Ultra Responsibility (My Hero Academia X Spider-Man Reader)

Issue 102 - The Bar With No Name Part 2

Vermin was not meant to be in the kitchen.

Technically, a lot of people in the Bar With No Name were not meant to be anywhere near a kitchen, but Vermin especially made the room feel less like a place where food was prepared and more like somewhere food came to die screaming.

He crouched beside the open freezer, spine hunched, shoulders twitching, his long fingers wrapped around a slab of raw meat dragged out from the cold. Frost still clung to the edges of it, melting slowly between his claws and dripping onto the tiles.

He sniffed it.

Then sniffed it again.

A delighted squeal slipped out of him, high and wet and animal.

His jaw opened wide.

Above him, the vent creaked.

Vermin froze.

He looked up.

Too late.

The ceiling grate burst inward and something black came crashing down on top of him.

Both of them hit the floor hard enough to rattle every pan on the wall.

The slab of meat flew from Vermin's hands and slapped against a cupboard with a horrible wet sound before sliding down the door.

Vermin wheezed, eyes bulging.

A fist knocked him out a second later.

I blinked down at him.

Then at the dented vent above me.

Then back at him.

"Okay," I muttered. "Did not expect to land on you."

Vermin made a faint unconscious gurgling sound.

I stood slowly, brushing dust and old vent grime off my shoulders. The kitchen was empty aside from him, the raw meat, and the strong smell of questionable life choices. I looked down at him again, trying to find the quip.

Something with rats?

No, too obvious.

Something about pest control?

Too basic.

Kitchen nightmare?

Already taken.

I pointed at him once, opened my mouth, then closed it again.

"No, no..." I sighed, stepping over him. "Moment passed."

I made it about three steps into the back kitchen before the perfect line hit me.

I stopped dead.

Turned.

Stared at Vermin's unconscious body.

Then whispered, furious with myself, "Guess the health inspector finally found the rat in the kitchen."

I clenched both fists.

"Damn it."

There was no recovering from that. The joke grave had already been filled in.

I turned away, deeply wounded by my own delayed genius, and started searching the back of the kitchen.

If there was a secret villain room, it had to be somewhere back here. That was just basic criminal architecture. I lifted pans. Checked under tables. Pulled open cupboards. Knocked on walls. Pushed at suspicious bricks. At one point I tugged on a hanging ladle because that felt exactly like the kind of thing that would open a hidden elevator.