Honestly I was hoping to post this earlier in the day but I spent a lot of time just sitting and playing out the conversation between these two characters in my head so it at least sounds like they would be having it and that they were portrayed correctly to their personalities. They'll obviously grow and change to become something different from how they are now, but that still needs experience, so it will be some chapters before we reach the days of Izuku with his chin held high and his bat held higher. In due time.

I'm not actually a fan of writing build-up chapters. I kind of struggle with them because I feel they can add too much meat to the story if we aren't thrusted into the real thick of things. But I know it is necessary, so I will be trying my best to work through it all and make it enjoyable all the same. Best way of doing that would be making the possie I see Izuku having with this new timeline of the Metal Baseball Bat of Awesomeness (in due time) so you'll see more characters come in. I don't plan on this having anyone original of my own, so expect those you know to come anyways.

Welp, enjoy my attempt of writing first time introduction dialogue between a social stunted Izuku trying his best and a headstrong oblivious Tenya to smile for him.

Swing. Exhale.

Roll back. Step. Rise. Inhale.

Swing. Exhale.

Roll back. Step. Rise. Inhale.

Swing. Exhale.

Roll back. Step. Rise. Inhale.

Swing. Exhale.

Izuku kept his eyes forward as the bat fell in an arc, rolling past his feet and barely grazing the sand below before swinging back up to point at the sky. His hips followed it back, feet repositioning themselves apart correctly and giving Izuku a moment to breathe before he let out another swing with an oomph of a breath.

Another month gone by, and still so many more changes made to his life. His relationships with his classmates and Kacchan were very much non-existent (not like there was a good connection between him and any of them to begin with) so in class he kept himself very reserved. A few times he was caught muttering, but it was muffled beyond understanding and either the person in front or behind him would snap him out of it before the class broke in an uproar about it again. Kacchan specifically kept ignoring him, not even bothering to throw an insult his way in or outside of class. And their interactions were cut even more as Izuku kept his exercising outside of the neighborhood.

Speaking of which, those had changed within a month's time. Izuku knew what it was like to feel sore, but he never knew how to feel a happy sore, especially when it was his own doing. Alongside his running, Izuku added more exercises and reps to build his body. Push-ups, sit-ups, punching drills (mainly of which was for perfecting his form to fight in the future while still staying out of fights for the time being), knee raises, and some weight lifting. Izuku kept all of his exercising around the beach, practicing on the sand or the pavement a stairways away. He didn't want to work up a sweat in his room or the living room. That would be gross. And the weights he used weren't really weights, as much as they were objects in the trash Izuku was able to lift and carry or push around to work out his muscles more. His birthday was in the middle of August, and he had thought in the weeks building up he would want some weights to give his arms a good work out when he was just in his room and had the spare hand to lift, but something else came up.

Izuku had moved his training to the beach, but it wasn't all that better to begin with. While he had more space from people to himself, it was replaced with heaping piles of trash covering a fair portion of the sand and of his sight. And it wasn't pleasing, and he understood why so many people decided to avoid it and the beach. The trash had become too big a nuisance, and no one was doing anything to get rid of it. No one stepped up to clean the beach and leave it good as new all over again. And nearly tripping over a microwave gave him idea; he'd clean the beach.

Izuku wanted to be a hero. He wanted to be a hero who could go out and fight villains and save people and do good deeds and just overall make people feel safe and happy. But that wasn't what all heroes did, nor was it something he could jump into doing any time soon. Heroes weren't made to fight, they were made to help, and that had no bounds to its meanings. Helping people across the street, helping people escape danger, helping people live, and even helping people clean. If Izuku couldn't act as a hero trying to fight baddies, he could at least act as a hero trying to make the world and the places around him friendlier for all the people. That would be a good mark on his resume.

So for his birthday, alongside the hero merchandise and a new notebook or two, Izuku decided to cut some of that and instead ask for a wagon. He had to explain to his mother the reasoning behind it, because a 15-year-old asking for a wagon wasn't a parent's usual expectation. He told her that he looked online and found a proper dump about 12 blocks away from the beach, and she knew about the beach. Izuku decided he would take smaller objects and appliances, whatever weight he could manage and not something like a fridge (there in fact was a fridge amongst all the beach trash, and he avidly went out of his way to steer clear of it just on a regular basis: no way in hell was he walking across frozen heads in the middle of a beach if he could help it). He wouldn't do anything too strenuous on his body, nor would he stay out too late doing it. He could spend probably the weekends only, and maybe sometime on Friday when he was exercising moving trash over and work at the piles little by little. Community service was heroic, and if he wanted to be a hero, he could at least do that. No fighting was involved, so the most danger he had was getting sore and maybe only once kinda dropping something on his foot.

Inko was much more reluctant to agree to that idea, thinking and arguing with her son calmly that he was putting too much pressure and work on his body, more than he needed to for getting into Yuei. Izuku argued reasonably that he wouldn't do anything to destroy his body and stunt his growth, training and such, and he would keep his dwindling of the trash under careful watch to only do as much as he could. He wasn't pressed for time to clean the beach, so he would work only as much as he could to clean it.

(It really wasn't an argument as much as it was mother and son fretting over the other and their hyper reactions to everything they were discussing.)

Lucky him, he got a wagon. Getting it on the rail from home to the beach and back was an awkward two-way trip he was still getting used to, and the people riding with him were probably trying to adjust as well. He kept to his promise to only go on the weekends with the wagon and had spent a few days already moving trash over to the dump, having several breaks in between trips to rest his arms from the amount of stress the whole ordeal was putting them under. It was still a welcomed feeling, knowing sore meant he was training his body right and he was only conditioning himself to get used to it.

He told Mashirao the following class what he was doing, and the tailed boy was both surprised and impressed at the idea. It wasn't something he thought of doing, though it was a good thing. Sadly he couldn't join in. Izuku had opened up the invitation if the other boy wanted to join him to help or just hang out at the beach, but the blond boy had much a busy schedule, what with his exercising and training, his school work and grades he had to make sure met expectations, and all the family times and outings he had with his parents. His mother had promised they could try to work something out, but Izuku didn't want them to have to ruin any of their plans to do so. It wasn't too big a loss for Izuku that he couldn't spend more time with his friend outside of the self-defense classes, but it did dishearten him slightly.

Izuku swung the bat towards the sand again, giving himself a moment of rest and breath in the middle of his practice.

Speaking of the martial arts classes, Izuku was happy to see some improvement in them. He had been just about two months in his practicing, and while his body structure grew and improved, so did his performance in sparring. Mashirao could still sweep him off his feet in free sparring and takedowns, but at least in the scripted practice his muscles and joints were loosening. He could flow more freely from a stand to a crouch, was finding it easier to lift someone onto his hip and bring them to the ground (though the weight was still a milestone he had to overcome) and diverting and dodging punches were fun and becoming easier to react and deflect. His other classmates were the same, if his instructor's words of appreciation to them as a whole meant anything. And the abrasive boy was growing less abrasive, though the small comment of his 'awesomeness and how much better he could do what his classmates did' would come out in a whisper. He just never went out of his way to try and prove it with the intent of doing so.

And while they still had yet to tackle weapons, another gift came to Izuku on his birthday: permission to use his bat, given some restrictions. Inko decided to lift her embargo on Izuku actually using the bat for something, but she kept the restriction on him using it against anyone, especially since he could easily hurt someone more than he would want to if he didn't know how to fight properly. Izuku accepted that, and his first order of business in using the bat was just to familiarize himself with it. He'd watch some videos and read some training articles on using weapons like escrima sticks and swords and staffs, and the first matter they addresses was learning how to handle each weapon. Get familiar with the weight distribution and the right grip and the movement of the weapon in each possible movement. Find a movement to practice and play on repeat until it's natural.

So Izuku did just that. He would take the bat to the beach and practice swinging the bat, treating it like a normal bat that anyone else would and getting his arms used to the new weight of a metal distorted cylinder he wanted to use for heroics. If the heat in his arms were any indication, he was doing it right. The bat was growing less strenuous just to pick up, and Izuku was too embarrassed by the idea of celebrating for growing muscles on the pencils he had coming out of his shoulders just a number of weeks ago.

The green haired teen took a large gasp of air as his grip eased off the bat and kept it hanging by his leg from only one. Swinging the bat was good and all, but after a while it did feel somewhat boring. Maybe he should by some baseballs to practice with. Help improve hand-eye coordination and response times. Would also be pretty harmless if he's practicing on the beach a good distance away from the homes on main land. Izuku rolled his spine straight with a slight crack in sound, giving the sea another look and a smile through his sweat before turning away.

To find someone watching him.

"Gah!" Izuku jumped back with a spin of his hands, dropping the bat in his hands and startling the boy sitting on the stairs watching him.

"My apologies!" the other boy announced, jumping to his own feet and taking a step down and closer to Izuku. "Are you alright?"

Izuku on his part was recovering fast, placing a hand on his chest as he calmed down with his breath. "Y-yes, I'm f-fine," he manages to speak to the taller boy in the blue tracksuit. "Y-you startled me. I d-didn't hear you come up."

"My deepest apologies!" The tall boy made his way down the last few steps to the sand and feel into a stiff bow. Izuku blinked, his surprise staying as the other boy continued. "I did not mean to scare you. I came out of my way to the beach to confirm what my brother had told me about this place. I had no intention of frightening you with my unannounced presence."

"No, no, i-it's fine. Y-you don't have to apologize." Izuku kept his hands shaking in front of him with a smile to match. On the inside of his head, he couldn't help but kick himself. He finally had a friend, one in the form of a blond boy with a tail, but actually talking to other people outside of him was always a crutch. Especially now that someone had come across his training with the bat. He gulped down what nerves he could and carried on. "S-so you came here because your brother…"

The other boy shot back up straight, giving Izuku a small jump in his shoulders as the boy turned his attention to the green teen. "Right!" the taller teen announced, shooting a hand forward in a very flat and stiff form. "My brother had told me about this beach before, and the…state it had become over the few years. I had never come out here to see it myself before, but now that I do," the taller boy turned his hip, facing one of the trash piles and rising his hand to fix the pair of glasses over his nose, "I see why my brother had said it wasn't bringing in anyone's attention."

Izuku swallowed again, licking his lips and nodding his head slowly. "Y-yeah, it…does look bad." The young Midoriya turned his head to look at the trash piles with the taller boy. "The tide picked up a lot of the trash to begin with, but no one really bothered to clean it up, and since there aren't that many attractions around here, not a lot of people had the interest in coming here to swim or relax to being with, and knowing the state of society there's probably more people than not without time on their hands to spend going to the beach so the trash just kept building up to the point people would avidly avoid coming here at all, and when anyone does come around it's just to drop off more trash which in hindsight is pretty lazy of them when there's a dump a couple of blocks to the east—"

"You seem quite familiar with the beach." Izuku jumped in place without leaving the ground, turning his head back to the other boy. Said teen had changed the expression of his face from the slightly saddened face to a different kind of frown that Izuku was trying to decipher. "Do you perhaps live in the city here?"

"A-ah, no, I don't. I-I live on another edge of town. I've just been…coming here often." Izuku could feel the sweat still rolling down his face, and for the life of him he wasn't sure which bead was from the training and which was from his nerves. He turned away from the other boy to his bag in the sand, dropping in a crouch and diving through it to pull out a towel and smother his face with it.

"Oh. I see you are out here to train?" Izuku nodded against his towel instead of giving the boy another verbal response. That stupid stutter still needed work. "I must say, I wouldn't have expected a place such as this as an area I would have considered training in. But then again, it would be wrong of me to say I know much about the sport of baseball."

A few moments of silence passed until Izuku lowered the towel on his face, just below his eyes so he could blink against air instead of cotton and turn his neck to the other boy, sharing with him a look of wide eyes full of confusion on both ends. The other boy opened his mouth to speak, but he cut himself short, moving his hands to rest on his hips before he did actually talk. "I'm…sorry to ask, but did I say something out of line?" His tone sounded genuine, just as confused as his look. "If you were planning on keeping your practicing private by using a beach that people do not come to populate anymore, then I do formally apologize for having interrupted you—"

"No!" Izuku shot his hands out to the other boy before he could bow again, dropping the towel into his lap. Not even a second later did the volume of his voice register in his own ears before his hands darted back over his mouth to let his voice reset. "No, I-I don't play baseball. I'm n-not practicing or training for it."

"Oh." The boy's rigid movements seemed to translate to the rest of his body as he, as far as Izuku could tell, was struggling to find the right words. "My apologies for presuming. I just thought with the swings you were making and the way your form was, you were practicing to be…up to bat, I think it goes?"

"I…wouldn't know," Izuku confessed, face heating up as he looked down at the bat behind him. "I-I'm not actually into baseball."

"But then why would you have one? A bat, I mean."

Izuku gulped again, reaching over for the bat and pulling it over to rest by his legs. "I'm actually…" He breathed a big wisp of air, giving it several seconds to rest in his chest before letting it all back out with words to follow. "I'm training to be a hero." The boy continued his curious look as Izuku kept talking. "I-I'm training out here with a baseball bat because I plan on using it to be a hero so I need to treat it like a tool and a weapon and like all weapons I should at least learn to handle it first and get used to carrying it around and since it's a baseball bat and I promised my mom I wouldn't get into combat fighting or anything dangerous again, I thought it would be best to use it as a regular bat and get my body used to its weight distribution and size any batter would instead of going about it like a hero would while practicing self-defense instead of offensive combat, but once she allows it and I've trained my arms more to handle the weight and it feels comfortable in my hands I'll learn how to use it like a bō-staff or a sword to not only protect myself but use it in combat offensively as…well…"

Izuku's voice drifted with the dust in the wind as he caught the boy's eyes again, staring at him through the glass resting upon his nose in a look of shock and surprise. Yeah, his muttering didn't go away, and to his unfortunate luck it never let up either. He could feel his face growing warmer as he ducked it to his chest and mumbled out an apology. Though apparently that didn't reach the other boy's ears as he began talking.

"It sounds like you've put quite the amount of thought into using it for heroics," the tall boy admitted, placing a hand on his hips and the other over his chest. "I wouldn't have thought to use something like that for a role in heroics, but your commitment to it sounds marvelous. I commend you for your idea. Besides," somehow the boy straightened his posture even higher, "I'm looking to go into heroics myself, so I would hope to see you there too."

"Y-you are?" Izuku's head rose slightly to the other boy, looking up to his from the highest point his eyes could roll to.

"But of course. My brother is actually a pro hero, and I've been learning a lot from him to be able to become one myself and make him proud. I'm going to test to get into Yuei next year."

As the boy in blue smiled with pride to the boy in green, the latter rose his head higher, breathing out the heat building in his cheeks. "Y-your brother is a hero?"

The boy in glasses nodded taking a step forward and gesturing to the sand before Izuku asking to sit, which the green teen nodded a bit too quickly to let him know he could. "My brother in Ingenium. I've only been to his hero office a few times, but at home he's been able to teach me a lot from his own experience."

"Ingenium? I know of him…" Izuku furrowed his eyebrows as he conditioned his mind to move on with the subjects changing before him. "He's the hero with engines in his arm to keep him slightly above the ground and move at pretty fast speeds. H-he's pretty cool as a hero. His armor is similar to a knight's, isn't it?"

"Yes it is," the boy in blue confirmed, turning his legs over just slightly for Midoriya to actually take notice of the pipes coming out of the back of his legs. "My quirk is similar to his, though it is positioned on different limbs of our bodies."

"It does look a lot like the engines on his forearms…" A hand stroked Izuku's chin lightly, itching to take out a notebook and write down what he could about it before the boy spoke up again.

"And what of your quirk?"

Izuku froze at the question, and like the crashing waves behind him, the harsh reality he lived in came rolling back and washed over his small moment of peace. "I, uh…I…" He pressed his mouth into a line, looking not at the boy or the sand, but just ahead at the nervousness playing in his mind. "I…don't have…a quirk."

He flinched and curled in on instinct, sitting in wait for the insults of his deficiency and worthlessness to come flying out of the other boy's mouth, riding on the laughter that other boys would present him with.

But that didn't come.

"You're…quirkless?" One look at the taller boy and Izuku could tell he was more confused than literally every other emotion and reaction the green teen was expecting out of him. "I had assumed you had a strength based quirk, which was why you were using the bat; to compliment the amount of power and momentum you could put into each swing, which sounded ideal for a sport like baseball and then just as useful when you said it was heroics."

"Y-yeah…I don't have a strength quirk…or any." His fingers were dry as the rubbed along the fabric of his pants, still on edge waiting for the boy to turn into the rest of the world. "I'm just…using the bat to help get into heroics. Kind of…in place of a quirk, I guess…to do more than I would with just my regular strength."

The other boy was silent for a moment (which did absolutely jack to ease Izuku's nerves) and crossed his arms against his chest. "…I believe I understand what you are getting at, having a tool or device on hand to make up for where you would lack in comparison to other people and their quirks. Though – and sorry if it sounds rude of me, I mean no intent by it – I am confused as to why a bat and not a sword or staff as you had mentioned."

Izuku let his mouth moisten up to speak again as the boy's words took to the register in his head. He…wasn't go to berate him? He sounded so calm about it, so did he actually not mind Izuku not having a quirk? That didn't sound right… Everyone else did…

Then the question clicked in his head, and a line Mashirao had told him when he learned about the bat played over his tongue. "Well, i-if I'm not going to have any special powers to stand out…might as well go with the unconventional."

The boy blinked at the advice passed on before jolting his back upright in an instant. "That is an excellent idea. The hero world is full of very diverse heroes, especially in their presentation on the field. It only makes sense to keep yourself noticeable with something that would be unique to your style." His head turned to the side with a scoff. "How could I have not guessed that sooner?"

Izuku blinked in his own confusion to the other boy's quips before collecting himself and turning back to the green teen. "So you are planning on being a hero too." It wasn't really a question; it didn't sound like one. It seemed the tall boy was just saying it out loud to remind himself of the detail. "Does that mean you will be applying for heroics at Yuei?"

"A-ah, yes, I am. Or…a-at least I'm hoping to. I know…I know they opened up the tests for quirkless students to apply, but I still have training to do before I can take the tests."

"Then it's lucky we have just over seven months to catch up. I have some training of my own I need to work with, and it seems I need to do some more studying as well."

"Y-yeah…" Izuku didn't really want to end the conversation (he did, but he didn't want to come off as rude about it) but the sun catching his eye inching closer to the building in the distance caught his attention. "O-oh it's getting late. I-I have to get home; my mom's expecting me soon."

The taller boy turned his head back to his shoulder, giving the sun a glance from the corner of his eye. "I best be doing the same. My brother should be arriving home from his office as well. It would be better of me than to keep my family waiting." The two boys rose from the sand, one composing himself straight as the other fumbled about to collect his things and have them together. The taller one took a step forward with a hand leading his direction. "It has been a pleasure to…Oh, I just realized we never introduced ourselves." For a moment his composure fell apart, but his body shook as the hand darted back to him and landed against his chest, just as Izuku was stretching his own shaking hand to meet it. "My name is Tenya Iida. It is a pleasure to meet you…"

The hand came forward again, and Izuku let his own continue its momentum to meet it in the middle and give it an awkward shake in his blush and surprise. "I-Izuku Midoriya. N-nice to meet you t-too." The shaking went on for a few more seconds before they both let go and made their way up the stairs together. At the top, as Izuku turned away to book it to the railway system home, he was stopped by the young Iida brother.

"Will you be coming back to this beach another day?"

Izuku blinked to start his response before blushing again as he actually decided to answer with words. "Y-yes. I come here every other day and over the weekends. I-I…no one else comes here so it's an o-open place to train…well, aside from the garbage…"

"Yes, that is quite abundant here." Tenya gave the trash a look from the corners of his eyes before letting them fall to Izuku again. "Well, then, I may stop by another day. It was nice to have met you, Midoriya. Have a good night." The tall boy gave the green teen a salute before turning on heel and starting to jog into his run back home.

Izuku watched after him, stone in his spot as he eased himself to understand everything that had happened. "N-nice to meet you as well, Iida." His eye flinched from the sun above and the promise to his mom to be home played again in his head and had him booking it to the rails to catch the next one home in time.

Iida seemed like a nice person, Izuku thought as ran through the blocks. A bit rigid and formal, but he seemed not to mind Izuku's quirkless diagnosis. Maybe Iida would come to the beach again.