Chapter Text
Once Ochaco is cleaned up, she calls her parents and updates them. They wish her well. She leaves the women's changing room, and turns in her phone and purse to the attendant.
When she walks into the same room where she first saw Deku this morning, he is dressed in jeans, T-shirt, and has a hoodie in his lap. He is tracing his finger along a scar, every now and then, pushing deep into the tissue. He looks up at her and pulls his hand away from his arm as if he is doing something wrong. “Hey, I didn't see you there.”
“I just walked in,” she says. He nods and pats the seat beside him. She takes his invitation and joins him. It is strange. He almost always is scribbling something in a notebook when they are together in the quiet like this, so the silence between them screams that something isn’t right. Soon, Deku is pushing into his scars again, and despite knowing him all this time, she decides maybe that is similar to how some of the kids she works with use fidget toys. Deku uses his notebooks to organise his thoughts, and now, when he is without one, he needs something physical to focus on.
A girl walks into the room. Ochaco can’t place where she recognizes the girl from.
“Hey, you’re Deku, and… wait, I know you too. You're the space girl from his class. I am Mika, and my little sister is Ami. We look a lot alike, but you will be able to tell us apart because I'm taller and prettier,” she whispers the last part with her hand beside her mouth as if she is telling a secret. “I'm sure she will be out here any second, but you know how teary the goodbyes to the boyfriend can be…. Well, I mean maybe you don't. Not everyone is so dramatic. Not to mention we don't all have someone worth crying over., amiright?”
Izuku looks at Ochaco, blinks, and looks back to the girl. “Mika, you look familiar. Where might I know you from?” He said.
“Oh, my sister and I are dancers. I wouldn't expect someone as famous and important as you to recognize lil old me,” she says, “but I must admit, I have been trying to keep up with your story for a few years now. I'm surprised to bump into you on a survival show of all places. Not since you went radio silent.” Mika placed a hand on his shoulder. “Very curious…” She tapped her finger on his shoulder. “I can't imagine what they offered you to pull you out of hiding for this.”
Deku gently dusts her hand off his shoulder and shrugs, “Oh, it was nothing too special, just some light blackmail,” he jokes.
“You are a riot. I always knew you’d be one of the good ones.” Mika laughs, flinging back her purple hair in a way the Uraraka doesn’t like. “And my, my you look even finer in person. The casual clothes, maybe, but you are giving off the boy-next-door type vibes. My sister is going to be so jealous that I'm single with you here. You are single, right?”
“Yes…” he answers slowly, like he is asking a question.
“Yes, well that is perfect. I really hope we get a chance to spend some time together this week. If this is a vote for someone off the island type situation, I'm keeping you till the very end,” Mika says.
“Oh, you don't need to do that, please send me home,” Deku says.
Uraraka despises when girls do things like this to him, talking to him like they know him, flirting with him despite him actually taking their words at face value, but this is way worse because maybe he is flirting too. He is making jokes right in front of her. She knows he was oblivious to her attempts at flirting in the past, but it had always been comforting that he is like that with everyone, not just her. She clenches her fist tight and squeezes hard.
“Mika,” a younger and slightly short, nearly identical person to Mika, called out. Her face is puffy and red. The girl had clearly been crying.
“Ami, look who I found, you'll never believe it. It's Deku.” She giggles. “Oh, and his classmate from UA, the space girl.”
“Nice to meet you.” Deku greets the younger girl and points to Ochaco. “This is my teammate Uravity: the hero who defies gravity.”
Taka, their host, pops her head into the room interrupting. “It is time for you all to go. I have a few more teams to interrogate, but I'm sure I'll still have more fun with you all soon. Seeing as you are the first team flying out and that is a slight disadvantage, you will also get the first pick of the sites to even the playing field. Good luck.”
—
They arrive around the time she would normally eat supper. They are given a quick tour of the island, and most importantly, the four campsites they can choose from. Between the two teams on site, they decide to play paper, rock, scissors for first pick. The other team wins. The girls picked what is obviously the best site. Ochaco and Deku spend the better part of twenty minutes debating the pros and cons of two sites, when she suggests the site that they are currently standing on has a better view.
“A better view?” Deku asks, “Like the scenery?”
“Yeah, it's prettier. Not that that matters strategically.”
“You want this spot, don't you?” he asks. He looks across the horizon, “It is pretty here. ”
Ochaco is somewhat indifferent between the two sites, but this one is further from the girls' team and she has already seen enough of that Mika girl to last a lifetime. Between the chat at the studio and the flight here, she is about ready to deck that girl. This site also does have a better view. “Yeah, if you are fine with it?”
“I think it's perfect. We can pretend we are on a vacation with a view!” Deku smiles.
Once they let the set crew that flew in with them know their site choice, they are given the supplies they earned from the question round. They pull out the contents of the bin, and lay them out. It's not much to look at. And she thought they had done pretty well in that game.
A few packages of ramen, some protein bars, dried fruit, a large jug of water, two mess kits, and a frying pan.
A match book missing half the matches. A small first aid kit with a few bandages, tweezers, and scissors.
They have a small tarp, some strings, and one sleeping bag.
“You signed up for this willingly.” Deku laughs. “I think this is enough food to get me through the rest of today.” he says, opening a bag of dried fruit, pushing it towards her, “want some?”
She takes a handful and notices him eyeing the sleeping bag suspiciously.
“You can have the sleeping bag. I can layer up in my clothes and use the tarp.”
“Absolutely not,” Deku says, looking her in the eyes. “I can sleep in the tarp. Besides my clothes seem more insulated than yours.”
“You know, we might be able to open the sleeping bag up like a blanket and share it?” she says, averting her eyes from him.
“Yeah, I guess. We can put the tarp on the ground to help hold in the heat, that seems to be the most logical solution,” he says as he starts gathering the stuff and neatly placing it all back in the large wooden bin. “Do you know how to fish without fishing gear?”
“Well, I did practice a little with my dad before coming here, but it's much easier with a rod and reel. Did you practice any survival skills for the show?”
“No.”
“That doesn't seem like your style.”
“I actually was only asked to join the show just this morning, and UA doesn't need full staff over summer break. So I was able to make it on short notice.”
“This morning? Did someone hit you over the head and drag you here?” She has been wondering what really happened, and it also explains why he hadn’t mentioned it to her before today.
“It didn't go down quite like that,” he says, “but I'm here now, and I'll do my best to help in any way I can. I may not know much about fishing or wilderness survival, but I have one ace up my sleeve,” he finishes the last part sounding excited.
“What’s that?” she asks.
“I have really good hand grip strength.”
“What?” she squints at him.
“Like I can cling to a post or hang from a bar for a really long time using my hands,” he says.
“I see… you haven’t recovered from your head wound yet,” she says. He seems coherent enough, but that’s a strange thing to mention.
“Well no… that takes time, but I'm serious, if there are any grip strength challenges, I have it covered.”
“Okay, noted.” She nudges his shoulder. “How about you put those strong hands to use to build a shelter.”
—
Ochaco attempts some fishing while Deku starts working on a shelter. She decides to try again later if she can obtain a rod or a fishing net or something.
She joins Deku in fashioning a rustic lean-to. The way his brain works is fascinating to see in real time. He is worrying about this and that, connecting dots she would have never connected, and soon they have something of a woven branch panel. They leaned it against two trees about a meter apart.
“I think we need to stop for the night. You need to get some sleep so you can recover from that head injury, and I am beat,” Ochaco says. She lays the tarp under the shelter, then opens the sleeping bag up.
“You do know, my head is fine, right?” he says flatly.
“Yes, Deku, I know.” She says, amused, bundling up her small luggage bag to use for a pillow, and crawls to the small side of the shelter. “Is this okay?” She gestures at the sleeping arrangement.
“Yeah, umm, so should I just crawl in beside you?” She can see the tint of color on his face even in the dusk.
Right, they are sharing a bed.
She and Deku are sleeping together under some poorly woven sticks, and there is not a lot of room.
“Yes, that's what you should do.” She says, lifting the sleeping bag up to him, suddenly feeling wide awake, “Get in here.”
Deku crawls beside her. It's awkward. She doesn't know how to position herself and can tell he is struggling to figure out the same thing.
“Umm, maybe we lie on our sides back to back,” Deku suggests.
This is so weird.
“Okay,” she squeaks, rolling away from him. Soon, they are both under the blanket, back to back.
“Is this okay?” Deku asks.
“Do you have a better idea?”
“No,” he whispers.
“Okay.” And they lie there together, so close she can feel him breathing beside her. She can feel the heat coming off of him, and he smells like sweat and pine. It's weird and wonderful. She doesn't know if she will get any sleep this week.
—--
When Izuku wakes up, Uraraka is already out of bed. He can see her making something over the campfire. If he ranked his worst nights of sleep, he figures that one would make it in the top ten. Not because of Uraraka exactly. His problem was that he liked having her there beside him, more than he should. What if he stole the whole sleeping bag in the night or kicked her, so he lay awake for hours staring at the stars, listening to the wind, feeling every rock or uneven spot under him, unable to relax.
He distinctly remembers when she fell asleep because her whole body went slack against his and her breathing slowed. Knowing she was there asleep next to him made him feel warm inside, and he was finally able to fall to sleep.
The camera crew was always hovering. Last night he heard them until he fell asleep and even now someone was filming him waking up. Being watched constantly is unsettling. Maybe if he paid enough attention to them he would learn something useful from them.
He rolls out of the shelter, folds up the blanket and tarps and puts it in their bin. He walks over to join Uraraka at the fire pit.
”Hey, sleepy head,” she says, handing him a mug of green tea.
“Thanks.” He nods. “I guess we should make a plan to ration our food. This is not going to last long.”
“Yeah, I was thinking since I have some hot water now, we could make one of these cups of ramen and split it up to share it for breakfast. Later for lunch we can share a protein bar. Maybe by supper we will have won something in a challenge or figured out something else for food. But if we don't, we have the rest of the dried fruit packet you opened last night for supper.”
“If we stick to that schedule, we should have enough food for three days?” He thinks aloud.
“Yeah,” she says.
Deku figures that the menu for the whole day of food would be less calories than the equivalent of what he would typically eat in one meal. The proper amount to function at home where he was hardly burning any extra calories.
Uraraka splits the ramen into two bowls; one clearly has more noodles than the other. She gives that one to him.
“Hey, you split it up so I should get to choose which one I take,” he says.
“You need more calories than I do. That is a fact.” He was about to put up an argument but the words died on his lips when she asked, “please don't fight me on this.”
“Okay,” he says, taking his portion. He wants to push back because he feels guilty about it, and he can't talk to her about anything he actually wants to talk to her about due to the lack of privacy. He is here to help her, and she is worrying about him. Technically speaking, he does need to eat more than she does. “I'd like to try fishing and foraging if we have some time.”
“I think we should,” she says, and noticing the site's mailbox with the flag up, adds, “Hey I think we got mail.”
They open the mailbox, and a letter is labeled the hero's team. There are instructions for them to follow, a Deku map, an Uravity map, and locations where they will be given individual information to bring back to the team.
Izuku glances at the map. He knows exactly where he needs to go from their tour of the island the night before. They finish eating and go their separate ways. Izuku finds his spot on the map. There is an envelope placed under a rock with his name on it.
He slides the two sheets of paper out of the package.
The first one is labelled Deku’s secret agenda: D
During the morning challenge, hug at least three people from the other teams before you go back to camp. If successful, you will earn a fishing rod for your team. If you fail, you will be given a one and half minute penalty at the supply challenge. You can not tell anyone what your personal challenge is.
Rendezvous with Uravity at camp to figure out where you two need to go next. Wear swim clothes for this challenge.
He rushes back to the camp to meet with Uraraka, but she is not there. He changes into his provided Deku-themed swim trunks and tries to clean up their camp while he waits. He is already feeling a little hungry. Half a package of ramen is just not enough, and he makes a point to not look at their food to keep himself from getting into it.
He starts to consider how he might go about getting people to hug him. The girls from last night seemed friendly enough, but initiating hugging them, he wasn’t so sure about that, and he had no idea how the other teams might react to him.