Izuku Midoriya has been straightening her hair since she was twelve year old.

On her first day of junior high she'd tried to give Katsuki Bakugou the lunch he'd left in the car on the way to school. Kacchan's mother, Mitsuki had dropped them off on her way to a conference in the city, gotten into an argument with her only child and asked Izuku to take it with her. Stupidly she'd agreed and when she went to hand it over he'd thrown it back in her face. The girls in her class who'd seen had spent the next week telling her that her hair was the reason why.

"I don't why you thought that was going to work."

"You don't look too bad, but your hair..."

"It curls because she's crazy!"

"Think it happens when she mutters?"

"My mother said only delinquents have curled hair."

"Maybe that's her quirk!"

It somehow got worse when they found out she didn't have a quirk. "Maybe her hair is her quirk" was something that went around the whole year and at the end of it she had made no friends at all.

She'd straightened it after the second week but the other girls in her class were already ignoring her. They'd set up a shrine on her desk by Tuesday that she saw the remnants of when she came into school. Kacchan had yelled at the flowers and blasted the picture frame off her desk before she'd seen it. The girls got away with it though.

The long straight hair made her feel better- she looked more like her mother and less like the single worn picture of her father. On days she couldn't or didn't straighten her hair she plaited it tightly. A single braid or two if she was very late and as many bobby pins as she could stand holding back wisps that escaped.

She tried makeup as well. Red lips and smokey eyeshadow were her grandmother's Christmas gift to "spruce up her plain face". That got laughs when she went to school but she stuck at it until she could do a reasonable cat's eye. Nice patterns on her nails. Just enough to make her cheeks rosy, just enough to brighten her face, just enough to cover the bags under her eyes from crying herself to sleep.

It was never enough.

Kacchan didn't stop bullying her either. He'd blown up his hands so much that she only owned tights, she carried extra pens, soaked her uniforms in fire retardant to make sure they only smouldered and didn't leave her shirtless and humiliated like in elementary. She had extra shirts too just in case that didn't work.

And the girls in her class were worse or just as bad as they'd always been. Nothing worked on them. Kacchan at least let up to go home or study. He didn't care about her looks or whether she had a crush or if she was coming to the spring festival alone.

On those days Izuku went home and scrapped mascara off her cheeks before her mother came in. Even she'd commented on her daughter turning into a more attractive person.

Training with All Might meant she couldn't straighten her hair in the morning. Or at all if she wanted to eat.

No makeup that couldn't be done whilst running or in the bathroom before school.

No extra clothes or extra pens or extra anything except food.

No tights, they were too thick to run in so she started wearing her shorts under her skirts instead.

No sitting demurely in class either, feet together hands clasped when not note taking.

At first, she'd hated it, worried over the way she looked, wondered if everything was going to get worse but. Nothing changed. Nothing fucking changed. She was as invisible as she'd always been to the boys and Kacchan was surely training as hard as she was to get into UA- too busy to do anything but study and workout was something she'd heard a lot recently.

All Might hadn't even flinched the first time she'd wiped her melting makeup off her face he'd grinned wider than ever and asked if she needed some water. The week after he'd started recommending videos to help with defending herself.

She got into UA. (And fuck them if her new classmates were like the old ones.)