Archive of Our Own

It was never in Eijirou’s plans to be the type of hero to go overseas. It was never really an interest of his to fly off to a different country, learn a whole new legal procedure, figure out the language, while also trying to maintain a mission, keep his identity a secret, and go completely undercover for a whole year.

But well, as the universe would have it, exactly that had happened. He’d been called overseas along with Tetsutetsu to be used as support for a lengthy underground mission. He and the other man’s quirks worked well with defense and made them perfect candidates for the year-long mission.

It was grueling. Tiring, boring, honestly a little miserable.

However, thanks to some strange luck, they’d all managed to finish the mission in only seven months instead of the whole year. Which meant he could come home. Back to Japan, back to his apartment, back to his agency.

And most importantly back to where Katsuki was. Back to where his best friend could see him.

Saying he missed Katsuki would’ve been the understatement of the damn century. Not hearing his best friend's voice, not seeing that crooked grin, not seeing those dazzling scarlets. It was a type of misery he’d never really prepared himself for. They were on opposite sleeping schedules, and phone calls and texts were sparse with their careers.

It sucked.

Katsuki had always been a constant in his life. Always there. Always talking, always watching, always touching.

It was inevitable, falling in love.

it was slow, quiet, creeping, but there. That feeling of need, of want, of desire. The knowledge that Katsuki had his back and he had Katsuki’s. That love that was so much stronger than any other love they’d ever had for any of their other friends.

It wasn’t a question of if Eijirou and Katsuki loved each other. Everyone and their goddamn mothers knew that the two of them had somewhat of an unsaid thing for each other. Even the two of them knew that.

Instead, the question was always /when/.

When would they act on their feelings? Not when they were sixteen, and stupid and could barely understand what life really meant. Not when they were eighteen, and Katsuki spent the entire day helping Eijirou move his things into a brand new apartment closer to his agency. Not when they were twenty three and Katsuki’s heart stuttered on the battlefield and Eijirou thought he’d lost him /again/.

Not then. Not now.

Because admitting that love meant stepping into an unknown. Acknowledging the feelings the two of them obviously shared for each other meant changing everything between them. Everything they already had.

Neither one of them had been ready to jeopardize that.

And so they’d gotten comfortable in this weird sort of in between state, where they weren’t together, but they knew they loved each other. They didn’t kiss. Didn’t dare acknowledge the overwhelming devotion between the two of them. Didn’t even toy with the idea of screwing around.

They were just best friends.

And maybe cowards if you asked any of their friends. But to Eijirou it felt more like playing it safe. In a career as dangerous as theirs, there was no promise of safety. No promise that everything will stay the same.

At least with Katsuki, he could protect whatever they had, even if that feeling didn’t quite have a name to it.

Eijirou shoved open the door to the agency, excitement rocketing through his veins as he scanned the room for his best friend. He had a patrol his first day back, which would’ve been annoying if the mission had gone sideways. As it turned out, the mission had been a success, and Eijirou was ranked number four in Japan. This mission had been a huge turning point in his career, and left a bit more excitement in his steps as he walked through the agency.

At the first sight of blonde hair in seven long months, Eijirou practically ran towards the other man.

“Hey Katsuki,” he grabbed the other man’s shoulder, pulling his best friend to face him.

But then—

“Red,” Katsuki raised his brows with wide, surprised eyes. Like he hadn’t been expecting Eijirou. Like he’d been caught completely off guard.

And there was a baby in his arms.

A baby, a real live baby, in his best friend's arms, drinking from a bottle that Bakugou held gently.

At first it felt like some sort of twisted joke. Some weird thing that Sero and Kaminari must’ve put Bakugou up to just to get a rise out of Kirishima. Surely that was it. Surely that was the reason why there was currently a little baby nestled in Bakugou’s arms. Small, and /new/. Still wrinkly and sleepy and so tiny in those muscular arms.

“Is that,” Eijirou felt his throat constrict against his own will.

It could be nothing. It could be a family friend's child. The baby had soft brown locks, and tan features. Nothing like Katsuki’s own. She was bundled in a blanket, eyes drooping as she drank.

But Eijirou can’t remember any cousins or family friends that were expecting a baby. Eijirou can’t remember Katsuki ever saying anything about a baby at all in the past seven months. It hadn’t come up in texts or phone calls or FaceTimes. It hasn’t come up once.

So surely it’s not Bakugou’s. Surely if Bakugou had a child Eijirou would be the first to know.

Surely Bakugou wouldn’t leave him behind like this. When they hadn’t even gotten a chance to truly be something.

“My kid,” Bakugou supplied.

His voice was different. Softer. Quietly. Like a parent trying to speak in hushed tones because he knew if he talked too loud he’d wake the baby.

/His/ baby.

Eijirou felt his eye sockets burn. Why hadn’t he told him? Why hadn’t he known Katsuki was seeing someone? Why hadn’t he known Katsuki had a child?

His best friend had always been closed off, had always taken his personal life very seriously and refused to share anything with any media outlets.

But Eijirou was never part of that. Eijirou was never someone Katsuki had to lie to.

As he watched the tiny baby, curled safely in Bakugou’s winter uniform sleeves, he felt his whole world shift and flip. It was like someone had flipped every moment he’d shared with Katsuki around and reminded him that he wasn’t special. That he wasn’t as important as he thought he was.

That Katsuki hadn’t wanted to move forward with him in life.

That Katsuki had just left him behind.

“Nice,” Eijirou nodded his head, trying to play off the very obvious hurt. “That’s—I mean that’s great.”

Bakugou gave him an uncomfortably sorrowful look, like this wasn’t exactly how he’d wanted this to go. Like he had no idea what to say to make it better.

For once, Eijirou felt like he couldn’t really read him anymore.

He’d had sex with someone. He’d helped a woman birth an entire child. He’d moved on.

And Eijirou was stuck peeling himself out of Katsuki’s past and trying to grapple with his new life.

Katsuki cleared his throat, shifting his weight awkwardly, “How was your mission?”

Eijirou felt himself let out a soft breath, a juxtaposition to the obliteration of his heart.

They weren’t even going to address it? Katsuki wouldn’t even mention the fact that he’d found himself a girlfriend, or worse a fucking wife. Eijirou felt his bottom lip wobble.

“Fine.”

Katsuki nodded, swaying back and forth to lull the baby. For a moment it looked as if he was about to say something. Eijirou could tell by the way he chewed at the insides of his cheeks. He was contemplating. Trying to figure out how he could explain himself. How he could tell Eijirou that for seven months he’d kept this from him.

“You’re back earlier than expected. It’s only been seven months.”

Eijirou let out a shaky breath.

It felt like the doors of Katsuki’s past were slamming shut and Eijirou was locked on the other side. Like he wasn’t even welcomed in this new part of his life. Like he wasn’t a part of Katsuki anymore.

“I gotta get going, I’m patrolling,” he tore his eyes away from the baby.

Even now, even when that new born was the cause of his grief, the cause of his despair, he couldn’t find it in him to hate it.

Because it was Katsuki’s. It was a tiny piece of the man he’d always loved. The man he thought he’d always have. The man who, less than twenty minutes ago, Eijirou had called his home.

“Not until 2 though,” Katsuki tried.

Eijirou could see in the other man’s face that he was slipping too. That katsuki was nervous, or maybe lost, or completely out of his element with all of this. Maybe he was. It was definitely Katsuki’s first time taking care of an infant, Eijirou knew at least that much.

But right now all that did was bring about an enormous sense of loss. Because Eijirou was supposed to be right there with him. Lost. Confused. Parenting. In love.

And now he’d lost him. He’d wasted so much time—/too/ much time. And Katsuki had moved on. Of course he had. Of course the man who ruled the world, the man who craved everything life had to offer had eventually given up.

Of course Katsuki moved on without Eijirou.

His stomach felt queasy and the grip he had on his gym bag became sweaty and shaky. Regret spread through his body like a disease as he thought about every moment, every second, every damn day he’d let pass him by without saying exactly how he felt to the other man.

He was too late. It was over. Katsuki had finally moved on.

Without Eijirou.

“I need some air,” he mumbled before turning around and walking out of the agency, leaving behind the broken pieces of what was once his whole heart.

—

A week passes, and while he’d rather not, Eijirou can begrudgingly admit that he’s avoiding his best friend. A quick call to the squad told him that they had all known about Katsuki’s daughter, and that so much had happened in that past month that Katsuki hardly even had time to exist, let alone call Eijirou and fill him in completely.

He got that, to some extent. He understood that Katsuki was busy. He understood that surely it was hard to manage a newborn and be a pro hero and nourish whatever relationship this baby came from. Kirishima got that. He understood.

He just never expected to be the only one on the outside of all of this.

Katsuki had called multiple times, but hadn’t left any voicemails. He hadn’t texted either. The other man was never good with his words. He never knew what to say and usually locked up at any sort of discomfort.

He took morning shifts, slowly easing himself back into the Japan scene after being absent for seven months. It was different now, working after a mission that completely blew him up. He was famous. Stopped at every corner for pictures, just like Katsuki. Noticed even when he was out at the grocery store, just like Mina. It was a lifestyle he had never thought he’d achieve. It was something he never thought he’d be good enough for.

It should make him happy, knowing that this mission brought him so much recognition and praise.

But all he could think of was Katsuki. All he felt was self loathing for even taking the mission. For letting the man he loved out of his sights for a second. For expecting Katsuki to /wait/ for him.

For knowing that he’d loved Katsuki everyday for the past ten years and never said anything. For losing so much time.

He pocketed his phone and readjusted his gym bag as he got closer to the agency. His apartment was walking distance to FatGum’s agency— a choice he’d made because Katsuki had told him he’d be doing the same, and they’d be closer to each other incase of an emergency.

As he got closer, a familiar puff of blonde once again caught his eye. This time, it brought about a totally different feeling in his guts. No butterflies, no excitement.

Truly he just felt loss. Grief, for a person who was still very much alive.

Bakugou noticed him almost immediately, and smiled tiredly. The sun had just barely peaked, and the air outside was just beginning to warm up. He still wore his winter costume, though in the coming months Eijirou knew he’d switch. Katsuki preferred the other.

He was sitting at a bench rocking a baby carrier on the ground, tipping it slightly to lull the little girl to sleep. Eijirou couldn’t quite understand why he’d take her to the agency.

Wasn’t there someone else at home now? Didn’t Katsuki’s child have a mother who could watch her? That’s not to say a mother should be solely in charge of childcare, but he’d have assumed that his partner wouldn’t want the baby near a hero agency, where crime could spark at any minute.

“Hi,” Eijirou nodded. He was still in his citizen clothes, if you could even call it that. A pair of baggy sweats, a flannel, an old shirt he’d kept since UA. His hair wasn’t even done yet, still tugged into a haphazard ponytail.

“Hey Red.”

And his voice was still unexpectedly soft. Tired, dull, so unlike the Katsuki he’d known before he left seven months ago. But still, despite the bags under his eyes and the sleep still evident in his voice, he was dressed for work and rocking the baby carrier like he could do both easily.

Eijirou sat down on the bench Katsuki currently occupied. He sat farther than usual, farther than he’d ever sat when around Katsuki.

But things had taken an unexpected turn, and honestly he wasn’t sure he was the person that was allowed to be glued to the blonde's hip anymore.

Eijirou wasn’t sure he ever was to begin with.

“Didn’t expect you to take an early shift. You used to love the graveyards,” Eijirou smiled, though every muscle in his face was begging to crumble.

He didn’t even know what shifts Katsuki took anymore. Eijirou used to memorize his monthly schedule, just so he’d know what days he could crash at Katsuki’s place and wake up to fresh breakfast.

“Shits different now,” Katsuki sighed, faking awakeness. “We've got bedtime at 8 o’clock.”

Eijirou nodded. It’s the first time he’s pointed out the baby to Eijirou. The first time he’s even acknowledged that the kid existed and wasn’t some figment of Eijirou’s imagination.

Now would’ve been the time to ask but still, he’s a coward. Still he doesn’t know what to ask, what to say. What happened to us? Why didn’t you leave me? Why’d you move on before I even got the chance to admit my feelings? Why’d you move on, when we’d been content where we were?

He’s not ready to ask that. Not ready for the answer.

“Doesn’t seem that different to me,” he huffed instead. Katsuki had always gone to sleep at eight. He’d known that. He’d memorized that long ago, from the countless sleepovers at UA and the less frequent but still enjoyable ones at Katsuki’s apartment.

That earned him a subdued laugh from the blonde.

“Screw you.”

And for a moment, a tiny, hardly there, minuscule second, Eijirou felt like they were back to normal. They sat in momentary silence, listening as the cars passed by and the city quietly opened. It was peaceful, quiet, and uneventful.

That’s probably why Katsuki was out here. Eijirou chanced another glance down at the baby who was currently fast asleep in the carrier. She couldn’t be more than a couple months old. Eijirou scanned her sleeping face. She was still so young, so small. She couldn’t be more than a couple months old.

“No offense, but it looks nothing like you,” Eijirou felt himself saying matter of factly.

It was true. The baby had dark brown hair, and from what Eijirou could tell she had more rounded, button-like features that contrasted with Katsuki’s much sharper cut ones.

“Well /Hina/ has none of my DNA,” Katsuki gave him a look, scolding Eijirou for calling a living breathing child ‘it’.

Eijirou was too distracted by what exactly that meant to apologize for his mistake. He must’ve looked as confused as he felt because Katsuki let out a silent chuckle before he continued to explain.

“She’s not biologically related to me,” he said, still rocking that baby carrier like it was the only thing keeping her asleep.

“I adopted her.”

Somehow, a bit of relief bloomed from that. The baby—Hina, was adopted. It didn’t take away from the fact that Katsuki hadn’t said anything, or even hinted that he wanted a baby, but it definitely felt better to know that this baby hadn’t come from a woman Katsuki had slept with or worse fell in love with while Eijirou was gone.

“I didn’t know that,” he admitted.

Katsuki scoffed, “Yeah, cause you fucking ran the minute you saw me with a baby.”

And perhaps that was true. Maybe if he’d given Katsuki a heads up that he was returning earlier than anticipated, maybe if he’d waited just a minute longer for the blonde to process this or explain himself, Eijirou wouldn’t feel so far away.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” He turned to meet Katsuki’s eyes.

There’s more he wants to say. More he wants to scream. Why didn’t he tell him after everything they’ve been through? Why didn’t Eijirou know as soon as Katsuki got the itch, the need, the desire to adopt? Why was he the last to know? Why hadn’t Katsuki felt comfortable telling him?

Why wasn’t he special anymore?

“Because you would’ve come home.”

Katsuki had said it simply, though the whole sentence packed a terrible truth that Eijirou hadn’t wanted to hear.

“You would’ve ruined your career, for something as stupid as me.”

Eijirou bit the insides of his mouth as he listened. If he didn’t, he might’ve called Katsuki an idiot.

Because, yeah, Katsuki was right. If he’d told Eijirou that he’d decided he was going to adopt a baby, Eijirou would’ve been on the next flight back to Japan. He’d have already ordered the best formula, would’ve bought a crib, would’ve researched for the safest baby carrier and softest baby clothes.

He would’ve done all of that in a heartbeat if it meant he could help his best friend.

But Katsuki didn’t want him to. Katsuki wanted him to continue on with his life, without risking the demerit on his hero legacy. He wanted Eijirou to be successful, to win, to save, to go on with his dreams without having to stress over Katsuki in Japan.

Suddenly Eijirou really couldn’t find it in him to be angry.

Because this was just another reason why he loved Katsuki.

No matter how tall those walls were, no matter how hard Katsuki tried to not show his heart, it was always bleeding for the people he cared about. He’d always stomach the discomfort, always hold the baggage, always do the impossible if it meant keeping the people he cared about safe.

Eijirou watched the man’s lips twist into a frown, like he was truly disappointed in himself.

“And I didn’t know how to tell you. I /still/ don’t know how to tell you. I made a fucking life changing decision in two seconds. Who the fuck does that?”

Eijirou shook his head. It was too much information to piece together all at once. He’d woken up this morning almost positive that Katsuki had found a woman to start a family with. He’d been absolutely positive Katsuki had shut the door on what could’ve been for a safer, easier future.

And now he was finding out that maybe that wasn’t true at all. That Katsuki had instead let his heart overpower his brain and now he was in a situation he hadn’t fully prepared himself for.

“What happened man?” Eijirou shook his head.

Katsuki let out a sigh, finally moving his hand from the side of the baby carrier to run it through his hair.

“She’s from a mission gone wrong. A fucking devastation to everyone involved. Mom and dad died on the scene, both grandparents died on arrival. All family friends had been there too and most died on the scene or at the hospital. She lost everyone within an hour,” Katsuki grimaced as he recalled the gruesome event.

Eijirou felt his chest tighten, “That’s horrible. Is that why you adopted her?”

The man shrugged his shoulders as he stared down at the girl. At Hina. At his daughter.

“She didn’t give me much of a choice. Clung to me nonstop from the scene to the hospital. Cried whenever I set her down.”

Eijirou hummed, “She trusts you.”

“She needs me,” Katsuki furrowed his brow.

The words almost sounded heavy as they left the man’s mouth. To be needed was such a responsibility. To have someone to come home to every night, to have someone to stay alive for in this line of work.

It was hard. Sometimes it felt nearly impossible. Eijirou had always assumed that was why the two of them had never given their love a true chance. Because being needed, being loved was so fucking terrifying.

Now he’s rethinking his choices in the worst way possible. Now every time he kept his mouth shut instead of screaming how he felt feels like his worst mistake to date. If he’d have said something sooner, would everything have changed? Would Eijirou still be a part of Katsuki’s life still? Would Hina be his daughter too?

Even though the air had been cleared, even though he knows Katsuki doesn’t have a wife, everything feels different now.

It felt like the man’s priorities had truly shifted, and now the eyes that used to watch Eijirou so endearingly were instead tired and focused on something else. In his new life, with his new child. The life he’d created without Eijirou.

The life he decided he didn’t need with Eijirou anymore.

“How long has it been,” he cleared his throat.

“Bout a month,” Katsuki answered. “The doctors said she’s healthy. She’s about two months old now.”

Eijirou nods his head as he watches the other man. Now that he was really looking, it was clear that all of this was really fresh.

Katsuki’s eyes were tired, and purple bags hung below them like they were permanently etched there. The sleep schedule must be a painful adjustment for someone who valued their sleep the way Katsuki used to. His face had thinned out significantly, like maybe he wasn’t so worried about his usual intense nutrition. Like he had shifted his priorities a bit when a baby had joined his life unexpectedly.

“How have you been?” Eijirou asked suddenly.

From the looks of it, he’d guess that Katsuki wasn’t doing as well as he let on. He looked different. Not entirely new of course, but significantly more stressed and sleep deprived.

Katsuki looked like a new parent. No longer a hero obsessed with training and working and surpassing everyone.

Now he was a father who was learning how to wake up at the slightest cry, and quietly adjusting to the newborn sleeping snug to his chest. Even the way he held the baby seemed a bit unrehearsed and unpracticed. As if the man hadn’t gotten the chance to drill parenting into his head before being handed a baby.

Eijirou had never really thought about children. It wasn’t that he was opposed to having his own kids, but rather, he’d thought he would have more time to think about it.

His twenties were for sleeping around, going to bars, hanging out with friends and obsessively pining over his best friend. His thoughts of babies ended as soon as his condom ended up in the trash and his one night stand was out the door.

He’d never given a baby much thought at all. And to his knowledge Katsuki had never expressed any real interest in it either. Neither of them knew a thing about babies, and definitely weren’t looking to raise one for the rest of their lives.

As if she sensed Eijirou’s thoughts, Hina decided to make her grand appearance in this conversation by letting out a tiny cry.

Katsuki was quick to pick her up from the carrier, and moved in practice precision to grab the bottle from his backpack, give it a few shakes before pressing it to the girls lips.

“She’s fine. Hungry all the damn time, I think she’s adjusting to formula,” Katsuki answered after a moment.

He held her neck so softly in his hero gloves. Eijirou never thought he’d find it as attractive as he did.

“Yeah, but how’re /you/,” Eijirou tried again.

Katsuki feigned a laugh. It was too tired, too lack luster to really fool Eijirou. He knew everything about the other man, especially when he was using a laugh to hide another emotion.

“Y’think a two month old is gonna run me down?” Katsuki smiled.

“I think a two month old might wear anyone out, especially someone who wasn’t prepared to receive the responsibility.”

The blonde didn’t answer. Eijirou supposed a response wasn’t necessary. Instead the two of them watched the little girl drink from the bottle.

Her eyes were a soft hue of blue, likely due to her newness to the world. They flicked over to look at Eijirou’s multiple times, as if she had just realized he existed and now couldn’t look away. When the bottle was almost finished, Hina turned away from the bottle in Katsuki’s hand. Again, her tiny little face just stared up at Eijirou, as if he was the most interesting thing she’d ever seen before.

“She likes you,” Katsuki raised his brows.

And Eijirou would be lying if he said the little girl hadn’t already stolen his whole heart.

Maybe it was the way she stared at him with those precious blue eyes, or the way she fussed in Katsuki’s large gloves. Maybe it was her tiny presence and how it took up so much space, much like Katsuki did on the battlefield.

Maybe it was because she was Katsuki’s baby, and she hadn’t been scared of his jagged teeth and bright hair, and overall very large build.

As if she couldn’t get any cuter, the baby smiled at Eijirou. A big, goofy looking smile that had both Eijirou and Katsuki giggling in the early morning sunrise.

“Hi sweetheart,” Eijirou said softly as he leaned in closer.

“Got baby fever?” Katsuki asked, as if this had happened before.

It probably had, Eijirou had a sneaking suspicion that the squad absolutely died when they first met Hina. He was sure Mitsuki and Masaru had equally dramatic reactions to seeing a sweet little baby like this bundled up in their son’s arms.

Her little arms flailed in a jerky movement, like she really wanted to do /something/ though she wasn’t quite sure what. Still, she smiled up at Eijirou, like she was genuinely excited about his existence.

Eijirou brought a big hand to her face before realizing his hand is bigger than her whole head. Instead he brought a knuckle to her check and stroked it softly.

“She’s so happy, so smiley, are we sure she’s your child?” He joked.

“Wanna see the paperwork?”

And yes, of course he did. Eijirou wanted to see everything. He wanted to go back to the time where he knew everything about Katsuki. He wanted to memorize the way her name was written on the birth certificate, wanted to see if he’d given her the last name Bakugou, wanted to make sure Katsuki had put the line through the letter T of his first name because he so often forgot to add it in the usual rush of signing autographs.

But did he even have that right anymore? Now that Katsuki had taken on the responsibility of becoming a parent, of moving his entire focus from hero work and other frivolous things to raising a child on his own, was Eijirou even remotely on his radar anymore.

“Can I hold her?” He felt himself ask instead.

Katsuki nodded, “Yeah, don’t tell the idiots though. I haven’t let them yet.”

He moved his body towards Eijirou, supporting Hina’s neck like it was the most important task in the world. Slowly, carefully, almost too gentle to be considered Bakugou, Katsuki placed Hina in Eijirou’s arms.

“Why not?” Eijirou asked.

“Don’t trust ‘em with her yet. Maybe when her neck is stronger.”

He adjusted Eijirou’s arms ever so slightly, just to make sure his child was safe, and immediately Hina started to cry again. Eijirou felt the back of his neck heat up in embarrassment. Did she hate him? Was he hurting her? Did he fuck up? Would Katsuki hate him?

As if his best friend could read his mind, Katsuki was at his side with the bottle once again.

“She just wants the bottle,” he leaned in and pressed the bottle back to the two month old’s tiny mouth and just like that she was back to drinking in silence.

The two men stared in adoration.

“Can’t believe your kid is this calm,” Eijirou murmured softly, too afraid to break this peaceful quiet that the three of them had gotten comfortable in.

Katsuki leaned his head on Eijirou’s shoulder, still holding the bottle for his daughter who drank sleepily in Eijirou’s arms.

“Tch, fuck you.”

“I can’t believe you have a kid,” Eijirou added honestly.

Katsuki swallowed but didn’t move from his spot on Eijirou’s shoulder, “It wasn’t planned. She needed a home and I couldn’t say no. I have an extra room, I have food and water, and I have financial stability.”

And Eijirou couldn’t deny that. If it had been him in this position he wasn’t sure he’d do the same. He’d probably have helped to find a good orphanage and maybe lined up a good list of suitable parents for the baby.

But he isn’t sure he’d have adopted her on the spot. Not like Katsuki had.

“I couldn’t turn her away,” Katsuki added.

“I get it,” eijirou nodded, because he did.

Because that’s what Katsuki did. Everything in his life was done with one hundred percent of his heart and mind. If he was going to be a hero he’d do whatever it took. If he was going to protect this precious baby, who’d lost everything in a matter of hours, he’d take matters into his own hands and give her the best damn life she could ask for. It’s who Katsuki was. Extremely selfless to the point of almost self destructing.

“But nothing has changed for me,” Katsuki added.

And his voice sounded so hopeful. He looked up at Eijirou, face close as it sat on his shoulder. Like he was trying to prove that nothing would be different and he could live the same life.

“Dude, everything changes when you have a kid,” Eijirou laughed.

He’d expected Katsuki to laugh back. Expected the other man to curse at him again before agreeing that his life was going to be very different with a little kid running around.

But instead Katsuki just gave him a sad look before nodding and pulling his head off Eijirou’s shoulder.

“Guess so.”

—

He wouldn’t say life went back to their usual normal after a month had passed, but it definitely got easier for Eijirou to breathe again. He’d unpacked his suitcases, dusted his apartment, fed his poor debilitated house plants, got back into a routine with work, and hung out with the squad whenever he could. He filled his fridge with food, and he started a new reality tv show.

And it was fine. Eijirou was fine.

But he really missed Bakugou.

It wasn’t like he wasn’t allowed to see him. The man hadn’t said that he wasn’t able to hang out because he was taking care of Hina. Bakugou hadn’t ever denied him entry or rejected an invitation to see him or anything.

Eijirou had just been too nervous to ask. Too scared of finding out that he’d only get in the way of Katsuki at this point. Having a kid meant being in parenting mode 24/7, or at least that’s what he’d assumed. Surely the last thing Bakugou wanted was Eijirou laying on his couch, eating all of his food and using Katsuki’s Netflix because he was still too cheap to buy his own.

It was different now.

Today was the first time he’d been to Katsuki’s apartment upon return to Japan. He’d left important documents on his desk, back at the agency, and Eijirou was tasked with returning them. He was sure that to Fatgum this was a simple gesture. Something easy considering the two of them were best friends.

But this might’ve been the most difficult thing Eijirou had had to do in a while.

Katsuki had always kept the apartment clean, tidy, almost unliveable. There was no sign of any life other than maybe his hero books thrown about in the entryway.

But now it looked a little more like a home of a father and daughter. There were clean bottles lined up in the kitchen, ready for their next use. Formula sat out on the counter as well. Baby clothes sat on the couch, some folded, some still in a pile like Katsuki had been doing them upon his arrival.

There were rattle type toys that shook when Eijirou walked through the apartment, and other little stuffed animals throughout the house.

It was so different. Eijirou almost felt out of place where he sat on the couch. Even though he’d spent so much time there eight months ago. Even though Katsuki had done nothing to make him feel like he didn’t belong.

After the papers were safely tucked away in Katsuki’s office, he came back to the living room looking sleepy. It was definitely past Katsuki’s bedtime, Eijirou could tell by the clock just pushing past eleven o’clock at night.

“I guess I better get going,” he stood.

The blonde had just put his baby down for bed, and Eijirou assumed he also wanted to sleep. He probably didn’t have time for any of their old antics.

“You can stay, y'know,” Bakugou said suddenly, awkwardly shoving his hands into the pockets of his worn sweatpants. “If you wanted.”

“For what,” Eijirou asked, a bit confused. What could he be needed for at this point?

But Katsuki grimaced at the response. He could see the way those walls he’d carefully broken down started to slowly build back up.

“Nothing, never mind,” the man shook his head.

Eijirou felt his chest clench with guilt.

Because that’s not really fair.

Yeah, Katsuki decided to move on. Yeah, he had a kid now. Yeah, he left eijirou in this weird confusing state where he had to suddenly go back to just being the best friend.

But Katsuki didn’t deserve to be forgotten because of that. He didn’t deserve the cold shoulder Eijirou was giving him. Just because the other man moved on with his life didn’t mean he should be penalized for it. Even if it did tear Eijirou apart.

“No, I want to stay. What should we do?” He asked awkwardly.

They both stood in the living room quietly. There was no sound coming from anywhere. Nothing on the television, no music playing in the kitchen. It was silent. It was uncomfortable.

Katsuki looked away, face contorted in a miserable way that Eijirou hadn’t seen in a while. Like he was angry at himself, frustrated over something Eijirou didn’t really understand.

“I don’t fucking know. I’m no good at this.”

“Can we watch a movie? I don’t want to wake Hina,” he asked, shifting his weight where he stood.

Katsuki waved his hand off towards his bedroom, where he’d just put the baby to sleep, “She sleeps like a fucking rock.”

Eijirou nodded his head and followed the other man to the couch, where the two of them used to spend so much time. The couch where Eijirou had fallen asleep more often than he’d slept in his own bed back at the apartment.

It took some time to adjust. It took maybe the first thirty minutes for Eijirou to fully let himself lean back into the couch. It wasn’t until the hour mark that Katsuki familiarly stretched his legs out and Eijirou caught them in his lap.

They didn’t even speak until the climax, when Eijirou half heartedly admitted that Crimson Riot was still the best hero, and led to Katsuki and him bickering on the couch through the movie.

It ended when Katsuki tried to kick Eijirou, which earned the blonde a couch pillow to the face. Only it didn’t stop there. Once the pillow bounced off to the side of the living room, Katsuki launched upwards, just enough to throw his arms around Eijirou and hold him in a headlock that had both of them trying to laugh quietly.

But then a little cry was picked up from the baby monitor off to the side, and all too soon Katsuki was standing up to grab his daughter.

And Eijirou was once again hit with the reality that he was sitting in a house that had passed him by. A home that could’ve been his if he had the fucking guts to be honest about how he felt.

When Katsuki reappeared he was holding a bundle of blankets and baby. A baby blanket that Eijirou had familiarized himself with a few weeks ago fell, and he was quick to pick it back up. He knew that was Hina’s favorite. It was soft and she always grabbed it first when she was sleeping or eating.

“That’s ridiculous. All Might would’ve bodied that guy. This whole movie is basically a piece of cake compared to what All Might endured during his golden age.”

Eijirou rolled his eyes at his best friend's gripes, refusing to agree with him even though he knew Katsuki was probably right.

“Tch, lighten up big guy,” he laughed as he helped Katsuki wrap him back up in her blanket.

He’d seen her a few times since that first day. He’d held her a few times as well. At the agency when Katsuki needed to tie his shoe. Again at the agency when Mitsuki was coming to pick Hina up so Katsuki could start his shift. Again at Mina’s house when Katsuki was borrowing bows that were small enough for Hina’s hair.

And still, whenever Hina see’s Eijirou, she smiles that goofy little grin. The same grin that had him falling in love with her all over again.

He ran his calloused hand over her soft brown hair before Katsuki pressed the bottle to her mouth and let her eat quietly.

“Why don’t you ever talk to her?” Eijirou asked.

Katsuki looked at him like he said something stupid, “She can’t speak yet.”

Eijirou laughed, “Yeah, but she’ll babble or whatever. You have to talk to her so she can learn how to talk back.”

Katsuki looked down at his daughter silently, brows furrowing as he listened. For a moment, Eijirou swore he’d caught a hint of disappointment in Katsuki’s features. Like maybe he was upset with himself for not knowing that.

“I didn’t know that,” Katsuki admitted after a moment.

Eijirou didn’t say anything. He wasn’t the guy to talk to about babies. The only experience he had with them was during search and rescue and his younger cousin years ago. He hadn’t meant to make Katsuki feel bad about it. He was honestly just curious.

And maybe he wanted to hear the Great Explosion Murder God Dynamight use baby talk. Sue him.

The blonde took the bottle, just for a moment, as if he wanted to test Eijirou’s theory.

And then, in typical katsuki fashion he grumbled out, “Hey, who are you?”

Eijirou couldn’t stop the absolutely cackle that punched out of his mouth. Of course Katsuki would try to talk to his three month old like she was some villain he met on the streets.

“Dude oh my god,” eijirou grabbed his stomach as he laughed.

Katsuki’s face flared a vibrant red that Eijirou hadn’t seen in months, “Fucking what?! You told me to talk!”

“No man, that’s not how you talk to a baby,” he wiped a damn tear from his eyes as he tried to wash away his laughter. Katsuki shot him a disapproving glare, with only a hint of humility.

Once he got air back into his lungs and the last of his delirious giggle vanished, Eijirou leaned forwards to look at Hina. Then he once again ran his rough, scarred hand over her specious curls.

“Good morning Hina. Are you hanging out with your daddy,” Eijirou said in his softest tone he could muster after laughing his lungs out.

Bakugou verbally gagged, “/Do not/ call me daddy.”

Eijirou gave him an incredulous look, “But that’s what you are!”

“I’m her dad,” Katsuki shoved Eijirou’s hands away as if he’d wronged him with the name.

He clicked his tongue at the blonde, “You can’t be bashful about being called daddy, what are you a high schooler.”

The teasing was only meant to be that. Just an immature little jab at the other man. Instead it sent a whole body blush to bloom on Katsuki’s skin.

“Fuck you! I hope you die!”

Eijirou let out another giggle. Maybe it was the fact that it was almost two in the morning now. Maybe it was because he missed Katsuki so much.

But somehow, it was as if the ice was finally shattering, or perhaps melting, and things were going back to how they used to be.

“That’s not good baby talk,” Eijirou joked.

“Well I don’t fucking get it,” Katsuki sighed in defeat, returning the bottle to the little girl who fussed away from it.

He lifted the little girl to his chest momentarily, patting her back soothingly and waiting for her to mellow out and hopefully fall back asleep.

Eijirou watched with careful, critical eyes. This was a Katsuki had never seen before. Beyond all the calloused, scarred skin, and the crass harsh demeanor. This Katsuki was tender, exposed, raw. He was different, but not in a bad way. Different in a way that Eijirou had secretly always wanted to see but was too scared to get close enough to try.

“You just have to talk man. She’s got to learn how to interact with people. How to be a person, how to express herself. She’s going to learn all that from you,” he spoke in a soft tone, hoping he could help the other man get his child to sleep.

Katsuki let out a huff before shaking his head and softly muttering, “You’re shit out of luck Hina.”

“Yeah, like that,” Eijirou smiled, feeling his shoulders finally relax for the first time in a month.

“Sort of.”

—

Eijirou’s back made a concerning crackle as he leaned back in his chair. He grunted as he pinched his eyes shut and tugged his mask off his face.

Katsuki leaned his head into his office, mask hanging at his neck, dirt and grime covering his skin, like he’d just gotten off of a grueling patrol.

“You okay,” the blonde raised a brow with a crooked grin.

“Work is killing me,” eijirou whined as he motioned to the paperwork on his desk. “I’ve been doing paperwork since 7 in the morning.”

All of this paperwork could’ve been done three months ago, when he had first returned back to Japan, but alas he is nothing if not a man that will procrastinate until the last second. So of course, he’s doing it now when the deadline is tomorrow morning.

“Fucking hell,” Katsuki scanned the scattered papers before flipping through a few of them. “You should go home. You’re going to finish it either way. Might as well finish in sweatpants in front of a warm meal.”

Eijirou let out a sigh, “Yeah, there’s no warm meal waiting at home for me. Best I can do is a microwave dinner.”

The two of them shared a tired look before chuckling. As pathetic as it may seem, seeing Katsuki’s face was the highlight of his day. Listening to the other man talk was what he looked forward to most.

“I’ll cook for you,” Katsuki offered with a shrug. “If you can handle paperwork /and/ a little crying.”

Eijirou hummed. Hina’s crying could never be considered a burden to him. Not when she was Katsuki’s baby. Not when she meant so much to the man in front of him.

“It depends who’s crying,” he raised his brows.

“It’s about to be you if you don’t get the fuck on with it.”

*-*-*-*

They had to have done paperwork for over four hours before they nodded off. Katsuki had helped, because he always did. Before Eijirou had gone overseas they’d stay up late at the agency signing through the legal shit, writing in explicit detail when necessary, doing the shit that side kicks were technically supposed to do but Eijirou definitely felt too guilty to ask them.

None of that had changed other than the fact that now they were at Katsuki’s apartment, with a delicious home cooked meal and a comfortable couch that made it almost impossible to stay awake.

When he woke up, it was to the sound of crying coming from Katsuki’s bedroom. He blinked once, twice, adjusting to the now dark living room. He winced as he leaned forward to check if Katsuki was already awake.

The blonde was laying at an awkward angle on the couch, still sitting upright, neck leaned in an awkward angle.

“Kats,” he nudged the other man softly, and when he didn’t wake up he shook him a bit harder. “Katsuki.”

The man woke up with a confused look.

“Hina,” Eijirou reminded him.

Katsuki shuffled through the darkness into his bedroom. Eijirou rubbed the sleep from his eyes before moving all of the paperwork in his lap to the table. He stacked the finished ones on the couch before moving them as well. When the crying got louder, Eijirou turned to see Katsuki walking past him, towards the kitchen. His movements were tired— no, exhausted. Like he was purely moving on adrenaline and had absolutely nothing left to give.

Eijirou stood up and followed him into the kitchen. It was dimly lit, only the moonlight providing enough light for either of them to see what they were doing. Katsuki fidgeted with the bottle, filling it with scoops of formula that Eijirou was too tired to count and then filling it to the full light that Eijirou was also too sleepy to notice.

When the blonde grabbed the lid, using the hand that wasn’t holding the crying baby, it slipped and he almost spilled the entire bottle.

“Do you need help,” he asked, stepping closer to the two of them.

The blonde shook his head, exhaustion consuming his voice, “I’ve got it.”

But as he said it, the bottle slipped a second time, and this time a bit did spill and drip down the counter top. The spatter of milk on the tiled floors was the only sound in the tense kitchen.

“Let me,” Eijirou swiped the bottle away before tightening the lid and shaking the contents. Katsuki didn’t even look at him. There was no snapping, no denying the help.

He was just exhausted. Overworked. A single parent. And Eijirou felt that same guilt and remorse from three months ago grab hold of his heart and twist it tightly.

He cleared his throat before walking closer to Katsuki. When the man tried to grab the bottle from his hand, Eijirou refused to release it. Katsuki didn’t fight him on it either. Instead he allowed Eijirou to feed the bottle to Hina as Katsuki held her.

The silence that consumed the apartment was welcome, and Eijirou heard himself let out a sigh of relief. It was only his first night dealing with a crying baby, yet it felt like a year’s worth of stress had just been added to his psyche.

Katsuki stood quietly, blinking his eyes as if he was fighting with himself to stay awake. After a moment, Eijirou felt the other man’s forehead against his neck, and when he looked down Katsuki was leaning forwards just enough to stand comfortably. He was probably too sleepy to realize what he was doing, but it didn’t stop Eijirou’s heart from beating out of his chest.

He let out another breath, steadying himself for the other man, letting the blonde rely on him when he was too sleepy to deny it.

After another beat of uneventful silence, Katsuki started to lean a little too far to the side. When he stumbled, Eijirou sprung into action.

“Hey,” Eijiro steadied Katsuki back upright, looking at Katsuki’s eyes in shock as they fluttered back open. “don’t fall asleep standing up.”

Katsuki shook his head, “M’not.”

And again that horrible warped feeling was brought right back to his guts. He was fucking exhausted. He could hardly stay awake to feed his daughter and Eijirou was asking for help with fucking paperwork.

It was no wonder Katsuki didn’t want more with him.

Eijirou carefully guided them back to the living room, letting Katsuki’s take over the bottle as they sat down on the couch. When Eijirou sat down with them, Katsuki was quick to lean over until he was against the redhead's chest. It felt like if Eijirou moved away he might fall down entirely.

“How can I help?” He asked quietly.

“I don’t need it,” was Katsuki’s usual response. The bottle was almost finished, and Hina’s eyes were starting to droop along with her fathers.

“You should probably get going. You don’t want a baby keeping you up all night,” Katsuki told him, but his voice was wobbly as he said it.

Eijirou shook his head, “I don’t want to go.”

Not when he was like this. Not when Eijirou was scared he might not wake up to Hina’s cries. Not when he was too tired to screw a lid on a bottle or stand on his own two feet.

“She’s going to keep crying. She’s teething,” Katsuki told him. As if that would deter him. As if anything could possibly keep Eijirou from taking care of Katsuki.

“It’s okay. I’m not scared of her and I know where the ice pops are.”

Katsuki let out a breathless sound that Eijirou could only assume was a laugh.

He maneuvered Katsuki until he was leaned on his chest, laid out between his legs. The man didn’t protest at all. In fact, it felt like he was leaning into it. Eijirou ignored how uncomfortable the arm of the chair was as it dug into his back. He ignores the paperwork that was due in the morning and has somehow slipped and fallen off the coffee table.

Instead he pulled a blanket over Katsuki, and watched with careful eyes as Hina finished her bottle and slowly nodded off again.

—

Five months ago, when Hina had crash landed into Katsuki’s life, he’d promised the Bakusquad that when she was six months he’d bring her to a squad hang out. Typically most first time parents wait until baby’s are two to three months but Eijirou had a feeling Katsuki was a little anxious to bring the squad anywhere near his tiny baby who had a very weak neck in her first few months of life.

Now she was six months old. Which inevitably meant Bakugou had to take her to her first bakusquad hangout.

When Eijirou arrived, he couldn’t exactly hide his excitement. Yes, he was super happy to see his best friends. With their schedules as pro hero’s it made it incredibly difficult to see them. But honestly he was excited to see Hina and Katsuki.

“Hey Kiri,” Mina cheered when he entered the house.

Katsuki and Hina were in the kitchen, where Denki and Sero ogled at the little girl who babbled at her spot in Katsuki’s arms. When Katsuki saw Eijirou, a smile split across his face.

“Look who it is,” he raised his brows at his daughter.

And Eijirou should’ve felt happy. Ecstatic, because Hina recognized him, and that beautiful little smile had greeted him followed by multiple words that only came out as silly little babbles.

But instead his heart just shattered.

Because Katsuki looked fucking wrecked.

There was no polite way to say it. Just last month the man was barely keeping his eyes open, barely standing on his own two feet. Eijirou should’ve expected it to only get worse from there. but now Katsuki was skinny, like he wasn’t eating, and his eyes were so tired.

And beyond that his face was so tired. Like he hadn’t slept in days. Like he was utterly exhausted.

“Is that dad’s favorite,” Katsuki grinned as he talked to his daughter.

“Cruel!” Denki cried.

“Is he the only one who doesn’t talk your fuckin ear off?” Katsuki teased as he glanced back at Denki.

“You can’t cuss in front of a baby,” Sero scolded.

“She doesn’t know what the fuck I’m saying,” Katsuki shook his head before turning to smile softly at Eijirou again.

Eijirou tried to shake off the shock, tried to ignore how tired his best friend looked, tried not to feel horrible over how unhelpful he felt.

“I got you something,” he smiled softly at Hina before pulling a soft plushy from a bag.

“A new toy,” Katsuki feigned an excited gasp as he looked at Hina. “Fuck yeah.”

“/Dude!/“ Denki scolded the other man’s language.

Katsuki ignored Denki in favor of watching his daughter’s face light up at the plushy being placed in her chubby hands.

“Say thank you Eiji,” the blonde used his best baby talk voice. He’d been practicing.

And Eijirou was obviously proud. He was always proud of Katsuki. But now there was an underlying sense of worry for the other man as well. He was taking on so much all at once. A baby, being a hero, being a father. It was too much even for someone as head strong as Katsuki.

Hina reached her chubby hands out from where she sat in Katsuki’s arms. She made little grabby hands at Eijirou, and he took her into his arms with little issue. And there she was again, smiling that happy little smile, now with a few teeth peaking out.

He pressed a soft kiss to the girl's cheek, and ignored the knowing looks his friends shot his way.

“I see you’ve gotten special bestie privileges with the new baby,” Mina raised her brows expectantly.

But Eijirou couldn’t even begin to think about the weird relationship between him and Katsuki right now. All he could do was watch the other man as he talked to Denki and Sero on the couch about god knows what, and wonder how they couldn’t see the way Katsuki was so close to falling apart.

“I’m worried,” Eijirou admitted, gently patting Hina’s back. “He’s going to burn himself out.”

—

He shouldn’t have said anything. Eijirou should know better by now than to trust the universe to simply hold onto his worries and do nothing. He shouldn’t have confessed that he was worried about his best friend. He shouldn’t have even acknowledged the burnt out.

Because maybe it wouldn’t have led to the current situation he was in.

It had started off normal, though a bit abrupt. Katsuki had come crashing into the agency, two bottles in one hand, a sleepy seven month old in the other, bags slung over his shoulder, hero uniform hardly even put on.

“My moms running late, just put me on desk duty,” he was breathless as he shifted the baby in his arms, glass bottles clinking together, bringing a whole cacophony of sound into the once quiet lobby of FatGum’s office.

He didn’t stop there, despite the way Fatgum, Mina and Sero gave concerned glances and made no move to change his schedule.

His badge fell from his pocket, the pacifier rolling out of Hina’s mouth just barely being caught by the hand holding the bottles. His gym back fell from his already sunken shoulders and caught at his elbow, causing him to stumble.

It was so unlike him, Eijirou almost found the man unrecognizable. Not only because he was running late, but because Katsuki had always held himself to a higher standard. He always came in clean cut, ready for work, refreshed and something early. He’d come with a bag of clothes for after his shift, and paperwork nearly tucked into a few file folders.

“Dynamight,” Fatgum blinked something akin to guilt, or perhaps sympathy for a hero working under his agency.

“She’ll be here in 15,” Katsuki tried, obviously trying to avoid the breakdown that was second away from happening.

He was stressed, overworked, tired. Anybody could see that simply from the bags under his eyes and the mess of his hair that he would’ve never left the house with eight months ago.

Hina’s fingers twirled in the tufts of Katsuki’s hair, pacifier in mouth, completely unaware of the tension filling the whole agency upon their arrival.

“Dynamight,” Fatgum said again, this time much more firm.

That got Katsuki to stop, and at least turn around to look at his boss.

“You look like you haven’t slept or had a proper meal in days,” Fatgum walked closer to the other man who took two more steps back.

Eijirou watched closely. He used to be fluent in Bakugou. Used to know exactly what was going to happen just by looking at the other man’s reaction.

And right now it looked like Katsuki wanted to run. It looked like he was second away from bolting god knows where.

“Fuck off,” the blonde hissed, moving a hand to his daughter’s head, as if he was trying to shield her from Fatgum. As if Fatgum had become some sort of threat to his child.

Eijirou felt like his breath was caught in his lungs. Something was about to happen, but he couldn’t exactly pinpoint what. He could feel it in the air, could see it in the tense shoulders of the other man, could notice it from a mile away.

He couldn’t help it. It wasn’t a choice. He knew everything about Bakugou, down to when he was about to snap from the pressure.

It wasn’t FatGum’s fault. Not at all. In fact Eijirou would argue that he was actually doing the responsible thing as the owner of the agency.

“You can’t do it all Bakugou. You have to give yourself a break or you’ll kill yourself,” Fatgum tried to reason, but Katsuki had never really been reasonably when it came to anything in life.

He was always so quick to throw himself in without thinking about the consequences, even when it directly affected himself. He did it in school, he did it during the war and almost lost his damn life.

Katsuki threw himself in head first and then refused to acknowledge it.

“I’m fucking fine.”

His voice was a low, angry growl, but Fatgum didn’t cower. Instead he stared at Katsuki flatly and did the one thing he could as their boss.

“I’m taking your patrol,” the man said flatly.

“No!” Katsuki yelled.

Eijirou sucked in a breath, lungs pinching. Hina startled at the way her father yelled and looked up at him with those big blue eyes. His heart snapped as she watched her eyes grow dearly, darting back from Fatgum, who had only been trying to help, and Katsuki who was seconds away from blowing a damn hole in the wall.

If it were Eijirou he’d have pulled Katsuki into an office, or a spare room, or somewhere away from the public eye. He’d tell Katsuki that it was nothing personal, that people were just worried. That Hina needs him at home.

He’d do anything other than publicly send him home.

But it wasn’t Eijirou, it was FatGum.

“You’re not well. Go home. That’s an order. If you don’t I’ll have you put on leave.”

It was harsh. It was true. It was exactly what Katsuki needed, but all the wrong delivery. It was something that Katsuki probably could’ve handled on a day where he wasn’t juggling a bag and a baby and a couple bottles and a stuffed animal. He probably would’ve grit his teeth and nodded his head, probably would’ve cursed Fatgum out in his head and then hit the gym.

But right now, Katsuki was spread thin. Hero work, baby, hero work, baby. And the threads of his tightly woven life were snapping.

He was breaking.

“Kats,” Eijirou tried, voice crackly with emotion he hadn’t given himself time to place at the moment.

But the other man was angry, seething, moving fast as he stomped down the hall of the agency. Hina was scared, Eijirou could practically /feel/ it as Katsuki shoved past him. Her eyes were scared, worried for her dad, nervous of whatever FatGum would do. She was too young to understand anything other than the fact that someone had freaked her father out.

“Katsuki,” Eijirou turned around and followed him. He’d already been changed into his civilian clothes, having worked an evening shift.

The other man didn’t stop. If anything he walked even faster, even more tense and aggressive. Eijirou could hear his sporadic breathing as he shoved the doors of the agency open hard enough to slam it against the walls.

It echoed, it shook the damn room.

And it made Hina cry.

That’s what did it. That’s when Eijirou knew something was really, /really/ wrong, because even though Hina was crying, even though she was scared, Katsuki just kept going. It was an act that had Eijirou’s eyes widening and his pacing turning into almost a run.

He’d been around Hina and Katsuki for almost five months now and it was safe to say that in those five months he’d come to perfectly understand the type of dad Katsuki was. And it wasn’t this.

It was like his brain was completely zoned out, like Katsuki’s was running purely on adrenaline as he left the agency and stomped down the side walks. Eijirou ran to catch up, grabbing Katsuki’s shoulder before it was shoved off, and then grabbing it again.

“Give me the baby,” Eijirou tried.

“No,” Katsuki snapped, eyes still facing forward, shucking off Eijirou’s hand once again.

He was matching Katsuki’s pace now though, practically running to match Katsuki’s speed. They’d grown a lot since they were fifteen, but Eijirou never did quite pass him up. Katsuki still had an inch on him, and though Eijirou had packed on far more muscle, those muscles didn’t exactly help to keep up with the other man’s long strides.

“Let me hold her,” he tried again, this time reaching his hands out, practically begging for the other man to just slow down. To take a breath, to let go of the baby so he could focus on himself for once.

But instead Katsuki planted both feet in the ground before yelling through a cracked, strained, and so very tired voice.

“You’re not taking her from me! She’s my daughter and I’m fully capable of taking care of her!”

Eijirou reeled back.

If his heart was still one whole piece after everything these past few months had thrown at him, this probably shattered it to smithereens.

Insecurity, so deeply hidden, to tightly wound around Katsuki’s heart that it was eating him alive. He thought that he was a bad parent. He thought Eijirou was trying to take her away.

Katsuki thought he had to prove himself. He thought Eijirou didn’t see him as good enough.

“Bakugou, that's not what I’m saying. I’m not taking her away,” Eijirou stopped walking, desperate to try and meet the man’s gaze.

But even his eyes were intense. Wide, out of focus, manic and sleep deprived. He’d hit his limit, and he wasn’t stopping. Katsuki would drill himself into the ground and only stop when he was destroyed and left to die in the hole he’d dug.

For a moment Katsuki seemed to regain his control. His head turned to look at his crying daughter, and his brows curled up in pain. Like he’d realized what he’d done.

“Dude,” Eijirou grabbed his shoulders, trying to get him to look at him. Trying to bring him back from whatever internal struggle he’d hidden from everyone else.

“Don’t say anything,” Katsuki snapped, but his bottom lip wobbled.

The blonde slowly bounced his daughter on his hip, patting her to soothe, giving her the stuffed animal in his hand. The stuffed animal Eijirou had gifted her a few weeks ago. Her /favorite/ stuffed animal that she couldn’t leave the house without.

Eijirou swallowed thickly, watching the two people he’d cared about more than anything grapple with their own pain. Katsuki’s face was a twisted face of anger, like it always tended to be.

But beyond that he could see the grief. He could see the heartache, the exhaustion, the fear for what he’d done just now.

“I’m not,” Eijirou squeezed his best friend's shoulders.

And when Katsuki finally met his gaze, Eijirou softly begged, “Just let me take you home.”

—

It was a mystery and a blessing that Katsuki went home willingly. It was equally a surprise when Katsuki actually let Eijirou drive his nice ass car, with Hina strapped into her car seat in the back.

For Eijirou, it was just proof that Katsuki was really hurting. Not just the hurt he hid with anger. No, he was in pain.

And it wasn’t from the agency. It wasn’t because FatGum sent him home, or because his mom got caught in dead stop traffic and couldn’t babysit. It wasn’t even because Eijirou was driving.

He could tell it was because Katsuki had scared Hina. Eijirou had caught the guilt as soon as Katsuki apologetically handed her the stuffed animal. It would forever be ingrained painfully in his brain as an image of hurt that he wished he could erase.

When they got to Katsuki’s apartment the lights were off and the city was sleeping. It was quiet for mere seconds before Hina was back to crying. She wasn’t crying because she was hurt, nor was she crying because she was scared. Crying was just her only way to communicate. She wasn’t at her talking stage yet and wouldn’t be for quite some time. She could only cry and try to get them to understand why.

Either way, Eijirou could see the way Katsuki tensed as he held her. His outburst seemed to have scared himself more than anyone else. It was like he was scared to do anything at the moment. Scared of breaking his daughter’s trust.

“Let me handle it,” Eijirou said softly, turning on the light to the living room.

Katsuki shook his head, and if Eijirou hadn’t known him so well he might miss the foreign look of desperation on Katsuki’s face as he turned his body away from Eijirou. Again, shielding Hina away from everyone except for Katsuki.

“No, you can’t take care of her. You don’t know how,” he put a hand over the little girl's brown hair as she whined.

They didn’t teach much about parents at UA. They talked of children, of babies, of how to handle a newly orphaned child, of how to resuscitate a baby.

But nobody had prepared Eijirou to see Katsuki so emotionally charged with his daughter. He was sure the events leading up to the adopting had been heart wrenching. He was positive Katsuki had developed an anxious attachment to the little girl.

Eijirou walked closer, running his hand down his best friend's back. He knew that Katsuki knew he was fully capable of caring for a baby. He equally knew that right now Katsuki was exactly in the headspace to care about that.

“I know how to take care of a baby, Katsuki.”

His voice was firm, but soft. Supportive. Familiar. Because even after all of this, even after the mixed signals, Eijirou at least knew that Katsuki trusted him. Katsuki knew that Eijirou wouldn’t hurt anyone. It was one of the things Eijirou had been sure Katsuki loved about him before Hina.

“Not mine,” Katsuki shook his head.

He was still in his hero costume. Still technically Dynamight. The hero who could explode a fucking mountain. The man with broad shoulders and a mouth that could make a sailor blush. The person whose mere aura sent villains running.

And somehow he looked small then. Small in the uniform that most people recognized as the strongest. Small, in the body that had survived stabs, and bullets, and wars.

Eijirou let out a deep breath before softly turning Katsuki around. The baby was still crying.

“Okay let’s see then,” Eijirou offered.

He was surprised Katsuki had allowed him to pull Hina from his arms so easily, but he didn’t bring it up.

Instead the redhead took to holding the crying girl close to the crook of his neck, swaying softly, and trying his best not to feel awkward as Katsuki stared at him profusely.

It wasn’t the first time he had held Hina. In fact, Eijirou held Hina a lot recently. Any time they hung out she sat with him. At squad get together she made little grabby hands for him, when he saw them at the agency she babbled with him while Katsuki changed.

He’d gotten used to holding her. Eijirou knew exactly what she needed right now, which was very obviously a nap. He swayed with her until she at least stopped crying, patting her back softly, shushing her when she whined.

And Katsuki just stood there watching, with a face that was somehow mixed with relief and anxiety.

Eijirou nodded in the direction of the bedroom, “Go change.”

And for once Katsuki listened. He didn’t argue, didn’t try to take Hina.

He accepted defeat.

After he was positive Hina was asleep and Katsuki had had enough time to change, Eijirou walked into what used to be the guest room but had recently become Hina’s nursery. Eijirou smiled as he recalled the day Katsuki told him it was time for Hina to transition to her own bedroom, after googling intensely and calling his mom day.

She was growing. She was seven months old. Five months had seemed to pass in the blink of an eye.

And Eijirou somehow felt a strange sense of loss. Of missing something that wasn’t even his to miss. Hina was growing up, and he was missing out on that. Missing out on watching Katsuki be a father.

Losing time with Katsuki.

Once Hina was placed in her crib, and Eijirou had successfully managed to not step on any of her toys that hadn’t quite made it back into the baskets on the shelves, he went to Katsuki's room.

The man was sitting on the bed, now in sweat pants and a loose shirt, staring off at nothing in particular. Eijirou placed a solid hand on the blonde’s shoulder before giving it a comforting squeeze.

“She’s asleep. Lay down for a bit.”

Katsuki nodded before leaning back into his pillows. Eijirou wasted no time in occupying the other side of the bed. The side that he used to claim more often than not after nights out, or sleepovers, or drunken nights when he could drive back to his own place.

He leaned back into the pillow and let out a steady breath. Waiting felt like the wrong thing to do, but really Eijirou was at a loss. All of this was so new and all he wanted to do was support his best friend through it.

But he didn’t know how. Eijirou didn’t know how to make any of this better other than to sit there and just /be/ there for Katsuki.

“Just say it,” the blonde muttered after some time. His back was towards Eijirou, and when Eijirou turned to lay on his side to face him Katsuki made no effort to turn around.

“What?” He asked against the other man’s back.

Absentmindedly a finger went to trace the small of the other man’s back. If not for comfort than at least to remind Katsuki that he was there. That if the other man wanted to turn around, wanted to be supported, Eijirou was right behind him.

“What everyone’s fucking thinking,” katsuki hissed out quietly.

“I’m thinking you’re mentally drained and you need a break,” Eijirou said softly.

“You think I can’t take care of her,” the blonde’s voice sounded gutted, and his shoulders curled in on himself.

It was so unlike him.

Eijirou hadn’t seen him so down since the war.

“No. Don’t put words in my mouth,” he moved closer until he could smell the cologne of the other man. Until his breath could probably be felt on the back of his neck. Until Katsuki knew he was there.

Because that was all he could do. That was all he was allowed to do, as the best friend and nothing more. As the person who cared so much for the man that moved past him.

“I think you’re overwhelmed right now. I think you’re forgetting to take care of yourself because you want to be a good dad.”

It was all true. Eijirou didn’t sugar coat it because he knew Katsuki could handle it. Katsuki always listened to what he said, he always valued what he said.

“I’m not her dad,” the blonde let out a shaky breath. One Eijirou hadn’t heard since Katsuki woke up in the hospital ten years ago and found out his hand would never be the same again.

“I don’t know how to be her dad.”

It broke Eijirou’s heart. It tore through him like a fucking saw. The man’s shoulders started to shutter, and his breath was stuttered and jagged. His nose started to sniffle, like he was holding it all in. Like he had to hide it from Eijirou.

“Kats,” he croaked, placing a large hard on the blonde's shoulder. “You /are/ her dad.”

He couldn’t believe that someone as amazing as Katsuki could ever doubt himself. Anyone would be lucky to have someone like Katsuki in their life. Hina was blessed to have the blonde as her father.

And Katsuki couldn’t see that. Katsuki didn’t think he was enough.

Eijirou pulled him closer even though Katsuki still refused to turn and face him. The small of his waist was alarmingly slim. Katsuki had always been lean, always had a tiny waist and slender build. But this was different. This was thin. Skinny, like he’d given every ounce of his own well being to his daughter. Like he’d been pouring from an empty cup.

“You’re doing great,” he whispered softly.

And then those silent shutters turned into something more. Something choked and pained, something wet and full.

Katsuki’s voice was barely above a whisper as he admitted, “It doesn’t feel like it.”

It was such a raw confession, such a rare peak at the other man’s soft underbelly. Such a rarity, that Eijirou felt his own eyes sting. Against his better judgement, he propped himself up on an elbow just enough to lean over and press a soft kiss to the crying man’s temple. Then he pulled him close and held him tight.

“You’ve done so well,” he whispered gently.

And he didn’t move from that spot once.

Not when his arm got pins and needles from sitting under Katsuki’s weight. Not when the room felt a little too cold for his liking and he hadn’t pulled the blanket over them.

He didn’t move until Katsuki’ breathing finally evened out and the man had cried himself to sleep. Of course, that’s when Hina had started crying again, but thankfully Katsuki had slept through it.

Eijirou was quick to sooth her. He changed her diaper, gave her a bottle, and let her teeth on the ice pop Katsuki had left in the freezer for her growing teeth.”

She was easy to take care of. She was easy to love. From her little brown curls to her sweet button nose. Hina was a good baby. The kind that kept you smiling even when you felt exhausted as the hours ticked by.

By three in the morning Eijirou was finally ready to close his eyes. For a moment he thought about crashing on the couch, but then worried that he might not hear Hina all the way out in the living room.

After a contemplative moment, he headed back to Katsuki’s room, pulling the covers out carefully and throwing them over the blonde and himself. He wrapped himself around over Katsuki's middle, only freezing when he felt the other man stir and twist to face him.

“Where is she,” Katsuki asked through his sleepy state. Eijirou questioned if the other man was actually awake or just going through the motions right now.

“She’s sleeping.”

Katsuki started to sit up, “Did she—“

But Eijirou pulled him back down gently.

“She had a bottle. I changed her and I gave her a teething ring before she fell asleep.”

He was expecting more. Maybe some pickier questions like if he’d warmed the formula to room temperature (which he had), or if he’d made sure her pacifier was no longer clipped to her pjs while she slept (which he had also done).

The last thing he’d expected was for Katsuki to relax a bit, and lean into the hold Eijirou had on him. The blonde leaned back into the soft, expensive pillows Eijirou was always so jealous of, and allowed the other man to lay his arm across his waist.

This was something they’d never done before. It was right up there with confessing their love. They never cuddled or anything when they were best friends. They hardly even touched when they had sleepovers and shared a bed.

“Thank you,” Katsuki said quietly.

“Don’t mention it,” Eijirou nodded.

There was more he wanted to say. Eijirou wanted to tell the other man the truth. Wanted to remind Katsuki that he truly was amazing at everything he tried, even becoming a father. He wanted Katsuki to know that it has truly been an honor to watch him grow into a dad.

Eijirou wanted to tell Katsuki how much he loved him, and how seeing him interact with Hina only made him that much more in love. He wanted to remind the blonde that every time he so much as moved Eijirou noticed. Wanted to scream from the roof tops how important Katsuki was to him, wanted to kiss the other man and comfort him and tell him just how fucking perfect he was at everything.

But that wasn’t what Katsuki needed right now. Not at all. Not when he was so emotionally drained from today. Not when his eyes were puffy and red rimmed, and his hair was a mess that needed to be washed.

Right now Eijirou’s feelings were just extra baggage that the blonde shouldn’t have to focus on.

So instead he held it all in. He hid it once again.

“No really, thank you Eijirou,” Katsuki said slowly, like even now he could hardly keep his eyes open.

All Eijirou could do was watch the other man exist on the pillow next to him. Their faces were close, nearly nose to nose despite the fact that Katsuki had a king sized bed.

“Can you stay,” Katsuki asked after a beat of silence. Voice rough from crying, nose impossibly stuffy as well. He swallowed thickly, like he was still holding back so much more emotion than he’d already let seep through.

Eijirou only tightened his hold on his best friend's waist, opting to ignore the tightness in his chest. Because eight months ago Katsuki would’ve never had to ask him that. Eight months ago that would’ve been a given. Katsuki wouldn’t have even had to question his place in Eijirou’s life. He would’ve just known.

“Of course.”

—

A month had passed them by and things had definitely changed. It was a silent change, a gradual one, an unmentioned change.

Eijirou found himself staying over at Katsuki’s a little later. He’d stay way past dinner, way past bath time. Sometimes he’d stay the night just to make sure Katsuki could get sleep.

Sometimes he’d cook dinner while Katsuki took care of Hina. She was starting to crawl around and pick up things. When it was time to start baby proofing, Eijirou stayed for that too.

Sometimes he’d help with bath time when Katsuki came home exhausted from work. Sometimes bath time wasn’t just about making sure Hina was clean, but also making sure Katsuki showered, and cleaned up his injuries from work.

He was at that apartment more often than not. An unsaid agreement between the two men. A promise that was never acknowledged but known.

Tonight Mitsuki had insisted she take Hina. After a short visit a few days ago, she concluded that Katsuki had no idea how to dress girls, and Hina was in dire need of a wardrobe refresh. She offered to take her for the whole night, which was really difficult to get Katsuki to agree to, but with some gentle prying Eijirou had gotten the man to not only agree but also go out with the squad.

“Wahhh where is Hina,” Denki whined as they found the squad in the crowded bar.

It was a scene Eijirou hadn’t been a part of in a few weeks. The loud music, the overeager drunks, the strobe of colored lights.

He’d gotten so used to his quiet life. Eijirou’s days for the past three weeks had consisted of warm blankets and chubby cheeks. Warm meals at home and loud giggles coming from a baby experiencing life for the first time.

“Nice to fucking see you too,” Katsuki grumbled.

Denki gave the man a hug, which he obviously tried to fight but ultimately gave into. Hina had made Katsuki soft in the most wonderful ways.

“Well obviously I’m happy to see you, but I wanted to see my sweet niece,” Denki smiled.

Eijirou couldn’t help but feel a sense of pride that might not exactly be placed correctly. Hina wasn’t his daughter, yet as he heard their friends openly accept her his heart fluttered as if she was.

“She’s busy shopping with grandma because apparently I don’t know how to dress girls,” Katsuki rolled his eyes as he neared the bar.

Mina had already ordered him his favorite drink, and upon the first sip the blonde grimaced.

“Yeah, that’s true,” Mina teased before throwing back another shot.

All too soon the squad was back to their usual antics. Denki and Sero were lost to the crowd, dancing, yelling, drinking, doing the things most twenty five year olds did.

Mina was clinging to Eijirou, very obviously drunk off her ass, babbling about her and Camie’s latest crazy sex scene.

And Katsuki, well, he looked a little miserable which might not seem all that different considering he usually had to get dragged out to begin with. But this time Eijirou knew it was different. This time Eijirou felt it too.

He missed Hina.

Somehow, they’d managed to get to separate parts of the bar, probably because Mina had dragged Eijirou off to the dance floor and then dragged him back to the bar on the wrong side.

And all he could do was watch as Katsuki stared down at his drink mindlessly. Like his head was elsewhere. Like he was thinking about brown curls, and big blue eyes, wrapped in warm blankets and smelling like home.

“How are you handling all of this?” Mina's voice snagged his attention away from the blonde across the bar.

He furrowed his brow, “What?”

The woman rolled her eyes, slouching against Eijirou’s shoulders as she gave him a knowing shoving.

“Come on, we all know the two of you have something going on.”

“We—“ Kirishima stuttered, completely caught off guard. “We’re just best friends.”

To be honest he hadn’t thought about that ache in a whole. He’d been so focused on taking care of his best friend, of getting to know Hina and learning how to be there for her, that he didn’t get a chance to remind himself that he wasn’t actually a part of this.

He wasn’t Katsuki’s lover. He wasn’t Hina’s dad.

He was just stepping in. Katsuki was just letting him experience their life. The life he’d wanted without Eijirou.

Eijirou shook his head before taking another sip of his drink. It burnt going down, and he had to pretend he wouldn’t rather be taking a bite of banana purée just to convince Hina it was yummy.

“He’s already moving on in life. Some people don’t need romantic partners.”

“Maybe, but Bakugou isn’t one of those people. He’s secretly the most romantic person I know,” Mina teased, completely unaware of the pain it brought to Kirishima’s face.

He tucked his bangs behind his ears as he thought about what to say next. Because he knew that Katsuki was a romantic. He knew that the blonde loved to love, Eijirou had been on the silent receiving end of that for as long as he could remember. He also got to watch Katsuki love Hina in a way he hadn’t realized existed within Katsuki.

So yes, he knew Katsuki wanted to love.

Just not with Eijirou. Not anymore.

He pieced together a response that sounded right. A reasonable explanation for why he hadn’t pushed, why he hadn’t tried to become something more.

“I think he really needed this. He really needed something— or I guess someone— to give him a reason to be careful. A reason to come home in one piece.”

“But,” Mina raised her brows knowingly.

Eijirou bit his lip before looking at the woman. Even through her drunken haze, there was a certain seriousness in her face. Like she understood, like maybe Eijirou could break, just a little.

“But he moved on without me,” he breathed out.

It hurt coming out. It hurt in the same way that your chest pinched when you were sick and every breath felt like a punch to the lungs.

Mina stared at him thoughtfully, seemingly mulling it over in her head. The thing about Mina, is that she didn’t sugar coat. If a situation was shitty, Mina would be the first to call it. If Eijirou was being an idiot she’d be the first to tell him.

So he trusted what she said.

“I don’t think he moved on without you,” she shook her head. “I think maybe he’s moving forward. Life isn’t always so linear.”

All that did was make him feel a little guilty. He wasn’t trying to say that Katsuki couldn’t date ever again, and he certainly wasn’t implying that having a child made the man less desirable.

Mina leaned against the bar as she crossed her arms, thinking thoughtfully, “And you know, I think /you’ve/ been the only reason he remembers to come home each night for a huge portion of his life. I think it’s good he’s finding more reasons to treat himself kindly. Don’t you?”

And he couldn’t agree to that. Of course he wanted Katsuki to find reasons to be happy. Of course he wanted the other man to find purpose in his life.

He just didn’t expect that to mean Eijirou would have to pass his torch over entirely and be a part of his past life.

“Yeah,” he said, staring down at his own drink, twisting the straw in hopes of a distraction.

Mina didn’t have much else to say after that. How could she? She was drunk and could only piece together so many words of wisdom at a time. Eijirou would like to say that it helped, at least a little.

But it didn’t. All this conversation did was remind him that everything had changed.

That he should’ve said something all those years ago. That he’d lost so much time by not, and now he’d have to live with the fact that he never said anything.

“Get off,” a familiar voice echoed from the other side of the bar, and Eijirou’s head immediately snapped upwards.

It was Katsuki. Far off, across the bar, sitting at a stool as another man slung an arm over his shoulder.

Usually if anyone laid a finger on Katsuki’s they’d lose it. They’d gotten kicked out of enough clubs and bars strictly because someone was stupid enough to flirt with Katsuki and he retorted accordingly.

He could fend for himself. He could defend himself.

But he wasn’t.

Eijirou stood as he watched the man put his arms back over Katsuki, this time practically falling onto the blonde. In an attempt to catch himself from falling off of the stool Katsuki’s arm slid out, pushing the drink and causing it to spill on the counter top.

He should shove him off. He should destroy him. He should explode his face hard enough to send him flying and break something. That’s what he usually did. That’s what always happened.

But he /didnt/, and instead Eijirou had to watch in confusion and horror and Katsuki tried to quietly pull himself up and away from the fucking weirdo.

“Fucking stop,” the blonde said as he stood to his feet.

Eijirou was already turning the corner of the bar, and was already moving despite Mina’s warnings that went unheard. Despite the fact that Katsuki was the strongest man he knew, despite the fact that he was a hero capable of handling himself.

He moved on impulse, instinct, terror, jealousy.

The drunk pulled Katsuki closer by the arms then, making their bodies touch even as Katsuki pulled away. Why wasn’t he doing anything? Why wasn’t he saying something?

“Come on, let me show you how you should be treated,” the man yelled over the blaring music.

Katsuki shoved again, not releasing his quirk, not causing a scene, not fucking decking this guy in the teeth.

“Get the fuck off!”

But the person didn’t let up. Instead he leaned forward, and just as he was above to put his hands on the blonde’s waist, Eijirou stepped up to him and slammed a fist into the guy's teeth.

It wasn’t like him. Not at all.

Eijirou was always calm, always collected, always applauded for acting so kindly in unwanted situations. He never griped, never complained, never got in trouble with the media or the news. He was always clean.

He always did the right thing.

But not when it came to Katsuki.

“Eijirou!” Katsuki yelled when the guy dropped to the floor, blood splattering around him, teeth chattering off in different directions of the disgusting bar floor.

He yanked at his own arm, now covered with a stranger's blood, when Katsuki tried to pull him out of the crowd, away from the people turning to watch.

Eijirou couldn’t stop himself. He couldn’t stand seeing someone all over his best friend, his love, his world. And he absolutely couldn’t handle the way Katsuki was just /letting/ it happen. Maybe Katsuki was worse off than he’d understood. Maybe this was a way of harming himself, or letting something terrible happen.

He swung around to look at the other before yelling, “What the hell is up with you man? You were just going to let him do that to you?!”

“You’re causing a goddamn scene,” Katsuki yelled back, motioning to the growing crowd.

Since when did Katsuki ever care about any of that? Since when did he let someone sexually harass him just to hide from bad publicity? Since when was it okay for anyone else to touch Katsuki?

Eijirou threw his arms up in confused frustration. “Yeah because for some reason you didn’t! You’re the strongest man I know, you should’ve ripped that guys fucking face apart. Why’d you let him come on to you like that—“

“I have a fucking kid at home Eijirou!” Katsuki shouted.

At the mention of Hina, Eijirou completely froze. He knew that. Of course he knew Hina was at home. But he didn’t understand what that had to do with letting another person grope you non-consensually at a bar.

But that’s when he felt it. That snapping, breaking, disconnect between the two of them. The reminder that Katsuki was different now. That Katsuki was someone who Eijirou had to get reacquainted with.

“I can’t just blow up on some guy and get arrested, or caught up in a fight and end up with a bashed in face. Hina will be home in the morning and she needs a dad, not a fucking lunatic.”

And even so, even if he had a point, Eijirou couldn’t justify it. He couldn’t understand why Katsuki would throw away his own safety just to make sure Hina was okay. He couldn’t allow the other man to justify the action. Eijirou wouldn’t ever be okay with what just happened.

And months ago, Katsuki wouldn’t have either. Months ago, Katsuki wouldn’t even be in this situation.

He let out an annoyed huff of air before shaking his head at the other man, “What happened to you? You didn’t used to be like this Kats.”

At that, Katsuki grew angry. He could see it turning in his face, could feel it from the way the other man grit his teeth, could taste the bitterness in his mouth when Katsuki’s voice rose an octave.

“I already know I’m not what you want anymore! Dont fucking rub it in!

And then the world stopped, and Eijirou’s axis tilted.

Because what the /hell/ did that mean?

“What are you talking about,” he reeled back. Suddenly he was much less angry and much more confused.

Katsuki didn’t break eye contact. He didn’t lower his voice either. He didn't stop when security finally started to gather around them.

“I get it okay. I went off and decided to become a parent. I ruined everything between us because I chose Hina, and I’m fucking sorry.”

And Eijirou couldn’t get a handle on any of it. He couldn’t stop the other man from speaking, couldn’t even get a word out. Instead he just stood there, in a sputtering mess as his brain tried to catch up with what Katsuki was saying.

What Katsuki truly thought.

Had he actually done this? Had he really made Katsuki believe that Hina ruined everything between us?

Had Katsuki felt the shift as well?

Was there even a shift?

Katsuki’s voice grew hoarse as he continued with a painfully raw laugh, “But I love her. She’s my kid. I’m sorry I couldn’t stay your teenage dream, I’m sorry I grew into something you didn’t want. Okay? I’m fucking sorry.”

Eijirou’s mouth hung open, like an idiot.

And maybe he really was one, if that’s how he made Katsuki feel. Maybe he’d been a fucking idiot all along for ever making the blonde feel like he had ruined everything between them by accepting a child into his life.

“Katsuki—“

But the blonde didn’t wait. Instead he turned on his heel and left Eijirou standing there with security, completely at a loss.

—

Eijirou had a shift at four in the morning which in hindsight wasn’t the best idea considering they had been at a club at midnight. It certainly didn’t help that he and Katsuki had gotten into a huge argument and they both left the club alone.

Even though Eijirou wanted nothing more than to go back to Katsuki and tell him that he was wrong, that Eijirou hadn’t changed his mind on him, that he still wanted /more/ with Katsuki, he had a duty to fulfill.

That was what really sucked about hero work. No matter what other personal matters they had, they had to put hero work first. No matter how heartbroken they were, no matter how bad their limbs begged them for sleep, no matter how much they /hurt/.

Hero work always came first.

They gave their lives to it, whether they wanted to or not.

In this moment right now, where a routine patrol had just gone horribly wrong, and Eijirou’s body was crumbled and bleeding out on the cold concrete of the street, he found that he knew that notion better than anyone else.

He doesn’t remember what happened. He probably should. He just remembered fighting a villain and going down hard and fast. He remembered his bones shattering, remembers his brain screaming out in searing pain, remembers feeling his blood slowly creep out of his body until it was cold. He remembered teeth chattering and his eyes flickering. He could even remember the horrible pain all around him.

And then everything went dark for a very, very long time.

When he finally did come to, it was to harsh lights only slightly softened by plastic casing. There was a steady thrum of beeping coming from off to the side, and he could faintly hear the air conditioning buzzing briskly. His clothes felt scratchy, his skin felt like jelly, and everything else felt really heavy. His brain was obviously in that floaty in-between stage of just waking up. No matter how hard he tried it was impossible to piece two coherent thoughts together for maybe the first three minutes he laid there, staring at the fluorescent bulbs.

After a moment he could at least understand that he was in the hospital from that villain attack, and he likely had trouble feeling his body because of the pain medication pumped through the IV digging through his inner elbow.

He tested a deep breath in. It all seemed to be intact. Then Eijirou moved his head, just slightly, just enough to turn to the side and—

There was Katsuki.

Sitting in an uncomfortably plastic hospital chain, elbows digging into his knees as his hands sat clasped together right in front of his firmly set jaw. Even under the horrible hospital lighting Katsuki looked like he was crafted by the gods. He half wondered if an angel had wandered its way inside, up until Katsuki opened his mouth.

“Fucking asshole. You piss me the fuck off.”

His voice came out shaky, clasped hands gripping so tightly to one another, jaw clenched so hard Eijirou swore he could hear his teeth gritting.

“Come home unannounced,” Katsuki began slowly, angrily, on the verge of an explosion.

“Accept my kid with open arms. Take care of her when I’m exhausted, make her love you more than she ever loved me.”

Eijirou would’ve denied that if his mouth could formulate a word at the moment.

But everything was flooding back, and suddenly the weight of how they left things that night, the night before patrol at the bar.

“Make her need you,” Katsuki continued, though his body trembled and his tired eyes closed. “Make /me/ need you.”

Eijirou had to close his eyes at that. At the admittance that Katsuki still needed him, still wanted him around as his best friend.

“Yell at me in a goddamn bar,” Katsuki bit his bottom lip, keeping the emotion in his voice at bay. “Then go out and almost get yourself killed.”

The blonde let out a shaky laugh, angry, and so full of sorrow. It was like all of the energy had been zapped from his body and he was left in that damn plastic chair, looking exhausted and once again small.

“I can’t fucking stand you,” the blonde leaned forward.

It was a lie. Eijirou knew it was. Katsuki always said that when he felt any strong emotion. He hated Deku, hated his mom, hated the squad. But hate was just a blanket term for something so much more. Something Katsuki himself could never name and instead hid with his anger.

The blonde leaned over him, keeping his face close, shoving a finger into the scratchy fabric of the hospital gown in Eijirou’s chest.

“Do you hear me? I can’t stand you Eijirou.”

Just as the blonde tried to pull his hand back, Eijirou grabbed his wrist. Despite the blonde's angry voice, there was no real fight. If he wanted to get out of Eijirou’s weak hold, he absolutely could.

Instead he just stared at the man in the hospital bed.

“I’m sorry,” Eijirou croaked. His throat was sore, like he hadn’t drank water in days. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you at the bar. I shouldn’t have assumed that you didn’t have a reason for letting it happen.”

His brain tried to piece together the events and where they all lined up. Eijirou tried his best to remember exactly what they said, exactly why everything felt so emotionally charged right now. He remembered yelling at Katsuki for letting another man touch him. He remembered them fighting.

Katsuki bowed his head, eyes hidden beneath his bangs as he sat back, the chair making an ugly creak against his weight.

“Are you okay?” The blonde muttered after a beat of silence.

Eijirou hummed, “Everything is sort of achy, but it’s nothing I can’t handle.”

Katsuki nodded before crossing his arms and leaning back, “Doc says you’re out for a month with that head injury.”

“Figured.”

And it was quiet. A comfortable quiet that the two of them have sat in before. In a room very similar to this one, in alternate positions. Katsuki was his emergency contact. Because he lived the closest, he was the most responsible, and Eijirou trusted him to make the right calls for him.

Also because Katsuki wouldn’t allow anybody else to be his emergency contact. He practically demanded it from the redhead. It wasn’t like he had to. He’d trust Katsuki with his life.

Because he loved him.

As if a fog had been lifted over his brain, he remembered what Katsuki had said that night at the bar.

It made his head hurt, made his chest ache, but he had to hear it again. He had to ask, just to be sure that Katsuki had truly said it.

“Do you really think you ruined things between us because you became a dad?”

Katsuki let out a puff of air through his nose before turning off to the side. He didn’t answer right away, but Eijirou could see him flipping and turning an answer over in his head by the way his lips quivered into a frown and he shook his head.

“You walked away.”

Eijirou didn’t respond. Mostly because he had no idea what Katsuki was talking about, but also because the blonde throat was doing that crackling, hoarse thing it usually did before he locked himself up behind a safe barrier of anger.

“When you saw me with Hina, you fucking walked away,” Katsuki sighed.

And Eijirou remembered. He remembered the day he’d seen Katsuki for the first time in seven months, and saw a little two month old curled in his arms, drinking from a bottle held by calloused hands.

“So yeah. Fucking kinda.”

He remembered the horrible ache in his guts, remember the pain in his chest. Remembered how heartbroken he was when he found out Katsuki had a child. When he’d assumed Katsuki found someone else to start his life with.

Eijirou let out a shaky breath, “I thought you got married—“

Katsuki made an incredulous sound at the assumption, as if it was crazy to assume, as if Eijirou was an idiot for ever thinking Katsuki would marry someone else.

But it’s what he’d believed. It’s what he let kill him for days until Katsuki told him that that wasn’t the case.

“I thought you found someone else. Someone that wasn’t me.”

The blonde didn’t say anything at all. He looked down at the crumpled body Eijirou was stuck in, like he was lost in thought.

Eijirou faked a wobbly grin, “Thought that maybe you got tired of this weird in between that we seem to always be stuck in.”

It may be the first time he’s ever really acknowledged their unnamed relationship to Katsuki. They had both always known that they loved each other. They didn’t have to say it to know it.

But now it felt like maybe that wasn’t true. Now it felt like not saying anything had only ever wasted time.

Before there was a chance for either party to say anything, the sound of crying came from just beyond the door, and all too soon Eijirou’s mother came in, holding Hina.

He pretended it didn’t hurt him to see that his mothers had both met Hina without him being there.

“Sorry, I think she needs you,” his mom apologized before giving the crying girl to Katsuki.

He took her willingly, and gave Eijirou an apologetic look. The crying hurt his head, leading him to believe that maybe it really was a bad head injury that had him laying here. He grimaced at the reminder.

Katsuki must’ve noticed, because soon he was scooping up the eight month old and her blanket. “I should go.”

“No, don’t. Please don’t,"Eijirou begged desperately.

Not after the fight they’d had. Not when things were still all up in the air. Not when he’d almost died and Katsuki didn’t know what he wanted, what he needed from the blonde.

Katsuki nodded, before shushing the little girl and sitting again. For a moment it was just the three of them, like it had been just a few days ago. Katsuki, Eijirou, Hina. Their little family.

“Dada,” the little girl cried as he gripped Katsuki's shirt, whining for her father to comfort her after being separated.

It was probably Eijirou’s fault that they were separated. He had half a mind to wonder how long Katsuki had kept his eight month old at a hospital because of Eijirou.

But that concern was very quickly drowned out by the devastating realization of what Hina had just /said/.

Eijirou furrowed his brows as he watched the blonde hold Hina close to the crook of his neck, patting her back like she hadn’t just said a word, a name. /Katsuki’s/ name.

“She said her first word? When did that happen?” Eijirou asked wetly.

He shouldn’t be as upset as he was. He shouldn’t even care really. Of course Hina would speak, she’s eight months old.

But Eijirou had missed it. Either when he was asleep, or when he was in surgery, or maybe even during patrol. Either way he missed it.

They were hitting milestones, making memories without Eijirou in them. They were moving on /without/ him.

It made his head ache, made his heart feel like it was racing. Made his eyes water and his throat tighten.

Katsuki nodded, running his fingers through the growing brown curls of his daughter’s hair as he spoke. Eijirou had never felt so far away.

“Couple days ago. You were right. She’s been figuring shit out now that I’ve been talking to her more.”

And he wasn’t apologetic, as he shouldn’t be. Katsuki was proud, he’d even said it with a small smile. He didn’t care that Eijirou had missed it. He didn’t care that he was walking away from the life the two of them had both assumed they would spend together.

Hina wasn’t even his to miss. She was only Katsuki’s child. He was just a friend.

“I feel like I’m missing it all,” he swallowed.

Everything hurt, and he wasn’t entirely sure what all of it was physical hurt from the horrible injuries he sustained and what part of it was emotional pain from losing the one thing he’d always loved.

“You’re not. You’ve been a part of it all,” Katsuki was oblivious to it, or at least that was how it felt.

Because he said it so calmly. Said it so matter of factly even though it was tearing Eijirou apart.

“Am I?” He asked again.

That seemed to get Katsuki’s attention back on him. Hina had called, and left Katsuki’s to stare at him in complete confusion. His brows were pinched, eyes searching as if Eijirou wasn’t asking a simple question.

“Part of it. Of this. Of you,” he tried again.

Katsuki shook his head, “I don’t get you.”

He braced himself for the worst. He waited for Katsuki to cuss him out, waited for the blonde to tell him that he waited and waited and Eijirou never got the balls to confess. He waited for the blonde to tell him what he already knew.

He waited for Katsuki to tell him he lost his chance.

It made Eijirou’s heart jump, and the heart monitor to his side increased a bit. His head felt light as he waited, his lungs felt like they were missing air they should’ve had.

Katsuki let out a sigh, and gave a tired utter lost shrug of his shoulders, “I told you nothing had changed for me, and you told me everything changed for you.”

Back when Katsuki had told him nothing had changed, Eijirou had assumed they were talking about the man’s life. He assumed Katsuki was saying his life wouldn’t change all that much.

That’s why Eijirou laughed. That’s why Eijirou had told him everything changes.

Not because he didn’t want Katsuki anymore.

He felt his chest punch out of his chest, and suddenly a horrible ache bloomed from one spot in his skull. His lungs were tight, his head was moving a mile a minute, it felt like he might throw up.

Because Eijirou had told Katsuki everything changed.

Eijirou was the one who had screwed them seven goddamn months ago.

“I /told/ you, it’s the same for me, and you said that everything is different. /You/ said that Hina changed everything," Katsuki continued, not noticing the way Eijirou’s breathing got heavier until the heart monitor started screaming, and Eijirou’s lungs were heaving.

Had it all been the same this whole time? Had Eijirou been torturing himself when he didn’t have to?

Had Katsuki still love him all this time and Eijirou just put him through all this torture because of his own stupidity?

“Ei? Eijirou?!” Katsuki rose to his feet, jostling his daughter.

Eijirou could hardly even hear Hina’s cries. Not when the stress had stabbed through his brain and made it feel like it was flooding. Not when suddenly he was seeing spots and he couldn’t quite seem to catch a breath. His world was spinning.

His world was crashing down.

Because he kept getting this wrong. He kept ruining things for himself. The panic tore through his body until he couldn’t respond to it, and instead his head lagged off to the side and he let out a horrible groan that hardly registered in his own head.

His heart monitor was becoming less of a beeping sound and more of steady buzz. Bodies were all around, people were screaming, a baby was crying, his limbs were being moved and turned.

But he couldn’t feel anything at all as he slipped back into that horribly quiet darkness.

—

Katsuki knew this was all his fault.

The minute he heard the groan fall from his best friend's lips, after telling the man what he felt, Katsuki knew he was the reason Eijirou was hurting.

He remembered being pulled from the room, remembered his mother grabbing Hina as his own legs gave out on him and he slouched down against the door. Remembered not caring if he dropped his daughter, not caring where she had just been taken.

Katsuki remembered staring at nothing for a long time.

Because Eijirou had died for six minutes right in front of his eyes.

They put him in a coma once he was stabilized. Eijirou slept for three weeks. The doctor had explained what happened, but Katsuki couldn’t recall. Back at the hospital he couldn’t think much of anything other than the fact that this was all his fault.

He wanted to stay. Wanted to wait at Eijirou’s bedside and watch every rise and fall of his chest. Wanted to be there as soon as the other man woke up so he could apologize for what a shit best friend he’d been.

But his own mother pulled the mom card and forced him to come back to Musutafu. He could really blame her, if it had been Hina he’d have done the same. Katsuki wasn’t well. He hadn’t been in a while.

So for those long three weeks that his best friend was comatose, he did what Eijirou would’ve wanted. He took care of himself and his daughter. He made sure they both ate, made sure they were both showered and had fresh clothes on. He gave himself grace when he fucked up Hina’s nap schedule. He did everything Eijirou would’ve made him do.

It wasn’t until the twenty second day of the medically induced coma that Mitsuki walked into his childhood room to bear the news.

“Brat, he’s awake.”

They’d said something had caused a Catecholamine surge. In other words, something had stressed him out and caused his body to freak out and push his heart into arrhythmia. He was put into a medically induced coma in hopes to reduce brain strain and stabilize his vitals.

Stress had caused this.

Katsuki had caused this.

He didn’t say anything in response. He hadn’t really done much of anything other than stare at the white walls of his childhood room.

Maybe that was pathetic, fleeing to mommy and daddy’s house because you can’t handle your grown up problems.

But again, he tried to be kind to himself and remind himself that sometimes you just needed your parents. He’s got a nine month old.

The bed dipped where his mother sat near his feet. She placed a hand on his calf in hopes to pull him from whatever far away place he’d taken himself to.

“They said there’s no damage. The doctors said he’ll make a perfect recovery with mental rest and physical therapy.”

Even talking about it makes him sick to his stomach.

It never used to be like this.

Eijirou used to be the easiest part of his life.

The easiest person to talk to, to confide in, to hang out with.

The easiest to love.

He fell into it slowly, casually, easily. It was all so simple. He loved Eijirou and Eijirou knew. He also was almost positive that Eijirou loved him back. They just hadn’t gotten around to really doing anything about that.

And now somehow he’d managed to screw everything up.

He should’ve known better than to bring up their relationship— or lack there of— when Eijirou was in the goddamn hospital. He should’ve been kinder, shouldn’t have been so angry with him.

But he fucking knew something was off, he just couldn’t place it. He’d known Eijirou was acting weird, especially now that Katsuki had a daughter. He knew the man was upset about not knowing right away, he knew the man was upset that he had a daughter, he knew that Eijirou felt like he wasn’t doing enough.

But never, not even for a second did Katsuki think Eijirou might’ve not realized that his feelings hadn’t changed.

He’d told him they hadn’t the week after Eijirou returned home, when they met out on the city bench while he was helpless trying to get a new born Hina to sleep. Katsuki had been exhausted and felt like an absolute shit parent who didn’t have anything under control.

But he /remembered/ telling Eijirou. He remembered the sting when Eijirou told him everything became different with a kid.

And Katsuki assumed ‘everything’ had really meant everything. Even the two of them and the love they quietly shared.

Katsuki thought Eijirou was the one pulling away. Thought that maybe Eijirou had gotten cold feet when he saw him with a fucking new born.

It hadn’t even been on his damn radar to think that Eijirou couldn’t tell what Katsuki wanted from him anymore.

And that was the fucking problem. Katsuki was so selfish. So self absorbed in his own life and his own child to think about how it had affected Eijirou.

Mitsuki moved closer to him until she could rest her elbow on the pillow above Katsuki's head. She wrapped her arm around him loosely before running her fingers through his hair.

“Dad’s taking her for a stroll around the park,” she said in a tone so soft it was unfamiliar to him. “Talk to me.”

Katsuki leaned into his mother, relishing in a comfort he hadn’t partaken in years, hiding from the world like his mother could somehow stop all of this hurt in his chest.

“I don’t know what to fucking do anymore, mom,” he choked out.

Because, fuck, he really didn’t.

Eight months ago a one month old baby was placed in his hands, and a love bloomed in his chest that he hadn’t even known existed until then. He loved Hina so much. So much it scared him, so much it made him do stupid things.

Like staying with her during her check ups after her family had been devastatingly obliterated. Stupid shit like ruining his sleep schedule to stay with her in the hospital while everyone tried to figure out what to do with the newly orphaned one month old.

Stupid things, like adopt her and somehow decide that /he/— the least affectionate, least paternal man alive— could possibly raise her on his own.

Mitsuki pulled him closer, hugged him tighter, rubbed his back soothingly. This must be how Hina felt.

He was a horrible person for allowing himself to be comforted when his best friend was laying in a hospital bed, fucked in because of Katsuki.

“He told me that everything changed. He told me that everything changes when a kid is involved and I thought that meant he didn’t want me anymore.”

It’s pathetic of him to whine to mommy in such a he said she said manner. He shouldn’t hold onto that one moment all those months ago.

But he is. Because for him that was it. For him, hearing Eijirou say everything had changed felt like a flaming car accident that Katsuki was trapped in. It felt like he was forced to drag himself out of the car and relearn how to live without Eijirou’s love.

He wasn’t prepared for it at the time. It was devastating.

“So I backed off. I let him go,” he pressed his face impossibly closer until his forehead touched the skin on his mother’s neck and he could smell her perfume.

He swallowed heavily. There was no sense crying over this. /He/ did this. Katsuki was the one who went off and decided he was going to be a parent. He’s the one who kept eijirou waiting. He’s the one who didn’t tell anybody about Hina until it was practically forced out of him by Divine intervention.

“And then he came over every fucking night and took care of my kid, took care of /me/,” he squeezed his shut as the memories tried to resurface.

Memories of red hair splayed across the pillows. Of soft giggles coming from Hina when Eijirou made a stupid face. Of warm hugs under the cover of darkness once Hina was asleep.

“He wouldn’t let me let him go.”

And that was truly the travesty of it all.

Katsuki didn’t want to lose the other man, but if it was what it would take to make Eijirou happy again, he was willing to loosen the ties between them. He’d done it for Eijirou’s sake. He’d done it because from Katsuki's understanding, he’s changed everything between them by choosing Hina.

“Katsuki,” his mother sighed softly, worry evident in her tone.

So much guilt consumed him. He was too rash, too hasty in making decisions that had life long consequences. Too selfish.

Join a hero mission way too risky, attach himself to an orphaned child, adopt the baby within a week, somehow expect everyone in his life to be okay with it.

If he’d slowed down for a fucking second, maybe Eijirou wouldn’t even be in the damn hospital bed. If he had thought about anyone other than himself for two fucking seconds, maybe he wouldn’t have jeopardized the only thing in his life he’d truly lived for, before Hina of course.

“He asked me if he was a part of it. Before he flatlined, he asked if he was part of me.”

Never in his life had he ever been so confused about the two of them. He always knew what Eijirou was thinking, always knew what to say to make the other happy.

How could Katsuki do this? How could he take a love so sweet into his hands and mangle it until it was nothing but a horrible mess?

He would have done anything for Eijirou if the man had asked. Katsuki had thought that much was clear by now. Maybe he wasn’t the best at communicating but they’d been in this strange sort of in-between state long enough to prove his love through his actions.

If he wanted to be a part of Hina’s life, Katsuki would carve that space out for him immediately. If Eijirou didn’t want to be a parent, he’d somehow find a way to make the two of them work. If Eijirou didn’t want to be anything at all to Katsuki he’d be content with just being best friends.

But how could he have done any of that when Eijirou wouldn’t /tell/ him?

The thought of being frustrated at his best friend who flatlined in the hospital three weeks ago, and was just now waking up had him feeling sick once again. He squeezed his eyes shut at the reminder that he was the one who did this. He was the one who stressed him out. He was the one who gave him a fucking heart attacked.

Katsuki was the one pulling eijirou every which way and expecting everything to stay the same.

“I didn’t give him an answer before he—”

He cut himself off, knowing there was far too much feeling in his throat to get the words out. Eijirou had died on that bed because Katsuki had stretched him thin. Katsuki had kept him guessing.

He was such a fucking idiot.

His mother held him impossibly tighter.

“He knows Katsuki. Trust me, he knows.”

But Katsuki could only shake his head and haunt himself with what he didn’t say. With what he never said.

He needed Eijirou like he needed air. He wanted Eijirou like he wanted to be number one. Fuck, he didn’t give a shit about hero work if Eijirou wasn’t there doing it with him.

But he never fucking said a thing. He just led eijirou on. Tugged him through life and didn’t let him get a damn word in.

He was selfish, and so fucking stupid for thinking he’d been doing the right thing. For thinking letting Eijirou go was the right thing to do after the years of trust and love they’d built.

But he didn’t /know/.

“I should’ve /said/ it.”

And Mitsuki didn’t say anything at all. Maybe because she thought Katsuki was right. Maybe she agreed, that the two of them needed to fucking talk. To get over this stupid high school bullshit and be adults.

Or maybe she was at a loss herself as she held her own world and watched it crumble to pieces in her very hands.

Parenthood was scary no matter how long you experience it, Katsuki supposed.

—

Eijirou got to leave the hospital the day after he woke up. Luckily Recovery Girl was able to heal a lot of his injuries and how he’d just need to take it easy for a week or two. His heart was back to its normal pacing, but that didn't stop the horrible heartbreak that ghosted over it for the past couple days he had spent back at home.

He had fucked up to say the least.

His own assumptions had been the thing that literally killed him.

Because as it turned out, after all of this time he had spent feeling sorry for himself, convincing himself he couldnt have Katsuki, he found out that he was actually just being a fucking idiot.

Again he was just losing time. Losing precious moments with Hina, precious moments with Katsuki.

And Katsuki knew it too.

Eijirou was sure he had scared the shit out of Katsuki. He didn't blame the man for moving home for a month. If it had been the other way around he would've done the same. Even if they weren't on good terms he knew the whole scene of dying right in front of Katsuki’s eyes had probably shaken him to his core. Katsuki wasn't good with death, especially after experiencing it first hand back in high school.

Now all Eijirou could do was sit in his empty apartment and miss the other man with his whole heart. He had thought about the situation over and over, replaying every touch, every moment, every word passed between them for the past months that Hina had been around. Katsuki hasn't made any attempt to tell Eijirou he felt different. In fact, when he really had time to over analyze it, Eijirou felt that Katsuki had actually given more signs that he /was/ interested still.

He hadn’t reached out yet. The last thing he wanted was to stress Katsuki out even more. But fuck, Eijirou really wanted to. There was nothing he wanted more than to hear the other man's voice. To apologize for everything and just be honest about how he feels. How he's felt this whole time.

The weather outside was a perfect testament to his own chest, stormy, messy and dark. The night had dragged on before he knew it, and the storm that followed did little to help the ache in his chest.

He turned off the television long ago, too plagued with his own thoughts on how to possibly fix things between them after so much miscommunication.

Eijirou almost missed the unusual knocking at his door.

He frowned at it for a second, only getting up when the banging intensified. He stood quickly, swinging the door open in concern only to come face to face with the man who had drowned his thoughts for the past few days.

“Katsuki—“

“Sorry,” The blonde was a mess. Flustered, drenched in rain, stress carved into his features like he wasn’t even entirely sure what he was doing punching Eijirou’s door in the middle of the night. “Sorry I know your healing and the last thing you need is stress, I just—“

He stopped himself, running his fingers through his own soaking hair aggressively. Rain dripped from his hair, flicking in every direction as it shook with his fingers.

“I just had to see you,” he admitted frantically. His eyes were puffy, tired, so obviously affected by this entire month and the stress of Eijirou in the hospital, a nine month old at home, and living with his parents.

“I had to see for myself that you were okay.”

Eijirou let out a shaky breath, trying to piece together his thoughts. Katsuki was here, right in front of him.

He could /fix/ this.

“Where is Hina?” He asked, turning to see if the blonde had been driven by his mother and if they were perhaps waiting in the car.

But one glance to the parking lot told him that Katsuki had driven himself all the way here from Musutafu. He must’ve found out that Eijirou had been released from the hospital.

Katsuki shook his head, throwing his arm out into the general direction of the next city over. “My mom’s.”

Eijijirou nodded, choking on the words in his throat. There was so much to say, too much to say. He didn’t even know where to start. For a moment he gave himself a chance to look over Katsuki.

And only then could he see the way the man trembled. His eyes were utterly horrified, as if someone had died right in front of him. Because someone /had/ died in front of him. Right after he’d confessed that he’d been in love with Eijirou after all this time.

He reached out for the other man, concern etched into his features,“Katsuki.”

But the blonde just pulled away, letting the rain continue to absolutely drench him.

“I thought I lost you.”

When their eyes met, the blondes were foggy, stormy, tumultuous in a way Eijirou had never seen before.

“Kats, I’m sorry,” he furrowed his brows as he stepped into the rain.

The blonde shook his head again, both hands moving to practically scratch at his eyes. Like all of this was so unbearable that he couldn’t even fathom looking at the redhead.

“I thought I /lost/ you,” Katsuki spoke louder, though his voice sounded so strained, so weak. It was like it was truly the first time he let himself say it out loud. Like he was just now processing everything that had happened between them.

“And all I could think was that I didn’t even make the most of what we had together before everything was being ripped out of my hands.”

He’s not sure what he expected of Katsuki. Sometimes when the blonde was feeling a lot he did stuff like this. He’d let his emotions get the best of him and act completely on impulse. Sometimes he’d yell or scream at the people who had wronged him. Sometimes he’d get so frustrated with himself that he’d lay awake all night wondering how to fix whatever his problem was.

Sometimes shit would eat him alive until he solved the problem.

But Eijirou wasn’t sure what Katsuki's next move was. They’d left things entirely up in the air, with the unsaid notion that they both still loved each other.

“Come inside,” Eijirou offered, moving to the side to let in the soaked man.

Katsuki walked in quickly, though there wasn’t a single ounce of certainty on his face. It looked as if he hadn’t exactly thought all of this out either. He might’ve come completely on adrenaline.

Eijirou turned to watch him stand in the entryway, dripping everywhere, breathing heavily, looking around like he wanted to make sure he came to the right place.

Nervous beyond anything Eijirou had ever seen before from Katsuki.

“I don’t know what you want from me,” Katsuki said suddenly, voice a little too loud for being indoors. “I don’t know if I ruined it all by becoming Hina’s father—“

Eijirou was quick to reject that idea, because it was entirely not true.

“You didn’t. You could never.”

He should say it. The two of them had been through an emotional roller coaster that left the both of them drained, and confused. And the worst part is, they both wanted each other.

Eijirou should just /say it/.

But Katsuki was always a step ahead of him. Always took the chance, always threw caution at the wind. He tied a leash around life and forced it to bow at his demands.

“I love you,” Katsuki breathed out, water dripping down his face from the rain, cheek a rose shade that could’ve been from the sentiment or the frigid cold of the thermostat mixed with his already wet clothes.

His jaw was set, shoulders broad, that half inch height difference becoming increasingly more noticeable.

Katsuki had said it with the same air of confidence he brought into hero work. Like he was sure, like nothing could possibly change his mind. Like he’d die for this. For Eijirou.

He seldom spoke of his feelings.

Katsuki hardly said anything at all, much less the important things. The hardest things to say are the most important, because the words get all mixed up and they lose their meaning. He was crass, loud, frustratingly stubborn.

But every word out of his mouth was thought out. Every time he spoke it held meaning.

Eijirou’s known that for ten years.

That’s why his heart felt scrambled as the other man spoke.

“I want to be with you. I want Hina to grow up with two dads, and I want to grow old with a husband.”

He meant it and Eijirou knew it.

It was strange, the way the words hit him like a damn freight train. Eijirou had always known deep down. As a human being, he could feel it. As a person with a brain, he could see it.

But hearing it made it so much more real. Hearing Katsuki say he loved him, locking eyes with the man in a dead serious stare. It forever changed everything for Eijirou.

Katsuki didn’t stop there, and if it weren’t such a monumental moment Eijirou might’ve chuckled at the unfamiliar desperation the other man was showing through his confession.

“I want a house, with a yard for Hina to play in while you blow money on expensive flowers that I end up watering every morning because you always forget.”

Eijirou felt his eyes burn.

For no other person in the world would Katsuki do this. He’d never in a million years tear his own heart out and peel it apart in soaking wet clothes at nearly eleven o'clock at night.

only for Eijirou— and maybe now Hina.

He considered it a blessing to even be in the same category of love as Hina in Katsuki’s book.

He tried to hide the way his bottom lip wobbled, watching Katsuki stare at him with big glowing reds, feeling him pour out a heart Eijirou had already known existed.

“And I want Hina to know what love is, how love should feel, because she got to grow up watching /us/ love each other.”

A tear slipped down Eijirou’s tanned cheeks, and once one came they all started to follow until they left little marks on his shirt.

Because he wanted all that too. Because had /always/ wanted that with Katsuki, since the day they met.

The blonde's eyes were full of tears that he’d refused to let fall. It looked like two tiny pools that his eyes were drowning in.

For the past few months, Eijirou had gotten used to seeing Katsuki small. Obviously not in the literal sense, seeing as how they were roughly the same height.

But ever since Hina, Katsuki had become wary of every movement. Every choice he made was often second guessed because of his daughter. Every decision he made had double meaning now. The man had grown to question everything he’d ever done for the past eight months.

But not this. Not Eijirou.

Now he looked different. No curled shoulders, no pursed lips, no chewing on his nails or playing with his earring.

Now he stood like a person who was absolutely positive that this was something he wanted.

The blonde spoke in exasperation, water flicking of his soaked flannel as he threw his arm out, “And if that’s not what you want then I’m fucking sorry but I—“

Eijirou didn’t let him finish.

Instead he grabbed the other man’s soaked arm and pulled him forward until their chest touched, and Eijirou had to lean up ever so slightly until their lips were pressed together after /years/.

Katsuki’s whole body stiffened at first, practically holding his breath, but soon his drenched flannel sleeves were wrapping around Eijirou’s neck, and he was leaning in until Eijirou’s clothes were much less dry.

He could care less. Nothing in the world could compare to the slightly chapped feeling of Katsuki’s lips in his. He’d let the man drench his clothes, his skin, his entire soul with himself until he was oversaturated in Katsuki.

Eijirou pulled back just enough to press their foreheads together before smiling. His tears mixed with the drops of water that fell from Katsuki’s hair to his cheeks.

“I love you, too,” he whispered. He could feel Katsuki's warm breath on his lips. “Fuck Katsuki, I love you so much.”

He ran his fingers through wet blond locks, holding them there, together, finally. Katsuki panted quietly, a small smile hiding at the corner of his mouth.

Eijirou nuzzled their noses together, afraid that if they moved from this bubble, if he backed away even an inch, they’d lose this moment.

“I don’t want to waste anymore time,” he added before pressing their lips together again. His hand slipped from blonde hair to a scarred cheek, rubbing his finger gently across a wound he’d grown so familiar with.

Katsuki grabbed his wrist and gave it a squeeze. As if to say ‘I know. I know you know me, I know you see me, I know you love me’.

It wasn’t long before they were moving to the bedroom.

Their clothes were off in seconds; Katsuki’s making a puddle on the floor that Eijirou would definitely slip on later. They didn’t break the kiss once, and Eijirou made a show of proving his strength by lifting the taller man into his arms and carrying him to the bed.

Katsuki wrapped his legs around his waist, grunting when Eijirou’s heavyweight pressed him down into the mattress. They were both painfully hard already, as if their bodies had been anticipating— no /craving/ this for years and years.

Eijirou ground down against the blonde dick, groaning when Katsuki yanked at his hair until he tilted his head and sucked at the sensitive skin of his neck.

He had half a mind to remember the lube and condoms in his nightstand. Eijirou grabbed blindly, knocking down god knows what in his pursuit. After a rather large thud of a metal water bottle against hardwood, they broke the kiss. Katsuki turned to the side with pursed lips and he watched Eijirou scramble to find the lube in the mess of his drawer.

When he finally grabbed it, the two shared a knowing glance before letting out an awkward giggle.

He flipped open the cap of the lube before squeezing and warming it up with his fingers. Eijirou leaned forward to press a kiss to the other man’s collar bones, moving his hand to stroke Katsuki's cock. Katsuki rolled his hip to meet each stroke, breathing shaky.

Eijirou kissed down his chest, nipping and sucking at the skin, flattening his tongue against the blonde's nipple before flicking it upwards and earning a shutter. He continued down his stomach, kissing every scar, every muscle, every soft piece of skin.

“Have you done this before?” Katsuki asked, running his fingers through red locks.

Eijirou paused for a moment.

The one thing they never shared with each other was past experiences. As much as they loved each other, as much as they depended on each other, they were only human. Young, stupid, horny humans who unfortunately needed to blow off steam.

“Yeah, you?” He mumbled against Katsuki’s skin.

He wasn’t worried about the answer. He knew Katsuki wouldn’t be angry if he wasn’t his first. But it still stung a bit to know that if maybe, just maybe, they both hadn’t lost so much time they really could’ve been each other first.

“Yeah,” Katsuki admitted. “S’that okay?”

Eijirou continued to stroke the other man’s length, lube dripping from his fingers down between Katsuki’s open thighs.

Of course it was okay. It was more than okay. Katsuki had every right to do what he had to do to get by. To feel alive. to cope with their demanding jobs and let loose.

Eijirou pressed a kiss to the skin just above the man’s erection.

“Yeah, it’s probably good I’m not a fumbling virgin. I want you to enjoy it.”

Katsuki smiled and laughed, “I’d have enjoyed it regardless.”

In the back of his mind, he thought about how romantic that was. How Katsuki was so misunderstood, always assumed to be rough around the edges and rather crass to others.

But in reality, Katsuki was nothing more than a sweetheart in a scary hero body.

At least, that’s how Eijirou had always seen him.

He pressed a kiss to the tip of the other man’s cock, licking his lips of the precum that had gathered there before going in for another taste. Eijirou’s hand abandoned the man’s aching cock, earning a whine that was soon replaced by a sharp breath when he slowly slid a finger inside the Katsuki’s tight entrance.

Katsuki let out a curse as Eijirou took his time, stretching him out with just the one finger. When he added another, he didn’t look away from the blonde's face, despite Katsuki very obvious attempts to hide it. His arms were slung over his eyes, panting as Eijirou scissored his fingers and curled them upwards just slightly.

Every once in a while he’d find the spot that had Katsuki’s voice raising an octave and his toes curling. During those moments Eijirou was quick to watch the other man’s reaction. His back would arch from the bed just slightly, knees trying and failing to close as Eijirou leaned between them.

After a while he pressed in a third finger, this time pulling the arms away from Katsuki's face so he could watch the other man’s reaction.

He could help the way his own mouth hung up as he watched Katsuki take his fingers so well. He panted breathlessly at the sight of Katsuki’s brows pinching, or his teeth biting his lower lip when Eijirou found the deliciously sweet spot that had Katsuki melting.

When the other man was stretched, he grabbed a condom. Katsuki helped him roll it on, though his fingers were already a little shaky. Eijirou wondered if he was nervous, or overstimulated, or both.

He’d be lying if he said he didn’t feel exactly the same.

Eijirou lined himself up with Katsuki’s entrance, sticking his throbbing member with lube, panting heavily as they both watched.

“This is your last chance to back out,” Katsuki panted out.

And his voice sounded normal, he almost sounded like he was laughing. But when Eijirou flicked his eyes upwards to meet the other man’s, he could see the nerves in his features. Could practically feel the anxiety every time their skin touched.

“Why would I do that?” Eijirou asked, killing the momentum they’d built.

Katsuki seemed to be taken back, like he hadn’t expected the other man to stop everything just because of one seemingly off handed comment. But it wasn’t just an off handed comment. Eijirou knew that, he could spot that from a mile away.

This was an insecurity. Something deeply rooted in Katsuki that he was too scared to admit. Something he’d been worried about this whole time most likely.

The blonde raised his shoulders as best he could from his pinned spot below Eijirou. Those gorgeous reds stared up at him awkwardly, like he was embarrassed to even say it.

“Because having a child is a huge life change. /We’re/ a commitment.”

He hated that Katsuki thought that. Hated that perhaps Eijirou had been part of the reason Katsuki had believed that to be true. He’d unknowingly placed that insecurity onto the blonde way back when he’d first gotten to meet Hina.

So much time was gone because of that. Eijirou lost so much with Katsuki, with /Hina/ because he knew and hadn’t said how much he loved the other man.

Now he’d spend the rest of his life knocking down the other man’s door, trying to make up for it.

Eijirou made sure their eyes met, made sure he was firm in his own resolve, and made sure Katsuki couldn’t question it.

“I want you /and/ Hina. I want all of it. I want everything.”

They stared at each other for a while. Long enough for Katsuki’s eyes to soften and his face to crumble from sharp features to mere putty. He smiled softly. So soft Eijirou almost felt flattered for being able to pull that from him.

He pressed in painfully slowly, watching Katsuki’s mouth drop open in a silent moan, and his eyebrows pinch upward from how full he was. How full Eijirou had made him.

“Fuck,” Katsuki gasped as his back arched to accommodate the stretch.

Eijirou’s hand ran down the man’s thigh, feather light as he traveled from the scarred skin of his hip to the thick muscle of his leg, until he reached the tender inner fold of his leg. Then he pulled up until his leg was comfortably on his shoulder. Katsuki whimpered at the movement.

Like this, with Katsuki all laid out an open for him, he couldn’t help but stare.

The scars that wrapped around his body, familiar and faded after the years. Eijirou had been there before them,during them, and after them. He’d changed the bandages, medicated the delicate skin, pressed kisses to them and promised that one day it would all just be a distant memory.

The same red eyes Katsuki always held. The eyes he grew up so used to seeing every morning and late at night. The scarlets he felt on his entire being for as long as he could remember.

The pale skin that burnt easily. The skin he applied sunscreen to at every after school event, or during every early morning locker meet before patrols in the summer.

None of this was new. He’d seen all of it before. Eijirou knew the other man’s body like the back of his own hand.

Katsuki jabbed his side with the knee that wasn’t thrown over his shoulder.

“Just gonna fucking stare the rest of the night?”

“I would if you’d let me,” Eijirou admitted.

Katsuki hid his blush by turning his face into the pillow.

“Move,” he said quietly.

And who was Eijirou to deny him of something he wanted just as badly.

He started slowly, testing just how much the blonde could take, despite his gripes of not being dainty and to fuck him like he meant it.

Of course Katsuki could take it. Katsuki was made to take it from Eijirou.

But that didn’t mean he wanted to prove it. That didn’t make Eijirou want to soil the moment with such crass movements so early. Hopefully they’d have everyday for the rest of their lives to try other things. They only get a first time together once. And Eijirou wasn’t about to waste it.

He took his time with slow, languid thrusts, taking note of each squirm, each stutter of the man’s breath when Eijirou’s cock slid inside just right.

He pressed kisses everywhere he could get his hands on. A soft pink nipple, a gorgeous scar, the soft skin of his neck, the muscle of his calf. Katsuki was too much. He was everything.

It was not after Katsuki ground down against him that he quickened his pace, earning an exasperated moan from the minds. Katsuki’s face was painted a dark shade of red, body flushed a soft pink as the lewd squelching between them got louder and their moans grew with it.

He pushed his hand onto the blonde's lower stomach, feeling just how deep he was in Katsuki. His body was lithe. Skinny, yet full of muscle. His waist was pulled tight, scarred skin covering gorgeous abs that Eijirou knew were carved from hard work and sheer determination. He leaned forward to kiss the pale skin at the juncture of Katsuki’s neck and shoulder. It was soft despite the other man’s profession. Everything about the blonde was tough. Calloused, cold, blunt and closed off.

But Katsuki was so soft under him.

Every thrust took Katsuki to a place much lighter, every time their hips met a sound made from heaven left Katsuki’s throat. Eijirou ate it up, he devoured him.

“You’re perfect,” Eijirou practically covered the other man’s body, drowning out any sign of somehow below him as he fucked until the blonde.

Tears fell from Katsuki’s eyes, hair a messy blonde as he threw his head back in pleasure. He was like water in Eijirou’s hands.

Katsuki’s leg hooked tighter on Eijirou’s shoulder, and their movements became more erratic. His arms were wrapped around broad shoulders, back practically leaving the mattress with every rough slap of their skin.

“Please, please, please,” Katsuki’s voice rose an octave, eyes squeezing shut at the brutal pace Eijirou set.

He didn’t have to explain what he needed, because Eijirou knew exactly what he wanted. He could feel it in the way he tightened around him, felt it in the way the blonde's teeth clenched and his toes curled. Tears spilled down the sides of his face, moans falling from his mouth like it was a new way of breathing, matching each and every thrust.

Katsuki’s hand grabbed the back of Eijirou’s thigh, begging for him to go deeper, deeper, deeper until Eijirou felt himself start slipping.

He groaned, “I’m so close.”

“Me too,” the blonde whined.

The smack of skin that once filled the room dwindled down until there was nothing at all. Their bodies were pressed impossibly close, until all Eijirou could do was grind into the other man repeatedly, gasping into his neck until he was pushed over the edge.

He bottomed out once more before his orgasm ripped through him, burying himself deep inside the other man whose own body hand tensed as he came between them.

And for a long time they stayed like that, completely connected, frozen in time for the first time in forever. Nothing lost, but so much gained.

Eijirou pressed his forehead to Katsuki's own, as if sitting there forever could somehow absorb the tears they had wasted, as if he could somehow sit here long enough to undo all the lost time.

This love meant everything to him. This love of theirs was something he’d protect for the rest of his life. He’d forever carve himself into Katsuki’s timeline. And Katsuki would let him. Katsuki would always, /always/ make space for him.

Perhaps that was the beauty of waiting so long. Maybe this moment here, where they were completely engulfed by each other’s love, where there was so much build up to this exact moment.

And now everything has clicked into place. Now everything made sense and all the time spent together, silently loving each other meant something so much more than it ever had.

Eijirou pulled out after a while, tying the condom and tossing it off to the side where he assumed a trash can was. He’d figure that out later, when Katsuki wasn’t absolutely wrecked in his bed.

He fixed the pillow at the blonde's head before laying his head against his shoulder. Katsuki was quick to wrap an arm around him.

“You with me?” Eijirou asked after a moment.

“With you.”

It was quiet then, as Katsuki worked on coming back to reality, and Eijirou drew tiny shapes into the skin of the blonde's chest. The room was dark save for the peak of the city lights through the closed curtains in Eijirou’s room. It was late, too late to shower or move, or do anything other than melt into each other in this bed.

When their breathing had finally calmed and the room went back to a normal temperature, Eijirou turned to look up at the blonde. He was blinking slowly, staring up at the ceiling.

“Hina didn’t ruin anything?” Katsuki asked after a moment.

Eijirou sat up to look at him, resting all of his weight on his elbows as he took in the blissed out state of his boyfriend.

“Hina couldn’t ruin anything, even if she tried,” he answered honestly.

Because he meant it. He understood that with Katsuki came Hina. Eijirou wanted it to be that way. He wanted to be there for every moment. He didn’t want to miss any more time with either of them.

Katsuki ran his fingers through Eijirou’s hair, pressing a few stray strands behind his ear.

“There’s no separating us. It’s either me and Hina or nothing. It’s never going to be just me.”

Eijirou nodded his head with a smile, “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

And truly he wouldn’t. He needs it to be that way. He had already missed so much. Missed her first roll, missed her first taste of baby food, missed her adoption, missed her rescue.

He didn’t want to miss anymore.

And he most definitely wouldn’t miss watching the man he loved turn into a father Eijirou had always known he could be.

But Katsuki still seemed unconvinced. That tiny nagging insecurity wouldn’t just go away because they had sex. It would take time, take trust. Eijirou had to earn that.

“If you’re in this then you have to be in this for good. This isn’t a fuck around and find out what happens type of thing. If you’re going to be a part of our lives you can’t get cold feet. You can’t leave when she starts walking, or ignore her when she’s going through her first break up, or not help with savings for college. If you’re with me then you’re with /us/—“

Eijirou laughed, leaning his head against Katsuki’s chest, “I know.”

But the blonde shook his head, like it was his job to somehow try and convince Eijirou that he couldn’t possibly be making the right choice. Like he had to warn the other man. Like he had to lay everything out on the table.

He was giving Eijirou an out. Still giving him the chance to run for the hills if he wanted to.

“You’re going to have to get used to waking up in the middle of the night, and diaper changes because that shit is not a one man job,” Katsuki explained.

But Eijirou didn’t snap. He didn’t tell Katsuki to stop. Didn’t tell him that he was being crazy and that he’d never not be 100% involved.

Instead he just listened. Eijirou let him get it all out. Let him get all of his anxious feelings out into the open.

Eijirou nodded, “Deal.”

Then Katsuki raised a finger, pointing at him seriously, “And you can’t be Dad because I’m already Dad you’ll have to think of something else.”

At that, Eijirou couldn’t stop the smile consuming his face.

Because for a split second, he’d been a little nervous that maybe he wasn’t going to be given the chance to be a parent in Hina’s life. For a teeny, minuscule moment he wondered if Katsuki would keep him separate from Hinas life.

But no, Katsuki wanted him to be a part of that too.

“I’m sure I’ll come up with something,” closed his eyes softly, still smiling like an idiot he was sure.

Then he leaned forward to kiss Katsuki once softly. It was much more tender than the kisses they’d shared just moments ago. This time there was no rush. This time they both knew they had all the time in the world.

When he pulled back, he stayed close. So close that their noses nuzzled against each other, and Katsuki made a face of awkward confusion at the intense eye contact.

“What,” the blonde mumbled.

“I love you,” eijirou confessed.

Because he does, and he did, and he always will love Katsuki.

When the blonde pressed his lips into a shy thin line, Eijirou leaned forwards and kissed him again.

“I love you,” he whispered again.

Katsuki rolled his eyes but said nothing, that familiar blush back on his face.

But Eijirou couldn’t stop himself, not when he was trying to make up for lost time.

Every single day of his life that he’d known and hadn’t said anything was lost to them now.

And he wouldn’t waste another second not telling Katsuki for the rest of his life.

He leaned forward again, kissing the blonde despite the way Katsuki smiled and he ended up kissing teeth rather than lips.

“I love you,” he said again, drunk on the three words.

Katsuki nudged him softly as he grinned, shaking his head with a laugh, “Cut it out.”

Despite that, Katsuki thread his fingers into his sex riddled hair and pull him down for another kiss.

“Never,” Eijirou whispered. “Never again.”

It’s a crime, a waste of space, lost time.

With a giggle, the covers were pulled over their heads and before he knew it, their body’s were hot once again and hands were all over him as they exchanged air and explored each other’s bodies once not.