Chapter Text
Today's Art is Dealing With Constructive Criticism, brought to you by the Support Department.
Don't get her wrong, Midnight's class is great. Everyone and their exhausted, worn out brain looks forward to Art, also known as Aesthetic Building Basics. Midnight is cool, very cool and funny, and she knows what she is talking about. Midnight is the cool cousin that you get to see twice a year, except she teaches you. And UA is a space of innovation, which is why they are allowed to skip opening ceremonies, held limb-breaking drills, and have classes that might not be considered very appropriate for other schools.
But this.
The work of Support Class had not been received kindly, in better words they have raised quite some resentment among her classmates. Many of them have angrily protested that their costumes are fine, Supports are just jealous. Satou-san nearly torn his desk apart in anger, Baku did blew his desk apart. Tooru is having an existential crisis. A veil of mild annoyance and unease hung above their class.
Midnight is unfazed in the midst of the outburst. Yaoyorozu, having some experience on how to deal with unwanted “constructive criticism” from her time interning with the Snake Hero Uwabami, also kind of managed to keep her cool. However, she despised people attacking her choice of an open front so much, what other choices does she have? Remake her clothes every time she made a larger thing? TAPE HER PRIVATES LIKE HOW THEY DO IN MOVIES? CLAMSHELLS BRAS? Hatsume-san, do you have the answer?
Although her idea of having some armour on her knees and elbows might be good, she might contact the Support Course sometime. Recently Momo found out that you can knee people in the gut, which would be way more efficient with metal rather than flesh. Mina had laughed “Abs” at the sight of her scraped knee. However, the fault lied with her as she went one whole year without knowing that Kouda was Solid.
Brass might be good, hmm.
...
“This baby,” Mei slapped the top of a 3D printer, “Churned out so many of those tiny little and complicate parts for us Supports”
“How fast?” Yaoyorozu nodded in agreement, and curiosity, bless her.
“A whole 150mm/s, 185 if we push,” Every deity in existence must have been out to test her gayness because, Mei is giving the best student in the school, the person whom she had wanted to get to know so bad but don’t know where to start for weeks now, a tour around the Support Department workshop. “So an average piece can be done in like, twenty minutes. We have about ten of these bad boys here. I know they are efficient but they aren't just enough”
“It is nice,” she nodded, stroked her hand across the baked-in grease surface of the machine, “I never got the chance to actually see these before.” Momo continued her musings with no heed to how Mei was dying. You are one of them, goddammit.
“Yaoyorozu-san, I need your help.” Mei never thought she would come to this point. “Fast as these thingies are they could only print so fast,” Oh fuck her cohesion is failing her.
“So you left a very suspicious note in my class so as to...?” Mei found herself under a piercing gaze. Yaoyorozu looks scary but her eyes are so soft and pretty. Not many people in the world have dark grey eyes, not black, dark grey. Why is she trying to focus on her appearance rather than the problem at hand, why.
She took a deep breath.
“Yaoyorozu-san, please,” This sounds too much like a love confession is it “Let me borrow your quirk to survive this crunch, the project is due in two days and accounts for half of all my working space. If you help me through this I will forever be in your debt. I will even treat you to dinner.”
“Making a gadget this size cannot be covered by one meal alone, Hatsume-kun.” Yaoyorozu did not waver. “It will also cost me time and education from the sound of it, skipping schools.”
“Stinky. Personal henchwoman?”
Nope.
“ Personally commissioned and designed piece of gear?”
That raised an eyebrow.
“I know what you want now.” Hatsume sighed, bye Green Boi, your new suit unfortunately will be put on hold for my pursuit of love and my workbench. “I’ll help you to a whole costume makeover, and when we be done with it, it would be nothing but a glow up.”
Dramatic pause to catch breath.
“After this we'll make you a suit that will shame Iron Man to an early grave. Deal?”
“Sold.” Yaoyorozu looks so pleased with herself. Her shoulder muscles shifted visibly even under the uniform jacket as she put her right hand forward.
Handshake? Handshake. Her knuckles are calloused and scarred but her palm is soft, so very soft.
Hours later found four blueprints, three hundred cogwheels and rods left, two sleepless girls and a half eaten chicken pizza. Momo never thought about the possibility of dinosaurs being fluffy. And never in her life has she been more amazed by those people who do tiny kitchen videos. Behind her are a bunch of discarded particles. The majority of them have the incorrect number of teeth, or width, or depth. They agree on most of the discards, however, since they both know how a little bit of difference in the particles can and will lead to bigger malfunctions.
Hatsume has just finished fasting another nut into its rightful place when Momo forces a break.
“Come on,” Momo has been nagging for hours now, Hatsume clearly is as tired as she is but still upright somehow. “You need sleep, I need fuel, we both need water, coke is not enough. I know your dorms is locked but I have a key to mine. As the vice representative I must show up tomorrow, well, this morning. Hatsume please it has been ten hours-“
“One more,” Hatsume insisted, albeit weakly. Momo dutifully handed another bolt to her.
“One more have passed since two hours ago,” Momo sigh. “You are going to need breaks to work efficiently and with precision. I promise, after some sleep you will be twice as fast, just.”
Hell if she is not frustrated and going to loose her temper. How can you lure one workaholic to a break?
Momo gently taps her shoulder, and when Hatsume stubbornly refuse to stop working she opts to reach up and twines their hands together.
“There is coffee,” she says softly, “Come on, do it for me?” This would undoubtedly be troublesome if taken out of context. Momo is too tired to filter.
Somehow that worked. Hatsume's movement stutters a bit before she slowly eases her hand out of the grip (Momo felt a little bit loss from the lack of contact), and gracelessly jumped down from the ladder. Her eyes are lifeless and dull from sleep, bags are forming. She nodded determinedly to Momo.
They turn off the light as they exit the workshop. The one next to them and some others still have their lights on despite of it being two, mayhaps close to three in the morning. There is a surveillance robot that have to be walked around.
After some careful manoeuvre they made it back to the 1A dormitories. Momo then produces a spare key from her pocket, unlocks the door, and in they went silently.
The only actual difference in the dorms is the number of floors present to adequately accommodate the students in each course. As Support course have three classes, F, G, H but each only have twelve students so they have smaller dorms plus a shared space on the top floor (after Hero, UA Support is also one of the most sought after and have the same low acceptance rate). The washrooms and living rooms are the same, though. So Hatsume can immediately barrel into the kitchen without looking.
Mei rubbed her eyes.
She did it again.
And again.
You would not believe in your eyes, if there are more than ten different means of coffee related items on one (1) counter. There are only twenty-twenty-one if she remembers correctly people in the building. Can't they share one pot. On the other hand she, too can and will chug a whole pot in an emergency so she will not judge. She counts five coffee machines of varying models, three French press, six filter cup, and six different roast of coffee. This is the closest to the American's “everyone smokes weed here” concept.
“We do crunches too, you know,” Yaoyorozu sighed raggedly as she crouched down in front of the communal fridge. “Don't worry, most of them are not even used that often but Mina said it would make a nice exhibition, so there we go.” Then she mumbled something along the line of please forgive me Ao-something something as she put a BIG ASS jar of black liquid onto the table.
“Cold brew coffee,” The smell woke Mei up a bit. “Nice.”
“How long are we going to be up?” But then Momo rummaged through the top cupboard, which must be where all the good shit are hid from the public. Oh, to be tall.
“However longer it takes.” Mei tried not to take in the broad expanse of Yaoyorozu's back. People should not be this attractive, goddammit.
“Please give me an estimate,” She pulled a bag of white pills that looks shady as fuck down from the cupboard. “These are not easy to come down from, you know.”
Mei stares.
Yaoyorozu stares back.
“Are,” She lose the match. “Are you trying to get me to do cocaine?”
The question echoes.
It took Yaoyorozu three seconds for her brain to reboot and for the questions to go through.
“One, cocaine will be in powdered form for immediate consumption.” Why did she starts with that. “And two, in order to hold my end of the bargain I have deployed this secret weapon just for you. How dare you make that kind of assumption about me.” It must have been her attempt at a light-hearted tone, which is cute as fuck. But ‘just for you' echoes in her mind.
This pretty, awesome woman is going to be the death of her. But Jesus, Hatsume thought to herself, get yourself together, is this how it feels to be the fabled useless lesbian?
She still doesn't know what the hell those pills are.
“They are caffeine pills.” She clarified embarrassedly. “I apologize for not telling you this sooner. Do you happens to be allergic to caffeine? Have hypertension or high blood-pressure? I'm- ah, some people only needs the taste, if you do we have decaffeinated mix somewhere in here.”
“You hoard,” Hatsume said, “Caffeine pills, not gold, caffeine pills. In bulk.”
Yaoyorozu looks mildly flustered.
“Yes, please.” Mei says softly.
“Could you, uhm, helps yourself to one with a cup of this,” She gestured to the pills and the cold brew. “I need to go to my room, I won't take long I just, am going to shower and change, yeah? Aizawa-sensei has promised to cover me should I fell ill for a while now, I might call in a favour. You should rest your eyes a bit on the couch, its comfortable. Maybe sleep-“
“Yaoyorozu, you have already done so much for me.” Mei mentally slapped herself for dragging her along without knowing limits and such. “I yield. Just relax, okay? We have come this far in such a short notice, I'm sure we can get the rest over with. So take your time, I'm good.”
Yaoyorozu smiled apologetically at her before telling her where the thermos are and disappear to the stairs. So the girls dorm is on the left.
Coffee. Check. Pill. Check. She lays down on the couch and begins dozing off. Yaoyorozu should get down here anytime now.
The elevator pinged, soft footsteps on the floor. Hmmm maybe Mei should ask Yaoyorozu for five more minutes.
Instead came a gruff, accusatory question, probably a dude.
“What the fuck are you doing in our dorm at three am?”