Uraraka felt numb. She'd been walking around in a daze for the last few weeks, catching small time criminals, completing the same loop over and over as she numbed herself with the cold embrace of work.
It's all she knew how to do.
Every Thursday, Bakugou took her to get drunk so she could cry.
Tuesdays Kirishima watched hero movie reruns until she fell asleep.
Wednesdays she went to Inko's house, where they sat, swapped stories, and grieved.
It felt like she'd never get out of the numbing rain.
She visited Izuku on Saturdays, and told him of her exploits, how she was looking for the villain that killed him, Beam.
How many criminals she'd locked up, how numb she felt without her best friend.
One Saturday, she jokingly tells him she used to have a crush on him, before she had fallen for Tenya. She tells him how the other 1A girls would tease her about her crushes, how she couldn't choose, until the day he and Shouto had walked into class holding hands. She smiled, and remembered congratulating them before turning to Iida and immediately asking him out. She recounts to him her first date, tells him how from that day forth Izuku became a brother, not a love interest, and how much she missed him.
That Sunday, she visits Tenya's grave like she does every other Sunday, and tells him that she misses him, and loves him.
That same day, like every other second Sunday of the month, she visits Shouto's grave, tells him how happy she is that he and Izuku are finally together again.
Then she repeats the cycle.
Mondays she hunts for Beam, Tuesdays she watches movies, Wednesdays she visits Inko, Thursdays she gets drunk, Fridays she hunts again, Saturdays she visits Izuku, every other Sunday she visits Tenya, and repeat.
She gets used to her routine, gets comfortable in it, and begins to get content.
She starts visiting the orphanage again on Fridays, baking cookies likes she used to.
After four months she moves back into her apartment, and it's not nearly as painful as she thought it would be. She finds traces of Izuku everywhere, but there's no longer the crushing weight that he'll never be able to do any of this with her again, because she likes to think that Izuku's waiting, living with his husband and hers, and when it's her time she can live with them where they are, and that gives her comfort.
After two years her routine changes.
She brings down the notorious villain Overhaul, and with it the twelve year old girl Eri who had been used by him.
She adopts the girl after her trial, takes her under her wing, and Tuesdays turn from movies with Enjirou to movie nights with Eri, and her visits to her family's graves are no longer alone. Thursdays, she doesn't get drunk anymore, she hosts dinner parties with Inko, Katsuki, Enjirou, and Eri, as well as Tsuyu, who had begun her own grief that one of her sidekicks died in battle with her. They swap stories, and the hole Izuku left doesn't disappear, but it gets more manageable, as she imagines Izuku, Tenya, and Shouto with them, a big happy family.
The girl seems so sweet, and it breaks Ochako's heart that Izuku won't meet her for many years.
It's another year until she finds Beam, and it rips the hole anew, and it's as if Izuku was newly dead again.
She finds the villain in a crappy, gross bar, one he frequents often, and he's bragging to another villain, 'Twice', about the heroes he'd killed.
She catches Izuku's hero name, and is about to move in when another name catches her attention. "Ingenium, he was a fun kill. His bitch cried over the corpse when he was found. I hadn't even needed my Quirk for that one, that was fun."
Then she sees red, for this man has not only killed many of his comrades, but also her adoptive brother, and her husband! She immediately tackles the man, snapping a Quirk blocking collar onto him, and punches him in the face a few times to knock him out. She then flashes her hero badge, and glares down anyone who looks at her until they clear a path to the door, and she drags the man out by the collar of his ratty flannel shirt.
She calls up Kirishima, voice breaking, and gives her coordinates, and when he asks for details, she just says "I found him." and hangs up.
Ten minutes later, in the pouring rain, the sound of sirens surround her, and a familiar black spiky head approaches. She wordlessly offers the villain to Enjirou, and he takes Beam, dragging him over to a squad car as Eri pushes her way through the crowd and hugs her, and she hugs back, finally crying into the smaller girl's embrace, and she's led away to a car, brought into the backseat as she was three years ago, and she cries as she's taken back to her apartment. She goes in, numb again, and opens Izuku's room for the first time in months besides the occasional cleaning.
She collapses onto his bed, cries into his pillow, and grieves again.
The next day, she changes her routine again. It's Saturday, and she makes a picnic lunch before waking up Eri and getting her breakfast, and then the two of them go to Inko's house, inviting her to go to Izuku's grave with them, and the three women visit his grave, where Ochako proudly proclaims that she's captured the villain Beam, the man who killed Izuku, and Inko gasps at the news, tears dripping down her face as she buries her face into Ochako's arms.
A strong wind picks up, and the nearby sakura trees spill their petals, and over Inko's shoulder Ochako swears she sees Izuku in the petals, waving at her with his usual bright smile, and she cries as well.