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The Midoriyas had always been a strange family.
They were quiet, they kept to themselves, and they were prone to bouts of extreme emotion (usually sadness). They didn’t seem to have much in the way of extended family, and sometimes seemed to blend into the background, even when you wouldn’t expect them to.
Midoriya Inko was gentle and anxious, and spent her time helping people. She didn’t really talk about her husband, and her best friends were Bakugou Mitsuki and her own son.
Midoriya Izuku was also gentle and anxious, but he also had the energy of a small child, and often found himself in the role of the damsel in distress during games of heroes and villains, the kind of child that some teachers would call ‘willing to compromise’ and others would call ‘a pushover’. He had one best friend, and a lot of other people he played with, even if they were sometimes a little bit mean.
The world saw the Midoriyas, and often passed them over, and this was how they liked it, because they had a secret, and they wanted it to stay that way.
—
If you asked anyone that knew Midoriya Izuku, they would tell you he was quirkless, but rather than say it with immediate derision or pity, they would pause for a moment, as if subconsciously unsure.
On paper, this was true, and also in reality, it was true, but there was reason for the hesitation.
Every so often, when emotions ran high or danger felt near, Izuku would show a sudden burst of strength, seemingly out of nowhere, that surpassed the possibilities of a child’s developing body.
It would always be over before anyone could really process it, and there would be too much going on around it to be a major concern, and so it slipped mostly under the radar, nothing but a moment of pause in most people’s minds.
Both Izuku and Inko were glad it was this way, and that the world found the extraordinary so everyday, because otherwise, their secret would be out.
—
Izuku was weird. No one would argue that. He was jittery and a nerd and obsessed with quirks even though he didn’t have one.
The weirdest thing about him, though, was that he talked to himself.
It was like he had imaginary friends, but without the too-short pauses that made up a one-sided conversation. It was like hearing one side of a phone call, rather than one acted out by a child. He also made eye contact with empty space, patted the air, and sometimes, if you looked at just the right moment, he seemed to be leaning against nothing.
Once more, the strangeness of the world was an excellent cover, because between how common odd occurrences were and how lonely Izuku was, these things could be dismissed, passed over as nothing more than an especially lonely child committing extra hard to his imaginary games.
Izuku whispered his relief and worries to his unseen friends, and thanked the world of quirks for its cover.
—
The Midoriyas spent a lot of time near the funeral home.
No-one knew why, and nobody asked, but they often comforted the grieving and accompanied the lonely dead, and so no-one complained, and they were left to their business.
Inko taught her son to be kind to the dead, and he took that request and ran with it.
—
For as long as Izuku could remember, he had seen the dead.
It was, according to his mom, a gift his family had passed down for generations, and she herself could see them too.
He spent his early childhood making friends with as many ghosts as he could, keeping them company and comforting them, helping them do what they couldn’t, taking comfort from them in return, and by the time he was five, he had a small but tight-knit group of ghosts that were with him in some way almost all the time.
As he grew, she explained to him what that meant, the different unique gifts that each Midoriya could receive, and how as he got older, he would unlock more and more of his abilities.
She explained her own gifts, how she drew spirits to her, how that reflected in her quirk, and how his own gifts would probably reflect what his quirk would be.
When no quirk manifested, Izuku thought that meant he was doomed to being powerless in every possible way.
When he managed to push a full dumpster halfway across a car park when he was nearly six, that idea went out of the window.
He could channel the power of the ghosts around him in the form of brute strength, in exchange for his energy and the sharing of their emotions.
He could take power by force, but his ghostly friends helped him willingly, and he drew strength from their affection and belief in him, and was glad to pay the price for their help if it made them more content.
He could have claimed his gifts as a quirk, told the doctors he had a mild strengthening ability, and leave it at that, but it was far too inconsistent to be easily provable, and every test they had ever done had proven conclusively that he was quirkless, and so it remained a secret, a last resort, and despite his desperate dreams of heroism, it remained unknown to all but his mom.
That was, until he met All Might.
—
Meeting All Might was life-changing.
One day, he was dying, gasping for breath from within putrid sludge, and the next he was on a trash-filled beach, the promise of a quirk and training from All Might pushing him forward.
They grew close, and although he would never dare claim it out loud, Izuku thought All Might might see him as some sort of successor or mentee, and the hours they spent training were some of the most gruelling and rewarding of his life. He got more comfortable, happy to be himself around him, and that led to the inevitable.
Izuku slipped up.
He had been gaining strength, moving larger and larger objects as he worked his way along the beach. He was deep in the flow of hard work, with All Might observing and occasionally giving gentle encouragement from the sidelines, when he first heard the rumbling, and the suddenly the pile under his feet was shifting, crashing down, collapsing under his weight and the movement of the camping fridge in his hands, and he was tumbling to the ground amongst the trash.
He heard All Might yelling in distress, voice changing in a way that indicated he had shifted into his hero form, and Izuku felt as one of his ghostly companions slip alongside his own mind, felt their strength and sudden fear flood through him, and he burst from the mound of trash with a rush of inhuman strength, only to end up facing a frozen All Might, deflating in shack as the ghost’s power left him.
Hm. This was not ideal.
There were a few seconds of shocked silence, before All Might, skinny once more, ushered him away from the now settled trash, muttering about injuries and safety oversights. He sat him firmly down on a low wall next to the beach, and pulled out a first aid kit, simultaneously checking him over for injuries.
Izuku stayed quiet, waiting for the inevitable, and having a bit of a mental spiral, thinking that All Might would be angry, would accuse him of lying, of deceiving him, and would leave him, blacklist him from ever working in any area of the hero industry ever again.
So when All Might asked him if he really did have a quirk, and he answered no, All Might’s response felt… almost underwhelming.
“If it’s not a quirk, what is it?”
Izuku processed for a moment, weighing the pros and cons of each option he saw before him, and ultimately deciding that he owed All Might the truth, and explained his family’s gifts.
All Might listened, and considered, and then brought Izuku into a hug.
“I’m… not quite sure how to feel about it, but I believe you, my boy. Thank you for telling me.”
Izuku buried his face into All Might’s shoulder and hugged him tightly back, glad that his secret wasn’t the end, and that he had someone to guide him who knew all of him.