Work Text:
Izuku was born on the 15th of July. His mother had held him while she cried, whispering kind words to him. She could already see some words written on her baby's wrist, and she was sure the person would bring hapiness to Izuku's life. They would have to, or Inko would hit them in the head and make them apologize to her son. No one would be able to hurt him if she was there.
When Izuku grew up, the words became readable and Inko just knew this person would be kind. Because on her son's wrist was writen "You ! It's you !", and Inko could almost already hear the enthusiastic tone of her baby's soulmate. She would love them as family, if they didn't gave her a reason not to.
But Inko was reassured, even if it wasn't rational, that at least her son's soulmate seemed kind. She wouldn’t let Izuku be hurt by a person who were supposed to love them, not like she had been. Izuku would have the best life she could offer him, and she would make sure to teach him that while soulmates were important and could become important to you, they weren't the ultimate end-all society made them seem to be.
Inko made sure to tell Izuku that not everyone had soulmates, but that didn't mean they couldn’t love or that they loved less, that didn't mean their couple would be less just because they weren't fated to be together. And she reminded Izuku that sometimes, soulmates changed, or they weren't who you thought they would be, and that was fine. Inko's soulmate left her and it had hurt, but he wasn’t a good person, she explained. Some other people got along with their soulmates, but didn't see themselves get together and stayed friends, be it because they just didn't like each other that way, or because they were already in a committed relationship.
But still, Inko told Izuku that a soulmate could be good, they could be everything you thought they would be.
When Izuku was old enough to read and understand words, he kept reading them, running his fingers on the writing, full of hope someone loved him enough to be excited to meet him, even if they didn't know who he was. He had shown the mark to Katsuki, who also had one : "Hey man, that wasn’t very manly today." His friend had pouted, saying he would show his soulmate how manly he was and told Izuku that even if his soulmate seemed more happy to meet him, they would have to wait and see who had the best one.
When Izuku was diagnosed quirkless, Katsuki laughed. He laughed and laughed and laughed until it looked like it hurt and then, he told Izuku he could never be a hero. He told Izuku he was useless.
Izuku bought a bracelet made specificaly to hide soulmarks and put it on his wirst. It was a golden band, full of intricate lines that looked like leaves. The only other person appart from his mom to ever know his words would be Katsuki.
Two years later, Izuku was still a social parya, but he burried himself in books and spent most of his time out of school going to lessons his mother paid for him. He took ballet, gymnastics, and was learning self defense in a dojo far away from home -it was the only one that would take Izuku in-. All of this made his time at school more bearable, and he was so busy Katsuki couldn’t get to him as much as he did before.
Then they got older, and kids got crueler, and Katsuki would call him useless, a deku, and would beat him up after. The biggest part of the school followed his example, and the other ones were too scared to go against him, so Izuku was alone. He could get through it though, he knew he could. And he had his soulmates to help him, he had his soulmate, who would be happy to see him and who would want him alive. They wouldn’t want their words to turn grey, like they did if your soulmate died, he knew they wouldn’t want that.
One day, Katsuki told him that his soulmate would hate him. He told him they would be repulsed by him and that the words marked on his skin was them discovering that Izuku is a quirkless freak, and being disgusted by it. That's the first time Izuku got angry. He used what he learned in self defense classes and tackled his former friend to the ground before pinning him, hands as far away from him as they would go, and he screamed. Izuku thinks it's the first time he saw Katsuki look afraid of something.
As much as Izuku wanted to not believe what his bully had said, the seed of doubt had already made its way into his mind. That night, he craddled his wirst and cried himself to sleep. And while he wanted to believe in his soulmate, he knew the world wasn’t kind -especially to people like him-. Izuku had heard stories of people rejected because of their quirks, be it because they were considered "villainous", "creepy", "weak"..., or if they were quirkless.
So Izuku would try to have faith in his soulmate, he would still cherish his words and dream about meeting them and falling in love at first sight, but he would not be naive. He wouldn't let himself be hurt like that when it was preventable, so Izuku reminded himself that sometimes, you and your soulmate weren't meant to be and that was fine. A lot of things change after you're born, after all, and souls aren't an exception.
Izuku would continue to aim for his dreams, he would try his best to become a hero, and if he meets his soulmate while doing this, than fine, but Izuku would stop at nothing to get into a hero course, the school didn’t matter -even if he secretly hoped it would be UA-. His dreams were already hard enough to achieve, he didn’t need a distraction.
When Izuku heard UA lifted their ban on quirkless people applying to the hero course, he cried tears of joy, his mom crying with him before making katsudon to celebrate.
Izuku would take the UA entrance exam, and even if everyone knew it was biased to give people with strong quirks an advantage, he would ace it. He would ace it and he would become the first quirkless hero in all Japan. It had been done in America, it could be done here.
***
Izuku was ecstatic ! He had received his UA's acceptance letter and couldn’t believe he had actually gotten in. He would be the first quirkless student in the heroic course of UA ! And also the first quirkless hero student of all Japan, which was nerve wracking, people were sure to have opinions about that… But the principal said they wouldn’t disclose his quirk status without his consent, to keep him from getting harassed by the press, which Izuku greatly appreciated.
The principal, who had personally recorded Izuku's letter to inform him that he was the highest scorer ever in the history of UA for the writing test, and that he would be happy to talk to Izuku about becoming his personal student, named Nedzu. Nedzu, the smartest creature in all Japan wanted him -quirkless, useless… no, not useless, mom said not to think like that- as a personal student !
And the writing exam wasn’t the only test where he came up on top. No, somehow, the practical exam also graded students on their heroic behavior with rescue points. Izuku had spent a couple minutes jumping on robots and jamming his knife -the weapon he had requested to be able to take with him- under their eyes, accessing the wire box and cutting the wires with it, but then, more and more people started to get injured, be it because of the robots or other people going wild with their quirks. Izuku really hoped they wouldn’t get in the hero course. Someone who didn’t care about the damage their quirk was doing had nothing to do in any heroic departement, let alone UA's. And what could Izuku do, really. It's not like he could just leave people who needed help alone !
So he stopped trying to go after the robots, only taking down ones who were going after already injured candidates, and instead he helped people get to safety, guiding them to the exit, helping them walk if they couldn’t, assessing their injuries and reassuring them that Recovery Girl would see them after the exam. Sometimes he had to push someone away, if they were in the path of fallen debris or of a quirk attack gone rogue.
The last thing he did before the timer ran out was help a really nice girl -the one who saved him from tripping earlier in the day- from being crushed by a giant robot. He's sure a teacher would have intervened before she could get severely injured, but in the heat of the moment, adrenaline rushing through his veins, he didn’t think of that. So he ran at her, picking up a piece of scrap that was long enough to act as a crowbar and managed to get one of her arms out, both of them having been pinned down, rendering her unable to use her quirk to get out from under the rubble, while reassuring her she'll be okay and asking her if she still had enough energy to use her quirk, which she said she had.
Once he did that she didn't waste any time floating away what fell on her and Izuku scooped her out and ran away as quickly as he could, the girl having informed him of not being able to walk, due to one of her legs being broken, while he was digging her out.
The poor girl -Uraraka Ochako, she said-, started to puke from quirk exhaustion and Izuku couldn’t help but laugh, the adrenaline quickly fading from his system.
Izuku told her he probably wouldn't be getting in when she asked and she told him that UA would be idiots not to let him in, which of course made him cry.
They exchanged numbers -they exchanged numbers !!- and both went their own way.
And now, Izuku was inside UA, heading towards the teacher's office on his first day of school, because life sucked and never gave Izuku a break.
Everything had been going fine too. Izuku had waited for Uraraka at the door. They had freaked out when they learned both of them got into the hero course, and even more when they noticed they were in the same class, and agreed to search for Class 1-A together. Izuku had gotten first place -80 points, ten points more than Bakugo- and Uraraka had been awarded rescue points for asking if she could share her points with Izuku -he had cried again when Nedzu showed him that-.
Everyone was friendly at first, no one wanted their classmates to get a bad impression of them.
But of course, the peace couldn’t last. Izuku, the fear of expulsion coursing through him, gave all he had during the quirk assessment test, and his effort paid off since he ended up in the middle of the pack.
Izuku would never forget Aizawa-sensei's face when he asked if he could see the device that was measuring the ball.
The man only raised one eyebrow and gave it to him before Izuku started fiddling with it -thank god he had thought of bringing some weapons and tools-, before the screen started indicating numbers. Izuku wouldn’t be able to get infinity like Urakaka did -and wow, his friend was a badass-, but he could up the numbers as much as he wanted, so he decided to settle for a nice 2,000 meters.
He handed back the device to Aizawa, still not leaving the circle and threw the ball, which added 31 meters - and it was a good score for someone without a quirk to enhance his throw- to the count.
Aizawa-sensei just stared at him and didn’t say anything for what seemed like minutes but probably only were a couple seconds, and Izuku started sweating, thinking the man was going to expel him there and then.
Except he didn’t, he just blinked and nodded at Izuku to join back his classmates. All of them were looking at him like he grew a second head, except Uraraka who was smiling at him -and it almost made him tear up, because she didn't seem to care he hadn't used a physical quirk- and Bakugo. Because of course, it would always be him. So the blond threw a fit, started screaming at Izuku, calling him a cheat because there's no way a "quirkless, useless Deku" could actually get into UA, let alone manage to survive a quirk assessment test, effectively outing Izuku in front of all the class.
And of course, it caused an uproar. Some people started asking him if it was true, some people demanded the teacher to transfer him into gen ed because it was "too dangerous for a quirkless", Izuku would have had a panick attack if it wasn't for Uraraka, his sweet, wonderful friend, who didn’t even hesitate to defend him, putting herself in front of him so that he wouldn’t get overwhelmed by everyone and yelling at them that Izuku deserved to be here, that he saved her, and if he couldn’t be a hero than no one else here who where in the same area as them could, because he's the only one who helped her.
Then, Eraserhead intervened. He told everyone to quiet down and that anyone who as much as uttered another word would be expelled. He then proceeded to say quirkless discrimination would not be allowed in UA and that if he heard something quirkist again, the person would be either expelled or at the very least moved from the heroic departement. He sent Bakugo to the Principal's office, for trying to attack a student, and gave detention to Iida, Yaoyorozu and Ojiro for being quirkist. Izuku hadn't even heard the last two of them say anything at all, but they were probably also asking for him to be transfered.
And now, he was on his way to his teacher's office, for some reason. Aizawa-sensei had said he wasn’t in trouble and that he could bring a friend with him if it would make him feel more comfortable, and so Uraraka had asked if he wanted her to come with him. Izuku had to admit he didn’t want to go alone, so he said yes.
The man wanted to talk about "logistics". And didn’t that make Izuku anxious. What even were logistics to Aizawa ? Would he say that he changed his mind and would be transferring Izuku ? Would he ask Izuku to lie about having a quirk ? Izuku wasn’t sure he wanted everyone to know yet, but he also didn’t want his teachers to be ashmed of him being quirkless.
Uraraka noticed he was getting anxious and so she started chattering to him about a new hero movie that just came out and murdered the box office. It was the final movie of a very famous heptalogy, that was an adaptation from pre quirk era books, -that also had been adapted in movies before but no one could find any copies of it-. They kept the magical aspect of the books, but made the school "Hogwarts", a hero school instead of a normal one.
Izuku's favorite character had died, which made him slightly angry, as the death wasn’t even well scripted. He was halfway trought his rant -that only Uraraka could hear, since he was muttering- when he finally noticed the both of them were standing inside the teacher's lounge.
In front of him was Aizawa's desk, the man sitting behind it and levelling him with an unimpressed yet somehow amused look. Next to him was a student Izuku had never seen before. That wasn’t really surprising, since it was only the first day of school, but what was surprising was that the boy was pretty. Like really pretty.
Izuku didn’t even know if he was breathing anymore, eyes transfixed on bright purple eyes and defying gravity hair that matched his eyes. The teenager had deep eye bags, which in someways managed to make his face look more appealing, and he had a pointed nose- oh. Izuku was staring wasn’t he.
He felt a slight blush warming his face up, but he couldn't be that embarassed, since the pretty boy also hadn't stop staring at him. Uraraka gave him an elbow nudge and Izuku cleared his throat and eloquently said, turning towards his friend. "God, I still can't believe they killed Sirius Black, you know ?"
His friend tried to stiffle her giggles, putting a hand over her mouth. Aizawa looked absolutly done with what was happening and Izuku definitly heard him sigh and mutter "problem child…".
The teenager's eyes had gone wider, if possible, when Izuku had talked about Sirius Black, and he was now mouth agape, still staring at him. Izuku just then noticed that the teen was in front of Present Mic's desk, the both of them clearly had been talking before Izuku walked into the room. Izuku shrinked on himself and was going to apologize for interrupting, when the purple haired student's face morphed into an angry expression.
"You ! It's you !" Said the teenager angrily.
Izuku's brain blanked. No. No. Wait ? Did- did someone just say his words ?! Wait how did Izuku end up with someone as pretty as his soulmate ? Wait. His soulmate ?! Izuku just met his soulmate ?? Oh, Izuku couldn’t wait to talk to them, would they be fine with him being quirkless ? Izuku really hoped so- wait. Why did they seem angry ? He didn’t even know Izuku was quirkless yet ! Izuku had to ask why !
It would have been fine. It would have been a normal question to ask, but no- Izuku's brain was still rebooting and the only thing he came up with was…you'll see.
"That's not really how I imagined that being said." Said Izuku, half teasing, half dumbfounded -yes, it's possible-.
The boy just pointed an accusatory finger at Izuku.
"Do you know how scared I was when I was younger ?! I thought someone close to you would die ! Actually die ! But then, the first movie of the heptalogy gets out, and I just think to myself- no. No, my soulmates' words absolutly cannot be a spoiler for my favorite series, except it totally is ! You had me worried for a fictional character for years, and then you managed to spoil the entire series to me !"
Izuku looked at his soulmate for a couple seconds, his face was red from working himself up, his brows were furrowed and he looked pissed, but Izuku noticed somethink that looked an awful lot like elation in his eyes, and he couldn’t help but laugh. Izuku laughed so hard, he had to clutch his stomach and steady himself on his teacher's desk chair to not fall over.
Later, when everyone had calmed down, Aizawa and Yamada would sit both of their students down -Uraraka left when Izuku told her he was fine to do the rest alone-, and they explained to them that quirk discrimination would not be tolerated in the school.
It turns out, Shinso also had been bullied on his first day of school, and that's why he was here. Yamada told Shinso the bullies were transfered to Class 1-D, and that if they tried anything else they would be expelled immediatly.
Aizawa told Izuku Bakugo had been booted to Gen Ed, and that he would stay there until his therapist -that they would force him to see for anger management therapy- gave him the all clear to go back into the hero course - if they ever did. He also told Izuku his classmates who had implied he was weaker for being quirkless had been given a firm warning, and would be transfered out of his class if they ever said something similar again. Then his homeroom teacher looked at Shinso before saying "Now that Bakugo is not in my class anymore, I have a place I can fill if a student impresses me enough during the sports festival.".
Shinso's eyes buldged out of their sockets and he looked at Izuku to confirm the other heard the same thing. Izuku just smiled at his soulmate.
Then both teachers told them to go to them if they ever heard any of their classmates says something quirkist about them again, and they let them go.
Soon enough, both Izuku and Shinso found themselves right outside UA gates, looking like two lost cats. They both looked at each other, dumbfounded by what just happened and their teachers kindness, but they also looked wary. Izuku was the first to talk.
"So…How are you feeling about our teachers caring ? I suppose you also went trought a shitty time in middle school, given your reaction to Yamada's words."
Shinso just nodded, still looking wary but also like he would at least try to make conversation with Izuku. "Weird. Not used to teachers caring."
"Yeah, me neither…" Chuckled Izuku. He took a deep breath before adding. "I'm quirkless. That's why my classmates were the way they were."
"Well, that's ridiculous." Huffed Shinso. "If you managed to pass the extremely biased exam with no physical quirk to help you, then you already deserve your spot more than any of them."
"Oh. I- thanks." Said Izuku, glancing away when he saw Shinso looking at him quizzically. "Sorry. It's just, I didn't know how you would react to me being quirkless. I kinda made a whole scenario in my head in case you didn't accept me and broke my heart."
Shinso snorted. "Same hat." Than he also averted his eyes from Izuku's, and scruffed his shoe to the ground. "My quirk, it's called brainwashing. It's voice activated, I ask a question and if you answer I can brainwash you."
"Oh ! That's such a cool quirk ! It would help a lot in rescue work, do you want to be a hero ? I ask because Aizawa sensei kinda implied you could try to impress him enough to get into class 1-A."
"Oh, uh- yeah. I- uh, I flunked the exam because, well you know, robots. I'm going to try to get in by the sports festival though." Said Shinso awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck
"Yeah, that was my second option if I failed the entrance exam ! I'm sure you'll do great, if you want, I can help by giving you my notes and sparring with you ?"
"I- I mean, yeah, uh, if it doesn’t bother you… You actually think my quirk is good for hero work ?"
"Yeah of course I do ! People are biggots if they told you your quirk was bad or that it made you evil !"
Shinso chuckled. "Sorry, It's just, like you said, I got ready to be rejected by my soulmate so, I still can't belive you didn’t call me evil and ran away."
"And I can't believe you not only don't belive I'm useless, but you also actually think I can be a hero, but I guess we were made soulmates for a reason, don't you think ?" Teased Izuku.
Shinso laughed and looked at his soulmate. "Well, now that we have established we don't hate each other because of our quirk status, what do you say about getting to know each other better ? I know a nice cat cafe not too far away from here." He said while extanding his hand.
"I- yeah, okay." Izuku blushed and took the offered hand. "I'll call my mom and then we can go ?"
"Sure, I need to text my moms too."
And, if their afternoon was spent getting surrounded by cats demanding to be pet, laughter filling the air, no one had to be the wiser.
They didn’t know then, what this would lead to.
Uraraka and Izuku only got closer, especially after the USJ. They bounded with Tsu and Denki after the whole ordeal and spent most of their time with each other, and of course, Shinso was there. He got along well with everyone in their group, and they helped him get ready for the sports festival.
Izuku couldn’t be prouder when his soulmate made it to the second place podium, and Shinso couldn’t be prouder, watching his soulmate take the gold. After the sports festival, Todoroki, Jirou and Sero joined their little group, Shinso got transfered and life went on.
When came time for internships, Izuku and Shinso both choosed to go with Nighteye, they did a good job, saved a girl named Eri, and both were offered the option to return for their next internship if they wanted to.
In their second year, Bakugo would be transfered into 1-B and apologize to Izuku. The teen didn’t know if he could forgive him, but he told his former friend they could still be civil. Bakugo just nodded and left, bowing slightly.
At the end of their third year, the underground duo Abyss and Entice graduated with honors and went on to be one of the most respected underground duo out there, sitting nicely at the top in the unoficial underground heroes classement. They had to wait Aizawa-sensei's retirement to be able to get to the first place though, and the man liked teasing them about it as much as he could.
Both of them had found family in each other, and in most of their classmates. Yamada and Aizawa also became parental figures to them, always helping them, training them, offering them comfort for the heroic aspect of their life that their civilian parents couldn’t really understand and had trouble helping with.
And if one summer day, Shinso invited everyone to the cat cafe where Izuku and he had their first date, before getting on one knee and proposing, no one would know Abyss and Entice had gotten engaged, except from the people present that day.
The mariage was a small affair, and later on, with rings around their promise finger, they would laugh about the time they thought the other would ever reject them because of something out of their control, and they would kiss after slow dancing to their favorite song. Life went on, and life was good.
For once, life was good to them.