Chapter Text
When the news comes, Midoriya Inko does not cry. She doesn’t shout or yell or give in to the voice that tells her to pull, tug with all her might until walls come tumbling down around her, burying her and the life she and Izuku had built and damn the consequences because none of them could hurt like this. She can feel the power crawling under her skin and she knows that she could, and a part of her wants to as though, if she just pulled hard enough, she could pull Izuku back to her (or, failing that, pull her to him).
She doesn’t tear the apartment down in the end, because her mother raised her better that. Her mother taught her how to contain the dangers of her quirk and she might’ve taught Izuku the same, if he’d been given one. As it was, quirklessness had enough dangers of its own; invisible ones, the type that left bystanders untouched.
In the months (years) after her son’s diagnosis, Inko had nightmares. She was a nurse, had specialised in paediatrics; she knew what the world held for quirkless children. After the diagnosis, she felt as though she gained a second sense for quirklessness. Heavy as it often was, she picked up every scrap of information and carefully kept it tucked away, next to her heart; graffitied slurs in dark alleyways, nine o’clock news reports, unemployment and homelessness hitting an all-time high in the quirkless population, another death, another suicide, another murder, a thousand suffering strangers, all wearing Izuku’s face; a scrapbook of misery, carried carefully with her as though that would be enough to save her son. As if it’s enough that simply by knowing the name of the monster under the bed, she (and Izuku) would be protected. As though, by remembering and revisiting and ruminating on the worst-case scenario, every tragedy, every trial, she could save her son from suffering the same fate. It was a childish notion; that knowledge for knowledges sake was enough to set what was left of her family apart. It wasn’t enough.
Inko had nightmares. She often woke, shaking in terror, from a monster she could never face, never fight, never keep away from her family forever. She slept and she dreamed, and she woke (and it became a point of pride that she hadn’t woke screaming since the very beginning, that she thought herself to cry silently so as not to wake her son) and she stayed awake, and she didn’t think about her son’s broken body, another statistic in an endless stream of violence.
When the news comes, Midoriya Inko does not cry. She doesn't scream or rage or pull the house down around her, as she very well could, should she set her mind to it. Instead, she makes a single cup of green tea, with lemon (no honey; not like Hisashi), just the way Izuku likes it and she sits (at a table set for three) and she waits (for a son and a husband that will never come home) and, slowly, she lets the cup grow cold. Then she goes to bed, and, for the first time in a decade, she sleeps without nightmares.
What’s left to fear when they’ve already come true?
The next morning, Inko wakes slowly; it’s six o’clock on the dot. The sun is shining. Her son is dead. She still doesn’t cry.
Instead, she wants to open the window and yell at those on the streets below. She wants to demand what gives them the right to go on with their lives when Izuku’s lost his, wants to know how they can bear to start their day when her son, her Izuku will never wake to see another. Her world is irreparably shattered, and the rest of the world hasn’t noticed. All Inko wants (besides her son back) is to turn around and go back to bed, as though, the next time she wakes, this will all just be another one of her nightmares. She wants to sleep and sleep and never wake up, but she has a morning shift and no more sick days, so Inko goes to work.
The ward is white and for the most part undecorated (except for the single All Might poster stuck behind the door. It’s empty, for once, and Inko’s so grateful she almost cries. She’s here, because she needs to be, she needs the money. If Izuku is to go to a good high school, a hero school, she needs the money and, and, and—
It hits her, suddenly, all at once that Izuku’s never going to high school.
“Inko?” She’s sitting, face wet on one of the hospital beds. “Inko? Why are you here? You should be home resting after-”
It’s Konishi-san, the only other nurse on shift, crouching in front of her, concern written in her pinched brows, bitten lip.
Her colleagues know (knew) Izuku, have met him when he brings her lunch on the days she forgets it, or seen him when he delivers her coffee if she has a night shift. Some of them, those who have worked there the longest, even remember a little green-haired boy, who was happy to sit in whatever waiting room had space for him (although his favourite was by the ENT department, where the receptionist kept a jar of sweets and took special care to always keep some of the yellow All Might ones aside for him) and quietly do his homework until whatever time his mother finished work.
There is stigma in Japan, sure, against single mothers and their quirkless sons but most of her colleagues remember Izuku for what he was: kind, hardworking, and a devoted son. Most of them would have recognised him on whatever news stations bothered to report his death.
Inko hadn’t expected any of them to care. She wasn’t exactly friends with any of them (she was always too busy when Izuku was young to truly join them for any after shift drinks or other work-related hangouts, and, when Izuku was old enough to be left unattended, it felt too late to make an effort) but Konishi-san looked terrible- like she hadn’t slept at all and her eyes were red as if she had been crying.
“Inko?” Konishi-san repeated when she didn’t answer, “I heard about Izuku-kun.”
“Did you know,” Inko started, “did you know," and her voice only wavers a little; "that only 46% of children diagnosed quirkless make it to adulthood.” It isn’t really a question. Konishi-san makes a small choking sound, tears welling in her eyes, and she grabs Inko’s hands, encasing them in her own.
“He was my baby,” Inko tells her, voice cracking, “He was my baby and they couldn’t even catch the bastard that killed him.”
When she gets home, Bakugou Katsuki is dozing, propped against her doorframe. Inko had wound up leaving work early and she’s pretty sure that schools haven’t let out yet, but, if the small pile of mail in his lap is anything to go by, he’s been there for a while. She hasn’t seen him for a few years now, except in passing, but the resemblance to Mitsuki always was uncanny, and growing up hasn’t done much to change that. If anything, he has only grown more alike his mother over the years. Still, from what Izuku tells- told- her, Katsuki has never been the type to cut class.
Maybe a half-decent mother would wake him up, send him to school, call his parents but, as mothers go, Inko reckons that she’s third-rate at best. If she were half-decent, then perhaps Izuku would still be alive. So, instead of sending Katsuki on his way, she leans carefully over him, unlocking the door, and carries him to the spare room. He looks like he could use the rest.