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When Momo and Tenya decided to adopt, they entered what Shouta thought of as Preparation Hell.
Shouta knew Preparation Hell well; Momo entered it whenever an event was about to come up. High school and university entrance exams, every single birthday (except hers), gatherings of friends and family, promotions at work—every single thing was preceded by a mountain of research, weeks of organizing, and endless second-guessing.
When Momo finally married Tenya, he helped curb the second-guessing somewhat. But the research seemed to multiply exponentially. Case in point: Preparation Hell: Adoption Edition.
“So, the light blue sticky notes are for …?” Shouta trailed off, glancing at Momo.
She didn’t even deign to look up from the stack of papers she was murdering with a highlighter. “Things we need to prepare for the baby’s day-to-day care.”
“Pink?”
“Everything we need to do to baby-proof the house.” Momo paused in her reading to lock slightly manic eyes on Shouta. They reminded him of Hizashi whenever he got really heated about creating the perfect playlist. “Father, I won’t let our child be squashed by Tenya’s engineering manuals.”
“I doubt Tenya will either,” Shouta said dryly.
Tenya chose that moment to enter the study and brandish a toolbox. “Momo! I just realized that after I finish securing the bookshelves to the walls, we can use this opportunity to rearrange all our books alphabetically by author and topic!”
“We can’t wait to meet them!” Hizashi said into his phone, ignoring Shouta’s attempts at freeing his sleeve from Hizashi’s clutches. “We’re on our way there now.”
“I can walk to the car without you dragging me along, you know,” Shouta grumped.
Hizashi shoved his phone into his pocket, and shoved Shouta out the front door. “Yes, yes. But you’re moving so slowly! Don’t you want to see our grandbaby as soon as possible?”
“I doubt the baby’s going to disappear if we don’t arrive within the next hour.”
Sniping at his husband’s excitable nature had become automatic after all these years. Shouta couldn’t let Hizashi think that he could get his way all the time, after all. But a small part of him was excited to meet the newest addition to the family and that was the part that quickly reversed the car out of the parking space as soon as they were buckled in.
They were at Momo and Tenya’s house in record time, Hizashi practically kicking the front door open in his excitement. “Where’s our grandbaby?” he called, haphazardly toeing off his shoes. He speed-walked past Momo in the entryway, too excited to wait for her to lead the way.
Shouta, however, noticed that Momo’s hands were clasped in front of her.
His eyes narrowed. That was Momo’s “I have something important to say, but I’m worried you’ll get mad” hand clasp. “What happened?” he asked. Did the adoption fall through? Did he and Hizashi have to go fight someone now on behalf of their daughter?
“Well. There’s been a change of plans …” Momo said slowly.
From the living room, Hizashi yelled, “Why are there so many?”
In hindsight, Preparation Hell: Adoption Edition made sense.
Shouta had assumed that Momo and Tenya’s zeal had been because of their natural earnestness. In truth, it had been that and the fact that they apparently didn’t have the heart to choose just one baby to adopt.
“Tenya and I did the math,” Momo said, opening up a finance tracking app on her phone. “If we stick to our updated monthly budget, we’ll be all set for the next three years at least.”
“What happens after three years?” Hizashi asked.
Tenya adjusted his eyeglasses while somehow gently rocking two babies to sleep. “We didn’t want to make concrete plans too far ahead. Too many things could change by then! We’ll set a schedule to revisit and reevaluate the budget.”
“Eighteen babies, Momo,” Shouta said from his spot on the couch. He’d somehow found himself covered in at least five diaper-wearing weights and was frozen in place, lest one of them fall and crack their head open on the floor. He was pretty sure you couldn’t baby-proof the floor. “You have enough kids for a soccer team. You have almost enough kids for an entire high school class. You could open up a decent-sized hero agency one day.”
Momo carefully pried a lock of her hair out of sticky baby fingers. “Tenya and I had always planned on adopting more than one child. We’re just …”
“On an accelerated timeline,” Tenya supplied.
In Shouta’s humble opinion, accelerated timelines were for joint operations that suddenly needed to happen weeks in advance because of villain shenanigans. They should never be used when referring to the utterly ridiculous notion of adopting more than a dozen tiny humans.
Hizashi bounced a baby on his lap. “Well, at least they’ll all have someone to play with growing up?”
“I have no idea what they were thinking,” Shouta muttered. Mezou blinked sleepily up at him from where he was happily nestled in Shouta’s arms. “It’s like they want to become prematurely gray from stress.”
“They were probably thinking that these teeny tiny listeners were too cute to leave behind.” Hizashi leaned closer to give one of Mezou’s fat cheeks a light squeeze. Mezou was the youngest among Shouta’s newly acquired grandchildren but was also the largest.
Shouta snorted. “They’re running themselves into the ground. Look, it’s already lunch time and they’re still asleep. Have you ever seen Tenya be late for anything?”
“But that’s our job as grandparents,” Hizashi said. “To support our daughter and her husband as they embark on the wonderful journey of parenthood.”
Deeming Mezou to be in a deep enough sleep, Shouta carefully deposited him in his crib before pulling Hizashi out of Nursery Room #1. “Come help me wake up our intrepid travelers. I’m hungry and I refuse to cook after changing all those diapers.”
Shouta wasn’t sure if six-month-old babies were supposed to have the hand-eye coordination necessary to throw their bottle at their sibling, but Katsuki seemed to be pretty advanced in all other milestones, so it seemed to be par for the course. In the same vein, it was hard to tell if Izuku falling backwards to lie flat on the play mat was done on purpose and borne of well-developed situational awareness, or if he’d just lost his balance.
Regardless, Shouta quickly bent down and grabbed both Katsuki and the empty bottle. “You’re bad for each other’s health.”
“Are Katsuki and Izuku roughhousing again?” Tenya asked, walking into the playroom with an armload of soft building blocks.
“If you call trying to decapitate another kid with a bottle ‘roughhousing,’ then yes.”
“Momo and I have considered keeping them apart,” Tenya admitted. “But they both look so sad when they realize that the other one’s not in the same room. I think this is just their way of playing.”
Tenya handed Katsuki a block which he promptly threw away. Izuku rolled onto his tummy and narrowly avoided the projectile.
Shouta sighed.
“I know I’m not supposed to have favorites,” Shouta said, holding Hitoshi aloft and meeting equally tired eyes, “but this one’s my favorite.”
“Well, ‘this one’ needs his diaper changed,” Momo replied, neatly scooping Hitoshi out of Shouta’s hold. “I’ll give him back when I’m done.”
Hitoshi squirmed on the changing table, only settling down when Shouta moved closer and into his line of sight. He cooed and extended his arms out in Shouta’s direction. Momo pursed her lips. “Well, it looks like the feeling is mutual.”
“Of course I’m Hitoshi’s favorite. Your dad is too loud to be a good napping buddy.”
Hitoshi cooed again as if he were agreeing.
“Grandfatherhood is a good look on you.”
Shouta looked up from where he was prying the remote out of Tsuyu’s sticky grip. “Strange, I don’t feel particularly attractive right now,” he quipped. He was, in fact, covered in an alarming amount of baby powder and he was pretty sure his hair was even more of a tangled mess than usual.
Still, Hizashi hummed and sat down beside him on the sofa. “It’s all the nurturing and bottle-feeding. Makes me want to give these teeny tiny listeners a new aunt or uncle.”
The sound Tsuyu made in reaction to Shouta’s loud snort could only be described as offended. Shouta rocked her a bit in an attempt to stave off a crying fit. “Don’t be ridiculous. We’ve already got enough babies to worry about. Even Tsuyu knows that’s a terrible idea.”
“She’s biased! She’s half-asleep in your warm embrace.” Hizashi slouched a bit so he could rest his head on Shouta’s shoulder. “I’m so jealous.”
“Only you would be jealous of your own grandkid.” Despite the snark, Shouta made no move to dislodge Hizashi.
Tenya shifted Ochako to his other arm and pulled out his phone. Unlocking it, he tapped on the message Momo had just sent him.
His screen was immediately filled with a picture of his fathers-in-law asleep on their sofa. Tsuyu blinked up at Momo—who presumably took the picture—while her cheek was pressed against Aizawa-san’s chest.
Tenya laughed quietly. He tilted the phone so Ochako could see the screen. “Aren’t your grandfathers cute?” Ochako let out her own giggles, recognizing the sleeping couple. “Come on, let’s finish shopping so we can get home to them and Mama.”
Eighteen kids was a lot, but Tenya thought he and his family were handling it just fine.