Chapter Text
A day in the life of Uraraka Ochako:
Wake
Eat breakfast
Nap
Physical therapy
Eat lunch
Nap
Visitors
Outdoor time (mandatory)
Eat dinner
Sleep
Ochako spends most of her time in the hospital sleeping.
Exhaustion settles deep in her young, war-stricken bones, and it’s all she can do to wake up for meals and physical therapy every day. Her sleep isn’t restful, more comatose-like than she’d like to admit, but she’s too fatigued to be plagued by dreams so she counts it as a small win. She has visitors: her parents, a few aunts and uncles in the area, some of her classmates (the ones who aren’t in a medically induced coma; the ones who hadn’t stopped their own heart; the ones who aren’t in therapy for burning their brother to a crisp)—she’s glad, of course, but plastering on a convincing smile and keeping up idle chatter take up energy that she hasn’t yet gotten back.
As expected, her parents are there to take her home when she’s officially discharged from the hospital. They swaddle her with blankets and caution and ask her how she’s feeling about seventy-two times a day, and she would chalk it up to typical parental overprotectiveness, if not for how sad their eyes are.
Her father stays with her at the table for her meals (three a day, mandatory, unless she wants to be checked back in to Musutafu General), chattering softly about anything and everything as Ochako picks at her food until it goes cold. Her mother hovers and fusses at all hours of the day, never more than an arm’s length away, and takes it upon herself to change Ochako’s bandages, even though she’s insisted she can do it herself. Both of them have taken time off from work. Business is spontaneous as is, but they assure her they’d rather spend time as a family.
(Perhaps they don’t realize that she’s not as oblivious as they think: during the day, it’s her father’s phone calls, the ones with contractors and clients, all quiet apologies and mumbled promises that they’ll be starting work up again soon; at night, it’s her door creaking open and her mother’s stifled sobs, sometimes a hand carding gently through her hair. Perhaps they don’t realize that, as a hero, she’s more than aware of her surroundings. Perhaps they don’t realize that, as a survivor of war—and if that term doesn’t sound insane when applied to her—she spends more time staring blankly at her wall than sleeping. Perhaps they don’t realize that she’s not just their little girl anymore.)
After two weeks of being tiptoed around, of being treated like she’s porcelain instead of a fucking war hero, they argue. Her mother has so far shut down any and all talk of UA, but repairs for the dorms have been completed and, according to the class 2-A chat—god, they’re 2-A now—some of her friends are starting to move back in. She’s ready to join them; her mother doesn’t quite like that idea.
Ochako packs her bag and springs the information on her father the morning of: she’s going back to school. Her mother rouses from her sleep before Ochako can make it out the door and she’s yelling—her mother never yells—and sobbing about how she just got Ochako back, and they can’t take her away again (she takes they to mean UA). Her mother just doesn’t get it. She needs to go back. She needs to be a hero, and she can’t be a hero if she stays here, swaddled like a child. So they argue. Her mother’s face is a blotchy red and her eyes are swollen. Her father just looks tired.
(She needs to be a hero. It’s not just about the money anymore. She needs to become a hero who will be there for the next League of Villains—someone who won’t let the next Toga Himiko slip through the cracks.)
They reach an understanding when her mother exhausts herself, when Ochako is on the verge of tears: nightly phone calls, they can visit when they deem fit, and she comes home if there’s another incident. The stipulations are reasonable for the price of becoming a hero, and she would’ve phoned home every night regardless, but she agrees before her mother can change her mind. Her parents walk her to the station, and then to the gates, and even right up to the front doors of the dorms, and she only lets herself breathe again once they’re outside Heights Alliance.
She’s one of the first few back to the dorms. The common room is quiet. Shouji, Koda, and Kyoka greet her when she arrives—that explains the blanket of calm—and she responds in kind. She spends the first night in Kyoka’s room. They don’t sleep. Ochako doesn’t even attempt rest, just curls up at the head of the bed and drifts in and out of consciousness as Kyoka idly strums her guitar, humming a soft tune.
It happens the week after, when they’ve welcomed about half the class back and she’s just starting to acclimate to the refreshing lack of impending doom. It happens in the common room, surrounded by her peers (the ones who, again, aren’t being threatened with expulsion should they leave their hospital bed before they’re discharged). It happens when she least expects it to, when she thinks she’s safe. The last thing she remembers is the movie playing, screen bright in the room’s dim lighting, a blanket in her lap and her head lolling on Tsu’s shoulder.
And then there’s blood, there’s blood on the walls and on the carpet and on her hands—it’s Himiko’s blood. Himiko’s blood is warm. Himiko’s body is warm, not yet cold, but pale on the ground beside her. She can feel it, the twitch of Himiko’s fingers as she grasps her hand, the fluttering pulse in the soft flesh of her wrist as it dies. Himiko is dying.
Himiko is dying.
Himiko needs help. She needs to call for help. She can’t let—she can’t—
And then there are hands on her shoulders, shaking her awake. Someone’s screaming, crying, pleading; she thinks it might be her, her throat hurts. There’s something else, voices that murmur. Why are they just watching? Why aren’t they helping? Himiko is dying in front of them and they’re just watching. The hands on her shoulders leave, replaced by something warm, and she feels the world stop for just a moment.
Everything blurs and what little she can see goes fuzzy around the edges. Someone else yells, and she knows it’s not her this time. Her throat still stings, though. She blinks and she’s sitting in her room. It’s bare, as always, the only evidence of inhabitance being the books on her desk and the constellation poster on the wall beside her bed. It’s bare of Himiko’s blood.
There’s a blanket on her shoulders—it’s Mina’s, she can tell, the fluffy pink one that she steals every girls’ night—and a sour taste in her mouth. Someone’s speaking, voice low and comforting, but she can’t tell what they’re saying. They sound far, or maybe it’s just because her head is full of cotton. There’s something else on her shoulder, a grounding weight on her left. She can see green from the corner of her eye.
“—and they’re saying Midoriya should be waking up soon. Or at least, that’s what I heard from Kiri, so we could make plans to go visit him, if you’re up for that.”
Mina’s voice breaks through the muffled nothingness and the girl comes back into view. She’s carrying a glass of water in one hand and two white tablets in the other. She crouches in front of Ochako so they’re level and holds out the pills. “Are you back with us?”
Back? Did she go somewhere? Mina’s brows are already knit tightly with concern, so she decides not to ask for clarification.
“Here, drink up.”
She takes the cup with shaky hands. The water helps wash the ugly taste from her mouth—it’s bile, she realizes belatedly, her mouth tastes of bile—and she downs the pills right after.
“How are you feeling?” The weight on her shoulder asks, and she registers the voice as Tsu.
“Okay.” Speaking scratches the back of her throat in a way she doesn’t like, but it’s not a total lie.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Speaking hurts. Thinking about Himiko hurts even more. She shakes her head. Mina says it’s okay. Tsu says she can sleep if she wants. She doesn’t want to sleep, doesn’t want her friends to leave, but then she sees the circles under Tsu’s eyes and the way Mina’s shoulders droop with exhaustion and she waves them off. They remind her that their doors are open, to come find them if she needs anything, and Ochako knows she won’t be bothering them any more tonight.
Falling asleep is an ordeal all on its own. There’s the occasional thump down the hall or muffled footsteps that take the stairs two at a time. Around two in the morning, there’s a stifled shout from across the hallway that has her muscles tensing, the hairs on the back of her neck rising, her body ready to move because there’s danger danger danger—but then she hears voices (Kirishima and Shoji, she assumes) as they pass outside her door. There’s the quiet ding of the elevator and the voices are gone. It’s quiet.
The quiet doesn’t help. The air buzzes with electricity and nerves and every time she’s close to drifting off, her body seems to fall and she jolts back to consciousness. She tries counting backwards from one hundred and loses track somewhere around negative three hundred fifty-two. She tries naming every constellation she can remember on her poster but it gets boring on the third run. She tries recalling the last novel they’d been going over with Cementoss before the war (god knows some of the assigned books are enough to bore her to sleep on their own), but comes up empty.
She remembers seeing her clock blinking lazily—4:13—just before she nods off.
It’s 4:56. She’s heaving and choking on a strangled cry that sounds like Himiko’s name. Her hair sticks to her forehead from the cold sweat and her arms are covered in goosebumps. Her stomach turns over like it wants her to throw up—again—but she swallows down the feeling.
There’s no blood. At least, she thinks there isn’t.
It’s too-fucking-early-o’clock and she’s exhausted beyond belief but if she goes back to sleep she’ll have to feel it: the blood; the hands that grab her arms and lift her into a stretcher; the feeling of waking in the hospital and screaming her throat hoarse when she realizes that they’d left her, the knowledge that they’d had the teams and resources to help Himiko and they’d left her to die.
When her eyes threaten to shut, she swings her legs off the bed. Her feet shakily carry her the small distance to the door and she stops only to pick Mina’s blanket up off the ground (she must’ve kicked it off in her sleep). The lights in the hallway are off, which isn’t surprising, but it doesn’t help when she’s jumping at every turn, when every shadow could be hiding a blonde girl’s corpse, no older than any of them. The prospect of turning in the stairwell and coming across a body makes her skin crawl, and though the chances are low, it’s not impossible.
She takes the elevator.
The common room isn’t empty when she arrives, but maybe that’s for the best. A few of the lamps are on, casting a soft glow around the living room. She can see Kirishima on the far armchair, legs dangling off the armrest and eyes closed. On the carpeted floor in front of him sits Shoji, arms crossed and head bowed like he’s asleep, except there’s a half-lidded eye on one of his arms, blinking wearily as if keeping watch.
One of the smaller couches is taken up by Momo and Kyoka, a blanket wrapped around them. Momo’s head rests heavily on Kyoka’s shoulder, her chest rising and falling steadily. Kyoka doesn’t seem to be trying to sleep, just sits and fiddles listlessly with her ear jack. In the dim light, Ochako can just make out the white patch that covers the spot where Kyoka’s left ear had once been.
On the other couch sits Shinsou and his eyebags in all their magnificent glory, nursing a cup of something still steaming. He glances up as she pads into the living room and nods in acknowledgement. “Can’t sleep?” He asks quietly.
Ochako shakes her head, and Shinsou scoots over on the couch, as if there hadn’t already been ample empty room. She takes a seat beside him, tugging Mina’s blanket tighter around her shoulders like a fluffy pink cape.
“Do you want to sleep?”
Her body is tired beyond belief and a live wire at the same time. Pros to sleeping: not spending the next day as a zombie. Cons to sleeping: the dreams.
(Cons to sleeping: blood; battlefield; Himiko.)
She shakes her head again, and Shinsou wordlessly hands her his cup. It seems untouched, wisps of steam rising from the drink lazily; it smells of chamomile. The tea burns in her throat but she doesn’t stop until it fills her stomach with a soothing warmth (the pain feels good, either way—like she’s alive, instead of this half-dead corpse trying to pass for a hero).
She places the half-empty cup on the low table in front of them before falling back into the couch cushions with a huff.
“What about you?” She whispers, staring at the ceiling. “Can’t sleep either?”
Shinsou hums noncommittally. “Insomnia.”
“Oh.” She pauses. “I’m sorry?” It comes out as more of a question than a statement, but he doesn’t seem to care.
“And you?”
“Bad dreams,” is all she says, but Shinsou nods anyway.
“Nightmares are a bitch.”
“Nightmares are a bitch,” she agrees.
He’s silent for only a moment. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Ochako considers it. It makes no sense to share with Shinsou what she hadn’t wanted to divulge to Mina and Tsu—especially Tsu, who’d known Himiko the best, second only to herself. Part of her wants to tell him, to lessen the burden on her shoulders and the weight in her chest; part of her wants to keep Himiko’s last moments to herself, like a secret privy only to the two of them.
“No.”
One of the things she appreciates about Shinsou is that he doesn’t pry. He just nods, curls his knees to his chest to mirror her position, and they sit in silence.
A day in the life of Uraraka Ochako:
Wake
Pick at lunch
Sit in the common room and listen to idle conversation
Stare at the wall
Pick at dinner
Try to sleep
If above fails, find Shinsou in the common room
Shinsou is good company, if you consider a silent companion good company, which Ochako does. Most times, it’s enough to just sit together. Sometimes, she cries. Those days are the most difficult, but he’s there, offering either a hand on her shoulder or a cup of steaming caffeine (next to Momo, she thinks Shinsou’s got the best taste in tea).
She’s awake in time for breakfast, for once (but that may be more so due to Iida gently pulling her to the kitchen and insisting that it’s not healthy to sleep past noon). Ochako picks at her food, moving the rice around her bowl, but not eating. Across the table, Iida keeps sneaking glances at her bowl; he looks like he wants to comment, but he settles for worrying his bottom lip.
Around her, there’s talk of going to the mall—something about making an effort to return to normalcy, or something, she’s not really listening. Iida announces that he’d like to go as well, all boisterous confidence. Ochako knows he’s been itching to stretch his legs properly since being discharged from the hospital, so she waves away his apologies when he leaves the table without her. She’s not sure how many others follow him out the door.
She’s still sitting at the table, content to just stare at her bowl of rice until they return, when Kyoka screams. She’s on her feet in an instant, making a beeline for the common room, heart pounding in her throat. It’s an intruder. It’s a villain. It’s Shigaraki. It’s All for One. Kyoka is dying. Kyoka is dead. Kyoka is dead and Himiko is next.
She rounds the corner to the common room to find Kyoka on the couch, body tucked inwards and breathing heavily but very much alive. Tooru stands in front of her, apologies tumbling from her lips.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize, I—I thought you heard me—” Tooru cuts herself off quickly, shifting to glance at Ochako. She can’t see her face, but Tooru’s sleeves are shaking and she’s shifting her weight from foot to foot; she’s panicking.
Ochako knows why; Kyoka is resolute. She’s been one of their few pillars of order since transitioning back to the dorms. She’s been strong (they’ve all been strong, but Ochako can’t remember the last time she’s seen Kyoka cry). She knows that they all have moments of weakness, and that Kyoka takes hers in the privacy of her own room, but still—seeing her friend break down is unnerving.
(As unnerving as it is, Ochako also knows why she’s freaking out; Kyoka had been one of the few in their class to face him directly. She hadn’t come face to face with Shigaraki’s Sensei, but from what Midoriya’s told her, she doesn’t envy anyone who has.)
Tooru’s voice is quiet. “Kyoka?”
“I’m fine,” Kyoka whispers. Her voice is shaky and her shoulders are still hunched up to her ears and her eyes are squeezed shut. She sounds decidedly not fine, but Ochako knows her friend is too stubborn to admit otherwise. So she takes the lead, sitting on the floor beside the couch in front of Kyoka and pulling Tooru down to do the same.
“Do you know where you are?” Ochako asks. She remembers, back during the early days of her admittance to Musutafu General, the doctors asking her a similar question. She waits a moment, then two, for Kyoka to answer. When Tooru’s hand closes around her own, she lets her friend fiddle with her fingers.
When Kyoka doesn’t respond, she speaks again. “You’re at Heights Alliance. You’re in the common room, with me and Tooru. He’s not here.”
“You’re safe,” Tooru adds quietly; she sounds devastated and her hands are still jittery as she draws small circles on the back of Ochako’s hand, but Ochako doesn’t mention it. Kyoka remains curled on the couch, the only sound her shaky breaths, but her shoulders are more relaxed.
“Tokoyami?”
Tooru sputters, confused, and Ochako answers. “He’s okay, too. He’s safe.”
She counts to thirty before Kyoka speaks again. “I’m safe,” she repeats. Her voice is more stable than last time and her breathing’s evened out. “I’m safe.”
“Kyoka?”
“Yeah?”
“Can we join you on the couch?”
Kyoka sits up, wincing slightly as she slowly tries to stretch out her shoulders. “Yeah. Sure.” Her words slur together a bit, and Ochako doesn’t doubt that she’s as exhausted as she sounds. It takes little effort to help Tooru settle on Kyoka’s left side before finding a blanket to pull over the three of them. In the middle of their sandwich, Kyoka continues fiddling with her ear jack, hands curled around it almost protectively. She doesn’t speak.
It’s quiet.
Tooru’s the first to fall asleep, her head lolling onto Kyoka’s shoulder, careful not to brush against the side of her head. Kyoka goes next, eyes fluttering shut. Her fingers stop twirling around her ear jack and she tilts her head to lean against Tooru’s.
Ochako’s own eyelids are heavy and the thought of resting right now sounds empyrean, but she can’t—this time, it was an accident; next time, it might be an actual intruder. A real threat. So she stays awake, staring at the wall behind the television and pinching the side of her thigh whenever black starts to encroach on her vision.
At one point, the yellow walls turn orange, and then red, red, red, but she thinks she might be hallucinating. Maybe it’s all the sleepless nights finally catching up to her, but it doesn’t matter. She’ll stay awake if it means keeping her friends safe.
The next time they’re all gathered in the common room is to celebrate Bakugo’s release from the hospital. Well, celebrate is a strong word; she and the others watch from a safe distance away as Kirishima, Sero, Mina, and Kaminari try to haul Bakugo into the common room while the latter curses up a storm. Sato even bakes a cake, so it practically is a party, Bakugo’s denial be damned.
Tsukauchi, who’d dropped him off, informs them that Bakugo is under strict orders not to aggravate his injuries, lest he risk incurring the wrath of Musutafu General and one very tired Aizawa-sensei.
(There’s still no news of Midoriya’s return.)
The nightmares become more frequent. She can never recall exact details, but the feeling of being suffocated by grey sludge is a recurring theme.
Frequent nightmares means she barely gets any sleep. No sleep means she’s irritable. Being irritable means she snaps at Kaminari first thing in the morning for completely killing the coffee machine with his haywire quirk. Snapping at Kaminari means now Bakugo’s all up in her face, yelling about how it’s not his fault (it’s not his fault; Kaminari’s had just as many sleepless nights as anyone) and asking if she’s looking for a fight.
And you know what? A fight sounds exactly like what Ochako needs.
They’re at Gym Gamma not ten minutes later, shoes thrown to the side and knuckles wrapped and she’s being flipped over Bakugo’s shoulder. The mats below them are there to dull the pain in her back but the ache feels good. Bakugo’s got a quickly-purpling bruise under his eye to match her split lip. Her limbs are aching and she might have to see Recovery Girl for what feels suspiciously like a pulled stitch but she’s past the point of caring. She’s pretty fucking sure sparring goes against the whole don’t aggravate Bakugo’s injuries thing, but he doesn’t look like he’s backing down any time soon, and like hell she’ll be the first to tap out.
It’s nice—better than being coddled because she’s her parents’ little girl, or having someone go easy on her because she’s class 2-A’s resident Round Face (or whatever it is that Bakugo calls her). As she rushes in again, fist raised and a yell tearing from her throat, legs ready to give out beneath her, she tries to remember the last time she’d felt this alive (she can’t).
Present Mic-sensei is waiting outside the dorms when they return. His usual jubilant expression has been overtaken by furrowed brows and a thin, pointed frown. Ochako guesses they deserve the lecture and reprimand, but she doesn’t regret it. It’s only when Mic-sensei takes off his sunglasses that she sees his eyes, and realization hits her: he’s more worried than angry. Guilt settles like a rock in her stomach, and she doesn’t argue when he gives her three days of house arrest.
(Bakugo gets five days because he should know better than to be sparring with his injuries, to which he snarls a protest and Ochako chokes down a laugh. Mic-sensei gives her an unimpressed look and assigns her two more days.)
“Just—” Mic-sensei’s sigh is weary and defeated—“tell a teacher where you’re going first, yeah? Have one of us accompany you.”
She nods but doesn’t apologize. Beside her, Bakugo does the same, teeth gritted and glaring holes into the pavement; he looks one word away from blowing a fuse, and if they hadn’t just exhausted all their energy, he might’ve. Mic-sensei gives them one more look that reminds her too much of Aizawa-sensei before dismissing them.
“And go see Recovery Girl, both of you. No arguments.”
As they leave, she hears him mutter something about problem children and how Shouta should ask for a raise.