"And then— bam, just like that— she got pregnant."

Katsuki scowls at the air in front of him. Patrol is exponentially worse with a partner, especially when said partner is Denki. He doesn't need this dumbass schooling him on the mechanics of conception.

"Crazy."

"Yup." Denki says, "Kyouka wants a boy first, but I hope it's a girl."

He hates working with this guy. "Uh-huh."

"I know people get nervous or whatever," Denki goes on, "But I'm actually like, super fucking pumped for this baby, bro."

"Good on ya."

Denki is too dense to realize he isn't interested in the conversation, so he keeps prattling on for a couple blocks. "Anyway, Itsuka's in labor right now, so Tetsutetsu's gonna be gone for the next few weeks."

That makes Katsuki's jaw set.

The only thing worse than Eijirou taken out of commission is his second-rate doppelganger. Denki isn't cutting it anymore, no one's afraid of a bipedal power surge. They're afraid of guys that'll literally beat the degeneracy out of them. With the force already stretched so thin, why don't those fuckheads have the sensibility to consider this before busting their loads inside of these women?

The thought of putting in even more work causes Katsuki to momentarily lose his footing. He reflexively puts his hands over his face to brace himself against the concrete but feels a cool breeze instead. He blinks his eyes open to see a snowflake melt on the tip of his nose.

Katsuki stares down at the constructed ice shield keeping him from making contact with the floor. His eyes follow the trail over the building as if he doesn't know who it's coming from. "Tch."

"Oh, hey, Todoroki!" Denki calls. "Say, if your wife's rich, why are you still working?"

Shouto's sitting on the rooftop a couple of stories up. It looks like he's taking his lunch break. "Um, so people don't die?"

"Dumbass," Katsuki mutters, breaking out of the frosty shelter.

Shouto looks up from his burger to ask, "Did I hear you say Itsuka was in labor?"

"Yeah," Denki nods fervently, eager for actual feedback for his rambling. "Her water broke at like four in the morning or something. Can you believe that? Sun's not even out and the kid decides to come. I'd go back to sleep if it was me."

They climb up the fire escape while Shouto finishes chewing, swallows, and sighs.

"Welp. That sucks. For us, not her." he clarifies, "Sorry, Bakugou, looks like you can't have kids for the next three years, at least."

"Go fuck yourself," he snaps, toeing Shouto's shoulder blade so he loses his balance before freezing himself in place. "I'll have my kids whenever the fuck I want. And when I do, they're gonna outshine all of your disgraces."

"Not mine," Denki says.

"God," Katsuki says, "I cannot wait for that little shitstorm to pop out."

"Me neither," he says dreamily and then nods over to Shouto. "What's in the bag?"

"Midoriya's lunch."

"Cool," Katsuki says before snatching it up. He looks inside to see two wrapped burgers in a pool of fries and ketchup packets. He plops down beside Shouto and proceeds to ignore Denki.

"Are you not gonna feed me?" he sputters.

"Fuck off."

"Fine," he says before fucking off.

Katsuki waits until they're alone to start eating. His understanding of Shouto has been a little off since last night.

"So," he says, unwrapping Deku's burger. There's sweet pickle + extra mayo scribbled on the foil that makes him cringe. "How's it going?"

Shouto blinks up at him. They don't do small talk.

"Good?"

Katsuki tries to maintain an uncharacteristic civility as he bites into the burger and asks, "Your wife okay?"

"Momo?" Shouto says, "Yes, she's fine… Why?"

He looks at the city as he chews. "Denki said she was like," his brow furrows onto a skyscraper. "Depressed or something."

Shouto nods once. "She is."

With a sharp jerk of his neck, Katsuki turns to him. "And she's fine?"

"I mean, she's doing better." he explains.

Doing better. If crying at some kid's birthday party is considered doing better, he doesn't even want to know how bad it was.

"So why'd she spend the whole night crying in the bathroom?"

Shouto frowns. "What are you talking about? She wasn't in there the whole night."

Katsuki licks a smudge of mustard off his lips. "Denki said—"

"Not a reliable source."

He burns for being so gullible. That dumbass was the king of exaggeration.

"Well," he grumbles, "I saw her on the couch looking really fucking sad. Was she alright?"

Shouto's mismatched eyes fall to the concrete at their feet. Katsuki watches him stare at the ground for a while. "She just gets like that when there are other children around. It makes her feel like a bad mother."

"For what?"

"For not being able to enjoy Ryou."

He doesn't understand what kind of mother wouldn't be happy around her baby. Aren't women supposed to have some built-in nurturing gene? He shakes his head and takes another bite. "I don't get that shit."

"What?"

"What does that even mean? Did the kid make her depressed?"

"He… no. It's nothing he does in particular, he's like any other child. It's more her and how she deals with the responsibility of being a mother. She's really hard on herself."

Katsuki makes a noise around bites, urging him to continue.

"I mean, we were also the first ones to have a baby and she was stressing out a lot. Newborns are really demanding, like blubbering gremlins with no off-switch."

"And what?" Katsuki shrugs, "Princess couldn't stand his bad manners?"

"No," he says, then, "I don't know. At first, I didn't get it either. I was like, 'Oh, she's just adjusting. This is normal.' I was kinda freaked out too. And tired, but whatever, I got over it. Then she started saying how she felt stuck with a kid now, and how genuinely unhappy she was, and how guilty it made her feel to admit it."

"Damn."

"Then like, she wasn't sleeping, barely ate, and always had the shakes when she'd have to hold him or feed him. She'd lash out on me for being late sometimes, and I'd feel so bad I'd take the rest of the week off. When I was home, she used to tell me that Ryou hated her because she was a terrible mother and other really irrational things. I'd lose my patience whenever she'd start talking like that and probably made it worse."

"Probably," Katsuki agrees.

"I didn't even know she was depressed until Ryou was eight months old." he confesses.

Shouto pauses again to eat. Katsuki finds it hard to take another bite.

"I used to think it was kinda funny." Shouto says, giving an unhappy titter of laughter, "When Ryou first learned to crawl, he'd follow her around the house and she'd run away from him. It was okay until she locked herself in the bathroom and I found them both crying on either side of the door."

"Holy fuck."

"Yeah," he sighs. "At that point, I just thought it'd be better if I took Ryou over to my dad's and let Fuyumi take care of him for a while. You know, give Momo a breather."

"Right."

"Except it made her feel even more negligent." Shouto says.

Katsuki shakes his head, unable to reply.

"She told me she regrets having him and hated herself for saying it. Honestly, sometimes I do too."

"Hate her?"

"No. Regret having him."

He chokes on an unchewed bit of bread. "What the fuck—"

"No, listen," Shouto says, putting a hand up, "I love my son. But seeing Momo this miserable in her twenties? I would've waited a hundred years before having him."

It's quiet again after that. Katsuki lets the words weigh on him like a stone. He doesn't know the prevalence, but the possibility of Ochako going through something even half as bad as that is too dreadful to risk.

"What do you do?" he mutters, looking only at the floor. "Like, how do you help her?"

Shouto shrugs. "I take her on walks if she's feeling up for it. Refill her prescription, make sure she's eating enough, hold her hand while she cries. Stuff like that. There really isn't much else I can do. Her mom suggested skullcap tea to help."

"Did it?"

"Not as well as my mother's suggestion."

"Which was?"

Shouto takes a sip of his soda.

"Zoloft."

Katsuki's eye catches a woman strolling her baby just up the street. She doesn't look too devastated. "And," he murmurs, still staring at the mother. "The meds helped?"

"I guess." Shouto says, crumpling up the wrapper in his left hand. "There are days where I think the depression's lifting, others I doubt she'll ever be herself again."

It sounds like Shouto's about to sigh but he doesn't, as if he's too tired to. It doesn't stop Katsuki from sighing for the both of them.

"Yeah." Shouto nods. "I hate leaving him with my dad and making my sister look after him all the time, but what choice do I have? I'd like to come home to see him and Momo, but it's just her sitting on the couch by herself, and I feel like shit."

Katsuki frowns down at his burger. That affectively killed his appetite. He's the one who feels like shit for telling Ochako to stay home and watch his kid while he's away.

He pulls a pickle out. He likes regular pickles, but sweet pickles are nasty. Ochako used to eat them for him. She and Deku are the only people he knows who actually like these.

Shouto balls the wrapper tighter in his fist and tosses it aside when it starts smoking.

"Sometimes," he starts and pauses to swallow. "Sometimes she reminds me of my mom and I hate that because it makes me feel like my dad."

And now Katsuki can't breathe because of how heavy the air just got. What the fuck? Why can't he ever just have a regular conversation with Shouto? Why does everything have to circle back to his traumatic childhood?

"That... sounds really fucking depressing."

He nods. "It is."

It's quiet again. Katsuki takes a fry and wipes the ketchup off Shouto's bottom lip with it before stuffing it in his mouth.

"But Momo's fine." he says around the fry, "Last night was nothing. You should've seen her at Ryou's first birthday party when he called Fuyumi mama. That was bad. Even I was crying."

"Could be worse," Katsuki shrugs. "He could've called Froggy mama."

Shouto puts his face in his palm. "Good lord."

He feels kinda bad for cheering Shouto up at Deku's expense, but he honestly can't take any more of this shit.

"Poor kid." he sighs, "She's gonna get bullied worse than her dad."

"Weren't you the one bullying him?"

"Yup."

"Well, yes," Shouto admits. "She is very painful to look at."

"Heard she has a tail." Katsuki mentions.

"Wouldn't be surprised."

"But, I mean," he shrugs. "What else did we expect from a guy like Deku?"

Shouto raises his eyebrows. "Oh, I'm almost certain if he'd chosen a better-looking mother, the child's appearance would've been salvaged."

"Nah." he shakes his head. "It's genetically impossible for Deku to have a decent-looking kid."

"You're joking." Shouto snorts. "I can't think of anybody more attractive than Midoriya. It definitely comes from the mother's side. Had he decided to procreate with a more attractive woman, say, Momo or Uraraka—"

When Shouto uses terms like that while talking about kids, it makes Katsuki wanna vomit. He sounds like his dad. "Shut the fuck up, cuck."

"I'm just saying."

"No." Katsuki says. "No one could've saved that kid. She was doomed from the start."

Shouto nods, staring at his wedding band again. "I just don't understand why he settled for her. He could've gotten anyone he wanted."

"Don't kid yourself." Katsuki sneers. "Deku couldn't pull anyone past her. If anything, she's the one who's out of his league."

"Really?" he asks. "Izuku Greatest-Hero-Ever Midoriya couldn't do better than her?"

"'Course not."

Shouto gives him a look. "Do you find Asui attractive?"

"Hell no." he grimaces. "This is a testament to how fucking ugly Deku is."

He shakes his head. "Whatever. Maybe they're together for other reasons. Who knows?"

"Beats me," Katsuki mutters, stretching his arms over his head. "Why'd you and Momo tie the knot? Is it because your dad was tired of the gay rumors?"

"Partly." He admits. "Also she was pregnant with my son."

Katsuki's been meaning to ask him about that. "How the fuck did that even happen? Did your boyfriend jerk you off and then high five her girlfriend before she fingered her?"

Shouto's eyebrows come together with a twitch. "Are you... asking if I have sex with my wife?"

Katsuki nods. "Yeah."

Shouto blinks. "Yes."

"How?"

"Do you not remember the sex-ed lecture from school?" Shouto asks, reaching for his drink.

"No, you dumbfuck." he snaps, "I meant how'd you nut? Were you thinking of Deku?"

"Oh," Shouto smiles around the straw. "No, actually, I was thinking of Uraraka."

Katsuki wraps his hand around Shouto's grip on the cup and squeezes all the soda out.

"Well, you're shit out of luck." he grumbles, shaking his hand dry on Shouto's sleeve. "She doesn't want kids."

"Good for her." Shouto says. "Your child would be a national tragedy."

"Quit lying to yourself. Our kid would smoke the cute-baby Olympics."

"I guess it's possible." Shouto shrugs. "I mean, who would've thought Kirishima's son would turn out the way he did?"

"Oh, hundred percent agree." he says. "With parents like them, I thought that kid was gonna come out looking like Majin Buu."

"Exactly."

"But then he was born looking like a fucking prince." Katsuki declares. "Love that kid."

"That's strange."

Just before Katsuki can call Shouto jealous, a gust of wind makes his lashes flinch to a close.

"Aw, you saved me some pickles?"

He looks up to see Deku staring down at the four pickles in the burger foil.

"No." he says and bunches the wrapper up in his fist to torch it. Deku doesn't seem too sad about it.

"Sorry," Shouto tells him. "Bakugou got here before you,"

"That's okay." Deku smiles, stepping onto the floor. "I thought I'd have lunch with Tsu and Nana today."

Katsuki frowns at the recollection of what Ochako told him last night. "Hey," he growls, "Froggy hasn't been eating right."

"New mothers rarely do." Shouto mentions.

"Shut the hell up." he snaps and then rises to stab a vicious finger in Deku's chest. "You'd better be cooking her some dinner after this."

Deku frowns and he looks so much like his daughter it's laughable. "But Kacchan, I'm on patrol until eleven—"

"But Kacchan," he mocks, "Blah, blah, excuses, excuses. Take care of her, you piece of garbage. Isn't it bad enough you made her stay at home all day with your kid? Now she has to starve too?"

"What do you think I just got back from doing?" Deku remarks, "Sitting at home, making my wife cook lunch while I watch TV?"

"Wife?" he chokes, both betrayed and shocked. "You married her?"

"Her dad threatened to kill me every day until I did." Deku cries. "Besides, what was I supposed to do? Be out of the kid's life like my dad?"

"I consistently prayed that my father would leave during my youth." Shouto says.

"This might sound bad," Deku starts, and it already sounds terrible. "But even if my dad was a bad person, I'd still have liked seeing him every now and then."

Shouto tsks. "Careful what you wish for."

Katsuki's phone pings in his pocket. He reaches for it to distract himself from the daddy-issues present in the men before him. It's a message from Eijriou, asking what he's doing after patrol.

"Alright." he says, putting his phone back. "Count me out of this pity party. You sad fucks make both marriage and fatherhood sound worse than being dead. So I'm out of here."