Work Text:
No. 11 “911, What’s Your Emergency?”
Sloppy Bandages | Self-done First Aid | Makeshift Splint
Gauze, antiseptics such as Neosporin or hydrogen peroxide, and sports tape were something utterly familiar to him. Time and time again, he found himself wrapping a slightly bent finger next to an unharmed finger with buddy tape and adding a cooling package to the growing bruise on his shoulder. He wouldn’t say it was often that he did so, but it was often enough that he knew exactly what to do in any event he was hurt without having to check himself in a hospital or have his mother take him to urgent care.
It started with clumsy, chubby hands that left the gauze loose and slipped off the burns on his arm, but quickly, Izuku learned to treat his wounds better. As Izuku got older and older his medical knowledge grew along with the scars that cascaded across his body.
His young life was filled with pain and repressed tears. By the time he was seven, he had a fully stocked first-aid under the sink of his bathroom. Quickly, the materials inside were depleted due to Izuku’s continual injuries. Even so, Izuku just restocked and continued with his process.
Months and years of non-stop bullying left Izuku a master of evading questions about his injuries and even better at hiding them. Because of this, his mother never had to know the extent of the torture Izuku went through on an average school day.
Years went by and quirks further developed in the kids around him. They became better at precision control and output of their power. Of course, Izuku took the brunt of it all and became the school’s punching bag. Well-adjusted to the pain of the aching scars and the freshly painted gashes in his skin, Izuku became numb to the treatment. He didn’t resist the bullies. He tried to block out the experience the best he could, leaving gaps in his memory where Izuku was being tormented by his classmates.
As the years progressed and quirks got stronger, the need to use words became a new topic. Rather than just hurting Izuku on a day-by-day basis, kids began to taunt him further than a usual snicker and a call of “loser” thrown his way. They had decided to take it a step further than insults and rumors. This decision easily passed into suicide-baiting territory in Izuku’s last year of elementary school.
The first time was a shocker to Izuku but quickly turned into an understanding of how he truly wasn’t wanted in the world. He knew the statistics. The so-called quirkless population was dwindling and that wasn’t only due to evolution. The rates of quirkless people in the 0-24 range had the highest suicide rates of all. It didn’t shock Izuku at all. He knew it’d be hard to get a job. Even in school, teachers graded his tests falsely, giving Izuku many just above failing grades so they could push him off to the next person, not wanting to deal with him anymore.
He wasn’t surprised by the “inspirational notes” he found on his desk accompanied by red spider lilies. These notes, filled with insults and wishes for his death, were something Izuku threw away after reading. Sometimes, he’d consider what they had to say, it was hard to ignore. He’s not oblivious to the hate he faces daily. He knows he’s unwanted and useless to everyone around him.
Not long after, Izuku gives into cutting himself with a razor gifted to him by a fellow classmate with a note, “use this to cut your jugular, you worthless, rotten mushroom.” While Izuku appreciated the new insult, being called a mushroom, it was new and sort of funny to the boy, the razor opened a new side of himself. It opened a space within Izuku that craved pain and was filled with self-loathing.
That night, he returned home with the razor in his pocket, heavily weighing down the school jacket he wore. He could feel the heaviness of the consequence he was going to face by starting this. He knew it was bad, that his mental health was on a steady decline, but Izuku had no will to stop himself.
Sluggishly, he laid his backpack and tore off his school uniform, and headed to the bathroom, razor pricking the palm of his hand due to how tightly he gripped the blade. Izuku, don’t get him wrong, was never a fan of the pain he received from others. He never enjoyed being burnt, kicked, and bruised by his peers. But this idea of using a blade to carve into his skin was somehow thrilling and filled Izuku with a warped sense of excitement.
It was wrong. Thinking this was wrong and harmful. Izuku knew this deep down within his mind. He knew his mother would be hurt to find out her son was doing such a thing to himself. He’d break her heart if she ever found out, a reason why he hid all of his injuries from her while he grew up. She was hardworking and was around as much as she could with the odd hours her work set for her. They needed the money for the apartment and food, so his mother would work herself to the bone so she could provide the both of them with everything they needed.
Running the water of the bathtub to a near-scalding temperature as steam rose towards the ceiling, Izuku stepped him, keeping the razor above the water as he sat down. This was a start he could never return from. He wasn’t suicidal. He had no intention to die here; he still has his dream to become a hero, and he hasn’t completed that goal yet, so he won’t be dying here.
Knowing his wrist would be too visible to the people around him, Izuku opted to cut his thighs and hips. No one would ever care to check there and wouldn’t be noticeable. He’d be fine. Better yet, he told himself it was going to be a one-time thing. He’d throw away the blade after this and forget it ever happened. He needed this pain just to take the edge off, just this once.
It was a lie, he found later. On especially hard days when he was fighting the demons inside, begging him to kill himself, he found cutting was a way to quiet his insufficiency.
This habit was carried all throughout middle school up to when he met his idol. When everything in his life changed for the better, training to receive a quirk, quite possibly the strongest quirk in the world, Izuku knew his self-harming tendencies had to stop. He needed to be better than this. He needed to be stronger, and cutting himself was nothing but weak in Izuku’s eyes.
Quitting cold turkey wasn’t what happened no matter Izuku’s drive to become better. But little by little, Izuku was relying on his blade more infrequently. He was proud of himself. He was developing muscles and clearing a beach entirely encased in the trash. It was rewarding, and Izuku had never felt more fulfilled.
When he was accepted into Yuuei, his dream was getting more achievable, and more attainable. He was no longer that worthless, incapable, scrawny kid that got picked on. With this newly found confidence, his bullies were turned off. They wanted a target that wasn’t willing to fight back. They wanted the old Deku. What they saw now in the final year of middle school was much too resilient and bright to torment.
That wasn’t to say it stopped entirely. Kacchan and his friends along with a few other groups still tried to hurt Izuku. As of recent, it was more verbal threats rather than physical assault. Izuku was glad, but it didn’t hurt any less. Because All Might supported him and his dream, he didn’t feel the need to act on it as much. Because of this new-found drive, Izuku was moving past it and didn’t let his mind dwell on it as often.
Even though he had been doing so well, when Izuku was finally thrust into the world of Yuuei, something in him slipped. His past thoughts of inadequacy reappeared and were thwarted in his mind on a regular basis.
He relapsed when he found out how far behind he was. Seeing how weak he was compared to his classmates was daunting on its own. But seeing how truly incapable his abilities were against peers made his fingers ache for a blade to split his skin open. He craved seeing the blood pool in his open, self-inflicted wounds.
When dorms were put in, and All Might retired, Izuku had never felt worse. Throughout all the years of bullying and torment, it was seeing Kacchan get kidnapped and being unable to save him from being pulled into the portal to the League of Villains and watching All Might’s true form revealed to the whole world paired with his idol’s retirement that had Izuku staring blankly at a wall, devoid of emotion within his dorm room. He cried earlier, but somehow, despite being a Midoriya, his tear ducts turned dry.
He felt so empty, so entirely useless. He thought that maybe if he didn’t exist that none of this would’ve happened. He thought that maybe if he didn’t have this power, then All Might didn’t have to retire and could return to the hero world.
He stood up and dug in the newly arranged nightstand of his dorm room, pulling out an All Might-themed box. Inside, a razor lay. Izuku hated that it had to come to this, but he needed to repent and pay for his deficiency.
With his creaking limbs and fingers, he picked up the blade as he sat on his bed. He no longer had access to a private bathroom aside from a sink in his room with a toilet. There was no longer a bath he could lay in as the blood from his thighs and hips turned the water a clear crimson. His room was private enough. Here, he could hurt as much as he wanted to without anyone ever having to know. Right now, he needed to feel pain.
He couldn’t feel the pain at first. In all of his distress, he needed to feel more, so hurt cut deeper and deeper, desperate to feel the stinging of his skin and the rawness that cutting brought him. Deeper and deeper he went without a care of how much spilled from his thighs, his head filled with more and more reasons to continue.
It wasn’t until his door was knocked upon with a voice speaking from outside. In all of his focus, Izuku didn’t hear a word coming from the other side, not even knowing there was another soul on the other side of the wood. Izuku didn’t stop, driving the blade into his skin, swiping at the scarred flesh with a self-hatred Izuku couldn’t begin to resolve.
He didn’t realize how much blood he was losing until it was noticeably splatting on the floor under his bed. He didn’t even notice his head get lighter and his consciousness was getting further and further away from his control. His grip on the blade was lacking. Nobody ever mentions how slippery blood is. On the blade, it’s easy for Izuku’s clumsy fingers to release from the blade as they slide off the blade, letting it topple to the ground.
Izuku’s oblivious to the way his door cracks open and to the footsteps that rush toward him in a panic. All Izuku sees in his tunnel vision is his blade falling and the blood pouring out of his thighs.
“Midoriya!” A voice calls out to him.
Unresponsive and blankly staring at the blood spilling from his skin, Izuku made himself numb to all of his feelings of failure and inadequacy. This floaty, unaware feeling was what Izuku had been craving all along. He was relaxed. This was fine for him.
But this feeling doesn’t last as the feeling of being prodded and two hands on his body. The numbness fades and is replaced with a realization. That someone had found him.
With the fuzzy sight of two-toned hair and a look of emotion he had never seen before on his friend’s face, Izuku shook. He didn’t mean for this to happen. He never wanted anyone to know. How could have he been so stupid?
He sees as Todoroki hastily and sloppily apply bandages to his bloody thighs, and next to Izuku’s panic, he’s reminded of his past self, blindly tending to his wounds. It should’ve never come to this.
Why had he been so weak?