Chapter Text
Another funeral. One more in a litany of sorrowful events over the years.
Somehow, though, Ochaco thinks this one is not quite as sad as most of the others.
Maybe it’s the distance—the fact that she hasn’t attended one in several years, now, makes it easier to focus on the happy memories instead of the grim fact that they are cataloguing yet another loss.
And as she clutches Izuku’s hand in her own, Ochaco only hopes her husband can find strength in her presence as he says his final goodbye to the first person who ever loved him.
Inko Midoriya is a Hero. Ochaco owes so much to her son, and even more to the loving and empathetic person who raised him.
As her ashes are laid to rest, the woman responsible for bringing Deku into the world and gifting him to a nation tearing itself apart, is treated with reverence and respect. It’s a humbling thing to realize so many people have quietly understood her sacrifices as she worried over her boy and the man he became in terrified silence.
It is not kind, what society has asked of her or Izuku, but they both rose to the occasion each and every time they were needed. Again and again they forsook their own needs and wants in order to offer strength and stability to the world around them.
Izuku is crying—has been for three days while they prepared for the actual funeral—and Ochaco keeps handing him tissues with her free hand as he needs them, taking the soiled ones and crumpling them into her pocket to dispose of later.
And every time she hands him a new one, he shoots her a look that is equal parts grateful and apologetic. Ochaco’s only answer is a gentle smile and a few soothing caresses of her thumb over his right hand in her lap.
She remembers how difficult it was to say goodbye to her own parents, sitting alone in a crowd of mourners without anyone to hold her hand or give her tissues. And she is glad Izuku does not have to face his sorrow with the same loneliness; she is grateful she is with him to offer all the support and love he needs.
Ochaco wonders, sometimes, about what an afterlife might look like, though she’s never considered the concept too deeply. It’s too frightening. She does not like being reminded that she cannot stay here with Izuku forever. So she doesn’t know, really, what happens after we die, but she hopes it is something beautiful.
She hopes that Inko Midoriya is blooming like a cherry blossom or blazing a trail across the sky as bright as any comet.
She deserves that, Ochaco thinks, to be beautiful and appreciated into eternity.
Sometimes the knowledge that her parents were never privileged enough to know Izuku as not just a Hero, but as her partner and her love, sends a deep wave of sadness cascading through her body in an insistent ripple.
Sometimes the grief, still raw and real and overwhelming upon occasion all these years later, will pull her to her knees in the kitchen.
Izuku is always there to kneel beside her. To wrap his mismatched arms around her like a blanket and murmur reassurances into her hair.
And even if she is still sad, she laughs through her tears because she knows—she knows with all her heart—that if her parents could see the genuine affection Izuku has for her and the delicate way he treats her when she needs a Hero, they would be proud of their daughter for choosing a partner who sees her as an equal, but cherishes her like something precious and delicate all the same.
She’s trying to do that for him, now. exactly what he does for her when she is overcome by the weight of her losses. Picking up the pieces of his shattered heart in their bedroom., she holds him tightly as he cries hard against the pillow and gently rearranges the scattered shards until they fit together the way they’re supposed to. She helps him make arrangements and pick his mother’s bones from the ashes in reverent adoration of the woman they once belonged to.
A woman so small and so quiet most of the time that you would never know she was the mother of one of the greatest Heroes the world has ever known.
But Ochaco understands how little size and stature are relevant to a person’s greatness. When cataloguing grace and fortitude, it is the depth of someone’s compassion and resilience that matter. Ochaco knows Inko’s strength because she imbued it in her son, and she has to stop herself from pressing a palm to her belly as she considers how many other generations will benefit from a small woman’s inner strength.
Inko’s final few years were difficult. Her joints rebelled heartily against gravity and the passage of time, eventually making it impossible for her to walk up the stairs to her apartment. So she moved into a spare bedroom when Izuku and Ochaco purchased their first house together. And Izuku laughed and blushed and could not believe how lucky he was to have the two most important people in his life with him under the same roof.
Inko made katsudon every Wednesday night and Ochaco cooked breakfast for the three of them on Saturday mornings.
And for a few blissful, wonderful years, that was their life—an adoring family to come home to between long and exhausting rescue missions or black-market weapons busts. When one of them was injured on the job, Inko would gently scold them even as she nursed them carefully back to health.
And it made their work easier, knowing they were coming home to something so beautiful and pure and right.
Ochaco knows her memory has softened some of the more difficult parts of their past. When she thinks back on their years together, the ones before them seem less important. Like an interlude most people forget about after the play has finished.
Maybe that is time’s greatest gift—letting the joy and love shine bright as the sun as the bleaker months and days retreat slowly into shadow, shrunken and almost forgettable.
She knows the years that bracketed Shigaraki’s defeat were dark and difficult, punctuated by heavy losses and dismal undertakings. But seeing where they’ve ended up makes all the struggle feel more worthwhile than her eighteen-year-old self would have ever thought possible.
Izuku is still a Hero, he still worries every moment of his life that he will misstep and his flaws will be spread wide across the world for everyone to see. He is terrified that one day he will make a mistake so grave and unforgivable that all the good he’s done will be reduced to a grim catalogue of his shortcomings.
Ochaco assures him the Commission is better now, more secure, and that a single error will not be enough to send the world sprawling back into chaos.
But Izuku Midoriya has always carried the world’s burdens on his shoulders, even before he was asked to. And no matter how carefully she words her reassurances, she cannot change the things that make him fundamentally himself.
Not that she wants to, anyway, because those are the things she fell in love with in the first place.
Sometimes she remembers the first time she kissed him, trying to raise his core body temperature with her own warmth in a cabin covered with snow. She remembers how they held one another after, trading secrets and memories from the years they’d spent apart, noses brushing against one another as they each leaned in to steal another kiss between shy blushes.
Ochaco had been reticent to send up her flare in the morning because it felt like she had finally figured out exactly what she wanted—who she wanted—and she was afraid Izuku might be snatched away from her if she let anyone else in on the secret.
But they’d had more work to do; more survivors to find, more victims to pull from the wreckage so they could be given proper burials.
She’d spent two long weeks in the mountains after the initial rescue, staying at Thirteen’s house as Uravity helped rebuild the ruined villages.
Izuku texted her every morning and Ochaco called him every night. She couldn’t always answer right away, and he didn’t always pick up the phone.
But it was the fact they were both trying that made it feel so achievable. Like they could finally be exactly who they wanted to be.
Together.
The Himiko Toga interview had been a ratings abomination—millions of views in the first hour after it was uploaded and more interactions on the Hero News sites than any other story in six months.
It made Ochaco’s stomach churn to think people were so eager to pry into Izuku’s life—perhaps even excited by the prospect that his career might be ruined. And after the revelation that Himiko had worn Uravity’s skin to deceive him, the attentions had turned to her, too, and she finally understood then why Izuku had tossed his phone in a drawer and tried to forget its existence.
She’d been forced to hire a PR representative for the first time in her life just to wade through all the requests for comment and threatening or pornographic emails she received.
The inquiries about her relationship status were less than thrilling, especially because at the time she hadn’t really known whether she had one to report.
Were she and Izuku dating? Flirting? Hanging out? Just friends who made out one night?
She had no idea.
At least, as it turned out, Izuku hadn’t either. In his first television appearance following the incident—in which he had, ostensibly, been attempting to advocate for psychological treatment for some of Avernus’ more vulnerable population—the interviewer had asked if he was in love with Uravity.
She’d watched the clip probably a hundred times after it aired—not that Ochaco would ever admit as much to her poor husband—because he’d turned a shade of red not yet seen in the natural world as he stuttered an answer that had absolutely no relation to human speech.
It was still the most endearing thing she’d ever seen.
When she called him that night, she giggled as he sputtered an apology and the only way she managed to stop him was by using his given name for the first time.
“It’s fine, Izuku, don’t worry about it.”
His end of the call had gone disturbingly quiet in less than a moment and Ochaco worried something might have severed their connection.
“Izuku? Are you still—”
“I’m here, Ura… Ochaco,” he said deliberately.
And then it was her turn to stammer like a schoolgirl who’d just been asked to tea by her first crush.
They had been a mess, neither one of them at all experienced enough with actual relationships to have the faintest idea what they were doing.
But they’d figured it out, eventually.
Together.
And then they learned to navigate the rest on the fly. Public scrutiny and political doubletalk; tabloid rumors and sexist comment sections. They were a team again, and nothing could stop them unless they allowed it to.
Izuku continued fighting for what he believed in—compassion and empathy—even when the Hero Commission disagreed with his approach. It was easier, Ochaco expected, for him to stand up for his ideals when he knew she was there to support him. And when he learned to rely not just on her, but on his fellow Heroes to help bear the torch, the entire world opened up.
Deku wasn’t the only Hero who had dedicated himself to protecting people. He couldn’t be the only one expected to maintain the trust and confidence of civilians. It took a long time (and several extremely determined forehead flicks) for Ochaco to drill that into his head, but eventually he’d gotten the message.
Now he is free from the rigid conformity the Commission once demanded of him. He still supports them; still espouses many of their ideals and helps advance their agenda. But when he disagrees, he has the confidence to say so.
It’s the same determination she saw the first time they teamed up at U.A., and it still sends Ochaco’s insides swirling like a kaleidoscope of butterflies.
The funeral service continues on. The sickly sweet smell of incense drifts across on a breeze interrupted only by their prayers.
When the priest gives Inko her new name, Izuku’s legs shake. His whole body rebels against the idea that his mother is not longer Inko Midoriya, but some other being who has never held him in her arms or thanked him for being her Hero.
Ochaco releases his hand to bring both her palms up to his face and turn him to look at her.
“It’s okay, I’m right here,” she says, and he nods to let her know he can hear her through the tears before she presses their foreheads together in a tender gesture.
She knows there are cameras here; knows that tonight or tomorrow this intimate moment between the two of them will saturate social media in a way that feels gratuitous and vulgar.
But that doesn’t stop her from pressing her lips against his gently. It doesn’t stop her from running her fingers through his hair or brushings his tears from his cheeks with her thumbs.
Because even if these precious things that should be private cannot always belong to only them, that doesn’t make them any less important in the moment.
The last time Ochaco spoke with Inko, the woman was lying in a hospital bed. Nurses administered pain killers and made sure she drank her water, but everyone knew her time was close. Inko’s health was frail and she was fading. All that remained was the ability to keep her comfortable and remind her she was loved.
When Izuku left the room for a moment to speak with a doctor, Ochaco had lifted Inko’s tiny hand and pressed it firmly against her stomach while a pink-padded finger hovered against her lips to make it clear Inko needed to stay quiet.
It took the older woman a moment to realize what her daughter-in-law was trying to tell her, but when her brain caught up with the subtle gesture and all that it meant, her face nearly split in half from the force of her smile. Even as giant, cartoonish tears jumped over her lower eyelids and dashed down her cheeks, Inko laughed. It was a sound of joy and hope—something Ochaco had heard hundreds of times when someone cheated death only to be pulled out of the rubble and into the future by the hands of Rescue Hero Uravity.
“I haven’t told him, yet,” Ochaco confided and she could see how much that meant to Inko; to be trusted with this delicate secret.
When Izuku returned, his worry was obvious when he asked his mother what was wrong. But Inko only brushed her tears away and hugged him.
“It’s nothing, dear. I’m just always so happy to see you both.”
And if her son noticed the strange emphasis she placed on that last word, he never said so.
Inko died two days later and Ochaco still hasn’t told Izuku that precious secret she shared with his mother in her final hours.
As they accept the okoden, bowing politely to every person who offers their condolences, Ochaco can’t help but smile.
Because she understands the weight of this sadness. She still listens to that last voicemail her parents left her before she moved home sometimes. The sound of their voices is often overwhelming as she stares up at the stars from the roof her and Izuku’s shared home.
But more than that, it is a reminder that without their love she could never have become the person she is. The person who loves Izuku despite his single-minded focus and inability to put himself first. The Hero terrified victims call Uravity with hope and relief.
A mother to the child of the world’s greatest Hero—a child who will be able to decide what they want the future of their own world to look like because of the sacrifices she and Izuku and their friends have made.
Not every moment is a gift, but every day is a reminder of why they fought; why they continue fighting for what is good and what is right, even if they do not always agree on the meaning of those words.
Ochaco knows Izuku still argues passionately with Katsuki and Shoto. She knows when they get together for lunch on the weekends sometimes the gatherings end in expletives and the all-too familiar popping sounds of Dynamight’s quirk.
But even if they never come to an understanding on some things, they are all only striving to leave the world better than they found it, and they have learned to respect that resolve even if they bicker about the potential outcomes.
Maintaining those bonds in the face of such things is not always easy, but they have both learned it is so incredibly worthwhile.
And as they drive home after dinner, Izuku’s hand rests against his wife’s thigh. His fingers gently flex against her dress, wrinkling the fabric under his clammy palm. His eyes are red-rimmed and glassy as he watches the headlights approach and disappear in his periphery.
Ochaco concentrates on the road, wielding the steering wheel of her father’s truck like a pro, but she can’t help stealing occasional glances at the man beside her.
She doesn’t how much longer she’ll wait to tell him the good news. She wants to give him the time he needs to process his loss before she steals his attentions away to focus on their joy.
But whenever she does tell him, she knows it will be a relief; a bright spot of hope against the backdrop of his recent grief. Izuku Midoriya will be a wonderful father because he had a mother who taught him everything he needs to know about loving and supporting his own child.
In the wake of the PLF, Ochaco never allowed herself to dream of a happy ending. It felt too cruel to consider she might have a life filled with all the good things her fallen comrades never got to experience.
But the pain she remembers feeling so acutely in the months and years after Izuku left U.A. or after he killed a monster to save the world, fade away like the red taillights in her rearview mirror. Because she is focused on the road ahead and the future they can build together.
She wonders if maybe the best way to honor the fallen has always been to move on; to create something new and beautiful from the destruction.
When they reach their home and turn on the lights, Ochaco can see the sheen of dried tears on Izuku’s cheeks. After they remove their shoes, she wastes no time pulling him into the warmest, fiercest hug she’s ever given, and he melts against her.
“Thank you, Ochaco. For everything.”
His words brush against her ear barely loud enough for her to hear them, but she can feel them in the way he holds her tight. She feels it in the way his lips find hers and the way he runs his fingers down her back until his hands rest on her hips.
“You don’t have to thank me, ya dummy.”
They both laugh and it seems like the first time in weeks.
Ochaco feels his gratitude and his love in the way Izuku begins gently swaying them back and forth in the entryway. They dance together in the silence; no cameras or intrusions, no gossip columnists or nosey neighbors. It is a serene, private moment.
Just the three of them.
And if there is an afterlife where Inko Midoriya is allowed to see her son, Ochaco knows she will be proud of him today and every day that comes after. She knows Inko’s heart will burst with joy as the two of them navigate parenthood and marriage and their careers and even the heavy and unfair expectations of the world.
Because they will do so together.