"Cleanup team can take it from here," Jordan said, watching the convoy of rescue vehicles navigate toward the disaster zone's perimeter—the steady procession of people whose job began where his ended.
Genos looked at his hands. The woven basket and its contents were somewhere in the middle distance in a state that could not be meaningfully addressed. "I need to stop at a supermarket. For lunch ingredients."
"We'll find one on the way back."
A week passed.
The cleanup crews finished. The city returned to the configuration it preferred. The Hero Association filed the incident under Dragon-level, resolved, Z-City and moved on to the next set of numbers.
The internet did not move on.
Jordan's pajama pants battle outfit—technically loose casual trousers, technically a shirtless torso, technically the result of leaving home in the middle of a phone call—had reached a level of cultural circulation that Amai Mask's thirty-two-city concert tour announcement had not managed to displace from the trending feeds. According to someone who had done the counting, screen-transmitted electrical incidents related to the photo had injured at least a hundred people, which was more than the original disaster.
The two figures who had fought alongside him were now confirmed: Genos at S-Class rank 16, designated Demon Cyborg. Saitama at rank 18, designated Caped Baldy. The public opinion forming around both of them was considerable and still building, the way things build when they start without warning and have genuine material to work with.
The restaurant had appeared on several recommendation lists in the past month, which meant the wait for a table was real but the soup dumplings justified it. Jordan had gotten a table early enough to avoid the wait. He had ordered ahead.
The hat was a practical decision—God of War baseball cap, brim down, the blond hair tucked under it with minimal effectiveness given that it was still visibly blond and present. Across the small table, Tatsumaki had chosen a wide-brimmed sun hat decorated with a bow, white lace trim, which did a considerably better job of containing her particular shade of green.
The outfit was notable. She'd abandoned the high-slit battle dress for a light green floral long dress—side slit, the kind of dress that suggested she had opinions about summer mornings—and white crystal sandals that added a few centimeters she didn't need but had clearly decided was appropriate for the occasion.
The stack of steamer baskets on Jordan's side of the table was growing with the steady rhythm of a man who had decided that 80% full was a guideline rather than a ceiling.
Tatsumaki had finished a few soup dumplings and half a bowl of wonton noodles and was now propping her chin on one hand, watching him work through the remaining options with the expression of someone who has accepted that they are in the presence of a phenomenon.
"What kind of ability is this," she said, not quite a question.
"Hmm?"
"You've eaten eleven baskets."
"Being able to eat is its own kind of blessing," Jordan said, and signaled to the owner for another round.
The floor registered a new arrival before the door opened—a tremor that had the specific frequency of significant mass moving through the entrance at a relaxed pace. A large figure settled into the seat behind them with the sound of a chair making a professional complaint, and a baguette the person had apparently been eating en route was set on the table beside an order request.
"Boss—deluxe breakfast set. Soup dumplings included."
A voice that had been shaped by size rather than aggression. Easy, unhurried, the voice of a person who had made peace with waiting.
Jordan and Tatsumaki:
Another one.
I think I know who this is.
The restaurant owner, who had been managing the morning rush with the focused calm of someone who had trained for this, found himself between two logistical problems: the new dumplings weren't ready yet, and the person waiting for them was approximately twice the width of the chair he was in.
"Sir, I'm so sorry—the new batch just went in the steamer and needs a few more minutes—"
"I'll wait," said the large man, without any detectable disappointment.
Jordan looked at his most recent basket. Looked at his stomach, which was informing him that the gap between satisfied and full was narrowing to the point of philosophical relevance.
"Give this one to that customer," he told the owner.
"But you ordered—"
"Steam another batch for me after. This is fine." He sat back slightly. "Eighty percent full at breakfast is the correct amount anyway."
The owner delivered the basket. The large man turned.
He was about two meters. The face had the quality of faces that have a lot of material to work with and have arranged it in a way that reads as fundamentally kind rather than imposing. He looked at Jordan with the surprise of someone who has received an unexpected thing and is determining how to respond to it.
Jordan met the look with a nod.
"You're welcome."
The nod was returned. No further conversation was required. Both of them had the social ease of people who had spent time in situations where large amounts of communication happened without words, and this particular situation called for approximately none.
Jordan knew who he was. Pig God. S-Class, rank 12. They had never officially met, and the hat was doing sufficient work that the meeting remained unofficial.
The restaurant continued its morning. More baskets arrived. Jordan's side of the table processed them in the order of appearance. Pig God's full order materialized in stages and was addressed with the focused attention of someone who had been thinking about this meal and was glad to have arrived at it.
When the bill came, Jordan left it settled and stood. Tatsumaki floated down from the chair with the unhurried motion of someone who has decided the morning has been adequate and can continue now.
Outside, she rose to Jordan's shoulder height without ceremony and sat there, which was a configuration she had arrived at some weeks ago and had not departed from since.
"Who was that?"
"A hero."
She considered this answer for the length of time it took them to cross the street. "A weak one?"
"The opposite, actually."
She processed this, apparently filed it, and looked at the morning city spreading ahead of them. The sun was at the angle it gets in early autumn when it's trying to make an argument about the day being worth having.
More people were noticing them as the street filled. The hat was losing the argument with recognition.
Jordan turned a corner and activated the spatial field, folding the two of them out of the pedestrian current and into the quieter geometry of a side street, then forward to the residential district at a pace that removed the remainder of the crowd problem.
The building had been twenty stories when it started the morning.
It was now approximately that, with modifications—several floors having expressed opinions about their relationship with the vertical axis that were not conventional for load-bearing concrete. Saitama had his arms up, the whole structural mass distributed across his palms, and the expression of someone who has done this kind of thing before and found it neither difficult nor interesting.
"It's fine. Everyone out."
They came out. Quickly. With the particular gratitude of people who had needed a hero and had found one, the thank-yous arriving in clusters, genuine and urgent.
And then, because this is the kind of thing that happens, a voice from somewhere in the crowd with a different orientation.
"Hey."
Saitama looked for the source. Found it: young, blond, the posture of someone who had decided that this situation was less about their building nearly collapsing and more about the inconvenience of being interrupted.
"You're a hero, right? Make sure you hold that properly." The blond kid pointed at the building. Then at Saitama. "I had a game running that I had to pause when I came out. My computer better be fine. Don't break anything. Uncle."
Several citizens in the vicinity experienced the specific awareness of watching someone make a choice.
Saitama's eyes achieved the quality they achieved when the part of him that processes social input has been presented with a data set that doesn't organize into anything meaningful. Three slow blinks.
He didn't mind uncle. He had come to terms with uncle.
The pointing and the gesturing, though. The paused game.