Fly Before You Crawl

by JustBeth

Summary:

Izumi thinks she has a good life, a great life, even, once she gave up on becoming a Hero for something more realistic. But then she meets Knuckleduster, and Pop★Step, and her life changes.

Koichi loves Heroes. His favorite used to be All Might, but recently that changed. Most days now, he wears a green hoodie adorned with bunny ears.

It’s been a while since that day, when he was twelve years old and Deku swooped down into that alley to save him from some group of jerks trying to steal his metaphorical lunch money. But even before then - back when she’d been a vigilante in Naruhata - he’d looked up to her. She was, in Koichi’s humble estimation, a True Hero.

Notes:

• Inspired by The Gravity Thief by lkwritesthings (literallykibitz)

Chapter 1: Foreword

Notes:

HEY VIGILANTES NATION HOW WE FEELING?? THAT FUCKING TRAILER WAS INSANE RIGHT?? HAVE YOU SEEN IT?? GO WATCH IT NOW!! For anyone joining us who hasn't read Vigilantes yet and is now waiting until the anime comes out, be warned! This fic will be HUGE spoilers for Vigilantes! That said, I hope you stay, and I hope you enjoy, because the end product here is certainly going to be way different than what they put on screen. If you are avoiding spoilers, though, consider bookmarking the fic before you go so that you can come back once the anime is over.

I know I should probably put this in the last chapter once the whole thing is finished publishing, but I’d rather say it now so you can understand what this fic means to me. So, instead of a long author’s notes section on the last chapter, have a somewhat pretentious foreword as the first chapter instead.

Fly Before You Crawl has been my passion project, my baby, my darling, since I came up with the idea in September of 2022. I had a vague idea, but it wasn’t much past ‘Izuku and Koichi swap places’ until a friend, the inimitable Baron_Esper, chimed in with some suggestions. It took off from there, and I talked about it almost constantly every day for the next couple months and beyond.

I was still in the planning process for it until November of that same year, and I didn’t write anything significant for it until mid-December when I suddenly started writing every day at work. And by the time I finished writing the first chapter, I had decided to wait until it was completed to post it. I didn’t want this to follow Those Sleepless Nights into the limbo of unfinished fics (if you’re a fan of TSN, don’t worry, it’ll come back someday, it just might be different). That didn’t end up quite the case (I still have to write the third act) but I have nearly 40 chapters written at the time of posting the first chapter, so at the very least you’ll get to see the training camp and Kamino. By the time I'm finished, this fic will likely be 60+ chapters, although I'm leaving the chapter count at 52 until I actually have an accurate chapter count.

Like I said, Fly Before You Crawl is my passion project. It might be flawed, and it might be inconsistent in quality, and it might have too many Hamilton references, and it definitely won’t be for everyone, and hell it might not get any attention aside from the people who helped me plan it out, but none of that matters, because at the end of the day I have written a story that I wanted to read. And that’s what matters.

A few notes:

1. I suggest reading this fic on your phone, as a lot of the paragraph spacing and other similar formatting was done with the much smaller screen in mind.
2. Keep Creator Style turned on!! If you turn it off it'll totally break the text messages. They don't show up too often but they do show up here and there and they don't look like much of anything without the Creator Style on.
3. Scene breaks or time skips should be indicated with three stars, center aligned. If they don't show up right on your device or if they're not center aligned let me know in the comments and I'll try to fix it.
4. POV changes are indicated with a name aligned to the right side of the screen. I did this originally to help myself keep track of whose POV I was writing, but it actually ended up as a legitimate narrative tool a couple times.
5. This won't come up until much later, but Korisato is apparently the actual official name of the city where Izuku and Katsuki grow up (and where UA is canonically located), not Musutafu. If you can show me a panel from the manga or a clip from the anime where they say that UA is located in Musutafu, I'll eat my shorts.

 

If you're still with me and you haven't already clicked "Next Chapter," thank you. I promise I'm almost done. But first I want to thank some people.

Thank you to LK, whose series "In the Shadow of Shimura" was an inspiration to me. I can only hope this monster of a fic makes you proud.

Thank you Cal for all the help you gave me throughout the process. You provided valuable insight and cheered me on every time I updated you on my progress.

Thank you, Logan, for your damn near constant presence throughout both the planning and writing processes. You may not have been there at the beginning, but once you did join in your constant insight and quick responses to all my questions were incredibly helpful.

Thank you to Nyan, my darling partner, for beta reading the fic and being one of my biggest cheerleaders as I worked through all the complications and editing. There’s a few scenes in this fic that were inspired by not only you but also our relationship, and I hope they make you smile when you read them. I’ll see you soon, darling.

And most of all I want to give the BIGGEST thanks to Baron, without whom this fic quite literally would not have happened. My friend, my supporter, my greatest fan. You cheered me on and gave me advice through some of the hardest writing blocks I had with this fic. I don’t think I have enough words to express my gratitude for your help. It was your input at the very start that let me take this idea from a small seed to something huge, and I will be forever grateful. I know you’re going to say something like “it was your hard work that made it possible” or whatever, but just take the compliment <3

So to you five, and to anyone else who didn't skip this, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and I hope you enjoy! I’m posting this and the first chapter at the same time (if it’s not available yet just refresh the page), and from here on out I plan on posting a new chapter every Wednesday.