Ochako POV:

School came once again for all of us with Eri being cuddled in my arms as she woke up. This seemed to be a normal way to wake up as of lately to somewhat get used to it. My alarm started going off to have her jump awake and hug me in a panic. "It's ok. It's just my alarm. It's nothing scary." 'The only scary thing about an alarm is you can't sleep in if anything.' I smirked at my internal comment before moving Eri to get up. I stretched a bit with her following suit. Leaning right, then left, then finally backwards and forwards. A bit of an amusement for this was seeing Eri fall back on the bed when trying to stretch her back a bit. 'She's adorable when she tries to mimic me.'

I grabbed what both of us needed to change, got dressed and brought Eri down to the common area. Once there, I noticed Ashido, Kirishima and Jirou sitting in a group with Midoriya. "Alright. Let's try it one more time, bro."

"You sure about this? I don't want you to feel like crap for helping me."

"Dude, it's fine. Just chill out. We know you'll give the quirks back." Jirou tried to brush off something about Midoriya's quirk to confuse me a little. Fortunately, Tsu came over not long after to give me someone to ask.

"Hey, Tsu. What's going on?"

"Midoriya found out he can take quirks without even touching someone. He's trying to test it out and see if he can do that with Mina, Kyoka and Kirishima."

"Isn't that a little..." I tried trailing off with the thought of Midoriya 'taking' quirks still kinda not hitting a good note with me. Then again, half the bad blood between us did kinda happen with that being the starting point of it all.

"This was their suggestion with Midoriya flat out wanting to deny it. Fortunately, we came to an agreement where he'll make sure that they get their quirk back if this happens."

"Ok. As long as this doesn't cause a problem later on, then that's ok. But I thought he couldn't take quirks through just looking at people?"

"He thought so too until an incident recently. Basically, he was able to do that with a woman that was told she has the ability to have Midoriya knock her up."

'Woah, didn't expect that to be something he'd have to deal with.' Eri began hugging me tighter for some reason.

"Noo! Mommy can only be with daddy!" This comment made me blush a bit to surprise me a bit.

"Eri! What are you saying!?"

"But aren't you and daddy together? A mommy and a daddy are supposed to be together, right?"

"W-well I wouldn't say we're 'together' per say. W-we're umm...I-I-it's a hard thing to explain."

"I don't get it though. How is it hard. Are you together with daddy or not? It's a yes or no question. I don't get how it has to be hard to say." Eri kept trying to get to the bottom of what we're trying to say with it now worrying me saying something wrong. Just as I was about to speak up though, Midoriya came over to get our attention.

"Hey, Eri. How did you sleep?"

She came off me and went to hug Midoriya to have me mentally shout for joy. 'THANK YOU MIDORIYA FOR THE SAVE!'

"Daddy. Are you and mommy together? Mommy's saying it's hard to say a yes or no question."

'WHY ISN'T SHE LETTING THIS GO!?' I was crying at this as Midoriya went pale.

"...Let's discuss this another time. Daddy went through a very bad thing the other day and he wants to avoid talking about anything close to it, ok?"

"Ok." Eri ran off towards the table with Midoriya coming with me to the kitchen.

As we went in, the two of us began making some breakfast. "So I heard what you had happen before and what you were doing."

"...I just don't want an accident to happen."

"I see..." I went into the fridge to look for some eggs to grab a few and start some for Eri. "Look. I'm probably the one person that understands the most how accidents though unintentional, can cause problems. So if you need anyone to talk to, I'm all ears."

Midoriya seemed down a bit before speaking up. "My father ruined someone else's life by making them think on the mindset they'd have me as a husband and father to her kids."

"Tsu told me that to some degree."

"I took her quirk by accident and...I don't feel glad I was able to stop her, just guilty by how she acted after. It felt like, I was just as bad as my father. Taking from a person the gift they have. But also sympathy for the girl. She loved me however she could comprehend and I denied and rejected it. She was wrong in how to incorporate her way of love, but that doesn't mean I don't feel bad denying her. Am I an awful person because of that?"

I didn't know what to say. Technically, I felt a little happy he didn't abandon what he wanted to do and bumped uglies with some girl. But at the same time, I could understand the grief this woman's probably felt from it. "I can't tell you if you're an awful person because of this or not. As Tsu and you mention it, this woman was a few cans short of a case. But I understand the disgust it feels realizing the quirk you have being taken away from you without your consent can feel like. It's like a part of what makes you you is gone. You didn't do that with the desire to make someone sad, so I don't have right to say you're the bad person for that, but guilt is a sign you have a conscience. Something your bastard of an old man didn't have." I placed the cracked eggs in the pan I had and started cooking them. "If I had a dime for however many times I'd think of breaking your face in for what you did to me as a child, I'd be a millionaire."

"Oh, how I feel warm and fuzzy inside from that comment."

"But..." I tried to think of the best words I could while answering. "But you don't mean this in a bad way and I feel like judging you for that would mean I'm just as terrible as I was before UA and some of the people that said you were bad for just having a quirk accident as a child. In the end, that's what this is. An accident you feel bad happened and you're taking steps to avoid it happening again. And that's what I feel satisfaction hearing because you are trying to do the right thing and get this under control before something worse happens to yourself or others."

He kept doing what he was doing as I did before glancing over towards my direction a bit with a blush. "Hey, off the topic a bit, but what do you think about love?"

"WHAT!?"

"Shhh! Easy! Don't start yelling so early in the morning." I quieted down a bit before asking why he came to this point.

"Just what brought this up?"

"Well to be honest, the whole thing with my father doing this to someone and ruining their life made me think on how the thought of forced relationships like this are kinda a little detrimental in a sense. However, some people do find happiness in these and I just...I don't know if these are going to be my best course of action to find love. I feel guilty thinking about how I might've ruined relationships I could've had with other people, but I don't know if it's right to go one way or the other."

'Wait, is he asking me if I'd prefer to marry a complete stranger with no issues or find some random guy that works well with me on my own?' I thought about this before before going completely beet red. "Well...I...I can't answer that cause I don't know about love. I mean, I would if I could but...look, the way I see it is if it works for you then do it. If not, don't bother with it and don't make an issue where you don't need to. Everyone's got a preference and don't piss people off by pushing something."

"But how do you know if it's good for you?"

He got me on this one. I didn't know if this was the best course of action myself, but it made some sense as to why he's got this issue. "I don't know. The best course of action is just finding out by trial and error. You went on a date with Shiozaki, right? How did that feel?"

"Well good, but I couldn't see her as more than a friend and I felt guilty trying to make it more because that would invite more problems into her life."

"Then get someone that understands your issues. Someone that can see you're a victim but is willing to try to work them out with you instead of show you how normality is not something you can have."

"So...going under that thought process...would you be like that?" When he asked this, I stared at his face blankly before dropping the spatula in my hands. My face went red with steam coming off of it to panic Midoriya. "ARE YOU OK!?"

"Yep! Fine! Just forgot I gotta clean my face a bit!" I began panicking before placing the finished eggs on a plate and trying to get out of there as fast as possible.

"Wait, but you look like you're about to collapse-"

"I said I'm fine! Just leave me alo-" I ended up tripping over the perv for Midoriya to panic and grab me by my waist. He held me there with Mineta staring directly at us.

"NO FAIR! EVEN MIDORIYA GETS CHICKS AND I DON'T! WHAT DO YOU DO, HATE FUCK OR SOMETHING!?" We both stared at Mineta blankly before I kicked him across the room as hard as I could to have him go in a wall. The more impressive part of this was he was about to go right into Tsu's morning breakfast before she lifted it up and put it back down after he flew past.

'That girl has skill.' I stopped thinking when I realized that I was being held by my waist by Midoriya. We both went red before panicking and jumping away from one another.

"S-sorry."

"N-not your fault. Y-you were just trying to help is all." 'Don't breathe too much into that. He was doing what any person with half a braincell would do in a situation like that, dammit.' I got up and began calmly walking towards the showers. "L-let's just pretend that didn't happen for both our sakes. Fair?"

"F-fair" I walked away with the incident still not sitting right in my head. To the side though, I noticed Jirou looking at me with a smirk.

"Don't say anything. You do and I will personally kick you into next week."

"Ok, but I just wanna say this. If you do become Midoriya's girlfriend, Eri will be even more happy and maybe smile."

'That's right. She still hasn't smiled yet.'

"Midoriya's a good guy. He just has a bad past is all."

"...I know." I don't know why, but I constantly kept feeling guilty for stuff I shouldn't whenever I talk with Midoriya. I didn't know if this was sympathy or something else, but I just...I wanted to hug him after this and apologize for what happened to him. 'Maybe I should ask Hound Dog alone if this is anything problematic.'

Later that day

Unable to get the feeling of guilt and sadness out of my head, I decided to head to Hound Dog to get his advice as a therapist. "So you're telling me you have issues and you're trying to think about how to handle them and why you feel the way you do?"

"Yeah. Whenever Midoriya talks about what he's trying to go through such as understanding love and how he should progress with information he's given, I feel really bad. It feels like I'm frustrated I'm not doing something about it."

"So you're trying to figure out why you wish to be more involved in his problems?"

"Maybe. I don't know." I tried to think about it with it not getting me anywhere. "Why would I think this stuff?"

"Hard to say. One of the reasons could be guilt as a whole. You blamed him for something he genuinely had no control over that as a child, this was bound to happen. Incidents of children being unable to control their quirks are common and seeing the repercussions of his actions and the actions his father took as someone that genuinely meant harm by his could lead you to feel a bit of shame knowing you once blamed him for it and would desire to pull it back. As such, you're trapped in a limbo of being unable to achieve this and still wanting it more and more seeing the level of his suffering."

"Maybe. I do feel really bad that Midoriya's going through this, but I'm not sure if this is the reason."

"The other could be well...something a little bit of a long shot." I raised an eyebrow as Hound Dog asked a question. "Unrelated, but what did you think of the relationship between Midoriya and Shiozaki? From what I was told, this could have been with him thinking it was not the greatest to have him in this type of relationship with someone like her due to the fact she is innocent and he'd want nothing more than to keep her from the level of guilt he'd have."

"Ok, but what does that have to do with me?"

"It depends of what this could be."

I thought about the answer to give before doing it. "I felt both worried and frustrated at Shiozaki when it first happened. When she got rejected, I felt bad for her but oddly felt worse for Midoriya. I don't know if that's cause he genuinely knew he couldn't trust himself from going off the deep end or that he thought that little of his chances for normalcy. Now after finding out he basically friend zoned Shiozaki...I feel a little happy for some reason. I hate this. I really do."

Hound Dog stopped writing down what he was and looked at me with a calmer look. "What you're feeling is possibly love for Midoriya. You want him for yourself and you felt crappy knowing Shiozaki got him first."

"...Nope. No way. Not possible." I immediately denied the possibility.

"Why do you think that?"

"It's not possible for me to be in love with him. I hated him at the beginning of the year."

"You hated him for reasons you later understood were out of his control and you've most if not all, understand he hadn't done anything to deserve the rage. Now you're getting to know he's more than just the son of an evil man and seeing the reality of your faults."

"But how could I fall in love with someone if that's the starting point?"

"Love is complicated. More complicated than you and I can make it out to be. But at the same time, love is a simple emotion we all want and wish to give in some way. As someone that deals with people's emotions a lot, take this suggestion with a little more than face value an option. Go out on a date with Midoriya. Figure out for yourself what this is through an interaction that tests the possible theory. That's how you'll know if this is love or not if you actually find merit in it."

I left the room after this feeling a little uneasy. Do I want to try this? What if by some chance this isn't love, will it make things more complicated than they already are? What if we do hit it off and there's problems down the road. "DAMMIT ALL! Why is this so complicated!?"

"What is?" I turned to see Shigaraki behind me to panic.

"GYAAA!" I jumped back holding my chest with tension still in my body from the act. "How long were you there?"

"Long enough. So what are you having issues with?" I was hesitant to tell him cause of the relationship with Midoriya, but he's probably the best out of anyone to talk about this with. He listened and gave me a blank stare after. "So why is this complicated to you?"

"Well I mean, after everything uhh..."

"You're making an excuse as to why not. The way I see it, why would this be terrible to do. I thought I was incapable of love before meeting Rumi and well...let's just say my relationship now is something less professional that I can't talk to a student about without getting in trouble." I shivered realizing what he meant before he cleared his throat. "Just do it. What do you have to lose if you're just testing waters. If anything, don't say it's a date if you hate the thought of it being one. That way, you can do this without a guilt trip and figure your own emotions out. Nobody knows better than yourself what your emotions are when you figure them out."

I thought about it to understand I really have nothing to lose at the moment just figuring out if we're better as friends. "Alright. I guess I can give it a shot if anything."

And that finishes this chapter. So Ochako is coming to the realization she might actually have feelings for Izuku to try and sort them out. Meanwhile, Izuku's trying to figure out his own version of love as well. See what happens next time with these two. Hope you all enjoyed and thanks for reading.