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The day Izuku went to the doctor when he was four changed his life.
Sometimes he wished that he was exaggerating. But it’s true. Once he was diagnosed as quirkless, he found himself in a completely different part of society than the one he had grown up in.
He watched his classmates and peers play around with their quirks, showing off the new things they learned they could do. He tried to give suggestions with other uses for their quirks but he was ultimately ignored or scolded by the teachers for trying to bother the better students.
So he found himself stuck on the sidelines. Only allowed to watch the other kids play and talk with each other. Constantly isolated from the outside world he had once been a part of, even though he was surrounded by it all in his daily life.
The only interaction he really got during his school days was when he stepped in front of Kacchan and someone he was trying to bully or by the teachers when they would give him homework that was a grade or two lower than what the class was working on.
And, of course, he tried to latch onto any social interaction that was granted to him. He tried to find any sort of reprieve from the isolation, even when it meant Kacchan’s anger would be turned onto him whenever he spoke.
But the older Izuku got, the more he grew isolated and alone.
Granted, he had friends online from different hero forums and underground backroom chats. He had found solstice with other analysts and theorists, speaking with them about different ways to break down the inner workings of certain quirks (especially mental quirks - those were always Izuku’s favorite to figure out). He had found something of a community as he spent more and more of his time online.
But none of them knew that Izuku was quirkless. He was too scared of losing what he had to tell anyone about his quirk status.
And then he came across a discreet looking forum. The only reason he even knew that it was more than just a regular hero forum was because of the red shoe icon in the right hand corner.
It took a few hours but eventually Izuku found out how to contact the moderators of the secured chat and asked. They told him to send his ID for confirmation that he was a ‘member of the red shoe community’ and promptly did as they asked.
This could be seen as reckless or dangerous but Izuku had been curious. He hadn’t ever heard of the red shoe community but he knew what it implied.
He knew that the red shoe was common for quirkless people to wear, even if that wasn’t the only shoe that fit them. They all seemed to use it as a sort of identifier for each other if the situation ever arises. And that red shoe was the same shoe depicted in the right-hand corner of their website.
And Izuku…well, he wanted to know if there was actually a quirkless community or not.
He was so desperate to find someone else like him. Someone who would understand his struggles and confusion. Someone who would actually treat Izuku as a human being with autonomy and emotions. Someone who wouldn’t just write him off as hopeless the second they figured out his quirk status.
And a few days later, he got a confirmation email from one of the moderators. The email sent him into a chatroom, completely different from their website, with his icon the same as the red shoe on their website.
He took the time to change his username, get familiar with the site, and read through the rules and warnings for beginners.
Interestingly enough, this site was basically a community for any and all quirkless people in Japan.
The icons consisted of a red shoe, a gold star, a silver band, or a black cross.
Reading through the information, Izuku found out that anyone with a red shoe was quirkless.
The people with gold star icons were people who had access to either foster homes open for the quirkless or were considered a safe space for them to run to and were well-known for their tendency to hire quirkless people in need of a job.
The silver band icon represented quirkless sympathizers or business owners who promised to never overcharge them for basic necessities and/or provided them with information on different food banks and shelters that didn’t require an ID to be served or housed.
And the ones with a black cross as their icon were people who worked in any form of hospitality who offered their services for anyone who couldn’t reliably gain access to a decent social worker, hospital, basic medicines, therapy, and/or dentists.
As he explored the chat rooms more, he found that the red shoe icons with black laces usually represented a quirkless person from the older generations and shoes with white laces were part of the younger generations.
The older generation would hand out advice and tips for hiding in plain sight while the younger ones would send in updates about heroes, police, child protective services, and more.
It was quite the culture shock to see a chat room dedicated to updates about which police departments they could go to and actually receive help.
He had no idea that certain heroes took one look at their shoes and promptly ignored them, even if they were injured. It was startling and it just cemented Izuku’s goal with trying to help everyone he could.
Which is how Izuku found his community in real life.
He had been walking to a convenience store late at night, trying to get some food since his mother forgot to go to the grocery store for them (again) when it happened.
In an alleyway, there was an injured person, leaning heavily on the wall. He walked up close to them to make sure they were alright when he noticed their shoes, a bright red that stood out sorely in the dark of the night.
He tried to reassure them, even as they shook their head when he suggested going to a clinic. They claimed they didn’t have the money with a thick American accent and Izuku, tragically, understood.
So he whipped his phone out and tagged all of the people with black crosses in the chat room, asking for assistance and advice. They told him to send his location and once he did, he was sent an address two blocks away from his position.
He didn’t give himself the time to think about how close he had been to his community without knowing and helped the person off the wall, almost falling over with the sudden weight on the man who was now leaning heavily against Izuku, and slowly walked the both of them to the location he had been sent.
The journey took much longer than Izuku would’ve liked. But eventually, the pair made it and was standing in front of (what looked to be) a flower and herb shop. Izuku knocked on the side door with his foot five times (as he had been instructed to do) and the door swung open.
A woman with pale purple hair stood in the entryway, looked them up and down, and quickly swung the door open wider. She prompted them to get inside quickly, shutting the door and locking it once they had made it inside.
With the fluorescent lights, Izuku could finally make out the blood flowly sluggishly from the man’s forehead and a blood stain on his left thigh.
Izuku moved as quickly as he could with the man and dropped him onto a sterile table once the woman directed him to the correct place. As soon as he had done so, a person with bright red hair and eyes came rushing through the door, a doctor’s coat hanging off of their thin shoulders.
They both quickly got to work.
The woman apologetically cut up the man’s pants so they could access his wound and the doctor quickly pressed a few rags to his forehead to soak up the blood.
Izuku just watched, standing awkwardly with his back on the wall.
He cringed when the doctor pulled out a needle and some string, already guessing that the man would be getting stitches tonight. The nurse cleaned and closed up the gash on the man’s forehead as the doctor started sterilizing everything they would need to stitch the man up.
And he watched as the man protested, claiming he wouldn’t be able to pay for their services and had no useful skills to work it off.
The nurse just shook her head sadly and took him where he was; an underground quirkless clinic. A place that was free of charge, free of hate and full of opportunities.
After the man was taken care of and moved to a back room, the nurse came up to him and smiled warmly. “Do you need help with anything hunny?”
And Izuku didn’t. Not really, anyways. But he couldn’t stop the words coming out of his mouth, even if he tried. “C-can you teach m-me how to do that?”
She furrowed her eyebrows and tilted her head at him before pointing her thumb over her shoulder. “You want to be able to do what I did?”
Izuku nodded. “I-I want to help people.”
She stared at him some more, long enough to make him want to take the words back, shove them in his mouth, and take off. But then she grinned at him and nodded once.
“We’ll teach you little buddy. Just come by after school and be ready to learn.”
Izuku grinned back and nodded towards her. “Of course, ma’am!”
She barked out a laugh and shook her head. “Call me Sakura, bud.”
Izuku felt himself blush as he rubbed the back of his neck, laughing a bit at his own awkwardness. “Right. Uh, I-I’m Midoriya. Midoriya Izuku.”
Sakura grinned again before saying her goodbyes as she shoved Izuku back out the side door he came in through and then he was off.
He completely forgot about his hunger that night and smiled all the way back to his apartment, quickly slipping into bed and trying to force himself to sleep so he would be ready for the next day.
For the next few years, Izuku went to that clinic everyday after school and came in during the weekends to help out.
He saw all kinds of people come through. Sure, almost all of them were quirkless but they were all so interesting.
He got to know people that lived a life much like he did and even gave out his number to a few of the younger kids that came through. He listened to their stories and nodded along or encouraged them.
(That was an odd thing to learn; that Izuku could encourage someone and inspire hope. Sakura and most of the staff had a quirk so the kids wouldn’t listen to them. But Izuku was young and just like them. So they would listen to him and his stories and his encouragement.
They would find a love for something through him, whether it be support items, politics, flowers, the ocean, anything. He did his best to talk about something they could love in this terrifying world. And they did their best to place their love and hope in something he offered.)
Soon enough, Izuku was celebrating birthdays with the staff and never failed to smile everytime Sakura brought out a cupcake and presented it to him as dramatically as possible.
They unofficially graduated him up to a nurse’s position the day that he turned 12 since they couldn’t register him officially.
He tried to not let that bother him. Because he understood that he was young and most people who had a choice wouldn’t want a kid as young as him to be performing their surgeries. And he knew that it would be more than difficult to explain just why a child was doing a doctor’s job.
But he also knew that the only reason he wasn’t registered (or able to get any official licenses) was because he was quirkless.
He couldn’t get his EMT all because the paperwork required a quirk control test and registration to be submitted along with it, even though he passed all of the tests.
It was more than a bit heart-breaking to learn that he couldn’t officially have a license or anything to show off his hard work. It was also more than annoying to realize that paperwork was the only reason he couldn’t help people like he wanted.
But, as he got older, he realized that it didn’t really matter. He was still helping people. He was still inspiring other kids to keep living their lives, even when they know that they won’t be living in the same society that everyone else lives in. He was still smiling and encouraging others.
And that’s all that he could really hope for.
OMAKE: Izuku and All Might (+ The Red Shoe Website)
Izuku felt himself sit haphazardly as he stared at the spot All Might had walked away from and listened as the roof access door swung shut.
It felt poetic.
The way that All Might had shut him out as soon as he learned of Izuku’s Quirklessness. The way that the roof door seemed to signify his dreams and aspirations being taken away from him for good.
And it hurts. More than Izuku ever realized it would.
Because sure, he’s been shut down and out his whole life but All Might…he did it with pity and hatred swirling in his eyes.
And that. Well, Izuku didn’t exactly have the right words for how he felt about that.
Izuku felt tears fall off of his chin and onto his hand, startling him. He knew why he was crying.
It wasn’t that All Might had taken Izuku’s hope away. No, he was still planning on being a hero. That would never change.
But he had seen All Might’s eyes at that moment. He watched as the hero glanced down to his shoes and then back up to Izuku’s face.
He knew, without a doubt, that he couldn’t actually trust the Number One Hero to truly save anyone from the community. Maybe he would do his job but Izuku has been proven that he wouldn’t do anything other than taking them directly out of the danger zone.
That fact burned through his mind like a betrayal.
He had no reason to feel betrayed. Izuku knew this. But it didn’t hurt any less when he pulled out his phone and sifted through his messages until he got to the correct chat.
The Trusted
[CALL - FT - MESSAGE]
[DETAILS]
| 13 members online
!PINNED!
Public Servants - LINK
Law Enforcement - LINK
Miscellaneous - LINK
thegreenbean 2 sec
@everyone … All Might is a red stripe. I’m sorry.