(PROFESSOR UZUMAKI) BONDING TIME!!!

Greg was bored.

When he had first imagined what it would be like to go on patrol with his fellow students, especially Taylor Hebert, the picture in his head had involved considerably more excitement and a great deal less waiting around on rooftops while absolutely nothing happened. The reality had managed to lose most of its appeal roughly ten minutes after they had actually begun.

Brockton Bay, it seemed, was not particularly cooperative when it came to providing dramatic hero moments on demand.

The only criminals they had encountered so far had been a small group of Merchants arguing loudly behind a convenience store and a single ABB thug who had been attempting to break into a parked car with all the subtlety of someone who had never heard of witnesses. Neither situation had lasted long enough to feel particularly heroic. Taylor had handled the first with an ease that left Greg both impressed and vaguely unsettled, while the second had ended after Greg dropped down from a fire escape and politely suggested the man reconsider his life choices.

The suggestion had been reinforced with a brief demonstration of a chakra-fuelled punch to the nearest wall.

The man had chosen to leave very quickly after that.

Since then, the city had decided to become extremely peaceful.

Which was why Greg currently sat near the edge of a rooftop with his legs dangling over the side, idly watching the slow movement of traffic below while trying to understand how professional heroes managed to tolerate this much downtime without losing their minds.

Beside him, Taylor stood with her arms loosely crossed, her posture straight and alert while her gaze swept across the surrounding buildings.

Greg had been watching her do that for the last fifteen minutes, and the longer he observed it the more convinced he became that she looked a little too intense for someone who was supposed to be reassuring civilians. The focus in her expression had an almost predatory intensity that made it seem like she expected danger to leap out from behind the nearest chimney at any moment.

In Greg’s opinion, that was probably not the image most heroes were trying to project.

Ideally, a hero should look approachable, maybe even comforting, like someone a normal person could talk to without worrying that they were about to be interrogated by an unusually determined detective. Taylor, on the other hand, currently looked like the kind of person who already knew what you had done and was simply waiting for you to admit it.

Greg suspected pointing that out would be a terrible idea.

Taylor Hebert had changed a great deal since Naruto had started teaching them, but she still possessed a way of looking at people that made them feel as though they had just said something extremely stupid.

Greg preferred to avoid that situation whenever possible. Which was why he had settled on the safest strategy available.

Talking.

“So there’s this new girl in my math class,” he said, leaning back on his hands while he looked up at the night sky above them. “And I’m starting to think she might actually be interested in me.”

Taylor made a small sound that could have been acknowledgement, although her eyes continued their slow sweep across the rooftops.

Greg kept going anyway.

“I mean, I’m not completely sure,” he admitted, “because there’s always the possibility that she’s just being polite and I’m reading way too much into things, but she laughed at one of my jokes earlier today. It was a real laugh too, not one of those awkward ones people do when they want the conversation to end.”

Taylor shifted slightly, her gaze drifting toward a distant intersection before returning to the nearby buildings.

Greg chose to interpret the movement as encouragement.

“Which is confusing,” he continued, “because I’m still trying to figure out what I did to deserve that kind of luck. My current theory is that Naruto’s training somehow made me seem more confident than I actually am, which might be enough to trick people who don’t know me very well.”

That time Taylor let out a quiet breath that sounded suspiciously close to a laugh.

Encouraged by the reaction, Greg pressed forward.

“Although even if that’s true, it still feels unfair when I think about Halle.”

That finally drew a response.

Taylor’s head turned slightly in his direction, her attention shifting away from the streets below to him.

Greg shrugged as he spoke.

“I mean, you saw what she did,” he said. “Walking straight into that mess like it was the most obvious thing in the world and somehow pulling it off anyway.”

Tales of Halle’s actions had spread through their little training group quickly enough. The story had been repeated several times, each version adding a little more detail to the picture of someone who had decided to act when everyone else had been hesitating.

Greg could not quite shake the feeling that he should have been the sort of person who did things like that.

Instead, he had been getting his ass saved by Naruto-sensei.

He sighed.

“I’m kind of jealous,” he admitted.

For a moment Taylor did not respond.

Greg had become fairly good at recognizing the difference between the kind of silence that meant she had not been listening and the kind that meant she was thinking about how to answer. The pause stretched just long enough for him to wonder which one this was before she finally spoke.

“I get that.”

Greg blinked and turned toward her.

Taylor was no longer scanning the skyline. Instead she stood beside him with her arms resting loosely at her sides, her expression more thoughtful than tense.

“For a while,” she said slowly, “I kept telling myself that planning was the responsible thing to do. I thought that if I spent enough time thinking things through, I could eventually figure out the best way to help people.”

Greg tipped his head slightly.

“That sounds reasonable,” he said.

“It does,” Taylor agreed.

Her gaze drifted back toward the streets below, though the intensity from earlier had softened into something more reflective.

“But watching Halle made me realize something.”

Greg waited while she gathered her thoughts again.

“At some point,” she continued, taking a slow breath, “all the planning in the world stops mattering if you never actually go out and do anything.”

Greg considered that.

When she put it that way, the idea felt uncomfortably familiar.

“I guess sitting around waiting for the perfect moment probably isn’t the best long-term strategy,” he said after a moment.

Taylor nodded slightly.

For a while they remained silent, positioned side by side while the distant sounds of the city drifted up toward the rooftop.

Eventually Greg spoke again.

“So we’re both dealing with a sudden increase in responsibility,” he said thoughtfully, “which is probably a polite way of saying that people are starting to expect us to make decisions that could seriously affect someone’s life.”

Taylor glanced at him.

“That’s one way to describe it.”

Greg scratched the back of his head.

“I’m still trying to get used to the part where that doesn’t sound completely terrifying.”

A small smile tugged at the corner of Taylor’s mouth.

“I think everyone is.”

Greg let out a quiet laugh as he leaned back against the cool surface of the rooftop.

When he had first imagined what hero work would be like, he had expected constant action and dramatic battles against dangerous villains. The reality, he was slowly discovering, involved long stretches of waiting, occasional bursts of excitement, and conversations like this.

It had not been what he expected, but strangely enough, Greg found that he did not mind nearly as much as he thought he would.

Sitting there and talking while they watched over the city together felt a lot more comfortable than he would have guessed when the patrol had started.