Chapter Text
“But Mom, you know this is my dream, and they’re offering me a spot in Class 1-A; it’s taught by Eraserhead! You know he’s one of my idols!”
“No, absolutely not. We’ve talked about this before. It’s not safe for you!”
“What you’re doing to me isn’t safe for me! You’re not protecting me!” Izuku screams, arms curling around himself in a miserable mockery of a hug as he folds in on himself. “Every time you do this, every time you kill my dream, you’re killing a part of me I can’t get back and I don’t know how much more I can take!”
Inko reaches out a hand to Izuku, hesitating at the last moment before drawing back. “What are you saying exactly?”
“You stopped believing in me or supporting me ever since the day I was diagnosed,” his arms squeeze himself tighter as he looks up at her through his bangs. “Do you know how much it hurts when you can’t even count on your mom? When you can’t count on anyone? Heroics is all I’ve ever had, and you keep ripping it away from me, and it’s killing me, Mom. You’re supposed to love and support me... this — this isn’t supporting me! This isn’t loving me! You’re hurting me!”
Inko flinches back, looking stricken.
“You can’t be a hero, Izuku,” She whispers. “I need you alive, and you wouldn’t last out there.”
“I won’t last if you keep me away from my dreams, either.” Izuku tries to pour every bit of his desperation in his tone, tries to make her understand.
UA was offering him his dream on a silver platter, and it was bad enough when she was simply not believing he could, but now she was outright trying to rip it away from him as though saving people wasn’t the reason he lived and breathed.
“Well, we’ve reached an impasse, haven’t we?” His mother says as she stares down at the forms in front of her that would allow him to transfer into famous Class 1-A and live his dreams on a legal level too — not that he could just give up on being Grey Hat, but...
“I guess we have.”
After several long moments, she finally speaks, “Izuku, if I sign these forms, you can’t come back home again.”
“What?” He breathes out, looking up at her.
“If I can’t stop you from doing this, then at a bare minimum, I won’t enable you while you kill yourself. So if this is what you choose, then I’ll sign the paperwork to let you transfer classes, but then you’ll have to go pack your things, and you can’t come back unless you’ve come to your senses.”
Izuku hesitates only for a moment. He loves his mother. He does. But he thinks back to those weeks where she sequestered herself in her room and left him to his devices. He thinks about the time he spends out at night as Grey Hat, about how if he stays with her, one day his luck will run out and he’ll get caught and have to give it up. He wonders if he values the safety of having a home enough to give up on his dream and realizes he doesn’t.
“Okay,” he says firmly, nodding his head in agreement.
“What?” She sounds shocked, as though she hadn’t thought he’d agree.
“Okay,” Izuku repeats. “I’m willing to take that deal. Sign the papers.”
Inko tilts her head, looking at Izuku like he’s particularly stupid. “You’ll be homeless, Izuku; do you understand that?”
“I’d rather have heroics than stay under your roof,” Izuku replies easily, calmly, and he’s surprised at how calm he is about all of this, but really, this has been a long time coming — ever since that first week of radio silence from his mother, she has grown more and more distant, and occasionally there’d be more days where she’d not come out at all but to let him out in the morning. Meals have grown more and more silent, and sometimes he could go days without speaking to his mother.
Was he surprised that this was the last straw?
No, not really.
Was he hurt?
Yeah, it hurt. It hurt a lot. He couldn’t deny that. Despite everything, despite the pain, he loved his mother. But he would not fight her on it. If she was going to give him what he wanted, then he would give her what she really wanted, which was a future without him. He wasn’t blind, or stupid. She didn’t want him. This was just an excuse to get rid of him. She can put up all the token protests she wants but Izuku knows that he’s just the consolation prize for her pending divorce from his father.
He wonders if this means his father will stop the divorce and come back to Japan finally.
“Izuku, you don’t understand how dangerous it is for people like you out there! You need to give up on this dream and stay with me, where it’s safe!”
Did — did she really just say that to him? Inko’s said a lot of things to him in the past that have upset him, made him angry, even, but this one — this one really takes it all!
“I don’t understand? I don’t understand? I’m the one living it every day! I’m the one covered in scars because someone who was supposed to be my friend liked to use his Quirk on me for fun until I got good at dodging!” Izuku gestures to his arms, to the shoulder that has something vaguely hand-shaped burned into it.
“I’m the one who gets the jobs I’m allowed to do and the schools I’m allowed to attend restricted! I’m the one who has to go to shady, unlicensed clinics because hospitals won’t treat me, the one who has to be careful about what heroes I go to for help because if I’m not I might die! I’m the one who can’t turn to the police for help because I can’t tell which ones won’t help! Don’t tell me I don’t understand — you don’t know anything about what it’s like, and I don’t need your protection, because you’ve never protected me from any of it.” Izuku’s voice had started off steadily rising but somewhere along the way it changed, eerily calm, disappointment dripping from every word.
How many times had she let him down? How many times had she turned a blind eye while simultaneously calling him weak, fragile, broken? Izuku loved his mother, he did, he loved her; he loved her; he loved her — but she had not taken care of him in the ways he’d needed in many, many years.
“You have this — this weird complex where you’ve made yourself into my savior, protecting me from the outside world, but when is the last time you actually did anything to protect me?”
Inko starts to open her mouth to reply, but Izuku quickly shakes his head.
“That was a rhetorical question, Mom. You don’t even get me medical treatment. You don’t try to stop people from hurting me. You can’t claim to be my protector. So please just sign my paperwork and throw me out so we can stop playing this game. I’m tired of playing.”
His mother stares at him for a long moment and then she picks up her pen and signs and initials each dotted line. Izuku snatches the papers away before she can say anything and rushes to pack his bag before she can think about changing her mind.
And he loves her, he does, (does he?) but he’s also glad to be done with this family. Glad to not have to hear the phone calls where his father outright states he wishes Izuku would die and his mother barely protests. Glad to stop having play dollhouse with his mother every day. He loves her, but when was the last time he felt love in return?
Yes, this hurt, this hurt, this hurt, but it was better this way.
He was sure everyone would be happier this way.