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: Alrighty, like I said last chapter, we get a double dose this month because I missed March's update! And this opening was one of the most fun scenes to write, so I'm really hoping you enjoy reading it! This title comes from the band Pretty Vicious and it's fun as hell so I hope you enjoy that too. You're gonna need it for this one because it's a whirlwind! Enjoy!

PS: I had to edit this chapter because there were missing underlines. Thank you valkrus for bringing it to my attention! :)

Chapter 16: These Four Walls

Respective tempers flaring, the old friends' fight had quickly devolved into an angry wrestling match on the floor. Their quirks, to the untrained eye, would make this scuffle seem just as one-sided as their first Sports Fest battle, with Bakugo's blasts making him the perfect weapon and Kirishima's tough hide earning him the reputation as a perfect shield. Bakugo would be the safest bet since Kirishima seemingly had no offense with which to repel him.

But many years had passed since their time as the formerly-green teenagers looking to prove themselves as champions. Years of real battles against villains had forced them to use their quirks in nontraditional ways – quite literally thrown to the wolves and forced to adapt or risk death. And, clearly, neither had succumbed just yet.

The weight room was a mess – the dumbbells had long since scattered across the floor, smashing into one of the floor-to-ceiling mirrors and shattering the glass all around them. Bakugo's bench press machine had taken a tumble when Kirishima had repelled his blast and sent him flying into it, and now leaned against the cracked drywall. The only piece of equipment that lay largely unscathed was the treadmill, tucked safely away into the corner under the window.

At some point, Bakugo must have realized he would never be able to get off a blast strong enough to take out Kirishima without blowing the entire apartment building straight to hell – but it wasn't like he actually wanted to, anyway. They were just blowing off some much needed steam – which was the precise moment he'd unintentionally sealed his own fate. With no quirk left to rely on, he'd been reduced to his good old-fashioned fists, which just so happened to be Kirishima's forte.

As big a sadist as his blond friend was often mislabeled, not many people had been able to get close enough to realize just how untrue that reputation actually was. Granted, Bakugo excelled at many a thing and one of those things just so happened to be frightening the ever-loving shit out of those who had the unfortunate ability to piss him off. But beneath those face-value intimidation tactics lay a dark pit of insecurities and imposter syndromes that sometimes drove him down a self-destructive spiral of abuse.

Kirishima had always assumed he'd been the only one close enough to him to learn of his masochistic streak when he'd get into one of his moods, but the first time he'd ever actually witnessed it was back at U.A. when he'd challenged Deku to a late-night fight. A series of teenaged fuck ups had festered within him, culminating in his failure to earn his hero license. It was certainly the final straw and seemed to be the catalyst that lit the fuse that ended with him taking down his biggest rival at the time.

But Kirishima was not Deku. He didn't have a handy treasure trove of quirks he could pick and choose from to help him adapt to any given situation. No, Kirishima only had his one quirk, and where Deku may have had the upper hand in adaptability, Kirishima had the ability to do only one thing and do it well.

So, when Bakugo had made the mistake of challenging the human battering ram to a makeshift boxing match, Kirishima made sure to make him regret his decision. It had been a long time coming.

When the blond came at him with that mean right hook, the redhead sidestepped and caught him in the side with a hardened elbow. The blow would have sent another man gasping for air on the ground, but he'd done his best to avoid breaking his rib. In the split second that Bakugo faltered to grasp his side, Kirishima seized his moment and secured him into a headlock.

Not done yet, Bakugo was seeing red as he glared at their reflection in his cracked mirrors. He reached for Kirishima's arms and ducked forward, flipping his taller friend over and landing a spectacular body slam. Quite literally breathless, Kirishima was left stunned and sputtering on the hardwood as the blond descended again. With no shirt to cuff him, Bakugo squatted over him and wrapped his hand around his neck to remind him that he could activate his quirk faster than he could.

"It's over."

"For you!" Kirishima growled, snatching the collar of his T-shirt and rolling them over.

The grappling expert pinned him underneath and crushed him with a cross-collar choke, rendering his sparking hands immobile beneath his weight and useless against his hardening quirk. He could feel Bakugo's pulse pounding from the pressure in his hands but wouldn't release him until he officially conceded to him. They both knew their limits, and after so many years getting paid to K-O villains, they had become experts at avoiding the same fate.

The redder Bakugo's face became, the harsher his blasts became until even he could feel himself running out of steam. But he refused to yield, stubbornly glaring into his friend's expectant gaze, remaining stalwart with a stiff upper lip.

With his trembling hands crushing his windpipe, Kirishima could feel the tiny gasps of air he was struggling to take. As the explosions weakened, it became easier for him to bear down one final time to really drive his victory home, before backing off entirely. He released his choke hold and rolled off his friend, glaring at him in annoyance as he simultaneously choked and gasped for air.

Clutching his throat, Bakugo met him with a glare of his own but he wasn't quite sure who he was angrier at. The cracked mirror lay before them and they peered at each other through it, surveying the damage around them as their fighter's high started to dissipate and reality settled back in.

Kirishima ran his fingers through his hair and retrieved his shirt from the floor to wipe the sweat from his brow. Bakugo was still laying on the floor, rubbing his throat and catching his breath. Kirishima gave him his hand to help him sit up and he reluctantly accepted the peace offering after a few moments of deliberation.

"We really did a number on this place, huh?" He chuckled. "Who's gonna clean all this up?"

"Shut up." Bakugo breathed, voice a little hoarse. "You hungry?"

He couldn't get his mind off the promise of homemade katsudon. But he'd have to wait just one more day. It was his last night here, so there was no more room for mistakes. Their last mission a few nights ago had been a disaster and it ended up causing more harm than good. Deku didn't want to admit it, but he should have known better. As an outsider looking in, he'd always had the ability to view the issues on I-Island through an objective lens. He had the special privilege of predicting how the international media would spin the story, because he'd seen it himself in the days leading up to his trip. And the worst part was, he'd believed their angle simply because no one else was refuting it.

Melissa trusted him specifically to help her and he'd only served to make things worse. She wanted her company back now more than ever to help uncover the truth about the murdered scientists, but Deku had managed to turn that goal on its head. Not only was his break-in being blamed on the protestors, but it had brought a specific scrutiny onto Melissa that she had previously managed to avoid.

So, he could afford no more screw-ups tonight. He refused. Tonight, he was a machine. Cold, precise, and efficient. Clad in a different prototype this time, his mission was solely reconnaissance and his suit had been specialized for it. As though pinning a note to his shirt, Melissa had been sure to remind him that this outfit was not built to withstand the strain his One For All could put on it. She had also expressly warned him not to damage it.

In other words – no fighting, or it would be his ass on the line this time.

With fewer bells and whistles to work with, Deku had been forced to infiltrate the tower the old-fashioned way. Dropped from Melissa's passenger drone, he used the built-in webbing between his limbs to glide through one of the broken windows like a flying squirrel. Unused to flight of any sort, his landing had been less than spectacular, ripping straight through the caution tape cordoning off the windows and tumbling directly into a marble lab table. The crash had sent several things scattering off the top as he nursed his throbbing cranium with a stifled curse.

"Are you in?" He could practically hear the sigh in Melissa's voice.

"Yes." He replied tersely, not seeing the need to regale her with the details. "I'm in. How's it look?"

"You're clear. The cameras are still down from last time, from what I can see."

Melissa had spent the whole night and next day reconstructing the laptop that Deku had retrieved. She'd been able to get it in working order and accessed hundreds of confidential files full of damning details about the company's shady affairs. But it wasn't enough anymore. With the media pinning the break-in on the protestors, any information put forth now would just be dismissed as make believe to fuel their cause. They wouldn't take it seriously without hard evidence, which was the goal of tonight's mission.

"If you can gather more photos of the entire lab, we'll have a better chance of standing up to scrutiny." She explained. "And remember to keep your flash off this time, Deku-kun."

He chuckled, suddenly sheepish. "I know…" Plucking his phone from his suit, he did as instructed and snapped up photos like he was on vacation. The lab tables were rife with paperwork and names and signatures; and while they were meaningless to him, he knew Melissa would be able to do a lot of damage with that kind of information. "How am I looking?"

"Still clear." She chuckled. "As long as you keep the hood up, the suit will remain camouflaged from visible light. You're a ghost right now."

He didn't appreciate that particular comparison, especially as he drew closer to the prison cells. The glass barrier that had been shattered the other night had also been blocked off by caution tape, and the cell remained empty. He tore the tape away and stepped through the threshold, glass crunching underfoot. It was cramped even for him, so he couldn't imagine how it must have fell for that huge inmate to be confined in here.

Multiple monitors slept on the walls and an IV drip lay toppled on the floor. Deku crouched down to inspect the murky liquid in the bag, carefully plucking it off the drip and securing it into his backpack.

"What do you think happened to them?"

"To who?"

"The inmates that were here the other night." He clicked a few more photos of the cramped space.

"They should still be there." She replied, simply.

He lowered his phone slowly. "As in here where I am?"

"That's what the files indicate." Her calm tone of voice told him that she didn't quite fully understand the implications of her words. "Only one patient has been moved. He went from cell #3 to #5. The rest of them are right where they always were."

"Melissa, these cells are empty – the doors are all open." He insisted, pressing the earpiece to make sure his words were as clear as possible. "I'm standing inside the broken one as we speak."

"Why are you inside?"

"To take pictures!"

"Well, get out!" She snapped. "We don't know what sort of residual materials could be inside there."

"Alright, alright." He really couldn't argue, even if he was wearing a mask. If anyone knew its limits, after all, it was its creator. "I collected a sample of whatever drug they were pumping to this guy, either way."

"Make sure it's secured in the sterile–"

"I know, Melissa." He chuckled. "I do this for a living, remember?" He hopped out of the cell and turned around to get one final photo of it.

"For a living, you say…?"

"Who–"

Something snatched his collar and tugged him forward, but he slipped on the broken glass and tripped into a pile of it. He lay half in, half out of the cell as a murky fog burst from a gaggle of holes in the ceiling. It filtered through his mask and he wound up inhaling just the faintest of amounts before he reflexively held his breath and shot to his feet again.

"What's going on?" Melissa demanded.

Deku tore the mask from his face in an effort to take in fresh air again. "There's someone here."

"Get out of there! We have more than enough evidence now!"

From the gas on the ceiling of cell #3 appeared a woman in a white inmate uniform. She crawled down from the ceiling and onto the floor in a way that Deku instantly recognized as some sort of mutation-style quirk just from past experience. He was able to confirm his suspicion when the literal smoke cleared and revealed her face to him. Most striking was her nose, or rather, lack thereof. In its place were two large slits that waxed and waned with each breath. Her eyes were large and protruded like a lizard's, moving independently of each other. She used one of her four-pronged hands to brush her black hair out of her face, grinning her wide mouth.

"You're the same kid from the other night!" She took an excited step closer.

Deku matched her movements with a few of his own, namely walking backwards and replacing his mask. The window he'd come through was just a quick leap away.

"Don't run!" She insisted. "They all run from me!"

Against his better judgment, he stopped. There was something in the tone of her voice that cut through his survival instincts.

"Who are you?" He demanded. "Why did you attack me?"

"I thought you were a guard."

That was fair enough, he supposed.

"What's your name?"

"Four."

"Four?" He was more surprised by how compliant she was being.

"I don't like this, Deku-kun." Melissa chimed from within his ear. "The fourth cell belongs to a woman undergoing treatment for neurotoxins she secretes from her skin."

Deku audibly gulped.

"What's your name?" She nodded her head pleasantly, long tongue flicking from her mouth to moisten one of her bulbous eyeballs. "You met Three the other night, and the rest are still hiding, so it's just me right now."

"U-uh, my name is…Deku."

"What on earth are you doing!? Get out of there while you still have the chance!"

"That's a funny name." Four chuckled. "How about the woman in your ear?"

He froze. "Th-the what?"

Four smiled, revealing a series of tiny crocodilian teeth. "What's her name?"

"How…do you know about her?"

There was a tussling sound from behind the series of cells and suddenly, the massive inmate Deku met the other night appeared. He was even larger without a barrier between them, barrel-chested and slowly encroaching.

"You remember Three, don't you?" Four chirped from somewhere behind him. "He remembers you…"

"Deku, run!"

His legs acted before his brain could register what was happening. In a flash of green sparks, he was high above the pair and able to finally see the other two inmates huddled together behind the cells. Three's fists had hammered a sizable dent in the floor where Deku formerly stood, and Black Whip sprouted to swing him over to the shoddily patched-up hole in the ventilation system. He remained there for several moments while he caught his breath.

"Deku-kun, I'm going to give you an opening to escape."

He listened silently, lest he give away his hiding spot.

"I can release a sedative gas from the ceiling to knock them all out, but it'll also affect you if you aren't fast enough."

"Roger." He whispered, adjusting into a crouched position to spring into action.

"In 3…2…1!"

He launched himself from the vent and aimed his gliders to shoot for the broken window. The entire ceiling burst open to unleash a veil of murky smoke into the lab and Deku held his breath the entire ride down. But mere moments from the fresh air outside the window, something struck him with the force of a punch and ripped his mask from his face. He gasped out of reflexive shock and collapsed off-kilter into the wall, sedative gas raining down around him like an ethereal fog.

His dark green gaze located the four inmates standing in a row nearby, proper lab masks covering all their faces, except for Four. She'd temporarily removed her mask in order to snatch Deku's mask with her ballistic tongue. She spat it out and waved it in front of him before tossing it over her head, where it disappeared into the smoke.

"I knew you weren't here to help." She growled, covering her face so she could breathe again. "Three, take care of him."

Deku may have been struggling to stay conscious, but he knew a slasher smile when he saw one. Three descended like the night, blocking the light with his hulking shadow and cracking his knuckles just because he could. He balled his meaty fingers into a fist and wound up to strike.

"Deku-kun, stay down!"

He blocked the blow with his Black Whip and forced Three to jump back on the defensive. Behind him, Melissa's passenger drone appeared and blasted apart the windows with a pair of small but effective Gatling guns. Glass shattered around him, but he was still able to block the larger pieces and swat away the smaller ones. The four inmates scattered the moment the windows broke apart, but the barrage was too overwhelming for any of them to effectively avoid. By the time Melissa had emptied both clips, the quartet was strewn across the floor in various states of fight or flight.

"Get in, quick!" She urged. "Those were just stun rounds, so I don't know how effective the shocks were."

Deku didn't need to be told twice. He scraped himself off the floor and leapt out the window into the awaiting cockpit, struggling to keep his eyes open.

"Were you hit?" Melissa's face appeared before him on a screen on the control panel. Remotely, she sealed the drone around him and activated its cloaking device before steering it into the night sky.

"No." He answered, shrugging off the backpack full of evidence. "I inhaled the smoke, though."

Melissa chuckled. "Well, you'll sleep like a baby tonight."

He smiled. "I hope so. I have a flight to catch in the morning."

That morning, Ochako had been too excited to snooze her alarm when it went off. Instead, she'd leapt clear across the room and hustled to start the day. She ate breakfast and nebulized all in the quick span of a half-hour, even though she had the entire day to get done whatever she needed. Her energy came from a giddy excitement that surged electricity through her veins, powered by her pounding heart that only began to race faster as the hours wore on.

But after an asthma attack had sent her scrambling to the balcony for fresh air, she'd pulled off her panda-decorated surgical mask in order to puff on her inhaler. She caught her breath and wondered to the lounging Aki how she'd ever get the cleaning done if the chemicals were becoming triggers. The cat seemed to stare at her with a sudden interest the more Ochako blathered on, leaning against the railing of the balcony and letting the sunshine revitalize her like a flower.

"Deku will only worry if he sees me like this." She admitted. "And Sayaka-san will probably limit the kinds of patrols I'm allowed to join until I get this under control, too."

Aki chirped and leapt down from the chair he was sleeping in, rubbing his soft fur against Ochako's leg in a soothing gesture. Ochako bent down to give him some scratches under his chin, making the cat close his eyes in delight and purr.

"Oh, Aki." She sighed. "It must be so nice to be a cat – just sleeping all day and getting pats whenever you ask. That's the life."

Her phone went off and the jingle forced her to return inside to check it. It had hardly been an hour since Deku's last update, so she wondered what he could have wanted now. Surely, he hadn't missed his flight so maybe there had been a delay.

You up? We need to talk. Let's meet today.

In her excitement over seeing Deku again, she hadn't even bothered to read who the message was actually from. And in her hastiness to answer the message, she'd sealed her own fate now that he could see that she'd already opened it. She hadn't received an answer to her own requests to meet up with Bakugo-kun for days, and now he finally chose today of all days to make this request? Without even so much as a "hello" to butter her up in the first place?

What are you doing rn? Came his follow up demand.

She wished she could say his impatience surprised her, but restraint was never the first word that came to mind when she thought of Bakugo-kun. Panda mask still in her pocket, she reasoned that she could probably use a break anyway. And the only reason she was agreeing to meet was because she needed a dose of fresh air, and not because she'd been ungraciously beckoned like a medieval squire.

I'm free for a bit this afternoon. She wrote back. I need to pick up a roll cake from the bakery, so let's meet there. She sent over the directions – a handy feature that Deku had taught her how to do in case she'd ever need to send her location in an emergency. Technology was truly marvelous, when she knew how to use it.

Roll cake? Sure you don't wanna lay off those sweets, Round Face?

She sent him a stream of emoji stickers as her cheeks heated up in outrage.

Alright, alright! He barked back. I'll buy you the cake to make up for it! Happy?

That may not have been the apology she was looking for, but it would do. Especially since it was probably the closest thing to an "I'm sorry" she would ever get out of Bakugo-kun.

A/N: So, nothing too dramatic this time. For once. Just pure action and a little fun if adventure is your thing. I think I owed you all that much after the past couple of intense chapters ^^;; I also noticed that Bakugo's nickname for Ochako varies from the sub to the dub, so I'll probably wind up using both Pink Cheeks and Round Face depending on his mood because I can't pick a favorite. See you next chapter!