mha-simp-99

[mha-simp-99]

PROVENANCE - ALL MIGHT X READER

COLLAB M.LIST | AO3

✧ pairing: soulmate!toshinori x afab!archivist!reader

✧ word count: 8.3k

✧ warnings: bee's first soft?, hahhah jk, smut and feels, soulmate!au, happy ending, reader get's picked up briefly but ya know, toshi is massive, mentions of blood (for Toshi's cough), praise, soft fucking, no prep, unprotected sex, size difference cause he's like 7 feet tall, reader is afab with no pronouns used, light cockwarming,

✧ summary: In which missing pieces are found. Or, you're an archivist working on the newest debut of the All Might Knowledge Base--the largest collection of information on the once famous number one pro hero and you end up with a bit more than what you'd bargained for when taking the job.

✧ a/n: Thanks to my beloved @/simultaneously-sick-and-calm for beta reading this for me. Soulmate is pretty loosely defined here. I wanted it to be a bit more ambiguous so like there aren't rules for it or a universe wide acceptance of soulmates. You just happened to find one. In any case, go check out all the other wonderful works in the latest BNHAREM server collab! The theme was obviously soulmates lol, just in time for cuffing season. Let me know if you enjoyed <3

There was something missing.

You’d felt that way through all the months spent working this project but especially now, as it drew to a close.

Of course, archiving the entire career of one of the nation’s most prolific heroes was never going to be a strictly easy feat. You were never going to be able to capture all of it, have it digitized and tagged and sorted for fast, simple retrieval—that was never going to be a reality and you’d accepted this early on in the endeavor.

But as you stared down at the mess of coding and scanned manuscript, the All Might Knowledge Base felt so terribly lacking. That’s what you’d tried to communicate to your supervisor at least, and although convincing her to push back the release date was a harrowing task, you had managed it.

It’s just a glorified wiki article, you’d insisted. There’s nothing here of value that the audience couldn’t go digging up anywhere else.

As it stood, the archive wasn’t anything more than a shrine to a concept—a symbol as tacky as it sounded—to an era. The real value of the project lay with the documentation of the man behind the mask.

Of course All Might couldn’t have incorporated an actual mask into his costume years ago to make your metaphor sound a bit more apropos.

And with enough poking and prodding and flaunting of your credentials in this particular area of study, you’d won out.

Interviews, she’d said. As many as you could record and transcribe by the deadline on the life of the man who had once played the role of the first ranked hero and how he’d subsequently fallen from grace. A few were already documented and filed away in their own special reference tab boasting an all new, never before seen biography section on the site.

But they weren’t quite what you were looking for. Didn’t reach deep enough.

You were hoping all that would change though,

Don’t fuck this up, read the subject line of the email still sitting opened in your inbox. Contained in it were the details and times of the latest interview subject your supervisor had obtained for you. Long time friend and fellow hero—although far more inconspicuous—Eraserhead had actually agreed to meet with you.

And, while a bit unprofessional, you understood your boss’ sentiment and the secondary meaning of what was left unsaid. Don’t fuck this up because you won’t get another chance.

Eraserhead famously never agreed to interviews with the media. Not that you were the media, or that you blamed him much, but it was a massive opportunity to speak with him—on the record no less—and any screw ups would mean all your efforts until now meant nothing.

Essentially, there was a lot at stake here, so the train ride over to the park you’d agreed to meet at was more than a bit nerve wracking.

The streetlights had already flashed to life by the time you got yourself a drink from one of the pop-up cafe stands and took a seat at the little outdoor tables to wait. You were shocked initially at the refusal to come to your university office, but meeting at sunset in a park two cities over seemed quite...on brand for your interviewee.

He lived up to his stealthy reputation as well, managing to stand directly behind you unnoticed until the low mutter of your name startled you into awareness.

“You’re the researcher, yeah?”

He sounded nothing like you thought he would, voice low and smooth and nonchalant. No commanding presence or flashy costuming. The loose, black fabric of his clothes swished quietly as he came around to sit on the bench across from you.

“Ah, yes,” you sputtered, halfway stood up to shake his hand even as he waved you off.

As if he sensed your frown beginning to form, Eraserhead locked you the understanding but authoritative look you’d only recalled seeing on professors in your undergrad classes—of someone who knew you had earned your place here, but could help you do it better.

“We haven’t got long,” he said by way of explanation. “Better to skip the pleasantries, I think.”

“Right, I guess we’ll get to it then,” you mumbled, fumbling a second with the audio recorder and portable mic before settling back in your seat.

“So, how does this work?” he leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. “You ask me questions, I answer?”

“I almost forgot you said you’ve never done an interview,” you found his presence somewhat calming despite what was riding on your success and the conversation quickly took on a much more familiar tone than you’d expected. “It’s supposed to be more like a discussion really, but I have some questions in mind to get the ball rolling if that’s helpful.”

“I’m not really sure how I could be of much help to you, but go ahead.”

You straightened your shoulders and took a sip of your drink to cool the dry burn in your throat. The hero in front of you toyed mindlessly with the scarf he wore, working the cords of it between rough fingers like a magician's coin.

“Well, I don’t how much my supervisor passed along to you, but I know you worked closely with All Might in the past and I was hoping you could give me some more insight,” you explained, eyes flicking between the infamous goggles around his neck and the condensation of your cup dripping slowly downward to form a puddle by your hand.

“Insight on what exactly?”

When you did manage to meet his gaze again, dark eyes, bloodshot and rimmed in red stared back at you as though they were fighting to stay open at all. You tried not to take offense as the man before you yawned just as you opened your mouth to speak.

“His life,” you said simply. “Outside of the facade, if you can call it that—who was when he wasn’t All Might.”

“Why?” he asked—not unkindly or accusatory, just curious.

“I know you’re not overly familiar with how interviews run, but you are aware that I’m the one meant to ask the questions, right?” you chuckled despite yourself and earned a somewhat reluctant twitch of the lips from your subject.

The only response he gave was a shrug of his shoulders and so you indulged him if only to keep the things moving forward.

“Well, that’s what matters, isn’t it? I’m sure you know what we’re trying to do, and the rest of it— everything we’ve collected I mean—that’s all just conjecture. I don’t feel like our work would mean much to the public unless we could offer a real, complete image,” you could feel yourself getting a bit worked up as you were wont to do with long term projects like this, but it felt too good to stop the flow of words. “What kind of friend was he? What was he like as a teacher? Did he always wear that yellow suit or was that just for the cameras?

Eraserhead nodded thoughtfully as you spoke, leaning back in his seat with his chin tipped towards the darkening sky.

“Look I’m not gonna sit here and tell you that he shat gold and we all kissed the ground he walked on,” the hero said, eyes still cast up and watering at the light from the setting sun. “But I get the feeling that’s not what you’re looking for anyway, so I can give you what I know, as long as you’re not gonna twist it all around after.”

“No, of course not,” you shook your head and shuffled to push the mic farther across the table, as you sat back and prepared to listen.

———

You felt strange as you rode the train back to your office and prepared to transcribe everything you’d just heard.

It was informative, certainly, and probably the most groundbreaking event of your entire career. But the whole ordeal, all of Eraserhead’s somewhat sarcastic and concise commentary ping ponged around in your skull like the shaking of the train car below you. It was hard to put your finger on exactly why the hours worth of audio had you so unnerved.

Maybe because the whole time, every anecdote he shared, every small detail seemed so...unsurprising. Like you’d known what he was going to say before the words actually left his lips. Not so much that you had some prior knowledge of how many times All Might had broken mugs in the teachers lounge, but all at once that was exactly how it felt. That you’d been aware of all this about someone before, just not All Might himself.

Like you’d seen it in a dream once before and it had been grafted onto your memories.

It was odd and left your tongue feeling dry and heavy in your mouth as you rushed through the sudden down pouring of early fall rain and into the university library that housed your offices. You pushed, dripping, past reception and shivered at the blast of temperature stabilizing A.C. that chilled the halls to your workspace.

The uncomfortable sense of deja vu with an unclear origin never left, but it was somewhat off put when you placed your bag down on the old carpeting and took a second to breathe. Documents littered all available surfaces, interspersed with used mugs and uncapped pens. The poster that was hung on the far wall in particular caught your gaze. Massive hands balled into fists on his hips, All Might stood staring down at you from the paper. His eyes were cast in shadow as always, blond hair edited to glitter as he stood triumphant.

It was a limited edition, and took quite a lot of scouring comic stores and memorabilia sites to find.

You’d felt it was lacking before, when you’d first hung it to save the piece from creasing. Though now, when you looked it over, he seemed fuller somehow. Or perhaps you were fuller, perhaps now that you connected these things you’d always known—that the yellow, pinstriped suit was a personal choice and he did indeed wear it daily—with the face, you felt a bit more complete.

The revelation was almost stranger, but you didn’t allow yourself the time to dwell on it.

Sitting instead to begin your newest transcription.

———

For as quiet of a person as he was, Eraserhead talked quite a lot. So much, in fact, that you’d been stuck at your desk for what was creeping up on four hours trying to dictate your own interview. Though it probably wouldn’t have taken you this long to reach the final five minute stretch if your supervisor hadn’t been mass emailing you throughout the entire process.

I forwarded you the invites to the department director’s engagement party by the way. Make sure you at least make an appearance. I’m aware that’s not really your type of thing, but I don’t want him thinking my employees are heartless assholes.

You rolled your eyes, switching tabs to type out a curt response dictating that just because weddings and all their accoutrements were not of any interest to you didn’t make you a ‘heartless asshole’ and reminded her that the H.R office was only a CC away. And you would love for the excuse to leverage yourself some time off and a little bonus pay.

Swapping back to your documents, only another minute of audio passed before you got a predictably scathing response.

I’m making this as unofficially mandatory as possible just for that. You should be happy for them and yourself considering how much more tolerable he’s been since the announcement. They’re kind of cute together really. They do look disgustingly adorable in the pictures he emailed out with the invites. Anyway, show up for long enough to say congrats and then leave if you are really so unaffected by true love. Not that I know how anyone could tolerate being around him for more than twenty minutes, but I suppose some people are just meant to be, you know?

You didn’t know, actually.

That whole concept wasn’t something you’d ever bought into much. The idea you could bump into a person some day and suddenly know that they’re the one for you was just so convoluted, and if that made you a ‘heartless asshole’ then so be it.

There were plenty of other and far more logical grounds to call you an asshole, and most of your annoyance on the subject stemmed from her chosen criteria. You knew just how abrasive you could be in office social gatherings. There was a reason you worked in the archives and not at the front desk.

Though the conversation did dredge up quite a few very old memories on the topic.

You had an auntie once, a long time ago, who used to try and fill your head with similar ideations. They were happy recollections for the most part. End of summer days, still too hot for much running in the wildflower fields, but nice enough to dip your feet in the little pond by her porch and sip cold barley tea sweetened with honey. She’d kneel beside you, sipping from pretty floral glass cups that you could still feel in your little palm if you thought hard enough on it.

You remembered little about her outside of the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and her affinity for romance.

She’d had a wife years before your mother started making you spend the summers there that she spoke of often. Never in a sad way, that you recalled, always fondly and with a brightness to her face that made her seem quite a lot younger than the wisps white hair at her temples might indicate.

You’d asked once how they’d met or why perhaps or some other foolish child’s question that made sense at the time.

Everything that she’d said to you wasn’t quite clear now, but the words themselves hadn’t been of much interest to you anyway. It was the way that she looked when she said them.

“I knew her before I met her.”

You could hear the hum of your auntie’s voice over the rush of the fountain in her pond and the clink of ice in floral print cups.

“I loved her the moment she told me her name.”

When you glanced up past the dying summer sun, she looked so much—well younger wasn’t quite the right word, but more present, softer, more alive. Back then, you thought she was just a bit old and full of it. But you couldn’t shake that look on her face that made you almost believe her, despite how outlandish it all seemed.

Then she’d pat your head with those creased, veiny fingers, and impart on you some old auntie sage wisdom that could have belonged to bedroom decals sold at those home goods stores. Never change for anyone and all that, the right person will come along eventually—all very unimportant things to a child. In truth, at the time, you were probably more concerned with whether the neighbor boys would be allowed to play in the garden after dinner.

And it held about the same significance to you for the rest of your life afterwards.

You weren’t entirely certain then, why that was what you were remembering now from those few weeks you’d spent with her years ago, or why the memory sent your gut to churning.

It left you filled with a strange sense of longing—not for summer or childhood or glass cups with barley tea—but something just out of reach. You wanted to go back now, ask her what that meant, what it was to know someone before you...knew them. To smile that way even after they were gone.

The poster on the wall stared grinning down at you—all triumph and power and black, shadowed eyes. You frowned back at it for a moment, brows furrowed as you took in the curve of his waist in skin tight costuming and the laugh so clearly halfway to bursting from his frozen lips.

And you still couldn’t be sure what exactly made you do what you did next. You’d been turned down so many times before, never quite getting through to anyone important enough or through the right channels. You opened up a new window nonetheless, leaving your supervisor’s email unanswered and the interview transcript unfinished to search up an old website you’d added to the archive months ago.

It wasn’t active much anymore, but in its heyday it had been a way for All Might fans across the country to send letters to their favorite hero. And sometimes—if they were lucky—they’d get a response.

You were sure it would all amount to nothing, but you clicked anyway, pulling up the little text box and typing in your email address and the name of your organization instead of including your own name. At least that might give you a fighting chance at seeming legitimate. The blank space to write your message flashed bright gold against the blue and red background. The cursor blinked as you gathered your thoughts and began to type.

Another handful of hours passed between the time you submitted your pipe-dream request to the All Might fan-site and when you finally completed the audio transcript. Just enough time for you to feel properly embarrassed about the whole notion. You were certain it had been disconnected ages ago and some poor programmer would see your fruitless last attempt to get a chance to interview the man himself for your precious university archive. Hopefully it would give them a good laugh at the very least.

You were most definitely not laughing as the clock creeped up on tomorrow and you contemplated whether calling a ride home would be worth the money.

Fishing the spare toothbrush out of your bottom desk drawer, you settled on stealing one of the comfier couches in the lounge to nap on until the sun rose when the ring of an email notification alert rang through your headphones. In a flurry, the desk chair shot out on it’s wheels as you yanked the cords from your ears in shock and the linoleum sent a jolt through your spine when you landed flat on your ass below the desk.

Grumbling and grabbing at the tabletop, you pulled yourself weakly to your feet and scowled down at the screen, ready to rip your supervisor a new asshole for emailing you past midnight.

But it wasn’t anything from her sitting in your inbox.

Instead, it was a stock email address with a message on a familiar, brightly colored red, blue, and gold background. The sender greeted and thanked you for submitting to the All Might fan contact site. They were flattered that you’d reached out to them and would be happy to help you if they could. Would Friday work for an interview and if so, what would you like to know? They hoped you were having a good week and to hear back from you soon.

Included at the end was a phone number and a secondary email different from the site auto response.

And it was signed

Best,

All Might

———

“Your guest is here” the receptionist drawled over the phone line and your heart took the opportunity to make itself known, pounding against your ribs at the news.

“Great, uh, send him up to conference room two, please,” you responded curtly and slammed the phone back in it’s dock before saying anything further.

You could apologize for the abruptness later. Now you had to run through your list of interview questions for the umpteenth time to avoid making a further ass of yourself before he found his way to the elevators.

It was not the Friday after you’d miraculously come in contact with someone who was at the very least impersonating the former pro, All Might. No, it was exactly two weeks later. Two weeks as that—and a horrifically awkward selfie that could have passed for a middle aged man’s facebook profile confirming his identity—was how long it took to officially verify that the man who had reached out to you was indeed All Might himself.

He’d been incredibly gracious about your less than warm reception. Though really who would fault you for harboring a healthy amount of suspicion. It was incredibly unlikely that All Might would still have access to whatever burner account was set up to respond to submissions through his old website. And even if it was him, no one else on your team had ever been successful getting in touch before, so why answer you now?

Truth be told, you were still a bit suspicious, fully prepared for a whole other individual entirely to walk through the conference room doors and equipped to defend yourself with the office landline if it came to an exchanging of blows.

But it, somewhat predictably, didn’t come to that.

No, the massive slip of a man who walked through the conference room doors—all long limbs and sharp cheeks—wore exactly the same toothy half-smile as he had in the selfie still saved to your photos. You’d never actually seen him in real life back when he was still working the beat, though you thought seeing him in interviews compared to all the newscasters gave you a good reference of his size.

But nothing could have prepared you for the real thing.

He was huge, towering over you in a way that might have been intimidating—probably should have been intimidating—but which did not shock you at all. It was as though you’d been dwarfed by him before, already accustomed to the strange orientation of becoming so small in so little time.

Those same blonde waves framed his thin face and his eyes, while more visible now, you would recognize anywhere. You’d spent months staring into them through screens and on posters and in photographs—you would know them blind at this point.

He was breathtaking in a way and also so wholly familiar that there was nothing remotely surprising about this hulk of a man before you, who had leveled buildings and sent more than a few villains into orbit in his time.

Perhaps that was what happened when you studied someone for so long, you thought. You knew them before you knew them.

Hmm.

“Hello,” you greeted him rather stupidly, stumbling to your feet to meet him at the door. “Thank you so much for agreeing to talk with me.”

All Might smiled down at you. Just the concept of him in the flesh was hard for you to wrap your head around before and it was even more of a challenge when presented with the evidence of the crime. One massive palm encased the whole of your hand when you reached out to shake his and offered your name.

You forced yourself to look up from his shoes as you spoke just in time to catch the strange faltering of his smile, the glaze in those eyes that were burned into your brain like the sun on an unshaded gaze. For a brief moment, he didn’t speak and squeezed your hand in his grip—a little too hard and a little too long.

Only when you began to pull away did he seem to break from his trance.

“Ah, it’s nice to meet you,” he replied dryly, letting go of your hand to cover his mouth. “And you don’t need to thank me, I’m honored you asked.”

“Hah,” you chuckled despite yourself and motioned for him to take a seat across from you. “You’ll have to excuse me if I find that a bit hard to believe. My department spent months trying to get in contact with you.”

“Well, in that case, you’re excused.”

The smile on his face and the laugh—followed by a dry cough—seemed genuine and you were thankful you hadn’t identified yourself as a heartless asshole quite yet. Though the undertone of unease remained in the way his knee bounced under the table and the flickering of his eyes away each time you looked in his direction, like a child caught staring in a supermarket aisle.

“Thank you kindly,” you quipped, too preoccupied with your own nerves and the rushing of blood in your ears to be much concerned with your subject's plight. “Would it be alright if I asked you some questions now?”

“Right, of course,” he sat up straighter in his chair, towering even further over your. “Ask away.”

And so you did.

Once he started talking, got into the rhythm—past those first, awkward moments that came when talking about yourself to a stranger—All Might seemed to relax into you a bit. Not so fidgety or refusing to meet your eye.

He was...funny really. In a dad sort of way.

Awful jokes that made your brow crease but also endeared you to this massive man whose legs barely fit beneath the table with incredible speed.

Some of your inquiries were serious and a bit personal, which took all in stride.

Did he ever feel as though he’d let down all the millions who’d become dependent on him? Yes. Did his hero work affect his personal relationships? Of course. What led him to be, well, the way he was now? A lot of things. Was the cough a part of that? Yes and he was sorry for how unappealing it was.

Others were a bit more lighthearted, meant to give the viewers a feel for his personality and not just his faults.

When he taught, did he pick favorites? Yes, though he probably wasn’t supposed to. What was he doing in all his newfound free time? One of his former students showed him how to use Twitter and that had been occupying most of his time. If he were stranded alone on a desert island, what three things would he take with him? Flint, fresh water, and a good book.

Talking with him, as awkward and strange as it seemed, quickly felt routine.

As though you had been meeting for coffee on your lunch breaks for years now. You found yourself anticipating the wild gestures of his hands when he spoke or the way his voice would sometimes slip into that lower register when on the subject of his old days of hero work.

You found yourself truly disappointed when the timer on your phone began to chime, alerting you to the end of your allotted time. The two of you were silent for a second, staring down at the offending screen as the haze of conversation was shattered and reality flooded back in.

“Shit, I guess it really has been that long,” you mumbled and flicked off the alarm.

“There’s a saying about that I think,” he grimaced a bit, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Time flying etcetera…”

“Yeah...”

There was another pause then, both of you looking at your respective laps and you thought for a split second that All Might might say something else. But those lips with just a trace of red at the corners opened and shut twice before sealing themselves closed without uttering a word.

“Well, thank you again for coming Mr. All Might, Sir,” you said, and rose pushing yourself up to the door.

His shadow engulfed you when he stood to follow, hand still tugging the back of his neck raw as he joined you at the exit.

“No problem, and you don’t have to call me that,” his eyes flicked around the room before finally settling on your face. “I haven’t been All Might in a long time, really.”

“Right, well, um—what should I call you then?” you asked, taking the hand he offered to shake a final time.

“Toshinori,” he said softly. “Yagi Toshinori.”

The words left his mouth with that little quirk at the edge and all at once you were free falling. That same feeling right before you drifted off to sleep, when your brain thought you were dying and jerked you awake just to make sure.

Your breath caught and burned in your lungs, your eyes stung and your knees felt seconds from turning spontaneously to dust.

His hand swallowed yours and it really did feel as though you were being consumed in that moment, with this strange, ton of bricks revelation.

I knew her before I met her.

And you did, you found yourself knowing the guilt and the shame and the lingering pride in who All Might Toshinori had left his legacy in the hands of. You knew the ache in his cheeks and weight on his shoulders and knew how lost he felt without them.

I loved her the moment she told me her name.

And you did.

You did.

It was such a strange thought, so preposterous and so certain.

The sky was blue.

The grass was green.

Your office smelled of stale coffee and warm printer paper.

You loved Yagi Toshinori.

Even before you’d met, you had known him your whole life.

It was both simple and horrific. A ripping apart and a sewing together kind of sensation. And all the while you watched yourself reflected in the shadow of his gaze, come to terms with these truths in the few seconds between his name on your lips and your hand in his grasp.

“Toshinori,” you repeated slowly.

But it wasn’t really a name, not a statement but a question—hung in the air and begged for a response.

Was it real?

Did he know?

Did he love you too like the sea met the shore and the sun burned your skin?

“Yes,” those blood stained lips mumbled in the stark light of the conference room with nothing but the whir of the a.c to fill in the silent gaps.

Yes.

The whole feeling was akin to breathing really, but only in the sense that your whole life you’d been taking in air with half a lung and for the first time you were really full to bursting. Everything was so much more now, and it might have been beautiful if you were not also made suddenly and horrifically aware of how empty you had been until that point.

The wave of warring ecstasy and regret and a slew of other various thoughts and feelings and memories that weren’t yours came crashing around you again. All that new air leaching into your bloodstream made the lights seem blinding and the rattling of the vents, a stampeding beast.

“I’m sorry,” you rasped, throat dry and hard around the developing lump. “I have to go.”

The hallway was a blur before you as your hand slipped from his grip and you rushed to the staircase. You could hear him behind you, the strangled calls to wait, don’t to stop, please.

But you didn’t stop, not until the chill of the archives washed over you again. Not until your office door was slamming shut and the lock was clicking. Not until you were surrounded by the stale coffee scent and sliding down to the linoleum floor.

Not until the sob bubbled it’s way out of your mouth and into the printer paper air.

———

Your apartment was cold, air conditioning turned as low as you could justify before the motor froze and left you to uncanny quiet.

Before you’d rationalized it as a copying of environments, trying to simulate the constant chill of your library basement office. Finding comfort in numb toes and the need to quilts tucked over your shoulders.

Now you were starting to wonder if it was just a way to excuse the constant icy feeling in your joints that had only dissipated with the touch of massive fingertips over the back of your hand.

You never used to shiver before, but you did now, teeth threatening to clack as you hid away on the couch behind closed doors and curtains. Had you never noticed before, the bite of the freezing air? Or had you recently discovered a warmth to compare it to?

A week you spent shaking in layers of blankets and cushions, pawning off the task of transcribing your interview on an intern so you could hole yourself away at home. Avoid hearing that voice again, in its baritone rumble that you could feel in your ribs.

You thought you might die if you did.

Though really, you felt you might die if you didn’t, and now it was just a struggle between which burn was worse?

The cold or the skin-warm flush of palms that could swallow you whole?

After the interview—when you’d made a fool of yourself despite all efforts to the contrary and run like a soap opera star to cry loudly in your office—you had made no further attempt to contact...him.

It was painful even to think the name in the silence of your skull. Whenever you did, that terrible joy and mourning filled your chest all over again and your eyes were so bloodshot already, they would have given even Eraserhead a run for his money.

The first few days spent in self imposed hibernation, you’d done a lot of rationalizing. If you only thought about the feelings and tried to make sense of them, map them and graph them and input them into excel sheets, then you wouldn’t have to feel it. And that had worked for a time.

But that required acknowledgement of the situation and kept it too present in your mind. Made you think of your auntie. Of the white hair at her temples and floral print glass cups of sweet, cold tea and crows feet at the corners of her eyes.

From years of jaw aching grins.

And then you could only wonder, how?

How did she do it? How was she alone for so long after when she realized the emptiness that had gnawed at her bones before?

I knew her before I met her.

In your memories she looked so gut wrenchingly happy, even in that massive house, deserted but for her and you in those summer months with the neighbor boys and the garden by the pond.

Because you understood it now.

I loved her the moment she told me her name.

That bit was easy, far easier than you’d ever thought it could be. So why did it feel as though you were stumbling in your own funeral march, bearing your own coffin, burying yourself six feet deep as the organ chimed dully through the graveyard of every day before now.

When your coworkers and your auntie and those awful Hallmark movies that miraculously played at all times of the year talked about love at first sight, they didn’t tell you how badly it hurt.

And that despite it all, life kept fucking going.

And you had to keep fucking going.

Even after the world had shifted, there were still emails in your inbox and projects reaching their due dates.

It wasn’t clear to you, at that moment, why you suddenly felt as though you ought to check said emails. Not when that hadn’t been a worthwhile task to expend any energy on for days now. But you let the haze of routine take over and fumbled for your laptop among the couch cushions.

There are plenty for you to click through or delete and pretend later they went straight to spam. Some from your supervisor—who had apparently not noticed you weren’t in the office—asking you for coffee runs and being subsequently disappointed when it went hours without a response or a caffeine fix. Some were CC’s confirming venues for the conference, others from fans who were still contacting your hotline to submit used All Might tissues to your knowledge base.

And one, just at the top, from a familiar burner address, the message on a bold red and blue background with gold stars littering each corner. You clicked on the notification without a thought.

Hello, it greeted you simply, using the small space allowed to type only one line into the body. I came across some documents that might be helpful for your research, would you like them? he asked.

Best,

Toshinori

And maybe it was the name, standing out in stark black text against the colorful background that forced you to read it. Forced you to think it and feel everything you’d been trying so desperately to avoid. And maybe you just couldn’t take it anymore. Couldn’t take the cold.

Because maybe he felt the same, and the only thing that felt worse than this was the awful notion that he might feel this way too. And it would be all your fault.

So after a breath, you typed a short and fast response. Just a simple “yes.” Your address at the bottom, unsigned.

———

He was there in a split second you thought, but it was most likely a little over an hour later when you heard a soft knock on the door.

You didn’t bother with the peephole.

You’d know him blind.

And when you finally opened the door, when your eyes traveled up the expanse of his legs and chest that was thinner now but still carried the weight of his shoulders, when you found those eyes again—that’s when it all clicked.

You felt it in your bones the same way you felt him there. That there would be no fighting this. That the mourning stopped when you let the last petal fall. That your legs only burned when you tried to run.

Toshinori looked down at you unwavering as you stepped back to let him cross the threshold, let the door shut and the lock click with you both on the same side.

“I, uh, brought you the files,” he stuttered, taking a step towards you and setting the stack of manilla envelopes on your hall table gently, eyes never leaving your face.

“Thanks,” you replied, and matched his movements until your toes pressed to his boots.

Had he been anyone else, anywhere else, at any other time, the following silence would have been unbearable.

But he wasn’t anyone else. He was Toshinori, and because you loved him—inexplicably and despite all logic—he would never be unbearable.

And what a lovely, terrifying thing it was, to know that with such certainty.

“I want to kiss you,” his voice was so close as he arched his back almost in half to press your foreheads together. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why, but I think I might die if I don’t.”

“It’s alright,” one shaky hand came up to cup his jaw in your palm, feeling the fresh stubble on his skin. He smelled like aftershave with just the slightest hint of copper. You pressed your thumb to the corner of his mouth, wiping away the flecks of dried crimson. “I want to do more than kiss you.”

You had just long enough to hear the hitch in his breath, the catch of it in his throat, before your feet were no longer on the ground. On a reflex, your ankles crossed behind his back as one hand looped under your thighs and the other guided your lips to his.

Soft with just the right amount of drag—you had never understood what it was to melt before then, but that had to be the word for it. For the way you every muscle in your body went limp as you took a stumbling breath and pressed back against him.

He was so warm when you dipped the tip of your tongue out and he groaned, dropping his jaw so you could taste the deeper heat in his mouth. He was wet inside, spit leaking down your chin as you gripped his face and and shoulders, filling your apartment with the smacking sound of your mouths.

“Fuck,” he swore against you as you licked behind his teeth and drew his bottom lip between yours to nibble lightly before returning it.

“Yes.”

And he probably hadn’t meant it as a suggestion but you wanted that too. Wanted it very immediately and had the proof running down your thighs to show for it.

“Yeah?”

He pulled back just enough to pant against your chin, dipping down to nip at your throat and rest his head against the crook of your shoulder for a moment before pulling himself back to your mouth. He was sloppier about the entire ordeal than you’d expected from a man like him. Not that you minded much. As long as he kept touching you.

“Mhm,” you hummed, cradling his cheeks in both hands and sucking his tongue past your lips again.

“Shit, I—okay, where?”

“Third door on the left,” you mumbled against his lips, never pulling back more than an inch so that your noses still brushed. So you could still feel his breath fanning over your face.

You close your eyes then, content that he’d find his way and you could busy yourself with sucking bruises down his neck, only pausing when the mattress hit your back.

Toshinori broke from you then, staring down as he bracketed your head with his arms. His boots had been discarded somehow in the path from your door to the bedroom, his jacket too was gone but it wasn’t enough. You wanted skin. You wanted flesh and blood.

He barely seemed to notice as you yanked at the hem of his shirt impatiently, moving his arms for you to toss it aside as he spoke.

“You’re beautiful.”

You felt his voice in your ribs like a second heartbeat and never wanted it to stop.

“I wanted to tell you before but—” he trailed off as those hands nearly bigger than your head stripped away your top as well, taking your loose pants along with them. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” you frowned, pulling him down to you again and pushing your toes against the waistband of his jeans until he took the hint and shifted them down his hips.

It didn’t occur to you to try and cover yourself. You were safe here. You would always be safe here.

“That it took so long to find you,” he whispered, trailing his hands down your sides and squeezing in all your soft places. “I didn’t know I was supposed to be looking.”

You could feel him now, all bare skin pressed to you. The weight of his cock was thick and heavy on your thigh and you pushed back at his shoulders, legs hooked over his waist until he turned and let his back rest on your pillows.

From your new position, you could stare down and take him in finally. His thighs felt so hot under your ass, the length of him trapped bobbing between your bodies, nearly the width of your forearm and just as long. Your eyes traveled and your hands did too. First to father the slick spilling from his tip and pump him slowly in your fist, shuddering when he whimpered at the touch.

The scar on his torso caught your eye when you managed to look away. It was old now but gnarled still and your free fingers traced the raised edges of it lightly before you bent down to place a kiss at the center as you stroked his cock and left your own wet mark on his thighs.

“Need you now,” you mumbled against his lips, leaning down to capture them again as he moved your hips to drag against the muscle supporting your weight.

“Not yet,” he groaned like it pained him to say, fingers traveling from your hip to your slit and trying to push inside as you squirmed away. “It’ll hurt, here—”

“I want it too,” you insisted, pulling his hand away and nuzzling your cheek to his palm instead.

“No, just let me—” his other hand moved to thumb at your clit, finding just the right pressure at first contact as though he’d done it a thousand times before.

Those blue eyes stood out against the violent flush of his face, brows furrowed while he tried to work you open but you couldn’t have that.

You needed it to burn, you needed the heat and the ache of it because in the haze and the wonder it was all starting to feel a little unreal. A bit too good to be true and you had to have the sting there, the splitting in your core to remind you he was there. That it wasn’t some cruel dream, another memory to hold on to for too long.

And so you swatted his hand away, rearing up until the sensitive head of his cock—so pretty and red and leaking over your fingers—nudged your entrance and sank slowly past the ring of muscle.

It did hurt, but watching the concern etched into his gaunt face melt into ecstasy was well worth the throbbing of your cunt at the intrusion. You could feel the burn in your eyes as well, prickling at the corners as you dropped your hips a few more inches at a time until you were seated on his lap completely.

You took a few shuddering breaths, teeth digging holes through your bottom lip until one, massive palm came to rest on your stomach. Toshinori was watching your face intently, intensely, eyes warm and awed as you sat atop him all at once.

The thumb still on your face stroked softly at your cheek, collecting some of the stray tears from your lashes and tugging you gently down to his chest. You whimpered low at the feel of his cock shifting where it was buried inside you, but followed his pull regardless. Your head rested just above his heart, the dull thump of it audible over the sound of his labored breaths.

“Shh,” he held you close with one hand on your head and the other lightly resting on the small of your back.

His cock twitched inside even as he lay still.

It was so much, so good and so right and felt so thoroughly as if you’d been born to do this that the simple notion you had ever settled for anything less made your mouth go dry and your eyes threaten to spill all over again.

You stayed that way for quite some time, just sharing in your collective warmth, hands tracing all available skin and committing the dips to memory. It wasn’t until you lifted your head and caught his gaze that either of you moved.

It was slow, the grind of his hips into yours. That lazy and deep kind of fucking you never thought could feel so overwhelming, but it had moans bubbling past your lips in seconds. He barely bothered to pull out at all, just rocking against you at just the right angle to have the thick tip nudging some glorious spot deep against your walls.

“S’good,” you managed to gasp as the curls at the base of his dick rubbed deliciously against your clit. “So good Toshi, fuck—”

“Yeah?” he grinned down at you, not that forced tugging in his cheeks you’d grown so accustomed to, but a real one with no ulterior motive.

You desperately wished he wasn’t so tall in that moment, if only so you could reach his lips and kiss him while he fucked you deeper and harder and better than you could have ever dreamed possible.

“Yeah.”

The air rattled in his chest as his breaths came quicker, eyes rolling back just a bit so you could catch a glimpse of the whites behind them.

“Never felt like this before,” he grunted before his head flopped back to the pillows and you hummed your agreement before letting yours come to rest just over his beating heart again.

There was no shouting or throat rending groans as the two of you softly worked each other to the edge. His hand found yours again and laced your fingers together against the sheets while he ground his cock into you over and over until the dam finally crumbled.

You heard your name whispered as his grip on you tightened and familiar heat washed through you spreading in pins and needles out from your cunt where Toshi painted you full of his release and left you warmed from the inside out. It was not explosive or earth shattering. It did not have to be. The waves of pleasure rolled through you for ages after you’d come down from your high, little shocks tensing in your soaked thighs with every breath you took.

His arms were the only thing to move after you had both settled into each other, keeping you locked to his chest.

As if you ever wanted to leave it.

After a few moments of blissed out silence, you felt him soften against your walls, slipping out in a gush of combined release. You’d have to buy new sheets. You’d buy a thousand if it meant that he’d keep helping you ruin them.

No longer tethered to his hips, you shimmed up his massive torso so his lips were once again within reach. Toshi hummed as you shifted to the side and he followed suit, tangling your legs together and licking lazily into each other’s mouths.

You broke the most comfortable silence of your lifetime first.

“I suppose I’ll have to drop out of the development team now,” you said, burrowing deeper into his embrace.

Finding a puzzle-piece perfect space for yourself against the contours of his body.

“Why’s that?” he asked, pressing his lips to the crown of your head as he spoke.

“I think this probably violates multiple articles of the archival ethics code,” you mumbled and breathed him in again, the clean scent of sweat and blood and cologne.

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

He said it with such utter sincerity that you couldn’t help the cheek splitting grin that forced its way onto your face. You surged forward to kiss him again. And then another time after that, just to make sure it stuck.

“Don’t be.”

[mha-simp-99]

PROVENANCE - ALL MIGHT X READER

COLLAB M.LIST | AO3

✧ pairing: soulmate!toshinori x afab!archivist!reader

✧ word count: 8.3k

✧ warnings: bee's first soft?, hahhah jk, smut and feels, soulmate!au, happy ending, reader get's picked up briefly but ya know, toshi is massive, mentions of blood (for Toshi's cough), praise, soft fucking, no prep, unprotected sex, size difference cause he's like 7 feet tall, reader is afab with no pronouns used, light cockwarming,

✧ summary: In which missing pieces are found. Or, you're an archivist working on the newest debut of the All Might Knowledge Base--the largest collection of information on the once famous number one pro hero and you end up with a bit more than what you'd bargained for when taking the job.

✧ a/n: Thanks to my beloved @/simultaneously-sick-and-calm for beta reading this for me. Soulmate is pretty loosely defined here. I wanted it to be a bit more ambiguous so like there aren't rules for it or a universe wide acceptance of soulmates. You just happened to find one. In any case, go check out all the other wonderful works in the latest BNHAREM server collab! The theme was obviously soulmates lol, just in time for cuffing season. Let me know if you enjoyed <3

There was something missing.

You’d felt that way through all the months spent working this project but especially now, as it drew to a close.

Of course, archiving the entire career of one of the nation’s most prolific heroes was never going to be a strictly easy feat. You were never going to be able to capture all of it, have it digitized and tagged and sorted for fast, simple retrieval—that was never going to be a reality and you’d accepted this early on in the endeavor.

But as you stared down at the mess of coding and scanned manuscript, the All Might Knowledge Base felt so terribly lacking. That’s what you’d tried to communicate to your supervisor at least, and although convincing her to push back the release date was a harrowing task, you had managed it.

It’s just a glorified wiki article, you’d insisted. There’s nothing here of value that the audience couldn’t go digging up anywhere else.

As it stood, the archive wasn’t anything more than a shrine to a concept—a symbol as tacky as it sounded—to an era. The real value of the project lay with the documentation of the man behind the mask.

Of course All Might couldn’t have incorporated an actual mask into his costume years ago to make your metaphor sound a bit more apropos.

And with enough poking and prodding and flaunting of your credentials in this particular area of study, you’d won out.

Interviews, she’d said. As many as you could record and transcribe by the deadline on the life of the man who had once played the role of the first ranked hero and how he’d subsequently fallen from grace. A few were already documented and filed away in their own special reference tab boasting an all new, never before seen biography section on the site.

But they weren’t quite what you were looking for. Didn’t reach deep enough.

You were hoping all that would change though,

Don’t fuck this up, read the subject line of the email still sitting opened in your inbox. Contained in it were the details and times of the latest interview subject your supervisor had obtained for you. Long time friend and fellow hero—although far more inconspicuous—Eraserhead had actually agreed to meet with you.

And, while a bit unprofessional, you understood your boss’ sentiment and the secondary meaning of what was left unsaid. Don’t fuck this up because you won’t get another chance.

Eraserhead famously never agreed to interviews with the media. Not that you were the media, or that you blamed him much, but it was a massive opportunity to speak with him—on the record no less—and any screw ups would mean all your efforts until now meant nothing.

Essentially, there was a lot at stake here, so the train ride over to the park you’d agreed to meet at was more than a bit nerve wracking.

The streetlights had already flashed to life by the time you got yourself a drink from one of the pop-up cafe stands and took a seat at the little outdoor tables to wait. You were shocked initially at the refusal to come to your university office, but meeting at sunset in a park two cities over seemed quite...on brand for your interviewee.

He lived up to his stealthy reputation as well, managing to stand directly behind you unnoticed until the low mutter of your name startled you into awareness.

“You’re the researcher, yeah?”

He sounded nothing like you thought he would, voice low and smooth and nonchalant. No commanding presence or flashy costuming. The loose, black fabric of his clothes swished quietly as he came around to sit on the bench across from you.

“Ah, yes,” you sputtered, halfway stood up to shake his hand even as he waved you off.

As if he sensed your frown beginning to form, Eraserhead locked you the understanding but authoritative look you’d only recalled seeing on professors in your undergrad classes—of someone who knew you had earned your place here, but could help you do it better.

“We haven’t got long,” he said by way of explanation. “Better to skip the pleasantries, I think.”

“Right, I guess we’ll get to it then,” you mumbled, fumbling a second with the audio recorder and portable mic before settling back in your seat.

“So, how does this work?” he leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. “You ask me questions, I answer?”

“I almost forgot you said you’ve never done an interview,” you found his presence somewhat calming despite what was riding on your success and the conversation quickly took on a much more familiar tone than you’d expected. “It’s supposed to be more like a discussion really, but I have some questions in mind to get the ball rolling if that’s helpful.”

“I’m not really sure how I could be of much help to you, but go ahead.”

You straightened your shoulders and took a sip of your drink to cool the dry burn in your throat. The hero in front of you toyed mindlessly with the scarf he wore, working the cords of it between rough fingers like a magician's coin.

“Well, I don’t how much my supervisor passed along to you, but I know you worked closely with All Might in the past and I was hoping you could give me some more insight,” you explained, eyes flicking between the infamous goggles around his neck and the condensation of your cup dripping slowly downward to form a puddle by your hand.

“Insight on what exactly?”

When you did manage to meet his gaze again, dark eyes, bloodshot and rimmed in red stared back at you as though they were fighting to stay open at all. You tried not to take offense as the man before you yawned just as you opened your mouth to speak.

“His life,” you said simply. “Outside of the facade, if you can call it that—who was when he wasn’t All Might.”

“Why?” he asked—not unkindly or accusatory, just curious.

“I know you’re not overly familiar with how interviews run, but you are aware that I’m the one meant to ask the questions, right?” you chuckled despite yourself and earned a somewhat reluctant twitch of the lips from your subject.

The only response he gave was a shrug of his shoulders and so you indulged him if only to keep the things moving forward.

“Well, that’s what matters, isn’t it? I’m sure you know what we’re trying to do, and the rest of it— everything we’ve collected I mean—that’s all just conjecture. I don’t feel like our work would mean much to the public unless we could offer a real, complete image,” you could feel yourself getting a bit worked up as you were wont to do with long term projects like this, but it felt too good to stop the flow of words. “What kind of friend was he? What was he like as a teacher? Did he always wear that yellow suit or was that just for the cameras?

Eraserhead nodded thoughtfully as you spoke, leaning back in his seat with his chin tipped towards the darkening sky.

“Look I’m not gonna sit here and tell you that he shat gold and we all kissed the ground he walked on,” the hero said, eyes still cast up and watering at the light from the setting sun. “But I get the feeling that’s not what you’re looking for anyway, so I can give you what I know, as long as you’re not gonna twist it all around after.”

“No, of course not,” you shook your head and shuffled to push the mic farther across the table, as you sat back and prepared to listen.

———

You felt strange as you rode the train back to your office and prepared to transcribe everything you’d just heard.

It was informative, certainly, and probably the most groundbreaking event of your entire career. But the whole ordeal, all of Eraserhead’s somewhat sarcastic and concise commentary ping ponged around in your skull like the shaking of the train car below you. It was hard to put your finger on exactly why the hours worth of audio had you so unnerved.

Maybe because the whole time, every anecdote he shared, every small detail seemed so...unsurprising. Like you’d known what he was going to say before the words actually left his lips. Not so much that you had some prior knowledge of how many times All Might had broken mugs in the teachers lounge, but all at once that was exactly how it felt. That you’d been aware of all this about someone before, just not All Might himself.

Like you’d seen it in a dream once before and it had been grafted onto your memories.

It was odd and left your tongue feeling dry and heavy in your mouth as you rushed through the sudden down pouring of early fall rain and into the university library that housed your offices. You pushed, dripping, past reception and shivered at the blast of temperature stabilizing A.C. that chilled the halls to your workspace.

The uncomfortable sense of deja vu with an unclear origin never left, but it was somewhat off put when you placed your bag down on the old carpeting and took a second to breathe. Documents littered all available surfaces, interspersed with used mugs and uncapped pens. The poster that was hung on the far wall in particular caught your gaze. Massive hands balled into fists on his hips, All Might stood staring down at you from the paper. His eyes were cast in shadow as always, blond hair edited to glitter as he stood triumphant.

It was a limited edition, and took quite a lot of scouring comic stores and memorabilia sites to find.

You’d felt it was lacking before, when you’d first hung it to save the piece from creasing. Though now, when you looked it over, he seemed fuller somehow. Or perhaps you were fuller, perhaps now that you connected these things you’d always known—that the yellow, pinstriped suit was a personal choice and he did indeed wear it daily—with the face, you felt a bit more complete.

The revelation was almost stranger, but you didn’t allow yourself the time to dwell on it.

Sitting instead to begin your newest transcription.

———

For as quiet of a person as he was, Eraserhead talked quite a lot. So much, in fact, that you’d been stuck at your desk for what was creeping up on four hours trying to dictate your own interview. Though it probably wouldn’t have taken you this long to reach the final five minute stretch if your supervisor hadn’t been mass emailing you throughout the entire process.

I forwarded you the invites to the department director’s engagement party by the way. Make sure you at least make an appearance. I’m aware that’s not really your type of thing, but I don’t want him thinking my employees are heartless assholes.

You rolled your eyes, switching tabs to type out a curt response dictating that just because weddings and all their accoutrements were not of any interest to you didn’t make you a ‘heartless asshole’ and reminded her that the H.R office was only a CC away. And you would love for the excuse to leverage yourself some time off and a little bonus pay.

Swapping back to your documents, only another minute of audio passed before you got a predictably scathing response.

I’m making this as unofficially mandatory as possible just for that. You should be happy for them and yourself considering how much more tolerable he’s been since the announcement. They’re kind of cute together really. They do look disgustingly adorable in the pictures he emailed out with the invites. Anyway, show up for long enough to say congrats and then leave if you are really so unaffected by true love. Not that I know how anyone could tolerate being around him for more than twenty minutes, but I suppose some people are just meant to be, you know?

You didn’t know, actually.

That whole concept wasn’t something you’d ever bought into much. The idea you could bump into a person some day and suddenly know that they’re the one for you was just so convoluted, and if that made you a ‘heartless asshole’ then so be it.

There were plenty of other and far more logical grounds to call you an asshole, and most of your annoyance on the subject stemmed from her chosen criteria. You knew just how abrasive you could be in office social gatherings. There was a reason you worked in the archives and not at the front desk.

Though the conversation did dredge up quite a few very old memories on the topic.

You had an auntie once, a long time ago, who used to try and fill your head with similar ideations. They were happy recollections for the most part. End of summer days, still too hot for much running in the wildflower fields, but nice enough to dip your feet in the little pond by her porch and sip cold barley tea sweetened with honey. She’d kneel beside you, sipping from pretty floral glass cups that you could still feel in your little palm if you thought hard enough on it.

You remembered little about her outside of the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and her affinity for romance.

She’d had a wife years before your mother started making you spend the summers there that she spoke of often. Never in a sad way, that you recalled, always fondly and with a brightness to her face that made her seem quite a lot younger than the wisps white hair at her temples might indicate.

You’d asked once how they’d met or why perhaps or some other foolish child’s question that made sense at the time.

Everything that she’d said to you wasn’t quite clear now, but the words themselves hadn’t been of much interest to you anyway. It was the way that she looked when she said them.

“I knew her before I met her.”

You could hear the hum of your auntie’s voice over the rush of the fountain in her pond and the clink of ice in floral print cups.

“I loved her the moment she told me her name.”

When you glanced up past the dying summer sun, she looked so much—well younger wasn’t quite the right word, but more present, softer, more alive. Back then, you thought she was just a bit old and full of it. But you couldn’t shake that look on her face that made you almost believe her, despite how outlandish it all seemed.

Then she’d pat your head with those creased, veiny fingers, and impart on you some old auntie sage wisdom that could have belonged to bedroom decals sold at those home goods stores. Never change for anyone and all that, the right person will come along eventually—all very unimportant things to a child. In truth, at the time, you were probably more concerned with whether the neighbor boys would be allowed to play in the garden after dinner.

And it held about the same significance to you for the rest of your life afterwards.

You weren’t entirely certain then, why that was what you were remembering now from those few weeks you’d spent with her years ago, or why the memory sent your gut to churning.

It left you filled with a strange sense of longing—not for summer or childhood or glass cups with barley tea—but something just out of reach. You wanted to go back now, ask her what that meant, what it was to know someone before you...knew them. To smile that way even after they were gone.

The poster on the wall stared grinning down at you—all triumph and power and black, shadowed eyes. You frowned back at it for a moment, brows furrowed as you took in the curve of his waist in skin tight costuming and the laugh so clearly halfway to bursting from his frozen lips.

And you still couldn’t be sure what exactly made you do what you did next. You’d been turned down so many times before, never quite getting through to anyone important enough or through the right channels. You opened up a new window nonetheless, leaving your supervisor’s email unanswered and the interview transcript unfinished to search up an old website you’d added to the archive months ago.

It wasn’t active much anymore, but in its heyday it had been a way for All Might fans across the country to send letters to their favorite hero. And sometimes—if they were lucky—they’d get a response.

You were sure it would all amount to nothing, but you clicked anyway, pulling up the little text box and typing in your email address and the name of your organization instead of including your own name. At least that might give you a fighting chance at seeming legitimate. The blank space to write your message flashed bright gold against the blue and red background. The cursor blinked as you gathered your thoughts and began to type.

Another handful of hours passed between the time you submitted your pipe-dream request to the All Might fan-site and when you finally completed the audio transcript. Just enough time for you to feel properly embarrassed about the whole notion. You were certain it had been disconnected ages ago and some poor programmer would see your fruitless last attempt to get a chance to interview the man himself for your precious university archive. Hopefully it would give them a good laugh at the very least.

You were most definitely not laughing as the clock creeped up on tomorrow and you contemplated whether calling a ride home would be worth the money.

Fishing the spare toothbrush out of your bottom desk drawer, you settled on stealing one of the comfier couches in the lounge to nap on until the sun rose when the ring of an email notification alert rang through your headphones. In a flurry, the desk chair shot out on it’s wheels as you yanked the cords from your ears in shock and the linoleum sent a jolt through your spine when you landed flat on your ass below the desk.

Grumbling and grabbing at the tabletop, you pulled yourself weakly to your feet and scowled down at the screen, ready to rip your supervisor a new asshole for emailing you past midnight.

But it wasn’t anything from her sitting in your inbox.

Instead, it was a stock email address with a message on a familiar, brightly colored red, blue, and gold background. The sender greeted and thanked you for submitting to the All Might fan contact site. They were flattered that you’d reached out to them and would be happy to help you if they could. Would Friday work for an interview and if so, what would you like to know? They hoped you were having a good week and to hear back from you soon.

Included at the end was a phone number and a secondary email different from the site auto response.

And it was signed

Best,

All Might

———

“Your guest is here” the receptionist drawled over the phone line and your heart took the opportunity to make itself known, pounding against your ribs at the news.

“Great, uh, send him up to conference room two, please,” you responded curtly and slammed the phone back in it’s dock before saying anything further.

You could apologize for the abruptness later. Now you had to run through your list of interview questions for the umpteenth time to avoid making a further ass of yourself before he found his way to the elevators.

It was not the Friday after you’d miraculously come in contact with someone who was at the very least impersonating the former pro, All Might. No, it was exactly two weeks later. Two weeks as that—and a horrifically awkward selfie that could have passed for a middle aged man’s facebook profile confirming his identity—was how long it took to officially verify that the man who had reached out to you was indeed All Might himself.

He’d been incredibly gracious about your less than warm reception. Though really who would fault you for harboring a healthy amount of suspicion. It was incredibly unlikely that All Might would still have access to whatever burner account was set up to respond to submissions through his old website. And even if it was him, no one else on your team had ever been successful getting in touch before, so why answer you now?

Truth be told, you were still a bit suspicious, fully prepared for a whole other individual entirely to walk through the conference room doors and equipped to defend yourself with the office landline if it came to an exchanging of blows.

But it, somewhat predictably, didn’t come to that.

No, the massive slip of a man who walked through the conference room doors—all long limbs and sharp cheeks—wore exactly the same toothy half-smile as he had in the selfie still saved to your photos. You’d never actually seen him in real life back when he was still working the beat, though you thought seeing him in interviews compared to all the newscasters gave you a good reference of his size.

But nothing could have prepared you for the real thing.

He was huge, towering over you in a way that might have been intimidating—probably should have been intimidating—but which did not shock you at all. It was as though you’d been dwarfed by him before, already accustomed to the strange orientation of becoming so small in so little time.

Those same blonde waves framed his thin face and his eyes, while more visible now, you would recognize anywhere. You’d spent months staring into them through screens and on posters and in photographs—you would know them blind at this point.

He was breathtaking in a way and also so wholly familiar that there was nothing remotely surprising about this hulk of a man before you, who had leveled buildings and sent more than a few villains into orbit in his time.

Perhaps that was what happened when you studied someone for so long, you thought. You knew them before you knew them.

Hmm.

“Hello,” you greeted him rather stupidly, stumbling to your feet to meet him at the door. “Thank you so much for agreeing to talk with me.”

All Might smiled down at you. Just the concept of him in the flesh was hard for you to wrap your head around before and it was even more of a challenge when presented with the evidence of the crime. One massive palm encased the whole of your hand when you reached out to shake his and offered your name.

You forced yourself to look up from his shoes as you spoke just in time to catch the strange faltering of his smile, the glaze in those eyes that were burned into your brain like the sun on an unshaded gaze. For a brief moment, he didn’t speak and squeezed your hand in his grip—a little too hard and a little too long.

Only when you began to pull away did he seem to break from his trance.

“Ah, it’s nice to meet you,” he replied dryly, letting go of your hand to cover his mouth. “And you don’t need to thank me, I’m honored you asked.”

“Hah,” you chuckled despite yourself and motioned for him to take a seat across from you. “You’ll have to excuse me if I find that a bit hard to believe. My department spent months trying to get in contact with you.”

“Well, in that case, you’re excused.”

The smile on his face and the laugh—followed by a dry cough—seemed genuine and you were thankful you hadn’t identified yourself as a heartless asshole quite yet. Though the undertone of unease remained in the way his knee bounced under the table and the flickering of his eyes away each time you looked in his direction, like a child caught staring in a supermarket aisle.

“Thank you kindly,” you quipped, too preoccupied with your own nerves and the rushing of blood in your ears to be much concerned with your subject's plight. “Would it be alright if I asked you some questions now?”

“Right, of course,” he sat up straighter in his chair, towering even further over your. “Ask away.”

And so you did.

Once he started talking, got into the rhythm—past those first, awkward moments that came when talking about yourself to a stranger—All Might seemed to relax into you a bit. Not so fidgety or refusing to meet your eye.

He was...funny really. In a dad sort of way.

Awful jokes that made your brow crease but also endeared you to this massive man whose legs barely fit beneath the table with incredible speed.

Some of your inquiries were serious and a bit personal, which took all in stride.

Did he ever feel as though he’d let down all the millions who’d become dependent on him? Yes. Did his hero work affect his personal relationships? Of course. What led him to be, well, the way he was now? A lot of things. Was the cough a part of that? Yes and he was sorry for how unappealing it was.

Others were a bit more lighthearted, meant to give the viewers a feel for his personality and not just his faults.

When he taught, did he pick favorites? Yes, though he probably wasn’t supposed to. What was he doing in all his newfound free time? One of his former students showed him how to use Twitter and that had been occupying most of his time. If he were stranded alone on a desert island, what three things would he take with him? Flint, fresh water, and a good book.

Talking with him, as awkward and strange as it seemed, quickly felt routine.

As though you had been meeting for coffee on your lunch breaks for years now. You found yourself anticipating the wild gestures of his hands when he spoke or the way his voice would sometimes slip into that lower register when on the subject of his old days of hero work.

You found yourself truly disappointed when the timer on your phone began to chime, alerting you to the end of your allotted time. The two of you were silent for a second, staring down at the offending screen as the haze of conversation was shattered and reality flooded back in.

“Shit, I guess it really has been that long,” you mumbled and flicked off the alarm.

“There’s a saying about that I think,” he grimaced a bit, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Time flying etcetera…”

“Yeah...”

There was another pause then, both of you looking at your respective laps and you thought for a split second that All Might might say something else. But those lips with just a trace of red at the corners opened and shut twice before sealing themselves closed without uttering a word.

“Well, thank you again for coming Mr. All Might, Sir,” you said, and rose pushing yourself up to the door.

His shadow engulfed you when he stood to follow, hand still tugging the back of his neck raw as he joined you at the exit.

“No problem, and you don’t have to call me that,” his eyes flicked around the room before finally settling on your face. “I haven’t been All Might in a long time, really.”

“Right, well, um—what should I call you then?” you asked, taking the hand he offered to shake a final time.

“Toshinori,” he said softly. “Yagi Toshinori.”

The words left his mouth with that little quirk at the edge and all at once you were free falling. That same feeling right before you drifted off to sleep, when your brain thought you were dying and jerked you awake just to make sure.

Your breath caught and burned in your lungs, your eyes stung and your knees felt seconds from turning spontaneously to dust.

His hand swallowed yours and it really did feel as though you were being consumed in that moment, with this strange, ton of bricks revelation.

I knew her before I met her.

And you did, you found yourself knowing the guilt and the shame and the lingering pride in who All Might Toshinori had left his legacy in the hands of. You knew the ache in his cheeks and weight on his shoulders and knew how lost he felt without them.

I loved her the moment she told me her name.

And you did.

You did.

It was such a strange thought, so preposterous and so certain.

The sky was blue.

The grass was green.

Your office smelled of stale coffee and warm printer paper.

You loved Yagi Toshinori.

Even before you’d met, you had known him your whole life.

It was both simple and horrific. A ripping apart and a sewing together kind of sensation. And all the while you watched yourself reflected in the shadow of his gaze, come to terms with these truths in the few seconds between his name on your lips and your hand in his grasp.

“Toshinori,” you repeated slowly.

But it wasn’t really a name, not a statement but a question—hung in the air and begged for a response.

Was it real?

Did he know?

Did he love you too like the sea met the shore and the sun burned your skin?

“Yes,” those blood stained lips mumbled in the stark light of the conference room with nothing but the whir of the a.c to fill in the silent gaps.

Yes.

The whole feeling was akin to breathing really, but only in the sense that your whole life you’d been taking in air with half a lung and for the first time you were really full to bursting. Everything was so much more now, and it might have been beautiful if you were not also made suddenly and horrifically aware of how empty you had been until that point.

The wave of warring ecstasy and regret and a slew of other various thoughts and feelings and memories that weren’t yours came crashing around you again. All that new air leaching into your bloodstream made the lights seem blinding and the rattling of the vents, a stampeding beast.

“I’m sorry,” you rasped, throat dry and hard around the developing lump. “I have to go.”

The hallway was a blur before you as your hand slipped from his grip and you rushed to the staircase. You could hear him behind you, the strangled calls to wait, don’t to stop, please.

But you didn’t stop, not until the chill of the archives washed over you again. Not until your office door was slamming shut and the lock was clicking. Not until you were surrounded by the stale coffee scent and sliding down to the linoleum floor.

Not until the sob bubbled it’s way out of your mouth and into the printer paper air.

———

Your apartment was cold, air conditioning turned as low as you could justify before the motor froze and left you to uncanny quiet.

Before you’d rationalized it as a copying of environments, trying to simulate the constant chill of your library basement office. Finding comfort in numb toes and the need to quilts tucked over your shoulders.

Now you were starting to wonder if it was just a way to excuse the constant icy feeling in your joints that had only dissipated with the touch of massive fingertips over the back of your hand.

You never used to shiver before, but you did now, teeth threatening to clack as you hid away on the couch behind closed doors and curtains. Had you never noticed before, the bite of the freezing air? Or had you recently discovered a warmth to compare it to?

A week you spent shaking in layers of blankets and cushions, pawning off the task of transcribing your interview on an intern so you could hole yourself away at home. Avoid hearing that voice again, in its baritone rumble that you could feel in your ribs.

You thought you might die if you did.

Though really, you felt you might die if you didn’t, and now it was just a struggle between which burn was worse?

The cold or the skin-warm flush of palms that could swallow you whole?

After the interview—when you’d made a fool of yourself despite all efforts to the contrary and run like a soap opera star to cry loudly in your office—you had made no further attempt to contact...him.

It was painful even to think the name in the silence of your skull. Whenever you did, that terrible joy and mourning filled your chest all over again and your eyes were so bloodshot already, they would have given even Eraserhead a run for his money.

The first few days spent in self imposed hibernation, you’d done a lot of rationalizing. If you only thought about the feelings and tried to make sense of them, map them and graph them and input them into excel sheets, then you wouldn’t have to feel it. And that had worked for a time.

But that required acknowledgement of the situation and kept it too present in your mind. Made you think of your auntie. Of the white hair at her temples and floral print glass cups of sweet, cold tea and crows feet at the corners of her eyes.

From years of jaw aching grins.

And then you could only wonder, how?

How did she do it? How was she alone for so long after when she realized the emptiness that had gnawed at her bones before?

I knew her before I met her.

In your memories she looked so gut wrenchingly happy, even in that massive house, deserted but for her and you in those summer months with the neighbor boys and the garden by the pond.

Because you understood it now.

I loved her the moment she told me her name.

That bit was easy, far easier than you’d ever thought it could be. So why did it feel as though you were stumbling in your own funeral march, bearing your own coffin, burying yourself six feet deep as the organ chimed dully through the graveyard of every day before now.

When your coworkers and your auntie and those awful Hallmark movies that miraculously played at all times of the year talked about love at first sight, they didn’t tell you how badly it hurt.

And that despite it all, life kept fucking going.

And you had to keep fucking going.

Even after the world had shifted, there were still emails in your inbox and projects reaching their due dates.

It wasn’t clear to you, at that moment, why you suddenly felt as though you ought to check said emails. Not when that hadn’t been a worthwhile task to expend any energy on for days now. But you let the haze of routine take over and fumbled for your laptop among the couch cushions.

There are plenty for you to click through or delete and pretend later they went straight to spam. Some from your supervisor—who had apparently not noticed you weren’t in the office—asking you for coffee runs and being subsequently disappointed when it went hours without a response or a caffeine fix. Some were CC’s confirming venues for the conference, others from fans who were still contacting your hotline to submit used All Might tissues to your knowledge base.

And one, just at the top, from a familiar burner address, the message on a bold red and blue background with gold stars littering each corner. You clicked on the notification without a thought.

Hello, it greeted you simply, using the small space allowed to type only one line into the body. I came across some documents that might be helpful for your research, would you like them? he asked.

Best,

Toshinori

And maybe it was the name, standing out in stark black text against the colorful background that forced you to read it. Forced you to think it and feel everything you’d been trying so desperately to avoid. And maybe you just couldn’t take it anymore. Couldn’t take the cold.

Because maybe he felt the same, and the only thing that felt worse than this was the awful notion that he might feel this way too. And it would be all your fault.

So after a breath, you typed a short and fast response. Just a simple “yes.” Your address at the bottom, unsigned.

———

He was there in a split second you thought, but it was most likely a little over an hour later when you heard a soft knock on the door.

You didn’t bother with the peephole.

You’d know him blind.

And when you finally opened the door, when your eyes traveled up the expanse of his legs and chest that was thinner now but still carried the weight of his shoulders, when you found those eyes again—that’s when it all clicked.

You felt it in your bones the same way you felt him there. That there would be no fighting this. That the mourning stopped when you let the last petal fall. That your legs only burned when you tried to run.

Toshinori looked down at you unwavering as you stepped back to let him cross the threshold, let the door shut and the lock click with you both on the same side.

“I, uh, brought you the files,” he stuttered, taking a step towards you and setting the stack of manilla envelopes on your hall table gently, eyes never leaving your face.

“Thanks,” you replied, and matched his movements until your toes pressed to his boots.

Had he been anyone else, anywhere else, at any other time, the following silence would have been unbearable.

But he wasn’t anyone else. He was Toshinori, and because you loved him—inexplicably and despite all logic—he would never be unbearable.

And what a lovely, terrifying thing it was, to know that with such certainty.

“I want to kiss you,” his voice was so close as he arched his back almost in half to press your foreheads together. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why, but I think I might die if I don’t.”

“It’s alright,” one shaky hand came up to cup his jaw in your palm, feeling the fresh stubble on his skin. He smelled like aftershave with just the slightest hint of copper. You pressed your thumb to the corner of his mouth, wiping away the flecks of dried crimson. “I want to do more than kiss you.”

You had just long enough to hear the hitch in his breath, the catch of it in his throat, before your feet were no longer on the ground. On a reflex, your ankles crossed behind his back as one hand looped under your thighs and the other guided your lips to his.

Soft with just the right amount of drag—you had never understood what it was to melt before then, but that had to be the word for it. For the way you every muscle in your body went limp as you took a stumbling breath and pressed back against him.

He was so warm when you dipped the tip of your tongue out and he groaned, dropping his jaw so you could taste the deeper heat in his mouth. He was wet inside, spit leaking down your chin as you gripped his face and and shoulders, filling your apartment with the smacking sound of your mouths.

“Fuck,” he swore against you as you licked behind his teeth and drew his bottom lip between yours to nibble lightly before returning it.

“Yes.”

And he probably hadn’t meant it as a suggestion but you wanted that too. Wanted it very immediately and had the proof running down your thighs to show for it.

“Yeah?”

He pulled back just enough to pant against your chin, dipping down to nip at your throat and rest his head against the crook of your shoulder for a moment before pulling himself back to your mouth. He was sloppier about the entire ordeal than you’d expected from a man like him. Not that you minded much. As long as he kept touching you.

“Mhm,” you hummed, cradling his cheeks in both hands and sucking his tongue past your lips again.

“Shit, I—okay, where?”

“Third door on the left,” you mumbled against his lips, never pulling back more than an inch so that your noses still brushed. So you could still feel his breath fanning over your face.

You close your eyes then, content that he’d find his way and you could busy yourself with sucking bruises down his neck, only pausing when the mattress hit your back.

Toshinori broke from you then, staring down as he bracketed your head with his arms. His boots had been discarded somehow in the path from your door to the bedroom, his jacket too was gone but it wasn’t enough. You wanted skin. You wanted flesh and blood.

He barely seemed to notice as you yanked at the hem of his shirt impatiently, moving his arms for you to toss it aside as he spoke.

“You’re beautiful.”

You felt his voice in your ribs like a second heartbeat and never wanted it to stop.

“I wanted to tell you before but—” he trailed off as those hands nearly bigger than your head stripped away your top as well, taking your loose pants along with them. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” you frowned, pulling him down to you again and pushing your toes against the waistband of his jeans until he took the hint and shifted them down his hips.

It didn’t occur to you to try and cover yourself. You were safe here. You would always be safe here.

“That it took so long to find you,” he whispered, trailing his hands down your sides and squeezing in all your soft places. “I didn’t know I was supposed to be looking.”

You could feel him now, all bare skin pressed to you. The weight of his cock was thick and heavy on your thigh and you pushed back at his shoulders, legs hooked over his waist until he turned and let his back rest on your pillows.

From your new position, you could stare down and take him in finally. His thighs felt so hot under your ass, the length of him trapped bobbing between your bodies, nearly the width of your forearm and just as long. Your eyes traveled and your hands did too. First to father the slick spilling from his tip and pump him slowly in your fist, shuddering when he whimpered at the touch.

The scar on his torso caught your eye when you managed to look away. It was old now but gnarled still and your free fingers traced the raised edges of it lightly before you bent down to place a kiss at the center as you stroked his cock and left your own wet mark on his thighs.

“Need you now,” you mumbled against his lips, leaning down to capture them again as he moved your hips to drag against the muscle supporting your weight.

“Not yet,” he groaned like it pained him to say, fingers traveling from your hip to your slit and trying to push inside as you squirmed away. “It’ll hurt, here—”

“I want it too,” you insisted, pulling his hand away and nuzzling your cheek to his palm instead.

“No, just let me—” his other hand moved to thumb at your clit, finding just the right pressure at first contact as though he’d done it a thousand times before.

Those blue eyes stood out against the violent flush of his face, brows furrowed while he tried to work you open but you couldn’t have that.

You needed it to burn, you needed the heat and the ache of it because in the haze and the wonder it was all starting to feel a little unreal. A bit too good to be true and you had to have the sting there, the splitting in your core to remind you he was there. That it wasn’t some cruel dream, another memory to hold on to for too long.

And so you swatted his hand away, rearing up until the sensitive head of his cock—so pretty and red and leaking over your fingers—nudged your entrance and sank slowly past the ring of muscle.

It did hurt, but watching the concern etched into his gaunt face melt into ecstasy was well worth the throbbing of your cunt at the intrusion. You could feel the burn in your eyes as well, prickling at the corners as you dropped your hips a few more inches at a time until you were seated on his lap completely.

You took a few shuddering breaths, teeth digging holes through your bottom lip until one, massive palm came to rest on your stomach. Toshinori was watching your face intently, intensely, eyes warm and awed as you sat atop him all at once.

The thumb still on your face stroked softly at your cheek, collecting some of the stray tears from your lashes and tugging you gently down to his chest. You whimpered low at the feel of his cock shifting where it was buried inside you, but followed his pull regardless. Your head rested just above his heart, the dull thump of it audible over the sound of his labored breaths.

“Shh,” he held you close with one hand on your head and the other lightly resting on the small of your back.

His cock twitched inside even as he lay still.

It was so much, so good and so right and felt so thoroughly as if you’d been born to do this that the simple notion you had ever settled for anything less made your mouth go dry and your eyes threaten to spill all over again.

You stayed that way for quite some time, just sharing in your collective warmth, hands tracing all available skin and committing the dips to memory. It wasn’t until you lifted your head and caught his gaze that either of you moved.

It was slow, the grind of his hips into yours. That lazy and deep kind of fucking you never thought could feel so overwhelming, but it had moans bubbling past your lips in seconds. He barely bothered to pull out at all, just rocking against you at just the right angle to have the thick tip nudging some glorious spot deep against your walls.

“S’good,” you managed to gasp as the curls at the base of his dick rubbed deliciously against your clit. “So good Toshi, fuck—”

“Yeah?” he grinned down at you, not that forced tugging in his cheeks you’d grown so accustomed to, but a real one with no ulterior motive.

You desperately wished he wasn’t so tall in that moment, if only so you could reach his lips and kiss him while he fucked you deeper and harder and better than you could have ever dreamed possible.

“Yeah.”

The air rattled in his chest as his breaths came quicker, eyes rolling back just a bit so you could catch a glimpse of the whites behind them.

“Never felt like this before,” he grunted before his head flopped back to the pillows and you hummed your agreement before letting yours come to rest just over his beating heart again.

There was no shouting or throat rending groans as the two of you softly worked each other to the edge. His hand found yours again and laced your fingers together against the sheets while he ground his cock into you over and over until the dam finally crumbled.

You heard your name whispered as his grip on you tightened and familiar heat washed through you spreading in pins and needles out from your cunt where Toshi painted you full of his release and left you warmed from the inside out. It was not explosive or earth shattering. It did not have to be. The waves of pleasure rolled through you for ages after you’d come down from your high, little shocks tensing in your soaked thighs with every breath you took.

His arms were the only thing to move after you had both settled into each other, keeping you locked to his chest.

As if you ever wanted to leave it.

After a few moments of blissed out silence, you felt him soften against your walls, slipping out in a gush of combined release. You’d have to buy new sheets. You’d buy a thousand if it meant that he’d keep helping you ruin them.

No longer tethered to his hips, you shimmed up his massive torso so his lips were once again within reach. Toshi hummed as you shifted to the side and he followed suit, tangling your legs together and licking lazily into each other’s mouths.

You broke the most comfortable silence of your lifetime first.

“I suppose I’ll have to drop out of the development team now,” you said, burrowing deeper into his embrace.

Finding a puzzle-piece perfect space for yourself against the contours of his body.

“Why’s that?” he asked, pressing his lips to the crown of your head as he spoke.

“I think this probably violates multiple articles of the archival ethics code,” you mumbled and breathed him in again, the clean scent of sweat and blood and cologne.

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

He said it with such utter sincerity that you couldn’t help the cheek splitting grin that forced its way onto your face. You surged forward to kiss him again. And then another time after that, just to make sure it stuck.

“Don’t be.”

[mha-simp-99]

I've been having thoughts.

I think Kakashi Hatake and Shota Aizawa would be good friends. They have similar attitudes and their vibes are so chill...until they get pissed off, that is.

So. What if the different lands of Naruto were islands in MHA that were a little old school and very picky about their visitors? They give stealth ninja-like training to their up and coming heroes because it's a little more hardcore out there. And, multiple quirks? That's pretty normal for them. Especially for the clans trying to breed the perfect heirs to make the perfect hero who will become the Kage of their village...or as close to it as they can get. Or for clans looking to steal the quirks of others to strengthen themselves. Most of the latter are trying to take over the forbidden islands...and acquire the exceptionally rare 'tailed' quirks. The Tailed Beasts, of course. Be it man-made quirk for destruction gone awry or agitated quirk that chooses its owner or can be forced therein, they are highly sought after for their power.

Cue Orochimaru infiltrating the first round of physical hero exams and the arrival of the Akatsuki. The elder heroes grow concerned for their up and coming children...and at the fact that Naruto holds a covered tailed quirk. They don't have enough security measures in place to keep everyone looked after and safe. So...they reach out to UA for aid. And they gladly offer to help, building onto their school grounds to accommodate their newest members. Twenty seven students, roughly, come from each school and three to five teachers each, depending on the availability of heroes they can spare. From Konoha: Kakashi, Asuma, Kurenai, and Gai come along.

A bit of chaos ensues when they first come together, some schools more friendly than others. Gaara is in a transition point, thanks to Naruto, as is Neji. But both are still less than approachable. But I think Kakashi and Aizawa would kind of become fast friends. And Gai and Mic. They share the same vibes and try to pull their less enthusiastic friends from their shells.

I'm a big Hinata stan and I hate that she ended up with Naruto. I think she would become fast friends with a lot of Aizawa's class. She'd like drinking expensive teas with Momo-it would remind her of being in the Hyuuga compound where tea like that was the norm. And Bakugo, as abrasive (said in the most loving way possible) as he can be, reminds her a little of Kiba and Shino put together. Kiba for his speech, and Shino for his pin-point accuracy in topics and critiques. He takes no shit and helps push her beyond her limits. ("DON'T you fuckin' PUSSY OUT on me!! You got multiple quirks- USE 'EM! Better not go fuckin' easy on me, or I'LL KILL YA!" His trademark smirk is slowly matched by a nod and encouraged, determined look from Hinata. "Right!") He probably wouldn't mind her around his friend group, either, since she's pretty quiet and brings a serene vibe. Deku would probably constantly be studying her quirks, along with the others. But I'd probably match her with Shinso, if not Shino. I've been a big Shino/Hina fan for years, but I think Shinso and Hinata could hit it off well, too. They're both misunderstood for their quirks, kind of shunned for them, in ways. So they would understand each other pretty well. Hiashi probably wouldn't approve in the beginning- on either count- but there are ways of changing his mind.

Also, I think Sasuke and Naruto would hit it off with Deku and Bakugo. They could do double dates if they ever got over themselves and their own stumbling emotions for one another. (Sasu/Naru, Deku/Baku.) Sakura and Ochako might hit it off. Hinata and Mezou, Shino and Tokoyami, Kiba and Lee with Eijirou and Kami, Ino and Momo and Kyoka, Mina and Lee, Neji and Tenya and Shoto...and so many more. I'm not limiting the friends here, just suggesting some good friend partner-ups. And this was only Konoha rookie nine plus three in the older group and the first/middle class of UA...that's not accounting for the other villages or upperclassmen. I think Gaara would have a hard time with everything and be kind of emotionally stunted like Shoto. They might make a good friend pair, especially considering they were both betrayed by their dads. Lots of bonding angst there.

But, like...yeah. I think this could be a very fun crossover fic premise. Maybe even partner up villains from both and cause some havoc. What do y'all think? 🥺😁 Ideas free to use~ Hit me up if you use them. I'm a thirsty bitch for this kind of content.

[mha-simp-99]

day 1: fitness

[mha-simp-99]

Reblog if you’re over 20 and still read/write fan fiction.

I’m curious!

[mha-simp-99]

So, I'm working on a thing. It's far from being done, but it's the most I've worked on anything in a long while. I'm proud of myself. And I think it looks pretty good. ^^

[mha-simp-99]

傷

[mha-simp-99]

📯Preorder opens in Tomorrow📜

Line up and get ready! We are looking forward to your attendance tomorrow, when preorders open! Be there 12PM EDT sharp!

���Preorder opens: July 8 at 12PM EDT

[mha-simp-99]

📯Preorder opens in Tomorrow📜

Line up and get ready! We are looking forward to your attendance tomorrow, when preorders open! Be there 12PM EDT sharp!

📅Preorder opens: July 8 at 12PM EDT

[mha-simp-99]

📯Contributor List📜

Check out our fantastic lineup of creators who poured their love and hard work into making such a stunning project!

📅Preorder opens: July 8 at 12PM EDT

[mha-simp-99]

📯Preorder opens in Five Days📜

The time is near! Are you ready for two books and endless merch with fantasy/winter AU BKDKBK content?

📅Preorder opens: July 8 at 12PM EDT

[mha-simp-99]

MHA S6 EPISODE 9

this entire scene ....

[mha-simp-99]

bakugo expression studies where i drew a dramatic dude for over an hour

[deku studies]

reference + extra: 

Keep reading

[mha-simp-99]

I've started on the comic Embers on the Water. No roasting. Honest question- should I blend more? I'm new to this kind of stuff and I want it to look nice but I also need to be able to do it more quickly...

[mha-simp-99]

every family has its traditions

todoroki family drama but make it an HBO show

[mha-simp-99]

[mha-simp-99]

Other MHA things I've been up to in various stages of production.