Chapter Text
Izuku Midoriya’s discovery of his quirk, ironically, was brought about by its hiding.
Though the issue came to a head around three weeks into spring, the problems really started after the first of the children in his class’s quirks had manifested while he himself had nothing. Most parents give three weeks after their child’s 4th birthday for their powers to show before taking them to their local quirk specialist to make sure nothing was wrong, but with their own son being a summer child, the Midoriyas allowed more leeway on their end. Izuku on the other hand, was eager to see what sort of powers he’d develop and spent every waking moment trying to see what would appear, from trying to move spoons from far away to blowing on his food in hopes of flames spurting forth.
“I’m sure you’ll get your quirk soon Izukkun.” his mother smiled encouragingly as she watched him make another failed attempt to move the couch (yet another test for potential object attraction), “Just give yourself some time. Now come on, it’s almost time for lunch”
Izuku pouted, upset that his attempts bore no success and that he was forced to stop, but obeyed his mother none the less.
The months passed, slowly but surely, as still no quirk appeared. But still, the Midoriya family all waited despite their collective waning patience. Most of those in his age group were still waiting on their own quirks too, so they figured it to simply just being that their son needed more time is all.
“So kiddo,” His father grinned from the computer screen, “Who’s quirk do you want more – me or mommy’s”
Izuku, sitting comfortable in his mother’s lap, scrunched up his face in concentration as he tried to think over his father’s question as best as his young mind could manage. On the one hand, Fire Breath was rather amazing and a very hero-like quirk – and what child wouldn’t love to have the ability to melt down things in a single breath (Though his father’s version was more akin to a small lighter). On the other hand, his mother’s Object attraction was great for helping people by grabbing things, and it’d make cleaning up his toys much easier.
“Hmm….” He frowned, squirming in his mother’s lap until he finally brightened up “All Might!”
Both parents blinked in surprise, staring at their smiling son, who looked as though he had given the most amazing answer ever. A few more quiet moments pass before the two burst out into good-natured laughter. They knew their child had become obsessed with the number one hero as of late, but not to such an adorable extent.
“Well geez, can’t compete with that can I!” the man chuckled while his wife poorly suppressed her own giggles and his son stared at their mirth in confusion, “Well, I’m sure whatever quirk it is, it’ll be amazing!”
The waiting nearly rounded to a year before they finally allowed their anxieties to be acknowledged; The excuse of “He’s just a few months late on his quirk” can only go so far for so long before even you stop believing it yourself, especially when every child in his age group had already manifested their own at that point.
So they made arrangement for a trip to the free quirk clinic sometime later the week after with Dr.Arata Tsubasa of Mutsafa General. Hisashi had assured his nervous wife and child that Izuku’s quirk was just taking its time to appear and the good doctor would say the exact same thing.
Izuku was fine and having Dr.Tsubasa look him over would just end with him telling them exactly what they already knew.
It was in the middle of his quirk examination, that little Izuku’s eyes had begun to hurt. It had started out as just making them feel itchy and uncomfortable, and he hadn’t said much about it. When they were halfway near the end though, the pain had become excruciating enough to drive him to tears and forced Dr.Tsubasa to stop just to figure out what was wrong. Several nurses were even called in to help make the child settle down so he could examine his eyes and his mother came close to breaking down the room doors twice when his screaming reached the halls after being rushed out the room.
Izuku wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but it was at some point that the itching had thankfully stopped. However, when the doctor pulled away and allowed him to sit up, he had seen something –
It was these tiny little lights, flickering over the man’s bald head. At first, he thought it was just left-over glare from the flashlight used on him, but a quick rub and a few blinks disproved that. They were difficult to see and trying too hard to focus on them made his eyes hurt even worse than before; But every time he looked away, they would twinkle in the corner of his eye and draw him back. It almost looked like something, but he couldn’t tell what exactly it was.
The man turned back towards him, “Are your eyes still hurting?”
Izuku, being caught staring, flushed “It’s…um, the lights.”
The doctor looked up at the lights illuminating the exam room, the lights over his head flickering even faster. “Oh, do you want me to dim them?”
“No, the other ones.” He tried to explain, pointing to the spot above his head.
Suddenly, the lights stopped flickering and had begun to throb and shift, as if someone was readjusting a TV set. They were turning in strange little shapes he could barely make out.
S---a-ge
E-es S-ill –a-at-d
Q---K?
“Wow…” he whispered, eyes twinkling with glee at the sight. He wasn’t sure what was happening, but it was stunning to look at it for the young boy. He wondered what the letters were supposed to mean...
Then he remembered where he was.
The doctor stared for a few moments, and Izuku covered his mouth, wondering if he said something wrong. His teacher had often scolded him for speaking aloud without permission, and he was expected the same to happen here.
Instead however, Dr.Tsubasa knelt down towards him, face passive yet radiating immense curiosity.
“I see.” He mused, “The lights – Can you describe them to me?”
And so Izuku, as best his limited five year old vocabulary could, explained the little lights, what had happened, and what he could see now.
Dr.Tsubasa said nothing during this, only making a few noncommittal noises here and there until he finished, then stood.
“Thank you Izuku.” He said, heading for the door “I’m going to send in a nurse to stay with you to make sure you’re okay before I prepare for your other tests, is that okay?”
Izuku nodded and watched him leave, staring as the lights stretched and twisted, forming what he could barely make out as very large words in neat, slim print –
Interesting
Tell Client-
But the door shut before he could read the rest.
The taxi ride back home had been hauntingly silent. Neither mother or child looking each other in the eye.
“You should probably give up”
The both of them sat there in full shock, his All Might action figure falling to the hospital floor with a deafening clatter. His mother doubled over, silent tears dripping from her long lashes as Izuku stared out blankly at the man before him.
Quirkless. He was quirkless.
He couldn’t have a quirk, because he was quirkless.
He didn’t have an extra toe joint, because he was quirkless.
He wouldn’t be able to pull things off the shelf with the flick of his hand, or toast thing with just a single breath, because he was quirkless.
He was quirkless.
He was never going to be -
Izuku let out a whimper and rubbed his eyes. The cab driver says nothing as he turn back to the road, but the lights above him flicker into words of concern that he dares not bring up to either of them.
The lights he was seeing – the same ones blinking above the driver and his silent mother’s head, were something called “Synesthesia”. He didn’t fully understand what it was, but from the bits and pieces he gleaned from Dr.Tsubasa’s talk with his mother, a wire in his head was crossed wrong, and now he was seeing words and lights he shouldn’t.
“It’s not a detrimental disorder, nor will it affect his life much. I do ask that you call in if he starts saying anything worrisome or out the ordinary though... ”
When they got home, the first thing out of his mouth was to ask his mother if she could set up the computer so he could watch All Might’s debut video – the one he watched so many times he could actually quote it word for word without help and caused his mother constant worry over him going half-blind sitting so close to the screen. Both parents often joked that he most likely made up a good 2/3rds of the view count.
No such jokes were made, as she solemnly led him to the small little room that acted as his father’s study when he was home to visit, set up the video, and let it play before leaving – most likely to call his father with the news of their son’s diagnosis. She had not even remembered to turn on the lights in her rush.
Though in fairness, Izuku never made a move to remind her either.
[“Can you see that?”] the recorder shouted, pointing at the flaming wreckage [“He’s already saved a hundred people! It hasn’t even been 10 minutes!”]
So there Izuku sat in the dark, watching the large blonde man in red, white, and blue spandex who would some day become the national symbol of Japan’s heroics system, emerge from the burning remains of a fallen plane with swathes of injured people draped over his form.
[“That’s crazy – He’s actually laughing!”] Another witness cried as bright, booming laughter cut through the horror and smoke like a well-forged blade
[“It’s fine! Do you know why?”] He bellowed with a blazing smile as hot as the fire around him, causing the despair in the crowd’s eyes to wash away as the light of hope shined through [“BECAUSE I AM HERE!”]
(“You should probably give up”)
Without a quirk, could he do something so amazing? Could he save people with only just a smile? Could a boy with only the shining words he saw above people really, truly become a hero?
The door to the room opened, and they both already knew what was to come next.
“…Mommy” Izuku shook as he turned away from the video, tears spilling from his eyes in wet globs, “Ca-can I be like that too… can I still be a hero?”
His mother responded with a sudden hug, the lights above her head bobbing and shifting like a dying candle as she sobbed a sorrowful apology to her son –
My fault
Hopeless
I’m sorry Izukkun
Neither understanding the what the other actually meant, they sat together in the dark, with nothing but their tears and their regrets.
When it came time to deliver the news, the teachers had promised that Izuku would be treated no different than the other children (Izuku didn’t believe them, not with the way their words of pity shimmered when they turned to look at him). They would do their best to teach him well and explain to the other students as best they could.
Unfortunately, children being who they are, acted accordingly when the announcement was made; avoiding him, or mocking him with insincere pity, or pretending not to hear when he asked if he could play. But the words above them were all the same when it came to it-
Quirkless
Worthless
Don’t want
Everyone seemed to turn on him – all except his friend Katsuki of course. “Kacchan” had taken the news of Izuku’s quirkless status as nothing really interesting in the sort. To him, it was just a confirmation of what he already knew – that Izuku was a weak, useless “Deku”, only now with science to back up the claim.
So he let Izuku still follow him around, still let him to praise the living daylights out of him, still allowed him to play Hero and Villain, and ultimately acted like nothing had changed.
And Izuku, despite himself, could not see fit to leave Katsuki’s side. Because even if he saw him as a Deku, he at least saw him as something, and being looked down upon was a much easier bitter pill to swallow than not being looked upon at all...
Izuku wasn’t entirely fine with everyone else being so far ahead, but the last thing he wanted was to be left behind by the one person who noticed him long enough to let him catch up.
(And he was happy, for the small moment, that nothing had changed)
“What the heck’s wrong with you Deku!” Katsuki hissed, letting sparks dance threateningly around his open palm “I told ‘ya to get lost, so why don’t you! I don’t need a quirkless wimp like you around!”
But nothing ever stays the way it was, not even relationships.
Izuku had no clue what had occurred – they were fine a few weeks ago, running around the park playing “Follow the Leader” as they always did during the summer. And yet now suddenly, Katsuki wanted nothing to do with him; shoving him away for his other friends, yelling at him for calling his name, and just all around being angry at him for having dared even exist in his presence.
Katsuki had gone from tolerating to outright detesting him, and Izuku could not understand why. What had he done wrong? What could have happened to make Kacchan so utterly hateful towards him?
"Kacchan," he cried hopeless, tears stinging the burns littering his arms "Why are you being so mean?"
Blocks of lights flashed and shimmered above Katsuki’s head, and Izuku squinted to try and make them out –
Scary
Won’t leave
Don’t understand
Katsuki followed his gaze and sneered, “What the heck are you looking at nerd!”
And Izuku, being raised an honest forthright child, immediately told him what he saw.
And Katsuki, being a self-assured child constantly told how amazing he was, now being told he was apparently scared of his seemingly quirkless former-friend, immediately responded with an explosion to said former-friend’s face.
The latter years were met with more of the same – Izuku would see what sort of words the lights would make, people would ask what he saw, and when he told them, the results were anger and pain, usually in that order. Even with the excuse of his Synesthesia, a lot of children did not like being told about Izuku’s magical glowing words that only he could see; It made them upset, it made them uncomfortable, and a few even cried when he told them.
Eventually, he learned the best way to avoid this was to simply keep his mouth shut and his eyes down. Didn’t work all the time, but it made the beat downs unrelated to his quirkless status less frequent.
His mother would watch him come in day after day, rubbing at hurts that he’d claim came from rough-housing with Katsuki (who he hadn’t played or spoken with since a morrow ago) or tripping on a staircase coming home, unable to speak the words that buzzed around her head like mad fireflies -
Is hurt
I’m sorry
My poor baby
But the last thing either wanted was to address the quirkless elephant in the room, so they proceeded forward the only way the Midoriya family knew how – tenacity and denial.
So Inko pretended not to notice when he deflected the conversation away from his many bumps and bruises that (to her) seem to accumulate out of nowhere, and Izuku pretended not to notice her pretending not to notice, and both worked hard to try and get through the rest of the day with as little issue as possible.
A delicate yet flimsy system, but a working one none the less.
When he’s 8, his condition changes.
It’s during class, and his teacher introduces daily journals to everyone – Something to encourage expressing their feelings and helping with developing their writing skills. For three weeks the teacher would give them a subject and they would write whatever came to mind, before allowing them to continue filling in the notebooks on their own.
Izuku opens his own and looks at the teacher, waiting for instructions.
And then it happens
The words above her head glimmer and shoot towards him. He lets out an inaudible gasp as they lay themselves on the pages, forming longer and more elaborate sentences than they once were, line by line –
Ugh, this is so stupid! Who the heck came with this dumb assignment anyways – Not like any of these little brats have anything interesting to write about. Why couldn’t I have been assigned to the 6th graders? At least I could have been spending more time with Junsuke! Ahh, damn he looked nice in those tight-
He shuts the notebook with a loud snap that has everyone in the room looking towards him, staring.
“...I thought I saw a bug.”
(Izuku decides not to tell his mother about what happened when he comes home.)
Izuku’s life falls into an easy rhythm – School, home, quirk studying, and the occasional visit to Dr.Tsubasa’s ward for yearly check ups(the doctors who worked under him were all very nice, even if they were a tad strange). Lunch and recess were filled with isolation and dinners as home were filled with silence, but all in all, nothing much changes.
But oh, how they both wish it did.
One day, Inko Midoriya dreams that her son will make kinder friends, and enter a world more accepting to him, so she could see that dazzling, hopeful smile of his once again.
One day, Izuku Midoriya dreams that he’ll have the chance to become a hero, so maybe he won’t have to see his mother’s sad, flickering words when he brings it up.
Those dreams came true around his 10th year.
It had been a small, silly thing – Izuku had gotten a flu shot and had a bad reaction to it, so around his annual checkup, a few extra tests were added. Usually they went to Doctor Tsubasa’s ward for this, but the man had been called always last minute for something important and the other doctors schedules were too filled up, so his mother changed there destination to a small clinic closer to downtown. Blood was draw, lollipops were given, and then a trip home while they awaited the results. Simple.
Then a call from the clinic showed it was not.
{ “We were concerned as one of the blood tests showed the presence of a quirk factor despite his file labeling him as “Quirkless”. We attempted to contact the doctor who made the original diagnosis, but…” }
So a trip to another hospital was made (“Just in case.” His mother says, as the words above her flicker in concern), for tests and exams and interviews and whatever else the doctors could come up with to figure out how they could have missed something so important.
“You know, I have a daughter who’s just about your age.” One of the nurses said, tightening the cord around his arm, “We thought she was quirkless for a while too, until she used it on her babysitter by accident. Some quirks tend to be harder to see than others, so there’s nothing wrong finding out about yours a little late.”
For once, people wanted to know what the glowing words said and what they meant – he was told to speak them aloud, to write them down, to point them out when he could. Every day was a different question: “What number am I thinking?” “What letter is that?” “Can you understand this man’s words?” “What font does that woman have?” “How many words was that?” “What color do they come in?”
Days passed in slow, painful agony in wait of news as the tests, the words, and his own confused frustration melted together in an untamed haze. What did this mean? What was happening? What was it that everyone was avoiding explaining to him?
Finally, they were finally called in and sent to a small little office, not unlike the one Doctor Tsubasa had back at his hospital where he gave Izuku’s dream its death sentence –
“Your son has a quirk.”
The both of them sat there in full shock as Izuku’s notebook fluttered to the floor, barely making a sound.
He couldn’t remember which of them spoke first.
“How?”
“It looks like he has some form of mind reading.” The doctor answered, flipping through his charts. “Seems to manifest visually – the 'glowing words' he said he’s been seeing, which is unusual for mental quirks. The standard tests for this type of quirk weren’t used either, which might be why his previous physician ended up misdiagnosing it as Synesthesia.”
The words above his head glinted impatiently in the bright office lights -
Embarrassing mistake
Avoidable
No one knew?
“Still, the way your son described his symptoms should have tipped someone off that that wasn’t the case, or at least gotten him another Quirk Exam. If that clinic hadn’t run that allergy test, we would have never caught the error.”
His mother sat hunched over, tears silently spilling forth. She could barely suppress the astonishment from her voice, “I can’t believe it…all these years and I…I-“
She turned to Izuku, who was still staring at the doctor, slack-jawed and still processing events. Mournful words of apology flickered above her head, but he barely even registered them.
“Well,” the doctor said, smiling at them both, “Now that we know it’s there, we can get started on helping him learn how to better control it and adjusting to having it.” His words shimmered with encouragement as he spoke. “Six years is a long time to lose out on practice, and it won’t be easy. But if we work hard and take it step by step, we can help get him up to speed to where he needs to be.”
After officially registering him in the national quirk registry, it was like a switch was flipped – Kids suddenly acted like they wanted to be around him again (except Katsuki – there was still that undercurrent of fear in his words, now layered in anger over the news), teachers payed more attention when he participated in class or came in with a bruise, the other adults looks of pity washed away into faces of joy and pride. Suddenly, the glowing words of disgust shifted into words of praise, of joy, of belief.
For the first time in years, people believed him when he said he wanted to be a hero.
It was everything he wanted and more.
“Mom,” Izuku asked, eyes glued to the space over his mother’s head “Can I become a hero now?”
It had been four weeks after that fateful visit, and Inko Midoriya had just finished cleaning her husband’s study. He son seemed to have had appeared out of nowhere and startled her with that sudden question alongside that dreadful feeling of déjà vu.
It happened like this last time too, didn’t it?
Last time…the last time he asked that question, she –
(“I’m so sorry, Izuku.”)
She shut her eyes furiously. No – this time she was going to handle it properly, this time she wasn’t going to pretend there was nothing she could do, this time she wasn’t giving into her despair.
This time….this time she was going to be on side for once.
So Inko, eyes glistening with pride and joy, smiled as she looked at her son and let the words she couldn’t bear to voice six years ago form in her mind.
Izuku stared, eyes hardened, as the words he dreamed of for so long shimmered into view.
And that was the last time Izuku Midoriya called Inko Midoriya “Mom”