Chapter Text
Midoriya Izuku had always been a sensitive boy.
His first word right after "mama" was "eaoh"; his own version for "egao", "smile", that he created one time that he saw his mother crying. It made Inko laugh straight away, her tears forgotten on her drying cheeks, as she swung her equally laughing baby around in her arms.
As Izuku grew up, he was always by her side, his little hand grabbing her skirt tight, always beaming and shining and chattering nonsense until Inko's ears fell off, but the happy smile never left her face, because she couldn't have asked for a better, sweeter, perfect child, and she wouldn't have him any other way that wasn't just Izuku.
His selflessness was also an always there feature, that was just so pure and Izuku that it made Inko's heart ache. When they were out, Izuku couldn't see someone needing help without taking off to assist them, be it an old lady with heavy groceries or a hungry cat outside of a restaurant, always tugging vehemently at his mother's hand, because he knows better than to run off and worry his mama and make her not-smile.
His obsessions with Heroes started soon too, specially that one smiling Hero, All Might. Honestly, it didn't come as a surprise to Inko that her baby's dream was decided to be become a Hero like All Might. It was just so Izuku , that wanted to help everyone, that becoming a Hero was almost too obvious of a career choice for him. It was just a beautiful bonus that, besides being the Number 1 Hero, All Might's selling words were "to save people with a smile", just like her Izuku wanted. All Might was Izuku's idol, his objective and his dream, and Inko felt happy.
It seemed that he had been sent to this unfair world with the mission of helping people and making them smile, like some kind of blessing in the form of the sweetest child, that would stop at nothing to accomplish that one selfless and beautiful objective.
But humanity has never been good at taking gifts.
His very first friend was Inko's best friend's son. Bakugou Katsuki was a very smart kid and started reading before Izuku, but he wasn't perfect at it yet, misreading Izuku's name in an attempt to impress and spelling "Deku" instead. The silence after that was awkward. Izuku, though, sweet, innocent Izuku, thought that was his new friend giving him a nickname, so the "Kacchan" was instantaneous and became rule. Years later, Kacchan would blush to the tops of his ears at his reading mistake, while lowly grumbling sourly, but Izuku would just beam at him and say, "smile, Kacchan!".
Inko, though, knew that Katsuki was an explosive and rather-proud-for-his-age child, which she could only attribute to the kid's mother, Masaru's wife, Mitsuki. She was anxious at what being friends with him would mean for her sweet and bright Izuku, but she knew her little boy would be very sad if she separated them now and her and her baby had a tendency to cry just as strong as to smile, and Inko just couldn't handle seeing tears in those big, green and otherwise shining with happiness eyes. Besides, Katsuki seemed to quite like her Izuku, so Inko chose to stay quiet.
She shouldn't have.
When they became four years old, the showing of Kacchan's quirk was quite obvious and it turned out to resume and reflect his personality perfectly: flashy, loud and explosive. The boy was praised by everyone around him for having such a strong and cool quirk, Izuku being a bouncing and loyal fan, and in turn bragged about it at any chance he got.
But, with Kacchan having such a strong and flashy quirk, his best friend Izuku's total lack of one in comparison was painfully obvious, and, as the year after their birthdays passed and more kids asked why Bakugou, that was so cool and strong, was friends with a Quirkless guy like Izuku, the little arrogant-in-the-making realized that his best friend was kind of lame, and God forbid that his Cool Guy reputation was ruined by Quirkless, useless Deku .
After one year of seeing her baby's smiles become less and less genuine and those so feared tears become more and more real, a week before her Izuku's birthday she had enough, and took him to see a quirk specialist. However, that led to the event that symbolized the start of Midoriya Inko's long way of maternal scares that resulted in weight gain: as soon as they stepped foot inside the hospital the specialist worked at, Inko watched as her son's big green eyes got even bigger, and, after a moment of trembling paralysis, Izuku screeched at the top of his little lungs and collapsed to the floor in a trembling, mumbling mess. Everything was a blur after that, but Inko would never forget the utter, mind blanking terror she felt as she watched the doctor having to sedate her four year old child because no one could get him to calm down.
Just like Katsuki, but so differently at the same time, Izuku's quirk was just so in tune with his personality that no one even noticed that it was a quirk and not just Izuku being Izuku. Empathy , they said. Just figures, that her sweet, helping boy would have a quirk that made him feel and understand people's emotions. Just figures .
It was quite impressive, they also said. That such a rare quirk like Empathy would be in a child whose parents could breath fire and had a minor Telekinesis. It should have been impossible.
Izuku kept impressing them. After some tests, they seemed baffled to find out that the quirk was actually Advanced Empathy. Izuku could manipulate emotions just as much as he could feel them, and wasn't that just fantastic?
"I can be a Hero with my quirk, mama!"
Izuku had been so excited. Inko's eyes welled up with tears. Oh, my baby.
At nine years old, Izuku was on his 7th Hero Analysis For The Future Notebook, and Inko smiled fondly and a little sadly at the mumbling boy sitting at the dining table while he wrote furiously on his notebook, the pencil making a rather loud noise as it was forced to its limit.
Even though her baby became more of a his-room-only reclusive in the past few years, he still seemed to enjoy spending time with his mother in the kitchen, or at least he let her think he did, even if he didn't chat as much as before, or didn't seems as excited and full of life as before, but he's here, so that's a win, right?
"So, Izukun, how was school today?"
The mumbling stopped, and Inko looked at her boy's face to find his eyes covered by his thick dark green hair as he looked down at his notebook, the hand that held the now unmoving pencil trembling slightly.
"Izuku?", Inko probed gently, feeling a little concerned.
Izuku slowly lifted his head, a shaking smile stretching his pale freckled face, and it was so fake , Inko's heart throbbed as she remembered how bright and pure his smiles used to be.
"I-it was o-okay, o-ok-kaa-san... Really, um, s-school was alright t-today...", he said, his voice trembling just as much as his smile.
Inko relaxed slowly, still feeling a little worried, especially after that tone, and opened her mouth to probe a bit more, before a sudden thought filled her mind, and she restrained herself not to frown.
"Izuku, you didn't... do that , did you?"
She was regretting her words even before she finished saying them, and swore she could just kill herself right there from self-loathing alone when Izuku's big green eyes lost all light all together at the same time they welled up with big fat tears. The wood chair made a loud scraping sound as he pushed it back to get up and run from the kitchen like the Devil itself was biting at his heels, sharply closing the door to his room behind him.
Inko sat on her chair, alone in the kitchen, her body shaking with the force of her sobs, as she looked to the floor tiles that were green like Izuku's eyes, and thought about what kind of mother she was that she took what little light had been left in those emerald orbs that used to shine so bright.
Turns out that, while Izuku's Empathy was a permanent, Mutant Type of quirk, his Pathokinesis was Emitter Type and was activated by the one thing he did and valued the most.
His smile.
Izuku, in his seeming endless happiness and innocence, was all too happy to sprout to his classmates that he wasn't Quirkless anymore, and that all he had to do was smile, just like All Might! It seems he had had his quirk all along, he just didn't notice it (it being his Empathy in particular) because it didn't feel strange at all to feel sympathetic for people, so he barely felt the change of his quirk manifesting.
He, after all, had always been a sensitive boy.
Izuku had always been able to feel it so naturally, but now that he knew, the little boy could, actually, almost see other people's emotions, almost like auras all over them. If he closed his eyes, though, he found he could still feel it, right under his skin and inside his head, the joy, the excitement, the awe and happy disbelief of his classmates as he told them about his quirk, that the doctor said it's super rare, so it must be special, right?
He could also feel the embarrassment, the shame, the self-doubt and uncertainty coming from Kacchan like they were his own, and his eyes had welled up with happy tears that now that he had a quirk, he could finally have his best friend back, and his mouth was stretched in a wide smile and his arms were open wide and he was making his sure way to his long missed friend right until he froze mid-step.
Because why was Kacchan suddenly so, so angry ?
Kacchan met him halfway, his tiny hands grasping Izuku's shirt tightly as they started to smoke threateningly.
"Shitty Deku!", he yelled angrily, his spit flying all over a very shocked Izuku's face. "It's you, isn't it? You're making me feel those fucking things with that shitty smile of yours!"
He hadn't. He didn't even know how to. Izuku's eyes were full of tears, the sad kind this time, and they fell down his freckled cheeks while his other classmates, now over the shocked silence they had assumed after Kacchan's outburst, started to whisper to each other:
"Midoriya can do that?"
"Huh?! He made Bakugou feel something? Like, against his will?"
"That's not okay!"
"That's a Villain quirk!"
The tears fell freely down Izuku's face, his fragile golden heart couldn't take his own crushing sadness and the growing hostility of his classmates, the disdain, the disgust, he knew what they were even if he had never felt them himself, even if he didn't know their names, those emotions, they were his classmates', but they were his too, he could feel them, they were crushing him, because not only he could feel them as if they were his own, he knew he was the target of those emotions, he was disgusted, disdained at and unwanted, they weren't his, they were foreign, but he could feel them too and it was just so overwhelming, it was too much, too much, he couldn't take it, it hurts, where's mama, Kacchan, please, stop, where's-
Everything turned to black.
He's gone.
" Can you see that? He already saved a hundred people!"
" That's crazy! It's not been even ten minutes!"
Inko looked sadly at the chair in the front of the computer. It was so big that she couldn't see her son seated on it, or maybe he was just so, so small, but she knew he had his eyes glued to the computer screen, unblinking, watching the All Might video for who knows the time.
Inko had been desperate when the school called, saying her precious son had fainted. The incident at the hospital was running over and over in her head, and she was panicking not only for Izuku's health but also for his future, because if his quirk always caused him to pass out, then how could he be a Hero like he dreamed so much to be?
Izuku had been quiet and so sad since they came back home, and Inko was painfully aware of what had happen. To think that Izuku's friends, heck, his best friend, had looked at Inko's sweet, smiling, just genuinely good child and saw a Villain, someone they couldn't trust, someone they had to defeat, was so heart crushing, Inko couldn't imagine how her gold hearted son was feeling.
" He's laughing!"
" Everything is alright now. Why? Because I am here!"
"Okaa-san..."
Inko straightened at her baby's soft voice, humming lowly to signal she was listening.
"He saves people with a smile, no matter what problem they have...", Izuku mumbled, and Inko's eyes started to burn. "He's such a cool Hero..."
Izuku turned the chair, and Inko came face to face with her son's big, trembling, fragile smile and his round, hopeful green eyes shining with pearly fat tears, and her vision was suddenly clouded by badly held back tears of her own.
He pointed at the computer screen.
"Can I... be one too?"
Inko's legs moved on their own as she stared at her child, and she threw herself at him, warping her arms around his small, fragile form, starting to sob.
"I'm so sorry, Izuku!", she cried, hysteric. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"
Inko felt his tears finally fall on her face, but he kept on smiling, his eyes suddenly empty of that hopeful light. Inko had the feeling that her words hurt him more than any of the other kids' ever could.
No one ever treated Izuku the same after that incident. He wasn't Quirkless Deku anymore; now he was Villain-Deku. At first, he was isolated, even more so than before when the only problem was that no one knew his quirk. It wasn't that bad - sure, Izuku was a sociable boy and loved to be around people, and the sudden lack of social interactions besides his mother hurt a little, but it wasn't that bad. Or, well, it wouldn't be that bad, if he couldn't feel everything people thought of him.
Ap-pre-hen-sion.
Un-cer-tain-ty.
Dis-gust.
Re-sent-ment.
Ag-gra-va-tion.
An-noy-ance.
Izuku made sure to research the names of the emotions this time. His vo-ca-bu-la-ry was a lot bigger than any of the other kids his age now, even Kacchan.
His heart throbbed.
Kacchan.
That was the part that hurt the most. Kacchan, his best friend, the one who would become Number 1 Hero with him, who promised would be by his side forever even if his quirk turned out not to be that strong, who would make sure to "watch out for his ass", suddenly wasn't there anymore. He no longer talked to Izuku, wouldn't even look at him, always emitting vibes of fury and bitterness.
But, that was at first.
Even though no one talked to him anymore, Izuku held the habit of com-pli-ment-ing and smiling at everyone, always happy to see them even if he knew the feeling wasn't re-cip-ro-cat-ed, and that made everyone anxious, because, if Midoriya is smiling, does that mean he is controlling what we feel, when we don't even know about it?
The children at school made their mission to make sure that Villain-Deku didn't ma-nip-u-late anyone (not with those words). It was like their first mission as Heroes: to save people from the Villain, they had to stop him from smiling, otherwise the innocent would get hurt. So, after months simply ignoring Izuku, they started throwing bad and hurtful words at him, re-vel-ing in seeing him start to cry, only to be a-bashed by the little smile he would flash at them.
"Y-you d-don't mean that, r-right, guys?"
They would feel bad for a second, but Midoriya had always been such a nice guy, it didn't feel okay to be like that to him, what if they-
Wait.
Was he ma-nip-u-lat-ing them? Were they even feeling bad? Were those their emotions, or his?
The un-cer-tan-ty made them even more wary, and their war-i-ness man-i-fest-ed through their anger, because how dare he, ma-nip-u-lat-ing them like that, how could he think he had the right...
It was also around that time the Kacchan want against him too.
Izuku bawled his eyes out as he cowered behind the school. His arms and legs were covered of cuts and bruises, fat tears rolling down his face which was flushed from how long he had been sobbing.
"Please, stop! It hurts! Kacchan!"
Kacchan watched the older kids tormenting Izuku for a few moments before he turned his eyes and walked away, chatting excitedly with his followers.
Izuku knows Kacchan didn't even think twice before leaving him behind.
Com-tempt.
Bore-dom.
Izuku turned his wide, fearful eyes back to the older kids before him, his knees shaking violently, his own despair and helplessness clouding his mind, but not enough that he couldn't feel everything, see, hear , everything.
"You think you can be a hero? A worthless little shit like you, with that kind of quirk? You should stick with being a Villain. Everyone that's what you'll be anyway?".
They acted as if they weren't crushing not only his dream, but everything he was as well.
This time, Izuku didn't smile.