Chapter Text
Apparently, thousands of years ago, the planet Morag was home to a highly advanced and prosperous civilization.
Then global warming hit and destroyed everything in sight.
Go figure.
One of the only structures still left standing was also one of the final constructions built just before the people of Morag met their grizzly, and quite frankly utterly avoidable, demise.
The Temple Vault.
A building devoted to a singular purpose, the enshrinement of a relic known only as the orb.
The people of Morag constructed the vault with their dying breaths, entrusting their final hopes and legacies into it’s foundation.
And Izuku Midoriya walked right through the front door. Well, he walked through the gaping hole where the front door once stood before it was blown off its hinges.
A small pack of weird little space lizards dispersed into the shadows once they caught sight of him. He was lean but sturdy, his dark green leather jacket only slightly hiding the muscles he had spent a lifetime cultivating.
Though it was probably the mask that really scared them away. At least he hoped it was the mask, he spent an obsessive amount of time designing it.
Sections of the ground were covered in puddles that rippled loudly underneath his boots, he tilted his head up and noticed a sizable hole in the ceiling which was the likely culprit behind all the rubble and water damage.
Still, and all due respect given to the dead, there were no traps and the lizards were barely an inconvenience. He understood that the vault was designed to be impenetrable but the flow of time seemed to have destroyed that notion long before he was born. This was all that was left of a planet’s entire culture, and he just strolled right in through a glorified hole in the wall.
The melancholy of it all wasn’t lost on the part of him that Kacchan had spent most of their childhood trying to beat into submission. But he was still a Ravager through and through, the lack of things actively trying to kill him would always be a win in his book.
If anything he wished that he had his MP3 with him to fill in all the silence, but Kyoka had “borrowed” it weeks ago so he would be lucky if he saw it before his next birthday.
She was going to be furious with him, in an almost assuredly physically violent sense, when she found out what he was planning to do, but this was a situation to ask for forgiveness rather than permission.
He needed the orb, every step taken in his life had been leading him towards it.
( 20 Years Ago)
Izuku’s story began more than a million light years away, on a boring little planet called Earth.
Make no mistake, Earth itself was aesthetically breathtaking, it was humanity itself that left much to be desired.
They were petty, ignorant, spiteful, and prone to uber violence. Worst of all they were wholly insignificant to the grander calculus of the universe, mostly unaware that there was sentient life beyond themselves.
Amongst the stars they were merely ants. Yet even they had the odd charm.
Their reality constantly teetered between dreadfully pedestrian and glibly violent. However, their mythologies were rich, diverse, and even insightful. During the era that Izuku was born into, their mythologies took shape in the form of comic books.
For him, superheroes were everything. They had been from the moment he saw All Might’s smile on the panel of a page.
“Izuku!” His mother’s voice, the only thing in his life more comforting than his dreams of superpowers and bright costumes, called to him.
He gently closed the Edgeshot comic (Issue #3, the debut of Kamui Woods) he had been reading and hopped off his bed, zooming off into the living room to find Inko standing by the couch, hiding something behind her back.
“This is for you.”
Inko’s eyes, the eyes that Izuku had inherited, shone as she held the gift out towards him.
“It’s a sketchbook,” Inko clarified once it was in his much smaller hands. “I know how much you love superhero stories, so now you can make your own.”
Little Izuku froze, his mouth agape. “M-my own?”
Inko nodded as she bent down to his height. “Mhm. Those stories all start with a single drawing, you know?”
Izuku carefully opened the sketchbook to an open page, entire worlds and galaxies suddenly right there at his fingertips waiting to be unleashed onto the blank expanse of paper.
He was flooded with images of All Might, strong and stout with his arm raised high in the air triumphantly. He was vaguely cognizant of his mother’s fingers running through his verdant curls but his mind was focused on the foreign feeling that flowed into his spirit when faced with this blank canvas.
Purpose.
While they were noticeable exceptions, humanity as a whole lacked imagination. There was a natural order to things that could not, and would not, be changed.
You could dream, but only within reason.
If it resulted in a sizable enough paycheck then it was accepted, if not then keep on dreaming.
Izuku had two dreams, one that had an ultra slim chance of being profitable, and one that had no chance.
The first was to draw and illustrate comic books. A dream with a razor thin success rate, but also a dream that was easy enough to understand.
The second was to be a hero. Not a police officer, not a first responder, not a teacher, but a genuine, red-blooded, living, breathing, superhero. Someone always ready to save the day with a smile.
It was abstract, therefore in the eyes of society.
Impossible.
And the rest of the world seemed pretty eager to remind him at every opportunity.
“Mrs.Midoriya-”
“It’s Ms.Midoriya, actually.”
“Of course, my apologies.” The principal of Izuku’s school always reminded him of Humpty Dumpty but his mother had said it was rude to comment on someone’s appearance.
“We have some concerns over Izuku’s recent behavior.”
“Is that so?” Inko crossed her arms and gave Kobayakawa a look that caused a bead of sweat to drip down the side of his plump face. He quickly dabbed the offending liquid with a handkerchief as he cleared his throat.
“Were you aware that your son was involved in a fight?”
Inko rested her hand on Izuku’s shoulder, rubbing it softly with her thumb. “I most certainly was not. When did this happen?”
“Two days ago, ma’am.”
“And why am I only hearing about this now?”
Kobayakawa swallowed and quickly dabbed the other side of his face. “Well, Izuku was neither the instigator nor the victim in the fight so…”
“Then how exactly was he ‘involved’ in this fight?”
On second thought, maybe she would have appreciated Izuku’s Humpty Dumpty observation, she didn’t seem to be Kobayakawa’s biggest fan to begin with.
“He attempted to break up the fight by getting in the middle of the conflict.”
Izuku had never seen his mother look the way she did at that moment. Her mouth was a thin line and her gaze was like solid steel, he wasn’t completely sure why but he was grateful that it wasn’t directed towards him.
“I see. You mentioned that you had some concerns about Izuku, care to elaborate on that?”
Izuku watched the two adults go back and forth like a tennis match, with Inko glaring daggers at his principal on one side and Kobayakawa flinching in kind on the other. The longer the meeting went on the more it seemed like the principal was the one actually in trouble, could adults give other adults detentions?
“I’m sure you’re aware of his…dreams of being a hero.”
Even Izuku could pick up on the barely veiled disdain in the way the word hero came out of Kobayakawa’s mouth. It was nothing new for him of course but the dismissiveness always cut right through his chest. That many adults couldn’t be wrong could they? Maybe there was something wrong with him.
He felt Inko’s grip tighten but it didn’t feel uncomfortable, if anything it anchored him from his thoughts.
“And what does my son’s dreams have to do with anything?”
“Ms.Midoriya,” Kobayakawa regained some of the smugness he opened the meeting with and tucked the handkerchief away in the pocket of his shirt.
“Please believe me when I tell you that our prime concern is Izuku’s wellbeing. It’s good to dream, especially when you’re young.”
He gestured towards Izuku. “But you must agree that there reaches a point where dreams can do more harm than good. It’s what led him to jump in the middle of that fight, if you ask me he’s lucky that he didn’t get hurt because of it.”
Before, Izuku had never even seen his mother raise her voice. There had never been a reason for her to. That day in the principal’s office was the only time he could ever recall her being furious, as if sparks of lightning had flashed through her eyes and thunder cracked from her voice. He was certainly neither envious nor pitied the man at the receiving end of such white outrage.
Especially when that man was Principal Kobayakawa.
“Let me make one thing perfectly clear to you, if you ever talk about my son like that again you’ll be lucky if you don’t get hurt.”
Inko stood, towering over his principal who only cowered into himself further as she asserted her dominance like no other Midoriya had probably done before. Izuku didn’t need super hearing to catch Kobayakawa’s literal gulp since the lump’s journey down the older man’s throat illustrated the bodily response live and in color.
“My Izuku did the right thing and all you’ve done is sit here and belittle him. You have the gall to try and make him feel small for what he believes in, for what he dreams of? You? An adult whose only job is to teach and guide him?”
Inko gathered her purse and held out her hand for Izuku who took it without a second thought and let her gently lift him out of the chair.
“Now, do you plan on actually punishing him for anything?”
“Well…no. As I said earlier-”
“Then we’ll be leaving.”
Inko had taught him to never slam doors, it was rude, it was disruptive, the whole nine yards. When they left that office she slammed the ever loving mess out of that door, the only reason he couldn’t recall if the walls actually shook from the force of it was because of how quickly she had gotten him out of that school, both physically and academically.
She immediately took him out for ice cream and repeatedly told him that she was proud of him.
That was the last day he ever spent with his mother. He was thankful it was a happy memory, but it had never been enough for him.
Not even close.
Izuku took his mask off and gazed at the orb which sat up on a pedestal. It was locked behind a cylindrical-shaped force field that seemed to be the single piece of technology on the entire planet that not only survived the ecosystem’s collapse but also still functioned.
He reached around in his knapsack for a small metallic cone that when placed on the ground folded out into a platform of three triangles. He pressed the button in the center and watched as it slowly sucked the orb through the force field like a magnet.
He bent down and detached the orb from his tool, pocketing that back into his bag and holding the artifact up into what little light got into the vault. For all he knew it was just a really old metal ball with some complicated patterns etched into it. All that mattered was that it was insanely valuable, enough so to be the perfect bargaining chip to get the information he so desperately needed.
“I’ll be taking the orb now.”
Izuku looked over his shoulder and was met with the cold steel of a knife against his throat and an even sharper set of black eyes.
He really should have been more concerned with the blade at his jugular but he had always been a touch too detail oriented(obsessive) for his own good.
Almost subconsciously he took note of his assailant’s sleeveless red top and dark black pants that had strategic openings throughout, of the spiral ponytail and the porcelain skin that seemed sculpted from marble. He knew exactly who this was.
Momo Yaoyorozu, one of the Mad Titan’s top assassins.
Very beautiful, very dangerous. Either was problematic for him specifically but that was neither here nor there.
“Uh…hello.” Luckily Izuku was as silver tongued as they came.
“Hello. Now, the orb.”
“W-what orb?” Truly his genius was frightening.
“If I had wanted you dead you would already be on the ground. All I want is the orb, I won’t ask again.”
A strange stance for a trained killer to take but he wasn’t about to complain. He was in no position to negotiate with her so every edge he could find was vital. Her reluctance to gut him was an angle he could definitely use but he wasn’t sure how far he could push it. Just because she didn’t want to kill him didn’t mean that she wouldn’t if pressed far enough, and he wasn’t exactly keen to test that boundary line.
Then again all of his ideas were risky so he may as well just go for it.
“Oh you mean this orb? Here.”
Against all better judgment he threw the orb across the room. Multiple equal and opposite reactions occurred while the relic soared through the air. First, Momo loosened her grip on Izuku. Second, he let himself fall off his feet and rolled to the side, once he came to a stop in a crouch he pulled out one of his Quad Blasters.
He aimed it not at Momo’s back, but instead the orb. He then did two things.
He pulled the trigger and prayed.
A dart of yellow energy shot out of the blaster, piercing the air and just missing the arm of Momo as she ran to catch the orb, he could tell she was fast, but she wasn’t faster than what was essentially a speeding bullet.
It was as if time itself froze as the blast hit with the relic, the sound of the collision rang through his eardrum.
He must have had some higher force looking out for him as the blast did not in fact destroy the orb on impact and it harmlessly fell to the ground, away from both himself and Yaoyorozu.
Speaking of.
“Are you out of your mind!?!” She turned back to him and he knew by the look on her face she definitely wanted to kill him now.
She seemed indignant that he would shoot something so old and so valuable, and utterly shocked that he would even be stupid enough to consider such an idea in the first place.
Maybe it showed how truly warped his priorities were but all he could think of was how much younger she looked in that moment. Like she wasn’t a trained killer but simply a woman who couldn’t fathom how inane the man in front of her was.
Was it getting hard to breathe in here or was it just him? Wait, focus Izuku .
He raised his left fist and a grappling hook shot out of his wristband, easily grasping the orb and pulling it back towards him.
There we go. Just a little bit clo-
The line hit a snag and went taut, leaving the orb suspended in the air caught between two identical hooks, Izuku’s and a perfect replica flowing out of Momo’s glowing palm.
“That’s amazing!”
Momo cocked her head to the side. “Excuse me?”
“That’s your quirk right?! Do you mind if I ask you a few questions about it? I know I have a notebook in here somewhere…”
“You’re braver than I thought to mock me so openly.”
Izuku paused. “Mock you? What do you mean? I’m not-”
In a flash she whipped out her own blaster forcing him to finally aim his back directly at her.
“No more games. I’ve wasted enough time as it is.”
“Then why not kill me straight away? That doesn’t fit the Mad Titans MO, and you’re like a daughter to him right? It doesn’t make sense.”
She didn’t like that one bit. “He is no father to me.”
Her jaw was clenched, her eyes were narrowed and unless his were playing tricks on him her hand shook when she said “father”. She completely dodged the question but in turn gave him a glimpse into something more intriguing and more beneficial to his own situation.
If she wasn’t potentially on the same page as the Mad Titan then that opened himself up to a completely different playbook.
“Then why do you want the orb?”
When she didn’t budge he slowly lowered his own blaster and pointedly ignored a voice that sounded just like Kacchan scream out in his head.
“You said it yourself, if you had wanted me dead then I already would be. You don’t want to shoot me, I don’t want to shoot you. So, why don’t we try and talk this out real civil like?”
He took it as a positive sign that she didn’t take the opportunity to end him right then and there but she didn’t join him in putting down her weapon. Neither of them gave any indication they would recall their grappling hooks.
“I want it for the same reason you do. It’s valuable, valuable enough that I could finally get away from him .”
He could work with this, this could work out perfectly actually. She was essentially a runaway, she needed money to break free and start her own life. He on the other hand only seeked the relic to use as a bargaining chip. If he played it right they could both get what they want without conceding much.
Doing so would only enrage practically everyone in his life, but he had already come this far.
“Ok. I have an idea, just promise me that you won’t shoot me when you hear it.”
“I make no such promises.”
Fair enough .
Izuku went the extra mile and holstered his blaster. “If you let me have the orb then I’ll take you wherever you want to go. My ship has plenty of room, enough for you to ignore my existence completely until I drop you off at your destination.”
She didn’t seem completely repulsed at the offer which was a plus but he also knew it wouldn’t be that easy.
“And why would I agree to such an arrangement?” He noticed that her grip tightened and her finger hovered around the trigger. “For all I know the only thing it gets me is a new cage.”
Izuku gave her a timid smile. “Oh I don’t think I’m strong enough to force you to do anything you don’t want to.”
That did little to put her at ease. “Looks can be deceiving.”
He really only had one non-violent play left. Well, non-violent for her.
“Then shoot me and get it over with. Because I’m not going to shoot you.”
She finally wavered, her voice betraying just the slightest tremble. “Don’t try to trick me.”
“I’m not-”
“I don’t believe you!” Her ponytail swayed violently as she shook her head. But when she finally looked back up at him he realized that she wasn’t even close to breaking down. She was in complete control, and she was furious with him.
But he couldn’t back down. It wasn’t in his nature.
“Then shoot me.”
She went still, as stiff as a statue.
“That’s the easiest solution here but for some reason you haven’t taken it. You wouldn’t even have to kill me, you could have shot me in the shoulder or the leg and I probably would have let go of the orb. But you didn’t.”
He let his words hang in the air before he tripled down and pulled his trump card.
He retracted his grappling hook and let her have the orb.
“Here. Take it.”
Her hook snapped back into her palm and she nearly dropped the orb. If she wasn’t convinced he was insane earlier she surely was now. Yet she didn’t move, she just stood there and stared at the orb, and then stared at Izuku.
“Who are you?”
Izuku took a deep breath.
“I’m Deku.”
…
Momo blinked. “Seriously?”
“Yup.”
“Doesn’t that mean-”
“It does. It’s a whole thing, I know.”
“Ok then…” She ran her thumb across the orb and gave Izuku a once over.
“You asked me why I didn’t shoot you. Honestly, I’m not sure. What I do know is that I’m tired of someone else making my own decisions for me. So it doesn’t matter why I didn’t…why I don’t want to kill you, what matters is that I choose not to.”
Momo holstered her blaster and her eyes lingered on Izuku for a moment longer. “Here’s your chance to run away.”
Izuku scratched the back of his head and chuckled. “My offer still stands, you know. N-not to sound like a creep or anything, cuz you know, yeah…”
“Why help me?”
His first instinct was to say “ Because it’s what a hero would do ” but even he could tell that didn’t fit the mood. Luckily with her standing there seeming-dare he say-vulnerable, he was able to figure it out all on his own for once.
“Because it seems like no one’s ever reached out to pull you up before.”
That was too much wasn’t it? It felt like too much. Was he being insensitive? Nemuri had always warned him about-
Momo coughed and grabbed her arm, unable to meet his eyes all of a sudden.
“I must be the biggest fool in the universe.”
She shuffled her feet and toyed with her stray strand of hair.
“You said you were heading to Xandar, correct? We’d better get a move on then.”
And then she smiled at him. It was brief and it barely stretched across the corners of her mouth but he found it striking all the same.
He immediately felt his entire face go red so he quickly spun around.
“A-awesome. I’ll l-lead the way, my ship is nearby.”
And thus began the story of how Izuku Midoriya saved the galaxy.