Fanfic / Build Yourself Up (Don't Let Them Break You Down)

Art by the fruitloopchan

"You can't just wait for All Might to show up and do your jobs for you!"

Hawks technically was off the clock when he flew over Mustafar, but when he sees a kid trapped in the Quirk of a villain and another kid trying his best to free him while the other heroes just watch, he has to interfere.

—Summary from Archive of Our Own

Build Yourself Up (Don't Let Them Break You Down) is a My Hero Academia Point of Divergence Fic, written by Barid (Finale), in which Hawks steps in to save Bakugo instead of All Might.

For other works by the same author, see Crimson and Emerald, Failure to Explode, and Think Before You Speak.

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Contains examples of...

• The Ace: Hawks is this as a total prodigy and beloved pro hero. As such, his opinions matter a lot to the public and his endorsement of Izuku and chastising of the other pros instantly affect their reputations.
• Adaptational Early Appearance:
  • Hawks arrives to deal with the Slime Villain as per the nail.
  • Re-Destro, Curious, and Trumpet of the Meta Liberation Army are introduced in chapter 2 trying to cover up Izuku's involvement in the Sludge Villain incident due to his Quirkless status while they were not introduced until the League of Villains arc in canon.
• Adaptation Origin Connection: As opposed to All Might defeating the Sludge Villain and taking all the attention to take Izuku as his successor in secret; Hawks instead was the one to save Izuku and Bakugou. Hawks makes a point to validate Izuku's accomplishments in taking down the Sludge Villain and his effectiveness despite his lack of inherent ability.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: Inko went to school with Endeavor and Hatsume's mother.
• Adaptational Sexuality: In canon, Inko seems to be heterosexual. A comment from Endeavor about Inko's past girlfriend shows that she's bisexual in this story.
• Blackmail: While not outright stated as such, this is the reason the HPSC can't move against Endeavor for burning down one of their facilities. He found proof that their allegedly defunct paragon program was still running, including a file on his eldest son Touya.
• Central Theme: Public relations and appearance.
  • The heroes at the sludge villain attack have their reputations ruined by their inaction.
  • Izuku gains much notoriety thanks to the incident.
  • Hawks is instrumental in both due to his immense popularity.
  • The Meta Liberation Army are trying to discredit Izuku and Hawks due to their goals.
• Child Prodigy:
  • The Hero Commission has been considering recruiting Izuku into their program as an analyst, as Izuku has shown to have better Awesomeness by Analysis skills than what they have on staff, citing how Izuku was smart enough to gauge the Sludge Villain's weak points and act upon it faster than the various trained pro-heroes on-sight.
  • Hawks was a canon version of this already.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: While Aron doesn't understand why American villain organizations are called corporations, the implication is because of this trope.
• Crossing the Burnt Bridge: After demeaning Izuku and enabling his bullies for years, Aoki-sensei realizes they are all now dependent on Izuku's good graces since he could potentially expose them and launch a very severe investigation on Aldera Middle School.
• Didn't Think This Through: When Toshinori talks to Gran Torino about making Izuku his successor, Gran Torino points out two big holes in his idea. First, Izuku might very well be insulted by the offer, especially now that he's being trained to become a Quirkless hero. Second, Izuku's being trained by Hawks who would notice both Izuku suddenly gaining a Quirk and him being trained by someone else.
• Disappointed in You: According to Endeavor, the principal at Shoto's school is far better at pulling off the "I'm not mad, just disappointed" look than his father ever was.
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Gran Torino points out that Izuku could potentially take All Might's offer of One for All as an insult. Especially it would trivialize all the hard work Izuku and Hawks put into making him a successful Quirkless Hero.
• Elephant in the Room: Everyone in Aldera Junior High knows that Izuku was horribly treated by them and could land a massive lawsuit at any notice. They just kiss up to him and hope that he would ignore it.
• Everyone Went to School Together: Inko, Enji, Tomoko (Mei's mother), and Aoi (Monoma's mother) all went to U.A. together.
• Famed In-Story: Izuku finds out from Hawks that he is actually famous (at least moderately so) among the various pro-heroes in the areas as "the kid who's always at hero fights writing things down."
  Izuku: Wait, you've noticed me?!
  Hawks: Kid, a lot of us have noticed you. You're kind of a cryptid/legend at this point. Actually, holy shit, the moment everyone realizes it's you that Mt. Lady, Death Grip, and Kamui Woods yelled at, people are going to be pissed.
  Izuku: ...What.
  • In Chapter 2, it turns out that the Hero Commission that recruited Hawks has also been keeping an eye on Izuku, not just for his Awesomeness by Analysis skills, but because his mother was a graduate in UA's Management course.
  • The MLA apparently know him as a Quirkless kid who calls into Present Mic's radio show, not knowing that the caller and Izuku are one and the same.
• Fair-Weather Foe: Aldera Middle School. Normally they would treat Izuku terribly with the students bullying Izuku and the teachers either enabling or participating in it. Now that he publicly gained Hawks' favor and is on his way to fulfilling his dreams, they all become nice to him. With the students either jealous of him or trying to befriend him in hopes of riding his coattails. Or the teachers kissing up to him or intervening with Bakugou's bullying in hopes that Izuku wouldn't expose them.
• Fantastic Ableism: Zig-Zagged. There are parties who look down on Izuku for his Quirklessness, like the MLA, and those who do not care, like Hawks. The Heroics Commission also had plans to recruit Izuku as an analyst, but now view him as a potential hero.
• First-Name Basis: Played With: Hawks' handler insists that he call her Noriko rather than Ms. Sato. Rather than this being a sign of trust and closeness, she wants to foster the illusion of such.
• Flat "What": Gran Torino gives one in response to learning Sir Nighteye basically told All-Might who he should give One For All to.
• Future Loser: Aoki-sensei firmly believed that Izuku would have either been a Quirk scholar or homeless. He is very shocked that it's not the case.
• Hero with Bad Publicity:
  • It is noted how Kamui Woods, Death Arms, and Mt. Lady look like idiots after the Sludge Villain incident, as a child essentially had to do their job for them. That they went on to chastise Izuku for it worsens it.
  • Endeavor's status as this is lampshaded, and a government agent notes how Bakugo will likely repeat it.
• Hypocrisy Nod: All Might told Izuku that a hero must be willing to put their lives on the line to save people...only to do absolutely nothing while Bakugou was being held hostage because he had reached his limit for the day, while Izuku, the Quirkless teenager he had lectured, had jumped in with no regard for his own safety. Needless to say, he is very much beating himself up over it. Hawks' Oblivious Guilt Slinging doesn't help things.
• I Warned You: Inko gives a "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Enji about how she warned him that everything he chose to do was a terrible idea and would backfire horribly. Said tirade causes Shoto to seemingly develop a minor case of hero worship for her.
• Karmic Jackpot: By choosing to save his bully from being murdered by a supervillain, Izuku gets a powerful mentor in the form of Hawks, the validation he always wanted and social power that he never had to protect himself from his tormentors.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Aldera Middle School. The student they wrote off as being a loser and a parasite earns the attention of Number Three Hero on the same day the teacher had the class publicly mock and humiliate Izuku. The same Number Three Hero is a public defender of said student and would be unhappy and appalled to find out about their mistreatment.
• Loophole Abuse: It is pointed out that Izuku could be a vigilante unpunished since the legal definition of vigilantism is unlicensed Quirk usage to stop/or fight a crime.
• Mistaken for Racist: Hawks and the Aery are initially afraid that Bakugou is a Super Supremacist due to his self-worth being wrapped around the power of his Quirk and his bullying of the Quirkless Izuku which would make him a prime recruit for the Meta Liberation Army.
• My Greatest Failure: Endeavor shows great remorse in how through his actions he lost the two closest, truest friends he ever had.
• Mythology Gag: Death Arms has announced his retirement, likely due to his loss of credibility. In the manga, Death Arms retires after heroes as a whole lose most of their public respect.
• A Nazi by Any Other Name: The Jewish sidekick Steps explicitly makes the comparison between the Meta Liberation Army to the Nazi party, which is further poignant due to Step's late spouse being targeted and killed for being Jewish and Steps himself facing prejudice for being Syrian and Jewish.
  Kestrel: Should we possibly be worried about [Bakugo] having family that would sympathize with the MLA's ideology? Or himself. If his sense of self is heavily wrapped up in his Quirk and he bullies a Quirkless boy…
  Hikari: Technically it doesn't actually exist anymore.
  Aron: Technically neither does the Nazi Party, but even now, two hundred years after World War Two their ideology still exists and causes problems.
• Not Helping Your Case: Every time Katsuki bullies Izuku he ends up being caught by members of the Aery. Which tarnishes his prospects as a hero and land his junior high in hot water.
• Oblivious Guilt Slinging: All Might is in the area (blending in as his skeletal civilian form) and overhears Hawks' "The Reason You Suck" Speech to the other pro-heroes about how real heroes don't stand around and wait for someone else to do their jobs for them, fully aware that that applies to himself at this moment.
• Parents as People: Inko loves her son but admits that she not only failed to support him from the bullying and discrimination he faced, she also failed to communicate the ways she did support him. She vows to Izuku to be a more active advocate for him.
• Persona Non Grata: Tomoko Hatsume bans Kamui Woods, Mt Lady, and Death Arms from purchasing products from Hatsume Industries.
• Point of Divergence:
  • While canon had All Might defeat the Sludge Villain as a Heroic Second Wind, here Hawks just so happened to be in the area and defeated it instead.
  • Hawks publicly praises Izuku for trying to save Bakugou when no one else would, resulting in Izuku getting extremely popular.
  • When she learns about the incident, Inko laments how this ruined any chance of her convincing Izuku to follow the Management track like she did.
  • While All Might wants to make Izuku his successor, he has no idea how to contact him or find out where he lives without raising suspicion, so he fails to do so.
• Poor Communication Kills: Inko didn't support Izuku's dream of being a hero because unbeknownst to him U.A. formerly had a Quirk requirement for enrollment. While she actively used her influence with Nezu's help to overturn this. She realized because she never told Izuku this, it just looked like she didn't believe in him period. Additionally, Inko failed to tell Izuku of his possible Non-Hero Course options for U.A. such as the Management or Support Courses.
• Properly Paranoid: Inko was dreading the possibility of her son getting directly involved in a hero fight, and finds out that said fears have come true through a news broadcast about the incident. When Izuku lands himself in the national spotlight with Hawks' support, he becomes a target of Super Supremacist group the Meta Liberation Army. Because Izuku is a positive role model of a minority they actively want disenfranchised, they want him discredited or dead.
• Revenge Before Reason: Shoto admits to himself that he's done a number of things purely because his father told him to do the opposite. If he hadn't spoken to Fuyumi beforehand, he knows he'd have probably been a Jerkass to Izuku simply because Endeavor asked him to be nice to the boy.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Famous!: Played with. Hawks isn't breaking any laws or written rules, but his public statements shift a lot of dynamics and affect a lot of people's lives. He gets Izuku a lot of popularity and praise despite his Quirklessness and the pros at the scene lose a lot of clout when Hawks chastises them.
• Skewed Priorities: Quite a few articles were written lambasting Kamui Woods, Mt. Lady, and Death Arms for praising Bakugo over his Quirk given the boy was actively making the situation worse while a Quirkless child accomplished more than any of them.
• Small Role, Big Impact: The Slime Villain launches Izuku into the national spotlight as he wins Hawks' attention and puts him in the crosshairs of the Meta Liberation Army.
• Strawman News Media: Deika Shimbun tries to do everything in their power to downplay Izuku's involvement in the Sludge Villain incident and focus more on the establishment pro-hero's incompetence. This is mainly due to the fact that it is run by Chitose, a member of The Social Darwinist/Super Supremacist anarchist group the Meta Liberation Army.
  Rikiya: We do not need the Commission potentially promoting a Quirkless boy as a sign of heroics. We need this handled as quickly and quietly as we can. If the boy needs to die, he dies. That is the will of Destro.
• Super Supremacist: Unlike canon where the focus is put on MLA's goal of unregulated Quirk use, here the focus is on the side effect of their goal: they would naturally believe that Quirked people are naturally superior to Quirkless people. Such beliefs are so prevalent that the Deika Shimbun writes and markets to people with such beliefs.
• Super Zeroes: Noriko notes that the various heroes with years of experience under their belts never considering the obvious "go for the eyes" weak point on the Sludge Villain - something that a middle schooler figured out at a fraction of the time - can be seen as a failure not just from the heroes, but of the pro-hero community as a whole by association. The only hero not receiving any reprimand for what happened is Backdraft, who has the excuse of putting out the fires Bakugou caused, so he was doing something important when the others were standing idle.
• Sword of Damocles: The principal and teachers of Aldera Middle School justifiably fear Izuku giving them their reckoning for enabling or encouraging the bullying and discrimination against him now that he has the personal ear of the Top Three Hero. They know Izuku would be too embittered to be bribed by them and know it's a matter of time (as of publishing). The heroes of Aery are justifiably questioning why another student thought it was okay to destroy Izuku's things which is only the tip of the iceberg.
• Take That!: To the idea that Eraserhead fights Quirkless. Hawks states that it's a common misconception and that despite his Quirk not having any physical enhancements that Eraserhead can use, he is still heavily reliant on it to mess with his opponents. Sir Nighteye is then given as a better example.
• This Is Going to Suck: Midoriya and Bakugou's teacher immediately realizes that the Sludge Villain incident is a PR nightmare just waiting to happen for Aldera, as any investigation into their history at the school is likely to reveal how they allowed the former to be bullied.
• Too Dumb to Live: The principal of Aldera tries to threaten Inko with Izuku's falsified records after both she and Izuku's new school have copies of his corrected records. Worse, Aldera is currently being investigated by the Department of Education. Even worse, Endeavor is standing right behind Inko as the principal is threatening her.
• Ungrateful Bastard: When Izuku is concerned over Katsuki due to his near-murder at the hands of the Sludge Villain, does Katsuki show any gratitude? Nope. He throws Izuku's concern back to his face and tries to harass him over it. Which just lands him in hot water.
• Weaksauce Weakness: Kamui Woods gets a little bit less flak than Death Arms and Mount Lady in his reprimand. While they could have acted but didn't, he had a good reason for not acting - his power is wood and the Sludge Villain (thanks to Bakugo's explosions) was spewing out copious amounts of fire.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Hawks calls out the heroes on scene for waiting for someone else to save Bakugou, though he admits he only said anything when they start chastising Izuku.
• Would Hurt a Child: Rikiya Yotsubashi, a supervillain terrorist, head of a political party, and CEO of his own company, orders his followers to kill Izuku, a middle schooler, to prevent the rise of the Quirkless minority.

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