Maeve yawned. Then clicked play.
"SO PREPARE FOR A CHANCE OF A LIFETIME, BE PREPARED FOR SENSATIONAL NEWSSSS, A SHINING NEW ERA IS TIPTOEING NEARER, AND WHERE DO WE FEATURE? JUST LISTEN TO TEACHER-"
She walked into 1A accompanied by this blast of glorious sound. Scar from the Lion King had always been her favourite movie character (she hadn't seen many films). Maeve thought the song was fitting, given their recent run in with villains. The entire class, who'd been sitting except for Tenya Iida, stared at her open mouthed. She turned off the speaker with an impish grin. A wall of silence remained.
"Morning, everyone. Iida, you seem unsettlingly enthusiastic, how about you take a seat. Lucky for you, I'll be acting as your substitute teacher today. Mr Aizawa was quite determined to come in but I have him detained, not to worry," Maeve rasped. There was a sinister sound to that last statement no one had the courage to question. It didn't help that what they could see of her throat was an ugly purple colour and she'd almost lost her voice. The bandage around her forehead had been replaced with a soft white cloth.
Not asking her for the details was a good call, as it turned out. Maeve was happy to tell them she'd brought her robots home, ordering Bill and Deb to knock him out if he tried to leave the house. The two were thrilled.
When Aizawa had gotten up that morning and started preparing for the school day as if he'd be a part of it, Maeve had openly laughed at him, wheezing, before dragging him back to bed. There was no way he was teaching two days after sustaining injuries like that. Unfortunately, because he'd planned to come in, he hadn't organised for a relieving teacher. Maeve had the next couple days off, so she offered to substitute. The suggestion triggered her father to look on the verge of tears. Tears of happiness, Maeve was confident. She had a lot to teach these squirts in a short amount of time.
"Is Mr Aizawa going to be okay?" Uraraka asked. The girls in the class plus Midoriya (bless him) all looked at her with eyes rounded in worry.
"Trust my word as a g-ground breaking health practitioner. From the way he was trying to strangle me with his scarf this morning, I know the guy's fighting spirit will pull him through."
The class breathed out a collective sigh of albeit confused relief. Aizawa clearly hated his students, but he'd risked his life to protect them. It was good to know he was going to be back with them soon. Especially given Recovery Girl was teaching them until he got back and no one was ever quite sure if she was joking. At least their normal homeroom teacher had the sense of humour of a lump of coal.
"Are you alright? You suffered several injuries yourself, your throat is badly bruised and they looked like quite severe burn scars on your palms," Yaoyorozu commented. The class looked at her expectantly. It seemed word had gotten round. Luckily, all of them were sheltered enough to not recognise cigarette burns when they saw them. Except perhaps Todoroki, though he probably thought the burns were caused by.. Well, something else. He was watching with eyes narrowed, taking in her every move. It was quite disconcerting.
"Don't worry, those scars weren't from the USJ incident," she replied, feeling uncomfortable. There went her excuse of them being quirk related birth marks.
"So, what was with that hand guy talking about your parents being villains?" Mineta blurted out. He'd overheard. Great. Everyone began fidgeting, and Maeve realised that was probably what they'd been discussing right before she came into the room. No wonder they'd been so quiet. Iida came to her defence before she thought of a decent reply other than 'what's up is you're a nosy pervert who's future is even shorter than you.'
"Mineta, do you have no tact whatsoever? That isn't a question you can just ask someone!" He yelled, making large sweeping gestures with his arms. Maeve's mouth twisted, and her hesitation told the class everything they needed to know. A shocked silence fell, with a couple members whispering 'holy shit.' Iida still gestured, apparently trying desperately to divert attention away from her onto himself. The attempt failed.
Maeve grimaced properly, and she pinched the bridge of her nose. Things were spiralling quickly, so she should try to control the situation as best she could now to stop it spreading. Lying had never come easily to her, anyway. The nurse strode to the door and closed it, before saying,
"It's okay, Iida, c-calm down. Mineta, I wouldn't recommend being that.. direct.. to your teachers, especially in front of the entire class. Try to think more about how your words will affect others before you sp-speak."
He didn't look apologetic in the slightest, the little brat. Maeve continued irritably, her throat rasping painfully with every word.
"The villains were telling the truth. My mother was a drug dealer active about 13 years ago. I've never met my father, but he was also involved in illegal activity. My dear old mum was abusive, hence the scars." She held her gloved palms up to the class.
"Heroes rescued me at a young age and I've been here ever since. UA doesn't have the official capacity as an organisation to adopt children, so Aizawa stepped in given I'd already been staying with him. My parentage isn't widely known, so I'd prefer it if you kept this discrete. People might not be willing to let me help them if they knew I inherited my quirk from villains. Some of you saw in the USJ just how effectively it could be used for destruction instead of healing. I'm not.. I'm not proud of my past."
Maeve wasn't used to being at a loss for words. She couldn't believe she hadn't seen this coming, especially given she'd warned Nezu Pezu about exactly the situation panning out in front of her. The events of the last few days had driven it out of her mind. Which was embarrassing, given she was supposed to be a genius.
Who would've thought it was Bakugo who decided to bail her out.
"So her parents were villains, who gives a shit? Isn't the sports festival coming up? Shouldn't we be worrying about that instead of our teacher's fucked up personal lives?" He said all of this leaning back in his chair at an angle that made Maeve wince. She couldn't heal spinal injuries, if he fell backwards and was paralysed, that was it.
"Yes, as Bakugo eloquently put it, there are bigger things to worry about than my history, as fascinating as it is. The UA sports festival is right around the corner."
Nobody seemed keen to let the matter drop, but she steamrolled forward anyway. There wasn't much time to get through a lot of information.
"Even though we just suffered a villain attack, upper management want to demonstrate that our crisis management protocols are still tighter than All Might's hero costume. They're planning on doing that through the sports festival, which means it's still on. Lucky for you guys, unlucky for me."
All this standing at the front of the class was tiring. Maeve desperately wanted to drag a chair over to the lectern and sit down, but there weren't any.
"Lucky?? Needing to risk getting killed by villains to be in a stupid sports festival doesn't sound very lucky to m-"
Maeve interrupted Mineta with a roll of her eyes.
"The sports festival is your greatest opportunity to get your name out there. It's one of the most widely watched events annually, we're not going to cancel it because of a few villains."
"All the top heroes will be scouting for us as sidekicks, right?" Kaminari asked. Maeve nodded.
"The festival also serves to imitate the competitive nature of the hero profession," she said, her eyes flicking to Midoriya momentarily. He looked quite intense, which she thought wouldn't suit him. Maeve was pleasantly surprised.
"You'll gain experience and popularity if you outshine your peers and get picked up by a big pro. It's a pretty cutthroat business you guys have your sights set on. The festival happens once a year, so you have three tries to make a name for yourself. Try not to fuck it up."
With those words, Cementoss entered, doing a double take when he saw Maeve at the front of the classroom.
"Oh, Recovery Girl. I didn't realise you'd be-"
"Don't worry Mr Cementoss, me teaching the class isn't approved by anyone," Maeve smiled, watching his rectangular face drop in confusion.
"I'll sort it out with the principal.. At some point. Enjoy modern literature everyone, think about our discussion!" she said, exiting the room. The shell shocked faces of class 1A stared back at her.
***
Maeve couldn't cook. She didn't have the patience, or she'd get so caught up in something else that the food got burnt. Even microwave meals were a struggle, seriously, it was all beyond her. Aizawa was the one who cooked at home, which was a relief to all 5 members of the household.
This meant that with him out of commission, neither them nor the cats would have food if she went home before lunch. Therefore, she hung around UA, checking in on each class to catch up. She hadn't seen most of them over the break, so it was over due. There was a lot of discussion about the USJ attack, especially among the senior students. They could sense something coming. Good. If their gut didn't pick that up they would make pretty shitty heroes.
Maeve spent half an hour chatting with Mirio about it, knowing all the information would go straight back to Sir Nighteye. She was okay with that, it just meant she had to be careful talking about All Might's fight. And Midoriya. And the Nomu. But hey, she had so many confidentiality contracts already weaving around each other Maeve had learned to monitor what she was saying to who almost unconsciously. She'd grown up in a high school, the nurse knew how gossip worked.
Maeve had always had a soft spot for the permeability student. Right from his first day he'd been twice as determined as anyone else, with an insufferable Tin Tin smile. She'd needed to spend so many afternoons patching him up after he ran headfirst into walls, that the nurse had eventually decided to step in and give him personal training. Mainly to get him out of her office, but because she also noticed a huge amount of potential. Her inner nerd was fascinated by the physics of his quirk. She eventually got him in contact with Nighteye and All Might's previous sidekick took over as Maeve got busier with the hospital.
Maeve wasn't sure why she found Mirio's enthusiasm endearing when it was so similar to the grating joviality of All Might. Maybe it was because he was cute.
She had a strict policy regarding romantic relationships with students, which was: No. UA had never strictly forbidden her from it, probably because they'd written the contract when she was 10. As Maeve got older, and the age gap between her and the students decreased, she created unofficial borders for herself. It was complicated enough teaching people who were a similar age to her as it was.
There'd definitely been crushes. Oh, there'd been crushes. When that happened, she merely thought herself out of it. Tensei helped Maeve write down a list in a notebook of the pros and cons of dating each new victim. The cons always outweighed the pros. When she began inevitably mooning over the Turbo hero himself, Maeve had given herself such a rigorous mental clean out that she didn't think about boys again for a year.
She'd made a list for Mirio last year, when the silver haired girl noticed herself beginning to organise unnecessary training sessions just to spend time with him. He wasn't even her type, Maeve generally had bad taste. However, that didn't change the fact that when he fell out of his clothes for the first time she'd experienced a miniature aneurism, and when she touched him to heal bruises her cheeks went unmistakably hot. That couldn't do. So she squelched the feelings like mud under boots. That was pretty much what her psychiatrist had said to do, right? Accept her feelings within herself and move on? Same thing.
Speaking of psychiatrists..
Maeve had just entered class 1C, for general education first years. They all stared back at her curiously, obviously knowing who she was from her injuries. Looking across the students, she noticed a familiar face. No way. A catlike smile stretched across her face as a miniature version of Dr Shinso glanced up to meet her with purple eyes.
"Hi," She said in English. Present Mic grinned so wide she thought his teeth would pop out, right in the middle of finishing pairing the class up. Maeve found it amusing when Mic tried to make kids have a conversation with each other in a foreign language during the first week of school. It never ended well and he always did it nonetheless.
People were verbally battling valiantly as she came in. The girl paired with Shinso Jr looked like she'd rather be chewing on sawdust than listening to the purple haired boy mumble "My favourite thing to watch is star force - gauze - wars, no wait, sorry-"
Present Mic gestured for her to approach over excitedly and exclaimed in notable New Yorker,
"Everyone, this is the school nurse, Recovery Girl-" She shot him a look and he quickly corrected, "Maeve. The school nurse Maeve. She speaks 5 languages fluently including English so she can act as my assistant, if she has time?"
The bewildered expression on every student's face bar one caused Maeve to contort her face in an effort to stop herself laughing. They looked so defeated. Pffffffahahaa. She was acting as an albeit more attractive interpretation of Aizawa today. No cackling, no silliness, she had to make him proud. Mature thoughts.
"I'd love to, Mic. Shall we speak in Japanese to let the poor souls get their bearings? They look even more confused than strawberry discovering a mirror for the first time," She suggested in perfect English. Maeve's memory allowed her to learn new languages so easily when Mic took care of her he just spoke and she absorbed. The reason she only knew 5 was that getting through medical school by the time she was 12 had been so time consuming.
Mic glanced at the class and for the first time seemed to notice how lost they all were. Like sheep with no shepherd, or backing vocalists with no lead. Yamada always struggled with beginner students. But now Maeve was here, they'd all be fine. She effortlessly switched back to Japanese.
"Hey everyone. I'm Maeve, the school nurse. Mic's thrown you far in the deep end so I'll try to help you out. How about I just pair up with one of you and start from there." She pretended to look over the class and pick at random, locking eyes with Shinso. His were drooping from sleep deprivation. Maeve knew they were going to become good friends just from that fact alone.
"I'm not given student information so that to know you guys I need to talk to you. In conversations and the like. Which means I don't know your name..?"
Shinso glanced at those on either side of him and blinked when his fatigued brain caught on she was addressing him.
"Hitoshi Shinso," he muttered, not meeting her eyes. Maeve gave him a bright smile.
"Well, Shinso, it's your lucky day. Given we're in English class, you get to tell me about yourself in said language. Everyone else can be as they were. What was your name?" She asked Shinso's partner. The girl looked positively elated to be free of him, saying,
"Mimi."
"Nice to met you, Mimi. How about you buddy up with Mr Mic? His bark is definitely worse than his bite," Maeve grinned, reassuring her as the 15-year-old's expression became suddenly nervous. Shinso's face wasn't especially emotive. That trait must run in the family. As Mimi approached her, the girl whispered loudly so most of the class could hear,
"Don't answer any questions he asks you. He can control your mind if you do!"
Maeve merely raised her eyebrows at the girl. She was a wee attention seeker, wasn't she? The nurse had never liked people who belittled others to make themselves feel powerful, which seemed to be what Mimi was doing to Shinso. He couldn't help his power, whatever it was. Judging him for it was asking for trouble.
Maeve settled in the seat Mimi had just evacuated with a sigh. Nobody continued with their conversations, collectively eavesdropping shamelessly.
"So, tell me about your quirk. Mind control seems like a powerful gift, let's hope it makes up for your English," she rasped in the language, giving him a crooked smile. He stared at her, obviously unimpressed.
"Well, given I'm fluent, I don't know what it would be making up for. I was pretending to be shocking to give Mimi a confidence boost after she described my hair as 'shit and piple,'" he said wryly, raising a hand to run through his violet locks. Maeve cocked her head at him as Mic's mouth dropped.
"It's not even straight, to be honest shit is probably a better description," she replied, non-phased. A half smile tugged the side of her mouth.
"Wow, thanks. But hey, at least it doesn't make me look like an 80-year-old who's escaped from a mental ward," Shinso commented dryly. Maeve gave a bark of pained laughter, and he relaxed slightly in relief that she hadn't given him a detention. The class stared at them in shock, only understanding bits and pieces of their conversation that surely couldn't be right. Shinso had barely spoken 5 words to any of them in Japanese, and now he was saying full sentences, eloquently, in English?
"Speaking as someone knowing people in their 80s who've made positively ingenious escape attempts from the hospital psychiatric unit, I'm flattered," Maeve replied good-naturedly after she'd stopped laughing. The stabbing sensations in her throat were almost forgotten.
"Your English is amazing, have you had tutoring? The nuances of speech are all there and your pronunciation is even better than mine," She continued. Shinso shrugged.
"My Mum is American, so I've always just grown up bilingual. Your pronunciation is great, it's just your accent that's confusing. What is that? It sounds almost-"
"Irish? Yep, my shit head of a biological father was from Ireland. I never met him but felt the need to embrace my cultural roots by learning to speak with an Irish accent. Even took up river dance for a bit. Anyhow, tell me about your quirk. Mind control sounds exceptional, I can't believe I haven't heard of you."
Shinso raised an eyebrow. It wasn't purple. Fascinating.
"It's not exceptional when you're up against robots, trust me." The bitterness in his voice was unmistakeable. Maeve felt a pang of guilt. If she'd just paid attention at that one stupid staff meeting and kicked up a fuss, maybe he'd be in the hero course right now. She knew robots were a ridiculous choice.
"I can brainwash people if they answer a question I ask them. They'll do whatever I tell them to. So yeah, it could be used for pretty evil stuff," The boy muttered under his breath, fidgeting. Maeve laughed, and he looked up, surprised.
"Shinso, you could say that about any quirk. There's a kid in 1A who acts as a literal human grenade. I could reach across and give you as painful a death as I like right now. It would take about as much effort for me as clicking my fingers. Yet as excellent as a villain as I'd make, I'm here talking to you instead. And you're talking to me. That's what actually matters," she said, giving him another crooked grin. The kind spark in her eyes balanced it out. Shinso didn't quite manage a smile in return, but his expression became less downcast.
"I suppose. That doesn't stop people from avoiding me though," the boy said. Maeve shrugged.
"That's just because you haven't met the right people yet. Staying in this English class for the year would be a complete waste of time for both you and Mic. Therefore, I'd suggest that we look at changing around your timetable to fit you into something more suitable. How interested are you in using your quirk to help others? Heroics is always an option."
Shinso gave her a blank look.
"I'm in general studies."
Maeve raised an eyebrow at him and held up her fingers to frame his profile, as if evaluating Hitoshi's potential with a single glance.
"What if I told you you don't need to be?"