A/N: Two therapy chapters in a row? Wow, what a dumb idea for a minor timeskip!
Self-deprecating jokes aside, I hope you enjoy more angst. Gotta learn to walk before you can run, and all that.
"Good morning, Izuku," Tamon greeted as he slipped behind the desk. "How has your week been? Better?"
"Nothing's changed," Izuku admitted with a frown, his eyes straying to the calendar on the wall behind the desk. "My, uh… the guy that lives with us is still dangerous, and my father… I still can't be around him."
"I see," he observed quietly with a sigh. "Well, change doesn't happen overnight. Or in this case, in a week."
"I've been thinking about what you told me last week…" Izuku began, looking up at the therapist. "And I realized… I am angry. I am upset. I do hate my father."
"That's good," Tamon encouraged. "Honesty with yourself and your emotions is the first step to recovery."
"But it scares me," he confessed, twisting his hands together. "I don't want to hate anyone. When I fought Overhaul, I felt this… burning anger deep inside me, because I hated how much he'd hurt Eri, but I didn't think I hated him. But now I realized that I do hate him. I hate him so much that I want him to rot in Tartarus." He swallowed and shook his head. "That's… that's not who I am. That's not who I want to be."
"Realizing your problems and shortcomings is one of the first steps to overcome them." Tamon smiled kindly. "I'm not going to look down on you for feeling such a strong emotion, Izuku. That's what humanity does. We love, we fear, we hate - it's all a part of who we are as a species. Believe me, I would be a hypocrite to judge you for feeling a natural emotion."
"But it's not just villains," he continued, bowing his head and looking away. "I had a long talk with- er, with myself… and I feel like this hate has been festering for years. But I don't know when it started."
"That's okay too." Thumbing through the papers on his desk, the therapist let out a hum. "Speaking of villains and heroes, how are you faring with your Quirk? I understand you had some insecurities about it last time we spoke."
Izuku froze in his spot, not able to bring himself to lift his head.
"Don't worry, I'm not going to tell." He reassured, warm and encouraging. "I'm bound by patient confidentiality. Besides, I don't want to hurt you like your last confidants did."
At the memory of the detective shouting in his face, he cringed back into the couch and squeezed his eyes shut.
"Izuku," the man spoke softly, and the boy's shoulders tensed a little more, "There's nothing you could tell me that I haven't heard before."
His heart clenched. "Nothing you tell me is something I haven't heard before," the sarcastic voice of the detective rang bitterly in his ears. "Just c'mon and fess up, kid. Where is All For One?"
"I…" His voice cracked. "I don't understand."
Tamon tilted his head, a frown settling on his face. "Understand what?"
"I don't understand why it's always me." He finally lifted his head, his desperate, quiet voice seeming to echo around the room. "Why am I always saddled with the burden of staying quiet?"
"Sometimes it's like my Quirk isn't even mine," he confessed, clutching at his heart. "I just happened to be there that day. I just happened to meet…" he trailed off before he could reveal more, instead choosing to say, "When it manifested, I couldn't control it at all. I would break my fingers, my arms, my legs… I just kept breaking ." His voice cracked. "But without it, people wouldn't even look at me. Sometimes it feels like all I am is my strength. No matter how hard I try, I just can't stop thinking that maybe everyone else's lives would have been better off if I'd never gotten this Quirk. Maybe others would have been better had I stayed Quirkless."
"Izuku…" Tamon's voice was soft, his face so full of concern it almost physically hurt to look him in the eye. "Who told you that?"
"I did," he snapped, scrubbing at his eyes as he stared back. "Because it's true. I'm useless. I drag everyone down in fights. Others always have to pick up my slack because I can't go one fight without fumbling something."
"This Quirk isn't me. It's strong, it's powerful, it can help people. I can't. All I can do is rely on a strength that wasn't mine to take in the first place. The Midoriya I know is so weak he can't even stop himself from being beat up on. The Midoriya everyone else sees is. That Midoriya is named One-"
He bit his tongue, covering his face in his hands as hot tears fell. He hadn't meant to let that one slip.
The man was silent for several long seconds, just staring at the boy's bent form. His face was unreadable.
Finally he pushed up his glasses and leaned over the table. "Izuku, have I mentioned what my Quirk is?"
His back stopped trembling for a second. He raised up a little more, face still covered, though he could peek through his fingers.
"My Quirk is called Unload," the therapist explained. "Whenever someone makes eye contact with me and it's active, it helps people be more candid about their thoughts and feelings, even things they didn't realize they were suffering from."
He leaned over the desk as Izuku's hands slowly fell from his red face, revealing his shocked expression. "Have you, at any point, felt like I was forcing you into talking about things you don't want to talk about?"
The greenet blinked, then slowly shook his head. "...No."
"And now that you know what my Quirk is, do you think that my Quirk is the biggest part of me?" His jade eyes seemed more serious than before as he looked at the boy over his lenses. "Do you think that all I'm good for is Unload?"
"No." His response was quicker this time, and more forceful.
"Why?"
"Because… you're you," he tried to explain. "Your Quirk is only a supplement to who you are. It helps you where you need it to, but it doesn't make up everything."
Tamon chortled before he rested his chin atop his knuckles and questioned, "Then why do you hold yourself to a higher standard?"
"Because… because…" he stammered, fumbling for an answer.
The blond shook his head. "Could it be that you think so much less of yourself because you feel like you don't deserve the gift that you were given?"
His mouth snapped shut.
"I've heard some things from your mother that I honestly agree with." He nodded towards the papers on the desk. "You believe that Quirks are gifts, gifts that make everyone unique and special; I agree. Which is why I believe that due to the trauma you've suffered in your childhood, you continue to hold onto their words. You don't think you deserve your Quirk because you hate yourself for not having one in the first place."
Izuku continued to stare at him.
"You keep asking yourself why you weren't born 'normal', don't you?" His voice took a soft dip, and he frowned sympathetically at the teenager. "You were so bitter about having your dreams shattered that it manifested as hatred for yourself for being inadequate. You admitted that you'd never felt hate for anyone else… because all this time, that hatred was aimed solely at you."
A shaky breath left his lips.
"But you do deserve it, Izuku," he continued. "Everyone does. Would you think the same of someone with a Quirk that has the potential to do evil?"
"No," he protested weakly. "No Quirk is inherently evil."
"So then why do you continue to define yourself that way?" Tamon searched the boy's face for a moment, before he leaned back and smiled. "In what ways am I different from my Quirk? I'm curious."
"Well," Izuku began, folding his hands together in his lap, "You had a personality before you got it, right? And… and just because you have it doesn't mean you're stuck in a certain box. Like Shinsou-kun's Quirk doesn't force him to be someone evil just because he could use it for evil. It's at its core something to assist with your day-to-day life and not something that you couldn't live without."
"Do you think differently of me after learning of it?"
He took a moment to think. "No," he answered honestly. "Actually, your Quirk is interesting. There are so many things you could do with it, so many idiosyncrasies that make up your abilities, that you could probably go an entire lifetime and not learn everything there is to know about it."
"That's… quite flattering, thank you." He seemed genuinely pleased as he crossed his ankles together under the desk. "I've never had someone so eager to learn about Quirks like you. An ability like that almost makes me think you have a latent intelligence Quirk, rather than just a strength one."
He stopped short at that. An intelligence Quirk? But that would be impossible. Yoichi had been explicitly candid when he explained about the others, and surely he would have mentioned someone with a Quirk that made them smarter. And he was Quirkless before meeting All Might…
"Instead of looking at your Quirk the way you are now, why don't you start keeping a running list of all the ways you're different from it?" Tamon questioned. "I don't mean things like 'I'm weak', but rather, hobbies you enjoy. Foods you like or dislike. All the things that make you Izuku. Not Deku."
Izuku winced at the taunting nickname-turned-hero name. "But… why?"
"Because drowning in the shallows is either eventually going to kill you, or you'll be stuck wishing it would." His face grew gravely serious for a moment before he looked away. "Trust me."
He tilted his head slightly to one side. What did that mean?
"Remember what I told you." The therapist looked back to him again, and his face was kind, cheeks dimpling in a smile. "You aren't defined by your Quirk, Izuku. Nor do you have to feel like you are. You need to let go."
He nodded, but he didn't feel like he believed the words.
"What would you say about a villain?" The blond randomly asked.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, do you believe they're past redemption, or would you say they just need some help to get back on the right path?"
"Anyone can be redeemed," he automatically answered, face scrunching up in confusion.
"So can you." Tamon adjusted his glasses again, standing from the desk and holding out a notepad. "Try to find that spark of hope, Izuku - and capture it. Write down a list of all the redeeming qualities you can find within yourself. It'll seem way easier to start forgiving yourself if you can admit your strengths, not just your weaknesses."
Izuku stared at the notepad. Horrible words rang through his brain, loud voices nearly making an ache build at the base of his neck. Still, he swallowed and reached out - and took the tiny notepad in his shaking hand, despite the awful voices berating him for it.
"I am a hero," Tamon recited with a proud smile.
"I am... a hero," Izuku repeated, with not as much conviction.