Chapter Text
The very next day after deciding to become a hero, Izuku buys no less than four notebooks from his local convenience store.
Since he had made a split-second, life-changing decision mostly out of spite, he now needed to actually put some thought into said decision, hence the notebooks. As much as part of him longed to, he couldn’t just wing the Yuuei entrance exams and hope for the best. Plus, he still had a bit of his younger self inside, and that part of him had never truly stopped wanting to be a hero, so Izuku has to do this right.
He owes it to himself.
Pretty quickly into planning it all out, Izuku realizes that taking down a bunch of huge robots by himself would be… kind of impossible. Unless he wants to try and shut them off manually somehow, he’d going to need some extra help in the strength department if he ever wants to become a hero.
So, he starts looking into alternatives– most of which he has to rule out immediately due to their sheer illegality (quirk-enhanced drugs, regular drugs… basically a lot of drugs), leaving him with one clear option: support items. Really, Izuku doesn’t know why he didn’t think of this sooner; sure, they’re not very common amongst the top pro heroes, but when has something’s popularity ever affected one of Izuku’s decisions? Okay, maybe a lot of times, but he’s moved on now and doesn’t give a single fuck about what anyone thinks anymore. Except for his mom.
Now comes the first issue with his new plan: actually acquiring support items. He has no fucking idea how to make anything that’s not ramen, and approximately zero money to his name, so…
To Reddit, Izuku goes.
An inadvisable decision, he knows. Any helpful information on that website is buried under at least ten layers of nazi propaganda and the unfunniest memes one could ever possibly see, so traversing that hellsite takes a special sort of determination. Luckily, Izuku is stubborn and desensitized to almost everything the world wide web has to offer (seriously, why did Inko think unrestricted internet access at the age of four was in any way a good idea?) and scrolling past all the Hitler jokes and transphobia is easy.
He searches r/SupportGearedHeroes, but ninety percent of the posts there are either extremely unhelpful or just blatantly horny. r/SupportIndustry yields similar results, though the horniness is replaced with posts simply saying “look at this cool thing!” and offering no other relevant information.
He goes through several other support-related subreddits during his deep-dive, but nothing of note pops up– until he sees his saving grace in the form of the most atrociously typed post he’s ever seen in his life on r/HatsumeIndustries.
The subreddit itself is… interesting, to say the least, as it only has four members, only one of which has posted on it. The user, u/H4TSUM3, seems to post at least twice a week, if not more. Most of the posts are pictures of gear with captions like “I MADE AN EXPLOSIVE DEVICE IN CLASS 2DAY!1!!!” or “i blew usp my kitdhcen making this butits oakay!!!!”
One caption in particular, though, puts stars in Izuku’s eyes as he reads it:
“Yuuei entrance exam is coming up so I made ths!!!! Hatsume Industries will reign supreme”
Judging from the picture, this person had made a projectile weapon of some sort– one that looked like it could definitely take down some big-ass robots.
Thanking every deity known to man that the subreddit description included a business email, Izuku quickly begins typing out his message. He wants this person to make him support items, which seems like an activity they enjoy based on their posts, but he can’t just compensate them for their work. He spends at least ten minutes angsting over how the fuck he’s going to pay them, before the best idea he’s ever had hits him like a freight train.
Dagobah beach has literal tons of abandoned machinery and mechanical parts. He’d just need to go scrounging for the most salvageable pieces, and then he could fix up and provide the materials for the support gear he needs and more! Since he’d also have to pay this person for their time, not just supply them, he’d get them more materials for their future projects, and bam! He gets some sick weapons to slaughter robots with!
Payment plan set, Izuku sends out his email with only minimal heart palpitations and tremors in his hands. He stretches his arms behind his head, groaning as his back pops semi-painfully.
Jesus, how long have I been at this for?
A really fucking long time, he realizes as his mother calls him out for dinner. He’d started researching at eleven in the morning, how the hell did he not notice th–
“Izuku, dear! Are you alright in there?”
“Yeah, mama!” He shouts, scrambling out from his chair and making his way to the kitchen. Whatever Inko made smells so delicious that his stomach immediately starts growling, and oops, he hadn’t eaten since breakfast because he was so hyperfixated on support gear. Usually, no lunch wouldn’t be a problem, but since being pulled from school he’s gotten used to more than two meals daily, and it shows; he’s practically drooling as he sits at the dinner table.
Inko spoons him some soup and rice. “So, what were you doing in there all day, honey?”
Izuku refrains from digging into his steaming hot food to answer her, which is probably for the best. He doesn’t want to deal with burns inside of his mouth.
It’s at that exact moment, though, that he realizes he never informed her of his decision to become a hero.
Izuku bluescreens, staring at his rice in silence for a solid five seconds before he decides to just rip off the bandaid.
“I want to be a hero again,” he blurts.
Silence.
“Oh,” Inko says through a mouthful of food. “Okay.”
Izuku looks up to find her scarfing down her food, no negative emotions on her face whatsoever.
“Um.” He scoops up some rice and eyes her warily. “‘Okay’? You’re fine with that?”
Inko swallows her bite and smiles sadly at him. “A year ago, hell, maybe even a couple months ago, I would’ve hated the idea. I know when you were younger, I did nothing but discourage your dream, whether I thought I was doing it or not…” She purses her lips. “Not anymore, though. You could tell me you want to join a circus and I’d support you. I’d show up to every clown show and cheer you on, baby.”
Izuku feels his throat sting with the effort to hold back his tears.
His mother reaches across the table and grips his hand gently as she swears, “I’m never going to hold you back ever again, Izuku. And I won’t let anyone else do it, either.”
…
Needless to say, dinner was interrupted by a mother-son crying session. By the time they were done, the food was cold, but it was nothing a microwave couldn’t fix.
That night, Izuku goes to sleep with full belly, a warm heart, and a head overflowing with anticipation for an email back from whoever runs Hatsume Industries.