Chapter Text
Chapter 1: New Dream
Whether or not they know the actual word, four year old children have a concept of destiny. It's usually ill-informed, but it's there. Four year old Midoriya Izuku knew that he was destined to be a hero. Unfortunately poor little Izuku's destiny went off the rails and stayed off them for rather longer than he or his mother would have preferred.
First, he was diagnosed as quirkless in kindergarten. Then he had to watch all of his friends develop cool and interesting quirks. Then he had to stop calling them friends because they stopped treating him like one. His father left. It would unfortunately take him entirely too long to understand that that one wasn't a loss worth grieving. The bullying continued until his first year of middle school when his mother transferred him to a technology-focused magnet school.
That was the first good thing that Izuku could remember happening to him. It had the dual effect of separating him from his tormentors and giving him a fresh start in an environment that aligned with his new goal: Izuku was going to make things that helped the greatest heroes.
If he couldn't save people with a powerful quirk of his own then he would engineer ways to save the people who saved people. From the utilitarian perspective he even had a chance of helping more people than the average hero did if his support equipment was good enough. And if he was honest with himself about his general anxiety, life in a lab or a workshop would probably agree with him more than a life of danger anyway.
Throughout middle school Izuku kept his head down, shied away from others, and tried to prepare himself for his new dream: the UA support course. He joined his new school's competitive robotics team and made a name for himself as the best programmer in the league, though the team-oriented nature of the competitions and his fear of the spotlight kept his name out of the public eye.
When the time came, Izuku took the UA entrance exam and, as was tradition for the support course, submitted source code and a video demonstrating his best personal project. It was a modified drone that could follow a person and alert them if they were being tailed or approached. It could also discreetly describe the menacing presence to its owner using text to speech if it was paired to an app on the owner's phone. Izuku hoped to develop the concept further if he got accepted.
All of the days he spent waiting for an answer blurred together as he hoped and prayed that he wouldn't have to find a new calling again. He was older and wiser now but he didn't think it would hurt any less, and there were precious few other paths that would put him anywhere near the heroes he so admired. He had applied to the business course as well but he considered it to be a last resort.
Weeks later the Midoriya household received a letter bearing UA's logo in the mail. Izuku could not bring himself to open it and begged his mother to do it for him. Both of them sat at the dining table with preemptive tears in their eyes as Inko took a deep breath and began to read aloud.
"On behalf of the UA Support Department, I am pleased to report that we accept yoUR APPLICATION-" she shrieked. For a time she got no further as both mother and son screamed incoherently with euphoria and relief. They would have been able to resume reading sooner if Izuku had not leapt across the table to grab at the letter and landed on it hard enough to snap one of the table's legs, injuring his hand as he rode the doomed piece of furniture to the floor.
Even as he cradled his smashed hand, Izuku's tears were joyful. The universe had extracted its payment for his new fortune and he could say with total certainty that he'd come out ahead.
His hand was almost completely recovered by the time classes started. But even if it hadn't been, building new limbs was probably just a regular day at UA.
Izuku was positively vibrating with excitement. He was in his brand new homeroom on his first day of high school at the institution with the best support program in the whole country, but all of that was taking a back seat to the fact that his teacher was Power Loader. An actual pro hero was his homeroom teacher. The Excavation Hero Power Loader rarely did much actual hero work - his quirk was more of a niche item for underground rescues and the odd subterranean villain battle - but the fact that a real pro hero was going to see Izuku's designs right off the bat was both exhilarating and terrifying. He could only hope that he remembered to call the man Maijima-sensei instead of Power Loader-sensei.
"Hello, everyone. I am Maijima Higari, though one or two of you might know me as the pro hero Power Loader. I don't end up in the news much but that's OK by me - I'd rather be here making stuff anyway. Pro tip: if you don't like being on TV, just refuse to wear a shirt." He tapped the side of his excavator-themed helmet a couple of times. "I've been dodging interviews that way for years."
Reactions to this statement were varied. Izuku thought he heard a muffled snort or two and definitely saw some looks of confusion. Regardless of how people felt about it, it seemed to be an effective strategy - he was a self-admitted hero geek and he couldn't remember ever seeing an interview with Power Loader.
"Anyway, we've got a busy semester ahead of us and I know most of you are itching to get to work, but we're going to start with shop safety." There were scattered groans and a general slumping of shoulders throughout the room, but Power Loader did not seem surprised or deterred by them. "And yes, there will be a quiz." he sternly continued, "The only way you get to use equipment at UA is by getting 100% on any relevant safety exams."
Izuku silently nodded along - he guessed that many of the other students had more experience than him and might have believed that they didn't need the safety lectures, but he needed all the help he could get. He noticed a girl with pink hair at an adjacent table pouting slightly at the news.
The rest of the morning was spent learning how to use hand tools and power tools without maiming anyone. Maijima-sensei would start by introducing a tool, demonstrating safe usage, and asking the class how a novice was likely to use it wrong. While many of the other students offered answers and the occasional harrowing personal experience, Izuku stayed quiet and attempted to soak up as much as he could. He wasn't worried about the quiz - he had always been a good test taker - but he knew he was behind his peers on the use of tools. All he had at home was a screwdriver kit and a hobby grade 3D printer. He knew that he couldn't make anything that a hero would bring into the field with those alone.
At lunch time Izuku failed to prevent himself from holding up the line in the cafeteria when he came face to face with the pro hero Lunch Rush. He had a small set of questions that he'd settled on which he thought could be answered quickly, but he had underestimated the speed at which the lunch line moved. He'd probably embarrassed himself a bit but he consoled himself with the knowledge that he had three years at UA to run into him again. Maybe he could continue their conversation in installments.
He had just sat down among some of his classmates (taking care to put himself at the empty end of the table) when he noticed the girl with the pink hair entering the cafeteria looking frustrated. Even more curiously, he noticed Maijima-sensei a few steps behind her, looking just as frustrated as she did. The hero paused near the doorway and gestured toward the room at large. The girl seemed to huff with indignation and then sag slightly as she looked for the end of the food line and joined it. Just before she grabbed a tray she looked back at the entrance to find Maijima still there, arms crossed, giving her what seemed to be a stern or pointed look (it was hard to tell with the helmet).
Is she in trouble for something already? Izuku wondered. He watched as the perturbed girl grabbed a couple items of food (possibly at random) and turned to survey the lunch room, likely trying to figure out where to sit. The other people from his class were still engrossed in conversation and did not seem to have noticed her. While he was normally hesitant to socialize with others he felt a sense of responsibility to spare the girl from eating with strangers if she didn't want to. Izuku tentatively put his hand up to wave to the girl, just in case she wanted to eat with her class.
The girl caught sight of Izuku's hand and swiftly made her way toward him. He noted with concern that she did not smile as she approached or sat down. She still seemed upset and he hoped that she wouldn't take her anger out on him, especially since his day seemed to be going so well. "How long is lunch?" the girl inquired without looking at the green-haired boy. Instead she was craning her neck to see the doorway which Maijima seemed to have vacated.
"Um, I think he said it was 40 minutes."
The girl cast a forlorn look at her watch, which Izuku noticed was nearly 2 centimeters thick. It looked positively enormous on her average-sized wrist. When she put her arm down and poked listlessly at her food he was able to examine the watch's face, which led to his own face lighting up in excitement. "Is that a nixie watch?"
"Hm? Oh," the girl said, looking up at him, "yeah, I made it a couple years ago."
"Wow," Izuku breathed, "it's really cool! I've never seen one in person before."
Finally the girl seemed to have something to smile about. As she looked up to wave the compliment off he noticed that her eyes were a brilliant yellow with some kind of crosshair pattern. "Pff, that's nothing! This was one of my first babies. I've made much cuter things since then!" she boasted, pulling a sticker-covered notebook out of her bag. Izuku caught a brief glimpse of the stickers and recognized some of them as symbols and slogans of the open source and right to repair movements. He was pretty sure he also saw a sticker with a swear word and a stylized depiction of a hand being mangled in machinery. "And I'd be able to make even cuter babies if he would just let me use the damn workshop already." she grumbled.
"Oh, is that why Maijima-sensei was looking at you when you came in?"
"All I was doing was trying to turn the metal printer on!" she huffed, "I wasn't going to try to use it yet. I just wanted to figure out which alloys it can print. I told him I obviously know safety because I'm still alive, and he said 'we do not apply the anthropic principle to shop safety' and told me I couldn't play with tools until I passed the safety quiz." she complained, flipping through pages roughly. "I wasn't playing." she mumbled petulantly.
Izuku smiled. The metal printer was one of the few tools he was somewhat qualified to discuss. "I think he has to treat everyone the same, even if he can tell that you're smart enough not to hurt anyone."
The girl pursed her lips and seemed to consider this. "Hmm. Maybe."
"I don't know much about metals, but I think that printer is popular and open enough that you can find slicer and material profiles for it pretty easily."
"Oh, you've seen it before?" Her mood seemed to improve in an instant.
"I think so, or maybe one of its sister models from the same company. I'm really hoping it works with Slick4r since I'm already used to it."
"Is that one open source?" she inquired with a hint of suspicion.
"Yeah," Izuku reported with a smile. "That's half the reason it's my favorite."
The girl gave him a look of appraisal. "I like you." she declared, then offered her hand. "Hatsume Mei."
Izuku blushed and took the proffered hand. "Midoriya Izuku. So what kind of things have you made?"
The conversation that followed was so engrossing that their food went untouched. At first Izuku was afraid to eat when Hatsume wasn't eating, and when the bell rang Izuku feared he would look foolish in front of her if he tried to eat quickly. Thankfully that fear was quickly put to rest when Hatsume's panic-eating far outstripped his own.
They rushed back to class together, still excitedly discussing their past and future creations.
The safety lectures continued until mid-afternoon at which point the first safety quiz was administered. Apparently no one failed. At the end of the day Maijima-sensei had even more good news to share.
"Tomorrow, you're going to spend your morning homeroom figuring out what you'd like to make this week. Even though you've passed the quiz I'm not turning you loose completely - that was just a general overview. For your first project you can use any tools you've already practiced with and up to one tool that you haven't used before. If you want to make something that's too far out of your wheelhouse then you might want to think about teaming up with somebody who knows things you don't."
Izuku reflexively glanced at Hatsume and was startled to find her looking back at him. He found it hard to imagine there was much he knew that she didn't but he was delighted to know that she saw him as someone competent. He flashed her a quick smile which she returned before she began flipping through her notebook, likely in search of a candidate for her first project of the semester.
"Starting tomorrow you'll also have your regular classes. I believe Tuesday and Thursday will be Japanese and Math while Wednesday will be English and Chemistry - that'll be Mondays as well starting next week. Fridays will be Support Concepts days here, but this week I'm letting you have it as a work day. So, plan accordingly."
That night Inko was full of questions about Izuku's first day at UA. Who was his teacher? Did he see any heroes? What did he learn? What was the campus like?
Questions about his classmates were conspicuously absent, and Izuku correctly assumed that his mother didn't want to pressure him about making friends. She knew it was difficult and that experience had taught him to be very cautious about other people.
She was surprised that he had a pro hero for a teacher, even in the support course. She was equally surprised to hear that the man never wore a shirt, but she conceded that it took all sorts to make a world. When Izuku further explained that serial shirtlessness was Power Loader's strategy for dodging media appearances she tittered appreciatively. Anyone who was either that humble or that sarcastic would probably be a decent role model for her boy.
The following morning Izuku found that the class had sorted itself into three groups of people: those who had ideas and were pitching them, those who were offering their skills (or simply hitching their proverbial wagons to likely stars), and those who were keeping to themselves. Hatsume seemed to be in the last group, staring fondly at her notebook while making the occasional scribble. Having seen her notes during lunch the previous day he knew that she had plenty of options and was curious to know whether she had settled on something. He grabbed his own notebook and made his way to her desk.
"Have you decided what you're going to make?" Izuku inquired.
"I'm going to do the brass knuckles for Mt. Lady if he'll let me." the pink-haired girl replied, tracing the drawing with her finger.
"Wow, I bet that's bigger than anything the rest of the class will make."
Hatsume smirked and hummed an affirmation. The glint of determination in her eye suggested that she really wanted to make an impression in her first week. "What about you?"
Izuku frowned, looking at his own notebook with disappointment. "I'm not sure. I don't know if I can make anything really good by the end of the week. I've been dreaming of making something new without some dumb league telling me what parts to use, but now I'm not sure where to start, especially with the deadline." he mused. "I could just iterate on my surveillance drone again but that seems like it'll be boring and basic compared to what other people might do. I could work with someone else to learn new things but I might not be useful enough for anyone to want me on their team."
Hatsume perked up at his last statement. "I wouldn't call a machine that can react and communicate 'basic,' but you could work with me. I'll probably need some CAD and printing done for the knuckles, depending on how fast the printer is. And you could learn some welding." she added, nudging his shoulder and flashing him a wide grin.
Izuku flushed and smiled. "Really? That sounds good to me." He clenched his fists and met her gaze with a look of determination. "I'll definitely do my best to help if Maijima-sensei approves it."
"Good. Do you think the CAD part will be really hard?"
"Probably harder than anything I've done so far, but it should be doable. I think the challenge is actually storage, because the knuckles have to be sized for her giant form. There's no way to make them collapse or scale with her and still be useful, because…" he trailed off and pensively made some stretching gestures in the air. "No, the geometry just makes that impossible. So yeah, it has to be its final size but then the question is: where are they when she's not using them? She can't drag them around in her base form - even if we made them light enough the sheer size would slow her down. The challenge is… strategic placement. Where could she leave them that's easily accessible for her giant form without them being in the way?" He frowned at the drawing and stroked his chin for some time.
"If they were useful as something other than brass knuckles for a giant… What else can you do with that basic shape? Can we call it art?" He mused helplessly. "I hate modern art though." He grumbled. The last thing he wanted was to present some weird misshapen thing to his community and call it art. "What can you do with that shape?" he repeated, staring intently at the drawing.
Hatsume looked between Izuku and her notebook sympathetically. She had failed to consider the logistics of storage and deployment and she keenly wished she had an answer for him. It's a big metal thing that will have to go outside. It has 4 big holes. What in the world is like that?
As she perused her mental inventory of Big Metal Things Outside she hit upon an idea. It was fairly ludicrous and would probably generate some controversy, but it might actually work. Just to be sure, she did some quick math on the dimensions of Mt. Lady's fingers, then grabbed a tape measure and, much to Izuku's confusion, began trying to measure the width of her own hips.
"Do you… have a different idea?" Izuku ventured, a light blush covering his cheeks as he looked on curiously. "If you've got an idea for her suit I think that they usually measure clothing with circumferences…" he trailed off. He was pretty sure Mt. Lady's suit was already a marvel of engineering so he doubted Hatsume was about to come up with a genuine improvement on its design.
Hatsume checked the tape measure and grinned, then began furiously scribbling on the drawing of the knuckle duster. After a moment she turned excitedly to Izuku and showed him a much chunkier-looking design with rounded edges for the finger holes and some sort of small protrusion on either side. "What if it's a park bench?"
Izuku looked in bewilderment at the odd new shape. Four fingers, four… seats? "Yes." he hissed, his eyes widening at the sheer audacity and elegance of it.
"So you want to make a giant set of brass knuckles that doubles as a park bench?" The two teens nodded with trepidation. "That is either genius or a ghoulish normalization of the violence in our society." Maijima said matter-of-factly. "I'm going to argue that it's genius, and if anyone questions it we're going to tell them that we're a bunch of tone-deaf eccentrics. Got it?"
Izuku and his new partner nodded eagerly.
"Cool. Hatsume, you're the only one I'm clearing to weld. If I catch either of you near the welding equipment without the proper eye protection I'm going to let the first year hero course use you as practice dummies. They've got a guy who can drop a whole glacier on you and a girl who can dissolve you with acid, just to give you an idea." he shrugged as if suggesting that their theoretical punishment was truly out of his hands.
"I heard one of them is French." Hatsume whispered quite seriously after Maijima walked away, as though the French one was by virtue of their nationality somehow as dangerous as Ice Boy or Acid Girl.
The two teens quickly got to work. They were disappointed but unsurprised when Maijima told them that they couldn't invite Mt. Lady in to have her hands scanned or molded. He did say that if she liked the prototype they made that she'd probably want some revisions done, which was an exciting possibility. In lieu of a custom-fitted model they hunted down a 3D model of brass knuckles, scaled it correctly for Mt. Lady's giant form, added just enough extra material to make it function as a bench, and finally sliced it into pieces that would fit the department's biggest metal printer. They sent the first two sections to the printer and watched it go through its startup sequence.
Hatsume's ambitious project quickly made an impression - a small crowd of their classmates had gathered around the huge machine after they noticed that it was active. Hatsume was telling anyone who looked interested what they were making and insisting that it was going to be super cute. Izuku was triple-checking their slicer settings and watching the estimated finish time on the machine's display to ensure that it lined up with the software's estimate. If they printed day and night and jumped straight into welding the fresh sections onto the previous ones every morning, they would finish on time.
An uneventful Japanese class led them into lunch, which they used as an opportunity to check on the metal printer. It hadn't gotten far - they knew that the pieces would finish in the small hours of the following morning.
"I don't think this girl is going to stick around long." Hatsume said doubtfully, gesturing at one of the workstations in their deserted homeroom workshop. The girl's first project was a bodysuit of some sort.
"Because she's making a costume during the first week?" Izuku guessed as they left the room and headed for the cafeteria. "It's definitely a bold move but maybe she already really knows what she's doing."
"No, because she's sewing an entire bodysuit out of ripstop nylon. It has no stretch, won't stop chemical attacks or bullets, doesn't insulate or wick moisture, and under a sustained fire attack it will melt right onto the skin."
Izuku grimaced. "Maybe she has some kind of plan for a base layer?"
"All I saw her grab was nylon in multiple colors, a sewing machine, and a fucking glue gun."
Izuku rubbed the back of his neck nervously, still getting used to Hatsume's rough language. "I did notice the glue gun. But I can't sew or weld or do any metalworking yet, so maybe they won't keep me around either."
Hatsume frowned. "No, you're smart. They'll keep you." She looked uncertain for a moment. "I'll make sure you can weld by the end of the week." She flashed him a small smile that was meant to be reassuring and Izuku was struck again by her luminous yellow eyes. Lots of people with vision quirks had interesting eyes, but Hatsume's were probably the coolest and prettiest he'd ever seen.
The freckled boy was taken aback by her promise. "Thanks." he said softly, smiling as they entered the cafeteria. He was pretty sure the support course didn't spit people out at the same rate that the hero course did, but he was moved by the idea that Hatsume would miss him if he was gone.
With math class out of the way they were back to homeroom where Maijima-sensei spent most of his time poring over the various teams' plans and mining them for teachable moments. When he identified such a moment he would ask everyone but the team in question to find a stopping point in their work and gather around for a hands-on lesson. Some teams' designs were improved, salvaged, or scrapped in the face of new information. Throughout all of it the metal printer soldiered on, slowly but inexorably building Hatsume's titanic weapon one layer at a time.
It was easily one of the best days Izuku had ever had.