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Momo was lucky to be born in a world where a woman could be anything she wanted.
Her own mother co-owned a support company with her father. Her grandmother had made her own fortune with her own skills. She had aunts who had studied overseas and cousins who are already dominating their chosen professions in all corners of the globe.
By the time she was six years old she knew that she could do anything she wanted with dedication. And the moment she saw her on TV, she knew exactly what she wanted to be when she grew up.
Looking back, the topic of the news story she was watching was telling. It was about the clothing restrictions on heroes, very specifically the way it had affected Midnight’s costume. But as a young child, Momo couldn’t have cared less about what these boring adults in suits were saying. She was focused on the woman in the clips to the right, fighting crime and flashing a smile at the camera.
Theoretically, she knew that women could be heroes. After all, she knew they could be anything they wanted to be. But she had never actually seen a female hero before. Never on any of the t-shirts in the stores or on the top ten on the billboard charts. She had never seen anyone like her, and she was drawn in like a moth to the flame.
That’s when her mother came in and changed the channel in a panic. She told Momo that what she was watching simply wasn’t appropriate for little girls. This confused her, she was always allowed to watch the news.
“Why not?” She asked, tilting her head to the side. Her mother sputtered a bit, but didn’t give her an answer.
So Momo did as she was told and stopped watching the news.
---
A few weeks later, her teacher asked the class to draw a picture of their favorite heroes. There were tons of crayon drawings of All-Might, Endeavor, Best Jeanist, and any other hero you could think of in a pile on the teacher’s desk. She looked at each one of them with a smile and thanked the children as they handed their work in.
But her smile fell when she saw Momo’s drawing of the woman on TV, wearing her skin tight suit and fighting bad guys. She did not thank Momo for her drawing. Instead she called Momo’s parents and scheduled a meeting.
“I’m just worried that a girl her age would be idolizing… Well, someone like that.” Momo overheard the teacher say while she sat on a stool outside the door. She didn’t understand what her teacher meant. The lady she drew was a hero, just like the heroes the other kids had drawn. She didn’t know what she was in trouble.
There was muttering, the sound of a chair scooting, and the clacking of heels against the linoleum floor. Her mother kneeled in front of her, wiping the tears off of her cheeks.
“It’s alright darling,” She hummed. “You aren’t in trouble. Your teacher was just worried, that’s all.”
“But why?” Momo asked, still sniffling. At the time, “why” was her favorite word.
Her mother hesitated. “Well, she was worried that no one was watching you at home. That’s our fault, we should have been keeping track with what you were seeing on TV.”
“But what’s wrong with what I drew?” Momo was starting to get frustrated by how everyone was dancing around a subject that they wouldn’t tell her about. “The teacher told us to draw a hero!”
“Yes, well… There are some heroes that someone your age shouldn’t know about.” She smiled. “You could always draw All-Might or Endeavor. You like those heroes, don’t you?”
“But I Like her.” Momo insisted quietly. “She’s like me.”
Her mother’s eyes got wide and she shook her head. “No honey, you don’t want to be like her.”
“Why?” Momo wanted to yell. “She’s a hero?”
“Yes, well… she's not very respectable.” Her mother explained, smoothing her daughter’s hair. “Do you understand what I mean by that?”
Of course she didn’t. Momo was six years old, for god’s sake. How could she have possibly understood what her mother meant by that. But she nodded anyway.
“Yes Mommy.” And that was the end of that conversation.
---
Momo was eight when she saw the first woman enter the top ten in her short lifetime. She cheered when she was announced, only to be shushed by her grandmother.
“It’s unladylike to be so loud.” She smoothed her hair, trying to calm the little girl down.
Momo did not calm down, bouncing on the couch next to her. “Is she the first?”
“Who?’ Her grandmother leaned forward, looking at the woman on the screen. She scoffed. “No, of course not.”
“Why aren’t they saying anything about her?” She was shaking the older woman’s arm, staring at the screen in awe.
“Well, it’s not a very big deal.” Her grandmother leaned back again. “She did well for herself getting into the top ten, but she's far from the first.”
“But… I’ve never seen a girl in the top ten.” This didn’t make sense to Momo. She’s been alive for almost a decade, so a woman entering the top ten after such a long time should be a big deal. Why was no one celebrating?
Her grandmother shrugged. “Well, it's equal opportunity. The female heroes must not be as good.”
“Equal opportunity…” She turned her attention back to the screen. The entire top ten were lined up, All-Might giving a speech to the crowd. Ten people. Nine men, one woman.
It didn’t feel very equal at all.
---
She was eleven when she tried to leave the house one day in a tank top and shorts.
“What are you wearing?” Her grandmother sounded horrified. Momo jumped, startled. Her pink zip up wallet filled with change fell to the ground.
“Oh, I was just going to go down to-” She started to explain, leaning over to pick up her wallet.
“That’s not what I asked!” Her grandmother yelled. “Go back upstairs and change!”
“But wh-” She started, but her grandmother interrupted with a frustrated groan.
“No, none of that! Stop acting so childish and go put on some clothes!” Her grandmother turned around, her hand on her temple as she muttered something under her breath.
Nothing about that sentence made sense to Momo. She was a child, wasn’t she supposed to act childish? And she was already wearing clothes. She wanted to ask her grandmother what she meant, but her mother came running into the room.
She saw Momo and her eyes widened. “Honey, you can’t wear that! You know better!”
“No I don’t-” Momo was feeling overwhelmed, the yelling and crowding was starting to make her feel dizzy.
“Remember, we talked about this.” Her mother put her hands on her shoulders. Momo wants her not to, but she doesn’t say anything. “You don’t want to give people the… wrong idea about the kind of person you are.”
“You mean the kind that sweats?” The question was genuine. But questions like that were rarely taken seriously.
“You look like a sl-”
“Mom!” Her mother yelled, cutting off the last half of the word her grandmother was going to call her.
Momo flinched, as if she had been struck. She didn’t know what her grandmother had tried to call her, but she could feel the weight of it. Her grandmother had her mouth covered, looking disappointed in herself.
Her mother cleared her throat. “We just want you to be safe.”
Momo nodded and turned around quickly. She left the house that day in a turtleneck sweater and a skirt that brushed up against her ankles as she walked. She was sweating buckets and still couldn’t shake the feeling that somehow what she was wearing was still wrong.
---
By the time she was fifteen, Momo had learned a lot of things about what she could and couldn’t do.
She couldn’t hug a man with both her arms around their back. Her grandmother warned her that it wasn’t appropriate for her chest to touch him. She said it would give him the wrong idea. Momo didn’t understand how his ideas were her problem, but she listened anyway.
She learned that there was a list of things she couldn’t wear. The list would be provided in the parlors of various relatives' houses, surrounded by aunts and cousins who would circle her and comment on her body being “mature for her age”. Judging by the sneers on their faces, she didn’t think it was a compliment.
There were things she was told not to eat, not to do, and not to say. The word “why” was very high up on that list.
Worse than the things that she learned from the warnings of the women around her were the things they didn’t tell her about. No one warned her about the way that men on the metro would stare at her in her uniform as she commuted back and forth from school. She had to learn herself not to go walking alone too close to dark after a man followed her for two blocks making comments she didn’t understand but knew were meant to hurt her. No one prepared her for the way that the boys in her class would sneer insults and tell her to go back to the kitchen when she beat them in academic competitions.
But even without the warnings, she still had to learn. And her grandmother always told her that words couldn’t hurt her.
Her acceptance to UA was met by her family with cheers and gratitude. She smiled widely, letting the pride wash in. It had been years of studying and training finally paying off.
Her mother kissed her on the temple. “My beautiful little girl-”
She said something else after that, but the word “beautiful” made her want to vomit. She knew it was meant to be a compliment, but it felt like a slap in the face. Still, she smiled. It wasn’t her mother’s fault, she didn’t know any better.
---
Her first day felt like a success.
She saw her name at the very top of Aizawa’s list, the best score on the quirk apprehension test. He looked over to her and gave a small nod of approval, something that made her feel amazing considering how harsh he had already proved to be.
“And I lied,” He closed the screen, their scores disappearing into the air. “No one’s going home.”
There was a sigh of relief and a few noises of confusion. Momo raised an eyebrow. Of course Aizawa wouldn’t actually send any of them home. After all, how could they learn anything if they were expelled the first day?
“I’m surprised you guys didn’t realize that.” She mused out loud. “Maybe I should have said something?”
“Yeah, you should have.” She heard a few of her new classmates whisper.
“I’m sor-” An apology formed on her tongue before being drowned out by another, harsher voice.
“Bitch…” Momo was silent, unsure of who it came from or if she should say anything.
She sighed, looking over to Aizawa. He was looking over, clearly having heard. But he didn’t say anything either.
She understood, but it was a bitter kind of feeling.
---
Momo didn’t know how to feel about her costume.
She supposed this is what she should have expected. She did decide to leave the design itself in the hands of the support company. This just… didn’t feel practical. It was skin tight and uncomfortable, with a slit down the front that made her feel uneasy at the mere sight of it. She had no idea how she was supposed to wear a bra with it, but eventually figured out that she wasn’t. Not to mention the fact that her shoes were heels. The outfit would probably give her grandmother a heart attack.
She looked around the changing room and saw the way the other girls were giving their own costumes apprehensive looks.
“I guess I should have told them to make it looser.” Uraraka joked, breaking the silence. Next to her Jirou smiled sympathetically.
“I didn’t leave much room for interpretation with my design. They couldn’t have made mine hot even if they wanted to.” She shrugged.
Momo shook her head. No, they couldn’t have done this on purpose… maybe there’s a practical reason for their costumes to be so tight. The boys probably had similar looking costumes.
Of course, one step out of the changing room proved her wrong. They all had perfectly normal looking costumes, only tight where they needed to be.
“I love this school.” She heard a voice say, and she could feel a pair of eyes glued to her. Her arms folded in front of her chest, but she tried to look unbothered. This was fine. It was all fine.
---
She came in second place for the position of class representative. A bit of a bummer, but she was ok with that. After all, she lost fair and square and she still got the position of vice representative. And Midoriya seemed nice, she wouldn’t mind working with him.
No, her problem wasn’t that she lost.
Her problem was how when Midoriya stepped down, no one even thought to ask her if she wanted the position. Even though that was kind of the entire point of being vice representative.
They gave it to Iida instead. Even though he was a nice guy and clearly responsible, Momo still couldn’t shake the thought that was sitting bitterly in her mouth.
“But I got two more votes than him…” She glanced around the room. She could see it in the other girls’ eyes, and in the way they kept glancing over to her. Even Todoroki looked confused. He raised his hand, looking like he wanted to intervene.
Momo started shaking her head, but it didn’t matter. Mr. Aizawa said something and the topic was immediately dropped.
She sighed. She supposed vice representative was still equally respectable. Though she did notice that the way her classmates treated Iida seemed to change immediately.
Nothing changed with her.
---
Mineta was proving to be… well, a problem. Momo knew that it wasn’t a nice thing to say, but it was true. She was used to the things he would whisper when he thought she couldn’t hear her. That was normal at this point. But when Tsu talked about what he did to her during the USJ incident? It made her blood boil.
While the rest of them were fighting for their lives, he couldn’t do anything but cry and cop a feel like his life depended on it.
She was fuming, taking the incident straight to Principal Nezu himself.
“I’m sorry Miss Yaoyorozu,” He said sweetly. “But I can’t just go around expelling students based purely off of rumors.”
“But this isn’t just petty gossip!” She insisted. “He does this all the time, you have to do something!”
“You need to remember that you both got into this school the same way. You are both equal in my eyes, so I can’t take your word over his.” The mouse took a sip of his tea.
“But sir-” She kept pushing.
“No, I can’t interrupt his education for something he might not have even-”
Momo didn’t hear the rest. She swore for a moment all she saw was red.
“But what about my education?” She yelled, not even knowing if she had interrupted him or not. “What about my comfort? What about my SAFETY? How is any of this equal?”
There was silence. Stunned, unreadable silence. Nezu’s face fell, and he stood from his chair. “Miss Yaoyorozu-”
It was too late. Momo turned on her heels, speed walking out of the room. It took five minutes of walking for her to realize she was crying.
---
The sports festival hit her harder than any other loss she had ever faced. And it wasn’t even because she lost.
“The poor girl doesn’t stand a chance.” She heard the people in the stands whisper as she walked by. It made her blood boil, but she stayed quiet. She watched Ochako, weaving between Bakugou’s explosions and keeping low to the ground. The debris was growing, and she was subtly brushing her fingertips against each newly freed weapon that her opponent unearthed.
Momo smiled, the pride welling up in her chest. She knew that this matchup was going to be a good one from the moment she saw it on the brackets! Ochako was really giving one of the top students in the class a run for his money.
“Does she really think she’s going to win?” Someone asked behind her with a laugh.
“He won’t even go easy on a girl?” There was a sardonic tone to that one, like they were talking about taking candy from a baby.
“Poor Ochako…” That one came from a girl. Another girl. Could she not see what Ochako was doing? How nervous her opponent was?
The comments felt like a lead blanket, one that only got heavier when Momo watched Ochako’s plan quite literally blow up in her face. An act of quick thinking and good battle strategy that Momo couldn’t quite appreciate with the sneering crowd around her.
Her grip on the fabric of her pant legs tightened. Is this what they had said about her?
---
Pretty…
That’s what her mentor had called her. With a certain edge to voice that told Momo that the older woman detested the word just as much as she did.
But this is what it takes to be a hero. So she supposed she would be pretty.
She did the commercial. She was ogled by men twice her age at the meet and greets. She smiled as makeup artists on set threw backhanded compliments about her skin, her hair, her body, anything they thought might convince her to let them use some product to “fix” it.
Kendo didn’t seem as bothered as her, dismissing the objectification as frivolous. Momo felt like it wasn’t how her peer actually felt. No, it was like she was trying to ease the weight on Momo’s shoulders.
“It’s alright, Kendo.” Momo reassured her as she poured herself over the schedule and ignored the way the two studio interns were looking at them.
Kendo understood immediately. Her own face fell and her shoulders shook a bit, like she was cold. “You sure? I can tell it’s-”
“I’m fine!” Momo snapped, closing the book in her hand loudly. “I’m sorry- I’m fine. Really.”
“You don’t have to be sorry.” Kendo said quietly. “And you don’t have to be fine, either.”
Momo wasn’t fine. Not even a little bit. She looked past Kendo, to a window behind her where she could see her own reflection.
She was young, as her mentor had pointed out almost immediately. To some, that seemed to make her attractive by default. It made her physically ill to think about for too long, staring at the way her own, 15 year old body moved with every breath like it wasn’t hers to begin with.
She looked away, comforting herself with only one thought. Youth was temporary. Beauty was apparently something she could age out of.
And maybe when she did, her body would feel like her own again.
---
Finals came around faster than Momo was ready for. The written exam wasn’t the issue, of course. She was the top of their class for a reason.
No, it was the physical exam. She had barely been able to recover from the sports festival and her internship, and now she was paired up with one of the most capable students in the class. It felt like a slap in the face, a blow to her already fragile ego.
To make it worse, they were paired against their homeroom teacher. She could feel the summer training camp slipping from her grasp.
Waiting was the hardest part. She kept her arms crossed over her chest while she avoided her own reflection in the shiny mirror-like surface of the walls around her.
Todoroki had a plan. Or at least he claimed he had one. He still hadn’t told Momo what that plan was, even as the two of them were tossed into the exam heads first.
“Keep using your quirk to make small things,” He said. “That way we know when he’s nearby.”
Now Momo may not have fully known where he was going, but she did know that this plan seemed stupid. Using her lipids at a consistent rate would only deplete them in the long run. If it went on too long, it could even make creating something larger that could help them win impossible.
So she adjusted the plan slightly, hiding a flash grenade in the inconspicuous shell of a Russian nesting doll. She neatly tucked each one into her belt, keeping them close just in case.
Of course Todoroki didn’t get it. And with no clue where the enemy was, she wasn’t particularly at liberty to explain it to him.
Even if his plan was stupid, she had to trust that he knew what he was doing. It’s not like she could think of anything better at the moment.
They ran through the little mock suburb, her pockets filling with little mini versions of herself with tiny grenades tucked neatly inside them. Something bright inside something so inconsequential.
It would almost be poetic if it wasn’t for how forced it sounded out loud.
It wasn’t shocking when Aizawa found them, or when Todoroki decided to take him head on seemingly on impulse alone.
No, what was surprising was how he told her to run. And even more so, the fact that she listened to him.
She took off in a random direction, not bothering to look back. Where was she going? Where was the exit? Could her teammate even feasibly hold Aizawa back long enough for her to find it?
She stopped in her tracks, not even caring that this was a time sensitive endeavor. This isn’t why she came to this school. She didn’t work her ass off just to run away.
Whatever this stupid lapse in confidence was about, she was going to have to deal with it later. She had a test to ace.
She turned around, running back the way she had come from. The heels on her costume were clacking loudly against the pavement, frustrating her beyond measure. She wouldn’t be any help if the enemy could hear her coming from a mile away.
She ducked into an alley between two of the houses, kicking her heeled boots off and letting a pair of simple red flats fall out of her arm. She knew it wasn’t the wisest use of time, but a mixture of the noise and the blisters on her feet made the risk worth it in her eyes.
She darted back out of the alley, her boots in one hand and a few Russian dolls in the other. She was a lot faster now, and her footsteps were nearly silent as she ran to the boy hanging from the electric wire almost comically.
“Yaoyorozu, what are you-?” He looked between her boots and the dolls in her hand.
Momo had to admit, she felt kind of stupid. Her confidence only waived for a short second, but there was no denying how strange this must look to him.
“You have a plan don’t you?” His voice sounded a little more desperate than she was used to. Which was fair, considering the position he was in.
Momo smiled up at him, not as confidently as she would have wanted but it did the trick. “I always do.”
Aizawa wasted no time, jumping out of the shadows like he had simply melted out of them. Shoto’s legs kicked almost instinctively.
“Yaoyorozu!” He called, looking at her like he was waiting for her to make the next move.
He didn’t have to wait long. Momo tossed the Russian dolls up in the air. “Close your eyes!” She warned, closing her own as the dolls opened.
The flash grenades inside were so bright that she could still see the light seeping through her eyelids. Aizawa stumbled back and Momo took the opportunity to until the part of the scarf that kept Todoroki dangling awkwardly from the pole. She lowered her teammate, careful not to impale him on the traps their teacher had set under his feet.
“What now?” He asked, wiggling out of the scarf tied around him.
Momo looked over her shoulder, seeing Aizawa regaining his balance and looking up at them. She grabbed Todoroki’s arm, dragging him into a sprint. “Run!”
The two took off, their homeroom teacher in hot pursuit. Momo had a plan, but she couldn’t put it into action or even explain it thoroughly unless they managed to escape their teacher.
“C’mon, blink!” Todoroki muttered beside her. He was running backwards, which was slowing him down while he kept moving his arm like he was trying to do a one handed macarena.
Momo looked down at the boots hanging uselessly in her hand. Suddenly, she had an idea.
Momo stopped, turning to face her teacher. He looked confused, hesitating just enough to make this work. She took one of her boots by the heel and chucked it, watching it hit her teacher in between the eyes with a dull thud.
Todoroki blinked before taking the opening. He jumped in front of her, obscuring them from his view with a wall of ice three times the height of the buildings around them.
“You still haven’t told me your plan.” He panted out, clearly exhausted.
“In due time.” Momo turned away from him, opening up the front of her costume and racking her brain trying to remember the chemical compounds for this specific item.
She imagined it and felt the pull as her body turned part of itself into the scarf that shot out just under her chest. The deceivingly soft fabric gathered at her feet.
“Uh.. I-is that Aizawa’s scarf you’re making?” Momo could hear the discomfort in his voice as he turned his head and pretended to inspect the wall of ice. She understood, she would have much rather used her back to make the scarf. But to do that she would have to rip her costume, which would only make it worse for him. That being said, he was just going to have to suck it up.
“My own version of it.” She explained. “Its a type of metal that is flexible when room temperature, but returns back to its original shape when heated.”
She gave him a knowing look and he nodded, seeming to understand.
“There are a few bigger things I need to make.” She explained. A faint blush crept up to his cheeks. “So… how about you go check the integrity of the ice wall?”
“Uh, right!” He turned quickly, tapping at the ice like what he was doing was a legitimate job and not just a distraction.
Momo got to work, making each individual item and placing everything where it needed to go. Todoroki joined her once she let him know she was decent, listening to the full plan as he tied knots in the rope on the catapult.
“Does that sound like something you can do?” Momo asked, looking up at him.
Todoroki nodded, giving her a thumbs up. She nodded back, standing up and throwing her mannequin on a stick over her shoulder as she gathered the tarp from the ground.
“Wait, Yaoyorozu!” Shoto called out to her.
She turned over her shoulder. “Is there a problem?”
He looked unsure. Momo didn’t take this as a good sign. “Do you remember when we voted for class rep? And how you had two votes?”
Momo nodded slowly, not sure how this was relevant.
“I was the second vote.” He said plainly. “I just... thought you would like to know.”
“I mean… thank you?” Momo said, raising an eyebrow. “But why are you telling me this right now?”
Todoroki sighed. “I just want you to know… I trust you. And I’m right behind you.”
Momo didn’t know what to say to that at first. He was behind her, letting her take the lead. Just like he had been willing to do the very first week of class.
She smiled, tossing the tarp to him . He struggled to catch it, caught off guard.
“Thank you, Todoroki.” She said earnestly. “That means a lot.”
---
The plan went off without a hitch.
Momo had somehow managed to capture her pro hero teacher, using his own tactics against him. She was confident, strong willed, and smart as all hell. Everything she had doubted herself on over the past few months seemed to fade away for fifteen glorious minutes and she basked in this victory. This should be life changing…
So why did it all come back when she walked out of the testing area?
It felt crushing, the way she seemed to shrink in the cold waiting room with the rest of her classmates. Her reflection in the glass of the tinted windows hadn’t changed, and it still made her feel sick.
It made her angry. The way that her accomplishments couldn’t even impress her anymore. Like the moment it was over, it hadn’t happened.
She couldn’t earn her own respect in fifteen minutes.
“Yaoyorozu?” She turned around, seeing Aizawa standing in the doorway. There was a bruise forming between his eyes, making her feel a slight pang of guilt. “Can we talk?”
She nodded, following her homeroom teacher out into the hallway. He stood there, facing her in silence for a few moments.
“You did a good job out there today.” He said carefully. “Though I shouldn’t have expected any less.”
She looked down, bending her back in a shallow bow. “Thank you, sir.”
There was another long beat of tense silence. She kept staring down at the red flats she had made for herself during the test.
“... I know you’ve been struggling a lot lately.” Aizawa said, sounding honest. “And I can’t help but feel partially responsible. If anything I’ve said to you made you feel less confident, I’m sorry. I’m hard on you because I know you’re capable.”
Momo looked up, confused. Aizawa was looking down, shame written on his face. He gave her a small bow in apology, catching her off guard.
“Why would anything you say affect my confidence?” She hadn’t meant to say it out loud, trying not to be rude. But sometimes words came out of her mouth without her permission. She covered her mouth, feeling stupid.
Aizawa blinked in surprise, but before Momo could apologize, he started laughing. Not a full blown laugh, but more like a soft chuckle.
He stood back up straight, a proud look on his face. “You’re right, why would it?”
Momo didn’t know what he meant by that, unsure if she should ask or not. Aizawa hummed, walking past her before stopping at the doorway.
“You really did do a good job today.” He said. “You should be proud.”
But Momo didn’t know what pride was anymore.
---
The weeks that followed the exam drained everything out of her.
A kidnapped classmate, a hospital stay, a poorly planned rescue mission that could have gotten her friends killed, and a well deserved lecture. All packed into just one short school break.
In a way, she had been grateful for it. It was selfish, but it had been nice to have heavier problems outweigh the constant feeling that clung to her like a wet shirt. It had been stressful, sure. But it was a welcomed stress. It was something that made her feel awful to think about. There had to be something wrong with her if she was grateful for all of those sleepless nights and silent rooms full of peers who didn’t dare speak out of fear that they might cry.
At first she thought it would make her usual problems pale in comparison, but now that she was standing in her dorm room. The chaos was over and the calm was suffocating her.
There it was. That awful feeling in the pit of her stomach. She caught her reflection in the full length mirror her mother had insisted she place next to her closet. She saw the way her own body curved , the way her hair fell around her shoulders, the way that the stress barely showed on her smooth skin.
The awful feeling rose up into her throat, making her have to run to the bathroom to avoid emptying the contents of her stomach on the wooden floor of her bedroom. She gagged, then she sobbed.
The reflection she saw would never be a real person. Not to other people. She was just a doll, nothing more. When was she just going to get with the program and learn her place?
What was a pretty girl like her even doing here?
She sobbed into the toilet, wanting this to stop. Why did it take the entire world she knew crumbling around her just to get rid of this feeling for a few fucking weeks?
When she finally dragged herself out of the bathroom, the first thing she did was cover the mirror with a towel. She couldn’t stand the person looking back at her.
---
Victories didn’t feel like wins anymore.
Sure, she smiled when she did well in training. But it wasn’t real. It didn’t matter.
People would congratulate her as well, but there was always this edge to it. She knew they noticed the way her waist had shrunk and her hands would shake. She was overdoing it, but she didn’t care. It yielded passable results and that’s all she needed.
“Yaoyorozu!” Todoroki called after her one day, making her stop and turn around.
She gave him an easy smile, one that she hoped he couldn’t see through. “Todoroki. May I help you with something?”
He ignored the question, looking her up and down. “Have you been eating?”
Momo blinked before laughing. “Todoroki, I sit next to you during meals.” She pointed out.
“You sit next to me,” Todoroki agreed. “But I haven’t seen you actually eat in a few days.”
Momo swallowed, hoping Todoroki didn’t notice. “I just haven’t been hungry. That’s all.”
“Are you feeling alright?” Todoroki pressed on, blunt as ever. “You know I’m just on the other side of the hall if you need to talk.”
Momo wanted to tell him. She wanted to sit him down and tell him everything she was thinking. She wanted him to understand and tell her it's all in her head.
But there was a divide between them. He was admired for all the things she was mocked for. His status, his talent, his looks. They were admirable for him but something she should feel ashamed of. She wasn’t stupid, she knew why.
He wouldn’t understand. No matter how she tried to explain it, they would always be an ocean away. And the worst part was it wasn’t even his fault. Simply an unfortunate truth that hung between them, only visible to her.
She smiled politely. “If something happens, you’ll be the first one to know.”
---
“Yaoyorozu.” Todoroki greeted her in the living room of the dorm.
She looked up from her book, noticing that he had a jacket and shoes on. She wondered if Iida had already yelled at him for wearing them on the carpet.
“Todoroki.” she smiled, putting a bookmark in her book and giving him her full attention.
He hesitated, looking embarrassed. “I was just about to head out for a walk.”
Momo raised an eyebrow. “Alright. Make sure you’re back before curfew.”
She thought that would be the end of the conversation, but Todoroki didn’t move. Instead he tapped his toe on the carpet nervously. “I was wondering if you wanted to join me?”
Momo heard Mina’s excited whisper on the couch across from her. She thought the request was odd, but she nodded anyway.
“Sure,” She agreed, standing up. “If you really want the company. I’ll go get my jacket.”
She walked upstairs, taking her jacket off of the rack by the door and meeting Todoroki on the front porch.
“It’s a nice night,” She commented, looking around at the path lit by the streetlamps. The sun had only set a half an hour ago, but the stars were shining like they had always been there. She shivered a bit, pulling her jacket tighter. The nights always got colder as summer turned to fall, catching her senses of guard with the drop in temperature.
Todoroki didn’t shiver at all, even as a breeze blew in and rustled his hair. A benefit of his quirk, she guessed.
“Yeah,” He agreed. “You can see the stars.”
The walk was spent mostly in comfortable silence, a few offhand comments and laughs thrown in just to make sure it wasn’t awkward. It was nice, just having someone she could walk in silence with.
Then out of nowhere, he stopped.
“Todoroki, what-” She asked, turning around to look at him. The streetlight he was standing under illuminated him in an orangey glow.
“Shoto.” He corrected quickly before swallowing a lump in his throat. “Please call me Shoto. If you want to.”
“... Shoto.” She repeated, the name feeling foreign on her tongue. She didn’t know how to feel about the familiarity of it. “Is something wrong?”
“Yes.” He said awkwardly. “Well… no? Maybe? I guess that depends on how… this goes.”
“How what goes?” Momo didn’t know why she asked. She was a smart girl. She knew what he was about to say.
He took a breath. “I like you.”
She nodded, trying to keep calm. “I like you too, Shoto. We’re friends.”
Todoroki shook his head. “No, not like that. I like you… but in a different way.”
She was silent. She knew she was supposed to answer him. Give him a yes or a no. But the honest answer was that she didn’t know. Todoroki meant a lot to her, but there was something that was in the way. Something she couldn’t name that stood in the way of fully seeing him has a friend, much less a boyfriend. It felt like it was blocking his view, not letting him get a good look at who he had tricked himself into caring about.
As unfair as it was, she couldn’t give him an answer when she knew he couldn’t see her.
“I crossed a line, didn’t I?” He asked. “Listen, you don’t have to say yes. I won’t be mad. I still care about you, and you’re a good friend-”
“I’m sorry.” She said, cutting him off.
He didn’t look surprised. Instead, he just nodded. “You can head back if you want. I understand if you want to call it a night.”
She nods as well. “Will you be coming as well?”
“No, I think I’ll go a little farther out. I’ll be back soon.” He wasn’t looking her in the eyes.
Momo started walking towards the dorms, her shoulder brushing his as she passed him.
“Yaoyorozu,” He said softly. “You look beautiful tonight. Just so you know.”
The word made her stop in her tracks, leaves crunching under her shoe. Beautiful…She felt tears sliding down her face.
She hated that word.
---
Momo’s hero costume ripped again.
She supposed she should be used to it, but it still baffled her that no one in the support classes had noticed this recurring problem and came up with the logical solution. She had made several recommendations to them, but they seemed to fall on deaf ears. They always returned her suit to her with that same cheap, tight material that covered her back and still left little to the imagination.
The sun was already down when she headed from Recovery Girl’s office to her classroom. This particular incident had been paired with a nasty blow to the back of the head, but nothing a little rest and a kiss on the cheek couldn’t fix.
She assumed everyone else had already headed to the dorms, Aizawa included. She could only hope that he had either left the door unlocked or taken her stuff with him. It had been a long day, and it would only feel longer if the book she was reading was locked in the classroom all night.
She was a bit surprised to see that the door was wide open, and someone was standing over her desk with her costume in their hands.
“Excuse me?” She called, not sure if it was a good idea. The person was a woman in a green shirt with dark hair she had tied up into a ponytail.
She didn’t realize it was Midnight until the woman turned around, her red glasses sliding down her nose. She gave a warm smile.
“Sorry, did I startle you?” She asked, putting the costume back into its case. The support class must have already fixed it up for her.
Momo shook her head, embarrassed to admit that she didn’t recognize her teacher and childhood idol outside of her hero costume. “Oh, no! You’re fine, I was just… surprised.”
Midnight nodded, looking back to the costume with a strange look on her face. As Momo got closer, she could only categorize it as a mixture of sadness and disgust.
“I was just looking at your costume.” She said it like she was testing the waters. “A support student asked me to run it up here for you.”
Momo nodded. “Yeah, it ripped…”
She left out the word “again”, but even unsaid it held weight. Midnight nodded.
“It looks kind of small.” She noted, running her fingers over the fabric.
“Yeah,” Momo said simply. The fabric is stretchy. It’s a bit tight, but it’s nice in the summer. It keeps me cool.”
More like it clings to her skin and gives her a terrible rash.
Midnight held it up again. “Not much support. Speaking from one big chested girl to another.” She had a light hearted smile, but there was still something careful in her tone.
“It’s not as bad as you would think.” Momo laughed awkwardly through her lie. “I’m used to it.”
Midnight’s smile fell. She kept staring at the costume with this anger in her eyes. “Yaoyorozu, please be honest with me. Did you design this costume?”
Momo didn’t answer that immediately. No one had ever asked her that. She hesitated before she shook her head.
“No,” she felt tears threatening to run down her face as she crossed her arms over the chest she couldn’t stand. “No, I didn’t.”
Midnight’s grip tightened on the costume before she forced herself to put it back into the case it came in.
“They did the same thing to me too.” Midnight said softly. “When I was young. I was so stupid… They managed to convince me that it was empowering. That I was reclaiming my body, I was part of a sexual liberation.”
Momo didn’t say anything, she just watched as her hero’s face twisted in rage. Her fists balled as she continued. “What business did a child have being part of a sexual liberation?”
Something about the way she said those words hit Momo right in the chest. She was a child. Her body belonged to a child. They were facts, but somehow they crashed through her like bricks through a glass window.
It made her sick.
Oh my god, she was a child!
She didn’t know when she started crying, or when Midnight wrapped her up in her arms and rubbled little circles on her back.
“Shhh,” She soothed her. “It’s all right, it’s going to be alright.”
It didn’t feel like it, not in that moment. It felt bleak and hopeless. She was only five when her teachers had been more concerned about promiscuity than her. She was eleven, and all she had wanted to do was wear a tank top when it was hot. She was thirteen and she had to be careful wearing her own school uniform because adult men thought the skirt gave them permission to stare and sneak photos. She was just a kid and she still wasn’t safe.
It tore her apart, and she hadn’t even realized how much until now. She wasn’t eating, she didn’t sleep, she couldn’t look in the mirror, she hated her body, and she was just a child.
She stood there, letting these facts wash over her until she cried out fifteen years worth of pain that she couldn’t ever quite place.
And after a while, it felt better.
“I saw you during your finals.” Midnight said after a long, comfortable silence. “You’re good, Yaoyorozu. Actually, you’re better than good. You have more heroism in your pinky than some pros have in their entire body. Please don’t let them trick you into thinking differently.”
She had heard it before. So many times that she thought the praise had lost its meaning. But coming from Midnight, it finally felt real.
She was right. Momo was good.
Midnight pulled away, waking back over and picking up Momo’s costume. She looked at it thoughtfully before ripping it right down the middle.
“Huh,” She smiled at her handiwork. “Looks like there’s still a rip in it.”
She passed it over to Momo, who looked at the ripped fabric in awe. There was something very satisfying about seeing the costume she had hated since day one with a nice, clean tear down the middle. But it could definitely be bigger. She took it in her hand and continued where Midnight had left off, pulling until she had two separate pieces of red fabric in each hand.
Midnight laughed. “Don’t worry, I’ll go with you to the support class tomorrow. Maybe they’ll listen if I make some friendly suggestions about the design.”
Momo was at a loss for words. “I- Thank you. For so much…”
It was fitting. Midnight had inspired her to be a hero when she was young, and now here she was doing it again.
Midnight smiled, moving a strand of hair out of Momo’s face.
“You deserve it.” She said simply.
And for the first time in a long time, Momo believed it.
---
She stared at herself in the mirror above her sink.
There were bags under her eyes, just barely noticeable. There was a small zit by her temple. She had never noticed that one eye was just a little bit lower than the other.
She smiled. It was amazing what you noticed when you take a closer look.
She tapped her finger on the scissors twice before picking them up. She took a clump of hair, not bothering to part it and it cascaded prettily down her shoulder.
She sneered at it before taking the scissors and chopping it off.
---
No one had said anything to her since she came downstairs, dressed in the off-the-shoulder sweater that she never wore in public and the leggings that she was always too self conscious to wear without a skirt over them.
Her hair was brushing against her jawbone, feeling lighter as it swayed freely a few inches above her shoulders. It wasn’t sper short, but it was definitely a dramatic change.
Her classmates were staring, but none of them seemed to know what to say as they watched her skip into the kitchen.
She made herself a sandwich, the first thing she had eaten all day. And after that, she was considering taking a nap.
She smiled to herself. They were two small steps, but it made her feel good.
“I like it.” Shoto said, the only person with the courage to say anything. “Your hair. It suits you.”
Momo hesitated before smiling. Compliments were going to be a struggle, but she knew she would get there.
“Thank you,” She said confidently. “I like it too.”
Shoto seemed happy to leave it at that. He turned to go, but she grabbed her friend by the arm.
“Momo.” She said. “You can call me Momo now. Since we’re friends.”
He blinked in surprise before smiling at her. “Alright, I can do that.”
She let go of his arm, letting him walk away and leave her alone in the kitchen. She caught her reflection, barely visible in the tinted glass on the microwave door.
It felt good to finally see herself smiling back.