Work Text:
“For the record,” Yoichi says. “This wasn’t my idea at all.”
The baby he holds babbles happily, green eyes bright as he reaches up with all his little baby strength, and smacks his pudgy palm on Yoichi’s face.
“Ah, so you don’t believe me.”
“Bwah buh.”
“Well it’s the truth,” he rocks the baby a little, bouncing the boy in his arms in the gentle way he’s seen Inko do it. Though his motions have a stiffness to them, born from a lack of practice. “My brother is very rude, and he thinks he can boss people around. Like me. He’s always trying to boss me around.”
The baby giggles. The sound is airy and light, like little bubbling hiccups that float up a short ways and then pop.
Yoichi nods. “Don’t let him boss you around, okay Izuku? Once he starts he doesn’t stop.”
He knows he’s talking nonsense to a baby who can’t really understand him, but it's the only thing he can do right now to distract himself from how very not baby proofed his apartment is. Yoichi’s brain had shut down for a moment when he answered the door and Hisashi dropped his infant son into his arms, and Hisashi had escaped in the time it spent rebooting. Now, it seems Yoichi’s thoughts have decided to kick into overdrive to compensate.
There are exposed sockets, cords, sharp corners, hell, the different prescriptions he takes for his illness are even scattered across the kitchen countertop. What if Izuku eats some of them?
Not that Izuku would be able to get up on the counter on his own, or be able to open the containers, but still, it’s Yoichi’s responsibility to think about these things, right? Isn’t that what good uncles do?
“I hate your dad, you know,” Yoichi says mildly, still rocking Izuku to keep him calm. The baby murmurs softly, and sticks his fingers in his mouth to suck on them. Yoichi isn’t sure if Izuku should be doing that or not, but he lets the baby be. “In another life, I’m sure he’s a supervillain.”
That’s another thing Yoichi doesn’t like to dwell on much. His brother certainly has the quirk to become a villain, and there was a tense, frightening period of time in which Yoichi had thought he was watching his brother descend into that type of madness, dragged down into the depths by the hunger of his own power.
But then Hisashi met Inko.
After that, the dominos fell, one by one until all too quickly it led to Yoichi being here, standing in the middle of his apartment with a baby in his arms, with absolutely no clue what to do.
“Let’s see what your mom left…” Yoichi mutters, as he turns to the baby travel bag that Inko had passed to him after Hisashi dropped Izuku into Yoichi’s arms. She’d given a soft, amused smile at the bug-eyed look Yoichi had on his face while holding the baby, before telling him, “You’ll be fine,” and leaving with Hisashi.
Yoichi is honored that she trusts him so much, he really is, but he also has to admit, he feels a little out of his depth.
Maneuvering Izuku so he’s cradled in the crook of one arm, Yoichi begins to go through the travel bag. He pulls out a pacifier, a stuffed rabbit, a baby blanket, a bottle of formula, a few other plastic toys, and then finally–
“I’m saved,” Yoichi gasps. He clutches his prize, a bundle of folded sheets of paper, in his hand. “Instructions.”
Izuku babbles with interest, and reaches for the papers as well, but Yoichi swiftly angles them away from the grabby little fingers. He settles himself down on his couch, struggling with Izuku for a moment as he tries to keep the baby secure in his arms. Yoichi is well aware that putting Izuku down in the little baby carrier Inko and Hisashi left would probably make reading the instructions easier, but he likes holding his nephew, sue him.
Then he glances at the instructions, actually registers the words on the page now, and abruptly remembers just why his very intense and calculative brother fell for Inko.
Because he's looking at a Table of Contents.
“Izuku,” Yoichi says, as he scans the list with wide eyes. He expected just a page or two of basic information, but there's so much here. Medical info. Emergency numbers. Schedule. Food. Favorite toys. Lullabies. “I think both your parents are a little insane, actually.”
He skims the medical info and emergency numbers, before jumping right to the schedule. It feels like a good place to start, Yoichi thinks. He reads through that for a few moments, and tries to internalize the times when Izuku is supposed to be fed his formula, then when he should be laid down to sleep. He figures as long as he gets those two things done right, he’ll be golden.
“You won’t be tough to take care of, will you, Izuku?” Yoichi asks, giving the baby a smile.
That, of course, is when Izuku decides it's time to burst into tears.
It comes from nowhere. Yoichi jumps to his feet with a panicked yelp, dropping the instructions in order to cradle Izuku with both arms and rock him again. “Do you hate my smile that much?” he cries.
Izuku doesn’t give any kind of coherent answer. His balled up little fists wave with distress, and his face is quickly turning red.
“You really did inherit your mother’s crying,” Yoichi says, thinking back to how Inko had nearly flooded the wedding venue when she and Hisashi had gotten married. “But please stop.”
Izuku just keeps wailing like the world is ending.
“I’m going to kill Hisashi,” Yoichi moans.
Then he reaches for the instructions that he’d dropped, and gets to work going through the listed methods of how to calm Izuku down from a crying fit.
“This is gonna be a long night.”
“Do you think we should have warned your brother before leaving Izuku with him?” Inko asks quietly as she and Hisashi make their way up the building stairs. “He looked startled.”
“If we told him,” Hisashi says. “He would’ve tried to make all kinds of arguments for why he’d be unfit to babysit, and we wouldn't have been able to go out tonight.”
Inko laughs a bit. “You’re right, you’re right.”
“I do know my brother,” Hisashi continues, a fond smile on his face, with a barely there trace of something like longing. “Too well sometimes. But it does come in handy.”
They give Yoichi’s front door a courtesy knock, but when there isn’t any response from within, Hisashi pulls out the spare key Yoichi gave him and opens the door himself.
Inko notices the open baby travel bag on Yoichi’s counter first, and heads in its direction, while Hisashi glances around the dark, quiet inside of the apartment and moves towards the sitting room. He has a feeling he knows what he’ll find there.
Sure enough, he finds his brother and son, but it's the position they’re in that has him pausing.
Inko is usually the one to take excessive photos of their son, but right now, Hisashi can’t resist pulling out his phone and snapping a few quick pictures. He’s going to make sure Inko puts this one in the scrapbook. It should get its own page even.
Laying on the floor, sprawled out over a familiar mint green baby blanket which has been laid down, are Yoichi and Izuku, both slumbering away. Izuku is cushioned against Yoichi’s side by Yoichi’s arm wrapped around him and a few pillows, with his face turned into his uncle's side, little eyes scrunched shut in sleep. And Yoichi, flat on his back with an old comic book laying open on his stomach, is just as deeply asleep as the baby beside him. His mouth has fallen open due to the awkward position, letting out soft snores. Scattered around them are a few of Izuku's toys, and Izuku's little stuffed rabbit rests against Yoichi's other side.
It’s a precious sight, but it has Hisashi’s heart clenching in ways he thought it had forgotten. There’s a bittersweet twist to this moment, one he wishes he could cast aside and ignore.
His grief won’t let him do that though. Moments like these only reaffirm that he built this Noumu too well, because he knows that the real Yoichi would have cradled little Izuku just as tenderly.