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The nurse presses the baby into Hisashi's arms and steers him briskly out of the room, as if as long as he's moving, he won't hear the doctor and the other nurse throw terse words like "hemorrhaging" and "blood pressure falling" at each other like daggers.
"Please wait here and someone will be with you shortly," she says as she ushers him into the waiting room before turning on her heel and rushing back into the room where his wife - his Inko - bleeds and bleeds as they try to save her life.
The baby makes a small noise, and Hisashi's eyes are pulled away from the retreating back off the nurse, and down to the small, pink creature resting curled in his arms, and he smiles as he rocks it. "Ah, don't you worry, now. Your mother will make it out just fine, you'll see," he coos as he walks around the empty waiting room, low nighttime lights casting dark shadows across the worn linoleum. "She needs to be there for you, doesn't she? You're going to need a mother who will love and encourage you, who'll teach you to kind, and selfless, and brave. So she can't die, can she, Izuku? Daddy promises she definitely, absolutely won't. And daddy won't ever go back on his promises to you, that's a fact."
Izuku doesn't respond to his words, just yawns largely, red little baby face adorably scrunched up around his wide open mouth, and Hisashi strokes his cheek with a finger, marveling at how small and fragile the little life in his arms is. "You're going to take after your mother, I bet. That's good. Everyone will fall in love with your face that way. Trust you. That's important, Izuku. Trust is the most important thing in the whole world," he tells him, bringing the child up to kiss his forehead, close his eyes and breathe in his scent, revel in the existence of this beautiful little boy his Inko has given him.
Outside, lightning flashes, the raindrops on the window cast in sharp relief in the bright, split second light. He sits down to watch, arranging the baby on his lap, laughing softly when Izuku grabs at his finger with a chubby little baby hand. "I wonder if you'll love the rain the way I do, Izuku. The way it cleans away all the grime and dirt, makes the world a whole new clean slate for us." Idly, he draws figures in the condensation on the glass with the hand not occupied with serving as a very first chewing toy for his son, watching water warp the view beyond, turning the landscape outside into a fairytale land of crooked trees and soft fairy lights hanging in the air without any lampposts for support, all rendered in shades of green and black. "I wonder if you'll admire it like I do. If you'll want to emulate it. I hope you will. I hope you will be a force for change, Izuku. The catalyst for a whole new world, wiped clean so we can start over."
He chuckles. "Listen to me, a melancholy old man putting all my dreams on the shoulders of the next generation." Smiling softly, he smooths a hand over the sparse green fuzz on Izuku's head. "But your shoulders will be strong, Izuku. I dare to think you'll be able to bear my dreams ably enough."
"Oh!" he says in sudden remembrance. "I forgot that I bought you an unplanned birthday gift today." He digs around his pocket, pulling out a pair of tiny sneakers, dangling them over Izuku's sleepily blinking face. "You can't see them right now, since your vision is so limited, but they're red, and I have it on good authority they are also very cool. I was buying a pair for a little boy where I work, and when I saw the store had them in baby sizes, I thought it could be fun for the two of you to match, if you ever meet."
Replacing his finger with the knotted string of the shoes in the grasp of Izuku's hand, he frames Izuku's head with his hands, feeling the warm skin and the soft heartbeat within against his palms. "You are going to make me so proud, Izuku," he whispers, voice rough with tears at the magnitude of this moment. "You are going to be the greatest hero this world has ever seen. One day, I promise, you'll inherit your birthright, and nothing will stand in our way."
Then his fingers are turning black, fissures leaking light erupting from his skin as they elongate, narrow to needle points, burrowing carefully - more carefully than he's ever done this before - into Izuku's skin. "But you won't inherit it from me," he whispers as he pulls Izuku's quirk - his quirk - softly from his developing infant brain. "There's no room in the world for another All For One, after all."