Chapter Text
“Thinking about offering to anyone?”
“Maybe that purple-haired kid, his quirk would be a huge help in the medical field, getting to him early seems like a good idea. Maybe this time I can convince him of the merits of also working in the medical field.”
“Maybe don't mention how little you sleep this time, I'm pretty sure that's what scared off the last three. He's a good kid. You'll like him.”
“You don’t usually call unless you need a favor, what is it?”
“The girl who got second place. Can you make an offer to her too?”
“Gravity quirk? Sure, you know I'd offer for anyone in either class, but why?”
“I just…have a strong suspicion. I need you to keep an eye out for any alarming behaviors, maybe see if you can get them to trust you enough to divulge some stuff.”
“Concerned about something?”
“Homelife. There's just…something wrong, I know it. Mic agrees with me, but unless we get evidence, there's nothing we can do.”
“If they're in the foster system, you know things will be rough for the purple-haired kid.”
“Mic and I are prepared to take in both of them. We're looking at apartments right now, but our lease won't be up for another month. The office is already cleared out just in case.”
“Just don't give them your bad habits, and I'm good with that. We don't need a mini you when it comes to listening to doctors.”
“...I make no promises.”
“Of course you don't. I'll get to them first though, that is a threat.”
“Oh joy.”
“Who do you think you're going with?” Ochako asked, ignoring her giant stack of offers in favor of looking at Hitoshi's paper.
Hitoshi squinted at her suspiciously. “Why do you want to know?”
Ochako pouted. “Maybe I want to know where my brother is going.”
Hitoshi stared at her for a little longer before realization dawned on his face. “You just want to know so you can go to the same place as me.” He didn't actually sound all that upset or accusing, just amused.
Ochako shrugged sheepishly, caught.
Hitoshi rolled his eyes fondly, but pointed to a name on the page. “I was thinking about going with Chuujitsu, Aizawa suggested her. I guess she's an underground hero who is also a doctor. She's always available as an option for those who didn’t get any offers, but she rarely actually makes offers, but I guess she did for me.”
Ochako could see why, she could think of a few ways Hitoshi's quirk would be great for a doctor. “Some medical knowledge would be really useful as a rescue hero.” And she just…wanted to make sure he'd be safe.
Hitoshi sighed, but he was smiling at her. “That it would. She probably didn't make an offer for you, but I think you can just ask Aizawa. Now, I want to see who you got offers from, give me your stack.”
“How many heroes are even in Japan?” Ochako asked rhetorically, remembering the number listed. “Did I just get an offer from almost every hero?”
“I have no idea,” Hitoshi said, although he was now staring at her stack a little apprehensively. “That’d be insane.”
“That number is insane already,” Ochako pointed out. “And so is the stack. Do you have any idea how heavy it is?”
“I can guess,” Hitoshi said, a little disbelievingly. “I still want to look through and see if there's anyone cool in there.”
Ochako snickered, splitting the stack in half and handing half to him. “Sure, why not.” Maybe it'd be fun.
Turned out Chuujitsu had also made an offer for her, so she didn’t even need to ask Aizawa about it.
He nodded approvingly when they handed back their forms with who they wanted to intern with.
“Chuujitsu is a good choice. Especially with how much of a disaster this class has been so far, some people with more than very basic first aid could be lifesaving.”
That was also a good point. She hadn’t thought of that before, but he made an excellent point. Some first aid knowledge sounded like even more of a good idea now.
“Nintaimi rarely gets interns despite always being an option, I’m sure she’ll be ecstatic to get two,” Aizawa added, straightening his papers. “Being able to handle emergency medical situations and other emergencies with a cool head is a skill that is often simply not present among the hero population. People too often forget the benefits of knowing how to do things like administer an epi-pen or do chest compressions.”
“And how to stem major bleeding,” Ochako added, without really thinking about it, mind running back to other major building collapses she’d seen in the news.
Aizawa inclined his head. “Indeed. Listen to her, she’s a good hero and a good doctor. Just don’t ask her about her opinions on All Might unless you’re willing to hear her drag the man through the metaphorical mud for half an hour.” He had the faintest smile on his face, which shifted towards faintly wry. “And perhaps don’t ask her opinions on me. She does not hold me in very high regard.”
“What did you do?” Ochako asked, now insatiably curious about what made both All Might and Aizawa be on her bad side.
“Nothing you should imitate. Now go on, get to class.”
Guess she’d have to ask Chuujitsu. She was really curious now.
“Ah, I see Aizawa was spreading stories about me again. They’re just both absolutely awful workaholics. Neither has listened to a doctor in their lives and they clearly don’t plan on starting now. Honestly, Yamada’s just as bad as Aizawa, but at least he sometimes sits put for examinations. Sometimes trying to be Aizawa’s doctor is more like being a vet for a skittish cat. You take your eyes off of him for five seconds to grab something, and as soon as you turn back he’s halfway up the wall and busy opening the window. Not to mention, at least three separate hospitals have dents in the parking lot where All Might escaped and landed too hard, cracking the concrete. You’re free to look up to them in any other matter, but for everyone’s sanity, do not imitate them on that.” Nintaimi, as she’d told them to call her, sighed deeply. “Maybe if I can poach one of you I can weaponize puppy dog eyes against them. It’d certainly make my life easier.”
Aizawa had been back to teaching the day everyone got back to school, so that wasn’t a surprise to Ochako and Hitoshi, but it was kind of funny. Or really funny.
“You’d be better off trying to use Ochako for that,” Hitoshi said quietly.
Nintaimi snorted, although from what little Ochako knew of her, it didn’t seem mean. “Oh trust me, either of you would work. Aizawa’s a huge sucker for a wet cat.”
Ochako snickered, elbowing Hitoshi lightly. “Hey, hey, Hito, you’re a wet cat now.”
The look he gave her illustrated Nintaimi’s point beautifully. It was really funny.
Ochako ended up doing a lot of just…watching. Obviously Nintaimi made a clear effort to include her and teach her things, but it was really neat to see just how useful Hitoshi’s quirk was in every hospital she dragged them to. Difficult patient? Hitoshi. Hurt and scared child? Hitoshi.
It was amazing.
The doctors and Nintaimi had Hitoshi’s nerves around his quirk basically trained out of him by the second day, it was amazing.
For once, his quirk was treated as how it always should’ve been, something that was capable of doing a tremendous amount of good.
It could be a villain’s quirk, yes, but it was also so good for scared children who didn’t understand why they had to be perfectly still, for people afraid of needles, for unruly patients who just needed to be held down while the doctors worked.
Ochako was happy to just sit on the sidelines, jumping in whenever someone needed a gopher to run an errand, or some help lifting something heavy, because she got to watch Hitoshi get told, for the first time by someone who wasn’t her or in their class, that his quirk was a heroic one; that it was helping people.
The last stop of their grand tour of hospitals and the last stop of their internship was Hosu General Hospital. Nintaimi actually wasn’t there to assist the doctors there, for once, she had actually been called in to help out with the Hero Killer case.
She had come, but she’d told them she wasn’t going to actively participate until Internships were over, as she didn’t want to abandon them, or risk them running into the Hero Killer.
Ochako could understand that, she too didn’t really want to run into the Hero Killer, even though if she saw him it would be on sight. If she came face to face with him, she was fighting him. He’d killed enough people. If she got the chance, she was going to try and end it. Sure, she definitely wasn’t as good as many of the pros he’d killed, but if she had some backup, maybe she could help.
She could understand why Nintaimi did not want that to happen though.
Ochako had figured it’d be a calm final stop, they’d do more of what they’d been doing the last week, and then they’d go home and all would return to normal.
Even though, as time increasingly wore on, Ochako was beginning to wonder if there was a way to not return to normal. Their normal was something she’d hated, their foster parents heaping empty praise onto her, and despising Hitoshi for no reason.
Nintaimi had been somewhat subtly and regularly assuring them that if something was wrong…she would handle it.
She hadn’t necessarily outright said it, but the stories she told of many of her missions being rescuing kids with less than ideal quirks, of helping kids who were in abusive home situations, had done it for her.
Hitoshi had his doubts, he had so many doubts, but Ochako…
Ochako wanted, so desperately, more than anything, to believe in an adult this time. She wanted, so badly, to believe that this time, it would all be okay. That she could tell an adult, and this time, someone would do something about it.
This time, things would get better.
She was pretty sure she was wearing down Hitoshi, or maybe Nintaimi’s…everything was wearing him down, but she hoped that maybe he’d agree to tell Nintaimi by the end of their internship.
It, as it always does, fell apart in an instant.
Alarms began blaring across the city, and within ten minutes, the hospital was overrun.
With no one who could supervise her, or who needed a gopher, Ochako ended up just hanging out in the main emergency room with instructions to comfort whoever she could, and maybe clean and dress some small wounds if she got the chance. Hitoshi and Nintaimi were needed everywhere it seemed like, but no one really needed her and her quirk.
Ochako was alright with that, she was content to be in the waiting room in her hero costume, doing her best to be a beacon of light in the chaos and darkness.
She went from person to person, occasionally cleaning scrapes, or cheering up a crying child, periodically matching up people who were looking for each other, and just trying to get a little bit of order and relief in the chaos.
She didn’t think she was doing that much, but she was doing what she could, which was all that mattered. Especially in this kind of chaos.
Ochako had actually missed them being brought in, but she saw them after and got the story.
Apparently, Izuku, Iida, and Todoroki had ended up finding and fighting the Hero Killer. And had taken him out. He was dead now.
Aizawa was right, they really really needed two people with medical experience. This was just getting ridiculous. Two major disasters that had some of their class at the center of it in less than a month? Insane. It was insane.
“How are they doing?”
“They’re settling in well. Thank you, for everything.”
“You can thank me by actually listening to your doctors next time you’re in the hospital.”
“I don’t think that’ll happen.”
“Yeah that was what I thought. I’ll weaponize your kids against you next time. They like me more and agree that heroes should stay in the hospital until the doctors release them. I got to them first.”
“This is betrayal.”
“Yep! Tell All Might I’ll do the same to him, I know Ochako has his quirk, I’m not afraid to weaponize her against him.”
“You’ll have a harder time doing that, I don’t think she cares for him all that much.”
“You are right on that, she didn’t seem to have a high opinion of his intelligence, but that doesn’t mean I can’t weaponize her against him. She may not like him much, but I know how All Might is. He’ll fold like wet tissue paper. Stubbornness incarnate whenever someone dares try to imply they care about him and don’t want him dead, wet tissue paper when a kid gets involved.”
“What, is that your new plan for all unruly heroes?”
“I have my eye on your half n half, so it’s definitely my plan for Endeavor. Assuming I don’t just meet the kid and immediately drag him through the mud so hard he’ll wish I just weaponized his kid against him.”
“You cannot have my entire class.”
“Watch me.”