Chapter Text
As I exited the elevator and started to walk down the left hallway, I heard fast footsteps in the opposite direction. It wasn’t rare for heroes to be running in the halls to answer a call, so I didn’t think anything of it until Danger Sense pinged. But it felt different, as if to tell me the danger was not for myself, but for someone else. At the same moment, Momo’s voice yelling “Stop!” echoed down the same hallway. Turning towards the sensation, I saw a woman rushing into the elevator I had just vacated. Before she turned around, I knew who it was.
“Ochako?” I called out. Her tear filled eyes met mine, freezing me in place. Why was she here? Why did she look so devastated?” What was going on? As the elevator doors closed, it felt like they were slicing into my own chest.
“What’s going on?” I questioned as Momo reached the elevator.
She huffs in frustration and ignores me to instead take out her phone to make a call. “Hello Hina, tell security to stop Ms. Uraraka from vacating the building, she stormed out without finishing her interview.”
“Momo! What happened? Why is Ochako crying?” I demanded again.
Momo held up a single finger, silently telling me to wait. My blood felt like it was boiling. Momo listened to the person on the other line for a moment, before thanking them and hanging up the phone. Finally she turned to me to respond. Her voice was calm and cool as she said “I requested that Ms.Uraraka come in for her interview today, like we discussed. Everything was going perfectly fine until she blew up out of nowhere, attacked me with her quirk, and ran away. I asked security to detain her since she is a civilian who used her quirk and she did not finish answering my questions.” She ended her statement as if it was perfectly logical information. But my mind exploded with a million questions. None of this made sense and I felt like Momo was leaving out some key details.
“Like we discussed? We talked about getting her connected with the agency and protocol, but not a private interview with you. Why would you need to do that? And what do you mean attacked you? I’ve never seen Ochako being violent.”
Instead of addressing my first concern, Momo replied, “She became hysterical, ran towards me, and touched me with her Zero Gravity quirk. I know you like this girl Midoriya but I don’t think she is stable.” While Momo was good at hiding her tells, I could sense that she was being defensive.
I took a step closer to Momo, “What did you do to make Ochako so upset?”
“All I did was ask her standard agency entrance interview questions, same as any employee when they get hired here.” While her words were convincing, I noticed her body language. Her eyes were not quite meeting mine. Her hands gripping her tablet slightly tighter than normal.
“What question specifically?” My voice lowered in seriousness.
“It was just about family medical history, making sure we know of any health concerns.” she responded, still avoiding a complete answer.
Before we could continue our back and forth, Momo’s phone rang. Again, she held up one finger and answered, “Hello Hina, I’ll be down to talk with Ms.Uraraka in one… What?... What do you mean she passed security?... I’ll be right there.” Momo hung up the phone. “Well she just used her quirk to dodge security and leave the building. See Midoriya? No respect for procedures and protocols, how undignified.”
My brow raised in shock at Momo’s statement and instead of answering her, I ran to the front facing window of the floor. Momo called out to me but I ignored her. The whole wall was made of windows, giving me a clear view of the street below. I pressed my forehead to the glass and scanned the visible streets and sidewalks, looking for chestnut brown hair. Danger Sense pinged like a homing beacon as my eyes were drawn to a figure hiding multiple stories up on a neighboring window ledge as security guards hopelessly searched from below. It was almost comical if not for Ochako’s body visibility shaking even from across the busy street.
Moving on instinct, I press my hand to the glass to activate the sensors. The ten foot window slid down into the floor, allowing me access to the open air. After a few broken windows in our early years when one of us (usually myself or Kacchan) were in too much of a rush to leave through the front door, Hatsume created these high tech windows to open if any Heroes in the database place their hand on the glass, as it could read your fingerprint and grant access to opening the window.
Not hesitating, even with a screaming Momo in the background, I launch myself into the air with Black Whip and across the street. Instead of aiming for Ochako right away, I decided to deal with the security first. They were a little surprised to see me, but I smiled and instructed them that I would take care of the matter from here and dismissed them back to the lobby. They seemed pleased to be relieved of the task. Once they were out of sight, I looked back to the window I had just left. The window had automatically closed and with the glare I could not tell if Momo was watching, but she had not followed.
I then turned my attention to above. Ochako had chosen a good spot as there was no way to spot her from below. But I remembered where she was standing and easily used Black Whip to slingshot myself up. She gasped as I came into her view and landed next to her on the narrow edge. While I had seen her for a brief moment in the elevator and from afar through the window, up close was even more heartbreaking.
Her expression was like a deer in the headlights, confused and panicked and unsure what to do. Her makeup was smeared from crying and her usual pink cheeks were a painful red. As she gripped the side of the wall, her body shook in spasms as she tried to silence sobs that demanded to leave her body.
I have been taught and trained how to handle people in crisis, both physically and emotionally, but seeing Ochako in this state was almost more than I could bear. “Hey, hey, hey,” I called out softly, offering a hand out to her, “It’s okay, everything is going to be already. I’m here.” I tried my best to give a small smile in reassurance as she looked at me, still choking back sobs. I take a small step closer to her, and while she does not back away, she does not offer to get closer. “Whatever happened, I am so sorry Ochako. Can I bring you back home and we can talk?”
At the word ‘home’ she hiccupped a sob, as if the word triggered something in her. I remember that Momo said that they were talking about her family medical history when things went south. Ochako had mentioned that her parents were deceased, so many Momo’s questions triggered bad memories?
I risk taking the last step to her and as I extend my arms out, she collapses into them. But while she has allowed me to hold her, she was still holding onto her emotions with a failing iron grip. The half sobs building like water behind a dam. Wanting to give Ochako privacy from the world at this moment, I maneuvered her onto my back with my support gear and in a few minutes we were at the window of my apartment. The windows have the same touch sensitive mechanisms as the agency building and I quickly get us inside the warm interior.
I quickly release Ochako from the support straps and rotate her back so I can hold her to my chest. While she has gotten slightly quieter, I can still feel the emotions exerting pressure on the dam she was trying to maintain.
“Please let go,” I whisper into her hair. “I’ve got you this time, if you need a moment to fall.”
The words took a moment to reach her, and her body goes still as she sucks in a breath. And then the flood gates break, and I feel like I see another piece of Ochako that she has tried desperately to hide from the world. Pain, grief, loneliness, sadness, fear, anger, and so many more emotions roll out of her as she cries into me. And all I can do is hold her as she falls.
***
While the space around me felt soft and warm, a pounding migraine woke me from unconsciousness. I slightly parted one eye, expecting to encounter brightness, but the room was dimly lit. Enough to see the shapes of the furniture, but not enough to disturb or induce more pain from my headache. I sat up on my elbow and rubbed at my eyes to better focus my vision. Then I realized that the furniture was not from my temporary apartment, but an unknown location. But before I could panic, my memory snapped into place. I was in Izuku’s apartment. And because the surface I was laying on was much too comfortable to be a couch, I must be in Izuku’s bed!
I jerked to a full sitting position, but my migraine protested, causing me to groan in response. I slumped back into the mattress and pushed the heels of my palms into my forehead to try and get some semblance of relief.
The sound of my awakening must have been noticed as the door to the room creaked open and messy green hair peaked through the crack. “Ochako,” he softly called out, “Are you okay? Do you need anything? Can I come in?”
I stilled, trying to decide how to respond. More memories flooded in, reminding me of the events of… today? Yesterday? The blinds were closed so I couldn’t even tell if it was day or night still. Anyways, the memories of me crying my eyes out explains the massive headache. And while I still felt upset and embarrassed about the incident at the agency, I realized there was an abnormal… lightness… to the pain normally locked away in my chest. But I didn’t have the time or mental bandwidth to dissect that feeling, as I still needed to respond.
“Head hurts,” I groaned, not able to come up with anything better to say. I could hear Izuku move and then he approached the bed with a bottle of Advil and a glass of water. I gladly accepted both and took two pills and drained the glass, not realizing how thirsty I was.
Izuku sat at the edge of the bed as I finished, looking down at me with kind but concerned eyes. “Can I get you anything else,” he asked, and gently placed his hand on my arm, “ Or do you want to talk about what happened yesterday?” So it has been a whole day.
I close my eyes in frustration. At myself for losing control. At Yayorozo for being a monster manipulator. At Izuku, for being too good to be true.
Izuku must have taken my nonresponse as an answer, as he made to get up from the bed. But before he could, like a reflex my hand reached out to catch his retreating one. My brown eyes opened to meet his, the green shining with something I could not quite read. Relief? Hope? Comfort? I did not dwell on it as Ochako fully took the reins, pulling Izuku down to join her in the bed. He willingly joined and resumed a similar position to yesterday, wrapping me in his strong but gentle arms.
But yesterday was different. Yesterday I was crumbling from years of buried grief and those arms were there to slow my descent. His comforting words of sweet nothings were there to make the voices of past memories more bearable to listen to. He did not try to stop it, but he helped guide me through it safely. FreeFall had tried to protect Ochako from all of this pain by locking Ochako away from it all. Izuku recognized that Ochako had to face it, even if he did not understand what she was facing.
Last night, after the first few waves of brutal emotions subsided, I had shared the memory of how I had found my Mom. How I had seen warning signs, but had lived in denial until it was too late. How similar feelings that my Mom must have faced also plagued me. Izuku listened and stayed and held me even closer than I thought possible when I confessed to the night I first swan dived but lost the nerve. While he tried to hide it, I had felt warm tears slide off of his cheeks and onto my skin.
FreeFall saw this as weakness, but Ochako recognized it as strength.
And while FreeFall was still very much present, yesterday unlocked some new strength in Ochako. She was no longer a child to be locked away for her own good. She did not need to be protected from this pain, but instead needed to face it. And while this side of her was tender and fragile and damaged, Izuku saw her and did not leave.
Ochako knew what she wanted, even if FreeFall protested in the back of her mind.
Moving my head from Izuku’s chest, I shifted up to his neck and placed a wet kiss on his collarbone.
“Ochako,” Izuku rasped, his arm muscles flexing at the sudden touch. I answered by moving my lips closer to the center of his neck, grazing my teeth ever so slightly in the process. He groaned and I smiled against my neck.
I could feel the vibration of his voice as he said, “ar-are you… sure you’re o-okay? If you…” but I cut him off with a finger against his lips as I rise up to look into his eyes. Now they were filled with emotions FreeFall was more familiar with seeing in men: surprise, nervousness, a touch of fear, and lust.
Ochako pushed FreeFall back (still a foreign power swap between the two personalities) as she did not want her other half to ruin this moment. The alter ego thrashed against the restraints, demanding to be back in control. But for once, Ochako’s will was stronger.
Ochako repeated the words she spoke to Izuku on the rooftop a few nights ago,“ Unless you actually don’t want this, don’t tell me that I can’t do this.” With a hand on his shoulder, I pushed down to pivot Izuku onto his back and swung myself up to straddle him. His eyes widened for half a moment before lowering with a look of pure desire. While my headache was still present, the mix of Advil and my own desire made it pretty easy to ignore.
While FreeFall was no stranger to adult encounters, Ochako was always tightly locked away. Ochako never got to fully experience a physical connection before. And this was different. It was not just some random man at a bar FreeFall had dragged home for her enjoyment. This was trust. This was connection. This was…Izuku. And Ochako wanted him in every way.
Similar to their first kiss, I set the stage, but waited for him to make the first move. Similar to our first kiss, while he lacked experience, he was a natural.