Chapter Text
Scientists are full of shit.
Izuku, don’t swear! He can practically taste the disappointment from his mother if she ever caught him using Kacchan’s favorite words. Sorry, mom, he mentally apologized.
They’re still full of shit, though.
One would think, after two hundred years of evolution--of the literal upheaval of society--that quirks would be well-studied and understandable. Scientists could explain how certain quirks worked, could explain the genetics of a quirk user’s lineage, could point to some concrete proof of how and why people develop quirks.
All he’s found is the equivalent of the world’s most intelligent people looking around and shrugging.
The Hae-Jung Da Institute of United Korea had the most concrete evidence of quirk genetics in the last one hundred years. Pierre Lumore won a Nobel Prize for his work in coining the theory of the quirk factor back in 2083. India currently led the world in the number of research labs for the use and development of quirks. But still, no one could confidently say what caused the first quirk evolutions beyond an unexplainable “mutation.” Nowadays, all humans had mutated enough at some point to have stark biological differences from their ancestors.
Goodbye appendixes, whatever they were.
There are billions of people on planet Earth and at least 80% of them have some kind of superpower. Izuku lives in the final age of quirks--soon, the number will rise to 100%. Even then, no one has offered any evidence on why this trend is occurring, or why quirks are getting stronger. Just providing a lot of statistical analysis of populations without providing hard science. Biologically, there is no proof of someone’s quirk status unless there is an obvious mutation or emitter.
No one can definitely say why people have quirks. No one can definitely say why some people don’t have quirks.
So when he comes home at the tender age of six after the worst doctor’s visit of his life, he has to wonder.
How can they be sure?
The doctor had simply shaken his head and said it wouldn’t happen. He cited an extra toe joint on an X-ray and explained how it was a common occurrence in quirkless individuals.
“If it hasn’t happened yet, it mostly won’t happen at all. I’m sorry, kid, you don’t have a quirk.”
Izuku returns home with his mother, shell-shocked and confused. The kids at school had been teasing him for years already, speculating on his quirk status. Calling him weird for being able to read and write better than the other kids, calling him creepy for his mumbling and sharp eyes. In a way, he’d had a little voice at the back of his head quietly wondering if the kids were right. Was he weird? Was he creepy?
Was he quirkless? Truly?
He'd teared up and hid in his room. His favorite All Might video playing on repeat. He couldn’t stop shaking.
Why? Why him? How could he be a hero now?
He could still be a hero, right?
When Inko finds him curled up in the desk chair, she’d already started crying. Her baby boy had been so blank the whole way home. His whole world was turning upside down. She reaches out a hand but doesn't touch her son, not yet.
“Izuku--”
“Mom,” her little boy asks, watery eyes glued to the computer screen as All Might carried six people on his shoulders, “can I still be a hero like All Might?”
I’m so sorry, she thinks to herself. Her lips pursed together to keep in her cries. That wasn’t what her son needed. Even if her heart was breaking for his dream, she’d pull herself together and keep her baby close. She wraps Izuku in a tight hug. The only sounds are his sniffles and a tinny crowd chanting “All Might! All Might!” Her words stick in her throat. I’m so sorry fate has been so cruel to you.
But Izuku doesn’t notice her internal struggle. He feels a brief sting at her silence but knows his mother is simply worried. When she worries, she gets emotional, just like him. It’s hard to talk when you’re a crybaby. He understands that very well. He takes after his mother so much.
Which brings him to that thought: why wouldn’t he have a quirk?
Both his mother and father had quirks. If he was remembering some of his parents’ stories right, all four of his grandparents had quirks as well. His mother’s side had Magnetism and Air Puff, and according to Inko his father’s parents had Flame Eyes and Roar. By all accounts, according to those “scientists” with their “genealogy” and “statistics,” he should have some kind of quirk.
“It’s okay, mom,” he mumbles once his mother pulls away. He doesn’t know who he’s reassuring exactly.
Inko runs a soothing hand through his messy curls and retreats to the kitchen to collect herself and prepare dinner. Leaving Izuku alone once more with his thoughts. He fidgets and clicks out of the All Might video. His curiosity has always gotten the better of him, it’s how he’s found so many videos of All Might to begin with. Their living room shelves are full of all kinds of books. Inko had joked how he took after his father’s inquisitive nature and her own natural tendencies to try any hobby at least once. So he knows that when he has a question as important as this before him, it’s best to search for the answers himself.
He pecks out the search engine website, then the following phrases:
“Quirkless heroes.”
“How to tell if you have a quirk.”
“Common signs of quirklessness.”
Each question brings different answers. There are no records of any quirkless pro hero.
But that doesn’t seem right. Right? He remembered a few bedtime stories his father would tell him when he briefly returned from overseas. How a glowing baby in a hospital was like a beacon of light in a fairytale, how it paved the way for heroes. But how in the beginning, even before quirks, there were rumors of people out on the streets in costumes stopping crime. The one time his father had mentioned them, Izuku had pestered him for more details. But the man had simply shrugged and said they were rumors from some of the pre-quirk history texts preserved overseas.
So if his father was to be believed, there used to be heroes who didn’t have quirks. Even if it was in the distant past. It made sense; if people with quirks were trying to be heroes when the First Quirk Wars were happening, wouldn’t there be at least a few people who didn’t have quirks who wanted to help? People are complicated, his mother liked to say. There's no one side to any story. Who knows what might have happened in the past just because it wasn’t recorded?
The answers for "noticing you had a quirk" were mostly from advice columns and magazines. A lot of the search results were for navigating a child’s first quirk activation. Some even mentioned discovering if your quirk wasn’t originally what you thought--maybe a mist quirk was actually a steam quirk, and so on. The only helpful advice for Izuku was cataloging any sensations he felt when he tried to “access” a quirk. But if he hadn’t felt any different in the past few years he’d been trying to attract objects or breathe fire, he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to notice.
Kids with mental quirks had their own section of advice and forums. Most were for support or classifying the exact type of quirk. Izuku wants to write about some of the more interesting quirks he’d seen discussed but he had to focus.
Said focus breaks when his mom opens the door and asks him to eat the katsudon she made. He doesn’t speak a word as he sits at the table and furiously eats. His favorite meal in the world and he doesn’t bother tasting it. Inko watches him, concerned, and tries to make small talk about school. Izuku just hums or nods, vibrating in place. After he finishes, she genty grasps his hand before he can excuse himself. She opens and closes her mouth wordlessly. Izuku ducks his head and squeezes her hand back, asking to leave the table to finish looking at the computer.
Inko doesn’t usually let him spend so long on the computer but he can tell she’s shaken by today’s reveal and wants to spoil him. She nods and lets him go. He’s relieved; he doesn’t know exactly what she wants to say but he doesn’t want to find out just yet. Doesn’t want to hear what she might have answered his question with.
He doesn’t know what he would want to hear to begin with.
When he scrambles back up the desk chair, he tries his last search, and there, he grows frustrated.
No one can actually prove quirklessness.
If you took two random people off the street where one had a mental quirk and one had no quirk, there would be very few biological differences. Some mental quirks augmented the person’s literal brain, but only a few quirked brains had actually been studied after a person’s death. There was nothing to suggest that all mental quirks would do the same. But there was no physical evidence of a quirk factor, only the inherent assumptions of the “presence” of a quirk. This was only discovered because of suppressant testing and the influence of erasing or altering quirks. Some of the scientific jargon was hard for Izuku to understand but he got the gist: the most effective way someone proved they had a quirk was to use it.
Even the extra toe joint only accounted for less than 30% of the proclaimed quirkless population! This data was only compiled because of volunteers, sample size, and analyzing hospital records. Since it was a larger commonality than anything else quirkless people had with each other (beyond the obvious), it was generally assumed that a toe joint meant you didn’t have a quirk.
No DNA strand could reveal a quirk. There was no test. There were only some scans and minor statistics. That’s all it took to give someone a dream-ending diagnosis.
He chews on his fingernails, confused.
A ringing notification startles him. A video call request flashes across the computer screen. If this was any other day, he’d be jumping around ecstatic to talk to his father. Now, he’s desperately clicking the ‘accept’ button in need of comfort.
“Hi Dad.”
“Hey, Izuku. Your mom told me about the doctor today. How are you feeling?”
Like I'm sick but I’m not. Am I sick?
“‘M fine,” he mumbles.
Hisashi frowns sympathetically. The man looks his regular disheveled self, obviously finishing up his work. His tie is crooked and his curly black hair is messy. Izuku almost smiles at the little wisps of smoke that come from his father’s mouth, a bad habit of his when he’s exhausted.
“I miss you,” he suddenly warbles. The man across the screen--across the ocean--immediately melts.
“Oh, bun, I miss you too.”
He sniffles at the nickname. With Hisashi’s responsibilities as head researcher and history professor for the most prestigious university in China, he’s constantly busy. If he’s not teaching classes, he’s out on preserved sites and exploring the world. He’d received the job offer when Izuku was two and his wife had pushed him to accept his dream career. But he was only able to visit his family every three to four months, if only for a weekend.
Hisashi had been away for two and half months since the last visit. It feels like forever. At least he’s always close with his mom.
Even if she does work a lot too, she always makes time for him. After all, she moved from activist law to patent law to cut down on work hours, even if she does occasionally take on a social issue case pro bono.
“I’ll be able to visit in a week.” The man grins when Izuku perks up, eyes still watery. “I think we could use some family time, huh?”
Izuku nods and picks at his fingernails off-screen. He bites his lip.
“Dad, what makes a person quirkless?”
Hisashi, the smartest person Izuku has ever known and almost as cool as All Might, startles. His forehead scrunches in confusion. “Well…” He drawls, in the tone of voice that typically leads to one of his awful puns and Inko’s embarrassed giggles.
“No, I mean, I know the obvious,” Izuku rambles. “But why is a person quirkless?”
The man leans on his desk and props his chin on his hand. “An interesting philosophical question. I'll admit, bun, this isn’t what I was expecting from you when I heard the news.”
Izuku shrugs, not meeting his father’s digital eyes.
“Are you actually wondering about it?” The man’s voice is warm and compassionate.
“I just--” Izuku breaks off. He takes a deep breath like his mother showed him and tries to organize his thoughts. Hisashi has always let him ramble to his heart's content.
“I just want to know the science of it. Because the doctor said my toes were why I don’t have a quirk but none of the research I’ve found agrees that toe joints mean I’m quirkless. And how do we know I don’t have a quirk? If I j-just try really hard, I could get one! M-Maybe I just haven’t been trying hard enough--”
He sniffles.
“It’s okay, bun, you’re okay. Let it out,” his father soothes.
“It’s not fair,” he whispers in a split second of self-loathing. The computer microphone picks it up anyway. Hisashi heaves a gusty sigh and leans more on the desk.
“You’re absolutely right.”
Izuku rubs his eyes and looks at his dad.
“I know how excited you were about getting a quirk, bun. You’re such a good kid, it’s absolutely not fair that other kids are getting these powers instead of you.” And oh, that feels a little blunt. “But who knows? Maybe it was meant to be this way.”
“I’m supposed to be quirkless?” He can’t help but ask, incredulously.
“Anyone can have a quirk,” Hisashi waves off. “But not anyone can be you.”
“I...I don’t think I get it.”
“The gods decided you were too strong and you didn’t need a quirk on top of it. Nothing less than what I’d expect from my progeny!” Hisashi exclaims dramatically. Izuku huffs a laugh regardless of his confusion. When his father starts acting like this, it’s time for him to sleep.
He wants to talk to him about other things, good things. He wants to chide his dad into going to bed. But most of all, he wants to ask...
“But c-can I still be a hero? Without a quirk?”
Hisashi freezes then obviously thinks it over.
“It’ll be hard,” the man admits. Izuku droops. If his father thinks something will be a challenge, just how awful would it truly be? The man looked ate forgotten languages for breakfast while grading hundreds of essays. He stared down diplomats and college freshmen alike.
But then the words register. Hisashi hadn’t said he couldn’t. Only that it wouldn’t be easy.
“Oh. Oh! Really?” He wants to vibrate in place. He’d climb any mountain or face any challenge in order to be a hero.
The man snorts at his blatant excitement, also catching on that he didn’t deny the question.
“I won’t lie to you, Izuku. You’re going to have to work twice as hard to get half as far as everyone who has a quirk. A lot of things…” He looks away, “A lot of people, prioritize quirks over anything else. You’ll face negativity everywhere you turn.”
Izuku pales.
“But, if you really want to be a hero...well, I think you can do it. You have more intelligence than some of the kids I’ve met over here at work.”
The tears stream down his cheeks again. His father smiles indulgently as he tries to pull himself back together.
“I have to work twice as hard. Okay! I can do that!”
“I know you can, bun. But I want you to really think too, okay? It’d be easier with a quirk, unfortunately. Your mom and I believe in you but we also want you to be healthy and happy. Think about all of the hurdles you’re gonna face.”
Izuku does. He just knows that the teasing will get worse at school when he reveals the “official diagnosis.” Inko and Hisashi were adamant on him confessing who some of the meaner kids in his class were, but having them talk to the teacher only earned him dirty looks. He doesn’t know much about quirklessness but he knows based on the first search he’d done for quirkless heroes that it’ll be an uphill battle. Quirkless heroes hadn’t been recognized in the past. Has anyone tried since then? They must have. Does that mean it’s not possible, if he can't find anything?
He thinks about the way Kacchan and several others in the class were praised for their heroic futures, all because of their quirks. Always told “yes” just because of their powers. He doesn’t know what’s in store for him but he wants his own bright path. His own way of helping. He wants to save people with a smile, like All Might.
Hisashi listens as Izuku mumbles up a storm under his breath. He catches a few words and hides his smile. He’d been worried about his son’s mental state when Inko had first called but it looked like some hard truth mixed with loving support was all their little ball of hopeful sunshine needs.
Izuku frets for a few more seconds, almost anxious at wondering where to even start being a hero.
“You giving up?” The man looks at him, eyebrow raised and face free of judgement. Maybe a bit of a challenge.
And you know what?
No.
No, Izuku would not just accept this. He would not just give up.
Like All Might said: defeat is not an option for a hero.
But how to work around it?
“Thatta boy,” Hisashi praises when Izuku shakes his head furiously, refusing to abandon his dream.
He beams at his father.
“So then. What are you going to do?”
And, well.
For all of his childish outlook, he won’t deny being a realist too. He likes math and science (even if scientists can be full of shit). If there’s a pattern, he wants to notice it and dissect it. Someone without a quirk has not been recorded as a hero. All of the pro heroes have quirks. Science is finicky on where and how quirks develop. Like his father said, it’d be easier with a quirk. But he doesn’t have one.
He’s six, almost seven. He’s really young. He knows this. But he’s been shaped by his father’s keen eyes, his mother’s big heart, and the jeers of his classmates. So when he comes up with a crazy idea, he actually thinks it through. Debates the pros and cons.
His mom and dad are his biggest supporters. They encourage his interests, they laugh and play with him, they pick him up when he falls. So he trusts in them. When he calls his mother into the room, he hesitantly explains what he wants to do next, what he thinks he needs to do to be a hero. His father cackles over the computer and his mother worries her hands together for a few seconds before straightening and brushing her fingers against his freckled cheek.
“I’ll get the paperwork,” she promises and happily accepts the adoring looks from the two most important people in her life.
-.-.-.-.-
A week later, Hisashi opens the apartment door to find Izuku and Inko both working at the dining table. He places his suitcase down by the door and accepts the flying leap Izuku gives him.
“Missed you,” Hisashi mumbles into his son’s hair. Inko stands from the table to give him a kiss, beaming.
“Welcome home,” she greets. Hisashi grins back.
"I'm home."
They spend an evening just curled up on the couch, eating take out and reconnecting. Izuku babbles about the newest All Might villain fight, Inko talks about her team opening an investigation into a support tech company infringing copyrights, and Hisashi recounts how he and a literature professor started a bet over how many students they could get to sign up for the semester’s extra credit project.
The elephant in the room isn’t addressed until it’s late in the evening and they’re all blinking sleepily at the television.
“How’s it been at school, bun?” Hisashi asks softly. Izuku presses his small shoulder into his dad’s side.
“Okay,” he mumbles. Inko sighs, half-fond and half-worried.
“Is anyone giving you trouble?”
Izuku waits a beat then shakes his head. The young boy grins.
“Not as much as before!”
The two adults grimace at the reminder of the teasing their son had gone through ever since the rest of his preschool started getting their quirks. Hisashi tweaks Izuku’s nose with his fingers.
“That’s good. How’d everyone react?”
“Ehhh...Kacchan thought I was lying.”
“Technically…” Hisashi trails off, grinning and waggling his eyebrows.
Izuku laughs at his expression.
Inko shakes her head good-naturedly. Seeing her reaction, Hisashi forces his face to a neutral mask.
“Of course, lying is wrong and we don’t condone lying. Right, Izuku?”
The young boy laughs more, pressing his hands against his mouth to stop the giggles as his parents have a mock-serious staredown with each other.
“Right,” he wheezes.
“Hmm,” Inko hums. “It’s not lying if it can’t be proven false.”
She’s said this a few times to Izuku after he first explained what he wanted. Things would be easier for the boy if he had a quirk, that was an unfortunate facet of their society. Hisashi and Inko had spent hours talking after that video call, trying to hash out details and repercussions away from Izuku. Their son was so smart but they needed to be sure he’d be okay. With their combined force of analyzing socioeconomic patterns in history and working around loopholes in the law, they’d found pretty quickly that they could make their son’s dream a little easier with just a few easy white lies.
A person would think that the legal classification of their quirk would be strict and thorough when providing paperwork to the government. But with so many people and so many different quirks, the more benign abilities were glossed over. It would be easy to just...pass through the societal barriers placed on their boy.
They knew Izuku loves quirks. He talked about them at length, even writing down facts about heroes in his lopsided handwriting. He’d practically sprinted around his room in excitement when his parents agreed to his idea and tried to contemplate the best quirk to choose. One that didn’t need to be proven; one that wouldn’t have any effect on others or be visible. Something he could maintain as a lie. Even if it wasn’t flashy, even if it wasn’t a tool to use as a hero, Hisashi knew it would give his son a leg up in life to have a quirk next to his name instead of “quirkless.” Yet still, the quirk would need to be interesting enough to grab the attention of prestigious schools like U.A., the high school Izuku has wanted to go to ever since he learned what high school was.
Hisashi hates how society treats those without power. He’s been fascinated by the pre-quirk era long before he started his PhD. To know that all of humanity used to be just like his son, and to intrinsically know that he’d be shunned for it, sparks a few embers in the back of his throat.
Inko and Izuku had brainstormed for hours on what to fill in for the quirk registration. She knew someone from her previous law firm that was a certified quirk specialist who’d sign off on an inspection regardless of truth, as long as it was from her. Izuku had mumbled that other people got to explore their quirks, name them, go into more depth than they needed to about their abilities. Meanwhile, all he wanted was just to say he even had a quirk. To answer “yes” when it would otherwise be “no.”
And Inko, sweet and kind and vindictive, had snorted and calmly explained to Izuku that technically, the quirk registration didn’t need a description. Her own description still read “quirk: Small Object Attraction: attracts small objects.” She hadn’t gone into detail about her ability. Izuku was flummoxed.
Hisashi had wrangled another video call with his family that next day and confirmed his own description was simply “able to breathe fire.” He’d lost himself in a rant about the unnecessary theatrics of quirk registration; the pageantry of systematic documentation and tracking. Izuku hadn’t understood all of his arguments but he’d understood that his father wasn’t completely happy with the quirk registration policy.
Izuku, buoyed by the in-depth discussion Inko and Hisashi got into over previous regulation, listened and absorbed the idea. It was enough just to have a quirk, wasn’t it? At least if he didn’t have one to start with.
“Not just that, though,” Hisashi had said over the connection. “If you want to be a hero, we have to look at some ways to train, yeah? Pretty sure a martial art or something would be good, maybe some kind of sport or running as you get older to help train--” and they lost him to his own mumble storm as the professor wrote down ideas for hero training. Inko, worried for her child more than she could say, had demanded he learn self-defense and first aid.
Izuku had burst into tears and agreed. His parents supported him.
Maybe he could’ve been the first registered quirkless hero. He’d still be quirkless no matter what he put on some form, but the rewards outweigh the risks. He’d have one less hurdle, one less worry to heap on his parents. Already the teasing at school concerned them. If he nips it in the bud early, then they’d have one less anxiety about his well-being. Right?
All he needed was a quirk. It didn’t matter what.
With that in mind, he’d filled out the paperwork with a surge of confidence. Maybe it was his father’s corny sense of humor. Maybe it was his mother’s cunning and sass. Maybe he hadn’t fully grasped what he was signing up for. Maybe he was already tired of wishing for something he wasn’t. He didn’t need a quirk to give him an edge; not with his smarts, not with his future training, not with his family by his side. So, with only a little bit of spite, the young boy had his mother certify the registration.
Midoriya Izuku, age six. Quirk: Quirk. Able to give him an advantage.
Now, snuggling between his loving parents, Izuku smiles and dozes, future bright.