Work Text:
Momo’s body aches in ways a body shouldn’t.
It’d been something of a joke when she first moved her bed from home into the dorms because of how terribly it fit, but now as she lays spread out across the familiar width of her mattress, she doesn’t care who laughs at her.
This is what she wanted. Being a hero is her dream, and although her classmates haven’t treated her like a spoiled little rich girl unkindly, she’s always been afraid that deep down they never believed she deserved to be here.
Momo has since proved herself.
She closes her eyes as the weary throb spreads into her bones and makes a pitiful noise. Maybe she proved herself too much this time.
But there are more important things than her own comfort right now. The war can’t be won by heroes giving less than five hundred percent of themselves, and Momo isn’t just throwing punches.
She’s been working nonstop to make sure they never run out of supplies or materials. First it was the little things—cots and blankets mostly—but now that she and Hatsume have been paired together, she’s been memorizing schematics she would have never otherwise dreamed of.
Hatsume likes steel and flash, and Momo wouldn’t dare say she’s exhausted, because at the end of the day, creating is what she was born to do. Providing the tools and materials Hatsume needs to build her babies has made Momo feel the most useful she’s ever been since coming to Yuuei.
And Hatsume is… exciting.
She’d heard all the stories, of course. Midoriya’s come back from getting his support upgrades with enough soot marks and bruises for Hatsume to gain somewhat of a reputation with their class, but seeing her work in person? That’s a completely different story.
Hatsume is no less than a genius, but it’s her absolute lack of restraint with both herself and her work that makes everything she does feel like it’s packed together with gunpowder.
Momo wishes she was more like her sometimes. Brave, confident, terrifying. She’s fascinating, and the way she thinks is so different from Momo. Everything she creates is from scratch, and no one will ever be able to replicate it in a million years, and none of it has anything to do with the help of a quirk.
She’s the creator here. Momo is just a glorified 3D printer.
Momo’s eyes grow heavy as the weight of her quirk fights back against her.
Today she was Hatsume’s second in command. Everything she wanted, Momo gave her without a moment’s hesitation just like she has for weeks, and every moment Momo has spent outside of her shop has been preparing her mind for the next day, just trying to keep up.
Half of her bookshelf is filled with Hatsume’s schematics now.
Momo is the only person in the world Hatsume trusts to duplicate her babies, and with a wink she added that she wouldn’t even make her buy the patents.
If they make it out of this alive, all of them, Momo would like to keep adding Hatsume’s schematics to her shelves. She’d like to work with her again, permanently if that’s possible.
Would Hatsume even want a partner?
It’s entirely possible that she wouldn’t. She’s a lone wolf, queen of her domain, and one day the world won’t be so desperate that she’d need Momo at her side, providing materials as quickly as Hatsume can use them.
It’s been nice working with her though, despite the circumstances, and if this is the last time they’ll ever need each other, Momo’s sure even a genius like her could use a friend.
Momo smiles to herself. She’d like that.
She’s made so many wonderful new friends at this school, some she knows she’ll keep for the rest of her life, and although Hatsume isn’t one of her classmates, she wouldn’t mind getting to keep her close for a long time too.
But she knows how much of a foolish thought that is. A part of her clings hopelessly to the world before the war, and it thinks that one day they’ll wake up and it’ll all be nothing more than an awful dream and she can go back to being the silly little rich girl who thought that proving herself was the hard part.
There’s no room for thoughts about coffee dates or shared libraries right now. She needs to keep her mind clear so she can be ready to absorb tomorrow’s battle plans.
But then again, it’s hard to think at all when she’s this worn out.
It’s almost unfair to feel tired when she’s not the one fighting, or running, or worse, but still, she gave her five hundred percent today, and now she’s paying for it.
Momo furrows her brow at an odd scratch against her door.
It’s almost a knock, but not quite, and for a moment she thinks she only imagined it, but then it comes again, and she groans as she pushes herself up to see who it could be.
No one bothers her at night as much anymore. She kind of misses the late night tutoring sessions and the meaningless gossip. God, even one bad game of spin the bottle might make her feel more like a student again, but she’s not sure she could bring that up without half of her class demanding to know who she’s trying to kiss.
Not that there is anyone, of course.
She opens her door, but instead of a person waiting for her on the other side, it’s a small drone floating just at eye level. It has two metal arms with small white gloved hands at the ends, and now those hands are currently gripped around the handle of a wicker basket.
Momo’s eyes widen as the drone wobbles in the air in front of her. Is this a new school security device?
“Important delivery for Yaoyorozu Momo!”
Hatsume’s electronically distorted voice booms out from the little speakers poking out of the top, and Momo finds herself quickly hushing the drone as if it or anyone could stop the sheer force of Hatsume’s advertisements.
“Important delivery for Yaoyorozu Momo!”
Red lights flash brightly as a screeching alarm rings out, and Momo yelps as she snatches the basket away from the drone’s hands. Thankfully, that seems to be all she needed to do to appease Hatsume’s screaming baby.
“Thank you,” Momo whispers, not sure if it makes a difference or not, before slipping back into her room before anyone comes to see what all the noise is about.
Momo closes her door and carries the basket to her bed. She climbs up to sit across from it before removing the red and white checkered cloth hiding the contents beneath, and what she finds isn’t anything she ever expected.
She brings her hands to her mouth in awe.
Hatsume sent her snacks.
And as small of a thing as that might seem to be, they don’t have snacks anymore. The factories have all been shut down, there aren’t anymore imports, most of the stores are empty, and it’s too dangerous for anyone to go in and out of the school on a whim anyway.
But upon further inspection, Momo sees that these are all handmade.
Well, they were made here, at least. Knowing Hatsume, she could have just made her own snack machines in house with spare parts to keep herself fueled while working, but these are very much all the things she never knew she missed until they were gone. Momo’s stomach growls.
She opens a bag of chocolate covered pretzels and says a small prayer before shoving the first one into her mouth. It crunches beautifully, and soon it’ll become the energy she needs for her body to forgive her.
Her quirk is so painfully dependent on how much fuel she can give it, and with how she’s had to produce non stop lately, she just hasn’t been able to keep up.
Her classmates and teachers are aware of this, of course, and they’ve all been so kind to take care of her when she needs to refuel, but she never imagined that Hatsume of all people would have looked up from her babies long enough to notice.
But she did notice.
She saw how Momo was pushing herself for her and went out of her way to repay her, and Momo is so grateful she can hardly breathe.
It’s silly how one small gesture can mean so much, but right now, in the midst of everything happening around them, it kind of means everything.
Momo bites into another pretzel while her eyes start to prick with something more than exhaustion.
Maybe when all of this is said and done, they could somehow find a way to be friends.
She’d like that more than anything.