Muse

Chapter 12

Oh... Izuku felt all the excitement rush out of him. Of course. She wasn't glad to actually see him. She was just hoping that he still had tickets left.

"-and since we're both here, you just wanna go in together like we originally planned?" Mistaking his hesitation for disappointment, she quickly doubled back, "It's fine if you don't! I didn't want to bother you if you didn't since you're probably waiting on people to show up and this is very last minute. Hell, you've probably been planning this longer than I have and... Well, you can see how well that turned out..." She chuckled, averting her gaze elsewhere.

"Umm no. I mean, I'm not waiting on anyone, so it's just- are you sure you still want to come? I mean..." he trailed off. She had suggested going in together, but she had also cancelled going out to see this with him in the first place. Was she just hanging out with him to humor him now that she got caught? "...don't you already have plans today?"

"I've got some time to kill before I need to be somewhere else. Plus, you've been here before, right?"

"More times than I can count." He blurted before doing a mental facepalm. Idiot. She didn't need to know that. Now she was going to think he was a bigger hero nerd than before.

"Great! Then you can give me the grand tour."

"Sure." He gave her a slightly strained smile, already hearing Kacchan reprimanding him for being such a pushover. What was the harm in letting her come though? It's not like anyone else had showed up, and he had offered for her to come.

While they stood in the significantly shorter line inside, Alyssa gave him an appraising glance and pointed at his black and red All Might shirt with a slight smirk. "Nice shirt." Izuku felt his face grow hot. Was she being sarcastic or genuine? It was hard to tell with her neutral expression and it didn't help that he was wearing some of his nerdiest gear. Was there a rock nearby that he could go crawl under?

"Thanks..?"

"That's an All Might t-shirt, right? His Bronze Age costume?" His mood perked up significantly at that comment.

"Yes! Originally, they had his costume changed so he could do more stealth missions, but there was concern that black looked a little too villainous, so he upgraded to the Silver Age costume. It's not very popular either, so it's really rare to find merch with his Bronze Age look on it."

"Whoa, I didn't know that. Such a shame, though. Black goes with virtually everything, plus it's really slimming on you," she commented with a slight hum, causing his face to warm at the compliment, "but I bet it gets hot when you wear a bodysuit covered in it during the summer."

"Y-Yeah, I've been collecting All Might merchandise for years and only really managed to find a small handful of things for his Bronze Age years." Rather than reprimand him for him basically admitting he had spent most of his life collecting rare All Might gear, Alyssa nodded in appreciation.

"I understand that. I find a ton of things with the Human Spider's design on it, but I'm not fond of the red and blue color scheme myself, so I try to find merchandise of one of his proteges, Arachnakid, since they're really similar in design, but they don't make a ton of stuff for him because he's a sidekick."

"But isn't the Human Spider one of your favorite superheroes? Why wouldn't you want more of his stuff?"

"I'm kinda picky when it comes to certain things. Sometimes I like a hero or character but don't want their merchandise 'cause it wouldn't be flattering on me or I don't like the color scheme, or I could like the costume of one hero but not really care much about their exploits or lack there of. It's a rare thing for me to like both aspects of a character, and even more rare to be able to enjoy indulging myself on their merchandise. Not only that, I'm not just going to throw my money at every potential cash grab. The item has to mean something or be unique in some way to me, like I would have an everyday use for it or 'oh man, I'm never going to find something like that anywhere else' kind of thing, ya know?"