Chapter Text
“Team B, suppress the east flank. Shut the vents on my mark— now.”
Shoto's voice cuts through the alarms without rising above them. He’s never needed to shout, people follow him because they trust him, because when he speaks, he sounds like someone who knows exactly what to do. He was made for this, rescue, takedowns, the moments when hesitation costs lives.
“Ready.”
Frost bursts from his hand, sealing off the overheated vents one by one as he moves past. Steam spits back, then dies, leaving only the acrid smell of burned wiring. He reaches the scorched door at the end of the corridor, presses both palms flat against the steel. Left hand burning, right hand freezing. The metal screams under the sudden shock, then buckles and tears apart.
The inside is a sterile control room, lighted blinding white in a way that makes Shoto’s head ache, rows of servers humming like wasps. And there, backed against the console, his eyes almost fever-bright, is that Gene-Weaver.
“Hero Shoto,” the man breathes, startled, though awe-struck. “Ah! Oh my— The example, the original, the— the father of my most promising experiment, here in the flesh! I—”
Shoto pauses for a second, caught off guard only for a moment, hands ripping the doors apart. He’s been told this man was a maniac— still, it's throwing him off just a little.
His eyes twitch to the console—
TRANSMISSION: 97%
— he forces the thoughts down. Later. Focus.
Steam curls from one hand, ice from the other. He says nothing, yet the air grows colder, then hotter. A warning.
For some reason, the Gene-Weaver trembles with excitement. “Yes! That power— proof of the design!” His hand slams a switch. Bulkheads slam down. Alarms blare higher.
The building shakes and groans deafeningly.
Shoto lunges for the console, frost crawling fast across its surface, but a hatch behind the villain yawns open almost unnoticeably. The Gene-Weaver slips through with a look of glee. He watches Shoto almost in a way that’s worshipping. A way that makes goosebumps rise on his skin.
Then he’s gone.
100%. TRANSMISSION COMPLETE.
Shoto stands there, eyes widening, fists burning with his quirk, jaw locked tight. Capture failed. Containment failed.
So fast.
Everything went so fast he couldn't even—
"All units, fall back!" he snaps into his comm, turning to leave again. "Evacuate the sector. Now! That building is coming down. Keep an eye out for that crazy doc."
The groan of twisting metal above becomes a constant, deafening roar. The floor shakes violently all of a sudden, tossing Shoto against a sparking console. Red emergency lights spin, casting moving shadows across the collapsing room.
He pushes off the console, his body already moving toward the sealed bulkheads in the doorway. His left palm slams against the nearest one, heating it rapidly. The metal glows, warps, but too slowly. The ceiling above him cracks open like a rotten egg, dumping cables and shredded insulation. He throws himself sideways, a sheet of ice erupting from his side to form a temporary shield. It shatters under the impact, but it buys him a second.
He’s about to continue when suddenly—
—a sound so wrong it halts him mid-step comes from somewhere close by. Not a pained groan. Not a scream. A cry. Small? And fragile.
An infant.
He freezes, his blood going colder than his ice. It's coming from the far wall, the one that had been hidden behind the main console before it shattered. The one with a single door, now broken open slightly by the tremors of the building. A sign, half-hanging from a broken hinge, swings wildly just inside.
NURSERY - PROJECT CHIMERA
Another convulsion rocks the facility, the decision is made for him in a second. He punches through the half-shattered door.
The sight inside steals the air from his lungs. The room beyond is clinical and dead, rows of pods, glass fronts milky and grey. One pod at the far end pulses with a soft, pathetic light that threatens to go out. The cry comes from there, high and heartbreaking, and it tears something open in him he didn't know he had.
He moves before he knows how. The cries tug at his ribs. Up close the pod's glass is smeared with dust and condensation. Inside, swaddled, is a baby. Small mouth wide open in screams and cries, fluffy hair split in a line of white and crimson. When he sees the hair, everything goes quiet inside his head. The two colors— his colors— glare at him as if they were mocking him. One tiny eye blinks open, blue so close to his own it feels like seeing himself reflected.
Panic wants to take over.
His hands, the ones built to fight, protect and rescue, go clumsy. He fumbles the pod's latch and it hisses open, the sound of that small wail fills the room and pierces whatever armor he has wrapped around himself over the years as a hero. Everything in him is programmed for distance, for force. He's never, ever, held a baby. He knows one basic rule, and that knowledge feels both ridiculous and like a victory— he has to support the head. It's the only thing he knows to do. "Okay— okay, okay. Don't…. don't drop— don't—" His voice comes out small and anything but composed.
Gloves scrape the stiff mattress. He slides one hand under the baby's head, cupping it like the fragile thing it is, the other supports the back. When he lifts her, she is surprisingly light.
He tucks her against his chest, chin resting on the crown of her tiny head. Instinct and awkward tenderness mix together, but her cries soften, muffled into the fabric of his suit. She hiccups and listens to his heartbeat, a sound she seems to find interesting and confusing and somehow safe.
"You're—" he mumbles, because what else is there to say? "You're…. you're okay, baby, I—" The words are senseless and gentle. "I don't— I don't know what I'm doing," he confesses. "But— head. Keep— support head."
He almost laughs at himself. There has never been a moment he was so confused and overwhelmed. Of course, the world's second-most-unlikely father is muttering baby-care instructions in a warzone.
A violent shudder rocks the lab. The exit he came through collapses, dust falls like gray snow. He clamps the baby tighter without thinking, cheek pressing to her two-tone hair.
He checks the nearest panels. The Gene-Weaver's hatch is somewhere around—
Shoto shifts the child into the crook of his right arm, palm still cradling the head, and presses his free hand flat against the metal wall. Not blasting it open, instead he pushes heat into one spot until the metal blisters and melts.
He makes a way where none existed.
Before he can step through, the ceiling somewhere behind him screams as something gives. Debris shifts to his right where someone just pushed through the fallen doorway, getting buried beneath the falling pieces, a pained human moan follows.
Shoto immediately scans the area, pushing away from the new entrance into the tunnel.
It’s a woman, hair matted, glasses smashed, pinned and bleeding. Her lab coat is torn and blood smears her temple. When her eyes find him they're full of pain— then they find the infant at his chest, and the expression changes instantly into relief.
Is she—
"You found her," she whispers. Her hand reaches, not for him but for the child.
Shoto drops to one knee in front of her, becoming a shield without thinking. The baby hiccups, then quiets at the sight of another person nearby.
"Don't let them take her," the woman pleads, fingers clawing at his sleeve. "Not the Commission. Not the system. He has people everywhere. They'll—" She coughs, blood beads at her lip. "They'll see her as an experiment. A specimen."
He frowns, letting her squeeze his arm against the pain as he assesses the situation. "I won't let that happen," he assures her, training kicking in. He rocks the debris slightly to test its weight. "Hold on. I'll get you both out."
She shakes her head frantically and digs at her belt with shaking fingers and presses a small metallic data chip into his palm, blood and dust smearing both their hands. “She has no one.” The effort of speaking is clearly immense. A trickle of blood escapes the corner of her mouth again. Her voice drops to a barely audible whisper now, meant only for him. “He forced me.... t-to carry her. To term. She’s…. she’s mine.”
Shoto nods, shifting closer so she doesn't have to suffer through speaking louder than necessary. She is already half gone.
"Everything," she whispers. "The chip. Proof. For her. One day—" Her voice thins, she takes a painful breath. "He made her from you. Your— DNA. Your—"
He made her from you.
Shoto's eyes widen. The baby’s hair, her eyes, it’s all a reflection of him, he already knew that. This woman isn’t just entrusting him with a child. She is entrusting him with…. a part of himself. A part he never consented to give. Or knew it existed.
“Promise me,” she begs, her eyes locking onto his, pouring every last shred of her fading life into the demand. “Promise me you’ll hide her. Keep her safe. He’ll never stop. Please. She's your—”
He swallows and the world narrows to both his duty and a tiny sleeping life against his heart. "I understand," he says, and the phrase is too small, not right for what he feels. "I'll protect her."
Her fingers curl on his sleeve. The fight leaves her as breath leaves lungs, the light in her eyes dims with a pained smile. She exhales once, hard, and then she is still.
He is suddenly very alone.
The chip burns in his palm.
The baby moves, a small hand finding the edge of his suit and clamping on as if asking if he is alright.
Grief hits him. Grief and admiration for a mother's last act.
Shoto moves on instinct, sliding her dead body gently under his other arm, laying her down by the wall on the other side so she won't be crushed unrecognizable by more debris. His mimd catalogs what he has: a sleeping child who looks like him, a dead woman who named him guardian with her last breath, and a tiny data chip that might be the key to the truth.
He stands, the baby tucked closer. He hums a small, almost embarrassed sound, part lullaby, part plan against the child's soft hair, rocking his body slightly, the smallest heartbeat in the world pressed to his chest. "Okay. Okay. We get out. We find help. We find someone who knows what to do. Because.... I don't know what to do."
A massive beam groans directly overhead, shedding a rain of dust and concrete over them. The sound jolts him back into his body. The tunnel. He has to get to the tunnel. He turns to the woman a final time in honor. There is no time for anything else. He has a promise to keep.
Then he runs. He holds the baby— his…. daughter. Biological child— tight against his chest, his arms absorbing the jolts of his sprint. She lets out a small, startled sound against his neck at the sudden movement but doesn’t cry. It’s as if she understands the urgency.
The escape hatch he’d melted open is right there before him. He ducks through it, bursting into the cool, damp darkness of the maintenance tunnel. The second he clears the opening, a roar thunders behind him. He doesn’t look back. He knows what it is. The entire nursery wing, the pods, the woman— it’s all gone. Hidden under tons of rubble.
He runs further into the tunnel until his legs give out, then slumps against the cold concrete wall, sliding down to the floor. The only light comes from the faint, dying glow of the molten hatch far behind him. His breath comes in ragged, shuddering gasps. Shoto lets his head fall back against the wall, cradling the little one close. The adrenaline is falling off him with every breath he takes, the reality of what just happened crashes over him in a nauseating wave. His reality is falling apart.
He is sitting in a cold, dark tunnel. He is a Pro Hero who just failed to save the life of a woman and let a villain escape. He is a son who now carries a secret more terrible than any his father ever burdened him with.
And he is holding his child.
Apparently. He can't be sure until he sees the proof the woman promised him.
Slowly, almost careful, he looks down at her. In the near-total darkness, he can barely make out her face. Just the pale shape, the dark pools of her eyes looking up at him. She is quiet now. Trusting him.
His comm crackles to life in his ear, making him jerk suddenly. The dispatcher’s voice is strained. “Shoto? Status report. We’ve lost visual on your location. Do you copy?”
The professional part of his brain, the part that has been trained since he was a child, supplies the answer automatically. But—
He takes a breath, forcing his voice into a flat calm that feels like someone else is speaking.
“This is Shoto. I copy. The nursery wing was compromised before I could secure it. No signs of life. The primary target escaped via an unmarked route. I am— I am clear of the collapse.”
The words taste like ash. No signs of life. He looks at the living, breathing proof of that lie in his arms.
“Copy that, Shoto. Medical and extraction are en route to your last known coordinates. ETA five minutes.”
“Copy.”
The comm link dies. He has five minutes. Five minutes until the world intrudes on this impossible secret.
He looks at the baby.
Slowly, with hands that are beginning to shake, he rearranges his hold on her, adjusting the blanket to better shield her from the cold. He has just sworn an oath over a dying woman’s body.
I will protect you.
༻❀༺
The chaos of the collapsed building is the perfect cover. Smoke and sirens hide Shoto’s retreat as he mutters a clipped excuse into his comms, something about a secondary route, a lead to follow, he’ll debrief later— all while carefully hiding the small, warm weight beneath his jacket. He doesn’t let anyone get close. He can’t.
Not until he knows the truth.
‘He has people everywhere.’
The warning plays on a loop in his mind.
When his apartment door clicks shut behind him, the silence is the same bleak reality of his everyday life. It isn’t peaceful, it's empty. The space has always been more storage locker than home. Polished floors, stark white walls, a sofa so sleek and untouched it might still have the price tag on it. There are no pictures, no throw blankets, no signs that someone actually lives here. It’s clean, it’s efficient, and sad.
It is, he realizes with a sinking feeling, the worst possible place for a baby.
She moves in his arms, a small sigh escaping her as she nuzzles against the cold, hard plating of his costume. He doesn’t move, not knowing how to for a scary second. He just stands there in the middle of the room, holding her, covered in dust and another’s blood. The air catches on his next breath.
The quiet is so loud he can hear the hum of the fridge and the whisper of air through the vents. And beneath that, the soft, rhythmic sound of her breathing.
His hands start to shake.
He’s faced down villains who could shatter skyscrapers. He’s stood his ground against Endeavor’s rage. But this? This tiny, sleeping person? He is completely, utterly at a loss of what to do.
A sound escapes him, a choked mix of a laugh and a sob. His knees feel weak but he doesn’t sit. He just stands there, frozen, everything narrowed to this barren room and the fragile life in his arms.
He has never felt more alone and helpless.
But soon, when the silence starts to feel too heavy, he fills it the only way he can, by talking to himself.
“Right. Okay. Protocol,” he mumbles, stepping forward into the apartment. “Step one: shower. I need a shower. You…. probably don’t. At least not not right now. Step two: you need a bed. A crib? Do you need a crib? I don’t have a crib. The couch is, uh— leather. And cold. That seems…. lawsuit-y. The floor is worse. More lawsuit-y. Step three: you definitely need a diaper. I know that much. And food. What do you even eat? Formula? That's a thing, right? I don’t have that. I have, uhm, leftover takeout. Which you can’t have, I’m pretty sure about that. And the chip. I still have the chip…”
The list is endless and he is hilariously, painfully, unequipped. He is a top-ten Pro Hero, and he is being defeated by basic infant logistics, so much so that he feels close to crying. When he looks down, she's still asleep, her head tucked under his chin, perfectly trusting. That trust is the only thing keeping him from fully spiraling.
The chip. A problem he can actually solve for now.
He slowly, very slowly, lowers himself onto the very edge of the sofa. He can’t bring himself to put her down on the cold leather, so he keeps her cradled in one arm. With his free hand, he retrieves the data chip and his laptop.
The screen lights up, illuminating his face. Files. Genetic maps. Security logs. Financial trails.
He hovers over one folder.
SUBJECT G-07.
He opens it.
A newborn photo stares back at him, tiny, red, and swaddled in a clinical white blanket.
SUBJECT: G-07
GENETIC SOURCE: Todoroki, Shoto (Pro Hero #10231) - Gamete Procurement
DONOR EGG: Subject 284-A (Anonymized)
QUIRK FACTOR CONVERGENCE: Successful (Half-Cold Half-Hot - Stable)
DATE OF BIRTH: (A date four months ago)
STATUS: VIABLE
He stops breathing.
Gamete Procurement. The sterile, horrific term makes him want to throw up. They didn't just take his blood or his skin, his body had been a resource to be mined without his knowledge. The violation is so disgusting it feels like a fucking hit in the stomach.
Viable.
The word makes him feel even more sick. She wasn’t a person to them, she was a successful result. He scrolls further. Feeding schedules, progress reports, a note about her seeking warmth during sleep. His eyes dart to where she’s instinctively curled against the warmth of his body. It makes him smile just a little.
And at the very bottom, a single line that chills him to the bone.
PRIMARY DIRECTIVE: Acquisition and transfer to Commission Lab 7 for Phase II Observation and Lineage Perpetuation.
Shoto stares at that line for a while, reading and rereading over and over again. The woman hadn’t been paranoid, she’d been right. This isn't safety, it’s captivity with a government stamp.
His hand trembles. He isn’t just hiding a child, he's hiding his biological daughter from the very system that engineered her, from the very institution he works for.
He looks from the cold, clinical text on the screen to her sleeping face.
Subject G-07.
His baby.
༻❀༺
An hour slips by without him noticing. The apartment is dark now, lit only by the pale blue glow of his phone screen.
And the baby is wide awake.
She isn’t crying, she’s just observing. Her big, grey and blue eyes are open, calmly tracking the shadows dancing on the ceiling. Shoto looks down at her, baffled. “It’s dark out,” he informs her with a soft murmur in the quiet room. “That’s usually everyone’s cue to, you know. Go to sleep. Especially you.”
She blinks at him, unimpressed, utterly unbothered by the laws of nature.
His phone is cluttered with tabs: What do four-month-olds eat? How many diapers per day? Signs of dehydration.
In sudden desperation and worry, he placed an online order for formula, bottles, diapers, wipes. The confirmation screen promised delivery around the next hour. Only after receiving that mail did he allow himself a moment of relief.
But he’s still filthy. He can feel the grime clinging to his skin. And she’s still pressed against him.
“Okay,” he murmurs, more to himself. “Hygiene protocol. But I can’t leave you. You can’t be unattended. That’s a rule. Heroes don’t abandon—” he cuts himself off, shaking his head with a tired grimace. “Right. Bathroom.”
He carries her into the bathroom, gathers every pillow and blanket he owns, and builds a nest on the tile. Uneven, but soft enough and places her gently in the middle.
“Do not move,” he tells her like it’s a mission directive, pointing straight at her.
She kicks her feet.
“…That’s not compliance.” He narrows his eyes. “That’s insubordination, ma'am.”
She kicks harder.
He unclips the first strap of his hero suit, fingers slowing. The second. Then he notices her eyes, round, unblinking, following his every move. He stops.
“…Right. No,” he mutters. “You don’t need to see…. all that. You’d be scarred for life, sweetie.”
He clears his throat, steps fully clothed into the shower stall, and pulls the curtain shut. Metal clatters, fabric rustles, boots thunk to the floor outside the curtain. From behind, quieter now, “Trust me. I only want the best for you.”
The water hisses on. Thirty seconds later paranoia claws at him. What if she rolled? What if she’s choking and he can’t hear over the water?
The curtain yanks back. His wet face peeks out, dripping water. She’s fine. Still staring at the ceiling. He ducks back in. Ten seconds later, another peek. She’s on her side now, gnawing without teeth on a blanket. The third time, her eyes snap to the exact spot where his face appears. His worried, dripping head emerges—
And she coos. A soft, delighted gurgle. Her body wiggles in joy.
Shoto freezes, water trailing down his neck. He has been burned, blasted, and shot at in every way a man can be. But never— never— has he been disarmed by a sound.
His chest loosens. “You think that’s funny.” His voice is flat, but his lips twitch. He ducks back behind the curtain.
Waits.
Peeeks again—
Another gurgle, louder.
“You really think this is a game.” His voice has gone thin, disbelief meltimg into something dangerously close to fond.
He ducks in and out twice more.
She squeals, a sound like tiny bells. Waiting for him to do it again.
Shoto sighs, water still running. “…Fine. You win.” He pops his head out slowly, makes a mock-scowl, and disappears again. The baby squeals harder.
Shoto mutters under his breath, half to her, half to himself. “This is ridiculous. I’m ridiculous. I’m a Pro Hero playing peek-a-boo with a four-month-old in the shower. What am I even doing? You’re supposed to be asleep, silly. This isn’t tactical. But…” His voice softens, words turning to almost a sing-song, “…if it keeps you calm, then it’s fine. It’s fine. We’re okay. I’ve got you.”
He stays there, dripping, leaning out and in again just to earn another laugh. Steam fills the room. The sound of her joy bounces off the tiles. He shuts the water off, grabbing the towel from the metal rack. The game of peek-a-boo is over, but the baby still watches the curtain with bright, expectant eyes.
Shoto steps out, a towel wrapped tightly around his waist, his hair dripping onto his shoulders and back. The cool air of the bathroom hits his wet skin, and he shivers. “Okay,” he mumbles, the word a calming mantra by now. “Okay. You’re still there. Good. That’s— yeah, that’s good.”
He looks from her, content in her nest of blankets, to the pile of his filthy, discarded costume. He has nothing clean to wear in here. His clothes are all in the bedroom.
“Right. Logistics problem. I can’t leave you. And I can’t get dressed in here. And I’m wet. You shouldn’t…. uh, you know, dampness. Risk of hypothermia, maybe? No, probably not….”
He makes a decision, bending down, his movements slightly awkward as he keeps one hand firmly on the towel. He scoops her up with his free arm, tucking her against his chest. She immediately grabs a handful of his damp hair and pulls excitedly.
“Agh— no, that’s attached, baby,” he informs her, gently prying her tiny fingers loose. He carries her into the bedroom, a half-naked, dripping pro hero clutching an infant. What a sight. “We’ll add ‘baby bathrobe’ to the next list. They gotta have something like that, right?”
He puts her down on the bed to pulls on a pair of soft sweatpants and an old t-shirt, his constant, low-level commentary filling the room. It calms them them both. “There. See? Decent. Presentable. Now, you. You need clothes. I don’t have…I don’t have any of that yet.”
A chime from his phone cuts through his rambling, his delivery is at the door. The next twenty minutes are a blur of confused unpacking. He lays her on his bed, surrounded by pillows, and unpacks the life-saving supplies. The diaper is a puzzle he nearly loses. The instructions are unclear, the tabs are confusing, and he’s fairly certain he’s put it on backwards twice. Baby, for her part, finds the whole process fascinating, kicking her legs and cooing as he tries to change her. Well, as long as she has fun.
The formula is another battle. The water must be precisely heated and he uses his right pinky finger to test the temperature on his wrist, a fact he read online that seems both unscientific and also extremely logical. He finally gets the bottle together, and her eager grabbing at it feels like winning a major fight. He does smile proudly at himself.
With a clean diaper and a full stomach, she is drowsy again. He realizes, again, that she has nothing to sleep in. His solution is to take one of his own soft, grey t-shirts. It swallows her whole, the hem falling past her feet, the neckline drooping off one shoulder.
She looks absurd and utterly content, eating her fingers.
His bed is too high, too big, too dangerous. So, Shoto builds another nest, this one in the center, with pillows and blankets forming a soft wall around her. He lies down on his side next to it.
The apartment is silent again, but this silence is different. It’s filled with the soft sound of her breathing, the smell of baby formula, and the overwhelming, terrifying reality of the situation. He doesn’t sleep. He can’t. He just watches her, his mind finally quiet enough for the bigger thoughts to come through.
He is a father.
The concept is so foreign it feels like a joke. He’s twenty-three. He’s a top ten hero. His life is battle schedules, press conferences, and a quiet, sterile apartment where no one needs him. Shoto has slept with people, sure, but always careful, always with protection. Sex has been a release, nothing more.
And yet, he holds a baby. A girl. Four months old. Red-and-white hair, one grey eye, one blue. She is his biologically. Not by choice, not by passion, not by a mistake. Someone else’s disgusting experiments made this child, using him as a template and sperm donor. Using his DNA.
He looks at her, at the baby that looks like he copy pasted her, and feels a sickening chill that has nothing to do with his Quirk.
The government he serves, the system he upholds with his own body and power, is in the business of creating human weapons. They are harvesting DNA from their own heroes to engineer children in labs, using women as incubators. They wanted to make another him. A “viable” subject. A soldier without his trauma, without his defiance and weaknesses. They would have taken her. They would have put her in a lab and watched her grow under a microscope.
The trust she has in him, the way she curled her hand around his finger when they sat on the couch, the way she laughed at his ridiculous shower peek-a-boo—
He reaches out, his finger hovering just above her head before he gently strokes the downy red-and-white hair. She sighs in her sleep.
He is a father.
The sun will be up soon. He doesn’t close his eyes.