Chapter Text
The moment Izuku woke up, he knew he was going to be sick.
He was warm, his eyelids were heavy, he was lightheaded, and his throat burnt with every swallow, and everything was muffled as if his head was filled with cotton.
He hates being sick. He hates how he can't get out of bed when he is. He hates how helpless he feels and how lonely and pathetic he feels curled in bed.
Fine, he told himself, scrubbing a hand over his face. He’s fine. He got a lot of work today. He wasn't about to make a thing out of feeling a little off.
He got dressed on autopilot, resisting the urge to just collapse in bed and skip school today. Fumbling his buttons twice and running a hand through his wild hair, he deemed himself... representable enough.
Out in the kitchen was Aizawa, dressed in his hero costume and sitting on the table, waiting for Izuku to have breakfast like every day.
Izuku slumped in the chair and held his chopsticks, staring at the plate, contemplating if he should eat or not.
He didn’t have an appetite, but he knew that if he didn’t eat now, he would be dead hungry long before lunch. The decision took him a while before he resigned to eating a portion at least.
"You're quiet," Aizawa said, not a question.
"Just tired." It wasn't a lie, exactly.
His guardian didn't seem to buy that as he scanned him with a long, considering look. Then, without a word, the back of his hand came to rest against Izuku's forehead. Izuku leaned into it before he could stop himself, just slightly, just for a second.
"Hm," Aizawa said, which could have meant anything.
"I'm okay," Izuku said quickly. "Really."
Aizawa held his gaze a beat longer than necessary, then drew back his hand.
“Eat your breakfast. If it gets worse, find me, Hizashi, or Recovery Girl, okay?”
"It won't."
"Mm-hm," he said, in the tone of a man who fully expected to hear otherwise by lunch.
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By second period the cotton in Izuku's skull had turned into something heavier, his eyelids feeling even more weighted down no matter how many times he blinked hard and sat up straighter. Present Mic's voice, usually the thing that kept the whole room tethered and awake through sheer volume and enthusiasm, had started to blur at the edges, words arriving a half-second late, like he was listening through water.
He caught himself drifting twice. The third time, his pencil actually slipped from his fingers and clattered against the desk, and he jerked upright so fast his vision swam.
"Yo, Midoriya." Mic's voice was closer than expected and quieter than his classroom register. Izuku looked up to find him crouched by the desk, sunglasses pushed up into his hair, genuine concern replacing the usual manic energy. "You look like you're about three seconds from face-planting into your notebook, listener."
"I'm okay, sensei, I just—" Izuku pressed the heel of his hand against one eye. "Didn't sleep great."
Mic's palm settled over his forehead, warm and broad, and Izuku was too tired to do more than blink up at him. "Hot," Mic said, half to himself, then ruffled Izuku's hair with the same hand, gentle despite the volume he usually put into everything. "Sit tight for me, okay? Finish the period if you can, and if you can't, you put your head down and nobody in this room is gonna say a word."
"You don't have to—"
"Shh. Rest your eyes, kiddo." A brief squeeze to his shoulder, and Mic was already moving back toward the front of the room, though his gaze kept flicking back every so often for the rest of the period, softer than usual, watching.
The moment the bell rang, Mic dismissed the class before turning to face Izuku, who felt too heavy to move from his place. Mic crossed the room straight to his desk and crouched again.
"I'd have suggested you go to Recovery Girl for the rest of the day, but I know you wouldn't accept that. I'm gonna go catch Aizawa before his next class, alright? Just to give him a heads-up, and if you feel worse after lunch, you seriously should take the rest of the day off, kid.
I know you don't like to miss classes, but what's the benefit from sitting there and neither really understanding nor resting, ya dig? " His hand ran through Izuku's hair a couple of times before he stood up. "Now go have some food. I'm guessing you didn't have much this morning."
Izuku gave a weak nod, struggling to even keep his eyes open, and mumbled a 'yes, Mic sensei' before taking his bag and walking —as steadily as he could —to the cafeteria.
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He made it through half his rice before he had to stop.
He was hungry, but his throat seemed to have a different opinion. Every swallow felt like sandpaper, and no matter how much water he drank, it didn't smooth it down.
So he sat with a mouthful of food for longer than was normal before he managed to get it down, throat working hard around it, eyes watering slightly from the effort.
Spoons of food were separated by several minutes of staring and daydreaming (or just dreaming because he is pretty sure he dosed off at some point).
"Midoriya," Iida's voice came from across the table, edged with the particular alarm that meant he'd noticed something, and woke Izuku from his awake-not-awake state. "You've barely eaten."
"It's fine, I'm just—" Izuku swallowed again, wincing before he could smooth his expression back out. "I'm not that hungry."
He gave up on the rice after that and just held the water bottle between both hands, sipping in small amounts, each pass down his throat aching in a low, steady way that made him want to press his palm flat against his own neck just to feel something other than the hurt of it. He didn't. He kept his hands down, one holding the bottle and the other propping his head on the table, and tried to look like someone who was simply not that hungry today.
He didn't notice Uraraka watching him with a frown until she reached over and set her palm briefly against his arm. "You want me to walk you to Recovery Girl's before next period?"
"I'm okay," he said, for what felt like the fifth time that day, and hated how thin his own voice sounded saying it.
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He lasted four minutes into the hero work session.
Long enough to run the first drill, long enough for his legs to feel like jelly and the training ground to tilt gently at the edges of his vision — and then Aizawa's hand was closing around his shoulder before he'd even fully registered swaying on his feet.
"Sit," Aizawa said, low, already steering him toward the bench with a hand between his shoulder blades. Izuku went without argument, which told them both everything.
Aizawa gave him a water bottle to drink, which Izuku took a few sips from, although the non-existent feeling of hydration drove him more exasperated and more tired.
"You're done for today." His teacher said, eyeing him intensely.
"I can—"
"You can barely sit up straight. " His teacher's brow raised. "Up. I've got you."
He had no other option than to obey his teacher and walked with him to Gym Alpha's door. "Iida, you're responsible until I come. Run the usual drills, and NO ONE of y'all dare to slack off, or you'll have to suicide sprint until I deem it enough." Izuku heard a collective 'Yes, sensei!' Before the gym door closed behind them.
Aizawa kept a hand between Izuku's shoulder blades the whole way to RG's. They didn't talk. Not like Izuku had the energy to do anything anyway between the drowsy state he was in and this static that buzzed all under his skin, so he just leaned into Aizawa's side and kept walking.
Recovery Girl took one look at him and sighed, the particular sigh of someone who had seen the same kid with broken bones in the infirmary more than she saw her own family. And as if Aizawa saw the exhaustion behind her look (and felt it firsthand), he told her that it's not an injury and that Izuku is just not feeling well.
Aizawa guided him to sit on one of the beds before, to Izuku's surprise, taking the space beside him, one hand resting warm and heavy on top of Izuku's head, fingers threading slightly into his hair in the absent, grounding way he did when he thought no one was paying attention to how gentle he could be.
RG prepared the thermometer and instructed Izuku to put it under his armpits and hold it for five minutes, so they waited for the reading in comfortable silence, Izuku leaning into Aizawa's side, nearly drifting out from the soft touches. It wasn't until Recovery Girl took the thermometer back that he came back to his senses.
She then examined his throat and heart sounds. "His temperature is 38.2, and he has a throat inflammation. Give him a temperature reducer every 6 hours and pain killers if needed. And rest well; you should be off school for at least the next two days."
Aizawa hummed in response to her instructions, still stroking Izuku's hair before he spoke. "So, you are off for the rest of the day. I have to return to class, so are you okay waiting for the end of the period to go back home?"
"Yeah, it's okay." Izuku, still slumped against his teacher, blinked weakly. "Fine then. I'll make you some tea with honey to drink. ;You want to wait here until I'm done for the day, or you want to sleep it off in my office? Your choice."
Izuku blinked up at him, throat too sore to manage much more than a small, tired sound of consideration.
Aizawa's office is... safe. Not that the infirmary isn't, but it's safe in the way Aizawa is by his side right now. In the way Aizawa's stroking his hair and talking to him so gently. His skin buzzed at the thought of being in his guardian's office. It's the closest thing to Aizawa he can get for the rest of the school day, until they go back home.
"...Your office," he mumbled eventually. "It..." He backed on what he was about to say: "Your office is fine."
Something in Aizawa's expression flickered — not quite a smile, but close enough to it — and his hand didn't leave Izuku's hair. "Office it is."