Forged in Steel

Beta-read by NatsuIsAwesome, check his stuff out. He's a great guy and an excellent writer.

Chapter Two

Tempered steel is Forged with Time

May 6th


"So why am I here again?" Manami asked from her folding chair as she watched Izuku hazardously dump a washing machine down from its perch on the mountain of trash. "Because, you know what to look for when it comes to tech junk. And I need some." Izuku found his time with the gremlin wasn't so bad.

She was super smart when it came to computers, inside and out. Sometimes she would start talking about something and it just melded into gibberish though.

"Plus it's not like you're going to do anything anyway, Gentle is still on medical leave." He said and felt a grin when she began to spout her defense.

"I'm still president of his fan club! And I run the official Gentle/fan-ran/ Chirp account! I got like 500 followers!" Izuku finally called it a day and walked back towards Aiba's cleared off spot on the sand and collapsed next to her while he sucked on air.

He was really glad he bought this umbrella. He watched Aiba look over at him, her large sunglasses obscuring her eyes before she pulled out a bottle and placed it on Izuku's exposed chest.

He recoiled from the cold object but that didn't stop him from greedily downing the water.

"Thanks, Aiba." He said and the girl just sighed and continued to type on her phone. Izuku sat up and gazed at the progress he had made.

"So what are you going to do with the cars?" Izuku looked up at her and then at the junkyard. She was right, there were several heavy machineries and a few cars visible amongst the wreckage. He did want some of the motors but they weighed way more then he could ever hope to lift.

"I don't know, maybe a tow truck?" He said while lowering his head back on the sand and thought about all of the progress he had made.

He had only been at this for about a month, around the time that he met Aiba, and he had about thirty feet of cleared space to claim as his doing. This was the first time he got Aiba to come along with him though. She normally didn't want to go anywhere that didn't have a Wi-Fi signal.

Still though, she kept her promise that she would teach Izuku how to be a nerd. She even still came back after Izuku gave her the hat he got from Gentle. She even hung out at his apartment every now and then. And helped his mother get in touch with technology and helped her set up a Chirp account. Why his mother needed one he didn't know.

He was still a bit put off from his mother's declaration from a month ago. He couldn't blame her though. He still had things he had to accomplish if he could stand up in this superhuman society.

Aiba let out a groan and kicked at the sand, "Can we at least take out junk back to the shop and see if any of it works?"

"We're not done yet." The boy said while closing his eyes, enjoying the heat from the sand on his aching muscles.

"Is this really how you want to spend your weekend?" Aiba asked before grabbing her own drink from nearby.

"You just want my mom to cook for you."

"That's a bonus, not the objective!" She said as Izuku nodded and stood up and pulled his wagon filled with parts and wires and placed Aiba's chair in along with the umbrella.

"So do you think you're going to nail the entrance exam?" Izuku asked her. "Well, duh. What? Are you looking down on me?"

"Everyone looks down on you Aiba."

"Har hardy har." She said as they exited the beach and began the long trek back to the shop. "But unlike you, I am small enough to be forever cute while you are cursed to forever be average." She said while waving a hand through one of her pigtails.

"Mhm." He hummed in Agreement as the two walked forward.


July 28th

Izuku found out a few things about Manami from the last three or so months that they had spent together. She was also an outcast from her school who was often the target of bullies and cyberbullying. She claims that's what started her on the path of computers and the like.

So she had plenty of time to help Izuku out now that they were on summer break, and if he didn't know any better, he would even say that she enjoyed having a friend. Maybe that was just him though.

As the two walked he saw that Manami was glued to her phone and was oblivious to the world around her. She simply stopped when he did and kept pace with him when he moved. Izuku honestly found it slightly nerve-racking thinking about how unaware she was on the street.

Still though, every now and then she would keep him informed on some of the more basic gossip from the mainstream chirp accounts.

"You hear that the winner of the Third Year's sports festival was the same guy who won Second Year's last year?"

"Sorry, I was busy working on the Gremlin so I didn't get to watch the final. But I saw his interview. Takami seems like a real powerhouse." Manami nodded her head and tapped away at her phone.

"Yeah, he was a strong contender before but their saying that here in the post-show that he has a shot for the top 50 in his first year." Izuku nodded as they worked their way through the unusually crowded streets.

Since the sports festival was this week the whole country was crowed from all of the tourists that had flocked to the three weeklong festivities.

"To bad about the other ones. The fight against that giant chick has all of the rejects up and arms on Chirp. God the internet works fast." She mumbled as they finally arrived at the shop.

The shop had turned from sad empty space to semi-cluttered hoarder house. Manami went straight for "Her corner" of the room which was just a beanbag chair next to an outlet and the router and a small nightstand that they found on the beach.

She plopped down and Izuku heard notifications and other messages begin to fill the room as Izuku started to break down the scrap they had brought in.

Izuku pulled the cart to his chair, an upside-down bucket, and began to shift through the scrap. Honestly, most of stuff at the dump-beach wasn't in that bad of shape. Sure, the actual trash was nasty and gross but there was a lot of good parts there if you knew what to look for, which Izuku didn't, but the research he did on scavenging and salvaging taught him many tips that he had written down. It was still an annoying part of the work.

Izuku began to pull apart an old computer and found a few parts that he would have to test later for the Gremlin. He nodded to himself and soon was lost in his own world as he worked.

Manami rolled her eyes at one of the replies to her best Gentle pictures of the week. Honestly, some people just didn't understand that the man was an absolute icon. Whatever, their lost.

She looked up from her phone at the soft sound of muttering that was coming from her student. She quickly account swapped from her primary one to 'A Clueless Inventor' and snapped a picture of Izuku and quickly added a few tags.

#AnotherTriptoTheScapHeap #GettingFit&Smart #SleepisfortheWeak.

She figured if she was going to help the green haired teen work on his future she might as well start an account, so she had something to do while she was here. She had started the Chirp account when Izuku first showed her the little robot that he was working on.

She wasn't one to judge but she did find that it had snagged ACI around fifty favorites and about a dozen or so retweets. She watched her friend huff and toss some junk over his shoulder and it seemed like he was nearly done with the bone picking. Which meant it was nearly time for dinner.

Izuku huffed as he finished the salvaging and picked up some of the good wires and moved towards the strange crane like object that they had erected in the middle of the room.

There in the middle of the room suspended by several cables was a small robotic drone that was covered in wires. The drone itself was humanoid in shape, save for it missing a head and it's left arm was a large slab of metal that had several joints along the end of the shield.

Izuku for his part was starting to get the grasp of the coding side of things thanks to the various amounts of information available on modern day robotics. Using what he could find on the internet and books over the subjects he was able to get the robot to do basic movements such as standing and recovering from the floor.

But for some reason every time he tried to get the damn thing to do more complicated tasks it just shuffled around before it fell apart.

Finally, after another couple dozen failed attempts, Izuku took a break and pulled Manami with him towards the apartment for dinner.

Manami was still on her phone but she moved the screen where Izuku could clearly see Takami, or Hawks, holding up his medal while giving a wink to the camera. "Okay… I give up, what am I supposed to be looking at?"

"Why don't you build something with wings?"

Izuku couldn't help but laugh a little bit at the thought. "Sure Manami, let me just use all the extra parts I have to build a big bird."

Manami didn't budge on her thoughts as they entered the apartment building. "Wouldn't that be more impressive then just a little toaster that has a shield?"

"You're forgetting that I have zero experience with that kind of thing."

"So? You're one-hundred percent self-taught. If you ask me, I think that you could get the hang of it. Or do what you normally do and just refuse to give up until you figure it out. You're pretty good at that." Izuku smiled at his friend's words and opened the door to apartment and called out to his mother who was inside.

"Mom! We're home!" Izuku said as the two of them removed their shoes when his mother's voice called out from the kitchen.

"Oh is Aiba joining us for dinner?" Before Izuku could answer Manami strutted into the kitchen and sat herself at the table.

"You bet'cha Ms. Midoriya! I wouldn't pass up your cooking for the world!"

Izuku rolled his eyes at Manami's actions but felt a nerve twitch as he rounded the corner and saw his mother taking photos of the pots on the stove and shot a glare at his friend 'I hate you' she simply blew him a razzberry as they all gathered around the table.

Izuku ate in relative silence as he tuned out his mother and Manami's conversation about his mother's cult followers on her cooking Chirp. Izuku stayed quite well through dinner and almost made it back to the shop when Manami brought it up. "Earth to Izuku, do you copy?" Izuku thought about ignoring her when he opened the door but thought against it as he picked up his laptop and hooked it up to the back of the Gremlin.

The Gremlin was a smaller model of a larger drone he had an idea about when he heard about a crowd getting caught up in the crossfire. The idea was that these drones would be deployed by police and the shield could connect to other ones to form a barrier that could keep the action contained. That was the plan anyway, he needed the damn thing to work first.


August 15th

"Did you really mean what you said?" he said as he typed away on the keyboard.

Aiba looked up from her seat and repeated his question. "Did I mean what?"

"What you said a couple weeks ago, about believing in me."

"Geeze Midoriya, we gotta work on that self-esteem. And that was so long ago. How am I supposed to remember something that happened that long ago?" She said as Izuku heard her plop into her beanbag and heard her begin her normal ritual.

Izuku frowned, partly at the errors on his screen and partly at the lack of an answer. He mumbled to himself when he heard Manami mutter under her breath.

"Well duh, I don't say things I don't mean you dummy." Izuku felt the phantom pull of a smile threaten his scowl and with his mind homed in and the confidence given to him by his friend, Izuku once more booted up the Gremlin.

It was Izuku's belief that if he could learn basic robotics, he should be able to create the enhancements that he would need if he was going to be a hero. So that meant that he would push everything he had into learning this art and he wouldn't take no for an answer.

So that's where the gremlin came from. The idea being that if he could build something like this from scratch then he should be able to use it as a steppingstone to his dream.

But it still wasn't where it needed to be. Izuku cursed himself as the operating system displayed on his laptop failed and crashed causing the bot to go limp. Manami watched him struggle for a bit more before she stood up and stretched.

"Well, I better get back home. Don't stay up to late. You still got to go with me to that opening tomorrow, not all of us can be garage goblins." She said as she walked out with a wave from Izuku who still had his eyes glued to the screen.

Izuku booted it up once more and just like the thousands of other times, it crashed again. Izuku slammed his hand on the keyboard a few times in frustration and only paused from his rage when he heard a booting up sound. He looked at the screen and it displayed blueish Hugh.

"God damn it." He cursed before tossing the laptop away from him and stomped out of the shop. He'd have to fix it tomorrow after he got back from whatever Manami had planned.

He really should have listened to her when she asked him to go. He could have made an excuse not to go that way.

What Izuku didn't see was as the door slammed shut, the laptop screen blinked a few times before the bot's left digit twitched and the screen showed a progress bar. 1%


January 5th

"Do I have to be here? I mean, we still have a few months until School starts. And I have to study for finals. I don't see why we even have to come to this thing." Izuku complained as he begrudgingly followed Manami through the crowd of soon to be freshmen.

It had turned out that Ketsubutsu was hosting an "Open house" of shorts for freshmen that wanted to delve into its different departments after their freshmen year. Granted, that also meant that none of the people aiming for the hero course would be here.

So that was what it was. Izuku watched as Manami conversed with the third years that were running the both for the marketing department and she seemed to be boosting more then anything. The inventor did allow himself to feel some pride at how happy his friend seemed to be when it came to her passion. Izuku was torn from his thoughts when he felt the ground rumble and, along with several other students, turned and watched as a seven-foot robot stomped down the path and rested its large hands on its hips.

Izuku inspected the robot from where he stood and saw a few different wires that connected from the back of the bot and followed them to the Engineering booth.

Izuku felt his feet move on their own as he was drawn to the third years that were idly chatting while one of them held a controller in her hands. This was the group. This was what he was going to use to elevate his skill. He would use this as his first real steppingstone.

For the first time since he set himself on this path, he felt confident that he would be able realize his dream. Yes, YES! THIS WAS-

Izuku was brought out of his trance when he heard a commotion behind him and turned just in time to see an oddly life-like grey fist smack him in the face.

Izuku swore and covered his nose and felt his eyes water as he eyed the appendage that had assaulted him.

"Excuse me, excuse me, GET OUT OF THE WAY!"

Izuku rose his head and saw a sight that would probably cause an untold amount of pain down the road. The very first thing he saw was pink hair. The next were the goggles that rested on top of her head and the last thing that he saw were brilliant glowing eyes.

Wow. Oh. She was talking to him? Shoot. What did Manami say to do when meeting new people.

Come on Izuku, think! "What the hell do you want?"

Nailed it.

The teen bent down and picked up the fist and watched as she reattached it the strange gauntlet she was wearing.

"Oh I forgot to test the fire mechanism and well, woops. Sorry about that, Greenie." She said as she turned heel and returned to the booth across the plaza. Support department.

Izuku turned to the engineering table and probably against his better judgement, he turned and ran after the pink haired woman.

"Hey, wait up! Hey! I'm talking to you!" The teen in question turned and Izuku watched as she sized him up, her eyes a brilliant yellow with bullseye in the center dialated as she gazed at him. Huh, neat.

"Look, I'm sure your fine. This isn't even that heavy of a-"

"Are you attending Ketsubutsu next year?" The woman seemed bored with the conversation but nodded none the less.

"Well duh, how else am I supposed to show off my amazing babies?"

Ah, she was crazy.

"Wha-what?" The Green haired inventor said as the golden-eyed girl then rotated the gauntlet and Izuku heard a hissing noise and watched as she detached the object and handed it Izuku.

"This baby is a demo to the support department, so they know what's up and let me join earlier." Izuku looked at the device before he felt looked up at her with a questioning gaze.

"Earlier? They do that here?"

"Well yeah, you can apply for the support entrance exam and they put you in your first year. Why? Are you perhaps a rival?" As she spoke, she moved closer and closer until her face was inches away from the young man's. He noticed that this girl had a problem with personal boundaries, but he would put that to the side for now.

"Actually, I want to be a hero-"

"Oh a hero! Why didn't you say? If you get in you have to let me build you your support gear! You're too plain looking for a mutation type. So what are you? An emitter? A-"

"I don't have a quirk but I think that If-" Izuku felt his mouth dry up when he heard the most maddening sound, one that he's heard a thousand times before.

She laughed.

Izuku watched as she laughed and laughed before she cleared her eyes and looked at him before her face froze.

"Wait you're serious?" Izuku looked at the device in his hand before he pointed it high and the sky and reached his hand into it and pulled the lever, sending the fist flying out of view as it arced through the air. He then proceeded to hand the gauntlet back and turned heel.

"Hey!" He heard her say as he stalked away.

To hell with that.


As he sat at a bench, he still felt his anger boiling at the thought of being laughed at again. Closing his eyes, he attempted to reign in his emotions. He would just have to be better than the rest of them. The dorks and their robots, the support department, that chick with goggles, all of them.

"What's got you so upset?" Izuku looked over and saw a teen with a punchable face. He wasn't even sure if that was just because he was mad, he was pretty sure that the man just looked like he could be punched and probably would say something that would warrant another punch.

Oh yeah, he needed to respond.

"Nothing, its nothing. What's it to you?" Izuku asked as he watched the smug fall of the blonde's face and replaced it with a face that Izuku recognized as frustration.

"Just saw another soul that could wallow in misery is all. The name is Neito Monoma, it's a pleasure." He said offering a hand across the small gap between the two of them. Izuku glanced at his gloved hand and back at the teen.

"Izuku Midoriya." Izuku answered as the two sat in silence before Izuku sighed and gave in to peer pressure.

"What's your problem?" he said as he saw the blonde seem to lighten up at the thought of someone showing some for of attention to him.

"I'm going to be stuck in the Gen Ed program. I'm just worried is all. What about you Midoriya? What is your goal here at our academia?" Izuku looked back where all the booths are and pictured the teen that laughed at him.

"Support department." He felt himself blench at the words. Even if he needed it, he was still not looking forward to dealing with his would-be classmates.

"Well then, it would seem that we're going to not be seeing much of each other then, until I get into the hero course that is."

Izuku looked at Monoma and turned to face him better. "How are you going to do that?" Izuku asked. Monoma seemed pleased at his question and scooted closer before continuing.

"Well, Ketsubutsu has a program that is unique to hero high schools, during the halfway point for each school year they allow students to apply to different departments and then they have to do a test. I might not have the most practical of quirks, but I'll show all of them."

"Wait, I thought that the swap was only available to none-hero departments." Izuku said which caused the blonde to laugh. The inventor had a feeling that was going to be one of those 'laughing at you' and not 'with you' kind of things.

Izuku for his part saw the drive in the other student's eyes and couldn't help but feel his own drive to succeed begin to boil within. But this was new information. If he could build something to help him in the first half, then he could have a chance!

"Well, what's your quirk?" the words came out before he noticed. He would have to work on that. Monoma for his part seemed less than happy at the question but answered none the less.

"It's called Copy. Anyone I touch I can copy their quirk." The blond posed as he spoke, placing his hand on his chin as he looked down to keep eye-contact with Izuku.

I wonder if he has that condescending face on purpose, of it he can't help himself. But when he actually listened, he was floored. The ability to copy other people's powers, why did such a great quirk land him in General Education. Why the hell was he going for that?

"Why the hell are you going for gen ed and the hero department?"

thanks brain.

No problem.

Monoma laughed, a very tired one, but laughed none the less.

"My quirk only works if I touch people and even then, I have a short time frame to use it before its used up. It will be useless on its own. " He said in a defeated hush.

"Why not just copy a strong quirk?" Izuku asked causing Monoma to snap his head around.

"Oh thank you, I didn't think of that!" He said before he pushed a rock with his foot. "Even if I did find a strong quirk to use, I'll have no idea on how it works or if it causes a backlash or not. I'll be a laughing stalk. The Gen Ed department is the safest bet for someone like me."

Izuku looked at the defeated look in his new acquaintance's features. Izuku felt a familiar emotion begin to rise from his throat.

"To hell with that." He spat out and rose from his seat and marched over to where Monoma was sitting. The blonde startled with the green haired teen's sudden actions. "You're giving up."

Monoma rose with an angry look on his face. "I do not give up." The teen said.

Izuku smiled at the teen then offered him a hand up. "Then get up and walk with me. The deadline is still a few weeks away, we have until then to figure out a way to get you in." Monoma gave a questioning gaze at the hand before his hand clasped Izuku's.

"Alright, Izuku Midoriya, lets see what you can do." The two swapped numbers before he told where Monoma to be tomorrow bright and early. Monoma gave him a fleeting wave as Izuku digested what he had learned from Monoma.

Why did he offer him help? Was something that the blonde teen had said or was it that defeated look in his eyes? He guessed it didn't matter too much now.

What did matter was getting into that support department spot. Originally Izuku had planned to go into support but now that he knew that he could opt into the hero department?

This changed things, holly cow did this change things! He would have to work nearly double the effort that he had been giving. If he could do this, that is-no. He would do this. failure wasn't an option. He needed a plan damn it! Where was Aiba?! They had to prepare! They had work to do! God damn it.

As Midoriya was diving through the crowds he tripped over someone and braced himself for the concrete with eyes shut. The only thing he felt was a smack on the back of the head… and lighter? He cracked oven an eye and gave a look around and saw a girl with chestnut-hair and rosy cheeks had her hands outstretched.

"Sorry! I just didn't want ya to fall and get trampled." She said as Izuku felt gravity return to him and send him smashing into the ground. The girl quickly fretted over him as he still glanced up at the girl

"H-Hey. Nice hair." The girl for her part seemed to stumble over herself a bit but that was fine. She quickly offered a gloved hand which he took and lifted himself up.

"So, I don't normally trip on nothing. Thanks for the save by the way, uh…"

"Ochaco Uraraka! It's nice to meet you…"

"Izuku Midoriya." The green haired teen nodded before he looked around as the two teens awkwardly stood in the middle of the crowded plaza.

"So Izuku, what course are you aiming for?" Izuku looked at her for a moment before he gazed around the plaza.

"Support, what about you?"

"I'm aiming for the hero course." Izuku nodded along but turned his head as a thought occurred to him.

"Then why are you here? isn't this for all the gen-ed courses to look at?" Ochaco gave a sheepish smile at the question before she started fiddling with her lanyard.

"I'm new in this part of town, I just moved here actually. And I wanted to check out the school a bit." She said while giving Izuku a blinding smile. Izuku shook his head before he seemed to think aloud for a moment.

"Ah, I guess that makes sense. But why here and not Shiketsu?" The two were together as they began to walk aimlessly through the crowd as Izuku listened for her answer.

"Oh, I would have liked to try but Shiketsu is expensive and my family can't really afford a place like that. Plus I'm aiming to be a rescue hero." Izuku had to agree with her on that. Hell, even those uniforms alone cost a shiny penny, let alone-

"There you are!" the two stopped when Manami appeared through the crowd and sort of politely pushed her way through before she looked between the two and rested her eyes on Izuku. "Well?"

"Oh! Ochaco this is my friend Manami Aiba." The girl nodded before Manami shook her head.

"Honestly Midoriya, we have to work on your people skills, you're so unmarketable." She sighed dramatically before she turned to Ochaco, ignoring Izuku mimicking her, and looked her up and down. Ochaco seemed uncomfortable for a moment before Aiba simply rolled her shoulders and turned around with her hands behind her head.

"I'm hungry Midoriya, let's grab a bite to eat. Wanna come with Ochaco?" The girl was about to decline where her traitorous stomach rumbled causing her face to go neon. "Look, Izuku, she's almost as red as you when you get embarrassed."

The trio ended up at a small street food stand just down the street from the school. After they had got acquainted Izuku had asked the two what they did at the plaza.

Ochaco said that she had been looking around mainly while Manami got into a debate over heroes (Gentle) and where some of them (Gentle) should be on the rankings. When Manami asked Izuku what he did he left out his interaction with the chick that decked him in the face and instead talked about his meeting with Monoma.

"So how are you going to help him? Plus don't you think that kind of quirk is a little, I dunno, weird?" Ochaco asked as she ate from her noodle bowl. Izuku shook his head.

"No, I don't think so. It's a super strong quirk. He's just looking at it from the wrong viewpoint. If I can figure out a way to work around him and his personality, I think that I can come up with something. I'm just not sure of what yet." Izuku mumbled while he wrote down all he knew about the quirk. Ochaco watched as Izuku went into his own world.

She looked at Manami who only shrugged. "He gets like that sometimes. Best just to let him go with it. So you're new in town you said? Did you move here for school?" The rosy cheeked girl nodded her head.

"Yeah. Money is pretty tight right now so I'm living with some family here." She said before she checked the time on her flip phone and gasped.

"Oh shoot! I gotta go! It was nice talking with you guys! Let's be good friends!" She said as she barreled out of her barstool and took off down the street. The two watched her go but Izuku found a smile resting on his face.

"Weird girl." He heard Manami say while she swiped through her phone.

"Yeah, a little bit. Come on, we better get back to the station before we miss the train." Izuku said as the duo left the stall.

As the two walked he noticed that Manami was being strangely quiet. Not in the traditional sense, but the lack of sound from her phone was a bit odd.

"Hey Izuku," That was weird.

"What's up."

"Why'd you offer to help that kid at the fair today?" Izuku looked down at her and saw that she was looking up at him from the side of her eyes.

"…I just know what it's like to feel useless. And someone with a quirk like that shouldn't under use it."

"What do you mean you're useless?" Manami asked as the two approached the station.

"I said I knew what it felt like, not that I was feeling like that. I haven't felt like that in long time." A month or two was a long time, damn it.

"I think that you'll be a good hero Izuku." Izuku stopped as she boarded her train and turned around and snapped a picture on her phone, flash and all.

Izuku seemed to knock himself out of his daze before he called out. "How do you know about that?!"

"It's not that hard to put together Izu, honestly." Aiba said before she looked at him and called out. "You better not forget my umbrella tomorrow!" She yelled out as the train's door closed and left Izuku standing there like a fool.

A smile graced his face before he nodded in the direction that Manami's train took off in, "Don't you worry Aiba, I won't let you down."

Izuku looked at the drone and watched as it went through the motions it had asked it to… He should honestly be in bed right now. He was meeting Monoma bright and early. The time between now and the practical were dwindling faster and faster. And he still needed a way to move those cars at the beach. So he set the drone to do some basic tasks while he surfed his phone for a place that would could remove the salvage and bring it back here.

But as he watched the drone do it's basic movements he watched as the joints held and it lifted the weights that Izuku had made for testing.

Hmm.

He left the bot in its standing position and looked up at the spot on the ceiling where the small drone had been suspended. Izuku paused before he grabbed the weights the drone had lifted rather easily and struggled to move them out of the way.

Then, the thought hit him. If he wasn't strong enough to move the larger pieces of junk, then he'll just have to build his own strength.

He opened a fresh notebook and began to scribble the title.

Exo-suit Mk.1