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In spite of how often he finds himself napping, Shouta is notoriously a light sleeper.
Anything and everything can wake him up; from Hizashi tossing and turning in bed to Hitoshi making himself a snack on the other side of the apartment, Shouta doesn't think he's ever slept through a night without waking up at least once.
When he takes the time to sleep during class, he's very rarely asleep for long, if he can even manage to really fall asleep in the first place. If a student gets up from their seat, if a door shuts a little too loudly in the hallway, or if the atmosphere changes ever so slightly, his blood-shot eyes are open and scanning the room with an alertness most would think impossible.
Doctors blame the logistics of his quirk, Shouta blames the paranoia instilled within him from over ten years of working the underground, and Hizashi blames his minimalist diet that is as practical as it is efficient– which is to say, perfectly rational for someone like Shouta and his years of figuring out what works, but not something he would ever recommend to his students.
Regardless of reason, there are not a lot of people capable of sneaking up on the infamous Eraserhead, even at his most vulnerable.
So, when Shouta blearily blinks open his eyes from an impromptu nap to find synthetic fur pressed against every inch of his body, he's a little confused to say the least.
In all honesty, he barely remembers falling asleep. His patrol ran a little late, leading him to stumble through his front door at a little past five in the morning, three hours after his usual clock out time. Thankfully, Hizashi responded to his text informing him of the change and didn't wait up for him, but that did mean that no one was at the door to force him into bed. Instead, he all but collapsed on the couch, still in his hero costume.
He shifts his aching limbs, taking stock of the situation. He's laying on his stomach with one arm acting as a pillow beneath his face and the other flung over the side, fingertips brushing against the floor. His capture weapon has been removed from around his neck, likely from Hizashi because that man is convinced that Shouta will strangle himself in his sleep with it, and there's a familiar weight of a cat curled up and laying on the dip in his back, slightly vibrating with a continuous purr.
Blinking a few times more and growing a little more alert, he realizes that the synthetic fur he feels on the exposed parts of his skin are stuffed animals– dozens of them, big and small. They are absolutely covering him. There's a floppy panda resting on top of his head, as well as a series of multi-colored cat plushies surrounding a sleeping Concrete, the grey tabby cat that they found in a parking lot.
Shouta stares groggily at the scene, about as confused as he would be waking up after one of Hizashi's ragers when they were twenty, until his vision comes more into focus and he sees his son, Hitoshi, located on the floor and sitting on his knees half a meter away from him. He's dressed in one of Shouta's shirts that is far too big for his skinny frame and is sorting Pokémon cards by type with a plump shark plushie in his arms. Between the lack of pants, the abundance of plushies, and Hitoshi's preferred form of play, it's very evident that he's currently regressed.
“Hey, Toshi,” Shouta rasps, words thick with sleep and scratchy against his throat. He quickly clears it, smacking his lips a bit as he tries to get rid of his cotton mouth. The corners of his lips are crusted with dried drool and his brain is completely down the gutter. He hardly knows where he is right now, let alone how to be a person.
It's been a while since he's crashed that hard.
“Daddy!” Hitoshi all but beams. His voice is breathy, the deep tones of it unused to and unable to comply with the way he wants to pitch it up. Hitoshi once told him that part of the reason he hates speaking when small is because the sound that comes out is so unfamiliar.
“What's going on here?” Shouta asks, vaguely swinging his arm to gesture at the stuffed animals.
Hitoshi tilts his head curiously. “Connie took a nap on you an’ she looked lonely, so I gave her some friends to sleep with! Then, I got really bored waitin’ for you so I got my cards and started re-sorting ‘em.” He shows off the various stacks of cards, neatly arranged on the floor in front of him.
“Ah,” Shouta says, despite the fact that the words don't really answer much. “And why were you waiting for me?” He wracks his brain trying to remember if they had something planned this morning– or rather, this afternoon.
Sufficiently awake, Shouta gently shuffles around as to disturb Concrete as minimally as possible. She still vocalizes her annoyance as soon as his shifting wakes her up, and Shouta can only give her a small apology in the form of a head rub as she hops up to lay on the back of the couch instead of his moving body. All of Hitoshi's plushies tumble and fall around him.
“It's raining! And Momma said we could go play when you woke up!” Hitoshi explains, bouncing on his knees with a toothy grin and excitedly pointing at the window.
“Is that so?” Shouta gives the boy a small smile. He takes great care in setting the plushies back up, this time letting them sit normally on the cushions so they can watch the movie quietly playing on the TV.
“It is not so,” Hizashi’s voice rings out as he comes out of their bedroom, mostly dressed for the day barring his fuzzy red slippers. “What did Momma actually say we could do?” He raises an eyebrow at a pouting Hitoshi.
“Momma said I had to ask you if we could go play in the rain,” Hitoshi begrudgingly admits. “That's why I had to wait for you to wake up.”
“Trying to pull a fast one on me, kid?” Shouta asks with a fond chuckle, opening his arms and prompting Hitoshi to climb into his lap.
“I dunno… did it work?”
“Ask me properly and we'll see.” Shouta says, sounding every bit like a dad. It nearly makes him roll his eyes at himself, and at the way he holds Hitoshi close, keeping him from falling off. It isn't the easiest to stay situated when you're as tall as he is.
“Daddy?” Hitoshi bats his eyelashes and lets his face fall into a perfect pout, doe eyes and all. “Can we go play in the rain?”
The sound of the coffee machine whirring in the background is music to Shouta’s ears and between it and the way that he's never been strong enough to deny Hitoshi's sweet little requests, the answer is already on the tip of Shouta's tongue before he finishes asking.
“Of course,” Shouta runs his fingers through Hitoshi's hair, keeping his hand firmly holding the back of the boy's head. “But only if you get dressed. Raincoat, rainboots, and pants. Understand?”
“Raincoat, rainboots, rainpants,” Hitoshi parrots, nodding his head.
Shouta lets go of him and Hitoshi scrambles out of his lap and down the hall to his bedroom. As he does, Hizashi enters the living room from the kitchen with a reheated bowl of rice and eggs, presumably what they had for breakfast.
Shouta takes it with a grateful smile. “Surprised you guys didn't wake me up.”
“You clearly needed the sleep,” Hizashi says, sitting beside him. He rests his head on Shouta's shoulder. “How was patrol?”
“Not worth an extra three hours,” Shouta scoffs around a mouthful of rice. “Is Hitoshi okay? He doesn't usually regress on his own like that.”
Most of his regression is impure, triggered by nightmares or meltdowns. The goal was always to try and make it something kinder for him, something that he could associate with safety and that he could do even when he isn't upset, but they try not to push him any which way.
“Ah, he's fine,” Hizashi waves it off. “The little listener caught sight of the rain half an hour ago and slipped pretty far down. He's been steadily agin’ up while he waited, no biggie.”
“Surprised you guys didn't wake me up,” Shouta repeats, this time much more pointedly. If Hitoshi’s regression came from something good, like being excited, then Hizashi should've dropped everything and woke him up so they could keep it going.
“Don’t give me that look– I didn't do anything!” Hizashi squawks, stealing a piece of Shouta's egg and popping it in his mouth. “I told him that he could and he said, and I quote, ‘Daddy says sleep is super duper important,’ and that he can wait his turn to go play.”
“Did he now?” Shouta mutters.
“Mhmm, so you should really blame yourself for being such a good father,” Hizashi says, nudging Shouta with his elbow.
“That isn't rational. He's your son, so the fault lies with you,” Shouta retorts wryly. He finishes off his rice and eggs, letting it settle in his stomach. He’s still getting used to the idea of eating as soon as he wakes up; something he only started doing in the hopes that Hitoshi would imitate him with breakfast.
“He was your son first!” Hizashi sing-songs, taking Shouta's empty bowl and pushing himself off the couch as the coffee machine beeps. He disappears behind the corner, pitching his voice louder. “Now, go take a shower before we go! You're still covered in blood from last night.”
Shouta scans himself and notes that he does, indeed, have patches of dried blood in his costume and dotted on his skin. He's pretty sure it isn't his, at least. The red draws his eyes to the couch, a pretty blue color that Hizashi picked as the focal point of the room. Now, it only highlights the smears of blood across the cushions.
As he notices it, Hizashi's voice calls out again. “And you better not have gotten any on my couch! You'll be sleepin’ on it for a looooong time, honey!”
Shouta takes one of Hitoshi's stuffed cats and sets it on the blood stain. He'll deal with that later– preferably before Hizashi notices.
Fifteen minutes pass and they're all out the door, strolling down the mostly empty road. The chill is biting, even worse than it had been the night before, and the skies are a gloomy grey. The rain is consistent, just on the cusp of being heavy, and the pitter-patter of it hiding asphalt and metal roofs is rather soothing.
Hitoshi takes the lead, giggling to himself as he jumps into every puddle he can lay his eyes on. Luckily, he managed to listen and dressed himself like Shouta requested. He's a bloom of color amongst the murky greys, in a colorblock raincoat that has a powder blue torso, pale yellow hood, and one sleeve being a pastel green with the other a light lavender. His pants are more loose than Shouta would like– they're more something he'd put the boy to sleep in when its cold– and his rainboots are mismatching, with one being pink and cat themed with ears sticking out of the boot and the other being purple and unicorn themed with a horn, similarly pointed outwards, but at least he's dressed. That's more than Hitoshi would bother with if it were warmer out.
Shouta, himself, showered and threw on a basic charcoal hoodie that is definitely not thick enough for winter rain and hiking boots that aren't quite waterproof enough for this weather either. He’s saved by the thermos of coffee keeping his hands warm and the umbrella Hizashi keeps tilted above their head as they trail behind HItoshi.
“You aren't cold?” Hizashi asks him, bundled up in a stylish brown coat. It lacks a hood so his hair, neatly braided with hair product, is left exposed. It's probably the main reason why Hizashi bothered to get an umbrella at all.
“I've been colder,” Shouta answers vaguely, shivering slightly. He keeps his hands glued to his thermos, somewhat wishing he owned gloves that weren't fingerless. Regular ones interfere with his movement too much when he's working, though.
He takes a sip of coffee, humming at the flood of warmth in his chest. “Are you?”
“Cold? Nah, I'm all good. All this walkin’ is gettin’ me going just fine.” Hizashi doesn't have any hesitation in his strides, perfectly comfortable in such dreary weather.
Neither of them are particularly fond of the winter, with Shouta only technically preferring it because it gives him a better excuse to hide away in his sleeping bag, but Hizashi always does better with brisk winds keeping his body temperature down. He already runs too hot and, as a man who decided, as a teenager, to wear full leather every day for the rest of his life, the sunnier days are his worst enemy.
Hitoshi adores this time of year, too.
Well, little Hitoshi adores it. As a sixteen year old, Hitoshi can only exist when it's warm enough to bicycle comfortably and simultaneously cool enough to wear baggy layers– either extreme is too much for him and his sensory issues. When regressed, however, Hitoshi loves the holidays, he loves the way his nose turns pink when it's too cold, and he loves, more than anything, to play in the snow.
It isn't snowing yet (give it another couple of weeks), but the rain makes for a great substitute.
“Daddy, look!” Hitoshi calls, a little too loudly, and jumps into a particularly deep puddle. It splashes and plops with each stomp of his boots, sending water all over his pants and the wet street around them.
“I see! Good job, kid,” Shouta says, using the time to practice his “my child is doing something that is cool to them but painstakingly normal to me and I have to pretend that it's just as cool as they think it is” voice. Last time he needed to pull it out, Hitoshi was showing him how to jump off the couch– for two and a half hours.
“Careful not to get water in your boots, pal,” Hizashi warns. “Wouldn't want ya to get your socks wet.”
“‘Kay!” Hitoshi immediately launches himself at another puddle, spraying water in the air around his impact and getting at least a quarter of it in his boots.
“Yeah, definitely your son,” Hizashi says, low enough that only Shouta will hear.
Shouta snorts. “There's a park around that corner. Maybe he can burn off some of that energy on the swings.”
“And get his pants wet too?”
“His pants are already wet.” Shouta remarks and points to the way Hitoshi's dark blue pajama pants are covered in more wet spots than the street they're walking down.
Hizashi bites his inner cheek in thought. “Fine, but you're gonna be the one hosing him down if he ends up covered in mud.”
Shouta rolls his eyes. Hizashi will do anything to get out of getting dirty. He hates the feeling of it more than he is disgusted by it, but it's still rather amusing to deal with as someone like Shouta, who often comes home in a mixture of sweat, blood, grime, and some kind of fourth unknown substance.
They shepherd Hitoshi onward and lead him towards the park, going slow like one might while walking their dog and allowing them to get as much enrichment as they want from smelling each mailbox they pass by. For Hitoshi, most of it is just calling out to them and stomping in a puddle or staring up at the sky with his mouth open, only to spit the water towards them like it's some kind of incredible trick.
Each time, they both applaud him and gently coax him forward another few steps.
Finally, they make it to the park and, really, calling it a park is a bit of an exaggeration. It's a small square of grass that's surrounded by pavement and towers of bricked businesses with a single sakura tree in the very center. It's beautiful when in-season; right now, it's mostly just branches spiderwebbing over the single swingset and small jungle gym– barely containing a set of moneybars, a slide, and a meter high rock-climbing wall leading into it. There's also a couple benches on either side and a single picnic table in the corner, perfect for summers if you don't mind all the foot traffic.
All things considered, it's more than Shouta would expect to have around these parts. Hizashi and Shouta live dead-set in the middle of the city, closer to downtown than to the rural areas surrounding Yuuei. It's an apartment that they've lived in since getting married a little over five years ago and, given that they never intended on having kids or adopting animals that required the space, the abundance of buildings crowding them and concrete paved grounds below their feet hadn't been something that really bothered either of them.
The place was practical, close enough to where Shouta patrols to make the trips easy without needing a train but far enough away to make it difficult to narrow down for villains. It's fairly close to Hizashi's radio station, as well, and while it's pretty far from Yuuei, Shouta made it a habit of staying on campus over weekends even before the dorms were built.
Now, with Hitoshi, that becomes a little more complicated. He's more of an introvert anyways and he gets most of his physical activity and outdoorsy time while at school, but it's still a shame that he doesn't have much to play with when regressed. It's probably the biggest reason he and Hizashi are considering upscaling.
Luckily, little Hitoshi is as easy to please as big Hitoshi is and he has absolutely no qualms with running around the tiny park, giggling as he stomps the drowning grass.
“Daddy, Daddy!” Hitoshi stumbles over to him, tugging on his hoodie. “Daddy, there are worms!”
Hitoshi is staring at him with bright eyes, brimming with a childish curiosity.
“Oh, yeah?” Shouta encourages. “Have you caught any?”
“Shouta,” Hizashi groans. “Baby, please don't encourage him to pick things up.”
Despite Hizashi's fear being primarily on bugs, worms are too close to the category of creepy crawlies for him to stomach. In general, Shouta does try his best to steer their bug-loving little away from terrorizing his momma, but sometimes sacrifices must be made– especially when Shouta is forced to go out when it's wet and humid, leaving his hair a frizzy mess and his skin on the cusp of turning blue.
“I bet there are snails too,” Shouta says, much to Hizashi's misfortune.
“What about frogs?” Hitoshi brings his thumb to his mouth, sucking on the water drenching it as he looks around the small park.
“Frogs?” Shouta gently tugs his hand away, an attempt that goes in vain as Hitoshi immediately puts it back in.
“Mhm! Like Tsu!” He exclaims, speech slurred around his thumb.
“Don't suck on your thumb, honey. We don't want our favorite listener gettin’ sick and losin’ that beautiful voice!” Hizashi effortlessly slides in, tugging his thumb back down and popping a sea green pacifier into the boy's mouth– one of the reserves that Hizashi keeps on him at all times.
They don't love giving him his gear in public, mostly because they know how sensitive Hitoshi is about it, but, again, sometimes sacrifices have to be made. The place is practically empty anyways, with the occasional person speeding by with their head down in their hoods because only Hitoshi is insane enough to want to be outside in this weather.
Hitoshi sucks on the pacifier for a moment, pondering whether or not he's going to be upset about it, before accepting it with a happy hum.
“I don't think there are any frogs around here,” Shouta drawls, continuing on with the conversation. “Lots of snails, though, and that's basically a frog.”
The look Hizashi sends him is almost comical. “Y'know, Shou, I think we have different definitions of what we define as a frog.”
Shouta merely half-shrugs. “They're wet, they like water, and they're kind of green.”
Hitoshi snickers around his pacifier. “I'm gonna tell Tsu that you called her a snail!”
“Wait a minute, do you seriously think that snails are green?” Hizashi says, attacking Shouta from all sides.
“Tell Tsu about this and I'll expel you both,” he says sternly to Hitoshi. Then, Shouta turns to Hizashi. “I said kind of green. Frogs aren't green either. They're a grey-ish, green-ish color.” He makes a so-so gesture with his hand. He hadn't been expecting to debate the logistics of frog colors today, so forgive him if his arguments are subpar.
“Starlight, I love you but I don't think you've ever seen a frog before,” Hizashi laughs, the warmest thing Shouta’s been exposed to since they left the apartment.
“Or a snail,” Hitoshi adds. “They're brown– like Momma's jacket.”
Shouta woke up from the deepest sleep he's had in twenty years to being covered in stuffed animals, being dragged into the cold while it's raining, and now being antagonized by a baby and an even bigger baby. Fantastic.
“Well, you should go find one and show me, then,” Shouta deadpans. “And you should put it up close to Momma, so I can match the colors.”
“Absolutely not! Leave any slimey creatures to their slimey homes, m'kay? I don't need them draggin’ down the vibe with their eyes and wriggly bodies and wet underbellies. Eugh–” Hizashi violently shudders, shaking the umbrella as he nearly gags.
But it's too late. Hitoshi has already tuned him out and is crouching a couple meters in front of them, digging around in the grassy puddles for snails, worms, and possibly frogs.
“Shouta, I wanna let you know now, if that child comes up to me with a snail, there will be irrevocable consequences.” Hizashi says, voice low and even.
“Just don't step on it,” Shouta replies wryly. “You'll make him cry.”
“He'll make me cry if he comes back with one of them–”
Thankfully, Hitoshi seems more than willing to grant mercy on his fathers. He pops his head up to meet Shouta's eyes and takes out his pacifier with his, mostly clean, left hand. “Daddy!” He calls. “Come look– I found one!”
Shouta doesn't hesitate, moving forward in quick steps. The grass squishes beneath his boots and he silently mourns losing the umbrella (he already knew Hizashi would rather die than lose his hair's protection, or come and look at whatever Hitoshi found with him). He crouches beside Hitoshi and peers at the indent of ground in front of them where a worm is half wiggling out of the mud and a snail is slowly making its way across a rather large rock.
“See?” Hitoshi pops the pacifier back into his mouth and lifts the snail up to Shouta's face, a few centimeters too close for comfort. “It's brown!”
Shouta expertly ducks his head a little bit away. “Yeah, I see. You were right. Guess they can't be like frogs then.”
Hitoshi hums and sets the snail back down, giving it a cute little wave goodbye. “Some places eat ‘em, y’know. Worms and snails.”
Shouta has been a father for long enough to read between the lines.
“Hitoshi, don't eat a worm– or a snail. That's disgusting and it'll make you sick.”
Hitoshi's head shoots up and he looks absolutely scandalized that Shouta would even imply something like that– a tell-tale sign that it was, in fact, exactly what he was thinking.
It's rather easy to send him off again, distracting him by pointing out the playground equipment he has yet to try out properly. It gives Shouta the chance to retreat back beneath the umbrella with soggy hair that has Hizashi snickering and calling him a ‘wet cat’. He, too, is easily distracted, however, by the baby climbing around on a slippery jungle gym.
Hitoshi's motor skills leave more to be desired in this headspace and he spends a solid couple of minutes nearly giving Hizashi a heart attack every time he decides to run across a platform or every time he wobbles a little too much while walking around. There are a handful of times where Hizashi turned as green as a snail while watching Hitoshi's rough attempts at scaling the rock-climbing wall and shooting down the slide as fast as he can, splashing around and sending the water gathered at the bottom everywhere.
“He's fine,” Shouta reminds him when Hizashi looks a little too close to tearing Hitoshi away and dragging him back home. They're standing off to the side, rather than getting their asses soaked in water by sitting on one of the benches, and Hizashi can barely keep his feet on the ground.
“I know that,” Hizashi responds, antsy as all hell. “I just feel like it's dangerous to let him go on that when it’s wet, y'know? What if he slips and falls?”
“Then he falls,” Shouta shrugs and downs the rest of his coffee. They've only been there for a little over five minutes but he's already feeling the chill. He attaches the thermos to his belt and stuffs his hands into his pockets, silently hoping Hitoshi bores himself out sooner rather than later. “Risk play is important for kids– even teenagers. He's resilient at this age. You know he'll be okay.”
Not to mention, Shouta is pretty sure the regimen he runs Hitoshi through and the training he does with the capture weapon is a thousand times more dangerous than slipping on a little water.
“Not if he hits his head and cracks his skull open!” Hizashi hisses, lightly smacking Shouta's shoulder with the back of his hand.
“Don't be dramatic,” Shouta snorts. “He's eaten shit plenty of times and been fine. He’d have to hit himself really hard to be of concern. Hitoshi isn't that stupid.”
As he says that, Hitoshi loses his grip on the monkeybars and hits the ground with a loud ’oof’.
“Hitoshi!” Hizashi squawks out a noise that Shouta's never heard from him and immediately leaves to go towards their son, taking the umbrella along with him.
Hitoshi isn't crying, though, and the way he landed seems more like he got the wind knocked out of him than anything particularly painful. He wheezes a little, mumbling a small “Ow…” that has his pacifier dropping from his mouth. Hizashi quickly grabs it before it can hit the ground.
“You okay, kid?” Shouta calls, casually walking over to where Hizashi is fussing over him.
Hitoshi blinks rapidly, raindrops painfully dripping into his eyes. “I fell.”
“Yes, you did,” Shouta agrees.
“Are you okay? Did you hit your head? What's your name, kiddo? Do you know who I am?” Hizashi questions, not quite panicking yet, but clearly thrown into his Pro Hero mindset, tasked with assessing the damage and checking for brain injuries. Shouta doesn't know if this is any less extreme of a reaction than just being an overly concerned parent.
“Momma,” Hitoshi says easily, eyebrows furrowed at the tone. He either senses Hizashi's obvious anxiety or the situation finally hits him because, seconds after he answers, tears well in his eyes and mix with the rain dripping down his face. “Momma!” He cries out, reaching for Hizashi as he chokes on the word.
“Oh, baby,” Hizashi, despite how much he hates getting wet and how finicky he's always been about his hair in the rain, thrusts the umbrella into Shouta's grasp and pulls Hitoshi into his arms, cooing at him and brushing away any tears leaking from his eyes. “That must've been so scary, huh? My poor, brave boy.”
Shouta can barely stop himself from rolling his eyes. “He was fine until you freaked out.”
“Shush, no one asked you.” Hizashi says, lacking any real heat.
Just for that, Shouta tilts the umbrella a little too far to the left, not enough to get the man actually wet, but enough to startle him. Unfortunately, Hizashi is too concerned with fawning over Hitoshi to notice.
“How about we go home and get you into a nice, warm bath, hm?” Hizashi suggests, carding his fingers through Hitoshi's sopping wet hair, most of which is plastered across his forehead and covering his ears. “Momma will make us some hot cocoa and we can watch a movie that Daddy will fall asleep to.”
Hitoshi sniffles, already over crying, and nods sadly like the miserable kitten he is.
Hizashi can't stop his continuous crooning and slips Hitoshi's pacifier back into his mouth. “Do you want Daddy to carry you home?” Which, as expected, gets a nod in response.
Shouta stares up at the sky, asking the universe to give him strength. He knows his husband too well not to see this as a targeted attack– a punishment for dismissing his worries. You were wrong about our little boy getting hurt and now you have to carry him home while you're both soaking wet and freezing cold. Fair's fair in parenting, honey!
Why did he ever agree to marry this man?
(Because of the way he looks at Hitoshi, fond and sweet and touching him so gently as he makes sure that their son is actually free of injury. Because of how he looks at Shouta with a playful grin because he knows that Shouta would carry Hitoshi across the country if he had to. Because of the way he looks with raindrops in his hair and reflecting the little bits of sunlight in his blonde eyelashes.)
Shouta sighs. “Fine, whatever. C'mere, kid.”
Shouta and Hizashi trade an umbrella for a regressed teenager and start the quiet trek back home, which is far more miserable without his coffee. Hitoshi curls up in Shouta's arms, arms and legs hooked around his torso like a koala. He shivers and huddles in close, finally getting hit with the energy crash and cold that he's subjected both of his parents to.
Home isn't that far, though, and the three of them make it back inside a little under ten minutes later. Opening the apartment hits them with a blanket of warmth that they all bask in, taking a little longer than usual to throw off their boots and water-logged coats.
Shouta drops Hitoshi to the floor and helps him out of his gear, utterly unsurprised when the first thing he does unprompted is shimmy out of his pants and whine for one of Shouta's shirts.
“How about you go find a shirt from my dresser? Or you can start the bath, if you're big enough.” Shouta says. This or that questions are always better with Hitoshi, even when he isn't regressed. The kid hates making decisions, always panicking over which one is the “right” one and sending himself spiraling, but he also hates when they take away any sense of his autonomy and make the decision for him. This is the best compromise they’ve managed to find.
Hitoshi nods and scampers towards the primary bedroom. He’ll probably want to bathe in their bathroom too. It has a nice modern bathtub that he likes and the shelves around it have steadily accumulated a rather impressive rubber duck collection.
“Coffee,” Shouta says plainly, because that shouldn't need an explanation and he's far too tired to give one anyways. He’s already feeling the regret of patrolling so late last night and carrying a rather heavy teenage boy around the block this afternoon. His back is begging for mercy, regardless of what time of day it is.
Hizashi throws his head back and laughs. “Yeah, yeah, sure. Try not to pass out in the tub.”
Shouta stalks into his bedroom, mostly dark with only the bathroom light filtering in. The rush of water is loud as the bathtub fills up and Shouta enters the bathroom to see Hitoshi hunched over the sides, humming to himself around his pacifier while he dumps a little more bubble bath than necessary into the water.
“Did it, Daddy,” Hitoshi informs him dutifully when he notices Shouta's presence.
“I see that. Good job, sweetheart.” Shouta places a heavy hand on Hitoshi's head and rests it there. Hitoshi reciprocates by nuzzling up into his touch.
“Do you want to bathe yourself or do you need some help?” Shouta asks.
Sometimes Hitoshi slips too young and the idea of doing anything alone scares him, to the point where he has one of them wait outside the bathroom door when he has to go. Most times, however, he's too embarrassed to ask for help and is more than capable of doing most tasks by himself, so long as he can have a pacifier or a stuffed animal on standby to help him through it.
Shouta isn't sure either one is the most accurate today since Hitoshi takes a few moments to ponder the question before answering with a relatively confident, “Uhm… can you wash my hair? An’ I can do ev'rything else…”
“Of course,” Shouta agrees easily. Maybe Hitoshi is just small enough to want him nearby, or maybe this is a sign that he's letting down more walls and they're making progress in making his headspace something more than just a trauma response for him. Either way, he'll take it.
“Do you want me still in the room, or do you want me to wait outside?”
This one takes less time to reach a decision. “Here, p'ease.”
Hitoshi's eyes are averted and his voice is much smaller than it was, possibly a sign that he's slipped a little lower. Still, Shouta chooses to address the flush of shame coalescing up the boy's neck and replacing the pink of a day spent out in the cold.
“Nothing to be ashamed of, Toshi,” Shouta gently reminds him, pushing Hitoshi's wet hair back and out of his face. “I'm here to help you, whatever that means for you. If you need me here, then I'll be here every time. Understand?”
Hitoshi nods slowly, a sure-fire sign that he doesn't, but his agreement is good enough for now and Shouta turns to make himself busy– grabbing a towel and fluffing it, slipping out to get a pair of fluffy socks, and doing just about anything he can to give Hitoshi privacy as the boy undresses and slips underneath the water, his modesty protected by the, frankly absurd, amount of bubbles.
The next ten or so minutes are spent with Shouta sitting on the closed toilet lid while Hitoshi mindlessly babbles, cleaning himself off every so often at Shouta's reminder. Finally, he pouts around his pacifier– which Shouta did offer to take, only to immediately backtrack when tears sprout in the boy's eyes– and prompts Shouta to help him, which he does without complaint.
He likes the small moments like this. Even when his knees hurt from kneeling on bathroom tile and he has to sit in soaked clothing since there's no reason to dry off when he's going to get wet again anyways, he truly relishes in the quiet moments where he can bond with Hitoshi without the looming expectations of heroics stressing them out. He loves training his boy and he wouldn't give up their relationship formed from mentorship up for anything, but Hitoshi pushes himself and is very insistent that he's not doing well enough– that he needs to do more to make Shouta proud.
It puts a strain on them, no matter how often Shouta tries to reassure him that it's okay. Hitoshi always ends up frustrated and resentful that Shouta won't let him go further beyond, that Shouta won't treat him as if he's up to snuff with the rest of the hero course yet, and there's really not much Shouta can do to convince him to be patient.
It’s moments like now, with Hitoshi tilting his head back with a content hum and Shouta able to remind them both that touch can be gentle, that heal the cracks made by a broody teenager and his emotionally unavailable father figure. Shouta can be given the space to show his affection under the guise of practicality, washing Hitoshi's hair with as much softness and care as he can possibly muster, and Hitoshi can be given the space to accept those affections without fear of repercussion.
It really is something that Shouta refuses to take for granted, and something he fears losing more than anything. So he doesn't let himself fear it; he keeps himself focused on the moment and dotes on those he loves. He helps Hitoshi pat himself dry once the water has run cold and he can no longer pretend he's not stalling for more time, and he helps Hitoshi get dressed with sweet words that melt the boy until he's putty in Shouta's hands– too tiny to pretend that he doesn't want his daddy to take care of everything for him.
And when they emerge from the bathroom to Hizashi greeting them with mugs of steaming coffee and hot chocolate, Shouta thinks that there are worse dreams to wake up to.