Third person pov
They were supposed to be training, but everyone couldn't help but slow down and lend an ear to what Harper was literally screaming about. She looked angrier than most had ever seen her, pacing with Aizawa's phone in her hand while their teacher and her aunt both watched with a mild wince. Something had clearly happened back in Masutafu. Everyone knew she did work with the police. She'd interned with them, for God's sake! It was probably related to that. Which only made it all the more interesting. Kirishima in particular looked exasperated, clearly knowing exactly who had to be on the line.
He had hoped Harper could be free of the stress back home, but he knew she'd only be worrying after this call. Already he could tell just by looking at her that she had to be bouncing between Sero, Stain, and Kurogiri. Harper liked to know what was going on with matters she was placed over. She was leading the entire Stain thing, she was the one vouching for Kurogiri, and she was the one trying to prove that Sero was innocent. Being away for a week had to be driving her nuts! Kirishima wished he could help more. At least Tsukauchi was still there to take care of things. Though, from the sound of it, he wasn't doing the best job...
"You've got to be fucking kidding me." Harper hissed into the receiver. She couldn't believe this. Genuinely, she couldn't. "He was bringing you Taco Bell, dumbass! I'm not even supposed to have a phone! And yet you have to come up in here and ruin my day with your conspiracy theories! You're lucky I'm not there to kick your dumb ass."
"That guard called me a fucking Villain, Harper! They're trying to take me away while you're gone! I can feel it!" Sero explained hastily, his eyes blown wide. His room looked as though it had experienced a tornado, things thrown about and pieces of furniture scattered. Tsukauchi and Sansa were still crouched behind the overturned metal table, peeking over it with suspicious looks as though expecting he'd blow up again at any second. Tsukauchi hadn't even bothered trying to tell him he'd gotten Harper on the line when she finally called back. He just slid his phone across the floor whilst Sansa screeched.
"Well what do you expect?! Half those cops are dumbass blocks of meat who wanted to be heroes but couldn't make the cut!" Harper threw a hand in the air with exasperation. Aizawa tried not to laugh, schooling his face to the best of his ability as all his little students inched closer to try and hear more of what Harper was saying. It was pretty obvious that Harper's life had the most drama, but she never gossipped! Kirishima didn't either, and he obviously knew everything she did! Her life had to be the most interesting out of all of them, yet she refused to share any of it.
"Man, she's really angry." Kirishima winced, he and Ojiro having paused to glance over at the commotion Harper was recklessly causing. She clearly didn't care that there was anyone else listening, looking too heated to even bother trying to storm off somewhere private. "Sero must've really messed up. I don't blame him though. I'd be a little freaked out if the only person really working to prove my innocence was gone. But Tsukauchi is a solid guy! He would never let anyone take Sero away without Harper's permission!"
"B-But they're going to take me away, Harper!" Sero rebutted. Harper groaned. This was the fifth time he'd said that, and this was going to be the fifth time she explained to him that no, he was not being carted off to prison! Not unless he killed someone with a lamp, anyway! "Your little detective friend and the cat guy have got to be in on it. They came in right after that guy said that and tried to give me food! I bet it has some-- some sort of sedative in it. To knock me out. Normally you get my food, right? Well I know you wouldn't poison me! But they might! I don't know them!"
"Hey!" Harper heard Sansa shout from somewhere in the background, sounding offended. Harper massaged her temples. A psychological break. Sero was genuinely having a full-blown mental break down. Of course this would happen whilst she was gone. She knew his state of mind was fragile, but she hadn't realized her presence had been one of the pillars keeping it above water. Just great. She was learning new things every day! Harper wasn't even an employee there and she was already ready for retirement.
"Jesus fucking christ." Harper murmured, dragging a hand down her face. "Listen to me. I trust Tsukauchi with my life. I don't trust Sansa with it because he's a fucking idiot, but I do trust that he's scared enough of me not to do shit. I talked to the Chief before I left. He knows I will raise hell if you're moved for any reason in the next seven days! I sorted it all out before I left, okay? So untwist your fucking panties and act your age, not your shoe size. Or I'm going to knock your head into a wall and force your dumbass to eat soggy mashed potatoes for a week."
Sero hated mashed potatoes. Especially soggy ones.
There was a deep silence from the other line, like Sero was thinking. Aizawa was staring at her intently, his thoughts going a mile a minute and making Harper want to deck him in the face. If only assault were legal. He was an adult man. He coudl take it. Surely she could say it was an accident and get off the hook. Though, her aunt was standing right there, and Harper really didn't want a lecture right now. "You're so cute when you're angry! Look at you being all responsible! It's the best thing I've ever seen! I wish I had my camera! This is definitely one for the scrapbook! I mean, just look at the way your eyebrows are furrowed! So cute!"
"Shut up or I'm going to find your fucking scrapbook and burn it in front of you." Harper hissed at him, pulling the phone briefly away from her face so Sero didn't catch her quiet threat to her teacher. Aizawa just stared passively, but she could feel him beaming on the inside and mentally laughing as though she were actually joking. Harper just put the phone back to her ear and glared at him. Deep breaths. Assaulting her teacher was illegal. Though... this was a hero school. She could classify it as training if she played her cards right. Not that Aizawa would actually expel any of them. Well... barring Mineta, whom he seemed to despise.
"...Okay." Sero finally answered, his voice quiet and croaky. Harper felt herself soften slightly. Great, so he'd been crying this entire time. She probably shouldn't have yelled at him, but he probably shouldn't have thrown and entire fucking bed at Tsukauchi. Sansa, she wouldn't mind so much. Maybe he'd fall into a coma long enough to sober up. Though he'd probably die from withdrawals in his sleep, or find a way to get vodka into his IV. That shit truly ran in his veins at this point. She needed to deal with that, actually. Some rehab would do him good. Maybe.
"Okay." Harper responded, sighing. Sero sighed too.
"I-I'm sorry. I just-- I feel antsy. Like everyone is watching and waiting. Like they're going to take me away." Sero said, his voice lowered conspiritaly. He sounded very torn up at the moment, his tone raw with emotion and faint sniffs coming from over the line. Great. Now she felt bad. He was traumatized, but that still didn't justify chucking lamps at people, you had to give that to Harper. Crying and demanding a phone call, yes. Sure, he could do that. Destroying an entire bedroom and screaming at people hysterically? Abso-fucking-lutely not.
"No one is. You've got my word, and if anyone tries, Tsukauchi knows how to contact me and tell me. And I'll be on the first bus back to kick the ass of whatever idiot thought it was okay to try and go behind my back." Harper huffed, blowing a strand of hair out of her face. She really needed to cut this shit. She glanced at her classmates, who were all wondering who she was talking to. Whatever. "So sit down, eat your Taco Bell, and listen to the radio or some shit. And help Tsukauchi and Sansa fix your room before anyone realizes what you did. Yeah?"
"Damn. You're bossy." Sero snorted, sounding a little better after her pep-talk. Being straight forward with him always seemed to work out pretty well in the end. Harper was glad. Tip-toeing around a conversation wasn't her thing.
"And you're going to be in the hospital soon if you don't shut the hell up." Harper griped back. Sero snorted. "Now give the phone back to Tsukauchi. And for the love of god, stop throwing shit at them. Injuring Sansa just gives him another excuse to drink."
She heard Sero laugh and decided that he'd be fine. For today, anyway. Tomorrow was a whole other question that she really, really didn't want the answer to.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Her aunt took her away from the rest of the group. Realizing that they still didn't know her niece's quirk, she saw it best not to risk it and hauled them into a nearby clearing that Harper could recall playing kickball in with her brother as a child. The memory of her sibling made her heart feel heavy. What had happened that day-- no, that entire damned week. She'd never forget it. She almost wished she could. But then she supposed she wouldn't be the person she was now.
Things were so different now. It hit her like a ton of bricks just how much she'd changed, and how her life had. Of course she'd thought about it before, but the gravity of it seemed to weigh especially heavy on her now as she sat here and really thought about it. Fuck, Tsukauchi was right. Maybe she really did need to see a real therapist. Not that she ever would go see one. Never again. Just thinking about it made her sick to her stomach.
"Come on, Harper! Time's a wastin'!" Mandalay chirped as though Harper wasn't already aware of that. Still dressed in regular clothing and not her training uniform, she allowed herself to be led to the center of the small parting in the trees. She really hoped she wasn't going to have to fight anyone. Her quirk was mental, meaning it would make sense to balance it out by physically strengthening her body. Her quirk wasn't offensive. Hell, it wasn't even defensive. It was somewhere in the middle: useless if you didn't play your cards right. "She looks tired. Darn. And she was looking so cheerful this morning! Too bad that phone call ruined it. I should've just taken the phone from Eraserhead and hung up."
"It was better I talked to Sero." Harper noted, drawing her aunt's gaze to her as the woman turned around. Harper watched her Aunt plop down into the grass and followed in suit, a sigh leaving her lips. "He's just nervous. Thinks he's going to be taken to a real prison. Stain says it's not all that bad though, so I'm not sure what he's so fucking worried about. It's like he thinks I wouldn't come get him out afterwards were that to happen."
"You're so busy these days." Mandalay laughed. It was nice to see her niece a bit more lively. She was a lot different now that she had a drive. Harper had always been hardworking, but life had been rough on her. She'd grown up with a complicated quirk, and her childhood trauma didn't make that any better. Mandalay blew out a breath of air. She'd helped Harper with her quirk when she was younger, as hand Ragdoll, but this was a whole other rodeo. This wasn't about figuring it out. It was about expanding. "There's no telling what lengths her quirk can go to. From what I've heard, she's currently filtering emotion into someone hundreds of miles away."
"Kurogiri." Harper nodded. "If the bond somehow broke now, I wouldn't be able to re-create it unless he were right in front of me. But once my quirk has its hooks it, it seems to stick. Luckily for me. I'd have to drag him everywhere if that weren't the case."
"That's definitely new. Can you hear his thoughts through the bond?" Mandalay rose an eyebrow. Harper snorted as though she'd just told a cringey joke, lowering her gaze to her clasped hands. If Mandalay could meet Kurogiri, she'd understand.
"No. And that's a good thing." The teen sighed, tilting her head to the side so that her neck cracked. She looked a lot more tired all of a sudden, and a lot older. Mandalay couldn't help but smile, even if it was a little sadly. Harper really had grown a lot. Maybe too much. She deserved a break. "Let's get this shit over with."
So they did. Mandalay didn't hesitate to get started and instruct Harper. She had Harper stretch her quirk out like a net. She pushed her own quirk into Harper's mind so that it would be heard over any other thoughts she happened to drag in, keeping her tone low and soothing as Harper sat with her eyes closed and her brows furrowed. She was tense, her hands clasped together as she pushed her quirk further and further out. The more she did, the more her head ached. But she didn't stop.
It moved outwards in all directions, pushing out like a puddle of water slowly spreading across a surface. She hit her classmate's relatively fast, pushing past them to continue. Her head immediately began to ache, telling her that was about as far as she could go pain free. Not super far, but better than she'd thought. Her quirk had definitely strengthened some. She continued to push despite the pulsating feeling beginning in her head. Mandalay continued to guide her, instructing her to clear her mind and relax. Harper forced her shoulders to slouch.
Her quirk was the most double-edged sword Harper had ever had the displeasure of dealing with, and she'd dealt with Nezu. It had stabbed her in the back almost as many times as it had helped her at this point, but she'd long since accepted that. As tedious as it was, it was a part of her. Before UA, Harper had seen her power as a burden. A bad memory, and a headache. Her opinion had changed. She wasn't sure exactly when, but it had.
"Do you know your range, by chance?" Mandalay asked, using her quirk to amplify her thoughts into Harper's head. She could tell her niece was struggling with the influx of animal thoughts around her, and the thoughts of her classmates. The clearing they were in was still with silence, barring the occasional rustle of leaves or bird chirping. Harper had always been more relaxed out in the woods, Mandalay had noticed. When she was just eight, she'd told her aunt that things were better out there. That nature was quiet. And when Mandalay asked why nature was so quiet, Harper had simply given her a confused look. 'Nature has nothing to worry about', was what she'd said. It still stuck with Mandalay. Looking around, she could see how that was still true to this day. There was a peace out in these woods that you couldn't find elsewhere.
"I don't." Harper grumbled, sounded irritated. Not at Mandalay, but just in general. "I've never pushed it this far. I've never had a reason to. Unless I wanted to give myself a massive headache."
Mandalay winced. Yeah, that made sense.
It was weird stretching out her quirk. She could almost see Mandalay even though her eyes were closed. Aizawa shone brightly, and she could almost see him too. Kirishima and Bakugo were bright too, as was Hagakure. Their thoughts were bold and bright. Hagakure and Bakugo simply because they were loud in general, and Kirishima's because he was familiar to her quirk. Almost as though her power was accustomed to seeking him out. She'd have to tell him later. It was interesting. She could feel everyone moving. She could almost see them and the terrain around them too, but not. It was more of a... a feeling. She tried to figure out what it was, focusing on the thoughts of her classmates whilst still pushing her quirk further out.
"Is there anything different?" Mandalay's quirk was a whisper, but it still somehow overtook the other thoughts. Harper was glad. She wouldn't have heard it any other way. She unclenched her hands, stretching out her fingers experimentally before curling them back up. They popped in a satisfying way. Harper took a deep breath. Everything was so loud. There was so much to sort through. The bear, miles away. The birds thinking about food and shelter. The snakes in the grass intent on waiting for their prey. The squirrels trying to find a place to dig. The mountain lion by the very, very distant road assessing the cars zooming by.
"Yeah." Harper pinpointed Kirishima in particular. He was easy to latch on to, his thoughts lax and not as turbulent as some of her other classmate's were. Plus, she didn't feel as bad about intruding into his mind. She knew she'd be telling him all this later, whilst she'd have to hide it from anyone else she latched onto. Harper didn't like lying. "It's... different."
Her head was spinning. She grimaced as the pounding because worse, but she still focused. Harper than she ever had before. She probably looked constipated. Kirishima's thoughts were focused on his spar with Ojiro, and on his surroundings: "Gotta watch out for that rock. His feet too, not just his tail. Shit-- there's a slope there. I didn't realize how loose the dirt was. Maybe I can Ojiro to slip. Has he realized it too?"
Harper focused more. Again, she could almost see, but not. Mandalay held her own breath, watching Harper intently as the girl pressed her hands into the grass, leaning back slightly and angling her head upwards. Her eyes were still closed, but her expression was tense and almost confused. Like she was trying to figure something out. Mandalay took a deep breath, urging her own thoughts to stay quiet as to not disturb her. "Don't just latch onto any one person, Harper. Go into them. Feel what they feel. Try to connect, Harper."
Harper took a deep breath, nodding slightly. Rather than just latching onto Kirishima, she tried to get her quirk to wrap around him. It was an odd sensation. Like her quirk was an extra arm, and it was an extending a hand to wrap around Kirishima. She probably should've asked his permission before testing literally anything on him. Hopefully he wouldn't mind too much. Pushing her quirk into his mind was a lot different than just bringing it to his mind. It's like she'd been standing by the front door before and hearing the voices talking inside. Now she was going inside. It was almost like seeing.
"It's... weird." Harper frowned. "I can see where he is. I could walk right to him right now. But... as he processes his own surroundings unconsciously, I can almost see them. Or feel them. Like I've entered other parts of the brain."
Mandalay grinned. She knew it. She knew Harper's quirk had more to it. The moment she'd heard that her niece could give emotions, she knew her quirk dealt with the cerebrum. The cerebrum dealt with emotion as well as thought, but it went further than that. The Limbic System was... it was in the Cerebrum. But it was also outside it-- which meant Harper could exit that part of the brain and go into others. Such as the occipital lobe, that dealt with sight. She couldn't see what they were seeing, but she could almost sense it as they processed.
"That's good!" Mandalay praised softly. Harper didn't respond, her brows furrowing as she pressed further in. She felt Kirishima stop moving. Her entire body tensed. Had she pushed too far? She hadn't tried any crazy shoves, but she was really invading here. She'd pushed before when she gave Kurogiri emotions, but that had been very forceful. Here, she was just prodding. She felt her throat tighten. She hadn't hurt him, had she?
"What the heck is that?" Kirishima turned around, spinning. Ojiro's thoughts were faint, but Harper ignored them, focused on the redhead. "Something feels weird. It feels like Harper is standing right next to me, but she's not here. Am I hallucinating? It almost feels like it's coming from somewhere. But Harper's quirk is mindreading, right? I guess she did give Kurogiri emotion..."
"He knows." Harper opened her eyes, drawing her quirk back. She didn't want to disturb him any longer. Her vision blurred, and her head pounded. Harper felt her quirk snap back like a rubber band when she let it go. It made her feel sick. "I could feel almost up past the road. Maybe a bit further. But with Kirishima... I could tell where he was. It was weird."
Mandalay was beaming, a wide grin on her face. She grabbed one of her niece's hands as Harper brought her other up to her forehead, looking a bit woozy.
"Harper, do you know what this means?!" Mandalay asked excitedly. Harper squinted at her, looking disoriented. Maybe having her stretch her quirk out as far as possible wasn't the best idea. Maybe next time she only push it as far as she was comfortable.
"What?" Harper grumbled. This migraine was rancid. She just wanted to fall into a coma and never come out. Which sounded like death, but it wasn't. Just a really nice, really long nap. "If it's relating to brain damage, you don't have to tell me twice. I feel like a baby that was just dropped on its head."
"No, no! It means your quirk can be used for tracking!" Mandalay exclaimed. Harper gave her a dry look. "You said you could tell where Kirishima was and almost sense his surroundings, like? Sounds a lot like a locating quirk!"
"Wow. That's great." Harper responded dryly. "Now, get me some Advil. Or neither of us are making it through this day."
~~~
Yikes we're about to take a deep-dive into Harper's backstory.