class 1-A x reader (angst)
summary: you spiral into paranoia as you comprehend the outshining skills your classmates have on you...will you ever be good enough? could you ever catch up to them? why do you feel like this? can you catch up to them?
this fic is based of "In The Middle" by GIgi Perez as well as "Creep" by Radiohead so there's a couple lyrics refs!
warning/s: angst, bullying, running away
w/c ~7k
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In the Middle (Where the Creep Belongs)
The dorm common room smelled like burnt sugar and ozone, Bakugou’s latest “improved” protein bars and Todoroki absentmindedly freezing the air because he was thinking too hard again. You sat on the edge of the couch, knees drawn up, the faint hum of your Quirk buzzing under your skin like a nervous tic you couldn’t turn off. Resonate. That was the name they’d given it on your Quirk registry. A polite way of saying you could make things vibrate in a ten-meter radius if you concentrated hard enough. Break a window. Rattle someone’s teeth. Send a low-frequency pulse that made ears ring for a few seconds. Useful for distractions. Useless when the rest of Class 1-A could level city blocks.
You were supposed to be studying for the provisional license retake. Instead you watched them.
Midoriya was cross-legged on the floor, muttering analysis notes while his fingers flew across his notebook, green lightning crackling faintly around his wrists. Uraraka floated a bag of snacks over to him with a soft laugh. Kirishima was arm-wrestling Kaminari on the coffee table, both of them yelling. Mina was painting Jirou’s nails while Jirou’s earjacks tapped out a rhythm only she could hear. And Bakugou—God, Bakugou—was sprawled in the armchair like he owned the building, arms crossed, red eyes flicking toward you every few seconds like he could sense the static building in your chest.
They all looked at you like you belonged. Like you were special.
You felt like a creep.
When you were here before, the song looped in your head on repeat, couldn’t look you in the eye. You used to stare at them in the beginning, back when you first transferred into 1-A after the USJ incident. They were angels, every single one of them. Explosions and ice and zero-gravity and One For All. You were the kid who could make a teacup rattle if you focused hard enough. Your skin felt wrong. Your soul felt wrong. You wanted a perfect body, a perfect Quirk, a perfect place here.
You wanted them to notice when you weren’t around.
So you started pulling away in small ways. Skipping movie nights. Training alone in the gym at 3 a.m. until your hands shook and your nose bled from the strain. You told yourself it was discipline. Really you were testing how long it would take before someone asked where you’d gone.
They always asked. Every time.
“You okay, babe?” Uraraka would float down beside you, cheeks pink, hand brushing yours like she was afraid you’d vanish. “You’ve been quiet.”
“Oi, extra,” Bakugou would grunt, shoving a protein shake at you. “Drink it before I make you. And stop looking like you’re about to bolt.”
Midoriya’s eyes would go wide and worried, notebook forgotten. “If there’s anything you need, we’re here. You know that, right?”
You knew. That was the worst part.
Because knowing made the paranoia louder. They’re all so fucking special. What the hell am I doing here? I don’t belong here.
-----------------three days later-----------------
The night everything snapped started with a joint training exercise against Class 1-B.
You were paired with Todoroki and Yao-Momo for capture the flag scenario in the mock city block. The plan was perfect on paper: Yaomomo creates decoys, Todoroki walls off escape routes with ice, you slip in with a resonant pulse to disorient the guards and grab the flag. Easy. You’d done it in simulations a dozen times.
But Monoma copied your Quirk mid-fight and laughed in your face. “Is that all? A little buzz? How adorable. No wonder you’re the class charity case.”
The pulse you sent back was stronger than you meant. It shattered the flagpole instead of just rattling it. The flag dropped. Todoroki had to catch you when the backlash made your knees buckle. Yaomomo’s eyes were kind, but you saw the flicker—pity, maybe. Or concern. It felt the same.
---------
Later in the locker room you overheard it. Not on purpose. Just bad timing.
“She’s trying so hard,” Midoriya was saying, voice low. “Her Quirk has so much potential for support roles, but she keeps pushing like she has to be frontline—”
“Potential ain’t enough on the streets, nerd,” Bakugou cut in. “She’s gonna get herself killed pretending she’s us.”
You didn’t wait to hear the rest. You walked out, heart hammering so loud your own resonance made the metal lockers hum behind you. I don’t care if it hurts. I want to have control. You wanted a perfect soul. You wanted them to stop looking at you like a project.
That night you left a note on the common room table. Short. Honest in the worst way.
You’re all so fucking special. I’m just in the middle. I need to figure out if I can be more than this. Don’t look for me. —Y/N
You took only your hero costume, a backpack of cash you’d saved from allowance, and the burner phone you’d bought two weeks ago when the paranoia first got teeth. Then you walked out of the UA gates like a ghost.
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The first week was almost romantic. You called yourself “Echo” on the underground forums. You patrolled the back alleys of Musutafu at night, using your resonance to trip up petty thieves, shatter lock mechanisms, send warning vibrations through the ground that made low-level villains stumble. You told yourself you were doing what needed to be done....if you weren't useful at UA, then you could at least get out of their hair.
But the system didn’t care about good intentions when your Quirk wasn’t flashy enough to draw crowds.
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By week three you were hungry, sleeping in abandoned warehouses, and the “bad shit” started small.
A drug runner cornered you in an alley. You resonated his gun until it vibrated apart in his hands, then kept going until his teeth chattered and he dropped, screaming. You took his cash. You told yourself it was for food. For gear. For them, somehow.
The forums started calling you a new vigilante. Some praised you. Others said you were getting sloppy. One thread labeled you “Creep” after a witness described the way the air hummed around you like something haunted.
You laughed until you cried in an empty subway tunnel.
But I’m a creep. I’m a weirdo. What the hell am I doing here?
You started taking bigger jobs. Breaking into warehouses for information on bigger players. Using your resonance to crack safes—slowly, painfully, until your nose bled and your vision tunneled. You told yourself it was still heroic. You were stopping real villains. The ones the pros were too busy for.
But the lines blurred.
One night you tracked a gang moving quirk-enhancing drugs. You were supposed to just gather intel. Instead you dropped the whole ceiling on them with a sustained low-frequency pulse that made the support beams sing and snap. Three of them didn’t get up. You took the drugs and burned them in a dumpster, but the blood on your gloves wouldn’t come off no matter how hard you scrubbed in a public fountain.
You stared at your reflection in the water and whispered the lyrics that wouldn’t leave you alone.
Shape of your crown… I hate to bow… but I need you… how I lose…
You needed them. You hated how much. You were in the middle—between the girl who used to curl up between Denki and Mina on movie nights and the monster who left people twitching on concrete. Between the hero they all believed in and the creep who didn’t belong anywhere.
You spiraled harder.
You stopped eating properly. Your resonance grew erratic; sometimes you’d wake up in abandoned buildings with every window in a block shattered and no memory of doing it. You started wearing a cracked half-mask you’d scavenged, more to hide from yourself than from the cops. The underground began to fear you. “Echo’s losing it,” they whispered. “She’s not a vigilante anymore. She’s just… broken.”
You couldn't even catch a break from their judgmental stares. and the craziest part? Nt one time did they think, "maybe she just needs help."
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One month in, you were holed up in an old factory on the edge of the city, surrounded by newspaper clippings of Class 1-A’s latest victories. They’d all been going strong with work studies now, or saving citezens on the regular...they had to have forgotten about you by now..right?
You traced their faces with a shaking finger and felt the resonance build in your chest until the clippings fluttered like they were alive.
“I just wanted to be enough.”
The door to the factory exploded inward in a blast of orange fire and smoke.
You were on your feet before the dust settled, palms out, resonance already thrumming—ready to bring the roof down if you had to.
But it was them.
All of them.
Midoriya first, eyes wide and tearful, freckles standing out against pale skin. “Y/N… we found you.”
Bakugou was right behind him, gauntlets smoking, face twisted in something between rage and relief. “You fucking idiot. A month. One goddamn month.”
Uraraka floated in, zero-gravity already active, eyes red-rimmed. “We never stopped looking. Never.”
Todoroki’s left side flickered with frost, right with flame, but his voice was soft. “You’re not alone. You never were.”
The rest poured in—Kirishima with his hardening already half-activated like he expected a fight, Mina with acid dripping protectively from her fingers, Kaminari sparking, Jirou’s earjacks extended, Yaoyorozu creating blankets and water bottles on instinct. Twenty of them. Your class. Your everything.
You took one step back and the resonance spiked so hard the floor cracked beneath your boots. “Don’t—don’t come closer. I’m not… I’m not her anymore. I did bad things. I hurt people. I don’t belong—”
Midoriya was crying openly now, One For All humming gently around him like a promise. “We read the note. We read everything the underground said about Echo. We know what you did. And we still came.”
Bakugou snarled, but there was no heat in it. “You think we give a shit about ‘strong enough’? You kept us safe in ways we couldn’t see. Your pulses saved my ass more than once in those joint exercises, dumbass. You made us better.”
Uraraka landed in front of you, close enough that you could smell her strawberry shampoo. “You’re in the middle right now. We get it. You’re scared and hurting and you think you have to choose between being a hero or…--" she looked around the empty, abadoned warehouse, throwing her arms up as she let out a breath chuckle "--whatever you became out here. But you don’t. We’ll meet you in the middle. We always have.”
You tried to push them away with a weak pulse. It barely ruffled their hair.
Kirishima stepped forward, unhardened, arms open. “Manly or not, we’re not leaving without you. You’re part of us. Poly or whatever the hell we are-- it doesn’t work if one piece is missing.”
Todoroki’s hand, warm on one side, cool on the other,settled on your shoulder. “My father told me my Quirk was only worth what it could destroy. I believed him for years. You helped me see I could be more. Let us do the same for you.”
One by one they surrounded you. Not trapping. Holding. Midoriya’s notebook was open in his hands—pages and pages of analysis on your Quirk. Ways to amplify resonance with support items. Ways to combine it with their own powers for combos you’d never imagined. Uraraka took your shaking hands and floated the three of you gently off the ground so you didn’t have to feel the cracked concrete anymore. Bakugou pressed a protein bar into your palm and muttered, “Eat, or I’ll shove it down your throat.”
You broke.
The resonance inside you finally let go—not in violence, but in a low, aching hum that vibrated through every person touching you like a shared heartbeat. You sobbed into Uraraka’s shoulder while Mina stroked your hair and Jirou played a soft melody through her earjacks straight into your chest. Kaminari short-circuited a nearby light just to make the room dim and safe. Sero taped up a makeshift curtain over the broken door. Aoyama struck a pose and declared you the most sparkling disaster he’d ever seen, and somehow it made you laugh through the tears.
“I’m sorry,” you kept whispering. “I’m so sorry. I wanted to be special. I wanted to deserve you.”
Uraraka’s forehead knocked against yours; gentle. “You already are, Y/N/N. You always were.”
Midoriya’s voice cracked. “We’re not complete without you. The dorm’s too quiet. Training’s wrong. Even the cafeteria food tastes bad when you’re not there stealing my katsudon.”
They stayed with you in that ruined factory until the sun came up. Yaoyorozu created beds and hot food. Todoroki regulated the temperature. No one asked you to explain the bloodstains or the wanted posters. They just listened when you finally spoke—halting, ashamed, about the nights you crossed lines and the days you felt like nothing.
And when you asked, voice small, “What if I’m never strong enough?” twenty voices answered at once.
“You don’t have to be,” Midoriya said.
“We’ll be strong with you,” Uraraka added.
“Or we’ll blow up anyone who says you aren’t,” Bakugou finished.
You laughed then—real, raw, exhausted. The kind of laugh that came from the middle of the storm finally breaking.
They brought you home at dawn.
Principal Nezu was waiting with understanding eyes and a promise of leniency—community service, therapy, a monitored return to classes. The media never got the full story. “Echo” faded into urban legend, just another ghost in the alleyways.
But in the dorm that night, the common room was louder than it had been in months. You sat in the middle of the couch exactly where you’d been the night you left, only now there were twenty bodies piled around you. Kirishima on one side, arm slung possessively over your shoulders. Hagakure on the other, head in your lap while she muttered new Quirk notes. Uraraka floating above you all, dropping food whenever she drifted low enough. Kirishima, Mina, Kaminari, and the rest would try to catch you if you drifted off int your thoughts, not forcing you to snap out of it, just reminding you they were there...they always had been.
-----------------one week later-----------------
You still felt the hum of your Quirk sometimes—nervous, uncertain. But now it mixed with theirs. A gentle vibration against Bakugou’s explosions. A soft echo under Jirou’s beats. A resonance that made Todoroki’s flames dance in perfect sync.
You weren’t special the way they were.
You were special the way you were.
And in the middle of all of them, you finally stopped feeling like a creep.
Maybe you did belong.
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A/N: bro I'm LOCKED IN. I'm actually getting the confidence to publish all these fics that have just been stored up in my notes. alsooo, should I make this a part series??? decisions decisions....
comments and likes are always appreciated!!




















