Chapter Text
“He’s coming your way Mindjack.” Jirou’s voice called over the communication earbud in Shinsou’s ear.
“Copy that. Moving to intercept.” Shinsou replied. He jumped over the edge of the roof of the building he was on and used his capture weapon as a rope to slide safely down to the alley below. The moment his boots hit the gravelly floor he took off running.
“Heading to be your air support.” He heard Sero call out. As he ran through the alley ways, he could picture the tape hero swinging from building top to building top overhead.
Within seconds he got sight of another two figures running.
“Target in sight, he’s got a friend.” He breathed, following the figures. He rounded a corner just in time to corner the two in a dead-end alley.
“Times up.” He chuckled. “You got nowhere to go, do you?”
The man Shinsou had been chasing, a villain named Carter, remained silent. But his friend, a weaselly looking man with dark hair opened his mouth to respond. Carter whipped a hand out to cover the other man’s mouth with a furious shake of his head.
“Ah. You’ve been studying Carter. It seems you might know some of my tricks.”
Carter lifted a hand and made a rude gesture in Shinsou’s direction.
“Can we please do this the easy way? It’s been a long night.” Shinsou grumbled taking a few steps closer.
Both men remained silent. The weaselly man’s eyes were jerking all over the alley, looking for an out. When he couldn’t find one, he looked at Carter. The men shared a nod and then both men launched themselves at Shinsou. Shinsou made a tactical decision and whipped his capture weapon out to wrap around Carter, sending the larger man tangled to the ground.
He then let go of the end of his weapon and ducked to dodge the other man’s swing. He rotated through his dodge and brought a leg up to roundhouse the man with a boot to his skull. The man crumpled instantly and Shinsou moved to put a knee on his chest, to pin him to the ground. Just as he did so the man reached up with a single, pointed finger and tapped Shinsou in the center of his chest.
Shinsou froze.
He froze as a sudden, sharp pain ripped through his chest, centered on the point the man had touched.
The man yelled words Shinsou didn’t understand as he took advantage of Shinsou’s lapse in attention and lurched upward, smashing his own head against Shinsou’s face. Shinsou fell backwards, blood spraying from his nose. The man bolted to his feet and started to sprint away. He hadn’t gotten more than two steps before a rope of tape shot down from above and sent him flying to the ground.
Sero landed with a thud and finished restraining the man.
“You ok bro?” He called out.
“Ah fuck.” Shinsou spit out a mouthful of blood and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yeah I’m fine.”
“Saw this guy touch you, what’d he do?” Sero dragged his taped-up prisoner beside Carter, who was still thrashing around in Shinsou’s capture weapon.
“I don’t know. It just fucking hurt. It’s fading now tho.” Shinsou stood and spit again, rubbing the spot on his chest. The sharp pain was fading into a dull ache. “You hear what he said?” He asked into his throat mic.
“Yea, sounded Spanish…Portuguese maybe, I’ll look into it. Authorities are on their way to your location for pickup.” Jirou’s voice came over their earbuds. They acknowledged Jirou and dragged the two prisoners out to the street. After a few minutes of waiting they gave their statements to an arriving police officer while the two captured villains were loaded into a van. When they left Sero took off his helmet and stretched.
“God I cannot wait to get home. I do not understand why you like the nightshift.” Sero said, yawning.
“If I’m not sleeping I might as well be doing something useful.” Shinsou shrugged, wiping some more blood from his nose. “But after the last few days all I want right now is to go home.”
“After the hospital.” Sero raised an eyebrow. Shinsou shot him a look.
“Dude,” Sero continued. “You took a hit to the head and got touched by an unknown quirk user. It’s protocol AND it’s just common sense.”
“Sero I want to fucking sleep.”
“Dude. Please? It’ll take you twenty extra minutes to get looked over.”
“You sound like my dad.” Shinsou grumbled.
“Oh I’m sorry for caring.” Sero chuckled and patted Shinsou on the back. “Please?”
“Fine. I’ll stop by the hospital on my way home. Happy?”
“Promise?”
“Yeah yeah yeah. I promise.”
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Shinsou did NOT go to the hospital.
Fuck that, he felt fine other than the ache in his chest, and he wanted to fucking sleep.
So instead he went back to his agency HQ, got changed into his civilian clothes, shoved some tissues up his nose, and went home. He was quiet as he approached the multi level townhouse and was even quieter as he slipped inside. He locked the door behind him and moved quietly through his home, his mind already nearly hallucinating about his bed upstairs and wrapping his arms around the man inside-
A light blinked on as he tiptoed past the living room, cutting his thoughts short. He froze and turned to see his boyfriend standing next to the light switch. To his displeasure, Iida was completely dressed and ready to go out.
“Uh. I thought you’d be in bed.” Shinsou said dumbly.
“I was in bed. Sero called.” Iida folded his arms and leveled a look at his boyfriend.
“That fucking snitch!” Shinsou said under his breath.
“He did not trust that you would go to the hospital on your way home. And it seems his distrust in you was well placed as you would be,” Iida looked at his watch, “At least thirty minutes later had you stopped.”
“Tenya I’m fine.”
“Hitoshi.”
“Tenya.”
“Hitoshi.”
“Tenya.”
“Hitoshi.”
“Ugh. Tenyaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.” Shinsou whined. “Im tired. I just want to sleep.”
“And you can do so, after you get cleared by a doctor.”
“Tenya I am already home. Can’t I just go in the morning?”
“No.”
“But-“
“Hitoshi.”
Shinsou glared at his boyfriend.
“Please Tosh?” Tenya’s voice changed, into a one of adoring concern that Shinsou was fucking weak for and Iida knew that.
“That’s cheating. I am NOT going anywhere but bed Tenya.”
“You-“Iida stopped talking when Shinsou suddenly grabbed his chest with a gasp. “Tosh?”
Iida was at his side in a second, reaching out to hold Shinsou’s elbow.
Shinsou groaned as the sharp pain from before returned with an absolute vengeance. His knees faltered and Iida’s hand moved quickly from his elbow around his waist to ease him down to the floor. Shinsou felt like his sternum was on fire and he scrambled to pull his shirt off. Gasping when he looked down.
Situated in the center of his chest, an inch or two below his nipple line was a little bump. Little, but very obvious, looking like a gumball had been implanted under his skin.
“Ok.” He groaned, looking up into Iida’s widening and worried eyes, “Maybe hospital?”
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By the time they got on the train downtown, Shinsou was whimpering in pain and the gumball had doubled in size. By the time they got off the train, he had lost consciousness. Iida had scooped him up and ran full, quirk enhanced, speed to the ER.
Iida frantically called Sero, who in turn called Jirou to tell her they needed info on the mystery villain sooner rather than later. He then followed as doctors wheeled Shinsou into a room, stripped him down, and started hooking him to different machines. One doctor wheeled a cart with a screen over and then moved some sort of wand device over the lump, which was now the size of a tennis ball.
“What the….fuck!?” The doctor breathed, all attempts to be professional flew out the window. A nurse scrambled up behind him and looked.
“That’s not a tumor.” She gasped.
“What.” Iida moved beside them as well, grabbing Shinsou’s hand. “What is it?”
“It’s a fucking….fetus.”
“A….I beg your pardon?”
“A fetus, a human fetus.” The doctor was still staring at the screen in disbelief.
Iida feinted.
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He woke up in a chair with Sero slapping the side of his face.
“Hey.” Slap slap. “Hey wake up.”
“Sero?” He groaned, sitting up. “Where’s Shinsou?”
“Uh they’re uh…getting him ready for surgery.”
Iida stood up abruptly.
“WHAT!? Where!?”
Sero led him back to Shinsou’s hospital room where a doctor was talking to a nurse.
“Ah, Iida Tenya yes?”
Iida nodded, moving next to Shinsou, noting that the lump in his chest was now the size of a football.
“You are listed as his next of kin, we will need your permission to begin the operation.”
“What operation? What is happening?”
The doctor looked at Sero.
“Uh…Jirou found our mystery villain. He’s a hit man for a drug cartel that runs out of Venezuela.” Sero explained. “And um…his assassination method is a little…fucked up. They call him El Reencarnación cause he can make clones out of people.”
“Like Twice?”
“Kind of, but he um…his name means the reincarnation because instead of just flat out cloning them he makes them GROW their clone from inside their body. And he kills people with it because once the…clone…reaches a certain point it uh…rips…out of the victim. And then they bleed to death because they usually aren’t found in time. Which means the clones usually die too since they are uh…babies. I told you it’s fucked up.”
“So…So…” Iida was a smart man, but his brain could not fathom what the heck was happening. “So Hitoshi is…. growing an infant clone of himself…in his chest?”
“The fetus seems to be connected directly into Shinsou’s circulatory system via a system of veins that stretch between it, and Shinsou’s heart. I imagine it operates much like the umbilical cord of a mother, supplying blood for rapid growth.” The doctor explained.
“And you are going to operate?”
“From the reports your hero colleagues have been able to secure me, it sounds like the infants literally bursts through the skin of it’s host, tearing those blood vessels and therefore leaving the heart to bleed out. I fear if we do not operate and try to sever the connection in a more controlled manner, your friend and the infant clone will die. Operating is our best chance at saving them both.”
“Both?” Iida asked, panic flooding his entire body.
“I will admit I have never seen anything like this before. The few run in this hospital has had with…baby making quirks, as im sure you both are aware, the infants appear outside the parental contributors. But nonetheless, this is an infant we are speaking of. No matter the terms of it’s creation I swore an oath to protect all life.”
“o-of course. No, of course.” Iida nodded.
“Then we have your permission to operate?”
“Yes. Please, please do not let him die.” Iida nodded somberly and reached out to brush purple hair away from Shinsou’s pale forehead.
“I will do everything in my power to save them.”
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Iida sat outside the hallway of the operating room for a long, long time, only leaving when he needed to use the restroom. His brain felt numb, only capable of alternating between ‘please be ok’ and ‘what the fuck.’ And he didn’t even normally use such crass language, leaving that for his boyfriend.
After he didn’t know how many hours, the doors suddenly opened and two nurses wheeled out a plastic bubble thing on top of a cart and began sprinted up the hall with it. Iida got a sudden glimpse of purple hair as they ran past.
“What, where are you going!?” He shouted.
“Neonatal intensive care!” They shouted back.
He stiffened. Neonatal meant baby. Which means that purple hair had been a baby. And that baby was a clone of his boyfriend. So that technically meant that baby WAS Shinsou. And….And Iida wasn’t sure what THAT meant.
He didn’t know what the hell any of this meant. What would…what was going to happen to the baby? Would the cops take it as some sort of evidence? Would it be sent away? Tested in some laboratory? Did they expect Shinsou to take care of it?
And if they got the baby out did that mean that Shinsou was-
“Iida Tenya.” The same doctor as before walked out of the doors, smiling. “The surgery was a success, for both of them.”
“Shinsou is ok?” Iida asked, relief replacing the panic in his extremities.
“Quite. Though he will have one hell of a scar to explain. He will be moved to a room in which you can visit within the hour. The infant was premature, not full term in normal gestational terms. He was barely breathing and I had him send upstairs to be put on a respirator to help his under developed lungs. Our Neonatal unit is one of the best around tho, I have no doubts he will be fine with time.”
“What…what is supposed to happen now?”
“Ah well…technically…legally…the infant belongs to Shinsou. It shares his DNA and was technically uh…birthed by him.”
“It’s not evidence?”
“Evidence? Oh good god no. I mean, I suspect the courts will use our reports in prosecution of the villain who did this. But I’m afraid his outcome will need to be decided by Shinsou when he awakens.”
“Outcome?”
“Shinsou can either claim the infant, or surrender custody to the state.”
Iida suddenly remembered how very similar this current situation resembled the events when Midoriya and Bakugou had received their eldest son some four year prior. Tho he would admit Shinsou’s experienced seemed to be much more traumatic and invasive.
“Ok.” Iida said, incapable of much else.
“As Shinsou’s next of kin you are also, by default, the infants next of kin. So you are permitted to visit him as well.”
“Oh. Uh…yes. I think I would like that.”
“I will walk you up while they finish down here.”
And thus Iida found himself staring wide eyed through a viewing window at the tiniest human he had ever seen in person. All of his friend’s children had been twice the size of this baby when they were born. And he didn’t understand how the doctor could say he thought the baby would be fine when the baby was connected to so many things!
He had a weird tube thing covering his nose and mouth. Gauze wrapped around every one of his wrists and ankles holding tubing there. He was so tiny that his diaber went all the way up to his tiny armpits. In fact the only real part of the baby he could see was a tiny pair of tiny TINY (Did he say tiny?) feet and an explosion of purple hair on top.
And apparently two tiny feet and purple hair were all it took for Iida to fall, completely and mesmerizingly in love.
And when he finally was shown back to a room and clung to Shinsou’s unconscious side, he could only beg and plead the universe that somehow Shinsou would feel the same.
Because he didn’t think he was going to be able to leave this hospital without that baby.