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Days free of the burden of illness were gone. Inside his skin, there was grief. With each breath, his heart yearned for the body that once was sufficient. He missed the days when he could move freely without pain limiting him.
Now, he wakes up, arms trembling and spasming. Izuku clenches his teeth, praying to whatever deity is listening for his seizing limbs to come to a halt. He wants to regret what brought him to such a sorry state so badly. He can’t – not when there were lives on the line. He has a bleeding soul that knows that meddling in other people’s business is the essence of being a true hero. It's a shame that these are the consequences.
Izuku is human. He wants to dearly blame someone else for the pain he suffers through day by day other than himself. While he’d never take back his actions, knowing the good they’ve resulted in, he still grieves. He grieves the days when his body could move fluently without any resistance.
His body creaks and resists his attempts to calm his spasms. His fingers twitch in a way that sends sparking pain up his arms, radiating into his scapulas. Sucking in a breath, he waits for the trembling to pass. He knows it will. It will subside enough for him to get dressed and become more controlled as he adjusts to the pain.
With another sharp whipping sensation up his forearm, he feels his teeth start to groan under the pressure he’s putting them under. Fleetingly, he wonders if he’ll need to see the dentist over time for miniature fractures in the future.
Ever since his arms ended up in this state, he’s had trouble with his coordination, especially in the morning. Physical therapy can only work so much. The science relies upon Recovery Girl’s quirk. Scar tissue, which has built up significantly in Izuku’s joints over time through his various heroic escapades, hardens after he’s fully healed. After Recovery Girl uses her quirk on him, his arms heal to various stages of healing. He knows that at the beginning of the school year, she healed his bones completely, if not just enough for one more healing session. With no movement between those sessions, the scar tissue builds and solidifies, causing spurs of the material to become rigid under his skin. And once he’s fully healed, there’s not much he can do to prevent the tissue from catching on itself, causing electrifying pain to shoot up and down his joints.
Physical therapy could help. However, it can only get him so far to help break up the scar tissue that piles on itself over and over again with each firecracker-like explosion in his arm. Besides, his ligaments are misshapen and torn beyond anything that can be healed within his own healing factors. Fragments of his bone are implanted in such fragile fixtures holding his bones together.
He did this to himself. The tremors, he tells himself to keep positive, are signs of triumph in saving others. They’re scars of things he did right.
It doesn’t take away from the fact that the pain and weakness in his arm right as he wakes up can barely make its way to his alarm to shut it off. His arm feels so heavy as if it’s being crushed into smithereens by the weight of an entire ten-story building. He can feel his shoulder strain itself to keep his elbow and wrist from falling onto the bed. At the moment, he can barely form the proper position for his fingers to shut off the alarm on his phone that rests on his headboard.
If he were able, he’d clench his fists and hit his mattress in frustration at his own weakness. He grieves having such an ability.
His morning is faced with many similar struggles: the struggle of going through his morning round of physical therapy.
It’s painful – his physical therapy. He’s been told by many therapists that it’s not supposed to be painful. If it’s painful, then he’s overdoing it. By now, he’s used to the pain in some deranged way. He understands that the injuries that he’s sustained in such a short time period are unnatural. It only makes sense in his mind that it’s supposed to hurt. After all, his ligaments, joints, and bones aren’t in good shape. The scar tissue that spurs and snaps with all his movements is all part of his healing.
He knows that through physical therapy the scar tissue can be broken down a bit to make his movements less rigid. They’ll become more fluid-like. His physical therapy has proven so: as he starts his morning routine with the therapy, his joints don’t lock up to such an unmanageable degree. The scar tissue that he breaks down allows the spurs to catch less often. His pain level decreases – at least that’s what he tells himself.
His coordination improves as his pain begins to subside. He can manage to button up his shirt before class. He has the finger strength to unplug his phone from its charger. It’s embarrassing to admit, but there have been days where he physically doesn't have the finger strength to unplug his phone. Instead, his arm limply pulled at the cord, but it remained snug in its port. On the days without his dexterity. He’s adapted to using a buttonhole helped off of Yamazon.com for people with limited dexterity or quirked fingers that don’t allow for such movement.
He hates using those.
He misses the hands he used to have. He misses his dexterity. He misses the little things.
Izuku misses being able to make a tight fist. It’s a hand gesture he’s found himself doing often as a determined hero student. He often looks upon his scarred-over hand as a reminder of his hero-student status – his reminder of his resolve. He lost that ability too. Instead, his skin stretches uncomfortably over his knuckles and his knuckles feel like they buckle under the movement. It feels gross. He hates it. He wishes for the movement he once possessed.
He never knew how much fluidity impacted his life until the luxury went away.
If his coordination isn’t resolved by breakfast, he opts for a simpler breakfast. When his tremors continue throughout his morning routine, resolutely sticking with him despite his heating pads, physical therapy, and stretches, he refuses to use chopsticks.
He remembers trying to use chopsticks a few days after the sports festival. How he kept fumbling with them in his hands while his mother rattled off about how worried she was watching him. Instead of dutifully listening to her worries, all he could do was get frustrated at his own coordination as the pieces of wood slipped under his grip. They kept sliding against each other, dropping the food he once held securely. But, he got the hang of it, eventually, albeit his hold was shaky and his mind had to be focused. He adapted to needing such focus to make up for his lack of coordination and strength.
After the summer camp attack, using chopsticks became more of a task. He’s gotten better at using forks in most situations. While chopsticks weren’t a complete impossibility, flailing in front of his class with tools he, along with his classmates, mastered years and years ago, was not something he would enjoy. Instead, he opted for more protein shakes in the morning as he was regaining his strength.
He missed breakfast with fish, miso soup, and rice.
He misses the fingers that could gracefully pick up each grain of rice individually if he wished.
Izuku recalls the days when he was about four, showing off to his mother how much control he had over his chopsticks. He remembers showing her how he could pick up the slickest of tofu and grains of rice effortlessly. He would hold them up high to meet his mother’s pleased face. With praise from his mother about his chopstick skill, he moved carelessly to the next item to pick up in front of his mother.
What he didn’t know then was that that ability would fail him in just over a decade.
By the time class rolled around, holding a pencil was manageable. However, his handwriting would beg to differ in this opinion. Sloppy was one word for it. Incorrigible is another.
Incomprehensible was definitely a thought he had looking upon his first few pages of notes for the day.
He remembers feeling grateful as Iida offered his notes to Izuku for the first few weeks after the summer camp, seeing Izuku hunched over the common room table trying to reread and rewrite his notes after classes that day. Iida placed his neat notes in front of Izuku, wordlessly.
He missed having his notes written in an orderly manner. Books upon books of hero notes would line up beside his class notes. They were completely comprehensible and legible. They were exact and calculated.
Reflecting upon those memories and comparing them to the pure slop that lies in front of him this morning, he cringes. While the overall organization of where he puts his notes is retained, nothing can make sense as the kanji and words are chicken scratch at best.
As the classes go on, the pressure in his fingers and wrist increases. Most days, he wears compression gloves and a sleeve to alleviate the pressure. Today, he didn’t have the strength to get the sleeve up his arm. For his gloves, he could barely separate his fingers apart enough to get the stiff material over his gnarled appendages. It was a lost cause today.
This pressure increases and begins to affect the legibility of his writing – which has improved in the last hour as his hand has properly warmed up to the right coordination and task. But his hand becomes so stiff and achy. The pressure begins to affect the amount of strength with which he can hold and write with his pencil. Some words are written too softly on the paper and some are heavily written on the paper to overcompensate.
The grip on his pencil keeps slipping, and it frustrates him beyond normal comprehension. He doesn’t understand why his hands couldn’t just work on their own to grasp onto an object. He knows as a fact that even babies have such a simple capability to grasp onto anything that lays in their palms automatically. For them to have a grip on an object, Izuku doesn't understand why it couldn’t apply to him. He’s been writing for years and years.
His grief builds within.
He feels unshed tears for his condition to grow. Izuku’s overactive tear ducts only in private shed tears about his deteriorating hands. Instead, he thinks of how necessary the injuries were – to save Todoroki from himself and to save Kota from villains and his classmates from the League at the USJ.
He doesn’t let himself think about it.
It’s not like he’s disabled by it.
Right?
He pushes and pushes his way through the rest of his classes before lunch. He pushes aside his pain for the moment to immerse himself in the country’s best learning in both general studies and heroic studies. This education would serve him well, and there’s not a chance he’d let such a thing as pain stand in his way.
The pain grows.
He pushes, yes. But ignoring pain isn’t real anymore. He’s tricking himself. Biting his tongue and clenching his jaw, he continues to scribble down the ramblings of his teachers.
He feels the throbbing of his fingers, reminding him of the inevitable result of cramping.
He needed to push through it as if his mangled hands were never a problem, at least until lunch when he could catch a break with katsudon eaten with a fork.
Finally, the history class ends. In the moment of relaxation, his hand completely cramps up, knocking the wind out of Izuku. He feels the tremor from his early morning return in full force after pushing his hand to keep up with the influx of information from his class.
His classmates close their notebooks and begin to chatter, gravitating to their friends to head over to the cafeteria.
Paralyzed by the pain, Izuku forces his face to remain neutral. He shoved his hand underneath his desk, knowing his friends would stop by his desk before heading to the cafeteria. He couldn’t let them know – there was no need to worry. Besides, this pain was due to his own incompetencies in limiting his power and not being able to handle One For All to its fullest extent. It was his own weakness putting him in this position, and there was no reason to make this worry his dear friends.
His voice seemed strained, but his friends agreed to meet him in the cafeteria. He cited that he wanted to find Aizawa-sensei to find out something about his hero costume.
His classmates all began to shuffle out of the classroom, leaving Izuku alone. Izuku bites his lip to push the tears back into his tear ducts. The bridge of his nose burns. The feeling is almost welcoming to him as his body prepares himself to let loose the tears that have been stored for weeks now.
Fleetingly, he knows consciously the term behind his frustration: grief.
Izuku bites his lip harder, willing for the tears to dissipate.
Hand still trembling, he uses his left hand to pinch the bridge of his nose, thinking this will lessen the pressure building under his nose. With deep breaths, he tries to calm himself. He was fine. He just needed a moment to get used to the pain. He needed to get to the pain threshold where he could adjust to the constant throbbing of his hand and shivered at its own will. Once he got used to the sensation, he could still do it and go to lunch without worrying about his friends and peers.
This was manageable. This is how some of his finicky days go.
The classroom door slides open to reveal his homeroom teacher, Aizawa-sensei.
Izuku sucked in a breath and tried to subtly drop his hand under his desk while fake-looking through his bag to occupy himself. Aizawa was probably there to collect some papers from other classes that day. If he could just look busy enough, his teacher would brush him off and leave Izuku to calm himself down from his searing pain.
Instead, Aizawa approached Izuku and stood next to his desk.
Caught, Izuku thought to himself. He stopped rustling his left hand from his bag to meet the eyes of his teacher.
Aizawa wasted no time in saying, “Iida said that you had a question about your costume.”
Izuku’s mind came to a halt for a second. It was the excuse he lent out to his friends. While his costume did need a few adjustments here and there, it could directly be handled by the support department without Aizawa’s instruction.
“Oh, um, I think the support department has it handled,” Izuku covers.
Aizawa nods, looking down at the arm tucked under the desk. Aizawa stares for a second before meeting Izuku’s eyes again. His gaze bores into Izuku’s eyes. Izuku’s walls begin to crumble under the scrutiny of his teacher.
He crouches down to Izuku’s level. The short moment of shock from the movement sends a jolt of nerve pain shooting down his right arm. The pulsating in his fingers beats against his skin. Izuku can’t prevent the microexpression of a cringe from sweeping over his face. Being an underground hero, Izuku knew this wouldn’t get past his observant teacher.
“Problem Child,” Aizawa starts. “How are you doing?”
Izuku’s not sure if it’s the openness to the question, how there’s nothing directly being referenced, or because Izuku’s exhausted from holding everything in, but his walls tumble down like Jenga pieces. The burning behind his nose, the telltale sign of tears from him, renews in full force. There was no stopping what was to come next.
Tears stream down his cheek in heaving sobs. He tries to look away from his poor teacher. He doesn’t want to break down in front of the respected hero. He didn’t even do anything to make Izuku cry. He wonders how weak he seems to cry at just a question.
Aizawa doesn’t move, Izuku sees through his tears. Instead, Aizawa pulls out a box of tissues from seemingly out of nowhere. Though truth be told, Izuku’s tears are making everything pretty blurry at the moment.
He does hear his teacher sigh and make himself comfortable on the seat of the desk beside his, allowing Izuku to clear through his first round of sobs.
It takes a few minutes to let Izuku calm down to again meet his teacher’s eyes without being interrupted by a flood of tears and an occasional blowing of his nose. He faintly realizes that his hand underneath the table is clenched as tightly as it can. He’s unsure if that’s because he’s trying to ground himself with pain or if it’s from a habit of trying to hold the tears back.
It’s then that Izuku realizes that he hasn’t answered Aizawa’s question. Well, maybe he did indirectly. Now he can’t just lie and brush it off. He’s not charismatic like All Might to change the subject and avoid the question altogether. He’s already pretty much revealed that he’s very much not okay.
“Kid, I have an inkling what’s going on, but would you like to discuss this in a private area or maybe with another teacher?”
Truthfully Izuku doesn’t want to talk about this with anyone. This befalls him. It’s his problem, and he wants to become a hero who doesn’t needlessly worry others. He’s trying to keep himself true to that new goal of his. He tries to shake his head at his teacher, indicating that he blatantly doesn’t want to talk about this.
He can’t. It’s not like he could describe it anyway. He just realized that this was all the grief of the body he used to have.
The overwhelming feeling that he’s never going to get better. It’s a hard diagnosis that’s only now settling in. He’s done irreparable damage to his body that’s affecting his daily life. The pain he feels impacts all parts of his day that it had never done before. Suddenly the simplest things became tasks to plan out and execute.
It’s a stone in his gut that lies there. It almost makes him nauseous to know he’s stuck like this without a way out. It hurts, everything hurts.
Just one question was all it took for this dam to break, letting his frustrations he’s carefully laid out in a barricade burst open. He’s tried and tried ways to regain the body he once had. Izuku feels lost without the body he has control of. It’s a feeling of violation he can’t explain. It’s as if he doesn’t know his body anymore. His thoughts that his hands don’t listen to him, chopsticks fall, he loses his grip, his handwriting sucks, popping joints, and crackling ligaments make fatter tears fall down his face.
Izuku doesn’t want to talk about it. It’s just grief. Everyone gets over grief. He’s fine. Like everyone else, he’ll overcome his vexation toward his body. It’s his fault anyway.