After a particularly bad day, Izuku meets Mei Hatsume, and the two partner up in a Hero-Support Duo. Izuku gets more involved, and his intelligence begins to shine through, beginning his journey to becoming the Iron Man.

Book 1 of The Almighty Iron Man series

Chapter 1: Beginnings

"I cannot simply say 'You can become a hero even without power.'" Izuku tuned out most of the rest of it. He saw All Might walk to the door and into the building, but Izuku stayed on the roof for a while longer. After a while, he sat down and broke down.

...take a swan dive off a roof…

Izuku wiped his tears and shook his head. He couldn't let Katsuki's words influence him. He knew the answer before he asked the question. He slowly got up and trudged to the door that led to the bottom of the building. During his slow walk down many flights of stairs, he thought through his life.

'I wanna be a hero, but I don't have a way to make that happen. I have to be able to do something! All I'm good at is running from bullies, and I guess some computer games.' He made his way out of the building and as he walked around, he thought out loud. "Dammit! I wish I could help someone and not be so useless!"

"You can help me!" Said a female voice coming from an alley. Given his experience with a villain not ten minutes ago, he should have been more apprehensive about following a voice into an alley, but at this point, he wasn't thinking clearly. He walked into the alleyway and looked for the voice's origin.

"H-hello?" he stammered.

"Over here! In the dumpster!" he looked over to the dumpster. Inching closer, he heard the voice continue. "I did something kinda dumb, which is weird for me." as he got closer to the dumpster, he saw feet sticking out of it. "I was wearing my power armor for a test run around the area, and I saw some dumpsters, which are where I get most of my building materials. I forgot I was in the armor, saw something that may be useful at the bottom, and lunged in. Now I'm stuck, but if you can unstrap me from the armor, we can get me out, then we can finagle the armor out, as well as getting the probably useful thing. If you could hurry, that would be great, since the blood is rushing to my head."

He reached the dumpster and looked inside to see that she, indeed, was wearing a bulky set of armor on everything but her head, which itself was covered in pink hair styled into dreadlocks. He looked for the straps of the armor and found them on the side, right under her breasts.

"What? What's going on? Did you find the straps?" She asked.

"Uh, yeah, but…"

"But what, they should be easy enough to unlock."

"Well, they're near your, w-well…"

"My chest, yeah. What's the problem?" She asked, genuinely confused.

'Okay, she doesn't seem to see the issue, but I'm gonna be careful, just to be safe.' He reached toward the straps, bending over the edge of the dumpster. He carefully and slowly undid the straps, and once they were off, he let out a breath that he didn't know he was holding. He loosened the armor from her body and was able to pull her out of the dumpster, despite her apparent weight (or his apparent lack of strength(or both)).

"Thanks! I was starting to get dizzy. Now let's get the stuff out of there." After almost no help on Izuku's part, they managed to get the armor and the piece of garbage out of the dumpster. She inspected the garbage. "Huh. Wasn't what I thought, but I think I can find a use for it." She put on the armor once more and Izuku saw several gadgets attached to it, most notably, something that looked like a grappling gun. He couldn't place the applications for any of the other things. As she walked out of the alley she waved to him. "Thanks! You're a hero to me!" She walked out of the alley, and Izuku, after a few tears were shed, followed close behind. After a bit of walking, he realized she didn't even know he was following her.

"S-so did you make all this stuff?" he asked. He saw her brighten up a bit when she realized he was following her.

"Yeah! I wanna make things to help heroes. My babies are really good, I think, and I hope that UA thinks so, too!" she grinned. It was contagious, as Izuku found himself smiling as well. Suddenly, an explosion rang through the air. Izuku donned a worried look, and the girl, a manic one, but they both thought the same thing.

'I need to get over there!' They began running toward the noise, and when they got there, they saw the commission was a giant sludge monster.

Just stay still for about 45 seconds and it won't hurt anymore…

Hey! I love my fans but this is too much!

'It's the sludge monster that All Might saved me from! This is my fault! I must've made him drop it!' Izuku thought. Little did he know, an emaciated hero was having a similar crisis not far from him. Izuku and the girl pushed through the crowd. When they got close to the front, they saw the fire's extent and that the villain had a hostage. The hostage looked at the crowd and his hair and eyes were instantly recognizable. 'Kacchan!' Izuku snatched the grappling hook from the girl's armor and ran past the heroes and toward the chaos.

"Kid, no! You'll get killed!" Yelled Death Arms, one of the heroes who wasn't really trying to save Katsuki, but was waiting for other heroes to show up while he suffocated. Izuku took off his backpack and threw it at the villain's eyes. The villain loosened its grip on Katsuki, whose arm was loose now. Izuku grabbed it and aimed the grappling gun at the heroes.

"Death Arms! Catch the hook!" He fired toward the hero who grabbed it and pulled Izuku who pulled Katsuki out of the sludge. The release from the sludge jerked them a bit too hard, and Izuku dropped the gun and he and Katsuki fell to the ground.

"I've had enough of you, kid!" The sludge monster raised an arm of sludge and as it came down, both Katsuki and Izuku shut their eyes, only to open them when they weren't hit. Above them was All Might, holding back the sludge.

"I really am pathetic. I told you what it takes to be a hero, but it seems I wasn't living up to my own ideals!" He readied a punch as the villain did the same.

"Damn you, All Might!"

"DETROIT SMASH!" All Might punched the villain so hard that the villain split to pieces once more, the fire was blown out, and the clouds were moved, causing it to rain briefly on the crowd.

After all was said and done, The armored girl pulled Izuku away after his scolding from the heroes.

"That was so awesome! You looked kinda like a hero in training! Those moves were awesome, I mean anyone with eyes could see his weak point, I wonder why they didn't hit there, but you were the one to save that kid." After her rambling, she turned to him. "You and I will be a great team. Me and my babies are gonna make you a hero!"

'Babies are inventions in her mind, keep that filed away for later.' Izuku thought, before remembering reality. "I can't be a hero." He said, turning away.

"Why not? I mean, you kinda already are!" She insisted. He took a deep breath.

"I'm quirkless."

"So?" The speed of her answer took him off guard. "That just means you need an edge other than a quirk. This must be fate! You need my babies more than I thought!" She would have been jumping in excitement if she weren't weighed down by clunky armor. "I, Mei Hatsume, will help you become a pro hero!" Izuku began to tear up and hugged her, armor and all.

"Thank you…" he said.

"You're welcome…um…you."

"Izuku Midoriya."

"Too long! Izu it is!" She began walking toward her destination. "Come on! Let me take you to my lab! I need to get this thing off." They slowly walked to wherever they were going, the future looking brighter than ever.