Polishing Pillars to Shine

Ch 28: Explanations

"How did this even happen?" Young Shouto wondered frowning at his older self as he too was shown the same picture of Mieko that young Bakugo got to see. Young Izuku huddled close to get a look at their kid as well. Adult Shouto having come clean about his slip up the moment he returned with young Katsuki to the hospital room. "I don't want kids..."

"No you didn't." Adult Shouto sighed. "But there was a bit of a miscommunication. One day after a mission, Katsuki texted and asked if he could bring home a stray that had nowhere else to go. We assumed he meant a cat. What he brought home after a mission...was not a cat."

"We argued a shitload about it-about her, things were tense for a while but eventually apologies were made." Adult Katsuki continued.

"And we had incredible make up sex" Adult Shouto added, making the past three blush and cringe. Young Bakugo and young Todoroki sliding a bit apart.

"but- we also now had a problem." Adult Katsuki continued. "We couldn't just throw the kid out on the street."

"We were going to rehome her,but there wasn't a single foster home who would take a child in with such a dangerous quirk." Adult Izuku frowned. "We even looked in America too."

"No one would take her in?" Young Izuku frowned. "But she looks so sweet..."

"We looked into adoption agencies and things like that too every avenue we could think of to find her a good stable home-for a while we were pretty convinced she needed a mother."

"What happened to her parents?" Young Bakugo couldn't help but wonder. "You said I found her on a mission?"

"Yeah...that's right. Mieko's birth parents were villains responsible for bombing a huge factory, and three shopping districts. Kacchan went to investigate but when he got there-they'd been...taken care of. Whoever hired them didn't want them talking."

"Found the kid hiding in the fireplace. She was so small and scared...she tried to blow me up at first, but I got her calmed down eventually. To cut this story short after a while obviously we gave up trying to find a better place for her and we kept her. You fell in love with her quicker than a kitten, Icyhot. Don't even get me started on you, Deku. Fuck I miss her. That's enough about Pom-Pom's for now."

"Aww what? But I wanna know more Kacchan!" Young Izuku protested. "Please?"

"If we tell you too much there'll be nothing to be surprised about later." Adult Izuku spoke gently to his young self. "We know you're all curious but we can't spoil everything. I'm sorry."

Young Katsuki's eye twitched, and he was clearly pouting to himself wanting to know more too but doing his best to control his anger and not throw an immature hissy fit about it.

"I guess that's fair." Young Shouto passed his older self his phone.

Just then the infirmary door swung open. In walked All Might looking just a bit more dead than his skeleton form might suggest. He definitely hadn't gotten any sleep last night.

"Hello boys, I am here!...to drop off all the work you three missed in your classes today. Don't worry about hero training this afternoon with your injuries you can't participate until you get cleared by recovery girl."

"Oh uh thanks All Might." Izuku took his homework with a smile.

"Yeah." Bakugo scowled as he snatched his packet. "Thanks." He grit out eyebrow twitching- the older Shouto wordlessly passed him a pen. Predictably the blonde dipped his head down and started to work on it right away.

The young Shouto took his own packet impassively. "There are people out to kill us and we still have to do class work? That doesn't seem fair."