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“I have a theory,” Denki says in the middle of their study session, apropos of nothing.
This proclamation is met with a smorgasbord of reactions— curiosity (Tsuyu, Uraraka, Jirou), actual sighs of relief (Ashido, Kirishima), intense disapproval (Iida), and resigned patience (Yaoyorozu). Denki hooks his foot around the table leg and waits, almost vibrating.
Tsuyu cracks first. “What theory?” Followed by a soft, encouraging ribbit.
“I’m so glad you asked,” Denki crows. He shifts forward, leaning in like he’s about to share an earth-shattering secret. “So I think—”
“If this isn’t about English grammar—” Iida interrupts, “— then I must ask, please wait until after—”
“So I think—” Denki says over him, “I think Endeavor—”
Iida makes a noise of pure outrage. “This is supposed to be a study session—”
“I think Endeavor is All Might’s secret, evil twin,” Denki finishes, grin dialed up to eleven, with the confidence of a man no longer interested in studying and getting ready to con his way out of it.
It works; English grammar isn’t half as interesting as this statement. He’s caught the undivided attention of everyone at the table now, and Uraraka pushes her textbook away to level the full, devastating force of her skepticism on him.
“Um, what?” She says.
“Endeavor is All Might’s secret, evil twin,” Denki repeats.
“That doesn’t even make any sense.” Jirou’s eyes narrow. “How would—”
“If we could please turn our attention back to our studies—” Iida makes another desperate grab for control, but it’s too late. Denki knows he’s just dropped the perfect bomb, the love-child of all incomprehensible conspiracy theories, right on top of their heads. Chance of recovery? Zero.
“No, no, see, listen guys,” he rushes to explain, “I saw it online, it totally makes sense. We all know he doesn’t like All Might, right? That’s like, the number one clue! Y’know how twins in movies always like, hate each other— and one of them is like, the cool twin who’s good at everything, and the other one hates them because they aren’t as good at stuff? It’s like that!”
“That’s your evidence?” Jirou says incredulously. “Endeavor hates All Might, so that makes him his secret twin brother?”
“They don’t even look alike,” Uraraka says.
Ashido comes to his rescue. “I dunno, what if they had different fathers?” She points out.
“Oh, like those kids back in middle school?” Kirishima asks.
“Yeah, the uh...” Ashido thinks for a moment. “Crap, I don’t remember their names— but that girl who sat in the front row had a sister who had a different dad. They didn’t look the same at all.”
Jirou makes a frustrated sound in the back of her throat. “But those aren’t twins. Twins are—”
“Actually, I think some twins can have different fathers.” Tsuyu taps her chin. “It’s kinda rare though.”
Denki pushes his chair back, crossing his arms behind his head and propping his feet up. Smug satisfaction warms his chest. “See? Science backs me up. The evidence has been here all along— wake up, sheeple.”
“Please take your feet off the table.” Iida’s voice is pained.
Denki ignores him. “They’re like, the same age too, so that checks out. And they both went to the same high school—”
“Wow,” Jirou says, “the top two heroes in the country going to UA? What a shocker.”
“I suppose it isn’t outside the realm of possibility.” Denki nearly gives himself whiplash as he and six other heads spin to face Yaoyorozu, who flushes at the attention. Iida looks personally betrayed. “I mean... I’m not saying it is, but it’s an interesting idea, you know?”
Ashido cups her face, wiggling her fingers in a way Denki’s come to recognize as her ‘thinking’ motion. “I guess it makes sense,” she concedes. “Like you said, that’s how it works in the movies.”
“You think their parents would have like, similar quirks?” Kirishima asks, and that’s where everything begins to snowball.
They’re still arguing about it ten minutes later. Jirou and Uraraka hold steady on the side of logic; Iida, realizing his urges to stay on task are going nowhere, eventually joins them. Kirishima and Ashido come up with enough spur-of-the-moment details to turn the whole thing into a story. Within minutes it becomes a tragedy: one brother spurned, burning— “Literally,” Kirishima insists— with a thirst for revenge while All Might struggles to mend the breach between them. Tsuyu, like Denki, simply watches the fall out.
(Yaoyorozu turns back to her notebook during the particularly lurid description of Endeavor’s betrayal. Denki graciously pretends not to notice the transcript she’s writing for the whole story.)
“But it just doesn’t make sense—” Uraraka is saying hotly. “They’re not even related, if you look at Endeavor’s family tree—”
A flash of movement catches Denki’s eye. Midoriya pauses at the foot of the stairs, apprehension crossing his face as he takes in the tension and raised voices.
“Do I… want to know?” He asks weakly.
“Hi, Midoriya.” Tsuyu greets him. Her low voice projects clearly under Ashido’s dramatic wail. “It’s nothing serious, I promise.”
“Deku!” Uraraka rounds on him so suddenly that he leaps about a foot in the air. Her eyes burn. “Tell them they’re wrong!”
Midoriya casts a desperate look back upstairs. “A-about what?”
“Our classmates seem to be under the mistaken impression,” Iida says, pushing up his glasses with more force than strictly necessary, “that Endeavor might be All Might’s ‘secret, evil twin.’”
Midoriya stares. “What?”
“You just can’t accept the truth,” Ashido sniffs at Iida. “The evidence has been here all along, you just won’t see it.”
“Evidence?” Midoriya’s voice cracks.
“Yeah, dude.” Denki shoots him a thumbs up. Midoriya’s a hero geek, he’ll love this. “You know how Endeavor hates All Might, right—”
“Please, I can’t listen to this bullshit again,” Jirou groans into her arms.
Denki’s opening his mouth to fire back when a new, confused voice cuts through the chatter.
“Who’s secret evil twin?”
Denki’s jaw shuts with an audible snap. He catches Yaoyorozu’s mortified eyes first; around him, everybody else freezes up, varying degrees of guilt and horror on their faces.
Midoriya makes a soft sound not unlike a mouse being stepped on. “Hi, Todoroki.”
He must’ve been coming down the stairs behind Midoriya. There’s no other way he could’ve been within earshot to hear that, and their voices must’ve covered the sound of his footsteps. Denki wants to die. If there was ever a time for a villain attack, it’d be now, when their classmate’s just walked in on a fifteen minute dissection of his own father’s potential revenge story against All Might.
Uraraka’s eyes fly so wide they start to glisten. “Oh my gosh— Todoroki, we’re so sorry—”
“About what?” Todoroki steps past Midoriya, eyebrows furrowed. “What are you talking about?”
Denki tries not to resent the way their eyes all land on him. There’s a pregnant pause while he tries to regain his ability to talk without stammering.
“We, um. We were just making a joke— um, shit, dude, I’m sorry. We were joking about your dad.”
Todoroki’s nose twists when he wrinkles it. “What does that have to do with somebody’s evil twin?”
“The joke was, uh, that he’s All Might’s. Evil twin, that is.” Yaoyorozu looks down at her hands.
A beat of silence.
“That would actually explain a lot,” Todoroki says thoughtfully. Then, “Midoriya, did you still want to make tea?”
“Oh!” Midoriya jumps, like he’s been jolted from his thoughts. “Yes, sorry, I forgot.”
And just like that, the two of them vanish into the kitchen.