Chapter Text
Izuku midoriya is born without power. It has always been this way, his fate and reason for existence is tied to the fact that he has no power. He exists at the bottom of the heap. At the bottom of the pecking order from the moment he first opened his eyes, although maybe he didn’t know it yet. Who can blame him, he was a baby after all. All wide green eyes and wild green hair; like a fuzzy ball of moss. But even still; his mother saw, with a sad fondness in her eyes, that her burbling baby boy would be destined for great things. Whether she wanted that or not.
At the ripe old age of four he was sat down in a particularly uncomfortable doctor’s office, x-rays of himself pinned to the wall like the wanted posters of old pre-Quirk western protagonists in the films his mom and he watched when he was too sick to go to Kindergarten. He found himself humming the tune to a particular favourite of his mother’s, almost without thinking about it. He was always in his own head. He and Kacchan were going to be like those cowboy heroes; racing through the city streets, beating up bad guys, and having fun forever. Perhaps he would propose the name idea to him when he saw him next: Cowboy and Lasso-man… No, Cowboy and Gunguy? Izuku thought of Snipe, the young hero with a similar theme, and shook his head. He wouldn’t copy his style. He’d prepare something different for him and Kacchan. Right after–
Oh
Oh yeah .
His Quirk results.
His mother rested a hand atop his fluffy curls to still his movements and bring him back down to reality. It seemed, judging by the sombre look on his mothers face, that he had missed a crucial part of this appointment.
He turned to her, the picture of innocence, and asked “what did he say, mommy?”
“I said: it’s not gonna happen.” The doctor seemed like the aesthetic ideal of his title, but his behaviour couldn’t have been further from it. He leaned his cheek against the balled up fist of his hand, the picture of boredom sat loftily in his office chair, in his surgical domain. “Look here,” he gestured lazily with his free hand to the cowboy-wanted poster of Izuku’s x-ray pictures, “when Quirks were first discovered, the scientific and medical world were beside themselves rushing to figure out what exactly caused these… abnormalities in human genetics. What caused some to be born with the ability to fly, to see perfectly in the dark, and to exhibit other vaguely godlike powers; and left others dreadfully normal in comparison. After a while it was chalked up to evolution, and the shift in research changed too. As you can see here, your pinkie toe has an extra toe joint. Along with the magnificent ‘Quirks’ in our biology, this was another factor that seemed to change with this new evolutionary step forward. The additional joint is pointless, I suppose that in an effort to streamline the human body it was nixed– Are you following?”
Izuku could only nod dumbly, barely following the strange conversation he seemed to be having with the older man.
“Good. Well, it's tough news, kid, but you don’t have a Quirk. You don’t have the evolutionary right to one. It ain’t gonna happen.”
That brilliant, almost golden light that had existed in his eyes until that moment died that day, and a dull numbness settled like fog over his vision. Eyes remained pinned to the x-ray picture. He couldn’t even muster the emotion to hate his inferior biology. All he did was sit under the loving weight of his mother’s hand as the conversation washed over him, gently tapping the rhythm of the western music into his knees. His figurine of All-Might long since discarded on the floor of the office.
The boy was practically unresponsive for the remainder of the day. His appointment had been in the early hours of the morning; Inko, his dutiful mother, had planned to head to work later after lunch to support her son but she pivoted fast. The moment that she urged her son into the back seat of the car, buckled into the booster seat, she rang up her boss and called out. Nobody would get between her and her baby today. She went through the careful ministrations that she always did whenever Izuku was sick: setting him in front of the television while she darted about, cutting up fruit for him to snack on before she settled down to watch an old movie or two. That was usually enough to get him sleepy and ready for naptime. Even the toughest of his colds, during the deepest of winters, were no match for her method. His heavy head would be resting on her lap in no time.
But not today.
By the third spaghetti western she found herself tiring. While sat with her son, Inko had been mentally categorising his whole life. The things he could do. The things he couldn’t. She wasn’t ready to broach the topic of his future just yet. The pain of the diagnosis was too fresh for her to take a sledgehammer to her son’s dreams. Doing so would ruin him. She refused to ruin him more than she already had. Before she knew it the film had switched over to Star Wars. An old favourite of hers. She almost chuckled at the pitiful memory that bubbled up with it: long ago, when she had discovered her Quirk, her parents showed her the saga. She had instantly connected with the concept of the Force, and how cool it had been. The strangeness of her relationship to her Quirk (of which she naively named ‘Force’) had made her an outcast. And now she sat in the position her own mother was in, worrying over her own outcast child.
With the change of genres, her small child drifted hazily into the realm of dreams. No doubt the emotional rollercoaster of their morning together had finally caught up to him, and so she laid him to rest in his bed; covers tucked gently under his chin and his All-Might branded nightlight set up to cast a warm orange glow on his nightstand. Inko turned her thoughts to her son as she made her way to the kitchen. She loved her son. She knew him better than anyone else. She would make his favourite food if it would mean she would see the smile return to his face– Hell, she would do anything to return that smile to his face.
She supposed she underestimated his intelligence. He was a smart boy. Took after her in more than just appearance. He knew what being Quirkless meant for his future, and she was a fool for not recognising that. She found him at the office computer when dinner was ready. Curled up under an All-Might branded blanket– one that she could’ve sworn was stored away with the winter bedding– watching his idol’s first rescue mission on loop. She watched from the doorway for a while before he spotted her lurking. Izuku would immediately rush to rewind the video the moment it ended, eyes wild and transfixed on the gory scene before him. In some distant part of her mind, she finally realised how wrong it was to allow him to watch such tragic scenes of death since he was so young. But all she could feel was her eyes welling up with tears at everything before her.
“Mom?” He turned the chair around to face her in the threshold of the room, “do you think I could become a hero like All-Might, even without a Quirk?” To punctuate his question, he raised a single shaky finger to point at the screen. To point at the ever-grinning All-Might with all those bloody and dying victims piled high on his shoulders. Inko looked into her son’s dulled eyes and noticed the gleam of tears.
The dams broke in her, and she leaped to take hold of her son.
“I’m so sorry Izuku,” was all she could manage before her Midoriya tears took control. But she was sorry for more than just what lurked on the surface. Yes, she was sorry for his dreams. So unbelievably sorry for it, even. But beyond that she was sorry for the world that they lived in. A world that valued strength of power above all else. One that believed that even a weak, useless Quirk was better than none at all. She was sorry for all the injustice in the world. For the fact that she was blind to it until this moment, and for the fact he would have to live through it.
But that wasn’t what she said. All she could do was hope that her son understood what she meant, as they both sobbed into each other's arms, and pray that he wouldn’t resent her for it.