Work Text:
Izuku Midoriya held his pliers aloft over the glove, leaning over his worktable on a precariously balanced stool. It was late, most of the other students had already turned in for the night, but Midoriya was tucked into his work. He was so close to getting the wiring just right-
NO!
The pliers missed their mark. For the millionth time. He dropped his face on the table in frustration.
“What if I added blasters to his armor… Midoriya-kun, come look at this!” Hatsume’s voice came from across the workshop where she was elbows-deep into her own project.
“One sec,” The green-haired boy called back. He let out a small huff and dropped his tools, lifting the gauntlet up to see it as a whole. He slipped it on, flexing his wrist against the padded inner material. And glared at the panel on the side that just refused to make sense-
“Midoriya-kun!” A pair of goggles bounced off of his shoulder, prompting an eye-roll but pulling him from his seat nonetheless.
The two had fallen into an easy friendship since Midoriya started spending more time in the lab. Power-Loader Sensei had made efforts- however minimal- to advise them against these late nights, but with new ideas springing up everywhere it was difficult for either bright-eyed student to resist. Hence tonight, when Hatsume was taking a look at Iida-kun’s armor and Midoriya was crawling through a… personal project. (His vigilante suit. He’s working on his vigilante suit).
Hatsume popped up from under her desk and swept everything to the side, sloppily spreading a new (though already rumpled) blueprint over it. Midoriya peered at it over her shoulder, cautious of Hatsume’s excitedly gesturing arms.
“Okay,” She started, slapping her index finger down, “So Iida-kun doesn’t do well with long-range fights, right? C’mon, Mido,” she smacked his arm, “you’re the analyst here. I’m right- right?”
“Right,” he nodded
“Okay so Iida-kun needs some way to attack if he can’t get close, but carrying things would be a hassle, and a backpack would hinder his speed.”
“Right, I see what you’re saying,”
“SO,” She brought up her finger so fast Midoriya almost lost an eye, “What if I redid his torso-armor-”
“His breastplate,”
“-So it had retractable gun compartments? Eh?” She grabbed a pencil, furiously scribbling over the blueprints. “Like this!”
Midoriya blinked slowly at the shaky pencil lines. The new design would have compartments built into the armor that seemed - from the semi-decipherable drawing - to open to reveal guns that Iida could fire by ‘doing the choppy arm-thing’.
Hatsume was jittering, she was so euphoric. The energy drinks seemed to be catching up to her. Midoriya suddenly noticed the dull but increasingly pounding headache behind his eyeballs and pressed his fingers to his eyes. He took a glance at the clock. 2:13 AM. It was Tuesday. They had school in five hours and Power Loader Sensei would not be merciful if they fell asleep in class. Especially since he had technically warned them.
“Mei-chan, Iida-kun can’t carry guns around with him on hero work”
Hatsume spun around, eyes vibrant with a crazed excitement. “Mido, Mido, you’re missing what I'm putting down! My babies will work perfectly with his armor!”
“Mei-chan. I’m sure Iida-kun wouldn’t want to kill or maim any of the villains he fights,” (Author is coughing . Not laughing ironically) “He’s an upstanding guy. Besides, munition laws are tight- not to mention Iida-kun is barely sixteen.” she blinked, her eyes losing a bit of their crazed light.
Midoriya was about to suggest they call it a night, but then the back of his brain tingled the way it always did when he had a new idea. He scratched his cheek absently.
“Ya know, guns are a little much, but that doesn’t mean you can’t put some other projectile in there…”
A sharp gasp meant Hatsume was catching on.
“You’re right!!! We could give him armpit-tranquilizers! Armpit-tasers!” her pencil scribbled furiously over the blueprints with each note, Midoriya whipping out a notebook from nowhere to record his own brainstorming, “Mido-chan, we could give him a grappling hook !”
The conversation steadily devolved back into a mechanic rant, both students once again forgetting about the thought of sleep as the itch to put the ideas into action got the better of them.
Power-Loader sensei was never going to catch a break.