No Litterbugs Allowed

Izuku worked so hard cleaning that beach. It frustrated him to no end that some people refused to give it up as their dumping ground.

Ever since All Might had brought him to the garbage strewn coastline, the place had become a haven for him, and its now clean appearance was physical representation of his resolve to be a hero. As such, it was often used as a meeting ground for him and All Might to talk outside of school, as well as his favorite exercise spot, and, well, just a place he could go to think when life became too much.

Because of this, it almost felt like an insult to Izuku personally when he went jogging there one morning and found someone had chosen to leave a particularly smelly bag of garbage in the middle of the otherwise pristine sand.

He really should have seen that coming. Garbage laws were so strict in Japan about what you could throw out and when, that it was no surprise some people would still be tempted to get rid of things more quickly by tossing it on the beach, no matter if said beach was no longer a mess.

Still, he couldn't help but get the feeling of someone spitting in the face of his hard work, and grumbled as he dragged the stinking trash bag to the street where it would be picked up eventually (and irked that the litterbug hadn't bothered to do that in the first place).

Huffing a sigh of annoyance, Izuku quickly scrubbed his hands in the ocean to remove the stink and continued on with his jog, resolving to put the incident out of his mind.

And he would have been successful too, if he hadn't come back a week later to find someone had littered a collection of broken flashlights all throughout the sand, causing him to trip over them as he ran. It took all morning to fish out all of the appliances. By the time he was done, he had to rush to his classes, leaving his jog incomplete, and himself very unsatisfied (and wondering why someone had needed so many flashlights, and how they had broken all at once).

Still, he tried to be positive, but then it happened again…

(Why would someone feel the need to take their entire bicycle apart before tossing way? There are so many little pieces)

And again…

(Five washing machines in one morning? Seriously? Some clothes were still in them, too.)

And again!

(Who would even want to buy that many creepy clown dolls in the first place?)

Each time filling Izuku with more annoyance that some people couldn't be bothered to appreciate a trash free beach, or worse, taking advantage of his cleaning of it to save themselves the trouble.

He tried putting up a 'No Littering' sign, but it did no good, even though it was an All Might sign, with a caricature of the hero saying "Littering is unheroic! Only villains do that!"

By the time he had to spend his entire morning workout time cleaning the beach after some people had apparently had a party on it the night before, leaving cans, snack bags, and several disgusting things Izuku didn't want to even think about all over the sand, he was ready to burst at how fed up he was.

And to top it all off, the cleaning had made him late for class. Aizawa had not been pleased, which only worsened the teenager's mood.

And thus, Izuku had to go through the day feeling ready to pop at any moment, making several of his classmates concerned and confused, but too frightened by the look on his face to try to find out why.

"It's a face I'd expect to see on Bakugou, not Midoriya," he overheard Kaminari whispering to Kirishima at one point, but he tried to ignore it.

Even his friends seemed to be walking on eggshells around him, which did not improve Izuku's mood in the slightest. He could only hope whatever combat training they had that day was something he could take his frustrations out on. Like robots! Robots didn't care if you pounded them into dust.

But sadly, no. There weren't guilt-free pummeling robots to fight that day. Instead they were doing one on one spars…

… And of course Izuku's opponent was Bakugou.

Someone seriously had it out for him today. That was the only explanation.

Still stewing in his bad mood, Izuku barely listened as Bakugou started off with his usually spiel about how, "Deku was beneath him, blah, blah, blah." It was the same things he said about any fight.

"ARE YOU FUCKING IGNORING ME!" Bakugou bellowed when he finally realized his opponent wasn't paying him any attention, and in doing so drawing the attention of everyone around them.

With no patience left for any sort of social niceties (and knowing none would have any effect on the explosion-happy hothead anyway), Izuku bluntly replied, "Yes."

There was a moment of stunned silence…

Then Bakugou's face took on a furious red, and he launched himself at Izuku with his trademark cry of, "DIE!"

The rest of class 1-A winced as the explosion user flew at the other boy, knowing what followed was going to be brutal.

What they weren't expecting was for Izuku to stand his ground, activate his quirk, and say, "In case you haven't noticed, Kacchan…"

His fist shot out and hit Bakugou (who was too thrown off by Izuku's out of character attitude to react in time) with a 5% punch right in the nose. "I'M NOT IN THE MOOD!"

The blond went flying out of the ring with a broken nose, and was too surprised to even catch himself. He'd known Izuku for longer than any of them there, and knew better than anyone that this was not regular Deku behavior.

Class 1-A stared in shock. Well, it had been brutal, just not in the way they'd been expecting.

Izuku, meanwhile, snapped out of his funk, and a horrified expression dawned on him as he realized just who he had punched.

'Kacchan is going to kill me for that,' he thought to himself.

"Fuken' Dekoo, Ah'll Keel dou fo' dat'!" Bakugou bellowed once it finally sank in what had happened, though the nasally voice his bleeding, broken nose gave him ruined some of the threat's effect.

All Might, who had been supervising the exercise, coughed awkwardly and said, "Er, well, Young Midoriya wins. Young Bakugou, please go see Recovery Girl for your nose. Um, next round is…"

Izuku spent the rest of the class in a daze, and doubted it was a coincidence the random name generator never called his name for any more matches.

This was all but confirmed when All Might asked to talk to him after school, and they decided to meet at the beach.

Which is how, a few hours later, a now deflated All Might came walking along the coast and found his successor glaring murderously at a broken-down microwave half buried in the beach's sand.

"Young Midoriya, is something wrong?"

"YES!" said Izuku, his frustration once again mounting, and jumping on the chance to rant. "I worked so hard cleaning this beach! You saw me! Ten months of hell to make this place spotless! Ten months! So can people stop being such massive jerks and dump their garbage somewhere else for once! Is that too much to ask?"

All Might blinked in surprise, and glanced around, spotting other small pieces of trash poking out of the sand, and the grinning sign of himself saying not litter near the steps off the beach.

"Is this why you were so upset earlier today?" the hero asked in surprise.

Izuku could only manage a glum nod before scooping up the microwave and carrying it to the street without even bothering to empty the sand from it first.

All Might trailed behind him thoughtfully. Admittedly, he couldn't blame Izuku for his feelings. The pride he'd felt that morning when he arrived to see the place spotless was a fond memory for him, and it was quite annoying to now see that others were attempting to clutter the beach up again after all his student's hard work.

"If it means that much to you, I can make a statement to the press for people to stop," he offered the teen. "You'd be surprised how effective a word from All Might can be."

Izuku looked sorely tempted at the offer, but ended up shaking his head. "Thanks, All Might, but if you did that, then suddenly this place would become a tourist attraction. 'All Might's Favorite Beach' or something like that. I wouldn't be able to use it for training if that were to happen."

All Might was able to read between the lines and see that the boy also didn't want to share the place with more people than necessary, but kept quiet on that regard. Instead, he said, "If you say so. But that means you'll have to find some other way to keep people from messing this place up again."

Izuku nodded. "Yeah, I'm working on that. I can't keep taking training time out of my schedule to keep cleaning this place, so something different has to happen. Maybe I can get Hatsume from the Support Department to make a litter cleaning robot, but that could cause some problems for the locals, and…"

All Might shook his head fondly as his student began one of his famous mumbling tirades as he mused over possible solutions to this problem, and resolved to try and help if he could.

This was the beach where One for All had been passed down to its ninth holder after all. It was a sacred place, even if most of society didn't know it.

In the end, a solution came dropping out of the sky.

Literally.

It was couple weeks later, and Izuku was once again beyond frustrated and cleaning the beach before class when it happened.

It being a villain attack right in the houses just nearest to the beach.

Apparently, a burglar with a size changing quirk had been breaking into a house when the owner startled him, causing him to grow to a size that rivaled Mt. Lady, and cause all the occupants of the neighborhood to come rushing out of their houses to both watch the spectacle, and to avoid getting stepped on.

But for once Izuku didn't care about that.

Because when the burglar had had his growth spurt, he had smashed straight through the ceiling of the house, causing debris to go flying in all direction.

With a vast majority of it landing on the beach Izuku had just finished cleaning.

At that moment, something inside Izuku snapped.

Then, before the disbelieving eyes of the onlookers, an electric green blur rocketed around the burglar before shooting up and upper cutting the man with a vicious cry of "SMASH!"

The giant's head snapped back at the sheer force of the blow, and he stumbled backwards and fell unconscious into the ocean where he shrunk back to regular size.

Izuku dragged the man from the sea and plopped him on the street with the rest of the trash. He then gave the onlookers a ferocious look and bellowed, "QUIT MESSING UP MY BEACH!"

The audience trembled in fear at the mere sight of him, but Izuku didn't have time to feel bad about it, as he realized he was going to be late for class again. With a curse, he bolted for the train station, resolving to clean up the roof debris after school.

(Fortunately he didn't get into trouble for his using his quirk in public, as no managed to prove it was him, but several of his teachers gave him suspicious looks that day.)

To his surprise, when he returned that evening, he found that the beach was once again spotless. Turns out his spectacle had frightened the locals so much that they took to cleaning it up themselves to avoid his ire, and he didn't have any trouble with litter again.

At least, not until he became the Number One Hero. Then the beach became the attraction 'Deku's Favorite Beach' where tourist from all over came to visit and hear the story of how the icon cleaned the beach at the start of his hero's journey.

A/N Just a random oneshot that came to me during work (curse inspiration and its inconvenient timing). I've fallen in love with this series, though I don't know if I'll write any more for it. We'll just have to see.

(Omake)

After several years of being the number one hero, when Deku finally passed on his quirk and retired, the city granted him ownership of the land for his beach as a thank you for all he had done, and no one ever littered on it again.

The End.