"I don't understand," his mother says, for at least the fifth time. Izuku sits quietly in her lap, brows knitted together in a thoughtful frown. His stomach feels tight and uncomfortable and heavy, and he's not old enough to know what word goes with this feeling. "The X-rays-"
"The X-rays do... throw a wrench into the diagnosis," the doctor sighs. "It's true, Izuku lacks the extra toe joint that we would normally associate with quirklessness. Statistically, his lack of a quirk is highly unusual, but-"
"The other doctors said it was practically impossible," Mom interrupts.
"But it's time to face facts," the doctor continues patiently. "Even if he does have a quirk, you can't register it if you don't know what it is."
"What do you mean 'even' – he could just be a late bloomer!"
"With all due respect, Mrs. Midoriya." The doctor's eyes are full of sympathy. "His sixth birthday has come and gone. It's long past the usual window in which a quirk would manifest." Mom sighs deeply, and the doctor leans forward. "There is a possibility. It's rare, but some people are born with what we call 'invisible quirks'."
"Invisible quirks?" the boy from the emergency ward echoes. He's a little older than Izuku, sitting over in the corner on the plastic chair where Mom left her purse, dripping water all over the floor. Izuku first saw him while having his height measured, and he'd introduced himself as Takada. "That sounds kind of cool."
Izuku perks up hopefully.
"With certain people, their quirks are so obscure that they simply aren't noticeable," the doctor explains. "Or their quirk can only be activated under an extremely specific set of circumstances. Such people can go through their entire lives without even noticing their own quirk, simply because those specific circumstances never occur, and there's no practical use for it." The doctor shrugs apologetically. "That's the best explanation I can offer."
Izuku's face falls. Across the room, Takada blows a raspberry. "That's lame," he remarks. "That's almost as bad as having no quirk at all."
Mom is quiet for a while, lips pursed. "W-what if he sees things?" she asks at length. "There have been times... I mean, he talks about people who aren't there, he'll talk to himself or stare at the wall for hours – when he was three he said something about his father tucking him in, a-and... and Hisashi died just after he was born-"
"Mrs. Midoriya," the doctor says patiently. "I know you're worried. And I know you want the best for your son and his dreams, but... it's dangerous to nurse false hope. Children have wild imaginations, and if you encourage them to see something in nothing, it may be harmful in the long run. If he does have an invisible quirk, then it will either show itself or it won't." He stands up, putting on a smile. "In the meantime, being functionally quirkless will in no way prevent him from living a normal and happy life. He's in excellent health, and well-behaved on top of it." The doctor ruffles Izuku's hair, but Izuku barely notices. He's too busy watching as Takada rolls his eyes, gets up from the chair, and strolls out of the room, lazily swatting the jar of tongue depressors as he passes.
The jar wobbles and tips over.
The doctor glances over his shoulder with a frown. "Odd," he mutters, and goes to turn it right-side up again. "Must be a draft in here."
Izuku stares at the jar and doesn't say a word for the rest of the doctor visit, even as Mom holds back tears, kisses him on the cheek, and takes him by the hand. He barely hears her, barely feels the gentle squeeze of her fingers as she leads him back out. He's too busy thinking, sifting through what he knows and what he thinks and what he remembers, piece by piece as it all falls together.
No one else can see his friends – he knows that much. But that's the first time one of his friends has ever done something that someone else saw.
He saw Dad, back when he was three – he knows he did, he knows he didn't dream it, because Mom remembers him telling her. But Dad was dead.
Takada was dripping wet, but the floor is dry. But Izuku saw him knock over the jar, and the doctor saw the jar fall but didn't see Takada.
Izuku glances up as they pass through the hallway of the doctor's office. The hospital ward is close by, and Izuku looks around and sees–
Among the doctors and nurses and patients, people pass by in stained hospital gowns, pale-faced and wandering. Lost. One of them wanders close to Mom, calling for her husband, and Mom doesn't even turn her head. Izuku reaches out, and his fingertips brush cold skin. The woman turns her tearstained face to him, meets his eyes, and vomits blood.
Izuku hides his face in his mother's side and cries. She doesn't see what he sees. She has no way of knowing that he's crying with fear. She thinks it's because he doesn't have a quirk, or because he has a quirk that's so useless that he might as well not have one at all.
He ought to be happy. Because he does have a quirk after all, and it's not a useless one. And when he's cried all his fears away, when they're safe at home, then he'll tell his mother that she has nothing to be sorry about after all.