Archive of Our Own

It is, as all things tend to be with Katsuki, an accident.

The provisional classes ran on later than expected, leaving him annoyed that half of his night is wasted. Todoroki split off from him to try and visit his mom before visitor hours had ended, and those two losers from class practically begged him to join them for dinner. After screaming at them to leave him alone, Katsuki finally—finally—has some peace and quiet to himself.

It doesn’t last long, however. He’s burying his face in his scarf to hide from the nipping air. It won’t be long until winter fully sets in and winter coats start coming out. Katsuki grumbles to himself at the thought, dreading how much long it will take to warm his quirk up. At least he gets his provisional license in a few weeks. Then he’ll really be able to kick some ass.

Above him, the screen tells him that his train will be there in three minutes. Three minutes, and he’ll be bombarded with unfamiliar scents and the urge to growl when somebody gets too close. It hasn’t been long since he presented, yet getting used to his newfound instincts were proving to be harder than he originally thought.

At least stupid Deku is an omega, Katsuki thinks, a grin tugging at his lips, before inwardly cursing at himself. It doesn’t matter that the nerd is an omega. Why should that matter at all?

He tugs his scarf closer to his nose and breathes deep. Maybe his own scent will calm him down.

Things between the two have been… different. Not good, not bad, just different. Katsuki is trying his best to not snap at the nerd every two seconds, but that’s still progress! As his dad would say, ‘any progress is good progress’. Katsuki will take the win, only because he refuses defeat.

(And if one of Deku’s shirts suddenly goes missing from his dirty laundry, Katsuki has nothing to do with it. It definitely does not live under his pillow, tucked safely away from prying eyes. Not at all.)

Aizawa would be so disappointed to know that Katsuki let himself be so caught off guard. The young girl rams into him full speed, crying out as they collided. He growls, righting himself, before opening his mouth to snap at her.

Except, when he looks, she’s gone.

“What the…?” Katsuki mutters as he looks around. He’s not even in the train station anymore. Instead, he’s right in the middle of the city, staring at the familiar bakery that his mother loves so dearly.

“Aw, shit. I just clocked out.”

Katsuki turns, snarl tugging at his lips and quirk at the ready.

In front of him, looking entirely like he’d rather be anywhere else, is Katsuki’s mirror. He stands taller than him, with a nasty scar plastered across his right cheek. The earrings Katsuki has always wanted decorate his ears, and his hair is fuller, more grown out. It lays dripping along his neck. Katsuki’s eyes zero in on that part, nearly bulging out when he sees the long-faded bite mark.

This version of him is mated. Mated. He tries not to blush and shuts down all thoughts of going on cute courting dates and—oh.

That was a train of thought that had to end now. Immediately. Pronto!

Other Katsuki sighs and scratches his neck. His right hand idly swings the plastic bakery bag. “Alright, kid. Let’s go.”

Katsuki snarls as his mirror reaches for his scruff, snapping at the hand. “I’m not going anywhere with you!”

“Yes, you are!” Red eyes narrow in warning. “I ain’t got time to worry about this shit. If I don’t get this home now, it’s my funeral. Now, move!”

The other Katsuki’s phone rings, and he curses once more before he’s scurrying to answer it. His voice lowers, but he doesn’t take his eyes off the younger boy. “Hey, mama. Yeah, yeah, I got it. Hey, listen, I’m going to be a bit late.”

He pulls the phone away from his ear, wincing at the loud cry. The person on the other end was loud enough for Katsuki to hear, “You made me like this! This is all your fault!” Watching the older version of himself droop makes him feel for the guy, but then he remembers that this is his future, and Katsuki resolutely tells himself that he will not end up this way.

When the man is too distracted cooing into the phone, Katsuki takes it upon himself to leave. He isn’t about to waste his time on a pathetic version of himself.

“And where do you think you’re going?” A hand scruffs him, and he growls as he’s yanked back. The older Katsuki—he really needs to think of a different name for him. ‘Kacchan’ pops in his head first, which he vehemently refuses to use—clucks his teeth. “I’m going to have to call you back, baby. Some little twerp is trying to get away.”

“I’m not a twerp, you old geezer!”

Kacchan—oh hell no—sneers. “Who’re you calling ‘geezer’? I’m only twenty-nine!”

“Bakugou? Is everything al—oh no.”

Katsuki whips his head around to growl at the newcomer but stops when he sees who it is. Round Face stands with her mouth open, eyes darting between the two, before she sighs. “Aizawa is going to kill you when he sees you next.’”

“Shut it, cheeks!” They both yell at the same time.

“Whoa. Freaky.”

Katsuki tries to get out of Kacchan’s grip again, but the older man knows him too well. Before he could register it, he’s locked under his bicep, the plastic bakery bag hitting against his chest. He tries to wiggle out of his grip, even uses a couple blasts to get out, but found it futile. Kacchan smirks down at him.

“He’s going to have to come with us, isn’t he?” Round Face asks. She places her hands on her hips and bends down, finger poking his nose. Katsuki snaps at her finger. “The one day I’m in town, and you had to go and get quirked.”

Kacchan snaps, “I didn’t get quirked! The twerp did!”

He bites down on Kacchan’s arm in retaliation, and though the older man swore, he didn’t let go. Fine, then. Katsuki will just have to gnaw through it until he does. He has nothing but time, apparently.

Shaking her head, Round Face smacks his cheek with a little too much force, and Katsuki finds himself floating away. “H-hey!” he yells at them, but they pay him no heed. “What the hell?”

“Was I always this loud?”

Round Face grimaces as she says, “Was?” At Kacchan’s shout, she runs ahead, waving to them to join her. “Let’s hurry and get him out of here. This is way too freaky.”

For once, Katsuki agrees.

+++

Aizawa stares at Katsuki, then at Kacchan, then back at Katsuki before groaning. The years have not been kind to his homeroom teacher, and he wonders what had happened to make him look so rough. On his desk, a picture frame of him and a girl with long white hair smiles back at him. The girl is proudly showing off her diploma. He didn’t know that Aizawa has a child. He doesn’t know a lot of things about Aizawa, apparently.

“I invited you here to conduct a class about search and rescue,” Aizawa says slowly, “not show me a blast from the past.”

Round Face scratches the back of her head, bowing. “Sorry, Aizawa. It was an accident.”

He glares at the woman as he rubs at his sore bottom. As soon as they entered the teacher’s lounge, Katsuki found himself dropped from the air with no warning. He thinks she did that on purpose. When he tried to get up, Kacchan’s hand promptly shoved him back down, and his hand remains firm on his scruff even now.

With a sigh, Aizawa spins in his office chair and leans in towards Katsuki. Half of his face is covered by his hair, Katsuki realizes. It unnerves him to only see one eye.

“Alright, problem child. Tell me what happened.” Aizawa’s hands fold in his lap as he addresses Katsuki. He swallows and looks away, recounting the evening (though, with the way the sun is shining, he supposes it’s more midday now) to the room. They’re silent as he finishes, and Katsuki does his best to not squirm.

For all his talk, he isn’t the biggest fan of everyone’s attention on him. He prefers quiet admiration, or for everyone to just buzz off. It makes him antsy when he’s suddenly put in the spotlight. The words get stuck in his throat, and he’s more often than not making an ass of himself. A shiver runs down his spine as he remembers the sports festival. He hopes his future self is better behind a microphone than he is now.

Not that he’s admitting a fault or anything! No, he’s the great Bakugou Katsuki, future Number One and the best hero out there! There’s nothing he can’t do!

Aizawa listens patiently as Katsuki finishes his story. When he’s done, the older man closes his eye and exhales harshly. “Contact the commission and see what we can do. Maybe we can find a time travel quirk and send him back.”

“Great!” Kacchan says. “How long till we get this runt off our hands?”

“I’m not a runt!”

“Be nice to yourself, Bakugou. What if he internalizes all this stuff, and you just made his already bruised ego worse?”

“Hey!”

Kacchan pinches his scruff before releasing it. He crosses his arms, snorting. “Probably needs to be knocked down a peg or two anyway. Needs as little more humility before all the shit that’s about to happen, yeah?”

“What shit?” Katsuki rubs at the sore spot on his neck, stiffening as his nose scrunches from their curdling scents. When he looks up, no one meets his eye.

Aizawa’s gaze has turned to the picture on his desk, and he rubs at his mouth as he thinks. Round Face presses a hand to her stomach. Her face drains of color, and her mouth presses into a hard line. Out of all of them, Kacchan looks the least disturbed. His right hand clenches the bag tighter, but other than that, he doesn’t give away any discomfort.

Right, Katsuki thinks. Time travel. They can’t let me know too much.

It settles in then, the reality of the situation. Katsuki traveled through time. He’s living out a real-life science fiction movie, except he’s already broken the cardinal rule of time travel—do not interact with yourself. He wonders how this will affect his future. He went forward in time, so maybe he can go back with new knowledge and prevent something nasty.  Maybe he could prevent whatever is that made the atmosphere so heavy. He’s great like that, so who knows?

The door rattles open, followed by a familiar pine scent. It curls in Katsuki’s nose, wrapping around him as he breathes it in, and his lip curls at barely contained annoyance. There’s a gasp before Deku’s saying, “I thought you said you were going to be late!”

Kacchan immediately crosses the room to Deku, holding the plastic bag out to him. Deku green hair barely reaches above Kacchan’s shoulder, so Katsuki can’t see him too well, but he sure can smell. He covers his nose, suddenly overwhelmed by the omega.

Next to him, Round Face chuckles. “Oh, you haven’t gotten there yet.”

“Gotten where?” Katsuki growls back. He hears a deep belly sigh from Aizawa before the man grumbles, “I’ve already been through this once. I can’t go through it again.”

Deku’s rustling through the bag when he pauses. His scent spikes, an undertone of sadness pouring out, and he sniffles. “Where are the pistachio cookies?”

At this, Kacchan’s back goes rigid. He snatches the bag from Deku’s grip, rustling through it, and growls as the bag droops. His hand comes up to tuck Deku into his neck as he croons. “I’ll go get them right now. Don’t move a muscle. Actually,” he grabs Deku’s hand and starts pulling him inside, “sit down and eat these.”

A rush of ice shoots down Katsuki’s spine when he first sees Deku. The nerd’s face is covered in a deep scar (where are his freckles? There should be eight, not four), and his hair looks like he finally learned how to manage it. If Katsuki looks hard enough, he can see a scar peeking out from his hair line. His wide green eyes are the same, as is that dumb look on his face. That’s not what draws Katsuki’s attention, though.

No, it’s the very noticeable baby bump that the nerd seems to be sporting. The one his older self is currently cooing over.

Oh.

Fuck.

No.

“Kacchan,” Deku says as his hand clasps around Kacchan’s. The alpha, half-turned to leave the teacher’s lounge, turns to look back at him, humming. Deku doesn’t dare take his eyes off Katsuki. “Please tell that is not a younger version of you right in front of me. Please tell me that this is pregnancy brain.”

“I don’t think pregnancy brain causes hallucination, Deku.” Round Face says before patting Katsuki’s head. “This is the real deal, unfortunately.”

Deku nods, inhaling once, twice, then completely collapses into the chair. A whine comes out of Kacchan’s throat as he rushes to check on him. The omega waves him off.

Okay. This is okay. Everything is a-okay. Maybe it was just a one-night stand (ew, with Deku?), and they got pregnant, and Katsuki being the man of honor he is obviously decided he was going to own up to his mistakes. That doesn’t explain the mating bites on both of their necks. Long faded yet so scarred over that he wonders how many times they were carved into their skins.

Right, so he’s mated to stupid Deku in the future. It’s fine. It’s cool. It’s totally and completely whatever.

Fuck, he’s pregnant. Like unavoidably pregnant. And Katsuki did that! Him! That means the two of them… they both… with each other!

A fresh blush blooms across Katsuki’s face as he realizes what that means. He ducks away, not able to meet anyone’s gazes, and prays that no one calls him out on it. He just had his rut a few weeks ago, right before the semester ended, which was already embarrassing enough as it is. Having your classmates know why you’re not in school makes him want to yank his teeth out and not deal with it ever again. Yet, here’s undeniable proof that some idiot version of himself decided it was the best thing ever to go knock up stupid Deku in the middle of his rut without a care in the world.

Or it was during Deku’s heat, his brain supplies, and he’s suddenly bombarded with images of Deku in heat. He was there when the nerd first started in, way back in middle school. Late bloomer for a quirk, yet early bloomer in puberty. What a medical phenomenon.

(He vividly remembers the way Deku’s bottom lip trembled as he begged Katsuki to help him get home. How his legs rubbed together, how his eyes watered and cheeks flushed in embarrassment, how he chirped when Katsuki finally grabbed his wrist. The leering looks of the upperclassmen. His heavy breaths against his neck once he collapsed and Katsuki had to carry him the rest of the way. Oh, how he remembers it. It was a wonder Katsuki didn’t present right there and then.)

Now is not the time to get lost in that memory. Digging his nails into his palms, Katsuki looks back up to firmly stare Deku in the eye. “Got something to say, Deku?”

Deku’s mouth twitches before he brings his hand up to his mouth. “Interesting. It’s definitely Kacchan and not some weird clone of him. I wonder if this is Anachrome’s work before she became a hero. How far in time is she able to send people? If she can send someone this far at the time she was initially able to, then how far is her range now? How is she able to recall the things she sends into the future if she’s not there to send it back? If she can—”

“Enough, problem child.” Aizawa stands from his desk and pulls out his phone. When he walks to the door, Katsuki notices a slight limp. “I’m sending you the president’s number, Midoriya. I have a class to teach, and you two are coming with me.”

Round Face follows after him, her wrists coming up to scent Izuku and—to his surprise—Kacchan. After a moment, Kacchan breaks away from Deku and follows as well, red eyes watching him for as long as he can. Before he leaves, Kacchan points at him. “You. Make sure he eats everything in that bag!”

“Bakugou, let’s go!”

The door slams shut, leaving him alone with Deku. The omega is happily rummaging through the plastic bag, but when he remembers the lack of pistachio cookies, his eyes start watering again. With a pout, Deku looks up at him. “He forgot my cookies.”

“What do you want me to do about it?” Katsuki snaps.

He regrets it the moment it leaves his lips. When Kacchan comes back later, he only hopes that it will be to a dry teacher’s lounge.

+++

“Right. This is where you’ll be sleeping,” Deku says as he finishes fluffing up the couch. Katsuki hugs his blanket closer to his chest and buries his nose in it. It smells like them, caramel and pine and milk. He wants to say that he hates it. He wants to so bad.

The shirt Deku wears is large and baggy, but he can still see the outline of the bump. It’s making him go kind of nuts seeing it. Is this the future he has to look forward to? A small, two-bedroom apartment, with Deku’s dorky All Might statues littering the shelves. He spots his own statue on the top shelf. Next to it, Deku’s stands proud. He expects his signature lightning to surround its figure, but he doesn’t see it. Katsuki’s not given much time to look at it before a pillow is flung at his head.

He snatches the pillow, whirling to throw it back at Kacchan. The older man’s sharp teeth poke out behind his lips as he cackles. The pillow is easily caught.

Deku places his hands on his hips. “Kacchan, don’t tease.”

Kacchan tosses the pillow back into Katsuki’s grasp before crossing the room. His hands rest on Deku’s bump. “Like you wouldn’t give your younger self a hard time.”

“They’d probably yap your ear off about the stupid quirk before running to test it out,” Katsuki grumbles as he slams the pillow onto the couch. His body soon follows it, and he’s wrapped up in the blanket before either court retort. Deku squawks at his accusation, and Kacchan laughs once more. “He’s got you pinned, baby.”

Of course he does. It’s fucking Deku. The one thing in his life he can’t escape, no matter how much he tries to push it away. Katsuki never knows what goes on inside that head of his, yet the nerd is always too predictable. He eats with his left hand so he can keep writing in that dumb notebook. He stays up late to practice his kicks. He crushes his bones so no one else will take the brunt of the attack. Predictable, predictable, predictable.

Deku whispers ‘goodnight’ before waddling off to bed. He notices the way Kacchan’s face softens as he watches him and wonders if he’ll become predictable, too.

“Why him?” Katsuki asks after the door clicks shut. Kacchan’s head whips toward him, lips already curling. Katsuki doesn’t look at him, instead keeping his gaze firmly locked on the ceiling above them. “Why Deku of all people?”

A low grumble escapes Kacchan’s throat. Katsuki realizes that he basically insulted his pregnant mate (what a weird concept to wrap his mind around) but doesn’t apologize.

He yelps when his legs are lifted. Kacchan sits down at the end of the couch, forcing Katsuki to draw his legs to himself. Sitting up, the young alpha glares at the other.

“Why not him?” Kacchan asks.

At this, Katsuki scoffs. “Because it’s Deku. The thorn in my—er, our side.”

The older man shakes his head. He stretches his right hand out in front of him, slowly curling the fingers inwards. They shake, and he only gets about halfway before he’s flexing them out. When he tries again, the process repeats.

“That’s right,” Kacchan says. “He’s a thorn in my side. A thorn I can’t live without.” Then he’s reaching his hand out and ruffling Katsuki’s hair. “Get some sleep, twerp.”

The alpha flicks the light off as he leaves. His gentles croons are heard behind the bedroom door, and Katsuki finds himself falling asleep to the sounds of his future self.

+++

What Katsuki didn’t tell anyone when his rut hit was how hard it was to stay in his room. Every sense of his was heightened, every sound itching across his skin, every touch burning him to the core. He wanted to sink his teeth into the soft flesh of an omega’s neck. Feel sweat under his palms as he gripped their hips tightly. Relish in their cries as he made sure they felt just as good as he did.

It was through the haze that the imaginary omega he conjured up started to morph into Deku. He lost count how many times he cried out his name into his pillow.

That is a secret that Katsuki will take to his grave. His first ever rut, and he spent it thinking about the stupid idiot.

+++

He wakes up early to Kacchan trying to tiptoe around the house.

The coffee grounds are fed into the brewer, two clean mugs are set on the counter, and a fully made bento is stuffed into the fridge. Gray morning light barely creeps in through the window. The study hum of the heater works side by side with Kacchan’s movements.

He’s dozing again when Deku finally waddles in. With a big grin, he gives Kacchan a hug and nuzzles his nose against his back. “He’s still here,” Deku whispers, earning a grunt in response.

From his place on the couch, he can see the way Kacchan makes space for Deku. They’re always touching each other as they work together. A hand on the small of the back. Chin resting on the other’s shoulder. Lips briefly touching. Deku takes Kacchan’s morning grumpiness in stride. He closes his eyes and listens.

When the coffee finishes dripping and the eggs stop sizzling, he feels fingers run through his hair. Steam wafts into his face, and his eyes flutter open again to see Deku smiling down at him, holding out a cup of coffee.

The baby bump is more prominent when he’s sitting down. Katsuki finds himself drawn to it, itching to reach out and touch it. Instead, he takes the cup of coffee and scorches his tongue.

“Anachrome said she’ll swing by today. Looks like you’ll be going home soon.” Deku’s voice is soft, gentle, warm. He’ll be a good dam, Katsuki’s dumb brain supplies. So dumb, he burns his tongue once more just to get the thought out.

+++

Kacchan leaves for patrol not too long after. Before he does, he pulls Katsuki far away from Deku’s prying ears and tells him, “You keep a damn good eye on them, twerp. If anything happens to them while I’m gone—”

His thumb splices across his throat, and though Katsuki thinks it’s weird his future self is telling him this, he agrees anyway. Kacchan’s red eyes—his red eyes, only with more lines around the edges and faint dark smudges at the bottom—narrow at him. The alpha takes a moment to observe him before he sighs.

“Look,” Kacchan says, hand coming up to his neck. He’s nervous, and Katsuki knows that because it’s what he does when he’s nervous. Katsuki resists the urge to do the same thing and waits for Kacchan to speak. When he does, his voice is soft. “They’re the best thing to happen to me. Us. You don’t get it yet, but you will, and when you do…”

He pauses to huff a laugh, eyes finding Deku as he moves about the apartment. Katsuki watches him, too, curious what he sees. The nerd’s headphones flatten his curls, and he’s resting a notebook on his belly as he writes furiously in it. When he notices them looking, he smiles.

“When you do,” Kacchan whispers, smiling back, “you’ll know what I mean. Keep them safe for me, okay?”

Katsuki doesn’t like being told what to do. He doesn’t take orders from anybody, and he sure as hell doesn’t let sappy emotions cloud his judgement. So, he lifts his lips in a snarl and scoffs at Katsuki’s words, stomping off to go sit on the couch and wait.

+++

Katsuki thinks nothing of it when Deku says he’ll be back in a moment. The TV plays a rerun of a television drama he got invested in over the summer, and he watches it half-heartedly with his feet tucked under the kotatsu. Deku’s papers are spread across the tabletop. A steaming mug of tea is slowly cooling down. It’s getting harder to stay awake as the heat lulls him into its comfort. A small purr rumbles at the back of his throat, and he’s glad no one is here to hear it.

The door slams open, followed by Deku’s grunts. He blinks groggily as the grunts continues. Between gritted teeth, Deku groans, “Come on, you stupid box!”

The box stubbornly won’t move through the door jam, and Deku is yanking on it like his life depends on it. He’s wearing green gloves that end just past his elbow. His arms flex, and the gloves glow.

“Stupid Deku,” Katsuki grumbles as he pulls himself away from the warmth. Deku doesn’t notice him approach. “Oi.”

Yelping, the nerd drops the box, jumping back before it slams on his foot. His arms immediately fly to his stomach, and the gloves recede into two wristbands. Deku’s eyes are wide as he hurriedly says, “Don’t tell Kacchan.”

Katsuki glances at the box before back at Deku. “What is that?”

A dumb smile spreads across Deku’s face. It’s so dumb that it makes Katsuki’s stomach twist into knots and his heart flutter. He doesn’t like the feeling. He thinks.

“It’s the crib we ordered. It was supposed to get here tomorrow, but the delivery guy came early. I wanted to surprise Kacchan with it.” Deku’s dumb smile softens in the corner, pine scent swelling in his happiness. “I’ve only been out of the field for two months, so I didn’t think it’d be this hard to get it up the stairs.”

Katsuki frowns. “Did you carry that up the stairs by yourself?”

“Um. No?”

“Deku!”

He spends the next five minutes berating Deku for doing it all on his own (“I’ve carried a falling building on my own, Kacchan! I can handle a crib!”) then the five minutes after that shoving the crib inside. The bottom of the box had caught on the sill and torn open, making it catch every time Deku tried pulling on it. Katsuki kicks at the box once they place it in the nursery. “Die, stupid box.”

Deku laughs and eases himself onto the floor. “Cardboard boxes can’t die, Kacchan.”

“I’ll kill it anyway.”

Green eyes meet his, and for moment, he watches Deku disappear into himself. It’s unnerving. Kicking the box one more time, Katsuki desperately wishes that he could be anywhere else.

They proceed to spend the rest of the afternoon pulling out parts and organizing them into little piles. Deku babbles on and on about all the things that they bought for the baby, which swiftly turns to All Might’s baby gift. It explains the three foot tall All Might plushie resting in the corner, and he catches Deku looking at it every few minutes.

Katsuki can’t stand his mumbling. His mouth runs a mile a minute, and it gets under Katsuki’s skin like an itch he can’t scratch.

Deku’s mumblings are cut off by a grunt and a hiss. He looks over, Kacchan’s words from earlier echoing in his head. He doesn’t expect his older self to actually kill him, but Katsuki also knows that he doesn’t say things he doesn’t mean. If something were to happen to Deku and the baby, he isn’t sure he’d make it to his own homecoming.

Though his face is scrunched, nothing appears out of the ordinary. That is, not until Deku starts crying.

Panic claws up Katsuki’s throat as he stands up suddenly. “What? What happened? Is something wrong?”

Deku laughs and rubs at his face. “You’re acting just like my Kacchan.”

Katsuki ears burn, and he’s quick to look away. So what if he got a little worried? It’s a totally normal reaction to a pregnant person grunting in pain! He’s a hero, damn it. He’s going to make sure everything is okay!

(It’s not because it was Deku that’s in pain, and it’s totally not that Deku’s carrying his future child or anything. Totally.)

A scarred hand grasps his, pulling him down. The fingers are crooked from the constant stress on them, and the skin is carved so deep that Katsuki wonders if Deku even remembers what his hands used to look like. He does. They were knobby and small always scraped up from being pushed around. He lets the hand guide him to Deku’s stomach, pressing into the firmness of the belly. There’s actually something in there, Katsuki realizes. It’s not a big joke the universe decided to play on him.

He's starting to get uncomfortable when he feels it—the hard press of something against his hand. He can’t hold back the gasp at the feeling.

“It’s the first time the baby’s kicked.” Deku’s voice is wobbly and thick. “She’s a fighter, just like her papa.”

“She?” Something tugged his chest at the thought. He never thought about children, but the idea was starting to grow on him. He can already see a little runt with blonde curls running around, laughing as she exploded everything she touched.

Deku removes his hand before going to cradle his belly. “Hmm, that’s what Kacchan thinks. I don’t care what they are as long as they’re healthy.”

But Katsuki already has his heart set on a daughter. A blonde one, with bright green eyes and chubby cheeks. He slowly takes his hand off Deku’s belly and swallows.

He has thirteen years until he’s supposed to meet her, but he already can’t wait.

+++

Kacchan’s death glare hasn’t left Katsuki since he came home and found them in the nursery. “You let him carry that on his own?”

“He didn’t tell me what he was doing!”

They argue back and forth until the doorbell rings, and Deku is letting someone in. She’s tiny, barely reaching Katsuki’s shoulders, with a bright red motorcycle helmet in one hand and a pocket watch in the other. Her blue hair is pulled back by a headband, letting Katsuki see her eyes. She watches him like a hawk as she crosses the room.

“I remember you! You’re the boy at the train station! I’ve been wondering when you’d show up!”

Kacchan crosses his arms and flexes. “Can you send him back?”

The girl places the helmet over her head and pops her knuckles. “Sure. It shouldn’t be so hard. I’m the Time Hero, after all!” She winks at him and lowers her face shield. “Unfortunately, I’ve opened a time loop, so expect a visit from your past self in about—eh, how old are you?”

“Sixteen.”

“Well, I’m not going to do that math. You’ll feel a little lightheaded, and then poof! We get you set in the right time!” She places her hand on Katsuki’s shoulder, the other swinging the watch. “No guarantee you’re going to remember any of this.”

“What—?”

Katsuki doesn’t get to finish. There’s a flash of light, and he has just a brief second to look over at his future self before he’s standing in front of an apologizing girl. Her blue hair whips around her as she bows profusely, explaining that she didn’t mean to use her quirk. He has a strange sense of déjà vu as he looks at her, but he can’t quite place where he knows her from.

The girl straightens, piercing eyes staring straight at him. “I’m Hisakawa Fukuko. If you run into any time related problems in the future, call me first! It’s probably my fault.”

Katsuki eyes her before clicking his tongue and stalking away. His head swims as he boards his train, and a strange bitter taste lingers in his mouth. As the train doors shut, Hisakawa’s gaze follows him closely. A small pocket watch drops from her hand.

By the time he reaches the dorms, Katsuki has already forgotten the strange encounter. The cold night air has him desperate to bury himself under his covers. He’s thinking about what to eat for dinner when the dorm doors swing open.

Deku comes tumbling out, a notebook already propped open in one hand and a pen scribbling away in the other. He doesn’t notice Katsuki.

For a minute, Katsuki stands and watches the nerd. He’s practicing his kicks again, sweatpants swishing with every move. Occasionally, he pauses to write in his notebook, then he’s quickly starting back up. Green lightning crackles the air every now and then. Katsuki remembers the feel of that lightning grazing his nose. The thought of it alone makes his skin tingle.

Something is different when he looks at the nerd. He has a sense that whatever is between them is slowly shifting, and he can’t quite put his finger on it. When Deku does finally look up and see him, a small chirp accompanies his smile. Katsuki’s stomach swoops at the sight.

“Kacchan!” Deku says, lowering his leg. “You’re back! How were the courses today?”

The feeling fades into annoyance—as it usually does whenever Deku is involved—and Katsuki stomps his way up to the dormitory steps, barking out, “Out of my way!”

Deku mumbles something too low for him to hear then calls out, “There should be leftover curry in the fridge! I made sure to put extra spice in there for you!”

His ears warm at the words, and he closes the door before Deku could see them. He’s providing, something whispers in the back of his mind. Good omega.

Katsuki’s determined not to eat the curry Deku made, but he’s opening the fridge and pulling it out anyway. He tells himself that it’s to throw it away, but he’s scooping a large helping onto plate. He thinks the curry won’t be good, but Katsuki finds that he’s shoveling it into his mouth with gusto.

When the plate’s cleared and his belly is full, a small purr tumbles out of his chest. A movie blasts through the speakers, covering the low hum of conversation. No one even notices the purr he’s trying to stifle.

No one, but the green-haired nerd smiling at him from the door.

“Midoriya! Close the door! It’s too cold!” Kaminari yells from his pile of blankets. Deku yelps and rushes to close the doors, face pink.

Katsuki looks down at his empty plate and realizes that he’s slowly becoming predictable. For Deku, he finds, he’s okay with that.