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Izuku drops his duffel onto the ground floor of an abandoned office building in Gym Gamma. He rolls his shoulders, making sure to stretch long enough that he feels loose and warm. He’d booked the building so he could practice using his quirk in a confined space without doing too much damage to himself or others. It helps to know that Shinsou is in the same block. If he brings the whole building down with him, Shinsou will know, and that will be completely embarrassing.
He hopes, truly, that Shinsou makes it to the hero course at some point. Izuku’s seen him doing more and more parkour practice recently, sometimes in tandem with Aizawa. It would be nice to have someone else like Izuku—who grew up without a quirk suited to hero-wrok—in his corner. He doesn’t want to shoot himself in the foot by being an idiot in front of his classmate so soon.
Refocusing on his task, Izuku grabs one of the practice dummies from his duffel bag and sets her up in a room upstairs. He places a kid sized one in another room further down the hallway, then goes back to the front door. The first thing he wants to do is familiarize himself with the layout of the office building. He needs to move quickly through the building, not stopping too much except to hit the dummies stuck here permanently that serve as placeholders for villains.
Izuku sets a stopwatch on his phone, sliding it into his backpocket. He scans the first floor. There is a secretary desk in the center, a suite of elevators straight back, and twin staircases on either side. One of the villains is tucked behind one of the stairwells. Izuku takes a deep breath and skids around the front desk, leaping to ping off one of the walls. He’s got his middle finger braced against his thumb, a supporting hand around his forearm. As he nears the villain, he imagines the egg in his brain, letting just a fraction of One For All’s power leak into his hand. He flicks out, and a small wave of power rocks the dummy back into the stairwell with enough momentum to rattle dust from the ceiling. Izuku coughs, running a hand through his hair to knock some of the particles out. His hand aches, but his fingers aren’t actually broken, so he supposes it could’ve been worse.
Sighing, he places the dummy back upright, then returns to the front to reset his stopwatch. It’s going to be a long practice.
After about an hour, Izuku’s more than frustrated. He’s finally got down his small-scale attacks using his fingers. At least two of them are sprained, but he doesn’t think they’re fully broken. He can bend them, they just…ache. But he’s not making it through the building fast enough. By the time he grabs the child dummy, it’s typically twenty minutes in. Maybe he’s trying to tackle too many villains. Not including the one by the stairwell in the lobby, there are four in each of the corridors Izuku has to traverse to rescue the victims. He can’t just blow them out into the walls (he tried that, and there’s a new human-sized hole in one of the conference rooms), but taking them down one-by-one is a time sink. Not even considering that in a real fight, all of them would be approaching Izuku at once.
He’s going to have to start practice punching. His punches don’t have the same scattering effect as his flick attacks. But he’s got far less control on them.
He winces as he remembers Aizawa’s warnings about the practice rooms at the start of the term. They’re not really supposed to test out aspects of their quirk that aren’t fully in their control.
“If you get yourself hurt on your own time, it will undermine the work you can do in the classroom, where you can actually learn,” Aizawa had droned just a couple weeks ago.
But Izuku’s an edge case. He has to learn how to use One for All, and All Might isn’t always available. If he can’t make this quirk his own, he’ll waste the little time All Might has left with the embers of One for All. He’ll also risk exposing himself as having the exact same quirk as All Might, but any time Izuku worries about that it gives him heart palpitations, so he pushes it from his mind.
“You’ve got this,” Izuku murmurs to himself.
He resets the timer, vaults himself off a wall and uses a flick attack on the villain on the first floor. His strategy for that dummy doesn’t need to change at least. The momentum of the attack keeps him in the air long enough that he can grab ahold of the railing and flip himself halfway up the stairwell. The dummy at the top is a perfect one to practice a punch on.
“Just a little bit of power,” Izuku affirms. Just like the Sports Festival. If he can control it enough to hit Todoroki without hurting him, he can do it now.
“Delaware SMASH!” Izuku yells, hitting the dummy square in the jaw. It rolls to the side and Izuku somersaults forward. Three more villains to go.
He charges another attack, swinging for the torso of the next villain. It’s wrong from the start. Izuku can feel the crackle of his quirk across his knuckles like a live wire. But he’s too far forward in his move to stop it now, so he collides with the silicone skin of the dummy and feels the artificial ribcage underneath cave in. Pain ricochets through his knuckles and thumb to strike the joint of his arm where it meets the shoulder.
Both him and the dummy go careening across the floor of the office building. Izuku breathes harshly out his nose, eyes pinched shut. When he opens them, his hands is red and rapidly swelling. He tries to uncurl it out of a fist, but the movement makes his vision white out with pain so he decides quickly against it.
“Well,” Izuku murmurs, a few seconds of heavy breathing later, “I still don’t have conscious control.”
He remembers his phone in his back pocket and fishes it out with his good hand. The screen is cracked and it makes an awful whining noise when he tries to power on the black screen. That's… not ideal.
Neither is the broken hand he absolutely cannot tell Recovery Girl about. He’ll never live up to the mortification of going back to her with a quirk-inflicted injury after she told him, in no uncertain terms, that she wouldn’t heal any more of his quirk-inflicted injuries. Maybe one his classmates can help him wrap it until it heals? He hopes it’ll get better with icing and rest. He needs it to get better with icing and rest.
The problem is that Izuku doesn’t know which of classmates to ask for that help. Iida and Uraraka would make him go to Recovery Girl. Kacchan is a no for so many reasons. But…well there’s Shinsou just a few buildings away. With his training, he must have some kind of wraps. He saw Aizawa doing some kind of hand to hand combat training with Shinsou the other day.
It’s a bad idea, but not any worse than the other ideas he’s had today. Decided, Izuku spends a little too long retrieving the dummies and packing them back into his duffle. He brought a sweatshirt, and he puts it on just to cover the swollen mess that it is hand. If Shinsou isn’t willing to help, Izuku doesn’t want him snitching to Recovery Girl. Izuku’s got YouTube. He’s sure he can ask Momo to make him some wraps. He’ll figure it out on his own if he needs to.
But first, he’ll try Shinsou. This is an easier task with another person.
He finds Shinsou on one of his breaks. He’s drinking one of those Jelly packets that Aizawa favors and dressed in a stretchy black jumpsuit, hair pushed back with one of the headbands Izuku wears when his hair is just long enough to drive him insane.
“What do you want?” Shinsou asks, as Izuku approaches. It’s not unkind, just characteristically flat.
Izuku smiles sheepishly. “Sorry to bug you. I just, uh, I was wondering if you had any bandages I could borrow?”
Shinsou’s eyes flick up and down Izuku’s body, clearly looking for an injury. Not seeing anything outstanding, he raises a light eyebrow in question. “Why?”
“I bruised some knuckles.” Izuku swallows thickly at the half-truth.
Shinsou’s mouth twists wryly. He rolls his eyes. “Nah, I’m not a Welcia.”
Izuku rubs at the back of his neck with his good hand. He can’t say he’s surprised, but he was hoping, maybe naively, that Shinsou was more willing to part with his supplies than he is. As it is, he just bows his head in understanding, “Sure, yeah. I’m sorry for asking.”
Shinsou doesn’t bother replying, and Izuku stands there a little too long before bowing and turning to leave. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Shinsou’s sarcastic wave goodbye.
Embarrassed, Izuku navigates campus with his head down. He’s muttering to himself, thinking out loud on how best to convince Momo to make him some bandages when he runs, bodily, into someone. It jostles his hand and he bites back an instinctive cry of pain. Two hands clamp on either side of his shoulders, keeping him upright. Izuku whimpers as he’s further jostled.
“Problem Child,” Aizawa drones. He looks annoyed and it sinks Izuku further into his embarrassment.
“I’m sorry,” Izuku squeaks, stepping back so abruptly that Aizawa drops his hands as if he’s afraid he hurt Izuku.
“What’s going on? You’re not usually this distracted.”
Izuku shakes his head, stepping even further back. It’s the wrong move, as Aizawa’s eyes narrow on him, starting to scan him in earnest. Izuku adjusts the duffel on his shoulder in a way he hopes comes off casual, but is really just an attempt to further block the sightline to his injured hand. If he can just make it to the student lounge, he can ask Momo for help and it will all be fine.
But he should know better than to underestimate Aizawa, whose fault-finding mission has zeroed in. “Midoriya,” Aizawa starts, “what’s wrong?”
Izuku flushes,shaking his head. This feels like a test, even more so when Aizawa frowns at him. Izuku considers, briefly, making a break for it, but he doesn’t think he’d get far before Aizawa yanked him back with his capture weapon.
Slowly, as if to telegraph his moves, Aizawa reaches out to grasp Izuku’s elbow. Pushing back the sleeve of Izuku’s sweatshirt, Aizawa’s eyebrows pinch. “Have you seen Recovery Girl for this?”
Aizawa rotates Izuku’s arm, checking it from every angle. It is even more swollen than before, and his knuckles have turned purple with bruising. Every movement, no matter how slight, sending shocking pain up Izuku’s arm. He muffles his whimpers, but Aizawa winces anyway, as if in apology.
“It’s fine, I just bruised it doing some training.”
Aizawa’s eyes are dark and pressing. “Your hand is broken, Midoriya. How did All Might not catch this?”
“Ah,” Izuku says, before he can stop himself.
“Midoriya,” Aizawa’s tone is strict, warning.
“All Might was busy,” Izuku rushes to explain. His hand is really stinging now, even after Aizawa releases it gently. “I wanted to work on my punches. I thought it would be fine. That I could be careful.”
“Midoriya, kid. There’s no careful in the world that can keep you safe when training an uncontrolled quirk without supervision.”
“I know that,” Izuku snaps, reeling back when he realizes what he just did. The familiar panic at speaking out of turn burns bright in his chest and Izuku blinks back tears, shaking his head violently. “I-I’m s-sorry,” he stammers.
Aizawa, somehow, turns softer. “Let’s get you down to Recovery Girl, we can talk about this later. But you need to get that looked at.”
They walk the halls in stilted silence. Izuku’s simmering in embarrassment, worried about having to go to Recovery Girl with this. He’s supposed to be better, supposed to have this figured out. What if she refuses to treat him? And all he’s done is waste two faculty members' time.
He’s buried so deeply in his thoughts that he doesn’t realize they’ve arrived until Aizawa directs him to sit on the exam bed. “I’ll go get Recovery Girl,” Aizawa says. Then, fixing Izuku with a look, “Stay. Here.”
Izuku nods. He kicks his feet against the side of the bed, fidgety.
Recovery Girl rounds the corner and Izuku gives what he hopes is a look of contrition. She’s already frowning, even before Izuku pushes up his sleeve and reveals the mangled wreck that it is his hand. He can’t move any of the fingers, as swollen as they are. And his wrist is aching in time with his heartbeat.
Recovery Girl clucks her tongue at him, pressing gently on the joints around his wrist, turning his hand to get a good look at his fingers. “I thought I told you I didn’t want to see you back here.”
Izuku feels wetness in his eyes. “I’m sorry.”
But Recovery Girl isn’t yelling at him. Rather confusingly, she seems genuinely concerned. It’s throwing Izuku for a loop. He disobeyed a faculty member’s direct orders, and she’s not mad at him? Aizawa doesn’t seem to be either. He’s leaning against the far wall, next to the door. Eyes carefully watching as Recovery Girl brings out a portable x-ray machine to check if any of his bones are displaced.
Iuzku doesn’t understand. But he supposes maybe they’re waiting until he’s healed to yell at him. He figures he better not make anything worse, so he holds as still as he can through Recovery Girl’s exam and tries not to yawn after she uses her quirk just enough to get the swelling down so they can put a cast on it.
“There,” she says, after the cast has been applied. Izuku rotates it so he can look at it. It’s not the first cast he’s had, but he’s a little confused why he needed one at all. Recovery Girl could’ve healed the small fractures in his fingers and wrist with her quirk. “You’ll need to come back in three weeks to get that off. For now, I’ll send a doctor’s note to your teachers so they can modify your training.”
Izuku nods and takes some notes on what he can take and when for the mild pain (over the counter meds, and once every four hours). Then watches in bafflement as she disappears to the back.
He looks up at Aizawa, then, and he must not be hiding his confusion because Aizawa tips his head, encouraging Izuku to ask.
“The last time I broke my arm, she told me she wouldn’t treat any injuries I gave myself with my quirk. But…she did treat it. If she was willing to treat me why leave me with a cast?”
Aizawa’s by the bed now, and he down in the stool. His hands are folded in front of him on the exam bed. “Kid, she just doesn’t want you to continually put yourself at risk of injury. She didn’t mean she wouldn’t treat you at all if you were injured. But she can’t keep using her accelerated healing quirk on your bones. If she does that too often, they’ll weaken.”
Oh, Izuku thinks, feeling stupid. Why didn’t she just say that. “I don’t…I’m not trying to hurt myself. But it seems to be the only way to use my quirk.”
Aizawa nods non-committally. “Ideally, we get your quirk under control so it doesn’t hurt you at all. But we can’t do that, can’t keep you safe, if you train without us.”
This is closer to what Izuku was expecting as he waited out the exam. But Aizawa still doesn’t seem angry. A little worried, maybe. He’s in full teacher mode too, as if this is the only lesson he needs Izuku to walk away remembering.
“I get that,” Izuku says, but it still feels wrong. He’s so far behind everyone else. So much less than All Might deserves. “But I’m not progressing fast enough. I’m still so far behind. I can’t catch up just doing class like everyone else.”
“So we’ll set up more training for you.”
Izuku stares at him, dumbfounded. “For me? Who would have the time?”
“Any of your teachers, Izuku. It’s what were here for.” Aizawa says it so matter-of-factly. Like it’s obvious. Like Izuku should just know.
And maybe a part of him does. Shinsou trains with Aizawa on the side, and All Might invites him to spar when he has a chance. He thinks he’s seen Present Mic out with Jirou, and Power Loader with Momo. But all of them have a good handle on their quirk. Their teachers are trying to make them better at the rest of it. Izuku’s the only one out of control. The only one who could flunk out. The only one whose quirkless, the small voice in the back of his mind reminds him. And oh, is that it?
Is Izuku applying what he knew was true at Aldera here? He has a quirk now. Has teachers who back him up. On Izuku’s best days, he might even be able to accept that the teachers at UA would’ve helped him even if he didn’t have a quirk.
Aizawa seems to be waiting for some kind of acknowledgement. Izuku isn’t sure he’s quite ready to accept all that Aizawa has thrown at him at face value. But, even with his mind whirling with uncertainty, he can feel the bone-deep want for it.
So he pushes that uncertainty down, just for a moment. Enough to look Aizawa in the face and say, “Okay. I think I need more training.”
And the relief is nearly euphoric when Aizawa just nods and tells him he’ll work up a schedule once Izuku’s arm has fully healed. “You just have to promise,”Aizawa says after Izuku’s thanked him, “to tell us when you’re hurt.’
“I,” Izuku pauses, steadies himself with a breath. “I think I can do that.