Izuku woke up in his dorm room, relishing how comfy his sheets were.
It felt like he was being wrapped in a cloud. He was still fairly sore from the festival the day before, so lying down in his bed was akin to a gift from the gods.
He had gone straight from the podium to Recovery Girl's office the day before, apologising to Momo again, but she just waved him off, saying that she would text him later so they could set up a time to talk.
He was a bit confused about what was so important she needed to plan an outing to tell him about it, but he was fine going along with it. If she wanted privacy, he would be happy to oblige her.
Realistically, she could ask him to do just about anything and he would do it for her. It had been a few years after he had met Momo that he realised he had a crush on her, and then a few years after that, when the crush hadn't gone away, that he realised he loved her.
But she was Mo! The badass, martial artist, super-smart, super-pretty creation goddess of his dreams. There was no way she would reciprocate any of his feelings, she was way too far out of his league for anything like that to happen.
So he had stayed her friend for these long years. He promised himself that he wouldn't allow his problematic feelings to ruin their friendship, to undermine the trust they had built up over the decade they had known each other.
Part of him still held out hope, and it was that part that was the most excited for this upcoming talk. He knew it was the longest of shots, but that little bit of him wondered if she considered the outing a date.
He laughed softly under his breath, shaking his head sadly.
Like someone as fantastic as she was would want to go on a date with him…
Momo was panicking.
Turns out, it wasn't just a few hours of waiting, as almost immediately after Izuku got back to the dorms, he had passed out on the couch, leaving it up to Kirishima to carry him back to his room.
She looked over the 30 different outfits she and Itsuka had picked out and laid on her bed, breathing heavily as she tried to find the perfect outfit for this totally a date but he doesn't know it's a date.
Itsuka just laughed at her from her chair, ignoring the glare Momo sent her way. "You know you could be wearing a potato sack and ripped up boots and he would still follow you to the ends of the earth, right?"
While the image of Izuku staying by her side for the rest of their lives was a fantastic one, one that filled her with joy, Itsuka's snarky comments was not what she needed right now.
"Itsuka, I swear to god if you are just here to tease me I will wring your neck." Itsuka flinched slightly at the menacing aura that briefly surrounded Momo, before nodding.
"Fine, I'll dial down the teasing. I know how much you want this." She looked over the outfits and grabbed a simple outfit comprised of some jeans and a black shirt. "Just go simple. Go to fancy and you'll look out of place, and probably make him uncomfortable. You said you were just getting coffee right? This should be fine."
Momo looked the outfit over, before putting it on. She looked it over in the mirror and found that she liked it, nodding at Itsuka. She pulled on her sneakers quickly, tying the knots as quickly as she could.
"Itsuka, are you 100% sure about this? I mean, if he likes me back, why hasn't he ever done anything to show it?" Itsuka facepalmed at both Momo's doubts, and her shitty argument.
"He hasn't 'done anything to show it', because the dumbass is too afraid to lose you as a friend to risk anything. And while that's not a particularly good argument, it does make at least a little sense."
Momo smiled at the girl and started putting the other outfits she had pulled out or created away. The two of them walked out of Momo's room and headed for the common area.
Both of them were surprised when they saw a dishevelled Mina attempting to sneak out of Setsuna's room. Mina just gave them an awkward wink and headed to her own room.
Neither of them commented on it.
Izuku was feeling good about today.
He was out with his best friend in the world, people were congratulating them for their performances in the Sports Festival, and Mo was being even cuter than normal.
The coffee shop they were going to try out was a bit farther away from UA than they would normally go, but Izuku had heard good things about it. Apparently it was a good spot for hero-watchers, as a bunch of mid-to-high level heroes around UA would stop there and sign the occasional autograph.
They had gone a roundabout way and stumbled upon a group of small children who recognised them and started praising them for how good they did.
Momo had instantly started fawning over them, showing off her Quirk by making them small figurines of themselves using their Quirks for them. That had just caused them to be even more excited, running off to play with them.
Izuku, watching this, fell for Momo a little more.
They eventually arrived at the cafe, just in time to see Mt. Lady and Kamui woods exiting the cafe, before Kamui grabbed the roof with his Quirk and dragged them both onto the rooftops, out of sight.
Izuku chuckled at that and held the door open for Momo, who smiled as she walked in, Izuku following behind. They grabbed a booth up the back and ordered their drinks.
They made idle small talk about the festival, their friends, parents, things like that until their drinks were given to them, where they went silent for a minute, just sharing each other's company.
Momo finished her drink first, and Izuku raised his eyebrow at the worried expression working its way onto Momo's face. He sipped the rest of his drink and sighed. "What's bothering you Mo? You look all worried. It's not something I did, is it?"
Momo shook her head quickly, waving her hands in front of her. "No, no! Nothing you did, you've been nothing but excellent this whole trip! It's just… I wanted to talk to you about something, and I'm psyching myself up for it."
Izuku nodded, sipping on his coffee, letting Mo 'psych herself up' with a small amount of hope in his chest.
It took a few moments before Momo slid over closer to Izuku and grabbed his hand. Izuku's heart kicked into action, beating faster than it had ever gone before, at least in Izuku's opinion.
Not that his mind was clear enough to think properly right now. Mo had gotten closer to him and was now holding his hand. He snapped back into reality and looked Mo in the eyes, smiling at her. She coughed into her other hand and started talking.
"Izuku, I remember when we first met at Kendo's dad's martial arts school. You looked so afraid that everyone was going to hate you for your Quirk, and it filled my heart with joy to see you smile after I complimented you."
"And then, over the course of the last decade, I got to see you go from shy and scared to confident and happy with front row seats. All those nights you, me, and Itsuka spent staying up late chatting about heroes or practising with the staff together, I cherish all of those memories."
Izuku just smiled at her as she took both of them down a trip through memory lane, promising himself to carve the determined face she was making into his memory forever.
"And then we got into UA together. I was overjoyed! It was agony having to go to separate schools from you and Itsuka, and there are still some days where I wish I had just said no to my parents and gone to Aldera instead."
She shifted in her seat, her voice cracking slightly. "And then the USJ happened, and I was so afraid. I was afraid of dying, I was afraid of our friends getting hurt, but the one thing that filled me with more fear than any of that was seeing you get crushed into the staircase."
Izuku squeezed her hand. "Mo…" he was about to start talking when Momo's other hand came up to his mouth, silencing him.
"Just give me a minute. If I stop now I don't know if I will be able to continue." Izuku nodded, and Momo took her hand off of his face. "Where was I… Ah, right, the USJ."
"When I saw you lying there, broken, because you tried to protect us, something clicked in my head. We're going to be heroes. That means facing our problems head-on with no regrets, not letting things like fear get in our way."
She put her hands on Izuku's cheek, staring right into his eyes. "That's why I'm just going to go ahead and do this now. Izuku Midoriya…"
Izuku froze in shock as the love of his life, the girl of his dreams, the goddess of creation herself, kissed him.
"I love you."
Izuku smiled wider than he ever had before, wrapping his arms around Momo and kissing back. After what seemed like hours, they pulled back, both out of breath, eyes partially glazed over with goofy grins on their faces.
"I love you too, Mo."
Turns out, Momo really liked to cuddle.
Izuku wasn't complaining at all. They had arrived back at the dorms to find a suspiciously empty common area, almost as if someone had made everyone leave…
Those thoughts had left his mind the second they reached the couch and Momo nearly tackled him, snuggling up into his side. Izuku fought back a blush at the position, before wrapping his arm around her.
This was a literal dream come true for him. Cuddling Mo, right after she became his girlfriend? Woah… That was a weird thing to think about. Mo, the prettiest, nicest, smartest girl Izuku had ever seen, was his girlfriend.
While he was enjoying this cuddle session more than he enjoyed fighting in the sports festival, he almost felt insulted at the fact that the other girls thought they could hide from him around the corner of the doorway.
He could see them huddled behind Itsuka and Mina, and Izuku guessed that they had their phones out, filming or taking pictures. He coughed to let them know he knew they were there, and Itsuka proudly marched out, smiling at the pair.
"Well that took fucking long enough! Eight years! For eight years you dumbasses dodged each other! It took Izuku nearly dying for this to happen!?" Itsuka half-yelled at them, smirking.
Izuku laughed at the speech, trying to ignore that fact that he could sense part of Setsuna's quirk taking up space in the lower half of what he could sense of Mina's. He didn't need to think about that right now.
"Well, she is and was too important to me, there was no way I was going to screw this up. But I'm really happy that we get to do stuff like this now. It was definitely worth the wait."
Momo smiled up at him and gave him a peck on the cheek. Itsuka smirked as Izuku went beet red, hiding his face in Momo's shoulder. "You're damn right this was worth the wait! Do you know how good of a pillow you make?"
Momo shook her head. "If I had known you were this comfy, I would have made this happen years ago!"
Izuku laughed and pulled her in closer, ignoring the coo's coming from the other girls. "Well, you can get used to it Mo. No more waiting."
Momo created a blanket, covering the two of them while Izuku shooed the others away.
"Now, how about a movie?"
