Chapter Text
It was normal to experience ‘interruptions’ when Saitama and Genos went out on ‘grocery runs’ (which involved shopping through stores that had been fled in panic as though it were a normal trip, and then just simply skipping the part where he had to pay). Arrogant heroes trying to confront and stop him ‘once and for all’ getting smattered across several buildings, crazed villains goading the unstoppable man to ‘work for them’, and of course...monsters.
Monsters were perhaps most common. A lot of them were animalistic in nature and so would appear anywhere and attack anyone, not giving any regard to current standing reputation. They were easily dispatched, and Genos would silently appreciate that there was one less threat to society in existence now. Definitely it was better than watching some stupid but well-meaning hero be reduced to atoms across the cityscape.
But this…
Genos had been thrown off of his feet when the gigantic creature erupted out of the ground, hitting the back of his head against the street and barely retaining consciousness. He stared in horror as the endless, shifting mass extended into the sky and then warped and stretched for miles in every direction, blocking out most of the sun and turning a bright sunny day into overcast.
He was paralyzed in fear, hands tightly clutching the plastic loops of his grocery bags as Saitama just watched for awhile.
“...huh.” The villain scratched the back of his head, observing as tendrils of black ooze would shoot down from the main body of the... whatever it was, snatching up panicked, fleeing civilians and forming more, small monsters that would break off and begin breaking into buildings. “...guess I’ll check it out.” Saitama set his bag down and jumped off into the sky.
“W-wait-!” Genos was too late, sitting up and reaching after the villain who was already long gone. He got to his feet, scanning the area and feeling his breathing quicken. His robotic eye observed the horizon, and the rate at which the mass overhead was spreading, and calculated that escape was impossible. Even at top speed Genos couldn’t hope to outrun this thing.
Seeing that result shook Genos to his core. The only thing he’d encountered so far in his life as a cyborg that he couldn’t outrun was Saitama. Escape was always an option, and it was one that he often readily took. Genos wasn’t built for fighting, or even enduring intense violence for very long. He knew the best way for him to help people was to not get himself killed, and therefore be alive once the dust had settled to rescue any survivors. Repeat ad infinitum.
But this time there wasn’t an escape.
Buildings in the city were collapsing seemingly at random as they came into contact with whipping strands from the monster that seemed to be lashing about in an almost careless manner. Going inside wasn’t safe. If he even thought too long about why,
because it could collapse on top of him, just like before, just like his home
then he might send himself into a panic attack.
But staying out in the open was just as potentially fatal. Genos could see dozens of people getting snatched right out of the streets as they tried to run, hopeless to escape but too desperate to not try.
For lack of any other alternative, Genos pushed himself up against a wall, in the shadow of a large building, and set his scanners to monitor the structural integrity of his surroundings. He sank to his seat, trembling and barely allowing himself to breathe. The cyborg hadn’t felt this afraid since he first met Saitama. Maybe even more so. With the villain he had at least felt assured that his death would be quick. But monsters...they so often played with their prey. They would often draw out their suffering, causing the most agony that they could.
Genos was afraid of monsters. They weren’t like humans - they didn’t have a reason to do what they did. It was just in their nature. It was what they lived to do.
The ground shook violently as several more tendrils from the monster shot down to the street, cracking through the concrete and burrowing underground. Genos jumped, gulping in air to keep himself breathing as the screams and laughs indicated that the center of the horror was getting closer.
He got to his feet, bracing his hands against the wall behind him and staying crouched. His eye scanned for life signs, but only picked up on the blips that were snuffed out almost the moment he saw them. The monster’s...appendages, and the creatures that formed out from them, only showed up as vague, barely detectable blurs.
“We smell you, little robot. Come out!”
Genos’s eyes went wide and he scrambled back further down the open alley, grocery bags forgotten on the ground as he fled for his life. Just before he could slip out the other end, another blob emerged from the side and grabbed onto Genos’s face, sinking its claws into his scalp and jawline. He struggled furiously, barely managing to tear himself free and begin sprinting down the next street.
His eye helped him predict the attacking tendrils, and combined with his speed, he was able to narrowly avoid most of them. Some caught him on the sides or clipped his heels but he kept moving, the monster slowly maneuvering him towards a dead end like the wild animal that he was.
A building was struck down right in front of him, and Genos barely scrambled back in time to avoid being crushed. He covered his face with his arm and coughed heavily at the dust that was kicked up, turning around and seeing only a wall of monster surrounding him at every point.
“This one is fast! Not like the others. Easy snacks. This one took some time!”
“Took effort !”
“So nice of you to let us experience some fun ! Something besides a monotonous, easy catch!”
Genos searched desperately for some break in their formation, and he caught one - he was too frantic to consider that it was an obvious bait until after he’d already sprinted full speed at it, only for it to immediately close around him. The mass contorted its form, grabbing him around the neck and lifting him into the air. It flung him back at the rubble of the building, laughing as he landed hard with a few cracks . Genos coughed, forcing himself to roll onto his belly and then push himself up to his knees. His eye glitched and beeped, throwing up nonsense warnings and signals that blocked his vision and made his head ache.
“Keep trying!”
“Don’t let us get bored .”
“You don’t want us to get bored. That’s when the killing starts!”
Genos got to his feet, staggering in place and holding a hand over his eye to try and block out the signals. Being left with only his normal vision forced him to see the monsters in their real, unsimplified form - no numbers to predict their movements, no explanations for their biology or recommendations for escape. He was left alone.
He realized he was getting dizzy, and shortly after became aware that he’d begun hyperventilating. The cyborg was seconds away from a full out panic attack.
“Oh, pity. This one is already tired.”
“He couldn’t keep it up for even a little longer?”
“What a shame. Now we have to rip it apart!”
“Rip off its pretty, shiny legs~”
Genos backed up, turning and trying to crawl up the remains of the building. Clawed hands snapped forward and grabbed his ankles, dragging him back down to the ground. He looked over his shoulder, at their merciless, monstrous eyes, and his desperation finally reached a pinnacle.
He covered his head with his hands, and screamed, “SAITAMA!!”
For a few moments, all that could be heard was his voice echoing in the fresh ruins of the city streets, even the monster pausing in surprise and confusion at the cry. It sneered, and then erupted into billions of gooey particles as a red and black form slammed into the ground in front of Genos, clenched fist flying into the head of the closest monster.
Saitama turned an eye onto the main mass overhead, daring it just with his gaze. It responded appropriately, shooting down another swirling tendril, and it met with the knuckles of the villain’s fist. The force radiated back up into the main body, and second later, the city was experiencing a thick, black rain.
“Gross.” Saitama turned and looked down at the teenager curled up in a ball on the ground, trembling violently and gasping in shallow breaths. His face and flesh arm were torn up badly, and his clothes had also been ripped up. One of his ankles was also partially crushed and sparks were coming out of his robot eye. “...you okay?”
Genos’s faraway gaze snapped back to the present and towards Saitama, throat and jaw flexing with the effort of keeping back tears. He nodded, slowly forcing himself to sit up and biting back a cry of pain when he put weight on his human arm, wincing forward sharply and hissing through his teeth.
“...broken?” Saitama guessed.
Genos nodded again.
“Great...guess we’ll pick up a sling on the way b-” Saitama looked around. “...where’s the groceries?”
“...” At that, Genos finally broke down and started crying, holding his hand over his face. “I-I dropped them, I’m sorry-!”
“Oh, geez. Okay, calm...down, don’t...it’s not a big deal. It’s not like I had to pay for them…” Saitama’s face scrunched up. “Stop...stop that. It’s fine. Let’s just...go home…”
Awkwardly the villain crouched down and scooped up the mess of a cyborg, clearing his throat and starting to walk back home, doing his best to ignore Genos’s crying while Genos did his best to ignore his own crying, as well as the way Saitama’s arms made him feel so unjustifiably safe.