All in all, the evening was going pretty well. The food was excellent, and the wine was alright (he found out that Bunny liked Rose wine and wrinkled his nose. It definitely wasn't his favorite, that's for sure.)and Barnaby's company was actually...somewhat manageable.

Perhaps he could get used to this whole partner thing...

A loud screech interrupted his thoughts, before a woman's voice came on the intercom: "Attention, Attention. A terrorist threat has been made on the building. Please follow the directions of the staff. Please remain calm."

He blinked in surprise and quickly stood, as did Bunny, and immediately afterwards, a man came running into the room from the hall.

"Everyone please evacuate immediately. Line up single file, and go straight from here to the front doors."

"What's going on?"

Bunny had already advanced upon the man, who was looking at him with some confusion. Tiger walked up and joined him, as did Agnes and her crew. "Wild Tiger and Barnaby Brooks Jr." she helpfully supplied with a wide smile, "They're heroes."

"O-Oh! I see." The man looked startled, and backed away a step. "...Please, don't tell anyone this, but there was a bomb threat."

The two looked at each other, before looking back to the employee. "Have you found it yet?"

"...N-no."

He could hear Bunny talking with the man, but Kotetsu payed no attention, focusing on the memory of the technician that they had passed earlier. That man...hadn't looked like any maintenance guy that they had seen since, and had been completely clean.

"Old man?"

"Sorry, Bunny, but can you handle things here for a minute? I have to go."

"What the- wait! Old man-"

Bunny grabbed his wrist, and he spun around. Kotetsu looked his partner in the eye and whispered to him lightly "Just get everyone here to follow that guy's orders. You can follow me afterwards; I think I have a lead. Now let me go."

He could see Bunny's face all the way down the stairs.

The gentle clicking of the blonde's boots running to catch up behind him were all he could focus on as he speed walked away from his position by the staircase.

Kotetsu looked grim, and looked down at the camera that Agnes had forced on him after she'd evacuated.

Through all of his experience with Ouroboros, he'd acutally never been taught how to diffuse a bomb, and he was starting to freak out a little. The amount of explosives there was enough to blow up half the city block, for goodness sakes, and if neither he nor Barnaby knew how to get rid of the thing...

Kotetsu hadn't actually ever thought that not knowing what the hell to do with a bomb would be an issue, but well, now it was turning out to be a major problem.

"Don't panic."

Bunny looked at him, suddenly paying attention

"Obviously."

"There's a lot." the 'of C4' was implied, but he didn't really want anyone to overhear and cause another panic. He didn't turn around to see Bunny's expression. "And we don't have a lot of time."

Kotetsu rounded the corner, and slammed the elevator button with his thumb to open the doors. "How did you know it was here?"

"That guy that we passed. He said he was oiling the cables, but his outfit was too clean to have been working with oil." Kotetsu did turn around then. "Besides, isn't it a little suspicious for a recently built building to have to have maintenance done so soon?"

Bunny cocked an eyebrow. "That's pretty good, coming from you."

He grinned, and motioned to the ceiling, where the maintenance hatch was. "That's rude. It's up there, here, I'll go and then help you up."

Before his partner could argue, he'd jumped, tapped the hatch open and grabbed onto the lip. Kotetsu grunted and swung up his other hand, hoisting himself up into the darkness. "Got a flashlight, Bunny?" He laughed.

Kotetsu could practically hear the scowl in his partner's voice. "My name isn't Bunny, it's Barnaby." the brunette just laughed, and Barnaby sighed. "Just help me up, would you?"

One decidedly awkward tangle of limbs later, and a couple jibes at the blonde's weight, Barnaby was over at the hunk of metal, slowly opening the top case. Kotetsu flicked on the video camera that Agnes had given him just before she'd evacuated on his and Bunny's insistance.

"Are you sure that's safe?" he asked asked, more out of curiosity than concern. "I mean, it is a bomb."

The blonde pulled a pair of convinient wire cutters out of his pocket and opened the tip. "Please don't talk to me, I'm going to try and diffuse this thing."

It was Kotetsu's turn to be shocked this evening. "What! You know how?"

Barnaby gave him an acrid look over his shoulder. "A Hero should be prepared for any situation. Now stop talking. I don't want to explode myself."

The timer now read two minutes, as opposed to the sixteen that it had originally said when they'd first gotten here.

"Can you hurry up?" Tiger called from his position lounged on the floor beside both his partner and the explosives, still holding the camera zoomed in on Bunny's hands. Dispite the imminant threat of death, he was getting kind of bored. "We don't even have any time to get out of here now, you know."

The blonde leaned back on his haunches, and wiped his forehead with the back of his sleeve. "I've done it...mostly. Now I just have to get past the trap."

"Trap?"

There was a hum from Bunny as a response. He looked over at Tiger with a frown, "There's a wire both on top of and below the detonator. If I choose the right one, the bomb is harmless, but..."

Kotetsu rolled his eyes; "Just get to the point, already! If you cut the wrong one, we explode, is that it?"

Barnaby looked back down at the bomb. "Exactly."

"Choose the top one."

He scowled and looked back up. "What?"

"If you don't believe me, then the bottom one."

"Don't rely on gut instinct at a time like this!" Bunny snapped, wheeling fully around to stare at him.

Tiger scowled right back. "Then what do your 'theories' say about this?"

"I'm trying to figure that out!"

Kotetsu sat up. The timer was at fifteen seconds. "Bunny."

"What!"

Ten.

"Go 'top'"

Five.

All he saw after that was blue.

Oh! What's this? What's going on here! There was just something on the cieling...Ohhh! Wild Tiger has thrown the bomb through the roof...And then an explosive kick from Barnaby Brooks Jr.! What amazing teamwork from HeroTV's duo!``

By the time the bomb actually exploded, they were both still on the ground.

"More property damage, old man? Do you really think that that was a good idea?"

Kotetsu laughed, lounging on the ground again. "Oh come on. It worked, didn't it? If you have just cut the top one like I told you-"

A scowl. "That's the stupidest idea I've ever heard."

His grin turned into a grimace. "Oh come on." He tossed the camera to Barnaby, who caught it nimbly. "Besides, now matter how I think about it, kicking a bomb is just not right!"

"It was a split second descision. You didn't exactly leave me a lot of time, old man." Kotetsu grinned cheekily again at that, and Barnaby's scowl returned full force. "What?"

"Isn't that relying on a gut instinct, Bunny-chan?"

He was punched in the arm for his efforts, but Kotetsu smiled and laughed anyway. Yeah, today had been a pretty good day.