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“Hey, Hey, Dear!” Nejire hummed as she swarmed him, floating in circles around Izuku as he was on his morning run. It was no wonder that both of them were morning people, though Izuku by learned habit and Nejire by nature, so to speak. “Whatcha wanna do for Valentine’s Day?”
“Hmmmm…Valentine’s Day…” Izuku tilted his head as he continued jogging, though his pace was consistent enough that he didn’t have to worry about the two of them colliding (not to mention Nejire’s immaculate control of her body and her quirk). “Do you wanna do something big or small?”
“Big, I think!” Nejire answered with some wild hand gestures, though Midoriya wasn’t quite sure whether or not he asked the right question. Big to other people might not be the same thing as Big to Nejire.
Big to her meant meaningful, rather than bombastic. Even if it was the most calm thing possible, it could still be Big, because it was something that would be Big in her memory. Small, in contrast, was something that was still important to her and something she would remember for life, but instead as something that she would be reminded of through small things.
The two of them did their best to balance the two types of events, so if Nejire wanted to do it Big, then, by God, Midoriya would do his best to find a Big event for the two of them to do.
“What are you thinkin’ of, then?” Midoriya prompted, leading Nejire to put a finger on her chin as she hummed again in thought.
“Well, if I want it to be big, I think that I’d want it to be really big, you know?” Nejire started off, and Midoriya nodded. “So I’d want to do something pretty new to the both of us. Not that doing stuff that we normally do is bad, because I’d love to go on another fireworks date with you sometime, but I think that we can probably do something a little different, if that’s okay.”
“Yeah, that works for me,” Izuku nodded along, though, secretly, he may or may not have gotten a little anxious at the fact that there was no precedent for their plans, then. If it were normal, like a fireworks date, then he would be able to probably do a bit of research on something that people already do, and therefore have some sort of baseline to compare to in the future.
Nejire continued on her thought process, and Izuku was hooked on every word, “So…now we need to think about different things that people normally don’t really do. Going on a hike feels like it probably isn’t too impactful, if I’m being honest.”
He could definitely understand the sentiment. Considering how the both of them could quite literally fly and soar high in the sky, seeing the sights from a high vantage point wasn’t exactly anything new to either of them.
“Skydiving’s out, too, and probably anything too physical,” she kept going, and Midoriya was still following her thought process. “Hmm…then if it’s not going to be too physical, then…”
Suddenly, it seemed like a flash of inspiration hit her, and she snapped her fingers with a gleam in her eyes.
“Is there a way that we can involve other people in our Valentine’s Day, Darling? Like, if there are a lot of other people and we’re doing stuff with them?” Nejire suggested after being able to verbalize what she was feeling, and she completely understood the look of confusion on Midoriya’s face. “I think that there’s something I’d love to do with you, actually.”
“...Really?” Izuku tilted his head a little to the side, because this wasn’t something that he expected. After all this time, he would’ve liked to say that he was getting better at predicting Nejire’s thought process, but it was also absolutely wonderful to know that she could always keep him on his toes. He thought about some things that involved interacting with others, like maybe camping, or maybe even a sports event, but those didn’t seem like they would be something Nejire would want right now. At least, not by the look in her eyes.
God, he loved her so much.
“...If you’re okay with it,” Nejire gently whispered, finally settling down and sitting next to him on the bench in front of the 1-A Dorms. “I wouldn’t want to force you into doing something you don’t want to, especially for Valentine’s Day. So I fully get if you want to just want it to be the two of us.”
“...I think I’d like to see what you have in store for me, Dear,” Izuku whispered back, wiping a bit of sweat off of his head before leaning to his left so he could rest his head on Nejire’s right shoulder, gently taking her right hand in his left hand. His heart skipped a beat, feeling how soft Nejire’s hands were.
“...Everything about you is so perfect to me, Nejire,” he went off topic, and even if he didn’t see it, he could tell that she was blushing at the compliment.
“...I’ll make sure to make this Valentine’s Day perfect for you, Izuku,” she promised him, and he smiled at her, because there was no doubt in his heart that she would. She was already perfect to him, and he had faith that she’d do something just as perfect as she was.
“I can’t wait,” he simply accepted, enjoying the time they had together right now.
“Uh, Nejire, why are we standing outside a school?” Midoriya asked, a little curious.
If he were a little more like Mineta (a situation which Nejire thanked the stars for everyday that he wasn’t), he would’ve made a joke about Valentine’s Day and being at a school. Again, he wasn’t, so he did not make that joke.
Nejire reminded herself to ask Uraraka and Tsu to hurt him just a bit more than they normally did. Probably something hard to do, considering how much damage the two of them regularly inflicted upon him, but she was sure they could do something about that.
“This is what I wanted to do with you on Valentine’s Day, silly!” Nejire answered, holding his hand in hers and leading him towards the front door.
“We’re gonna…spend time at an elementary school?” Midoriya asked just to confirm. He wasn’t an idiot, he figured it out pretty quickly, but he just really wanted to make sure that he wasn’t having any weird misconceptions about stuff and it turned out they were actually just spending time at a building behind the school or something.
“Mhm!” She nodded. “I thought it’d be really fun, especially since both of us are becoming heroes. You know, I know that I always dreamed of heroes coming to our schools and talking to us. Obviously, that probably wasn’t going to be the case ever, and I never did get a hero to come to one of my schools before U.A.”
Midoriya nodded, understanding the feeling. He’d always wanted to see many a hero stop by his own schools, but in retrospect, he was pretty glad they never did. He wouldn’t know what to do with himself if he knew that a hero willingly associated themselves with a place like Aldera.
“So, I thought it’d be a really great time for the two of us to…be those heroes for these children,” Nejire wistfully answered, and Midoriya’s heart swelled up. He was lucky that he’d started to learn how to control his tears just a little bit better, because if his control was worse right now, he probably would’ve started crying because of just how happy that statement made him. He noticed that, as of late, he was getting more instances where his crying was happy tears.
He always had absolute faith that he loved her. He had absolute faith that the person he was with was an amazing person, and it was moments like this that confirmed those beliefs even more, if such a thing was even possible.
“You were right,” Midoriya wetly laughed, and leaned into her further. “This definitely isn’t very normal for a Valentine’s Day date. And the two of us aren’t even doing something super romantic for each other.” Despite that remark, he couldn’t be happier, because even if they weren’t doing anything for each other, necessarily, they were doing it together, with one another.
“...Do you like it, Dear?” Nejire squeezed his hand, asking the question even though she more or less knew the answer.
“I love it, Nejire,” he responded softly, doing his best to gather himself so the two of them could actually go in. “And I love you.”
“I love you too,” she affectionately responded, squeezing his hand again before turning her attention to the school itself, buzzing in.
She had a short conversation after a voice came through the buzzer, and quickly enough, the door itself buzzed. The two of them entered quickly after that, and from there, they went to the front office.
The two employees at the desk there gasped at the sight, “Nejire-chan?! I didn’t know you were bringing him! You just said you were bringing somebody else!”
Midoriya thought, in the back of his mind and trying his best not to show it on his face, that it was incredibly suspicious that they would just let the two of them in without doing more thorough research on what was going on. Though, at the same time, if it was a hero (or hero-in-training, technically) like Nejire, he wasn’t shocked that they would take her at her word. Hell, he knew he wouldn’t question it as a kid (or employee at the school, really) if All Might himself called and said he wanted to drop by. Sure, the scales were different, but the sentiments were still there.
Now, as for what he did show on his face, it was a light pink blush at their following praise. He didn’t know how All Might did it, because he was not good at staying calm as he handled the praise that came to him. He may have been his successor through quirk and also in the public eye, but he knew full well he was not All Might’s successor in terms of public skills. That would be something that he’d have to spend a lot of time working on.
Unfortunately, he didn’t quite have that time to work on the social skills of things, because the entire debacle with One For All meant that he was, in fact, thrust into the public spotlight whether or not he wanted to.
But that was for another time.
Because, now, he had to once again come to the conclusion that he was going to be doing something in a public light.
He swallowed, doing his best to steel himself. He tried to think of the fact that there just had to be other heroes out there who weren’t too great with doing social things. Aizawa-sensei came to mind, as did a few other underground heroes he was aware of. Yet, at the same time, they were still capable of doing them, and he imagined that they could steel themselves as well to do things like that.
And, really, Aizawa-sensei was probably even worse at public interactions than Izuku was. Yet, he could still teach an entire class of students every day. If he could do it, surely Izuku could, too!
So, he kept moving forward with Nejire, doing his best to keep himself okay. If not for him, then for the children. He was going to be their hero today.
…Huh.
“Isn’t this a lot easier than you thought it’d be, Darling?” Nejire teased him lightly as she was sitting on the floor with a few kids, while Midoriya sat at a table instead. She only got a playful eye roll in response, but that was enough to tell her that she was spot on.
That said, it wasn’t the case that the two of them were far apart from one another. They were more or less sitting back to back with each other, with Nejire leaning against the chair leg of the chair that Midoriya was sitting at.
“Do you like cars?!” One kid excitedly asked Midoriya as he practically clung onto him, with another playing with his hair and commenting on how fluffy it was. That was definitely a sentiment that Nejire would agree with, if she wasn’t being swarmed with children on her own front.
“Sit with us! Sit with us!” A few other kids chanted at Nejire, who wanted her to join Izuku at the table.
A few other children clearly dissented to that, claiming that, “No, she’s ours!”
“Guys, guys, how about this?” Izuku laughed along with them, and he found himself being dragged along with their energy. It was a lot easier to not feel the pressure of social cues when the audience was itself composed of children who also didn’t know how they worked very well, even if they understood things subconsciously. “If I sit with Nejire on the floor and you guys join us, then we can all be together. Deal?”
The children seemed to listen to him as if he hung the stars in the sky, and treated his suggestion as though he was Einstein himself with the sort of genius that he must’ve been spewing out as they nodded, “Deal!”
As the children started to disperse and go to the floor, with the teacher’s assistance so utter chaos didn’t erupt throughout the classroom and destruction following it, Izuku stood up and did a little stretch.
From there, though, he let himself go a little too much.
For, as he was making sure that Nejire wasn’t taken off guard by him pushing the chair back in, he decided to sit next to her. And, in doing so, while he was sitting down, he gently took her hand in his and squeezed it before instinctively blowing a kiss in her direction, one which she returned.
It was something neither of them had really paid attention to doing. They had done it so often with each other regularly.
Buuuut they weren’t just in public with anyone.
They were in public with a bunch of grade schoolers. Who had just seen them blow kisses to one another.
Now, based on the fact that all eyes were on them, it was clear that the question was inevitable.
“Are you two together?”
It was a simple enough question, and when it was asked by most other people, they were pretty fine with it. But those were usually people that they already knew, and were also in U.A.
This was their first time actually being confronted by, well, the public about it. And they weren’t opposed to having a public hero relationship. There were plenty of heroes who already had that sort of thing, as far as they knew. Hell, Kouta’s parents themselves were heroes! Plus, hiding it would mean that they wouldn’t even be able to do groceries together, which they absolutely couldn’t let happen!
(If All Might had heard that thought process, he would’ve laughed his ass off. How incredibly bold of Midoriya, to assume that he would ever be able to do his groceries normally without entire swathes of people coming up and asking him for pictures or autographs.)
So, the pink that both of them started sporting on their cheeks was a silly little giveaway, so the children already had their suspicions, but Nejire was going to make the best of this situation.
“...How about we keep it our little secret, hmm?” Nejire held up a finger to her mouth in a shushing signal. “Just between us?”
Izuku smiled at her, because he also knew what she was doing. By the gleeful looks on the kids, like they’d just been let in on a special little club, like they were given invitation to a fun little treehouse that only a few people had access to, it’d clearly worked.
Because the giggles that they let out made it all worth it.
“Ooh! Can I draw?!” One girl shouted out with vigor.
Their teacher, who was also clearly amused at how much energy her class had had given the heroes’ presence, nodded, “Of course you can! The crayons and colored pencils are still in the drawers over there.”
Izuku hummed as he looked in that girl’s direction, “What are you going to draw, if I can ask?”
She chirped excitedly, speaking words that were going to set off a chain reaction, “I’m gonna draw Deku and Nejire-chan together forever!”
Excited murmurs broke out among the class about joining in on the drawings, and Midoriya and Nejire both found themselves blushing out of happiness. The idea that they would all be so enthusiastic about drawing the two of them together was oddly heartwarming, even if they had never seen these children before today.
However, the teacher clearly had something to say about that, as she called out to the class, “Did they say they were okay with being drawn, though?” She did shoot Midoriya and Nejire an apologetic look, though, and they understood. It was clear that she was doing it so that they would learn manners instead of actually trying to be malicious.
Soon enough, though, they were all drawing together, and Izuku and Nejire decided to join in on the fun. The two of them also ended up laying down on their stomachs, and they decided to start drawing.
Then…
“Wait, Izuku, you can draw with your left hand?” Nejire tilted her head. She’d only ever seen him use his right hand for a pen or pencil.
Midoriya shrugged casually, “I mean, I kind of learned it whenever my right hand got too broken to draw for a little bit.”
One of the children interjected, “You broke your hand?!” As if they were all in sync, the children stopped drawing temporarily to look at their own hands, wondering what it would be like to break them. Izuku hoped that they would never have to figure out for themselves the sort of pain that sort of injury entails.
Nejire, on the other hand, was just thinking about how unlikely it was any of them had seen the Sports Festival, especially that fight between Izuku and Todoroki. After he’d broken his finger in his fight against Shinsou, she was sure that any parents would’ve probably turned the T.V. off while the Izuku vs. Todoroki fight was happening.
Not like she could’ve blamed them, though. It was definitely a gruesome sight to watch him fight so desperately, and even more so in retrospect after she started dating him, for crying out loud! If Izuku didn’t insist on the fact that he and Todoroki both gained each other and themselves from that fight, and stood so close by his side, Nejire would’ve had to give him a piece of her mind right then and there!
“I’m shocked that a villain attack didn’t happen here,” Nejire whispered back to him, not wanting to get anyone worried about the idea of villains appearing, even if the two of them were there.
“Well, I suppose even they had the morals to not target children,” Midoriya dryly laughed in a quiet whisper to her.
He made a reminder in the back of his head to beat the absolute fuck out of Mineta when he got back.
Nejire got back on track now, “Well, anyways, I know you can draw with your left hand, but why are you drawing with your left hand? Does your right hand hurt at all, Dear?”
Midoriya only smiled, answering, “No, it’s so I can do this~” and took her hand in his own. The classroom erupted in coos for them, though some of them instead opted for gagging noises at the obvious display of cooties.
“Awww, you’re so sweet, Izuku,” Nejire joined in the cooing, gently kissing him on the cheek. It was half because she wanted to, and half because she thought the reaction from their audience would be amusing.
It was.
“Aren’t you glad I thought about bringing us here?” Nejire smiled at Izuku, who could only not, because he absolutely loved it.
Because, even as they were brought to the children’s level, literally drawing among them and talking about cars or sports or heroes (a topic Izuku was very willing to talk about), they were being heroes to these kids in the small ways that counted.
[On the note on Izuku being willing to talk about heroes…he was, in fact, willing to beef with 7-year-olds about how insane prime All Might was compared to prime Endeavor. The fact that these snot-nosed whiny little brats (as opposed to the cute angels they were other than this debate) had the audacity to think that prime All Might couldn’t handle the modern era of heroics was nothing short of an atrocity. All these damn kids did nowadays was watch highlights of the modern heroics and the lowlights of the previous era! Endeavor couldn’t handle the physicality of the past! God!]
Still…beyond the beef that Izuku was having with children that literally hadn’t even entered middle school yet, they were doing their best to be heroes to them.
And it was clear it was working, because, by the end of it, everybody had made their own little drawing. Izuku and Nejire had made drawings of each other, which they both thought were absolutely wonderful in their own way. Izuku loved Nejire’s drawing for how cutesy her artstyle was, and Nejire loved Izuku’s detail and how much attention he paid to the little features.
But, and they didn’t mean this in any way to say that they didn’t treasure each other’s drawings, the ones they really appreciated were the drawings from none other than the students. The crude crayon, the colors that were a little off in terms of the actual shade because they didn’t have the correct ones, the fact that these children couldn’t color inside the lines to save their lives? All of those didn’t matter.
Because what really mattered was that, most of all, it showed that it was clear that, even if their Valentine’s Day was spent making children at a random school happy instead of going on a date or spending their time alone together, their love was as obvious to everyone in the world.
It was good to be assured of their love from each other, yes.
But for them to see that it was so visible from even these people who’d only seen them for such a short period of time?
Well, that was quite nice, too.
“...I really did have a lot of fun, Nejire,” Izuku whispered to her, leaning into her as the two of them looked at all the drawings that the children had given them. They had laid them all out in front of them to see all the different settings they’d been put into. Playgrounds, grassy fields, restaurants, fighting villains…there were really quite a few options there. Looks like they had taken the time to have some creativity to themselves.
Nejire giggled as he leaned into her embrace, since she had an arm wrapped around him in one arm and a glass of apple juice (not orange juice! She would always stand by the take that orange juice is overrated) in the other, “I’m happy you did, Darling! I loved going to that school with you.”
Izuku sighed blissfully as his eyes flowed from paper to paper, loving even the silly little wrinkles on some of the papers from the fact that the children didn’t have enough motor control to properly control their strength and therefore pushed the sheet around a bit too much.
Then, a spurt of hope flowed through Izuku flourished as he gasped, “Wait, is this my first piece of hero mail?!” He’d tried thinking of it, and, well, yeah, it wa–Oh, wait, no…
Nejire rolled her eyes playfully, knowing how much he would’ve personally preferred it to be something less complex, teasing, “No, no, Dear, let’s not forget about that long letter you received from Stain that you still keep with you.”
“Ehhh…we don’t have to talk about it,” Izuku awkwardly laughed, thinking about all the considerations that Stain had written in his letter. In retrospect, it was a miracle that the prison had even let that letter get out of its grasp, let alone actively deliver it to Midoriya himself, considering its contents.
(He secretly thought that there was probably a bit of corruption going on there, but he wasn’t one to say it for certain if he didn’t have actual evidence.)
“Are you suuuure?” Nejire giggled, trying to make a little light of an admittedly serious situation. She knew that, at the end of the day, Izuku did value the letter heavily, especially because he kept it as a reminder of the more complex and nuanced parts of heroism, the morality of it all and its commodification of sorts, even if he preferred to look on the brighter side of things.
Luckily for Izuku, before anything could really happen and were to lose a teasing war that’d break out, because he was really bad at teasing others, he was saved by the bell.
Or, really, the person behind the bell in this case.
“Ummm…Mama? Papa?” A child’s voice rung from outside the door, and the two of them made swift eye contact before Izuku was basically tumbling over himself to see Eri and Aizawa at the door.
“Hi, Eri! Hi, Aizawa-sensei!” He greeted enthusiastically, trying to keep calm the fact that he was about to get teased like crazy.
However, it appeared that Eri’s attention laid elsewhere for now.
“Um…Papa, what are all these drawings doing here?” Eri asked as she walked into the room, Aizawa following in quickly enough. Eri’s second-favorite uncle current caretaker had agreed to look after her while both Nejire and Izuku were out, because, of course, she’d decided that Izuku was more or less like a father to her, and naturally, that followed up with Nejire being her newfound mother. Not that either of them were opposed to that, though.
“Oh, you know how the two of us went to that school today?” Nejire smiled at her, pulling Eri into a hug before letting her sit on her lap. “Some of the kids there decided to make some drawings for us!” She decided to just go along with the conversation for for now, and in the case of Eri just showing up out of nowhere, she was definitely going to be comfortable with it.
She pointed at a few of them, and they all were crude, but clearly cared for. Yet, all of them shared one commonality.
Izuku and Nejire holding hands.
Some of them also had a heart in between the two of them, and some of them also had the two even having what looked to be like wedding rings (based on the yellow band on their fingers, at least, even if they weren’t on the right finger).
But the fact that they were, in every drawing, inexplicably together, was enough for the two of them.
“Wait, that’s not fair!” Eri pouted, puffing her left cheek out, a habit she’d undoubtedly picked up from spending so much time around Nejire. “I already made you a drawing, with me in it, too!” That was an absolutely fair point, and it was something both Izuku and Nejire treasured. The three of them all together? Absolutely beautiful, and it hung up above Izuku’s desk so that he could always look at it whenever he wanted.
(It’s important to note that it didn’t matter to either of them as to which room it was in, because they were in each other’s rooms enough that they would get ample viewing opportunities, either way.)
“And it’ll always be super special to us, Eri,” Izuku smiled at her as he booped her nose, only amplifying her pout. “But I don’t think it’d be very nice of us if we just got rid of all of these drawings, right?”
Unfortunately to Eri, he was making sense, so she nodded.
“...How about this,” Izuku hummed, thinking of an alternative that would make all of them happy. “Since I have your drawing in my room, what if we hang up their drawings in Nejire’s room?”
Eri seemed to process it for a moment, before giving in with an eventual thumbs up (a habit she’d ALSO picked up from Nejire).
“D’you wanna do that now, our little princess?” Nejire smiled as she hugged her unofficial daughter closer. Eri nodded, excitement tinged with a little bit of hesitation and understanding. Both Izuku and Nejire felt a little bit of relief at that. They wanted to raise her like they would a regular child, but they also knew exactly what’d happened to Eri, and they knew that she’d had to grow up and have more awareness and caution than a regular child. That’d definitely changed up their style just a little bit, because they knew that entirely just doting on her and treating her as if she was completely unaware of things probably wouldn’t be right, but it was okay.
She was their little princess, after all.
“Oh, Midoriya,” Aizawa called out to him after the three had gotten up from the floor, with Nejire piggybacking Eri. “There’s a letter for you. From the school you went to.”
“...Why didn’t they just give it to us while they were there?” Izuku tilted his head, a little curious.
“Couldn’t tell you,” Aizawa blankly stated, but both Izuku and Nejire knew him well enough by this point to tell. He knew, by the look of his eyes, but just wanted the two of them to experience something on their own. Oh, well. Not like they could get him to be super open about his feelings right now, anyways.
And, even more importantly, they had a daughter to be spending time with!
So, as the three of them all left the 1-A dorms to head to Nejire’s room, Izuku held a singular envelope in his hands, which carried a singular photo.
And, as the three of them started hanging up the pictures that the school had drawn for them, they also hung up one more picture.
This one of that photo the entire class had taken with Izuku and Nejire in the center, both of them giving peace signs.
With the writing of all the students, each of them conveying a similar message:
“Thank you for being our Valentine Heroes!”