Chapter Text
Izuku had already gone to the nurse once today, and the teachers didn’t want him to go again. Twice was a call home, and the school wasn't going to call Izuku’s mom over something as simple as infighting. After all, it was his fault for getting Kacchan so worked up that he used his quirk.
He's seen Kacchan use his quirk on other people before—he's had firsthand experience with it—and he knows how much it hurts. He couldn't stand back and watch his childhood friend hurt someone else, so he stepped in.
What are you doing Deku?
I'm not gonna let you hurt him Kacchan!
He clutches his arm where the first burn is, the one that fortunately has a bandage on it. The other one on his upper chest stings whenever his shirt rubs on it. Izuku never thought that his friend would leave him behind. They used to stroll through the woods almost every day, and now he's been pushed to the sidelines.
He knows that he has a quirk, and Izuku has been trying to tell Kacchan that since he went to the doctors. He believed him at first, but eventually the burns started to come more frequently. Now it feels like Kacchan burns him more than he spits hurtful words at him, and Izuku's not sure which one he prefers.
You’re a liar Deku.
He sits alone most days now, and without the rest of the students—they all went outside for playtime—it’s almost too quiet. The weird girl, he can’t remember her name, sits next to him and draws on him. It's always like this, unless she's sick or doesn't want to do anything.
They don’t talk.
They almost never do.
Izuku rubs his arm again, the latest burn being especially bad now that Kacchan’s quirk is getting stronger. He wonders when he'll find out what his quirk is, and when it'll come in.
He wishes that the burns would heal faster than they do. The day after he gets them are usually the worst.
His hand tickles, and he looks over at the girl drawing on his hand, and he watches her add lines of red marker on his hand while she removes strands of her light blue hair from her face. It doesn't work, as it almost immediately flops back down and she huffs.
The flower is small, and it resembles a rose. The red makes it easier to differentiate.
He smiles, and doesn’t notice that his arm hurts a little less.
When he gets home later that day, feeling better that he was able to save a kid from Kacchan's viciousness, his mom comes and starts to remove the bandage on his upper arm.
“I swear love, you always come home with some new injury. What happened this time?” she asks, being careful to not tug at the edges too harshly
“One of my friends tripped me accidentally and I hit a rock,” he lies. Izuku never tells her about Kacchan, too afraid that she’ll stop him from seeing his friend. Then again, he's not sure if he can call him a friend anymore, with how much he hurts him. Aren't the only ones who hurt people villains?
“Izuku?” his mom asks.
“Yeah?” he replies back, looking up at her.
“Where’s… the injury?”
“Huh?” is all he can manage to get out before he walks over to a mirror.
His arm did stop hurting a while ago. He just thought that he got used to it. The days of pain started blurring together, and some injuries were healing while others were fresh.
He pulls his sleeve up and looks at where he vividly remembers Kacchan grabbing at him, and finds… flat skin?
What?
There’s no red skin, no scar, no pain. He rubs at it to see if it’s fake or to see if it’s still tender. It's not, and it feels perfectly normal. He lifts up his shirt to look at the injury to his chest, and he can't find that one either. Actually, he can see it! It's just barely visible as a red blob a shade or two more distinct than his skin.
He sees the flower on his hand, the red marker still vibrant. He stares at it for a moment, and thinks back to the girl that drew it on him. Why is he staring at it?
“Wait! That girl, I can’t remember her name—” he starts suddenly, his mother swiveling from her spot to look at him.
“Izuku, that's rude.”
“But she drew this flower on me and it must’ve healed me! It must be her quirk!”
“That’s good, Izuku. Maybe you can tell her tomorrow? For now I’m just glad you’re not hurt.” she says, her voice calmer now that her son isn't hurt.
“Mom?”
“Yeah?”
“Can we have Katsudon?”
A laugh from his mother shocks through him, “Yeah, Izuku. You can help me with the breading.”
The next day, he still has the flower when he walks over to the girl. Sticking out his hand to her, she looks up at him with a confused look before Izuku speaks. “It’s your quirk,” he says, lightly. “You can heal people by drawing flowers on them!”
“Uhh… no I can’t?” she says incredulously, glancing down at the red flower. Her eyebrows are drawn in, and she stares at Izuku like he's grown another head.
“Huh?” Izuku says, letting his hand hang by his side once more.
But he was sure...
“I can change the color of my nails. Watch,” she says, standing and pointing her hands at Izuku. They cycle through the color of the rainbow. They're shiny, like they've been freshly painted on. She cycles through a few colors, including the color of her hair, before settling on purple.
“Then how did my burn heal yesterday?” Izuku asks her, rubbing his arm.
She shrugs, and yanks his arm towards her to draw more flowers in various colored flowers on him again. He spends the rest of the day thinking about why his quirk would heal him from someone else's drawing.
"It's the weekend, prime experiment time," Izuku mutters to himself, grabbing a generic brand pen and opening the cap. He presses ink to skin and starts drawing...
It's a horrible flower.
He supposes that since he's never drawn one before it's going to look bad, but he watches his paper cut carefully. It still hurts, but he's strong, and his quirk will be strong too!
Nothing happens... and nothing continues to happen for the next few minutes.
Izuku sighs, and pulls out some paper from a notebook. His very first notebook that has one page filled out. It's full of theories about what his quirk could be, with at least 5 having lines through them. He remembered crying when he couldn't lift things like his mom could, or spew fire like she said his dad could. Maybe I'm just a freak with one joint...
He draws a flower on his page, hoping that it'll do anything. And of course it doesn't, because he's Quirkless.
He cries again, and some of the flower's petals on the page smear.
After he puts his notebook away and wipes at his tears, Izuku grabs a red pen and draws another flower, and another, and another.
Nothing... and nothing... and nothing
The color isn't contributing, so maybe someone else has to draw them onto him? He decides that he'll try tomorrow, and washes the ink off of his hand and arm. The reading he was assigned is a small book, and he parses the words as they come. He goes to sleep that night thinking of flowers much more defined than the ones he drew, and wonders if that contributes to his healing.
The first thing he does, after eating breakfast, is to have his mom draw on him. He tells her to draw a red rose on him, and she looks at him with a tilted head and a hand on her hip.
"Okay love, but you're washing it off before you leave okay," she says, taking the red pen from him. The cap comes off easily, and she draws a much prettier looking rose than he probably ever could.
"Okay mom," Izuku replies, barely listening to her while he stares at the paper cut.
Please, do something
And of course, he's wasting his time staring holes through his hand. His mother places her hand on top of his, and he looks up to her, tears in his eyes. She looks... sad.
"It'll come, Izuku. Be patient, like the doctor told us. Can you do that for me?"
He wipes his eyes with his arm, "Yes, mom."
He goes to school, his head low and his skin scrubbed of any ink. His left hand feels raw from how he had to scrub at it to get the pen off. It makes him feel stupid for even trying, and he sits in the corner with the girl while she draws on him after their lessons. She draws a dandelion on his hand, and he doesn't feel anything for the rest of the day. He cries when he goes to his room.
He had been so close, it had to be his quirk. Why isn't it working anymore? Why can't anything good happen to him? Even his mom looks at him with the same sad eyes every time he tries to find out his quirk. Can't she see anything in him?
He stops drawing flowers on his skin, and instead lets Kaya-chan—he found out her name after she drew the dandelion on him—draw whatever she wants.
Izuku is Quirkless, just as everyone told him he was. He even heard one of the teachers say something about it once, and he didn't want to be near anyone that day.
Maybe I am useless...