Chapter 3: Izuku

"Midoriya."

Izuku froze as soon as he heard Aizawa's voice over his shoulder. Knife paused on the cutting board, he sighed. He forced a smile and looked up. "Yes, sensei?"

"When you're finished with your dinner, please come to my apartment," Aizawa droned. "And because I know that you wouldn't disobey a direct request from both your teacher and a pro, I'm going to wait. For as long as it takes."

Izuku's smile dropped for a moment, and he nodded.

Wordlessly, Aizawa turned on his heel and slumped over to the stairwell next to the front doors. Over his shoulder, he said: "I'm quite used to being up at odd hours, Midoriya."

Izuku rolled his eyes and went back to cutting the carrots, perhaps with more force than necessary.

Kacchan had definitely said something, he concluded. He went about making his dinner as mindlessly as possible, but the thought of having to drop from the hero course as a result of his injuries- just like Recovery Girl had warned him of at the Sports Festival last year- had firmly planted itself in his mind. Fear of losing his grip on the dream he'd worked so hard on achieving settled into his body, creeping under his skin and seeping into his bones like some horrible weight had been injected into him.

He barely registered eating dinner and felt like he was a disembodied spirit being dragged along by a physical form that trudged in the opposite direction of the boys' dorm wing.

He knocked at Aizawa's door, and tried to force some sort of emotion through, though he wasn't sure if he was successful.

"Come sit. There's tea."

There was, in fact, tea. It was still steaming, having clearly been made moments beforehand, and placed neatly on the coffee table in the center of the room.

Izuku sat down on the couch as close to the edge as he possibly could without seeming too rigid. He kept his feet flat, and his knees bent- ready to run if need be. Aizawa wouldn't be able to take his provisional license if he couldn't catch him.

"I'm not going to take your license, Midoriya," Aizawa stated carefully as he sat down on the chair next to the couch. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, and continued, "Just… tell me why you think you're here."

Izuku blinked in an effort to hold the tears at bay. He took a deep breath, and replied, "Kacchan told you something he shouldn't have. You're demoting me to Gen Ed, or maybe expelling me, for not telling you about it first."

Aizawa's usually calm expression cracked in an instant. With wide eyes, he said, "What? No, that's not what-"

"And it makes sense to take my provisional license if I can't complete the rest of the training because I can't manage this- err, my quirk," Izuku continued. "It's the most logical course of action and you're a very logical person."

"That's…literally the most illogical thing I've ever heard in my life," Aizawa sighed. "And I married an extrovert. But first and foremost, you're staying in the hero course. In fact, I think it's the best course of action if you can admit that your quirk is unmanageable as it stands now. We have the most practical experience in our lesson plan."

"But what-?"

Aizawa raised a hand. "Just let me finish, Midoriya. I would never take something away from a student for making a mistake. You're analytical about your faults, and that's more than I can say for the students I expelled in previous years. It will do you well when you get your full license.

"Also, Bakugou might have betrayed your trust, but he did it out of concern. It's the most emotion I've seen out of him in two years that's not anger. You can call it making sure he doesn't lose access to his 'rival' or whatever he calls you. You could also call it something a friend might do. That's up to you to label."

Izuku attempted to stutter out a response. The airy feeling was slowly fading. He took a deep breath, and asked, "how much did he tell you?"

Aizawa leaned back in the chair. "Enough to know that I didn't do my job correctly."

"What? You've been doing your job really well! What did-? Aizawa-sensei, some of us would be dead without you."

Aizawa flinched at the last part. He shook his head and explained: "I'm your guardian as well. I'm a Pro, but I'm also supposed to be a guardian. I wasn't paying enough attention to what might have been the most obvious conclusion to come to after the Sports Festival."

Izuku furrowed his brow. "How would it have been obvious?"

"Because I, like most in our line of work, have the same problems sometimes. Healing quirks are fantastic, and can be miraculous in some situations, but they are not perfect. The length of time that I can use my quirk shortened after the U.S.J. attack, and there's a rather large scar to prove it. Sometimes, my right ankle throbs after a fight; that's because it was crushed almost completely my first year during a villain attack. And we're not even going to touch on the PTSD that ensued, as well. I mean, even All Might has long lasting injuries. He lost his stomach during that one battle with All for One and has no way of gaining the muscle mass of his public form."

Izuku blinked, then stifled a laugh. He snorted, "I didn't even think about that."

"It's clear that there wasn't a lot of thinking going on here," Aizawa replied. He picked up the mug and took a sip of his tea.

Izuku sighed, running his hands along the sides of his head, smoothing his hair back. "Listen, I don't need any sort of special treatment if I'm going to stay on course. In fact, I'd prefer it if everyone could just leave it alone. I've had it managed for a long time now."

Aizawa almost snapped, then explained in an all-too level voice: "You shouldn't have had to manage it. Physical therapy and support items can do the job for you. For fuck's sake, you even figured that out last year when you added the reinforcement to your boots after developing Shoot Style."

Izuku scoffed. "I'm not an idiot. I know there's some things that can make it easier. But that's just for hero work. I don't need it every day."

Aizawa rubbed his temples. Izuku could make out most of what he muttered under his breath- 'stupid, stubborn problem children. All of them. You have a few near-death experiences, and your entire worldview becomes complicated on top of the usual hormonal puberty outbursts. In a normal voice, he said, "fine. Then, look at it this way. Being a hero, even just using your quirk; it requires a strict training schedule and a certain muscle mass maintenance to be successful. You agree with that, right?"

Izuku nodded.

Aizawa explained further. "This is an extension of that training. It's not even going to take a large amount of your day to habitually do." He slid a piece of paper across the table, written with Recovery Girl's letterhead. It was a bulleted list of what Izuku could only assume were physical therapy tactics. Izuku picked up the paper and combed through it as Aizawa continued. "Recovery Girl gave me this list of recommendations, but pretty much demanded you go to her office to give her more details about the specifics."

Izuku froze, lightning threatening to overflow from every pore of his body. He whispered, "Katsuki told her, too?"

"Yes, he did," Aizawa responded. "And for good reason. This is a medical problem, Midoriya. This can shave years off your hero career, let alone your life span. Chronic pain has been proven to put stress on the body in ways that can affect your cardiovascular health, your mental health, your respiratory health, even your digestive health for some people. You're killing yourself here, kid."

Izuku hated that it made sense. And he hated that it was even a possibility in the first place. So, he was willing to play along. "You said it won't affect my hero work if I do these things?"

Aizawa pursed his lips. He pondered a response for perhaps too long, in Izuku's opinion. "It will affect them. But it won't be negative for the majority of the time. You might have to cut down on certain moves until you manage your output levels more precisely, but it won't change much else."

Izuku sighed. He put the paper back down on the table and slid it back toward Aizawa. "Then…what am I supposed to do about it?"

Aizawa shoved the list right back. "Follow the list. Meet with Recovery Girl tomorrow, and then regularly to discuss any flare ups or side effects."

Izuku groaned. He hissed, "fuck. Just…fine. Fine, okay? Is that enough?"

"It was enough before," Aizawa stated. "But yes, that would also be enough."

Izuku scoffed and leaned back into the couch further. He shook his head, keeping his gaze firmly on the tea, which had stopped steaming, on the table. "I don't know why I even…I can't believe he told you."

Aizawa sighed. "Like I said, I don't know what you two are calling yourselves these days, but this was something that any rational human being would bring up."

"Yes, because the man who tells people to die for cutting chives badly is a perfect example of a rational human being," Izuku snorted. He pictured Kacchan in a sweater vest and wire rimmed, round glasses, explaining philosophical questions in great detail in a disgustingly calm tone.

Aizawa replied, "you know what I meant." He leaned forward from the chair, and added: "this isn't a punishment, Midoriya. Small steps are going to get you to the final destination, too."

Izuku just rolled his eyes. "I'll talk to her in the morning. Is that all?"

"Yes Midoriya," Aizawa replied. "That is all."

"I'm going to bed, then. See you in homeroom." Before Aizawa could respond, even get a breath of a 'good night' or 'see you then,' Izuku left, and let the door shut a bit too loudly for ten o'clock behind him.

The walk back to the boys' dorm wing was agonizingly long, but eventually he reached his door. Izuku decided that he definitely didn't have the will left to do his entire nighttime routine, flopped onto his bed, and counted sheep until the fire cooled in his veins.

~

Two weeks had passed since that night. Izuku fiddled with the edges of the gloves, trying to relieve the uncomfortable warmth the tight fit created. Though, he supposed it was better than the twinges of pain that normally came when the weather was bad.

He muttered a few good mornings and made a beeline for his desk. Only two minutes until the bell rung for homeroom, and he hated having to dig around for his notebook and pens as Aizawa was listing off announcements.

He extracted the items from his backpack and placed them carefully on his desk. He arranged them as he usually did, pleasantly surprised when he was able to curl his fingers around the pencil without even a hint of the sharp pangs that would have come before.

If he wasn't so irritated by how it happened, he might have been kicking himself for not talking about it sooner. 'Might have' being the operative part.

"Deku, what's going on with those gloves?" Uraraka cocked her head. She pointed at his hands and asked, "are they bandages? They're kind of weird looking."

"Whoa, were you fighting with Kacchan again?" Kaminari beamed. "Are you two beefing? If there was another Ground Beta and I wasn't there to see it, I'm gonna be so- "

"Shut the fuck up, Pikachu," Katsuki snapped. "It's none of your business."

Izuku waved his hands placatingly. "Kacchan, it's really okay- "

"It's none of their business, Deku. You idiots hear me?" He scanned the room. A chorus of agreement groused through the room before normal conversations resumed.

"Thank you," Izuku said in a hushed tone. "It's too early to talk that much."

Katsuki shrugged.

"And for the other thing. Even if you were an asshole," Izuku added with a smirk.

Katsuki swiveled in his seat. "I know that, you Freckle-fuck. Because I'm sure as hell not going to let some stupid injury compromise your hero career. When I beat you to number one, it's going to be on even ground."

Izuku held back a laugh. He beamed, and said: "Lookin' forward to it, Kacchan."