Cold Case

Digging Deeper

BAKUGO'S POV

"Has anybody been in Leigh's room since she passed?" Midoriya asked. We asked May to come to the precinct after running some fingerprints through the system. I let him do the talking while I wrote down a few things. I'm not the best at interrogating someone as a victim and not a perp.

"Just me and my boys. Nobody other than my parents have been in the house, but they won't go in there." She brought her hands up to wipe the tears falling down her cheeks.

"Do you remember the last time you, or anybody else, cleaned her room before the incident?" He asked.

"I d-didn't clean her room too often. The kids are good at picking up after themselves. I usually cleaned all the rooms on the first of the month. Mainly dusting, wiping down baseboards, stuff like that." She explained. I've seen many people cry during my time at the investigation firm, but this was different. It was usually because somebody had been cheated on or a large amount of money had been stolen. I've never had to deal with someone crying over their dead child.

"Were there any adults in her room the last month or two that she was alive?" Midoriya stood from his chair and crossed the room. He grabbed a bottle of water and the box of tissues from the table in the corner. He walked back over and set them both down in front of May.

"Just my sister and me." She sobbed while pulling a tissue out of the box. "Did looking at the room turn up anything?"

"We found three sets of adult fingerprints and three sets of children fingerprints." He explained. "If you're willing to consent, we want to take fingerprints from you and your sons. If you can also ask your sister, it will help us narrow down the fingerprints that don't belong there."

"I'll do anything to figure out who did this to my baby." She choked back a sob and pulled her phone out of her pocket. "Will we be doing the fingerprints here?"

"Yeah, we'll do it down in the forensics lab," Midoriya whispered in a gentle tone.

"My sister is watching my boys right now. I'll ask her to bring them by and explain the situation." Midoriya and I stood up slowly, wanting to give her a minute to talk to her sister and explain things.

"You think whoever did this was in my daughter's room?" She asked before we could walk out the door.

"There was a third set of fingerprints. If you don't know who they belonged to, then it's a possibility." Midoriya frowned. "We're going to give you some time to call your sister. We can go grab some food too. Are you and the boys okay with Pizza?"

"Yeah, thank you."

"We'll be back shortly," I said in a soft tone. Midoriya and I walked out of the room, quietly shutting the door behind us.

"Are you okay?" He asked softly. "You were pretty quiet in there."

"How do you do this every day?" I asked. "She was sobbing over her daughter, that was murdered. I didn't know what to do. Hell, I didn't know where to look." He frowned.

"It's hard." He began as we walked down the hallway, presumedly to get pizza. "There have been cases that caused me to lose sleep, and I know there will be more. The only light at the end of the tunnel is justice. Justice for the victims and their families. Plus, we get to get a terrible person off the streets."

"You're strong. I'll give you that. I don't think I'll ever get used to this."

"If you do, you need to see a therapist." He laughed nervously. "Nobody should ever get used to dealing with homicide, rapes, or anything like that."

"How are we going to figure out who the last set of fingerprints belongs to? They didn't match with anyone in the system, so they don't have a record." I'm good at investigating and following someone when I know who they are. I've never had to find them myself with nothing to go on.

"We start asking May about anybody with grudges or anybody who would want to hurt them. I want a psychiatrist who works with us here to question the kids. They'll be able to get the kids to open up more than either of us will."

"You're not good with kids?" I asked as we stepped into the elevator. Midoriya seems to be good with everyone, so I was surprised.

"I'm great with kids outside work, but not at work. I tend to dig too deep and use words they don't understand." He responded. Is he around kids often? Does he have kids? I don't know a single thing about him outside of this office.

"Do you have kids?" I asked.

He laughed for a moment before responding. "No, I don't. It's highly unlikely that I'll ever have kids."

"Not a fan of kids?"

"I love kids." We stepped off the elevator and walked through the lobby, pausing our conversation. When we got outside, he continued. "However, I'm not seeing anyone. Even if I were, he and I wouldn't be able to get each other pregnant." My heart skipped a beat. It was already hard to contain my emotions when he was doing something I liked. It's going to be even harder now—knowing he's gay. Yeah, I'm definitely fucked.

"That's not a problem, is it?" He didn't sound defensive when he asked. He sounded more worried and concerned.

"No, why would it be?" We stopped outside of the small pizza shop down the street. He stared at me, carefully studying my face.

"Because you went silent. Being gay isn't as taboo as it used to be, but it's not something everyone understands." He shrugged. Our eyes met, and I suddenly didn't want to look away. I've never looked at them in the sun like this. They were emerald green with tiny yellow-green flecks around the pupil.

"I understand it more than you think." I responded.

"Yeah?" His eyes widened in surprise. "You do?" It didn't take him long to figure out that I was in the same boat as him.

"Yeah, I do." I smiled softly. "As you said, it's not as taboo anymore, but not something everyone understands."

"Do you have kids? Boyfriend? Husband?" He asked.

I shook my head. "I'm not sure how I feel about kids yet. As for the boyfriend or husband, I'm just waiting for the right person."

"What's the right person for you? Someone who can calm you down when you lose your shit every other hour?" He asked with a laugh. I scoffed and shook my head.

"We'll save that conversation for when we solve this case and buy new coffee." I replied. If I didn't stop now, I was going to do something stupid. I don't want a relationship with him, but I wouldn't mind doing other things.

His eyes looked up and down my body before he nodded his head towards the front door for the pizza place. "We should go inside."

"Yeah, we should."