All the Way Home ch6
Read on AO3
rating: teen
pairing: bakudeku
word count: 41.8k/81.1k
summary: Four years ago, All For One and Shigaraki were defeated, taking One For All with them. At twenty years old, Katsuki and a quirkless Izuku are heroes, boyfriends, and partners. Until one day, they’re hit by a quirk that suddenly makes them fathers too. Now, with a newborn baby, they have to figure out who did this to them, and why it means the downfall of superhuman society.
This work is a part of the @bakudekubigbang 2022. Updates will be weekly.
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Chapter Six - We All Fall Down
“I present! My newest baby!”
Izuku had chewed his thumbnail to the nub in the last five minutes or so that Mei had been fiddling on the rooftop with one of her inventions. She’d arranged their meeting up there only to demand that he turn around, away from her as well as the stroller that she’d also insisted he bring. The stroller with the baby in it. When he’d asked if he could grab Sugu out of it while she worked, he’d been shushed, of all things.
Now, Izuku finally turned back around to see a standing apparatus connected to the handle of the reclined stroller, slowly pushing and pulling it back and forth. It was set firmly on the ground with perhaps hydraulics or maybe just a motor extending and retracting its metal arms. There were no signs of smoke or sparking that Izuku could discern as he stepped closer to the stroller, checking in on Sugu. If the baby was alarmed that he was being babysat by a robot, he gave no sign of it in his deep sleep.
“Wow, that’s amazing, Mei!” Izuku admitted.
“It’ll keep the child occupied while we look at the rest of my babies,” Mei stated, gesturing to a tarp covering a heap of machinery Izuku could only imagine.
“Still the tarp?” Izuku asked. “We talked about what I need.”
“I know we did, but baby number four thousand sixty-one isn’t my only surprise,” Mei said with a wink behind her goggles.
It was just after Izuku and Katsuki had moved in together that Izuku and Mei had started meeting one on one on the roof. Before, they’d met either at Mei’s lab or Endeavor Agency, but both had seen the rooftop as an opportunity for an upgrade.
At that time, the roof had been shabby, unused space, but Izuku had cut a deal with the landlord that if he took on the costs, he could use it to fit his needs. Now there were shock-resistant mats that he could roll out to practice with the equipment, a fire extinguisher, and layers of flame-retardant spray on everything, despite the fact that Mei’s babies tended to stay intact better than they had in high school. There was a small, padlocked shed where Mei’s inventions could be stored, and a couple sandbags Izuku could practice against. It wasn’t a proper training space by any means, but it was enough for testing purposes.
“Oh great,” Izuku said, glancing back at Sugu. The stroller had a cover expanded over top, so that it looked like an old fashioned baby carriage. At just a week old, this was Sugu’s first real experience out in the sun, aside from getting in and out of cars, and it was important Izuku didn’t let him burn. He’d slathered baby sunscreen all over him, in between all the little folds on his chunky arms and legs, despite the onesie he was wearing. “Do any of your babies…explode? Or make loud noises?”
“Everything is totally infant approved,” she stated, taking out her measuring tape and stretching it the width of Izuku’s shoulders before wrapping it around a bicep. “I’m expecting at least a smile out of that little one.”
“Actually, smiles don’t really come until six weeks in,” Izuku corrected, looking over at Sugu. In his sleep, his face was totally relaxed—it reminded Izuku of Katsuki. When Katsuki slept, all those frown lines evened out, his eyebrows slumped from their sharp inturned angle, and his mouth was slack just like Sugu’s. No smiles but…it was peace.
Mei grabbed Izuku’s chin and brought him back in her direction. She stretched the measuring tape from his jaw to his clavicle, making him shiver.
“Then he’ll give me an IOU,” Mei compromised as she moved onto his waist and then his legs.
“…Sure,” Izuku said.
“Anyway, looks like your measurements haven’t changed—for now; fatherhood might change that—so we can move onto your son’s measurements!”
“My—what? Mei, no!”
“Don’t worry, I won’t wake him,” Mei said with a finger in front of her mouth, despite not speaking any quieter. She went over to the tarp and pulled out a pair of gloves, reminiscent of his old white and blue design. They still pulled up over the elbow, but those blue stripes were currently red, and around the wrists were energy packs, slimmer than the smallest version of Katsuki’s gauntlets, but similar conceptually.
“These ones are a little less targeted with your Air Force, with more emphasis on strength than pinpoint precision,” she explained as she tossed them to Izuku. “Truthfully, your fingers are only ever going to be so strong, so there’s more oomph to the machinery this time.”
“Thanks!”
Izuku pushed down the part of him that clenched and bruised at the reminder that once upon a time his fingers had been enough to knock out villains, poke holes through buildings. Now it was a struggle to recreate half that strength even with one of the best industrial designers in Japan. A tawdry recreation of All Might’s legacy.
Instead, he buzzed with excitement, like when his mom would get him the exact All Might action figure he wanted for his birthday. He might not be able to work yet, but at least he had a shiny new toy to keep him busy and stimulated.
He slipped the gloves on, not resting as nicely over his bare skin as the long, smooth sleeves of his hero costume, and bunching up the baggy sleeves of his t-shirt. It was a stiff material, somewhat limiting the dexterity of his wrists and elbows, but also providing an extra little bit of safety and support. And while he was still wearing his arm brace, it wasn’t like these were any more restraining than he was used to.
It felt right to have the gloves on. Even in his t-shirt and the shorts that dragged to his knees, both just a little too light in the early spring windchill on the roof, the gloves alone made him feel like Hero Deku in a way he hadn’t felt in a week. Six days, to be fair. He brought his forefinger and thumb together and held them carefully. It was the strength of the flick of his finger that triggered the machinery rather than the innate ability a quirk user had to activate and deactivate their quirk. A slip of the finger at the right speed and an attack would be born whether Izuku intended it or not.
He aimed his finger at the sky first, trying to summon whatever minimal strength he could from his forearm to his wrist to the tip of his fingernail. Then he released, absorbing that kickback all the way down to his shoulder as a shockwave of air broke through the cloudless morning sky. If there had been a single cloud, perhaps one of the low-hanging cumulus billows that liked to ride the roofs of skyscrapers, Izuku could have seen just how strong the blast was. Whether it could shoot a hole through the white mass or whether it would barely tickle its belly.
Still, the shot was strong as evidenced by the ache Izuku observed as he rolled his shoulder back, much the way Katsuki did for the recoil from his explosions.
“Average-sized according to my research!” Mei exclaimed as she pocketed her measuring tape. “Fifty centimeters. So he’ll be just perfect.”
“Perfect for what?” Izuku asked, ripping away his focus from the crisp white gloves. “Mei, under no circumstance does a baby need equipment of any kind.”
“Of course!” Mei agreed and Izuku almost relaxed. Rather, he would have, if he weren’t bracing for what was next.
Izuku watched as Mei tore the tarp off of her creations, letting it flutter to the ground with the breeze, so he could only blink when beyond the Fa Jin replacement and her newest set of jetpacks he saw a large metal suit front and center.
“A baby for your baby!” Mei exclaimed, patting the suit on its clanging shoulder. “And you! Not just a baby, obviously.”
Izuku shook his head, spluttering. “Wh…What?”
What was in front of him was a futuristic suit of armor, more sleek like the western counterpart to a Japanese samurai suit with its many flaps and decorations. No, this was ergonomic, looking almost like a carapace where the plates at the joints met and overlapped. It was missing any kind of a helmet, but otherwise went from shoulder to ankle, leaving room for other footwear. But Izuku’s eyes were locked on the strangest feature right in the middle.
“Why does it have a pregnancy belly?!” he exclaimed. “No one’s pregnant!”
“It’s not for pregnancy,” Mei clarified, before her golden eyes began to sparkle, suspicious enough that Izuku took a step back. “Although it certainly could be! A maternity suit! No, no—equitability suit! Oh, Izuku-kun, it’s a totally untapped market. Everyone will love—”
“Mei-chan!” Izuku interrupted, eyebrows furled up in a kind of desperate confusion. “You were saying? Not for pregnancy?”
“Oh, right—no, it doesn’t have to be. It’s for you to fight with your baby,” Mei explained.
An image flashed behind Izuku’s eyes, of him and a little boy wearing a version of his hero suit, almost like Ochako had suggested a few days back, but instead of a baby adaptation, it was a perfect, sized-down imitation. Both boy and man posed side by side for a shoot style kick, holding up dual iron-soled shoes with unlikely leg strength.
He shook his head, tossing the image from his head. That was absolutely not what was happening here. “What are you talking about?”
“If you need to fight while holding the baby,” Mei explained with a reasonable shrug. “This metal is the most shatter-resistant material on the market right now, with soundproofing too. So unless, say, a whole building falls on you, your baby would be safe right up against your core. Like it's in one of those little baby backpack things. Well, you would need a baby sack already, because I didn’t make one.”
“Baby bjorn,” Izuku replied automatically. Then the idea sank in, slow like water through a terracotta pot and he recoiled. “Mei-chan, what the heck? Are you crazy?”
His voice came out louder than intended, as though the bad parenting that device implied was contagious. Because at that moment, a fussy cry tore through the wind on the roof, and Izuku rushed over to the stroller.
“Every idea sounds crazy at first,” Mei said sagely. “You put your baby in a car, right? How is this any different?”
“Because you’re not purposefully going into danger when you drive, Mei!” Izuku hissed as he reached for Sugu, whose eyes weren’t open, but instead scrunched fiercely as he began to wail. However, when he reached for Sugu’s soft middle, the stroller moved, bringing Izuku’s hands up around Sugu’s neck. Izuku whipped his hands back to his chest in little fists reflexively, looking to Mei. “Turn this off!”
“Fine, fine, just lemme find the remote,” Mei said, reaching through her pockets. She pulled out a couple remotes in each hand and squinted between them. “…Shit.”
Izuku groaned, and reached for Sugu again anyway, not waiting for the machine to be shut off. He snatched Sugu up quickly, managing to catch him right on the arms that he’d tucked into a swaddle before meeting Mei up here. The past few days with just him and Sugu had been blessedly uneventful. Naturally, there had been a few crying fits—only a couple of which were Izuku’s, but he blamed the sleep deprivation. This was just another one of many.
The machine came to a stop as Izuku hoisted Sugu up to his shoulder and began bouncing him lightly, patting his back in case the cries were due to gas more than Izuku’s raised voice, but it seemed not. Without an easy solution like burping or feeding, Izuku had no clue as to how long this bout of tears would last.
“Holding him on the shoulder…” Mei mused. “Perhaps I put the baby cavity too low…”
“It’s not too low because it’s not a good idea at all, Mei,” Izuku sighed. “I appreciate the thought, but I don’t think there’s any way to incorporate babies into heroics, which is why I’m staying home.”
“Staying home?” Mei asked, raising her voice over the crying as her attention finally pulled from her babies. “Well then what do you need my babies for?”
She dug through her collection and pulled out a leg brace, replacing the one Izuku had shattered just a couple of days prior. Mei’s most recent model for Izuku’s faux Fa Jin. It looked a little thicker in material than the one he’d just destroyed, but it shouldn’t inhibit his motion any more, so long as it fit comfortably under his costume. The pants of his costume had grown so baggy to accommodate such support items that they were nearly identical in fit to Katsuki’s. Luckily, the public seemed to think that was intentional. Couples magnetizing to each other, beginning to match each other’s appearance. That was a narrative Izuku could handle. Katsuki would just scoff, saying that so long as everyone knew he’d been first, he didn’t care.
“Because,” Izuku said, grabbing one of the braces and putting it under the crook of his arm so he could take the other, “I still need to practice. I’ll be back at work soon and I can’t be falling behind.”
Mei took the answer at face value, giving a noncommittal nod. “Fine. I’ll leave all these babies here, since it’s not like anyone else needs them.”
It wasn’t like anyone else was quirkless, in other words. Or had an infant.
Which wasn’t precisely true. Rocklock’s son was only five, after all. And then there was Aizawa, who was still Eri’s caretaker after all these years. And, of course, there was always Endeavor…
Izuku grimaced, holding Sugu a little closer and shushing him to no avail. Regardless of the few heroes who were parents, there were no heroes in the upper ranks with babies. Not in this moment, and hardly ever historically.
“Right,” Izuku said, placing the braces in the open shed gingerly, despite the fact that they were designed to withstand killing blows from villains. “I can put them away.”
“And if you’re not on the field,” Mei started, heading towards the shed, “Maybe I can take my babies for some little adjustments. I’m sure that all these old things are obsolete n—”
“No, that’s okay!” Izuku inserted, stepping between Mei and the open door. “Like I said, I’ll have to practice! I can use your babies and give you feedback, okay? Promise.”
Mei arched an eyebrow at Izuku, her skin pulling taut behind her goggles. “Alright…” she drawled, stepping back. “Lemme know and I’ll be back next week.”
“Great,” Izuku sighed with a relieved smile. “I’ll let you know.”
Mei glanced from Izuku to Sugu, finally taking her goggles off to squint at him. “Is he ever gonna stop?”
This was already his second crying fit of the day, following the usual tears that had been mollified by a diaper, a bottle, a burp, a nap. Every one hit like a regression, wrinkling and ruddying Sugu’s face back to the state of being newly born.
“Crying?” Izuku asked, beginning to feel the effects of the constant bouncing in his triceps. A workout without even going to the gym. “He’s a Midoriya. So, you know.”
Sugu let out a particularly sharp wail, and Izuku wondered if maybe they had a little baby Present Mic on their hands. Could be worse—he’d have to look at his notes to check. Maybe ask Mei if he could borrow a decibel meter.
“Possibly not.”
*
Katsuki was falling behind.
A patch of his gearless suit was still warm through to his skin where Shouto had just landed a fiery punch. Shouto had no business getting that close to Katsuki during hand-to-hand—that was supposed to be Katsuki’s dominion—and the rage of it made Katsuki grin wildly. That fucker was going to pay.
A week of desk duty. Making irritatingly slow progress with his research against that woman with the procreation quirk. Not having Izuku to spar with—the closest they came was exchanging said irritatingly slow research with each other. His muscles were tight but engaged, ready to go. He was going to have Shouto’s ass.
Katsuki blocked a kick from Shouto with his forearm, lips spread maniacally as he clocked Shouto’s upended center of gravity. That was more like it. Katsuki slouched, sweeping low with one leg against Shouto’s standing one, and watching as the other hero lost his balance and slipped towards the ground.
For, like, half a second.
A pillar of ice shot up from the gym’s foam mat and kept Shouto upright, but it didn’t stop there. The ice crept along the floor towards Katsuki, but Katsuki shot himself into the air before it could spread over to him. Whether it was just a thin layer to throw his balance or a capture attack meant to encase him just like their first Sport’s Festival match, Katsuki didn’t want to play. Unfortunately, Shouto had followed in Endeavor’s—and indeed Katsuki’s own—footsteps a few years back, and was looking up at Katsuki in the air with a glint in his eyes.
Katsuki’s smile dropped at the thought of his boss, but then he shook himself out of it. His focus had been shit in this match and like hell he was losing a dumb training spar after only a week off the field. His technique was fantastic, dammit. But a week of seeing fucked up father and fucked up son day in and day out had not gone as unnoticed by Katsuki as it usually did.
This is great timing for you too, Bakugou-shounen.
Huh?
Fuck, focus. Katsuki shook away All Might’s ghost echoing in his head and gritted his teeth till his smile was more of a snarl.
Shouto extended his ice pillar into a ramp that he then used his father’s propulsion technique to shoot himself up and thrust him skyward from. No one looking at Shouto now would know that he’d gone entire years only cultivating his ice moves, totally ignoring any part of him that came from his father. Outside of a few strange personality quirks, he seemed well adjusted. The failure of Endeavor’s parenting had proven surpassable.
You and Endeavor are a lot alike.
Katsuki blinked and Shouto had gained way too much height on him. The gym boasted high ceilings, ones tall enough that Endeavor had space to turn his feet into jet engines and burst several stories into the air. So Katsuki had plenty of room to blast himself up as he evaded Todoroki’s ice shards. Fortunately, Katsuki could use Todoroki’s own technique against him.
Key to Katsuki’s flying technique had been the ability to use both hands to balance his flight, and allow him the ability to go straight. Shouto, however, could fly with just one side, and though Katsuki would never let that half ‘n half bastard know, Katsuki had been studying the technique for years.
Katsuki kept one hand under him, alternating his aim with precision as he put one hand in front of him and fired cluster explosions from his fingertips. Some of the shots shattered Shouto’s ice in the air, and others were headed straight for Shouto. Shouto raised his hand to shoot more ice, and it blocked half his face, covering his mother’s scar from Katsuki’s view.
Despite Rei’s involvement in Shouto’s life now, Katsuki had almost forgotten her involvement in the story he’d first heard six years ago. One parent overbearing, the other neglectful, in so few words.
The next explosion sent Katsuki flying too far back, his hands having produced extra sweat without his realizing. He missed his target, only the fringe of his attack approaching Shouto while the energy at the core dissipated sidelong in the air.
Dammit, he had to focus. Shouto’s tragic backstory had haunted Katsuki a couple times since his initial eavesdropped listen, but he’d had a front-row seat to Shouto’s growth. He’d watched Shouto, through his friendship with Izuku, grow into a full person. And they’d all been around for Touya’s great reemergence. He shouldn’t be thinking about this now.
Katsuki squared himself back in the air. Despite blowing himself back, Shouto had gained too much air on him. He was too close, reaching for Katsuki with a pillar of ice that was aimed for his hands. Katsuki tried to explode them away, but he was gauntletless and had wasted too much sweat a moment before, and Shouto was gaining on him with too much ferocity. The ice reached his fingertips and started inching towards his palms before it suddenly stopped. Shouto was in retreat, falling back towards the ground.
Piqued with anger, Katsuki burst off the little thimbles of ice he had and shot himself bullet-like towards the mat. He landed just a moment after Shouto, who was already melting the ice from the flame-retardant field. Katsuki’s rough landing on the mat sent sprinkles of water in the air, like bouncing on a trampoline in the rain.
“Let’s call it,” Shouto said. “You’re obviously someplace else right now.”
“Fuck off, Half ‘n Half—I fight with you ‘cause you don’t yip yap.”
“I fight with you because you’re good,” Shouto replied. “Usually.”
Katsuki had no comeback to that. None that didn’t involve the violence epitomized by his full hero name, but he didn’t want to commit a crime that would get him barred from heroics. And besides, the way he was going today—he’d probably lose.
“Tch,” Katsuki scoffed instead, walking back to the bench and grabbing his water bottle as Shouto turned the last of the water on the mat to steam, filling the cavernous room with humidity. “Off day.”
“Is the baby keeping you awake at night?”
Well, yes, he was—a bit. Izuku still insisted on most of the feedings, no matter how Katsuki tried to talk him out of it. The truth was, Katsuki wasn’t a great debater at ass o’clock at night, so Izuku got away with it until the wee hours when Katsuki finally took over. He was waking up earlier, and experiencing interrupted sleep. He was tired, but he’d been tired at work before. Heroes were expected to work overnight shifts, pull overtime on cases and stay on the streets in a fight long past when their shift was over if it meant taking a villain in. Sleep was not the problem.
“Yeah,” Katsuki said anyway. “Little shit is.”
Katsuki flicked open the spout of his water bottle and squirted it straight in his mouth, wiping away the drops that dribbled down his chin.
“Or…” Shouto started as he approached the bench, “is there something else you want to talk about?”
“No,” Katsuki responded, grabbing a washcloth and smearing off the worst of the sweat on his forehead, jawline, and down his neck.
“Alright,” Shouto said. He twisted the cap off his own water bottle, took a single glug, and began walking toward the door. His temperature control was so good that he’d hardly even broken a sweat. At least, Katsuki hoped it was due to his quirks and not that the fight had been that pathetic. Just as Shouto reached the door, Katsuki yelled out.
“I’m nothing like your disaster of a father!”
Shouto turned around. Blinked. “I know.”
Katsuki glared, snarling as he narrowed his eyes. “Exactly!”
“...Right.”
“Right!”
Shouto sighed, returning to Katsuki in the middle of the gym, and Katsuki’s blood simmered. His heart rate hadn’t slowed down a beat since they landed, quick as punches in a round of fisticuffs.
“Katsuki,” Shouto said simply, “you’re going to be a good dad.”
Katsuki cast his gaze toward the wall, crossing his arms, the blood just under his skin hot beneath his fingertips. “You don’t know anything.”
“I know that if your goal is to be a good father,” Shouto explained, “then you’re already nothing like him.”
The walls in this room weren’t mirrored, like in the equipment area. So Katsuki continued staring, spotting the few sooty marks that hadn’t been wiped from the walls from training sessions’ past.
Katsuki knew a little something about having a goal and coming up short. For years he’d had the goal of being the number-one hero but had failed on every fundamental level. All his intentions, and still he’d never have been a real hero if it weren’t for Izuku.
“There are a lot of ways to fuck up a kid, even with the best intentions,” Katsuki said.
“Your best is better than most, Katsuki,” Shouto said.
And with nothing more to say on the matter, Shouto turned heel, and left Katsuki alone with the smallest of smiles.
*
There had been no tangible difference, when One For All had left forever. It departed much as it had arrived not even two years earlier. It hadn’t rested on Izuku’s tongue, where One For All had first touched him, changing his life. It hadn’t resided in Izuku’s bones, despite how they’d broken and splintered for it time and time again. It had been somewhere deeper than the untouched marrow of his bones, than the stem of his brain.
And without a trace, it was gone.
Izuku had felt nothing, nothing overriding the soul-soaking exhaustion of a battle won, a battle only a heartbeat away from being lost. And yet he’d known. It was gone. And the victory was as much a farewell as he would ever be spared.
That had been five years ago. Now, his chest was cleaved by a stream of sweat sticking his shirt to his skin as he pushed a stroller all the way to the Endeavor Agency. He hardly realized he’d made it until he was at the front desk.
“Can’t stay away for a whole week, Deku?” the receptionist asked with a chirpy voice.
“Oh,” Izuku mumbled, sheepish as his disguise was seen through. The same mask and hat shielded him as the week before, but now with a hoodie for himself, and a little bucket cap on Sugu to cover up every last viridescent curl. “I look that obvious?”
She shook her head. “Only the eyes. Up close.”
Izuku lowered the bill of his cap that much more, restraining from blowing back his bangs when they caught in his eyelashes. “Hopefully,” Izuku said with a smile that curved above his mask. “Anyway, no, I’m just here meeting Kacchan.”
The ping of an elevator sounded and before he could so much as turn to see, Izuku heard, “Deku, what are you doing here?”
“Or surprising him, I guess,” Izuku amended.
“I seem to remember something about someone staying home with their ward,” Katsuki said as he sidled up to the front desk. “Huh, I wonder who that could have been?”
“You must be thrown off because of the disguise.” Izuku grinned, taking in Katsuki’s own version of it.
It was the same idea as Izuku’s. Mask, hat, hoodie—but it was so unmistakably Kacchan to Izuku that it was almost a joke. Perhaps he wasn’t the best judge; he’d be able to recognize Katsuki blindfolded, ears plugged, and hands tied. He only needed one sense at a time to find Katsuki wherever he was, at most. “Yeah, yeah,” Katsuki said, rolling his eyes. “Let’s go, genius.”
Katsuki yanked the diaper bag off of Izuku’s shoulder and led the way out the automatic door, into the calm day. It was a shame Sugu wouldn’t remember days like this—weather mild, light breeze, the brief window of time before the stickiness and heat of summer encroached upon the all-too-short spring. It’d be two more springs at least before he remembered a thing.
“Wait,” Katsuki said when they’d only made it to the end of the block. Izuku halted, the stroller stopping in front of him, and he watched as Katsuki walked around it, peeking his head under the hood.
After the crying fit with Mei, Izuku had managed to get Sugu to calm down—he’d just needed to fuss himself to sleep, and Izuku had needed twenty minutes on the sofa to decompress. Since then, he’d gotten up again, had a good feeding, and gone back to sleep before Izuku left. At best, they had two hours of peace, although this was one of Sugu’s first outings. Izuku could practically hear the sirens of an ambulance rounding the street corner or a puttering motorcycle revving down the road, taking this route just to rouse Sugu.
“Hey there,” Katsuki murmured, crouching down. He put a hand in the stroller and Izuku leaned over to see Katsuki stroking Sugu’s cheek with the barest of touches. He took the sleeve of his hoodie and dabbed away a thin streak of drool. “You’ve been good for Dad?”
Izuku’s heart burst at the tender display, and he bit his lip to keep it to himself. Katsuki was so cute. And Izuku had missed him. Their usual near twenty-four-seven togetherness had been fractured into a few nighttime hours of spooning, and a bento or two scarfed down sitting across from each other. Hardly any moments with Sugu snug between them—rather he was passed from one to the other without time for a spare look. Izuku wanted this moment to stretch and pull like sculpting sugar, and allow themselves at least a little more time together before duty called.
The moment ended abruptly, nearly startling Izuku when Katsuki stood again, returning to Izuku’s side. “Didn’t want all the extras to spot me being a softy.”
“But you are a softy,” Izuku said, voice warmed by fondness.
“Maybe, but it’s only for you to see,” Katsuki said. “And now him. He should count himself lucky.”
“I’m sure he will!”
Katsuki stared at Izuku for a moment and yeah, those eyes were unforgettable. Even with every other feature covered, those eyes would be nothing but Katsuki’s. And now Sugu’s.
“Shuddup,” Katsuki said eventually, turning away. “Let’s get a move on. I didn’t leave at this time thinking I’d be dragging your sorry asses behind me.”
Despite Katsuki’s complaining, they arrived at the lab on time. When Izuku imagined the lab, as he had been doing for the last few days since Endeavor had set up the appointment, he’d accidentally been imagining his pediatrician’s office. Vinyl chairs that had gone so long without being replaced that they were cracked all around the seams, squished in the seat by the thousands of butts that have been planted in them, doing crossword puzzles, reading magazines, and scrolling through phones over the years, waiting out their appointment slot.
That was not the case.
There was no waiting room, and there were no patients. Izuku had forgotten that the procedure they were getting done was an uncommon one—at least uncommon as far as how Izuku and Katsuki were doing it. Millions of people had parts of their genome read through mail-in ancestry websites, but Izuku hadn’t met anyone who’d done it in person.
Of course, Endeavor had felt it was necessary. If One For All was the reason Izuku had been targeted, and if there was anything in his DNA revealing information that wasn’t already public knowledge then the last thing they wanted to do was send those samples through the mail. In person was the only approach.
So here they were. They’d landed in the lobby of some corporate building and flown up a few stories to a short, tiled corridor without a bench or seat to speak of. Only a single sheet of glass, like a bank teller’s window. Reception?
Katsuki was the one to barge up, ripping off his hat and mask then knocking right on the glass. “We’re here for Dr. Sudou.”
“Bakugou and Midoriya?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, just a moment.”
“You can go in the back now.”
Katsuki led the way as Izuku pushed the stroller forth into the “back” area. When they arrived, Izuku didn’t know where to look first.
On first impulse, Izuku thought hospital. It was his touchstone of familiarity. There were blood pressure monitors and test tubes and the vinyl chairs that had been missing from reception, plus that antiseptic smell that knocked him right back into last week and the hours they’d spent in the post-partum rooms waiting for Sugu. But the visage only went so far.
The room was much larger than any Izuku had stayed in at a hospital or doctor’s office, though it was cluttered with far more equipment. Multiple computers and boxy machines with glass windows and slots in their middles. Immediately, Izuku felt in over his head.
“Ah, Deku, Dynamight,” a man greeted as he revealed himself from between the aisles of equipment. “And our little guy.”
There was a soft smile on Dr. Sudou’s face as he looked down into the stroller and peeked at the sleeping Sugu. It almost forgave his use of the words ‘our little guy’ when referring to him.
“I understand that we’re here for some quirk sequencing.”
“Yes,” Izuku replied. “Just want to…rule out some possibilities.”
“I’m happy to help however I can,” Dr. Sudou said. “Please, sit.”
The sect at the front of the room with the chairs that Izuku and Katsuki placed themselves in almost looked like the standard testing room at the doctor’s office. The room where the nurse would take your weight and height and blood pressure before the doctor spoke with you.
“We’re just going to take some standard cheek swabs,” Dr. Sudou said, pulling three bottled swabs from a shelf. “This is still our best way to get a reliable sample. It doesn’t degrade as quickly as some other methods, but we’re going to be quick, so that shouldn’t matter too much.”
“Didn’t it take, like, fifteen years to map one human genome?” Katsuki interjected. “You working with lightning speeds, doc?”
The doctor chuckled as he uncapped the first swab and gestured for Izuku to open his mouth. Izuku did so, wincing as the dry cotton scraped against his cheek. It was painless for sure but still as unpleasant as gauze after dental surgery.
“That’s absolutely correct,” Dr. Sudou said, capping the bottle and then reaching to start with Katsuki’s. Katsuki was already frowning at the prospect of being silenced whilst his point was being challenged but opened his mouth anyway. “But the same way that computer technology skyrocketed in a matter of decades, genetics is a growing field of exponential technology. Mapping a genome takes a fraction of the time it did back then. Soon, our machines will be in every PhD lab, then every college campus. By the time your son is in middle or high school, he’ll probably be able to use one of these in class.”
“So you can really tell what quirk someone has just from their DNA?” Izuku asked as Katsuki’s nose wrinkled, done with his swabbing as well.
The doctor moved onto Sugu and tilted his head side to side in a kind of shrug. “It’s not that exact yet. And too expensive for the general public for now. This is science that we’re just breaking ground with—researchers are receiving huge grants for this work, even professors at Musutafu University. But we should be able to read enough for your purposes. Soon, though, the answer will be one-hundred percent yes, and the scientific world will forget all about pinky toe knuckles.”
Izuku watched carefully as Dr. Sudou brought a soft touch to Sugu’s chin. The baby’s mouth was already slack, so just the slightest touch from Dr. Sudou’s fingertips dropped his jaw enough to slip the swab in. Izuku’s breath was baited as he watched and listened for any sign of Sugu rousing, but, save for the rise and fall of his little, rounded chest, he was motionless as Dr. Sudou finished.
“That’s a good boy you’ve got there,” Dr. Sudou said fondly, and just then Izuku noticed his salt and pepper sideburns, the wedding ring cinching his fourth finger. Izuku wondered if he too had kids, if he was thinking back to when his were in their first week of life, as small and helpless as Sugu. Izuku wondered if, for the rest of your life after having kids, you looked at all others through the lens of your own.
“The best,” Izuku agreed. Katsuki glanced over at him, catching his eye and smiling. He even reached his hand out to Izuku’s and their fingers intertwined there between their seats.
“Alright,” the doctor said, standing up with the three samples. “If you boys will excuse me, this should only be a short wait.”
Izuku tracked Dr. Sudou as he moved from one machine then another and another. It was suddenly so real—the final door to One For All shutting in his face. Rather, the door was already shut, so it would just be the dull, tinny echo of knocks on a locked door. A metal door with a wheel, like the kinds closing vaults. That wheel had been closed and latched for many years now.
“Deku, relax.”
“I am relaxed,” Izuku said. Neither of his legs were bouncing up and down, and he wasn’t worrying his lip or biting any nails.
“You’re about to make my hand as mangled as yours.”
“Oh,” Izuku gasped, releasing his grip on Katsuki’s hand. Katsuki’s hold remained firm, though, keeping Izuku’s fingers twined between his. “Sorry, Kacchan.”
“No sorrys, just relax,” Katsuki said. “We know what he’s gonna say. You’re the father, I’m the father, and there’s no One For All to worry about.”
“Right, right,” Izuku breathed, trying to steady himself, but he couldn’t help the way his heart squeezed. He hadn’t heard Katsuki say the words One For All in, what? Months? At least? When it was, in so many ways, what had brought them together again. “No surprises.”
Izuku bit his lip. There was one surprise, though. If the technology couldn’t quite parse out what quirk was what but could at least distinguish the quirkless from the not, then…
They’d find out today if Sugu was quirkless. It had been on Izuku’s mind since Endeavor had first introduced this whole quirk idea, but he’d been smothering it and failing.
If Sugu was bullied. If he was given less of a shot at a career. If he ever felt less than. It would be Izuku’s fault. His genetics, his bad luck. He’d pass it on to someone who didn’t ever ask for this. Sugu, so sweet and innocent right now, had no idea what might happen to him just because of his father’s rotten genes.
“Hey,” Katsuki said, interrupting Izuku’s thoughts again. “Hand. Squeezing. Stop.”
“Sorry, sorry,” Izuku said, also pulling his lip out from between his teeth. “I’m sorry.”
“Deku,” Katsuki said, turning more squarely towards Izuku. “Talk to me.”
“It’s fine, it’s fine, I’m just…stressing. It’s nothing,” Izuku explained, waving his free hand in front of his chest.
Katsuki sighed, taking his hand back and resting both in his lap. “It’s my fault.”
Izuku’s hand was cold, the warmth and humidity of Katsuki’s hand vanishing into the dry, sterile room. “What?”
“If you’re worried about him being quirkless, then that’s my fault,” Katsuki said, looking down at the floor. It was a speckled linoleum with enough black dots to pretend to distract yourself with forever. “If I hadn’t been an ass for your whole life about being quirkless, the idea wouldn’t bother you. And obviously it does.”
“How did you—”
“Because I’m worried about it too!” Katsuki exclaimed, doing a surprising job of keeping his voice down. Whether it was for Sugu’s or Dr. Sudou’s benefit, Izuku wasn’t sure. “ ‘Cause I knew you’d feel like shit about it. Because I made you feel like shit about it.”
“Kacchan, no—”
“Yes, and just hear me out,” Katsuki turned back to Izuku, his eyes intense. Unblinking. “If he’s quirkless, then it’s my opportunity to make it right. I can never undo what I did to you, and I know you say you’re past it, but I’ll never forget what a shithead I was. So if our son’s quirkless, then I’m going to love the absolute stuffing out of him, and every time you see me loving that little guy, know that it’s how much I should have loved you when you were young and quirkless. It’s how much I love you now, old and quirkless. And everything will be fine.”
“K-Kacchan.”
Izuku wasn’t quite sure when the tears had started; he was trying to blink them away, but it was only encouraging them to fall. And then he would have wiped them away, but somewhere in the course of Katsuki’s speech, he’d taken both of Izuku’s hands in his, and how he was powerless against them falling.
Luckily, Katsuki was there, reaching their connected hands up and brushing under both of Izuku’s eyes with his thumbs. Where they were warm in Izuku’s hands, they were cool against his face, all reddened up from crying.
“If we’re lucky, the doc will be able to see if the kid’s got your crying genes and we can work on that right away.”
Izuku laughed, but it was watery, the crinkle of his eyes sending two more tears cascading towards Katsuki’s thumbs. “Yeah, maybe.”
They had to wait a while longer. Long enough for Sugu to wake up and whine for a bottle—they had formula, but some of it ended up spilt on the floor—for Sugu to drink the bottle down to its chalky bottom, and fall asleep again in Katsuki’s rocking arms, per Katsuki’s insistence. At the rate they were going, feedings and diaper changes would never be equal between them, but Katsuki wasn’t gonna be left behind in the dust, he’d said as he’d stolen the bottle. Hence the formula on the ground.
Dr. Sudou had a few printed out pieces of paper when he returned, all stuck under a black clipboard and it was professional enough that it caused Izuku to sit up a little straighter, some of that old anxiety returning to him immediately.
“Aw,” Dr. Sudou cooed as he sat down, smiling at Sugu. “I can practically smell the newborn baby smell on him from here. It’s unlike anything else.”
He definitely had kids then, Izuku figured, the thought passing as the quietest hum overtop the rest of his inner monologue. His eyes honed in on that clipboard, wanting to tear it out of the doctor’s hands and get the news himself. But all his joints, his muscles, each and every ligament was stiff and unmoving.
“Whatcha got for us, Doc?”
Katsuki was looking at Dr. Sudou expectantly, but Izuku could hardly tear his eyes away from the clipboard. Did they really even have to know? All they needed was confirmation that Sugu didn’t have One For All, right? And they could leave the rest for when the time came, like all other parents did, right?
Izuku broke away from the clipboard and glanced at Katsuki, still rocking Sugu even though he’d fallen dead asleep a while ago. Katsuki returned his gaze and gave the shortest nod of reassurance.
No. They had to know.
“Well, first of all, the paternal results are as expected,” the doctor started. “You both are very, very close matches, so congratulations again on fatherhood.”
Izuku bit his lip, practically holding his tongue in to keep from saying get on with it, get on with it!
“As for the quirk results,” Dr. Sudou continued. “Dynamight’s are as expected. Some genes consistent with emitter quirks, but as we’ve discussed, the particulars are still fuzzy. As for Deku…”
Dr. Sudou met Izuku’s unblinking gaze and Izuku’s tongue dried up. God, he needed to make space for a water bottle in that diaper bag. No, no, he needed to relax because everything was going to be exactly—
“…Results are consistent with quirklessness.”
—Exactly as expected.
Izuku let out a breath and pasted a toothless smile on his face. It was the obvious result. Anything else would mean that something was horribly wrong, so this was good. It was correct, and proved that the technology was trustworthy, so that was good. It was so much like the doctor’s visit he’d had fifteen years ago when he’d first been declared quirkless but that was okay! He was a hero anyway, even without a quirk. Well, not right now, exactly, but it was only temporary. The point was, that everything was fine.
“And results for Midoriya Sugu are also consistent with quirklessness.”
Everything was fine.
“Oh,” Izuku intoned, his voice pitched up a little higher than he’d intended. “Okay—that’s good. No—great news! That’s exactly what we needed to hear to be sure, so. Yeah! Thank you so much Dr. Sudou.”
Before Izuku knew it, he was on his feet, practically floating the couple of steps over to the doctor to shake his hand. That pesky clipboard was in the way, but the doctor set it aside, landing on a desk with a clap as Izuku took his hand in both of his and shook.
Even if a villain had been hoping to get somewhere with One For All, now they would never succeed. Because there wasn’t a trace of it in anyone anymore. Izuku and Sugu were quirkless and All Might was long dead. There was nothing.
And Izuku and Katsuki were going to be the ones to catch that villain, and tell them so themselves.
“Yeah, thanks, Doc,” Katsuki agreed, standing up as well and placing Sugu in the stroller. “We’ll be on our way now.”
Izuku felt a hand at the small of his back as he was whisked out of the room, back into the short hallway and down the other side of it. Katsuki pushed the stroller right past the elevator and Izuku paused. “Kacchan? Where are we going?”
“Bathroom,” he said shortly, pushing Izuku in front of him when they reached it. Izuku opened the door and held it as Katsuki pushed the stroller in. Once the door was closed, Katsuki hollered, “Anyone in here?”
Izuku looked at Sugu, but he didn’t smell anything informing him that Sugu needed a new diaper. And the baby was sleeping soundly as ever, despite Katsuki’s noisiness. When there was no response confirming a presence in the bathroom, Izuku looked to Katsuki to take Sugu, but Katsuki brushed right past the stroller and wrapped his arms around Izuku’s waist, tucking his chin over Izuku’s shoulder. The touch was firm but soft, yet it still knocked the breath out of Izuku.
“I know that wasn’t what you wanted to hear,” Katsuki said quietly, his raspy whisper nothing but a low rumble by Izuku’s ear.
“I…It’s okay, Kacchan,” Izuku stumbled out. “What you said before about Sugu—”
“No,” Katsuki interrupted. “It wasn’t what you wanted to hear about you.”
Izuku’s breath was lost to the room. Like the room was a vacuum, sucking the air out of his mouth, then his lungs until they collapsed in his chest, taking the rest of his organs with them. His chest hurt, and he really, really couldn’t take in a breath. And when he finally did, it hiccupped in and out, the sound of a wracked sob coming with it.
One was all it took, and then the last five years came crashing down.
“I knew it was gone,” Izuku sobbed, his eyes pressing wetly into Katsuki’s shoulder. His hands were fisting the back of Katsuki’s sweatshirt, clinging to the fabric like it was what would keep him upright. Like it was support of any kind. “I knew immediately, so why am I being so stupid?”
“You’re not stupid,” Katsuki murmured. “Only I get to call you that, and it’s because I don’t mean it.”
“But I am,” Izuku wailed. “How can I miss what was never mine?”
“It was yours,” Katsuki said. “And you used it perfectly, and you saved the world.”
“And I lost it,” Izuku cried. “I lost it, Kacchan, I lost it.”
There was a brief pause as tears kept falling from Izuku’s eyes, soaking and already cooling on Katsuki’s shoulder. And there was the slow rub of Katsuki’s flat hand on his back, like he’d seen done to Sugu in moments of disquiet.
“Yeah, you did,” he said finally. “But you got to keep everything else.”
Izuku brought his face out of Katsuki’s shoulder, and blinked up at him. His wet eyelashes smeared tears on his eyelids, and he was fairly certain his whole face was red. But it didn’t matter because the look Katsuki was meeting him with was soft, and open. Like the look he wore when he first blinked awake in the morning.
“And then some,” Izuku sniffled. “I got everything else and then some.”
Katsuki smirked, glancing over at Sugu.
“I’ll say.”
*
The night was quiet.
The past few hours had been soundtracked by nothing but the clack of his fingers on keys, punctuated by dull taps of the touchpad and higher clicks of the mouse. Underneath was the soft shush of his laptop’s fan working overtime even as the coffee table grew warm under Izuku’s wrists. All while dry eyes stared at profiles that possibly matched the women with the ponytail, narrowed down only by the searches Katsuki and Izuku had been swapping. Such had been the motif of Izuku’s life for nearly the past week since visiting the lab.
So what was that new noise?
Izuku blinked blearily at his laptop screen, taking a few moments to categorize the sound he was hearing. When it finally registered that it was a baby crying—his baby crying—he jolted more awake, honing in on the clock in the corner of the laptop. 2AM? Gosh, he’d gotten carried away.
He hurried, having already lost a few critical moments during which Katsuki was likely to wake, and hoisted up his baby boy, clearly ready for his next feeding. It only felt as though it had been a few minutes since the last one, but that’s how things tended to be when Izuku got sucked into research. He’d lost whole days like that before, so a brief evening window wasn’t really too bad.
Sugu soothed nice and easy this time. He’d fussed a little more after—and during—the previous feeding, which was maybe why Izuku had been awake enough to head over to the laptop and get some work done. But this was a good little man right here. Quick to fall back asleep nearly as soon as the bottle was dry.
“Good job,” Izuku congratulated as he set Sugu back down. Positive reinforcement young.
Katsuki would probably be the one to wake for the next feeding, if their pattern was to continue as it had. And he’d throw a fit if he found Izuku awake, that was for sure.
Still. That wouldn’t be for another couple hours.
With that in mind, Izuku stretched, muscles sore from training as well as sitting too long at the computer, and returned to the coffee table. Then he wiggled his mouse, and continued on.
It was hours later, throat so dry that every breath scratched down it, eyelids nearly sticking to his eyes with every belabored blink, that he found her. Izuku scribbled the info on a Post-It and stuck it to the formula box, the first place Katsuki would go in the morning. Then he collapsed into bed, heavier than if he’d been pockmarked by lead bullets. He wasn’t even asleep before the crying started up again, and the Katsuki stirred.
By the time Katsuki stood up, he was.
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