Work Text:
“Oi, what is this shit?” Katsuki asks, and he holds up the tiny, red crochet contraptions with a healthy measure of suspicion.
They could be teeny little…bags? Definitely wouldn’t be the weirdest thing Shouto’s ordered online over the years. Not even close actually.
It’s gotten even worse since they had the kid. Shouto doesn’t have any impulse control when it comes to ordering baby stuff and Katsuki spends way too much time going through and returning things that just didnʼt work. Part of this is Katsuki’s fault, since at the end of the day this is his kid, and like him views every new thing offered to him with a healthy measure of suspicion.
But itʼs Shouto's fault for indulging him.
“Mittens,” Shouto answers, and he’s looking at Katsuki like that’s just the most obvious thing in the world. “For Aki.”
But Katsuki’s not an idiot. He’s seen mittens before. They have a separate thumb compartment. These things don’t have that. Therefore, not mittens.
“No, they’re not,” he kneels down to Akira’s level (he’s currently being spoon-fed by Katsuki’s shopaholic husband). “These fuckin’ things your mittens or is your dad tryna pull one over on me again?”
Goddamn those cheeks are chubby. (He’s starting to look more like Katsuki in the face and in the shape of his eyes, one red and one gray—but those cheeks are all Shouto.)
“Don’t involve him in this,” Shouto scolds, unimpressed. “These are baby mittens.”
“There’s no space for his thumbs,” Katsuki points out, and then switches his tone to talk to Akira. “You gotta have space for your thumbs. Don’t ya?”
(Katsuki tried to deny it for months, but he does in fact switch his vocal tone to be a little softer when he’s talking to the kid. Sometimes he does it for Shouto too, but thank god no one talks about it.)
“Baby mittens don’t always have thumbs,” Shouto shrugs.
Akira—who’s been Shou’s little copycat from day one, tries to say something in his support—and some of the mashed banana Shouto’s been feeding him falls out of his mouth. Katsuki immediately grabs the strawberry-printed washcloth to the side and wipes it off. These aren’t his pro hero reflexes at work, but the honed skills of an active kidʼs parent. As they’ve discovered (ever since Akira started crawling), moving fast is imperative.
“Messy brat,” Katsuki mutters, not unkindly.
“Takes after you,” Shouto points at him accusingly with the small plastic spoon.
“Me? Please. You even see the wreck you left in the kitchen last night?”
“It wasn’t that bad.”
“It was horrifying,” Katsuki snaps. “Don’t ever try to bake in my kitchen again.”
“See, Aki. Papa doesn’t know how to share.”
“That’s it,” Katsuki picks the baby up and puts him on his lap. “If I don’t know how to share, I guess this little monkey’s all mine.”
Akira doesn’t even make a sound as he’s taken from Shouto. He still knows that he’s safe with Katsuki and therefore he doesn’t scream bloody murder (like he did the first time he met Deku and the nerd picked him up—ha, good times).
Shouto wordlessly hands him the spoon and the bowl, content to watch as Katsuki takes up the feeding himself. Half-and-half bastard doesn’t even respond to him, letting the conversation hang right there and laying down on his side instead.
They’re sitting on the floor. So Shouto can prop his head up a bit against his own hand and watch Akira in Katsuki’s lap, reaching out his other palm and making little icicles to pass the time.
It’s not something he could always do.
When they first got together, Shouto and him, Shouto didn’t know how to make ‘em like this, frozen toys.
He practiced it for weeks and months once they knew this baby was comin.’ Then Shouto had held their kid in his arms at just two-weeks old and showed him for the first time, cradling him to his chest and calling him little ‘snowflake,’ his ‘mini Katsuki’ with a full head of blonde, spiky hair. Katsuki won’t even deny that it made him cry.
Now Shouto does it all the time. Katsuki’s quirk is a bit too stimulating to entertain the kid with when it’s late. But slow-forming ice in his palm, or even a bright flickering flame in his other hand makes Akira look, and he always smiles.
Shouto told him once that he never got to see his own father’s quirk like that. Something fun.
Katsuki knows he’d only treat his quirk like a party trick for their little boy. Shouto’s always been insistent, in his own quiet, actionable way, that Akira grow up having everything he didn’t.
Katsuki feeds Akira a few bites and then pauses just to watch Shouto’s ice crystallize in his hands. His hair looks so perfect just splayed out on the floor. So soft with its red and white strands.
Shouto looks so calm and relaxed like this. Dressed down in one of Katsuki's black t-shirts and his own blue sweatpants. His smile looks about a million times prettier this way than it has on any of the billboards or magazine covers he’s been on over the years. When he looks at Akira (and at Katsuki too) he comes alive.
Dinner time is always slow. Akira’s a slow eater. But Katsuki and Shouto sit for as long as it takes to make sure he’s had enough. Sometimes it takes an hour or more.
Little brat always lets them know when he’s done-done, finished to the point where no distraction from one or both of them will get another spoon in. He starts to get fussy. His face gets all scrunched up and before it escalates into cries one of them scoops him up. The other follows.
Tonight Shouto takes him, and he waits, bouncing the baby gently in his arms while Katsuki gets the lights. They’ll wash the bowl and spoon tomorrow.
The cat sees this as her cue to jump off the couch and lead the way to the bedroom.
Akira reaches out for her immediately, ever Shouto’s son and Katsuki feels a twinge in his chest at Shouto's soft voice. “Say goodnight, Aki. Goodnight Soba-chan.”
The waving is a new thing, and they’re both very proud of it. Itʼs a big fuckin' deal. The kid knows how to wave goodnight, goodbye and hello. He does it all the time now and Katsuki remembers the very first time he did it, sitting on the daisy rug in the playroom, holding onto his red stuffed fox. Kirishima was leaving, and he waved and said ‘bye bye little guy’ and that was it. Akira waved back at him.
Kirishima ended up staying after that. Shouto got the video camera, and they spent the rest of the evening trying to get him to do it again. He didn’t, because no son of Katsuki and Shouto does something just because someone else wants him to, and they gave each other shit about that before they went to bed: how incredibly stubborn their kid had turned out to be, and who’s fault that is.
Akira’s hand looks so small when he does his tiny wave. Katsuki watches as Shouto echoes with his own. The cat ignores it (as cats tend to do), but Katsuki comes over and kisses both of them. Two kisses on both of his son’s chubby cheeks. One for his little nose. Then he kisses his husband. On the forehead first, and then again on the mouth.
“I love you,” he says, and it’s meant for them both.
“We love you more,” Shouto says.
“Hah? Hardly.”
“There’s two of us,” Shouto points out.
Akira’s too sleepy to respond, just rests his head against Shouto’s chest. Katsuki looks at their twin sets of mismatched eyes. Shouto’s one gray and one blue, Akira’s one gray and one red. He shakes his head.
“There could be four of you for all that matters, I’d still love you the fucking most.”
“Does that mean you’re open to having more?” Shouto asks, and Katsuki shakes his head again.
For now their family is perfect. Just the three of them: Katsuki’s entire world.
“Nah. I’ve got all I need right here,” he ruffles Akira’s hair, which looks like his own, but is softer to the touch, like Shouto’s. “Now go brush.”
“I’ll kill the germs dead,” Shouto promises.
Katsuki smacks his ass (because he’s obviously making fun, and how dare he, the dumbass), and makes a note that he should probably stop doing that around Aki at some point, but not yet.
Their bathroom is off the bedroom. That’s where Shouto takes the baby to brush his teeth. He only has two total so far, but Katsuki insists that they be thorough. They bought a soft bristle toothbrush made just for babies and an apple-flavored kid’s toothpaste that should hopefully convince the little brat that brushing your teeth is fun.
(Katsuki believes in good dental hygiene from the get-go.)
Once Shouto’s done, he brings Akira back out.
The baby reaches his arms forward and calls out for “papa” and Katsuki’s heart jumps out of his chest, and he takes the kid from Shouto, holding him close while they sit down together on their bed. When they brought Akira home from the hospital and set him down on the bed between them the first time, Shouto told him he never thought he could be this happy. How he thought his happiness had peaked the day they got married, but somehow it had gotten more intense, more meaningful once Akira was in the picture.
Katsuki agrees. Every day seems better than the last, relentlessly documented in photos and videos that will doubtless embarrass this kid once he’s old enough to understand that his parents love him more than anything else in the world—what could be more embarrassing than that (for a teenager)? Other than the fact that his parents are also stupidly in love with each other.
“Go get those mittens, let’s try ‘em on,” Katsuki says, well aware that he’s turning into his mom, who loves using Aki as a baby model, claiming he’s better behaved than Katsuki ever was.
“There’s also a matching hat,” Shouto says. “Should I grab that as well?”
Of course there is.
Katsuki’s not even surprised. “Sure, Princess. Get that too.”
They’ve got enough time for baby dress-up, then a bedtime story (from the new book Shouto’s mother sent over) before lights out.
These days they move at a slower pace. They’ve got enough time for everything they want.