Hi. This is a new crossover with Overwatch that I'm trying to plan out and work on alongside my other two MHA crossovers (DBZ and JJBA).
I recognize that this should be listed in the 'crossovers' section, but given the fact that there are only four stories that are OW x MHA, I have elected to ignore it.
I. Some Outside Help
Lena Oxton was...puzzled, to say the least. When Doomfist had made the move to rip off her Chronal Accelerator (damn it, now Winston was going to stress for weeks trying to anchor her like last time), she didn't feel any pain from having basically blinked out of existence, but it wasn't exactly pleasant, either. The first time she went through this after the whole Slipstream fiasco, she was quite convinced she died and had gone to her own personal Hell, but to be honest? Watching multiple events throughout history and the future play out like a movie...
It was actually quite nice.
'Hold on, what's that?'
Finding herself at a new point in time, Lena briefly looked around to get a look at her surroundings, and noticed how the park she was in, as well as the buildings and cars, didn't look too different from where she was originally from (other than the very obvious Japanese print on a nearby billboard), so she assumed that she was 'some-when' relatively close to 2070.
"Kosei o dashite kurete ureshīdesu, Izuku!"
At hearing the excited words behind her, Lena turned around to see a woman tightly hugging a small child who was most likely her son, but the strangest thing yet...
The little boy had Genji's Quirk coiling around him.
The bright, neon green dragon that Genji told absolutely no one about, save for her, Winston, and Commander Morrison, and here it was being used as a toy by a child no older than six! However, it was quite clear there was no way that the boy she was staring at was the person that would become the badass cyborg-ninja that was the pride of Blackwatch.
It was common knowledge that Quirks were genetic; the exact origin of how they came to be was still unknown, but the passage of time easily showed that they were able to be passed down from parent to child with mutational variations.
Which meant that she was most likely looking at Genji's descendant (which meant that everything down there was still working, but she didn't want to think any more about it).
Well, sure, there was still the slight chance of the boy actually being his father, but Lena supposed that the chances of the heir of a crime family playing so out in the open. Not to mention that he looked almost nothing like the few pictures of Sojiro Shimada Overwatch had managed to find.
Lena moved to walk forward and try to figure out what kind of connection the boy had to Genji, but when she took the first step, she suddenly found herself pulled into the white-blue dimensional space that was the timestream, before being spat out into another time period that was very far in the distant past, judging by the herd of woolly mammoths in the distance.
Oh well. She'd have to just tell Genji about it whenever she finally showed back up in her own time period, but she might as well sit back and relax for now.
To say that the next several hours of Lena's life were uneventful had to be the biggest understatement since the dinosaurs went extinct. After trying not to freeze to death, outrunning several extinct species of predators, giving medieval peasants heart attacks, and trying to diffuse a hostage situation, she was just about ready to get on her knees and ask any deity above if sending her to a time period that wasn't going to try and kill her, her reprieve came in the form of showing up in Winston's lab.
The gorilla had quickly given her her repaired Chronal Accelerator, to which she wasted no time in putting it on, before sighing in relief at finally being anchored again. After sharing a hug with her friend, she explained that timing could not have been better, as she was busy trying to Blink and run away from the test site of the Tsar Bomba as fast as she could.
When she asked what happened with Doomfist, he sheepishly admitted that in his anger at seeing her disappear, he had gotten angry enough to knock the man out with one punch, and that he was currently being held in Japan's recently-built 'Tartarus' facility. Her heart swelled in pride for her friend at his accomplishment, but she suddenly remembered that she needed to speak to Genji as soon as possible, and asked Winston for his location, quickly running off with a short apology once he answered.
It was currently after-hours, and many of the agents and employees in the Switzerland Headquarters were already asleep or in their quarters, but there were still quite a few still up and about, such as one Jesse McCree, whom she hurriedly greeted on the way to the practice range, where she saw the resident cyborg-ninja making quick work of the robots with his sword.
"Genji!" she called out as she slowed down her jog to a stop, causing the man to cease what he was doing and turn around at the sound of his name. Upon seeing her, he sheathed his sword as he quickly made his way over to her.
"It is good to see you, Lena," he greeted. "I was not aware you had returned."
"Well, I literally just got back," she replied. "But enough about that. There's something I have to tell you."
Genji stared at her for a moment, before he slowly nodded. "All right."
"Okay, so, when Doomfist ripped off my harness, I ended up in Japan first, and I saw this woman and this little boy, and he...I saw him using your Quirk."
The man was silent as he crossed his arms and took in the information. "Lena, I am not the only one capable of using this Quirk, surely you know this." Just about everyone who was part of the main sector of Overwatch knew how Genji came to be the cyborg that was the pride of Blackwatch, but from what Lena heard about the Shimada Clan, she didn't think such a sweet boy could be like that.
"Okay, yeah, I'll give you that," she conceded. "But it was in a park, in full view of civilians. You have to know what that means."
Genji, however, was still unconvinced. "Then he is either a child or grandchild of Hanzo. What does that have to do with-"
"His dragon was green, Genji!"
Genji had shared that the Shimadas' ability to use the 'Spirit Dragon' Quirk was only capable through the main branch of the family, and that he and Hanzo were the only remaining members of it (unless their father had a few bastard children, which was honestly likely). However, the exact color of the dragon was something that was unique to a single lineage of descendants, able to reemerge here and there. Genji had inherited the color of his grandfather's dragon (though his own was much more powerful), which meant that any descendants Hanzo would have wouldn't inherit his brother's color.
The only people who he shared this information with were Jack Morrison, and the woman standing beside him.
"So you're saying..." Genji began, just barely above a whisper. "You're saying there's a chance?" It was a carefully guarded secret (that he shared with only Lena and Winston) that Genji was infatuated with Angela Ziegler, ever since she saved his life when Overwatch first found him on the brink of death.
But what he didn't know, was that she felt the same way. Lena had made a joke about how the two of them were spending more time together, and Angela had confided that she was interested. Lena even tried to get her to do something about it, but the doctor said that she was too scared of ruining the friendship they had, and that it violated the Hippocratic Oath, to which Lena called bullshit.
Lena was a very out and proud lesbian, but she had been brought up by parents who were very, very much against such people. She even started dating Emily during her last year in school, so it was either break things off with her, or come clean to her family and risk their ire. In the end, she was disowned by parents who preferred they never had a child, and Lena had been happy with Emily ever since.
She just wanted to see her friends be happy, for a change.
"You'll never know until you try," she replied.
Genji sighed as he considered her words. "What's...what's his name?"
"I don't know about his last name, but his mother called him Izuku."
After managing to convince him that romance was possible in his future, Lena had ended up getting the idea of having Genji write down a guide of some sort for helping Izuku control his own Quirk, but while he was open to the idea when she pitched it to him, he was firmly against the means by which she would deliver it, which was to voluntarily get a far enough distance away from her Chronal Accelerator and pray that she was able to manipulate her disassociation from the timeline to get to where she needed.
Obviously, she wasn't going to take no for an answer.
Lena continued to pester him for hours over the next few days, and even resorted to threatening to tell Angela about his feelings for her, before Genji finally caved in, if only to preserve what was left of his pride, and gave her a completed journal a week later, the entirety of it having been written in Japanese (this was meant for Izuku's eyes only, after all), but still wasn't convinced she'd be able to pull it off.
When the time came to tell Winston of her plan, he was understandably not amused. Only a short amount of time had passed since he was able to successfully stabilize and anchor her to the timeline, not to mention the sleepless nights that were spent fixing her harness and waiting for her to show up (he never actually said it outright but Lena knew the signs).
He went off on a tangent about how there was no guarantee he would be able to help anchor her again, and about how she was extremely lucky to have been found in such a short amount of time compared to the months that had gone by with her being thought dead after the Slipstream Incident, before he finally calmed down and explained that there was a way for her to do what she needed without risking herself again like that.
After he first managed to get the Chronal Accelerator on her, Winston had gotten the idea to start secretly working on building a 'control panel' that would work in tandem with the Slipstream technology in the harness, which would theoretically give Lena the ability to choose where and when she wanted to time travel.
Said device was about the size of a large smartphone, and in her honest opinion, it was better left destroyed. As much as she wanted to entertain the idea of preventing the Omnic Crisis, killing Adolf Hitler, and meeting Jesus Christ, the potential consequences would be no doubt disastrous (as in the very likely chance of reality imploding in on itself from the resulting paradox or being stranded in an alternate universe).
So after Winston hooked up the control panel to the Chronal Accelerator and spent a few hours spent calibrating it, as well as giving Lena a basic rundown, after being given a very express order to return as soon as she was finished, set off on her mission to deliver Izuku the knowledge of his (most likely) ancestor, so that he, too, would become a badass ninja, provided she could figure out how to use the damn thing.
She had ended up getting the year and location wrong several times (in her defense, she had been in Izuku's room for less than a minute), but eventually, Lena was finally able to get to where she needed. Upon seeing the vaguely-familiar posters of the man with blond hair and a hulking figure, she moved to place the journal onto the nearby desk, when she heard the sound of something moving behind her, and turned around to see an older-looking Izuku staring back at her with shock and surprise.
"Oh, er, hello, Izuku," she began, slowly moving towards him. "I don't think you know me, but my name's Lena, and I came here to give you-"
"Anata ha dare?! Dō yatte koko ni haitta no?!"
Lena stopped moving and raised her hands to show him she meant no harm. "I'm not here to hurt you," she continued, and slowly reached into her jacket to pull out the journal and show it to him. "I just wanted to give you this, see?"
Izuku, however, still didn't give a response, as he continued to stare at her. As the silence went on, Lena started to relax at thinking she had gotten through to him, but was instantly proven wrong when she saw the tattoo on his left arm glow and come to life, before a bright, neon-green dragon started barreling closer and closer towards her.
'...Bugger.'
Lena let out a yelp as she crouched low and used Blink to move to the side, narrowly dodging the attack. Honestly, getting into a fight was quite low on the list of things she expected would happen, but to be fair, she'd have the same if she were in his position and saw a strange woman show up in her bedroom speaking a language she didn't understand.
That didn't mean she had to like it, however.
When she looked back to Izuku, her eyes widened at the sight of him rushing at her with a sword, of all things, before her reflexes kicked in and she Blinked behind him, using the small window of time she had to activate the control panel to send her back to 2070, but not before dropping Genji's journal to the ground and kicking it away for good measure.
She was not about to deal with children attempting to kill her, thank you very much. Not again.
When the scene changed from Izuku's room to the familiar sight of the timestream, Lena let out a sigh of relief and promptly decided that she needed to get a drink, but when she landed back in 2170, she suddenly found herself face-to-face with a very disgruntled Jack Morrison.
After seeing the strange woman who somehow showed up in his room disappear, Izuku Midoriya maintained a defensive stance with his sword raised, anticipating a sudden attack, but after several moments had passed with nothing happening, before he fully calmed down, and placed the weapon back in its scabbard. As he moved to place it back under his bed, he noticed a small, leather book lying on the floor, and gently picked it up.
It was the book the strange woman had been holding in her hand, and he remembered that based on what he knew of English and the very clear hand gestures she was making, she had the intention of giving it to him, and a quick study of the book ruled out the possibility of it being harmful to him, if only at least physically.
He felt guilty about immediately attacking her with his Quirk, but she was also a complete stranger that just randomly appeared, unannounced, in his room. That, combined with his parentage, meant that he had to take no chances, so could you really blame him?
When he opened the book, there was a folded sheet of paper that had been attached to the back of the front cover with tape, and opened it to see that it was addressed to him, of all people.
To Izuku,
By the time you receive this, a very significant amount of time will have passed since I wrote this. According to a friend of mine (you may know her as 'Tracer'), you now possess the Quirk that has been passed down from my family for generations since its conception. Enclosed in this journal, you will find every single one of my techniques, along with a few our family had come up with, and all the information you would need about and them I can recall.
Even if you are not of my direct lineage, you are still family, and if I have to be honest, this knowledge will not affect me or my allies, and Tracer vouches for what little she knows of your character.
I bid you good luck and farewell in your future, Izuku, and may this knowledge help you in your future endeavors.
With you in spirit,
Shimada Genji.
"...What?" was all he could say from the message he had just read. This man claimed that he was his ancestor, and that everything written in this journal would help him in mastering his Quirk even further than he already had.
Izuku flipped to a random page and skimmed through the entry about something called 'Swift Strike', and took a moment to stare at his ornately-patterned dragon tattoo, before moving to his computer and searching the internet for any mention of the woman known as 'Tracer'.
What he found wasn't even close to what he was expecting. According to many of the websites the search engine had given him, Tracer was the poster girl for Overwatch, the organization that was considered to be the world's first true Hero Agency and paved the way towards modern heroics, even setting the gold standard for how they should operate (downfall and disbanding aside).
However, the information on her biography stated that she died more than fifty years ago, which simply couldn't be true at all, seeing as how she had been in his room just five minutes prior, which prompted him to try and figure how the woman was able to do what she did. He had considered a fast-acting warp-type Quirk, and the biography confirmed that her Quirk was short-ranged teleportation.
However, Genji Shimada wrote in his message that he personally knew Tracer, and when considering all of the facts involving who she was and the circumstances of him acquiring the journal, Izuku concluded that there was only one answer that made the most sense: Tracer's Quirk was time travel, and that her ability to teleport had something to do with the device that was strapped to her torso.
Izuku wanted to think about the possibilities of how such a power could be used (as well as try to figure out how to apologize for his rash behavior), but opted instead for grabbing his phone and dialing his father's number.
"Hey, Izuku."
"Hey, dad. Are you busy right now?"
"Nah, I'm on break from my patrol. What's up?"
His father hadn't told him much of the Quirk that that came from his family, but because of the sudden appearance and disappearance of a strange woman who somehow knew his name, along with her leaving a journal addressed to him and written by someone who claimed to be his ancestor, he needed the guidance of not just Hisashi Midoriya, but also the Pro Hero Edgeshot, now more than ever.
I read a theory on Reddit one time that said the Chinese glowing baby was born in 2020, and that the main story takes place 150 years later, and I've been sticking with that for all of my MHA fics. Fight me.
And I'm aware that Inko and Edgeshot have a 9-10 year age gap, but this actually makes sense with what I'm going for, so I'm also going to make him 43 instead of 33 by the time Izuku starts UA.
I'm going to be completely disregarding the 'Recall' cinematic and all the ones that take place after it, along with the entirety of Overwatch 2 and the Second Omnic Crisis.