Work Text:
They met at a bar, Inko tells everyone. Rei smiles, a beaming, happy smile- nothing like the one she wore in the Todoroki household- and tells her to tell the truth.
I’m a lawyer, Inko says, I can’t just tell everyone how we met! It’d ruin my professional air!
Rei just rolls her eyes at her wife’s antics and tells whoever’s listening that it was at her wife’s office, not a coffee shop.
We met eyes across the room, Inko says, and it was love at first sight.
On the middle of working on the case, Rei says, on a sleepless night, Inko looked up at me and said, ‘So help me God I’m going to castrate this man who didn’t know what he was giving up.’
I didn’t say that! Inko says, giggling, and Rei rolls her eyes.
You absolutely did, honey, she says, kissing her wife’s forehead. It was very romantic.
Inko then blushes, covering her face, and Rei leans forward onto the table. Ignoring the lies my wife tried to tell you, she says, it really happened like this.
But then Inko tries to correct her wife, saying that it didn’t happen like that, either, and it goes back and forth and changes with every retelling.
But most of the time, it goes like this:
They’re sitting in the office, one late night, when Inko finally says it, and Rei smiles back.
“But what about your husband? You’ve told me about Izuku, but you’ve never mentioned your husband.”
Inko sighs and puts down her paper. “Hisashi walked out on us,” she says, “ten months ago, when he found out that Izuku is quirkless.”
“Oh,” Rei says. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“It’s fine,” Inko replies, and they return to their work.
But the air between the two of them is changed.
Eventually it’s done, they win, and the court case is over. Rei Himura is a single woman. Enji gains some visitation rights, but Rei takes the kids home with her, which is all she wanted in the end.
(Sitting there in his chair, head bowed, Enji seemed tired; there was a bone deep sense of weariness about him.
The next day, his PR team announces that Endeavor is taking a hiatus from hero work.
When he re-debuts months later, his energy has changed. He’s no longer as angry as before, and even his most fervent haters agree that he’s become a better hero.
Rei smiles and allows the children to spend every other weekend with him.)
That night, Rei asks Inko if they can stay with her. Just for a few months, she says, until I can find another job. Two months turn into four, which turn into six, which turn into eight, as neither woman really feels the need to move out even after Rei gets a new job.
It takes twelve months before the now thirteen Touya and now twelve Fuyumi conspire to get their moms to just date already.
Inko’s the one who asks first; Rei accepts, surprising nobody but Inko.
Nothing changes for the children except Natsuo gets the guest room that Rei moves out of and the kids start actually calling their other mother mom.
Rei and Inko marry seven months later, in the spring.
Time goes on. Seasons pass, years go by, children grow.
The first meeting between Shoto, Izuku, and Katsuki was predictably terrifying and ended with a large part of the public park scorched and an unbreakable bond for life as all three pledge to become the number one hero, even with Izuku being quirkless.
(Katsuki Bakugo watches Izuku help Shoto out of the river, just like the green haired boy did for him, and thinks, Oh, he doesn’t think I’m weak.
Izuku, Katsuki realizes, just wants to help everyone. )
Time goes on. Seasons pass, years go by, children grow.
Touya graduates from U.A.’s hero course. Inko and Izuku alike shed a veritable flood of tears, but the Superheated Hero: Pyre takes his place as a sidekick for Endeavor.
(Years down the line, a reporter asks Touya why he doesn’t start his own agency. Sure, his fire quirk has a limit, but it’s not insurmountable to work around. Why would he stay as a sidekick to his father?
Touya laughs and tells her that someone needs to keep his little father in check.
Still, all the same, a new agency forms months later around the junior heroes Pyre, Hawks, Miruko, and Mt. Lady.
They all get into the top fifty on that year’s Billboard.)
Time goes on. Seasons pass, years go by, children grow.
Fuyumi goes into school to be an educator; once again, Inko and Izuku both shed tears at her college graduation. She wants to be an elementary school teacher, she explains, and work with kids.
Inko and Rei think that’s a lovely goal.
(Secretly, Rei thinks that that might have been her dream, too, had she not met Enji.
They talk more these days, her and Enji. They will never again be husband and wife but it’s impossible not to talk when you share such an important part of your lives.
Enji apologizes to her many, many times, fighting back tears. Rei apologizes back, just as many.
No one person shares the blame for the broken Todoroki family.)
(Now that most of her kids are out of the house, Rei decides to try painting.
Her first paintings are terrible, but Inko kisses her cheek and loves them anyway.
Rei’s paintings improve.)
Time goes on. Seasons pass, years go by, children grow.
Natsuo goes into med school; he wants to save people but his quirk is unsuited for hero work, everyone tells him, so he trains to be an EMT.
(He’s talked to his father, met Enji’s coworkers, he knows how much it breaks a hero when they think they’ve saved anyone only for the victim to not make it to the hospital.
He decides never to let someone die on his watch.
Nobody ever does. Not when he makes it to the scene in time.)
Time goes on. Seasons pass, years go by, children grow.
Izuku and Shoto fight as children. No siblings grow up without arguing, ever, and the two of them are no exception.
They fight with Katsuki, too, more than anything else. The blond is abrasive and never mellows out, even if he doesn’t bully anyone.
But they push each other. Higher, faster, farther.
They compete on school work, they compete on the playground, they compete in races after school through the yellowing light of sunset.
Who can run faster? Who can get a higher score on the math quiz? Who can do more sit-ups?
They fight, they compete, and they race towards being pros.
Time goes on. Seasons pass, years go by, children grow.
Izuku begins training for the entrance exam with a maniacal fever. Shoto has a spot in the recommendation exam- perk of your father being the number two hero- but Izuku has none of that. Izuku has no quirk to rely on, only his skills and training.
Rei insists they meet the person training Izuku and so their son introduces them to Toshinori Yagi: a tall, stick-like skeleton of a man.
Inko is nervous, at first, trusting her baby to a stranger, but Rei merely smiles. You have kind eyes, she says, and that’s that.
That’s what they think, anyways, until Inko and Rei burst into U.A.’s hospital room- Inko in tears- to clutch a teary eyed Izuku who greets them with a tired grin.
I don’t know if I got in, he says, athletic wear torn up and ruined. But I gave it my best shot. And guess what?
He holds up an arm.
I have a quirk now!
It takes until the Sports Festival- watching Izuku and Shoto battle each other in the final round, watching her two sons prove to themselves and each other their resolve to be a hero, the rest of their siblings and her wife gathered around the TV to watch- for it to sink it to Rei that this is hers. This happy family, the one she always dreamed of, is this one she’s made.
It’s not the one that she planned, but it’s hers all the same.
Inko looks over at her wife, arm around Rei’s shoulders, with a soft smile. “Is something the matter?”
Rei smiles back, snuggling closer to her wife, and casts her gaze around the room, taking in the sight of the transfixed Natsuo, Fuyumi, and Touya, all of their eyes glued to the TV, not daring to even blink lest they miss something. “Nothing’s wrong, honey,” Rei says.
“Nothing at all.”