When Midoriya Izuku, four years old, newly diagnosed quirkless, eyes shining (with dreams. with tears.) shivered, pointing at All Might's still, blurred face on their old computer, and asked his mom if he could be a hero, too, it was not doubt he felt.
No, Midoriya Izuku, four years old, was still determined to be a hero. The best hero. He knew, in a child's way of knowing, being sure without entirely understanding your own certainty, that he would be another All Might. A bright, blinding pillar. A hero.
He never consciously thought about what that meant. That his resolve was not to be a hero but to be a quirkless hero, that his goal was not to be the next best but the next first. First quirkless hero. First number one, quirkless hero. First, best, shining star.
No. Midoriya Izuku, who ran before he thought, wrote without knowing the words he mumbled, decided to be a hero, and he did not think on the particulars. Or, rather, he did not think on the particulars that mattered. He thought endless about his hero name, and costume, and his special moves. What he'd shout in the heat of battle, how his smile would look as he faced his enemy, a thousand plans for a thousand opposing quirks, real or hypothetical or made up.
He did not consider that, among all this hoping and wishing and planning, he always expected to go into things quirkless.
That's why he accepts All Might's quirk, when the man flags him down that day. He doesn't think.
Midoriya Izuku, at his core, is desperate hope. It is a combination of things that makes him say yes, and part of it is hero worship. Most of is is desperation, is I-must-take-this-chance, for he's not going to let this slip away from him. Not when the most recent thing on his mind is Kacchan, his best friend, his worst thing, and those vile words he'd spit.
Take a swan dive echoes in the deepest recesses of Midoriya's soul, that day. Through slime and a story and running, scrabbling, panicking, it's there. Maybe you'll get a quirk in the next life.
The thing about Midoriya Izuku is that he loves quirks like he loves heroes, and because he was quirkless, was used to being quirkless, he did not consider what acceptance would mean. For as awful as quirklessness can be, it was part of him. It was him, almost.
Quirks are at the core of the mistake he makes, in accepting All Might's offer. It's the fact that society states: if you have a quirk you have worth. If you do not, you are worthless. If you have a quirk you can be a hero. If you do not, kill yourself, because you'd be better off.
Midoriya operates under two assumptions that he never consciously realizes. One is that he is Quirkless, capital Q. The other is that a hero needs a quirk, and so, when All Might stands before him and says "You can be a hero," he hears, "My quirk will make you a hero." Hears, in the echo of those minutes on the rooftop, "without it, you'll never be."
The complications of Midoriya Izuku accepting One For All can be summed up to one point: that he is a quirkless boy with a quirk.
Part of it is that he can't control the strength, letting it build and build until it shatters him, unable to temper that storm, no ten-years running muscle memory to help him. Most of it is that, in his mind, he has singled himself out. His classmates are other and he is Midoriya Izuku, worthless, hero hopeful.
Kacchan was right, calling him quirkless during Aizawa's assessment. Not in the physical sense, but because Midoriya is still quirkless in his head.
Midoriya doesn't realize, for a very long time, that he made a mistake at all, accepting. If he ever had an inkling, he certainly didn't guess that it was the day All Might singled him out. That was the best day of his life, or so he'd think privately, grinning like an idiot, alone in his room.
He's clued in by a series of things.
The first is a conversation that is bouncing between clusters of his classmates, who are still having their own private discussions, but have turned to the room at large as the idea is thrown around. They're talking about quirkless discrimination; a recent suicide, the girl's note posted to her social media having gone viral, was publicized and subsequently brought forth talk about quirkless people, what's being done to support them.
Midoriya and Kacchan are the only ones who don't say a word, as their classmates talk flippantly, distantly. Uraraka coos sympathetic things, most of the girls agreeing. Iida launches into a lecture on the abhorrence of quirkless discrimination, and that's good.
But Mineta speaks carelessly about the worthlessness of such people, and their classmates admonish him, but without much vehemence. Kaminari expresses a disdain that isn't openly discriminatory but sure is condescending, and Midoriya boils.
He can do nothing but sit rigid in his chair, pretending to do homework. His classmates are talking about him, but they aren't, and if he spoke he would either shout or cry. So he scribbles nonsense, and he sits, and his unintentional glare burns holes into the back of Kacchan's head (who stays silent, thinking about Deku. About two little kids, and a stream, and a hand held out).
The second comes during an outing with his friends, on an impromptu day off while UA has specialists come in to fix a campus-wide venting issue. It's just him, Uraraka, Iida, and Todoroki, meandering around one of the nearby shopping centers after having seen a movie. Uraraka and Todoroki are discussing one of the plot points, Todoroki more animated than he often is, while Iida looks at a digital map on a screen nearby. Midoriya stands to the side, staring off into space as he waits for Iida to come back and direct them off to another destination.
He's brought out of his fugue by a nearby shout. He turns his head, and there, off to the side, a teenage boy—probably just younger than himself—is standing, feet wide and expression defensive, before a group of three sneering girls, all in the same school uniform.
"Little freak," the apparent leader of them is saying. "You quirkless nothings should just stay inside. No one wants to see you when they're out here having a nice day." The boy's face twists further, some hurt taking root among his defiance.
The scene is familiar to Midoriya, and it's entirely too jarring to realize that it's been months since he was on the receiving end of such treatment. Jarring to realize that, somewhere along the way, he'd forgotten to watch out for it. Forgotten to keep flinching as he turned corners.
That realization is why Midoriya doesn't step in. He'd been ready to the first instant he'd heard raised voices, but when the words sunk in, he froze, just watching. He's about to shake it off—step in, make the girls back off, take the boy aside and tell him I get it, when two things happen.
First, a woman and her young daughter come up to him, waving to grab his attention. When Midoriya turns his gaze to them, the little girl starts running her mouth about seeing him on TV, at the Sports Festival. About how cool she thought he was, thought his quirk was and—
Second, Midoriya glances back at the boy and Uraraka's between him and the schoolgirls, clearly reprimanding them. To their credit, they have the decency to look contrite.
My quirk, Midoriya thinks. My quirk. My quirk.
He has a quirk, and he had been about to, without thinking, walk over to that boy and tell him that he knows what it's like. He has a quirk, and his face has been on TV enough that people fucking recognize him, and he had been about to try and comfort a quirkless teenager by saying me too.
It's true.
But it isn't, anymore.
The third is when Black Whip manifests.
It is as much a shock to him as it is to Aizawa, and his classmates, and the hours spent talking with All Might, researching past holders of One For All, determining how things are going to play out from here, are invaluable.
This is… good. This is more power, more versatility, more opportunity. This is new abilities to master, analyze, come up with technique for. This is a step forward to becoming the Second Symbol of Peace.
It's also agonizing, because Midoriya is quirkless, and when he was four years old and he resolved to be a hero, he assumed that being a hero meant being a quirkless hero. He had known, in the deepest, most personal parts of his heart, that being a hero meant he'd be his own hero, unique, never-before-known-or-thought-of. As much as he, in his more childish moments, desired to emulate All Might, he'd always known he would find his own niche. He envisioned his silhouette against the sunlight with green hair, green eyes, and no bunny ears.
Little Midoriya Izuku had dreamed of being a hero all on his own, his own hard work, his own body and mind.
Midoriya Izuku did not want to become a hero on borrowed power. He wanted to be a hero, and he was quirkless, and his desires were not in spite of his quirklessness but entwined with it.
It's a shock, one so potent and dismaying that he skips class for the first time in his life thinking on it, to learn that he doesn't want the extra quirks the ghosts of One For All are trying to give him.
Midoriya Izuku did not sign up for this.
(and isn't it awful? isn't it wrecking, to realize that you've fucked yourself irreversibly? you wanted this so bad you compromised a piece of your Self for it, and by the time you realized what you'd done, it was too late.
too fucking late.)