Summary: Between sleepless nights, formula mishaps, and his students dropping by to “help”, Gojo learns many things.
CW: Fatherhood, mentions of exhaustion and sleep deprivation
Gojo had always been good at adapting. It was one of the things that made him dangerous: he could read a battlefield in seconds, predict movement before it happened and turn chaos into control without breaking a sweat. He thought, naively, that taking care of one baby couldn’t possibly be harder than exorcising a curse.
He was wrong.
The first night home, the baby decided sleep was optional. Gojo sat on the couch in the dim blue glow of the city lights, his usual grin replaced by a dazed half-smile as he jiggled the tiny bundle in his arms. “Okay, okay, little man. Let’s make a deal: you sleep, I sleep. Fair trade, right?”
The baby’s answer was a wail so piercing Gojo swore it bent the air.
Megumi, from the hallway, sighed loud enough to be heard. “You’re holding him wrong.”
Gojo twisted around, indignant. “How can there be a wrong way to hold something this small? I’m supporting the head and everything.”
“You’re talking too loud,” Megumi muttered, appearing in the doorway, hair mussed, face set in a grimace that said he regretted every decision that had led to living anywhere near Gojo Satoru and his crying child.
“Fine, you do it,” Gojo said, thrusting the baby forward.
Megumi hesitated. “I’m not—”
But the baby hiccuped mid-cry, looked up at Megumi with wide, watery eyes and suddenly went quiet. Megumi froze. Gojo blinked.
“Oh,” Gojo whispered. “Oh. He likes you. He likes you better than me.”
“That’s not—” Megumi started, but Gojo was already dramatically clutching his chest.
“Betrayed! On the first day of fatherhood!”
The baby gurgled, which Gojo decided meant laughter. Megumi rolled his eyes and handed the baby back. “You’re hopeless.”
“Hopelessly in love,” Gojo corrected, cradling the baby with exaggerated tenderness. “You’ll understand one day.”
Megumi didn’t answer, retreating to his room, though Gojo could hear him muttering under his breath, something about the universe being unfair.
By the second morning, Gojo had learned that babies could somehow produce more laundry than humanly possible. Tiny socks vanished in the wash, bottles clattered across counters, and there was always, always, something leaking.
Yuji stopped by with breakfast, wide-eyed and grinning. “You look… tired,” he said carefully, watching Gojo shuffle to the door barefoot, hair sticking up in impossible directions.
“Define tired,” Gojo said, blinking at him. “Do I look like someone who hasn’t slept in thirty-seven hours and has been defeated by a person under ten pounds?”
“Yes,” Yuji said.
Gojo sighed. “Accurate.”
Yuji spent the next hour trying to entertain the baby, who alternated between delighted shrieks and sudden tears. Nobara arrived shortly after, pretending to be annoyed but immediately scooping the baby up and cooing in a voice Gojo didn’t know she was capable of.
“He’s so small,” she said, holding him like something precious. “You sure he’s yours? He doesn’t have your huge head.”
Gojo shot her a look. “He’s perfect, and I will not tolerate slander in his presence.”
But the baby only blinked up at her and smiled, drooling on her shoulder. Nobara softened instantly. “Ugh. Fine. You win, tiny Gojo.”
The day passed in bursts: feedings, diaper changes and laughter that filled the apartment. Gojo, who’d always thrived in noise and movement, found himself strangely still in those in-between moments, just watching. Watching the baby sleep, tiny chest rising and falling; watching Yuji and Nobara bicker over who got to hold him next; watching Megumi pretend not to care while subtly hovering near the crib.
At one point, when everyone else had left, Gojo stood by the window with the baby nestled against his shoulder. The sun had dipped behind the skyline, painting the city in shades of violet. The apartment was quiet except for the rhythmic sound of breathing, his and the baby’s.
He hadn’t expected this quiet to feel so… good.
He looked down at the small, peaceful face pressed against him, and said softly, “You know, I am the strongest.” He smiled faintly. “But you… you don’t care about any of that, do you? You just need me to show up, hm? To be here.”
The baby shifted, sighing in his sleep. Gojo tightened his hold just slightly.
“Guess I can do that,” he murmured. “Guess I can be yours.”
Satoru Gojo, the strongest sorcerer alive, realized he’d found something far rarer than power.
Something he would spend the rest of his life protecting.
