Chapter Text
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“Well, Mrs. Bakugou, I’m afraid that’s just not possible.”
Mitsuki clenches her teeth, eyes tracking the attorney as she collects some papers together and taps them gently against the desk. In her lap, Mitsuki’s keys are making little indents in her delicate palms, and she forces herself to unclench her fingers before they start to bleed.
“You told me that missing person reports could be filed for children that were taken unwillingly or without consent from the parents, yes?” She insists. “How does that not apply to this situation?”
Tsuchida takes a breath, adjusting her gold-rimmed glasses up on her face. In the pale light of her office, the wrinkles on her face appear stark and distracting. “Well, when I looked into your son’s status within our legal system, it was clear that a petition had already been filed for the court to review. That makes things more complicated.”
Mitsuki’s eyes narrow. “A petition?”
“Yes. It’s usually filled out by a social worker right after removing a child from their household,” She explains. “After that, the case gets sent to dependency court, where the parents can fight for the right to regain custody.”
Something unpleasant curdles in Mitsuki’s stomach, and she leans back harshly in her seat. The leather squeaks, protesting.
She grits her teeth.
It’s been nearly two weeks since Katsuki stormed out of the house that night. Fourteen days, six of which she spent sleeping completely alone in an empty house, shattered porcelain still scattered on the kitchen floor.
She was used to coming home and seeing Katsuki’s light turned off - when they weren’t fighting, he was normally out training or squirreled away in his room moping about one thing or another.
Mitsuki was used to Katsuki’s efforts of avoidance. Loud curses. Broken door frames. Shattered glass. Locked doors.
She was not used to dead silence.
It unnerved her. Made her want to fill the empty space with her own voice. At some point, it had gotten to be too much - she tore Katsuki’s room apart on the eighth day. Screaming and yelling and throwing things until Masaru had found her nearly an hour later, sitting in the middle of it all with loose hair and a blotchy face.
He cleaned up the kitchen, too. She never found where he threw away all the broken porcelain.
Mitsuki had told herself the next day that none of it mattered. It couldn’t. She was busy enough with work - Katsuki had chosen to pull this bullshit right before one of their most influential and important galas of the entire fiscal year. She didn’t have enough time to care about it.
That’s what she said, anyway. Why else would she be sitting in this stupid office talking about custody rights, if it didn't matter at all to her?
Her phone was ringing off the hook, but instead of taking care of what really mattered she was here, staring at two gigantic fake plants and a little bowl of jelly beans on her attorney's desk. Not to mention Tsuchida herself, who was wearing a somewhat expensive, ugly suit jacket that had to be at least ten years old.
It was all a joke. A sick fucking joke.
Katsuki had always had the worst timing, ever since he was born. He’d popped out two months early, screaming and utterly unconsolable. He gave her no warning. She’d nearly given birth on the fucking floor in the tiny cubicle that had been her office, and it was a miracle she made it to the hospital at all.
At the time, Mitsuki had mostly been relieved to know that her baby was healthy, especially after such a rough pregnancy and an early delivery. She’d also found it hilarious that even just minutes out of the womb, Katsuki had already managed to challenge her own stubborn, obnoxious personality with his own.
Now, she wonders if the early delivery and inconsolable nature of her son had been a warning for all the trouble he would cause her for the next sixteen years of his life.
Mitsuki’s phone buzzes again in her pocket, and she breaks herself out of her reverie. “Is there anything that could make this petition invalid? Or are we past that point.”
Her attorney hums. “Well, the person that filed this petition was very consistent in following protocol. They filed it within two days of the initial removal, which is within the legal time limit, and they properly outlined their evidence-”
“What evidence?” Mitsuki snaps. Tsuchida raises an eyebrow at her, and Mitsuki forcibly restrains herself even as she feels that familiar burn of frustration underneath her skin. She adjusts her phone and keys in her lap.
“Surely one injury - and an accidental one at that - is not enough to count as evidence for abuse. Is our system that broken?”
“Your son apparently gave a statement,” Tsuchida replies. Her gray eyes are stony and difficult to read. “It goes back several years, and is detailed enough that the court was willing to accept it. There are also some additional statements from two separate adults.”
Two separate adults? You’ve got to be joking, Mitsuki thinks. Who was spineless enough to go with whatever bullshit that was spewing out of Katsuki’s mouth?
A certain green-haired woman flashes through her mind, and Mitsuki’s jaw presses so tight that one of her teeth whines in protest.
Fuck.
When Katsuki had been a child, Mitsuki had often left him at Inko’s because of their busy schedules and her inability to afford child care at the time. Inko hadn’t minded. If anything, she liked looking after the boys together, which - good for her. Mitsuki didn’t envy that responsibility one bit.
Katsuki always seemed to enjoy himself at their house. Maybe a little...too much.
Whenever she got Katsuki back after a day at Inko’s, her son was always so - so chatty, talking about a million different things that they had gotten to watch or play or auntie let us explore in the park today and we cooked ramen together and did you know that Izuku doesn’t have to do his own laundry? and why don’t we ever cook together and can you teach me how to do this?
(The answer was no. It was always no.)
It was like Katsuki soaked up all the soppy bullshit from the Midoriya house every time he visited. And if that wasn’t enough, getting Katsuki back always came with Inko's comments.
Inko seemed so obnoxiously determined to critique every single aspect of Mitsuki’s parenting, just like everyone else in her goddamn life.
Mitsuki heard enough of it at work. From her husband. Her husband’s family. People on the street, in the grocery store. Every single fucking person was so invested, as if she wasn’t capable of handling her own kid.
Inko always told Mitsuki a bunch of bullshit after she picked her son up, like Katsuki was “prone to getting overwhelmed” and that he “needed a softer hand”.
It was embarrassing. If not for Mitsuki, then it certainly was for Inko. Essentially, all she was saying was that Mitsuki's kid was a fucking wuss, and Inko hadn’t had enough of a spine to defend herself against Katsuki’s tantrums.
Mitsuki resists the urge to sneer. If anyone was a perfect example of how to not raise your kid, it was Inko’s brat. The kid fluctuated randomly between being completely unhinged and crying like a newborn baby. Well adjusted her ass.
(Something reminds her that it was her child that had to be restrained to the sports festival podium after throwing another one of his fits, but she forcibly shoves the thought away.
She can’t take responsibility for Katsuki’s mistakes. He had decided to stop listening to her years ago, and that simply isn’t her fault.)
“Do we know the names of the adults who submitted a statement?” Mitsuki asks, settling back into her seat. She doubts that Inko was bold enough to actually speak out against her, because she’d known that woman since college, and not once had she been able to compete with Mitsuki’s temper.
Well, mostly. She frowns as she watches her attorney flip through the huge binder on her desk.
Tsuchida bites her lip briefly, eyeing one page. Mitsuki wonders why the hell the woman had gone through the trouble of printing it all out - everything was digital these days. “No,” her attorney eventually replies. “It’s undisclosed. That information will be provided by the court when the hearings begin.”
“How do you advise we approach this, then?” Mitsuki crosses her arms, irritated. “If I don’t know who filed the information or who said what, how can I defend myself?"
She huffs, lip curling. “If it were up to me, I’d just go after the one who filed the petition and make an accusation about their career, or personal life. Ruin their credibility.”
Her attorney looks up at her. “This isn’t a public case, Mrs. Bakugou. I’m sure that might work if you’re dealing with celebrities or public figures, but this case has to be handled professionally within the court. It’s not a publicity stunt.”
“I know that,” Mitsuki asserts, leaning forward. “And I also know the man who took ‘protective custody’” -she air quotes- “of my son is a registered pro-hero and a teacher at UA. You’re really gonna argue that he’s not at least partially a public figure? Please.”
She leans back into her seat with crossed arms. “UA has already received an unprecedented amount of negative press in the past two years - god knows why my son still attends - and I don’t think it would be that much of a stretch to accuse this teacher of some kind of wrongdoing. Ineffectiveness, negligence, perversion…”
Tsuchida taps her fingers on the desk in a cascading rhythm, tilting her head slightly. Somewhere on the wall, a clock ticks.
“I see your point, but I’m not sure using it as our main strategy would be all that wise. In the court of law, accusing someone of wrongdoing - especially someone who has been very diligent about following protocol - can backfire if you have no actual evidence. It makes you seem as if you are hiding things.” She gestures dismissively. “A red herring, if you’re familiar with the term.”
Mitsuki narrows her eyes. “I’m aware of the term, thank you. Although, I must ask - are you really arguing that court cases aren’t about the way that you frame things? You and I both know that law is not about who’s right, it’s about who can play the game.”
“Maybe so.” Tsuchida watches her for a moment, silent, before moving to gently set aside her binder.
“In any case, I’d like to approach this as if I did not waste the past thirty-five years of my life studying a law system that can be manipulated like a game. Call me traditional.”
Mitsuki’s left eyelid twitches, a reminder of all the sleepless nights she’s had this past week.
“Okay, fine,” She snaps. “But I know you’ve looked into that stupid file of yours, and you should be well aware of how high-profile my family is. Not just my position or my husband’s position within our respective industries, but also Katsuki’s history with villainous activity and his status as a UA student. This isn’t going to be simple, straightforward, or - or traditional.”
She pauses to take a breath, voice tight. Her eyes meet Tsuchida’s, and she allows some moisture to pool into her waterline.
“This isn’t - isn’t some little petty squabble within my family,” she pleads. “This is bigger than that. It’s going to affect my career, it’ll effect my son’s career, and I-”
A loud sigh cuts through her words. Tsuchida pulls her gold-rimmed glasses off with a quick, controlled movement, folding them neatly in her hands. “Mrs. Bakugou, can I be frank with you for just a moment?”
Mitsuki feigns a sniff, wiping the edge of her eye discreetly. “Fine,” She says, gesturing impatiently. “Go ahead.”
“Do you want to win this case?” Her attorney asks quietly. “Or do you want your son back?”
The question makes Mitsuki recoil, confused. “What? What kind of question is that, of course I want to win this case,” she scoffs. “Winning the case means that he ends up in my custody, right?”
Tsuchida sucks on her lip obnoxiously. “Well, technically, yes. It’s just that…” Her fancy manicured nails tap a few times against the lens of her glasses in her hands, and she lets out a breath.
“When I'm working with new clients in these family cases, they are often unable to separate their professional life from their personal life. Their loved ones mean so much to them that it seeps into our conversations, and I hear about birthday parties and awkward teenage mistakes and memories from when they were children.
"And, well, despite all the time we've spent together, I don't think I've ever heard you speak of your son in a positive light. Not even once." She shrugs, pulling her chair closer to the edge of the desk and folding her hands on the dark wood. Her eyes are unreadable.
“What’s his personality like? What are his hobbies, his friends? What do you admire or love about him? These are questions I would be unable to answer, even after sitting with you for several hours on multiple occasions.”
Mitsuki opens her mouth to reply, eyebrows drawn and face stiff with fury, but she finds herself pausing instead, seeing something rising in the depths of her attorney’s cold, gray eyes.
“So - I’ll ask you again, Mrs. Bakugou. Do you care about your son?" She pauses, her dreadful eyes picking Mitsuki apart like a piece of rotten meat. “Or do you just care about being right?”
Mitsuki goes stock still. Her lungs burn, sucking air like gasoline.
When Katsuki was a bit younger, maybe ten or eleven, Mitsuki had been at that stage in her career where working overtime wasn’t considered extra, it was mandatory. Nine, ten, eleven pm - by the time she got home, Katsuki was usually already in bed.
Since that was practically the only time she got to speak with him, she wasn’t shy about bursting the door open and waking him up - on one notable occasion, she’d actually dragged him physically down the stairs to inquire about his mid-season exams.
He’d since learned how to lock her out, and the effort of trying to muscle her way into his bedroom had ceased being worthwhile.
Mitsuki didn’t give up, though. She just switched tactics.
Katsuki was a growing teenager with a quirk that took a lot of thermal energy to power. Mitsuki knew that he hid a stash of packaged, non-perishable foods in his room, but it wasn’t enough to live off of. Even at night, he had to eat within a certain interval to maintain his muscle mass - he was just in the habit of waiting until she was in bed to sneak downstairs and grab a snack.
She learned to wait.
On one such night, during Katsuki’s first year of highschool, she caught him just as he took his first few steps down the stairs. Leant up against the living room wall with crossed arms, she pointed to the couch.
“Sit.”
At the sight of her across the room, paperwork folded under one arm, her son’s face fell. He moved to go back upstairs. “For fuck’s sake-”
“Katsuki.” His back froze, one foot on the top step. “Don’t make me ask again.”
She could see his chest moving, up, down, deciding on whether or not he wanted to be difficult, up, down, deciding if it was worth it to fight her when it was already past midnight and they were both exhausted.
After a moment, his shoulders slumped in defeat.
“Fine.”
Mitsuki watched him descend the stairs, dropping reluctantly on each step. This late at night, there were long shadows inching across the room, blues and grays and blacks, all sloping over the furniture like thick paint. The only respite was the tiny hallway light and the street lamp outside.
When Katsuki shoved himself into the corner of the couch, pressed up against the armrest, he didn’t look at her. Instead, he elected for glaring a hole in the window across the room, hair pale and shiny in the faint glow from the street lamp.
A few seconds passed by, heavy, suffocating. Cold. Katsuki’s chest was still moving slightly too fast, eyebrows furrowed deep.
“You gonna make me bring it up?” She asked, shifting against the wall. “Really?”
Katsuki’s eyes finally met hers, hand clenched on the edge of the couch cushion. “You’re the one who wanted to talk,” he muttered. “How the fuck am I supposed to know what pissed you off this time?”
She laughed quietly, rubbing one knuckle into her eye. Her make up was still there from a long day at work, and she could feel how gritty her mascara was against her skin. She plucked a loose eyelash from her waterline. “Your teacher sent out the grades and attendance records from this semester.”
He froze. Seeing that, she folded her arms and raised an eyebrow at him. “Sound familiar?”
Katsuki took a second more before he shrugged half-heartedly, seemingly unaffected. She couldn’t help the amusement that rose up when she saw that his hands were starting to tremble.
He crossed his arms, glaring up at her. “What the fuck does it matter, anyway? Can’t believe you woke me up fo-”
“Technically,” she interrupted, “you were already awake. And second, I can’t believe you forgot about this, considering you’ve got” -she scanned the first paper in her hand- “twelve recorded absences during this semester alone. Three more and you would have been put on probation, Katsuki. That’s unacceptable.”
“Six of those were for injuries,” Katsuki snapped. “Four were excused by Aizawa himself. So you can fuck right off with-”
“Probation, Katsuki,” Mitsuki repeated, shaking the paper for emphasis. “I came home from a long fucking day at work only to be told that my son was slacking off so much at his fucking private hero school that he was three days away from being suspended-”
There was a quiet scoff. “I wouldn’t have been suspended, none of those were unexcused-”
“Can you count?” She snapped. “You only mentioned six and four, and you know what that makes, Katsuki?” Derision dripped from her words like sweet honey. “It makes ten. What happened during those other two absences, huh?”
She threw the papers, letting them scatter all over the table in front of them. Katsuki watched them flutter into a haphazard pile and flinched when she took a step closer.
“God, Katsuki. We’ve done our best to support you and your hero career, and it’s shit like this that makes me wonder why we do it at all. Number one hero, huh. With this behavior?” She snorted.
Katsuki turned his head away and muttered something to the side, arms crossed tight over his chest. One of his wrists was bandaged.
“What was that?”
He turned back to her, red eyes furious and shiny in the darkness of the room. “I had a relapse, okay?” He huffed. “Lost my shit and didn’t tell my teachers. They marked it as unexcused ‘cause I wasn’t there for two days.” A pause. “Happy?”
Mitsuki leaned back, feigning surprise. “Oh, so you skipped school because you weren’t feeling well. Okay, great. That sets a great precedent for the rest of your life, when you’re tired and you don’t want to go to work-”
Katsuki’s face twisted. “Oh, fuck you. That’s not at all-”
“What’s your boss gonna say, huh?” She insisted. “You don’t get free passes, Katsuki, not ever. Your father and I have always wanted you to go to school. Be successful. Get a good start on your career, marry a nice girl with some money. You know why?”
Fuming, Katsuki said nothing. His jaw was jutted to the side, the streetlight highlighting a fresh new scar on the edge of his jugular. A vicious part of her reveled at the sight of it. The strength it showed.
“We want you to be successful because we care about you. This” -she points to the papers, scattered around the living room table and blotted with red ink- “is just not acceptable! It’s reckless, quite frankly.”
Mitsuki leaned back, breathing hard. A hand ran through her hair, sending spikes everywhere. She glared at the papers, frustrated and hating the fact she had to do this at all, when a cracked whisper had her head jerking up once more.
“Bullshit.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Excuse me?”
Katsuki repeated himself, voice firm. “I said, bullshit.” He removed a hand from his crossed arms to gesture shortly at the mess on the floor. “If you really cared about me you wouldn’t be doin’ any of this shit.”
Mitsuki straightened up and sneered. “You think that us wanting you to do well and asking about how you’re doing in school means that we don’t care? What kind of backwards fucking planet do you live on?”
"Do you fucking hear yourself?" He stood up from his position on the couch, stepping closer to her and clenching his fists. “You come home every goddamn night to yell at me about unimportant shit like this, and then you don’t even bother to ask-”
“Unimportant shit? Katsuki these are your fucking grades that you’re thowing away! You’re lucky I’m not beating your fucking ass right now!”
To her disgust, he spat on the papers to her right. She growled at his disrespect, reaching out to grab him by his shirt, but he dodged and stepped around the table. His next words were loud and obnoxious despite the late hour.
“You didn’t even ask why I relapsed, you fucking cunt!” He snarled, eyes wild. They were nearly purple in the faded light, a sickly, angry sort of color. “I bet you know my fucking student ID better than you know me as a person, for god’s sake!”
For a moment, the shadows seemed to curl over his shoulders, deepening the scars and rippled lines of muscle on his arms. His hands sparked like an exposed wire, and Mitsuki saw it.
She saw the beast he was on the battlefield. Saw the villian people had always teased that he would become. Saw her son, standing above the rest, with a bloodthirsty glint to his eye and a burning, vindictive palm.
It made her heart pound in her throat, loud and demanding. Proud of his strength, maybe, but…scared, too.
“What’s my favorite book, huh?” He demanded, fists clenched. “The names of my friends? What do you think I do, when I’m not studying or doing chores for you like - like a fucking dog, looking for treats?”
“You’d be more well behaved if you were a dog,” Mitsuki snarled, the itching in her arms starting to get irresistible. When she reached out a second time to grab his shirt, she succeeded, yanking him towards her.
He squirmed in her grip, the cotton of his shirt stretching under her fingers. She growls, "You listen to me right now - "
"No!" He didn’t, obviously, and attempted to wrestle away from her grip instead. “To you, I’m just some - some fucking prop, made to supplement your own ego and superiority complex!” He spat, eyes burning. “Fuck you!”
Too-hot fingers wrenched at her own. Her eyes widened.
SLAP.
Their heavy breathing was loud in the silence that followed, her son’s head hanging low.
Upstairs, she could hear the creaking of the house’s wooden paneling as Masaru walked down the hallway, debating on whether or not to intervene. As per fucking usual, he hesitated at the top of the stairwell.
She scowled, looking back at her son. His cheekbone was already starting to turn lavender-pink in the faded light of the street lamp, his chest heaving.
“I raised you to be strong,” Mitsuki said, voice tight, shoving Katsuki away and out of her grip. He didn't resist.
“I raised you so that you would be successful and so that you wouldn’t have to work your way up from fucking ground zero like I did. You know what my mother did when I was your age, Katsuki?”
When he didn’t reply, she growled, “Nothing. She did absolutely fucking nothing. I raised myself and my two brothers and then I left so I could be successful on my own. I didn’t whine. I didn’t complain. And I most certainly did not miss twelve fucking days of school. Neither did your father.”
Her son’s face was still turned away from her, chest heaving, hidden by the thin spikes of his hair. A pale imitation of her own.
For a moment, she studied the planes of his face, the shape of his eyes and cheekbones, wondering at the fact that this young man was hers. Had come from her womb. It was strange. Absurd, almost.
Sixteen years, she wonders. Sixteen fucking years.
Although she had been an incredibly successful young woman in her early twenties, she hadn’t been immune to the wants and desires of a normal life. She had crawled her way up the ladder, with a wealthy, skilled husband and a company with her fucking name on it. Mitsuki finally didn’t have to care for anybody but herself, and -
It was hollow. She wouldn’t have ever admitted it, but all that spiked up rage never served to make her feel any warmer. The company was her life. That’s all she had. And it was good, but…
Mitsuki wasn’t infallible. Of course she saw those mothers on the street, with their babies all done up in sweet little bonnets, big golden retrievers that bounced alongside strollers with a big smile on their stupid faces and groups of parents that walked the park every morning. The mothers always seemed to glow, soft and rounded and not so - sharp.
Those babies looked up at their mothers like she was their whole world, and some deadened part of Mitsuki had whispered - I wish someone would look at me like that.
What would it feel like, to be on the other end of someone’s unconditional love? To be someone’s whole world?
People had told her that she would be a terrible mother.
Her colleagues had shamed her for wanting time off for maternity leave, way back when. Her, a fiery independant woman with a nasty, cruel streak? The most productive member of their team? The woman set to be the leader of their company? Leaving to become a mother? They laughed at her, thinking she was making some stupid joke.
She did it anyway.
If anything, she wanted to prove that they were wrong and she was capable of all the shit they denied she had. Love. Warmth. Motherly instinct. She would prove that she could be the best at anything she set her mind to.
Katsuki was born almost a year and half later, after many failed pregnancies and several hospital visits.
And sure, there were some nice aspects about having a kid of her own - he was a cute baby, and people seemed to fawn over him at every moment, congratulating her on such a beautiful baby. He was a bit fussy, a little colicky, but otherwise a dream.
As he got older, however, Mitsuki had realized very quickly that motherhood was not honoring or fulfilling as she had hoped.
It was just unpaid labor.
As a toddler, Katsuki had been so unbelievably picky and ungrateful about a number of different things, from clothing to food to noises to friends to god knows what else. He was mean as a child. Stubborn. And if things weren’t going his way, he’d throw a fit, and somehow that ended up being her fault. As if it was her fault that her son had a shitty temper and cried over the stupidest things.
It was miserable. And, as he’d grown older into a teenager, the attitude problems had only gotten worse.
Mitsuki couldn’t even stand being around her son, now. Just being in the same room with him was infuriating - every time she looked at him, she’d see all the nasty points of his personality, all the ways he’d refused to respect her or listen. He was a loose cannon wearing her face.
She hated it. Hated staring at him and seeing a worse version of herself, hated seeing her own failure.
If his own mother couldn’t stand him, then what hope did he have to survive in the real world, anyway? Obviously, it was her responsibility to remedy that. To scrub all the spoiled, disrespectful aspects of his personality away until he would finally just listen and act normal.
Looking at her son now, she wondered if that was even possible anymore.
(If she was the origin of the mistake in the first place, how could she hope to fix it? She doesn’t even know what she did wrong.)
“Go upstairs, Katsuki,” Mitsuki ordered, swallowing. A headache was starting to ping between her eyes, the long day catching up with her. She needed a drink. “I don’t wanna see this shit ever again, you hear me?”
Katsuki growled a curse under his breath, not even gracing her with real words. He made quick work of the living room and the stairs and then he was gone, brushing right past her husband in the hallway. The coward.
Mitsuki sighed and looked down at the papers on the table. After a moment, she collected them into a neat pile, left them on the kitchen counter and strode off to bed. Masaru made an effort to ask her if he could help with anything, but she stayed quiet and turned her back.
She fell asleep with her makeup still sticky on her face, the words of her son swirling around in her head.
I bet you know my fucking student ID better than you know me as a person!
If only he knew.
After that, she had never been able to catch Katsuki at night ever again. In fact, she stopped receiving those attendance records at all. Some part of her had always wondered if he had sabotaged their mail somehow so that she would no longer receive them.
Do you even care about your son?
Staring at the papers scattered on the dark wooden desk of her attorney, Mitsuki wonders why the fuck she’s even here. Wonders why she bothers doing anything, when people were so insistent on pointing out her supposed faults at every turn.
What is a mother supposed to do, when someone accuses her of not loving her own child? What is she supposed to do when she hesitates to reply?
Katsuki’s voice echoes back at her from that night nearly two weeks ago, right before everything had gone to hell.
I don’t have to be grateful for jack shit, considering you can’t do the one thing that mothers are supposed to be good at!
Mitsuki feels her neck twitch. She doesn’t know what she’s supposed to do. She doesn’t know. Was that a crime? Were mothers always supposed to know what to do, what to say!?
Of course she cared. She had to care. Of course she wanted him back, of course she knew who he was -
“He’s my son,” she answers numbly, staring at Tsuchida. Her hands feel unsteady in her lap, for some reason, and she fiddles slightly with the ring on her finger. “I- I made him, how would I not know my own son?”
Across from her, her attorney shrugs delicately. “You tell me,” she says.
The clock on the wall is ticking incessantly in Mitsuki’s ear, like some kind of insect. With a harsh gong! it strikes the top of the hour, and Mitsuki has to repress a flinch.
“I want to win this case,” she decides, clenching the keys in her palms once more and evenly meeting the eyes of her attorney. “I want my son back. And goddammit, you’re gonna get it done, because I asked you to.”
“Okay.”
Mitsuki stares down the old woman across the desk, eyebrows narrowing into an expression she knows intimidates her interns. “Are you saying you won’t help me?”
Tsuchida takes a breath and shifts her paperwork around. “No, I'm just saying that if you actually want to win this case, Mrs. Bakugou, you'll need to start thinking of him and not yourself. I’ll help you, but you need to help yourself first.”
Mitsuki growls, about to rebuke her, but Tsuchida gives her no chance.
“Nobody in the court will have a single ounce of sympathy for a selfish mother,” She says, eying her over the rim of her glasses. “Too many of us were raised with those, and we know exactly how terrible they can be. Maybe you can relate, I don’t know.”
With that, Mitsuki watches her as she gets up from her chair and walks to the file cabinet, tucking away the binder in a sea of similarly colored binders. She gestures to the closed door with a paper in hand, not offering Mitsuki another glance.
“Now get out of my office, we’re fifteen minutes over. I’ll see you on Wednesday.” She pauses. “Oh, and happy new year, by the way.”
Mitsuki makes sure to slam the door on her way out.
—
The week after Bakugou’s first night goes more or less smoothly, requiring little intervention on Aizawa’s part. After about four days, it seemed like Hitoshi and Bakugou had come to some kind of agreement about driving the rest of the household crazy, because whenever they were both home the bickering was endless.
He'd even caught them wrestling on the living room floor like street cats, for god's sake.
It wasn’t always noisy, though. Aizawa had come home late from patrol multiple times to find Bakugou asleep on the couch - when he asked Hitoshi about it, his son had just shrugged. “Exhaustion finally caught up with him, maybe. Not sure.”
(He’d then quietly asked him to go fetch Bakugou’s blanket, to which Hitoshi replied, “He explicitly told me not to touch his stuff, so, like, you can grab it if you wan-” “Hitoshi.” “....okay, fine, but if he explodes my face off tomorrow I’m saying it wasn't my idea.”
Concerned about the kid freezing overnight but not wanting to be overbearing, they left the blanket folded on the end of the couch. They needn’t have worried, though, because Aizawa found Bakugou fully wrapped in his blanket on the couch the next morning, snug as a bug.
Bakugou had given them a few suspicious looks the rest of the day but he did not, in fact, explode Hitoshi’s face off.)
If anything, Aizawa was just relieved to see that the kid was finally starting to settle in and trust the rest of the household. It was no small thing to show your more vulnerable state to others, and him being able to fall asleep at all in an open space meant things were getting better. Aizawa was almost proud of him.
Stopping in front of their front door, Aizawa sighs, rotating through his key ring with cold fingers. They make little clinks against each other as he fishes out the correct key and jams it into the lock.
“I’m home,” He calls, shrugging off his coat and toeing off his boots once he closes the door. He didn’t normally work Saturday afternoons, but they’d called him in to do some administrative work and discuss the custody arrangements.
Apparently, there’d been a development.
Hizashi appears quickly in the entryway, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek and pushing a mug of coffee into Aizawa’s hands.
“Welcome home, I was just about to get started on dinner - did you want to sit down? I cleared out all the paperwork from earlier so the table’s free.”
Aizawa sighs, blinking tiredly at his coffee and trying to keep up with his husband’s chatter. After taking a hesitant, exhausted sip, he replies, "Thanks. And yeah, sure.”
Once he’s settled at the kitchen table, shoulders covered with a blanket and head resting on a propped up fist, Aizawa watches his husband pull out the vegetables and beef from the fridge. One potato nearly escapes off the cutting board, but Hizashi saves it with a quick motion and a snort.
“I saw your text earlier, by the way,” He says, moving to unwrap the butcher paper from the beef. He eyes Aizawa over the edge of his glasses. “Did you tell Bakugou too?”
Aizawa nods. “Yeah, I texted him that we’d likely have to talk about some court stuff tonight. Asked him if he wanted to do it before or after dinner.”
“And? What’d he say?”
Shifting in his chair and taking a deep breath, Aizawa shakes his head. One of his hands shifts to rub a knot in his left shoulder.
“Didn’t get a response. Probably need talk to him soon, though.”
“Well,” Hizashi bounces his shoulders, lips perked into a hopeful smile. “He normally pops in here just before dinner, so you might see him soon. If not then, we can do it whenever he decides he's ready." Aizawa grunts in acknowledgement.
The kitchen echoes with the sound of steady, even chopping, Hizashi’s movements precise as he cuts the beef into bite-sized pieces. He starts to hum a song, pleasant, and Aizawa can feel it as the air begins to warm from the heat of the stove.
A long breath escapes from his chest, heavy.
December was slowly chipping away, and soon, it would be January.
They had only a week or so before they returned to school, and both him and Hizashi had spent the past few days pouring over lesson plans, making assignments, communicating with the school and updating social services about the ongoing court case. In addition to all of that, both of them had work, with Aizawa working several night shifts and Hizashi leaving early to manage his radio show.
Aizawa may be famous for his tired face, but both him and his husband’s eye bags were starting to look eerily similar. His joints have also picked up an endless, edgy ache that won’t leave him, and Hizashi’s tinnitus has been particularly bad - suffice to say, they’re exhausted.
It wasn’t the first time they’d had to do something like this, though. Many of their foster placements had come at odd or otherwise inconvenient times, and they were forced to manage a lot of moving parts on top of doing the best they could to provide stability and comfort to kids that really needed it.
They knew where their priorities lay, though.
He was an adult. So was Hizashi. And they chose to do all of this, to make sure that each kid received the care that they needed. They had brought them into this home with the knowledge of what they’d signed up for.
Kids had no say in how they were born, raised, or treated in a home. Their parents made that choice.
Hizashi and Aizawa could not take back or fix what their kids’ biological parents had done, of course, but they were determined to give the very best care they could give. They made the choice to be a parent to them, no matter their exhaustion, pain or their other responsibilities.
But by god does Aizawa’s back hurt, just thinking about all the shit he’s gotta get done before January 1st.
Not to mention the conversation he needed to have with Bakugou…he rubs at his spine absentmindedly, wondering if he was gonna have to break out the meloxicam just to sleep tonight.
He’s pulled out of his thoughts by movement in the hallway, a subtle creaking as footsteps shift from the carpet to the wooden paneling of the kitchen. Both of them look up as Bakugou slips into the room, moving to place a cup in the sink.
When he turns around, he raises an eyebrow at Aizawa as if to say, what are you looking at?
Aizawa resists the urge to snort, head still propped up on his fist. “Hey, kid.”
Bakugou grunts at him in greeting, eyeing the plethora of ingredients set out on the countertop. “You makin’ curry?”
“Yup!” Hizashi beams, before his lips twitch into a sly grin. “You know how to make it?”
He gets a scoff in return, his student almost offended at the question. “Of course I fuckin’ do. It’s one of my favorite dishes.”
“Awesome! Well, if you want, you can help me with the veggies, maybe? We can make the sauce next.” Hizashi says, gesturing over to the cutting board. Behind him, meat sizzles and spits in the pan.
Bakugou looks like he’s considering it, but instead of moving towards the cutting board like usual he narrows his eyes and glances over at Aizawa.
“Didn’t you wanna talk about some shit? You sent a text earlier.”
Aizawa’s eyebrows lift. “I did. Did you want to talk about it now? We can do that, if you want, but it doesn’t have to be now.”
There’s a slightly skeptical look on Bakugou’s face, but he grunts a quick “‘s whatever” and moves to pick up one of their knives. He tests the balance, shifting his grip a few times, before he grabs an onion and starts chopping it with an ease that that only comes from hours of work.
He's wearing one of his signature tank tops despite the cold, the tanned skin of his shoulders and arms on full display. Aizawa is relieved to see that the bruise on Bakugou’s temple seems to be fading. It’s still yellow and slightly swollen, but it no longer had that sickly blue-black color of a fresh injury.
After a few moments of quiet chopping, Bakugou looks back up at them. “So?” He huffs. “Start talking.”
Aizawa and Hizashi share an amused look behind Bakugou’s back, Hizashi giving his husband a wink. He rolls his eyes in return.
Hizashi had told him a few days ago that Bakugou had a habit of hovering during meal times. Not that he got in the way - he just liked to poke around and watch, maybe ask a few pointed questions about the recipe or the techniques used. He had a good taste for spices, too, and Hizashi always enjoyed asking him for taste tests.
At first, the kid had refused to get involved, making some rather bold statements about how cooks should know how to do everything on their own (Hizashi was slightly pleased to be referred to as a ‘cook’), but eventually Bakugou had caved. Helping out in the kitchen seemed to relax him, something about getting his hands moving and his brain focused on something physical.
No reason not to use that sense of calm to their advantage during a tough conversation, he thinks.
“I got called into the office today, mostly for some paperwork and statements,” Aizawa starts, clearing his throat and leaning back into his chair. He keeps his voice in a drawl and his posture relaxed.
“I also got a chance to receive an update on the court situation. Who’s involved, the timing of it all, that sort of thing.”
Bakugou frowns, pale eyebrows pinching, but he doesn’t pause in his chopping.The onions don’t seem to be affecting him at all, moving from one to the next with no issue. “They have a date yet?”
"Wednesday is the initial hearing," Aizawa answers, watching him. "Are you aware of what happens at each stage?”
His student brushes the onions into a bowl, movements choppy. Hizashi takes the bowl and pours it in with the beef, the air flush with the scent of it all.
Bakugou’s face twists a little. “I did my research, I’m not stupid.” A pause. “But you can go over it again, if you want. I don’t care.”
Aizawa’s lips twitch. “Well, to sum, the initial hearing is mostly used to inform the involved parties of the general proceedings, as well as give the parents a chance to look at the petition. The jurisdiction hearing, which will take place in about two weeks, is when when the court decides if the allegations are true.”
Technically, the petition could be dismissed during the initial hearing, mostly if it had little evidence or seemed unreasonable, but Aizawa was pretty confident that they'd progress through that stage just fine. Especially considering the contents of said petition.
Really, if any stage was going to be difficult, it was going to be the jurisdictional hearing. That's when Mitsuki would be able to lay out her argument.
Aizawa thinks he can speak for everyone when he says that nobody was really looking forward to that.
An irritated, beady red eye fixes onto Aizawa. “What is it that you want me to do, then?” Bakugou moves onto the carrots, little dime sized slices lining up on the wood. “School starts on Monday.”
From his position near the stove, Hizashi bites his lip and looks over at Bakugou.
“It’s not necessarily about what we want you to do, kiddo," He says. "The purpose of this conversation is mostly to inform you of what’s happening and to discuss what you might need from us during it all.”
Somehow, his explanation only serves to make Bakugou’s face twist even further. “What would I need from you? I can handle myself just fine, and I don’t - ” He clenches his jaw shut, scowling.
Hizashi and Aizawa share a look.
Bakugou was acting a little more defensive than they’d expected. Usually, kids in his situation were scared - he probably was, too, but it almost seemed like he thought they expected him to do something or take care of the court situation on his own. Which was…not what they were trying to say at all.
It reminds Aizawa a little of how Bakugou had acted in the hospital room ages ago, his knee jerk reaction being a snappy comment and a defensive shove. Learned behavior was hard to shake, and he knows that it’s just another thing that’s going to take time.
“We know you’re capable, Bakugou,” Aizawa says, keeping his voice low and relaxed. Bakugou watches him, red eyes dark, shoulders slightly hunched.
“In fact, you’ve bounced back from things that would have probably wrecked anyone else. I know that you would be able to handle this on your own.”
Aizawa stops, meeting Bakugou’s gaze. “But you shouldn’t have to. That’s the point, kid. We have your back.”
Bakugou scoffs, finally breaking eye contact and looking down at the countertop with stiff shoulders.
“We’re your teachers, and so if at any point you feel that you need an extension on an assignment or a day off from school, we can discuss how to go about that,” Hizashi adds. “We can also talk about how to support you emotionally throughout the court hearings.”
Bakugou actually pauses at that, looking a bit confused. “You’d be okay with me ditching school for that shit? Are you serious?”
“Within reason, sure!” Hizashi replies. As he talks, he moves to stir the garlic and ginger in with the beef and onions. Bakugou watches, frowning.
“We don’t want to see you get behind, so we’d work with you to get assignments and stuff, but if you need a day or two to process after the court hearings, we totally get that." Hizashi's eyes soften, looking back at him. "‘S pretty heavy stuff, yanno?”
“I guess,” Bakugou says, eyebrows still drawn. He turns back to the uncut potatoes, movements slow, as if he was lost in thought.
It was always difficult to convince students of Bakugou's caliber to miss school. They were worried about getting behind, and rightfully so - the school year moved fast when it was just a regular highschool. At a hero-school, they were tasked with learning not only the regular high school curriculum but also the laws, techniques, and skills of being a hero. A missed day was no joke.
Aizawa understands that. He knows exactly what the world was like, and what kind of scenarios he had to prepare his students for - its why he's such a hard ass. But, at the same time, he knows exactly where to ease up on the pressure.
Forcing a student to attend class while their family self destructs wasn't helpful at all for anyone involved. It made sense to give the kid time, rather than force it.
Bakugou had also struggled in the past with a number of different injuries, sicknesses, and what Aizawa had always assumed to be poor mental health days - he hadn't gotten upset with the kid then, either, so he's hoping that Bakugou would understand that wellbeing comes before anything else, especially schoolwork.
Looking at the confused, furrowed lines in Bakugou's forehead, Aizawa imagines that they're gonna need to work on that more in the future.
Hizashi taps his wooden spatula against the pan, opening his mouth to say something else - but he’s interrupted by a timer on his phone, buzzing obnoxiously on the countertop. Everyone flinches at the grating sound, and Hizashi apologizes as he rushes over to turn it off.
“Oh dear, so sorry about that! I set a timer so I wouldn’t forget to wake Eri up from her afternoon nap." He looks up from his phone, somewhat sheepishly.
"Do you think you could take care of the sauce, Bakugou? I trust your judgment, but the recipe is in the recipe box if you need it.”
“Yeah, whatever. I got it.”
Hizashi beams. “Thank you! I know you'll do a great job. I'll be right back.”
With his retreating footsteps, the kitchen grows quiet. It’s not tense, necessarily, but it feels - heavy. Weighted with something important.
Aizawa watches Bakugou for a few moments, the exhausted lines of his shoulders, the methodical movements of his hands as he divides up the remaining ingredients. He doesn’t spill anything, not even a single drop of soy sauce.
It's a strange thing, to see Bakugou Katsuki quiet. Aizawa knows that it was how the kid processed stuff, how he worked things over in his mind. But, in this tiny little kitchen, it feels different somehow.
It feels a little like he's being offered something.
Heaving himself up off the chair and out from underneath his blanket, Aizawa tries not to wince as his muscles and joints sting with the movement. He steps towards the cabinet, intending to help set the table and give the kid some space.
Just as he's about done grabbing the correct number of plates and cups, though, Bakugou speaks up quietly from the stove.
“I don’t know what I need.”
Aizawa pauses, gently putting the plates down. When he looks over at Bakugou, the kid's shoulders are stiff and hiked up slightly around his ears. Like he was bracing for a hit.
Aizawa hums, shifting closer into Bakugou's periphery with a slow, controlled movement. The kid's face is held in a confused sort of grimace, his gaze far away as he watches the stove pulse red. It reflects in his eyes, a sort of storm swirling in his irises.
“I don’t think I ever...thought about it, before.” He looks up at Aizawa, and his expression is - raw. Vulnerable.
“Most people don’t, when they’re in a bad situation,” Aizawa replies, easily meeting Bakugou's eyes. The kid looks between his own, searching for something. Honesty, maybe.
"You were in survival mode for a long time. How would you know what you've never had?" Aizawa tries to keep his voice low and gentle in the quiet of the kitchen, shifting against the counter.
"It's normal to not know exactly what you need right now, kid. And we’re really not expecting you to have all the answers right away. It’ll take time, and that’s okay."
Bakugou drags his eyes back at the pot in front of him. Even in the warm light of the kitchen, he looks kind of...worn. The darkened eyebags, the slumped shoulders, the distant stare...it all spoke of exhaustion. The kind that people feel when they finally realize they don't have to pretend anymore.
“It felt like an ache," Bakugou mutters after a moment, eyes still tracing over the bubbles in the sauce. "Like something I couldn’t get away from, no matter how much I fuckin’, slept or trained or anything. It’s getting better here, but-”
He stops suddenly, seemingly realizing he’d been talking out loud. He huffs and turns away. “I don’t know. It’s stupid.”
Aizawa hums and shifts a little against the counter, moving his tired eyes away from Bakugou to their living room. The frost on their front window lights up briefly with the orange-yellow of someone's headlights, the sound of the tires muffled and far away.
"I've been there, too, kid," Aizawa says, remembering cold, lonely nights, and the inescapable weight of grief. Something in his chest pangs. "I get it."
He tears his eyes away from the frost and looks back at his student, adding, "This time of year is especially hard, between the cold weather and the holidays. We're certainly not going to hold it against you if you're struggling a little, you know."
Bakugou doesn’t reply, just moves to change the heat setting of the stove. His hand is shaking slightly, and Aizawa lets out a breath at the sight.
There's a chance that they aren't quite there yet, aren't quite at this level of trust - but he thinks it's worth a shot.
“Can I give you a hug?” He asks quietly, watching for tension in the kid's body language, anything that might suggest a refusal. “You can say no, of course, but I just thought I’d offer.”
His student pauses, shooting him a quick look. It reminds him a little of a cornered animal, pulling away and pushing forward at the same time. Aizawa usually waited longer to offer physical touch to his foster kids, to avoid pressuring them into something uncomfortable, but Bakugou had just described being touch starved in twenty words or less. So.
Besides, Bakugou was away from his friends and, as much as he probably didn’t want to admit, he was probably feeling a little lonely because of it.
“Whatever,” the kid scoffs, looking away. His fingers flick at his sides, shoulders high. “Just don’t make it weird.”
Aizawa chuckles, reaching out to pull Bakugou into a slow hug. The kid is stiff at first, arms rigid at his sides, but with a shaky exhalation, he slowly melts into the embrace, head thunking against Aizawa's sternum.
He keeps its loose enough that either of them could pull away at any time, but tight enough that Bakugou can still feel the warmth and security of a good hug. And warm he definitely is - the kid was like a little furnace.
For a moment, they just stand there, listening to the curry bubbling on the stove. Just breathing.
“I’m glad you’re here with us,” Aizawa says eventually, letting the kid work himself out. Bakugou’s fingers clench slightly against Aizawa’s shirt. “And I hope you know that we have your back. No matter what the court’s decision might be. Okay?”
Bakugou gives a short, jerky nod, before finally letting go, wiping his face. Aizawa looks elsewhere to give him a little privacy.
After clearing his throat a little and facing the stove once more, Bakugou lets out a raspy, "Thanks." He shifts a little on his feet, seemingly debating on whether he wanted to say more. "Just - yeah. Thanks."
It’s strangely gentle, coming from such a rough kid, and Aizawa takes it as the genuine thank you it is. "You're very welcome, Bakugou."
He's gotten plenty of thank yous from various kids, from ones he taught to those he saved off the streets- and well, all those late nights working, the skipped meals, the hours at the office, the time spent in the hospital...it never stopped feeling worth it, when he got to hear those genuine thank yous.
Aizawa would never say it out loud, but he feels a bit like a proud dad.
True to fashion, Bakugou eventually starts to get a little ornery about someone else being in his space, and Aizawa backs off and retreats to the dining table. While he adjusts the utensils, he's pulled out of his thoughts with a sudden question from the kitchen.
"Can you drop me off at the train station on Monday?”
He turns back, a question on his tongue, but Bakugou beats him to it. His ears are slightly pink, but his eyes are bright and bold.
“I wanted to meet Kirishima there. So. If - if we’re talkin’ about shit I need, or whatever, then -” He takes a breath, gesturing vaguely.
Aizawa’s lips twitch, and he turns back to the table, trying to be nonchalant. “Of course. Hizashi will probably drive you that day, so I’ll go ahead and tell him to stop at the train station first.” Bakugou’s shoulders slump slightly in relief.
He pauses. “...you might have to ride next to Hitoshi in the car, though. Just a heads up.”
Bakugou swears loudly, and Aizawa can’t help but let out a breathy laugh.
It doesn’t take long for Hizashi to come back, Eri in tow, and together they're able to finish up dinner. Hitoshi emerges from his room shortly after, and the kitchen goes from "somewhat quiet" to "obnoxious" in about ten seconds flat.
None of them mind, because the curry is probably just about the best they've ever had, and that night, Aizawa falls asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow, no pain meds necessary. Hitoshi tells him later that Bakugou did, too.
All Aizawa can think is:
I'm so glad that I picked up the phone two weeks ago. So, so glad.
He hopes that Bakugou is too.
—