Once the Christmas morning high wears off for Hisami and his new toys are picked up, a calm quiet falls over the house. It's nice, sitting on the couch with a half-awake Kacchan, watching Hisami scribble in his newest coloring book. His mom graciously cooks breakfast for everyone, and Izuku takes it upon himself to keep the coffee flowing. He hoists himself up, and Kacchan wordlessly hands him his empty coffee cup—they've established a routine, and it seems he's too tired to complain about being waited on.
He hands him the full mug when he comes back and plops on the couch, a contented sigh leaving his lips unbidden. The quiet moments with Kacchan are the best. It might be the only time he isn't worried about ruining things. When they were kids, Izuku learned early on that Kacchan always said exactly what he was thinking. When he's silent, it's because he has nothing to say.
"Thanks, Deku. One more cup and I think I'll be alive." He sips his coffee and smirks. Izuku allows himself a small laugh.
"It really throws you off when you don't get your eight hours, huh?"
Kacchan shrugs, and Izuku can't help but follow the movement of his collar bones with a thirsty gaze. Kacchan has a habit of wearing tiny, tight tank tops that leave little to the imagination. It's even worse now that he doesn't have to imagine it—he's seen Kacchan in all his glory after this morning. He feels an urge to slap himself in an attempt to pull his mind out of the gutter. He's so preoccupied with his thoughts, he blurts out something truly stupid.
"I pity the sleep you'll lose when you have a baby, someday. It turns you into a zombie." They both freeze up at the mention of a baby, and Izuku's afraid of what comes next. Kacchan gives him an incredulous look.
"What makes you think I'll have another kid?"
Izuku looks at Kacchan, at his blatant beauty and easy grace, and the guilt consumes him again. Izuku deprived him of so much in the first years of Hisami's life, he just assumed Kacchan would want to experience that, now that he knows how wonderful it is to have a kid.
"I don't know. You might meet someone someday and want a kid… to get to have all the things I took away from you."
"You know I'm gay, right? Kids were never in the cards for me," he says, looking extremely vulnerable. Izuku is struck by the honesty. Kacchan always says what he means, but he's rarely so emotional, so willing to admit a weakness. He can't believe Kacchan is willing to share this with him. He always suspected he might be—there were so many girls salivating after him in middle school and he never once gave them the time of day. Izuku holds up a hand, wiggling his fingers awkwardly.
"I could help with that. You can never say never in a world of Quirks."
"I don't need any of that. Hisami is more than enough."
Izuku's smile is small and guilty, but so fond as he looks from Kacchan to their son.
"Well, if you ever change your mind, I'd do anything to help you out," he says, and he means it, but the thought of Kacchan giving his free time to some faceless spouse, or a baby that isn't Hisami breaks his heart just a bit. It'd be selfish to hope he doesn't change his mind.
"Alright. Enough about that. What's on the agenda today? What do I need to do?"
"After breakfast, he'll need a bath. I do have to warn you, he's going to hate taking pictures today. My mom always buys him a Christmas outfit and tries to get him to sit still long enough for a few pictures. It's a whole production, and they always turn out terrible."
Kacchan laughs, looking over at their messy son. He's rolling around in a pile of new hero-themed blankets, making his Frostfire action figure fight with his Ground Zero one.
"Alright. I'll take care of bath time. My parents are getting here at noon. They're bringing food and shit, and a metric fuckton of gifts for Hisami."
"I'm sure he's excited to spend the day with family."
"I told my mom she better be on her best behavior, so try to enjoy yourself too," he says, draining his mug with one final gulp. He seems far more awake now, and he stands to stretch out, muscled arms reaching toward the ceiling. His tank top rides up, showing the slightest bit of the bare, tanned skin of his stomach.
"Don't worry about me, Kacchan. Let's go see if my mom needs any help in the kitchen."
Izuku is desperate to hang on to these moments—the calm before the storm. He doesn't want to think about the awkward situations or the hostility he's most certainly heading toward.
—
"Hisami, I'm begging you, please don't fuck with the bow tie." Kacchan stands behind Inko, trying to calm Hisami down long enough for her to snap a picture. It isn't working, but then again, it never does. After spending an hour bathing their wiggle worm of a child and maneuvering him into his Christmas outfit—a crisp button-up shirt, plaid shorts, and a red bow tie—he stands near the Christmas tree, fidgeting with his tight collar and mussing up his carefully combed curls.
"Language, Papa!"
"Yeah, yeah, I know. I'd really like a nice picture of you, alright? So, please behave."
"All my pictures are nice! I'm cute!" He huffs, pouting at the insinuation that he might be even the slightest bit unphotogenic. Izuku stifles a laugh in his hand, more than happy to watch the scene unfold.
"Of course you are, Bubba. This one's super special, though. It's our first Christmas all together, right? Isn't that cool?"
"Where's your bow tie, then?"
Izuku guffaws, unable to keep his laughing at bay. Kacchan scowls at him, but Hisami looks pleased. He stops fidgeting just long enough to laugh, and his mom snaps the picture quickly.
"Perfect! I knew you could do it, Hisami. What a good boy!"
"Can I put my jammies on now?"
"No jammies, but you can take the bow tie off."
Hisami groans, throws his arms up and collapses on the ground, pretending to faint. Izuku watches with stars in his eyes as Kacchan smiles fondly and picks him up off the ground. His heart is sore with want.
—
"Obaasan! Ojiisan! Merry Christmas," Hisami screeches the second his mom and dad set foot in the house. They're loaded down with precisely wrapped gifts and foil wrapped serving dishes. Hisami flits around them, attempting to inspect his presents and tripping them up in the doorway.
Deku picks Hisami up to get him out of the way, and Katsuki takes one of the heavier dishes from his mother's hands.
"Thanks, brat. Fatherhood's made you more considerate."
"Oi, shut it, hag."
Despite their harsh words, they smile at each other.
"Papa, you be nice to my Obaasan!" Hisami wails, pointing an accusatory finger at him.
"You tell him, kid. Let's get this to the kitchen, so you can open all your gifts," she coos sweetly, smiling at her grandson, and somehow completely ignoring Deku, as if he's a piece of furniture Hisami is hanging off of, as opposed to the person that made Hisami possible.
Katsuki peeks over at Deku and finds that he looks simultaneously constipated and terrified, but he does his best to interact. He shifts Hisami on his hip, so he can help his dad with the bags.
"I can take some of those, Uncle. Merry Christmas."
"Merry Christmas, Izuku. Thanks for having us."
"Thank Inko. It's her house," his mom snaps, and Katsuki swears he sees Deku wilt like a dying flower.
"Ma," Katsuki says, just as his father—in the same disapproving tone—says, "Mitsuki."
She ignores them and haughtily shoves past them to escape the entryway. His dad follows suit, but not without an apologetic look at Katsuki. Deku puts Hisami down and pointedly suggests that he go check out his new presents. He doesn't have to tell him twice.
"Deku—"
"It's fine, Kacchan."
"I'll talk to her."
"Don't worry about it. As long as Hisami doesn't pick up on it, everything is fine."
He walks away and Katsuki feels like the day is headed for disaster.
—
Luckily, his mom is slightly more behaved. She opts to sit as far away from Deku as possible, so there's a two-person buffer between them at the dining table. Deku is quiet in her presence. He only rouses himself enough to speak to Hisami, and only when he's directly addressed. It makes Katsuki's stomach hurt, but it's probably for the best. The last thing anyone needs for their first Christmas together is for his mother to flip a table or use a broken wine glass as a shiv. If he's this stressed about it, he can only imagine how Deku feels. What a fucking day. At least Hisami is oblivious and enjoying himself.
—
"Papa!"
Both Katsuki and Deku look over at their son, as they often do when he addresses them both the same way. They've tried to get Hisami to choose a different name for one of them, but Hisami refused. He only shook his head and said I have two papas—Papa and Papa. It made sense to his three year old logic, so they let it go. Still, no one—maybe not even Hisami, most of the time—really knew who he was addressing at any given moment.
"What do you need, Bub?
"I need Papas!" He stomps his bare foot haughtily, working himself up.
"Both of us?"
"Yes," he says, like it's painfully obvious. He rolls his eyes and crosses his skinny arms. Katsuki looks at Deku with a furrow in his brows and a question in his eyes. Deku only shrugs, and moves to appease their son. Katsuki follows suit. When they're in place, Deku asks.
"Alright, Button, what's up?"
Hisami looks smug, and points upward at the sprig of mistletoe situated above the doorway.
"Now kiss!"
Deku makes a sound like he choked on a kazoo and Hisami just keeps pointing skyward, waiting for his plan to come to fruition, a shitty little grin on his face. They raised the cutest, most manipulative little boy out there, and while he was slightly proud, he was also internally screaming on a loop.
"Um, Kacchan," Deku says, with all the familiar awkwardness of his middle school self. He moves closer to Katsuki, and he has to stop himself from running away. He's no punkass coward. He can kiss Deku, no problem. Blessedly, Deku doesn't kiss him. He just whispers the game plan in his ear, and tension releases off him in waves. He nods.
Deku picks Hisami up and puts him on his hip. Hisami looks slightly less pleased by this development, but he hasn't lost hope just yet.
"Ready, Kacchan?" Deku asks sweetly, bouncing Hisami slightly.
"Born ready."
"One, two, three."
On three, they both kiss Hisami's cheek with a loud, exaggerated smack, squishing him between them. Hisami looks well and truly pissed, and Katsuki, unfortunately, adds fuel to the fire.
"You really thought you did something there, huh?"
"Shut up, Papa!" He shoves meanly at Deku, and he had no choice but to put him down.
"Hisami," Deku says, sad, but chastising. "Wh—"
"No!" Hisami bellows. He stomps all the way upstairs, huffing and puffing. He hears a door slam somewhere in the house.
"Shit," he says. "I'll go talk to him."
"No, give him a few minutes. He'll calm down on his own."
"Fuck. Yeah, okay." Katsuki sighs, deferring to Deku because he should know better than anyone. Katsuki's familiar with his own tantrums at that age, and he can't remember anyone giving him space. His dad would try to coddle him or his mom would try to scream him into submission. He vaguely remembers a time when he was younger, and having a nuclear level freak out over nothing in particular, and Deku just sat down on the ground and ignored him, fiddling with whatever he had on hand at the moment. It pissed him off at first, but he was so distracted by being left alone that it calmed him down in record time. He remembers Deku held his hand and apologized to him. For what, he couldn't say, but it made him feel better.
"You can't really blame him for trying to Parent Trap you. I'm sure your bullshit has been really confusing for him," his mother says, and that's when he realized this entire bit of theater just played out in front of their families.
"Mom," he says, a warning clear in his tone, but when has a Bakugo ever taken a warning as anything other than a challenge?
"I'm serious. Who do you think you are, Izuku? You can't use my son, keep everyone in the dark for years, and as soon as you trap him, you avoid him?"
Katsuki instantly regrets openly complaining when Deku was icing him out. He didn't actually complain to her, but of course she was listening.
"Fuck," he hisses under his breath. Deku looks like he's ready to melt into the floor.
"Yeah, I know all about that. How fucking dare you? You can't be obsessed and avoidant at the same time. You're only hurting that kid, and you've hurt everyone here by being a selfish liar."
"Auntie—"
"Don't you dare call me anything like that," she snaps, and Katsuki swears a tremor in the earth accompanies it.
"Mom, stop."
"Mitsuki, this isn't right," his dad says, in his soft, pleading tone. Katsuki looks at Deku again, and he's surprised by how pissed off he looks. He takes a deep breath, and Katsuki has no idea what he could possibly say.
"Please, believe me when I say that I know this is hard for you. I know all of this is my fault, and I know I'll never make it up to any of you, and the guilt is going to stay with me forever, but don't act like this in front of my—our—kid. The second he picks up on this dynamic is the second I stop being sweet and repentant. If being civil is too much for you, you can leave."
Oh, shit. Katsuki can't help but be impressed. He likes Deku with a backbone.
"Izuku," his mom starts, softly, but he cuts her off.
"Excuse me," he mutters before vacating the room and heading for the backyard. Katsuki finds himself torn between going after him and going upstairs to comfort his son.
"Goddamn it. What the fuck, Ma? Jesus."
In the end, he chooses his son because it's easier. That doesn't stop him from feeling guilty about it. He wants to go to Deku, but he's thinking too hard about it. He's thinking about how similar him and his mother are—how easy it is to see Katsuki berating Deku in the same way she just did. He knows he's said worse to Deku—especially in the beginning, when he first found out about Hisami. He doesn't want to be like that anymore, and he doesn't want his family to suffer through that kind of animosity.
He pushes open the door to find Hisami sprawled across the bed, passed out. He smiles, glad to know Hisami didn't hear any of the conversation downstairs, but now that he knows Hisami is fine, that feeling that he needed to choose Deku this time around grows, dropping heavy in his gut.