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Toshinori was drowning in homework. Yes, he was an adult, but that didn’t matter to Nedzu. Since he was busy being a hero, he had never gotten the teaching credentials necessary to actually work at UA as a teacher.
And Nedzu had announced that. Over the PA, in the teachers’ office, while Aizawa was there. Toshinori had blushed bright red when Aizawa said,
“You didn’t even bother getting teaching credentials before trying to teach teenagers?” It was Aizawa’s usual, incredibly blunt way of speaking, but it made Toshinori want to deny it.
“It’s not like I didn’t bother, I just… Never thought about it,” actually that sounded worse, “what I mean is that Nedzu invited me to teach at a point where I hadn’t even considered teaching before…”
Aizawa raised an eyebrow, “and you just agreed?”
Toshinori sighed, “I’ll admit that I was overconfident. My eagerness to help raise the next generation of heroes got to my head.”
And it really had. He’d realized it most viscerally during the first hero class he’d taught, which was ill-advised in the first place and after which Aizawa had dragged him into the office and scolded him for twenty straight minutes.
“It’s good that you realize that, at least. You do know,” Aizawa continued with visible reluctance, “you could have just asked us for advice. I’d rather be bothered by you than have any of the kids hurt by your terrible lesson plans.”
“oh…” Toshinori felt a smile creeping into his face, “thank you.”
Aizawa grimaced, “don’t look so happy, I’m not doing this for you.”
But he was still doing it. Toshinori grinned, “I know!”
Aizawa made a disgusted face at him before turning around to continue grading papers. Immediately after reading the one in front of him, he groaned and collapsed face-first on his desk. Toshinori couldn’t help but chuckle.
Aizawa whipped back around to glare viciously at him, “tell your son to stop writing double the page limit assigned.”
He shook what was apparently Izuku’s paper in Toshinori’s direction. Toshinori blushed, “he’s not my son…”
“You can say that as many times as you want. I’ll believe you when you stop acting like his father,” with that, Aizawa returned back to his desk and started grading Izuku’s paper with ferocity.
Izuku’s father… Toshinori had never met the man but he had heard from Izuku that he hadn’t been around much since Izuku was six other than the occasional video or phone call. If he didn't want to be Izuku’s father then….
He was knocked out of his musings by the ringing of the lunch bell which was less than a minute later followed by a knocking on the door.
Aizawa sighed long-sufferingly.
“Come in, problem child.”
Izuku bounced through the door with more pep in his step than Toshinori had ever seen before.
“All Might, want to have lunch together?” and why on Earth would Toshinori say no?
“Of course, let’s go then,” Toshinori heard Aizawa grumble at the noise and stifled a chuckle before following Izuku outside.
Izuku who was walking much quicker than usual. So quick that Toshinori was falling behind with his frail body.
“My boy,” Izuku looked back smilingly, “could you slow down a bit…”
Izuku froze and Toshinori caught up.
“Sorry,” the boy looked at Toshinori apologetically, “I was so excited I didn't realize how fast I was walking…”
“What are you so excited about?” to put him in such a fantastic mood… Had a new hero come out with a merch line?
“I’ll tell you when we sit down!” He was practically bubbling.
They soon found their way outside and sat down in the grass. It was gorgeous weather to sit in the sun, and the breeze was blowing at a perfect temperature.
Izuku laid out the food and… Wow, that was a lot of food.
“Izuku…? You do remember that I don’t have a stomach, right?”
“Yep!” He pushed a thermos towards Toshinori, “mom said this was for you!”
“So the rest of this…?”
“Is for me! A growing boy with a near-sentient quirk that takes any available opportunity to kill him needs his food!”
Toshinori laughed awkwardly but couldn’t say anything in response and instead chose to drink the mild, but still delicious, soup that Inko had made for him.
“So what is it then? What’s got you so energetic?”
“My dad came back!”
Toshinori froze.
“Your… Father? The one you haven’t seen in years?”
Izuku nodded happily, “Yep! He said he was really worried about us after the prison break at Tartarus so he came back from America!”
“Oh, that’s,” Toshinori firmly took hold of his hopes and dreams of being Izuku’s father and buried them in a box, “great!”
“Yeah, it’s been so long since I’ve seen him! We have the same hobbies too so it’s easy to talk to him! Mom loves me but she doesn’t really get it the same way he does.” If Izuku’s father was a lot like Izuku himself then Toshinori supposed he could accept him.
“What hobbies?”
“Quirk and hero analysis! When I was little he would help me with my notes and whenever he called we would spend like an hour talking about quirks we saw!”
Izuku’s father liked… Quirk analysis? And analyzing heroes the same way Izuku did? Izuku who tore their entire fighting style and psyche apart for strengths and weaknesses? Toshinori was a little concerned.
“Is that so…”
“And! Mom invited you over for a family dinner tonight!”
That struck Toshinori like lightning, “me? For a family dinner?”
“Yeah,” Izuku grinned at him like the sum, “you’re part of the family too! Why else do you think my mom makes you lunch?”
Toshinori felt warm and melty in the same way that eating freshly baked apple pie felt. Him! A part of the Midoriya family! A wobbly smile crept up his face.
“Thank you, my boy…” Toshinori wiped a tear from his eye.
“Dad told me not to invite you. Fair warning, he doesn’t like you very much. I think it’s because he feels like you stole my attention as a kid.”
That would’ve been cute if Toshinori didn’t feel like something was off. Prison outbreak, quirk analysis, didn’t like All Might. He felt like he knew Izuku’s father already and he didn’t care for that feeling at all because it was a solid pit of dread in his (nonexistent) stomach.
The rest of the conversation kind of flew over Toshinori’s head. He could tell Izuku was worried but he just told the boy he was fine and eventually the bell for classes rang and he was left alone.
________________
The dread grew over the course of the day until the very moment he was at the Midoriyas’ doorstep.
He rang the doorbell.
Waited for a few seconds.
Then the door opened.
His brain ceased to function as soon as he saw who opened the door.
That was… Certainly All for One. He rubbed his eyes to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating. All for One in what would be a very cute apron on anyone else. All for One looking at him like one would look at a dead rat on the road.
“What are you doing here?” Toshinori hissed through clenched teeth.
“Helping my wife cook dinner, what else?” totally blase, as if that was a normal thing for a supervillain to say.
Toshinori was speechless until he heard, “dad, is All Might here?” Then he saw Izuku’s face peek around the corner and light up, “All Might, hi! This is my dad, Midoriya Hisashi. Dad, say hi!”
All for One wrinkled his eyebrows in sheer reluctance, “hello, fallen hero.”
Izuku smacked him on the shoulder and Toshinori almost lost it because Izuku! That’s All for One! He could literally wipe out this entire neighborhood! But he restrained himself.
“Nice to meet you. Hisashi, was it?” Toshinori could practically hear the man grinding his teeth.
“Indeed,” then All for One himself stepped aside to let All Might into the residence under the admonishing glare of his son.
He walked into the living room and noticed Inko about the same time she noticed him, “Toshinori, you’re here! I see you’ve already met Hisashi,” not only had he met Hisashi, he had tried to kill him, “go ahead and sit down, dinner will be ready soon!”
God, Inko was such a kind, charming woman. How on Earth had she ended up with a man like that…?
A few minutes later, dinner was served. The Midoriya family had Katsudon while Toshinori had soup. Again. And that bastard had the gall to look at him and stifle his laughter! Whose fault was it he was eating this?!
While they ate, they were pretty quiet. Toshinori understood that, every family had different mealtime customs. But. Sometimes Izuku would try to talk to him only for his father to intrude and talk about a quirk he’d seen recently and drag Izuku into a discussion of it.
The pattern went something like this:
Izuku would say something like, “All Might, I’ve been paying attention to this new hero lately, and I think they’re gonna make it really far!”
And then his goddamned father would interrupt with, “yes, they integrate their fighting style with their quirk extremely well,” and then Izuku would be drawn into an in-depth conversation about quirks that Toshinori could not find a way to contribute to.
Everytime the bastard did it, he glanced at Toshinori with that smug smirk on his face! Toshinori's fists were shaking under the table.
Eventually the dinner ended without either Inko or Izuku noticing just how much Toshinori and Hisashi hated each other.
After dinner, Inko went to wash the dishes, both Toshinori and All for One offered to help but she responded with, “no, I think you two should get to know each other. You’re both Izuku’s father figures, after all!”
That struck both of them silent for a few seconds, but Toshinori was sure he knew this bastard better than he ever wanted to. The same was probably true for the man across from him too.
“Hey dad, I’m gonna go get my quirk analysis notebooks. You said you wanted to see the rest of them, right?” Toshinori wanted for all the world not to have All for One receive those notebooks, but he couldn’t think of a justification for stopping Izuku besides telling him that his father was, well… Who he was.
“I have a hard time believing you’re Izuku’s father,” the man raised an unamused eyebrow, “are you sure you haven’t brainwashed them into believing you’re related to him?”
All for One stared at him without blinking for a couple seconds before grinning and calling into the kitchen, “Inko, darling, All Might wants to see our old photo albums.”
Inko responded, “they’re still in your office, bottom shelf!”
“Thanks, love!” All for One disappeared from the room, presumably to retrieve the albums and hopefully not commit some atrocity.
Less than ten seconds later (Toshinori counted), he returned with an armful of old to relatively new-ish albums.
Then, Toshinori suffered through ten straight minutes of All for One introducing their precious family memories in excruciating detail. Toshinori had one comment.
“I would like to posit that you are not actually capable of being as good a father as you describe,” and Toshinori was sure he was right.
“Oh?”
“Shimura Tenko? Remember the name, perhaps?” because Toshinori did. He remembered every night he went to sleep and wondered how one person could be so cruelly vindictive.
“Ah, Tomura… I may have picked him up but I didn’t personally raise him,” Toshinori boiled.
“I’m this close to personally strangling you,” All for One laughed but there was something off about it, it didn’t have that easy, irritating smugness, and his hand was covering one of the pictures. From what Toshinori could see, it looked a little like… His costume?
Then Izuku returned and while All for One was distracted by Izuku’s abundance of notebooks, Toshinori bumped him a little bit, moving his hand.
There, in its full glory, was All for One and a three year old Izuku, both clad in All Might costumes. Granted, All for One had gone for his bronze-age, less overtly heroic costume, but still.
Toshinori quickly took a picture of the image with his phone before the album was snatched away with him and All for One was seething at him with the sort of embarrassed rage of a child hearing their mother tell a friend about their childhood mistakes.
All for One’s hand was practically quaking with sheer rage and Toshinori could tell he was tempted to end him right then and there even with Izuku in the room. He restrained himself , though.
Probably because he knew it was time for Toshinori to leave. All for One gave Toshinori the fakest, most-saccharine sweet smile and gestured in the direction of the entrance, “the door is over there.”
Toshinori knew where the door was, thank you very much.
“Oh, All Might, you’re leaving?” Izuku pouted, to which his father patted his head, “you should come again soon!”
Toshinori glanced at All for One, who mouthed ‘come again and I’ll actually kill you’
Toshinori grinned at him and watched in pure joy as the man’s face twisted in disgust. Then he was out the door, calling a goodbye to Inko as he left.
Once he was outside, he sent the picture to Gran Torino, who replied incredibly quickly with:
‘of course he’s related to that bastard. of fucking course.’