Chapter Text
“Can someone without a quirk become a hero?!?”
“Huh. I don’t actually know.”
“…what?” That was not a response Izuku had prepared himself to hear.
“There’s relatively few hero schools that accept quirkless applicants, but that doesn’t matter so much if you land an apprenticeship. The main hurdle would be convincing the Commission to license you, which they might deny on the basis that “heroics” is defined as using your quirk to keep the peace, so you can’t be a licensed hero if you don’t have a quirk? On the other hand, you probably can’t be charged with vigilantism if you’re quirkless. So, bonuses.”
“I… excuse me?”
“Here, let me introduce you to an old friend of mine - Sir Nighteye? - he’s better at regulations and legal loopholes than I am.”
***
“Mirai, hello! Do you think someone quirkless could become a hero?”
“Statistically, a quirkless person would be in significantly more danger-“
“No, no, I mean… legally.”
“Oh. Hmm. Let’s check the regulations.”
***
“I’m the Headache Hero: Not Technically Licensed! Or License for short.”
***
The biggest challenge is cobbling together a set of certifications that allows Izuku to act in the same ways a hero can without a license - the main obstacles are gaining the right to arrest people and not getting arrested himself for trespassing. Eventually they determine that he can interrupt a crime in progress to citizen arrest someone, but preventative arrests must occur under the supervision of a hero. He is also barred from trespassing unless he is part of an investigative team authorized by warrant, easily solved by hiring him on as a “civilian expert” to whatever agency is conducting the investigation (his expertise is in punching). Also maybe a little bit of authorized bounty hunting on the side. This tenuous legality makes him one of the biggest sticklers for the rules in all of heroics, earning him many fans among the sorts of people often harmed by heroes getting lax with laws.
He also has a PI license, a gun license, and, weirdly, a health inspector license (he was laid up with an injury and got bored. It once got him into a high-end restaurant the cops couldn’t access, busting their Trigger operation wide open).
Despite not technically being a hero, Izuku manages to attain #42 in the hero rankings. This addition is eventually traced back to a data entry intern who is promptly fired, but the public outcry forces the Commission to keep him ranked.
Quirk suppression cuffs become the hot new commodity as vigilantes start wearing them to use the same loopholes that License does.