If you're here from my bnha x reader fic, shut up. I don't want to hear about it. No, you're wrong. 100% wrong.
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Your parents weren't ready for a child. Your mom was only 20, your dad 24. They weren't even married yet when your mom felt you kickin'. But, thankfully, the shock didn't sever their bonds, it didn't cut what would later be a great marriage, and your life didn't end before it started.

You did, however, live your first formative years in rather hectic environment. Your parents always rushing to make ends meet. You saw your mother's childhood friend, Ms. Inko, more than your own mother most days.

It was okay, though. It was alright. As things calmed down and your parents deemed financially stable enough to raise a child, they had another kid. Katsuki.

Your quirk activated a year later. It was a copy of your dad's. No surprise since you inherited his darker hair, borderline short stature, and poor eyesight as well.

||Acid Sweat: Allows the user to secrete acidic sweat with combustive properties from the palms of their hands. It comes out like normal sweat and cannot be forced. If the user applies friction to the acid, they can create small explosions. The acid does not cause harm to skin or cloth but can be a problem if ingested.

Though a sweet little trick in preschool, you knew from the start it wouldn't be all that useful in your daily life. Which is why you never considered becoming a hero. At least not seriously.

And then your little brother had to go and develope a quirk so cool there were no doubts what he was gunna be when he grew up.

A hero. And what ambition did you have to rival his?

That's just it. You didn't know.

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"I want to be a doctor!" This was a surprise coming from Todoroki, who you always thought to be the sporty type. He was large for his age and effortlessly athletic. For that it was common of the other third grade girls to sequel over how handsome he was. Despite all the attention, the boy was comedically oblivious to how popular he was. And that made him a fun subject to watch. You played no part in this boy's life. Didn't even say a word to him, which was why his declaration in front of the whole class was intriguing.

"And you, (Y/n) Bakugo?" The teacher asked as Natsuo Todoroki sat down. Oh yeah, your desk was behind his so of course it was your turn to answer the question!

You jutted to your feet and stood stiff as a board. You scanned over the sea of eyes watching your every twitch and bead of sweat.

"U- um.. I also want to be a doctor!" You choked out. A few polite claps followed, but most prominently of all, the classmate you'd been watching silently from the shadows all your elementary school years turned around in his chair to grin at you.

"That means we're going to the same middle-school!" He said as quietly as possible while the kid behind you was being called on.

You swallowed the lump in your throat and grinned nervously. "Ye-yeahhh..."

And just like that, Natsuo adopted you as his new friend. He had a lot of them already, but what was another shy kid to bother?

Apparently, it was a lot.

----------

Nobody knew what to do when Todoroki's older brother died. Nobody knew how to help and support him when tragedy struck his family one after another. For a year or two, the boy was aggressive and rude. And because of his already intimidating size, he scared most of his friends away.

...But not you. This was just like any other day in the Bakugo household, after all. Your little brother and mother often screamed at each other across the house. It was something you and your father learned to tune out. The aggressive behavior was normal too. You never felt unsafe at home, thankfully, but threats, jabs, and insults were commonplace. It was just the culture of your home. Though you personally preferred not to partake in it.

Through all his bad attitudes, you were the one person who continued to talk to him, the one person who invited him over to play games, and you were the one person willing to share your umbrella when he forgot his. Even though he was large and took most of the umbrella's cover, you shielding him from the rain, even if that meant getting a little wet yourself.

You were quiet, you didn't talk all that much, but you were there.

----------

Somehow, you made it into the same middle-school -- reserved for special people with big ambitions and brilliant minds -- as Natsuo Todoroki. He was so excited about you joining him that you didn't have the heart to turn him down. You felt so out of place here, though. You were the stupidest of the smart kids. What took them only an hour to study took you at least five. And even with Natsuo's help, didn't take all too long for your score to come-out to literally the lowest slot. Every minor and major test felt like a battle to determine whether you'd be kicked out of the school or not. It was humiliating and you hated being looked down on as this school's dumbest student, but you pressed on for Natsuo's sake. Why? Because he was your friend and there was no need to question it.

But you did question it. Both of you did. So much so, in fact, that the two of you started dating as second-years.

It only lasted about a week. The vibes were off. Didn't take long to realize the two of you simply didn't want to be anymore than friends. So, you returned to your friendship as it was before and were much happier that way. Everyone was so shocked by how casually you guys handled it. Took a whole nother year to convince everyone you weren't still dating.

Side note, it was actually kind of funny when girls would scamper up to you to report Natsuo was "cheating" on you, only for you to reveal you didn't care one bit. Their reactions were priceless, so you always let them simmer for a little while before explaining.

It seemed the more Katsuki cared about school, the less you cared about it. He always had something of an admiration slash one-sided rivalry-thing going on with you, so of course he was going to try to surpass you in every way. The more he tried, the more you let him succeed. You never cared to prove your worth to him, or to anyone for that matter.

From the day he was born, you knew he would surpass you in every single way. In fact, he already won.. without needing to lift a finger. After all, that kid was wanted more by your parents than you ever were. And now he has the nerve to bully the child of the woman who actually raised you. You had no interest in acknowledging him as your rival.

Instead, you'd purposefully lose so he'd be embarrassed to ever think he saw you as competition.

It was a long time coming anyway. Being the dumbest in your school full of geniuses was tiring enough. Hours upon hours of homework was enough. Knowing that at the end it didn't even matter to anyone... It was too much.

You dropped out of school the last week before finals and entered into a completely ordinary school with completely ordinary classmates. There, you were impressive. There, you were actually smart and had a little worth.

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Knock knock knock

Katsuki answered the front doors. He rolled his eyes and ran to the stairs. "YOUR BOYFRIEND IS HERE!" He yelled up them.

"I told you already, he is not my boyfriend!" Running down the stairs, you slapped Katsuki's hair and slid into the entryway, where Natsuo stood out in the dreary gray-toned outdoors holding a packaged cupcake in one hand and some flowers in the other. Your brows furrowed. "What's this about?" You hadn't seen him once since quitting the smart kids' school, so you had no idea what any of this could mean.

The teen shrugged, smiling shyly. "I didn't know what to get you. Felt bad for not talking or anything after you left our middle-school."

"Yeah, sorry about that... I was focusing on finals."

"Did you get a good grade there, at least?"

"Second best in my class."

"Hey, that's really good!"

"Yeah..." The whole sky was covered in dreary clouds, matching your mood. But you weren't just going to be rude to your best friend because of it. "Come on in. We can split the cupcake."

"Wait, really?"

"Sure. Why not?"

"Wow, thanks."

----------

You sat on the couch closest to the sofa Natsuo was in, both eating over the coffee table that'd been pulled close to catch all the crumbs.

Between bites, "So is Fuyumi moving away for college?"

"No... She's staying close to take care of me..."

"That's nice of her..."

...

"So why'd you give up like that?"

"Huh?" Looking up at him, you covered your mouth and snickered. "Your nose." It had some chocolate frosting on it. Natsuo crossed his eyes and smiled softly he wiped the chocolate onto his finger and put that finger in his mouth.

"You going to answer?"

Your smile died immediately. After a long sigh, you shoved what was left of the treat into your mouth. "I wasn't built for a place like that... All those smart people with their big dreams... You probably assumed this by now, but I don't exactly know what I'm doing with my life. So, why put all that extra effort into something so useless?"

Sad for your sake. "You were so close to graduating, though!"

"I would have failed, okay??" You huffed and threw your back against the back of the couch. "..You know I would have failed... I would have failed, been held back, and have to start the year all over again! I'd be a whole year behind my peers and that's embarrassing."

"You could have tried.."

"And done what? What would I do? Where would I go? I can't--.. I can't just say I'm going to be a doctor and be happy with that... I'd just be lying to myself. I'd just waste time and money." Sighing, you covered your face with your hands and massaged your temples. "Just let me do what I want."

"...Okay.." It clearly hurt him to know you had fallen so far, willingly. To know you wouldn't be able to join him in highschool. To know you were so lost to not even know what you wanted to be in the future. Natsuo slid the table away from his knees and stood up. "See you later, (Y/n). Maybe we can meet over the weekends still?"

"Yeah. I'll have to come visit you guys for dinner. See how Fuyumi's doing."

Natsuo smiled sadly as he waved a little wave. He turned around and headed back out the door. "Good luck, (Y/n)." He uttered lastly of all. After he was gone, you cleaned everything up and returned to your room.

----------

Your grades worsened. Instead of studying, you got a part-time job and taught yourself English. Instead of studying, you hung out more at Ms. Inko's apartment and played Heroes with her son, Izuku. Instead of studying, you hung out with your dad. He taught you how to sew and occasionally rented a favorite childhood movie of his for the two of you to watch together. Instead of studying, you scrolled aimlessly on your phone looking at memes. As your third year of highschool was coming to a close, you had barely passing grades. But you wouldn't change a thing.

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"I'm sorry, I couldn't follow Ms. Inko's recipe exactly, but I hope it tastes okay at least!" You served dinner to your family. Katsuki'd just returned from a day "training with his quirk," so he started to dig in right away. Your parents were slower to really take in the.. smell and...texture.

After eating a few bites, your mom smiled politely across the table at you. "It could use some salt maybe."

Continuing to scoop food into his mouth, "It tastes like s###. If I were a politician I'd make it illegal for (Y/n) to cook again."

"LANGUAGE, KATSUKI!"

Your dad tried his best to smile down the table at you. "Maybe you should leave the cooking to your mom and Katsuki."

You crossed your arms and stuck out your tongue.

"What have you been doing at school, anyway? I haven't heard of any projects or assignments from you in ages."

"Oh, I usually wait the last second then pull an all-nighter doing those. Don't worry about it. I still get decent grades." Your parents exchanged nervous glances. You took a bite. They were right. It was terrible.

"...(Y/n)..." Uh oh. Your dad only used that tone when he was about to lecture you. "We know it can be stressful trying to get good grades all the time, but, your mother and I care about your future... We don't want you to waste your life on minimum wage jobs. And, in order to avoid that, you're going to need to take your education more seriously."

"Ugh!" You rolled your eyes. You gave up eating and sat back in your chair, only picking at the slop with your fork. "I honestly don't care if I have crappy jobs the rest of my life... Not like there's anything I want. I'm happy with the essentials like food to eat and a roof over my head."

"But are you really?"

"YES..." Your head leaned back, flopping over the back of the dining chair. You stared at the ceiling before closing your eyes and rubbing your face. "Look, if I really wanted something, I'd just get another job."

"I'm not bailing you out if your broke a## gets caught smuggling drugs." The youngest chuckled.

"KATSUKI!" Your mom slapped him. You were half zoning out, not caring about what happened around you.

You had nothing to dream of. It was kind of sad, actually. Even smaller things like the kind of car you wanted. You were perfectly fine imagining yourself driving a dingy-old thing the rest of your life. No damage to your ego.

Honestly, did these people really care? Seemed like the only reason they wanted you to succeed was so they'd have something to brag about. Your parents used to brag about your genius all the time, after all. Now, that stopped and you couldn't be happier about it.

You were tired of feeling like you had to compete with not just your brother, but the world at large. Can't everybody just calm down, accept you as you are, and move on? Why do you always gotta be going above and beyond for the littlest morsels of attention?

Well, you got a whole nother kind of attention by falling through the bottom of the barrel and somehow sinking even lower. While not as positive as before, at least there wasn't the constant comparing between siblin--

"Katsuki! Why don't you teach (Y/n) to manage her time better?? (Y/n), I know he's younger, but you have to admit it's impressive how he can get good grades AND hero training AND working out AND getting his chores done AND fun time playing videogames. You could really learn--!"

You stood. "I'm going to my room." You left.

"(Y/N), COME BACK HERE!" Your mom called you back several times, but you didn't listen.

Your room was never the cleanest, but at least it was okay. Filled with various materials but nothing that screamed personality. It was all very plain and simple. Whatever school supplies, furniture, clothes, and tools to get through the day.

After laying around ignoring your mom for a while, you got up and dragged your feet toward the bathroom. Once inside, you scoffed at the sight of your hair again. No matter how hard you tried, your hairstyle was never flattering. "D### this stupid.." You grabbed the stiff, jagged strands of hair. "Bakugo hair!" You grabbed some scissors by the mirror and, without putting much thought into it, chopped off the whole strand of untamed hair. You paused...then set the strand of hair down gently. When you looked in the reflection again, you sighed. "Well, no turning back now." You kept snipping and snipping the annoying hair that could never be tamed. You considered it done when nothing but a buzz-cut remained. A small weight fell off your shoulders.

Well then!... At least you no longer have to worry about competing with your looks. You'll just be the ugliest girl at school and call it a day! Settle things quick before someone cares to argue.

After washing your head off in the sink, you swept all your fallen hair into the trash bag and brought it out the room with you to dispose of. Katsuki just so happened to be ascending the stairs at that exact moment. He gave you a disgusted look. "You had an emotional breakdown over that??" You rolled your eyes and ignored him. As the two of you passed each other, "I used to think you were cool when I was a kid, but now I see you're just a lazy b####." Now that stung more than it should have.

You started down the stairs, not uttering a single word. By the time you had reached the bottom, tears were in your eyes. You glared at the ground though it'd committed murder, hoping that would force your eyes to take back the tears... But tears aren't the kind of thing that can be returned. They eventually rolled down your cheeks.

You inhaled slowly, then exhaled short and sharp. You wiped your eyes and continued-on your way, discarding of the hair and other trash from your bathroom.

You were doing this to yourself by this point. You were the one turning yourself into the useless waste of space you always felt like you were deep down. It was like prophecy coming to pass. You were destined to destroy yourself.

----------

Natsuo was too busy to see in person most of the time. And you never wanted to impose by going over to his place uninvited. The two of you stayed in touch via the internet. Nothing too serious. You'd ask how each other's days were going, send memes, and occasionally play an online game of chess or something. You liked boardgames least of all... Just another way to be reminded of how stupid you are. Your mind always drew a blank when it came to those. Couldn't even think straight while taking a turn or making a move, leading to you losing 90% of the time.

Natsuo:
Hey, so where are you going after graduation?

(You):
What?

Natsuo:
College duh!

(You):
Oh...
I'm
Not going.

Natsuo:
What????

(You):
I'm going to get a couple more jobs and save up for.......
.........
I dunno
A car maybe

Natsuo:
You STILL don't have a plan???

(You):
Sorry to disappoint
I tend to do that a lot
But I've gotten used to it

Natsuo:
Whatever
At least you're a woman
Just marry some rich guy and you'll be fine

(You):
You're technically rich.
Would YOU marry me?

Natsuo:
Hell no
Don't even joke like that.

(You):
You're right
Sorry.

Natsuo:
Sorry to sound so rude, but I have enough problems with my family and school
Don't expect me to carry yours too.

(You):
No it's okie dokie

But it was not okie dokie. You wanted to throw your phone and scream into a pillow. But that would make you just like Mom and Katsuki, and you did not under any circumstances want to be roped in with them.

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Katsuki got into UA and you failed to get two more jobs. You gave up looking for new jobs after having no luck. Guess you'd just stick with the one but go full time.

Katsuki returned home bitter every single day, like being at that school physically pained him. Oh yeah. Izuku made it in too. That could explain part of it.

While you knew your little brother well enough to guess why he may be feeling the way he is, you had no intention to ask him and prove yourself right or wrong.

----------

Natsuo wasn't talking to you as much as he used to. Couldn't tell if he had lost interest in you or was just busy.

Oh well. You could live without friends.

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Dear Bakugo (Y/n),
We are sorry to inform you that you have been laid off due to unfortunate circumstances. While we appreciate your dedication to our company, we are unable to hold on to any employees lacking the drive to perform at their peak and improve their skills at the moment. We apologize for this inconvenience. Good luck in your future endeavors!

'Good luck' my a##...

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You wouldn't say you were suicidal, but, you stood on the rim of one of the tallest building in the area. Far from home. Just some random place you had free subway tickets to. Apparently, there was supposed to be a nice macron and chocolate shop nearby.

Your hands held onto each other behind your back as you stared down. Your balance fought against the rough breeze nudging you toward the edge. You had no intention to jump... But, you had no intention to keep living either.

It wasn't like you hated anything. Heck, the way the sun rose every morning filled you with delight. To see all the amazing things made by mankind filled you with awe even today. And you'd never get over the delicious taste of chocolate!

But something was wrong.

It wasn't like you hated anyone either. You were eternally grateful for both your parents for sacrificing so much to raise you. And Katsuki, though taller than you and almost all grown up now, was still the cutest little thing. And you didn't regret one thing about the friends you made along the way.

But something was wrong.

It was scary. Scary that you could be driven to the edge of a plunge and not know the name of what brought you here. Oh. Wait... You knew what it was.

It wasn't depression...
It was just basic common sense.

Trash belongs in the ground... You're not benefiting anyone by being alive. You're just a little leach.

What right do you have to live?
Who actually wants you here?
Would killing yourself really hinder anyone's lives?
Would living make anything better?

You've never been able to answer even one of these.

"Hey." A man appeared from the void you were staring into. He hovered on a pair of red wings over the tower's massive drop. Despite the situation he found himself in, the man was strangely calm. You'd expected at least a little hesitancy from a hero.

Then again, this was Hawks you were talking to. "Hey.." You rose your hand in acknowledgement. It slipped back down just as quickly. You stared down again, ignoring the hero.

You knew he wouldn't let you fall. It was his job to keep you alive.

Heck, you weren't real fond of dying either. All you wanted was a new life.

"...Do you need help, ma'am?"

...

"Yeah."