Chapter Text
“Papa! Papa!” He turned scooping up his daughter as she ran into his arms. He grinned as he brushed his light blue, nearly white hair out of his face.
“What is it Izu? You seem so excited!” Inko smiled watching them as she put Izumi’s backpack on the hook.
“Guess what happened at school today!” He grinned slightly and made a show of thinking hard.
“Did they have extra brownies in the cafeteria again?” She shook her head practically vibrating.
“Better!” He frowned at her slightly.
“What could possibly be better than extra brownies?” She seemed to glow with excitement then he realized that her hands were glowing. They were a dark swirling purple. Her All Might doll in her mothers arms was glowing too. Inko let go of it and it floated over to Izumi who grabbed it out of the air. He stared.
“You got your Quirk!” She bounced in his arms too excited to speak. Inko nodded.
“She did. In the middle of class. She couldn’t reach the crayon she wanted so she made it float to her. The doctor says it’s a more powerful version of my quirk. They’re calling it telekinesis.” He pulled his wife into a hug. He had hoped she would be quirkless it would have been easier but he couldn’t take it from her now. Too many people knew about it. But he would have to leave, Inko and Izumi would be safer without him around as he worked to bring down his arch nemesis All Might.
Well that’s what he thought anyway. He didn’t know about his wife’s extra activities at night. Vigilantism was illegal of course but that didn’t mean that no one did it. It also didn’t mean that some heroes didn’t approve of it, if only silently. One such hero was the underground hero Eraserhead. He and Push, a woman whose identity he had never learned who had the ability to move objects without ever touching them, had been warry of each other but circumstances pushed them to work together more often than not. He was watching the news one morning when the report came on.
‘The vigilante Push has been found dead this morning along with three others after the battle that raged across the city between All Might and a villain calling himself Earth Shaker. Reports tell us that the vigilante had attempted to assist in the civilian rescue when a building was compromised by the villain collapsing three floors on top of the victims. The identity of the vigilante has yet to be released to the public.’ Shota Aizawa pulled out his cell phone and made a phone call.
When he got to the police station he found his contact and they walked together into the morgue. The man, an officer with scales running across his face and a forked tongue shook his head as he pulled the sheet off the body. It was Push alright but she wasn’t wearing her mask. Her long green hair fell around her shoulders, slightly bloodied. Aizawa swore.
“Did we get an ID?” His contact nodded.
“Her name was Inko Midoriya. She worked part time as a clinic nurse. Eraser, she had a kid.” Aizawa froze. His contact continued. “Uniforms picked her up from school. She’s only six. She’s in interrogation room three.” Aizawa had already set off at a ground eating pace. He glared at the officer posted at the door of the interrogation room until he moved which didn’t take long. He stepped inside and felt his heart constrict at the sight before him. She was tiny in the metal chair. She had a death grip on an All Might doll and she was sobbing at the mask on the table in front of her. It was black and would only cover the top half of a face. He had become familiar with the swirls of red and gold that covered it. He knelt down next to the child.
“Hi. My name is Eraserhead. What’s your name?” The kid tore her bright green eyes away from the mask.
“M… my name’s Izumi. Where’s my mommy?” He wanted to swear at the officers. How much had they told her? She answered his question before he could ask it. “They told me she had gotten hurt when All Might was fighting Earth Shaker. They told me my mommy was a bad person! My mommy’s not bad!”
“No she’s wasn’t a bad person Izumi. She tried to help All Might save some people.” God he was not good at this. Izumi looked back at the mask.
“She’s not coming home is she?” Aizawa could only shake his head as the child burst back into tears and flung herself into his arms. It didn’t take long for the poor girl to cry herself to sleep. Aizawa carefully picked up the mask on the desk. At least they’d had the tact to clean the blood off of it. He slipped it into the girls hands as he stood, still carrying her.
He carried the girl out of the interrogation room and glared again at the officer who made to protest. He fell silent under the glare. Aizawa carried the girl to the desk of his contact and sat down across the desk from him.
“Have we been able to make contact with her father?” The officer nodded, keeping silent about the child asleep in his arms.
“We did. He’s about half an hour out. Apparently he was on his way to surprise the two of them. He works abroad, but he got some time off and was on his way home when he got the call. Poor guy.” Aizawa nodded one hand on the head of curly green hair asleep against his shoulder.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Katsuki Bakugou didn’t understand why his mother was crying, or why he had to wear a black suit. His father had explained that something bad had happened to Auntie Inko. That they wouldn’t be seeing her again. He didn’t want her to go away. He loved spending time with Auntie Inko, playing with Izumi, planning their futures as heroes together. They’d decided that they were going to be a duo, sitting in the number one spot together. It had never been done before but they were going to be the first.
The funeral was full of people in black, Izumi’s father was there holding her hand as she sobbed into her sleeve. If he’d known back then he would have done more. He would have tried to talk to her but she was hard to talk to when she was upset. He didn’t know what to say to her. But if he’d known how long it would be until they saw each other again he would have done more. After the wake he found her All Might doll on the ground. She never let go of this one, much less leaving it out in the dirt.
He’d asked his mom if they could return it to her a few days later but his mother had said that Izumi had moved away, gone to live with her father. Katsuki shut himself up in his room for a week and refused to talk to anyone after that. She had been his best friend and she hadn’t even said goodbye.