*Oh, fuck me where is the coffee?* Nemuri thought as she slouched into the break room hissing when she got a face full of sun.
The sunglasses she was wearing were not helping to protect her eyes from the sun nearly enough.
She so wasn't going to endorse the company that sent them to her.
After a painful minute of readjusting to the light Nemuri shuffled over to the coffee machine and fumbled to grab the first mug she could find so she could pour herself some coffee.
Drinking about half of the cup before she was willing to acknowledge the rest of the world, and realized a few things.
Firstly, she was using one of Shouta's cups and made a note to clean it once she was done because even though he wasn't in yet, Nemuri knew he would just know that she had used it without his permission.
Secondly, it was way too early for her hungover butt to be doing anything but dying in her bed, and or her bathroom.
And third, would Midoriya being willing to share some of whatever was in the box he was carrying because it smelt really good right now-
*Midoriya?!* She backtracked in her head, nearly spitting out her coffee before whipping her head around and indeed spotting her young bushy co-worker.
Midoriya, looking far more collected than she probably did at this ungodly hour, was putting down a box of hangover food that looked and smelt way too good to ignore before he settled on the couch and opened up one of his notebooks.
*Ah fuck... * Nemuri thought suddenly feeling very awkward, like a wallflower character at a party holding a red cup, and the way she was holding herself wasn't too far from that image.
The fact it was just the two of them really wasn't helping her with her current ball of nerves because she had managed to distract herself from what happened at the club.
Her, well there was no nice way to put it really, freakout about Midoriya being at the sex club was not one of her finer moments, and it was quite a bit mortifying in hindsight if she was being honest.
Nemuri had proudly talked about being fully sex positive and she could feel everyone calling her a hypocrite for it in her head, Shouta especially would take some glee in rubbing the double standard in her face.
Nemuri was Midnight, the 18+ hero after all and most people would probably laugh it up if they found out she had a moral panic over a teen possibly having sex.
And yeah, Midoriya was technically an 'adult' by law and sure kids started exploring sex at Midoriya's age but it all just felt... wrong to her.
Kids should have a free pass to explore that part of themselves as long as they weren't hurting anyone and being safe about it but there was a reason sex clubs had age limits for fucks sake!
There were things kids weren't supposed to see and especially things they shouldn't be doing with adults.
Still whatever her personal feelings were on the matter she did owe Midoriya an apology for how she snapped at him.
While his presence at the club was... unexpected, he legally was fully in his right to go in any sex club he wanted to go to and Midoriya had done her a major favor.
Plus the whole accusing him of having some gang offing the perv was uncalled for.
Even if she was fifty percent sure Midoriya probably could actually call someone up and have them do a hit for him with only a couple of words.
Shaking her head Nemuri mentally scolded herself for the trailing thought and turned her gaze back to the boy, assuming that he had been purposefully ignoring her since he had pretty good spatial awareness, at least he did from what she saw of his lesson with Genji-Sempai.
So, gathering herself Nemuri crossed the room and only stopped once she was across from the boy, nervously tracing the rim of the mug as she tried to put some words together.
"Top of the morning Midoriya," she greeted trying to sound somewhat cheerful about it.
"Morning Kayama-San." Midoriya briskly replied not even looked up at her, the dismissal though warranted couldn't stop her from feeling even worse about the whole thing and she sighed.
"Look, Midoriya I... I want to say sorry." Nemuri blurted out and that seemed to shake the boy and he immediately turned to stare at her, blinking owlishly from his sheer bafflement.
Midoriya even going as far to open and close his mouth before sputtering out a flustered "What?"
His shock confused Nemuri for a few minutes before the conversation from last night hit her like a truck, and frankly she would've preferred for a vehicle to have hit her compared to the sickly vile that suddenly built in her throat.
If half of what Haruki-Sensei and Yogi-Sensei told them was true... Midoriya probably hadn't expected to step foot in high school, much less for a hero to ever apologize for mistreating him.
Nemuri shook her head again and brought a hand up to her neck as she cleared her throat.
"For what happened back at the club, I shouldn't have been rude about it, out of it or not I should have been thanking you for not letting that creep run off with me, not biting your head off." Nemuri told him, shifting from foot to foot to get so of her nerves out.
The boy stared at her before blinking and realization passed over his face "Oh, oh that." Midoriya said then brought a hand up to rub the back of his neck and sighed himself "It's okay Kayama-San, I understand why you reacted like that." the boy bashfully confessed.
Oh, that wasn't making the bile in her throat go away. Why did something so mundane suddenly hold such ominous meaning behind it?
"Honestly, if I caught any of my underage students at a sex club, I probably wouldn't have let it go either." Midoriya added "And with my reputation in hero circles before I was discovered? Well, I only have myself to blame for that, I don't exactly keep the best company." Midoriya further elaborated.
"Still that doesn't excuse me, we're co-workers and that behavior was completely uncalled for." Nemuri insisted with a frown.
The boy then scratched his cheek with one finger showing his bashfulness again "I mean, I didn't appreciate the implication that I'd use my authority with my students for something like that, even if the guy would've deserved it." Midoriya conceded waving his other hand dismissively.
"Amen." slipped from her mouth before she could stop herself and cursed her normally loose mouth.
God she might actually need one of those stupid courses on self-restraint Shouta kept telling her to take if she was saying things like that without thinking.
Midoriya however just chuckled dryly in response "Either way, it's water under the bridge Kayama-San." the boy assured her with a closed-eye smile.
Fuck that smile was worse than the sun and she had to bring her hand up to rub her forehead as she dealt with another headache.
How was this child both so concerning and radiant at the same damn time? And at so damn early in morning too?
"Ah, Kayama-San you should sit down and here have some pear soda too, it'll help your hangover." Midoriya said quickly getting up and before she could protest she was sat on the couch with a can of fruity soda in hand.
Not having the energy to argue Nemuri chose to drink it and opened the can wondering how her life had come to the point that she was being taken care of by fourteen-year-old.
After a few sips through she did feel way more human than the coffee had made her feel "Whoa, why the hell hadn't I heard of this before?" Nemuri said holding the can away and looking through the label for the quirk-affected sticker.
"It's a pretty old remedy, Kayama-San. I only know about it from some of my older students." Midoriya informed her.
"Don't care, I'm calling my assistant manager to tell her to ask around for pear soda people looking for sponsorships." Nemuri replied guzzling through the can and swiping up another one since these little beauties would be gone fast once the others started rolling in.
"Oh um, speaking of there was a question I wanted to ask you Kayama-San, but I wasn't sure if it would be appropriate to ask." Midoriya suddenly brought up and though she immediately jumped at the opportunity.
"As long as it isn't about my weight, fire away kiddo.~" Nemuri said with a wink, seeing this as a way to make up for yesterday since she felt the kid had let her off the hook way too easily.
"Well, I was wondering why you chose to be, um for lack of a better word, a 'sexy' hero?" Midoriya asked.
"Huh? That?" Nemuri responded blinking, normally when people asked her about her sexiness they always assumed it was forced on her, if they didn't think she was a deviant from the beginning.
"Well, it wasn't some big dream or something, I wasn't running around as a toddler proclaiming I would be the 'sexy' hero. But once I got serious about being a hero I just kept finding video after video talking about how women were or weren't being sexualized by the media." Nemuri started to answer, gingerly waving one of her hands as she spoke.
"And the thing was it pissed me off, like sure reducing people to sex objects is bad and all but why was being overly sexy this major sin? Some people like to feel desired you know, especially in the bedroom. So, I decided to say 'fuck it', and made my costume with as little skin covered as I could get away with, it would help with my quirk too so I had some legal ground for doing it too." Nemuri said leaning back on the couch.
"And you know what Kiddo? I felt good about myself even though a lot of people were trying to shame me for it, wearing it made me feel amazing so I couldn't give a fuck if those jealous bitties couldn't keep their partners from staring at my bare ass." Nemuri told the boy pausing to take a sip from the can.
"It's not my fault your man, woman, or whatever can't keep their eyes from wandering.
I feel more confident in myself when I'm out on the job if I feel like a hot woman, and if that made me a sex symbol? Well, it was no skin off my nose, we could all use another confident sexy woman to look up after all." Nemuri joked with another wink as she raised her can of soda.
Midoriya hummed then nodded, his hand coming up to his chin "I see, did you ever consider using a shield or something of the like to counter the lack of physical protection?" the boy inquired.
"I did, certainly had times where I wished I brought one but most of them were too impractical with how I fought. My whip and fans are actually much stronger than they look and good enough for defense since my quirk would make most too sluggish for me to weigh myself down." Nemuri replied.
"I'm a stalk and shock kind of girl, mostly do suppression work as you know outside of the media stuff. Plus, my costume would be much harder to hide in civies if I had a shield or something." Nemuri mused with a shrug.
Midoriya pursed his lips "Yeah, much harder to be discreet if you're carrying a shield or the like, the body suit is much more practical to hide, and no one would think twice of the gems on it as being full of your mist with your aesthetic." Midoriya considered out loud with his head tilted to the side.
Nemuri's mouth fell open "Wait how'd you know about them?" she questioned, Nemuri only used them in states of emergency.
Each gem had a highly concentrated version of her mist that when broken, filled the immediate area with mist so strong it would be a real risk of stopping someone's heart, hence only using them when absolutely necessary.
Midoriya blinked then he scratched his cheek again somewhat embarrassed "The villains talk Kayama-San, and if it happens then the Vespas will find out about it at some point or another. But most people don't know about that, hero info like that usually costs way more money than normal people can get their hands on."
Nemuri's stomach flipped at the thought of that kind of info being up for sale at all, and she strongly believed Midoriya only said that second part to calm her nerves.
Likely seeing the comment hadn't helped as much as he wished Midoriya redirected the conversation.
"Do you want to see my drawings for the new costumes for some of the second years?" Midoriya offered switching to another page in his notebook, and showed her a drawing that was unmistakably young Amajiki.
Nemuri was surprised but one glance was enough for her attention to be taken in by the impressive picture in the book.
Midoriya's sketch was incredibly detailed, and she found herself enamored with the realistic look of it, even if it was a more daring pose than Amajiki would have been able to pull off without a quirk's influence.
It was a side profile of the boy with wings like Hawks and bird-like talons on his hands and feet, the boy's costume shared most of its original elements, but the skirt and thick samurai-styled chest piece was removed.
A mask covering his face instead, with gauntlets on his arms and legs with more pockets to store things in, a smaller chest plate and knuckles connected to his gauntlets.
"Oh my, this is quite good Midoriya! My if you showed this to poor ol' Amajiki I think he just might faint." Nemuri teased and Midoriya took the book away from her "Hey, hey I wasn't done looking at that yet." Nemuri protested.
Midoriya huffed and stubbornly refused to show her the page again, and after a minute of pouting he showed her another one for Haya, one markedly better than the one she was currently sporting.
This geeking out at Midoriya's drawings and talking about changes they could make to costumes lasted until the first of her co-workers started trickling into the room at which point Midoriya closed his notebook and went over to Ito-San, likely to talk about the lesson for the day.
Nemuri shoulders slumped but she didn't pout for long as Hizashi wrapped an arm around her and flopped on the couch right next to her and began complaining about how unfair it was for her not to be as hungover as he was.
Nemuri scoffed and tossed an unopened can of pear soda at him and went over to go bug Shouta now that he left the coffee machine.
She might be feeling better without the hangover pressing down on her but she didn't want Shouta to chase her down like he had when Hizashi hugged him and broke his mug.