Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Mina wept. The more Deku, Ochako's Deku, poured out his soul, his video call with his wife and daughter after no contact for months, the more water poured from her eyes.

Months. Eight months. In that time, Deku traversed three worlds and fought battles wherever he and his team went.

Mina reached for him, but he felt far away from her, oceans away instead of the other side of the room. "You can talk to them, to your wife, Ochako, and Nana, can't you? You can call them now, right?"

Deku gave the teenager a soft smile, then glanced at this world's version of his mother and her husband, Toshinori, then the adult Mina. His eyes softened with melancholy joy as he lingered over each face.

Deku paused when he met Mei's eager gaze.

Mina glanced her way before looking back to Deku in his sleek black armor, looking absolutely yummy. She couldn't blame Mei for mentally undressing the man. Mina did it several times already. Still, his tale was heart-wrenching, enough that Mina couldn't think anything inappropriate anymore. Why couldn't Mei at least pretend to be less eager, less thirsty?

Then Deku eyed Midori and Mina and the space between them where they sat, a yawning emptiness on the living room couch, unfilled in all the time of his narrative since they moved here for tea and conversation. "That call was several days ago for me, but for you, it was moments ago. Your world is that out of step with mine. You're starting from farther behind, and you're an ideal world for watching over Nana, and I suppose Toshi as well. At the pace your world moves, we should wrap up with the war in a few weeks."

Mei leaned in. "Exactly right," she marked her point with a raised finger. "Your timeline moves slower than the statistical average, which is one of the reasons why you're both teenagers while the rest of us are adults. Adding to that, we chose the safest lull of villain activity in your timeline so that the children could stay there safely without complicating your lives by endangering them."

There was that word again. Timeline. Mina swallowed. They hadn't explained that yet, not in detail. She feared what that lesson would reveal. She glanced around the living room, lingering over her future in-laws and the woman she wanted to become someday.

Please, someone, tell me that this is my future, that I can look forward to all of this. I want this life, this family, this house.

I want Toshi. She admitted the words to herself.

Her eyes wandered back to Deku, the man Midori would become. Someday.

I want Midori.

Admitting that to herself hurt. It was like lemon juice, freshly poured over a cut in Mina's heart. She felt like a terrible person for wanting this, all of this, while urging Midori towards Ochako. No matter how this all played out, someone would feel pain from her desires.

Mina feared that she alone would feel this pain, bear it, hide it, and smile despite it for the rest of her life.

"So," Midori mumbled through some complicated, almost mathematical leaps of logic. Mina barely caught any of it. Midori stopped himself and gasped. "That means that you're four times out of sync with Ochako, your wife, and she's almost thirty times out of sync with Nana in our timeline. Wait, that means you're almost one hundred twenty times out of sync with Nana!"

Mina dropped her jaw. The air-conditioned room chilled her freshly widened eyes. Three months. For every day they watched after Nana, Deku faced three months out there in hazardous, life-threatening situations. "That, wait, no," she muttered. She stood abruptly. "That's not fair! If this goes on much longer, you're going to be years older than Ochako!"

Deku raised a calming hand towards her. "It's better this way. I won't miss any of Nana's birthdays, or major holidays, or any of that. Besides," he grinned. "Maybe my wife might like me with an older, distinctive look."

Midori's face glistened with silent tears. "How long?"

Every eye in the room turned towards the young man. Mina wanted to reach across the couch to hold his hand.

"How long?" Mei repeated the question, puzzled by it.

Midori glanced between the scientist and the soldier. "How long will this war go on?"

Deku sighed. He pressed his lips together and could not look his younger version in the eye.

Midoriya Mina raised her hand in front of her, catching their eyes and attention. "From the briefing Midori, or, my husband and I received, we're expecting this conflict to last for years. From your perspective, Mina, Midori, you'll likely be handing our kids for a few weeks."

Mina covered her mouth. Weeks. A few weeks. It sounded so easy, so simple, but it was brutally unfair. If each day were as long as three months, then a few weeks would be-

No!

"That's fifteen years!" Mina grated her teeth. "A few weeks is fifteen years! You can't! You can't expect Toshi and Nana and everyone else to adapt when their parents shoot up a decade and a half in age!"

Mei shifted, stared at the pink teen, and adjusted her glasses. "None of this is fair. We all agree. This entire war is a tragedy. People are dying every day. Many of them are versions of people you know and love. We, our side, made a promise. 'We will watch after your children. We will keep your families safe. So, please, fight alongside us so we can fulfill that promise.'"

Deflated, Mina sat down.

Midori rested his hand on hers. She was supposed to comfort him, and instead, he was there for her.

Deku straightened his spine.

The adult Mina caught the motion. "That was a direct quote, wasn't it? You've met him, haven't you, the Izuku at the center of this whole thing?"

Deku regarded the heroic Mina of this world carefully. "I have. He's not like your husband, or me, or like any other Deku I've met. He's intense. Let's leave it at that."

Mina eyed Midori. Go on. She mentally prodded him. Ask about the man's Quirk. Ask about his ability to upgrade people's Quirks and the other outlandish things he can probably do.

Midori didn't ask one thing about the other Izuku, the man that wasn't Deku at all.

Deku stood. "Speaking of that promise, I should return to my post." He turned to face Midoriya Mina. "Please, enjoy your time with your family tonight. You're both assigned to my unit once your son's relocated, which will be," he trailed off, letting his eyes linger on Mei.

Mei stood, as did the adult Mina. "I'm working on the calculations, or rather, we are," she did not elaborate on who she considered "we," Mina noted. "Once that's done, which should take a matter of hours, I'll handle the final inputs. In the meantime-"

Deku nodded. "I'll let you explain the rest. I should head out before my counterpart and his son finish their workout. We don't want him more confused than he needs to be."

With that, Deku turned towards the front door, where he confronted this world's version of his mother and Toshinori.

"It's good to see you, son," the older man said.

Deku's jaw, steel-hard till this moment, trembled. "It's good to see you too. Mom, Dad." The words dropped from him like lead weights.

As he passed them, he allowed them to place their hands on him, paused, and the three joined in an embrace. Deku cried, but the room pretended not to notice.

Mina turned her fingers in Midori's palm and squeezed his hand. He smiled at her.

Deku made it past the emotional gauntlet, wiped his eyes, and left through the front door. Mina took a deep breath. Knowing he was out there made her feel safe, no matter how creepy the sky was, how desolate the horizon looked.

"No breaches reported on the front, Captain," roared a familiar voice outside. Loud, proud, yet calm. "The vanguard is keeping an iron lock on the enemy gate."

Midori gasped, stood. "Kacchan."

Deku heard his younger version's exclamation, looked back and smiled, then restored his helmet in place. He offered a salute to them before shutting the door.

Mina watched as her adult version strode past them to shut the blinds. The woman felt like the calm before the storm. Mina knew the tells, the subtle twitches, the fake smile. Aline Queen was a woman resolved to keep her son safe, to face an apocalypse, and even lose years of her life in the process, all to save her only child and insulate him from that garish light outside.

She wasn't just shutting the blinds. Alien Queen was delaying the inevitable.

Midoriya Mina turned to eye her guests. "Hatsume. Let's explain whatever else these two need to know, but keep the conversation brief, please. I don't want my son coming up and hearing something he doesn't need to."

Inko strode into the kitchen. "I can delay them a bit longer. Let me pour some drinks for them and carry them down. Oh, dear," she turned to her husband. "Come get me when the conversation wraps up."

"Of course," he said with a smile. Mina thought it was cute when they shared a chaste kiss, and even better, they flirted with smiles and glances while he helped her make a tray of drinks and snacks. Midori watched their interaction with hawklike interest.

She still had his hand in hers. She leaned in to whisper. "Whatcha thinking about, Midori?"

The Midori she knew from days ago would stutter, blush, maybe look away. This time, though, he was too overwhelmed to feel his usual awkwardness. "I've never seen my mom this happy," he barely breathed the words, forcing her to tune out all other sounds. "You have to help me keep All Might around so that my mom can be this happy."

Mina blinked. "I, me? What do you-"

Midori turned to face her, mere centimeters from her face. They were so close their noses almost touched. "His artificial stomach. You're the one that saves his life, Ashido. Deku, or Toshi's dad, explained it. You're the one that makes the acid he needs to survive. Please, even if this isn't our future, will-"

"I'll do it," she blurted out the words before thinking. "I'll help you save him, Midori. You don't need to promise me a thing. I'll just do it."

The room stopped and stared at the teens when Midori embraced her. Surprised, Mina smiled and wrapped her arms around him, holding him as he shuddered with bottled-up emotions like a window rattling in a storm. "Of course, I'll help, Midori," she whispered in his ear. "No matter what our future is, I'll help you save him. I mean, look at them. They're adorable together."

"We're not the only adorable pair in the room," Inko said with a smirk as she walked past them. Toshinori offered Midori a thumbs up.

After letting Mina go, he wiped his eyes, opening them just in time to watch his Toshinori open the door to the basement stairs for Inko. They kissed once more before she descended, tray in hand.

The house became eerily quiet once the basement door shut behind Inko during her mission to contain her son and grandchild.

"So," Mei began, gesturing to the closed door. "Let's do this here, but as you said, Mina, quickly. Your mother-in-law will only delay the inevitable. It's fine, though. I only need a moment to prepare."

Mei set to her work immediately. She removed her glasses and put them on the coffee table, oriented to face the large television screen in the center far wall, which immediately illuminated to display a network Mina knew wasn't a standard channel. Instantly, the glasses hijacked the system to produce an extensive yet itemized operating system.

Figures, Mina thought, that Mina's glasses were a computer in disguise.

"This is all classified information," Mei started. "However, we've pulled you into the middle of this because we didn't give you enough knowledge to understand your role. Let me apologize now for that mistake, among others."

Mina and Midori sat back, sinking further into the couch where they patiently waited for Mei to elaborate.

Mei produced a familiar watch from her coat pocket. "You're familiar with this, I take it?"

Midori nodded. "I took one of those off before getting summoned here."

Mei sighed. "I take it neither version of Midori explained what it's for, then?" Once she got confirmation from the green-haired teen, she explained. "This watch is designed to lock your space-time address until a specific key-code is transmitted, which unlocks the address and calls you to the key-code entry point. In other words, it guarantees that someone can't extract you or those around you from your position in space-time unless they know the code."

Midori nodded. "I guessed all that, or rather you did just before I got called here. Now that I'm here, how do we fix this and resolve the paradox? How do I get back to Nana?"

Mei regarded him evenly. "Nana," she mused. "Paradox," the scientist clicked and tsked. She pulled out a pen, but Izuku quickly learned it wasn't a pen. She waved it over his head, and immediately, readings appeared on the screen.

Mina marveled at the data once she realized that this pen was a scanning device. "Wow. It's like something from one of those old sci-fi movies about space exploration."

Midori watched as Mei waved the pen around his head. "It's a more advanced version of Mei's radar oven, or, your radar oven, from back at U.A., isn't it?"

Mei grinned. "Oh, your version used a radar oven? Mine was a microwave. But yes, the principle is the same."

Mei measured his chronological travel distance with nothing more than a few waves of her hand.

However, neither teen felt prepared for what came next. While he watched, mouth agape, Mei called Mei through a call system he didn't understand at all.

Mei's face popped up on-screen, taking up a quarter of the interface. "This is unexpected," the nearly identical Hatsume said, glasses still on her face. "Wait, why are there teen versions of both Midoriya Izuku and Mina with you?"

"Hey there, Hatsume," Mei said to her alternate. "It looks like your local Deku didn't properly explain the time-anchor feature to young Izuku here before sending him back. That resulted in a cross-timeline accident. Please tell me you're explaining the features properly to everyone before you pass these things out."

"Of course, I am!" the other Mei objected, defending herself. She sighed afterward. "I'll double-check with the others and make sure they each explain things properly to their counterparts. Thanks for the heads up. Is there anything else I can do for you?"

Mei smiled. "Can you help me reassure him? He's convinced that by being here that he's erased Midoriya Nana's existence. Your variant of Deku already spoke to him, but I want to offer him more than just our word."

Mina and Midori both perked up at that. Nana! Did they hear that correctly? Were they about to receive definitive proof that she still existed?

Mina cast a sidelong glance Midori's way. His eyes told the tale. Hope fluttered to life in his heart like a fiery backdraft in a previously cold forge, consuming him from the inside, and Mina had a front-row seat.

The other Mei regarded him from across the dimensional divide. "Midoriya Izuku," she said. "I know this is all sudden, but please don't have anxiety about being there. It was a mistake, but there's not been a paradox. Nana still exists, just as her father said. I still remember her just fine, and I'm from the same timeline as her and her parents."

Mina's vision blurred as emotions flooded into her eyes. She didn't expect to cry alongside Midori, but the two of them were a mirrored pair, flooding their faces. Hope. Relief. Confusion. Loss.

Mina wanted to reach for Midori, to console him, but he stood abruptly. It left her feeling alone, left behind. Her feelings over-complicated themselves as she stood next to him, slower than he rose. "So, when I go back to my home, Nana will still be there?"

"Yes," both versions of Mei spoke in perfect stereo. The one on-screen continued by herself. "Just to be clear and to remove any illusion in your head to the contrary: you are not Midoriya Nana's father."

Mina gasped.

Midori's eyes darkened. His pupils shrank down to tiny dots despite his widening eyes. Mina reached for him, but he couldn't see her in his peripheral vision anymore. She watched as his mind tuned the world out.

Midori barely whispered. "What?"

The Mei in the room with them pulled up a large amount of data that Mina didn't understand. "You've made three time-space jumps, and you can see the markers here," she highlighted the sections on his readings. "The first reading is your baseline timeline's inherent signature. This frequency dominates your readings, as it should. You have trace readings from the time you've spent in other timelines. We can't read the radiant energy you're expressing from this timeline because of the background interference you get by just being here. This interference, however," she highlighted a sharp spike in the numbers and the corresponding seismic shift on his graphs.

"This is from the timeline you visited before coming here, the timeline that Nana is from," Mei continued while the other Mei nodded along, agreeing with the summary. "So, you see, you being here doesn't invalidate her existence at all."

He smiled in relief, but tears flowed from his eyes. "I'm not Nana's father?"

Mina's heart broke for him. She bit on her fist, not wanting to take this moment, fearing he'd feel infantilized by her. However, Mina desperately wished to shield him from his pain, hoping there was a price she could pay. How could she, though? This meant that- Oh no.

Mina knew her turn was next. Toshi. She wouldn't get to have Toshi in her future. She winced her eyes shut, tightly against the world, like her counterpart's insistence on closed blinds against a terrible sky.

Mei regarded the pair curiously, as did her counterpart. "Genetically, yes, but your timeline variant doesn't match hers. It's possible that you and Uraraka Ochako could have a child together in your future, but the odds that the child would be identical to Nana on the genetic level are less than one out of eight million. In fact," she pulled up a calculator app on the interface. "If you relied on natural insemination for the same ovum that Ochako will eventually release, the one that corresponds to Nana, the odds are still slim. There are still eight million, three hundred eighty-eight thousand, six hundred and eight possible genetic children that the coupling could produce."

Mina watched as Midori fell back into the couch behind him, defeated by this hard blow.

He tried to smile, to show he was relieved that Nana wasn't hurt, still existed, was still out there. However comforting, that knowledge had to be a lead weight in his heart once he understood that she'd return home to her parents and that he'd never see her again.

Mina looked into his eyes as all his fantasies of holding her for the first time, of welcoming her into the world after her birth, of whispering, "Hello Nana, it's good to see you again," melted away in his soul. Hot tears, mourning a future he'd never see, washed down his face. "I see," he sniffled.

"Oh, Midori," Mina knelt onto the floor by his feet. She grabbed up his hands in hers. "Oh, Midori, I'm so sorry!"

"Young Midoriya," Toshinori stood, but Midoriya Mina held up her hand as she passed her father-in-law, heading straight to the teenage pair with fresh tissues.

"I think you're upsetting him more," Toshi's mother observed sternly. "This isn't helping." She strode to kneel next to the two, pulling them to lean against her as she embraced them.

Midori uttered a low cry, gripping hard on Mina as his emotional anchor against the storm that destroyed his hopes for the future. Mina felt her heart skip a beat when she realized that, despite having two versions of Mina holding him, Midori chose her, his friend and fellow student.

"Hush, Midori," she soothed him, stroking the back and base of his head while holding him tightly. "Nana still exists. She's still back there, waiting for you."

"I love her," Izuku admitted through his sobs. "I love her so much, and no matter what, I'll never see her again after she goes home!"

The Mei on-screen observed the situation unfurling with a curled lip. "I think I'll sign off and let you take care of this while I make sure none of the others here mess things up this badly-"

"No!" Mina turned to look the on-screen woman in the eye. She startled both Midori and her adult version but stood, resolute, to face the on-screen Mei head-on. "You explained it to him. It's my turn. Is Toshi my son? Is this future mine?"

Both versions of Mei sighed, identical in expression and volume. "No," the one next to her said sadly. "The time-frequency here doesn't match your home timeline. Toshi, as you know him, is just as unlikely for you as Nana is for Ochako and Izuku."

"Is that all you wanted?" the other Mei asked.

"I'll be in touch for calculations for a multi-timeline jump," the Mei next to them waved dismissively.

"I look forward to it, then," the Mei on-screen said before vanishing from the interface.

"I," she started, but the words blubbered into nothingness inside her throat. Mina collapsed next to Midori. He reached for her, held her hand, and she lost control. Mina cried on his shoulder while Midori cried into her hair. Her older counterpart rested hands on both their backs, rubbing into them with as much comfort as a mother could give.

The Mei in the room tsked at her counterpart's retreat from the emotionally awkward scene. She knelt next to Mina and Izuku. "Midoriya, Mina," she addressed the distraught teens. "Please calm down and let me explain further. Please," she said. "Your role in this is to protect their children, not produce them, or guarantee their future birth."

Midori lifted his head from Mina's and wiped his eyes with his forearm. He looked at Mei, mustered his strength, but Mina heard every stifled, trembling breath. It felt like their hearts were shattered glass on the floor, and it wasn't clear anymore which piece belonged to who.

He swallowed. "Will I, will we, meet our future children? Will we end up protecting them?"

Mina gripped onto his arm, clinging to him. She anticipated the answer, shut her eyes, and waited. Mina didn't see her adult version stifle herself by biting her fist or Mei's sad smile. All she felt was Midori's hand guarding the back of her head as he held her to his chest.

A prolonged silence pulverized the broken pieces of Mina's heart. "No," Mei finally stated. "Time travel, at least as you understand it, is impossible."

Mina lifted her head. She anticipated terrible news, but this was beyond what she expected. "What? Impossible?" She sniffled.

Midori blinked at Mei. "What? How am I here then? How is Mina here? Without time travel, how does any of this make sense?" he asked with more bite to his voice than Mina knew he had in him.

Mei turned to the screen and changed the display to a graphic showing dozens of lines branching off from earlier convergence points. "This isn't an accurate display at all, but it gets the idea across."

She pointed at a line near the top. "Imagine that this line is where and when you are right now," she started. "You're from an earlier point of time, so you probably imagine you'd just trace back along the line to a conversion point or just somewhere farther back on the line, but we've learned that's not possible. Time travel from any point in time to another within the same timeline frequency results in a non-jump. Nothing happens."

She highlighted a line several conversion points away, a branch that looked utterly removed from the one up top. "You're from a line more like this one, from an earlier point on it, yes, but from after a conversion point that resulted in a timeline split. Your radiant signature is different, and travel from one timeline to the other doesn't produce any paradoxes at all. However," she bit her thumb while trying to figure out the next part, or at least how to explain it.

Midori wiped the last tear from his eye and stared forward, absorbing the information with a hard, determined stare.

"However?" Mina sat up and furrowed her brows together. She drew strength from Midori's hand over hers.

Mei used a tracing function to draw a red line from their timeline towards an earlier point on the one she highlighted to represent Mina and Midori's time back at UA. "Once we establish a time bridge, it creates a causal relationship between the two independent timelines. It locks them in step together for as long as the bridge persists. Even after the bridge is closed, it has lingering effects, primarily barring passage to earlier time-stamps along either timeline. While it's inactive now, we established a time bridge between our now and your present. That means that no one here or there can travel to an earlier point than that in either timeline."

Mina wasn't sure she got all that, but Midori marveled at the new information despite his emotionally distraught state. "So, we live in a multiverse that self-corrects to prevent paradoxes?"

Mei smiled at him. her eyes gleamed with inventive glee from shared scientific understanding. "Exactly! We used to think that travel from one timeline to another would spawn new timelines, but that's not true at all! The best we can tell, timelines are created at random by actual randomness. For example, you know how I said that there are millions of possible children you could have? Well, as best we can tell, there are, consequently, millions of timelines due to how random natural reproduction is!"

Midori's despair, though still present, was displaced by awe at the sheer massiveness of such an infinite array of possible worlds. Mina glanced to her side, watched him while his analytical mind latched onto the facets of what just occurred. She admired him while he was deep in thought more than she appreciated before. "You're cooperating with other timelines," he whispered. "You didn't invent time travel independently. Deku, the one from this world, explained that everything branches from one major ally, an Izuku coordinating the entire war. If time bridges sync timelines, then that means that he's linking his world to countless others to stop the enemy from dialing back to an earlier date, isn't he?"

Mina raised an eyebrow and wondered how he leaped to that last part.

The adult version of Mina and Mei exchanged a worried glance while Midori puzzled further through everything Mei said.

"The war," he declared, locking eyes with Midoriya Mina, his alternate self's wife in a future he'd never be part of as more than a guest, "is a war between timelines, but it's one where our side is stopping theirs from reaching back into our past. That's right, isn't it?"

Mina's gold-on-black eyes regarded him proudly, gleaming with mischief. She saw her adult version beam at him with a similar sense of pride. Midoriya Mina chuckled. "We should have known not to tell you anything. I hope Toshi grows to be as smart as you are, Midori."

I hope so too, Mina confessed in her heart.

Toshinori's smile was the beaming pride of an eclipsed father living in the shadow cast by his son, with tearful eyes blinded by the young man's radiance. "You can always trust young Midoriya to figure out angles that others miss.

Mei coughed, regaining everyone's attention. "The important part of this, though," she stressed for him, "is that you don't need to feel pressured to end up with anyone just to ensure that some child from the future will exist."

Mei's smile was genuine and empathetic. "You might miss them when they return home," she said, avoiding mentioning Nana or Toshi by name, "but you'll know they're still out there, still alive, and safe."

"Yes," Midoriya Mina jumped on that point. "Midori, Mina, for you, no, for all of us, the future is still unwritten." She took hold of his hand, then Mina's with her other hand. "Please, don't force yourself to end up with each other or anyone else. Don't alter the course of your lives out of some obligation. The future's still in flux, and not just for you. I know you, both of you, better than you know yourselves, and I know you're already thinking of going down that path. Don't do it. Don't spend the rest of your lives trying to conform your future to anyone else's version of it. If you fall in love, great, with each other, with others, fine, but don't force it, not for anyone."

Midori couldn't stop his lip from quivering. Super strength alone couldn't prevent that. "I wanted that future," he whispered. "I wanted to be Nana's father so badly."

Mina nodded and bit her lip. "I wanted to be Toshi's mom. I still do, even if I know I can't."

Toshi's mother leaned in and kissed each teen on their forehead, then on their cheeks, moistening her lips with their tears. "I know," she said to them. "In a way, a profoundly important way, you both already are. It's up to you, though, to decide what future, if any, you want. Midori, if you want a future with Ochako, one where you can have a child like Nana, go for it, but don't let anyone chain you down to an outcome you don't want. Mina, the same goes for you. If you want a life like mine, you're going to have to win over this adorable green ball of emotions here. I'm biased. I want you two to end up together because I can't imagine being with anyone else, but Mina, you're not me. Neither of you should listen to me or let anyone from any timeline influence who you'll become someday."

Mina nodded. Even if she wanted this life, wanted Toshi, it wouldn't be the same. Still, a new thought edged into her mind like a knife insinuating itself into a sheath. Glancing at Midori's face, she questioned her previous assumptions that he and Ochako were meant to be.

No. The future was unwritten. Mina couldn't chalk anything up to fate or let things play out. She had decisions to make and no time to waste making them. After all, Ochako already had a head start.

Toshi's mother rested her hand over Midori's heart. "Please," she implored. "Keep my son safe while he's back there with you. Don't turn that into a mission to love a girl you don't want to love. Let your heart decide what it wants, without your head and your stupid heroism getting in the way. Promise me, and yourself too, that you'll do that."

Midori took a long, calming breath, as if feeling the weight of Mina's hand on his chest. Mina watched him draw strength from her, this woman that she might someday resemble. He sniffled. "Alright," he said. "I promise. I'll watch your son for you, and I'll let my future be just that, mine."

Toshi's mom smiled, then turned to regard her younger version. She reached and took Mina's hand. "I know you'll do everything for Toshi that you can. Keep him safe and happy and remind him that his mother and father love him. You have the rest of your life in front of you. Decide what you want for yourself, Mina, and go for it."

Mina stared into the heroine's eyes, wondering at the remarkable difference in this woman's messages to Midori and herself. Mina knew this was a code the moment she caught a tiny uptick, the barest hint of a mischievous smirk on her counterpart's lips.

If you want him, Mina, you'll have to fight for him. It's worth the fight, those eyes said. Trust me. It's worth it.

Mina knew without one doubt that her pro-hero variant was right. "I'll make sure Toshi feels all the love you want to give him as if I were you, as if we were his parents. He'll feel our love, and he'll know nothing but a family that keeps him safe and laughing."

Midori placed his hand on top of their intertwined fingers, tan and scarred atop mingling pink digits. "I promise, too. Toshi needs his dad, and I'll substitute that for him, just like I do for Nana."

Mina smiled and promised herself she wouldn't cry.

Midori turned to regard Mei, who watched the exchange between the two Minas and young Izuku with rapt interest. "What happens next? What, in blunt terms, is our plan?"

Mei's smile was eager, like she was about to unveil a new baby, an invention, to the world. "Now the fun begins."

{}

Mei's instructions to the Midoriya family were clear: do what you can to enjoy one more evening together. Toshi alone didn't understand the severity of those words. To him, it was an excuse to have a sleepover with everyone.

Mina giggled when Yagi Inko took that as her cue to banish everyone else in the family from the kitchen, including Mina's older counterpart. Toshinori picked up Shishito before announcing that he was heading upstairs to set everyone's futons out.

Lost in the moment, Mina startled herself when Midoriya Mina placed a hand on her shoulder. "Hey, I need a word with my husband. Would you two mind getting Toshi ready for a bath and running the water?"

Midori immediately picked up his future son or one of his possible futures. It all was so confusing for Mina. Toshi giggled in Midori's arms, happy to be with his favorite hero in the whole world. "Oh, uh, which way, ma'am?"

Mina's mouth twitched up into a smile. So stiff. So proper. So adorable. Her eyes wandered over to Deku, the hero he'd become someday, relaxed, confident, mouthwateringly hot. God, the man was stacked. She idly wondered how gradual the transformation would be, what role she would play in it. Would she get to marvel over the years while drawing him out of his shell, showing him new ways to have fun?

Midoriya Mina edged the two of them towards the stairs before kissing her son on the top of his head, right between two of his horns. "The master bathroom is upstairs, through the master bedroom. Mina," she turned to address her teenage self. "You know the way. Go on and show him."

Mina's smile became an eager grin. She'd get to show Midori all those family pictures! Oh, she thought, I haven't seen the ones in the bedroom yet! "You got it, future me!"

"We'll be up in a bit. Oh, and Toshi! No monsters in the bath!" his mother called after them. Toshi, hearing her order, crossed his arms, puffed up his cheeks, furrowed up his face, and scrunched his lips tighter than a dog's rear end. Someone hoped to have monsters in their bath.

Mina reminded herself to ask what Toshi's Quirk was. No dragons in the house. No monsters in the tub. How much had his Quirk diverged from his parents? What did you get when you mixed super strength and acid? For that matter, was strength a good description of Midori's Quirk? Should she tell him about the video game and his ability to fly?

Those thoughts slowed her steps as she followed her classmate. She came to a stop, though, for a completely different reason.

The pro hero spouses molded together, their bodies pressed tightly as their faces inched closer. With their son out of sight, they expressed a desperate, terrible longing. The love they shared wasn't momentary passion or anything remotely silly. Mina knew this was the desperate yearning of two lovers who knew, with unshakable, dreadful certainty, that this was their last evening of normalcy before a grim, terrible future would tear their family apart.

Mina felt perverse for witnessing this but couldn't turn her eyes away. Deku's lips brushed over his wife's, a sad note intermingled with joy for how closely he held her, still in his arms, not yet parted by the war that raged around them. For this one night, their home was an island of peace in a sea of darkness and uncertainty.

Mina ached when her pro-hero future traced her husband's jawline, her nails etching into Deku's skin as if marking him as hers. "Does my king need his queen?" she whispered, uncaring that her mother-in-law was one room away.

Mina covered her mouth before ascending the few steps needed to get out of eyesight.

"Yes," Deku hissed. "I need you, Mina."

Mina froze upon hearing her name breathed so huskily, so laden with desire that it hurt her deep in her core.

"I'm right here, doing your dishes," the family matriarch laughed while reminded the pair, breaking the spell enough that Mina found the strength to scramble up the remaining steps, joining Midori on the second floor.

He was similarly enchanted, and at first, Mina wondered if he heard the king and queen downstairs. Those were pet names she would not forget anytime soon, she admitted to herself with a yearning shudder that traveled from her core outward, culminating in her fingers and toes.

Once she caught up, though, Mina saw that Midori had fallen into a trap. All around him, happy memories giggled and laughed on the walls, a life, a future, one he never anticipated or wanted, teased him. Mina looked over his shoulder, her face mere centimeters from his neck while he held Toshi on the other side of his face.

It was their wedding photo. The pair kissed for the camera, but the emotions were palpable, tangible, grabbing the two students despite knowing their photographer likely prompted the moment. Their love was too genuine, too spontaneous.

"I like this one," Toshi pointed to another photo, one where Mina laughed while shoving a handful of cake into Deku's mouth.

"I like that one too, Toshi," Midori admitted. His jaw trembled, and Mina ached with pity for him.

Before thinking it through, Mina kissed him on his neck, softly, much like he'd done for her when they were tickling Toshi earlier. She half expected him to blush, to stutter, to shy away. Instead, he froze, holding stock-still while her lips lingered near his ear.

"I'm here for you, Midori. You're not alone. You know I want to be Toshi's mom, too. We'll get through this, and we'll take the best care of him and Nana as we can. Hey, look on the bright side," she grinned before angling herself around him, leaning into his field of vision.

He couldn't help but smile at her antics. Toshi made it worse by giggling, increasing the light Mina found in Midori's smiling eyes, banishing clouds of doubt away. "What's that?" her friend asked.

Mina grabbed his shoulder, almost shaking him with excitement. "We found two futures where you're a badass hero, Midori! Everything you said you wanted? You're going to get it."

He laughed with her. Still, his smile was sad, and it hurt to watch that melancholy creep it's way into his expression. "What if I want more than I did before this started? What if I-"

Toshi tapped him on his face. "Dad. Dad! It's easy! You always tell me the answer to this one!"

Midori turned to face their future son. That thought, wanting that future, hurt Mina's heart, but she refused to let that hurt go. Midori smiled, either despite or because Toshi kept tapping his teenaged dad's face, from his cheek to his lips. "Go on, Toshi, tell me."

Toshi practically bounced with excitement. "Work hard for your dreams, dad! You can do anything, be anything, if you put in the work!"

A tear escaped Midori's eye, but his smile grew exponentially bigger. "You're right, Toshi! C'mon, let's run your bath!"

The crimson kid threw his hands skyward in victory. "Yeah! Bath time!"

The two teens laughed, enjoying his enthusiasm.

The bedroom assaulted Mina and Midori shamelessly with the love their older versions shared. Deku and Mina posed for photos that made their vacation photo in the secluded cove seem tame. Almost nude, the two were painted in "outfits" that paid skin-tight homage to their heroic personas. Yet the pair were tastefully posed, intertwined like dancers.

Mina wanted to stop and gawk. The lewder parts of her mind wondered if computer imaging was necessary to hide their most intimate privacies or if she simply couldn't spot the telltale lines that would betray some scant token modesty. For that matter, who did they trust to take these photos?

Damn! Deku had an amazing pair of legs, not to mention his tight, dimpled ass and abs for days! Mina fought the urge to snap a photo with her phone.

She finally realized that Midori was as stiff as a board next to her. She regarded him and busted apart with laughter at what she found. He was almost as red in the face as Toshi! His mouth hung open, unhinged from his skull. He stared forward, wide-eyed, but he wasn't wandering up and down adult Mina's shameless display of pink skin or her painted leopard spots. No, Midori focused hard on their faces.

Toshi tried several times to shut Midori's mouth. He giggled whenever it fell open again.

Mina took stock of the image, this time moving her eyes away from Deku's stacked muscular form to take stock of their faces, and gasped. Their open mouths. Their eyes, burning gazes locked on each other. These two weren't just in love. Here, they openly shared how much they lusted for each other, their expressions far more wanton than their mostly unclothed bodies.

Does my king need his queen? The words echoed in Mina's skull.

Yes, the answer hissed from somewhere much lower inside her. "Alright, we've been up here way too long! They're bound to listen for the sounds of running water! Come on, Midori, we're wasting time!"

"Um, yeah, time, um, yeah," he tore his eyes away from the pair of lovers and followed Mina into the master bathroom.

Opening the door, they found a traditional Japanese bathroom with wood-slatted walls and flooring, partitioned away from a modern water closet with a luxury bidet-seated toilet. The central piece of the whole room was a massive stone tub with a wooden lid. Mina stared at it, marveling at the luxury, the size. Even with the cover in place, she felt sure it could hold eight people without their feet touching. An empty stand to the side practically screamed that this was where the lid went during bath time. Could anyone other than Midori lift the lid?

She glanced at Toshi's smiling face, the eager gleam in his eye while staring at the tub. Mina immediately knew why they'd put a lid on the tub. Someone was a mischievous climber, and the suspect list had only one name on it.

Exterior shower space flanked the tub, allowing two people to wash separately and enter from either side of it. Each wash area came complete with drainage meant to disappear under the wooden slats, allowing the water to slip away invisibly to plumbing below.

Blank wall scrolls hung along the walls opposite the entrance and the water closet. Lights turned on as they entered, small projectors pointing at the scrolls, each depicting mountains embraced by winter. The room was pretty enough to make Mina fall in love all over again.

It was even more lavish than the school trip to a hot spring. Mina loved that memory, and it was immortalized here for all time. Deku and his wife didn't need photos here or any tiny decorative touches to remind them of their shared youth, more than a decade ago for the pair that owned this home, but only a fraction of that time for Mina and Midori.

"I could live in this bathroom," Mina marveled aloud.

Midori wandered around the spacious room, orbiting the tub like a planet drawn to the sun. "I don't see a faucet."

Toshi grabbed onto Midori's sleeve and shook with excitement. "It fills up from below! Mom and Dad use the panel over there to do it!"

Mina immediately found the panel tucked into the wall, but all she saw was wood. She gasped, a smile forming on her lips when she flipped the wood cover up to reveal a touchscreen underneath. Facial recognition unlocked the controls, which unveiled themselves with a delightful flourish.

Environmental controls, water temperature, jets, mineral baths, ambiance lighting, and more features than she could count assaulted her senses. "Alright, I have to change what I said. I want to move into this bathroom. I've not even turned anything on, but I already want to move here. Midori, promise me that no matter what, we'll have a bathroom like this someday?"

Toshi laughed, but Mina felt the silence behind her eat away at her soul. She looked over her shoulder to meet Midori's eyes.

Izuku's eyes.

"Izuku," she called him, shocking him from the maze of thoughts he'd lost himself to, using his name to jar him from his thoughts. "You don't have to promise that," she let him know, all jest removed from her voice.

"I, I mean," he hesitated, and that pause, the crack in his voice, it hurt her more than she wanted to admit.

"It's alright," she lied. "I know. I'm rooting for you, Izuku." She wasn't.

He was her king, she heard herself whisper in the quiet recesses of her mind, but she wasn't his queen.

Not yet, another corner giggled, ferocious mischief infecting every facet that laughter had to offer.

More giggling erupted, and Mina turned to the source, confirming that the laughter she heard wasn't in her head, though it sounded similar enough that she knew the family resemblance. Toshi's smile was impish, and it reminded Mina of her own. "Do you want me to show you how the tub works?"

Midori put the child down on the floor. "Your mom and dad asked us to get you ready for your bath. They didn't tell us to fill the tub for you. Let's get your clothes off and wash you up, alright?"

"I agree, but I assume we also should fill the tub for them," Mina offered, returning some attention to the display in front of her. "Let's just fill it and warm it up for them." She hazarded a few buttons, hoping that she entered the sequence correctly.

The tub whirred, swished inside, and the large top rumbled. Cold air vented from underneath.

"Dad usually puts the top over there before they press stuff," Toshi said, pointing to the stand on the far wall while picking his nose.

Midori acted quickly, lightning shooting up and down his arms and legs as he hoisted the massive lid up and away from the tub, carrying it far over his head to ensure it wouldn't bump into Mina while he walked past her.

Mina bit her lip. She often forgot how strong Midori was, though she considered it when they were in group exercises together for their heroics courses but didn't give it any thought in other circumstances. She'd never forget the day he lifted the fridge in their dorm so that she could sweep underneath.

What would it feel like for someone that strong to hold her, to know they could crush her but never would?

What would it feel like to fly in Midori's arms?

She bit her lip while Midori settled the massive lid into place, then turned, horrified while she watched Toshi climb over the lip of the gigantic tub. "Toshi!"

"You only used cold water, mom!" he complained while throwing his leg over the lip of the tub. "Don't worry, I got it!" he called out with a smile.

"Toshi, what-" but before she finished, her son unleashed fire from his throat, coating the tub and the water both with sticky, enduring flames. The fire stuck to the stone and water, uncaring that neither substance wanted to burn. Fuel wasn't necessary.

The air immediately smelled like acrid and ash.

Mina ran towards him, working around the tub, but recoiled, shielding her face with her arms when heat overpowered her. She shut her eyes instinctively against the harsh, corrosive light, but every ounce of heroism and maternal strength she had forced her to walk forward against the conflagration.

"Toshi! Toshi, stop!" Midori called out, running forward, far less carefully than Mina. He ran headlong into the boy's flaming breath, rolling down into the water before leaping up, catching their son before he could fall into the watery inferno he'd made.

"Midori! Toshi!" Mina ran forward and pulled her classmate from the tub. His clothes were on fire.

"Mom! Dad! I'm sorry! I, I," black, tar-thick tears rolled from his eyes, guilt and smoke mingling there. He stood back against the wall, covering his mouth with his hands, staring wide-eyed while Midori rolled on the floor.

Midori rolled, smothering fires one at a time. Mina reached for a nearby faucet. "No," her future husband spoke sternly, oddly calm while flames licked at his neck and arms. "Water will make it worse! Look for a fire extinguisher. They have to have one."

Mina's heart hammered in her ears. If she didn't act quickly, Midori would burn.

Her eyes darted back and forth, throwing her gaze frantically across the room, then to the door they entered from, then again to random walls and corners, wondering where-

"Mom!" Toshi called out, pointing.

She followed his crimson fingers, trailing across the room until she spotted it. One wooden slat looked different from the rest. Lacquer stained, with a crimson finish, she immediately understood it was meant to catch the eye and why.

Mina ran, not bothering to stop, slamming herself into the wall. How did the panel work? Was she supposed to pull, push? She worried for nothing. The covering fell away, sliding off as she struggled with it, complicating the motion with adrenaline-fueled panic.

Yanking the extinguisher from its alcove, Mina ignored the alarm. Help would come, either triggered by the panel falling away or the fire itself, but Mina wouldn't wait for assistance or instructions. Midori needed her. He needed her! She refused to let him burn for even one second more.

It was unlike any she'd seen before, but she intuited the design quickly. Rushing, she stood over her classmate and unleashed a torrent of fine powder-dry foam over him. He covered his eyes immediately. The room smelled like chalk, combatting the acrid smoke stench.

Deku appeared through the doorway, moving so quickly that air currents buffeted Mina's hair. Foam and dust kicked up around Midori as he curled up on the floor. Before she could blink, the number one hero doused the fires that clung to the wood near Midori as well as the ones floating in the tub.

She uncovered her face in time to see Toshi's mom run in to scoop him up. He clung to her like a scared koala.

Deku knelt next to Midori and systematically tore through the buttons on the teenager's uniform. When Midori sputtered with protest, Deku leveled a glare that denied all objections. "Everything. Off. Now."

Mina stared, shivering with unspent anxiety while Midori removed article after article of singed, charred, and sticky clothing. However, before long, her older counterpart came over and directed her to the other side of the tub. The hulking stonework blocked her view of Midori. However, she did observe the pile of clothes Deku cast to the other side of the room. There were boxers on that pile.

Mina bit into her lip. Curiosity barely explained her desire to peek around the corner. For once today, it wasn't Deku she wanted to admire. It was Midori. Her heart hammered with worry for him, but her eyes hungered for him.

Mina winced when Deku pulled out a secondary extinguisher and doused Midori in more dry foam. "Sorry, kid," the man sighed gruffly. "Toshi's breath attacks are brutal. If we don't take these precautions, you could reignite. Ever hear of spontaneous combustion? Not fun."

"I'm sorry, Dad," Toshi muttered. "I just wanted to heat up the tub."

Midoriya Mina, meanwhile, patted her son on the back while turning off the blaring alarm. Then she pressed more buttons to drain the tub. "It's alright, Toshi, but you have to be careful. Your Quirk is dangerous, so you have to take better control of yourself. Hey, hubby, how's mini-you?"

Deku glanced this way and that over Midori's prone body, turning the boy over to make sure he didn't miss any spots. "White and pasty, but a good shower should fix it."

Yagi Inko rushed in, her husband trailing behind her. "We heard the alarm. Oh, Izuku!"

"Mom," Deku urged. "Don't touch him! Dad, get the hazmat bags from our closet. We have to bag his clothes and dispose of them outside. Mom, go to the basement and print some new clothes for him. We'll make sure he's thoroughly cleaned off and safe."

Mina watched in horror at the efficiency of it all. The family took to their tasks without batting an eye. They knew how terrible Toshi's Quirk was, how damaging it could be. They had precautions stored throughout the building, it seemed. She glanced at the tub and surrounding wood, already noting that nothing was permanently marred.

It wasn't stone or wood, she realized. Nothing in here was a natural substance that Toshi could burn. It wasn't until then that she realized that none of the floors throughout the home were soft. No carpets. No tatami mats. There was a rug in the downstairs living room, but she imagined the polymers involved would resist Toshi's corrosive fire.

"Toshi, will you be good while I clean up?" her older self asked.

Toshi nodded emphatically. "I will, mom! I'll be good! No more monsters! I'm sorry, I'm sorry I burned everything again. I don't want to be a monster! I want to be a knight! The one that saves everyone from the monster, but, but I'm the-"

"Oh, my baby," his mother hushed him, holding him tightly. "You're not a monster! You're precious! You're my knight! You, you-"

Mina almost cried. Every bone in her body urged her forward to place her hands on Toshi's back, to let him know no one judged him.

"Hey, Toshi," Midori spoke up. Mina turned to look at him and almost shrieked with laughter. His hair and face were stark white. "You have an awesome Quirk. I bet you'll fine-tune it and become a great hero someday, maybe as good as your dad!"

He smiled. He was on fire mere minutes ago, doused, stripped naked, embarrassed in front of his mother, who probably saw everything when she walked in, and he smiled despite everything. For their son, Midori would bear anything, do anything, and smile all the way through.

Mina didn't know that happy thoughts could make her heart hurt this much.

"You're not mad at me for burning you, dad?" Toshi sniffled. He turned large, puffy eyes to look at the pasty ghost that, somewhere under that powder and marshmallow mess, was Midori.

Midori's grin grew. "Not a bit. You didn't burn me, Toshi. I caught fire by trying to help you, and I'd do it again without question."

"That's the man I married," Mina heard her older counterpart whisper. "I knew he was in there already."

Deku busied himself by spraying down the tub with a fine powdery mist, then using one of the nearby shower nozzles to rinse everything liberally. The nozzle extended more than Mina would have guessed, and Deku didn't care about what or who he got wet, so long as every trace of Toshi's lung-fire and the dousing powder all washed away.

"Alright, your turn, everything," Mina heard her older self say. Wait, what?

Better double-check, Mina thought to herself. "You want me to-"

Her older, pink face wasn't smiling. "Strip. We don't know if any fine particles got on your clothes."

Mina glanced his way, but all Midori did was give her a smile and a thumbs-up before descending back to the floor, granting her a modicum of privacy. That didn't address the fact that Deku would see everything. He'd probably seen it all before, or maybe a version only a few years older, but still, this felt weird.

Hot, but weird.

"Duck down if you're worried about, but still, off, all of it," her pro-hero version insisted.

While Mina disrobed, she heard some commotion on the male side of the room but was distracted from that as adult Mina entered some complicated commands into the console. Shortly after, fine mist vented into the room. The whole bathroom cooled considerably, causing Mina to shiver as she stripped off the last of her clothing. She instinctively covered her breast when she felt herself pebble uncomfortably.

Midoriya Mina put Toshi down on the floor. The tub whirred behind her, refilling. "Toshi, I have to douse you and mini-Mom here. You know that, right?"

He nodded, lips quivering with emotions he fought to store inside. The guilt ate at him, and Mina almost crushed him into a hug, but before she could blink, the pro hero grabbed a small packet from further inside the emergency wall alcove and flung powder over both of them.

Mina curled up, blocking her face and tightening her eyes while hiding her chest and-

"Nope, let your guard down," Midoriya Mina insisted, mercilessly sending another cloudy wave of powder over Mina's face and chest once the teen bared them both to the assault. Afterward, she coughed.

By the time Mina opened her eyes, she watched in horror as her older counterpart picked up both her clothes and Toshi's with a pair of tongs before bagging them. "Wait, my phone-"

The adult held up a calming hand. "It's already sitting in the alcove right over there. Don't worry, we put Midori's, or your Midori's, in there next to yours."

My Midori. Mina swallowed. Will he be mine?

Oh god. Will I be his?

"Midori," the woman called out, breaking Mina's sweat-inducing thought process.

Mina dashed her arms over herself and curled up when Deku rounded the tub to collect the bag and take it from the room.

Naked, covered in white powder, but unsteady on his feet, Toshi toddled after his father, uncaring about showing his butt to anyone else around. "No, Toshi," Deku said gently, crouching to talk to his son. "I'll be right back, but grandpa and I have to take these outside."

"Okay, dad!" Toshi waved. "I'll miss you!"

"I'll miss you too, Toshi," Deku said. "Now, go get washed up."

Smiling, Toshi turned around, flashing Mina and his mother. He walked towards them, stopped, picked his nose, then looked back and forth to both sides of the tub. He shivered, lifting one leg then another out of the mist that coalesced on the floor around him. "Mom, it's cold."

"I know, Toshi," his mother said while removing her clothes. She pulled a large stack of towels from another panel hidden in the wall. "We have to bathe the room, not just ourselves. It's what we do when there's an accident. Now, let's get that powder off you and wash you up. Alright?"

He giggled. "Alright, mom!" He shiver-walked towards the female side of the tub then stopped. "Can dad wash me?"

Mina couldn't help but grin as Toshi's mom laughed. "Why don't you ask him?"

Toshi turned excitedly, shivering in the mist like a ghost. "Dad! Can you wash me?"

Midori's laugh never sounded so soothing, so wonderful to Mina before. She wanted to hear it every day, to note how his voice, his mirth, would grow, change, deepen with time. "Come on over, Toshi. Let's see if we can get washed up before the girls can."

"Oh, you're on!" Mina called back in challenge. "We'll be washed up and in that tub in no time!"

Wait. All of us? In the tub? Me? Naked? With Midori? In the same tub?

I just told Midori that I'd be naked in the same tub as him!

Mina felt herself grow hot despite the frigid surroundings.

"Here, let me get your back," her older counterpart said, already turning their shower on and pulling bottles of liquid body wash out, along with an array of washcloths.

From the fumbling sounds and Toshi's laughter, Mina knew they'd win the race. Midori, after all, had no idea where everything was. Mina had a home team advantage.

She wanted to ensure victory. She'd be comfortably seated in the tub by the time Midori finished. Then she'd get to relax and enjoy the view as he ascended over the lip, Toshi in tow, and ascended his naked butt into place.

Mina might get to see a lot more than his butt. Her curious anticipation was so distracting that she didn't notice the shift in her thought patterns, how her thirst expanded from Deku the man to include Midori, the boy.

She decided It was time, then, to cheat and make sure Midori's muttering, Quirk-obsessed mind had too much to wrestle with, though she told herself it was to help get him through what they learned from Hatsume Mei earlier.

"So, tell us about Toshi's Quirk," she grinned while looking over her shoulder.

"He got that one mostly from Midori's side of the family," adult Mina started in on Mina's back, scrubbing harder than the teen would have liked. "His biological grandfather has a fire-breathing Quirk. It went dormant in Midori but evolved, combining with my acid to produce a full arsenal."

Wait. That one? Mina blinked several times. Her eyes widened.

"I can spit acid!" Toshi announced proudly from the other side of the tub. "Oh! Oh! I can make my fire sticky or not sticky! Oh! Oh! I'm not good at it yet, but I can put the fire out! Oh, and I can stop acid!"

"His other Quirk," adult Mina started again with a smile. "He has supreme control over acids and bases in his body and can eject whatever acid or base he needs to after he makes it inside himself. Once he learns chemistry, hopefully with help from Aunt Momo, he'll have a full toolbox."

"Fire, acids, and bases!" Midori marveled aloud. There was something, a crack in his voice. "And he got it, or some of it, from me?"

A sob. Midori sobbed.

Mina turned her head sharply. Her heart stabbed at her. Run to him, her insides commanded. Hold him. "Midori?" she asked quietly, tentatively.

"Toshi has two Quirks, and they combine so well!" Midori's cracked, crying voice echoed through the room. "He has Quirks from both sides of the family. He has my dad's Quirk, my dad's Quirk!"

Mina turned, disrupting her counterpart's efforts to bathe her. She reached forward as if she could touch Midori through the tub.

Midoriya Mina wet another washcloth, significantly larger than the first one, and pressed it into Mina's hands. "Go to him," she whispered.

Mina looked into the woman's eyes, the eyes she'd one day possess. Like hers in every way but older, wiser, more mature. "What do I-"

"Go," the whisper was urgent, a command to action.

He needs you, those eyes said. Don't ask for explanations or a plan. Just act!

Mina covered her torso with the washcloth, barely giving herself a scrap of decency. Oh well, she reasoned. He'll see more of me someday.

Shivering, she crossed to the other side of the room and knelt behind him. Broad muscles greeted her, a wall she could lean against and feel safe. Scars wrapped up his arms. Could someone this strong need anyone?

Yes, she decided. Midori might not know it, but he needed her. He needed Mina. Maybe, in his heart, he told himself that he needed Ochako, but at this moment, with whatever pain Midori felt rattling him inside, Mina decided to be what he needed.

She rested a hand gently against his back, feeling heat radiate from muscles under his skin. He was like iron wrapped in silk. "Midori? Why are you crying?"

He shifted a little, looked over his shoulder, then shot his face forward, crimson cheeks covered by small rivulets. Mina allowed him to believe it was from the shower while he washed Toshi.

His butt, uncovered while he sat on the floor, was obscured by fine mist. Pity. Mina wished she could make it out better. "Open up to me, Midori. I'm here."

He inhaled a shuddering breath. "I want to tell you, to trust you with this, because, look at our son! But," he stopped and reached for more soap.

Mina scooted closer, getting a better view of Toshi while Midori washed their son's hair. "You don't want to tell me without telling Ochako first?"

Midori swallowed, nodded, then turned his face to look her in the eye. Crimson spread from his cheeks to his neck when his eyes darted down before forcing their way back to eye contact. "I," he swallowed hard for the second time. "I should tell you both at the same time. It wouldn't be fair otherwise."

Mina sighed. She knew what to say, but the words hurt while they left her throat. "You love her, Midori. I know you do. Go ahead. Whatever it is you need to say, tell her first. I'll wait."

He turned to face her. Neither cared that there wasn't a stitch of clothing between them. "You will?"

"I'll," Mina nodded, "I'll be whatever you need me to be, Midori, even if it hurts. I want to be there for you, even if all I end up doing to cheering for the two of you. Even if it means I have to say goodbye to all this."

Midori glanced down at Toshi, who amused himself by making soap bubbles in his hands then popping them. He used a cup to rinse the shampoo from the boy's hair. "Do you want all this?" he whispered while the water flowing around Toshi's ears hopefully blocked the implications of Midori's question.

She leaned in close while holding the miniature towel to her chest. "More than anything. You have no idea how much I've fallen for," she bit her lip, cautiously weighing what to say next. "It's unfair for me to tell you I've fallen for you. Let's just say that I'm madly in love with Toshi, okay? He's my knight in shining armor, my prince charming, and I love him with all my heart."

Toshi turned and gave the pair of teens a broad smile. "That's because I'm awesome and, and adorable!"

"Yes, you are!" Mina laughed when Toshi launched himself into her. She held him tight, not caring that they were both still caked with trails of powder or that she let go of the washcloth to embrace her son. Her son!

Midori stared at the two of them, hugging, laughing together. "You remind me of how my mom was when she raised me."

Mina kissed Toshi's cheek before grabbing a washcloth, joining in the cleaning effort without thinking about it. "Comparing me to your mom isn't particularly attractive, Midori, but right now, like this, it's pretty cute."

"Tickles," Toshi mumbled when she washed under his armpits.

"No, I'm serious," Midori said while blushing. Mina caught his eyes wander down her neck before darting back up to her face. She knew her shield of modesty was doomed but wondered how much she should care. "You, calling him your knight in shining armor, seeing you both laugh together, it made me remember one of my favorite memories."

Toshi grinned. "Oh, storytime and tub time! Both in one!"

Midori laughed, but there was a melancholy edge to it that stung Mina. "I used to play hero a lot, rescuing mom from imaginary villains. She'd hide under a blanket, and I'd save her."

His tone told Mina there was more to the story. "You weren't just pretending to be a hero, were you?"

Midori shook his head. "No, I was trying to be like All Might. I even used his cheesy lines," he rubbed behind his neck.

Mina leered at him. "Just the lines, Midori?"

He laughed nervously. "Okay, you got me. I wore All-Might merchandise while playing. Mom always played along. She even called me Mighty Boy sometimes during the game. She told me I was her hero. It was," he sighed, "It was some of the best encouragement I ever got, and it was hard having a dream so far out of reach."

Tears left his eyes, undeniable despite the beads of water splashing against his face. "Midori," she didn't know what to say other than his name. She reached towards him without thinking about it, resting her hand on his knee.

Midori took hold of her hand as if to press her into his skin. She glanced down and bit her lip when she caught sight of the washcloth across his lap, the only thing shielding him from her eyes.

Midori's smile drew Mina's attention back to his face. "I'm happy to know we can raise Toshi to have a dream as big as he wants, that he doesn't need a game to get the motivation our boy needs, that Toshi believes in himself enough to handle his chopsticks on his own, that he sees every struggled I had with my Quirk as fuel for his motivation. I'm glad we're raising him to be strong, to look to the future with hope! I," he stopped sniffling.

Tears flowed freely from his eyes, and Mina wanted to lean in, to wipe each one away, to kiss his cheeks and taste the melancholy salt straight from the source but held back. Midori needed her to hold back, so she did.

Toshi didn't understand, though, that sometimes tears mingled sadness with joy. He reached forward, offering his teenage father a hug. "Dad. Don't cry, dad. It's okay. You're the best."

Midori picked up their son and held him tight. "No, Toshi, you're the best. You're an amazing son, and I'm so happy you're here with us."

Toshi fidgeted in Midori's arms. He smiled like an imp. "Does that mean you're gonna wash my butt now? Then tub time?"

Midori's laugh banished his tears. "Sure, Toshi, let's wash your butt. Then we can have tub time."

Toshi's mom laughed uproariously on the other side of the tub, the first disruption they'd had since Mina joined Midori and Toshi on this side. While she was grateful that the adult version of her afforded Mina this privacy, this opportunity, she was glad for the interruption, the joy that awoke the same fire in Mina's chest.

Mina knew it without having to ask. This laughter had love in it, and she was happy to share it with her family. Midori. Toshi. Her family.

Mina wasn't sure what she'd just witnessed, this layer of Midori she'd never seen before. What did he mean by his dream being impossible, by needing a game to feel encouragement? What was the secret he yearned to tell her, that he'd only share after telling Ochako? Every impulse in Mina's body screamed, begging her to ask for more, to satisfy her curiosity.

No.

She'd respect his privacy, she decided. Mina wouldn't pry. With time, Midori would open up to her. If he didn't, couldn't, then she wouldn't force it. Trust. Patience. That's what Midori needed, so that's what Mina would provide.

In no time, the two of them washed Toshi until his crimson behind was pristine. Midori passed him up to his mother, already in the tub, ready to receive him. Mina was almost sorry to have him even that far away. He was so dear to her.

"Tub time!" he called out happily.

Midori laughed, but his smile turned to an expression of awe when he turned around after handing Toshi off.

Mina inhaled sharply through her nose when she understood her classmate's crimson expression. The two of them were alone on the floor together, the only supervision in the room busy looking after her son in the tub above them. They were effectively alone.

Naked, save for the washcloths granting them the barest modesty, and alone.

Mina swallowed hard. She was so thirsty, and her tongue felt thick in her mouth while she watched several beads of water as they trailed down Midori's sculpted abs. "Let me wash your back," she heard herself say.

"I, I," he stuttered. "I'd like that. Do you want me to wash y-y-yours?"

Mina bit her lip while debating between honesty and desire, but she settled the dispute quickly. Her back was clean since her older variant already washed it, as if that mattered. "Yeah, Midori, could you please?"

He nodded, his eyes roving everywhere in the room except for Mina or the washcloth clinging wetly to her breasts as it draped down to between her thighs. "I'll, um," Midori swallowed hard.

Mina smiled. She was just as nervous, but there's no way she was telling Midori that. She turned towards the shower and basin underneath. "Do me first."

Facing forward, she couldn't believe what she said. Do me first? Oh god!

Her older counterpart snickered ruthlessly in the tub.

"Duck Knight!" Toshi laughed playfully. "We shall cross the murky moat of… of… of vanilla!"

Mina smiled. Toshi was so cute.

Midori did more than scrub. His hands kneaded the soap and washcloth into her, hitting her tissues with deep, slow, concerted strength. Then, unable to stop herself, she moaned. His technique bordered on a massage, and it felt like heaven on her back. "Oh, Midori," she bit her lip after his name left her tongue tasting like honey.

"Easy, you two," Mina heard her pro-hero future say with a laugh, the woman's mischievous smirk as audible as her words. "You're not doing anything too age-rated for Toshi to see, are you?"

"Oh, uh, no ma'am!" Izuku's hands shot off of Mina's back as if she were made of fire.

Mina faced forward, neck tense with embarrassment and fury. Oh, you complete cock block! How? Why? You're me!

Mina breathed, calming herself before shrugging nonchalantly. "Midori just hit a sore spot from training the other day. That's all."

"Right, that's all," Midori agreed, scrubbing more soap into a washcloth before applying it to her back again. His fingers sought out every knot and ache she had, working them under her skin while rendering her pink skin so pristine that she swore she'd shimmer.

Mina bit her lips. Midori's fingers were powerful, and while that shouldn't have surprised her, she was glad it did. A flick of his wrist and rapid splaying of his hands sent shockwaves while she watched. Midori was a monster in combat. Everyone knew it during exercises. Mina stifled a moan, wondering if Midori was already formidable in other ways, even if he didn't know it yet.

Water flowed around as someone moved from one side of the tub to the other. Mina turned her head, peeking through her peripheral vision. Midori, though, didn't turn. His face was crimson, eyes focusing on the center of Mina's back, as if afraid of what he'd see if he let them stray from his target.

The pro-heroine winked at her before she lifted one arm and pressed on the adjacent breast. Mina fought not to gasp, refused to widen her eyes when the realization struck: she had an ally for a mission she hadn't fully committed to yet.

The older Mina told him that he shouldn't let some future timeline determine who he ended up with. Mina listened but didn't weigh out the meaning of that at the time. Now, more layers opened up to her.

Midori wasn't guaranteed to end up with Ochako. His future, all their futures, were still unwritten.

Did that mean she had a chance? Was it a chance she wanted, even at the risk of everything she rooted for, his pairing with Ochako?

Mina faced forward and tried to think while Midori ran his hands along her back, polishing away every ache while he distracted her from thinking clearly. You can do this, Mina, she whispered in her heart while mustering herself up.

Should I do this?

Mina didn't think hard about the should, but when she pondered the could of her situation, she dove in wholeheartedly.

"Midori, you're scrubbing so hard it's almost like a massage," she admitted with a smile. "Please," she lifted her arm in imitation of her older self while pressing on the washcloth over her breast, pliantly shifting it, using what she had to offer up more to his eyes than nature provided her. "Could you get my lats, too?"

She smiled while listening to Midori's shuddering breath as he sucked air between his teeth. Boys try to be subtle. They try. They really do. Mina didn't need to turn around, didn't need to look in his eyes. She felt his gaze wander away from her spine, felt his eyes shift as he took in the vision she presented to him.

He trailed the washcloth to her side before ascending. She stifled a moan. He worked over her muscles better than she hoped.

Then, she felt it while biting her lip. Victory.

His fingers trailed beyond the edge of the washcloth, took in the feel of her soap-slick skin as he ventured higher, farther. Mina pretended not to notice when he grazed the border between her sides and her breast. That was the limit, she knew, the boundary he refused to cross.

Not today, Mina conceded. Someday, though.

He withdrew, marshaling his forces while she readied to receive him on the other flank, raising her other arm while pressing the opposing breast into his field of vision, turning her unwashed lateral muscles towards him.

It was all in the name of modesty, of course. She didn't want the washcloth to slip since that would ruin the game, end the chase.

That didn't mean her thoughts were chaste, though. Mina closed her eyes when his fingers ventured across her borders, explored her. She imagined him venturing farther, deeper to places she couldn't invite him to but wouldn't object to his wandering, crossing under the washcloth and taking hold of her, tightening around her-

"Alright," Midori announced. "I think I got everything."

Not everything, Mina almost said while he rinsed her off. "Alright, turn around then," she signaled with her fingers when he removed the last suds from her body.

Turning, Mina marveled as the numerous muscles bunched up under his skin. Did his face hold every ounce of fat in his body? That sweet smile and those cheeks did not match the hard iron under her fingers, the heat radiating deep into her bones. Bruises. Cuts. Burns. His back was a canvas that hinted at a story she'd never have guessed by meeting him.

Mina knew she was supposed to grab up the soap and washcloth he set down. Scrub his back. Her mind roared at her to follow through, but her heart ached. She rested a hand against his shoulder blade and leaned forward. By impulse, she chose the worst bruise she could and kissed it softly, barely touching it with her lips.

Midori inhaled, his back spreading under her fingers, growing vast as he expanded while she watched. She braced against him with her other hand, letting her fingers dance, caress against his thick lats.

"Sorry," Mina whispered. "You have so many scars. I just," she laughed halfheartedly at how silly she was being. "I guess I wanted someone to kiss your boo-boos for you, and before I knew it, I wanted to be the one to do it."

Midori turned to look at her, to meet her gaze. His expression was an awkward mixture. Pain. Desire. Gratitude. Fear. The emotions shimmered across his eyes. "I, thank you, but-"

"You already have someone in mind for that," Mina smiled through the words while they made her ache in her heart. "I'll get back to washing, alright?"

"Mom kisses my boo-boos all the time!" Toshi practically barked over the edge of the tub, standing on a ledge hidden inside the lip. "She's really good at it! Makes it all better!" His white teeth shone in defiance of his crimson face, smiling eyes gleefully taking in the miniature versions of his parents.

"Hurry up," he urged. "It's tub time!"

Mina laughed while taking to the task of scrubbing along Midori's back, only this time with an adorable audience. "We'll go as fast as we can, Toshi. We have a lot of ground to cover, still."

The boy huffed. "That's cuz you're slow! Come on! Look!" He held up a handful of milky-white water. "It's a special bath! Vanilla!"

His mother rolled her eyes. "White doesn't mean it's-"

"It's a vanilla lake!" He stood proudly, not caring if anyone saw his naked body. "I shall defend the lake from lake monsters, as the Crimson Paladin Knight of Justice!"

He ad-libbed his title again. Mina grinned. Never mind the fact that lake monsters probably lived in the lake and wanted to be left alone, she thought. Still, Toshi's imagination was a marvel to behold.

Mina lifted one of Midori's arms to wash up along the sides of his body, playing to the idea that he'd done the same for her, so it was totally innocent washing among friends. She did nothing like feel up his oblique muscles or let her fingers graze his exposed chest. Mina certainly didn't strafe his nipple with a probing fingernail while sudsing him up.

Midori giggled. Mina smirked, filing away several spots that he found ticklish before lifting his other arm, repeating her expedition across unseen territory, feeling chorded muscles while remaining seated behind him.

She giggled while rinsing him off. "There," she announced. "Clean enough to eat off of, but we have an audience, so maybe another time."

Midori turned wide eyes towards her, his mouth twitching into an unbelieving smile trapped between crimson cheeks. The washcloth in his lap shifted. Mina pretended not to notice.

Instead, she decided to make him blush more. "Want me to wash your front, or just wait my turn while you finish?"

"Huh?" Midori stared. He blinked repeatedly as if his brain no longer supplied words. "What? Um, what about us racing to see who could finish first?"

Mina's grin became a predatory grin. "Oh, you and I can race to the finish another time. It's just, now that I'm on this side with you, if I start washing up, you'll see everything underneath this." She trailed her hand delicately down the washcloth, highlighting how closely it clung to her skin.

His eyes followed her hand. Mina spread her knees enough to show him that the cloth indeed covered everything strictly necessary, but no more than that. She'd worn bikinis with less modesty, but they were held up by more than water and surface tension.

Midori's jaw trembled while he swallowed a lump in his throat. He forced his eyes up, away from Mina's curves. She expected him to lock eyes, but instead, he focused on her horns. For all his effort, his face remained the same crimson shade as Toshi's skin. "I'll, I'll, I'll wash up quickly so that you don't have to be embarrassed."

"Oh, Midori," Mina's smile felt delicious on her lips. "I'm not embarrassed. It's too soon for you to see everything I'm proud of, though."

He nodded stiffly, said nothing, and turned around. He grabbed up the soap and washcloth before scrubbing himself so hard that Mina feared he'd abrasively remove his skin. He moved with powerful, percussive gestures as though beating himself up.

Guilt. Mina bit her lip. Hated herself. She wanted to reach for him, to tell him his emotions weren't wrong, that he'd done nothing wrong, that this was all her fault.

Was it, though? Was it her fault that they were here in a future she wanted, that her only road to this life was one they'd travel together? Was the affection growing inside her wrong, something to blame anyone for, to feel ashamed of?

Mina didn't know, but she knew that as confused as she was, Midori's affections were tearing him apart. She inhaled, tried to think of the right words. She had to say something, do something, to let him know that all this teasing was more than a game to her, that her feelings for him didn't involve wanting to make him betray anyone. Not Ochako. Not Nana.

Yes, they were in an unpredictable timeline, one that didn't guarantee Nana's existence. That didn't make his obvious crush on Ochako any less valid, any less real. Mina knew that, but-

The door to the bathroom opened. Deku returned with an exhausted smile on his face. He paused after glancing at the two teens, his eyes quickly passing over Mina before smiling at his wife and son in the tub. "Situation all normal outside. We also have an update. They want us up early in the morning for," he stopped. Trouble gloomed into his eyes while he looked at his son. "For transport."

"They calculated the jumps?" Midori asked, pausing from scrubbing down his thighs.

"Almost," Deku replied. Mina almost asked a question, then Deku took his shirt off.

Mina's eyes widened with awe. "Oh, shit," she muttered under her breath.

Scar-writ arms, powerful, joined together with a broad, expansive chest, angular, squared from years of dedication. Tight, pulsing abs flexed as he turned and walked, defined obliques peeking through before directing her eyes down, as angled sloped into his pants, drawing her in, compelling her to-

"Hey, Midori," Deku's wife called from over the rim of the tub, her breasts bulging against the edge. "Are you done? I'd like to wash my husband, so I'd appreciate it if you got in and kept Toshi company."

"Yeah, I'm good," Midori replied, his voice light. He rinsed and stood quickly.

Too quickly.

The washcloth fell, plopping next to his feet.

Mina completely forgot Deku's near-nudity when she was confronted with Midori's naked, sculpted ass in front of her face. All the teasing embarrassment she inflicted on him returned with dividends as she imagined those cheeks flexing, what it would feel like to hold him as he rested between her thighs while her nails raked down his muscled back, down to his-

He thrust his hands down to cover himself from Midoriya Mina's appreciative eyes before squatting, grabbing the washcloth, and restored his modesty. Then he hurried into the tub. Mina saw everything, sitting at the one angle he didn't consider when hiding himself from her adult version's gaze.

Mina's expression of amazement found the woman's smug satisfaction, and she found it intimidating. She met her pro-hero variant's eyes. Now you have some idea what my life was, what I saw, what I went for, her confident expression said. He won't grow up to become a remarkable man in some far-off future. Oh, no.

He's amazing now. Already. In the present.

Mina felt dismissed, alone, when her older self turned away, checking on Toshi and his new bath time playmate before, clad in a wet towel, she ascended out from the tub to help her husband wash himself.

Deku was nude, somewhere beyond Mina's field of vision, but that's not what occupied Mina's mind. She glanced at Midori's smiling face, laughing with Toshi over a game in the tub that she wanted to join. Mina remembered saying that Midori was cute, not hot, but cute.

Mina regretted those words. After seeing every muscle Midori had up close, feeling his scars where they interjected themselves across his baby-smooth skin, Mina wondered if she had more fuel to fluster her desires than she offered him in return. For the first time, she forgot about Deku, her eyes focusing solely on Midori, the man she wanted. Not someday, but now, as he was in this beautiful moment.

It hurt.

Her heart ached when he smiled, laughing at something Toshi said. Her stomach filled with butterflies when Midori sighed, relaxing as he sat back in the tub. When he spread his arms along the edge, Mina stared at his shoulders, admired how they knotted, flexed, relaxed.

She let her eyes wander over to her duplicate, washing her husband's back. The woman moved slowly, meticulously caring for her man.

Her King.

Mina bit her lip. She focused on washing herself and tried to get her mind off everything around her. Her inner world, however, roared between her ears. She fumbled with the soap and washcloth, but eventually, the task was done. She doused herself with a full bucket of water, then stood.

Midori turned his eyes lazily towards her, smiling while Toshi played with two ducks in the tub. Toshi turned too, and his smile grew bigger.

"Mom! Look! I brought Sir Ducku and Pink Swan Queen!" Sure enough, there in each hand were two rubber ducks modeled off his parents in their hero costumes.

"That's great, Toshi," Mina said while climbing in.

Midori stared at her, then averted his eyes to the ceiling. What was wrong with him? Mina thought it was odd until the realization struck her.

She was naked, with her foot raised on the step up to the tub, thankfully the leg closest to Midori, so at least he didn't see anything down there. Mina covered her breasts with her arms, froze, and considered her next move. Her washcloth was still on the floor. Calmly, she backtracked, orienting her body away from Midori so she could restore her modesty without any further accidents.

At last, washcloth in place, she secured her seat in the tub. The milk-white water soothed her muscles and made her skin tingle. She used a cup sitting nearby to scoop up some of the heated mixture so she could douse her face, neck, and hair. It felt heavenly.

Blinking, she smiled when Midori made eye contact with her again.

He's going to choose Ochako, she reminded herself. I'll never have all of this. He's going to choose her, and I have to let him, and I know I'll die inside when he picks her, but I have to smile for him, be happy for him. I can't tell him or ask him to choose me.

But. I want him to pick me.

Toshi called out to her. "Mom, mom! You told me not to dunk washcloths in the tub. Why is everyone using washcloths?"

Mina almost answered him, but the opportunity passed.

"Because," his mother replied after rinsing off her husband. "We have guests that shouldn't see certain things, and have things we shouldn't look at, certainly not at their age."

Toshi stood on the platform he used as his tub seat. "But I'm naked. What's wrong with naked tub time?"

Mina rolled her eyes and sprinkled some water in Toshi's direction. "No one's going to look at you the same way they'd look at any of us. Your body changes when you get bigger, Toshi, and when it does, it can get embarrassing."

Midori nodded emphatically.

Toshi crossed his arms defiantly but still stood his ground with water only reaching his knees. "Mom always says that I shouldn't be ashamed of my skin! I'm red! Crimson all over! I'll never blush! Never show embarrassment! When I get big, I don't care if my body changes! My skin is mine, and no one will make me feel bad about it!"

Mina scooted towards the crimson boy. "Don't let anyone tell you to be ashamed of who you are or what you're made of, Toshi. Isn't that right, Midori?"

Midori nodded. "That's right! No matter what your Quirk makes you look like, or even people that don't have Quirks, don't let anyone tell you to be ashamed of what you are. Everyone has to decide for themselves who they are inside! We don't tell other people who they are for them, and we don't let people tell us – or each other – who anyone else is!"

"That said," Toshi's mom ascended over the tub's lip before slipping into the water, a towel providing her some modesty in front of the teens. "Sit down in the tub, Toshi. You can't bathe if you're not in the water."

"Yes, mom," Toshi smiled, then plopped down, his butt splashing the water around him like a tiny cannonball. "Love you." He grinned.

"Love you too, Toshi," she patted his arm affectionately.

"And dad!" Toshi almost jumped with excitement when Deku stood up, towel wrapped around his waist. "I love you too, dad!"

Deku's smile could melt glaciers, Mina decided. "I love you too, Toshi. Always have. Always will." He slid into the tub next to his wife and sighed contentedly.

Toshi didn't let his dad relax. He kicked forward, bounding across the water while reaching for the man. Deku caught him turned Toshi around, allowing the boy to use his father's lap like a chair in the tub.

"It's not the bath I imagined we'd take as a family, but it's good," Deku chuckled, and Toshi's smile grew.

"I like having us all in the tub! The whole family!" He looked around. "Wait, what about Grandma and Grandpa?"

Midori stiffened up but relaxed when Midoriya Mina spoke up. "They said they took a bath earlier today and are already winding down for bed."

"I," Mina spoke up, hating to intrude on this family more than necessary. "I'm sorry that we got caught up with the incident earlier, that we're taking up this time you have as a family."

Her older counterpart leaned across the tub and took hold of Mina's hand. "Don't." She shook her head. Her face was severe, lips thin. "You're here, unasked, to help save this family. You have nothing to apologize for."

"We will keep Toshi safe," Midori blurted out, drawing everyone's eyes to him. "I look forward to bringing him back to you."

"I look forward to it, too," Mina said, smiling at Midori. She couldn't take her eyes off him for more than a few seconds at a time. Even with all the beef Deku had on display and the adorable antics Toshi got up to, Mina's gaze wandered time and again to Midori's peaceful, freckled face.

They talked about Toshi's favorite foods, games he liked to play. They shared memories of his childhood and stories he enjoyed hearing. Deku and his Mina were candid about a few memories from back in their day, clues to Mina that their timeline diverged earlier than she suspected, all the way back to their first year at UA.

I have no chance, do I? The thought almost made her cry.

Toshi yawned. He opened his mouth wide and erupted with exhaustion. He tried to keep his eyes open, but they shut a few times.

"Come on," Toshi's mom pressed her husband's shoulder. "Let's put him to bed."

"Sure thing," he said without complaint, despite how short their time in the bath was.

Alien Queen stood first, securing her towel around her to show nothing inappropriate with her ascent. She draped a dry robe around herself, perfectly timing when the wet towel slouched off her body.

Mina decided she'd learn that trick as soon as possible.

Her adult variant accepted Toshi into her arms, and he immediately snoozed against his mother's shoulder. "Let's get some pajamas on you, okay, love?" she asked, only to get mumbling in reply.

Deku stood, holding onto his modesty less gracefully than his wife. Mina barely took note despite the buffet of meat he had on display.

All that mattered was that she was alone in the tub with Midori. Her heart hammered in her chest, and the water felt hot enough to boil her skin.

Is this what love feels like, this burning sensation inside my soul, this thunder in my gut?

His eyes met hers. Was the same realization shared between both teens?

Does he feel any of what I'm feeling?

Why did I have to love someone like Midori, someone I can't have? Why do I have to hurt like this?

"Hey," Deku tried to keep quiet, but his voice carried too much weight for Mina to ignore. "Is it fine to leave two teens alone, naked, in the tub?"

Mina glanced to see how her adult version would respond to that.

The gleam in those eyes, the smirk on that face. "They'll be fine. We were them once, remember?"

Deku nodded, grinned. "That's why I asked."

Mina felt her temperature rise even more.

"Alright, you both be good. Try to soak for another twenty minutes to get the last residue from Toshi's Quirk off of you," Alien Queen ordered. "Then we'll sort out clothes for you when you get out. Robes and towels are behind that panel there."

With a final wave from Deku, his wife added one last barb before they shut the door behind them. "Don't do anything we wouldn't do."

Mina inhaled a long, bracing breath through her nose. The two of you made a child together! What wouldn't you do?

Then, the door latched. Mina stared forward, meeting Midori's eyes.

They were alone.

The silence, ambient, soft, enveloped them. Water. Drip. Drop. The distant hum of electricity powering the lights. Tiny noises reminded them that their isolation wasn't complete, that there were people beyond that door, that this little bubble of solitude was temporary.

Mina resolved to make the most of it.

"Midori," she swallowed.

She had his complete attention. "Ashido."

She stood, holding the washcloth against her chest while crossing the distance towards him. "I thought I'd lose you, that you'd be hurt, burned, because of me, because of our son and our future. I was worried you'd hate me, blame me, that you'd-"

Midori placed his hand on her cheek. The contact startled her, shocked her into silence. "It's alright. Come on, I know they told us to soak, but we've been in here since before they started. Let's give them their bathroom back and see where they want us to sleep."

Oh no, you don't. You're not escaping me, not yet.

She held onto his hand, pressed it harder into her cheek. "Midori. I, I'm so confused right now. I-"

He smiled. Melancholy, but a smile. "I'm confused too, Mina."

He called me Mina. Not Ashido. He's confused. He has feelings he can't figure out.

She lunged forward, splashing water around them. She knew they'd be interrupted. She knew this was wrong, taking advantage of the chaos inside their hearts, but the impulse was too overpowering.

Her lips found his. Wet skin pressed against sopping skin as she descended into his lap, facing him. Their towels bunched up in the way, but Mina didn't want that kind of contact. All she wanted was a single moment where Midori would look into her eyes with the same adoration he reserved for Ochako.

Parting her lips from his, opening her eyes, she met his gaze, afraid of what she'd find there. Hurt? Judgment?

Her heart trembled. Midori's eyes were kind, warm, welcoming. Uncertain, shy, but infinitely forgiving. She stole that kiss from him, stole something that was his to give, meant for another, and already, Midori forgave her.

He smiled, and his eyes gleamed with affection. Mina smiled too, but guilt gnawed inside her. All she could think about was that prom photo downstairs and the fact that she was repeating her older self's transgression.

Midori was too open, too trusting, too selfless, and that meant he was an easy mark to steal, a heart he'd cut into a million pieces if someone asked him to. Mina bit her lip, timid, uncertain. She felt like taking this step meant she was a terrible friend.

"Mina, I," Midori licked his lips, struggling to find the right words. Mina knew everything he was about to say. She knew he'd say that the kiss was a mistake, that they should keep it to themselves, that he belonged with her, with Ochako.

She dove in for a second kiss anyway.

When his fingers grazed her spine, she moaned. When his hands gripped across her back, she hurried forward, pressing more of her body into his. When he groaned against her lips, she pried her way in and stole her first taste of his mouth. Minty. Sweet.

He inhaled sharply through his nose, accepting a deeper kiss from her than she expected to give.

Midori's grip shifted to her shoulders. He pushed, parting their lips. She braced against the rejection she feared.

His lips and jaw trembled. A lone tear trailed down his eye. Mina instantly knew that he blamed himself, that he felt awful for this. He probably felt like he was the one taking advantage, like this was his fault as the one in a relationship, the one meant to enforce these kinds of boundaries.

Mina placed a finger against Midori's lips, silencing the self-recrimination before he could start. "It's my fault," she whispered. "I know you love her, and I am so happy for you. I'm happy for you because I want you to be happy."

Midori swallowed hard. His eyes struggled, forcing himself to look her in the eye, to avoid the towel-obscured, milky white waters below and the nude girl straddling his legs. "I love her," he nodded. "I love Nana too, even if she can't be mine. I love Toshi, even though I only met him today. And I-"

"Don't," Mina begged. "Don't tell me that. If you told me that you loved me, I'd never be able to move on from this, from seeing a future with you and Toshi. This house and everyone we've met here would haunt me forever. You promised earlier that you'd help me reach a future with Toshi. That was before we knew about timelines. You and I both know what kind of promise that was. I'm not holding you to it, but I wanted one taste of you before we said goodbye to a future that means more to me than I thought anything could mean, want more than anything I've ever wanted."

Midori's expression shifted. The knife-sharp eyes returned, the determined hero that refused to back down. "I'll find a way, Mina. I'm not releasing myself from that promise."

Her heart stopped. She reached for Midori. Trailing her nails across his jawline, Mina sank into his eyes, drowned in a sea of green. Her lips brushed against his. How did he manage to confess his love for another girl while she was here, alone and naked in a tub with him? What kind of iron will did Midori have? "What will you tell her?"

Hard emeralds stared into her soul. "I'll tell Ochako the truth. I don't love her any less, but any work we do to ensure we get our own Nana, we'll apply that. We'll find a way to have our own Toshi."

She devoured his lips with hers, pressed forward. A hot iron pushed into her, and she reached down-

He threw his head back and gasped. Mina scrambled back as Midori struggled, his face as red as fresh-picked cherries. All his bravado, confidence, that strong-jawed hero he'd become, all gone the moment her body touched his most intimate parts through his towel. The self-conscious, timid boy resurfaced, banishing the lion-hearted man he'd become to somewhere beyond Mina's reach.

She missed him already.

Midori left a trail of water behind him like a wet dog, holding the drenched towel in front of him, trembling with each step as he ran, retreating from her while she stifled herself, not wanting to laugh.

Mina did, however, admire Midori's wet, naked, muscled, dimpled ass while he ran from the room. She smiled, knowing it was the same grin she saw in that photo, the one that promised she'd break that boy in half to find the man inside.

Not now, though. Mina could wait.