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Midoriya Izuku has a quirk.
It’s not flashy at all, and not one visible with a naked eye; At least not unless certain conditions are met. In fact, it was very easy to overlook it, and very easy to assume that he was quirkless.
You see, Midoriya Izuku’s quirk was as such: he couldn’t die from another person’s quirk.
He could get injured — there were enough starburst shaped scars all over his skin to prove that — but it would never lead to death. Perhaps the quirk was even more encompassing, making it so that Izuku couldn’t die at all, but he wasn’t really feeling up to experimenting with that too much.
It was bad enough that he knew he was death-via-quirk resistant already.
And how he found out about it, well…
There was this one bar where it was possible to catch a really clear transmission of American television. Izuku wasn’t sure why that was — his best guess was that the owner of that place also liked to watch American programs, and as such invested in a satellite connection which wasn’t secured against outside use — but he certainly wasn’t going to complain!
He didn’t go down there often. It was pretty far from home, and his mom would have had a heart attack if she had known that he was spending time in a bar, but he did go if the program he wanted to catch was particularly important.
Just like today’s exclusive interview with All Might! It was his first public appearance in a year, there was no way Izuku was going to miss it!
So he made his way over to the bar and settled in the corner, hoping to remain unobtrusive. There were never many visitors to this establishment any time he visited — he barely even saw the bartender! — so he felt confident in his ability to remain undetected.
What he hadn’t been counting on was the fact that someone would slide into the bench he had picked while Izuku was trying to connect to the satellite.
He looked up as the cushion dipped, coming face to face with another boy, looking like he was maybe a few years older than Izuku. The boy seemed equally as startled. Reflexively, he reached out towards Izuku, pressing his hand against Izuku’s face.
The five points of contact burned briefly — about as bad of a pain as Kacchan’s quirk caused — but other than that, nothing happened.
The other boy took his hand back, staring at it in bafflement. He then reached for the salt shaker on the table, wrapping his fingers around it and making it turn into dust, the powder mixing with the salt now spilling onto the table.
“My quirk still works,” the boy concluded, turning to look at Izuku. “So how did it break on you?”
That’s how Izuku first got the idea that he might have some sort of a quirk after all. And when he first saw Decay in action, a quirk he later became very familiar with. And the first conversation he had with Tomura, who would later become his friend. But right at that moment, Izuku had only one concern in mind.
“I’m trying to connect to the satellite, but it’s got a password on it now. Do you know it?”
The other boy blinked. “Yeah, it’s 41141. Why?”
Izuku typed in the digits, successfully connecting to the satellite. It was quite rude of the owner to have locked it behind a password out of the blue, but Izuku still got in, only a few minutes before the interview was due to start, so it was okay!
“Oi. Why did my quirk break on you?” The other boy asked again.
“I’ll figure it all out with you later,” Izuku promised. “But now I really need to catch this program first, alright? It’s live!”
“No pausing online games,” the other boy grumbled under his breath, leaning back with crossed arms. “Fine. But you will tell me why later.”
Izuku waved his hand dismissively. “Sure, sure. Now, shhh, let me watch!”
It would be a full hour before he allowed himself to react to almost dying and to having a quirk. He had his priorities!