Work Text:
“Good morning, Hatsume…” Iida sighed grumpily, hefting open the door to the development studio at an hour that even he felt was ungodly.
“YOU MADE IT!” Hatsume screamed, practically making him deaf in the process.
Massaging his ears, Iida mumbled back a half-lucid response, “Not so loud. I only woke up a few minutes ago…”
“SORRY!”
He winced.
Iida frankly had no clue how she’d convinced him to wake up at four o’clock just to showcase to him another one of her ridiculous inventions. The previous afternoon, she’d dragged him away from his friends and begged him rather wholeheartedly for a favor.
“Pleeease Iida! None of my classmates wanted to help me for some reason.”
“I wonder why,” he answered dryly, attempting to leave again, but she grabbed him by the collar.
“Hey! You said we were friends, right? Right? So then you should help me!”
“I’m not obligated to do whatever you say, now that we’re friends you know!” he shot back, “Five o’clock in the morning is a little absurd for testing machinery, don’t you think!?”
“Well technically you’d have to wake up at four thirty-ish, if you want to get here on time. We need to be up at sunrise, so we’ll have to start preparing at five, and then get everything all set up by six…”
Iida’s face grew even paler, “Y-you’ve got to be kidding.”
“Nope!” she laughed, “And technically I’ll be up even earlier making adjustments, so why are you the one complaining?”
“Because I value my sleep!” he answered, straightening his glasses, “To maximize our learning potential, it is important that as students, we solidify an appropriate circadian rhythm—”
“Blah, blah, blah, just tell me if you’re coming, engine boy.”
He let out a disgruntled sigh before finally turning to look at her.
“Let go of my collar first.”
Surprisingly, she let him go without further question, and waited patiently for him to make his choice. Iida whipped out his phone for a moment and tapped something on the screen.
“I will tell you later if I have plans, but meeting up like this every time we want to talk is going to become a hassle.”
To her shock, Iida held out his phone to her, displaying a column for creating a new contact. She blinked at it for several seconds, before peering up at him with an unusually blank expression.
“You’re asking for my number?”
He jolted, his cheeks reddening slightly. “Just for convenience’s sake.”
She grinned slyly at him. “Gotcha.”
With that, the two mismatched friends exchanged information, and eventually Iida reluctantly replied back that he had no excuse not to help Hatsume the following morning.
Admittedly however, he hadn’t prepared for the occasion as much as he should have.
“Why do you keep shouting? I’m right here…”
She cocked her head, “I’M SHOUTING? I WOULDN’T KNOW SINCE I’VE BEEN DRILLING AND POUNDING ALL NIGHT LONG TO FINISH THIS!”
Iida decided after that point to just hold his hands over his ears until he got used to the noise increase.
As Hatsume had pointed out, it took several long minutes before the machinery was entirely assembled. Then, with the bulky equipment all screwed and locked together, she pressed a button to open the garage bay, and placed her hands against the back of the contraption.
“This is where I’ll need your help, race-legs!” she shouted, her volume slightly more normal now that she’d finished drilling, “We’re gonna have to push this baby outside onto the field!”
“You installed wheels on it, right?”
She rolled her eyes as if that were obvious, “Of course I did—how else would we be able to move it?”
He sent her a shifty side-glance, “Just checking before I exert a strenuous amount of effort on this.”
Rounding the back of the machine, he took a moment to observe what laid in front of him. It was a large mechanical box, mostly, with a large solar panel sticking off of the top. The base of the invention was shaped like a square nest—he believed it was some sort of docking station—while the actual machine sat inside, all folded in on itself. She had yet to explain what it did, but he assumed the solar panels and the sunrise was a bit of a hint.
“Well, let’s get to it…” he sighed, still regretting showing up in the first place, “You’d better pull your weight, Hatsume. I’m only up because of you.”
“And I THANK you for that, with AAALL my heart, TRUST ME.” the emphasis on her words almost sounded like sarcasm, but one glance at her grin told him she was being sincere. Sometimes it was hard to tell with her—since she was so… odd.
“Right.” he mumbled.
Both of them proceeded to line up behind the base of the box with their hands spread.
“Alright, let’s shove out!” she yelled enthusiastically, “Three, two, one, PUSH!”
Iida gave a hearty grunt, and the machine began to slowly roll forward. It was incredibly heavy even with the wheels—like pushing a small car, but thanks to Iida’s strong calves, he was able to dig in with his legs and make a substantial amount of progress.
“Keep it up!” he heard her yell next to him, voice strained from pushing, “We’re almost out on the pavement!”
The lighting from the studio moved behind their heads, shrouding their faces with the dark, chilly atmosphere of the outdoors. Below, Iida heard and felt as the wheels grinded against the concrete, making it slightly harder to push. He knew this would still be nothing in comparison to having to push it over the grass though, so he saved his complaints.
“Almost to the field—!”
“GUH—” he gasped back in response.
His legs and arms were getting sore now. How much did this thing weigh? 2,500 pounds? 3,000? Whatever the weight was, it was truly starting to take a toll on him now that he was inching along through the grass. In fact, it felt almost twice as heavy.
“That’s it, keep it up!”
He jerked his head away from the box, his eyes blinking confusedly for a moment, before turning around furiously to locate Hatsume’s distant voice.
“Hey!”
Hatsume was leaning against the garage entrance, not pulling her weight at all.
She grinned, fully-aware of what she was doing, and had the audacity to wave as she kept cheering him on.
“A little more to the left should be good!”
“How about you move a little to the left, and get out of earshot before I yell something I regret?” he grumbled furiously, leaning his shoulder into the box with all his remaining strength.
Finally, when he seemed moments short of collapsing, she yelled out: “That’s good!”
Iida let go of the contraption immediately; neck, arms, and back now covered in a layer of sweat. He took a moment to gasp for air—enjoying the refreshing feeling of the cold rushing into his lungs.
Great. he tugged at the lapel of his blazer, Now my uniform is all sweaty. Thanks a lot, Hatsume.
Not wanting to make it worse, Iida unbuttoned the jacket and slid it off of his arms. Slinging the blazer over his shoulder and rolling up his sleeves, he re-approached Hatsume with annoyance in his eyes.
“Thanks a lot.” he said frankly, “Now I’ll have to change into my spare uniform.”
“Ah, sorry I didn’t mean to…” she sighed, blinking slowly as she spoke.
Iida raised his eyebrows at her, noticing that her words seemed a little slurred. She was still supporting her weight quite fully against the doorframe, which sent a pringle of suspicion to Iida’s mind. Even though he found it odd, though, Iida was still annoyed with her, so he ignored it for now.
“To what, ditch m—” he began, but cut himself off when she suddenly started to tip over. “WOAH!”
Iida reached out quickly, managing to steady her shoulders before she collapsed from fatigue. Instantly, his mood snapped from grumpy to concerned, and he moved over to slide his arm around her shoulder.
“Hatsume, are you okay!? You almost fainted!”
She blinked away sleepiness for a moment, and rubbed at one of her eyes, “Eh? Eh? Oh, I’m fine, haha! I just stood still for a sec and I guess the sleep hit me!”
His eyes practically bulged out of their sockets, “Did you stay up the whole night!? I assumed you’d gone to bed at around two or three, but now I’m not so sure about even that!”
She flung out a hand, “Ah pshhh—I slept a little bit. I think…” she paused strangely, “For at least a… couple minutes?”
“What’s that supposed to mean!?”
She mulled over that for a second, not entirely sure herself, “Well, I woke up on the floor once, and thirty minutes had gone by. Strangely though, I couldn’t remember falling asleep, hahaha!”
He about dropped her in shock. “That’s not sleeping, that’s FAINTING, Hatsume! You fell unconscious for THIRTY MINUTES!?”
“R-rookie numbers!”
Iida rubbed his eyes with his spare hand, “You’ve got to be joking me.”
“Yanno, that kinda explains the bruise, come to think of it.” she mumbled, rubbing her cheekbone tenderly.
Iida glanced at her, finally noticing her state for the first time that morning. Bags as dark as storm clouds hung underneath her eyes, while a large, purple bruise formed faintly across the outline of her jaw. Amongst all the grease and dirt smudges from working overnight, he hadn’t noticed the rather glaring injury; and hoped quietly that it wasn’t too serious.
“The moment we’re done here, you’re taking a nap in Recovery Girl’s office.”
“Sleep is for weenies.”
“I’ll say that the next time you pass out and crack your skull open from overwork.”
“…Fine.”
Finally somewhat awake, Hatsume took notice of Iida’s arm around her shoulders, and suddenly shifted away from him. She didn’t say anything about the gesture, but it surprised him, and he worried for a moment that he’d made her uncomfortable.
I was just trying to help, he thought, feeling more hurt than he was willing to let on.
“Wh… why’d you take off your blazer?”
He raised an eyebrow at her, not having expected this sort of response out of nowhere. She was turned away from him at the moment though, so Iida had no idea what sort of expression she was making as she asked him this.
“Because it got sweaty?” he glowered mildly at her back, “…Thanks to you.”
She paused strangely before mumbling an odd:
“Mm.”
…Okay?
Then, as if she wasn’t tired at all, Hatsume began skipping right back towards the invention Iida had rolled out into the grass. His eyes scanned her as she fiddled around with the panels on the machine, wondering with silent curiosity what everything was programmed to do.
The time crawled by slowly, Iida eventually taking a seat on the cement to stare boredly up at the indigo-colored sky. The sun was barely beginning to creep over the distant trees in the horizon, sprinkling patches of gold onto the ridges of the clouds. The sunrise was coming gradually but surely, and Iida knew it wouldn’t be much longer before the rays of sun would burst through the leaves, and shower light onto Hatsume’s mysterious creation.
I still don’t know what it’s supposed to do. he realized again, leaning his weight off of his palms when the sting of the cement started to tingle them, Hatsume’s sure keeping her lips sealed over this one.
He watched her quietly from his spot on the ground, observing as she ducked down to tug on something that was locked securely in-place. She was being thorough at least, which calmed some of his worries of whether or not something was going to go wrong.
Then it occurred to him—all at once, like a light switch, that Iida had actually come here at five o’clock in the morning just like she’d asked. He’d been true to his word, and truer to her as a friend, when he’d promised to arrive, and actually showed up. Even though it was early, and there were loads of better things he could’ve been doing with his time, he’d come all on his own for her.
He made kind of a sideways smile that twisted his expression in an odd but amusing way.
I guess I really am her friend.
In that moment, he decided he wasn’t going to deny it anymore. Regardless of whether or not it embarrassed him, he was going to admit it to whoever asked. Hatsume was undoubtedly his friend—to pretend at this point was not only pointless, but unfair to her. Iida visited her on his own accord practically every day now, so if he were to ignore that fact, he’d just be lying to himself. Deciding this in his heart, Iida’s smile straightened into a more natural grin.
“What’re you smirking at, engine-boy?”
Startled, he blinked to see her bending over next to him, her glittering, golden eyes examining him with fascination despite her weariness. He shrugged, turning back up to the sky—grin not quite stifled despite her catching him.
“The sun will be rising in a minute, won’t it? Is everything set up?”
“Yup,” she sighed heartily, plopping down beside him, “when the sun is up a little bit more, we’ll get started. Until then…”
Without giving him any forewarning, Hatsume flopped over and let her head thud against Iida’s right leg. He blinked down at her dumbfoundedly for a moment, his eyes wide and his body suddenly going very stiff. He hadn’t expected her to do that.
“G’nite.”
What began as discomfort, grew quickly into annoyance as she settled her head in the crook of his upper thigh.
“You’re utterly shameless, you know that?”
“It’s my most defining character trait.”
Iida sighed, but decided in the end to let her lie. After all, how could he shove her off? Seconds ago, she’d nearly collapsed from exhaustion. To not let her have even a minute of rest now would’ve been just downright cruel.
Still, though—having her leaning on him was a new experience.
His gaze flitted to her tangled nest of pink hair, assuming that somewhere in there was a conked-out Hatsume. She was already dead-asleep, with her side rising and falling slowly next to him like the waves of the ocean.
Seeing her like this made his harsh gaze soften, and sympathy bubbled up from within. She’d had a long, restless night of constant work—which Iida certainly wasn’t a stranger to himself. He understood that occasional need to stay up into the black hours of the night, slaving away in front of some project. He’d been there before with his class rep work and his exam studies, and other times when he’d just thrown himself down a rabbit hole of research and couldn’t help but want to keep digging…
He could imagine her acting all the same, blistering her hands from overusing her tools, or banging up her knees from zipping around too excitedly in the studio—he was happy that she had something she was so passionate about. Still, it stung a little to see her get like this. No one should work until they fall unconscious. He believed that very firmly.
There’d been some days in his youth, where his brother Tensei would come home late from his hero work, and crash immediately on the couch. Often, their parents were away on business, and so Iida would have to cook up something to eat on the stove despite being the younger sibling. He’d never looked back at those memories and felt they were sad, though—he loved helping his brother and his family in any way he could. Yet… he understood that this repeated pattern of behavior could become problematic if Hatsume wasn’t careful.
The moment we’re done here, I’m sending you straight to Recovery Girl’s office. I’ll contact Mr. Maijima to excuse you, if I have to.
Absentmindedly, Iida’s hand rustled through her bubblegum locks of hair, gently untangling the mess while massaging her scalp with his fingertips. She didn’t even twitch—most likely too out of it to even register what he was doing, and Iida was completely fine with that. He wasn’t sure why, but he wanted this time to himself—sitting here silently alongside his curious, new friend. Plus, this was a rare moment of her not raising her voice at him, so he figured he’d enjoy it while it lasted.
Sadly however, the time flew by before Iida could even notice it, and all at once, Hatsume snapped awake with her head rocketing off of his thigh like a springboard.
“SUN!” she yelled, making him jump.
Without giving any clarification, she scurried to her feet and darted over to the contraption again like a moth to a candle.
“Is it time yet?” Iida asked, tilting his head up to watch her, “For that thing to start working, I mean.”
“It’s definitely close!” she shouted back, placing a hand across her forehead to observe the sunbeams over the distant hills and trees, “As soon as the light reaches, she’ll awaken like the undead!”
“That’s an interesting way to put it…”
As if on cue, at that moment, the light of the sun finally bounced against the solar panels and awakened the sleeping robot moments after. With a whir of clicking and gear-spinning sounds, it slowly creaked awake—unfolding itself out of the charging station as if it were metamorphosizing into a new creature. Had it not been made of titanium and steel sheets, Iida might’ve shuttered.
“Baby #311—a solar-sensing robot that behaves according to the position of the sun in the sky! Up until now she was asleep, but now she will arise and obey her first programmed order!”
“Ah, I see. So it obeys commands based on where the sun is?” he twisted his mouth somewhat, impressed, but quizzical at the same time, “Hasn’t something like that already been invented though?”
Hatsume waggled a finger, “Tsk, tsk! So impatient, specs! Of course I knew that already—but most robots built with this feature are only used in practical ways; like for weeding gardens and such. My robot is programmed to exhibit different personalities depending on where the sun is. It could be docile one minute, and hostile the next! Each sun position is programmable, and can instruct it to—”
In that moment, there was a loud: “BANG!” from the robot. The sound of it made Iida jump with fright, afterwards clasping his hands over his ears in case another one sounded. He searched quickly around the vicinity for the source of the sound, until he noticed a long barrel had extended out of the front of Hatsume’s robot.
A cold shiver brought the feeling of bile up from his stomach, and he followed with his eyes the direction of the gun attachment—landing reluctantly on Hatsume’s frozen form. She coughed once in pain, and then fell forward onto her face like a rag doll.
Iida screamed.
Without even pausing to register what has happening, he threw himself down to her side—eyes flying across the surface of her back to find the puncture wound. There were long shadows coming off of the trees still, preventing him from easily locating the red splotch he’d expected to find on her jumpsuit. He had to run his hands over her back several times before feeling the cold touch of something wet.
Drawing away his hand, he spotted red on his fingertips, and about fainted from shock. Had he not been in this sort of danger before, Iida wouldn’t have been able to think straight. Already, his mind spun back to Hosu—looking over at his mangled shoulder as it poured blood onto the concrete, blinking back terrified tears when Todoroki yanked three sets of daggers out of his own forearm—
His gaze shot to the robot, glaring at it with equal panic and outrage as it clicked suspensefully for several seconds to reload the gun. This must’ve happened because Hatsume had loaded what she thought was an empty bullet chamber in it, when in fact there was a single pellet still inside.
“Hatsume!” Iida finally yelled, his voice sounding hoarse after so many seconds of terrifying silence, “Can you move!? We’ve got to run!”
To his mild surprise, however, her head popped off of the grass as if he’d just waken her up from a long nap. She blinked several times, clearly not yet feeling the pain of the wound in her back, because she didn’t flinch, or even clutch at the splotch located under her right shoulder blade. Then, suddenly wearing a confused expression, she rolled over easily to face her robotic creation, and—
“YOU D*MN LITTLE B*STARD! DID YOU JUST SHOOT ME!?”
Iida blinked repeatedly, almost scurrying away from her out of fright.
The robot only responded with more clicking noises, until the barrel started to refocus onto a new target.
“I THOUGHT I PROGRAMMED YOU TO SHOOT ENEMIES, YOU STUPID HUNK OF JUNK! I CREATED YOU! HOW DARE YOU SHOOT YOUR MAKER!”
Iida couldn’t tell if he was relieved, terrified, or about to laugh his head off. He supposed everyone reacted to pain in their own ways. Hatsume must’ve been the type to get angry—but at least that was better than enduring a high-pitched scream of terror.
“H-Hatsume, now’s not the time to argue—we’ve got to find safety!” he finally said, sitting up straighter to look at her.
“Oh can it already!” she huffed, her rage only at half its strength when she faced him, “I just did an oopsie—we don’t have to run.”
His eyes flew open in outrage. “HUH!? Hatsume—you’re bleeding!”
She cocked her head at him, then seemed to have finally processed some of the pain, because she patted her back with her hand until she found the same wet spot, and stared at her fingers as if she’d never seen blood before.
“Oh, this?” to his surprise, or utter horror—he wasn’t all that sure anymore, she laughed in his face.
“Wh-what’s so funny about this!?”
With her red thumb, she streaked the blood across his cheek, and said: “This is paintball juice! I’m not stupid enough to put actual bullets in there, silly.”
Iida stared at her.
“Seriously,” she repeated, turning the streak into a smiley face, “It smarts, but I ain’t bleeding, you big baby.”
He opened his mouth to protest, but at that next moment, the robot interrupted them by unleashing another round of bullets—this time without any blanks at all. Luckily, she was correct—rubber paint balls went flying around the area like fruit flies, connecting repeatedly with Iida and Hatsume’s bodies in places which had a real person been shooting, he would’ve called a cheap shot.
Once the round was emptied and it started re-loading again, Iida yanked Hatsume to her feet and broke off into a sprint in the opposite direction. His uniform, face, and limbs were now all smeared with red paint—which sadly, would likely not be washable at this point, but he had other things to worry about now. The initial barrage, though harmless in comparison to some of the other injuries Iida had received, was still incredibly painful—especially the shot he’d taken to the bridge of his nose. He was surprised that it wasn’t bleeding yet.
“What on earth possessed you to use RED PAINT for PAINT BALLS!?” Iida yelled furiously, keeping his grip on Hatsume’s wrist firm so she wouldn’t run off and try anything else stupid.
“I wanted it to look more realistic!” she complained, “Yanno—for training purposes!”
“I THOUGHT YOU’D GOTTEN SHOT!”
“Well, OBVIOUSLY I hadn’t anticipated this scenario to happen, okay!? Hindsight, yeah—that was pretty stupid. What do you want me to say!?”
“An apology would be nice!”
Rolling her eyes at him, Hatsume formed a reluctant apology, “Okay race legs, I’m sorr—”
More rubber bullets came flying from behind, forcing Iida to yank her around the nearest corner out of view of the robot. Their backs stung as they flung themselves to the wall, but that pain was only temporary in comparison to the throbbing they felt everywhere else once the distant shooting noises died down.
Iida sucked in several deep breaths of air, his pulse hammering at somewhere around 180 before he finally had the energy to send Hatsume an appropriately timed glare.
“Enlighten me why that thing is programmed to shoot at us, Hatsume!?”
“Ah—r… right.” she chuckled back nervously, smearing some paint on her face with the back of her hand, “See, I gave it some random behavioral functions depending on the position of the sun, and uh… I guess I must’ve put six o’clock as ‘attack mode’ or something. I d-don’t remember because I set it up at around 2am this morning…”
Iida smacked his forehead hard enough to feel the disappointment into next week. “Remind me to pop my head into your studio at twelve tonight to make sure you go to bed.”
She shuddered, “I-it won’t happen again, sorry.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” he muttered back.
Before they could say more, another mechanical whirring sound met their ears from around the corner, which only filled Iida with even more dread.
“What now?” he practically whined, “It can’t see us, right?”
“Y… you don’t know that.”
He turned slowly to stare at her, one eye twitching in disbelief. “You mean it knows how to find us?”
“It’s p-programmed with some of the most modern types of censors to help it track down villains. I added it last-minute because I… thought it would be cool.”
Iida was exasperated beyond belief by now, but sadly, there was no longer anything he could think of to say. This was their situation, and no amount of arguing or scolding was going to fix it.
“Well, what’s the plan?” he huffed, pulling off his glasses to try and rub off some of the paint with the bottom of his shirt, “Does it have an off-switch?”
“Um, yes, but it’s a bit tricky.” she shrugged sheepishly, “It has a blind spot on the back side, so you can sneak up on it and grab the remote to turn it off. It’s a pretty narrow spot though—I only discovered it right when I finished building it, and it was entirely on accident. I admit I should’ve grabbed the remote before it turned on, but tell that to my sleep-deprived brain.”
Unamused but unsurprised, Iida responded rather plainly to her. “In that case, we’ll have to get behind it somehow. Is there an easy way to do that?”
“Chasing it around something could work.” she shrugged again.
Iida paused, but the answer came to him relatively quickly, “How about a building? Can we outrun it that way?”
“M-maybe? It can go up to about 35—”
“I can run faster. I predict we’ll be able to do this before 7 o’clock even hits.”
She blinked up at him surprisedly. She’d seen him use his engines before, so she certainly didn’t doubt his speed. But for them to actually encircle the robot, meant they’d have to be sprinting around the building for several minutes. Did he have that kind of stamina?
“You’re sure? It won’t exhaust you first?”
“We’ll call it a training exercise,” he huffed, putting his glasses back on, only to realize they were cracked. “Besides, I’ve had drills that forced me to work harder than that.”
Her eyes widened in shock. “R-really? That’s… wow, you hero kids are something else.”
In the end, Iida had to toss his glasses into the grass. He hated to litter like this, but in case he got shot again, he didn’t want shards of glass to enter into his eyes. Storing them in his pocket would only propose the same risks, so he didn’t have a choice. The world was somewhat blurrier now, but until he got a new pair from his dorm, there was nothing he could do to fix that.
“Alright then,” he sighed, turning to face Hatsume, “Ready?”
She blinked up at him, and for a moment he wondered if there was a shred of blush on her cheeks, “…F-for?”
He bent over with his back to her, and ushered for her to get on, “We can’t have that thing prioritizing one of us, so we should move as a unit. Do you think you can hold on long enough?”
“Uh, I think so.”
“Then hurry up. It’s coming this way—I can hear it!”
“O-okay!”
Somewhat awkwardly, she mounted his arms like a seat, and allowed him to hoist her up behind him like a backpack. He stumbled for a second or two as he found his center of gravity, but realized fairly quickly that carrying her was going to be manageable. Which, that was after he’d pushed her robot into the field and gotten shot in the arms, so the fact that he could carry her at all was somewhat of a surprise. Either way, he was relieved.
“As soon as I’m sure it sees us, I’m going to run.” Iida said quickly, glancing in the direction where he figured Hatsume’s head was, “Hold on tight, alright?”
She nodded quickly, “I-I will!”
He raised an eyebrow silently at her when she’d said this, barely catching the odd hitch in her voice.
Odd. Is she nervous?
Of course, he had no idea that what was going through Hatsume’s head was a gluttonous mix of delight and bashfulness as she very lightly squeezed her arms around his collar.
Blazer-less Iida with a tight shirt and no glasses. Blazer-less Iida with a tight shirt and no glasses. Blazer-less Iida—
Her mind must’ve looped this sentence about eight more times, before the terror of getting chased by her own monstrosity once again sank into her bones. Her excited trembling became fearful once again, and Iida had to bite his tongue to keep himself from asking her to loosen her grip on him.
After all, he understood her trepidation. It made sense, judging by the fact that a 3,000-pound, hunk of titanium was about a hair’s distance away from pummeling their skin into the likeness of flesh-toned bubble wrap, but he almost wasn’t quite able to stifle the choke that rose from his gut when he felt her chest squishing into both of his shoulder blades.
Just… focus. he thought silently, fighting to keep his cheeks from turning as red as the paint that was splattered on them.
In that next second, the whirring, gear-spinning noise of Hatsume’s machine became loud enough to the point Iida could tell it was right around the corner. He sucked in a deep breath, widened his stance, and positioned himself so he could watch for it over his available shoulder.
Almost in sight—
A paint ball whizzed by his ear, and that was his cue to run.
With a single loud roar, Iida’s engines purred to life, and the chase around UA began. At first, he stumbled for a bit. It took a few seconds before the fabric around his calves ripped away from his exhaust pipes, but once a sizable hole had been burned through, Iida was free to move as he pleased. He caught his footing quickly afterwards—seeing as how his life basically depended on it, and was able to start outrunning the metallic monstrosity that roared along from the rear.
Paint balls flew past his ears, sometimes connecting sharply with his arms and legs, and he silently apologized to Hatsume for being somewhat of a meat shield. Regardless, he tore on along the edge of UA’s east-facing size, until he passed the first half-way mark where one of the courtyard entrances was located.
“HALFWAY THERE!” Hatsume yelled over the wind whipping their faces, “THE ROBOT’S ABOUT SIX YARDS BACK!”
A chill went up his spine. Six yards was closer than he would’ve liked, but that just meant he had to pick up the pace.
“HOLD ON!”
His engines burned as he switched gears, changing the red flames into more of an orange color as his speed kicked up. He felt a bit of a gap widen between them and the robot, judging by the longer time it took for the next paint ball to hit its mark.
Stride by stride, the distance began to increase. The wind slashed at their faces all the while, making messes out of their hair within seconds. Iida’s blood was coursing, and the concrete under his shoes felt painfully firm against his arches. Dress shoes were not ideal for this level of sprinting, but he hadn’t had much of a choice.
“FIRST CORNER UP AHEAD, DON’T TRIP!”
“I SEE IT!”
Turning while sprinting at 35mph was not an easy feat. Even in a car, normally one has to slow down to around 25 for it to feel comfortable, so Iida might as well have been preparing himself to barrel roll around the next bend. Still, he didn’t know of any other options—seeing as how the robot was still shooting at them, so he readied himself as best he could in the few yards he had remaining.
“TUUURN!!!” Hatsume screamed, clutching his neck a little too hard.
Iida swerved to the best of his ability despite the speed, and managed to round the corner without slipping. His shoes grinded against the cement, and his engines sputtered in protest, but with a wide enough turn, he was able to stay upright. The g-force of the turn made him gasp, choking on a mix of terror and exhaustion brought on by his adrenaline, before he returned to the straight-forward sprint along UA’s south side.
Iida’s mind was sprinting by now, too. Visions of in-class training and fighting villains, brought his headspace into the most focused state he could’ve been in. He replayed his old practices like a highlight reel—flash-recalling his turning maneuvers and his methods of falling safely—anything he’d need that could potentially help him.
With his skill, and a little bit of luck, he eventually completed an entire lap around UA’s campus, and was on the way towards the garage of the development studio again.
“ONE LAP, WOOOOOOO!”
“I NOTICED!” Iida shouted back, barely able to shout with his throat so sore now.
Once he’d said this, he felt Hatsume turn to look around at the robot over his shoulder—checking their distance.
“OKAY, GOOD NEWS AND BAD NEWS!” she yelled, afterwards stooping her head to get closer to his ear, “The robot is about at the point where we can encircle it now! But, there’s a catch!”
“And what might that be!?”
She paused unsurely for a moment, “It’s gonna be REALLY HARD!”
Iida’s rolled his eyes. As if any of this weren’t already “really hard”.
“Here’s the plan:” she glanced at the robot again, “right now, we are almost an entire two buildings’ length away from that thing—meaning 1 face, got it!?”
“Got it!”
Hatsume lifted her fingers for a moment, and drew four imaginary boxes to represent the four buildings of the main campus.
“Right now, we’re safe because that robot will only take the shortest route to get to us! HOWEVER, if we exceed our current distance of 1 face length, the robot might try and cut through the courtyard to get to us sooner! In other words, imagine flowers and plants FLYING EVERYWHERE! LOTS OF PROPERTY DAMAGE!”
“Don’t exceed 1 face length!? But then how are we supposed to encircle it!?”
“Right—that’s where this gets REALLY HARD!”
Great. he huffed, “Well, let’s hear it anyway, Hatsume!”
She held up her fingers again to show the four boxes. “As we are now, we can encircle the robot by taking a shortcut through the courtyard ourselves! But what we’ll have to do, is at the next courtyard entrance,” Iida rounded the corner of the east face, and she pointed to the upcoming entryway point that separated the next two buildings, “you’ll need to activate Recipro Burst, and accelerate to TWICE YOUR SPEED, while taking a SHARP RIGHT!”
His eyes flew open at her, “WHAT!? ARE YOU INSANE!? I CAN’T TAKE A TURN AT 70 MILES PER HOUR, WE’LL CRASH!”
“I WASN’T FINISHED!” she yelled back, making his ear ring slightly, “When you activate it, you’ll take a sharp right to get in at 70 miles per hour, and then ANOTHER sharp right to exit the courtyard, and then ANOTHER right to face the south wall, and FINALLY—” she paused, “ONE LAST RIGHT to position yourself behind the robot!”
Iida said nothing for several seconds.
“Does that make sense!?”
“BASICALLY, YOU WANT ME TO WHIP AROUND AN ENTIRE BUILDING GOING 70 MILES AN HOUR, HOPING THAT WE ARRIVE SOON ENOUGH TO TAIL THE ROBOT BEFORE IT ENTERS THE COURTYARD!”
“Yup!”
Iida could not believe his ears. Seventy mile an hour turns. SEVENTY. Back when he’d first tested one of Hatsume’s booster inventions, he’d almost eaten dirt at sixty. Sixty had been enough to score him a concussion, and several bruises—both for him and Hatsume.
And now she expected more? In a tighter space, while wearing his school shoes instead of his specially-crafted hero boots?
Impossible.
Yet, when he looked over his shoulder and heard the robot creeping closer, Iida realized once again that he didn’t have much of a choice in the matter.
I’m going to severely regret this.
The courtyard entrance was coming up fast. If Iida didn’t hurry and turn on Recipro Burst soon, he was going to miss his chance. To make things worse, he was getting very tired. He’d already been sprinting for over half of a mile—if he kept hesitating, he was only going to wind up wearing himself out. And if that happened, well… there’s no telling what else Hatsume’s invention could do to them. Paint balls were one thing, but if that monstrosity had saw arms or explosives for hands, they might have a better chance at living if they tossed themselves into a meat grinder.
“I’M GOING FOR IT!” Iida yelled at last, kicking his engines into full gear, “GRAB HOLD, AND DON’T LET GO!”
She didn’t have time to answer, because the precise moment Iida was facing the courtyard, Recipro Burst flared to life, and Iida flew. For several, blinding seconds, Iida’s own footsteps sounded faster than the ratta-tat of the robot’s bullets. His heart writhed in his head—threatening popping at this rate, at around two hundred beats per minute. Within milliseconds, he was already encroaching upon the second knife-pointed turn of his sprint. Had he blinked, he might’ve missed it—but he had Hatsume to thank for screeching into his ear when the corner was within range.
“TUUURN!”
He skidded—practically skimming the cement with his palm as he leaned into the swerve. It was clumsy, and his shoes dug painfully into his arches, but by some miracle, he did not fall. He did, however, lose a lot of momentum—which put them at risk for getting chased by the robot into the courtyard.
“KEEP GOING! TURN NUMBER THREE IS AHEAD!”
“I CAN SEE THAT!”
Though slightly slower than the previous turn, Iida was equally unready for it. He’d barely had the time to balance himself when already, he had to lean down at that dangerous, floor-eating angle again. A sharp pain flew up his ankles and heels this time, and he heard a scraping sound that stank of his rubber soles. It wasn’t a clean turn—he’d nearly lost his balance, but even still, he’d managed to survive.
“THAT’S THREE OF FOUR! GO, IIDA!”
Iida didn’t even bother replying back to her at this point. His throat hurt so much, it felt like it was being coiled around flaming, thorny vines. At this rate, he was prone to losing his voice for the day, but out of all of his possible injuries, that one was currently on the bottom of his worries.
When the fourth turn was upon him, Iida leaned in harshly with his heels for the last time—smelling the rubber even stronger than turn three. He felt a creaking sensation in his ankle that jolted a searing pain up from his foot to his knee, but he couldn’t let it give, or risk falling onto his face and skinning it raw. Instead, he gritted his teeth, and dug in harder despite the now knife-like stings that consumed the bridges of his feet.
At last, rounding the corner, he saw it—the back side of the robot was exposed, with the remote lying just out of reach a building’s length away. The machine was headed for the corner—ready to chase Iida’s path into the courtyard, but by now he was sprinting so fast, it looked like it was moving in slow-motion.
Wait.
His heart plummeted, and he swore his bpm must’ve hit a thousand.
HOW DO I STOP!?
“IIDA, LET GO OF MY LEGS AND HOLD YOUR ARMS OUT!”
He spun to face Hatsume, eyes wild with confusion.
“WHAT—”
“NO TIME TO ASK, JUST DO IT!”
Hoping and praying she knew what she was doing, he let go. With his hands now up by his head, he waited—wondering when the sensation of her weight disappearing was going to happen, but she didn’t depart from his back. A quick glance made him realize she’d wrapped her legs around his mid-section like a koala, and was suddenly swinging around to his front side.
“WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU DOING!?” he choked out, throat searing with pain.
“JUST—”
She strengthened the grip of her legs, and suddenly Iida realized they were face-to-face with one another. She seemed to be just barely holding on at first, but in the next second, her arms were gripping tightly around his neck, and she was securely seated around his front side. Reacting quickly, Iida lowered his arms around her thighs and back to keep her steady, and felt her chin lodge into the right crook of his neck. He didn’t ask questions.
“IIDA, HIT THE BRAKES!”
“AAAH!!!”
He didn’t even realize that he was the one screaming at first. They were ten yards shy of the robot, and even as he dug in his heels, their speed continued to rocket beyond anything he could control. At this rate, his shoes were going to get ripped apart, and both of them were going to crash in a mangled heap against the rear-end of Hatsume’s contraption.
God, if you’re up there…
As if replying to his pleas, there was a sudden slackening feeling from behind.
Iida’s eyes, which he hadn’t even realized he’d closed, flew open, and suddenly they were slowing down so fast, he almost got whiplash. Hatsume was grunting and straining, and her chin was starting to dig into his collarbone, but their speed was dropping by tens. They were a yard away from the robot now, and almost within arm’s reach of the remote, but Iida couldn’t risk move his arms without dropping her.
“HATSUME, THE REMOTE!” he hollered.
Whipping her head around, Hatsume sucked in a shrill, focused breath of air, before reaching out with one arm to grasp hold of the remote. At first, she could only swipe at it, but another second later, her fingers clasped around the shape of the controller, and yanked it free of its hold.
Wide-eyed, they both grinned like idiots.
Joy. Their hearts swelled with unbridled joy as she held it up in her right hand like a trophy.
“LAST TURN, IIDA! DON’T FAIL US NOW!”
He blinked, the terror coming back just as quickly as it’d left.
SHOOT—I FORGOT!
The last-minute decision resulted in a harsh grind on his shoes, and suddenly there was a loud: “snap!”. Iida didn’t see what happened, but he definitely felt it, when the floor suddenly became lopsided. The heel of his right loafer went tumbling off to the side—small, yet just crucial enough to make him lose his balance, and the next thing he knew, the world was a familiar head-over-heels blur of green, brown, and blue.
It felt like years before everything slowed down—leaving both of the jostled partners lying battered in the grass on top of one another. Iida blinked again and again—white speckles flooding his vision as he slowly brought Hatsume back into focus.
He scanned her face first, almost panicking at the sight of the red stains coating her face, only to remember that they were only paint ball splotches. When he realized this, his heart purred a little slower, allowing him quickly analyze that the rest of her—shoulders, arms, neck, chest… Though bruised, she seemed to be without severe injury.
He sighed for the first time in an hour.
Is it over…?
Putting pressure on his palms, he began to prop himself up—just barely realizing that he was lying on top of her in a somewhat indecent position. Surprisingly though, he realized he didn’t care.
They were alive.
“G… got it.”
Hatsume huffed suddenly, and Iida looked over to see her reach for the remote. It seemed to have gotten dropped in the scuffle, but other than a few grass stains, it didn’t appear broken. With the remote in hand, she pressed the off switch, and let her head sink into the grass exhaustedly.
“It’s over now…” she sighed, genuinely looking like she was about to cry, “I turned the d*mn thing off. It’s over.”
But then came that familiar clicking noise.
Both of their eyes flew open.
Without even speaking, Iida flung himself off of Hatsume with a display of strength he didn’t even know he still had, and turned just in time to see the gun barrel reloading for another go.
A dull, throat-squeezing jolt of betrayal squeezed his lungs like an icy fist, and Iida found himself entirely speechless.
This was not, in fact, over.
His eyes scanned for a route, flicking past the view of the robot and spying the opposing corner—along with a parachute in the grass, which he hadn’t noticed until now. Thinking back, Hatsume must’ve deployed a gadget of hers when she’d swung in front of him (she always had one on hand), and to their luck, she’d had the exact thing they needed to not turn into ground beef that day. He’d have to thank her later.
There was no more time to speculate about that, however, because the gun barrel was focusing on them again—meaning it was time to run.
“WE’RE GOING!” Iida yelled, hefting Hatsume up over his shoulder like a sack of rice, and breaking off into what he hoped would be his final sprint of the day.
She gave a surprised yelp, but quickly silenced her complaints when the sound of artillery paintball fire came ringing into their ears once again.
“WHY IS THAT D*MN MONSTROSITY STILL RUNNING!?” Iida screeched when the shooting momentarily paused to reload again.
“HELL IF I KNOW! I’M PRESSING THE BUTTON AND IT WON’T DO JACK #@*%!”
Iida let out a frustrated, incoherent yell as he rounded the south corner of UA for what felt like the millionth time—ignoring the stabbing in his feet as he swerved dangerously around the bend.
Then, when they whirled around the corner, Iida blinked. A blur of white, red, and black entered his scope of vision, and he quickly realized with great surprise that they were some of his classmates.
Todoroki and Yaoyorozu!? he realized fearfully, CRAP! MOVE OUT OF THE WAY!
To his relief, he saw Todoroki throw up his arm to stop her, and his classmates were able to stumble backwards just in time for Iida, Hatsume, and the deranged machine to come barreling around the corner without completely flattening them. As they slowly got further away, Iida yelled an excuse over his shoulder—hoping with the shred of dignity he had left, that they wouldn’t look down on him too harshly for this later.
“AUGH! MY APOLOGIES! I’LL EXPLAIN LATER!”
Furious and delirious with terror at this point, Hatsume yelled a retort back at him.
“WATCH WHERE YOU’RE RUNNING, ENGINE-HEAD! I CAN’T HAVE HOMICIDE ADDED TO MY LIST OF INFRACTIONS!”
He spun to her, eyes wide with fury as she said this, “SHUT IT OFF THEN!”
“I’M TRYING!”
There was already another corner to approach, and Iida knew that neither him nor his shoes would be able to handle the stress, but he threw himself around it anyway—soles burning, until there was another: “snap!” and they both went tumbling to the ground just like the first time. Luckily, without the speed of Recipro Burst hurling them along, they landed in the grass without getting too heavily jostled. However, the robot was still approaching, and both of them were now out of escape options.
They were screwed.
The barrel lowered for the fiftieth time, clicking menacingly from above.
“FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE, PLEASE JUST STOOOOOP!!!” Hatsume wailed, and in an act of desperation, she threw down the controller against the ground, and it cracked in half like an egg.
The robot lifted up a mechanical arm at them, and Iida would’ve closed his eyes had he still had the strength.
I’m going to die.
There was a pause.
Suddenly, a watering can popped out of the arm of the giant machine, and it rolled calmly off into the background to begin watering the nearby hydrangeas.
Iida and Hatsume lay still in the grass, the only sounds suddenly becoming their rapid breathing, and the distant songs of birds chirping. There was a light breeze now that delicately stroked against their bruised faces, subtly reminding them of their pains and aches. The world felt light and calm and still—too still. After an hour of screaming and sprinting, and praying for their lives, to have this sort of peace just felt wrong. Yet, the sun bobbed over the mountains as serenely as it did every morning, unaffected by the chaotic events Iida and Hatsume had just suffered through.
The sun.
“H… Hatsume,” Iida gasped hoarsely, “What time is it?”
With her arms shaking like a newborn, she somehow fumbled her phone out of her pocket, and looked past the cracked screen to spot the time.
“Seven o’clock.”
“And what did you program it to do at seven o’clock?”
She paused for what felt like an eternity, before softly letting out the words:
“To water the flowers.”
Neither of them said anything for a flat thirty seconds. Rather, they just focused on trying to find their lungs again—having all but lost them after screeching and being tossed around repeatedly for the past hour. Then, once the adrenaline had at long last fizzled out of Iida’s system, he flopped backwards—feeling the back of his right arm land somewhere against Hatsume’s stomach.
“Ha… haha…” he croaked.
Hatsume flopped over just the same, staring dazedly up at the blue sky as the pain of her welts and scrapes prickled against her skin.
“Hahaha… hahahaha—”
Suddenly, Iida wheezed comically, and a strangled, almost villain-like guffaw pushed out of his stomach like a tea kettle. Then, sucking in a deep and somewhat painful-sounding gasp, he slapped a hand over his eyes, and roared louder than she had ever heard him—even after all those minutes of screaming.
“HAHAHAHA!”
She glanced sideways at him, almost more scared by this than she was of her own bloodthirsty robot.
Iida laughs?
Technically, that wasn’t what’d confused her the most. Mainly, it was the fact that they’d just spent around an hour trying not to die, and after a hundred close-calls and a plethora of injuries, Iida’s sides were splitting not with pain, but with laughter.
That, and the splotches of red covering his white shirt made him look like a serial killer, but she decided not to bring that up.
Hatsume had to admit, there was nothing funny about this whatsoever. However, feeling unsure what to do in this situation, she decided it was most appropriate to just chuckle along until he was sane again, and that seemed to work just fine because he didn’t give her any slack for it.
“Haha, I guess it is a bit funny—” she sighed awkwardly, staring dizzily up at the sky as clouds drifted over their heads, “After all that work, all we had to do was wait for it to start watering the garden…” she shook her head, “I suppose I should go and turn it off now—”
Shortly after she’d said this, her voice was interrupted by the unsettling sound of Iida rolling over to throw up next to her.
It wasn’t pretty.
In the end, she hastily decided to turn away and disarm the robot until he was done, but thankfully when his retching quieted, she was able to return and find that he didn’t have any serious injuries.
Well, his nose was bleeding, and his ankles looked a little crooked, and the front of his shirt was now stained with his morning breakfast, but at least they weren’t dead.
Yeah. That was the bar she chose to set.
“W-well, all’s well that ends well, right…?”
Iida only had the strength to grunt.
When the chaos died down, Hatsume shut off her invention for good, and shuffled herself and Iida into Recovery Girl’s office, where they proceeded to get a rather harsh scolding. Iida was in by far the worst shape, after having sprinted at full-speed for an entire hour. He had some minor shin splints, and overextended both his ankles to the point of nearly fracturing them, while also receiving some patches of road rash on his arms and legs from the two falls they’d received.
All of that coupled with his sheer physical exhaustion, pointed to him needing to skip first period—but Iida was so annoyingly persistent about attending class, that Recovery Girl eventually had no choice but to let him go. By her logic, if he was lucid enough to argue, he was well enough to sit through his first class if that was what he really wanted. Honestly, Hatsume could not understand for the life of her why he would care so much, or how his brain could even still function after all that stress, but she didn’t bother asking. Iida was Iida—that’s all there was to it, really.
Hatsume, on the other hand, had hit her head the first time they’d landed, and was showing some minor signs of a concussion. Though she hadn’t puked like Iida earlier, she’d been feeling dizzy and nauseous ever since they’d finished taking down the robot. She, as per both Iida and Recovery Girl’s orders, stayed in the nurse’s office to rest—which she was completely down for, especially after having pulled an all-nighter.
As for the paintball-related injuries, well… it was self-explanatory. Both of them had skin as swollen and bumpy as a bullfrog’s back, but it was reduced to almost nothing after a pair of Recovery Girl’s magical, healing kisses. What remained afterwards was still sore and unpleasant though—and somewhat unfortunately resembled rows of hickies.
One could only imagine the frustrating rumors that stirred for the next several days—and since Iida and Hatsume had to keep quiet about the robot incident for the sake of their and the school’s reputations, the most either of them could do was brood in their own embarrassment until the whole thing smoothed over.