Chapter Text
“This sounds stupid as fuck.”
“Come oooooon, it’ll be fun! I promise !”
It’s been about a week since Nationals. A week since their victories, both personal and as a gym. A week since Deku and Yagi had been exposed for the liars that they are.
They’ve all been chosen to represent Japan internationally, with half of their gym assigned to the World Championships and the other half to the Asian Games team. Both are huge honors that have helped UA’s reputation immensely while also giving them a chance to prove how well they can compete outside of Japan the year before the Olympics.
Now that all of the drama’s finally over, they can relax as they wait for their major competitions. Aizawa insists they ease up on their training to keep from peaking too soon and being burnt out by the time they need to compete. That means they get a free day today at the gym, where they can work on whatever they want.
They should be using this time to keep themselves sharp. But, of course, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum have to distract everyone.
Mina crosses her arms and pouts. “It’s not stupid, you just hate fun!”
“And you just want content for your damn channel!”
Kaminari puts his hands on his hips like a disapproving parent. “C’mon Kacchan, what else’re we supposed to do?”
“I dunno, train? Just cuz we got four months until we gotta compete again doesn’t mean I’m gonna spend it sitting on my ass!”
Before the other blonde can respond with what’s sure to be another dumb ass argument, Aizawa walks up to where the gymnasts are huddled on the gym floor.
“Why are none of you training?”
Mina steps forward, so much excitement and eagerness on her face their coach takes a cautious step back. “We wanna have a battle of the sexes here in the gym! The guys try the women’s event, and the girls try the men’s events!”
He lifts an eyebrow at her. “This wasn’t exactly what I meant by a free day.”
Bakugou lifts his chin, already smug. “See, what’d I tell ya!”
“Pleeeeeaaaase Coach! I promise we’ll be careful! You can even supervise us!”
Aizawa still looks skeptical, but there’s a hint of consideration on his face, and the others jump on it like sharks catching a whiff of blood in the water.
Momo smiles pleasantly at him. “I think that this could be a great team building exercise, as well as a way to take the pressure off before our big competitions.”
Kirishima perks up. “Oh yeah, kinda like the friendlies that we do with King’s Gym! No stakes, just us having fun and seeing what we’re made of!”
To Bakugou’s horror, Aizawa sighs, somehow swayed by their arguments. “Fine. But if I say no to anything, that means no . Understood?”
“Yes sir!”
“Alright! I FINALLY get to try a Produnova!”
“ No !”
The blonde chick from the girl’s team stomps her foot, of all things. “Well then what’s the point of all this?!”
“Just – fine , but ONLY into the foam pit!”
The girl pumps her fist. “ Yes !”
She runs over to chalk up faster than Bakugou’s ever seen, then turns to Mina, who’s got her phone pointed right at her. “Ready?”
She gets a thumbs up. “You got this, girl!”
She breathes out harshly, a ridiculously serious look on her face, and then starts sprinting. She jumps off the springboard, blocks off the vaulting table, does one flip, gets halfway through the next and –
Ends up going into the pit head first, to the surprise of literally no one.
She flounders for a bit before popping her head out and grinning over at them excitedly. “Did I do it?”
Everyone just looks at her. “Uuuuuhh….”
Bakugou rolls his eyes. “No, you woulda broken your neck if you did that for real. Can we move on now? I wanna get this shit over with.”
Mina sticks her tongue out at him, but relents. They go to still rings next, lowering them so the girls don’t have to worry about falling if their hands slip. This one goes by quickly, with the vaulting chick redeeming herself by being the only one capable of pulling herself up into a hold. She only lasts about half a second, but it still gets cheers from everyone there.
Pommel horse ends up mostly being a bust too, though if Bakugou were being fair he’d admit that finding the balance between strength and momentum on pommel is the bane of every male gymnasts’ existence, too. Still, Mina manages a few flares, though she gives up once she bangs her thigh on one of the handles, and Tsuyu’s able to get herself across, though her legs are wildly flailing and bent the whole time.
They start to head over to parallel bars when Uraraka suddenly stops.“Wait, did we skip floor?”
Sero shrugs. “Should we even do floor? Our tumbling’s mostly the same, right?”
Mina suddenly shoves her phone into Kaminari’s hands. “Wait, hold on, I’ve always wanted to try all the awkward stuff you guys do!”
“Ha?! The fuck’re you talking about?”
She ignores him and runs over to the floor. She stands in a corner, dramatically huffs hard enough to lift her shoulders each time, before doing a simple tumbling pass. She lands in a wide stance, waves her arms around dramatically, before clicking her heels together and hopping over to the nearest corner with stiff arms and legs.
Which……yeah, ok. Watching someone else do that shit really makes Bakugou see how stupid it looks. He tries his hardest to hold in his laugh, but loses it like everyone else when Mina finishes her “routine” and starts aggressively fist pumping and yelling. Even Aizawa cracks a smile, though he does his best to hide it behind an exasperated sigh.
After that, all the girls take a serious stab at trying the non-acrobatic skills that the men do, to varying success. They all manage to press up from a split into a handstand, though a Japanese handstand is a whole other story.
Mina groans in frustration as her butt hits the floor. “How do you guys even do this?! Elbows and shoulders aren’t meant to hold this much weight!”
Bakugou crosses his arms and clicks his tongue. “Tch, maybe not yours .”
She huffs dramatically before a lightbulb seems to go off in her head. Suddenly, she performs the exact complicated flair sequence that Todoroki does, to everyone’s delight.
“Woah, look at her go!”
“Yeah, get it Mina!”
“Ha, she does it better than you, Half n Half!”
“She definitely does it better than you, too. You don’t even compete that skill.”
“Why you little –”
Aizawa claps his hands together loudly. “Alright, moving on!”
Bakugou grumbles as they make their way to the parallel bars. It ends up being just as much of a bust as most of the other events, with the girls’ arms giving out every time they try to push themselves up into any type of release skill. It’s to the point where Mina seriously contemplates calling off the whole thing, but she ends up saved by Tsuyu of all people, who performs some decent swings and even manages a low level dismount off the end of the bars.
After that they move onto the final apparatus, high bar. Mina, Yaoyorozu, and Hagakure call it quits as soon as they struggle to adjust to the difference in give and feel between the high bar and the uneven bars. Cowards .
Tsuyu takes advantage of her flexible shoulders and manages some nice stoop swings and German giants, but doesn’t even try to do a single release. Also a coward.
Uraraka, however, has to be talked out of trying everything by Aizawa, who threatens to kick her out of the gym if she tries anything too risky. After finally promising not to try any double backflips or twisting releases, he lifts her up to the high bar.
Where she immediately starts building momentum for a big skill.
“Hey, what are you –”
She throws herself in the air, twisting immediately as she hurdles over the bar, and it’s quickly clear to everyone that she’s trying Bakugou’s new skill.
She fails, of course, passing the bar completely during the second twist. Aizawa manages to help get her body in the right position as much as possible, but she still barely sticks her arms out in time to face plant into the mat.
Everyone immediately rushes to her except for Bakugou, who’s once again trying to hold in his laughter, and their coach, who looks two seconds away from finishing what the high bar started.
Kirishima helps her stand. “Oh my god, are you ok?!”
“That looked like it hurt.”
Uraraka gives a strained smile as she stands. “I’m fine! That was fun!”
Aizawa steps up to stand right in front of her, and her smile immediately drops. “Get out of my gym.”
“But coach –”
“ Go . You’re dismissed for the week.”
She pouts, looking like she’s about to cry, but goes to grab her stuff out of her locker. And that’s what happens when you try to be like Deku.
Mina quickly turns her phone away. “Anyways! Now it’s time for you guys to try our stuff! What should we have them do first?”
Yaoyorozu shrugs. “Well, I guess we can skip vault, and we do most of the same tumbling on floor. Maybe some dance skills?”
Bakugou lets his idiots go first. He watches, bored, as Sero and Shinsou struggle to get their legs anywhere close to a full split, looking like they’re flailing more than dancing. Kaminari does a better job, surprisingly, but he quickly gets too bold and tries more complicated leaps, throwing himself into each one so hard and with so little control that he ends up trying not to fall on his ass every time he lands.
Kirishima goes next, and he manages to impress everyone by sticking to simpler leaps and jumps. Everyone’s delighted to see this big, burly guy doing these elegant moves fairly well.
“Oooh nice pike jump, Kiri!”
Next, he does a stag leap, done just as perfectly, with his front leg bent and his back leg level with the ground. Mina turns the camera around to show just how impressed she is. “Who’da thought a rings specialist would be so flexible!”
Todoroki goes next and manages to show off his own flexibility, even managing to land some switch leaps with relative ease. Kaminari nudges Bakugou on the shoulder, smirking obnoxiously. “Ooooh, looks like Todoroki’s comin for your gold medal, Bakugou!”
And he knows it’s just the dumbass trying to rile him up. He has nothing to prove in this stupid little competition that’s only happening because Mina’s desperate to go viral.
But like hell is losing to Todoroki in anything .
“Oh yeah? I’ll show you! Gimme a harder skill!”
Mina dramatically strokes her chin a few times before snapping her fingers. “I know! How about that first turn I do in my routine? It’s a D skill, and pretty hard to get credited.”
“Pfft, easy!”
Bakugou swings his leg up until he’s in a full standing split and uses that momentum to turn twice on one foot. Once he’s done, he lowers his leg slowly, showing complete control in all of his movements.
“Dang Bakubro, now that’s flexible!”
Kaminari suddenly steps forward. “That’s nothing, watch this!”
He tries the same exact turn, and to his credit also manages to get his leg up into a full split. How impressive that might be is immediately undercut by the fact that he only manages three quarters of a full turn before completely tipping over.
Bakugou stands with his fists on his hips. “Ha, loser!”
Kaminari gives him a weak glare from where he’s still sitting on the floor. “Ok, fine, you’re good at turns. But I bet you can’t do those leaps I just nailed!”
Bakugou scoffs and, with minimal effort, runs into the leap, swings his leg back into a split, and manages a full twist before landing. Kaminari pouts, crossing his arms and looking two seconds away from stomping his foot. “Ugh, this is SO not fair! Why are you so good at this?!”
Bakugou smirks. “Cuz I’m good at everything, duh.”
Mina pats her dejected friend on the back placatingly. “Anyways, let’s try beam next!”
They start heading towards the high beams until Aizawa gestures toward one that’s nailed down to the floor. “I think it’d be best to do this on the low beam.”
“But coach, didn’t you teach us that half the battle of beam is about mentally conquering being up so high?”
He doesn’t look very convinced, so Kirishima backs Mina up. “C’mon, coach! We’ll put mats underneath, and we won’t even try anything super hard!”
After a moment the man sighs, too tired to put up a fight. The others immediately start dragging the softer mats underneath and around the beam. Mina walks over to Bakugou and starts poking him, a teasing look on her face.
“Bakugou, you go first this time, since you’re soooo good at everything.”
He rolls his eyes but goes along with it, climbing up onto the beam. He decides to try every composition requirement, performing a single turn, two different split leaps, and even manages a simple acrobatic series. He looks up after the last one to see Mina’s playful smirk had, at some point, morphed into a look of accusation.
“It took me forever to get a back pike down! This isn’t fair, you’re supposed to be making us look awesome, not showing us up!”
Bakugou gives a bored shrug as he hops off the beam. “If you don’t wanna get shown up then you never shoulda competed against me, simple as that. I play to win, Pinky.”
Mina glares but says nothing – probably cuz she knows he’s right . The others go next, easily giving her the content she was looking for. Both Sero and Kirishima barely manage to take two steps on the beam before losing their balance and hopping off, and Shinsou somehow ends up dangling under it at one point.
But Todoroki, for whatever reason, seems at complete ease on the beam, even managing another switch leap with just a small wobble on the landing.
Now it’s Bakugou’s turn to glare. “The fuck, Icy Hot? Why’re YOU good at this shit?!”
He shrugs like it’s no big deal. “It’s honestly not that different from pommel horse. You’re just balancing on your feet instead of your hands.”
“That doesn’t make any sense!”
“I dunno, makes perfect sense to me, Kacchan.”
“Yeah, sounds reasonable enough.”
Bakugou turns his glare at his teammates, each of them with shit eating grins on their faces – except for Shinsou, who just looks done with life . He starts to growl, but Kirishima just laughs and wraps an arm around him, calming his impending explosion enough to allow Kaminari to take his turn.
He doesn’t do much better than Kirishima or Sero did, having to grab onto the beam to stay on several times, but he doesn’t let that stop him from trying difficult skills. He goes for a back tuck, but his feet are practically a mile apart, and Bakugou doesn’t turn away in time to miss seeing him land crotch first. Everyone cringes as he lets out a high pitched squeak and flops off the beam.
Aizawa steps forward, a look on his face that’s somehow both stern and exhausted at the same time. “Either uneven bars is done over the pit or I’m pulling the plug on this entirely.”
No one can argue at this point, so they quietly grab their grips and make their way over to bars set up over the foam pit. As soon as they’re ready, Mina shoves Shinsou forward. He had to borrow Kaminari’s spare grips and took his sweet time chalking, and now he’s looking at the apparatus like it’s some sort of comic book villain. “Please don’t make me do this. I don’t even train high bar.”
“But that’s what makes it funny!”
“Yeah Eye Bags, if the rest of us gotta do this crap then so do you.”
Shinsou glares at him as if he’s been betrayed in some way. Jokes on him, he’s not even officially on Bakugou’s team. He doesn’t owe the guy shit.
“Easy for you to say, mister ‘Good at Everything’.”
“If you’re as shitty at gymnastics as you are at name-calling it’s no wonder you’re a one-event specialist.”
Shinsou sends him one more dirty look before reluctantly mounting the bars. He’s just as bad as he was afraid he’d be, barely managing to get a single swing all the way around before giving up and falling back into the pit, a disgruntled look on his face as Kaminari helps him climb out.
Bakugou steps up to the bars with a cocky grin. “Time to show you losers how it’s really done.”
The swings and releases come easily, just as he expected. It’s a bit of a tight fit for him in between the bars when he tries transitions, but he gets the hang of it fairly quickly, and soon he’s flying from bar to bar with ease.
The girls give a defeated sigh. “Well, at least we expected him to be good at this one.”
Sero suddenly steps forward, a smug look on his face. “Alright, my turn!”
He mounts the bars and, despite his cockiness a second ago, only marginally does better than Shinsou. Everytime he moves from one bar to the other, or even just swings, he ends up banging his feet on the low bar. By the time he’s climbing out of the pit he’s inspecting a growing bruise on one of heels.
Todoroki goes next, doing pretty well on swing and release skills, but slipping right off every time he tries a transition. Bakugou grins victoriously. “Ha! Guess I win, Half n Half!”
Todoroki gives him a curious look that would seem genuine to anyone who doesn’t know him. “I thought we were on the same team. As long as all of the men do well, that’s all that matters, right?”
The ash blonde scowls and grumbles to himself as Kaminari mounts the bars. For once, he looks pretty comfortable, the high bar specialist in him adjusting easily the way it did for Bakugou.
So, in true Kaminari fashion, he gets ahead of himself.
He tries to do a backwards transition from the low bar to the high bar, and, to the surprise of everyone but the resident National champion, he immediately peels off the bar.
They all laugh as he struggles to climb out of the foam pit, but immediately go quiet once Kirishima steps forwards. Sero looks at him nervously. “Um, you sure you should be doing this, bro? You haven’t even trained high bar in years.”
Kirishima just shrugs goodnaturedly. “All the more reason since I’m gonna start back up again, right? And besides, it’s not manly to back down from a challenge!”
He grins at them with his fists together, the pose mildly undercut by the slightly-too-small grips he had to borrow from his boyfriend, and then turns to mount the bars.
Bakugou cringes as he hears the wood creak under the weight. It doesn’t get better as he starts to swing, the bar bending far more than it should be. The steel frame groans after the second swing, and Aizawa reaches his arm out, a panicked look on his face.
“Kirishima, maybe you should –”
CRACK
The wood splinters as it breaks, the fiberglass underneath easily giving way as well. Kirishima drops like a rock into the foam pit, just barely managing to get out of the way before the entire thing collapses on top of him.
They all stare in shock as he stumbles out of the pit. He looks between the broken pieces of the uneven bars and their faces a few times, as if trying to double check that they see what he’d broken, before plastering on a sheepish look on his face. “Oops?”
Bakugou immediately bursts into laughter, almost doubling over with it. The others quickly join him, laughing so hard they’re holding onto each other to stay upright – except for Kaminari, who lets himself fall to his knees as he insists he’s about to pee his pants.
Through the tears in his eyes, Bakugou sees their head coach with a downright murderous look on his face.
“All of you, get out !”