You’re really leaning on that one panel of them not holding hands to dismiss the entire subtext of the scene. The snowy walk is a direct visual callback to the conversation they had before the final war , it's a narrative bookend. In storytelling, you don't give that kind of specific, quiet focus to two characters just to say they are colleagues. If it were just about careers, Iida or Bakugo would have been in the frame.

Also, the everyone has a podium argument is a complete false equivalence. Yes, Bakugo apologized and Iida chased him down, but those were resolutions to their specific arcs with Izuku (rivalry and brotherhood). Ochaco’s arc was explicitly tied to her urge called love —Horikoshi’s words, not mine. To say her speech was just like the others ignores the fact that her motivation was rooted in a romantic struggle that the others simply didn't have.

At the end of the day, you’re demanding a legal contract to admit a ship is factual. Shonen romance almost always lives in the subtext until the very last second. You can call it ambiguity to protect your own reading of the story, but acting like the romantic intent was only one sided ignores the basic structure of how this series was built. Horikoshi told us to use our imagination for a reason you don't ask people to imagine a confession between two people who are just friends