Title: The sash
Series: Tiger & Bunny
Timeline: Episode 8
Rating: K
Summary: Bunny pondering about what happened at his 2nd clash with Lunatic.
Comment: No real reason behind this. Wrote this out of thinking about episode 8 of the anime inspired by inerdgasm 's story 'Oldfashioned Ojisan'.
His fingers stroked over the material of the white sash in his hands, the burned edges crumbling to ash under his touch. The letters 'Let's believe' were still readable on the white textile underground framed with red on its edges.
Red.
It was still a red moon.
For everyone else who looked up the sky tonight, this would just be another phenomena of sunlight, but for Barnaby Brooks Jr. it meant something more sinister.
The feeling of failure ate on his insides - failing as a Hero, but more importantly, failing as a human being.
He could still hear the blurred howl of the ambulance taking his partner to the closest hospital.
The night's wind was cold against his skin. But feeling cold on the outside was still way better than freezing from the inside out. And it had felt like that, in the moment when his adrenaline had frozen from one moment to the next.
Why had he been unable to move like a deer caught in the headlights tonight?
Probably because he had been scared stiff due to a trauma of flames. And that man infront of him had practically bursted with flames. Blue, sizzling, devastating flames seemed to make out his whole being. And that grotesque grinning mask of a madman made looking at him not any more soothing.
It was an entirely different matter to chase after a flame throwing criminal and ducking away under his attacks during pursuit, and being the target of a flamed arrow directly aimed at your head.
At least it differed for Barnaby.
And he had made the same mistake once already. Back then his partner saved him before Lunatic could throw his arrow at him. But this time he had already fired his arrow, the blue flames zooming closer with every millisecond that seemed to stretch like aeons...
He shouldn't have looked.
He shouldn't have stared.
He should have moved the moment his enemy reloaded his fiery weapon and aimed at him already.
But he didn't do anything and only just watched until his partner took the shot for him, and still watched when he fell – seemingly in slow motion – to hit the ground hard.
While shock had tied him to the ground for an unbearable amount of seconds, this sensation yanked him out of his stiffness. But while still trying to comprehend the situation, his partner had moved again, landed a hit on the enemy's face just to break down to his knees the moment he landed on the pavement again.
First, first, what came first in this kind of situation?
Taking out the enemy or tending to the injured?
Wasn't he already standing next to his partner asking him how he was doing?
So this came first after all...
Spiced up again by the mere fact that his partner was injured, he turned around only to be stopped by said partner. HE told HIM to calm down, while Lunatic only spouted out provoking nonsense.
How could the old man be so calm? And why had he felt the other man's hand so hot on his cold skin the moment he had touched him? And Lunatic was still there, some mere feet away, daring to mock his partner's foolish ideals that had saved Barnaby's neck a moment ago.
And then he understood: The old man wasn't more calm than Barnaby himself when he heard him shout a declaration of war in Lunatic's face as an answer.
Agitated, he still wanted to pursue the enemy when his powers ran out, clearly telling him it made no sense anymore. And looking at the old man, he didn't show how much a burn by flames even hotter than Fire Emblem's could hurt – even when taking the hit with his Hundred Power switched on.
While helping the other to get much needed medical aid, his thoughts still swirled unsettling in his mind.
Why had the other bothered to save him after he had treated him so miserably until now?
Only a few days ago he had blamed him for loosing a lead to his parent's murderer, too.
But still, the old man had the nerve to try cheering HIM up, even when he was loaded inside of an ambulance and it was entirely Barnaby's fault that he was hurt in the first place.
What an unbelievable guy this naive man was.
Barnaby's fingers stroked his partner's burned sash in a caressing way.
'"Let's believe", huh?', he grinned in a sad way with his brows furrowed and his mouth trapped in a stretch between a grief and joy.