Sunshine In A Bottle by RogueDruid (Icarius51) (My Hero Academia)

*This is one of my favorite author's(Top 2)*

*Also, I'll post both chapters*

Summary: In which the meme of 'Sunshine Child Izuku Midoriya' is a bit more serious than anyone expected.

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33943834/chapters/84412333#workskin

Word count:6362(COMPLETE)

Chapters:2

Chapter 1: Sunshine Smiles

Chapter Text

Midoriya Izuku had a quirk. Not a flashy one, not an impressive reality warping one.

Its official name was simple. Two words.

"Heat Immunity".

After all, at four years old Izuku put his hand on a stovetop, and wasn't burned. Amidst his mothers panic and cries, and the inevitable fussing and hospital trip, Inko Midoriya only realized that her son was unharmed after they had reached the Emergency Room.

The doctor who ended up treating him, was proud to tell his mother about his quirk…

And relieved that it was something as simple as a Heat Resistance quirk, if remarkably strong.

That first actual test, of Izuku placing his hand over a candle, green eyes reflecting and catching on the gleam of fire under his palm, would linger in the boy's thoughts for years.

After all, that was the first time he realized how cold most of the world was.

Izuku had… habits.

Little things.

He liked the sunshine. Year after year, he constantly chose the desk in the brightest spot in whatever classroom he was in. After school, while other students would retreat into AC cooled rooms and out of the heat, Izuku would find himself sprawled on the warm concrete of patios and plaza's, his face turned towards the sun, letting that gentle light soak into him, leaving his skin slightly darker, more tanned, year by year.

He also liked to cook and help his mom in the kitchen, offering to pick up pans and pots, grabbing things without a care for something as mundane as a kitchen mitt. Pans of cookies were held in bare hands, boiling water poured without a care for scalding steam. Inko fussed, of course. Worried that one day her son would be a touch too reckless and burn something valuable. But she was also happy to share her hobbies, and grew to love the sight of her son, a green apron with sunflowers around his neck.

Izuku also disliked the cold, not that he showed it with his uniform. A fun perk of his body maintaining a temperature just above the rest of his classmates. Snow melted quickly at his touch, and he could be found wearing thin jackets and light slacks even in the heaviest of snowstorms.

He also, funnily enough, found himself facing off with his childhood friend. Katsuki Bakugou liked to prove himself, after all. And Izuku Midoriya couldn't be burned. It was an intrinsic taunt, a metaphysical slap in the face, that drove the blonde mad.

After all, Midoriya never flinched from flames.

He would instead lean into them, enjoying the look on Katsuki's face when explosives didn't even make him flinch. Green eyes had taken a golden tone, a faint ring around his pupil, over the years. Another aspect of his resistance making him immune to more than heat, to the glare of the sun, the blinding light of explosions and the incandescent fury of fire.

If someone had looked closely, had known of all these habits, had seen the teen from an outside perspective, perhaps they would have realized that his quirk was not all it seemed, that there were trends and connections to Izuku's habits.

Of course, these concerns were dismissed long before anyone thought to look closer.

The usual excuses arose. That his quirk just meant he didn't care about things like this, that his hobbies were a way to show off his fire resistance.

That boys would be boys.

Izuku never mentioned the other kids he stood in front of, who he shielded from the tantrums of his old friend, that he distracted 'Kacchan' with a cutesy nickname and a smile that was always just a touch taunting.

Izuku never considered that the warm glow of satisfaction wasn't because he was being a hero.

Of course, the ignorance only lasted so long.

As Izuku grew, he grew more and more… distractible. His mind was sharp, if he was focused on a subject he flew through classwork and mastered whatever was taught to him. But the moment the pressure let up, that he was idle, he found himself slowly dozing off, focused on the sun.

Or, if not the sun, then another source of heat.

Where he once was content to sit in the sunshine and let it warm him slowly, he began to… hunt.

Izuku found himself drawn towards heat. Towards metal slides that were burning hot in the summer sun. Towards sun warmed signs and rails that would burn to the touch. To vents and heating units that blasted hot air into the sky.

The summer of his tenth birthday, Inko came home to a house filled with the scent of fresh bread and an uncomfortable heat, and Izuku sitting in the kitchen, handling loaves of bread and hot pans with ease, the oven left open at his back.

Of course, Inko reprimanded her son, his sheepish apologies putting the event out of her mind.

If she had thought to check the thermostat, she would have been surprised.

After all, despite the oven being roaring hot, the house itself was exactly her son's body temp.

The summer of his eleventh, however, Izuku went camping.

And the first bonfire was made.

Tinder and kindling, thin sticks to thick logs, stacked to optimize airflow, to burn hot and fast .

The rest of the campers were happy to help.

But they stood back when the fire started, they were content to sit away, only coming close enough to make s'mores. To poke the fire with sticks or add more fuel.

But Izuku, shirt discarded, sat close enough for the flames to lick at his skin, for the heat to bloom across his body.

Those behind him, in the shadow he cast, were still warm, but they never realized just how much cooler they were than the people away from Izuku.

They never realized how much the heat was lessened by Izuku's presence.

Izuku stayed up late that night, keeping the bonfire going, getting closer and closer.

Close enough that when the camp guides woke the next day, his shorts were black with soot, and had holes seared into the hems.

They admonished him for not sleeping in his bed, ignoring the way that his tanned skin was streaked with ash, that his eyes gleamed with a touch of true obsession.

There were bonfires for the rest of the camp, once every one of the seven nights spent in the forests of Japan.

Izuku tended to them all.

And in his chest, he felt a warmth take its place in his ribs.

By the time he was twelve, Izuku Midoriya was never without a lighter.

Cheap plastic things bought in bulk from convenience stores and vending machines. Matches and flint rods and obscure fire starting tools were found in every pocket. He found two rusted Zippo's, the metal tarnished and the internals rotted. A week was spent scrounging the parts to repair them, and sanding down the steel covers, before filling them to the brim with lighter fluid.

Of course, the first time he did this and sparked one up, he found that his entire hand was on fire.

Turns out splashing lighter fluid could be dangerous… if you weren't immune to fire, anyway.

If you were, it was just fun.

Izuku's lighters, however, were a mere symptom of Izuku's obsession.

No, the true result was the bonfires.

Izuku had found Dagobah beach.

Three long kilometers of junk. Of old and ruined material. Of rotted couches and torn apart clothes.

Fuel for the flames.

An old oil drum, left in the sand, became a furnace.

Weeks of research led to Izuku shaping the drum, adjusting airflow, and installing vents.

To make the flames hotter.

To make the heat last longer.

Junk was tossed in the furnace.

And Izuku found himself entranced.

That winter, Izuku was quiet. It was the coldest winter he could remember, and it left him lethargic, his mood plummeting with the temperature. He still refused to wear anything with a higher weight than a silk dress shirt to class, but he also spent much of his time leaning back against the vents to the school's heating system. The halls and classrooms he was in were always warm, just a touch above comfortable for anyone wearing extra layers.

The summer of his thirteenth year, Izuku found himself back at the beach.

For weeks, leading up to the summer solstice, he was in a daze. But as the sunlight lasted longer, so did his awareness, so did his obsession.

And when the sun reached its peak, when the day was as long as it could be, Izuku was ready.

The pile was massive. Rotted pallets left to dry were stacked in layers, left clear to the center of the pile, where an old washer was left, an iron cooking plate bolted to the top.

On top of the pallets were layers upon layers of junk. A pile nearly five meters tall, with every spare scrap of flammable material Izuku could find.

He didn't go to school on the solstice.

He went to the beach.

When the sun began to peek over the horizon, Izuku met it's gaze with his own. Eyes of emerald ringed with gold stared into the sun, and saw the colors that others would be blind to, the gradient of light hidden within it's blinding rings.

Izuku stripped.

His school shirt and slacks were folded and set on the beach a good distance away, leaving only his fireproof shorts for modesty.

His shoes and socks were folded, and his phone set on top.

He idly considered that his mother would likely kill him for this.

His hair, a mess of black and green curls was pulled back, leaving his face, now tanned and scattered with freckles dense enough to look like stars in the night sky, gazed up, and he pulled his lighter from his pocket.

By the time the sun was high overhead, the beach was on fire.

A bonfire five times his height, but only just hotter than his own skin.

As it burned, it crumbled inwards.

The paint on the washing machine was melting away, and the metal deforming in its wake.

The iron plate was red hot, and Izuku's hands left pits of warped metal that were barely warm.

See… There's a difference between immunity or resistance and absorption.

Immunity and resistance means you turn it away.

Absorption means it becomes a part of you.

And the doctor named his quirk wrong .

And in a bonfire on the summer solstice, with gleaming eyes, Izuku laughed .

He was ignoring the heat of the air that should have burned his throat. The smoke that should have choked his lungs. The metal that should have seared his skin.

And in that Bonfire, the heat became his.

Hours later, Izuku walked off the beach, the sun setting before him..

His clothes were covered in ash, his skin smeared with soot and damp with salt water. His phone had six, very concerned, missed calls.

But under his skin, he could feel it now.

The heat.

It was ready.

A critical temperature.

Some things stay consistent.

A slime villain, rising from the sewers, seeking a host.

Izuku, fourteen, nearly fifteen, walking home annoyed at Bakugou.

But this time… when the slime dove towards him, as it wreathed his limbs and wrapped around his mouth, Izuku didn't flinch.

In fact, under the hand around his mouth, he couldn't stop the start of a smile.

'I can let the heat out… just a little. Just… a fraction.'

By the time All Might arrived, Izuku was standing there, skin marked by slender lines of orange-white heat that outlined his skeletal structure, his shirt smoldering where it wasn't falling into ash, while the material still damp with slime steamed and dried by sheer proximity.

As Izuku advanced on the retreating form of slime, it's limbs were still bubbling and boiling, leaving a wide berth around a circle of ground that steamed and smoked around the teen, the asphalt itself deformed and half melted by his passing. The villain surrendered without complaint, between screams of fear and cries of pain.

Minutes later, the Slime now in a bottle, the acrid remains of what had boiled away left behind, Izuku smiled at his hero.

His skin was once more merely tanned and marked with freckles.

"Could I get your autograph? I want to be a hero, after all."

As he watched All Might leap away, Izuku glanced at the pages of his book.

'Good work, but perhaps keep the intimidation to a minimum?'

...

"...Nah."

Izuku closed the book.

He wasn't one for subtly, after all.

He was sunshine in a bottle, and he had the power to prove it.

Now… where was a good spot to sunbathe around here? He was feeling kinda peckish.

Two years later, he hands in a correction to the quirk registry, leaning on a counter at the HPSC's outer branch office.

"Changing the name?"

Izuku gave a lazy grin, eyes gleaming gold and green, his hair tipped with bright embers that gleamed despite the weak light of the office.

"Yep. Heat Immunity isn't quite right."

"Alright… and what are you changing it to?"

Izuku's smile grew wider, smoke drifting slightly from his throat, his face almost perfectly innocent, but for the faint sensation of heat rising from his lips.

"A friend recommended I change it to 'Bottled Sunshine'. Seems thematic enough."

Afterall, he had captured the sunshine for years, it was only fitting he spread it around in return.

Chapter 2: Never Stare At The Sun Too Long (Blinding is the Least Of Your Worries)

One:

The first time that Shouto catches Midoriya staring at him is the USJ.

An hour of sheer chaos- of teleportation and villains and wounded teachers… and at the end, Shouto stood there, panting, ice around him steaming and half molten, leading to a glacier holding the Nomu in place.

Or what was a glacier.

Now it was simply a ring of ice surrounding a pillar of steam, a perfectly circular ring missing from the structure, around the glowing fingertips of Midoriya Izuku.

The teen hadn't stood out before that point, hadn't even been a blip on Shouto's radar as a threat. Laid back demeanor, hair a vibrant green that faded with sun bleached bangs and tips, skin a shade darker than bronze, and with freckles dense and heavy across his face and neck.

The quirk test hadn't shown much more than some natural athletic skill and a remarkably high endurance. Neither had the heroics class, where he had waded through Bakugou Katsuki's blasts of explosion with barely a scorch mark on his loose jacket or casual tank top, even after the blonde unleashed a pair of overwhelming blasts from his gauntlets.

Given the circumstances, Shouto had thought it was some form of resistance quirk. A field around him that would blunt or nullify damage.

He was wrong.

Midoriya just stood there in a billowing cloud of steam, the superheated gas beginning to rapidly condense and fall like rain, some splashing drops instantly returning to steam as they sizzled off of the calm form of Midoriya.

The relaxed teen looked so unbothered by what he just did.

Like he didn't just incinerate a bio-engineered monster.

Because there, embedded in the side of the glacier, hanging loose by one still frozen, still intact , arm-

Was a carbonized corpse.

Black skin had been replaced by charcoal. The brain cavity above the beak, which had melted away, was empty. Nothing but ash drifting through empty eyes and a missing jaw remained.

Whatever moisture in the flesh was once there… was gone. Boiled out of the monster's body with a touch that had been almost casual. That hadn't actually made contact . Midoriya had touched the ice, not the Nomu. The actual act had been hidden by the steam, but the sudden change, of monstrous strength into a carbon statue, was unspeakable.

Midoriya met Shouto's gaze, eyes peeking out from under dry hair, heedless of the steam that even now was shimmering off his form… His green eyes were lined with circles of pure gold that gleamed with molton heat.

And that held something… Unknowable. Unfathomable obsession .

How had he not seen those eyes… Seen the danger?

Shouto never got a chance to follow up, to try and talk to Midoriya about what, exactly, his quirk is.

The stammering disbelief of the leader of the Villains, Shigaraki, interrupts the moment. Shouting about cheats .

When Midoriya turned his direction- as the very air around the plaza began to shimmer with another heat wave- the Warp Gater user, Kurogiri, evacuated the pair in a panic.

Shouto only saw Midoriya at a distance after that, as All Might arrived and hurried him and the rest of the students to the main entrance. Midoriya was taken aside by the ambulances, and then by the detectives.

However, it's only when he reached the top of the steps and looked back that he noticed something strange.

Wasn't one of those areas on fire before this?

Two:

Todoroki Enji huffed as he stalked through the halls of the UA stadium. His son, his prize creation, was still being obstinate . But perhaps he would have better luck with an indirect solution. He rounded the corner and narrowed his eyes as he took in the green haired teen his legacy would face next. The teen was slouched, standing outside a door as he flicked a lighter on, and then off. The click-clack was smooth and repetitive, and with a grumble, Endeavor marched up to give him proper… Motivation.

But as he took a step, crossing an invisible threshold-

The flames he wore snuffed out.

Staggering, he met a single gold rimmed eye, and as he brought his quirk back up, to fight against this field of… thermal resistance? Possibly a nullification quirk-

The heat he drew, the spark that started, a flare of heat around his face- flickered and vanished.

Under the teen's eye, a faint line of red was seeping down, looking almost as if it was an unusual sunburn, tracing the edge of his cheekbone, while something almost like natural bioluminescence was glowing behind his teeth as he gave a smile… But the eyes were what held Enji's gaze.

Because there was something lurking in them that was Hungry.

"Can I…Help you?"

Firming up his stance, Enji growled out a comment about 'Hoping for a worthy opponent' and turned to leave, only to freeze as a laugh , the edge tinged with hysteria, was loosed.

"Oh, trust me, Endeavor." Turning back he glanced over his shoulder at the green haired teen as he rose up, lighter closing once more.

Gleaming green and gold suns met his pale blue eyes.

"I'll take everything Shouto has to give."

And, giving another nearly hysterical chuckle, he turned and vanished through the door to his waiting room.

Endeavor turned and marched away…. But it was only two rooms later when he felt it.

The flicker of his fire returning to his features.

'There is something wrong with that teenager.'

Three:

Shouto flexed his hands, stepping out onto the concrete platform, watching as his second to last opponent stepped out to meet him.

Green hair caught the late afternoon sun and looked like gold, matching the gleaming eyes as he looked Shouto's way with eyes that had that unsettling intensity, something that Shouto could swear read as madness … but there was also something visually wrong about him. Something about his appearance was off in a way that Shouto couldn't figure out.

It was only as Midnight, also looking faintly ill at ease, announced the start of the match, that Shouto saw it, the creeping edge of the arena's shadow moving his way- and distorting.

Midoriya Izuku didn't have a shadow… because he was glowing.

Instantly, Shouto decided to not wait around for more details, reached deep into his quirk, and unleashed a Glacier.

The ice rushed around and past his arm, trailing up and encircling Midoriya, but the teen didn't even react, eyes locked on Shouto even as the frost and ice consumed him.

For a long moment, the frost hid the teen from view, Midnight leaning forwards on her pedestal to try and get a good look.

But after a moment, the cloud of vapor only intensified .

And then Shoto remembered the USJ, and his eyes widened.

It wasn't frost billowing off the glacier .

It was steam.

And, almost as if it was on command- the vapor expanded. A rush of scalding heat, terrifying for its familiarity, rushed past him and Shouto couldn't stop the flinch as he raised his arms to cover his left eye and face in a panic- but the steam quickly began to condense, falling as lukewarm rain around him-

And revealing Midoriya once more.

And the ring of heat distortion that surrounded him .

The Glacier's interior was gone. More than half the area of the ring, and the remaining chunks of glacier around the ring of heat was visibly melting.

And it wasn't just the ice that was melting.

It was concrete as well.

The floor was glowing red , cracked and warped from the heat.

At the center, Midoriya was standing there, one hand held before him, the bones of his hand and fingers glowing through his skin, while around him his sports uniform shirt blackened and drifted from his torso as the heat literally disintegrated the shirt. But as the uniform began to sear away, it revealed the black undershirt and slacks of his Heroics uniform, treated to survive in the heat- and the glowing lines that spread across his arms, slowly creeping up his jaw and spine, bright orange and white glowing under his skin and tracing around his bone structure.

But even with the heat distorting it, Shouto could hear Midoriya speak.

"Ice isn't going to work, Shouto."

Grimacing, Shouto tried to frantically think about how to beat this, how to find an out, to get any distance or strength…

But it was clear that he needed something-

There had to be a limit. There had to be something that would stop the teen-

His left hand was rising before he could even really process it.

And with a roar of frustration, he unleashed a hellstorm of flame out-

The flames were pale yellow, almost white- they swirlied out uncontrollably, as Todoroki realized the air already being so hot had made combustion easier-

But even then, he could feel it- something in the center of the firestorm that wasn't burning, that the flames reached and swirled and collected around-

After almost half a minute of sheer focused flame- Shouto felt his reserves hit nearly empty, and dropped his hand, ignoring the faint blistering of his palm, or the way the sleeve of his uniform had vanished-

Because ahead of him, the flames were still there .

Swirling around a central point.

And then, suddenly, they vanished.

There's an effect that happens when a light vanishes; it leaves a mark, a burned image in your eyes that lingers, just for a few seconds, until you can blink it away.

Shouto blinked-

And Midoriya was still there . His skeleton glowed under his skin, gleaming gold and green eyes oh so satisfied.

And then the air temperature dropped . The heat vanished, leaving what was only moments before an unbearable kiln of heat rising off the concrete now nothing but a memory, glowing embers snuffed with a barely there flick of the fingers as Midoriya flexed his hand, the glow of his skeleton slowly dampening.

"That was a very impressive attempt."

He glanced up, golden ringed eyes locked on Shouto, as something manic began to rise in his face.

"Now, what else do you have?"

And then the teen rushed him.

The rest of the sports festival was a blur of panic, of heat- of billowing steam and flaring light- but sitting in the infirmary an hour later, nose freshly reset from where a fist had punched him- While vaporizing through a wall of ice- Shouto could only watch as Midoriya stood his ground and took explosion after explosion from Bakugou, barely flinching from the blasts as the flames vanished against his bare skin, meeting the kinetic fury of the blonde with a brutal efficiency.

He understood now.

Midoriya Izuku wasn't the holder of a resistance quirk. He was a stockpile quirk. One that merely grew with every spark, every bloom of flame, every stray beam of light.

How long had he known Bakugou? How many days had he stolen sparks and embers from explosions… how many other flames had he consumed with that single-minded focus.

Shouto shuddered to think of just how much heat was hiding under the teen's skin.

And what his range truly was… because Shouto knew enough fights to recognize sandbagging when he saw it. The way those rings of heat never actually touched Shouto.

Midoriya Izuku could have incinerated him alive without moving an inch at the start of their match, hybridized quirk resistance or not.

Four:

Dabi, once known as Todoroki Touya, sent another wave of flame amongst the trees. The fighting was fierce, the attack squad he had been put in charge of spreading across the woods and tracking down the small selection of targets they were after.

Dabi was mildly curious that his youngest brother wasn't on Shigaraki's shortlist… but he did lose his quarterfinal bracket. Perhaps that's what kept him off the gamer's hitlist.

Regardless, Dabi had been asked to find at least the two finalists for completion.

And as he turned to look across the forest once more- there was a flash of light .

"That looks promising."

And it was.

As he slipped through the woods in that direction, he began to hear the repeat blasts of the second place winner's quirk- Bakugou Katsuki.

And, moving the same way, he caught sight of Compress.

That would make this easier.

Some taunting, a bit of misdirection, and a blind lunge that was poorly planned, and Dabi leaned down to pick up the marble trapped teen.

"One down, now we just need-"

Dabi felt like something cold raced up his spine.

"What was-" twisting, the flame controlling teen twisted to look back out at the forest behind him- and the wave of glowing charred ash that washed his way.

It wasn't flames.

Flames he could handle. He could cope with fire.

Instead, as the very air scorched his lungs, he could only scramble away from the tunnel of ash that appeared through the forest.

No, not ash. Ash was the result of a fire.

This was straight up Carbonization. Burned hotter and faster than the air could process, leaves turned to black fragments, branches shattering as steam vented from their blackened corpses.

And as the charcoal fell away, trees and bushes turned to blackened remnants, he could see the source of the consuming heat.

It almost didn't look human.

Gleaming heat rose through skin, rippling up through the air from glowing patches that were stylized along the bones of the teens torso, the very shirt that he once wore crumbling into char and ash around the shape of his ribcage as smoke drifted from its frame. And its head replaced by a skull shaped torch made of pure heat, dark hair like an inverted flame hanging loose, letting only the glowing cheekbones and flaming golden eyes show off a skull so bright it hid the rest of his features in shadow.

And in its hand, held up, shaking in sheer pain and reduced to a charred fragment of himself- the strands of his quirk quite literally scorched away- was Muscular.

And his arms were gone.

Perfectly cauterized and blackened stumps at the ends of his shoulders, the very flesh scoured away by the heat-

With an almost… dismissive act, Muscular was tossed aside, his throat marked by a blackened handprint as the glowing skull…

Turned Dabi's way.

It spoke, or tried too, but whatever sound it made was lost to the smoke and ash that drifted from the maw.

And when he and Compress didn't immediately respond- one glowing hand was raised their way-

Dabi dodged - throwing his body aside with a motion of pure combat instinct and adrenaline- as another tunnel of superheated air charred its way through the forest, the edges bright with heat for a mere second before all flames were snuffed out once again.

Including the blue flames he tossed at the monster behind him as he sprinted back to the rendezvous, Mr. Compress's jacket, now missing a chunk where it had crumbled to charred cloth, fluttering ahead of him.

But behind him, chasing them with a low rumble that Dabi realized must be the voice of the teen in that form, Midoriya Izuku hunted them .

Five minutes later, charred and sporting new burns, They could only watch Midoriya from a distance as the portals closed.

They had only gotten Bakugou and Ragdoll but that was for the best.

Midoriya Izuku was too dangerous to kidnap.

Not with a quirk like that.

Plus One:

Kamino Ward was chaos .

A full cast of Pro-Heroes, All Might himself, half a dozen teens trying to save one of their own, and the League Of Villains.

But, as Bakugou was carried away, saved by the combined forces of his classmates, one remained.

His disguise was smoldering, his temper past its point of no return.

Katsuki had taken one last glance, before booking it, knowing all too well that the chance to change Izuku's mind was long since past.

So, pulling the fake beard away, the makeup adhesive sizzling on hot skin, Izuku turned towards the center of the sole remaining fight.

And walked in with the full power of his quirk building in his spine.

He let it build, let the release valve slowly crank higher and higher; the stored heat that packed along his bones, inside his skeletal structure, boiled off and pushed through his flesh, through channels in his skin where the heat bled into light.

But he drew his field around him tighter.

His father's quirk had given him the secondary mutations and reinforced body to deal with heat. To survive temperatures above what he should, to breath in smoke and ash without worry and see past flame and heat distortion.

But his mother's quirk is where his true danger came from.

The attraction of small objects? Well, nothing smaller than atomic movement . His field had been absorbing and suppressing thermal energy for years.. But energy cannot be created or destroyed. And when you focused small enough, heat was just vibrations. Just molecular activity.

And when he reached his limits, when he pushed past that threshold between 'passive absorption' and the next stage… her quirk had been where he gained the ability to delineate 'Fields' for his heat. Selecting areas around him where he could release his stored energy without worry of spillage.

As he climbed over rubble and took in the fight below, he saw All Might and the villain who told the league to take Bakugou .

Every clash shattered the very ground, cracking apart concrete and bedrock, throwing rubble clear of the clash as the nearby buildings transitioned from ruins to dust.

But he caught All Might's eye. Just for a second, just for a split second-

Izuku pushed his field out.

The barrier he felt with the edges of his mind flexed , selecting half the battlefield near him, forming a narrow oval that wrapped both him and the villain within its borders, before he reached up and released the heat he had shoved to his knuckles .

His hand blazed with white heat, bones glowing through flesh and skin like magnesium flares as he dumped all the heat stored around his finger bones into the ring- and watched as the very air warped and ignited.

He saw a moment of shock, of the villain twisting his direction- before vanishing in the twisting white hot beam.

The fire storm that he unleashed was cataclysmic.

This wasn't like his normal attacks, where he aimed for specific temperatures and matched them, this was a direct and unlimited spike.

And it didn't kill the villain, because under the blur of heat, the distortion of air as chunks of rubble destabilized from Solid to Gas under his direction, there's a blur of heat that doesn't increase, not without intense and focused effort.

If he gave an annoyed 'Tch' before reclaiming his heat, he would like no one to inform Katsuki.

He tried so hard to avoid the blond's vocabulary, it would suck to pick up his verbal tics.

The heat returns, pulled and reclaimed into storage, his knucklebones flaring bright once before sealing the heat away.

Izuku takes a moment to appreciate just how effective his attack was on the landscape.

Between him and the still smoke-covered figure of the Suited Fucker who he planned to execute, was a passage of slag.

Still-molten rebar and cracked and half-glassed concrete pooled at the bottom, solidifying as the temperature stabilized. And so much dust and wreckage, from desks and doors to drywall and wooden framing had been… vaporized. Smoke still lingered in the air, but in some places shadows of wooden objects had been printed against the surface they had been on. Shadows that wouldn't be hidden by mere light.

Finally, the smoke parts, and the tall and broad figure stands.

"Oh My. I was correct. Such a dangerous quirk you have, young man." The man holds up and brushes his hands, revealing that the black suit he's wearing has lost nearly half its sleeves, the hands beneath blistered, but not much more. Already healing.

'Hmm… Too much area. Some sort of deflective field effect around him, feels like a heat resistance quirk. Fuck the Square Cube Law, that much heat bleed would have killed him if it was a bit more focused.'

Izuku shrugged, stepping forwards, walking along the molten trench between them, solidifying the metal rivers and boiling rock in a short radius before his steps. His own overshirt is a lost cause, the heat having already turned the once green and white pattern to a uniform black as it began to flake away, revealing a soot stained gray tank top underneath

"It has its moments. It's pretty simple though."

In the distance, Izuku catches All Might's eye, the bright blue incredulous and confused even as the older hero pants, exhausted.

"I mean, you know all about quirks right, considering you steal them. So here's a quick question; do you ever wonder what the upper limit on a stockpile quirk for thermal energy is? One that hit singularity, for instance?"

For a split second, he can see the tension in the villain's frame, a shock, one mirrored in All Might's distant form.

"What."

Izuku can't help but smile, having now closed nearly half the distance.

"I mean, what else is a quirk singularity but when physics stops making sense." And bringing AFO into range of his next attack. The villain is only about ten meters away, but that's perfect. Any farther and he wouldn't be able to get the right amount of energy condensed without draining his actual reserves. Raising his hand, he gives a smile, wide and manic, and blows out a deep exhale through gritted teeth.

"Sunspot Strike: Plasma."

He doesn't limit himself to just a handful of energy containment. No, he reaches deeper . It starts around his fingertips, rushing up his arm and causing the heat resistant material of his tanktop to start disintegrating as he opens the mental 'Valve' wide open once more. And beyond just the arm…

For a split second, several of the ribs in his chest glow , energy building up and billowing out, the very air inside his throat and lungs boiling. If he hadn't exhaled, it would have seriously injured him from the expansion of gas, and even now his chest ached, reminding him that he did still suffer backlash from using this move.

And then- the air around him transitions not to boiling .

No, it starts converting to thermal state plasma.

There's a split second of movement, before the boiling air truly changes state, enough for some form of teleportation or movement quirk to be dragging the villain back, his arms raised and braced-

But then the thermal energy catches his left hand, raised and glowing with some kind of defensive quirk-

A hand that vaporizes up to the elbow before he can clear the radius of this strike.

Of course, Izuku can't hear his screams, not above the roar as the air around him crackles and shifts- before he sweeps his arm back and away, stealing the energy once more.

It's not without a cost though.

The remains of his outfit from the waist up is now gone, the sole exceptions being his very expensive undershorts and a couple still melting scraps of his tank top.

Beyond that, as the air cools, he exhales and spits blood, the inner lining of his throat and sinuses cracked not by heat, but pressure.

The villain never gets a chance to capitalize on that though. Down an arm, wounded, and caught off guard, he's not prepared for All Might to get in close, second wind carrying him with renewed strength.

As the fight abruptly leaves his area, Izuku can't help but sigh, wiping blood from his lips, the fluid boiling off his hand as he turns and starts heading back across the rubble towards the cover of the distant crowds.

Right, time to go check on his explosive blond. And then he was going to take a fucking nap, because using nearly a year's worth of sunshine in a single attack was exhausting.

Half an hour later, with the League Of Villains detained and the suited villain taken down, Izuku yawns and leans back against Todoroki's arm, ignoring his suddenly stiff posture even as Bakugou starts bitching on the other side, all of them sitting in the back of a police van as it takes them back to UA.

Izuku can't keep the smirk off his face.

'Teach someone to steal my favorite source of warmth.'

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33943834/chapters/84412333#workskin