"Hey, Tsukauchi," Maeve yawned, looked up from the crippled forms of All Might and Midoriya in hospital beds. The remnants of 3 empty coffee flasks littered her desk.
"Maeve, good to see you. I'm sorry that this has happened, it must've unearthed some bad memories. How are you feeling?"
"Shit," she replied matter of factly. "And I smell even worse than I feel. You?"
"I've had better days, but I think your one tops the charts for general crappiness. You must be exhausted, so I'll make this quick and get out of your hair."
Maeve liked Tsukauchi. She could be as rude as she wanted around him and he didn't care, remaining as good natured as ever. He hadn't mentioned the stench at all, and she knew it was pretty overpowering. The guy had been in charge of interrogating her mother back in the day. Compared to that witch, she always looked the perfect angel in comparison.
"That sounds good," she said. "How about I give you a full report and then wake up these two for a chat? Midoriya should meet you sooner rather than later anyway. He's a character, you'll like him."
"Great, I'm sure I will," Tsukauchi replied.
She sat down at her desk with a sigh and rubbed her eyes. Maeve had miscalculated. There hadn't been time for a shower, so instead she'd asked her stretcher bots to douse her in sterilising spray outside on the field before entering her office. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. Until she realised halfway through that the entire student body was being evacuated past the field and could see her getting drenched. Maeve sensed the collective initial amusement, as several students opened their mouth to give friendly teasing. Then the collective intake of horrified breath when they saw that the rivulets of fluid running off her were red. Several of the third years, including Mirio, immediately broke from the ranks towards her. Maeve had just smiled at them as brightly as she could, giving a wave.
"Don't worry, everyone's okay! Stay with your homeroom teachers."
It hadn't crossed her mind that they thought the blood was hers. Or she had a massive bandage over her forehead and extensive bruising on her throat. She could barely form the words of comfort.
Maeve had gotten clean enough to immediately tend to All Might and Midoriya without contaminating their injuries. She still smelled like brains. The stench was familiar to her, but it had never been this strong. Years of practice holding in her gag reflex was the only reason she hadn't offloaded her already empty stomach. Maeve's hair was a rat's nest in the vague semblance of a bun. Now that the adrenaline coursing through her system had run out, the throbbing in her forehead threatened to send her straight to sleep. There were bruises all over her arms, and she was sure her torso had a lovely purple hue. The exhausted girl couldn't risk checking, to be honest, she didn't particularly want to.
"So, a dark purple portal opened in the middle of the plaza at approximately 9:30 am, I wasn't looking at a clock. 54 villains that I could observe climbed through it, although the surface remained almost black so it was impossible to see where they had come from. Something interesting I noticed.."
Tsukauchi hurriedly pulled out his notebook and began frantically scribbling. She felt a bit sorry for him and activated her visor to record their conversation, to send to him later. Maeve had the events of the morning playing out in her mind it was if she was reliving it. If the nurse wanted to, she could give him a word for word transcript of every conversation, and photo realist sketches of every villain. She'd never considered herself a good drawer, but with her memory she could practically project an image onto paper and just fill it in.
But she was tired. Tsukauchi was tired. She'd give a perfectly insightful and detailed report without overwhelming him.
***
"So, let's get this straight," Naomasa said, tapping his pencil against a now full notebook.
"You fell from about 50 feet in the air before being doused in ice water. You were then held at knife point by a villain who was responsible for a large part of your childhood abuse. Then you were hurled down a rock slide and injured, and immediately confronted villains powerful enough to give All Might a challenge. And then, you took down the Nomu. Then you performed four medical operations."
He shook his head, stunned. Maeve couldn't help but be amused.
"And they say you need to be a pro hero to fight villains."
She winked at him. Maeve had grown up with several vigilantes in her neighbourhood, and enjoyed teasing Tsukauchi about it. He coughed, so she interrupted before he even began speaking.
"I know, I know. You think I deserve a pay rise. Best to bring it up with Nezu."
Tsukauchi had always found her sense of humour challenging. It was so difficult to tell if she was even joking, and often if she was, it was even harder to tell if she was somehow mocking him.
"Shall we see what these two have to say about it first?" He asked, hoping to deflect some of her attention onto Toshinori. The girl always had a bone to pick with his friend, so Naomasa hoped to throw him under the bus. He found her strangely intimidating, especially after hearing what she did to one of the villains. Maeve had told him a lot about the body structure and chemical makeup of the Nomu he barely understood, merely writing down as much as he could, spelling out how the words sounded.
"Good idea," Maeve smiled, struggling to her feet and hobbling to the twin beds.
"Rise and shine, morons," she said cheerfully, a hand pressed to each of their foreheads. All Might and Midoryia both groaned, looking around blearily. They wrinkled their noses as the smell hit at exactly the same time.
"Long time no see, All Might," Tsukauchi smiled.
"I suppose I'll let your stupid actions slide this once, given the circumstances and how you ended up saving everyone. You both have a lot of bruising and Midoriya, your leg is going to be out of commission for a few days," Maeve said.
Midoriya became panicked, as he realised she was talking to All Might's true form. There was also a strange man in a trench coat in the room. Maeve laughed at his reaction.
"Don't worry, we both know his secret. I'm the one who patched him up after half his innards got displaced."
Midoryia looked to All Might for confirmation. The injured man sighed tiredly, and instead asked,
"Are Thirteen and Eraser Head going to be all right? Were any students injured?"
Maeve looked to Tsukauchi for an answer, while he did the same to her. The nurse decided to bail him out.
"Thirteen should make a full recovery. I'm still unsure about my Dad, but he's stable at least. Midoriya's the only student who was injured, and that was because of One for All, not villains directly."
She couldn't help but give the kid an amused look, which caused him to go red. Tsukauchi stepped in.
"I suppose I should say thank you, All Might. We're all alive thanks to you and the other three teachers risking your lives to save the students."
Toshinori shrugged.
"It was as much the students as me. Everyone acted heroically."
"How much time in your muscle form do you think you still have left?" Maeve asked in a more gentle voice.
He raised a thin hand, and looked at it.
"Not sure. I'd guess no more than an hour."
Maeve winced sympathetically. She could heal injuries, not receding quirks. Hearing how quickly his power was fading confirmed another decision.
"Well, I suppose that settles it then. Midoryia will need to be your successor," she said lightly. The others in the room looked surprised, All Might most of all. Which was strange, the train of logic seemed perfectly clear to her. Maeve patiently explained.
"This villain attack has changed everything, it shows we have a lot less time than we originally thought. Midoryia already has experience with One for All and can think on his feet pretty well. He's also quirkless, which means he can devote the entirety of his time to mastering it. Other students are blessed enough with powerful quirks on their own, and we need as much manpower as we can get. I think the new generation of heroes needs to have a more collaborative attitude if they're going to hold back a new wave of villains in All Might's absence. There shouldn't be such degree of competition within the ranks. Midoryia here seems to embody that, from what I've seen. He can keep your quirk and remain at U.A."
All Might sank into his bed in relief. Midoriya, who had no idea he'd been on trial, blinked in confusion, making multiple mental calculations. Maeve knew it would take a while for him to reboot, so she merely turned to Tsukauchi and said,
"Well, I think that's all you need me for. I should get into a shower and back to the hospital. Good luck, if you need me for anything just call about 3 times and I'll pick up."
The nurse grinned tiredly, grabbed her last coffee flask, and exited with an ironic salute. Her stretcher bots followed behind, carrying one of the changes of clothes she stored in her office. The school hallways were eerily empty, the only other person she spotted was Sansa on patrol. Maeve had always had a soft spot for the cat police officer, so she waved and approached him for a chat. Unfortunately, she hadn't considered how sensitive his sense of smell was, and he instinctually hissed, hair standing on end.
"Sorry Maeve, sorryyy. It's not you, it's the brains and chemicals mixed together.." He apologised, obviously embarrassed. Maeve felt terrible she'd inflicted a stench like that on her friend.
"No it's my fault, Sansa. I'm on my way to have a shower now. Talk later, the new bell works well on you!"
The cat waved, looked pretty dejected, as she rounded the corner. Looking down at the robots trundling along at her feet, she commented,
"Bill, Deb, I'm really lucky you guys don't have a sense of smell."
"You're lucky we don't have emotions either," Bill commented.
"I don't appreciate your sarcasm, Billy," Maeve grinned, entering the girl's locker rooms.
"We don't appreciate your constant fatigue, but you don't seem to be fixing that," Deb fired back. She really shouldn't have programmed them to be that savage.
"That's not especially sensitive coming from two robots who can't feel tired. Try to have more empathy."
"You didn't design us to be empathic," they quipped in unison. Good point. Was being a parent similar? Did children blame parents for their own natures? Maeve certainly blamed hers for a lot.
After she locked the door, the robots helped her peel off her linen pants. They were so filthy they'd melded to her body suit. The white of her suit itself had changed to a reddy brown, making its usually distinct cross indistinguishable. Maeve painfully reached to unzip it down her back, and it settled in a technologically advanced heap by her feet. There were plenty of mirrors, but she didn't want to look at herself. Her body was disgusting enough without adding being filthy into the mix.
As they collected the body suit to clean during her shower, Billy and Deb handed her various bottles. Maeve collected them. Most of them were for the skin on her right side, it was so high maintenance she felt an urge to cry. Her suit kept the hypertrophic tissue hydrated and under pressure during the day to prevent itching, but she still needed to moisturise thoroughly after showers every day. A lot of the time Maeve wished she could just leave her body entirely and live as some kind of separate consciousness. But she couldn't be selfish. People needed her quirk, and she dealt with patients every day who were in far worse situations that her. If they could remain smiling, so could she.
The nice thing about having no nerve endings on half of her torso was that she could turn up the water as hot as it would go and it didn't hurt a bit.
***
"Thanks to your report we didn't need to run an X-ray, so things went more quickly than usual," The head surgeon commented as they walked down the hospital corridors. David was a good guy. Cute kids.
"How's his systolic blood pressure? Hypertension? It could damage the capillaries in his optic nerve further than they already are," Maeve asked, cradling her coffee flask.
"It would be good for you to check that. I don't think his vision will be affected, but I doubt he'll be able to keep his eyes open for as long without blinking. It might affect his career as a pro, he should definitely get a regular ophthalmologist. His arm will take a long time to heal on its own, we've got it in a splint but if you wanted to speed up the process in the next few days that would be ideal. He'll definitely need to stay overnight. Usually in cases like this I'd insist they stay a week, but given he lives with you I can probably make an exception."
Maeve nodded sleepily.
"Thanks David, I know you must be swamped, especially given I missed work today."
He was a brain surgeon. Any cases she had scheduled would have gone automatically to him.
"That's alright, Flea. The wife and kids are away at the moment anyway, so I can stay later over the next couple of days to ease your workload. You do so much for the hospital already it's not a big deal. Be with your Dad and if I hear you haven't gotten your head checked I'll tell Suki."
A severe threat indeed.
"Okay, fine. How pissed is she, from a scale of avocado to jalapeño?" Maeve asked. David grinned and avoided the question. That couldn't be good.
"Just deal with Eraser Head and I'll have someone distract Suki. Unless you don't take care of yourself," He threatened, adjusted his glasses with robotic fingers. David had mechanical arms, which allowed him to keep his hands perfectly steady during surgeries to a degree not thought humanly possible. The hospital was lucky to have him.
They reached the door to Aizawa's room and David waved one of his metal hands in farewell, striding quickly down the corridor towards the next crisis. Maeve took a deep breath and entered.
Her Dad was asleep, bandages covering his head and arms to the point it seemed like he'd already died and was partially mummified. The look didn't suit him. Maeve shuffled over to the bed and clambered onto the duvet beside Aizawa. There was room. Just. She organised herself so that her left arm crossed over her body, fingers gently placed on a sliver of exposed skin between gauze covering Aizawa's shoulder. Reading his vitals like an open book, Maeve absentmindedly pulled out her phone.
134 texts and 28 missed calls. It seemed like they'd already been in the news. Apparently, the way to make people stay in touch with you was to get brutally attacked by villains.
This would require music. Maeve popped in ear buds and got to work, her hand constantly monitoring Aizawa's health. As she worked through replying to every text with an individual response, Maeve felt her eyes grow heavy. She felt utterly exhausted and sore. Eventually, her brain stopped working and the girl gave up at concerned friend/colleague number 72. It was only 3 in the afternoon, but soon she was just as unconscious as her injured father, music still flowing in her ears.