Work Text:
“Oi, Genos.”
“Yes, sensei?”
Saitama hefts Genos further up in his arms to keep him from falling, though it does nothing to prevent the slow crumble of metal bits half-destroyed by radioactive chemicals.
The fight had been a rough one, with Genos once again ending up almost-incinerated because he had protected a pair of children from getting blown to pieces by a customized bomb. It wasn’t too rough, though, that he couldn’t fix it with one punch (unfortunately enough).
He asks, “Do you feel anything, when you get like this?”
Genos is silent for a moment, seeming contemplative, until-
“This, sensei? What do you mean?”
“This.” He pats a free hand over Genos’ back, before keeping it there, just to make sure he doesn’t lose any more pieces of himself. “Getting almost destroyed.”
Silence.
Even more silence.
The silence stretches on and he half-shrugs, not minding that Genos isn’t answering. “It’s okay if you don’t want to answer,” he says, not once looking to Genos as he keeps walking for home. “I can respect that.”
“…it’s fine, sensei.”
He hums his response. “Hm?”
“I want to answer.”
He nods, the slight movement of his head making his cheek brush against soft tufts of yellow. Quietly, and somewhat absent-mindedly, he wonders just how Genos managed to get his hair so soft, when it’s likely artificial. He doesn’t need to shampoo it, does he? And wouldn’t it ruin his internal organs if he got himself wet? Or was that just electrical parts? It seems like Genos runs on oil, considering his tears…
“It hurts, but not quite.”
He blinks at that, head turning to regard Genos’ pensive expression. “How’s that?”
Genos hums an affirmative, the sound making his chest rumble against Saitama’s. “The sensors are there, but I can tweak them to be less sensitive when I’m in this state.”
“Ah,” he says with an understanding nod, even when he doesn’t fully comprehend what that means. He holds Genos higher up his shoulders when he reaches the stairs leading to his apartment, beginning his slow trek up to keep Genos from completely falling apart on him. “So…how does it hurt?”
“My brain processes the pain, but the Doctor has customized my nervous system to be capable of controlling the amount that I can feel when I am like this. It feels somewhat like stubbing a toe, I suppose.”
“That’s convenient,” he says.
“It is,” Genos agrees.
It’s also kind of inhuman, he doesn’t say. He knows better than to say something so insensitive.
(Then again, it’s not like he makes it a habit to be very sensitive to people.)
“Is that why you don’t mind it?” he asks, moving his hand from Geno’s back to his pocket, where he takes out his keys to unlock his door.
He doesn’t have to look to know that Genos is confused. “Don’t mind what, sensei?” Genos asks.
He doesn’t answer for a while, not out of a lack of anything to say, but because he’s busy with settling Genos- broken to pieces, still weirdly alive despite all the destruction- on the lone futon lying open on his living room floor. When he’s done propping Genos by the wall, he sits back, and says, “Getting half-destroyed like this.”
Genos blinks, and stares.
Saitama looks blankly back at him.
The silence stretches even longer than before, and Saitama considers the efficiency of asking unexpected questions in keeping Genos quiet. It’s been working surprisingly well, so far.
He says, after figuring that Genos doesn’t have anything to say, “I don’t know about you, but I think it would be more convenient for your revenge plan if you kept yourself alive and functioning.”
“I,” Genos begins, looking flummoxed still with his blinking eyes and half-open mouth, “…yes.”
He raises an eyebrow at the blandly said answer. “Yes?”
“That’s,” Genos fumbles for words, looking less and less bewildered as the seconds pass, “you’re right, sensei.”
“Am I?”
Genos nods, firm and sure. “Yes, sensei.”
He pats Genos on the shoulder, feeling somewhat like a father approving of his kid’s good behavior. It’s strange, definitely, but he’s growing used to it. He’s been getting used to a lot of things, ever since Genos came and started staying in his apartment.
(He’s been less lonely since Genos came, for one. But he’s not telling Genos that.)
“Still, it’s kind of weird,” he says, pulling his hand back from Genos’ shoulder as he gets back up on his feet. Genos’ gaze follows him even as he goes to strip out of his costume- and it should definitely be questionable, how he’s allowing this kind of observation at all, but he’s given up caring after months of enduring it. Let the kid analyze what he wants; it’s not like he’ll find anything research-worthy in his body. He says, just as he starts sliding out of his yellow suit, “You’re dedicated to your goal, but not dedicated enough to keep yourself from getting wrecked.”
He looks over at Genos, and stifles a twitch of an eye when Genos looks unfalteringly back at him, even in his half-naked state. “You’re not,” he hesitates, nose wrinkling as he tries to think of a way to say it, before he gives up with a sigh of exhaustion. “Never mind,” he says, waving a hand in dismissal at his unspoken question. “It’s nothing.”
“I think I know what it is you’re trying to say, sensei,” Genos says, catching his attention just as he fishes out of his closet a pair of shorts to pull on. He looks back at Genos and golden eyes meet his own, unwavering in their gaze, as though trying to prove that he is speaking the truth when he says, “And no, I’m not.”
His shoulders slump at that; a visible sign of his relief that Genos isn’t as (intentionally) self-destructive as he’d assumed. “Oh,” he breathes, smiling as he finishes pulling on his shorts. “That’s good.”
Genos smiles back. “Thank you, sensei.”
His brows furrow at the non sequitur, and he squints at Genos. “For what?”
Somehow, Genos smile seems to brighten; watching the whole thing feels a little surreal, considering how serene he looks while being in literal pieces, but he’s mostly just concerned with how happy Genos looks even when all he’s been doing is prying into his business.
(Being smiled at like that, at all, especially by a kid who looks up to him when he can’t offer much, is really strange.
It feels sort of nice, though.)
Genos says, somehow pulling off a sense of warmth in his voice even when he’s pretty much 90% robot parts,
“For caring.”
He blinks, only slightly startled at the honesty, then smiles- amused, and perhaps just a bit affectionate.
“It’s only fair,” he says, crouching down to Genos’ level, before bumping his knuckles against a thrumming chest. It earns him a pleased smile, and he laughs, soft enough that the sound is confined to the space between them.
“You’re my disciple, after all.”