Someone, Please give Deku a Break (cross posted on AO3)

The Happiest Moment of My Life

All for One was exhausted. He also was clueless for the first time in his life, and he didn't know how to deal with it. He retraced his steps over that past 2,000 years a dozen times and still can't figure it out.

He'd helped a little boy earlier that day, he didn't know why he just did (His name was Tenko, he believes. Kurogiri was taking care of him for now). Saving the boy for the sake of a successor made him think a little because he knows he wanted a successor, but now that he has one, the feeling he has gotten stronger. After about ten minutes he realized it wasn't a boy off the streets that he picked up and was now training out of spite(yes, All Might, He's that petty), he wanted a blood successor. He wanted a son.

And that's how he found himself talking to a young lady with long green hair with a kindness streak worthy of god himself. She called herself Inko Akatani. She had taken so incredibly off guard when they ran into each other, He somehow decided that telling her his birth name. Perfect. Well, no going back now. He'd erase her memory, but trying to restage their meeting would be troublesome, and there were too many witnesses.

But you see, here's the thing. There's something about Akatani-san that terrifies him. Which is the oddest concept on the planet at the moment. He hasn't felt fear since his mother glared at him last, and she's been dead for more than a few centuries.

Maybe that's why he finds her so interesting.

Next thing he knows he was walking back to his warp point with a slip of paper with a phone number written on it. He doesn't remember asking for it? Or receiving the paper? But it does speed up his initial goal, so he's not sure he should question it.

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He should have questioned it. He really should have questioned it. But he didn't and that's how we got ourselves here, in Inko's parents' house.

He has fought seven holders of One for All, multitudes of heroes, and is the literal king of the underground. And what is he terrified of? This. Sitting in Inko's parents' living room, with one genuine and two passive-aggressive grins drilling into him like he's being interrogated(he is).

He thought this was just a friendly dinner party. That's what Inko said it was, and for all he knows this is what a dinner party is like in her house, but he really should have known better. But really, for all the years he's been alive, he's never really had a permanent relationship. Sure, he had one girlfriend before his quirk came in, but come on. High school relationships 2,000 years ago are nothing like adult relationships in this day and age.

Her parents remind him of Nana. Both have a steely gaze that makes you feel like you've disappointed someone, and it is absolutely awful. It's like they're picking apart every crime he's ever committed - every murder, every theft, every kidnapping(he only did that once, and the kid needed out of that house. He set them free with a new identity a week later. He still has contact with him) - and throwing it out the window. Immediately after which they'd pick apart his masks and quirks and leave him as he was 2,000 years ago.

And let me tell you.

He.

Was.

Awkward.

He went from calm and collected, to a cross-legged, eyes darting, sleeve fiddling mess. Hoo boy. If his brother could see this he'd be on the ground laughing so hard he couldn't breathe.

If he survives this with his identity intact, he might just become religious, because it'll be nothing short of a miracle.

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Fast forward a year or two and you find out he not only survived, but he and Inko go to church each Sunday. One more year together and they're saying their vows in the same church they've been attending for the past few years.

All for One can safely say this may very well be the happiest day of his life. And as they make their way to the airport for their honeymoon, he thinks that nothing will ever be able to make him happier than today has made him. That nothing will be able to top this.

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Nine months later he finds out just how wrong he is. And as he holds his son he is overflowing with emotion. His son. His beautiful happy, laughing little boy. With tiny green curls bouncing and intertwining themselves over his head like ivy sprouts. His big green eyes that look like they hold the whole universe. His tiny soft hand that seems to want nothing more than to hug the closest living creature. His itty bitty mouth that curves into a wide, animated smile as he giggles into the warm hospital room.

It now, at this moment, as he sits next to his tired, happy wife, with his tiny, giggling son that he can say, with every bit of confidence he can muster, that this is the happiest moment of his life. And he'll feel this same happiness when they get home from the hospital, and when Izuku(who was named after his late brother) says his first words, and every time Izuku's birthday rolls around, and every time he remembers this day while he watches his son play in the stream behind their house just outside the city with his wife's best friend's son.

And it is in this moment that he temporarily forgets about All Might, about One for All, about Tenko and Kurogiri, about his empire, and wonders why he didn't find out what it was he wanted sooner.