Chapter Text
“Wish we could turn back time to the good old days.”
— Twenty One Pilots
Maybe this story had started long before that final year at U.A.
Or maybe it had started when the rivalry between them began to blur into something else. Something they didn’t know how to name, but that was there all the same—persistent in the way their words clashed and their eyes met. Maybe it was on that stifling night, when their bodies became tangled in a way Izuku never could have predicted.
That night stayed etched into his mind, not because of the explosions and chaos that usually seemed to follow Katsuki, but because of the calm that had settled between them.
They were there in the dorm room, the curtains drawn shut, and the moon seemed almost complicit in the stillness that had taken over the space. The silence wasn’t suffocating. It was peaceful. Something rare for both of them, who were always moving, always reaching for something more, always chasing something just out of reach.
Midoriya lay beside him, and the sound of their breathing was the only noise in the room, as if time itself had paused for a moment.
He didn’t know what was happening. It was comfort and anxiety all at once.
Bakugou’s eyes were closed, his brow smooth, as if in that moment all the weight of being the best, of being a hero, of always having to be strong, had simply fallen away. He looked... vulnerable. So unexpectedly, painfully vulnerable that Izuku couldn’t help but stare in fascination.
There was something there—a feeling almost tangible—and Izuku had no words for it. He wanted to speak, wanted to break the silence, but the words wouldn’t come. He kept looking at him, searching for something, some kind of answer, but there was nothing there except that quiet, comfortable calm between them.
And then, in that moment, when Bakugou turned his face slightly and his lips curved into that small, almost imperceptible smile, something in Izuku’s chest tightened.
The warmth that spread through his body felt like a flame, burning gently as it consumed him. Such a small smile, and yet it meant so much.
Izuku wanted to believe it was real.
He wanted that moment, that warmth, that smile, to mean that something more could grow from it. Something bigger than rivalry, bigger than all the tension between them.
But what he didn’t know—what he couldn’t have known—was that time had very little patience for them.
In the days that followed, the distance between them began to grow.
Bakugou seemed so far away, so closed off. First, it was the way his gaze no longer lingered on Izuku. Then came the short hums and impersonal gestures, as if nothing that had happened had meant anything at all.
The warmth of that night disappeared as though it had never existed.
And then, one autumn day, in an empty hallway, Katsuki finally spoke—and shattered everything Izuku had been trying to believe in.
“Forget it. It was a mistake.”
*A mistake.*
The words cut through him like a sharpened blade. So casual, so almost uninterested, and yet they hit Izuku with brutal force.
He wanted to scream. He wanted to ask why.
He wanted to know what had happened, how they had ended up there after everything they had shared.
But when he looked into Bakugou’s eyes, he found no explanation. Only a coldness that froze everything inside him.
He didn’t have the strength to ask anymore. He didn’t have the strength to fight for something that already seemed decided.
In the days that followed, Izuku tried to move on, throwing himself into work, training, missions. But there was a shadow inside him, one that wouldn’t leave him alone.
He started questioning everything.
Had everything between them been nothing more than something he’d imagined?
Had that moment, that smile, that warmth, never been real at all?
Or had he simply fooled himself into believing it could become something more?
A month passed, and that was when the first signs began to appear.
At first, it was just a faint dizziness, a wave of nausea he couldn’t ignore. Then came the fatigue that seemed to hit out of nowhere, a weakness that refused to fade.
At first, he thought it was stress. After all, the final year at U.A. was never easy.
But when he collapsed during training, there was no denying it anymore.
Something was wrong.
Something was happening to him.
He went to Recovery Girl without knowing what to expect, but he still wasn’t prepared for what she told him.
Pregnant.
The word hung in the air, unreal and distant and yet terrifyingly real.
He didn’t know how to react. He stared at her, trying to understand what she was saying, trying to process it at all.
She explained—something about a rare Quirk, a genetic anomaly that could result in this—but Izuku barely heard her. His mind had already gone somewhere else.
He wasn’t ready to hear that.
He wasn’t ready for the reality of that word.
“And the father?” Chiyo asked calmly, as if this were something to be proud of.
But Izuku only closed his eyes, struggling against the fear, against the anxiety beginning to coil tighter and tighter inside him.
He thought of Bakugou.
He thought of the smile he had seen that night, of all the things left unsaid.
But at the same time, he knew he couldn’t tell him. He knew that if he did, Bakugou would only push him away even more.
The choice was in his hands now, and he didn’t want to drag anyone else into it.
Not after everything.
When Aizawa and Yagi found out, it came as a shock to both of them.
They wanted to know who the father was. They wanted to know what Izuku was going to do next.
But he stayed silent, his gaze fixed on the floor.
He didn’t want any more questions. He didn’t want any more explanations.
He knew this was his responsibility now.
Even before graduation, Izuku left U.A. in silence.
There were no tearful goodbyes. No explanations.
To him, the world had become something unrecognizable.
And in the middle of all of it, he began to build something new.
Not a fresh start, because things didn’t disappear that easily.
But a new story.
One where he could protect what mattered most to him now:
the life growing inside him.