A/N: Hello! This one has spoilers from chapter 67 onward, but takes place around chapter 130. I may reference later events lightly, but I won't spoil anything except for- chapter 100 spoilers inbound- the fact that the kids move to the school dormitories later, as it's too important to the setting. Other than that, you should be clear. If I spoil something, someone let me know and I'll fix it.

Chapter One: Metasthesiophobia

It was a Friday afternoon in September when Steve visited the U.A. training arena. The doors were propped open to let the new autumn air wash out the scents of sweat, and the sounds of birds chirping intermingled with the yells of the students sparring inside.

Despite the predictable outcome of most of the matches, Steve sat on the edge of his seat, mesmerized. He spoke in broken Japanese and kept smoothing his hands over his glazed, ashen hair. His suit was gray and he had a smile on his face like he was watching an action movie. The reality of what he was watching was far less theatrical.

Momo Yaoyorozu was beating the crap out of Shouto Todoroki with a bo staff, and she'd been doing it for the better part of an hour.

"Who's that guy?" Todoroki asked, low, when Steve took out his phone and tried to hide the fact that he was recording. He didn't particularly mind cameras in general, but the shit-eating grin worn on the American teen's face just made him uncomfortable.

Steve took another sip of his protein shake and Todoroki looked back to Momo, a much more welcome sight. But despite the seemingly innocuous question, Momo's face clouded. It was complicated.

Momo hesitated before answering. "I'll tell you later," she promised. Well, if she'd been trying to keep him a secret, she wouldn't have brought him. After a few minutes of slow, methodical technique rehearsal, the two returned to sparring.

Due to the recent events involving quirk-manipulating drugs, the fight with Eraserhead, and the general pervasiveness of situations where Todoroki might not be able to use his quirk, he had asked Momo to instruct him in bojutsu twice a week to ensure he at least had something to fall back on in the likely event of an emergency. He was competent, but not competent enough.

After about three consecutive matches in favor of Momo, Todoroki managed to land a hit to her rib. Not powerful, but after a few weeks of lessons, some progress was nice. He smirked. Steve's hands shot up in congratulations, causing Todoroki to look over long enough for Momo to wipe his feet out from under him, flipping him onto his back. At the sudden overturn, Steve cackled and whooped, struggling to keep the video stable.

"I think that's enough for today," Momo said triumphantly, pulling Todoroki up off his ass and offering to take his bo back to the rack. He opted instead to walk with her.

"Got any bets for how the summit will go?" He asked. The question was almost rhetorical. The following day, a summit was being held at the Hero Network HQ to discuss the previous year and the future of the organization. The likelihood of it going well was low. Little had happened in that time that could be remotely considered positive for the outlook of heroics in the immediate future.

Momo sighed. "Actually, I'm not going to be there. I have a... prior commitment with Steve," she said, gesturing absently at the young man sitting against the wall. She looked at him, slightly embarrassed. "You'll tell me about it on Monday, right?"

Todoroki nodded, struggling to fit the bo staff through the three holes in the rack, placing it and replacing it until it settled lopsidedly. "You'll be away from the dormitory until then?" He supposed a few days of reading wouldn't be too bad if Midoriya didn't ask him to do something. Maybe he'd visit his mother. Todoroki eyed Steve, wondering absently what business he had with his friend.

"No, but you will, right? You're home for the weekend?"

Right. The weekend at home. Todoroki was looking forward to it and he wasn't. There were certainly some members of his family he appreciated more than others, but his sister was one of the ones he cared more for, and her baby shower was on Sunday. He was going to see his father either way at the summit, so the net loss was rather low.

"I appreciate the fact that you remembered." The corner of his mouth twitched into what was almost a smile. "The way you pay attention to your underlings demonstrates your capacity for leadership." The statement had an air of drama, but the compliment was sincere. She blushed a bit and grinned.

"Why, thank you. I try."

But a moment after the echoes of the statement faded into the passing wind, Momo's smile went with it. The mild scowl she'd worn most of the afternoon took back its place on her brow.

Friendship didn't come easily to Shouto Todoroki. A childhood spent homeschooled and isolated from his own siblings left him stunted socially, and the gap between his own experiences and that of his classmates was wide. Despite this, he had been making efforts to better engage himself with others. He took mental notes on proper human interaction when there was something to be learned, and this situation was one he'd prepared for. From the training exercise, he'd learned the Momo Yaoyorozu "I have something to say but I've decided against it" expression. Now for the proper response.

"Hey, are you doing okay?" He asked, as they began shutting the doors they'd opened to vent the air.

"I'm fine," she insisted awkwardly.

As it turns out, no matter how many internet articles tell you that offering to talk to a girl about her feelings is the solution to any particular problem, the action in actuality is useless.

As the duo returned to the front of the building, where Todoroki's father was presumably waiting to pick him up, they were greeted with the sight of Steve attempting to petition Endeavor for an autograph, but struggling with the language barrier. He was met with a halfhearted scribble and a clap on the shoulder that left an ashy black handprint on the suit Steve was wearing for whatever reason. Endeavor turned to the two teenagers, causing Steve to take notice of their arrival.

Steve took yet another obvious look at Momo's sparse workout clothes, which Todoroki realized for the first time seemed a bit more conservative today, before sliding his eyes over to Todoroki and struggling to say something. He searched for the translation of the words he wanted to use.

"Ice guy?" he finally got out, smiling like they were pals.

"Yep. Ice guy. That's me."

Steve extended a hand to shake, and after a moment, Todoroki took it, not particularly wanting to preserve his reputation with the boy but getting the feeling he'd be seeing him again. Steve's eyes lit up ever further and he exclaimed something in English. Momo grinned.

"He says your hands are cold," she translated.

"Surprise", the ice guy deadpanned.

The handshake was lasting a bit too long and Todoroki wasn't exactly clear on American standards of etiquette. He looked down awkwardly, and noticed that Steve's hand was significantly larger than his.

That's odd, he thought. We're about the same height.

After comparing the size of the hand Steve was shaking Todoroki's with to the one at his side, Todoroki came to the conclusion that he must have some kind of hand-enlarging quirk like Kendou. What's more, he was using it to try to appear intimidating.

Why? Why was Steve, who was so interested in being friendly and had apparently watched enough of the sports festival to recognize him several months later, trying to be intimidating when he should know very well that Todoroki could stomp him in moments? It didn't make sense. But he'd already seen enough of Steve to decide he probably didn't act rationally, and if he decided to try to push, Todoroki was capable of pushing back, just a little.

While smiling his strange grimace, Todoroki ramped the temperature of his extremities down until Steve dropped his friendly facade and took his hand away.

"Come on, Momo, let's go," Steve said in English. Todoroki understood none of it, but he was surprised that the young man had the gall to call her by her given name. He chalked it up to a cultural difference.

As Steve tried to step to turn and walk away, he found his shoes frozen in place. His knees buckled and twisted. He regained his composure almost instantly, but the look of pain that flashed across his face did admittedly bring Todoroki some measure of satisfaction.

As Steve left with Momo, Endeavor grunted at his son. "She's very powerful," he said. "I've seen her fight before. Her family is wealthy, but we're wealthier and have social standing. I could arrange to have that happen for you if you asked."

Todoroki stared blankly at his father for a few moments, unable to comprehend the sheer audacity of what he had just said.

"Not the marriage conversation again. Let's just… not." Todoroki made a motion like he was about to start walking, but Endeavor continued as if Todoroki hadn't done anything.

"The conversation will continue until the issue is resolved, Shouto. It's past time for these considerations."

It wasn't past time. It wasn't past time at all. But the decreased involvement of All Might and the continual hunting of heroes combined with Endeavor being blamed for the sudden spike in crime had led the man into a bit of paranoia. He sensed an attack coming, and he was looking for an excuse to pass the family estate to his youngest son in case something happened. "Eldest married male" was an accepted policy, and one Endeavor was hoping to take advantage of so that his hero agency could stay in the hands of his sidekick until Todoroki reached an acceptable age. The rest of his siblings were too old and Endeavor cared about them too little.

"Thanks for the offer, but I'm pretty sure I can find a wife without having to pay for one." Todoroki regretted not having prepared a more poisonous retort, but it fitted well enough. He looked over at Momo, hoping she was out of earshot.

He wished he hadn't.

Steve the wealthy American boy was gripping her by her arm near the shoulder in what appeared to be an attempt to help her get into the car but actually made it very clear that he A) was in a hurry to leave, B) wasn't particularly mindful of what he was doing to another human, and C) didn't think she could get in the car by her damn self.

Well, if it's a date, he thought, this Steve guy won't last very long. A half dozen scenarios flashed through his mind of all the ways Momo would break this poor moron before their time together concluded.

"You're being childish yet again. You're not listening to me despite knowing very well I want the best for you."

Todoroki rolled his eyes so hard he thought he could see his brain. His brain looked just as exasperated.

XXXXXXXXX

Pray for me, she'd texted Jirou after Steve had driven her home the night before.

It hadn't been his godawful driving. She had no idea how he had gotten a license, but it was clear he wasn't used to driving on the left side of the road.

It hadn't been Steve's overenthusiastic, smarmy demeanor. People were people and first impressions got washed away with time spent getting to know the other person.

It hadn't been the empty, meaningless conversation that had sparsely populated the car ride, or the strange way that he smelled, or the terrible American protein drink he'd offered her that was "supposed to optimize post-workout rejuvenation."

What bothered Momo about Steve was that she didn't understand why he'd suddenly turned up.

They hadn't seen each other in years, and they hadn't ever spoken before because Momo hadn't learned English. In fact, she'd decided to pick up the language back up only because Steve had announced he was coming to Japan for her birthday week three months ago, and she'd been unable to ask him what on Earth he was thinking. Now that he was here, it was more obvious just how little actual reason to spend any time together existed. But he came anyway, the Fall break at his private school landing on just the perfect week.

And so now, they were sitting in a half-empty coffee shop near the UA dormitories, where Steve was telling Momo a slow, deliberate story about life at the East American Academy of Heroics in some attempt to impress her while the girl in question watched Thirteen gesticulate on the television over his shoulder, squinting to read the subtitles against the glare from the window. Whatever was going on at the summit, it simply had to be more interesting than this conversation.

The omiai tradition was long-standing in Japan, and while it had fallen out of style somewhat in recent years, it still stood that if your parents told you to marry someone, you did it.

Steve had been the son of Momo's father's business partner when they were younger, and the men had made a marriage agreement over their children when the two were very young. Steve's family had a home in Japan, but he attended English-speaking schools as a child and boarding schools in the United States from about the age of eleven. If he'd ever known Japanese, he didn't now. He was a year and a half older than Momo and acted as if the extra time on this earth made him more worldly and wise.

Thirteen's speech was about the heightened need for paramedics as those who would previously have been attracted to the field were now pursuing heroics. The rise in villainy resulting from Stain's campaign had inspired more heroes to focus on combat and villain takedowns, so natural disasters were becoming more deadly and villains who planned actual widespread destruction were fought by heroes unable to perform basic life-preserving strategies on whatever victims they encountered. He suggested adding a third subclass, "medical rescue", in addition to disaster rescue and villain takedown hero designations. Thirteen theorized that the fame and reward of heroics combined with an increased capacity for individuals with healing quirks would be a net gain for the Hero Network and Japan as a whole. While Momo agreed to an extent, she wasn't sure-

"So… ah…. What do you do? You go to the beaches around here?" Steve asked, finally having caught on that he was boring her.

It had certainly taken him long enough.

"Well, I uh, I like to build things," Momo sputtered, getting her brain back on track to this conversation. "I study chemistry and mechanics a lot." She waved her hand over the table and produced a Yaoyoroshka Mark IV, a version of her weaponized nesting dolls. This version, when thrown, turned inside out to produce blades. It wasn't very practical and she'd probably never use it, but it had been her most recent design and was fresh in her mind.

Steve reached across the table and grabbed it. "Chemistry and mechanics, huh? I've never really been into that kind of stuff. But this is coo- agh!" Steve had attempted to twist the two sides of the doll apart, but had sliced his hand open. He reached across the table and grabbed a fistful of napkins, cursing.

Momo sighed, took his hand, and unrolled his fingers from the bloody napkins, pressing an absorbent pad into his palm and wrapping gauze around it. She produced a safety pin from a finger and clipped it shut.

"Medical equipment, now that's a better use of your quirk than those dolls. You've got a real gift for taking care of people."

It was almost the same compliment she'd received from Todoroki yesterday, but she saw in his eyes that the comment was a snagged opportunity. He'd been looking for something to flatter her about. He was trying to be manipulative but, as he'd just admitted, he wasn't very smart.

Steve hissed and pouted, squeezing and opening his injured hand. The cut wasn't even that big. Whiny little bitch. Momo rolled her eyes and looked back up at the television. Maybe it was rude but this "date" had already gone on too long.

"So you're good with people, you're good at fixing booboos, so, speaking of creating things, do you think you'd want to have kids?"

Momo looked him in the eye and made a show of trying to find the waiter. Then she breathed and decided the question was fair since this was supposed to be a marriage negotiation after all.

"Do I want them? Not sure. I haven't given it any thought, honestly. But I'm a mutant- the first in my family with my quirk, and we don't know what effects it will have. I can't create anything living, as much as I've tried to make plants, vaccines, single-celled organisms. The doctors say there's a good chance my quirk might keep me from being able to have kids regardless."

Steve looked at her seriously, appraising her. "Your parents were able to produce both you and your genes. That should be a good sign, right?"

"Fair point."

Steve got a strange expression. "I mean, you're… normal, right? You know what I mean. You're… complete." He made a motion with his eyebrows.

Momo turned red in the cheeks and put her head in her hands. She looked back up at the television, trying to ground herself in the hero summit to calm down while she considered exactly what to do with the increasingly awful situation before her. He didn't like science, he couldn't carry a normal conversation, and he had just asked about her genitals on their first date.

Steve turned around to see what exactly it was she was looking at, just in time for the camera to pan across the audience. In the front row was Endeavor, on fire as usual, sitting next to Todoroki, who appeared to be asleep.

"So, ah, how close are you with Snowflake?" Steve asked.

"I'm the best student academically and he's the best fighter. We always work together because if we do we win. We're friends."

Steve turned around with a sly expression. "I get it. I have someone to compete with."

"What." Momo deadpanned.

"It's fine, I get it. I saw you guys getting all sweaty yesterday." He lifted his eyebrows, grinning. "And besides, I have a girlfriend too. Had. Had a girlfriend. We broke up."

Momo stood up.

"Ok, ok, ok, I'm sorry, I was wrong," Steve backpedaled frantically, waving his arms in front of him in what he probably thought was a calming motion. "I thought, you know, girls like guys who are gloomy and all that but I was wrong. You guys seemed close and I just wanted to let you know that it's okay if everything's not working out right now, I know this was short notice but we'll figure it out. We don't really know each other but I think we could make it work."

It was the first thing Steve had said that sounded like had put some thought into his words at some point. He was trying to reveal that he'd had a girlfriend in the years they'd been apart. Her feelings weren't hurt and she didn't blame him- she wouldn't have felt particularly awful dating, either. She until recently was almost certain that the engagement was off completely. And the fact that, while mistaken, he would have been understanding if she'd already been in a relationship was Steve's first point in the positive. He hadn't seemed the type.

"I don't want to sit in this cafe anymore. Let's take a walk."

XXXXXXXXX

The day after the summit was cloudy but not unpleasant. Tables had been set in the courtyard of the Todoroki home, where Fuyumi and her husband greeted far more guests than they could reasonably know personally. Todoroki sat alone awkwardly at a table where a group of people had left their bags.

This wasn't the type of occasion Todoroki preferred to spend his time, but it was pleasant anyway. He'd gotten to spend the hour and a half before the party carrying things where Fuyumi told him to while she lounged on a mass thrown together of chairs, pillows, cushions, and more chairs in a way that only a really, really pregnant woman did.

She told stories of the students she'd recently had to leave for the year, and Todoroki told her about his classmates' antics. She didn't say it, but the awed way she listened to the his tales of life in the dormitory made it clear she was happy for him. He'd never had friends and he'd never spent time with other kids, so the fact that he'd shared a story about Mina arm wrestling Dark Shadow for the cereal milk was more than she'd ever hoped for him. He didn't think it was quite as sappy as she did, but she wasn't the first person who had told him he seemed happier since leaving home. That shouldn't have been a surprise, but it was true anyway.

Now, watching the various women and occasional men who chose to attend the party share food and laughter, Todoroki couldn't help but be happy for his sister in return. She'd spent so much of her life feeling guilty over the events of their childhood that he wasn't sure she'd ever reach this point. Now, they were having a regular barbecue and anticipating the arrival of a new family member. Fuyumi had found the love of another person and the courage to bring life into the world when sh'ed found out she was pregnant with a baby she hadn't planned for.

But despite the fact that this was almost exactly what his father was trying to woo him with over the marriage arrangements, he still didn't want this for himself.

In the midst of the rising crime rates and chaos, things for Todoroki were improving for the first time in his life. He had made a friend- three of them, and there were other students in his class that he could envision himself spending time with at some point. Beyond Midoriya, IIda, and Momo, he appreciated Tokoyami's capacity to focus and perform well under pressure despite his usual dramatic air. He liked Shouji's habit of getting up every Sunday to make enough pancakes for everyone just because he could. He didn't think he'd ever put a lot of effort into a real friendship with Kirishima, but he still enjoyed watching him and Tetsutetsu beat each other up on the lawn in front of their dormitory every Tuesday.

Every conversation about some strange girl with nitroglycerine sweat or increased resistance to temperature fluctuation or enhanced hearing was a threat to the life he'd started to make for himself at school. He wanted to know where his current track was taking him, not get off on some new one when the ride was only beginning.

Shit. He was getting all sappy.

The party started to split apart; there would be an event at the other side of the house where the men would hang out for a few hours while the women stayed here. Todoroki got up, hugged his sister tightly, and followed his in-laws inside. He was about to go up to his room to get his things together before heading back to the school when his phone went off.

Come speak with me. Now.

XXXXXXXXX

"As you are currently not doing anything, I would like go back downstairs and meet someone." Endeavor was facing the window in the office of their home, looking out to where the guests at the women's half of the baby shower were milling about.

"What," Todoroki said flatly. "Who?"

"I took the liberty of calling up Miss Yaoyorozu's family yesterday." Todoroki started to interject, but Endeavor kept talking. "Unfortunately, it appears she's already engaged to someone. This is not a big issue, I have already been looking into various prospects for you and there is a girl nearby who doesn't have school on Monday either. Her quirk is extremely advanced stamina and a very powerful immune system. I believe both of these are things that would work well with the two that you have, and would most likely not interfere with them so as to make them ineffective."

"Look. Father. I was completely serious when I told you I would like to make my own decisions, particularly regarding this. Please do not schedule any further appointments with prospective suitors. Dear Lord. Please." Todoroki pinched his nose between his fingers. "Please."

"You've turned down every other prospect. The girl is already here. I am only asking that you speak with her. You may have the final decision, if that is what you want."

Todoroki almost protested, but shook his head. He could give this girl a shot, he decided. It would only make her feel bad and him feel like a dick if she came out to some stranger's baby shower and got stood up.

"Fine, but if I like her, we have to date for, I don't know, a year first. I'm not doing this your way."

XXXXXXXXX

Nonoha was nineteen and small, but fit. She had a plain face and hands that looked like she used them for working. Her black hair had two long braids framing her face, and her makeup was colorful. As she smacked her gum loudly, she reminded Todoroki of Jirou.

The full force of what Endeavor had said hit when he sat down in front of her. Momo was getting married. Steve was the guy. Steve was the guy Momo was marrying.

His jaw dropped slightly, and the girl, Nonoha, blushed awkwardly. She probably thought he found her attractive. Which, she was, but that wasn't it at all.

Steve? The American? He vaguely remembered Momo learning English from a book on a couch in the dormitory.

"What?" He asked.

"I asked if it was true you attended U.A." Nonoha brushed her long, straight hair behind her ear, but she was staring at one of the vases on a far table.

"Oh, yeah. Yeah I am. Did you watch the sports festival a few months ago? I was in that, so you might have seen me at some point."

He remembered Steve whooping at the sparring match. Everything started to make sense. Steve was one of those Americans who thought Japanese girls would be all over them. Watching Momo fight was a sight to behold indeed- Steve was ecstatic at having won such a perfect picture of Japanese femininity.

"No, I'm usually not really into that sort of thing. I'm studying art." Oh boy. Things weren't looking like there would be much to talk about for a single conversation, let alone a lifetime.

This was probably how Momo's date with Steve had gone. They'd chatted politely over tea or something and he'd made some comment about how cute this tea shop was, just like her, and it was probably terrible.

The worst part was, he'd thought based on their interactions that this would be some one-time thing that ended with Steve in a ditch somewhere. Apparently it had been serious enough that someone at the Yaoyorozu household had told Endeavor of all people to go away. This meant there was obligation. This meant Momo would try to make it work whether it was a good idea or not because she felt responsible.

This was bad.

"Oh no!" Nonoha squeaked. "Uhm, did you know that your hair is on fire?"

Todoroki's eyes widened as he patted the side of his head with his right hand. "Thanks. Sorry, I got distracted."

"It's okay. I'm not particularly looking forward to this, either." Nonoha looked at her hands, the admission embarrassing her a bit.

Todoroki turned and looked at her. "It's all right. I told my father I'd at least meet you so that I could give you a chance, but now that we know how much we really don't have in common, I'll tell him we're not compatible."

Nonoha looked confused. "Really? My grandmother told me the deal was pretty much set. That this was a first meeting of many, if you know what I mean."

He should have seen this coming.

Todoroki dropped his head into his hands. "I'm really sorry. It's my dad. He sortof… does what he wants. You know what? Why don't we give this another couple minutes and see if we have anything else we can talk about?" He tried a smile at her, but he was out of practice and he was sure it looked a bit garish.

Nonoha shuddered. "Ah, actually, I feel like I should probably tell you… I'm in love with someone else."

Todoroki raised his eyebrows. "Oh."

"And don't tell anyone, but it's a girl. No offense, but I'm never gonna love you, no matter what. I'm trying to stall until I can go to college and get away from my grandmother. Let's just call this off."

XXXXXXXXX

"He wouldn't call it off," Todoroki finished. "Said he didn't think I'd ever come to a decision and that this was the only thing he could trust me to do."

He was sitting in the floor in Momo's room playing with a Yaoyoroshka Mark 4, Momo on her desk at the room's other end. It was eleven o'clock Sunday night, and they were both in their pajamas.

"Which is just a very long way for me to break the ice, no pun intended, so that I can ask you about something. Is Steve the guy you're engaged to?" Todoroki wanted to keep staring at the doll, but thought he should probably give Momo the respect of looking her in the eye. She looked away anyway.

Momo snorted. "You said 'guy', but by the looks of things, the correct word might soon be 'corpse.'" She sat down in front of him on the floor against the bookshelf. "How'd you know?"

"Heh. My, ah, dad called your house and asked if you were available." Now Todoroki actually did look away.

"That's odd, it was an agreement between our parents but nothing's really been made official. Come to think of it, Steve's staying with my parents. He might have been the one who told your dad to bugger off."

"So he's possessive." Todoroki frowned. He had a bit of experience dealing with arranged marriages that had failed miserably, which was why he'd decided to confront Momo tonight in the first place.

Momo made vague, frustrated gestures as she spoke. "He's… something. We have virtually nothing in common. He was in the hero training program at his school, but he got swapped into general studies last year. He likes surfing and Nike socks. He made fun of my accent and made up a bunch of stupid nicknames and talked about how cute I was, but also made about a dozen suggestive comments about our… sparring session." Momo looked uncomfortable. "And that's just with the little English I'm capable of."

"So what now?" he asked.

"I don't know. I'm trying to find a solution." She noticed what Todoroki was playing with and sat up. "Be careful with that. Steve cut his hand open on that yesterday."

Todoroki looked more closely at the nesting doll. "This?" He tried to open it and had to dodge the blades that extended suddenly. He barked out a laugh. "I like it. I have no idea what you'd do with it, but I like it."

Todoroki reached over to hand the doll back to her and stiffened. "Which hand was it?"

"What?"

"Which hand did Steve cut open?"

Momo looked up, thinking. "The right one?"

"Dammit", he cursed. That's the one he shook. Not this again. "Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy." He looked back at her. "Did he just bring this up out of the blue?"

"Yeah, pretty much. He said he had a girlfriend who broke up with him, and that was maybe six months ago, and then three months ago he said he was coming here. My dad just told me Steve was coming and that we might make the engagement official at the end of the week if things were working."

"Doesn't sound like it's working, but you wouldn't be telling me about this if it was as easy as telling him to go away."

"Yeah, strangely, despite the fact that I have tried a couple of times to bore him to tears about chemistry, he's just not losing interest. He's still convinced it's a good idea."

Todoroki rubbed his forehead. "Ok, so I'm pretty sure I know what's going on here. This was his idea, not his dad's, right?"

"Yeah."

"So he's some spoiled kid who gets sent away to boarding school, where he's popular because of his quirk and his weird family situation in Japan, and everybody tells him he can be a hero. He's a trust fund kid and he's at the top of the social ladder. He gets a girlfriend. He joins the hero course. But he can't keep up. He's not very smart and he doesn't have the personality to match his… I'm guessing his quirk is body part modification?"

Momo rolled her eyes. "Yeah, he certainly didn't shut up about that one."

"Yeah, so once the novelty of that wears off his girlfriend leaves him for somebody who is actually interesting, and he gets moved to general studies. All of a sudden he's a failure. Clearly, not only is he not the brightest bulb in the box, but he doesn't have the interest in school to make up for it. There's bound to be somebody more popular, and of course his family isn't happy with his grades."

Momo squinted at him, trying to figure out where this was going.

"And then you show up. You make it pretty far in the Sports Festival, and that one clip of you taking down the robots with your vest undone goes viral. It gets out that that girl is the one at the top of the class in the top ranked school. Then, the nail in the coffin. You get paired up with Uwabami for the field training and she plasters you all over television."

Momo sat back against the bookshelf, understanding.

"You're his path back to social acceptance. He may have poor grades and a shitty, generic personality, but he's got that pretty hero candidate from Japan all over his Instagram feed- and best of all, if you're married, you can't leave like the last girl did."

Momo put her head in her hands. "That makes a lot of sense. He suggested I do an exchange with the American school for six months."

"Don't."

"I'm not." She picked her head up. "Now I have to deal with this. This has taken up a lot of his time and effort. The whole thing started because his and my dad used to be business partners but split up when his father went into politics. My dad's been struggling a bit for the last couple years, and we've taken a pretty big nosedive again recently. The preface to the 'hey my son remembered your daughter existed' conversation was 'hey you look like you need help continuing to function as a legitimate corporation, let's work out something mutually beneficial.'"

"Your dad's not going to marry you off to some foreign douchebag for money." He didn't thnk so, anyway.

"No, but I get the feeling relations between the two could get a lot worse fast, and I just don't want that to be my fault." She sighed. "I'm thinking I could just be all wishy-washy and say 'I don't know, let's do the paperwork later.' Maybe he'll move on to some other fixation."

"It's been three months, minimum. You know he'll keep pushing it."

She sighed.

"Yaoyorozu, you know I respect the hell out of you, right?" He asked.

"Ah, yes," she responded awkwardly.

"Then I want you to know that I am making this assessment completely objectively. You cannot marry that guy. Go marry some shy programmer who won't give you any grief. Go marry some hobo who will flash your name around to get into clubs. But don't marry Steve. My dad beat my mom every morning over the kitchen table until she lost her mind. I don't think Steve will hit you, but he'll belittle you in little ways until you're nothing. You get insecure sometimes, and this time you'll be on a different continent than your friends and family speaking a foreign language and eating trashy food. You'll lose the will to be a hero and you'll become a trophy wife because you'll have no one to support you emotionally and no one who wants to."

He turned to look at Momo, who was staring at him.

"I'm sorry, but that's the way it is. Either you'll lose your self-esteem or you'll be bored until you die."

Tears started to well up in Momo's eyes. Shit.

"I'm not crying over Steve," she said. "I'm just frustrated. You're right. I'm too complacent and I should have just told him to stay on his side of the ocean."

"Well, there was a little history there. You haven't really messed up yet. The question is what to do now."

"How do you say no firmly while making it really clear that it doesn't have anything to do with him? Even it does? We can't have any kind of retaliation."

"He'll take it personally whatever you do. The fact that he's willing to overlook the language and cultural barrier is a bad sign, and a worse sign is the fact that his dad is going along with it. By now his dad probably thinks this whole plan is a good idea, too. Sees you as someone who will grow in social standing. A net gain for the family."

"The only really 'good' reasons I've come up with that could justify the nullification of the prior agreement would be a better offer coming by or some previously unknown medical condition on my part. I already told him there's a good chance I can't have kids and he didn't seem to care, and any less severe medical condition isn't legal justification for a marriage annulment and therefore agreement by extension, so the second option's out."

"What does your dad even do?"

"My family owns a construction materials company. We've been having difficulty getting grants to fund the materials science research we need to get a competitive edge for manufacturing structural materials made more resistant to frequent kinetic impact. Hero-proofing buildings is in high demand and there's funding for it, and guess whose father works in what very convenient branch of government." Momo massaged her bare feet, not making eye contact. It wasn't in her nature to show weakness, and now she was explaining almost every weakness she had in detail.

"Oh."

On the dresser in Todoroki's room were four small objects. The first was a "thank you" card sent to him by Fuyumi's third grade class after he'd visited the school one day to answer questions about UA. One of them was a small figurine of All Might Midoriya had given him. The third was a pair of Iida's glasses Uraraka had swiped once. The final object he had on his dresser was a basic matryoshka he'd picked up after one of his and Momo's first missions together.

Despite all the progress he'd made, Todoroki knew that Momo was one of three, maybe four people on the planet whose presence he could not only stand but enjoy for more than fifteen minutes at a time. (Iida depended on the day, really.) He knew he wasn't the most expressive person and he appreciated how affording everyone had been through his transition from "kind of an asshole" to "kind of a nice guy." And if Momo was willing to help him understand triple integrals at three o'clock in the morning when his pleasant demeanor faded, he was willing to help her figure out how to escape from some weird legal situation, if only to make sure she was able to stick around.

Momo was, as Midoriya would say, "within arm's reach."

And just like that, he had an idea.

"You know how I make stupid plans sometimes? I need you to tell me if this is as dumb as I think it might be. Because I also think it might just work."

"I'm listening."

"There's another route to those research grants. The Hero Network can spew research money, especially under the guise of building safer buildings in place of whatever they destroy."

"But aren't those grants, like, really difficult to get to? Everybody and their brother is scrambling to get their hands on some grant because the work they do is tangentially related to the hero industry, and my dad isn't any more qualified. I'm pretty sure we've already been turned down for it."

"Yeah, they're difficult. You pretty much have to have someone on the inside in the Hero Network helping you, someone of high ranking or up there in administration. That's… sortof where I'm going with this."

"Neither of us will even be in the rankings for two more years." Momo looked confused.

"No, but this is where the thing you said about the legal agreement comes in." He took in an awkward breath, hoping he didn't sound like a total moron for making the suggestion. "You can break it if you get a better offer, right?"

Momo took a few seconds to process what he was saying. She stared at him, slackjawed.

"It would actually be pretty easy," Todoroki continued. "We wouldn't tell any of our classmates, Nonoha could go back to pretending to be straight, Steve could have his own private hissy fit, your family could get back to work, my dad would be ecstatic, unfortunately. He likes you. We'd go back to regular, everyday life for the next couple of years. When we graduate and go our separate ways, we can do the paperwork quietly and pretend it never happened."

Momo stared at him intently, trying to work through the logic. "Are you serious?"

"I'm completely serious," Todoroki said. "I'm suggesting we get married."

A/N: If you made it this far, you're a hero too.

So this is my first story for BNHA. I'm already a good way into writing chapter two and I'm pretty clear on where the whole saga is going, but I'd still really like your feedback so that I can get a feel for what you people want out of a story.

The whole thing will be 8 or 9 chapters, depending on how things get split up. This is my first romance, so I'm doing a little experimentation, but I have an endgame and I'm dedicated to doing this right.