It doesn't take much effort to find information on the boy. She has access to records that few do, technology that does most of the work for her with just a few typed orders. She enters in approxomite age, hair and eye color, and sets the program to look through both police and missing persons reports.
She has to scroll through a few pages of results, eyes darting over each face and a sinking feeling in her stomach as she realizes just how many children are missing or abused. It makes her want to pull her own children closer, but she has been forbidden from seeing them during their training hours. It makes her heart feel hollow, but she knows she must endure.
She's so lost in thought that she almost misses him. She has to scroll back up, eyes going wide as they land on the thumbnail of a smiling child. She clicks his picture, and the face of the child she lost fills the screen.
She is directed to a site dedicated to missing children. She wishes it had been a police report. At least then she would have been able to do something to help him.
"Izuku," she reads aloud, eyes tracing the soft lines of his face, the freckles that dot his skin, the way his smile lights up his eyes. It doesn't match the one she had seen at all.
She sighs, leaning back in her chair as she contemplates the screen in front of her. Now that she's found it, she isn't sure what to do with this information. She can't tell Enji. No matter how much she wants to help, that man can't know what happened to her. He would find some way to make the whole thing her fault, and she would feel the repurcussions of his displeasure for months to come.
She contemplates for a while longer, unmoving as she thinks. The shadows lengthen and warp, the only indication of the time passing by. When she makes her decision, there are still another few hours left of training, so she knows she will not be interrupted.
She calls the police first, an anonymous tip about a vigilante and the kidnapped child he had with him. Then, after that task is finished, she finds another number.
The line rings four times before a tired voice answers. She pauses, wondering for a split second if she is making the right choice. She shakes her doubts off quickly though.
"Midoriya Inko?"
"Yes..?" The woman sounds wary, uncertain. Mostly, though, she just sounds defeated.
"My name is Todoroki Rei. Your son helped me the other night."
There is a breath, like the woman is steadying herself. When she speaks, her voice wobbles. "I'm sorry. You must have the wrong number."
"No, I don't believe I do. Might I be able to come over for a while to discuss? I'll bring tea."
And this is how her first friendship since she had been married begins.
They sit together for over an hour while Rei tells Inko of every minute detail she can recall. She silently offers a handkerchief as Inko sobs, loud and messy and undignified. She feels her heart ache with sorrow for this woman and her child, but also with envy. She is not allowed to cry like Midoriya Inko, but there are times when she wishes she could.
Inko, in turn, tells her all about her son. She speaks in length of her son's intelligence and his favorite subjects in school. Her voice breaks a little when she tells Rei about Izuku's friends and the way they had begun to turn on him as soon as they began to suspect that he may be Quirkless. She smiles, tearful but lovely, and says, "His dream is to become the kind of hero who can help people with a smile on his face."
Rei feels tears spring to her own eyes at that and quickly wipes them away. It wouldn't do to ruin her makeup. She takes a dainty sip of her tea to buy herself a moment before she is expected to respond.
Despite her best efforts, her voice still cracks as she says, "He achieved his dream, then."
Inko's big green eyes dart up and lock with hers, surprise written all over her features. Rei clears her throat.
"What?"
"When your son extended his hand to help guide me away from my attacker, he was smiling at me. Even though he was scared, he still did his best to smile. I think he was trying to tell me that everything would be alright. Midoriya-san, even with the circumstances he has found himself in, your son has still managed to achieve his dream. He is a real hero."
More sobbing is the response. Rei waits for it to end, sitting silent and tense while the woman before her cries herself hoarse. Seven minutes in, and there is still no sign of the tears slowing down. She sighs, braces herself, and rises from her seat. Inko is shocked enough that she goes silent as Rei winds an arm around her shoulders, pulling her snugly against her side.
She doesn't speak. Any words she might offer will be nothing more than hollow repetitions of comfort that Inko must have already heard a thousand times over. She waits in silence for the woman's tears to stop, offering nothing more than an awkward attempt at a hug. Somehow, it is enough.
Inko pulls back, sniffles and wipes her nose with the handkerchief Rei had given her. Then she looks Rei right in the eye and smiles, the brightest and most beautiful smile she has seen in years. Her heart stutters and her breath catches in her throat.
That's what Izuku's smile should have looked like, she thinks.
"Thank you for being there for him when I couldn't," Inko says. "Your children are very lucky to have a mom like you."
Somehow, this is what pushes her over the edge. Her vision wavers, and the next thing she knows there are tears freezing on her cheeks.
"Oh," she murmurs, lifting a hand to brush the tears away. Inko stops her, her fingers warm and dry as they wrap around Rei's hand. She gives the tiniest shake of her head, her smile turning into something a little more sad.
A part of Rei wants to snap. She doesn't need this woman's pity. She wants to snatch her hand back and snarl, demand that the woman never touch her again with those calloused dirty hands. A week ago, perhaps she would have. It is all she has known her whole life, after all; the cold expectation of perfection and the burn of disappointment when she failed to achieve it.
A week ago, she would have torn this gently smiling woman to shreds with her words and her gaze alone.
But a week ago, she hadn't been saved by a dirty child with the same smile as his mother.
Somehow, she leaves with a promise to return.
Somehow, one visit turns to two and then five and then ten.
Somehow, she is allowed to take her children with her and she has to fight back tears as she watches Shoto play with the neighbor boy from next door.
Somehow, for the first time in more than a decade, she is happy.
(But such things never last.)

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