of course, son.” The man responded, concerningly joyous.
By the time his words had registered in Midoriya’s overloaded brain, he was long gone.
“He better be visiting Mum or I’m going to hit him with a car.” He hissed, pulling out his phone to both call the police again and take a selfie with the man who’d probably attempted to kidnap him, peace symbol included. With all the genius of a high school student, he captioned it ‘Sorted, lol. Im great at this shit’.
When the police finally arrived, a multitude of Midoriya’s friends had responded to him, but he was sidetracked from replying.
Sansa was there again, and he nearly threw the shock blanket at the teenager, checking him over for any injury.
“Are you alright? I’m glad to see you again and all, but you must be scared!”
Midoriya shrugged, “I’m good. He didn’t get very far.”
Sansa released a deep breath, resisting the urge to squish the boy’s face with his paws.
“What happened?!”
Midoriya had a strange feeling that Sansa would not be happy to hear that he’d willingly approached a stranger and hadn’t noticed anything wrong until he was threatened.
“He said he was gonna kill everyone in the store if I didn’t go with him.”
Sansa teared up slightly at the revealed information, hugging the teenager tightly.
“Your homeroom teacher must be proud of your heroic actions.”
Midoriya frowned, “No? They’re mainly focused on my schoolwork.”
The officer baulked, “You’re not in a heroics course?”
“Nope.”
Sansa burst into tears.
Midoriya, an empath, sensed he might be upset, and patted his back lightly.
“There, there.”
“I’ll fix it, Midoriya-Kun. I promise.” He vowed, shaking his shoulders lightly, and Midoriya could almost feel the outline of the pads of his paws.
(Midoriya read every comment, ignoring any mentioning the yakuza member and taking the HeroCard recommendations. He headed back to the store as soon as he was released by the police.)
(Nezu’s ears twitched as he stared at the most recent post from AllTism, practically admitting to vigilantism. He must not have an active parental figure ready to step in. Nezu was willing to fix that.)
Midoriya awoke at four. His eyes shot open, only to discover his newly returned father taking a single photo of him. It appeared he’d forgotten to turn the flash off.
He hissed, swiping at the camera in an action of self defence.
“Son! I’m sorry, you just looked so cute! If you’d like me to delete it, I can!” Hisashi’s breath hitched as his son blinked one eye at a time, evidently thinking hard.
“You’re good.” He spoke, voice slurred due to the early hour his brain was attempting to function at.
Now, one must remember that Midoriya was not a morning person. His usual routine consisted of going to sleep at two in the morning and sleeping in until midday. (With the exception of school days, of course.)
So could Midoriya really be blamed for tugging his phone off of charge, snapping a simple thumbs up selfie with his father and posting it with the caption ‘dad came back, guess whos got that calciummm’? The answer was no. (Critics may disagree, but Midoriya would cry on them.)
After completing that, he was dragged back to sleep kicking and screaming. (Metaphorically, of course, he severely lacked the energy to do anything other than post stupid things online and bitch about the price of HeroCards.)
When he was thrown head-first back into consciousness, his phone had quite a few notifications.
One that stuck out (Only slightly more than the comment left by AAGenium, reading ‘Hope you get a new one soon’) was left by the official All Might account.
‘Lmao dude looks like my arch nemesis. Does he have a kleptomania issue by chance?’ It said, and Midoriya was struck by his ancient memories of his father shoving gel pens up his sleeves in an expensive stationary store on multiple occasions. (Only the red ones. It was only ever the red ones.)
Midoriya squinted, between the comment and his father, who’d fallen asleep on the floor in a highly uncomfortable position.
“Father dearest,” He began, speaking loudly enough to wake the man, partially petty revenge for being rudely knocked from a lovely rest earlier. “You wouldn’t happen to be a mass murderer, would you?”
Hisashi sweated, a rather impressive feat considering the fact he’d just woken up. “Uhm. Maybe?”
“Do you think I’d get free HeroCards if I snitch?” He pondered, mainly to himself.
“If you snitch, I’m taking all your All Might merchandise and hiding it.”
Now, Midoriya was willing to let the fact that his father was a wanted criminal go, bringing it up in arguments at most. However, his hero merchandise was in the line of fire, and Midoriya would rather have no father than no merchandise.
Midoriya was an interesting teenager, to put it lightly, and since his increase in interacting with dangerous people by accident, he’d begun keeping a nice little rolling pin under his pillow. (It was highly uncomfortable.)
He leapt out of bed swinging, landing a solid hit on Hisashi and knocking him out with a single blow.
“Man, that was easy.” He mused, tossing the rolling pin in the air only to catch it again.
Midoriya held up a peace sign and smiled widely in the selfie he took, adding on a short caption as he posted it. (‘Turns out my father’s a criminal, anyone wanna arrest him and/or take his place lol?’)
A user who Midoriya was familiar with commented a simple thumbs up, and the student smiled at the familiar username.
“Suck on it, Hisashi, RatWithBrains is going to be my new father now!”
(Sansa had also left a short message under the post, accidentally referring to the boy as ‘his catling’.)
Sansa and Nezu nearly broke down the door to the Midoriya household, each attempting to enter first.
Poor Inko had absolutely no idea about anything that had happened, waking up to an arrested husband and two sets of joint custody paperwork placed neatly on her kitchen table.
(Midoriya buried himself in his hero merchandise the second his father was arrested, going back to sleep for another six hours before he was shoved back into awake-ness by remembering the fact that All Might had commented on his post.)
(All Might had been high on painkillers, and stared blankly at the flood of notifications revolving around a comment he’d made. He was pretty damn happy that All For One had been arrested though, even if he was supposed to be dead.)
Midoriya did not watch the sports festival. Most would assume that it would be something he spent hours dedicated to, but he found it odd to watch a school event when one did not go to the aforementioned school.
Instead, Midoriya was doing something constructive; he was going to get Ingenium’s autograph. It was seen as a trophy, as the young adult often failed to notice when people were running after him for his signature, and had the same social awareness as a platypus.
The student had tracked Ingenium’s movements for weeks, finally managing to pinpoint a location that he would doubtlessly be in during the festival.
All Midoriya lost was the opportunity to watch a bunch of teenagers bitch slap each other with superpowers and the money it cost to get from Musutafu to Hosu.
He hunted Ingenium down like a determined raccoon, finally finding the man in a quiet alleyway taking down a mugger who’d made the genius decision to attempt to rob an on-duty hero.
“Ingenium-San! Hello! Could I have your signature, please?” He was heavily out of breath, but the hero was able to decipher his words.
“Of course! Would you like a photo too?”
Midoriya nodded enthusiastically, pulling out his phone whilst Ingenium happily signed his notebook, excited to finally be able to give an autograph.
He gracefully accepted his returned notebook and snapped a quick photo, grinning widely with the hero smiling in the background.
Without a second thought, he pressed the post button, too excited to show his friends to notice the blurred figure caught jumping down directly above Ingenium.
He glanced back quickly, out of obligation more than anything else, but had to look again.
Midoriya stood there, still for a moment as he attempted to figure out how the fucking Hero Killer had managed to leap down from a roof in the split second he had his back turned.
“Oh, shit, dude. When was the last time you washed your scarf?” He wrinkled his nose, “I can recommend cheap fabric softener if you want. Scratch that, I’d let you use mine if it got you to clean that thing.”
Stain, who was currently attempting to run a sword through a hero, paused in his actions.
“What?”
“Well, I get that some people can’t afford it, of course, but it’s really unhygienic if you’re killing people and getting their blood all over it and all. You could get an infection or something!”
Stain blinked once, twice, a third time to make sure the strange teenager wasn’t the result of his atrocious eating habits.
“Who let you run around by yourself? Do you need new parents or something?”
Midoriya frowned, “What was that last part?”
“Nothing.”
Midoriya walked closer, “Could you, perhaps, just an idea, not kill Ingenium?”
Stain stopped to consider this, ignoring the student walking up and attempting to drag the paralysed hero away.
He shrugged, “Okay, I guess, I thought he was someone else before I jumped down.”
Midoriya shot him a thumbs up, “Thanks.”
The issue here, however, was that he had misjudged the distance between his hand and Stain’s face and had unintentionally ended up socking him in the face.
Despite being a serial killer, Stain did not dodge, instead simply crumbling like a sponge set of jenga.
“Aw, fuck.” Midoriya complained, “Do you see this shit?” He asked Ingenium, who would have nodded if Stain’s quirk hadn’t still been in effect.
(Nezu, Sansa and a large number of other police officers turned up shortly after, the former rushing to check on Midoriya and the latter making sure that Stain was properly restrained and detained.)
(Stain somehow managed to send Midoriya letters, even from Tartarus, written with horrific handwriting and all claiming that he was the second true hero. Midoriya did not read them, as he was preoccupied by his father’s letters and both Nezu and Sansa attempting to trick him into signing adoption papers.)
(He would have signed them a while ago, but the pair had yet to simply ask.)
(Midoriya was later forced to claim a medal for his take-down of several high threat criminals. He barely resisted the urge to sell it online for HeroCards.)