Work Text:
Katsuki goes back home the first night after Kamino.
It’s not the preference of the police or the heroes - actually a request from Katsuki himself - but that’s a secret he’ll take to his deathbed. He’d just wanted to go home, see his parents, sleep in his own room in his own bed and eat his own food.
His dad is away with work, so it’s only one parent that he sees, but it’s better than none, he supposes. Better than staying in custody with people he doesn’t know and a bed that isn’t his.
He’s still shaky with- not fear, he doesn’t get scared- but he’s still trying not to quiver as his mother comes into view, rushing but not quite so to get to him. He leaves behind Kirishima, leaves Deku and the rest of the so-called ‘rescue squad’ as Mitsuki walks up to him and bats him lightly on the head.
“I was worried about you, you brat,” she says, eyebrows knitted in worry that Katsuki’s not sure is genuine or not. He still can never tell what she’s really thinking, whether she actually cares or is annoyed she had to come and pick him up.
There’s no I missed you. It’s good to see you. I’m glad you’re not dead.
Just a tap to the back of the head and two hard pats on his back as she says, “Come on, let’s get you home.”
Katsuki sits in the passenger’s seat, but it feels like his mom doesn’t notice him at all; she might as well be driving by herself. And even though he’d given his statement to the police and hated every second of it- he wants Mitsuki to ask.
It’s such a strange thing. But he wants her to ask, he wants her to know, he wants to tell her and know that she cares. He wants to tell his mom that he’s hurting and he wants her to make it better.
But the car pulls up in their driveway, and his mother gets out without saying a word.
She cooks Katsuki dinner, hands it to him with a playful slap to the back of his head, and tells him to eat while she just finishes up her work. Before he knows it, she’s left the room, and his food tastes dry and flavourless in his mouth, a horribly sticky mess of nothing.
Before Mitsuki goes to bed that night, she nudges open Katsuki’s bedroom door.
He’s already asleep, she thinks- he’s facing the wall, back to the door, his knees tucked close to his chest and his arms wrapping around them in a sort of self-soothing gesture. His blanket has fallen off the bed, but she’s sure he wouldn’t appreciate her invading his personal space to put it back on, so she refrains.
“G’night, brat,” she murmurs, and immediately sees Katsuki’s head jerk up, his eyes flying open and focusing on her in the light of the door.
“Hag,” he says, “I-”
“No insults this late. Get some rest.”
“Mitsuki-”
She shuts the door. Katsuki will need sleep, anyway, after the time he’s had recently.
Mitski had hoped that he would get a good night’s sleep, but she’s woken up a couple of hours later, judging by the blurry numbers of the alarm clock by her bed. There’s a creaking sound running through the hallway and the switch of a light that makes her heart skip a couple of beats.
Are Katsuki’s kidnappers here? Have the League of Villains found their home? Have they taken Katsuki again, right from his bed, while Mitsuki was mere metres away?
Blinking sleep out of her eyes, she sits up, trying to make sense of what the hell is going on, and sees a sliver of light coming through her bedroom door, which is slowly nudging its way open. Her mind is running a million miles an hour- who’s there? Is she in danger? Is Katsuki in danger?
She rubs at her eyes again as she squints at the bright light, trying to see who the intruder is, what had woken her up, and-
It’s just Katsuki.
Stood in the doorway of her bedroom, arms wrapped around himself. It’s just Katsuki.
“It’s the middle of the night, brat,” she says groggily, voice raspy and thick with sleep. “What are you-”
“M- mom,” Katsuki stutters brokenly as he shivers in the hallway.
It’s just Katsuki. Her baby.
The single word suddenly has her fully awake, all traces of sleep gone, because Katsuki never calls her that. Katsuki hasn’t called her that in almost ten years.
Something is horribly, horribly wrong, and she knows it. She curses herself for not noticing, for not doing something earlier, because the boy was kidnapped. Of course something is going to be wrong. Her son is scared and in pain and she didn’t do anything about it and it sends shock after shock of guilt through her stomach.
“Mom,” he says again, voice weak and shaky, and it has Mitsuki rushing out of her bed to get to him, to her boy, her Katsuki, and bringing him into her arms.
He seems to still at that.
He’s taller than she is now, and has been for some time, but he still slumps into her hold, folding in on himself enough that she can rest her cheek on his head and he can bury her face in her shoulder, just like he used to, years and years and years ago.
To her, he looks so young. So small and so scared, because it’s just her little boy and he’d been taken-
As she wraps her arms around him fully, she feels Katsuki begin to shake under her touch, tiny and almost unnoticeable tremors in his shoulders, all the way down his spine. Mitsuki soothes her hand up and down his back, through his hair, over the sheen of sweat on his forehead, and pulls him even tighter into her hold.
“I know,” she says softly, gently shushing him as she feels a wetness on her shoulder, and realises he’s crying. She doesn’t remember the last time Katsuki cried in front of her, and berates herself for ignoring her son enough that it pushes him to tears. “I know, baby, I know.”
Katsuki hiccups as he sobs. Mitsuki remembered he did that when he was little, too.
Especially now that Katsuki is in her arms, she feels an overwhelming and fiery rage at the villains who did this to him. To her boy - because really, that’s what he is. A boy. Just a boy, yet they’d still taken him, and god knows what Mitsuki would have done if she hadn't gotten him back.
He just whimpers as Mitsuki runs her hand through ashy blonde hair, delicately soothing over his scalp. She doesn’t remember the last time Katsuki let her do this, but she doesn’t remember the last time she offered, either.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers to him. “I’m sorry, honey. Come here. It’s okay.”
Sorry for what, she doesn’t know. That he got kidnapped. That he had to live through that. That he had to act like he was okay. That he was so torn apart and she hadn’t even noticed, hadn’t even stopped to ask him if he was okay.
“I’ve got you,” she says, almost in answer to herself. “It’s going to be okay, Kat.”
She feels Katsuki’s fingers clench into fists behind her back and holds him close as tiny sparks erupt from his palms. Swaying him slightly, she carries on shushing him; just quiet, nonsensical sounds in his ear to hopefully calm him down.
Her heart shatters into tiny, tiny pieces as she hears him cry mom into her shoulder, over and over again, like he’s forgotten how to say it. The words blur together after a while and soon he’s just wailing as Mitsuki hugs him.
She holds Katsuki like he’s her baby again. Like she could pick him and cradle him with ease and he only cried because he was hungry or tired, not because he’d been kidnapped.
“I love you,” she tells him as he cries, and it’s something she should have never stopped saying. “I love you so much, Kat.”
It takes a while for him to calm down, for loud sobs to turn into muted sniffles, but she doesn’t let him go, peppering tiny kisses over his head and keeping her arms tight around him. She’ll be damned if she lets him go now. She’s got years to make up for of not hugging her son and she’s making up for it, starting now.
“Wanna sleep in my room tonight, huh?”
She expects an immediate no, expects Katsuki’s pride or his embarrassment to kick in and take over again, expects him to march back to his room while calling her an old hag again- but he just nods.
“Please,” he adds quietly, and Mitsuki’s heart breaks for the second time tonight.
She coaxes him over to the bed, lets him sit down in his own time, and gently wipes some drying tears from his face. Katsuki looks rough. Not only does he look tired, but his eyes are puffy and tinged pink, his face is still wet with tears, and he looks so scared and so frail that all Mitsuki wants to do is keep him safe.
Katsuki crawls over to Masaru’s side of the bed, and falls down to lie on the pillow. He practically collapses on the bed and Mitsuki can’t believe how exhausted he seems; he’s much too tired for a sixteen-year-old boy, and she just wishes she could make it better.
The room is completely still, completely silent as Katsuki gets comfortable where he lies. Mitsuki just watches, observes the shaky rise and fall of his chest as his eyes slip shut and he tries to even out his breathing so he can sleep.
Mitsuki soothes a hand over his hair, tucks him underneath the sheets, murmuring something about they can’t hurt you here, you can sleep, you can rest, Katsuki, you don’t have to worry.
“Goodnight, Katsuki,” she whispers, more to herself than her son, and kisses the crown of his head.
She waits for him to fall asleep, watching his breathing steady itself, keeping a close eye on him. She waits for Katsuki to fall asleep until she lies down herself, satisfied that he’s sleeping, he’s okay.
Shutting her eyes and sighing, she lays down with a protective hand on Katsuki’s shoulder because hell, she’s never going to let that boy out of her sight again.