Had this idea since the first Spiderverse movie, but didn't draw it out. This is the last bit of Spidersona I'll be doing for this year, I swear. Basically Inko became a vigilante after the death of her family and getting bitten by a radioactive spider.
This happened maybe afround Izuku's first year in Junior High (middle school), so 2 years before canon. Izuku died during a villain attack. Villain was doing massive damage and a building collapsed. Izuku was helping an elderly man to safety, and then he noticed another civilian about to be crushed. Izuku died pushing that guy out of the way of falling debris. Inko mourned and fell into depression. She also cut off ties with the Bakugous after Katsuki opened his stupid mouth. Mitsuki still checked in on Inko to make sure she was eating or taking care of herself. Inko was really unwell.
Then her husband, Hisashi, urged Inko to come visit him at his work. He was hoping to distract her from the recent death and hoping the visit would persuade her to move to America with him.
I made Hisashi a flawed but okay dad and husband. Yes he did initially freak out after Izuku's diagnosis, but then regretted working abroad. He then got an idea to propose creating and harvesting artificial quirks from insects. The goal in the end was to return home and gift Izuku a quirk...too little too late. It didn't help that the experiment was dangerous, unstable, and nearly resulted in many failures to even extract the quirks. Currently, there was only one specimen.
Inko was enraged when Hisashi explained why he was in America for so long. This kind of reasoning still sends the wrong message of not wanting to return home to his "quirkless kid." That wasn't exactly what he meant, but the man did feel guilty for a long time and felt that the only way to make it up to his son was to create a quirk. Again, not the best dad. He still sent money to his family and called. But it took almost 2 years after leaving for him to realize what a cruddy dad/husband he was.
But disaster struck again. Another villain attack struck the facility that Hisashi worked at. Hisashi died trying to protect Inko. During this chaos, the radioactive spider escaped and ended up biting Inko. Inko returned back to America even more depressed. Not realizing that her body underwent changes for almost a week.
While Inko was going through the motions, she noticed that she was stronger and more perceptive than usual. Then her quirk got supercharaged, and she started seeing visual trajectory webs from her hands and objects. The few times she defended herself against muggers, she was given a warning. Then there were few times she managed to talk down a mugger or a few criminals, only for a hero to rush in destroy any hopes for a criminal rehabilitating.
Not too long she started seeing so many flaws in the hero-obsessed society and how not much was being done. How dependent everyone was on heroes to keep the peace, while everyone stood back and did nothing. When in reality, sometimes the situation required a shoulder to cry on, a listening ear, a helping hand, or simple human decency.
Realizing she had the power to make a difference, she went to Izuku's analysis notebooks for inspiration. She decided to become a hero and uphold her son's dream. Rather than operating in daylight, she would operate where most heroes didn't operate or notice. From stopping muggings, alleyway assaults/murders, and kidnappings. While she does fight, sometimes she'll be willing to talk to the criminals and do her best to help them.
She pseudo adopts Himiko Toga and Jin (Twice). These 2 won't descend into villainy all because Inko herself helped them. Not as Green Widow, but just by being a good samaritan. A few other so-called villains end up being informants while they go about trying to do better with their life. It helps that Inko helps out or directs them to people she knows will help them better.
During the day she volunteers at some homeless centers and works part-time at a cafe. She doesn't need to work due to the settlement and Hisashi's life insurance policy setting her up for almost life. But she has nothing to do than stew in depression. Sometimes she'll intervene if something shady is happening, especially if a woman is being assaulted or harassed. Detective Naomasa is always annoyed since Inko technically didn't use her quirk, yet she is almost involved whenever a purse-snatcher or molester is called in for arrest.
Inko definitely got into training in some form of martial arts, and picking other skills, particularly analysis. Basically she asks herself "what would Izuku do?" Maybe she runs into Hatsume Mei, and that's how she got the grip claws she uses for web slinging. She flings those claws and then draws herself to her destination. Only she can see her "webs." It was a lot of trial and error and close calls to become fully competent. Competent enough that the HPSC considers her a problem later on. Shigaraki and All For One will find her a problem much later on. Especially when Inko accidentally stumbles upon some shady operations leading to them.
