Work Text:
‘Attention all passengers. Liftoff will begin shortly; until the plane is in the air and at cruising altitude please remain in your seats and keep your seatbelts buckled’
Izuku sighed softly as the plane jolted slightly and began to move away from the docking station, dropping his head down to rest somewhat uncomfortably by the window. Streams of rain dripped down the window, erratically curving and reconnecting as they made their way past Izuku’s view. It was terrible weather for a flight, but Izuku knew that the pilots who had volunteered for this flight were used to the conditions.
Deep inside his gut his quirk churned, resisting his efforts to keep in tamped down. He may not be able to stop it entirely, but he always tried to do what he could to make the flight smoother.
He never really stopped trying to turn it off to be perfectly honest, but he hadn’t been successful yet.
Izuku had figured out what his quirk was only a single gloomy week after his 4th birthday. The rainstorm had come out of seemingly nowhere on his birthday and hadn’t let up for the entire time, leaving the people of Mustafu waterlogged and baffled. Izuku had only discovered what he could do by accidentally calling down a bolt of lightning while he was playing heroes with Kacchan; the memory was still among his most cherished. Thinking about those precious few days when he thought of his quirk as nothing but good always made his heart ache a bit.
Because as Izuku had very quickly learned, his quirk couldn’t be turned off without outside help. He’d spent hours with quirk specialists trying all sorts of techniques, but nothing outside of the help of a young hero named Eraserhead and quirk suppressant cuffs had done anything, and neither of those were sustainable in the long term. And even as they ran tests and tried new techniques the rain was still falling on the city around them, and there was only so much rainfall one place could take at once.
The idea had come from one of the specialists Mom had taken him to see; one city couldn’t take constant rain and the Midoriyas weren’t in a position to move around constantly, but there were droughts and places with low amounts of rain all around the world that could use his help. Izuku could get help from the government to fly him around to avoid drowning any particular city while helping out places that needed it. Mom had been hesitant at the thought of Izuku flying around the entire world, but had tentatively agreed to reach out to the relevant officials.
Izuku still wasn’t sure how the government had managed to set things up without violating any child labor laws or public quirk usage laws, but ever since then he’d spent the last 15 years of his life bouncing from city to city, never in the same place for any longer than two weeks at a time.
The plane suddenly picked up in speed, going faster and faster until it tilted up slightly and Izuku watched the familiar sight of the ground falling away beneath him. As tiring as he found these constant flights, he was always excited whenever he got the chance to head back to Mustafu and visit Mom and Kacchan. Still, as good as it was to see his family and friends again, he wished he could stay for longer than a week or two, wished that for once in his life he could just stop and not have to worry about hurting innocents with his lack of control.
But those were just wishes, and no matter how many times they came to mind just wishes wouldn’t change anything.
Izuku closed his eyes, still leaning against the inside of the plane, and focused even more intently on calming his quirk to the best of his ability and around the plane the clouds thinned slightly in response as they flew on.
Ochako stumbled into her room at the shitty hotel she’d rented a week ago, exhausted from a day of hard work. Tomorrow was an off day, as the site she’d gotten work at was bringing in a specialist before proceeding and couldn’t continue on the project until the inspection was done. They hadn’t planned for an off day, but the unexpectedly brilliant weather conditions over the past week had meant that the workers had gotten farther than expected and the specialist wasn’t scheduled to arrive until the day after next.
“Unexpectedly brilliant weather conditions”. Ochako laughed tiredly under her breath at the thought. With her around not having a cloud in the sky wasn’t just expected, it was constant.
It had taken years for her to suspect that the perpetual state of drought her hometown was in was her fault, and years more to confirm it. At 5 years old she’d been diagnosed with an invisible quirk. When she’d first started becoming suspicious at 8 years old she was still young enough that the best she could do was hike a few miles away on the weekends, and while every so often a rain shower would fall on the town while she was gone it was rare enough that she couldn’t figure out if it was just luck or not. She spent hours trying to figure out how to turn her quirk off too, to no avail. The best she could manage was identifying the feeling of it, a constant pulsing thrum in her chest that almost mirrored her heart.
She’d done everything she could to keep her suspicions from her parents though; they didn’t have anywhere near the amount of money they’d need to move her around enough to keep any one place from having a serious drought and all of them knew people who’d suffered from the drought.
Who’d died from the drought.
She just couldn’t bring herself to say anything, imagining the looks on their faces when they realized just what she’d done.
And that was assuming that it had been her fault in the first place, which she hadn’t been able to confirm until she graduated high school and left, choosing to travel around the country picking up odd jobs rather than go to university or get a steady job in one area. Her parents had been concerned, but supportive, telling her that she could always come back home whenever she wanted.
Less than a week after she’d left, her hometown had experienced almost a full week of rain.
That had been enough confirmation for Ochako, and she’d resigned herself to the life she lived now; find work, stay a week or two, move on. She traveled all across the country, seeing the sights and enjoying herself while she could. A few months ago she’d gotten wind of a tropical storm preparing to hit the eastern coast and had made her way over to where it was supposed to hit land, hoping desperately for the chance to see clouds, to feel rain for the first time since she was four.
The tropical storm vanished less than a mile offshore, in a turn of events that left the inhabitants of the nearest city relieved yet confused and Ochako 100% convinced about the existence of her quirk.
Her most recent destination was Mustafu, the home of UA itself. She’d always wanted to visit the school, but there hadn’t been any good opportunities and she was already halfway through her maximum allotted time in one place. She’d probably have to come back some other time.
Ochako barely managed to stay awake long enough to change out of the work clothes and was out like a light as soon as she hit the bed.
Izuku groaned slightly, curling up and turning away from whatever was getting in his eyes. He’d gotten in from the flight late last night, tired from attempting to keep his quirk locked down for a smooth flight, and had ended up mumbling a quick hello to Mom before dropping into his bed, content to sleep the next 12 hours away. But for some reason he was being woken up much, much earlier than he was ready to.
Izuku finally gave up on getting any more sleep and forced his eyes open, before almost instantly screwing them shut again against the light streaming in from his window.
Wait.
From his window?
Izuku slowly opened his eyes again, squinting slightly until he could confirm that the thing currently causing his eyes a not insignificant amount of pain was sunlight, streaming in from the window where he hadn’t even bothered to close the blinds. He’d never needed to; the rain followed him wherever he went and even on the few occasions where he’d gotten to experience warp quirks it had never taken more than a few hours for the clouds to gather above him. But what he was seeing outside now was something he hadn’t seen in years; blue skies, interspersed with groups of light gray clouds, and the sun shining brightly down from just above the horizon.
He hadn’t seen the sun in over a decade.
Before he could even think he was moving jumping off his bed and racing to the door without even bothering to change out of his pajamas. He called a quick good morning to his mother, not even slowing down to hear her reply before he burst out of the door, racing through the halls of the apartment complex until he was outside, under the sun fully for the first time in as long as he could remember.
His quirk was churning unsteadily, like it was straining against something, but Izuku didn’t care enough to analyze what was going on, too caught up in the moment to care.
Clouds were not what Ochako expected to see today.
She hadn’t noticed while getting ready in the morning, planning to wander around town and see what she could on her off day. As it was though, she was spending less time looking at the city and more time looking up. She’d seen clouds off in the distance before, but only rarely and they had never come overhead.
She could feel the constant thrum of her quirk thrown slightly off too; slower than usual and unsteady, sometimes missing a beat. It made her feel off balance, but anything that pushed her quirk back was something she was interested in, and so she made her way though the city in search of whatever might be causing this malfunction.
Before too long she found herself in a small park, pretty but unremarkable. The thing that caught her eye though, was an extremely pale young man with green hair who was dressed head to toe in All Might pajamas, laying on a matching All Might blanket and squinting up toward the sun with a massive smile on his face.
She must’ve stared a little too long, because the man lifted his head up and beamed at her with an attitude that was much too positive for this early in the morning.
“Good Morning! Beautiful day today, isn’t it!”
Ochako was slightly taken aback by his enthusiasm but managed to pull together a response. “Yeah, it really is.” She wasn’t even lying either; while she would’ve loved to see rain once again the clouds and cool breeze were enough to lift her spirits. Still, she was fairly confused. “Why are you out here dressed like that?”
(Whoops. She hadn’t meant to say it so bluntly, but she was very curious.)
The man laughed a little to himself, glancing down at what he was wearing. “Ah, these are my pajamas.” He said, explaining absolutely nothing.
“…and why are you wearing your pajamas in the middle of the park?”
“It looked like a really nice day out and I couldn’t stop myself from running out to enjoy it!” The green haired man flushed red as he finished the sentence, evidently realizing that this wasn’t a reason most people would go running out into the park in their pajamas.
Ochako took that in for a second, then shrugged mentally and made her way closer. “Mind if I join you? You’ve got a pretty nice setup here.” She wasn’t too worried about him hurting her; she was pretty strong from years of taking odd jobs and there were plenty of witnesses around, plus he seemed pretty harmless.
This was apparently not the response the man had been expecting, a bewildered expression settling on his face for a few seconds before he replied a bit haltingly. “I-thanks? Sure? I forgot to let go of my blanket when I rushed out the door, so I figured I might was well use it…”
Ochako was already settling herself on the blanket, stretching out so that she was oriented in the same direction as the man and lying back to gaze up at the clouds. “I can’t remember the last time I got to lay down and watch the clouds.”
Apparently accepting her presence the green haired man lay back next to her and returned his gaze to the sky again. “Me neither. I just couldn’t miss this opportunity.”
The two of them lay there for a while, pointing out clouds to each other and debating what shape they most resembled. Ochako found herself relaxing and laughing as the man fervently defended his shapes, poking fun at his more out of the box ideas. Eventually though, the sun rose high enough that beside her the man was clearly having trouble making things out. His pale skin made her wonder how often he got outside; if it was like she suspected and only very rarely it was no wonder the sun was giving him some trouble.
“Here, you can borrow my sunglasses. I’m pretty used to the sun, I can handle it without them for a little longer.” Ochako plucked her sunglasses off her face and offered them to the man by her side. She never left home without her sunglasses, considering how often she found herself needing to use them.
“Ahhh…sure. Thanks.” The man sounded a bit sheepish as he reached over to take the sunglasses. As he was closing his fingers around one of the arms, their fingers brushed together.
Instantly the thrumming in Ochako’s chest vanished, that constant reminder of her quirk gone with barely a trace. She sat bolt upright, whipping her head around to stare at the green haired man who looked as shocked as she did, and they sat in a tense, awkward silence for one minute. Then two.
Ochako’s quirk simmered lightly in her chest, still there but subdued. Cautiously she pulled at it and felt it rise back up to meet her, thrumming steadily once more, and above them the clouds thinned and started to break apart. She let go of her quirk and it fell back again to the subdued level it had been at a moment ago, and the clouds restabilized.
For the first time since she’d sought out that storm, she could feel hope rising in her chest as she brought her gaze back to the green haired man.
“What was your name again?”
Three years later
Izuku groaned as he made his way downstairs to the kitchen, eyes screwed up against the daylight streaming in through the windows. “It’s too bright.” he complained, slumping into a chair at the table.
Not ten seconds after the statement he felt the pressure against his quirk drop away and the sky outside darkened, clouds rolling in. He opened his eyes and glared at Ochako where she was sitting across the table, hearing her snort with laughter.
She pulled back her laughter and put on the fakest innocent face he’d ever seen. “I thought you said it was too bright” she said, but he could still hear the laughter in her voice as he pulled back on his quirk to match hers, the counterweight giving him a benchmark to measure against, and the sun slowly started peeking through the newly formed clouds again. She knew perfectly well that he loved sunny mornings, as much as he complained about the brightness.
He got his revenge by stealing the last muffin out of the container in the middle of the table, leftovers from one of their most recent attempts at baking. Ochako let out a betrayed gasp, but waved him aside when he broke off a chunk and offered it to her, so he popped it in his mouth instead.
This batch had been a pretty good one. It was nice to know that they were improving from their initial disastrous attempts.
They sat in silence for a while, Ochako tapping away at a laptop while Izuku tried to wake up enough to start functioning properly. Eventually he noticed the slight frown on her face and spoke up.
“Everything alright?”
She shook her head dismissively. “I’m fine. There’s a hurricane about to hit the US though, and we’ve got a request to help.”
Izuku hummed contemplatively while picking at the last of his muffin. “You could probably deal with it yourself.”
“I know. But I’d rather you came with me.”
Izuku couldn’t keep the smile from crawling onto his face. “I’d love to go. When’s the flight?”
Ochako shook her head. “No flight. The Americans have a warper ready to pick us up at UA whenever we’re ready, the sooner the better.”
Izuku’s eyebrows raised. Warpers were in high demand, and a trip that far meant a high powered quirk. “Guess they’re taking this one seriously. I can have my travel bag packed in half an hour.”
Ochako nodded absently, already starting to type out a response. “I think I can be ready in about the same time, but I’ll ask them to pick us up in an hour and a half. That should give us more than enough time to pack and get to UA. They’ll probably arrange a flight back, so make sure you have enough for a week.”
Izuku nodded and got up from the table, circling around to toss the muffin’s wrapper in the trash. As he passed Ochako he leaned down and she leaned up to meet him for a quick kiss before he started making his way upstairs to their bedroom. As he left the kitchen he looked around at the house and all of the small details that made it feel lived in. They may travel a lot for their work, but now they had somewhere to come back to.
Now they had a home.