Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Chapter 1: Pest Problems?

It’s hard enough being raised in a world of superhumans – not to mention having superpowers yourself – and still being poor, but possibly having to deal with some kind of infestation on your first day out of your parents’ house is just the worst kind of luck. Of course, Ochaco Uraraka was no stranger to misfortune. Despite her parents being owners of a construction company in a world where fights between superhumans can level city blocks on a regular basis, they had received at best three or four jobs a year for about as long as Ochaco could remember. She hated seeing her parents exhausted after working long hours for days on end only to bring home paltry pay that paid for paltry food. However, Ochaco felt their hardships could be used as a teaching tool, such as how to conserve resources such as food and water when experiencing famine or drought.

But none of those moments could prepare her for this new problem. It all started a mere three days after her acceptance into UA Academy, the top hero school in the country, and after her parents helped move her into Heights Alliance, an apartment complex exclusive to UA students. Ochaco still could not believe that she was now a student at the school that churned out some of the best heroes in the world. The entrance exam – both the written and practical portions – was more challenging than she could have ever imagined, but she kept thinking about how she could use money she would earn as a hero to help her family the entire time, which allowed her to pass by saving other students who got attacked by the practice robots in the exam. She was super excited about not having to pay for her dorm as well as having new furniture to go with her (few) current belongings, and she was especially happy to have tons of food provided by the campus staff. Of course, she was also excited to make tons of new friends at UA, many of whom she learned also got dorm rooms in the complex.

But after not even three days of everyone sharing the same living quarters, there were incidents. One of the students, the class representative Tenya Iida, complained that numerous small objects had been disappearing from the kitchen, like a few scraps of aluminum foil or a bunch of toothpicks. Ochaco could tell that he was one of those “neat freak” types, but in an endearing way, since he was concerned about how everyone was affected by this rash of disappearances, not just him.

She didn’t think too much about this at first, until more of her classmates noticed things going missing from their rooms: small first aid supplies, thread and sewing needles, some students found marks made into soap bars in the communal bathrooms as well as food in both the pantry and refrigerator. Ochaco was suddenly grateful that the only possessions in her room, aside from her desk and bed, were a small box of tissues and her pencil case which sat on her desk. The idea of something creeping around the dorms when no one was looking did creep her out more than a little bit.

The vice-representative, Momo Yaoyorozu, offered to use her Quirk to create various traps all around the areas where things went missing. For a while, it seemed to work, as two days went by with nothing missing. However, one morning, one of her classmates – a very flamboyant boy named Yuga Aoyama – noticed that some of his imported cheeses and breads had gone missing again, even though the other students didn’t go for them, and the traps around them had not been set off. One of the students, Koji Koda, said that it couldn’t have been an animal, because his Quirk hadn’t sensed one, nor had any of the animals he talked to told him of any animals living in the building. After Ochaco’s new friend Kyoka Jiro considered the possibility of insects, Koji was quick to rule it out because he would hear them too… and even if it was bugs, he didn’t like them. One or two students considered calling a teacher to deal with the problem, but Tenya promised them that he would personally look into the matter and have it resolved within the week before calling a teacher if the issue went unsolved. Ochaco liked how dedicated Iida was to his fellow students, which reminded her of wanting to become a hero and make money for her folks back home.

That night, as Ochaco went back to her dorm room after a long day of school, she could hear a small shuffle from the other side of the door. She froze for a moment, thinking this could be the work of the mysterious intruder. Quickly, she locked her fingertips together, using her Quirk – which negated the gravitational pull on objects or people – to make herself float ever so slightly off the ground while also turning the doorknob so softly that it made virtually no noise. She then slowly opened the door and floated into the room, looking around. She didn’t see anything too out of the ordinary, but she did wish she had her new friend Jiro to help her listen for small sounds or heartbeats to help her find whoever or whatever she was looking for.

But Ochaco soon heard a faint rustling sound from her desk, and she quickly whipped her head around to see her tissue box was moving on its own. Quickly, she crouched against the wall, flicked her light switch on, and pushed her legs forward, shooting her through the air, and snatched the box off her desk in one swift motion.

It was then she got the biggest shock of her life.

She found the intruder.

Or, rather, intruders.

Having two teenage boys in a teenage girl’s room is already troublesome, but making it even stranger was that these two boys stood, at best, eight centimeters tall.

One boy, slightly taller than the other, had sandy blonde hair and his eyes – which stared wide open at her with a mixture of fear and anger – were a shocking shade of red. He stood in front of a shorter boy, a rather skinny boy with curly green hair and a noticeable amount of freckles on his pale face. His green eyes were wide open with pure fear and with a noticeable amount of tears about to leak from his eyes.

“You… you stay back,” the blonde boy growled, his tiny teeth clenched tightly as he struck a battle pose. “You stay away from us, you hear me?!”

“K-Kacchan,” the other one stammered, “I’m sorry, I messed up… run away, Kacchan, please…” He slowly stood up and walked in front of his friend. “I can’t just stand here and let you die!”

“Shut up, Deku!” the blond one – apparently his name was Kacchan – hissed at his friend, Deku.

“Whoa, wait, die?!” Ochaco was so taken aback that she dropped the tissue box, which floated around her, its gravitational pull negated by her Quirk. “N-no! I’m not gonna hurt you, much less kill you! Honest, I mean it!” She shook her head and waved her hands in the air before linking her fingertips again, causing her – and the tissue box – to drop down to the floor.

“Don’t try and trick us, you giant bitch!” the blonde one swore, dashing across the desk to grab a loose mechanical pencil and held it like a weapon, pointing it at Ochaco. “You wanna fight, bring it on! I’m not scared of you!”

“Whoa, hold on there,” Ochaco shook her head again, slowly getting up and putting the tissue box back on her desk, “I’m not gonna fight you, and I’m not gonna hurt you, I promise. I’m a hero in training, we don’t hurt people, even… tiny ones.” She blushed, still trying to wrap her head around what was happening. I’ve heard that new rookie Mt. Lady and other heroes with size changing Quirks, but never a shrinking one before… she thought to herself. She then pulled up her chair and sat down, lowering her chair down to get on her new guests’ level. “Let’s start over, shall we? I’m Ochaco Uraraka, and your names are… Kacchan and Deku, right?”

“Kacchan” didn’t make a move yet, still pointing the pencil at her warily, but seemed to scoff at her saying that word. “If you’re gonna call me anything, call me by the last name you’ll ever remember: Katsuki Bakugo, the Great Giant Murder God!”

“Kacchan, wait!” the other boy cried out, but Katsuki had already ran towards Ochaco, thrusting the pencil out like a spear and screaming like an animal. He did not even get halfway across the desk before Ochaco touched the pencil with the tip of her left pointer finger and sent it floating up into the air, much to Katsuki’s shock.

“Now hold on there,” Ochaco sighed, almost scoldingly, “I just wanna talk, that’s no reason to try and stab someone.” She put her fingers together, caught the pencil as it dropped down, and put it back on her desk, away from Katsuki.

“What’s there to talk about?!” the tiny blond boy yelled. “You know we exist, so now we gotta kill you before you kill us!”

“Kacchan, please!” Deku ran up to his friend and pulled on his arm. “If she wanted us dead, don’t you think she would have done it by now? Maybe we should hear her out!”

“The hell are you thinking, Deku?” Katsuki growled, glaring at Deku. “Didn’t any of your mom’s lessons sink in your thick head? Humans only ever think about hurting others, especially different ones! We can’t trust them!”

“But Kacchan, she-”

“Do I need to remind you that we’re not even supposed to be here?!” Katsuki cut Deku off before he could finish.

“What do you mean by that?” Ochaco asked, curious.

Katsuki had been ignoring Ochaco until she asked that question, and whipped his head around to glare at her again. “None of your damn business!”

“Hold on, Kacchan!” Deku piped up, standing up and hesitantly walking towards Ochaco’s face. “Um… sorry about Kacchan, he’s a bit overprotective… are you sure you don’t want to hurt us? You promise?”

“Of course I don’t,” Ochaco shook her head. “Like I said, I’m a hero in training.” She then leaned back in her chair a bit. “Although, this would explain why so many little things have been disappearing since we’ve moved into these dorms…”

“Oh, so you did miss that stuff?” Deku gulped. “Sorry, we usually only borrow things that won’t be missed… but we’ve been getting desperate recently… sorry.”

“Oh no, it’s fine,” Ochaco said, shaking her head again. “Although Aoyama didn’t like it when we found those marks on his cheeses…”

“Courtesy of yours truly,” Katsuki smirked.

“Kacchan!” Deku chided. “Um… about that… can you… not tell anyone about us? We’re kinda not supposed to be seen by humans.”

“Wait, you mean you’re not human?” Ochaco asked, now even more curious. “But you look like humans… just, you know…” she skirted around the word.

“Tiny,” Katsuki snorted, which made Ochaco lightly yelp in shock. “We’re Borrowers, since you asked. We take what we need to survive and stay out of sight of you giant monsters.”

“Uh, okay,” Ochaco gulped, stunned at Katsuki’s bluntness. “And you wanna be kept secret because you don’t trust humans, right?”

“Kinda,” Deku shrugged. “Also, for the record, my name’s actually Izuku; Izuku Midoriya. Deku’s what Kacchan calls me, and I call him Kacchan. They’re our own nicknames.”

Ochaco sighed as she leaned back in the chair. On the one hand, she found out what was causing the disturbances in her first week at her new school. On the other hand, she didn’t want these boys to get hurt by anyone, even her new classmates whom she felt she could trust. Except for the short one with the sticky balls in his hair, she thought to herself. He creeps me out, but I don’t know why yet.

“Well,” she said aloud, “our class rep is looking into this and said he’s gonna call a teacher if he can’t figure out what’s been going on… and I assume you don’t want any adult humans to know you exist, right?”

Both boys shook their heads.

“Well, I think if I can help you with your problems,” she said, trying to sound helpful, “then you won’t need to go into other people’s spaces and so no one will come looking for you.”

“Oh, so that’s what you wanna do with us?” Katsuki growled, angry again. “Just sit in your room like good little boys waiting for momma birdie to bring home worms? No thanks, princess, borrowing is our lives. You don’t just expect us to throw all that away and be okay with it, do you?” He turned around and grabbed Deku’s – or rather, Izuku’s – arm. “Come on, Deku, we’re outta here. We gotta move before those damn grownups find us.”

“But Kacchan, she could help us!” Izuku shook his head and broke free of Katsuki’s grip. “Don’t you wanna see your folks out of bed again?”

Katsuki stopped, eyes wide, and Ochaco gasped at Izuku’s words, sitting up in her chair. “Your parents… your parents are sick?” She couldn’t even imagine seeing her parents so sick they couldn’t leave their beds, and it tugged at her heart.

Katsuki growled at Izuku, he hated it when others felt pity for him… but his eyes could not hide a tear trying to escape. “It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing, Kacchan,” Izuku shook his head. “I’m scared for my mom, and I know you worry about your folks, too.” He turned around and faced Ochaco again. “If I tell you our story, will you let us go? And not tell anyone?”

Ochaco sat there, still stunned about everything she just witnessed. So many things had happened in less than an hour she couldn’t believe it. But, in any case, these two boys needed help and she was going to do her job as a hero to help them, even if it meant keeping a secret this big. Or small, she chuckled in her head. “Okay, I won’t tell anyone about you. But you gotta promise me you’ll let me help you and your families, because I can’t guarantee you won’t get hunted if you keep on ‘borrowing’ from my classmates.”

Izuku nodded, and sat down. “Well, it all starts like this…”

Chapter Text

Mice are never seen living where snakes dwell, nor are schools of trout seen in waters known to be infested with sharks, and the same logic was true for Borrowers. They knew better than to settle in human apartment buildings, especially in a densely populated urban area, the risk of being seen was higher than any other place in the world. Even in a society where four out of every five people possess some kind of uncanny ability – or Quirk, as the boys learned it was called – humans still find new ways to treat people different than them… less than ideal.

However, it came as a complete (and unpleasant) surprise when Izuku Midoriya and Katsuki Bakugo woke up one day to their whole house shaking.

The two boys, along with their parents, had lived in the small suburban house of a married couple and their only daughter for about as long as they could remember. The parents were always gone, working long hours at some kind of construction job (which Izuku found odd since their Quirks were not suited for construction work), and their teenage daughter would often either sit around and read, go outside and exercise, or stay in her bedroom and sleep. Their house was kept in an unnaturally tidy state, due to the lack of large furniture, but also because the family did a lot more cleaning than cooking. Their meals were sparse due to a very meager salary, so borrowings were very slim, but Izuku and Katsuki – or Deku and Kacchan, as they jokingly called each other – did not need much to survive anyway.

Nevertheless, Izuku could not hide a pang of guilt that came when his and Katsuki’s parents would go out to forage for food and other things. Despite their host family’s low income, not one time did it seem like the family missed anything that they borrowed, simply chalking up any sort of disappearance as using more of what they borrowed than was intended. Still, as Deku and Katsuki grew up sneaking peeks at the heroes that flew by on the family TV (especially their shared idol All Might), Deku was inspired by their actions and wished he could do something to help the family that he and Katsuki lived with.

Katsuki was quick to remind him that such notions were folly at best and dangerous at worst. Borrowers did not survive the rise of Quirks through mingling with human beans but doing what they have always done: stay out of sight and only take what they need to survive. All that said, deep down, Katsuki did agree with and respect his friend’s idealism, and harbored a desire to be a hero himself and take on the toughest bad guys and get tons of cool stuff so he and his family wouldn’t have to scrape by anymore.

Then one day, something unexpected happened. The shaking. The rumbling. Izuku scrambled to the lookout spot of the wall and saw a terrifying sight: their whole world was moving.

The two families had taken up residence in a large, heavy, locked antique trunk that was left in the house by the previous owner, and both Izuku and Bakugo’s fathers managed to use their own Quirks – fire-breathing and explosions, respectively – to make a few small holes to see outside, and a one-way door below the front lock to use for borrowing. They were grateful the family that moved in never paid it mind, not even sitting on top of it. Izuku and Bakugo liked it because they felt like they were living in an old pirate treasure chest.

But as Izuku looked out of one of the holes, it was suddenly flying in the air by some invisible force. He carefully peered around and saw that it was being pushed by the father towards the daughter’s bedroom. Izuku looked closer as the man knocked on the door, which opened to reveal the daughter sporting the female high schooler’s outfit of UA Academy. Izuku found himself blushing at just how cute she looked in it.

“Dad, what is that?” the girl raised an eyebrow at the heavy trunk that her father was somehow carrying in the air as if it weighed nothing.

“It’s a gift to my star UA student,” he smiled, guiding the trunk inside. “I thought you could use a little memento of this place. After all, this is a treasured family heirloom.”

“But Dad, this wasn’t even ours originally,” she sighed, “and I know you haven’t ever used it! Besides, we can’t even open it because we don’t have the key for this huge lock!”

“And that’s why I’m giving it to you, Ochaco!” the man chuckled. “Think of it as a good luck charm for your time at UA! Not to mention, it can fit all your stuff in it!”

“Not like I have that much stuff anyway,” The girl, Ochaco, sighed as her dad walked out of the room. “Okay, thanks Dad.”

There was a clapping, and then the trunk fell to the floor, causing the entire house inside to shake violently, waking up Katsuki and both his and Izuku’s parents. “I’ll be back with some tools to open that up in a jiffy, honey!” her dad called as he left. “Love ya!”

Izuku panicked upon hearing this. They could be minutes away from being seen! He looked backwards and saw that his parents – along with Katsuki and his parents – were already quickly packing up only their most essential belongings. Katsuki looked up for a moment and glared at his friend. “Well, are you gonna just there like a dumbass or help us pack, you damn idiot?”

Izuku gulped and ran over to help pack up. Within a minute, they packed up only their clothes, a small amount of food, and a few personal belongings. Izuku desperately wanted to pack the All Might trading card he was fortunate to find from the last owners of the house, but he didn’t need his mom or Katsuki to tell him that constantly carrying something bigger than him was just asking to be spotted. Once the packing was complete, the families got to work messing up their once beautiful home to remove all traces of their existence and make it look like it was just a pile of junk in the trunk.

Katsuki poked his head out the hole in the trunk and looked all around. Thankfully, he was looking straight under the girl’s bed, and he made a motion for them all to move quickly. One by one, they all escaped the trunk and ran under Ochaco’s bed, with Katsuki bringing up the rear. He looked back and saw that the girl was already preparing her things to pack into the trunk, so her dad had not come back with the lockpicking tools yet. He then pointed out a hole in the wall just big enough for them to crawl into, and they darted towards it.

But something had gotten there first.

And that something was Cluny.

Cluny was the name the Borrower families had given to a black rat that lived in the backyard since the previous owners, and it was the most enormous rat they had ever seen. Jet black fur, a long narrow nose, and piercing jet black eyes that glared into them with a fury matched by few, it towered over the tiny borrowers at a relatively colossal 21 centimeters tall, which Izuku knew was way bigger than normal black rats. It chittered at them menacingly, slapped its tail – which was just as long as it was – on the ground like a whip, and made biting motions as it struck a pose like it was ready to pounce.

Suddenly, a stream of fire scorched the rat’s nose. Hisashi Midoriya had struck. “Get back!” he barked, and drew a match from his backpack, lighting it ablaze with his fire breath and pointing it at Cluny like a torch. “Get away from my family, you dirty rat!”

“Hisashi, be careful!” Inko cried out, afraid for her husband.

“Hold on, Zippo!” Masaru called out and ran towards Cluny, rubbing his hands together. Before anyone could protest, he opened them up and a large explosion blasted Cluny away from them, who slammed into one of the metal bed posts, making a loud clang.

“What was that?” the Borrowers suddenly tensed up, hearing Ochaco’s voice. “Is something there?”

“Quick, into the hole!” Hisashi hissed, still holding the match, and the two families ran headlong for the hole in the wall.

Just as the half dozen Borrowers got through the hole, they hid behind the wall and peeked back out to see the bed being lifted into the air. Ochaco had apparently used her Quirk to cause the bed to float into the air, and she looked around the floor, her gaze never even met the hole in the wall… until she noticed the fallen rat in the corner.

“EEEAUGH!” she shrieked in horror, and the Borrowers covered their ears from the volume. “Dad! Mom! There’s a gigantic rat in my bedroom!”

The sound of Ochaco’s shriek brought Cluny back to its senses, who stared up terrified at the big human, but then glanced at the hole in the wall and bolted for it, squealing all the way, much to the hidden Borrowers’ horror.

“Run!” Hisashi cried out, and pushed his wife and son out of the way of the hole – accidentally dropping the match – just before Cluny’s head burst through the hole and lunged at Hisashi.

Izuku couldn’t tell what was worse: the sickening crunch from Cluny’s fangs tearing at his father’s leg, his father’s screams of agonizing pain, or everyone else’s screams of horror. Inko and, Mitsuki both wailed in horror while holding onto their respective sons, and Masaru yelled like a madman as he grabbed the match – which he relit with his Quirk – and charged at Cluny, striking the rat in the eye and causing it to squeal in pain. Masaru then ran over to Hisashi, tearing off his shirt and wrapping it around Hisashi’s bleeding leg, and slung his limp body over his shoulder.

“Don’t you give up on me, Zippo,” Masaru barked at Hisashi, “we’re all getting out of here in one piece!”

Hisashi moaned in pain, but didn’t say anything in response just yet. Inko ran up to her husband, crying her eyes out, and Izuku was so upset that he couldn’t even look at him. Katsuki helped his dad carry along his honorary uncle as they went further into the walls, but he also averted his gaze, guilty over not being able to stop Cluny or help Hisashi in any other way.

While the Borrowers were escaping, Ochaco’s father heard his daughter’s cry and charged into the room with a holler and quickly scooped Cluny into a large metal rat cage, which snapped shut behind him. He sighed as he dropped the cage, ignoring the angry squeals coming from inside, and hugged Ochaco.

“Are you ok?” he asked, his worried eyes darting all over her. “That little beast didn’t hurt you, did it?”

“No, no, I’m fine,” Ochaco said, quickly calming down. “It just startled me, that’s all.”

Her dad sighed and looked at the rat in the cage. “I don’t blame you, dear, that thing’s enormous. And where there’s one rat, there’s always more. I’ll set up some traps, you go on ahead and keep packing.”  He finally smiled again as he gave Ochaco the lock breaker. “Leave this pest problem to your old man.”

Ochaco smiled and hugged her dad, who smiled and hugged her back, gently ruffling her auburn hair. Neither of them knew that, at that moment, a 9 centimeter tall curly green haired boy was watching them. Izuku had turned away from seeing his own poor, injured father for a moment, and curiously peeked out the hole in Ochaco’s wall to see the warm embrace. His heart felt light at seeing this scene, but then heavy again as he felt guilty for not attending to his own father. He finally looked back at his family and rushed forward, hugging Hisashi tightly.

“Daddy… please don’t ever leave me,” he sobbed, tears flowing from his face like a waterfall. Inko sobbed as well, and Hisashi noticed it, crying softly as well.

It took all Mitsuki and Masaru had to not burst into tears alongside their good friends, but Katsuki was already looking around the inside of the wall for something. His eyes finally locked onto a scrap of wallpaper laying around a few long, thin nails. Acting fast, he wrapped the paper around the nails and used some tape from his pack to keep everything together.

“Hey, help me out with this,” he called out as he carefully lifted the makeshift stretcher, and his parents helped him carry it towards the Midoriya family.

They laid Hisashi down on it, and Mitsuki reached into her pack and got out a large wad of tissue paper and a bottle of antiseptic that her husband borrowed when Ochaco scraped her knee a month ago, and carefully undid the haphazard bandage her husband made. She had to suppress her urge to vomit upon seeing the awful wound made by the bite mark and the blood still oozing out; she could swear that part of it was turning green. She rubbed the gel on Hisashi’s wound and made a new dressing with the tissue and covered it with the now blood-soaked shirt.

“We need to move fast, but he should be stable for right now,” Mitsuki said, quickly getting up and grabbing one of the sides of the makeshift stretcher. “We need to get him somewhere safe.”

The others nodded and carried the injured Borrower away from the wall, deeper into the house. But as Izuku brought up the rear, he could hear the voice of the father from another room. He couldn’t make out everything, but heard one word that made his blood run cold:

“Exterminator.”

Chapter Text

Izuku never quite learned that just when it seems things can’t get any worse than they are, they almost immediately do. First, they had to destroy their own home to avoid being seen. Then, Izuku’s dad nearly gets eaten by a giant (even by human standards) rat. Now, as they were holed up for the time being in an obscured corner under the washing machine, Hisashi’s condition was worsening. His bite had not only become infected, but Hisashi’s veins were all too visible and all too blue, his face pale and sickly, and he was prone to harsh coughing fits. To make matters worse, when everyone woke up that morning, his mother had slowly started coughing just as much as he was. Now she couldn’t even get herself out of their bed (which Katsuki made from a few lost socks he found under the dryer), much less attend to her husband or her son. But the worst part was that Izuku hadn’t told the others about what he overheard from the human parents: they were calling an exterminator to flush out any potential rats or other pests after Cluny got caught. He could still hear the conversation they had the previous night ringing in his head like it just happened.

“If there’s one rat that’s been hiding under our noses like that, there’s gotta be more pests, and not just rodents. We gotta flush them out, for Ochaco’s sake, and ours.”

“Well, the dorm service is coming tomorrow to handle all the moving stuff, why don’t we wait until after she moves out and takes her new trunk to UA? We won’t have to worry about her then.”

“All right, let’s keep the trunk and the rest of her stuff somewhere else until then.”

It was still relatively early in the morning when Izuku was pacing around the floor under the washing machine, muttering to himself over what to do, when he glanced over his shoulder and noticed the others in the corner. He could see Katsuki and his mom tending to Hisashi and Inko. Katsuki hated being unable to help his honorary aunt and uncle; he even avoided Izuku for fear of him blaming Katsuki for everything. He boldly went out and scavenged for as many first aid supplies as he could carry, but only finding a few cotton balls, bandages, and a small amount of disinfectant gel. He also found a small empty water bottle left behind the recycle bin and borrowed it to make a tank of cold water for a cold compress he made out of some paper towels. As Katsuki was applying the compress to Inko’s forehead, he noticed Izuku had gone back to pacing around and muttering.

“Hey, Deku,” Katsuki called to his friend. “You gonna come here and give us a hand or just keep pacing?”

Izuku looked up from his pacing and noticed Katsuki’s stern glare and walked over. “Sorry, Kacchan, I… I just heard something bad.”

“Oh, really?” Katsuki snorted, standing up and growling menacingly, “What could possibly be worse than your folks about to kick the bucket?”

“Kacchan!” Izuku hissed as he pulled Katsuki aside. “We’ll all be kicking the bucket soon enough! I heard the dad say they were gonna call an exterminator! They could be here any minute!”

Katsuki’s eyes went from narrowed in anger to wide with fear. He’d heard horror stories about Borrowers who were seen, and then the humans called “pest control” people to kill them in droves. Images of poisonous clouds, liquids, or even expanding chemical foam that made everything sticky and burning were flooding Katsuki’s mind. And, while he would never admit it, it terrified him. “We gotta get outta here.”

Izuku nodded, but couldn’t think of a way out of their predicament. They obviously couldn’t stay in the house, but the exterminator could examine the backyard if they went there. Not to mention it was extremely dangerous to move either of his parents in their current situation, especially his father. But as his mind struggled to come up with a plan of escape, he could hear more movements from above them, and a few words from the humans’ conversation popped into his head:

Dorm moving services.

Moving out.

Two words stood out right away:

The trunk.

Izuku snapped his fingers in realization. “Kacchan, I got it! We need to get back to the trunk!”

“What!?” Katsuki gaped, completely taken aback. “Deku, have you lost your fucking mind?! That girl cut the lock on that thing last night and probably already packed it full of stuff! Besides, we-”

“Can still use the hidden entrance since they didn’t find it!” Izuku interrupted. “Listen, I know it’s a crazy idea…”

“Try batshit insane, Deku,” Katsuki scoffed.

“That trunk is going to a high school with the most advanced medical facilities in the country,” Izuku shot back. “If we can get there and borrow some of their medicine, maybe we can save my parents!”

“Deku, you’re talking about a school that could have crazy levels of security,” Katsuki hissed warningly. “What if they catch us before we even make it there?”

“Kacchan, please understand,” Izuku insisted, “it’s the only way we can get out of here before the exterminators come. Either we definitely die here or we only possibly die by going to UA.”

Katsuki groaned, he hated when Deku used the words “it’s the only way” because 9 times out of 10, he was right. Izuku did have good tactics about borrowing and survival that he got from his parents, and Katsuki legitimately respected that about him. His overtly optimistic attitude did rub him the wrong way, though he was a tiny bit envious of his idealism. Plus, Katsuki did want to see the school where his and Deku’s hero, all Might, went to. Shaking his head, he sighed and sat down. “Talk about between a rock and a hard place. Okay, Deku, you got me there. So what’s the plan?”

“We go back to the bedroom,” Deku began explaining, “we get back in the trunk, and hide under or inside whatever stuff is packed in there…”

“Which won’t be much,” Katsuki snorted, “this family is the exact opposite of loaded.”

“Anyway,” Deku continued, slightly annoyed at Katsuki’s interrupting and shaming of their host family, “when the moving people come to take the trunk to these ‘dorms’, we stay as perfectly still and silent as possible, and when the trunk gets to where it’s going, as soon as all the humans are gone…”

“We bust out and make for the nearest hole in the wall,” Katsuki finished, “and then hide out at the dorms until we find out where they’re keeping the goods.”

“Borrowing what we need in the meantime,” Izuku nodded.

“It’s not the best plan,” Katsuki sighed, “but it’s the best one we’ve ever seen so far. I’ll let my folks know.”

“Good,” Izuku said, standing up, “because we need to leave right now.”

He pointed to the empty space between the washing machine and the dryer, where Katsuki could see that the trunk was laying, perfectly fitting in the space between, and their secret entrance in the bottom mere inches from their current position.

“Wait, how long has that been there?” Katsuki asked, confused.

“Since the parents put it there this morning,” Izuku shrugged. “I just didn’t think about needing it until I made this escape plan just now.”

Katsuki sighed, annoyed at the complex situation, but nodded. “All right, Deku, let’s beat it.”

Izuku nodded and dashed forward towards the secret door on the bottom of the trunk. He looked around and didn’t see anyone coming, so he pulled back the door, and peeked inside. By sheer luck, he was facing an arched clothes drying rack that was covered by several shirts and skirts, so nobody could see underneath. Izuku silently pumped his fist, happy his plan was working so far, and motioned for the others to follow. Katsuki had already told his folks the plan, and his parents were able to get Izuku’s parents out of bed and carefully drag them to the trunk. They all piled in under the clothes rack and shut the door.

“So far so good, Deku,” Katsuki sighed, pulling the sock out and helping his folks set Hisashi and Inko down on it.

“Now we just have to wait until-” Izuku began, but trailed off when the trunk started to move.

Izuku took a look out one of the peepholes in the side, and he could see the trunk was floating in the air again, this time by the girl, Ochaco, who opened the back door of the house and pushed it towards a large moving vehicle with the UA emblem emblazoned on the sides.

“UA sure put a lot of work into this,” Ochaco whistled, looking at the large truck, and sighing as she looked inside and only saw her new desk, chair, and bed, brought from the off-site furniture repository. She meekly moved the trunk next to her bed and touched her fingers, returning the trunk’s gravitational pull, causing it to make a loud thunk as it landed, and shaking its unknown-to-her tiny occupants. Ochaco sighed and pulled something out of her pocket, looked at it, and smiled. “That trunk sure had a lot of junk in it, and it sure seems old, but I’ll take it as a new start for me. Besides, this hidden treasure has got to be worth something.”

Izuku looked at what she was holding and gasped in shock. “That… that’s my…!”

[_UA_]

“Oh, so this is yours?” Ochaco asked as she pulled something from her desk drawer and put it on the desk: a shiny foil Hero trading card only available in bags of Heroes Chips. A card of…

“All Might!” Izuku cried out in glee, and ran over to the card, hoisting it up in the air and admiring it like it was the finest piece of art in the world. “It’s my All Might card! And it’s still in good condition! Thank you so much!”

“But how did you even…”

“His dad borrowed it,” Katsuki cut Ochaco off. “He found a whole-ass bag of Heroes Chips lying around the house before you guys moved in, Deku and I opened the pack together, and I let him have the card. The chips themselves were kinda meh, to be honest.”

Izuku took a moment to look away from the card and back to the girl who gave it to him. “So… yeah, we rode in the trunk, we hid in the walls here, and…” He trailed off, suddenly, almost like he was choking on the words.

“My folks started coughing that night,” Katsuki finished. “Now they’re bedridden, too.”

“Well, anyway,” Izuku sighed, “we went out to get them food and water… and then you found us, and here we are.”

“So you gonna let us go now or do we have to fight after all?” Katsuki barked, half joking but half serious. “Don’t expect us to tell you where we live now, I still don’t trust you.”

Ochaco sighed, impressed by the tiny boy’s resilient and aggressive nature. “Well, I promised I would keep your existence secret and get your families help, just keep away from my classmates for a few days and I’ll get you all the food and medical supplies you could need.” Ochaco then plucked a tissue from her box, folded it in half several times, and handed it to Izuku. "Here, you need this more than me."

“Sounds like a deal to me,” Izuku nodded, taking the tissue and putting it in his backpack. "Thank you."

“Whatever,” Katsuki snorted, “just keep away from us and we’ll be square.”

“Kacchan, please be nicer,” Izuku pleaded, and turned to Ochaco. “We’re good.”

Ochaco nodded and smiled, holding out her right pinky finger. “Shake on it?”

Izuku looked at the massive digit – longer and thicker than any of his arms or legs – and shook it with his own right hand. “Shake on it.” He then turned back, but Katsuki was already using his hook to climb down the table. “Well, that’s my cue. Gotta go, nice to meet you, Ochaco!”

Ochaco waved the two Borrowers goodbye. “I’ll make sure to let Iida know the problem is solved! No need to worry!”

“Great, I feel so relieved,” Katsuki rolled his eyes. “Just keep quiet about us and keep your end of the deal.”

“Sorry, that’s just how he rolls!” Izuku sighed and followed Katsuki to the outlet cover, carrying his card.

Katsuki pulled the outlet cover off and climbed into the walls, Izuku following close behind. As Katsuki put the cover back on and started walking down the passage back to their hideout, Izuku suddenly froze in place, dropped the card, and stared at his right hand. “Kacchan… do you realize what just happened?!”

“You mean how we got seen?” Katsuki asked as he turned back. “Yeah, I know, dumbass, I was there. Are you actually afraid of her or what?”

Izuku slowly shook his head, but then his face turned beet red. “Kacchan… I JUST TALKED TO A GIRL! AND I SHOOK HER HAND!” Izuku nearly fainted on the spot, but Katsuki caught him and slung him over his shoulder, dragging him back home while taking his newly reacquired card with him.

Katsuki sighed as he carried his old friend home… and softly chuckled. “Heh… damn nerd.”

Chapter Text

Chapter 4: Fake It to Make It

Ochaco was never one to have trouble sleeping (especially since she strongly believed that it saved money somehow), but she found herself tossing and turning more than she would admit over what happened that night.

“Okay, let’s go through this one more time,” she said softly to herself, “you heard a noise in your room, you went inside, and you found a pair of tiny teenage boys trying to steal a piece of your tissue paper… or wait, didn’t they call it ‘borrowing’? Whatever, the point remains, two human beings small enough to fit in the palm of your hand – barely four inches tall – is not something people see every day, even in a superpowered society, right, Ochaco?”

She pushed her sheets off her, sat up a little, and stared at her hand, remembering the tiny green-haired boy – Deku, she remembered – shaking just her index finger with his entire hand. She still had trouble wrapping her head around the entire thing.

“It’s driving me crazy just thinking about it,” she sighed, “but they sounded like they need help, and I wanna do what I can to help them if they need it. After all, that’s what heroes do.”

Putting these thoughts from her mind for now, she laid back down, pulled her sheets back up, and went back to sleep.

[=UA=]

It was deep into the morning when Izuku finally awoke to a delicious smell all around him. He slowly stretched and stood up in his makeshift bed and looked around, seeing nothing but what he had grown used to this past week: the inside of one of the walls of Heights Alliance. Katsuki picked this wall to camp in since it was closest to the kitchen, and Izuku could see that Katsuki was already making a hot stew over their impromptu stove that he created from discarded scrap metal and heated with a fire made from some match stubs.

“Wait… was all that just a dream?” Izuku quietly asked himself, before he turned around and saw something that wasn’t there last night: his old prized All Might trading card.

“That answer your damn question, Deku?”

Izuku gulped as he heard Katsuki speak up; he definitely overheard him. “Uh, good morning, Kacchan!”

“Don’t ‘good morning’ me, Deku,” Katsuki growled, “you know we’ve got a real problem, and it starts with your new girlfriend.”

Izuku blushed beet red at the word but shook his head. “It’s not like that at all, Kacchan! Besides, she let us go, I really don’t think she’s gonna tell anyone about us or even try to hurt us! We should try to trust her! I thought you were ok with this!”

“I’m ok with a lot of things, Deku,” Katsuki shot back, and – glancing back at his and Izuku’s parents asleep in bed – continued in a hushed voice, “but having even one damn human know that we exist is not ok. What about your folks? What about mine?”

“Kacchan, please,” Izuku sighed, “Ochaco said she wasn’t going to tell anyone about us! Besides, she’s our best way to get that medicine for our parents, we promised to meet with her again and come up with a plan.”

“Yeah, right,” Katsuki snorted, “like I’m just gonna wait for that damn stupid girl to actually do something when I can do it myself.”

“Kacchan, that’s enough!” Izuku snapped, finally leaping out of bed, and going to the corner of their living room. “I know you don’t trust humans, but she is different, I know it! I don’t care if you don’t see it that way, I’m gonna do something about it all by myself, if I have to!”

“Do you even know where these so-called amazing medical supplies are, Deku?” Katsuki scoffed, glaring down at his friend. “Or do you even know how to get them without getting caught?”

Izuku glared back and raised an eyebrow. “Do you?”

Katsuki opened his mouth to reply, but then quickly closed it, realizing Izuku had made a point. They had spent three days living in the walls of the dorms, and all he knew was where each students’ dorms were. He knew there was a huge living room downstairs with possibly tons of stuff, but being in a large open space like that was just asking to be caught, let alone seen. To make matters worse, the main campus – which housed the best medical equipment the boys had ever heard of – was over half a kilometer away from the dorms, which was a day long journey in and of itself, but the path was almost entirely a smooth path with only a few small bushes, meaning there was almost no place to hide if someone saw them.

Finally, Katsuki sighed and slumped into a chair by the table. “Okay, fine. We’ll do it your way, Deku. But don’t expect me to be thrilled about it.”

Izuku nodded and went over to a corner of the room, gathering his borrowing bag, and strapped it on. He then took out a pencil nub from his bag and wrote a note for his and Katsuki’s parents, who were both still asleep, and placed a bowl of stew on top of it.

Gone borrowing, be back later, get better. Love, Izuku.

Izuku turned to Katsuki and nodded as he headed for the other side of the wall. “Okay, let’s go.”

[=UA=]

By the time the boys had reached Ochaco’s dorm room and entered through the outlet cover, she was already awake and dressed, and seemed to be looking for something. Izuku blushed at seeing her in the school uniform, and looked down as he ventured forward, in case she walked over them, so as to not accidentally look up her skirt. Katsuki grabbed Izuku by the arm and led him to Ochaco’s metal low TV stand (which ironically had no TV on it), and they climbed up the legs to reach the side closest to the desk. Izuku twirled and tossed his rope up, the fishing hook latched onto the edge, and the two climbed up. They barely had a breather after the climb before Ochaco glanced at her desk and noticed the two boys.

“Oh, wow!” she smiled as she came over to greet them. “Guess that wasn’t some crazy dream last night after all! How are you?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Katsuki snorted, looking away.

“Kacchan, please!” Izuku chided and stepped forward. “Good morning, Ochaco. We were hoping you could help us out with getting that medicine for our parents.”

“Well, that all depends on what they need,” Ochaco said, sitting down at her desk. “You said that creepy giant rat bit your dad in the leg, right Deku?”

“Cluny, yeah,” Izuku shuddered, recalling the horrible rodent who hurt his father.

Ochaco nodded and got out a pen and a small pad of paper. “From what I recall, your dad’s leg wound isn’t bleeding anymore, but it is infected, and now he’s coughing, and so is everyone else. Am I right?” Izuku nodded, but Katsuki looked away. “We’re gonna need bandages, antiseptic, and vitamins. I know where Iida keeps those, but I don’t know if we have any cough relief here… I’m also gonna have to convince Iida that our ‘pest problem’ isn’t a problem anymore. As for the rest, I’ll have to go to the nurse’s office in between classes and ask Recovery Girl for something. Of course, it would be easier if-”

“Wait, Recovery Girl?!” Izuku gasped, unintentionally cutting her off. “The Healing Hero is the school nurse?”

“Yeah, she is,” Ochaco nodded. “You didn’t know?”

“Do we look like we have internet access?” Katsuki barked, still turned away.

“Oh, sorry,” Ochaco blushed, embarrassed. “I mean, I only have a flip phone when everyone else in my class has a smartphone, so I don’t have easy access either, but…” She trailed off when she noticed Izuku and Katsuki looking blankly at her, not understanding what she meant. “I’ll get the medicine really quick before class starts, and I’ll say it’s for me if anyone asks.”

“Yeah, you better keep your trap shut about us, got it?” Katsuki whipped around and glared at Ochaco.

Ochaco didn’t expect someone so small to look as intimidating as Katsuki did, but she nodded and gulped. “My lips are sealed, promise.”

“Hey wait, hold on!” Izuku piped up. “What if they don’t believe you need it? You don’t have any cuts or bruises, so why would they just let you take medical supplies that you don’t need?”

“Stop overthinking this shit, Deku!” Katsuki barked, but knew he had a point. “This was your damn idea; do you want our folks better or not?!”

“Of course I do,” Izuku barked back, “but what if they start asking more questions or take tests or something?”

Ochaco had to admit that Izuku had a point. She didn’t know Iida for very long, but she knew that he was very strict about not wasting supplies and was bound to be suspicious of someone in the picture of health just asking to borrow some stuff on a whim. She looked down at Izuku and Katsuki and sighed. I kinda wish he did stab me with that pencil after all, then maybe… Ochaco thought to herself, but immediately trailed off as she realized she had just come up with the perfect plan to get the medicine.

She quickly opened her pencil case, got out her mechanical pencil, and laid it out on the table before the two boys. The sudden movement startled them, and they looked up at her, puzzled. She then touched the pencil with the tip of her finger, and a pink energy wave washed over it, causing it to float into the air, still within reach of the boys.

“Kaccha – er, Katsuki,” Ochaco said, catching herself almost using Izuku’s nickname for the blonde boy, “didn’t you call yourself a Great Giant Killer or something?”

“Yeah, what’s it to ya?” Katsuki snorted. “You wanna die after all?”

“As a matter of fact,” Ochaco said, rolling up her left sleeve to expose her left forearm, and thrusting her left wrist out, “I do.”

Izuku gasped in shock, but Katsuki could see what Ochaco had presented: the pencil, her bare arm, and an opportunity. Grinning widely, Katsuki grabbed the pencil out of the air and leapt up high, and the pencil began floating ever upward with him holding tightly onto it, its gravitational pull nullified by Ochaco’s Quirk. Katsuki looked down from where he was – almost touching the ceiling of her room – and could see her holding her forearm out below. She then touched all ten of her fingertips together, which nullified her Quirk and caused the pencil – and Katsuki – to plummet down, and Katsuki aimed the pencil tip right at her exposed left forearm.

“DIE!”

[=UA=]

“All right, Class 1-A!” Tenya Iida, the class representative barked out to the assembly of students gathered in the common room, “Breakfast is over, and class is about to begin! Please proceed to the door in an orderly fashion!”

“Man, it’s 30 minutes until class starts,” moaned a blonde boy, Denki Kaminari, “can’t we just relax or something? We live on campus, and it’s a five-minute walk to the main building, and I’m still shaking out the cobwebs.”

“Kaminari, punctuality is important,” came the chiding of Vice-Representative Momo Yaoyorozu as she straightened her tie and put her hair up in her signature ponytail.

“Excuses are nails to build a house of failure,” came the brooding voice of the bird-headed Fumikage Tokoyami.

“Yeah, besides, the early morning breeze is nice,” added the cheery pink girl, Mina Ashido, “and a nice slow, leisurely walk to class is just what this girl needs!”

“Hold on,” Iida piped up, feeling something was amiss. He then looked at his classmates and noticed someone was missing. “Where is Uraraka?”

“She finished up her breakfast and cleanup pretty fast,” said Kyoka Jirou, the dark bowl-haired girl with the headphone-jack-like ear lobes, “she told me she had something to take care of before class.”

“Maybe she forgot something,” Hanta Sero said, looking in his own backpack to make sure he had his daily supplies.

“She knows that we need to leave for class any minute,” Iida sighed, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose, “why isn’t she…” His last words were lost in a collection of gasps from the other students, and Iida opened his eyes to see why: Ochaco slowly walked into the room, holding a wad of tissue paper over part of her left forearm, which had visibly absorbed a considerable amount of blood.

“Good heavens!” Iida gasped and rushed to her side, leading her to the couch in the common room. “What happened? Are you all right? Do I need to call a teacher?”

“Oh no, what happened?” Mina gasped, worried about her new friend and classmate.

The floating school uniform which belonged to Toru Hagakure – whose Quirk made her invisible by constantly refracting light off her body – rushed up to Ochaco as well and saw the blood-soaked tissue. “How did that happen?”

“I… I found the thief,” Ochaco murmured, finally getting some breathing room as she sat down. She paced herself on what to say, when a thought came into her head. “There was a… a rat,” she said, speaking up louder. “It came out of nowhere and went right for me. I tried to avoid it, but it was the smartest rat I ever saw, it even managed to pick up my pencil, and…” she trailed off as she rubbed her arm. “I opened my window and managed to send it flying out with my Quirk… it may still be floating, I can’t remember if I turned it off, but even if I did, it’s either floating into space like that baseball from Mr. Aizawa’s exam, or it’s a splat somewhere on the road out there.”

“Wait, why didn’t you get one of us first?” the spiky redhaired boy, Eijiro Kirishima, asked, worried. “We could have helped!”

“If she did that, it could have gotten away,” the plain-looking Masahiro Ojiro pointed out.

“Man, I was so sure it wasn’t a rat,” the rock-headed Koji Koda murmured, “I swear I spoke loud enough for every animal in this building to have heard me.”

“And I thought I could hear more than that in the walls,” Kyoka added, frowning. “Well, glad you solved that one, Ochaco. Too bad you had to get maimed for it.”

“Stay right there,” Iida said firmly, and immediately dashed off to fetch the first aid kit from off one of the walls near the front door. He came back with an adhesive bandage roll, a small handful of cotton balls, and a small bottle of antiseptic; he then sat down next to her on the couch and carefully removed her tissue paper.

“Hold still, this is going to sting a little…” he murmured as he began to treat Ochaco. She winced as the cotton ball – soaked in the antiseptic – touched the exposed wound on her arm, but she did her best to not move too much, even though it hurt like a dozen white-hot needles had touched her skin. After that, Iida carefully wrapped her arm in the bandage and secured it with a small clip.

Ochaco almost forgot why she went through the whole ordeal until she saw Iida get up. “W-wait, hold on, Iida… could I… um… borrow some of that to take back to my room? I’m probably gonna have to reapply all that stuff after class and I don’t want to inconvenience you. Also, I forgot to get my stuff for class today, so I need to go back there anyway.”

Iida was surprised by her request, but felt it was logical and compassionate. “Thank you for your concern on my behalf, Uraraka. Take your time, we’ll be ready as soon as you are.”

“Thanks, Iida,” she sighed as she took the supplies, but then felt a new sensation: her stomach growling. “Uh, maybe I was hungrier than I thought… are those rice balls still in the fridge?”

Iida sighed but nodded. “Please be quick and brush your teeth when you’re done!”

Quickly, Uraraka bowed and got up, sprinting to the fridge, opening the door, and grabbing a single rice ball out from a sealed container. She then wrapped it in a paper towel, and sprinted to the right-side elevator, taking it to the girls’ section of the fourth floor, and dashing to her room at the end of the hallway. The adrenaline rush almost caused her to completely ignore her arm pain as she opened her door and peered inside.

“Guys?” she whispered. “You still here?”

Ochaco didn’t have to wait long for an answer, as Izuku’s head popped out from behind the tissue box and waved at her. She quickly went inside, shutting the door behind her, and dumped everything in her arms onto the table. Izuku gasped as he observed this amazing bounty, and even Katsuki couldn’t help but smirk.

“Wow, this is amazing!” Izuku smiled as he and Katsuki poured a tiny amount of the antiseptic into some bottles they pulled from their backpacks.

“I guess you’re good for something after all,” Katsuki snorted as he took a cotton ball and a small strip of adhesive bandage. He then looked at Ochaco’s bandaged arm and looked down at the table. “Thanks, I guess,” he murmured.

“You’re welcome,” Ochaco sighed, still getting used to Katsuki’s acerbic personality.

“Whoa, Kacchan, how are we gonna get this home?” Izuku asked, staring in awe at the rice ball that was almost as big as he was.

“We take that last and in pieces, you damn idiot,” Katsuki sighed as he began ripping apart the rice ball and the paper towel it was in and began wrapping the rice chunks in the shredded paper towel.

Ochaco couldn’t help but feel sorry for them, so much work and scavenging just to try to live among normal people who didn’t even know they existed. She wished she could help their parents, but she already gave them medicine and didn’t know what else to do. Except for…

“Hey,” Ochaco spoke up after a long period of silence. “What if this doesn’t work?”

“What do you mean?” Katsuki frowned, not liking where this was leading.

“I mean,” Ochaco said, nervously, “what if this isn’t enough to help? What if they need to see a doctor? I did mention that Recovery Girl is our nurse, so maybe…”

“Not another goddamn word!” Katsuki barked, making everyone stop.

“Kacchan!” Izuku gasped.

“If you think we’re letting you damn giants anywhere near our homes or our families, you’re out of your damn mind!” Katsuki snarled, grabbing the pencil nub he stabbed Ochaco with, which still had traces of her blood on it. “Now you get the hell out of here or I’ll kill you for real right here and now!”

“Kacchan, stop it!” Izuku cried out, but Ochaco stood up, causing Izuku to step back in fear as he could see how easily she towered over them.

“No, Izuku, he’s right,” Ochaco sighed, grabbing her backpack and the first aid supplies. “I overstepped, I’m sorry. I need to head to class anyway. Take care of your folks, maybe I’ll see you later.”

Ochaco then left her room and Katsuki began to march back to their home, supplies in tow, leaving Izuku in a confused and somewhat angry mess on Ochaco’s desk. He shook his head as he followed his friend, upset at his behavior, but deciding to let it go for now. Truth be told, he wanted to take his mom and dad to see Recovery Girl ever since Ochaco told him that she was here at UA but knew that Katsuki would object to this if he ever learned. Izuku couldn’t comprehend why Katsuki was so against this idea; after all, his parents were sick too, but every path that led to the fastest recovery seemed to always be the path that Katsuki just wasn’t going to take.

And Izuku now saw it was all because of his distrust of humans.

But this time, it was going to be much more serious for them if he couldn’t trust Ochaco.

“That jerk,” Izuku sighed to himself as he followed Katsuki home.

Chapter Text

Chapter 5: It’s Dangerous to Go Alone

About three hours after Izuku and Katsuki returned to their temporary home, they managed to get their parents awake enough to take the medicine their sons got for them. Thankfully, they didn’t ask how they got it, and quickly fell back asleep, looking substantially better than before. Katsuki walked off to the side, grumbling a bit as he leaned against a wall and looked at his parents. Seeing an opportunity, Izuku decided to speak his mind about his friend’s verbal explosion at Ochaco.

“Kacchan,” Izuku said firmly, “we need to talk.”

Katsuki turned around, glaring at Izuku. “If this is about that dumb broad, forget it, you damn idiot. I meant every damn word.”

“Then you’re the damn idiot!” Izuku hissed.

“What’d you say, Deku?” Katsuki growled, stepping forward menacingly.

“You heard me,” Izuku said, pulling Katsuki away from the beds so their sleeping parents wouldn’t be woken up by their argument. “What if Ochaco is right? This could be way more serious than an infection after a rat bite, why else would my dad’s coughing spread to your parents? They didn’t get bitten!”

“It’s called catching a cold you damn idiot,” Katsuki groaned. “Your mom didn’t get bit either and yet she started coughing too.”

“But what if it’s more than that?” Izuku persisted. “Remember when that other family lived in the house with us as little kids and they had healing Quirks? They could tell what was wrong with us or our folks when they got sick, and that’s why we had to scrounge so much for medical stuff after they left. We need to get our parents to that medical facility, these people are Pro Heroes, they can help us!”

“The hell we need those damn giant monsters, Deku,” Katsuki grumbled, “What we need is more medical supplies.” He then pushed Izuku away and grabbed his satchel. “I’m going to get more; you watch over them and stay put.”

“But Kacchan-”

“But nothing, damn it,” Katsuki growled and went to the hole that led outside. “Stay put, I mean it.”

Before Izuku could say anything else, Katsuki was already gone. Izuku sighed and munched on a chunk of the rice ball he got from Ochaco while keeping watch over his and Katsuki’s parents. He then looked at his supplies that he laid off to the side and noticed that while Katsuki’s medicine supply was exhausted, Izuku still had plenty, even though Izuku clearly remembered using the bulk of it due to his father’s more serious condition. Izuku was confused about this, as well as to why Katsuki would just take off like that, until his mind came to a horrifying conclusion: Katsuki had emptied his medicine bottle into Izuku’s.

And Katsuki just left. To go get more.

From the common room.

“Oh no.”

[=UA=]

Katsuki cursed and growled under his breath as he navigated the walls between Heights Alliance. He had been wandering for what seemed like hours, and Izuku’s words were still plaguing his mind, much to his extreme annoyance. “Stupid shitty Deku, you think just because one stupid little girl showed you mercy now you wanna let this whole damn school know about us. You stupid goddamn nerd… if you didn’t make so much noise that night she wouldn’t have caught us. Once again, I gotta clean up your shit, you damn loser idiot.”

Katsuki kept going further through the walls and mentally flashed back to various moments when he and Deku were young kids, where Deku got into trouble and Katsuki had to bail him out: almost falling through the floorboards into a pit full of roaches, getting tangled up in weeds while foraging outside in the old backyard, Cluny attacking his dad while they ran from-

Suddenly, Katsuki stopped.

Why did he think of Cluny’s attack? That wasn’t Deku’s fault.

But it was yours.

Katsuki whipped around as he could have sworn that he heard someone say something.

But there was nobody there.

You could have saved him.

“Who’s there?” Katsuki hissed, whipping around.

You just stood there like a lifeless doll.

“Who the hell do you think you are?” Katsuki barked through barely controlled rage, looking around frantically, until something made him completely stand still.

His eyes fixed upon a shiny, reflective surface seen through a small hole in the floorboard. Katsuki could see himself in it like a mirror, but his reflection was completely different from his current appearance. The other Katsuki was coated in blood and grime, wearing Hisashi Midoriya’s torn clothes, and grinned at him very condescendingly, almost mockingly.

It’s all your fault. You stood there and did nothing, just like you’re doing right now.

“Stop it.”

You’re weak.

“Shut up.”

You’re the real Deku.

“I said shut up, damn it!”

Good for nothing.

Katsuki roared with all his might and ran forward and punched his reflection but ended up doing nothing but bruising his knuckles. He took another look, and he saw his reflection… was just himself, panting heavily. Katsuki blinked and looked up, seeing the reflective surface was the back of the refrigerator in the common room.

“Whoa, how did…” Katsuki began, but then shook his head as he poked his head around to see if anyone was in the common room. By some miracle, the place was completely empty. He didn’t even hear any whispers from that one weirdo who could talk with animals.

“Jackpot,” Katsuki grinned as he scampered into the room and glanced up at the fridge. “Might as well help myself to a quick snack before I get that medicine, last thing I’m doing is accepting that damn girl’s handouts.”

Katsuki reached into his pack, grabbed a miniature electric scissor jack that his dad invented, and put it in the space between the fridge door and the fridge itself. With just one push of a button, the jack expanded to pry the door open. After a few seconds, the door cracked open, the jack dropped to the floor, and a blast of frigid air nearly knocked Katsuki off his feet. He rubbed his hands, put the jack pack into his pack, and climbed inside of the fridge, getting out his aluminum gloves for food extraction. Immediately, his eyes went right for the item he craved the most: the French dork’s imported cheese and the bowls full of katsudon that they made for dinner the previous night. Katsuki grinned as he saw that the mouse traps had all been taken out (not that they could catch him anyway), and he took one step towards his ultimate quarry…

…and he couldn’t take another step.

Katsuki’s blood ran cold as he looked down and saw that his feet were caught in some kind of… tape? But it didn’t look like any tape he’d seen before; it was enormous and way stickier than any tape he ever borrowed. Katsuki reached down and tried to pull his feet free, but something dropped down from the ceiling and snagged him, yanking him upwards and freezing him in place completely.

“What the-?!” Katsuki was barely able to look to his side and saw that his entire body was enveloped in a large, sticky, purple orb. He then remembered one of the students, a pervy little punk, had a Quirk that let him produce sticky balls from his hair. This had to be one of those balls.

“Damn, they used their Quirks to make special traps?” Katsuki growled, struggling with all his might to break free. “This is bad, I can’t move! How can this get any worse?!”

As if on cue, the fridge light went out, which meant the fridge door had shut itself, trapping Katsuki inside.

He couldn’t believe he would ever even think this, but now he wished Deku was here with him.

[=UA=]

Izuku paced back and forth frantically as he looked at the small, discarded wristwatch he used as a clock. It was a quarter past noon, just over an hour since Katsuki had left to get more medicine. Even though Izuku didn’t doubt Katsuki’s ability to get the medicine – and the idea of getting it without being seen seemed much more likely with everyone gone to class – Izuku couldn’t help but be extremely worried for his friend.

“Maybe he’s just late, he could be either halfway there or halfway back,” he muttered to himself. “It’s not like this is the old house, after all, this is a big school, one of the biggest hero schools in the country, let alone the entire world, maybe he got lost or he’s having trouble finding a way out of the wall, it’s not like he got caught or anything, everyone’s at class right now and classes don’t end until it’s almost dark, and their only break is lunch and they’re likely eating at the cafeteria to save time on coming back here only to go back there…”

Suddenly, he heard a soft moan from the beds and saw that his mom and Katsuki’s mom were waking up and moving a little bit. Immediately, Izuku rushed to their sides. “Mom, Ka-san, are you okay?”

“Mrm… good morning, Izuku,” Inko murmured, smiling while rubbing her eyes. “I’m feeling much better now, thank you for checking up on your mother, such a sweet boy.”

Mitsuki yawned and blinked, scratching herself, and looked around their temporary home. “Hey, where’s my little punk? Why isn’t he here like you, Deku?”

Izuku gulped and went pale for a moment before he spoke up. “Well, um, Kacchan left a little while ago to get more medicine, we’re already more than halfway out.”

“And why aren’t you watching his back?” Mitsuki groaned, taking a small cup next to her side of the bed, filled it full of water from the basin next to the bed, and gulped it down before getting another cupful for Inko, who graciously accepted it.

“Well, he told me not to follow him,” Izuku sighed, “and you know how Kacchan is when he gets like that…”

Mitsuki grumbled and shook her head, stretching a little, and glared at Izuku. “Go find him before he gets himself killed, or worse, seen.” With that said, she yawned and tucked herself back in.

Izuku sighed and turned to his mother. “I’ll do my best, Mom, you get some sleep.”

Inko yawned and smiled. “Thank you, Izuku. Sounds lovely to me.”

Izuku smiled and tucked his mother in, sparing a glance at his father, who was still asleep. Hisashi’s face was pale as ever, but Izuku wanted to believe he was getting better. Izuku pulled back the sheets to examine his dad’s leg and saw a grizzly image: while there was less blood seeping into the bandages, the throbbing purple veins were going up. Izuku pulled the sheets back up in a hurry and went to get his bag. With one last look at his dad, Izuku left their temporary home to find Katsuki.

“When I find him,” Izuku said sternly to himself, “he’s taking my dad to the nurse’s office whether he likes it or not.”

[=UA=]

Katsuki could feel his limbs getting number with each passing second, the trap he was stuck in made it impossible to move and his clothes were not fit for these temperatures. The fridge light being off only made things worse as he could barely see inside of his cold prison; he couldn’t even see own breath if he wanted to, which he likely could, due to the drop in temperature.

“D-damn it,” he shivered, “I should have gone straight for the medicine… my folks need it, but Deku’s dad needs it more… shit, now I wish Deku was here, he’d at least get me out of this trap before-”

His words were lost in a sudden motion, as the door unexpectedly opened and the fridge light came on with light pouring in from outside as well, forcing Katsuki to quickly and firmly shut his eyes to avoid being blinded. Almost immediately after, he heard a loud gasp, and Katsuki opened his eyes and found an enormous face staring back at him through the fridge doorway in shock.

It was a girl’s face, but it wasn’t Ochaco.

“What in the world?” the girl with the dark-haired ponytail gasped. “Is that… a borrower?”

Chapter Text

Chapter 6: Our Little Secret

As Izuku was carefully moving along the inside of the walls, he was sure that he was almost at the common room. Katsuki had to have come along this way to get at the medical supplies, but Izuku didn’t yet know how his friend could get through the walls, much less make it to the first aid kit undetected. However, he noticed a small hole in the floorboards near the bottom of the wall, and Izuku used his rope to climb down to the floor. With a flick of the rope, the hook came down, and Izuku wrapped it up and peeked his head out of the hole. He saw the reflective surface of the large refrigerator in the common room, but then heard something that made his blood run cold.

“Stay back, I’m warning you!”

“Wait, hold on, I’m not going to hurt you!”

“Like hell you won’t! Come any closer and I’ll-”

Izuku gasped in terror. That was Katsuki’s voice he heard, but the other voice was one of the other students. He didn’t know who, but he wasn’t gonna let Katsuki get caught if he could help it. He grabbed his hook again, readied it like a knife, and ran out from behind the fridge, screaming madly as he ran towards the large shape obscured by the fridge door.

“LET KACCHAN GO RIGHT NOW!”

“What in the-?”

Suddenly, Izuku felt something large slam over him, and he looked to see that he was now trapped under a large clear plastic bowl. He looked up and saw who had trapped him there: a towering girl – the same age as Uraraka but clearly different – with jet-black hair in a bushy ponytail and wearing the U.A. school uniform, but with a slightly shorter skirt, which did make Izuku blush a little. Her mature black eyes were wide with surprise as she looked down at Izuku, and she carefully lifted the bowl off him and set it aside.

“Remarkable,” she said. “Looks like borrowers are still in Japan after all.”

“Do whatever you want to me,” Izuku gulped, still brandishing his hook, “but don’t you dare hurt Kacchan!”

“No, no, I’m not going to hurt him or you,” the girl shook her head. “My name is Momo Yaoyorozu, Vice Representative of UA High Class 1-A, and I promise that I will not hurt you or your friend. I just wish to help your friend. You see, he has been caught in a trap we set in here a while ago.”

Izuku looked around Momo and into the open fridge and saw that Katsuki was in fact trapped in a trap made from a strip of tape and some kind of sticky ball that Izuku realized was the work of the Quirk belonging to that one weird boy whose hair made him look like a bunch of grapes. He also realized that the tape must have come from that other boy (Izuku never learned the names of the Class 1-A students except for Uraraka and now Yaoyorozu) who could shoot tape from his arms.

“Kacchan!” Izuku cried, and rushed towards his friend, only for Yaoyorozu to block his path with her hand.

“Hold on there, little guy,” Momo warned, and reached into the fridge, pulled out the trap containing Katsuki (who was still frantically struggling to free himself), and then shut the fridge door. “If you try and pry him off by yourself, you’ll only end up getting yourself caught on this thing, too. Please, allow me.” Out of Momo’s right arm came a small vial of clear liquid with a tiny brush attached to it, and Izuku could see that this was the work of her Quirk. She then dipped the brush in the liquid and brushed the area of the ball around where Katsuki was stuck. Almost immediately, Katsuki’s struggles got one arm peeled off the ball, and another, and then his whole body finally got unstuck from the trap and he fell to the floor in a heap, panting, coughing, and shivering.

“The power of acetone,” Momo smiled.

“Kacchan!” Izuku gasped, and rushed forward to help his fallen friend to his feet. When Izuku held Katsuki’s hand, he almost immediately reeled back, as it felt ice cold.

‘D-d-damn it, D-D-Deku,” Katsuki stuttered, shivering and sniffling. “Y-you c-c-couldn’t have g-g-gotten here f-f-five m-minutes ear-earlier? M-m-maybe th-then, I w-w-wouldn’t have b-b-been c-c-caught b-by that d-d-damn g-g-g-giant b-b-b-b-bitch!”

“Language, Kacchan!” Izuku chided, noticing that Momo looked shocked by Katsuki’s crass words. “Sorry about that, he’s like this all the time, especially about humans.”

“So I gather,” Momo gaped, still stunned, and then held her hands out on the floor. “May I carry you to the counter? It will be brighter and warmer there. Plus, it will give us a chance to explain everything better.”

Izuku was surprised at this question, he’d heard horror stories of humans grabbing Borrowers hurting them for fun, but he never heard of anyone asking a Borrower to be carried anywhere. She may not be Ochaco, but Izuku felt that this Momo was just as nice and compassionate, and wordlessly climbed into her hands, dragging the still-shivering Katsuki with him. Momo slowly rose to her feet – the sudden change in height making Izuku gasp a little bit – and walked to the kitchen counter – which wasn’t that far away from the fridge since this was still the kitchen area – and gently set the two tiny boys down.

“Now then,” Momo said, “how about we clear the air with introductions? I’m Momo Yaoyorozu, Vice Representative of Class 1-A here at UA Academy. And you are… Deku and Kacchan, correct?”

“Um, actually, my name’s Izuku Midoriya,” Izuku replied, “and that’s Katsuki Bakugo, but we call each other Deku and Kacchan respectively. They’re our nicknames for each other, you see.”

“Well, please to meet you,” Momo smiled. “It’s a surprise to find Borrowers living in Japan, but a pleasant one.”

Izuku gasped at what she just said. “Wait, you know about us Borrowers?”

“My grandmother established the first open community for Borrowers and humans to live together in England when Quirks were first appearing,” Momo explained. “There was so much chaos back then and when my ancestors discovered this race of tiny people who just wanted to live their lives in peace, something struck a chord in the human spirit, so Borrowers went public when Hero society began to form, and the rest is history. Granted, they’re much less common here in Japan, with fewer people here even knowing they exist, as opposed to places like Europe or the Americas.”

“Well, I sure like it that way,” Katsuki angrily piped up, not shaking as much, glaring at Momo. “You keep your mouth shut, got it? I already hate having one more goddamn beanstalk know about us.”

While Momo furrowed her brow at Katsuki’s crassness, she realized what he meant. “Wait, do you mean that someone else here knows about you?”

“The round-faced chump,” Katsuki gruffly replied.

“He means Ochaco Uraraka,” Izuku sighed. “It’s a long story.”

Just then, the sound of a door opening reached everyone’s ears, as well as sounds of several feet shuffling. “Well, since everyone else seems to be arriving, perhaps I can hear this story with her and with Class Representative Iida, he should know about this. Please come with me.” Without waiting around, Momo gently but swiftly scooped Izuku and Katsuki into her hands and deposited them into the left pocket of her uniform jacket.

“Hey, you b-!” Katsuki yelled in protest, but Izuku covered his mouth. “Hold on, Kacchan, we can’t let the others see or hear us!”

Momo then walked over to the entry area where the students were gathered and walked up to Tenya Iida, who was coincidentally conversing with Ochaco. “Forgive my interruption, Representative Iida,” Momo interrupted, “but there’s something urgent I need to discuss with you in private,” Momo then turned to look at Ochaco. “This concerns you as well, Uraraka.”

“Whoa, what’s the deal?” Denki gaped, noticing the commotion, “did she do something wrong?”

“This does not concern you for the moment, Kaminari,” Momo chided, “but nobody is in trouble. This is another type of urgency, one which cannot be discussed openly just yet.”

“Hey, I’ll go with you already,” Ochaco sighed, “just stop being so wordy, you’re kinda giving me a headache with all those big words.”

“Just like those two knuckleheads,” Kyoka chuckled, pointing at both Denki and Mina, who both gave an indignant “HEY!” in response.

Tenya sighed and both he and Ochaco followed Momo to the elevator. She pushed the button for the third floor. “May we conduct this private meeting in your quarters, Iida?”

“Of course, Yaoyorozu,” Tenya nodded as the elevator rose, “but if I may ask, what is this about?”

“You’ll find out once we’re in private,” Momo replied.

With a ding, the elevator arrived at the third floor, and the trio crossed the hallway until they reached Tenya’s room. Once he opened the door and let them inside, Momo eyed his desk and walked over to it.

“Now this may come as a surprise,” Momo began, “but I have discovered the true identity of our mysterious invader. Or rather, invaders.”

While Tenya raised a curious eyebrow, Ochaco’s eyes widened in shock as she realized what was going to happen. Without another word, Momo reached into her pockets and gently scooped out the tiny forms of Izuku and Katsuki and gently laid them out on Tenya’s table. The two boys – slightly dazed from all the sudden movement – straightened up and looked up, clearly intimidated, at the surprised faces of Tenya and Ochaco, the latter of whom looked like she was going to faint.

“What in the world?” Tenya gasped. “They’re-”

“Nothing!” Ochaco yelped and rushed to the table, trying to obscure the two boys. “This can all be easily explained, it’s nothing crazy, they’re just-”

“Borrowers,” Momo spoke up, which surprised Ochaco.

“I had read about them when I was a lad,” Tenya marveled, “but I never imagined that they actually still lived in Japan after all this time.”

Ochaco, Izuku, and Katsuki stared at Momo and Tenya, stunned beyond words at what was said so casually. “Wait a minute… you know about borrowers?” Ochaco uttered.

“Well, I would know more than Tenya, actually,” Momo explained, “you see-”

“Her grandma apparently saw our kind years ago in England and made some kind of funny farm, and now we’re in all the history books.” Katsuki snidely interrupted. “Pfft, yeah, right.”

“Hey now, don’t you know better than to interrupt a lady?” Tenya chided, clearly disgusted by Katsuki’s rudeness.

“I understand you learned about these two being here before we did, Ochaco,” Momo added, “is that correct?”

“Um, yeah,” Ochaco nodded, “but it’s not just them.”

“It’s our parents too,” Izuku piped up, which caused all eyes to turn to him. “Our parents are sick, they need help, and Ochaco was going to help us. Please, will you help us too?”

Before anyone could reply, Katsuki angrily grabbed Izuku by his shirt collar. “What the hell are you thinking, Deku? Do you want the whole school to know about us? For all we know, they could be lying to us! And when we drop our guard, it’s off to the testing lab of death for you and me and our families, if we don’t get squashed or fumed like bugs!”

“Kacchan, that’s enough!” Izuku shot back, pushing Katsuki off. “Don’t you think that if they wanted to hurt us, they’d have done it by now? Don’t you want to see your mom and dad well again?”

Katsuki stopped raging and looked up at the three humans who stared down at them not with malice or wickedness, but with shock, concern, and slight worry. It loathed Katsuki to admit it, but nothing he feared would happen to them had actually happened, outside of two people besides Ochaco knowing that they were there. And even then, Momo didn’t hurt them (unless you count wounded ego from being carried so much in the last few hours). And more importantly, Katsuki really did want to see his parents out of bed again. Reluctantly, Katsuki groaned and shrugged his shoulders. “This violates everything we were raised to believe in… but if it saves our folks, fine.”

Izuku sighed, relieved, and turned to Tenya and Momo. “Can we count on you guys?” he asked them.

“Worry not, young borrower,” Tenya saluted, “leave all your worries to the dedicated hero course students of UA’s Class 1-A! We’ll take your family straight to Recovery Girl right away!”

“And we won’t tell the rest of the class just yet,” Momo added, “we’ll do our part to respect your privacy and offer you better lodging here at Heights Alliance.”

Ochaco knelt at Izuku’s level and smiled. “I’m so glad it’s all gonna work out, Deku!”

Izuku could hardly believe what was happening, it felt like a great weight had been lifted off his shoulders, and he woozily stumbled around on the table, mumbling to himself, until he tottered at the edge and almost fell off, much to everyone’s shock. Fortunately, Ochaco was quick to scoop Izuku into her hand before he fell off and brought him close to her face.

“Oh my gosh, are you okay?” she gasped.

Without warning, Izuku sprung up from her hand and latched himself onto Ochaco’s left cheek, hugging it with all his might. “Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you!”

Ochaco was surprised by Izuku’s sudden action but smiled and gently cradled his tiny body against her cheek, humming softly. She was happy that he was finally getting the help he needed… plus she couldn’t help but find his actions… cute.

“Happy to help, Deku.”

Chapter Text

Chapter 7: Closing Wounds, Opening Secrets

“ARE YOU TWO FUCKING INSANE!?”

Izuku and Katsuki flinched as Mitsuki yelled at them, terrified at how scary she could be while still lying in bed looking sick as a dog. Inko and Masaru were holding onto her shoulders, trying to calm her down, and Hisashi was still in bed, but with the covers pulled over his entire body, trying to drown out the yelling.

“It’s bad enough you get caught, you damn idiot,” Mitsuki raged on, “but now you’re telling me you’re gonna just lead us out to those giant, crazy, Borrower-squashing humans on a silver fucking platter?”

“Aunt Mitsuki, it’s not like that at all,” Izuku retorted, “these humans are different, we’re in a school built for training superheroes, led by superheroes! We haven’t had one bad thing happen since we got here!”

“Apart from my dumbass son getting caught in a trap and seen, you mean,” Mitsuki grumbled, glaring at Katsuki, who glared right back at her.

“We both got seen by that dumb girl well before that,” Katsuki snorted, glaring at Izuku.

“And whose fault was that for not being quiet and careful enough!?” Mitsuki growled.

“Oh, here we go again! Everything is my fault, isn’t it? I bet you wish he were your kid instead of me, huh? Is that it?”

“Don’t gimme that bullshit! Who was the idiot who got caught and seen, Deku or you!?”

“EVERYONE SHUT THE HELL UP!”

It was so unusual for Izuku to swear that Katsuki and Mitsuki immediately stopped shouting and stared at him, mouths equally agape. Inko was also caught off-guard by her son’s sudden outburst, and Hisashi pulled off the covers to woozily look out at the scene.

“We came here to UA in the first place to get help, and I got us help!” Izuku barked, looking at the adults. “I’m sick of everything we’ve had to deal with until now! The sleepless nights, the coughing fits, worrying about whether or not I was gonna wake up and see either one or all of you dead!” He pointed at his and Katsuki’s parents, who each grimaced as he spoke. “Ochaco is not gonna hurt us and neither are Momo or Tenya! Ochaco was super nice and helpful in giving us those supplies, Momo and Tenya swore to keep us secret while taking you guys to Recovery Girl, and I’m just…” Izuku trailed off for a bit, but sighed as he slumped against the wall. “I just want to help you guys get better.”

Mitsuki paused, stunned by Izuku’s verbal explosion, and said nothing for a long time. Finally, she sighed and plopped backwards into the bed. “So how are we going to get there?”

Izuku blinked wearily. “Huh?”

“Well, since you wanted this so badly,” Mitsuki grumpily replied, “how are you planning to lug your poor sick dad out of bed for his doctor’s appointment, and us as well?”

Izuku didn’t say anything but went towards the wall and made three heavy knocks. After a while, nothing happened, and Izuku knocked three times again, louder this time. And then again.

“What the hell are you-”

Before Mitsuki could finish her question, everything started shaking, startling almost everyone in the room, and the wall opened up, letting in a light that was blinding to the Borrowers. When it dimmed, Mitsuki could see the face of three humans – two girls and one boy – staring at them. The boy had a set of athletic yet academic-looking glasses, one of the girls – whose dark hair was tied up in a ponytail which made her mature face stand out more – was holding a stethoscope, and the auburn-haired girl with the round pink cheeks was holding a flashlight and breathed a sigh of relief.

“Well, glad there was this loose panel in the boiler room, so we didn’t have to saw open any walls,” Ochaco smiled. “Nobody comes near the boiler room anyway, so it makes sense to hide here. Plus, it’s near the kitchen, so it’d be easy to get to the food.”

The adults were all petrified, their faces frozen in sheer terror. Even Hisashi was wide awake, trying to jump out of bed and run away. But Izuku stepped between them and waved his hands. “Wait, guys, please, it’s okay! They’re gonna help us!”

“Like hell it’s okay!” Mitsuki yelped, with Masaru cowering behind her. “This is insane!”

“He speaks the truth, noble Borrowers,” Iida confirmed, surprising the adults. “We will take you to our school nurse, the Healing Hero Recovery Girl, for a full examination at once. Your secrecy will be maintained for the time being, and we will discuss more when we arrive.”

Inko gasped and looked at her son as she held her husband’s hand. “Izuku, what’s going on? What’s that bean talking about?”

“Mom, I’ll explain on the way,” Izuku reassured her. “For now, we have to go. The other students are elsewhere in the building, but there’s no guarantee they won’t come back at any minute.”

Without waiting for an answer, Ochaco reached into the small space with both arms and touched the bed with all ten of her fingertips, which caused the small makeshift bed to float slightly into the air. The adults let out a collection of startled gasps and some yelps of fear, but Ochaco slowly and tenderly moved the bed out of the tiny space they were in and into the more open room with one hand. Her other hand was outstretched to Izuku and Katsuki, who quickly climbed on. Once everyone was out of the way, Tenya put the panel back on the boiler room wall and Momo nailed it back on. Ochaco then deposited her tiny companions in her jacket pockets – Izuku in her right, Katsuki in her left – and touched her fingertips together before catching the parents’ bed.

“And now for the disguise,” Momo intoned, producing a small white cloth and covering the bed, obscuring the parents from view.

“It’s gonna be alright, guys! Just try and keep quiet for a bti!” Izuku hollered from below. “Alright, Ochaco, let’s go!”

Ochaco nodded, and the trio checked the lounge and entry hall to make sure nobody was there. Once the coast was clear, they left Heights Alliance and briskly jogged towards the main campus. Not many students or staff were walking around, but the few that did either ignored them or got out of the way, yelping in surprise. Finally, they got to the main campus building, walked inside, and dashed to the nurse’s office. The few students they passed wondered if the trio had found a wounded animal or something, but thankfully nobody stopped them. No teachers came out of the classrooms either, and the trio assumed they must all be in the teacher’s lounge or in their offices.

At least, that’s what they thought, until they rounded a corner and nearly ran into Mr. Aizawa.

“Hold on,” the homeroom teacher for Class 1-A scolded. “You know there’s no running allowed in the hallway, right?”

“Forgive us, Mr. Aizawa,” Tenya blurted, “but there is a grave emergency, and we must hurry!”

Mr. Aizawa raised an eyebrow as he looked at what was going on, and his eyes fell on the draped object Ochaco was holding. “What’s that, some dead cat or something?”

“It-it’s not dead,” Ochaco stammered, trying to sound convincing. “We f-found it outside the dorms and we need to see Recovery Girl right away!”

The Pro Hero and teacher narrowed his eyes at Ochaco, looking suspiciously at her, and then at Tenya and Momo. “You don’t mind if I take a look, do you?”

Ochaco gulped, terrified. She and the others had just told the Midoriyas and Bakugos that their secret would be kept, even if Borrowers were apparently public knowledge, but it looked like Mr. Aizawa wasn’t going to let them go without seeing what – or rather, who – was under the sheet.

Just then, the school nurse herself, Recovery Girl, strolled down the hallway. She noticed the bundle and gasped. “Oh my, did you find a poor dear injured animal?”

“Yes, it’s a poor animal, and we need your help!” Ochaco yelped quickly, relieved they avoided letting their teacher discover their new ‘houseguests’.

But that relief was short-lived, as Ochaco, in her haste to move on to the nurse’s office, tripped over her own foot and fell over backwards, causing the bundled bed to fall to the floor and shatter into pieces. Worse, the sheet flew off, exposing the terrified borrowers to the teachers.

“What the…” Mr. Aizawa mumbled, confused. “Wait, are those…”

“Oh, my word!” Recovery Girl gasped. “Borrowers? In Japan? After all this time?”

Ochaco’s eyes widened with panic, just when she thought Recover Girl would be the only one to have to know, their homeroom teacher discovered them too. Not to mention, she couldn’t keep her promise to keep them secret.

“Mom, Dad!” Izuku yelped from Ochaco’s pocket, looking out at the ruined bed on the floor and his barely conscious parents.

“Don’t worry, young man,” Recovery Girl coaxed, seeing the tiny boy’s distress and tenderly scooping up the adults. “We’ll take them to my office right away.” She then motioned for Mr. Aizawa. “Come along, Shota, I may need your help as well.”

“Well, this day just got interesting,” Mr. Aizawa sighed as he followed Recovery Girl, with Ochaco, Tenya, and Momo close behind.

[=UA=]

When the group arrived at the nurse’s office, Recovery Girl had already placed Izuku and Katsuki’s parents on a special smart mat laid out on her examination table, which wirelessly recorded their vital signs, which were displayed on the monitor above the table. Recover Girl was also wearing an advanced pair of loupe goggles over her visor, and the goggles had telescopic lenses, making it relatively easy to see even the tiniest ailments in the tiny borrowers’ conditions. Izuku and Katsuki watched from another table, both looking very worried as the Healing Hero tended to their parents.

“I always thought this would be over in an instant,” Izuku fretted, “but it feels like we’ve been here forever...”

Katsuki didn’t say anything, but he couldn’t deny that his mouth was running dry looking at the state of the adults, especially Hisashi. All the guilt began to wash over him again and he clutched his stomach and put his hand in front of his mouth, feeling like he was going to throw up. Izuku saw this and took his hand that was on his stomach, and Izuku was shocked to find Katsuki’s grip was tightening gradually. It did sting a little, but Izuku didn’t say anything. If anything, he started gripping Katsuki’s hand just as tightly.

After what felt like another eternity, after taking in some readings from the machine, Recovery Girl turned around in her chair and sighed, her gaze falling on Izuku and Katsuki.

“I’ve done all that I can do, dearies,” she sighed, and everyone feared the worst.

But then, she smiled. “They’re going to pull through.”

Izuku’s eyes welled up with tears as he collapsed to the floor, breaking down into a fit of relieved sobbing, while Katsuki let out a relieved mixture of groaning and sighing and collapsed as well.

“Oh, thank goodness,” Momo sighed, her hand over her heart.

“We are truly grateful, Recovery Girl,” Tenya saluted, smiling.

“Deku, that’s so wonderful!” Ochaco smiled, tenderly scooping the tiny boy into her hands and hugged him against her cheek, who continued to cry into her cheek while hugging it. “Deku, I’m so happy for you, really.”

“Oh, U-Uraraka…” Izuku sobbed, a mixture of emotion raging inside of him as he struggled to regain composure, “th-th-thank you s-s-so m-m-much!” He then wiped his eyes as best he could and turned to Recovery Girl. “A-and thank-thank you, t-t-too!”

“Oh, the pleasure is mine, my dear sweet young man,” the Healing Hero smiled warmly before she walked over to a machine, pushed some buttons on it, and took out a small pill container – small enough for Izuku to easily carry – from a drawer. “Now, your father will need to take some strong antibiotics to fight this infection, it spread pretty bad, not as bas as it could have been had you waited any longer, but you need to make sure he takes it every single day.” A noise came from the machine, and she put the open container in a slot on the machine, and a small number of tiny pills were poured into it. She shut the container and gave it to Ochaco. “Maybe you hold onto it for now.”

“W-wait,” Katsuki mumbled, getting back to his feet, “what about my folks? And Deku’s mom?”

“They contracted a sort of respiratory virus,” she answered, with a hint of confusion in her voice. “I’m not entirely sure how they got it or what strain it is, but it seems mild, so they should recover. Make sure they drink plenty of fluids, give them some ibuprofen or acetaminophen now and again, and have them try gargling warm salt water.”

“But they’re gonna make it, right?” Katsuki croaked, trying his damndest not to burst into tears like Izuku.

“Oh yes, they’ll make it,” Recovery Girl nodded. “You’re lucky you got them to me now, any longer and I don’t know what would have happened.”

Katsuki sighed heavily and fell to his knees, and the guilty pressure he felt vanished like petals in the wind, and a peaceful smile crossed his face. “Thank fuck.”

“HEY! WATCH YOUR MOUTH YOU DAMN BRAT!”

Everyone was startled and turned to face Mitsuki as she angrily spoke up, admonishing her son’s language. It was loud and sudden enough to send Izuku – still held in Ochaco’s hands – into a peal of laughter, which soon spread to Ochaco, and then to the others as well. Well, except for Mr. Aizawa. But he did at least crack a smile.

Laughter, in this moment, truly was the best medicine.

Chapter Text

Chapter 8: New Roommates

It was early in the evening, and Tenya and Momo had assembled the rest of Class 1-A in the living room at Heights Alliance. Ochaco could barely hide how nervous she felt, considering she was about to let the entire class know about her new friends. She already felt bad after promising to keep them secret at Katsuki’s wishes, but she knew that it would be a lot easier if everyone was in on their new houseguests. Plus, Mr. Aizawa had made it clear that they would need to know anyway, as the borrowers were technically intruders.

“Can we hurry whatever this is up?” Mina groaned, stretching in exhaustion. “Sato said he was gonna bake us all a cake to go with dinner, and I’m starving!”

“Now, hold on, Ashido,” Tenya chided, “we called you all here because this is something that affects the entire class.” He then turned to Ochaco. “Uraraka, if you would.”

Ochaco nodded, cleared her throat, and stepped forward, placing a small box on the coffee table. “Uh, hey, remember when I said I found the thing that had been rummaging through the dorm and that it was a rat?” Most of the students nodded or shrugged. “Well, that was only half true. I did find the cause of our problem… but it wasn’t a rat.”

She then lifted the lid off the box, which then collapsed to reveal the two Borrower families. Izuku was sitting on a miniature chair, which was next to a miniature bed where Hisashi was laying, still comatose. Three more equally tiny beds held Inko, Masaru, and Mitsuki, who were awake but looking very pale, with Katsuki attending them. Upon the collapse of the box, however, all of them shielded their eyes from the sudden change in light, until they uncovered them and stared in awe and slight fear (major fear in the case of the parents) at the assembled Class 1-A, who all collectively gasped in surprise.

“WHAT THE HECK?”

“Have I been drinking too many protein shakes,” Eijiro murmured, rubbing his eyes, “or are those tiny little people on the table?”

“Whoa, what?” Mina gasped, shaking her head, “we’ve had a bunch of tiny people living here all along?”

“How’d they even get so small?” Denki asked, clearly stunned. “Is that some kind of Quirk?”

“You moron, those are borrowers!” Kyoka growled, elbowing Denki in the side. “Don’t you read a history book? They’re naturally like that, they’ve been around way before Quirks were a thing.”

“Okay, sheesh!” Denki whined. “I guess I never read the right books.”

“More like you never read any books,” Yuga chuckled, “and your grades show it, non?” Denki shot him a glare.

“But I thought there weren’t any Borrowers living in Japan anymore,” Tsuyu said, touching her finger to her chin in thought. “Didn’t they all move to America or England because we didn’t have any special communities?”

“Well, not entirely,” Momo piped up. “My family has been spearheading those efforts, but it’s difficult to find them here, much less convince them to move. A lot of Borrowers here are… old-fashioned.”

“Maybe cuz the old ways are the best ways, you dumb bitch,” Katsuki barked, drawing a few looks.

“Kacchan!” Izuku chided, slapping his friend’s arm in disgust.

“Yeah, watch your damn mouth, you brat!” Mitsuki piped up, leaning up in her bed, enraged.

Tenya cleared his throat before he interjected. “Anyway, Mr. Aizawa has been informed of this as well, as has Recovery Girl and the rest of the school faculty, but we have been asked by the honorable Borrower families to keep this a secret from the other students. But for now, I would like to introduce you to the Midoriya and Bakugo families.” He pointed to Izuku’s and Katsuki’s families, respectively.

“Wait,” Toru interrupted, “what about Ochaco getting stabbed? You don’t mean that that was…”

“You wanna be next?” Katsuki shouted, getting the pencil nub from his satchel, and holding it at the invisible girl.

“Kacchan, stop it!” Izuku chastised, slapping him again.

“Well, I just was trying to keep their secret like they asked,” Ochaco spoke up, and showed off her arm, which had no sign of injury. “Recovery Girl fixed it up, so it’s like it never even happened.”

“Not that it can’t happen agai-OW!” Katsuki sneered, only to be slapped a third time by Izuku.

“Now then,” Tenya continued, “we’re to set up proper accommodations for our new guests today, and properly integrate them into life here at Heights Alliance. Yaoyorozu and Uraraka will assist me, and I will let you all know more as we go along. In the meantime, I trust you will treat the Midoriya and Bakugo families with much hospitality.”

“Wait, hold on,” Kyoka piped up, stepping forward and leaning down at level with Izuku. “Can I ask you a question, uh…”

“Izuku,” he finished. “I’m Izuku Midoriya.”

“Izuku,” Kyoka repeated, “Why are you here to begin with? And how did you get here?”

“Our families used to live in the walls of her house for many years, all the way back to my great-grandparents,” Izuku replied, pointing to Ochaco. This surprised her since, while she knew they were in her parent’s house, she didn’t know they lived there for so long. “But there was a… problem that made us move. Their house also had a huge rat – a real one, and a big one, even at your sizes – and it… it got my dad…” He pointed to his father in bed with a cast around his leg, the sickness and throbbing veins had lessened, but some of it was still visible if one looked very closely. Izuku quickly turned away and resumed his story. “We thought we could just borrow some supplies from around here and take care of him, but then he got worse, and then mom and Aunt Mitsuki and Uncle Masaru did too, so Ochaco took us to Recovery Girl, and she got them all some prescriptions, and here we are. I wanna say Dad’s looking better, but it’s too soon to tell for sure.”

All the students listened in shock and sympathy, and some even held their hands over their hearts and gasped.

“Damn,” Masahiro whistled, arms folded, “I never thought about how rough that kind of life would be.”

“That’s just horrible, those poor little guys,” Toru added, her tone sad as she knelt down. “I’m so sorry for you!” Izuku gasped as he felt something rub his body, and realized Toru’s invisible fingers were gently petting him.

“Uh, thanks,” Izuku muttered nervously, not used to having this many people around him, especially not humans.

“Stay away from him, you creep!” Katsuki hollered and charged at the invisible girl, who jumped back before Katsuki’s wild swinging with his pencil nub got anywhere near her.

“Wow, what a little maniac,” Hanta snorted.

“Hey, I think he’s just looking out for his bro,” Eijiro grinned, “that’s pretty manly for a little guy!”

“Oh, you think I’m cute, ya pointy haired freak?” Katsuki flared up at Eijiro. “How about you go three rounds with Katsuki Bakugo, the Great Giant Murder God!”

“A complete lunatic too,” Rikido added, cringing.

However, Izuku aggressively pulled Katsuki aside and sighed. “Sorry, he’s… very forceful.”

“At any rate,” Momo spoke up, “I’ll be overseeing the construction of the lodging for our new residents, I’ll need each of your help in certain areas of the construction after the materials have been made.”

“You got it!” the class replied in unison.

“Well, I for one am just happy that I’m not the shortest one here any longer!” Mineta smirked before he suddenly yelped as something struck him in the middle of his forehead, toppling him over.

Everyone gasped as the fallen Mineta was shown to have a mechanical pencil nub wedged firmly into his forehead, drawing blood, and making Mineta wince and moan.

“One more word out of you, dirty runt, and I’ll take more off the top!” Katsuki shouted from the table. “I still owe you for that gumball trap you set in the fridge!”

But before Katsuki could make good on his threat, Izuku grabbed him and pulled him aside. “Kacchan, for the last time, stop it! You’re making a scene and making us look bad!”

“Well, I don’t like his attitude,” Kyoka grimaced, before turning to smirk at Mineta. “But I am glad someone finally got the little creep.”

“I like his style, too!” Toru pumped, “especially when it means pain for Mineta!”

“Alright, enough,” Tenya chided, and carefully removed the nub from Mineta’s forehead, cleaned it, and applied a bandage do it. “As Vice Representative Yaoyorozu has said, she and I will be taking care of construction, but our guests need help with food and water. Uraraka has already agreed to help the adults with their medications, but I trust you all will do your parts to treat our guests with respect and give them our Plus Ultra hospitality.”

“You got it, class rep!” the class replied in unison.

“Whatever,” Mineta groaned, rubbing his forehead.

[=UA=]

Moments later, Momo had created the materials to build a miniature house for the borrower families by using her Quirk (after making the precise calculations to accommodate their size), and the class began to construct it on the first floor next to the door to the outside courtyard in the middle of the building. Momo had already used her Quirk to make a large table for the house and built a small storage space underneath to contain the plumbing system, which was connected to a plastic jug filled with two gallons of fresh water. The students took turns building certain parts of the house, which was nothing too complicated or fancy looking.

“This is kinda like building a doll house,” Toru commented cheerfully as she applied the paneling.

“Yeah, the most intricate doll house ever made,” Masahiro pointed out, “except someone’s actually gonna be living in it, and they’re not dolls.”

“DAMN RIGHT WE’RE NOT, TAIL!” Katsuki barked from the table, his tiny voice carrying a disproportionate distance.

“Kacchan, shush!” Izuku chided.

Aside from that interruption, the rest of the construction went along smoothly, and with a few color paint touches from the girls, the house was completed and opened for their new guests, whom Ochaco caried to the newly set-up table. Izuku stared at the new house in awe, he was completely blown away by how intricate and amazing it looked; for a moment he almost forgot he was a borrower living in a human dorm. Even Katsuki gave a smirk of appreciation, muttering a “not bad” so quiet that none of the normal humans could hear him.

Eventually, he turned around and faced Ochaco, Momo, and Iida, and his eyes began to well up with tears as he gave a crying sort of smile. “It… it’s perfect… you’ve all done… so much for us… th-thank you.”

Sensing Izuku’s incoming emotional outburst, Ochaco gently scooped him into her palm and cradled him with both hands. “Hey, it’s okay, Deku. We’re heroes in training, it’s what we do.”

Izuku didn’t know if it was the words of compassion or the amazing deed done for them, or the combination of everything going right for them the past day or so, but regardless of it, he burst into tears of relief and joy as he wailed his tiny lungs out and hugged Ochaco’s thumb. She wasn’t too surprised by his outburst, having grown accustomed to his sensitivity, but she still smiled warmly and hugged him against her cheek, gently rubbing his back with her fingers.

This scene did not go unnoticed by Mina Ashido, who had a glint of something in her eyes as she flashed a foxy, sly grin as she went outside into the courtyard.

“Oh, this is juicy~” she smirked to herself. “Mina, you’ve got a plan cooking…”

But perhaps she may not have felt so jovial if she observed the state of the courtyard bushes. The pink azaleas that once bloomed on them were wilting rapidly, and a wisp of purple mist emanated from the dying flowers and from underneath the bushes. And then something made a noise, a hiss followed by a soft but harsh squeak.

Chapter Text

Izuku’s eyelids fluttered as a ray of light fell on his face, and he slowly opened his eyes, moaning a little. He turned his head to his left and saw a soft white light from the window, but this light was not coming from the sun, but from an enormous lamp outside their house. Izuku sat up, surprised, and went to the window, opening it and looking out to see that the house he was in was in a massive living room, lit with many lamps. Izuku was confused at first, but when he turned around and saw his prized All Might trading card leaning on the wall of his room like a poster, everything from the previous day came rushing back to him. The wave of emotions washed over him like a hurricane, but he leaned against the wall with the window to steady himself.

“That’s right… I led Ochaco to our home,” he gasped. “She took my – our parents – to Recovery Girl, we met all of Class 1-A, and then they built this house for us. We… we have a new home, and…” He trailed off as he exited his room and silently crept across the hallway to open the door to the parents’ room. He peered inside and saw his parents and Katsuki’s parents fast asleep on the bed, with Katsuki laying on the chair next to them, his head dipped to the side as he loudly snored. Everyone looked better than ever before, Hisashi especially looking much more colorful as his breathing was nowhere near as erratic as a few days before. Sighing softly, Izuku went back to his room. “My dad, my mom, Kacchan’s parents too… we’re gonna be okay.”

Just as he went back to the window to close it, he found himself facing Ochaco’s smiling pink cheeks, bright auburn eyes, and all-around round face. “I thought I saw you at the window! Good morning, Izuku!”

Izuku yelped a little from the sudden surprise but smiled when he realized who it was. “Oh, g-good morning, Ochaco.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Ochaco blurted, realizing how spooked the tiny boy must have been by her comparatively enormous face in his window. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Oh, n-no, it’s okay,” Izuku shook his head. “It was… only slightly startling, that’s all.” Izuku sighed, this new life was definitely going to take some getting used to. “So, how are you doing?”

“Oh, I’m fine, but what about you? Are your parents doing any better?”

“Well, they’re all still asleep, but definitely looking a lot better than last week,” Izuku nodded, “and it was all thanks to you.” He added that last part with a grateful smile.

“Oh, no,” Ochaco waved, blushing a bit. “It was nothing, really, it was just something any hero would do. Well, hero in training, anyway.” She then snapped her fingers. “That reminds me, Kirishima is making breakfast, do you want me to bring you some of it?”

Before Izuku could even reply, his stomach growled, and he blushed. “Well, I think I could sure use some food after all that excitement.”

“Then maybe you’d like to join us for breakfast?”

The third voice made both Izuku and Ochaco yelp and jump a little, and both spun around to see Mina Ashido in a dark purple tank top suddenly standing right behind Ochaco, grinning at both her and Izuku.

“Ashido, don’t sneak up on people like that!” Ochaco gasped.

“Oh, don’t be such a baby,” Mina teased, and turned to Izuku. “Come on, little guy, now that you’re living with us, why not eat with us too? It’ll give us the chance to get to know you better! And while you’re at it, why not bring your friend along? We’d love to get to know him better too!”

“Forget that crap, you raccoon-eyed skank!”

Everyone jumped a little in shock (and Mina gave a rather insulted pout) as Katsuki suddenly appeared next to Izuku, glaring out the window at the two girls.

“We’ll take your medicine and your dumb charity home,” Katsuki snarled, “but if you think this means we’re all one big happy family, you’re even dumber than you look.”

“Kacchan, stop it!” Izuku snapped, “I’ve had it with your crappy attitude! Yeah, it defies everything that both our moms and dads told us about trusting beans, but they helped us, and we should be grateful! And that starts by being nice!” Izuku was about to say something else, but then heard a growling noise, but this time it came from Katsuki.

Mina wore an especially sly grin as she noticed this. “You know, if you say please, I can let you make your own breakfast in our kitchen~”

Katsuki was about to fire off another tirade when his stomach growled again. As much as it pained him to admit it, Izuku was right in that all of their most pressing problems were solved by these humans literally overnight. Not to mention, he was now starting to feel very hungry. It killed him to have to swallow his pride, but he’d rather do that than not swallow some solid food.

“Fine,” he grumbled, and went back into the small house to grab his rope and hook before coming back to the window. “But I’m going to the kitchen my way, don’t any of you damn giants even think about trying to give me a lift!” Without another word, he hooked his rope to the windowsill and leapt down to the floor, flicking the rope to loosen the hook, and dashed towards the kitchen. “Hey, out of my way, damn ogres, I’m walking here!”

“That’s Kacchan for you,” Izuku sighed in exasperation before turning to Ochaco. “Sorry about him.”

“Oh, it’s fine,” Ochaco waved it off, “if that’s what he’s like, we’ll just have to accommodate.” She then held out her hand to the window. “You want a lift?” She then blushed in embarrassment. “Or, sorry, was that offensive to ask?”

Izuku shook his head, staring at Ochaco’s hand. With all the adrenaline from the past few days gone, he realized how enormous her hand was compared to his entire body. He knew he didn’t need to be afraid of Ochaco, but there was still that primal fear in all borrowers, the fear of the giant human beans with fingers big enough to squish borrowers like they were less than insects. But looking at Ochaco’s round, friendly face reassured him that there was nothing to fear or even be slightly worried about, so he stepped out the window and into Ochaco’s open palm, holding onto her thumb. “I’m fine, Ochaco, but thanks for asking. And you can call me Deku, no worries, it’s just a silly name anyway.”

“You’re welcome, Deku,” Ochaco smiled in relief and carried her new friend to the kitchen.

But no sooner had they arrived than they saw a peculiar scene unfolding.

“Hey, careful, little dude! Those things are way too big for you, you’ll hurt yourself!”

“Shut up, Dumb Hair! You’re chopping those onions wrong, so someone has to show you how it’s done!”

Katsuki and Eijiro were having a tense argument on the counter, with Katsuki rapidly chopping a set of green onions using a knife almost twice as long as his body yet was chopping very skillfully. However, Eijiro and a few of the other students looked afraid that Katsuki was going to slip and hurt himself at any moment, but no one wanted to get hurt themselves.

Izuku sighed as he saw the commotion. “Ochaco, would you please set me down? I gotta talk some sense into Kacchan.” Ochaco nodded and gently set Izuku on the counter, who then walked up to Katsuki. “Kacchan, can you stop with the attitude and dangerous things for one time today?”

“Cram it, Deku,” Katsuki snapped, glaring at Izuku. “They said I could make my breakfast my way, so that’s what I’m doing!”

“But Kacchan,” Izuku protested, “these kitchen utensils are bigger than both of us! You could get hurt or worse!”

“Good thing I’m not nearly as clumsy as you are, Deku,” Katsuki growled back before grabbing armfuls of the onions and dumping them into a bowl. “Hey, where are the damn eggs?” He looked around before he spotted a carton of eggs on the counter and stomped over to it.

Izuku sighed and shook his head, there really was only one way to get through to him. “Would you talk that way with your mom?”

In that moment, the whole kitchen went dead silent as Katsuki stopped in his tracks. After an uncomfortably long time, he slowly turned his head around and glared at Izuku, his red eyes brimming with barely controlled rage. “Say that again, Deku. I dare you.”

Izuku narrowed his own eyes, rolled up his sleeves, and marched up to Katsuki and looked him dead in the eyes. “Your mother needs you to help her with her medicine, like we’ve been planning all along. If you get hurt because of your stupid pride, Aunt Mitsuki surely won’t mind if I knock some sense into you, won’t she?”

Katsuki’s eyes flared as he stared Izuku down, literally butting heads with the freckled green-haired boy. Izuku’s eyes were wide, but his gaze was also fixed on Katsuki, full of determination. The students watching looked extremely nervous, afraid someone was going to start a fight. An even longer and more uncomfortable silence passed through the kitchen, nobody daring to move or even breathe, until Katsuki snarled through his nostrils and let out a great sigh. “Have it your way.” He stomped off to one end of the counter and sat down, cross-legged, and cross-armed, and huffed. “Damn punk nerd.”

“Oh, thank goodness,” Izuku moaned in relief as he collapsed to his knees. “That was terrifying.”

“I had no idea that any one person could be so prideful,” Ochaco sighed, thankful the tension was gone. She then fixed herself a small bowl of rice with another small bowl of miso soup and took both a salmon cutlet and some nori strips and put them on a plate before pouring herself a cup of tea from Momo’s kettle, which had some kind of high-quality brand her mother had sent her. Gold Tips Imperial, I think, she thought to herself.

Mina loaded a plate full of okra and natto, and then noticed Izuku, who was looking wide-eyed at the smorgasbord on the counter. “See anything you like, little guy?”

“I don’t know what any of this is aside from the rice,” Izuku drooled, “but it all looks so delicious!”

“Well, Ochaco has a little of everything on her plate,” Mina slyly grinned, “why don’t you ask her if she’ll share?”

Izuku looked over at Ochaco’s tray and stared at it before looking up at her. “What is all of this yummy looking stuff?”

Ochaco blinked. “Wait, you don’t know what miso soup or tuna is?”

“Oh sure, ask the scavenging vermin if they’ve ever had a ‘normal’ meal before,” Katsuki snorted from his end of the table.

“Kacchan, please!” Izuku hissed. “Well, I’ve never really seen you or your family make anything beyond plain rice. Maybe some cabbage, or a beansprout or two to go with it, but nothing else.

“Well,” Ochaco explained, “miso soup is probably the most traditional Japanese soup ever made, and it’s made from fermented soybeans mashed into paste and mixed with a stock called dashi, which is made from pieces of kelp and a few types of fish. Of course, that’s just the basic stuff, most people add sliced up green onions and tofu, others use eggs, rice, clams, and so on.”

Izuku’s eyes widened, and his mouth watered at the mention of so many wonderful new (and possibly very tasty) foods to try. “Wow, I never knew so many tasty things existed, even after all those times I snuck peeks at the cooking shows your parents would watch!” He blushed as he admitted to more of his spying and tried to change the subject by looking around at the other things on the table. “So, miso soup is a big deal, huh?”

“It’s considered part of a traditional breakfast,” Ochaco continued, “alongside this salmon filet, and a cup of green tea. There are lots of side dishes to go with it, like steamed rice, pickled vegetables, natto – though that’s a little strong for me, so for someone as small as you it might even be-”

“EAUGH!”

Izuku’s yelp caused Ochaco to jump a bit. Izuku had already gone for the natto, but he quickly reeled back before even touching the sticky substance, tears forming in his eyes, and he fell backwards on his rear, holding his nose and yelping loudly. “What is that smell?! It’s awful, like month-old dirty socks or the worst kind of rotten cheese!”

“Uh-oh,” Ochaco gulped, “I did say that natto has a strong smell, sorry, I should have warned you better.” She gently scooped him up and laid him next to her soup bowl. “Here, try some of this. It may get the overpowering smell out of your mouth.”

She barely got her words out before Izuku dunked his entire head into Ochaco’s bowl, came up to breathe, and dunked his head in again. He then took a deep breath and laid back, panting heavily as his face was dripping with the broth. “Whew, that was something else.” He then blinked as he realized what he had just done. “Oh my gosh, Ochaco, I’m so sorry, I ruined your soup! It probably has that awful taste in it, and not to mention I haven’t taken a bath yet and then I just-”

“Oh, no, it’s fine, really,” Ochaco shook her head, grabbing her napkin and gently wiping Izuku’s face, “I’d probably do the same thing. Besides, I can just get another bowl, you enjoy this one!”

Izuku blinked, still not used to such generous gestures. “You mean it? Really?”

“I mean it,” she nodded. “And from now on, please don’t ask if it’s okay or not when someone gives you something, because I guarantee you that they mean it.”

“Well, here goes then!” Izuku smiled happily as he dunked his head back into the miso soup, but this time he was drinking it up, and came back up with a big smile, wiping his face off. “Man, that’s some good stuff! Thank you!”

“You’re welcome, Izuku,” Ochaco smiled, and scooped out a tiny chunk of rice from her bowl and cut out a small slice from her fish and placed it close to Izuku. “Try these too, it’s tasty stuff, and having a starch and a protein is a good start for you!”

She barely got the words out before Izuku hungrily scarfed it all down, his cheeks bulging as he smiled at Ochaco. “Ish sho good!” he mumbled through his very full mouth, and Ochaco used two fingers to give him a gentle pat on the back.

“Well, looks like you two are getting along nicely,” Mina grinned as she slyly slid next to Ochaco, who gave a slight yelp. “You know, you two look awful cute together~”

Ochaco’s face had suddenly turned a deep shade of red. “Hey, that’s not what’s happening at all! I’m just trying to be nice to our new friend, stop making stuff up!”

Izuku was about to ask what was going on when he saw that Katsuki had marched over to the plate loaded with tofu cubes, grabbed one, and plopped it down on an empty platter. He then went over to a small bowl of chili sauce and scooped it out with a spoon before dousing his tofu in it and tearing into it with his bare hands.

“Whoa, and I thought I was kinda savage with food,” Eijiro whistled.

“You wouldn’t see me with that spiciness level,” Rikido added, cringing. “Serious overkill.”

“NOBODY ASKED ANY OF YOU!” Katsuki hollered, spraying tiny bits of tofu on the table, before going back to his meal.

Izuku sighed and chuckled sheepishly. “That’s Kacchan for you, everything has to be a scene.”

Despite Izuku’s comment, the rest of the morning passed by quickly. Katsuki made his own eggs with a tiny whisk – comparatively tiny, it was still as big as he was – and stunned Eijiro with his surprising amount of skill. After he finished with his tofu, miso soup, and eggs – all of which he drowned in chili sauce – a shrill beeping sound was heard, and Tenya looked at his watch before clapping his hands. “All right, Class 1-A! It’s 8:00 AM right now, which means we have 25 minutes until homeroom! Everyone, start cleaning up and get ready for class!”

“Are you kidding me?!” Mina groaned. “It’s Saturday! Don’t we get the day off?”

“Yeah, didn’t they stop Saturday classes years ago?” Denki added, equally annoyed.

“UA Academy takes its hero work very seriously,” Tenya chided, “that’s why we have extra non-physical classes on Saturday into 3 in the afternoon.”

“3 IN THE AFTERNOON?!” Mina and Denki screamed in horrified unison.

“Please refrain from any more outbursts,” Tenya snapped, “you applied to the most prestigious hero school in all of Japan, if not the world! If you expected a free ride, you’re in for a rude awakening! Now please help us put the food away and do dishes and then go brush your teeth and get dressed for class! Home Economics should be an easy subject even for you two.”

Mina and Denki trudged their feet as they went to do their chores before classes, while everyone else helped to put away the food and gather the dishes. As Ochaco got up, she saw Izuku – who had long since finished his breakfast, a mere morsel compared to any of the rest of the class – looking forlornly at the class and she heard him mutter something under his breath.

“Is everything alright, Deku?” she asked, tilting her head a bit.

Izuku snapped out of his trance and stared up at her. “Oh, sorry, I was just… well, you’ll think it’s stupid…”

“Oh, come on,” she gave an assuring smile, “what is it?”

“I…” Izuku stammered and then sighed. “I wish I could help you guys.”

“Oh, Deku, you’re such a sweet guy,” she smiled warmly as she took her tray to the sink. “You don’t need to worry about anything other than your parents, we’ll be fine.”

“For once, I gotta side with her, Deku,” Katsuki growled as he knocked on Izuku’s head. “Don’t get wrapped up with their bullcrap that doesn’t concern you.”

“Kacchan, that’s not what she meant, and you know it!” Izuku groaned, annoyed that his friend still was rude to the girl who gave them so much.

Katsuki scoffed and walked off the table, going back to the tiny house. “I’ll be checking on our folks, you go play tea parties with your girlfriend, Deku.”

Both Izuku and Ochaco blushed at his comment and glanced at each other nervously before turning away. “Well, I’d better go join Kacchan. Besides, it’s not like I can join you for classes anyway, I’m not a student and plus we’re still a secret from the rest of the school.”

“Y-yeah,” Ochaco stuttered and nodded, “Katsuki may need your help with your parents after all, he’s just probably playing the tough guy. Besides, you may find these classes boring anyway.”

“Wanna bet?”

Both Izuku and Ochaco jumped and yelped as Mina appeared behind them again, a coy smile on her face.

“Really!” Ochaco grunted. “Give us a heads-up next time!”

“Come on, what’s the harm in taking the little guy on one boring day?” Mina grinned as she plucked Izuku off the table by his shirt before cupping him in her palm and shoving him in front of Ochaco’s blushing face.

Izuku blushed as well, never having been this close to Ochaco’s face before, he could almost see his reflection in her auburn eyes, as well as how her pink cheeks shone through even though her face was beet red. He never imagined he would ever be this close to any girl, let alone a human, and it almost made him dizzy enough to pass out.

“Well, what do you say, little guy?” Mina queried, seeing Izuku’s reaction. “School sound like fun?”

“Uh, f-f-fun… Yeah…” he mumbled as he tried to stay calm.

“Then it’s settled!” Mina cheered as she grabbed Ochaco’s hands and thrust the shy borrower into them before she bolted for her dorm room. “Don’t take too long, you two!”

As Mina dashed back to her room, she pumped her fist in victory. “Phase One complete! Now, onto Phase Two of Operation Heights Alliance’s Heights of Love!”

Chapter Text

Izuku’s heart was racing a mile a minute. He hadn’t been out of the Heights Alliance dorms even once, but here he was, on the way to the main campus of UA Academy, riding in the pocket of Ochaco’s uniform blazer. He jostled around a little with each step she took, but he could tell she was trying not to cause him any great discomfort. Her blazer pocket wasn’t horribly uncomfortable but was slightly cramped and rather hot due to the polyester not being very breathable. However, the flap was tucked in so that air was flowing from above.

After a while, Ochaco stopped walking, and Izuku peeked his head out from her pocket ever so slightly to see that they had arrived at homeroom. Everyone remained standing until Mr. Aizawa wearily walked into the room.

“Good morning, class,” he yawned.

“Good morning, Mr. Aizawa!” the class greeted in unison.

“Alright, Home Economics is first on the agenda,” Aizawa sighed, glancing at his notebook. “Today’s exercise is gonna be a little sewing project. Everyone should just make something small that has practical use, like a pair of pajamas or a pillowcase. This should be obvious, but don’t just copy someone else’s work.”

“Aw man, that sounds so lame,” Denki moaned.

“Isn’t sewing more a woman’s job than a man’s job?” Mineta grumbled.

“This is not open to debate,” Aizawa glared at the short boy, “and everyone should know how to cook and sew and manage their own house, boy or girl. Any more unwelcome comments or complaints will be grounds for punishment. Understood?”

“Yes, sir,” Mineta gulped, while Mina chuckled at his rebuke.

“Everyone, follow me to the Development Studio and we’ll get this out of the way,” Aizawa sighed as he lazily swung the door open and motioned for the class to follow. “Gods help me, I need a nap, grading used to be so much easier before all this new living arrangement hassle and on top of all that…” His words trailed off into inane muttering as the class hesitantly followed him down the hallway to the Development Studio – the classroom that regularly makes changes to students’ Hero costumes – for their project.

“Is it just me,” Masahiro raised an eyebrow, “or does Mr. Aizawa feel more… worn-out?”

“You wonder if it’s a grownup thing or a teacher thing?” Hanta guessed.

“Hey, maybe he just didn’t get his coffee or something,” Denki shrugged.

“I don’t blame your poor teacher’s demure attitude, since he has to deal with reckless idiots like you!”

The sudden voice caught everyone off guard, and all turned to see a lanky, short-haired blond boy in a UA uniform grinning like a cat at the class walking down the hallway.

“Oh great,” Kyoka groaned, “looks like we got us a heckler on our first day.”

“Who’s at fault, the heckler or the fools who need to be heckled?” the boy laughed uproariously. “How can you be in the hallowed halls of UA with your middling test scores on the practical AND written exams? The only worthwhile students I see are those who paid to get in by wealth or blood!” He pointed at Momo and Shoto, who glowered back at the rude boy. “How any of you made it past day one is nothing short of a fluke! You’re nothing but-”

His words were cut off when an enormous hand chopped him on the back of his head so hard it knocked him down to the ground, unconscious. Ochaco yelped, not used to seeing this many weird people in one place before. She could also feel Izuku trembling in her pocket. The group then saw that the chop was the work of a pony-tailed redheaded girl whose enormous hands were now reduced to normal size, a clear sign of her Quirk at work.

“Sorry about Monoma,” the red-haired girl said she started carrying him off. “He aced the written exam without a sweat, but only barely scraped by on the practical since his Quirk can only copy others’ powers and his athletic ability is… well, lacking to say the least. He’s got a real inferiority complex and likes taking it out on people with better Quirks.” She stopped pouting at her classmates’ antics and forced a smile. “Name’s Itsuka Kendo by the way, nice to meet you! Neito Monoma and I are both in Class 1-B, but we’re not all like him, trust me. Maybe we’ll have a joint study some time!”

As Kendo carried her unconscious classmate off, the rest of Class 1-A stood stunned.

“That was weird,” they all moaned, and continued on to the studio.

Upon arrival, they were greeted by the teacher – the Construction Hero Power Loader, face covered by a steam shovel-shaped mask – who directed them to their desks, each one with a large sewing machine on them. Next to the machine lay a small mountain of fabric rolls and spools of differently colored thread.

“Instructions for the machines are in the desk,” Power Loader grumbled, “feel free to make whatever you want, just don’t raise too much of a ruckus, we’re working here.”

“But if you have any questions about my babies, ask away!” A voice from behind cheerily called out, which belonged to a pink-haired girl covered in oil and soot from working with very strange machines.

“Mei, they’re taking a class,” Power Loader groaned. “They’re not interested in your gizmos.”

“Well, I don’t have time for questions anyway!” Mei grinned, completely ignoring anyone else, “can’t talk now, got work to do with my babies, bye~!”

Power Loader sighed and turned back to the class. “Trust me, you’ll get used to her after a while.”

Ochaco sighed, overwhelmed by all of these new people and experiences. “This is a lot more intense than my old middle school, that’s for sure…”

She snuck a look in her pocket and saw that Izuku was shaking like a leaf, eyes wide with a mixture of fear and wonder. She stuck two fingers into her pocket and gave Izuku a soft and reassuring pat on the back. He yelped a bit from the sudden contact, but he quickly hugged her fingers and sniffled a little.

“Sorry,” he whispered, “that must have made me look like a scared little baby.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she whispered back. “I’d be terrified of all this too if I was your size.” She then got an idea. “Hey, how about I make something for you? It’s the least I can do after dragging you into this.”

Izuku blinked, he still wasn’t used to people asking to make something for him. Borrowers never had people make anything for them, they just borrowed what other humans already made for themselves. But given that the entire class made them a house in a single day and didn’t think anything of it, he felt like she would make him anything he could ever ask for… but, at that moment, he had no idea what to ask for. He tried to think of something, anything… but all he could think about was how much he appreciated Ochaco’s kindness as he literally felt her warmth all around him as he lay in her jacket pocket. She was like his own personal hero, like All Might, but he actually knew her personally.

“My own hero…” he whispered to himself. Finally, he spoke up. “Could you… would you make me a hero costume? One that’s kind of like All Might’s?”

“I’d be happy to, Deku,” Ochaco smiled warmly. “I should have known you’d love some more All Might merch, you really like him, don’t you?”

“Yeah, he’s the coolest in the universe!” Izuku nodded fervently, eyes shining in admiration. “It would be so cool if I had a Quirk like him… Kacchan and I were both born Quirkless, but we still have our hero worship!”

Ochaco smiled and started tracing fabric to cut. She wasn’t sure how small to make the sleeves, and she didn’t want to risk exposing Izuku to the staff present, so she used her pencil for size, tracing a little more to give Izuku room. Snipping some blue, yellow, and red fabric and sewing it all together very carefully, she had a laser-like focus on her task. All the while, she thought about how Izuku and Bakugo spent their entire lives hiding from others and scavenging what they could, yet Izuku wanted to do more than that. She admired his heroic spirit and was happy she was able to help him from saving his parents to this.

After what seemed to be only a few minutes, she looked up and saw that half the class time was gone. She looked down at her work and saw a tiny blue jacket with a red trim and a yellow hood with antennae that looked like All Might’s hair tufts. She finished her work with a quick pair of pants and also made a tiny green shoulder bag with an equally tiny snap fastener.

Ochaco wanted to show this to Izuku right away when she noticed Power Loader – who had taken a break from his own work – was walking up to each of the students and examining their work. She hesitantly covered her pocket as he approached her, shielding Izuku from view.

“Nice little doll outfit,” Power Loader mused as he observed Ochaco’s miniature costume.

“Uh, yeah,” Ochaco nodded, blushing from embarrassment and also relief from not letting Izuku be seen. “I know it’s weird to still play with dolls at my age, but what can I say?”

Power Loader shrugged and glanced at the clock. “All right, your next class starts soon, so you’ve got five minutes to wrap it up. Plus, we’re preparing for your computer tech class later on, which will help you better understand your hero costume’s support gear.”

Ochaco breathed a sigh of relief and packed up the sewing supplies, while slipping the costume into her pocket where Izuku was. She then joined the others as they left the studio to go to their next class – Physics, which was taught by the Cloning Hero, Ectoplasm. Ochaco was worried about this class since math and science were not her strong suit. Ironic for someone with a gravity-negating Quirk, she thought to herself.

Suddenly, she felt a rustle from her pocket and saw Izuku climb out onto her desk, dressed in his new Hero costume, and picked up a pencil before scribbling down some notes with some complex-looking formulas. She cupped her arm around the desk so no one would see Izuku and looked up to check if anyone noticed. Fortunately, no one paid her any attention, but, after glancing at the board, she saw that Izuku was writing down the same formula on the board, but his notes explained how the formulas worked in easy-to-follow detail. She could not help but be surprised at his knowledge.

“Oh wow,” she whispered, “I didn’t know you knew physics.”

“I snuck peeks at lots of books while everyone was asleep when I was a kid,” Izuku explained. “Plus, stuff like this comes naturally to me. Just happy to help.”

The class flew right by with Izuku helping Ochaco understand the material easily, which came in handy when Ectoplasm popped a quiz on the subject and Ochaco aced it. After that period, the class returned to the Development Studio for Technical Support class, where Power Loader (and an enthusiastic Mei Hatsume) showed off several types of support gear as well as how they functioned and where their applications could be most useful. Mei also showed off the support items of each of the class members’ new Hero Costumes, and how the Support Class C poured all their time and energy into making sure they would stand any trial.

Japanese was an easier class, even with the fact that their teacher was the overly enthusiastic Present Mic, who screamed like a paranoid DJ every few moments, presumably to break some kind of silence. Izuku had to keep the hood up at all times during the class to avoid his eardrums bursting.

But then came the part of the day Izuku would say that liked best: lunch hour. Ochaco got an extra portion for her little stowaway and sat at a table alone so they would not be disturbed. But as soon as she sat down, Mina sprinted over and sat across from her, a huge cat-like smile across her face.

“So, how’s this window of school for you, little guy?” Mina grinned, eyeing Izuku as he climbed out of Ochaco’s pocket and onto the table to help himself to Ochaco’s rice bowl.

Izuku noticed Mina and gulped at her leaning in so close. “Well, uh, it’s a little much, but it’s very neat…”

“I did appreciate you taking those notes in Physics, Deku,” Ochaco smiled warmly. “I think those will really help when midterms come around.”

“You’re welcome, but to be honest, I kinda wish I was in class as a student too,” Izuku sighed as he scooped a handful of rice and munched on it. “It’s hard to live normally when you live in a world that wasn’t built for you.”

“Well, maybe you just need someone to help you like the people in those communities that Momo-Yao mentioned,” Ochaco smiled, “after all, helping others is what being a hero is all about, right?”

Izuku blinked, surprised. He still felt weird about having his and Bakugo’s families in the new house in the dorm room, and now he was listening to Ochaco talking about helping him out with everything all the time? “I can hear Kachaan having a fit over that idea…” he muttered to himself.

[=UA=]

“Fwatchoo!”

“Dammit, Katsuki, cover your mouth when you sneeze! You’re gonna make us all even sicker!”

“Shut it, you hag!”

[=UA=]

After lunch, was just two classes: English and Math. Ochaco wasn’t too well versed in English, but Izuku paid good attention and wrote down some helpful notes. She fared better in math, however, but Izuku still took notes for her sake as well as his own curiosity. After that, the class walked back to the dorms to start on their homework and prepare dinner.

As soon as she approached the small house, Ochaco gently scooped Izuku out of her pocket and held her hand in front of the balcony, where Izuku hopped off her palm and onto the balcony.

“Kinda feels good to be back,” Izuku sighed, looking up at Ochaco with a weak smile. “Sorry if I was a bag of nerves the whole time.”

“Well, I just hope you had a fun day today,” Ochaco said in reply, smiling herself. She then reached back into her pocket and took out Izuku’s new costume, handing it to him.

“Thanks again for that,” Izuku smiled as he took the costume, admiring it as he held it up.

“Maybe we can do this again sometime!” she smiled.

Izuku blinked and then smiled back. “I’d like that, I think.”

“Yeah, and I can do all the damn work of keeping our folks alive, you shitty nerd.”

Izuku jumped at the gruff tone of Katsuki, who came from behind him to glare at his friend and then up at Ochaco. “What the hell are you looking at!?”

“N-nothing,” Ochaco gulped, “just maybe wondering if you needed help with anything, like with your folks or-”

“I told your dumb giant nosy ass already,” Katsuki growled, “we don’t need your damn charity, so stay the hell out of it!”

“Kacchan, please stop!” Izuku barked angrily, stepping between Katsuki and Ochaco’s face. “She’s just trying to be nice and helpful! Your attitude isn’t gonna make our parents get any better, so please just cut it out!”

Katsuki angrily glared at Izuku, who shot as stern a look as he could muster, for several tense seconds before he angrily stormed off back inside the house. “Damned nerd…”

Izuku sighed and turned to Ochaco. “Sorry, you should know by now, he’s… very prideful.”

“Yeah, that was obvious from the get-go,” Ochaco nodded.

“I probably should apologize to my mom for skipping out on helping her, though…” Izuku noted ashamedly as he too went inside. “So, I guess I’ll… see you later.”

“Oh… okay,” Ochaco sighed, almost sad to see him go. “See you later, Deku.”

Izuku looked back as Ochaco’s towering form moved away from the miniature house before turning back and he went to his parents’ room. Taking a deep breath, he knocked on the door. “Mom? Dad? It’s me, Izuku. Can I come in?”

To his surprise, the bedroom door opened, and his mother swept her startled son into her arms and pulled him inside. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re home safe and sound! Katsuki told me that you were taken to the beans’ school! That must have been so terrifying being around all of those thoughtless giants! How could you let that horrible girl just take you like-”

Izuku had to cut her off. “Mom, it’s not like that at all! I wanted to go and Ochaco kept me safe the whole time! She’s super nice and even made me this in class!” He showed off his costume that Ochaco made for him.

Inko was confused, not only by the idea that a bean gave a gift to a borrower, but also… “Um… what is it?”

Izuku blinked for a moment, but then slipped into his costume, which could zip up from the back. He did a heroic pose and smiled. “It’s a hero costume! Look, I look kind of like All Might now!”

“A-and that bean… made that… for you?” Inko stammered, still perplexed.

Izuku nodded and took his mother’s hands in his own. “I know that all of this is still so scary, but we’re in a school for superheroes, nobody is going to hurt us. Ochaco is the reason we even have what we needed to cure you and Dad, don’t you feel better already?”

Inko nodded, sighing in acknowledgment. “You’re right about that, honey, and your father is feeling better too, the poor dear is sleeping now, the medicine is making him the most tired of us all…”

Izuku looked over at his father softly snoring on the bed, not a hint of pain or discomfort on his face, and Izuku wiped away a few tears that were forming. He turned back and saw his mother close to fainting and hurriedly caught her before she fell to the floor.

“Whoa, Mom!” Izuku gasped. “Are you okay?”

Inko wearily blinked and looked up at her son. “I’m fine, just worked myself up a little bit more than I should have… thank you, my hero…”

Her last words trailed off as she fell asleep in her son’s arms, who carried her back to bed and tucked her in, giving a gentle kiss on her forehead. “Sleep tight, mom.”

Unbeknownst to Izuku, Katsuki was watching from the hallway. But while he wanted to give a snide remark, he merely grumbled as he went into his parents’ room to take notice of them both sleeping as well. He noticed his own mother was loudly snoring and had partially flung the sheets off in her sleep. Sighing, Katsuki wordlessly tucked her back in and sat down in the recliner in the corner of the room, facing them. His eyes darted towards the medicine bags next to the bed, and he couldn’t help but notice how soft his chair was, and he leaned back, sighing heavily.

“You know, maybe those damn giants can actually do something right,” he mused as he himself dozed off, feeling something he hadn’t felt in a long time if at all: peace.