UPROAR
Summary: Just because you're a Pro doesn't mean you're immune to the shit life throws your way. But that's part of the fun, right? Right…? Ugh, All Might made it all look so easy. Aged-up. Rated T for now. Connected drabble series.
A/N: Whoops, so August kinda got away from me ^^;; But hey, there were two updates in July so by my calculations things still even out! Anywhooo, I won't bore you with excuses because they aren't even really that good, just your typical summer shenanigans, I guess. Oh god, that just reminded me that school is starting in a few days T^T …Enjoy!
Chapter 9: Comeback Kid
In the four days that Deku had been overseas, Ochako had been forced to go on their morning jog all by her lonesome self. She was tempted to skip it altogether, since no one would ever know, but she was better than that. A few hours of extra sleep weren't worth the guilt she'd feel for lying to Deku. Not that he was keeping tabs on her or anything, but it was the principle of the thing. Besides, the closer she stuck to her regular routine, the faster time would fly, right?
She slammed her alarm clock silent like she was slapping an ex-lover in the face and buried her face in the sheets. Aki, who usually spent the night, was nowhere to be found, so Ochako sat up in a completely empty bed. She checked her phone after turning on the morning news – the only thing airing this early outside of infomercials – and yawned.
Apparently, she'd missed quite an exciting night. It was typical of her friends to post cool photos directly to their U.A. chat since some of them still operated under a secret identity. This way, they could still share their photos to a trustworthy group without the fear of exposing their identities.
There was the usual light and sound show from a concert Jirou attended, a cute selfie of Mina's newest outfit, and even some impressive action shots from a few of the boys who'd gone to a baseball game together. But this particular night was different for another reason. Somewhere throughout the course of the night, Kirishima had posted a series of photos so blurry, they could hardly be deciphered.
Multiple conjectures had been made about who he was with or what exactly they were doing, but none of that really concerned Ochako. She scrolled to the bottom of the screen until seeing that Kirishima had come on to ensure everyone that he was fine, if a bit drunk. He'd promised to sleep it off and apologized again for making everyone worry.
The chat died down a bit after that, surprisingly, so she clawed her way out from under her blankets and headed to the bathroom to get ready for the day. She changed into her workout gear and turned on the lights in the kitchen. She'd had to adjust the measurements in her morning smoothie since she was the only one drinking them right now, and she downed it in just a few gulps. Looking around again for Aki before securing her earbuds into her ears, she found the cat soundly asleep on the couch.
"Be back in a bit!" She whispered, plugging the buds into her ear and starting up her playlist on her smartwatch. It had been a birthday present from her parents last year and she was still finding new things to do with it. Technology was truly amazing in the hands of someone who knew how to use it. And Ochako was … working on it.
Outside in the brightening sky, she leaned against the railing to breeze through her morning yoga stretches. A stranger lurking in the corner of her eye caught her attention as he grumbled to himself, but she shrugged it off. Plenty of people mumbled to themselves – Deku the guiltiest of them all, and probably why she was able to ignore such a strange behavior nowadays.
She'd never seen someone out here this early before, even during her regular routine with Deku, but that didn't necessarily mean the other man didn't belong there. As she transitioned from her first warrior pose using downward dog, she stealthily caught a glimpse of the stranger down the hall before switching legs into her second warrior pose. Curious now, she cruised through another downward dog and took a harder look at the man, nearly tumbling over herself in the process.
"Ba…Bakugo-kun?" She called, not realizing she was still upside down and leering at him through her legs.
The stranger in the dark jacket and jeans bristled and whirled around on her. "What!?"
"I knew it was you!" Ochako shot upright a little too fast and lost her balance, catching herself on the railing with an excited grin on her face. "It's me! Uraraka!"
"Urarakaaa…?" He echoed, for lack of anything better to say.
"Yeah!" She chirped, trotting over. "Don't you recognize me?"
"Why are you shouting!?" He shouted. "It's so late!"
"Oh, sorry!" She plucked out her earbuds and slipped them beneath her shirt, where they'd remain safe in her sports bra. Then, she froze upon realizing she'd just done that in front of a classmate she hadn't actually seen in years, and cleared her throat in an attempt to clear the air. "So late, huh? What exactly are you up to, then? This is considered early to those of us who went to bed last night." She wriggled her eyebrows dramatically to tease him, blissfully unaware of how close to the mark she'd actually nailed him.
"Ah…" He rubbed the back of his neck and averted his gaze, trying to come up with a decent story that didn't make him sound like the scumbag he was. "I was just…um…on my way home."
"Yeah?" She smiled, eyeing her watch after noting the number of the apartment he'd presumably exited. "I can walk you to the station if you'd like. I'm about to go for my morning run."
Now that she'd mentioned it, something did look different about her. Of course, the years gone by would have matured his former classmates, and Uraraka was no exception. She'd grown a few inches since graduation but nothing too dramatic like his own surprise growth spurt. The big change for him was seeing how athletic her build had become. Her colorful leggings clung to the strong muscles in her thighs, no doubt adept at bracing for the impact of the hard landings that sometimes resulted from her quirk. Her shoulders were squared and held high, and he could make out the ghost of definition in her biceps even as they rested at her side.
But of course, some things never changed. And that round face was no exception to that rule, either. He supposed her hair had gotten longer as well, but he barely paid attention to details like that to be able to tell for certain.
"Where's Deku?" He suddenly asked, completely bypassing her offer whether intentional or not.
"E-e-e-e-eh?" She stammered, round cheeks blushing bright pink. "W-why would Deku be here? What makes you a-ask about him so suddenly out of the b-b-blue like that?"
Her reaction was pure gold and just enough to pull him out of his previous funk, transporting him back to the wonderful age of 16 where he would pick on cute girls like her just to watch them blush. He remembered her having the best humor out of all of them, actually daring to laugh at some of the shit he used to say when others would react with outrage.
"Haaahhhh?" He smirked a wolfish grin, hands in his pockets like the delinquent he once used to be. "Well, I don't know, Uraraka…isn't this Deku's apartment?" He craned his neck dramatically to stare at the door behind her. "I'm actually certain that this is that damn nerd's apartment because I was the one who helped him move all his shit in." He sidestepped her with ease in that flustered state and banged on the door. "Deku! Oi, nerd! Your girl's out here waitin' all by herself!"
"Bakugo-kun, please!" Ochako latched onto his arm to keep his hand still and shushed him. "People are still sleeping!"
He couldn't help but laugh at her face. She looked so panicked, like a tiny bunny with a twitchy nose, that it only made him want to tease her more. Like an itch he hadn't scratched in years, there was something so satisfying about her honest reactions that it would be waste not to coax some more out of her.
"So you admit that this is his apartment, then?"
She pursed her lips stubbornly and he wound up his arm to start banging on the door again. Sensing his movement against her skin, she stiffened and finally relented.
"Alright, alright!" She released his arm and stared at the ground. "'S'partmen."
He cupped his ear. "What was that? I didn't quite catch that, Uraraka."
"I said it's Deku's apartment!" She glared at him with a furrowed brow. "Happy now? We live together and didn't want to tell anybody yet."
That last part genuinely took him by surprise, but at least her overreactions finally made sense to him. Of course he'd known since the very first day they were dating, since Deku apparently still considered Bakugo to be one of his closest confidantes. But he didn't know they'd moved in together. That part was news to him.
"I always knew you were dating." He admitted. "Stupid Deku talked to me about it that night he called to ask you to be his girlfriend." He realized he may have taken his teasing a little too far now, and chocked that up to the drinks dulling his pathetic excuse for a filter. "But I didn't know you two were shackin' up yet. How long's that been goin' on for?"
Ochako was still miffed by Bakugo's torment and felt reluctant to fork over any more valuable information he could use against Deku. Because once a bully, always a bully, apparently.
"Aw, c'mon." He goaded. "What, d'you need an apology for hurting your feelings or somethin'?"
The closer he came, the stronger the smell of alcohol became. She placed a hand on his chest to halt his steps before he completely pinned her against her own front door.
"You're drunk." She finally realized.
He chuckled darkly, closing his eyes at her second accurate nail of the night. Morning. Whatever. "Maybe, but I've been comin' down for a while now."
"Well, as you probably already know, Deku isn't home." She snapped back, missing the scant traces of self-hatred he'd left for her to decipher. "He's at the I-Island Expo, so I think you should head home now. If you want, I can help you find the train –"
"That moron really went?"
Ochako paused, brown eyes darting between his crimson gaze for sincerity. His face was so close to hers that she could make out the individual lashes lining his eyes.
"I told him not to go." He carried on, willfully ignorant to her discomfort. "Trouble finds that twerp faster than any bullet could."
"I said the same thing…" She breathed, trying to squeeze out of his clutches as subtly as possible. He was just too close for comfort. "But he still went."
"Idiot." He spat, finally backing off the door and releasing the small girl. "Well, I'm not bailin' his ass out again when the latest villain unleashes a can o' whoop-ass on him." He shoved his hands into his pockets again, the epitome of obstinance.
"I don't think it'll come down to that again." Ochako didn't feel the need to tell him that she was thinking the exact same thoughts. "Look, Bakugo-kun, I'm trying to go for a run. Why don't you come inside and sleep this off? I'll wake you up when I get back."
She tilted her body away from him while she fished around her sports bra again for her key, cheeks flushing when she realized he was staring. Door open, Bakugo traipsed inside and kicked off his shoes without a single protest.
"I'll bring back coffee, so make sure you sleep."
Ochako locked the door again behind him. She half-expected him to pass out right there in the genkan. At least it would be easier to clean the floorboards there if he got sick.
With a resolute breath, she returned the key to its hiding place and shivered against the cooled metal. She traipsed down the hallway and took the stairs down to get her heartrate up, not that it had very far to go after such an encounter. The doorman greeted her, eyeballing his watch to tease her about being late this morning and she gave a polite smile and shrug, as if to say she'd accidentally slept in today.
It would be fair to also call Tokyo a city that never slept, and that was doubly true in the waking hours when the trains started running again. Ochako darted through groups of people left and right, party-dresses and pantsuits alike, on her path to her favorite coffee shop. It was just over 4 miles away which meant Ochako could go there and back in an hour, on a good day. She never really liked to toot her own horn, but she would whenever someone asked about her fastest mile, which just so happened to be 6.5 minutes. She couldn't be called much, but slow was not one of them. Not anymore, at least.
Bakugo ambled through the hallway and stopped by the kitchen with its stylish dark marble countertops. Finding the sink, he plucked a glass from their dishrack and filled it to the brim, emptying it in just a few hungry gulps before refilling it again and looking around appreciatively. Sure, he and Deku had largely put their feud behind them in the years since enrolling at U.A., but that didn't mean they'd given up on trying to beat the other in every other way possible. So how the hell was it possible that Deku – who was four full ranks beneath him and had only a handful of local sponsors backing him – had a nicer apartment than he did!? He touched the smooth counters and relished in their chill – he was still too hot. He wasn't sure if it was the alcohol still swirling around his system or just due to how his night had turned out, but he felt like his skin was crawling.
He peered down at his sparking palms and decided he needed a good fight to get all this tension out of his system. Yeah, that was it. His entire night had gone to shit and he didn't have anything to take it out on. Deku wasn't around to spar with him, and Kirishima wasn't here to take a few blows, either.
"Shit…" He sighed. He wasn't desperate enough to go rifling through someone's apartment in search of some weights…even though he knew that damn nerd had them around here somewhere!
The first door he opened was for the toilet and connected bathroom, which only drew his ire further since Deku also had a nicer tub than he did! He had jets, for crying out loud! Ugh, this swanky place was wasted on that damn nerd. He'd be willing to bet that round-face was taking full advantage even if Deku wasn't, though. He remembered her not being able to afford much outside of a flip-phone when they were in school, which almost certainly guaranteed she'd be embracing the hell out of these nonessential amenities while she had them.
The door across from the bathroom was the bedroom and Bakugo tiptoed in like a cat burglar, even though he knew no one was home. It was eerily quiet in the dark room, and the air was suffocatingly still. He didn't have to wonder which side was whose, though. Uraraka hadn't made her side of the bed and Deku still had that damn All-Might alarm clock on his bedside table. He meandered onto Deku's side of the bed and finally located the treasure he'd been looking for. Well, he was looking for a pair of simple weights to lift, but wound up stumbling upon a whole bench press set. But as he looked closer, his sharp eyes noticed a strange wave design in the barbell that sent a sobering punch to his gut.
That design wasn't an accident or deformation in the bar. It was one of the ones he'd seen some people using at the gym because the jagged angle of the metal was easier on their wrists. That meant that Deku's arm was still giving him trouble even after all these years, and he hadn't mentioned a goddamn word to him about it during all this time.
"What else are you keepin' secret…" He growled, spotting a set of clunky-looking dumbbells on the other side of the bench.
Eager to see what Deku was lifting, he quickly grabbed the pair and nearly sent them directly into his face with the force he'd used to curl them. A quick survey of the little number on the side of the weight informed him that it was set for a mere 15 pounds. He was confused until he remembered that just because Deku wasn't home didn't mean his equipment would go unused. Uraraka had made that plenty clear to him earlier, practically ready to use her quirk on him if it meant getting to her run faster. He couldn't help but laugh at the image the thought put into his head.
He replaced the pair of dumbbells into their cradle and clicked the knob on the side, setting the weight limit to its maximum of 60lbs. Before he started his curls, he remembered his clothes and unbuttoned his shirt. He tossed it onto the bed and figured his designer jeans would be fine since it wasn't a real workout, anyway. He plucked the weights out of their resting place and breathed in as he lifted one, exhaling when lowering it back down.
There was something meditative about this, be it his breathing or the view outside of Deku's balcony. He didn't bother counting sets or reps, since he just wanted to sweat. Anything to get the haze of alcohol out of his system faster. It felt like he was driving around a windy road in the fog without any lights on and he was just waiting to crash.
A/N: So clearly, I know nothing about working out. So if you know anything about running or lifting weights and the numbers I gave you seem a bit off, just chock it up to them being Pro Heroes? Unless the numbers I gave are below average, in which case by gods let me know! I wasn't out to make them supermen, but obviously they're going to be fitter than your average bear. So I guess I was trying to make them more in the top tier of average? Oh well, I'm probably just sweating the details here. Anyway, this chapter was named after the song by New Politics, and this may just become the trend from now on…