Chapter Text
One might think that after all these missions, Izuku’s hands wouldn’t shake as they do now. Trembling, he rinses them in the sink, not caring so much for the heat of the water, but the pale pink disappearing down the drain as the red washes from his hands.
It’s still there, though.
It always is.
The blood is permanently caked under his nails, seeped into the grooves of his skin, too far down to ever really be washed away.
No one can blame him for trying, though.
Taking deep breaths proves difficult, as the air teeters uncertainly on his lips before falling into his caved in lungs. Each quivering breath only increases the trembling in his hands.
Aoi hasn’t come out of surgery yet, and he hasn’t left the hospital since. It’s not entirely his fault, but he’s let emotions and doubt overcome him and suddenly he’s weighed down with this impossible load that a child might not live (much less walk) because of his inefficiency. His own legs tremble under the enormous burden he’s to carry if the child dies.
(More red.
More tears.
More shaking hands.)
Dying hasn’t taken him back far enough to stop it and trying again would be dangerous, the acidic smell of vomit reminds him.
He hates this.
Get it together. He has to get it together, he tells himself while he cries.
But Aoi is so young.
It’s not fair.
It’s not.
(Nothing’s fair.)
In that tiny bathroom, Midoriya Izuku falls apart for the fourth time today. (Or is it the first? It’s terribly late and the sun sank below the horizon hours ago.)
When he’s gathered enough of his pieces together, he exits the bathroom and lingers in the hallway like a ghost. Nurses and doctors pass him and don’t ask much; it’s late and they’re all tired. He’s not a patient, but they don’t shoo him off.
Most of Unit 15 has gone, Pearson’s probably delivering the report, Saito’s up to whatever the hell Saito does to decompress after a hard mission and-oh.
Ogura and Kensei are in the waiting room. “I thought you guys left,” he says in a hoarse voice.
Ogura doesn’t meet his eyes. “I vant to see how the boy isss doing,” she replies.
“He looks a lot like my little cousin, and...” Kensei leans back in his seat and stares at the ceiling, deciding against finishing that statement. “I’m just making sure he’s okay.” He pauses. “Park’s outside. Got anxious.”
“Smoking?” Izuku assumes, taking a seat beside the older boy.
“Yeah. Smoking.”
“I thought you didn’t like hospitals,” Ogura says aloud; more of a question, but she knows the answer.
Izuku just purses his lips.
The group lapses into an uneasy silence. Hours pass, Kensei falls asleep, Ogura gets up and stretches her legs every once in awhile, perching on chairs like a gargoyle on its post. (Well, she is a gargoyle. That makes sense.)
Finally, the surgeon emerges. “He’s in the clear,” she announces in a weary, but proud voice. “Fukudo-kun will make a good recovery, but….” Here it comes. “I’m afraid he’s going to be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.”
“Is there anything we could do?” Kensei asks. (The surgeon probably takes him for an older brother; Fukudo Aoi and Kensei Hiromi look a lot alike.)
“Well, there is a new surgeon over at Tokyo Spine Center. His quirk might allow him to mend the damage to Fukudo’s lower back, but….”
“But what?”
She sighs. “It’s very expensive.”
“How expensive?”
“Upwards of twenty million yen.”
The room falls quiet at her words. “Thank you for your work,” Izuku says.
She nods and leaves.
Later in the night, as Izuku climbs in Aoi’s hospital window, his hands are steady, lifting him into the room for the cold night air. Scaling the building undetected hadn’t been easy, but he has to do this.
Aoi sleeps peacefully, small eyes lightly closed, hooked up to a million machines. His even breathing calms Izuku some as he approaches the bed. Reaching out toward Aoi, his hands begin to shake.
“Dammit,” he whispers. “Dammit, dammit, dammit.”
THe boy shifts but does not wake.
Izuku wipes the unshed tears from his eyes. “You’re going to be able to walk again, Aoi. So help me God, it will happen.”
But Izuku is not God. He is not divine or immortal or holy.
God created the universe in six days with sure hands and words, immovable and all-knowing.
Of all those things, Izuku is not one of them, with tremors in his palms and uncertainty in his heart.