You know what, this is a very human thing to do. So much time with one or two comments per chapter, but then I drop the word 'tank' in a story, and suddenly five comments. Hmph. But yeah, it's now canon that Pussycats were a tank crew. Good job folks :P
(***)
Mei Hatsume was clearly in an extraordinarily good mood.
Shino Sosaki, in the meantime, was in an extraordinarily bad mood.
They arrived at Takoba city through a train, all to maintain the lowest profile possible. They also didn't look like themselves - some hair dye and a brief visit to a stylist do wonders. That was the least that Shino forced out of Mei in order to agree to the outing.
Goddamn being kicked out of the job, if there are people with superpowers running around, she has to keep Mei safe.
They arrive in Takoba. Find a hotel with decent standards. Rent a room. Have the remaining bodyguards (Tsuchikawa, Shiretoko and Chatora) stay there for the time being (they are there to form a rescue party if something went wrong). Then they change their clothes into something very… local.
The only thing that Mei refuses to part with is a backpack. There is her laptop and other things that Shino doesn't want to know about.
Then she and Shino depart to the apparent meeting place.
And this is where Shino's bad mood changes from normal to extraordinary. Because Mei forgot to mention that her metahuman friends are holed up in an abandoned district.
Ruined buildings. General desolation. Intimidating silence. It's not like those places were completely abandoned, Shino knew that some people just wanted to hang out where no one was looking. Still…
...it felt like she was back at the frontline. Terrible memories. She kept flinching randomly, suspecting an attack. But none came.
Eventually, they arrived at a building. It looked relatively well-preserved, but the only feature of it that truly stood out was that all the windows were boarded from the inside.
Shino was about to tell Mei to step back (she wasn't letting her enter a building BEFORE her, dammit), but the door suddenly opened in front of them.
Green-haired kid. THAT green-haired kid, considering the sudden squeal that Mei let out of her. Ugh.
This is going to be a pain.
(***)
Shino Sosaki wasn't sure what she expected when she heard Mei claim that there were other people like her and that they were about to meet them. For as much as Mei's eyes were unique… Well, it was just an equivalent of a microscope and binoculars. Scope too, when she closed one of her eyes.
Nothing THAT shocking, all things considered.
Mei, of course, told her absolutely nothing beforehand.
As a result, Shino ended up being thoroughly shocked by being in the presence of:
a) Half-human half-frog, with some rather intense, odd stare.
b) Young man who could harden himself to the point of being completely bulletproof (unless you used anti-armour bullets, or so they suspected), while also making himself look like a stone demon.
c) Young woman who could secrete and control acid at will, while looking… well, kinda odd.
d) Girl with a gun who could manipulate the gravity of everything she touched.
e) Green-haired kid who, according to Mei's rushed introductions, could lift a car with his mind, or smash a villain to a red paste. At least he seemed genuinely freaked out when she announced the latter.
(the only question on her mind was how long will it take him to smash Mei, and the answer was probably counted in hours in not minutes considering Mei's newfound determination to get laid)
She was soooo getting fired for this.
Then again, Mei was absolutely right in her decision to keep probing into the meta-ability business. Her parents came to believe that those were mostly some relatively weak abilities, and decided that the risk of being ostracized for uniqueness outweighs the potential benefits of exploration into that field.
Considering the assortment of powers that Shino saw in this very room, Hatsumes were extremely wrong in that assessment. She might have been a soldier, and thus her mind concentrated on military applications only, but… damn. There were a lot of military applications. And probably lots of civilian ones too.
Mei keeps herself in line for maybe three hours. Once they all get to know each other properly (the part where she is a zaibatsu heiress is still hidden, but they seem to accept the fact that she can't share her background with them yet), she decides she needs a moment with Izuku Midoriya and pulls him up the stairs.
Shino is almost certain that it won't be a moment.
She celebrates the inevitable end of her bodyguard career by showing some self-defense tricks to the kids in front of her.
(***)
Mei pulls him by his hand upstairs.
"Where is your room?" She asks him. There is something slightly weird in her voice, and Izuku is really confused about the entire ordeal. Oh, he is super happy to see her, even if he is rather worried about the part where she came with a bodyguard, just… she's acting kinda odd?
He tells her. Shouldn't she be asking where her room is?
She opens the door, pushes him inside, steps in behind him and closes the door.
It's a rather empty space. There is a bed, there is a small wardrobe with some clothes, there is his desk where he is resting his laptop on when he ends up working on it here, plus his hero gear. It's neatly packed into the corner of the room.
"Uhm, Mei?" He asks, still slightly worried. "What is it ab…"
"Izu." She says, and he freezes a bit. There is a pleasant tingle to his spine when he hears her saying that to his face. "I have decided to make an announcement."
"Uhm, alright?" Why is it just him, though?
"I want to have sex with you." She announces with a completely straight face.
What? WHAT?!
"Wwwwhat?" He manages to utter after a few seconds of shocked silence.
"Sex is an act during which two or rarely more individuals…" Mei starts telling him the definition. He interrupts it promptly.
"No!" He doesn't want to know what her definition of that is. "I mean… What brought that idea?!"
"Oh, I came prepared for that question!" She smiles at him and pulls out several A4 pages of computer-printed text. It includes bullet points.
Izuku wants to fly out of the window, find a rock, crawl under it, and don't leave it until he dies of dehydration. He is blushing furiously. A girl, a rather beautiful girl, just offered him… that?!
He, partially against himself, takes the paper and skims through it. He can feel himself going redder and redder with every bullet point.
Mei's list of reasons is rather wide. It ranges from his personality and the fact that he is a genuine inspiration for her inventions that she can actually interact or more or less equal level (something that she finds extremely rare among the people of her age) to the fact that his pleasant-to-look face, his intelligence and clear leadership skills (what) are signs of his genetics being a worthwhile addition to her own.
There is also a part where she describes - rather vividly - what she feels when she sees him saving people while using her babies. He almost faints when he goes through it.
"M...mmmei." He stutters when he finishes reading the file. "I'm… uhm… I'm honoured that you are seeing me in that light, but… your family is…" She shrugs and interrupts him.
"Oh please, they already gave up on the idea of me ever getting into a relationship with anyone." She says confidently. "I'm most likely not going to inherit the company, and I'll only stay a researcher and developer because they know I'm good at it. But I know they wish that I'd find someone to be with, despite all of that. And at this point? For as long as said someone is a human being of appropriate age and without a criminal record, they won't bat an eye."
Izuku decides to try to get out differently.
"Al...alright. But…" He takes a deep breath. "I don't think that just… just, uhm, ssssex is what I want. I mean…" Damn it, he made it sound like is looking for sex but with more attached to it! Wrong wording. "... it's supposed to be something out of love. So, relationship, intent to marry or marriage and…"
"Oh, but I totally want to be your girlfriend and, eventually, wife!" Mei bulldozes his meagre defences without batting an eye. "I just came to believe, during my rather plentiful research on the subject, that it's very easy to get lost and confused and waste a lot of time and go through many, many chapters without stating your intentions openly at the beginning!"
ohmygoddidshereadromancemangasforrelationshiptips
"O...oh." Izuku blinks a few times at her, trying to figure out what to do next. Then he prepares another counterargument.
(***)
Izuku Midoriya realizes that it wasn't a very good counterargument when he wakes up the next morning with a still sleeping Mei Hatsume next to him. Her clothes are… mostly missing. So are his, now that he checks it out.
His mom is going to absolutely kill him when she finds out.
On the other hand, he now has a girlfriend. And considering the faint smile on her lips (and the part when she was holding onto him as if her life depended on it, despite being asleep, he feels like a body pillow now), he did well.
(***)
Shino Sosaki realized that the worst/best case scenario (depends on whom you ask really) came to fruition when neither Mei nor Izuku returned downstairs that evening.
When some kids wanted to come to check on them, she accepted her fate and told them openly that Mei came here in person to seduce her crush, and if they weren't coming down, it's rude to interrupt them.
That elicited a wide variety of reactions. From the acid girl's impish smile, through some faint 'manly' from the hardening youngster (whatever he meant by it, she has no idea) to clear surprise with maybe a hint of confusion and sadness from gravity girl's face (uh-oh) to a quizzical stare from the frog girl.
The next morning, their suspicions are confirmed. Mei and Izuku came down late, but she was absolutely beaming at everyone and he was…
Frankly, he looked torn between being ashamed of whatever happened and beaming at everyone like she was.
Shino sighs. Somehow the kids stop themselves from openly asking questions, but the acid girl becomes an exception when she congratulates them with a shit-eating grin on her face. Mei thanks her for that, while her boyfriend looks like he wants to shrink down and disappear.
Unfortunately, the frog girl's mouth lacks a filter. She waits for a while (they were eating their slightly late breakfast while sitting right next to each other) before opening it, though.
"So, how was it? Ribbit." She blurts.
"Wait, you can't just…" Izuku is trying to salvage the situation. It's pointless. Especially while Mei is there.
"He is a man of contrasts, I'd say." She informs them. Izuku stops his pitiful attempts at saving himself and looks at her, clearly surprised. "Physically, he has almost no strength, but a lot of stamina. His meta-ability has incredible strength but lacks stamina. It actually compliments his baseline abilities well."
Wait, is she talking about… oh. Well, usage of meta-abilities in bed is probably going to be a thing.
Izuku seems to be catching up to the roundabout way of her narration and grows increasingly red and exasperated.
"Mei…" He tries to save himself again. He fails.
"His personality is also normally that of a shy, kind boy, too pure for this world." Mei continues, and Shino can see a dawning grin on her face. "While in bed, he is the absolute opposite of that."
"Mei, no!" Izuku is trying, but his authority is absolutely zero. Everyone in the room is either laughing at his predicament, blushing slightly, or both. "Stop blowing things out of proportions and…"
"I vaguely remember you ignoring my 'Izu, no!' exclamations at least twice last evening." She informs him with a shit-eating grin on her face. "I'm grateful for both cases in hindsight, but considering the fact that I can barely sit straight today, your attempts to maintain an image of an innocent cinnamon roll are pointless."
Izuku Midoriya shrinks in his seat. Shino sighs. They are really made for each other, aren't they?
"Mei, whyyyy?!" They all hear.
"My research shows that embarrassing your partner publically in situations like this is a crucial element of a relationship." She replies promptly and Shino vows to get those romance mangas away from her grasp, even if it kills her.
"Does someone know Overhaul's phone number?" Izuku deadpans. "Because I really want to die right now."
(***)
Mei is positively beaming at everyone the whole day. Not only did she achieve the primary objective of her excursion on her first day (so she has several more to… well, repeat the events to a degree, and considering the fact that while full of vigour, her first time was marred with inexperience, it's only going to get better), but she also got to witness her small power generator and all the changes to the building that Uraraka created at her instructions.
Not to mention meeting all the new metahumans. That was an important thing as well. Just… HER INVENTIONS!
Uraraka gave her a quick tour.
Honestly, this was objectively speaking ten times cooler than designing components for a new model of a fridge or something equally boring. Of course, her babies (designed to work with meta-abilities) were ten times cooler than this, but that came without saying.
Uraraka installed everything correctly. She had a talent for that, Mei recognized that much. Oh, not the same type of engineering talent as the one that the Hatsume' heiress had. She wasn't an inventor. But when given the tools and a plan, she would actually install everything correctly.
And if plans were faulty, she knew how to improvise on their basis without messing anything up.
Frankly, if Uraraka Ochaco didn't find her calling in being a superhero, Mei would offer her a job at Hatsume Industries. Nothing super important - she was young, and not hyper-competent at something rather unique like Mei was - but she would rise high at the company.
"Everything's in order!" Mei grins as they emerge from the basement. "It's one thing to know that things work, and another to actually see them at work, you know."
"Yeah, I know." Uraraka chuckles. "My dad once came for an inspection at an almost finished building only to discover that the electrical installation, that somehow worked, was actually…"
The tale is an electrician horror story. Mei is equal parts horrified and amused.
"By the way…" Mei says when the tale ends (and she stops laughing). "Your hero uniform, aka my adorable baby number 3, has been finished. It arrived two days ago, but I asked Izu to wait with showing it to you. I wanted to be here for that."
Uraraka's eye lit up.
(***)
Mei is really proud of her Baby #3.
Most it is a skintight bodysuit, something akin to the newest generation of spacesuits. Of course, she improved upon it with a lot of elastic yet highly resistant carbon polymers. Frankly, it looks way thinner but offers a similar level of protection to Izuku's hero uniform.
The only exceptions are the helmet (it's a fully sealed one, and this time it doesn't pretend to be a hoodie) and the notably thicker back section. It is actually a small container for compressed air (it actually draws in and compresses air slowly on its own).
It's connected through some small tubes to her hands and feet - she can actually use it to discharge some of the said air. Just enough to move around faster when weightless.
There is also a shield. A ballistic one. Larger than the one normally used by the police, but it's partially retractable. Mei used some heavier materials to make it resistant to most anti-tank rounds unless they were fired from up close.
Uraraka recently learned (Izu was freakishly smart when it came to figuring out new applications and training regimens for meta-abilities, Mei can only stare in awe at him for that and that alone would probably make her romantically interested in him) how to selectively release her ability. And how to lower the weight of something instead of getting rid of it entirely (that's especially useful for the shield, it needs to weigh something to resist impacts decently).
So she can keep her own equipment weightless, while still using her abilities to their fullest. And they also figured out that she can extend her effect through mediums for as long as there is a physical connection.
The result was the fact that her right gauntlet could launch a line (maximum range - ten meters, it was super thin but also made from some material that was very resistant to cuts) with a small piece of metal at the end. If she hit anything with it, she could render it weightless, without direct contact.
Small magnets allowed her to attach a pistol (to the back of the shield) and rifle (right next to the air container on the back) if she wanted to.
Considering her meta-ability, weight wasn't the problem. Ergonomy (she had to keep maximum freedom of movement) was, but Mei dealt with that. Oh, and figuring out the aesthetic - it had to be low-profile, so she went with black. But she also didn't want to make it look like a villain slash too black in general, so she added some dark gold highlights.
Uraraka quickly changed into it (that wasn't a quick thing, all things considered). Then she spent a good thirty minutes flying around the common room, squealing in heavily concentrated happiness.
Then she ran out of compressed air temporarily and almost slammed into the floor. Well, that's what you get for ignoring the warning messages on your visor's HUD.
Mei helps Uraraka raise up.
"This is awesome, Alchemist-san!" Uraraka exclaims loudly when she is finally standing upright.
Positive review of her baby. Oh yeah, that day is just getting better. There is that meeting in Hosu in seven hours, so hopefully, the theme of positive surprises will keep going.
"Just remember…" Mei shakes her finger at Uraraka. "... that this suit makes you knife-proof. Maybe bulletproof, but only against handguns and at a larger distance. You aren't invincible."
Not to mention, 'bulletproof' meant 'not having a bullet go through your internal organs', and not 'the impact disappearing without breaking a rib or two and giving you a nasty bruise to end all bruises'.
"I know, I know." Uraraka bounces the attack back. "Midoriya already had a talk about that with me. I have high mobility and I'm decent with a rifle, but I'd lose at close range to both him and Kirishima. And probably both Overhaul and Mustard. I'm not supposed to fight at a close distance unless it's an emergency. So my standard way of combat would be what I did that night when Ashido and Kirishima joined us. So scale a building while weightless and provide overwatch."
Her father was apparently a hunter. Well, as a hobby. But she picked it up and was skilled at it. Izuku had a theory that her meta-ability caused some physical alterations before proper manifestation, building up her kinesthesia and sense of balance in preparations for her weightless 3-D manoeuvrability. Add some genuine training and suddenly you have a decent skill.
She wasn't a sniper. But she could hit what she pointed her gun at a sensible distance, even if it tried to dodge it. Mei was in the process of figuring out how to get her a proper sniper rifle. Maybe she should just design one herself? That WOULD technically be a baby, right?
Maybe with some… special bullets. For example, something to knock people out non-lethally. Oh, she likes that idea. She'll start making a blueprint for it here, then she'll manufacture it in her lab once she goes back to Kyoto.
"This is still the pre-Mustard model." Mei adds. "Just like Defiant-kun's suit, it's not gas-proof. Be aware of that." Uraraka nods a few times.
Honestly, Mustard is going to be a pain in the ass to deal with. And that's if you don't count his potential for large-scale civilian casualties. That made him into a walking nightmare.
"So, by the way…" Mei decides to ask. "Do you have a crush on Izuku?"
Huh. Uraraka reacts funny to that. She might be wearing a helmet, but it's clear that she was startled underneath.
"Wawawawawa…" Her upper limbs were flying around as if it was going to make her fly away from the awkward question she was asked. Well, technically they could, but she ran out of compressed air for a short while. "What do you mean?!"
"Do you want a definition of having a crush?" Mei asks. She tried to provide Izu with a definition of sex when he asked, only to discover that she misunderstood the instruction. Why were relationships so complicated?
"What, no!" Ahhh, Mei was right. "I just… he is literally your boyfriend now. How could I…"
"I thought crushes are kinda involuntary." Mei replies, slightly concerned with this additional complication of what she already struggled to understand. "And not something to blame someone for having. Acting upon it is a different matter, though."
"I won't act on it!" Uraraka promptly replies. Oh, a mistake.
"So you have a crush to act on?" Mei goes for the throat. Uraraka bluescreens again.
"M...maybe a tiny one?" She finally admits. "Like, I'm not sure myself if it's that, it's just… Japan is a mess, everything is rather horrible, people are pessimistic. I was living in a forest because that was honestly a good idea in the circumstances. But then he comes around, a kid my age telling people he wants to be a superhero and save people. It's… just so out of place. I originally agreed to come with him because I was just tired of being alone, but… But he is sticking to his goal and frankly, I think it might work? Baby steps, but…"
"So it's either a slight crush or just you being in awe of his idealism despite everything acting against it and looking up to him as a community leader?" Mei replies and Uraraka nods. Looks like some actual progress on the 'figure out how relationships work'. "Oh. Well, I wouldn't be mad if it was the former, and you acted on it, really."
Oh dear, Uraraka bluescreens so much. What is she running on, Windows Millenium?
"What?!" She finally utters.
"I'm from the super-super wealthy folks. Way higher than you probably think." Mei sighs. She should probably just tell them all. They are her friends! Not like she ever expected to have some, but, well, there she is. "It's hard to find a marriage among the people I know that wasn't, to a degree, arranged. One big bag of stupid if you ask me. But I might have still been kinda influenced by the upbringing in the world where half of the people, thankfully excluding my parents since their marriage went super well, are almost open about having mistresses or whatnot."
"That's… kinda horrible." Uraraka comments and Mei shrugs. More like 'dumb' and 'counterproductive', but, hey. She doesn't really care.
"The point is, don't feel guilty if you decide that you have a crush on him." Mei announces. "I really, really don't mind. If a lot of girls will have a crush on him, it will just be a sign of what a high-quality boyfriend I got. I don't think that it's possible with him, but if you actually seduce him, I won't mind either. Well, for as long as I don't feel neglected, it's not done behind my back and there is no scheme to remove my material property from me behind it. Since then I'm going to do mean things."
She was probably going to spend more of her time in different prefectures. Not having to worry about some nasty woman trying to steal her boyfriend (by being sure that he was in good hands, and Mei really liked Ochaco) was one way of dealing with the problem.
Her words obviously broken Uraraka. Good. Sosaki-san had a good idea of pointing out to Mei that Uraraka looked slightly dejected by Mei's 'Let's Seduce The Fluffy Hair Broccoli-Man' plan.
Mei's social skills are there, just incomplete in some fields and sometimes consciously ignored. She likes Uraraka and wants to be friends with her. Letting her stew with a combination of guilt and (potentially) jealousy feels like a bad idea.
If Mei learned something during the last few days, it's that it's best to just have a talk about something openly instead of wasting time sitting on whatever issue you had.
Social skills were easy to master, after all. She had no idea why people struggled with those.
(***)
Look, I'm not saying that Midoriya's readiness to go against the world without being boastful or arrogant about it are a sign that he doesn't have complexes relating to a size of a certain thing (and that, if anything, it's the other way around). I'm also not saying that his chronic hero syndrom makes him give his absolute best to make the girl in front of him happy and satisfied. But, like, the evidence is all out there, folks.
Also Mandalay please take those mangas away from Mei before she runs into harem hentais (and she already seem to have run into harem romances, it seems) or Izuku will be absolutely 100% dead. You won't even need Overhaul for that.
Also, a disclaimer from the author: NEITHER ROMANCE MANGAS NOR THIS STORY SHOULD BE CONSIDERED A GOOD REPRESENTATION OF HEALTHY ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS.