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After the rescue attempt, after the police finally stopped asking their questions, after Aizawa-Sensei steps in to tell them that his student is going home… Katsuki feels empty.
It’s not a sensation he’s used to feeling, or rather, not feeling. There was always something to make him antsy, something to make his heart pound and his fingers curl into fists, or to pull his lips back in either a snarl or grin. There was always something .
But as Katsuki leaves the small, claustrophobic room in the police station where the officers had been asking questions, Aizawa-Sensei’s hand gently touching his shoulder to steer him through the building, he feels nothing at all.
There’s a spark of something when he sees the faces of his parents. He notes the circles under their eyes, and the sort of desperate, terrified rage that washes over his mother’s face at the sight of him. But the emotion quickly washes away, and he can hardly hear anything other than ringing silence as Mitsuki runs over to him, puts hands on his shoulders, his face, his hair. She’s probably yelling, probably cursing up a storm and drawing all sorts of unwanted attention from the rest of the building. But Katsuki doesn’t care. He doesn’t know if he can ever bring himself to care about anything ever again.
Because Katsuki, who had striven his entire life for perfection, who had his eyes set on being a hero, had just destroyed the Symbol of Peace.
Aizawa-Sensei spoke quietly to his parents, his voice little more than a tired murmur. Katsuki sits in a chair on the side of the hallway and hears words like “shock” and “therapy.” His mother snaps something back at him, something combative and aggressive, but Masaru sits down next to him in his own chair. His father places a hand on his back, right between his shoulder blades. Later, Katsuki would find out, he wouldn’t like anyone touching him from behind. Especially not his neck. But right now he can hardly feel the weight of it.
What he does feel provides a modicum of comfort, however. He doesn’t pull away.
Mitsuki and Aizawa finish their conversation, if it can be labeled as such. His sensei’s eyes watch him solemnly as Katsuki’s parents lead him towards the door.
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He expected the car ride home to be loud. He’d expected to have to tune out his mother’s voice, to hear his father try and speak up on his behalf. He expected to hear words like weak and failure hissed at him in a disappointed, disapproving tone.
That, as Katsuki will find out, comes later. Instead, Mitsuki drives in silence, her lips pressed so tightly together that they are bloodless against her fair skin. Masaru has to jerk the wheel more than once when she nearly swerves into another lane.
Katsuki sits in the back of the car, legs against his chest, arms wrapped around them, and doesn’t speak.
The sight of his house sparks somewhat of an interest when he sees it; it’s been at least a week and a half, he thinks, since he’d left home for the training camp before anything involving villains had happened. The interest flares into something ugly and painful as they get closer, stabbing into his heart, and he has a hard time catching his breath as the car pulls into the driveway.
He was home. He was finally, finally home, but it didn’t feel right.
Katsuki didn’t notice that his parents had left the car until Masaru was opening the one close to him. He blinked, unbuckling his seatbelt with numb, heavy hands. The world was muted and quiet as he followed his mother up the steps to the front door, with Masaru close behind.
The inside of the house was dark. Mitsuki strode inside on heels that clicked violently against the floor. Katsuki blinked owlishly as she flicked on a light, flooding the inside of the living room with gold. He suddenly found himself frozen in place; what happened now? Where should he go? What should he do?
“Katsuki.” Mitsuki was suddenly right in front of him, her face abnormally pale. Her expression was tight, but the anger was gone. Instead she seemed a little… frightened.
Katsuki couldn’t bring himself to care, at the moment.
She grabbed his arm, but the touch wasn’t harsh or painful, and led him to the couch. A gentle push saw him sitting down on the soft cushions, and then his father was right beside him.
“Katsuki,” Masaru said softly. “Did you want some tea?”
“He’s going to get some whether he wants it or not.” Mitsuki snapped from the kitchen. Katsuki could hear her rummaging through a cabinet and getting some water to boil. He stared at his hands as he listened.
Those hands had been chained up, only hours ago. Hot and achy from the press of metal against them for days on end. Then they’d been freed, and Katsuki had been so excited to fight off those who’d captured him. He’d been so ready , even if it had seemed hopeless at the time.
A mug was placed between his fingers, startling him. Warmth began to seep past his skin.
“You’ll feel better if you drink that, brat.” Mitsuki said tightly, sitting on the opposite side of him from Masaru. Her tone was more anxious than anything else, which drew Katsuki out of his daze a little. His mother was many things, but anxious was not one of them. Why was she scared?
The thought of fear made something sickening blossom in the pit of his stomach. Katsuki stared at the tea in his mug, feeling the steam of it on his face. An image, unbidden, flashed before his eyes. The flame villain. Dabi, hands on fire, leering at him.
The mug started to shake in his hand.
One memory triggered another. Suddenly, it wasn’t just Dabi. It was the knife girl, all up in his face, breath smelling like blood. Threatening to stab him, to maim him. Then the guy with the hands, creepy motherfucker that he was, who could disintegrate things with a touch.
Katsuki could have died. Easily. He could have been stabbed, could have crumbled to pieces, and nobody would have known. He would have died alone. But none of it, none , compared to what had happened afterwards.
“Hey… hey, Katsuki, snap out of it. Masaru, he’s shaking.”
“Katsuki? Son, can you hear me?”
And the big, boss villain. The one with the dark mask, looking like something out of a horror film. Floating above him. Ordering the others to grab him and drag him back, away from help, away from home .
And then… him arriving on the scene.
The rescue attempt had been one of the happiest moments of his life. It only seemed fitting that the worst would follow right after it.
His hero, his idol , getting smashed into the ground, smashed through buildings. Blood spraying between clenched teeth. His whole body shrinking, broken, brutalized. Arms torn to shreds. A great man reduced to a wasted skeleton.
Your fault.
You did this.
Katsuki’s chest suddenly felt tight. Gasping, he surged away from the couch, nearly dropping his mug in an attempt to set it on the coffee table. He heard Mitsuki swear as he stumbled away from them, eyes wide, panic rising.
What have you done?
“I ruined him.” Katsuki breathed. His chest hurt. Everything hurt; the fight with the villains and the escape attempt hadn’t been kind to muscles who had been held stationary for three days. His shoulders throbbed from the constant hanging weight of his hand restraints. He’d been given water but no food, and he was so, so tired.
But his mind was awake, and alert, flashing him repeated, spiraling images from what had just happened.
“Son…” A hand touched his shoulder and he shook it off with a curse, staggering away from the contact. “Don’t fucking touch me!” Katsuki snarled at the man, shaking, vision blurring. It took a heartbeat before he realized it was Masaru, slowly holding his hands out in front of him, like he was trying to calm a skittish animal.
Mitsuki had no such intentions. She thrust herself between Katsuki and his father, her own teeth bared. “What the hell is wrong with you? Don’t talk to your father like that!”
Katsuki, ordinarily, would have taken this as the opportune time to start a fight. To vent some rage. But right now he couldn't because now that the shock from the touch had subsided, the voices in his mind started to chant again.
You killed him, you destroyed him.
Your fault.
Your fault.
Your fault.
It wasn’t a true death, he knew, but it might as well have been.
“I didn’t mean it.” Katsuki would never in a thousand years admit to acting so weak in front of his parents, but the words came bubbling out of him without any regard to his feelings. His legs suddenly felt weak, and he ended up kneeling on the floor, hands sizzling and sparking. “I didn’t… I didn’t mean -”
“Katuski.” Mitsuki was down on the floor with him, the anger fading away. “Look at me.” She touched his shoulders and he hissed, snarling at her, but she didn’t move away. “Try to calm down.”
Katsuki opened his mouth, hopefully to take a solid breath. His ribs felt like they were slowly crumpling inwards on themselves. But what came out, instead, was: “I destroyed All Might”
Mitsuki blinked. “You what?”
“I didn’t… Mom, I-” Katsuki’s voice cracked and turned into a keening, raging scream, his whole body shaking from the force of it. He tried to stifle it by clenching his jaw but it hardly worked.
Mitsuki drew him into her arms. She hadn’t done anything like that for years. It felt weird, and awkward, and so, so soothing.
“Shut the fuck up.” She snapped at him, her voice low and raspy. “You did nothing of the sort.”
“Katsuki, All Might did his job.” Masaru’s voice came close, a much more soothing sound. “It wasn’t your fault.”
Katsuki just keened again into his mother’s sweater, fists bunched in the fabric, trembling with everything that was coursing through him. All the detachment, the numbness, the quiet… all of that was gone. All the emotions and pain had come to take its place.
He ended up staying on the floor with them for another twenty minutes, trying - and failing - to fight back tears, to fight back screams of panic and rage. His parents stayed with him for every minute of it, with Mitsuki showing an uncharacteristic amount of tenderness as she smoothed his hair and tried to help him pull it back together.
They both told him that what happened with All Might wasn’t his fault. Katsuki knew better. He knew, as he laid in bed that night, unable to stop the anxious thoughts from swirling around in his head, that they’d both come around to see it from his point of view sooner or later. Everybody would. He was going to go back to school and have to face everyone who knew that he had fucked up.
But worst of all, Katsuki was going to have to see him . Face to face, he was going to have to interact with the man whose life he had just sent careening into the void. Whose career he had irreparably damaged.
And he would be able to do nothing but sit there and watch as All Might, probably with a smile heart wrenchingly fixed on his face, tried to teach a student who had destroyed him.