Chapter Text
When Midoriya Izuku was 5, he was proclaimed Quirkless. What this meant in modern society was that he would never amount to anything, he was - as his best friend, Kacchan, said - a useless Deku. His hero dreams would never come true, he would never be able to stand anywhere near his idol outside of some cosplayer at a fan convention, and he would be left in the dust as his peers became incredible before they even knew they were incredible - the dust would have settled and been nothing more than a faint memory by the time they realized they might be slightly as amazing as they were.
When Midoriya Izuku was 5, the week after he was told that he was Quirkless. The week after his dreams shattered before his eyes. The week after he quickly became worthless in the eyes of his few friends. The week after Kacchan went from playful little love taps to full-on fists backed by explosions.
The week after Midoriya Izuku was proclaimed Quirkless, there was a doctor that had been arrested for carelessness which resulted in a patient losing their life. This doctor had multiple counts where he hadn’t properly looked into a patient, where he had simply glanced at evidence in front of him and waved it off as worthless, and it had finally resulted in the loss of an influential member of society. Thus, this doctor was arrested, carted off to holding so he could face a lawful trial.
Before this doctor had been taken away, however, he had burned the information of all the patients he hadn’t cared enough to look at. So the authorities couldn’t find all the cases, they couldn’t inform all of these potentially endangered patients that they should look into a more reputable source, one that would look into their case and find what was truly wrong with them. They could only rely on news channels to notify the public, but only one news channel aired it. A news channel that Midoriya Inko… had never heard of.
When Midoriya Izuku was 6, he had a migraine. However, he had assumed it was simply because Kacchan had hit him too hard and it would go away. With time, it did go away. But afterwards, it felt as though everything moved too slowly for Izuku.
His school was never a challenge anymore, as he was able to finish his homework before the teacher finished passing it out. The insults had changed quickly after the other students had found out about his grades being impeccable - straight 100’s, to be honest - and he soon found himself being called a ‘nerd’. Someone had once even asked if he needed to go get glasses, since he was “such a nerd.” But when the school physical came around, prompting him to take an eye exam, he saw everything. Out of curiosity, the nurse practitioner that had volunteered to do the tests to get some extra credit for his college courses had taken the chart down and moved it further away - but Midoriya could see it as clearly as though it were less than a foot away, until the man passed the 12-meter mark. Then he couldn’t see the letters at all and his head hurt when he tried. The college student thought it was the coolest thing, though, so Izuku guessed that the pain was worth it to have someone smile at him like that again.
His peers would be stuck on a simple math problem, when he had already figured out all the key points to it and was left either waiting for them to catch up or the teacher to move on. His mother would have an issue when trying to stack or organize something, when he would walk up like it was easier than the first level of Tetris. Someone would lose an item and couldn’t find it no matter how hard they looked, when he found it like it was being held to him on a silver platter. Someone would speak to Izuku and they were just so slow, he wished he knew how to speed them up sometimes. If Izuku had not been informed that he was Quirkless, he would begin thinking he had a mental Quirk.
But the truth of the matter - at least, to one 6-year-old Midoriya Izuku - was that he had not simply come into his Quirk late. It was probably something from the pre-Quirk era, something no one really studied anymore since everything could be attributed to Quirks, something like that ADFD or whatever that he had heard about in a documentary. Or, the more liked answer. He had simply found something he was good at. So he applied it to his favorite heroes, first being the current Number One of course. As he watched the various videos that used to excite him so much, he… saw everything. Every little muscle twitch as All Might fought to keep smiling, every little tear that escaped the victims as they were rescued, and every little pixel on the screen.
Every little mistake.
He was suddenly hit by a realization - All Might wasn’t a god. He was a human. Izuku almost felt… ashamed that he hadn’t realized that before. All Might was not unreachable. Any person with a strength-based Quirk could do what All Might does. All Might was just able to keep a smile on his face, where others failed to when stressed. All Might was able to act .
Izuku walked up to his mother that night, after having rewatched all the videos with this new clarity, and nervously made a request. He had no reason to be nervous, this was his mother, the only thing she had done that went against what he thought was right was give up on him when he didn’t have a Quirk. That had been upsetting when it happened but he kind of understood, in a way he didn’t think any other 6, almost 7, year-old would be able to. It just made him suspicious of his supposed Quirkless state, even more so than before.
“Mom, can I… get a notebook?” Inko kneeled in front of her son, doing her best to keep the sadness that enveloped her every time she saw him off her face, and smiled up at him.
“Did you run out of notebooks for school? The school only said you should need 3, but we can get more if you need more.” Izuku bit his lip before making a split-second decision.
“Yeah, Kacchan wanted to borrow mine. There’s a couple other kids that don’t have any too, can we get some for them?” Izuku had never lied to his mother before, had never had any need to, so he felt a bit guilty - but he knew this would work better than saying he wanted to analyze the heroes he could find. He knew this would keep her from being sad again. He was right, as her face brightened into an easier smile.
Her little Izuku, always looking out for others and helping when he could. He would’ve been an amazing hero, way better than those that are there for the fame and money.
So she bought the notebooks - in fact, she bought 20 of them since they were on sale, handing them over to Izuku so he could bring them to the students that didn’t have their own notebooks. She didn’t see them anymore, aside from when Izuku was sitting in front of the computer taking notes on something, so she assumed that they were delivered well and kept from bugging her son when it looked like he was studying.
When Midoriya Izuku was 8, the first nearly Quirkless hero he had ever heard of began making a name for himself. Eraserhead quickly became Izuku’s new favorite hero. His ability to nullify another’s Quirk was amazing, Izuku had 4 pages of notes on ways to implement the Quirk into a fight alone - not to mention the many pages he spent analyzing each little fight he found footage of, the mistakes he found and created solutions to, the creative ways he figured out how to keep the enemies of this new hero from noticing the hero’s scarf - a capture scarf, that’s what the hero support item website he found called it. He ended up having a notebook for Eraserhead alone, if one ignored the few pages of analysis he had used on Present Mic.
When Midoriya Izuku was 9, he met Eraserhead.
“Kid, what are you doing on the streets alone?” Izuku looked up from his drawing of Eraserhead that he had crudely done, making notes on each aspect of the hero’s outfit to finish off the notebook, only to meet the tired eyes of the very same hero. Not quite believing he was seeing Eraserhead, Izuku rubbed his eyes and looked back up. Nope, still him. “It’s almost midnight. Kids like you should be in bed right now, there’s no school with a day off tomorrow around here.” Izuku vaguely remembered the short article he had seen that had listed an Aizawa as a teacher in UA, though he hadn’t quite believed it was the same man since there were no pictures and no one had stated his hero name. Maybe that was why Eraserhead knew about the schools.
“I’m uh, I’m walking home from a friend’s house, Mr. Eraserhead, sir.” Eyes that had been lazily looking at him before suddenly sharpened into a near glare.
“Is there a reason you felt you should lie to me about that?” Izuku gulped, nervously shifting from one foot to another.
“Because that’s what I’m going to tell my mom when I get home?” Izuku squeaked, hugging his still open notebook to his chest. Completely forgetting the fact that the hero’s name had been written on the front along with Present Mic’s. The glare softened a small bit when they glanced down at the cover, before returning back to the nervous kid’s face.
“And why are you lying to your mother about where you were?” Shouta, to be frank, had assumed this would be a quick ‘check on the kid, escort them home, leave before anything troublesome happens’ but it was turning out to be more effort than he thought he would be expending on it. But he didn’t want this innocent looking kid to turn into a gangster, or worse a villain.
“Because she thinks Kacchan is my best friend still and I don’t want her to worry that I had been knocked out at the back of the school ‘cause he accidentally used too much of his Quirk on me.” Izuku’s brain screeched to a halt as he realized he had just told his ido- no, his… Hero? Idol sounded like the wrong word, he didn’t feel the same way towards Eraserhead as he had towards All Might a few years ago, but he couldn’t think of another word since he had just told his Hero that he had been beaten up. Ah man, Eraserhead was going to think he was super lame now.
Instead of laughing at Izuku as the boy had gotten used to, Eraserhead relaxed almost completely - it’s an act, he’s trying to lower your guard so he can make fun of you more later - before motioning towards the notebook. “What’s that?” His tone was softer, less suspicious. Don’t be dumb, he’s going to turn on you once he finds out you’re Quirkless .
“It’s…” Izuku glanced down, face heating up as he remembered which notebook - who’s notebook he was holding. “It’s my analysis notebook.” Before any other questions could be asked, before Izuku could embarrass himself any more, he shut the notebook and thrust it towards the hero who merely raised an eyebrow. “Um, you can have it. It’ll probably help you more than it’ll help me. I don’t have a Quirk so I can’t use any of these to become a hero, but since they’re about you and you are a hero, obviously, you’re Eraserhead, there’s notes about previous fights I found footage for and ways to buff up or protect your various weaknesses and ways to use your Quirk that’ll put less strain on your eyes and-” Izuku cut off his rambling, as Eraserhead’s hand closed around the edge of the book. Izuku immediately let go, as though the notebook had caught on fire, before bowing deeply. “I’m sorry for taking up your time, I’ll go home right away, sir, and I’ll make sure my Quirklessness doesn’t infect you.” It wasn’t an infectious disease , the little voice in the back of Izuku’s brain hissed. It was the same voice that whispered insults and comebacks to the verbal bullying Izuku received so it was easy to ignore it, because if being Quirkless wasn’t infectious then why was there currently a council of parents that were lobbying to have him removed from the school just because he was Quirkless? He ran off, heading home immediately as he had promised, and leaving behind a bewildered and slightly overwhelmed Eraserhead.
...
Aizawa Shouta was nothing if not an introvert. It was one of the reasons he had been a seemingly easy target for bullies, it was one of the reasons he had been consistently told when growing up that he would become a villain, it was one of the reasons he had chosen being an Underground Hero rather than a Daylight Hero. It was one of the reasons why Yamada Hizashi had chosen him, of all people, to latch onto. As the blond had joked after being asked why he chose to become Shouta’s best friend, why he chose to become Shouta’s boyfriend, why he chose to become Shouta’s fiance , “every introvert needs an extrovert and you just happen to be the only introvert I know.” Shouta knew it was because Hizashi had been bored one day then found out that Shouta was… “interesting”, which is why he stuck around from day one. He hadn’t expected to fall in love, but neither had Shouta.
Aizawa Shouta was nothing if not an introvert. So when this kid began speaking in fast-paced sentences, it took everything in him to try to keep up. The only thing he understood was the kid had offered his notebook to the adult, for some reason that Shouta hadn’t caught, before running away after Shouta had accepted it. “I’ll make sure my Quirklessness doesn’t infect you.” That… was a sentence that Shouta took a moment to process.
That sentence meant too many things all at once.
First, he’s Quirkless. So he has no natural defense against his bullies, like Shouta had himself and had assumed the kid had based on how he hadn’t seemed too bothered that “Kacchan” had knocked him out and left him. So he probably had some sort of hero-crush on Shouta, who fought essentially Quirkless - particularly against mutation Quirks and Quirks that were naturally resistant to his own. So, Shouta realized, this kid, who potentially was a fan of his (he fought a grimace at the idea of someone being his fan ), was alone. 20% of the population of the world sounded like a large amount but was abysmally small. Most were even misdiagnosed as Quirkless so the number was only an estimate and hadn’t ever been reflected on in the past 20 years. And, as far as Shouta was aware, there weren't any Quirkless people in this town. Children weren’t counted when figuring out who was Quirkless since a late-bloomer could potentially abruptly realize that they had a Quirk at the age of 10.
Second, he had been told he was a disease. An infectious one, at that. Someone had told an 8-year-old child that he wasn’t good to have around anyone else. In case the fact that he had been born without a Quirk would rub off on someone else, like just that would ruin someone else’s chances of having a Quirk when they had been born with one. It was like saying someone that was born a male would cause someone that was born female to grow the genitalia - something a lot of Transgendered men and women, probably some Non-binary pals as well, would be incredibly happy about.
Third, the final thing Shouta had realized, wasn’t even related to this sentence. It was the fact that this kid’s mother had looked at the time and hadn’t given a second thought about why her child wasn’t at home. Most 8-year-olds weren’t given phones, in fact Shouta would think that this kid definitely didn’t have one based on how he had written these notes he had created into a notebook. Most teenagers he had seen would write notes about their hobbies into their phones - and Shouta could see this was a hobby and not something formal by random insertions that looked like a diary with “Eraserhead is so cool! He took this villain down in less than a minute with just a scarf, he didn’t even use his Quirk!” before the notes that covered his capture scarf.
Shouta could accept this last one - if perhaps this boy’s mother worked a night job? He had always been far too nosy, Hizashi had once fondly told him that he could be mistaken for a cat if he only wore some cat ears, and his patrol was done. He had moved it even earlier so he could attempt to fit in a nap or at least a short rest before he needed to go to school, so he always finished just before midnight and would be back in his 2-bedroom apartment with Hizashi by 1am. So he did what he was used to, letting curiosity kill a cat somewhere as he followed the boy easily once he located him. The mother was home, the kid snuck inside as quietly as he could but was greeted by a woman that was only slightly taller than the boy. She didn’t make a single comment about the late time. Shouta then wondered - did the boy tell her that he was at that Kacchan’s place often? Or did she just not care?
He sent out a quick text, knowing his workaholic friend would see it since there was no time better than midnight to create crazy theories about old cases, and waited there for half an hour as the 2 in the house got ready for bed before his phone dinged.
Aizawa: Has there been any cases of a missing child with green hair, green eyes, and freckles in the past 4 years? False alarms and otherwise.
Tsukauchi: Not that was recorded. Did you find a child of that description? I can send word out to search for their parent(s)? Male or female?
Aizawa Shouta was nothing if not an introvert. But he also stuck his nose where it didn’t belong often and, for the first time, he wasn’t sure if he should.
…
When Midoriya Izuku was 10, he had been expelled by his school.
When Midoriya Izuku was 10, his mother was jumped by a gang and died by blood loss.
When Midoriya Izuku was 10, he found himself in a precinct, surrounded by adults with various Quirks that he found himself analyzing the pros and cons of while trying to ignore his reality.
When Midoriya Izuku was 10, he was put into Child Protective Services and then put up for adoption.
When Midoriya Izuku was almost 11, he met his best friend, even if he didn’t know that he had.
“Hi, I’m… Izuku. What’s your name?” The purple-haired boy looked up from where he had been fiddling with a drink coaster, a surprised expression before the purple eyes glanced around suspiciously. All the other kids were subtly looking over, trying to observe what would happen when the freak met the loser, or blatantly staring as if trying to see if they could use this interaction against either one of them - Izuku knew this. But he hated seeing someone as ostracized as he is, even if he couldn’t tell just yet why the other boy was. When a caretaker looked over though, the alarm on the woman’s face was almost funny. The glare when the boy opened his mouth was decidedly not, though.
The glare didn’t relax even after the boy slowly shut his mouth.
“I’m Shinsou Hitoshi. Don’t talk to me.” This message was very neatly written on a whiteboard. Izuku glanced back at the glaring caretaker - she didn’t even notice the bickering happening next to her with how focused she was on intimidating the purple-haired boy into staying silent. Izuku pulled out his notebook, one of the few empty ones he had left, from where he had it kept in his yellow backpack and tried to imitate the neat lines of the other.
“That’s okay, I can write to you instead. Is your name pronounced like Hitoshi or Hitodzuka?” The other boy blinked a few times, staring back at Izuku hard like he was trying to figure out a motive, before pointing at the first pronunciation. “So, Shinsou Hitoshi? That sounds so cool! Mind Messenger, huh? So, is your Quirk like telepathy or something? Can you read my thoughts?” Izuku bit his tongue, sticking it out slightly, as he tried to make his thoughts as loud as possible. He was probably the loudest there anyways, just based on how quickly his thoughts moved compared to others, but he figured he should try anyways.
The other boy looked so confused.
“It would make sense if people don’t like you because of your Quirk if it’s telepathy, a lot of people don’t like others knowing what they think, but you don’t have to worry about that with me!” Izuku grinned at the other. “I often get told I speak my mind too much, so you would know my thoughts even if you aren’t reading them.” Izuku stopped his word vomit as Shinsou carefully wrote out 2 characters. Izuku looked at them, narrowing his eyes as he picked each kanji apart in an attempt to recognize the unfamiliar word. It was made with 2 kanji he knew but he had never seen them put together before. “Your Quirk is… washing brains?” The other rolled his eyes.
“Controlling brains. I can make you do whatever I want you to do if I talk with you.” There was a resigned look on his face as he went back to playing with the coaster.
“That’s…” Izuku thought of what he knew about that type of power, realizing he had never analyzed that type of Quirk before and the closest he had gotten was Eraserhead himself, and his fingers itched to start writing again. “That’s so cool!” The wide purple eyes turned back to Izuku but he didn’t notice. “You could do such cool stuff with that like stop a fight before it even starts, you could get a criminal to confess to a crime they did, you could get someone with a Quirk suited to a situation to use their Quirk if they refused or didn’t know how to do what you needed them to do - there’s so many possibilities! You’d be such a cool hero!” Izuku slapped a hand over his mouth. “Sorry, you already knew that. I should shut up. Sorry.” Izuku lasted only a moment before he opened his mouth again. “Um, could I… could I do an analysis on your Quirk? I mean, you can totally say no and I can wait until you do become a hero, or just do it whenever I manage to see you use your Quirk if that’s okay with you instead, but it sounds super cool and I really like analyzing others’ Quirks but I’ve already analyzed everyone here and they aren’t as cool as yours is. Ah! Oh no, I forgot I was supposed to be writing to you, I'm sorry!”
When Shinsou Hitoshi was 10, he met Izuku and, for the first time since he had gained his Quirk, smiled. Because someone believed he could become a hero.
When Aizawa Shouta was 25, he learnt the boy he had become attached to had become an orphan before he managed to file the case to get the boy brought into his and his fiance's custody.
For when Aizawa Shouta was 23, he met a boy that gave him a notebook. This notebook contained notes that saved his life on more than one occasion, notes that improved his fighting ability, notes that, unfortunately, carried him up the rankings faster than he ever believed would be possible. Notes that saved more lives than he could count.