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When Eijirou was young he was, on all accounts, a good kid. He was kind, a good listener, and charming. Every adult in his life would agree, but he did struggle with a few things.
It wasn’t like he didn’t play well with other kids, or that he didn’t have friends. He was just… a little disconnected. Things didn’t click between him and his peers like they seemed to for the rest of his classmates.
He always seemed to be stutter-stepping through interactions. Always apprehensive, always a little stilted.
Eijirou was a good kid, but he did struggle.
At his seventh birthday party, he found himself sat at a Hero themed table- a plastic sheet with a few of the greats smiling or looking tough printed in patterns down its side laid across it.
Cake was sat in front of him as his friends and their parents sang good naturedly to him. When he closed his eyes and blew out the candles he would wish for the same thing he did since he started school.
On Eijirou’s seventh birthday he wished for a best friend.
—————-
During his first year at UA Eijirou had done more growing up than he felt he had done for the first fifteen years of his life combined. From a one-eighty in confidence to finding depths he could find in his friendships, he had come a very long way.
One of the friendships he was most proud of was his and Bakugo’s. It didn’t take long for he and Bakugo to become more than friends, but best friends. It came to them as naturally as a baby learning to breathe.
His other close friend, Kaminari, would joke that they were platonic soul mates. Mina would lean in so no one but she and Eijirou could hear, and giggle, “yeah, suuuuper platonic.”
Every time it’d leave Eijirou blushing and flustered, trying to shush her so no one would notice. He knew they did though. He knew his friends knew about his heart stopping crush on Bakugo.
Maybe everyone did. He wondered if Bakugo had picked up on it too.
Returning back to the dorms on the day of his sixteenth birthday he found himself surprised. His classmates turned friends turning the lights off abruptly and a loud, out of key tune was sung out to him wishing him well.
He smiled, large and genuine, and laughed. He heard a gumble from the boy next to him, telling him to hurry so he could avoid the headache the singing was apparently going to give him.
On Eijirou’s sixteenth birthday he wished for Bakugo.
———-
Young adulthood was good to Eijirou. He was busy climbing the ranks as a pro hero, and taking care of the apartment he shared with his boyfriend. He was happy and more determined than ever. Popularity polls found him in the single digits, there seemed to not be a soul he touched that was immune to his magnetic charisma.
Popularity polls were fine, Eijirou liked the validation of being well liked. It made him happy to know he was spreading his positive influence throughout the country.
It wasn’t enough. He wanted to stand up there with the greats. He wanted to stand in line with his lover, his friends. Eijirou didn’t just want to be a good hero, he wanted to be a great one.
Eijirou found himself taking part in a huge villain organization takedown for his twentieth birthday. Not a lot of time for celebrating.
When all was said and done they had come out victorious, just as he knew they would. He was happy and ready to return home, having forgotten completely that it was the anniversary of his birth.
He was pulled to the side, away from the cameras in a small alley. He was face to face to crimson eyes covered partially by a battle worn mask. Words fell from his boyfriend’s mouth telling him how amazing he had fought, how fucking proud he was of him.
A single cupcake held up to his face with a single lit candle illuminating the space between them.
On Eijirou’s twentieth birthday he wished to be a top hero.
———-
Life as a top hero was busy. Busier than Eijirou could have ever known.
He was brazenly happy.
He wore his happiness on himself like a crown,as did his boyfriend. Wore their success on their faces like jewels set in precious metals.
They weren’t always allowed too much time for each other, but they had their priorities straight. It was what they both agreed on in order to make their relationship work. It came with its own messes. It came with nights spent alone, wide awake and exhausted. Nights spent wishing there was someone there to hold him because the day before had been like a razorblade to his skin. It came with fights born of frustrations that had no way of being released but unfairly onto each other.
On the back of that hand came the graces, and, oh, Bakugo was a saving grace to him.
For every night spent alone there were nights filled with equal parts comforting silences and healing words. There were apologies and learning curves and lessons on how to love that Eijirou never thought to think about.
Loving Bakugo Katsuki was incomparable to anything else. Loving Bakugo burned brightly within and around him. It swallowed him up completely and filled the space in his lungs, coming out with every desperate breath. He loved Bakugo Katsuki, every part of him, in every way.
Eijirou found himself relaxing on his twenty-eighth birthday. A rare shared day off with his lover. A homemade cake placed in front of him, sat at a table full of friends that were off duty. They sang to him and he looked to the boy who made the day happen for him, who invited their friends. The boy who’s mouth spilled no words of distaste for the melody sang to Eijirou by his friends, but smiled instead.
Eijirou had no interest in exploring anything else. He had no interest in envisioning his days in any other way than next to him.
On Eijirou’s twenty-eighth birthday he wished to marry Bakugo.
———
Eijirou felt the fringes of his age closing in on him. His work was hard on his body, and it was creeping its way to catching up on him.
He noticed it in his husband too, he saw it in the faint lines just beginning to form on his face. His favorite being the soft one that cut between his brow from years upon years of keeping them pinched together.
They were growing up.
Eijirou objectively knew that he wouldn’t be young forever, but living to see himself change still seemed surreal. A friend showing him a picture from highschool had sent him home to his husband in a fit of distress, telling him that they were practically old men and their youth had evaded them. Slipped away like smoke they tried to hold on to.
His husband sighed, calming him with an embrace. He spoke words into Eijirou’s neck about a youth brimming with love and adventure and fulfillment. A youth spent together, just as their old age would be.
Then teasing Eijirou over a so called early onset mid-life crisis.
Then calming him further by telling him he knew where the panic stemmed from, and he felt it too.
Eijirou found himself wanting to turn in early on his thirty-fourth birthday, but stopped by his husband, who had to head to their agency for a small emergency. He waited for him to come home, dozing on the couch a bit as he heard the lock turn from the foyer.
He was presented with a box of his favorite scones from the bakery up the street, a candle in each one.
On Eijirou’s thirty-fourth birthday he wished for children.
———-
No news is better than bad news.
This is what Eijirou repeated in his head as he tried to fall asleep in his bed.
It was hard when his ribs were being dug into by his son’s elbow, and his daughter opting to lay on him rather than his bed. His third child was snoring somewhere to the left of him and he’d be more uncomfortable if he thought he’d be able to fall asleep without his eyes on the three of them.
With Katsuki away on some mission with Midoriya, one where he hadn’t had any form of communication for over a week, his anxiety was too high to deny the kids when they asked to sleep with him again that night.
They missed their dad. They were scared.
Eijirou was used to being away from his husband for varying amounts of time, either of them could be called away at any time if their work called for it.
But there were normally at least texts. At least Good Nights, and Miss You’s.
Normally there wasn’t radio silence.
But.
No news is better than bad news.
His daughter’s blond puff of hair tickled his chin again and he smoothed it down with his hand. She stirred a bit and nuzzled her head as if she could get closer.
Eijirou smiled, she was heat seeking in her sleep. Just like her dad.
His chest ached with affection.
If he was drowning in his love for Katsuki, then he’d be at the bottom of the Mariana Trench for his kids. They were perfection. They were his life raft and the storm that capsized his boat. They put a kaleidoscope over his vision. Turning everything upside down, and showing him beauty and color he’d never be privy to otherwise.
Their children were their reason, as if any other pathetic one they had come up with before their existence could hold a candle to them. Pride, glory, winning and all that- none of it came close to a little voice telling him, “we’re counting on you, Papa!”
He wouldn’t let them down.
Katsuki wouldn’t let them down.
Eijirou’s forty-sixth birthday found him looking at a clock on his bedside table, his children clinging to him, and chanting in his head about no news vs. bad news.
12:04am.
On Eijirou’s forty-sixth birthday he wished for his husband to come home.
———-
Retirement was officially on the table for Eijirou and his husband.
They had protected countless people, saved millions.
And fallen in love with each other a thousand times over.
Eijirou’s mind and body were beginning to agree that it was time to get some rest. He was starting to get an inkling that his husband would agree. Especially the nights Eijirou would wake alone only to find his husband icing his arms in the kitchen sink.
Their daughter was in her final year at UA, improving leaps and bounds on mastering One For All.
The twins were on their way to taking over the agency. While Katsuki would privately say he didn’t think they were ready, they both knew he had the utmost faith in them.
He just hoped it’s what they wanted.
He worried that when all three children chose to follow the hero path that they had felt like they had actually had the choice. Eijirou’s worst fear was that they would live their lives in a way that didn’t make them happy just to please him and Katsuki.
But the pride was clear on their boys’ faces when they saw them, he and Katsuki hiding inconspicuously out of the way of the crowd and reporters. Holding hands to keep each other from jumping into the fight in front of them, letting their successors handle it.
And handle it they did.
And handle it they would.
On their daughter’s graduation day Eijirou saw only Katsuki on her face. Determined and proud. Only a sharper smile, and maybe her eyes were normally a little softer, but not today.
Today they were Katsuki’s.
A few decades ago Katsuki’s eyes looked at him in the same venue, celebrating the same achievement.
Today he looked at his husband’s softer eyes, a smile threatening his face, it’s only tell the little crow’s feet trying to form next to his eyes.
Stoic as always. He would look over to Eijirou and look settled. Eijirou knew he was thinking the same thing he was.
They had done it. What they set out to do and left behind three living legacies to ease the public as well as themselves.
Eijirou’s sixty-fifth birthday found him handing over the agency to his kids.
Many friends in and out of retirement were able to attend the party that was supposed to be for them but quickly turned into his.
He took a moment to excuse himself to be alone in his office one last time.
He took a picture frame from the corner of his desk.
His family smiled back at him in the frame, all big smiles with some missing teeth. Katsuki looked so young, but also happy.
To some extent the picture was how they existed in his head. Even looking at his kids, grown and living on their own, when he thought of them he thought of these small, chubby faces.
When he rejoined the party, after turning the lights off and closing the door to his office behind him for the final time, it was to a chorus.
He smiled as he made his way quickly down the stairs to meet his children who were holding a cake out to him, all fighting to keep a hand on it.
Katsuki looked affectionately annoyed behind them, just hoping the cake wasn’t dropped.
The voices faded off and he took in the stark differences between the three adults standing in front of him and the babies he had just been looking at in the photograph moments ago.
On Eijirou’s sixty-fifth birthday he wished for his kids to grow up to be as happy as he was.
———
Eijirou’s daughter was asleep on Katsukis shoulder.
Her wife was busy clicking away on her laptop in the seat next to her.
Eijirou himself sat on the other side of his husband, one hand on his knee the other holding his phone.
Next to him sat one of the twins.
His brother in the hospital room just past the waiting room.
Eijirou looked to see that only he and his daughter in law were awake.
He checked the clock.
He shook his husbands knee a little to let him know it was past midnight. A sleepy smile graced Katsuki’s face before his head lolled to rest on their daughter’s. Eijirou smiled to himself.
When they were allowed back Eijirou thought he and Katsuki were going to have to separate their kids as they fought to be the first to see.
Katsuki of course took the distraction and let himself into the room before either of them, Eijirou slipped in behind him.
His son’s teary eyes met his immediately, and Eijirou felt overwhelmed.
In the few moments Eijirou had took to congratulate and hug his son his previous call on ‘first dibs’ had been ignored.
He leaned over the bed to check in with his other daughter in law who laid in it.
Then finally turned to Katsuki, on the other side of the bed. Holding a small bundle in his arms.
Eijirou’s seventy-fourth birthday found him welcoming his first grandchild into the world.
He walked over behind his husband, bringing a hand to rest on the small of his back. Katsuki tried to pass wiping a tear from his face as adjusting his glasses. Eijirou let it slide.
He quietly watched his husband take everything in. He still felt like sometimes he could be crushed by the incredible amount of love he felt for the man. He knew now, after a lifetime of loving him, he was one of the lucky ones. Eijirou really did get to spend his lifetime walking with his soulmate.
He reached his other hand to the small one clutching the blanket it was wrapped in.
One small hand wrapped entirely around his finger and unfocused eyes that fell on him briefly before closing again.
One family huddled, and in a miraculous rarity, all in one room around a brand new life.
On Eijirou’s seventy-fourth birthday he couldn’t think of a single thing to wish for that he didn’t already have.