Chapter Text
The cool early-March air blew through the Kenobi district of Kaigonjin city. Trees were beginning to show the beautiful colours of their blossoms, picked out by the sunlight that shone between the steady spread of rolling clouds. Beneath the branches, people milled about in the city streets. Things were fairly quiet since it was mid morning on a Tuesday. Most people were either at home or at work.
Two of the people at work stood out amongst the uncrowded streets. Two Pro Heroes were out, winding down on their morning patrol and slowly ambling back towards their agency. Those who saw them smiled as they recognised the man in green, a pensive look on his face, and the woman beside him in pink and black.
“But why not just use our hero names?” Deku mused.
“I like it,” rebutted Uravity, “it’s cute! Gives us mini team up names, you know. D’you not like it?” She was surprised that he seemed so hung up on the issue. Her colleague shrugged.
“It’s not bad. I think it could be clearer, that’s all.”
Ochako knew she had to change tact. “Well there’s the security of it. Imagine you’re a villain, and you managed to sneak in. What would you make of seeing ‘Green Tea’ or ‘Many Days’ on the schedule board? It’s a bit less obvious than just seeing Deku or Uravity or Creati.”
“Okay, okay, I get the point, it makes sense!” he relented, putting his hands up. The pair continued on their way. Occasionally, they would hear someone call their hero names, Deku’s more often than Uravity’s. Every time they would wave towards whoever shouted. One passer-by stopped ahead of them to thank the pair for their work. Ochako took the praise in her stride, thanking the stranger for their support, while Deku accepted it as gracefully as he could manage. Uraraka picked up the little tells he tried to hide that revealed just how flustered he was.
“You still need to learn how to take a complement, Deku,” she teased as the pedestrian walked off.
“I think I handled that quite well, thank you very much,” he countered, “in the five years we’ve known each other, I’ve come on leaps and bounds when talking to people!”
“Improving from curling into a ball whenever I spoke to you isn’t that hard” she poked his side as she spoke. “But yes, you have got better, despite how flustered you were.”
“I was not flustered” Deku protested in mock indignation. His good-natured smile refused to leave his face for too long, breaking his facade.
“Oh yes you were,” she retorted with a fond smile, “you always get flustered. It’s just subtle.”
“How can you be subtly flustered?”
“I don’t know, Deku, but you manage it” Izuku just let out an amused sigh. Ochako’s smile was one thing he was alright loosing to. His own smile grew as he though about the past few months.
Since they graduated from UA, Izuku, Ochako and Tenya had done their best to keep in touch, but they had all gone their separate ways for work. Deku was grateful to hero’s and their agency for all they had done for him. He had only spent around a year as a sidekick before his dedication, work rate and rising popularity prompted the agency to turn him into a semi-independent hero.
Meanwhile, Ochako had been working as a sidekick for Ryukyu. He had heard she tried to go independent at the start of the year, but she had been struggling. Then Yaoyorozu proposed the idea of running a joint agency formed of UA alumni. Uraraka had jumped at the opportunity and had approached him with the idea.
Now, with Shinso in the mix and a renovated office as a base of operations, Deku felt like he was in a new stage of his life. He had more control over his extra duties and was spending more time with his friends. More than that, he was extremely glad to be working with Uraraka again. He couldn’t deny that they had a strong connection and they both trusted their friend would have their back in times of crisis. That had been proven beyond a doubt before they had even finished high school.
A loud smash of shattering glass pulled him out of his daydreaming.
“Hey! Someone help!” a voice shouted from down the road. “That woman just took my till!” The two heroes saw a woman in a polo shirt standing in the doorway of a small shop, pointing at a purple haired lady in a black jacket, running towards them. Broken glass and a battered register covered the ground between the two women.
“No need to worry, ma’am, we’re on it” Deku called. The crook looked up at them in panic before darting down a sideroad in a blur, her platted ponytail flowing behind her. ‘Street crime’ he thought, ‘this shouldn’t be too difficult’. The pair took off after her.
Rounding the corner, they saw the criminal had been intercepted by a hero wearing light blue and red spandex with a short, red cape flowing from one shoulder. She easily dodged the hero’s lunging attacks as she seemed to double up and shift around rapidly. Deku tried to suppress his amazement at such skill at using an impressive quirk. He ran to the flank, keeping his distance while Uravity reduced her gravity and leapt skywards.
Deku shot an air blast into the fray, hoping to catch the villain off guard. Unfortunately, she had seen it in her peripheral vision. She started to rotate, put her hands together and pulled duplicate of herself out of her. In a movement straight out of a swing dance, both versions of the woman span apart. Then the original disappeared milliseconds before being hit by Deku’s attack. The villain smiled coyly at him. He readied himself, waiting for the right moment to strike.
The other hero charged in again, reaching out with both hands. Uraraka landed behind the villain as they turned to face the charging hero. Ochako reached out. The spandex clad hero leapt forwards, almost touching the villain.
Suddenly, she split in two again, the separate bodies holding hands above the hero as he went flying between them. Ochako couldn’t react in time to stop the inevitable collision. The two heroes fell to the ground in a jumble of flailing limbs. The villain recoiled back into one, stunning herself for the briefest moment. That was all Deku needed.
Before anyone realised it, Deku was in front of the villain. “Wichita…” He went low pivoting on his left foot, right leg outstretched. A shockwave of pressure pulled the villain’s feet from under her. Adjusting his spin, he sprang off the extended leg to shorten the distance and brought his left leg up to deliver a powerful knee strike to his airborne target. “…SMASH!” The villain hurtled from one side of the road to the other on a collision course with the wall.
In the brief instance after the knee made contact, Deku felt a slight touch against his calf. Suddenly he felt as though he was been pulled out of himself from his leg upwards. His vision went blurry and his head ached as his thought pattern seemed to trail off in two directions.
The sensation lasted for a matter of milliseconds before he found himself careening through the air just behind the woman he had launched. Out of pure instinct, he kicked a wave of air pressure to slow himself, knocking the villain off course and into a nearby vending machine.
He took stock of the situation as he landed. The villain seemed too shaken to continue fighting. The hero that had first stopped her was getting to his feet, franticly looking around and holding his hands to his head. Uraraka… wasn’t there?
Deku’s head snapped to where she had last been. ‘No, no, no, no, no, no, no’ his mind was racing, eyes darting around. She wasn’t there. He fought to keep his breathing steady. ‘She can’t be gone.’ Finally, his eyes fell on her costume was slumped on the floor, lying awkwardly with strange lumps in the middle. ‘Please be alive, please be okay, please be alive’ he begged internally.
Then he heard a strange noise. It sounded like a child crying in fear but that wasn’t what Izuku found strange. The voice was familiar and yet, off somehow.
He rushed to the bundle of clothes to see the top of a head full of brown hair poking out of the neck hole. His breath caught. Cautiously, he pulled the neck down over the small head. A small, round face with blushed cheeks and wet, brown eyes looked back at him. His jaw dropped. Dread and relief mingled together in an uncomfortable combination. It was her.
“I’m sorry, I am so sorry,” mumbled the other hero behind him, “I put everything I had into that move and I missed and got her instead. I’m so sorry.”
“Restrain the villain!” Deku cut him off. “We’ve still got work to do.”
“Oh, right” his frantic footsteps pierced the growing tension.
Deku reached down and gently picked up the young Ochako, making sure he didn’t let the clothes slip off her tiny frame. “It’s ok, Uraraka,” he put on his friendliest smile, “you’re safe. I’ve got you.”
“Who are you?” little Ochako struggled within his grasp, clearly still afraid. Izuku was struck by a pang of sadness. This younger version had brought her mind with it.
“I’m Deku” he responded confidently. “I’m a pro hero, so you’ve got nothing to worry about.”
“Deku? Like useless?” questioned the little girl innocently.
“Not like useless,” he chuckled “it’s more like ‘dekiru’. A ‘you can do it’ kind of thing.”
“Where’s my Mum? Where’s my Dad?” panic filled her voice again.
“They’re fine, they’re safe and we’ll let them know you’re safe too. Now, I need to make a few calls.” Deku got his phone out and quickly turned to the other hero. “Excuse me, could you give me a hand? I need to call my agency and I don’t have enough hands to carry her and her support gear. Could you carry the gear for me?”
“Of course,” replied the other man, taking off his cape, “it’s the least I can do for what I did.”
-----
Inko sat behind the reception desk, as usual, but her eyes were fixed on the entrance. She wasn’t entirely sure what she was expecting to see arrive. Her son had called, telling her to expect him, another hero, and a child. She wasn’t sure if he had said Uraraka’s child or Uraraka as a child. Either way she braced herself for a surprise.
Sure enough, three people fitting the description soon entered the agency building. A hero in blue walked in beside Deku, carrying some of Urakity’s support gear in his lean arms. The child, swathed by Uravity’s oversized costume and a red cloak, looked just like a miniaturised Ochako. Same big, brown eyes, same hair, same pink kissed cheek and as they came closer, Inko could make out the little catlike pads on the ends of her fingers. She held onto Izuku’s neck tightly from her perch in his arms.
“My goodness, you really have always been a little cutie, haven’t you” she cooed. Ochako leaned in closer to Izuku in response, grabbing onto his head. He let in a sharp breath when he felt her small hands tug on his hair.
“Mum, please, you’re upsetting her” he pleaded. “She doesn’t remember this” he gestured around them.
“I’m sorry,” the elder woman bowed towards the little girl, “allow me to introduce myself. I’m Izuku’s mother, Inko Midoriya.”
“Izuku?”
“You might know him as Deku” she corrected herself. Ochako silently looked between Deku and Inko.
The uneasy atmosphere was broken by a chime. The lift doors opened and Momo stepped out. Her face had initially been stern, but it melted into a smile when she saw the group ahead of her. She calmly walked up to them.
“Hello there. Do you know who I am?” she addressed Ochako. Timidly, the little girl shook her head. “That’s quite alright. I am Momo Yaoyorozu, or if you would prefer, the Everything Hero, Creati.”
“I’m Ochako Uraraka,” greeted the younger girl, “I’m sorry that I don’t know you.”
“Oh, don’t worry yourself about that. Do you know how old you are?”
Ochako looked up for a moment before she looked back at Momo and smiled. “I’m a big four! I’ll be five soon.”
“That fits” the mystery hero spoke up. “My apologies, I’m Youthful and, er, I’m responsible for this.” He sheepishly looked at the other heroes.
“Well Youthful, you can explain the situation shortly” stated Izuku. He turned to the two women. “Have either of you heard from Shinso?”
“I tried but couldn’t get through” admitted Inko in defeat.
Momo sighed. “I got an earful when I rang him, that man doesn’t like people interrupting his sleep. He should be here soon.”
“Shinso sleeps?” asked Izuku sarcastically.
“Quite. In the meantime, we’ll need sort out some clothes for little Ochako” said Momo. “Let’s go to the breakroom.”