A Spark of Ingenuity
Chapter 6
The screams echoed and cried all around, people desperately clawing against the thick plates of steel that kept them confined with a mad man. A dangerous buzzing was resounding through all the metal in the facility, the man in control of it all feeling the power running from the arc reactor directly into his own quirk.
Katsuki stood before it all, frozen in place as he kept staring at the nightmare scenario.
"Now I understand!" Wolfram's skin bulged as the muscles underneath swelled with raw strength. "To have this reactor, the technology to directly have it power a quirk, even a broken body like yours must feel invincible!"
Despite the arc reactor's brightness rising in pulses, Katsuki's eyes widened as he saw the technical vest he wore. That was one of the prototypes for the quirk enhancer in his implant!
"Where the hell did you get that?!" Katsuki shouted, reaching forward to grabbing one of the rails as the urge to jump up there and kick his ass with his bare hands reached a boiling point.
Wolfram merely smirked, holding his hand forward before that itching sensation in his chest gripped his heart with an icy hold. Katsuki fell to his knees, screaming as he could feel it pushing and pulling within as his hands uselessly clawed over his shirt.
A short spark flickered through the arc reactor, several lights in the room shorting out as for a brief moment Katsuki felt invigorated. He took advantage of it, sliding under the handrail and dropping down to where the controls were. Slamming his hand on the large red button, he intended to end it before it got worse.
But nothing happened, except for the metal making up part of the guard rails to snap free of their restraints, clenching around his wrist before throwing him back towards the doors of the room.
"I've made sure to be very thorough in my planning." Wolfram hovered down, walking towards the boy who attempted to get up before he flexed his quirk into the metal rising in the boy's chest to make him scream. "After all, I wanted to spend as much time as I could doing this!"
"AAHH A AHHHHH!" Katsuki was lifted into the air by his implant, the flesh and bones attached to the device straining to keep itself from being ripped apart. He flung his hands onto his chest, trying to push it back down to prevent himself from being killed.
Seeing the boy helpless in his power, he rose up again to loom over the boy as he got close enough to see Katsuki's eyes spasming in their sockets.
"I wouldn't have come after you. It was an unfortunate end to our business arrangement. But you came looking for war, and that's what I-"
The arc reactor cracked out with a pillar of sparks, the enhancer around his chest flickering as Katsuki fell to the ground, hitting his head as he gasped for air. Wolfram cursed at the short interruption to his hold, but the reactor stabilized soon enough and he could feel the connection to all the metal around him again.
Including the piece coming for the back of his head.
He halted it in the air, glancing back to see the boy's mother had attempted to hit him with a chair. With a mere flick he sent it crashing into her.
"I see where you get your bite from." He looked down to Katsuki, who had ripped open his shirt while gripping a small metal ring in the center of his own arc reactor.
"Bite this." Katsuki ripped it out, an unimaginably bright force ripping over him as he felt the power to his own quirk burn throughout his body. He was sent flying back, smoking as Katsuki hastily shoved the piece back inside.
His own arc reactor was significantly dimmer, his implant letting out a painful shock inside every time his heart beat.
"Kacchan!" Izuku ran up to the boy, helping him up to his feet as Katsuki's pale face turned to his friend. "We're trapped inside, and our phones aren't working!"
"Urgh!" Wolfram sent a fist into the floor, pushing himself up while shaking his head.
"Armory." Katsuki breathed out, both of their eyes flickering over to the heavy set doors. "I need time-"
Without a lick of hesitation Izuku rushed the recovering Wolfram, yelling out in a war cry before sending a kick across his face. He reeled from the blow, another one coming for his throat. He swiped out to try and grasp the smaller boy, only for two quick jabs to hit into his side before another kicked smacked the underside of his chin to send him onto his back.
Izuku leapt on his chest, planting himself firmly before raising his fists to send a flurry of blows. Several silver platters crashed into Izuku, throwing him back towards the panicked crows. Izuku's body landed harshly on some of the bodies, many of them falling down and making it harder for Izuku to stand up.
"You BRAT!" Wolfram soared up into the air above the crowd, anything he could latch onto began rising into the air. Broken phones, more chairs, tables, silverware, and even the spotlights handing above were ripped from their stations as Wolfram glared towards the boy prying himself onto his feet. "I don't care what the deal was! Once the reactor hits critical I'm going to have enough power to pry the iron from your blood while I make HIM watc-"
Wolfram had looked back to where Bakugo was, but the boy wasn't there. He tried reaching out to find the similar sensation of the metal in his heart but it was lost to him. Searching through the faces again, he spotted one particular girl he knew he could use to get an answer out of someone who knew.
"AH!" The rebar under the ground erupted around Whitney Stane, trapping her in thick bindings before he lifted her up so that everyone could see.
"Whitney!" Obadiah yelled out uselessly, Wolfram eyeing the business man as he held her daughter in his grip.
"Where, is he?" Wolfram calmly asked.
"I don't know!" Obadiah screamed out, unable to see the boy himself. "You lost him! You go-"
A pained cry forced itself out of Whitney as the metal tightened, squeezing her ribcage to force the air out of her lungs.
"I am not in the mood for negotiations." The villain growled out.
Beyond the escalating noise of the reactor practically vibrating the air, there was thunder rolling in the distance. It didn't fade, its roar kept rising.
Wolfram only had a second to pull out the metal beams in the ceiling to shield himself before something crashed through the wall of the structure, then a harsh twin blasts pushed him out of the ceiling.
Whitney fell from the air as the force holding her up had let go, metal arms catching her before she fell as a bright red and pale gold armored man slowly brought her to the ground. Quickly he grabbed the rebar that was choking her, snapping it open as her lungs swelled with life.
"A-A hero!" Someone cried out in relief, several others breaking into tears of relief and some even clapping.
Izuku rushed over, helping a nearly passed out Whitney out of the cage.
"Get them out of here." The man spoke right across to Izuku, and before the boy could ask the 'hero' stood up, raising his hands as an entire truck was thrown through the hole in the ceiling towards him. He caught it, his chest brightening before a violent light shot through the vehicle back towards the villain.
Tossing the useless metal to the side, Katsuki flew up to pursue the villain. Leaving Izuku, and his own mother who tried yelling out to him.
Wolfram scowled as the figure hovered across from him, both of the challengers reanalyzing their opponent. "I should have known you wouldn't keep it too far at any given moment. Consider yourself lucky that your armor just happens to be made of- "
"You threatened me with your quirk so many times in that damn hole. Any dumbass could figure out you're nothing but a grade school magnet."
The cars of the parking lot rose behind Wolfram, Katsuki's armored fists humming as they charged with as much power as they could hold.
Not too long after Izuku saw his best friend fly out to face off against the villain, he could see flashes of the repulsors shooting over the hole in the ceiling in rapid succession, the thrusters screaming as their fight constantly moved around the facility.
"I-Izuku." Whitney was starting to regain her consciousness, Izuku seeing that she didn't get anything more than a bruise.
"You're ok." He told her, Whitney's father quickly coming to her aid. "Mr. Stane, please look after her. I need to find us a way out."
Quickly he moved over towards the door, where he saw one of his fellow future heroes helping to snap the crushed armor off of the hero duo with a handheld pair of equipment that fire fighters would use. He grimaced at their unmoving bodies, hoping they were alright.
"Are they-"
"They're alive!" Iida had managed to get their helmets off them, the heroes bearing remarkably similar resemblance to the boy. "But they need to get to a hospital! None of us can call for any-"
"Iida!" Yaoyorozu yelled at him. "Keep her steady otherwise I might cut into her ribcage."
"R-right."
Taking another look at the door that was blocking their way, Izuku could hear the way they kept humming as the growing vibrations in the air could be felt in his teeth. These blast doors hadn't been engaged properly, they were ripped out from their housing and slammed together. Even if they could get power to them, they wouldn't budge.
He reached forward, trying to pry his fingers between the small gap and attempting to find some loose point. It was no use, they were stuck together like-
Like the random pieces of screws, some phones, and other metallic items were stuck to it! They were magnetized.
"Does anyone have a heat quirk?!" Izuku screamed out to the crowd above the dangerous noise the arc reactor in the other room was generating. Everyone's hair was starting to rise, the boy realizing just how much danger they were in.
"Midoriya." Yaoyorozu had handed the newly made medical supplies to Iida, allowing him to do what he could for the heroes. "What do you need?"
It might have sounded crazy but the simplest answer would be a flamethrower, but to have all the materials and designs of it memorized with the atomic structure was probably too much to ask. "We need to heat up the door so we can demagnetize it to pry it open! Can you make a pipe system and run propane through it or-"
Without needing any more instructions, a sparkling light flowed around her exposed stomach as she began pulling out a mechanism. It was shaped roughly like a long nozzle with a large tank in the back of it. "I believe this will work."
She held a flame thrower, exactly what he wanted. "Great! Now once we get it hot enough we're going to need to force it open. Can you also make something like large L bars that we could hook into the door and pry it open?"
"Leave it to me." She proceeded to have her back sparkling as she took aim at the door, a spark igniting the small flame at the end.
Knowing that they were going to get out of here, Izuku needed everyone to be ready for it and leave no one behind. "Everyone! We're going to get you out of here but stay back as we get the door open!"
Katsuki flipped over the scraps and sheets of metal, ripped from anything in Wolfram's reach as he aimed his palms towards the man. He shielded himself with another clod of metal before throwing the hot shards right back at him. Katsuki flew down, gliding just over the ground before shooting back up to get closer. He spun around several objects thrown towards him but the cloud of scraps that Wolfram shielded himself with was too dense.
Barking out a curve Katsuki soared around the debris, cutting through the gaps and blasting whatever was getting in his way. Flying over Wolfram Katsuki's palms flared alongside his gauntlets, firing out to scorching rays that turned any metal they touched into molten slag.
"Analysis complete." Liz spoke as Katsuki weaved between another barrage of makeshift weaponry. "The arc reactor's condenser fields have been modified with a series of coils to redirect the interior shielding into the surrounding environment. The quirk enhancement technology appears to be altered to use the newly generated field as a powersource to increase Wolfram's own magnetic abilities to-"
"He touched my shit!" Katsuki already figured out how Wolfram was able to use his quirk without touching the metal. The Arc Reactor was generating a heavy magnetic field, it was powering his tech, which gives his quirk enough of a boost to take advantage of the field that already exists and control it.
Flying low to the ground, Katsuki charged towards Wolfram who threw several cars in his way. He zig zagged, slowing his flight to allow for the sudden shifts in direction. Suddenly pipes from below shot out from the ground, Katsuki slamming into them as they snaked around his limbs.
"The arc reaction is continuing to climb and will reach critical in less than five minutes." Liz informed him with more urgency. "All safeties have been disabled."
Wolfram dared to hover closer as Katsuki's arms were pinned to his sides, the servos whining as his limbs fought the stronger control.
"The longer the reactor is active the stronger I get!" Wolfram held his arms out wide as more metal began wrapping themselves around Katsuki. "While you are running out of power."
Katsuki scowled as he saw the power level of his suit's reactor had been dropping at an alarming rate. That's what happens when a bigger one is spilling out its energy into the air, disrupting any similar power source. In his mind he calculated he could still get out of this if he forced it, but the cocky bastard was getting closer.
"Now, sit still while I pry you out of that-"
Wolfram saw something snap open on Katsuki's shoulder, and not willing to find out what it did he quickly held up his arms coated in metal to block the precision bullets. While his eyes were closed he was hit with the remnants of the blast that freed Katsuki, the boy rocketing into Wolfram and sending them flying back around the building.
Katsuki began squeezing, Wolfram pushing back with his own metal arms that he willed forward with his quirk.
Then they slammed into the pavement in the front drive, Katsuki quickly flipping onto his feet with his thruster palms. He held one out, shooting at Wolfram as he yanked another car to defend himself. Katsuki did not relent, blasting away with even more fury as Wolfram kept hastily using whatever he could to absorb the blows.
"Suit reactor levels are dropping! Implant reactor is already damaged and can no longer sustain itself!" Liz shouted in his ears, Katsuki cursing as he switched from repulsor blasts to just hammering away with his fists.
With a short burst from his boots he crashed through the car, Wolfram ready with a large beam that swatted Katsuki back up into the air.
His hud locked onto a large figure approaching in the sky, highlighting something shaped like a dragon flying towards them. Landing on the torn carpet leading up to the front doors, Katsuki quickly let out a burst from his boots to leap to the side before the beam stabbed through where he just was.
"Please hold on, heroes have noticed the escalating situation and are on their way!"
The ground rumbled underneath them, the road cracking around the building in front of them. His hud flashed several alerts as the field Wolfram controlled was increasing, and focusing its efforts on all the supports of the building across from them.
"Unless you have All Might on speed dial-"
"Attempting to pull David Shield's contacts."
Damnit! He knew Liz wouldn't be able to get shit out with all the interference. Not only that but that man had one of the best data security in the world.
"Hero!" Somebody yelled out from behind, Katsuki looking back to seeing Izuku and some other teen with glasses prying open the front doors.
Then he looked back in horror as Wolfram threw the whole building at them.
He could dodge, they couldn't. Aiming his arms forward, Katsuki stood his ground. "USE EVERYTHING!"
"Unleashing hell." Liz said as every weapons system popped out from the armor, launching forward as his arms and chest struggled to withstand the full might of the unrestrained force.
The office building exploded into a cloud of rubble, raining down into chunks that crashed into the Earth around them. Katsuki fell to his knee as his hud flickered before his eyes, his heart flinching over the sudden pull from the already damaged arc reactor in his chest.
"Power at fifteen percent, main reactor is cycling down."
"Keep it alive." Katsuki ordered, standing back up as all the guests began flooding out of the building. But they didn't keep running, they started circling around him with cheers.
Then the whole block shook as a wave of arcing energy sparked over them, causing them to cry out from the force as everyone felt a shock run through their bodies. It racked Katsuki, the energy immediately rushing into his suits systems and making them blare in alarms.
"The reactor is nearly at critical!"
Those brief discharges were only a fraction of what would happen if this thing went up. Every living thing would be fried, and the energy fluctuating around it now prevented anything from getting too close.
Katsuki nodded in acknowledgement, his sore body and his barely beating heart willing themselves to move. A hand landed on his shoulder, turning him to face the eyes of his own mother. "We need to get out of here!"
Yes, they did. The issue was the blast radius would catch them before they made it to the next block.
"Listen you all need to-DUCK!"
Katsuki shoved her away before Wolfram's metal coated hands could snatch her. The villain improvised, grabbing onto the extended armored hands and pulling Katsuki back inside where the flaring energy of the arc was at its peak. Sky blue waves were dancing within it, electricity sparking through the air as the two flew through it, sliding across the ground as their vision wavered.
"I, will finish what I started." Wolfram, covered in burns and debris was practically glowing with the rest of the place as the enhancer began steaming around his chest, burning his shirt away to let the tatters of his coat float around him. "I will end you boy."
Katsuki's chest felt like it was on fire, the energized seeping through the suit's chest piece and running through the power source keeping him alive. Yelling out as he stood up, his hud filled with static a fist collided against his head.
"E-Error. Sys-stem ccccccompromised." Everything in the suit fought to stay alive, Katsuki included as he had to use his own strength to try and push himself back onto his feet inside the heavy armor.
Wolfram stood over him, bringing up his fists before hammering them down onto the back of Katsuki's helmet to throw his face into the floor. The villain reached back towards the wall in front of the reactor, ripping out all of the metal within including several beams in the ground. He forced them into a tight cube with a coiled fist, slowly bringing it towards them as he began to step away from Katsuki.
Rolling over onto his back, Katsuki held up a hand in his feeble position.
"Begging?" Wolfram smirked. "It suits a mad dog like you-"
A small whine of the little energy Katsuki had to work with traveled into his hand, sending a short concussive blast to knock Wolfram back and letting the cube fall between them.
"Eeemergency sssystems failing." Liz sputtered out into his helmet, the boy barely hearing her over the next wave that washed over him. Anything that touched his suit was siphoned right into his own reactors, the energy briefly energizing him but cooking him at the same time.
His vision was blurry, the air around him alive with auroras of certain death for anyone not wearing a suit like his own. He needed to get to the reactor.
"Put everything into motors." He let out a pained whine as the suit barely helped him stand up, arcs of plasma rushing over him once again. Leaning forward, he pushed through it, letting it continually give his suit another boost of energy while damaging it and himself.
"D-damage to i-implanted r-reactor is c-critical. Seek m-medical attention."
The walls quivered, the ceiling began to crumble, everything was being blasted by cosmic forces that only he knew how to tame. The metal around him rose up, slowly connecting into twisted spirals to stretch over the arc reactor.
Katsuki marched onwards, the next wave flashing against his eyes as he continued to stumble into the storm.
"This technology is no longer yours!" Wolfram's singing body, hovering over the reactor to allow his quirk to reach its peak. "It serves me now!"
Right there in the open Wolfram taunted, his quirk barely keeping himself alive by manipulating the harshest of the forces to flow around him. The man was injured, the device on his chest was barely functioning with the power that was forced through it. Wolfram would never even see an attack coming due to the imminent sun about to go supernova. If Katsuki wanted, he could easily spare a moment to aim and blast him into a certain demise. Yet Katsuki couldn't stray from his target, the reactor's housing was stripping itself apart as flares bursted from within.
"S-suit reactor failing."
If he wanted to save who mattered to him, he would have to allow Wolfram the chance to escape again.
"Gah!" Wolfram blindly threw a mangled mess of cables and pillars near Katsuki, slamming a few feet away.
It shook the reactor, causing another wave to stab through Katsuki as his suit's repulsors popped apart, the exposed components that were inside immediately fried.
Another shard of metal pierced ahead, Katsuki grabbing it with his armored hand to pull himself forward through another pulse that blinded him.
"Suuuuuit reactor dead. B-back up f-failing."
It didn't matter, the air itself was practically flooding through what was left of it. Sparks of energy still followed the circuits to let the motors inch him down the collapsed section towards the reactor's base.
The only reason he was still standing, pulling himself onto the control bay, was because there was something in his chest that was still fighting against the brutal forces that surged right into it to give him the strength he needed.
Plunging his arm into the controls as metal rained down in lightning speeds around him, sometimes banging against his back, Katsuki grasped a particular focusing mechanism and heaved it into place to interrupt the flow of the arc's energy.
Immediately all of the rushing beams of plasma were directed upwards, burning the air into a singular pillar of light. Wolfram was right in its path, too blinded by his target, too blinded by fueling himself with the reactor's escalating power, that he couldn't know what was happening.
Immediately the quirk enhancement device around his chest exploded into sparks, Wolfram's blood boiled as every cell in his body was fried immediately. He never even had the chance to scream.
Without the man's quirk to keep the several winding pillars of metal in control, they all fell back to where his body lay on the silenced reactor. One by one they collapsed, cascading into a screaming collision of metal to cause what remained of the reactor to explode out, Katsuki's armored body sent flying out.
The lights of his suit were out, no noise escaped it as he lay limply in the dark.
Only a flicker in his chest, one that stubbornly clung to life.
The moment his mind sparked with awareness, he was suddenly pissed. The aching muscles, the splitting headache, he had experienced this a few times before.
Katsuki Bakugo was incredibly annoyed by how often this was happening.
"Katsuki?" A hopeful woman's voice asked. Daring to take a peek, he saw the lights of a hospital room. One he had woken up to before in better circumstances.
Glancing to his left, he saw the other towers of I-island just outside the window. His mother cut in front of his view, smiling at his awareness before scowling right at him.
"That was a dumbass thing to do."
"We're alive." Katsuki reminded her.
"You shouldn't be." David Shield came up, holding up his very own arc reactor that was cracked, covered in scorch marks, and completely devoid of life.
Swiping his blanket off, Katsuki saw that in his chest was another one. His mind was still waking up, so David Shield began explaining how to him. "I had to repurpose the one you had in your prototype suit still in your lab. Not sure how the last one lasted long enough for me to do it, but as soon as I unplugged it to switch it out with the one in you now it stopped. Katsuki, it was a miracle."
"But-" Katsuki tried running the math, coming to the same conclusion that there was no way he should have made the trip over here and David to have enough time to repurpose a technology that only Katsuki fully understood. "-how did I even get here?"
"Thank Izuku for that." Mitsuki gave him a love tap with her knuckles on his forehead. "He had us stick around, and once the reactor went up he charged right on in, dragging you in that suit into your secret lab that somehow was still standing."
Then Liz's voice came over the room. "Using the emergency suit retrieval system built into the armor capsules, I was able to pilot you from the armory in Japan to I-island where I had informed David of your situation."
"She was a big help." David admitted, placing the expired arc reactor next to Katsuki. "Helped walked me through how to detach the arc reactor from your suit and came up with a few ideas on how to get it inside you. Though you should probably double check. I don't think it's going to give out anytime soon but-"
"Yeah yeah." Katsuki sat up, reaching over to grab the creation he and Melissa made in that cave, turning it over to see just what he put it through. "Wolfram?"
"Dead." Mitsuki had no respect for the dead if they tried to drag her son with them. "His body was found by the heroes. They had a lot of questions when they found Izuku and I trying to sneak away."
"Obadiah already has lawyers on it." David wanted Katsuki to not worry about anything, to let the adults handle the aftermath of a villain attack so he could focus on getting better. But, there was one thing that they needed Katsuki to help with. "You saved a lot of influential people that night, and you can imagine they're going to want to know why he's not a registered hero and how he has such a high tech suit."
Mitsuki showed him a news article, one that was a very accurate police sketch of his suit battling against Wolfram with the citizens behind the armor. Must have been made from a quirk. The title of the article 'Unknown Iron Man Saves The Day.'
"We have an idea." His mother seemed a little more proud about this one. "Since no quirk was used, he can't be held guilty as a vigilante. Since he also appeared at just the right time, has a super suit that no other company has made before, and you disappeared before the fight, we can say he's your body guard and after getting you to safety he-"
Katsuki stopped listening because he wasn't planning on doing that at all. Even if technically no one else was going to take the credit for his actions, he was still going to be a hero. Right now, leaders of Japan seemed incredibly grateful and wanted to know who he was to send their gratitude. That would change later on as the media would eventually switch to a different tactic if they didn't get the hero they wanted. Paint him in the same light as dangerous vigilantism, or even blame his armored persona or Katsuki himself on the reactor's failure despite clear sabotage.
If he wanted to catch their good side now, give them something so big they couldn't come up with any lies, Katsuki would need to do something to secure his future as a hero. That night was supposed to serve as Katsuki's way of saying he was back and was ready to put the world towards the road to the future. Even if the arc reactor didn't get its chance, something else he did that night served the same purpose.
He changed in that cave, and he would show the world what he changed into.
"I know what I have to do."
Hopefully his mother wouldn't beat him over the head with her tablet for this.
Back in Japan, in the simple two bedroom apartment that served as a home for a humble family of a mother and a son, they were making themselves comfortable after such a dangerous night they were involved in. Since then they had been separated from the friends that had invited them, and even though they were able to talk over the phone to confirm their safety they hadn't seen their health in person yet.
Particularly, Izuku was worried.
Katsuki's suit was fried, and when they managed to get the armor off to check his condition the boy was worse than when Izuku saw him in the hospital as a child. There were scars burnt into Katsuki's chest around the flickering arc reactor, a disturbing smell of burnt meat radiating from his skin.
He had doubts that Katsuki would be able to make a full recovery, that he would be able to follow the dream he so passionately worked hard for. At least he was alive, and he even heard on the news that the heroes posted as security that night were expected to make a full recovery.
They wouldn't know for sure until the official press conference that Spark Industries said so. It was going to happen any minute now, Izuku sitting across from the television waiting to see his friend ok.
"Why do you look so down?" Whitney, who had invited herself over, asked Izuku. "Are you thinking about that night again?"
"I'm just worried not all of us got out ok." Izuku mentioned, leaning back into the seats as he rubbed his dried eyes. He must have forgotten to blink.
"Well, you made sure I did." Whitney smiled fondly towards him. "You and that body guard."
That was another thing, Whitney seemed so sure that it was a bodyguard. Izuku wasn't sure what Katsuki's future plans were, or if the 'Iron Man' would return. He wouldn't say anything, not until he heard what Katsuki wanted the world to believe.
"I heard he's fine Izuku." Inko came over with a batch of refreshments, hoping that a snack she made could live up to the refined palette that Whitney Stane probably had. "You were really brave that night."
"He was." Whitney agreed, remembering how he was able to take charge and get everyone out. If he didn't, they would have been burned alive long before the reactor went up. "You'll make a great hero Izuku."
Then they heard the commercials end for the television, the official logo of Spark Industries coming onto the screen before sliding into the corner to make way for the live feed of the podium. Obadiah Stane stepped up to it, not a scratch on his head as he looked over the crowd.
"I would like to spend time to thank everyone that has shown their support. This is the second direct attack towards Spark Industries, done by the same man who went by the alias of Wolfram. We regret that our preemptive measures were not enough to prevent this, but we stand proud tonight knowing that none of our guests or our staff were killed. For the heroes who were there to fight on our behalf, to suffer the brunt of the attack, we recognize their efforts and have been allowed to repay a small portion of our debt to their actions by providing the best care. I have word that they will be back to their full strength and ready to serve again by the end of the month."
That was some relief, Izuku recalled how distraught Iida was in the moment. He can't imagine what it must be like to have to try and give first aid to your beaten parents.
"Now." Stane continued as he took a half step away from the podium, preparing to walk away from it. "I have had several inquiries about the armored individual who appeared that night to defeat Wolfram and safely deactivate the arc reactor. To answer those questions, I'll refer to the person who knows the most on the subject, founder of Spark Industries Katsuki Bakugo."
"See." Whitney nudged Izuku as the teen came up to the stage, wearing the same style of the simple black suit he did when he first stepped into the spotlight. "He looks fine."
But is he? Katsuki looked healthy enough, but the worst of the damage would be hidden under his shirt.
"Let me make one thing clear." Katsuki stated firmly with his sharp eyes sweeping over the many journalists before him. "Spark Industries does not tolerate acts of villainy, and I have made plans to personally involve myself in the hero industry to prevent anything like this from happening again."
Izuku leaned forward, staring intently as he thought he just heard Katsuki indirectly say he was going to be a hero.
"We're going to rebuild, just like I had to when I escaped Wolfram's custody before. I'm going to personally oversee the undefeated foundation of Spark Industries in Japan. Wolfram tried stopping me before, and I'm betting there are going to be others like him or worse. That's why-"
"Mr. Bakugo!" A rather impatient journalist interrupted him, and Izuku thought Katsuki was going to pull out a laser and blast them to ash given his frustrated reaction. "What about the individual who faced off against Wolfram that night?"
Then another piped up, hoping to have Katsuki answer their question now that someone crossed the line. "Was that a bodyguard or a vigilante?"
"What is Spark Industries' connection to the hero?"
Katsuki continued to glare towards all of the shouts and interruptions, refusing to answer a single one of them and reprimanding them with a fiery stare. Yep, Kacchan was definitely getting better.
Finally when the journalists took the hint that he would not be answering their questions until maybe the end, they silenced one another to hear him.
"I'm getting to that." He bit, before calming himself down to continue. "I have seen firsthand what villains are willing to do, what they have done to me and those I care about, what they do around the world when there's no one to stop them. That's why I am taking direct action."
He stared into the camera, making sure that his message was spoken directly to the world. "And in case you think you can take me down, just remember this. People have tried taking me down before when all I had was a box of scraps. They failed, because they didn't know who I was."
Who was he? The answer was simple.
"I am Iron Man."
End of the Origins arc, next chapter we're going straight into the UA exams. Let me know what you thought of the finished origins story and what you would be excited to see in the future.
Final call for who you would like to see in class alongside Katsuki Bakugo. They can be from 1A, 1B, or even other classes or schools. Maybe even from the streets or a different country, I'll listen to any recommendations you have. You can even pick someone from the Iron Man stories to have me convert into a UA student.
Thanks for reading. Any errors in spelling or inconsistency please point out.
Only Iron Man content and MHA will be used for this story. No other marvel characters will be used.