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Izuku didn’t know why he kept getting sent to the nurse’s office. His teacher said it was because he sounded sick, but he didn’t feel sick at all! He was a little down about being quirkless, sure, but his diagnosis had been over two years ago. He didn’t understand why Yamamoto-sensei kept sending him to the nurse’s office.
“No fever,” the nurse mused, tapping the thermometer idly. She dropped it back into the drawer in her desk and punched in a few numbers on her computer. Izuku swung his legs, huffing when they didn’t quite reach the floor. “You don’t seem sick. What was your teacher’s reason for sending you down?”
“I dunno,” Izuku shrugged, then sniffled. “She didn’t tell me.”
“Hm,” the nurse leaned back in her chair, “this is the fifth time this month that you’ve been sent down, and every time you’ve looked completely normal.”
Izuku sniffled again. “I don’t feel sick at all,” he said, then sniffled for a third time.
The nurse picked up the phone. “Let me call her real quick, alright? We’ll see if we can get this figured out.”
Izuku nodded. “Okay.” He fiddled with the collar of his uniform while he waited, tuning out the conversation. Mama said it was rude to listen in when adults talked on the phone.
A couple minutes (and approximately ten sniffles) later, the nurse hung up the phone. “Yamamoto-san told me that you’ve been sniffling a lot, and she wonders if it’s seasonal allergies.”
“I don’t have allergies,” Izuku protested.
“It’s just a theory,” the nurse cut in, “and I have been hearing you sniffle a lot.”
“It’s not on purpose,” Izuku mumbled, “I don’t have the sniffles.”
“Sniffles aren’t usually on purpose, Izuku-kun. Now, since you don’t have a temperature, I think I can send you back to class.” She reached for a slip of paper, filled it out, and handed it to the boy. “Hand this to your teacher once you get back, okay?”
“Okay,” Izuku frowned, hopping out of the chair. He folded up the paper and stuffed it into the pocket of his blouse. “Thank you.”
“Of course.”
In hindsight, that probably should have been the first clue-in that something wasn’t quite right, but Izuku was seven, and it wasn’t something serious- it was just a couple sniffles every once in a while!
Izuku went back to class, the thought that something might be wrong not even crossing his mind.
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The second thing that definitely should have clued him into something being amiss didn’t happen until Izuku was ten years old- three years after the sniffles incident. Since then, he’d stopped sniffling, and everything seemed okay for a while.
“Seemed” was the key word there, because how was Izuku to know that something wasn’t right?
It was sometime in the middle of January when the incident happened. Izuku had just recovered from a nasty cold (an actual reason to have the sniffles this time), and it was his first day back in school. Kacchan wasn’t talking to him anymore, he usually just shot him angry glares from across the classroom, but that was okay. Izuku didn’t mind.
Izuku doodled on the corner of his math notes to pass the time during class. He already knew his thirteen times tables, so he didn’t need to pay attention. Everything was calm, the teacher droned on and on about multiplication, a couple students tapped their pencils against their desks, Izuku doodled- everything was, for once, almost peaceful.
Well, it was, until Izuku blurted out: “Wow!”
The class erupted into a cacophony of laughter, shame burning on Izuku’s cheeks. The teacher- Takeda-sensei, quieted the class. “Do you find this subject interesting, Midoriya?” he deadpanned, setting down his chalk to cross his arms over his chest.
Izuku’s face burned with humiliation, but he couldn’t help when he yelled “wow!” for the second time, his shoulders shrugging up as if he was confused.But he wasn’t confused at all- well, maybe he was a little confused as to why he kept yelling “wow,” but he didn’t want to shrug his shoulders. Laughter erupted throughout the room again. Izuku buried his face into his arms, muffling the next “wow!”
“This isn’t funny, Midoriya,” Takeda-sensei reprimanded, face turning sour. He looked almost amused before, but now he looked like he was about to send Izuku down to the principal’s office.
“I’m not doing it on purpose,” Izuku brought his head up. His throat did a sort of twitching movement, and he could feel the next exclamation coming on. He swallowed it down as best as he could, forcing himself to keep his outburst inside.
“Of course you’re not,” Takeda-sensei replied shortly, annoyance creeping into his tone, “you should go down to the front office, if all you’re going to do is distract the class.”
Izuku would have protested, but he didn’t want to embarrass himself any more than he already did, and the giggles from his classmates were still echoing from around the room. He gathered his things quickly and bolted from the room.
Izuku felt hot tears dripping down his face, though he breathed a sigh of relief when he saw nobody else was around. The exclamations that he’d bottled up came tumbling out, erupting like the baking soda volcano he made for the science fair last year. His head even jerked to his shoulder a few times- an unpleasant feeling, if he was being honest.
He dragged himself into the front office, ears burning still from the humiliation earlier. The lady at the front desk looked up upon his entrance.
“Midoriya-kun? What are you doing down here?” she asked, voice full of surprise. Izuku’s cheeks burned.
“I got kicked out of class,” he mumbled, miserably plopping himself into one of the chairs in the waiting area.
“Really? You’ve never gotten into trouble before- well, not trouble that hasn’t been started by someone else.” The lady- Izuku couldn’t remember her name- looked like she wanted to come over and console him, but she restrained herself. “What happened?”
“I-” Izuku wiped his tears away, “I was disrupting the class.”
“I find that a bit hard to believe,” she frowned. “Here, why don’t I call in Suzuki-sensei, and you two can have a chat?”
Izuku nodded, his heart speeding up a bit. He felt the pounding of his pulse in his throat, and his stomach twisted. He gripped his uniform pants, trying not to cry again. He didn’t know how long he waited, only that he shouted “wow!” a few times while he sat there. He could feel the lady’s burning gaze on the side of his head, and he tried to ignore it in lieu of staring at the floor.
“Midoriya-kun?” Izuku’s head snapped up at the mention of his name, heart skipping a beat. Suzuki-sensei- the principal- stood outside the door leading into his office. “You can come in.”
Izuku nodded, standing up. He left his things on the chair, hoping nobody would mind, and followed his principal into his office.
Izuku felt like he was being escorted to an interrogation chamber, like he had committed a crime and now the police had caught up to him. “Why don’t you take a seat,” Suzuki-sensei said, voice oddly kind. Izuku nodded and sat down as quickly as possible, making sure his posture was as straight as a wooden board.
“Now, I was told by your teacher that you disrupted class multiple times, despite being asked to stop.” Izuku ducked his head down, cheeks tinging red again. “This seems very out of character for you. Why don’t you tell me your side of the story?”
“I didn’t do it on purpose,” Izuku blurted out, “it was like someone made me say it.”
“What did you say?”
“Wow.”
Suzuki-sensei’s face morphed to look almost confused. “That’s it?”
“Yes.” After a moment or so, Izuku added: “My head jerked when I said it.”
“Your head jerked? What do you mean?”
As if right on-cue, Izuku felt the now-familiar sensation bubbling up inside of him, almost like a sneeze. His eyes forced themselves shut, his head jerked to his shoulder, and he yelled: “Wow!”
“Was that a demonstration?” Suzuki-sensei asked, concern etched into the wrinkle on his forehead.
Izuku shook his head, and the action repeated itself. “No, I don’t- Wow!- I don’t want to do it, Suzuki-sensei!”
“Alright, alright, calm down Midoriya-san,” Suzuki-sensei soothed, reaching for the tissue box. He wordlessly handed one to the distraught boy. Izuku touched his face and, to his horror, felt tears spilling down his cheeks. He wiped them away and crumpled the tissue up in his fist. “So, you have no control over these… outbursts?”
Izuku nodded.
“Hm. Why don’t I call your mom- hey, hey, don’t cry- you’re not in trouble, I promise.” Izuku sniffled and nodded, hands shaky. He gripped the fabric of his pants again. “I’ll call your mom and she can pick you up. Maybe you’ll figure out what’s happening over the weekend.”
Izuku nodded a third time, another “wow!” ripping itself from his throat. He stood, bowing politely, and bolted from the room.
Mama was silent when she came to pick him up, though Izuku could tell that she was disappointed. “Izuku, honey, I understand you haven’t been feeling good, but you can’t be doing stuff like this,” she reprimanded while they were stuck in traffic.
“I didn’t want to interrupt class, Mama,” he protested weakly, voice hoarse from crying. His head jerked to his shoulder.
“For the love of- Izuku, stop doing that. You’re gonna hurt your neck if you keep that up.”
“I can’t stop it!” he wailed, head jerking again. “I wanna stop but I can’t!”
“What do you mean? Of course you can stop,” Mama scolded, “now please be quiet. We’ll talk once we get back.”
Izuku’s cheeks burned, but he said nothing else for the entire ride back.
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The third thing that clued him into something being wrong happened when Izuku was eleven. Outbursts like the first one he had were now commonplace, and his teachers had stopped bothering to reprimand him, only shooting him dirty looks if they got out of hand. Izuku tried to suppress them as best as he could, but it was like holding in a sneeze- if he let it build up, they’d just get more intense and they’d start to hurt.
He hated them, whatever they were. He hated that his mom didn’t believe him, he hated that his classmates snickered whenever they happened, he hated the dirty looks his teachers shot him during class, he hated all of it.
They’d evolved since the last time, too. The shoulder shrugging had stopped, and in its place two more appeared. Now, the shrugging was replaced with rolling his head and tensing his stomach muscles, which was… significantly more disruptive than before.
He hadn’t developed any new outbursts for a while, though, so he was hoping that they’d started to calm down a little, but a singular incident proved him wrong.
Izuku had been shopping with his mom when it happened.
He hadn’t slept very well, so the outbursts were happening a lot more than they usually did. He tried to keep them in as best as he could, which was somewhat successful, given that he wasn’t getting very many awkward and/or annoyed glares from other customers. He successfully suppressed quite a number of them, now that he was more adept at the discomfort that preceded them.
His neck being tingly meant that he was either about to roll his head or jerk it to his shoulder, depending on how intense it was. He could feel a brief sense of discomfort before his stomach muscles clenched (he wasn’t too worried about suppressing that one, though, especially since he was wearing a baggy All Might hoodie), and he got a feeling in his throat not unlike the feeling he got before he was about to cough before he would yell “wow!”
He was getting better at recognizing them, which was all fine and good, until it meant that he knew when he was about to be publicly humiliated. Well, at least it wasn’t a total gamble on when it would happen now. At least there was that.
He trailed close behind his mom, heart speeding up. His eyes felt like they were fluttering with how quickly he was glancing between customers. They weaved through the Saturday morning grocery store crowds, his mom occasionally picking out items from the shelves and dropping them into her basket. She would periodically glance over her shoulder to make sure Izuku was following her, something that filled Izuku’s very blood with annoyance. He wasn’t a baby- he knew how to keep up with her without getting lost.
His mom paused in the dairy aisle, her eyes flitting across the rows of milk and cheese to find exactly what she was looking for. She opened a carton of eggs, inspecting the interior, and carefully placed it into the basket. Izuku leaned against one of the glass doors that kept the cold inside, feeling the chill on his back even through two layers of clothing. He let his mom do her thing, inspecting the dairy products like they were important pieces of evidence that would solve a mysterious murder. He could steadily feel his eyes growing heavier and heavier, until it was nearly impossible to keep them open.
Suddenly, a sensation he’d never felt before struck him like one of Kacchan’s explosions. His head tingled, first not so bad, then more intensely, until he could feel himself stepping away from the door to hopefully avoid any negative consequences of what was about to happen. He shut his eyes, braced himself, and-
Pain. Red, searing-hot pain overtook all his senses. He vaguely registered his knees giving out under him, his body collapsing in on itself until he crumpled on the floor. His head throbbed, his vision went murky, and he thought he could hear someone screaming his name. Arms, sturdy and protective, gripped his shoulders, pulling him off the cold floor. Izuku opened his eyes, squinting up at the lights. Light danced across his vision, black spots clouding the edges, until he was forced to close them. His ears weren’t working properly, everything sounded fuzzy and far-away, like Kacchan had just let off an explosion right next to his ear and his hearing was muffled, and what was that wetness he could feel on the top of his head?
“IZUKU!”
Izuku grimaced, pain flooding his head at the scream.
“Don’t- could- concus-”
Another voice, this time male, frantic and almost watery. Another pair of hands settled themselves on his shoulders, easing him away from the first pair and gently lowering him onto the ground. He winced in preparation for the no-doubt hard surface, but to his relief, something soft laid there instead. Was it a pillow? No, that couldn’t be right… Izuku couldn’t remember where he was. Where was Mama?
His head weakly jerked to his shoulder, crumpling up whatever it was that was laid out underneath his head. It jerked a second time. Someone held his head still. His head tried to resist, tried to jerk to his shoulder, but the hands were firm and kept him in place.
He tried to stay awake, the screams of his names echoing in his head like they would in an empty tunnel, but the darkness overtook him, offering to ease his pain, and he knew no more.
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.
When Izuku woke up, he had no memory of what happened. His mom had to tearfully explain to him that he’d suddenly collapsed at the grocery store and hit his head on the floor. Izuku frowned- why would he have randomly collapsed out of the blue like that?- but accepted it as an explanation- well, he did, until the doctor came in.
“The severity of the head trauma indicates that something far more serious happened than just hitting his head when he collapsed,” the doctor said, looking at the clipboard in his hand. A hand reached out from behind his back to adjust his glasses. Izuku’s vision was still a bit fuzzy, but he was able to make out that the doctor had six hands- six!- four of which attached to his back.
“What do you mean?” Mama sputtered, concern lacing her words. The doctor remained unphased. He turned to Izuku, yellow eyes narrowing.
“Midoriya-kun, did something happen in the moments before you collapsed?”
Izuku thought back. His memory was hazy, and he didn’t remember the majority of the trip, but he remembered a strange tingling in the back of his head, followed by a flood of pain and inky blackness.
“I don’t know,” Izuku shrugged, head jerking to his shoulder.
“Hey, hey, don’t go doing that yet,” the doctor- he was close enough for Izuku to make out the “Dr. Sanders” engraved on his name tag- rushed forward, one arm coming out from behind his back to steady Izuku. Izuku’s head jerked again, followed by a loud “Wow!”
“Izuku, now isn’t the time to be doing that,” Mama scolded, gripping her purse tightly.
Izuku didn’t bother to explain himself- why should he when she never listened?- and instead mumbled a half-hearted apology. Dr. Sanders furrowed his brow. Izuku glanced up, eyes widening slightly at the scales that covered half of the doctor’s face. “Midoriya-san, would you mind if I spoke to your son alone, please?”
Mama looked like she wanted to refuse, but she nodded anyway. She pulled herself together, smoothing out her blouse and skirt, and hurried out of the room. Izuku let out a sigh, releasing the embarrassment he hadn’t known had been building up inside of him.
Dr. Sanders seated himself on the edge of the bed, setting his clipboard down on his lap, and spoke. “Midoriya-kun, do you happen to have a tic disorder?”
Izuku frowned. “No. What’s that? Is it like when the bug bites you and you get a rash and then you get sick?”
“No, that’s ‘tick’ with a ‘k,’ I’m talking about ‘tic’ without the ‘c’.”
“Oh.” Izuku wrinkled his nose. “What’s that?”
“A tic is something that happens without you wanting it to. It’s like a sneeze. Maybe your head jerks, or you yell something out, or you blink really hard. A tic disorder is when those tics go on for a long time.”
Izuku’s eyes widened. “I do stuff like that!”
“Yeah?”
“Does that mean I have a tic disorder?”
“Not necessarily,” Dr. Sanders jotted something down on his clipboard, “but maybe. How long have you been experiencing tics?”
Izuku shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe a year?”
“Did a tic cause you to hit your head?”
He shrugged again. “I don’t remember. Maybe.”
Izuku’s head tingled- the feeling he now associated with his head injury. He panicked, hand shooting out to grab onto the sides of the hospital bed, before his head jerked downwards, slamming onto the sheet in front of him. Tears pooled up in his eyes, flooding down his cheeks. He sniffled, heaving himself upward. His stomach muscles clenched.
“I have a feeling that might be the one,” Dr. Sanders mused, standing up. He handed Izuku a tissue, allowing him to wipe his eyes. “I think you might have slammed your head into something and gave yourself a concussion.”
Izuku frowned. “Maybe.” He sniffled and wiped his eyes again.
“Was there anything nearby that you could have hit your head with? A wall, maybe a piece of furniture?”
“I was standing next to one of those door thingies in the grocery store,” Izuku replied, his memory slowly returning to him.
“That might explain it,” Dr. Sanders sent him a little half smile, tucking the clipboard under his arm. “Should I call your mom back in now?”
“Okay. Thanks for letting me talk to you alone, Dr. Sanders.”
The doctor smiled again. “Of course, Midoriya-kun.” He paced over to the door, opening it a little and calling for Mama to come back into the room. Mama practically ran inside, her appearance frazzled, tucking her phone into her purse.
“Midoriya-kun seems to have a bit of temporary amnesia from the incident, but that should hopefully clear itself up soon. I don’t think he’ll need anything stronger than over-the-counter medication, so you can just give him Benadryl as needed. I recommend a lot of bedrest for the time being, at least a week and a half. I’ll send a note over to his school as soon as possible to excuse him. Make sure you change out the bandages every few hours or so, and apply some ointment onto his scalp.”
Mama nodded, adjusting her half-ponytail until the hair tie was snug against her scalp. “What should I do if the pain gets worse?”
“Then you should come back and we can prescribe something stronger. If you notice that his symptoms get worse, please come back so we can check him out again.”
Mama nodded again. “Okay.”
Dr. Sanders detached the clip from Izuku’s finger, unplugging the machine by Izuku’s bedside as he did. “Your vitals are looking good so far, just wait here until the nurse comes in to check the rest, alright?”
Now it was Izuku’s turn to nod. Dr. Sanders adjusted his glasses once more and turned to Mama. “I also have reason to suspect that Midoriya-kun might have a tic disorder,” he informed her. Mama’s eyes widened.
“A- tic disorder? What’s that?”
“A tic disorder is a condition that causes uncontrollable movements and sounds, such as blinking, shrugging, or, in Izuku’s case, head banging, jerking, and exclamations.”
“I…” she turned to Izuku, who had since abandoned the sheet covering his legs. His cheeks burned from the attention suddenly directed at him. “Are you saying it’s… an actual thing? Not just, I don’t know, attention-seeking?”
“Yes,” he nodded, “I don’t think Midoriya-kun would have smashed his own head into a door just for the sake of attention, and it seems like it’s involuntary.”
Mama’s face paled. “Is that what actually happened?”
“From what we know, yes. I recommend seeing a neurologist, we have several in the area. It seems like this is affecting his life quite significantly, and it’s better to get a diagnosis early on than to wait and see if it gets worse.”
Mama nodded, face paling further. Izuku could have mistaken her to be a ghost, had she been wearing white clothes. “Okay. I’ll… I’ll look into that.”
Dr. Sanders’ lips twitched into a smile, and one of his arms reached out to pat Izuku on the head. “Alright. Goodbye, Midoriya-kun, Midoriya-san.”
“Bye, Dr. Sanders,” Izuku waved. Mama bowed out of respect.
Mama turned to him once the doctor had left. “Izuku, I- I’m so sorry,” she whispered, guilt painting her features, “I thought you were just making it up for attention. I know it’s hard, being quirkless, so I- I thought you just made it up. I’m so, so sorry, Izuku.”
“It’s okay, Mama,” Izuku gave a sad little smile, “Dr. Sanders said I can get diagnosed so I can get help. Besides, you didn’t know any better.”
“No, I didn’t, but it was unfair of me to assume you were pretending for attention.”
Izuku sighed, bringing his legs up to his chest. His head ached, the site of the injury throbbing. He buried his head into his knees and sighed in relief when all he could see was darkness. The bed creaked as his mom sat down next to him, wrapping an arm around him. He leaned into her side, sniffling.
Hopefully, this was a sign that things were starting to look up.
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.
There hadn’t been an incident in four years- an impressive streak, given Izuku’s notoriously bad luck when it came to situations like these.
He’d gotten his diagnosis a few months after the grocery store incident. The neurologist was shocked that they hadn’t come in sooner, but after she assessed him, the actual diagnostic process was pretty quick.
Now, four years later, Izuku was starting at a new school. UA was a far cry from Aldera- there was structure to everything, his teachers were stricter, yet somehow far kinder, and there was no tolerance for bullying at all, meaning that Kacchan couldn’t beat him up after school and he was safe from the taunts that had followed him since he was in elementary school. He hadn’t had “the talk” with any of his teachers about his Tourette’s yet, mainly because, well, it was only the second week of school, and Izuku’s tics had been rather minor and unnoticeable for the most part. He was a bit intimidated by Aizawa, to be honest, and he thought he recognized Present Mic from somewhere, but it could have just been Izuku’s mind trying to play tricks on him.
“Midoriya.”
“Gah!” Izuku stumbled back in his seat, his pencil nearly flinging itself out of his hand. “Sorry! What was the question?”
Aizawa glared at him over his scarf. “I asked if you needed to go to the nurse.”
Izuku blinked, registering the question, before he sputtered out, “n-no, I’m okay.”
“Then pay attention.” The hero turned back to the board. “Now, who here can tell me the first out of the four fundamental laws of pro-heroism?”
Most hands shot up. “Iida.”
“The first fundamental law of pro-heroism is to value the life of a civilian over the capture of a villain!”
Aizawa grunted. “Good. Uraraka, can you tell me the second law?”
“Um… uphold the law, and only break it if the circumstances allow it?”
“Correct. Sero, give me the third.”
“I don’t remember, but I think it has to do with quirk usage?”
“Ashido, can you fill in what he’s missing?”
“Bold of you to assume I know that either, Aizawa-sensei.”
Aizawa sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose between two fingers. “Why do I even try with you people? Bakugou. Your turn, and so help me if you say ‘I don’t know.’”
Kacchan sneered, propping his legs up on the back of Midoriya’s chair. “Of course I know. Do you really take me for one of these losers? Don’t use your quirk unless necessary, and keep damage to an absolute minimum.”
“Maybe he should take a page out of that,” Uraraka mumbled. Izuku stifled a giggle with his hand.
Aizawa, luckily, didn’t seem to hear them, or if he did, he elected to ignore them. “Midoriya, tell me the fourth law.”
Izuku froze up for a second before blurting out: “The fourth fundamental law of heroism is to never bring direct harm onto a villain, unless their actions threaten you, them, the people around him, or property, personal, public or private.”
He breathed a sigh of relief when Aizawa nodded. He felt his neck give the telltale tingle that indicated a tic was coming on before his head jerked to his shoulder. His lips vibrated, making a “brrrr” sound that by now was familiar to him. A couple students turned to stare at him. Izuku’s cheeks burned under the attention.
“Oi, what are you extras looking at?!” Kacchan barked, leaning back in his chair until it was bordering on tipping over.
The students staring at Izuku quickly looked away, no doubt intimidated by Kacchan. Izuku shot him a grateful smile, only to be met with a sneer. He let out a nervous laugh and turned back around.
Izuku would have written the incident off, attributing it to boredom or something like that, but luck didn’t seem to be on his side that day. His tics only worsened from there, escalating quickly from head jerking and lip trilling up to blatant exclamations and whole-body movements. Aizawa stopped to glare at him a number of times, each time causing Izuku’s blush to deepen further.
Izuku tried to suppress his tics, but to no avail. They just kept hitting him, each time worse than the last. It wasn’t until his head banged against his desk that Aizawa seemed fed up with him, gritting out, “Midoriya. Hallway. Now.”
Izuku stood, vision swirling from the impact, and stumbled to the doorway, following his teacher outside like a baby chick. Aizawa shot off a text to someone, and seconds later, Midnight-sensei came barreling down the hall. “Shouta! You’re so cryptic with your messages! I thought you were dying or something!” she scolded, whacking him upside the head.
Aizawa buried his face into his capture weapon. “Watch my class for a minute or two,” he said, rubbing the back of his head. “Midoriya, follow me.”
Izuku complied, stifling another tic. He let out a “whoo!” sound, his head jerking to the side.
Aizawa ushered him into a room that Izuku recognized to be the teacher’s lounge from the several times he’d had lunch with All Might. He scurried inside, sitting down on the slightly-uncomfortable couch. Aizawa seated himself on the chair opposite of the couch, folding his hands across his chest. Izuku was reminded of the anxiety that had come with being interrogated by the principal several years back- hell, the situation was practically identical.
“Care to explain why you’re disrupting my class?” Aizawa asked, crossing one leg over the other.
“It’s- wow!- it’s not intentional, Sensei,” he attempted to explain, before Aizawa cut him off.
“What do you mean, it’s not intentional? That looked pretty intentional to me.”
Izuku’s shoulders hunched up, eyes squinting shut, and he felt his arm shoot out to tap the coffee table in front of him, a loud “bop!” escaping him. “I have Tourette’s, Sensei.”
Aizawa’s eyebrow quirked up, like he’d heard of it before, but wasn’t entirely sure what it meant. Izuku could understand that- most people had a very bare-bones understanding of the condition, if they even knew what it was. Izuku sighed, shoulders hunching up again and his hand slapping the side of his head. “It means I have uncontrollable movements called-”
“I know what Tourette’s is, Problem Child,” he interrupted, “I just want to know why it isn’t in your file.”
Izuku’s brow scrunched up in confusion. “It’s not in my file? My old school had it on record.”
“My only guess is that it probably got lost in the transfer somewhere,” Aizawa hummed, hunching over a bit in the chair, “UA has an extremely secure computer system, so we wind up with multiple records missing every year. It’s nothing new, and we have a protocol for things like this. You just need to get a written letter from whoever diagnosed you, as well as a letter from at least three of your old teachers confirming that you received accommodations, or were at least aware of your diagnosis.”
Izuku nodded, head beginning to hurt.
“Is something wrong?” Aizawa asked, voice uncharacteristically concerned.
Izuku nodded, rubbing his temples. Another “wow!” pulled itself from his throat, further aggravating his headache. “Yeah, I- whoo!- banged my head on the desk, if you couldn’t tell.”
For a moment, Izuku (quite worriedly) wondered if he’d taken it too far, and if Aizawa would reprimand him for being snarky with him, but his nerves were put at ease when his teacher barked out a short laugh. “Why don’t I take you down to see Recovery Girl, Problem Child? Get that head of yours checked out?”
Izuku wordlessly nodded, awkwardly standing and shifting from foot to foot. Aizawa led him down to the nurse’s office, Izuku following behind like a baby duckling. Sometime along the way, Present Mic passed the two, stopping to say hello. He tilted his head at Izuku, as if he recognized him from somewhere, then shouted: “Heyy! I know you! You’re that kid from the grocery store!”
Izuku winced at the noise. “What do you mean? What grocery store?”
“Four years ago, remember? Man, you were out of it, Little Listener!”
Aizawa turned to look at him, confused. “You’ve met before?”
Izuku vaguely remembered his voice, though his recognition came from a calmer setting, not from the shouting he normally heard during class and on TV. His eyes widened and he let out another “whoo!” “Oh! You’re the guy who helped me out back there!”
Present Mic grinned, eyes peeking over the tops of his sunglasses. “Right on! Man, you were tiny!”
Izuku blushed, but nodded. “Yeah, uh- sorry about that,” he grinned sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head. He winced as his hand brushed over the top of his head, where he’d banged it into his desk. He could already feel a bruise beginning to bloom, the swelling that would no doubt follow promising to be unpleasant.
“I’m confused,” Aizawa looked between the two of them, “what exactly was this ‘incident?’”
“I was going grocery shopping with my mom,” Izuku explained, “and I wound up slamming my head into one of those door thingies- you know, the fridges on the dairy aisle?”
“I happened to be walking by and saw this little listener on the ground. I administered first aid until the paramedics got there.”
“I never got to thank you for that, by the way,” Izuku smiled, “my mom probably would have ended up making my concussion worse.”
Present Mic grinned, reaching out to ruffle his hair. He spotted the reddened area on Izuku’s forehead and tilted his head, confused. “What happened there?”
“He hit his head on his desk,” Aizawa snorted, “the similarities here are uncanny.”
Present Mic stared, then burst out into a fit of laughter. “Man, you really are an interesting one, huh Little Listener?” Izuku giggled. “Did you ever figure out what happened, by the way?”
“Oh, yeah,” Izuku grinned, “turns out I have Tourette’s.”
“Ah,” Present Mic leaned back, then straightened up, “that makes sense. You headed down to Recovery Girl?” Both student and teacher nodded. “Don’t let me hold you up then. I gotta get to your class now- see you later!”
Izuku waved goodbye to his English teacher, turning in confusion to Aizawa, who was fiddling with an inconspicuous silver ring on his third finger. Huh, that was strange. Izuku’s brain was muddled, so he couldn’t connect the very obvious dots, but if he had the brain capacity, he would have realized that Aizawa and Present Mic were together.
“Come on, Problem Child,” Aizawa said, hand on his back to direct him back towards their destination, “let’s go.”
.
.
.
By the time Izuku returned to class, it was already lunchtime. A couple students loitered about the classroom, including Izuku’s newfound group of friends. Uraraka beamed upon seeing him, launching herself forward to wrap him into a hug.
“Deku!” she cheered, “c’mon! We’ve been waiting for ages!”
“Incorrect, Uraraka-kun,” Iida hand-chopped the air, glasses gleaming, “we have been waiting for five minutes.”
“Same difference,” Tsu croaked.
"It really has only been five minutes, Asui-san."
The group went out into the hallway and began the treacherous journey to the cafeteria (to a group of ravenous fifteen year olds, a three minute walk down two flights of stairs was considered treacherous). Izuku dreaded the conversation he knew was coming, but it was inevitable, and he’d explained it a million times before in the past- well, the only difference this time being that his friends could just decide to ditch him because of it, it wasn’t like he was explaining it to a teacher or another adult, where they had to do their job regardless of what he said.
“So, um, Deku, what happened?” Uraraka tentatively asked.
Izuku ducked his head, muffling a rather annoying “wow!” into his arm. “Um, well-”
“Ribbit, do you have Tourette’s?”
Izuku’s eyes widened. He and the others spun around to look at Tsu, whose arms were tucked into her side raptor-style. “Um, yeah,” Izuku blinked, “how did you know?”
“My cousin has it too,” she croaked, “she has a similar tic.”
“That’s cool,” Izuku commented, “so, um, you’re okay with it, then?”
“Of course, ribbit.”
“Of course, Midoriya-kun!” Iida hand-chopped, “we have no reason not to be!”
Izuku winced at the volume, but smiled. “Thanks.” His shoulders shrugged upwards, eyes squinting, and he reached out to lightly slap Iida on the shoulder. “Bop!” Tsu giggled, and Izuku found himself giggling with her.
“Um, what’s Tourette’s, exactly?” Uraraka asked, voice timid. Todoroki stared at him as if he were expecting an answer as well.
“Oh, um- basically it’s a neurological disorder that causes uncontrollable sounds and motions, called tics.”
“Is that why you keep doing those motions?” Uraraka questioned. Izuku nodded, shrugging his shoulders and yelling “wow!”
“Yeah, um- I’ve had it since I was like, eight or something.”
“Does it cause problems at all? That can’t be very comfortable,” Todoroki commented.
“I mean, most of the time it’s fine,” he shrugged, “I have to wear protective gear on bad days. I’ve had like, four concussions from banging my head.”
The four others winced. “That sounds painful, Deku-kun.”
“You get used to it after a while,” he said, “and it’s not like some terrible disease. It’s just who I am, at this point.”
“And you can’t control the motions? Like at all?”
Izuku shook his head. “Well, sort of. It’s really hard, but sometimes I can hold them in. It’s like- wow!- holding back a sneeze- you can sometimes do it for a short amount of time- wooh!- but when you do, they come back harder. I can get something called a tic attack if I hold them in too long, or if I’m stressed.”
Uraraka nodded. “Thank you for telling us, Deku-kun,” she said, “I’m sorry if this was invasive at all.”
“No no no! You’re good!” Izuku cried, waving his hands around, wincing when one of them unintentionally hit him in the side of the head. “I’m used to questions, honestly. It doesn’t even bother me anymore.”
Iida frowned. “Something like this is incredibly personal, Midoriya-kun. I’m happy you trusted us with this information, but please don’t feel pressured to tell us things like this in the future.”
Izuku stared, then smiled, nodding his head. “Thank you, Iida-kun.”
Iida gave him a small smile in return. “Of course, Midoriya-kun! Now come, let’s go to lunch!”
Izuku looked around at his friends, smiling when he saw each of them doing the same.
He finally had a group of friends who loved him for who he is. He knew they wouldn’t judge him for having Tourette’s. They wouldn’t bully him or make fun of him for it, in fact, they were probably the most accepting and welcome group of people he’d ever met.
And really, he couldn’t ask for anything more.