Chapter Text
Tony Stark.
The greatest inventor in both quirked and un-quirked history. The one man that was able to wield unimaginable power centuries before the first apparition of quirks. Tony Stark as well know as he was even in modern-quirked society had always been an enigma to civilians, heroes, scientist and police alike for one reason.
Even in the age of quirks, when certain people can create cell phones at the snap of a finger and have IQ s through the roof, no one had ever managed to recreate any of the man’s inventions. Even in the midst of quirked society nothing; neither quirk or natural skill could hold a candle to the technological masterpieces that Tony created.
When Tony died he did not let his knowledge and legacy die with him, no. In the hour following his death 15 documents were released into the internet for anyone and everyone to find. However, Tony was never know for taking unnecessary and calculated risks and he knew from experience that weapons as deadly as the ones he made couldn’t fall into the wrong hands no matter what. So, the 15 documents posted on the day of his death where all written in a cypher, a complicated code that for decades not a single person managed to crack.
These documents came to be called The 15 Cyphers. The 15 Cypher cape to be widely know to the public as more of an urban legend than anything else, of course there was physical evidence of the existence of Tony Stark and the legitimacy of the cyphers but that didn’t stop them from seeming like an impossible, untouchable weapon.
Even the sharpest, minds, strongest intelligence quirks had never even come close to cracking a single letter of the code. Nedzu himself had tried to crack The 15 Cyphers but his efforts were always unfruitful. Nedzu hadn’t even been able to deduce what where in the cyphers aside the obvious: the legendary Iron-Man suit. Tony Stark had countless powerful inventions, so many in fact that it was impossible to deduce which ones he had deemed important enough to pass down to future generations, that was not taking in the possibility that he had created pieces of technology solely pass down; ones that subsequently were unknown.
A scientist born at the dawn of quirk, known for being the first with an intelligence quirk had said “a mind bright enough to decrypt The 15 Cyphers is a mind bright enough to rival Tony Stark’s own”. Following this statement Tony Stark had been named the greatest technological genius in history, unmatched, unrivaled.
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Izuku’s quirkless diagnosis had hit him hard, harder than anything had he right to hit a 4 year old. He had cried for 3 days watching Allmight videos on a loop till he could recite every word of the heroes last 30 interviews by heart. He had stopped talking as much too, his cheerful rambles about heroes and such gone. Inko, had been worried sick, she knew how hard the news was for her son and that he was surely coping as well as he could, but seeing her happy, starry-eyed little boy look so unlike himself broke her heart a little bit more every day it went on.
4 days after the diagnosis Izuku had waddled into the living room where Inko had been working on her laptop, “mama?” he had asked voice horse from crying too much, “yes sweaty” Inko answered softly trying and failing to hide the worry in her voice, “can I use the computer?” Izuku had asked so softly that Inko would have felt like a monster if she had said no. So she sighed saving her work and opening up a new tab on her computer “alright what do you want to see? Allmight? Other heroes?” Izuku shook his head surprising his mother a little at the refusal “can I just search some stuff?” he had asked instead. Inko eyed her son curiously but set the computer on the living room table anyway and left her son alone with his research.
She had always known Izuku was smart, he had taken some time to learn how to speak as a baby but he had been able to read only a year after having spoken his first words and could wright (messily, but that hadn’t really changed) only months after that when he was about 3 and a half. Of course in the age of quirks that wasn’t anything unheard of, there were plenty of children who had done the same of even been able to do those things earlier but Izuku was quirkless, had always been and would always be so his intelligence was really something to behold. Inko had also come across, when cleaning the boy’s room 4 note books titled “hero analysis for the future” they were messy and unorganized and Inko didn’t know the first thing about heroes but she knew those were good, good enough to be sold at a good price if that was something Izuku wanted, she knew he didn’t but the fact remained that they were very detailed and pieces of work.
However smart Izuku was, that did not change the fact that it was rather odd that he asked to use her computer for anything not hero related. She was sure that even the fact that he was quirkless would not stop him from wanting to be a hero (even though now she was really starting to doubt how possible that would be) and he had never needed the computer for much more in the past so she was curious to say the least but she would let him be for now Izuku had never been one to hide important things from her anyways.
That day, Izuku had gone into a deep dive in the internet, researching everything and anything that could possibly indicate that a quirkless person such as himself could be a hero, he went onto countless forums and quirkless support groups only to end up at the end of the night with even less hope of becoming a hero than before. Everyone, even other quirkless people had decided that it was impossible for him to be a hero, to save people.
The next day, when Izuku woke up he rushed straight to his mother’s room and asked for her computer and dove back into his search for… well really anything. This went on for over a month and by the end of it Izuku has gone onto every forum available to him and had found nothing. It wasn’t all in vain however, along the way the boy had discovered so many different aspects of heroism that he hadn’t even given a second thought to before, the main one being support gear. He had actually spent a good 2 days updating his “hero analysis for the future” note books, adding ideas for improvement with the help of support gear for all the heroes in there. He had also looked into some of the companies who made the gear and constantly had a tab open on each one to see if they updated anything.
That, was 7 years ago. That was all before the bullying had started and before not only the internet but everyone he knew told him he was nothing short of delusional for thinking a Deku like him could ever be a hero. The constant harassment, beating and neglect he endured from his peers, teacher and strangers alike didn’t break him down however no, it only made him want to be a hero even more, he had to prove them wrong.
Contrary to what they all seemed to think Izuku was in fact not delusional, he knew that he wouldn’t be able to have strength on par with villains with quirks no matter what intense training he put himself through, it was physically impossible unless his opponents has mental quirks or non offensive quirks which, unfortunately, was the minority of villains. He knew couldn’t be stronger than them physically but his brain was all the power he needed (or almost all). He had started training his brain at the bright age of 4 with all of his intensive research on heroes, support gear and such that had spiraled in the years into him searching how to make the support gear himself. He hadn’t understood any of it at first but what as Izuku if not stubborn? So he had kept at it and at the age of 8 he had been able to make small things along the lines of mini jets with detached parts from his fathers old camera, 2 broken phones and small parts he was able to get from the man that worked on the electronic section of the corner shop in exchange for help unloading the truck that delivered the items to the store.
He had just come back from one such excursion to the corner shop, sweat drenching his shirt from the work he’d done and his arms full with all the parts the man (Tenga) had given him. He was speed walking his way up the stairs the apartment hoping to make it back to his room before the box Tenga had put the parts in decide to give up on him (it wouldn’t be the first) and break in the middle of the hall. He kicked open the door once it was unlocked and sprinted to his room plopping the box loudly into his desk savoring the sight of the shining bits and pieces before remembering that the door was still wide open and rushing to close it.
He had just sat down and started going through the parts he’d earned when he received a notification from one of the numerous forums he followed.
The first and most advanced support gear; a mystery
It is relatively well known that Tony Stark was the greatest technological genius in history however many don’t know what it really was that he created. Over the last few years people have forgotten what the man did, all they know him is by name.
Tony Stark, created weaponry. He is responsible for countless modern day weapons but now in the age of quirks most of his inventions would be considered support gear as the man himself was one of the first heroes in history. Although the man did not fight against quirked individuals like modern day heroes there are still records of him fighting the corruption of the world and even giving his life for it. The support gear that he created was the most powerful ever recorded according to several scientist (see scientific documents here) and for years people have tried to recreate his weapons and support gear however no one has ever been able to. Why? For a simple reason, when Tony Stark died 15 documents were sent into the internet available to anyone who could access the internet, Nedzu, principal or UA High School and other well known geniuses deduced that those documents contained detailed instructions on how to make Stark’s inventions. Tony Stark however, wrote those instructions in a code that. for decades none has been able to crack. Those documents are The 15 Cyphers we’ve all heard of one way or another.
(read here for my take trying to decipher the code)
The 15 Cyphers. Of course Izuku had heard of them before, everyone had, what he hadn’t known however was what they contained. Now that he thought of it though it made sense that it was guides on how to make Stark’s tech according to what people had gathered of the man he wasn’t the kind of guy to let his science die with him, on the contrary.
Izuku was interested to say the least, sure he had pretty much 0 chances to manage to decode the Cyphers himself, thousands of people so much smarter than he would ever be had tried and failed to decode it but that didn’t make him any less curious about what the Cyphers looked like. A quick search on one of the forums he was on gave him the answer to that question instantly, it was almost comical how easy it was to find and yet no one had cracked it yet. The 15 Cyphers were definitely a sight to behold, like the forum post had said, there were 15 documents each with about 8 pages full of an undecipherable code. The code didn’t seem like something impossible, it was written in lines, dots, circles, lines and swirls aligned and combined to create the cypher, the fact that the code looked so basic surprised Izuku, after all people had managed to decipher ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs just fine and those looked far more complicated than The 15 Cypher’s code.
As Izuku kept scrolling through the cyphers he noticed something, a repetition. 4 different glyphs that came up in most sentences. The repetition was strange however; Izuku had acquired quiet a good knowledge of English over the last few years (some of the best forums he came across didn’t have many discussions in Japanese) and he couldn’t think of any 4 letter word that would be used so many times unless Tony Stark had colorful TM language, which he highly doubted. The 4 letter word always seemed to come up in the middle of a sentence and never seemed to appear at the beginning of one. It would have made sense for the word to be “and” but Izuku couldn’t find any 4 letter words that would make sense in this context since “also”, “with” and “plus” aren’t used as repetitively as “and”.
Izuku thought about The 15 Cyphers for a good 3 days pondering the possibilities of what that 4 letter word could be, it just didn’t make sense to him. He was sitting on the couch with his mother when it hit him “IT’S NOT ENGLISH!” he yelled jolting up from his seat and scaring the living daylights out of his poor mother. “What are you talking about Izuku?” Asked his mother more than a little frazzled “ummm…I….my home work….yeah I just realized it wasn’t English homework” he stuttered out realizing just how strange that must have looked to his mother that still had no idea of his interests in support gear and The 15 Cyphers. He could tell by the look on her face that his mother didn’t buy it one bit but he couldn’t outright say he was lying so he just went with it “ummm well I should probably get to it huh since I did it in Japanese..sorry” he planted a kiss on his mother’s forehead and rushed to his room. He felt sort of bad for leaving her like that but this realization felt like a major break through and he just had to see if with this new knowledge he could decipher the rest. He’d make it up to his mother.
When Izuku had gotten his hands on the code he had assumed it was written in English since Tony Stark was American but that was not the case and now that Izuku thought of it, it was logical that a genius like Stark didn’t make his code just in English. No, the code wasn’t written in English, it couldn’t be, but according to Izuku’s research Stark didn’t speak any other language, or at least not fluently enough to write 15 coded documents in so the only logical explanation was that The 15 Cyphers were written in a language of Stark's creation.
Assuming that he was correct and that the 4 letter word was indeed “and” Izuku, analyzed the letters themselves. They weren’t something he'd never seen before in fact he was sure he had seen some of those glyphs before, a quick google search revealed that the reason he’d seen those glyphs before was because the code was a mix of: Gamoran's line segment cypher, pigpen cypher and swirl cypher, in that order every 2 letters the cypher changes.
Inko trusted her son she really did, she knew that if anything were to happen he would tell her...but still...she couldn't help but be a little worried when she heard he son yell “FINT! FINT MEANS AND!”