Chapter Text
Inko Midoriya is often worried, these days.
Izuku is as sweet of a child as she could have asked for. A tad bit anxious sometimes, but overall, he's an angel. Osamu, on another hand, seems like the total opposite. An almost ironic contrast, for twins.
From the moment Osamu first opened his eyes, she had begun to grow concerned. His eyes, unlike hers and Izuku's, were a dark brown like his father's. But that was not what worried her. It was how empty and cold they looked. It looked unsettling on a face otherwise so innocent.
Even now, at three years old, Osamu never behaved like a child did. Rarely ever cried, rarely ever complained. Sometimes seemed too aware for someone so young, and sometimes seemed like he was barely present at all. For a long time, he was so quiet Inko began to worry he would never attempt to speak.
This quietness of him apparently applied even to his quirk. For the longest time, Inko had not even realized it manifested itself, until she noticed that she couldn't use her own quirk whenever she had Osamu on her arms. It later got classified as a touch-based Nullification quirk, which was not what she expected, and left her wondering where exactly he got the genetics for that.
As relieved as she was that Osamu did, at the very least, present a quirk - something that was also beggining to be a concern regarding Izuku - it didn't ease her worries at all when she thought about how stunted his development was in every other area.
It wasn't until he began going to kindergarten that Inko even learned how smart her son was. At the start, his teachers only had positive things to say about him, singing praises about how well-spoken he is, what a good memory he has, how quickly he learned and how behaved he was!
The praises, too, quickly shifted to worry. Not only did Osamu not have any friends, every other children, save for Izuku, seemed to be afraid of him. He showed no interest in toys or group activities, isolated himself as much as he could, expressed none of the emotions one would expect from a child. His mental health was a growing concern to basically every adult around him.
And Inko was at an absolute loss. She didn't know what to do. Osamu was so young, Inko felt like she had failed to raise him before she even had the chance to. Surely no child was just born so apathetic? Every attempt she made to understand or cheer him up was met with a brick wall.
She tried desperately to find something that interested him, to find a subject that hooked him in conversation, but there was nothing.
How could a mother fail so miserably at connecting with her own child?
Inko quietly mused over a cup of coffee. At about... two AM? She glanced at the clock.
The children were put to bed hours ago, still, she had no work to do tomorrow, and felt no desire to go to bed. She's been in the kitchen for a while now, contemplating on whether she should choose a book to read the night away or not.
Her thoughts are interrupted by the slow creek of a door opening and quiet patter of little feet on the floor. When she looked towards the kitchen entrance, she caught Osamu's huge eyes blinking at her, like he didn't expect her to be awake, still. Inko finds herself sharing the same thoughts.
Regardless, she raises a hand and beckons him closer silently, almost like afraid that the sound of her voice would scare him off like a cat.
Huh.
Actually, a cat is a very good way to describe Osamu.
Osamu seemed to consider this for a moment, before accepting the invitation and going forward. Instead of going directly to her side, he bypassed her to grab a step stool under the sink and climb it so he could reach a jar of biscuits over the counter. Inko watched it all with wide eyes and a soft smile on her face.
This kid! She had no idea he knew how to do that, but now she knows why sometimes the jar seems to have gotten lighter overnight.
Satisfied once he grabbed a handful, Osamu returned everything to it's place and climbed the chair by her side, sitting down. He eyed the coffee mug in her hands carefully, before looking up at her with round eyes and pointing at it with his free hand.
"Can i have that?" he asked, expectant.
Now, giving coffee to a kid that's barely four years old is a terrible idea by itself. Especially at two AM.
But Osamu rarely ever asked her for things. His voice sounds timid now, low even in the quiet of the night, and Inko can't recall a time where he has looked so childish, save perhaps for the very few times he indulged Izuku and played with him for a while.
So sue her if she doesn't have the heart to deny him!
"It's really bitter, i don't think you'll like it." she takes a sip, as if to demonstrate. "And it's bad for your sleep." She adds, just because she feels like she should, even as she gets up to prepare a cup for Osamu.
"S'not like i was sleeping, anyways..." he mumbles, watching her move around the kitchen. His words make her pause for a second.
"Did you have a nightmare?" She asks softly when she sits down again, handing him a cup of coffee as one would hand a cup of warm milk to a child.
He thinks for a second before answering, "No, i'm just not sleepy."
Osamu drinks the black liquid with no hesitation at all. As expected, after the first sip his face scrunches up adorably, and Inko has to hold back a giggle as he stares at the cup with a grimace. She's surprised when he goes for a second sip anyways, and continues to drink it between bites of biscuits, even if he doesn't seem to enjoy the taste much. When she offers to add some milk and sugar, he just shakes his head silently in denial.
Neither of them are going back to sleep anytime soon, so Inko ponders what to do next while Osamu finishes his peculiar snack.
She feels on her back the familiar weight that she gets when she's alone with Osamu. It's bizarre to be so scared of saying the wrong thing to someone you should get along with effortlessly. He's not yet at the age where kids are avoidant and rebelious, but this is harder than she expects that would be, for a normal child.
Osamu looks like a normal child, right now. His dark eyes blend in with the overall darkness of the night, and they don't seem as dead as they usually do. He looks small compared to the huge chair, and his feet are swinging back and forth where they dangle above the ground. But Inko gets the feeling that if she tried to treat him like a child, he would close off again, and she'd miss the window of opportunity.
So after pondering for a while, she decides to try to be... casual about it.
"I was going to read a book, but if you want to stay awake with me, we could watch something on TV?" she offers.
Osamu, finishing his last sip of coffee - she's still a bit thrown off by that, to be honest. -, considers her question, before shaking his head again. Before Inko can get disappointed, he follows by saying: "You can read something for me."
Her eyes shine like he just handed her a million dollars on a golden plate. He might as well have!
"That sounds good to me! Do you want to choose the book?" she gets up enthusiastically, although her voice is still low, protecting the peace of the night. Osamu jumps down from his chair and reaches to hold her pajama pants, following her to the living room. Inko's heart squeezes at the gesture.
They stop in front of the bookshelf, Osamu looks vaguely at it up and down, before looking back at her. "I don't care, you can choose." and then, after a moment. "What's your favorite?"
Inko blinks at the unexpected question, and considers the question carefully for a moment. It then dawns on her how silly it is to be worried whether Osamu will aprove of her choice or not, so she answers honestly and grabs a fantasy book from the shelf.
"This one." she turns it around to show him the cover, and says the name out loud, assuming he can't read the title. His big eyes look at the cover drawing blankly for a while, and Inko starts to worry maybe he will judge her for the childish choice.
After a while though, he just says: "There's a dragon?"
She nods happily at the question. Osamu must have decided this is a good thing, because next he is basically dragging her to the couch with him. Inko expected them to sit side by side, so she's taken by surprise when Osamu lays his head down on her lap, dark eyes looking up at her earnestly.
Inko is so moved she could cry.
She reads the pages out loud until her voice is rough with sleep. Surprisingly, Osamu does closes his eyes after a while, and stays there long after she stops reading. Inko bookmarks the book and closes it carefully, setting it aside to stare at her child. One of her hands come up to caress his wavy hair, slowly.
She takes a moment to look.
Despite being unidentical twins, Izuku ended up looking just like Inko, while Osamu looks a lot like his father. The two siblings barely look alike. Osamu's hair falls flatter, and is a shade of brown so dark most of the time it looks black. The same applies for his eyes. Sometimes, Inko swears she can see them reflect red, and she has no idea where that came from.
Unlike Izuku's freckled cheeks, Osamu's skin is smooth and pale, save for a few moles scattered here and there. If it weren't for the slightly dark bags under his eyes, one could mistake him for a porcelain doll.
But looking down at him now, he looks as young as he is, and as innocent as he should be.
His expression is unbearably soft, cheek mushed against Inko's thighs, and messy hair sprawled on her lap. Osamu looks blank most of the time, but this is the first time she's seen him look just... content.
Suddenly her vision is getting blurry, and Inko has to cover her eyes before tears fall on his face. She kind of feels like bawling her eyes out right at this moment, but that would wake him up and she can't have that.
Not when she finally feels like she's done something right as a mother. As Osamu's mother. She feels pathetic at the same time, that it's been so long since her child did something as common as sleeping with her it's enough to make her cry now.
She keeps petting his hair with one hand, doing her best to wipe her tears with the other, and keeping her sobs and sniffs as quiet as possible.
Inko ends up sleeping just like that, sitting up on the couch with Osamu laying on her lap. When she wakes up, she has a terrible neck pain, is still incredibly sleepy, and feels happier than she has for a while now.
Osamu seems to spend more time with her, after that day.