Work Text:
Hatsume Mei found that each stage of her creative process inspired different feelings. The gathering of requirements, for instance, was sometimes maddening. On the other hand, design was the way in which she communed with her muses. Fabrication was a challenge, a joy, and almost always an eventual triumph. Firmware development was madness and she wanted no part of it. Testing was dramatic, with the occasional unscheduled explosion. Assembly was like walking or breathing.
Before Mei came to UA she did not have an appreciation for soldering. This could perhaps be attributed to her "perpetual prototyping" state of mind before UA - no one was ever going to wear the babies she'd made at home, so they had breadboards and voluminous wiring galore. Now, though, she was making things that actually had to be used in the field which meant that soldering and miniaturization were unavoidable.
Initially it was frustrating - a time-consuming chore that stood between her and a final(ish) product. But as with many things in life, she'd discovered late one evening that there was a trick to it. Once she'd stumbled upon the trick the experience of soldering was transformed. What had once been a tedious chore now relaxed her, quieting her famously chaotic mind.
In response to this transformation Mei began to save all her soldering for the end of the day. She would return to the workshop after hours, secret weapon in tow, turning on only the lights she needed. With everything in its proper place she would sit and engross herself in her task, the very best elements of the workshop wrapped around her like a blanket as her fingers deftly went about their work.
This was Mei's hour of meditation. Maijima-sensei's nagging and the chatter of over a dozen other headstrong inventors were absent and would not return until morning. The only sounds in the room were the extractor fan, Mei's own tuneless humming, and familiar breathing next to her ear.
There was also the occasional creak of Maijima-sensei's massive plush chair, but that didn't bother her since it had proven essential to her new ritual. It was comfortable, but more importantly it was just big enough for two.
When a piece of technology needed to be worn, that tended to complicate its geometry. Everything Mei made was designed to either be worn or held, so there was no such thing as an easy soldering job for her. The weighted, bendable clamps at every workbench could only do so much - they were small, inert, and unaware. Mei had found that the very best helping hands were the living kind. She was pretty sure nobody's hands would measure up to Izuku's though.
Mei sat the iron down for a moment to stretch, tilting her head back to brush her cheek against his. "Still awake?" she murmured playfully. Her classmates would have been shocked to know she was capable of speaking quietly.
Izuku hummed his assent and the momentary contact his lips made with her ear drew a shiver from her, despite the cozy warmth of his body pressed against her. Ideally she would never work without Izuku wrapped around her but it simply wasn't practical for most of the day. Soldering was a cuddle-compatible task, though, and one of the few tasks made easier by cuddling instead of harder.
Mei knew that there were people out there with quirks that gave them four or six or some other unusual number of hands controlled by one mind, and that was probably very efficient. But after brief consideration she had concluded that she was even better off than they were. Those people might be able to work faster than her but they didn't know the rapture she felt when her mind and Izuku's worked as one. She and Izuku… they were two modules of a greater machine. Academically she knew that people were not actually made for one another, but Izuku made her feel complete.
It reminded her of the times she'd been asked to design something to very strange specifications. It had been an exercise in frustration every time, right up until the moment she saw her finished creations in context. She had started to think of Izuku as the context that justified her own existence, and she believed he held a similar sentiment toward her.
Mei's tired smile widened fractionally at the thought.
A tired Mei was yet another thing that seemed to be for Izuku's eyes only. As far as others were concerned, Mei never ran out of energy. If anyone could get her to slow down long enough to tell them (and had she been a bit more self-aware), she would have explained that her energy was the product of simple joy at her circumstances. Her life had never been better and it still seemed to be on an upward trajectory
Izuku was also ecstatic at his new lot in life, the present moment of which was a sterling example.
On an average day Mei smelled like sweat and burnt metal but during their soldering sessions Izuku could bury his nose in her pink locks and detect the faintest hint of her shampoo. At first he was certain he'd never get enough of it, but eventually the tickling became hard to ignore.
After a couple evenings of spitting Mei's hair out of his mouth he had purchased hair ties from a convenience store and watched a tutorial with the aim of learning to put Mei's hair up and out of the way. His sight line improved and the tickling was gone, but he had not foreseen the irrepressible desire the sight of Mei's neck and upper back would inspire in him.
The charm of her neck notwithstanding, Izuku had found that it was best to start from the top when taking inventory of the physical Mei. The story that unfolded if one started from the crown of Mei's head and went downward was riveting, complex, and unexpected.
First, you would encounter Mei's handmade welding goggles perched atop her head. They were largely ornamental but gave an impression of readiness and eccentricity. Next would be her bubblegum pink hair, tamed to the point that circumstance demanded and not one bit further. Her golden crosshaired eyes were incredibly striking and Izuku treasured every moment they were directed his way. Mei's hair and eyes were probably the first things that would spring to mind if her classmates were asked to describe her.
The twists and turns really began at her neck, which few besides Izuku had observed in any detail. Mei's neck was perhaps the first part of her that suggested elegance. It sat atop her bare, typically dirt-smudged shoulders, almost always bracketed by the straps of a tank top, pale and perfect, holding her titanic mind aloft like Atlas.
Below her neck was an intriguingly strong back which Izuku had contemplated at length. Strength was a recurring theme throughout her entire body from that point onward, though it was most evident in her scuffed and toned arms.
Mei's hips didn't need to flare out from her waist in order for her to give life to machinery but they did anyway and Izuku was privately grateful for them.
Izuku hadn't fully appreciated Mei's legs until the first time he watched her climb something. She was working on a structure larger than herself, grappling with a lifeless hulking form while she animated it, the sight both humbling and awe-inspiring. When he had time to dwell on it that night he mused that she had never looked more at home. The Mei he had seen that day was a fully realized Mei - he could not imagine her being more of herself, and it filled him with quiet satisfaction.
Mei was Izuku's favorite story and he hoped he would never have occasion to put her down.
"I got something interesting in the mail today." Mei murmured, reaching back to find his hair and then his cheek. He leaned into the touch as he always did.
"Yeah?" he quietly prompted her.
"Mhmm. S'in my bag. Can you reach it?"
Her backpack sat on the floor next to the station they were using. He bent to the side, straining to get a hand on it. Mei leaned forward slightly to accommodate him and he finally managed to reach it. He pulled it upward so that she could take it. A moment later she was pulling out-
Doom. She had pulled out a nightmare. It was betrayal with an ergonomic grip.
"What do you think?" she asked, and the odd thing was that she didn't seem to be mocking him.
It was a self-feeding soldering gun. In theory it freed up one of your hands - the one that would have been holding the solder itself. They had spent countless nights tackling the multi-handed job of soldering like this, and Mei had purchased an alternative to their ritual.
"It's nice." Izuku said hollowly.
Mei quickly leaned to the side and turned to face him. They'd been together long enough for her to recognize his "hopeless despair" voice. "I thought you'd like it." she said with a frown. "What's wrong?"
"I liked helping." he said with a small shrug, as if she had told him they would never be soldering this way again.
Mei blinked owlishly at him. "You'll still be helping if we use this. I think you're missing the point here." her voice dropped lower and she stared at his lips. She leaned in slightly to kiss him. "If I don't have to hold the solder, that means one of my hands is free to stabilize. And if I can help stabilize, that means one of your hands…" She faced forward again and grabbed one of his hands, placing it against her stomach. "is free." She reveled for a moment in the feeling of his palm warming her belly through the thin fabric of her tank top. "Do you think you can find something to do with it?" she playfully inquired.
"You're amazing." Izuku whispered. The tension that had appeared with the new tool left his body as he and Mei melted further into one another.
"I know." his partner replied. He didn't have to see the smug look on her face to know it was there.