Chapter Text
Izuku Midoriya was five years old when he died for the first time.
The first time mind you. Because it sure as hell wouldn’t be the last.
His mother was standing outside their apartment, talking to Mitsuki after Izuku's dentist appointment. He wasn’t paying much attention. Katsuki wasn’t with her today and besides, he hadn’t been very nice ever since he had gotten his quirk and Izuku hadn’t.
Instead of listening to his mother talk, he decided to play with the red bouncy ball he had gotten from the dental office. Izuku would throw it as hard as he could against the sidewalk and then fumble to catch it as it fell back down. He did this over. And over. And over again. This wouldn't have been interesting for most people, but considering Izuku was a child, it was just entertaining enough to keep his focus.
He was trying to see if he could bounce it higher than the sapling in front of the building, although the nature of the cheap rubber it was made out of made this a difficult task. He wound up, getting ready to throw it, and with an internal “Delaware Smash” he chucked it down with all his might. The ball soared up, barely higher than the tree. Izuku grinned until he realized that the ball's trajectory had taken a wide arc causing it to head directly towards the street.
Izuku ran to the curb, eyes wide and determined to grab the ball back. It rolled across the street as he chased after it, and as his sneakers hit the asphalt his only thought was that his mother would be so mad if he lost his new toy.
She wouldn’t be, of course. As a reasonable adult she surely would have only been glad that he was wise enough to know not to run into a very busy street to retrieve an easily replaceable ball. However, Izuku, being five, was nither wise nor rational, and as it happened, he was not nearly as replaceable as the ball. Still, he ran.
The ball was only a few feet away; Izuku could almost reach it. He crouched down, hand outstretched, and…
The truck was a hideous orange color. Normally this would have insulted Izuku who was entrily convinced that orange—existing as it was as an awful contrast to green, his favorite color—should be banned as a color in everyday usage. He felt very strongly about this, and most likely would have said something had he noticed the truck.
He did not notice the truck. At least not until it plowed into him at full speed.
Even then, Izuku felt no pain, only a slight tingle across his whole body as he watched blood leak out of his limp figure.
That probably shouldn’t be happening, he thought. Then everything went black.
-
And then, as if nothing happened, Izuku opened his eyes.
It was a bit disorienting, to be honest. The last thing he remembered was a car and someone screaming. Had it been him? He couldn’t remember.
For the record, it was his mother.
While screaming is usually annoying and socially shamed—someone could have been sleeping in the apartment complex, after all, and getting woken up by screams of terror is quite inconvenient—however, in this case I do believe it was excusable, considering she had just watched her son get run over by a garish orange pickup that turned him practically into paste coating the road.
And then, before Izuku could react, his mother was clutching his face, sobbing, and there was the truck pulled to the side of the road, and Katsuki's mother, and his red ball in the gutter across the street, and he thought that he remembered feeling rather sticky, but he couldn’t see any blood and-
“You’re alive?!”
-
So it was his quirk. After a lot of tears and a very strange conversation with the man who had been driving, Inko had driven him to see a specialist across the city. This was probably because the pediatrician they had seen a year prior was clearly incompetent considering he'd very clearly informed Izuku that he was quirkess. Which he clearly was not.
“Could you perhaps elaborate a bit on how Izuku looked right after the, ah, incident?” asked the new, less incompetent doctor.
Inko sat up straighter and sniffled a bit, “Well, he wasn’t moving, and so we rushed over and—” She sniffled again, “there was blood everywhere, but when I got closer I realized that it was, well, shimmery."
“Shimmery?”
Inko shrugged. “I don't know how else to explain it. As I watched, it started to turn kinda gold colored. And then, it couldn’t have been more than five minutes at the most, it started to almost flow back towards Izuku. It collected on him, coating him.” She paused and took a breath. “And then it turned into this like gold dust? I want to say it looked almost like glitter.”
The doctor nodded scribbling vigorously into his notebook. This was because the doctor was fascinated with quirks and this one was the most interesting one he’d seen yet. Part of him wondered if he could write about this experience on his blog.
“And after a minute or two, the glitter exploded. And Izuku was fine!” said Inko in disbelief.
The doctor was still writing in his book, but he muttered, “fascinating, absolutely fascinating.” And with a loud clap, he finally closed the notebook. “Well! That is most definitely the result of a late formed quirk! And on top of that, I think this is perhaps the most interesting quirk I have ever heard of!”
Inko was a little taken aback at the doctor's outgoing response, but she sat up a bit straighter at the mention of a quirk.
“This is such a rare mutation though; it seems quite odd for him to develop something so unique and overpowered." He tapped his chin, trying to think of the proper diagnosis for the situation. Deus ex machina would be the only fitting term, but of course it didn't occur to him. "But going by my knowledge of high-powered quirks, I’m nearly positive that there must be another aspect to it.” The doctor turned to Izuku lowering his head, “You said that it didn’t hurt, huh?” His voice had taken on a lighter tone while speaking to the child.
Izuku nodded his head vigorously, clucking a red bouncy ball to his chest.
Turning to look up the doctor continued talking to Inko, “That could be it. It’s possible that he won’t feel any pain for the rest of his life. However, that’s not necessarily a good thing; it could mean that he’ll have to be very careful with normal activities in order to not harm his body. We feel pain for a reason, and suppressing that can have unwanted consequences.”
Inko furrowed her eyebrows in response.
“It should be pretty easy to test though!” he said cheerfully, before turning to Izuku again. The doctor then leaned forward and gave him a small pinch on his arm. “Does that hurt at all?”
Izuku shook his head.
“Izuku? I’m going to pinch you again a little harder, but stop me if it starts to hurt okay?”
“Okay,” said Izuku.
The doctor took his arm once more and gave a hard pinch. Izuku didn’t even flinch, even when the doctor sat back up and revealed his arm to be red and two crescent marks formed in the skin. “Well, that just about proves it! Seems like his nerves have been altered because of his quirk. His brain will no longer register pain! However, feeling pain is crucial in daily life. It tells us to 'stop touching that hot pan,' to 'don't walk on that hurt leg,' and such. He’ll have to be very careful to not harm himself, and once he does he must be very careful to not injure himself even more.” The doctor was energetically scribbling in his notebook as he spoke but he stopped when he saw Inko, wringing her hands nervously eyebrows furrowed. “Er… it probably won’t be that bad. He seems to have a healing aspect to his quirk if this morning was any indication, so we’ll just have to wait and see!”
“...I have a quirk?” Izuku said tentatively after a moment of silence.
“You do! And it’s a very interesting one!” The doctor told him softly.
Izuku tilted his head thoughtfully and after considering it for a moment his eyes lit up and he jumped to his feet screaming at the top of his five-year-old lungs (which anyone who's worked with children can attest to being very, very loud). “I’M GONNA BE A HERO!”
Inko looked like she was about to faint.
.