"Hello. I am Jor El of the planet Krypton. I fear much for the future of our race, as I predict that, soon, the end of our planet will be upon us. While I hope to migrate with my son to the planet of earth and live among our genetic cousins, the humans, it may not come to pass as I have predicted.

In such a scenario, these are my words to any who would find young Kal-El. He is my only son, and I hope that his future will be as bright as the yellow sun of earth. To the human who finds this; I plead that you look upon my son in case of my wife's or my absence. If I can not see him grow, I hope that it will be into someone that would do us proud. We chose your planet because there is a great capacity for love and compassion among the people of earth.

Among your kind, the yellow sun will make him far greater than any other, a god among men. But upon krypton we have a philosophy: might does not make right. Only through example shall we be the change that will lead the world to the light."

Inko Midoriya was not a superstitious woman. She was born with a simple Quirk, had studied in a simple school, and lived in a simple city where she was looking to start her simple life. She had no delusions of greatness, and even if the world was full of men and women of extraordinary talent and virtue, she was a simple homebody who was content with her lot in life.

Hisashi Midoriya was a fire breathing businessman. Long since relegated to being a parlor trick at the office, anything special about him came solely from the connections he made over a luncheon or a after-work drinking session. He climbed the social ladder and supported his young wife however he could. The fact that she saw less and less of him as time went by was more a symptom of a problem that goes back decades before their relationship. He was a flashy man who had settled for simplicity and now harbored nothing but the occasional daydream.

The ordinary couple stood in the rubble of what appeared to be a futuristic spacecraft in the middle of the japanese countryside. Their own sedan abandoned on the road, blinkers on, as the fires and the red hot steel of the un-identified grounded object cooling off. A chilly breeze pushed her closer to the relative warmth of the unknown spacecraft, with its round silver and lack of sharp edges.

And then a message from a man with grey hair and uneasy stubble, a blue hologram under the black sky and the bright stars. Inko risked a glance up, into the expanse of the night, shivering slightly and huddling close to her husband for warmth. Neither spoke, even after the hologram had disappeared back into the spacecraft, the reddish leather and the flashing lights meeting dumbstruck gazes.

There was a human baby inside, quietly looking up at them with big green eyes. Inko's tongue was stuck to her teeth but her hands found themselves around the small child, feeling the simple warmth that radiated from the space-baby. The eyes looked up into hers and she stared at him for a long moment. Her breath was caught in her throat.

"Inko." Said Hisashi. "Inko!"

"Hisashi… we can't leave him here."

A moment of silence, with the young boy silent and still, his chubby little arms waving around and his eyes looking around the expanse of night interestedly. Hisashi coughed. "No, we can't."

And so he took her hand.

"Hisashi, what about the ship-"

"I don't think it's going anywhere. Let's go home."

New parents are new parents, whatever the circumstance. Inko and Hisashi had to come up with a lot of excuses and a lot of lies in order to protect this mysterious child that they had discovered, and they gave each other tired glances whenever they found themselves alone. Hisashi hadn't said anything yet but she just knew he would have some choice words if her judgement had caused them some undue trouble.

If the hero association or the police came knocking on their door one day, Hisashi would do what he could to protect his wife. The alien baby could go. They'd adopt another, normal child, someday.

Inko, of course, didn't see it the same way. He tried to hide his stares when she was "playing" with that… thing, but she still saw them and she grew cold to his touch. She was such a soft and caring woman before that little alien came into their house. He clenched his fists.

"Ahh, Izuku, eat your veggies…" She cooed, the little brat seated at the dining room table, his hands flailing around and doing everything but what his wife wanted. Izuku. She had named the thing like it was their actual child. The name they would have had for their child. As far as he remembered, he already had a name, the one that the weird man in white had given him. Kal-El.

Neither truly doubted the story that the alien scientist had given them. It seemed to make sense, and they both knew that strange things happened in all corners of the earth, with or without the involvement of Quirks. Some part of Hisashi held onto the hope that this was some prank or daydream and Jor-El would show up one day to collect his spawn and would leave the young family alone.

She seemed to take a real liking to the child and his curly black hair and wide innocent smile. However, the uneasiness he felt wasn't quelled by her laughter, nor by when she came to him asking what was wrong, her eyebrow raised, her round face scrunched up in worry. He shook his head.

"I don't know." He said. "I don't know what's going to happen."

But when she wrapped her hands around his and squeezed softly, he smiled back. For her.

Izuku Midoriya was, for all intents and purposes, a normal boy going to kindergarten. He had lost some of that baby fat and was now a good deal faster and more nimble than the other boys his age. In a green jumper and shorts, lazy sneakers with frayed edges, Izuku took to the streets and green hillsides of his hometown. The other boys pushed and pulled and jumped over him and he was always there. Smiling.

One of the boys undaunted by Izuku's radiance was a hard faced youth with a sharp ash bush for hair and a permanent glower, brows furrowed and hands itching to scratch or grab. Katsuki Bakugou, the resident power ranger. Where he ran, with his brash talk and mean spirited laughter, a cabal followed. Izuku and Katsuki found each other one day and their ramshackle friendship began, the tough boy quick to make a remark that the shy one would quickly back up.

And then Katsuki started sweating nitroglycerin. Things changed after that.

"Where's your quirk, Izuku?" Said Katsuki, sparks at his fingertips, bits of his burnt hair frayed and sticking out, black smudges on his cheek and all over his small hands.

"I dunno, Kacchan. Maybe I'll get it soon!" His hand came up, his mouth opening in a bright, teeth-bare smile. Katsuki shook his head, but said nothing.

"Did you hear about that hero guy, All Might?" Said Katsuki again, leaving his slightly charred hands to rest while they sat down for a moment in the playground, wood chips crunching under their sneakers.

"Yeah! He's so cooool! I can't wait to get my quirk and be just like him!" Izuku thundered, his eyes skyward, fists pumped. Kacchan punched him playfully in the arm.

"No way, brat! I'm gonna be the best hero!"

"That's okay, Kacchan! But I'm gonna aim for it, too!"

"Nuh uh, idiot! There can only be one! And it's gonna be me!"

Izuku went home with a smile on his face and dreams written in his eyes.

The first signs of his heritage came upon them one night when Izuku was in the middle of picking up groceries with his mom at the local corner store. Hefting the basket with both hands, back arched, glancing over the merchandise of the store. Inko was weighing some carrots, humming slightly as the scent of fresh produce reminded her of simple times, a soft smile idle on her face.

And then Izuku's vision blurred and he started seeing things.

"Mom! Mom! Mom, help!" He cried out. Inko looked down and saw his eyes, unfocused and reddish, his green pupils shaking in place, the basket dropping to the ground in a thud that paused her heartbeat for a split second before she rushed to him.

"Izuku! Izu-"

When they got home he was sent to bed, his eyes still unfocused and his mother's warm hand in his sweat-slick own, lights dimmed.

"Mom…" He looked to her, seeing something else entirely. Her mouth was open and fresh tears slipped down her cheeks.

When he woke up, his mother was around him, her hand still holding his tightly. She was no longer a skeletal figure, her bones and organs and…

He told her everything. About all the things he saw, different walls and rooms and seeing through skin and bones like they were made of glass. A world, for a brief moment, straight out of a nightmare. It was all okay now.

"Mom, is that my q-quirk? It's really weird!"

"… There's something you should know. About where you came from."

And his eyes widened and for a moment she thought he was going to phase out again and she gulped.

"Mom?"

"You came from the planet Krypton. You're the genetic son of a Kryptonian scientist named Jor El. Me and your father found you when you were a little baby, your spaceship had crashed into a field. I-I took you in, Izuku."

He looked up at her. For a fearful moment she wondered if his eyes would narrow and his brow would furrow and he would spit it back in her face. Lies, woman! Lies!

He paused, and then spoke, a quiver in his young voice.

"C-can I still stay with you and pretend to be your son?"

His lip quivered and he looked all the world like he was expecting her to put him back in the spaceship and leave, never to be seen again. Like she was Hisashi, distant enough to smile when he saw her but leave as soon as their...her son started walking to her.

Izuku was afraid, and Inko knew what she had to do. She hugged her son.

"You are my son, Izuku. Nothing can change that." She said, and that was the last time he was anything other than her baby boy.

It took a day for him to know how to turn it on and off at his own will. "X-ray vision!" he called it, much like Periscope, one of the heroes he admired. He could see things happen all around and she taught him very quickly that he should never use it to see through clothes.

Of course, that wasn't the end of it. Inko sat down one night and thought long and hard about what she knew about Quirks and decided that Izuku didn't have one. Izuku seemed, like Jor-El said, to be powered by his own biology, the sun's energy being the only thing he needed. She never kept him hungry long enough to test it, but he never got the occasional sniffles that other boys his age always complained about, nor the flu, or chickenpox. Even his teeth never fell out, but seemed to grow up as he did. She was terrified of taking him to the doctor, but, thankfully, it seemed that she never needed to.

And then he started shooting lasers from his eyes and she started losing sleep. One extended focus-x ray session where he tried to see into individual specks of dust ended with one charbroiled rug, and one screaming boy with glowing orange-red eyes. A lesser woman would have been terrified, and even she had to admit that she faltered when she saw her child with smoking eye sockets of pure red light, burning heat searing small holes into bits of her house.

It seemed to be something he could turn off easily, so once she calmed him down, he seemed more excited than anything. She knew that it was a very delicate matter and if she showed anything but encouragement and happiness, it could make her son very afraid of what he was.

She took him out to the countryside where he used it on small bushes and trees. She, of course, told him to be very careful with that ability as it could be very dangerous if he didn't use it properly. It seems her faith was not misplaced, Izuku nodding seriously (as seriously as he could for a four year old boy) and promising to practice it safely and never without her supervision.

He made it a week before he broke both rules, but she pretends to not know about that.

"You're going to be a symbol of peace, Izuku. You don't have to be number one."

Izuku is eight when Kacchan's explosions stop hurting him near completely. He still reacts and groans in pain, but his skin is unbroken, steeled, no bruises, scratches. Katsuki doesn't notice.

"You say you have a quirk, huh, Deku? Where's that quirk now, huh?"

Izuku can slow down time, he thinks. He can look at something for seemingly an hour when it really should take a second. He can see water dripping down from a faucet, the ripple, the roar. He can see people's faces move inch by inch in rapid conversation, tongues flapping about, saliva spitting out.

He sees Katsuki towering above him, flares sparking off his fingers, mouth wide open, frozen in a sneer.

He just observes. It's not really his place to start telling people about these.. Changes. So if he had never scraped his knee or gotten sick, nobody noticed. Nobody commented. He passes his quirk off as being some enhanced strength and the one time someone sees him kick down a fence "accidentally", nobody really doubted him anymore. Slight super strength was far from an exceptional power, after all.

He starts wearing glasses, wide, square rimmed black frames. Kacchan's teasing is worth it, he supposes. He doesn't want to attract too much attention as any kind of exceptional student.

His memory improves and he can note the exact word for word description of everything that any of his tests have. So when he ends up as a B student, his Mom smiles and tells him that she's proud of him, even if he's not the best. She knows, inside, that he wants to be the best. To break the limits, to be a genius.

He acts like being average was going out of style.

Izuku Midoriya is the farthest thing from a hero anyone could think of. And while it hurts him to cower, to whimper, when he knows about his strength, he does it for his mother.

He does it for the hero he needs to be. Because young Izuku had decided, at the age of ten, that he would have to make a choice that contradicted everything he wanted since he was young. He needed to hide his potential, for the sake of all those who cared about him. He needed to hide the remains of Krypton from the prying eyes of the government.

But deep down he knew that he would still be a hero, he was still selfish in that way, still so human. He couldn't give up that dream.

So he remains Izuku Midoriya, the stumbling, slouched, quiet boy with wide rimmed glasses. A boy with dreams in his eyes.

Something deep inside, however, began to grow.