SSD IV: Shinsou

98. Meant to Happen

Bonus chapter number one (was this just an excuse to get you guys to the start of the action for part IV? Maybe).

"Silver, tell me where you put the damn coffee." Standing at opposite ends of the dining table, Aizawa leaned forward threateningly, his eyes burning red despite his opponent's quirklessness.

"Not happening." Silver's posture was deceptively calm. Her arms were lightly crossed, chin up in cocky retaliation, but her weight was shifted over the balls of her feet so she could take off at the slightest warning. "Your daily caffeine intake is unhealthy and we both know you should be sleeping now anyway since you patrolled through the night."

"I'll be fine if you give me my coffee," he ground out through a clenched jaw, the table creaking faintly as he leant more of his weight on it, ready to launch himself over it if she forced his hand.

He'd walked into the apartment barely an hour ago after the busiest patrol he'd had in years, made worse by the torrential downpour late yesterday afternoon, he'd been covered from head to toe by mud (from tripping when he was forced to chase a villain through a park) and blood (some of it was his, some of it was not). He was also dripping wet since another villain he'd faced had a water quirk. In other words, he'd been an utter mess and dead tired. The patrol had even run well over his usual time which meant Silver was already wide awake when he arrived.

With the mess he was, he'd been worried about getting to the shower without tracking in his weight in dirt, so he'd used the fire escape to bring him to the living room window— it also meant he'd make less noise when he snuck in.

He'd never really asked what Silver did in the mornings. She woke up by five come hell or high water and once or twice he'd walked into the living room to find her doing something akin to Tai-Chi so it was fairly understandable that when he got to the window and found Silver doing a handstand on one arm on the corner of the dining table, he stopped and stared for a bit.

Her eyes were focused on the hand below her, legs spread apart to help her stay balanced with her right arm straight out to her side. She slowly shifted to put her free arm onto the table, bringing her feet down to the sweet ground in a slow manner. Her muscle control was perfect, nobody could argue with that, though it did seem like a waste of her limited time for exercise every day to do something like that.

She didn't stop there though, hopping up onto the table in one smooth jump and landing on the edge with a single foot, her heel hanging over empty air while her arms barely had to leave her side. He wished she'd find ways of testing her balance and strength that weren't so risky, one wrong move and she could've had a nasty meeting between solid wood and fragile nose.

A little guilt for watching her while her back was turned trickled into existence, but it was much more the cold wind dragging through his wet clothes that brought him to knock gently on the window. Silver startled, naturally, jumping back from the table but landing lightly on her feet and sliding into a low crouch.

"You look like a swamp monster," she told him as soon as she opened the window up, getting what was only a half-decent look at him with the single lamp in the living room on. She'd been quick about it, grabbing him towels and making a path to the bathroom that had sort of become her own (Aizawa and Hizashi had an ensuite and there were two bathrooms between the three smaller bedrooms so Eri and Silver essentially had a bathroom each).

She brought him a fresh pair of clothes— he assumed she'd snuck in without waking Hizashi to get them— and as soon as he was out and as clean as he could get with bits of tree so tangled in his hair (he was considering cutting it out with scissors at this point), Silver forced him to take a seat so she could look at his injuries, which thankfully weren't so bad. Unfortunately, by the time all was said and done, it was too late for him to try to sleep so he'd assumed he would simply drink enough coffee to keep an elephant awake for a week straight and tough it out so he didn't feel too awful through whatever plans his insane medley of a family had today.