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A high pain tolerance is a requirement to survive in a world that refuses to see the true potential of those it doesn’t deem worthy of love or existence. Izuku was all too familiar with the rules of the world and his place within it. He’d grown up with a bright red tag on his registry and red sneakers; Quirkless. The truth was, he wasn’t quirkless at all, but no one believed him. His mother knew the truth, but she called it worthless, useless, just like her son.
So Izuku grew up learning exactly what his quirk could do, because it saved him countless times, and all that did was make his bullies beat harder.
“Doctor Midori, oh I can’t believe how lucky I am to catch you when you’re on call.”
Izuku chuckled. “I’d say it’s good to see you, Natta-obasan, but you’re here, which means you fell down the stairs again, ey?”
“Ohhh, you know me too well.” She clicked her tongue and held out her bright purple ankle. “Those darn stairs are going to be the death of me.”
“I’ll call your son and see if he can install grip tape with your landlord’s permission. Let’s get you all fixed up and on your way, don’t want you late for mahjong, do we?”
“Oh! Is it that late already? Yes yes, go ahead, dear.”
Izuku crouched down by the exam table so he could pick up her tender ankle. The older woman winced above him, but watched him intensely. Izuku closed his eyes and activated his quirk.
He’d called it ‘Alleviate’ because he could alleviate the pain others felt. Well, that’s what he told them. That’s what he put on his registry when he’d finally filed the changes at eighteen when his mother couldn’t stop him anymore. The truth? Izuku could transfer the wounds and pain from someone’s body to his own. The transfer took a few minutes, but he’d take on the wounds then his body healed itself naturally at a heightened pace.
How did he discover it? Someone punched him in the face hard enough to snap his neck around. Izuku felt the bones crack and crunch, his neck hitting a nearby window frame. He’d broken his neck. His whole body went limp on the ground, and his bullies ran away, fearing they’d actually killed him. They didn’t, but he’d been completely paralyzed from the neck down for several long minutes. He also had a broken fist. The whole thing happened in slow motion. Izuku watched his classmate’s knuckles heal almost instantly after shattering on his cheekbone. Then, his own fingers crinkled and his knuckles split as the boy ran away with a perfectly healed hand.
It manifested when he was fourteen. He assumed his activation requirements were lethal damage, which was one of the rarer manifestation requirements to exist, and often meant a user went presumed quirkless their whole lives - and usually died never knowing they had one. Izuku was lucky, and sometimes he felt cursed because of it. He’d discovered his quirk, and found a good use for it.
Today, at twenty-four, he was a well-loved Emergency Medicine Specialist at Musutafu General Hospital. He’d changed his name, left his brutal past behind himself, and never looked back. He’d left home at sixteen and lied his way into a top ranking trade school and then into medical school. The only lie he told was his quirk status, at least until he was eighteen and could get it changed without his mother’s permission and signature.
The ankle in his hands cracked back into place. The bruise faded back into the skin as the blood vessels healed. Ms. Natta let out a sigh of relief as she reached down to rub her hand along the joint. They always did that, like they didn’t quite believe the pain was gone. Izuku wondered what living pain free felt like. He’d never really experienced it. The broken neck left him with nerve damage. He’d spoken to a quirk specialist after med school and the answer was largely a shrug. Quirk manifestations were still mostly unpredictable and there was no real way to guess or estimate what might happen as a result. The specialist assumed that due to his late manifestation and the heinous activation requirement, his body had taken damage that his quirk just couldn’t heal completely. So, he lived in constant pain.
Nerve flares often left his hands or legs shaking uncontrollably, and he wore custom molded braces so he could walk properly due to his weak ankles from the nerve damage in his spine. Some days he required a cane or crutch. Most of the other medical professionals he worked with were aware of what was placed on his medical record as a ‘spinal injury during quirk manifestation’. He never told them the truth, he never told anyone the truth. Someone did this to him. Someone caused this. Instead, he took on the pain of everyone around him, and lived his life knowing he was improving lives around him, not worrying about his own.
Izuku stood up carefully to avoid Ms. Natta seeing his purple ankle. He offered her his hands so she could stand up and test out her healed joints.
“Ah! What a wonder that quirk of yours is. I’m surprised you’re not a surgeon by now.”
“Well, it doesn’t work like that, Obasan.” Besides, his hands shook too much for that line of work. “But thank you for the compliment. Now, off you go to the check-out station, you’re all set. Have fun at Mahjong.”
She pushed up onto her tip toes and kissed his cheek with a soft arm pat. “You’re such a good young man.”
“Don’t come back too soon.”
“Oh, I can dream.”
She laughed as she left. Izuku shook his head, making a mental note to call the woman’s son, her emergency contact, to ask for that grip tape. Her landlord really needed to stop polishing those damn stairs. Izuku was worried that one day she’d break her neck instead of her ankle.
Grabbing the woman’s chart, Izuku wandered back to the nurse’s station so he could make notes and finish her treatment. His limp wasn’t much worse than usual, so no one paid it much attention. Izuku ignored the pain. He could sit while charting the last few patients’ records, so it would likely be healed before he finished. A sigh of relief escaped his lips as he collapsed into a chair.
“You really shouldn’t push yourself so hard.”
“Mhm.” Izuku waved a hand to the charge-nurse; a nice, middle-aged woman who often had more to say than anyone wanted to hear. “I’ll remember that when I’m dead.” He often wondered if he could die. “Hey, is the chief on duty today?”
“No. Why? Something serious?” She sounded completely unbothered by the notion that Izuku needed the chief of surgery on a random Friday afternoon when he wasn’t even on duty.
“Ah, no. I was going to ask for his recommendation for a specialist. He used to be a neurosurgeon, but I know he hasn’t the time himself.”
“Has your condition progressed?”
Izuku shook his head. “Nothing like that. I’m just trying to get more ideas on mitigation of symptoms. Sleep has been hard lately.”
“I’d imagine so.” She hoisted herself up from her chair and settled her stethoscope around her neck. “Your shift is over, isn’t it?” Izuku nodded. “Well, when you finish charting and finally get home for the first time this week, take a long, hot bath, and add some epsom salts. We have some in the pharmacy you can pick up on the way out. It should help with the inflammation.”
“Thank you, Mirakai-san.”
“Mhm.”
It took almost two hours to finish his charting for the day. Izuku loved the overtime pay he often received but he was seriously overworking his body. Still, he loved his job. After everything that had happened to him as a child, he lost his faith in heroes, he lost his dream of becoming one. Instead, he decided with a quirk like his, he could become a hero to those that truly needed him; the wounded and unfortunate souls that are usually overlooked, just like he was.
Some days he wondered if he could have made a difference as a hero, but a healing quirk wasn’t useful in combat. Granted, Izuku’s quirk wasn’t just a healing quirk. It wasn’t just a way to alleviate pain. Izuku had learned, purely by accident, that he could, in fact, project his pain on others - temporarily, that is. It wasn’t the same as the primary function of his quirk, it didn’t actually give someone else the wounds or damage that he inherited upon healing a person. Instead, they only experienced the pain for a few moments. Still, that could have been a terribly useful tool in combat.
But then he’d realized he’d not be any better than his schoolhouse bullies if he projected his pain onto others, even as a defense. Quirks are tools, and Izuku didn’t want to abuse his. He wanted to make a difference, he wanted to put good into the world, good that was never offered to him.
A nurse’s clogs thundered down the hall. She came to a skittering stop right in front of Izuku at the nurse's station, her breath coming in gasping pants.
“Doctor Midori! They’ve been trying to page you. You’re needed in the Hero Ward. There’s been a building collapse during a villain attack. The civilians were all evacuated safely, but the heroes are still being pulled out.”
“Go- go! Tell them I’m on my way.”
Izuku shoved the chair aside to follow the nurse out of the emergency department to the Hero Ward on the fourth floor. She bolted back down the hallway and held the elevator for him. Izuku wasn’t as fast as most of the medical staff, and she likely knew that. He moved at his own rapid pace, which was just about a jog for most people.
She was already talking on her hospital comm when he arrived in the elevator, telling them she found Izuku and they were on their way up. All hospital staff had comms, which was easier than cell phones or outdated pagers while working. Izuku had taken his out to chart since he was about to clock out, but now he plucked it out of his pocket and placed it back in his ear.
“What’s the situation?”
“It’s bad. They’ve got several heroes with crush injuries to their limbs, most have head injuries and there’s concern about lung damage from the debris and dust. The worst of it is a bundle of rebar through a shoulder. You’re needed in surgery to help remove it.”
Izuku stared at the nurse in horror. “I’m not a surgeon.”
“I know. They need you to keep the patient stable while they work.”
Izuku sighed. Technically, she was right. He could use his quirk to alleviate the wounds as they worked, effectively healing as they cut into the patient. But Izuku almost never took on cases of internal bleeding or open surgeries…for very good reasons, he’d end up with the wounds himself. But no one knew that. No one knew the truth of his quirk. They all just assumed it was similar to Recovery Girl’s quirk, which sped up healing and alleviated pain. Fuck . This was not going to go well.
The nurse, whose name he still didn’t know, rushed him towards the surgery unit on the Hero Ward to get him scrubbed in. All the while she told him the condition of the patient, and the extensive wounds they’d sustained. A broken leg, broken arm, several broken ribs, a possible neck injury, and a small bundle of rebar shoved through his shoulder. Miraculously, the rebar missed anything vital, so now they had to extricate each single piece of rebar without causing more damage. That’s where Izuku came in.
The surgery unit was full, almost bursting, when he walked in with his scrubbed hands in the air. A nurse quickly covered him and double gloved him, then placed a clear shield over his face. The patient was already out and cut open, a broad white shoulder stuck out of the medical drape covering most of his body. His body . The moment Izuku saw who the patient was beneath the drape, he almost passed out when every drop of blood pooled into his legs from a double dose of gravity striking his head at a million miles an hour.
Katsuki Bakugo. Pro-Hero Ground Zero. Izuku’s ex-best friend and biggest bully. The man who punched Izuku into a window frame, breaking his neck, paralyzing him, and manifesting his quirk.
“-dori. -Midori. Doctor!”
Izuku sucked in a breath. “How can I help?”
“I need you to stabilize the patient’s shoulder while we extract the rebar. This won’t be fun, and we’re going to work at a snail’s pace. You seem unsettled by the wound, can you handle this?”
Izuku nodded. “It’s not the wound. Forgive me. I thought I recognized the patient. Yes. Please, continue. I’ll do my best.”
“Excellent. Nurse, scalpel.”
Izuku moved around the room to reach the exposed shoulder gruesomely speared with about seven pieces of rebar all sticking out at varying angles. The shoulder itself was practically obliterated. One piece of rebar even pierced the hero’s bicep. This would take serious quirk healing and long months of rehab. How the hell had this even happened? Did someone throw this rebar like a javelin? Izuku shouldn’t be thinking about the how and why right now, he needed to stabilize the patient. That’s all Katsuki was right now; a patient in need of healing.
Izuku placed his hand on Katsuki’s right wrist under the drape, well out of the way of the surgeon’s work. Touch was required to activate his quirk, five fingers, but it didn’t matter where he touched, and he could do so through gloves, thankfully. It didn’t have to be at the injury site, either. The second his hand made contact, every single wound on Katsuki’s body lit up like a christmas tree. He was a wreck, inside and out. His wounds were…almost lethal, if they didn’t work fast enough, that is.
So, now the hard part. Izuku needed to focus on just the internal injuries. If he took on the external injuries, he’d have a gaping wound in his shoulder, and that wasn’t exactly ideal, was it? No. So he took a slow breath and activated his quirk. The paint was immediate, nearly knocking him off his feet. A nurse steadied him, unsurprised that a healing quirk could affect the user when attempting to heal a horrible wound. At least he didn’t stand out. That didn’t stop his right arm from going limp at his side. He could feel the bruise erupting across his whole chest from all the internal bleeding Katsuki was currently suffering, but he forced himself still and clenched his teeth against the brutality.
“Doctor Midori.”
“Mmm?” He asked the surgeon.
“Does your quirk allow you to itemize the injuries in your patient?” Izuku nodded. “Tell me what we’ve missed.”
“There’s a- the brachial artery, it’s been nicked. Slow bleed, but if it’s not treated-”
“It’ll rupture, yes. Thank you. Can you tell me which rebar piece has nicked it? We’ll focus there first.” Izuku removed his left hand from Katsuki’s wrist and pointed to the rebar the surgeon needed. “Excellent. Anything else?”
“Mmmm, he’s dangerously close to contracting compartment syndrome in his left leg. You may wish to page Ortho.”
“Do as he says. Someone relieve the pressure until Ortho can get down here. Clamp.”
The surgery went on. Izuku kept his hand on Katsuki’s wrist, focusing on every wound in the man’s body, but only taking on the worst of them. Izuku had never tried to heal this many wounds at once, it was almost too much. He couldn’t repair the artery while also trying to keep Katsuki from bleeding out as they worked. This kind of hazardous surgery would normally be an almost assured lost cause without several blood transfusions or top tier healing quirks. It was a wonder he hadn’t bled out on the way here.
The surgeon removed the rebar Izuku pointed out first. The repair to the artery took a lot longer. It was delicate work. Meanwhile, Izuku was doing delicate work of his own balancing the internal bleeding and compartment syndrome to keep Katsuki both alive and keep all his limbs intact. He was on the verge of collapse when they finished stitching up the artery and Ortho arrived to do a mobile x-ray and set the leg. They also installed a drain to keep the pressure in his leg from building up while they’d been waiting for an ortho-surgeon to arrive.
A nurse helped him into a chair once he reported the patient was no longer in danger, but he was asked to remain in case someone else went wrong. Izuku watched Katsuki’s face while they worked. His eyes twitched under anesthesia, as if he were dreaming - but Izuku knew he wasn’t. The thought of saving his abuser’s life had never even graced the edges of Izuku’s mind, and yet here he sat, watching them pull half a dozen shafts of metal from the man’s body. Did saving his abuser’s life mean Izuku had beaten him, done better than him? Did this mean Katsuki now owed Izuku his life?
Did it really matter? At the end of the day, Izuku was doing his job, and Katsuki was just another patient. There was nothing special about him, after all. He was still incredibly human, just like everyone else, and he bled, just like everyone else.
“Doctor Midori?”
“Yes?”
“I’m going to request this patient remain on your service for monitoring of his brachial artery tear. This hero is known for his…explosive nature. The stress of his quirk could easily burst the repair before we can fully heal it, I’d like to see that that doesn’t happen. You’ve got a reputation for being….calming. I think he needs that.”
“You’ve no idea.” Izuku muttered to himself. “It’s probably best he remain sedated until he’s had a few rounds of quirk healing. I uhh- my quirk has limits, and I’ve already done far too many healing sessions today. I’d prefer Kazekawa take over for the night and I can check in on my next service tomorrow afternoon.”
“Perfect. I’ll see to the orders. We’re just about to close up. Thank you for your assistance.”
“Of course. If you’ll excuse me. I need to rest. I’ve already done three twelves.”
“Oh, don’t I know it? Thank you again.”
Izuku was helped out of the operating room by a kind nurse who also helped him scrub out. They were all so kind to him when they knew he’d exhausted himself by overusing his quirk. Healing quirks were well regarded in the medical field. There wasn’t really a hierarchy, but those with healing quirks were often appreciated for their efforts. The only downside to having a healing quirk was the limitation. All quirks had limits, but healing quirks took a lot out of a person, so the balancing act was trying to save as many lives as possible, before your own was forfeit.
Once he was done scrubbing out, Izuku immediately went to clock out and go home so he could finally, finally collapse into his bed and forget the world existed for a few hours.
~
Izuku managed to get a solid eight hours of sleep and a full meal before he had to get back to the hospital. His body decided to choose violence today, though, so he opted to take one of his forearm crutches just in case. It was never a bad thing to have support when one needed it. His shift didn’t start until two in the afternoon, but Izuku usually arrived an hour or two ahead of schedule so he could check on any outstanding charts and patients that were left over from the previous shift.
He’d managed to get all his charting done before the emergency last night, and he only had one patient still in the hospital since yesterday, well, one that was on his service, anyway. Izuku was still unsure about his position regarding Katsuki. Saving his life was just a part of Izuku’s job, but it felt like something more. Katsuki had always assumed Izuku believed himself better than the blonde. He wasn’t, but that didn’t stop him from believing it, and bullying Izuku for it. Regardless, it was almost time for Katsuki’s next dose of quirk healing, so Izuku clocked in and wandered up to the Hero Ward to take care of him.
For some reason, despite Katsuki being in the hospital, he didn’t necessarily expect to see anyone else he knew in the meantime. So when he walked into Katsuki’s room and found Mitsuki with a couple other heroes in full gear, Izuku half froze up. They didn’t notice him at first.
“Auntie?”
She jumped. “Izu-chan? Wha- what are you doing here?”
“I work here.” He gestured to Katsuki lying bandaged up in the bed. “Ka-Bakugo is on my service.”
“But- I thought Inko moved you to Tokyo. That’s what she told everyone. How are you here?”
Izuku glanced around between Katsuki’s mother and the three other heroes in the room. Izuku recognized them; Alien Queen, SparkPlug, and Red Riot. They were known to be Katsuki’s closest friends, and hero partners at his agency. Izuku didn’t know their civilian names. They didn’t seem bothered by the intrusion, just curious about Izuku’s familiarity with their friend.
“No. I uhh- I didn’t leave. Mom did. Without me. That’s…not important right now.”
Izuku nodded to the three heroes in the room and shuffled around to the far side of the bed. They moved out of his way to avoid the crutch under Izuku’s right arm. Mitsuki stood up. She offered Izuku the saddest look he’d ever seen.
“If you’re his doctor, can you please be honest with us?”
What did that mean? The pink haired female hero stepped forward to answer the question Izuku didn’t ask.
“The nurses and other doctors just keep saying he’s stable, but they refuse to tell us if he’s going to pull through or if this will put a dent into his career, they just keep offering vague bullshit about ‘overcoming injuries’.”
Izuku sighed himself into the chair so he could get off his feet. Most medical professionals here didn’t butt into cases that weren’t their own, and nurses couldn’t give outcome projections. Honestly, Izuku usually avoided giving a family too much hope when he knew there was none. In this case? There was plenty of reason to hope, and little reason to lie.
Izuku gently laid his fingers on Katsuki’s wrist to do a quick check of his vitals and his injuries. Everything was healing well. The muscular damage from the rebar was the biggest concern for Katsuki, given his quirk use required sturdy arm function.
“I assisted with the surgery he was given upon arrival. The main concerns were the rebar and his broken leg. The rebar nicked his brachial artery.” Izuku gestured to where the artery lay on his own collarbone. “And he almost developed compartment syndrome in his leg. Once the artery was repaired and orthopedics relieved the pressure in his leg - there wasn’t much concern for his condition worsening.”
“So- he's going to be fine?”
“That’s not what I said, Red Riot.” The hero ducked his head. “There’s no worry about him dying if that’s what you’re worried about. He’s stable, and healing. His broken bones are taking the quirk healing well and from what I can see, the drains can be removed later or tomorrow. His artery is almost healed, and I’ll see to that momentarily. But I do need to discuss something with Mitsuki.” When he looked up to her, Izuku offered a silent question about the other three heroes in the room.
“It’s fine, Izuku - they can stay.”
“Very well.” He stood up again. “The rebar tore through his shoulder and upper arm, which left a mess of muscular damage. While it can be healed, there’s concern that he’ll need intensive physical therapy to regain proper use of his arm. As we all know, Bakugo’s arms are required for his quirk. If he follows the medical plan we’ll develop for him, he should only be off duty for a few months. If he tries to push himself, he’ll only make it worse.”
“You know him so well, Izu-chan.”
“Yes, well, I should know, Auntie. I was on the receiving end of his right hook for a decade.”
It just…came out. The words fell from his lips like stone, dead weight anchors that cracked the floor the second they came out. There was no taking it back. The silence in the room told Izuku every single person had heard him, no matter how quietly he’d said it.
Instead of addressing the flaming elephant in the room, Izuku placed his hand on Katsuki’s shoulder, over the bandages, and activated his quirk. Several seconds of silent pain and the artery was fully healed. According to the chart, this would be his fourth quirk healing session, not counting the surgery, so he was responding well to treatments, which was a relief.
“I’ll have the nurses end his sedation now that the artery is healed up and he’s not at risk of bursting the repair.” Izuku ignored the pain in his own shoulder for the time being. “He should wake up shortly. I’ll check in on him during rounds later today.”
Mitsuki stood up before Izuku could round the bed and leave. She had her eyes on Izuku’s collar. Of course. He had to wear a comfortable v-neck scrub top today, what else would he wear? But that allowed her to catch sight of some of his scars.
“That’s why you stopped coming over, isn’t it? Katsuki- he- he hurt you?” Izuku remained silent and still, not confirming or denying her words. She gestured to his shoulder. “I know what his quirk looks like on skin. I got hit with it enough by accident when he was a toddler. But that- that’s…Izuku, talk to me.”
“There’s nothing to say, Mitsuki. We were best friends, and then we weren’t. I was diagnosed quirkless, and he decided I didn’t have a right to exist, and treated me accordingly, as did everyone else. Unfortunately, my quirk had some nasty activation requirements for it to manifest, but it did manifest, when I was fourteen.”
The younger woman, the hero, gasped. Mitsuki tried to reach for him across the bed but Izuku brushed her hand off gently. Red Riot tried to close in on him but Izuku shot him a glare. The man put up his hands and tried to placate the doctor in the room.
“Blasty would never hurt a kid. That’s not like him. All the youngings that come up for signatures get a look behind the screen, it’s just his hero persona, I swear.”
“You can’t defend someone you don’t know. You didn’t know him before hero school. You didn’t grow up with him. You didn’t grow up quirkless, either. You don’t have a right to speak.”
“Yeah - but it couldn’t have been that bad. Kids rough house, they poke fun at each other.”
“If you’ll excuse me.” Izuku sighed. “I have rounds to finish.” He didn’t. This was his only patient right now, but he desperately needed to leave this room when everyone was trying to defend the one person Izuku hated most. And oh, that was an interesting revelation; Izuku hated Katsuki.
“Hey- wait.”
The first time the blonde hero spoke, he grabbed Izuku’s arm. The damn thing was already sore from all the healing he did on Katsuki yesterday, and now he’s currently sporting stitches on his brachial artery after Alleviating them from Katsuki mere seconds ago, and someone went and grabbed his upper arm like it wasn’t throbbing. Izuku’s pain tolerance was high, sure, but that didn’t mean he didn’t feel it. Izuku’s crutch clattered to the ground when Izuku yanked his arm back.
“If you touch me again, I’ll have you all kicked out of this hospital. Defend him all you want, he’s a patient. He will be treated with respect and fairness that he never offered anyone else, and that’s far more than he deserves.”
“Izuku.” Mitsuki barked.
“You don’t get me to speak to me, Mitsuki. Not now, not ever. Not after everything he did to me.” He lowered himself to the ground to adjust his braces and pick up his crutch. “He’s the reason I have a quirk, so I guess I can thank him for it - but he’s also the reason I’m partially paralyzed from a spinal injury that he directly caused. So please, take the respect he's being offered and leave me alone.” Izuku finally made it to the door just as a nurse showed up from the commotion. “Stop Bakugo-san’s sedation and set up a drain removal. He can be moved into a recovery room. His quirk treatments are complete. I’ll have his treatment plan issued for discharge after two days of observation. Please place him on Doctor Kazekawa’s service.”
“Y-yes, Doctor Midori. Is everything alright?”
“I have rounds in the ED, excuse me.”
Avoiding the question would likely start rumors, but Izuku didn’t completely care right now. He really just needed a moment to splash cold water on his face before the tears he was currently choking on burned through his resolve.
Izuku sidestepped the nurse and left the Hero Ward as quickly as he could. Unfortunately, the blonde hero that tried to stop him in the room decided to follow Izuku down the hall, and he wasn’t fast enough on sore legs to out run a professional hero jogging ahead of him. They came to a stop at the end of the hall when SparkPlug got ahead of him and crossed his arms.
“What?” Izuku snapped.
“Look, I don’t know what your game is, but Blasty isn’t the kind of asshole to burn someone with his quirk, not intentionally, and he sure as hell wouldn't injure someone so bad as to-...” He gestured vaguely to Izuku as if he couldn’t say the damn words.
“To disable someone? You know nothing about him. What would I gain by lying? If I wanted to ruin his hero reputation, I could have done so a decade ago by hacking into our middle school’s surveillance system. Oh wait, I did.”
Izuku took out his phone. He logged into his personal cloud storage and pulled up the folder of all the evidence he’d gathered a few years ago, when he was too angry to let go of the past. But he’d stopped short of releasing it, because he’d convinced himself he should let it go. Izuku found the footage from the day Katsuki punched him into the window which snapped his neck, hit play, and held it out for the hero to watch. The whole clip was only thirty seconds long, but it was more than enough to prove his point.
“That’s the day my quirk manifested because I broke my neck when he punched me into a window. My quirk saved my life, and repaired most of the damage, but not all of it. Had I been truly quirkless? I would have died due to being paralyzed as I couldn't breathe on my own. He would have killed me. So, when you stand there and tell me Katsuki isn’t the kind of man to burn someone, I have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about. The Katsuki I know would have done a hell of a lot worse than an everyday burn.”
“Wh-..that- tha- that’s not possible. He’s not…he’s not like that.” The hero shoved Izuku’s phone out of his face and glared at Izuku. “I don’t believe you. That’s gotta be some kind of deep fake or whatever. People do it all the time to heroes just to try and ruin their ranking and popularity.”
Izuku snorted. “Fine. Ask him yourself.”
“Huh?”
“When he wakes up. Ask him about Deku. Ask him about the kid he told to take a swan dive off the roof. Ask him what he thinks happened to the Null he used to bully.” Izuku shoved past the hero, colliding their shoulders. “Ask him if he ever truly managed to bury the broken boy that’s still fucking alive, the very one who just saved his life.”
The electric hero didn’t reply, but Izuku felt the man’s eyes on him until he turned a corner and took the elevator down to the emergency department.
Slogging through work was entirely unpleasant after that. Izuku saw almost entirely minor wounds or problems for the day, which was a nice break from major healing. He was also noted on the board as on a ‘rest day’. This was a requirement of the job for all quirk healers. If they saw too many patients or utilized their quirk for serious emergencies, they were ordered to rest it for the day after. This was designed to prevent quirk exhaustion, but it didn’t always work. Luck just happened to be on his side today, so he bandaged the minor burns, stitched up the little cuts, and gave medication to the sick patients.
The charge nurse threw him glares if she spotted him thinking about using his quirk. How she knew, Izuku would likely never understand, but she did. Every time, he’d put his hands up in surrender and grab a wound kit instead. You don’t mess with the nurses. Period. The charge nurse? That was the department mother/grandmother/aunt - and you bowed your head to her, respectfully. Most of these nurses had been in practice longer than he’d been alive, so he trusted their judgement.
“Did you soak like I told you to?”
“Uhhh, well, after last night’s emergency in the Hero Ward, I collapsed in bed before I had a chance.”
“Mhm. Have you taken your lunch break yet?” Izuku shook his head. “Go on, we’re covered. You’ve been here for six hours already, and I know you probably clocked in early. Grab a bunk in the staff room and rest. I’m sure your spine is killing you.”
It was, actually. “Thanks.”
The relief Izuku felt when his head hit the pillow in the staff lounge was immeasurable. It took a solid five minutes of rolling around the bed to get all his joints to crack and release, but once he did, he practically sunk into the bed and passed the hell out (after setting an alarm).
But it wasn’t his damn alarm that woke him up. Instead, it was the ED charge nurse shoving him around the bed hard enough to shatter whatever meager REM he was trying to get.
“Ah-fuc- what? What’s going on?”
“Get up.”
“I’m up, I’m up. Where's the fire?” She leaned on the top bunk and pursed her lips at him. Shit, this wasn’t good. Izuku sat himself up and grabbed his shoes to start strapping himself back into his braces. “Seriously. What’s going on?” It couldn’t have been too dire, she wasn’t running back out of the room with the expectation he would follow.
“Your patient is asking for you.”
“What patient? I don’t have any patients admitted right now.”
“Oh but you do.” She groused. “The loud blonde hero with an explosion quirk who’s now wreaking havoc in the Hero Ward threatening to blast a goddamn hole in the wall if you aren’t brought to him.”
Izuku sighed into a moan. Of course. It didn’t matter how many years passed or how far away he moved from home, Izuku would never escape Katsuki fucking Bakugo. This was just his life. Of course, he could partially blame himself. He did tell SparkPlug to ask Katsuki about Izuku, and of course Mitsuki would say something about Izuku being a doctor here.
“Yeah - that tracks.”
“The chief is asking why this top ranking hero is making such a fuss over you, he wants to know what you did in that surgery, thinks it’s all going to end up in some malpractice suit.”
“Christ - no. We grew up together. He…my quirk manifested at fourteen. As a quirkless teenager, well, all my friends turned against me. Namely, Katsuki Bakugo. I assume he woke up and got told the little runt he used to beat up just saved his damn life and it drove him up a wall.”
“Oh.” She shrugged. “I’ll page up and let them know you’re on your way, and de-escalate the chief.”
“Thanks.”
The older woman left Izuku to put his shoes back on and wallow in his own grief. It was grief in a way, he grieved the childhood he should have had, the friends he lost, and all the time he spent alone when he could have been loved and accepted. He grieved the mother that never loved him, and the father who ran. But most of all, he grieved all the things he could have done, had he never lost his faith in heroism.
Grief was a powerful motivator, but not as much as pain and spite. Izuku had learned to thrive off the pain he was given and the spite that burned inside his gut. There wasn’t much left but his own exhaustion these days. But the small hope and love for doing good to those who needed help also kept him going. In the end, it didn’t matter if he hated Katsuki for all he’d done in the past, Izuku was a doctor, and that love of doing good for someone teetering between life and death was all that mattered.
Mitsuki stood outside the room Izuku had left a few hours ago looking shellshocked. She twitched every time Katsuki’s explosions fired off in the room or he shouted at what appeared to be several nurses trying to calm him down. Katsuki’s mother looked up to him with this pleading hope. Izuku just sighed and slid the door open.
“If you pop the artery I just fixed this morning, I’m having you restrained to the bed and shipped to the psych ward.” Izuku gestured to the nurses. “Get out.” They all eagerly scurried out, some of them covered in soot and a few sporting some mild burns on their arms. “You have no right to abuse the nurses like this. Care to explain yourself?”
But Katsuki just sat there on the bed, staring at him like he’d seen a ghost. Izuku shuffled into the room so he could grab the chair beside the hero’s bed and collapse into it with his crutch laying across his knees. Izuku spread his legs out in front of himself and sank into the uncomfortable plastic chair with a groan.
“Well, you got me here. What do you want, Bakugo?”
The blonde winced. “The fuck did you just call me?”
“Your name.”
“You haven’t called me that day in your life.”
“You lost the right to your nickname the day my quirk manifested. Besides, you always hated it anyway. Please just tell me what you want so I can get back to work. You went through all this madness to get me here; threatening the nurses, destroying the room, even panicking your own mother. Why the hell am I here?”
“You-” He growled, both hands pulling at his hair. “You’re here!” Izuku stared at him, dumbfounded. “You’re a doctor. You have a fucking quirk. You’re alive. Why the hell wouldn’t I want to see you? After everything - you survived, and you…” He sighed. “You did better than any of us.”
Was Izuku supposed to do something with that statement? Was it supposed to mean something? If it was, Izuku couldn’t possibly imagine what Katsuki hoped to convey, and honestly, he wasn’t sure he cared to.
All these years, and now, after Izuku saved his damn life, that’s when Katsuki decided to make a statement of Izuku’s survival? This is the moment he decides to make a point to reflect on his past wrongdoings? Something vile and crude like oil pushed itself up into Izuku’s throat, and weighed down his tongue. The aching doctor hoisted himself back to his feet so he could lean on his crutch and glare at the hero he once called a friend.
“I did. I survived. I survived you . I’ve nothing to say to you, Bakugo.”
“Nothing to say? Izuku, you saved my life, for what? You could have let me die. You could have paid back every wrong thing I ever did or said to you, and for some reason, you chose not to.” He stared at Izuku, dumbfounded. “ Why? ”
Izuku blinked. “You’re a patient. It’s no more complicated than that. You’re just another patient. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a job to get back to. If you disturb this hospital again, I’ll have you shipped to Hosu General to finish your observation.”
“Izuku-”
“Don’t ever speak to me again, Bakugo. We’ve nothing to say to each other.”
“Damnit, I’m not done with this-”
“I’m done!” Izuku barked. He hadn’t yet moved from the side of the bed. “This conversation is done. I will never forgive you. There is nothing you could possibly ever do to make up for what you’ve done. There is no atonement you could pay that would ever make this right. You broke my neck. You paralyzed me. You killed me. If you ever contact me again, I’ll have you charged with harassment. Do you understand me?”
“I…I don’t…”
“Do you understand me, Bakugo?”
“Yes!” He wailed. “Okay. I’ll leave you the fuck alone. I’m sorry.”
“If you’d said that two decades ago, this might have turned out differently.”
“Yeah…maybe I should have.”
Izuku turned on his heel and left without responding. As he said multiple times, they had nothing of substance left to say to each other. Izuku didn’t want Katsuki’s empty words. They meant nothing. Nothing he could say would fix the damage he’d done, so why bother saying anything at all?”
“Izu-chan?” Mitsuki’s frail voice called from across the hall.
“Goodbye. It was nice to see you. I’m sorry you had to find out this way.”
“I’m so sorry…I’m sorry, Izuku. Please, forgive us.”
“That’s not something I’m capable of, Bakugo-san. Please, have a good day. The nurses can help you if you need anything else while your son remains here.”
“T-thank you…for saving him.”
“Mmmm.” It was more than Katsuki ever did for Izuku, and it was the least he could do as a doctor. “Of course.” He left slowly. This time, the hallway was empty when he finally got to the elevator, and thank god it was, because heated tears poured down his face as soon as the doors closed.
Some broken little boy buried deep in his chest would always want an apology from the one man who hurt him most, but the careful adult Izuku had become would always protect that small, fragile child still coiled in his heart. No apology Katsuki could give would ever satisfy the trauma he’d sustained. The source of healing should not come from the source of the pain. He knew that, objectively, but some part of him would always ache for it, regardless.
Izuku had a job to do. Katsuki was nothing more than a patient. Pain was simply a part of Izuku’s life, and the incredibly high pain tolerance he’d built up over the years, often as a direct result of Katsuki’s actions, would hold him through his mess, even if it was a much less helpful crutch than the one currently under his arm.