THUD THUD THUD
Uraraka wakes up a little confused.
Something loud jarred her from sleep, but a quick glance around the room shows nothing out of place.
From the look of the light through the window, she already knows it's overcast and crummy.
It's hard to move.
Although sleeping is supposed to be restorative, right now she feels less than stellar. A scratchy fullness in her throat and the start of a shivering ache in her muscles means she probably didn't change out of her wet clothes fast enough yesterday. Some bug waited for the perfect conditions to ruin her, and now Bakugou will be even more upset, or whatever he is, when they start their regiment.
"Bakugou!" She gasps, sitting up in a panic at the thought of him. The clock on her nightstand reads 7:42, and her stomach drops in fear. She checks her phone, wondering what happened to her alarm. Sure enough, flipping it open shows Saturday, December 26, and now 7:43. The tone had come and gone.
She overslept.
Worse yet, she's still sleepy.
THUD THUD THUD
"Uraraka! Get your ass up!" Comes Bakugou's muffled voice through her door.
"Bakugou?!" She says loud enough for him to hear, rubbing away her grogginess in a frenzy. How long has he been knocking?
She spots her training pants hanging over the back of her chair, mentally preparing her next steps.
"Unless you're waitin' on Big Lips or Mouths For Hands, of course, Cheeks! You were supposed to meet me downstairs at seven thirty sharp!"
Despite the war waging in her body, Uraraka jumps up to get dressed. She doesn't feel entirely out of commission just yet and she doesn't want to let him down.
"Uhhh...sorry! Just a minute, I'll be right out!" She yells before popping a toothbrush in her mouth and searching desperately beneath her furniture for her gym top.
THUD THUD THUD THUD THUD THUD THUD
"I'm hurrying!" She shouts at his persistence, finding and pulling her top from behind her low table.
"It's not fast enough. I'll be warming up at the gym! Don't flake again!"
With a scoff, she listens to his footsteps until they're too far to hear while she finishes up.
Knowing full well there isn't time for breakfast, she pops a lozenge to help her throat, grabs a water bottle, her bag and coat, then sets out after Bakugou.
It is, in fact, crummy outside. The dreamy winter wonderland feel from yesterday is gone, and the clouds look dark and swollen, ready to release rain instead of snow.
When she arrives at the gym, he's already stretching and massaging out his muscles on the mat with his back to an array of machines. There's a floor to ceiling mirror and a long row of dumbbells in front of him.
She knows Bakugou well enough to understand that apologizing or talking through excuses does nothing with him, and she's inclined to agree - it's pointless. The path of least resistance is merely laying her stuff down beside his and stretching too.
He inclines his head, barely, in acknowledgment, then he's back to bare minimum engagement.
How long is he going to keep this up?!
Today and tomorrow are just workout days; a warm-up, in Bakugou's eyes, before they refine their combos on Monday. But that means plenty of time for dead air.
Uraraka just wants things to go back to how they were before, or at least, to go back to bed.
Yet, Bakugou seems determined to keep her at arms length.
She doesn't mind. It's fine. She'll just sit here and stretch. Everything's. Completely. Fine. "Fine," she huffs to herself, grabbing her ankle to try and ease some of her pain.
Stretching both hurts and feels incredible. But no matter how many ways she rubs and presses, no foam roller in the world could make her soreness dissipate.
She coughs a nasty sound and notices Bakugou visibly flinch at it.
"You're antsy." She says, rising from the mat, shakily.
Bakugou tsks and gestures for her to follow him as he walks to the free weights.
"Can it. Let's go. We'll do back and bi's, and tomorrow we'll do legs, so we get a break from upper." He advises while digging around in his big gym bag. His throat sounds full of something right at the end of his sentence, and she watches him hunch a bit.
"Bakugou?" That's the second time she's heard that eerie cough from him, and she's starting to worry. It's so familiar. But it can't be...
"I'm fine!" He retorts before clearing his throat and throwing on a weighted vest then tossing one to her as well.
"Okay grumpy." She says with a grunt, struggling minutely with the hefty vest. "Let's do this."
And they begin their sets and reps, starting with free weights. Neither speaking a word, which is….actually not what Uraraka expects despite evidence to the contrary.
But she carries on, sneaking glances every so often for any acknowledgment on Bakugou's part as he times their separate exercises, only speaking to move her on to the next thing.
It's all very transactional.
It hurts. Literally and figuratively now that her head is pounding and her limbs feel like she's a toddler experiencing growing pains all over again.
Still, she strives on. Because if there's one thing she won't do, it's let Bakugou get to her. She wants to be able to say she did this, no excuses.
He's not the only one that wants to be a top hero, she thinks as she persists.
Gradually she builds her way up in weight.
At one point she searches him out in the middle of a particularly difficult incline curl to overhead move.
His back is to her, but she sees his face through the mirror in front of him, lifting like it's nothing, completely content to not interact. She remembers the last time they were here, seemingly forever ago, except they were "racing" right beside each other.
"Ugh, do we have to do these? Aren't they the same as the other curls?" She asked, a noticeable strain on her face as she entered muscle failure.
"These are working different stabilizers." He'd rolled his eyes, "We do them because we have to get stronger. I'm not here to baby you. If it's so hard, just come up with a reason, to keep going, eh, or leave. Just know, if you go..." he turned to her with a pause, grinning devilishly as he continued to lift his 35-kilo weight, double the weight of hers, with relative ease. "...you'll never be able to do this." He chuckled, then kissed his bicep, ironically she hoped, on his final curl.
She snorted, almost losing grip on her weights, "Won't be able to do what? Kiss your biceps?! I wouldn't need training to get good at that!" She laughed full bellied, watching him fumble with the dumbbell in a fit of dry coughs.
"Yeh, yeh! That's enough. Think of a goal, or there's no use in you being here." He cleared his throat.
"Relax Bakugou, I don't even have to think about it. You're my goal!" She retorted with a sunny grin. He looked at her like she'd grown an extra head. "Every time I lift, I know it's helping me get closer to throwing you into a wall without my quirk. Then you can't be so smug with me." She wiggled her eyebrows with her final curl.
"Looking forward to it Pink Cheeks." He responded.
That's how it had been, encouraging, or bantering like crazy, egging each other on.
Now? Nothing.
Regardless, he's still going strong, and oh what she wouldn't do for just half of his strength.
And here she is, looking pained and maybe a little confounded as she pulls and pulls, fighting to raise the dumbbells up, practically from the ground, and overhead.
She won't stop. She can't.
Gritting her teeth, she releases huge spurts of air to try and pull as she exhales.
With a groan, she manages to pull and raise the weights just to her cheeks. Her arms are wobbling though, shaking, like a freshly chilled batch of gelatin. And as someone who can't use her pinkies, and is probably way more sick than she wants to believe, it takes that much more concentration to see this through.
Her breathing is extra ragged as she prepares for the final stretch, getting 20 kilos on either side above her head, the correct way.
She seeks Bakugou out once more, prepping to finish. She wants him to see, wants him to pay attention. Because she needs him to know that she's here, and she's trying, and she doesn't have to be but she wants to, and for goodness sake why won't he just look! Did she mess up that bad? Does he hate her that much? What in the world did she do to deserve this?
Inhale.
Ready.
Exhale.
Push!
Slowly but surely, quivering all the way, she growls her way through the final push, raising them up triumphantly and catching his gaze finally on her, the most minute of smiles gracing his lips. But it's too late, now she's peeved.
Without much thought, she drops the weights to the floor, letting them bang and clank unceremoniously at her sides (which is not proper gym etiquette) as she rises from the bench, keeping his gaze as she makes her way to the squat rack.
It's not leg day, but she's done looking at his back.
Every step is a chore as her stomach churns and her legs wobble. She's incredibly dizzy to boot - and she hasn't even used her quirk yet. But she has to stay strong.
She sets up enough weight to maybe equal a whole Bakugou (all the better to help learn to throw him during practice) and squats below the bar, ready to push up, no longer caring if he's watching because she suddenly remembers, this is not for him, or anyone else. This is for her. This is what she wants. And even though he's being an ass, he's helped her remember that more than once.
"Last thing. Come on, Ochako. You can do this." She whispers to herself. She hears the exhaustion in her own voice as she grits through the pain in her body.
One.
Two.
Up!
Black blotches suddenly fill her sight, then everything goes dark.