The thing that ultimately saves Hitoshi is the fact that both of them have taken the FME. How? Well, simple, there's a legal clause that says Force-Fusion Masters can force-fuse anyone they deem needs protection or anyone who attacks them.

Midoriya-kun escaping Bakugou falls under the first clause.

Midoriya-san fills out the paperwork, drags them onto the train and then home, not speaking a word to either of them until they're both at home and sitting in front of her at the table. Neither of them are meeting her eyes.

Well, this is awkward.

Midoriya-san clears her throat and looks at them pointedly. "I want a full story now. No omitting anything. You will be explaining everything that happened. And if what you say won't answer my questions you will tell me even more, am I understood?" Hitoshi looks at Midoriya-kun and then back at Midoriya-san. He nods. Midoriya-kun keeps stubbornly silent and unmoving. "Izuku." He still doesn't move, looking to the side. "Izuku, look at me when I'm talking to you." It's less of a command and more of a plea. Midoriya-kun doesn't listen. "Look, I need to know, okay? I am your mother. Do you know what that means?" Midoriya-kun stays silent. "It means I care, okay? I care and I love you and I need to know." Her voice cracks alongside with the facade of calmness she put on before. Hitoshi balls up his fists until he feels his nails cut crescents into his skin as she sobs.

Another sob can be heard, and Hitoshi looks at Midoriya-kun, barely keeping it together. His eyes are jumping wildly around the room to look at anything besides his mother, his fists are balled too, laying on his lap and shaking. Actually it's not his fists that are shaking, his whole being is quivering, both physically and mentally. Hitoshi can feel it, this subtle link that connects them now emotionally, not only with willing thought-sharing but also with a constant presence of one another. It was like that already when they unfused in the police station, and it hasn't passed yet.

He takes a deep breath to calm himself, hoping that Midoriya-kun can feel it too.

Something changes in the air, as Midoriya-san raises her head and juts out her chin slightly. She looks more composed now, despite the red in her eyes and on her cheeks, flushed from crying. It seems that sobbing her heart out helped her get the emotions out and now she was on a warpath.

"Okay. You don't wanna speak. Great. I can live with that," she says almost sarcastically, "But you," she looks at Hitoshi and he feels like the wrath of god is raining down upon him just from her gaze alone, "You promised to tell me. So tell me."

Hitoshi feels a ping of panic coming from Midoriya-kun, but he pushes through, not letting himself fall into the same sorry state.

"Where do I even start…" he mutters, shakes his head, and unclenches his fists to lay them flat on the table in front of himself.

"At the beginning, preferably," Midoriya-san's voice is dry as desert, and Hitoshi finds newfound respect for her. If looks could kill he would be dead.

"Beginning? Well, there's the first day of school where Bakugou taunted him mercilessly and said his quirklessness is a disease," he tells her. He sees her clench her jaw, and Midoriya-kun damn near whimpers at his side, but he pushes through. "And then there's the root of our recent problem. Bakugou pushed Midoriya-kun to the wall and demanded to know information about me. He used his quirk against him. Burned his uniform." After a second he tacks on: "You can check that." Just in case Midoriya-san doesn't believe him. "And I… He taunted me too, said… something hurtful, and I… I—" He closes his eyes for a second and swallows despite his throat being dry. "I tried to force-fuse him in retaliation. It wasn't conscious, I didn't want to do it, I just wanted him to stop being a problem." He awaits her judgement, but she just prompts:

"What happened after that?" She sounds angry, and he wants to cower, wants to escape, but something tells him that anger isn't directed at him, so he stays.

"I uh, didn't succeed, quite obviously since otherwise you'd have met me at the police station way earlier," he cracks a joke, realises it's unfunny, and clears his throat. "A-Anyway, Midoriya-kun noticed what I was about to do, correctly deduced I didn't mean to do that, and suggested I start training force-fusion to gain control over it."

"How?"

"On him."

Midoriya-san hums dangerously, but looks at Midoriya-kun and doesn't say a word more. Hitoshi takes it as a prompt to continue speaking.

"So we, uh, trained. Well, not really. I only did this a couple of times because I felt bad each time I did it. And uh, we mostly fused normally after Midoriya-kun discovered his fusion mark, and then after a while you signed us up for Kimura-sensei's lessons so we did it even less, until Kimura-sensei learnt about us force-fusing and we incorporated that into training."

"How did she learn about it?"

"I, uh, told her," he admits, and a flash of hurt goes through Midoriya-san's face. It quickly shifts into surprise though as Midoriya-kun finally speaks.

"You self-depreciated thinking she'll get you kicked out of the dojo is what you did," he mutters, "You self-sabotaging fucking muppet," he spits out and Hitoshi turns sharply towards him with eyes wide open.

Midoriya-san gasps, "Izuku, stop cursing this instant!" and Midoriya-kun sends her a blood-chilling stare.

"You said yourself, cursing is only appropriate in some situations, this is one of those situations. I haven't said a single wrong word here." Hitoshi doesn't like the fake calm in his voice. It might also be the first time since he's arrived in this house that Midoriya-kun is actively antagonistic to him. Huh.

"Izuku—"

"No, he's been doing nothing but wallowing in self-pity for months and I was helping him and now he is throwing me under the bus!" Midoriya-kun looked at him, angry tears swelling in his eyes.

"I? I am throwing you under the bus?" Hitoshi asked incredulously. "Is this what you call saying the truth? It doesn't even incriminate you but your precious Kacchan!"

"He's my friend!"

"Friends," Hitoshi hisses out the word with as much venom as possible, "Don't fucking press you to the wall and burn your uniform, they also don't call you mean names and scare off the entire school from interacting with you!"

Midoriya-kun stands up so abruptly, his chair falls over, and then he storms to his room, shutting the door behind him.

Hitoshi winces. He should have probably held his mouth shut.

"I'm sorry—" Both he and Midoriya-san speak at the same time, and he looks at her bewildered. What could she be sorry for? She uses the pause to finish what she was saying. "I'm sorry for Izuku, it's so uncharasteristic for him, I— don't even have an excuse for his behaviour."

"I'm, uh, sorry for aggravating him," Hitoshi says when the shock that Midoriya-san is apologising to him for Midoriya-kun's behaviour passes. "And for cursing," he tacks on lamely after a second of consideration.

Midoriya-san looks at him sadly, without speaking a word, and after a few seconds it becomes awkward, so he breaks eye-contact and lifts up the discarded chair from the ground.

He's at loss of words still when he finishes doing that, even though he takes extra time to make sure the chair is standing a perfect distance from the table. Thankfully Midoriya-san isn't done with her questioning, so they don't sit in silence much longer.

"What happened today?" she asks, and it just sounds… sad, worried.

"Midoriya-kun went to the library, something happened, I don't know what, but he was escaping Bakugou…" he recounts reluctantly, "He told me through the mind-link that I need to force-fuse him immediately, so I hid and force-fused him."

"How come you don't know what happened but was able to force-fuse him?" she asks, more curious than anything.

"Distance fusing. We're kinda good at that." He shrugs, and her eyes widen comically.

"You can… distance force-fuse…?" it comes out more as a squeal than a question, and he smiles uneasily. "That's… rare." she chokes out eventually.

"Yeah, I guess…" He should definitely not mention to her that he broke the record of people force-fused at the same time.

"What happened next?"

"Midoriya-kun told me to run, so I did, but Bakugou caught up to me, using his explosions, mind you, and pinned me to the wall. And he, uh, noticed my eyes were green, and held me there as someone got a teacher, and then police arrived, and uh, you know the rest." He fiddles with his fingers as he speaks, and doesn't meet Midoriya-san's eyes.

"Shinsou-kun…" Midoriya-san looks troubled, but determined. "Thank you." What. "Thank you for trying to protect Izuku, when I couldn't do it." Her voice is soft but with a dangerous undertone that he doesn't understand until she says more: "Thank you, really. But now it's time for me to protect what's dear to me. If you can excuse me I have some phone calls to make." He nods, wide-eyed and not understanding a wink of what just happened, and she stands up and goes to her room.

He sits there for a few minutes contemplating what happened. A lot happened. Damn.

He stands up, carefully fixes the chairs, goes to the fridge for no reason in particular, and goes to his room.

No, really. Damn.

Inko doesn't waste any time and texts her friend from back when she still worked as an accountant in a lawyer firm. She'll need someone to represent her in court after all. And then she calls Mitsuki.

'Inko! It's been a while,' comes a subdued greeting, so unlike Mitsuki. It quickly becomes apparent why, 'Katsuki told me about what happened. Is Izuku alright? Did that villain let him go?'

Inko's blood boils at hearing Hitoshi referred to as a villain, but she refrains from yelling as she says, "Both my boys are safe and sound, Mitsuki."

'Both your bo— You mean you didn't throw that bastard out for what he did!?' she screeches, and Inko feels a vein pop out on her forehead from how forcefully she stops herself from being needlessly mean.

"Yes. There was a misunderstanding, you see."

'That ended up with your son force-fused! Inko, you can't be serious!'

"No. The misunderstanding was about Izuku being force-fused. It wasn't against his will. Shinsou-kun just panicked." Not like anyone would believe him if he did manage to say that…

'And you believed him? That's what a terrorised person would say! Poor Izuku…'

"They have a history of doing that, safely." Inko keeps her steel tone. Mitsuki starts saying something but she cuts her off with "And whatever Katsuki told you, omitted one big fact."

'What?' she squeaks out, caught off-guard.

"Did you know," she makes a brief pause to steel herself for what's to come, "That Katsuki bullied Izuku?"

'MY BRAT DID WHAT?' the scream is deafening, really, but Inko's happy that her friend's first reaction isn't to deny, but rather to question.

"Apparently it wasn't an isolated accident of just today's actions either. I will be requesting a review of security tapes from this month, and a questioning of teachers, though I doubt they'll admit anything," she tells her matter-of-factually. "And yes, Katsuki did something today. Shinsou-kun doesn't know what, and Izuku won't tell me besides silently admitting that something was done, but it happened, and I will be seeking justice for my son."

The line is silent for a moment, until Mitsuki speaks weakly, 'Okay… What do I… Do I tell him?'

At that Inko slumps with relief coursing through her. Mitsuki believes her. That's good. "You can, if you want. I won't tell you what to do. But I want to teach Katsuki a lesson so I will be suing you so that he gets a permanent mark on his record."

'But Inko—'

"My son has a permanent mark on his mental state because of what he's done, Mitsuki. What he's been doing. Izuku has been poorly hiding burnt gakurans from me, who knows if he doesn't have scars." A sob threatens to get out of her throat if she continues speaking, but she must tell her friend, she must. "I thought he'd come to me if it ever got that bad, I thought that I had time before it escalated, but I was wrong, and I see it now. I need to start fixing what I should have done years ago." Her voice is thick with tears, and Mitsuki must have noticed that, because she doesn't argue.

'Okay… Whatever you think will help Izuku.'

"Thank you, Mitsuki. And now if you'll excuse me, I have to contact my lawyer."

'Of course. Goodbye.'