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Midoriya Inko loves her son with a kind of devotion that is difficult to describe to anyone, even other mothers.
Because Izuku had been a part of her at one point, she had held him inside her body for nine months, had felt his heartbeat next to hers as she kept him safe and helped him grow until he could survive outside of her. And even after she had given birth to him, even after she had spent hours feeling her body tear itself open so that Izuku could live, she would pick him up and hold him close to her chest so that she could feel his tiny heartbeat next to hers. It had not been the same, of course, but hearing his heart, knowing that he was living, breathing, settled something in her.
It was only an echo of what she used to have, but Inko had needed that echo like living creatures need water.
Hisashi had actually gotten irritated with her when she refused to move Izuku’s bed from their room, but Inko had needed to be able to reach over and hold him anytime she woke up in the middle of the night and felt the place where his heartbeat should be. She had needed to be sure that she could feel him, still alive, still there.
Inko loves Izuku with the same kind of devotion that keeps the sun shining up in the air above them, lighting up the world and warming the earth with its rays.
When Hisashi told her that he had accepted a position that meant moving to the United States, Inko had understood that he was leaving them without involving all the paperwork and the messy feelings of actually separating. And Inko had been hurt, of course she had been hurt. But she had promised herself and Izuku, right then and there as she ran her fingers through his bouncy green curls, that Izuku was never going to suffer for his father’s absence. He was never going to feel it.
Because she knew she had enough love inside her for Izuku to make sure he never felt the absence of Hisashi’s love. There was never even a single doubt in her mind that she would be able to love Izuku enough for two people, and she would have been willing to go further than that too.
She knew, from the moment she knew Izuku, that she would always be able to love Izuku enough for the rest of the world to not matter if it came down to it. And that had only grown exponentially since then.
Inko loves Izuku with a devotion that recalls the way people used to celebrate the first signs of spring after a heavy winter, when it was clear there was new life breaking through with each passing day.
At some point, Izuku picked up a love for Heroes. Inko was not entirely sure where he got it from, but she figures that most children have to go through a Hero phase at least once in their life. There does not seem to be any harm in letting Izuku play Heroes and Villains, in letting him watch a clip of All Might rescue people with a smile on his face, telling the people watching that they should not be afraid.
Izuku loves the idea of Heroes, and Inko loves Izuku. So she does her best to love them too, even if the one clip of All Might always makes her heart beat a little faster, because she remembered that day, she remembered thinking that she might know someone on that train and wondering if they were even still alive for the Heroes to save. He loves the clip though, so Inko played it for him again and again and again.
Then the world broke her baby’s heart and Inko felt her own heart snap clean in two alongside his as the doctor she had hoped would be able to tell her what Izuku’s quirk was, instead told them both that there was no hope for Izuku.
A part of Inko had wanted to scream at the doctor, to demand to know who he thought he was and what kind of half-assed bedside manner he thought he was employing, telling a four-year-old that he was helpless. But more of her had been focused on Izuku, on the fact that she could see him hurting, and knowing that as much as she loves him, there is nothing she can do to combat his biology.
And then they went home and Inko had found Izuku watching that same clip and so much of her had felt like it was her fault that her child had tears in his eyes as he asked her if he could still be a Hero like All Might. Because Inko is not stupid, she remembers what the world was like before All Might became a household name, she remembers the way that her father had complained about how, even back then, people were starting to screen for certain kinds of quirks during job applications. And she knows that the situation has only gotten worse, if quieter, not as talked about.
Inko loves Izuku so much she overflows with it, until it threatens to tear her apart at the seams. But she knows she cannot love him into giving him a quirk, she cannot love him into forcing society, which is so focused on someone’s quirk, into seeing her son as the thing of wonder he is.
So instead she holds her son and her heart shatters into a thousand tiny pieces as she reckons with the idea that the world is going to judge him before they know him, that his dream has been taken from him before he even gets the chance to try.
Other parents express their sympathies to her, they tell her that it is such a shame that Izuku will never actually amount to anything. They tell her that she is young enough that she could try again if she wanted to. Inko cuts them all off. She walks away from all of them and she never even considers looking back.
She does not want any of them in her life if they are going to tell her that her son is not enough for her. Izuku has always been enough. Inko is not going to stop loving him because of an arbitrary genetic condition.
Izuku does not stop loving Heroes as he grows up. His teachers try to talk to her about it, try to set up meetings to discuss setting realistic expectations for Izuku. Inko nods her head politely at each meeting she is asked to attend, and then she goes out and purchases Izuku something Hero themed after each one.
Because despite everything, Izuku still has that bright center to him. The world wears at him, Inko knows it does because she watches it happen right before her eyes, but he still smiles with pure joy each time she brings him home something, each time she asks him questions about whatever Hero he wants to talk about that day.
There is a kind of grief Inko learns to live with, knowing that Izuku is never going to be afforded the opportunities he should be. That he will have people turn him away needlessly while lying with their smiles and insisting that they are doing what is best for all involved.
Inko refuses to allow Izuku to feel the fullness of that grief though, to let it impact him. She is determined to give Izuku a bright spot for every dark one the world tries to hand him.
Things get better when Izuku finds a friend in the young Todoroki boy.
Inko likes the youngest Todoroki, and she likes Himura, who is quiet but who never insinuates that Inko should try again or tries to tell her that Izuku should give up on his dreams. She likes the way that Izuku seems to regain a bit of vitality.
Then Izuku starts his last year of middle school and Inko feels a pit start to open up in her stomach. Because Izuku does not talk to her about his plans, but Inko knows Izuku like she knows her own heart, and she knows that Izuku is going to try for the Hero Course at U.A., she knows that he has not given up on the dream that everyone else has told him is impossible to achieve. And when he comes home from school a few days after he practically gave her a heart attack by running at a villain with a meal plan, Inko looks at it, she studies it, and then she goes out and purchases everything necessary to ensure he sticks with it.
She does not even think to question it. Izuku is her heart, she loves him so much, and if the support she can give him is to make meals according to his new requests, then she is going to make sure he has what he has asked for. Meals feel like the least she can do, but she did them with gusto.
Which is why it had felt like such a significant betrayal when the oldest Todoroki walked Izuku into her home and insisted that she tell Izuku that he could not be a Hero, that she take Izuku’s dream away from him. Izuku seemed upset at the words, but Inko had felt like Izuku had been stabbed in the back by someone who should have known better. And it was worse than if someone had hurt her, because he was hurting her child. Someone Inko thought she could trust.
She and Izuku had a long conversation that night, after the oldest Todoroki had been asked to leave, where the two of them talked for hours. Izuku insists that nothing was going on between him and his trainer, and Inko believes him, because Izuku would not lie to her, not about this. But she had also insisted that she did not mind if Izuku continued to train for the Entrance Exam, but that he could not meet the man anymore. Not unless the man met her first.
It had ended with Izuku asking if he could still clean up the beach, and Inko had agreed without question.
He does not stop coming home exhausted after that, but he also has never looked happier, more alive. Somewhere deep inside, Inko knows that this is fleeting, but she refuses to offer up Izuku’s current happiness onto the altar of a society that has already dismissed him, they do not get to take that away from her baby. At least Izuku can learn with every other hopeful what his fate will be, and not a second sooner.
“Are you ready?” Inko asks as Izuku scarfs down the last of his breakfast.
“Yep!” Izuku says, his mouth still half filled with food as he smiles at her. It is so happy and bright so carefree, Inko reaches up so that she can cup his cheek with her palm. She wants to capture the sight of this smile and keep it safe. SIf she could, she would freeze this moment, right here, and right now, and she would keep them like this, always, just so that Izuku would keep being her sunshine bright boy.
But she knows she cannot. All she can do is continue to love him, as much as she can, in the hopes that it eases some of what the world is going to throw at him.
Inko learned a long time ago that people are not born equal, and that the world is a cruel place. And she has done her best to show Izuku that he can choose to be kind anyways. All she can hope is that he does not lose sight of that.
“Let me know when you’re finished, I want to hear all about everything, okay?” she tells him.
“I will, promise!” Izuku says as he grabs his backpack and runs out the door, leaving Inko behind. It is a bittersweet feeling, knowing that Izuku is growing up, that soon, he will be growing into the life he is going to choose for himself.
She just hopes that no matter what that life looks like, Izuku continues to be happy, that he protects that spark that Inko has spent so much of her life loving.
And as she places her hand on the door, marking the spot Izuku has departed from, a part of her hopes, wildly, that Izuku will manage to do what no one seems to think he can do. She hopes that he gets into the U.A. Heroics Course, that he gets to keep chasing his dream that much further.
Inko might not be able to change the world, she may not be able to break apart society and reform it to be kinder to her child, but she had promised Izuku that she was going to love him as much as he deserved to be loved. And so she is not going to help the world hurt Izuku, to crush his dreams.
She is not going to do that to the heart that beat inside of her, to the child she carried and then raised. The rest of the world might have cast Izuku aside, but Inko is his mother. She is his mother and she loves him more than words can ever properly convey.
Everyone else can be dead set against Izuku achieving his dreams, she does not care. Inko is on his side.