Chapter Text
Tears flooded Inko’s eyes as she squeezed her son in a tight hug, but she wouldn’t let them fall. She just couldn’t. Even though her attempts of hiding her grief were utterly pitiful, little Izuku hadn’t apparently catched on to her feelings. His smile was as bright as ever, if not slightly nervous because of his first upcoming flight.
It was bad enough that she had to be apart from her baby. It was bad enough that she wasn’t even sure if she was making the right call by sending him away. If he had shown any signs of reluctance or worry, she surely wouldn’t have been able to go through with it.
However, she knew it had to be done. According to Hisashi, American schools tackled bullying and quirkless discrimination a lot better than their Japanese counterparts. The people were a lot more open-minded and tolerant to non-normativeness, he said, and Izuku would be safe. He wouldn’t return from school with a black eye, a split lip or literal burns every godforsaken day. Hisashi had even promised to teach Izuku martial arts for self-defense.
Hisashi’s offer was exactly what Izuku needed. It just did not align with what she needed. But her baby – no, her brave 7-year-old boy – was the first priority. Therefore, she just watched as he walked through the customs and disappeared with a final wave of goodbye.
Izuku had not come home for summer break like Hisashi had promised. He had gotten new friends in the States, said Hisashi, and wanted to spend the summer playing with them. Inko was glad, of course, but couldn’t help but to feel a little upset. The whole ordeal was supposed to be for just a little while, after all.
Hisashi had Izuku all to himself. Izuku had dyed his hair black, the same as his father’s, and had adapted Hisashi’s awfully formal fashion sense as well. He had started showing interest in the same exact things Hisashi had wanted him to. Hisashi had even gotten him the cat he had wanted almost as long as he had wanted to become a hero! They lived together, got to spend every available moment together.
In her mind, the only thing distinguishing her situation from abandonment was the daily video call Izuku made each morning. At 10 AM JST, to be precise. However, even that had started to become less regular. Sometimes he would call an hour sooner or later than he was supposed to. Sometimes he would just text an apology and not call at all.
Inko tried her best to be understanding. For the first time ever her precious little boy had good friends to hang out with. He had new hobbies and goals his father encouraged him to pursue. He had a cat to take care of and spoil, the needy lady as Oreo was. He had regular school subjects he had to study while learning a whole new language. New York City was awfully big, too, and so full of new heroes and exciting things to discover they’d probably last a lifetime. Izuku was busy and exhausted, and Inko did not blame him. How could she have? He was her baby.
Regardless of her rationale, Inko cried herself that night. And many nights before. And many nights to come.
It had been three whole years since Inko last saw Izuku face to face, and Inko was starting to become desperate. During the last few months Izuku had called her only once a week or so, not turning the camera on even once. He only sent photos of Oreo, never of himself. In the phone he sounded so tired that if someone had told her a villain had literally sucked the life out of him with a quirk, she would’ve believed them.
Based on what Izuku had told her, he had moved thrice after their last physical encounter. First just to another state, California, and then to two nations in a different continent, Italy and Germany. They had also traveled across Europe and the Americas, visiting 14 new countries. Izuku had said he had enjoyed it, which was great. However, Hisashi hadn’t run any of it by her, not once, or even let her know their new address. If Izuku hadn’t taken the initiative and told her himself, she would be oblivious to her son’s location.
Worst of all, Izuku had let it slip that Hisashi was hoping to manifest Izuku’s quirk by some ‘new experimental method’. Knowing how much easier his life would’ve been if he wasn’t quirkless, she tried to remain optimistic and forthcoming. Knowing extreme trauma was the only known way to manifest a quirk in those born without active quirk factors, she was terrified and appalled.
This wasn’t the arrangement she had agreed upon.
She had to get her baby back home.
“Inko, dear, you need to stop calling so often. As much as I’d love to talk, my work doesn’t bow to time zones and I do need to put bread on the table," Izuku heard Hisashi say on the phone. He couldn’t quite make out his mother’s response; however, his dad had to pull the phone away from his cream as muffled screams filled the room.
“I know you’re worried, but he’s a big boy now. A 13-year-old is old enough to make his own decisions concerning his residence… No, no. I know. I will ask him," Hisashi continued but immediately broke his promise, not asking Izuku a thing. Looking at his son, he lifted the phone back on his ear. “Sorry, dear, but he likes it here more. You know how intolerant Japan can be to his kind. Perhaps we could make a visit during the winter break, though.”
“I’d like to see mom now, actually," Izuku tried to interrupt, just to be ignored by his dad. Oreo let out a scream of dissatisfaction on his lap.
“Dear, you really do need to leave us alone. If he doesn’t want to see you, there’s nothing I can do to make it happen… Perhaps it would be better if we didn’t hear from you again. I’m so sorry," Hisashi said callously, a dangerous light flashing in his eyes.
They had been on Hisashi’s business trip in Paris, France when the man had sat Izuku down to break the news.
A suicide .
At approximately 10 AM JST, Inko Midoriya, his mom, had committed suicide by jumping off the roof of her apartment complex. The roof of Izuku’s early childhood home. A resident of the same building had contacted the emergency number almost immediately, and an ambulance had rushed her to the nearest hospital in the matter of minutes. However, there was nothing to be done.
She was gone. Izuku’s mom was gone.
Izuku had almost anticipated this when his father had told her not to contact them anymore. His father’s word was law, after all. Something bad had been bound to happen.
He had been in denial, however, and after a whole week of nothing bad happening, he had gotten hopeful. He had allowed himself to breathe freely, to follow his routines like normal. He had skipped breakfast, studied his online school classes until words started to feel fake, had lunch, studied a little more and gone to the hotel gym.
And now, while waiting for his connecting flight in Helsinki-Vantaa airport, he blamed himself for not being able to figure out the truth sooner.
Mom had been dead for seven whole days, and the funeral would be held only seven hours after reaching their destination. He wouldn’t even have time to recover from jetlag, let alone grieve losing her who mattered the most. He knew his father could be strict and cruel sometimes, but this… It was inhumane. That thought Izuku was able to gestate in his fuzzy mind. His father was inhumane.
The funeral and the weeks after went by in a blurry blink, and Izuku was yet to shed a single tear. A numb feeling that had conquered his heart was preventing him from letting it out. It didn’t mean he didn’t want to cry, though, because he did. He did want to cry and desperately so. Every step he took inside his childhood apartment, his mother’s old apartment , was almost too painful to bear. The walls, shelves and dressers were still covered in old pictures. The rooms were still filled with her mother’s things. The whole apartment, each corner and inch of the flooring, was replete with memories.
For the first time in Izuku’s life, he wanted to move. This time, and only this time, he wouldn’t have minded being the new kid in a foreign land whose language he did not speak. He would have been okay with getting alienated by strange students who had already formed their friend groups by the start of the school year. He would’ve tolerated anything if it had meant escaping from the remnants of her mother.
But his father had insisted upon staying.
And Izuku knew better than to argue.
So they stayed.