Not powerless

chapter 1: forgotten

Most of the room was taken up by his bed and his desk. A single small window on the wall illuminated the room, casting light on the small poster, alone on his otherwise bare walls. His clothes were kept in drawers beneath his bed, and there was a shelf with a few hero figurines. Mom and Dad said there wasn't enough space in this room for all his toys so he didn't have many growing up. That was ok though. It was. He could ask to borrow Haru's if he wanted to.

Despite how much he wanted to flop onto his bed, Izuku sat at his desk and did his homework. He then duplicated it for when it was inevitably stolen or destroyed. The others in the house were moving about but none of them came to his room. It was quite lonely.

It was very lonely.

A few tears escaped him and he quickly wiped them away. There was no point to crying about this. It had been like this for years and there was no changing it.

A short while later, Izuku went back downstairs. The smell of dinner wafted through the air, as well as the sound of bowls being put on tables. Peaking into the dining room, Izuku saw the rest of his family. They were all just sitting down, bowls of food steaming in front of them.

"Oh Izuku? I didn't know you were home," Dad said.

They were going to have dinner.

Without him.

Again.

"There's a bowl for you in the kitchen little bro," Haru said.

Allowing nothing to show on his face, Izuku turned to go to the kitchen.

"I thought you checked on him?" he heard Haru ask as he left.

Just as Haru said, there was a bowl of food waiting for him. He took it back to the dining room and sat down next to his brother. The others had already started eating. It was difficult to say when their family had become like this. If he told anyone he was constantly being forgotten, they would either tell him he was overreacting, there was no way a hero would forget about his own family, or they would tell him to be more considerate, a hero was so busy protecting others that of course he was going to forget a few things here and there occasionally.

Izuku didn't believe it.

Once upon a time, his dad had been his hero. So many people knew his name. The blonde hair and piercing blue eyes were as distinctive as the bright smile declaring 'I am here'. They were what the world saw of the number one hero All Might, but to Izuku, he was Toshinori Yagi. His father was everything Izuku admired in heroes.

If only he lived up to the hype at home.

He'd always been a bit forgetful and tended to get caught up in hero work and miss out on certain things. Izuku knew that and understood it, but over the years, it seemed to happen more and more. Toshinori would be missing from more and more of his family's life, though Izuku had come to realise that it only occasionally happened to Mom and Haru, and never to Mizuki. It only happened to him.

Mizuki made sure to remind him of that as well. His sister was almost the spitting image of their father. The same blue eyes, the same blonde hair (if slightly straighter), even the same muscular frame, though she wasnt't nearly as bulky as All Might. Her quirk was a variation of Mom's telekinesis. She couldn't extend the psychic energy out of her body, but she could direct it inward and use it to amplify her speed and strength. It was a very useful quirk, so the hero course was a natural fit for her. Everything was a natural fit for her, and Mom and Dad doted on her for it. Most people did, if he was honest.

If only she'd inherited their dads public persona.

The conversation around the dinner table was mostly normal, with his family talking around him while he ate silently. It was nice though. When the focus wasn't on him, he could enjoy listening to their stories. Currently, Toshinori was telling them about some of the villains he'd dealt with that day.