Work Text:
“What if he gets hurt interacting with his classmates Midoriya-san? We don’t want to risk exposing him to any incidents that could harm him.”
She stops pacing around to stare at the phone.
They continue. “So we apologize and refuse his enrollment, please expect your refund during the next 14 days, if it doesn’t arrive feel free to contact us about it, if you have changed your bank info, we ask you to let us know as soon as possible,” there is a pause where the person waits for her to say something and when she doesn’t they continue, “if that is all, I will excuse myself and wish you a pleasant evening, thank you for your time” they hang up.
And she stands with her hand clutching her phone and a clenched jaw.
That’s the 7th High School that rejected them, and she hasn’t even begun with the Hero Schools.
She takes a deep breath and remembers that she still hasn't called the school.
UA publicly removed the rule where they refused quirkless students to try their Hero Entrance Exam so it should be logical to assume that they are welcome to not only that course but to the other ones that they provide.
Sometimes she wonders if they removed it because it took space, because they believed there weren’t any quirkless kids that would try their exam, so there wasn’t any reason for that rule to exist.
If there aren’t any quirkless, there shouldn’t be any rules regarding them.
She has to try another breathing technique after that thought comes, and then she has to start listing down Izuku’s favorite heroes from the ones with the longer period of time operating to the shorter ones when that doesn’t help.
She also needs to get UA contact info, one that will get her as close as she can to the Principal, she would even settle with a teacher, no less though.
She has learned from when she was looking for middle schools.
As much as she hates how nervous it makes her to meet the Directors, Presidents or Principals of the schools, she has to if she wants Izuku to have a chance of entering their schools.
And she will do everything for her son.
It’s a coincidence, a lucky one at that.
Hiromi is a new face, or well, not that new, but she’s young, in her late 20’s or perhaps early 30’s and she loves to talk, be it about her, about her boyfriend, about her job, about her family, and this time is not different, she talks about her nephew’s school experience.
He’s at UA, at the Management Course, she tells them, and she sounds proud of it, Inko wonders if that’s how she sounds when she talks about Izuku.
Then she mentions offhandedly that he actually got into the Hero Course, and Inko starts paying more attention, even if-
Even if it scares her to think of Izuku being a hero, even if she would love for him to choose any other career, perhaps a Quirk Analyst like his father. Even if she doesn’t think she could live peacefully if her son enters that course, even if-
She listens, because she has to prepare for when it happens.
“Really?” She hums, prompting her to explain more about it, it’s easy to lead people into talking, they love to talk, to gloat, to express themselves, she remembers doing it with Hisashi too, back when they first met, she even remembers thinking that he surely loved the sound of his voice from how much he loved to talk.
“Yeah, he got the 14th place on the exam, my sister still has his, uh, I think she said it was a recording? Where they told him his place and everything! They welcomed him to the Hero Course, but then he came back that first day and told us he got expelled!”
Someone behind her gasps. “What? They expelled him? For what?”
Hiromi preens at all the attention she’s receiving. “Yes, they did, she told me it was the professor’s teaching method? Kind of weird, but apparently it worked, something about making them go through the loss they would go as heroes, it was something psychological” she laughs and waves her hands, “anyway, it made my nephew realize some things about himself, my sister had to call the teacher, the teacher talked to my nephew, they resolved some stuff and at the end he left that Course and got into Management, they said it was common for that to happen, a lot of kids don’t really know what they want to do at that age so the school was prepared for it” she keeps talking and nodding at the people around her bombing her with questions.
But Inko is busy thinking about those few words.
My sister had to call the teacher.
She had been struggling to contact any of the staff at UA, not managing to get past their Customer Service, and her emails have all been answered with an automatic response letting her know that she will be reached as soon as possible.
She stares at Hiromi’s form where she’s casually talking about her nephew’s homework, his classmates and how much he loves it all. Suddenly she finds herself wanting the same, to talk about Izuku just like Hiromi does about her nephew, to gloat about her son’s knowledge, about his classmates, about him.
She decides to wait for when she’s alone, or at least when she’s not busy with everyone around.
It takes some time, Hiromi after all, likes to hang around and talk with everyone, it’s refreshing if she’s being honest, Inko had been volunteering at this Soup Kitchen for a while, and it’s always nice when the young ones come to help, they are all cheerful and easygoing, Hiromi even going as far as telling them to call her by her first name.
She’s with two other people, Kaneko, who has been around the same time Inko has and Shimada who arrived a little before Hiromi herself.
“Hello Hiromi-san, I wanted to talk to you about what you mentioned a few hours ago?” She starts, her voice soft and quiet, for a while she had hated it, how…naïve and scared it made her sound. She continues when Hiromi nods at her with a smile. “My son, he…wants to get into UA’s Hero Course, and I was wondering if your sister still had the teacher’s number?”
“The quirkless one?” Kaneko asks as if Inko has more than one son.
She ignores her and keeps smiling at Hiromi who only glances back at Kaneko.
“Uh sure, let me text my sister to see if she still has it, I’m sure she does though!”
As they wait for her sister’s response Kaneko excuses herself to check on how much inventory they will need for next week, the number of products they use have increased so they need to check their stock weekly instead of monthly, Shimada goes to assist her and at the end Inko and Hiromi stay alone.
A small ping makes Hiromi glance at her phone and type something rapidly.
Suddenly Hiromi starts talking, with a small voice. “You know, when my sister called me to tell me that Ryuji got expelled I-” she pauses, “I was quite relieved if I’m honest, being a hero is too much for a kid, I always thought he was risking his life but my sister always backed him up even though I knew Ryuji wasn’t cut for it,” they make eye contact, “I’m sure he’ll be able to convince your son to leave his ideas of becoming a hero too” Hiromi says, she sees the reassurance she tries to portray on her words and in her smile.
And Inko hates it, she hates it so much because Hiromi means it, she totally believes she is reassuring Inko about stopping Izuku’s dreams on becoming a hero, she doesn’t even stop to wonder if Inko wants something else out of the teacher’s number, she heard my son wants to get into UA’s Hero Course and quirkless and rapidly assumed Inko wanted to shut down those ideas.
And she hates it.
But instead Inko smiles at her and doesn’t say anything as she types down the teacher’s name and number and memorizes it just in case.
That day she leaves with Aizawa Shota’s phone number.
She saves that number and even writes it down on different notes around the house, but she doesn’t call.
Because as much as she hates herself for it, she still waits for a day when Izuku comes to her and tells her he doesn’t want to be a hero.
Though if that day comes she will wonder what happened, why would her boy abandon those dreams, they are everything to him, he can become a hero, no matter what anyone else says, and he will have her as back up, they can look up different options to become one, she has done her research and there are other ways on becoming one besides going to a Hero School, there’s the interning with a Hero Agency’s and they could also go to the Hero Public Safety Commission—
But at the end those contingencies don’t happen, because one day Izuku arrives and asks her to change his meals so he can prepare for the UA Hero Entrance Exam, she gladly accepts and asks him if he has any ideas, he proceeds to show her a full training program with a list of meals and a lot of terms she doesn’t know —yet— and even some training equipment that she will have to buy too.
While he explains some of the exercises and starts to mumble about mats and new clothes she glances at her phone with UA’s contact information.
She can’t delay it anymore.
“Hello, am I speaking with Aizawa Shota?”
Nezu sips on his tea as he waits for his appointment.
He doesn’t normally do early appointments for people that are not related to his students or that he hasn’t met before, but he recognized the name the moment Aizawa came to his office with his work phone in hand.
Midoriya Inko.
He glances at the name on his schedule and wonders what the mother of Yagi’s successor wants to talk with him.
It’s 7:45 in the morning when she finds herself standing in front of UA.
She stares and wonders how the school is, if it’s just like the world paints it to be.
UA is focused on preparing our students for what the world needs, they are encouraged to transform their cultural, political, and social environments on a social, professional, and personal level. We pride ourselves on our diversity and transparency, everyone is welcome to join us, to learn under our care. We believe that everyone can become what they aim to be. Plus Ultra!
Someone coughs and she startles.
It’s-
It’s a homeless man.
The man stares. “Midoriya Inko, may I see your ID?”
She nods and hands him her ID, wondering if he thinks it’s fake, it’s not, but what if he thinks it is?
She squints at the man, he seems familiar, she thinks she may have seen him before.
“Do you live close to Naruhata?” She asks him, he turns to stare at her and there’s something there she recognizes, but what?
She suddenly remembers a boy with a mask wearing an All Might jacket. “Or do you know The Crawler? Or Nice Guy?” She starts mumbling, “was it The Hauler? I never got it right, I also heard him being called The Cruller but that doesn’t sound very nice”
He coughs and she looks up to realize that she was mumbling. “Sorry! You just seemed familiar, but you don’t need to answer any of that, please ignore what I said”
He blinks at her and looks back to her ID, he hands it to her.
She thanks him as she saves it back to her wallet.
He nods to the school. “Follow me”
They walk in silence for a few minutes, going through different hallways.
“My work took me to Naruhata sometimes, perhaps you saw me when I was there”
She nods quietly, perhaps she did.
There is still something small though, it’s on the tip of her tongue, she knows him, but why? He already said he used to be at Naruhata because of work, but why did she think of The Crawler? Did she ever see the two of them together?
She glances at the man in front of her, for a second she had thought he was a homeless man, but now that she looks closely she realizes he’s wearing what appears to be a very long thin scarf and his belt looks like the ones she has seen on Izuku’s Heroes’ drawings.
There’s also the fact that he’s wearing all black, not to mention his combat boots, but it feels like he’s missing something.
“I believe his quirk must be connected to his sight because he wears goggles, there must be a reason for it, I mean, yeah, he travels by swinging with his scarf, so he must protect his eyes from the air with them, but he doesn’t stop using them after that, there are also some reports saying that people stop feeling their quirks the moment he appears? There are theories that say that he may have a quirk that affects quirks in a circumference around him, but I found this footage that shows only a few people affected by his quirk, and they are all on his line of sight, so I highly believe that it’s related to his eyes, or perhaps his face at least,” Izuku tells her as she cooks, he doesn’t take his eyes off his phone as he writes down everything, “oh, there’s someone saying they heard him being called Eraser, someone said it was Eraserhead, it fits, with his quirk being able to erase other’s quirks, it’s weird though, most underground try not to advertise their quirks”
She hums “Underground?”
“Yeah, they are heroes that are out of the spotlight and their hours are mostly during the night, there isn’t a lot of information on them, though, there are debates here on what’s the difference between them and vigilantes”
“What did you say his name was?”
“Eraserhead, here, this is how he looks”
He shows her a video where the hero can be seen swinging through the roofs using a long scarf like equipment, it’s shaky and dark but she can make out the bright yellow goggles Izuku mentioned.
“Oh my, that’s too high to be swinging like that”
“Mom, he probably practiced a lot to be able to do that! He’s totally safe, after all, he’s a Pro Hero”
Eraserhead.
“All right, this is where I leave you” Aizawa says, startling her out of her thoughts.
She turns to stare at him as soon as his words settle in. “Leave me? You won’t have the meeting with me?”
“Did I forget to mention? My apologies, but your meeting is not with me, you will be having it with the Principal Nezu” He smirks at her and it changes all his face. “Plus Ultra”
Underground Heroes are something else, she thinks as the man leaves.
She breathes deeply and tries not to shake too much, she’s only meeting the Pro Hero Nezu, who is also the Principal of UA High School, one of the most prestigious—if not the — Hero Schools.
She goes to knock on the door but it opens itself before she can touch it.
“Please, come in Midoriya-san!”
The meeting starts simple, he offers her tea and she accepts it with trembling hands.
He introduces himself, with rehearsed words trying to ease her down. “Am I a mouse? A dog? A bear? It’s me, Nezu, the one who could be a dog or a mouse or a bear, but more importantly... I'm the principal!”
“I thought you were a stoat?” He tilts his head in response and she flushes, “Oh my, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to say it out loud, it’s just that my son mentioned it a few times and it just stuck…I apologize for interrupting you” she bows.
He shakes his head and giggles. “No worries, it’s fun to hear everyone’s guesses!”
After that brief interruption she introduces herself, she stumbles on her words, or sometimes her lips shake and she never maintains eye contact for longer than 5 seconds, Nezu is afraid to say that he is a little disappointed on this meeting, but he listens, because everything she says it’s important, my son is quirkless, she tells him with trembling lips and shaky hands, and he wants to take your Hero Exam, you don’t have any problems with that Nezu-san?
It seems she doesn’t know that her son will have a quirk by the time the Entrance Exam happens, and it’s not like it’s his place to inform her of it, Yagi and the boy can do it themselves. Instead, he smiles at her and repeats what he said a few years ago when he lifted that rule.
She stares at him for a while. “I find it hard to believe, when those words sound rehearsed and I know they are exactly what you said on your statement about the New Rules encountering UA High School back in 2xxx”
Nezu blinks at her and she blinks back.
10. Mmm, interesting.
“You care for your son Midoriya-san?” He asks instead of addressing her statement.
“I do” she says, and there’s something in her eyes, something he recognizes because he has seen it in every teacher here, in every hero student and in himself.
15, 16, 17.
The look seems at home on her face, like it belongs, it also tickles something in his mind, a memory, he catalogs it for later and tries not to cackle, he knows it’s unsettling for people that don’t know him.
“Are you currently working Midoriya-san?” He starts typing on his computer.
23, 24–
25 seconds of prolonged eye contact and they are stopped when she blinks and starts playing with her hands. She opens her mouth and closes it, at the end she says, “No, sir, would that be a problem for Izuku?”
He shakes his head and smiles when he finds the file he is looking for. “Not at all, just wondering, are you looking for a job?”
She tilts her head. “A job?”
He nods. “As my Personal Assistant that is,” he flips the monitor, “the vacant is open and I believe you are the right person for it, this is what it entails if you’re interested, I’m having it printed just in case”
There are a few questions, about the hours, what it entails, about the contract, how long would she be hired, and the last one, how much would she gain.
“C-could you care to repeat that Nezu-san?” She stutters for what it seems a million times during this meeting.
“Of course! Please remember that this is an approximation of what you would be receiving, there will be a set payment weekly, fortnightly or per month, whichever suits you better, that the contract will state after everything is arranged, but I also tend to ask for tasks that will be charged apart from your established payment, so the number I am providing you right now is less than what you will be receiving” he says and then repeats how much she will gain.
She bites her lip. “May I have time to think about it?”
He smiles at her. “Of course, feel free to take your time, you can contact Aizawa-kun when you have made your decision”
“All right” she whispers as she clutchers her bag and stares at the printed paper detailing what her new job could be.
“I just want to reiterate that Midoriya-kun is welcome with open arms to any of the courses of UA High School in the event of him passing any of the exams, no matter his quirk status” he informs her, not forgetting what the point of this meeting was.
She nods slowly. “Thank you”
“It’s my pleasure, if that’s all for today?” she replies with a quiet affirmation, he presses one of buttons on his desk, “Aizawa-kun, please come to guide Midoriya-san back to the entrance”
The door opens as soon as he stops talking and Aizawa enters the office.
“Oh no, no, I don’t want to be a bother, I’ll see myself out, I remember how to get there,” she waves her hands at both of them “please, you don’t have to bother”
Aizawa glances at Nezu. “It’s no bother at all Midoriya-san, it’s my job”
“Please, I also need some time on my own, to think some things through, I don’t want to waste any of your times, what with classes starting soon”
“If you are sure” Aizawa starts.
She nods rapidly.
“Then it was a pleasure meeting you Midoriya-san, have a good day, please feel free to contact us for anything” Nezu says.
She gets up and bows to both of them. “Thank you, Nezu-san, Eraserhead-san, the pleasure was mine”
She leaves.
Nezu and Aizawa glance at his monitor that shows the different cameras following her walking through the hallways, she walks slowly but sure of her steps, he doesn’t have to send any robots or any of his staff to assist her.
He hums. “You didn’t tell her your hero name”
It’s not a question.
“No, I did not” Aizawa answers it as they stare at her walking out of the school.
He cackles this time, Aizawa is used to it by now.
This will be fun.