88

Izuku put the last of his notebooks into his backpack and walked out of his empty room. The service that UA had hired to help all the students move into the dorms was already there and Mom fretted nervously as they carried Izuku's boxes out of the apartment, "Baby, are you sure you want to move into the dorms? I know they said they may as well build them, since they're rebuilding everything else, but it just seems so hard having you so far away…"

"I'll be close to my friends." Izuku said tiredly. "And I'll be surrounded by heroes, Mom. I'll be fine."

They'd had the same discussion twenty times that week, twice just this morning as he was packing up the last of everything, which only reaffirmed his decision to move out. He'd be closer to his labs and his new computer setup in case of another attack and he'd get to spend more time with Mei and his friends. It didn't make it any easier to say goodbye when Mom was hugging him with tears in her eyes, though. 

"I'm not going to be gone forever." Izuku insisted. "I'll still visit on the weekends and everything!"

"I know!" Mom sniffled. "But it just feels...oh you're going to be so far away. At least you'll be protected and safe with all those heroes. I don't want you getting swept up in any more of those villain attacks, you could have been hurt so badly."

Izuku gave her a strained smile. The school had tried telling her about his involvement in the villain attacks, but all she'd heard was that he was the victim, not that he was one of the people trying to prevent the attacks, and it had just made her worry more. It gave Izuku a little more leverage for his argument to move into the dorms, but it still left a bad taste in his mouth. 

"I'd better get going." Izuku said. "Mei's probably already there looking over blueprints, so…"

Mom frowned, "You're going to be living very close to your girlfriend, Izuku. Um...do we need to talk about…"

Izuku went bright red and shook his head, "No! Uh, sorry, no, it's just, she's way more interested in making her babies than...you know, making babies or anything."

Mom sighed in relief, "Ok. just so you know, if you ever have questions, I'm here."

"Ok." Izuku smiled. "Well, um, I'd better get going. Bye."

He gave her a final hug and walked out the door.

Hitoshi fiddled with the ribbon on the daisies while he waited for Ochako to pick him up, "You don't think the flowers are too much?"

"Definitely not," Mic answered quickly. "Everyone loves flowers."

"I'm sure she'll love them." Aizawa added. "And the two of you are so awkward already that even if it's the wrong move, she probably won't care."

"Shou!" Mic punched him in the arm. "You can't just say that!"

"Why not?" Aizawa grinned wickedly. "It's true!"

"Don't listen to him." Mic huffed "You'll be fine."

Their entire apartment was a mess of boxes and half-packed suitcases and Hitoshi was pretty sure he should have picked literally any other day for their first official date, but he hadn't known that they were going to be instituting brand new dorms when he'd suggested going out for mochi today. Since both of his adults were teachers, they had a brand new apartment on campus that they didn't have to pay rent for, so, as Dad would say, it was only logical to move. It still didn't make today any less stressful or chaotic.

"I feel like I should be picking her up." Hitoshi said. "Isn't the guy supposed to pick the girl up for the first date?"

"For right now, Uraraka still lives two hours away." Dad said. "And she can teleport. You picking her up would be illogical."

Hitoshi groaned. "I know you're right, it's just...I want to do this right, you know?"

Mic smiled and brushed a bit of imaginary dust from HItoshi's shoulder, "That's what the flowers are for. You're gonna do great, son."

Hitoshi took a deep breath and let it out. "O-ok."

Aizawa nodded proudly, "You've been through like three life or death situations with this girl now, a date is gonna be a piece of cake."

Ochako appeared right next to him, "What's gonna be a piece of cake?"

"Me convincing my husband to eat an actual meal and not just coffee." Mic said quickly. 

"Fat chance." Aizawa shot back. "It's got multiple food groups. Therefore, logically, it qualifies as a meal."

Mic pouted, "There's nothing logical about it."

Aizawa just grinned in response, "You two stay safe, call us if there's any villain attacks." 

"And have fun!" Mic added. "Don't forget that!"

Ochako smiled, "Oh that'll be easy with Shindig around." She turned to Hitoshi. "Are you ready?"

"Definitely." Hitoshi held out the flowers hesitantly. "And, um, these are for you. If you want them. If you don't, they were my adults' idea."

"Oh, I want them." Ochako turned bright red and took the bouquet, "Thank you. I love them."

She held out her hand for him to take and then stopped, "Oh, uh, actually I forgot. I don't have an anchor at the Mochi place...oops. We might have to walk."

Hitoshi smiled and took her hand anyway, "It's ok. That just means I get to spend more time with you."

Shouto looked at the setup that Shigaraki had planned and shook his head, "I can't believe they're letting you have an entire gaming setup in a prison cell."

Because Shigaraki's information had been essential to protecting the students during the attack on UA, Principal Nedzu had taken responsibility for him. His crimes were too great for traditional house arrest, but he'd been given a cell underneath UA that was basically an extra-secure apartment that locked from the outside and he was allowed to have visitors. Nedzu had even installed a door just big enough for Epurr to fit in, since she'd decided to follow her kittens to the dorms rather than stay in Murder Alley. Shigaraki had brought all his gaming consoles and, once Powerloader had checked them over for security reasons, he'd been allowed to create his own set up.

"Well, it's not like they set me to Tartarus or anything, so that's nice." Shigaraki shrugged. "Plus, it's not like I can step out of line. If I remove these stupid gloves or make a move to use my quirk, the room will instantly fill with some sort of sedative gas and I'll be knocked out before I could even hurt the cat."

Epurr hissed from her place on his gaming chair, but when she saw Shigaraki didn't mean it, she yawned and went back to sleep. 

Shouto laughed, "Be careful, I think Epurr might get to you before UA's defenses will." 

"No, but I think she's going to smother me in my sleep." Shigaraki said. "How she gets along with the rat principal I have no idea. Are you ready to start the stream?"

"Sure." Shouto shrugged. "Is everything already set up?"

Shigaraki rolled his eyes, "Like I have anything else to do."

Shouto took a seat on the second chair as Shigaraki glared at Epurr, "Move you stupid cat."

"Just put her on your lap or something." Shouto said. "Come on, hurry up."

"Whatever." Shigaraki scooped up Epurr and dumped her in Shouto's lap. "Your cat, your problem."

Epurr gave a disgruntled meow, but settled down on the left half of Shouto's lap. He sighed, "Fine, but she's going to wear you down eventually, you know that right?"

"I can pretend." Shigaraki did a final check that everything was working and then started the stream, "Hello everyone, sorry we dropped off the face of the earth, we got arrested."

"You mean I got arrested, which was your fault by the way." Shouto deadpanned. "You turned yourself in, it doesn't count."

"Yeah?" Shigaraki challenged. "And who's streaming from a jail cell right now?"

Shouto smiled, "Technically both of us."

A look at the chat confirmed that everyone, as usual, assumed they were joking. Their fans were going to get a nasty shock if the two of them ever decided to turn on their cameras.

Mei was already at the school, or what there was left of it. They had put first priority on completing the dorms so that the students could move in, but the rest of the school was still a giant mess of construction and wet concrete. About a third of the school had been completely destroyed and three quarters had been damaged in some way or another. 

The good thing was that no civilians had been injured during the attack and student injuries had been kept to a minimum and were mostly just from the students getting caught in the gas attack. Most of the villains had been injured in some capacity with the exception of Dabi who had left before the attack was over, but the only deaths had been All for One and Mineta, who had both shown evidence of being killed by Spinner, not the heroes. 

The days since the attack had been a whirlwind of activity, especially for the support course students who were all helping with the reconstruction. Izuku and Mei had spent most of that time helping to redesign the tunnels and making some manual defenses that didn't rely on electricity as a power source. 

In other news, they had learned that trebuchets were a lot of fun. 

The labs weren't complete yet, so Mei had set up a miniature lab in the common room of their dorms and Izuku smiled as he watched her fiddle with the prototypes they'd made yesterday, "You look like you're having fun. Is your stuff already moved in?"

"The movers are still bringing it over." Mei said without looking up. "You?"

"I'm in the same boat." Izuku said. "So, what do you want to work on until then."

Mei grinned and pulled out some blueprints, "Well, I was thinking of some ways we could make the tunnels a lot more fun!"