Chapter Text
Izuku Midoriya was five 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 Midoriya's dentist appointment. He wasn’t paying much attention. Bakugou wasn’t with her today and besides, he hadn’t been very nice ever since he had gotten his quirk and Midoriya 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. Midoriya 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. It was just entertaining enough to keep his focus.
This time he was trying to see if he could bounce it higher than the sapling in front of the building. 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, higher than even the tree. Midoriya grinned until he realized that the ball's trajectory had it now heading to the street.
His eyes widened as he ran to the curb determined to grab the ball back, as it rolled across the street he chased after it his only thought being that his mother would be so mad if he lost his new toy.
She wouldn’t be, of course. I have no idea why he thought that. But in his defense, he was only five.
The ball was only a few feet away, Izuku could almost reach it. He crouched down hand outstretched and…
SPLAT
He didn’t feel any pain, only a slight tingle across his whole body as he watched red leak out of his limp body.
That probably shouldn’t be happening, he thought. Then everything went black.
-
And then he 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. Don’t blame her though, she had just watched her son get run over and die after all.
And then his mother was clutching his face sobbing and there was the car and Bakugou's mother and his red ball in the gutter across the street and he thought that he remembered red but he couldn’t see any blood and-
“You’re alive?!”
-
It was his quirk. After a huge mess and lots of tears (Midoriya couldn’t help himself when he saw his mother crying) and a VERY strange conversation with the man who had been driving, Inko drove him to see a specialist across the city.
This was probably because the pediatrician they had seen a year prior was clearly incompetent. And also a bit of a jerk. Who just outright crushes a kid's dream like that? But I digress.
“Could you perhaps elaborate a bit on how Izuku looked right after the, ah, incident?”
Inko sat up straighter and sniffled a bit, “He- 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 nodded. “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 kinda 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- was fine!”
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, I’ve NEVER heard of a quirk this interesting! 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.
Midoriya shook his head vigorously, clucking a red bouncy ball to his chest.
Lifting his head 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 Midoriya again, the doctor then leaned forward and gave him a small pinch on his arm. “That hurt at all?” Midoriya shook his head. “Izuku? I’m going to pinch you again a little harder, but stop me if it starts to hurt ‘k?”
“Okay,” Midoriya said.
The doctor took his arm once more and gave a hard pinch. Midoriya didn’t even flinch, even when the doctor sat back up and revealed his arm to be red and two distinct marks. “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 not walk on our hurt leg, and such. He’ll have to be very careful to not harm himself and once he does to 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?” Midoriya said tentatively after a moment of silence.
“You do! And it’s a very interesting one!” The doctor told him softly.
Midoriya tilted his head thoughtfully and after considering it for a moment his eyes lit up and he jumped to his feet yelling “I’M GUNNA BE A HEROOOO!!!”
Inko looked like she was about to faint.