“Say, don’t you have one just like that?”
The fire crackled, bathing them both in warmth. Two armchairs sat nearby, juxtaposed in opposing colors. One, a deep maroon, held an elderly man with skin of crisp leather, a chest length grey beard, and kind eyes that hid behind smudged spectacles. He was known to clean them with the same rag he honked his nose blows into. A gnarled finger shook above his lap, pointing at a television set…one of the old ones with rabbit ears. One of the really old ones.
The other armchair, a forest green, held a young blonde man, garbed similarly to the elderly man in red chambray underneath a set of dusty biballs that wanted, no, needed replacing…which would likely never happen. His hair, so fine a blonde that it shone like spun gold, was flecked with straw that betrayed the day’s work he’d put in. Other than that, he looked content, unnaturally so. Scowl lines around the outside of his mouth and nose and creases above his brow said that his unusual expression was something fouler, but an honest day’s work has an effect on a soul, even an explosive one.
Bakugo made a noise, more of a noncommittal throat clearing than an actual response, but that was the language they shared. The old man nodded, and his weathered hand fell back into his lap. His other hand, holding a bottle of beer on the arm of the chair, crawled up to his lips. He took a sip.
“Thought so. Knew I’d seen’t it somewhere,” he said, breathing out a sigh after his sip that some folks found unbearable, and Bakugo found endearing. “Doesn’t that thing, uh…”
He looked over at Bakugo, whose ruby eyes remained on the television.
“Doesn’t it turn you into some kind of super powered woman with a turtle shell? With the fire breathing, and the strength, and stuff?”
Bakugo made that non-committal throat clearing noise again, a brief but phlegmy sound common to those that labor in the dusty fields.
A comfortable silence grew between them, and hung there for a little while.
Then the old man shifted in his seat.
“So, is your money on that pair?”
He meant the pair with the gun, the plasma cannon, the Super Crown, and the hooked staff, Bakugo knew. Was his money on that pair? He thought back to his own experience in the Death Game, the one that’d sent him to an early grave. He thought back to the Sigma Virus infecting his mind, to fusing with Deku, to becoming three minds in one body, and then to dying. But he’d put up a Hell of a fight before that, hadn’t he? How much of that had been the crown, and how much of that had been him? Not much of it had been Deku, he told himself, though on his sleepless nights he was troubled with the possibility that it might’ve been. Little of it was Sigma, though. He was pretty sure of that.
Some of it had been the crown. The way it made him feel...he’d literally clawed his way out of Hell tooth and nail with that thing on his skull, fueled with adrenaline and a strength and durability that simply wasn’t there crownless. And heck, he was a pretty damn good looking woman, wasn’t he? No denying that. Certain feelings that came along with that, too, no doubt.
“Mmph,” Bakugo answered, chewing over his thoughts.
“...right,” the old man answered, not unkindly. “Well, I guess we’ll see where it goes, won’t we? Oh! Would you look at that!”
He was looking at it, obviously. They both were.
“...I think they’ve run into somebody else! Guess we’ll get to see that thing in action, won’t we?”
Bakugo’s mind rolled over to the chest in his room, the one where his own Super Crown sat gathering dust, and he wondered when he’d need to dust it off again. How long had it been? A year? Two? Time and hard work had dulled his edge, and his flame had burnt down to coals. …still warm, though. Probably always would be.
He took a sip of milk and let out a sigh just like the old man’s.