Foresight

Chapter 1: Healer

"It has been said that time heals all wounds. I don't agree. The wounds remain. Time—the mind, protecting its sanity—covers them with some scar tissue and the pain lessens, but it is never gone.

—Rose Kennedy

"Just because the cast is off, doesn't mean you can run around punching things again. Remember that." Recovery girl shot a sharp look at her patient as she turned to her cabinet to pick up some medication.

Yagi Toshinori sat quietly on the hospital bed behind her, flexing his right arm and moving his fingers stiffly. The tendons stood out starkly from the back of his fragile, bony hands. And—because his stamina was now far too low on a permanent basis, Recovery Girl had only been able to give him small doses of healing, resulting in the cast being on much longer than he wanted. His arm was a bit thinner and weaker as a result.

She turned back around to see him staring at his thin forearm, and gently rubbing the paler skin where it had been wrapped. She sighed. "You'll gain that muscle back in time," the old woman said in a voice far more gentle than he normally would have expected. Toshinori looked sharply up at her, his blue eyes flashing brightly, and he tried to smile for her. He knew it must look forced from the shift in her expression.

The tiny, grey-haired woman typed something into her computer, and quickly printed a label, which she applied to the bottle of pills she was holding. "I want you to take this when you're in pain, All Might. I don't care if you think you need it or not. Give yourself a break from every part of your body hurting for once, all right?"

He locked eyes with her and, recognizing that she was serious, nodded.

She let out a soft sigh. "Good." She patted him gently on the shoulder. "Take one at first, two if the pain gets to be too much. You can have more four to six hours later. No more than ten in a day. No alcohol with these."

"I can't have alcohol anymore. You know that."

She huffed at him in surprisingly gentle irritation. "There's a lot of things you can't do anymore, All Might. I'm not fool enough to think that will stop you, so I'm not taking any chances. Take it with food, so you don't get an upset stomach."

"I don't have a—"

Her glare stopped his comment this time, and she continued firmly, "And they might make you drowsy, so avoid driving or using any support items, which I know you don't use, All Might. Don't say it. Just let me give all of the directions, so you don't get any idiot ideas into that head of yours."

His mouth shut with a guilty half-smile.

"Drink plenty of water with these. You need to drink more water anyway, you're dehydrated every time you come in here. The instructions are on the bottle if you forget," she concluded, finally handing the bottle of pills over to him. "There are enough to last you a month. I'm hoping you don't need that many, but if you wind up needing more, we can re-evaluate your condition at that time. Do you understand?"

He smiled tightly at her again. "Of course. Thank you, Recovery Girl. I'm sorry to be causing you so much trouble." He glanced up at the clock, and reached his long arm past her to grab his suit coat off of the chair beside her. "Thanks for everything. Truly. I need to get to class now, but I'll be back for my follow up in a few days."

He was just closing the door when heard her reply, "You can thank me by taking care of yourself, boy."

He smiled tiredly but said nothing as the door clicked shut behind him.

Sometimes life changing things happen in the most obvious of ways. They come with fireworks and bells and whistles, drawing our attention in a way that few other things can. Forcing us to look and pay attention and listen.

Other times, they come as quietly as the whisper of the wind through trees or the gentle scent of a coming rain. Simple things you don't always notice until they're already upon you. Things that you don't even think much on until you're in the middle of things or past them.

Sometimes you only notice if you're already used to paying attention to details.

This one came with pale green lightning and a gentle rain. A rumble of thunder. One final bright flash.

A silver-haired man, bruised and bloodied, dropped unceremoniously to the ground just outside of the building housing Recovery Girl's office on the UA campus, a short while after curfew began.

She never knew what possessed her to stay late that night. Recovery Girl made it a habit of going home as soon as her shift was over when there weren't any patients in order to balance out the nights she had to stay late for surprise injuries. But this time she just kept filing extra paperwork, doing inventory on her supplies, logging patient records. She couldn't bring herself to leave. It was as though she were waiting for something to happen. Like the world was holding its breath. Perhaps she'd heard the trees whispering about what was coming.

He was lying unconscious on the pavement just to the side of the entryway when she stepped outside. The old woman almost had a fit when she saw him. He was an older man—older even than All Might—but younger than she was. His silver hair was plastered to his head, and blood from hidden injuries was washing from his skin onto the wet pavement beneath him.

Her first instinct, of course, was to get him inside out of the driving rain, but Recovery Girl was a pro hero for a reason, and she hesitated, considering the situation more carefully. Namely, how had he gotten past the UA Barrier? UA had defenses even against flight and warp quirks. He shouldn't have been able to enter the school grounds unless he was a student or staff.

The man stirred slightly, and she realized that she was going to have to make a decision.

She crouched and brushed the silver hair back from the man's forehead to study his lined face. There was something familiar about him. Suddenly he stirred again, groaning as he struggled to move. Then all at once, he seemed to wake up abruptly, eyes flashing open as he drew himself back, wincing in pain as he moved. In a motion that was surprisingly fluid for his age and implied injuries, he pulled himself up and back into a crouch. He didn't appear to be quite steady and his gaze seemed unfocused. Recovery Girl suspected he had a concussion at minimum.

"Where am I?" the man rasped out in a tired voice, before coughing and spitting some blood. "And where's my partner?"

When she didn't answer right away, he lifted a shaky right hand to wipe blood, dirt and rain from his face—smearing it more than anything, and muttered to himself, "Figures I'd get blasted right out of the fight. Which quirk even hit me? If I didn't know better…"

He trailed off, murmuring a bit to himself about something or other.

The woman had moved back as quickly as he had, keeping herself as out of range as possible, but now that he was speaking, she began analyzing him again. Clearly he was injured, although she couldn't tell how badly at the moment. He seemed to be bone-tired and on the losing end of a battle of some sort. Every instinct she had screamed that this was a trap. But there was something about his voice, about the way he kept quietly muttering to himself, that struck her. She looked down at the hand he'd wiped his face with—scarred and bent—with what appeared to be further scarring making its way up his arm.

She felt a sudden clenching in her gut as an impossible realization struck her. Quietly, carefully, she asked, "Are you all right, boy?"

He stiffened, freezing in his muttering to look up at her, blinking a couple of times silently, and again brushing water from his eyes. One was bruised and had begun to swell shut. The other green eye attempted to focus on her. Quietly, he whispered, "Recovery Girl…"

She merely nodded, approaching now, and, when she was finally close enough to touch him, crouching gently beside him again.

He didn't move this time. He also didn't stop staring at her as though he'd seen a ghost. She wasn't surprised, honestly.

"I don't know who this partner of yours is that you're asking about, so I can't help you there," she replied simply. "And to answer your first question, you're at UA." Her eyes locked with his. "But I suspect you're already starting to figure that much out by now, boy."

His eyes didn't leave hers. "I can't be…" he whispered. "This isn't possible. How…?"

She forced a smile, frantically running through every possible scenario that could have led them to this point. She wasn't able to make sense of it, really, so instead, she simply replied.

"Impossible though it may be, it's true. This is your hero academia…Midoriya-kun."

Author's Note: Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed the chapter!

Sincerely,
Sirius:)