A Potential ‘Hidden Quirk’ Idea
To begin: I am so sorry. Truly. I swore I’d be a writer of fluff, and yet here we are...again...whoops.
Anyways, let’s get on with it!
So, if there’s one thing we love about our innocent cinnamon roll of a boy, aka Izuku “Deku” Midoriya, it’s that he’s willing to go beyond (plus ultra style) in order to save the day, even going so far as to break his bones to the point of disfiguration. Adrenaline helps him fight through the pain, and even then I’ve heard a lot of people talk about his insanely high pain tolerance.
Like, ridiculously high. I mean, the Overhaul fight??? Where Izuku just destroys himself so that Eri doesn’t Rewind him out of existence? Wild. It’s like, unimaginable. Even with the decade of bullying to get used to pain, it’s almost unreal for the green bean to be able to push through so much naturally.
Which is where I say: what if it wasn’t natural?
Look, some Quirks are probably hidden ones. Ones that you can’t immediately see, ones that aren’t emitter types. Quirks that just affect the wielder, not anyone else. Like Nedzu’s High Spec, for example. But what’s another Quirk that no one would be able to see?
One that negates pain.
Now, I don’t think that Izuku would have always had this Quirk. I think it’s one that needed the right conditions to form. Like, let’s say...a really hard punch, something with an almost explosive force.
Lucky for Izuku, he has a classmate with a very painful Quirk, and a penchant for using it on those he deems weaker or lesser. Thus, when the bullying started, Izuku’s Quirk finally kicked in after one hit went too far.
The Issue: Nobody realizes that Izuku got his Quirk. Not even Izuku realizes it. Why? Well, Izuku thinks it’s just a high pain tolerance. He still feels Bakugou striking him, he just...doesn’t feel much else. He knows that he feels pressure, so he must have just gotten used to Bakugou’s hits. (And with all of the burn scars that Izuku is gaining, he wouldn’t be surprised if he’s lost some nerve endings due to the damage.)
And Izuku would definitely have burn scars in this AU (I’m not really sure if canon gives him said scars, I’ve done more reading for this fandom than watching, oops.) But no matter what happens in canon, this Izuku would have burn scars for one reason: Since Izuku doesn’t feel pain, he doesn’t cry out. Since he doesn’t cry out, Bakugou thinks his explosions aren’t strong enough to hurt...so the boy uses stronger blasts in an attempt to prove his ‘point’. (There is definitely an inferiority complex going on here, where Bakugou subconsciously worries that his Quirk is weak if ‘Quirkless Deku can stand there and take one of my hits without a single flinch’.) He pushes himself harder, lets more force into every controlled blast, etc.
So Izuku has no clue that he has a Quirk, Bakugou uses crazy amounts of explosions on the boy, neither realizing just how much damage is happening because Izuku can’t feel any pain.
Canon continues. The Sludge Villain stuff goes as usual, and All Might chooses Izuku as his successor just like always. The training montage from hell might actually be more self-destructive, not only because Izuku feels the need to catch up but also because he doesn’t feel so exhausted/sore. (Along with pain, the boy also doesn’t really feel when his muscles and body are sore, so he doesn’t realize he needs to take a breather.) But that isn’t the focus, so let’s move on!
The Entrance Exam occurs, and wow that really should have clued someone in. Because Izuku breaks his limbs for Uraraka and when he hits the ground, instead of dragging himself away he tries to stand up. He actually manages to find a 3-pointer, and breaks two more of his fingers by flicking in its direction, destroying it with a gust of air before he collapses to the ground.
But wow, everyone is just like ‘this boy is wild’ before completely forgetting about how they heard his bones crunching with every step.
Continue on.
Quirk Apprehension Test? Izuku doesn’t really get why Aizawa is complaining about how he shatters himself. Like, he doesn’t need to stop just because his arm is apparently broken. It’s fine, he can still use it. Still, he settles on breaking a single finger because he can’t risk expulsion, and he definitely doesn’t have the courage to talk back to a teacher.
Hero v. Villain Fight? Izuku doesn’t even collapse after the final blast, instead walking off without batting an eyelash. Iida ends up corralling him to Recovery Girl’s room, because first Izuku protested having to leave without getting to watch the other teams, then he got distracted by the school and nearly got lost.
USJ? Izuku goes a little more feral, fun times.
Sports Festival? Oh honey you know things are going to get wild here. Broken bones left and right, yeehaw it’s shatter city baby!
Izuku ends up with even less self-preservation with every passing problem, basically. Since the boy can’t feel pain, he assumes that any injury that he does get isn’t that bad. After all, wouldn’t he be crying and, you know, hurting if it was bad? Izuku knows what pain feels like, and this isn’t it!!
It’s only the realization that breaking bones so often could end his career early that causes Izuku to try new approaches to the whole Quirk-using situation. Even then, the boy has no sense of when to stop, and as such pushes himself to the point of passing out from either exhaustion or blood loss multiple times.
-One such time was after getting impaled. The boy didn’t realize he had a broken pole halfway through his back until Kaminari screamed and passed out from seeing Izuku bleeding, a giant rod jabbing out of him. Izuku tried to shrug it off.
Sometime around the impalation incident, people begin to notice that Izuku has a freaky high pain tolerance.
But nobody really connects the dots until Bakugou goes too far in training.
The bad news: his opponent loses a limb.
The good news: It is Shouji, and it’s one of the regrowable ones.
The bad news: the following dialogue occurs after school…
Bakugou: What the fuck? But that’s barely anything!
Aizawa: Bakugou. That explosion had enough force to sever your classmate’s hand off of his limb due to how you directed it. You should know to limit yourself by now.
Bakugou: But I was! That one is so weak that even Deku can walk away without flinching!
Aizawa: There is no way that Midoriya would be able to move on without needing medical attention after a hit that bad.
Bakugou: He has.
Aizawa: ...I beg your pardon?
Bakugou: Deku fucking has! How do you think I learned my limits, huh? Deku has taken a hit like that directly to the chest and didn’t even flinch! I know how weak I am!
Needless to say, Aizawa proceeds to lose his absolute shit. He makes Izuku stay after class the next day, and questions him about whether or not Bakugou has ever used his Quirk on him.
Izuku, a boy who is unafraid of breaking three limbs to save a girl from a giant robot, but who is terrified of teachers most of the time, cracks without too much pressure. He admits that Bakugou has used his Quirk on Izuku for years, but ‘It wasn’t bad, sensei! They were like love taps, I never even felt a thing!’
And Aizawa knows something is wrong with this, something isn’t adding up because if Shouji lost a limb to Bakugou’s hit, Izuku has to be lying...or there’s another factor in this equation.
Aizawa dismisses Izuku, and spends the night trying to figure it out.
And then he does.
The next day, he makes Bakugou and Izuku stay in the classroom during lunch. He questions them on their past. Bakugou complains about how ‘weak’ he’s always been, Izuku brushes past the concern without much thought because it never hurt, and sure there were markings but-
Aizawa: Markings?
The scars are revealed. Well, the ones on his upper body.
This is when Bakugou begins to realize that he’s fucked up.
During training, Aizawa pulls Bakugou and Izuku off to work with him separately. He
brings out machines that test how much force a blow gives off, and has Bakugou throw his ‘weak’ explosions at them.
As it turns out, Izuku should have been in crippling pain from everything Bakugou did. And then Aizawa drops the ‘I think you have a pain-related Quirk’ on Izuku, and yeah.
I didn’t really plan an end, sorry. I just think it’d be interesting, you know?
On the bright side, at least Izuku isn’t constantly in pain!!! He just got his body a whole lot more damaged than he would have, and has maybe half of the self-preservation that his canon counterpart possesses.
Finally, for an extra bit: Izuku only feels pain when Aizawa erases his Quirk. It’s not pleasant. (And, to make him even more oblivious, Izuku believes that the pain is because his Quirk is being ‘severed’ in its connection, not that this is lingering pain that comes from having bones shattered over and over without hesitation.)
