#ectodad

Not having a Quirk may have been the most shameful life possible in today's society, but there were days when Izuku wondered if not having his Quirk would be all that much worse.

His had only come in a day or two after Kacchan's – Izuku had been so excited to see the first sparks from his childhood friend's hands, and he'd known that Kacchan would grow up to be an amazing Hero with a power like that. Their parents had taken them to a local botanical garden for a celebratory play date (in retrospect, that was where Izuku should have seen Kacchan's attitude begin to sour), and Izuku hadn't felt great when he got home and went to bed.

That night, Izuku woke up feeling all over like something was bursting out of him. When his mom heard him screaming and ran to help, she couldn't understand how he'd smuggled so many flowers, shrubs, and other plants home.

Then she saw that their roots were growing from Izuku's skin, and knew that he hadn't meant to take them home at all.

That was both of their introductions to Izuku's Quirk – 'Fertile Body', the doctors named it after running some tests. Somehow, Izuku's flesh just...grew plants. It seemed like he absorbed pollen from flowers, or any other genetic material from any plant, and before long whatever he was exposed to would sprout from his body.

And it was, unfortunately, a Quirk of compulsory activation. If there was a means of stopping it entirely, they couldn't find one.

The government provided some aid – mild-strength Quirk suppressants to prevent Izuku's plants from becoming unmanageable, and painkillers to lessen the discomfort – but the Midoriya family didn't have enough of an income to afford anything to dramatically improve Izuku's quality of life. Inko had been at a loss at first; she'd been expecting her son to develop a power like hers or her husbands'. A spontaneous Quirk mutation hadn't been in the cards. Still, she refused to abandon her child, and slowly they learned to adapt.

But word traveled quickly, no thanks to Kacchan. The whole school knew within days about Midoriya with the Quirk that turned him into a garden, how it caused him chronic pain and unwellness to grow and nurture his plants. If anyone thought Izuku was useless though, they didn't say it to his face. They just pitied him. Students and teachers alike.

It wasn't Izuku's fault that he'd been born with such an undesirable power, but they couldn't imagine much of a life for him. He heard them say it enough times to last.

Maybe that was part of why Izuku still wanted to become a Hero. To help people, of course, but also to prove to everyone (to himself) that they were wrong about him. That he could do more with his life than be a miserable burden. Alas, reaching the pinnacle of heroism like the Symbol of Peace was out of the cards for Izuku, but there were still successful Heroes who happened to live with disabilities.

Those were the Heroes that Izuku watched more religiously than the rest. The ones to whom he wrote letters and studied, and looked to for support and inspiration.

Time wore on, and Izuku grew. At fourteen, he was still short for his age (was that his plants, or just genetics?), and his skintone was tinged all over with the slightest shade of green. The pain of plants growing all over his body had never subsided, but he'd lived with it long enough that it was just a lone part of him now. Being taller did mean that he wasn't bogged down as much by flora, at least.

No one really expected him to make it into U.A. Izuku would have lied if he said he did at least. Kacchan still threatened him to withdraw his application, so maybe he believed a little bit that Izuku could go the distance.

But Izuku kept training anyway. He was still practicing with his Quirk when he could hide it, learning how to use his plants more than just letting them grow out of him. It was hard, and it hurt more than it felt worth someday, and Izuku doubted he'd ever be strong like Kacchan, but he still drudged up the strength to continue from somewhere deep within, where even Izuku couldn't see it.

When the acceptance letter finally came – the one that Izuku had only dreamt of receiving – he sent one last email to a Hero that he had been speaking to for a long time, one that he expected to see soon, and headed off to U.A. even with Kacchan's fury at his back. He arrived early on his first day, before homeroom or the entrance exam, heading to an office where he found another student waiting for him – the flamboyant golden-haired boy with the laser Quirk from the entrance exam.

They didn't wait long before the man in charge of accommodations and physical Quirk therapy at U.A. came to speak with them. The Spectral Hero, who'd lost both of his legs and forged onward with prosthetics, who had already expected to see Izuku in his office on his first day.

Izuku bowed. “Good morning, Ectoplasm-sensei,” he said politely.