Chapter Text
All Might told him he couldn’t be a hero
After Izuku was saved from the sludge villain by All Might smashing the villain to pieces and locking him up tight in a discarded thermos, Izuku asked him the one burning question for which he needed an answer. All Might was about to leave without letting him talk, so he shouted instead.
“Can I be a hero without a quirk?!”
All Might paused turned around, face blank and seeming to think. Growing up quirkless Izuku knew what this reaction meant, but he was hoping that for once he was wrong. For once, a blank face and silent contemplation didn’t mean thinking about the best way to gently but firmly say “No, you can’t be a hero. You’re too weak without a quirk.”
Unfortunately for Izuku, humans are predictable, and patterns don’t lie
All Might, just like everyone else he has ever asked or told about his dream, told him “No, you can’t a hero, not without a quirk.” He tried to be nice, offering up paramedic or police work if he really wanted to join community protection. But those jobs felt like consolation prizes; not what you wanted, but given to you in hopes of not letting you feel too bad. It also felt like pity, giving the weak, quirkless little boy something else to focus on since he’s too stupid to actually fight or do dangerous jobs.
All Might turned back around and told Izuku to send anymore questions to his website, as he really needed to get going. After finishing his sentence, he jumped off and left Izuku alone under the bridge, in the spot where he didn’t die physically.
Without feeling totally in control of his body, Izuku finished packing up his bag and started to walk the rest of the way home. He doesn’t remember the walk; all of a sudden he blinked and he was at the door to his apartment complex. Another blink, and he was sitting on his bed with his bag discarded on the floor.
Izuku looks around and suddenly realizes just how much All Might merchandise he actually owns, the smile seeming to cover his entire room. It’s on his walls, ceiling, desk, and even bed. Without realizing what he was doing, he starts gently taking down all the posters from the spots they’ve been in for years and rolling them up. He grabs the storage box from his closet and puts all his figurines in it. Once all the figurines and toys are packed, he slides the box and the posters to the back of his closet and covers them with random loose items and clothes. Finally, he strips his All Might bed sheets and pillow covers and replaces them with his old green covers that haven’t seen his bed since before he could pick out his own sheets.
Once he’s done, he sits down on his freshly changed bed and looks around. His entire room is barren, only the occasional hero merch in the room instead of it covering every square foot.
He’s not sure how he feels about it being so empty, but he knows it feels better than having that smile everywhere
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Izuku needs to figure out a new career path
Because of the.... conversation he had yesterday, he realized he should get looking at different career paths that are feasible for a quirkless person to go down. He gets out his notebook and-
Hero Analysis for the Future #13. He had forgotten what happened to it, busy being overwhelmed with everything that happened yesterday.
He feels a storm of different emotions rise up inside him, more than he would ever be able to sort through right here and right now, so he doesn’t. He closes his notebook with a slam and shoves it back inside his backpack, pushing it and his emotions down down down. Once his emotions are no longer at risk of overwhelming him and his notebook is buried at the bottom of his bag, he pulls out the plane notebook he uses for class notes. He starts writing down every single possible career he can remember people mentioning to him or hearing about, and promises himself to go see the guidance counselor after school today. Maybe she can help him sort through the list and figure out what fits him.
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The guidance counselor wasn’t a very smart decision on Izuku’s part
In his defense, the only times he ever went down to her was when the teachers needed to reprimand him for things he never did but got blamed for anyways by sending him to her. Other than that, they never really crossed paths.
The fews times he had been with her should have clued him in to what would happen after he stepped through that door, but his emotions are simultaneously shot and in overdrive right now, so his thinking ability might be slightly impaired.
Sano-san, while never going out of her way to be rude or say snide things to Izuku, had never been the most impartial to him when he was inside her office. She took everything the other teachers had said about him at face value, and has never given him a chance to defend himself or tell his side of the story. He was always assumed to be at fault, and eventually Izuku learned it was quicker and easier for everyone if he just agreed he did do whatever they’re pinning on him, and accept the scolding so everyone could move on with their lives. He’d gotten very good at appearing to be listening, only to be off in his head thinking about anything else.
Because of this, after knocking and opening the door once he hears a “Come in,” Sano-san is surprised to see him.
“Midoriya? Which teacher sent you down? Strange, I never got notified you were coming down. Must have missed it. Alright, care to sit down and fill me in on what you did?” Sano-san was already thinking about how to scold the boy while going to her computer and typing. Likely checking to see if she got an email that was overlooked
“Oh, sorry for the confusion Sano-san. No teacher sent me down. I came because I had a few questions and I was hoping you could help me.” Izuku informed her while walking over to her desk to take the seat placed in front of it, placing his bag besides him.
Sano-san looked back over to him confused, before seeming to remember that she was a guidance counselor and therefore any student could come to her for help at any time. That included Midoriya Izuku
Sano-san gave him an apologetic smile that didn’t reach her eyes and said, “Oh, apologies Midoriya. You never come down here unless you’re sent to me, so I just assumed. What can I help you with?” Her reasoning seemed justified to Izuku, plus it wasn’t like she was wrong, he never did come to her of his own free will, so he just accepted the apology and moved on.
“I was hoping you could help me look at different career paths? I want to know all my options.” Izuku gave her his best fake smile, since he couldn’t smile for real in this situation, and hoped she bought it. Based on her raised eyebrows and slightly a-gap mouth, she didn’t.
“Different careers? I thought you wanted be a hero and go to UA? What brought up the sudden change in life goals?” Oh course she would bring that up, with how much he has passionately denied and fought against any pushing to aim for a different highschool, a different career. This sudden divided interest was sure to raise a few brows.
Izuku did his best convicting chuckle and rubbed the back of his neck, hoping that his meek would make her not question further. “Oh, I was just listening to some hero interviews and they started to talk about how much they respected those who went against the grain and aimed for other jobs! So, I decided to look at the jobs the hero mentioned, and they seemed pretty cool! I wrote them down in this notebook, can you help me learn more about them?” Without waiting for a reply, Izuku pulled out his notebook and flipped to the page in which he wrote down all the jobs. He started pointing to them and rambling on how cool they were, and how he would love to help people in another field.
Sano-san just sat there quietly while Izuku went through the entire list and rambled about each one. The entire list was two pages front and back, and he a minimum of five points each for all the jobs, so a substantial amount of time had passed once he was done. After a few more minutes of quiet contemplation, Sano-san opened her mouth and said some words that even with his all his analysis and planning Izuku wouldn’t consider.
She told him about how the rate of unemployment and homelessness was nearly 3x as high for quirkless people than even those with villainous quirks. How he was nearly 5x more likely be dead before 18, either from suicide or hate crime. Prestigious highschools were twice as likely to reject him based on his lack of quirk, and nothing else.
She looked at him with pity in her eyes and spoke softly, as if the quiet voice would make the words hurt less and stab less deeply into this heart, and told him the most likely places for him to find employment would be dead end jobs and unskilled labor. Even that would be aiming high. Then, mumbled as if she didn’t intend to say it out loud but it just slipped out while talking, she said that the red light district was always looking for more people.
Izuku couldn’t speak, afraid of what would come out if he did, and just nodded while closing his notebook. He dropped it in his bag and stood up from the chair, tried to say a quiet “thank you” but he wasn’t sure if anything actually came out, and walked out the door without looking back.
Sano never even attempted to stop him