Okay, this has been an idea I've been toying with for around 3 months or so, and unlike other ideas which I just wrote as I went along, this had got actual planning, structure, and even…1st and 2nd drafts! I know, shocking. And before anyone accuses me of stealing ideas, the original story which has many of the plot points I'll be borrowing is by the writer 'StrangerDreams' on achiveofourown, and you're reading this, please note that I enjoyed your idea and story, it's sad that you canceled it, but I won't harass you about it. And also yes, I know there's a writer with the same name on this site but if they are the same, they didn't cross-post. I'm also going to spread this out over multiple stories, like a book series as while I do enjoy stories with a shit ton of chapters, I'll try to keep each story's chapter lower than 20.
Summary: Midoriya Izuku has finally accepted that for someone like her, her dreams of being a pro hero like her idol are simply just that-dreams. Without a goal for the first time in her life, she's aimless and barely holding on, but when she bumps into a little girl in need of a savior, she doesn't hesitate. She's found her new reason to live and nothing Overhaul can do can change that ironclad fact.
Chapter 1: Lost Fire
"I cannot simply say 'you can become a hero even without power'" All Might's words hit hard, harder than she thought it would be possible. Kacchan belittled her dreams, telling her to give up and just accept the fate he believed was her in just staying in the background, another face in the crowd always hurt her but she was used to it. But here? Hearing All Might tell her the same broke her heart to pieces. She swallowed hard, finding it hard to breathe, hard to think, hard to accept this as anything less than the sad reality she was born into, all because she was quirkless.
"I see…" She managed to whisper out, a smile growing across her face, a fragile thing that didn't match the growing tears building up in her eyes as she looked at the floor, too embarrassed to let her idol see her falling apart and thinking she was even more pathetic that he must already think. All Might, seeing that she seemed to have gotten his message, sighed as he got up, silently scolding himself for wasting his 3-hour limit and letting someone see him in such a state.
"If you want to help others, you can become a police officer or a detective They're often made fun of because villains are delivered to their doorstep, but they're still essential to maintaining order." He told the young girl as he walked towards the entrance to the roof to leave. He felt bad for her, as he once held such views, and he still did but he long accepted that without his quirk, he wouldn't have been able to achieve his dreams and he wasn't able to help her as his master helped him.
"It's fine to dream, young man. But you also have to consider what's realistic." With his last word, he left her. With Izuku, she was falling apart as her heart and mind fought a war inside of her. She wouldn't deny that she knew for years how hard her dreams would be, that even people with quirks found it challenging to land in a hero school, much less manage to graduate. If even the Symbol of Peace and strongest hero of them all had nearly died to some villain, what hope did she have? But even so, her heart sang for this, ever since she was a little girl and she first saw his debut appearance, she had wanted this, she had wanted to be like him, someone people could look to and know that everything will be okay. She just wanted to help, why was that such an impossible thing?
Maybe…maybe Kacchan was right, maybe she had been lying to herself. If even All Might thought that she was aiming well above what she was capable of? Who was she to argue? But she couldn't stop the itching, that damned itching that came up every time she heard some version of what he said. Are you sure you can handle it? Aren't you aiming a bit high? Wouldn't you want to become an accountant like your mother? Why not become a nurse? Maybe the support course would be best for you. How about being a cop, it's a lot safer and you're still helping people. Everyone framed it differently, but it all meant the same-that she wasn't capable, she wasn't good enough, and she was a delusional dreamer with their head up in the clouds. But they were the delusional ones.
As she looked through tear-filled eyes at her notebook, one of her most prized possession, now burnt and water damaged, she couldn't help but ground her teeth together as she tried to keep it together. Become a nurse, support engineer, a cop? Did they think she hadn't checked into them, that they'll be easy? Even those jobs that everyone barely thought of had some unwritten rule about quirks and only accepted those with quirks that best suited their fields. How was she supposed to compete for a spot at some nursing or medical school against students who had healing quirks? Support courses where students could be human toolkits? Potential cops, that could collect evidence faster than she could?
Whether people accepted it or not, quirks mattered more than anything else. She would be fighting an uphill battle no matter what she tried to be, so she thought that if she aimed high, she could still try her hardest to be a hero, to reach for her dreams…But they were all unrealistic, weren't they? She wasn't meant it and she had to accept then, right? She would forever be weak, be a burden on others, forever the Deku that needed to be saved. Izuku's hands clenched around her notebook, crumpling the already damaged pages some more. She opened up the notebook, skipping past whatever notes she meticulously made on who-knows how many pros and quick to near the middle, where All Might had left his signature, what once helped like such a big thing only brought her pain.
She let the tears pour down, sobs coming soon after as she couldn't stop them anymore as a flood of despair, rage, and hopelessness came out from her soul. She wanted to be a hero! She wanted to help people, why was that impossible? Why did quirks mean so much? Why was she born a damned Deku?! These questions and more formed in her mind, in her heart as she cried out loud for no one to hear, for no one to care. As she looked towards the railings, her sobs grew a bit quieter, an idea forming in her mind.
If she was meant for nothing in this life, what about the next? If Kacchan was right about everything else, could he be right about her trying to get a restart?
She slowly got up, still crying as she approached the ledge, fear forming in her gut as she looked down at the streets below. She didn't know how high she was, but she was sure that it was high enough that if she went over, it'll be fatal. It wouldn't even be a hard thing to do, she could scale the fence, the fall would be a few seconds tops, and she'll be dead before she feel it. She smiled at the thought, at the idea that she could be reborn as someone knew, someone better…someone that could be worth something.
But as she looked down at the busy streets, she saw a mother and child walking. She was too high up to hear anything, but she could see that the little boy was so happy and that his mother must be the same. All at once, she jumped back, landing on her rear as she crawled away from the ledge and its temptations. How could she ever think that? She couldn't do that to her mom, her mom loved her…right? No, No! she loved her, her mom told her that every time, even entertained her hero love by getting her all her All Might merch, and taking her to all the events out of the city.
Even if no one else would notice or care, her mom would, she would be devastated, and she would mourn her daughter's death. Even if Kacchan was right, she wouldn't do it, she wouldn't do it! She looked at her notebook, at the signature All Might left and with as much force as she could, tore the thing in two, then three, then four. She screamed and cried, sobbed and shook as she continued to tear apart her notebooks, sending bits and pieces of paper into the wind. Before long, all she was left with was tired, empty hands, the remains of her latest notes nothing but a pile on the ground, soon to vanish in the urban winds.
After that, she calmed down, but Izuku didn't know if that was because she felt better, growing numb, or just got to the eye of the storm and soon enough would fall even further apart. Regardless, she was interrupted in her moment of crisis by the distant sounds of explosions, her overwhelming curiosity taking up the forefront of her thoughts. Was there a villain fight? Another set of explosions followed. Oddly familiar explosions. She gaped, heart quickening, almost beating into her throat. That couldn't be Kacchan, could it?
Without a moment's thought, she was off, racing down the stairs as fast as she dared to go without tripping, hoping she was wrong and that Kacchan wasn't in danger.
"Stupid, so stupid…Why did I do that?" Izuku asked herself as she dragged herself home. She had arrived at the scene, and she had been right to think it was Kacchan in danger. The worst part, it was all her fault, if she hadn't latched onto All Might, he wouldn't have dropped the villain, but because she couldn't help but cause problems, she nearly got Kacchan killed. And to make an already bad situation worse, her body moved before she could think and she got herself involved, nearly dying along with Kacchan if not for All Might.
While the heroes praised him for his strength and ability to last as long as he did, she was scolded for her recklessness. Seeing heroes look at her like that, like some dead weight while the cameras flashed…it was too much, she run, she run as far and fast as she could, even with her ankle hurting badly, she didn't dare stop. She couldn't handle seeing those angry, pitying looks again, and Kachhan…she didn't date think he wouldn't be furious with her. It wasn't like she did anything to help…
But…she couldn't just stand there, even while he was cursing and setting off tons of explosives when she saw his eyes, they were frightened and none of the heroes present were doing anything to help him, all because they didn't have the right quirks. And no one in the crowd moved as well, maybe there was someone that could but she would never know so she leaped into the fray with some half-baked idea to help him which involved throwing her bag the slime villain's eye while she tried to use her hands to get Kacchan to safety…one of her, if not her dumbest idea.
Finally reaching her apartment complex, she tried her best to clean herself up, she didn't want to worry mom after all. She didn't know what to say about the bruises and sprained ankle but she would think of something, anything better than her mom knew she wasn't just the victim of one villain attack, but then later tried to attack the same villain again. With a smile that felt as real as flying pigs, she opened the door.
But as she opened the door, she knew that her plans were doomed to fail before they could start. Her mother was watching the news, glued to the screen in fact, and for good reason, for it was talking about the slime villain attack, and while most focus on was All Might, she could easily make out herself rushing in and how the reporter relays how she was thoroughly disciplined for her action. The worst part is how the cameras caught Bakugo calling her quirkless, outing her to the world. She couldn't even get a word out before Inko turned to her with the most disappointed look she had ever seen on her mother.
That look proved enough to shatter whatever plans or excuses she still had, leaving her with only a profound sense of shame.
"Izuku. Go to your room, you can only come out when dinner's ready, no internet." Her mom told her, not asked. Izuku couldn't even muster any response as she tried to hide her tears as she walked by, by. "We will talk about this, young lady, is that understood?" Inko tried to sound stern, but she could see through her, she could see the quivering lip and knew that she was more disappointed than she was angry and that just made things all the worse. It was one thing to deal with someone angry with her, most people got like that but to disappoint them? That hurt, it hurt badly. She rushed into her room as fast as she could, her bag falling by the door as she dropped onto her bed, all around her, the All Might merchandise she had collected over the years, once a source of secret pride and strength only seemed to mock her, remind her that even the number one saw her as lacking.
And with that, the tears flowed once more as she tried to muffle her weeping with her pillow.
The next day at school proved to be as terrible as she feared. From the moment she walked onto the campus, she was talked about by others who would point her out, not so quietly whispering about how she tried to be a hero and failed majorly, how she tried to upstage resident genius, Bakugo and got shamed as she deserved. Even the 1st years seem to think she was just a delusional freak as they openly laughed at her, leaving her in tears before she made it to class and took her seat, being as quiet and small as she could.
When Kacchan arrived, she felt like fleeing since as soon as he saw her, his eyes lit up with a rage she rarely saw, and knew that he was pissed off with her. Knowing that she was not his favorite extra, if she ever was, at the moment, she did her best to avoid him till he cooled down enough to not murder her.
Lunch couldn't arrive soon enough.
Before the bell could finish, she bolted from the room, evading students and staff the best she could as she raced through the halls, but she wasn't perfect in this as students saw her and in full view of teachers, they would haul insults at her or in the case of one girl that hated how much of Kacchan's attention she got, throw her drink at her, leaving her head soaked with fruit juice as she gave her the fakest smile she had ever seen, apologizing for that as she thought she was one of the trash bins.
Welt, sticky, and thoroughly humiliated, she finally made it to her safe space for the next 30 minutes, an unused janitor's closest. She would have chosen the roof, but she couldn't trust herself up there with no there to stop her if she fell to the temptations.
As the closest was meant for supplies and not people, it was dark, cramped, and smelled like detergent but she knew it was better than the alternative of the others finding her, worse if Kacchan did. But it wasn't all bad, over the times she had used the place, often when the roof wasn't available, and in that time she had removed the expired and unused supplies and replaced them with personal knick-knacks to make the small space feel more welcoming, more calming. Items like foreign coins, small pictures of her favorite fictional characters that didn't have powers like the Dark Knight and Hawkeye, and those who did have powers like the Man of Steel and Web crawler. She even had things like a large bright red feather that looked just like Hawks'.
Her dash didn't work the second time as before the bell rung, Kacchan stood up from his desk and walked right up to hers, and while the bell rung and the rest left her to her fate, snickering all the while, she was left trapped by Kacchan and two of his friends. "Deku." His sneer and violent red eyes only made her shiver more from fear. "I didn't ask you for your help yesterday, I didn't need your help yesterday!"
"Could a quirkless failure playing without a full deck even help someone of my level? That you can look down on me?!" Bakugo raged at her, forcing her to shrink on herself to avoid angering him further as she started to whimper, remembering how hard it was to get to school when everyone knew who she was, and how much of a failure she was.
"I don't…you're right, Kacchan…you've always been right." She whispered out, but he heard it well and clear as he stilled, his two friends being more surprised than he was but he recovered quickly, smirking down at her as he put a heavy hand on her bowed head, forcing it even lower till her forehead was rubbing her desk.
"About damn time, you useless nerd! Are you still gonna try to get into UA, or are you going to leave the big leads for people that have talent?" He asked her, leaning over so that she could see that it wasn't a question that had any other than just one answer he would accept, and to be frank, she only had one answer to give.
"I won't apply…" She whispered, openly crying as she was reminded of her status in life. Satisfied with the answer, he left her there crying, she wouldn't arrive home till she was 2 hours late and would shamble to her room like a zombie, doing her best not to look at any of her stuff lest she start crying again as she slithered into the blankets and buried her head into her pillow, all the while not making a sound.
Things didn't improve for her over the following weeks, even while she did her best to stay silent and in the background in class and avoid her classmates outside of lessons, her torment didn't let up. From mean things written on her desk, things thrown at her, tripping her as she walked up, or downright messing with her; if it could be done to something, it was done to her. All the while, she remained quiet, she didn't say a word other than apologies and whimper, she wouldn't go to a teacher, more than once there was a present yet they did nothing.
Not even her private life was safe as while school turned into her hell, her online time went the same as the Dodo thanks to the media impact she left behind, it didn't matter that her embarrassment was forgotten days later, it was enough time for people to link her to her social media accounts, she suspects that most were her classmates but it didn't matter as within days, she would unlock her phone or turn on the computer to see her HeroBook, a website for hero loves to talk about their favorite heroes, to see messages filled with nothing but mockery, hate, KYS messages and other uncreative, but equally hurtful things. Blocking them didn't do anything, as they just created new accounts and seemingly egged up by her blocking them, grew worse. Within a month, she deleted her HeroBook account.
She soon did the same for all her other accounts, leaving her phone bar for the simple offline games, and other factory standard apps, bar one. She kept her Snooping Bugle account as it was the one place she didn't face any of that, and in turn, could run to. The Snooping Bugle was run by some large publisher, which she supposed meant that the mods had to work a lot harder to keep it clean for brand image reasons, but she didn't care as it was filled with people like her, thousands who logged in to chart, about heroes sure but mostly on quirks and what they did, how they could be used, how they could improve and everything in-between. Even after they figured out she was the girl from the slime incident, not a single person treated her any different, the opposite in fact as she would get the occasional message praising her for her courage and how it was a shame that others present with meta-abilities of their own didn't step up. She didn't think she deserved it, but it always made a day feel a little less straining.
Kacchan continued to ignore her for the most part, only really knocking her around if he was close rather than actively seeking her out, and when he wasn't close enough or when they happened to be close, he would just remind her she was a Deku and that she wasn't to even think about going for UA, a fact she would silently nod to, being careful not to look at him before he went about his day, content that she was sticking to it. She had accepted her lot in life, as much as that pained her heart. She was meant to just be a footnote in the story of Bakugo Katsuki, the future top hero, the childhood friend who would talk about him before he was famous once before they moved on. But despite that pained acceptance, she didn't know what to do with herself. She had spent close to her entire life fixated on that one goal, on that one dream that she didn't know what she was without it.
Could she apply for the business course somewhere else? She knew a lot about heroes and might have a future in marketing them, but she decided otherwise, she had been told many times how boring she was when she was silent and creepy she was whenever she got into a muttering storm. She wouldn't be able to win any clients, much less keep them when she was just boring, useless Deku.
Perhaps the support course. It would be hard but she would be helping people like All Might said but…every time she tried to picture herself in some lab, building some tool for someone else, it just made her feel…empty. Purpose in life, she discovered was hard to find. She had dreamed for so long to be like All Might, to be a hero that without it, she felt like a shell of a person, going through motions from when she woke up to when she dragged herself into bed, none of it felt real, felt fulfilling.
All her hobbies and all her skills had been hero focused that she couldn't even turn to them. Her hero notebooks were gone, having been thrown away as with the latest, she couldn't stand the sight of them without breaking down and ripping them apart in a grief-filled, sobbing rage. Her hero memorabilia, not just her many…many All Might merchandise from her figurines, posters, and bedsheets were all removed from her room as well after she broke down at the sight of her limited-edition silver age All Might poster and damaged the wall tearing at it, her mother removing all of it after seeing how increasingly negatively she would react to it all. She would spend all her time in her room, barely making a sound, and even if she wasn't banned from following villain attacks, she didn't have the pull to follow them, and with how much entertainment was hero focused, she stuck to instrumental music and the clouds.
Inko would be lying if she said that her daughter's turn these last couple of months hadn't been worrying. She went from her awkward, bubbly self who loved all things hero to this quiet, emotional wreck. Her room, once something of a shrine to All Might as Mitsuki called it, was a barren space with nothing but the closet, the bed, and the desk, resembling more a prison cell than anything else. But she didn't care much for it but rather the reason that was as she had picked up something when Izuku came home after the slime villain and while she should have been ashamed of herself for it, she didn't react at all to her scolding, being grounded and losing the privilege to chase after hero fights.
For days, she would wake up and barely say a word, even when she tried to ask about the clear tear strains and bags developing under her eyes, she would just say she was fine and head off to school before she would return, say hello and return to her room where she never heard a sound outside sniffling, things changed for the worse faster then she could have ever expected as when after she came home, soaked despite the fact it wasn't raining and she returned to her room only for her to hear screams and crying.
Bursting in, she was treated to a sight that broke her heart as her baby girl tore at her All Might stuff, yelling about how she was sorry that she wasn't worthy and that she didn't want to be defective and no matter what she did, she couldn't calm her down till after she moved her to her room where she promptly passed out on the bed.
She quickly cleaned out all the hero stuff she could find, she didn't know why she reacted the way she did, but she knew it wasn't good to keep them around when she could have another breakdown.
She figured that she was being bullied at school, but no matter how many times she called, how many times she went to see the principal, she got the same story on how she wasn't being bullied, or how she was the instigator, every time she left infuriated. After she cleaned out her room, Izuku didn't have any more episodes but only got worse, barely leaving the house at all and sticking to her room like a shut-in, she peeked in once and she was just in the corner, earphones in with her knees to her chest and arms crossed over them, as if even in her room, she wanted to be small and blend.
After the second month, she decided that things had to change before her daughter was lost to her forever.
She woke up at 07:30 and made herself tea while the news played on the two. Like she had come to expect, half-hour passed and Izuku hadn't left her room. After another 15 minutes and it was the same so she got up and change that.
Inko knocked on the door, not expecting any response as was the new norm but still did it in hopes that it wouldn't be the same, but no response was heard. She firmed her resolve and entered the room. No attempt to be made ready for school, a quick scan of the room showed her bag dropped in the corner, her textbooks and supplies on the desk, homework not even touched with her previous day's uniform left on the floor, the clean one still in the closest no doubt. And to cap it all off, Izuku was still in bed, having not moved despite Inko walking in on her.
The bland sheets were drawn over Izuku's head, leaving just her wild, unclean hair and the upper edge of her ear visible. Inko came up beside the bed, intent on waking her up, but drew back at the last minute. "Izuku, you know you can talk to me, right? That you can tell me what's been bothering you?"
No response.
"Please, dear. Just look at me, I want to understand, I can't help you if you don't." Inko pressed, placing a comforting hand on her covered shoulder. She heard something in response, but couldn't make it out as she leaned closer. "Dear, you're going to need to speak up."
"You can't help me, no one can," Izuku spoke up, despite it being muffled, it broke Inko's heart to hear it spoken as if it was a fact of life, and that her daughter sounded so resigned to it.
"You don't know that," Inko told her, which seemed to be enough to get her to raise from her bed and turn to her.
She was a mess.
Even with the fact she was covering her body with her blanket, it was immediately clear that she had cried during the night, with her eyes still red and the tear stains prominent on her sunken and pale face. The bags underneath her eyes were even more prominent as what light used to exist in her gaze was snuffed out. All of this left Inko to chastise herself for waiting this long when it was clear that Izuku was a wreck. But she'll make up for that by being here for her, right now as he placed her hand on her head, bringing her into a hug with as much love as you could pack in.
"If you need to stay home today, you're more than welcome to do that, but you can't just stay in your room, Izuku. Let me help you." Inko continued her ministrations with a sigh when Izuku remained unresponsive. She'd comforted Izuku so often as a child- when Hisashi took a job overseas and wasn't able to come home for her birthday when Izuku was diagnosed quirkless when Izuku came home with bruises and burns that she refused to explain.
"I'm defective…I'm just a quirkle-" Izuku started to speak, but choked on her sobs midway through as she buried her head into her mother's shoulder. Though she didn't finish it, she said enough for Inko to figure out what this was and she felt even worse about it. it made sense now, why she didn't argue about chasing villains, why she reacted so poorly to seeing All Might, and why she avoided the tv like the plague.
"Who told you that, dear? Was it someone at school?" Inko asked as Izuku moved back, trying to rub her face of tears but she wasn't crying anymore, even if it looked like she should be. Silence hung between the two of the as Izuku tried to gather herself, snot starting to run instead of tears as she used her blanket to blow her nose. Inko thought she wouldn't get a response before Izuku got out a soft 'no', followed by a pause and a whisper, "No. Not- not school… Or maybe school too, I don't know."
Inko took a small breath of relief, at least she seemed to be engaging in the conversation now. "Take your time, Izuku." Just like that, the floodgates opened and Izuku broke down once more, spilling everything. Izuku laid bare everything in a flurry of tears and mumbling. How Katsuki bullied Izuku and burned her notebook and suggested Izuku kill herself to get a quirk. How Izuku met All Might after almost dying at the hands of the sludge villain and had her dreams of becoming a hero crushed on that rooftop. The thoughts about jumping, taking pills, or just walking into incoming traffic. The reasons she tried to save Katsuki, the backlash, the hate.
She was near incoherent, with Inko having to stop her, and at one point, she got her to leave her room, even if she still walked around the apartment with her blanket so that they could settle in the kitchen where she could get her some much-needed water. She wearily told her about the sprained ankle, about how the bullying had only gotten worse, and how even her social media accounts become targets.
By the of it, while she held onto her near the broken daughter who kept saying she was a defective person, she couldn't help but feel like a failure of a mother. For not noticing how bad things were, for not pushing when she did notice things weren't good, and for not preventing things from getting to this point, to begin with.
"I'm so sorry, Izuku. I never- I never noticed how much you were hurting-" Inko tried to apologize for this, but Izuku but it.
"But it wasn't you-" Inko shushed her, she wouldn't let her continue that sentence.
"It was, I'm your mother, it's my job to protect you and help you but I wasn't there for you. I should have noticed, I should have acted but I didn't and I can't even begin to apologize to you for that. I can't fix what's already happened, but I can fix things going forward." Inko told her, holding her by the shoulders and looking her right in the eye while she spoke, making this as clear as possible to her to destroy whatever doubts she had.
"You're not defective, you're not some mishap. You're my sweet daughter who I love with all my heart, you're a gift that I should have cherished and made sure you knew that." She smiled as she combed her hand through her messy hair, letting Izuku lean into her touch as she brought her close to her, hugging her again.
When all was said and done, the two quietly got up and ate a late breakfast of pancakes topped with ungodly amounts of maple syrup, whipped cream, and berries. Izuku did not go to school that day, nor did she for the next two. And though it wasn't perfect, they found some semblance of happiness together over that time, exploring new hobbies and enrolling Izuku in online classes. Neither knew what was in store for them.
