Chapter Text
Midoriya wakes up disconnected.
It’s a sensation that usually comes from a bad battle and time with Recovery Girl to heal. As far as he can recall, Midoriya was body checked by a woman while on patrol during his last night of internships, only to be thrown into Kacchan. The woman was taken into custody, and Bakugou swore up a storm, singeing Midoriya’s hood.
Midoriya sits up in bed, confirming he’s in his dorm room. He counts his limbs, stretching out the aches in his two arms and the tightness in the calves of his two legs: no bandages but a bruise from Kacchan’s elbow on his thigh.
No physical injuries to account for the separated feeling; what next? Is it a mind quirk?
I, Midoriya Izuku, of sound mind and body do declare…
No fog creeps in on his senses; no sudden desire pinches at his chest to reveal secrets. There’s no mental control on his limbs like Shinsou; Midoriya is fine.
He just can’t feel.
He read somewhere sometimes extreme stress can take on a dissociated fugue state. Midoriya stares at the stack of completed homework on his desk, thumbs through his phone for any calendar reminders on upcoming projects or events.
No stressors, or at least no more than the usual League of Villains threatening Midoriya’s door.
Something doesn’t add up and Midoriya, with muted surprise, doesn’t care. There is no clear and present danger, he’s in sound body and mind, so he can ride – whatever this is – out.
When Uraraka greets Midoriya, he finds it difficult to smile. He does it out of reflex and habit, but the action blooms questions of analysis and curiosity. Midoriya has never been so aware of smiling before. To Uraraka, his smile is large and wide, so big he thinks his lips will split at the corners. It hurts his face, so he falters in maintaining the strength.
“How are you doing, Deku?” Uraraka greets with a cheerfulness Midoriya can usually match. Her eyes are alight with more concern than usual; he’s unsure if he should share or simply lie about the disconnection he feels. Does Uraraka value honesty over spared feelings? The contemplation is tiring.
It’s illogical to worry Uraraka about minor things. “I’m fine, you?” He tries to smile again.
“…Fine.” She replies, clearly not believing. How does Midoriya continue conversations when both declare they’re fine? How did he do it in the past? Did he ask about homework? Or talk about training or recap their internships before class? Does he ask her if she managed to go to that cake buffet place she’s been dying to try?
By the time Midoriya settles on an answer to approach Uraraka with, he’s exhausted, and asking isn’t worth the effort he spent. Uraraka glances away when Tsuyu asks if she wants one egg or two, and Midoriya takes the opportunity to walk out the door.
The walk to class alone is necessary, Midoriya notes, as the tension in his shoulders loosens from all his unanswered questions. Other students are filtering from the dorms, but he steers clear of interaction and social expectations he no longer knows how to handle.
He can’t feel and forgot how to talk to people. It’s not the worst thing that’s happened to Midoriya; he could have broken hands and legs all over again.
Maybe it’s just an off day; he’s not concerned.
He wonders briefly if he should be.
Class is irritating. The subjects are still interesting, but spikes in his classmates’ enthusiastic tones itch because Midoriya no longer remembers what he’s supposed to do with those sounds. He wants quiet and, if not, a handful of voices to parse out and understand; otherwise, he’s missing too much. This disconnection is leaving Midoriya behind.
He understands Bakugou a little more when he calls the class ’a bunch of noisy losers’ because it is loud, but at least he knows the noise is of familiar people instead of strangers like the ‘extras’ from this morning.
Midoriya takes a deep breath, feeling pressure build behind his sternum but something is still not aligned. He should be worried, but he isn’t. Some part of Midoriya knows if he could feel the proper amount of concern, he might be teary-eyed, might ask his friends for hugs. Or maybe Kirishima. Kirishima seems the type to give good hugs, and he deals with Bakugou daily, whose apathy is only challenged by anger.
Bakugou.
The name floats in his mind without a place to land. It’s untethered from the childhood nickname, childhood memories. Bakugou is always Kacchan because there’s too much history between them, too much time, familiarity, and admiration to be anything else.
So why is Kacchan suddenly Bakugou?
Midoriya mulls through his disconnected thoughts as he writes down mathematical equations from the board.
The admiration is still there, starry-eyed and full of wonder, though reaching for it is like trying to touch something comforting through a thick membrane. The more Midoriya reaches, the harder it seems to push through. Weird.
The determination to be better is there too. Bakugou has always pushed Midoriya to get stronger, intentionally and unintentionally. It was always a game of chase as kids, always something to flinch from in middle school. As of late, it has been the fuel keeping both sides going in an endless sprint. The determination is laced with the anger of still being seen as weak and less and not enough. The membrane is thinner here, and Midoriya sinks into the feeling. It feels safe; his emotions feel almost normal.
Anger isn’t a healthy way to be; Midoriya hears his mother soothe after she bandaged a light burn on his shoulder when he was five. He releases the emotion and drifts back to the separated feeling where not even the connection of Kacchan can hold him.
Midoriya declines lunch with his classmates. He should go; the concern on all their faces is a clear direction something is wrong, but his shoulders tense at the thought of being questioned by multiple people all at once. It is too much attention and out of his control. He needs to get a handle on this not feeling – whatever this is – so they stop worrying. If he bothers them too much with his troubles, they’ll leave. Midoriya needs to be better, needs to be the best so they know he is and always will be fine.
Instead, Midoriya scratches through homework and mulls through every vague spike of emotion he experienced throughout the day.
After class, he’s in the gym, sprinting from wall to wall to get his heart rate up. If Midoriya can’t feel something emotionally, he might as well do something to feel physically. That makes logical sense, right?
Midoriya can hear a mini-Aizawa in a monotone voice speaking his dissent at the back of his mind. Typically, anything in Aizawa’s voice will make him flinch or second guess himself. Today, it’s just a voice, which makes the low-grade worry rise for a moment. Does it mean Midoriya is becoming more untethered as the day progresses? Aren’t people untethered to emotions psychopaths?
As worry thrums at the base of his spine, Midoriya moves to weights, searching for an emotion to feel and prove he’s still moored to the person he was just the day before. Again, Midoriya finds the anger and anchors himself to it. The sensation fuels him to push harder and keep moving. Midoriya will be the number one hero, better than All Might or Kacchan or Endeavor combined. He’ll be untouchable; he’ll prove he can still be a great hero even if Midoriya can’t feel like he used to.
At dinner, all of Class A seems to notice. It’s enough to make Midoriya flinch. They all live busy lives trying to become heroes, and he’s interrupting.
He’s fine, Midoriya tells them when Iida prods. He refuses Todoroki’s extra helping of cold soba, ignores Ashido’s offer to train his mobility through dance, and stares firmly at his plate when Tokoyami voices concern. The more they ask, the more Midoriya is aware they’ll take the answer and leave. It’s best not to bother with an answer at all; best not to lay something bare when they will leave at the first chance they get. Was becoming friends all for nothing? Should he have gotten this close to begin with?
Midoriya looks away from his plate only once to see Bakugou minding his own business as his friends chatter around him. Are they friends? Bakugou calls them by some insulting nicknames that actively push everyone away. Maybe he has the right idea.
More and more questions come from the class of twenty, in passing and in concerned stares. Midoriya feels the irritation build all over again: at the noise, at the looks, at his emotions and anticipation for the other shoe to drop.
The emotion feels within his grasp, so he holds onto it as tightly, hoping it can bring him back to normal. Instead, Midoriya falls into it, snapping at Uraraka when she asks about his welfare yet again. The anger is so hot and sharp, Midoriya realizes how disconnected he feels when the emotion floods his body like the first full breath of air after drowning. He breaks the dining table and his chair, hurling it at one of the full-length windows.
Midoriya feels alive again, almost drunk on the anger, missing the fear in his classmates’ eyes, and instead looks for objects to fuel the sensation. In his desperation for something, Bakugou pins him to a pillar beside the shattered window.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Bakugou snarls, forearm against Midoriya’s throat, his eyes pinpricks of red as they search the shorter teen for some sort of answer.
Midoriya almost laughs. In some twisted form of fate, it’s the hero with anger issues who’s calming him down. The anger inside Midoriya snuffs out quickly, and he’s left feeling as cold and disconnected as before. His chest aches for the anger to return.
“How do you stay angry all the time, Bakugou?” Midoriya asks seriously, reading every microexpression on the blond’s face. There isn’t much, except for confusion layered with a flash of hurt before Bakugou is stumbling back and snarling.
“What the fuck, Deku?” Midoriya knows, based on the anger and stance, that Bakugou feels abandoned by something. He’s unclear of the specificities that make the answer ‘abandoned’ versus the blond’s usual brand of anger.
Midoriya looks past Bakugou to his classmates – some are prepared to fight, some are frozen in their seats. A small part reminds Midoriya to apologize for the disruption, but he doesn’t feel regret, and he’s not entirely sure he has something to apologize for. He’s not the type of person to say things insincerely.
He leaves.
Apparently, leaving was the wrong move because Midoriya is called down to the common room by Aizawa-sensei after the rest of the class has gone to bed. The dry-eyed teacher stands in front of the coffee table, arms crossed and a permanent frown.
“I should be grading papers,” Aizawa-sensei offers by way of greeting. Great, Midoriya is living up to the Problem Child nickname. How long until Aizawa-sensei sees he has zero potential as a hero and expels Midoriya? How hard does Midoriya need to train to prove he’s still worthy of the pro hero’s attention? “I received multiple concerning calls from your classmates about your behavior today. Care to elaborate?”
“Not really, there’s nothing to be concerned about.” Midoriya isn’t concerned. Why would anyone else be concerned? Lacking feelings isn’t a crime; Aizawa-sensei would be the first to tuck them away to think logically. Shouldn’t the teacher be proud?
Aizawa-sensei exhales heavily with disappointment. “See? That right there is a concern in itself. You’d be worried about your friends, ask how to improve. What’s wrong, Midoriya?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” Midoriya admits. “I’m not hurt, I’m sleeping, I’m making good grades, and I talked to my Mom a few days ago.” He lists off the standard welfare checklist Aizawa-sensei has for each of his students. All the boxes are checked, Midoriya is fine, Aizawa-sensei can go back to doing more important things.
“You lashed out at your best friend.” Aizawa-sensei raises a brow.
Midoriya snorts, “I wouldn’t call asking Bakugou a question as lashing out.” A flash of something crosses the teacher’s face, marking an incorrect answer.
Aizawa-sensei gestures to a couch as he falls back into an armchair. “Sit.” Midoriya does, unclear where the conversation is going. “On a scale of zero to ten, how worried were you about saving Eri from Overhaul?”
“Oh,” Midoriya smiles on instinct at the mention of Eri’s name. “Definite ten, maybe even eleven. I’d do anything to keep her safe.”
“On that same scale, what about how you felt about getting first place in the obstacle course of the sports festival?”
“Like a seven, ten, nine?” The memory of that elation is hard to pull to the surface.
“Losing Bakugou to the League of Villains?”
“Ten, probably. I hated it so much.” Midoriya shrugs.
“What about getting your hero's license?”
“Definite nine.”
“Seeing Nighteye for the last time?”
“Ten. It’s hard to lose a hero like that.”
“What about when Uraraka unlocked a new ultimate move.”
“Eight or Nine, I was super amazed.”
Aizawa-sensei leans forward in his seat, clasping his hands together. “And now?”
Midoriya blinks. “What do you mean?”
“On a scale of zero to ten, zero being nothing at all and ten being you’re determined to break all your bones to rescue someone, how do you feel?”
“That’s a hard question,” Midoriya admits with a frown.
“It shouldn’t have to be.”
On a scale from zero to ten, that’s such a wide range. Well, Midoriya isn’t in any danger, so definitely not ten. He feels something, albeit mild confusion and low-grade tiredness, so he doesn’t feel like zero. Ugh, he’s getting nowhere.
Maybe he’s thinking of the scale wrong. Instead of zero to ten, maybe it’s up or down from five. He’s not depressed, but he hasn’t felt north of five since the day before when he was excited for the final day of internships. Below five, then. On a scale from zero to five, how does he feel? Below average but above nothing. Four still seems too high, and one seems far too low. Giving Aizawa-sensei a couple numbers should be fine, right?
“Two or three.”
Aizawa-sensei heaves a world-weary sigh, shoulders slumping.
“It-It’s fine, Aizawa-sensei,” Midoriya adds quickly, “it’s not like I’m sad or anything, and it’s not getting in the way of my schoolwork. I’m fine.”
“Fine is a relative term, Midoriya.” The teacher says with a hard stare. “Tokoyami at a three is fine. You – anywhere less than seven – means something is horribly wrong.”
“Horrible is a bit extreme, isn’t it?”
“Midoriya, you feel in extremes.” Aizawa-sensei gestures at nothing. “Everything is wonderful to you. You find beauty in the mundane and meaning in the ordinary. You are my Problem Child because you feel so much, which makes you impulsively act on those emotions.”
“You’re saying it like it’s a bad thing,” Midoriya purses his lips, “but don’t worry, I can’t anymore.”
Aizawa-sensei stills, leveling his gaze at Midoriya, irises seemingly glow red in the dark. “What do you mean you ‘can’t anymore?’”
“Feelings,” It’s Midoriya’s turn to gesture at nothing. Maybe admitting this non-issue will make Aizawa-sensei leave. “I don’t have them anymore. They’re there; it’s just, I don’t know. Maybe I can’t access the complete scale.”
“What.”
“It’s weird but definitely not a concern.”
Aizawa-sensei drops his head and groans, long and loud, followed by an even longer stream of swears that would make Bakugou proud. “So,” The teacher heaves, muttering something about paperwork in-between, “on a scale of zero to ten, what’s the most you’ve felt today?”
“Four, I think.” Midoriya shrugs. “There were a couple of moments, they were really short, where I thought I felt more than five earlier today, but they were so brief, I don’t think it should be counted.”
“Is that when you broke a dining table?”
“Oh, right. I did that.”
Another sigh. “Let’s assume your new scale is zero to five. Do you know what might have caused this non-feeling?”
Midoriya shakes his head. “I woke up like this.”
“Of course, you did.”