"KAITOU DAD?!"

Conan stared blankly at the front-page headline of the newspaper which had just been dropped on the breakfast table. Underneath the headline was a picture of KID grinning fondly as he ruffled Conan's hair while Conan was glaring halfheartedly at the thief. It is a pretty convincing picture, Conan admitted, impressed that the reporter had gotten close enough to photograph them without being noticed.

"Conan-kun?" He looked up at Ran and blinked at her oddly serious expression, "Is this true?"

His mouth was open to tell her he was just surprised by the picture, only to snap it closed without a word as he realized: Ran actually believes this. Conan could see why; it was more believable than that he was her shrunken best friend, Kid did act more friendly towards him than any other detectives, and probably most importantly Kid had proven he could disguise as Shinichi without a mask. It was a perfect excuse, and the timeline of the thief's eight-year disappearance roughly fit with Conan's age if Kid had stopped holding heists after marrying 'Conan's mother' and only restarted once Conan was old enough to be in school. As for Ran finding him with Agasa-hakase; Conan wouldn't be surprised at all if the inventor either had made some of Kid's gadgets or was friendly with the person who did. If Kid trusted his life to the man's inventions it wouldn't be much of a stretch to trust the man to protect his child—oh, he needed to be careful with this. If he confirmed it directly it would look suspicious and end up causing trouble for him with everyone asking him about Kid's identity.

So instead Conan ignored the question completely, "Ran-neechan, can I keep that picture?" He pointed at the newspaper and gave her his best hopeful look.

Ran's expression softened instantly as she answered, "Of course, Conan-kun," and ignored Kogoro's halfhearted protests as she took the article away.

"Brat," Kogoro spoke as soon as Ran was out of earshot, "have you been helping that annoying thief when you run off to 'chase' him?"

"What? Of course not!" Conan protested, adding childishly, "That wouldn't be fun at all!"

Kogoro laughed and declared arrogantly, "Continue to learn from this famous Sleeping Detective and you'll definitely catch that thief!"

Conan sweat-dropped and agreed weakly before returning to his breakfast, silently retorting, I'm not the one who needs to learn to be a better detective.

~K~

He blinked at the article for a moment before grinning widely. Tantei-kun might be annoyed, but Kaito was going to take this and run with it. If he could get his Taskforce convinced…he cackled at the opportunities for more chaos. As a bonus, there was no way Hakuba could continue to accuse him of being KID if the thief had a child Conan's age; he was only ten years older than the kid! Honestly, he probably should have been more careful showing how fond he was of Tantei-kun, but the tiny detective was thrilling to have at heists and was much less annoying than Hakuba. The blonde seemed to see everything in black and white; Kaito was convinced that telling the blonde his reason for being KID wouldn't change anything between them. By contrast, after a few heists Tantei-kun didn't seem to care about arresting him, only chasing him until the gem was returned and would even stay and chat with him! Mostly deducing his tricks and friendly insults but still!

Mentally planning how he should confirm (indirectly of course) that KID was Tantei-kun's father, Kaito frowned as he realized he didn't know why Conan wasn't living with his parents. If they were well-known to Conan's guardians he might have trouble claiming to be Conan's father. He'd also need to check that it couldn't be easily proved that Conan's father wasn't KID…hmm. It seemed he'd need to involve Tantei-kun in his planning, if only to make things work more smoothly. Now, how to convince his favorite critic to play along?

A/N: Thanks to satoshy12 for suggesting this idea!

I was going to hold on to this until I had a better idea where it was going...then I realized today is Fathers Day and couldn't resist posting it :D

Edit 10/8/20: Minor typo fixes