Work Text:
It starts like this:
Hero training always involves pushing their quirks in new directions and thinking up entirely new applications on the fly. When All Might asks the class if any of them have any suggestions or advice for each other, both Midoriya and Yaoyorozu immediately start offering.
“Jirou’s quirk seems more like active sonar, broadcasting her heartbeat from her earjacks,” Midoriya starts, flipping rapidly through one of his ever-present notebooks. “Considering the way plugging it into speakers amplifies it into physical sound waves, it must be at minimum emitting something at all times.”
“Kouda’s quirk allows him to understand animals, but when he gives them instructions, it doesn’t seem like he’s actually using his quirk to speak their language, since we can still understand him,” Yaoyorozu says, turning to face the boy head-on. “To that end, if you asked an animal to follow the instructions of someone else, would they be able to do that?”
“Are Tokoyami and Dark Shadow telepathically linked in some way? If Dark Shadow slunk along the ground and listened in on a conversation or scouted out the way ahead, would they need to return to Tokoyami’s side and audibly give over what they’d discovered? Or would Tokoyami just know?”
“If Ashido tinkered with the viscosity and makeup of her acid, could she make it conductive and leave trailing paths for Kaminari’s electricity to follow?”
“If Todoroki combined his quirks to make steam, could he figure out a way to–”
“Alright, that’s enough,” All Might suddenly interrupts, a bead of sweat dotting the side of his forehead. “Any longer and we wouldn’t have time to actually test anything today.”
“Oh.”
Midoriya and Yaoyorozu both had wilted somewhat, their previous enthusiasm leaking out of them as embarrassment and regret began to seep in instead.
All Might quickly waves his hands and all but shouts, “Still! That was most impressive! The two of you should definitely keep it up!”
So they do.
Just not in the way All Might had probably meant.
——
“Okay, meeting eleven notes,” Izuku announces as they lower themselves down into the cafe’s seats, immediately taking out a notebook and using it as a header.
“Immediate observations,” he declares, writing as much on the next line. “If Shouji eats something with his Quirk mouth, where does it go afterwards? Does his Quirk manifestation stay active until it reaches his digestive system? Is it actually directly connected to his digestive system, or is there a… nondimensional space or pocket dimension that his Quirk actually operates in?”
Izuku furiously continues to scribble. “How would the food digest? If Aizawa-sensei used Erasure on him right after he ate, what would happen? Does he need to make things like an esophagus when he creates a mouth, or does that exist passively? Would he latently create another stomach by existing? What about the rest of his body parts? What happens if he got something like an ear infection, would the infection disappear when he releases his Quirk or would it transfer to his usual body somehow?”
He doesn’t notice the waiter’s arrived until he finally reaches the bottom of the page and looks up.
“He’ll have the tonkatsu set meal,” Yaomomo says gently. “And I’ll have the tonkatsu, the tempura, the okayodon, the chicken and vegetables, the—”
Eventually, Yaomomo finishes their order and smiles at Izuku, who had busied himself with formatting the analysis section of their entry. She pushes the water that had seemingly materialized on their table at him, and he self-consciously picks it up and starts drinking.
“I hope that tonkatsu is alright,” Yaomomo tells him. “I know you’re a fan of pork, and you seemed slightly stressed in training, so I presumed you’d like something comforting today.”
“Huh? Oh, yeah, thank you,” Izuku says absently. They’d picked up each others’ tastes fairly quickly during their meetings, so they’d begun to plan for each other rather naturally. Since Izuku suspected Yaomomo would be hungry again in a couple of hours, he’d already picked out a cafe that’d be on their way back to campus that had her beloved matcha roll cake. It was just an equation that made sense.
Yaomomo nods with a slightly-satisfied smile, then immediately jumps into the discussion. “I’m not sure that Shouji would be able to swallow with his mouths without making an esophagus, first,” she replied. “I think we’ll have to ask him for further information on how he creates the organs to see if he also instinctively creates any attached systems. It would make sense that he would, because I don’t see how his sensory organs would function without an ability to return signals to the brain, but we should interview him at the next opportunity…”
“You’re right, we can shelve him for next time,” Izuku declares, flipping the page. “So, next up would be Jirou.”
“Oh, she told me about a movie she’d thought I’d like today,” Yaomomo comments. “Would you perhaps like to see it with me once we finish here today?”
Izuku perks up. “Sure!” It just makes sense.
Later, while in line at the theater, Ashido asks the group chat what everyone is up to, so Izuku and Yaomomo pose next to the movie poster. Izuku grins at the camera, one hand flashing a peace sign while the other holds up the phone, and Yaomomo shakes her head minutely at the preview visible onscreen before moving just a bit closer so they’re both fully in frame.
Perfect.
Selfie snapped and sent, Izuku immediately puts his phone away and tries to ignore the way it doesn’t stop vibrating. Truly, everyone must be doing really interesting things today for the chat to be blowing up like that.
Yaomomo steps up to pay, but Izuku neatly intersects it.
“It’s my turn this time,” he beams. “You paid for the food.”
“Of course I did,” she defends with a frown. “I ordered way more than you, it wouldn’t be right to allow you to pay.”
“All the more reason to let me pay when the charges are equal, right?”
Yaomomo taps a finger to her chin thoughtfully. “Hm, that is a good point. Fine, then, I'll allow it.”
“Neat,” Izuku grins, tapping his card against the reader.
He should have known Yaomomo would beat him to the refreshments, though.
“Ah yes, what was that you said?” She hefts her tray of popcorn, candy and drinks into her arms with a teasing little laugh. “I get to pay so long as I’ve ordered more than you?”
Izuku splutters even as he quickly takes half the food so she doesn’t need to carry it all herself. “Th-That’s not what I—“
Yaomomo laughs, loud and long and so clearly pleased with herself that Izuku just decides to let it go.
——
“I’d heard this movie was supposed to have a twist in it,” Izuku hums as the two of them start walking back, "but I'm not sure what they were talking about.”
Yaomomo nods in agreement. “Perhaps they were talking about the moment Anzo comes clean about his trust fund?”
Izuku scoffs. “With those shoes? And that belt and wallet and the way he kept hiding his credit card from view every time he swiped it to hide the fact it was platinum? No way that was the twist, it was obvious!”
“Indeed. And they cannot be referring to the murderer’s identity either. She was the only one without an alibi or an invitation to the house. Her story of being one of the victims from the basement immediately falls flat when you realize her bloody shirt was dirty in spots without any actual injuries.”
“Exactly! It wasn’t even her blood!”
“It wasn’t even her blood,” Yaomomo echoes with a nod.
Izuku hums. “Maybe they're talking about the narrator being a fake-out villain? But his Quirk makes him unable to lie, and he said in the first three minutes of the movie that he hadn’t seen most of the house because it was so large and he’d only been there for business deals before. So it was incredibly unlikely he’d ever been down to the basement.” Izuku frowns. “Speaking of that Quirk—”
“It makes no sense,” Yaomomo finishes with a surprising amount of bite. Izuku nods vigorously. “Being allergic to lying is not a bad premise. I actually think it’s quite interesting, if you stop to think about how the body would verify such a thing. Even if polygraph tests aren’t reliable, their basis in the way that lying sometimes causes subconscious autonomic arousal does indicate a potential physiological response to lying that could be the mechanism of action of sorts for activating the Quirk as well… So I would call the basic idea reasonable, but—”
“But he says it’s just like his other allergies, yet we see his allergic reaction to pineapple juice in the first half of the movie!” Izuku exclaims, unable to help himself from jumping in. “He undergoes anaphylaxis, but when he starts lying, he vomits! No regular histamine reaction at all, so which one is it?”
“Perhaps he has a special type of immunoglobulin specifically for his Quirk,” Yaomomo muses. “Do you think if his blood was studied, they could extract it and use it as a proper lie detector test?”
“Huh,” Izuku says. “Maybe. Hey, wait, I wanted to stop here for something. You can just wait here, I’ll only be a minute!” He adds quickly; Yaomomo wouldn’t best him this time. For her part, Yaomomo raises her eyebrows, but obliges him nonetheless.
He’d picked this shop for the specific type of matcha they’d used for their desserts; Yaomomo had talked to him about tea for hours once after their third outing, so surprising her with a novelty would put her nicest smile on her face again, which was worth any price tag. When he returns with six slices of matcha roll cake and a slice of the shop’s Hannari cheesecake, it doesn’t take long for Yaomomo to figure out why he had her stay outside. He’d had plenty of food for himself, after all.
Yaomomo gently reaches for the food boxes, but then changes course and quickly snatches the receipt out of his hand. Izuku makes a noise of protest, but Yaomomo hushes him.
“You don’t have to treat me,” she says quietly with a frown. “I’m capable of purchasing on my own. Just giving me the recommendation is enough.”
But Izuku sees the way her eyes light up when she actually processes the selection he’d gotten her, so he says,
“I know, but I want to.” He pauses. “Also, you said you’ll pay whenever your purchase price exceeds mine, but since you didn’t technically buy anything, this counts as—”
“Izuku!” She scolds, but she’s laughing, and that’s what matters.
The walk back to the dorms almost seems to pass in an instant, conversation flowing easily between them in a way that has long grown comfortable. They talk about anything and everything, the movie, different quirks, their favorite books and games.
When the dorms finally come into view, Izuku sprints ahead and holds the door open for her with a dramatic flourish that has Yaomomo giggling.
As they make their way to the dining table, she returns the favor by swiftly pulling out a chair for him. Izuku snorts, but obediently sits—though he does immediately pull out another chair for her with a deft use of Blackwhip.
For a moment, the two simply beam at each other, and then Izuku is getting out the notebooks while Yaomomo opens the boxes of cake, and Ashido…
Ashido clears her throat pointedly, hands on her hips and everything as she pouts down at them. “You guyyysss!! How could you not tell us you’re dating!!!”
Izuku frowns. “Because we’re not?”
Yaomomo, too, simply blinks at her in confusion.
“Oh come on! What do you call your literal movie date!”
They both stare at her.
“Hanging out?” Izuku tries.
Ashido throws her hands up into the air. “Ugh, you’re both impossible!”
Izuku watches as she stomps away to join her friends by the stove and dismisses her accusations as silly.
They’d know if they were dating.
Right?
“How many more notebooks have you two filled together?” Kacchan of all people pipes up from next to Ashido and Kirishima, and okay, that’s just embarrassing.
“Four?” Izuku says. Squeaks, actually, but he’s not willing to admit that part.
“You guys have been on so many dates!” Hagakure insists from… somewhere. “I can’t believe I didn’t realize. How many times have you gone out to eat?”
And, ah. The answer was eleven, but they’d also been hanging out for months in the dorms before then. He feels himself steadily losing ground.
“Did you watch the movie I picked out for you guys?” Jirou adds, her head peeking out from the top of the couch in the common room.
“The movie that you…?” Yaomomo starts, before her eyes widened. “Jirou!”
“Bet you dissected it like fucking nerds.”
“Kacchan!”
“Did you?”
“...Yes!” Izuku admitted with full exasperation.
“You’re fucking made for each other, Deku, just fuck off and admit it already so we don’t have to see this anymore.”
Izuku buries his head in his hands. Yaomomo, for her part, seems to have gotten over this relatively quickly, and smiles at him warmly once he peers out between his fingers.
“Cake?” She offers, holding up a slice.
Izuku just groans into his hands again before ultimately accepting defeat.