Work Text:
“Sorry,” Shouto says, for probably the hundredth time today. “I’ve never been good with this stuff.”
He sits back in his chair with a near-inaudible huff, the only outward sign of his frustration. Mitsuki lets him stew for a moment, clicking around a few times on the screen to reverse what (little) damage he’d done to the site.
Katsuki had texted her with the request a few weeks ago, direct and straightforward about it – always her son in every way. It’d gone something like this:
brat (2:58pm): shouto needs to make a website for his agency, can you help him
mitsuki (2:59pm): what’s in it for me
brat (2:59pm): nothing, wtf
brat (2:59 pm): the joy of parentingmitsuki (3:00pm): say please
brat (3:00pm): no
brat (3:08pm): hi bakugou-san, it’s shouto. sorry to bother youuhuhuhughgh
brat (3:10pm): sorryyy,, katsuki’s trrying to get hi sphone back
brat (3:11pm): pllease could you hel pme?mitsuki (3:11pm): hi sweetie, of course i can
And so they’d ended up here, sitting together at the desktop computer in Mitsuki’s home studio on Shouto’s day off. He’d shown up this afternoon precisely at the time they’d agreed on, a little bouquet of yellow flowers in one hand and a Katsuki-prepared dinner contribution for later in the other, already thanking her for her help before he’d even taken his shoes off.
Mitsuki adores him to bits. Maybe Katsuki can finally learn some manners through osmosis alone.
Unlikely, but hey – a woman can dream.
She’s already done most of the legwork in setting up the site, heeding Katsuki’s follow-up text of he’s like a grandpa with technology, show him how it works but don’t let him make too many decisions, and later just be patient with him, alright? i’m serious, ma.
Tch. As though she’s not a bottomless well of patience!
But it turns out that Katsuki wasn’t kidding about the bad with technology part.
“Don’t sweat it, kid,” she says to Shouto, deciding that he’s stewed long enough. “That’s what I’m here for.”
Shouto hums, thoughtful, and Mitsuki waits for him to speak. He always takes his time with his words, so unlike Katsuki in that way. It’s a miracle the two of them ever figured out how to communicate with each other.
“So many people are helping me with this,” he muses quietly. “It’s been hard to accept that I can’t do everything myself.”
He’d made the announcement over dinner a few months ago – a new hero agency, all his own, finally emerging from the oppressive shadow of his father’s legacy. Personal relationships and reconciliations aside, the professional burden of being constantly labeled Endeavor’s son has followed and weighed him down for far too long. Mitsuki’s fucking overjoyed to see him finally get to move forward, as proud of him as she is of her own kid.
And Shouto is her kid too, in a way. Even more so if the things Katsuki had begrudgingly disclosed to Masaru on their last hiking trip come to fruition sometime soon.
“Especially – this,” Shouto continues, waving a hand at the screen. “If it were up to me, I’d run the whole agency with pen and paper alone.”
“Thought the whole point was that it is up to you.”
Shouto smiles, shifting in his chair. “Ah, well – yes, I suppose that’s true. But it’s better this way, I think. It’s not about just me.”
Heroes are far too selfless – Mitsuki’s always thought so. It’s why she never entertained the idea for herself, not that her quirk would’ve been good for much anyway. It’s selfish, through and through. When her son was born with violence in his hands, she was afraid he’d turn out selfish, too. Now she wonders if he’s flung himself too far in the other direction, like all the rest.
Like Shouto, who never learned selfishness at all.
“When I was a kid,” Shouto continues, unprompted, “we never had technology in the house. I hadn’t even used a cell phone until I moved into the dorms. My father only gave it to me so he could check up on how I was doing.”
A sour look crosses his face, but he seems wistful nonetheless. “I barely knew how to use it. I barely knew how to do a lot of things, I guess. I remember – ” He smiles a bit, reaching up to rub two fingers thoughtfully along the ridge of his scar. “I remember asking Katsuki how to use stickers on LINE, of all things. I wanted ones with cats, and different sweets, and other things like that. I saw our classmates using them, and it seemed fun. But everyone just – knew what to do, and how to do it already. Except me.”
Mitsuki listens quietly, but she fuckin’ – remembers this, strangely enough. Katsuki blustering through the front door on a rare weekend he’d been able to come home, muttering down at his phone about stupid Half-n’-half and his stupid cat stickers, last week he didn’t even know what a goddamn sticker was.
“Katsuki never mocked me for not knowing that kind of stuff,” Shouto says, completely absorbed in his retelling of the story. It’s rare for him to speak in such a long go, so Mitsuki keeps her mouth shut. “I got in the habit of asking him for help, because he’d just show me what to do and then make me do it over again and again until I understood. After the sticker thing, he got annoyed because I kept sending them to him when I was bored. But I don’t think he was really that bothered.”
That makes Mitsuki snort. “Yeah, somehow I doubt it,” she says, remembering all the times she’d catch him with his phone under the table, biting his lip or the inside of his cheek to keep the grin off his face.
Her voice seems to snap Shouto out of his memory. “Sorry,” he says immediately. “Ah…I don’t know why I said all that.” He looks back at the screen, a small smile lingering on his face. “I guess it just occurred to me how much like you he is. Thank you again for helping me.”
She’s not done anything extraordinary, anything worthy of as much thanks as he gives. But then again, most people wouldn’t consider some animated cat stickers extraordinary, either. Perspective is a hell of a thing.
“Masaru and I are very proud of you, Shouto,” she says gently, instead of stop apologizing, stop thanking me. “We want to do whatever we can to help.”
Shouto huffs quietly, a twinge of embarrassment in the sound but he seems pleased anyway. She’s watched him grow up at Katsuki’s side, watched him fight and burn and lose and build back, launch himself across the skyline haloed in sparks and reflected in frost. Watched him, in horrific technicolor, pluck her son’s limp body out of mid air as he hurtled toward the earth. Too young to understand war but a soldier all the same, hardened against the pain of it out of sheer necessity. She’s kept vigil at his hospital bed when there was no one else to stay the night, Katsuki’s head heavy where he’d nodded off on her shoulder, forever a child in his exhausted sleep.
This is the man her son heralded as his equal, the only one good enough to stand at his side. So she watched, and watched, and watched, and keeps watching. Lots of people have looked away from him, Mitsuki thinks. She refuses to be one of them.
Down the hall, the front door blusters open, the handle smacking into the wall where there’s a three decades-old dent in the plaster. Shouto smiles reflexively, the sound no doubt as familiar here as it is in his own home.
There’s some shuffling as Katsuki kicks his shoes off and hangs his coat, the soft thud of his work bag hitting the floor. His gruff voice carries from the kitchen, hey, what’s for dinner, old man? and they’re still workin’, huh? She strains her ears to listen for Masaru’s quiet baritone in response, the clatter of drawers opening and closing, the sizzle of the pans, Katsuki rummaging through her spice drawer. The clock on her studio wall chimes six just then, Katsuki perpetually a few minutes early to everywhere he goes.
“We should join them,” Shouto says, and Mitsuki holds up a hand to halt the final thank you she sees forming on his lips. He ducks his head, chastised but understanding, and Mitsuki waves him away.
“Go ahead, I’ll just finish up here and be out in a few.”
“Alright.”
Shouto disappears into the hall, and Mitsuki quickly saves the edits they made to the website today. It’s pretty much done, but she’ll put a bit more polish on before the opening day of the agency. It’ll be as perfect as she can make it.
The table is already set by the time she joins them in the kitchen, and Katsuki glances up at her as she rounds the corner. He’s tucked against Shouto’s back, chin hooked over his shoulder to watch him show off the site from his phone. He looks tired, fresh off his patrol shift, but relaxed nonetheless.
“Child,” she greets him, placid, and ruffles his hair as she passes by. He squirms away immediately, dragging an unfazed Shouto with him, but there’s a smile on his face anyway.
“Hag,” he retorts, blatantly using Shouto as a shield. Fucking shameless about it, too.
“Katsuki, look at this,” Shouto says, and she’d tease Katsuki for how quickly he refocuses on him if it didn’t make her so goddamn happy to see. Maybe she’s going soft with age, but she’s found herself feeling grateful, lately, that they have each other.
So she’ll let it slide, just this once.
“Alright, dinner’s ready,” Masaru announces, setting the last covered dish on the table.
“Such a good househusband,” Mitsuki coos, walking over to kiss him on the cheek. Masaru rolls his eyes but slips an arm around her waist anyway.
“Gross, get a room,” Katsuki gripes, as though he wasn’t draped entirely over his own boyfriend thirty seconds ago. Always a hypocrite. Then, to Shouto: “You remember to bring the shit I made?”
“Yes. You were a very good househusband, too, don’t worry.”
“Hah? The hell did you just call me?!”
Mitsuki just cackles and shoves her son down into his chair before her nice tablecloth can get ignited by any stray sparks. Yes, she thinks delightedly – it’s so good that they have each other.