Chapter Text
The news was on in Hawks’s office, and Ochako froze in front of it, mouth hanging open as she watched the spectacle on screen. Hawks had summoned her on the intercoms less than thirty seconds ago, and she now understood why.
“I called you as soon as I saw the location,” Hawks said, nodding at the TV. “That’s your apartment, right?”
“That is definitely my apartment,” she confirmed, and then winced when an explosion ripped through the front of the building.
Ochako respected Bakugou, she really did, but why on earth did he seem to make it his life’s work to destroy everything around him while he was fighting? It was fine when he was taking someone on in a park or an empty field, but when there was a fight like this, in a crowded, residential area… He always seemed to leave a bigger mess than any other hero, at least since Endeavour. His damages were off the charts.
“Tell me they at least evacuated it.”
“Worried about your cats?”
“I don’t own any cats.”
“Really? You seem like a cat person.”
Ochako glared at him. “This isn’t funny. People live in that building. I live in that building.” She gestured at the screen to accentuate her point, and at that very moment, the entire apartment collapsed. Hawks cringed, wings ruffling a little in sympathy.
“I’ll help you find somewhere else to crash until you get your feet under you again,” he offered, reaching for his phone.
“Thanks,” Ochako said faintly, staring at the screen again. Cameras zoomed into the wreckage. There was no movement– at least until Bakugou shot across the screen again, shouting something or other.
“You should probably start calling the claims people or something.”
“Yeah.” She shook her head, pulling out her phone. “Yeah, you’re right.”
She’d joined Hawks’s agency two years ago, after trying and failing to be a rescue hero. It wasn’t that her quirk wasn’t good for it– it was, she was great at being a rescue hero, but she just… didn’t like it. While she’d never admit this to anybody, Ochako kind of enjoyed the thrill she got from smacking villains into the ground. Of course, if anyone asked, she’d claim she switched into daylight heroics because she felt pent up or because she wanted a change in scenery, but no, it was really because she’d missed punching people. Which was horrible, of course, and she knew it was, but she couldn’t help the way she felt.
It was better this way anyway. She got to hang out with her friends more often– Iida had gone into daylight heroics right away, and so had Todoroki and Yaoyorozu. Asui was still doing rescue hero stuff, but Ochako didn’t see her often anyway, so this wasn’t much different. Shinsou was underground. Tokoyami worked with Hawks already and told her she could just join up, and so she did. Technically she still worked as a rescue hero, just in Hawks’s agency, but this was what she wanted. To be in the city again, lifting up pieces of rubble and sometimes socking villains in the face. This was what she liked.
Her therapist said she probably got so used to fighting people in high school that switching to a more calmer way of being a hero was a difficult transition for her. That was probably true. Ochako saw it more as that she wanted to stop people from being hurt in the first place, rather than just clean up the damage after the daylight heroes had taken down criminals. But yes, most of that probably stemmed from her history at UA.
If she’d been there for this fight Dynamight was having, she would have been able to save her apartment complex. Instead, she was now sitting at her desk in Hawks’s agency, talking on the phone to some very tired-sounding government employees. What a life she was living. For some reason she’d thought being a hero would be a little more glamorous than it really was, like somehow by becoming a hero she’d avoid all the drama of normal life. She still had that drama, plus extra.
Well, plus ultra, right?
Maybe she just needed a break.
Three hours later, she finished talking to various grumpy government people and pressed her head into the desk, sighing heavily. This whole thing was a mess. She needed to find a new apartment, and she’d lost all of her belongings in the wreckage too, so she’d need to replace all that. Hopefully she had enough money for that. She thought she probably did, but she might be stretching it kind of thin over the next couple weeks.
“Sorry about your apartment,” Tokoyami said, walking by.
“I hated it anyway,” she said, not entirely truthfully.
“Oh.”
Her phone rang and she lifted her head to look at it, blinking blearily as she read the caller ID. Iida. He must have seen the news, then.
She accepted the phone and lifted it to her ear, rubbing a hand over her forehead. “Hey, Iida,” she said, all-too-aware of how tired she sounded. “What’s up.”
“ I saw the news! ” he said loudly. “ Are you harmed? ”
“No, I’m fine. I’m at work.”
“ Have you called the necessary departments to get your money back? ”
“Mmhmm.”
“ Good! My deepest apologies that this happened to you! ”
“It’s really fine,” she said, blinking a few extra times as Hawks poked his head into her office and grinned at her toothily. He looked pleased with himself, and a little like he had too much time on his hands. “I can always just get a new one.”
“ Let me know if you need any assistance. ”
“Okay, I will. Hey, listen, Hawks is giving me a weird look, so I need to hop off. I’ll call you later, all right?”
“ Very well! Good luck! ”
“Thanks. Bye.” She hung up, raising her eyebrows at Hawks.
“I found you a job and a place to stay,” he said triumphantly.
“I have a job already…?”
He tipped his head to the side. “Then, I found you a place to stay, and I have a job for you.”
Ochako nodded to show she was listening.
“I think you’re going to like it. Come into my office and I’ll give you the deets.”
Ochako nodded again, scooping up her phone and following him out of the room. Tokoyami gave them a curious look as they passed and she shrugged at him. She didn’t know any more than he did. Hopefully she really would like this job though. Hopefully it wouldn’t be another one of Hawks’s very bad ideas.
Hawks led her into his office and flipped his computer screen around so she could see it. On it, there was just a picture of someone Ochako didn’t recognize. They had green hair. Lots of freckles. She looked at Hawks, not really sure what was going on.
“Okay, so, you know Hatsume Mei?” he said, grinning.
She could never forget the pink-haired inventor, especially since she’d hired Hatsume Industries to be her support agency. “Yeah?”
“Midoriya Izuku is her friend,” he said, nodding at the picture.
She frowned at the picture. Midoriya Izuku. She still had no idea who he was. Hawks looked like he was going to take his time to explain. “A couple days ago, she requested he be given a sort of bodyguard–”
“ Hell no,” Ochako said, already backing toward the door. She wasn’t a babysitter. She wasn’t going to watch some incapable boy struggle to protect himself.
“Listen, I’m not done.”
“I am not being a live-in bodyguard.”
“Read the report first? Let me make my pitch?”
She sighed, holding out her hand for the job proposal. Grinning, Hawks passed her a packet of papers. She skimmed over the first one. It looked like a pretty simple job, actually. Protect Midoriya Izuku at his house, make sure he was sleeping and eating and showering, and effectively make sure no villains kidnapped him. Why on earth this Midoriya Izuku needed a bodyguard, Ochako didn’t know, and didn’t particularly care.
“I am not a stay-at-home mom or a babysitter,” she snapped, holding the files out for him to take back. “I’m not going to live in some random guy’s house. I would honestly rather sleep under my desk.”
He didn’t take the files, just continued to sit there with his arms folded over his waist. “I hear you, I do, but apparently he never leaves his lab anyway .”
Lab?
“So it would be like he wasn’t even there. You’d basically have the whole apartment to yourself. And since you have experience with the yakuza, I figured–”
“Woah, woah, woah, back up,” she said sharply. “The yakuza? What do they have to do with anything?”
“Do you…” he looked from her, to the picture, to her again. “Do you not know who this is?”
Shrugging a little, she shook her head. “Should I?”
“Have you not…” Hawks looked genuinely flabbergasted. “You don’t know who this is?”
Her arm was starting to hurt from holding out these files. “No, I don’t know who that is,” she said, maybe more angrily than she would have on any other day.
“How do you not…”
“How about you just tell me instead of making me stand around all day?” Yeah, she was tired. She’d be taking a long nap as soon as possible.
“Right, um, Midoriya Izuku. He’s a literal genius when it comes to support tech. He worked as Hatsume’s partner for a while– they patented all sorts of literally crazy inventions. You know the quirk suppressing cell blocks they have in prisons now? Midoriya Izuku. The literally unhackable comms heroes use nowadays? Midoriya Izuku. Oh– the translators we have now so we can communicate with anyone we come across? Midoriya Izuku. He’s been nominated for a ton of awards, although he never actually wins them. He’s also insane at analysis. Hero companies call him all the time to get a new perspective on villains. He solves crimes faster than the police. I’m honestly surprised you haven’t heard of him.”
“I’ve been working in rescue.”
“Um, yeah, you know that tablet you rescue heroes carry around? The one that can give you all of someone’s medical information just with a facial scan.”
Of course she knew what that was, it was probably the most useful tool she’d used on the job. It was so useful, she’d actually made an ad campaign encouraging people to put their information in. That thing had saved many, many lives. “Are you saying this Midoriya person…”
“Yes.”
“Okay, so he’s crazy smart and can make cool inventions. That doesn’t explain why…” Actually, it did. If this Midoriya Izuku was that good at making support equipment, then he would be a major target for kidnapping. The yakuza probably wanted support tech for themselves so they could get their feet under themselves. Most of the branches were falling apart by now. They probably needed a little boost, and where better to get it than an up-and-coming, genius inventor?
She looked at the picture a little closer. He had kind of a startled expression on his face, like he hadn’t expected the picture to be taken when it did. But he also had the barest hint of a smile starting in his mouth, in the corners of his eyes. He looked nice enough. Not like the type of guy who would be a jerk to someone who randomly showed up to live in his house. Ochako sighed. She’d wanted to be a daylight hero so she could prevent villains from hurting people. Protecting Midoriya Izuku would protect him and a lot of other civilians. So…
“Fine,” she said, tucking the files into her chest. “Fine. But I am not –”
“A babysitter, got it. I didn’t say you were. You’re a bodyguard. Think of it more like a guard dog.”
“That’s not any better.”
“I’ll call Hatsume, ask if she’ll take you. You– pack up whatever you might have that you need. Maybe go shopping for necessities or something. Regroup in an hour.”
Ochako nodded and left his office, already pulling out her phone and doing a search on Midoriya Izuku. His name popped up within five letters and she shook her head. How hadn’t she heard of him before, if he was this famous?
She found his Wikipedia page and scrolled through it. He’d been nominated for a lot of awards. He apparently had graduated from the top support school in the country, which was surprisingly not UA. He was her age. She came to a list of his inventions and read through them with wide eyes. He’d invented a ton of stuff that she used every day, without even thinking about it. The lightweight quirk suppressing handcuffs she’d come to appreciate and use daily were made by him. He’d started standardising putting basic essentials in every hero suit, things like a tracker that could be linked to other areas, or lightweight-yet-incredibly-strong tips to the shoes that made kicks really hurt . He’d been the one to make the small GPS system that could be put anywhere on a hero suit. Ochako had hers on the inside of her wrist. Easily accessible, and it worked without internet access.
She scrolled back up to the top to find what his quirk was and nearly dropped her phone. Quirkless. Holy fuck.
Midoriya Izuku had completely revolutionised the hero industry and he was quirkless . That helped to explain why he thought he needed a bodyguard too.
Ochako sighed. When she joined Hawks’s agency, this wasn’t really what she’d been picturing, but okay. She could do this. She didn’t really need to– she had enough money saved up to live in hotels for a couple days until she got her feet under her, or she could crash with anyone of her classmates from UA, but getting paid to live with this quirkless inventor who probably wasn’t really going to be attacked anyway was a good enough option, she supposed. That didn’t mean she was completely happy about it, but she would take it.
She packed up a few essentials from her office– her laptop, her hero suit, which had thankfully been redesigned since she left UA, the files she’d been given on Midoriya Izuku, and a few water bottles. She dug her spare changes of clothes out from the bottom drawer of her desk– the amount of outfits she could destroy in a day was honestly ridiculous, so she always kept a couple back-ups in her office. And then she ran to the store across the street and bought a toothbrush, toothpaste, a pair of sweats and a hoodie, and a few other essentials, before returning to her office and packing all of that in one big box. Pleased, she lifted the box up, floating it to make it easier, and walked back to Hawks’s office.
“Okay, I’m ready,” she said as she pushed the door open with her shoulder.
“Is that Uravity?” an excitable voice sounded from within.
She poked her head around the box to beam at one energetic inventor. “Hey Hatsume! Nice to see you again.”
“How are the boots on your costume working?” Hatsume asked, golden eyes burning intensely. She bounded over. “Do you like the wrist enhancements?”
“Yes, they’re both great, thank you.”
“Good! Let me know if you need anything else! I have a few more babies you could try too. A few tweaks. How do you feel about the idea of explosions coming out of your–”
“Okay, let’s get moving!” Hawks said, clapping his hands together. “Hatsume, can you take Uraraka over? I don’t need to be there, right?”
“Nope! Uravity and I can manage just fine. Is that all your stuff, Ochako-chan?”
Ochako almost choked at the use of her first name, but she managed to not, and she nodded. “Yep, this is all I need.”
“Great! Then we’ll be off! Thank you Hawks-san, I really appreciate it. Izuku can be kind of an idiot. He has no sense of self-worth– it’s honestly ridiculous, well, come on then Ochako! Out we go!”
Ochako sent Hawks a despairing look and wiggled her fingers around until she got to a position where she could flip him off without dropping the box in her arms. He just grinned and waved her out. Best boss ever.
Hatsume rambled about inventions and support all the way down the hallway and into a very fancy car, which she claimed to have invented with Midoriya. Then she rambled on the entire drive, which Ochako took as an opportunity to text all her worried classmates and friends back. It was flattering, how many of them had texted to check in, and how many of them had offered to let her stay at their homes. Ochako responded to everyone and let them know she was fine but she’d probably be off the map for a few days, and then shut off her phone and returned to listening to Hatsume’s chatter. Oddly enough, their drive took them into the warehouse district.
“Um, is this right?” Ochako interrupted as Hatsume stopped the car outside of a particularly nondescript warehouse. It was incredibly boring-looking. And it was a warehouse. It had a row of windows up top, but other than that, it looked abandoned and unaccessible. Ochako couldn’t even see a door.
“This is definitely right,” Hatsume said, nodding. “I know, it looks really plain, but Izuku never goes outside, so he doesn’t really see the outside of it much anyway.”
“Why doesn’t he…”
“Because he’s inside all the time, silly!”
That did answer the question, but it wasn’t really an explanation. Ochako let it go. She’d probably figure it out soon enough anyway.
Hatsume walked up to a section of the metal warehouse wall and clicked a small button that Ochako wouldn’t have noticed otherwise. “Izuku!” she screamed, holding the button down. “Open the door!”
On closer inspection, Ochako saw the barest outline of a door in the side of the warehouse, but it was such a thin line that, again, if she hadn’t known it was there, she wouldn’t have been able to see it.
“Izuku!” Hatsume called again, pressing the button down almost violently.
The door opened. Ochako looked to see who answered it, but there was no one there.
“It’s mechanised,” Hatsume explained over her shoulder as she marched in.
Ochako gave up trying to understand and just followed her. The door shut silently behind her. Inside the warehouse was a complete mess. There were tools and machines everywhere, strewn all over the floor, stacked on the multiple desks in the room. And the warehouse was big . There was a robot-sort of thing in one corner, still and menacing, and way on the other side, Ochako could see the barest hint of movement.
“Aha!” Hatsume said happily. “He’s working on his computers. Over here.”
She led Ochako through the warehouse, carefully weaving around machinery, and Ochako followed equally carefully, trying not to step on anything. They made it to the other side of the warehouse, and Ochako paused, getting her bearings again. There were a couple huge garage doors on this side of it, all of them neatly camouflaged into the back wall, and there was a staircase which led into what she could only assume was a second story of messes. Okay.
“Izuku,” Hatsume said, snapping Ochako’s attention back to what was going on.
A small ring of desks sat to the right of the garage doors, all of them covered in computers and pieces of paper, and in the middle of them was Midoriya Izuku. His green hair was even more brilliant in person, curly and tufty and falling all over the place. It was also covered in soot.
He was immersed in his computer work, clicking and typing, and he looked exhausted , like he hadn’t slept in days. He also looked like he was unaware of this fact.
“Mm,” he said to Hatsume, not even glancing up. “What.”
“Oi. Eyes up here.”
He looked up. His gaze fell on Hatsume and then moved immediately over to Ochako. He scanned her up and down once, frowned at the box in her hands, and then looked back at Hatsume. “Hi.”
“Hi. This is Uraraka Ochako. She’s here to scare off any members of the Kowareta Kage when they visit again.”
Again?
Midoriya didn’t look particularly pleased with this information, but his expression didn’t change much so Uraraka wasn’t sure. He looked at her again. All Might, he had so many freckles. It was like the sun had decided to explode all over him. “I told you, Mei,” he said, turning back to his friend. “I don’t need a bodyguard. I’m just fine by myself. It’s not like they’ve done anything besides threaten me anyway, and I’m fully capable of calling heroes by myself.”
So the yakuza had threatened him? When? Was this in the report and Ochako had missed something?
“Okay, I hear the words coming out of your mouth,” she said, “but they don’t make any sense, so I’m going to go ahead and ignore them. Ochako’s getting paid to be here, so please just don’t kick her out. You can yell at me later. I need to go back to work.”
He scowled. And then nodded. “Fine. I’m going to call you later.”
“Good deal. Bye.” Hatsume patted Ochako sympathetically on the back, almost in anticipation of whatever hell she was subjecting Ochako to, and then she walked away, weaving her way back through the scattered inventions.
Ochako looked at Midoriya, who was scrutinising her carefully.
“Um, for the record, I don’t really want to be here either,” she said honestly. “My apartment just got blown up, so Hawks gave me this assignment. I can be out of your hair pretty soon here.”
He looked at her for a moment longer, and his expression seemed to soften. “Dynamight, huh?”
Surprised, Ochako nodded. She hadn’t expected him to know that, given how immersed he looked in his work.
“Okay,” he said. “Um, so… Is that all your stuff?”
She looked down at the box in her arms and then nodded again.
“Okay. So, go up the stairs over there, and then walk straight down the hall. Um, take the hallway to the left and the guest bedroom is the first door on your right. The bathroom’s the next door over. You can, um, feel free to look around, but if you come across a locked door, don’t go in there. That’s just kind of common sense, which I assume you have.”
“Right.”
“Okay. Mm, bye.”
He returned his attention to his computer. Ochako readjusted her grip on her box and then walked carefully up the stairs to the second level. Her first impression of Midoriya Izuku was just that he was interesting. A little awkward, blunt one moment and borderline apologetic the next, but around all of that, he felt… kind. He had a kind face.
The staircase ended on a short hallway going along the side of the warehouse. There was a door on the left and then another hallway, which Ochako took. Almost right away, the hallway opened up into a kitchen and dining area. The kitchen was literally spotless, which was funny when compared to the mess of the downstairs area. The dining room was equally clean, leading Ochako to wonder whether or not Midoriya ever actually used either of them.
She pushed the door to the guest room open and walked in, looking around. It was clean, a little dusty, but clean. There was one double bed with two nightstands. A window, on the far wall, and a closet. It looked like it had been pulled straight out of a magazine. Ochako set her box down on the bed, doing some mental math. She’d probably need more clothes, and she’d need to call Hatsume to get a new suit, since her backup had just been destroyed in an apartment collapse. Other than that, this would be fine.
She wandered back out of the room and found the bathroom, checking it over. It was, again, perfectly spotless, and looked like a magazine had been copied into it. It was also very big. She opened the next door over. It was full of cardboard boxes, like the type of thing people move stuff in. She hesitated before opening one of them. It had hero merch in it.
Smiling to herself, she backed out of that one and moved onto the next. This one was locked. She frowned slightly, wondering what was in there, and then checked the next one, which opened easily. A linen closet. She almost laughed. It felt like such a weird thing to have in a place like this, but even Midoriya needed towels. The next door opened to a little in-house gym, which looked very well-stocked. Ochako made a mental note to ask Midoriya if she could borrow that every once in a while.
Across the hall from the linen closet and gym was a living room area, which was a little more messy than everything else she’d seen upstairs so far, but only in that there were blankets scattered everywhere and the tv remote was on the floor. All the walls were covered in bookshelves, which were packed with books, some of them spilling onto the floor or various tables around the room.
She went back down the hall, all the way to the first hallway she’d been in, and then checked the door at the top of the stairs. It was another closet, this one with laundry machines in it and a few other things. On the other end of the hall was a room that honestly could have passed for another guest room, if it weren’t for the slight mess to it. It looked more lived-in than her room, with a few personal items hanging around. So, that was Midoriya's room, then.
Ochako returned to the kitchen and opened the fridge absentmindedly. It looked well-stocked, plenty of fruits and veggies, and she had to wonder who exactly it was she was bodyguarding. The downstairs was a literal mess, and the upstairs looked like a showroom had thrown up, making a picture-perfect living space.
“I’m not a complete mess,” Midoriya said from behind her. Ochako jumped, closing the fridge. She honestly hadn’t heard him come up.
“I can see that,” she said.
“I really don’t need a babysitter.”
Ochako bit back a smile, glad they were on the same page. “Good thing I’m not one, then.”
He frowned curiously at her, and then nodded toward the end of the hall. “The locked door is, um, a lab space. It’s nice to have a clean room where I can mess with chemicals without worrying about contamination. It’s locked because I don’t want contamination, and also because there are a lot of kind of dangerous things in there.”
“Okay.”
“Okay. I just came up to see if you needed anything.”
She shook her head. “I just wanted to see if I needed to go out and buy anything, but you seem well-stocked.”
“I can take care of myself. Um, and you can eat any of that in the fridge or, um, the cupboards, if you want it, and there’s soap in the closet down the hall if you need that, and, um, if you want to read any of the books in the living room or use the TV, that’s fine, so… yeah.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
Ochako felt herself start to smile and she bit it back again.
“Um, sorry,” he looked at the floor, a crease starting between his eyebrows.
She shook her head. “There’s nothing to apologise for.”
“I… I’m going to go back downstairs. Just. Tell me if you need anything?”
“Okay. I’ll probably come down in a second, if that’s okay. I am technically supposed to be guarding you.”
“Right.” He nodded a few more times than was strictly necessary, looking like he was more in his head than this conversation right now.
“Maybe you should have my phone number? Just in case there’s an emergency and I’m not right there.”
“Oh!” He looked up at her, surprised. “Okay. Um, I’ll go get my phone really fast.”
He disappeared– and he was actually quite fast– and a moment later he was back, holding his phone with two hands. She gave him her number and he sent her a text so she had his too, and then, apologising again for some unknown reason, he vanished downstairs again.
Ochako pressed the back of her hand into her mouth, trying to stop grinning. He was really cute. It was literally against all the rules of bodyguarding to have a crush on the person you were guarding though, so she pushed that down, told herself it was fully platonic, and then went back to her room to read through his file.
She actually read past the first page this time, diving into his background. It all looked pretty standard until she got to the medical portion of the paperwork. She paused, frowning as she read over the page. And then read it again.
Four suicide attempts. Ages fourteen, fifteen, and two at seventeen.
Diagnosed quirkless at age four.
Diagnosed with depression, anxiety, and panic disorder at age fifteen.
Diagnosed with anxiety and panic disorder again at age eighteen, although there was no mention of depression. Added diagnosis of PTSD and agoraphobia. What ? Frequently has panic attacks.
Ochako shook her head, reading the entire page one more time. She flipped back a few pages and started reading through his background again, trying to find what exactly was the root of all these problems. There wasn’t even a hint of anything bad there. According to this, Midoriya Izuku had a pretty good life. He lived with a single mom for most of it, but other than his dad’s absence, his life was picture perfect.
She turned past the medical history page and read through the rest of the packet. The next page detailed that the yakuza, a branch called the ‘Kowareta Kage’– a ridiculous name if you asked her, had already breached his warehouse one time. Apparently he’d come out of the interaction completely unscathed. She hadn’t ever heard of a yakuza group called the Kowareta Kage, but the report made them seem like a pretty serious threat. She could ask Hawks for a deeper report detailing the inner workings of the organisation later, if she thought she needed one.
Oddly, the report for the original attack was filed by Hatsume. Ordinarily the victim would be the one to give a witness statement, so it was strange that Hatsume had filed it instead of Midoriya. What on earth was going on here?
Maybe she could ask him about the ‘Kowareta Kage’ later. He’d probably be able to answer her questions more than any file could, although she really didn’t want to pry. It was kind of her job to pry right now though, so maybe she’d ask. Maybe. Anyway, the chances of him getting attacked again if the first attempt was unsuccessful were pretty slim. Kowareta Kage would probably just move onto another similar target and call it good. With this in mind, she tucked the packet into the top drawer of her nightstand and made her way back to the living space, looking for something to entertain herself with while she guarded Midoriya. She really hated this job. This was going to be really boring.
Choosing a relatively thick book on astrophysics, she left the living room and climbed softly back down the stairs.
Midoriya was behind his computers again, a slight downward tilt to his lips as he watched the screens. He glanced up as she stepped off the last stair, waved at her, blushed the slightest bit, and then returned to his work.
Ochako sat on the second-to-last step, opened the book, and started struggling through it. It was hard. She hadn’t had to read anything like this since high school, and maybe not even then, but she got the gist of it.
After the second chapter, she needed a break. She looked up to find Midoriya frowning at her. His eyes went huge as she met his gaze, and he blushed bright red, like he’d just been caught in the middle of a crime.
“Sorry! I was just surprised, is all, that you picked that book. Um. That one’s kind of a tricky read. So I was thinking about that…”
Ochako smiled, shaking her head. “I don’t mind. I just thought it looked interesting? I also thought it could help me understand my quirk more, but I… didn’t realise how complicated this stuff was.”
Midoriya hesitated for a second, looking at her with a kind of odd expression on his face, like he wanted to say something and didn’t know how to phrase it. “Um…” He looked back to his computer, looking defeated. “Um, yeah. It can be a little confusing.”
“You majored in Physics, right?”
He nodded. “One of them, yeah.”
Oh right. Midoriya, the genius that he was, had triple majored. “What else?”
“Um…” He hesitated again. “Biomechanics.”
That was only two. Ochako couldn’t remember the last one, but Midoriya buried himself in his computer again, and she thought it would be rude to interrupt to ask. She could just look at his file later. Glancing at the time, she opened her book again, and then she froze. She checked the time again.
“Um, Midoriya? Do you know what time it is?”
He glanced at the corner of his computer. “It’s nine o’clock.”
“Right.” Maybe he didn’t eat until very late? “Just checking you knew that.”
He frowned at her, visibly confused, before his expression cleared and he smiled a little soft grin. “Oh. I’m almost to a good stopping spot, and then I’ll go to sleep. Promise. If you need to go, I’m fine.”
“No, no, if you’re almost done I can stay up. I don’t mind. I was actually wondering if you wanted to eat? It’s… past what is considered a normal dinner time.”
“Oh.” He frowned. “Um… I’m almost done. I actually don’t usually… but, um, yes, I can, you’re right, I probably should, so I’ll just finish this and… yeah.”
“Okay.”
He nodded a few times, looking worried. “Okay.”
“Okay,” Ochako murmured, mostly to herself. Midoriya didn’t appear to hear it. She opened her book again and struggled through the next chapter.
She was starting the one after when Midoriya tapped her on the shoulder. She jumped. Honestly, how in the world was he so quiet ? Ochako usually prided herself on how aware she was of her surroundings– being a student of Eraserhead tended to do that to a person– so to be completely snuck up on like that was very rare.
“Sorry!” he said immediately, jumping back. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay– it’s okay, I promise.”
“Okay. Um, well anyway, I was just wondering if you wanted to go upstairs now? I’m okay to stop. I don’t want to keep you up…”
“Oh, sure! Yes. No problem.” She hopped to her feet, tucking her book under her arm and scooping her phone up. “Want me to make something for dinner?”
“Oh– no, no, I can do it! You’re kind of a guest, so–”
No, it would be so awkward if Midoriya was cooking for her all the time. And what if his cooking was really bad ? Then that would be even more awkward. “Oh, but I’m living here so I’m more like a glorified roommate, actually.”
“I guess… So maybe we should take turns? I can cook today and you could cook tomorrow?” His eyebrows were turned up worriedly.
She nodded, beaming. That worked for her. “Okay.”
“Okay!”
He bounded past her to go up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Ochako didn’t know how he had this much energy so late, but it made her feel more awake, so she followed him up with a smile on her face. As she moved onto the landing, all the lights downstairs turned off at once. She nearly fell over in surprise.
Midoriya poked his head around the corner of the hallway and smiled at her tentatively. “Don’t worry, the lights are automated to sense when there’s a person downstairs. They turn on and off by themselves so I don’t waste electricity by forgetting to turn them off.”
“That’s nice of you,” Ochako said, coming up the remaining steps.
“Oh, um, sure! I also have sun… um… what are they called? The sun energy things that people put on their roofs. I have those. On the roof.”
Ochako felt the corner of her lip twitching and she forced it down before she walked into the kitchen. “A solar panel?”
He pointed at her from the fridge. “Yes. That. I have those on the roof. This warehouse is completely clean energy, and when we run out, all the lights turn off at once. It’s kind of terrifying, but phones have flashlights for a reason.”
“What do you do when it’s really cloudy out?”
“Sleep.”
Ochako laughed, clapping a hand over her mouth before it could get out fully. He was a genius who couldn’t remember solar panels . Funny. “Sorry.”
“That’s okay,” Midoriya said, half-disappearing into the fridge. “You have a nice laugh.” He emerged with his arms full of cooking supplies. “Do you mind katsudon?”
“Um… doesn’t that take forever to make?”
He shrugged. “Forty-five minutes.”
“Oh! Okay. Sure!” She hadn’t had a lot of katsudon before. She had had a lot of curry, so she was excited to have something different.
“It’s my favourite food,” he said, somewhat apologetically. “My mom used to make it all the time.”
“That’s nice.”
His cheeks flushed slightly and he busied himself with cooking.
“Um, do you want help chopping vegetables or something?”
“No, no, I’ve got it. Just stay there. Or– or don’t! Do whatever you want.”
“I’ll just stay here.”
“Okay.” Midoriya put some rice on the stove and started working his way through a recipe that he must have had memorised. He moved around the kitchen gracefully, like a dancer, and multi-tasked with ease. Completely mesmerised by his process, Ochako watched.
“So, you’re a pro hero?” he asked after ten minutes or so of silence.
“Oh– yes, I am.” She nodded.
“Uravity, right? I thought you were a rescue hero, so it’s kind of weird– or not weird, but, um… different… that you’re switching to bodyguarding.”
“Desperate times call for desperate measures.” It was flattering that he’d heard of her. Ochako wasn’t one of the lowest ranked heroes, but she definitely wasn’t the highest. She was in the hundreds on the hero rankings, so while she got recognized on the streets every once in a while, it wasn’t a common occurrence. People didn’t usually know much about her. But maybe he’d looked her up while she was upstairs. She probably would, if she were in his place.
He breathed out a short laugh in response to her comment. “Right.”
“And you’re an inventor.”
He frowned. “I’d say I’m more of an analyst? But I do invent, occasionally. Yes.”
An analyst… Oh, Hawks had mentioned something about that, hadn’t he? “Right, you… help heroes with cases sometimes, right?”
“Yes.”
“That’s cool.”
Her phone lit up with an incoming call and she glanced at it, wincing when she saw it was Iida again. She’d forgotten to call him back. “Oh…”
“Oh, you can take that!” Midoriya said, glancing at her screen. “I’ll be done in like a half hour.”
“Thanks, it’ll just be a second.” Walking into the living room, she took the call. After reassuring Iida multiple times that she was doing fine, and telling him she’d probably be under the radar for a while, she finally got him to let her hang up. Taking a second to compose herself, Ochako pressed her phone close to her chest. It might be a while before she saw any of her friends again. She took a few steadying breaths through her nose, and walked back into the kitchen.
“You know,” Midoriya said, carefully checking something on the stove, “just because you’re bodyguarding me doesn’t mean you have to stay here all the time. You could go see your friends and stuff. Or…” He paused, thinking through something with furrowed eyebrows. “You could have them over, if you wanted.”
Ochako smiled warmly. “Oh! I’ll consider that. I’m really not supposed to go anywhere without you, but if you don’t mind it, I’ll think about having someone over.”
“I don’t mind it,” he said, shaking his head. “Just… don’t interrupt me if I’m in the middle of something? Please.”
“Deal.”
He nodded and went back to cooking. Ochako smiled at his back and then hid her mouth behind both her hands. He was really, really nice. She’d been worried he was going to be a total jerk, and while neither of them seemed particularly happy about this arrangement, he wasn’t mean about it.
He finished dinner, making small talk about nothing the entire time, which was honestly impressive. It was fascinating how he managed to bring up topics that were incredibly harmless and useless, all while keeping the conversation relatively engaging. Ochako wasn’t sure if he actually was all that engaging objectively, or if she just thought everything he said was interesting. She’d have to get an outside opinion to be sure.
And then he gave her a plate of katsudon. And it was good . He was a good cook. She told him so, multiple times, and he just blushed and waved her off.
After that, they went their separate ways. Ochako got ready for bed very quickly, collapsing into it in her sweatpants and a T-shirt. She really needed to go shopping soon.
Right before she fell asleep, she grabbed her phone and went through her contacts. She found Hatsume’s name pretty quickly and wrote out a text.
Remind me why Midoriya needs “reminders to eat, sleep, and shower”?
She was asleep before Hatsume responded.