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Doctors and Izuku don’t mix.
Sure, he’s found in the infirmary more often than not, and yeah, he may be partially married to UA’s medical cot, but he means real doctors. Hospital doctors, not hero doctors.
After all, it was a doctors appointment that shattered his life.
But even after the diagnosis of his Quirklessness, doctors didn’t earn the title of “trustworthy”. Izuku still remembers the first time going to the hospital for anything other than a checkup after his quirk status had changed, the way that the lady’s lips had thinned and flat tone when she said that they didn’t have the equipment to treat his broken arm, given his “unique” body.
He was six at the time, and it never got better. They would all treat him with respect and human decency, up until the quirk paperwork, or, if he was lucky enough to last that long, the x-ray was pulled out. Afterwards was meet with pity or disgusted eyes, half excused apologizing, or suspiciously overly priced medical charges.
Of course, he learned to do it himself eventually. Learned how to apply burn cream and how to walk on a sprained ankle without a limp, how to sneak his mother's makeup and apply it when the bruising got too noticeable. So before U.A. and Recovery Girl, his time spent with doctors was very limited.
Which was why it felt like the floor fell under him when Aizawa-sensei announced they would be going to the hospitals for checkups.
“It’s a requirement as a school to do so,” he drones at the front of the classroom. “The school doesn’t have all the equipment the hospital does, and Recovery Girl may have a strong healing quirk but even she has her limits. Given that she is the only medical professional in the building, U.A. has to send its student to do a checkup every six months. Normally we would ask you parents to do so with you, however, with all of you under UA’s care, the principal is taking each class individually. Starting with you hellspawn.”
His classmates chattered excitedly around him, whispering how they’d never been to the doctors without their parents, or what possibly couldn’t Recovery Girl heal. Izuku stared numbly at his clenched, shaking hands in his lap, trying not to think of what would happen after the x-rays were shown.
“Now shut up, the bus will be here after school. Work on your work silently and if any of you wake me, you’re expelled.” With that, Aizawa-sensei stalked to the corner in his sleeping bag.
The day flies by way too fast and standing in front of the huge hospital in front of him, Izuku thinks he’s going to throw up.
Someone shouts for him to hurry up and another grabs his hand, pulling him towards his doom.
“Come on, Deku!” Uraraka’s voice filters through the fog of his mind, dragging him with a four-fingered grip. “If we hurry we might be in the same group!”
Ah, cool, Izuku thinks. But could we go home instead…?
Instead of his nice, welcoming bed, he’s faced with Aizawa-sensei’s exhausted expression as he and Uraraka catch up to their class. “When I call your name, go to where I point to. Aoyama, here. Koda… Bakugou…”
Their teacher continues separating them in no clear order, placing them in four groups. Uraraka squeals as Aizawa places Asu— Tsu and Izuku with her, but pouts when Iida has to go with Tokoyami’s group. Eventually, their group consists of himself, Uraraka, Tsuyu, Kirishima, and Ashido.
“Stay with your group until the evaluation is over and if you must leave or get finished early, stay with a partner or come to me.” Aizawa says after the class finishes cheering or groaning. “I’ll be in the waiting room taking a nap.”
As he walked away, Kirishima took the lead. “I’ve been here before so I’ll take us there!”
So much for stalling…
They find the room quickly, to Izuku’s dismay. There’s a nurse seated at the computer already, beaming brightly.
“Hello! I’m Nurse Hino! It’s a pleasure to meet all of you young heroes and heroines. I’m just going to be getting a quick run through since there a so many of you. If three of you could sit in the cots and the other two in the chairs?”
They follow her instructions, opening their eyes at bright lights and touching their toes. Izuku thinks that maybe things will be fine until she asks them to follow her to another room.
“Where do you think we’re going?” Ashido loudly whispers to Uraraka, who shrugs.
The nurse looks behind her, her eyes flashing an array of colors in the light. A rush of excitement fills Izuku at the discovery, but he quickly smothers it. “We need to take an x-ray real quick. Not a full body scan, just of each of your arms, legs, and torsos.”
They walk into a room with a table with a black square in the middle and an elaborate, gray camera attached to the ceiling. She asks them to take all piercings and jewelry off. Everyone else goes first, adjusting their bodies for the huge camera. It's not hard, but Izuku can’t stop his anxiety as the nurse pulls the big machine across his legs.
After they are done and have walked back to their original room, waiting as the nurse looks through the images, Tsu speaks up. “I thought this is something that a doctor would do.”
The nurse looks over her shoulder and smiles, turning back to the computer. “It’s the doctor’s job, yes, but if I manage to find anything like a broken or fractured bone before he does the full evaluation it can make things go a lot faster and smoother. You’d be surprised how many young heroes don’t even realize they broke a bone! I guess it’s just that pain tolerance of yours.”
Uraraka clears her throat in a way that sounded suspiciously like “Deku much” and Izuku decides that the floor was way more fascinating than normal.
“It should only take a few minutes, I’ve already gone through most of the x-rays and nothing seems to be... out of the norm...” the nurse trails off, slight confusion coloring her tone. “Huh, it looks like one of you might have broken something after all,” she zooms into the photo on the screen and Izuku realizes with growing horror it was a foot.
The nurse's eyes narrow then widen as she realizes something, turning her seat towards them. “Which one of you is Midoriya?”
Izuku hesitantly raised his hand, his chest already tightening in panic. Her eyes flittes to his chunky red shoes. “Is there metal in your shoes? Something strange came up on your x-ray so you may need to take them off and re-do it.”
Izuku furrowes his eyebrows. He did have steel toed shoes, but he was fairly certain that those were with his costume. Given they looked exactly the same, though, he might have accidentally swapped them. He slips his shoes off and sits back on the table.
She positions his feet so his soles are flat against the black square and scans them quickly. He waits awkwardly as the nurse goes back to the computer and gets the images. She stares at the computer for a good few seconds too long, sending glances of disbelief at Izuku, who was busy staring a hole in the floor. What he would give to have Hagakure or Mirio’s quirk right now.
The nurse takes a deep breath and awkwardly clears her throat. “Um, thats all I needed to do, so I’m just going to go, uh, get the doctor now.” She scrambles out of the desk chair and Izuku can feel the weight of her eyes before she closes the door behind her.
He blinks against the growing pressure in his eyes, dropping down onto the cot next to Tsu and Kirishima. Why was he about to cry? He knew this would happen, expected this to happen. Just because he had a quirk now didn’t mean his body changed at all. He was still in a body that was never supposed to have one in the first place. Nothing but a stupid, quirkless—
“Deku?”
Izuku snaps his head up, unable to stifle the flinch at the name. Hurt bubbled in the pit of his stomach, but Izuku shoved it down. She didn’t mean it like that, Deku was a good thing here. Deku was someone that was strong, not a boy who couldn’t even face a doctor.
So, instead of giving into the hopeless feeling that was slowly over taking his mind, he sat up straight and gave Uraraka a small smile. “Yeah, what’s up?”
She frowns, eyes burning with concern. “Is everything okay? That nurse was acting really weird. There’s nothing, you know, wrong with you or anything...?”
Izuku closes his eyes for a brief second to push down his boiling emotions. Because he was wrong, he wasn’t supposed to exist, not in this generation. Most the 20% with a quirk were the older generations and coupled with the fact that he had a quirk despite his quirklessness... By every definition, Izuku was wrong.
Instead of voicing this, he shrugges. “I, um, I don’t really know?” He gives a self conscious chuckle and wraps his arms around his stomach, looking back down at the cot. “Guess we’ll see when the doctor comes...”
Uraraka still didn’t look convinced, and neither did everyone else in the room. Kirishima and Ashido were uncharacteristically quiet as they shared a loaded look, while Tsu looked on them thoughtfully. However as soon as she her mouth to retort, the door swung wide to show a man with long hair pulled back into a bun and a clipboard under his arm.
“Hello! My name is Nakahara Hayao. I will be your doctor today, but since this is just a checkup there isn’t much to do. We’ll be starting with...” the doctor trailes off as his eyes caught Izuku’s, who instinctively ducked down at the gaze. The tension was thick enough to cut with a knife, or several. After a few seconds too long of silence, Izuku glanced up to the doctor's unguarded hostile gaze.
Seeming to notice that Izuku wasn’t blind, he hummed and turned to Kirishima. “We’ll start off with you! If you could hold out your arm please?”
The evaluation goes mostly smooth after that. The doctor draws each of their blood with the occasional complement of how well behaved they were. (Well, most of them.) While taking their vitals, he gave Izuku narrowed eyed looks, but being on the receiving end of discriminating behavior for years taught him to just endure it and ignore him.
Everyone else, however, didn’t have over a decade of experience. Ashido looked uncomfortable, her normally bright smile tight on the edges, Kirishima straight up glared at the man the entire time, Tsu stared at him owlishly like he was the biggest idiot in the world, and Uraraka looked one misstep away from murder.
Eventually, the doctor sat back on his heels and gave a firm, if awkward, nod. “That should be it! Everything seems to check out and there seems to be nothing of great concern at the moment. If you all could just wait in here until Nurse Ito gets back in her with the forms. The money has been partially covered by U.A. already and we will send the rest of the bill to your parents, but we need their signatures so if you were interested to see how much your visit costs, there you go!”
It was incredibly tense in the moments that followed, but the doctor continued his optimistic smile. “I hope you all have a wonderful day!” With that he walked out of the room.
Unlike before, no one asked what happened. He could feel the weight of their gazes as he fidgeted with the hem of his shirt. The silence continued until the door opened again to show the nurse from before, holding a stack of papers. “You can leave whenever you need now,” she says as she hands out the white sheets. “Your teacher is in the waiting room, but most of the students are floating around somewhere in the building or still being checked.”
Izuku doesn’t have to look at the numbers at the bottom of the page to know this day would end in tears.
Ochako didn’t go to the doctor very often.
Of course she went when she needed to and the occasional check up, but her family couldn’t afford her to go every time she got sick. For as flustered as she got she wasn’t very clumsy, especially once she got the hand of using her quirk on herself without immediately throwing up. So she didn’t need to come very often anyways
When Aizawa-sensei said they were visiting the doctor, she couldn’t help the curious excitement build up. Yeah, it was silly, but U.A. was paying half of the fee! Not that her parents couldn’t, per say, a check up shouldn’t be super expensive. Ochako was just happy to take any stress off of her parents as she could.
Even amidst her own small joys, she didn’t miss the way that Deku’s shoulders tensed and dropped at the mention of the hospital they would be going to. She frowned but let it pass as another “Deku” thing.
Now she was regretting that stupid decision.
Presently, she was looking at the paper in her hands, wide eyed at how cheap the cost was. Of course she knew it wouldn’t be expensive but not this low. Glancing up higher she saw a little note in pen that said “hero in training discount”. The low price plus U.A.’s coverage would mean her parents barely had to dig in their pockets at all.
However, when she looked up at Deku he looks a second from vomiting. His hands shook the paper, his eyes not even on the thing but on the white floor in front of it. After a second he let out a long breath and met her gaze with a shaky smile. “I, uh, need to call my mom real quick. I’ll see you on the bus?”
Before she could even hope to reply, he darts out of the room with the paper squeezed into a fist.
The rest of them sat in shocked silence for two long seconds before Ashido let out a low and passionate: “What the fuck just happened.”
“They were so mean to him, kero,” Tsu blinks her eyes harshly, tears coating her voice. “We should tell Aizawa-sensei, that wasn’t normal.”
“I would make sure he never has to come back to this hospital again,” Kirishima growls. Ochako blinks at the pure aggression of his tone, but couldn’t refute him.
“There’s another hospital on the other side of town,” Ochako says. “I’m not gonna sit and watch that happen in another six months.”
“But why did they even do that?! He wasn’t even doing anything!” exclaims Ashido. “The nurse started acting super weird when she pulled his x-ray up, not like that explains anything!” She huffed and crossed her arms over her chest.
Ochako groans and presses the heel of her hand to her forehead. None of this made any sense. But Tsu was right, the best course of action was to go to Aizawa-sensei and figure out what happened. When she opened her mouth to say so, however, Deku’s shaky voice floated down the hall.
“No mom, just listen- Mom! It’s fine, I’ll just…” his voice fades again, and Ochako doesn’t have to think hard to imagine the way that he’s trying to keep himself from crying, if he’s not already. “I can get a part time job after school, I think it’ll be okay for a few months until we can get this paid off. I— the last thing you need is to be in debt or take even longer shifts. I know…”
His voice faded out again, leaving the four of them with even more heartbreaking information. She fells awful for not knowing that him and his mother were struggling financially… but it did make sense, with it just being the two of them depending on a paycheck from thousands of miles away. Though now it sounds like that wasn’t exactly the case.
“Bro…” Kirishima whispers, ten thousand emotions packed into one word. “Poor Midoriya…”
“They really must be low on money if they can’t afford this,” Ashido says, gesturing to the paper in her hand.
Tsu places a finger on her chin. “Kero, or they changed it for him for some reason…”
A chill ran down Ochako’s back and her stomach flips like when she overuses her quirk. Did this happen every time Deku came to the doctor? She remembered the way that he looked just so… indifferent. Like he didn’t expect any different. It was an awful thing to think about.
During her musings, Deku’s voice could be heard again. “Mom I didn’t-I didn’t tell them Mom— please just listen-Mom listen!” His voice cracks and it further shatters Ochakos heart. “I know, I-I want to, but… U.A. is supposed to be different-is different. And-and I don’t-I don’t want it to go back to how it was Mom. Please,” a small sob echoes from the hall. “please don’t make me make it how it used to be.”
The four looked at each other with wide eyes, al asking the question: tell us what? This was getting worse and worse, making less and less sense. She wanted to cry, and scream, and yell, and demand what was going on with her bestfriend, but she could do nothing but sit and listen to his soft cries from another room.
There was silence, save for wet sniffles, from the hall, and they all sat tensely, waiting for the next shoe to drop. Instead, they heard a deep sigh and a quiet, almost silent, “Okay Mom… I’ll talk to Aizawa-sensei.”
Ochako releases a breath she didn’t realize she was holding, looking around to find the relief reflected in her friends’ faces. Deku was getting help, Aizawa-sensei would fix this, and everything would go back to normal.
She could only hope that this was the case as she heard footsteps getting quieter down the hall.
Shouta was already having a day, and staying with a bunch of reckless teenagers at a hospital was not helping his mood.
It’d started off like always: a patrol around town. But then he’d gotten caught up in a case with a new group of villains. The police team had been following them for weeks and this was about the only chance they’d gotten to take them down and save the hostages.
Not everyone was saved.
Heroics was an exhausting job, not for all the athletics that go into it, but the sheer knowledge that lives were in your hand and one tiny misstep would be the end of them. The emotional burden of knowing that you have to confront a sobbing mother about how you couldn't save their child, or a hysterical sibling clinging to you, begging for you to bring their family back.
Yeah, to say he was exhausted was an understatement.
When he saw his resident problem child walking towards him, nervously, hands twisting themselves into painful knots, he knew his day was about to get longer.
“Um, Aizawa-sensei, I—“ the kid bites his lip, moving his hands from tangling each other to gripping the bottom of his shirt. He doesn’t raise his gaze off the floor.
“Kid, I can’t help you if you don’t say anything,” Shouta says in a tone a little too harsh if the flinch in response is anything to go by. He wasn’t trying to scold him and knew that this was a big step for Midoriya. Midoriya, who was just beginning to answer questions in class without looking ashamed, who tried to carry all of the world’s problems by himself (not unlike another person who had no self-preservation skills). So he forced his face to smooth from it’s annoyed frown and waited for him to continue.
It took a minute or two of more silence. Shouta could practically hear the thoughts going ten thousand miles through the kids head and the longer the silence continued the more worried he became. On top of the knowledge Midoriya never comes to an adult for help, the fact he was struggling so much to articulate what he needed was concerning.
“I, um, I need help with the— the cost,” he says finally, shame coloring his voice.
Shouta remembers seeing him and his mother were living off of the father’s money from overseas, but the salary listed was more than enough for a simple doctor’s visit. “Kid, you know that U.A. is paying for half, right?”
Midoriya nods, scuffing the ground with his heel. “My dad… he got, um, he got a pay cut or— or isn’t sending us as much, and my mom just got a new job. Its— its been hard on her. I called her earlier and she said to come to you so…”
Ah, he knew the problem child wouldn’t come without prompting, but he was proud nonetheless. “Can I see the payment?”
He hesitates, glancing into Shouta’s eyes briefly. Shouta can see the thinly veiled panic there and keeps his face a blank slate of emotions. His student takes a deep breath and over the paper.
Shouta reads through the information and feels his eyes widen at the bill listed. “Midoriya,” he tried to keep the frustration out of his tone to no avail. “Care to explain why your check up costs the same as a surgery?”
The kid’s shoulders are shaking hard, hiccuping a sob. “I, um, I—“
“Ahh, Eraserhead!” A cheery voice interrupts. “Sorry to intrude, but do you have a moment for a conversation?”
Midoriya stiffens at the voice, face white as paper. Shouta frowns at the reaction and turns to the doctor. Casually, like he’s brushing the hair by his head, he clicks on the recording device behind his ear. “Does this conversation you need have anything to do with my student?” Shouta then notices a folder tucked under the doctor’s arm.
“Err…,” he not so subtly glances at the kid, who is paralyzed looking at his shoes. “Yes, but—“
“Anything important enough to tell me immediately should not be held from the student in question,” Shouta says lowly. “Say what you need now or leave.”
The doctor pauses, something dark flashing in his eyes before he pastes that bright smile on his face. “Very well! I’m sure it’s nothing that your student doesn’t already know. We found a very peculiar object in his x-ray.” He opens the folder and points at the first image. “Do you know what this is?”
Shouta doesn’t appreciate the way this man talks about Midoriya like he isn’t in the room. He squints at the paper. “No, I don’t think I do.”
The man grins wide. In his peripheral vision, Midoriya flinches. Shouta doesn’t know the doctor’s name, but Dr. Loony seems fitting. “You see, this boy has an extra pinky toe joint. Normally this suggests a case of Quirklessness,” he says the word like a child saying a curse. “But I, like many others, watched the Sports Festival and know your student possesses a wonderful quirk.”
“What are you suggesting?” Shouta practically growls, low and dangerous like the rumbling before a volcanic eruption.
Dr. Loony, apparently, is hard of hearing. “Now I wouldn’t want to assume anything,” he whispers like a schoolgirl gossip. “But with the villain that All Might defeated, it’s a possibility that he got the quirk from… undesirable sources in order to get into U.A.”
Shouta jerks from the man, anger and disbelief searing his veins. “You assume that because his biology is slightly different that my student negotiated with All for One?!”
The doctor shrugs, that giddy smile still on his face. “What else am I supposed to believe when it’s practically impossible to gain a quirk without a quirk factor?”
“And this is the same reason his bill was overpriced?”
The man blinks as if it were a completely valid reason. “Oh, well, that’s just to cover the strain certain bodies put on our machines.”
Bullshit. “And my student with bird anatomy and a shadow demon doesn’t fit such criteria?”
“Oh no, he, they? They definitely did.” Dr. Loony had the audacity to sound fucking relieved, like Shouta was the one who needed understanding. “The kid with all the arms was a pain as well.”
Shouta only gives away his boiling anger with an eye twitch. “I see.” He clicks the recorder off, much less discreetly. “As you are clearly not aware, U.A. has a strict ‘no discrimination’ policy, both from students and outside sources. I hope you were not expecting any more visits from us because I can say with absolute certainty that we will not be under this roof again.”
“I— what—?”
“I am not finished,” he snaps. “I have enough proof from just this conversation alone to have you fired and blacklisted from working at another hospital in your position ever again, then sue you for discriminating behavior towards those with mutation quirks and those without one. I hope, for your employees and co-workers sake, when I give this to Nezu for investigation that is all he finds.”
Dr. Loony gapes at him, jaw opening and closing like a fish out of water. Shouta sighs. “If all you are going to be is stand there and sputter, this conversation is over. Go away before you do something even more stupid.”
He has enough self-preservation to snap his mouth closed and march away. Shouta enjoys the moment for a second before turning to his student, still standing where he was before.
Midoriya looks up at him, tears streaming down his cheeks. “I didn’t want him to get fired,” he whispers.
This kid… “Better him getting fired than someone else be discriminated against, right?” He waits for Midoriya to nod before continuing. “This isn’t your fault, you’re not in trouble,” he reassures, trying to relieve the tension from his student’s hunched shoulders. “Sit down, this may take a while.”
Midoriya lowers his head again and sits in a chair. Shouta sits next to him, despite the somewhat awkward positioning. He rubs his eyes, taking a second to process. Waiting will probably— no, definitely— make the kid more anxious, but the doctor’s observation was… a lot. He’d encountered many quirkless individuals. Of course he had, his job was in the midst of the worst things in society, from a small child crying in a dark alley to wrapping the wounds of a determined vigilante. Beaten down by society until they had no choice but something drastic.
Had Midoriya grown up the same way? Bullied and isolated by the same people he was supposed to call friends? Had he even grown up quirkless? He sure as hell had a quirk now, and to even consider him taking an offer from All for One… it was an impossibility to even think about.
But how, if he didn’t have a quirk factor, did he have one now? Was he truly just a part of the small percentage that still gained a quirk? Him having poor control over the quirk due to his body made sense, but it didn’t sound right. Not with the way he acted at the beginning of the year, how he was acting now. Had he had his quirk as long as everyone else, the only discrimination he would have received would have been medically. It should be easy to hide a single toe joint with such a dramatic quirk. Then he’d be the same as Bakugo; idolized for his quirk, set far above the rest.
But it didn’t explain how he never told adults anything unless necessary. It didn’t explain the flinches at sudden, loud noises and certain phrases. It didn’t explain why a child would be fine with calling themselves useless.
Shouta looks at the teen now. He’s absolutely terrified, his shoulders hunched and tight, white-knucked hands twist knots into his shirt. “Midoriya,” Shouta starts, trying to sound less demanding as not start the boy. It doesn’t work. Midoriya jerks his head up fast, fear and apprehension clouding his watery eyes. “You didn’t get your quirk with everyone else, did you?”
Midoriya’s lips tremble as a sob escapes him. His hands somehow wring his shirt even tighter, and Shouta lays a hand on one of them. “Remember, Problem Child?” Shouta says softly. “I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s wrong.”
He stares, wide-eyed in shock, before barrelling into Shouta’s chest. His student cries openly now, loud and painful and so real Shouta feels his dry eye act up. Shouta shushes him quietly and cards a hand through his hair. Midoriya is shaking his head hard, whether to answer the question or because he’s just shaking that badly Shouta can’t tell.
He lets the kid cry until his sobbing is nothing but hoarse hiccups and sniffling. “When did it come in?”
Midoriya doesn’t move for a moment. For a second Shouta wonders if he’d cried himself to sleep before he hears a whispered, “The entrance exam…”
Shouta resists the urge to give a sigh because of course, of course, what he had mistaken for recklessness and laziness was a damn quirk manifestation.
“Kid, look at me for a second.” He does, his face a swollen mess of tears and snot. “What happened today— and whatever has happened before— was and will always be wrong. You should have never had to deal with that. Midoriya, you have worth. Not just because you have a quirk. Because you are smart and selfless and so kind. What people said to you before isn’t true then or now, do you understand?”
Midoriya nods, but it’s too hesitant for Shouta’s liking. “Repeat it.”
“W-what?”
“Repeat it back to me: you have always had worth and you were never useless.”
“I-I have always had-had worth and was never use-useless.”
“You deserve your place at U.A.”
“I de-deserve my place at U.A.”
“Good. Now if anyone says otherwise I will personally beat their ass.”
Midoriya gives a wet giggle and swipes a hand at his eyes. “You’ll beat any-anyone’s ass who says o-otherwise.”
“Better believe it, Problem Child.” He gives the kid’s curls a playful ruffle. Shouta stands, holding Midoriya’s shoulders so he doesn’t fall back. “Let’s go get this money thing fixed.”
Shouta’s not stupid. One conversation isn’t enough to fix a lifetime of hurt and broken trust. He still has two more students to talk to, if not then maybe more. He doesn’t expect Midoriya to come to him for everything now. Taking one discriminating place down won’t fix the system.
But it's one step towards healing, and that’s what matters most.