Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sometimes you wondered why life had to be so hard. And well, as you were desperately hiding behind a wall in your newly destroyed apartment from a raging monster, you decided it was one of those times. You had just paid your rent yesterday too, that had been a lot out of your pocket!

A loud rumble near you caused you to press your back against the crumpling wall even more. For a moment you feared that the pressure was going to cause the wall to completely collapse and expose to you the hedgehog like monster that was currently ravishing the city. At least you thought the monster shared some resemblances to a hedgehog, but who knows.

Well whatever it looked like, it was totally ruining your Saturday. All you wanted to do was just lay down and catch up on your sitcoms. You have shamefully been addicted to one of Sweet Mask’s new shows. It wasn’t your fault though, he was cute and sitcoms were your shit. Not that you got a chance to divulge in that guilty pleasure because a monster decided it was time to wreck your apartment and ruin your good times.

You tried to drown out the terrifying noises of the monster and the evacuation notice that was playing over and over. If anything the notice gave you hope, it meant the hero association was sending a hero to take care of this bullshit. Hey, wouldn’t it be neat if Sweet Mask showed up and personally saved you? You snort internally, not wanting to draw the monster towards you. Maybe he’d even rebuild your apartment for you because you were supporting his new show. You were rightfully salty about the apartment, okay? It costed you money to live there and you had just bought the cutest pineapple lamp the other day.

Suddenly, you felt the ground around you shake. You didn’t even have time to think before the slab of wall you were leaning on was ripped out of the ground, causing you to fall over. Looking up, all you could see was the giant hedgehog creature towering over you with a sinister look on its face. You were going to die.

“What’s this? Cowering in fear of me!” The giant monster let out a roaring laughter. It let out a wet-sounding snort, talk about a gross laugh geez. “You humans are absolutely pathetic, none of you could even hope of stopping me!”

You could only watch as the monster brought down his fist to crush you. The only thought racing through you head was about your untimely death and how you didn’t even get to use your pineapple lamp before it faced its untimely death. The crushing never came.

You open your eyes, and wonder when you even had shut them, and gasp in shock. In front of you was some bald guy, holding the monster gigantic fist back like it was a paper clip. “What are you supposed to be, some kind of hedgehog?” He said, looking at the monster uncaringly.

Well, at least someone agreed with your assessment of the monsters specifies. You watched speechless as the bald guy threw back his fist and punched the monster before it could even answer. It would never get a chance to answer either because the guy’s one simple punch completely destroyed the thing. You couldn’t even form words to even thank the guy as you watched the monster guts rain down. What in the world did you just see? Did that actually just happen?

“Hey are you okay?”

One punch. That is literally all it took just one punch to completely destroy a monster powerful enough to destroy a whole apartment with a sneeze.

“Yoo-hoo”

You blinked. Oh. The bald guy was waving his hand in front of your face, trying to get your attention. Did he, uh, say something? “Uhh..Hi?”

“I was just going to tell you that you might want to close your mouth, you don’t want any pieces of hedgehog intestines falling into it.”

You could feel the blush rapidly creeping over your cheeks. Oh my gosh, you had been staring at him with your mouth hanging wide open. How embarrassing! It wasn’t even your fault, it’s not like this guy can just defeat a big ole’ monster in front of you like that and not expect you to stare with your mouth open!

“Did you just…beat him with,” You demonstrated a punch, not really sure how to put together what you were trying to say, “that?”

“Yeah.”

With that, the bald guy started to walk away. Huh?! He is just walking away? You hadn’t even gotten to thank him yet! You tried to get up but your legs caved like jello. You blink, you must have had some adrenaline going through you earlier or something not to notice your legs were asleep.

Quickly you find some rumple close to you to lean on. Slowly you get up and start to chase after him. Well, chase was kind of an exaggeration but you waddled as quickly as your sleepy legs would let you. You were determined to thank him! He just saved your life and all you did was sit where and collect flies with your mouth! Or collect hedgehog intestines. Ha. That’s gross.

It took you a while to finally catch up to him because geez! Either he was doing some serious power walking or you were just super slow. You wanted to say power walking but well, he was walking at a normal speed the whole time. It didn’t matter though because you finally caught up! But man, were you out of breath.

“Hey-“You inhaled a breath of air like it was going out of style. You put your hands on your knees, bending over slightly as you tried to catch your breathe. Wow, this just might be even more embarrassing than before.

He turned around, and seemed shocked to see you. He didn’t notice you chasing after him at all! You would have sighed in exasperation if you weren’t breathing like you hadn’t in five days.

“Huh? You followed me home?”

Oh, you glanced up seeing apartments. You guess you did follow him all the way home. You take a moment to catch your breath.

“Yeah, I uh,” Geez you really need to work out, “I wanted to thank you.”

He just stared at you as you slowly caught your breath. “Thank me?”

You stand up straight and smile at him.  “Yeah! You really saved my life back there, that thing almost made me just a big ole’ blood splatter on the ground. So, uh thanks!”

He seemed kind of, puzzled. You guess it was kind of weird to follow him all the way home just to say thanks, but you tried to be polite at least. You both stood there quietly.

“So, Hey! Is this your apartment? I use to have one of those before you know, but a hedgehog monster destroyed it this morning. Ya know, I had just bought this super cool pineapple lamp and everything! What’s it look inside here? Got any cool fruit lamps?”

You totally just invited yourself into his house. Unfortunately you did not see any fruit shaped lamps, but it was kind of messy in here. Clothes and trash were everywhere. You peaked into the kitchen and it was just how you suspected it to be. Dirty dishes everywhere. You don’t think you’ve ever let your apartment get this dirty.

“Geez, it is really gross in here-oh!” The pitch of your voice rose in excite. “I can totally clean your house to repay you for saving me life!” You smiled at the guy but then blinked. Wow, you hadn’t even introduced yourself.

“My names Saiko by the way and don’t worry! I going to get this place sparkly clean! Like your head!”

“Saitiama…and you don’t have to do that..You can just leave.” He gestured to the door, but you didn’t see or hear him. You had already started your work.

You woke up the next day next to a mop and with a blanket draped over you. You sit and start to stretch your arms over your head and let out a yawn. You must have fell asleep while cleaning. You yawn again, mentally going over yesterday’s events. Monster destroyed home, almost died, didn’t die and cleaned. A pretty productive Saturday.

You get up with a groan, your body was all kinds of sore from sleeping on the floor. You stretch your arms a bit more as you waddle into the kitchen. You couldn’t help but to feel a tiny bit of pride seeing there was only one or two dirty dishes now. Hey, the hero guy had left you something to eat. How nice!

It was…just a single egg on a plate. You pick up the note next to it.

Here’s something for the road

-Saitama

So that what his name was. You couldn’t help but to look at the egg on the plate and frown. Is that the type of meals he usually eats? That’s no good, especially for a hero. They need, like, all kinds of food with the physical activity they do. You looked at his fridge and his cabinets, daring yourself to go through them.

You know it was rude but..it was for a good reason so that makes it okay. You nod you head to yourself and open the fridge only to gasp in horror. It was..absolutely empty! This would just not do, you hurry out the apartment dead set on doing some grocery shopping, not bothering to lock the door. You doubt anyone would try to rob a guy who could destroy you with one punch anyways.

By the time Saitama got home you had already gone and got groceries and put them away. You were laying down catching up on Sweet Mask’s newest sitcom when he walked through the front door. He blinked at you.

“You’re still here.”

You wave from where you were sitting on the floor.

“Sure am! I went grocery shopping by the way, you had like, nothing in your fridge.”

You turned back to the show as Saitama slowly walked into the kitchen. When you finished the episode, he was still in there. Scratching your head, you got up and made your way to the kitchen. As you entered to room you saw him.

He was on his knees looking into the open fridge door, and where does tears in his eyes?

“S-so much food” he mumbled into the fridge, stroking a piece of lettuce.

You felt like you just walked in and interrupted a really emotional moment. You were about to walk away and pretend you saw nothing when he suddenly whipped his head in your direction.

There were practically stars in his eyes. “You can stay as long as you like!”

And that’s how you became roommates with a hero.

Chapter Text

The past two days you have been trying to get Saitama to watch sweet masks new sitcom, Love in J-City. You needed someone to watch the show and react to the dramatic characters and overall ridiculousness with, but the little bald rat always found an excuse to get out of watching it with you. Monsters this, flash sales that, there was always something, until today that is. You had finally cornered him into watching it with you.

You both were sitting on his futon, a large bowl of popcorn sitting between you. Both of your eyes remained glued to the T.V as the Sweet Mask’s character was being seduced by some women.

“He is totally going to cheat on Susan with this girl, I call it right now.” You say right before shoving a fistful of popcorn into your mouth.

“Why is his hair blue?” Saitama asks, his voice the usual monotone. You didn’t let that fool you though, because his eyes never left the screen of the small T.V even as he asked the question. You shrug in response to his inquiry about Sweet Mask’s hair, your mouth was still full of popcorn.

You were working on swallowing your second fistful of popcorn when someone knocked on the front door. You looked over at Saitama, eyebrows raised. The past week you’ve stayed with him, there had been no visitors. In fact Saitama was some sort of hardcore recluse, he lived in the abandoned section of Z-city after all. You were starting to think you might be his only friend at this point.

“Whoms shat?” You asked, popcorn bits flying out of your full mouth. You almost felt like you should be ashamed but it was Saitama, as if he cared.

“An annoyance.”

Dang that was kind of harsh. More knocking echoed through the house. You were kind of curious to see who exactly this was. You felt kind of dumb now actually, maybe Saitama didn’t have close friends but he still had acquaintances. Everyone had those. You crawl over to the window near the door and peak through the blinds.

“The lights are off, so as long as he doesn’t see either of us we can just pretend we aren’t home-HEY WHAT ARE YOU DOING HE CAN SEE YOU!” Saitama all be tackled you away from the window, dunking your head down. All you had gotten was a quick glance of blonde hair. You struggle like a wild animal.

“I..wanna..look!” You all but screech as Saitama forces your head down away from the window.

“Be quiet! He is going to hear and then I’ll be forced to deal with him!”

You try biting his hand.

Suddenly the door slams open. In fact it was slammed open with so much force the poor piece of wood was taken right off the hinges. You and Saitama both stop what you were doing and looked at the person standing in the doorway like the guilty animals you both were.

Standing in the doorway was a blonde guy. Well actually, a blonde cyborg who looked ready to rumble. You were thoroughly imitated. You don’t know if it was the serious expression on his face or the fact he had his palm opened, ready to shoot flames. Oh yeah and that palm just happened to be pointed at you.

“Teacher I heard suspicious activity from outside, are you being attacked?” The cyborg glared at you, the completely innocent victim of all this. All you had wanted to do was look out a window.

“Hey, I’m not attacking anyone- in fact,” You pointed your finger accusingly towards Saitama, “He attacked me!”

Saitama gaped at you, as if he couldn’t believe your nerve. “You were being weird looking out the window, someone had to stop you!”

As you too began to bicker back and forth, the cyborg slowly put away his palms and death. He stared at the two of you, obviously confused, before clearing his throat.

“Teacher who is this?” He asked, looking over at you curiously.

You didn’t even give Saitama a chance to answer, knowing he wouldn’t introduce you properly.

 “I’m Saiko! My house was destroyed by a hedgehog so now I live here for some reason.” You shrug, you really weren’t sure why you decided to force yourself into Saitama’s shit home. His T.V was so small and you were going to have to buy yourself some sort of bed because you’ve been sleeping on the floor. Your poor back.

“Hedgehog?” He questioned, raising his cyborg eyebrows. Huh that was weird, cyborg’s had eyebrows? For some reason you had always thought they wouldn’t. You couldn’t help but to stare at them.

“Yup, a big ole’ Hedgehog- Hey can I feel your eyebrows?”

He blinked at you. “No. My name is Genos, I am Saitama’s student.”

You heard Saitama squawk indignantly. You felt the same honestly, he just told you no. What the heck was that all about? Hogging those cool cyborg eyebrows to himself. You frown, Genos was lame as heck. So you decided to do what you did best, pick a fight. Verbal of course, this guy would squash you like a bug.

“Wait, How can you be Saitama’s student when, I am.” You blink innocently at him. You here Saitama let out another squawk.

Genos turned to you, looking somewhat shocked and serious. You were beginning to think every emotion that wasn’t seriousness was secondary to the guy.

“Teacher agreed to take you on as a discipline?” Geez, he didn’t have to sound so shocked. Rude.

“Sure did! He told me that he wanted only one discipline and I was the one! Isn’t that sweet?” You smile at Genos as if you aren’t just saying all this to make him angry.

Saitama at this point had just left the room, and was in the kitchen making a sandwich.

“So teacher wants to make sure he has the strongest discipline and only wants to focus on that single person. That is why he only wants one.” Genos but his cyborg hand on his cyborg chin in thought. You just stand there silently, not really sure if he is talking to you or just himself.

He perked up slightly. “Then the only way to settle this dispute is a fight to see who is strongest and the most deserving of being Teacher’s discipline.”

Uh-oh. You just stand there and stare at Genos, trying to think of a way to get out of this. All you wanted to do was start an argument and this guy wants to actually, like, throw down.

“Uh..Yeah..um..” You rack your brain trying to think of some way out of this hole you dug yourself into. Oh why, oh why, did you try to pick a fight with a cyborg just because you didn’t get to touch the cyborg brows? Thinking back on your reasoning here, you felt kind of dumb. Cyborg eyebrows weren’t even that cool, you should have been focusing on whether he had eyelashes or not. Get some butterfly kisses out of this bitch.

What were you going to do, Saitama wasn’t even in here to stop this madness. Oh! You smile as an idea comes to you.

“You’re completely right Genos! We should let Saitama decide what we do to prove ourselves worthy though. I’ll go get him.” You practically sprint to the kitchen.

There Saitama sat, eating his sandwich not even caring that you were about to get your ass kicked. You rush over him and grab him by the shoulders, interrupting him from taking another bite out of his sandwich.

“Your cyborg friend wants to kill me!” You attempt to whisper to him, not wanting Genos to hear, but it ended up sounding the same as your normal voice.

Saitama pried your hands off his shoulders and continued to eat his food. “You’re the one who picked the fight.” He said, his mouth full of ham sandwich.

“Yeah but, but, I don’t deserve this!”

He just stares at you and chews, silently telling you that yes, you did.

“I told him that you would decide what way we would compete to become your discipline, just go in there and tell him you want us to thumb wrestle. You can’t get hurt doing that.”

Saitama just sighs, picking up his plate, he slowly goes back into the living room with you frantically following behind him.

Genos straightens up as soon as he sees Saitama enter the room. “Teacher, what task will you have us do?”

You could already tell he was expecting some kind of dramatic and fancy showdown.

“Thumb wrestling.” Saitama says with a dead serious face.

“I-What?” Genos sputtered, obviously taken by surprise.

“Thumb wrestling, only the one with the finest tuned motor skills can become my discipline.”

You nod your head in agreement from where you were standing safely behind Saitama. Genos seem to accept Saitama’s bullshit reasoning as he sat down and rested his elbow on the coffee table in front of the T.V. Love in J-City was still playing. You slowly move the other side of the table and rest your own elbow on it.

Even though you were only going to thumb wrestle, you still couldn’t help still feeling nervous. It was probably the determined look on Genos’s face, a look that said that even though you both were just thumb wrestling he was still going to somehow kick your ass. You slowly put in hand in his and he immediately tried to pounce on your thumb.

“WAIT!” You screech at him. He stops his thump pouncing immediately, looking at you with one eyebrow raised. You scowled, one of the eyebrows that caused all of this.

“If we are doing this, than we have to follow proper procedures or it won’t count, Right Saitama?”

Saitama was sitting by you guys but not even pay attention, his eyes were glue to the T.V. “Sure, whatever.” He replied, reaching for the abandoned popcorn.

You look over at Genos and grin victoriously. He rolled his eyes. Whatever he was just jealous that Saitama agreed with you, Lame-o.

“Okay, so before we start we both have to say in sync: One-Two-Three-Four, I declare a thumb war. Or else it isn’t a formal thumb war and the result don’t matter.”

“Okay.” Genos deadpanned.

“So are you ready?”

“Yes.”

You both started the chant, although Genos was a bit reluctant. As soon as the words ‘I declare a thumb war’ left both your mouths, the cyborg pounced on your thumb. It happened to fast you couldn’t even see his thumb to dodge it. A large crack echoed through the room.

You let out the most high-pitch screech as you looked down and saw your thumb laying in a perfect 90 degree angle. You desperately clutch at your hand, making the pain from your thumb throb even worse.

“Oh my god! You broke my thumb!” You screech at him, clutching your hand to your chest like the cyborg was going to go round two on it.

“I am sorry, since you talked about being Teacher’s discipline I misjudge your stre-“

“YOU BROKE MY THUMB!”

Saitama sighed, turned off the T.V and got up. Glancing at you screeching like an animal and Genos holding both his hands up looking as apologetic as a cyborg could, he shook his head.

“I really dislike both of you.”

The walk to the emergency was awkward. The explanation you gave to the receptionist also made things awkward. No one was impressed by you explaining what happened by pointing at Genos and yelling ‘that sociopath broke my thumb’.

45 minutes later you were walking about of the emergency room with a nice looking thumb brace on your finger. Although you did ask for purple and they gave you blue but the irritated look from Saitama stopped you from complaining.

“Did you learn anything from this?” Saitama asked as you guys exited the ER. You groan.

“Yeess mom.”

“And what exactly did you learn today?”

“That people can get hurt from thumb wrestling and it is a very dangerous sport.”

Saitama sighed, figuring correcting you just wasn’t worth the effort. 

“Close enough.”

Chapter Text

It was a couple days after the thumb war incident before you saw Genos again, and when you did you pounced on the poor guy. He was going to help you with something, very, very important.

“Hey pal!” You greet him, skipping over and entwining both of the two of your arms together. You smile up to him as sweetly as one can to a filthy thumb breaker.

He just stood there, in the doorway of the house, stiff as could be. It was clear that he wanted to remove your arm from his but at the same time didn’t want to hurt your feelings, especially after breaking your thumb the other day. So Genos settled on being as stiff as plywood. What a champ.

“What do you want?” Genos ask, as serious as ever. His rudeness will be over looked today because you need him. Weelll, not necessarily him but you need the money he probably has.

“We are going grocery shopping!”

“We? I don’t see the necessity of having me to come along, your health and vitals say you are perfectly capable of going yourself.”

Okay but your wallet doesn’t, douche. Wait was he totally just reading your vitals right now? You blink, feeling weirdly exposed. Can he tell you survive mainly off cheese sticks? You hope not.

“Uhhhh- To do bonding! Yeah bonding!” Money. You needed money so bad.

He didn’t seem to be buying your bullshit.

“Saitama wouldn’t want his student and his bestest friend to hate each other right? Pus you broke my thumb. I need proper food for it to heal.”

There was a time where you didn’t have to try to play off a person’s guilt for breaking your thumb to buy snacks and some purple duct tape but times have been rough. Rough as in, a monster destroyed your apartment, cool lamp and the grocery store you use to work at. Rest in peace Easy Mart, may you be selling half price macaroni in heaven.

Genos sat there for a while, clearly in deep thought. You couldn’t help but to be a bit offended, was spending time with you really that awful. You were the life of the party.

“Fine. I will go with you, for teacher’s sake.”

Okay didn’t have to throw that last part in there robodick. A yes was a yes though, so you quickly threw on some shoes and guided Genos out the door.

You were practically skipping down the street. Finally, you were going to have some food! Neither you nor Saitama had gone grocery shopping since the day you moved in, which was weeks ago. You were starved, and broke. Thankfully Genos is a true bro, unknowingly agreeing to buy you groceries.

The two of you had been walking down a busy street when you noticed them. Well, to be more accurate, heard them. It was a whole herd of bald people, yelling.

“WHY DO WE HAVE TO WORK?”

The speech dragged on, talking about how work wasn’t fun and was just overall lame. You couldn’t help but to laugh.

“Hey look Genos, its Saitama’s family.” You laughed, and rudely pointed at the herd. Genos slapped your hand down.

“It is highly unlikely any of those people are related to teacher.” Genos said flatly, dismissing the herd.

Oh silly you, you’d forgotten how big of a buzzkill Genos was. You crossed your arms and scowled, wishing you knew cooler people. Genos began to walk away but you lingered a bit, staring at the cluster of bald people shouting about not wanting to work.

You frown thinking about your old job. Things were a lot easier for you when you worked at the dumpy little grocery store, you always had a little cash, and were able to get groceries at a discount. Sure every now and then a drunk would wonder in and you would drop a can of ravioli on your toe when stocking but working was not awful. At least not as awful as these people made it out to be.

You blink, taking yourself out of your thoughts and noticed Genos hadn’t stopped to look with you. The punk. You quickly followed after him, he didn’t even know what grocery store you wanted to go to. Still though, your mind lingered on work.

“Hey Genos, do you have a job?”

He glanced at you through the corner of his eye.

“I do not.”

Huh? You glanced at Genos, taking in his strong steps and relatively fast pace (you were power walking to keep up with him actually). You honestly figured he was a construction worker or something. He was obviously really strong, and the cyborg thing could have been from a bad accident from the job. But well, he did know Saitama. So maybe he was-

“Are you a super hero like Saitama?” You blurted out.

“While neither of us are officially register as heroes, I find myself fighting evil doers regularly and it seems Saitama does as well.”

“Is that why you’re…” You bite your lip, floundering through your question.

“Yes.” Genos said, a bit more harshly than how he usually talks. You look away from him, finding yourself not able to meet his eyes.

The two of you eventually make it to the grocery store and begin your shopping. Of course you soon found out that shopping with Genos was the same as shopping with your mom. He. Said. No. To. Everything.

“Oooo, look at those little cupcakes they so small and the sprinkles are the soft kind, Genos. The soft kind.”

He slaps your hand down as you go grab them like you are some kind of dog.

“From the looks of Teacher’s and your pantry or the lack of anything to look at in it, you should probably stick to necessities and things that will last longer than,” Genos let out a tired sigh, “Cute cupcakes with soft sprinkles.”

“Whoa, cranberry soda? I didn’t even know that was a thing!”

Genos put a case of water in the cart instead.

You went to go grab a bag of cheese cubes when you caught Genos’s stare. You slowly lowered your hand and walked back to him dejectedly. He had you trained by now.

In the end, both of you ended up in the checkout lane, annoyed with each other. Genos wouldn’t even let you turn to look at the candy bars they had set out. You crossed your arms and refused to even look in his direction. This was not fair at all. You had not gotten one thing you wanted, in fact, there was a distinct lack of junk food in the items Genos forced you to put in the cart. You wondered if maybe you somehow died when Genos broke your thumb and this was hell.

“Okay! And your total is...” You didn’t even bother to listen the cheery cashier read off the total. You weren’t paying for this shit. When both Genos and she stared at you expectedly, you just pulled out your empty pockets inside out.

“Oops. Must have left my wallet at home.”

Genos paid and then the both of you walked home in angry silence with you carrying only one bag that had bread and a bag of tootsie pops you managed to sneak in the cart without Genos noticing. Genos carried the rest.

When the two of you got home, Saitama was sitting at the table looking very serious. You looked at him curiously, wondering what shenanigans he had gotten into today. You and Genos had left before he got up, so neither of you had seen him all day.

You waved to him in a forced cheerful way, trying to forget about your previous bad mood.

“Hey Saitama, I bought us groceries!”

“Actually it was me.” Genos said, as he slammed the groceries he was carrying down on the kitchen counter. He truly was angry.

You looked down at your feet. Maybe you shouldn’t have made Genos pay for the groceries. He had told you that he didn’t have a job. Who knows how much or rather, how little he had money wise.

“Yeah...You did. Thank you Genos.” You thanked him sincerely, a little bit of guilt leaking into your voice. Genos just nodded at you. You hoped that you at least lessened his anger with you a little tinsy bit.

Eventually Saitama and Genos started talking about their days respectively and as much as you wanted to hear what Saitama did, you didn’t stick around. Instead, you went into the kitchen to put away groceries instead of making Genos do it as previously planned. That would have just been icing on top of the Genos anger cake.

When you came back from putting the groceries up, you found Saitama and Genos had decided to register as heroes. Of course you would have missed one of the only interesting conversations the two of them will ever have.