I was punched in the face by inspiration and write this in under two hours. It's not edited even a little, sorry!
When he is two and a half years old Izuku finds All Might. Not the person, not in person, he finds him on the computer. He watches his debut for hours, over and over and over until his parents are exasperated, but tolerant of him. His mother is endlessly loving and kind and soft and his father is patient and gentle and warm.
Izuku is a happy child.
There is nothing he wants for, he does not know hunger nor pain nor loneliness. The apartment is cozy with the three of them, the floor sometimes cluttered with Izuku's toys and his dads books and his moms magazines. It smells like jasmine and katsudon and cardamom. It smells like home.
He drags his dad to the computer when the snow starts to fall and they have to come inside from playing. While he hangs up his gloves his dad gets the video for him and lets him sit on his lap even though Izuku knows that he's tired of watching it.
He think maybe his dad doesn't like All Might as much as he does, which is silly because All Might is the best hero every. Izuku is going to be the best hero ever too! One day. Once he gets his quirk. He hopes his will be fire, so he can be warm like his dad is.
They watch the video. Watch the shadow of All Might emerge from the smoke holding people on his shoulders, carrying the wounded. The smile on his face is light and magnetic. Izuku smiles in return. Even if it is a little scary to see people hurt, he likes All Might and he like fire.
When the video is over his dad stops it before it can loop.
"Izuku," he says, his low voice clear even as the shadows of the room darken his face, "If you could have any quirk, what would it be?"
Izuku doesn't look at him. His eyes are fixed on the computer. Later in life he will wonder if things had started changing that day, or the one before, or the one after.
"I want All Mights power!" he throws his hand in the air and laughs. If he can have any power he wants it to be All Mights. Fire is neat and floaty stuff is fun but All Might is the coolest. He's the best and Izuku will be the best so he wants his quirk.
His dad doesn't say anything. He pressed play and the video starts again.
Izuku Midoriya is three years old when he come stumbling out of his bedroom in the morning, rubbing sleep out of his eyes and finds his father standing at the front door with a bag in one hand and car keys in the other.
He's tall, so much taller than Izuku, who's really still a baby even if he can walk and get to the potty himself at night and say his 'pleases' and 'thank you's and in the morning he could get his own blothes on. His dad is so tall that morning that the kitchen light casts a shadow on his face when he looks at Izuku and he can't make his nose or his eye or where his bangs end. He can only see his mouth, wide and usually so full of laughter it is grim and straight.
His mother stands in the kitchen, holding a towel and shaking. There are tears in her eyes.
"What's goin' on?" he asks, looking between one parent and the other. His mom looks away so he turns his face up to his father and father.
"I have to go away for a while," he says, "I need to work."
"You go to work lots. You come back," Izuku said. He tried to grab for the ends of his dads coat but the man moved away, out of reach. To the door.
"Everything I do is for this family, Izuku. I will come back this time too," he promises. Let's out a breath that streams warm fire. "It'll just be a while."
He isn't lying.
Izuku Midoriya is five year old when his dreams and ambitions are brutally destroyed. He does not have a quirk. He will never breath fire nor with he be able to levitate objects. He has no control over gravity. He had to flame that licks past his tongue.
He is quirkless. It hurts more than falling off of the swing. It hurts more than tripping over the coffee table.
Izuku has always loved his mother and her soft embraces, has always soaked in the warmth that she provided. Sometimes he has wondered if there's not some fire in her too, like there is in his dad. He has always loved her hugs but that day he wants to pull away and tell her to stop, to stop touching him and stop crying and to tell him that everything will be okay the way she's supposed to.
She doesn't.
She holds him and cries and when the shock wears off they both get up and eat dinner cold. He doesn't rush to the computer like he wants to afterwards. Instead he lets her put him to bed, dress him in a soft pajamas and kiss him goodnight before she goes to her own room, the one she used to share with a man who's face Izuku can't remember anymore.
Izuku tries to go to sleep like a good boy. He tries to lay down and he tries to forget about the doctor and the bone in his foot and the quirk he will never have. He tries, he does, but he can't sleep. He just stares at the All Might night light plugged into the wall for a long, long time before he finally rolls out of his bed.
He stumbles to the floor, the carpet muffling his small feet when he starts to walk.
Down the hall, if one got past the big table where family pictures sat next to a stained glass lamp and under a large painting of the ocean is his moms room. Through the door, cracked so she could hear if Izuku began to cry, he can hear her talking in a low, shaking voice.
"Are you sure you can't- Yes, I know it's important for you to be there but the doctor said-" silence, then, "He's crushed. He needs his father right now."
In the darkness, Izuku's hand curl up. He pushes his small fist again the door and leans closer. It hurt. She's talking to his dad and it hurts. He hasn't talked to him in two years. He hasn't seen him since he walked out the door to work.
"I know. I know. Okay. Sorry for calling. I love you."
The door creaks open when Izuku pushed it. His mom looks up, startled. Her eyes, so beautiful and bright, are rimmed with red and her cheeks are wet. Izuku feels sick and hurt at the same time and kinda hot in his head. He pushes the door the rest of the way open and runs to his mom.
She scoops him into her arms before he can even get to the bed. He holds on to her night shirt and this time both of them cry. His mom is apologizing but she doesn't need to, its not her fault, its not and he knows it. He holds on to her and cries because he misses his hope and he misses his dad.
"I want him to come home," he chokes. His mom rubs his back gently, even though she's still crying too.
"I know. I do too. But, everything he does is for us, Izuku… I miss him."
"So do I. Will he ever come back?" his grip tightens on her. The soft arms around his shoulders gather him up and roll him under the blankets, holding him there. There's a cold spot on the bed where his dad should have been but hadn't been for years. The pillow is wet by the time his eyes close and he cries himself out.
She never does answer his question.
When Izuku is six he starts a game.
He doesn't tell anyone about it, no even his mom, but sometimes when he's trying to pick his hero name and when he's playing rescue with his mom, or even when he's out trouping behind Kacchan and his friends in the woods they aren't supposed to be in, he pretends that All Might is his dad.
It so easy.
He can picture it, clear as day, the smile that always lights up All Mights face and the safety that comes with it. He can hear him laugh, he can hear his promise, his vow.
I am here.
He likes is better than 'Everything I do is for this family.'
He figures it doesn't matter that much. Either way, Izuku's dad is not.
When Izuku is eight, he gets a present from his dad.
He's gotten a lot of presents before. One is sent for every birthday that's missed along with a card that holds an empty apology.
This is the first time that he gets a video game. It comes with a hand held console. Something simple, he's never really played video games before. Only at his friend's house, sometimes.
He looks over the cartridge and the smooth black screen and the charging wire. On the cartridge is a little hero dressed in red and villain dressed in blue. He knows enough about the game to know that you pick which one you are.
He doesn't like video games.
The gap he feels between himself and his dad only grows larger when he finally understands that even if everything he does is for his family, his dad doesn't know them at all. He doesn't know that his mom's favorite flowers are wisteria, he doesn't know that every Thursday they have curry or that they clean out the fridge on Mondays. He doesn't know that Izuku likes to watch the bees in the spring and he doesn't know that he's finally grown out of his All Might onsie.
Izuku puts the game back in the box and shoves the box under his bed. It does nothing more than gather dust.
When Izuku is nine, they get an assignment in school. To do a report on their parents jobs. The only problem is, he doesn't know what his dad's job even is.
He knows that he sends them money now, his mom is home and doesn't need to work and they live to comfortably for anything else. He doesn't know how much but its enough. He does not know how his dad get's the money. He doesn't know what his job is.
Gone for six years and he doesn't know what his dad does for work.
So he can't present to his class, he just has to sit in the back and watch everyone else talk about what their parents do while he stays silent and writes notes. The words from all that time ago echo in his head. They keep coming back.
Even Kacchan sends him a pitying look or two.
It has been seven years since Izuku had heard his dads voice. He isn't sure he remembers is that well anymore. Nonetheless when the phone rings in the dead of night and he picks it up so his mom won't have to he can't imagine who else it would be.
"Hello?" he says, quiet, so he won't wake her up. She should sleep. She deserves it.
"Izuku?" the voice is deep and his hits him like a punch in the gun. He hurts to listen to it.
He can't manage to respond. There's something in the background, some fuzz, some activity but it sounds like it's being muffled. Like traffic behind a wall. His dad is out of breath too.
"Izuku, listen. I know I'm not back yet. I don't know when I will, and I'm sorry. I've missed so much of your life… But I need you to know, whatever happens, everything I've done since the day you were born was for the sake of our family. Do you understand, Izuku?"
It's a question for him. He should answer. He knows he should.
He puts the phone on the receiver and stands in the dark room. And ocean opens under his feet.
Meeting All Might is everything and nothing like Izuku ever imagines it might be. All Might is even more magnificent in person, he's towering and wonderful and brave and his smile lifts Izuku's heart and chases every worry he has ever had away.
Then, the illusion is broken.
Even then, the broken, damaged man that stands before him in the setting sun is real and wonderful and smiles despite his own fears. Izuku can think of nothing more courageous than that.
He weeps when, for the first time in his young life, someone believes in him.
The work is hard, grueling and he feels like he's going to die more times than he count training under All Might but it's worth it. It's worth it everytime All Might praises him, tells him he's getting stronger, pats his back or, rarely, wonderfully, hugs him.
Izuku thinks, maybe, this is what having a dad is really like. It's not years with 'I'm sorry' cards and presents he doesn't like or need. It's not consolation prizes for a life he'll never have.
It's tired eyes that light when he comes to view and a fierce conviction in his future.
When he fights Todoroki it's even more apparent how different they are.
Izuku, with his absent father, beloved mother, and new father figure he has so much hope and joy for the future there are days he feels he's going to burst with it.
He's so different from Todoroki, who's parents have both hurt him terribly. His overbearing father and his painful, locked away mother. He faces the future with vicious determination to kill his fathers dreams. Izuku isn't sure what Todoroki's real dreams are until the fire explodes across his left side and the stadium roars with screams and cheers, drowned out by the words the pour from the boys mouth.
I want to be a hero!
Izuku thinks he will remember those words forever. They add to the list of words that he will never forget. A line of text that etches itself into his bones, steadily. The more he grows and the more people he meets the more is added to it.
Young man, you too can be a hero.
Deku just screams Do your best!
From here on, I'll never lose again!
I want to be a hero.
They all stay with him. But, there's one more that has never left him. He doesn't think it ever will.
Everything I've done since the day you were born, had been for this family.
He's shaking. He can taste bile, but he doesn't throw up. His brain is clouded with the rapid, uneven beating of his heart, overtaking his whole body. He can't hear past the pounding in his eardrums. Not until Kacchan rages into life behind them.
He screams and insults the most dangerous person in the world the second he meets them and Izuku can't think of anyone else who would do something like that. Someone so reckless, so horribly brave as to scream in the face of danger. Izuku doesn't know anyone who would stand in front of All For One and spit curses.
He is still smart enough to quiet down when the other villains appear. Izuku can't see them. He can't make his body turn to look over the wall that he's pressed wholly against but he can hear the slithering sound that accompanied Kacchan when he appeared and he can hear the people and the voice drop into existence. They all fade to a dull buzz when All For One starts speaking again.
"Tomura," his voice is low, deep, but companionate. It shouldn't be, he's a villain. He's the worst villain. Izuku can remember the tore scar that collapsed into All Might chest from their fight. He shouldn't be companionate. "You have failed again. But, you must not lose heart. There will be more chances. That is why I brought you and your companions here. And the boy, too. Because you determined he was important. So try again. That is what I'm here to help you do."
"Everything I've done," he speaks but Izuku's heart fills in the words even while his brain processes the truth.
Has been for this family.
"Was for you."
Izuku chokes on a sob and a scream at the same time and finally collapses to his knees.