Chapter Text
Neito Monoma genuinely has to reboot for a second because what the fuck do you mean his four year old daughter has developed a biological explanation for gay marriage through gastropods.
He’s sitting there on the edge of her bed while the little star projector rotates slowly across the ceiling, and Ira is half asleep in mushroom pajamas clutching Snow under her chin with that heavy-lidded toddler seriousness she gets.
“Usually it’s a boy and a girl that have babies,” she explains carefully, “but since you and papa are both boys but I’m still your baby, then you’re probably like snails.”
Neito just blinks. Then bites hit his tongue, tears already forming in the corners of his eyes trying not to laugh. “You have to elaborate on that, my darling.”
She nods— with complete confidence. “Snails are both.”
“…both.”
“Mhmm. Like seahorses except cooler.”
“Cooler.”
“They live in forests.” Which to Ira apparently makes them superior evolutionary beings. And then she keeps going, sleepily rubbing her face against Snow. “Also seahorses don’t need other seahorses to make babies. But snails get lonely so they find other snails.”
Neito actually has to put a hand over his mouth. Because this is simultaneously the most incorrect explanation scientifically, and somehow the sweetest thing he’s ever heard in his life.
“Like you and papa,” Ira concludes softly.
There’s a beat.
Then Neito, very delicately: “…and how exactly do you know about snail reproduction, my love?”
Ira yawns. “The fairies told me.”
Of course they did.
Of fucking course.
Neito stares at the ceiling for one long second trying to piece together which adult in her life caused this.
And then it hits him instantly. “…do you perhaps watch nature documentaries with your uncle Kiri again?”
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing, darling.”
Because there is absolutely NO way this wasn’t caused by Eijiro Kirishima watching nature documentaries with her while fully narrating over them like a sports commentator. “LOOK IRA THAT FROG IS EATING HIS OWN SKIN THATS SO METAL.”
Meanwhile Ira’s already drifting off.
“Snails snails snails…”
Neito kisses her forehead gently, tucks the blanket around her little shoulders, and quietly leaves the room.
Then he walks into their bedroom where Katsuki is already half asleep under the comforter scrolling through his phone with reading glasses on because he’s old now apparently. Neito slips into bed beside him. Warm feet immediately tangle together under the blanket automatically after years of this.
He leans over and murmurs directly into Katsuki’s ear, “Your daughter thinks we’re snails.”
Katsuki doesn’t even look up immediately. “Huh”
“She compared our marriage to snail reproduction.”
Now that gets his attention. Katsuki slowly lowers the phone. “What the fuck are you talking about.”
Neito stares straight at him “She says snails are both boys and girls and they get lonely and find each other in forests.”
Silence.
Then Katsuki snorts so suddenly he nearly chokes. “No fucking way.”
“I’m serious.”
“She said that?”
“She also ranked snails above seahorses because they live in forests.”
Katsuki is shaking his head but he was loosing to a damning grin. His shoulders are shaking violently.
“That’s your fault,” he accuses eventually.
“My fault?”
“You told our four year old about snail sex.”
“I absolutely did not.”
Katsuki finally breaks and starts laughing properly. Deep, helpless laughter. A cackle really. And Neito watches him for a second with that unbearably soft expression he only gets at home.
Because this.
This right here.
Their daughter asleep down the hall. Their feet tangled together. Katsuki warm beside him laughing himself breathless over snail reproduction.
This is the whole world.
Eventually Katsuki wipes at his eyes and grumbles: “…snails.”
Neito hums. “Our daughter thinks we’re woodland creatures.”
“Weird little fucker”
“That’s true.”
Another pause.
Then quieter, softer “she knows she’s ours though.”
And that’s the thing. Ira doesn’t understand adoption yet. Doesn’t understand biology. Doesn’t understand paperwork or genetics or legal systems.
But she understands love.
She understands these are my dads, this is my home, so therefore I belong here. To her, the rest are just details adults care too much about. So instead of wondering why she has two dads—
she simply found a creature in nature that matched the shape of her family and went:
Oh. Like snails.
Unfortunately for Katsuki and Neito though, their daughter proceeds to inform absolutely everyone within her immediate vicinity of exactly this.
It starts innocently.
That’s the problem.
Because Ira says it with the calm sincerity of a child who believes she is explaining a completely normal scientific fact. Which means adults have NO defensive mechanisms against it.
The first victim is an old lady at the grocery store.
Ira is sitting in the cart in her little sheep sweater holding a baguette like a woodland prophet while the cashier smiles warmly.
“Oh, your parents must love you very much.”
Ira nods solemnly. “Yes. They are snails.”
Silence.
The cashier blinks. “…I’m sorry?”
“My papa and daddy are snail husbands.”
The old lady looks visibly confused, and before either Katsuki or Neito can intervene— Ira continues.
“They made me in the woods.”
Absolute.
Fucking.
Silence.
The cashier looks horrified. The old lady across the counter looks up in panic. And Neito? Instead of being a grown ass adult and explaining the situation, he folds over the shopping cart and starts laughing hysterically.
Actually crying laughing.
Katsuki immediately smacks the back of his head. “FOCUS YOU FUCKING IDIOT.”
“I CAN’T—”
“OUR DAUGHTER CAN’T KEEP TELLING PEOPLE WE CONCEIVED HER IN A FUCKING FOREST.”
“Ira darling,” Neito wheezes through tears, “perhaps don’t phrase it like that—”
“But it’s true,” Ira says insistently. Wide eyes, and honest
“NO IT’S NOT.”
“You said snails make babies in forests!”
“WE ARE NOT LITERAL SNAILS.”
The cashier looks deeply unconvinced.
It only escalates from there.
Because Ira LOVES sharing information. Especially information she thinks is important. So now everywhere they go:
“My dads are snails.”
“We live in a den.”
“My daddy likes expensive soup.”
“My papa gets loud when squirrels violate property law.”
And worst of all:
“I was made in the woods because my dads got lonely.”
Katsuki is losing years off his life.
One time they were picking passed by a lovely lady while picking up laundry at cleaners when she kneels down smiling sweetly. “And what do your parents do?”
Ira swings her feet thoughtfully. “They’re heroes.”
“Oh really? What kind?”
“One explodes things and the other steals.”
The lady goes pale.
Neito was already snorting, one hand on a wall bracing himself.
Katsuki has both hands over his face. “Baby we talked about CONTEXT.”
“Daddy, she asked!”
Another time a preschool teacher gently pulls Neito aside after pickup. “Mr. Monoma… Ira has been telling the other children she was conceived by forest snails.”
Neito has to physically bite the inside of his cheek. “I see.”
“And she also informed another student that marriage is when two lonely mollusks find each other.”
“…that does sound like something she’d say.”
“We’re just a little concerned.”
Meanwhile from across the classroom:
“Daddy look I drew papa with antennae!”
Katsuki, staring at the crayon drawing of himself as a furious snail: “…why do I have muscles.”
“Because you’re daddy.”
Fair enough honestly.
And the worst part is that Ira says all of this with such complete confidence and security that nobody can even correct her.
Because she’s right.
She is their baby.
There is not a single doubt in her tiny woodland-creature body about that fact.
Not one.
She doesn’t wonder whether she belongs there. Doesn’t question if Katsuki Bakugo and Neito Monoma are really her parents. To Ira, that’s like questioning whether the sky is above her.
It’s just true.
So when she gets frustrated she doesn’t scream or melt down dramatically— she simply goes to one of her dads because in her head: Dad fixes things. That’s what dads are for.
Can’t open juice? Papa.
Sock feels weird? Daddy.
Existential crisis because mushrooms probably get lonely underground? Both dads immediately.
And nighttime is the softest proof of all. Because sometimes she does get nightmares.Not often. But enough. And every single time, sometime around 2AM, there’s the faint sound of little feet padding across hardwood floors.
Tiny. Sleepy. Determined.
Then the bedroom door creaks open. And because both her dads are heroes with permanently fried nervous systems, both wake up instantly. Katsuki grumbles first from under the blankets. “…baby?”
Little silhouette in the doorway clutching Snow by one ear, rubbing her eyes. “Bad dream.”
That’s it.
No dramatics. No crying.
Just fact.
And immediately the blankets lift before she even has to ask. Ira climbs into bed with the absolute confidence of someone who has never once doubted she is wanted there. She wedges herself directly between them with all the force of a sleepy raccoon. Neito automatically opens an arm around her. Katsuki tucks the blanket over her feet.
Routine. Instinctive. Easy.
Then one night, while Ira is half asleep with her cheek smushed into Neito’s shoulder, Neito makes the mistake of teasing her.
“You know, my love,” he murmurs softly, “you’re getting terribly big now. Perhaps you should learn to sleep independently in your own room.”
Tiny silence.
Then Ira lifts her head slowly.
Looks at him.
Looks at Katsuki— Who is currently sprawled fully across Neito’s chest like an oversized angry cat. One arm around Neito’s waist. Leg tangled with his. Comfortable as FUCK.
Ira blinks. Then points at Katsuki. “Daddy is bigger than me.”
Neito cocks his head.
Ira continues sleepily “He should be independent first.”
Katsuki bursts into laughter. Wheezing stupid as he collapses harder onto Neito.
Neito sighs, then cracks an eye at Katsuki, lips twitching. “You hear that Katsuki? you should start being independent.”
Before Katsuki can pull himself together and stop laughing for a second, Ira pats his arm comfortingly. “It’s okay papa. One day you’ll be brave.”
Katsuki laughs so hard he almost wakes himself into a coughing fit.
And Neito?
Neito looks down at the two of them tangled together under the blankets and feels his chest ache so hard it almost hurts. Because this tiny girl— this sleepy little creature with sticky fingers and mushroom sweaters and impossible logic—
trusts them so completely.
Loves them so naturally.
There’s no fear in it.
No hesitation.
Just certainty.
These are my dads.
This is my bed too.
I belong here.
It genuinely unsettles people a little how much Ira Bakugo-Monoma looks like she belongs to them biologically. Because it’s not just “oh same hair color.”
No.
That little girl looks like somebody copy-pasted Katsuki Bakugo and called it a day
Blonde hair? Check.
Red eyes? Check.
The exact same intense stare when she’s thinking hard? Somehow CHECK.
Even the way she frowns is familiar. And it gets worse because Neito also blends into the equation perfectly. The soft pale coloring, the elegant features, the refined expressions— Ira somehow mirrors both of them in a way that makes civilians stare at family photos too long.
So yes.
People ask.
All the fucking time.
Usually very cautiously.
“Ah… is she biologically yours?”
And Neito, because he’s evil, loooves dragging this out. One time they’re having lunch with Mitsuki Bakugo visiting the house, Ira coloring quietly at the coffee table in her sheep pajamas while Katsuki cooks.
Mitsuki keeps glancing between Ira and Katsuki when she finally blurted out “Honey, are you sure you didn’t get a girl pregnant behind your husband’s back?”
Dead silence.
Then Neito snorts violently he almost inhales tea.
Katsuki slams his hands down “THE FUCK DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?!”
Mitsuki points aggressively. “LOOK AT HER.”
And yeah well, okay. Understandable. Because Ira is sitting there with Katsuki’s exact childhood expression while concentrating on drawing a fairy holding a frog. Same eyes. Same little wrinkle between the brows. Same posture.
Katsuki walks over, squints at his daughter, then at his mother. “…okay, but thats still kinda fucked up.”
Mitsuki keeps going because now she’s emotionally invested. “You expect me to believe you two just RANDOMLY found a baby that looks like she came out of our bloodline?”
Neito wiping tears “Yes.”
“That doesn’t happen.”
“It literally did.”
“That’s insane.”
“Agreed.”
And see, thats EXACTLY what happened. That was the literal script. The plot God sent down via divine intervention and coincidences. They walked into the adoption agency fully prepared to think logically and responsibly and maturely about this life-changing decision. Then they saw a tiny one-year-old with blonde curls and red eyes staring at them like this was already decided.
And apparently both their brains immediately short-circuited. Like his entire nervous system decided before logic could catch up.
Case closed.
No further questions.
That was their daughter.
Done.
Mitsuki still thinks it sounds fake. Especially because Ira ALSO resembles her. So now Mitsuki occasionally stares at the child like she’s investigating a government conspiracy.
One time she crouched in front of Ira very seriously and asked “Baby are you absolutely sure these idiots adopted you legally?”
Ira blinked slowly, then whispered “yes, ‘cus i remember the fairies gave me to papa and daddy in the forest.”
Katsuki from across the room: “THANK YOU.”
Neito wheezing “She remembers being given by fairies but not where shoes go.”
And Mitsuki just keeps staring because this little girl looks like the Bakugou genetics won a war against basic probability. Before Mitsuki could say anything else, Neito raised a hand “Yes, we are one hundred percent sure, we even ran a DNA test.”
“And?”
Neito grins “it really was the fairies.”