Full summary: Sometimes, people make mistakes. Those mistakes shouldn't define them. Even if you ruin another person's life, you should still have a chance to redeem yourself, right? Or maybe not.

Katsuki makes mistakes and has to learn the hard lesson of making things right and accepting consequences.
Aizawa just wants to sleep. He isn't looking to raise children.
Unfortunately for him, there's no rest for the weary teacher when they have students like Katsuki Bakugou and Izuku MIdoriya.

A/N: Story is written for a writing challenge with Kayla Wood and camel_circuit. Rules are as follows:

1. It must be for the My Hero Academia fandom
2. It will be 10 chapters long and chapters will be posted on the first Tuesday of every month, no word restrictions will be applied
3. We start writing the actual chapters on February first, and the first chapter must be posted the first Tuesday of March, meaning the last chapter will be posted the first Tuesday of January 2021
4. It must have at least one scene with a dadzawa moment, and it must serve a purpose in the bigger picture, aka it can't just be a fluff moment

"Just pray you'll be born with a quirk in your next life, and take a swan dive off the roof of the building."

Bakugou is staring at the clock, fingers itching to explode something. He's angry, which isn't unusual, but today is worse than most days.

Stupid Deku. Stupid UA. Stupid quirks. Stupid- Stupid himself.

As much as he hates to admit it, he's angry at himself. Not quirks, or UA, or even Deku. He's such an idiot. Bullying Izuku? Calling him a quirkless, worthless Deku? That's stuff he does all the time. At this point, it's almost second nature for him to look at the boy, and sneer, and tell him he'll never be worth anything. That he should just give up his dream of being a hero. Quirkless Dekus can't be heroes. They get desk jobs, or they collect trash, or they make soba noodles and serve the real heroes. It's easy to look down on Izuku and tell him to go away, or that he doesn't need his help. To push him into the dirt and light up some small scale explosions in his face. It's easy, because he does it all the time, and Deku always just gets up, brushes himself off, and goes about his day eyes shining with determination for the bright future he no doubt envisions for himself.

Telling him to take a swan dive off the roof? Suicide baiting? That was too far. He wasn't thinking, and the words just sort of came out, and now it's the next day, and Bakugou is at school, and Deku isn't, and he texted him but got no response, and all he can think about is what if Izuku actually took the bait and jumped?

He goes to Deku's house as soon as school gets out, banging on the door with perhaps a little more force than necessary. Inko answers the door, and she doesn't look like her heart has been broken into a million pieces, so maybe he got lucky. Maybe Deku is just sick or something.

"Katsuki!" She exclaims in surprise. "It's been so long since you've been over! How are you?"

"I'm fine," he responds. "I came to bring De-Izuku his homework."

"Oh!" Her smile grows wider. "He'll be so happy. You can head up to his room to give it to him." He would rather just hand it to her and get the f**k out of there because he really can't bear the idea of facing Deku and feeling even guiltier about yesterday. He came to make sure Deku was alive, and didn't commit suicide, and now he knows the other teen is fine, so he's ready to go. At least he is, until Inko continues talking, quieter than before.

"Between you and me," she murmurs, "I'm worried about him. He said he's not feeling well today, but he doesn't have a fever or anything. He said his stomach is upset, and he hasn't eaten anything since lunch yesterday. He's tried to hide it, but I've heard him crying off and on. I think something happened to him yesterday." Katsuki clenches his jaw and makes up his mind to own up to his mistake. If he's going to be a pro hero he'll have to start doing that.

"I'll uh, go up there now, then, I guess," he clears his throat awkwardly. She steps aside to let him enter, and his gaze flits around the room. The house looks just like he remembers from when he and Dek-Izuku were kids. There are pictures of Izuku and his mom. And of course, the family portrait. The only picture with Mr. Midoriya. At least, there should be… Now that he's taking a closer look, he notices that picture is missing. In its place, is a picture of Izuku with the pro-hero All Might. They're both smiling. All Might, his signature "I am here" smile, and Izuku his signature "I am currently fanboying and I just might have a stroke" smile. A twinge of longing twists inside of him, and to his surprise, it's not jealousy he's feeling, but rather he finds himself longing for simpler times where he and Izuku were just friends. Times when they played at being heroes, before either of them knew Izuku would be quirkless; before his mom began to instill in him the family values of independence and that anything less than perfection was failure. Not that Bakugou doesn't love his mom. Of course he loves her. What kind of hero, or son for that matter, hates their mom? Sure, he gets into fights with her all the time, much to his father's disappointment, and sometimes embarrassment, but he never means half the things he says to her anyway. And if he genuinely ticks her off sometimes, and she smacks him upside the head, well, he probably deserves it for one reason or another. She really does love him, even though she has a peculiar way of showing it.

Bakugou shakes himself free of his thoughts, and walks the familiar journey to Izuku's room. At the closed door, he stops again. Normally, he would have just walked right in, but now… He knocks, a tad softer than normal.

"J-just a second, mom," Izuku responds. Bakugou hears rustling, and then his door opens. It is slammed shut in milliseconds, then opened again, just a crack.

"K-Kacchan?"

"My mom told me to bring you your homework from today," Bakugou claims, because no way did he come to Deku's house of his own volition. "So can I come in?" he adds after an awkward pause.

"O-oh, yeah, sorry," Deku opens the door, stepping aside to allow passage into his room. Katsuki doesn't know why he doesn't just drop the work off and get out of there, but somehow he can't stop himself. Once he's in Deku's room, he observes the teen closely. Stupid Deku has been crying. His eyes are red-rimmed, tear stains have made their way down his cheeks, and he's still sniffling. Katsuki unzips his backpack, pulling out books and papers.

"We analyzed poetry in Modern Lit," Bakugou fills the silence. "It was pretty boring s**t not gonna lie. The poems were okay, but those dimwits didn't know how to analyze for s**t."

"K-Kacchan?" Deku speaks cautiously.

"What, nerd?" the bite is so natural, he doesn't even realize he's snapped until he sees Deku flinch, ever so slightly. He glances down at the ground with a feeling of remorse for just a moment.

"S-sorry," he swallows. "I just wanted to let you know, that I've been thinking, and I think you're right. There's no way someone like me could be a hero."Deku glanced down with a sad smile and longing in his eyes. "I-I think I'm going to transfer to the support course." That's all Bakugou has ever wanted to hear, so why does hearing it feel like a solid punch to his gut?

"The f**k?"

"That's what you want, isn't it? You, and Mr. Aizawa, and-and my mom? You all want me to just give up on my dream. To just hide in the background. I u-understand why. I'm really just a s-s-stupid D-Deku. You heard Mr. Aizawa yesterday. The person who came in last place was supposed to have been expelled," The corners of Izuku's mouth turn downwards. "Even with all my training, even with all the work I put in, I still wasn't good enough.I came in last after everything, and while Mr. Aizawa didn't fail me yesterday, the truth is, he could have, and probably should have."

"If that's what you really think, then you really are a stupid deku," Bakugo shook his head. "Tch, f***ing typical."

"W-what?"

"You don't look sick to me," Bakugo ignored his question. "Do your d*** homework nerd. You better be in class tomorrow." Not waiting for an answer, he turned and walked out of the door, leaving a confused, and slightly conflicted Izuku in his wake. Mrs. Midoriya offered to let him stay for dinner, but he turned her down, saying that his mom expected him home for dinner. Which, while not completely true, was not completely a lie, either. She did expect him home tonight. Whether he ate dinner or not, she could care less. Not that she could cook for s**t. Mrs. Midoriya made much tastier food, known rather well by those she had fed for her katsudon.

Sometimes Bakugo wished his mom could cook. He usually ate pretty good, having had to make his own food for years, but on nights when he was busy, or tired, it would be nice to have good food prepared for him. Most nights like that he ended up settling for instant ramen, spicing it up with an egg and some sriracha hot sauce. Sometimes, his mom would come home with Maruchan ramen, and he would need extra sriracha to mask the ramen's inferiority to its competition, Nissin. Just because his mom didn't know how to cook, didn't mean that she didn't love her family, though. She just showed it in different ways.

Glancing at his phone to check the time, Katsuki groaned. He was going to be late getting home. His mom was going to be p***ed. He glared back in the direction of the Midoriyas' home. Stupid f***ing Deku.