The gym was a shithole.
Rusted equipment. Cracked mirrors. Fluorescent lights that buzzed like dying insects. The whole place smelled like iron and old sweat and the slow death of a business that peaked in 1987 and had been coasting on stubbornness ever since.
Perfect.
Izuku set his bag down and rolled his shoulders. Six weeks of sitting on his ass, doing nothing but bodyweight squats and watching his arm heal while the cold thing in his chest purred and waited. Six weeks of planning.
The cast came off yesterday.
Today the work started.
He wrapped his hands and stepped up to the barbell. 60 kilograms. Light. But this body had never pulled anything heavier than a backpack full of notebooks, so light was relative.
He gripped the knurled bar. The rough metal bit into his palms like a handshake from something that didn't like him yet.
Stance wide. Back flat. Chest up.
He pulled.
The bar came off the ground slow and angry. His hamstrings screamed. His lower back lit up like someone had poured hot water down his spine.
He locked out at the top. Exhaled. Lowered it with control.
One rep.
'Four more. Don't be a bitch about it.'
By the third set his hands were bleeding. The calluses he didn't have yet had torn open, leaving raw pink skin that stuck to the bar and left red smears on the knurling.
He wrapped his hands tighter and loaded the bar again.
Headphones on. INTERWORLD's METAMORPHOSIS rattled through his skull. The bass synced with his heartbeat and for a few seconds the world outside the bar didn't exist. Just the weight. Just the pull. Just the war between what his body wanted to do (stop) and what he was going to make it do (more).
Barbell rows next. Bent over at 45 degrees, pulling the bar into his stomach until his lats burned and his traps felt like someone was driving nails into them.
Sweat dripped off his nose onto the gym floor.
'This is it. This is what it costs. Every rep is buying you one more second of not dying when you use the power.'
When he finally racked the bar his arms were shaking so bad he could barely grip his water bottle.
He sat on the bench, chest heaving, and looked at his bloody palms.
'Good.'
Pain meant progress. Pain meant the fibers were tearing. Pain meant tomorrow they'd grow back thicker, denser, stronger. Pain meant one day this paper cup of a body might actually hold the ocean without cracking.
He was almost starting to like pain.
'That's probably not healthy. Don't care.'
***
The walk home was quiet. Sun going down, sky turning orange and purple, the kind of sunset that would've been beautiful if his legs didn't feel like someone had filled them with wet concrete.
He turned into the alley shortcut near the convenience store.
'Oh, come on.'
Bakugou.
Two extras.
Blocking the alley like they'd rehearsed it.
Izuku pulled his headphones down. The music kept playing faintly. Some part of him wanted to leave them on just to see how Bakugou would react to being literally tuned out, but that felt like poking a bear when he was too tired to run.
"You've been ignoring me." Bakugou's voice was tight. His palms crackled with small, controlled pops. Burnt sugar and nitroglycerin. The kid smelled like a dessert having a panic attack.
"Walking around like you're somebody. Acting all high and mighty."
One of the extras snickered. Neither of them looked comfortable.
Izuku just looked at him.
It was strange. Six weeks ago this kid had told him to jump off a roof. In the original story that moment was supposed to be devastating. The thing that broke Izuku Midoriya's spirit before All Might put it back together.
But from where Izuku was standing — sore, bloody-handed, twenty-two years old in a body that still hadn't figured out puberty — Bakugou just looked small. Loud and angry and small, the way people get when being the best is the only thing holding their identity together and someone just stopped caring about the ranking.
'Stance too wide. Weight on his heels. Hands up but fingers splayed. Zero guard. I could break his knee before he finished a sentence.'
The thought came and went. He didn't want to break anyone's knee. He wanted to go home, eat four chicken breasts, and pass out.
"What, you go mute now?" Bakugou stepped closer. The crackling got louder. "Say something, you quirkless—"
"You're in my way."
Flat. Tired. The voice of a man who'd just deadlifted for two hours and had zero emotional bandwidth left for whatever this was.
Bakugou froze.
Something moved behind his eyes. Fast, complicated. Confusion and anger fighting for the same space.
Izuku walked straight past him. Shoulder brushed shoulder.
He didn't look back.
The alley was silent behind him. One of the extras whispered something. Bakugou didn't answer.
Headphones back up. Bass kicked in. Heavy and relentless, filling his skull with sound that left no room for fourteen-year-old boys with explosion hands and daddy issues he probably didn't even know he had yet.
'Keep walking.'
***
He got home, dropped his bag by the door, and collapsed face-first onto his bed.
Everything hurt. His hands were still bleeding through the bandages. His back felt like it had been taken apart and put back together by someone who'd lost the instructions.
But when he closed his eyes he could still see Bakugou's face. That flicker. That half-second where the script he'd been running since kindergarten had glitched and something underneath it — something confused and almost afraid — had looked out through his eyes.
'Interesting.'
His phone buzzed.
A calendar notification.
U.A. Entrance Exam: 8 months, 12 days.
He stared at the screen until it went dark.
Then he opened his training log and added 5 kilos to tomorrow's deadlift.
TO BE CONTINUED