If there was a single scientist Izuku Midoriya looked up to, it was Darleane Hoffman. A nuclear chemist who was one of the researchers to confirm the existence of Element 106, Seaborgium, named after Glenn Seaborg, another favorite of Izuku's. She was almost named one of the most important women in science, and had a glowing resume of papers and positions at UC Berkeley.

On the surface, it sounded like quite a full resume, but in reality it was missing something important.

Elements 99 and 100 were discovered after America detonated an atomic device in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. By flying through the top of the mushroom cloud, fighter pilots collected samples that were rushed back to Los Alamos for study. Lo and behold, the periodic table expanded by two.

Darleane was employed at the time... technically, at the same research facility. For some "inexplicable" reason, her security clearance went missing. It likely had something to do with Los Alamos not believing a woman could ever be a chemist, let alone a nuclear one.

Izuku was, assuredly, not a woman, and not working during the 1950s. But there was one thing that made him feel kinship with Darleane. He was Quirkless.

While his childhood friend went off to UA to become a Hero and save the day time-after-time, heralded by the media alongside his cohorts, Izuku decided to become a physicist. He didn't care that it was dull work, with little attention. If anything, he reveled in the challenges, feeling satisfied giving his all every day.

Except, none of it really mattered.

Izuku had no trouble finding a job. Professors were always in demand, especially at the less-prestigious schools. Aldera University was happy to take him, but he was more of a... teacher than a doctor working alongside his peers.

With 99.95% of the population having Quirks, there was a steady stream of superhumans with literal super-intelligence, storming colleges, research facilities, and businesses to conduct exciting and groundbreaking research.

On top of that, Quirks were seen as the next step in human evolution. They were no longer Homo Sapiens, but Homo Potentia. "Power" or "Potential." And that alone hurt Izuku.

Even his fellow doctors, without super-intelligence, but still had a Quirk, got better treatment than he did.

By the nature of humanity evolving, they were indicating that he had not. He was below them, in strength, speed, intelligence, and everything else. It was what turned his own best friend against him.

It was okay for him to teach a bunch of students, sure, but when he filed research grants, they went nowhere. The information he was forced to submit in those grants included that he was Quirkless. Governments, companies, or academic establishments took one good look at that word and put down his file, keeping their money for someone who "deserved" it.

In spite of all of this, and knowing that it would happen, this was what Izuku wanted to do with his life. If he couldn't be a Hero, then a scientific field was his best bet for making change in the world. He could've chosen to become some sort of politician or government official, but that was too hands-off for him.

Of course, grit and determination could only take him so far. This was perhaps the farthest he could go on his own.

Standing behind a rather sketchy piece of corrugated metal, he crossed his fingers and pressed 'ENTER' on the laptop to his left.

Much like Darleane, Izuku had a fascination with base elements. Not only did he want to discover new ones, but he wanted to find an actual use for them.

See, the higher you went on the periodic table, the more radioactive they got and the quicker they decayed. The most recent discovery was Element 118, Oganesson. Its half-life was 0.89 milliseconds on average and it was about 700 trillion times more radioactive than plutonium if you compared them in equal sizes.

For obvious reasons, those elements just had no purpose. They practically vanished in an instant and would kill you even if they could persist for longer.

Izuku wasn't trying to create Element 119 for that reason. He wasn't even trying to create Element 130 or 135. He was aiming for something so absurd that it almost made sense why he got no funding. He was going to break the limits of physics.

By inducing quantum instability through a magnetic containment field, he was going to-

Izuku's run-through of the experiment in his mind was broken by the sound of a harsh fizzling.

He sighed and peeked around the metal with his safety goggles on. His makeshift equipment had fried itself. It was the sixteenth time that week.

All of the complicated mathematics and scientific knowledge meant nothing if his equipment couldn't hold up. His ideas, like always, went beyond his capabilities.

Basically, he was trying to force novel atomic structures and lattices to form, creating an element with an entirely unique composition.

In a way, his Quirklessness gave him an advantage. When people heard about his experiments, his theories, they wrote them off as the ramblings of a quack or fraud. Even the most intelligent researchers, with Quirks that made them look like Einstein had a baby with Stephen Hawking, dismissed the concept.

It ensured his research was his alone, as they focused on expanding the Periodic Table through standard protocol. Intelligence did not equal creativity, after all. But sooner or later, someone would replicate his work, and claim the discovery for themselves, and he would be left to rot in anonymity.

After waiting a few minutes to ensure the setup wasn't going to explode, Izuku emerged from behind his shield to examine the failure.

"Magnets aren't strong enough... coils can't handle that much power... not an effective cooling system..." Once more, Izuku sighed, feeling the weight of frustration. "A room temperature superconductor would make this a piece of cake... So I need to invent something entirely new to invent something entirely new."

Izuku disassembled his setup, ensuring everything was disconnected before going to get some coffee and stretch his legs.

"Morning professor!" A few students greeted as he exited the lab, drawing a smile from his lips.

"Morning!" He replied, feeling a burst of energy.

Plenty of his students were technically smarter than he was. If they all took an IQ test, they'd blow him out of the water. Some of them were arrogant about it, some of them were rude. But his students were the one group he could trust to give him respect in return.

They were young and bright, many of them unsullied by the hierarchy that had formed around Quirks. After all, Aldera was considered a lesser school. The students who went there had a similar feeling of disrespect compared to their more prestigious peers.

But when Izuku taught them, they felt like they were getting what they deserved. A passionate researcher who never let injustice keep him down. He inspired them to do better. They just wanted to make him proud.

Of course, he was already proud of them. Just by the way they carried themselves and treated others. It gave him hope, just like he gave them hope.

"Phew! That smells like another failure!" A professor said, walking by his lab with a scoff of disdain. They didn't even look at Izuku or address him as they continued on their merry way.

Izuku shook his head, took a deep breath, and focused his thoughts on his students, not his peers.

Reaching the professor's lounge, he was greeted by the one professor he didn't just tolerate, but enjoyed the company of.

"Morning Mei! How's the new baby coming along?"

The pink haired engineer barely glanced in his direction, but unlike the rest of Aldera, it wasn't because she didn't like him.

Her eyes were merely focused on her handheld device, reading the latest studies on material research.

"Good! Great even!" She excitedly replied. "Unfortunately... I can't remember who it was, but someone forced me out of my lab to eat something!" The bagel next to her had yet to be touched. "What about you?!"

"Ah, ya know. Same old, same old."

"You'll get there eventually! Don't get down about your failures! Keep exploding things! That's how science progresses!"

Izuku laughed. He didn't quite agree with that sentiment, but it was hard to argue with her enthusiasm and kindness. "You know me, I'm not one to give up so easily. Now eat your bagel."

Mei wasn't exactly popular herself, but her Quirk Zoom was. She was one of Aldera's greatest accomplishments. Her mechanisms and finesse were so well-regarded that she received daily invites from other campuses and research institutes. The only reason she remained at Aldera was that she was so obsessed with her work, she forgot to accept any of these invitations.

Not to mention, here at Aldera, she was a queen. She got favoritism on her research grants and requests. She was never questioned, or stymied by the school's administration. If she went off to other institutes, she'd just be another face among the crowd. Here, she was something special, which allowed her to focus entirely on what she wanted.

Unfortunately for Izuku, despite her friendly demeanor and treatment of him, she didn't favor anyone's research over her own. She'd encourage and answer questions if need be, but she never built something just because someone asked her to.

Izuku couldn't just ask her for new equipment, because she'd have to spend her own funding on it. And at Aldera, there was only so much to go around. In fact, that was true of every school. Someone always had to be at the bottom of the totem pole.

Mei would sometimes share her equipment, but she also had a tendency to run into whatever lab was using it and grab it right in the middle of an experiment. Izuku had experienced that firsthand.

"Anything good on superconductors?" Izuku asked as she nibbled on the bagel.

"Uhm..." She thought for a second, her mouth full. "Berkeley raised the temperature requirement for a superconductor. But it still needs liquid nitrogen. Sorry, Midoriya, nothing you'd be interested in."

"Well, LN2 is actually one of the few things I can afford. It's the magnets and superconductors that are hard to get. And every time I run an experiment, I risk damaging the components." He chuckled. "I'd love to get my hands on some graphene."

"In your dreams, cripple." Another professor entered the breakroom. "Let the real scientists handle the important materials."

Izuku felt the urge to bite back, to remark on the lack of progress others were making. But he knew that things didn't get solved like that.

"Morning, Keiko. I just read your paper on solid state solar panels. I really hope we get to see that stuff put to use soon! Great progress in efficiency improvements! Could you imagine if one day we launched our own dyson swarm and that technology was a part of it?!" He felt himself overcoming dread and despair with genuine excitement for the future. "Really cool stuff! Obviously we have to put it to work here on Earth first, but one day, right?"

"Yeah, whatever." Keiko turned up his nose in annoyance, but Izuku could see his words had an impact. They were all scientists, so it was hard to ignore that sense of wonder for the future, no matter who brought it up.

"There was something cool about self-replication," Mei chimed in. "A company in Sweden is experimenting with something their scientists nicknamed Particle Weavers. That'll be a good first step to something like a dyson swarm."

"Oh, I saw that paper," Izuku replied. "The theory relies on a hypothetical technology. I don't see it going anywhere for at least a few decades."

"I hate to agree with an outdated human model, but he's right. I guess a quack can recognize a quack. The company was talking about another universe when they mentioned the Particle Weavers."

"They're not quacks," Izuku replied, refusing to defend himself, but also refusing to accept baseless criticism of fellow scientists. "They're just getting way too ahead of themselves. The 'alternate universe' talk was about being inspired by fictional media. Books and movies. There's nothing wrong with being inspired, even if it is fiction."

"Another thing you have in common with them. If you wanna be a real researcher, have realistic expectations." Without another word, the professor left the room with his coffee and donut in hand.

"Be careful not to choke as you scarf it down," Izuku thought to himself. He immediately shook his head as he felt his inner Bakugo come through. "Don't think such nasty thoughts, it only gets you more upset." Then again, everyone said nasty things to him. It was okay to have a rude thought once in a while. He was confident in his own character to think them, but not say them.

Izuku checked his phone and felt the urge to sigh again. "Another rejection letter..."

Despite his many failures, Izuku had publishable results. In actuality, most failures in science were publishable, as they pushed the field forwards. Failures were defined by the researchers, who expected one result and got another. But that didn't mean the result they got was "bad science." It was data, and data was important.

But for Izuku, failures were true failures in the eyes of academic journals. If he could just get his name out there, he could leverage that reputation to get some more funding.

Unfortunately, the only journals who would publish his work were also the journals who published studies on vaccines causing autism. He didn't want to be associated with bad science anymore than he already was.

"Bad science... I'm not doing this to make a quick buck selling misinformation... Why do I have to be lumped in with that stuff..." He knew the answer, but still had to ask the universe that ever-present question. "Why?"

"Well, back to work. I'll see ya later... maybe tomorrow," Izuku mirthfully remarked to Mei.

Getting back to his lab, he was too discouraged to try repairing everything right away. His mind needed time to reset and refresh. So instead of focusing on his substandard gear, he decided to scan journals himself and look for any new research he could leverage.

"Thank God I have free access to this stuff..." He thought to himself, signing in through Aldera's portal.

"Let's see... claims on element 119... yet to be verified. And it's using the same technology as before. Nothing special there. Magnet research... nothing new... Superconductors... nope."

He continued to scroll for a while longer, and was about to get back to work when something caught his eye. It was published in a rather obscure journal.

"Melissa Shield... Why does that sound familiar?" He did a cursory web search and finally spoke out loud. "Holy crap, daughter of David Shield?!"

David Shield was yet another hero of his, alongside titans like Enrico Fermi, Darleane Hoffman, and Glenn Seaborg. He was one of the greatest designers of support equipment, a very physics heavy field. Quirks tended to defy physics as the world understood them. So Professional Heroes needed the latest and greatest in physical technology to support them.

Case in point being All Might himself, the greatest of the greats. His strength was so absurd that none of his support gear or Hero outfits could hold up, which resulted in some very... embarrassing moments in his early career. The man had no sense of shame when it came to saving lives, so before David Shield, he often ended up in a state of undress.

David had been the first to make wearable graphene clothing. Basically, diamond clothing. For obvious reasons it was prohibitively expensive, so only the best of the best could afford it, as the production cost of graphene was still in the hundreds of thousands of USD per kilogram. And that cost only rose for the specialized production methods David used.

All that to say, the Shield name was a behemoth of the modern world, so it shocked Izuku to learn that Shield even had a daughter who had published a paper of her own. He followed David's work with exquisite attention, yet he never heard of Melissa.

"There's nothing about her... I can barely find her name... What's..." Izuku realized with a sinking feeling what was going on. So he did another search.

'Melissa Shield Quirkless.'

There it was. An online forum dedicated to scientific research was talking about David when they mentioned his daughter.

'Lol, he kept all the talent for himself.'

'I wonder if her mother was genetically pure. Probably from Kentucky and was inbreeding.'

'That's definitely the case. No way Quirkless kids are born from healthy genetics.'

'David must be so ashamed. Should've gotten an abortion.'

Izuku physically recoiled and had to close the page. It was just too painful.

Regardless, he finally took a look at Melissa's paper.

'Evidence of an Impact Resistant Material Under Extreme Magnetic Fields and Quantum Instability with Superheavy Element Seed Material.'

"No freaking way..." Her paper was the same research he was doing. Some of the math was different, and her process deviated from his own, but she had stumbled across the same data as him. Even better, she had produced a single particle of the element he was trying to create. It was a tiny victory, but a victory nonetheless.

"Is seriously no one talking about this?! It was over a month ago!"

After some extensive internet searches and the use of a standardized AI model, he discovered only two labs that were talking about it. Both had rejected the paper as a mistake. Not fraudulent, just a case of unintelligence and errors. They had published critique papers and soundly dismissed the theory. In fact, Izuku's name was even mentioned.

"Oh come on..." When Izuku read their reasoning for dismissing the paper, he had to shake his head.

During the element hunt that took place from the 1950s to the 1980s, America and Russia were the biggest competitors. And both sides rushed out data or dismissed data due to bias. Unsurprisingly, this was an aspect of the Cold War. So even solid science was thrown away because of world tensions.

This was no different. Melissa's research was being dismissed due to bias. And because the labs were relatively well-respected, the world listened.

"I wonder if they took her research and started conducting it themselves secretly... so they could have the glory..."

Izuku's deepest fears were coming to light. If any labs got ahead of them, their research would be classified as "legitimate" compared to him and Melissa's.

"No... No it cannot end like this."

Izuku's fingers moved faster than his mind could work. He immediately drafted an email to Melissa Shield, finding it through her paper.

It was perhaps too emotional, too charged with his own fear and desire, but he couldn't help it. He couldn't help but convey injustice to someone who would actually understand it.

'You have the equipment necessary, and I know exactly how to proceed with the data you've gathered. Let's be the two Quirkless researchers to change the world.' He attached his own papers and hit send

Leaning back in his chair, his body tingled with excitement, but he knew the scientific field was a slow one. He'd have to be patient and-

DING

Within less than ten minutes, there was an email in his inbox, from none other than Melissa Shield herself. It was a short