Chapter 36: Chapter #35 | Gilded Phoenix
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Chapter Text
Midoriya stood outside of Uraraka's room, simply observing the woman through the glass window. For anyone else, it would be hard to believe that this girl, some measly hours before, had been bouncing around and socializing like any other freshman college student. Adjusting to her new living arrangements, making friends, expecting a training exercise to be the most stressful part of her day. Instead, Midoriya now watched as she stared forward blankly at the room's television displaying nothing.
Midoriya entered quietly, taking a seat in the chair next to the bed. Idly, he jotted her vitals on his clipboard before placidly placing it down onto the table, crossing one of his legs, and taking another look at his classmate. Still staring at the wall. When softly calling her name did nothing, he couldn't help but clench his eyes shut and let the memories come.
Memories of men and women with the same look in their eyes, staring blankly at the walls of the medical bunker. Of others screaming in pain as the medics rushed around him, doing everything they could with outdated techniques and scant supplies. The keen whistle of shells rained down around the trenches, and even then they didn't react to the sounds, already too desensitized to the senseless, ceaseless, creeping death.
Midoriya jolted, his eyes snapping open, as his breath hitched and the faint buzz of implants beneath his skin went back to sleep. Uraraka was looking at him now, he realized. Her question had brought him out of his memories, but when she asked the single word of him a second time, he could feel the composed smile slip for a moment. "Why?"
"Why what, Uraraka? I'm afraid you'll have to be a bit more specific." Midoriya knew, though. Knew what he was being asked but didn't want to admit it all the same. He'd been asked the question too many times before.
"Why? Why did you save me? Why am I alive?" Uraraka's voice broke with the last question just as another piece of Midoriya's composure was chipped away.
"Well, I couldn't very well let my exercise partner die on me, could I?"
Uraraka tucked her head down against her chest and wrapped her arms around herself before sobbing. "I should have just stayed and worked for my parents. But dad kept pushing me to follow my dreams, so I did everything I could to get into U.A. and look how it turned out. I'm just going to be a drain on them now."
Midoriya tilted his head, doing his best to keep his voice steady. "Is that why you wanted to become a hero? Because your family business wasn't going well?"
A wet, mournful laugh bubbled up in her throat. "Of course not. But I wasn't going to complain about the paycheck. I could have been the one to take care of them for once." Once again, Uraraka's eyes began to lose focus. To stare at nothing.
"I would consider helping others to help your parents to be as good of a reason as any other. Gods knows it's a better reason than some heroes I've come across. But I wonder, do you still want to be a hero now that your reason for it is gone?"
Uraraka's head snapped up. "Wh-what? What do you mean gone?! My parents? Are they?"
"Fine. Hatsume and I, however, took a look at your parents' company's past work. Frankly, unless there is something that we are both severely missing, I can't see any reason that your situation should have been a bad one."
Uraraka snorted a bitter, venomous sound. "We refused to cut corners, so our work was slower and more expensive than our competitors. Even before they intentionally started sabotaging us."
"Mmm, yes. Onyx Contracting. We looked into that. Suffice it to say, sabotaging you wasn't their entire goal for your little family. Regardless, you'll find that all of that is irrelevant now." Midoriya glanced at the clock ever-present in his field of vision before continuing. "As we speak, Mei is likely finalizing a deal with your parents that will make them the lead contractors on several... facilities that we have planned."
For a long time, Uraraka just stared. Midoriya waited and couldn't help but grimace when his classmate's shock twisted into a sneer. "Yes, I'm sure you did this all because I was on your team for a training exercise."
"The lady of truth always comes with her bodyguard of lies. I can appreciate the sentiment, a suspicious mind is a healthy mind. But no, I hired your parents because they do good work and we need quality, not speed, with these facilities."
Uraraka snorted "You always seem to have an answer for everything, don't you? Answers for my quirk, answers for my parents, answers for the company giving us hell, answers for keeping me alive. So what, Midoriya? What am I supposed to do now? Are you going to tell me to be a legless hero? Are you going to tell me you can grow my legs back at the price of my soul? Do you have the answers for that, too?"
Midoriya winced before sighing. "I'm not a demon, Uraraka, nor do I have the answers for everything. Even as well informed as I am, my information gets spotty outside of this prefecture."
Uraraka's brain finally caught up with her mouth as she processed what she'd said. An attempted, sobbed apology almost made it out of her mouth when Midoriya smirked.
"I could fix your legs. But I'm not going to without a reason." Uraraka stilled and her mouth opened, yet nothing came out. "No need to look so shocked and hurt. Normal prosthetics would do you well enough, don't you think? Ectoplasm managed quite well with his. Besides that, your reason for being a hero is gone, as well, don't you think? Your family doesn't need your paycheck, after all. You can do anything you want now."
"And you think that is all that matters?!"
"Isn't it for you? You just told me you were helping people to help your parents. The paycheck is nice, isn't it? I could simply employ you and you would get the same benefit."
Uraraka's eyes lit with abject fury as she practically hissed words at Midoriya. "Don't you dare put words in my mouth, Midoriya. I said that the paycheck was a nice benefit. I never claimed that I was doing it just for the money."
"So what? You think you'd still be helping people if you didn't have to worry about your parents? You grew up scraping together and making ends meet. You think I've not seen your type? One taste of fame and you'll be bowing before the HPSC before you know it."
"I know I'm going to help people, Midoriya. Even if I can't walk as well as I used to, even if I have to float myself all the way there, I'm going to help people. I don't give a single shit about bowing to the commission or even the devil himself if it means I can save more lives. I lost my legs, not my damn quirk. I'm going to be a rescue hero, damn it, not frontline, so just get the fuck out if all you can do is spew accusations." Uraraka's chest heaved with both anger and her shortened breath as pain lanced across her torso. For the first time in a while, Midoriya felt a smile pull at his lips. A sharp smile that was all teeth. Slowly, he began to clap.
"Very good. Very good. Here I was worried that this incident may have scared you off of the hero career or dulled your resolve."
Uraraka's head snapped to Midoriya from where she had fallen back into her bed with an expression of confusion mixing with the previous anger. Midoriya's smile only grew when Uraraka's eyes widened and she began to sputter. "You-you son of a bitch, you just played me."
"Oh absolutely. I needed to hear you say it yourself. I would, of course, have supported you if you'd decided that you no longer wished to be a hero. Would have even hired you, if you'd liked."
Uraraka just sighed and let her head drop back against the pillow. She'd kept herself sitting up for too long, and with the exertion that Midoriya had just dragged out of her, her injuries had made themselves readily apparent even through the painkillers. "Why, Midoriya. Just why."
"Because if I'm going to help you, then I need to know you're dedicated to the cause."
"Why does that sound like a loaded term coming from you?" Midoriya just continued to smile rather than respond. "Does this mean you're going to fix my legs, as you put it?"
"I can. You could, of course, go with simple prosthetics like Ectoplasm. I wasn't kidding about that. He manages quite well without both of his legs."
"I also get this feeling like you have another option."
"Options really. Two in fact. The first would be that I effectively clone your legs and reattach them. Would take at least two weeks to grow them, a week of recovery time, and probably about another week getting used to walking again. All in all, you'd be out for about a month before you'd be able to rejoin us in the hero course."
"And the second option?"
"The second option is much quicker but comes at a cost. Physically, that is."
Uraraka's eyes flicked to where Midoriya sat as concern warred with exhaustion. "What is it?"
"Option two involves me installing two experimental MNSC disks into your nubs."
Uraraka winced. "Can we not call them that."
"Sorry, stumps."
"Not any better."
"Regardless. I'd be installing two of the disks, connecting up to your nervous system. Mei, at the same time, would be creating two new legs for you of the mechanical variety. Those will connect to the MNSC's in your… legs, allowing you to move your new mecha legs just like you would normal legs, plus use any kind of extra Mei puts in. I can have you rejoining the hero course by the end of this week."
"What's the catch? No way do I get that good a deal in a week. It's too easy."
"The catch is that you'll spend most of the week in excruciating agony until the nanites I inject you with restructure your nervous system to accommodate what we'll be doing to it."
"Nan- what?! Isn't that the SciFi doomsday thing?"
Midoriya shrugged. "These are medical nanites, and they don't self-replicate. You'll also sweat them out when they've done their job. No need to bore you with the science, though."
"Can we do option one later if I go with option two now?" Nervous about that. Midoriya couldn't say he blamed her. Giving up even a piece of humanity was something to be wary of. Not that he'd had much of a choice. He'd do it the same if he was given the choice again, though.
"Maybe, if you don't mind the potential for catastrophic complications of reverting your neural pathways."
Uraraka took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Midoriya just waited for her decision. "If I go with option two, you said Hatsume would be putting extras in my legs?"
"Probably yes. She can't seem to make anything to specification without taking it further."
"Will that extra help me save people?"
"I would imagine so, yes."
Uraraka opened her eyes and stared Midoriya down. "Fine then. Give me hell, Midoriya."
…
Midoriya was whistling when Nedzu entered his office through the open window. Midoriya just raised an eyebrow at the chimera. "You couldn't just use the front door like a normal person?"
"I'm not a normal person, and I hate the security checks in this hospital."
"I had those implemented for a reason." Nedzu dismissed it with a flick of his wrist.
"How is young Uraraka faring?"
"She's stable and will be back in classes in about a week."
Nedzu spun around and away from the bookshelf he'd been examining intently. "That's rather impressive. Don't suppose you'd tell me how you plan on managing that, Midoriya? Or is that a secret?"
Midoriya just smiled while crossing his hands. "Why, my dear president, I don't particularly have any secrets. You're just not asking the right question to get answers."
Both Nedzu and Midoriya stared at each other for a long moment before Midoriya shifted the subject. "By the way, how long," Midoriya pulled a file from a stack of them on the side of his desk, "do you think it would take to build this?"
Nedzu took the file from Midoriya and glanced between it and him for a moment before opening it. Nedzu skimmed it once. Then twice. Then he smiled and skimmed it a third time. He looked up with glee in his black eyes. "Oh, Midoriya. You are quickly becoming my favorite student." Nedzu's muzzle scrunched up briefly before he sniffed the folder and laughed with the same glee. "And it's lemon scented!"
…
Uraraka shuffled awkwardly in her wheelchair. She'd been extricated from the hospital and transferred to Moonlit Industries early that morning, much to the dismay of the other doctors in the ICU. They had finally relented when Uraraka herself had begun to argue for her release.
Her parents were evidently busy moving their operations as well as their home to the local area. She had also found out that the next several city blocks surrounding the company headquarters evidently belonged to them, as well. She had mixed feelings knowing that her family was moving into the buildings alongside many of the company's employees. On one hand, it was a fantastic opportunity for her family, and they would be fools to not take it. On the other, it involved her family leaving the area that she'd grown up in.
Once again, Uraraka shuffled awkwardly in her wheelchair, a blush rising to the surface of her face as yet another employee wandered by her. She was sitting in what Midoriya had described to her as the biological suite, wearing what she could only describe as underwear, while Midoriya typed away on a computer in front of her.
Uraraka watched as Midoriya stopped for a moment before reaching up to his ear and humming briefly. "Yeah, that's fine. Just walk her over. I'm busy at the moment."
"Who was that, Midoriya?"
"You have someone who wants to see you." Midoriya left it at that and went back to typing, eyes squinting slightly at the information on his screen and clicking his tongue.
Faintly, she heard the beep of the security locks on the door into the suite before the soft sound of running. What's going on? "URARAKA!"
"Woah there!" Midoriya lurched out his seat just in time to catch a flying bundle of clothing by the back of the shirt. "She's still heavily injured, so calm down, Hagakure."
"Sorry about that, Midoriya. I didn't expect her to go running off like that when she spotted Uraraka."
Dropping the now still girl back onto the ground and stepping off to the side, Midoriya turned to Hatsume. "What sidetracked you, anyway?"
"Akihiro from chemicals needed advice with the fuel for Icarus. It's burning off too quickly with the current design for it to have a return trip."
"Hmm, that's problematic. Hagakure's case going any better?"
"Much. Easier than Togata's case. The encoded textiles seem like they'll work fine for a suit, but it'll take a bit longer before I'm able to make something to reverse the field she's got around her."
"I'm sure for now she'll just be happy to not be nude during training. Here." Midoriya handed Mei a vial of silvery, grey fluid. "I've already sent the instructions over. Could you put that in the encoder for me? It's about time to get started. I'll brief her in the meantime."
"Sure thing."
"Thanks." Midoriya turned, putting his best business smile on. "Now girls."
…
Uraraka watched as Midoriya dropped the bundle of clothing that she now recognized as Hagakure. "Hey, Hagakure. How are things going with the class?"
Rather than respond, the other girl gently wrapped her arms around Uraraka. "Are you alright?"
Tentatively, Uraraka returned the embrace. "I've been better. But don't worry! Midoriya'll fix me right up."
Hagakure pulled back with a strained smile that Uraraka couldn't hope to see. "The class is still reeling from the botched scenario. The hero classes have been canceled for the time being. Apparently, we're getting a new instructor. Ooo! And Bakugo was removed for blowing up the building."
Uraraka grimaced at the thought of the explosive blond. He'd been rude and abrasive. Plus, he'd dropped a building on her. She couldn't say she felt terribly guilty over his removal. She was curious as to what she meant by new instructor. What had happened to All Might?
"Now girls." Both girls turned their heads towards Midoriya stepping back to them. "It's about time we got started for Uraraka, and I'll take the sample from you in just a moment for the biocoding, Hagakure."
Both girls nodded, and Hagakure hopped up to sit on the table Midoriya had been working at. "Want the quick version or long, Uraraka?"
Uraraka grimaced again before shuffling and hunching in on herself as one of Midoriya's employees jogged past with a box, making some form of sloshing sound. "Short, please. Let's just get on with this."
"Do you want Hagakure here for this explanation?"
Uraraka glanced at the floating clothing and scrunched her nose. "Sure, I don't mind. Unless it's like, you know, really sensitive stuff."
"Alright then, effectively, I'll be sedating you and taking you into the OR over there." Midoriya gestured to one of the pair of double doors at the side of the room. "I'll be installing the MNSC's into your nubs-"
"Oh please, tell me that's not what you're calling them."
"See, that's what I said," Uraraka grumbled.
"Once the surgery is complete, I'll be injecting the nanites and placing you in that gel tube there." Once again, Midoriya pointed to the side of the room where a tube filled with green slime seemed to rest. "You'll be in there for about a day and a half while you are put back together from the injuries you sustained. When you come out is when the unpleasant part is going to start, however. Your neural pathways have to be used for the nanites to do their job in its entirety. That means you'll be walking around while they work."
Uraraka groaned. "That sounds unpleasant. Also, not to ask a stupid question-"
"No such thing."
"But how am I supposed to breathe in that gel, goop, stuff."
"Oh, that stuff, as you put it, is great. It'll supply all the oxygen you need, among other stuff, provided directly through the skin and lungs."
"Wait, do you mean that she'll be...?"
"Yup. Breathing the gel."
"I take it back. That sounds worse."
"It feels vaguely like you're drowning, even though you aren't."
Uraraka put her head in her hands. "Well, I chose this, I guess."
"That you did!" Hagakure shifted on the desk to see Midoriya's crazy partner practically skipping back to him with a vial and a massive needle.
"Thank you, Mei." Delicately, Midoriya took the vial and the lumbar puncture needle before setting them down on a metal tray. "Since I've everything I need, let's grab that sample from you, Hagakure, and we'll send you on your way so I can get started on Uraraka."
Uraraka had fixated on the needle. The very large, very long needle. She couldn't remember the last time she'd been afraid of a needle, but as she felt the blood drain from her face, she had to admit she was scared of this one. Slightly choked and slightly squeaky, Uraraka spoke up. "Is it too late to get that long explanation?" Midoriya laughed.