Chapter Seven: Expanding (New Addition)
"Boss! The new interns are here!" Tekken called to Izuku from the outside of his office.
"Be right there!" He shouted back, saving the latest files on his computer and getting out of his chair. The now twenty-five year old Pro Hero stretched briefly before striding out of his office and making for the small lobby of their hero firm.
It had been five years now since Izuku and Ochako had started opened up this office, and in that time, it had grown at a steady pace. Grand Slam, Psykick, and Tekken had all graduated and joined them as sidekicks, with Tekken just graduating the previous year. They had a couple of other new interns at the moment, but Izuku and Ochako had decided to take it slow—they didn't want to be overwhelmed by a bunch of new recruits and not have the time to get to know all of them.
They were both in the top ten hero rankings at this point. Izuku was hovering between ranks four and five, dancing back and forth with Katsuki while Ochako was literally right behind them at six. She'd outpaced Shoto, though he never complained about it. Momo was just ahead of both Izuku and Katsuki, although she'd yet to reach the number one spot.
It went without saying that they'd gotten married in that time. Frankly, Izuku was pretty sure it had helped with their growing popularity—not that they weren't incredible heroes on their own, but the public had gone absolutely nuts when they'd gotten wind of their engagement, and the insanity was further pronounced when they actually got married. The press hadn't shut up about it for over a month.
Needless to say, that had only helped them climb the ranks.
With the office flourishing, they'd decided to take on two more interns this year to keep things running smoothly. These particular interns were old friends.
Izuku found Tekken with their new recruits in the lobby, and before he could get a word in edgewise, one of the new interns—a girl—bolted up to throw her arms around him.
Izuku grinned and hugged her back. "Hey, Eri!"
She looked up from where her face had been buried in his chest and smiled up at him with he brightness of the sun. "It's fantastic to see you again!"
"It really is," he agreed, beaming. "I'm glad you accepted."
"It was really hard, picking between you and Mirio," she admitted, pouting slightly.
He laughed and placed a hand on her head, just like he used to when she was but a child. "We'll get to work with him and Tamaki pretty often."
"Good!"
"What am I, chopped liver?"
The other intern, a boy, watched them both with a bored expression, but Izuku knew better. He smirked and held a hand towards him. "Of course not. Happy to be working with you, Kota."
Kota shrugged and came up to shake hands with him, only to yelp when Izuku tugged him into a tight hug. "Gah! Get off!"
Izuku released the squirming teenager and grinned down at him. "I missed you, too."
Kota's face was a little red, but he just scowled and pretended nothing was wrong. Tekken and Eri watched him with amusement.
"I'm here!"
The little group turned to see Ochako hurrying into the lobby out of her office, shaking her head with fond exasperation. "Mina wouldn't let me off the phone. I swear, she could find time to talk in the middle of a fight!"
"Maybe let's not tell her that," Tekken joked, smirking at the other woman. "Wouldn't wanna give her any ideas."
Izuku snorted in agreement. "Definitely not."
Ochako came over and hugged Eri, subjecting Kota to yet another unwilling hug regardless of his blustering complaints. Once her greeting was done, she stepped back and put her hands on her hips. "Right—we're gonna throw you two into the deep end! Let's get you on the streets, ok? Grand Slam and Psykick are out there already with a couple of our other interns. Tekken, you wanna go show them the ropes?"
"Sure!" She grinned, driving the fists of her steel gauntlets together. "I'll take 'em on the south-side circuit. Maybe we'll get a little action later on in the day!"
Kota blinked in surprise. "You aren't coming with us?"
"Another day I will," Izuku promised. "I'm gonna coordinate your patrol route from here today, and Ochako needs to check in with Grand Slam's group. Besides, you need to get used to working with everyone else here, ok? Today you'll be working with Tekken, and tomorrow I'll have you both out with Psykick, probably. You'll rotate for a bit, and then I'll do a circuit with you guys. Sound good?"
"Yup!" Eri smiled cheerfully.
Izuku smiled back. "Right—daylight's burning. Tekken?"
"Let's go get you changed, kiddies," she smirked at them. Eri just grinned back while Kota scowled at her. "Those villains ain't gonna arrest themselves!"
When she had showed them out of the lobby to the changing rooms so they could get into their hero costumes, Izuku glanced at Ochako. "I'm looking forward to having them around."
"Tekken is gonna drive Kota nuts," she laughed. "I think that she and Eri will get on pretty well, though."
"I think so, too. If nothing else, I bet Grand Slam and Psykick will get along with them both pretty easily. Not sure about the other interns," he admitted that last part with a slight shrug. "We could get everyone to the training room on Friday, give them all some time to interact once they've gone on patrol a few times."
"Sounds like a plan," Ochako hummed, closing the small distance between them, then tilting her head up to plant a kiss on her husband's lips. Izuku returned the gesture happily, wrapping his arms around her.
Glancing back at the door where their subordinates had disappeared through, he looked back at Ochako and leaned his forehead against hers. His voice dropped to a murmur. "They're all going to wonder why you're not going on patrols, sooner or later."
Her eyes flashed with amusement. "I'll let them think about it for a while."
Ochako took one of his hands into hers and slipped it around her waist until it was pressed against her belly. "I want this to be just ours as long as possible. I know it won't be a secret for long, but…"
"Yeah," he kissed her forehead for a second, then tilted his head to rest his cheek on her hair. "We should enjoy it while it lasts. Once everyone figures it out, people are gonna go nuts."
She giggled and nuzzled her nose into his neck. "The life of celebrities, huh?"
"Mm," he hummed a quiet agreement.
Truthfully, they'd only know for sure that Ochako was pregnant for a couple of weeks now. It was early days yet, but the moment they'd found out they'd had to make some important decisions, not the least of which was how they were going to cover her work load in the field. Granted, she probably would've been fine patrolling for a while longer, but neither of them wanted to take any chances, especially since Ochako's specialty was close combat.
Plus they'd both had a little freak-out when they got home after learning the news, deciding then and there that neither of them could focus in combat without worrying about the little life growing inside of her. So Ochako had made the decision to keep working, but remain at the office to coordinate patrols and keep their paperwork up to date. It was going to get really boring, really fast, and it would probably drive her nuts to get reports from their sidekicks without her being out there to help them, but she had made herself sick once already thinking about all the ways a fight with a villain could go wrong.
It wasn't that she cared about getting a little roughed up now and again—that was a risk she took every day, anyways. And of course she'd been socked in the gut plenty of times before, to which she then turned around and knocked out the villain responsible (and gods, that was satisfying). But suddenly her body wasn't just hers anymore, and the idea of a villain throwing a blow at her tummy now, well...
Well. It scared her. And yeah, they'd done a ton of research as soon as they'd found out, and of course she wasn't a piece of glass that could break at the slightest touch, but the anxiety was too much for them to handle. So she and Izuku had made the decision that instead of hiring someone to help run the office and paperwork, she'd do it until the baby was born.
They'd planned on hiring more interns soon, anyways, so that ended up being a good cover to bring more people in without anyone noticing that Ochako wasn't doing quite so much patrolling. Of course, they could only hide it from their friends and the other heroes for so long, not to mention the public.
The only people who knew were them and their doctor, who had promised to keep it quiet until they were ready to tell people. They were going to have Izuku's mother and Ochako's parents over tomorrow night for dinner, and they'd tell them then.
But for now, this precious secret was still theirs to keep.
Ochako finally pulled back and reached up to pat Izuku's cheek. "Right, back to work mister. We can't have our new interns out on the streets without you ready to coordinate things."
Izuku smirked. "Tekken won't get lost if I'm running a little late."
"So unprofessional!" She gasped in faux shock. "What would the public think if they knew you were slacking off so much?!"
"Shh, they don't need to know," he winked at her, to which she laughed and smacked his shoulder good-naturedly.
"I might keep it a secret if you cook tonight," she offered. "Pasta?"
"Pasta it is," he agreed, leaning down to kiss her hair one more time before she went back to her office. Izuku watched her go, feeling light and happy as he waited for Tekken to return with Eri and Kota.
Life would go on.
A/N: Woohoo! It's done! It's only like two weeks late, but it's finally done! Yay!
Alright, now that this is completed, I'll be looking to get at least one more Viridescent chapter out before IzuMina Week starts at the end of March! Look forward to it!
As always, please review and thanks for reading!