Chapter Text
Life was wonderful.
Every day, Toshinori would kiss his wife goodbye and one of them would drop Izuku off at preschool. He’d head into the office and greet the interns, stepping back into All Might’s office to take care of things when needed. The office was a bit quiet since Jeanist had stepped out into his own agency and Ectoplasm had retired. Nedzu at UA had offered the man a teaching position and he’d taken it and Toshi didn’t blame him one bit.
Iida Tensei had joined them for however long he’d been there, the man’s speed was matched only by his ambition. He and Shinya were a dangerous pair, always getting into something or another. They both kept Nighteye busy and Toshi loved coming in to work to hear him complain about their latest stunt.
After work, and he always left the office on time unless he was out on a call, he would either pick up Izuku or head home. From there he’d help with homework, or work on dinner with Inko, or he’d take Izuku out to a park and let him run around with his little friends. One of Inko’s friends had a son his age, and young Katsuki had quite the personality. Ectoplasm’s son Juzo was also a frequent playmate, as well as Faith’s little Saburō. That little one’s quirk had developed recently, much to his mother’s displeasure.
“Emotional synchronization.” She’d said flatly in a video call, tears streaming down her face as the boy had a tantrum in the background. “Just what I needed. Now excuse, need to throw something.”
Since Tensei had joined the agency Izuku had started playing with his little brother, too. Tenya was a very serious child, tall for his age and already looking to inherit the family quirk if his legs were any indication. Still, more friends were good. Toshinori had no desire for Izuku to grown up as he had, painfully lonely.
Life marched on as it always did, and on one ordinary day in one ordinary week, everything changed.
Inko had been the one to pick Izuku up for the day to take him for a checkup. Toshinori stopped at the grocery after work to pick up fresh pork so that they could make katsudon for him, a trip to the doctor deserved a treat.
The smile on his face faded as he entered his house, it seemed far too still. He dropped the groceries off on the counter and looked about, finding Inko standing outside of Izuku’s bedroom door. Her eyes were wide and blank, tears streaking own her face. “Inko, what happened?” Toshi asked, mind spiraling to every horrible outcome.
“He’s quirkless.” She said dazedly, and while not the horror he was picturing the words still hit hard. Izuku was quirkless? Unbidden, memories from his childhood sprang to the surface. The teasing, the loneliness, the depression and lack of self worth. “He’s four and a half now, and they x-rayed his feet. He has the little toe joint. The doctor, he was so- He was so cruel about it!” Now a bit of anger crept into her voice and she turned to look up at Toshi. “I don’t know what to say to him.”
What was there to say? Izuku dreamed of being a hero, played at being one constantly. He adored heroes, All Might in particular. The idea of him not being able to follow his dreams was just…
Toshi pushed open the door to Izuku’s room and peered in. The light was off, and the back of his computer chair was turned towards the door. Toshi crossed the room and what he saw broke his heart even more: Izuku was sitting alone in the darkness, a blanket looped up over his head, watching the video of All Might’s debut on repeat.
“Dad,” He asked, turning to look at Toshi with eyes overflowing with tears. “Can I be a hero too?”
Was this how Nana had felt so many years before when Toshi had confined in her his dream? Had it been the initial feeling of hearbreak that a much longed for dream was impossible, then the crushing knowledge that you held within you the ability to fix his problem? But, God help him, he couldn’t put this Quirk on Izuku. Not now, not yet. Maybe in the future when he was ready to retire he could pass it along. But the world needed All Might too much.
All Toshi had were words. Her words.
He pulled Izuku from the chair and into his arms, kissing the top of his head as he held him close. “You’ll have to work hard,” He said, throat tightening. “Harder than anyone else. You’ll have to fight and train. But I believe in you. You can be a hero, too.”
He can almost feel Nana’s hand in his hair, ruffling it as she grins at him. Izuku’s tears turn into full blown sobs as he clutches Toshinori. The phantom hand turns into a real one as Inko moves in. Her other hand comes down to rest on Izuku’s and Toshi can feel her tears dripping down. “You can be a hero.” She echoes now that she has the right words to say, now that she isn’t paralyzed by the worry of saying the wrong thing and hurting him, frozen at the idea of Izuku experiencing the same horrors Toshi has told her about. “You’re smart, and you’re kind, and you’re a hard worker. You can do it, baby.”
Izuku sobs himself to sleep in Toshi’s arms, and even then Toshi can’t bear to put him down. He takes him into his and Inko’s room and sits down on the bed, keeping the boy on his chest still. His mind raced with ideas on how to make this best for him, how to protect his boy.
“He can’t be registered as Quirkless.” Toshi said softly as Inko came to lay with them. “It’ll close so many doors.”
“What can we do?” Inko asked, curling up against him and reaching out to stroke Izuku’s hair.
“First, we get a second opinion. And if it’s true, I’ve got contacts. It involves falsifying documents and medical records, but we could have him registered as having an invisible quirk. They lay dormant until something triggers them.” Toshi made a face, but it was the best idea he had. If Izuku was registered as having an invisible quirk that was at least better than being quirkless. At least it was something. “And we’ll have to talk to him to have him understand.”
Inko stayed silent at his side for a few minutes. Then: “Are you going to give it to him?” She asked, and Toshi couldn’t place the emotion in her voice. Other than sounding protective he couldn’t read his wife.
“I don’t know. In the future, when he’s older and I’m… Even older. I can’t be All Might forever, and this needs to be passed on. If he’s sixteen and still wants to be a hero, I’ll give him a choice. He’ll always have a choice.” Toshi promised her. She pressed her face against his side.
“As long as he has a choice.”
Toshi slipped out of bed early and started making calls. They kept Izuku home from school and took him to the hospital where Faith’s husband Rin worked. Rin had been sympathetic and had agreed to sign whatever paperwork would be needed to register Izuku as having an invisible quirk. He knew the statistics about quirkless people well.
Still, during the examination Rin started to frown. “He showed you an x-ray of his feet?” He asked Inko in a soft tone. Inko nodded and Rin looked more disturbed. “Izuku, let’s take a look at your feet together, okay?”
After x-raying his feet again, Rin had the radiographs pulled up as he held Izuku’s feet. “See, what I don’t understand is how he couldn’t see the x-rays had been mixed up.” Rin said, wiggling Izuku’s little toes. “You clearly don’t have the little joint. See?” And he pointed out on the X-ray where the joint wasn’t.
Izuku stared at the x-ray with big eyes, looking up at Rin almost desperately. “So I’m not quirkless?”
“My diagnosis would be no, you’re not quirkless.” Rin smiled at him, giving his toes one last wiggle. “However, since you’re four and a half and your quirk hasn’t popped up, you might have an invisible quirk. It could manifest at a certain time, or it could just be a very small quirk, or it could be a mental quirk.”
While Izuko was over the moon that he wasn’t quirkless, Rin still seemed disturbed. “It’s probably just an error, but could you give me the information about your pediatrician?” He asked Inko. “This was a major mistake and I want to check in on it.”
“Of course. He wasn’t our pediatrician, he was someone we were referred to. I think his name was Dr. Tsubasa?” Inko passed over the information. As Toshi picked Izuku up and made him ‘fly’, Inko added in a softer tone: “You’re serious, then? He’s not quirkless?”
Rin gave her a quick little smile. “Medically, no. He’s got the lack of a joint in his toe. Which, I mean, super unscientific way to diagnose someone as quirkless or no but it’s what we have. I’ll send you home with some information on invisible quirks.”
After Inko and Toshi left with their son, Rin looked into Dr. Tsubasa. He was an older man who seemed largely uninterested in his misdiagnosis of a child, which fit with how blasé Inko had said he was. “Mixups happen.” He said with a shrug.
It was possible that he was just a practitioner at the end of his career who’d hardened over the years and didn’t care. It was very possible that nothing else was happening here. Still, Rin didn’t like how the old man smiled and patted him on the shoulder and told him: “No harm done.”
Five quirkless children disappear that month and their disappearances are noticed by very few. Everyone knew the statistics, after all.