Chapter 4: Morning Comfort
The living room held the day’s last, lazy warmth. Late afternoon sunlight, thick and golden as honey, streamed through the bay window, catching the motes of dust that danced in the air above the worn rug. A fire crackled low in the hearth, its heat a dry counterpoint to the chill pressing against the windows. The room was a catalog of their lives: shelves bowed under the weight of cookbooks and sheet music, a guitar case leaning against the wall, a forgotten pacifier on the coffee table beside a stack of medical journals. In the corner, the old nursing chair, its upholstery faded from years of use, held Hizashi and Izuku.
Hizashi rocked slowly, the chair’s gentle creak a familiar metronome. Izuku was cradled in his arms, dressed in a soft, footed onesie patterned with tiny stars. He was nursing, one small hand splayed against Hizashi’s chest, the other clutching a worn corner of the knitted blanket draped over them. Hizashi hummed, something low and wordless, his free hand gently stroking Izuku’s mop of white curls. His green eyes were half-closed, his expression one of deep, quiet fulfillment.
Across the room, Shouta was a long, dark shape sprawled on the sofa, a heavy textbook open on his lap. He wasn’t reading. His tired gaze was fixed on the center of the rug, where Katsuki sat with Izuku’s toys spread around him.
Or rather, where Katsuki sat with Izuku.
For the past fifteen minutes, Katsuki had been engaged in a solemn, focused ritual. He was cross-legged on the floor, his back to the fire, and Izuku was perched in the nest of his legs, leaning back against his brother’s chest for support. Katsuki’s arms were wrapped around him, his large, capable hands engulfing Izuku’s tiny ones.
“Patty cake, patty cake, baker’s man,” Katsuki recited, his voice uncharacteristically soft, almost a murmur. It wasn’t sing-song, but it was patient. He guided Izuku’s hands through the motions, clapping them together with careful control. “Bake me a cake as fast as you can.”
Izuku giggled, a wet, bubbly sound around the mouthful of milk. His wine-red eyes were wide with delight, fixed on their joined hands. He couldn’t do the motions himself—his motor control was too imprecise, his understanding too basic—but he loved the rhythm, the touch, the deep vibration of his brother’s voice through his back.
“Roll it,” Katsuki said, rotating Izuku’s wrists. “And pat it.” He patted Izuku’s small palm against his own. “And mark it with a ‘B’.” He traced a ‘B’ on Izuku’s palm with a blunt fingertip.
He was utterly absorbed. His spiky blonde hair seemed less aggressive in the firelight, his sharp red eyes softer as he watched Izuku’s face for reactions. He’d been doing it on autopilot, a mindless repetition while his thoughts had been miles away, mentally plating a brown butter sage gnocchi for his culinary final. But the rhythm had sunk into his bones. The feel of Izuku’s small, trusting weight against him. The clean, powdery scent of him. The simple, satisfying correctness of the clapping sequence.
“For baby and me,” Katsuki finished, bringing Izuku’s hands together for a final, gentle clap.
Izuku squealed, kicking his feet. “’Gain, Kacchan! ‘Gain!”
And Katsuki, without a second thought, without a single thread of his usual impatience, began again. “Patty cake, patty cake, baker’s man…”
From the nursing chair, Hizashi watched, a small, knowing smile playing on his lips. He exchanged a glance with Shouta, who had lifted his eyes from his book to observe the scene, his own expression inscrutable but attentive.
Hitoshi was slouched in the armchair by the bookshelf, an acoustic guitar balanced on his knee. He’d been trying to fingerpick a complicated melody, but his attention had also drifted to his twin. A faint, dry smirk touched his lips. He didn’t say anything. He just watched, his purple eyes missing nothing.
Katsuki went through the rhyme a third time. Then a fourth. He adjusted his grip, making sure Izuku’s wrists weren’t strained. He varied the speed, going slower to see Izuku’s eyes track their hands, then faster to elicit a breathless giggle. He was, for all intents and purposes, in the zone.
“You’re getting really good at that, Kat.”
Hizashi’s voice was gentle, observational, filled with a warm amusement that held no mockery.
It was like a switch flipped.
Katsuki’s hands stilled. He blinked, his focus snapping from Izuku’s tiny fingers to his own large ones holding them. He looked around the room—at his mama smiling softly from the chair, at his dad watching quietly from the couch, at his brother smirking from the corner.
His brain caught up with his body.
A hot, prickling flush crawled up his neck and over his ears. He dropped Izuku’s hands as if they’d burned him.
“What the hell?” he muttered, more to himself than anyone. He stared at his palms, then at Izuku, who was now fussing, reaching for the lost game. “Why the hell was I playing fucking patty cake?”
His voice was loud, rough, slicing through the peaceful room. Izuku flinched at the sudden noise, his lower lip trembling.
“Language,” Shouta said from the sofa, his tone flat. “And you were playing because he likes it. And you were enjoying it.”
“I wasn’t enjoying it,” Katsuki snapped, the denial immediate and defensive. He scrambled to his feet, dislodging Izuku, who tipped over sideways onto the rug with a soft ‘oof’. Katsuki winced, a flicker of guilt crossing his face before he masked it with a scowl. “I was just… keeping him occupied. He’s clingy today.”
Hitoshi finally spoke, his voice a lazy drawl as he plucked a discordant chord. “You were doing it with the focus of a surgeon, man. I thought you were gonna start critiquing his form. ‘No, idiot, your clapping technique is all wrong. You’ll never make it as a professional patty-caker.’”
“Shut up, Eyebags!” Katsuki barked, crossing his arms tightly over his chest. The blush was furious now. “It’s a stupid kid’s game.”
“And yet,” Hizashi said, his voice still calm as he adjusted Izuku at his breast, “you knew all the words and motions. You even did the ‘mark it with a B’ part. I don’t think I’ve ever taught you that.”
Katsuki froze. He hadn’t even thought about it. The words and motions had just… come out. From some deep, forgotten well of childhood memory. A memory of sitting in this same room, in that same spot, with a younger, louder Hizashi clapping his own tiny hands.
“Whatever,” he grumbled, deflecting. “It’s boring. He needs better stimulation. Where are his blocks?”
He stomped over to the woven toy basket and began rummaging through it aggressively, pulling out soft fabric blocks and stacking them with more force than necessary.
Izuku, having righted himself, was now crawling—a slow, laborious movement that involved dragging his lower body—towards Katsuki. He made a soft, pleading noise. “Kacchan… pay?”
“I am playing, you little menace,” Katsuki muttered, but his stacking became slower, less violent. He placed a bright red block on top of a blue one. “See? Blocks. Advanced architecture. Not dumb hand games.”
Izuku reached the basket and pulled himself up using Katsuki’s knee. He patted the tower. It wobbled. Izuku’s eyes went wide with anticipation.
“Don’t you dare,” Katsuki warned, his hand hovering near the structure.
Izuku looked at him, then at the blocks, then gave the tower a deliberate, clumsy shove. It toppled with a soft thud.
For a second, no one moved. Then a slow, wide grin spread across Katsuki’s face. It was a feral, challenging grin. “Oh, you want to play that game? Huh? You think you can defeat my tower?”
He rebuilt it, faster this time, higher. Five blocks. Six.
Izuku watched, utterly enthralled, his earlier desire for patty cake forgotten. As soon as the last block was placed, he slammed both hands into it with a triumphant squeal.
“You little vandal,” Katsuki said, but he was already gathering the blocks again. This time he built two smaller towers. “Let’s see you take ‘em both down. Dual destruction. Go on.”
Hitoshi shook his head, his smirk softening into something genuine. He went back to his guitar, picking out a gentle, repetitive melody that seemed to underscore the playful destruction and reconstruction on the rug.
Shouta closed his textbook. “The patty cake was fine, Katsuki. There’s no hierarchy of appropriate play. It’s all neural stimulation. The blocks work his gross motor planning. The clapping works his proprioception and rhythmic processing. Both are valid.”
Katsuki paused, a green block in his hand. He didn’t look at his dad. “It just felt… dumb.”
“Why?” Shouta asked, his question simple and direct.
“Because!” Katsuki exploded, then forced his voice lower when Izuku jumped. “Because I’m nineteen. I’m in culinary school. I’m practicing reductions and emulsions and I’m… I’m sitting on the floor doing nursery rhymes. It’s weird.”
“Is it weird when Mama does it?” Hitoshi asked, not looking up from his strings.
“That’s different.”
“How?”
“It just is!” Katsuki’s ears were burning again. “He’s Mama. It’s… it’s his thing. It’s natural for him.”
Hizashi spoke from the chair, his voice like a balm. “It felt natural for you, too, sweetheart. For a little while there. I saw it. You were completely present with him. No clock, no agenda. Just you and Izuku and the clapping. It was beautiful.”
Katsuki was silent, staring at the block in his hand. Izuku, tired of waiting, babbled and knocked over the two small towers himself.
“He liked it,” Katsuki said finally, the words quiet, almost grudging. “He was laughing.”
“He was,” Shouta agreed.
“And… it wasn’t hard. To remember it. The song.”
“Muscle memory,” Shouta nodded. “From when you were small. Mama used to do it with you and Hitoshi all the time.”
A strange, vulnerable look passed over Katsuki’s face. He had no conscious memory of that. But his hands, apparently, did.
Hizashi gently shifted Izuku, lifting him to his shoulder and rubbing his back. A soft burp echoed in the quiet room. “You don’t have to be just one thing, Kat. You can be a fierce culinary prodigy and the brother who knows how to make Izuku laugh with patty cake. Those aren’t opposite sides. They’re just… parts of the whole you.”
Katsuki didn’t answer. He let Izuku grab the green block from his hand and gum it enthusiastically. He watched the firelight play over his brother’s contented face.
Hitoshi started playing a familiar tune, something simple and folk-like. After a few bars, he began to sing, his voice a low, pleasant baritone. “Patty cake, patty cake, baker’s man…”
Katsuki’s head whipped around. “I will set your guitar on fire.”
Hitoshi ignored him, continuing to sing, his eyes dancing with mischief.
And then, a small, off-key voice joined in from Hizashi’s shoulder. “Pa…ca…ba…man…” Izuku hummed, his words a slurry of sounds, his body swaying to the rhythm only he could feel.
The tension broke. Katsuki snorted, a reluctant, breathy laugh escaping him. “Even the damn baby’s mocking me now.”
“He’s not mocking,” Hizashi corrected, kissing Izuku’s head. “He’s participating. He liked the game you taught him.”
Katsuki looked at Izuku, who was now babbling a stream of nonsense syllables that vaguely followed Hitoshi’s melody. The last of his defensive anger seeped away, replaced by a weary, fond acceptance. “Yeah. Yeah, he did.”
He reached out and scooped Izuku up from the floor, settling him back into his lap. Izuku immediately snuggled against him, thumb finding its way to his mouth, the block forgotten.
“So what if it’s weird,” Katsuki said to the top of Izuku’s head, his voice a low grumble. “We’re all weird here anyway.”
“A foundational truth of our household,” Shouta stated, reopening his textbook.
Hitoshi transitioned his song into something else, something original and melancholic. The fire popped. The clock on the mantle ticked.
Katsuki sat there, holding his sleeping brother, the rhythmic patty-cake clap still echoing in the quiet of his bones, a secret, silly skill now remembered. And for the first time, he didn’t try to push the feeling away. He just let it be. A part of the tapestry, another thread in the warm, complicated, utterly unique fabric of their home. He rested his chin on Izuku’s soft hair and closed his eyes, just for a minute, listening to the fire, and the guitar, and the sound of his family breathing all around him.