Flea

Chapter Twelve

Maeve yawned. Then clicked play.

"SO PREPARE FOR A CHANCE OF A LIFETIME, BE PREPARED FOR SENSATIONAL NEWSSSS, A SHINING NEW ERA IS TIPTOEING NEARER, AND WHERE DO WE FEATURE? JUST LISTEN TO TEACHER-" 

She walked into 1A accompanied by this blast of glorious sound. Scar from the Lion King had always been her favourite movie character (she hadn't seen many films). Maeve thought the song was fitting, given their recent run in with villains. The entire class, who'd been sitting except for Tenya Iida, stared at her open mouthed. She turned off the speaker with an impish grin. A wall of silence remained.

"Morning, everyone. Iida, you seem unsettlingly enthusiastic, how about you take a seat. Lucky for you, I'll be acting as your substitute teacher today. Mr Aizawa was quite determined to come in but I have him detained, not to worry," Maeve rasped. There was a sinister sound to that last statement no one had the courage to question. It didn't help that what they could see of her throat was an ugly purple colour and she'd almost lost her voice. The bandage around her forehead had been replaced with a soft white cloth.  

Not asking her for the details was a good call, as it turned out. Maeve was happy to tell them she'd brought her robots home, ordering Bill and Deb to knock him out if he tried to leave the house. The two were thrilled. 

When Aizawa had gotten up that morning and started preparing for the school day as if he'd be a part of it, Maeve had openly laughed at him, wheezing, before dragging him back to bed. There was no way he was teaching two days after sustaining injuries like that. Unfortunately, because he'd planned to come in, he hadn't organised for a relieving teacher. Maeve had the next couple days off, so she offered to substitute. The suggestion triggered her father to look on the verge of tears. Tears of happiness, Maeve was confident. She had a lot to teach these squirts in a short amount of time.

"Is Mr Aizawa going to be okay?" Uraraka asked. The girls in the class plus Midoriya (bless him) all looked at her with eyes rounded in worry.

"Trust my word as a g-ground breaking health practitioner. From the way he was trying to strangle me with his scarf this morning, I know the guy's fighting spirit will pull him through."

The class breathed out a collective sigh of albeit confused relief. Aizawa clearly hated his students, but he'd risked his life to protect them. It was good to know he was going to be back with them soon. Especially given Recovery Girl was teaching them until he got back and no one was ever quite sure if she was joking. At least their normal homeroom teacher had the sense of humour of a lump of coal.

"Are you alright? You suffered several injuries yourself, your throat is badly bruised and they looked like quite severe burn scars on your palms," Yaoyorozu commented. The class looked at her expectantly. It seemed word had gotten round. Luckily, all of them were sheltered enough to not recognise cigarette burns when they saw them. Except perhaps Todoroki, though he probably thought the burns were caused by.. Well, something else. He was watching with eyes narrowed, taking in her every move. It was quite disconcerting.

"Don't worry, those scars weren't from the USJ incident," she replied, feeling uncomfortable. There went her excuse of them being quirk related birth marks.

"So, what was with that hand guy talking about your parents being villains?" Mineta blurted out. He'd overheard. Great. Everyone began fidgeting, and Maeve realised that was probably what they'd been discussing right before she came into the room. No wonder they'd been so quiet. Iida came to her defence before she thought of a decent reply other than 'what's up is you're a nosy pervert who's future is even shorter than you.'

"Mineta, do you have no tact whatsoever? That isn't a question you can just ask someone!" He yelled, making large sweeping gestures with his arms. Maeve's mouth twisted, and her hesitation told the class everything they needed to know. A shocked silence fell, with a couple members whispering 'holy shit.' Iida still gestured, apparently trying desperately to divert attention away from her onto himself. The attempt failed.