Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

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Bakugo was nothing if not thorough.

Such brazen confidence like his, came only with the many years of behind the scenes pre-planning, rigorous training and practice; which meant that whenever he set something in motion it was almost guaranteed to succeed. It was what had made the difference between him just being just a hothead, and having the substance behind the attitude to back it up. People can look the other way to his bad attitude and poor emotional control because he gets the job done expertly and swiftly and with no shortage of style. That, and the miracle - in his opinion - that his PR team does for his public image, made him enviable by all in the hero industry.

Those who knew him best knew that this habit of perfectionism doesn't end when he takes off the mask. It extends itself into his daily life as much as it does in the field. His relationships, his medical problems, his anxieties.

Today on his menu of thoroughness, was a meeting with someone who he considered more family than some of those related to him by blood. It was a meeting, in a coffee shop, with someone he loved, who understood him more than most people ever would.

But it wasn't just any meeting, it was months after months after almost a year of planning and then some, to get himself here. To be sat here, with Eri, who was taking his clammy hand between her two smaller, softer ones and looking at him with absolute adoration and excitement.

His heart was going to punch itself right through the skin of his throat.

It had to be Eri. She had to be the first he told. It was her, in the first place, who had little by little clicked open the steel safe of his heart like a thief and opened it up to bonds he never knew he wanted for himself.

It was her, who had walked into the quiet coffee shop, long silver hair wet and dappled in snowflakes. Cheeks and nose, as red as her eyes, which searched for him, wide with excited glee across the place to spot him all the way in the corner where he'd backed himself against the wall.

It had taken no time at all for her to be all the way over there to suddenly right across the table from him, eager and questioning. It wasn’t unusual for Katsuki to see her when he could, as her somewhat older brother, come uncle, come friend. But this time she knew something was up. For Bakugo to ask her with no lead-up, to meet here, somewhere he normally wouldn't. Something was up with it.

She'd pestered him with messages all week after he'd texted and asked to see her last Monday. In hindsight, he wished he’d asked just a day in advance, so seven days of wondering what secret he was keeping hadn't bubbled up inside her like a can of pop.

Once he'd got it out the way that, no, it was nothing bad (because he couldn't bear to worry her) she had been relentless in her questioning. A day all week hadn't gone by where he wouldn't receive guesses at all hours, in between her patrols. Anything from ‘Deku has a phobia of spoons?' up to ‘You're leaving the country to escape massive tax evasion charges?’.

The last one had got him some choice glares at a very important meeting, as he'd snorted at just the wrong moment while reading his phone slyly under the table. It had become rather a game by that point, with him pointing out inconsistencies in all her theories, and he could never deny her attention when she asked for it.

Now the time had come and she was here, red-faced from the harsh November weather and practically spilling all over the table with impatience. The coffees she’d been carrying had already been sacrificed for her eagerness, spilling beige syrupy tendrils all down the side of the mugs and onto the worn wood. Her hands were firmly around his because she must have seen the reluctance in his expression as soon as she'd blurted; ‘Well? What's the big secret?’.

He swallowed and felt his mouth dumbly open, but no sound came out.

He'd never said it out loud before. Not to other people.

He and Deku had been planning this for so long but the only person he’d said it to was Deku himself, and Deku back to him, as if trying it out to get over the weirdness of how it sounded. Sometimes hushed in the dark in bed, so quiet that the other might not even hear. But they always would, and would repeat it back, and sometimes reassure with small touches of a hand to a hairline or lips to a cheek. Over coffee in the kitchen they, regularly, might say it with their eyes, and Katsuki's chest would burst inside and his face would bloom in the soft yellow light of the window-filtered morning.

And now he was opening his mouth to say it, out loud in public with his throat a thumping croaky mess. Right into Eri’s big wide eyes he looks as he says it, reminding himself of years long gone by and wondering how the hell he'd ever got here and got round to this. How he'd gone from years of his youth spent soothing this woman - then child - from vile nightmares to now be needing reassurance back from her in his old age as he stumbles over words he's been practising for weeks.

“I’m...we're having a baby.”

And it shouldn't be so simple. It shouldn't. It's him. It's him. Trauma and rage and denial and years of painful work and regrets and ‘not norms’ in a world of perceived normality. It shouldn't be able to happen. He shouldn't be able to say those words...but he has. He's said them and he can't take them back.

God, he can't take it back. It's happening. This is happening and he's not sure he's ready even though he's spent so long becoming ready for this. And it had to be Eri who heard it first - not his parents his friends or his mentors. Eri had to be the one because he doesn't have to entertain the 'how when where why when', when it's Eri.

Eri, who had always saw through him and understood him, with empathy he never knew a person could possess. Wise beyond her years Eri, who at barely five years old, had looked at him on a windowsill, full of concern, and asked him ‘Are you sad?’ Because he had been sad even if he hadnt known it. God, he'd be so sad, and she'd known and she'd barely known him but she'd known. She'd never stopped knowing.

And she knows him now, all grown up and heart big enough for all the world to fit in and stronger already than he'd ever been, and she always knows just what to say. She takes his shaking hands and simply beams at him, squeezes them to ground him here and says with absolute undying certainty: “You're going to be an amazing father.”

She's always known exactly what he needs to hear.

- - -

- Several months previous -

“We have been over this, Izuku!” He doesn’t mean to shout, he really doesn’t. He doesn’t act the way he used to as much any more, but he's tired, and they had been having this particular argument for weeks and it was a sensitive subject.

“Kacchan...Katsuki,” Izuku gets down on his knees in front of him, takes his hands gently and he can feel the imploring gaze burning a hole into the side of his face. “Please. I just want to know, why?”

“I just don’t want to!” He manages not to shout again, but there’s a very harsh edge to his voice that instantly heats his face with regret. Deku squeezes his clammy hands tighter and Katsuki knows that if he were to look, there would be a very determined and Katsuki-proof frown knotted right into the middle of green eyebrows.

“Kacchan that would be ok, if it were true.”

Damn Izuku. Damn stalker and his care and his desperation to understand him inside and out and his damn perceptivnes. Katsuki's been avoiding this conversation too long and Izuku, in as many years as they have been together now, is not going to let this go today. Once he latches on to anything he deems to be significant, it isn’t going to get away from him. It’s infuriating . Katsuki needs it, needs him and his stupid years-long patience, but he doesn't have to like it at times like these.

“Deku please.” It’s worth a shot. He doesn’t say ‘please’ often and sometimes his partner is weak to the novelty. But he knows he’s lost when he chances just a small glance (rookie mistake, he must be going senile) and just sees the same pleading ridiculous big eyes, that learned frown, stolen from him, and a tiny hint of a smile on a tense jawline, attempting not to show. Katsuki knows he’s going to crack today. He’s losing. And Deku knows it. Smug bastard. “Fuck.” He curses, and pulls his own hands to rub over his face to cover a strange smirk he can’t quite keep from wobbling across his lips. No use wasting energy fighting a battle he’d lost already.

“Did my cuteness win again?” He hears, coy, through the dark chemical wall of his hands.

“No. Fuck. You’re fucking forty-two years old, don’t refer to yourself as cute.” He was, though, somehow he definitely was - but he didn’t have to know that. Light comes back when strong hands take his again and peel them away from his face. He keeps his eyes closed as compensation. He knows Deku will be looking right at him and he’s not ready for that ridiculous unguarded gaze again yet.

Izuku doesn’t say anything, just stays on the floor in front of their couch, where he’s kneeling between Katsuki’s legs, and presses a small kiss to each of his fingertips, one after the other. “Sappy nerd,” Katsuki comments at the treatment, willing his frown to remain firmly where it is. “If I tell you, you’re going to try and talk me out of it.”

“It sounds like you want to be talked out of it, Kacchan.”

“It sounds like you already know what I’m going to say.”

The finger kissing starts up again, firmer, for each fingerprint, giving away the small bit of frustration in Deku as he persists. “You," Kiss. "Could," Kiss.  "Just," Kiss. "Say it then? If I already know?” There’s an innocence to the suggestions, that over the years, Katsuki has come to learn is teasing, not true innocence.

“Don’t be a cocky prick Deku, you don’t always know me as well as you think.” He does. And it’s annoying.

“Try me.” Deku says flirtatiously, and that’s what does it. Katsuki smirks without thinking and he almost scoffs because the familiarity of challenge between them is warming and perfect.

But it's no less of a difficult admission to drag out. “Fuck you, I...” 'This is hard,' he wants to say, but even admitting that it’s hard to say is...hard to say. He’s been trying to figure out this uneasy reluctant feeling and put it into words for weeks. “I...my DNA is...it’s, not right.”

Izuku goes very still for a moment, hands worrying at Katsuki’s fingertips as he works to decipher the meaning of the statement. With Katsuki, you could never be sure. “Wha-um...is there something I should know? Is it like a genes thing? Are you...ok?” The hands on Katsuki's tighten and wound up he growls again, opens his eyes and swats Izuku across the head.

“No dumbass! I’m fine! I didn’t mean like that.”

“Then what do you m-”

“I’mflawed.” It’s out of his mouth as one jumbled hiss and he swallows, sight locked on to the scar along his partners left wrist, that glints silver sometimes in the sunlight. He concentrates on the way it twitches over muscles when Izuku presses thumbs into his palm, instead of ruminating on the thumping in his own throat.

“Kacchan you’re-”

“Don’t tell me I ain't.”

Izuku looks sheepish, scratching at his face and avoiding Katsuki’s gaze in a way he’s never managed to grow out of. “I wasn’t actually going to.”

“What?!”

Deku laughs, sudden and bright and Katsuki’s heart immediately calms. He wants to laugh too but he isn’t quite there yet. “What’re you trying to say you little shit?!”

Deku giggles again, is rabbity when he replies, “You’re human Kacchan.”

“I’m-” Difficult, angry, overreactive, fucked up, different, dangerous, anxious. “Look. You already know what I’m getting at so I’m not wasting my energy saying it out loud! You ain't my fucking therapist.”

He’ll ignore the part a few minutes ago where he tried to tell Izuku he didn't always know what he was thinking. And the part where he therapist would be telling him how much better he’d feel for saying out loud the things he’s thinking, to get them out of the back of his mind.

“Kacchan you’re lots of things.” Katsuki can feel the smile radiating off him, the same fanboy he always has been. “You’re amazing, talented, strong, hard-working, passionate-”

“Emotional.” Katsuki croaks.

“Pass-ion-ate.” Izuku insists, punctuating each syllable, narrowing his eyes in challenge. Katsuki’s chest flutters and he challenges back.

“Weird.”

“Unique!”

“Broken.”

“Human.”

“Deku!” His voice chokes and he puts a hand to Izuku’s mouth to stop the stream of praise, taking a few breaths before he tries again. “Think for a second, outside of your fanboy head. Think about what I was like, about the things I’ve said and what I've done. Think of how I am. You can’t want that for them.”

“You were only a child.”

“I was a bully!”

“And then you weren’t.” He uses Katsuki’s brief moment of panic to keep trying to talk sense into him. “You were a little kid who didn’t get the right support and it twisted your views. You're not as bad as you think you are!”

It floors him still, that Deku thinks this way. That they’d actually got this far and that he’d apologised and Deku had taken it and worked with it and grew with him, without resentment. There isn’t a hint of any lingering bitterness in those eyes and it’s why Katsuki can’t be the way he was anymore. Nobody else has ever seen him with such acceptance, maybe aside from Kirishima, who is the brother Katsuki had always needed. Nobody else could smash through into his head so easily and just do all the right things. It was terrifying for so long, to be seen. Once he’d shifted his view, to accommodate Izuku’s brand of humility and love, it had become all but essential to life. He dearly wishes, it was that type of DNA, going into their child.

“I hurt people.” He whispers. Important people, people who by some miracle, not only forgave him but spent forty years putting up with his shit.

“You were hurting too.” Izuku says softly, and Katsuki’s eyes hurt where he’s scrunching them tightly, wishing they weren’t burning like they were.

“I don’t want them to hurt.”

“Katsuki.” In another timeline, he’d snap at Deku for saying his name with such pity, but he’s better than that now. He knows it’s not pity. He recognises Deku’s unique tone of determination. That brand of sureness, directed only at him, that said he would change the way Katsuki thought. That he wasn’t going to let him think bad of himself. It was tinged with a sadness that he knows doesn’t come from pity or from a place high up looking down, but from a loved one wishing to take the pain away. “You’ve put hundreds of bad people behind bars. You’ve rescued and comforted thousands of children and people in need. You’ve made your friends smile so many times, I’ve lost count. You’ve helped them be better heroes.”

“That’s...I know Deku fuck just-”

“You worked so hard on your dream despite everything. When you realised you had to change and try harder, you did and you helped me do the same. You broke the record for the most amount of times as number one hero.”

“So did you.”

“You changed the way some of the business is run. You’re the head of one of the best agencies in history.”

“So are you! Stop-”

“You are an amazing cook, you play drums like a pro, you never give up on anything important. You’re tactical and smart and intelligent.”

“That's the same-”

“Shh! You’re caring-” Izuku starts ticking things off on raised fingers, letting his eyes stare off to the upper left in thought. One would think it was Deku’s famous brand of mumbling, but this is a special type reserved only for Katsuki. An intentional, cheeky type and he can feel his cheeks twitching with need to smile.

“Did you just shush me!?” He admonishes instead.

“You never let any of the houseplants die even when I forget to water them - even though you say you’re not looking after them for me.” Izuku puts down another finger. “You can put furniture together in half the estimated time on the instruction manual.” Another one goes down and he says the next fac, like butter wouldn’t melt. “You’ve got a nice butt.”

Katsuki was already smirking but at that he splutters into laughter, Izuku always manages to catch him off guard.

He looks towards his partner somewhat pleadingly, but only gets a giant optimistic toothy grin in response. He looks young all over again.

“Why do you always win.” Katsuki thinks aloud. When did he stop caring about Deku winning over him? Izuku just smiles harder and climbs onto the couch with him, then immediately gets told to ‘get his fucking shoes off the sofa’.

Because they’d been bickering all the way home, distracted as they were, Deku, absolute slob that he is, hadn’t even bothered to leave his shoes in the genkan. The bag of food they’d bought is lopsided on the floor over by the coffee table, oranges spilt out in every direction.

The trademark red shoes get yanked off and lobbed across the room, almost knocking over a lamp. Katsuki bites a ‘Deku!’ and whacks him with a pillow in retaliation but his partner just laughs. Izuku turns to him, legs crossed and face pleased, takes his hands again. He loves his hands.

“What?” Katsuki sighs, letting his head fall back onto the sofa.

“I’m just so excited, Kacchan!”

It's no use glaring by now, but he gives a flat and unamused look instead. “You’re like a child.”

“No, we’re having a child!”

“Who’s fucking bright idea was that? Sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.” He deadpans, and the pillow he’d weaponised earlier bounces off his face from where Deku uses it to smack him with force.

“Will you think about it? Please Kacchan?” Izuku massages his fingers in a way he knows Katsuki is weak for. “I really don’t mind adopting. There’s a lot of kids out there that need parents but...I’m not sure if that’s what you actually want.”

He’s right, of course. There are many things that Katsuki outshines Deku in but understanding Katuski Bakugo wasn’t one of them. He’s waxed and waned over the desire to have a child of their own genetics. Deku’s biology was out of the question, it came with too many unknowns when it came to quirk heritage, One For All and Deku’s biological quirklessness a mixed bag of ’who knows’ potential. They could adopt, blood didn’t mean everything – look at Eri. But there was a selfish little part of him that had a desire to have his own child and he doesn’t understand why . He thinks a part of it is his desire to pass his quirk on and wonders if he’s a bad person for wanting that. Katsuki knows his quirk is badass, but it does have its downsides. The kid might not want anything to do with it. Might not want anything to do with heroics at all. Would it make him like Endeavor to want them to have his quirk anyway? They might hate it. They might not want firecrackers for hands. They might not even get it, it depended on the other donor. They might just end up with his shitty attitude problems instead. There were so many damn unknowns and Katsuki hates unknowns.

“I don’t want them to be just like me.” He states because he’s a proper grown-up and he sometimes reminds himself to try acting like it, plus it’s true. It’s not that he doesn’t want to help make their kid, he just doesn’t like the chance that too much of the bad parts of him will get through. It’s a shame really, that Deku cant contribute, that they both cant. He’s sure they’d be much better off with Deku’s patience and kindness and determination than his temper. Much cuter with soft round cheeks dotted with freckles and big shiny eyes than his consant frown and hair that sticks up in every direction no matter what.

“I do.” Deku smiles, face calm and golden in the setting sun.

“Shaddaaapp.” He drawls, taking the pillow and covering his own face with it, if he wished hard enough, maybe he’d break through his mental survival instinct and manage to smother himself to death.

“No Kacchan, I mean it!” Katsuki knows he does, and the way it makes him feel, all hot inside his chest with the way Deku makes him want to believe in himself just as much, confuses him. He takes the pillow back and ignores the protests. “If they’re like you then I’ll have two people I admire.”

“You’ll have two pain in the asses to bully you.”

“But I love your ass!”

Katsuki takes the pillow back and almost breaks the other lamp with the force he flings it with. Deku’s hair gets fluffed into chaos in the crossfire.

“We’re talking about our child! Stop going on about my ass you perverted little creep!” He gets another pillow and starts hitting Izuku with it in between words, grabbing the flailing hands of his partner as they try to swat him away. Pretends he isn’t at all affected by the siren call of Deku's laughter.

“S-sorry! Kacchan! Stop! Kach-hah!” Deku grabs the pillow and pushes him back with it. “I’m being serious I promise I just...” He lets it go and sits up again, looking down on Katsuki, who’s now lounging back across two-thirds of the soft couch and feeling lighter than he had ten minutes ago. Damn therapist and her good advice. “I mean it. I love you. I’ll love them too. And we’re doing this together. They will be the best and worst of both of us. And all the stuff that maybe...that maybe didn’t go so well for us...we can make sure that doesn’t happen for them.”

Katsuki is done from the moment ‘I love you.’ leaves Deku’s lips. It’s not that he doesn’t hear it often, because he does - Deku always finds any stupid excuse to say it. But when it's right now, when they’re talking about their child and their future and he’s saying it so trustingly, so easily, like it’s the most certain fact in the world...Katsuki doesn’t stand a chance. He swallows the lump in his throat back down to his chest where it settles into a warm bloom.

“I don’t think the world’s ready for the best or the worst of us put together. Think about how many insurance lawyers we had to go through.” He says, but smiles to show he’s joking, and the action makes Deku hum like Denki when he’s got too many volts buzzing around inside him. He can feel the excitement coming off him in waves.

“We found one that stuck in the end!”

“And we’ll have to find the right egg donor.”

“Yes I-”

“Not today.” He crosses his arms and smushes his face into the back couch cushions. He’s had enough deep conversation for one day - he’s exhausted. A weird thought crosses his mind, as it goes through the motions of what it all means, and his eyebrows scrunch in disgust. “Ugh. I’m gunna have to go somewhere and jizz in a cup.”

“I’m sure they could give you a special pot to just take home.” Izuku reasons, trying not to let the joy at what it means show on his face, or his whole body, but failing. Katsuki glares at him, incredulous.

“Yeah, sure. Sure, that’s much better. I’ll have a nice clinical wank at home into a sterile container.”

Izuku snorts and Katsuki feels a foot poking him in the thigh. “I’m so excited Kacchan! Not for the um, the jizzpot thing I mean. I mean, that’s fine it’s...it’s exciting in a way but I just mean the whole...just all of it!”

“ Jesus I know Deku just...don’t get your hopes up too much. A lot of shit could go wrong in all this. And it’s going to take a long time.”

“As long as I’ve got you then nothing is wrong.”

Katsuki can’t handle this man. He’s never been able to handle this man. He’s almost died, and actually did die, and came back to life for this man and his relentless optimism.

The fond thoughts merge with everything else going on in his mind, the financial and logic side and the making a fucking baby side and it all gets swept up in all of the emotional side and what comes out of his mouth and into the sofa fabric before he realises the weight of the words is: “We should probably get married.”

There’s a quiet blanketing over the room as his brain catches up to what he’s just said and Deku’s excited bouncing abruptly stills and all that remains is the quiet tick tick coming in from the All Might clock in Izuku’s room down the hall.

“K-Kacchan, did-”

“Shh.”

“But-”

“Shhhhh.”

“Katsuki!”

“No!”

He ignores the hands gripping at his wrists and trying to prise his own away from where they’re covering his tomato-red face. Maybe if he just wills it away hard enough, he can pretend he didn’t just make the most awful proposal in the history of proposals - after an argument, and a conversation about sperm donation, while he was sulking and thinking of the legal rights streamlined paperwork. No way, was Katsuki Bakugo, Ground Zero, going to be known as the one amongst his friends or the world, that fucked it up that badly.

“Kacchan!”

Maybe he wouldn’t have to, if he didn’t have the ever-persistent Deku for a partner. There was no getting away with anything in this hell house.

It's the fact that his leg suddenly feels quite wet that persuades him to peek an eye out the side of his hand-cage to scold. “Must you cry so much?”

“I-I just didn’t think that I’d! That Ka-Kacchan wants to-!?” Izuku hiccoughs, eyes streaming rivers down his face and all over Katsuki’s sweatpants. He can’t believe the stupidity of this man. Who would be crying with happiness over that awful proposal?

“Shit, Deku stop...I didn’t mean to fucking ask like this.” His ears burn as he blushes again, but the hand he curls into a fist to softly mock-punch Deku’s arm, lingers there in a show of comfort, and Izuku takes it and squeezes.

“I-I just! Kacchan I didn’t think you would want to marry! Ever!” He heaves a great stuttery breath, fresh tears splashing down. “I’m so happy!”

That makes him feel even worse. It’s not that he was against the idea of marriage or anything, he’s had fleeting thoughts of it as he’s sure everyone does. It just wasn't a thing that he thought was on the cards for them particularly, Deku has never expressed any desire for a wedding. They didn’t do a lot of the stuff other couples did. Other peoples ‘dinner and movie date nights’ were often his and Izuku’s ‘beat people up and think of how to improve their agency nights’. And the fact he’s brought marriage to the table for purely logical reasons and Deku had still burst into tears, makes him think maybe he’s missed some signs somewhere. He’s sure anyone else would be pissed off with him. Good thing he’s not with anyone else.

“Who’s happy about such a half-assed suggestion! I was only thinking of it making the baby shit easier with the laws!” He reveals before it eats away at him for months. Honesty is something they’ve learnt is absolutely necessary and best served immediately.

“Kacchan it’s ok! I understand!” He wipes a wet nose along his sleeve as Katsuki rolls his eyes at the mess it leaves behind. At least he’ll be used to dealing with bodily fluids by the time they have a baby. He’s been covered in enough of Izuku’s snot, tears and vomit over the years and picked enough bits of crap out of bloody wounds in their bathroom. And not to mention the mess the handful of times they’d attempted anything sexual out of curiosity. “I-I still, I’m just so happy! We’re having a baby and I get to be your husband too!” His voice gets hysterical again at the end and he starts sobbing in earnest.

“Fuck.” Katsuki mutters and sits up to gingerly pull Izuku into a hug. He immediately wraps around all of him like a limpet and soaks the shoulder of his T-shirt as all the exhaustion and emotions of child-planning and fighting Katsuki’s neuroses and getting over retirement and the heavy decisions of One For All and all of it, finally floods out of him.

Katsuki thinks to himself, as he rubs hot palms up and down Izuku’s back, that he has to try and make it up to him. That Katsuki doesn’t deserve someone who thinks the sun shines out of his ass quite so much. Not that Deku is an angel either, but he’s a saint when it comes to all of this shit.

The shuddering and the sobbing will stop eventually, and when they do he will kiss Deku and attempt to put into it all the emotions he isn’t coherent enough to express with words. He’ll run a bath and make them dinner and he’ll make up for years of harsh words and harsh hands with quiet murmerings of comfort and soft brushes of fingers through green curls. Deep breaths filling his ribs, lifting up into a strong scarred back as he lets Izuku lie on him to watch TV until they sleep for the night.

But for now, he just holds on, and grumbles confused placations whilst the wet patch on his shoulder spreads all the way down his back. And he'll mourn the upcoming loss of his dignity when his friends inevitably find out about the terrible way he’d asked Deku to marry him.

- - -

“No.”

“Why the hell not?!”

“Absolutely no fucking w-”

“Give me one good reason why!”

“-ay are you doing that.”

“Katsuki for the love of god will you shut up for once and listen to me!”

Katsuki pauses, the chopsticks he was holding still, midway towards his mouth with the bit of omelette on the end of it dangling uselessly. He’d never say in a million years that he was scared of Uraraka but he did respect her. And when she uses his given name and puts her foot down, the option to do anything other than exactly what she says disappears like smoke before a sneeze.

But what she’s suggesting is absolutley preposterous and he tells her so, and when she asks him to give a reason, he finds that the reasons are the same as why he can’t answer. The reasons are causing his stomach to turn and the omelette to drop to the table and his hands to shake because it’s all a bit much. He’s old and retiring and having a baby with his lifelong partner (who’s also his lifelong rival) and they’re using his explosion-filled DNA and his friend is sitting across from him and offering her eggs as a donor as if it’s all not a huge fucking deal. As if she’d just offered him one of her Gyoza and not the opportunity of life. As if it doesn’t mean a whole fucking lot that she would just offer that up with no hesitation. How does he keep these ridiculous people in his life?

She must see the way he closes up because she suddenly puts her own chopsticks down and asks him seriously if he needs to step outside. He shakes his head roughly and motions with a flap of his hand that she could continue. Familiar with him enough to have learnt his non-verbal cues, she nods and continues eating, without saying anything more, whilst he closes his eyes and counts his breaths for a few minutes.

By the time he opens them again, she has swiped the other omelette roll from his plate.

“Oi!” He shouts and winces when several heads in the canteen swivel to glare at him. He glares right back but lowers his voice before continuing. “I zone out for five fucking minutes and you steal my food!?”

She has the gall to look nonchalant when she shrugs, cheeks full of food and mumbles around a mouthful of his stolen omelette, “You were busy and I was hungry!”

He picks up his chopsticks again and takes a tofu parcel from her plate, ignoring the indignant squawk and shoving it whole into his mouth before she can stop him.

He’ll never say so, but this is why he loves her. She has never once treated him with gentle concern or panic or patronising placations. She knows he can handle things. She respects his needs and is comfortable enough to steal his food from under his nose while he staves off a panic attack, which nobody else would have the balls to try. He can be completely himself around her. There are not many people he trusts more and it’s making his reluctance to accept her suggestion seem more and more silly, but then a lot of the decisions he’s made in life make no sense.

“One good reason.” She reminds him again and he stabs a piece of chicken with more force than necessary as he thinks of how to word his argument.

He’s not about to suggest that it’s invasive or painful or time consuming for her or anything of the sort. To suggest that would be to suggest that she doesn’t know what she’s getting into or can’t handle it, which she does and she can. To stand any chance of this, he’s going to have to be the vulnerable one, and he doesn’t like it at all.

“I can’t understand why you would just offer to be the mother of our child, as if it’s not a huge fucking deal!” He rasps, aware of all the bodies around them in the large crowded canteen. They’re vising UA at guest lecturers for the day and could have eaten in the staff area or literally anywhere else, but Uraraka had insisted on using the main food hall to ‘Feel the nostalgia’.

She watches him for a second, chewing on food thoughtfully before she puts one of her hands up, thumb tucked in with four swirled fingers up. She raises an eyebrow and then puts her pointer finger down slowly.

“It is a huge deal. I know it is and I want to do it because I love you both. It’s a crappy reason Katsuki - three chances left.” She waves the hand at him and he tries to argue but finds himself just sputtering wordless noises like a pan about to boil over. To give her credit, she waits patiently while he puts another thought into coherent sentences.

“What if...what if they want to...what if you get attached and...” He stops, hating the way he sounds so pathetic. All his deep-seated insecurities about people thinking he isn’t worth the effort leaking out in an attempt to deny himself something he wants. He feels very much not his age right now but Uraraka just snorts and wiggles her middle finger at him.

“For a start, I’m not the mother of your child, so stop that noise. And don’t- you-shh!” She jabs her chopsticks angrily at him as he tries to interrupt and argue the point. “I know technically I would be the mother in a biological sense Katsuki but that does not make me their mom. Nor do I wanna be - they’re going to have two very neurotic dads and a really cool auntie!”

“So what if you carry them and don’t wanna give them up when the time comes?!”

Uraraka looks like she’s about to punch him, which she very may well be about to and to be fair, he probably deserves it. This is what she gets for stopping him from interrupting her.

“Are. You. Fucking. Serious. Right now?” She hisses, wary of the U.A. students taking a distant interest in Uravity and Ground Zero’s conversation. The older ones are kind of used to them coming here but the first years can still get a little star-struck, he’ll have been snapped and put on twitter a dozen times over in the past twenty minutes.

“I just! Look it happens okay!” He excuses and tries to attack her food in protest but she swats his chopsticks and sends them floating to the ceiling, interrupting him again before his face goes red and his hands start to crackle. He hears several students giggle in the distance at the scene.

“It happens in your paranoid hot head! It happens to other people who aren’t ready for what they’re getting into. Katsuki, it is not going to happen here. And also-” She puts the middle finger down, face serious. “I don’t even have to carry them. In fact, I’d rather not and I’m assuming you’d rather I didn’t either?”

Katsuki grumbles the affirmative, picking up a tomato with his fingers and biting into it moodily. His chopsticks are still bumbling around up above them, he can faintly hear them clanking against the structure.

“Any more reasons?” He hears Ochaco ask, and just shrugs in response. There’s a short sigh and then his chopsticks come clattering down on top of his head, bouncing off it and rolling across the table. His hands shoot to grab them before they fall off the edge. He’s had enough food anyway, the swirling sensation in his stomach is off-putting, so he just sips tea silently while Ochaco finishes eating.

He’s just finishing up when he’s surprised by her finger poking him in the middle of his forehead, it’s warm and squishy, and when he looks up and meets her eye, so is her expression. “Hey.” She says.

“Hey.” He glares, suspicious, not swatting the finger away just yet, she removes it but keeps his attention with her gaze.

“I know this is a huge deal Katsuki. I get why you’re worried but I’ve been expecting you and Izuku to want to do this for a long time now. I’ve seen you both grow up and the way you were with Eri and the kids on Nabu and just...you’re going to be so good at this.”

He doesn’t know what to say to that, her expression is still soft and so is her voice, quiet and personal like she’s been waiting to say these things to him for a long time.

“There’s a reason I want to do this, not just because I’m your friend or because I can. Not just because I think you’d rather it be someone you know and trust than a stranger.” She takes his hand on top of the table in one of hers and Katsuki thinks about how Eri did that too that time when he’d told her about the baby. He wonders if it’s a girl thing or a people thing, he can’t imagine some of his guy friends doing that, but then Deku probably would...actually Ejirou would too. Maybe it’s a people caring about him kind of thing? Uraraka smiles at him. “Izuku was my first love and my first friend at U.A. I was terrified and in this huge new place where everything was bigger and different and he was so nice and easy to talk to and so strange. Obviously I was barking up the wrong tree, he was clearly madly in love with you I just didn’t want to see it. But he was still my first love and still is my best friend.”

Katsuki can understand that. Deku was someone who blasted into your life and took up permanent residency. He was like a blast of sunshine cutting into a solemn rainy day, in a memory you'd recall when you’re needing a boost.

“And you were the first person who ever really respected me.” She squeezes his hand and he looks at her in a confused frown. “When we fought that first time, you took me seriously. You didn’t see an airhead girl from a small town with a floating quirk and no experience. You took me as a serious threat. I appreciated that more than anything.”

He remembers the fight, he’d been a cheeky little shit and she’d been formidable, it had been fun. She’s always had a great battle sense and understood where she needed to improve, she just lacked confidence because of the way people chose to view her. Dumbasses.

“I love you both, and I want to repay you for always being yourselves with me and seeing me for who I am. I just want to help you both be happy, ok?”

She lets go of his hand finally and he pulls it back to his lap, thinking things over. He can understand wanting to repay people, he is the same way with Deku. He feels he’ll be repaying him back his whole life. And she’s right of course about everything, she usually always is. He expects she’d known form the start, a lot of what he was going to say and accepted her role of sounding board for his worries. He wouldn’t have brought up the conversation of donors with her in the first place if deep down he didn’t expect her to consider herself a candidate.

“You’ll have to do a lot of fucking annoying tests and have doctors poking around up there and shit. It will be a pain.” He finally lectures and she grins, wide and conniving and friendly and just shrugs.

“It will be fine.” She piles their plates together and stands with him to take them to the cleanup area. “Nothing worth having in life is ever easy to get.”

Katsuki smiles to himself as he throws his trash away, thinking of wild green curls across his pillow in the golden light of morning. “You’re right about that.”

- - -

Katsuki can’t believe that his child's life has to start here, in this sterile clinic, in a tiny room, with a little pot in one hand and his dick in the other.

So much for Deku’s optimism that he could ‘bring a special pot home’. The stuff had to be put straight into temperature-controlled conditions apparently, so it had to be done at the clinic.

They had shopped around, so to speak, for the right family planning hospital and this was one of the best. Thankfully being a sucessful pro hero couple and owners of one of the best agencies around meant they didn’t have to be worried about the costs. Katsuki obviously wasn’t going to settle for anyone but the best to be involved in the creation and growth of his baby. Some people went for separate centres for each stage of the creation process, but they wanted someone they could trust from start to finish who would oversee everything.

Doctor Chie was that trusted person, the head doctor in Chisoda Family Hospital, an elite clinic that did everything from testing and research to egg and sperm or other generic material donation to the actual Artificial Womb process. The latter was still a fairly recent medical and scientific triumph and was only available to those who could pay the hefty price for it. He and Deku didn’t use their money or fame much, they put it all into improving the hero industry, research and helping people, but Katsuki had insisted that for this, they would use their famous status for themselves.

Deku, of course, found the womb pod system, absolutely fascinating and had been reading about it for months, excitedly telling Katsuki every fact he could when going through the history of how it came to be used and accepted in medicine today.

“And it was quirk research that lead to us learning the different processes to mimick real mothers bodies! And with non-human quirk users, we understand so much more about creation in general. It’s so fascinating, they do so many things to make the environment as similar to a real body as possible, but you can actually see the baby growing in the pod and keep an eye on them! It’s such a huge breakthrough for medical staff! The person who discovered and made the process said that they did it because they wanted a world where same-sex partners and those with bodies who couldn’t carry children, would be able to have children of their own. Some people are amazing Kacchan. It’s a shame about the anti-artificial groups that protest against it. I don’t understand some people, how can they be so selfish? Maybe the word ‘artificial’ spooks some people? But still, it’s just a word...do you think we’ll have to keep it private to stop people harassing us? Not that I care what people think but I don’t want anybody bothering the baby afterwards-”

“If anyone comes anywhere near our baby I will fucking blast them so hard there won't be anything left of them to bury.” Katsuki had spat back, slamming his coffee down on their kitchen table so hard it sloshed out the side of its mug and would have burnt him if he didn’t have hands used to handling literal explosions daily.

They had decided to keep things quiet to avoid any media attention, their lawyer, Yami, was an incredibly headstrong individual who had been taking care of their legal side of things at the agency for years. She was the only one who could handle their bullshit, especially in their younger more reckless days.

Doctor Chie was overseeing their whole process. She was one of the best in the field and Katsuki had liked her instantly. She seemed like the kind of person who took no shit and had the intelligence and balls to back up her fiery attitude without ever talking down to the two of them. Uraraka had liked her instantly when Katsuki had made a rude comment coming into an appointment and she’d scolded him before he’d got one foot across the doorway.

All the tests were done, Ocacho had donated her eggs, the legal side was taken care of and all that was left before the implating and growth process was him.

Him and a pot and some sperm.

A kindly nurse had explained the whole process to him as they walked up the warm wooden corridors of the admittedly nice clinic. By 'explain the process', she’d made polite conversation, skirting around the subject of him needing to jerk himself off into a sample jar and concentrating more on the procedure afterwards and the need for immediate transfer of his semen to the temperature unit.

She said the word ‘semen’ stone-faced, like someone who was very much used to saying it on a daily basis, while Katsuki squirmed internally, his scowl and aura of angry nervousness not putting her off at all.

They got to the little room, and she opened the door for him. It was in stark contrast to the more homely wooden-panelled corridors. It was more clinical due to the fact everything in there probably had to be easy to clean, Katsuki shuddered at the thought of other people using the room before him. He wasn’t squeamish about sex stuff, it was just awkward thinking about all the random people sitting in here to jerk off, just like he was supposed to do in a moment. It was fairly small but clean and comfortable looking, with a hospital-style bed along one side, and a small couch, a table with a jug of water and some cups and TV as well as a bookshelf and sink unit.

The nurse was showing him that the lights overhead could be dimmed and the colours changed with the remote on the wall, as well as the temperature set to whatever he felt most comfortable with. She explained that he should take his time and try to make himself comfortable.

He choked on his own saliva when she asked him if he’d brought any of his own erotic material with him and he’d shook his head and grumbled that he didn’t need it. She nodded, professional as ever and said he was free to use any of the magazines and videos provided if he was struggling to relax, or use his phone and the internet. He didn’t get into the fact that that stuff didn’t really do anything for him anyway and kept his face impassively blank as she pointed out the location of several types of lube, also free for his use. The only thing left was to mention that when he was done he should wash and thouroughly dry his hands before screwing the lid on the pot, make himself decent and push the call button to signal he was done, so she could come and collect the sample.

She pressed the pot into his hand and left him stood there awkwardly in the middle of the room.

He takes a deep breath before going over and locking the door, fiddling with the temperature settings until it was cool enough to stop his sweating and dimming the lights to a more amber hue to make the place feel less like a doctors office.

Which brought him to this. Slumped down on the small couch and staring at the little pot, fizzing internally and wondering how the fuck he’s supposed to get in the mood for this.

It might have been easier if Deku was here, he had a little more interest in this side of things than him. He remembers briefly the first time he’d accidentally walked in on Deku masturbating, and cringes at how badly he’d reacted, insecurity over his own low sexual interest rearing up and making him lash out. That was a long time ago now though. He needs to stop thinking about it, especially now.

He starts by undoing his fly and shifting his pants and underwear down a little. His cock lies there limply, very much not interested in proceedings. He unscrews the lid off the pot and pulls the table over, setting it down there for now before closing his eyes and taking a few deep breaths to settle his nerves while his hand travels down to try and get the necessary parts of himself to co-operate.

It’s not like he’s never jerked off before, he had the same hormones as everybody else. He just doesn’t do it too often and it’s different when you’re in a room where several people know what you’re doing. In fact, they've specifically instructed you do do it. Katsuki’s never been good at doing what he’s told at the best of times.

He tries to concentrate on just the sensation of touching himself, but it’s not doing much for him, he’s too wound up and awkward in this unfamiliar room knowing there’s a building full of people right through the door. It’s soundproof thankfully but he still knows they’re there, waiting for him to be done.

He tries letting his mind wander, thinking of nameless male bodies and the sensuality of touch and kissing but keeps getting distracted by literally everything: the hum of the air conditioner, the feeling of his clothes sticking to him, the weird linen cover of the couch on his bare ass, or the million intrusive thoughts coming into his head.

He scrubs at his eyes frustratedly, leaving his cock to thump against his thigh slightly heavy with only minor enthusiasm. Figuring anything was worth a try at this point, Katsuki lets his head just do its thing, wandering freely to see if he could latch onto anything.

A lot of things pass through. Some of his favourite fights with villains, the ones that got his blood pumping so hard his whole nervous system had felt electric. Some of his school memories crop up and his friends, he smiles awkwardly as he remembers stupid deadpan joke Shoto had caught him off guard with just last week. Then he thinks of the stupid dance videos Deku used to do with the girls and then just Deku in general. That side of his partner that he’d slowly and awkwardly got to know over years of trial and tribulation. Their first kiss, the first time Deku said he loved him. Katsuki thinks of the feeling of him, solid and comforting, pressed all into the front of him when they sleep. He trails a hand down his body slowly as If he can trick it into not noticing he’s doing it.

More random thoughts go by as he lazily tugs himself, trying not to be too strict about it. Deku’s blush when he’s teased, the way he looks when he’s arguing with Kartsuki and his eyebrows pinch together stubbornly. The way he picks at his scars sometimes when he’s distracted or thinking about things. The hopeless way he attempts to flirt sometimes.

Denki then immediately comes to mind and Katsuki, throwing caution to the wind, stays with it. Thinks about his friend's shameless flirting, his filthy wink and his gendefuck attitude and the way everyone, including Deku, still teases him for the way they fluster each other. He gets a sudden image of Denki on his belly, reaching out towards Katsuki, flustered and embarrassed, while he gets completely railed by Sero from behind.

He then immediately stops touching himself and takes some steadying breaths.

He is absolutely not about to let an accidental fantasy of Denki be responsible for the birth of his child. He would never be able to live that down.

Deku wouldn’t even mind, he would probably find it sweet because he’s fucking weird like that and literally any care or interest Katsuki had for others still makes him puff up like some proud parent. As partners, he and Deku were insecure about certain things but they were too in tune to have any weird misplaced jealousy issues.

His dick is hard now at least, but he’s totally distracted again and can’t get back into it out of embarrassment. He curses Denki’s name mentally and makes a vow to annoy the hell out of him later.

Trying to take control of the situation again he returns to the dancing, the sensuality of it, imagines one of the more saucy routines Deku had done. The ones that made his body in a way that defied his very masculine frame and brought out his ambiguously non-straight side. Deku had always had a way of being very genderless, in a different way to Denki. It’s part of the reason Katsuki had always found him fascinating, which he, of course, in his youth had translated to frustrating. Everyone, including Katsuki, knew Deku wasn’t entirely straight long before he’d figured it out himself.

The dancing is working. Deku is there and he’s rolling his hips, body strong and sure of itself, practised to perfection and he’s doing it for Katsuki only, like a private show. The images merge abstractly in his head and a partner appears, a flirty slim blonde starts dancing with Deku in his mind, writhing together in an intense push-pull of routine. They push Deku into a chair and lower into a lapdance, grin cocky and knowing. He thinks of Deku’s flustered face, eyes half lidded and pupils blown, his hands wanting to touch but not being allowed. The way he’d try to pretend he wasn’t turned on when he was.

He realises a bit far into the fantasy that the flirty blonde teasing Deku, looks a bit too much like Kaminari for comfort and he curses again, sitting up and glaring at his dick standing proudly upwards.

“Fucking traitor.” He whisperes, feeling stupid. The whole thing is stupid. He resents the fact that to have a child he has to come to this silly room and do this entirely inpersonal, unromantic act by himself. He resents that men are known for finding masturbation the easiest thing in the world and yet he has to have some problem with it like he does with every other normal thing people are supposed to do.

His breath is laboured and tight as he sighs. His phone is lying on the table, tauntingly, glinting amber glowing on the screen in the dimmed lights overhead. Deliberating for a moment he takes it and lies back along the couch, head resting on the arm as he checks his messages.

Predictably there’s several from Izuku.

Deku: Hey I hope everything is going ok.

Deku: Sorry if I’m distracting you…

Deku: Unless you want me to distract you?

Deku: Haha, sorry that was sort of cringy I don't know what I meant by that

Deku: I’ wasn't saying you need me to help you or anything I promise!

Deku: I’m going to that meeting soon but if you need me, they’re running late, I’ll be home until 3 :)

Deku: I love you! <3

There’s a picture message which turns out to be a selfie and makes Katsuki laugh far more than it should. Deku is such a kid sometimes. He’s in front of the bathroom mirror with a shaving foam beard like Santa Claus and he’s doing a peace sign sideways over one eye. Utterly stupid. Not at all funny or appropriate to the situation. He still laughs.

It’s two forty, if he rings Deku now they could maybe...what? Have phone sex? They’ve never done anything like that before. It's a stupid thought. It would never work.

Katsuki is still wrestling with the regressive side of him that doesn’t want to believe he needs help with such a simple task anyway, but it’s challenged with the side of him that really just wants this to be over with.

He’s pressing call before he can think about it too much and is completely unprepared when Deku picks up on the second ring as if he’d been staring at the phone this whole time waiting for it.

“Kacchan! Are you all done?”

“No. I’m...I’m still in the clinic.”

“Oh.”

There are a few minutes of silence and mumbling where Katsuki knows Deku wants to ask him if he’s ok and is trying not to.

“I’m ok.” He says before he can, and wonders why the fuck he thought calling was a good idea, it’s entirely awkward. It’s not like them at all.

“Oh! Well, that’s good! Um...I’m just reading over some paperwork and stuff before I leave uh...what are you um...I mean where are you up to with the um...”

Katsuki snorts at how useless the both of them are and feels more like himself when he replies: “I’m lying on a couch with my dick out and wishing your stupid ass was here to make it less shitty.”

He thinks he hears something on Deku’s end of the phone smash, confirmed when he hears a panicked ‘whoops!’ and a brief bit of shuffling around before Deku’s voice returns, a little frantically.

“S-sorry I just, knocked my cup over. Um, one second.”

“Clumsy Deku. I haven’t got all day.” He does in fact, have all day, part of the high-class service of this place means he hasn’t got other patients in line after him for the rest of the day waiting to use the room. So he can take his time, within reason. But Izuku leaves in 15 minutes for a meeting and Katsuki’s not looking to hang around.

“Sorry! It’s sorted.” There's a ‘floof’ of fabric which means Izuku has flopped down somewhere comfortable and then a calmer voice. “So...is it not very nice?”

“Deku I don’t want to talk about that, just...” Transiently he thinks of being there with him, on the bed where he’s probably laying down. Thinks of the times he’s been under the covers with him, watching his face and listening while he…

“Listen just take your pants off and do it with me.” He rushes out before he can change his mind again. Deku’s voice catches on the other end mid inhale, before he comes back, slightly breathless.

“K-Kacchan...do it with you...you want me to...right now?”

“Yes, Deku fuck that’s what I just said ain't it!?” Fuck. He’s actually suggesting it. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s being entirely too cocky and pushy about this for someone who’s never so much as sent a dick pic in his life. Deku is always clouding his ability to think things through.

“Just give me a second!” Maybe Deku is thinking the same, he sounds flustered enough but then again he always does.

More shuffling and fabric noises, some mumbling that he can’t make out but he thinks there’s a few ‘oh my god’s’ in there and he smirks to himself, at least Deku sounds as overwhelmed as he is. “Ready!” He says brightly down the phone and Katsuki snorts again.

“Don’t fucking ‘ready’ me like we’re about to run a fucking race, you idiot!”

“What am I supposed to say?! 'What are you wearing?' Kacchan I’ve never done this before!”

“Neither have I!” This was a terrible idea, his dick is soft and they’re both flustered and totally unprepared and he’s gone and put a ten minute time limit on the two of them. “Look never mind I’ll just fuckin do it myself it’s fine!”

“No! Nonono Kacchan wait!” He pauses with the phone close to his ear. “Kacchan I want to do it with you I want to...just give me a second, just...breathe with me a second.”

Katsuki does breathe, more of a sigh when he says with a touch more poutiness in his tone than he intends, “We don’t have a second, you have to go to that meeting soon.”

“Fuck the meeting.” Deku says with frustration in his tone and Katsuki face splits into a grin, feeling that little electric sensation in his stomach that he gets when Izuku says something that surprises him. He loves the more aggressive ‘I dont give a shit’ side when it comes out. His kindness is one thing but nobody who's that nice all the time doesn't build up a slight bit of rebelliousness underneath. It was always been Katsuki that brought it out and he’s glad that’s never changed.

“Oh?” His tone is teasing now, trying to attempt some semblance of knowing what he’s doing. “Naughty Deku, keeping people waiting.”

“They kept me waiting first! They’ve already re-arranged twice!” He defends, only half-serious. He’d had to grow a business backbone when they’d started running the agency. Katsuki is usually the harsh one but Izuku could be too when he needed to be. “I think they can wait a little longer. I just want to be with you Kacchan.”

His tone is husky when he says the last part and that feeling in Katsuki’s stomach stays and stirs more into action. Deku knows his damn weaknesses, and it’s dawning on him when the sound of his partner's voice travels down his sensitive ears and makes him feel flush and frustrated that this might actually be a brilliant idea after all.

“You want this?” He asks and lets the growl show in his voice. He’s not sure what he even means, but Deku always does.

“Yeah, want you.”

Katsuki has always been sensitive to noise, ever since childhood he'd rarely regulated the volume of his own voice and is known to scream and shout. It makes him feel alive . Explosions thunder through his bones in a way that makes his body feel like it’s flying, his shouting grounds him, and when he listened to music, he listened loud, with good headphones so the bass could be felt right into his very core.

Deku’s voice is low and thick like treacle, flooding his body with sensation. His eyes close and he can forget where he is and just concentrate on the sounds coming through the phone. Concentrate on Deku telling him he’s wanted, as if he’s right there with him. No wonder this wasn’t working before by himself, he’s always reacted more to sound and action more than looking at stuff or trying to think in the whirlwind of his brain.

“Tell me.” He demands, letting his hand pick up where it left off and letting Izuku take the lead. He had a way of making Katsuki feel needed and deserving of pleasure and praise. A way that used to make him recoil and lash out, that scared him with how much he actually wanted it. And now just makes him feel grounded and hot and aroused.

“Always want you Katsuki.” Deku says, throaty and serious and Katsuki can believe it. Deku had always wanted all of him, all his life, chasing him till the very end. “You make me feel so good.” The last part sounds a bit choked like he’d revealed a deep secret, though they’ve both always known it to be true. They didn’t wax lyrical about things often and Katsuki can feel his whole face blushing at the adonration as Deku lavishes it on him. “W-Wanna kiss you.”

“Fuck, yeah.” Katsuki agrees cheeks pink and hands hot. Kissing was something he’d discovered he did very much like. Deku, when he kissed, got way into it, as he did with most things. Izuku kissed like he couldn't contain all the feelings flooding his own body and had to pour them all out into Katsuki’s own.

He’d thought at first that the many many years Deku had of longing over someone who pushed him away, was responsible for the intensity of the way he kissed, as strong as it was in their twenties. But two more decades had passed and Deku stll kisses Katsuki just as desperately, like he’s on the edge of crying or coming at any second. They could lie there for hours sometimes when the mood took them, just doing that, kissing and grasping at each other wildly like they might lose each other all over again. When they were younger Deku used to run off after it grew heated, thinking he was being entirely unobvious scuttering off to the bathroom in a sudden panic mid-kiss, and returning looking much less flushed. A few years of awkward arguments and exploration meant that they had things mostly figured out by now.

“Want your tongue.” He feels stupid when he says it and his face grows even hotter at the amission but the small gasp of something in his ear makes him think he’s said the right thing. He’s just being honest. He loves Deku’s tongue in his mouth when they get heated, loves the bite of teeth on his lip. Loves the challenge and the more animalistic side of his partner coming out because Katsuki knows it’s always been buried inside him and revels in the possessiveness of it.

“Yeah! Ka-Kachan yeah...wanna...um…”

“Fucking spit it out Deku!”

“God...wanna...kiss all over your...your body...uh...um I-I-”

“Yeah. Yeah, tell me.” This was a brilliant idea, this was one of his best ideas yet. Deku’s voice is encompassing all of his body, the rest of the world irrelevant, his head quiet and only filled with the image of Deku through the phone, flushed and flustered only for him, falling apart just from talking about kissing him. It makes him feel powerful and heated and loved.

“I wish I could see your face...feels so good!” He sounds desperate, there’s a faint repetitive slick sound noticeable inbetween the talking and Katsuki swallows, groans low and quiet in his throat, shudders on the small couch when Deku hears him and whimpers in his ear in response. “O-only you Kacchan...always make me feel so...”

“Keep fucking talking!” He pleads, it’s all he needs, all he cares about right now. Just Deku in his ear, babbling and whimpering and falling apart all over himself purely from Katsuki on the other end of the phone telling him to. It’s overhwelming, the way Deku feels about him. How intertwined they are, how Katsuki can feel his heartbeat all through his body along with Deku’s right now too, in sync. He shoves his pants further down, makes noises of impatience as Deku makes garbled sounds of pleasure down the phone and calls his name. He swears, short and breathless as the slick sounds get quicker, and Katsuki’s toes curl in his socks as he bites his lip.

“Kacchan! Oh! Kacchan I love you! So much! I...always loved you I-I’m...oh I’m gonna-”

“S-shit!” Katsuki swears as he lurches upwards to grab the pot, remembering why he’s doing this in the first place, the phone gets flung in the process as Deku is sobbing and coming and falling apart in his ear, and Katsuki barely manages to get the container in place in time to catch himself.

Breath harsh and throat dry, he rushes to rinse his hands and half pull his trousers back in place before picking up the phone from the floor to hear Deku panicking.

“Kacchan! Kacchan are you still there? Sorry did you...um are you ok?!”

“I’m fine christ, shut up I was just...sorting out the sample!” He knows he should probably sound more grateful but he’s midway through realising he was probably making all sorts of embarrassing noises down the phone himself, just as Deku was to him.

Luckily his flip-flop attitude bounces off Deku like water on a duck’s back by this stage in their lives. “Oh! That’s great!” He can practically feel the beaming smile and blushes even more as he shakily wipes the side of the pot down while squashing the phone between his shoulder and ear.

“S-shut up! Oh my god...you’re too much.” He screws on the lid and stares awkwardly at the pot, wondering about the miracle of how the stuff goes from that, to ‘small human’, over the space of a few months. The significance of it sits heavy in his stomach.

“I’m just happy I can make you feel so g-”

“Yeah! Yeah ok, I get it!” He rubs his eyes, flushing again, overwhelmed and tired but slightly relieved. He should stop being an asshole about it probably about now. Awkwardly he grips the phone and mumbles; “Thanks.”

“Thanks too Kacchan, it felt really nice it was really fun, I um -ohcrap!” There’s a distant knocking sound and a deep voice shouting something somewhere. “Oh damn Iida called me and I missed it and now he’s here and I'm super late and I can’t find my pants-argh! SORRY ILL BE OUT IN A SECOND! SorryKacchangottagobye!”

Katsuki is too busy laughing to reply properly as he hears the telltale panic of Izuku trying to pull on clothing with messy hands and keep Iida at bay, all at once before the phone goes dead.

He’s still smirking when he washes his hands a second time and makes himself decent, downing a glass of water before he calls the nurse back. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad experience after all.

- - -

Their wedding is absolutely ridiculous, as only a wedding between two of the most extra people in the hero industry could be. It goes down as one of the best days of most of ex class 1-A’s life and Katsuki is never going to live any of it down in a million years.

Of course, it’s one of the best days of his life too, but as it turns out alcohol, mixed with decades of repressed love and complicated emotions, with a dash of ‘baby on the way’ causes his usual inhibitions to take a sharp nosedive of a very high cliff.

The day starts with tears.

He wakes up to Deku already crying. All the way to the venue Deku cries. All the way up the aisle he cries. He tries his best not to cry while they say their vows but fails horribly.

Katsuki, at first, is irritable and awkward and embarrassed and keeps telling him to stop it. But there’s a certain point, where he’s stood there holding Deku’s hand in front of all his family and friends, with Kirishima at his side, beaming. And Eri and Uraraka stood behind Deku looking sympathetic and trying not to catch his eye because he knows they’re close to giggling. It’s fucking Shouto marrying them, just because he can because he pulled some legal bullshit. And he’s being completely deadpan about his line delivery on purpose as Deku carries on sobbing all the way through trying to say a simple sentence.

Katsuki just loses it.

A snort slips out of him and then it’s a laugh and then it’s an all-out holding his sides guffaw that has him doubled over and clinging onto Deku for support. Fat lot of support it gives him because Deku ends up laughing and crying all over the place too. So they wobbly hold each other and look absolutley crazy and everyone in the room is laughing at them or looking awkward but he doesn’t even care.

All he sees is Izuku, his ridiculous mess of a partner. The strong and kind and loyal weirdo that had never given up on him and he’s struck with an unrefutable urge to kiss him.

So he does, passionatley, in front of everyone, to several ‘whoops’ and a wolf whistle that deifnitely came from either his mother or Denki.

He only realises he’s gotten carried away when the right side of his head suddenly gets extremely cold and he snaps back, brushing icicles out of his hair and glaring at the culprit.

The culprit just stares back at him, fond but mildly irked, smirk only noticeable to those who truly knew him. Shouto is teasing when he says, “I haven’t even got to the kissing part yet. Could you cool off?”

They muddle their way through the rest with red faces and matching grins, giggling in several parts but manahing to hold it together. Shouto turns to Deku, specifically, at the end of it and tells him in a monotone that he, ‘May now kiss the bride.’

“Who the fuck are you calling a bri-”

He doesn’t get to finish the sentence because Izuku grabs him on both sides of his head and pulls him back in for another knee-weakening kiss while the room erupts in cheers.

The afterparty is just as chaotic and it’s where Katsuki finally loses his last nerve. He gets way too drunk, way too quickly tops it up on newly-married adrenaline and social overstimulation.

Usually, about now, he ended up with him storming off or needing time alone but not tonight. 

Tonight he has a moment where he looks around and sees all the people that made him the man he is today, being ecstatic for him and Izuku, who are somehow married and somehow still alive, and he can’t bring himself to feel anything but overjoyed.

He’ll pay for it later or tomorrow when the noise and lights and crowds suddenly dissapear and he’ll be left feeling floaty and unsettled and anxious, but for now, he just wants to celebrate.

He spots Kirishima and Denki on the edge of the dancefloor, as he’s having a short moment to breathe and take another drink. Memories of them float through his mind and his stupid face hurts from all the smiling it keeps doing, totally unused to it. He blames the alcohol for the sudden burst of affection when he sees them stood there with Deku in the middle of all his friends, laughing together.

Katsuki's legs are moving without his permission and Denki turns around just as he’s getting within reach of them when his face goes from a grin of ‘hi!,’ to a sudden expression of panic, as Katsuki grabs him by the ears and plants a massive smooch right on his mouth in front of everyone.

He pulls off with a comical smack of his lips, throwing one arm around his shoulders and the other around Kirishimas’. Tipping his head back and roaring with laughter as he swings them full circle till they're looking at a shocked and flustered Izuku and a crowd of their friends going absolutley apeshit over it all. There are several phone cameras flashing at him but he doesn’t even care, he’s feeling euphoric as he shouts to anyone who will listen.

“Fucking look at my cute ass husband!” He pulls his two friends closer, almost swinging off them by his arms as they squash into the side of him. There’s static building up all along his left side from Denki, making his hair stand on end as he splutters. And Kirishima is almost falling down from laughter on the other. Another flash goes off somewhere in the crowd.

“Oi! If any pictures or videos end up anywhere but the fucking group chat I’ll fucking hunt whoever posted it down and kill them with my bare hands!” He’s still grinning his head off even as he threatens them. Deku is looking at him with absolute adoration and he’s blushing so hard that he almost looks purple as the blue tinge of dancefloor lights hits him.

He turns to Kirishima, who is still laughing and kisses him too, on the cheek firmly. Then turns to Denki, who is as red as Deku, and gives him a shove with the bottom of his foot, almost tipping himself and Eijiro over backwards in the process because of how close and entangled the three of them are. “You!” He smiles wolfishly. “Get your ass on stage and play something already, people should be dancing right now!”

A delighted Jirou drags Denki towards the stage with the rest of their old band, Sero replacing Katsuki on percussion. He snorts as he relises half the band is now dating Denki or dating Denki’s partners. “Greedy bastard!” He shouts, making sense to nobody but himself and Denki, who throws a guitar pick at him and retorts in a hissed stage whisper as if the rest of the room hasn’t seen and heard the whole thing, ‘You kissed me! On your wedding day!’

“You loved it!” He, Eijiro and Deku say all at the same time and they and half the room roll their eyes while the other half fall about giggling again. Ashido has definitely been filming this whole exchange, but he’ll murder her for it another day.

“Now! You!” He rounds on Deku as the band get going, who squeaks and stutters like they’re still fucking fifteen. “Get over here and dance with me!”

He’s delighted, Katsuki is delighted, everyone in the room is amazed.

Katsuki never ever dances, but it’s his damn wedding day and he doesn’t even care any more. Doesn’t care about the filming and the ‘aww’s’ or the cooing and chatter. Doesn’t care that he’s drunk on love and whisky and making an ass of himself or that he kissed another guy in front of his husband and everyone else. Everyone in the room is just as weird and ridiculous as he is and for once he’s feeling like he belongs here.

“Oh come on, you can’t possibly cry any more today!” Deku’s eyes are sparkling as he pulls him in close, savouring the sweet shampoo smell and the warmth through his suit jacket. The fingers of his left-hand sneak under it to the white polyester shirt, once crisp, now creased and crinkled from being sweated through all day. It’s even warmer here, and it takes Katsuki no time at all to simply pull the whole suit jacket off and fling it at the wolf whistling audience so both of his hands can feel the heat buried underneath. Izuku is red and babbling and happy, just the way Katsuki wants him.

“You never dance!” He says, shocked and elated, eyes conveying the same expression he had years and years ago at their reunion when they were young and stupid. The one that says that he can’t believe his luck, that fate was very much a living breathing thing and that he owed it everything for the two of them. The one that Katsuki now understands and shares and believes in.

“I’ve always danced for you!” It’s cringy, it’s not quite what Deku means or what he’s trying to convey himself, but his partner understands him anyway like he always has done. Katsuki has always danced for Deku, everything he’s always done and has always been, had been in response to Deku, even if he’d try to run from the fact for years.

“I love you too!” Izuku beams, practically shines, tears falling again as Katsuki rolls his eyes, blaming his heating face on alcohol and not the fact that he’s still moved by the adoration even though he’s in his forties and they have been partners for years. Brought back to earth with a thud when Deku starts giggling, burying a wet face in Katsuki’s shirt and shaking silently.

“What?!” Katsuki shouts, louder than he needs considering how close they were - volume control was overrated anyway.

Izuku comes up gasping through laugher, “K-Kacchan! You’re so bad at this!”

This being the dancing, which Katsuki already knows. The embarrassment of it being something that should make that ugly hydra of anger writhe up but now doesn’t, just makes him laugh at himself, shoving Deku playfully. “Shut the fuck up!” Is all he can say to it, because his husband is laughing and shoving him back and when Katsuki’s body swings back toward him he simply grabs on and doesn’t let go. They sway together like a pendulum, lead by Izuku, who was always much better at this. Katsuki keeps his eyes firmly on the mop of green hair instead of the crowd and feels the bass from the stage running through the floor and up through the two of them.

They’re going to be ok.

They’re safe, they’re alive and their child is four months old and strong already.

He doesn’t even notice he’s crying until he blinks and his vision clears, wet eyelashes clinging together, thick and sticky as a tear splashes down onto the curly mess pressed into his chest.

Katsuki had become a hero to beat the bad guys, while Deku had wanted to save people.

Katsuki had finished a hero who’d beat his own inner villain, and saved people. Deku was his last and his greatest rescue.

He’s always had pride in his achievements, in his quirk, his power, his work ethic. The pride he feels now if for none of those things, the pride he feels now is the pride he thinks Deku probably feels for him, has felt for him for years, that Katsuki had never understood before.

Katsuki is proud of the man he’s become.

- - -

Fall and winter pass and spring comes through like a breath of fresh air. Calm blue skies and blossoms signal April in, and the light breeze carries with it promises of a bright and peaceful new beginning.

Eri is positivley skipping as she hurries through the gates of the household situated in a calm and non-descript neighbourhood. The new nameplate glints golden in the early afternoon light, ‘Midorya-Bakugo’. A blossom petal is stuck to the corner of it, the tidy garden scattered with them, pale and dancing in the breeze from the small but healthy tree in the compact front yard. There's a single messy corner over in the left with garden tools scattered haphazardly near an open bag of compost, whilst the rest is trimmed to perfection. The birdbath she’d bought for them is overflowing under the tree, with the pink snowfall of spring.

Her hand can barely stop knocking when she reaches the door, and by the way Izuku flings it open, she knows he’s feeling the same as her. She wastes no time throwing herself into his arms in one of the tightest and quickest hugs she’s given before shes throwing off her shoes and dashing into the open living space.

She’s met by an empty living room but the evidence of a new baby is everywhere. Pastel blankets scattered across couches and chairs, pram and baby bag by the door. Small rocker on the rug between the couches and a baby bean bag facing the sofa. There’s a particular smell, of warmth and conditioner, and a half-empty bottle of milk on the side table. “Where is she!?”

Deku has a soft muslin cloth over his shoulder and the eye bags of someone who has suffered many sleepless nights but is utterly ok with it. He’s smiling as he slides their entrance door closed and tosses the cloth into a basket on the kitchen island.

“She’s just upstairs with Kacchan.” He explains as he moves to put the bottle into a tub of steaming water. Now she listens, she can hear Katsuki upstairs, talking away to someone. Deku’s eyes follow the sound as hers do, fondly and he laughs. “She um...kind of exploded? Not in a Katsuki way but uh...in a totally gross way.”

Eri cracks up imagining Katsuki’s face. She can almost see the resigned way he’d have probably rushed her up the stairs, likely swearing as Deku simultaneously panicked and laughed and tried to lecture him about how to fix the situation. She hasn’t seen them interact as a family yet, this will be the first meeting of her new family member and she’s desperate to see it. She’s had her suspicions about what kind of parents they would be but she’s eager to fill her mind with memories to back up her thoughts.

She passes a gift bag over to Izuku, who thanks her many times over and says that she shouldn't have but he appreciates it massively like he always does. He takes a peek inside and almost begins unwrapping things but manages to contain himself - Katsuki would not want to be left out of things.

Their heads snap in tandem to the stairs as a soft thudding of footsteps and the growing volume of speech signals Katsuki’s descent. There’s a mewling croak of baby babble in between his deep and soft tones.

“Yeah yeah sure, but I’m still not forgiving you. You might think it’s a good idea crapping all over me before aunt-Eri shows up but I sure as hell don't. Tryin’a humiliate me huh? Look, there she is now, you’ve made her wait.”

Eri vibrates as Katsuki reaches the bottom stair and grins at her warmly. He slowly turns the tiny bundle pressed against his shoulder, until she’s cradled in the crook of one arm, head leaning back into her father's large chest and squinting in confusion at the golden room of onlookers. “Look she brought you a present and everything you little asshole, not that you deserve it.”

Katsuki talks to his daughter the exact way she’d predicted he would, the same way he talked to Deku or anyone else he loved, but much more softly. His face is set in a permanent proud and adoring grin, every word spoken with devotion and teasing familiarity.

She rushes to his side and kisses his cheek before she looks down at the bundle pressed into his side. She’s beautiful, small and slightly chubby. Tiny fists and feet curled in, and a soft dusting of blonde hair on her waxy crown, slightly damp - likely from the emergency bath Katsuki had just given her. She’s wearing a fresh clean babygrow with tiny grey and yellow birds patterned all over it and glancing up at her with a confused scowl that looks uncannily like her father’s already.

“Come on! You have to tell me her name! I can’t believe you’ve kept it from me this long!” Katsuki had been infuriatingly secretive about it and had sworn Deku into keeping it from her as well, no matter how much she pestered the two of them. They had only brought her home a few days ago but she’d been away on the other side of the country helping with earthquake relief and had only managed to make it back early that morning. “Does anyone else know!?”

“Only our parents, and All Might...and Aizawa-sensei...” Deku was sheepish as he added the last bit and Katsuki’s exasperated sigh gave away that he maybe wasn’t supposed to admit that part.

“How long has Sho-sensei known?!” She hasn’t been home in a little while because she’d been away, but her father had kept that bit of information very close to his heart when she’d spoke to him on the phone last night.

Deku squirms and Katsuki bounces the baby in his arms as she starts making noises of unhappiness.

“He found out on the first day because big-mouth over there couldn’t contain himself when he was telling All Might and practically screamed it. And your creepy dad was lurking behind the door outside the office.” Katsuki explains and Eri snorts a little, she can totally imagine him doing that. The door would open and he’d be stood there all nonchalant like he was always supposed to be there, probably was, for a meeting or something, but had eavesdropped a while when he heard Izuku on the other side. Old habits die hard.

“Traitor. He kept that very quiet.” She pouts a little and melts when the little cutie beside her makes a high pitched whine that brings twin smiles to both her father's faces.

“Fine fine we’ll tell her!” Katsuki placates, bouncing her again. He picks up one of her little hands and waves it at Eri. “Hishōko, this is Eri.” Hishoko’s chubby little fist grabs around her father's finger and he waggles it back and forth before smirking at Eri again. “Eri-onē, this is Hishōko.” Deku comes around to his other side and the smile on his face could crack the iciest of hearts. He grabs Hishoko’s other hand and waves it at her.

“Nice to meet you!” He says in a sing-song voice and Katsuki visibly preens with pride.

Eri can understand why. They look so happy, they look amazing, her little family. So deserving of all the love the world can give, she wouldn’t be who she was without them, she owes them her life.

And now she has a new addition to fawn over, she’ll be the best big sister she can be.

She holds her arms out and makes grabby motions and Katsuki laughs, carefully passing Hishōko over.

“Come on then.” He says to Izuku, already walking away and leaving Eri staring down at her new friend, who is looking suddenly apprehensive about the situation. “I know you’ve already peeked at the presents, lets open it.”

“I didn’t open any!” The conciliatory tone and the fact he practically jogs over to the gift bag makes Katsuki stop, hands-on-hips.

“So you’re not denying you peeked then? I can practically feel your excitement from here - you’re worse than Hishōko is with the bottle!”

As if knowing he’s talking about her, Hishōko squawks indignantly. She may have just realised that it’s not one of her fathers holding her because she starts to writhe in her arms with the tell-tale stutters of an impending tantrum. Deku’s head snaps around but Katsuki only sighs and sits down, pulling the bag over as he calls out to her.

“Stop being dramatic I’m still here! You gotta bond kid, she’s not too bad, really.”

Hishoko is placated for now, at the sound of Katsuki’s voice the cries subside, but she still doesn’t sound too happy about things. Eri tries bouncing her a little like Katsuki had, though she’s inexperienced with babies. She wonders if Hishōko can sense her slight nervousness, uncomfortable with the idea of being held by someone who isn’t sure of their abilities. “Hi-chan, Hi-chan~!” She sings quietly and smiles down at her frowning face. Hishōko peers back up at her curiously, scowl still in place and she laughs, suddenly feeling less nervous. She’s just holding a mini version of Katsuki. She’s adorable. Little pink cheeks in a firm pout and tiny fingers clenched into stern fists.

“To be fair, she was halfway through the bottle, she’s probably still hungry Kacchan you know how she gets when she’s hungry.” Deku pulls the bottle back out of the hot water bowl and comes to sit next to Katsuki, peering into the bag as he pulls a tissue-wrapped package out. Eri moves to carefully sit on the other chair, resettling Hishōko in her arms as Deku tests the milk temperature on his lip.

“Yeah well, she shouldn’t have shit all over the place if she didn’t want her food interrupting, should she? Would you get out of the way?!” Katsuki shoves Deku’s face away with his hand as he tries to unwrap the present with almost a lapful of him. “Are you going to be like this with everything people give us!?”

“Sorry, it’s just exciting!” Unperturbed by the shoving, he grins. “These are some of the first things that her family will have ever bought for her!”

Katsuki stops unwrapping and Eri catches the warm smile flash across his face as he glances at Deku. “I know.” He agrees. “Come on then, give the bottle to Eri and get over here.”

Deku rushes over and Eri takes the bottle from him as he warns her that Hishoko is a bit of a fiend when it comes to milk. On cue, she begins squirming and complaining as Eri holds the bottle near her lips. “You better get that in her mouth, before she throws a fit.” Katsuki warns and she does just that, wiggling the teat between pouty lips until she calms. Her small fists bang on her stomach, pleased and content.

Katsuki and Izuku are exactly as Eri expected they would be. She’s never seen them so happy, aside from maybe their wedding day. Katsuki hides it better but the relaxed slope of his shoulders and his constant smiling glances give him away. His eyes gain a softness when he’s like this, his restlessness stills and it’s like he’s taken a deep exhale that let all the usual tension seep out of him. Deku is wildly excitable at every little child-related thing, all of it absolutely fascinating and delighting him. He’s touching everyone and everything more, and can’t seem to keep still. His eyes are wide and happy and the smile stretching his face isn’t going anywhere fast.

She watches them sit close together, pressed up all along one side and bickering quietly over the gifts. Deku coos over each and every item in the bag, hugging several tiny baby-grows and outfits close to his chest as if his daughter is already wearing them. Katsuki’s smile remains firm through it all, eyes soft and grateful as he pulls out a soft fleecy blanket with a little cat head in one corner. He strokes the fabric briefly before Deku spots it with an ‘ooh!’ and he’s forced to pass it over to shut him up. Eri tries to conceal a smirk, it’s amazing how much of the two of them have seeped into Hishoko already. She wants to know everything about this little miracle they’ve worked so hard for.

“Her name, Hishoko?" She starts, gaining their attention. "The kanji, are they-”

“Yeah,” Katsuki answers, passing a pastel bottle set over to Deku for inspection. “As in, flying, or soaring.” He pauses for a moment before looking at her with almost a nervousness about him, the first bit he’s shown since her arrival. “Do you remember the first time we birdwatched?”

She does, it’s an old and faint memory, as young as she was at the time. She remembers the storm and the giant thundercracks of lighting. She remembers being in a dorm room with Izuku, Iida and Uraraka, perhaps Shouto but she’s unsure. It’s fuzzy from there but she rememebrs one image clearly, a darkened common room with a single beam of light coming through the tall windows, turning the space eerie and church-like. She remembers the stillness and the quiet and Katsuki, on the windowsill. He’d looked lonely, as lonely as she’d felt most of her life. Again there’s some fuzziness, but she remembers the little birds on the grass, and the feeling of Katsuki’s warm leg keeping her steady. The three of them, when Deku came, and the quiet feeling of safety.

The meaning of Hishoko’s name, soaring, strikes her, sudden and powerful. She feels her eyebrows crease inward as her vision gets blurry, swallowing the sudden lump in her throat with difficulty.

“I remember.” She smiles, voice cracking as both Katsuki and Izuku look to her and their baby adoringly in the exact same way. “Thank you.”

“Yeah. Well,” Katsuki swallows with a similar struggle, looking to the side and making a fuss about the tissue paper everywhere as he mumbles onward. “I don’t think we’d be here doing this right now if it weren’t for you.” He laughs and clears his throat. “I know we wouldn't.”

As if perturbed by the lack of attention on her, Hishoko grunts wheezily around the bottle. Katsuki snorts, tossing all the paper and the bag away down the side of the couch as Deku lays all their gifts on the low table like an altar.

“Yeah alright we get it you’re still here, you’re very cute.”

Eri giggles, blinking away her tears and greedy for more information. “Is she always hungry? Does she cry a lot? Ooh does she sleep well? Who does she behave for most?”

“Oh my god, there’s two of them.” Katsuki says sarcastically, looking from her to Izuku, who meets his fond gaze with one of his own.

“She always takes the bottle better for Kacchan. You’re a natural Eri, she wiggles a lot for me and sometimes won't latch.” Izuku scratches the back of his head, there’s a little hint of jealousy there in the small wrinkles of his brow but it’s nothing compared to the pride in his voice.

“It’s because she can sense how frickin’ obsessed and excited you are, it gets her all riled up! My girl is picky, rightfully so, she's only going to accept the best, Deku.”

“So she’s better for Kacchan then?” Eri interrupts before they can bicker too much about it, Katsuki’s cocky grin confirms her suspicions.

“Of course she is! I’m a god damn pro.”

“She covered all of herself and half of you in crap like twenty minutes ago.” Deku points out cheekily and Katsuki pointedly ignores him.

They talk about her for a while and Eri learns that Hishoko wakes up a lot because she’s hungry a lot. She gets incredibly grouchy when she’s hungry but she hardly ever cries. She talks and makes a lot of noise when she’s awake. Deku reveals that Katsuki calls her ‘little bird’ when he’s being particularly sappy and isn’t immune to baby talk when he thinks nobody is watching. He blushes furiously as Izuku tells her that he’d woken up to find him singing Hishoko off to sleep last night.

“S-she needs burping, I’ll save you the potential projectile vomit experience.” He grumbles, standing up and motioning for his daughter as Eri and Izuku smirk at each other knowingly. Both of them are smitten with her clearly, but it’s so nice to see Katsuki warm and soft and so attached.

He puts a cloth over his shoulder and places Hishoko upon it, rubbing her back firmly as he walks around the room, a lightness in his step that speaks volumes of his mood. Izuku watches him with such love and amazement that Eri almost feels like she’s watching them through a window, peering in on something she wasn’t meant to. But they have made it clear that she's as much a part of this as their actual daughter is. She chokes up a little again and when she gathers herself, Deku is looking at her full of nervousness and determination while Katsuki communicates something secretive with his eyes.

She’s missed something somehow.

“Eri um...I need to ask you something.”

Oh?

“I...you can say no, this is a really big...it’s a lot I um...I don’t even know if I should...oh but if I had to choose someone I...”

“Deku.” Katsuki says quietly, and they share a look only they can understand, before Izuku looks back to her, stiller and serious.

“I want to offer you One For All.”

Oh.

Oh.

- - -

“Deku come on I’ve taught you this a million times!”

“There are so many straps though!” Deku wails, fighting with the baby harness around his torso and trying to find the connecting fastener while Hishōko grows impatient and fussy in Katsuki’s arms.

“There’s like six, at most!”

“To be fair.” Kirishima interrupts as he comes down their stairs, fastening his jacket. “Six is like, three times more than the number of hands he has.”

“Don’t take his side, asshole! We’re going to be late!”

Eijiro, un-faltered by Katsuki’s grumpiness, sweeps Hishōko out of Katsukis grasp and holds her up under the arms in front of his face, nuzzling her chubby belly as her feet kick wildly in her bodysuit. He babbles at her in a soft high voice, which absolutely delights her, showing her gratitude by smacking little palms into his cheeks. “Who’s got a grumpy daddy! Who is it? It’s you, isn’t it!? Tell your grumpy daddy that swearing is a no-no!” He blows a raspberry on her tummy and she grins, gummily, before shoving a fist into her open mouth.

“She's eight months old! She doesn’t even understand what the words mean yet, it’s fine!” Katsuki pouts, fastening his own coat and wrapping a scarf around his neck.

“AHA!” Deku shouts triumphant, pulling on the harness to prove he’s got it fastened and secure.

“Bah!” Hishōko shouts in response and Kirishima laughs as he passes her over and slots her into Deku’s chest so he can fasten her in. Katsuki fusses, pulling the hood of her puffed body coat up over her cotton-hat covered head and attempts to slip mittens onto her hands. She protests wildly at the mittens and he grits his teeth as he fights a losing battle with her over them.

“Oh dude she’s definitely your kid, who’s quirk do you think she’s gonna have? I’d guess yours by the way she’s so handsy but then again Uraraka’s quirk is hand-based too right you think it's a sign?”

Katsuki ignores him as he continues to try and wrestle the mittens onto her. Deku leans back as much as he can to avoid the crossfire, as much as someone who’s literally strapped to the main perpetrator of war can lean.

“Oh come on!” Hishōko looks delighted as Katsuki gives up for a moment, and chews her fingers thoughtfully, as he crouches to eye level with her. “Listen, kid. It’s not even seven degrees outside. It’s frickin' cold as shit. Your fingers are small and weak, and you chew them a lot. Which means they will get wet. And the air outside is freezing, so your fingers are gonna freeze off if I don’t put these damn gloves on you, understand?”

Only Katsuki can reason with a child that’s not even a year old. Neither Deku nor Eijiro have the courage to say a thing, as Hisoko and Katsuki stare at each other in silence, waging some kind of mental war that maybe only the two of them can hear.

Then she smacks a wet hand right across the bridge of his nose and he sighs and pushes the gloves into Deku’s hands instead, storming over towards the door to collect the baby bag.

Eijiro tries his best not to laugh, but Katsuki glares at him anyway.

Deku starts singing a nursery rhyme about a grumpy kitten, and while Hisoko is mesmerised and looking up at his mouth moving, he slips the mittens onto her outstretched hands and tucks them in front of her body so she’s swaddled into him. He carries on singing, but motions his head towards the door sneakily. The three of them leave the house while she’s still in the trance and Eijiro fails again to contain his mirth at the jealous but adoring way his best friend watches his husband and daughter walk down the garden path.

- - -

The restaurant atop the sloping hill glows like it always does. Like it has for generations and likely will for generations more. Tonight it glows like a beacon of warmth, casting an amber glow across soft pillowy snow.

Katsuki has seen the place in every season. Summer will remain his favourite for nostalgia reasons, but winter isn’t far behind. As much as he hates the cold, the serene forested hill becomes an untouched wonderland in comparison to the centre of the city, where most of it melts to an unsatisfying mush. The snow he, Deku and Ejiro trudge through is relatively undisturbed apart from the pathway leading up to it. Hishōko’s cheeks are adorably pink in the cold, as are Deku’s but he’s not going to say it, not directly. The air is cleaner, crisper and punctuated with wafts of spiced wine and carrying twinkles of chatter and mirth.

The Christmas reunions have been happening for a long time, but this is Hishōko’s first, and the warm bubbling lava sitting in Katsuki's chest has little to do with his quirk and everything to do with how his family looks, bright and beautiful in the gleaming snowfall.

He’s always been emotional, just as much as Deku always has, he just shows it differently. The first time he came here he’d cried so much he’d felt parched for days. He’d panicked and agonised and laughed and roared and let himself be broken apart and put back together again. The first time he’d come here he’d stood on top of this hill with Deku and met him for what felt like the very first time, all over again. And the rest of his life had followed from there.

As his middle-aged feet cross the crest of the hill, where he’d once shakily stood, basically a child, and apologised until he was hoarse in the throat, he has a moment where it all comes back. His chest tightens, his throat constricts and his eyes prickle.

But then his daughter babbles and her voice carries like flower petals on a warm summers day. His husband catches his eye, the one who’d stood on this exact space with him and bared his soul too, was reborn with him. His husband who frowns in concern and holds out a gloved hand for his own.

Katsuki who takes it, and squeezes because he’s that kind of man now. The swelling in his chest and throat subside and he blinks a stray tear away, taking a deep lungful of clear, cool air as he keeps his gaze on his daughters face and his grip firm around his husband's strong fingers.

His best friend slings an arm around his shoulders as they walk towards the door, Katsuki doesn’t need to look to know that he’ll be smiling.

The door slides open as the four of them approach and Eri’s face is incandescent, eyes and hair sparkling in the fairy lights. Several heads swivel round to beam at them too, from the warm interior of the restaurant and many familiar voices call out. In the room packed full of people, he spots Aizawa and All Might sitting at a table in the corner nursing mulled wine, and Deku puffs up with emotion beside him as his mentor spots them and smiles ardently.

Katsuki counts to 8 as he exhales, and walks forward to join the rest of his family.

- - -