Chapter 2: Bean-sprout
It had only been a couple of days since Tony had awoken to find himself given a second chance at life and he had already learned quite a few interesting things about the world he currently resides in now.
For one, his full name is Izuku Midoriya, or at least Midoriya Izuku since in Japan, the country he was apparently born in, tended to use their last name then first name for greetings. Currently, he was twelve years old and living in a set of a trio 15-story apartment complex in the heart of Musutafu, Japan on the 7th floor.
And yes, the Star Wars reference was not lost on him.
Two, he had a mother named Midoriya Inko (after Tony had surreptitiously searched her purse for any identification after breakfast one morning).
She was a short plump woman with a similar shade of forest evergreen eyes with laugh lines and hair like himself that she tied up into a simple short ponytail. He had only known her for a little while, but Inko had shown nothing but kindness and supportiveness to him that had sparked an interest in wanting to learn more about this woman.
And if Tony started seeing bits and pieces of his own mother in Inko…well that was only for him to know and for her to never find out.
Three, he had an abysmal social life. No friends to call his own, except for this Katsuki guy that Inko would mention in passing every now and then.
He had a plethora of friends online, though. A cursory search on the computer he had found in the office room revealed a long list of websites frequented by Izuku.
Most involved interesting topics such as heroes and 'quirks', superpowers that evidently a majority of the population in the world have and sometimes used in their day-to-day lives.
His mother had one too it seemed, a weak telekinesis power that allowed her to draw small objects to herself with a couple of flicks of her fingers.
He had tried to do the same thing the night after he had seen her bring a cup of water to herself during dinner, even trying to say a magic word or two that had him flushing in embarrassment for how ridiculous it had sounded.
Eventually, Tony had to resign to the fact that he either was one of the unlucky ones, 'quirkless' as was the common terminology used to describe someone without a quirk, or that he did have a quirk, but it certainly wasn't telekinesis.
Four, and perhaps the most pressing thing that he had discovered in this short life he had acquired, Heroes existed evidently .
Yes, heroes as in the ones like Superman and Batman in the comic books that Tony had kept in a storage room in the attic of his cabin. Where humans of undetermined origin battled bad guys with flashy move sets and equally flashy costumes that left little to the imagination.
Heroes, or in this case, Pro Heroes, were those who could legally use their God given powers freely and without any restrictions nor repercussions. A job that just about anyone with enough determination (and money in some cases) could apply for and get paid to do with plenty of accolades and sponsorships thrown their way if they happen to reach the top 50 ranks.
The very idea made Tony sick to his stomach.
Heroism wasn't something to dish out like candy. It was a duty given to those who had the fortune and ability to help those in need without the need for payment or pretty much anything really. It was a civil service for the world, to be the first line of defense whenever some Mad Titan decided to lay waste to the planet.
With a heavy sigh, Tony made his way over to the study room, the computer already powered on and a page of an article he had been reading opened in full screen.
It was a short description of a villain attack that had happened last week, one of several that had managed to catch the radar of a couple news channels dedicated to covering anything involving heroism. Not much was known about the attack, other than the fact that it had been orchestrated by one serial killer known as Stain .
Edge Versus Strike!
Yesterday at 8:36 .p.m. in Kamino, Yokohama City, the Dumpling Hero: BunBun (current hero rank 80), was attacked in one of the crowded alleyways of Chinatown by the infamous Pro Heroes Serial Killer, Stain, during one of her routine patrol with two interns.
Stain had managed to lure BunBun to himself by a series of tricky maneuvers where he then managed to land several strikes onto the dumpling hero before the Ninja Hero: Edgeshot (current hero rank 9) swopped in from a nearby district to save his fellow comrade.
Together, the two were able to ward off Stain until authorities arrived minutes late. Unfortunately by then, the serial killer had escaped and still currently remains at large. Local hero agencies at Yokohama City are warning civilians to be mindful when venturing out late at night and will increase patrols in certain high risk areas.
A further search on the pro hero Edgeshot revealed a man dressed in a traditional ninja outfit with the uncanny ability to fold his body into extremely thin forms and lengths.
Not much was known about the man as it seemed that he lived a rather solitary life, preferring not to be in the limelight compared to his other more prestigious peers. Still, it had done little to deter Edgeshot's overall ranking in the hero system, typically seen in the top ten if not top five for a good couple of years since his shining debut.
Typing in the name, Stain, also revealed shockingly little of the supposed serial killer.
His reign of terror had begun almost over a decade ago, and his kill count has been in the double digits since last year and had left countless others suffering from permanent life-altering injuries. The victims of his choosing were all either pro heroes or sidekicks that Stain had deemed 'unworthy' by some unknown metric system only privy to himself, resulting in a world wide-nation bounty on the man and an order to capture him dead or alive.
Further searches of his victims showed that many had actually dealt with a shady past before or during their abruptly short tenure as pro heroes, dabbling in minor crimes such as fraud, money laundering, tax evasion and, in a few horrifying cases, prostitution or illicit drug usage.
Conveniently, however, each and every single crime that had been committed by these perpetrators had been oddly swept away by the Hero Public Safety Commission or the HPSC for short–though evidence for such an accusation was proven frustratingly difficult to gather.
Taking a short break, Tony leaned back into his chair, idly twirling a pen in his hand with an open blanked notebook laid out in front of him on the desk.
There were dozens of these just scattered around the apartment, it seemed that Izuku had a proclivity to jot down any ideas relating to one's quirks or ways to improve their hero costumes to better suit their needs.
At least the Izuku Midoriya of this world was a lover of inventions.
But that did beg the question though…
Should he be a hero once again?
Not to say that Tony didn't love his time as Iron Man, both the good and the bad. He had fought against some of the toughest people known to man and had come out victorious each and every single time.
Well , Tony's lips curled downwards, as his gaze flickered over to his chest, remembering the dark void of his arc reactor as he had laid dying in Pepper's arms, not the last time. The last time was a pyrrhic victory–he had defeated Thanos but at the cost of his own life.
Something binged on the screen and a short message popped into existence from the side.
Mindjack2000: You free?
Grinning, Tony typed up a short answer of, 'yes, of course,' then grabbed his headphones just in time for a Discord call to appear on screen. Clicking the acceptance button, he was greeted with a fanart of some underground pro hero only known as 'Eraserhead' dressed in a kitty costume that his online friend shamelessly used for their profile avatar.
At least they had good taste.
"Yo, yo, Mindjack," Tony said in lieu of a hello as he leaned back into his chair. "How are you?"
He had little knowledge of who this online person was, other than the fact that they typically were seen online late into the night and had a dry sense of humor that paired well with Tony's crude jokes.
It was a match made in heaven.
"Hey," Mindjack said after a moment of silence. They sounded tired as hell but that wasn't new given that it was almost two in the morning the last time Tony had checked the clock. "Day was pretty shit," his friend continued, and there was the sound of a chip bag being ripped open in the background. "You?"
Tony almost shrugged, then remembered at the very last second that his online friend wouldn't be able to see that.
"Alright," he answered, "Can't believe I only have one more free day till school starts again."
That was something Tony was dreaded to face.
School had not been the best of times for him until he moved out for college, for the Massachusetts Institute for Technology (MIT) and he could party and sleep his way around the campus without any repercussions from his overbearing father.
Having to redo elementary school all over again was going to be a complete nightmare for him.
There was a sound of a snort echoing through the mic and Mindjack replied, their usual dry voice muffled from the crunching of chips in their mouth, "You're telling me. I hate my classmates."
"Let me guess," Tony tapped the tip of his chin in mock-thought. "They just couldn't handle your amazing personality."
Another snort, this time more of a laugh based on how high-pitched it got toward the end of it.
"Sure," was Mindjack's sardonic response, "let's go with that."
They ended up chatting for the better part of the early morning, nothing in particular but they had some overlapping interests that didn't include superheroes and quirks, which Tony greatly appreciated.
He disliked how ubiquitous it was to come across such topics in the world, whether through the media or even online, Tony couldn't escape from it all.
Once the hour clock reached six did Tony finally decide to call it a night (or morning since its nearly dawn). Yawning, he bid his online friend a goodbye, promising to chat once more again when they have the time (it seemed Mindjack had a schedule that was just as sporadic as Tony's) before powering off the computer and trudging his way back into his bedroom with uneasy sluggish steps.
The comfy soft bed was a welcome reprieve from the dark thoughts swirling around inside his head like a maelstrom, threatening to overtake him like a hive of angry Asian giant hornets.
His mind flickered from one subject to another: Stain, quirks, elementary school and even something as inconsequential as what he had eaten for breakfast the other day (miso soup, white rice and a pair of fried mackerel, which were all very delicious).
Light from the morning sun filtered through the tinted small window of his bedroom, bathing part of his bed in a golden rosy hue. His gaze drifted down onto his right arm, where only a couple of days ago it had been a smoldering hot mess of ruined metal and flesh. Where he had carried the Infinity Stones and all their magnificence glory within the palm of this very same hand.
And where he had ended Thanos's life and countless more of his minions with a simple snap of his fingers.
Tony shifted his gaze elsewhere.
Heroes in this world were not allowed to kill (barring a few particular cases and even then, it was only used as a last resort and the hero that had taken the shot was villainized for their efforts).
They are the judge and jury, but never the executioner.
These so-called, 'villains', that the media happened to portray anyone using their powers for nefarious purposes or by accident, were often ruthlessly captured and then sent to a correctional facility, or federal prison where they spent a lengthy sentence depending on the severity of their crimes.
Little had been done to allow repeat offenders a chance of rehabilitation.
With a heavy groan, Tony closed his eyes.
Tomorrow (or in this case since it's already six in the morning–later today), he would come up with some sort of game plan on whether or not he should even consider becoming a hero again.
Vigilante was an option–though considered illegal in Japan compared to their First World counterparts.
Then there was the matter of money; he knew right away based on the sort of apartment complex that he resided in, with the graffiti marks everywhere, run down stores and windows bared with heavy reinforced steel bars, that it was in a low-income neighborhood. That meant money would be tight, and he wouldn't have access to his generous billionaire status wealth that he had abused carelessly in his previous life.
In layman terms, he would have to, essentially, start from the bottom to the top.
Well, Tony yawned into his pillow, I'll figure it out eventually.
Not like he didn't mind a good challenge anyway.
Someone was nudging a finger at his cheek.
Grumbling, Tony swatted at the annoying appendage, hoping that it would stop whoever it was who had decided to come and bother him in the first place. Unfortunately for him, the person was as persistent as an enraged honeybee denied its precious pollen and kept prodding at him relentlessly, wearing out Tony's patience to a fine thin point.
"Can you stop?" he ended up eventually snapping, causing the finger to pause mid-poke. "Can't you see I'm trying to sleep here?"
Seriously! The audacity of some people!
A smart person would have kept their mouths shut, but this person wasn't a genius apparently.
"Hey!" a childish boyish voice called out into his ear, "I want to speak to you, Mr. Stark!"
Tony's eyes shot open immediately, and he found to his great surprise that he was no longer in his bedroom resting on his comfortable mattress.
Instead, he was on a beach, the waves colored a clear aquamarine blue with tiny silver fish dotting the surface of the water as it crashed onto a sandy yellow beach. The sky above was a dark shade of violet, twilight setting in just beyond the horizon and painting the skyline with an array of lukewarm pastel colors.
And sitting beside Tony with a bright wide smile on his face was– Izuku Midoriya.
Seeing the boy he had become up close and personal sent a strange feeling stirring inside Tony's chest, like looking through a funhouse mirror the boy was significantly younger than he currently was at the moment since being woken up, at the very least four years old and sporting a t-shirt and shorts with the same color scheme of New Age All Might's costume.
The boy tilted his head, impossibly large forest evergreen eyes glimmering with a sparkle of excitement as multi-colored stars swirled deep within its depths.
"Oh wow!" the boy said in a high-pitched voice that spoke of awed at the person he was staring at. "You look so much cooler up close."
"Well...I better," Tony found himself saying automatically back in response.
Almost self-consciously, Tony raised a hand onto his face, feeling the familiar cracked skin and facial hair of himself in his previous life. Somehow, without his knowledge, he had been reverted back to the day he had fought Thanos, but without the charred armor mess of his right arm and the arc reactor that was strapped onto his chest glowed with a healthy bluish sheen.
For a long moment, neither one said another word.
Izuku seemed content on staring up at him in wonder while Tony marveled at the feeling of being back into his old body like jumping into one of the MARK series suits and cruising around LA with Red Hot Chili Pepper blaring through the speakers of his helmet.
"So," Tony eventually broke the silence that had fallen between them, "you're…"
The boy's smile grew even wider.
"Midoriya Izuku," he confirmed Tony's suspicion. A short pause as Izuku seemed unable to formulate a coherent sentence without squealing his little heart out. "And you're Tony Stark. The Iron Man, right in the flesh!"
Chuckling, Tony flashed a pose.
"The one and only."
The little green-haired kid reminded him dearly of Peter, nothing but a big old ball of energy and rushed questions that would put most people into a concussion based on the amount of word vomit they could spew out within a minute.
"Tell me then, Bean-sprout," Tony's newly christened nickname for the boy that had him squealing again in delight, "where are we?"
"Oh."
Izuku took a look around as well as if now just realizing it himself that they were currently sitting on a beach. The stars within his eyes seemed to swirl intensely for a brief moment.
"I don't know, Mr. Stark," the boy admitted, sheepishly glancing back at him. "But it looks like we're in some sort of space that is bordered between our reality and dreams."
Izuku then rubbed several of his fingers over his chin, muttering more in a low voice that Tony couldn't catch in the slightest no matter how hard he tried to strain his ears.
Blinking, he took that minute to comprehend what the boy had said as Izuku continued muttering to himself.
A space between dreams and reality sounded oddly specific and fantastical. A bit like the mental visions Wanda had given to him during their first encounter in Johannesburg, South Africa.
"Mr. Stark?"
Tony glanced down to find that Izuku had finished his mumbling and was now peering up at him with evergreen eyes wide in concern, the stars within a kaleidoscope of bright flashes of light.
His heart twanged a bit at, 'Mr. Stark.'
Peter used to call him that.
"Is everything alright?" Izuku finally asked, wringing the bottom of his shirt in a nervous manner. "Did I do something… wrong ?" implying that it was a common occurrence based on the cautious tone of his voice and made another twang in Tony's heart again, because there was no reason for the kid to ever consider thinking something like that about himself.
But Tony remembered the man with the smoking sneering mouth.
"No, Bean-sprout," Tony sighed out, shifting his body to get more comfortable on the sandy yellow beach. Tiny rocks and broken seashells dig into the back of his legs. Anakin Skywalker was right to not like sand–it's coarse, rough and irritating on the skin.
He gestured for Izuku to come closer, and the boy did after a brief moment of hesitation, eyes flickering down to Tony's spread arms and up back to his face, the stars dimming in hue.
Once Izuku nestled his head against the solid mass of muscles that was Tony's chest, did Tony speak up once more again, elaborating a bit on his curt answer.
"You did nothing wrong, kid," he reassured the young boy, "It's just not everyday you wake up in someone else's body."
He still wasn't used to the sensation of being alive again. And in a drastically younger age too.
Izuku hummed into the fabric of his shirt but remained surprisingly silent.
His body was so small, Tony could easily sling him over his shoulder with one arm alone, but that made it all the more reason for Tony to be gentle with his words, lest he scared him. Morgan was in a similar predicament, she hadn't always been the zesty, courageous girl that demanded things from her parents–she used to be quite shy and meek till Tony and Pepper were able to manage to bring their daughter out of her shell bit by bit.
The thought of his daughter brought a small smile onto Tony's face.
"Wanna hear a funny story?" he ended up asking.
Izuku stilled for a moment, then lifted his head so fast that he nearly clipped Tony's jaw with his head.
"Of course, Mr. Stark!"
The stars were brighter than ever in the boy's eyes as he clenched his tiny chubby hands together in anticipation.
Letting out a short chuckle, Tony held onto the bouncing bundle of joy in his arms as he told a story of how Morgan would frequent his workshop/laboratory to be close with her father and to also try her hands on building robots just like him. He had eventually given in to her puppy dog eyes and allowed her to use a blowtorch (with proper safety equipment on, of course) for the first time in her life.
To say that Pepper had been pissed when she found out a day later would be the understatement of the century.
All the while Izuku listened raptly with a big toothy smile stretched across his cheeks, laughing a full belly laugh as Tony added a little extra silly facial expression for some of the more hilarious moments.
By the time night had fallen with the sky now a deep simmer of midnight blue with a smattering of tiny stars dotted across the skyline, Tony had long since finished speaking about his wacky adventures with his daughter and was now discussing with Izuku to learn more about the world that he currently lives in.
"So, people really get all hot and bothered for these heroes, uh?" Tony said as he uncrossed his legs. The gentle waves nibbled the tips of his feet, and the salty scent of sulfur filled his nostrils.
Izuku nodded his head enthusiastically.
"Yep! Pro Heroes are the backbone of our society and without them we would be pretty much stuck in the Dark Age."
The 'Dark Age' was what was referred to by historians as the time period between the emergence of quirks and humanity's response to said emergence.
It was not a good decade to be alive based on the number of all out wars, fights, and general chaos that had occurred in numerous parts of the world. Even now, some countries like North Korea, a good chunk of Africa and South America and the Middle East were all still suffering from the long-term effects of that particular gap in history.
It was scary reading all about it on Wikipedia.
"And people such as that All Might guy is the pinnacle of hero society if I'm, correct?"
All Might, the grinning broad man who adorned every spare inch of Tony's bedroom. The face that Tony had to look at every morning when he opened up his eyes and the last thing he would see when he closed his eyes for bed.
A man who had irrevocably changed the course of history forever. A man with powers so great that they say very few could even dare hope to dethrone his number one status in not only Japan but almost the entire world.
With the body of an Adonis and an extra buffed up Captain America with the combined strength of both the Hulk and Thor by a magnitude of a hundred, All Might was certainly a force to be reckoned with.
And someone Tony might have to potentially avoid at all costs.
The stars within Izuku's eyes radiated a pleasant green glow, the boy jumping up and down on his feet.
" Yes! All Might is amazing! He can do everything all by himself with just his quirk alone. That's why he's called the Symbol of Peace in Japan."
With an over dramatical punch to the air with his tiny fist, Izuku shouted out one of the man's most famous catchphrases.
"Have no fear, for…I am here!"
Tony shook his head at the adorable sight, lips tilted a crooked angle in amusement from how ridiculous Bean-sprout looked.
In a way, if the Capsicle was to somehow be reincarnated into this world, Tony had a very strong feeling Steve Rogers would get along with this All Might fellow like gasoline poured onto a campfire.
"Speaking of which," realizing something of great importance, "do we have one of those too? A quirk?"
Remembering how Inko was able to seamlessly lift small objects into the palm of her hand, Tony was quite curious to see if they had something similar in powers. It wasn't anything spectacular, but he could already envision a couple of applications he could utilize the telekinesis quirk with his armors if he ever decided to make them again.
The glow within Izuku's eyes dimmed abruptly, and the young boy dropped his arm listlessly back to his side.
"Oh…"
His gaze had averted elsewhere, not allowing Tony a chance to catch the absolute sheer terror that had crossed his face.
The wind started to pick up, sending specks of yellow sand into Tony's eyes.
"I…"
Izuku started to speak only to then stop himself shortly, a big frown appearing over his lips. He hung his head down. A sign of defeat and a stark difference to the bright jubilant self that the young boy had emulated throughout their entire conversation.
"Bean-sprout ?"
"I don't have one, Mr. Stark."
Izuku's voice was a broken terrible thing, sounding like he had just admitted a sinfully dark secret to an apathetic pastor.
"I'm quirkless."
Tony's eyes grew wide in shock.
Quirkless.
The remaining 30% of a dying race that was slowly becoming all but relevant in today's quirk heavy focused society. Variation of treatments to those unfortunate enough to not be blessed with such powers were either put into two camps: disdain or pity.
He hadn't done too much research into it (bearing in mind that said information on such a sensitive topic was extremely lacking in searchable concrete data), but what Tony did end up finding painted the life of an average quirkless person as something alarmingly close to a second-class citizen.
Tony swallowed down any additional questions he had for the boy with an audible gulp, such as how Izuku knew that he was quirkless and whether or not there were any confirming data such as a test result or x-ray that he could look at to determine its validity, and instead quickly scooped Izuku back into his arms.
One of the many things Morgan had loved to tell him numerous times was that he gave the best kinds of hugs, so Tony made sure to channel all of his fatherly energy into his embrace. He heard the young boy let out a soft wet hiccup as Izuku buried his small head onto the curvature of Tony's shoulder.
They stayed like this for a long, long time until the sun rose up and Tony awoke to find himself transported back into his bedroom with the afternoon sunlight currently shining through his windows.
Staring up at the ceiling (where another one of All Might's posters was plastered above to beam his shiny white teeth unhelpfully down at him) Tony let out a punctuated weary sigh.
This sucked.
Quirkless , the word ran through Tony's head in a circle, overtaking every other thought in his head. I have no special superpower of my own it seems.
Normally, he wouldn't care–he had fought plenty of dangerous foes with little more than his brain and a box of scraps and metal.
But…
Tony shifted his gaze elsewhere.
The way Bean-sprout had looked utterly devastated at his quirkless status had led Tony to believe that the young boy would have preferred a much different outcome in his life. Being quirkless should not have been considered a death sentence in this world and yet the invisible noose that looped around Izuku's neck was all but a premonition of his inevitable lackluster future.
Clenching his teeth, Tony made up his mind.
He had been a hero once before, long before such powers such as quirks had ever existed, long before this world had ever dared to think that heroes and villains would become a part of their everyday lives.
Don't worry, Bean-sprout.
Tony started to close his eyes again, ready to let himself drift back into what he prayed would be a peaceful restful slumber.
I'm here.