Chapter Text
Izuku was six when his life changed.
"Quirkless?" His mother's voice breathlessly asked, like the name of a terminal illness.
The old doctor sighed, turning around in his old, creaky spinning chair and to the x-ray diagrams on the lightboard. "I'm sorry I have to be the one to say this. He's missing the extra toe joint that determines Quirklessness, but by all means he should have developed a quirk by now. Even late bloomers would have developed a quirk by the age of six. It's possible that he could have an invisible quirk, but until he can prove that he has one, I'm going to have to put him down as Quirkless in the Civilian Registry."
"O-oh," His breaks a little more as his mother glances at him, because she sounds so, so, so sad and this is all because of him - !
The ride back home passes by in a numb blur. His mother's kiss as her trembling arms wrap tightly around him, like he's now something delicate, didn't register in his mind. He remembers sitting in the large office chair, sun long set and not caring to turn on the lights, watching as All Might smiles in the face of burning disaster rescuing people left and right with a booming laugh and declaring across a hopeless battlefield, I AM HERE! He turns around in the chair when he hears his mother tentatively calling his name in that same wavering voice as that dreaded afternoon at the doctor's office.
"S-See that, m-mama?" He chokes out, eyes burning and snot dripping down his nose. "H-he can s-s-s-save e-e-e-everyone. S-s-so, c-can I be a-a h-h-hero too?"
He tries giving her his best grin. It's the one that makes her smile too, that makes her eyes crinkle with joy as she kisses his head, runs her hand through his curls, hugs him tight and tells him, maybe, but let's wait until your quirk comes in so you can figure out how!
He held onto that hope, that knowledge that getting a quirk can mean he'll become a really cool hero like All Might as well!
. . . But all he gets in response is his mother's face falling even more. Then tears trickled down from her eyes as she stumbled forwards, wrapping him in another tight hug as she cries out, "I'm sorry Izuku! I'm sorry!"
His heart breaks a little more and he thinks, Oh.
I'm sorry too, mom.
~*~
"HAH?!"
Izuku winces from Kacchan's indignant screech that immediately attracts the attention of everyone else on the playground. He's scowling, he's mad, and so very, very angry at Izuku as he shrieks, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU'RE QUIRKLESS, DEKU?!"
"I-I-I mean," he stammers, looking everywhere else except Kacchan. "I. . . I don't have a quirk. O-or if I do, I don't know how to activate it. . ."
His eyes flickered back to Kacchan's face, hoping that answer would help appease him and not make him so angry at him because this is Kacchan they were talking about, Izuku's best friend who he was joined at the hip to since birth.
He was wrong. The first of many, many times.
With a shriek, Kacchan lunged at Izuku who cried out as his back slammed against the hard dirt. Kacchan had both hands on his shoulders shaking him up and down as he screamed, "LIAR! YOU LIED TO ME! YOU PROMISED ME WE WOULD BE HEROES TOGETHER!"
"I-I can!" He feebly protested. "I can still be a hero, even without a quirk!"
"NO YOU CAN'T!" He shrieked, and he sounded so broken to Izuku that all he could do was wonder why, why, WHY DID THIS HAPPEN TO ME -
"THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS A QUIRKLESS HERO! YOU'LL BE USELESS!"
His shoulders started burning with an unfamiliar heat he would soon be all too acquainted with. He cried out, Kacchan's burning-caramel scent from the small sparkling explosions that Izuku always loved to see invading his nose, and he realized with mounting horror what was happening. "Kacchan! Stop! Y-You're hurting me!"
"SHUT UP YOU STUPID DEKU!" He screamed right back, face red as the burning sensation in Izuku's shoulders burned even more. "YOU'RE USELESS!"
On that day, Kacchan was able to produce his first, proper explosion and not the sparklers he did before. On that day, Izuku had gained two shiny scars emblazoned onto his shoulders.
His teachers wrote it off as an accident. A forgivable incident of a six-year-old accidentally using his quirk with his emotions high after hearing something tragic, something that wasn't uncommon in a society full of Quirks. Katsuki Bakugou would take a week off of school and go to therapy for a month, because learning that his best friend was Quirkless was tragic to learn so of course he would react as poorly as he did on that Monday afternoon, the day after Izuku found out he was Quirkless. The accident would be forgotten by everyone in time and things would slowly go back to normal.Written by J. Leialohikai Ong Lim
Yet as Izuku sat there on his hospital bed in his mother's trembling arms with her sobs breaking the silence of the barren room, he couldn't help but feel that things wouldn't go back to how they were before. He could remember a time when he was four, when there was someone else besides Kacchan he would play with, whose face and name and voice were blurred from his mind until all he could remember of him was the color purple. He remembered him being in kindergarten one day and gone the next. When he asked the teachers what happened, they said he moved away, and that not to be sad and be happy because change can be a good thing, and he would live a life better suited for him anyways.
But Izuku didn't feel happy. He felt empty, and some distant part of him was horrified. Where was the rest of his feelings? Why hadn't Kacchan visited him yet? Why was mama crying and hugging him again? When will he go back to seeing mama and Kacchan smiling and laughing and playing with him again?
Izuku was six when he began mourning his life.
~*~
He was seven and bouncing around in his All Might costume for Halloween. There weren't very many happy days after he was diagnosed as Quirkless, but that's okay! He was going out with his mother trick-or-treating this year! He missed last year because he was so sad that Kacchan didn't want him to come along so he went home early to cry, but this year his mama said it was just the two of them that are going! He hasn't played with his mother in so long because of her work!
And so there he was, running from house to house with his mother in tow, a full face mask of All Might's face and hood securely over his green curls. But then something weird happened. Every house they went to, he would ring the bell, the door would open, and then they would look around confused like they couldn't see him he was right there in front of them. They would finally notice if he yelled out, "Trick or treat!" Still, he shrugged it off at the time because while it was a little strange, it wasn't too strange.
But then it happened at the next house. And the next. For a full four houses he stood in front of the door as the person looked around in confusion, completely silent, before they retreated inside. It didn't make any sense. Was this just a collective neighborhood prank? Did they all find out which kid in an All Might costume was him and decide to ignore him?
He took off his mask and the hood that hid his curls at the next house in frustration. When they got to the next house, he knocked again and stayed silent, already expecting to be ignored, but this time the person's eyes immediately locked on him. They smiled and gave him candy, as did the next house, and the next, and - oh, would you look at that? Every single house afterwards instantly saw him and gave him candy.
He didn't know what to make of it. At first, he thought that maybe, just maybe, this was his quirk. The ability to be invisible as long as he wore a mask. His mother eagerly purchased things to help his experimentation - surgical masks, goggles, glasses - and for a while it worked. Izuku found out depending on how much he covered his face, the more he would be ignored. One-way tinted glasses? Teacher never calls on him. Cloth face mask used for coughing? Anyone that wasn't within two desks of him glazed their gazes right over him. A full mask that covered his eyes and mouth with a mesh? Instant invisibility. BAM.
It was amazing. He had a quirk. He found his quirk! Granted, it wasn't flashy like Kacchan's, but it would be amazing if used for Underground Heroics, specifically in infiltrating and information gathering because he would be literally invisible to all of his opponents because they wouldn't even see him, and if he used it in a fight he would be able to easily dodge and throw attacks -
And then as he was skipping home, happy as a clam with his full face mask on, he heard thunderous footsteps and Kacchan screaming, "DEKU!"
His stomach dropped, he turned around, and instantly Kacchan's gaze locked onto him even with the full face mask on.
Suffice to say, he went home with bruises and burn marks and solemnly told his mother that the tests he ran those past few days didn't work, and that yes, turns out he really was Quirkless and he's sorry for getting her hopes up. She told him not to apologize and that she loved him anyways, but Izuku could clearly see in her gaze how heartbroken she was at seven.
\\~*~//
He was twelve when started realizing what his quirk was on his way home from school.
Kacchan had broken his glasses and face mask during the morning break. The pieces were in the classroom trashcan, and whatever fragments he wasn't able to collect were left on the ground behind the school. For the rest of the morning and afternoon, he had to endure the minute glances and outright stares of everyone in class - teachers included. For the first time since middle school began, he was in the presence of everyone without his face obscured by a cheap cloth mask and one-way tinted glasses. It was agony. He didn't have to experience those stares since he was seven. He found that most people ignored him as long as he had most of his face covered (probably because they couldn't look away from how hideous he looked), but Kacchan was the exception. He always was. In academics, athletics, quirk training - he was always the exception.
So of course he was the only one who could instantly single out Deku in a sea of people even with his face fully covered. Izuku wasn't sure how he felt about that. On one hand, he craved recognition, but all the attention he'd received thus far was negative unless if it was from his mother.
And on that particular day, he never wanted to have attention ever again.
A hand yanked on his curls. He tried to cry out, but another hand slammed over his mouth as he was dragged into an alleyway and thrown against the wall.
"Aww, if it isn't sweet, little, useless Deku."
Izuku's breath stuttered as he pushed himself further into the wall. It was an upperclassman from school. He had a transformation quirk, something to do with wolves, and he was utilizing it if the larger-than-normal canines and golden eyes with silted pupils said anything.
"You know, I never actually seen you without those nerdy glasses and that mask," he licked his lips, and suddenly Izuku felt ten times colder. "You actually don't look half-bad."
If this were any other occasion, Izuku would be blushing and stammering from the praise. But right now he was praying to whatever higher power even though he was never religious because this guy had a predatory glint in his eyes that raked over his face and body like a juicy steak on display.
The upperclassman chuckled. "Oh, I am going to enjoy this."
Without warning a hand grasped around Izuku's throat and pinned him against the wall. He let out a squeak of terror and the upperclassman laughed even more as he crowded him and grabbed his shoulder before roughly sliding down - wait, where was that hand going, OH KAMI NO PLEASE STOP - !
Lips forcefully crashed against Izuku's and it hurt. The canines snagged against his mouth and he could taste blood. The upperclassman was dragging his tongue over his lips to try and get them to open up. Tears sprang up in Izuku's eyes. He didn't want this. He didn't want this.
The upperclassman's hold began to relax and Izuku took that chance. He shoved him off as hard as he could and screamed, "GET AWAY FROM ME!"
There was a crash. It was silent for a moment as Izuku spent it on the ground, curled up against the wall with tears flowing free and sobs wracking his chest.
"Wait, Izu-chan, I'm so sorry!"
He whipped his head up, mouth agape, but that sounded so sincere and real -
The upperclassman was there, standing after having been pushed into a bunch of overturned trashcans. He had gotten some of it on his clothes, but the upperclassman completely ignored it like it was never even there in the first place to look at Izuku and, wait, are those tears in his eyes?!
The wolf-like features had morphed back into human ones. Grey-blue eyes stared back into his, a lone tear going down his cheek as he wobbly said, "I-if going away w-would make y-you feel better, then I'll go. I-I'm sorry I scared y-you. I-I'll be going now. Get home safe."
He bowed and quickly vacated the alleyway, shooting longing glances every now and then, until he turned the corner and left his sight.
Izuku picked up his bag that had been dropped onto the floor and bolted.
He really wished he could say that was the last time an incident like that occurred, but no. Every now and then Kacchan would find a way to destroy his glasses and masks. Every single time, those stares would come right back after that would follow him home. Sometimes, he was accosted by all sorts of people - guys, girls, young, and old - up against walls, behind the school, against the trees or on the ground - each time they would press up against him. At best, he'd have his arm grabbed as someone pressed against it. At worst, he'd be forced down with half the buttons of his gakuran popped. All of that would end after he was forcefully kissed, again and again, because they would go slack before he pushed them off and tell them to leave. Some of them broke down and apologized, others would shuffle off silently with hurt clear in their eyes, but ultimately he would be left alone and he could run.
The thirteenth time it happened, with his glasses in fragments and his mask in scraps as Kacchan loomed over him with a sneer during lunch, Izuku screamed. Izuku wasn't sure what happened, but Kacchan had paled and took a step back, and that was all he needed to bolt away and get to his apartment and barricade himself inside his room before he broke down and cried. He heard his mother's frantic knocking at one point, then a quiet conversation, before she finally got the master keys and unlocked his bedroom door and quietly crept in.
He was worn out way before his mother came home and completely silent. It stayed that way for the next two days before he returned to class at his own insistence for his fretting mother, new face mask and glasses secure on his face.
Thankfully, Kacchan made a point to never destroy his mask ever again.
Izuku couldn't be any more relieved as he settled down into bed, his side stinging from one of Kacchan's explosive-filled right hooks, when the sudden realization struck him swifter than lightning and he paled.
He was twelve when he found out what his quirk was in the most traumatic way possible.
. . . And time to sign up for some self-defense classes. Really, he should have done this since the beginning if he'll ever become a hero.
~*~
Izuku was fourteen when Kacchan hurt him even worse than the time he was twelve with his face coverings destroyed.
"Why don't you pray for a better quirk in your next life and take a swan dive off the roof!"
"Then how would you get into U.A. then, Kacchan?" He softly murmured, gently shaking the water out of his notebook. "Aren't you going to be a hero . . . ?"
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, counting to ten, and let it out. Nope. He wasn't going to cry this time. He's going to march straight home, break down, scour the internet for any more mentions of Eraserhead because a difficult task like that is just the distraction his mind needs right now. He wasn't sure whether to be thankful or frustrated at the lack of accounts surrounding the man.
And it's that moment, while he's debating the pros and cons of the lack of Eraserhead media, that he heard gurgling behind him. Years of having to run - from Kacchan and that nasty time around twelve especially - had trained in him an instinct for danger that was blaring at him, telling him to book it, right now. He didn't get more than a foot away before a gelatinous form came crashing down around him - something about medium sizes and meat suits - and he was struggling to get out and he could feel it moving against his body and seeping into his clothes - oh Kami no, he's not twelve, he's not twelve, he's not twelve! - and then he passes out from the lack of oxygen that came with a panic attack and a sludge villain forcing themselves down his airways.
And then All Might showed up.
And subsequently crushed his heart.
On a rooftop.
After being suffocated.
After he told him he was pretty much Quirkless.
Oh yeah. Didn't Kacchan tell him to jump off earlier?
Izuku groaned and flopped down on the ground, not wanting to get up.
"Can this day get any worse?" He grumbled.
And lo and behold, Murphy's Law decided to kick in because that's just Izuku's life. Explosions rocked in the distance and like the true avid, hero watcher he was, his feet automatically brought him to the scene of the fight.
He paled when he noticed the slime villain towering over the pedestrians. Heroes scattered all around but ultimately doing nothing as the hostage suffocated.
The moment red eyes snapped to his, familiar red eyes that were blown wide and fear as if they were screaming, help me!
Izuku blinked. Even he wouldn't be able to tell you what happened next. One moment, he was standing behind the barricade with the crowd. The next, he was rushing into the fray with a half baked plan like some kami-forsaken idiot, but frankly it's all he could do in this situation. He's yelling something to Kacchan, something about his explosions, as he swung his backpack and aimed right for the villain's eyes. The villain screeched and recoiled, just enough for Kacchan to break his head free to get some much-needed air. And Izuku, channeling all of his two-year's worth of mixed martial arts, pro-hero fighting styles analysis, and just plain adrenaline, braced his foot down, grabbed Kacchan's arm, and judo flipped him up and outta there before he released an explosion big enough to send them both hurtling away from the villain, just in time for All Might to sweep in and punch the villain to giblets.
Oh. So turns out he can tell you what happened. Huh.
"-are you listening? Hey, kid? What kind of quirk do you have? That rescue you did was amazing!"
"Huh?" Izuku blinked dazedly, only semi-registering that Death Arms was talking to him and even praised a Deku like him - !
And so, with brain to mouth filter obviously working, Izuku automatically answered, "I don't know. Officially I'm Quirkless."
Well. If this isn't the quickest flip he's ever seen. Death Arm's picks up his dropped jaw and his face hardens, and then he roughly states, "That's pretty reckless then, kid! You rushed in without a quirk?! You could have died! And -"
To be honest, Izuku completely tunes out the conversation after that and really can't tell you what happened next. He just leaves. He lets his mother fret over him the moment he gets home because she saw the news at work and promptly rushed home to check up on him, and he tells her to not worry because he's perfectly fine to which she gives a really hard stare. . . eheh . . . Yeah, okay, he's not fine. He breaks down and tells her about everything. From the day he was deemed Quirkless, to Kacchan when he was six, to the Halloween when he was seven, the assaults when he was twelve, and the terrible day he had today at fourteen while willfully omitting the fact that it was Kacchan and not someone else who told him to commit suicide like he told her because she doesn't deserve to know her son-in-all-but-blood told her son-in-blood to jump off a building.
She gapes. Then closes her mouth. Taking a deep breath, she lets it out and says, "Izuku, I'm so sorry my baby. I should've seen this. I knew things weren't okay at school but for it to have been this bad - !"
"It's. . ." Izuku hesitates at the next word because no, he's so freaking tired with everything that happened that he just. . . No. "I'm going to be honest. Today was in every way screwed up. And so has everything else, but that's on me for never telling you until now because mom, you are absolutely amazing and the best mother in the entire world because even when the rest of the world sucked, at least I would able to come back home to your kisses and your hugs and your smiles and honestly. . . that's what kept me going for the past eight years. It's because you are my mom that I have a bright spots in my life."
He and his mother, expectedly in true Midoriya fashion, end up in tears and three less boxes of tissues in their apartment. His mother calls the school, telling them that he's taking the week off and to prepare their lawyers because she is about to sue the heck out of them, and then calls her law firm to tell them that she has a very high priority case and she'll be busy with it for a while.
"All Might is a terrible hero," his mother moodily states on the couch, tub of ice cream in hand, in fuzzy socks as they both watch a movie that isn't about All Might. She stabs her ice cream with a spoon and scoops a mint chocolate chunk in her mouth. "He was prepared to leave you alone, in the middle of nowhere, without calling and waiting for an ambulance after you had been attacked by a slime villain that nearly suffocated you. And then proceeded to leave you alone on a very high rooftop after he crushes your dreams when you told him you were sort of Quirkless. We're very fortunate we got to hospital before the sludge in your lungs could give you an infection."
Izuku winced. "I mean . . . He was on a time crunch. Really important secret hero stuff. A lot of what he did was because of it, and I . . . accidentally found out. I really can't blame him for what happened."
". . . Izuku Midoriya."
He froze. And, wow, that's uh, that's intimidating. Full naming. His mother rarely full names him.
She's frowning a little and, oh Kami he was right this is her disappointed mom stare - "I know you love heroes. All Might especially. But can you confidently say, from an objective standpoint, and if he were any other hero, that there was nothing he should have done better?"
Izuku opens his mouth automatically to defend his idol because of course there wasn't.
Then he clicks his mouth shut, cheeks burning in shame. He coughs a little. "H-he, um, he could've. . . He could've walked me down from the roof. And made sure I was okay. Had me call you for emotional support maybe."
Her mother nodded. He could see that she wasn't entirely convinced, but for now she'll take it.
Hopefully. Maybe a little.
"On that note," his mother hummed, watching as the two girls in the movie kiss after confessing their feelings. "I now have hero licenses to revoke."
His jaw dropped. "Wait, mom, no this is All Might we're talking about - !"
His mother chuckled softly and held up a hand. "Oh, no. As much as I would like to do that for hurting my baby, I know it's a losing battle. The Pro heroes that were on the scene with you and Katsuki - now those are the licenses I'll be revoking in the near future."
"But. . . I mean . . . !"
"Baby."
Izuku closed his mouth, visibly wilting. His mother scoots closer and guides him to rest his head on her shoulder - which actually is really uncomfortable because he's substantially taller than his mother. She combs her fingers through his curls, just like she's always done since he was a child, and he relaxes in her hold.
"You have a big heart," she softly begins. "So big, that it could wrap the world in its love."
He chuckles quietly. "I get it from you."
She laughs a little at that too. "Thank you, baby. But just because your heart is big, it doesn't mean you have to forgive everyone who has done something wrong. Sometimes the kindest thing to do, even if it doesn't seem that way, is to be a little mean to help them grow. Otherwise they will never learn from their mistakes and can't grow into something better."
He pauses and lets those words roll around in his head. It would have been nice to have been told this when he was younger, before Kacchan started hurting him all the time, then maybe they could have been friends. They weren't friends now, haven't been for a long time, but well. . . He couldn't help but be selfish and want to be friends. Because even now, after all these years, he still hasn't given up.
But maybe he should show he wasn't so easy to bend. He knows that Katsuki can become a great hero - but only after a lot of intensive anger management therapy and self reflection and maybe a point in the direction of Miruko who can be brash yet compassionate.
"Okay," he mutters. "But I have a different proposal: suspension of pro hero licenses until they can complete and pass the hero license review exam three months from now. Normally heroes only have to take it once every five years, but. . . it can be bumped up if needed. They can still operate as sidekicks, but no longer work solo, so they'll still work and get paid without having to worry about their rep taking a hit so long as they tell the public that they're operating in teams in response to the slime villain incident. . ."
"That sounds wonderful, baby," And, oh. His mother is positively beaming, and doesn't that make him feel proud knowing that he did that. "Rehabilitation over punishment. Now there's a lovely thought."
He laughed. "You totally did that on purpose didn't you, mom? You're trying to lead me to that conclusion."
"I don't know what you're talking about, young man," she smiles, eyes twinkling mischievously.
"Alright, if you say so mom."
They fell into a comfortable silence for a while, with the only sounds coming from the movie and occasional spoonful of ice cream.
"Also, I have a quirk that turns people into love slaves if they kiss me."
Someone in the movie spit takes. His mother gapes, and Izuku couldn't help but dissolve into a fit of gut-wrenching laughter at the irony of the situation.
Ah, well. He's had the worst day in his entire fourteen years of living and that was saying something, but he wouldn't let that drag him down. He's got his mother here, more warm and supportive than ever after coming clean, and really that's all he needed to brighten up this terrible day and end it with a laugh.
U.A. won't know what hit them.