Times where somebody refuses the call in Fan Works.
Crossovers
- As N Approaches Infinity: When Uryu was born, his mother Kanae confessed to her husband that an Incubator approached her while she was young, trying to get her to become a magical girl. While she considered making a contract, she ultimately turned it down and was grateful that she was. At the time, Ryuuken dismissed her confession, but after learning more about the matter, decides that he owes her an apology.
- Avatar of Victory:
- Shepard blows off many of the first Mass Effect's sidequests. Mostly because she's either uninterested or due to them being outright illegal.
- She also refuses to recruit Zaeed; in her eyes, he's just a gibbering madman who seems slightly less controllable than a Thresher Maw.
- During the mission to Yue, James Vega gets caught up in the Normandy crew's batshit insanity. Afterwards, Shepard asks if they're interested in joining her mission. They give her a "No. Just… No" Reaction.
- Invoked in Avengers: Infinite Wars, but ultimately defied; after most of the active Avengers have gone missing, Tony Stark attempts to recruit Matt Murdock for the new team, but while Matt initially rejects the offer that he join the Avengers as he prefers to operate on the street fighting for the people the Avengers might overlook, he changes his mind when he learns that most of the original Avengers are missing.
- The Fall: Unlike other Reverse Summons, Louise wants nothing to do with another world's conflicts, and goes out of her way to avoid getting involved. When the Lost offer to take her in, she balks at the idea. Similarly, despite Mitchell pointing out the potential benefits of going to Mr. House, Louise refuses, knowing that accepting any help from him would result in her getting dragged into other problems.
- Isa of Goddess Reborn Chronicle, which is a very good thing. She was supposed to play the part of Lillith.
- Hoax: After having to deal with two prophecies already, Percy doesn't want to get tangled up in a third — he just wanted to save Annabeth. Unfortunately for him, Hecate forces him to swear upon the Styx that he'll stop yet another world-threatening event.
- Kyon: Big Damn Hero has Kyon's reluctant admission that he remembered seeing his family's ancestral samurai sword in storage and ignoring it. Haruhi then accuses him of this.Haruhi: You are actively trying to pretend you don't hear the call.
- In Neither a Bird nor a Plane, it's Deku!, Izuku refuses to inherit One For All, believing it to be wasted on him thanks to his existing alien Super-Strength on top of all of the other Combo Platter Powers he possesses. All Might is notably bummed out about this and Izuku himself feels terrible for turning away such a gift.
- Oni Ga Shiku Series: As per canon, All Might offers One For All to Izuku, but Izuku turns him down citing the Training from Hell he underwent and The Promises he made to his friends and family to become the first quirkless Hero. All Might says that this only makes him want to give Izuku the Quirk more, so they make a deal; All Might will look for another successor for a year, and if he finds nobody, then Izuku will accept the Quirk after winning the Sports Festival. Notably, All Might makes absolutely no attempt at looking for another successor (even though he acknowledges that Mirio is an option), but he does start showing doubt after seeing some of Izuku's more brutal Heat Actions (particularly the Thug Style neck snap). Izuku in turn calls out All Might for wanting to give him a Super-Strength quirk when the Hero openly questions Izuku's ability to control his natural strength.
- For most of Origin Story, Alex Harris refuses to become a superhero, saying that she only wants to be left alone. She flees every attempt made to engage her in active superheroics. And then one night, she spots a helicopter that is falling out of the sky...
- Xander in Sons and Daughters of Sineya
refuses to get tangled in the plot of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe whenever he's in Narnia, telling any talking animals he meets to "fuck off" when they try to bring him to safety. - There Was Once an Avenger From Krypton:
- Danny Fenton/Phantom told Nick Fury, and later reiterates to Doctor Strange via Nico, that he has no interest in returning to heroics after being retired for several years, not least of all because of the events of his Final Battle with Vlad.
- After having already lived through the whole war hero thing, Harry Potter flatly refuses to join Strange's team. There's a reason the story she appears in uses this trope as its title.
- The Weaver Option:
- Cegorach offers to make Lelith the incubator and later avatar of a new Eldar god. She refused, preferring to continue her own path.
- Lelith admits that she has the potential and knowledge to become a second Anathema, even claiming it's likely she's the only living being who could survive the trials. However, she will not as she considers the price too "monstrous" and the rewards too lacking.
- In Wednesday and the Doctor, the Doctor offers Wednesday the chance to travel with him but she refuses.
- In What if Deku was Trained by All the Shonen Jump Heroes?, both Izuku and Katsuki refuse to accept One for All, both for their own reasons:
- Izuku believes it would be redundant due to all of his other skills and training.
- Katsuki incorrectly assumes that Izuku arranged for him to potentially get the power out of pity. He also wants to develop his own abilities before accepting One for All, in order to prove that he's worthy.
- If I Die Before I Wake: Olivia and Yunan offer Sasha and Marcy positions on the new ruling council. Both girls refuse; Sasha fears potentially relapsing into her old habits, while Marcy remains guilt-ridden over her past decisions and mistakes.
- In Reluctant Hero, Zuko is horrified to learn he's the new Avatar, as the Avatar is decried in the Fire Nation as the supreme enemy to their goal of world domination and has to be killed on sight or locked away for life. Unfortunately for him, the Spirits are desperate for someone to bring balance back and refuse to let him commit suicide to escape his fate. Then the Northern Water Tribe abducts him in order to start his training and he's forced to go along while waiting for the moment to escape.
- In My Stupid Reality Light refuses to be L's successor. Too bad L doesn't take "no" for an answer...
- Vow of Nudity: When Haara returns the Piscine Stone to the Tortle family, their oldest son refuses to accept it, even though it means his father's soul can never pass onto the afterlife.
- A popular sub-genre of fanworks involves the comedic (and tragic) potential of people refusing to be Chosen when their Companion arrives.
- In Eternity, the shipgirl Yonaga, formerly Enterprise, doesn't answer the initial call to battle against the Abyssals. It is partly out of giving the returned Imperial shipgirls the chance to prove and redeem themselves, and partly out of fear that she will regress to her Pacific War-self of near-permanent Roaring Rampage of Revenge (which also alienated her to nearly all US ships at the time) and kill the Japanese shipgirls.
- Morality's Choice: Wades & Measures reveals how Wade refused to accept that Kim had performed a Face–Heel Turn or get any further involved. He later changes his mind.
- A Piece of Rebellion: Bad Cop/Good Cop really, really doesn't want to be The Special. Not when they know exactly what Lord Business is up to — because they're his right-hand man!
- In Love Hina: Like It Could Have Been, once Keitaro realizes that Granny Hina was trying to set him up, he's ready to turn right around and leave. Haruka convinces him to meet with the Hinata girls, giving them a fair chance; when the majority make clear that they don't want a guy there, regardless of what Granny Hina desires, he's more than happy to comply. Things subsequently get awkward when his part-time job in construction means that he has to spend time renovating the Hinata Inn after the girls have learned the consequences of turning him away.
- In one of the snippets for Siberian Variations, every superhero refuses to join Tony or Steve in the "Civil War". Reasons vary from Aunt May refusing to let Peter go to Shuri convincing T'Challa to let the authorities handle things to Sam refusing to leave a suicidal patient's side.
- In Ultimate Spider-Woman, Mary Jane Watson's best friend Kitty Pryde refused to join the X-Men, and she also refused to join the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants or the Acolytes of Magneto. She considers her phasing powers to be useless, and would really prefer to be free to live her own life and otherwise be left alone.
- In Powers of Invisibility, Juleka is offered the Turtle Miraculous and the role of Guardian by Master Fu, but she refuses in part because she's seen how Ladybug and Chat Noir keeping their secret identities from each other is tearing them apart. When pushed, she later acknowledges to herself that the reason is that she's afraid of failing, of letting down her friends with disastrous consequences. But by this point, with Adrien, Marinette, and Rose incapacitated by Madusa, she knows that she is their best hope, and she accepts the role.
- Marinette in Thanks, but no, turns down the Ladybug Miraculous to face off against Hawkmoth, especially as she already has a lot on her plate and isn't happy having to deal with the villains on her own, so she secretly tosses it to Alya since she knows she will jump at the call. Much of the story afterwards is Fu trying to assign a Miraculous to Marinette as he sees she could be a potential Guardian and Marinette handing them to her classmates that she knows will benefit from them.
- It's common in some fics for Izuku to turn down All Might's offer to give him One For All, especially if Izuku Took a Level in Cynic after All Might had crushed his dreams of becoming a hero. Sometimes Izuku will call out the hero for his hypocrisy.
- In the Black Fox Series, Toshinori approaches Izuku and tries to convince him to become his successor...after having dashed his dreams in the past, telling him that he couldn't possibly become a hero without a Quirk. Izuku went on to become a successful Quirkless vigilante, and is none too pleased by the offer, rejecting it and telling Toshinori to leave him alone.
- After some consideration in Deku? I think he's some pro..., Izuku refuses an implied offer to be given One For All, declaring that while he might not be capable of becoming the top hero in Japan as he dreamed, he can be an inspiration for other Quirkless kids dreaming of becoming heroes themselves.
- Played With in Erased Potential. Izuku wants to be a hero, but is determined to become a Quirkless Pro Hero. So when Toshinori asks him to become his successor, he not only refuses but is heartbroken by his idol's lack of faith:Every word from All Might had been well intended, but they sat ice cold and burning in the pit of Izuku's stomach. All Might didn't believe in him. He had watched him, had seen what Izuku was already capable of, and had decided that it would never be enough.
- Juxtapose: While Megumi has heroic instincts, and sincerely wants to help her friends, she's not so keen on the concept of going into the Pro Hero business.
- One for All and Eight for the Ninth has a Downplayed example: When Nezu wants Izuku to help him test whether Bakugou should be permitted to participate in the Sports Festival, Izuku refuses. As he explains, he spent the last decade of his life being used to further Bakugou's career at his own expense, and he's done.
- Rise of the Last Villain: Izuku refuses One for All due to his newfound dislike of All Mightcontext (spoiler) .
- Mirio firmly rejects receiving One for All and becoming All Might's successor in Turning a New Leaf, wanting to be himself instead of just a copy of All Might.
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
- A Diplomatic Visit: During chapter 7 of the sequel Diplomat at Large, it's mentioned that Princess Celestia made overtures toward the yaks to help in the war effort, but they refused to hear her out.
- Friendship Is Magical Girls: Rarity becomes aware of the Secret War between the mahoushoujo and the Changelings when she first sees Twilight, Rainbow, and Pinkie fight and destroy a Parasprite swarm, then later fights alongside them when Trixie steals their Elements. However, when Spike tries to talk Twilight into giving Rarity an Element of Harmony of her own after the latter, Rarity refuses, as she doesn't want to be involved regularly. This doesn't last long, however, as she gets dragged into the fight again when Princess Pupa attacks the group; seeing that she can't just sit on the sidelines, Rarity accepts the Element of Generosity and becomes one of the team.
- A History of Magic has a number of historical figures that refused to contract with the Incubators and become Puella Magi. Among those named were Cleopatra's maid Charmain, Elizabeth I of England, Teresa of Avila, Queen Victoria, and Alice Liddell. At one point so many girls were refusing the call that the Incubators arranged for the publication of Alice in Wonderland to get them dreaming again.
- The four in With Strings Attached really don't want to be bothered restoring the Vasyn and removing the curse on Ketafa, but they have to if they ever want to get home again.
- And in The Keys Stand Alone: The Soft World, they really don't want to be participating in the war against the Black Tower, but again, they have to or they won't be sent home.
- In the Empath: The Luckiest Smurf novel, Empath refuses to permanently deal with Gargamel once and for all when he angrily tells his fellow Smurfs to Stop Worshipping Me. Then Gargamel comes and nearly destroys the village and takes half the Smurfs with him to create his Philosopher's Stone, leading to the moment where he reluctantly accepts his role as their savior.
- Little Hands, Big Attitude: Subverted. Silver initially refuses to go with Sonic in the woods to "be a hero" because he thinks Sonic is pranking him again (in reality Sonic wants to save Shadow from GUN). However he comes along shortly afterwards to keep an eye on Sonic.
- Beat the Drums of War: The Alliance tries to get the Vaadwaur to join in the war effort against the Iconians, but Overseer Eldex refuses. Thanks to recent events he barely has enough ships to hold his own territory, and he's still fighting the Borg.
- Average Joe In Bullet Hell's Ryan Randa receives a series of texts from a stranger on his cell phone, telling him to go someplace and to have his boss give him time off from work. This understandably creeps him out, so he takes precautions to protect himself. Fat lot of good this does him when the caller in question, Yukari Yakumo, eventually tires of texting him and drops him into Gensokyo anyway.
- In A Child Shall Lead Them, Swoop really doesn't want to be the next Prime, to the point where throws the Matrix of Leadership at someone. He eventually accepts the calling anyway.
- Absolute Power Sucks Absolutely: Maxine avoids responding to the call as much as he possibly can. It takes the Split World killing off millions of children to convince him to reveal himself to offer to resurrect all of the kids that died during the event.
