Work Text:
Ochako wakes with a quiet breath, stretching out her tired limbs where she lies beneath her comforter. Hero training was difficult yesterday and her arms still ache from the weight she'd managed to lift both with and without her quirk. The opportunity to curl further around her pillow is a welcome one, taking full advantage of a lazy Saturday morning while her classmates shuffle down the hall for a quiet breakfast.
Ochako's not sure how long she drifts in and out of sleep before a gentle knocking starts at her door. It takes another bleary-eyed moment to realize it's not coming from the bedroom door, but the balcony. A gentle tap-tap-tap of a brambling on the other side of the glass, its small beak firm and insistent even as its feathers ruffle, adjusting and readjusting itself.
Ochako makes a note to tell Koda she saw one. After the war, when everything felt so big and stifling, mouths tasting of ash and blood long after the battlefields were put to rights, Koda was the one who suggested focusing on the small things. A butterfly drifting overhead as they walked to class, a footprint outside of the teacher's dorms that could only have been left by a deer (and then, of course, the conspiracy that Aizawa-sensei feeds it in the dead of night, welcomed into the creature's company like Snow White), a rock that looked surprisingly like Thirteen.
It’s Kirishima who takes up rock collecting, much to the chagrin of Bakugou, who's often asked to carry them in his pockets, and the delight of Kaminari, who's asked the same. Ochako has taken up…well, not birding, exactly, but wildlife observation. She keeps a little notebook with the names of all the animals she's seen, or sometimes just a description that Koda later helps her attach to a name, and it's been oddly peaceful. A reminder that there's more to life on Earth than heroes and villains and conflict.
Brambling's are one of Ochako’s favorite birds and as she carefully steps out onto the balcony to greet this one, steps slow and gentle, the bird skitters away, but only to the balcony railing, where a thin blanket of snow has fallen overnight. The same snow that bleeds into Ochako's socks where she stands, it's cold nip nudging her more completely awake.
"Hey there, pretty bird," she coos quietly.
It dances there on the railing, hopping in loops that remind Ochako of ice skating when she was young and determined to make perfect figure eight's; to make her mother smile and clap from the rinkside benches.
It feels like a privilege, now, to stand here in the morning chill and watch this little bird do something of the same when just a few months ago Ochako wasn't sure if she'd live long enough to be the person on the other end of an adoring smile. The one who watches and claps instead of the one who performs.
Absentmindedly, she rubs at her sleep mittens. Just an old, ratty pair of regular mittens cut off at the thumb and forefinger so she doesn't set anything flying throughout the night. There's a loose thread on the leftmost one that she likes to pull at, careful not to unravel it completely.
The brambling chirps at her, eyes bright and alert.
Ochako smiles.
Again, it shuffles in the snow.
Ochako yawns around her fists, then ambles back inside to start her day, peeling off her snow-damp socks and massaging her tender, pink feet as they're revealed. A warm shower sounds nice, she thinks, pulling out the notebook Deku had given her to make her observations in.
One brambling, she writes. Then a heart, round and sweet, and a loose drag of pencil in the shape of a figure eight. It's the closest thing she's ever gotten to a diary.
Since the war, it's the closest she's gotten to feeling at peace.
***
The day passes quickly, most of Ochako's energy devoted to homework and laundry, and then dinner duty with Yaoyorozu. It's comfortable, and Yaoyorozu hums along to the soft, classical music drifting out from her phone as they move around each other, chopping and dicing and stirring as needed.
A gift from Jirou, she explains when Ochako asks about the playlist.
Bakugou comes in to help a little later, and every time he starts to get too liberal with the spice ratios, Ochako levitates whatever he's holding out of his grip and Yaoyorozu- the tallest of the three- places it out of reach, forcing Bakugou to either sacrifice his pride by clambering onto the counters to reclaim his hot sauce or to unhappily accept his restrictions.
He hip checks Ochako whenever they pass each other in the small space, and Ochako hip checks him right back, elbows occasionally landing in ribs or stomachs or cabinets. They lose a bowl of diced vegetables to the floor and Koda's rabbit zips into the kitchen to launch herself at the feast like she'd somehow sensed it falling from the other room.
There's a lot of shouting, Bakugou's voice halfway drowned out by the laughter of everyone he's yelling at. He makes them start over with fresh veggies while he rinses what's still salvageable from the original batch. Ochako has to pause chopping to hold the stitch in her side, breathing slowly to stem the flow of laughter still spilling out of her mouth, unstifled.
The ache that had settled in her stomach after the war hasn't gone anywhere, not really, but it's malleable now. It makes room for the joy.
And one day, Ochako hopes the joy will outshine the ache.
And one day, Ochako knows the joy will outshine the ache.
***
They eat early, all of Class A piled together at the long dining room table special-ordered for the dorms. There's an extra seat for Aoyama halfway down the end. He comes by sometimes after class and for Friday night dinners and whenever else he has the time, slowly blooming under the warm, understanding gazes of his classmates after so long stuck beneath All For One's thumb.
Ochako's not sure when including Aoyama became a group effort, she just knows that Deku was the one who started it. She sees them talking sometimes, heads bowed close together and gazes watery through their smiles.
Aoyama, truly, can't stop twinkling and his shine- truer now for having been dulled- casts reflections on even surly Shinso, who had tried to keep a respectful distance from the rest of the class, only to be offered an open hand again and again and again, from Kaminari, from Shoji, from Jirou and all the rest of them until he learned how to reach out himself and take hold of his happiness. He's laughing now at something Ojiro said, stuffed comfortably between Bakugou and Kaminari, and the sight makes Ochako smile, too.
For a moment, she just lets her gaze travel over the long table, taking note of everybody's expressions. Their joy, halting and raw as it is.
It's exactly the kind of sight that drew her to heroism in the first place. Back when she'd wanted to see the whole world smile. When every happy face drew her own, happy attention.
Now, Ochako raises her spoon to her mouth and thinks of a very sharp smile and how things might've been different if someone had looked for Himiko's joy, too. She thinks about what it might take to find those other, unsmiling faces and look them square in the face. Offer them the kindness Ochako knows inhabits the world in spades.
Ashido's hand lightly falls over Ochako's, her eyes bright and thoughtful. "You alright, 'Chako?"
The conversations still happening around them wash over Ochako's ears like a comforting, familiar song. Kirishima tells a joke and forgets the punchline halfway through, sending Sero into hysterics. Tsu and Tokoyami calmly discuss their favorite childhood tv shows. Tears stream down Izuku's face after taking a bite of Bakugou's curry while Bakugou holds his own chest tight and snickers, the line of his teeth bright and teasing.
Ochako squeezes Ashido's hand in reassurance, smiling.
"Yeah, I'm alright," she says.
She's getting there, at least. And that's something she holds onto with both hands, careful not to let go.
***
Most people decide to crowd into Todoroki's room after dinner, excited to suggest movies to him and sit close together while his projector makes a theater out of the small space.
Ochako, drowsy and warm, decides to make a cup of tea and enjoy the quiet of the common room. Ashido and Hagakure lounge on the long couches together, a pack of playing cards split between them, and Ashido grins brightly when she spots Ochako passing by on her way back from telling Koda about her bird sighting.
"You've got a gift, " Ashido says, nodding her head toward the kitchen. "In there."
Ochako pauses.
"Someone's got a secret admirer," Hagakure sings quietly, obviously pleased by the development.
Ochako waves away their teasing, even if something bubbly balloons in her chest at the thought of a gift waiting for her. It rumbles in her stomach, featherlight, like the barest impression of quirk overuse.
"Hashtag jealous," Hagakure says, falsehood lined in the bright gleam of her toothy smile, halfway visible, and Ochako's eye can't help but dart to the mother of pearl pendant hanging from her wrist, knowing that Ojiro wears its pair on a leather necklace.
Ashido shoots her two thumbs up and wink before returning to their game, making wild, grandiose claims about Hagakure having looked at her cards and how that's the only reason she's losing.
Ochako tiptoes into the kitchen on woolen socks and boils water for her tea, eyeing the red box sitting by itself at the long table, drawn up with a pink bow.
There's no note. Not that Ochako expected one, really. She wanders closer, setting her tea to the side and carefully pulling apart the wrapping until she's left with an open box and a pair of soft, crocheted sleep mittens- pink and white and made with care. No fraying threads, no worn out cotton.
It's sweet. And useful, as Ochako's favorite gifts often are. And not something many people could have possibly known she needed.
In fact, no one springs to mind as an obvious candidate as Ochako sits there and admires the fabric beneath her fingers, careful not to send it floating into the atmosphere.
She shares a soft hello with Aizawa-sensei when he comes trudging in, layered in three coats and looking more tired than usual. "Bakugou said there'd be leftovers…?"
Ochako nods toward the kitchen. "Simmering for you on the stove."
Aizawa hums gratefully and moves to serve himself a bowl- carefully rationed away from the rest of the pot before the class sat down to eat.
Aizawa's late, which means something happened on his patrol, but Ochako's more likely these days to assume an old couple needed help carrying their groceries across the road and got to talking than death and doom and destruction.
Still, "Rough night?" she asks as her teacher settles wearily at the table.
"Lost dog," Aizawa explains dryly, and while he doesn't roll his eyes, Ochako can tell that he's tempted to. "Got stuck in an office building's ventilation system trying to root out a badger also stuck in said system."
Ochako's brows raise.
Aizawa's gaze flashes to the mittens still in her hand. "From your parents?" he asks between bites.
Ochako doesn't think he would have asked, before the war, but there's a closeness now between Class A and their homeroom teacher that hangs comfortably in the air. Maybe because of Aizawa's relief. Maybe because he comes to check in on them most evenings, sometimes sharing a meal, sometimes being roped into obliterating everyone in checkers, one by one, with an enigmatic half-smile on his face until Present Mic eventually pokes his head in with Eri in tow and she defeats his miraculous winning streak.
Ochako feels herself pinken, even as she opens her mouth to talk.
"There was no note," she says, tapping at the rim of her teacup, "but I don't think it was from them. Ashido and Hagakure assumed a secret admirer but I'm really not sure who… "
Aizawa's spoon clanks against his bowl, loud in the quiet and oddly comforting, and after a moment, he says, "Process of elimination."
No judgment, no teasing…just advice.
So Ochako thinks. Not her parents, not the classmates who have never been in her room, definitely not her teachers. No one else in Class A has a five-finger activation quirk, so it's unlikely anyone would ponder her sleeping habits except Deku, and there's no way he would jump to a gift rather than just asking her about it and maybe making her sit down for an interview-slash-experiment with his pencil poised over a notebook. She hasn't heard of anyone in the class taking up crochet, either, and everyone's been talking about hobbies nowadays.
She thinks of the little bird on her balcony railing dancing in figure eight's. Of the increase in animals she's seen out there, lately, and the hushed, serious whispers that rippled through the UA staff just before the uptick and ended with a firm, unwavering declaration from Aizawa that it was no concern of his students, whatever it was, with his remaining eye lingering on the scars and bandages and clouded expressions of the war-torn teenagers in his care.
All Class A had been able to suss out was that something had been lost. Data, they'd assumed. Some file from a villain hideout or footage from the business course students. Not any burden for them to bear in the course of finding.
But maybe it wasn't something that they'd lost.
Animals drifting near her balcony never struck Ochako as odd, but she has taken to heart Koda's surprised, appreciative comments about how many Ochako's been able to spot without actually going looking for them. She thinks of the brambling, spinning in perfect figure eight’s.
Ochako's heart jumps into her throat when she realizes it's already half past eight.
"I- "
Aizawa waves her away without need of an explanation and gratitude settles warmly beside Ochako's rising sense of elation-panic-dread. She clutches the gift close to her chest as she races upstairs and into her dorm, flicking on the light after a half-second of hesitation.
And there, sitting on her balcony, is a cat: tawny and frowning, slightly damp from the snow. Its tail swishes behind its shivering body like a question mark.
Carefully, Ochako tiptoes across the room and slides the door open, holding her breath.
When the cat dips its head to lift a small, drawstring pouch from the snow and prances easily inside, Ochako knows she's right. She knows Himiko- even at nine inches tall and covered in wind-mussed fur- but still, she dances around admitting it.
She thinks Himiko might be dancing, too. The careful swish of her tail and twitch of her whiskers too telling of nervousness. Because Himiko escaped the HPSC and came here, to the most secure hero school in the country, to see Ochako. Because somewhere between all the escaping and the sneaking and the staying alive, Himiko crocheted for her a new pair of sleep mittens, for seemingly no reason at all.
Secret admirer, Hagakure said.
Ochako crouches slowly, offering out her hand. A wet-sounding laugh escapes her when Himiko takes a few tentative steps forward to nose at her fingers, blinking up at Ochako with wide, honey-sweet and hopeful eyes.
Ochako didn't think she'd be able to see those eyes again. Like sloughing off a heavy winter coat at the threshold of a warm home, Ochako's elation-panic-dread makes way for relief-relief-relief. Her heart pounds against her chest, reminding Ochako of the tender bruise there by contrasting it with tender, tentative joy.
Ochako plugs in the string of colored lights around her closet doors and flicks off the overhead, feeling safer in the half-dark, more dreamlike; free of the consequences of reality. She crawls on top of her bedsheets and, after a moment, pulls her laptop over from the bedside table. A distraction. Noise to fill the empty space before one of them opens their mouth to start talking. Ochako tugs the sleep mittens on like armor and nearly pats the space beside her before she remembers that Himiko's not a real cat.
Still, Himiko drops her pouch and hops into the space beside Ochako, brushing her face against Ochako's knee, purring so softly Ochako might have imagined it, before settling.
There's a million things Ochako wants to ask, but even more than that she doesn't want to break the gentle bubble between them, so instead of talking she leans back, turns on a familiar favorite, and warms when Himiko curls up against her side, bright, yellow eyes focused on the screen.
Distantly, Ochako knows she should report this. That as a hero course student, it's her duty to apprehend villains.
But Himiko hasn't been a villain in Ochako's mind in a very long time, in spite of all the awful things she's done. She's been a girl- one who grew up being told she was evil and twisted. A girl who finally felt seen and spent her last, battling moments giving up most of the blood in her body to save an enemy.
These days, "hero " and " villain " have felt like flat and hollow words. They're not enough to describe what they are to each other, not back when they first encountered each other and certainly not now, lounging on Ochako's fluffy duvet, awash with the gentle glow of a discounted string of lights.
When Ochako turns, fingers gliding over her water glass on the bedside table, she senses Himiko transforming back into herself.
Dutifully, Ochako keeps her eyes averted. She raises herself onto her elbow to drink, then settles on her side, staring out at her closed, closet doors while her laptop shifts into the dip between Ochako's hips and Himiko's.
She doesn't jump when Himiko traces the outline of her shoulderblades with the tip of her finger, slow and sure, or when Himiko's breath cascades over the back of her neck.
Ochako's eyes flutter shut.
She sighs.
She leans into the touch, just barely.
"You're more like a cat than I am, Ochako-chan," Himiko whispers.
Ochako smiles, pleased beyond words to hear Himiko's voice again.
"I don't have the grace for that," she says. Just the extra lives, given from a villain to a hero at the end of one world and the start of another.
Himiko's hand retreats, appearing again at Ochako's shoulder and sweeping slowly down her arm. "No, " Himiko concedes, squeezing appreciatively, "you're all muscle."
"Himiko."
Ochako rolls over, tired brown eyes meeting tired gold.
I missed you, is on the tip of Ochako's tongue and when she tries to loose it from behind her teeth, it sounds like, "Himiko-chan."
Himiko has the covers pulled up to her chin, one arm loose, and when her hand finds Ochako's cheek, she can feel the slight, bumping callouses there. She wonders if they're from a crochet hook.
"You won, Uravity," Himiko whispers.
Ochako feels herself frown before she can stop it, lips wobbling with the want to cry. "Himiko-chan- "
"It will be better, right?" Himiko asks, her voice strained. "This hero's world. It will be better?"
Ochako's hands reach out to grip the blanket where it's bunched up around Himiko's heart, nodding.
It's Himiko's blood thudding through Ochako's veins now- Himiko's blood, Himiko's story, Himiko's smile. Each and every part of Ochako, heart, body, mind, feels like it belongs to Himiko. So, "I'll make it better, " Ochako swears. She presses her forehead to Himiko's and again, quieter, swears, "I'll make it a better world for you."
When Himiko smiles, Ochako's chest feels molten; the sensation too big and bright for her to name.
"You were visiting me," Ochako murmurs. Pleased, then protective. "You could have been caught."
Himiko just hums, then tilts her head to brush their noses together.
Ochako’s breath catches in her throat.
"You would have saved me," she murmurs.
Feeling dazed, Ochako nods. Her eyes drift low to watch Himiko speak. To watch Himiko smile.
Himiko's hand slides down Ochako's arm again. "I thought heroes were brave, Ochako-chan, " she breathes. "Do you want something?"
The corners of Ochako's lips twitch up, still nuzzling Himiko's nose, still sharing breath. "Am I the one who was showing up in disguise?" she murmurs, pink-cheeked and caught out. Embarrassed. Wanting.
But she's not the only one.
"Ochako-chan, " Himiko huffs.
It sounds a lot like, I missed you, too.
Ochako leans forward to press their lips together, gasping when Himiko's sharp canines drag over her lower lip and bite. Sighing through her nose when Himiko raises onto her elbows to soothe the bright spot of pain with gentle pecks and gentler words.
Ochako-chan.
You're so pretty.
I love you.
Ochako imagines Himiko's teeth sinking into her neck, thrilled and nervous in even turns. She doesn't think about the way the sheet has fallen from Himiko's body, bent the way she is over Ochako's face. She doesn't dare open her eyes.
Himiko pulls back from Ochako's mouth, then leans close again, peppering kisses over her face. Ochako relishes in the soft brush of Himiko's eyelashes against her cheekbone. The careful press of Himiko's cold fingers into the bright, flushed center of her cheek. The whisper-soft nip of Himiko's teeth to the curve of her jaw.
"Himiko-chan, " Ochako sighs, not really sure what she's trying to say, flexing her fingers where they grip Himiko's torso through her sleep mittens.
Himiko settles herself on top of Ochako, chest to chest, legs twined together, and, almost as an afterthought, tosses the abandoned sheet back over herself. She gently taps Ochako's nose, an echo of the way she rapped at the glass this morning. Tap, tap, tap.
Obediently, Ochako opens her eyes.
Himiko's answering smile is bright. Wide. All teeth and no glory.
"There you are, " she whispers.
Ochako laughs and brushes Himiko's bangs aside with her knuckles.
"Here I am."
In bed with a villain, feeling more settled than she has in months, the echo of All Might's catchphrase tasting different in her mouth than it sounds coming out of his.
Maybe for the best, Ochako thinks, considering the long shadows All Might's voice had been unable to reach.
Maybe, in this hero's world, they need something different.
"Where will you go?" Ochako asks, suddenly serious, burying her fingers in Himiko's messy bun. "I'm still in the dorms for another year and a half before I can rent an apartment, and the HPSC must still be looking for you, even if it's not in the news. Are you…? You can't just be a cat for years. That's not- "
"Ochako-chan, " Himiko says sweetly, "are you asking me to live with you?"
Ochako firmly closes her eyes against the flush in her face, only growing hotter when Himiko giggles and pokes at her cheeks.
"How presumptuous," Himiko taunts.
"Yes, " Ochako says anyway, doubling down. "It will…I'll keep you safe."
"And if I am safe?" Himiko replies, crossing her arms over Ochako's collarbones and perching her cheek against them. The way she says it, Ochako hears the undercurrent of reality. Himiko is safe. Somewhere. With someone.
The surprise of it has her eyes flying open again, caught by Himiko's sure and steady gold like a bug in a honeytrap. She squeezes Himiko's hips, double checking that this is really real. And when all Himiko does is smile and preen and start to leer- looking well-rested, well-fed, and squirming enough on top of Ochako's body that it embarrasses her into turning her head to the side and flinging her hands away from Himiko's body like she's been burned- Ochako knows that it is.
She swallows roughly.
"And…after UA?"
Himiko leans close, her lips brushing Ochako's ear.
Ochako holds her breath.
"After UA," Himiko says, the curve of her sharp, sharp teeth bumping against the shell of Ochako's ear, "give me a key."
"Done," Ochako says. Too quickly, given the way Himiko starts giggling.
Ochako rolls, sending Himiko flouncing back onto her side, still laughing, and Ochako buries her blushing face in Himiko's shoulder. "Whatever," she complains, joy still dripping from the syllables, "you want it too, jerk. "
"Uh huh."
"And you've been stalking me as a sign of romance."
Himiko's hums, sounding incredibly pleased with herself.
"You left me a gift," Ochako accuses.
"I did."
Grumbling under her breath about Himiko's lack of flustering, Ochako rolls away, digging in her bedside drawer for her wildlife notebook and then rolling back into the warm cage of Himiko's arms.
"How many of these are you?" she asks, flipping through.
"Mm, hard to tell exactly," Himiko says, pointing at a couple as her eyes pass over Ochako's drawings and labels. "Oh, I loved that squirrel."
She's pointing to an entry titled Ezo Flying Squirrel.
And Ochako doesn't know what Himiko's quirk feels like, not like she knows her own, but she does know that imitation is the highest form of flattery and the warm pull in her chest whenever she sees something cute, so it's not that hard to put together. It's not anything monstrous, not in the slightest.
Without talking, Ochako drapes her wrist toward Himiko.
The pain that blossoms there is slight, and overshadowed by a rush of adoration and contentment.
Himiko loves Ochako. Enough to want to become her. To know her.
To crochet her new sleep mittens and sneak into a hero school to deliver them.
"Keep your face like you," Ochako whispers.
Himiko's expression is one of confusion when she pulls away, transformed into Ochako from the neck down.
"I like your face," Ochako says, shifting to her side and cupping Himiko's cheek, thumb stroking the soft skin there. "I like you. It's not just…I want to know what it's like to be you, too," Ochako says.
And it doesn't feel like dancing, anymore. Or like skating around a truth too large to force into the open air.
It feels like slowing to a gentle stop with their hands clasped and their eyes wide open, face-to-face without the fear that it will be the last time they ever are. It feels like a spot of warmth in the deep of winter.
"I love you, Himiko-chan," Ochako says. "You're the cutest girl in the world. "