#they don’t have to be formerly married. they just gotta have the energy

[polarisbear]

i know i have a favorite character archetype and it’s pathetic + “aw a little guy! oh there’s something wrong with them”

[siribear]

‘hey there, alley cat.’

whisper smiles. last time she saw hancock, she was still alice, just the general of the minutemen. there’s still the casual air about him that she likes. though, judging by the inhalers on the side table, it may just be the chems. still, after everything she’s been through so far, she appreciates the relaxed persona.

‘hancock. you wanted to talk to me?’

he leans back against the couch, eyes skyward, a blissful look on his face. ‘just wanted to check in on my favorite minuteman.’ he looks over to her. ‘you’ve got some new duds. and a new friend.’

she leans her hip against the arm of the couch, knowing better than to sit on it, now. deacon shifts, his head angled toward a holotape on a side table. join the railroad. unsurprising that hancock knows about the railroad; the freedom trail runs right outside his city. surprising that he’d be so open about knowing about them, considering the commonwealth’s stance on synths. ‘do you even know any other minutemen?’ she asks with a shrug.

‘lately? quite a few more. thanks for setting up in hangman’s alley, sister.’

she hums. ‘can i expect your people to begin occupying the place?’

‘occupy? nah. you might have the occasional visitor, though. have to keep an eye on my brother.’ his voice lowers to a growl. ‘make sure he’s doing alright.’

‘brother?’

‘mayorship runs in the family. mcdonough and i are - family.’ for once, unease settles across his shoulders.

whisper remembers mcdonough. the fraying tweed suit, the reluctance to lend her a hand. more relevant to the task at hand: he isn’t a ghoul.

‘experimental drug,’ hancock answers in the silence. ‘i found it; i took it. don’t think my brother ever forgave me for that one. but i looked like you, once.’ he glances at deacon. ‘maybe a little better.’

deacon huffs, mock offended. ‘anyway,’ whisper says, before deacon and hancock can get going. ‘as long as it remains a free settlement.’ she rolls her eyes. ‘a free, minuteman-aligned settlement. i don’t want to see it turned into some outpost against your brother.’

hancock holds up his hands, appeasing. ‘i understand the important of a safe haven, alley cat,’ he says, eyes glimmering in the low light. then, he finally gets to the point. ‘hear all sorts of things on the radio. you get your man? the merc.’ a pause. ‘the other merc. i know you brought maccready home.’

she turns to deacon. ‘why am i surrounded by gossips?’

‘we’re the ones with all the information,’ he offers.

‘and we’re the most interesting,’ hancock adds. ‘if you don’t want to answer, that’s fine. just thought i’d ask.’

she considers. ‘no, it’s - ’ a sigh. ‘i found him. he’s dead.’

‘do you feel better?’ he leans forward, elbows on his knees, his eyes shadowed by his colonial-styled hat. ‘get what you wanted out of it?’

deacon tenses slightly, fingers flexing. whisper, conversely, feels - fine. ‘i didn’t, but i’m hoping i will. seems i have to find a way into the institute itself.’

‘i’ll help you where i can.’ at her look of surprise, ‘gotta keep my favorite minuteman happy, don’t i? or else she won’t help a certain settlement i have in mind.’

‘help, not establish.’ she wants to sigh. do people not help each other without a price these days? she’s gotten used to maccready, but he’s a mercenary - it makes sense. now, it’s just exhausting. she wishes he would just ask her for help outright. ‘point me in their direction and i’ll set up supply lines, clear the area, whatever they need.’

‘i appreciate it, sister. see, they call themselves the slog - ‘

-

whisper inspects the blip on her map for the slog. an all ghoul settlement in the north-eastern part of the commonwealth. formerly a public swimming pool. apparently they’ve been having trouble with a group of super mutants that have set up down the riverbank. along the way, farenheit has marked other established settlements. it would branch the minutemen further than they are now. connect more of the commonwealth, bring everyone together -

‘you’re sure all these jobs for the minutemen aren’t keeping you from your job?’

‘we have runners and tourists to keep us appraised of the movements of... people of interest. here, i’m gathering intel on the changing climate of the commonwealth, of which you, my friend, are spearheading.’ he bumps her with his shoulder. stagnant sewer water splashes upward at her startled jerk. ‘it doesn’t all have to be infiltration and disguises.’

he ushers her through the sewers that makes up the back entrance to the church’s catacombs. hardly active in its original purpose, but the smell still lingers, centuries later. burned into the stone. ‘as long as des isn’t going to yell at me for keeping you away for so long.’

‘i’ve been away longer,’ he says. ‘a year, once. seeing me three times this month? they’re going to think i’m bored.’

the stale water underfoot mutes her laughter. ‘they must be tired of you by now.’ she hooks her arm through his. ‘is that why you got pawned off on me? torture the newbie?’

he chuckles, pats her hand gently. ‘i suppose i can go back to working on my own if i’m cramping your style, partner.’

whisper exhales, coughs once after she breathes in through her nose. she leans in more heavily against him, and deacon easy shifts his weight to accommodate her. ‘of course not. and give up the one bright light i’ve got in the commonwealth? no,’ she repeats on a wistful sigh.

his startled laugh announces them to the few agents hanging around the back entrance, most of them readying themselves for whatever hours of sleep they can scrape together. he nudges her with a quick jerk of his arm, and she untangles herself slowly. rounding the corner, they come upon des leaned over her stone table, a cup of coffee cooling next to her. in one corner, carrington finishes patching up an agent, and in the opposite corner, tinker tom has fallen asleep at his desk with some invention cradled in one arm.

and here is what she realizes after scanning the room: these are her people, too. she’s alice, general of the minutemen as much as she is whisper, agent of the railroad. helping one group is to help the other; her minutemen just stick to the open surface instead of dwelling in hidden safehouses.

‘deacon. whisper,’ comes desdemona’s voice. lack of sleep has eroded it down to a rumble. ‘good to see you two again. drummer boy delivered your reports. congratulations on taking the castle.’

‘thank you. i’m sorry about augusta.’ whisper notes the strikethrough on the blackboard, the question mark next to another. their list of safehouses, dwindling.

desdemona sighs, whatever energy she absorbed from cold coffee gone in an instant. ‘we’re still picking up the pieces after the last institute raid. now, we find out what pieces can still be put back together.’

whisper leans back against the table, stone digging into her lower back. but she watches deacon try to move tom into an actual bed - mattress. she smiles, entirely fond. a gesture that doesn’t elude desdemona’s notice, however sleep deprived she is.

‘we have rules,’ she says, still looking at her map,’ against fraternization. i know i don’t have to remind deacon, but - ‘

‘clandestine organization? of course you do. i figured you would.’ she lifts her left hand. ‘you don’t have to worry about me.’ desdemona is silent for a moment, head raised to view whisper’s - claire’s? - wedding ring, scuffed and dirty, still on her finger. ‘i am - was married. until very recently. he’s dead.’

‘i’m sorry.’

whisper shrugs, catches a glimpse of tom cuddling up to his contraption before deacon and carrington make their way over to the table. carrington stands opposite desdemona, caging her between the railroad officials. deacon sits on the edge of an abandoned desk instead of the perfectly functional chair pushed into it. ‘if there’s anything else i can do, though. not as a railroad agent, but as a minuteman - ’

‘i’m not sure i can trust you. if we can even trust you.’ carrington frowns, hands tense at his sides. ‘all of our agents go through months of tourist work before so much as setting foot in a safehouse. but here you are, an unknown, allowed into headquarters after you so conveniently found it.’

‘i told you, nick valentine showed me your - her - ‘ she jerks her thumb in desdemona’s direction, ‘- holotape. i’ve started seeing them around, too. i’m surprised no one else has come knocking on your door.’

‘no one else wants to,’ deacon murmurs. whisper frowns.

carrington fishes something out of his pocket, pink and sponge with a fair bit of metal and wires embedded in it. he holds it aloft, like she’s supposed to know what it is. ‘how do we know that whatever’s on this won’t be sending you right back home?’

whatever small amount of chatter that filled the catacombs stops. all eyes and ears are on them, on her. deacon, in her periphery, slides off the desk and back to his feet, ready to spring. get them both out of there, duck away for another year. but whisper carefully takes the item from carrington, near-speechless, breathless.

‘what is this?’

‘you don’t know.’ carrington states his question.

whisper removes her sunglasses, tucks them into the collar of her shirt, and asks again. ‘what is this?’ the doctor looks to deacon, and she follows. ‘deacon?’

‘part of kellogg’s brain. dug it out of the mess after you - ’ he lifts a hand, gestures vaguely. ‘you know.’ she still has the welts and cuts dug keep into her knuckles. ‘thought it could lead us into the institute.’

‘this? i didn’t even consider - i almost - ’ almost lost it, their chance to find the institute. blinded by rage and revenge, she went to fort hagen to kill a man, not get her son back.

‘i’m guessing you guys found something on it?’ deacon redirects.

carrington’s frown subsites, but his brow remains furrowed as he looks at whisper. ‘not really, no. it’s more organic than mechanical, but part of it is a port. we couldn’t get any of the data to appear on our terminals, but our friend in goodneighbor could make better use of it.’

deacon plucks the piece of brain from her hands. ‘great. we’ll go visit her tomorrow, then. anything else?’

though carrington opens his mouth to respond, desdemona cuts him off. ‘it can wait until morning.’ she looks around at the other agents lingering. ‘and the rest of you are done eavesdropping. good night.’

-

she doesn’t realize deacon’s dragged her from the room by her wrist until he releases her, and she misses the heat of his hand. they’re back around the corner, near the back entrance, standing near one of the back bunks.

‘he’s like that with everyone,’ he tells her, flopping backward on the bed.’

‘well, now i really feel like i fit in,’ she says dully. ‘hey, about that brain piece - ‘

‘you heard the boss.’ he stretches out on the bed, hands behind his head, legs crossed at the ankles. ‘anything else can wait until morning.’

she nods, but doesn’t move, instead carefully watching his face, sunglasses still, frustratingly, on. what she wouldn’t give to know what’s going on in that head of his sometimes. his chest rises and falls unevenly. a particularly loud and fake snore startles her. ‘go sleep on glory’s bed. she won’t mind, much.’

whisper smiles and pokes him in the side. ‘if you wake up in the morning and i’m dead, just know that you put me up to this.’

‘and i will miss my favorite partner yet.’

settled in glory’s bed, she eventually hears the soft click of deacon’s sunglasses folding, the shift of him finally getting comfortable. he sleeps on his side, back pressed against something solid, so he knows he’s safe. these days, she’s that solid presence. whether it’s her back while she keeps watch or her knees when they’re sitting in front of their fire and neither of them can sleep. whisper puts the stone wall to her back and drifts to sleep, the chill of the catacombs fading away to nothing.

[comicgeekscomicgeek]

The Future I Don’t Deserve

So this is a separate fic from my on-going MHA next-gen fic Their Hero Academia, but set within the same chronology, probably a bit ahead in the THA timeline.   But you get the raw, unedited version here and the more polished one on AO3 and FF.net later.

Izuku Midoriya would be the first to admit that he had a good life.   He was the Number One Hero and every day he worked to make Japan and the world a safer place.  He was happily married to the love of his life and the father of three amazing children. There was fame, there was money, there was the fact that he was making a difference that a formerly Quirkless child never thought he could.  He counted among his closest friends some of the greatest Heroes in the world.

Sometimes, he wondered if it was all just a dream.  Becoming All Might’s successor, becoming the Symbol of Hope, having finally defeated the worst Villain the world had ever seen…  It was all so far from where he had once been.  

“Should be wrapping up the patrol pretty soon,” he said into the phone.  “Got all the rest of my paperwork finished earlier, so if nothing else happens, I’ll be home after that.”

“Good,” the voice on the other end, his wife of over twenty years, Ochaco, said.  “Hana got in trouble at school again for texting during class and I’d really like for you to be here so we can talk to her about it together.”

“Again?” Izuku sighed. “That girl, I swear.  I just hope Mako doesn’t turn out like that.  Maybe we just got lucky with Toshi.”

“We did get lucky with Toshi,” Ochaco agreed.  “First kid’s supposed to be the hardest and he was a breeze.”

Izuku was about to reply when the communicator in his other ear chirped.  “Gotta go,” he told her.  “Duty calls.  Love you.”

He pressed a fingertip against the communicator.  “Go,” he said.

“Disturbance about three miles from your location,” the voice on the other end, Kuno, one of his dispatch staff, said.  “Out of control Quirk manifestation.  Child of about four years old.  Possible disintegration Quirk.  Police have already cordoned off the area, but the child’s scared and losing control.”

It was rare, but it did happen.  Sometimes, a child’s Quirk would be so powerful that their first manifestation would be unbelievably destructive.  For the child, it would be unbelievably frightening.  Their fear fed their Quirk and their Quirk fed their fear.  It was a potentially deadly cycle, unless someone calmed them down.  There were services, trained experts for talking them down.  But that required they get there in time.

More fortunately, Izuku was trained in such measures himself.

“I’m on my way.  Get the Voice and Lemillion to meet me there if they’re available.”

“Yes, sir.”

Izuku called upon the fires of One for All, channeling the energy throughout his body.  He took two steps back, then rushed forward and took a leap, launching himself into the air.  There was no time to waste; he was needed.

***

Slowly, Izuku’s awareness returned.  It was strange… he didn’t remember falling asleep or being knocked out.  In fact, he didn’t clearly remember the last thing he’d been doing.  Which was probably worrisome.  He’d only been at U.A. a week now, barely had All Might’s—his!—Quirk   for much longer than that.  He was already probably facing down expulsion for being unable to properly use his Quirk. If he was having blackouts, then it would just be more one nail in his coffin and he’d never achieve his dream of being a Hero and he’d let All Might down and…

“Deku?” a voice, one he didn’t recognize—it definitely wasn’t Recovery Girl—said.  “Are you awake?  Or just sleep muttering?”

Deku.  The voice had called him Deku.  But it wasn’t spat with the venom that Kacchan used when he said it. No, way the voice said it was friendly, affectionate, like it had never, ever been meant as an insult.

His eyes snapped open, focusing on the source.  A woman—her purple and black costume meant she had to be a Hero, but she wasn’t one he recognized—with blue-silver hair and a small horn jutting from her forehead was standing above him.   Quickly, his eyes darted around.  This definitely wasn’t Recovery Girl’s office.  But it did have a medical look about it.  A hospital, maybe?  He must have really been hurt then.  But he felt fine.  Did she have some kind of healing Quirk?

“I’m awake,” he said. Perhaps unnecessarily.  “But where am I?  Did I get hurt?”

The woman smiled.  “As far as I’m able to tell, you’re perfectly healthy.”  She hesitated for a moment, as though searching for the right words.  And she avoided answering the where question, he noticed.  “Do you know who I am?”

He shook his head. “You’re obviously a Pro-Hero, but not one I recognize.   You don’t look young enough—sorry!—to be new, but maybe you’re just low-ranked? Sorry!  Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that…”

She smiled again and it looked she was fighting the urge to laugh.  “The same old Deku I remember.”

But the smile was quickly replaced by a look of worry.  “My Hero name is Doc Clock, but you can call me Eri.  Or Doctor Izumi, if you prefer.”

“Doc…Doctor Izumi,” Izuku said, quickly.  She spoke to him like she knew him, but he didn’t know her.  And that was worrisome.  

Doctor Izumi nodded slightly.  “You really don’t remember, do you?” she asked.  “I suppose there’s no harm in telling you then.  You’re in Might Tower.”

“Might Tower?!” Izuki’s heart started racing.  But All Might was teaching at U.A. now!  What was he doing here?  Especially being looked at by a doctor?

She pressed her slips into a thin line.  “Deku, you were affected by a Quirk.  There’s… there’s a lot you need to know.  This is all going to come as a shock to you, I’m sure.  I’m not sure there’s any good way to prepare you for this.”

That didn’t sound good at all.  “Prepare me for what?”

She frowned again. “Deku,” she said, “what’s the last thing you remember?”

That was a good question. He definitely didn’t remember how he got here and he didn’t remember being hurt enough that it would require medical attention.  “I was, ah, at school?” he tried.  “After the attack on the USJ.  They gave us a couple days off, but then we were right back, because we had to start training for the Sports Festival.  I know I was worried about standing out, since I’m not real good with controlling my Quirk yet…”

He could tell she wanted to react more sharply than she did, but the doctor kept a mostly schooled expression.  “About what I thought then.”

Which… didn’t make a lot of sense.  “Why was that important?  Did I hit my head or…?”

“Maybe it’s better if I just show you.  I’m surprised she hasn’t broken down the door already.”  Doctor Izumi hesitated for a moment, then walked over to the room’s door, opening it to briefly converse with someone outside.  She returned quickly, followed by four other people.  

“Izuku!”  It was only when he heard a voice (it almost sounded like Uraraka, but not quite), calling his name, and turned to look that Izuku grasped just how wrong things were.

There was his mom, but she looked older by decades, her hair now more grey than green.  She looked to be in better shape too and there was something in the way she carried herself, like the worries and stresses than came from raising a (formerly) Quirkless child like himself just weren’t there anymore.

At her side, gently holding her hand, was… All Might?  He too, looked older, but far healthier than Izuku had thought he ever could, not as muscular as his muscle form, but still far fitter than the broken, skeletal form he knew him as.  Izuku’s eyes couldn’t help but dart to the rings on their fingers.  Matching rings, from what he could tell.

“Oh, Izuku!” his mom wailed. “You’re so… so… young…”

“Son,” All Might said, “are you all right?”

What?  Why would All Might call him…?  Why was he here with his mom?  Rings?  What? How?  

And as for his other two visitors…

“Uraraka?” he gasped. But like Mom and All Might, she was wrong.  All wrong. Older, she had to be at least forty, taller, fitter.  For just a moment, his eyes strayed over the tightness of her costume and he felt his face go red.  But the way she looked at him, the concern in her eyes, that was more than the just the concern of a friend he’d known little more than a week.

“Deku?” she asked, her voice cracking as she teetered on the verge of tears.  “Is that really you?”

And the last… the last was a boy who looked about his age.  Who looked too much like him.  The same green hair, but brown eyes and a rounder face, and those same pink circles on his cheeks as Uraraka…

The boy’s eyes went wide. “Da… Dad?”

His mom.   All Might.  Uraraka.  A boy who called him “Dad.”  Izuku’s mind raced faster than it ever had before, assembling and disregarding theories faster than he could follow.  It was too much, too impossible, more than he could possibly handle.  

He opened his mouth but no sound came out.  Finally, the chaos and confusion caught up with him and it all went black.

***

Izuku had hoped that, with his second return to consciousness, the world would make more sense.  Unfortunately, it utterly failed to.  He was still in what was, apparently, the medical wing of Might Tower. He was still surrounded by people wearing older versions of familiar faces.  And there was still the boy whose face was too close to his own for comfort.  

Uraraka and the boy sat on one side of his bed, All Might and his mom on the other.  All Might, he noticed, had one arm draped around her shoulders to comfort her.  So he hadn’t imagined the closeness between them.  A part of his heart soared at the notion.  He had a father, it was true, but contacts between them had been few and far between.  In All Might, he had found a replacement father-figure.  Somehow, that had changed from a childhood hope to an actuality.  But that soaring was quickly replaced by more confusion.  

He looked between them all, a tension hanging on the air.  His mom looked like she was going to cry.  Uraraka was leaning forward on the edge of her chair, one hand rising slightly from her lap. Concern worried All Might’s brow.  The boy just looked confused.   Everyone, himself included, seemed like they were waiting for the other to speak.  

It was Doctor Izumi, standing at the foot of the bed who broke the silence.  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I should have done more to brace you for the shock.  But I’m not sure there was any real way to prepare you for all of this.”

“Eri,” Uraraka said, “what happened to him?”

“As near as we can tell,” she said, looking at the electronic tablet in her hands, “Might Tower dispatch called Deku to help with a wild Quirk manifestation.  They thought it was a disintegration Quirk, because everything it hit disappeared.  Deku tried to calm the boy down, but just when it looked like he had, a noise scared him and his Quirk activated again, hitting him.  No other people were struck, but several cars and other structures were also hit and were similarly regressed by anywhere from ten to thirty years.  After that, Hitoshi and Mirio arrived and Hitoshi was able to talk the boy down with his Quirk.”

“If he was hit by a Quirk,” the boy said, “can’t you just Rewind him back to before he was hit by it?”

Doctor Izumi shook her head.  “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Toshi. Not until we know more about exactly what the Quirk did.   We don’t know how their Quirk and mine would interact.  It could just end up making things worse.”

“Do we have any idea what it did do?” All Might asked.  “The effects seem different than your Quirk’s.  Both Young Togata and I had no memory issues after you used your Quirk on us. Nor has anyone else you’ve healed.”

Doctor Izumi had healed All Might?  That was incredible!  How powerful was her Quirk then, if she could undo organ destruction and removal?  Even Recovery Girl couldn’t do that!  But the way the boy—Toshi—had said “Rewind” and the way she compared her Quirk to whatever had happened to him, maybe it was some kind of reversal Quirk?  Or a temporal mechanic?  That would make her extremely unique; he’d never even heard of such a Quirk before. Of course, if someone else had a Quirk like that, then it was a little less unique, but...

“If I didn’t believe it was really him,” Uraraka said, looking like she was trying not to laugh in spite of the seriousness of the situation, “I do now.”

“That was definitely a classic Izuku mutter,” Mom said.  

“Oh,” he said.  “I was doing that out loud, wasn’t I?  Sorry...”

“Don’t be, son,” All Might said, and again Izuku’s heart soared at the parental affection he could hear.  “We’re all quite used to it.”

“It does confirm my working theory,” Doctor Izumi said.  “I had Recovery Girl send over Deku’s medical records from his U.A. days.  The ones taken at his check up after the USJ incident match exactly to his current state.  The Quirk that hit him seems to have returned him exactly to how he was at fifteen.”

Slowly, Izuku raised a hand.  “Um, how old am I supposed to be then?  I mean here.  In the future?  Is that the right word for it?  I suppose technically it’s the present for all of you and sort of for me?  If I’ve only been turned back and didn’t actually time travel, that is...”.  He trailed off when he realized he was muttering again.  

“You’re forty, Dad,” Toshi said.  The adults gave him a sharp look and Izuku felt himself flinch at being called “dad.”  

He looked over at Uraraka, then at Toshi again, and then back at Uraraka.  There was worry behind her eyes, her mouth pressed into a thin line.  She was trying to hold back tears.  It wasn’t hard to figure out why and the reason set his heart pounding in his chest.  The heart monitor next to him went wild and he forced himself to breathe and think.  

“We’re... you’re... you’re married.  To me.  The old me!  I mean the older me!  I mean... I don’t know what I mean!”

He sighed, looking around the room again.  “I have so many questions.”

***

They’d found him something better to wear than a hospital gown, at least.  Official Lemillion branded athletic pants and a t-shirt, apparently from the gift shop.  Izuku had never heard of any Hero with that name before, but he imagined the future was full of Heroes he’d never heard of.  And he’d have been lying if he said the thought didn’t excite him.  His fingers practically ached with the desire to record everything.  

They’d also brought him food from the cafeteria.  It tasted surprisingly good, but given that Izuku could not actually remember the last time he ate, he figured anything would.  

He’d also been relocated to what he’d been told was his office, on the very top floor of Might Tower, carefully using a secret entrance that bypassed the common areas. There was All Might merchandise scattered throughout and walls lined with books on Heroes and Quirks.  Some of which even had his name on the spine.  

Izuku paused, slurping up the last of his noodles.  “So can I ask questions?  Or will that break things?  Because if this isn’t really time travel, but if it wears off and I have memories of knowing stuff earlier than I should then...”

He still really didn’t know what to make of any of this.  It still felt like some dream, unreal.  More, it felt like all his dreams had come true.  

There were so many pictures of personal moments, moments he hadn’t experienced but that his older version had.  One, taken recently, showed himself, Uraraka, Mom, All Might, Toshi, and two girls, a green haired sullen looking teenager and a grinning brown haired child.  All of them, save for All Might, wore matching All Might hoodies.  All Might himself wore a hoodie that reminded him of his own Hero costume.  There was another, obviously a wedding picture, with him and Uraraka, Todoroki and Tsuyu by their sides.  They couldn’t have been more than twenty, a time that seemed both super far away and frighteningly close. 

He saw one himself, in what had to be his costume, grinning and flexing with what looked like a young version of Doctor Izumi and a young boy in a red cap hanging off his arms.  He made a note never to get an undercut though.  He wasn’t sure what his older version had been thinking with that haircut.  There were others too, some with his classmates, some with people he didn’t recognize.  He even found that there were even several with Kacchan, who looked far more relaxed than Izuku could ever remember seeing him.  Another, different wedding photo, with Izuku standing beside All Might and Mom at what had to be their wedding, brought tears to his eyes.  Carefully preserved were framed letters from children, expressing their thanks and admiration.  Other framed letters thanked him for his support of Quirkless rights.  

His eyes also fell on a framed newspaper front page, declaring him the new Number One Hero.  

His future version had everything he’d ever wanted.  Success.  Friendship.  Respect.  Happiness for him and his mom.  Family.  He’d eve somehow managed to reclaim Kacchan’s old taunt of “Deku” as something of his own.

The thing that he noticed the most though, was that in nearly every picture, except for a few candid action shots, he was smiling.  Izuku could not remember the last time he had been that consistently happy, that consistently unworried.  

“I don’t think there’s any easy answers,” All Might said.  “I’ve never seen anything like this before.  I don’t think there are any rules for this.”

“Mister Yagi is right,” Doctor Izumi said, and Izuku mentally filed away the name.  He only knew All Might as All Might.  As far as he knew, no one knew All Might’s real name. “I don’t think it would do any harm to the timeline... this doesn’t seem like time travel to me.  If such a thing is even possible.”

“But,” Uraraka said, “I’m worried about harm to Deku.  I remember what he… what you… were like back then.  I can tell you’re already feeling overwhelmed, aren’t you?”

He nodded, gulping.  “Y-yeah,” he said.  Uraraka was one of his friends, for sure, the first girl he’d ever really talked to.  And here they were married?  When had that started?  What had caused that?   Why would any girl ever be interested in him like that?  It did little to help his mind that Uraraka had grown up to be a beautiful woman.

“So, I guess,” Mom said, “we can answer any questions you want, Izuku.  Anything we can do to help until this wears off.”

If it wears off was a statement best left unspoken.   But what if it didn’t?  He wasn’t… couldn’t be… the Izuku that was so important to all these people.  And even if they knew him, so much time had passed that even the ones he knew were virtually strangers to him.  

There was a lot that he wanted to know.  So many unanswered questions about what had happened between the relative “now” for him and what seemed like twenty-five years in the future.  But there was one question that burned in his mind most brightly right now.

“What’s… what’s going to happen to me?  What if this takes days or weeks to months to wear off?  I don’t fit in here.  Where am I supposed to go?”  He could already feel tears welling up in his eyes, as the loneliness and homesickness that he’d been fighting and pushing down finally escaped.

“Oh, Izuku…” Mom clutched her hands together, beginning to cry herself.

It was Uraraka who approached him.  She hesitated for a moment, then put her hands on his shoulders.  “We’re your family, De… Izuku,” she said.  Izuku was hardly an expert in women, especially older women, but he was almost certain he could hear her heart breaking.  “Whatever happens, we’ll take care of you.”

He could see the others rising out of their seats now too, and the moment was only interrupted by sounds from outside.

“Sir, you can’t just go in…” he heard someone—a secretary?  A security guard?—say.

“You gonna stop me?” another voice, one all too familiar, even if weathered by time, responded. Izuku felt his heart rate increase again, felt all strength leave his limbs.  He was paralyzed, breathing rapidly.  Not now, not him…

The door to the office flew open and there stood Kacchan, older, more scarred, his hair more tamed, but Kacchan all the same.   His eyes fell on Izuku.

“What the fuck happened here?”

[isolctions]

▌real name: zephyr warren brigham — a middle name that she actually despises after learning her mother was going to name her ‘warren’ if she was a boy. so fuck her. ▌single or taken: subject to change depending on the vibes, but permanently she’s engaged to @blackplanct​‘s maliq azad. ▌abilities or powers: this bitch can’t do shit. ▌eye color: dark brown. ▌hair color: she wears as assortment of wigs with an array of colors, but naturally her hair is a very light brown. ▌family members: whew, okay. her family’s kinda fucked up. paigon (pay-zee-ohn, in case anyone was looking at her name like what the fuck is that ghetto ass shit) reed is allegedly her mother, if mothers are allowed to be literal pieces of shit (antonique smith). dion brigham is her formerly estranged father (khalil cain). tristan brigham is her aunt, and her guardian since the age of fifteen (tia mowry). tinnia brigham-mayfield is her other aunt, tristan’s twin sister, and Not the fun aunt (tamera mowry). eamonn brigham is her uncle who is surprisingly only three years older than her (tahj mowry). a shit ton of cousins on her father’s side that she either doesn’t remember or doesn’t care to know, two aunts and some family members on her mother’s side that she definitely doesn’t want to know. unknown to her, she has an eight year old half-sister named lisa reed-perez. ▌pets: claims her aunt’s cat named alex. shares two cats named munch & baby with maliq. ▌something they don’t like: her mother. but, she also doesn’t like people that overshare. she’s very turned off by sudden contact, and doesn’t warm up to people immediately unless they’re really interesting, so people talking zephyr’s ear off and treating her like family that she’s just met like five minutes ago really bothers her. she also doesn’t like being emotional, and abandonment is a pretty traumatic topic for her. ▌hobbies/activities: online shopping, eating hot wings, and being a bitch. but artistically, she’s really good at making and producing beats and her own songs — zephyr actually taught herself how to make beats as a coping mechanism after suffering a miscarriage at nineteen, and eventually taught herself to rap and eventually sing. however, getting her to be committed to this hobby and release material? i think the fuck not. she prefers vibing. ▌ever hurt anyone before: emotionally and physically, yes. zephyr has been in multiple fights before with multiple people and multiple genders, and she’s very aggressive and tends to win majority of her fights. but, as mentioned earlier, she’s also a bitch and has hurt feelings before, intentionally or otherwise. ▌ever killed anyone before: no! she’s a bitch, not a monster. ▌animal that represents them: a bodega cat. just chilling, unbothered, surrounded by food. ▌worst habits: she’s very emotionally closed off. so getting her to open up, specifically about her family or her life while living in chicago, is basically an uphill battle and she’s not very nice about it. she’s also very self deprecating, and is prone to suicidal ideation when her depression is on high. but in general, she’s very aggressive so if she feels trapped by something, she can resort to foul language and violence. and really, she holds grudges like her life depends on it, so forgiving her father probably took up all free chances of her getting over things. she holds onto the things that hurt her, even if it’s detrimental to her health. ▌role models: honestly...none. but her aunt tristan really seems to have her shit together, so that was really her only positive familial role model during her teen years. it hits her harder much later in life, after realizing that a woman only ten years older than she was had been made to raise her depressed brother’s out of control daughter while struggling to keep and maintain a business during a recession in brooklyn and love her as if she were her own. ▌sexual orientation: demisexual. ▌thoughts on marriage/kids: at first, zephyr was really shifty about having kids, especially since her upbringing wasn’t the greatest. her father worked nonstop to support her and her mother after barely finishing senior year due to her birth, while her mother was an addict who very openly cheated on her father and treated zephyr like shit (see: calling her own daughter a whore, wishing she’d never been born, blowing smoke in her face, etc.). after being abandoned by paigon, her father fell into such a deep depression that he kinda stopped noticing zeph — and self aware of her own shit, she never wanted to put a child through that. it only worsened after miscarrying during her first accidental pregnancy and her then boyfriend leaving her. she had her objections on marriage as well, because she’s not the marrying type and while her mother was terrible, her words had an affect on her. she wasn’t worthy of a man loving her. of course, now? she’s the mother of two daughters, and engaged to be married to a man that adores and supports the fuck outta her, and loved her when she needed it the most. so, that’s that. ▌fears: abandonment, above all. also, heights are pretty terrifying. and spiders. and being broke.  ▌style preferences: visually, it’s very much on par with that of her faceclaims. she doesn’t follow any particular trend, and couldn’t give a shit about what people think of her outfit choices. she enjoys bright colors, faux furs, and very gaudy clothing, and really kinda adjusts her clothing based on either her mood for the day or what wig she chooses to wear. her choice in clothing is also considered eccentric, but falls into the category of urban streetwear or even a sort of afro-futuristic or punk vibe. basically, she wears whatever makes her comfortable and makes her feel pretty, and given her curvy stature, she has to get a lot of things custom made or adjusted by tailor cause babes got thicc thighs and hips and tummy pouches and rolls. ▌someone they love: first and foremost, her aunts tristan and tinnia — without then, she essentially would either end up killed in a fight or in jail...due to a fight. she also loves her fiance maliq unconditionally (but she will deny every word of that and there are indeed conditions), otherwise they wouldn’t be such an iconic couple. she loves her best friends, which are only a handful, but she prioritizes time spent with @armsdealing​‘s jerome kendricks & marcelo reyes, as well as @saturnrang​‘s jasmine higgins because they essentially egg on her chaotic energy. it was a long time coming, but she loves her father very much. and lastly, she loves her daughters sola & sinead azad, because they’re truly the best things to ever come out of her. ▌approach to friendships: very hard to say. it really depends on the circumstances behind meeting a person — she doesn’t make friends at work because that’s just weird. if she meets someone during an outing with mutual friends or otherwise, and if food and alcohol are involved, she’s a little warmed up to conversation after indulging in either. she’s not exactly awkward as a person, but instead pretty stand-offish, and can come off as either intimidating or simply uninterested unless they happen to share some personality traits. and in friendships, she’s not responsible whatsoever. it doesn’t matter if she’s the oldest, she’s immature and whiny. and a bitch. and a little messy. but when she does make friends, she’s the sweetest and most reliable there is — and in return, you get to be apart of her little family! hers is pretty messed up, so any friendship she has is considered a found family in her book. ▌thoughts on pie: sweet potato or blueberry. ▌favorite drink: she likes teas and cold pressed juices, and will sometimes indulge in a fancy cappuccino or frappe. will only drink water if it’s fruit infused because she’s a child. very big fan of milkshakes and smoothies. keep her away from hennessy, d’uesse, tequila...basically anything with alcohol unless you want her to act a goddamn fool. ▌favorite place to spend time at: her aunt’s flower shop. somehow, flower arranging brought a lot of control in her life as well, so she essentially spends all of her time there due to work and being around tris. she likes being anywhere with maliq, until he does something weird. other than that, she’s comfortable anywhere where there’s food. ▌swim in the lake or in the ocean: zephyr doesn’t swim — she’s the kinda girl who puts on a cute bikini just to sit and take pictures by the water. she may even get her feet a little wet here and there, but she actually doesn’t know how to swim. ▌their type: i gotta say, it’s pretty difficult to describe considering she’s up her fiance’s ass so much that i can’t imagine what it is — mainly because maliq is not her type. at all. she’s into articulate, well-spoken, fresh smelling, hood ass dope dealers essentially. but she also likes people who are creative and enjoys being in their element, people with drive and ambition and actual goals, people who are open minded and vocal about things that they want, and although she’s pretty shitty at it herself, someone who’s first instinct is to communicate when things go wrong instead of reacting in anger. also anyone who’s sexually open to exploring things and can make her cum multiple times.

tagged by: @armsdealing​ tagging: myself. steal + tag me in it!