Goodbye Solitude

Chapter 10

It could be an interesting day or painfully dull.

He headed back to the locker room with a hopefully spring in his step. Kirishima left the locker room in his hero costume, his eyes lighting up as he spotted him instantly.

"Hey loser!" Bakugo said cheerfully. "We got the bay!" He walked past Kirishima, heading to his locker to get his hero costume on.

Kirishima started following him. "Ohhh! Today should be interesting then!"

"It better be! It's been boring as fuck lately!" He opened his locker and looked over his shoulder, eyes narrowing suspiciously. "What are you doing?" he asked Kirishima.

Kirishima tilted his head in confusion. "Huh?"

"You waiting for a free show?"

"What?" His eyes widened.

"I need to get my hero shit on, moron!"

"Oh yeah!" Kirishima swung around quickly and headed out of the locker room. But not before Bakugo noticed the tips of his ears pinken. "I'll wait for you outside!"

"Uh huh," he grunted. What the hell were they doing, seriously. Hot and sexy one minute, and fumbling idiot teenagers the next. It was confusing and uncomfortable.

Bakugo threw on his gear as quickly as possible and practically flew out of the Home Office with Kirishima in tow. He was in a great mood and ready to kick villain ass. His positivity was contagious and Kirishima chatted nonstop, all the way to the bay. For once, Bakugo wasn't annoyed even the slightest. In fact, he even enjoyed watching Kirishima's enthusiasm. The way he gestured his hands while he talked, the way his eyebrows rose as the volume of his voice rose, the way his eyes narrowed when he laughed at his own jokes. Everything. Not just his teeth.

As he realized he hadn't even been thinking about his teeth at all, he shifted self-consciously in his shuttle seat.

The shuttle dropped them off at the corner of the street just outside of the warehouses. They had to walk downhill a block and climb down a rickety wooden staircase to the cold cement ground. The air was musty and a thick layer of dust coated every corner of the buildings. Bakugo and Kirishima looked around tensely, but there were no signs of life anywhere around them. Unless you counted bugs, which Bakugo liked to pretend weren't everywhere.

"No villains," muttered Kirishima.

"We just got here and it's not even 10am yet. Villains aren't usually morning people." Bakugo shrugged.

"True. Let's just patrol then, I guess."

They moved through the buildings quietly at first, their eyes darting about sharply. Kirishima jumped at a sudden rattle that turned out to be a rat bumping into a tin can and Bakugo laughed at him.

Kirishima grinned wryly and rubbed the back of his neck. "We're getting too wound up, we might as well relax for a while."

"Relax how? This isn't exactly a scenic location." He gestured at the cement walls surrounding them.

"Let's check out the water!" Kirishima suggested and walked off determinedly.

The docks were grey with age but sturdy. Green, mossy-looking sludge slapped against the shore, bringing with it the distinct smell of dead fish. The view was sort of pleasant though, if you ignored the dirty barges.

Bakugo crinkled his nose in disgust. "Well, this is just as lovely as I remembered."

"I wonder how cold the water is," Kirishima murmured.