A/N- sorry this is late, I wanted to put something out for deku's birthday but I forgot to post it yesterday.
Hope you all enjoy😊
Izuku is two years old when he makes his first birthday wish. He doesn’t quite understand how wishes work, but he knows that if one asks for something, they’re more likely to get it than if they don’t ask at all.
So when he is two years old, Izuku asks for a sibling. Maybe two, if he’s lucky, because Izuku likes the idea of having a little brother or sister (or both, a part of him cheers) to hang out with and do all sorts of fun activities with.
He doesn’t get a sibling, but that’s okay. Izuku has Kacchan, at least.
When Izuku is three years old, he wishes for a strong Quirk. One that’s just like his mom’s or dad’s, or maybe a mix! He wants to be a big, bold hero, and having a great Quirk is the best way to achieve his dream.
He doesn’t get a Quirk, but that’s okay. He still has a year for it to manifest. Most kids get their Quirks at four, after all.
When Izuku is four, he wishes for a strong Quirk once again. He’s at the age when kids get theirs, and he just knows that he’s supposed to become a hero.
He doesn’t get a Quirk, but that’s okay. Maybe he’s just a late bloomer.
He wishes for a strong Quirk when he is five, and is denied.
He wishes for any Quirk at all when he is six, and is denied. He finds out that he is Quirkless. He loses Kacchan.
He wishes for a Quirk two more times, when he is seven and eight. The teasing turns into harsh taunting and pushes, Kacchan gets far too close with his explosions.
Things don’t feel quite so ‘okay’ anymore.
When he turns nine, Izuku accepts his fate. He wishes for Kacchan to be his friend again, and denies the idea of wishing for a Quirk anymore.
His wish is not granted, Kacchan only growing more hostile and volatile, and Izuku wishes for any friend at all when he reaches ten years old. It’s the ‘big one-oh’, as his mom called it. Double digits must mean something to the universe, right?
It means nothing.
At eleven, Izuku wishes that he can help someone, anyone at all. He no longer begs the stars to let him be a hero like All Might, instead setting his sights on being a hero at all .
Nobody believes in him. His mother apologizes yet again. It stings, but so do Kacchan’s neverending explosions on his skin, so Izuku remains silent through it all.
At twelve, Izuku wishes for someone to be his hero. Then he feels selfish, because he’s useless, Quirkless Deku and he doesn’t deserve a hero- surely, others have it so much worse than him, he should stop being such a baby- and so he changes his wish. Izuku wishes that he can be a hero for at least one person, even without a Quirk. He promises the stars that he’ll be content then, that he’ll move on from his dreams so long as he changes the life of a single person for the better.
But the stars must know that he’s lying, both to them and to himself, so they deny him yet again.
When Izuku turns thirteen, he falls back into old habits and wishes for a Quirk. He can’t help it, can’t fight the longing in his chest whenever he gets beaten down and jeered at, mocked for his dreams and for things he can’t control. He begs the moon to bless him just this once, pleads and cries into the night because he’s thirteen, and aren’t the teenage years supposed to be good ones?
The moon sets, the sun rises, and Izuku is still Quirkless.
Izuku is fourteen before he knows it, and he struggles to keep on wishing. He spends his birthday completely alone; his mother busy at work, his father long gone, and no one around. It’s summer, at least, so he doesn’t spend his day being hurt.
As the sun sets, Izuku wishes for someone to spend his birthdays with. Someone who will look forward to the day just as much as he does.
And then Izuku goes on to the next day, and the next, and suddenly it’s the first day of his last year of middle school, and Kacchan is telling him to jump off a roof and he nearly dies and All Might says he can’t be a hero.
And then he can . And life blurs, with training montages and quirk tests and so, so many broken bones. And Izuku finds himself speeding through every moment, never slowing down, too afraid to lose what he’s gained.
He doesn’t wish for anything on his fifteenth birthday, nor his sixteenth, except that he doesn’t wake up to find out that everything is just a dream.
He doesn’t wake up, but Kacchan gets kidnapped and then he watches a hero die a few months later, and life speeds by with little delay. He sees a little girl smile for her first time, watches his newly Quirkless senpai graduate, only to become a teacher’s assistant at Yuuei, and moves on to his second year of high school.
And when summer break arrives, Izuku finds himself staying in the dorms. His mother is too busy with work nowadays, and Izuku needs to train, needs to get better, so he stays even as his birthday approaches.
And then his birthday arrives, and Izuku lives through a day that he will remember for the rest of his life…
-----
When Izuku wakes up to someone knocking on his door, he’s a little confused. Okay, a lot confused, because he thought that his peers went home for the summer. There’s only a few people who stayed for the break, like Hatsume from Support, who would never give up her beloved lab time, or Hitoshi, who claims that he still needs to catch up on hero training with Aizawa-sensei. So there shouldn’t be anyone knocking on his door at- Izuku checks his phone- six in the morning.
Despite his confusion, Izuku gets up and opens the door. There’s no reason to make anyone wait. It’s probably one of his teachers, anyways, checking to see if he’s magically found a villain to fight. (He’s been doing good, too. He hasn’t dealt with a villain in six whole days , and it would have been seven but he had a patrol for his internship and things happened.)
It’s not a teacher. Instead, Izuku comes face to face with a certain teacher’s assistant , one with blond hair and a cheery smile.
“Izuku!” Mirio cheers, as if he’s surprised to see Izuku, despite standing outside of his room. “Good morning!”
“Good morning, Mirio,” Izuku says, the first name slipping off of his tongue with practiced ease. “What are you doing here- ah, not that you can’t come here, it’s just you normally don’t just show up - well except you kind of do, like when you first popped up, and...and you’ll probably answer if I stop talking, won’t you?”
“Yep!” Mirio says after a pause, as if making sure that Izuku is actually done, and Izuku smiles awkwardly. “I wanted to hang out with my birthday buddy!”
“Huh?” Izuku gets out, oh so intelligently, and Mirio grins a blinding smile.
“It’s our birthday, Izuku! That means we have to hang out together, you know?” Mirio stops, and then adds, “Unless you want me to try hanging out with Aizawa-san, instead.”
Izuku snorts, remembering the last time his senpai/teacher/friend had tried hanging out with his perpetually exhausted teacher. The cheery blond had ended up with detention- and Izuku didn’t even know that a teacher’s assistant could still get detention. (A part of Izuku says that they can’t , but he’s not going to be the one to break it to Mirio.)
But once Izuku gets over his amusement, he stills with surprise, and says, “It’s my birthday?”
“Yeah!” Mirio says, nodding excitedly. “July fifteenth, our birthday!”
Oh. Oh, Izuku supposes it is his birthday. “Right!” Izuku says. “Uh, let me get dressed, then we can go, uh...what are we doing?”
“I have no idea !” Mirio exclaims proudly, and yeah, that’s the Mirio that Izuku looks up to. Beaming, Izuku shuts his door and changes, popping back out in a faded All Might tee and shorts two minutes later.
The two end up leaving campus, Aizawa sighing as he sees them go, muttering something about not getting into trouble, which Izuku is only somewhat offended by. He can’t be too upset, though, when he does seem to be cursed with some sort of invisible villain magnet. Luckily, the world seems to smile down on him today, because he and Mirio get to a nearby cafe without running into trouble.
The cafe is nice, Izuku thinks. It’s a little one, and has a peaceful, homey vibe to it that makes Izuku feel warm inside. He can’t help but smile as he gets his order, slipping into a booth, Mirio taking the other side. They get to talking about school, Izuku asking Mirio about how it’s like on the other side of the student-teacher dynamic, Mirio asking about Izuku’s time as a second year.
“You’ve got that new Quirk, yeah?” Mirio asks in between bites, more nonchalant than Izuku could ever be when talking about One for All. “With the fire?”
“Yeah!” Izuku chirps, then realizes how loud he is and lowers his voice. “It’s actually pyrokinesis, which is really cool. It actually reminds me of my parents’ Quirks.”
“What do they have?” Mirio asks, and Izuku beams.
“My mom has a minor telekinesis Quirk- she can only pull small objects towards her, though we never tested how small they can actually be- and my dad had a fire-breathing Quirk.”
“Had?” Mirio asks, and Izuku winces.
“Ah, still has , I suppose. I just, uh, haven’t seen him in years. Sorry,” Izuku apologizes, but Mirio brushes it off.
“No problem!” And Mirio effortlessly changes the topic, moving away from Izuku’s seven Quirks and talking about how some of the first years challenged him to a free for all after hearing about how he treated Izuku and the so-called ‘Hell Class’ upon their first meeting.
“We’re not a Hell Class,” Izuku protests, but he doesn’t even believe himself.
“Sure, Izuku,” Mirio agrees complacently, and then perks up. “Are you done eating? We’ve got more places to be!”
“I thought you said you had no idea what we’d do today,” Izuku points out, but he lets Mirio lead him out of the cafe without protest.
They end up going to a hero store. Izuku promptly gets lost in the aisles, eyes sparkling as he looks at all of the merchandise.
“Look!” Izuku exclaims at one point. “Mirio, it’s you !”
Twenty minutes later, the boys walk back out, Mirio a few happy tears lighter, and Izuku clad in a Lemillion hoodie.
“Let’s go wander town for a bit,” Mirio says when he stops sniffling, and Izuku agrees easily. They end up getting ice cream for lunch, which is likely not healthy and definitely not a good meal for two budding heroes, but it’s their birthday so Izuku thinks they deserve a cheat day. After, they wander for another hour before deciding to head back to campus.
It’s when the two are almost back to Yuuei that Mirio asks, “Did you ever have any birthday wishes as a kid?”
Izuku laughs, rubbing at his neck. “Yeah,” Izuku admits. “I had one every year.”
“What were they?” Mirio asks right away, and Izuku shrugs.
“You know, stuff like ‘I want a sibling’ or ‘I hope I can become a hero’, or…” Izuku feels his smile drop somewhat, and he feels like a bit of a mood-destroyer when he adds, “‘I hope I get a Quirk this year’.”
Mirio’s smile stiffens slightly, and then it drops into a smaller, but still sincere, one. “That’s my wish, too,” Mirio admits, lips quirking oddly. “I’m hoping that one day, Eri will be able to help me.”
Guilt stabs Izuku in the heart, and the boy once again feels the urge to offer his Quirk to the older boy. He doesn’t, though, because he’s done it twice and each time has been rejected, even though Mirio knows the full capabilities of One for All. “I’m sorry,” Izuku whispers instead, but Mirio shakes his head.
“It’s nothing to apologize for!” Mirio says, and then shrugs. “It’s alright if I don’t get my Quirk back, you know? I mean, it’ll be a shame, for sure, but there’s more to someone than their Quirk.” Eyes lighting up, he adds, “I think you, of all people, should know that.”
“I,” Izuku starts, and then he fumbles. Because sure, there’s so much more to a person than their Quirk, but...but when was Izuku ever more than his Quirklessness?
He wasn’t, was he?
Izuku feels awkward as he walks back to the dorms with Mirio, trying to find a way to salvage the conversation. Luckily, Mirio has that handled, too.
“Izuku,” Mirio says, right as they reach the 2-A dorms. “Of all of the things you wished for, what do you think you wanted most?”
Izuku’s immediate thought is to say ‘a Quirk’, because that’s all he ever wanted to become a hero. But then he stops, and he thinks.
And...it wasn’t ever about the Quirk, was it? Because a power on its own wasn’t much, it was how he planned to use it.
To be a hero. To be worth befriending. To be less lonely.
To help, and to be wanted.
“I wanted...I wanted to be valued,” Izuku mutters, and the words make Izuku feel dizzy with clarity. “I wanted to be valued,” he repeats, and Mirio nods knowingly.
“You are,” Mirio says, and then he opens the door and shoves Izuku inside.
For a split second, there’s nothing but silence, and Izuku’s head rings with the words Mirio just said.
And then the lights flick on, and a loud, synchronized shout of “Surprise!” fills his ears, and Izuku stares in awe as his classmates pop into view.
“W-what?” Izuku gets out, eyes wide as he looks around the room. There’s streamers and party hats, and silly games stacked by the couch and snacks on the table, and his entire class is here , watching him with eager smiles and uncontained glee. “What’s going on?”
“We’re throwing you a birthday party!” Ochako whoops, and promptly pelts a party hat at him. “We spent all day getting back here and setting things up, so you better enjoy yourself, mister!”
“Yeah,” Hitoshi agrees. “It was a real bitch and a half, getting sensei to agree, so you are having fun or else .”
The threat should startle Izuku, but he’s too busy tearing up at the realization that his friends are here for him . He wipes at his tears frantically, but they only continue to fall from his eyes. His friends smile at him still, and Shouto pulls him through the common room and into the kitchen, saying, “Dinner should be ready, although some of the others are late.”
Izuku is surprised when he sees that it’s Kacchan in the kitchen, scowling as he shoves a bowl into Izuku’s hands and saying, “Eat up, nerd,” before stomping away, but then he tears up all over again because it’s katsudon, his favorite.
And Izuku definitely sheds more tears when Shouto leans in and whispers, “Bakugou is the one who told us when your birthday was.”
Dinner is nice, starting with all of his friends joining him around the table, with Mirio also getting a special birthday hat, and midway through Aizawa-sensei ends up arriving, Eri excitedly jumping into his lap. Izuku beams at the little girl’s wide smile, happily listening as she talks about her week.
After dinner, Izuku finds himself being pulled back into the common room, where Tenya sets up a game of Twister, and Izuku laughs as Eri tells everyone where to go. Izuku is pretty sure that Eri is forcing Denki to do the hardest moves possible, and nobody is really sure if Tooru is doing as she’s told or not, since the girl is wearing a tank top and shorts, but Izuku just laughs through it all, even when he ends up being the third one out. Tsuyu ends up winning, which is expected- the girl is rather flexible, after all.
An hour into the fun, and Izuku is surprised when a familiar set of four heroes and one tiny, water-wielding boy walk into the dorms.
“We heard that it was Deku’s birthday,” Mandalay explains. “Kouta wanted to come see you and say something.”
“Oh?” Izuku asks, intrigued. “What is it, Kouta?”
“Happy birthday,” Kouta mutters, then shoves a small box into Izuku’s hands. Izuku opens it, careful not to damage the gift, and gasps at the object inside.
It’s a beaded bracelet, made with red and green beads, with a small charm that says ‘hero’ on it. It’s clearly made by Kouta, and that makes Izuku love it even more.
“He made it all by himself,” Mandalay says, and Kouta blushes, looking away.
“I love it,” Izuku says, slipping the bracelet on. “Thank you, Kouta.”
“I, yeah, whatever,” Kouta mumbles, and then races off to hide by Eri.
Mandalay chuckles at the scene, and when Izuku stands up, says, “Kouta didn’t want me saying this, but he seems to view you as an older brother.”
“Really?” Izuku asks, and his heart bursts with joy when the hero nods. “I’m glad,” Izuku states, and he really, really is.
The party lasts a few more hours, and by the time it’s over Izuku feels like he’s on cloud nine. Most of his peers admit that they’re staying in the dorms for the night, and will be heading home in the morning, and Izuku waves goodbye to those who do have to go. He promises to see Kouta soon, and does the same with Eri when she gets upset, and then does the same with Mirio when he pretends to be hurt by the lack of inclusion.
And finally, Izuku heads to bed. He is seventeen years old, and his day has been amazing.
And as he recollects the day he’s had, Izuku realizes that his birthday wishes have all come true.
He has little Kouta as a brother, and Eri as a sister.
He has seven Quirks, one for every year he wished upon a star.
He has friends.
He has Kacchan.
He’s become a hero for others, with or without his Quirk.
And he spent the day with someone who cared about July fifteenth as much as he did.
On his seventeenth birthday, all of Izuku’s wishes have come true.
He has nothing left to wish for, and that’s perfectly okay.
-----
As Izuku falls asleep in the dorms, Mirio walks with Eri back to the teacher’s dorms. Aizawa had to go on patrol, Mirio had offered to walk the little girl back.
“I’m going there anyways,” Mirio pointed out, and Aizawa had thanked him before heading off.
Now Mirio walks side by side with the little girl, their hands swinging together as Eri excitedly recounts the party.
“-and Deku let me eat cake with him and he was so nice, and Mister Nedzu-san has been telling me about families and I think Deku is my older brother-”
Mirio snorts, accidentally cutting Eri off. When she looks at him oddly, he asks, “Why do you think Deku is your brother?”
“Cause he’s my hero,” Eri says easily. “He’s kind and patient and he does my hair. He reads my bedtime stories, and sings me little songs! And he says he’ll always protect me, no matter what.” Tilting her head, Eri asks, “Isn’t that what big brothers do?”
Chuckling, Mirio nods. “You got me there, Eri. I guess Deku is your big brother.”
“Yay!” Eri cheers, and the happy noise makes Mirio feel all warm and tingly with joy.
Ah, maybe a bit too tingly. Is happiness supposed to feel like static?
The feeling cuts off with a gasp and the sensation of Eri ripping her hand out of Mirio’s, and Mirio looks at her only to see that her horn is glowing and she has tears in her eyes.
“I’m sorry!” Eri apologizes immediately. “I didn’t mean to use my Quirk, I was just happy and-”
“It’s okay!” Mirio promises. “Really! Look at me, I’m fine!” To prove it, Mirio puffs out his chest, crossing his arms and channeling all of his confidence into his smile.
And then he falls through the ground, clothes falling off.
“Mirio-san!” Eri screams, and Mirio pops up into the air with a whoosh, immediately turning Eri around and pulling on his clothes. “Are you okay?”
“I’m perfect,” Mirio assures her, and he’s as honest as he can ever be.
It looks like Izuku isn’t the only one whose wish was granted, after all…
Perhaps the stars are shining down on them, for once.
And now cute birthday pictures
(I do not own any of these pictures all credit goes to the artists)
Word count- 3580