Flea

Chapter Six

The first day of the school year in UA high was always chaos. Especially for Maeve, who needed to readjust to a life between worlds. Over summer break she dedicated her time almost exclusively to the hospital, where her day was divided from 8:30 to midday in appointments with patients she'd be operating on in the next few days. From 1:00 was back to back surgeries until 6pm. Taking the train home, the girl often needed to set an alarm on her phone to wake her up when she got to her stop so she wouldn't miss it. Maeve dragged herself inside, had a hot shower where she most likely dozed off, before reading scholarly articles, finishing operation reports or blasting dance music while leaping around in her dressing gown with hair in a towel using a toothbrush as a pretend microphone. Normal teenager stuff like that. It was a marathon, but there was an exhausting predictability to that way of life she found oddly enjoyable.  

However, when UA began, Maeve day became more complicatedly flexible. She'd had a few days off to recover after the entrance exam, then she was thrown in the deep end. Her secretary and the UA head of curriculum needed to be in close contact regarding timetables and schedule. The hospital was conveniently 2 minutes walk away from the main school campus, meaning she merely walked between classes and performing highly intensive surgeries several times a day. It became harder to fit things in, because Maeve insisted she have a half hour session with each and every patient to get to know them before surgeries. The waiting list for her services as a surgeon was currently 9,173 people long. Given she could only give on average 4 operations a day, this meant some patients wouldn't be seeing her for years. 

Maeve also needed to have time for UA students and getting to know them. She often turned up to Aizawa's classes and helped out, which was why she was at that moment strolling cheerfully across the grounds towards a huddle of nervous first years in gym clothes. Maeve hadn't even bothered to check at the opening ceremony for her father or his new class, he'd only attended it his first year of teaching as a courtesy. 

This was going to be good. She spotted some familiar faces. Well, what was she kidding, Maeve had stolen Aizawa's class list (which meant she knew every single one by name already), while he was teaching Strawberry to claw any stranger who came into the apartment. Tensei and Maeve had flipped a coin over who got custody of Shrödinger, and the turbo hero had won, causing him to run in a tight victory lap holding the feline above his head like Simba from the lion king. This show of poor sportsmanship and cat handling induced much gnashing of teeth on her part. 

Her father's familiar drawl wafted through the sunshine towards her. 

"..This country still insists on prohibiting quirks when calculating the averages of those records. It's-"

"NOT RATIONAL!" She called, giving him a bright smile he did not return. Aizawa looked at her in a way that said, "so help me Maeve if you undermine my authority in front of these stupid 15-year-olds I'm going to drive to the coffee store each morning for a month and buy every faculty member a cup of coffee except for you." 

Her smile became brighter and Aizawa's heart was clenched in the leaden grip of dread. His daughter had a way of converting her exhaustion into slightly manic energy that concerned him deeply. The kids all stared at her curiously, except Jiro, who already knew her, and Todoroki, who merely examined his nails with a complete lack of interest. Aizawa wasn't fooled. The brat kept sneaking glances at her under his different coloured eyelashes.   

"Everyone, this is my adopted daughter, Maeve. You may have seen her at the entrance exams, she acts as the UA school nurse between her shifts at the hospital working as a surgeon."  

"Hi," She grinned, clutching a popcorn packet in one gloved hand and waving with the other. 

"Good to see you all, congratulations on making it into UA."