Work Text:
These linens, Mitsuki thinks with all the ire and thin patience of a mother who won't keep her word, are going in the dumpster if the brat doesn't answer this time.
Dial tones greet Mitsuki for the third time in a row, followed by a robotic voice rattling off Katsuki's phone number one dull digit at a time. Mitsuki squints at what might be the thirtieth floor of Katsuki's high rise apartment building as if she, with her perfectly average twenty-twenty vision, might be able to spot her son slinking around from ground level.
Three missed calls has been their rule ever since the war. Three phone calls equaled three chances to pick up the phone, and three non-answers equaled permission to storm the premises for proof of life.
Years ago, Mitsuki tried to strong-arm Katsuki into agreeing to just two sets of agonizing dial tones before she was allowed to worry, Katsuki minced no words and told her to "get a fuckin' grip," at which point Masaru calmly suggested three missed calls as a happy medium.
Three, after all, was a lucky number for the Bakugous. Masaru finally quit playing coy and said yes the third time Mitsuki asked him out. Katsuki, not so much a bundle of joy as he was a bundle of sleepless nights and temper tantrums, came into their life after two miscarriages. Their family dining table has space for exactly three table settings.
So there it was, three missed calls, and only then was Mitsuki allowed to use her copied key. Miffed, Mitsuki agreed. Similarly peeved, Katsuki agreed, too. That's how most arguments between them ended: Nobody crowned the winner, and nobody all that happy.
"Stubborn brat," Mitsuki sighs to herself as she shoulders the bag of linens from her trunk. It would have been nice if Katsuki would have skipped down here to take the packed away duvet he's been nagging her about for three months. At least she'll probably get breakfast out of it.
It's a short ride to the thirtieth floor, thanks to Katsuki's swanky apartment building designating one elevator specifically for floors twenty-five and up. Mitsuki's used to the initial zip to great heights then a slower crawl for just a few floors, and she could ace the winding walk to Katsuki's corner unit with her eyes closed.
Back when Katsuki first flew the nest, he told Mitsuki he wanted floor-to-ceiling windows on as many walls as humanly possible. The force of nature got exactly what he wanted on the first try, and under budget too. Mitsuki had a few glasses of wine about it and sniffled against Masaru's shoulder until it hurt less that their son had done it all without her help.
She knocks on Katsuki's apartment door and waits impatiently, her foot tapping on his pristine doormat. He doesn't come to rescue her shoulder from this bag of bricks she's towing, so Mitsuki plops it on the mat and digs her keys out of her pocket. The brat's probably in the shower. Either that or he's keeled over on the floor in desperate need of medical attention, but Mitsuki pummels that tumultuous corner of her brain before it can get its sea legs.
"Katsuki," Mitsuki calls as she bullies the leaden door open. She opens her mouth to holler his name louder, half because she's sick of lugging this bag around and half because Katsuki doesn't care to wear his hearing aids around the house a solid seventy percent of the time, but she doesn't get the chance before Katsuki speaks.
"Stop wasting water," comes Katsuki's voice, complaining loud enough to be heard over the faint pitter-patter of a running shower.
Taken back, Mitsuki tilts her head as if she could ever mistake the sound of her son's grousing.
Who the hell is the brat talking to, himself? Last she heard, therapy was going well. Her hand flies to her back pocket like dialing Masaru and updating him on Katsuki's existence is of the utmost urgency, a pesky habit she hasn't been able to shake for years.
Instead, she stays her hand and kicks the damned bag over the threshold, catching the door before it slams shut with all the force of a wrecking ball. Like hell is Mitsuki gonna let the neighbors think her kid's a little asshole.
As it clicks shut, a second voice — deeper than her son's and far more monotonous — joins the muffled conversation. "You weren't complaining a minute ago."
Katsuki's response is a surprisingly lighthearted request: "Go fuck yourself."
The pitter-patter rises to a noisy clatter as the door down the hall opens. As the world tilts sideways, Mitsuki shouts, "It's me, brat!" Her gut dropped the second she realized someone was in Katsuki's home — no with him. In the shower. Apparently her body doesn't know the difference between catching her son in intimate (!?!?!?!?!? Mitsuki's mind shrieks incomprehensibly) relations and dangling upside down on a rollercoaster. "Don't walk out here naked."
"Mom?" Katsuki wonders, his voice fainter, smaller than he'll usually let it sound around her. It comes back twice as strong as he whips his head around the corner, flushed to his receding hairline, dressed in a collared shirt, and of course, scowling sourly like Mitsuki ruined his morning just by breathing his air.
"The fuck are you doing here, old hag?" her charming son demands to know.
Thirty-five years of keeping this tantrum-throwing, peril-magnet of a brat alive, and that's the greeting Mitsuki gets. Reaping exactly what she sowed kind of sucks.
Mitsuki arches her eyebrows and flaps a hand at the bag of linens, bulky enough to qualify as a mountain on Katsuki's otherwise ultra tidy floor. Well, mostly tidy. An askew pair of boots catches her eye, the leather cracked and poorly maintained. They must belong to whoever is wasting Katsuki's water. Katsuki would never.
Katsuki would never do a lot of things. Or so Mitsuki thought. Her eyes narrow in the direction of Katsuki's shower room in silent question.
"No," Katsuki says plainly.
Mitsuki opens her mouth to claim nosey mother's privilege.
"No," insists Katsuki, blistering heat behind his refusal this time. His throat bobs as he swallows, eyes darting to damn near every corner of the house before they snap back to the door as the water cuts off. Now Katsuki grimaces, a sliver of him surrendered to the hall as he shuffles an inch farther from Mitsuki. "It's private. Can you just go?"
"Who are you talking to?" asks the showerer, muffled.
"No one," Katsuki snaps at the door, unholy rage flashing across his face, so silent-but-loud — so Katsuki — it's almost comical. "Shut up."
Mitsuki watches, amused, as the distinct sound of a door rapidly yanked shut reverberates around the apartment, a great big thud. Katsuki's mouth tightens into a hard line as the showerer kicks the base of the door in a show of indignance, but he holds Mitsuki's gaze just as stubbornly as he's clutching that door handle.
"It's private," Katsuki repeats through gritted teeth. "I'll call you later. Thanks for the sheets."
Well, that's by far the most polite way her son's ever asked her to vacate the premises. She blinks at the sight of Katsuki standing tall and holding fast, no folded arms, no shitty pout, just calmly righting the apple cart before it can tip over in earnest.
Whoever lies beyond that door, whatever they are to Katsuki, it's. . .important to him. And he wants her to leave.
Mitsuki's feet might as well be superglued to the floor. The words of a thousand different versions of Katsuki flit through her mind like she's scanning radio frequencies.
"Girls are gross," Katsuki's voice cuts in, a high-pitched echo from back when he was four and daily visits with Izuku were imperative. "Ew," Katsuki said a few years later, paired with a stormy scowl too big for his little face, all because Mitsuki ribbed him about having a crush on the girl with top grades. Naturally Katsuki just saw the little runt as competition. He surpassed her before the school year ended.
Later, once he was older and more articulate, Katsuki told her straight: "I don't care about stuff like that." He must have said it in response to Mitsuki's prodding, or maybe in response to Masaru's subtler well-meaning attempts to determine whether or not teenage Katsuki was capable of connecting with anyone who wasn't a snot-nosed brat just like him.
Either way, Katsuki's sentiments never so much as wavered, not even when he and Izuku were sharing beds and holding hands in the wake of the war. It wasn't Mitsuki's business. Masaru reminded her of this time and time again, so she buckled up, tried to be a good mom even if her instincts screeched like a banshee, and flung pebbles into the constantly whirring cogs in her brain. And she succeeded for the most part up until now.
Every damn one of those pebbles crumble to dust as the cogs creak and groan, rusty with disuse, though they slowly build momentum.
She knows Izuku's voice like the back of her hand. It wasn't him. Katsuki's other best friend, Eijirou, has never shown a speck of attitude. Nothing like this at least.
Mitsuki wonders if Katsuki will be more forthcoming in sign language. She gives it a shot, jamming a finger at the shower room and asking, "Who?"
Katsuki continues his campaign to shut her down. This time, he refuses out loud and in sign language before jamming his own finger at the front door. He fervently — and rudely, in Mitsuki's humble opinion — waves goodbye.
Unsurprised in the slightest, Mitsuki huffs and turns on her heel. She stumbles over those shitty boots that caught her eye earlier. She can't resist the temptation to work in some metaphorical cheek pinching.
"Well, whoever that is has no idea how to take care of leather," Mitsuki says tartly and loudly. "I never thought my brat would have such shitty taste."
Hopefully Katsuki's shower pal feels a spot of shame and nurses those poor boots back to health. As of right now, Katsuki seems to be feeling enough shame for two; his neck looks hot enough to light a cigarette.
"Wait," Katsuki says as Mitsuki goes to leave, and the second she whirls around to face him once more, he scrunches his nose in indignation. The knee-jerk reaction to Mitsuki's undivided attention melts away before long. "There's some oatmeal in the fridge. You wanna take it to go?"
Of course Mitsuki wants the oatmeal. Her kid's a stubborn brat who knows how to keep secrets, apparently, but he makes damn good food.
Katsuki sighs and carefully, with untrusting eyes, relinquishes the door handle he was clinging to for dear life. He pops into the kitchen to presumably grab the oatmeal, stuffs a chilled mason jar with colorful layers of fruit into Mitsuki's waiting hands, and shepherds her towards the door like she's an unruly dog at daycare.
The last thing he mutters under his breath before he shuts the door in her face is something along the lines of "I'll cook dinner this weekend, alright?" but it sounds a lot like a "love you, Mom, and thanks for leaving when I asked," to Mitsuki.
Fine, fine. Mitsuki's cheek-pinching can wait a few more days. And until then. . .
She scrambles for her phone and calls Masaru. Katsuki's oatmeal will pair nicely with some parental gossip.