Nearly an hour later, Nana and Izuku finally touched down, having been practicing until they realized it was nearly lunchtime.

As they landed, Nana asked, "So, Izuku, what did you think?"

"It was incredible," Izuku replied.

Nana grinned in vindication and enjoyment at seeing her boyfriend enjoy a view she loved so much. Then, she joked, "There better be a "like you" after that statement, babe."

Raising an eyebrow, Izuku snorted, "I'm pretty sure that it was already implied, Nana."

"I'm bad with implications," Nana retorted smoothly, slipping her hand into Izuku's as they started to walk back towards the dorms.

"I have a whole lot of memories that beg to differ," Izuku told her, not even commenting on the easy, natural show of affection. Honestly, it felt like their connection had always been like this, and holding hands with Nana while they walked and traded jokes was something he never planned on giving up.

Nana rolled her eyes and huffed loudly. "Izuku, those are euphemisms. They're different," she protested.

Instead of responding, Izuku took a different approach. He stopped dead in his tracks, making Nana halt with a yelp as his larger body anchored her mid-step. As she was spun around, Izuku stepped forward into her, his arms slipping smoothly around her waist and head. As Nana reeled in surprise, Izuku kissed her passionately, pouring all the love he could into it as he held her tight.

After a moment of shock, Nana decided that she was extremely okay with this turn of events, and she returned the kiss just as fiercely, dragging Izuku closer with her own hands.

Smugly, Izuku used their link to ask her, "Are you picking up on the implications of that?"

Nana blinked, and after a few more seconds of wonderful kissing, she pulled her lips from Izuku's.

"First off," she told her boyfriend, "I very much get the implications of that. Second, that was smooth as fuck."

Izuku chuckled at Nana's slightly indignant tone, which was mostly because she enjoyed being able to fluster Izuku, and did not appreciate it when the tables were turned. A grin on his face, he asked, "So, you liked it?"

"I sure did," Nana replied, enjoying the way Izuku's hands settled on her waist, his steady fingers so close to trailing lower onto her ass.

God, she wanted him so badly. Nana liked to think that she had a healthy sex drive, but being around Izuku just made her go nuts. Add in the fact that he was still leaving her in a dry spell, and Nana was on the verge of acting like a fucking Victorian noblewoman and getting horny when a daring gentleman complemented her hat from a respectful distance away.

Izuku's smile only got wider, even if a pink blush appeared on his cheeks at the images appearing in Nana's mind. He reminded her, "Nana, please stop getting horny in public. Remember when Uraraka found us after that spar?"

"Yeah, and that was your fault," Nana pointed out, "and so is this, come to think of it. You can't blame me for wanting my strong, handsome boyfriend to grab giant handfuls of my ass and-"

"Aaaand that's enough for right now," Izuku decided, clapping a hand over Nana's mouth in an affectionate gesture.

She glared at him, and through their link, she finished, "Kiss me chastely on the cheek on a chaperoned date, you absolute degenerate."

Izuku couldn't help it; he laughed loudly, kissing Nana on the forehead and wondering, "How do you even come up with these things, Nana?"

When Izuku finally set her back down (much time her disappointment, because she loved it when he carried her), Nana answered, "Hard work and years of practice."

"I suppose that makes sense," Izuku agreed thoughtfully.

"Also, my instinctive response to literally anything is to make a sex joke out of it," Nana added.

Izuku groaned, hanging his head as they got moving again.

"Like that, for example. That groan sounded exactly like the sounds you make when your dick's halfway down my throat," Nana said helpfully, a wide smirk on her face.

Izuku didn't dare respond; he knew full well that Nana would find a way to turn it into a sex joke.

It's not like that saved him from her euphemisms, but still.

Izuku and Nana walked in comfortable silence for a few minutes, but Nana could sense something brewing in Izuku's mind.

Eventually, she asked, "Izuku, what are you thinking about?"

Izuku jumped a bit in surprise, before relaxing as he remembered that Nana could see into his mind. However, he wasn't really sure if he wanted her to know what he was thinking at the moment. The thoughts had only started a little while ago, but now they swirled like a tropical storm, overrunning everything else, completely inescapable.

"Izuku, you can talk to me," Nana reminded him, worry shining in her eyes.

Taking a deep breath, Izuku decided that there was no point hiding his feelings. He asked, "Nana, have you thought about...the future? What you want to do, what we're going to do?"

Nana was quiet for a moment, contemplating how to respond. At last, as they settled down on a bench for a talk they both knew had to happen eventually, she began, "Honestly...not really? I mean, since I came back, I've been taking things more or less as they come, getting settled, all that kind of stuff."

Izuku nodded in understanding, but pointed out, "Well, I think you're pretty settled by now."

"You're right," Nana agreed, "I guess it is time to figure things out."

"Okay," Izuku said, "how do you want to do that?"

Nana looked at Izuku for a long moment, and he got the feeling that she already knew exactly what he wanted to say. She replied, "You've clearly got something on your mind, Izuku. How about you spit it out?"

With a quiet nod, Izuku settled on the bench, turning his body to face Nana. She did the same, and their hands intertwined almost without their realizing it.

"Nana, I...I was wondering…" Izuku began, a little nervous about how his words would be taken, "if you were certain that you wanted to be a hero in your second life."

There was a long silence, and Izuku was terrified of how Nana would respond, especially since her face seemed completely neutral and emotionless. Eventually, though, she asked, "Why do you say that?"

Izuku rushed to explain, "It's just...I worry that you didn't really get a choice. Everyone just sort of put you into this situation when you came back, and...and you seemed to slot yourself into it because it was familiar. I'm worried that it isn't really what you want."

Nana smiled softly, but there was sadness in her eyes, and pain. Sensing more depth in Izuku's mind, she stated, "There's more to it than that, isn't there, Izuku?"

Guiltily, Izuku nodded and finished, "You...in your first life, you died, Nana. Doesn't that...I don't know, make you hesitant about becoming a hero for the second time, knowing that you still risk meeting the same fate as you did the first time?"

Nana detected something hidden yet again with the way Izuku's voice hitched when he said "died," but she had something else to address first.

So she told the man she loved, "Izuku. I know damn well what happened to me at the end of my first life. And you know what? It doesn't matter."

Izuku looked up at her with fearful eyes, stunned by the intensity of the gaze Nana shot back at him.

Nana continued, "It doesn't matter because I've never wanted to be anything else, do anything else, other than being a hero. It's who I am, Izuku. It got me killed thirty years ago, sure, but how many people didn't get killed because of me? Besides, that risk is lower today than it was when I was a hero, and anyway, it's the risk you'll take, too. I'm not going to let you go into danger that I won't face myself."

Izuku nodded, accepting Nana's reasons. One last time, he asked, "You're sure, then?"

"As sure as I am that I love you," Nana promised, her hand coming up to gently cup Izuku's face.

Leaning close, she murmured in a low, intense voice, "I choose this for myself, Izuku. I'll choose it a hundred times, a thousand. I choose you."

Izuku leaned forwards, too, resting his forehead against Nana's. They stayed there for a long moment, eye-to-eye, in perfect sync.

Then, Nana and Izuku pulled away, and Nana assumed, "That wasn't all you wanted to talk about, was it?"

"No, it wasn't. I actually wanted to discuss...us," Izuku admitted.

Nana felt her heart skip a beat for a moment, until she remembered Izuku's words earlier that morning. Taking a deep breath, she asked, "What about us?"

"Our future," Izuku explained, "what we want to be, what we want to do."

"Okay, well, first off, I want to do you," Nana replied cheekily, enjoying the entertained smile that flirted across Izuku's face before he returned to his thoughtful look.

"Ha ha," Izuku said, "really, what I'm talking about is...what's our plan?"

"Our...plan?" Nana repeated curiously, "umm...you've met me, right? Plans tend to break around me, not get made."

"Maybe," Izuku responded, "but, well, I know that whatever happens after we leave UA, I want you there with me. To do that, we need to know what we want to do."

Nana was so deeply touched, it took her a second to find her words again. Taking a deep breath, she said, "Izuku...I want that, too. Wherever we go, whatever we do, we'll always be together. Honestly, we have time to figure out more than that. What our relationship is, how we fit together…those things will come in time."

Izuku agreed, "You're right, we do have plenty of time. But I do want us to agree to something first."

"Anything," Nana told him, meaning it as deeply as she had ever meant anything.

Izuku took a long look into Nana's eyes, the beauty of her face nothing compared to what he saw in her heart. In a voice that resonated with the hope of a quirkless boy who had become the greatest hero of a generation, Izuku said, "Whatever the future holds, we'll always be heroes together. Promise me that?"

Nana knew that there was no question to it, no chance of any answer except the one she knew was the truth.

She promised, "Heroes together, no matter what."

Nana and Izuku shared a gentle, soft kiss, and then they knew the promise was true. Suddenly, the future seemed a lot less scary.

Ochako and Mina happened to be the only ones eating lunch in the common room when Deku and Shimura walked in, holding hands and almost managing to look like they hadn't been getting busy, wherever they'd been. Unfortunately for them, Ochako and Mina were pretty good at interpreting the mussed hair and clothes, not to mention the lingering blushes on the faces of their friends.

Swallowing a mouthful of her sandwich, Ochako called out, "Hey, Shimura, how did training go? You teach Deku any new tricks?"

"Oh, I bet he knows all the best tricks already," Mina stage-whispered, more than loud enough for the couple to overhear.

"I heard that!" Shimura called back with amusement in her voice, "what are you implying?"

"She's bad at implications," Deku added helpfully, earning a laugh from Ochako and Mina and a mock-exasperated glare from his girlfriend.

(Ochako was surprised, and happier than she would have expected, to find that she could think the words "Deku's girlfriend" and not feel a single pang of hurt or jealousy. Instead, she was only thankful that Deku had found someone so wonderful, so perfect for him.)

Mina replied, "Shimura, if you don't want us knowing that you're fucking Midoriya, then don't fuck Midoriya."

"I'm afraid that's not possible," Shimura said, ignoring the wild, stammering protests from her boyfriend.

From her position lying lengthwise across the couch with her legs propped up on the armrest, Mina pretended to stroke her chin thoughtfully for a moment, before she announced, "Yeah, that's fair. I can't say I blame you, when you've got all that to play with."

Neither could Ochako. Lord knows that she'd had plenty of fantasies to act on, if she'd made different choices.

Deku, having apparently recovered from his brief freak out, asked, "What's that supposed to mean, Ashido?"

Mina and Uraraka took one look at the green-haired man, then at each other, and started laughing. Meanwhile, Shimura took her boyfriend by the sides of his face and informed him, "It means that I'm one lucky girl."

"You sure are, Shimura!" Mina agreed, her black-and-gold eyes twinkling with mirth.

"Anyway," Ochako suggested, mostly for her best friend's sake before Mina and Shimura killed him, "why don't you two go grab some lunch? There's some leftovers in the fridge."

"Good idea," Shimura decided, "here, Izuku, let's go."

Then, for seemingly no reason at all, Shimura levitated off the ground and flipped upside down, her long black hair hanging from her head and only making everyone's heads hurt more.

Nonchalantly, she turned to her boyfriend, now at eye level when she was usually considerably shorter than Deku, and asked, "What? There's not something on my face, is there?"

Smiling and looking totally unaffected, Deku replied, "Nope, babe, there isn't. Now, are we going or not?"

"We are," Shimura agreed. Then, she and Deku quickly started to walk through the sitting area towards the communal kitchen on the far side of the common room. Shimura never even wobbled as she casually strode across the ceiling of the common room.

As they passed, Mina remarked, "Shimura, I don't think I'll ever get used to you doing stuff like that with your quirk."

Turning, Shimura asked from nearly five feet off the ground, "Oh? What are you talking about?"

"Oh, I don't know, maybe being upside down and walking on the ceiling?" Ochako suggested, trying to suppress a giggle as Shimura blew a loose strand out of her face while trying to maintain her exaggerated pout.

Innocently, Shimura replied, "Hey, from my perspective, you're on the ceiling. Take that!"

Ignoring her bizarre statements like they'd all gotten used to doing since the flying girl had joined the class, Mina told her, "Look, I've seen you do some really crazy stuff. How on Earth did you get so good at using your quirk?"

"Yeah," Ochako agreed, "it took me years to be able to control my nausea when I float, and I still can't do some of the things you do!"

"You see, I have given up all attachment to the idea of "upside down." There is only whichever way I am facing, and how silly it makes all of you look," Shimura explained in a fake-deep voice, clearly trying to be gravelly and mysterious. The fact that she had to keep her hands on her hips to keep her t-shirt from falling upwards, as well as the goofy grin on her face, somewhat ruined the effect.

Mina and Ochako simply stared levelly at Shimura for a few moments, until she rolled her eyes and sighed, "Actually, it just took a lot of practice, and realizing that in a fight, basically everyone still expects you to orient yourself with your feet pointing down, even when you have literally no reason to."

"That makes sense," Ochako admitted, "maybe I should try that sometime."

"I could show you sometime," Shimura offered, still unapologetically inverted.

Ochako was genuinely interested in trying new applications for her quirk, of course, and there was enough overlap between her and Shimura's quirks that it might be an excellent opportunity, so she agreed, "That's a good idea. Let me know when we can work on that, whenever you aren't getting your brains fucked out, of course."

Shimura laughed and started to reply, but whatever she was going to say was cut off when Deku came up behind her and stuffed a roll into her mouth. Shimura's eyes went wide and she glared at the green-haired man, who just smiled and told her, "Come on, let's eat!"

Instantly, Shimura's eyes softened, and she happily floated towards the table, chewing on the buttery roll as she went.

For a while, Mina and Ochako ate in silence as well, until at last Deku and Shimura finished their own lunch and disappeared again, presumably going to train, or maybe fuck again, who knew with those two.

Once they were gone, though, Mina mused, "You know, I had a thought the other day-"

"Always a dangerous thing," Ochako joked, earning herself a glare from the pink girl.

"I was saying," Mina repeated as Ochako shrugged unapologetically, "that I had a thought the other day, and it made me realize that we might be in danger."

Instantly, Ochako's eyebrows shot skywards, and her whole body tensed up. With a low, urgent voice, she asked, "Wait, what? Why are we in danger?"

"Because Midoriya and Shimura are fucking," Mina replied.

Ochako stared at her friend in confusion, trying to understand the bizarre and sometimes terrifying inner workings of Mina Ashido's mind.

"Okay, what the hell are you talking about?" Ochako demanded.

Mina quickly began to explain, "Okay, so, you know how insanely powerful Midoriya is? Like, "I-can-erase-city-blocks-with-one-punch" powerful? And you know how Shimura is All Might's daughter, and she's apparently almost as strong as he is?"

Ochako nodded slowly, still not understanding.

"And you know how some people can lose control of their quirks in stressful or intense situations, like how you start floating when you get flustered or surprised?" Mina continued.

Ochako protested, "I-that's because I forget, sometimes! I don't lose control!"

Mina stopped her explanation to look Ochako straight in the eye. Dryly, she pointed out, "You once made the entire couch start floating because there was a sad scene in a movie we were watching."

Ochako blushed a little, and she knew that she'd lost that argument.

"Anyway," Mina said, "back to what I was saying. So, our resident hot and horny couple both have insanely overpowered quirks. Now, let's just say that they get really into it, and one of them starts sparking up like they do, and then one of them moves-"

Ochako went pale as she finally put the pieces together. She finished, "Oh god, they'd level the building, wouldn't they?"

"Probably," Mina agreed, "at the very least, they'd start caving in ceilings with every thrust."

Ochako winced and decided, "You know what? I don't particularly want "my friends with super-strength quirks fucked too hard" to be the epitaph on my grave."

Mina replied, "Oh, believe me, I don't either. Although honestly, I feel like it's probably not gonna happen."

"Why not?" Ochako asked.

"I mean, how hard would they actually have to go at it for stuff like that to happen? There's no way Midoriya is that good, right?" Mina pointed out.

Ochako, despite not believing that she was actually thinking about this seriously, stroked her chin thoughtfully. At last, she decided, "No, probably not. Even with how loud he can make Shimura scream sometimes…"

"Oh, believe me, I'm aware," Mina responded tiredly, "those two are actually fucking insane. It's not like I can blame them, though. If I was dating someone as hot as either of them, you better believe I'd be getting my money's worth."

Ochako rolled her eyes and snorted, "Ashido, calm your gay. You're not allowed to make eyes at my best friend or my best friend's girlfriend, we've been over this."

Mina's grin was wide and unrepentant. The pink girl replied, "I will never calm my gay. I'm not gonna do anything, I promise, but can't I at least appreciate it?"

"You're ridiculous," Ochako grumbled.

"At least me being horny doesn't result in an earthquake risk like your best friend," Ashido pointed out.

Ochako felt an involuntary shudder run through her body, and she agreed, "You know what? Fair."

The worst part of it all, Ochako decided, was that Deku and Shimura were probably fucking right now. Seriously, did they ever stop?