MHA: Bat to the Future: The Other Midoriya

Daily Meme

Soo, just so you know, this chapter was written before all the shit went down in the world. The title has nothing to do with any operations going on right now. I don't voice it, but I am not hiding it either. I don't want to turn fics into something political, but I am against any sort of violence and genocides. Anyways, enjoy.

 -----

We stood there for a while, not speaking. Toru was leaning onto me, so I wrapped my arm around her. Patting her back. Not out of pity, not some weird romantic moment. Just… comfort. The kind you offer when words are useless and the world just kicked everyone in the teeth at once.

"It is weird," she finally said, voice barely above a whisper. "I know we signed up for this. I know hero work is dangerous. But watching them, Hawks, Endeavor, watching them almost lose?"

"Yeah," I muttered, eyes fixed on the city lights. "Hits different when it is not training dummies and scripted patrols. When shit is on fire and the top heroes bleed."

She nodded against me. "It made me feel small."

"You are," I said without missing a beat. "Like, physically. Very smol."

She snorted. "Dick."

"There she is," I said, patting her shoulder. "Took you long enough to bounce back. Thought I was gonna have to start juggling flaming knives or strip-teasing on the roof to cheer you up."

"God, please don't." She said, then very quietly, "The first one."

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

I squinted, then shrugged, "I don't want to. But I would. For morale."

"I woukd push you off the roof."

"Controlled fall," I said. "We have been over this."

She punched me in the side, enough to say I am still here. I will take that.

We stood like that a bit longer. Just letting the wind do its thing, the day breathing around us like the city was trying to apologize for what it just showed us. But there was no taking it back. No comfort that really stuck.

"So what now?" she asked.

I shrugged. "Now? We wait. We train. We pretend school still matters, even though the real world just kicked in the door and mooned us."

"Real inspiring."

"I have a gift."

She went quiet again, then mumbled, "I never liked Endeavor. Still don't. But today… I didn't want him to lose."

"That is the ugly part," I said. "You don't have to like the symbol to need it to stand."

We didn't say anything after that. What else was there? The world had cracked a little. And we were just a bunch of kids staring into the fissure, pretending we knew how to patch it.

We walked down after a while, the room was like a funeral. So not funny that it circled back around and became funny in that awful, wrong way. It was that heavy, choking silence, the kind that presses on your chest and whispers, "Go ahead, giggle, I dare you." The kind of silence that dares you to be the asshole who laughs at the worst possible time.

As the designated emotional support gremlin of Class 1-A, it was obviously my duty, my sacred obligation, to fix the mood.

So I offered, very seriously, "Alright. Who wants me to fake a heart attack for attention?"

Kaminari blinked like he was trying to decide if I was joking or about to faceplant into a seizure. "Dude-"

"Too soon?" I asked, stretching like I was warming up for a performance. "What if I add interpretive dance?"

Jiro didn't look up from her phone. "I swear to God, Ryuu, if you start dancing I will staple your kneecaps together."

"See?" I grinned, pointing. "Mood is already lifting. That is called progress, kids."

Bakugo scoffed from the kitchen where he was absolutely not comforting anyone with a plate of stress toast. "You are a goddamn clown."

"And yet somehow still more useful than you when people are crying inside," I shot back. "What is that? Boom Boom Bitch makes toast now? Is this his redemption arc?"

"Say one more word and I will feed you this toast through your skull."

I glared. "That is called eating, bitch. Are you reinventing nutrition now? What is next, a TED Talk on emotional constipation?"

Bakugo slammed the plate down like he was declaring war on carbs. "The only thing constipated here is your sense of self-preservation."

"Big words for a guy whose emotional range starts and ends with 'yell louder.'" I turned, theatrically gesturing to the class like I was introducing a zoo exhibit. "Observe... Boom Boom Bitch in his natural habitat. Diet includes raw aggression and, apparently, buttered bread."

Kaminari snorted and immediately tried to cover it with a cough. Coward.

Bakugo's eye twitched, which was usually the one-second warning before detonation. "You got two options, jackass, shut the fuck up, or get yeeted through the window."

"Third option." I raised three fingers, then folded two, leaving my middle finger. "You realize that toast doesn't solve trauma, we have a group hug, and then I install a glitter cannon in your locker... again."

He actually moved. Like, shoulders shifted, palms popped. I grinned wider.

"See? Progress."

"Progress toward me turning you into a fucking stain on the tile," he muttered.

"Hot." I winked.

Mina finally broke into a laugh, short and sharp like the pressure valve just hissed. Sero followed. Even Jiro cracked the corner of her mouth upward, tiny miracle.

I leaned back against the couch, arms behind my head. "There it is. Told you. Gallows humor. Works every time."

"I still hate you," Bakugo said, biting into his toast like it was my face.

I shrugged. "I will live."

Then turneed to others, "Sato!"

The gentle sugar tank looked up from his corner like I had summoned him with pastry magic. "Yeah?"

"Something sweet," I said, pointing like a damn commander giving battlefield orders. "Emergency morale deployment. Operation... Diabetic Bliss is a go."

Sato smirked. "Got it."

Then I pivoted, finger snapping toward my next victims. "Mina. Tokoyami. Kitchen squad. Let's cook something stupidly uplifting. Comfort food. Joy food. Depression-exorcism food. Bonus points if it is aggressively colorful."

Mina bounced off the couch like she had been waiting for an excuse to wreak chaos with sprinkles. "Oh HELL yes. I've been waiting to use my edible glitter."

Tokoyami gave me a look like he wanted to die but said, in a tone that could only be described as 'gothic resignation,' "I shall summon the yolks of light to do battle against the void."

"That is the spirit, my little void pigeon." Then pointed at others, "Move! Since Bakugo had eaten, we have nineteen stomachs to fill."

Bakugo, who had been eating his toast with all the aggression of a war criminal caught in a therapy session, suddenly froze mid-bite.

"I am still hungry."

Oh.

Oh-ho-ho.

The sheer panic buried in that deadpan delivery? Delicious.

I turned slowly. Grinned like I was Santa deciding who was naughty enough for the good shit.

"Sorry, Kacchan. Since you already stress-ate toast like a broken sitcom dad, you are disqualified. Union rules."

He blinked. "What?"

"I said," I repeated, louder now, "you already had your sad-boy toast. You don't get the glitter cookies of emotional rebirth. That is how the hierarchy works."

Bakugo stood up.

"I am still hungry."

His voice was desperate. The kind of tone a guy uses when he is trying to keep his last shred of dignity from floating off into the void of domestic shame.

I grinned wider. "I will see if I am in a generous mood. Maybe if you say 'please' and write me a haiku about your feelings."

"You want me to kill you."

"I mean, it would be on-brand. But no."

He glared.

I stared back.

Then, boom, he stomped back into the kitchen muttering something about "goddamn clown-ass piece of shit glitter gremlin."

I turned to Mina. "Make his cookie a shape of an angry dick with sad frosting eyes."

"You got it, Chef Sadist."

Cooking commenced.

The kitchen devolved into a glitter-coated warzone of emotional exorcism. Mina was dual-wielding frosting tubes like a sugar-fueled vigilante. Tokoyami summoned pancake batter with the solemnity of a forbidden ritual. Sato might have blacked out halfway through, because he made three trays of brownies and called them "emotional anchors." Jiro even plugged in her phone and put on music that was, dare I say it, happy. Kaminari and Sero started trying to harmonize and failed so hard the cookies almost left the oven out of shame.

And me? I just stood there in the middle of it, arms crossed, watching the panic and the healing melt into one another like warm chocolate on a broken soul.

We settled into the table, twenty-two bodies packed around it like we were hosting a UN meeting for emotionally battered super-teens. Minus Todoroki, plus Nejire, Mom, and Eri, who was currently trying to decide if the cookie with googly eyes was food or a threat.

The table looked like a preschool art project and a bakery had a drunken one-night stand. There were sparkles in the mac and cheese. Why? Because Mina got bored and declared 'vibes are more important than nutritional value.'

Mom smiled like she had just walked into a cult and was too polite to run. "This looks… festive."

"It is emotionally weaponized sugar," I said, sliding her a slice of what I think was cake but might have also been a pie. "We are reclaiming joy."

Nejire was helping Eri put rainbow sprinkles on her rice because apparently, we had given up on the concept of 'cohesive meals.' And honestly? Same.

We passed plates. Spoons. Something that might have been frosting or might have been chemical warfare. There was laughter. There was noise. But it was good noise. Healing noise. The kind you did not realize you missed until your chest stopped aching from holding your breath all day.

Kirishima leaned across the table, balancing a bowl of mashed potatoes that had been dyed pink for reasons that were both aesthetic and unhinged. "Yo, Ryuu. You seriously turned Bakugo into a rejected bake-off contestant."

I pointed at the sad little cookie still sitting untouched in front of Bakugo.

Its shape was very peculiar, with two globes down below. Mina even added a slit at the top and frosting veins and a very suggestive curve, the kind of detail that demanded either reference material or way too much imagination. The resemblance was uncanny. So uncanny, in fact, it made me tilt my head in concern. And then it hit me... 'Right. I sleep naked.'

Bakugo hadn't touched the cookie. He stared at it like it had personally insulted his mother. I could see the war in his soul... punch someone? Eat it in rage? Or let it sit there as a physical manifestation of his shame?

"I dare you to eat it," I whispered.

"If I do," he growled, "I am biting the head off first."

"Which is worse," I said closing Eri's ears, as she gobbled her cupcake. "Because now it is a decapitated dick and you are just deepthroating your trauma."

Mina gagged from laughing too hard. Tokoyami choked on a sprinkle. Jiro buried her face in her hoodie and muttered something about regretting being born in this generation. Izuku was watching with pure attention for some reason. 

Bakugo stood.

We all watched.

He lifted the cookie like it was made of plutonium. Held it aloft like Hamlet contemplating a dick-shaped Yorick.

Then, in one violent, savage chomp, he bit into it.

The room lost it.

Sero damn near fell out of his chair. Kaminari wheezed so hard I thought he was going to need resuscitation. Even Yaoyorozu let out a scandalized little laugh that made her cover her mouth like she had just committed a social war crime.

Bakugo didn't stop. He chewed slowly. Aggressively. Eyes locked on me like I owed him blood and vengeance.

"You happy now?" he asked, mouth full.

I grimaced a bit, "Ecstatic."

"Great," he said, licking a bit of sad blue frosting off his thumb. "Now die."

Izuku was horrified. "Too graphic! This is too graphic."

I rolled my eyes, reaching over to cover Eri's ears again, "You watch too much porn, bro."

He choked on dry air so hard I thought we were about to need a defibrillator. "Y-You say that?!"

I shrugged. "I watch for education."

Uraraka giggled, hiding behind her juice box like that made it less obvious. "Right. Ryuu gets his formulas from weird media."

"Exactly," I nodded solemnly. "Anime titties and psychological thrillers."

Izuku turned to her, scandalized. "You are supporting this?!"

She leaned on the table, smile a little too sweet. "It is hard not to when he is actually funny."

"Blasphemy," Izuku muttered.

Kirishima clinked his spoon against his plate. "Hey, hey, leave the guy alone. At least he is making people laugh. Half the room looked like they were about to schedule therapy earlier."

"Still might," Jiro said, flipping her hood up like a turtle retreating from secondhand trauma. "I laughed and now I feel dirty."

I gave her a thumbs up. "Mission accomplished."

Sato returned to the table with another tray, this one filled with cream puffs. "These ones are for the people who aren't emotionally ready to handle questionable cookies," he announced like a peace envoy.

"Bless you," Yaoyorozu whispered, grabbing one and immediately biting into the sad face.

Mina slid a cookie over to Toru, who held it up and tilted her head. "Is this a crying cat or a horny ghost?"

"Yes," I said, sipping my soda like it was whiskey.

Tokoyami finally broke his brooding silence. "I sense… a return to balance."

"Balance?" Kaminari scoffed. "Bro, we are eating you-know-what shaped cookies and trauma muffins. This is not balance. This is emotional anarchy."

Eri pulled on my sleeve, tiny fingers tugging like I was her personal snack butler. "I want more of that," she said, pointing at the tray of strawberry muffins with all the authority of a five-year-old mafia boss.

Princess had spoken.

"Absolutely," I said, no hesitation. "Operation Muffin Heist is a go."

I scanned the battlefield, table loaded with desserts, hands reaching, sugar-drunk teens everywhere. There were only two strawberry muffins left, and one was already half-claimed by Mineta's grubby little gremlin fingers.

Not on my watch.

I moved like a raccoon on a sugar rush, snatching the last whole muffin before anyone blinked. The second one?

Mineta squealed as I reached over and yoinked it from his plate.

"Hey! That was mine!"

"Nope," I said, holding it out to Eri like Simba being offered to the sun gods. "This is for royalty."

Mineta pouted so hard his face collapsed into itself. "That is not fair!"

Then Shoji's massive hand came out of nowhere like divine judgment and smacked him straight off his seat.

"I just wanted a taste…"

"You got karma instead," Kaminari said, patting his shoulder like a disappointed dad.

"Justice," I muttered, handing Eri the muffin as she clapped like it was a magic trick.

Nejire giggled, already helping wipe sprinkles off Eri's cheeks. "All the strawberries for the princess!"

Mina did a mock-curtsy. "May her sugar high be long and her crash someone else's problem!"

Eri bit into the muffin with a happy hum that could cure generational trauma.

Mineta, from the floor, whimpered, "I just wanted a taste…"

Shoji, looming above him like a benevolent kaiju, simply said, "No."

Nejire booped Eri's nose with frosting. "You are our special guest tonight. You get first pick, always."

Eri giggled, as she ate. I watched the table and seeing everyone was smiling, I felt that mission was successful. 

It wasn't much.

But it was ours.

And after the kind of day we just had?

That was enough.

--

And lo, God did write.

And the people came.

And they read.

But they brought no offerings.

No stones.

No stars.

No crumbs.

And the System wept.

For even Hell hath comments.

-----

To Read up to 50 advance Chapters (25 for each novel) and support me...

patreon.com/thefanficgod1

discord.gg/q5KWmtQARF

Please drop a comment and like the chapter!