I'm On My Own, You Came Alone (All Dressed Up in Bad News)

"I'll see whatever doesn't make me stronger kills me. But it's gonna be a long year 'til the hospital can find hope in me; tell me I survive…"

('Astoria' by 'Marianas Trench')

Izuku followed cautiously behind Stratosphere to the far side of the cemetery.

She didn't say anything as they walked - and he made a point to trail a meter or so behind, still not trusting her completely. He was fairly confident that he could fight her just fine; she'd never really tried to in the past, knowing better than to challenge a man who could level a city block in one hit in direct close-quarters combat. However, he was mindful of her having any tricks up her sleeves, both literally and metaphorically. He was also too awkward to walk next to her, even though he would never admit it out loud.

Izuku could hear Shouto cackling at him in the back of his mind.

They walked together for quite a while, winding down paths and under some of the more wooded parts of the cemetery, until they came to a stop next to a pair of gravestones that were mostly away from any others nearby. Izuku cautiously approached where she stood until he was at her right side. He maintained a respectful half-meter of space between himself and her, however, and peered at the engravings on the headstones with curiosity.

Uraraka…

It was a husband and wife if he had to guess. Their birthdays were different but they had the same date of death, about… two years ago, give or take? They both had similar memorial text on their headstones and the headstones looked new enough to match the listed date of death. Izuku decided for himself that this probably wasn't a ruse - or if it was, she was extremely committed to it, to an unreasonable degree.

Izuku looked up and to his left at her, with a bunch of questions on his mind going in different directions all at once. She regarded him neutrally from the corner of her eye, though she wasn't directly looking at him yet. Izuku blinked a few times in confusion, not really sure where he wanted to begin, or if he wanted to speak first - but she solved that problem for him. She took a deep breath, then began speaking without taking her eyes off the headstones.

"When I was younger my parents were not very well off. They worked really hard to keep me fed and clothed - often sacrificing their own happiness to achieve that." He noted that she had reverted to her more 'urban' accent; a cover, he theorized to himself. She also had a tone that was, to him, absolutely sincere; if she was lying, she was doing so flawlessly. "I wanted to be a pro Hero to provide for them. But that… didn't work out. So I did the next best thing I could think of with my quirk."

She turned then to look at him, her eyes glassy and sad. There weren't any tears yet, but Izuku knew that expression because he wore it too often himself. Puzzle pieces clicked into place. She'd been on the radar of the Hero Commission for about half a decade, since around the time he was in his third year of school. But her parents… They had died recently, which he found curious.

If she became a thief to support her parents, what happened to them?

She sensed his unasked question. It was probably written on his face, and Izuku blinked and tried to adopt a more neutral expression with pursed lips.

"I am very successful at… what I do. And I made sure my parents could retire early and fulfill their dream to see the world." She sighed heavily and looked to the sky. "It was good for a while. They didn't ask too many questions about what I did. I never told them details, and they were so grateful to not have to work so hard that… it was okay." Now the tears were falling, and they tracked down her full cheeks as her blushmarks became less dark, almost barely noticeable against the tears in the sun. "They wanted to go to Hawaii and travel to America for vacation. So I set up the trip for them, thinking it would be good for them to fulfill their dream escape. They had been on vacation plenty at that point, so I figured it was just another trip. But… this was their first time to the States."

She sniffled and looked back down to the gravestones.

"They weren't used to the way people drive in America, especially with the roads reversed. And… they got into an accident." She trailed off and turned to look at him expectantly, looking entirely miserable as she did so. Izuku didn't quite know what to say at all.

She blames herself…

He could understand that, at least. He still thought often about if he could've saved All Might - and if being the Ninth Bearer of One for All meant All Might's death was his fault. He decided to try to shift the subject even if it meant annoying her, out of a combination of curiosity and a desire to help make her feel better.

"So… why are you still a villain, then?" He asked pointedly. She raised an eyebrow at him, getting ready to say something snippy in response, then thinking better of it. Instead she looked up to the sky again after a moment. Tears were still on her face, but the mood shifted.

"This life… It's been very rewarding. But it's also a hard one to leave, even if you want to." She spun her umbrella in her hand unconsciously. "You start to carry on due to inertia - 'just one more job, and I'll be done.' Until you never stop." She looked back at him and blinked her tears away a bit. "I hope they're not too mad at me, wherever they are. I assume they've learned the truth now."

Izuku did not question her implicit assumption that they were somewhere now, somewhere separate, that there was some continuation. He too had to believe that, for his mom's sake. And he had seen that such a thing did exist, objectively, for Toshinori. Why not for others in some manner?

A realization hit him, as he thought back to All Might's grave.

"You're… not from around here." She tilted her head at him and made a little 'O' with her mouth. "The accent gives you away," Izuku added, the slightest bit of teasing entering his tone. She narrowed her eyes at him, though it was more of a pout than real anger. "So… how did they end up here, if you're from the country?"

Izuku completed his thought with his own head tilt. She smiled sadly in response. He felt his cheeks pink slightly.

She's really cute when she smiles, even if it's sad…

"I paid a lot of money to have them buried here," she began, then she looked back to where they had come from. "I wanted All Might to watch over them. Metaphorically, of course," she finished, and looked at him with a knowing glance. Izuku did not point out that All Might probably literally watched over them via One for All, but he thought about it, and it was comforting to him if not to her.

"Ah," Izuku said, as if that answered all the other questions he had jumbled in his mind. It didn't, but… it put enough pieces in place to satisfy him. He could understand, he figured, and something about understanding made the idea of being angry at her distinctly unappealing.

It was different when she wasn't just a faceless, masked villain, when she wasn't just 'Stratosphere.' Now… she was a person.

They stood in companionable, if slightly tense, silence for a while. Izuku shifted his weight on his feet, unsure of what to do now. He knew that what he should have done was try to arrest her; she was a notorious criminal who had stolen billions of yen, after all. But it felt wrong to try to do that - not there, and not today. She sensed his indecision.

"How 'bout a truce, Superhero? I promise I won't taze ya today," she said, with only the slightest sarcasm. Izuku glared at her before replying.

"You're not helping your case," he grumbled bitterly. She giggled at him, covering her mouth mischievously, and he blushed. He was well and truly hopeless, though at least he had the presence of mind to be aware of that fact. She shifted her umbrella to her left hand and turned to him, right hand outstretched.

"How 'bout, just fer today, we act like normal people?" She gave him a genuine grin as he eyed her hand apprehensively. Even in spite of all of it, he halfway expected her to be hiding some kind of device in her palm.

"Fine," Izuku said, after a few moments of consideration. "But, only if you tell me more about yourself," he added, as he shook her hand. Thankfully there was no surprise waiting for him, and he noted how she kept her thumb raised as she shook. "And as long as you promise not to drop any I-beams on me today."

She eyed him thoughtfully, and when she spoke again she was back to her cover accent.

"I can't promise you I'll answer all of your questions, but, sure." Then she wiggled her eyebrows at him. "No promises on the I-beam, though."

Izuku's eyebrow twitched in irritation, but he tried to offer a neutral smile and not let her get the better of him. However, he was distracted when it suddenly got much darker around them. He looked up and found to his dismay that clouds now covered the sky. He opened his mouth into a comical 'O' shape of surprise, then he looked back down at the umbrella in her hand, then back at her.

"You didn't look at the weather today, did you?" She asked, but it was really more of a statement at his expense. She looked at him smugly, like she had once again gotten the better of him.

Izuku just groaned, dragging his hand across his face in frustration.

That was how he ended up walking next to Stratosphere - a thief, one of the most wanted people in Japan, and the subject of his ongoing case at his agency - in the rain on a late Thursday morning for a casual stroll.

He ended up as the umbrella holder, his right arm awkwardly held out to cover both of them. It was a big umbrella, at least, and he was glad since the rain started coming down in sheets soon enough. She reached out and curled her hand around his bicep, pinky raised. Izuku side-eyed her in response, his cheeks pinking as he did so. She just smirked at him, looking entirely pleased with herself, before looking away to survey the road around them as they walked on the sidewalk.

"So," she began, still not looking at him, "what would you like to chat about as we walk?"

The rain was coming down hard enough that everyone else was rushing quickly to escape the downpour and mostly leaving them alone and getting out of the way. Some people rushed past a little too close, but Izuku wasn't very concerned about them. He looked around feeling like he was on patrol, looking for threats as if the threat wasn't standing next to him under his (her) own umbrella. They were walking on the sidewalk now, alongside the cemetery, and the rain came down hard enough that water was rushing down the gutter on the side.

Izuku frowned in thought for a moment, trying to choose his words carefully lest he make a fool of himself. Or at least, more of a fool of himself than he already had at any rate. He was a Hero, suited primarily to saving people and fighting villains who wanted a direct confrontation, not so much espionage or the finer points of conversation with a pretty lady.

That second thing wasn't even a Hero thing, though. He was just a dork.

"We're not really friends, you know that right?" Izuku intended his words to come out harsh, but instead he just sounded like he was pouting… probably because he was. She chuckled in response, thinking the same thing based on how self-satisfied she sounded.

"Maybe so, but we could be! That's all on you, Superhero," she said. Izuku's frown deepened in response. He latched on to the stupidest part of her statement, hoping it was safer.

"Why do you insist on calling me that?" He replied petulantly. She half-turned her head and eyed him playfully, a knowing smirk on her face.

"What will you do for me if I answer your question?" She asked. Izuku blinked in confusion, caught off-guard by that.

"Er… I'll answer one of your questions?" He said, feeling just about as silly as he sounded. She rolled her eyes at him and looked over at a businessman who was struggling in the rain. He was wearing a business suit and trying to cover himself with a briefcase, though he was not really succeeding at that.

"I am sometimes amazed at how bad you are at this," she said casually, still looking away. Izuku couldn't help but scowl at her once he stopped looking at the poor businessman.

"Bad at what?" Izuku asked, feeling entirely annoyed that he even cared as much as he did what she thought. She grinned at him when she too turned her gaze away from the businessman as they walked past. They were at the edge of the cemetery now and moving on down the blocks.

"That look does not suit your pretty face. Also, you're bad at extracting information through banter. That's what happens when they send a boy scout to do the job of the cops," she said. Izuku sputtered at that.

"Excuse me?" He said, and he had half a mind to tilt the umbrella and let her get soaked on purpose. She just patted his bicep sympathetically with her right hand.

"Maybe you'll understand more when you get older."

"Ugh, you are the worst."

"The blush on your face says that you think otherwise," she said mischievously. His blush deepened as he looked away with a roll of his eyes.

Izuku stopped abruptly at the intersection, waiting for the light. She stopped as well, not taken aback in the slightest, and he looked over to see she was giving him a very irritating, chipper smile. The crowd had thinned to effectively non-existent and they probably looked preposterous walking through the rain as they were. Or maybe that was just Izuku's self-consciousness talking, he couldn't say for sure.

"You didn't answer the question," Izuku said, thoroughly annoyed at how difficult she was being. His resolve to not arrest her was fading, though he couldn't deny that this was also the most interesting social outing he'd had with anybody who wasn't Shouto in months, possibly years… Mostly because he never went out anywhere.

"That's a better look for you," she said, not skipping a beat. "And, the answer to your question is: you're not like the other Heroes. You're super. So I acknowledge it."

He blinked in confusion, feeling rather dumbfounded. Her tone was so matter-of-fact that he almost believed her.

"Thanks? I guess?" He wasn't exactly sure what to think about that. She just nodded sincerely in response.

"It's a good thing. I respect it. You might be a little shy and a little naïve, but Hero society needs people like you, I think," she said, completely earnestly. Izuku did not say anything immediately, electing to look across the road at people walking and pretend not to be as embarrassed as he felt.

"You are so weird," Izuku finally said in reply after several moments, and she looked at him with absolute incredulity. He recognized defeat when he saw it. "Alright, fair enough."

"My turn. Have you thought more about my offer?" She said after she regained composure from giggling at him, a little bit more seriously this time.

The truth was that Izuku had looked carefully at the business card she gave him. It was black and velvety in texture, but all it had was a phone number printed in pink characters. But he hadn't actually decided what he wanted to do yet because he wanted to discuss it with Detective Tsukauchi first.

"I did. I'm still not convinced it's not a bad idea. Probably a very bad idea," Izuku replied neutrally. She hummed thoughtfully, but didn't press further. Izuku didn't mention that they were aware she was working for someone now, and the fact that he was thinking about it at all was because he wanted to know more about that.

They came to another intersection and stopped. Izuku was very grateful that everyone was hurrying to get out of the rain and thus paid the two of them no mind. It was bad enough that he was with a villain in public - though admittedly no one would recognize her - but the prospect of a news cycle about his 'new girlfriend' was mortifying just to think about too.

"My turn again. What's your real name?" He asked with a frown. Stratosphere side-eyed him.

"Who said this was a game, now?" She replied cautiously. Izuku shrugged as much as he could without getting both of them wet, as the rain continued to come down in buckets.

"I did," Izuku said without shame. She raised an eyebrow, hesitating for a moment. For once, he felt like he'd gotten the better of her and caught her flat-footed.

"My name is Ochako. You may call me that, if you like," she said, then she paused before adding, "and don't bother looking me up, you won't find anything."

Izuku tilted his head at her in a silent question. Ochako just shrugged in reply, looking entirely too smug and pleased with herself as she regained her proverbial balance. Her big brown eyes were practically gleaming at him, and her face stretched beautifully with her teasing smile. There was a brief but comfortable silence between them as they walked.

"I've been doing this for quite a while now, and I've had time to interfere with public records," Ochako continued matter-of-factly as they went. They had walked several blocks by that point, and he was slightly annoyed that the water was splashing him from the ground due to how hard it was raining. He did not dress warmly enough for this kind of weather at all. Izuku turned and gaped at her statement, then shut his mouth with a click and sighed.

No point in being surprised when it came to her, he realized to his irritation. Ochako took his reaction as an invitation to add more.

"How did you end up with such an adorable Hero name?" Ochako asked teasingly. Izuku groaned in embarrassment. He didn't hate his Hero name… but he was always afraid it was kind of silly.

"I didn't know what to call myself in high school when they made us pick Hero names. For a while I was just 'Midoriya,' which was really kind of pathetic. 'Jade Rabbit' is what the press started calling me when I was in the Big Three in my third year, and I just kinda… let it happen," Izuku explained, feeling very foolish. Ochako chuckled at him, obviously, genuinely amused. He watched her face and she raised a brow at him in a silent challenge.

"I'm not sure it really suits someone of your… abilities, but I enjoy the merchandise," she said, and he didn't quite register it at first. Izuku turned away as she started speaking to make sure he wouldn't step into any puddles, but he whirled his head back around to look at her wide-eyed when she finished.

"You've bought my merchandise?" He said, dumbfounded but maybe a little proud. Ochako looked quite amused at him in reply.

"I didn't buy it, but I have some. You're the number one Hero, remember? I have a nice poster you signed for the Prime Minister on my bedroom wall," she said slyly. Izuku was thoroughly stunned as his jaw dropped.

"You stole from the Prime Minister?" He asked incredulously. Ochako snorted at him.

"No, I did not." There was a brief pause as she scrunched her face and nose up a bit, and it was adorable. "I blackmailed the Prime Minister," Ochako admitted casually, still scrunched up a bit. Izuku gasped, but Ochako just gave him an unremorseful expression. "The Prime Minister is a jerk."

Izuku started to argue but realized he didn't know anything about the Prime Minister outside of some scattered professional meetings and awards ceremonies, so he didn't feel like sticking his neck out for the guy.

"You're bad," Izuku finally said, not sure how else to respond.

"Perhaps, but the people I pick on are usually worse," Ochako replied cheekily, although she did not look very happy as she pulled her lips to the side in a pout. He found that unusual, but did not comment on it. He thought about it for a while, then blurted out his first disbelieving thought.

"You blackmailed the Prime Minister of Japan and all you got out of it was a poster?" Izuku exclaimed. Ochako just laughed at him.

"No, but I remember the poster."

"One of these days I'm actually going to catch you and you're going to go to jail forever," Izuku pointed out in a slightly bemused tone.

"Unlikely," Ochako responded flatly.

"What, going to jail?"

"No, you catching me," she said without hesitation. Izuku groaned at her.

"Tell me how you ended up as a thief and a villain," he replied, hoping he sounded authoritative. Ochako looked at him with disbelief.

"Why would I do that?"

"Because you know my life story and I don't know yours." Izuku did not point out that the official version of his life story was mostly built on lies of omission and half-truths, but that was fair enough given her respective 'job' description.

"Your life story is public knowledge!" She countered immediately. Izuku didn't think very hard about his witty response, which was a mistake.

"Only the boring parts," he said. Ochako blinked at him in surprise, then she narrowed her eyes at him.

"Okay, well, will you tell me the good parts then?" She asked in a pointed tone. They came to another intersection, and by that point, pretty much everyone was gone off the sidewalks. The rain wasn't coming down quite as hard, but people had given up on the day even still. Izuku frowned, pretending to think very hard about it.

"I dunno, will anything you tell me be the truth?" Izuku said bitterly. Ochako chuckled at him.

"I'm glad you are not completely clueless, Midoriya."

"Hey! Don't be so mean to me," Izuku whined. Part of him was starting to forget exactly who Ochako was, because part of him was having fun actually interacting with another human being outside the context of Hero work. Shouto mocking him for not having gone on a date in who knows how long came back to him, and he suppressed the urge to groan at the thought.

"It is not very befitting for the Symbol of Hope to act so childish," Ochako said, her tone mockingly serious. Izuku scowled at her, but then looked up when he saw that they were at his destination. She also looked up, and he looked to her to find a very confused expression on her face.

"You brought us to the beach?" Ochako asked with a frown.

"No. I went to the beach and you happened to follow me," Izuku replied simply. That was what he would tell himself to salvage his dignity, at any rate.

"It's my umbrella," Ochako pointed out cheekily.

"Ugh, you are impossible. Just come to the gazebo so I can give this back to you."

In spite of what he said, Izuku was too impatient for that - and he wanted to prove he didn't need to travel with her at all. So he just pulled his arm away and handed her the umbrella, before marching down the pier towards the gazebo. He got thoroughly soaked doing that, but was determined to pretend like he wasn't cold as hell. He was also determined to pretend like she wasn't the first new person he'd had a normal conversation with - insofar as it passed for normal - in far, far too long. She seemed normal as well, and that was weirder to him than anything else about the situation.

To his great annoyance, Ochako followed him, and was irritatingly dry doing it as she kept the umbrella up along the way.