Chapter Text
“No fucking way, Izuku!”
“I’m serious Kacchan, her notebook was full of drawings of Denki.” Katuski makes eye contact with Izuku as he says it, and they just stare at each other for a moment before they both burst into laughter.
“Fuckin’ Dunce Face?” Katsuki scoffs, absolutely appalled. “Of all the heroes to have a crush on, your student picks that idiot?
“I should’ve taken a picture, Kacchan,” Izuku wheezes, leaning against Katsuki to steady himself as they walk along the quiet sidewalk of the city. “It was all done in color. She’s a great artist, but gosh, she needs a new muse.”
“Don’t tell Dunce Face about this, he doesn’t need an ego he can’t live up to.” Katsuki earns himself an elbow to the gut for that.
“You’re such an ass,” Izuku rolls his eyes, but doesn’t protest.
“Just bein’ truthful, Izuku,” Katsuki shrugs playfully. The two laugh a little bit more, barely paying attention to their surroundings. Izuku’s eyes squeeze shut as he giggles, and Katsuki takes the time to look over his face and take it in. It’s been a while since they’ve had the chance to do stuff just the two of them, even if all it is is hero work.
Now that Katsuki’s not working on Izuku’s suit, he’s got a lot more free time on his hands. He goes out with his friends, visits his parents when he can’t come up with an excuse not to, and hangs out with Izuku—or well, that is what he planned on happening. Except Izuku decided he needed to be in a relationship and his lovely girlfriend Ochako Uraraka has taken up every waking thought of his for the last two years because of it.
They’re one of those cringy as fuck couples that hold hands even if it blocks other people’s way, and suck face every time something mildly good happens. And it always has to happen right in front of Katsuki, because losing the man he loves—yes, he can admit he loves the idiot—just wasn’t enough. What the fuck ever.
“Ooh, Kacchan, look,” Izuku says, stopping. He physically grabs Katsuki’s chin to turn his face, and Katsuki’s too shocked by the sheer audacity of it to pull away, and finds himself staring at a jewelry store.
His stomach turns a bit. He has a feeling he knows why they’re here, but he doesn’t want to admit it. “We’re here to patrol, Izuku, not sightsee,” Katsuki snarks, subtly trying to get them to move along.
Instead, Izuku walks closer to the window, peering at the shiny diamond rings on the mannequin hands. Katsuki swallows, his throat suddenly dry as sandpaper. It seems even just thinking of Uraraka brings him bad luck…
Katsuki feels a bit bad about his dislike for the woman. He respects her—she’s done some pretty fucking cool work as hero, after all, but it’s just that he thought she understood his intentions with Izuku. Saving up for a hero suit for eight years doesn’t exactly scream ‘CLOSE PLATONIC FRIENDS’, although he can’t exactly fault her for going out with Izuku. He really is amazing.
“Hey,” Izuku says, waving Katsuki towards him. Like a dog being called by its owner, he obediently listens. “What do you think of this one?” Izuku points to a dainty silver band with three small, sparkling diamonds on it. Katsuki’s pretty sure Shigaraki has just exploded his heart again, and he presses a hand to his chest just to make sure he’s imagining it. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
“Uhm—uh,” Katsuki struggles to speak. “Why do you want to know?”
Izuku gives him a concerned look, but doesn’t comment on it. “Well, Ochako was talking about getting married, and so I figured it wouldn’t be a bad idea to scout out some ring options.”
Izuku’s words are drowned out by a loud ringing noise, and Katsuki can’t find it in himself to tear his eyes away from the ring. That stupid fucking ring. In an instant, the mannequin hand is shifting into Uraraka’s, the silver band sitting prettily on her ring finger. Izuku’s ring.
“Kacchan?” Katsuki is dragged back into reality. It’s sharp, cold, and fucking depressing.
“We’re not here to sightsee,” he manages to grind out. Izuku’s eyes widen, his brow furrowing in visible confusion.
“Is something wrong? Is it your heart?” He takes a step towards Katsuki, hand outstretched, and he quickly stumbles back. They both freeze, the silence stifling.
“No, my heart’s fine,” Katsuki says, willing his voice to stay even. “Let’s just fucking go.”
He watches Izuku’s shoulders slump, his excited demeanor dimming as he trudges alongside Katsuki. Fuck, he didn’t mean to make Izuku sad. Katsuki pinches his temple as a headache begins to form.
“Help!” Great.
Katsuki and Izuku immediately take off towards the shout, awkwardness momentarily forgotten. Normally they’d be making retorts about who will get there first, but not today it seems.
A young woman stands in the middle of the street, a man gripping her tightly in place. Traffic has stopped all around them. Katsuki makes it to the two, pulling away the woman and lightly shoving her towards Izuku. A strange feeling flickers through his body, almost like one of Denki’s electric shocks, but he’s tossing the man to the ground and kneeling atop him before he can really think about it. “The fuck are you trying to do?” Katsuki hisses.
The man tries to spit at him, but it barely gets an inch into the air before splatting back down on his face. Katsuki fights a snort at the embarrassed flush on the man’s face.
“Talk,” he repeats, shoving a knee into the man’s gut and making him wince.
“Fuck—fuck, fine! Get your knee out of my stomach!” Katsuki rolls his eyes but obliges, and the man sighs in visible relief. “Just figured you’d come running. So thanks for proving me right.”
Katsuki pulls back a bit. “What?” He asks, confused. The man doesn’t even look uncomfortable, save for the fact that his back is digging into the pavement.
The man smirks. “Might wanna duck.”
“The hell—”
There’s a burst of pain in the back of Katsuki’s skull, and suddenly he’s flying forward, rolling across the ground. He groans in pain but forces himself to get to his feet. He finds himself faced with at least ten villains who’ve all come out of nowhere. For some reason, they’re all wearing weird neon colored outfits.
Izuku’s in the center of it, punching his way through the group. Katsuki’s not about to let him get ahead, so he fires off some explosions, throwing himself into battle. Ever since the war, Katsuki and Izuku have been a formidable pair—even eight years apart can’t change that. Their fight is a choreographed dance, and Katsuki can’t help but grin in excitement.
It’s not long until all the villains are down on the ground, and the man who failed to spit on him is once again underneath Katsuki. He growls up at him, thrashing around like a wild animal. “You will regret this, Dynamight! The Rainbow Raiders will get their revenge.”
Katsuki stares down at the man, who glares up at him. Oh he’s serious. He presses his lips together, but then his body begins to shake, and he can’t hold it back anymore. Katsuki cackles loudly, the man beneath him flinching. “You—” he struggles to breathe. “That’s your name? Oh my fucking god, you can’t—you can’t actually call yourselves that!”
“Excuse me?” The man has the gall to look angry at him. As if he didn’t choose the stupidest fucking name on the planet to call a bunch of villains.
Katsuki finally manages to calm himself down, only lightly chuckling as he asks, “Is that why you all look like highlighters?”
The man beneath him screams, absolutely furious. Katsuki rolls his eyes and looks up as a police officer comes their way with a pair of quirk cancelling cuffs in her hands. “Thanks for the capture, Dynamight,” she says. “We’ll take it from here.”
“Thank fuck,” he mutters. “Fuckin Rainbow Raiders.” Katsuki laughs to himself as he stretches and heads off towards where Izuku’s animatedly conversing with some officers.
“Uhm, Dynamight sir?” Katsuki pauses, looking around for the quiet voice. He spots the young woman from earlier sitting in the entrance of a nearby alleyway. He walks over, kneeling beside her. She’s pale and shaking, her body hunched over something held tightly in her arms.
“What’s up with you?” Katsuki asks as calmly as he can. Fuck, why couldn’t she have called for Izuku? He sucks at comforting civilians. “You’re not injured, are you?”
The young woman shakes her head, but tears are pooling in her eyes. “I’m so sorry,” she mumbles as her body shakes with sobs.
“Woah, woah!” Katsuki awkwardly sets a hand on her shoulder. “It’s not your fault that asshole grabbed you! Don’t worry about it, okay?”
The woman just shakes her head. “No,” she sniffles.
“Uh, what?”
“No,” she says again, seeming to struggle for words. “That’s not what I’m sorry for.”
Her voice is suddenly drowned out by a high pitched squeal from whatever she’s holding in her arms.
Katsuki backs away. “The fuck was that?” Shit, is this girl a part of the Rainbow Raiders too? He whips his head around, but he can’t spot anything amiss. The woman looks down at her lap, cooing softly.
“It’s hard to explain,” she mumbles after a minute. She holds her arms up, revealing a squirming, naked baby.
Katsuki opens and closes his mouth a few times. What he does try to say comes out as a pathetic wheeze. Eventually he manages to cough out, “Well I’m gonna need you to do your fucking best.”
The woman sighs, resting her head against the brick wall behind her. After a moment, she looks up at Katsuki, her expression firmer now, and tears have stopped running down her cheeks. “So, I accidentally made your baby.”
Katsuki presses his lips together and nods a couple times. The words aren’t quite clicking yet, so all he says is, “Yeah, okay.” The woman blinks at him. He blinks at her. Then it hits him like a goddamn truck. “What the fuck does that mean?”
The woman flinches, and Katsuki’s shoulders drop. The baby in her arms begins to sob. “It was an accident,” the woman says again, like she wants to make sure that gets across to him. “My quirk allows me to create a child from the DNA of two people as long as I’m touching them at the same time. I’ve never set it off by accident before, and I am so, so sorry about that. The villain startled me and it just…happened.”
“The baby just…happened.” Katsuki’s voice is flat, void of any emotion. Pretty much every single one has checked out by now, and been replaced by numbness.
The woman winces. “Essentially.” She looks between him and the crying baby. “Do you…want to hold her?” She asks hesitantly.
Her. Katsuki swallows as he looks at the crying baby. His baby, apparently. He sets his gauntlets and gloves on the ground, and carefully takes her light body in his arms. Immediately, the breath is stolen from him.
She’s kinda ugly, he can’t lie, but in a strangely cute sort of way. She’s got a small tuft of blonde hair on her head, stark against her wrinkly red skin, and big, bright green eyes that stare up at him curiously. Her cries fade, turning into light, unsteady breaths.
Oh shit.
“The other parent, who are they?” Katsuki asks, but he already knows the answer. He’d recognize those eyes anywhere.
“Ah, hero Deku,” the woman says quietly. “Once again, I’m so sorry. I’ll come with you willingly to the police station or wherever, and I’ll tell them what I told you. The baby, you don’t have to keep her or anything, just—” Katsuki holds a hand up to silence her.
He takes another moment just to stare down at the baby. His baby. “Yeah—uhm, yeah,” he finally manages to get out. “Let’s get outta here.” He holds out a hand to help the woman stand, and they leave. He could care less about his gauntlets and gloves at the moment, his attention solely dedicated to the tiny human in his arms.
“Kacchan, there you are!” Izuku comes jogging up to them. He jolts to a stop as he spots the baby. “Did someone give birth?” He practically screams. Katsuki hisses, covering the baby’s ears.
“Quiet, dipshit!” He says at only a slightly lower decibel. “And, kind of.” Izuku tilts his head. Katsuki sighs. It’s probably best to just get it over with. “How do you feel about being a father?” He holds out the baby far enough so Izuku can see her bright green eyes.
And then watches as Izuku promptly passes out.