Every single day, Katsuki woke up to the sound of crying. It was insistent, it was relentless, but at least it was reliable. It was as good an alarm clock as any—more effective, in fact, given the necessity in actually getting out of bed to turn the damn thing off. It just had the slight bug of going off many times in the middle of the night before Katsuki got up for work. He'd be assured that one day this bug would correct itself. One day.
Today, Katsuki woke up to a soft kiss on his cheek, and the comforting sound of a heavy teacup meeting the coaster on his bedside table.
"Good morning, Kacchan," Izuku cooed in his ear. "Happy birthday. Twenty-two!"
"Ugh," Katsuki groaned, rolling over. "Go away."
"Aw, Kacchan, do you really want to sleep?" Izuku asked. "It's almost two p.m."
There was a warm hand resting its comfortable weight on Katsuki's side, and Izuku's voice was soft and genuine like he really would let Katsuki laze the whole day away in bed if that was what Katsuki asked, since he had the rest of the day off from work. He'd stumbled in from the night shift at around six a.m., hours later than when Sugu usually woke him up. The switch in schedule had messed him up so much that he'd forgotten Izuku's paperwork at the office and would have to bring it home tomorrow. Not that they'd had any promising leads since tracking down Watanabe. No IP addresses or bank history from the scholarship her account had been credited.
"What if I say…" There was some shifting on the bed, and then Katsuki felt a new presence on his side. A good few kilos heavier than Izuku's hand, not significantly warmer, and with a complete inability to balance on the small of Katsuki's waist. "Happy birthday, Papa!"
"Fucker," Katsuki chuckled, rolling onto his back while Izuku held Sugu up. Izuku's hands were under Sugu's armpits, fingers covering the entirety of his chest while that big, old noggin leaned back against Izuku's shoulder. Still wouldn't be able to hold it up on his own for a couple months.
Izuku's fingers opened up as Katsuki reached forward for the baby, their hands brushing as Katsuki took over holding Sugu's waist, sitting him on Katsuki's belly. He smiled a little at Sugu's cluelessness. His big, red eyes dazedly glanced at the headboard, occasionally passing over Katsuki, but never locking on. Meanwhile, he had a piece of printer paper taped to his plain, striped onesie that said "It's my Papa's birthday!" written in Izuku's handwriting. It was already translucent in spots where Sugu had drooled on it.
"Take that shit off," Katsuki laughed, tearing off the paper and shoving it in Izuku's face. "Before he suffers his first papercut."
"You're right," Izuku said. "Why have that when he could be having his first…" Izuku's eyebrows rose, eyes widened with excitement as he gestured Sugu forward, laying him flat against Katsuki's chest, "tummy time!"
"Wh—Isn't it too early to do that?"
Tummy time was one of the first things that came up when researching the short list of what kind of things your sack of potatoes of a baby could do in its first months. It facilitated neck and shoulder strength so that one day Sugu could finally lift his big, ole basketball head up. In theory, it could start on day one coming home from the hospital, but in practice, the umbilical stump could be uncomfortable.
"Mm-hmm." Izuku shook his head. "This isn't just your birthday—it's also umbilical-stump-going-away day! Or yesterday—I'm not sure what time it happened exactly. But no more stump!"
Izuku held up the kotobuki bako from their first day in the hospital, now embossed with Midoriya Sugu on the wooden lid. Now it held two pieces of Sugu inside it, like his fate was doubly sure, doubly safe in that box.
"Gross," Katsuki laughed, bouncing Sugu slightly on his stomach. "Nice job stealing the focus with your nasty milestone, little dude."
It was a milestone, though. Sugu's arms jerked towards Katsuki's face, not quite reaching for him, but it almost seemed that way. His hands opened and closed in little fists, so close to being able to grip, and his eyes followed Katsuki ever so slightly when he bobbed his head from side to side. He could see the red of Katsuki's eyes now in addition to black and white. It was all such progress.
When Katsuki had imagined baby milestones, he might have imagined first words or first steps or a first bite of real food. It turned out all those benchmarks were way down the line and the early ones were more subtle. His eyes being able to lock on the bottle as Katsuki went to feed him. His poop beginning to look normal.
Fuck, he was twenty-two and his mind was on baby poop. It was ludicrous.
Katsuki began laughing in earnest, and the expression on Sugu's face at the sudden jerking beneath him was comical. All uneven eyebrows and drooling slackjaw—Katsuki could hardly take it.
"Take him," Katsuki wheezed, picking Sugu up again and handing him to Izuku. He smeared a teardrop under his eyelashes as the laughter wracked his body.
"What's so funny?" Izuku asked, looking one part concerned, one part amused, evidenced by one raised brow and one lowered. He didn't look so different from Sugu in that moment, and it only made Katsuki cackle harder.
It took a couple moments more for Katsuki to collect himself, but when he did, he held his arms out and gestured for Izuku to come. He did, sitting beside Katsuki in bed, holding Sugu between them. Katsuki pointed to him.
"First of all, this one's a little comedian—I've never seen such a goofy looking face in my life," Katsuki started.
"You always say he looks like me!"
"Exactly." Katsuki grinned through Izuku's glare. "Secondly, we're parents, and that's fucking hilarious. Ask me a month ago what I'd be doing on my birthday, and tummy time is dead fucking last, right after being buried alive and going to Universal Studios Japan."
"You know Sugu will probably beg us to go to USJ one day," Izuku said.
"And the two of you will have a great time."
"Haha," Izuku deadpanned. "Alright, funny man, if you've gotten all your laughter out, I'm pretty sure it's time for breakfast."
"Not lunch?"
"It's breakfast for you, and it's your day, so," Izuku rationalized. "Yes, breakfast."
Katsuki's stomach had been grumbling the entire time. The scents of soy and meat wafted into the bedroom and whetted Katsuki's appetite, drawing him out of bed. He stepped into his slippers and ran the palms of his hands over his eyes and through his hair, waking himself up a little further as he followed Izuku out of the bedroom. Upon stepping into the living room, Katsuki had to blink the sleep out of his eyes a few more times to take in what he was seeing.
The place was clean. Cleaner than it had been since before Auntie Inko had dropped off all of the baby products two weeks ago that now filled their lives. All of the baby furniture was still out, obviously, but there were no spit-up rags on the back of the couch, no beige bits of formula powder on the table, no baby clothes from haphazard changes. The only thing that wasn't spotless was the coffee table, which Katsuki could hardly see for the sheer amount of food on it.
"Holy shit, Deku," Katsuki said as he looked around. "You do know that Sugu isn't eating solid food yet, right?"
"Heh, yeah, maybe it was overkill," Izuku said, his eyes tracing over the same platters Katsuki was, filled with rice balls and red bean pancakes and rolled omelets and fruit that was just starting to come back into season. "But Kacchan always eats more on days off. And I thought the leftovers might be good for the party."
"Tch," Katsuki scoffed, rolling his eyes at the mention of the party. "How soon are they coming over?"
There had been no discussion. He got no say in the matter. He could mouth off at Dunce Face and Shitty Hair and even Izuku till he was blue in the face, but he wasn't keeping any of those goons out of the house on his birthday. His idiot friends were determined enough to do anything to get in and Izuku was dumb enough to let them. Katsuki had given in ever since the first year they'd found out when his birthday was—therefore setting a terrible and irreversible precedent.
Izuku winced. "Uh, probably soon. There were some concerns about decorations."
Katsuki looked around their pristinely clean home. Everything in its place, perfect for once. It should be embalmed and protected in a museum. "I'll have some fucking concerns alright. If your friends dump any decorative trash in here."
"That's exactly what I told them."
Katsuki's stomach grumbled again. At least breakfast would be nice.
"Finishing touches, finishing touches!" Izuku said, noting the tummy rumbling and handing Sugu back to Katsuki before scampering back to the kitchen. Katsuki sat on the couch with Sugu on his lap, bouncing him automatically.
When Izuku returned, he was carrying steaming bowls of rice and miso soup, holding them steady before placing them on the last remaining centimeters available on the coffee table.
"Shit, did you sleep, Deku?"
"It's the middle of the day!"
"Yeah, but you spent all night being woken up by this hellion," Katsuki said, rising to his tiptoes on the floor to show off Sugu and his misleadingly innocent eyes. "You're supposed to sleep when he sleeps. Have you done that?"
"Uh," Izuku rubbed the back of his head, dodging Katsuki's eye by looking at the food. "I definitely slept! Some."
Katsuki raised his eyebrows skeptically before turning to Sugu. "Is this man telling the truth?"
Sugu looked up at him, eyes wide and unknowing. Katsuki turned back to Izuku.
"He doesn't remember anything of the sort."
"Kacchan," Izuku whined. "You trust him over me?"
"Every time," Katsuki responded automatically. Then he reached over toward the table, holding Sugu tight to him with one hand so he didn't fall over, and grabbed a cube of cantaloupe, popping it in his mouth. "Itadakimasu."
"Hold on, hold on, I have chopsticks," Izuku said as he returned to the kitchen.
Minutes later, the two of them were eating practically out of their laps for how much food was on the table. Katsuki kept a small bowl of rice in one hand as he served himself bits and pieces from the table, taking beats throughout to sip at the miso soup before it grew cold. Sugu rested down on the couch behind Katsuki, making occasional little coos in Katsuki's ear.
Katsuki returned to the miso soup. The small ringlets of green onion floating on the top of the murky broth were thin, perfectly even. Not so thin as to not provide any crunch or variation in texture from the soft tofu or the chewy seaweed, but precise and plentiful, since Katsuki liked to have a lot of them in his soup. Technically perfect.
Mainichi misoshiru o tsukuttekudasai: please make miso soup every day. It wasn't a phrase that crossed Katsuki's mind very often. Why ask for something he was perfectly capable of doing on his own? Even with Izuku staying home as he was, Katsuki was still the one handling the majority of breakfast preparations. He made the miso soup every day.
But Izuku was the one cutting the onions. Katsuki always used to keep some already sliced for himself in the freezer in a large Ziplock bag he'd been filling over and over and over again for as long as they'd lived in the apartment. Yet, as long as he'd been making the soup in the morning since Izuku had been away from work, the bag had never gone empty.
Katsuki wondered in what part of the day Izuku made time for cutting onions. If the pungent smell stayed on his hands and made Sugu cry the next time he needed to be fed. If Izuku cut enough that just the onion fumes in the air made them both cry, the couple of crybabies they were.
The thing was, mainichi misoshiru o tsukuttekudasai wasn't just a request. It was a marriage proposal.
Seikatsu ni wa komarasenai: I will not make you starve. Korekara zutto anata no teryouri ga tabetaidesu: I want to eat your home cooking for the rest of my life. Mainichi misoshiru o tsukuttekudasai. They were all marriage proposals.
They'd never spoken of it. Not when discussing the path forward with Sugu, or ever before that. The same way they'd never talked about children, they hadn't brought up marriage, because a future together wasn't a foregone conclusion, not when you're a hero. But now that they had Sugu…they had to assume they would live. They had to hope for it.
"We should talk about marriage."
"Mm—Ow!"
Katsuki watched as Izuku held his fingers to his lower lip, his chopsticks getting a thin, brown drip of pickling liquid on his cheekbone. It was all Katsuki could do not to snort. But the sudden shout had Sugu whimpering behind him, so Katsuki set down the rice and bounced Sugu on his shoulder.
"Bit your lip?"
"Mm-hmm," Izuku affirmed, his tone sounding very put-upon despite only humming a couple syllables. He pulled his hand away but still poked the sore spot with his tongue. "Whaa? Ah you tawking abou?"
"I'm saying," Katsuki started, looking around at the feast all around him, "I could live like this."
Pulling his tongue back behind his teeth, Izuku raised an eyebrow at Katsuki. "If we were married, every day wouldn't be like your birthday."
"I know, dumbass." He looked out the corner of his eye at Sugu, who was still fussing. Even over all the smells from the coffee table, Katsuki was hit with a whiff of artificial scent from Sugu's diaper. It was supposed to mask any bad diaper smells, making them less offensive, but all it did was associate that smell with the smell of shit and baby powder. But it was familiar—a smell of their new home. "I'd take the bad days too."
"Kacchan," Izuku murmured, his eyes soft. That look was always hard for Katsuki to bear. Like the gentleness of his gaze softened Katsuki as well, weakening him without anything to do about it. "Me too."
"Psh, obviously," Katsuki said. "As if you'd say no to us."
Those damp, round eyes turned to Sugu, and under those circumstances, Katsuki could understand the look. It was hard to look at a baby without your guard melting down. Perhaps less so when they were crying like this but hey. A Midoriya was most themself when they were crying.
"I had no idea you were so traditional," Izuku said. "First a baby and now you proposition me with marriage."
"It's not that we had a baby and so we have to get married," Katsuki argued. "It's that we have a baby and there's no reason why we shouldn't get married."
Izuku smiled just a little too brightly, to where the lines in his face nearly formed a dimple and his freckles rose high under his eyes, and Katsuki could hardly stand it.
"No one said anything about propositions by the way," Katsuki continued, pointing a finger at Izuku. "To be clear, no proposals are happening. I'm not proposing with drool still damp on my shoulder."
Gentle eyes back on him. "I don't think I'd mind that, actually."
Katsuki turned back to Sugu, who had quieted for a moment. He'd never imagined what proposing to Izuku would entail. Izuku was the one who'd asked him out—or rather, confessed his love in the middle of the U.A. lawn. Perhaps he'd assumed that a proposal would happen much the same way. Izuku, unable to stand a moment more of their names not being legally bound, and declaring it loudly, publicly, impassionedly, embarrassingly.
Perhaps Katsuki wouldn't have minded that either.
Suddenly, there was a bloom of warmth down Katsuki's shoulder, and he was acutely aware of why Sugu had gone silent. Katsuki rolled his eyes, pulling Sugu off his shoulder and wiping the spit-up, so much like curdled milk, from his lower lip and chin with the bottom of his shirt. The shirt was ruined anyway. Good thing he hadn't changed from his pajamas into any kind of party attire yet.
"What about with spit up on my shoulder?" Katsuki amended, grimacing as he stood up, trying not to dribble on the carpet or, god forbid, the food.
"Shit," Izuku said, standing up as well. "Gimme Sugu, you change."
Katsuki gratefully handed the baby over and carefully removed his shirt, careful not to slide the cooling liquid more on his skin or in his hair. He wasn't even out of the room before Sugu started wailing again and he groaned quietly to himself. Usually a good old-fashioned spit up was enough to stop Sugu's crying, fixing whatever was upsetting his tummy. Not today, it seemed.
He went to the bathroom and swiped over his skin with a damp washcloth and threw both that and his shirt in the hamper. Their household had never gone through as much laundry as it had the past few weeks. So much soiled clothing—both baby-sized and adult. Katsuki then padded to the bedroom and yanked a shirt from the closet, not paying too much mind to whether it was his or Izuku's. It'd probably just end up unceremoniously dampened like its predecessor anyway.
As he stood in the doorway, tugging the new shirt on, inhaling the lightly sweet and floral scent of detergent as the collar passed over his face, he watched how Izuku was doing. If anything, Sugu was only growing louder, more incessant, but Izuku was still smiling, cooing to him as he bounced side to side, shaking a high-contrast, black and white toy in Sugu's face. Katsuki smiled.
Not today, not tomorrow, but soon. He was going to marry that man.
They were blocks and blocks from home, and Sugu had only just stopped crying.
The stroller usually worked like a charm. Izuku didn't know if it was the visual stimulation or the movement or perhaps the soft April breeze brushing over him, perfumed with cherry blossoms and freshly cut grass. However, this time, the crying had only lessened, carrying on as whimpers and whines while passersby looked on in concern, drawing Izuku further under his hat and mask disguise as he walked the city blocks.
Now things were calmer. People still stared as they strolled on by, but it was with big smiles aimed at Sugu, seeing his little stockinged feet poking out the bottom of the reclined stroller, then seeing his smooshy face shadowed under the hood. Everyone loved a baby, even if all they could catch was a glance at a tiny sock, still crisply white from having never spent a moment on the ground.
It was too bad he couldn't spend any more time preparing for the party, but history foretold that their friends would be putting their own stamp on things as soon as they showed up. At least Izuku had managed to carve out the morning hours to get all of the cooking done, carefully opening windows, allowing the scents from the many dishes to waft outside, not growing strong enough in the bedroom to wake Katsuki. All the while, minding the baby, making sure that he didn't wake up Katsuki either.
But this should work out. Sugu was too young for any kind of a routine, but if he got a decent nap in now—which he would if Izuku carried on long enough for him to go out cold—then he wouldn't be too fussy for all the guests who'd be passing him around like one of the many side dishes Izuku had prepared.
As they strode near the edge of Musutafu University, where Katsuki had made his heroic capture just the week before, Izuku yawned, raising a hand to his mouth. It was wide and sloppy, as though every centimeter broader his mouth opened represented an hour of sleep that Izuku was short. He'd lost count, but it was so many that his jaw clicked and his eyes squeezed shut as if to make more room for his mouth. The sounds of the passersby—late stragglers to work, dog walkers, cyclists crunching over twigs by the curb—all vanished under the strain of his jaw stretching wide. Then something smacked square into him.
A cough escaped Izuku's mouth as he stumbled a step forward, gripping the stroller handle tight to keep it stable. With that under control, Izuku looked over his shoulder to what had hit him, and saw a man, older than him by perhaps a decade, maybe two, a hand already raised in apology.
"My apologies," he said, giving a small bow. "I didn't see you there."
"Didn't see…" Izuku murmured, his eyes immediately honing in on the opaque black glasses the man wore. Not a wave of light passed through them, thicker than any sunglasses Izuku had ever seen. "No, it's totally okay!" Izuku said, waving his hands in front of unseeing eyes. "Can I help you get where you're going?"
"No, no," the man said, already walking ahead. "Thank you, though."
Izuku nearly followed, prepared to try again before he held himself back. He knew something about disabilities—being a hero surrounded him with them enough to know that everyone's experience was different, and that if help wasn't asked for, he shouldn't assume it was needed. If that man refused him, Izuku had no business inserting himself where he didn't belong, not unless he identified a real need.
But despite the way he'd smacked right into Izuku, he now appeared to weave between the people in front just fine. An older couple taking slow, short steps, a college student plodding along as they stared at their phone. He avoided and outpaced them without so much as a cane alerting him to them.
It was like he could see them. But he clearly hadn't seen Izuku, or the stroller for that matter.
Izuku started walking again, eyes locked on the other man's stride. It was just too interesting for Izuku to ignore, and Sugu needed a bit more time out anyway, right? For all the hours Izuku had logged doing hero work on the computer, tracking down Watanabe Michiko, it was a pale comparison to observing a person's real-time actions, especially with a possibly unknown quirk involved.
Someone was walking a dog and he gave the whole length of the leash a wide berth, as if he didn't quite know where it was. But most people he was able to walk around with just a shift of the shoulder if they got close, or a little sidestep. Until a mom holding hands with a little toddler had to pull the kid out of the way to keep from being bowled over. As soon as the mother reacted, though, the man jumped out of the way.
Fascinating.
Izuku's fingers itched for a notebook, but he couldn't even thumb down notes on his phone very well while minding the stroller. He just had to log everything mentally, like he did in battle. Then he'd record it at home, the first entry that wasn't from news footage alone in weeks.
It seemed that when the man was good, he was really good. Traveling down the street like someone with perfect sight. But then he'd kick over a twig or trip a little over an uneven patch of sidewalk, or plow through an unsuspecting passel of pigeons, and Izuku was again sure that he couldn't see. There had to be a quirk at play.
Izuku flipped through his mental rolodex of quirks. There was no way to rule out if it was an emitter, transformation, or mutant quirk, narrowing things down off the bat. Perhaps the man had mutated eyes that saw differently like Mei's. If he was able to see infrared, then he'd see the other bodies around him, even use them to tell where it was safe to walk if a sidewalk was crowded enough. And any transformation quirk could work just the same as a mutant one. Or an emitter quirk where he could send out microscopic sensors so that he could feel what was around him.
But neither of those hypotheses explained why he'd missed Izuku. Unless it was a matter of quirk exhaustion, but that didn't do it for Izuku either. The man hadn't seemed fatigued in any way when he'd apologized to Izuku, and Izuku had experienced quirk fatigue enough to know what it looked like even to try and cover up.
No, it wasn't any of those things. He could sense some things, but not everything, and the how was probably out of the question for Izuku to figure out. But the what was still in reach. And the puzzle of it all felt fantastic. Izuku's eyes were unblinking, and he felt more wakeful than he had in weeks. There was a quirk to figure out and no one knew quirks like Izuku.
The man continued missing the physicalities of the surroundings. The sidewalk and whatever detritus was on it. He'd missed the pigeons as well, so Izuku could probably narrow the sense down to being human related.
The humans he hadn't sensed were Izuku, ostensibly Sugu, and a toddler. It wasn't a large enough sample size for Izuku to extrapolate a pattern. So he kept his eyes on the man as he drew farther ahead.
He was remarkably good. His pace was a little on the slower side, but that was to be expected. It seemed as though he must be walking with the flow of the other people on the busy sidewalk, stopping with them when pedestrian lights went red. Walking around something the person in front of him had avoided. How did he get where he was going on less congested sidewalks? Or did he usually use a cane and only didn't here because it was a familiar walk, plus his quirk advantage?
Over the course of a couple blocks, the man missed three more people. All kids, all under the age of five. From there, Izuku was almost sure.
There was only one thing Izuku had in common with young kids that few folks over the age of five did. They were all quirkless.
This man must be able to see quirks.
They had reached the Musutafu University gates. And as the man flashed a badge and walked right in, right into the place where Katsuki had caught Watanabe, Izuku wondered. Was this man just seeing quirks, or could he read them?
"Campus security," a woman said, stepping in front of Sugu's stroller and stopping Izuku before his cement path turned to the brick ones of the shiny university. "Do you have a pass?"
Izuku said nothing. He wasn't usually stopped from going in anywhere, with his occupation as a pro hero so well known. Then again, he was in disguise, just thoughtlessly following a stranger onto campus. He needed to know more, but what else could he learn by following the man until he stepped into whatever building he was going to? No, he had to regroup, especially if he didn't want to reveal himself yet.
"No, sorry," Izuku said, pitching his voice a little lower. "I'll be on my way."
Izuku turned Sugu's stroller sharply, suddenly remembering Katsuki's party and how it was probably already underway.
He had a feeling he'd be back, though. And next time he'd be alone.
Be back soon! Make sure everyone's quiet!
Quiet—Katsuki scoffed. He looked around at his ten or so home invaders. Kyouka had commandeered the sound system as soon as she'd taken her shoes off. The music was playing at a decibel almost appropriate for four p.m., but not for a baby at any time of day, even if it were playing lullabies instead of whatever electronic shit she had exhausting the speakers' bass registers.
Then, of course, there were the blabbermouths. Eijirou, Denki, Mina, Tenya, and Mei, none of whom knew how to maintain an inside voice despite all but Mei having been trained in stealth. If Katsuki cared to eavesdrop, he could have very easily heard half of a very boring conversation between Tenya and Shouto in the kitchen.
"Ears!" Katsuki shouted over the others. "You gotta listen for Deku coming!"
"Why?" she asked, coming over and leaning a hip against the back of the sofa Katsuki was slumped down in.
" 'Cause the baby's asleep and we can't have you stupid yahoos waking him up."
"What?" Mina asked, whipping away from a conversation with Eijirou and boring her doe eyes at Katsuki. "But he's the whole reason we're here!"
"I thought I was the whole reason you were here," Katsuki said, raising an eyebrow at the larger-than-life cutout of his head they had mounted above the television.
True to form, his friends had barreled in not too long after Izuku had left with Sugu, armed with "decorations," a term that Katsuki used generously. Aside from the gigantic head looming over the only sitting area in the apartment, there were smaller prints of his face, his whole body and, most horrifically, his disembodied chest. Katsuki had taken every one he found—taped to the wall, hanging as streamers, stuck to the fridge with a magnet—and exploded it in his hand, but Denki kept on whipping out more whenever Katsuki looked away.
"No, we see you all the time!" Mina replied, still under duress. "It's the baby that you've been hiding from us. Stingy!"
"We haven't been hiding him, it's just a…" Katsuki frowned. He trusted his dumb friends obviously, implicitly. But at the same time, they were blathermouths. "It's a delicate situation."
"Is he ugly?" Denki suddenly piped in, nuzzling far too close against Katsuki's shoulder. "Does he take after you and scowl twenty-four-seven? Does he already have little baby wrinkles?"
Katsuki threw Denki off him with the back of his arm, nearly knocking him over the back of the couch, if Kyouka hadn't caught him before it could happen. "Fuck off, Pikachu—I know you saw the picture."
"One picture," Mina moaned, now dropping onto the floor and crawling through the narrow space between the coffee table and couch to approach Katsuki's legs. "One lousy picture, taken by paparazzi, to tide us over, and then you tell us that he's asleep? That we can't squeal and coo over your little baby boy?"
"C'mon, Mina, it's not just the one picture," Eijirou said, looking nervously at Katsuki who was about ready to pick up his foot and shove it right in Mina's face. "There's the whole Instagram account."
Katsuki stopped short. He ignored Mina, who had halted just shy of Katsuki's shins, and turned to Eijirou, whose face was as kind and lighthearted as ever.
"A what now?"
Katsuki's voice was low, dark as he stared Kirishima down. And he was stone silent as he awaited a response.
"Uhh," Eijirou bumbled as his eyes shifted from Katsuki to Mina to Denki, back to Katsuki and then wincing away. He wasn't getting any help. "There's…an Instagram account that kind of…spots whenever you or Izuku are out in public with Sugu?"
Katsuki didn't blink. "Give it."
"What?"
"Your phone—give it!" Katsuki lunged across the couch, nearly kneeing Mina in the face as he snatched Eijirou's phone from where it was dangling out of his pocket.
"Katsuki!" Katsuki jabbed at the phone, attempting to get into it, elbowing Eijirou off as he tried to get the phone back. "Katsuki, I have to—hold on a second, I just have to—stop hitting me, I have to unlock it!"
"Fine!" Katsuki shouted back, nearly smashing Eijrou's face in as he shoved it back towards him. "Then fucking hand it over!"
"I have to bring up the app!"
"Guys—" Kyouka started, but Katsuki blew right past it.
"I can bring up the damn app!"
"Katsuki, you literally don't know the handle!"
"Guys," Kyouka hissed as Katsuki clambered over the couch, looking over Eijrou's shoulder. "Remember what we just said about being quiet? Well, I just heard an elevator and there are small wheels rolling this way, so you might wanna pipe down."
Katsuki spared a snarl over his shoulder towards Kyouka but abided by the directive, as it had been his in the first place. Still, he hardly gave two shits about anything but watching Eijirou's fingers fly over the touchscreen. He'd just landed on the username when the front door's latch clicked and Izuku hunched, reaching to hold it open while the stroller passed through the entryway, stopping hard against the slight ledge of the genkan.
Izuku's finger was in front of his lips as he passed through the threshold, toeing off his shoes before hoisting Sugu out of the stroller and taking him towards the bedroom. From there, his hand went between waving and returning to his mouth, as though people would forget between the kitchen and the living room and the bedroom that there was a sleeping baby. Nevertheless, Mina and Ochako cooed as silently over the baby as they could.
But Katsuki didn't pay it much mind. He was snatching Eijirou's phone yet again, this time with a neverending grid of pictures loading in front of him in real time. Fucking IzuKatsuAka had been stalking them this whole time.
Faintly in the background, Katsuki heard Ochako's, "Sorry, I tried to fold up the stroller, but I couldn't figure out how!" and Izuku's, "If you think it's bad, you should give the car seat a try!" but after that all he heard was the blood pounding in his ears.
There was a photo of Izuku at the helm of the stroller while Katsuki leaned over and cooed at Sugu with the caption: Dynamight a loving dad? It's more likely than you think. The next was one of them heading into the building with Dr. Sudou's office where Izuku had gotten his traumatic news, not that this account fucking cared. The most recent post was of Izuku strolling up a vernal sidewalk, within the last hour. The caption read: Stay-at-home dad (allegedly) trades in patrolling for strolling!
"Katsuki," Eijirou said hesitantly. "I'm going to have to ask for my phone back before you break it."
"I'll only break your phone if it takes the whole fucking Internet down with it," Katsuki growled as he continued to scroll through. The only miracle was that there weren't that many posts because Izuku and Sugu simply didn't go out that much. And no idiots had risked invading their home, even via zoom lens. "Why didn't you tell me about this?"
"I did!" Eijirou defended. "I texted you! You haven't responded to any of us since everything's gone down."
Katsuki sneered, annoyed at the truth, annoyed Eijirou was right. "Shut up."
"If it helps, man, it's pretty harmless,"Eijirou added, hands out like he was testing the waters with a rabid dog. "Creepy, no doubt, but you know. What's gonna happen?"
What could happen was years of this shit without anyone putting a stop to it. A whole stalker scrapbook of Sugu before he ever got the chance to consent to any of his life being public. Or, naturally, Katsuki jailed for jumping down the throat of some teen who got too close to him with a phone's camera angled at him.
Then Katsuki remembered there was backup. Someone implicitly on his side, who would absolutely be willing to unplug the whole internet if it came down to it. He looked past Eijirou, keeping the phone firmly in his hand as his eyes darted back to where he'd last seen Izuku.
"Deku!" Katsuki hissed, keeping his voice low as the biting sound carried through the party. Izuku looked up from his conversation with Ochako and, upon seeing Katsuki's face, hurried over.
"Kacchan, if it's about the cutouts, I think we'll just have to accept—"
"It's not about these halfwits' halfwitted ideas," Katsuki said, elbowing Eijirou out of the way as he shoved the phone in Izuku's face. "Look familiar?"
"What the—"
Katsuki watched the show as Izuku's eyebrows danced on his face from raised in shock to lowered in concern to heavy with mounting fury. "This account was sent footage of the walk we were literally just on."
"I know," Katsuki said, reaching for the phone back, but Eijirou snatched it first and leapt over the back of the couch and made a run for it. No matter—he'd served his purpose. "Was anyone following you?"
"I'm not sure, I was…distracted," Izuku admitted, then his eyes went dark again. "But it's not happening again."
"Distracted by what? A crying baby?"
"No, I just—" Izuku looked around, eyes meeting all the small clusters of conversation that were going around, the littered cups that interspersed the many, many snacks Izuku had prepared. Then he returned to Katsuki, "—I'll talk about it with you later."
Katsuki frowned, unsatisfied. But if Izuku didn't want to say whatever it was in front of these dolts, Katsuki didn't blame him.
"I guess our disguises have been pointless," Izuku mused.
Katsuki shrugged. "Maybe not. We have a stalker account, but at least we haven't been mobbed on the streets."
"Izuku," Tenya said, cutting into the conversation. "We weren't sure that you were coming!"
Either Tenya was speaking for himself and Shouto behind him, or he'd decided that despite graduating years ago, he was still the class rep, voice of the people.
"What? I had to come back!" Izuku chuckled. "It's my apartment!"
"Perhaps you were sneaking in more work," Shouto said.
"More work?" Ochako asked, completing the nerd squad. "Aren't you supposed to be on paternity leave?"
Katsuki snorted and sat back in the couch, content to let Izuku defend himself.
"I-I am on paternity leave!" Izuku exclaimed, his voice almost as high and squawking as Sugu's. "Just…with some work from home thrown in."
"He's already figured out that the emails we seized were a dead end," Shouto said, making Izuku cringe. "He did that almost as soon as we got them while Katsuki and I were still patrolling."
That had been a bummer for both of them, though unsurprising. The sketchy guy was using an otherwise unknown email address, of course, and his IP address was untrackable. Dead end. Izuku had seemed frustrated, maybe more than usual—Katsuki didn't remember. When they'd spoken about it, they'd been interrupted by Sugu needing a diaper change or a feeding or something.
"Is that…advisable?" Ochako asked. "You're doing so much for the baby, we'd hate to see you run yourself into the ground. Again."
"You do look tired," Shouto added. "Exhausted, actually."
That statement hooked Katsuki and brought him forward on the couch again. He turned his gaze to Izuku, who wasn't facing him squarely, but Katsuki was still able to hone in on the darkness printed under his eyes, the dull pallor to his skin. Was that so different from a few days ago? Most of these idiots hadn't seen Izuku in weeks—had Izuku looked different than Katsuki remembered back then? Of course he looked tired—Katsuki was aware of his own new eyebags and a couple new blood vessels making his eyes redder than they already were. But that was the nature of parenting, right?
"We agreed that Deku would work from home so his career wouldn't fully implode," Katsuki stepped in. "This way he keeps some stats and keeps his edge in your nerd club. Can't have him falling in with the idiots."
Katsuki thumbed back at Denki, Eijirou, and Mina, who were very obviously messing with his shit in the kitchen. He could hear the sticky clasp of the fridge being opened and shut.
" 'Sides, I'll kill 'im if he doesn't take care of himself."
Ochako blinked between Izuku and Katsuki, and Katsuki prickled. He didn't keep his friends around to judge him, or to judge his partner. The only good thing about being the first one with a kid was that these nosy bastards wouldn't have any lousy two-cents to offer on that front. Yet. Still, he relaxed a little when Ochako nodded.
"If Katsuki says it's fine, then it's fine," Ochako decided, throwing a serious look at Katsuki. As if she were daring him to misstep and make her go back on that statement.
"What? I don't get my own autonomy in this?"
"Not after first year you don't, Deku-kun, and you know it."
"I've never been that bad since, and we're adults now—"
"Still four more years until your prefrontal cortex is fully developed though."
"Same for Kacchan!"
"Ah-ah—it's his birthday. Three years for him."
"It's cake time!"
Everyone looked up at Denki and Mina, who were holding a multi-layered cake above the coffee table, where there was absolutely no room for it. Tenya immediately started stacking forgotten cups and plates, which Katsuki fully ignored as he stared at the cake.
It was obviously homemade. It looked good, sure, but the layers were a little uneven, slumped to one side and covered with frosting that had picked up a bit of cake crumb, revealing the yellow sponge underneath. It would have taken hours just to cook the cakes themselves, much less let it cool enough to stack and decorate. They didn't even have a western oven that could cook all the layers at once; they only had a tiny stovetop one.
Katsuki turned to glare at Izuku, who was already holding his hands up in defense.
"Deku…"
"I promise I slept, Kacchan!"
"Deku, don't fucking lie to me on my birthday."
"I would never lie to Kacchan!"
"Deku…"
Katsuki pounced. Why, he couldn't quite articulate. He'd claim it was to test the nerd's reflexes—arguably a bit slow, but that might be chalked up to the boyfriend's birthday party of it all. But as they tumbled to the floor, Katsuki got a good grip on Izuku's shoulders and got to take in every little blue vein under Izuku's eyes, every dull freckle that was a tone further from terracotta and closer to regular old clay.
"You might not live to twenty-two, fucker."
"Kacchan!"
"I said I'd kill you!"
As Izuku struggled to wrestle himself up and Katsuki just sat on his legs, deadweight while still applying pressure on his shoulders, the peanut gallery began to speak up again. Of course, it was Denki.
"Uh…so does this mean no cake?"
Katsuki had decided to spare him.
As soon as an Mm, it's delicious! had come out of Denki's mouth, Izuku had been freed to the tune of Hey, that's my fucking cake, motherfucker!
It was a miracle Sugu hadn't woken up then.
Luckily, there was no point at which the party had gotten too rowdy. Perhaps it was the earlier evening and the promise of work for most the next morning, or maybe it was the decor being sponsored by Fisher Price, but folks had taken it pretty easy. No smoking, no extensive drinking. Most were sporting nothing but an easygoing buzz, including Katsuki, Izuku was happy to see. It was good for him to let loose even a little today. Izuku was still sober, so it was fine.
So everyone was surprised when the chill party chatter was cut by the baby monitor sounding from its perch by the television. It was the first time they'd actually needed it, the apartment filled with enough noise that the sound didn't carry from the bedroom to every other square inch of the apartment.
"Alright, who wants to feed the bambino?" Katsuki asked as he pushed himself off the couch.
"Me, me!" Mina shrilled, her volume instantly returning now that the baby was awake.
Izuku watched as Katsuki stepped into their bedroom, and came back out a moment later to a chorus of oohs and ahhs, like Sugu was a holiday light display. Katsuki explained the swaddle and supporting the head and, as they began to make their way to the kitchen, how they would go about formula feeding, playing the part of a teacher much better than Katsuki would ever admit to.
As Katsuki and Mina—and most of the rest of the party—shuffled as a singular mass towards the kitchen, Ochako plopped down in the spot Katsuki had just vacated.
"Oh, hi!" Izuku exclaimed, unable to hide his surprise.
"Deku-kun," Ochako cooed, her expression soft save for a teasing glint in her eye. "This was really nice. All you did for Katsuki-kun."
"Ah, well," Izuku said, eyes following the trail of people spilled out in the living room from Katsuki's bottle-feeding lesson in the kitchen. "I couldn't not. It's Kacchan."
"I'm sure he really appreciates it," Ochako affirmed, "even if he has a funny way of showing it."
"Oh no, he doesn't…" Izuku trailed off, thinking back to that morning and Katsuki's non-marriage proposal. His face flushed as he remembered it—he could hardly believe that something so shocking had slipped his mind. Katsuki wanted to marry him. Marry him. "He shows it. Really, he does, just not in front of everyone."
"Mm, I believe that," she said. Ochako's eyes were also towards the crowd, quiet between questions as Katsuki's assured voice carried over. "He seems really smitten, you know. With Sugu."
"Yeah," Izuku agreed.
It wasn't so long ago that he and Katsuki had admitted that they weren't in love with Sugu the way new parents were supposed to be. Just a couple of weeks ago, right here on this couch. But they hadn't really spoken on the matter since Katsuki's declaration after seeing the geneticist. Izuku rarely got to see Katsuki and Sugu interact, what with their staggered schedules, but it had been obvious on Katsuki's face just that morning. Genuine smiles, eyes wide with pride, watching the new milestone. He was smitten, alright.
"Yeah, I think he's getting worse at hiding his feelings."
"That," Ochako said, as though it were beside the point, "and the fact that Sugu is looking more like you literally every day. Of course Katsuki's in love with him. He's in love with you."
"Heh, I think that's…simplifying things a little," Izuku said, scratching his hand over the back of his head anxiously. He'd showered for the occasion, so his roots were light and clean in a way that they weren't often these days, but his curls were still too long between his fingers. "I think maybe the oxytocin is just finally hitting him."
"Maybe, maybe not," Ochako allowed. "It certainly doesn't hurt, though."
Ochako turned back to him, reaching an arm to Izuku's shoulder. Her eyelids were heavy over those big eyes, the only hint towards her slightly intoxicated state. But above, Izuku still saw the furrowed brows of concern, and stiffened under her touch.
"How about you?" Ochako asked. "Have you made any…progress?"
Katsuki was back out of the kitchen, showing everyone how to burp a baby. The cupped hand, the gentle touch. Sugu would be facing Izuku over Katsuki's shoulder if it weren't for their friends standing in his sight line. Still, Izuku smiled.
"We're getting there."
The moment was interrupted by a high-pitched beeping, which had everyone dispersing, reaching for wherever they'd last left their phones. It was the same ringer every hero had for emergencies or regular alerts when they were on standby, mimicking an old-fashioned pager. Izuku didn't bother reaching for his phone. Even if he hadn't already known that the sound hadn't come from his pocket, he already knew that he was off the list for emergency calls for the foreseeable future.
"It's me," Shouto finally said. He read the update, expression grim. "Nothing too serious, but you're not going to like this." He was looking between Izuku and Katsuki. "There's been a break-in at Dr. Sudou's laboratory."