This is the first DCMK fic I wrote, even if it's the second I'm posting. I'm blaming it all on Joisbishmyoga.

Some time ago I did a baby meme - asked people to give me two characters and I'd give them their children, in the form of a ficlet. Straight couples, gay couples, adoption, mpreg, illegal cloning - they didn't even have to be a couple. (the results were hilariously random.) In this fic Kaito and Conan aren't a couple. Gen, preslash? Either way works. I have a few potential ideas for a sequel, but this also works as a oneshot.

It's a good thing his brand of crazy isn't the kind that's all that interested in immortality. (Where's the breathless exhilaration of taking insane risks if you already know you're going to be fine, no matter what? Takes all the fun out of it.) It's a good thing he didn't want Pandora as anything but bait, and to keep it out of worse hands, because he'd have felt gypped.

Not that the gem doesn't do exactly as advertised on the can - for certain values of immortality.

Kid stares down at the teenage boy who sits stunned on the roof, legs spread out in front of him. Conan always looks thirteen going on thirty to him, but today he looks eleven at best, not even the age of his body. It's the shock.

He guesses it's not everyday you catch up to a criminal you've been hunting for five years - one last glorious chase, as all around the world assault teams tear into an empire that cost you your old life (and his father, not that you're supposed to know) only to...

"I have to admit, Tantei-kun," says Kid, "when I handed you the gem back I wasn't trying to trap you into making a honest man out of me."

"There's no gem on Earth that could do that, anyway," Conan replies, but his faint voice says he's not really paying attention to the words, or to the thief who stands only two steps away.

Of the two of them, Kid is more disposed to believe in magic, but even if Conan was prone to dismissing the testimony of his own two eyes...

Nothing happened when Kid was handling the gem alone. Only when he passed it, and for a fraction of second there were two hands on it.

No amount of denial ever stopped Tantei-kun from reaching a logical conclusion.

The toddler asleep in Conan's lap has Conan's cowlick and Kaito's indigo-blue irises, when he cracks his eyes open. Kid can see Conan swallowing.

He hears the quiet shuffle of feet on the fire escape and he's pulling Conan and his armful up before he's even thought twice, whisks them away in his cape, herds them to the air vent - an emergency exit he hadn't let himself consider, earlier on, when this was still supposed to be his last performance. He falls backward into the darkness, holding Conan to his chest. Conan's eyes are wide and glittering behind his glasses, but he doesn't make a sound as they fall, or when Kid's hooks engage and they come to a somewhat abrupt stop, right in the middle of the vertical shaft.

Kid shuffles around a bit, so that his back is pressed tight against one wall and his feet on the other, and he smiles his most pleasant smile at the not-a-boy sitting on his lap over forty more feet of void.

"Sorry. Reflex."

"I'm sure," Conan replies dryly, not impressed at all.

Kid can't help grinning, very pleased. Conan's going to make an awesome co-parent.

"...Kid?"

"Ah - yes, Tantei-kun?"

The detective frowns at him, and visibly wants to peer closer, but that would put him under the shadow of the hat and ... and.

"Are you... alright?"

Oh gods and goddesses and ancestors and anyone who'd ever listen. He's got a son.

It's a sort of poetic ending, he supposes; the day he lays his father's ghost to rest, he becomes a father as well.

"I might be in the first stage of a freak-out of epic proportions," he admits, aware that his smile quirks oddly and unable to fix it.

"What took you so long?" Conan replies with a disbelieving chuff, not even really laughter. "I was here two minutes ago."

The child blinks his eyes open again, examines Conan's face - it's the closest - and then Kid's.

Then of course he goes straight for the brim of his hat with curious hands. Conan is the one who reaches for that tiny hand and tries to draw it back. Kid takes in a shuddering breath.

"Let him. It's okay." He laughs a little at Conan's incredulous stare. "You were going to see me today anyway. Just - for a different occasion."

Conan is grave when he reaches out to take off the top hat, careful. He hands it to the toddler, who makes a pleased gargly sound and starts tapping his hands on top like a drum.

"Yes. It's my real face."

"Huh," says Conan, and there is his little thirty-year-old. Kid chuckles.

He doesn't do it long. People are gathering on the rooftop. Someone shines a light down the shaft. Kid and his passengers are far down enough that even wearing white, they won't be immediately noticeable, but the sound of their voices is going to travel up. Conan realizes at the same time he does - they need to sort this out, fast.

But Conan is smart. He'll have reached the same conclusion as Kid, and possibly sooner. For a second Kid is afraid, because there's another solution - Child Services, adoption, and if they don't agree -

"You can't be caught here," Conan says, and Kid almost sends them to their deaths when his legs briefly go limp with relief.

Conan and his thirteen official years can't keep the child. Kid - Kaito - can. He turned twenty-three a month ago, and forgery is easy.

"My name's Kaito," he says, trading Conan the child for the handle of his grappling hook. "Kuroba Kaito."

Conan lets out a longsuffering sigh, though the corner of his lips is quirking up into a faint smirk. "Nice meeting you." A pause, as Conan braces himself. "I'm Kudo Shinichi."

Aha. Not that he didn't strongly suspect, but it's so nice being proven right. He grins, white teeth shining in the dark.

"Been a while since I said that," Shinichi mutters to himself, and then attempts to glare. "Anyway. If you steal anything ever again-"

"This Kid has once and for all been taken off the streets," Kaito assures him, securing the child inside his jacket and clipping on a few more cradling straps to his flight harness. The baby is starting to wriggle, unhappy at being confined.

They exchange a last look. There's so many things they should likely talk about, most of them translatable to 'what the hell do we think we're doing.' No time, though. He can hear Nakamori yell something about a floodlight and air duct blueprints, and his calves are killing him.

He takes a deep breath, steals a glance at the fuzzy-haired little head against his chest. His silk shirt is going damp where the baby chews on.

Alright. Extract self and package first. Freak out later. He can do that.

"See you tomorrow, Shinichi."

Kaito drops out from under him, into the dark, holding tight onto his change of plans.