Chapter Text
Genos locked himself in the bathroom stall with his book bag clutched against his chest and let the decrease in noise, light and heat leech the tension out of him.
He knew that the people who cheered on "Demon Cyborg" were the most likely to dismiss "Genos" on his own merits.
He knew he was a little too intense at times, and that he had poor people skills(though they were good enough to get him a few friends, at least).
He knew he had different priorities than most of his peers (though some could stand to take their studies more seriously, and he couldn't see how doing so was ever a bad thing).
He didn't know how it was obvious he was gay (even though most people thought Demon Cyborg to be straight and even took offense to anyone who stated differently), or that he had to deal with the downsides of having a fairly minor developmental disorder.
He didn't know either why some people were jerks about it, only that they were.
Genos knew he wasn't bullied, at least not in a way that targeted him specifically, but that didn't mean that there weren't some very obnoxious people willing to spread the hate to whoever was seen as a convenient victim.
He neatly hung his bag on the little hook on the door, rested his head against the wall and pressed his hands against his temples.
He focused on his breathing. He ignored the glasses that dug into the bridge of his nose; in this state, they were barely considered, rather than a sensory nuisance when in the wrong place.
His hands fell to his sides, and he stood like that for a while, just, breathing.
Then he stood up, adjusted his glasses, took his book bag, and continued his day as always.
He stepped into the cheap apartment in the corner of the building, and his shoulders shifted, barely noticeable, into a more relaxed position.
He put his shoes away, put on his slippers, put his bag on the table so he could start on his homework right away, and stepped out onto the balcony.
Saitama, his neighbor this past year, was on his own balcony, hanging up his laundry.
"Oh, hey Genos. Rough day?"
"Yes."
"Ah. Ok."
The silence stretched out between them, and this, Genos could appreciate.
Most people would feel the urge to fill it with words, or some attempt at sympathy for politeness sake.
Saitama didn't bother with any of that, and as with many things Saitama did or didn't do, there was a deeply comforting something about it that Genos couldn't entirely explain if asked.
The last click and shift of laundry being hung, and the movement of Saitama entering his apartment.
After a while, he came back.
"Tea?" he asked, while offering Genos the cup that by now, while still obviously Saitama's property, was Genos' cup.
"Yes, thank you." said Genos with a small smile relaxing his face.
His metal digits wrapped carefully around the worn earthenware, and he sipped slowly, while on his own balcony, Saitama did the same.
He didn't know anyone that embodied "home" as well as Saitama did, and all ordinary things somehow became wonderful and desirable in the man’s calming presence.
The energy he started his homework with was his natural rushing inferno, rather than the achy, worn out trickle he'd entered the apartment with.
Demon Cyborg was one of the twenty-one most powerful registered heroes in the country, and as such got a contact device despite not being part of one of the sponsor-paid leagues. This was also how he often was called upon to deal with the more dangerous threats, such as this Mosquito Queen creature.
This was one monster that turned out to be a little too dangerous to handle, its slender, many jointed claws ripping trough metal as if it were papier-mâché, laughing manically all the while.
Genos felt the ghost sensation of his heart contracting with fear inside his chest. His arms, and thus his weapons were ripped out of him, he had no chance left to win that included his survival.
It would mean he had to get close enough...
And then a fist came into view.
Human.
Clad in thin red leather.
Moving fast enough to distort the air around it.
Fast enough that Genos missed the moment of impact even with a cybernetically enhanced sensory suite.
Utterly powerful enough that the monster splattered, not unlike a particularly gory water balloon hit by a bullet.
He crashed to the ground, and was left gaping at a fairly average looking figure in a cape.
For all that just happened, said figure could be the Buddha himself, wrought in holy light, without Genos being more awestruck than he was at this moment.
"Well, that was that. You ok?"
"Who are you?"
"You don't recognize me at all?" Caped Baldy's face went a little blanker. Possibly the excitement of the fight was wearing off.
"I do not pay attention to the hero rankings beyond those I am likely to end up working with."
"Ah. Makes sense. Me neither, really. It's just that we met before. Anyway, I'm called Caped Baldy in the rankings." the man said.
Any emotion conveyed was too subtle to notice, since Genos had no experience with this particular person, despite being reminded, for a single moment, of Saitama in one of his somewhat weary moods.
But Saitama was safe at home, probably looking for another job, or reading a manga, and a normal person besides.
It was probably just the fact that the man was also bald.
"You seem unhappy with that. Surely someone as powerful as you is especially revered?" Genos said carefully.
"Nah. I'm pretty low ranking. But just because I have no hair doesn't mean it needs to be my hero name, you know? It's annoying."
"I see. When did we meet?"
"I wasn't wearing the hero suit."
"I see. So logically, I would not recognize a random civilian as you, but you recognized me as the Demon Cyborg. Likely during or just after a fight then."
"I'll guess I'll get going. Bye."
"Wait, please...!" but the hero who saved him had already disappeared.
"Caped Baldy, huh?" he said to himself. He had some research to do.
After trawling through about five hundred pages worth of news, forums and recorded data available to the public, Genos had to conclude that there was very little, if any information on Caped Baldy that was of any worth.
Rumours, certainly. Rudeness, even more so.
After several days, he gave up in disgust on getting any usable information about the man who saved his life by way of the internet.
Dr. Kuseno was kind enough to supply him with the recordings available from the Hero Association security camera network, which had been conveniently stored in one of their secure databases, where one of the doctor's drones could copy the information right out of it.
Most of the recordings could be summarized as "Monster appears, Caped Baldy is suddenly there, the monster is allowed to talk for a moment, sometimes even allowed to raise its hand or claw in the beginnings of an attack, the monster is suddenly a thin red mist or splattery chunks, or, if Caped Baldy moved slow enough that it was actually visible that he moved, a monster with a big, vaguely round hole in it. Caped Baldy is visible again in a slightly different position, then disappears again."
Genos, over the course of weeks, re-watched them so often that he could tell every flutter of that cape, every efficient and powerful motion that that body made, every minute change of expression that the cameras had captured.
Caped Baldy was heroic, but what truly interested Genos was his sheer, overwhelming, utterly enticing strength and power.
Even Saitama noticed Genos' sudden interest, despite Genos not being very obvious about it to anyone but dr. Kuseno, by his own standards.
Genos had panicked a little and blurted out the least incriminating part of the truth. "Ah, uh, he saved my life!"
Saitama smiled one of his mysterious smiles (that always made Genos a little curious about what it would be like to kiss him) and had simply accepted it.
One thing was certain, Genos just had to speak to this hero, Caped Baldy, again.
If he didn't want to be called bald, maybe calling him Mr. Caped was an idea? He had to ask that too.
It was a nightmare.
There was a natural disaster coming, which meant that there was an evacuation in this city, but what was worse, Caped Darkness, the dreaded villain himself, was also coming, which meant there was a bigger, faster evacuation with the aid of heroes, and people who'd otherwise stick around because they didn't believe it would be so bad, were also evacuating, in near panic.
Caped Darkness thought disasters were amusing. Caped Darkness could toss around S-class heroes like they were pebbles and sand, or a handful of particularly cheap and tiny toys. Caped Darkness left the kind of destruction in his wake where you never could quite tell if it was part of the disaster or a casual flick of the villains hand that had done it.
So far, the only person who, by Caped Darkness own admission, had bested him in some way, was King.
Maybe Caped Baldy would stand a chance though.
The winds were already picking up, the sky an oppressive gray, and the first buildings, on the far side of town, were beginning to groan with the stresses the devastating weather put them under.
And out in front of the storm, walking as casually as if it was a lovely summer day, was the dreaded villain himself.
The winds made his cape flare and flap like a banner in a storm, which, in a way, was exactly what was going on. A chunk of building bounced past the man, a tree not ten meters from him was about to snap in the wind.
The man didn't even stumble or slow down.
He walked further, and the only way one could tell that he was in front of the storm now was by his cape, which merely billowed a little as he continued walking as if he didn't even notice the difference between a bearable amount of wind and a natural disaster.
He was nearly upon Genos' position, and the evacuation, despite its increased speed, was not yet complete.
So Demon Cyborg stepped out on the street in an attempt to slow the man down, so the civilians, at least, had a chance to get away.
Caped Darkness slowed down, tilted his head (revealing a sliver of his delectable neck) and smiled.
For one mad moment, Genos thought him familiar, but dismissed the feeling as probably just an echo of his libido. If there was one thing Genos knew, it was that he could not trust his emotions and hunches to guide him true.
Caped Darkness was a dreaded icon clad in black, antacrite and red. Arrogance and power and pure raw sexual attraction. Black spandex that clung in ways that left very little to the imagination, though it was unlikely that said imagination could come up with something improved upon what was already on display.
Black square panels on the sides emphasized his waist and the sculpted ass below it, when the wind dragged the cape away from it, black square panels on his thighs disappeared halfway into his boots, at the height where the little part of Genos that had some awareness of social meanings had to focus not to think "hooker boots", and suppressed the knowledge that his libido was urging him to plead the man for permission to lick a path up from said boots to a spandex-covered crotch, and firmly reminded himself that he didn't know what do to once he got there anyway, and that Caped Darkness was probably going to kill him.
The last bit was a better libido killer than anything else he could come up with in his already agitated and stressed out state. Apparently being metal and not having much in the way of actual blood was not enough for his body to not get confused as to why he was in a state that would call for increased respiration.
He took another moment to look Caped Darkness over, but there was nothing obvious that stood out as a secret to his power, or something that hinted at his motivations.
Red lines unified the whole outfit the man wore, and called to mind little rivulets of blood that had inexplicably turned out to resemble art deco. The spandex, where it didn't end in the boots or the gloves that ended halfway down his lower arms, ended at the neck just below the adam’s apple.
The cape was reminiscent of something military, or at the least old fashioned upper class, except for how, starting just above the chest, it was intentionally cut to reveal the body beneath. It had had a thick folded collar that could be straightened to the classic evil overlord type cape collar, and was loosely kept in place by a chain near the neck. The outside of the cape was dark, the inside of the cape a rich, shocking carmine, emphasizing his strong dark-clothed figure in silhouette whenever it flared open.
Knowing the outfit was obviously calculated to be attractive was the second thought that ensured Genos had no real problems wresting his mind from the thrall of his teenage hormones (obviously dr. Kuseno had put too much effort in making his body realistic).
(Aaand if he had to be honest with himself, he had maybe a bit too much of a power kink.)
The villain's eyes were hooded, and his smile could not be called anything but a smirk by now.
"Like what you see?" his voice positively purred, and Genos had to switch to combat-ready subroutines to prevent his body from responding.
"As you are a threat to innocent citizens, I will have to say no."
For a moment, the amused smirk lessened, and Genos fancied that he could see a fathomless emptiness in those eyes, but then the moment passed, and the villain scoffed.
"They're all evacuated already by now anyway." he said with a shrug combined with a somewhat dramatic "what can you do" gesture. The realization that what the villain said was true creeped up on Genos along with the chilling conclusion that he was likely going to die for nothing, and he could have run for his life already, instead of ogling his future cause of death.
Then Caped Darkness face was right in front of him, and before he could wholly realize that the villain had moved too fast for him see, he was grabbed, was yanked up, and flew through the air.
Then rushing wind and disorientation turned to the impact of hard ground, and when Genos looked up, he was laying at the end of a furrow, miles away from the city and the encroaching storm.
He dropped his head back to the ground, and tried to process what just happened.
Where his search for Caped Baldy netted little to no useful information and one cheap, badly made keychain in merchandise, with a fanclub in the single digits before Genos joined them, with Caped Darkness he quickly learned that he was not the only one, and definitely not the most blatant one in appreciating the sheer physicality of the man.
He hid his face behind his hands, peeked from between his fingers, and then removed one hand from his face to hit the back button.
He continued his search a bit more carefully, and (eventually, after way too much indecent products and artwork and speculation and he really should not order that pillow no matter how good it looked) came to the unsettling conclusion that there didn't seem to be any confirmed kills from the man.
There was just the fact that he appeared hostile, and capable of besting nearly any S-class thrown at him, and seemed to show up just before disasters to watch the show of nature-induced destruction on innocent towns.
Either he was as he appeared and hid his crimes to ensure he could not be convicted in the event of possible capture, or he was just a particularly obnoxious and powerful thrill seeker.
In truth, Genos preferred Caped Baldy.
When he complained about this to Saitama, that a villain apparently had some form of popularity while there was such a blatant aura of insincerity around Caped Darkness where someone heroic and hard working as Caped Baldy didn't get any credit for anything he did simply because he wasn't a glory hound, Saitama had to laugh, and agreed with him.
There was something bittersweet in Saitama's face as he did so, but that might be a case of Genos reading the situation and the emotions wrong, again.
There was simply the reassurance that there was someone who knew what he meant, and with whom it wasn't a disaster that he was a little prone to screwing up at times.
The warmth of Saitama's acceptance was something he was more grateful for than he could express.
Genos came home cheerful, nearly outright giddy.
He'd met and worked with Caped Baldy again!
He'd completely forgotten to ask his questions, but that was a regret for later.
For the handful of minutes the fight had taken, being at that mans side just felt so natural, he barely even noticed.
And the man had actually smiled at him!
He really, really wanted to tell Saitama, but he couldn't, so he wrote it in his notes instead.
Another day, another disaster.
This was a bad one.
The earthquake had collapsed enough buildings that they likely wouldn't get everyone out in time, and broken piping meant there was some flooding, which was a certain death sentence for anyone trapped in the lower parts of the rubble.
Rescue teams and heroes were working hard to save who they could, but the death toll would be higher even before the day was over.
And then their saviour appeared.
Genos quickly activated the recording function that had been installed in his eyes, and looked over the imagery while he was carefully lifting a few tons of rock off of a hollow in the rubble where there were still heartbeats to scan.
Iridescent white was the first impression. Pale iridescent everything.
He zoomed in on the image and got a face full of detail that got automatically contrast-adjusted. What were normally subtle glimmers were wavery purples and blues that shimmered to make way for transient gold edging in magenta and turquoise greens on a base of the softest pastel colours turned weird with high-contrast.
He tossed a rock of about a ton away from the pile over the trapped people, and zoomed he image out again.
A creamy peach tunic reaching halfway down the thighs and made of several layers, with a v-neck and slits up said thighs for easier movement. Soft leggings that were the only part not coated in a nearly invisible rainbow gloss. Slim fitting boots that ended shortly below the knee. Pale blue gloves of soft sturdy cloth from the elbow down and then below the wrist something thicker and more protective that was still form fitted enough to reveal the elegant shape of the hands. Nurse cloak-like model rain cloak with hood, which was possibly linen-white underneath the iridescent layer.
No combat gear. Notable enough to be a symbol. No impractical additions.
Genos knew of this person. Everyone knew of this person.
Hooded Grace.
Quiet, fast, and ever humble and kind.
They only appeared during rescue efforts. But then, they did as they did now, which was to remove every piece of rubble that was in the way of a rescue so fast you barely had time to blink. A pile of broken chunks of building was stacked on an empty plot of land so fast it appeared to be falling from the sky.
Every person that, mere seconds ago was still trapped beyond where the teams were searching, was deposited near the rescue tents or ambulances or a rescue worker, the ones that were hurt worse a little closer to the medics.
Then he went and assisted the professionals already busy, carefully following instructions, ignoring the awed looks.
And then he disappeared.
There was something familiar...
Genos shook off the feeling, and headed home.
"And it really was awe-inspiring, but in retrospect, there is something about him that is bothering me. Somehow a part of me feels like he isn't really real. I mean, obviously he is real, and he does great good, and I admire that he does so, but there is something I don't quite understand about him." Genos sighed.
"I am explaining this wrong, am I?" After all, there was usually something he didn't quite understand about people.
Saitama, sitting with his back to the wall and his legs on the balcony edge, hummed. "Nah. I get it. Hooded Grace is kinda... a mask more than a person."
"Exactly! Your insight is, as always astounding, Saitama. That is exactly how it feels like."
Saitama nodded. "Putting the best of yourself, and what people want you to be, on display, so that when you need it, people do what you want, rather than dismiss you. And it's to save lives, sure, and that's important, but there's a reason Hooded Grace doesn't show up much."
Saitama sipped his tea. "It's a hassle, that's what it is."
Genos nodded and thought on Saitama's words.
It sort of sounded like Saitama suggested that, to Hooded Grace, being Hooded Grace, a symbol held up as a paragon of virtue, rather than the more normal everyday person they usually were, was a burden.
Genos tried to imagine it; a person, noble and capable enough to help in the aftermath of disasters, yet ordinarily imperfect, possibly crude or whiny or easily angered, outside of that.
All he could come up with was a less interesting, more mopey version of Saitama with an undefined gender who got even more excited about cats.
His imagination was lacking, obviously.
Then he froze.
"Ah. You're not wondering how I got from that city to back here so fast?"
A non-superhero person stuck in the city would have some serious problems leaving with any speed right now, after all, and Saitama was intelligent enough to know that.
"You ran, obviously. You always do that."
"I... always...?" Several thoughts were racing towards conclusions that all had one thing in common; Genos didn't like the look of them.
"You still haven't figured it out? I did say I wasn't wearing the hero suit when we first met. Though, truth be told, I didn't really know you were a hero too until that moment. Man, it really creeped me out to see you all ripped apart like that."
Saitama looked a little troubled at the memory, but otherwise behaved like he had said something completely obvious, and not something that made Genos' train of thought go from off the rails to massive crash.