Chapter Text
Present Day
The sky tore itself open above the abandoned complex, spilling lightning like blood from an old wound. The air was thick with the unnatural screech of something. A quirk unraveling. A body was lying limp on the ground in front of a metal chamber with a busted door when Katsuki Bakugo made it to the lab, with a newly formed hole in the ceiling.
His gauntlets were scorched, his body covered in ash and dust. His knees hit the floor once he got close to check on vitals. His fingers were quick to turn her head and put them on her pulse. It was weak, but it’s there. He put his ear near her mouth and heard her shallow breathing and one word.
“Kats…?”
“Minerva, stay with me,” he growled as he checked the rest of her. Clothes singed, holes burned from the forced pull of lightning out of her body, and sweat dripping for the experience itself.
Outside, something roared as rain started to hit the floor through the hole he made.
It wasn’t a villain, not exactly. It was a manifestation of her quirk. It was born from the extraction process she went through, desperate to return to its host. A raging, spectral beast, bear-like in shape, with lightning for a spine and claws made of metal debris that it attracted to itself. It shimmered blue and white against the wreckage of what had once been a van, blown to pieces and part of a power plant as it absorbed what was left to get to a hulking size to cause serious damage.
Minerva finally opens her eyes to look at Bakugo.
“Help…me get there…”
He just looks at her like she’s crazy, with another roar rumbling not too far.
“Please…Katsuki,” Minerva rasped.
Bakugo radios for backup before picking her up, fireman’s carry, to get safely outside. He refused to slow down.
“You know… it just wants to come back to me,” Her voice was thinner now. “It can’t live without me.”
Minerva feels a warm tingle on her wrist, but his grip on her didn’t falter for even a second.
“And I can’t live without you, so you’re not dying here, damn it!”
She smiles faintly before passing out once again.
13 years ago
Her father’s voice had echoed from the porch in his rocking chair, deep and steady, “Mini! Come in now, baby!”
It was the tail end of a summer storm on the family farm in rural Georgia. Her siblings had gone inside, but this eight-year-old was still out chasing a rabbit between the thickets barefoot. The wind whipped her black braids around her face. She’d never been afraid of storms; in fact, she liked them. They made the world feel vibrant, full of secrets just waiting to be told.
That day, the storm gave her exclusive access to one of those secrets.
Her scream tore through the rain.
Electricity danced across her swarthy skin and shot into the earth. The bolt had carved a smoking path into the center of her back, though to her right arm and across the yard. Minerva didn’t remember collapsing. Only the feeling before. The hum under her ribs, a taste of metal, the way the sky seemed to be watching.
Then her father was there, chest heaving.
Henry Bearblood, a tall man with arms carved from decades of boxing and a voice low enough to silence others. His knees hit the mud as he picked her up off the ground and pulled her close to his heart, repeating her name like a prayer. Behind him came Rosalyn, also known as Maw, moving so fast that it wouldn’t surprise anyone if her shadow didn’t catch up to her form. She almost had to pry Minerva from her father’s hands to assess her daughter's body with the efficiency of a black belt turned full-time mother.
“Take her inside,” she ordered. No panic. Just action.
Henry shakily gets up from the ground. Rosalyn moved quickly back to the house to call the town doctor. She made Silas got blankets, Brenna got towels and cold water into a basin and Micah, being three, crying tears from the tension growing in the room.
Henry stomps into the living room when Silas sees his little sister giving off smoke from her exposed skin. His heart races as he looks up to their dad and asks a silent question before handing over the blanket. They wrapped her up in blankets and silence.
Brenna came after with the water basin sloshing in her hurry to help. She finally gets a look at Minerva. She puts the basin down and reaches for Minerva’s cheek, and it feels hot. She replaces her hand with a cold hand towel. Minerva leans into it before waking up.
When Minerva woke up, she was in her father’s arms, wrapped in her favorite blanket, the smell of singed cotton and her back aching with something she didn’t quite understand. Her mother was pressing a cool cloth to her head instead of Brenna, and her older siblings, Silas and Brenna, hovered nearby, somewhat scared and confused.
The town doctor came in like a flurry of snow. He checked her vitals and the scars from the event.
“Well, now, it looks like a miracle!”
Both parents look at the doctor while Minerva fights sleep to keep hearing the conversation.
“It seems that her quirk finally expressed itself and saved her. I can’t give you a name for this quirk, but we’ll figure that out later!” The doctor pats Minerva on the head which aids in getting her to fall asleep.
The doctor leaves, telling them to keep her body cool for the night, if nothing changes, then call him again, and not to worry themselves. He gives a two-finger salute and heads back to town. Meanwhile, Henry and Rosalyn stare at each other with worry, then look down at their half-asleep baby girl. Micah comes marching up to them after Brenna tried to put him to bed, gripping the blanket, wanting to see his big sister himself. Rosalyn picks him up.
“Is she okay?” Micah says.
Another moment of silence.
“Yes, she’s a Bearblood, sweetheart. She’ll be right as rain tomorrow.”
That calmed Micah enough for Rosalyn to get up and take him to bed. Henry followed behind and asked Brenna to help Minerva into her bedclothes before leaving the house.
What they didn’t see, and what Minerva would never forget, was that something changed inside her that day.