Chapter Text
“Can someone without a quirk become a hero like you?”
In my life, this quote is a beacon of hope for my future. No matter how many times I hear this green haired boy on my screen say these words every time it brings a smile to my face.
As I continue watching, the piercing shrill of the final school bell brings me to my attention back to reality as I get up and try my best to get out of the room as quickly as possible. The teacher is yelling to the kids about the homework that’s due on Monday but I don’t stay long enough to hear. Stuffing my phone quickly into my bag, I rush through the halls. Weaving and dodging people in hopes of getting out of the school campus before-
I trip on something, or someone’s foot and I go flying to the floor with a few screeching noises and a loud thud. I manage to get back to my knees as someone from behind grabs my hair and yanks me up from the floor to look at their face.
“Hey M-M-Maxine!” They tease then get straight to what they were here for. They meaning Derek and his two friends. “Where’s my money? Couldn’t find you this morning where I meet you before school. Not hiding from me are you?”
I try my best to shake my head but can’t because my hair is in the clutches of this mouth breather. “N-no!! I-I was r-running late this morning. P-Promise!!”
Which was the truth but it’s not like he would believe me. He scoffs and shoves my face away from him, letting go of my hair. “Well then you wouldn’t mind paying double for the wait would ya?”
“I-I don’t h-have that today” I mutter which is a lie. I do but the extra money was supposed to get me through the weekend. It wasn’t much but the amount I did have he would take from me.
He scoffs and grabs my backpack as his friends start to try to get my bag off of me. “Well then you wouldn’t mind me checking then would you?”
I struggle as they try to take the bag off. Which for them isn’t very successful until one of his goons punches me in the gut and I instinctively weaken my hold of the bag and they successfully pry it off my back. I mistakenly turn my back to the two guys and try to grab it back. He sees this and dodges me and his friends grab me from behind. He finds my wallet and takes all the money that’s in it then starts to rifle through the rest of my bag. Hoping that he doesn’t find my-
“Oh didn’t know you had a phone!”
My stomach drops because my phone is the one thing that I value the most. There’s a crack in the corner and it’s definitely not new by a long shot but it works and it brings me joy. “H-hey!! Give it b-back!!”
He examines the phone in his hand, then tries to turn it on. It’s locked thankfully but my screen saver says all he needs to know. “You watch that anime shit on this hunk of junk? Gross bet she likes that tentacle crap don’t ya Maxine?”
Anger flares in me as I continue to struggle against his friends. I don’t answer because no matter what I say, he’ll use my words against me.
“Nothing huh? Well you really are some sick lesbo.” He then drops my bag and then proceeded to chuck my phone to the ground. Any hope of it being unharmed dies and I tear up a little, frustrated that I could do nothing about it.
“Aww. Gonna cry now are we? Well I’ll give you something to cry about” Slamming his fist into my stomach, my knees give out and his friends gladly drop me on the floor. He then kicks me a few times and gives my head a blow for good measure. As the kicks stop, I lay silently in the ground, tears streaming down my face, no fight left in me. He says something else but I can’t bother to listen and I hear his laugh.
“Serves you right. You should just off yourself and hope for a better life,” he sneers as he walks away. When I hear the doors shut behind him is when I bother to get up. Uncurling from myself, I sit up and look over to my stuff which is now strewn on the floor. I see my phone face down and I pick it up and see it’s screen shattered. I turn it on and it luckily still works but now the screen is shattered so it’s hard to see through. I sigh and put it in my pocket and shove my stuff in my back and walk home.
-
When I get home, I sneak up to my room. Seeing my mother on the couch passed out with a bottle in her hand. Definitely don’t want to wake her up.
I throw my bag on the floor and go look into the mirror. My nose is a little bloody and pulling up my sleeve I see another bruise already forming and turning blue. Knowing it could’ve been worse, I go and change into shorts and a clean t-shirt. Not paying attention to what I pulled out to wear, I go and crawl into bed. I grab my phone and open it and it resumes the video from where I left off.
“Young man. You too can become a hero.”
I continue to watch my show till the late hours of the night. I get to the dorm room episode and as I click to play the next one a shard from the phone screen sliced my finger. I hiss in pain and stick my finger into my mouth. The video was playing and I tried to ignore my injured finger and watch it but my head started to get fuzzy and very quickly I slipped into unconsciousness.
-
When I woke up, it was bright and I hear birds chirping. We’re those birds? I scrunch my nose and bring my hand up to rub at my eyes and the chirping noise stopped. Huh. That’s weird. I put out my other hand to sit up but someone beat me to it.
“Are you ok?” A soft voice asked. I stiffened up and quickly opened my eyes. Huddled around me were a bunch of bright colored people; but the one that was closest was a curly green haired, green eyed boy with lots of freckles.
“Are you hurt? What’s your name?” The same boy asks and this time recognition dawned on me. What. The. Fuck. I must be dreaming. Nevertheless I answer.
“M-Max.” I quietly mutter and there’s muttering around about something but I’m still focused onto the one boy, his hand on my back and still fuzzy from sleep.
“Max. That’s a nice name. Where are you from?”
This is so weird. This can’t be real. “L-Little Rock, A-Arkansas”
His expression turns to sock and anxiety starts to swell in me, which wakes me up because this is way too vivid to be a dream. The murmuring around us rises to surprised chatter and I start to look around at the other people. There’s a bright red haired guy, talking to a pink colored girl and I instantly know who they are, which in turn doesn’t help my anxiousness. I quickly scramble to sit up on my own, fully awake now and my eyes dart around to the other people. There’s a guy with a bird head. Tokoyami. Next to him a girl with black hair and a tall ponytail. Yaoyorozu. The girl next to her, Ochako, is staring at me and says something and everyone’s eyes quickly lock onto me.
Suddenly, I realize my chest is tightened and that my breathing is becoming irregular. The huddle of people start to feel too close to me. Feeling claustrophobic, I attempt to back away but I backed right into the freckled boy. He says something and puts a hand on my shoulder but I quickly flinch and jerk away. His hand feeling like fire on me and my ears begin to ring.
Quickly, everything seems to be too much and I curl myself up to protect myself from the world. There’s a loud shout and the noise stops. Shuddering and curling in tighter, my breathing is past controlling on my own and I either hope to pass out or wake up from this horrible dream.
Then I hear a rhythmic tapping and after a few minutes I start to hear quiet counting. I begin to focus on it and the ringing in my ears starts to fade, trying my best to follow the person’s breathing exercises. Still curled up into a loose ball, adrenaline slowly fading, and my breathing now under control, the person who helped me asks, “are you able to speak?”
I slowly poke my tear stained face out from my knees and look up to a dark haired, dark dressed man. He looks like he’s gotten very little sleep and has a scarf around his neck. Heh. It’s Mr. Aizawa. He repeats the question and I slowly shake my head no.
“Ok then. Do you know how you got here?” He starts to supply yes and no questions. I shake my head.
“A student of mine said you're from Arkansas. Is that correct?” I nod my head. He doesn’t look surprised but takes a moment to think.
“Do you have a teleportation quirk?” I shake my head no.
“Do you have any quirk?” I hesitate. I mean I don’t think I do? I shouldn’t have one since I don’t belong here right? He noticed this and he moved onto follow up questions.
“Do you even know?” I shake my head no. He tries to lighten the mood.
“You like the word no a lot” he smirks and I gave a huff of air as laughter. His eyes seem to light up a little when he hears it and I slowly uncurl from my ball, knowing I can trust the insomniac caterpillar. He slowly stands and offers his hand to me.
“It’s early in the day you should get something to eat,” he states as I take his hand and he pulls me up. I try to protest but can’t because my voice won’t work but he sees the look on my face and knows what I’m thinking and insists I eat something. This is when I realize that I’m not wearing any long sleeves and my bruises and scarred arms are showing. I wrap them around my middle in hopes of hiding the obvious bruises as well and the slight tremble throughout my body from the stress. Also it’s kinda cold.
As we walk through the door of the building I was outside, I realize I’m in class 1-A dorms. All of the kids that were outside are still in the main room, plus a few more, pretending to do homework but when they see us walk in instantly abandon it.
“Hey are you alright?” Ochako asks me, the first one to get up and ask questions. She glances at my bruised arms tightly wrapped around my thin frame. Looking down to my feet I nod; still not ready to talk yet.
“She needs a jacket. Do you happen to have a spare one she could borrow?” Aizawa then asks of her and she nods and quickly goes to get one. He gives the other students who were going to get up a look and they all seem to jump back into their pretend studying. It seems I just missed breakfast because there’s a few students doing the dishes and once one of the kids spots me begin to ask who I am but Aizawa cuts them off.
“Is there any leftovers from breakfast?” He asks and the yellow haired boy with the black streak in his hair.
“Yeah we just put it away. Why-“ he begins but gets cut off again.
“Can you make her a plate? She hasn’t eaten yet.” Aizawa asks of the boy and he quickly dries his hands and begins making a plate for me. He then guides me to the counter overlooking the kitchen and pulls a stool up for me and then sits in one himself. I climb up the chair, because I’m a short girl and as I settle he starts to talk.
“You’re in Japan at the UA dorms. And since you have an All Might shirt on you probably know that this is a hero training school.” He states and I look down at my shirt and feel a little embarrassed that I now look like a fangirl. But I also feel relieved that I didn’t have on one of my other hero shirts of Deku or one of the other class members. I may be broke but I do save every penny for merch. He pulls out a pad and pencil out of his pocket, flips to a blank page and hands it to me.
“Fill out your full name and a guardian’s name and number so I can contact the person who takes care of you.” He requests of me and I take the pen and write my name. Name: Max Mayes. Guardians name: Ann Mayes. Guardian's number. Would it even work in this universe? I put her number down anyways and hand the paper back to Aizawa.
Kaminari brings the plate over as I finish and I smile up at him and try to give my best thanks. He smiles back at me and then skips back over to finish his chores with the purple haired girl who curiously was looking over at me while her friend was busy with his extra task. I quickly begin to eat my food, which was rice, some fish and natto, which I’ve never had before but inhaled it anyways. Aizawa pulls his phone out, also chiding me for eating so fast because he doesn’t want me to choke, then dials the number and putting the phone up to his ear as it rings. After about 30 seconds, he brings it back down and ends the call. “Are you sure this is the right number?”
I look up at him curiously and nod, my head was slightly tilted in a questioning gesture. He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “It’s to a restaurant called Chili’s in Idaho.”
I hear Kaminari snort in the kitchen, probably eavesdropping and I would be laughing too if I wasn’t worried about how I would get home. Could I get home? “I have a feeling you know why?”
I look up at him and sees his unamused expression. He hands me the paper back and I write on it. ‘You may not like like the answer’
“Kid just get on with it.”
I take a deep breath and slowly write. ‘I’m not from this universe’