MHA : Venom In My Hero Academia

"I… I'm sorry… I just… I didn't want you to…"

Hearing her say it out like that, just made him feel like a moron. Like he thought his mom wouldn't be able to handle any bad news at all. God, he was a terrible son.

...

Inko looked at him, with a look that somewhere between stern, sad, pitying, and concerned all at the same time.

"But… The worst part Izuku is that if you had just called, I could easily have helped you out getting home, instead of just sitting here and worrying about you."

"But… But we don't have a car, and we don't have the money for a taxi."

"I have Friends, Izuku. Your father also has old friends in the city. Anyone of them would have been willing to drive to the park and pick you up."

Izuku's brain stopped working for a moment. Then he REALLY felt like a goddamn moron. Of course one of his mom's friends would have been willing to pick him up, he was just so used to them not having a car or not being able to take a taxi, that he hadn't even considered that as an option.

"You… Didn't realize that was an option, did you?"

"No…"

Inko sighed, tension visibly going out of her face.

"I am grateful that Stick-San helped you out in the woods, and then made sure you made it home safely once you could walk again. But it really would have been better if you had gotten home so you could have recovered in bed."

"Which was was very much an option, and you would have known that if you had called me."

He didn't say anything in response, just bit his lip and cursed himself for being an idiot.

"Just… don't do it again okay? If something happens and you need help, tell me about it. Don't hide it, thinking it'll go away. It never does, sweetie. Ever."

He looked up at her. Then, he start to tear up as he replied.

"Okay, Mom… I… I won't do it again."

"Oh, sweetie…"

She took his hand and gave him one of those comforting smiles he loved so much.

This time it was Izuku who broke the silence. He really didn't want to. Not now, anyway. A smarter move would have been to talk about it later down the week. But he had to get this out of the way.

"I… I have something I need to say too. It's not something I wanted to bring up so soon after… My leg injury, but… Well, like you said, pretending the problem isn't there won't make it go away."

Inko's look changed to more stern as if she was forcing herself to be calmer and more serious.

"What's the problem?"

"Well, Stick-san kinda laid out for me a huge problem in my thinking. When I choose the forest as my training spot, I thought it was far out of the way, and no one would notice. Except… I was dead wrong."

"As stick-san pointed out, that is literarily the first place people who want to be heroes goes to train. It's obvious for any pro hero with experience. If I go back to training regularly there, sooner or later, I'll be noticed by another pro hero. Quite possibly one who won't be as forgiving as Stick-san was."

Inko sat in silence as he spoke, only talking when he was done.

"So what do you plan to do then?"

"I… I don't know. I'll have to find another spot. Probably even further away."

Izuku winced at his mother's expression as he said that, but after a short inner debate, she sighed.

"If that's how it is, then that's how it is. You're still staying home for the rest of the week though. When you go out again, I want your foot to have healed completely with no doubt about it."

Fair enough.

He hesitated before he spoke next. It was a question he had to ask her, he had to know, even if it sounded like she had given her blessing.

"So…. You'll still let me train? Even after… well… this?

She stared at him for a while in silence, while Izuku fidgeted in place, then she sighed.

"Yes."

A weight was lifted from Izuku's shoulders.

She hesitated briefly before continuing.

"Also… regarding finding a new training place for you… I… I could probably get someone to drive you there. Though that would depend heavily on the day."

"It's… It's something to work on. There's more than enough time I suppose."

He chuckled awkwardly.

"Yeah… There is."

His mom didn't exactly go back to being cheerful, but her smile did return.

"Also, I have something I've been meaning to tell you for a while now."

"What?"

"About a month ago, I… I got a job offer."

"Really? As a lawyer again?"

"Yes."

That… was unexpected. Izuku wasn't exactly filled in about his mom's old career as he could have been(She hadn't been one since he was 6), but he knew her choice to leave the business wasn't one she had wanted. She had effectively been blacklisted by the legal firms, without technically losing her license, after her old firm had been shut down.

He didn't know why it had been shut down, but he knew his mom had been devastated by it.

It was also a moment that had marked the first financial change in his life, as they had moved out of their old house and into their current apartment. It was also the event that had lead to his dad working abroad to keep them afloat financially.

The second change was his dad being demoted for something, which had sharply reduced their amount of spending money about 2 years ago.

"It's… In Yokohama."

Oh.

"Well… It's not as bad as it could be. I mean, it could have been in Tokyo. That would have been three times as far away."

Inko looked at him kinda sadly.

"It still means things will change sweetie. I won't always be here when you come home."

Izuku blushed.

"I'm… I'm not a little kid anymore, mom."

"Aye, You're not. You're not quite an adult either though, as yesterday proved."

He winced, but he didn't argue.

"To be honest sweetie, I wasn't all that excited about taking the job. Not really. I… I was worried about leaving you home without me."

He blushed again.

"But then… After you discovered your quirk… You changed."

"I… I haven't changed."

"You have. A lot."

She smiled at him, a smiled Izuku didn't instantly recognize, but one he eventually realized was pride.

"Frankly sweetie, you've changed so much this last month. You're happy now. You go outside every day with a smile on your face. You've begun to take your future so much more seriously than you did before."

Her smile beamed even more.

It felt strange to Izuku. To be praised for just going out and training and doing his regular stuff. Was he really that different now? He didn't feel any different. Well, except for anything regarding Katsuki and his school. That was different. Really different. And during his training sessions he felt more alive in a way he never had before, and- and yeah, he was kinda different now wasn't he?

"So you're taking the job?"

"Yes. I've… talked about it with your father, and he agrees it's for the best. For one thing, Izuku, if you're really going to become a pro, it will help you immensely to have a more financially stable base to work from."

Well, that was true enough. Images of a punching bag crept through his mind. Also maybe not having a bathroom door that was literarily collected from a trash heap.

His mom then got a massive and happy grin on her face and looked for a moment like she was about to say something. Then she cut herself off and instead said.

"Anyway, we'll see how it turns out. It's still months away until I start working again in any case. We'll figure things out before then.

There was something more going on here. Judging by the way his mom was smiling to herself. She had been about to say something completely different, yet had stopped herself and just ended the topic prematurely.

Part of him wanted to dig deeper, but another part of him, the part that always told him to be cautious, told him to not push his luck more than he had with that training conversation.

If mom had something more to tell him, she would do it in her own time.

...

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