Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

i. 60 weeks

Mirio’s received a lot of applause in his life. He’s not certain if he’s deserved all of it, but public praise is just a thing that happens when you’re a pro hero. People clap for him in all kinds of places for all sorts of reasons. But in his decade of doing hero work, he’s never found an audience better at clapping than a room full of elementary school children.

The kids are committed to making as much noise as possible, until the teacher comes to the front of the room and quiets them down. They’re clapping because Mirio just spent the last thirty minutes talking about his career. It was a long, hopefully funny, story about how he managed to graduate and open up his own agency, all without a Quirk.

The kids ate it up. Quirks usually aren’t powerful enough for hero work. Sometimes they don’t do much of anything. And of course some people don’t have one at all. The idea that anyone can become a hero if they try hard enough is potent stuff in a world where your future seems dictated by genetics. Mirio never expected to become a motivational speaker, but he seems to be doing more and more of it lately. Sir would probably laugh if he knew.

The teacher thanks Mirio again, and he grins at everyone, taking in their gappy smiles and bright eyes. She asks if anyone has any questions and the hand of nearly every student in the room shoots up.

“Lemillion-san, did it hurt when you lost your Quirk?”

Kids sure are something else. 

Mirio answers until it’s far past the time when he should have left. But he likes talking to kids. He wishes he could ask questions in exchange. He wants to know what they want to do when they grow up, and who their favorite heroes are. He wants to know what Quirks they have, and maybe talk about how to get creative with them. This is the third class he’s talked to today, and each time, his heart swells a little bigger. It’s going to burst out of his chest, and he doesn’t quite know what to do about it.

He does know the cause, though. It’s been on his mind for a while.

Eventually the teacher ends the questions, and Mirio is mobbed by a bunch of eight-year-olds who want his autograph. At the end of the line is a shy girl with a Lemillion trading card. When she gets to him she holds it out with trembling hands for him to sign.

Mirio makes eye contact with her and then he can’t look away. Her eyes are dark and angular and she has long wavy blonde hair. She looks shockingly similar to what he and Tamaki might produce, if it were biologically possible for them to have a child.

He looks at her for too long and it makes her nervous.

He stays late at the school, stopping by the first grade classrooms to say hello and getting overwhelmed by a swarm of six-year-olds. After that there’s just no point in going back to his office, so he calls his sidekick and tells him to close up shop on his own. Then he gets on the train to head home.

People on the train are polite. He’s still in his hero costume but they let him be, and he appreciates it. There’s room to sit, so he does, using the space to think.

This is the fourth school he’s spoken at in a month, and maybe the twelfth class. The city is doing a program that gets heroes in elementary schools, and Mirio volunteered for a lot of them. He’s good at speaking in front of a classroom and there are other heroes who struggle with that, so he took on a little extra. It’s really fun, anyway. He loves kids.

But seeing so many of them is starting to rub his heart raw.

He and Tamaki first talked about having kids when they were eighteen and preparing for the first major separation of their lives. They were in Tamaki’s room, packing up his stuff for his move to Osaka. And Tamaki, always so much braver than he gives himself credit for, told Mirio that if he wanted to break up he’d understand. That Osaka and Tokyo were far apart, and hero careers were busy and… he kind of trailed off at that point and Mirio filled in the silence by kissing him.

Of course Mirio didn’t want to break up, and Tamaki didn’t either. So they lay down on the floor and talked about what they did want, a future neither of them had ever acknowledged before. A home together, a cat or a dog, and, eventually… a kid. And they decided that instead of breaking up, they were going to work to get those things.

It took three years for the first one, until Mirio had enough savings and experience to start his own agency in Osaka. A few short weeks after they moved in together, Tamaki pulled a tiny grey kitten out of a collapsed building and Miso became a part of their lives. Two years later, they brought Taro home from a shelter, the most placid, gentle dog either of them had ever seen. A year after that, they got married.

They have so much now. A home together. A cat and a dog. But still…

It takes someone jostling against him for Mirio to realize the train has gotten crowded. He looks up, and directly in front of him is a woman holding a baby that’s happily babbling above the quiet din of the train. Mirio scrambles to his feet and offers his seat right away, apologizing for not noticing earlier. The baby reaches for Mirio as the woman sits down and she apologizes as well.

“He loves colors, and your costume is so bright. I’m sorry.”

“Oh no!” Mirio grabs his cape and offers a bit of it to the baby who waves his arms excitedly. “A hero’s cape serves a wide variety of purposes.”

He spends the last fifteen minutes of his commute playing with the baby, and by the time he gets off the train his heart is so full of longing it aches.

Tamaki’s not getting home for another hour, and Mirio wants to surprise him with dinner. Usually Tamaki’s the one who cooks because he likes to cook and he’s better at it, but Mirio thinks he’ll appreciate the break anyway. So after looking at the contents of the fridge, Mirio googles how to bake chicken breasts. The meal’s not that tough to pull together, so his brain is free to resume his thoughts from the train. 

It’s pretty simple. Mirio wants to be a dad. But he’s not sure if Tamaki’s ready. Mostly because they haven’t talked about it much. Work has been all consuming for the past few years. They haven’t even moved out of their first tiny apartment.

The most recently they’ve talked about kids was on their honeymoon, and that was two years ago. But it hadn’t been logistics, really. More them standing on their balcony overlooking the Parisian skyline and whispering about the future in-between kisses. It led to some of the best sex of Mirio’s life. But no talk of kids since.

And that’s the thing. Saying “I want to have a family with you someday,” is different than saying “I want to have a family with you now.” It’s not that Mirio is particularly worried that Tamaki will say no. It’s just the opposite. He’s worried he’ll say yes before he’s ready.

It’s a longstanding argument. A messy one. Mirio is well-aware (because Tamaki has yelled, actually yelled about it) that not giving Tamaki information because Mirio doesn’t want to overwhelm him is treating him like a child. But Tamaki gets overwhelmed! Things make him anxious, and he doesn’t always trust his own feelings. In an ideal situation, Tamaki would come to Mirio first. Mirio wants to give him the space to do that.

If Tamaki were in Mirio’s head right now he’d probably be saying things like, “Your feelings matter too, Mirio!” or “Don’t you trust that I can respond to you?”

And they do. And he does.

“I’m overthinking this, aren’t I boy?” he asks the dog, who’s been lying at his feet since he started cooking. Taro yawns, probably hoping Mirio will drop the potato he’s holding. It’s not much as far as encouragement goes, but Mirio takes it anyway.

“Okay that’s it. I’m gonna tell him tonight! We’ll have a nice dinner, and he won’t have to do any work and I’ll just sit down and I’ll say ’Tamaki, you know, I’ve been thinking and maybe we should start a family!’”

Miso jumps up on the counter, nosing into the chicken. Mirio grabs her.

“You don’t think that’s too much, do you?”

The cat meows loudly, rubbing her face into Mirio’s arm in what seems like a positive reaction.

Hopefully Tamaki agrees.

“Oh for god’s sake Miso, not my slippers again!”

Tamaki comes home just as dinner’s ready.

“You’ve got to find somewhere else to— Mirio? Are you home?”

“Yeah I got home early and made dinner!” Mirio calls from the kitchen.

He’s bubbling over with impatience. The chicken’s in the oven, nearly done, and the potatoes are warm on the stove. While everything was cooking, Mirio tried his best to clean up and make the table look nice. He even got a flower from the shop down the street.

Tamaki notices the difference as soon as he comes in the room. He stops, mouth hanging open. Taro’s cradled in his arms like a baby.

“It’s not… my birthday or something?” he lowers the dog to the floor.

“Nope,” Mirio pulls open the oven and takes out the chicken. “But you cook all the time, so I figured it was my turn.”

Tamaki’s smile is small and embarrassed, the way it always is when he thinks Mirio’s done something extremely nice for him. “Thank you. You didn’t have to do that.”

“I live here, don’t I?” Mirio puts the chicken on the fanciest plate they have and brings everything to the table. He steals a kiss from Tamaki as he passes. The plate rattles as Mirio sits it down. His hands have started to shake with anticipation. Now that he’s decided to say something, he’s so nervously excited he can hardly stand it.

Tamaki sits down while Mirio turns to get the salad and a large bottle of beer for them to share. They don’t usually drink at dinner, but maybe it would help him calm down a little bit.

“Mirio are you sure this isn’t a special occasion?” Tamaki notices as soon as it comes out of the fridge. “That’s my favorite beer.”

That’s actually just coincidence, but maybe Mirio should just say what he intends to say right now and get it over with. Tamaki has really good instincts, and the fact that he’s picked up on something means he’s going to be on edge for awhile. This isn’t supposed to be a stressful conversation.

“This was the only beer in the fridge, Tamaki,” Mirio laughs.

Tamaki visibly relaxes in his seat. Mirio sits down too and Tamaki has to be hungry because he’s saying “Itadakimasu,” before Mirio’s hands are even lifted.

“That cat threw up in my slippers,” he says, reaching for a chicken breast. “This is the second time this month. I swear, she wants me dead. Can they sense my Quirk? Every living creature hates m—”

“Miso loves you, Tamaki,” Mirio interrupts, pouring out their drinks. “And Taro definitely loves you, look, he’s lying on your feet.”

Tamaki looks fondly at the dog on the floor, “He loves everyone.”

Mirio chuckles, then throws back his entire glass of beer. Tamaki blinks at him. Mirio realizes he’s not doing much to make the situation look casual. But then, why does it need to be casual? This is a big deal, it’s a huge thing to talk about. A huge exciting great thing, and why is he even holding back?

“So Tamaki,” Mirio clears his throat as Tamaki cuts into his chicken. “I’ve been uh…”

But he doesn’t finish, because Tamaki starts cracking up for no apparent reason. Mirio blinks, smiling on instinct at Tamaki's laugh, but very confused and a little annoyed.

“Mirio, this chicken is undercooked,” Tamaki eventually manages to get out. He’s crying, he’s laughing so hard.

That’s… not really that funny. At least Mirio doesn’t think so. He stands up and takes the plate towards the oven, ready to put all the pieces back in.

“No no no,” Tamaki follows him, attuned enough to know that Mirio’s annoyed. “I… I just thought about going to visit Kotone tonight on my way home. I figured I could ask you to make the chicken yourself. Only… I decided not to, because,” his eyes close as he tries to keep it together, “I thought you might undercook it.”

Okay well that’s actually pretty funny.

Mirio laughs, a big booming thing that rattles the plate against the burners on the stove. He reaches out and pulls Tamaki close, laughing into his hair. Tamaki is still laughing himself, jerking spastically against Mirio’s chest. They stay like that for awhile, until eventually Taro crosses the room and sits at their feet.

Tamaki pulls back, wiping his eyes, and with tentacles he puts all the chicken in the dish and sticks it back in the oven. Mirio just stands there, trying to catch his breath, and once he’s caught it, decides he can’t wait a second longer.

“So I talked to a bunch of kids today and it got me thinking.”

Tamaki closes the oven and turns. He doesn’t look terrified, but he’s not entirely at ease, either. This is probably not the kind of conversation they should have standing. Mirio walks over to the table and sits down, pouring himself another glass of beer. Tamaki sits down too, Taro following to sit at his feet.

“You remember, how we talked before you moved to Osaka, you know, about getting a place, then a cat or a dog… then…” he trails off, looking across the table at Tamaki’s wide eyes.

“Yeah,” Tamaki says quietly. Not a bad quiet. There might even be the hint of a smile dancing around his lips. “Yeah, I’ve actually been thinking about that a lot lately.”

Oh.

“You… have?”

Tamaki nods, looking a little guilty. “Mirio there’s something I… something I haven’t told you yet, something that relates to this.”

Mirio reaches across the table and takes his hand.

“My sister, she told me that she would donate some of her eggs if we wanted. It was just last week, I was going to go talk to her about it today. I’m sorry, I should have told you immediately, just I wanted to make sure she really meant it before I brought it up. But… it would mean as close as we can get to a biological child…”

“Are you serious?” Mirio’s hand falls limp on the table.

“As long as she is,” Tamaki reaches back down to grab it.

Mirio runs his free hand through his hair. “I keep seeing all these kids all over the place, and I keep thinking what if they were our kids and…”

“You would be a very good dad, Mirio,” Tamaki says quietly. “I’ve been… um… thinking about that a lot.”

Mirio’s eyes feel hot and prickly. “Not as good as you,” he coughs out, overwhelmed.

Tamaki’s ears burn red and he dips his head. “I’d try,” he murmurs.

“And, you know,” Mirio leans over the table a little farther, “things are finally settling at the agency. My staff is reliable, I don’t have to be there all the time. And you, you’re so well established here. Suneater’s like an institution. It just seems like a good time…”

Tamaki turns his hand and squeezes Mirio’s fingers. His voice is low and steady.

“Mirio, do you want us to start a family?”

It’s so far away from what Mirio was worried about. Tamaki’s not anxious or frantic. He’s calmly driving the conversation.

Mirio cracks a grin and squeezes Tamaki’s hand back, “Well I think we have a little family already, but yeah, I’d like to see about maybe adding a kid. What do you think?”

“I think…” Tamaki’s voice breaks but his smile blossoms, “I think that would make me so happy.”

They’re too far apart. Mirio gets out of his chair, trips over the dog, then picks Tamaki up, spinning him around. He knocks one of their salads on the floor, but just leaves it because he’s too busy kissing Tamaki again and again and again.

“You want to have a baby with me?” he asks in-between kisses.

Tamaki wraps his arms around his neck, kicking out his feet saying yes over and over. Eventually they’re both so dizzy that Mirio has to sit Tamaki on the counter and lean into him to stay upright.

“So when do you want to do this?” Mirio nuzzles Tamaki’s neck, ready to start this minute.

Tamaki laughs, “Well, that depends on a lot of things. On Kotone, of course. We’d also have to get a surrogate to carry the baby once the egg is fertilized and that’s a very rigorous application process. It’s expensive too. We need to buy a house…”

Mirio pulls back a little. “How long have you been thinking about this, Tamaki?”

“I uh…” Tamaki’s turning red, “eight years. But it’s not just those sorts of thing to consider: we have our careers to think about. Fatgum is retiring this winter, and you know I’m taking over. Things won’t be settled until the spring. You can’t schedule any intense undercover operations until long after the baby is born and… Miso stop shredding my cardigan!!”

They make their way back to the table, giddy mood replaced with something more serious. Tamaki pulls out his laptop and looks at their budget, and Mirio starts going through the calendar app on his phone. They plan for a solid two hours, before they realize that the chicken has been burned to a blackened, shriveled mess.

ii. 59 weeks

“I don’t want your money, Tamaki.”

It’s a good thing Ito Kotone is Tamaki’s older sister, because he wouldn’t be able to talk to her otherwise.

She’s… intense. Brash and sarcastic and confident. Very confident. Those qualities in a stranger would make them unapproachable. Of course, Kotone wouldn’t be offering Tamaki her eggs if she didn’t know him, so talking to her probably wouldn’t be an issue.

But it is now.

They’re sitting in her living room in an otherwise empty house. Her husband and sons are at the movies, intentionally leaving them alone to have this conversation. And Tamaki’s glad for that, since he has no basis for how someone should behave in this kind of scenario.

Tamaki and Mirio are sitting ramrod straight on the couch while Kotone lounges comfortably in a nearby chair. She’s drinking a glass of wine. Mirio and Tamaki’s water glasses sweat with condensation as they offer her money she refuses to take.

The whole setup demonstrates the kind of power differential that she loves. Tamaki knows that. But how can you act casually when someone has offered you the chance to be a parent? Egg donation is not a pleasant process. There’s a month full of nightly hormone injections to get the body ready to harvest the eggs. They cause excessive bruising and terrible bloating. From what Tamaki’s read, it’s miserable. That’s all followed by the actual surgery to extract the eggs from the donor’s body to either freeze or fertilize. The recovery at least is brief, but it’s still difficult.

Some money would make sense. It’d be more than fair. She could take her family on a vacation. And Tamaki goes to say that, but Kotone’s talking again before he can start.

“What’s your timeline, anyway?”

“Ah,” Mirio laughs, “it depends. We have to find a surrogate who will actually carry the baby for us, once we have the fertilized embryo. The spring’s the earliest we can do. But we could take your eggs whenever you’re comfortable and just freeze them until that happens. Seriously, Kotone, the donation process isn’t fun! Let us give you something.”

“No way,” she sits up, sitting her wine on the table. “Just how much does it cost to get someone to carry your baby, anyway?”

Tamaki and Mirio look at each other. Mirio squeezes Tamaki’s hand. Kotone will just look it up if they don’t tell her. And she’s the one who’s offered her ovaries for their sakes. She has a right to know if they can actually use what she’s giving them.

“At least five million yen,” Tamaki says.

He doesn’t want to look at her. It’s a lot of money. It would be like buying a second house, and they don’t even have the first one yet. It’s the kind of money you can’t just cut costs to save for. It’s a number that Tamaki has been repeating over and over and over to himself when he thinks Mirio’s asleep. Heroes are on a fixed income, more or less. Unless they pick up a lot of advertisements, or there’s a terrible crime surge, there’s not going to be any new sources of revenue.

“You’re never going to be able to afford that.”

That’s Kotone, always ready with the brutal honesty.

“We’re gonna borrow some money from my dad, probably,” Mirio squeezes Tamaki’s hand so hard it almost hurts. Even though Mirio was the one who suggested they do just that, Tamaki knows he doesn’t want to. Mirio worries about his dad, living alone hours away with no one to take care of him. His dad would probably laugh if he heard that, then write the check immediately. Tamaki suspects he’d rather have a grandchild than a retirement full of bowling and travel, but they would like him to have both.

“I thought…” Tamaki swallows, “I thought I’d start doing some advertisements.”

Kotone makes a face, a strange mix of concern and mockery. “You’re terrified of cameras. And attention. And makeup artists getting near your eyes.”

“I fight villains for a living. I’m tougher than you think.”

Mirio laughs at Tamaki’s words and leans into him supportively for about three seconds that Tamaki wishes would last a lot longer. This is all so uncomfortable. He couldn't even imagine how he'd manage if someone other than Kotone was involved. But egg donation is only the first step. Someone other than Kotone is going to be involved. The surrogate, the woman who will carry their child, will be a stranger. A complete and utter stranger.

“You two don’t have a clue what you’re doing,” Kotone says, maybe recognizing the look of discomfort on Tamaki’s face that he’s not hiding very well.

“Sorry, nee-san, but I guess we skipped this part in the official gay marriage handbook,” Tamaki grits his teeth. She laughs because she loves getting on his nerves. He’s pretty certain a little part of her loves making him miserable.

“I’ll carry the baby. And don’t even try to pay me.”

Time stops for a moment. And in the ensuing empty space, Tamaki realizes that that little part of his sister that loves making him miserable is significantly smaller than he thought.

The world rushes back again as Mirio squeezes Tamaki’s hand. It’s not on purpose, but he’s squeezing so hard the bones move around. And Tamaki’s first words should be of desperate gratitude, but shock is a strange thing.

“You’d— do that? For us? But— don’t— don’t you need to talk to Jun?”

“Yes, I would. And are you saying my husband dictates what I do with my body, Tamaki?” she smirks at him and his hands are starting to shake.

“You have kids though…” the words are meant as an argument, but they’re small and quivering when they come out of his mouth. If Mirio weren’t here, he’d be floating away.

“Yes, a preferred quality in a surrogate is that she has given birth before,” she takes a long sip of wine. “It may interest you to know that I’ve looked into it.”

The words hit him like a blow to the chest. Tamaki has always known Kotone loved him. She’d probably kill for him without a second thought. But he never, ever expected she would be willing to carry his child in her body for nine months. He’d certainly never feel okay asking for it.

“I understand you might not want me to, and that’s okay. I get it could be weird for you. I know we don’t always get along. But you’ve got to know that this has been in the back of my head since you two figured out how crazy you were for each other.”

That’s ten years.

Next to Tamaki on the couch Mirio is completely silent, completely still.

“Can we have a minute?” his voice cracks a little when he finally speaks.

“Sure thing,” Kotone swings out her legs and stands up, still holding her wine glass. “I’ll be on the porch.”

She takes all the sound out of the room with her when she leaves.

“You’re not comfortable with this,” Mirio finally says. He’s trying so hard to keep the strain out of his words, but Tamaki can hear it.

“No it’s just…” Tamaki’s voice sounds like dried leaves. “I never expected anything like this from her.”

“She loves you, Tamaki,” Mirio laughs weakly. “It’s not some kind of trick.”

“No I…” the shaking in Tamaki’s hands is spreading through his entire body. “I know that. I just… I told myself that we’d have to wait. It was something we’d have to work for, work really hard for. And now it’s suddenly…” his voice cracks and his body is overtaken in tremors.

Mirio turns and wraps his arms around his waist, burying his face in Tamaki’s shoulder. They’re still shaking violently and Tamaki isn’t certain if it’s him or Mirio at this point but he can feel Mirio’s hot tears soak through the neck of his shirt. Almost on reflex, he wraps his arms around Mirio’s shoulders, holding him tightly. 

“I can’t believe this is real,” he mutters.

Mirio nods, his “yes” more of an unintelligible noise, then he pulls back, thick tear tracks running down his face.

Tamaki reaches out with trembling hands to wipe them away.

“Is it okay with you, if my… if my sister carries our baby?”

“For nothing,” Mirio whispers, blinking away the tears. “Tamaki, this is the greatest thing anyone has ever done for us.”

Kotone is wrapped a blanket with her legs hanging off the porch when they find her. She looks young and small, not a 34-year-old mother of two with a medical Quirk that has probably saved more lives than Tamaki and Mirio’s hero careers put together.

“That was fast,” she kicks her legs.

Tamaki gracelessly sits down next to her, and Mirio sits on her other side. She lifts her arms to wrap the blanket around both of them, then ruffles their hair.

“Are you sure?” Tamaki mutters after a long silence.

“Would I offer if I weren’t one hundred percent sure?” she leans into him while Mirio laughs wetly. 

She’s got him there.

Tamaki wants his voice to sound more confident than it does when he asks, “Are you going to hold this over my head for the rest of my life?”

“Oh Tamaki,” she leans back, yanking on him a little, “you’re gonna hold this over your head for the rest of your life. But yes, although I promise only in ways that don’t matter.”

Mirio laughs even louder.

For the first time that day, Tamaki turns and looks his sister in the eye.

“Thank you, nee-san. We’d be… we’d be honored if you would carry our child.”

The power dynamic evaporates. Kotone’s mouth falls open and she tips her head to the side in evident surprise. With the movement, a fat tear trails down her cheek.

Tamaki’s tears come out in an explosive laugh that turns into an ugly sob. He hugs his sister, and if she asked why, he’d tell her it was so she didn’t get to see him crying. But that’s a lie and he wraps his arms around her and buries his head in her neck as he soaks her hair with his tears.

“I can’t believe you two want to have a kid, you know?” she’s petting his hair, her voice warbling. “Last I checked you were putting bugs in my bed.”

“You deserved that,” Tamaki sniffles. “I’d do it again.”

“I’m going to call you in the middle of the night every single time I wake up to go pee.”

iii.  51 weeks

When he was eighteen, Mirio got hit with a bullet made out of a little girl. It messed up his Quirk factor to the point where it stopped working. Forever. And that ended up being the second-worst thing that had ever happened to him (the worst happened a few hours later).

But Mirio learned to deal with it. He became a hero anyway. And he made it a point not to think about that bullet much afterwards, since it was over and done with and he had moved on.

Unfortunately, the bullet’s back, and he’s thinking about it a lot here in the fertility clinic.

Between him and Tamaki, there’s only one option for sperm donation, since Tamaki’s sister is the mother of the child. Mirio and Tamaki thought that would be just fine. But the thing is, before in vitro fertilization, the clinic wants to make certain that Mirio’s sperm are viable. Otherwise they would pay a lot of money and Kotone would go through a lot of discomfort, all for nothing.

“Do you have any ongoing medical conditions?” the nurse asks, filling out the chart that will go with his sample. And Mirio thinks about the bullet.

“Permanent Quirk Suppression,” he hands over the old report from the hospital that he figured they’d probably need. “It messed up my genes, so you probably need to look at them,” he sighs, then tries to cheer up a little. “It’s your lucky day, though! I’m the only person in the world who has it!”

The nurse laughs and blushes a little, and that’s not what he intended, but he’ll take literally anything if it means he doesn’t have to think about that damned bullet and how it’s possible it messed everything up so they can’t have a baby.

The nurse asks Mirio a few more questions, and they’re all about his family history which means he has to think about his mom too, another topic he prefers to avoid. But she was kind enough to leave a medical history when she abandoned his dad with a six-month-old, so Mirio can easily answer questions about her side of the family. 

Mirio can’t understand how you could just leave your baby. His doesn’t even exist yet, and he’d already tear down the universe just to keep his future family safe and happy. It makes him mad, really mad, to think about.

And sad, too.

“Okay Togata-san, that’s all the information I need, but we’ll need to collect a sample,” she leads him down the hall, holding up a small cup. Maybe too small. “Please, take all the time you need.”

Okay.

Now Mirio’s not what you would call a self-conscious guy, but “all the time you need,” sounds like a judgement call. What if he jerks off too fast? Too slow? He’s never jerked off in public before, he has no idea how much time it’s going to take.

They stop in front of a door that looks like it leads to an exam room, and when she opens it he’s half right. There’s an exam table, a chair, and a sink, along with a small table absolutely covered in porn. Mirio takes the cup, steps inside, and the door shuts behind him. He locks it immediately. 

Then he stands there, holding the cup. It’s definitely going to be too small.

Should he lie down? Sit? Usually at home he does this in the shower… would it be easier to stand?

He decides to sit down, since he has to make certain he gets his jizz in the cup. “Take all the time you need,” echoes in his head, and he reaches out for some porn.

Girls. He puts it back and reaches for some more.

More girls. He digs a little deeper.

Hentai girls.

He leans forward and sorts through every magazine on the table. There’s twenty of them.  Half of them are of women exclusively. The other half have the men’s faces blacked out.

“Take all the time you need…”

What does he care if they see him take forever? Plenty of people must take that long, or worse, take no time at all. This is a ridiculous thing to take to heart, he admonishes himself as he unbuttons his fly and pulls himself out of his boxers. He’s not even a little hard, but he just looked at a naked hentai girl with grotesquely large breasts getting fucked by an invisible penis, so it’s not that surprising.

He picks up one of the magazines with dicks in it, and scans through the pages, trying to find somebody with a broad chest and big muscles, or a lean lithe guy that he can pretend is Tamaki if he squints. He’s pretty unimpressed with what he finds, and most of the time their dicks are in such close proximity to the women that he can’t even pretend.

He’s even softer than he was a minute ago.

Taking out his phone, he goes to one of his standby porn sites. But there’s barely a data signal in his tiny masturbation cell, and the images don’t load.

Six minutes have already passed.

His fingers fly across the touch screen and before he really makes sense of what he’s doing, there’s a soft voice on the other line.

“Hey, how’d it go?”

Mirio smiles awkwardly. Tamaki can’t see it, but he’s going to hear it in his voice the moment Mirio says, “Ah, well… there’s only straight porn in here.”

“That’s surprising,” Tamaki sounds a little busy, but it’s a Saturday so he’s probably making some kind of fancy lunch for when Mirio gets home. “Just google those muscle guys you like.”

“My data’s too slow in here.”

There’s a pause.

“Mirio… did you call me to have phone sex with you?”

“Maybe?”

Tamaki makes an uncomfortable noise that Mirio almost misses. But Mirio wouldn’t be doing this unless he absolutely needed to. He’s not a worrier. He’s just not. He wouldn’t have been able to make it through his Quirk stuff if he was. But this situation doesn’t just involve him. Their future as a family is riding on his ability to jerk off.

“It’s just… I had to talk about the bullet. And my mom. And this room is so sterile, and what if there’s something wrong with my jizz and it hurts our baby?”

There’s a long stretch of quiet.

“Okay,” Tamaki takes a deep breath. He doesn’t say anything else for a long time, and Mirio thinks he’s waiting for Mirio to say something, but then, “I um… really like your… uh…” his voice trails off into an unintelligible mutter.

Mirio has no idea what he’s getting at, but he’s pretty certain it’s hot. They’ve only ever sexted before. Well okay, they jerked off together on video chat a few times when Mirio was undercover. But no phone sex.

Mirio’s excited.

“Sorry,” Tamaki’s sounds mortified and also a little distracted, “I’m in the middle of frying something and if I stop it’ll be ruined but… I really… um… I really like…” he audibly swallows, “going down on you…”

“Oh?” Mirio asks, like that’s new information. It’s not, but it’s good enough that he’s greedy. His beyond-flaccid dick is starting to respond already. He’s not that difficult to please, but god those hentai breasts were horrifying. 

“Yeah I… oh hold on…” there are some unintelligible kitchen noises, “god, sorry. But I… do. Yeah…”

That’s a lot less than Mirio was hoping for, but he knows Tamaki’s doing his best. And Mirio’s managing to get half hard from just the thought that Tamaki’s trying to talk dirty to him.

“Okay… it’s done” Tamaki exhales, “I can focus now.” His voice is clearer and Mirio’s dick twitches in anticipation. “I wish I had come with you so I could… you know… so I could do it.”

“I don’t really know if that’s allowed, Tamaki,” Mirio gives his mostly hard dick a leisurely stroke. Tamaki laughs breathily and Mirio twitches again. There’s lube on a side table and he reaches for it, wedging the phone between his shoulder and ear.

“Is there a window?” Tamaki’s a pro hero, he’s got to come up with a practical solution to this fantasy scenario.

“Yeah pretty high up,” Mirio pours lube over his hand and sets up a steady rhythm. “I wouldn’t fit through it, but… you might.”

“I’d um… eat a gecko and climb the walls.” That sentence is the complete opposite of sexy, but Mirio twitches in his own hand anyway.

“You’d want it that bad?”

He can sense Tamaki’s flustered state before he even opens his mouth. “I… uh… of course I… Mirio you know it’s like………… hold on.”

Mirio does not hold on, because the whole point of this scenario is for him to come as quickly as possible. If he stops moving his hand that might not ever happen. So he strokes himself hopefully, trying to recall the last time Tamaki gave him a blowjob (it’s been a few days because of all this). He wants to remember how he looked up at him, lips wrapped tight around his—

“I wish I was there right now.” Tamaki’s back with a vengeance, his voice pushing Mirio to a level of arousal that’s a lot closer to desperate, “I’d… I’d get on my knees…”

“Yeah?” Mirio’s stroking himself much faster than he was before. The lube makes a squelching sound against his dick and it echoes in the room. He hopes Tamaki can hear it.

“I love to have your cock in my mouth, I love the way it tastes.”

“Yeah?”

“When you come home I’m not going to be able to hold back. I’ll do it on the living room floor. You can pull my hair. Mirio will you pull my hair?”

“Yeah, I’ll pull your hair, baby,” Mirio’s fucking into his lubey hand and grasping onto the cup so tight he’s going to crumple it.

Tamaki makes a high little noise that lets Mirio know that he’s jerking off and all Mirio wants to know is how Tamaki’s doing it.

“Just thinking about sucking me off has you touching yourself?”

“Yes,” Tamaki pants, sounding messy and wrecked, “hurry up and come home.”

And Mirio comes.

He forgets what he’s doing at first, so he gets jizz all over his hand. Then he catches himself and aims into the cup. It’s really not big enough, so he gets even MORE jizz on his hand, and maybe it wasn’t really necessary for him to hold off on coming for almost a week in anticipation of this event.

He falls back into the chair.

“What happened?” he pants, trying to get the jizz off of his fingers and into the cup. He’s not sure if that’s contaminating the sample, but the cup doesn’t seem sterile either so he’s hopefully fine. “You stopped and then got crazy hot.”

“I went into the bedroom,” Tamaki’s panting too. “The cat was judging me.”

With no time to rest, Mirio stands up and washes his hands, phone still wedged into his shoulder. “Miso’s an innocent cat. She doesn’t understand sexy talk.”

“That cat is less innocent than some jailed criminals.”

iv. 49 weeks

Tamaki wants to be a dad. He’s wanted to be a dad, with Mirio, for a timeline he’s never going to openly acknowledge. It’s embarrassingly long.

That’s probably why he’s so anxious right now. Because he wants this so bad. Because there’s so much on the line. Because it’s not just him who’s going to be affected when he messes up their psychological evaluation next Friday.

The psychological evaluation is a requirement. In order to file a surrogacy agreement with Kotone, Mirio and Tamaki have to go through a lawyer. In order to get a lawyer to represent them, they need to get an evaluation that says they're fit to be parents and they can handle the rigors of surrogacy.

So that’s why, too early on Saturday morning, Tamaki is playing with fire.

“Hadou, I need to talk to you about something, but you can’t um… ask me any questions.”

“Amajiki,” her voice over the phone is sticky with sleep, “are you in jail? Because you know, this sounds very suspicious.”

Tamaki presses his head into the cool wall of his and Mirio’s bedroom, then breaks away and starts to pace around the bed. “No! I’m not in trouble. And I promise I’ll tell you eventually just… not now.” 

Not now because the implantation might not take and miscarriages are common in early pregnancy. Telling people they're trying IVF with a surrogate also means telling people if something goes wrong. They don’t want to give status updates. Not until Kotone's past her first trimester.

Tamaki’s not going to bring any of that up, but he is going to talk around it.

“Okay well; I’ll do my best but did you know this is kinda weird?”

Hadou sounds grumpy. But this psychological evaluation is on endless screaming repeat in Tamaki’s brain and if he doesn’t talk he’s going to have a stroke. He’s become somewhat immune to Mirio’s optimism and he’s tired of his sister’s teasing. He needs the lighthearted ruthlessness of his best friend.

“Hadou. Does my anxiety make me a liability?”

He sounds frantic. This is exactly what he’s been practicing not to do. If he’s frantic at the evaluation he’s done for.

Somewhat predictably, Hadou laughs at him. “Well sometimes it’s kind of annoying, you know?”

Oh he knows.

“What’s bothering you? Oh wait, no questions,” she yawns.

“Sorry…”

“Look, Amajiki, I don’t know how to help if you’re gonna be this vague! You’re a pro hero! It’s dumb to think you’re too anxious to do one of the most stressful jobs out there. Did you really wake me up for this?”

“Yes, but I have to… prove myself…” he trails off, not sure if that’s too much information.

She sighs, deeply annoyed. Which make sense, it’s seven am and Tamaki is a terrible excuse for a friend. “The only reason you won’t be able to ‘prove yourself’ is if you spend all this time worrying! Have you written whatever this is in your book?”

“His book” is a mood journal, a therapy technique he's been doing since his breakdown in his second year of high school. He hasn’t physically written anything in it for a few months now. He hasn’t needed to. His anxiety hasn’t risen past it’s constant background simmer. There’s the nebulous fears and select worries that repeat themselves over and over in his head, but he can handle them well enough.

Until now apparently.

“I…”

“Are you seriously calling me when you haven’t even done that? Did you know, Amajiki, I have a girl over? And I left her in my bed when we could be sleeping, because I was worried about you! You can’t do this, okay? Just write it in your book, and if that doesn’t work, then you can call me.”

She hangs up on him.

It takes Tamaki a while to calm down after that, but even once he’s calm, the psychological evaluation is still there, tight and icy in his chest.

Mirio comes home from his run with the dog just as Tamaki is cracking open the case holding his hero costume, digging through the pouches to find the one holding a small yellow notebook. It’s kind of a mess, with blunted corners and a broken spine. But the exterior is nothing compared to the disaster that is the book’s contents.

It’s a notebook full of worries.

Tamaki hasn’t been particularly neat about writing them down, especially since they’re written when he’s in the throes of anxiety. But they’re all the same. He writes down what’s worrying him, what that worry feels like, and what he would like to happen. For reasons he doesn’t quite understand, writing down his anxiety tells his mind that he doesn’t have to feel anxious anymore.

The more often he writes, the longer the anxiety goes away. Eventually, the writing becomes internalized, and he doesn’t have to do it on paper.

At least, until things get bad again. Like now.

He writes in the notebook three times on Sunday. The first time is when he wakes up in a panic at five am. He can barely write, he’s trembling so much, but Mirio wakes up too and helps Tamaki sit back against the headboard. They breathe together and then Tamaki writes, while Mirio gently kisses the top of his head.

“You’re gonna be such a good dad, Tamaki,” he says in a raspy half-asleep voice. “I can’t wait to see it.”

On Monday he has to close the door to his office and frantically write, confusing his sidekicks and getting a knowing look from Fatgum who, despite having retired, can’t seem to leave the agency.

“Whatever it is, you got it kiddo,” he says when Tamaki opens the door. And it’s brief and unexpected, but Tamaki almost laughs at the thought of Fatgum holding Tamaki’s baby in the palm of one enormous hand.

The fear looms over him in the grocery store on Tuesday, and he pulls to the side of the aisle, propping his notebook against the handle of the cart.

When he finishes and feels calmer, he sees that Hadou texted him a picture of a little kid dressed in a Suneater costume. He’s so excited to tell her.

On Wednesday he steps out of the shower and feels his chest begin to clench. Wrapped in a towel and dripping on the floor, he leaves blots of water in his notebook as he writes the same thing he’s written time and time again.

“What if I’m not good enough?”

Thursday he spends taking care of an enormous incident, and has no time to think about anything. By the time he collapses, exhausted in bed, all of his adrenaline has been used up, and he doesn’t have the energy to be anxious.

And then Friday.

He’s writing when Mirio finds him at six o’clock in the morning. Their appointment is at nine. Already he’s written pages and pages of worries, far beyond the simple “I don’t know if I can pass the psychological evaluation.” He doesn’t know how to be a father, doesn’t know how he can possibly be a father and he’s written every way he can fail.

“Tamaki,” Mirio pulls his hand away from the paper, “you’ve written it down, right?”

After staring for a moment at Mirio’s hand around his, Tamaki looks up at his face. "Yeah, I..."

Mirio is wearing a threadbare UA tee shirt and sweats. He looks soft and sleepy, but underneath that, tired and a little stressed. The heat from his body as it presses into Tamaki’s shoulder is solid and reassuring.

Tamaki looks back down at his notebook. He's been writing in the margins, sideways, around the page, a literal endless loop of worries. There's hardly any space left.

“Yeah. One second, I’m almost done."

Mirio leans down to kiss his forehead, then pads off to shower.

And it’s true, Tamaki doesn’t know how to be a father. Neither of them do. He presses pen against the paper.

“But there’s really only one way to learn.”

He finishes the sentence, then drops the pen on the pages of the notebook. 

v. 39 weeks

It’s fertilization day and there are twelve nudes saved on Mirio’s phone.

He hasn’t seen them yet, but that’s the whole point. Even if he’s gotten marginally better at jerking off into those too-small sample cups, today’s the day he can’t afford to mess it up. So the sexy photos that Tamaki got drunk enough to take are there to make certain that he doesn’t.

And he’s going to need every bit of masturbation support that he can get, because his generally unflappable sister-in-law has been weeping for the entirety of their drive to the fertility clinic.

“She’s worried about global warming,” Mirio’s mother-in-law is sitting in the backseat, rubbing her daughter’s shoulders. She insisted on coming along. Normally that would be overkill, but considering Kotone’s emotional state, it seems necessary.

“It’s climate change, mom!” Kotone weeps, but with attitude. “We’re destroying our planet!”

“Oh honey, I think the planet’s very resilient,” Amajiki-san says. “There are heroes with carbon-reconstituting Quirks who are working on it!”

Mirio glances at Tamaki in the passenger seat. He doesn’t seem concerned about the end of the world, and Mirio is grateful for that. But he does seem pretty concerned about his sister. She cries all the time lately, and she’s so swollen with hormones that she looks like she’s pregnant already.

Mirio knows Tamaki feels guilty about it, because Mirio feels guilty about it and Tamaki always feels everything first.

Preparing the ovaries to harvest eggs is a rough process. Jun has been giving his wife daily shots in the stomach for the past four weeks, and they have wound her up into an emotional frenzy. Mirio got hit by a mood swing Quirk once, and it was some of the most unpleasant six hours of his life. He can’t imagine four weeks of it, but Kotone has been going to work and taking care of her family and functioning through it all.

And she’s experiencing this misery for them. Mirio shouldn’t think about that too much if he wants to shoot off in the next forty five minutes but she’s crying in the back of their car. The thoughts are hard to avoid.

It’s the strangest Mirio’s felt in a long time. They’re trying for a baby, and that’s really exciting! But there’s only a twenty to thirty-five percent chance the implantation will take, and if it doesn’t, Kotone’s got to endure the hormone treatment a second time. Three tries is what they decided on, but each try is more money and more suffering.

“Stop feeling bad for me,” she spits out, still crying. “I’m doing this because I want to, don’t make me some kind of victim.”

Mirio is about as far away from a boner as he can get.

They’re sitting in the waiting room, only there’s a lot more waiting going on than usual. They’re waiting for the go ahead for Mirio to go back into that small sperm donation room and jerk off to the only naked pictures Tamaki has ever taken. Once that’s done, they’ll still be waiting for Kotone to come out of anesthesia so they can all go home. After that, they have to wait five days to implant the embryo into Kotone’s uterus. And then, finally, ten days later they’ll be back again for an actual pregnancy test.

And for the moment, they’re also waiting for Tamaki’s mom to come back with snacks from a convenience store across the street.

Tamaki’s been really quiet since Kotone got taken into the operating room. He’s leaning forward, head in his hands like he’s distressed, or maybe thoughtful. They sometimes look the same. Mirio wants to ask what he’s thinking, but he’s got to jerk off anytime now and it might be a terrible idea to have a serious conversation he’s going to suddenly have to leave.

But... that’s what they’re about to turn their lives into, isn’t it? Babies don’t care if you’re hungry or horny or anxious or sick. They have needs and they demand things immediately. If Mirio isn’t able to have conversations that can easily be interrupted, he and Tamaki aren’t going to have a serious talk for years.

So Mirio opens his mouth.

“This might not work,” Tamaki says before Mirio can even think of anything useful to say. “It might not ever work.”

Mirio puts his arm around his shoulders and leans in as close as feels appropriate in the middle of a waiting room. He’d kiss him, but he doesn’t want to bleed their vulnerability all over the uncomfortable seating.

Instead he says, “It might not,” and tries to think of something better to add. They’ve been by each other’s side for almost twenty years, but talking to prospective-dad-to-be Tamaki requires words Mirio hasn’t learned yet. “It’s… okay if it doesn’t.”

“I just can’t believe I’m here,” Tamaki’s voice is rough and quiet, but not anxious. “Doing this with you. If you had told fourteen-year-old me we’d be trying for a baby together…”

“You thought about us having a baby together when you were fourteen?” Mirio whispers gleefully.

Tamaki glares sideways at him, then his eyes melt into something sheepish.

“I’m just really happy it’s us.”

Mirio feels warmth spread from his heart to his fingers and toes.

“It’s always gonna be you and me, Tamaki. Well except after this, it’ll be us plus one. Because you’re right, it might not work… but I think it will.”

“Togata-san!” a nurse calls out.

“Now if you excuse me, Tamaki,” Mirio stands up and grins, “I’ve got a few photos to examine.”

vi. 36 weeks

It’s almost seven pm, twenty-one days after the implantation, and the air in Tamaki and Mirio’s apartment is tense.

Mirio always thought pregnancy tests were a once and done, pee on a stick kind of thing. But actually, the kind the doctor ordered turned out to be a blood test that needs to be done at the fertility clinic. Three of them, each three days apart.

And according to Kotone, they’re tests that she doesn’t need an escort for. She’s been going to the clinic in the morning before she heads into work, then getting a call with the results in the late afternoon. Both times prior to today, she’s called Tamaki as soon as she heard.

They’ve been positive. Two thirds pregnant, Mirio keeps joking over dinner.

Only Tamaki has not really laughed at that joke tonight, because tonight Kotone’s call is hours late. Instead, Tamaki has been baking since the moment he got home from work There’s been no room left in the kitchen to make dinner, so Mirio ordered takeout.

Tamaki hasn’t eaten any. Or even any of the cookies he’s made that are sitting nicely on cooling racks on the coffee table because there really is no room for them in this tiny apartment. They need to start looking for a new place and soon, or the two thirds baby is going to be sleeping in the bathtub.

Even though Tamaki’s the one showing it, Mirio’s nervous too. He’s committed to keep trying if this attempt fails, but still, he doesn’t really want to go through the IVF process again, let alone address all the uncomfortable emotions it brings up. He wants Tamaki to go through them even less, not to mention the toll on Kotone’s mind and body altogether. And he really doesn’t want to work off all of the delicious cookies that Tamaki will undoubtedly stress bake.

“Hey, Tamaki. Why don’t we just give Kotone a call? See if everything’s okay.”

Tamaki shakes his head, barely looking up from his mixing bowl. “If she hasn’t called, it might be because it was negative and… she’s upset. I don’t… I can’t… she should be able to talk to us when she’s ready. I don’t want to push her.”

That thought hadn’t even approached Mirio’s mind. He crosses the kitchen and wraps his arms around Tamaki’s waist, putting his chin on his shoulder. “You’re a good brother,” is all he says.

Snorting a little, Tamaki presses his cheek into Mirio’s temple, “I think she’s the one winning the good sibling award.”

Mirio squeezes him tighter, “We’ll wait then. But you’ve gotta stop baking and eat something.”

The sound of someone knocking at the door keeps that argument from happening. Mirio peels himself away from Tamaki’s back and makes his way to the genkan. No one ever comes by at this time of night, so he’s more than a little curious when he opens the door.

“Hi,” Kotone is standing there, holding something behind her back. “Look, Shouhei had a rough day at school, so I can’t stay and chat, but I figured I’d drop this off.” She reveals a small cake box and pushes it into Mirio’s hands. “Hope you two have a good evening.”

“Wait, don’t you want to talk to Tamaki?” Mirio asks, confused.

“Nah, just give him that,” she grins and starts to walk away. “See ya, Mirio. I gotta see about cheering up my kid.”

She’s gone before he can do much about it, so Mirio carries the box through the apartment and he meets Tamaki at the kitchen table.

“Who was…?”

“Your sister gave me this?” Mirio moves the cookies into piles so that he can sit down the box. He pulls back the lid to open it.

Then his heart stops.

“Oh my god,” Tamaki whispers at his side, staring down at the contents of the box. “Mirio…”

Mirio turns and Tamaki’s crying and he is too. They fall into each other’s arms, laughing and spinning around, Taro jumping up at their legs, excitement infectious.

On the table is a small cake with purple icing that says,

“CONGRATS ON KNOCKING ME UP.”