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Ochako hefted her bag higher onto her shoulder, trying not to cringe at the sound of its contents rattling loudly as she did so. Maybe she’d bought a little too much... Usually it pained her to spend money, but as soon as she’d heard Izuku was sick she’d practically shot out of her apartment and got one of every cold remedy she could get her hands on at the store. The cashier had raised his eyebrows, but she’d been so spurred on by the need to do something to help at the time that she’d paid his odd look no mind and had handed over her money with all the gravitas spending it deserved.
In retrospect, she might have gone a little overboard.
She yelped as her foot sank into a particularly deep patch of snow, jolting her out of her thoughts. She lifted it up quickly, but a large chunk of snow had already flicked over the top of her boot and was now an uncomfortably cold wetness seeping through her sock. Ochako groaned lightly at the squelchy sensation as she put her foot back down.
At least only one wet and cold foot was better than two, right?
There were only a scattering of people walking around in this kind of weather. (Smart, she thought, ignoring her wet foot and taking an alternative path around the deeper snow). It had been snowing on and off for the past week, but it had gotten so deep that the trains were no longer running, and the city itself had seemed to come to a hushed kind of halt. The roads were just as hazardous as the paths and pavements, so she got used to seeing workers bundled up and trudging through the bad weather to get to their jobs, rather than take the dangerous drive. Nobody interacted with each other, just tried their best to get where they needed to be; heads down, marching determinedly onward...
A cold wind kicked up and blasted fresh snow into Ochako’s face, biting at her frozen cheeks, making her halt and shiver violently. She clenched her eyes shut and buried her chin further into her scarf, holding her bag close to her side until the wind calmed and the powdery snow fell as delicately as before. She released a soft sigh, watching as her breath appeared as a small puff of mist in the frigid air.
Ochako squared her shoulders and resumed her quest.
It was a long walk to Izuku’s apartment from hers - it was usually a journey she made by train - but she’d been determined to get to him and nothing was going to stop her... not even the weather.
Her footsteps made a satisfying crunch as she persevered through the silent landscape, though she wished she had some better footwear for the occasion; her boots were probably better suited to a hike than to walking in extreme conditions like these. She came to the reluctant conclusion that she would need to invest in something more appropriate for harsh winter weather. Maybe she’d see if Izuku would go with her. He had good taste in shoes (even if he himself only ever wore the one pair).
Ochako suddenly felt a vibration and pulled off a pink glove to dig around in the pocket of her large padded coat for her phone. Oh! She’d got a reply from Izuku:
‘The weather is terrible, please stay inside! I’m fine, seriously, I’ve got the heating on and I’m not feverish anymore, so I’m feeling better. Stay in the warm and I’ll see you soon - as soon as I can! Miss you x’
She smiled at her phone and let out a huff of laughter, watching it swirl into the air again. ‘Too late,’ she tapped, ‘already on my way ( • ̀ω•́ )✧ see you soon xxx’.
She sent the message and stuck her tongue out, as if he could see. (He probably knew her well enough to know that’s what she’d be doing anyway.)
‘Miss you too♡ xxx’, she added, hitting send again.
Satisfied, Ochako stuffed her phone back into her pocket, snuggled down into her coat and scarf again, put her glove back on, and continued her walk. Her coat was a limited-edition release based on the Pro-Hero Thirteen, and it was the warmest thing she owned - it was like being wrapped in a huge puffy blanket! Her body was nice and toasty, thanks to her coat, so it was mostly just her face and her one wet foot that was suffering from the cold. In fact, she was pretty sure the wet foot had gone numb... She also tried not to think about how much of a mess her hair would be when she took her hat off, since the snow was regularly dusting over the bangs that she couldn’t fit under the hat or scarf. She was pretty sure she was going to turn up at Izuku’s looking like a frozen, wet, walking-space-suit. Ochako nearly laughed aloud.
A few times during her walk she’d considered using her quirk on the bag over her shoulder, but each time she managed to talk herself out of it, deciding it was a waste of energy just to make things slightly easier. She was making slow progress the old-fashioned way. But she’d get there in the end, and that’s what counted.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket again, but it was on mute so Ochako ignored it, knowing he would be ringing to try and talk her out of it. It really was too late, she thought with a sense of pride, she was nearly there.
When she finally made it into Izuku’s apartment building Ochako pushed the door shut behind her gratefully and leaned on it heavily for a moment, overcome with relief for actually making it. It was so much warmer inside that she shuddered violently; the sudden change in temperature inside the apartment building made her realise just how bitingly cold it had been to be out there for so long. After a while even her thick and heavy winter coat had been unable to cope. She left the doorway and took a deep breath of warm air, wrapping her arms around her cold body, scrunching her face at the uncomfortable pins and needles fizzing through her feet and nose.
Ochako stamped her boots thoroughly onto the mat in the entrance. Thick snow fell off in clumps. She looked around fretfully, wondering if leaving it there was okay, or whether she should try and get rid of it.
“Um...” she said aloud awkwardly, torn over whether to just go ahead or not. Cringing Ochako scooped up the snow from her boots and the mat and threw it outside the door, shivering at the blast of cold on her face again. Cold, cold, cold!
Satisfied she wouldn’t be getting snow everywhere Ochako made her way to Izuku’s apartment, following a now-familiar route. She paused just before knocking and got out a tiny mirror from her bag, nearly groaning at the sight that greeted her; her nose was bright red, her bangs were still damp, her cheeks were even more flushed than usual and she was still bundled up tightly in her scarf and coat. With a small shake of her head Ochako shoved the mirror away and knocked loudly. He wouldn’t care what she looked like anyway, and she was here to take care of him, not enter a fashion show.
The door opened almost instantly, like he had been waiting for her to knock, and she grinned at him while she gave a little wave.
“Hi Deku, how are you doi- you look terrible!” she exclaimed before she could stop herself.
He had a brightly coloured fluffy All Might themed blanket draped around his shoulders, he was wearing a black t-shirt and black sweatpants and his nose was even redder than hers. Even his eyes looked red and watery, and she noticed he was clutching a box of tissues in his hand because when he flung his hands up to cover his face it clunked against his forehead. She winced.
“No, no no no,” he mumbled, turning away from her, “you weren’t supposed to see me like this.”
“Ah, no, I’m sorry Deku, I didn’t mean it like how it sounded- I just meant, you look really ill, not that you look ‘terrible’!” she corrected quickly.
Izuku peeked at her from behind his tissue box and Ochako had to resist the sudden nearly overwhelming urge to pull him into a hug. She knew he would fight her off with his guilt of not wanting to get her sick too, so instead she flashed him an apologetic smile and made her way inside, setting down her bag and taking off her boots, coat and scarf. It hadn’t escaped her that he seemed just as bothered (probably more bothered) about her seeing him not at his best than the other way around. He was so cute.
“No, it’s okay, I know I look pretty bad,” he sighed, removing the tissue box from his face. She couldn’t tell if he was blushing or just flushed from his cold.
Ochako hung her coat up beside his door and was glad his apartment was warm – her fingers were still icy cold. She rubbed them together, careful not to accidentally set off her quirk. “You do look a little more unwell than you told me from your text, Deku,” she said accusingly, noting the bags under his eyes and feeling her heart clench in sympathy when he coughed violently.
At least he looked a little sheepish at her comment and rubbed the back of his neck. “I didn’t want you to worry about me. You were stuck there- I thought you’d be stuck there anyway- and I didn’t want you doing something reckless to come and see me. I can’t believe you walked here!” Izuku added, frowning a little in disapproval.
She laughed and shrugged. “No snow is gonna stop me! What kind of hero would I be if I didn’t come to your rescue?”
Izuku smiled at that, his eyes crinkling at the corners, and she smiled warmly back.
They were equals after all, able to support and be there for each other.
He shuffled further into the room, barely picking up his feet. “You must be freezing,” he fretted, picking up a spare blanket she hadn’t noticed that was draped over the back of his couch. He shuffled back to her and held it out for her at arm’s length. When she moved closer to him to take it, he took a step back. “Don’t get too close! I don’t want you to catch it.”
Ochako rolled her eyes and took the blanket, draping it over her own shoulders, before she realised the colours and pattern were very familiar. She whipped it off and held it away from herself to inspect, gasping loudly. “Wait, is this- is this an Uravity blanket?” The print was the exact replica of the black, white and pink of her hero costume.
Izuku fell straight into a coughing fit, wheezing and hacking and Ochako flinched in surprise. He pulled his own blanket up over his head, completely covering the top half of his body, and turned away. “Oh, no,” he whined, holding the sound of the vowel, “I- I can’t believe I- I didn’t realise I’d got that one out. I was distracted, I felt so bad after your message, I knew you’d be freezing cold when you got here and I wanted to have this ready for you and I didn’t even look at which one I was getting out the cupboard.”
“Y-You have my blanket?” she squeaked, a surge of affection warming her body from head to toe. She knew he was a big collector of All Might memorabilia but the fact that he’d gotten something from her own (admittedly tiny) merchandise line made her feel equal parts embarrassed and touched.
There was a long pause before Izuku spoke again hesitantly, in a small voice, “I… I wrap myself up in it sometimes. When I miss you.”
Her cheeks burned with his confession, and she closed the distance between them to give him a hug that was almost a tackle. She brought the blanket around them both, pressing her cheek against his solid back. It was times like these that she remembered how similar in height they used to be when they were at school, and how much taller and broader he had grown. But he was still kind of a huge dork inside.
She giggled against his back and squeezed him tightly. “How do you… How do you get me to fall even more in love with you every time we meet?”
“M-Me?” he exclaimed, relaxing into her embrace – there was no way of her catching his germs like this. “You’re the one who walked across the city in sub-zero temperatures, through the- the tundra out there. And then I open my door and you’re smiling at me like you’ve been on a stroll through the park or something, and your eyes are bright and your cheeks are red and I can’t believe you’d do that for me. You- you have no idea what you do to me.”
Ochako couldn’t stop smiling, and she was glad he couldn’t see her beaming from ear to ear like a love-struck fool. She couldn’t believe that’s how he saw her, when she thought she looked like nothing but a mess from her journey.
“I-I’ll always come to you if you need me, okay? Doesn’t matter how far away it is. Or what I have to go through to get there. You can count on me.” She tried to put some emphasis behind her words, but her tongue always tripped when she was feeling flustered. “So uh…” she began, nuzzling into his back, “how does it feel to be wrapped in the real thing? M-Much better, r-right?” Her heart stuttered at her gods-awful attempt at flirting.
Izuku sneezed loudly.
“That good, huh?” she giggled, the moment passing.
“Ah- no, sorry Ochako,” he apologised quickly as she released him and he turned around, pulling down the blanket to reveal his face again. His skin was so crimson it nearly completely hid his freckles.
Ochako playfully put her hands on her hips, still smiling. “Come on,” she commanded, “you’re going to bed and I’m going to make us some soup.”
“H-Huh?”
“Oh, I forgot to mention, didn’t I? I might have gone and bought you some cold remedies…” She bounced over to his kitchen table and turned her bag over to spill its contents onto the wooden surface, packets of tablets rattling out. A couple of cans of chicken soup thudded onto the table too, followed by a box of honey and lemon teabags and she finally shook out a small hot water bottle.
Izuku jumped back in surprise and let out a breath. “Wow, Ochako, I think you’ve got enough stuff there to cure an army of their colds.”
She laughed lightly. “Heh, yeah, I think I went a little overboard.”
“I mean I- I really appreciate it. That you spent so much money on me, and that you came all this way… It really means a lot to me. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome!” she squeaked a little too loudly, a little too quickly, trying hard to cover up her embarrassment.
“Do you want me to help with the soup?” he asked sincerely.
“Nope,” Ochako declared stubbornly, “I’ve got this. I know my way around your kitchen well enough. I’ll bring it in to you when it’s done, with some honey and lemon tea. Hm, actually, maybe not at the same time, that might taste a little weird…” She cleared her throat, put her hands on her hips again and attempted to put a stern tone into her voice when she said, “Now you go to bed, or I’ll force you in there myself.”
Izuku lapsed into another coughing fit, his ears blooming the same red as his face.
Ochako let worry pull down her eyebrows, one hand lifting up to offer some kind of physical support if he needed it. Poor thing really sounded ill.
“Okay, okay,” he wheezed, “I’m going, I’m going.”
Ochako nodded vigorously as he shuffled away, with one last glance at her. She made a shooing motion with her hands, laughing at the way he obviously struggled with being taken care of without being able to help in some way. That was so him.
Finally alone in his kitchen Ochako let out a breath. Just being around him, even sick as he was, did some strange and terrible things to the state of her heartbeat and the butterflies flapping crazily around her stomach. She wanted to be able to make him better instantly somehow, like she could just wave a magic wand and he’d be well again – which sounded ridiculous because she knew he’d only gone and gotten the common cold, but he was suffering, even if it was just from a blocked nose and a cough, and she would take it into herself if that would take it away from him. She sighed a little with a smile. Love was weird like that, she supposed.
She was waiting for the chicken soup to warm up when she noticed the washing hung across a metal airing frame in the corner of his living room. The whole apartment was open plan, so there were no walls between his living room, the small dining area where his table sat, and the little kitchen. She could see right across the whole place, including Izuku’s bedroom door leading off from the living area, as his only bathroom was an en-suite connected off his room. She glanced at the cold soup, knowing it would take a while for the gentle flames beneath it to warm it up, and made her way across the apartment quietly. Lain across the airing frame was his hero costume, and Ochako began to piece together how he had gotten his cold in the first place; he’d obviously been doing hero work in these temperatures, and gotten wet. He must have been too sick to even put his costume away once it had dried. She cast a fond look at the door to Izuku’s bedroom.
His look was iconic to her, and it was beginning to get more and more famous and recognisable to the public too – just the other day she’d seen a growing collection of Deku merchandise in a local department store. Green, black, white and red. The gloves, mask and boot covers sat on the floor nearby, and she already knew his favourite pair of red shoes were by the door… The whole set. A wild thought popped into her head and she shook her head as if she could physically remove it.
But the soup was going to take a little while… And Izuku was probably comfy in his bed, so there was no danger of him catching her… Before she knew it she had her ear pressed to Izuku’s door, hearing nothing but the sound of steady breathing – he was asleep – so she had time…
Casting all thoughts aside on whether it was a good or bad decision, or whether it was rude to just try someone else’s hero costume on without asking (even if that hero happened to be your boyfriend) Ochako stripped down surprisingly quickly; she yanked down her skirt and thick woollen tights, shrugged out of her knitted sweater, and threw the bundle of clothes to one side. She was kind of caught up in the excitement now, and had to suppress a giggle from the adrenaline as she picked up the hero costume off the airing rack and put her feet in one at a time, pulling it on like a giant onesie. It was too big for her, that much was obvious, but the material was soft and she felt kind of giddy from the sight of herself in the costume she knew so well, even if it didn’t fit particularly well. She added the gloves and attached the bunny-eared mask at the back, with a little fiddling and cursing under her breath, so it hung across her shoulder blades. The metal mouth piece secured loosely around her neck, hanging lower than it did on Izuku, but she could feel the look coming together and it was giving her a real rush of excitement.
Stopping there would have been easy, but it wouldn’t be entirely accurate, so Ochako nearly skipped over to the front door where her boots sat next to Izuku’s iconic red shoes. They were far too big for her, but she couldn’t believe she was getting the chance to try them on; she felt like a fangirl. Almost complete. She expected to be able to pick up the metal boot covers and attach them to the shoes, but as soon as she picked one up with a hiss of effort she realised it wouldn’t be so easy. How did Deku move around in these things? How did he fight in them?
It took considerable effort to get the boot covers on and she picked a foot up experimentally, feeling the weight of it on her legs. No wonder he had calves of steel. With a small, thoughtful frown Ochako bent down and touched each of the metal additions to her feet and removed their gravity with a glow from her fingertips. Much better.
She examined herself with a grin, wishing there was a mirror she could look into, and had to stop the laughter threatening to bubble out of her as she bounced around the apartment, kicking her legs out and throwing punches into the air. Izuku always looked so cool when he fought villains in this, she couldn’t believe the opportunity to wear it had presented itself – she felt amazing in it! The fabric bunched at her ankles and just above the gloves, where it was clearly too long for her, and it was baggy in the torso area to account for his taller frame, but she certainly felt like she looked cool.
Ochako swept her foot high in the air. “Whoosh!” she whispered out loud, conscious of not waking up Izuku next door. “Smash!” She punched the air again.
So wrapped up in her pretend fight with a bunch of villains (that she was winning, of course) Ochako suddenly became aware of the sound of bubbling and realised her soup was about to boil over. She dashed over and turned the temperature down with a relieved breath, but when she turned back Izuku was standing in the middle of his living room, draped in the same blanket as before, that slowly slid down his shoulders and fell to the floor. The soft thump it made when it hit the carpet was painfully loud as she stood there looking at him dumbly, realising she still had his costume on.
Her brain felt like it short-circuited with the immediate and crushing sensation of wanting the ground to open up beneath her.
“D-D-Deku?! I-I thought you were asleep! I mean- Oh, this probably looks really bad, but I can explain!” She flapped her arms agitatedly. “I am so sorry! I was waiting for the soup to cook and it was just lying there, oh, that’s a terrible excuse now I’m saying it out loud!” Ochako’s voice rose in pitch and her arms moved even faster.
“Wait you mean, this… this isn’t a dream?” Izuku’s cheeks bloomed with a pink blush that spread quickly over the bridge of his nose, his eyes widening further.
“What- no- why would it be a dream?” Ochako replied in a fluster.
“N-No reason!” he nearly yelled back, blush deepening.
There was a beat of awkward silence and then Ochako finally let loose the laughter she’d been holding back, Izuku joining in soon after.
“One day I’ll come to visit and we can just hang out like a normal couple,” she managed through laughter, while he could only nod through his. “The soup’s ready, so I’ll just, uh, get changed again and we can eat.” She ruffled the back of her hair awkwardly.
“No wait, you can leave it on if you want to,” Izuku burst out, then bit his lip as if his mouth had betrayed him, “I mean… it looks really good on you.”
“Really? You think so?” She smiled, pleased, and gave a twirl.
“Yeah, it – um – it suits you.” He smiled back and shifted slightly. “So I mean, if you wanted to try it on one day when I’m feeling better you- you totally can.” Izuku picked the blanket back from the floor and wrapped himself up in it again.
Ochako narrowed her eyes in thought. Wait… did he like her in his hero costume? Was it like that thing where boys like seeing their girlfriends in their clothes? Is this…?
She swallowed and tried to make her voice silky when she replied with, “Maybe I will.”
Success.
Izuku cleared his throat and coughed and Ochako motioned for him to sit down. “Well, since I’m already dressed the part – tonight I am your hero, and right now we’re going to have some hot soup to make you feel better, okay?”
“Okay,” he agreed with a smile. “My hero.”