Worst Boss Ever (Bakugoxreader)

Ch. 26 Window Watching

If you could just keep looking straight ahead, you could ignore the fact that you were in a stranger's apartment, and the fact that you didn't know where the current owner was at the moment.

Were they at the store? Work? Dead in a closet somewhere? You didn't know and definitely weren't going to ask.

It was easier to tell yourself that you were just hanging out at a friend's apartment. That's all, no big deal, just a regular day at a friend's place, staring out the window at the police station for hours. As one does.

A firm smack on your ass broke your concentration. Ignoring your scowl, Dabi joined you at the window, hooking his fingers through the belt loops on either side of your pants.

"Can your quirk even work from this far away?" he asked.

"I haven't really tried before today. I know that it works best one on one."

"So do I."

"Shut up and let me work."

Dabi chuckled and gave you a final squeeze before letting go of your pants and wandering into the apartment's kitchen. He came back a few seconds later with two beers, tossing you one.

"We're drinking on the job now?" you asked, raising an eyebrow but opening the beer nonetheless. Okay, yeah, it wasn't even noon, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

Besides, a beer might help you relax and then your quirk would work better.

"I'm getting bored. Can you hear what those assholes are thinking about inside the station or not?"

You put down the beer and tried to focus your eyes and ears, keeping your mind open. Mostly all you heard was unintelligible noise.

"If you would shut up, maybe."

"Don't forget that this was your idea."

Truthfully, you were starting to think that it might be impossible to read the minds of the people inside the police station. Yes, you could listen in on groups of people. You'd done that the night of the house fire, when you'd been able to find people trapped inside. Their voices had been so hurt, and so loud, that it made it easy to hear their thoughts.

But here, when faced with a whole building of people, it was a much more difficult task. Everything sounded like a jumbled mess of noise, too tangled for you to even try to pull apart the threads of individual minds.

"I was surprised when boss man said you told him about this little meeting between the police and heroes today." Dabi cracked open his beer and took a long sip. "Next time give the information straight to me and I'll pass it along to the boss."

You continued to stare out the window. "Look, Shigaraki asked me to find out information and that's what I'm doing. I didn't need you to babysit me."

"The boss doesn't trust you yet, baby, so I'm here to make sure you're doing what you said you were going to do."

"And I am."

"Besides, I like that you're always with me. I get to show off for you."

Dabi certainly had shown off recently. It scared you that the missions Shigaraki sent you on were starting to feel routine. The dance steps were always the same with each target: flirt a little, get them alone, Dabi swoops in, done.

You forced yourself to watch it all, so that one day you could tell someone exactly what happened, but the side effect of that was that you were slowly becoming numb to the carnage Dabi left behind him.

"I'm the one who knew that this joint police/hero meeting was happening," you told him. "Me. Not you. I got the time and the location. If I can find out what they're saying at this meeting, that will be important information, won't it?"

Dabi nodded, reluctantly.

"Exactly. Now go sit down somewhere and stop bothering me. This is hard enough as it is."

"It's so sexy when you're bossy, baby girl."

You checked your watch instead of responding. It was almost time.

The meeting should be getting under way right now, which meant that everyone should be there already. But still no sign of him.

Bakugo had shown up early, very early. As you watched him walk into the station, you'd noticed that he'd had his hero costume fixed since the last time you saw him; the rip on his sleeve from where he had been stabbed that night at the warehouse was completely gone now.

For just a second you contemplated reading his mind, but something about doing that right now felt gross. He wasn't why you were there.

It was no surprise when Todoroki arrived with an entourage of sidekicks trailing behind him as they exited the limo. And you saw Kirishima and their friend Midoriya that you met the night of Bakugo's speech. You knew by their costumes that several other pro heroes were inside too.

Heroes.

Police officers.

And two villains watching it all.

You shot a quick glance over at Dabi who had finally decided to make himself comfortable on the couch. Surely he wasn't crazy enough to try to attack the police station, right here in broad daylight. Right? But then you remembered the brand on your shoulder, and you realized that maybe he was.

Another glance at the couch. Dabi was holding his hand out and opening and closing his palm, a small blue flame flickering on and off. If you weren't careful, and he got bored, you knew it was likely that he might start burning things out of sheer boredom.

Forget him. Listen. Concentrate. 

You tried to open your mind as much as possible, hoping to let in the thoughts of as many people as possible. If you could find one familiar person then you could latch onto their mind and possibly stay there, giving you a front row seat at the meeting itself through that person's thoughts.

But the people you knew were already inside and the meeting should have already started.

You checked your watch again.

When you looked back out the window, your breath caught in your throat, and you were pretty sure your heart stopped beating.

So he was here. Just late. Shocker.

You hadn't seen Keigo in person in, what, two years, maybe longer? You hadn't paid attention to where he'd gone or what he'd done in the meantime, that was one reason why you avoided all hero news completely.

The odds of him living here, being here right now...

His hair was longer now and not quite as messy, more of a man than the awkward teenager who couldn't help but knock things over with his growing wings. The teenager whose mind had been effortless to read. 

But that goofy, easy smile was still the same. The clothes were different, the hair, the wings, but that smile was still the one that had made your stomach flip back then. 

Too bad he was a traitor.

They say that time heals all wounds, but sometimes wounds stick with you. This was one of those wounds.