Work Text:
Bubblegum Princess: Can we make cookies tonight?
BroccolliSan: It’s 3am…
Bubblegum Princess: Please?
BroccolliSan: I don’t know what’s wrong, but whoever hurt you is getting an ass-whopping.
Bubblegum Princess: There are too many people on that list.
BroccolliSan: And? I have plenty of alibis.
BroccolliSan: I’ll be down in a sec.
Bubblegum Princess: Thank you <3
“Who am I murdering?” was the first thing Izuku said upon entering the kitchen. He was exhausted – Kacchan and him had worked on a new move with All Might for hours before bed. He almost didn’t wake up when his phone went off with Mina’s notification sound. Almost. His bubbly friend looked just as tired, with bags under her eyes and a slump in her shoulders, dressed in Lilo and Stitch themed pajamas.
“Never mind, what did your dad do this time?” he asked instead, heading to the pantry to take out the ingredients to make cookies. He grabbed a box of food dye too. It had been a while since he made play-dough cookies.
“Mom just called me. She and him were fighting and he just. Left. Packed up a bag and disappeared. She doesn’t know where he went.” Izuku took a sharp breath in at that. He bit back the instinctual ‘good riddance’ threatening to leave his mouth. ’Have to be supportive, Izuku. She’s hurting.’
“That’s not your fault.” He didn’t need to turn around to know she was shaking her head.
“It is.” “It isn’t.” They have had this argument before. Izuku didn’t like that she was so adamant that it was her fault her dad was an insensitive asshole. He knew there was something he didn’t know about the situation, but whatever it was, it didn’t excuse that man’s behavior. A parent shouldn’t treat a child that way, regardless of the situation.
There was silence in the kitchen as Izuku absently finished mixing up his ingredients, relying on pure muscle memory as he split up the batter into different bowls to color. Baking was always a stress relief for him; there was something comforting in the process of it and having something physical at the end. Mina had helped him in so many baking binges in the last few months, he was not surprised that she picked up the habit too. He waved Mina over to prep the counter so they could start shaping the cookies.
“They didn’t always fight so much. They were sickeningly in love for most of my life.” Izuku hummed quietly to acknowledge he was listening, but let the silence continue. He wasn’t going to push her to talk. She took her time to figure out her next words as she mixed up the dough to make crudely shaped rainbows.
“I’m transgender.” Izuku didn’t look up from the cookie shapes he was forming. “You probably already figured that out, honestly. I’d be surprised if you didn’t, mister I wrote 10 notebooks on my childhood crush.” Izuku looked up from the dough, turning to her as he clutched his chest in a fit of theatrics.
“Gasp. How dare you. It was 12 notebooks and you know that. Credit where credit is due, please Ms. Bubbles.” That made Mina giggle, helping break up the somber atmosphere. He knew the lightheartedness wouldn’t last, but he had to take what he could get.
“In any case, thanks for telling me. This changes absolutely nothing about how I think of you, by the way, you’re still a hot badass lady,” Izuku continued once she calmed down. She gave him a small, grateful smile.
“But of course. How silly of me,” she paused, attitude turning serious again, “Anyway. My parents figured it out pretty early on. I was very insistent about being a girl, not a boy. I used to punch my cousins if they got it wrong. And refused to wear pants. Or cut my hair. And I told my mom that I wanted to be a mom when I grew up.”
“That sounds about right.” That explained why Mina’s cousins were absolutely terrified of her.
“Yeah,” she sighed, taking a deep breath before continuing, “Mom was supportive since the beginning. Even before she really knew.”
“It took a while for her to realize that it wasn’t just me being a stubborn kid. Or that it wasn’t going away. Dad kept saying it was just a phase and trying to get me to ‘man up’ by enrolling me in sports and stuff. Which I actually didn’t mind, soccer is fun. But that didn’t change anything about me. They finally started to take it seriously when I started getting in trouble for wearing the girl's uniform I stole from one of my cousins to school instead of the mine. I would hide it in my backpack and get changed in the bathroom at school.” She bit her lip as planned her next words, Izuku arranging the cookies on the baking tray so they wouldn’t touch while baking.
“I remember that the school called my parents in to talk about my behavior problems. The school counselor was there, and he pulled my mom aside while dad spoke with my teacher. When we got home, she said that he gave her a bunch of pamphlets about this clinic in Jaku City. It specializes with gender dysphoria – has like a bunch of trained psychologists and counselors and it’s run by this old doctor called Nishi that has a quirk that can help people transition.” Izuku put the tray in the oven and set a timer.
“Mom wanted to take me to the clinic right away. They have a whole process for young children, includes like a bunch of psychological exams and family counseling and stuff. They actually recommend bringing a kid in as soon as possible because the doctor’s quirk works better if you haven’t been through puberty yet.”
“I’m guessing your dad didn’t want you to go,” Izuku said.
“Yeah, that’s the first fight I remember them having. The first real fight. They had disagreements before and Dad didn’t like how Mom let me mess with her makeup, but that was the first time I ever heard him really yell.” Izuku scrunched his face in anger as he sat at the kitchen table, pulling the chair next to him closer.
“I’ve said it before, but your dad is a dick.” Mina nodded and sat next to Izuku, leaning on him as she breathed in deeply before speaking.
“Eventually, my mom got him to agree to take me. Well, agree to let her take me. This was around my last year of elementary school. The clinic was – nice. Really nice. I remember one of the nurses there, when she was asking my mom questions about my medical history, actually turned to me and asked if I had a different name I wanted to be called by. I didn’t – at the time – but it felt so nice to have someone ask. Even my mom never thought to do that.”
“Sounds like they knew what they were doing.” Mina hummed in agreement.
“They recommended family counseling for all three of us, and individual therapy for me. I guess having self-images issues causes problems with Dr. Nishi’s quirk, so everyone gets therapy before their treatment. It helped a lot. My dad was still weird about the whole thing, but it seemed like he was warming up to the idea. He was the one that suggested the name Mina.” It was official, the sleep-deprivation was giving him hallucinations. That was the only reasonable explanation for why he thought his best friend just said her dad did something helpful.
“Seriously?” he still asked because hallucination or not, he must have misheard. The normally cheerful girl gave a faint, bittersweet smile that looked so wrong on her face.
“Yeah. He said he always wanted to use that name for a daughter. I -”she cut off with a choked, watery laugh, “I was so happy when he said that. It felt like he was accepting me. At least, a first step. He still was weird about calling me his daughter, especially in public, but at least he started calling me Mina at home.” She gave a weak smile as she rubbed away slowly forming tears.
“The psychologists and the doctor gave me the approval to scheduled my actual transition during middle school. Near the end of my first year.” Mina fell quiet except for a few occasional sniffles.
“I need to backtrack a little bit and explain how the doctor’s quirk works.” The timer went off, surprising both of them. Izuku couldn’t believe it had only been 10 minutes as he rushed to grab the cookies out of the oven and set them to cool. Returning to his increasingly distraught friend, he pulled her into a proper cuddle, just trying to remind her that he was there. For anything.
“You can add this to your stalker notebooks later.” He held back the urge to interject. Not now. “So, Dr. Nishi called it Metamorphosis. The way it was explained to me is that it changes your appearance to match your mental self. He said it was a combination of how you view yourself but also your personality. Normally it’s really subtle changes, like maybe a different hair color or different eye color, sometimes a new body part like a tail. But, and this was the reason he opened the clinic, for transgender people it always changed their sex. And if they were young enough, then it could change them internally too, not just like cosmetically.” ’Wait.’
Up until now Izuku had been – poorly – imagining a pink-haired, pink-skinned little girl-trapped-in-a-boy's-body going through the story. With a sinking feeling in his stomach, he was realizing he had never seen a picture of little Mina anywhere in her house. But there were a bunch of someone she told him was one of her cousins. ‘God, he’s stupid.’
“I feel like I know where this is going.” She buried herself deeper into his arms.
“Yeah. I, uh, went from looking like a little copy of my dad to – to me. It was – the nurses were scared to give me a mirror at first. I guess they thought I’d be upset? Even the doctor looked surprised but he insisted the nurse let me see myself. And,” her voice broke, “and I wasn’t. Upset.”
“For the first time, ever, in my life, I felt like I was actually looking in a mirror. That what I saw was me – the real me – not some stranger everyone was trying to convince me I was. It felt right. It felt good. I was happy.” Fuck, he knew that feeling. When everything falls into place for just a moment.
“He freaked out, didn't he?” Izuku could feel the tears the wetting his shirt. Damn that man for ruining that moment for her. He lost any goodwill he might have had with Izuku.
“He – he, he looked so horrified. Started yelling at the nurses, the staff, the fucking doctor. Saying he was gonna sue them for malpractice, that how dare they turn his child into a freak. That we were never coming back to that clinic, even though we were supposed to have follow-ups there.” Hiccups filled the air as Mina struggled to get the rest of the words out.
“M-mom, she, she tried to calm him down. But he wasn’t having it. He – he yelled at her too. That, that how could she approve of this. H-He agreed to pretend he had a daughter, not t-this. He screamed at the doctor to undo it, but he couldn’t. The only way the doctor could change how I look was if I changed who I was and that wasn’t gonna happen.”
“That asshole does not deserve to be your dad,” Izuku growled out. All Might has been trying really hard to get him and Kacchan to get along better – maybe if he suggested that a trip off the campus would improve their relationship, he could get it approved. And Kacchan would fight against having a chaperone and it wouldn’t be out of character. 'We would just need to figure out where he went...'
“We went home once he got tired of yelling. It got – well – not better but less loud after that. Mom got him to accept that I wasn’t going to be changed back, even though he still insisted on trying to sue the doctor. She had me switch middle schools, because she was worried that the kids at school wo-wouldn’t understand what happened. Or that I’d be bullied.”
“You were anyway.” She nodded.
“Yeah, but Mom doesn’t know that.” He sighed. ’Moms never know about half the stuff they probably should.’
“It still isn’t your fault, Bubblegum. He is responsible for his own actions and he choose to be an asshole to you. He choose to not accept you for who you are. He pretended to be okay with what was going on but freaked out when he was faced with reality. Even if you didn’t look like this – which honestly I cannot imagine you looking like anything else – I bet he still would still have freaked out. Him leaving is not on you. It’s on him.”
“But-“
“Nothing about what happened makes this your fault, Mina.”
“I just want my dad back,” the words were spoken brokenly into his shirt. Tears bubbled up in his own eyes, but he held them back. She didn’t need him crying too. He took in a shaky breath and focused on being here for Mina.
“I know.” Izuku held her as she cried herself out.
By the time Mina had calmed down, it was late (early?) enough that there was no point in going back to sleep. The two cleaned the kitchen of any evidence of the late-night baking and sat at the table eating cookies. Izuku knew Kacchan wasn’t going to be happy about this but fuck him. Mina was more important right now.
“Got any new gossip for me?” she asked. He thought for a second – he did know something that might cheer her up, but did he really want to betray that person’s trust?
’Eh, he’ll get over it.’
“I got one thing I think you might want to hear,” he teased. Mina perked up a bit – still not her normal energy levels, but better.
“Look, I’m taking a risk here. I’m breaking the bro code, that could cost me some serious friendship points. I don’t know if I should risk that,” he whispered dramatically to her. He pulled the most serious mock-serious face he could. Mina narrowed her eyes at him.
“I thought it was besties before the resties.” There was his best friend.
“You can’t say a word about this,” he stressed to her. She zipped her lips and threw away the key.
“Okay. So, Kiri came to me for advice last week,” she cocked an eyebrow, “dating advice.” That got her interest.
“Why did he come to you? You’ve never even been on a date.” He glared at her.
“Rude. It just so happens I am an expert about the person he likes. So, he wanted some help planning some stuff out.” It was hard to tell when Mina was blushing, but judging by how she stopped making eye contact, he guessed she was.
“Oh?” Izuku smirked.
“I won’t tell you exactly what we talked about. You don’t want me ruining the surprise, trust me. But if he breaks your heart, I’m breaking his neck.” She laughed at that.
“You spend too much time with Baku-babe. You’ve gotten a lot more violent.” He shrugged.
“Speaking of Baku-babe, that explains why he was complaining to me about you two spending too much time together,” Mina continued. Izuku was surprised to hear that.
“Really? Ugh, he must have thought I was stealing his new best friend or something. They’ve been getting along well lately,” he said. He considered reassuring Kacchan but discarded the idea. That wouldn’t go over well at all.
“Aw, broccolini –“Izuku cut her off.
“I’m not upset. He’s not my best friend either. He’s not even top 3, the order goes you, Ochako, Todo, then Iida and Tsu. And Tsu is only 5th because we don’t spend enough time together. We gotta talk with Jirou and her again about that band idea,” he explained calmly. Kacchan would always be important to him, but friendship wasn’t really what they had right now. Their relationship was – complicated.
“Okay. Glad to hear that Ochako is back to number two, I know stuff was awkward there for a while,” Izuku groaned in agreement, there were a lot of uncomfortable conversations before they were cool again, “and you are right. We kinda just dropped the ball on that idea. I’ll text them tomorr- today?”
“Sounds good.” There was a beat of silence.
“Thanks for telling me that. I’m sure Kiri-babe won’t be too mad at you if you explain you were just trying to cheer me up.” Izuku was about to reply when he heard Kacchan start to make his way down.
“The angry Pomeranian is coming,” he informed Mina. She burst out laughing, which only got more hysterical when Kacchan actually made his way into the kitchen and gave them the most befuddled look accompanied by a head tilt that really was dog-like.
Izuku knew they made an interesting scene. He looked terrible. He was exhausted in every sense of the word and was going to need an IV of coffee to stay awake during class. Mina, despite the hysterics, was really not exuding her typical level of energy. She was still kinda curled up, shoulders slouched. Plus, there was the plate of half-eaten rainbow-colored cookies in front of them.
Izuku saw the moment Kacchan opened his mouth to say something. Probably something about how they were idiots for not getting enough sleep or eating junk so early in the morning. That he was going to kick their asses in heroics today or that they could stop making it so easy for him – or whatever. It didn’t matter what it was. He might love the guy, but now was not the time for aggressive, backhanded caring.
Izuku shot Kacchan a cold, stern glare. Mina was too busy still laughing to notice it.
The blond human-bomb shut his mouth so quickly he choked on his words for a second. He stared at Izuku, his eyes just slightly wider than normal, as the green-haired boy just met his gaze without a hint of backing down.
Kacchan turned around to grab stuff out of the fridge. Izuku let the glare drop, relieved that his oldest not(?)-friend decided not to test him today. That was not a fight he would win.
Izuku and Mina finished off the cookies while Kacchan accidently cooked enough for three people instead of two.
They both pretended to believe him.
Izuku held back a smile when Kacchan furiously dropped the plate in front of Mina – at least his plan was right on track.