Chapter Text
Izuku Midoriya ran along the sidewalk, narrowly dodging person after person.
“‘Scuse me, sorry, really sorry!” he kept saying as he dodged people, trying desperately not to knock anyone over. This was how it always went. He always seemed to be running to where he needed to be. Where he needed to be about fifteen minutes ago. Soon, he finally made it to his destination, a warehouse on the edge of Mustafa. He barged in and saw his two favorite people conversing. The first was his best friend, Mei Hatsume. He and Mei had met and bonded because of their love of science. Science was Izuku’s second passion. His first was heroism, but they worried about him, so he kept that on the down-low. The other person was his childhood and current crush, Nejire Hado. She was going into her first year of UA at the beginning of April. She was two years older than them, but she seemed to hang out with the two nerds more than anyone else, mainly because they could answer her rapid-fire questions every time.
The duo looked at Izuku, who was still panting from his run over. Mei adopted a deadpan expression.
“Well, Look who’s here. You’d think with all the running you do, you’d be on time more.” She said before grabbing a few things off of her desk. Nejire smiled at him. The sun shining through the sunroof made her look angelic to Izuku.
“Yeah, sorry, my mom was being…well, my mom. Also-”
“Yeah, yeah, we get it, you don’t value us as much as you say you do,” Mei said with a dramatic voice.
“Don’t even joke about that. You know you guys are my lifeline.” Mei smirked as he realized what he had said, as well as his obliviousness to Nejire’s blush. Mei had next to no knowledge of people skills, having what was formerly known as Aspergers, but even she could see how in love these two were. While Izuku wouldn’t deny it aside from when in front of Nejire, Nejire herself always denied it, poorly but vehemently.
“I-I mean you guys a-are very important to me, y-you have been for years and I-”
“Izuku, don’t we have somewhere to be?” Mei asked, picking up her things and beginning to hyperfocus on the event of the night. The trio had tickets to David Shield’s Particle Accelerator Activation.
David Shield was one of the few people still working on advancing science post-Quirks. He was making great strides, especially in the previous few years, and it all led up to the particle accelerator.
“The Particle Accelerator, the first one to be activated since the Quirk Wars, is going to bring green power to Mustafa and the surrounding cities, even all the way to Tokyo! It will also help with medical research and scientific advancement, so it’s basically a miracle machine.”
“We know, Izuku, you’ve been telling us about this for weeks,” Mei responded.
“Come on, Mei, he’s been waiting for this for years,” Nejire defended. “Plus you’re vibrating more than I do when my quirk is acting up,” She said to her, smugly. Nejire’s quirk was based on her energy, so she was naturally energetic when she hadn’t used it for a while.
The trio walked through the crowd, trying to get a good look at the presentation. They failed, even when Nejire attempted to use her quirk to jump a bit higher. She instantly fell after going a bit too high.
“Ah!” She squeaked as she fell, but she squeaked again when she was caught by Izuku. The two separated quickly, and Mei had to keep from snickering. Suddenly, as Nejire separated from Izuku, she bumped into someone, and he ran. She quickly realized that her wallet was gone from her sweatshirt. “My wallet!” Izuku noticed she was out of energy because of her jump, and Mei wasn’t very fast. Izuku knew what he had to do and he took off after the thief.
“Izuku!” Nejire yelled. “Mei, you stay here, I’m gonna go after him!” She said before doing so.
“Don’t have to tell me twice…” Mei said, sighing before David Shield began to address the crowd.
“Hey!” Izuku yelled at the thief. All the running he did had made him a bit faster than he used to be, and apparently, fast enough to keep pace with the thief, but not enough to catch up. Suddenly, Nejire appeared before the two, on the other side of a fence which made a dead-end for the guy and Izuku. “Come on man, just give it back,” Izuku said.
The thief eventually took out the wallet and handed it out. Izuku went to take it, until the man’s hand extended a bit and punched him. Izuku was knocked back a bit and it was enough to give the man a chance to run off. The man was gone before he was able to recover.
“Damn!” He saw Nejire’s disappointed look. “I’m sorry, Nejire.”
“I’m sorry I caused you to miss the event,” she said, seemingly kicking herself.
“Wasn’t your fault. I thought your wallet was more important, I still do.” Izuku smiled, despite his throbbing, and probably black, eye.
“You’re sweet, Izu.” He blushed at the nickname, as he always did. “You want me to come hang out at your place and see the event on TV?” Nejire asked. Izuku shook his head.
“No, I know you’re not that interested. I’m going back to the lab, for now, to work on some stuff. I have a TV there.”
“Are you sure? Well, I’ll see you tomorrow!” She said with fake enthusiasm. She was clearly still feeling guilty.
“Nejire, I’m fine.” Nejire nodded before walking off. When he was sure she was out of hearing distance, he sighed. He was a little sad about the event, but he couldn’t see anything anyway. He began walking back to the lab, which was rather close to where he ended up.
Nejire was walking away when she heard her crush sigh. She felt guilty before, but she kept feeling it more and more. She decided she would go to the lab as well. The only problem was that she had no idea where she was.
Izuku pushed open the door to the warehouse lab and emptied his pockets onto his desk. He still had his wallet. He knew this shouldn’t make him feel bad, but some irrational voice in the back of his head told him he should have been stolen from instead. He turned on the TV to distract himself and went back to his work. He was an amateur chemist, whereas Mei was an inventor. They shared a lab thanks to their friendship, but it was quite literally split down the middle.
Izuku looked up once more to the sunroof. They had installed that at Nejire’s request because the two were in the lab so much that they both had almost completely white skin. It had gotten better. Izuku had unfortunately tuned out the event while he simply sat at the desk, zoning out. He was jolted out of his stupor by a loud crack of thunder. He looked outside to see that it was pouring rain. He brushed it off before looking at the TV to see chaos. The particle accelerator had malfunctioned and David Shield’s staff ran around trying to fix things. He got up to see it clearer, but, abruptly, everything went white.
Nejire finally found Izuku and Mei’s warehouse, which confirmed her fears, as it was where the shattering glass came from. She opened the door.
“Izuku, are you alright- Oh god!” she screamed as she saw him covered in chemicals and out cold. Plus, he was lightly smoking. She rushed over to him and called for an ambulance.
Izuku opened his eyes after being awake but groggy for a few seconds. He groaned and sat up, taking in the environment he was in. It seemed to be a laboratory, a high-tech one. A gasp from a doorway broke him from taking things in. A blonde girl in a lab coat was staring at him.
“You’re awake!” She looked shocked at that fact. That wasn’t a good sign. “Mei, get the doctor!”
‘Mei?’ Izuku thought before his inevitable question was answered. His favorite pink-haired inventor pushed the blonde out of the way.
“You go get the doctor! He’s your dad, and this is my best friend!” Mei rushed over to Izuku and practically caught him in a vice grip. The blonde walked off and Izuku tried to break free from the bear hug, doing so rather easily. He remembered quite well that Mei was much stronger than him. She seemed just as surprised. He then realized, while looking down at her, which was also new, that he was without a shirt. He also realized something else as he looked down.
“Why do I have abs?” Mei guided him back to the bed.
“It’s a long story, just sit down, Doctor Shield should be here soon.”
“Doctor Shield?! As in David Shield?!” Izuku began to fanboy.
“The very same.” Said the famous scientist, rolling into the room in an electric wheelchair.
“Whoa…” Izuku said, not knowing what else to say. “What happened?”
“Your friend here says you’ve followed my work, is that right?” Izuku nodded. “Well, to make a long story short, the particle accelerator failed.” Izuku looked shocked. “Yeah. It caused a number of things to happen, but the one we know most about is your case.”
“My case?” Izuku asked, confused.
“Izuku, you were struck by lightning that night,” Mei said, sadly. Izuku’s eyes widened, and, seeing the serious faces on all three of their faces, he knew it wasn’t a joke. “You were at the lab, and lightning made by the particle accelerator came through the sunroof. It hit you and you bumped into a bunch of the chemicals you were working with.” Izuku’s jaw was hanging open. “Nejire found you and you were taken to a hospital.” After a while, Izuku gained his voice back.
“So why am I here? Not that it's not a dream come true to be in your lab, Doctor Shield, but shouldn’t I be in a hospital?”
“The story wasn’t done.” The blonde said. “You kept flatlining while you were in the hospital. We were there trying to help people who had been affected when we heard about you. We were able to tell that your heart wasn’t stopping, but going so fast that it couldn’t be detected by the EKG.”
“We took you back here, where we were able to stabilize you. Your mother decided to let us keep you here, as we couldn’t be sure the same thing wouldn’t happen again.” Izuku was getting a headache from all of the new information.
“S-so, how long was I out? Days? Weeks? Did I miss helping Nejire move into UA?”
“I’ll say,” Mei said. “You were out for seven months.” Izuku covered his face with his hands.
“Oh god…What is my life? Yesterday, for me at least, you guys were consoling me for being quirkless again, and that there was nothing interes-”
“Quirkless?” the blonde asked in shock.
“Um, yeah?” Izuku had assumed these people were doctors. Why wouldn’t they know he was quirkless?
“That’s what his file says. I’m assuming the lightning gave him his...abilities.” Shield said, cryptically.
“Wait, what abilities? Does it have to do with why I have abs now?”
“Well, yes, actually.” The blonde girl pulled up something on a tablet, one more advanced than he had ever seen. “You seem to have an incredibly increased metabolism. We still need to run some tests with what you can do because we’re not convinced that that’s the extent of it.” Izuku suddenly gained a small, treacherous bit of hope. Maybe this was his chance.
“Guys, do you mind if I call up Nejire and Inko?”
“No problem, Hatsume, we’ll just start the tests while you’re gone.” The mystery girl said. “Come on, Midoriya. We need to head to the other lab.” Mei had already left to call the two, so Izuku did as he was told, following the girl and the doctor wherever they were going.
“Why are we in some sort of gym?” Izuku asked as he came out of the changing room in a bizarre getup. “Should I really be doing this without eating? I seriously need to eat.” The girl threw something at him, and for a second, he saw it slow in midair. It still hit him in the face, so he had to pick it up.
“Have a power bar.”
“So why do you assume extreme metabolism isn't the only thing I have?” The two scientists were silent for a moment.
“Well, you weren’t the only one affected by the particle accelerator.” She breathed before continuing. “Several quirkless individuals have gone crazy after gaining what looked to be a quirk.”
“So you’re worried I may go crazy like them.” He stated, rather than asking.
“Kind of.” The girl said, nonchalantly. As Mei came in, Doctor shield spoke up.
“We’re just being cautious. Even the ones affected who had quirks went crazy, and we only know of one who didn’t and he hates us.”
“So let’s get started with the tests. We should be able to knock out a few before your friend and mother get here.” So the tests began, and Izuku showed slight signs of strength, but that was probably because of increased muscle mass. When they got to the reflex tests, he saw things slowing, like before, every now and then. The final one they were going to do for the moment, as Inko and Nejire had arrived, was speed.
Izuku was becoming disappointed. Nothing seemed to be happening. If all he got was some muscles and an extra-large appetite…he didn’t know where he was going with that thought, but it wasn’t good. The treadmill was booted up and he began to run. They upped the speed and he kept pace rather easily. Usually, he’d be gasping for air by now. However, they kept upping the speed and he kept pace again and again. He didn’t notice his mother and Nejire enter, he didn’t notice the shocked faces on everyone, and he didn’t notice the display beside him showing the speed he was running. He just decided to keep running until he was a little too slow when he finally noticed the display next to him. The unbelievable reading he saw tripped him up, and he was launched backward by the treadmill into several layers of soft foam.
“Izuku!” Everyone shouted, sans Doctor Shield. Izuku, however, was mostly uninjured, aside from a possibly broken ankle. He didn't even notice it. He saw the screen before, and it read 640km/h.
“Holy crap…I'm fast,” he said with a goofy grin.