Chapter Text
Shadows waltzed across the walls of his bedroom, pushed and pulled by the light flashing across the old computer screen, portraying a devastating scene filled with fire, rubble and hope. He sat with his back to the door, silent tears running down his face as cruel, careless words echoed in his head;
“ It doesn’t look good, kid. It might be time to stop trying.”
He could hear angry yelling coming from the kitchen, filtering through his flimsy bedroom door. It was just loud enough that he couldn’t quite hear the video but still could not make out any of the words being said. Not that he needed to. He knew perfectly well that he was the topic of this particular conversation. Or rather, his continuing lack of a quirk.
Little Izuku Midoriya, age 5 and still no quirk to speak of. They’d gone to Doctors, so many Doctors, and none of them could explain it except to say it was just plain bad luck. He had the quirk factors, and there were no signs that could link him to quirklessness, except, of course, the fact that one had not yet developed paired with the fact he was well beyond the universal time frame. Apparently, there was a chance he would develop one later in life, but those odds were slim. It was more likely he would end up like the other 96%, utterly quirkless for the rest of his days.
His mother had cried, held him tight as she carried him to the car from the Doctors office, and even taken him for an ice cream treat to try to lift his mood. But the strawberry drizzled sunday tasted bland and unpleasantly slimy. He’d barely finished a third of his small serving before leaving it to melt on the creamery’s blue checkered table.
When they’d arrived home, his mother had attempted to entertain him with some of his favourite toys, giving him his All Might action figure and playing the bad guy with a generic villain doll. The toy lay listlessly in his limp hand, his eyes blank, staring towards the ragged beige carpet underneath them both. A smile fixed on his face with shock, not having moved an inch since the Doctors blunt words tore a gaping, black hole through is dreams.
Even now, shrouded in the darkness of his room, completely alone but for the angry voices assaulting his ears and the static audio coming from the computers worn out speakers, the smile held.
He fell asleep alone that night.
******
Inko Midoriya was worried. Well, more along the lines of nervous. Anxious. Distraught. Ever since leaving that wretched building that had sealed her poor baby’s fate, a troubling thought graced her mind: What will Hisashi think?
Now don’t get her wrong, whatever he did think of her sweet, sweet baby boy would never change her own opinion of him, nor was she worried what he thought of her. The thing that made her fingertips buzz with fearful energy, her laughs made louder with nerves, and her movements more exaggerated to combat the urge to grab her child and curl in, away from the world and safe, was how he would react .
Hisashi had always been a rather… loud, man. that sentiment applied to his voice, as well as his personality and… actions. He was an unpleasant person to be around at the best of times. But when he was angry….
He hadn’t always been like this. When they first met, he was the picture of charming daredevil that all the girls fell head over heels for, and despite his rugged demeanour, he had treated Inko extremely well, perfectly playing the part of hard-on-the-outside, soft-on-the-inside, misunderstood bad-boy, and she had fallen for it hook, line and sinker. She was so immersed in her romance-novel-Esque fantasy world that she completely missed all of the red flags, and by the time she finally recognized them, it was 3 years too late. She had a newborn child, no secondary schooling to speak of, and no way out without dragging her poor child into a mess they couldn’t get out of. And so, she had stayed. After all, it wasn’t as bad as she made it out to be… right?
He had never touched Izuku. She made sure of it. You could tell, if you looked close enough, when he was about to have an episode. He would drink more, was easier to anger, and threw around insults more freely. On the days leading up to the inevitable explosion, she would do her best to make sure he was out of the way. She would phone up Mitsuki asking her to take care of him for a “Date Night”, or bring up the idea of a sleepover for the boys. Her old friend always jumped at the occasion, ever the party planner. She seemed to have a soft spot for little Izuku, even in her brash yet playful treatment of her own son. Although maybe she was simply good with kids, understanding how to connect with the little ones through their respective personalities. In either case, her little boy usually stayed with the Bakugo’s on those days, far away and safe from his father's violent tantrums. She felt guilty for throwing her child onto them so often, they were busy people and had their own little guy to take care of, but knowing that her beautiful boy was safe and out of harm's way was enough to eclipse that guilt.
Of course, there were days when Mitsuki couldn’t always take him. Those were the scary ones. She remembered the first time that he had stayed for one. He had been three years old, playing cheerfully in the living room while she made supper, watching him from the counter when she could. He hopped around with a Hero toy, all energy and bright smiles. She wished that she could match his carefree happiness, but her thoughts were elsewhere… Then she heard it. Angrily violent footsteps, making their way across the pavement two stories down. She took a careful peek out the window, confirming it was who she thought, then dropped what she was doing and ran out of the kitchen, grabbing her child off of the back of the couch he was leaning across.
“Mama? What-“
“Shhh….’ She held up a finger to his little lips, cutting him off. ‘ We’re going to be playing a game, okay? And I need you to be very serious about it for me, alright? Can you do that Izuku?” He nodded her a confirmation, his little face set in a determined pout, tacking a warbled ‘very serious’ at the end of his nod. She gave him a wobbly yet real smile. Her baby was just too cute!
“ We’re going to play a special game of hide-and-seek, alright? I’m going to put you in a hiding place, and no matter what happens, no matter what you her, you have to stay hiding until I come and find you, alright? There’s going to be lots of big loud noises and lots of yelling, but that’s just us trying to get you out, okay? When I come to get you, you’ll know that you won the game. And if you win, maybe we can go to that All Might cafe we saw the other day, does that sound good?” His big eyes lit up, his little fists clenched u by his chest with excitement as he smiled and gave her an enthusiastic nod. She kept an ear out for the footsteps, which were now on the second floor, coming closer to their door. Quickly, she opened his bedroom closet, grabbing his blanket from off of his bed and wrapping him in it, and set him in an unoccupied corner. She gave him one last smile, putting her fingers up to her lips again, as he did the same, her eyes watering before she shut both his closet and bedroom door, and made it to the living room just on time for the front door to slam open, revealing her very intoxicated, and very angry husband.
It was a long, painful night, but he did eventually tire, resorting to calling her crude names until he fell asleep on their bed, splayed out across the whole length of it. Quietly as she could, she cleaned herself up in the bathroom, covering up cuts and smothering bruises in cheap drugstore concealer. It may b less-than-healthy for her skin to leave it on overnight, but it was better than letting Izuku see the angry mottled blues and purples that spread in splotches across her face. Once she was happy with her thick coat of makeup, she sprayed it up with a setting spray that Mistuki had gotten her recently. She probably wasn’t thinking of this exact sue of the product when she had bought it for the both of them, but it worked quite well really, and she was halfway out. She would have to find a cheaper version of the product so she could continue to use it. Once she finished cleaning herself up, after checking to assure that Hisashi was still asleep, she finally opened her little boy's bedroom door and peeked inside. If she listened carefully she could hear quiet sniffling coming from the closet. Her eyes teared up as she walked inside. The quiet crying stopped as “ she came closer. She sat on her knees, gently opening the closet door to find Izuku just where she left him, shaking and looking up at her with a scared frown on his face. His little cheeks were wet, as well as his upper lip and the blanket he was wrapped up in. Once he realized who it was, he slowly slid out of the blanket and into his mother's arms, not making a noise until she held him tight, rocking back and forth on her knees to soothe him.
“ I don’t like that game.” He whimpered, clinging to her blouse like his life depended on it, which he probably believed at some point during the night.
“ I know, I know baby. I hope we never have to play it again.” At that he held onto her tighter, pushing his face further into her shoulder and curling into a ball in her arms. “ You did such a good job, baby. We’ll go to that All Might cafe tomorrow at lunch, okay?” He nodded into the now-wet fabric of her cardigan, and she took that as confirmation to move him to his bed. Curling up beside him, she hugged him to her chest until he fell asleep, praising him all the while.
They had to play the game more often than she would like, but as he started school, things got a little easier. He would stay out with his friends more often (and wasn’t she elated that her sweet little boy had friends) most times completely missing his fathers early-afternoon tantrums. Things seemed to be looking up. Hisashi started to pay more positive attention to Izuku in the time leading up to his fourth birthday, asking him what he wanted to be when he grew up, asking him what he thought his quirk might be, and demonstrating his own( although she worried when he did that last one; too many angry red burns reminded her how dangerous it was). He kept a close eye on Izuku, and for once they spent his birthday together, as what seemed, from the outside looking in, like a happy family. After that, Hisashi made it a point to ask, everyday as he got home from work, if Izuku had gotten his quirk yet. After the first three months of asking, the question came less frequently, saying that these things might take time. He just had to wait a little, it would no doubt come eventually. And so they all waited, Izuku becoming desperate after six months and no sign of his quirk. He began to try harder to activate it, coming up with creative ways to get it to manifest. The longer he tried, the more frenzied he became, the more impatient Hisashi got, and the more dread filled Inko’s heart. As Hisashi became impatient, he becaem more volatile as well. He still acted kindly towards Izuku, although it was a thin and easy to see through mask, and he began being slightly more rough with him. It wasn’t exactly violent, just a slightly too hard playful shove, or a harder pat on the back then normal, but it was enough that she began to pray his quirk came up soon. After another month of this, Hisashi began being rougher, his smile becoming more and more strained. Eventually, it would drop whenever he was out of view of his son. At nine-month mark, the doctors appointments began.
At first, they simply said he may be a lat bloomer and left it at that. Plenty of other children took a bit longer in the process; they just had to let nature run its course. They gave her a time to return by if it still had not come in. Sure enough, she returned, her little boy in tow, and the doctors began to take tests. They did blood work, x-rays, and even CAT-scans, none of them showing why he was so behind his peers. Eventually, the testing slowed, they bgena to concede defeat, accepting that maybe there wasn’t any specific reason the boy didn’t develop a quirk. He simply did not.
And so led to that fateful day, that one last cursed appointment that sealed her sons future with a few nonchalant yet oh so life-shattering words. He had gone silent ever since, his sweet little smile hung on by a thread, stretched into a tight, everpresent reminder of the brightness it had lost. She had brought him to his favourite icecream place, gotten him the sunday he had been begging for ever since they’d first come, and offered to play his favourite game with. Although the smile never fell, neither did it regain in any degree its former sincerity. She hated seeing her baby like this, and all she wanted to do was stay with him until he was happy again, but it was getting late. Hisashi would be home soon. And she was expected to tell him the details of their latest doctors visit. And so, she carefully guided Izuku towards his bedroom, turning on the computer, putting his favourite video on repeat and settling him gently on the chair. She paused at the doorway, hearing small sniffles coming from the turned chair. Breathing in deeply, Inko Midoriya turned away and closed the door behind her, determined to keep her husband's attention off of her child and on herself for as long as possible.