Chapter Text
Instead of hearing the words ‘You’re quirkless, you should probably just give up’ Izuku hears the words, ‘Well, at least you’re not quirkless, Just wait a few more months and if nothing happens then we can run a few more tests. Though, whatever your quirk is it probably is very weak and passive, so try thinking about other career paths than Heroics’.
It was less than a week later, words started floating around people. Izuku could only stare at his mother for the first hour of the day - his brain simply unable to process the words he was seeing. When she asked him what was going on he just said, “I’m trying to read.” Which, honestly, didn’t help his mothers anxiety. Izuku didn’t go to school that day, mainly because whenever his mother tried to help him get dressed, he’d freak out - insist that he wants to read the words. So, to satisfy Izuku’s sudden desire to read words that aren’t there he was given a notebook - his first notebook, and a pencil. Izuku spent the whole day trying to write down the words.
Of course, none of it made any sense at first. The words weren’t in any order, he simply didn’t know what half of them meant. Neither did his mother. It appeared that his quirk was just ‘floating words’. That was what he was registered as for the first two years of having a quirk. Then, he got much better at reading the words and writing them down too. If he wrote them fast enough, they didn’t even float around - they just waited for a moment - in a nice neat order and they just appeared on the page. It was analysis. It wasn’t good, but that was what it was. They updated his quirk in the registry, and, of course, that was when the bullying got worse. Freaky notes from a kid that was so clearly spying on them to know all this information about them.
Izuku could ignore them easy enough, and Kastuki had long since dropped him as a friend, so he could work on his analysis outside of school. He focused on heroes. They often had professional analysts working with them, so they theoretically had the least amount of flaws in their quirk usage. Izuku loved watching them online. He loved to see them in person more - he could actually tell what their quirks were and he could analyse it better when he didn’t have to worry about the screen.
He was smart - and careful. His notes were even coded now, another adaptation of using his quirk as often as he could - one he developed before he was ten years old. The same year he was finally able to join a gymnastics, well it wasn’t exactly a team but it was an extracurricular activity. Izuku’s analysis quickly extended well past quirks, and into flexibility, agility and other skills useful for fighting. Izuku was the most flexible boy in the year - not to mention the only boy in the gymnastics but he didn’t mind because the girls were nicer to him than the boys were.
By age eleven - after breaking one of his bones - Izuku gained an interest in the human body, the organs, the bones and the nervous system. He learnt a lot of pressure points, and he trained his hand to sustain the hit if Izuku was to jab someone’s pressure point. He wasn’t about to take any chances in a fight.
At age twelve, Izuku found an interest in support Items, and he read every book he could on the subject.
At thirteen, Izuku could make his own gear. He had a part-time job at a cafe that he worked at until eleven every night to fund his inventions.
Izuku was 14.
Mental quirks led to a person wanting to be more nocturnal, so Izuku was out at another ungodly hour, notebook basically glued to his hand. He went out at night because, by God, it was always overwhelming to go out in public with hundreds of people to analyse. Out at night, hardly anyone was out and it was a rare moment of complete quiet. Izuku liked the nighttime more too, it didn’t hurt his eyes when he had migraines from quirk usage. Izuku was quickly becoming more and more of a night owl, and usually slept through his school day. As long as he passed his exams he couldn’t get in any trouble. Izuku was also quickly gaining muscle mass - he had picked up parkour (which blended surprisingly well with Gymnastics) to help him avoid the people who were out this late - for whatever reason.
Izuku had tried to think of ways to analyse his own quirk but found himself unable to think of things he hadn’t already tried. He wanted to try a brainwashing quirk or something - something to disassociate him hard enough that if he looked at himself he would see the words - but he doesn’t know anyone with a quirk like that. Unfortunately. Most people with quirks like that end up being villains. If only because other people refuse to hire them. It usually is kind of telling that they don’t want to be a villain, but for some reason, people never looked past quirks.
Izuku heard some noise and found himself shooting up the wall to stand on the edge of the roof. A Hero fight, huh?
He was focusing on the villain today. They have some sort of teleportation quirk, allowing them to avoid the heroes easily. However, it seemed they were following some sort of pattern or something because they appeared in a lot of the same spots more than once. Well, at least it was nearly always the same distance. First 15 meters, then 7 metres, 15, 7. He was clearly getting tired, but Izuku knew what he was doing. He could teleport into that alley - easily complex enough that no hero could follow him - and then he might be able to slip away. To late… Izuku watched him disappear, and Izuku followed his instincts to check down the alleyway. Sure enough, he’s there. But so is another pro, one Izuku’s never seen before.
Izuku writes down a few words. Erasure. Eraserhead, huh? Isn’t he underground? What’s he doing in this part of town? Izuku glances around for a second, putting away his notebook to follow Eraserhead. He wanted to know what was going on, and not to mention wanting a signature, underground hero or not. Eraserhead was cool. Plus, Izuku wanted to see that quirk in action more, he barely even got a page worth of writing. Writing while trying to follow someone and hide in the shadows never worked well for Izuku before, so Izuku focused on keeping the hero in his sights. Not to mention, this is really out of the way from the hero’s usual patrol route.
Izuku wasn’t going to get involved.
He wasn’t.
He wasn’t gonna…
And there he was, getting involved.
He couldn’t help himself. She was bleeding and burnt - at least second degree. Izuku could help, and therefore his body told him to help. He had just finished wrapping her arm when Eraser spoke up, in a genuinely surprised tone.
“Where did you come from?”
Izuku didn’t look over his shoulder, just handed the woman the last of his tube of burn cream and packed up the last of his first aid kit, which he carried on him at all times due to serval… incidences that Izuku may or may not have been involved in. Izuku helps the woman up, and she seems unable to form words while she looks at him.
“I- uh, thank you, but I think that man is talking to you..?”
Izuku shrugs, not bothering to look over his shoulder before he scales the wall. Hopefully, Eraserhead was going to be stuck waiting for the police while Izuku could get away from here. Izuku had… stage fright? He didn’t know exactly, but it was something. He just couldn’t bring himself to look at Eraserhead. God, why did he think he was helping that woman? Eraserhead had probably already called an ambulance for her - Izuku was just wasting his time and money.
But, then again, Izuku did manage to stop her bleeding and stitch the wound up - not that he probably should know how to do that. He had free time after no one wanted to be his friend - and medical books in the library were there for free. Izuku had to start hiding things from his mother, and treating his injuries was the fastest way to cover up that he was hurt, to begin with.
Izuku had experience with burns most paramedics would probably have to see - the kind that leaves clothes melted to the skin and big ugly blisters forming where the burns were the least severe. Izuku, in a way, was used to the burns on that woman's wrist as though it was just another day, though it would probably leave a scar for the rest of her life.
Izuku sat on a rooftop three blocks away, pulling out his notes and writing the little bits he hadn’t gotten out of his mind yet. Maybe he’d run into Eraser again, another time. Another day. Maybe next time Izuku would work up the balls to actually talk to him. But for now, Izuku needs to make one of those scarfs. They seemed so useful, but Izuku was thinking he’d probably go for slightly shorter one’s on each arm, instead of around the neck. Though, that presented its own problems, which Izuku was going to need to research thoroughly. Not to mention where the hell Izuku was gonna find the materials for it.
Izuku hummed softly as he slipped his notebook back away. The tune was simple - one he had heard his mother humming over and over again during Izuku’s constant nightmares after his quirk first developed. He hummed that song now, thinking about his mother at home sleeping soundly in her bed, not knowing her little baby was sitting twenty stories high while thinking about making himself more support gear that he doesn’t need.
Izuku looked down, one hand gripping onto the railing while he hung the rest of his body off the edge, just to get a better look at the city lights. They were always so beautiful - he'd live up here if he could.
Take a swan dive off the roof.
Katsuki’s latest jeer was still hanging around Izuku’s mind - leaving an ache in the boy's chest. Once upon a time, they could’ve been best friends, fighting to be number one together - and once they were both there they could fight to be better than each other - and save everyone they possibly could. Izuku pulls himself back onto the roof, sighing as he stands and turns around - spotting the blurry movements of Eraserhead in the distance.
How long was Izuku up here for? It couldn’t possibly have been that long, right?
Should Izuku follow Eraserhead? Probably not.
Was he going to? Absolutely.
Izuku was running before he realised it. He wanted more analysis, he always did. He had gotten bored of all his classmates so quickly that this fresh, interesting one of a kind quirk drove Izuku to run faster, catching up to Eraserhead, who was somehow already involved in another fight. He seemed so used to that scarf. He moved with it, easy fluid movements which seemed so graceful. Izuku could easily blend it into his gymnastics training. Izuku had found a new quirk - and Izuku was going to figure out everything about it.