Chapter Text
Tap, tap, tap…
Ochako Uraraka groaned into her pillow, her fingers digging into the soft, heart patterned fabric as she forced her eyes shut again.
No one should be knocking on her window at 2:13am on a Wednesday night. Especially not so frantically.
The knocking started a few seconds ago. Uraraka thought it was just in her head but as it continued she couldn’t ignore it. She lifted her head, her hair puffed up and sticking in every direction around her face as she squinted her eyes towards her window, in the direction of the annoying taps.
Her curtain concealed who was knocking, though the outline of the figure made the hairs on the back of Uraraka’s neck stand up. Made a nauseating pit form in her stomach.
And… the police sirens that were inching closer and closer weren’t helping. At all.
Slowly, cautiously, Uraraka stood up from her bed, grabbing the pepper spray from her nightstand drawer, her pink comforter sliding off her body as she made her way towards her window, her hand reaching out to tug the curtain out of the way, pausing as her fist clenched around the light fabric, hesitating.
Her pulse pounded as she thought. Was it a burglar? Stalker? A serial killer?
Before she could make a better judgement, Uraraka yanked the curtain aside, her eyes widening as she was met with a masked man, dressed head to toe in red and black, crouch outside of her window, gesturing frantically for her to let him inside.
Spider-Man.
…or Spider-Deku? Deku-Man?
Or whatever the local newspaper had been calling him this week—Uraraka hadn’t paid much attention to it.
But whatever he was called was outside of Ochako Uraraka’s window.
“Please just let me inside, I’ll explain everything!” The masked vigilante said, his voice distorted through the glass, his hands raised up at each side of his head, his face turning towards the direction the police sirens were coming from, eyes seemingly moving back and forth from the blue and red lights in the distance back to Uraraka.
Uraraka threw open her window, pepper spray armed and pointed directly at the man, her head turned the other way, prepared to attack if he made one wrong move. “Who the hell are you!? What do you want from me?” She questioned, voice raising with each word, hand trembling as it tightened on the nozzle of the pepper spray.
The man seemed to notice she was inches away from spraying him and lunged forward, his gloved hand clasping around the nozzle to stop her. “Wait! I said don’t scream—“
Before he could finish what he was saying, Uraraka had grabbed him by the collar of his suit and slammed him down onto her carpeted floor inside her room, her fist pulled back as she looked down at the now incapacitated figure she was sitting on top of, her legs straddling his waist, her weight pressing down against him.
He could’ve overpowered her. Should’ve. But he didn’t, almost as if he wasn’t trying to.
“Uraraka!“ the man screamed out, his hands coming up defensively around his head to protect himself from the punch that was almost definitely coming his way, his voice breaking as he called out her name.
Uraraka paused, her body freezing as her grip tightened on the latex of the man’s suit when she recognized the voice. It couldn’t be…
“…”
“…Izuku?”
Izuku Midoriya froze as well, his arms coming down a fraction as his masked face stared up at her almost terrified, his jaw clearly moving down in surprise.
“…shit.”
Uraraka’s eyes widened even more at the response, anger building up in her gut as she got off of Izuku, pulling him up alongside her. “It is you!” She said, looking up at him as her other hand reached up to pull off the mask that was covering his face.
As the mask was tugged off of his head, Izuku’s wild and messy hair puffed up around his face, his tanned skin flushed with exertion from running from the police, sweat dipping from his forehead and hair sticking to his damp skin.
Izuku looked down at Uraraka with a nervous, awkward smile, one eye squinted more than the other after clearly having gotten hit by something or someone while on his run from the police, the whites of it reddened by the impact.
“You…” Uraraka paused, noticing the bruise across Izuku’s lip, eyes doing a double take on it before reaching his eyes once more. “You’re Spider-Man?” She asked, her anger now fizzling down into shock.
“…technically?—“
“YOU’RE SPIDER-MAN!?” Uraraka yells, letting of Izuku as she stumbles back, her jaw dropped as she looks the man up and down.
“Just let me explain…” Izuku’s hands reached out towards her, a guilty look coloring his expression as he took a step towards her.
Uraraka surged towards him, grabbing him by his collar once more, pulling him closer so suddenly that Izuku yelped softly, his hands coming up in surrender as he looked down at her with a nervous smile.
“YOU—you’re spider-man!?”
“Please stop saying that…”
…
Uraraka couldn’t stop pacing the room. Her hands covered her mouth as she processed all the information that Izuku had just told her. “…oh my god.”
Not only was Izuku SPIDER-MAN, he’d been doing all of this heroic work alone. FOR MONTHS. After getting bit by a radioactive spider??
None of it was computing in Uraraka’s mind.
“Uraraka…” Izuku mumbled, sitting on her bed with his hands on his lap, a bag of frozen peas pressed against his bruised lip. “It’s… not that bad.”
“NOT THAT BAD?” Uraraka paused, stopping just in front of Izuku, her hands flailing around as she continued to speak. “You got hit by a bus last week! I- I saw videos of you falling off of a five story building!”
Izuku sighed, rolling his eyes at Uraraka’s concern—or in his mind unwanted concern. “I’m fine, Uraraka… it’s just a couple of scratches—nothing I haven’t dealt with before!” He reassured, smiling up at her as if it would make her concern lessen despite the bruises all over his face.
“Why haven’t you told anyone before?” She asked, crossing her arms over her chest as she looked down at him with the disappointment of a scolding mother. “It’s been MONTHS. Not even just a couple of days—months!”
Izuku looked up at her before he sighed, leaning back as he thought of what to say, Uraraka’s mattress dipping slightly with his weight and movement. “Well… I didn’t think I had to—“
“—of course you do!” She interrupted.
Izuku groaned, pressing the peas onto the bruise harder and wincing softly, a hiss leaving his lips. A hiss that caused the anger in Uraraka’s expression to only worsen.
“…I can’t believe you, Izuku.” Uraraka scolded, shaking her head before she took a few steps closer to Izuku, her hands cupping his face, turning it to the side to assess the damage of the night.
“I’m sorry.” He mumbled, voice muffled as Uraraka squished his face together, looking up at her with big puppy eyes as if that would make the situation any better, as if it would ease her concern and anger.
Uraraka sighed. “No you aren’t…”
“I am!”
“You’re only saying that cause I yelled at you!” Uraraka rebutted, her brows knitting together before she let go of Izuku’s face, taking a step back. “I can’t believe you haven’t told anyone…”
Uraraka couldn’t believe it. The same Izuku who she thought couldn’t hurt a fly—the same Izuku who spent an entire night locked in the lab because he fell asleep while studying—was the same man fighting crime by himself at night.
Izuku’s lips pressed together as he stared up at Uraraka, watching the conflicted look at her face, watching the colorful array of emotions that were fighting for dominance on her expression.
“Why did you come here, Izuku?” Uraraka broke the silence that had settled between them.
Izuku blinked, his lips parting but no words following after him, only a soft: “huh?”
“Why did you come here?” She repeated, her hands falling to her sides as they clenched up into tight fists. “Why were the police after you?” She continued. “Why are you so beat up?”
Izuku just stared up at her for a while before he groaned, his hand pressing onto his forehead then running his fingers through his sweat-damped hair. “I…” he paused, hesitantly looking up at Uraraka before his eyes flicked away. “I was fighting some guys…” he explained.
“Bad guys.”
Uraraka just glared, her usually wide and round eyes turned to angry slits.
“…a- and they fought back.” He continued, his voice reaching a slightly higher pitch, eyes looking around as if looking for an out to the situation he most definitely put himself in.
She narrowed her eyes more as if noticing Izuku deflecting the questions, her lips pressing together so tight that her lips turned red.
“And I destroyed a window…” he paused, leaning away from Uraraka who seemed to be inching closer with each word he spoke, making him swallow the spit building up in his mouth nervously. “…or two?” He added, laughing nervously as he retreated into himself as Uraraka’s face was mere inches from his own.
…
Izuku Midoriya had barely survived last night. Not because of the fight he was in or the police chase that happened straight afterwards. No. It was Uraraka who had given him the hardest time the night before.
As he walked to his next class, Izuku kept his shoulders slumped in exhaustion, his under eyes darkened from continuous nights without proper rest. Including his duties as the neighborhood Spider-Man and his school work in UA college, Izuku barely had time to rest.
Even the books in his bag seemed to weigh him down.
Izuku sighed, forcing himself to straighten up as he looked around campus, his eyes following the movement of every student that walked passed him, his focus on finding a particular blond in the swarm of hair colors.
It took a minute, but Izuku found him.
Katsuki Bakugo.
Exactly in the same spot as he always was every Friday morning after his 7am class, waiting for him with a coffee in hand. Izuku smiled as he saw Katsuki look towards him, scoffing at him as Izuku beamed with a bright smile.
“Kacchan!” He called out, the pace of his steps picking up as he made his way towards Katsuki, moving past the other students standing in his way.
Katsuki rolled his eyes as Izuku finally reached to his side, looking down at him with a scorn. “You’re late, Nerd. Again.” He said, pushing the coffee in his hand into Izuku’s chest, not breaking eye contact as he noticed the colorful bruise on Izuku’s lip.
Izuku noticed that Katsuki had seen the bruise, his hand wrapping around the bottom of the coffee, nervously blinking before he explained himself. “I fell.”
“Sure you did.”