Chapter 40: Chapter #39 | Daughter of Tomorrow
Chapter Text
Midoriya rolled to the side and off his bed, coughing and clawing at his own throat. Even as his fingernails dug into skin and his lungs heaved, Midoriya fought to anchor himself to the present. He had known sleep was a terrible idea. It always was. But if there ever was a time for him to be alert, it was with a patient screaming her own lungs out just a floor below him.
Midoriya's hands came down to the ground for a moment before he pushed himself to his feet and groped for the bottle of water he kept on the nightstand. He took the first drink as he crossed the room towards the bathroom. It was spit into the sink in a vain attempt to wash the taste of bloodied mud from his mouth. The second he swallowed, if only to give his own raw throat some kind of relief.
Midoriya's words croaked out. "Lights on. Fifteen percent." Well, I look like shit, don't I? A dry, mirthless chuckle escaped his lips as he stared at himself in the mirror. The scratches he'd given himself were already scabbing over, and in some of the areas where he'd only gotten skin, and had not dug into his muscle, the long lines were already disappearing. Blood dripped from his mouth where he'd bitten into his own tongue and lips.
Most telling of all were his eyes. Just because he could function on as little sleep as he got, didn't mean he enjoyed it. Nor did it mean that it didn't show in places. His eyes were one of those places. He'd have to disguise those before heading down. It was already hypocritical of him to get onto Hatsume about her health, and if she saw how he looked currently, then he'd never hear the end of it.
Any damage done to him just healed back seamlessly as if it had never happened, Midoriya thought bitterly as he brushed his teeth. The sun wasn't even up yet, and it had long gone down when he'd finally succumbed to the siren call of sleep. It didn't matter how much he trashed his own body, a little bit of suffering was all it would cause in the end. He could deal with a little bit of suffering. You could make Mei the same. You could stop worrying. Midoriya didn't even entertain the thought.
...
Midoriya stepped into the workshop, only to sigh as he spotted Hatsume face down on one of the workbenches. Silently, Midoriya sidled up beside the sleeping girl and glanced down at what she'd been working on. There on the bench sat a series of silver rings sized to fit snugly around the wrists and ankles. Two of the bands seemed to be ready for trial as two small red LEDs glowed dimly in the low light of the early morning.
He could appreciate the girl's work ethic, even if he did worry about the effect he was having on her behavior. Hatsume had always been driven. Her family couldn't help but go on about how Mei would spend hours, days sometimes, in the garage building gadgets. She'd planned on making hero tools to gain the funding to pursue her passion. Helping actual people, not just the elite of the world. She was doing that, Midoriya couldn't deny it. Just the big-name inventions they'd worked on together, the reactor, the prosthetics, were changing the world.
Where Midoriya had become a name synonymous with the medical field, and well known inside it, Hatsume was rapidly becoming both a household and an infrastructure name with so many patents for small quality of life gadgets and for larger devices in development. Midoriya had seen the blueprints for some of the mechanical divisions' bigger projects, after all. He was so proud of her and knew that even if something happened to him, Hatsume would be more than capable of changing the world.
Even as Midoriya picked the girl up in his arms, for the umpteenth time, and began to make his way to their common area, his thoughts turned back to his concerns. How many times had he carried the girl away from her work? Had he given Hatsume access to all of these resources too soon? Would she have matured without him? Would she have been more conscientious of her own health? Or if she'd had to make her own way to this point, would she simply be more bitter? Have lost the spark that made her Hatsume? Gently, Midoriya placed the girl down and, after a moment of hesitation, sighed before placing his hand on her head and whispering, "Sleep well, Mei."
Turning back to the workshop, Midoriya quietly thanked Phoenix for opening the doors for him and Hatsume. Phoenix chirped an affirmative even as Midoriya stepped back into the workshop and began walking towards the forge. He needed to pick up the materials for yet another prototype for his weapons research. The last coilgun prototype had practically exploded when they'd hooked it up to its power source.
"What you did to that girl is cruel." Midoriya jolted before cursing and turning.
"Oh good, you're talking again. Here I thought that you might stay quite a little longer." Shimura's grimace hid nothing from Midoriya as she stood beside the door, her arms crossed across her chest. "Where have you been, anyway? I lost track of you after we returned."
"I've been watching young Uraraka. Somebody had to." The tone, bitter and accusing, told him all he needed to know about what she thought of Midoriya's actions.
"There is someone watching," Midoriya said stiffly. "Sprite is always watching Uraraka's condition. Were there anything I needed to be concerned of, she would have dealt with it and or alerted me."
"Oh yes, that's definitely what a doctor should do. Inflict agony on his patient and leave their care to a machine."
"I don't have to justify my actions to you, Shimura. She requested the surgery, even after I warned her of the side effects." Midoriya turned again, intent on ignoring the woman.
"You went too far." It was a simple sentence. An accusation that struck closer to home than he cared for it to. Any other time, he would have just brushed off the allegation. Further than just the surgery strictly called for, not nearly as far as she had requested. Didn't have to. Shouldn't have. Should have. She had requested…
Midoriya spun and exploded. "You do not get to judge me!" Where his words before had been clinical and stiff, his words now were white-hot fury. Lips pulled back into an animalistic snarl, even as his eyes glowed. "WHAT would you have had me do? Hmm? Should I have simply put in the standard cybernetics? Knowing she was going to be heading onto a battlefield? Should I have left her nervous system to burn out from the overuse of what would otherwise likely be deadly equipment? Should I have not given her the most basic of upgrades that would ensure she wouldn't kill herself trying to learn how to fucking WALK AGAIN?"
Midoriya stalked across the room towards Shimura and stabbed a finger in her direction. "Oh wait, no, I know. I shouldn't have given her any of it. I should have left a young woman with that much potential crippled and wallowing in her own self-pity so that your FUCK UP of a student could somehow come to fix the mistake he made." Midoriya leaned forward now, getting into Shimura's face. "Is that what you want? Hmm? Some way to alleviate the guilt of your own part in this gods damned mess?"
Shimura took a step back, startled briefly, but it was Shimura's turn now to discard the veneer of calm that she had been showing up until now. "Oh, how magnanimous of you, Midoriya. What a wonderful hero you'll become. You could have delayed her reentry into the classes. Could have, as her doctor, told her she was physically unfit until you fixed her. You didn't need to do things this quickly. You just wanted to see if you could, didn't you? Like some kind of mad god damn scientist."
"You don't know anything, and how many times do I have to tell you people, I am not, nor will I ever be, a damn he-"
"Uh, Izuku?" The quiet whisper in the cacophony of yelling had Midoriya's jaw clicking shut and his head swinging to yell a WHAT at whatever was interrupting him. The word died in his throat when he saw the look of fear in Hatsume's eyes.
"Sorry," He choked out. "Just having an argument with our resident ghost." Slowly, Hatsume crossed the workshop floor to grab him by the arm.
"Right, well both of you need to stop. The workshop's looking to be a mess soon."
Huh? Both Midoriya and Shimura glanced around to find the room to be in a state of potential disaster. Materials and tools floated through the air lazily, as if they had simply decided their weight didn't matter. All at once, it all dropped. Hatsume yelped, and Midoriya caught a piece of steel before it could bean her over the head. Warily, Midoriya turned back to Shimura. She gave him one horrified look before blinking out of existence.
Midoriya scowled again before muttering to himself. "Great. Make that poltergeist."
…
Midoriya glanced at his overlay clock as he stepped into the biological suite. Just passed eight and already the employees were trickling out of the bunk room and into the building. Damn workaholics. There was a reason that they didn't run like every other Japanese company. Burnout was a real bitch, and he didn't need his top researchers getting burned out because they couldn't grasp the concept of rest.
"Richmond, go home. Take a trip over to Tokyo. Unpack your stuff from the move. Check on Jenson. He's not in… the best shape of his life. I don't care. Just leave this building."
Richmond's head swiveled to look, wide-eyed, at his new boss. "But, sir, I've-"
Midoriya started shooing the man with his clipboard. "No. You've been here for three days. Go. Shoo." Midoriya waited for the man to exit the room before calling after him. "And don't come in tomorrow." Turning to his original task, Midoriya grimaced as he approached Uraraka, who was finally looking like the pain wasn't overwhelming her senses. Quietly, Midoriya tapped one of his employees on the shoulder, having a brief conversation, before taking the fresh IV bag from their hands and walking over to her IV himself.
"At the risk of sounding superfluous, how are you feeling?"
"I feel like someone dipped me in pitch and lit me on fire." Uraraka croaked the words, and Midoriya winced before replacing the GDS-3 bag on her IV.
"That is an unpleasant feeling. Good analogy. The good news is that it's almost time for your painkillers. The bad news is that it's also about time we get you in a wheelchair and introduce you to your new legs."
"That's going to hurt too, isn't it?" Midoriya looked down at the girl and took in her gaunt, pained face.
"Yes, it probably will. It's the first time the new pathways are going to be used. It'll feel weird, and it'll probably hurt. Were you fully recovered, I'd just give you something for the headache. But with things as they are…"
Uraraka closed her eyes briefly, took in a shuddering breath, and sighed. "Painkillers first?"
Midoriya gave her an encouraging thumbs up and a small smile before agreeing. "Painkillers first."
…
The short trip from bed to a wheelchair had Uraraka seeing spots in her vision. When Midoriya had originally told her that this was going to hurt, she thought she'd been prepared for it. But this wasn't something she could have been prepared for. It felt like she was dying.
Every inch of her felt like she was sitting inside of a furnace, and underneath her skin, it felt like there were millions of tiny bugs crawling around, ripping her apart piece by piece. Uraraka thought for a second before realizing that that was, basically, exactly what was happening.
"Where are we going for this?" Midoriya had just wheeled Uraraka out into the hallway when she'd asked the question.
"We're just going over to the common room. Usually, you'd be sent to an outpatient facility for physical therapy, but by your own demands, we don't have time for that. So that means more pain and a crash course in walking again."
"I just want to get back to class and for things to get back to normal. Why do I need to relearn how to walk? I can still move just fine." Uraraka demonstrated by wiggling her legs and wincing at the movement.
"Well, basically it boils down to-" Oh no, more technical talk. A door down the hallway exploded and something embedded itself in the wall across from it. Oh! Yes! A distraction.
Hatsume stalked out of the doorframe a moment later, waving her hand to clear the dust and grabbing at whatever it was that had embedded itself into the wall. A choking snort sounded just over her shoulder as Midoriya called down the hallway. "I see this variant's going well this time, huh?"
Hatsume scowled, finally tugging the object free of the wall and glaring back at the shattered door. Briefly, she huffed before pointing down the hallway at Midoriya with the object. Uraraka blanched when she realized it was the remains of a leg and foot. "At some point, I will get scramjet engines condensed and non-explosive."
"Please tell me that isn't going on me." Both scientists glanced down at her wide eyes before Hatsume started chuckling darkly.
"Oh yes. You're going to go flying."
Midoriya plucked an eraser from his pocket before tossing it clean between Hatsume's eyes. The girl staggered back dramatically. "No. You will not be using that. That is an early prototype. Not for human use."
Hatsume pouted before smiling. "Sorry, just messing with you. No, these aren't anywhere near ready for trials." Hatsume tossed the leg to someone through the doorframe before shouting orders to break it down. "Your legs are in there, and I'll be joining you."
Midoriya shot up an eyebrow. "You aren't needed in there?"
Hatsume shrugged. "Gotta go get another door from the storage, anyway."
Uraraka threw up her hands, wincing. "Wait, wait, wait. This happens often enough that you have spare doors?"
Midoriya grinned, wheeling Uraraka into the common area. "I keep telling her that she should just replace it with a blast door but noooo. It's too slow and annoying."
Hatsume just shrugged before sitting down on one of the couches. "What? I know myself."
"That you do, Mei. That you do." Midoriya left Uraraka beside the counter and caught the black box tossed to him. "These are your legs for now."
Uraraka opened the box and found two sleek, black legs, just her size. Unconsciously, the matte finish had Uraraka rubbing the leg for its texture. It was smooth, to her surprise. "Technically, they're made of carbon fiber. Not so technically speaking, it's a composite material of our own design. You'll find it lighter even than aluminum and stronger than steel."
Uraraka glanced at Midoriya as he finished speaking before tugging one from its foam prison and nearly throwing it in surprise. It is light. "How do I, you know, attach them?"
"Ah, see that white arrow about a quarter way from the front? Line that up with the front of the mechanical disks in your legs, insert, and twist right until you feel the click. The two devices will take care of the rest. Tried to make it simple." Hatsume mimed a gesture that if Uraraka hadn't known what she was mimicking, would have seemed crude.
Following Hatsume's instruction, Uraraka placed the prosthetic against the disk, even as Hatsume discussed the exploding legs with Midoriya. Real comforting conversation here, guys. Hatsume's eyes widened at something Midoriya said, excitedly jumping up just as Uraraka twisted the leg until the click. The pain was blinding. Someone was screaming. Oh, that's me. The realization did little to dull the feeling, like she had just attached a live wire to her own body as the muscles in her right side seized. Moments later, what felt like an eternity for her, the pain began to clear up as the sensory overload began to be distributed through new channels. She felt popping all across her body, and suddenly, she felt better than she had even before she put on the new leg.
Uraraka's vision cleared to find Midoriya giving her a pained smile and holding a trash can under her. Her head was between her legs, Uraraka belatedly realized, and someone was rubbing small circles on her back. "Sorry." She croaked the word out.
Midoriya shook his head. "You have nothing to apologize for. The first time is always the worst. That popping you felt? It was nerves waking up for the first time."
"Why? Why did it hurt so much?" The voice was quiet and hesitant, as if she was worried asking the question would make her seem stupid.
"The fusion of biological material and mechanical material is a delicate process. One that comes with no small amount of pain during the process. Besides, your body needed to realize that it had new pathways, and that's probably always going to hurt, regardless of what I do."
"Did that little girl go through this, too?" Midoriya thought back to the Mutos' daughter and her excitement, even through her tears.
"Yes, she did. She was such a brave little girl." Half-truths, Midoriya thought. The girl didn't go through nearly the same process. "Would you like me to do the other one?" Midoriya asked quietly.
"No. No, I'll get it. Just, just give me a second. What were you two talking about just a moment ago?" Hatsume's eyes widened.
"That's right! Xenon! XENON!" The young woman sprinted out of the room yelling the word, leaving Midoriya to explain.
Midoriya's chuckle evolved into a full-throated chortle. "I swear that girl can't sit still for any length of time." Midoriya took a moment to compose himself. "It's a gas, Uraraka. Xenon gas."
Uraraka continued to stare blankly at Midoriya. "Well, yes, but what does that have to do with anything?"
"Hmm. The technology development is long abandoned, just as so many others were when quirks first appeared. But it's something that occurred to me when I thought about your quirk and flight. Don't you think an ion drive might work great?"
"I have no idea what you just said, but I don't want anything explosive on my legs."
Midoriya nodded. "Well, that's quite understandable." Midoriya handed her the other leg. "Ready to go?" Uraraka grimaced and took the leg from him, then with a deep breath, lined up the arrow, and twisted.