Saitama opened the fridge.
It gave a weak hum in response. The tofu hadn't moved. Disappointing.
He pulled out a half-used bag of vegetables, a cracked carton of eggs, and something that may have once been ham. No expiration date. That made it immortal, right?
Behind him, Gwen and Cindy were still bickering over who cheated more in the last game.
"I saw you use the corner glitch!" Gwen accused.
"You web-zipped out of bounds!" Cindy shot back. "You are not the victim here!"
"I am vengeance," Gwen whispered dramatically, grabbing the controller like a sword.
"You're dramatic."
"You're eating all his snacks!"
"I earned them."
Saitama, unfazed, started cracking eggs into a pan.
Gwen peered over his shoulder. "Whatcha making?"
"Whatever this becomes."
"That's not reassuring," Cindy mumbled from the couch.
Ten minutes later, the apartment was filled with the smell of overcooked eggs, semi-burned onions, and the oddly comforting scent of soy sauce.
The pan sizzled as Saitama dumped the weird scramble onto three chipped plates.
He plopped down on the floor and handed the girls their food.
"You know," Cindy said between mouthfuls, "this could've been worse."
"That's the nicest thing anyone's said about my cooking," Saitama muttered.
A sudden, sharp crash outside shook the walls.
All three froze.
"...Please tell me that was a trash truck," Gwen said.
Saitama stood up and walked to the window. He opened the blinds.
Outside, standing in the middle of the cracked street, was a ten-foot-tall creature with lobster claws, bulging abs, and what appeared to be a gigantic monocle glued to its forehead.
It was screaming about "reclaiming the surface for the Deep Sea Aristocracy."
"Oh," Gwen said flatly. "It's one of those days."
Cindy was already tugging her mask down. "That's not any of our usual guys. You think it's some alien? Mutate?"
"No," Saitama said, picking up his slippers. "That's Lobster Gentleman. I beat him up a few years ago."
"You've met him before?"
"Yeah. Didn't expect him here though."
As they headed to the door, a bright pink pop exploded in the middle of the street. A fourth figure landed between the monster and the incoming web-slingers.
"Hold up! Pause! WAIT! SAITAMA!?" shouted a girl in a pink-and-white suit, dual katanas strapped to her back and comic panels floating around her like auras of chaos. "I knew this crossover was happening today. Hi! Gwenpool, narrator, chaos goblin, extremely genre-savvy, maybe canon depending on the week!"
She struck a pose. No one clapped.
"...Who the hell invited Gwenpool?" Cindy muttered.
"I don't know," Gwen whispered. "But I'm scared."
Lobster Gentleman raised a claw. "Foolish mortals! The tides of war crash upon you-"
BONK.
He dropped like a sack of wet clams.
Saitama stepped over him, shaking his fist like it was sore. "Man, still not enough for a workout."
Gwenpool blinked. "You're... you're really here. Holy crap. This is so canon now. I'm gonna die happy!"
"No dying in my apartment," Saitama said, walking back toward the building.
"You live here?!" she squealed. "Waitwaitwait....can I crash here too?! Please? I'll bring snacks and illegal fireworks!"
Cindy looked at Gwen. "We are not adding another one."
Gwen: "We might have to. I think she's self-inserting."
Cindy: "I hate when they do that."
Back inside, the dinner had gone cold.
Gwen picked at hers with a fork. "So. Monster attacks. Meta weirdos. Cross-universe chaos."
Cindy: "And we're sleeping on the floor of a bald guy's apartment."
Gwen: "Honestly?"
Cindy: "Yeah?"
Gwen sighed.
"...It's kinda great."
...
The apartment was small, bare walls, a plain table, one couch that had seen better days, but it was home.
Or at least, it was Saitama's home.
Gwenpool sat cross-legged on the floor like she'd always belonged there, her pink boots kicked off and her katana propped against the wall beside her.
"I can't believe this place is real," she said for the third time, spinning one of Saitama's grocery coins between her fingers. "The exact layout. The window. The TV. The mold spot on the ceiling, classic."
Cindy, sitting on the couch with a bag of chips in her lap, raised an eyebrow. "You say that like you've been here before."
"I have! In the manga. In the anime. In the bonus art pages. I could draw the floor plan from memory."
Saitama was in the kitchen, sliding open the microwave with the blank expression of a man who had accepted life's absurdity long ago. "You guys want rice or instant noodles?"
"Both," Gwenpool said.
"You're not staying over," he muttered.
She grinned. "Yet."
Gwen Stacy leaned against the far wall, arms crossed, her mask pulled halfway up so she could snack. She hadn't said much since they arrived.
Her eyes drifted around the room, taking in every detail like she was still trying to process what they were doing here.
Saitama. The Saitama. Making microwave rice and wearing bunny slippers.
Cindy nudged her with her foot. "Still think he's an alien?"
"No," Gwen said slowly. "I think he's something worse. A guy who's actually that strong. Like, with no explanation."
Saitama shrugged. "I trained."
"That doesn't explain anything!"
"It kind of does," Gwenpool offered, chewing a Pocky stick she found in his cupboard. "Three years of daily training, same routine every day. No air conditioning. Ten-kilometer runs. You'd be surprised what that does to your narrative weight."
Gwen gave her a look. "You're just making stuff up again, aren't you?"
"Nope! That's the canon."
Cindy looked at Saitama, who was now sitting down with a bowl of rice and egg, flipping on the tiny TV. "So... this is just what you do? Eat. Watch TV. Beat up supervillains?"
"Pretty much," he said. "I was gonna clean the balcony today, but then a guy in a rhino suit started wrecking traffic."
"That was this morning," Gwen said.
"Yeah," he mumbled. "Feels like a week ago."
There was a long pause. The girls exchanged glances.
"So... what do we do now?" Gwen asked.
Saitama turned toward them, rice still halfway to his mouth. "I dunno. You guys came to my place."
Gwenpool threw her hands in the air. "This is great! No agenda, no plot, just vibes! I'm calling it now, this is our slice-of-life arc."
Cindy threw a chip at her.
"I'm serious!" Gwenpool grinned. "We hang out. We eat cheap food. We fight monsters. And maybe, Saitama learns how to feel again."
Saitama blinked. "I feel fine."
"See? Already in denial. That's step one."
Cindy groaned and laid her head back on the couch. Gwen pulled her hood further down, trying not to smile. Saitama watched them all, then sighed and turned back to the TV.
An ad for a seafood sale came on. His eyes lit up.
Gwenpool leaned over the table, grinning from ear to ear. "I can already tell... this is going to be the weirdest team-up ever."
Nobody disagreed.
...
Late Evening, Outside Saitama's Apartment
A crescent moon glowed above the broken skyline of the abandoned New York district.
The air crackled with something unnatural, leftover energy from whatever pulled Saitama's home into this world.
Far above, a gliding figure landed silently on a rooftop, white cloak billowing in the wind.
Marc Spector, Moon Knight, narrowed his eyes at the building.
"There," he muttered, voice grim and low. "That's where it's coming from. Third anomaly this week."
"You're getting worked up," said Khonshu in his head, as always. "It's just a bald man with a supernatural punch. Go say hi."
"I'm not saying hi," Moon Knight growled. "I'm investigating."
From inside the apartment, a muffled explosion sound came from the TV.
"Did he just Kamehameha someone?" Gwen asked, crunching on chips.
"It's not even a real move!" Cindy yelled from the floor.
"I dunno, that was a beam of energy."
Moon Knight landed in the alleyway, slipped into the shadow of the building, and crept up the fire escape. One window was cracked open. The voices inside were casual, unworried. Suspiciously so.
Saitama's voice drifted out: "Who ate all the seaweed chips?"
A knock echoed on the front door.
Everyone paused.
Saitama, holding a half-open bag of snacks, stared at it.
"...We ordering something?" Cindy asked.
"No," Saitama said, standing up. "Lemme check."
He opened the door.
Moon Knight stood there, white costume almost glowing under the flickering hallway light.
"I'm here to ask questions," he said ominously. "There have been reports of monster sightings in this sector. I tracked the energy signatures to this location."
Saitama blinked.
"Cool," he said. "Want some chips?"
"I'm not here to snack."
Behind him, Gwen leaned over the back of the couch. "Is that Moon Knight?"
"Wait, seriously?" Cindy popped up beside her. "The guy who talks to his god and beats people up in alleys?"
"He looks... moodier in person," Gwen whispered.
Moon Knight's eye narrowed behind his mask.
"I need answers. Who are you? Why do you have dimensional rift energy clinging to your floorboards? And why did a kaiju crab monster explode in this exact neighborhood twenty-two minutes ago?"
"Oh, that guy?" Saitama scratched his cheek. "He stepped on my foot."
"...And you killed him?"
"Nah, just punched him. He exploded. Happens."
Moon Knight stepped inside slowly, surveying the room. Game controllers, snack wrappers, slippers. Definitely not a war room. Still, the pressure in the air was... off. Wrong. Heavy, like something ancient and bored had taken a nap in the middle of the multiverse.
"Don't let the vibe fool you," Cindy said. "He's real."
"Like, scary real," Gwen added, shoving popcorn into her mouth.
Saitama just looked at Moon Knight and said, "You seem tired. Want to sit?"
"...I don't sit," Moon Knight said.
Saitama walked back toward the couch. "Suit yourself."
Moon Knight took a step forward, then paused. The floor creaked.
Suddenly, something massive crashed several blocks away, a new monster, some mutant thing with a jet engine head and bone spikes. It roared through the city.
Moon Knight turned sharply. "We need to move. If that thing reaches—"
BOOM.
A blur passed him.
By the time he turned back, Saitama was gone.
Seconds later, the roar stopped. Followed by a faint:
"...welp."
Saitama walked back in, brushing dust off his sleeves.
"Wasn't that bad," he said. "I think he exploded slower than the crab one."
Moon Knight stared at him.
Silence.
Then: "You're... a threat."
Saitama shrugged. "Only if you're dinner."
Gwen snorted and Cindy burst out laughing.
Moon Knight stood there a moment longer, then simply turned and left.
"He's going to sulk for like, a week," Cindy said.
"You think he'll come back?"
"Nah," Gwen said, lounging back on the couch. "He probably thinks we're cultists or something."
Saitama sat down with a plop, reached for the remote, and asked the most important question of the night:
"Wanna watch season two?"
...