Chapter Text
Midoriya Izuku had always been odd.
From his incessant muttering to his quiet genius, to his wild curls and permanently stilted and stutter-y speech patterns, each facet of his personality seemed slightly off. Not to mention the fact that he was the only Quirkless child in his neighbourhood, and one of only two in his whole school.
But that was nothing compared to how weird his life would get after one fateful incident on the 12th of August, three weeks before he was due to start his first year in UA’s General Ed department.
Once, Midoriya had dreamed of becoming a great hero, just like All Might. But those dreams were crushed months ago, on a rooftop by his idol himself. After that, Midoriya gave up on his dreams. He walked away from the villain fight he later learned his classmate and long-time bully Bakugou Katsuki had been caught up in, and re-evaluated his life.
If he couldn’t be a hero, what would he do with his life? What would he use the thirteen volumes worth of hero notes for?
The answer didn’t come for months. Not until the 12th of August.
“Welcome to Nebula Labs! How can I help you today?”
Izuku started at the voice ringing out as he stepped through the entrance to the building.
“Um, my name’s Midoriya Izuku.” Izuku managed to squeak out “I was.. uh.. going to do one of the tours today?” The receptionist smiled and gestured to an area marked with a red sign.
“Ah, right this way. The next tour will commence in just a few minutes.”
“Thank you.”
Izuku walked over to the marked area, thinking about the tour. He had decided to visit Nebula Labs out of curiosity, and he had always been good at chemistry and biology, Nebula Labs’ specialties. The tour commenced not long after Izuku started waiting. They mostly went through the more public areas, seeing things Izuku already knew. Feeling bored, Izuku decided to have a little wander.
When the tour group stopped and separated out to look at a display, Izuku took his chance and snuck away. They were in the public areas of the labs, so security was pretty low and Izuku was able to wander fairly freely. Eventually, Izuku found a door marked
AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY - PROJECT ARANEA.
‘Well, that’s just begging for me to peek in, isn’t it.’ Izuku thought. Double checking no-one was around, Izuku quickly ran his eyes over the door, and saw no alarm mechanisms. After another glance around, Izuku slipped inside and was immediately confused by what he saw.
The room was a clean white, with a few workbenches in the corners with tools strewn on them. Whoever worked in here must not have been too concerned with organisation. What really baffled Izuku was the machine in the corner. There was a small glass tank on the top, with a tube from it leading down into what looked like a bizarre wool spinner, although it certainly wasn’t spinning wool. It almost looked like.. spider silk? Izuku knew that spider silk was renowned for its strength, but what was Nebula Labs doing spinning it?
Taking another step forwards, he saw that the tank wasn’t empty. Inside was a small, pale spider, apparently wedged into the end of the tube. Remembering his anatomy books, Izuku paled at the realization that the spider’s spinnerets were being relentlessly exploited for their silk. Izuku had always been against animal cruelty, and was filled with quiet rage at the sight of an animal being tortured. Glancing around, he spotted a small hammer he could use to break the glass and free the spider. Quickly grabbing the hammer, Izuku prayed that the walls were soundproofed and brought the hammer down onto the glass. Luckily, the glass somehow cracked quietly, and a few quiet taps were enough to bring it down. The spider had begun moving, trying to jerk its abdomen out of the mechanism it was hooked to. That confused Izuku, as spiders weren’t known to be especially intelligent, but this one seemed to be cognizant of the fact it was being rescued.
Eventually, the spider managed to wiggle its way free, and quickly crawled over to its rescuer. Izuku didn’t recoil - he liked spiders since he was a kid, and surely there must be something special about this one for it to be hooked up like this. He did jerk slightly when the spider jumped onto his hand, but figured it wasn’t an awful way to try and conceal it. Tugging his sleeve down, Izuku quickly ducked out of the strange room and rejoined the tour group, but not without snapping a photo of the strange spinner/harvester.
He was so distracted by his covert escape that he didn’t even notice when the spider bit into his hand, then quickly pulled in its legs and died.
After dashing out of Nebula Labs’ entrance, Izuku felt his hand itch and raised to scratch it. What he didn’t expect was to see the spider’s corpse still attached to his hand, and its fangs still buried in his skin. He yelped and quickly dug out the spider, exposing the red welt it had left. Izuku prayed it hadn’t been a venomous species, before making his way to the train station to head home.
“Mom,” Izuku called out as he closed the apartment door behind him, “I’m home!’
“Welcome home, honey. How was the tour?” Izuku heard his mother say from the kitchen.
“Good! There was some interesting stuff. Did you know Nebula Labs was working on new quirk-based forensic equipment? It’s really cool!”
Izuku stepped into their small kitchen, where Inko already had dinner prepared and cooking.
“It’ll be ready to eat in about half an hour. Why don’t you fill me in on more details of the tour?”
Izuku and Inko spent the evening discussing various topics, such as the tour and the projects NL was working on. Although Inko didn’t understand half the words that came out of her son’s mouth, she didn’t mind. She was just happy to see him so enthused after what had been a tough school year for him.
Eventually, the two retired to bed, though not without Izuku feeling slightly feverish. He didn’t think much of it, and expected just another normal day when he woke up the next morning.
Of course, that wasn’t going to happen.