The air whistled through Katsuki's ears as he shot through it, right then left as he maneuvered around a building. Damn college campuses with their irregularly placed architecture. Naturally, it wouldn't be a problem if Katsuki were on foot, but if he'd entered that way, he would have had to perform the whole rigmarole of passing through Musutafu University security. It was much easier to fly right past.

And he was on a tight schedule. Izuku had somehow tracked down their target, and she should be on her way to class right now. It was as good an opportunity as he'd gotten in ages.

The campus was homogenous—all young people, all with bags and walking on foot mostly on the sidewalks, a few cutting across the green. They were practically interchangeable. The one advantage he had was that he was causing a bit of a scene, and as he popped an explosion overhead, all eyes turned up to look at him. He just needed to find that face. He hadn't gotten a great look at her when he'd first encountered her—rather, he'd been stuck with a face full of her ponytail—but he'd been studying the ID photo Izuku had unearthed like he would any other villain. Her face was behind his eyelids with every blink.

Chatter grew beneath him, faces covered by pointing fingers and then phones pointed up at him. Some people waved, and he heard a couple shouts of "How's your baby?" and "We wanna see the baby!" Katsuki tuned it out, allowing his explosions to deafen him as he continued his mission.

And: target acquired.

Katsuki might have been on the bench the last two weeks, but he was sharp as ever. Quicker than Shouto, whose ice was crackling in the distance behind him. At least if security got mad at someone, it'd be him.

There were far too many people around for this takedown, just like that fight two weeks ago, where Katsuki couldn't make full use of his quirk for all the stampeding lunch breakers. But he didn't need to—she was already frozen to the spot before Shouto had even made it on the scene.

Katsuki dove for the manicured green, landing a meter, meter and a half, from her and the rest of the rubberneckers. Despite the askance look Katsuki had gotten of her last time, he imagined the look on her face now wasn't so different as it had been in his brief chokehold. Eyes bugged, jaw dropped, terror-filled.

That was his first thought. His second thought was: she doesn't look anything like Sugu.

Good.

Not that it had been a concern after going to the geneticist last week—not to say it had been a concern before either, but still. Good.

"We meet again," Katsuki said, standing on the balls of his feet as he waited for her to bolt, make a run for it. It seemed that was the only move she had, but Katsuki stayed alert, aware of his periphery and the others around in case she had tricks.

She did move, but only slightly. Head cast down, she raised both hands up and forward, as though gifting Katsuki with something. Her cooperation.

"I'll go," she whispered, her voice tight as a fist as she spoke towards her shoes. "Please, I'll do whatever you need."

Katsuki looked down at her hands, how the wrists were bent toward each other like knock knees. Waiting for him to whip his quirkless cuffs out.

All the adrenaline that had been bubbling through Katsuki's veins, animating him after two weeks on the reserves, fizzled right out. There was nothing satisfying about taking in a villain who gave herself up. Nothing rewarding about having to take in a person who was willing to do that.

Katsuki looked past her to the crowd that had formed around them, staring at him with occasional glances back to where Katsuki still heard Shouto's ice thundering toward them. He stared them down.

"Scram!" he shouted. "Make better use of your time than this and get a proper education! None of you brainiacs here have any business getting lazy. Now haul ass!"

Katsuki itched to fire and explosion over his head or even wave a grenade at them to hammer home his point, but that'd just draw more curiosity, give them more excuse to ogle. So he glared and yelled a couple more times before they began to actually dissipate. Just in time for Shouto to arrive.

"Everything okay?" Shouto asked as he landed beside them, the chill of his ice bringing goosebumps to Katsuki's skin. A flash of fire out Shouto's right side to regulate his temperature, however, also evened out the air around him.

Katsuki looked toward her eyes, but they were downcast as he reached for his cuffs and snapped them on her wrists.

"Fine!" she insisted, her ebullient tone not quite disguising the trembling of her lower lip.

"You're not under arrest," Shouto said, handing a tissue to her. "We're taking you in for questioning and from there we'll see how we need to proceed."

"O-okay," the woman sniffled. She dabbed under her eyes where gray traces of mascara were smearing, leaving her under eyes more dark and bruised than the crying alone was managing. Shouto took the tissue back and pocketed it.

As he watched Shouto lead their mark toward the front of campus, Katsuki's eyes lingered on her. The same sporty ponytail that had swung in his face on that day two weeks ago. He'd smelled the same cucumber shampoo as he trapped her on the ground as he had then.

He should have been mad. He'd kind of expected it. He's usually at least a little mad.

He wasn't.

This woman had thrown his life for a loop, changed all his plans, well and truly altered Izuku's life, and honestly, deserved more roughing up than a humble surrender on the campus lawn.

But he wasn't going to do that. Instead, he pulled out his phone and sent a simple text. Got her.

The response was almost immediate: Omg, Kacchan, sugoi!

A moment later, Katsuki's phone buzzed again, and he received a picture of Izuku wearing some lame shirt, stretched out from too many washes but ideal for getting baby spit up on. And Sugu in his lap, face nearly as pink as his visible gums as he screamed his head off, Izuku raising one of his marshmallow-sized fists in victory.

It was perfect. If Izuku were ugly crying too, he'd make it his background.

Katsuki pocketed his phone and followed behind Shouto and his little catalyst. Not angry at all.

Watanabe Michiko. The most nondescript name possible. No wonder she'd taken two weeks to track down.

"I'm not dangerous, I swear," Watanabe sniffled, looking down at her cuffed wrists on the metal table. "My quirk only works once every nine months. I'm as good as quirkless right now."

The word quirkless made Katsuki flinch. It was still a sensitive word after last week. And the last fifteen years. One he'd flung in hate and now he had to make amends with. It would take practice.

"I read that in her file," Katsuki said to Shouto. They exchanged a look over Watanabe's head, both shrugging lightly, before Katsuki reached over and unlocked the cuffs. Based on her fighting skills from two weeks ago, unless she was the second coming of All For One, she wouldn't be able to put a scratch on either of them. And anything they could do to make her feel more comfortable, less under attack, might make her more willing to share what she knew.

Once Watanabe's hands were free, she used them to wipe the tears that had been falling freely from her eyes since Katsuki had found her. As soon as one tear was smeared away, another fell, though at least she was through with the caterwauling they'd endured in the van. She seemed to be settled in some stage of resignation.

But she'd opened up the conversation on her own. Her quirk was a good place to start.

"So you were waiting for the cool-down period to be over to use your quirk?" Katsuki asked.

"No," Watanabe said, shaking her head as she made eye contact with no one but her lap. "No, I never use it. I didn't have to wait."

"So what or who made you use it on Deku and Dynamight?" Shouto asked.

"I didn't mean to!" Watanabe exclaimed, suddenly sitting up straighter, looking to Katsuki. "It wasn't supposed to be you!"

Katsuki scowled. The idea of Izuku having a kid with someone else turned his stomach over once and then twice. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It was only meant to be hero Deku. But you touched me too soon!"

The details of her quirk had all been on the server once Katsuki had looked into the information that Izuku had gathered. Forty weeks between use, mimicking human gestation. Then she only needed five seconds of physical touch while the quirk was active to pop out a newborn baby on the ground. Levels of control were unknown, but that made sense if she never used the quirk.

"You mean you can create clones?"

"Genetic clones, yeah," Watanabe admitted.

"Two Dekus," Katsuki scoffed. " They'd probably just yap to each other about quirks every day."

The idea wasn't entirely unappealing, though. Katsuki had barely seen Izuku since Sugu had put their schedules in stark reverse of each other. Maybe with a second Izuku, Katsuki would have time to do a little more than twist ankles with him under the blankets for a few hours each night.

"They'll be raised differently from birth, so it's not the same person. But genetically, yeah. Identical, since there's no other gene set to pull from."

If a genetic clone of Izuku had been the goal, that added credence to Endeavor's theory, even if they knew now that Izuku no longer had One For All. A villain still wouldn't, and a helpless clone of Izuku would be a laughably easy way to look for it.

But it also meant that Sugu now existed just because Katsuki was Izuku's hero partner. Because he'd happened to step in to stop a perceived villain that day. He was the guy who'd been around. An accident. A coincidence.

Wasn't that the case for Izuku too, though? In the story of nature versus nurture, any cloned version of Izuku would have been missing Inko, missing being raised on All Might videos, and missing Katsuki. And although Katsuki sometimes still hated himself to hell and back for it, for his despicable role in Izuku's life, his Izuku had turned out amazing. He was the Izuku who had saved the world. The Deku who could do it.

"Watanabe," Shouto stated, pulling the conversation back on course, "who compelled you to do this?"

"I—" Her gaze was pulled down again. "I'm not sure. I never met them."

"How did they contact you, then?" Shouto asked.

"Email."

"We're going to have to see those," Katsuki said, pushing aside his feelings. They already had the phone in their custody—all they needed was her passcode.

Watanabe shook her head. "I deleted it." Katsuki groaned, turning to the wall and thumping a fist against it. "It looked like phishing! Your tuition will be covered if you use your quirk XYZ way. So untrustworthy! Of course I deleted it."

"That's natural," Shouto agreed. "If you didn't respond to the email, how did you come to carry out the request? And what were its details?"

"I'd forgotten about the email," Watanabe explained. "It was a couple weeks later that a scholarship was credited to my account. Then another email was sent…that I also deleted."

"Hell," Katsuki groaned, rolling his eyes. "We're gonna need your laptop. Those emails might still be around, or else something that we can use to track that source."

"That's fine, that's fine," Watanabe agreed, nodding meekly. Each nod was deep enough to pass for a bow and it had Katsuki all twisted around.

"If you never use your quirk," he started, "and you're so damn…repentant now, then why did you do it? Just money?"

It was at least a good hint that whoever had compelled both Watanabe and that horn-headed villain had money to throw around. That narrowed down the list, and narrowed it further if a villainous organization wasn't involved.

"I guess…I guess I was willing to convince myself," she started. "Convince myself that it could be a good thing. Hero Deku is a wonderful person—bringing another one of him into the world didn't sound so bad. And I thought, if anyone can make sure that a baby ends up in a good home, it's a hero. I didn't expect…or, I talked myself out of expecting…"

The tears were coming again. Katsuki might have thought that she'd wrung herself dry, but he'd known Izuku long enough to know that some people didn't get cried out. He and Shouto exchanged a glance, but neither spoke. Shouto handed Watanabe another tissue, and then stepped away stiffly.

"I didn't think you'd burden yourselves by keeping him," Watanabe continued. "That's why I don't use my quirk. I don't want to accidentally make anyone parents who don't want to be. But of course you'd keep him. I was such an idiot to think otherwise."

A sob escaped her mouth and her hand flew up in a belated attempt to catch it. Katsuki looked to Shouto again. He shook his head. Having already performed his tissue act, it seemed he no longer had anything to offer. Katsuki sighed and reached a hand halfway across the table toward Watanabe.

"Hey," he said quietly. He'd gotten a bit better at this speaking quietly thing in the past two weeks. "It's okay. Deku and I are okay."

"I never wanted to ruin your lives!" Watanabe cried, and Shouto handed her another tissue.

"Stop that," Katsuki said. "You said you went through with this because you trusted us to do what was best. Well, not only have we been doing that, but you're just going to have to trust me again now. Okay?"

A sniffle. "Okay."

Watanabe blinked up at Katsuki. Her cheeks were streaked pink where the tears had rolled down, and some still clung to her chin and jaw. It was Katsuki's impulse to reach for a bib that wasn't there and dab them away, but she did it herself with the balled up tissues. Still, as he watched her cry, he saw Sugu. And there was something new in his gut, pulling him towards fixing it.

"You royally fucked up my life," Katsuki stated. "Mine and Deku's. I smell phantom smells of baby shit all day no matter how much I shower. The counters in my kitchen are constantly powdery with formula 'cause the damn baby eats so much. And most importantly, Deku's taken a hit to his career that he's worked too hard for to deserve."

A little sobbing yelp escaped Watanabe's mouth, but she nodded as Katsuki even as her face crumpled. It was like she was standing firm for a verbal flogging she knew she deserved.

"But Deku's not mad. And I've known since I saw you today—I'm not mad. I…I'm…"

Katsuki reached for the word. It wasn't one he used often, one he had to fumble for, like a rarely used spice in the back of the cabinet. He tried a couple. He was…alright? Coping? Adapting?

"Happy," he settled on.

It was raw, personal, or at least felt that way. Katsuki almost wanted to snatch the word back, put it up on its cabinet and shut the door, but it was already out. And Watanabe smiled.

"Oh," she said, wiping her tears away. "Oh, that's…Wow, I'm so glad!"

"Well, you shouldn't be too glad—still got a mess to fix," Katsuki said, turning his face to the table as his cheeks cooled. "So, you psycho-babbled yourself into thinking that nothing bad would happen to this baby. But surely your benefactor wanted this…Deku-clone."

Watanabe bowed her head again. "I guess I didn't really let myself think about that but…yeah, I mean…either that or disrupting Deku's life."

The traitorous thought popped into Katsuki's head of why. Why go through the effort of disrupting Izuku's life when he wasn't even a top fifty hero? But Katsuki took that thought and stomped it down. Bullshit ratings aside, Deku was a renowned hero, so it was a fair enough point, even if any motive he could imagine seemed thin.

"Aside from that," Katsuki continued. "What we know is that this guy has money to throw around and wanted a Deku clone out in the world. That's absolute shit to go off of."

"Wait," Shouto broke in, looking at Watanabe. "You said you never use your quirk."

"I don't," she confirmed.

"Do you talk about it?"

"No, not outside my family."

"Then how," Shouto said, taking a step closer, "did your benefactor know it?"

Watanabe blinked. "I have no idea."

A clue. It wasn't much, but it was a step forward.

Shouto looked at Katsuki. "I don't have any more questions, do you?"

"Nope."

"An intern will process you," Shouto said, heading for the door. "And we're still seizing your phone and laptop."

Katsuki watched Shouto go, taking one, two, three slow steps behind him, not even halfway to the door before it shut. He lingered, his feet as stuck as his throat suddenly was.

"Do you…" Katsuki started, an extra rasp to his voice stealing the sound from his words. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Do you know if your quirk is…temporary?"

Katsuki heard the chair shifting behind him, as though Watanabe was shifting to look at him. Katsuki didn't turn over his shoulder to check. "What do you mean?"

"Does Su—does the baby have any chance of disappearing? Or will he live a normal life?"

Watanabe's voice was warm as she said, "He's a normal baby, Dynamight. He'll never disappear."

"Oh. Okay. Fine," Katsuki said. He made it only one more step before he halted again. "You should think about using your quirk more. Professionally. You'd make a lot of people really…happy."

And then he made his way toward the door. His feet were unstuck and suddenly taking large strides, out of the room and down the hallway. He was nearly running by the time he made it to his desk.

"In a rush?" one of the interns—one who wasn't properly afraid of him, it seemed—asked as Katsuki threw together his stuff.

Katsuki tamped down the grin that was threatening to rise, training it down into his usual scowl. Still, his words floated out, easy and feathery-light:

"I'm going home."

"Aaaaaaahhhhhh."

Izuku put a hand to his mouth as he sloppily yawned, spittling a little on his palm. He wiped it on his shirt. It was already patchworked with at least a couple different bodily fluids—both his and Sugu's. What was one more?

"We are restless today, aren't we, buddy?"

Izuku's eyelids lay heavy over his eyes as he smiled at Sugu sprawled out on his lap. He probably looked a little drunk or high—he was neither—but luckily Sugu wasn't one to judge. As it was, Sugu's arms were waving, almost like he was swimming, limbs and face working wildly with occasional squawking cries coming up. Despite being inconstant, they were full throated, almost like he was trying to release something from deep within him, but he'd already spit up on Izuku once this feeding, so that probably wasn't it.

He'd been awake for longer than usual, and Izuku had been too. Well, not exactly—Izuku had been on his limited sleep schedule for long enough that he'd just about lost count, but that didn't mean he wasn't beat. And sitting on his bed as he was, leaning over the bassinet, it took all his years of self-control and self-discipline not to just fall backwards and go to sleep sidelong across the bed.

"Wanna play peek-a-boo?" Izuku offered with a sigh. Babies didn't develop object permanence until around month eight, so hopefully Izuku could drink this well dry in the meantime.

With a smile almost like the one he pasted on as Hero Deku, he looked Sugu in the eye before covering his face with his hands, shutting his eyes for good measure. "Where'd I go?" he asked with a gasp. Then he popped his hands open like casement windows. "Here I am!"

There was no whimpering for a moment, and Izuku figured he was on to something. "Where'd I go?" he asked again, hiding his face. Then, with a giggle, he quickly shifted his hands to his hips, thrust out his chest, and said, "I am here!"

Another moment of peace, and then Sugu's face crumpled, letting out another little yowl.

"What, no!" Izuku cried, leaning closer over the bassinet. "It's All Might! No crying for All Might!"

A single tear traced down Sugu's rounded cheek and Izuku dabbed it with his bib. They say that having kids is your parents' revenge—if that was the case, then Izuku had many, many more crying fits to look forward to.

"Okay, let's try a different approach."

Despite only being spring, the apartment was already quite balmy during the day and Katsuki didn't want to turn on the air conditioning yet. So Izuku was in a set of exercise shorts and Sugu was only wrapped in a thin shirt and pants, not yet swaddled because he'd been fighting Izuku too much on it this time.

"Gimme those toes," Izuku said, grabbing a big one between his thumb and forefinger. Each toe was so tiny, practically the size of a mung bean. It made Izuku hesitate to hold anything more than the loosest grip. "This little piggy went to market," he said, wiggling the first one before moving onto the second. "This little piggy stayed home."

Sugu was gazing down at his toes curiously, giving himself two or three extra chins atop that short little neck. No closer to sleep, but at least he was quiet.

"This little piggy had roast beef," Izuku continued, now on the middle toe, "this little piggy had none. And this little piggy—"

Izuku inhaled sharply. As he wiggled Sugu's pinky toe, he could feel the bend at the joint. The same bend that Izuku had in both his pinky toes. The ones that had rendered him evolutionarily archaic. No different from the humans before the time of quirks. Quirkless.

He sniffled, still wiggling the toe. Begging it to go straight. Begging it to be like one of the many other baby bones that fused and toughened as they aged. But Izuku knew. It had been confirmed just last week.

"…And this little piggy," Izuku restated, blinking his eyes a couple times, "this little piggy cried wee wee wee all the way home."

When Izuku was through, Sugu let out another little wail and Izuku couldn't help but follow. He covered the sob coming out of his mouth, but as his eyes squeezed tight, the tears fell straight from his lashes onto Sugu's tiny feet, dripping down to dampen the thin, little mattress. "Oh, baby boy," Izuku cried as the wailing grew more intense on both their sides. Izuku stretched both arms to pick Sugu up and cradled him to his chest.

He bounced on the edge of the bed, his regular rhythm broken up by the irregular judders of his breathing. How was he supposed to comfort Sugu like this? It had been a week since he'd gotten the news and he was still this much of an emotional wreck. That wouldn't do Sugu any good. It was no better than his own mother's reaction—in fact, it was worse. The only difference was that Sugu wasn't old enough to know it.

Izuku inhaled deeply through his nose, a calming breath, and tried to use it to steady his breathing, not to mention keep himself from dribbling snot on his son's head. When he did, though, he got a whiff of the sweetest scent. It was soft and subtle, with the roundness of a generically clean-scented soap, but there was something else underneath. Something a little powdery and almost milky. Something homey and pure.

It was Sugu's head. Izuku wiped his nose against his sleeve—yet another bodily fluid for the shirt—and pressed his nose right to the side of Sugu's head and breathed in.

It was amazing.

Izuku's chest was full with it, and his lungs had stopped stuttering. He breathed deep breath after deep breath and sunk as his body relaxed again. His exhaustion, sitting heavier now after the crying fit, threatened to take him lower, but Izuku stayed upright. He hardly noticed that Sugu had quieted too. Grown very quiet, actually. Izuku pulled himself from the roots of Sugu's hair and glanced down. Eyes closed. Chest rising and falling evenly. Asleep.

Izuku sighed. "Good baby, Sugu," he whispered, returning to Sugu's hair for another sniff. "Good baby."

Katsuki was buzzing as he turned the key to the apartment.

Izuku's name caught behind Katsuki's teeth as he restrained from yelling out once he was in the apartment. Sugu could be asleep—Izuku could be asleep—and Katsuki didn't want to wake either of them. He kept the lights off and made do with the early evening light casting blue and gray through the windows.

He was still in uniform. Grubby from having blown across that campus with his quirk and then running out of the office without stopping by the locker room. But it was good to be home.

Katsuki undid his boots and began on some of his costume's accessories as he walked past the kitchen, searching for signs of life. He'd already taken off his mask, gauntlets, and grenades before entering the interrogation room, but he still had his arm cuffs and knee guards and such. They peeled off and accumulated in Katsuki's hand as he glanced around the living room—still lifeless. A couple steps into the bedroom was all it took to see that it was empty too.

So unless father and son were playing a round of the quiet game in the bathroom, it seemed they were out.

Katsuki deflated. An empty apartment did nothing for Katsuki but bring him backward a year in time, to when he and Izuku had both lived alone, in tiny starter 1R apartments. When they'd moved into this place, they'd had nothing to fill it with but kitchenware—mostly Katsuki's—and two beds. Katsuki had allowed Izuku to keep his only because it had been the bigger one. Now it seemed oversized in their bedroom as the slight bit of spare space they'd had was now occupied by a bassinet. But it was surprisingly cozy.

In only two weeks, Katsuki had gotten used to someone being home when he arrived. Perhaps it had been so easy to adjust because he liked it.

He pulled out his phone, typing out a text that said, If you don't tell me where you are I'll assume you were abducted and follow procedure. And they did have a procedure in place.

The phone wasn't even back in Katsuki's pocket before he heard the buzz of a phone meeting a solid surface. Katsuki glanced at the dresser, the nightstand before walking back to the living room to see Izuku's phone on the coffee table.

Well. Either Izuku was definitely kidnapped, or he was still on the premises.

Katsuki retraced his steps, returning to the genkan and shoving his keys back in his pockets, skipping past his boots and toeing on his loafers. The stirrup fabric of his leggings rolled under the arch of his foot, but he ignored it as he stepped back into the hallway and returned to the elevator. Only instead of returning to the lobby, he pressed the up arrow.

When Katsuki reached the door to the roof and heard the steady hum of machinery, he crossed off kidnapping as an option.

It was already darker out than when he'd come in, the sun always in a rush once it began tipping over the side of the horizon. But the roof had lights inset along the brick wall, brightening the mat that Izuku always rolled out for training. And at the edge of it, was Sugu's reclined stroller, being pushed back and forth by a dang robot.

"That son of a bitch," Katsuki murmured through a smile, reaching into the stroller and grabbing Sugu.

He wasn't asleep, but he was passive, gurgling happily as his attention turned to Katsuki.

"Hey, little guy," Katsuki said, stepping away from the contraption that was obviously Mei's. "I'm home."

Sugu's little fists opened and shut as his hands circled randomly around. If Katsuki didn't know any better, he'd construe them as waves. Little nonverbal welcome homes.

"Thanks, dude," Katsuki said, poking his finger at those grasping hands, seeing if they could catch hold. "You helping Daddy train?"

He got little bubbles of spit as a response as Katsuki turned his eyes upward, in search of Izuku.

There were twin orange lights floating in the sky, not particularly high above the roof of the building, probably within range for Izuku to hear Sugu cry, at least if he was really going. Even though Mei's technology opened up the whole world of quirk mimicry for Izuku, he really kept to One For All's quirks. This jetpack-like device wasn't a precise substitute for Float, but it stayed in that wheelhouse. Even if, mechanically, it was more similar to how Katsuki used his own quirk to go airborne.

"Daddy's gotta stay sharp," Katsuki said. "You're his ward, after all."

Izuku's patterns in the air were irregular, bobbing this way and that, executing sharp turns with quick bursts that kept up his momentum. Katsuki couldn't help but see his own technique in there, but where that had once irritated him back at U.A., he didn't mind so much now. He quite enjoyed being the one Izuku watched.

This was the work of a good hero. Despite being benched—not to mention caring for a newborn—Izuku was as sharp as ever. As Watanabe suggested, maybe there was someone out there, looking at what a threat Izuku still was, wanting to take him down. Rankings be damned.

But more than Hero Deku, it was Izuku who was wonderful. And a baby that was all him would have been the most perfect baby. Katsuki looked back down at Sugu, taking in those big eyes, the color less starkly red as the sky grew dark. He eyed the hair, darker like Izuku's now, if perhaps a little blue tinted as the horizon took on that cast. He turned to the mouth, popping open and closed like a fish, like he couldn't wait to start talking and talking and talking just like Izuku. And Katsuki was surer than ever that it was Sugu that the villain had wanted. The question was, did they still want him, now that he was half Katsuki's, or was it Izuku alone that they'd needed?

It was a problem for tomorrow. He'd be back on patrol, but that didn't mean that he wouldn't have some research time too.

Katsuki bounced Sugu as he walked over to Izuku's shed. Now that Shouto was his sparring partner instead of Izuku, Katsuki was behind in seeing Mei's outrageous creations.

"What the fuck."

Right in front, and blocking the whole door was what looked to be a pregnant robot. Potentially the one that was to give birth and begin the robot uprising, if Mei was behind it. Katsuki's impulse was to take it and throw it off the roof of the building to smash to smithereens below, hopefully not on a passing pedestrian.

"Don't worry—that's not for practical use!"

Katsuki didn't bother turning around, instead keeping an eye on the enemy. "So it's for impractical use."

"No," Izuku said, wrapping a sweaty arm around Katsuki's waist. "Well, it is for practical use—it's a combat suit that Mei promised was safe for wear while holding a baby—but I'm never ever ever going to use it."

"You look ridiculous enough as is?"

Katsuki finally turned to Izuku and pressed a soft kiss to his lips. It was short and sweet, lasting only a moment or two. No tongue, no intensity, but Katsuki nevertheless wanted to linger in it. Their time together had been so intermittent the past two weeks that even the sweat across Izuku's upper lip, the lean of their bodies on the side where Katsuki wasn't holding the baby felt incredibly intimate. Precious.

"Welcome home," Izuku murmured as they separated, his breath slightly sour, like he hadn't had nearly enough water during his training.

"Home adjacent," Katsuki corrected. "You done training?"

"Yeah," Izuku breathed, still a little winded. He went to run a hand through his hair, but it got stuck by the sweatband pushing his hair back. "Probably should be."

"Good. You put away your robot army and bring the stroller when you come down."

Izuku chuckled. "Hai."

The whirring of the contraption moving the stroller was off before Katsuki left the roof, holding Sugu close as he made it back downstairs. Katsuki held Sugu's head up, fingers rubbing lightly through the thin hair at the nape of his neck. It was softer than Izuku's even after a wash with a proper conditioner. Nothing like the way Izuku's hair had felt when he'd first cut it short on the sides—thick and dull and almost straight. But it was probably what Izuku's hair had been like when he was this age, in the slight stretch of time before he and Katsuki had known each other.

Sugu really was the spitting image of Izuku. It didn't take a whole lot of imagination for Katsuki to imagine Sugu as a proper copy of Izuku, as intended. Who would have thought that Katsuki was the accident, not Sugu?

When looking at Izuku, Katsuki, like everyone else, was lost in shades of green. It was reliable, a comfort. But Sugu had green and red. Compliments. It's what Izuku and Katsuki had been providing each other the whole time—serving them well once they'd come to accept it. Win to save, save to win.

"You'll do just fine, kid," Katsuki said as he twisted the key to the apartment again, slipping off his loafers and making for the kitchen.

The last of the bentos were in the fridge, thawing from the freezer. There were some satay skewers in one that he'd probably throw in the pan to breathe a little life back into them, maybe with some quick roasted vegetables. All he needed was rice and it was a full meal.

With Sugu on his hip, he popped open the rice cooker and spilled a portion of an open bag of fragrant brown basmati. Different flavor, but a little extra protein. Then he filled a cup at the sink and poured it over the rice up to his first knuckle. From there it was a waiting game until starchy bubbles began to pop out of the vent, making the apartment warm with grassy, perfumed smells.

"Wow, is he asleep?"

Katsuki hadn't heard Izuku creep up behind him, but he must have been trying not to wake the baby. He looked down and saw Sugu's dark lashes folded down by his cheeks, his lips pressed into a tiny pout that made his cheeks look even rounder.

"He finds cooking soothing," Katsuki explained.

"Must be genetic."

"He's learning from the best."

"Mm," Izuku hummed, leaning in towards Katsuki's cheek. "Or maybe he likes the little sweet smell on you after you've been using your quirk."

"Fat chance."

The smell stuck to him currently was ninety percent regular sweaty body odor. Salt and musk and pungency. Under that was the even sharper smell of smoke that got caught in his clothes and hair. And then, on his hands, maybe up his wrists and forearms, was the slightest undercurrent of sweetness. Most of it melted away as soon as he washed his hands.

"I don't know," Izuku said, nosing behind Katsuki's ear. "I think Kacchan smells good."

"You've just been smelling dirty diapers all day," Katsuki retorted, heat rising under his collar. "I'm short a shower and smell like work."

Izuku exhaled and the breath tickled the short hair against his ear.

"Or maybe I just miss you."

Katsuki turned his head and met Izuku's eyes. They were dark, like they hadn't yet adjusted from outside's dimming light. Izuku was still sweaty, hands warm from the heart-pumping workout where they rested in Katsuki's arms. He did smell good.

"Me too. So fucking much."

The last word wasn't even out before Katsuki was leaning toward Izuku's mouth, and then catching it in his. The taste was sour—Izuku still hadn't had any water. His lips were dry and his cheeks were still warming after having been blown cold blasting around in the air for however long. God, it had been too long since he'd tasted Izuku like this. When had been the last kiss that wasn't chaste?

He threaded a hand through Izuku's hair. It was getting long—-looked a damn mess in fact. He thumbed away the sweaty headband and dropped it on the ground so that Izuku's longest strands of limp hair nearly brushed his red-tipped ears. There was something sexy about this Izuku, still fit and powerful, but letting himself go to the point of looking silly in new parenthood. And yet perhaps a little more masculine, a little older with the sleep-weary eyes and the scruff he hadn't managed to shave off his chin. Katsuki nipped at his lower lip, feeling Izuuku's chin chafe against his.

Izuku grabbed at Katsuki behind the waist, pressing the two of them closer together, bumping Katsuki's knuckles against Izuku's stomach as Sugu was squeezed between them. They paused, breaths intertwining as Katsuki waited to hear a whimper or a whine of any sort. But there was none.

"Listen, Deku," Katsuki panted, not yet moving back from Izuku's mouth. "The kid's asleep, and the rice has another thirty minutes. Whaddya say—"

"It's been weeks, Kacchan," Izuku cut him off, kissing him again, firmly. "Let's go."