Katsuki hasn't seen Deku in years. He saw him once, by chance, at a grocery store or a farmer's market or something like that, maybe four years ago, but before that, he hadn't seen him since they left middle school. So, when he sees him again while patrolling on his usual route in the city proper, he's a little stunned. Not because Deku looks different—even though he does. Not because he dresses better, or that he looks healthy and fit and happy. It's not even the slightest bit of fear he sees in his expression when their eyes meet, though that's just as out of place—even when Katsuki was mean and violent and absolutely ruthless, Deku never looked at him like that. No, it's nothing as simple as that. It's the little boy on his hip, a toddler with skinned knees and a smattering of freckles, curly blonde hair and piercing green eyes. He looks like—

No, Katsuki won't let himself finish that thought.

"Deku?" It's all he can say, really. He feels off-kilter, entirely unmoored by another chance meeting with the boy of his childhood memories, now a man with a life flourishing separate from Katsuki—and a whole ass child.

"Hi, Kacchan," he says, and he blatantly shifts in a way that blocks his kid from Katsuki's line of sight, like he's expecting him to blow them up. Rage builds, just a bit, in his gut. He's a damn hero. Deku has nothing to be afraid of.

And yet—

Katsuki pushes away thoughts of the past. Thoughts of careless explosions and exposed, freckled skin and tattered fabric, of teary eyes and burning paper.

"Papa, what's a Kacchan?" The little boy speaks, peeking around Deku's shoulder to stare at him, breaking the tense silence. When his luminous green eyes meet Katsuki's he gasps. "Ground Zero!"

Katsuki is struck by the kid's resemblance to Deku, and the fact that the little gremlin called him papa. Katsuki doesn't know what kind of future he expected Deku to have—he never thought too hard on it past not a hero, never a hero—but fatherhood wasn't part of that picture. The idea of Quirkless Deku even losing his virginity was a wild fucking concept to Katsuki.

The thing—kid, child, tiny human being—squirms in Deku's hold until he has no choice but to put him down, and Deku's progeny sidles up to him, yanking on the pants of his hero suit and staring up at him with no regard for Katsuki's reputation as a prickly, no nonsense hero.

"You're Ground Zero," the kid says. "You know my papa?"

Deku stands stock still for about a second before he's scrambling after his kid in an attempt to detach him from Katsuki's pants.

"Hisami, what did I say about grabbing people?" Deku says, only a bit frantic.

"Something about boundaries," he answers, saying the word slowly, like he doesn't know what it means.

Katsuki is silent for the entire exchange, and the subsequent fight to loosen the kid's grasp in his pants. He shakes himself out of his uncharacteristic silence soon after the grubby hand around the leg of his pants is secured tightly in his father's hand.

"You have a kid? How the f—"

"Language!" The kid, he thinks Deku called him Hisami, shrieks. Deku smirks at that, paying no mind to Katsuki's apprising eye as he looks fondly at his son.

"I'm Midoriya Hisami! My papa doesn't like you!"

"Hisami!" Deku balks and snatches his kid up in his arms again. Hisami is ballsy enough to giggle at his father's bewildered tone.

"I—we have to go," he says, power walking away from Katsuki, who's still so shocked by the entire exchange that he doesn't even have the wherewithal to go after him.

—

Katsuki hasn't been able to stop thinking about the events of last week. He wouldn't say he's obsessing, or anything like that, but he has spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about Deku and that kid. He suffers with these thoughts in silence. He couldn't exactly ring up Kirishima and explain that a ten minute conversation with a toddler has managed to occupy his thoughts for a full week. It's not until he visits his parents that he allows himself to talk about it.

"You still keep up with the Midoriya's?" Katsuki blurts out as his mom serves afternoon tea. His parents give him identical confused looks, but don't say anything until his mom is comfortably sitting on the couch, a cup of tea in her hands.

"A bit. Inko moved out of that apartment and into a house a bit closer to us, so I see her every now and then. Lunches and things like that," she says. Katsuki notices the way she doesn't prompt him for a reason why he's asking. His dad sips his tea to avoid speaking, as he often does.

"What about Deku?"

"What about him?"

"What's he doing these days?" Katsuki asks, trying to be casual. He gulps down some tea in an attempt to appear nonchalant.

"I thought you weren't friend anymore?"

Katsuki does his best not to audibly grumble. She never makes anything easy for him.

"I ran into him last week. He has a—" The word gets caught in his throat for some reason.

"Son? We know," his mom says, and his dad finally speaks up, a small smile on his face, "He's a darling."

"You've met it?"

"Him. He's a child, Katsuki, not a fucking hamster." She rolls her eyes.

"Whatever," he says, eager to get to the details. "How the hell did that happen?"

"Katsuki… you're twenty-eight. You should know how that works by now," his dad says, tittering lightly around his mug. Katsuki narrows his eyes at him. His father is a good natured, calm man, but he rarely makes jokes. Katsuki does not appreciate his attempts at levity at the moment.

"I know how it fucking works!" Katsuki screeches, feeling hot and embarrassed. "I mean, how—who—why does Deku have a fucking child?"

He's never been all that great at expressing himself, but he thinks this might be an all time low for him, personally. He doesn't know how to articulate his shock and awe at the concept of Deku being responsible enough to have a child, let alone social enough to father one. He feels like he needs a step by step analysis of how this came to be.

"I don't know what you're getting at, or why you seem so distraught, but if you're really so curious we're meeting them for lunch next week. Would you like to come and babble there?"

"Honestly, I think Hisami is more articulate than you sometimes."

The fact that his parents are so casually talking about the existence of the tiny human he briefly met a week ago baffles him.

"So, Deku has a fucking baby, and no one thought to tell me about it?" He's more angry than he should be about it, more angry than he really has a right to be. He made peace with his regret over everything he put Deku through because of his own insecurities a long time ago. He never apologized, but he also never thought about seeing him again in concrete terms. He's fine leaving Deku in the past, in a limbo of regret and denial.

"He's three. Why are you having a fit about this?"

"Because," he starts, but he has nowhere to take than sentence, nothing to say to make it make any kind of sense. Katsuki doesn't even know why, except for the fact that something this big happening to someone his family has known forever shouldn't have flown under his radar. He feels like he's missing out on something.

And… and what?

What about that kid is so unnerving to Katsuki that he can't stop thinking about him?