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"Izuku!" Ochako calls from overhead as he furrows his brows, carefully lowering the dropper of liquified magic and squeezing meticulously. "Izuku!"
Each cry of his name gets more and more frantic, so he eventually puts his experiment down with a soft sigh, glancing up at the attic. "What is it?" he calls back, lifting his broom to knock it against the ceiling, only to pause.
It sounds less... hollow than usual.
"What did you do?" he yells up as he takes the stairs three steps at a time.
Izuku gets no response, but when he manages to shove the hefty wooden door open, the sight that greets him is telling enough. Vines, speckled with what looks like stardust, creep across the floor until they reach her. She's tangled within them, pouting dramatically as she gives a weak tug. "Help?" Ochako points out after a moment.
He snorts, but he crouches and presses his palm to the floor anyways. The second his skin makes contact, the vines contract and send full-speed towards him, although he doesn't panic; they dispel right before contact, and Ochako lets out a sigh.
"Thanks," she nods, rubbing at her wrists, although he gives her an unimpressed look, putting his hands on his hips.
"When are you going to stop trying botanical experiments?" Izuku rolls his eyes, gesturing out over the mass of withered wisteria vine that sends a puff of something purple-ish when he nudges it. "It never ends well for you, just like how when I try to stargaze I always end up sinking into the ground."
"I thought I'd be successful this time," Ochako whines, stepping forward and giving him a grateful hug regardless of the playful banter. "You know I love plants..."
"They do not love you."
"Rude."
"Not wrong, though," Izuku points out, and she concedes.
"Fine, I'll leave all the fun stuff to you."
She does not, in fact, leave all of the "fun stuff" to him. Izuku finds her tangled within the vines non-stop, no matter how many times he tries to explain that different types of magics just don't mesh well.
The mirages of stars that seem to hover over her at all times flicker as she grabs a plant from his garden. He reaches out to stop her, but it's no use - wood creaks as the roots suddenly burst from the pot and through the floorboards, the stem growing and arching until dust drifts down from overhead.
Izuku sighs and pats her shoulder as the pair stare at the ridiculously large herb that had flung itself through the roof in an attempt to shy away from her touch. "You'll never have a green thumb," he says teasingly as he glances down pointedly at her purple-stained fingers.
She heaves a sigh and stands, grumbling. "I'll fix the roof..."
The job takes the whole day, and thankfully it looks just as good as new. Izuku manages to split the engorged clover into smaller amounts, storing it away in jars; once it's plucked from the ground, it never reacts negatively with other magics, although Ochako somehow manages to cause a disaster anyways.
He loves that witch, but she is a handful, he muses to himself as she floats overhead, one hand braced towards the floor as the other pins up a new light.
Let it be known that as much as Ochako causes chaos, Izuku himself creates nearly the same amount. Is it of less disastrous property? He likes to argue so.
She finds him late one night halfway into the floor, his arms crossed as he grumpily stares up at the sky. Ochako snorts at him and gives a pointed look to the telescope that somehow hadn't fallen in with him. "Melding magics again?" she grins.
"You know it," Izuku sighs, then throws his hands up. "It's not my fault the stars are so pretty! I just wanted a closer look..."
"The witch curse of curiosity," Ochako drawls as she digs him out, leaving him to handle the dirt while she steps back and wipes her hands off. "Forever born to do literally anything but what you have."
"No, no," Izuku shrugs that thought off, tilting his head thoughtfully. "You're perfect in the air, truly. You fit with the stars, but because you know them so well, you long for other things."
Ochako hums. "Good point," she eventually concedes, then jabs a finger at him. "But that doesn't explain how you're a garden witch and still so clumsy on your feet-"
She cackles and leaves the room right as he chucks a clod of soil, the ball smacking the door with a wet sound before plopping onto the ground.
Ochako's laughter echoes, albeit muffled, through the house as Izuku cleans up.
The one and only time everything goes well is when they've got supervision. Despite their penchant for disaster, the duo always did work together like a well-oiled machine, backs pressed together as they circle a table.
The experiment they're currently working on requires both of them as they work to get their license for practice renewed. Since they lived together, they were allowed to take it together, and thankfully their assignment was a perfect mix between their two elements.
Ochako sprinkles moondust without him so much as having to breathe a word as he re-pots the budding starplants into new casings, hands perfectly clean despite being enclosed in soil.
He passes a hand-held trowel over his shoulder with just a tug at his intuition, and she takes it fluidly as she ducks to create new rows. While Izuku and Ochako can't directly interact with sky and ground respectively, they've figured out ways to utilize that loophole.
Under the careful watch of a group of elder witches, they plant non-stop for hours. Starplants arch up towards the sky as night falls, dust lifting itself from where it permeates the leaves and filtering into the sky.
"Good job," Izuku nudges Ochako's shoulder as they proudly glance over their work. "Look at that, we can probably plant some for our own garden if we want."
"Oh, I want," the brunette replies eagerly as she reaches out to cup a bit of the glittery speckles, though they pass right through her. "Just like free garden lights... and they're perfect for when I want to stargaze while you read."
They share a glance. It may be a bit difficult at times, but hey, what's magic for if not chaos?