I do not own these characters or the world, that belongs to our lovely author of MHA, Kohei Horikoshi. Also, cover art was a commission by me from the artist Krumbs. Follow them on if you'd like! They are extremely talented!
A/N: This chapter was actually largely inspired by a bit of fanart that I found of Ochako and Bakugou, believe it or not. It showed them under one of the class desks, with Bakugou coiled up under the desk with Uraraka squatted between his legs and him pulling her into a kiss. Obviously, that doesn't exactly happen in this chapter, but that image was the inspiration behind what I do in this chapter.
Also, I have one of the characters take a particularly harsh perspective on pregnancy, or rather, a very aggressive scientific lens to it, in that they equate it to a parasitic infection because yeah, furthering the species aside, at its base gestating a human is very much like harboring a parasite. Of course after birth, that parasitic relationship stops, but during gestation you could 100% argue parasitic tendences.
Forty-One
When in Doubt, Hide!
Ochako sat with her legs crossed at her desk, Satou's desk pushed up against hers, though Satou wasn't currently seated in it. That dubious honor belonged to the spikey haired, irritable blonde Bakugo. She was less than thrilled with this development. When they'd started their daily lesson for the specialized sex ed unit, now covering pregnancy, she'd been more than a little annoyed when she had once again been randomly paired with Bakugo.
This section was a little different in that they'd all been randomly assigned to three larger groups that covered the three trimesters of pregnancy. Then from those three large groups, they broke down further into pairs that were to cover between two and four weeks of each trimester.
Given the amount of information about both maternal and fetal physiology during pregnancy, this was one of the last sections of their sex ed unit and as a result they were given a week and a half to put together research on their assigned portion of the trimester. At the end of that week and a half, the teams would come together in their respective trimester groups and present on them as a whole.
While Uraraka had had the misfortune of once again being paired with the cranky Bakugo, the rest of the classes' pairings didn't seem so bad. For the first trimester, Ida was paired with Kirishima and they were covering week one to four; Koda and Tokoyami covered weeks five to nine, and Todoroki and Mineta had the last two weeks in the first trimester. For the second trimester, Hagakure and Asui started off things with weeks thirteen through seventeen; Bakugo and Uraraka got weeks eighteen through twenty-one; Aoyama and Satou got weeks twenty-two to twenty-five, and wrapping up the end of the second trimester was Ojiro and Yaoyorozu with weeks twenty-six to twenty-seven. For the final trimester, things started off with Jiro and Kaminari on weeks twenty-eight to thirty-two; Deku and Ashido covered weeks thirty-three to thirty-seven, and concluding the third and final trimester with the final weeks were Shoji and Sero.
Each pairing would spend a week researching and studying their part of the first, second, or third trimester. At the end of a week, they'd have an essay due that covered the details of their assigned portion of a trimester. After they'd completed and submitted their essays, they were then to meet with the other members of their assigned trimester and pool all their findings and prepare to present an overall picture. They would have two days to come together and plan their presentation and then on the third they would present to the class. One speaker was selected to present for each. Ida was selected for the first, Yaoyorozu for the second, and Ashido for the third.
Uraraka had breathed a sigh of relief when she hadn't been chosen to be the speaker. It was lucky that Yaoyorozu was part of her second trimester group, since she gave off natural leader vibes and didn't seem to be as prone to bumbling through awkward subject material. At least the topic of pregnancy wasn't as awkward. Right?
"Ugh, what a waste of time," Bakugo huffed and leaned back his chair. He didn't look anymore cranky than usual which Uraraka figured was a good thing.
"I don't think it's entirely a waste of time. Our moms all went through this so it might be kind of interesting to learn," Uraraka suggested in a placating tone. In truth, she wasn't very eager to be paired up with him again, though ultimately their grouping the previous time hadn't ended that badly. It had just started poorly. Hopefully this time would be different.
"Yuck. Like I want to think about my hag of a mom waddling around," sneered Bakugo. He'd wrinkled his nose and curled his lip in disgust at the mention of his mother which Uraraka quietly found both amusing and offensive.
"Well don't think about your mom then, just think about like, well, think about I guess just the details? Like the stuff that happens to the mom and the baby during our assigned weeks."
Bakugo snorted again and looked at Uraraka with narrowed eyes. "Please. Don't call it a baby, it's a fetus which is nothing more than a glorified parasite. The thing isn't even viable until like week 24 anyway and even after that it's parasitic at its core."
"I mean, it's not really viable before those weeks yeah, but I don't know that I'd refer to it as a para—" Uraraka snapped her mouth shut when Bakugo abruptly rocked forward, his chair no longer leaning and now loudly rocking forward.
He stared at her with irritable but intense eyes. "It's a parasite. From the moment of conception it starts stealing its' hosts nutrients, creates hormones that make the female body go bonkers and willingly split its resources with the foreign invader. The blood volume increases, the uterus expands to about five times its normal size, the lungs, bladder, intestines—all organs basically—get smashed around just to compensate with the swollen uterus, your hormones go insane, you willingly gain weight you'd normally never want—all of it just to compensate for the sake of a parasite. Let's not even get into diseases of pregnancy like eclampsia. That little foreign invader that extras like you refer to as a baby, can literally be responsible for killing its host if the pregnancy doesn't go as planned."
Uraraka blinked at him in surprise. She had never really thought of pregnancy like a parasitic infection before. It made some sense to equate it to that but it also seemed extremely callous since any successful pregnancy resulted in a baby which assumably, was something the 'host' wanted. Not to mention, it was the only way to sustain and continue a species' existence. The same could not be said for any parasitic infection. There was no upside to being infected with any kind of parasite, that she knew of, anyway.
"Oooookay, forget what I said I guess, but we do have to work together on this. I know that I'm probably not someone you wanted to wo—"
"Got that right," Bakugo interrupted as he once again leaned his chair back, his hands thrust into his pockets, jaw outthrust in annoyance.
"Don't interrupt me," Uraraka commanded, her voice harder than had been a moment ago and gave Bakugo a glare of her own. His gaze flashed to her for the briefest of seconds and she thought she saw just the hint of a smirk at her demand before his eyes darted away and he gave an irritated snort. "We have to work together on this, so let's just do that. We don't have to make models this time we literally just have to write a paper together that sums up the stuff that happens during our four weeks."
"Fine. What do you actually know about our assigned weeks during the second trimester?" Bakugo growled.
Uraraka opened her mouth to speak but stopped. What did she actually know about the second trimester or about weeks eighteen to twenty-one? Well, if she was being honest, she didn't know much. Until today she hadn't even known how the trimesters were broken up. The only thing she felt fairly confident that she did know, was that a pregnancy at anytime during weeks eighteen to twenty-one was rarely if ever salvageable should pre-term labor occur.
"Uh, well, I know that if you went into labor during those weeks that it wouldn't be able to survive, and that I guess you might start to show then?" Her voice sounded uncertain even to her own ears. She could only imagine how it sounded to Bakugo.
Without even looking at her Bakugo said, "so basically nothing? Typical."
"It's not like I read about the intricacies of pregnancy for fun!" She countered and crossed her arms. Why was working with Bakugo always so difficult?
Bakugo rocked his chair forward again and pulled their reading material out and thrust it at Uraraka. "Get reading then. Little shit does a lot in that time span and mom's organs start to really feel the squeeze."
Ochako rolled her eyes and took the book and began to look over the page that the book was turned to. How did he even known that weeks eighteen to twenty-one started on this page? Why couldn't he be nice like Kirishima or any of the other boys? If he had even the tiniest bit of charm as they did—and that was being generous to the boys considering she was lumping in extremely undesirable people like Mineta into that category—then working with him wouldn't be so crappy. Genius he may be, he was still a real tool when he wanted to be.
Class had finally come to an end and Izuku had gathered up his belongings and was in the process of putting his slippers away and exchanging them for his sneakers. The majority of his classmates were milling about or in a similar state of trading slippers for shoes. He briefly glanced around to see if he could see Uraraka but after a quick glance he didn't see her. Perhaps she was back in the classroom?
He'd left class relatively quickly once their lesson had concluded. They'd spent half of the class being lectured by Recovery Girl on the first trimester of pregnancy and then the second half had been spent with their assigned partner doing independent research on their portion of one of the trimesters. Ashido had been assigned as Izuku's partner which had suited him fine. Truthfully, he was just secretly glad that he wasn't paired up with Mineta again. Though, it was possible that Mineta would be more willing to participate since their current group project was about pregnancy instead of reproductive organs that he'd deemed boring.
Ashido didn't seem to have all that much information on pregnancy, not that he did either, but she was far more agreeable to working together than Mineta had been. He thought that the pairing would work well and that things would go much more smoothly!
Bakugo bumped into Deku's shoulder as he passed by him. "Watch it!"
"Oh, sorry Kacchan," Izuku apologized and looked after his cranky friend.
"You bumped into Midoriya, Bakugo, perhaps you should apologize to him," Todoroki interjected, surprising Deku.
"Oh put a sock in it icy hot!" Bakugo snapped back irritably.
"I'm just stating facts," was Todoroki's icy cool response.
"It's okay Todoroki, but thanks for stepping up for me! Hey, uh, have you seen Uraraka?" Deku asked, hoping to move the subject away from Bakugo's rudeness and to something more neutral.
"Uraraka? No, I haven't seen her since we left class. I would say that maybe she's still in class but she was paired with you, wasn't she Bakugo?" Todoroki asked with a delicate eyebrow arched in question.
Bakguo snorted in response. "Unfortunately."
"Hey I don't think it'd be unfortunate to be paired with Uraraka," Izuku started but stopped when Bakugo shot him an expression laced with annoyance.
"Of course you wouldn't," the blonde snapped.
"Do you know where she is?" Asked Todoroki.
"Beats me. Last I saw her she was gathering up her crap back at class," Bakugo stopped and smirked at Deku then; a smirk caught between being vicious and mischievous, "she's probably still back there so if you hurry you can probably catch her and you two can cry over the beauty of pregnancy, or whatever else it is you two do together."
"Why would they cry over that?" Todoroki asked not quite catching the mockery in Bakugo's tone.
"Because they're both pussi—" Bakugo started angrily but was interrupted when Kirishima came up from behind the fiery blonde and put a friendly arm over his shoulder.
"Bakugo my man! You wanna hold any more of your study sessions? Not gonna lie, I've got no clue about pregnancy or trimesters, but I bet you do!" Kirishima smiled broadly at the ruffled Bakugo.
Bakguo shrugged off Kirishima's arm in annoyance. "I'm only gonna tutor you if you pay attention. The last time we had a study session you weren't paying attention at all!"
"Yeah, sure, I'll pay attention!" Kirishima reassured.
Deku watched the two banter for a moment before he put his sneakers back into his locker and then started to head in the direction of their classroom. Not that he really needed to see Uraraka for anything important but he wanted to talk to her.
Since he had come back from his weekend work studies, they hadn't had any time to chat about well, anything, but what he really wanted to talk about was the upcoming plum blossom festival. He had gotten approval for leave from Endeavor and she'd gotten to go ahead from Ryukyu which meant it was a go. Sure, he could probably just covertly talk to her when they were both at the dorms but he wanted to talk to her now…or perhaps he just wanted to see her, he honestly wasn't sure.
In fact, he'd wanted to talk to her all day. Ever since he'd gotten the go ahead to go to a festival with her, he'd felt like he was on cloud nine. The thought of going to a festival with a girl that wasn't his mom or just some friend was exciting! Would they hold hands? Would they share a candied apple together? Would they eat a crepe together like a real date? Would they play festival games together? Buy merch together? Maybe there'd be some All Might merch there and he could buy her something All Might inspired!
Izuku crossed the threshold of their classroom, his gaze directed toward the left side of the room since that's where Uraraka's seat was and where she was most likely to be. As he crossed into the class however, she wasn't at her desk. He could see a small pencil case on her desk and her UA blazer was draped over the back of her chair but aside from that, no Uraraka.
He took a step forward and started to reach out to the pencil case on her desk when a soft familiar voice cut through the silence and startled Deku into yelping in surprise.
"Deku!?"
"Eep!" Deku exclaimed as he looked in the direction the voice had come from, the direction of his desk. He'd been expecting to see his desk empty, but he was surprised to see that Uraraka was currently sitting in his desk and was staring at him with bright red cheeks.
Uraraka stood up swiftly, the chair screeching against the floor loudly. "Sorry! I just, well, I just…I wrote a little letter to you and had come over here to tape it to the underside of your desk, and well, yeah." Her voice trailed off and she lowered her eyes in embarrassment.
"Uraraka," Izuku said softly and felt a tightness in his chest. How sweet! She wrote me a note and was going to leave it for me as a surprise!
Without even thinking, he moved across the classroom and closed the distance between them to envelope Uraraka in a tight embrace. His hands wrapped around her shoulders and back and rested there, savoring the feel of her pressed against him. His face tucked down and into the crook of her shoulder. He was briefly overcome by the smell of peonies when he caught a whiff of her hair. She smells nice, he thought to himself dreamily.
Uraraka had been surprised by his movement and was briefly left too surprised to react, her arms awkwardly held up before she relaxed and entwined her own arms around him. They stood like that for what felt like a blissfully long time to them but in reality, was probably no more than thirty seconds. Izuku would've been happy to stay that way longer but he caught the muffle of voices somewhere down the hall and felt his stomach suddenly flip flop with anxiety. They were about to be caught!
Deku immediately released Uraraka who was trying to scoot away from him to put distance between them. The voices down the hall were getting louder and closer. Deku shot a nervous glance at the door and back at Uraraka. There wasn't really anything wrong with them being caught together in the classroom…alone…but the implication that could be perceived was one that filled both of them with anxiety. What could they do? Where could they go?
Where could we go…? Deku thought nervously, his eyes darting around the room as if to spot some hidden door or closet that they could hide in. His eyes darted over his desk and he an idea suddenly struck him. The desk! They could hide under his desk!
He looked over toward Uraraka who had a panicky expression on her face and also looked like she was desperately searching for a means of escape.
"The desk. We hide!" He whispered in a rush and pointed toward his desk. Uraraka looked at the desk, at him, the classroom door and then back at the desk again and nodded a single time before she practically dove under it. Izuku immediately followed after her.
They had seconds to adjust themselves before whoever was in the hall crossed into the classroom. Deku managed to get himself into a semi reclining position with his legs and feet up against the opposite side of his desk, his head resting against the other side and leaning on his elbows. Uraraka had managed to tuck herself on the other side of him, awkwardly placed in between his legs, her knees pulled up to her chest, her back resting against the side of the desk that his feet were up against. The two faced each other, faces bright red and practically holding their breath as the sound of soft footfalls entered the classroom.
"I swear I saw Midoriya head toward the classroom. Oh hey, isn't that Uraraka's blazer? Is she in here?" Came the girly voice of Ashido. Deku felt his stomach flipflop with anxiety both because of the precarious hiding place they were in and also because Ashido was likely looking for him because of something to do with their assignment.
"That's her pencil case and her desk so I think that's a safe assumption." Jiro's voice answered.
"Okay well I'm like 99% certain that I saw Midoriya head back toward the classroom and I'm pretty sure I heard him asking Todoroki and Bakugo if they'd seen Ochako, so maybe he came here looking for her?" There were more sounds of soft footfalls moving around the opposite end of the classroom, likely circling around Uraraka's desk.
Deku let out a tiny sigh of frustration at his carelessness in asking about Uraraka. Why couldn't he just have waited until they were both back at the dorm? If only he could have been patient! He looked toward Uraraka, perched in between his legs, pointedly not making any contact with his legs or feet despite the fact that she was placed so very close to both.
"Dunno, maybe there's something over by Midoriya's desk? The chair is kind of all pushed out," Jiro suggested causing the two hiding under Deku's desk to begin sweating profusely.
"Good point," Ashido agreed. The sound of moving feet immediately followed Ashido's words
Izuku hurriedly put both hands over his mouth to try to stifle the sound of his panicky breathing but in doing so, slid down the side of the desk since he was no longer resting on his elbows. He now lay completely flat on his back, his gaze facing upwards at his desk. There was a small little folded piece of paper with a tiny heart drawn on it and his name written on it except it wasn't 'Deku' that was written on it but instead it read 'Izuku'. That's my first name…Uraraka used my first name, he thought to himself warmly.
Any pleasure at seeing the note however, swiftly evaporated as the sound of Jiro and Ashido's footsteps grew closer. Izuku could hear the footfalls stop just short of his desk. He shot a panicky glance in Uraraka's direction but it was difficult to see her without sitting up which he was afraid would make sound and attract attention.
"Eh, I don't see anything. Where did he go?" Ashido's voice drifted ever closer until Deku realized that she was moving around the desk to stand in the space between the desk and pushed out chair. "Does he normally leave his chair pushed out like this? Seems kind of sloppy."
Deku's gaze moved toward the pulled out chair and saw Ashido's slippered feet standing there, not more than a foot and a half away from his face. This is bad, she's literally about to find us and if she finds us like this, well that's going to be a lot worse than us just standing alone in a classroom together!
Much to Deku's surprise, Uraraka suddenly leaned into the juncture of his legs and lay flat against his chest. They were briefly face to face before Uraraka turned her head to the side not facing Ashido's feet. She had essentially crawled onto Izuku's midsection her torso precariously draped over his groin and part of his chest. Both of her legs were curled under her, making Deku painfully aware of the feel of her knees pressed up against the underside of his pelvis.
The position was one that immediately made him tense up. Here was the girl that he really really liked laying on top of him, her face turned to the side, ear pressed close to where his heart would be. Just thinking about the positioning alone was enough to make him get a little too excited. Why did she move onto me? Why? WHY?! This is like the worst time ever for her to make physical contact with me. I don't want to be excited about it but my body…is being…really irritatingly horny right now!
"Well, Uraraka is clearly around here somewhere. Her stuff is here. We could wait I guess, but I'd rather get back to the dorms, I agreed to study first two weeks of our assignment with Kaminari tonight," Jiro's voice rang out from the front of Izuku's desk.
"Oh yeah? Excited about that are you?" Came the teasing voice of Ashido. Her feet remained in the space between the desk and chair, painfully close to the hidden couple.
"What? No! Not at all, he's just, you know, like bolts for brains, so it takes time to get everything straight with him," Jiro said defensively.
"You are really too hard on him, you know? He can't help that when he overuses his quirk he fries his brain."
"I think his stupidity runs deeper than that," Jiro replied with a snort.
"Haha! That was funny but really mean!"
Deku watched in muted terror as he saw those slippered feet suddenly adjust and shuffle as she abruptly sat down in his seat. She scooted the chair in, her feet now no more than six inches from touching him. He tried to inch further away but he was already flush against the back of the desk. One hand moved from his mouth to cradle the back of Uraraka's head in a comforting gesture. He could feel her curl further into him, likely just as painfully aware of the close proximity of Ashido as he was.
"What are you doing? Pretending to be Midoriya?" Jiro asked.
"No, just wanted to see what it's like to be seated here. Wonder what it's like to have mister cranky pants sitting in front of you?" Ashido's feet tapped playfully, inching closer.
Too close!
"Being stuck behind Bakugo can't be as difficult as it is being behind Shoji. He's just too tall! I can't see anything most of the time." The sound of Jiro's fingers tapping against the desk nearly made Deku jump out of his skin.
Way too close!
"I think he's taller than Mr. Aizawa!"
"He might be. Hey did you hear about the plum blossom festival that's supposed to be happening this weekend?" The soft footfalls of Jiro's feet could be heard moving round the side of the desk, closer to where Ashido sat.
"What?" Ashido's feet suddenly angled toward the side of the desk, likely closer to where Jiro stood. One foot had moved a bit further away from Deku while her other foot was somehow even closer to him.
"I don't know, apparently Mineta was passing around some flyer for an Ume Matsuri and wanted everyone to go? It seemed kind of weird for him, if I'm being honest, but yeah, apparently some of our class is planning on going…you think you'll go?" Jiro asked hesitantly.
Ashido was quiet and her feet didn't move making Izuku breathe a sigh of relief. Hopefully she'd just get up and leave or at the very least, leave her seated position at his desk.
"I don't know, maybe. I didn't know anything about it until you brought it up. Who all is planning on going?"
"Not sure. It was technically Midoriya that actually passed the flyer that he got from Mineta around on Friday to a couple of people but I'm not really sure who really saw it or expressed interest in going. Not sure I'm super keen on going out in the cold to look at the plum blossoms."
There was a snort from Ashido. "Midoriya got the flyer from Mineta? How…predictable."
"Predictable? What?" Jiro questioned.
Ashido abruptly pushed the chair backwards, putting much needed distance between her and the hidden pair under the desk. "It's nothing. Um, I'll think about going I guess…you think you'll go with Kaminari?"
"Uck, no!" Jiro's response was far too quick to be considered a normal.
"I'm just teasing. Come on, let's go. Midoriya is probably back at the dorms and maybe Uraraka is there too. We can tell her her stuff is in the classroom." Ashdio stood up from the chair and Deku was immensely relieved to see her feet moving away from the desk. The chair was pushed in, nearly pushed right into his ribs and hips a moment later.
"We could just pick it up and take it with us. Give it to her when we see her," suggested Jiro. Her voice was starting to sound slightly farther away.
"Hey good idea! Let's do that!"
There were some sounds of fabric shifting and the very quiet sound of pencils moving within what Deku assumed was Uraraka's pencil case. The sound of soft footfalls receding into the distance along with chatter between Jiro and Ashido. Both Uraraka and Deku stayed motionless and breathed shallow for several minutes in the silence that remained following Ashido and Jiro's departure.
After remaining silent and motionless for what felt like hours, both Izuku and Uraraka relaxed and breathed sighs of relief.
"I, I think it's safe now," Izuku whispered.
Uraraka turned her face back toward Deku and exhaled deeply. "Phew, that was close," she murmured softly.
"Yeah," he quietly agreed. Now that imminent danger of discovery seemed to have passed, he once again became acutely aware of conjoined position. She was still pressed up against his lower half, her face just a short distance from his, her hands now perched on his chest. His gaze darted down briefly and took in the swell of her breasts pressed against his chest and heaven help him, teenage adolescence made itself known.
"Guess we should get out of here, huh?" She suggested, apparently unaware of the trouser snake that was swiftly gaining size.
"Uh, yeah, let's go, now," he urged and started to try and shift her off of him. Uraraka attempted to assist but in her attempts to extricate herself from him and in Deku's efforts to get her off of him as fast as humanly possible lest she discover the tent he was pitching, she moved too quickly and bumped her head on the underside of his desk.
"Ouch!" She huffed and instinctually lowered her head in response.
At the same time, Izuku saw and heard her bop her head and reached out to assist in some way but with both of them moving in an uncoordinated way, Izuku inadvertently ended up tugging Uraraka slightly downward. In conjunction with Deku's movements, Uraraka's lowered head fell even lower and into Deku's lap. Now face to face with what was unmistakably an erection, her eyes widened and she let out a quiet 'eep' sound before rising up too fast and again bopping her head on the underside of the desk. Before Deku could react to her second head bop however, Uraraka deftly managed to roll out from under the desk and off of Deku.
Mortified, Deku clamored out from under the desk and awkwardly crossed his legs and folded his hands down by his crotch to help shield the offending boner from sight. Great, that couldn't have gone worse! She probably thinks I'm some sex pervert, he thought miserably to himself, his cheeks burning with embarrassment.
Uraraka was on her feet a moment later and rubbed her head. Deku couldn't meet her eyes, too embarrassed by well, everything. "Sorry. Really sorry. I, yeah, sorry."
A small laugh from Uraraka surprised him and he found himself brave enough to look to her face now. While her cheeks were also crimson and she was clearly embarrassed, her eyes were bright and there was an impish smile on her face that indicated that she wasn't unhappy. "It's okay Deku. It's actually kind of funny if you think about it. Hiding under the desk, having them almost find us, and well, uh, the last part," she paused, the blush deepening on her cheeks, "it's kind of funny is all."
Her smile was infectious and even though he still felt awkward and embarrassed, he found himself smiling too. A comedy of errors, he thought to himself with a smile. "Yeah, I guess it is!"
She tucked her hair behind her ears and diverted her gaze away from him, shyly. "We should head back before someone else shows up. I'll, I'll, go first."
"Okay," he agreed.
Uraraka smiled at him again and started to head out but then surprised him by coming back around to him. She stepped into his space, cupped his face with both hands and closed the distance between them with a kiss. The surprise left him too stunned to react or really kiss back and before he could react like he wanted to, the kiss ended. She pulled away, her cheeks rosy and her eyes twinkling.
"I'll see you back at the dorms…Izuku."
Izuku watched her leave with wide eyes. She called me by my first name. She called me Izuku. His heart felt fuller than it ever had before and he practically floated out of the classroom a short while after she'd left.