Title: Unraveling
Fandom: Tiger & Bunny
Characters: Yuri Petrov, Origa Petrov
Rating: G
Length: 1400ish words
Summary: Though his mother's cognition is all but gone, Yuri finds that there may yet be some wisdom in her words.
Content Notes: Mental illness, delusions
Author Notes: ...Yeah, actually healing would be a very, very long and difficult road for Yuri. He's at least considering it...?

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Almost as soon as Yuri closed the front door behind him, he heard the voice calling from further inside. "Yuri, dear, is that you?"

Better his mother's voice than his father's voice, he thought sardonically. The man had been taunting him all the way home.

You weren't strong enough. You weren't fast enough. Even if what you do is just, how can a boy like you bring about any sort of justice? Have you lost your nerve? None of this was new, not enough to faze him, but then... Or maybe there's another reason why you've failed in your mission so often of late. Maybe it's time that the judge faces his own judgment... and you have been found guilty. Time is running out for you, boy...

Yuri ground his teeth and replied to the audible voice. "Yes, Mother."

"You've been out so late," he heard her saying as he followed the tremulous sound of her voice, accompanied by the soft music that drifted out into the hallway. "I'm afraid you've missed dinner, but I saved some for you - would you like me to warm it up?"

Out late indeed; it had been a long and fruitless night. He'd hoped he might beat the heroes to the murderer who had escaped police custody during transport. It had been so close, Lunatic had had the man with his back against the wall, cowering from the fiery bowgun...

"I'll warm it up myself after I've showered," Yuri told her, continuing on down the hall. The resulting fight between Lunatic and the heroes had not lasted long before he opted to vanish from the scene, but he was exhausted. Sweaty. Bruised, and in more than body. There was an uncertainty in his very soul that left him off balance. "But thank you."

"And do you have time enough to do your homework?"

Yuri couldn't repress a bitter smile. Homework, indeed. Extracurriculars... "I took care of it before coming back."

"That's very good, dear. I'm glad to see you spending more time out of the house - it's not healthy for a boy your age to spend so much time alone. Just as long as your grades don't suffer."

A tedious work day, followed by a frustrating and unsettling outing as Lunatic, left him with little patience for his mother's delusions. If he'd had anywhere else to be, he wouldn't have wanted to return home at all - but he must. Considering her deteriorating condition, he didn't dare leave her entirely unattended for too long.

It's your fault, after all. You did this to her. To us.

Yuri silently told his father a few words that he would never have dared to say aloud in his presence when he lived; he felt like his mind was coming apart at the seams.

Nonetheless, he stepped into the library where his mother sat - playing one of the records that kept her company while he was out in the evenings, one of her knitting projects in her lap. Just to make sure everything was all right...

...And there she was, picking at the yarn with her bare fingers, drawing it out and unraveling all her hard work.

"Mother," Yuri said suddenly, urgently, going to her side. Had her mind deteriorated further still? "Stop that. You're ruining it."

She smiled and shook her head as she looked up at him. "No, dear - I'm fixing it."

His hands rested atop her smaller ones as he knelt beside her chair, stilling them atop the pile of unraveled yarn. "It's all coming apart. I know how hard you worked on this, Mother, you've been working on it every time I've seen you for the last three days-"

"And last night I made a mistake." Her smile remained kindly as she brushed his hand aside to point at... something. "Right here. I have to fix that, or the pattern won't come out correctly."

Yuri frowned slightly, peering at the knitting. "...I don't see anything that looks like a mistake." Was she imagining it just as she imagined his father still with them, or did he just not know what he was looking for?

"Neither did I, until I got a little bit further in," his mother said lightly, returning to picking apart the stitches. "Sometimes when you make a mistake, you can't tell that it was a mistake until you've gone on a ways, and things don't quite line up."

Yuri eyed the knitting. He still didn't see what was wrong; but then, he didn't know anything about knitting. Though he certainly knew about things not lining up, his mind reminded him with a haughty laugh that sounded suspiciously like his father's.

"You see, Yuri," she said, still gently tugging at the yarn, freeing it little by little, "if I simply let it go and went on from here, the effects of that one mistaken stitch would show themselves more and more the further I went on."

"...I see." Maybe it was just because Yuri was so exhausted, so tired of the battles that took place within his soul after the physical battles had ended - but there was something almost hypnotic about the way her hands worked. And... how calm she was. Undoing her stitching with a contented smile. Not the slightest bit angry with herself, or frustrated over having wasted an entire day's work. ...Unlike himself at the moment. "It seems a shame to lose so much progress."

"Ah, but since I made that mistake beforehand, it wasn't really progress at all, was it? Built on a mistake, all that work was already for nothing. Sometimes when you make a mistake," she continued, "there's just nothing you can do but pick apart everything, no matter how much work you've done since - and then start over and do it right."

Yuri just stared down at the growing pile of yarn, dull and emotionless. His mother didn't watch HeroTV live, but only endlessly replayed the discs of his father's exploits twenty years in the past. She didn't know about Lunatic and the controversy surrounding him, much less who was behind the now infamous mask; only rarely did she even comprehend that he was fully grown, and his father dead. She most certainly didn't know anything about the turmoil that had been building in Yuri's heart during the last several months - the questions that left him both hesitant to pursue his prey, and eager to prove that his mission was just. That evil must be eliminated... that anything less was in itself a sin...

Apparently it wasn't just Yuri's tired, troubled mind drawing out the metaphor; she lifted her eyes to give him a fond, serene smile. "That goes for more than just knitting. When you're all grown up like your Papa and I, you'll understand what I mean."

She couldn't know, Yuri reminded himself. She still was asking him about his schoolwork - she was trapped in the past, with no knowledge of what he'd been doing... what he'd been thinking about what he'd been doing... Yuri closed his eyes briefly. Only a coincidence, he told himself.

He opened them as his mother spoke again. "Are you sure you don't want me to warm dinner up for you while you're taking your shower?" she inquired. "You look so tired..."

Yuri shook his head and stood. "I'll take care of it myself, thank you," he lied. He had no appetite whatsoever at the moment. "You can go on with... fixing that mistake. It seems you have enough work to do already."

"Such a kind boy," his mother murmured as he turned to leave the room. Then, "Oh, and that reminds me..."

"Hmm?" Yuri glanced back.

"With so much time on my hands, even with this little setback, I'll be done before you know it," she told him, "and thinking about starting another project. That new friend of yours, the one you've had over a few times lately... what's his favorite color?"

Come to think of it, Yuri didn't know - and that left him feeling slightly ashamed, to not know something so simple and innocent as that. But then, they'd been spending their time talking about far weightier matters than colors. Hence all the confusion, the feeling that everything was coming apart; the notion just having been raised that perhaps it should. That maybe Yuri should take hold of those loose threads and pull...

But his mother had asked a question of him. A moment's thought as Yuri considered; he did look very good in...

"Blue, I think," Yuri said over his shoulder as he turned to leave.