"I'm not convinced this is a two-person job," Shouto said as they walked into the lobby, Katsuki a step ahead.

Loath as Katsuki was to admit it, Shouto was probably right. The robbers were gone without a trace, no hint as to where they'd gone. Without them to pursue, Shouto and Katsuki had headed for the scene of the crime, the space so far looking the same as it had two weeks ago. Just a reception desk with a glass barrier in front of the door leading back to the lab. All without so much as a footprint obviously out of place. Though forensics was already in, checking that out.

But it wasn't as if Katsuki was going to let Shouto go in for this alone. They'd been partnering most days that Katsuki had been back on patrol and, furthermore, this lab was Katsuki's business, as far as he was concerned. Plus, the two drinks he'd had at the party had long since faded away, providing nothing but a faint buzz that was now silent once again. So he was the one who walked square up to the lead detective, hands on his hips.

"Hey, Pantsuit," Katsuki said. "What've you guys found?"

The detective looked Katsuki and Shouto up and down, taking them in with an unimpressed eyebrow raised. They both were out of costume, and dressed rather casually at that. T-shirts for both, although Shouto's was dressed up with jeans and a cardigan, and Katsuki hadn't managed to show up to his own party in more than joggers. But they were certainly both recognizable, with Katsuki as the number twelve hero and Shouto having recently squeaked into number ten, much to Katsuki's chagrin. Not to mention that Shouto had one of the most recognizable, candy cane-ass looks out there.

"Not much," the detective said eventually. "The camera footage was erased, so we have no visual descriptions for the perps beyond the black clothing identified by the receptionist. As for what was stolen, it was just one computer from the lab."

"Were the cameras tampered with, or a computer?"

"Cameras look fine."

"Necklace." Katsuki turned to a timid girl standing at the reception desk, her shoulders hunched so that the big necklace she wore fell deep into her clavicle. He didn't recognize her from his previous visit, but then again, whoever had sat at reception hadn't been a concern at the time. "Which computers have security camera footage?"

Surprised at being addressed, the woman's necklace bounced as she jolted to stand at attention. She'd come out from behind the glass and was leaning against it, as though it still held security for her. "Just this one," she answered, pointing at the dual monitors before her.

"Fantastic," Katsuki said. "What else is on these computers?"

"Oh, not much, just basic office software," she answered. "Calendar, email, invoicing, that kind of stuff. Clerical stuff."

"No, that's important," Katsuki said. "If the cameras could be hacked, so could the calendar so that the villain could target what they were looking for. Maybe match that date to something they wanted to see on the camera, not just delete the footage of them coming in."

"We can assume that this computer was vulnerable to being hacked in a way that the computer that was stolen wasn't," Shouto added.

"That's right," Necklace said. "The lab computers are locked down, some don't even have internet access. They're specifically for software."

"How far back does your security footage go?" Shouto asked.

"I'm not sure," Necklace replied. "I've never really had to look back farther than a day or two…just tracking down missing packages and stuff. I'm sure it goes at least a month, though?"

"Security cameras usually start deleting footage between thirty and ninety days," Pantsuit confirmed.

Katsuki and Izuku had been there fourteen days ago.

It felt so obvious to Katsuki. The answer was screaming in his head it was you, they were looking for you and Deku!

Katsuki was a believer in Occam's razor. The solution with the least assumptions was probably the right one. Villains robbed because they were poor, they lashed out because they were in pain, they attacked heroes because heroes attacked them. That was Katsuki's instinct, and his instinct was usually right. Izuku had been targeted three weeks ago, and now a place that they'd been was targeted.

But Katsuki was no stranger to egocentric biases either. Just because the solution making this about him was the one clawing up his throat, clamping his jaw together unless he came out with it already didn't mean it was right.

"Has anything notable happened here recently?" Katsuki asked the receptionist, his throat squeezing around the shapes of the words. "Anything unusual?"

"Not while I've been here." She shook her head, necklace shifting in slight delay. "Just regular appointments."

"Anyone notable?" Katsuki pressed.

"Only, uh…only you, Dynamight…sir."

Katsuki blinked hard to avoid rolling his eyes and pressed his lips into a tight smile. Egocentric bias, confirmation bias.

"If they were targeting you," Shouto began, stealing the words right from Katsuki's thoughts, "then they would have already suspected you were here."

Katsuki frowned.

"How?"

The only people who had known about this experiment with the villain's mindset were Shouto himself and Endeavor. And no matter how many bones Katsuki had to pick with Endeavor, he knew by now that he was no villain, at least not anymore. No one else'd had any reason to know.

Shouto shrugged. "The Instagram page."

The party had ended as soon as Katsuki and Shouto left.

A birthday party wasn't much of a party once the birthday boy departed, it turned out. And, of course, Sugu had started crying the moment Katsuki had shoved him in Mina's arms before racing out of the apartment.

Izuku had almost tried to follow. His coworkers running out to work on the mission that they were all contributing on—it was Izuku's right, his duty to follow. But Mina had dropped Sugu back in his arms and suddenly he'd had to soothe the little guy.

Their friends had stripped the apartment of some of its trash on the way out. Katsuki-themed streamers torn down and thrown over the shoulder like a seasonal scarf, beer cans tossed, finger food folded into napkins for the road. There was little for Izuku to do to tidy up besides wiping down the counters and staring at the giant Katsuki head still above the television and deciding it could stay there for a while longer.

Still, an anxious energy hummed under Izuku's skin. He couldn't sit down, couldn't even just stand and rock Sugu in one spot, so instead he paced, the energy licking at his heels. Sugu was already settled, so he was just a quiet weight in Izuku's arms as he impotently considered the robbery.

If Dr. Sudou was in any danger, there wasn't a doubt in Izuku's mind that Katsuki and Shouto could take care of it. But if this was connected to their case with Sugu—and who was Izuku kidding, of course it was—then they were at a disadvantage, because they didn't even know what Izuku had discovered today.

It was a thin lead, Izuku knew that. Paper thin, with nothing to hold it up but the loose connection to Musutafu University and a good guess at a quirk. It was next to nothing, but unless the robbery provided some fruitful evidence, it was the only lead they had. And Izuku was the only one who knew it.

Izuku was still drawn towards the idea of going to the robbery, but with Sugu in his care, he couldn't rationalize it. He couldn't take Sugu to a crime scene, even if there were no longer villains on the premises. The image of a baby crying over a witness's details or spitting up on a trace of forensic evidence was too much for Izuku to bear.

But there was somewhere he could go. The only place possibly more secure than his home…assuming he made it there unseen.

Izuku whipped together his necessities. The diaper bag, a couple incidentals, and a car ordered with one hand while he slipped his hat and mask on with the other. That energy shadowing him crept up on his heels and finger-walked up his legs, filling Izuku with anticipatory jitters. He was doing it, he was doing something.

Then he was in the hall, bag in one hand, Sugu in the other, and the car seat before him. His and Katsuki's nemesis. He could muscle it to the car, hold it in both hands, handleless as Katsuki had in that first photo so long ago. Or he could deal with it here and now.

"Alright," Izuku grunted as he crouched down, setting Sugu in the tiny, upholstered seat and snapping him in.

The instruction booklet was long gone. Izuku wasn't sure if it'd been shoved in a drawer or a pocket or if the Bakugous had accidentally taken it home or if Katsuki had vengefully turned it to tinder in his hands. But that didn't mean Izuku couldn't figure it out.

He circled around it, hunting for anything asymmetrical, anything that stuck out. First around the sides, then the bottom rim, then around the top. Save for the white fabric dotted with little gray bunnies, everything was gray plastic, with little seams that looked movable, but when Izuku tried to grip at them, he wasn't sure if they simply had a strong latch or if he was moments away from breaking the thing. He'd gotten used to the natural strength he'd been left with after losing One For All and knew that even a medium amount of effort from him could easily snap any part of this car seat apart.

And that's when he stumbled upon it. The tiniest latch poking out from one of those seams. And when he switched it, as if from nowhere, a handle appeared, moving in slow motion as it swung safely into place.

"Oh my God," Izuku murmured, keeping his voice down even as a smile burst across his face. "We did it!" He looked to Sugu, still asleep but gorgeous in repose. "We did it, buddy!"

Izuku used the slightest grip to pinch one tiny little fist between his thumb and forefinger, waving Sugu's fist like he was the tiniest sport's fan, the littlest bystander to a hero taking down a villain. Such a dad move, he knew, but he couldn't help but share in celebration.

Izuku only took his hand away when his phone buzzed and he slipped it out of his pocket. The car was two minutes away.

It was time to go.

Making it to the office unseen was easier done outside than in. Assuming he'd managed to scoot from the car to the front without being seen, which was, at this point, only an assumption.

Inside was another story. He'd fallen off the face of the Endeavor-logoed building three weeks ago and hardly anyone had seen him since. And, of course, he was carrying a baby in tow.

Izuku pulled down his mask just to smile as genially as he could at people as he pushed past them towards his desk. The heat always felt too high in this office and it was creeping up Izuku's neck as niceties fell off his lips, all in the sole and important pursuit of reaching his computer. And stowing Sugu beside it so that maybe people would forget he was there and let Izuku work. He just wanted to work.

Burnin had been the one to step in and demand some space as Izuku pushed through to his and Katsuki's corner. Being one of the veteran heroes, and having a booming voice to rival Katsuki's, seemed to do the trick.

Izuku's desk was dusty. It'd been less than a month, and his monitor was grayed by a thin coat of dust atop the plastic housing and on the screen. He took the sleeve of his sweatshirt to it, swiping across most of the screen before settling in his chair with the newly converted car seat next to him on the floor. As it was now, Izuku could rock it with his foot, keeping Sugu asleep as he worked.

He was waiting for Katsuki. Shouto had said that the call wasn't serious, so Izuku didn't expect it would be too long before they returned with paperwork to file, perhaps a lead in the best-case scenario. And when they did, Izuku wanted more solid information to present to them than his loose suspicion. So he went online.

The man he'd seen that afternoon had been older than him. Not too old to be a student—anyone could be a student—but it was a better bet that he was a professor. And professors had headshots on university websites.

This was the grunt work Izuku had been tasked with these last three weeks. Eye-bleedingly scanning through headshots and quirk descriptions and personal records, but it was something. It wasn't action and it wasn't glory, but it was hero work. It was his job. It was work that he could still do.

It didn't take long. Izuku was practiced at this point, and even without One For All, he could still take in information and stimuli as quickly as when he'd had the ability to move faster than everyone else on the field. Not everything had been taken from him.

Katsuki and Shouto still weren't back. They still weren't back and Izuku's brain was buzzing. It was rolling over words downhill like it did when Izuku was in bed, thoughts too loud to go to sleep. And they'd been much too loud for sleep for weeks.

It was possible that this was their big bad villain. Or he was next in the chain of events that had brought them the ram-headed villain and then Watanabe and this guy was the next slow-falling domino. Either way, he was important, just not necessarily critical.

He saw quirks. Now that Izuku had a name, he was able to plug it into the network and make sure of it. And if he was indeed their guy, not only could he see them, but he could discern what they could do. Perhaps he could even anticipate how they were being used, able to foresee attacks. Those kinds of details weren't available in his file, and it was exactly the kind of thing that would disadvantage any hero who walked into the room.

Any hero…except Izuku.

The buzz was growing louder. It was a unison drone, reverberating his thoughts, his idea through his head like a ritualistic chant. An earworm that gnawed through his brain on loop, leaving holes as it went, only making the words echo louder.

Izuku looked down at Sugu. He was fast asleep, a little train of drool dripping down his chin. Izuku took a tissue from his desk and dabbed at it. Then he leaned down and kissed Sugu on the forehead.

"I'm sorry, baby boy," he said. "Everything will be fine."

Naturally, it was the computer that had been used to sequence Katsuki, Izuku, and Sugu's DNA that had been stolen. And there was absolutely nothing for Katsuki to go on.

"Edit this for me, idiot," Katsuki said, thrusting his phone into Shouto's hands and crossing his arms over himself, pouting. The sun was setting and the clothes Katsuki had run out in were cotton, meant for lounging around the house in, not blocking a breeze barreling through the city's wind tunnels.

"Delete this fucking stalker account, motherfucker, I'm not kidding, I'll kill you. Hmm, official Dynamight account and everything."

A robbery had taken place, a robbery of his own DNA, information about his quirk stolen and the only action Katsuki could take was trying to shut down the IzuKatsuAka Instagram account via DM dispute. Obviously the message wasn't good, but he'd typed it and retyped it and retyped it and the words kept coming out the same, just in different orders.

"How about: Please quit updating this account, the consequences of it are harming my family?"

Katsuki rolled his eyes. The only way it could sound worse is if he asked Glasses to write it for him. "Fucking fun, but no one will believe that shit is from me, so just say it's coming from you."

Shouto looked at him and shrugged, typing a few more keystrokes before handing the phone back to Katsuki. He didn't even look at the damn message, see if it sent, wait to see if it had been viewed or if someone was typing or responding. Either the person—or people—in charge of it would cut it out or not. And even if they did, another two would probably grow in its place like a goddamn hydra head. Katsuki had been a name on the Internet long enough to know that.

There wasn't even any point in going back to the office. Katsuki wasn't officially on duty, so it was up to Shouto to file the paperwork. There weren't even any leads for them to follow, only the tech bits for the police to investigate as well as forensics. The heroes would have to just sit on their hands and see if that led to anything villain related or if it would be swept into a dusty cabinet at the police department labeled cold case.

But Katsuki had that paperwork for Izuku that he'd left behind. And even though he was mad—pissed, actually—that Izuku was running himself to the ground the way he was, Katsuki didn't know what to do but to enable it. Both of them had gone through stints where they hadn't been able to work—usually injury recoveries; occasionally forced, required vacation time—and both of them went stir crazy. Neither knew what to do with themselves without work, and Katsuki understood Izuku on that level in a way no one else did.

And since this file was so thin, maybe Izuku would be able to read through it, feel he'd done his job, and sleep for a few more hours tonight.

When they made it to the office, Katsuki peeled off from Shouto and headed blindly to his and Izuku's desks. He just needed to grab the papers, go home, and maybe have a few hours to spare with his boyfriend and baby tonight, since he'd slept the day away. When he got to his office, however, it wasn't the thin stack of papers on his desk that he noticed. It was the empty baby carrier and diaper bag between his desk and Izuku's.

For a moment, Katsuki blinked at the carrier in wonder. Izuku had managed to convert it. And had used it to bring the baby here? But now there was no baby and no Izuku. Which should mean that they were somewhere else…but where could they be if the diaper bag was here? It was filled with all the things they'd need at a moment's notice: diapers, baby powder, formula, water, a bottle. It had no business being separated from their baby.

Katsuki stormed out of the room. Something wasn't right here. He'd just been on his phone and there wasn't so much as a text from Izuku saying he was coming to the office. No communication of any kind. Katsuki was ready to tear the whole office apart looking for the two of them when Sugu popped up right in front of him, in the cozy arms of Burnin.

"Where's Deku?" Katsuki asked, ignoring all pleasantries as he immediately held out his arms to take Sugu. But Burnin tucked him in closer to her chest, contorting her torso away from Katsuki as her eyes went wide and pleading.

"No, Dynamight, he smells so good." She proceeded to lean in and huff the top of Sugu's head like an addict over a sad glue stick. Katsuki would have been concerned if it weren't for the fact that he knew exactly what she meant. Sugu's head smelled soft and clean—the inverse of musk. Still human and personal but light rather than heavy, sweet rather than sour and saline.

In tacit agreement, Katsuki crossed his arms, but continued to glower. "Where's Izuku?"

"I'm not sure," Burnin said, and Katsuki was about ready to snatch Sugu back and hunt Izuku down himself right then. "But he looked like he was in a hurry. He said he was expecting you back here soon, though, and just gave your baby boy to me to watch in the meantime."

"He left? No one has any clue where he is?" Katsuki asked, ignoring the extraneous details.

He and Izuku had promised, right at the beginning, as soon as they'd learned that Sugu was possibly under threat that he would never be out of their care. No babysitters, no nothing. Izuku had sacrificed everything these last three weeks to maintain that, so why now?

"I think he went right out after handing me this little guy," she said. "What's his name again?"

"Sugu."

"Aw, sweet like sugar," Burnin cooed, sounding totally different from the version of her he'd met six years ago. Then again, Katsuki supposed he knew what that was like. He probably sounded different right now than he used to too.

So Katsuki had another mystery to solve, this one more pressing and with blessedly more leads. Because if Katsuki knew Izuku, he knew that Izuku was the last person anyone wanted to disappear without notice. It tended to mean something big was going down, and something Izuku shouldn't be handling alone.

Katsuki was poised once again to take Sugu back as he tried to figure this out. But Katsuki looked at Burnin's face, soft even under her black mask, and remembered their last conversation about babies. Well, if she couldn't have her own, at least she could have this.

"Hold onto him for a minute longer, wouldja?" Katsuki asked, already returning to his desk. "I've got a diaper bag if anything comes up. Just let me know."

"Alright, Dynamight," she said, swaying, almost lulling herself into a reverie. "I've got him."

Katsuki trusted that in a way he wouldn't with any of the other heroes in the office who weren't parents. Carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders was one thing, carrying one small person who needed you was another.

With that, Katsuki returned to his office. Izuku had obviously been there, made even more clear by the line of dust that had been cleared away on Izuku's monitor. He must have used it. Katsuki turned on the computer, grinding his teeth to the nub as he waited for it to boot up. In the meantime, he searched the drawers of the desk for the Post-It Katsuki knew held Izuku's password. For security, all passwords had to be changed every sixty days and Izuku could never remember his new ones, so he had to write them down. Bad news for a hacker, but great for Katsuki as he snatched the little piece of yellow paper and typed them in under Izuku's email address.

As shitty work applications popped up on Izuku's computer, Katsuki opened up both the Internet browser and the quirk database. Those were the only two tools either of them had been able to make good use of in the past three weeks, and the ones Izuku most likely would have turned to if he was onto something new.

Luckily, his sleuthing didn't have to go far.

Both windows were united under the same name, and when Katsuki double checked the browser history, it was clear that it was from today.

Dr. Oukubo Masashi.

And according to the Musutafu University website that was up, he was a professor there. Specializing in genetics.

The victory rushed over Katsuki like fire popped from his hands, like handcuffs clicking shut around a pair of wrists. Because yes, this is definitely what Izuku had found, and it gave Katsuki a good idea of where he was too.

But. What the fuck was he actually doing?

The jetpack wasn't so different from Float, not really.

It was certainly more than Float on its own. Float had been hard to direct, hard to outpace anyone with, and had taken months to control even just which side was up. But the jetpack was much less than Float when combined with One For All. And, of course, it was quite a bit louder, which didn't quite work with the current stealth Izuku was going for. But then again, no one was expecting him up there.

Someone had seen him go into the office. They must have. Izuku hadn't gone online to check, nor had he seen anyone taking a photo as he headed in, but he couldn't risk anyone seeing him go into the building with Sugu and leaving without him, not with the relentlessness of that Instagram account.

Being cast as a bad parent would be hurtful, certainly, but people had thought worse things about Izuku at various times in the past. He'd been accused of villainy, of being a mimic of All For One while Shigaraki was still on the loose. What he absolutely couldn't have was anyone knowing that Sugu was somewhere Izuku wasn't. That left him vulnerable, and Izuku would not allow that.

So he'd left from the roof. And he was going to follow in Katsuki's invisible footsteps and make it to Musutafu University the same way he had. From the sky.

Having an aerial view of the campus helped match the buildings to the top-view map Izuku had found online. The sun was setting, but he could still make out the rectangular outlines of the buildings. Closely built dorm buildings, the library, a dining hall. As soon as he found the science building block, he aimed to land there.

The jetpack got louder the more Izuku descended, its noise suddenly bouncing off of all the brick and concrete structures and roaring back to Izuku two-fold. If anyone heard, hopefully they'd chalk it up to an airplane flying overhead. Izuku turned the engine off a few feet before landing and fell fast. His shoes were still reinforced with iron, making hard impact with the concrete roof.

But he was here. He was here, and he barely had a plan.

He didn't even know if Dr. Oukubo was around. Whether he'd left for the day or simply gone off campus for dinner. If he was in the middle of a four-hour long lab class. But his office's room number had been available online, so Izuku began his search, starting with winding down the stairwell.

When the stairs let out on the ground floor, it was a whole other world. Wide, artificially lit halls, tiled with terrazzo flooring that was glossy over each differently colored speckle. It was what Izuku's life would have held, had he not managed to, against all odds, continue with heroics. Maybe not here, probably not in this field. But at a school somewhere, looking out the window, thinking of Katsuki and wishing he was a hero too.

Izuku passed by some students, grateful for the mask and hat that disguised him as one of them. He was young enough, and dressed casually enough. And so long as no one touched the jetpack on his back and felt how warm it was, it almost looked like a backpack. He'd have to compliment Mei on her design. Hopefully a few weeks into the school year was still early enough for him to be glancing at every door for its number, waiting until he fell upon the right one.

It was obvious when he made it to the teachers' corridor, from the inspirational posters to the cork boards stuck with schedules and fliers, to the bookcases that had spilled out of offices into the hallways. He scanned each plaque, ornamented with various doctor's names, but none of them right until he got to the last door.

It was closed. The slim, crosshatched window was dark. But there was a paper schedule on the door, creased and curled at the edges. And it said Evenings: Genetics Lab.

The energy to sprint rushed down Izuku's legs, tingling in his kneecaps as he kept a slow, even stride. He couldn't get caught, he couldn't have people stopping him and asking why he wasn't working, how life after heroics was. Not when he was so close.

But the lab wasn't a long walk. It was only in the next corridor over, one of many. Each door was labeled with a room number, but also with a lab speciality. So when Izuku came across the genetics lab, he was certain it was the right place. Hesitantly, Izuku knocked on the door, nearly bouncing on the balls of his feet in anticipation.

He waited one minute.

Knocked again.

Two minutes. Nothing.

He reached for the doorknob, finding it unlocked.

Izuku stepped into the lab, spotting equipment everywhere, much of it very similar to what he'd seen in Dr. Sudou's lab. There were familiar hospital tools and appliances, but no underlying antiseptic smell. Instead, it just smelled like electricity, like dust motes burning under the heat of computers.

Then, everything went black. Nothing but the warm smell and the hum of electronics all around him. And then:

"I was expecting you."