Chapter Text
Izuku stumbles into the wall of the alley, clutching his side and breathing heavily. He just needs to take a breather. He hates that he had to let those assholes get away after he caught them robbing a convenience store, but at least no civilians got hurt. Izuku, on the other hand, needs a doctor. He has a feeling he is never going to hear the end of this one. It will be fine, though. He’s already made it two of the twelve blocks to the Clinic, and he’s sure they’ll be able to patch him up.
He takes another step forward, but his vision goes blurry, and he stumbles to one knee. Maybe trying to get to the Clinic on his own isn’t such a good idea. He should probably call someone. He pulls out his phone, which Eraser gave him and still pays for. There are four saved contacts, none under their real names. Hitoshi is away on his internship right now, and probably asleep, so calling him is out. Everybody else is probably working. Except… he checks the time. 12:05. Mic’s radio show should have just ended for the night, so he’s probably wrapping up at the station, maybe even heading out anyway. As much as Izuku does not want to bother the man, he really doesn’t think he can make it to the Clinic without help. Not this time.
He takes breath, then hits “call” before he can think better of it. It only takes two rings before a voice comes over the line. “Little listener? It’s pretty late. Is everything alright?”
“I, um. Sorry to call so late, but I know your show just got over, so, um,” Izuku breaks off, sucking in a breath as a spike of pain shoots through him.
“It’s fine, Izuku, I’m glad you called. Are you okay?”
“Could you maybe, um, come get me? I… don’t think I can make it to the clinic on my own. I’m in an alley off block 24 in Fusaki ward.”
“I’m already on my way. Will you be okay for about fifteen minutes?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. The guys I was fighting ran away,” Izuku says.
“Okay,” Hizashi says. Izuku’s pretty sure he even hears a sigh of relief from the other end of the line. “I’m going to keep you on the phone until I get there, just so I know that you’re alright and staying awake, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Izuku agrees, and for the next fifteen minutes he dutifully answers Hizashi’s innocuous, unrelated questions until suddenly, the man is standing in front of him.
“Oh, Izuku,” Hizashi says, and Izuku hears the words twice — once in real life, and once through the phone speaker. Izuku blinks tiredly up at him. Hizashi hangs up, slipping his phone into his pocket, then squats down. “Let’s get you into the car. Is it alright if I pick you up?”
“Yeah. But… don’t wanna get blood in your car.”
“It won’t be the first time, or likely the last. That’s why I have leather seats. Okay. One, two, three, up,” Hizashi says, lifting Izuku into a princess carry. He carries him out of the alley to the car, which is parked half-on the sidewalk and clearly not in an actual parking spot. He loads Izuku into the passenger seat, then hops into the driver’s seat. He shifts the car into gear, and Izuku realizes it must have been running the whole time. “Let’s get you to the hospital.”
Izuku blinks, then says shakily, “No.”
“Izuku, you need a doctor.”
“I know,” Izuku says. He didn’t think about the fact that Hizashi wouldn’t already know. To be fair, it’s pretty hard to think in general right now. His head is… a bit fuzzy. “I’m a quirkless vigilante, ‘Zashi. Hospital won’t help me. Gotta get to the Clinic.” Fuck, is he slurring his words?
Izuku is vaguely aware of Hizashi putting the car in park and studying him. He doesn’t know how long passes before the man says, “Okay, Izuku. Where is this Clinic?”
“Block 13. Red door.”
“Okay.” The next moment, Izuku slides into the car door from the speed Hizashi uses to make a u-turn.
Izuku is completely unaware of his surroundings until he’s suddenly jolting forward in his seat, caught by the seat belt. Hizashi must have slammed on the breaks. “Fuck,” he hisses, trying unsuccessfully to keep the exclamation in. He hates showing pain.
“Shit, sorry,” Hizashi says. “We’re here. Though… are you sure this is the place?”
Izuku looks out the windshield to see that they are, in fact, parked in the alley beside the Clinic. “Yeah. You don’t have to come in. Might be better if you don’t.”
“No way,” Hizashi says, getting out of the car. He moves around to open Izuku’s door, squatting down to be at his level. He meets Izuku’s eyes, or at least tries to. Izuku has trouble focusing on his face. “I’m not leaving you while you’re hurt, little listener. Now, let me help you inside?”
Izuku tries to shake his head, but quickly decides it’s a bad idea. “Don’t carry me in.” It’s bad enough that he had to have someone bring him in. He does not want anyone to see Hizashi carrying him.
There’s a pause, then Hizashi says, “Okay. What if you just lean on me?”
Izuku would rather walk on his own, but given how that went earlier… “Yeah, fine.” Hizashi helps him out of the car and they make their way slowly inside. When the enter the lobby, Izuku hears the usual murmur of waiting patients and family members and the nurses’ station before all sound seems to suddenly stop. There’s a few gasps, then the sound of feet hurrying toward them. Izuku looks up to see a nurse in front of them. He’s sure he recognises them, but he can’t think of their name right now.
“Emerald Shadow!” the nurse says. They look to Hizashi, then back to Izuku. “What happened?”
Izuku can feel Hizashi shrug from where he’s leaning against the man. “I don’t know. He just called me for a pick-up.”
“I’m fine. Is the good doctor here?”
“Yes, but I can’t say he’ll be very happy to see you. I think you’ll be needing Akabane-sensei today.”
Izuku grimaces. He remembers Akabane Noriko. She handles surgical cases. “I really don’t think…”
“She isn’t available now anyway. We’ll start you off with whoever’s available and transfer you if we need to. Let’s get you into a room. Sir, you will need to wait here.”
“Oh. Iz- I mean, Shadow, are you okay with that?” Hizashi asks, sounding worried.
“I’ll be fine. Thank you.”
“Alright. I’ll be waiting out here for you, then.” Hizashi passes Izuku over to the nurse, who Izuku finally recognises as Kumamoto Shion, one of the newer nurses.
“I’m supposed to be on break,” Todoroki Natsuo says, looking up at Kumamoto-san. He has a sixth sense for when one of the nurses is about to ask him to take on a patient. This is his only break this shift, and he needs to head next door and grab something to eat before returning for the second half of his shift. He steels himself to say no.
He isn’t expecting them to say, “Your vigilante is in exam room 2.”
“My…” Natsuo blinks at them. It takes him a minute to realize what they mean. There’s only one vigilante the nurses and other doctors tease him about being ‘his.’ “Shadow is here?”
They nod. “He’s pretty beat up. Some guy brought him in — said he called him for a pick-up.”
That boy calling someone for help can’t be a good sign. Natsuo sighs. “Alright. I’ll be right there.” He runs a hand through his hair. Then he stands, puts his coat back on, and washes his hands before heading to the exam room.
When he knocks and enters the room, he finds a freckled, green-haired boy sitting on the exam table, swinging his feet gently and staring off into space. There’s blood on his shirt, and his hood and mask are down.
Izuku looks up at the sound of the door and frowns with a huff. He mutters, “Why is it always a Todoroki? There are too many damn Todorokis in my life.”
Natsuo tries to hold back his smile. “At least you don’t have to deal with our father,” he points out. “Has my brother been giving you trouble?”
The vigilante shrugs. “No more than usual. And don’t even say that. You’ll curse me, and he’ll start showing up on my patrols.”
“Don’t worry. He’d never patrol at night,” Natsuo says. Then he refocuses. “Why do you always end up like this, Izuku-kun? Can you describe your injuries to me, please?”
“I may have been stabbed a little. Here,” Izuku indicates his ribcage, where the blood is. “Got thrown around. Probably hit my head. Definitely did something to my ankle, but I don’t remember hurting it.”
“Of course you don’t. Well, I’m more worried about the open wound and blood loss at the moment. But before we get started, could you tell me who brought you in?” It seems stupid to stop and ask, but given the state Izuku is in, he wants to make sure he asks now in case Izuku needs to be sedated or becomes less coherent.
“Mic. ‘Zashi.” Izuku blinks hard, then says, “Yamada Hizashi.”
Natsuo smiles faintly. One of the heroes who is obviously (though Izuku still seems oblivious to it) trying to adopt him, then. “I assume he knows your name, then? Do I have permission to discuss your injuries and care with him if you lose consciousness or are in an altered mental state?”
“Yeah, but I’m fine. You won’t need’ta.”
Given the slurring, Natsuo doubts that, “Okay, Izuku. Thank you. Now could you remove your shirt for me, please?” Natsuo asks.
“If you wanted to get my clothes off, you just had to ask,” Izuku says, smirking tiredly.
Natsuo rolls his eyes. That is so out of character for Izuku that it doesn’t even fluster him. “Okay, and you are clearly out of it, whether that means a concussion or blood loss. You are so going to be embarrassed by that later.”
“Probably.” Izuku shrugs, then grimaces. He grabs the hem of his shirt and starts to pull it up, then stops and drops it. “Actually, I, um, might need some help with this.”
Natsuo raises an eyebrow at him, to which the vigilante rolls his eyes. Natsuo grabs a pair of scissors from the drawer and holds them up, waiting for Izuku’s nod before cutting his shit open. It’s completely ruined anyway, after all.
Once it’s off, Natsuo quickly scans Izuku’s torso with his eyes. “‘May have been stabbed a little,’ he says. This looks like more than ‘a little,’ Izuku.”
“I was only stabbed, like, three times, and two of those barely even count. Don’t be dramatic,” Izuku says, in a stupid, fake-innocent voice. Natsuo rubs a hand over his face.
“We will be talking about this when you aren’t so out of it. For now, I need to clean those wounds, then stitch them up. I’ll have one of the nurses bring in some local anesthesia. Think you can stay still for me?”
“I can do anything for you,” Izuku says with a suggestive smile.
“And I’ll also go get a saline drip and an iron supplement. You must be suffering from blood loss.” Natsuo says. “I’ll be right back. Stay on the table.”
“Yes, sensei,” Izuku says.
Natsuo quickly tells the nurses’ station what he needs, then returns to find Izuku laying down on the table at the same angle he was sitting on it before, meaning his legs and his head are both hanging off. “If you want to lay down, do it properly. You’ll strain your neck like that.”
“I think getting tossed around is worse on my neck than this,” Izuku says, even as he complies.
Once he’s laying fully on the table, Natsuo washes his hands again and puts on clean gloves, then brings some supplies over. “Stay still while I clean these. It’ll sting.”
Izuku rolls his eyes. “I know. This isn’t the first time you’ve stitched me up, Todoroki-sensei.”
Unfortunately not.
“Yamada Hizashi,” a boy in a white coat says, making Hizashi startle. The boy has white hair, and doesn’t look like he could be more than a few years older than Izuku and Hitoshi.
Hizashi stands and approaches the boy. He smiles, though he’s sure it doesn’t come out quite right. “That’s me.”
The boy holds out a hand to shake. “I am Todoroki-sensei. I am in charge is Izuku-kun’s care today.”
Hizashi blinks. “Todoroki? Like Todoroki Enji?”
The boy — Todoroki — grimaces. “My father. I would, of course, prefer if you didn’t mention this to him. We can discuss that more in a while, and I plan to explain our clinic to you then as well, but first, I’m sure that you would like and update on Izuku-kun. If you would follow me to his room?”
Hizashi nods, then follows Todoroki through a short hallway and into a room that looks mostly like what he would expect to find in any doctor’s office. Izuku is laying on the table, shirtless, with bandages wrapped around his ribs and an IV line in his arm. Hizashi’s attention is immediately absorbed with checking on the kid. He moves closer and reaches out, but stops himself before he touches the boy. His hands hover awkwardly for a moment. “Izuku? How are you doing?”
Izuku smiles up at him in a way that looks somehow out of character. “‘M great. We should cook again. Was fun.”
Hizashi blinks, not quite sure what to do with that. “I’m glad you had fun. You’re free to come over and help me cook anytime, Izuku.” Then he looks at the doctor with a questioning look.
“The pain medication has likely affected his mental state by now, in addition to the blood loss and the mild concussion,” Todoroki-sensei says calmly. “Izuku had multiple lacerations on his chest that needed to be stitched up, as well as a twisted ankle and, as I said, a mild concussion. Luckily nothing was broken or required surgery. He should heal well and be alright in a few weeks.”
“That’s good to hear,” Hizashi says.
Todoroki smiles. “It is. That being said, I don’t like the idea of him returning to where he is currently living in this state, both because it isn’t particularly sanitary and I don’t think he should be alone for long periods of time while he is recovering.”
“I’m fine, Nat,” Izuku whines from where he is still laying down.
“If it was anyone else, I may be more inclined to believe you, but I don’t trust you not to try and go on patrol with stitches in your ribs and a boot on your ankle.”
“He can stay with us, don’t worry,” Hizashi says. “My husband and I will make sure he’s well taken care of.”
“I’m sure you will,” Todoroki says, and his tone implies that he knows something he isn’t saying. “I’m going to send you home with a print-out of what Izuku needs to be doing while he’s healing after we go over it. Most importantly, the stitches.” Todoroki goes over cleaning, keeping the stitches dry, changing the bandages, and watching for signs of infection, which is honestly nothing new for Hizashi, but he listens closely anyway. There are less instructions for the concussion and twisted ankle, a firm order to bring Izuku back in two weeks to get the stitches out, and then Todoroki is saying, “Any other questions?”
“I think I’m good on the care instructions,” Hizashi says with a smile, “but could I get that explanation now? What exactly is this place?”
“This is the Musutafu Underground Clinic. I won’t lie, some of what we do here is not strictly legal, but it is important.”
“‘Underground’? So you mostly serve vigilantes and… villains?” Hizashi isn’t sure how he feels about that. Before he can decide, Todoroki is shaking his head.
“We do serve vigilantes, villains, and other criminals, because we believe that everybody deserves medical care regardless of their legal status, but they are a relatively small percentage of the people we get in here. We serve those who cannot get medical care elsewhere. Mostly, that means quirkless people. There are very few places that quirkless people will be given medical care, and they are almost all underground clinics like this one. We also serve other people who face medical discrimination, as well as drug addicts. For people who cannot normally afford medical care, we have a pay-what-you-can program. So I hope you can see, even though we are breaking the law, that we are doing good, important work,” Todoroki explains.
Hizashi blinks at him. All of that sounds… pretty good, actually. “What makes this illegal, then?”
Todoroki shrugs. “Those same discriminatory practices that mean our patients cannot receive medical care elsewhere, mostly. Quirkless people are almost never accepted into colleges, and are disqualified completely from any profession that requires higher levels of education than that, including medicine. Those with certain mutation quirks or quirks that are considered too dangerous or ‘villainous’ are also often denied admittance into higher education. That means that it would be almost impossible for us to have even one licenced nurse or doctor, so we are technically practicing medicine without a license. We are trained extensively by those with more experience, but we are not legally allowed to give the care that we do. We do it anyway because without us, many of our patients would go completely without medical care, which is not safe.”
Hizashi nods slowly, processing that. He doesn’t like the idea that the medical staff here are unlicensed, but if it really is the only place some people can get medical care — and, well, Izuku insisted on coming here for a reason — he thinks that it’s a net good, overall.
“We do ask that you don’t inform others, including other heroes, about the existence or location of our clinic. The only heroes who find us are usually ones who understand the importance of the work we do, but not all heroes would be so understanding. We would be happy for you to bring us quirkless patients, of course, if you come across any needing care in the course of your work as a hero, and I expect you won’t want to keep this from your husband, but other than that, please help us maintain the secrecy of the clinic.”
“I will,” Hizashi agrees solemnly. Todoroki nods, and with that, they start the discharge process.