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“What’s wrong with you?”
Sero looked up from his desk, tilting his head in confusion. Todoroki was standing above him, the same serious look he usually wore covering his face. Sero could see the cracks in that stoic mask, though, and saw the concern hidden behind it. He grinned as genuinely as he could up at his friend (boyfriend? He wasn’t sure what they were at this point).
“I’m all good dude, what do you mean?” he asked. Todoroki frowned, then, at Sero’s answer. Sero felt awful for lying, but he really didn’t feel like getting into it right now.
He could tell Todoroki knew something was up. That much was obvious. But he clearly didn’t realize how bad it was or he would already have him out of his desk and would be all but carrying him to see Recovery Girl.
It had started a few months ago. Sero had never really had very many drawbacks to his quirk. A lot of people did, it was pretty much the norm. Some people had really severe drawbacks like Midoriya and Aoyama and other people had some that were easier to manage like Uraraka. Sero had always been lucky, his quirk never seemed to have any sort of drawback.
At least, it didn’t before. Now was an entirely different story. A week or so after they started working on ultimate moves, Sero had started to get this stabbing pain in his elbows every time he used his quirk. He was able to power through it at first, and usually, it would go away pretty quickly so he could train.
But now, it was every time he used his quirk and then some. He’d tried every over the counter pain medicine he could think of. He even used those patches, IcyHot (which he kept firmly hidden from Bakugou so Todoroki didn’t get even more IcyHot comments than usual). Even his usual, ah, self-medication at night wasn’t helping as much anymore.
Still, though, he continued to power through it. He wasn’t going to let a stupid drawback to his quirk stop him from getting stronger. If Deku could break his bones constantly and still train like it was nothing, he could work through a little joint pain.
That had been the plan at the start, at least. He would just power through it and take breaks when it got too bad, just like Aoyama did when he overused his quirk or when Kami fried his brain. He just… he didn’t know. Maybe he overdid it one too many times, because fuck, the pain in his elbows was constant now.
It was like someone was taking a knife and stabbing him every time he moved like they were twisting the blade and digging it into his joints. It was enough that he could barely lift his arms above his head anymore.
He was surprised his friends hadn’t noticed already if he was going to be honest. He had gotten an old camera for Christmas the year before and fell in love with photography. He wasn’t amazing at it, although Bakugou would probably shoot him with his Howitzer for saying so. Even so, he loved it anyways. Ever since he had gotten the crappy thing he was constantly taking photos.
He had plenty of his friends and classmates posing dramatically, of sunrises and sunsets, creative photo ideas he stole directly from Pinterest. He had taken probably a hundred class photos where he forced everyone to stand together and smile. He had even taken some of the other classes when they asked him to.
Candids were his favorite thing to shoot, though. He had gotten one of Tokoyami resting his eyes as Dark Shadow loomed over him. To anyone that didn’t know the pair, it probably would have seemed terrifying, but Sero had been there to witness Dark Shadow drop a shiny rock right on top of Tokoyami’s head and the way Tokoyami actually squawked as Dark Shadow giggled.
He had taken a photo of Kouda sitting outside, surrounded by pigeons. He managed to snap a photo just as a hummingbird landed on his outstretched palm. He still smiled at the way Kouda’s eyes lit up, at the look of pure joy on his usually timid face.
He had action shots of Mina dancing, of Kaminari grinning around the phone charger tucked in between his lips. He had exactly one picture of Bakugou smiling, and of course, he was smiling at Kirishima celebrating his one (and only) victory against Jirou when he won the Smash Brothers tournament they’d had a few weeks ago.
He had several pictures of Ojirou falling asleep as Kami pet his tail during class, obviously drifting off at the pleasant sensation. He had somehow gotten a photo of Shouji juggling, somehow able to keep the balls from hitting the floor even while using all six of his arms.
Some of his favorites were the ones he took of Iida sleeping on the couch in the dorms, Tsu curled into a tiny ball against his legs, obviously enjoying the heat that radiated off of his engines.
He loved the ones that he took while Todoroki was training. He was awestruck at the look of the intense concentration on his face, the way he was surrounded by a halo of frost and flame.
Ever since he got the shitty thing, he never went anywhere without it for fear of missing out on the perfect shot. But since the pain started, he had finally started to leave it in his room. Raising his arms to pull on his shirt was enough to have his vision dancing with black spots, there was no way he could keep his arms raised to take a photo.
He shook himself out of his thoughts as Todoroki finally spoke again, still frowning down at him.
“You haven’t been carrying around your camera anymore. You haven’t left it in your dorm once since you got it. Why’d you stop?” Todoroki asked. Class was over, and everyone was filing out to head to lunch. Sero stood up, careful to put all his weight on his legs.
He clenched his teeth together, fighting off a groan as he slowly put his bag over his shoulder. He had to stand there for a moment, fighting off the now all too familiar wave of nausea that accompanied the stabbing pain in his elbows at the slightest movement. Once he could move, he grinned at Todoroki and started walking towards the doors where his friends were waiting.
“I just haven’t felt like it, man. I’ll see you later!” he called, already bickering with Kaminari about something Todoroki couldn’t quite make out as they walked away.
Todoroki stared at him as he left. He didn’t leave the classroom, choosing to walk towards Aizawa’s desk instead of heading towards the cafeteria to get lunch with Iida and Midoriya.
Aizawa-sensei was looking intently at a stack of papers, muttering to himself as he did so. Todoroki cleared his throat a few times, waiting for Aizawa to notice him.
He finally looked up saw him. He raised an eyebrow before speaking.
“What can I do for you, Todoroki?” he asked.
“Something’s wrong with Sero,” Todoroki said. Aizawa leaned forward in his seat, looking slightly more interested than he had been before.
“Care to elaborate, problem child?”
“He isn’t carrying around his camera anymore and he looks like he’s in pain. I think he hurt his arms somehow. He lied to my face when I asked him about it, but then he looked like he was going to faint when he had to raise his arm to put his bag over his shoulder,” Todoroki stated. He crossed his arms when Aizawa hesitated to respond.
“I don’t care if you think I’m overreacting. I know Sero. He hasn’t left his camera behind since he got it. I can’t think of a reason why he would randomly do it now.”
Aizawa looked at him for a moment, face blank. Finally, his expression morphed into a barely-there frown.
“All right, problem child. I’ll talk to Sero about this and see what he says. Try to keep an eye on him until I can pull him aside. If you see him do something stupid, stop him before he aggravates whatever injury he has even further.”
“Thank you, sensei,” Todoroki said, bowing slightly before finally exiting the room. Aizawa looked shocked that he had actually bowed. He didn’t usually, but he figured if Aizawa was going to help him help Sero, he was deserving of it at least this time.
“I said I don’t feel like it, today, Kirishima, go bother Kaminari or something,” Sero said, kicking at Kirishima with his legs. He was laying on the couch, trying to breathe through the nausea radiating through him. He had overdone it during training again today and he felt like he was going to either puke everywhere or pass out if he even thought about moving his arms.
“C’mon, man, don’t be like that. Kaminari is working on math or something with Momo and Mina’s painting her nails. I want to spar and Bakugou already went to sleep. Please,” Kirishima begged, using his puppy dog eyes he knew his friends couldn’t resist. Sero groaned.
“Not today, okay, I don’t feel like it,” he said, closing his eyes. The pain in his arms was overwhelming. He could barely even think. He could feel the pinprick of tears pooling in his eyes and he did his best to blink them away.
“Fine,” Kirishima said, turning to walk away. Sero sighed, letting himself sink further into the couch. Maybe if he sat still long enough the pain would stop and he could go back to his room and smoke. That would ease at least some of the pain.
“Just kidding!” Kirishima yelled, pouncing on Sero and grabbing him by his arms. Sero opened his mouth to tell him to cut it out, but Kirishima had already dragged him to his feet. White-hot pain shot through him as his elbows popped. His vision whited out as his knees buckled. He crashed to the floor in a heap and curled in on himself.
He could hear himself screaming, could feel the way the screams tore through his throat as he writhed on the ground, hugging his aching arms to his chest. His vision began to swim and the last thing he saw was Todoroki’s fist hit Kirishima’s shocked face. He closed his eyes, still whimpering in pain as he felt gentle hands begin to move him. Finally, he let the darkness swallow him whole.
“The damage is severe, Shouta. This boy has overused his quirk almost to the point of permanent damage. If he had continued training like this, I’m positive he would have lost the use of his arms entirely.” Recovery Girl said, glaring at Aizawa from her position next to his still unconscious student. Todoroki was sitting on the edge of the bed, just staring at Sero like he could wake him up just by looking at him. He was holding an old black leather bag in between his hands, clutching it like he thought someone was going to try to steal it from him.
Aizawa sighed, rubbing his temples to try to ease the migraine he felt coming on. He had no idea why Sero hadn’t come to him when the pain started. Or why he hadn’t at least gone to one of his friends.
“Can you do anything for him?” he asked, running a hand through his hair. Recover Girl continued recording his vitals, making notes on her chart for a moment before she pressed a kiss to each of Sero’s elbows. Aizawa sighed in relief as Sero sank further into the bed. It was almost like he could see the pain leaving his student’s body.
“He will need physical therapy and to see me at least twice a day for a week. I can also give him some pain medication that will help, along with some steroid shots to ease the inflammation. It’s likely that he started to feel this pain months ago, but chose to ignore it in favor of ‘powering through it’ as most of your students seem to say. It reminds me a lot of a certain idiotic student I used to see quite a bit back in the day,” she grumbled, stepping down from her stool to grab the shots she needed.
“I’ll talk to him when he wakes up. And to the other students. I have no idea what possessed him to let it get to this point, but I’ll make sure he doesn’t let it get this bad again, Chiyo,” Aizawa promised. He sighed. He seemed to be making that promise a lot lately.
Finally, Recovery Girl seemed satisfied with her work and went back to her office to start on her paperwork. Quirk overuse paperwork was a bitch to fill out, Aizawa knew that first hand.
He held his head in his hands for a moment before he finally straightened up to look at Todoroki. His hand was bandaged, spotted with tiny pinpricks of blood. Kirishima had managed to harden his face right before Todoroki punched him, so he was fine physically. Only Todoroki was hurt.
Aizawa had never seen him look as terrified as he did when he came busting into Recovery Girl’s office. Aizawa was only there to get some more eye drops from her, but when he saw the state of his student, all his previous discomfort was forgotten.
“I don’t care what punishment you give me. I just want to make sure he’s okay,” Todoroki said, not even bothering to look at him when he spoke. He only had eyes for the boy sleeping in the hospital bed.
“I think apologizing to Kirishima is punishment enough. I get why you did it, I’m not saying you should have, but I do get it. Kirishima had no idea Sero was in so much pain. He did a great job of hiding it. Somehow only you noticed,” Aizawa noticed, tilting his head a bit to stare at his other student.
“I…” Todoroki trailed off, blushing slightly. “I care about him. He was there for me when everything went down with my father. I hate to see him like this,” Todoroki said. He reached out his hand and ran his fingers through Sero’s hair. His hands were shaking like he was scared to touch him.
Aizawa blinked. He had somehow missed the fact that two of his students were dating (possibly). It wasn’t like it was unheard of. He had started dating Hizashi in their third year of high school. There weren’t any rules against it since UA was like other high schools in every aspect except the obvious.
“I’m glad he was there for you, problem child. He’s going to be okay. I’m not sure if you heard Recovery Girl, but you got him here before he did any permanent damage. You did that. You spoke up when you saw him hurting and you got him the help he needed. I’m proud of you, Todoroki,” Aizawa said, bumping his fist against his student’s shoulder.
Todoroki smiled slightly, enough for Aizawa to see it for a brief moment before it was gone, replaced by his usual blank expression.
They sat in silence for a while, both waiting for Sero to wake up.
The first thing Sero noticed when he began to wake up was… nothing. There was nothing. No white-hot pain, no dull ache in his elbows, no nausea. He couldn’t feel anything. For a second he panicked, thinking he was paralyzed or something until he realized he could move perfectly fine. It just...didn’t hurt.
Slowly, he let his eyes open, blinking at the bright lights. He looked around, blinking a bit in surprise at seeing both Todoroki and Aizawa sitting by his bedside. Aizawa was resting with his chin on his chest, face tucked into his capture weapon. Todoroki was staring at him, open-mouthed and shocked.
Sero managed to smile and lifted his arm to wave at the other boy. He braced himself for the wave of pain that came with it, but stared at his arms in wonder when he realized there was none.
He looked back up just as Todoroki surged forward, pressing their mouths together in a kiss. Sero stared at him in shock. It took him a second to reciprocate, but he finally brought his hands up to cup the back of Todoroki’s head, kissing him back.
Todoroki pulled away when Aizawa cleared his throat. Sero blushed furiously but grinned at his teacher regardless. He let Todoroki hide his face in his chest, obviously embarrassed at the sudden display of affection and at their teacher seeing it.
“I’m happy you’re awake, problem child. It seems like we both are. Congratulations on whatever you two are and all that, but we have some other things to discuss that are more important. Care to tell me why you let yourself ‘power through’” Aizawa curled his fingers into air quotes as he spoke, “debilitating pain to the point of passing out?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at his student.
“I don’t know,” Sero sighed. “I guess I just thought if Midoriya could break all his bones and keep fighting, why can’t I deal with a little pain and keep fighting? I know it’s stupid. I should have said something way sooner,” he said, letting his head hang a bit.
“You should have. Midoriya…” Aizawa chewed on his lip for a moment, obviously thinking. “Look, Midoriya has already been chewed out by both me and Recovery Girl. He still does stupid things, but that’s because he’s stubborn and because he’s Midoriya. You aren’t him.”
Aizawa stared at him, resting his chin on his hands as he spoke.
“You can ask for help when you’re hurting. In fact, I encourage it. Or else you’ll just keep ending back up in here over and over. It isn’t worth putting yourself through that just to get stronger. You’ll get stronger no matter what, there’s no need to suffer just for the sake of it,” Aizawa said.
“I know, thank you sensei. I promise I’ll do better,” he said, nodding his head fiercely at Aizawa.
“You better. I don’t think Todoroki can handle this again. He already punched Kirishima in the face just for touching you,” Aizawa smirked. Sero blushed again.
“I’ll leave you two alone. I think Recovery Girl has some things to say to you and I should go start my incident reports for your knight in shining armor over here. I’m serious, problem child, don’t do this again,” Aizawa said, turning on his heel and walking out the doors of the clinic.
Sero let his head flop back against his pillows and sighed. At least he didn’t get in trouble. He still felt like shit, though. Aizawa sure knew how to lecture his students. He looked down at Todoroki who was still covering his face with his hands.
“You can stop hiding, he left,” Sero laughed, tugging softly at Todoroki’s hands. Todoroki finally moved into a more comfortable position, lying down beside Sero in the soft hospital bed.
“I shouldn’t have kissed you without your permission,” Todoroki said, voice blunt. Sero couldn’t help but laugh.
“Dude, we’ve been on like five dates. I think you’re allowed to kiss me, Todoroki,” he said, still giggling a bit.
“Call me Shouto. I want my boyfriend to call me Shouto,” Todoroki - no Shouto muttered, curling a bit into Sero so he could lay his head against his chest again. Sero wrapped his arms around his boyfriend, grinning widely.
“Alright, but only if you call me Hanta,” he said. Todoroki grabbed one of his hands and pressed a kiss against his knuckles.
“I’d like that, Hanta.”
“Oh, I brought this. I figured you might want it when you wake up,” Todoroki said, moving to grab something off the chair beside the bed. He laid back down beside Sero after handing him his camera case.
“Thank you, Shouto,” he said, voice thick as his eyes filled with tears. He unzipped the case and pulled out his camera. It was as shitty as it always was, but it felt so right to finally have it back in his hands.
He turned it on and held the camera out so that it was facing him and Shouto. He pressed a kiss against Todoroki’s hair as he pressed the shutter.
He smiled when he saw the photo on the screen. Todoroki had his eyes closed, his hand resting against Sero’s chest, a soft smile on his face. It was his favorite photo by far.