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The plastic tub wobbled in May's hands. Her foot tapped against the floor, reverberating through the empty hallway. It was presentation day, and all she wanted to do was sprint away in the opposite direction.

Exhaustion wrapped its fingers around her body, threatening to take her away. She couldn't focus on that. Her eyes traveled upward to look at the sign above the door and she gnawed on her lip at the same time.

Class One-A, huh? Isn't this the class from the USJ? No... No... That was One-B. No. Was it? I can't remember. Did anyone even tell me?

May sighed, taking a quick glance at her watch. She was on time. Against her will? Perhaps. The Principal had texted her in the morning. At a ridiculous time, on top of that. She wondered if he had personally set an alarm to wake her up. He reminded her of her schedule and the classes she was supposed to present to. As if the previous two emails hadn't done that already.

She was up for hours on end. Letting her feet hang over the side of her bed, she thought about what first-year students would do. There was no way they'd care about anything she said. In her head, visions of glazed eyes and sticky spitballs caused knots in her stomach.

They were all probably in it for the same reason. The flashiness, the glory. When May was in middle school, she remembered the way other students talked about pro-heroes...

It was as if they ignored the ugly parts. And only saw the shiny plastic coating of fame.

She extended her arm, ready to knock on the door. Cementoss was right. They would chase her away with roars like jungle cats, prowling the schoolyard. May's heart leaped out of her throat and started packing a bag.

With her hand hanging in midair, the door opened. A familiar face greeted her from the other side. Aizawa looked more dead inside than usual.

"This is your class?" May asked aloud.

"Yeah," Aizawa said, his voice falling flat. "You can come in now."

He disappeared into the room before she could get another word in. May followed closely, trying to move her cinder block legs. At the front of the class, a small foldable table was set up. The chalkboard had bold letters stating, 'First Aid Presentation today— Behave.'

May set down the plastic bin, avoiding the copious stares from the class.

"This is Dr. Kataoka. You've all met her before, I presume. She's giving the presentation today," Aizawa said, using a ruler to slap the board. "Pay attention. She knows what she's talking about."

She whipped her head away from working through her bin, her eyebrows furrowing at his comment. His messages were so mixed. The previous day he had dismissed her remarks about his quirk, and she could barely catch his eye.

Brushing off the comment, May gave a slight shake of her head and attempted to recall her spreadsheet. A small list squeezed itself between her fingers. Shaking hands and poor handwriting made it completely illegible.

Okay, well, from what I remember of my plans—I have to have a volunteer of some sort. Um, I need time for them to practice. Is that the right thing? Should I just present and move on with it? I wonder what Aizawa's going to do. Will he sit in that empty chair over there? Wait, what is he doing?

May observed as Aizawa stalked toward the corner of the room, rolled out a yellow sleeping bag— a yellow sleeping bag? Her mouth fell open as he curled up on the floor and flipped to face the wall. May's eyes dropped back down to her open palms, and she froze.

He... He's sleeping!

Suddenly acutely aware of the twenty fifteen-year-olds, May broke into a broad smile and turned toward the class. She was bombarded with an array of eyes, all staring at her with quizzical looks. Words left the building, flying away from the roof of her mouth, and she couldn't catch any of them.

Their appearances were as expected. Slumped posture and yawns spotted the classroom. Of course she was right. They wouldn't care. A part of her had hoped at least one person would stay awake.

Instead, a hand shot up. It belonged to a girl with fluffy brown hair and chubby cheeks. "Aizawa-sensei?"

"Direct your questions to Dr. Kataoka, Uraraka," Aizawa growled from his sleeping bag. "I'm not teaching."

Her hand slowly lowered. May cleared her throat, time dragging itself along at an agonizingly slow rate. The speech she crafted died in her memory. She clasped her hands together, then unclasped them, letting them swing at her side.

Then, she slammed them together again.

"Hello, students!" May's voice was high, and she cleared her throat again.

Why was this so hard for her? It was as if judgment radiated from each of their little heads. She could give key-note presentations to high ranking medical professionals. But something about teenagers gave haunted houses a run for their money.

A green-haired girl rested her head in her palms, staring with intent and a tilted head. Uraraka, the girl from earlier, leaned over and said something to her. Then, they both nodded and continued to stare at May.

Whatever they said... I doubt it was nice. Um. Maybe that's not true. They're kids. May, focus. At least they look a little interested... Hey! Interested! Perhaps if they can make fun of me the whole time, they'll at least learn something.

May continued speaking after a pause. "I'm going to be demonstrating some basic emergency medical maneuvers that'll be useful for your line of work!"

Am I too peppy? They're high-schoolers, not kindergartners! I don't know how to deliver this. Don't panic, May. It's fine. They're going to stop paying attention anyways. I could sing my whole presentation, maybe then... Let's see. Come on, try to remember—

"As you... um... you all were there at the USJ, right?" May asked, switching the direction of her statement halfway through. She was encouraged by nodding heads. Even the grumpy blonde-haired kid in the corner sat up.

"So, as you witnessed a couple of days ago, you never know when you'll be in a life-or-death situation. It's important to look out for yourself, as well as others."

May pushed up her glasses. Their faces started to melt together, and an imaginary spotlight blinded her. She blinked a couple of times. You can do this. Just keep trying. But, to her surprise, more eyes lifted to hers. Some pencils stopped tapping.

"I know... um... I know it can be scary seeing people hurt in such chaotic situations," May said, her eyes skirting up toward the ceiling. "Even after everything I've seen, I still become afraid every so often."

Her stare returned to the students. She tried to hide the slight disbelief striking her upside the head. Many of them looked intrigued by what she had to say, and she even watched a hand raise. Her posture straightened at the sight of this. The hand belonged to a red-haired boy with a soft expression.

"Yes?" May asked with hesitation and then she looked to all of them. "If you ask a question, start by introducing yourself so... um... I know you."

"I have a question," the kid started, and then he perked up. "Oh! Wait, I'm Kirishima. But my question is... how do you focus in a situation like what happened to us?"

"Focus?" May repeated, staring at Kirishima. He nodded, a slight smile on his features.

Questions? This early on?

"Yeah! I wasn't sure where to even begin. I knew I needed to fight villains! But what about my classmates? Civilians? I think we were all confused," Kirishima continued, garnering nods of agreement from the others.

"Yeah! I was completely frozen!" The voice came from nowhere, which May quickly learned it was from the floating clothes. An invisible girl?

May put her hand to her chin, thinking about how to approach the question. She didn't prepare for the possibility of legitimate inquiries.

Should she be serious? They needed serious. Should she sugar coat it? No, when did she ever do that! May tried to think about how it would occur in a hospital, depending on the levels of the staff.

"To be honest," May began. "I don't know much about the role of heroes outside of a hospital setting. I think your main goal, if you are working alone, is to neutralize the threat and to distract while emergency crews begin extraction. Once the threat is contained, you can move on to basic triage. Which you'll learn about today! Does that make sense? If you're on a team, you'll designate roles to each hero."

When May stopped talking, she saw a couple of students jotting down notes. Notes? Her eyes blinked a couple of times. She opened her mouth to say something else, but nothing would come out. She recognized the green cloud of hair that was Midoriya, furiously scribbling. The pressure was on.

Oh no. Was she supposed to quiz them? Was this an actual lesson? She swallowed again. Was she the one that underestimated the interest students would have? May rubbed the side of her face, zoned out, and attempted to comprehend her surprise.

The class had grown eerily silent. That's right. She had to, you know, actually teach. May's hand flung away from her face so fast she felt her nail scratch her cheek, and she looked toward the redhead's direction.

"A great question, Kira... Kirashinto!"

The class stifled laughter. May's cheeks burned. That wasn't his name, and she had said it with so much confidence. It was like her entire body frosted over, her hands becoming numb and fuzzy.

"That's not your name, is it?" May asked, squeezing her eyes shut and then opening them again. "I apologize."

"It's alright!" Kirishima said, grinning. "It's Kirishima!"

A blonde-haired kid with black zig-zags in his hair moved out from behind the desk, covering his mouth. "You sure about that, Kirashinto?"

"Quiet," Aizawa boomed from his sleeping bag.

The class settled down, and May tried to continue with her presentation. Her voice shook a little bit more than before, flustered by her name-butchering. The fact they were actively listening, for some reason, made her nausea worse.

"When you know what to do, everything is a lot easier. You won't have time to be afraid. You'll be armed with knowledge!" May said, breaking into a bright nervous smile.

Crickets.

That was horrible. So incredibly cringy.

May kept her hands together to keep them from wildly gesturing. Nothing was landing right, and she stumbled through her next words. "Today, we'll be going over basic wound care, spinal injuries, burns, resuscitation, shock, and some equipment."

A hand burst through the sea of heads again. It was attached to Uraraka.

"Dr. Kataoka?"

"Yes!" May pointed in her direction, hoping to fix her name flub from earlier. "What's your question?"

"Hi, I'm Uraraka," she said, pointing to herself. Her voice softened after introducing herself. "I guess my question is a little much, but... um... What if... What if we can't do anything? What do we do? Like, um, how badly Thirteen was injured. I... we didn't have anything to help."

May felt her own expression fall. They had seen everything.

She remembered dashing past them, marking them as green. Their faces, even if it was a blur, left imprints. Fear for their instructors, fear for themselves, and fear for their separated classmates. How could she keep forgetting that?

May took a deep breath, giving a smile with her response.

"A good question, Uraraka. And not an easy one to answer," May said, watching Uraraka's face light up a little. "In situations like the one you were in, there was nothing you could do except move the injured and yourself to safety. Like I said earlier, heroes need to neutralize the threat, right? Sometimes, waiting for emergency personnel is your best option. You all did a wonderful job with your limited knowledge and did what heroes were supposed to do."

"You really think so?"

May had turned away from the students and toward her plastic bin but, she stopped in her tracks. Uraraka's small question echoed around in her head.

You really think so?

Her gaze looked out toward the rest of the classroom. Not a single student looked tired or bored or annoyed. They were told how well they did... weren't they?

May felt a lump in her throat. Maybe flashiness wasn't the first thing on their mind.

She wasn't fair to them.

"Yeah. I really think so. You contained the threat, you got the injured to safety, and allowed for me to do my job. That's all anyone could ever ask of you." The words were softer than she ever intended.

Realizing this, she cleared her throat and her voice cracked with her next statement. "So... um... two thumbs up, students."

The class, despite her awkward thumbs up, had satisfied smiles on their faces.

After answering, May thought about what she was going to do next. She went to her plastic bin, digging around for a specific piece of old equipment. May looked out toward the class again. Oh, that's right. She needed a volunteer, a patient.

May didn't feel comfortable enough pulling from the pool of students. But, looking at the yellow mass balled up on the floor, it felt like her only option. She didn't dare wake the wrath of Aizawa.

"Now... for my next trick... I'm gonna need assistance from the audience." May tried to change the inflection of her tone to give a little goofiness. It didn't work. Just a mess. "Can I have a volunteer to play patient for me?"

One hand exploded into view. May recognized the glint of his glasses and neat hair. It was the Iida kid, the one that sprinted all the way to the school to find them.

"Iida, is it?" She beckoned him forward. "Come on, then."

He didn't have much regard for the other desks. He'd occasionally bump one with his stick straight arms, but it didn't mess with his immaculate posture. May felt her eyebrow quirk. It was like she was seeing another kid— a much more rigid one.

"As class rep, it's my responsibility to demonstrate my gratitude on behalf of the class!" Iida said while marching and bowed for May.

"It's not a big deal, I promise," May squeaked out, waving her hands back and forth. "You're just going to sit in this chair and... um... that's it."

She could hear him settle into the chair, students beginning to murmur between each other. May shook her head while digging around for an old piece of gauze. She overheard conversations while doing so.

"Medical stuff is kinda cool, don't you think, Todoroki?" Uraraka chirped.

"Sure," a deeper voice responded.

Across the room, May picked out more voices.

"You okay, Denki?" A girl's voice said, presumably the pink one sitting closest to him.

"Doesn't all of this talk make you a little queasy? All I can think about are bones! We're made of bones! That's too much for my brain to handle."

The girl audibly sighed. "We're more than bones. There's also water in there somewhere."

She struggled to separate the mass of equipment quickly and realized how quiet the room grew. After slapping the tangle against her thighs a couple of times, May finally fixed it all. She lifted her eyes and spoke again.

"Alright," May said and faced the class again, gauze in hand. "Who knows the difference between an arterial bleed and a venous bleed?"

There weren't any hands for a couple of seconds. Many students looked between each other, their eyes wide and almost speaking through their expressions. A girl with a black ponytail slowly raised her hand, and May nodded to her.

"Hello, Dr. Kataoka. I'm Yaoyorozu. Arterial bleeds are characterized by bright red, spurting blood. Venous is deeper in color and more of a steady flow."

"Fantastic!" May said, pointing toward her. Someone knew what she was talking about! A strange sense of excitement rushed through her veins. The thoughts she had earlier about hero motivations melted away. She dove headfirst into giving all she could.

May turned to Iida. "I'm going to take your arm now, okay?"

"Do whatever you need to, Dr. Kataoka! I'm your volunteer!" Iida said, holding his arms out in a stick-straight manner.

May chose his right arm and positioned herself so the class could see.

"If you don't have anything like a piece of gauze, you can always use clothing or even your hands," she said and unraveled the gauze so it could cover more distance. "You take your material or your hand and press directly down on the wound. Say Iida's arm has a lateral laceration—er—cut on his forearm..."

Relax with the technical terms, Robot.

May pointed toward the outside of his forearm, facing away from his abdomen. She pressed the gauze into his arm, keeping a light hold. "You should hold it firmly for sixty seconds, and if that doesn't stop it..."

The students were leaning forward over the desks, watching. May rummaged through her plastic bin, grabbing a bright orange tourniquet. "You might have to use a tourniquet. Heroes aren't required to carry one in the field, according to regulations, but if you do— it could save a life."

"I can totally make one of those," Yaoyorozu said to herself, looking to the green-haired girl for affirmation.

The green-haired girl had a finger on her chin, nodding. "You could, Momo. In fact, you could make a lot of this equipment. Your quirk is excellent for support, ribbit."

May slid the tourniquet over Iida's arm, careful to only twist once and secure it. She showed them how it worked, explaining each part in depth. She continued on with wound care, highlighting infection risks.

There were moments where she could feel herself slipping deep into technicalities, and their faces would screw up into confusion.

May overheard one of the larger male students speak. "Do you know what she's talking about?"

"I'm afraid I don't, but it must be important if she's telling us," a boy with a bird-head responded.

She decided to rein it in, trying to use more common terminology again or moving on to a new topic altogether. It was difficult to gauge precisely how to talk to those that didn't understand her word choice. Frustration bubbled up in her throat, and she'd let it simmer down, reminding herself of her audience.

"Next, it's important to understand that individuals with a spinal injury or head injury should be moved in a particular way," May said, jumping into her next topic of choice. "If you have the chance to help emergency crews, they may ask you to hold c-spine."

"She's not serious, is she?" The blonde-haired boy from earlier turned to the person next to him. "We have to hold someone's spine?"

The whole class hushed, stifling laughter as their eyes rested on him.

May shook her head, breaking into a smile. "No, not in this case, at least! If you were holding someone's spine, that would be an awful day, wouldn't it?"

"Wait, is she actually serious? Did she have to hold a spine?"

"There's no way. That person has to be dead. Right? That's impossible."

May felt her smile fall as the class stared at her now, their faces contorted in mixtures of fear and disgust as they spoke to one another. Except for one.

Kirishima held up his fists, speaking aloud to himself. "It'd be so manly to hold somebody's spine."

"Not that you'd ever have to! Um, anyway," May said, ignoring any comments and moving behind Iida. "You just hold their head, so they don't move, while emergency services work on securing them. Like this—"

Her fingers were spread, and she placed them around Iida's ears. She kept a light hold, making sure his head was facing straight.

"That's it?" Uraraka asked from the back.

"Yes, it is! Not so bad, huh?" May said, releasing her hands from Iida's head.

I hope my fingers weren't too cold. Gah, I should've said something! I put on hand sanitizer before this. It's probably assaulting his nose as we speak. I hope he doesn't have any cuts near his face. I didn't see any? Oh well—

May continued through her presentation, excited to answer any questions thrown her way. Well—some were more interesting than others.

"What's a gluteus maximus?" A short purple-haired kid asked, laughing to himself. He received some glares from a couple of the girls.

"It's the muscle that's attached to your coccyx and the surrounding bones," May replied without overthinking, and then gathered equipment for her next section.

The purple-haired kid's eyebrows furrowed, and he looked off to the side. "That wasn't what I expected."

She managed to power through everything with much more ease than she anticipated. At the very end of her time, she had gathered enough supplies to have students practice with each other.

Letting the students loose was important, May knew that. But it came with chaos. She scooted between the desks, overseeing everything.

"Dr. Kataoka!" Midoriya called out, sitting with Iida as they worked on her checklist together.

"Oh, hello," May said, standing in front of them. "Is everything going alright?"

"Yeah! I just have a question." Midoriya shrugged his shoulders and then averted his eyes. "Do you have um... book recommendations... for injuries?"

"I do," May said, skepticism filling her tone. "Are you interested in medicine, Midoriya?"

"Yeah!"

She could see a tattered notebook lying on the corner of his desk, a pencil sticking out of the top. Throughout her presentation, he had been viciously taking notes. May nodded her head, trying to stop the furrowing of her brow.

"I see," she said and then smiled. "Come by my office when you get the chance, and we can talk about it!"

"Alright! Thank you!" That same determined look spread across his features.

Weird.

May moved on after talking to the two boys for a minute or two. She noticed two students fighting each other, one attempting to yank his arm away.

"Woah, Bakugou! You're killing my arm, dude!" Kirishima said, trying to pry Bakugou's arm off of his.

"I'm just trying to hold pressure like the doctor lady said! Why're you being such a baby? I'm not even pressing that hard! Do you want to die?" Bakugou yelled, his voice easily overpowering the other student.

May hurried through the desks and approached the two. "Woah, woah! Bakugou... and Kirishima, right?"

Bakugou released the boy's arm, his angry expression fading into stone-cold annoyance. The redhead beamed, pointing to himself. "You got it, Doctor!"

"Alright, I see you're working on wound management?" May asked and they nodded. "If you press too hard, on a wide area, you may risk damaging surrounding uninjured tissue. It should be hard enough to stop the bleeding, but soft enough to reduce possible damage. Try again."

Bakugou stared down at the piece of gauze and then looked at Kirishima's arm. He sighed, his lips tightening.

May had, on top of everything else, prepared scripts for the students. As in, ways to explain procedures to injured victims, which was customary in emergency medicine. May watched, noticing how other students were examining the sheets of paper she had handed out carefully.

"I'm going to stop the bleeding now, citizen," Bakugou read, his voice monotone and dead. "This might hurt, but I'm here to help."

Kirishima braced himself, his teeth clenched together in a grimace. Then, on cue, Bakugou pressed the gauze into his arm. Kirishima's shoulders fell, and he gave Bakugou a thumbs up.

"Hey, that's better!" he said, looking to May.

May clapped her hands together. "Good! See? It's not too difficult. Great job, Baku...er... Bakugou."

After leaving the two boys behind and moving toward other groups to assist, she figured her time was up. May was swept up in all of the questions, spouting off about extraneous medical information and technicalities that were way too deep for their scope. Her words bounded out with passion, pointing to anatomical structures and babbling about all sorts of medical procedures.

Seeing their faces light up after understanding what she had to say gave her a rush of adrenaline. Her eyes would widen, and her voice would rise, then she'd have to clear her throat and settle down. But they cared. They wanted to be providers.

They wanted to be providers.

Aizawa emerged from his sleeping bag and led May out of the room before she could spout off about medical anomalies. They gave her some waves as she left, thanking her out loud.

"I didn't take up too much of your class time, did I?" May asked, facing him. Students chattered away in his classroom.

"Yes, you did," Aizawa said, his expression hidden behind his usual mop of hair and the added bandages. "Shortening instruction time for future presentations would be more logical."

"Ah, sorry. I... I did get kinda carried away. Thanks," May said, her gaze falling toward the ground. "Well, I hope the rest of your day goes well. Come to my office if you have any pain, okay?"

"Whatever," he replied and didn't leave her a chance to say anything else.

The door slammed in her face, causing May to jump. Her stomach dropped to her knees, and she was back in the empty hallway. A red-hot feeling slithered into her chest, catching itself in her throat. Why did he have to slam it like that? Unnecessary. She shoved the swirling red anger down, letting it simmer with the rest of her unacknowledged thoughts.

It didn't matter. May exhaled. It didn't matter. She had another class to teach. And friends arriving later that week.