Chapter Text
The quiet hadn’t started as a weapon but as a slow erosion.
It began three days earlier, after a joint patrol where a civilian had asked Shouto about the next generation of heroes. Shouto had brushed it off with his usual blunt grace, but Katsuki had gone unnaturally still, his gaze fixed on a crack in the pavement. Since then, the air in their shared space had thickened, turning from the warmth of a home into the pressurized silence of a submarine diving too deep.
Dinner that night was a mechanical affair. The only sound was the clack of chopsticks against ceramic. Shouto watched the way Katsuki dismantled his spicy miso. Not eating, just pushing the tofu around like he was looking for a fight he couldn't find.
The lamp over the dining table flickered, casting long shadows across Katsuki’s face. It emphasized the line of his jaw and the dark hollows under his eyes. He looked like a man standing on a ledge, deciding whether to jump or wait for the wind to push him.
"Katsuki," Shouto said softly.
Katsuki didn't look up. He just gripped his chopsticks tighter until the wood groaned.
"Don't."
"You haven't said ten words since Tuesday."
"Maybe I don't have anything worth saying," Katsuki snapped, though the fire was missing from his tone. It was replaced by something much worse: a flat, hollow resignation. He stood abruptly, his chair screeching against the hardwood—a sound like a scream in the dead air, “Or maybe I'll say something you won't like.”
He didn't go to the bedroom. He went to the window, staring out at the sprawling lights of the city they spent their lives bleeding for. It was a quiet recession.
The temperature in the room began to plummet, Shouto’s subconscious reacting to the distance between them. The frost began to bloom in the corners of the windowpane, creeping inward as the tension reached its breaking point. When Katsuki spoke, his voice was a broken rasp, peeling back the skin of the last three days of silence.
The air in the apartment felt brittle, like the frost-coated glass waiting for the first heavy footfall to shatter it. Shouto could feel the familiar chill radiating from his own right side, a physical manifestation of the emotional wall Katsuki was trying to build between them.
Katsuki stood by the window, the city lights of Musutafu blurring into streaks of gold behind him. He looked smaller than usual, his shoulders hunched not in aggression, but under the weight of a self-imposed sentence.
"You deserve a legacy, Shouto," Katsuki snarled, though the bite was gone, replaced by a devastating tremor. His eyes were wet, shimmering with a vulnerability he usually reserved for the dead of night. "A real house. Kids who have your eyes and don't come with a father who smells like nitroglycerin and a temper that’ll scare them. I can’t give you a happily ever after. I'm a soldier, a weapon, not a family man."
He wasn't just talking about his quirk. He was talking about the way he flinched at loud noises on his off-days, and the deep-seated fear that he was nothing more than a weapon designed for destruction—unfit for the quiet sanctity of a nursery.
Shouto didn't hesitate. He crossed the kitchen tiles, the sound of his footsteps were steady. He stepped directly into Katsuki’s personal space, ignoring the way the blond tried to recoil. Shouto’s hands came up, fingers digging into Katsuki’s biceps like anchors, grounding them both to the floor.
"I don't want a legacy," Shouto said. "I spent the first sixteen years of my life being a 'legacy' for a man who didn't know how to love. I am finished with legacies."
He leaned in until their foreheads touched, forcing Katsuki to look at him—to see the absolute lack of doubt in his dual-colored eyes.
"I want you. If there are no kids, there are no kids. If there is no picket fence, we will stay in the line of fire. But there is no future without you in it. You are the only version of 'home' I have ever chosen for myself."
Katsuki’s breath hitched, a sound that died in the back of his throat. He went still, his muscles unknotting just enough for his head to drop against Shouto’s shoulder. He didn't argue. He was too exhausted, drained by the effort of trying to protect Shouto from himself.
He let the topic drop, sinking into the silence of the apartment. But as Shouto held him, he could feel the faint, uneven thrum of Katsuki’s heart. A reminder that while the fire had been dimmed for the night, the doubt remained. It was a quiet, bitter seed in Katsuki's chest, waiting for the next moment of weakness to take root.
* * *
The silence between them had become a physical weight, a cold fog that settled into the corners of their apartment and refused to lift. For forty-eight hours, the air had carried the ghost of Katsuki’s voice—“I’m just a weapon”—echoing against the tile and the unmade bed until the words felt like a bruise on Shouto’s ribs.
By the second day, the mundane reality of hunger forced them out. The fridge was a cavern of empty shelves, a stark reflection of the emotional vacuum they were living in.
The walk to the market was a grueling, synchronized ritual of avoidance. They moved through the city streets in civilian clothes, blending into the mid-morning crowd of Musutafu, yet they were miles apart.
Katsuki walked several paces ahead, his black hoodie pulled low and his hands shoved so deep into his pockets his knuckles must have been white. His shoulders were hunched, a defensive wall built of muscle and misery that screamed at Shouto to stay back.
Shouto trailed behind, his mismatched eyes fixed on the sway of Katsuki’s back. He wanted to reach out—to catch a sleeve, to lace their fingers together—but he knew that in this state, Katsuki would perceive even the softest touch as an interrogation.
They reached the concrete plaza in front of the grocery store, the automatic doors huffing open and shut as shoppers drifted in and out. The sun was bright, mocking the graveyard atmosphere hanging over them.
Katsuki stopped abruptly near the wall of stacked shopping carts, his jaw set in that serrated line that usually preceded a shout, but today only heralded more silence. He looked at the sliding glass doors like they were a brick wall he wasn't sure he had the energy to run through.
Shouto stepped up beside him, the tension thick enough to choke on. He opened his mouth to say something, anything to break the ice, when the world tilted.
The woman’s grocery bags hit the pavement with a series of wet thuds. With the sound of a carton of eggs cracking and a bottle of juice rolling toward the gutter, it was a mess, but neither Shouto nor Katsuki moved to help her. The golden light was still humming in the air, a thick, sweet haze that made Shouto’s lungs feel heavy.
"My Quirk!" the woman gasped, her face pale as she scrambled to gather her things, though her hands were shaking too hard to grip anything.
The silence between the men was thick as they process what is going on before them. Shouto couldn't help but release a sound.
"Oh."
"I am so sorry! I’m a fertility specialist—my quirk, a genetic manifestation, it...it creates a bridge between two people who have deep feelings for one another. It’s meant to help couples who can’t conceive or same sex couples. But, it usually just produces an infant in a medical setting. Because I'm flustered, the output was...advanced."
Shouto didn’t hear the rest of her apology. His ears were ringing, a high-pitched frequency that drowned out the sounds of the street. He felt the tether in his chest tighten, pulling him toward the space between him and Katsuki.
There, standing on the sun-bleached concrete and clutching the cold metal handle of a stray shopping cart for balance, was a boy.
The golden haze didn't just fade but seemed to settle into the boy's skin, solidifying him into the cold morning air until the weight of his small frame on the pavement was undeniable.
Shouto couldn't breathe. The boy looked to be about three or four years old. His gaze was locked on the child’s head—a chaotic, beautiful map of their combined histories. The hair was a defiant, spiky crown of Katsuki’s ash-blonde, but it was interrupted by patches of deep crimson. It was a vibrant red that felt like a bridge to the Todoroki line. It was an uncanny echo of Fuyumi’s hair, and for a fleeting second, Shouto felt a surge of something ancient and protective rise in his chest. This wasn't just a legacy; it was a living person.
Then, the boy tilted his head, and the sun caught his eyes.
They were a calm turquoise, the same startling shade as Shouto’s left eye, but they weren't uniform. Upon closer look, the irises were marbled with flakes of vermillion. They looked like cooling segments of molten lava, a genetic signature of fire and heat that neither of them could ever truly outrun. It was a sign of Katsuki, and what Shouto imagines his left eye to look like when Katsuki soars through the sky with explosions. A permanent reflection of his lover, living in the eyes of the child.
The child didn’t look at the confused crowd or the distraught woman. He looked straight up at Katsuki.
Katsuki looked like he had been turned to stone. His hands were still shoved deep in his pockets, but Shouto could see the fabric twitching with the force of his tremors. All the talk of being a weapon, all the bitterness of the last forty-eight hours, seemed to evaporate, leaving behind a man who looked terrified.
The boy’s lower lip began to wobble. It was a tremor, a carbon copy of the expression Katsuki made when his pride was at war with his pain, the face he wore when he was fighting with every fiber of his being not to let a single tear fall.
"Dada?" the boy whispered, the small sound cutting through the city noise like a thunderclap.
The word shattered the remaining ice. Katsuki flinched as if he’d been struck, his knees buckling just enough that he had to reach out and grab the brick wall of the store for balance. His breathing came in short, shallow hitches, his wide eyes pinned on the child who had his eyes, his hair, and his heart.
The soldier who claimed he wasn't a family man was staring at the one thing he had insisted Shouto didn't need, and the silence that followed wasn't cold anymore. It was roaring with the weight of everything they hadn't said.
The woman was trembling now, her hands fluttering over her dropped bags as if she could somehow scoop the magic back into them. She looked at Shouto, then at Katsuki, her voice dropping to a firm seriousness.
"Listen to me. He is yours. Biologically, spiritually...he is the manifestation of your combined DNA. My quirk doesn't create illusions. It pulls the potential of what could be into the now." Her eyes darted to the boy, who was still staring at Katsuki with a devastatingly familiar intensity.
"But because this was an accident, he isn't permanent yet. Normally parents have a name ready, but…If you do not name him within thirty days, the quirk will fade. The bridge will collapse, and he will disappear back into the ether like he never existed."
The word "ether" seemed to hang in the air, cold and final.
Katsuki didn’t move. He looked paralyzed, his gaze pinned on the child. The nothing he had spent hours insisting he could provide, the "happily ever after" he claimed was impossible for a weapon like him, was currently standing on the pavement, breathing the same air.
For a second, the silence was so heavy it felt like it might crush them both. Then, Katsuki’s defense mechanism, the only one he knew, snapped back into place with a violent friction.
"Fine! Whatever! Thirty days of this glitch and then it’s over!" Katsuki shouted, the volume of his voice making the toddler flinch and grab the edge of Shouto’s coat. Katsuki didn't look back, he couldn't. He turned on his heel, the movement so sharp his boots squeaked against the ground.
"I’m getting the damn groceries! Move it, Half-and-Half!"
He stomped off toward the sliding glass doors, his stride aggressive and fast, the familiar posture of a man charging into a fight. But Shouto didn't miss the way his shoulders were hiked up to his jaw or the way his ears were a flaming, betrayed red. A heat that had nothing to do with his quirk and everything to do with the fact that he was terrified.
Shouto didn't follow immediately. The apology of the woman and the screech of the automatic doors felt like background noise compared to the small, breathing weight anchored to the pavement. He looked down at the boy, who was standing perfectly still, his tiny chest hitching in a way that mirrored the silent, repressed sobs. Shouto had seen Katsuki battle a dozen times before. The child’s eyes—those piercing pools of turquoise and lava—were fixed on Katsuki’s retreating back, shimmering with a fear of abandonment.
Shouto knelt, his joints popping in the quiet of the plaza. He offered a palm, flat and steady, a silent invitation of cooling ice against the heat of the moment.
"I'm sorry about your groceries and thank you for the warning," Shouto said politely to the stunned woman, his voice as level as if they were discussing a simple weather forecast rather than the biological manifestation of his soul. He didn't look at her as he spoke, his focus was entirely on the boy. "He’s just loud. He isn't actually leaving us. Do you want to help me catch him?"
The boy sniffled, a wet sound that tore through Shouto’s composure more effectively than any villain’s taunt. He looked at Shouto’s hand, then up at his face, searching for the truth in Shouto’s features. Slowly, small, warm fingers curled tightly around Shouto’s thumb.
"Papa?" the boy whispered, the title hitting Shouto with the force of a physical blow. "Dada...mad?"
"Dada is just surprised," Shouto murmured, his heart performing a painful roll in his chest. "He doesn't know how to be quiet when he's startled."
With the boy’s hand tucked firmly in his, Shouto stood. The height difference was jarring. He felt a fierce urge to scoop the child up and shield him from the fluorescent harshness of the store, but he knew they had to move. He began to follow the angry steps of Katsuki’s heavy boots echoing through the produce section.
He used his free hand to guide the shopping cart, the metal rattling softly against the floor. The boy walked with a determined, slightly bouncy stride that was a miniature version of Katsuki’s aggressive pace. His eyes wide as he took in the towering shelves of cereal and bright plastic packaging.
They trailed behind the explosive blonde, who was currently standing in front of a display of apples, vibrating with a tension so high it was a miracle the fruit hadn't started to caramelize. Katsuki was staring at a bag of Fuji apples like they had insulted his mother, his ears still glowing crimson.
"We caught him," Shouto said softly as they pulled up beside him.
* * *
The grocery store was bustling with the mid-morning rush with the hum of industrial refrigerators, the distant chime of the intercom, and the mindless chatter of shoppers. But for Katsuki, the world had shrunk to the size of a suffocating box. Every squeak of the shopping cart’s front wheel sounded like a physical alarm, a siren wailing in the silence of his own head.
He could feel the weight of Shouto’s gaze on his back, steady and infuriatingly patient, but it wasn't the primary source of his agitation. It was the heavy, silent stare of the three-year-old trailing three paces behind him. He didn't need to turn around to know the kid was there. He could feel the boy’s presence like low-level static electricity, a hum of "what-if" that made the hair on his arms stand up.
Katsuki stopped abruptly in front of the cereal aisle, his boots scuffing loudly. He spun around, shoulders squared for a fight, half-expecting the light-borne child to have vanished or, at the very least, to be cowering.
The kid didn't flinch. He didn't even blink.
He just stood there, his small hand still anchored firmly to Shouto’s thumb, and looked up. He tilted his head to the side. A slow, deliberate movement that was so hauntingly similar to the way Shouto processed a new piece of information that Katsuki felt a cold spike of vertigo. The boy’s wide, searching eyes were dissecting him. He wasn't looking at Katsuki like a stranger but like a puzzle he had already solved.
"Stop looking at me like that," Katsuki growled.
Then, the realization hit Katsuki. The grocery store, which had felt like a private battlefield only moments ago, was suddenly crawling with witnesses. He could feel the shift in the atmosphere. The way a woman three bins over had stopped pretending to inspect the kale and the way a group of teenagers near the pharmacy were already fumbling with their phones, lenses angled toward them.
A kid with that hair, that unmistakable explosion of ash and crimson, and those hauntingly familiar eyes standing between Dynamight and Shouto was more than a coincidence. It was a tabloid nuclear strike waiting to happen. The headlines were already writing themselves in the back of Katsuki’s mind, screaming about secret love children and Endeavor’s expanding lineage.
"Fucking hell," Katsuki muttered, the curse barely a breath.
He moved before the first shutter could click. He reached up with a protective panic, and yanked his own black baseball cap off his head. He stepped into the kid’s space and shoved the hat onto the boy’s head.
He wasn't gentle, but there was a strange, vibrating care in the way his fingers tucked a stray tuft of crimson hair under the band. The cap was massive on the three-year-old, the brim sliding down past his brow until it rested on the bridge of his nose. Only a tiny, confused pout and a pair of wide, blinking eyes were visible beneath the dark fabric.
"Hide that hair," Katsuki hissed, his voice a low, dangerous vibration. "You're a walking target, you little brat. Keep your head down."
The boy didn't whine. He didn't pull away. Instead, he raised a small, pale hand and gripped the oversized brim to steady it. He looked like a miniature, drowned version of Katsuki, swallowed by the shadow of the hat.
Katsuki’s heart did a violent, unwanted kick against his ribs. He couldn't look at the kid for another second without shattering.
"Put him in the damn cart," Katsuki ordered, turning his back so fast his heels barked against the tile. He whipped his phone out, his thumb scrolling through a grocery list he suddenly couldn't read. "He’s too slow. He’s going to get us caught. We’re in a goddamn rush, Half-and-Half! Move!"
He started walking, his pace even more aggressive than before, but he didn't get more than three feet ahead this time. He slowed down just enough for the rattle of the shopping cart to stay within earshot, his eyes scanning the perimeter of the store like he was looking for snipers instead of bargain hunters.
Shouto didn't say a word. He just lifted the boy, who went surprisingly still in his arms, and settled him into the plastic seat of the cart. The boy’s legs dangled through the slots, and he gripped the handle, peering out from under the giant 'K' logo on Katsuki’s hat with a silent, watchful intensity.
"My love," Shouto said, his voice dropping into that smooth, annoyingly level register he used when he was winning an argument before it had even begun. "We need more than just milk and eggs. He doesn't have shoes."
Katsuki didn't stop. He was practically vibrating, his boots squeaking against the linoleum as he bypassed a display of organic yogurt. "He’s in a cart, Shou! He doesn’t need to walk. He needs to stay out of sight so we can get the hell out of here!"
"He’s in thin pajamas and socks, Katsuki," Shouto continued, steering the metal cart with a calm grace that turned the rattle of the wheels into a peaceful hum. He leaned in closer as his mismatched eyes softened, landing on the small, fragile figure huddled in the child seat.
The kid was a heartbreaking sight of mismatched scales and borrowed warmth. He was swallowed by a pair of threadbare, hand-me-down pajamas. The pale blue cotton was so washed-out it was almost translucent, clinging to his narrow shoulders. The fabric offered no protection against the artificial chill of the supermarket’s industrial coolers. His collarbones, small and delicate as a bird's, peeked through the wide neckline every time he moved.
He was currently locked in a desperate struggle with the physics of Katsuki’s oversized black baseball cap. His tiny, pale hands—fingers tipped with the same blunt, stubborn nails as Katsuki’s—pushed the heavy brim upward. He had to tilt his entire head back just to peer at the neon-colored cereal boxes lining the shelves. His lips were parted in a soft "O" of pure, unshielded wonder, his breath hitching in his chest every time a cartoon mascot or a holographic box-top caught his eye. To him, the cereal aisle wasn't just food but a gallery of impossible colors.
"We need clothes," Shouto insisted, his voice acting as a steady, low-frequency anchor in the drafty aisle. "And shoes. And probably a coat. It’s cold at night outside, Katsuki. He's a manifestation of us, not a quirk-resistant support item."
Katsuki stopped dead. The squeak of his boots against the linoleum sounded like a gunshot. He whipped his head back, a familiar snarl already curling his lip, his lungs filling with air to snap a refusal. Something about how they weren't turning this glitch into a goddamn dress-up doll or a domestic project.
But the words died in his throat, choking him.
The kid had heard Shouto. At the mention of us, he had turned his head at the exact same microsecond as his Papa, mirroring Shouto’s tilted-head posture with an uncanny, biological precision that sent a shiver down Katsuki’s spine. The boy’s eyes shifted toward the distant clothing section.
He stared at the racks of soft cotton hoodies and the rows of tiny, sturdy sneakers like they were treasures from a myth. He didn't beg. He didn't cry. He just watched with a silent, hopeful longing that was more effective than any explosion Katsuki had ever faced.
Katsuki’s gaze dropped to the boy's feet. They were clad in thin, white socks that had already turned grey at the heels. Between the bars of the cart seat, Katsuki could see five tiny, pale toes wiggling, trying to find warmth in the biting, refrigerated air of the freezer section. The kid looked so small, so remarkably temporary in his thin clothes, that for the first time, the word "glitch" felt like a slur.
"Ugh! Fine!" Katsuki roared, the sound echoing off the polished floor tiles and making a nearby shopper nearly drop a bag of frozen peas. He spun away so fast his heels squeaked, desperate to hide the way his chest was tightening. A stinging constriction that felt dangerously like a physical heartstring being pulled. "But it’s coming out of your paycheck, you hear me? I’m not subsidizing a goddamn quirk accident!"
Shouto didn't point out that they had merged their bank accounts three years ago or that "your paycheck" was effectively a myth in their household. He didn't point out that Katsuki’s ears were currently the color of a ripe tomato, glowing with a heat that usually preceded a massive Howitzer Impact but was currently fueled by nothing but sheer, panicked affection. He just adjusted his grip on the cart, his thumb brushing against the boy’s small, warm shoulder.
"Of course, hun," Shouto murmured, his voice a calm, smooth stream of water against Katsuki’s flickering fire.
"Shut up! Don't 'of course' me! Just...get the goddamn shoes!"
Katsuki stomped toward the apparel section, his pace slower and his shoulders hiked up to his ears. To any casual observer, he looked like a man on the warpath, a Pro Hero ready to obliterate a villain. But Shouto watched the way Katsuki’s eyes were darting, not toward the clearance racks or the stiff, cheap sneakers, but toward the displays of high-end toddler clothing.
He saw Katsuki pause, his hand hovering for a split second over a rack of fleece-lined hoodies, his fingers twitching as if testing the weight of the cotton for maximum warmth. He was scouting the area with the precision of a rescue mission, looking for the softest, thickest fabrics in the store while his mouth continued to spout vitriol about ‘wasting resources’.
In the cart, the boy looked up at Shouto, his oversized hat tilting back dangerously far. He seemed to have caught the rhythm of their dynamic instantly. He didn't look scared of the shouting anymore. Instead, he reached out a tiny hand and patted the metal rim of the cart, his gaze following the blonde whirlwind ahead of them.
"Dada...fast," the boy whispered, a tiny spark of pride in his voice that mirrored the way Shouto felt every time he watched Katsuki take down a high-tier threat.
"He is," Shouto agreed, steering them toward a display of tiny, rugged hiking boots that looked like miniature versions of the ones Katsuki wore on terrain patrols. "He just doesn't know how to slow down when he's being kind."
Katsuki let out a frustrated growl from three racks over. "I heard that, Shou! Get the ones with the reinforced toes or don't get 'em at all!"
* * *
The clothing aisle was a disaster zone within minutes. Shouto, for all his genius on the battlefield and his ability to calculate the trajectory of a glacier in seconds, had absolutely no concept of toddler sizing. He was currently holding up a denim jacket that looked like it would fit a housecat, his expression one of profound focus.
"This looks sturdy," Shouto said, his voice flat and certain as he tossed the microscopic garment into the cart, where it landed squarely on top of a loaf of shokupan.
Katsuki stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes bulging as he stared at the denim scrap. "Are you shitting me, Half-and-Half? He’s three, not a newborn. That’ll cut off his circulation before he even gets an arm in. The kid's got shoulders! Look at him!"
Shouto tilted his head, looking from the jacket to the boy in the cart, who was currently trying to look back at what’s in the cart.
"He’s small," Shouto defended weakly.
"He’s a human, not a fucking doll! Move over!"
Katsuki shoved Shouto aside with his shoulder, grumbling under his breath about 'genetics failing the common sense test.' Katsuki's hands moved with aggressive efficiency. He felt the fabric.
"Too scratchy. This one’s too thin, he’ll freeze. This one..." He pulled out a soft, fleece-lined hoodie in a deep orange. He held it up to the kid’s shoulders, measuring the width with a practiced squint. "This’ll fit. And these pants have reinforced knees because the brat looks like a tripper."
Shouto watched him, a ghost of a smile tugging at his lips, a warmth blooming in his chest. The weapon who claimed he wasn't a family man was currently checking the stitching on a five-pack of toddler socks with the intensity of someone defusing a bomb.
While Katsuki was locked in a heated, one-sided debate over the structural integrity of rubber soles—eventually declaring that "the brat is gonna be too impatient for strings and I’m not spending ten minutes tying knots while we’re on a clock"—Shouto began a stealth mission of his own. He drifted toward the toy end-cap with the quiet, practiced grace of a shadow on a high-stakes infiltration.
His eyes scanned the shelves carefully. A plush Endeavor doll? Absolutely not. The mere sight of the tiny, felt flames made his left side twitch with a phantom heat he had no desire to indulge. But a soft, squishy calico cat with wide, vacant eyes? Into the cart. A set of plastic hero figurines. The ones with the articulated joints that included a very angry-looking, muscle-bound All Might? Into the cart. Finally, a small, rattling ball that glowed with a soft, pulsing rhythm? He tucked it away, buried strategically under a heavy, defensive layer of organic kale to avoid detection from the blonde explosive currently inspecting Velcro straps and comparing shoelace thickness.
The boy was remarkably quiet throughout the entire ordeal. He sat in the plastic seat of the cart, Katsuki’s oversized black hat still pushed down almost to his eyebrows, making him look like a tiny, undercover agent hiding in plain sight.
The most grounding part of the chaos, however, was his hand. His fingers were resting firmly on top of Shouto’s larger ones on the cart handle, his knuckles barely peaking out from the sleeve of his thin pajamas. He gripped Shouto’s hand for stability as the cart rattled over the tiles.
He didn't make a sound, but his eyes—those startling pools of turquoise marbled with vermillion lava—were wide and hyper-alert. He’d look up at Shouto’s calm, dual-colored profile, seeking a silent reassurance, then whip his head around to track the movements of Katsuki’s hands as he tossed a pack of moisture-wicking socks into the pile. Every time Katsuki barked a complaint about low-quality stitching or substandard cotton, the boy’s ears would perk up. His gaze intensifed as if he were meticulously memorizing the cadence of his father's fire.
“We don't need the glowing ball, Shouto," Katsuki barked, his voice stern enough to cut through the hum of the nearby refrigerator cases. He didn't even look up from the socks he was currently scrutinizing for substandard threading.
Shouto didn’t flinch. He didn't even change his pace, his mismatched eyes fixed stoically on the path toward the registers. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"It’s literally blinking under the lettuce! I can see the light pulsing through the goddamn kale, you moron!" Katsuki finally looked up, pointing a finger at the verdant pile in the cart. "You’re a terrible spy! You’re a hero, and you can’t even hide a toddler toy from me?"
The boy, who had been a silent observer of their domestic warfare, looked down at the ruffled edges of the lettuce. He saw the faint glow of the ball through the leaves, then looked up at Katsuki’s fuming face.
A sound broke the tension. A tiny, stifled giggle that bubbled up from the child's chest. It was the first time they’d heard him make a sound that wasn't a whisper or a sniffle. It sounded like a small, clear bell ringing in a quiet room, or the first crack of ice on a warming pond.
Katsuki froze. His hand, which had been hovering aggressively over a pack of cotton undershirts, went still. He looked at the kid watching the way the boy’s shoulders shook with mirth and the way those turquoise-and-lava eyes crinkled at the corners. The snarl died on Katsuki’s face, replaced by a look of sheer, unadulterated shock.
He huffed, a sound that was meant to be a growl but came out as a shaky exhale. He turned his head away quickly, staring intensely at a display of batteries to hide the way his eyes had gone dangerously soft.
"Whatever. If he chokes on the damn thing, it’s your fault," Katsuki muttered, his voice uncharacteristically low.
Even as he grumbled, his hand reached out instinctively. With a rough but strangely tender movement, he adjusted the brim of the oversized black hat on the boy’s head, lifting it enough so the child could see the world without the shadow of the 'K' logo obscuring his vision.
"Let’s go. I’m not spending another dime on this anomaly."
Shouto hummed, a small, triumphant vibration in his throat. He felt the boy’s fingers twitching happily above his own hand on the cart handle.
"You bought him the explosion patterned socks, Katsuki. The ones with the little orange bursts on the ankles."
"They were on sale! It was a good financial decision! Shut up!" Katsuki roared, though he didn't pull the socks out of the cart.
Instead, he started power-walking toward the checkout line, his boots slamming against the tile in a rhythm that screamed, I’m not enjoying this. Even as he checked over his shoulder to make sure the cart—and the small, giggling boy inside it—were still following close behind.