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English
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Published:
2025-10-08
Updated:
2025-10-09
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1,237
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2/?
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Mechanically Gifted

Chapter 1: A new Start

Summary:

After the sludge villain incident Izuku finds himself depressed and looking for a new purpose.

Notes:

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia, the original rights of My Hero Academia belong to Kohei Horikoshi, the following is a not for profit work of fanfiction.

Not many tags right now, sorry for the short chapter.

Chapter Text

It seemed that no matter how much Izuku tossed and turned he just couldn't get the events of the day out of his head, the sludge villain attack... trying to save Kachan, getting saved by All Might, the heroes chewing him out for running in to help his friend despite not doing anything to help Kachan themselves. As if that wasn't bad enough there was also the words playing on repeat in his head since he heard them almost 8 hours ago.

"No I honestly don't think you can become a hero without a quirk" The way he had just walked off as if what he was saying was no big deal, as if he hadn't just crushed Izuku's dreams, he had hoped All Might would be different.

But as Izuku laid in his bed hollow eyes staring up at the poster of the smiling man on his ceiling all he could picture was the husk of a man telling him that he could never be a hero... weren't heroes supposed to lift people up? tell them that no matter how impossible dreams may seem it was important to strive for them? how come no heroes ever told him that, they always praised Kachan why not him?... he'd spent his entire lives looking up to them and analyzing them, so he could be like them one day... but all he ever got back in return was...

Izuku rubbed his tired eyes, too exhausted to cry. "There's no point" he muttered to himself, he wasn't gonna be able to sleep tonight no matter how tired he felt. Izuku unraveled himself from his mess of blankets and made his way over to his computer to look for something to do while absentmindedly scratching old scars under his sleeves, they always got itchy when he was in one of his "moods." 

Izuku sat at his desk absentmindedly scrolling through his feed while trying to push the events of the day to the back of his mind. Izuku's fingers suddenly paused on his track pad when something interesting caught his eye. it was an older article written by a 'David Shield' that name was oddly familiar to Izuku, he would need to check that out later. He paused for a second and decided to click on the link, what harm could it do to check it out.

He quickly turned down the brightness shielding his sensitive eyes groaning as he read the title of the website "Everything you Need to Know to Start Engineering" he mumbled as he stared at his screen for a bit chewing on the inside of his cheek roughly, lifting his sleeves to scratch his forearm mindlessly as his eyes tiredly looked over the screen as if deep in thought he'd considered it before of course, support work, but it just never had the same appeal as hero work. 

He remembered All Mights words... and then Bakugo's... they were right, his screen dimmed, he couldn't be a hero without a quirk, he would never develop a quirk and there was nothing he could do about that. Izuku sighed lowering his sleeve. He clicked on his track pad and the screen lit back up as he anxiously began reading through the article, there wasn't really much choice anymore All Might had said it himself... it might have been a bit late to start especially if the goal was to get into U.A. in ten months but he could check out the article at the very least.

Chapter 2: Insomniac

Summary:

Izuku delves more into what's required for the support course.

Notes:

TW: very minor implied self harm, like barely there but I thought I should mention it, and maybe the worst trigger warning of all: bad punctuation 😔 but english class was never my thing so you get what you get and y'know when in doubt use a comma.

Another short chapter and literally posted like a day after but I couldn't rest until I got this one out, I hope this doesn't become a recurring thing with the entire time I'm working on this. Anywho I appreciate anyone that's made it this far, enjoy.

Chapter Text

Izuku tiredly rubbed the sleep out of his dry eyes, that article hadn't been quite what he had been expecting, he just didn't realize that engineering would be so... heavy?

"Math heavy..." Izuku mumbled dryly remembering what the article had stated may be helpful to learn to be more successful in the field. "Let's see it was... a deep understanding of calculus and physics... makes sense as they tend to go hand in hand, uhm" he rubbed his eyes harder "There was... mechanical" he closed his eyes "electrical, aerospace, biological, biomedical, chemical..." he brought a finger to his mouth as he began chewing on his nail "Those last three don't seem super important for me to learn especially for support gear" he hums. "I should still make it a point to level up my chemistry skills... that'll teach: electrochemistry, thermodynamics, calorimetry... plus maybe a gaseous kind of weapon could be useful in certain situations.." he muttered to himself absentmindedly as his eyes closed in thought.

"Okay so that'll be a... hefty trip to the library, intro to advanced mathematics and physics as well as some chemistry books before I even get started on building anything."

Izuku huffed running a hand through the tangled hive of his green hair as he did a few internal calculations. "I mean even if I picked it all up quickly that would take at least..." he groaned sucking his teeth. "Maybe... five months? especially if I really want a deep understanding... three if I'm a quick study" Izuku's foot bounces up and down, his breathe quickens. "That would leave at best seven months to learn, circuits, mechanics... welding" Izuku's breathe hitches as self doubt starts to creep in.

"How does U.A. expect middle school students to be able to get all of this done by the start of high-school... m-maybe I'm in over my head, I-I can't get all this done in ten months" he could feel his forearms starting to burn as he gripped his left one tightly. Izuku took a few deep shaky breathes trying to calm himself down, he closes his eyes tightly, gripping his arm tighter. "Calm down Izuku.. calm down" he mutters to himself.

"I-I don't need to be an expert.. j-just need to know enough to get me past the exams." He quickly wipes the tears from his eyes sighing as the pain starts to fade "I just need a basic understanding for now, I-I'm sure they'll... i-if I get in." He quickly reminds himself "I'm sure they'll have teachers, or heroes I guess teaching us more advanced engineering techniques... just gotta get the basics down." 

When the panic faded and Izuku composed himself he got hit with a wave of excitement, an awkward laugh bubbling up past his throat. Sure it wasn't hero work but this could be fun, something new that he could let himself be dragged into. Izuku cleared his throat quickly searching for one of his empty notebooks and opening it up placing it down on his desk. "Okay so... algebra" Izuku mutters while typing into his search bar finding a well rated book, he needed to know what to look for while at the library of course. He jotted down the name and cleared the search. "Precalculus... calculus... basic physics..." he jotted down book after book—maybe even two or three per topic—he needed all the information he could get if he was gonna be starting from scratch.

 

 

 

Izuku finished writing down the last book title and jolted at the sound of an alarm going off. "H-huh?" startled he quickly turned to the clock near his bed that read '6:30 AM' he blinked a few times, was it already time for school? how long had he been up? He sighed standing up and yelping as he stumbled towards his clock.

 

"I really need to stop doing that, I'm gonna get eye bags."