If she gave a rat's ass, staring for this long would've probably been pretty rude. At the very least, she wasn't the only one doing it, as Watchdog-man stared back her with his cold, dead eyes from his position at the edge of the table.

That was important to note. He was not at the table, as a civilized human being would normally be at when mealtime came around, but hovering around it like a beloved house pet waiting for the occasional treat. The costumed man had even taken to rotating between seats to stare at other plates, rewarded for doing so through the occasional shrimp or piece of beef dropped his way.

"Oi, no, y'already got one from me, git," Metal Bat grunted, flicking Watchdog-man's face away from his wrist until the dog hero backed down and loped away.

She didn't contribute, obviously, because she had a reputation to preserve in comparison to the other dribbling troglodytes who were leeching off her home and food. God, her co-workers were so fucking weird. She would pay good money to just go wild with her psychic powers, crunch all of them up into a big ball of idiocy and launch them straight into the-

A finger found her cheek, and she was tempted to bite it off before she followed it back to Saitama's face.

"Quit thinking murder thoughts at the table."

"W-Wha-" she sputtered. "How'd you know?!"

"You've got that raisin-like face, the one where you're lost in thought but also kinda pissed. Don't you know that your face can get stuck like that, Tats?"

"You really got a death wish, don't you grapehead?!"

Atomic Samurai chuckled, grasping at a piece of fish with his chopsticks before gently setting it into the bubbling broth. "This a common occurrence between you two, hah?"

"Yeah, kinda," Saitama muttered as he shoveled some rice into his mouth, not even noticing the elbow sent into his side and Tatsumaki's resulting wince. "It's always 'those meddlesome little toadies should just bow down and let me handle things' and 'you know it's bad when you're the only one I can rely on to get stuff done around here, baldy'. Tats is cute, nothing changes that, but geez does it really pick up some days."

Surprisingly, the petite esper had no response to this borderline complaint, just an arctic glare that would send any lesser man into fear-induced cardiac arrest. Unfortunately, the old samurai has-been wasn't cowed in the slightest, his smirk widening.

"It isn't all bad though. The compliments are like, 'we work surprisingly well together, so you better damn well stick to my side' and 'dammit today was shit, but I guess looking at that dopey smile of yours means something good happened so it isn't all-'"

Tatsumaki's hand clamped down on the baldy's mouth like a vice, heavily blushing.

"Shut the fuck up already, you little Buddha statue bastard!"

King rolled his eyes and smiled at the lovey-dovey couple, muttering something about tsunderes that made Tatsumaki want to pop his eyeballs out, prodigious King Engine be damned. Damn this bald loser for making a clown out of her, damn these little roaches she had for co-workers for laughing at her, and damn that bald loser again for making her want to smile too!

"Aw c'mon, 'Tats', din't you think it was sweet 'a him?" Metal Bat jeered, poking her in the shoulder. Gently picking up her chopsticks, Tatsumaki responded by jabbing them at his eyes with enough force to be classified as lethal assault.

Zombieman sighed as he reclined further into Tornado's luxurious sofa, soaking in the way it almost enveloped him in its class. He couldn't feel pain, but he could damn well feel most pleasures, and this beautiful leather beast deserved nothing but his full admiration. Glancing back at the table, he couldn't help but smile at Tornado and Metal Bat engaged in high-speed chopstick jousting, Caped Baldy moving his bowl out of the way with a panicked expression to make sure that any strikes didn't harm his food in any way.

Not himself, his food. And that got him wondering on how strong that guy was to have those weird priorities, just a bit.

"You're curious as well, huh? That mysterious guy, Caped Baldy..."

Zombieman turned his gaze over to Child Emperor, who already topped up way earlier than everyone else at the table and spent the rest of his time on this couch adamantly not dozing off. King, out of what could only be assumed to be infinite compassion and understanding, wandered over after his share and pretended to fall asleep next to him. Hell, he even faked heavy snoring to make Child Emperor feel better.

For the kid's integrity, though, he only brought it up under his non-existent breath. "Yeah, just a little. He seems like an alright guy."

"Just alright? He got the Tornado of Terror to open up in an astronomically short amount of time," Emperor whispered. "Did you ever imagine even two of us S-Class being invited to her apartment, let alone watch her try to impale Metal Bat with a pair of chopsticks?"

"With that limp fightin' spirit, you'll never beat me, Tatsy!" they heard Bat cackle, parrying her frankly terrifying blows with surprisingly deft movements.

"S-Shut the hell up, you banchō reject! You're a vampire sucking the blood of the 70's, and I'm gonna prove it by driving these chopsticks straight through your stupid, ancient heart!"

"What the he- reject?! Oi, I was the real-freakin'-deal, I'll kick your ass!"

Zombieman blinked.

"Ah, yep. You're right. By now she would've just thrown Metal Bat through a couple of buildings and bring them down on him for good measure."

Child Emperor nodded, briefly smiling at the confirmation before adopting a grim expression. "It's almost like it's too good to be true. Progress should not be this fast, and reports suggest that Tornado has been incredibly ornery since her inclusion into the Hero Association's ranks. Tell me, with this in mind, doesn't her radical overnight change seem a bit...off?"

The dead man's face was unreadable as he soaked in the info bomb, but after a minute he furrowed his eyebrows. "You suspect foul play?"

"No, no, these are just my preliminary thoughts," Child Emperor waved his hands. "I just wished to share them. Indeed I'm suspicious of Caped Baldy, an as-of-yet unknown variable within the S-Class, but he doesn't seem like he means much harm and is actually a rather interesting foil to Tornado."

"Yeah, I noticed that. Not many people would have the nerve to challenge her or egg her on like he does, huh? Truthfully, I'm a bit more interested in that."

Child Emperor nodded, opening his mouth to respond before a white blur suddenly hopped onto the couch in-between him and Zombieman, cutting himself off with a surprised squeak.

"It's because he's strong," Watchdog-man stated in lieu of a greeting, kneading the couch beneath him to make it comfortable enough to sit around on. "Alphas got nothing to fear."

"Strong, eh? Strong how?" Child Emperor asked, composing himself with a brief cough. To his irritation, the city watchdog answered with an inelegant shrug as he settled down and stretched out on his back, more eager to capitalize on this downtime than engage in any conspiracy chatter. Child Emperor generously chose not to comment on how the man's head was now in his lap, his costumed legs dangling over Zombieman's right leg.

"Smelt it. His body reeks of raw power. Not something your gadgets can measure," he cracked one eye open towards the intrigued Emperor. "Something greater."

Zombieman's eyes widened just a bit as he let out an intrigued hum. "You're certain, huh? What do we do now, then?"

Letting out an irritated huff, Child Emperor sat back into the sofa while digging around in his pockets for some candy. He absolutely loathed not being able to confirm something that nebulous immediately, and knew for a fact that someone as apathetic as Watchdog-man would never fully explain what he just dropped into his hands.

It was so annoying sometimes, being a genius surrounded by adults who didn't take you seriously because you were a child. This is why talking to Zombieman was a good choice.

"We watch. If this ends up to be for naught, then it's only our time wasted. If Caped Baldy ends up to be more insidious than we think..."

"We hit him with everything we got," Zombieman finished, crossing his arms has he stared up at the ceiling. "If that's even gonna do something."

The child to his right scoffed as he popped a cherry sucker into his mouth, absentmindedly dropping a hand to Watchdog-man's stomach and beginning to scratch...

Had a pair of chopsticks not flown past his face and embedded itself into the window, Metal Bat shouting his triumph to a clapping Atomic Samurai. Thankfully, Child Emperor was able to swallow the candy in one go to avoid choking in his surprise.

"Nicely done."

"Thanks," Emperor snarked back, shooting the walking corpse a glare.

Oh shit, it's way too late to jump in now.

King sat back with his eyes closed, pretending to continue sleeping as Zombieman and Child Emperor were having a big discussion on how his bro could be this creepy two-faced evil guy who could be taking advantage of Tornado.

He wanted to correct them, he really did, but then he heard that it was nice of him to pretend to fall asleep and that was not the case as he really did feel kinda sleepy after eating so he decided to take a nap like the kid was, and since the kid was a genius he thought it'd be totally okay for someone as plain and not-smart as he was to sleep too, but he was always kinda weak to flattery so here we go, dumb King keeping his mouth shut again-

Wait.

Oh fuck.

Why the hell did he have to wake up at such an inopportune time, what if they grilled him for info on Saitama? He was lucky so far, Saitama was cool with giving up the rep (thank whatever God existed for him), the Association didn't bother forcing him into anything based on reputation alone, he was gold there, but what if these guys dragged him out to go kill some monsters or something and engage in some implication-riddled small-talk, inadvertently finding out his secret?!

He was screwed.

THOOM THOOM THOOM THOOM...

He was so utterly boned. Here lies King, gamer aficionado, he never got to play Ultra Smashing Sisters 7!

THOOM THOOM THOOM THOOM-

"King must be dreaming about a God-level monster he killed, with the Engine going off that strong."

Eep. He steadied his breathing with a technique he learned in an old bishōjo, and his "King Engine" slowly quieted down.

Sorry, Saitama, but I absolutely cannot draw attention to myself! Forgive me, bro!

God, he wished he was Genos and Blackluster right now, out buying drinks!

A/N: Don't expect these to be pumped out with regularity, had some extra time on my hands and got work done early, so I figured it was time to spoil you guys a little. You've all been waiting for, what was it before yesterday, 2 years? Jesus Christ.

Sorry I can't whip up a schedule, but I've got a fair deal of problems I got to work through. You can rest assured though, when I rise out of my tomb as a shambling corpse every once in a million years I will deliver you a quality meal that I poured my heart and soul into. The chapter will exist too.

.

In any case, there was a lack of our old pals Genos and Superalloy Blackluster here, huh? I wonder what they were doing...

"I want to buy these."

"Please excuse me, Demon Cyborg sir, but you've cleared out our entire soft drink aisle."

"You dare deprive my master of options?"

"Um, hey, Demon Cyborg, it's alright. Here, how about I pay for these?"

.

EDIT: Holy fuck I'm stupid, how would King have known that Zombieman thought he was being cool and pretending to sleep? I hand waved that away, forgive me.