Mirio could be happy to the end of his days with Tamaki. He could wake up with his mate in his arms and Tamaki’s scent in his nostrils and be luckier than anyone.
He should want for nothing.
But sometimes, like today, Mirio sees a little baby gurgling in their parent’s arms at the grocery store and he wants. The baby flails an arm and babbles nonsense at their parent’s soothing hand.
Mirio almost aches with it. The image of his mate. The image of himself. The image of them.
He’s tried to broach the topic a couple times but never quite manages it. How hard is it to ask a simple question like “what do you think about babies?” They’ve known each other since they were children themselves. He just– They’re still young and what if they aren’t ready? What if– He doesn’t want to pressure Tamaki into anything. It would break his heart if Tamaki just agreed to make him happy. His phone rings, breaking him out of his thoughts.
“H-hello? Mirio?” Tamaki sounds nervous over the phone. Mirio can’t stand it.
“Yes?” He tries to make his voice sound calm and not at all worried at getting a call from his mate nearly four hours before his shift is meant to be up.
“Uh, it’s–” He almost sounds frustrated for a moment. “Something happened. At work.”
Mirio’s mind decides to run through every single terrible possibility at once.
“Are you alright?” Mirio tells himself he isn’t dead or hurt badly enough he can’t speak.
“Oh, I’m fine. It’s just–” Tamaki takes an audible breath. “You know that case we’ve been working on?” Mirio does and makes an acknowledging noise. Villains abducting little children from their families for unknown purposes and pain. He hates this case and knows Tamaki feels the same.
“There’s a baby?” Tamaki says it like a question.
“A baby?” Mirio pauses, letting his mind imagine his love holding a baby in his arms for a moment before refocusing on the issue at hand.
“It’s okay. You’re alright.” Tamaki hums a low, soothing note, distracted. Mirio melts at the sound. He knew he’d be good at it. “They can’t identify him and the office is so understaffed right now and…” Mirio hears him take a steadying breath. “I said we could take care of him.”
“Oh.” Mirio breathes out.
“It’s only for a bit!” Tamaki hurries to clarify. “Just until the tests go through and we can be sure he’ll be safe.”
Mirio stares at a random bag of chips for a moment, trying to gather his thoughts.
“Mirio?”
“That’s fine.” He refocuses as best he can. “I’m at the store. Does he need, like, formula or anything?”
Tamaki’s sigh of relief is audible over the phone as he starts to give Mirio the list.
Mirio pauses outside their apartment for a moment, breathes in to steel himself.
It’s only temporary, nothing too ambitious and maybe this will be the opening he needs to subtly gauge Tamaki’s feelings.
He walks in and softens his voice just in case the baby (baby!) is sleeping.
“I’m home.”
“Welcome back.” Tamaki looks a little worn but a quick glance shows no indication of injury. He’s holding the baby and smiles as Mirio sets his bags down.
“Wanna meet him?” He asks.
Mirio can only nod.
The baby is even smaller than he’d imagined, tiny little fingers curled into fists and wide blue eyes to match his hair.
“Say hi,” Tamaki murmurs to the baby. He smells like contentment and quiet joy. “This is my mate, Mirio. He’s really nice I promise.”
“Hi.” Mirio can only go along with it, trying not to make it too obvious how utterly smitten he feels.
“We don’t have a name for him, obviously.” Tamaki notes. “The office is putting Aoi on everything.”
“Aoi?” He doesn’t dare ask if it’s a good idea to name someone they’ll inevitably give up, Tamaki only hums a little in response.
“It seemed like it fit.” Mirio can’t disagree with that, if anything it might be a bit too obvious to name the little one after the color of his hair and eyes. At least they didn’t go with Gonbei.
Tamaki shifts slightly, a subtle offer and Mirio opens his arms to take the baby.
“Watch his head.” Tamaki reminds and nods when Mirio gets it right. Aoi is tiny, precious and delicate. He squirms a little to get comfortable and Mirio might be melting.
“Thanks.” Tamaki shakes his arms out a bit with a weary smile. “I’m not used to that.”
Mirio holds himself back from saying he’s a natural.
It’s not easy, Mirio would never claim that a baby is easy, but watching Tamaki rub noses with Aoi to make him smile almost makes it feel that way.
They’ve taken everything in shifts for the most part. Part of Mirio itches at leaving so much of the investigation to their agency and sidekicks but reminds himself it’s only temporary.
If he’s honest, temporary kind of hurts. It makes his instincts whine with displeasure because couldn’t he just have this? What’s one more member of his little pack? As much as he tells himself it’s only been a few days he can’t quite suppress the unrealistic ideas racing around the less rational parts of his brain about how happy Tamaki seems and how the baby smells exactly like he should and what is Mirio doing leaving his mate all alone and vulnerable while he buys groceries?
Trying to keep to rational thoughts doesn’t help much either. His mind keeps wandering to the paperwork and forms he knows could make this more than an emergency placement.
“Tamaki?” He works up the courage to ask.
“Yeah?” His eyes are bright with happiness when he looks up.
“What if…” Mirio isn’t supposed to hesitate. He does anyway.
Tamaki’s soft smile fades.
“Nevermind, it wasn’t important.” He deflects. Tamaki obviously disagrees but Aoi starts crying before he can ask and the topic is dropped.
One of the first things that Mirio has learned as a hero is the importance of addressing the important things as soon as you can.
There feels like there should be some kind of exception for his personal life.
“Hello?” Tamaki almost chirps when he picks up the phone, it’s something close to the noises he was making to keep Aoi entertained before it started ringing.
Mirio has Aoi in his arms, considering whether or not it’s too early to feed him.
“No.” He nearly jumps at the venom in his mate’s voice. There’s a pause.
“No.” Tamaki almost growls and hangs up without another word.
Mirio is so surprised he doesn’t even react as Tamaki turns to him and snatches Aoi out of his arms. Tamaki is better about phone calls now but Mirio has never heard him outright hang up on someone like that even on his worst days.
The phone rings again and Tamaki outright hisses at it before fleeing the room.
Mirio stands there for a few moments, not sure whether to follow.
Mirio’s phone is next.
“Hello?”
“Mr. Togata? This is Yoshida from the Pack Services Department.”
“Yes?” Mirio very suddenly has an awful idea of what’s going on.
“We have the results back regarding the unnamed baby boy in your custody, tentatively identified as Aoi.”
He takes a deep breath.
“We’ve found no biological family and are prepared to assume custody.”
“I see.” Is all he manages.
There’s a pause. “Your mate did not react well to this news.”
“No, he didn’t.” Mirio can’t exactly argue.
“This is why we prefer to take custody from the beginning.” She says, not unkindly. “Imprinting is always a risk, even with betas and alphas.”
“I understand.”
“You should talk to him.” She remarks. “I’ll leave the case under emergency custody for a few days.”
“Thank you.” He says.
“Remember you have options.” She makes a soothing noise that crackles through the speakers. “This isn’t something to rush.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
It isn’t hard for Mirio to guess where they’ve gone and it isn’t a surprise to find them there.
“Tamaki?” He nudges the door to the bedroom open a crack with his toe.
The answering growl is cornered and scared and too close to completely instinctive for Mirio’s heart.
He peeks his head through, lets his mate see him.
The tone changes, something not quite as certain of the threat.
Mirio takes a cautious step into the room.
“Tamaki?” He holds out a hand, careful not to come too close with his mate in so much distress. It would only make it worse if Tamaki lashed out because his mate was too impatient to wait.
Aoi is nowhere in sight but that’s hardly a surprise. A parent running on instinct like this, especially an omega parent, would never leave their baby visible.
His scent must reach him because Tamaki’s growl turns into an urgent whine and Mirio hurries to obey and turn the cornered posture into more of a defensive huddle.
He scents his mate and the baby at Tamaki’s insistence. They stay for a few minutes while Mirio waits for his mate to calm down.
“Mirio?” Tamaki sounds slightly confused.
He hums in response, his own instincts quite pleased by the idea of staying put.
“Do you remember anything?” It’s very possible he doesn’t, especially since Mirio’s fairly sure he forgot about his quirk in the moment.
“Mine.” Tamaki curls around Aoi even tighter and then bursts into tears.
Tamaki is one of the strongest people Mirio knows, one of the best heroes out there.
“Tamaki?” He hates seeing him cry. “Are you alright?”
“No.” He chokes out. “I can’t. He’s mine.”
Mirio really isn’t sure how to respond to that or if he even wants to.
“I don’t care if I imprinted on him.” He continues when Mirio doesn’t argue. “I just–”
“You want to keep him.”
Tamaki nods, looking absolutely miserable. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Mirio’s worries feel so small in the face of his mate’s distress. “I– I love him too.”
“But you don’t–”
“I’ve been thinking about it, before Aoi. I didn’t know how to bring it up.” He interrupts.
“You want–”
He nods, reaches out to wipe at the tracks of tears on Tamaki’s face.
“You’re not just saying that?”
“Nope.” Mirio smiles. “I know where the custody paperwork is too.”
“I love you.” Tamaki lets his head fall onto Mirio’s chest and pulls Aoi out of his hiding place to hold close. The baby coos and bats at his hair.
“Mine.”
“Forever.” They’ll make sure of it.