A Silent Kind of Strength

Chapter 25

Izuku's first bit of awareness was of being annoyed by something scratchy against his skin. He then noticed that his fingers felt weird, kind of like they didn't actually belong to him. He decided he needed to open his eyes to make sure they hadn't replaced his hands with someone else's.

Luckily the room he was in was super dark, street lights glowing through the blinds on the window and the soft lights from machinery being just enough for him to see by. He raised his right hand up to his face. Yeah ok. Those were his freckles and scars. Though the bandage across the back of his wrist was new.

Where was he?

His eyes flickered around lazily. He didn't recognize anything. The machines were weird and were hooked up to him with wires. And the bed had railings with buttons. He frowned. An answer to where he might be danced around at the edge of his brain, but that couldn't be right because he was quirkless. 

They wouldn't take up a whole hospital room just for him.

Wow, his face felt numb. He poked it to make sure it was still there, noticing in a far off kind of way that the area around his eye ached dully with the pressure. A black eye? He could barely feel it. Wild.

After a few more prods he got bored and distracted himself by looking at the buttons on the railing of his bed. Wonder what the red one does? He pushed it without really thinking. A voice came over a speaker near his head almost instantly. Loud enough that even he could hear it. "Hello?"

"Uhmph? H-hi?"

"Oh my god, it is the kid. You're awake early. Hold on, the doctor will be with you in just a second."

There's a quiet couple of minutes where he just kind of let's himself float. Not super interested in anything. Before the doctor aws sliding the door open enough for her to slip into the room. He forced himself to focus so he could read her lips. "Good evening Midoriya-kun. I'm Dr. Kiyoshi. How are you feeling?"

The boy tilted his head back and forth. "I-I'm not really feeling m-much of anything ri-right now… am I really in a hos-hospital?" He hoped the words came out ok, he felt like they might have been a bit slurred around the edges. "Can I h-have my hearing aids back?" 

The doctor blinked at him for a minute before peeking her head back out the door and yelling something down the hall. Probably asking the nurses. After a moment a male nurse bustled in and dug through the small cabinet in the corner of the room. Izuku could just see a bit of black and red cloth peeking out before the nurse stepped back, holding up his hearing aids in triumph.

He stepped up to the teen in the bed with a silly grin on his face, kind brown eyes sparkled as he helped his patient slide the small devices into place. "There we go Midoriya-kun! You should be able to listen to Dr. Kiyoshi now! Oh! By the way, your mom said she would stop by to check on you on her break!"

"O-oh. Th-thank you Mr…"

"Ah. No Mr here! Call me Kyle kiddo! I grew up in America so it's weird always being called by my last name! If you need anything just hit that red button again and I'll be over in a jiffy!" With that the nurse gave the teen one last bubbly smile, and the doctor a nod before he practically skipped back out the door to attend to other duties.