Chapter Text
After being dead for five minutes, Lee could say with certainty that the experience was extremely overhyped.
Dying itself hadn’t been very pleasant, but the ensuing warm, wet silence was so much worse than the pain of being burnt to a crisp inside her own apartment. As an atheist, she had been under the impression that death would lead to nonexistence and not… whatever she was going through right now.
The significant lack of torture noises and screams of the damned were a surefire sign that hell was off the table. While it stung to have her anti-afterlife ideals disproven, Lee found a sort of spiteful satisfaction in the fact that the Catholic church didn’t get it right either. Small victories.
Small, tight victories. Because wherever she was, it was uncomfortably confining and she wanted out. Lee was not known for her patience in life, and apparently the same could be said about her death. If she could move, Lee would be frantically bouncing a leg to release the pent-up energy building inside of her.
Huh. On second thought, maybe this was hell. If her boy satan really was able to design any non-believer’s nightmare situations, then this one would for sure go in her top ten. An eternity of being moist and mostly immobile? She (mentally) shuddered.
Luckily, any more potentially existential crises Lee could work herself into were subverted by a squeezing sensation that forcibly shoved her out of the hellish prison.
Unluckily, the extraction point was a vagina.
Lee realized with a sort of feverish amusement that this had to be the first time she wasn’t thrilled to see one.
She wished she was joking; but from what she could see, childbirth was no joke. Her stomach lurched and she immediately regretted looking. If Lee had the motor functions required for moving her mouth, she would apologize or something. Because damn.
The scene was so grotesque it nearly distracted her from another related issue that definitely seemed a little important: she was a baby. Again.
Lee was beginning to regret ever dissing God.
And so, there she was. Being manhandled by impossibly large, latex-covered hands in an impossibly small body, with impossibly cohesive thoughts for what was supposed to be some poor fuck’s infant child.
From what she knew about babies, which was very little, Lee supposed that having the knowledge of a pre med college student was most likely outside the norm. She also absently noticed that she wasn’t crying: yet another thing that was probably concerning for a two-minute-old.
She tried to eavesdrop on the doctors and get a better feel for her situation, but they were speaking in Japanese. Sadly, Lee’s repertoire of languages was limited to English, some Spanish, and a very basic knowledge of Korean (courtesy of dad’s side of the family). Lee could only thank her preference for subbed anime as the reason for recognizing the language so quickly.
God, she missed being able to talk already. That and having teeth.
Speaking of God, did this mean he really didn’t exist? With the whole reincarnation thing. Lee didn’t know much about religion, but being reborn was definitely more of a Buddhism thing. Or was it Hinduism? She couldn’t remember.
By taking a quick glance at her surroundings, she could see that the technology of the surrounding hospital setting was only slightly more advanced than what she was used to. Not to mention Japanese still existed. This could mean one of two possibilities: either she was still in her original timeline at some point during the future, or she had managed to somehow warp spacetime as a burnt corpse and transmigrate into an alternate universe.
The Japanese speakers in the room were making her disgustingly hopeful about the latter.
She was handed off one last time from a nurse to the unfortunate victim of her rough exit from the birth canal. Said victim looked like shit, with her sweaty, dark hair plastered to her face and large bags lining her eyes. Yet despite all that she must’ve been through (what with giving birth and all), the lady was smiling. It was a little shaky and unsure, but genuine nonetheless and she cradled Lee’s tiny body in her arms carefully, like she was afraid to break her.
One of the doctors spoke to the birth-giver and she, all the while never taking her eyes off of Lee, spoke a phrase that Lee definitely couldn’t understand but due to the sappy look on everyone’s face it probably wasn’t worth knowing.
When was the last time somebody looked at her like that? Definitely not her first mom. This second one was already winning in terms of motherliness. If there was one good thing about being reincarnated, Lee supposed that not having mommy issues would count for something.
Lee yawned, tired from the whole dying-and-being-reincarnated thing.
Now that she thought about it, this all seemed like the plot to a poorly written fanfiction.
It was the last thing she thought before passing out in new mom’s arms.
_____
Fujii Machi was never cut out to be a mother.
If you had told her a year ago that she would be raising her own child she wouldn’t have taken you seriously. Probably would have laughed, punched you, and walked away.
And yet here she was, a six month old in her arms and barely any clue as to what to do with it. It was no secret that she wasn’t the biggest fan of children, especially small ones. Hell, it wouldn’t even be a stretch to say that she disliked them.
She hadn’t even known she was pregnant until she went in for her yearly checkup. To her untrained eyes, she had just assumed she was getting fatter.
Boy had she been wrong. And yet…
She couldn’t find it in her to terminate the pregnancy. Machi looked down at the sleeping face of the newest addition to the Fujii family. The little thing wasn’t too bad looking for a baby (given that she generally found infants to be uglier than British singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran on a good day). The kid had her brown hair and eyes, but she could already tell she would look more like her father than herself. And that stung .
It was like a last “fuck you” from him to her, as if him leaving wasn’t enough as it was.
It had been more than a year since he hit the road, but that didn’t mean it hurt any less. She was strong and she knew it, but even Cheeky Chi had her limits. She found taking it was becoming easier and easier to hit them, these days (though, those might just be the hormones talking).
Sometimes the kid would yawn, exposing the first white nubs of baby teeth, and all Machi could see was him . His beautifully tanned skin, pretty face, and pretty words and it would ache almost as bad as it did the first week after he was gone. On her worst days, she could barely stand looking at her own child and she hated herself for it. She was just a baby, and Machi was just the woman who was never supposed to have her.
Though… the kid didn’t feel like just a baby. Machi might not have been ready to have children, but she wasn’t stupid. She knew it wasn’t normal for babies to act the way hers did.
The first few months had been a hellish mess of emotions, finances, and googling things about childcare, but somehow she knew they could have been worse. Her first clue was how much sleep she was getting, which was more than whatever book and website about babies said the kid would allow for.
After arriving home from the hospital, delirious with exhaustion, Machi barely had enough energy to put the baby to bed before she passed out herself. Only after waking up from twelve, uninterrupted hours of sleep did she realize clue number two: her kid didn’t cry.
Not even when she was born. Instead of squirming and screaming like any child was supposed to do after being forced out of a hot coochie, she just kind of sat there and looked around with (clue number three:) brown eyes that were far too intelligent for any newborn baby to have. She never seemed to relax, always taking in her surroundings with a silent, brooding air about her. Imagine that: a baby, analyzing. The authorities would have a field day with this one.
Like they would if they found out about how she refused to be breastfed, evading all of Machi’s attempts with impressive head maneuvers until she was finally presented with a bottle.
Or about how she was already able to toddle around the house at the ripe age of five months after practically forcing her tiny baby legs to cooperate - and actually succeeded after a mere few weeks.
Or about how she had been teaching herself to read for months now, going through books far too advanced for her age like they were going out of style.
Or about how she shook her head any time Machi tried to address her by the names she picked out for her, the ungrateful brat.
How did Machi feel about having a freaky genius child? Not too bad, honestly. It was less work for her and she felt pretty good having been responsible for creating something so intelligent. Even if it was a collaboration effort with her ex.
She looked at the kid again, wearily, and found her looking back with those creepy little eyes. Cute kid, if you ignored the deadpan stares. And the weirdly long limbs, fingers, and toes. She could work with this.
Steeling herself, Machi put on the most loving smile she could muster and cooed.
“You’re a funny one aren’t you, little gibbon.”
The gibbon in question blinked owlishly back up at her. If Machi didn’t know any better she’d say it looked unimpressed with her attempt at being motherly.
She was going to continue with the weird mushy baby talk until the kid opened her mouth and responded with a flat “Thanks.”
Responded. As in spoke.
What the fuck.
All the confidence she gained earlier wavered and it was all she could do to keep the smile up on her face (though it was probably more like a grimace now). If she didn’t smoke herself to an early grave, this kid would definitely be the death of her.
Until then all she could do was try her best to play house with what felt like a small adult trapped in a tiny baby’s body.
“No problem, kid.”
_____
A few months later was when she was told that the little tyke wanted to be called ‘Lee.’ Machi was impressed until she realized she had to update all of their legal documents. Little shit.
_____
The first thing Lee learned about being a baby was that she hated it.
Being tiny and helpless sucked, and not for the first time she wished that infantile amnesia would kick in and save her from perpetual boredom. Sadly, it did not, and for the first couple months she was stuck in a continuous cycle of eating, sleeping, and shitting.
At least now she understood why babies spend so much of their time crying.
If she wasn’t concerned about infantile head trauma, she would bang her skull against a wall just to have something to do. It would certainly be more productive than all the sitting and lying down she was forced to go through.
One of the main problems of being a baby was that she had no idea how to play the part. It’s not like she could remember what it was like the first time around, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to do the whole goo-goo ga-ga thing. Not being able to wipe her own ass was humiliating enough.
If it was any consolation, though, she was 99% sure her new mom had no idea what she was doing either. She tried to hide it around Lee but she was able to tell when she was having a particularly rough day in the deepened lines around her eyes and mouth. Lee wondered if it had anything to do with the significant lack of father figures in the vicinity.
Or maybe that just a fanfiction protagonist thing; built-in daddy issues.
This new mom was vastly different from her old one. First of all, the new one was Japanese, which was the most obvious of many, many differences.
Old mom had been the epitome of perfection: straight-laced, polite, graceful, without a single hair out of place. New mom… wasn’t.
New mom spoke loudly and without restraint, which was reflected in basically all other aspects of her life: her cluttered room, her expressive clothing, even her cooking (meaning she was terrible at it). She smoked and had at least two tattoos (that Lee could see) and overall seemed - hm.
Pretty chill actually. Except for the whole smoking thing.
The smell didn’t bother her. No, it was the hacking cough that was barely stifled by fisted fingers that bothered Lee more than anything else (it was fucking loud). Sometimes new mom would fold nearly in half with the force of her nicotine-induced wheezing and sound ready to upchuck a lung, and then go to do something completely normal like washing the dishes afterwards.
This told Lee that it was a normal occurrence, so she just mostly ignored it; it was easy to do by the end of the first week or so. Only her grandfather had been a smoker in her past life, and she just assumed it was because he was old, tired, and ready to pass on his inheritance.
New mom looked pretty young in comparison, now that she thought about it. Having been only 22 herself when she kicked the bucket, by comparison the woman looked to be in her mid-twenties. Probably 25, at most.
That seemed pretty young to be having kids, but Lee hadn’t yet been able to factor in the cultural aspects of this new existence so that point may or may not be moot.
Speaking of, Lee hadn’t been able to do much exploration or research since her trip back from the hospital, being a useless little sack of bones and all. So far, all she knew was that new mom spoke Japanese and… yeah that was pretty much it. It took an excruciatingly long amount of time (a month) for Lee to be able to establish a baseline word bank of vocabulary to draw from with her already minimal stores stocked by anime. It wasn’t like she could just tell her mom to sign her up for DuoLingo or something because she wasn’t sure it even existed anymore (which she wouldn’t want either way because that owl was frankly terrifying).
At first, most of her Japanese came from new mom herself, as well as the radio and talk shows she put on while Lee was vibing in her high chair (i.e. the one part of being tiny that was actually enjoyable). While it wasn’t much, it was enough to communicate basic ideas in clipped phrases to her single parental figure. Ideas like how she wanted a book on beginner’s Japanese grammar (she had been 4 months old).
Luckily, the language’s phonetic alphabet didn’t seem that different from Korean, and she was able to speak a little bit of that thanks to her dad.
The old one, not the new one. What was the past tense of dad? Dade? Dead? Hm.
Now, at eight months old, she was confident in her casual conversational skills, but was still a little shaky on certain bits of more complex grammar and vocabulary that had her stewing in silent ire within the confines of her little crib. She had thought she was done with learning language after undergrad. Oh how wrong she had been.
With virtually nothing to do during the day and many sleepless nights, a good 3-5 hours a day ( at least ) were being put into studying these new concepts. Her days were spent either practicing the new language with her new mom, or working on increasing mobility in her new body.
Lee was beginning to get very sick of new.
She poked absently at today’s breakfast: applesauce. Another shitty part of being pint-sized was the lack of good food. Lee was never going to look at milk the same again (not that she was planning on doing it anyways; everybody knows only psychopaths casually drink straight-up milk).
Her eyes burned from a lack of sleep the night before practicing handwriting. It was going much slower than her progress with speech, unfortunately. Her useless little fingers could barely maneuver the pencil well enough or exert enough pressure to write the characters effectively.
The sound of the kitchen’s crusty old coffee maker drew her gaze away from the bowl of mush and she eyed it wistfully. New mom shuffled lethargically around the counters to put together her own meal and drink stopping by the maker with a mug. She was so out of it that she barely acknowledged the intense stares she was receiving from her daughter.
How long had it been since Lee’s last hot cup of bean juice? Probably since the day she died, so almost a year. Shit.
If she didn’t want to completely fuck up her growth charts (and by taking a look at new mom, genetics were already not on her side), the coffee would have to wait… but only for at most a decade. Caffeine was a hell of a drug and Lee was thirsty .
She sighed, resigned to a fate of withdrawal and exhaustion. Just another tic for new mom to add to the list of ‘things wrong with my baby.’ ‘Addiction’ would be a nice addition to the already growing inventory of issues her little 8-month-old self had.
At least she could still enjoy the smell.
New mom flipped on the small kitchen radio as she passed it, coffee in hand. The voice Lee heard coming out of it made her whip her head around in surprise.
It was a station that Lee wasn’t very familiar with and seemed less mainstream than most of the ones the radio defaulted to (it sounded more crackly). However, she would recognize that shouty, boisterous, DJ-esque voice anywhere, even if it sounded a little high-pitched.
“- anks for tuning in listeners! Nothing like a little Pitbull to spice up your mornings! It’s now 6:00 AM in the Musutafu area and the sun is shining! I -”
Spotty with random patches of English, over-the-top inflections, and a preference for trashy 2000s pop music? A toothless smirk spread across her face as the pieces put themselves together.
That was Present Mic, this was My Hero Academia, and Lee was fucking hyped.
Not that she was complaining. She’d take superpowers and heroes over the looming threat of a nationwide civil war any day. Hero, villain, or vigilante, her future was already brighter than it ever would have been in her last life.
Dying might have been the best thing to ever happen to her.
“Uh… you good there kid?” Lee realized she wasn’t alone in the kitchen and the smile across her face (if you could even call it that) was probably a little unsettling. She forced her expression back to neutrality and resumed messing with her applesauce.
“Yeah,” was her simple response. It took all of her self restraint not to stand up and do a little dance. She swung her short legs from up in the high chair instead. Epiphany had come in the form of a screaming, cockatoo-haired angel, and it was glorious.
Lee was just reincarnated into a fictional universe and she wasn’t even going to question it.
“Hey.”
“Yeah, gibbon?” Lee found the nickname a little funny, considering she never really had any in her first life (unless “asshole” counted).
“Do you have a quirk?”
The small woman stopped in her motions of pulling bread out of a bag and eyed her daughter warily and that’s when Lee realised, “shit, I shouldn’t know what those are yet.” Then again, she tended to show an affinity for knowing things she definitely shouldn’t. They had both gotten used to it.
New mom appeared to share the same sentiment because she shrugged and muttered something about a “creepy prodigy baby” before returning to making toast.
One of the best things about new mom was that she never questioned the weird and often psychopathic tendencies of her own child. She knew nothing about being a mother and it was pretty nice.
“Nope.”
“Okay.”
And then they ate breakfast together.
Compared to her old household, this silence was more comfortable than awkward and suffocating ones that used to fall over the table at mealtime. It was easier to think.
From what Lee remembered from the show, it was rather rare to be quirkless: less than 25% of the population, or something like that. Given the anomaly’s genetic minority, it was unlikely that Lee would inherit the quirkless genes. Hopefully.
Nothing against quirkless people, but it would kind of suck to be born into a world of superheroes and not be able to be a part of it. The age of quirk manifestation was around four, so she still had over three years between now and then. She liked to think that was ample time for her genes to conquer a recessive trait.
While she could spend her days drilling new mom about her lineage and the one that got away for some quirk history, she decided against it. She would call it a surprise fourth birthday present (or lack thereof, but she was being optimistic for once).
Well, that and the fact that she wanted to avoid awkward conversations about “why is daddy gone” at all costs, especially when Lee could tell new mom was still upset about him. Consoling crying people was not one of her strong suits.
She’d wait a few years to drop that bomb at the dinner table.
Until then it was mastering Japanese speaking, reading, writing, and gaining dexterity in this sucky little body. She scowled accusingly at her unsteady hand as it knocked her plastic bowl of applesauce off of the high chair tray for the umpteenth time that month.
“Shit,” new mom hissed, rushing to wipe the fruity mess off of the floor.
“Shit,” Lee repeated, enthusiastic to add a new word to her growing vocabulary.
“No -!”