Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“The Grid… a digital frontier. I had always dreamt of a world I thought I’d never see. But then, one day-“

“You got in!” A little voice cut in with excitement.

The older man chuckled with a smile as he looked down at Izuku’s big green eyes that were staring at him in wonder. “That’s right, I got in. And it was more beautiful than I could have ever imagined.” He explained as he corralled Izuku into bed for the night.

Hisashi Midoriya had just come home from a full day of the work that came with trying to start a business bigger than just the arcade he ran. Him and Toshinori had been dreaming of the idea for years and they were finally launching ENCOM. The public seemed just as excited about it as he was, but if his hair wasn’t already white he was sure it would have been by now with all the stress that he had been dealing with.

”Now,” Hisashi continued, sitting on the edge of Izuku’s bed and refocusing on him, “while in the Grid I met a brave warrior.”

”First!” Izuku chimed in.

”You guessed it, First. The program who fights for the Users.” He said with a smile and exaggerated display of his hands. It was a wonder that Izuku still liked to hear this story when it had already been told to him countless times before. “He showed me the wonders of the grid that I had never even imagined. Disk battles in arenas and cycles that raced on spectacular ribbons of light.”

”And together you built the grid!” Izuku exclaimed once again, smiling with awe up at his dad. He was way too excited for a kid that was supposed to be going to bed.

”Together we built a new grid” Hisashi corrected, ruffling his son’s hair and making him giggle. “This one for both programs and users. I couldn’t always stay in there though, so I created a program in my own image who could think for himself, just like you and me. And I called him All for One, so that one day he could help me take all that the grid had to offer and use it to help our world, making them harmonious and one with each other.”

”And of course, your Uncle Toshinori helped too. I wouldn’t be where I am right now if it wasn’t for Yagi helping me, alongside First and All for One. Together all four of us created a system where all information was free and open.”

Usually this is where Hisashi would end his stories but Izuku was looking up at him with so much awe and excitement, it couldn’t hurt to tell him just a bit more. “Then one day something incredible happened; a miracle-”

The tale was cut short by Inko calling in from the kitchen “Honey, Yagi’s here.”

Oh well. Next time he would pick up where he left off and tell him the rest.

”I’ll be right there.” Hisashi called as he stood up from his son’s bed and got ready to greet his old friend.

A small hand grabbed his own before he got too far though, “What was it!” Izuku asked.

“That’ll have to wait till next time, Izuku.” With one last ruffle to his fluffy green hair Hisashi got up and headed for the door.

“I wanna go with you one day dad” Izuku said before he could leave. “I want to see the Grid with you.”

”One day you will” Hisashi said with a smile and one last look back. “I promise.”

—————————————————————

Well, that was a long time ago, and promises had long since lost their meaning to Izuku. They were easily handed out and just as easily broken. But could you really blame him for having believed them? His dad was always good with his words, whether they actually held any meaning or not.

As he sped through traffic on his motorbike he would think back to the good times when he would be promised the world and believe it without a second thought, always excited for what these promises entailed without ever knowing when or how they would happen. He just trusted that one day they would come true.

Izuku’s perfect world was cruelly shattered by reality a few weeks later when his father never came back. He still remembers the News headlines that talked about the disappearance of the ‘famed’ Hisashi Midoriya, founder of the successful and up-coming tech company, ENCOM. But he wasn’t the only one to go missing, his business partner Toshinori Yagi vanished only a couple nights later. The reporters speculated several reasons for their disappearances, even bringing up rumors of Mr. Midoriya acting more erratically with the stress of building his company.

A month or two later Inko Midoriya passed. She wasn’t able to handle the grief of losing both her husband and his closest friend so close together and got sick. Izuku remembered the last couple of days at the hospital, but wished he didn’t. He didn’t want to remember her laying weakly in a hospital bed, surrounded by those empty white walls.

Within the span of a couple months, Izuku had lost his entire family, majority of which he had no answers as to where they had gone. His perfect world had entirely crumbled in on itself. And now, several years later, Izuku had managed to build his life back up to a relatively stable one. Well, as stable as it could be for a young adult. And he was happy with it, at least, that's what he kept telling himself.

The sounds of police siren’s shook him from his thoughts as a police trooper set off on his tail for not adhering to the speed limits.

Too bad for this cop, Midoriya wasn’t in the mood to get caught. Not tonight. He had way too much planned to get stopped this early.

Speeding up, he weaved in and out of traffic, looking back occasionally only to see the trooper slowly gaining. When he got close enough, Midoriya slipped between a car to get in front of a semi that was next to him, cutting off the cop on his tail and getting out of his view. He used that moment to take the exit ramp off of the interstate and kept going for a few minutes till he was sure that he had completely lost the trooper before making his way deeper into the city.

It wasn’t long before he reached his destination and pulled into a lot behind the building of ENCOM.

Hopping off his bike and grabbing his bag, Midoriya made quick work of the back door by plugging in a chip that he had programmed with a code designed to unlock the entrance. The door truly was no challenge for him, and he stepped back when he heard the mechanisms moving to unlock, revealing the two layers of latches built into the door for maximum security. Not that it worked very great, at least, not against someone like himself. Izuku was raised by two of the most prominent tech engineers of this generation and he used the knowledge taught to him well.

From there he made his way inside. A cheap five dollar laser was all he needed to momentarily blind cameras and make his way safely toward the data room on one of the top floors. His father had sworn to keep his tech advancements affordable and available to the public so that everyone would be able to benefit from his work. The new ENCOM chairman- what was his name again? Enji? -didn’t seem all that keen on keeping up with that promise.

Which meant that it was up to Izuku to make sure that his father made good on at least some of his promises. So here Midoriya was doing just that, standing between one of the many rows of data servers to download and upload ENCOM’s latest tech to the World Wide Web.

”I know you’re here!” Someone shouted from the other side of the room startling Izuku from his task.

Taking a quick peek around the servers, Midoriya spotted a security guard with long black hair and a scar under his right eye making his way through the data room. Luckily he was checking down a row of servers with his flashlight instead of looking ahead so Izuku was able to hide again before being spotted.

Quickly glancing back down at his uploading progress, he was at 90% complete. “Come on! Come on!” He quietly urged the device. Based on the light shining down the aisle, the guard could only be a couple rows down from him. In the nick of time, the upload completed and Midoriya was able to unplug his device and make his way quietly away from the guard and to the outside edges of the servers and back towards the exit.

”Hey you! Come back here!” He heard the security officer exclaim just as he slipped out of the door. He could hear the footsteps of the guard on his tail as he made his way up to the roof and onto a construction crane that was currently overhanging the street below. The guard had more guts than Izuku had given him credit for as he followed him onto the equipment.

“Stop right there! You’ve got nowhere to run to!” The guard yelled as he slowly edged toward Midoriya who similarly edged away. “Come on kid, you have to know that stealing is wrong, so make this easy for both of us and stop this here.”

”You can’t steal what was designed to be free.” Izuku responded as he turned to look at the man. “And don’t worry, the boss is totally ok with it.” Izuku flashed him a smile.

“Like hell he is!” The guard said as he took yet another step closer and Midoriya took another step back. The guard was still advancing but Izuku could see in his eyes how being on this machinery so far above the street was making him nervous. Not that he could really blame him.

“Look, your boss works for the CEO. The CEO works for the shareholders. Now do you know who the biggest shareholder is?” Izuku asked as his foot reached the edge of the crane and he was forced to stop.

The guard stopped too, about two or so arm lengths ahead of him. “I don’t know. Some kid”

Izuku made a gesture with his hands towards himself and kept up his winning smile. His dad had made sure that if anything were to happen to him, like disappearing, that Izuku would be made the majority shareholder of ENCOM.

“You..” The guard looked at him in shock. “Your Izuku Midoriya.”

Izuku just continued to smile at him.

“Why?!” The guard asked with a shocked expression on his face. “This is your Father’s company. Why would you steal from it?”

“It stopped being the company he created a long time ago.” He replied, starting to tip off the crane.

“Wait! Kid, stop!” The guard yelled upon seeing what Midoriya was doing. He tried to reach for him but wasn’t able to get close enough in time.

The shouts of the guard above him were quickly drowned out by the wind in his face and his own laughter as he pulled a cord to his bag and ejected his parachute to descend safely to the street.

Well at least it was supposed to be safe until the parachute got tangled with a lamp post and he was left dangling precariously over the busy street.

Seeing an incoming Taxi, Midoriya unclipped from his chute and dropped onto the cab. The driver obviously didn’t appreciate anyone trying to get free rides and started to serve back and forth in the street in an attempt to shake him off. Izuku hung on tightly as several police cruisers showed up and started to cut off the street.

As the taxi was forced to stop, Midoriya used the momentum to his advantage to slide off the front and sprint out of there in the hopes that he could give the cops the slip in some of the narrow alleyways not far off.

His hope was ill founded though, when several more cruisers cut off his path and a helicopter’s spotlight shone down on him.

“Alright” Izuku raised his hands in surrender “You got me.”

Even as he was escorted to the police vehicles and put under arrest, Midoriya couldn’t keep the grin off his face.

He knew his father would have approved.

Chapter Text

It was pretty easy for Izuku to bail himself out of jail, especially because of the fact that ENCOM ended up claiming that the uploading of their product to the internet was actually just a generous gift from them to the public, instead of announcing the fact that one person was able to break in and steal their most secured tech in a matter of minutes.

With that Midoriya was out in about two hours and was able to go receive his motorcycle to head home while it was still dark.

The trip home was quick despite him abiding by the speeding laws a little more closely this time around.

His home for the time being was a makeshift use of several shipping containers which served him well. The view more than made up for the location and the make of the building. He had made it home and it was one of the few comforts he had now.

“I’m home” Izuku said to no one in particular as he stepped inside and dropped his things. Feeling like he deserved it for a job well done, he made his way over to the fridge to raid it for any leftover katsudon. He still couldn’t make it as good as his mom had but he’s slowly getting better.

Just as he had his prize in his sights he felt someone's presence behind him. Looking back revealed the unwelcome guest scowling with crossed arms. “What are you doing in my house Gran.” Izuku asked with a sigh.

“Heard you got into some trouble today. How’re you doing Midoriya.” Turning around fully he observed Gran Torino in all his short glory with his usual cane and a coat accented by his usual yellow scarf.

“Great actually,” Izuku responded with his usual smile.

“Really?” Was the half disbelieving and half sarcastic response he got back. “Cause I heard you jumped off a building not too long ago. Not exactly what people do when they’re doing ‘great.’”

He had a point. “Oh come on Gran, I had it all under control and I got my work done.”

That sparked up the old argument in Torino. Izuku could see it in his eyes before he even started. “If you feel that you have work you want done at ENCOM then you should just take over already!”

“We’ve talked about this Gran!” Izuku said as he turned away in exasperation. This topic has been brought up too many times to count in the past couple years and his answer wasn’t going to change anytime soon. “I’m not ready to take over his company.”

Izuku would argue that it was because running a multimillion dollar corporation was a bit outside of his skill set, but he wasn’t fooling anyone. Not even himself. His Father had taught him well, and from a young age he had known more about how that company worked than even some of the people currently working there. In reality, to Izuku, it just didn’t feel right taking over the company when his father hadn’t even planned to be done with it in the first place. It would be an acceptance to the fact that he was gone for good.

Gran opened his mouth to continue the argument as he always does with a comment about ‘that being bullshit’ but Izuku cut in before he could start. “Why are you here Gran. Not that I don’t appreciate your visit, but don’t you have other things to do?”

That made Torino deflate with a sigh before getting serious again. “I got a page last night.” He said finally as he lifted up his old pager and Izuku sat down on his couch. “It was from your dad’s office in the arcade.”

“So?” Izuku wouldn’t allow himself to get his hopes up. He’d chased after small hopes too much in the past and it always led to the same disappointment.

“So! That number has been disconnected for years! This shouldn’t have been possible!” Gran shot back. “I may not have been close to your old man myself, but Toshinori was. Shortly before he went missing too he had come to my office and wouldn’t stop talking about your father.”

Gran poked Izuku with his cane to keep his attention to the story, “Kept blabbering on about how your father believed he had ‘Cracked the code!’ and ‘found the answer to all their problems!’ but shortly afterwards Yagi was gone as well.” At this part Gran looked around angrily but Midoriya knew that he really just missed the man.

“Toshinori wouldn’t have just left and I doubt your father would have either.”

Izuku was quickly getting sick of this topic. “You’re the only one who believes they could still be out there Gran. They’re either chilling in Costa Rica or dead, probably both!” Midoriya said while standing up. He may be getting a little too snappy with Gran, but it had been a long day. “Listen, I’m tired, it’s late, and I still smell like sweat and prison. Can we please wrap this up here and maybe talk about it later?”

“Fine.” Torino stated, making Midoriya take a sigh of relief. “But take these.” He tossed over a key ring as he walked toward the door. “They go to the old arcade. You should go check it out when you have the chance.”

With the click of the door Izuku looked down at the keys in his hand. He really hadn’t wanted to get his hopes up to the idea of his father possibly being alive but a small part of him deep down still wished for it to be true. With every story and rumor he heard, that small part of himself got bigger and stronger. It nagged the back of his mind endlessly to go check things out and see things with his own eyes.

There wasn’t really anything he could lose from just checking to be sure, right?

—————————————————————

He knew that he wouldn’t be able to sleep, which meant that after a well deserved shower, Izuku found himself back on his bike and onto the familiar roads leading to the old arcade.

There it was. Situated on the corner of an intersection with the big capital letters spelling out “MIDORIYA’S.” It felt like a lifetime ago when Izuku would come here with his Dad to play everything they could and try to beat each other’s high scores game after game. The arcade was quite popular back then but was shut down when Hisashi disappeared. The employees had either left or moved on to work at ENCOM instead of staying to continue the business.

Deciding that this would be a quick visit Midoriya just decided to park his bike right out front for the time being.

After deploying the kickstand, he made his way to the door as he dug the ring of keys out of his pocket. After a little bit of work to get the key turned, the door opened with a loud creaking noise and revealed the dark interior beyond it. Everything was covered with sheets of plastic and a generous film of dust.

Before Izuku could do anything else he had to find a way to light this place up. He vaguely recalled the presence of a breaker in one of the corners so he decided that that would be the first place he would check.

It was exactly where he remembered and with a flick of a switch the lights and arcade games came to life. They filled the space with not only light but also music and arcade sound effects, giving this place a slight feel of what it once was.

Looking around, Midoriya tried to spot any hints that there had been any recent activity in the arcade. Anything that would back up the idea that the message originated from here.

He found nothing. Everything was still covered and dusty. Even the Staff Lounge looked untouched with all the couches and other appliances similarly wrapped.

Starting to feel a little let down and annoyed that he had fallen prey to the tricks of hope, Midoriya did one more sweep around the arcade floor.

Just as he was about to give up and call it quits he spotted an old game pressed against the far wall.

It was “Tron.”

Tron was his father’s favorite game in his arcade, and by extension, it had also been Izuku’s too.

Midoriya took the sheet off the machine and took a good look at the designs of it and the trial game currently playing on the screen. His dad had treasured this game so much and Izuku believed that it is what he had based most of the stories he had told Izuku on all that time ago. It may even be what pushed him to build up his tech company from a simple arcade to a big corporation.

Izuku dug into his back pocket for a quarter that he recalled having. He had come all the way here, might as well play at least one game.

He slid the quarter into its slot and got ready to play but a second later he heard the sound of a coin hitting the floor. Looking down, the quarter was now laying right next to his foot.

That's strange. Midoriya thought to himself.

He bent down to pick it up and try again but upon grabbing it his eyes caught on something else. There were pretty deep scratches in the floor. They even looked like they went under the game itself. Quickly standing up, Izuku took a few steps back to get a clearer view of everything.

Yes, they were definitely going under. They looked like they might even be from the game itself being pulled out. To test that theory Izuku grabbed the sides of Tron and gave it a pull. To his surprise it moved a lot easier than he expected and revealed that it was actually connected to hinges and was concealing a small, old iron door.

When he opened the door it revealed a dark stone tunnel filled with cobwebs.
“This is probably a horrible idea.” Izuku said to himself as he pushed on anyway. He followed it down a staircase and to a set of double doors with a sign stating that the room was an electrical sub room and unauthorized personnel were not allowed to enter. The keys were still in the door though, so Midoriya had no problem with proceeding inside.

He found the room to be just as dusty as the others, but it also contained strange machinery strewn about and an empty desk in front of a bulletin board. A speck of white caught Midoriya’s eye and looking closer at a board on one side of the room he found several pictures pinned up of him and his dad.

So this was his office. Why he had one all the way down here, Izuku didn't know. Turning to continue his exploration, he was attracted to the desk. On the wall in front of it there was a strange diagram that he couldn’t make sense of. Upon catching sight of the title, “The Grid,” he realized that it had to be connected to the old stories he was told as a kid. Maybe even a form of inspiration.

He took a seat at the desk and wiped some of the dust off the screen. Upon making contact, it lit up and displayed a keyboard and a coding terminal.

It was basically Izuku’s second nature to start poking around with it. Just to confirm that it belonged to who he thought it did, he asked it what his name was and it confirmed “Midoriya.” So this belonged to his father, but was it responsible for the page Torino had received?

From there he took a backdoor login and started poking around the command history. The last one didn’t seem to be connected to any message sending, it was just ‘LLLSDLaserControl-ok1.’

Curious, he decided to run the command and see what happened. A tab immediately opened and asked if the Aperture was clear. Not really knowing what it meant by that Izuku just hit ‘yes.’

For a second nothing seemed to happen. It was still just him in this dreary dusty room with the vague sounds of arcade music playing above him. Then all the sudden a jolt went through him and his surroundings changed. Izuku could no longer hear the music and the room was now empty and pristine. What had happened!

Before he could fully start to panic or think too hard a bright light had streaked past the small windows above the desk. Cars! Of course, he could go up and ask someone if they had seen or felt anything happen. Being too shocked to relax, Izuku quickly stood up and ran back up to the arcade and out the front. Nothing could shake the sense of wrongness he felt and it got much worse when he exited the arcade to the street outside. Not only was his motorbike gone but the city was different. It was dark, with no signs of life, and the lights and buildings looked entirely different. Like they were out of a sci-fi movie.

Now standing in the middle of an empty intersection and looking down every road, Midoriya’s panic truly started to set in.

Before he could decide on a next step a beam of light shone down on him from above. Were the police still after him? He had already been to jail today, what else did they need?

Not one to cause too much trouble, Izuku raised his hands in surrender and turned to look up at the police chopper.

“Hey! I think there's been a misun…” His words died on his tongue when he finally saw what was above him.

That is definitely not a helicopter.