Chapter Text
Now, Izuku’s defense, he hadn’t realized he’d broken his ankle.
The accident occurred during a training exercise in one of UA’s faux cities. The class had been split into two groups, one half was the hero team, and the other, the villains. The objective of the assignment was to capture the other team’s players. At the end of the exercise, the team with the most captives won. And neither side wanted to lose.
The losing team would be running extra suicide sprints after the lesson as an... incentive to do their best next time. And things had not been going well for his team.
Both teams had been fighting ruthlessly, dreading the idea of losing this match. It’d been a simple mistake.
Izuku had been pursuing Ashido across the rooftops, coursing One for All through his veins as he ran, speeding along behind her. When the Pinkette had realized how close behind her he was, she launched her acid at the rooftop, creating a slick surface for her to slide across and leap to the next roof.
When he’d tried to pursue her to the next rooftop, his foot slipped on the acid, and the foot that was landing on next rooftop landed on its side, smashing his entire body weight on his ankle.
He’d nearly tripped and fallen backwards off the roof, but he caught himself at the last second, with both feet securely on the roof. His ankle throbbed, but not overwhelmingly. It was most likely just a sprain, so he continued his chase, ignoring the pain.
He just had to win for his team.
But yeah… His team lost.
It was pretty close.
If he’d managed to capture Ashido, that would’ve made a tie with five captives for each team, but the pink skinned girl had managed to evade capture for the last few minutes of the exercise.
Running the Suicide Sprints on his ankle wasn’t bad at first, but as the adrenaline from the exercise faded, each sprint sent pain shooting through his ankle. He was fine, until about the twelfth, when he spun just a little too quick, his ankle collapsing out from underneath him, as he let out a yelp of pain.
His teammates skidded to a stop, glancing back at him as he stumbled back to his feet, or tried to, but as he tried to support his weight with his hurt foot, it collapsed out from under neath him, and with a hiss of pain, he fell hard on his butt.
“Midoriya-?” Kirishima called out to him, in concern. “I-I’m fine.” He assured them, once again trying to get to his feet.
He could get up. He had to get up and finish through with Aizawa-Sensei's instructions.
This time he didn’t even get upright, but instead of falling to the ground, he was caught under the arms and lowered gently to the ground.
Izuku’s view of his classmates was suddenly obscured by the black mass that was his teacher.
“Stay down.” Aizawa Sensei instructed him as he tried to scramble to his feet again. His teacher crouched down next to him. His classmates crowded around in concern as Aizawa gently took ahold of his foot, careful not to jostle it.
“I’m going to take off your shoe.” He said beginning to unlace the heavy iron shoe. He let out a hiss of pain as the shoe was pulled off his foot as gently as possible. Next went the sock.
“That’s swollen pretty bad, kero.” Tsu croaked.
“When’d you do that?” Kaminari winced seeing the angry purple bruised ankle.
“I tripped when I was chasing Ashido.” Izuku flinched slightly as Aizawa felt the swollen area.
“That’s definitely broken.” Aizawa stated gently setting the foot back on the ground.
“…You just ran Suicide Sprints on a broken ankle?” Kirishima sounded mildly impressed.
“I didn’t know it was broken!” Izuku defended. “I honestly thought it was just a sprain.” He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.
“You shouldn’t run on a sprained ankle either.” Aizawa pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation. “The rest of you are dismissed, head back to the classroom.”
His classmates filed out of the faux city waving their goodbyes and leaving Izuku and Aizawa.
“Come on kid, to your feet.” Aizawa swung one of the Izuku’s arms over his shoulder, helping him up onto his good foot.
After stopping to grab his backpack and stick his shoe in it, they slowly made their way to the edge of the city, where a med bot was waiting for them.
“What possessed you to run on that foot, Problem Child?” Aizawa grumbled.
“It really isn’t that bad, and it wouldn’t have been fair to everyone else if I skipped out.” He shrugged, or tried to, it was kinda hard to shrug while leaning on his sensei to walk.
Aizawa let out a long, suffering sigh as he helped Midoriya sit on the stretcher a Med bot had brought to them.
“Don’t you ever think of yourself first kid?” He buried his face in his capture weapon as he asked the rhetorical question.
It’d been a shock when the kid had crashed to the ground, and it’d worried him further when he couldn’t seem to get back up. His first thought was that the kid had hit his head or something during the exercise, but he quickly noted how he hissed in pain as his foot tried to hold any weight.
The kid had run Suicide Sprints on a broken ankle.
He’d honestly thought Midoriya was getting a better sense of self preservation, but it was clear he still had quite a way to go.
“I was fine -am fine! You don’t have to worry about me.” The kid tried to assure him.
He rolled his eyes walking alongside the stretcher as the med bot began rolling to Recovery Girl’s office. “Kid, your definition of fine is clearly quite different than mine."
“It’s just a broken ankle though, I’ve had worse.” Midoriya replied sounding conflicted.
“Still doesn’t mean you’re fine.” Aizawa rebutted.
“…Yeah, I guess you’re right.” Midoriya sheepishly ducked his head.
“You guess?” Aizawa raised an eyebrow.
The kid tried to stutter and stammer out a response before sheepishly staring up at him through his bangs. “Sorry Sensei.” Midoriya finally decided on eliciting a grumble from Aizawa.
“Be sorry for yourself kid, you’re in for quite the lecture from Recovery Girl.” The elderly school nurse could give quite the lecture on self-care, that might make him think twice about continuing on training with such an injury.
With the way the kid slightly paled, it appeared that Midoriya had genuinely forgotten about the lectures the old lady could give.
And... Aizawa knew he’d be getting a lecture to for not noticing the broken ankle before making him run sprints.
Usually, with students, he could tell if they were injured from slight limps or them favoring sides of their bodies when they usually didn’t.
Except, Midoriya had seemed fine until he had fallen, then it’d hit him hard. The kid hadn’t even so much as grimaced running on that foot.
Either, he had an insanely high pain tolerance, or… He knew how to hide it. And honestly, Aizawa felt it might be both.
What had happened to make this sweet child so selfless to the point of thinking his own needs were null? That he was worthless.
Either way, the kid needs to learn when to put himself first.