Work Text:
Kunikida had never really seen himself as a parental or fatherly figure of any kind.
He didn’t really believe he had what it takes, to take care of an entire other human being, regardless of age or mental development.
So when Oda called him to watch Ryuunosuke, a very last minute thing that Oda did feel incredibly bad about, Kunikida was… Nervous to say the least.
He
adored
Ryuunosuke, everyone at the ADA did, but he had never been solely responsible for the baby. He would sit next to him, help feed him, even hold him, on the incredibly rare occasion.
But usually, if Oda couldn’t watch Ryuunosuke, the duty fell to either Junichiro or Fukuzawa.
However, since they were both out, Kunikida was the only person that Oda would fully trust with the welfare of his child.
Don’t get him wrong, Kunikida was honored that Oda would be willing to give him such a massive responsibility but… It was scary.
Terrifying even, because not only was he the only one responsible for an
infant,
said infant also never cried and had to have his facial expressions read like a suspect in an interrogation.
Honestly, in the beginning, when Oda had called him in the middle of the night, fraught with nerves because his baby wasn’t crying, Kunikida’s first thought was ‘wasn’t that a good thing?’, however, as he soon learned, no, no it wasn’t.
Sure, the crying was loud and annoying and awful, but at least then, you could tell what a kid was thinking.
+++
Kunikida sat at the table, fingers interlaced beneath his chin, staring at Ryuunosuke.
Ryuunosuke stared back, entirely unblinking. In fact, he hadn’t blinked for over five minutes.
Kunikida would’ve been worried, but he’d seen this behavior before.
The baby was evaluating him.
He’d done it before, when Oda had first taken him to the agency and he was meeting everyone for the first time, but it appeared he needed to do it again, since this was the first time he was encountering Kunikida within the house, without Oda’s supervision.
Kunikida heaved a sigh, before standing up.
“We’ll manage somehow, won’t we, child?” He asked, although it felt more like addressing the room, rather than posing a question.
“Bah,” Ryuunosuke replied, smacking a hand on the table in front of his high-chair.
Kunikida nodded.
“ ‘Bah’ indeed, my boy.”
Thankfully, Oda had already prepared all the bottles Ryuunosuke would need, as well as an extra just in case, so all Kunikida had to do was heat them up, but it appeared that Ryuunosuke wasn’t quite ready to eat yet.
Instead, he seemed content to slap at the high chair and make soft babbling noises.
As Kunikida walked past him, to retrieve something from the living room, Ryuunosuke grabbed onto his ponytail and
yanked.
Kunikida jolted forward, reaching back to press against the, now, sore skin at the back of his scalp.
“What was that for?” He hissed, wheeling around to face Ryuunosuke.
To the baby’s credit, he was unphased by the famous Kunikida Glare, and instead merely lifted his arms, directly into the air, making grabbing motions.
Kunikida blinked in confusion, before it dawned on him.
“Do you want me to hold you?”
“Bah!” It was much firmer than the others and punctuated by another grab at the air.
Now, Kunikida wasn’t scared of many things. But one thing he was scared of was dropping and potentially injuring Oda’s sweet, precious, darling baby.
On the other hand, he also didn’t want Oda to come home to a fussy baby with a harshly furrowed brow, all because Kunikida was too scared of dropping him to pick him up.
And so, Kunikida reached down and lifted Ryuunosuke from his high chair, with a hesitant, yet firm grasp.
Of course, he’d held Ryuunosuke before, but that was always with Oda hovering right over his shoulder, ready to take Ryuunosuke should anything even moderately worrying happen. Kunikida never took it to heart, because he hovered with everyone, even Fukuzawa.
Now though, it was all up to Kunikida.
He cradled Ryuunosuke in his arms, with a soft sort of delicacy, that he didn’t really believe himself capable of.
Ryuunosuke himself seemed content to curl his tiny hands into the front of Kunikida’s vest, with a tiny little ‘mrmph’, as he turned his head and buried it against Kunikida’s chest.
Kunikida made his way to the couch in the living room, settling down on it and kicking his legs up, settling back against the arm of the couch.
Apparently, the smooth, rise-and-fall of Kunikida’s chest was soothing to Ryuunosuke, as the baby was asleep within minutes.
Looking at the peaceful expression on Ryuunosuke’s face, Kunikida found himself drifting off too.
+++
Oda gently opened the door to his apartment, shutting it behind himself just as carefully.
“Kunikida?” He called, keeping his voice quiet.
No response.
Now, Oda wasn’t back home as late as he thought he would be, so he assumed Kunikida would still be awake.
And now he was worried.
Shit.
He crept into the house, keeping a hand on his hip, where his sidearm was.
The light in the living room was on, which was suspect, so he moved even slower.
As Oda peeked around the doorway to the living room, the first thing he saw was Kunikida, with his head lolled back onto the arm of the couch, still wearing his glasses and still fully dressed, with Ryuunosuke, curled up in his arms and against his chest, tiny little hands clinging onto him, for dear life.
Oda couldn’t help but smile at that, before lifting a blanket from the back of the couch and draping it over them both.
They had earned their rest.