Chapter 1: i'm not trying to 'cause a big sensation, i'm just talkin' 'bout my generation
Summary:
"My Generation" - The Who, My Generation (1965)
Notes:
TW/CW: mentions of vomit
mentions of blood/gore/violence
references to maladaptive day-dreaming (?)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Tommy Soot is not an idiot. Tubbo would very much disagree, but Tommy stands firm that he is Smart.
One has to be somewhat intelligent to have been a vigilante as long as he has- about four years, give or take.
"Take a left at the next alley," Tubbo's voice crackles through Tommy's comm. "Robbery on Grand and 95th."
Tommy grins. Perfect. Nothing like some good, old-fashioned robbery stoppage to start his patrol. "Copy that."
Using Tubbo's new invention- a pair of trainers that could launch him to the top of the nearest building- Tommy made his way to the streets that Tubbo had called out.
"Hey, fellas," Tommy says as he uses the fire escape to swing down to a small group of black-clad individuals holding guns at a hunched figure. "You really got nothing better to do than rob a poor kid?"
"This ain't a kid, man," One of the men says, sounding vaguely panicked. "Just back off and let us do our job."
One of the taller men kicks the figure in the side. A pained noise comes from the person as they are knocked harshly onto their side, blood trickling from their nose.
"Big T," Tubbo chides over his comm. "Please don't antagonize the strange men in black."
Too late.
"I'm afraid I'm just doing mine, fellas," Tommy replies, smirking before he whips out his favorite invention of Tubbo's- two disc-like blades that glow in his signature red.
One of Tommy's favorite pastimes was imagining moments of his life like scenes in a movie. Call him a maladaptive daydreamer, but he'd been doing it since he was a kid and Wilbur was more of his dad than their supposed "real" dad.
He could imagine this scene now- if it was comedic, the shot would move to someone walking towards the alley, hearing the gunshots and yells and grunts, hold as they cringed and walked away. If it were serious, the camera would spin and dart around the area as Tommy sliced into the arms and legs of the robbers- artful or gorey depending on the rating.
Both scenes would end with a shot of him wiping his discs on his pant leg and walking to the robbers' victim, a hunched-over and shaking blond kid.
"Say 'hi' for me," Tubbo chirps.
"Why would I say 'hi' to a random kid for you?" Tommy asks incredulously, pausing to help the kid up. He was taller than Tommy, blood oozing from cuts in his forehead and lip and from one of his nostrils. His stormy grey eyes looked dazed, in the "where the fuck am I?" way and not the "I am high as fuck right now" way.
"You're a fucking idiot, boss man," Tubbo huffs. "How does this Clark Kent bullshit work on everyone? That's Ranboo, you dense fuck."
"Ohhh," Tommy replies, staring at Ranboo more.
Ranboo was another vigilante he worked with occasionally, a lanky motherfucker with a teleportation ability and the worst memory known to man. Out of costume, he was surprisingly handsome- not that Tommy would ever be interested in him. His jaw was reasonably strong, cheekbones high, and brow defined. Tommy was definitely handsome-r.
"Um," Ranboo mutters. "Who are you talking to?"
"Ranboo, right?"
Ranboo blinks. "How- Big T?"
Tommy grins. "Bumblebee is smarter than both of us, apparently."
"We been knew, bitch!"
"Well, thank god for Bumblebee," Ranboo sighs. "Could I, um. Crash at your guys' place? I'll get home tomorrow, I swear, I'm just... so disoriented I'd probably end up walking into a lake or something if I tried getting home like this."
"Well, we wouldn't want that to happen to my least favorite partner in crime," Tommy snarks. "You can teleport over and ask 'Bee yourself, dude."
Ranboo blinked. "Oh. Right, yeah. I'll. Um. I'll do that. Now."
With that and a swirl of purple particles, Ranboo poofs out of existence- and audibly scares the shit out of Tubbo.
"I literally gave you a warning, 'Bee, what else do you need?" Tommy cackles.
"I hate you," Tubbo huffs before a resounding "click" declares Tubbo's mic off.
Tommy cracks his neck a couple of times before attempting to find his own way home.
Hopping over buildings and fences, Tommy eventually stumbles his way into a vaguely familiar alley. He groans, his legs feeling like they were about to fall off.
He collapses onto a stack of crates, stretching his legs out and tapping his comm. "Bumblebee? Come in, Bumblebee."
Static.
Tommy groans. "Those motherfuckers better not be doing some sus shit on the clock."
As he prepared to leave the alley, another voice could be heard from down the street. Feeling brave, he stalked out of the alley, fully ready for some miscellaneous robber or petty criminal.
Instead, he was met with a head of long pink hair, a short blood-red cape, and a suit of black kevlar- The Blade.
The Blade was the #2 hero, notorious for his hatred of vigilantes and a mysterious past of villainy. The only reason The Blade wasn't #1 was his standoffish and gruff nature- the public much preferred the charismatic personality and flashy power of the #1 hero Starshine (a.k.a, Tommy's personal hero).
The Blade doesn't notice him for a split second, talking to someone over his own comm.
Tommy's body enters "fight, flight, or freeze" mode and chooses freeze, much to his chagrin. The Blade turns around and growls.
"Theseus," He sneers.
Apparently, The Blade is a big fan of Greek mythology. He's nicknamed every vigilante in the city, all after a different character in the mythology. Apparently, he deemed "Theseus" as Tommy's, while Ranboo got "Hypnos." Like, Ranboo gets to be a god, and Tommy is just a hero who dies?
Absolutely not pog.
"Y'know, Blade, your naming system of the vigilantes in L'Manberg is really subjective," Tommy snarks, his mouth deciding it was time to babble. "Like, my friend- he gets to be Hypnos, an actual god, and I'm just some mortal hero who dies? Really playing favorites there."
The Blade huffs and starts running.
Ergo, Tommy does, too.
As he's running, a click signals that Tubbo's tuned back into what he's been saying.
"Big T," Tubbo yells over his comm. "Did you just say Blade?!"
"So glad you were listening!" Tommy yells back. "Get me out of here, 'Bee!"
"Um... "Tubbo's keyboard clacks over his mic. "Take a left at the next street!"
The Blade has been on his ass since Tommy first emerged as a vigilante. He's relentless in his "research" of Tommy, always finding a way to encounter him on patrol.
Honestly, The Blade is a pain in his ass.
"Another left!"
Tommy diligently follows Tubbo's instructions.
Which was a bad idea.
"Okay, now a right! Wait, fuck, no, a left, Tommy!"
"Dammit, 'Bee!"
Now Tommy is running down an alleyway straight into a wall. Tommy is fucking screwed.
Or maybe...
Tommy continues running down the alleyway, showing no plans of stopping.
"Big T, you're aware that you are currently running INTO A WALL?!" Tubbo screeches over his comm.
"Copy that, Bumblebee!" Tommy snapped. "Give me a second!"
He felt the familiar tug in his gut as his power worked its magic, smirking as The Blade started yelling about the wall. With the grace of an acrobat, Tommy ran up the wall and pushed off like he had done a back handspring. If he were in a movie, the camera would've moved in slow motion as The Blade watched him execute a flawless flip above his head.
However, Tommy was not in a movie and did not know how to land without breaking his ankles.
Tommy felt another tug in his gut as he began plummeting to the concrete, suddenly diving into the concrete as if he were a ghost. He popped up from the ground in a random alley several blocks away.
"Fucking hell, Tommy, I know I'm not good with directions, but that was the stupidest thing you've ever done."
Tommy huffs. "Just get Ranboo to take me home, I'm gonna keep walking."
Tubbo coughs pointedly.
"Please?" Tommy grumbles.
"Only because you asked so nicely."
Once Tommy arrives at a different location, Ranboo appears next to him, a swirl of purple particles following him.
"Jesus, that is a bit freaky, innit?"
"Listen, I know you think I just teleport, but it's not really that," Ranboo explains. "I'm a dimension hopper. You're probably gonna be pretty nauseous when we get back. Just don't let go, alright?"
Before Tommy can ask any questions, Ranboo snatches his arm. With a pop and a swirl of purple particles, they arrive in what Tommy can only describe as a void. The only light is emitting from Ranboo's particles and Ranboo's eyes.
Tommy grabs Ranboo's arm with his free hand, feeling like he's moving through molasses. Finally, with another pop and swirl, they land in Tubbo's apartment.
Tommy immediately crumbles to the ground, holding back the urge to vomit as a headache pounds through his head.
"The fuck did you do to him?" Tubbo has his bleached mop of hair pulled back into a little ponytail, uncharacteristically showing his small horns that usually barely poke through his hair.
"I'm a dimension hopper," Ranboo says as if it's obvious.
"Why didn't you say that?" Tubbo scolds, helping Tommy settle into a sitting position.
"You guys just assumed I teleported, so I went with it," Ranboo replies with a shrug. Funnily enough, that's precisely how he got his name- he was initially shooting for "Rainbow." However, when Tubbo told Tommy his name, his dyslexia felt particularly vengeful that day, and his name looked like "Ranboo." Thus, Tommy called him that, and Ranboo did the same thing- just went along with it.
"Your spine is made of sponge cake," Tubbo mutters.
"I'm aware," Ranboo mumbles, having the decency to look mildly sheepish.
It took a few hours, but after several close calls, Tommy was finally not nauseous anymore and was prepared to go home. Ranboo had stumbled into Tubbo's living room after an hour of watching Tommy fight the urge to vomit, claiming he needed to be home early to visit his uncle.
"You can stay, too, you know that, right?" Tubbo murmurs as Tommy pulls on his civilian clothes. Tommy finds it a bit strange to talk to Tubbo while he can see his entire face- not exactly freaky, just off-putting in a way. And it's not his oblong pupils or horns; it's the fact that his hair doesn't cover any of it.
Tubbo's always been cagey about his hybrid traits- all Tommy knows is that they're vestiges from his truly hybrid dad. Tubbo looked disgusted enough with talking about it that Tommy now tries his best to not bring it up.
Tommy nods. "And I thank you, big man," Tommy pulls on his boots, staring at nothing. "But Phil will have a heart attack if he wakes up and I'm not there. It'd be great, but Sally would do that thing where she goes 'I'm not mad, just disappointed,' and it's worse than her being mad, y’know-"
"Tom," Tubbo sighs. "He's trying. You're not gonna get anywhere with him if you don't at least try to see things from his view."
"I don't want to get anywhere with him," Tommy scowls. "He had seventeen years to be my Dad, and if he thinks I'll just… forgive him after everything, he's an idiot."
"I said see it from his view," Tubbo retorts. "Not forgive the bastard. Frankly, you probably shouldn't. You don't owe him anything, Toms. But there's a reason he wasn't there. Maybe if you find it out, it'll be easier."
"What do you mean, 'easier'?" Tommy groans, shoving his vigilante costume into his backpack.
"To exist?" Tubbo shrugs. "To hate him? I dunno. Having the whole story just makes things… easier."
"When did you get so wise, Tubs?"
"I'm not wise, you're just an idiot, which makes me seem intelligent," Tubbo huffs, turning back to his computer setup.
"Well that was just uncalled for-"
"Go home, Tommy."
Tommy swings through his bedroom window as he does every night. And, just like every night, Fundy shoots up from his bed excitedly. "How was patrol?" He asks in a quiet hiss.
Tommy sighs. "Fundy, I thought your mom was trying to get you to sleep earlier."
Fundy groans, laying back in bed like the dramatic 10-year-old he is. "But Uncle Tommy," He whines. "I wanna help you!"
"You can help by going to sleep," Tommy replies. "If you're asleep at a normal time, my alibi is even tighter- and you can claim innocence if I get caught."
Fundy pouts.
"'Sides, Fundy, even vigilantes need to sleep," Tommy explains, tucking his backpack into his closet. "If you don't sleep, how can you fight crime well?"
Fundy crosses his arms. "I suppose you're right."
Tommy ruffles his nephew's hair. "I'm always right, Fundy. Now, bedtime."
Fundy huffs, but burrows into his blankets.
Tommy smiles at him before shedding his jeans and getting into his bed. Fundy, arguably, had the most challenging time after Wilbur died. The kid was barely five at the time. Fundy started his transition two years later, so Tommy knew he had been thinking about it when Wilbur died.
Talk about negative reinforcement.
After a few minutes of shifting, Tommy falls into a dreamless sleep.
The next morning, Tommy is awoken by a loud banging. He blinks his eyes blearily as the door swings open to reveal Tommy's new "brother," Theo.
Theo was adopted by Phil when he was 12. Tommy would have been two. He and Wilbur hadn't been living with Phil; thus, he had never met the intimidating man until five years prior. He went by "Techno" for a reason that Tommy didn't really care to learn because it was probably very stupid.
"Time for school," Techno grumbles. Fundy groans.
"But Uncle Techie," Fundy whines.
"Nope. Lights on in 3, 2, 1." The lights flicked on. Techno stalked out the door.
"C'mon, Fundy," Tommy groans. "If we're late again, your mum's gonna be mad."
Fundy huffs, but he takes the threat of Sally being angry very seriously. He stumbles over to his closet, grabbing a shirt and pants before rapidly changing.
Tommy laughs inwardly- Sally is (and always has been) an angel, and she rarely gets angry. Fundy is her little pride and joy, so it's doubly true for him.
Fundy dashes out of their bedroom door, presumably to the kitchen and then to the living room, where Sally waits to start their homeschooling with Phil.
Sally had been a student-teacher at the primary school Tommy went to and thus had a relatively well-rounded general knowledge and could help him with some sciences, history, and English. However, Sally had never been the best at maths, so Phil offered to teach Tommy and Fundy maths and history while Sally could teach English and science.
Tommy's preferred subject had always been science, but he never had an intense hatred of maths until Phil began teaching him geometry.
"Good morning, boys!" Phil chimes when he and Techno walk into the kitchen.
Phil does this weird thing where he acts like he deserves to be Tommy's dad in any capacity, and it's honestly quite tiring.
"Morning, Phil," Tommy grumbles. Techno mumbles something similar.
Phil's face visibility deflates.
Tommy, Sally, and Fundy moved in five years ago- nearly two months after Wilbur had been declared dead by the police- and in those five years, Tommy has not once called him "dad."
Even Techno doesn't call him dad, and Techno was the kid that Phil decided was worth keeping with him.
Really, Tommy's just doing him a favor in not giving Phil any misguided notions. Phil lost the right to be their father when he left Wilbur and Tommy.
And yeah, maybe Tubbo was right. Maybe Tommy didn't have the "whole" story. But he didn't want the whole story. Phil didn't deserve understanding. Wilbur would've been doing precisely what Tommy was if he had been here. He'd always been the master of grudge-holding, and, well…
Tommy's always been a little too much like Wilbur.
The next night's patrol starts out reasonably mundane, with Tubbo chomping on his weird vegan snacks far too loudly over comms and Ranboo being a nervous mess.
Tonight, they're patrolling one of the more abandoned districts of L'Manberg- home to the office building that the Eggpire collapsed five years ago. It tends to be a place crawling with villains.
Tonight is no different.
"Picking up three lifeforms coming up on your right," Tubbo announces over comm, his voice garbled from the food in his mouth.
As Tommy and Ranboo move forward, their hands rest over their weapons. They take about two steps forward before an arrow thuds into the wall next to them.
Ranboo yelps embarrassingly.
Two masked men exit from the alley across from them, one holding a bow, the other holding a glowing green sword.
The street is so silent that Tommy can hear Ranboo's breathing pick up in pace from behind him as the two men advance on them.
The second man's sword illuminates his face- completely covered in a white mask, blank save for a black frowny face.
A Dream stan, then.
Dream was a hero before Tommy had become a vigilante and had worn a similar mask- though his was a smiley face. Dream was once the number one hero, often going on missions with the number two and three heroes, Blazeborn and HD. They called themselves the "Dream Team," and they were legendary.
But five years ago, Dream went on a rampage- the same night of the Eggpire's attack, in the same district they were currently in. He destroyed buildings, left several civilians needing medical attention, and then disappeared.
HD disappeared a few months later.
Blazeborn, the one left behind, decided to work on his mental health and dropped to number thirteen because he didn't go on missions enough.
"Well, hello there, Theseus," The Dream stan sneers.
"Hi, Dream stan," Tommy replies in the same tone.
The Dream stan sputters. "I- I'm not a Dream stan," He complains. "My name is Nightmare!"
"You're just proving my point, dude," Tommy snorts.
Another arrow scrapes past Tommy's head.
"Shut up," The archer growls, his voice (very obviously modified) unnaturally deep and rumbling.
"Bumblebee?" Ranboo mutters. "Get us out of here."
"You're stuck, boss man," Tubbo replies, sounding stricken. "You're on a dead-end street, so running isn't gonna work, and I have a feeling T doesn't want to try his hand at your powers again."
Tommy huffs. "Fine."
"Uh, Big T, wait, there's-"
Without waiting for Tubbo's interruption, Tommy chucks his disc, and the street between the two vigilantes and two villains erupts in an explosion. Ranboo yanks him away from the curb, his disc lost in flames.
Suddenly, Tommy can faintly hear the opening notes of "Fantasy" by Mariah Carey, accompanied by a burst of manic laughter.
"Crater!" Nightmare scolds. "I said wait for the signal!"
"Oh, really?" A voice replies. "Sorry, I've never been too good at listening."
"Clearly," Nightmare's companion replies.
Ranboo and Tommy try to wave the smoke away as the trio of villains stare at them.
"Consider that a warning, Theseus!" Nightmare shouts. "You cross us, we can fucking kill you!"
The third villain- the one they referred to as Crater- still has "Fantasy" playing from his pocket as he cackles maniacally. "It'll be fun, little vigilante!"
With that, Nightmare and his deep-voiced friend turn on their heels and disappear. Crater stands, staring at them from the alley as the smoke dissipates. He's tall, with a tattered trench coat clinging to his ridiculously lanky frame. His mask is almost horrific- made of bits and pieces of mismatched leather stitched messily together in a grotesque fashion, goggle-like lenses attached as well- and only leaves room for his mouth to be seen. The skin around his mouth is heavily scarred, the scars almost matching the stitches of the mask.
"So you're the kids that Nightmare hates," Crater muses, scratching his masked chin with a gloved hand. "You don't look that intimidating."
Tommy recalls his disc from the street, whipping out the other. Ranboo unravels his whip, both of the teens immediately on guard.
"Aw, that's cute!"
With that, Crater stretched out a hand, another smaller explosion popping up right in front of them.
"Call me Crater!" Crater says, turning and yelling over his shoulder. "That's spelled C-r-e-a-t-e-r, because I will be greater than before!" He cackles maniacally as he makes his dramatic exit, a puff of smoke for emphasis.
"Jesus fuck," Tommy groans. "'Bee, get us out of here."
"On it, boss man."
Notes:
comments give me life!! i always love knowing people's theories teehee
Chapter 2: let me hear you depoliticize my rhyme
Summary:
"Deceptacon" - Le Tigre, Le Tigre (1999)
Notes:
TW/CW: Implied drugging (tommy gets hit by poison and is fine after a good ol' nap)
NOTE: If you read this fic before 12/7/22, please go re-read the first chapter! I have since made edits. Sorry about the delay, I have depression, yo
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Over the next week, Tommy encountered Nightmare and his buddies more and more often. He learned that his archer buddy was called "404," and his accuracy was deadly…
A deadly pain in his ass, that is.
He's running from the two of them again when an arrow nicks him in the side. Usually, that wouldn't be a problem. However, as the arrow whistles past, his vision starts to wobble and spin.
Tommy stumbles over a rock, falling to his ass ungracefully. Nightmare, with his Dream-fanboy mask, strides over, standing over Tommy. His vision swims, Nightmare's stupid mask coming in and out of focus.
"Not so tough now, huh, Theseus," Nightmare spits. If Tommy could see his face, the villain would be sneering.
"Tha's cheat'n," Tommy replies, his words slurred, even to his own ears.
"All's fair in love and war," Nightmare cackles.
Suddenly, the world around Tommy lit up. Flames roar to life behind Nightmare, who curses. The villain disappears from Tommy's vision.
A fight rages on without him as his vision continues to blur and waver.
"Big T!" A voice says in his ear. "What the fuck happened, boss man?! Get out of there, you idiot!"
"Th'nks, Tub," Tommy slurs. "W'ud if I c'ud."
"What the-" The clattering of keys follows Tubbo's exclamation. "What happened to you, T?"
"404," Tommy mumbles. "Had s'm sorta a'row. R'lly dizzy now."
"Shit!" A slamming sound. "Okay, Big T, hang in there, Ranboo will be there soon."
Tommy felt sick. "No," He groans. "Not R'nboo."
Someone enters his vision. "Hey, kid, you alright?" He was frowning at Tommy in concern, with flames flickering from the ends of his hair and bandana. His black hair and dark eyes seemed to glint like smoldering coal, meaning it was none other than-
"Bl'zeb'rn," Tommy mumbles.
"Did you just say Blazeborn?!" Tubbo shrieks in his ear. "T, you need to get out of there, NOW!"
"Yeah, that's me," Blazeborn replies. It would've sounded cocky if he didn't sound so tired. "C'mon, kid, let's get you out of here."
Tommy hears himself grumble something unintelligible before his vision swims one last time and goes black.
When Tommy awoke again, he was lying on a couch, a pastel-knitted blanket tossed over his legs. He struggles to push himself up onto his elbows, his vision wobbling dangerously.
"Whoa, dude," A voice came from another room.
Tommy's head darts toward the voice. Blazeborn stands in the entrance to what Tommy presumes is the kitchen, his normally coal-black eyes now a soft, dark green-blue, and his hair thin and brown. It's still definitely Blazeborn, though. The apartment isn't Tubbo's, and Tubbo wouldn't take him to some random person's apartment.
Wow, hero disguises suck. Contacts and wigs? Seriously ?
"Blazeborn?" Tommy ends up asking. He cringes at how hoarse his voice sounds.
Blazeborn makes a little "ta-da" motion with his free hand, the other holding a steaming cup. "Call me Elias when you're here."
Tommy blinks. What the fuck.
Blazeborn, or Elias, awkwardly shuffles forward and hands him the mug. "It's chicken broth. Should help your throat a bit."
Tommy gingerly accepts the mug, blowing at the contents before narrowing his eyes at Elias.
Elias rolls his eyes. "It's not poisoned, kid."
Tommy huffs. "Not a kid," He mutters before taking a sip. Yup. Just chicken broth.
Elias snorts. "Sure you're not." He darts his eyes towards the door, nervous that someone will appear while he's not looking, and then back to Tommy. "Look, this is my fiancé's apartment. There's a good chance he might-"
The door lock makes a loud clunking sound before the door opens. Things clatter.
"Stay here," Elias hisses. "Hey, Alex!" He calls, quickly moving towards the door.
Tommy can faintly make out a conversation between Elias and this mysterious "Alex," and it's getting clearer. He gulps one last sip of the chicken broth before setting it on the floor. Tommy gets up as quietly as he can, patting himself down as he pads over to the window.
Mask, check.
Comm, check.
Discs?
Fuck.
Elias probably took them, seeing as they are pretty clearly weapons, and Tommy is obviously a vigilante.
Quickly scanning the room as the conversation gets closer, Tommy finds his discs on the coffee table next to a small TV. Tommy quickly grabs them before escaping out the window.
His powers activate in a hurry, giving him a bit of a stomach ache as he sticks to the wall of Fiancé-Alex's apartment building. He closes the window as quickly and quietly as possible.
Which isn't very.
Before someone can yell at him from below- or Elias and Alex can shout at him from the window- Tommy shuffles down the side of the building, tapping at his comm as he goes. He flips his hood above his head and creeps into a nearby alleyway. His comm finally crackles to life, a tired-sounding Tubbo groaning.
"T, where the fuck are you?"
Tommy huffs. "Oh, hi T, how are you T, fine 'Bee, thank you, how are you 'Bee?"
"Shut the fuck up, T, and tell us where you are," Tubbo growls.
"I can make it back myself," Tommy snarks, feeling incredibly lost as he peered down the street.
"You just don't want Ranboo to teleport you," Tubbo snaps.
"I'm not afraid of Ranboo!" Tommy shrieks. "I am the biggest man, I'm not scared of teleporting! Ranboob, get here right now! We'll show Bumblebee!"
"Alright, boss man," Tubbo snickers.
Ranboo materializes in front of him, his cheeks pushing into his glasses as if he was grinning.
Tommy gulps. Damn Tubbo and his knowing of what buttons of Tommy's to push. Ranboo grabs Tommy's arm.
Tommy got a sinking feeling. "Wait, wait-"
Ranboo pulls him into the Void with that stupid grin.
Tommy spent the rest of the afternoon groaning at Tubbo and Ranboo and avoiding calls from Phil. "You manipulated me!"
"Tubbo manipulated nothing but your delicate ego and fragile masculinity," Ranboo replies in a deadpan tone.
Tubbo and Tommy blink at them. "The fuck?" Tommy murmurs.
"I learned it from my moms," Ranboo mutters, curling in on themself in embarrassment.
"Well, he's right," Tubbo snaps at Tommy. "It's not my fault your ego is like a flimsy vase, bossman."
"For your information, I have a very strong ego, excuse you!" Tommy sneers. "I am the biggest man-!"
"With the biggest ego," Tubbo huffs.
"Yes!" Tommy stops and then frowns. "Wait, no-!"
Tubbo's cackles drown out the rest of Tommy's protests.
"Wow…" A voice drawls over the comms. Tubbo inhales sharply, immediately tapping at his keyboard as the stranger continues talking.
"I knew you were young, kid, but I'm surprised how young," The stranger hums.
"Blazeborn?" Tommy hisses incredulously.
"One and only," He replies, sounding just as tired as he had the night before. "I just want to talk, kid."
"How did you find this frequency?" Tubbo demands.
"It's not all that hard when your fiancé is the head scientist of L'manburg Heroics," Blazeborn replies.
Tubbo gasps. "Your fiancé is Karl Jacobs?!"
"I thought your fiancé was the one who lived in that shit flat," Tommy huffs. "Alex?"
"They both are," Blazeborn replies, sounding a little pissed. "You got a problem with that, kid?"
"Nope!" Tommy squeaks.
A gentle murmuring could be heard from Blazeborn's end, something chiding and amused. Blazeborn groans.
"Karl says I have to be nice. Sorry, kid," Blazeborn huffs. "Anyway, I needed to talk to you."
"And you couldn't have, I dunno, fuckin' waited?" Tommy asks incredulously.
Blazeborn made a noncommittal sound, a vocal equivalent of a shrug. "I'm impatient."
Tubbo's computer suddenly pings.
"Follow those coordinates," Blazeborn continues. "I'll see you there, Theseus."
A beep signals Blazeborn's departure from their comm signal.
Tubbo whirls around with a scowl on his face. Tommy chuckles awkwardly, and Tubbo immediately launches into a rant about security.
Tommy starts tuning the older boy out when he calls him an asshole for the fifteenth time.
After Tubbo's entire hour of warnings and a full sweep of Tommy’s gear (producing a small chip in his jacket and a murderous glare from his shorter friend), Tommy makes his way to the coordinates Blazeborn provided, with a nervous Ranboo following a bit behind. This precaution was the compromise Tommy had made with Tubbo, despite insisting that he'd be fine. This claim was met with another good hour of Tubbo-Rant.
So, Ranboo was bamf-ing in and out of this dimension, with a weirdly crystalline whistle each time.
The coordinates led the two vigilantes (with Tubbo's help) to another abandoned corner of the sector that Nightmare and his buddies frequented- this time, uncomfortably close to the building the Eggpire had collapsed five years ago.
Where Wilbur died , his brain corrected him.
They were finally led to what was typically called "The Gorge," the line of destruction that Dream caused as the Eggpire collapsed the building. He had carved a gouge out of the road. It had looked like a gorge for a couple of weeks after his disappearance until it was repaired shoddily. You could still see the seams between the old and new asphalt, like scars in the road.
Blazeborn stood at the edge of The Gorge like he could still see the line-like crater that his old teammate had created. His hair was black and smoldering once again.
Ranboo finally stopped popping in and out, standing behind Tommy, anxiously wringing his hands together.
"You brought a friend," Blazeborn quips without turning around.
"You didn't say I couldn't," Tommy snaps.
Blazeborn chuckles as he turns around. "You're a snarky one, aren't you," he muses. "Sunflower?"
"What-?"
"Incoming," Tubbo mutters in his ear. With little preamble, another figure jumps from a building nearby, landing softly next to Blazeborn. Their costume is simple: black jeans, an oversized green striped jumper, a full-face mask, and a black beanie with a daisy on the front.
"Hi!" They chirp, waving excitedly.
Tommy blinks at them. Sunflower seems to deflate a bit, calling Tommy's attention to the fact that they're a half-metre shorter than him.
"Sunflower here is my backup," Blazeborn explains. "I just need some... confirmation that you're being honest."
"About what?" Tommy huffs.
"Nightmare, 404, and Crater," Blazeborn replies. "They've been pretty active in this sector, and you're the only ones with the balls to patrol here."
"What about them?"
"Descriptors of Nightmare seem to indicate he has some sort of obsession with Dream," Blazeborn explains, holding up a small screen showing two images- one of Dream's entire person and another of Nightmare's mask. Unlike the original, Nightmare's mask is dirty and cracked, even through a screen. "404 seems to have a similar knack for archery and vision that HD did," Blazeborn continues, pocketing the screen. "I just want you to keep an eye on them. Give some information, if you can."
"Can't say I know much," Tommy shrugs. "Even if I did, there's not much in this deal for me."
Sunflower hops up on their tippy toes and whispers in Blazeborn's ear. Tommy scowls. I swear, if they have some freaky mind-reading power, I'm out.
Blazeborn nods to Sunflower and continues talking. "I understand, Theseus. I just want whatever you can give on them. Nothing more."
Tommy crosses his arms, weighing his options. On the one hand, keeping tabs on these villains would suck, but on the other, it would give him a leg up against Blazeborn. But-
"What about Creater?" Tommy asks. "Does he fit the MO of any other ex-heroes?"
Blazeborn shakes his head. "Not as far as I know. Reports say he's a bit... unhinged."
Tommy snorts. "The dude's insane."
"I could look into it," Blazeborn offers. "I'll do research into Creater for whatever info you can get me on Nightmare and 404."
He sounds surprisingly desperate for a man- a hero- making negotiations with a vigilante. Tommy eyes him warily.
"Bee?" Ranboo mutters into comm. "You hearing this?"
"Could be a worse deal, honestly," Tubbo snarks. "It'd be a nice leverage against the dude until I can get some solid leads into Creater."
With Tubbo's assent (or as good as Tommy is gonna get), Tommy nods to Blazeborn. "Alright, fire man. You got yourself a deal."
Blazeborn sags a bit in relief. "Awesome. Thanks, kid."
Tommy bristles a bit but nods again. "I've only encountered Nightmare and 404 a couple of times. 404's got some nasty poisoned arrows, and Nightmare's got a weird sword."
"Do you have a read on any powers Nightmare might have?" Blazeborn asks.
"Nah, big man," Tommy replies. "Just the sword and the Dream obsession."
"He's a bit obsessed with you, too," Ranboo pipes up.
Tommy huffs. "I think all three of them are probably "unhinged," like you said."
Blazeborn looks to Sunflower. They shake their head. Blazeborn sighs, sounding defeated.
"Okay," Blazeborn nods. "Keep an eye on them, I'll look into that Creater dude."
Tommy nods firmly. "Deal."
Blazeborn shakes his head, chuckling. "You're a strange kid, Theseus," he chuckles before snatching up Sunflower and using his fire powers to propel them into the sky. Flames streak across the horizon, orange with the sunset.
"That was interesting," Ranboo muses unhelpfully.
When Tommy arrives home later that night, he walks in through the front door since it's not too late, and he had told Phil he was hanging out at Tubbo's. He's greeted by the man sitting in the living room, a mug in his hands and a kettle just starting to whistle on the stove.
"Tommy!" Phil exclaims softly. "Just in time, I was making Fundy some hot chocolate. Did you want anything?"
Tommy frowns, and his gaze lands on his nephew, curled on the other couch. Fundy is small for his age and looks even smaller in the thick blanket Phil had bundled him in, his eyes red. He ignores Phil's question and instead darts to his nephew. He vaguely hears Phil flitting about in the kitchen.
"Hey, Fundy, what happened, big man?" Tommy shoves himself onto the couch next to the shaking boy, wrapping an arm around his shoulders.
"N-nightmare," Fundy stutters. "Keep seeing things."
"Like what?" Tommy asks softly.
"Papa," Fundy replies, his voice so soft he nearly mouths the word. "And scary people that wanna hurt us."
Tommy frowns a bit, hiding his expression in Fundy's hair. "I won't let that happen, Fundy, you know that," He murmurs.
Fundy nods, but he's still shaking when Phil brings his hot chocolate. The mug is one of Fundy's favorites- bright orange with a fox sloppily painted on- and he giggles upon seeing it.
"Thanks grandpa," He whispers. Phil smiles, sitting on a chair near Fundy's other side. The boy sips at the drink as he leans into Tommy's side.
"How was Tubbo's?" Phil asks after a long moment of silence.
"Fine," Tommy replies noncommittally, as he always does. Phil tries to not look disappointed, as he always does.
As soon as Fundy finishes his cocoa, he excitedly drags Tommy back into their room to talk, brushing off Phil's concerns.
"I'll be fine, grandpa!" Fundy chirps. "Uncle Toms will protect me!"
Phil looks decidedly not soothed by this statement.
Tommy briefly thinks back to when he had first moved in with Phil and Techno, when they hadn't known how to deal with a grieving twelve-year-old, and they had asked about his powers.
Wilbur had always told him the importance of being an underdog- keep what you can actually do a secret so you can spring sick shit on people- and so Tommy had lied. "I don't have any, bitch," He had snapped with that lisp he had at the time. Phil had reared back as if he had been slapped. And then Techno had asked about wings .
Wilbur had always told Tommy that their wings were the most important thing to keep secret- vestiges like that were noticeable, trackable. They were the only thing that connected Tommy to his mother. He and Wilbur had kept each other's wings tidy as brotherly bonding time.
At Techno's mention of wings, Tommy had gone apeshit. He vaguely recalls having heard Sally lecture the older men about traumatized children.
He was brought back to the present by his nephew attempting to pull his arm out of his socket to get him to sit in the small alcove beneath the boy's lofted bed.
"Oh, no, Fundy, I can't sit in the Burrow tonight," Tommy groans. "I got my butt kicked earlier."
Fundy pouts but releases Tommy's arm. The teen sat on Fundy's bed, about hip height for him, but had a ladder for little Fundy.
"What happened today?" Fundy asks, poking his head out of the Burrow.
Tommy shrugs, rolling a shoulder and rubbing his bandaged forearm. "Not much, big man. Got my butt kicked, all that good stuff. Met Blazeborn."
Fundy gasps. "The hero?"
"One and only."
"Was he the one that kicked your butt?"
"Nah, he's lame," Tommy huffs. "A couple of villains did. They seem to have it out for me."
"The guy who has the frowny mask?"
Tommy nods. Fundy wriggles out of the Burrow before shifting into a dog. Tommy chuckles as the disturbingly ginger dog wags his tail at him. It's Fundy's official "hey, you did a good job!" reassurance.
"Aw, thanks Fundy." His nephew tackles him, shifting back into himself as Tommy falls back onto Fundy's bed with a grunt.
"When are you gonna tell Mama?"
Tommy sighs as he deposits Fundy onto his bed. "I dunno, Fund-o. I don't think your mum would like what I'm doing."
Fundy frowns as Tommy starts tucking him into bed. "I think Mama would think you were cool."
"Well, I'm glad you think I'm cool, Fundy," Tommy deflects. "That's all I need."
He ruffles his nephew's hair before turning off the lights and getting ready for bed in the dark.
As soon as Tommy walks into Tubbo's apartment the next day, his friend is screeching incoherently at him about leads.
Tommy catches something about another vigilante and waves at Tubbo. "Tubzo, you gotta slow down, what the fuck is going on?"
"You know how I've been trying to get like, a vigilante through-line set up?" Tubbo asks, pushing his fringe up.
"No?"
"Well, I've been trying to get ahold of other vigilantes in L'Manberg," Tubbo replies without missing a beat. "Try and set up a secure communication option for the vigilantes in the area, stuff like that."
Oh, yeah, that. So far, it had primarily led nowhere other than Big Q, who was pretty much Tommy from another universe.
"I finally got a message from another vigilante- and get this!" Tubbo taps his fingers excitedly as he hops back to his computer. "They're a duo! Eret and Totem, Blade dubbed them Soteria and Thor."
Tubbo quickly taps a few keys, pulling up their "files" (just a dyslexia-friendly mishmash of news articles and government research) and pointing at a picture of one. They were tall, with curly brown hair and a regal outfit, complete with a lion-like mask and velvety cape. "That's Eret, they're awesome," more keys are tapped. Another individual appears, adorned in a golden costume that looks mildly Egyptian to Tommy's untrained eye. He would be the definition of tall, dark and handsome, with his tan skin and dark hair, but any impression of angst is ruined by a blinding grin and glowing green eyes. "That's Totem," Tubbo explains. "They said they had some leads on what Nightmare's up to, if you're willing to meet with them."
Tommy grins. More vigilantes! "Sure thing, Tubs. Lemme get dressed."
The coordinates to meet Eret and Totem lead the vigilante to a warehouse in the middle of the industrial district, only a few blocks from the leading building company of L'Manberg. Tommy swings into the warehouse via grappling hook as Tubbo bemoans his dramatics.
Standing in the central area are the two people from the pictures- though the individual he assumes is Eret isn't wearing a lion mask and instead dons a simple face mask and sunglasses. They also have a ridiculous pair of platforms, making them unnecessarily tall in Tommy’s opinion (Tubbo would just translate that to taller than Tommy ). Totem looks essentially the same.
"Theseus!" Totem grins. His teeth, to Tommy's horror, seem to be pointed. Maybe dark is fitting for the golden vigilante.
"Would you prefer something else?" Eret asks, their voice low and soothing.
"Theseus is fine," Tommy replies. "Just T is cool too."
Eret nods. "I'm Eret, they/she. This is Totem, he/him."
"He/him for me, too," Tommy says with a slight wave. Totem is still grinning with those terrifying teeth.
Eret seems to notice. "I believe you're scaring him a bit, dear." Their voice is horridly fond, and they set a gentle hand on Totem’s shoulder.
Totem blinks, his grin dropping briefly. "Huh? Oh!" He pulls what looks to Tommy like a set of retainers out of his mouth. Each tooth is pointed, and they are made to fit together.
"Sorry," Totem says sheepishly, putting the retainers away. "Habit."
Eret chuckles fondly, patting Totem's head gently.
"Bumblebee said you had information on Nightmare," Tommy huffs. As much as he would like to chat with these vigilantes, they did say they had intel.
Eret seems to straighten their posture even more. "Yes, of course." They produce a thumb drive. "This is all the evidence I've collected of Nightmare's dealings thus far. We have strong evidence to believe he's working with Schlatt and the Eggpire."
"Schlatt?" Tommy echoes.
Just as every universe has its Superman, every universe has its creepy, sleazy businessman in a shiny tower who turns out to be a supervillain. Schlatt is that. He has every crime lord, drug dealer, CEO, businessman, you name it, under his thumb.
And then, the Eggpire. The largest villain group in the last decade. Powerful enough to have nearly destroyed an entire district of L'Manberg with no repercussions. Nightmare works with these guys. Not for, with. Low-level, Dream-obsessed wannabes don't work with the biggest names in the L'Manberg underground.
He is absolutely fucked.
Notes:
Comments are lovely, I am hungry for validation. I would love to hear your thoughts about everything (who ppl are, their powers, etc)!!!
Chapter 3: we all lose track a night or two
Summary:
"Sadness Loosens its Hold" - Dismal Thinkings, Foundations (2018)
A Ranboo interlude.
Notes:
CW/TW: Intrusive thoughts, mentions of kidnapping, c!Ranboo-typical mentions of memory loss
Raniero is pronounced "ra-NYEH-ro" (almost like "raw knee yay row" but with some ~~spice~~)
ALSO I retconned 1 (one) thing from the edited chapter 1: if you read before 12/13/22, please know that Tubbo has a Normal Human Nose. He has no goat nose. Thank you
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Ranboo loves his friends, he really does. Some days are harder than others (like when Tommy's ego is insufferable or Tubbo threatens to nuke something), but overall, Ranboo loves Tommy and Tubbo dearly.
Which is why it's concerning when the little voice they have in the back of their head says that they shouldn't.
The voice, which he calls "Enderwalk" because it's cool, has been present in Ranboo's head since he was twelve- after he was brought home by Dream.
According to his moms, Dream told them that Ranboo had been kidnapped and Dream had found him. Ranboo doesn't remember anything other than being happy to see his moms, feeling like he'd been gone for too long, and the uneasy feeling Dream brought him.
Enderwalk accompanied the steady decline in the integrity of Ranboo's memory.
His moms tried everything- therapists, neurologists, pediatricians, even hypnotists- to try and recover his memory, but nothing has worked thus far. Tommy and Tubbo joke about Ranboo's memory- since having as bad of a memory as he does is pretty obvious- but they don't know the full extent of it. It's not like they make a habit of mentioning it to everyone they meet, since "oh, hi, I'm Ranboo, my memory is so bad that doctors call me a lost cause" isn't really the cheeriest introduction.
Ranboo is at his school-issued therapy group when Enderwalk starts muttering about his friends and fellow vigilantes.
He stares at his name tag, "Raniero Bosco, he/they," and he muses as he drowns out the words of his classmates.
Ranboo is so much cooler, he thinks. I like Raniero, but Ranboo is so much better. Man, I'm glad Tommy saved me from being Rainbow for the rest of my career.
Though they should go easy on their fifteen-year-old self- combining two halves of their name wasn't too bad.
Stupid Tommy, ruining our good ideas.
Raniero startles, looking around as nonchalantly as he can. Only a freshman girl's mouth is moving, and they don't think it was her. He could've sworn-
We could drop him the next time we're in the Void, the voice snarls again.
Raniero finally recognizes it- Enderwalk.
"Raniero?" The voice of the school counselor shocks him out of his own subconscious. His head darts up, eyes wide. The counselor looks at them expectantly, waiting for them to share the events of their week, as most everyone is expected to do in the session. Unless they use the key phrase-
"P-pass," They stutter softly. The counselor looks mildly disappointed but nods and says the name of the person next to him.
He does it every time, so it's nothing new to anyone.
When he arrives home, he dodges his mom's questions about school with a shrug and a generic reply of "It was alright" before scrambling upstairs to his room.
They love their moms, really, but Mom can be aggressively supportive at times, and she tells Mother everything. Both are things Raniero isn't incredibly excited about at the moment.
He lies on his bed, trying to keep Enderwalk's raspy, incessantly negative voice at bay by shoving their head under a pillow. Distantly, he hears a knock on the door and his mother answering.
"Raniero!" She calls. "You have… friends at the door for you!"
He frowns into his pillow. He doesn't really have friends at school, and his only friends are really-
They gasp, darting up and scurrying down the stairs. In the kitchen stands their Mom, along with a smirking Tommy and Tubbo. Tubbo is wearing his usual I-am-outside-of-my-apartment armor of sorts- a pair of sunglasses and a beanie.
He has no idea how the two vigilantes found his house and probably shouldn't ask, lest he accrue more reasons to be arrested. It was probably Tubbo's fault.
"Oh," He mutters. "Hey, guys."
"Hey, Ranny!" Tommy crows. "We were supposed to work on that project, remember?"
"Can't believe you ditched us after therapy," Tubbo continues, shaking his head. His tone is hopefully teasing, but Raniero can never truly tell when Tubbo covers his eyes.
"Oh, yeah," Raniero mumbles, hopefully convincingly. "That project, sorry, guys."
"It's whatever, big man," Tommy shrugs. "We're here now."
"Did you boys want any snacks?" Raniero's mom asks. "We've got a full fridge!"
"Do you have any veggies?" Tubbo asks.
"I've got some carrots and celery, is that alright?"
"Perfect," Tubbo replies honestly. "Thank you, Mrs. Bosco."
Raniero frowns for a moment- how the heck does Tubbo know his last name?- when they notice they're wearing their name tag from therapy. Their mom laughs. "Please, call me Alyssa, Toby. Mrs. Bosco is Ran's other mom!"
Tubbo grins, giggling at the joke. When did they introduce themselves to her?
"Tom, did you want anything?" His mom turns to Tommy.
"Ah, no thanks," Tommy replies. "I'm alright."
"I think we'll just head upstairs, Mom," Raniero interrupts. "I'll come back for… Toby's snack."
"Oh, Ran, don't forget your appointment with Dr. Kirkendahl is tomorrow," His mom pipes up as the boys begin walking upstairs.
"Really? I thought that was next week," Raniero replies.
"Nope, it's tomorrow," She replies. "Your mother will wake you up, don't worry!"
Raniero pulls Tommy and Tubbo up the rest of the stairs.
"I have so many questions," Raniero grumbles as they shut the door behind them. Tommy lets out a loud cackle, collapsing onto Raniero's bed.
"Tubbo followed you home one night," Tommy says flippantly to their unasked question.
"Uh, no, you did, boss-man," Tubbo retorts. "You just made me find the address afterwards."
"Ignoring the several boundaries you've overstepped," Raniero interrupts. "What are you guys doing here?"
"We haven't seen you in days, dude," Tubbo complains, shoving Tommy's legs out of the way so he can also sit on the bed. "We were getting worried!"
"Speak for yourself," Tommy scoffs. "I was all for letting you die, Boob Boy."
Tubbo swiftly smacks the back of Tommy's head. Raniero is weirdly touched by the notion that the other two vigilantes were worried about him. And also very confused because he does not remember being gone for several days.
"You don't need to worry about me," Raniero murmurs. "I-"
"Ran?" A soft knock on his door is the only predecessor of his mom opening it. "I have those veggies for Toby."
"Oh, shoot, I forgot, Mom, sorry," Raniero sighs, taking the bowl of washed vegetables from his mom.
"It's alright," Mom replies. "Dr. Kirkendahl just called."
"She did?" Raniero asks.
"She thinks she might have a solution to-" Mom darts a glance over to Tommy and Tubbo. "Your memory problems."
"We'll see, I guess," Raniero shrugs.
"I'll leave you boys to your project, then." Mom closes the door behind her, leaving swiftly.
"You're seeing a doctor for your shitty memory?" Tommy snarks.
"I have been for years," Raniero mumbles, handing Tubbo the veggies. "Nothing's worked so far."
"It's really that bad?" Tubbo asks, sounding concerned as he shoves a carrot into his mouth. "Like, I knew it was bad, but I didn't realize it was I-see-a-doctor-for-it bad."
Raniero shrugs again, collapsing in his desk chair. "It's been a problem since I was twelve."
"Seriously?" Tubbo gasps, his mouth dropping open, revealing half-chewed carrot.
Raniero scrunches his nose at Tubbo. "Yeah. My moms say I was kidnapped. I probably hit my head really hard or something."
Tommy sits up, looking uncharacteristically concerned.
"Dream apparently returned me home," Raniero finishes. "I don't remember much other than getting home and… Um."
"And what?" Tommy asks, ever impatient.
"I remember being scared of Dream," Raniero admits. "Not like, scared -scared, more like… Creeped out, I guess? Yeah, he was just kinda weird."
"Wasn't he, like, super nice and cool?" Tubbo murmurs, mostly to himself.
"I bet he was, until he went on that whole rampage thing," Tommy snorts.
Tubbo frowns slightly. "You getting kidnapped was around the same time," He muses. "Weird."
"What correlation would that have?" Raniero asks. "I got back to my moms before Dream went bonkers."
"People don't do stuff like that out of nowhere," Tubbo retorts. "He probably was spiraling behind the scenes before."
"It could have been after, too," Tommy pipes up. "Maybe your moms don't keep up with hero news that much?"
Raniero shook his head. "No, my moms keep track of that really well. My uncle's a hero."
Tubbo hums, his nose twitching in thought as he snaps off another chunk of celery with his teeth. It’s weirdly goat-like, despite Tubbo’s very human nose. It’s kind of adorable, really.
"Do you know what your uncle's powers are?"
Raniero gave Tommy a scathing look.
"What? It could be helpful!" Tommy replies defensively.
"I don't remember, for your information. Even if I did, it would be illegal for me to give away a hero's identity," Raniero huffs.
"Damm," Tommy tuts, shaking his head.
We could throw him out the window, Enderwalk hisses. Then, as if remembering Tommy’s powers; toss him into the Void and let him suffocate.
Raniero shakes his head. "Yeah. Sorry."
Tubbo shucks his beanie and sunglasses, ruffling his hair and shoving another celery stick into his mouth. "You apologize a lot."
"I know, I'm sor-"
"Nope," Tubbo snaps, not rudely. "No more apologizing, okay? We wanted to check on you. That's it. You don't owe us anything, bossman."
Raniero pauses. "I didn't mean to make you worry," They say eventually. "I just… I forget how long it's been since I've seen you guys last, and-"
"Dude, you don't need to explain yourself," Tommy interrupts. "We get it."
"Well, not literally," Tubbo interjects, crunching on a carrot.
Why must he chew with his mouth open? We could drop both of them in the Void.
He scrunches his nose at Enderwalk, shaking his head as if it will get rid of the voice.
"So, you guys found my house just so you could check on me?" Raniero asks. "Nothing else?"
Tubbo and Tommy glance at each other. It's their patented Best Friend Look™, and Raniero hates how easily they can communicate sometimes.
"Well, Tommy is kind of… grounded," Tubbo says. "So we were wondering if you wanted to go over to his place."
Raniero blinks. "And you couldn't have just… called me?"
Tubbo shrugs. "Thought this would be easier."
"Wait, you're grounded?" Raniero turns to Tommy. "How did you get out of your house?"
From Tommy's stories, Phil has one hell of a protective streak. Tommy typically scoffs at his father's attempts at, well, fathering, but he does not fuck around with Phil's incessant pack mentality.
"Fundy's covering for me," Tommy replies.
"Your ten-year-old nephew?"
"Yeah, so you need to get your ass in gear," Tommy snaps. "Phil and Techno work for the Hero HQ, so I think we can get in some research on our Villain Trio."
Raniero blinks. “Uh, sure.”
Tommy grins before grabbing his arm and pulling them downstairs. "You won't regret it, big man!"
That's a lie; I most definitely will.
As they walk back to Tommy's house, the three teenage vigilantes formulate their plan. Raniero watches as the run-down suburban picket fences shift into the more modern look of the wealthier district of L'Manberg. There are sleek skyscrapers, old-looking buildings claiming historical significance, and plenty of people with very expensive-looking clothes. They feel a bit out of place in their old hoodie and ripped jeans, but Tommy and Tubbo are wearing the same thing and are still chattering between themselves without a care.
Tommy leads them to a giant skyscraper. It's a bizarre cross between modern glass and gothic architecture- something that shouldn't really work but is hauntingly beautiful. They slide into an alley.
"Alright, go time, boys!" Tommy cries, then pulls his hood up and dons his Theseus mask before staring at the wall intently.
The other two have yet to fully explain their powers to Raniero (not like he had either until a few days ago), so he's still not really sure how Tommy's powers work. The rambunctious blond can somehow have a random ability at any given moment, but it seems to require intense focus or immediate danger. Tubbo described it once as Tommy's "get out of jail free" card and didn't elaborate further than that.
After a few moments, Tommy walks forward and starts climbing up the wall like a lizard. Tubbo and Raniero watch as he crawls his way up the skyscraper.
"This isn't a great plan," Raniero mumbles.
"Nah, but it's T, of course it isn't," Tubbo snorts. "Let's go, boss-man."
The two circle around to the front of the building, entering the main lobby, and, holy cow. It's opulent and even more gothic-looking than the exterior.
Tubbo strides up to the front desk without fear and dings the little bell.
I thought they only had those in movies.
A tired-looking person not much older than Tubbo and Raniero walks out from a backroom and collapses down in the desk chair. "Welcome to the Stronghold Apartments, what can I do for you?"
"We're guests of the Watsons," Tubbo says with a grin. "Tommy is expecting us."
The clerk blinks at Tubbo. "Sure. I'll give them a buzz."
He turns to a phone and presses a few buttons. "Hey, Techno, I've got a couple of kids saying they're guests of Tommy's." A pause. "No, I- Yes, but-"
He suddenly pulls the phone away from his ear, a screeching yell coming through the speaker. "Hi, Tommy, I have some guests of yours- Uh, yes, but-" He groans. "Yes, of course." With a sigh, he slams the phone down. "Dickhead," He mutters.
He turns back to Raniero and Tubbo with a pained smile. "Elevator's that way. Floor 31." He extends a key to them. "This will let you use it. I'm Jack, if you need anything."
Tubbo grins before plucking the key out of Jack's hand. "Thanks, mate!"
Raniero follows awkwardly as Tubbo nearly skips over and turns around in the elevator just in time to see Jack slam his head into the desk.
Tubbo tsks. "Dramatic bloke, huh?"
Tommy's family is terrifying. His dad is kind, but his eyes promise death if anything bad happens. Techno, Tommy's older brother, is an intimidating figure with near-black eyes that seem to stare into Raniero's soul. Then Sarita (“Call me Sally, dear”), Tommy's sister-in-law, is a force of nature with fiery red hair and thinly veiled suspicion of the other teens.
Fundy, on a complete 180, is just as rambunctious as his uncle, though the ten-year-old is leagues more charming than Tommy. He immediately greets Raniero and Tubbo with a cheerful wave, babbling on about how excited he is to meet them.
It's overwhelming, to say the least. Raniero can feel their powers sparking at their hands, wanting to slip into the quiet and dark of the Void.
Tubbo immediately latches onto their hand, squeezing gently.
"ANYWAY!" Tommy shouts, grabbing Tubbo's other hand and pulling the other two through his family. "We're going to my room! Don't bother us!"
Tommy ignores several protests as he pulls them into his room, locking the door behind them. Tubbo peels his beanie and sunglasses off.
"Alright," Tommy groans. "Research time."
They don't manage to find more than Eret already had on the Terrible Trio (Tommy's idea) before Tubbo's police scanner pings with an alert.
"Shit," Tubbo groans. "Tommy, you good to have Ran take us back to my apartment?"
Tommy scoffs, leaping up. "I am so good, big man!"
Raniero snickers, but grabs the other two before Tommy can change his mind. He drops back into the Void with an internal sigh.
Do it. Drop them.
Raniero wrinkles their nose against Enderwalk's voice. No, I will not drop them. Tubbo's apartment, tubbo's apartment, tubbo's-
"Ranboo, what the fuck?!"
Oops.
Raniero blinks the Void from their vision, revealing where they landed their friends. It's an industrial-looking apartment, one that he has no memory of.
Obviously, that's not very reliable.
Tommy is already on high alert, slinking through the space. Tubbo is spinning in circles with his phone, trying to figure out where they are.
"Shoot, I'm sorry guys, I didn't-"
But that's all he can utter before he's grabbed around the waist and yanked back into darkness. Their vision blurs heavily as they're pulled into another space in the apartment. They can hear Tubbo and Tommy shouting for him as they face a shorter boy with dark hair. The shadows cling to his figure as he stares back at Ranboo.
"Wasn't expectin' you today, mate," He says with an easy grin. "I would've spruced the place up a bit."
Raniero blinks at the boy. His hair is mullet-y, and he has on a white headband with a red logo. A Blazeborn fanboy, maybe?
"What?" They stammer. "I don't-"
They were about to say "know you," but the words stick in the back of their throat. They may have seen them at school! Who knows- definitely not Raniero.
The boy frowns at him. "It's me. Billzo."
Raniero blinks harder. "I'm sorry, my memory is really bad, man, I don't recognize you."
Billzo frowns, reaching toward them. "Shit, dude. I know he said it was bad, but I didn't think it was this bad. You really don't know me?"
Raniero cringes away from Billzo's hand. "Uh, no, I don't, I'm sorry for teleporting in here-"
"Ranboo!" Tubbo careens around the corner, panting. "There you-" He freezes as soon as he spots Billzo. "Ran," He says, suddenly very serious. "Step away from him."
"Oh, hey, Toby," Billzo hums as Raniero takes several steps back toward his friend. "Long time no see, huh? Boss really missed you, mate."
"Shut it, Bill," Tubbo snaps. "We're on our way out."
"I'll say hi for you," Billzo sneers as Tubbo pulls Raniero towards a still-shouting Tommy.
"Fuck off!" Tubbo shouts. They finally reach Tommy, and Raniero quickly grabs the other to actually make it to Tubbo's apartment.
When they arrive, Tommy keels over, gagging loudly. "Oh, I hate that so much," He mutters.
"Tubbo, who was that guy?" Raniero asks the shorter boy as he settles in front of his computer.
"An old. Friend, I guess," Tubbo huffs.
Raniero frowns at the less-than-accurate descriptor but drops it. Tubbo is typing as rapidly as he can, and the screens flick from one page to another too quickly for Raniero to decipher anything. Tommy strides up behind Tubbo, resting his arm on the back of the inventor's chair.
"What happened, big man? Don't we have some crime to stop?"
Tubbo doesn't answer, eyes locked on the screen.
Tommy blinks, looking at Raniero.
"We met some guy who knew us," Raniero replies. "Tubbo recognized him, but I didn't."
"And he knew both of you?" Tommy frowns. Raniero nods.
Tubbo exclaims victoriously. The other two look back to the screens to see a fuzzy image. "This is CCTV footage of the outer entrance of Manberg Tower," Tubbo explains, zooming into a pixelated figure. Raniero doesn’t remember what’s important about Manberg Tower, but with the way Tommy perks up in interest, it’s something important. "With some facial recognition-" Tubbo taps a few keys- "This is William Zsoldos, also known as Billzo. He's mostly just a goon. Does a lot of dirty work, takes care of vigilantes Schlatt doesn't like."
"How do you know him?" Tommy asks, bewildered.
"My. Parents worked for Schlatt," Tubbo replies stiffly, his left hand twitching slightly. Raniero knows there are burn scars beneath the sleeve of his left arm, and they cringe as Tommy recoils apologetically. The two of them have an unspoken agreement that they don't talk about Tubbo's past. Not even jokes, nothing about his goat features, burn scars, nothing.
Tubbo waves his opposite hand. "Whatever. It just means that Schlatt might have some information on us."
"Which is very bad!" Raniero squeaks.
"So we just make sure he doesn't have it," Tubbo replies, spinning around in his chair. "How do you feel about some espionage, boss man?"
Tommy grins. "Tubbo, I would be honored."
Notes:
ranboo autism coding go brrrr
comments make keys go clicky clacky!!!!
Please let me know if any tags need to be changed, if any CW or TWs need to be added, if you'd like a description of the scenes that contain the CW/TWs, etc. I'm new to using this type of system, and I want to make sure anyone can enjoy my work!
Chapter 4: you may not like me, i'm okay with it
Summary:
"Whiskey in Hell" - Anarbor, Burnout (2013)
Notes:
CW/TW: Descriptions of derealization/dissociation, mentions of Wilbur having had hallucinations/delusions, mild descriptions of choking and violence
If you're wondering wtf happened, i went through a bit of a "rebranding" lmao. I was "choose_your_emotions," but i think "wastedoverachiever" fits better! no need to panic, i am in fact the same person :D
Happy Hannukah/Merry Christmas/Happy holidays!
c!schlatt is honestly my second favorite villain in this fic i hope you hate him /pos /gen
(imaginary cookies to whoever can guess my fave lol)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
For the next week, Tommy and his friends spent most of their time gathering as much information on Schlatt's home base as they could. Manberg Tower had surprisingly few outside security measures, but Tubbo had assured him that Schlatt was a paranoid son of a bitch and would most definitely have security inside.
Eventually, they formulated a plan- Ranboo would wait with Tubbo in case Tommy needed a quick getaway, and Tommy would go in with someone who knew the turf well.
"You're doing what?!"
Big Q, or Midas as The Blade had dubbed him, was a small bloke with a personality bigger than Tommy, perfectly matched by his sparkly powers. Q had initially been going by Quackity, and Tommy had empathized with The Blade's commandeering of their names.
The whole point of being a vigilante was to separate themselves from heroes!
"We're just gonna break into Manberg Tower, Q," Tommy replies to the smaller vigilante's shriek. "No biggie."
" JUST? That’s not-" Q made a frustrated noise. "You don't fuck around and find out when Schlatt's involved, T."
"That's why I'm trying to get you in on the whole thing," Tommy insists. "You worked for him, right?"
Q scowls, his brow furrowing behind his sunglasses. "Yes. And I'm not interested in going back. There's a reason I left, dude."
"And I respect that, Q, but his current vigilante hunter is gonna be on my goddamn tail in a few days if we don't take whatever shit he's got on us out." Tommy was really banking on Q's willingness to fuck over Schlatt here, but he didn't really have another option. He supposes that Eret and Totem could help, but he doesn't know either of them very well, and they're the types to keep to the shadows.
He and Q are too flashy for that "dark knight" shit.
There was a moment of silence before Q groaned in resignation, dragging a hand down his head and face, bringing his black beanie over his eyes. "Fine," He sighs. "Gimme a time and place, you crazy motherfucker."
All of his friends and family would tell you that waiting was Tommy's worst skill. Q was on time, if a bit earlier, thankfully.
"Alright, you ready to go face death itself?" Q huffs as he sidles next to Tommy on the rooftop.
Tommy scoffs. "We'll be fine, Big Q," He replies. "In and out, should be a breeze!"
"Yeah, should . Shit doesn't go the way it should when it comes to you," Q replies, his eye-roll almost audible.
Tommy puffs out his chest. "If we say it will, it will. Manifest it, big man."
Q shakes his head.
"T," Tubbo chimes from the comm. "Please stick to the plan."
Tommy nods quickly before fishing the additional comm piece out of his pocket. "I've told you about Bumblebee, right?" He asks Q.
"Your little friend in your ear, right?"
Tommy grins behind his mask and offers the comm to Q. "He's my Guy in the Chair. He's got some blueprints of Manberg Tower that he can guide us through, and we've got a getaway driver on standby."
Q nods, taking the comm. "Nice," He says, sounding impressed. "I didn't expect a plan from you."
Tubbo snickers as Q's voice filters through the comm. "Nice to meet you, Q."
"Alright, Bumblebee," Tommy announces with a grin and a clap. "Let's get this Espion-ahge started, shall we?"
Tubbo quickly leads them inside, avoiding the few outside cameras as they sneak into an employee's entrance. From there, he begins guiding them through the multitude of floors- hopefully leading them to Schlatt's records.
Just as Tommy is about to step into a hallway, Q pulls him back. "This hallway is one of the guard trade-off spots," He hisses. "Slow the fuck down."
"Bee, confirm?" Tommy murmured as he slunk back behind Q.
"Well, there's definitely armed people in the hall," Tubbo replies. "Can't say whether it's a shift trade-off."
"Your parents used to work here, mate, how-"
"Sorry if I didn't pay attention to the guard rotation, T," Tubbo huffs, a loud crunching sound following. Tubbo's got his vegan snacks out again.
Tommy and Q hold their breath as guards stalk past their hiding spot. Q pokes his head out as soon as they pass, nodding back at Tommy.
The two vigilantes slink out, only for Tubbo to curse.
"Behind you, Q, the shadow-"
A misty figure emerges from the shadows behind Q to pull him into a headlock. Q chokes out a curse as the villain’s arms wrap around his neck.
"Oh, hello," The figure hums as he solidifies into the same person Tubbo and Ranboo ran into the other day. "So lovely to meet you."
Billzo is a handsome motherfucker with a slimy smirk, glowing green eyes, and shadows clinging to his body. Q struggles against his arms, but the shadows around Billzo seem to surge to keep the vigilante in his headlock.
"Theseus and Midas," Billzo sneers. "The great hero and the man of gold. Not so great now, huh?"
Tommy snarls, whipping out his discs. "Fuck off, Billzo."
"Where's your friends?" Billzo asks. "They were so nice."
Q huffs, flinging out his hands. Golden sparks shimmer and slice at Billzo's face, making the shadowy villain hiss and drop Q.
"This our vigilante hunter?" Q asks, a golden blade forming in his hand.
"Yup," Tommy huffs.
"So you're my replacement," Q sneers. "Schlatt did a full 180 with his tactics, I see."
Billzo snarls again. Suddenly, his eyes flare, and he relaxes into a neutral position. Unnaturally, he spins on his heel and walks the other way.
"What the fuck?" Q whispers.
"Guards incoming," Tubbo says quickly.
Tommy and Q immediately dart the opposite way of Billzo. Tubbo attempts to help them navigate the best he can, but they end up making several wrong turns on the way.
"Just tell me where you are, boss man," Tubbo groans. "Stop bitching and help me help you."
Tommy huffs. "Recalculate, 'Bee!"
"I'm not a GPS, you arse!"
"I know where we are," Q interrupts. "Just around this corner should be- Aha!"
Q leads him to what looks to be a shrine of sorts.
"Yo, what is this?" Tommy marvels.
"A memorial," Q replies. "For his son."
"Schlatt has a son?" Tommy gasps. "What woman got with Schlatt of all people?"
" Had ," Q corrects, sounding uncharacteristically serious. "He had a son. I left when the kid died."
Tommy cringes. Yup, this is the best time for me to run my mouth. Good job, Tommy, you fucking prick.
"Wait," Tubbo sounds panicked. "T, you shouldn't- You should leave, bossman, I-"
Tommy ignores Tubbo's panicked rambling and steps closer to the stone columns that contain several toys, including a small green teddy bear. The centerpiece is a picture of a little boy with small horns, oblong pupils, brown hair, and a familiar crooked smile. A plaque above it reads, "In Loving Memory, Toby Schlatt. Beloved son and friend. He will be remembered."
The last part seems vaguely threatening, coming from Schlatt.
"Bee, are you seeing this?"
"Yep," Tubbo murmurs, sounding almost chastised.
"Bee. What the fuck."
"T, please-"
"Stop." Tommy feels himself stumble away a bit. His vision feels like he's watching himself through a murky lake, and he feels nauseous. "I'll find my own way."
He fumbles with his numb arms and hands to turn off Tubbo's panicked ramblings, turning around and darting into Schlatt's building again. He nearly trips over his own legs, plagued with pins and needles, as he runs away from a yelling Q.
Tubbo slumps over his keyboard as the connection to Tommy's comm clicks off with a gut-wrenching finality. While Tommy was one for dramatics, Tubbo had a feeling this was a little more than that. Understandably, considering seeing your friend's "death shrine" in a supervillain's office building would be pretty shocking.
Ranboo hovers behind him in his vigilante getup without his mask or ridiculous glasses. "Tubbo?" They murmur. "You- uh. You alright?"
Tubbo inhales deeply, pushing himself back to sitting. Suck it up for Tommy, Tubbo, you have to. "I'm fine, bossman. Big Q, how are we looking?"
"Uh, well, Theseus just ran off..." Q replies hesitantly. "What happened?"
"Long story," Tubbo replies, if a bit snippy. "I don't like having him run off on his own, not like that. I know we said in and out, but-"
"Nah, I don't like it either, dude," Q replies. "It's all good, kid. I'll find him, no problemo."
Tommy was... not having a good time. He vaguely remembers how Wilbur used to describe his hallucinations he called "zone-outs." He described seeing yourself outside of your body like you were a puppet being controlled by forces you couldn't comprehend.
Wilbur's zone-outs were always worse than typical hallucinations or delusions- he could stare at a wall for hours if Sally had let him, could just wander aimlessly until someone shook him hard enough to feel something again. Tommy was currently in the "wandering aimlessly" state of a zone-out, and it was not fun.
He felt like his legs were vibrating while stuck in jello- his arms the same way- and his body was a wandering NPC.
Suddenly, a pair of hands grab his shoulders, shaking him roughly. Tommy blinks rapidly, his brain being forcibly shoved back into his body.
"Hey!" A shout from down the hallway clicks his conscience back into place like a loose lego.
Tommy looks away from his shaker and sees Q sprinting down the hallway. Seeing the shorter vigilante run in his dressy outfit is almost comical. Tommy snickers a bit, mildly delirious and still feeling fuzzy.
Another voice laughs at Q. "Sorry, man, just doing my job." Billzo. Fuck.
With that, Tommy is swiftly struck on the head. With fading vision, he watches Q scowl as he's pulled into the shadows.
“Fuck!” Q shouts from the comm as Tubbo watches Tommy disappear into the shadows with Bill. “Lost him.”
Tubbo groans. “I knew I should’ve put a fuckin’ tracker on him.”
Ranboo snorts a bit. “Like a puppy?”
Tubbo gestures at the computer with Manberg Tower’s CCTV footage pulled up. “Well, if he’s gonna run off like one, might as well!”
Ranboo grabs his hand. “He’ll be okay,” The taller boy murmurs. “You’ve got access to every single camera in that place, Tubs.”
Tubbo squeezes Ranboo’s hand.
“I’m so sorry to interrupt this touching moment,” Q pipes up, sounding surprisingly genuine. “But I think I know where he’ll take T.”
Tubbo sighs in relief. He was not interested in waiting for Bill to pop up with Tommy again. Like he told Tommy, Tubbo had never really paid attention to his father’s “extracurriculars” in villainy, so he was not very confident in where any sort of interrogation room could be.
Q, on the other hand, was.
“Thank you, Q,” Tubbo sighs. “We owe you, bossman.”
“Psssshhhh,” Q waves his hand dismissively. “Not a dime, kid.”
“A favor, then,” Tubbo replies with finality. “Ranboo will meet you, stay put for a second.”
He looks at the aforementioned vigilante, who is putting on his mask and glasses. They give him a thumbs-up before disappearing with a whistle. Q looks about ready to protest when they reappear on the CCTV moments later. Q jumps in surprise. “Oh. Hi. Wow , you’re tall.”
“Where y’headed, Big Q?”
Q shakes his head a bit, looking up at Ranboo. “Uh, north. It’ll probably be labeled as, like, a banquet hall with no door.”
“Got it.”
The next half-hour is filled with Q leading Ranboo to where he thinks Tommy will be and Tubbo scouring the north cameras in Manberg Tower to find where Bill had taken Tommy.
Finally, Billzo emerged from the shadows, an unconscious Tommy in his grasp, right where Q said the entrance would be. Ranboo and Q were about two floors away, and he alerted them as such.
“Hey, Ranboo, you’re wearing the new glasses I made, right?”
“Uh, yeah, I think so,” Ranboo replies. “Why?”
“Just checking,” Tubbo replies as he activates the camera function. “There’s no security cameras where they’re taking Tommy, and I installed a camera into your glasses after you broke the last pair.”
“Why?”
“So I can see?”
“But why did you- nevermind.” Despite being exasperated, Ranboo sounds ridiculously fond, and Tubbo grins a bit.
He leans back in his chair as he pulls up the live footage from Ranboo’s glasses-camera (the file is named “Boo-Vision”). Time to watch Q, Ranboo, and eventually Tommy kick his dad’s goons’ asses.
It’ll be great.
When Tommy came to again, he was secured to a metal chair by handcuffs and chains. He began shuffling and tugging at the chains, hoping panic would set into his brain for his powers to work.
"That's not gonna work, mate," A voice scoffs from his right as Billzo solidifies out of the shadows.
Tommy scowls. "The stereotypical interrogation scene? Is this really necessary?"
Billzo scoffs again. "We have a special protocol for your kind of intruders."
"What, murder?" Tommy huffs. "Just get it over with, you twat."
"I'm afraid our usual procedures aren't being followed," A less-than-healthy-sounding voice growls from Tommy's other side. “You’ll have to excuse us.” He whips his head around to see none other than J. Schlatt enter from a sliding door, his face and goat-like features on full display. He's goatier than Tubbo, with hooves peeking out from his trousers and a bovine nose. He holds a shiny crystal glass, amber liquid messily sloshing around.
Tommy's little research on Schlatt reminds him of the businessman's powers- his horns produce a different kind of poison depending on the alcohol he drinks. It's a bizarre power, but it explains the... everything about Schlatt.
Tommy huffs. "Terrible hospitality, really. Zero stars."
Schlatt laughs- a wheezy and gravelly thing- as he steps forward. His hooves clack on the cheap linoleum as he stops right before Tommy. His eyes narrow at him, reddish where Tubbo's are golden brown. Tommy hates how much he can see the resemblance because this man is nothing like Tubbo.
"A comedian," Schlatt sneers. "How nice." He reaches forward and plucks Tommy's comm from his ear, setting it on a table behind him. "No need for any eavesdroppers, right?"
Shit.
Schlatt's grin is predatory when he turns back to Tommy. "Now. Let's discuss, shall we?"
"Not really interested in anything you have to say," Tommy huffs. "I'm not much of a businessman, really."
Schlatt keeps his creepy grin. "Oh, I'm not proposing anything, Theseus. You have information that I want. I will get it from you, whether you want me to or not."
Tommy narrows his eyes at the man. "What?"
"My employee here tells me you managed to break into his home," Schlatt continues, gesturing to Billzo. "Along with another vigilante friend of yours, and a young man who had horns."
Fuck.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Tommy spits. "We accidentally teleported in. We left. Big whoop."
Schlatt tsks, shaking his head as he sets his glass down and picks up a vial. "No. No, I think you do." He lifts the vial to the tip of his horn, and it starts filling with a nearly neon-green liquid.
"I don't," Tommy insists. "Fuck off, man!"
Schlatt sighs. The vial is filled. He takes it away from his horn, the same liquid hissing as it drips onto the linoleum. "I was hoping not to do this the hard way."
"Bullshit," Tommy huffs.
Suddenly, his comm crackles to life. "Big T, do you copy? Big T, I repeat , do you copy?"
There's a beat of complete silence and stillness.
"Oh, you fucking jackass, answer, dammit!" Tubbo huffs, chomping loudly. "I managed to turn on your comm remotely , isn't that sick?" Another beat of silence before- "I swear to god, if you died, I'm killing you myself."
"How would you do that?" Ranboo.
"I would find a fuckin' way!"
Schlatt throws the vial into the floor, grabbing Tommy's collar as the vial shatters and the poison melts the linoleum below it. "What the fuck is this, Theseus?"
"It's live, bitch!" Tommy chokes out.
"Don't know what's going on, my ass ," Schlatt growls. "Who the fuck is that!"
"Bumblebee!" Tommy shouts, praying that Tubbo can hear him. "A little help would be nice!"
"I'm gonna say this once. Only once." Schlatt growls, pulling his collar tighter around his throat. "Tell me why my son is on the other end of this thing, or so help me, God-"
"I highly fuckin' doubt he wants to be your son anymore!" Tommy replies, his voice strained. "Thought the whole 'faking his death' thing would get the message across."
"Oi, Schlatt!" Tubbo calls from Tommy's comm. "Let him go!"
"Toby-"
"I haven't been Toby in six years!" Tubbo snaps. "Get over yourself, old man."
Schlatt looks hurt for a millisecond before he wraps his hands around Tommy's throat. Tommy gasps, thrashing in the chains. His vision is starting to swim when Billzo shouts in surprise. A loud banging sound can be heard as his airway suddenly opens again. He gasps, his vision slowly settling.
Q has Schlatt wrapped in golden tendrils, and Ranboo has Billzo in a headlock. "You good, T?" Q asks.
Tommy nods, breathing heavily.
Schlatt growls at Q. "I thought I got rid of you."
"I'm a bit of a cockroach," Q snarls, tightening his hold on Schlatt. The golden energy of Q's powers sharpen, blood beading on Schlatt's skin. The goat man curses, thrashing around. His eyes lock onto Ranboo.
"You little shit," He growls. Q wraps golden energy around Schlatt's throat, squeezing as tightly as he can. Ranboo pulls out a baton and poises to smack Billzo in the temple.
Schlatt, through his choking, manages to get out a single phrase- "Enderwalk!"
Ranboo freezes, their arms falling limp.
"Ranboo, what the fuck are you doing?" Q snaps as Billzo scrambles away from the tall vigilante.
"Ready for instruction." Ranboo's voice is robotic as they address Schlatt.
"Stop them!" Schlatt chokes out.
Ranboo nods. And obeys.
Tommy’s powers decide that now is the time to work, and he feels his stomach roll as he tenses his arms and pulls. The chains snap as if made of plastic. As he darts to grab his comm, he spots Q using Schlatt as a meat shield between him and a wildly swinging Ranboo. Billzo seems to have melted back into the shadows.
"Bee? Come in, things are fucked!"
"What the fuck is happening?" Tubbo shrieks.
"Schlatt said something, Ranboo went crazy," Tommy huffs, lunging forward to try and take the baton from Ranboo. "A little backup, please?"
"Ranboo was the fucking backup," Tubbo snaps. "You just had to get yourself kidnapped!"
"Less talking, more helping!" Tommy manages to grab the baton, but Ranboo throws him off. He slams into the metal chair, collapsing with a groan.
Ranboo manages to teleport behind Q, swinging his baton. Q's powers quickly lash out to slap it away. The flashy vigilante huffs in frustration before tossing Schlatt to the floor and turning to face Ranboo.
"I'll message Eret and Totem, see what they can do," Tubbo huffs.
Tommy groans before pushing himself up. "C'mon, Ranboo, I can take you."
Ranboo nearly snaps their neck to face him.
"Oh, that's freaky." They stalk towards him. "Wait-"
"Big T, you need to get out of there now!"
"A little busy, Bee!" Tommy pants as he dodges Ranboo's strikes. His stomach aches as his powers work overtime, making him more agile and able to avoid Ranboo's wild swings.
"T, there are heroes on the way!" Tubbo shrieks. "Take Ranboo, and get out !"
Q manages to sneak up on Ranboo and, with a well-timed smack, sends the taller vigilante to the floor, unconscious.
"We need to leave," Q huffs. "Schlatt will get off the hook, but we won't."
Tommy huffs. "I could've handled that."
Q makes a face like he doesn’t believe Tommy.
It's awkward carrying Ranboo's lanky ass up many flights of stairs, but Tommy and Q manage to make it work.
"Hero ETA fifteen minutes, you guys."
Q and Tommy burst onto the roof just as Ranboo starts wriggling awake. They start thrashing in their arms.
"Fuck," Q gets his hands smacked away by errant limbs, dropping his hold on Ranboo. "Bee, Ranboo's still under whatever Schlatt did to him."
Ranboo nearly punches Tommy in the face, and Tommy drops him with a loud "FUCK".
"Stop them," Ranboo says, stiff and robotic as they echo Schlatt's order.
"Ranboo, please," Tubbo pleads. "You've got to get out of there."
"Stop them," Ranboo repeats.
"Get out , you guys!" Tubbo shouts.
Schlatt and Billzo materialize out of the shadows.
“I expected you to be a bit faster, honestly,” Schlatt says, his voice dripping with false pity. “Too bad.”
“Shit,” Q mutters. “T, we gotta go.”
“I’m not leaving Ranboo,” Tommy snaps. “No fuckin’ way.”
“T, you might not have a choice,” Tubbo says over comms, sounding near tears. “Hero ETA ten minutes.”
“I’m not leaving him!” Tommy shouts, both to Tubbo and Schlatt.
“You’ll have to tell me how heroes treat vigilantes these days,” Schlatt sneers. “Enderwalk!”
Ranboo snaps their head to Schlatt.
“Kill him.”
Notes:
Uh Oh, how'd that happen? *suprised pikachu*
yell at me in the comments or come talk to me on tumblr @wastedoverachiever !
Please let me know if any tags need to be changed, if any CW or TWs need to be added, if you'd like a description of the scenes that contain the CW/TWs, etc. I'm new to using this type of system, and I want to make sure anyone can enjoy my work!
Chapter 5: another kid to open up their eyes, to starting up a fire
Summary:
"Live Like Animals" - Nothing But Thieves, Broken Machine (2017)
Notes:
TW/CW: Minor violence, description/implication of injury, mentions of brainwashing
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“Kill him.”
Ranboo takes this instruction very seriously, immediately lunging for Tommy. Distantly, he can see Q fighting Billzo, competing spirals of gold and shadow swirling in the corner of his vision.
"Ranboo, knock it off!" Tubbo shouts across the comm. "Stop it!"
Ranboo grits their teeth and just tries harder.
"I think you're pissing him off, Bee!" Tommy replies as Ranboo's fist catches him in the side, making him wheeze.
Ranboo is not fucking playing around, and it is freaking Tommy out.
"Q, get out of here!" Tommy huffs out as he narrowly misses Ranboo's next hit.
"What about you?"
"I'm not leaving Ranboo," Tommy replies. "They'll get their ass killed if they get captured by heroes."
"And you won't?" Q snaps.
"Better both of us than just him," Tommy replies. "Go!"
Ranboo pulls out his whip. Tommy is fucked; he swears he remembers Tubbo putting barbs or something on it the last time.
"Ranboo!" Tubbo pleads. "Fucking- Hero ETA ten minutes! Do something, Tommy!"
"I'm trying!" Tommy huffs. Unfortunately, his powers don't really work for anything mental- they only give him physical abilities, and snapping his friend out of whatever the fuck Schlatt did is decidedly not physical.
Ranboo manages to wrap his whip around Tommy's ankle- and yep, he was right about the barbs. They dig into his leg, puncturing through his jeans and into the flesh of his legs. Ranboo suddenly pulls as hard as they can, dragging Tommy across the roof to lie in front of them. The barbs slice further into Tommy's leg, tearing little cuts into his trousers and flesh.
Fuck, that's gonna scar.
"Ranboo, cut it out, man!" Tommy pleads as he pulls the whip out of his leg and unwrapping it as fast as he can.
They stalk toward Tommy, raising their whip as it comes loose of his leg. Tommy cringes away, preparing for another strike. Another hand reaches out and stops Ranboo's hand from bringing the whip down on Tommy's face. They snarl, whirling around to meet whoever stopped them, and Tommy resists the urge to pull them away from the newcomer.
It's The fucking Blade.
"Bee, I thought you said ten minutes," Tommy hisses.
"That's what dispatch said," Tubbo says, sounding panicked. "How the fuck-?"
"Theseus," The Blade says. "What's up with Hypnos?"
"He's- brainwashed, or something," Tommy replies after a moment of hesitation.
The Blade hums, looking at Ranboo. They would be growling at the hero for the interruption if they could. The Blade takes a step forward, setting Tommy's friend off.
Ranboo lunges forward to The Blade, whip cracking out to the side. Blade sidesteps the attacks, pulling Ranboo into a complex sort of headlock, trapping Ranboo's arms between his and his own hands behind Ranboo's head.
"Kill-" Ranboo struggles against The Blade's hold. "-him! Kill!"
"No can do," The Blade hums calmly. "Anything that can help, Theseus?"
"I don't know," Tommy replies, hating how fragile his voice sounds.
"Hero arriving," Tubbo chimes. "Hope you've got a plan, T."
"When do I ever?" Tommy snorts.
Firewall is the hero that lands by The Blade on the roof. Firewall isn't a hero that gets out too much, being the primary inventor of L'Manberg Heroics. His partner died several years prior, and he runs a prosthesis charity in their honor.
Tommy quickly looks around to check; Billzo seems to have melted back into the shadows, and Q is nowhere to be seen.
Firewall frowns at the scene, looking between Ranboo and Tommy like he can't decide to help the Blade or apprehend Tommy.
"Help him!" Tommy snaps at the hero. "He's- fuckin- brainwashed or something, please."
Firewall recoils a bit in surprise at his pleading tone but shuffles over to Ranboo. "What do I-?"
The Blade shrugs as Ranboo continues to thrash. "Know any pressure points?"
“I think so,” Firewall shrugs and reaches his hands out. As he sets his hands down on Ranboo, the vigilante thrashes once more before freezing and falling limp and unconscious.
Wait, no, that's not what I meant, you arse!
"Hey!" Tommy protests, stepping towards the heroes. "What the fuck did you do?"
Firewall withdraws his hands. Tommy thinks he looks surprised, but he doesn't give a shit right now.
"What did you do?" He demands. Firewall turns to him, frowning behind his mask before a hand smacks into the side of his head, and his vision goes dark.
Fuck, he's gonna have a concussion after today.
Midas knows that this is a risky fucking move. He knows, okay, but he needs to check on this Bumblebee kid.
He just watched two of his friends be taken away by heroes, and that has to be fucking scary.
Midas has known that Theseus was a kid ever since they first met. Despite his voice modulator and posturing, Theseus had the undisguised mannerisms of a teenager. He was mature at times but too naive to be an adult.
Ergo, his buddies were probably the same age.
As Midas collapses into his shitty apartment, he pulls out his phone.
“Yello?”
Midas grins at his fiance’s stupid little greeting.
“Karlito,” He grins. “How’s work, mi amor ?”
“Alex!” His fiance cheers, as if they didn’t check who called (which they probably didn’t). “Babe, are you at home?”
“Yeah, just got back,” Alex replies. “Work sucked, babe.”
Karl giggles. “Aw, I’m sorry.”
“I do have something to ask, though,” Alex examines the comm that Theseus gave him. “Could you track a radio signal?”
“Do you even know me?” Karl laughs. “I did that for Eli a couple weeks ago.”
“I need a little help,” He admits. “A coworker of mine, they went missing and all I have is this… device that they use to keep in contact with their roommate.”
“... Like a phone?” Karl sounds extremely confused, like they’re debating whether Alex might be fit for a nursing home or not.
“Eh, no.”
Karl hums. “I’ll stop by after work and see what I can do.”
“Amazing,” Alex replies. “I’ll see you then, mi corazón .”
“See you,” Karl makes kissy noises through the phone even though they’re probably surrounded by other people. “I love you!”
“Love you too,” Alex smiles as he hangs up. God, he has far too much faith that Karl won’t ask too many questions. He doesn’t care too much, though.
If Bumblebee really is a teenager, and if he really is Toby Schlatt -
Alex needs to know if he’s okay.
Tommy wakes up in a metal chair with a gasp. His stomach was churning, his head pounding as he looks around, blinking to clear the blur from his vision.
Raniero is slumped over in a chair next to him, arms and legs chained down and cuffed to the chair with power dampening handcuffs. He has a cloth over his mouth, presumably as a makeshift gag, and his normal mask and glasses are nowhere to be seen.
Tommy swears quietly, attempting to move his arms. He’s chained down similarly to Raniero, though he doesn’t have power dampeners for some strange reason. Maybe the heroes thought he had no powers? That was a dangerous assumption to make about anyone, and doubly for him.
They wouldn’t know what the fuck would hit them…
Once he stopped feeling so nauseous. His stomach roils in reminder of how much he had used his powers in fighting Ranboo, protesting the mere thought of using them again.
Tommy can feel a breeze on his face, and scowls at the wall in front of him. They took his mask.
A rattling sound stops his brooding. He looks over to see Ranboo attempting to lunge at him, being stopped by chains. They struggle against their binds, scowling at him and yelling incoherently.
“Do you still want to kill me?” Tommy asks, a bit rhetorically. Ranboo tries to lunge at him. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
The metal chair teeters with Raniero’s struggling, tipping from side to side and threatening to fall over.
“Hey!” Tommy yells. “They’re gonna hurt themself! HELLO?!”
As if waiting for his yells, Firewall and The Blade enter, followed by a man Tommy has never seen. He looks tiny compared to Firewall (who’s two meters and some change), carrying various cords with suction-cup ends- which he hands to Firewall. The Blade gestures to the man, “Sneeg,” He huffs, entirely for Tommy’s benefit. Sneeg immediately goes to stand behind a boxy computer-looking device.
Firewall attempts to attach the ends of the cords to Raniero’s hair, struggling with their thick poof of hair and their thrashing.
“Blade,” Firewall huffs. “A little help?”
Tommy looks back to the door from where he was staring at Firewall mess with Raniero’s hair to see The Blade staring holes into his forehead. The Blade seems to shake out of… whatever, and moves behind Ranboo. The hero wraps his arms around Ranboo’s middle, holding him down and steady in the chair.
Ranboo screams more, incoherently wailing through their gag as Firewall carefully attaches the suction cups to their head. The hero seems to be cringing, muttering apologies as he goes.
“Sneeg?” Firewall asks. Sneeg taps a few things on the computer and nods.
“It’s exactly what you thought, boss,” Sneeg explains. “Just a simple input/output combination. Nothing fancy.”
Firewall nods, then holds out his hand to Ranboo’s head as he continues to thrash in The Blade’s grip.
“Wait, hey, what are you doing?” Tommy demands.
“There’s electronics in the kid’s head,” Sneeg replies, standing in front of Tommy. “Firewall will be able to cut off whatever signal he’s receiving to do this. Hopefully. I dunno. I’m a doctor, not a scientist.”
Tommy snarls. Hopefully? Are you fucking serious?
Firewall seems deep in concentration as he tilts his hand. Tommy hears an audible click as Ranboo freezes. Firewall tilts his hand again, and Ranboo slumps over into The Blade’s arms.
Firewall lowers his hand with a gasp.
“He still has a pulse Sam, don’t worry,” The Blade murmurs, letting Ranboo slump all the way forward. “He’ll be okay, he’s just tired.”
Firewall lets out a shaky breath, kneeling in front of Raniero. Suddenly, Ranboo gasps, shooting up straight with wide, panicked eyes.
“Ranboo?” Tommy asks before Firewall can speak. “You okay, dude?”
Ranboo blinks, breathing a bit unsteadily as he takes in the room. He flinches away from Firewall, finally looking over at Tommy.
“Hey, Ranbitch,” Tommy snarks.
Ranboo snorts. Firewall reaches up and removes the gag. Ranboo scrunches his nose as he smacks his dry lips together, coughing. “T?”
“Yup,” Tommy sighs. “What do you remember?”
“Um,” Ranboo eyes Firewall, still kneeling, suspiciously. “You… ran away. Without comm. Bee had me find you. Schlatt was… choking you. Gets fuzzy there.”
“You got brainwashed by him or something,” Tommy explains. “He tried to get you to attack me, but it’s okay,” Raniero had looked panicked, so Tommy immediately tries to soothe their worries, “I am the biggest man.”
“You kicked his ass,” The Blade huffs. “You were ordered to kill him. You were halfway to it, too, until Sam and I showed up.”
“Blade,” Firewall snaps before turning back to Ranboo, who looks like they want to throw up. “Kid, where do your moms think you are?”
Ranboo blinks. “W-what?”
Firewall sighs before removing his mask. For a frightening hero, his face is impressively normal, and strangely reminiscent of Ranboo’s mom- the one Tommy had met, who insisted he call her Alyssa.
“Uncle Sam?” Raniero gasps.
“Nero,” Firewall- or Sam, he supposes- looks pained. “What are you doing?”
“I’m- I’m trying to help people,” Raniero replies.
“You could wait until you get into a hero academy,” Sam sighs. “Vigilantism is not the solution, Nero.”
“You know they’ll never let me in, Uncle Sam,” Raniero shot back. “They’d tell me I’d be a liability for my memory.”
“Things have changed,” Sam insists.
“Uncle Sam, they only accepted people with diagnosed mental illnesses and disorders five years ago ,” Raniero replies. “They’re not going to take my diagnosis as a ‘lost cause’ very well.”
Sam sighs, but takes the argument as a loss as he stands up. “Vigilantism was not the solution, Raniero.”
Raniero swallows nervously, but grits their teeth. “What’re you gonna do? Arrest me?”
Sam sighs again. “If I have to.”
Raniero scowls. “And you say I’m the one with a backbone of sponge cake, huh, Theseus.”
“Guess it runs in the family,” Tommy snaps.
Sam looks like smoke would be pouring from his ears if it could. The Blade snorts, quickly muffling the sound with his hand.
“Seriously?” Sam snaps.
“What?” The Blade shrugs. “The kid’s funny.”
“You’re biased,” Sam spits back.
“And you aren’t ?” The Blade replies.
Sam huffs, replacing his mask before crossing his arms. “At least Zephyr will be here soon, we’ll get a neutral party in.”
Tommy feels his churning stomach drop at the mention of Zephyr, one of the most famous heroes ever. He had giant black wings that contained a truth serum of sorts, enabling him to stab people with the main barb and get them to confess anything. The man was legendary, known for bringing in the most considerable number of vigilantes and villains- a record left undefeated by even The Blade. He had also retired a year ago and hadn't been seen since.
If they had called Zephyr in, this shit was serious, and they were absolutely dead.
The Blade shrugs. “I dunno about that.”
“What do you mean?” Sam frowns. “Why else would they have called him in?”
“ They didn’t call him in,” The Blade replies. “I did.”
“You have Zephyr’s contact?” Sam scoffs. “Sure, kid.”
The Blade shrugs again. “Guess you’ll see.”
Sneeg raises his hand suddenly. “Can I, like, leave now?”
The Blade nods.
“Sick.” Sneeg removes the cords from Ranboo’s head before scrambling out of the room. On his way out, Tommy hears him say, “Oh, hey, Zephyr, long time, dude! See you later.”
Fuck. Zephyr is here.
The Blade steps in front of Tommy, almost like he’s trying to block him from whoever’s entering.
“Firewall? Blade?” A strangely familiar voice asks from the other side of the massive human wall in front of Tommy.
“Hey, Zephyr,” Sam stutters, clearly not expecting the hero. “We- I-”
“We captured a couple of vigilantes, I think you’ll want to see them,” The Blade interrupts. “Close the door?”
Tommy hears the door slam shut.
“If your mask could go,” The Blade continues.
“Blade, what-?”
“Trust me,” The Blade replies. Tommy hears the voice sigh before a rustling of material can be heard- Zephyr removing his mask.
Ranboo, who is only partially blocked by Sam, raises their eyebrows. “Oh, wow , hi.”
“Raniero?”
How does Zephyr know Ranboo’s name?
“That’s not all,” The Blade slides out of Tommy’s way. “Please don’t freak out.”
Before him, donned in the classic Zephyr getup of a green kevlar suit, black cloak, and green bucket hat, is-
“What the fuck?”
Phil.
Phil stares at him from underneath the brim of Zephyr’s iconic bucket hat. Phil ’s cloak flutters, revealing it to be the classic wings the hero was known for.
“What the fuck?!” Tommy echoes Phil’s words, decidedly more shrill.
“Tommy, what-?”
“ You’re Zephyr?!” Tommy shouts over Phil’s question. “You have wings ?”
“Mate, that’s why Tech asked if you had any,” Phil replies, tilting his head in confusion. “Why else would he?”
“T said his wings were from his mom,” Ranboo pipes up, attempting to be helpful. “I’ve only seen them, like, once. They’re pretty.”
Tommy cringes as Phil gapes at him.
“Sorry to interrupt, but I’m a bit confused here,” Sam snaps. “What’s going on?”
Phil winces. “Uh, Sam, meet my youngest.”
“Tommy? The one who lived with Wilbur?”
Phil nods.
“Should’ve expected this, then,” Sam snarks, evidently still pissy. “They must’ve been close.”
“Sam,” Phil chides half-heartedly.
Tommy sneers at the hero. “You don’t know shit about me.”
“I know what Phil’s told me.”
“Exactly,” Tommy snorts. “You don’t know shit.”
Sam scowls at him, turning back to Phil. “Well, Blade called you for a “neutral third party” vote, but apparently, that won’t work.”
“You didn’t DNA test them?” Phil asks.
“This one’s my nephew,” Sam replies, jabbing a thumb at Raniero. “Got a bit caught up in that.”
“Sorry,” Raniero mumbles. Sam rests a hand on their head, ruffling their hair in response. They cringe away from their uncle.
“I don’t know why Blade called me,” Phil glares at the intimidating hero. Surprisingly enough, the hero seems cowed by Phil, despite him being incredibly harmless comparatively. “I could use my powers,” Phil continues. “I don’t know if that would help, I dunno what you two are looking to do.”
His words seem incredibly thought over, as if he was chewing on each syllable before he said it. It was strange, because Phil’s typical speech pattern was easy-going and loose, but he seemed to have something he needed to say very carefully.
He probably just didn’t want Tommy to be mad at him.
“Blade, can I talk to you outside,” Phil says sharply. Then, without waiting for a response, yanks the larger vigilante out of the room.
His opportunity arises.
Sam rolls his eyes at the door as it closes before turning back to Raniero. “Do your moms know where you are?”
“They think I’m at T’s house,” Ranboo admits.
“And your mother was okay with it?”
“Mother is just happy I have friends,” Raniero replies, bitterly.
Ah, yes, Mother . Raniero’s stricter, Italian mom who Tommy hasn’t met. Judging by Sam’s expression, this kind of lenience is unusual for her. Tommy’s not sure he wants to meet the lady who has Ran call her “Mother.” Like, Mother. Not mom, not mama, Mother .
To be fair, Ran can be weirdly formal, so maybe they’re completely chill with it. They’d probably look at Tommy weird for thinking it was weird.
Once he’s sure Sam and Raniero are locked in conversation (as awkward as it is), he makes his move. First, his wrists and ankles become intangible, easily slipping through his restraints. He uses the metal chair to steady himself as he swings his foot into Sam’s back.
The hero lurches forward with a shout, immediately spinning back to face Tommy.
But Tommy’s invisible, fiddling with the power dampeners on Ran’s legs.
Sam huffs, muttering into a communicator. Phil and The Blade re-enter the room, alarms blaring outside.
“You said he had no powers!” Sam shouts accusingly at The Blade.
“He said he didn’t,” Phil mutters, staring at the chair Tommy was in.
Tommy finally has the stupid power dampeners off of Ranboo’s legs. He moves back to the ones on his wrists.
“Nero,” Sam snaps. “What’re Theseus’ powers?”
Ranboo stutters, trying to look like he’s still chained. “He- he doesn’t really use them, he uses gadgets mostly.”
“But he has them,” The Blade insists.
“He’s really bad at explaining how they work, I dunno if I could-” Ranboo stammers out.
He feels his body shimmer back into visibility as the handcuffs drop from Raniero’s wrists. “It’s always better if they’re a surprise,” Tommy snarks as he grabs Ranboo’s shoulder. “See ya around, gentlemen!”
“Shit- SAM!”
The Blade and Sam lunge for them in panic, but Ranboo’s powers activate before they can reach them. Tommy flips the three heroes off as the Void overtakes his vision.
Notes:
hehehehehehe The Reveal, Pt. 1. There are many in this fic.
it's a superhero au, what'd you expect?(fiances my beloved T-T)
Chapter 6: kids with guns
Summary:
"Kids With Guns" - Gorillaz Demon Days (2005)
A Tubbo interlude.
Notes:
First chapter of 2023 babey!!!!
c!Tubbo is deceptively hard to write, but I hope you enjoy this peek into his backstory! I really want to write more about how benchtrio met in this au, tiny benchtrio is so fun
ALSO! Please remember that this fic is about the CHARACTERS, not the content creators. C!beeduo are canonically married, in a way i interpret as qpr/romantic, since their canonical relationship is not confirmed. Thank you!
CW/TW: c!Schlatt-typical alcoholism, implied/referenced child abuse, implied suicidal ideation, mentioned and faked character deaths, just a lot of trauma boys
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
SIX YEARS AGO
Toby is a good kid.
All of his teachers agree- he’s well-behaved, quiet, and sweet. They spoke highly of his accomplishments, congratulating his father on raising such a “charming and polite young boy!”
His father would nod and smile and thank them, would say, “Oh, Toby’s my pride and joy,” and would shake their hands.
But at home, his father was a different person. By the time Toby was six, his father had moved the liquor cabinet so his son could bring him a drink. By age eight, Toby knew what drink to get his father depending on his mood- whisky for the bad days, scotch or gin for the good days.
Rum was for when he was in a mood Toby could only describe as murderous.
Toby was far from being his father’s “pride and joy.” Being the powerless child that his father believed him to be, all he was good for was getting sympathy points from people once his father introduced him to the world.
By age ten, Toby had had enough of living with his father (almost with living in general). For years, the only interaction his father permitted was with his teachers and his father’s personal vigilante hunter.
Alex was basically his nanny. He would entertain Toby with his shimmery powers when his father was gone in “business meetings” for hours on end, feed him when his father was too drunk to remember, and read him stories when his father was snoring. Alex was barely 20, and felt comfortable telling Toby about all his plans to run away with a pretty boy he had met on a mission, but vowed to stay with Toby.
Toby hated himself for being the reason Alex was stuck with his father.
When Toby was twelve, he had a plan of his own.
In addition to being a well-behaved, polite child, Toby was a bit of a genius. His father always chuckled when his teachers called him a prodigy, always condescending to his little inventions.
But Toby was a smart kid. A really smart kid.
So, he conspired with another vigilante-one he knew his father hated.
Icarus.
Icarus was a winged vigilante with a reputation for being destructive and snarky as all hell. Toby’s father had also declared him his sworn enemy, a role Icarus stepped into with great zeal and sarcasm. Toby also knew that the vigilante had a family of his own and might be sympathetic to Toby.
When alarms went off in Manberg Tower, Toby made his escape. He knew that Icarus was here; he just had to find him.
And find him he did.
Rounding a corner, he was nearly knocked over by the tallest person he had ever met. Toby thought his father was tall- this man was a giant.
“Whoa,” He murmured. “Hey, kid, what are you doing here?”
“Help,” Toby choked out. “Need- leave.”
“Okay, okay, I’ll get you out of here,” Icarus replied, holding his hand and leading him away. “What’s your name, kidddo?”
“Toby,” He replied. “You don’t- I can’t just walk out.”
Icarus frowned at him. “Well, why not?”
“My- my father,” Toby stammered. “He’ll kill you.”
“Who’s your dad?” Icarus asked, frowning. “I bet I can take him.”
“Alex calls him Schlatt,” Toby replies.
Icarus looked horrified. “Your dad is Schlatt?”
Toby nodded hesitantly. “Can- can you help me?”
“Are you-” Icarus looked around before continuing to walk. “Are you trying to get away?”
Toby nodded vigorously. “Father sucks.”
Icarus barked out a laugh. His laugh was strange, a cackle that sounded near insanity. “You got fucking guts, kid; I’ll give you that.”
Toby grinned.
“Hey, I’ve got an idea,” Icarus grinned back at him, gesturing to a roof access door. “How good at acting are you, kid?”
Toby can barely remember how they did it, but they managed to fake his death. All he remembers is the sensation of flying away with Icarus, feeling the freest he had in his entire life.
Icarus dropped him off on top of an apartment building. “You have anywhere to stay, kid?”
Toby shook his head. “No, but I’ll manage.”
Icarus frowned. “You can stay with us for a while,” He offered. “I’ll find something.”
Toby scrunched up his face. “But I’ll see your face.”
“I’m not exactly worried about you being a double agent, kid,” Icarus replied, peeling off his jacket and mask before leading Toby inside. “My name’s Wilbur.”
Wilbur led him to a door, opening it into a small apartment. A tall woman with red hair was in the kitchen, holding a tiny ginger-haired baby on her hip. Another child, much closer to Toby’s age, was scuttling about the living room and seemed to be yelling.
“Wilbur!” The child yelled, launching himself at Wilbur.
“Toms!” Wilbur replied, hugging the kid.
“Wilbur, you won’t believe-” The kid stared at Toby. “Wait, who’re you?”
“Tommy, this is Toby, Toby, this is Tommy,” Wilbur said, crouching down to their heights. “He’s my little brother,” Wilbur explained to Toby, who was very overwhelmed.
“What’re you doing here?” Tommy snapped, his blond hair bobbing as he clambered onto Wilbur’s back.
“Hey, gremlin, that’s very rude,” Wilbur chided. “Toby here just needs a place to stay for a bit.”
“We have guests?” The woman asked from the kitchen.
Wilbur swung Tommy back to the ground before putting his hand on Toby’s shoulder and leading him to the kitchen. The woman’s name, he learned, was Sally. She was Wilbur’s wife. The baby on her hip was Florence, Wilbur and Sally’s kid.
“I won’t be here for too long,” He promised Sally.
“Oh, honey,” Sally murmured as she set him down a plate at the table. “You’re welcome as long as you need.”
Toby only stayed with Wilbur’s family for a couple of days, just until he could manage to forge some new documents and hack into one of his father’s plethora of bank accounts.
He decided to change his name, too, on all of the accounts. He was now Tubbo Newton- a nickname people at primary school had used to tease him with and the surname of a famous scientist. It felt like a new beginning.
He didn’t tell Wilbur his new name but did tell the man when he left. He had looked very concerned but allowed Toby to go with what he called a “care package”- several meals from Sally, a toy or two from Tommy, and a slip of paper.
“Those are our phone numbers,” Wilbur explained. “Mine, Sally’s, and our landline. Call us if you ever need anything- and I mean anything , Toby. Please.”
Toby nodded.
By the time he garnered the courage to call, Sally had tearfully explained that Wilbur had died.
FIVE YEARS AGO
When Tubbo was looking at his police scanner, he was not expecting to hear about a vigilante with wings.
But once he heard they thought Icarus had resurfaced, he knew he needed to investigate.
He felt a sort of indignation at someone impersonating his old saviour, something he didn’t really think he deserved to feel but did anyway.
He tracked the vigilante for months before meeting him.
Lo and behold, it was a kid. Not just any kid; it was Tommy fucking Soot, a.k.a, Wilbur’s little brother.
Tommy barely recognized him, and when Tubbo took mild offense, the younger boy admitted his memories from the past years of his life were becoming fuzzy.
“Phil says it’s trauma,” Tommy had sniffed. “But I think Phil’s bullshit.”
The two of them became fast friends, and Tubbo was eternally grateful that Tommy didn’t know anything about his father- why he had stayed with them in the first place- because it made for an easy friendship.
Tommy never doubted him, and he questioned Tommy constantly semi-jokingly. His best friend was just a bit of an idiot, and Tubbo was a bit of an asshole, so it was natural that they made fun of each other.
Tommy had pouted for weeks when Tubbo had suggested that they wrangle Ranboo, a new vigilante they had met, into their little group.
“We’re fine, big man!” Tommy had complained. “Ranboo’s stupid.”
Tubbo rolled his eyes. “He can teleport, Tommy,” Tubbo replied. “That’s infinitely cool. And useful!”
“You just want to hang out with him ‘cause he’s cute,” Tommy snarked.
“I haven’t even seen him,” Tubbo deadpanned.
While Tommy was kind of an idiot, he understood people well. So, yeah, Tubbo thought Ranboo was cute.
They also were very sweet, had a cool power, and had an adorable smile.
Tommy had laughed for hours when he learned about Tubbo’s crush, and Tubbo vowed to make fun of Tommy incessantly whenever he talked about women in retaliation.
PRESENT DAY
The last thing Tubbo expects is to get a knock at his door.
It’s only about eleven in the morning, and he just woke up. He hadn’t slept much after last night- he stayed up just watching whatever he could see through “Boo-Vision”- and he had slept in more than he would have liked.
He needs to get on finding Tommy and Ranboo.
So the knock at his door is a bit inconvenient. He quickly pulls on his sunglasses and beanie and peeks through the peephole in his door- it looks like Q had through Boo-Vision the night before, albeit much closer to Tubbo’s own height.
“Password,” he barks.
Maybe-Q startles. “Password?” He echoes.
Tubbo doesn’t respond.
“Uh.” Q scratches his head through his beanie. “Abracadabra?”
Tubbo suppresses a snort. God, this guy is a lot like Tommy.
When he doesn’t respond, Q tries again. “Pease? Bumblebee? Theseus? What was that kid’s- oh, Ranboo?”
Tubbo doesn’t move. Okay, he remembers Ranboo. Good.
“Kid, I don’t know what to say to make you believe it’s me,” Q sighs. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
Tubbo slowly unlocks the door before yanking Q in quickly. He shouts in surprise before Tubbo scowls at him, locking the door.
“How did you find this address?”
Q holds his borrowed comm up sheepishly. “My fiance’s good with computers, I had them track this.”
Tubbo huffs in frustration, holding his hand out. “Great. I’ll let Theseus know he’s an irresponsible twat once I get him back.”
Q pauses. He hands Tubbo the comm. “I like your beanie.”
Tubbo shrugs. “It’s nice. Had it for a while.” When Q doesn’t move- “I’m fine. You can leave now.”
“What you said, about Toby-”
Tubbo feels his whole body lock up, panic bells in his head. “No.”
“No?” Q echoes.
“My name isn’t Toby,” Tubbo spits. “My so-called “father” is dead to me, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“I wasn’t- You’re Toby?”
Tubbo groans. “What did I just say?”
“You were Toby, though, weren’t you?”
Tubbo wrinkles his nose. “I guess. I know you like, worked for him or whatever, so-”
Q laughs, ripping off his sunglasses. “Dude, I thought you died.”
That is- Tubbo feels like his brain is slowly shutting down. Standing before him, instead of Q- Midas- whoever- is Alex Quijada. Alex. The person who had taken care of him when his dad wouldn’t, despite being barely an adult himself.
“Alex?”
Alex grins as Tubbo peels off his beanie and sunglasses. “Kid, I cannot explain how good it is to see you.”
Tubbo grins, feeling a little insane. “What the hell! How- what?”
Alex’s grin looks as crazy as Tubbo feels. “My fiance’s awesome, dude. I’m glad you’re okay. Well, physically at least.”
He feels his grin slide off his face. Alex cringes.
“How’re you holding up?”
Tubbo feels his face continue to crumple without his permission, a few tears sliding down his face. He attempts to wrangle his emotions back in line, but once they start, the tears won’t stop. Alex gasps softly, wrapping Tubbo in a hug.
Tubbo’s heart aches- he hasn’t gotten a hug from Alex in a long time- as he sobs. His body feels heavy and uncontrollable, his hands shaking where they clench onto Alex’s coat. Alex is shushing him, brushing over his bleach-damaged hair.
“It’s okay, we’ll get them back,” Alex soothes after a few minutes of silence.
The little reminder of where his friends are seems to snap Tubbo back into control of his body, like his hands returned to the keys after being taken away.
“We need to plan,” Tubbo says as he pulls away from Alex, sniffing and wiping his eyes. “I won’t go into this without a goddamn plan this time.”
Alex grins. “Tell me what to do, kid.”
First things first, they need espionage. Real espionage, not just Tommy saying fuck it and inviting the most foolhardy vigilante he knows to break in. Real espionage, some super sneaky-ass shit.
Also balls. A lot of that. W hoever they recruit for help has to have the guts and the skills to break into L’Manburg Hero HQ and get away scot-free.
The only people Tubbo could think of was the Syndicate.
The Syndicate was an underground anarchist group dedicated to helping vigilantes find refuge from hero prosecution. They were secretive and notoriously difficult to find, but Tubbo knew that they would be the ones to help him get Tommy and Ranboo back.
So he ignores all of his police scanner reports, all the alarms and notifications he’s set, all to try and get a hold of the Syndicate.
He gets fucking nowhere.
It’s been hours- nearly five pm- when there’s a strange sound from his living room. He looks at Alex, who’s been messing with a small doohickey Tubbo made for Ranboo to fidget with, in panic.
Alex nods at him, standing up to investigate. Tubbo returns to his computer, attempting to try again before he gets a call from Eret.
He’s about to click it away before his brain registers the caller. He accepts with a frown. “Eret?”
“Bumblebee, hey,” Eret’s smooth voice replies. “Is Theseus okay?”
Tubbo blinks. “Pardon?”
“It’s just- well, he’s not on his usual patrol. He goes on patrol around this time, right?”
“He does,” Tubbo replies cautiously. Only ‘cause I make him.
“His district, the one he patrols, it’s empty,” Eret continues. “I was gonna try and see if the two of us could get a look at Nightmare, ‘cause I’ve only done research, but he’s not here.”
They sound bizarrely concerned.
“I’m just worried about him,” Eret explains. “He’s a good kid, works hard, I’d be sad to see him gone.”
“He’s-” Tubbo hesitates. “He and Ranboo, he’s another vigilante, they got apprehended by heroes,” He admits.
“Oh, shit,” Eret murmurs. “That’s… Shit, Bee.”
“I’m working on it,” Tubbo replies a bit curtly. “I’m trying to get a hold of the Syndicate, see if they can help.”
Eret hums before chuckling a bit. “Bee, Totem and I are a part of the syndicate.”
“Wait, seriously?” Tubbo gasps.
“Yup,” Eret replies. “You want us to get those two back?”
“That would be amazing,” Tubbo exhales. “I don’t have a plan yet, though.”
“Call me back first thing tomorrow,” Eret says. “I’ll bring Tote, you bring anyone you want, we’ll put our heads together, okay, kid?”
Tubbo nods. “Of course. Thank you, Eret.”
“No problem,” Eret replies, sounding fond. “See you then, Bumblebee.”
With a click, they hang up. Tubbo leans back in his chair, feeling like all the stress has been released from his entire body. But then-
He remembers what Alex went to go check on.
He quickly stands up. Alex hadn’t called for him, and he hadn’t heard much, being focused on Eret, but now he could hear Alex yelling at someone.
Someone who sounded very familiar.
When there had been a weird sound in Tubbo’s living room, Alex was not expecting two random blond teenagers to be in the kid’s living room.
One of them was groaning, wincing as they collapse onto the couch. The other cringes, looking apologetic as he pats the first on the shoulder.
“Hey!” Alex snaps. “What do you two think you’re doing here?”
The boy who hadn’t collapsed whirls toward him. “Who the fuck are you?” He replies as if he has any reason to be here.
“I asked you first, kid,” Alex huffs.
“Well, I dunno who the fuck you are,” The boy snarks back. “What did you do with Tubbo?”
“How do you know Tubbo?”
“ How do you know Tubbo? ” The boy mocks in a high voice, stepping forward. “I swear to god, you prick, I am not in the mood for this-!”
“Tommy!”
Tubbo burst from his computer room, tackling the angry boy in front of Alex. The blonde, presumably Tommy, was nearly knocked over by the force of Tubbo’s hug.
“Tubs,” Tommy sighs, hugging the shorter boy.
“Tubbo, you know these kids?”
“Alex, we were looking for them,” Tubbo snaps, face still smushed into Tommy’s torso. “How does this Clark Kent shit work on everyone?”
Alex did not remember the kid he had known being this bitchy. Though, he supposed faking your death to escape your father and then subsequently living on your own as a thirteen-year-old probably would make someone pretty bitchy. Even if the Toby he remembered was a sweetheart.
Tommy just laughs. “Not everyone is as observant as you, Bee Boy.”
Tubbo huffs, then pushes away from Tommy to walk over to the kid who collapsed on the couch. They’ve pulled a pillow over their head and is currently pressing it to their head.
“Ran?” Tubbo says quietly, rubbing their shoulder. “You alright?”
“Tired,” Their muffled voice replies. “Headache. Migraine, probably.”
“Tom-”
“On it,” Tommy replies, walking to the bathroom.
Tubbo continues to rub Ran’s shoulder. “I’m glad you’re safe.”
Ran hums before quickly removing the pillow from their head and wrapping Tubbo in their arms.
“I missed you,” Ran mumbles into Tubbo’s shoulder as they hide their eyes.
Tubbo rubs their hair. “I missed you too,” He whispers.
Alex feels like he’s intruding, but his heart swells seeing Tubbo being so clearly fond of these boys.
It may not be Toby’s brand of sweet, but Tubbo is his own person, something that’s becoming increasingly apparent. He’s guarded, of course, but he’s the kid that Alex remembers when he lets himself feel safe. It’s bittersweet.
Ran and Tubbo are still hugging when Tommy returns with a pill bottle and a glass of water. Ran perks his head up upon hearing the rattling, his eyes squinted to a near-closed. Tommy shakes two pills into his hand, handing him the glass of water. Ran quickly knocks the pills and some water back.
Tubbo clambers onto the couch, pulling Ran into him and letting the other boy lie across the couch, still hugging him. Alex smiles at them, Tubbo flipping him off at his undoubtedly sappy expression.
“You’re disgusting,” Tommy jeers. Both Tubbo and Ran flip him off.
“I’m Tommy, by the way,” Tommy says, quieter to Alex. “The nerd Tubbo’s hugging is Raniero.”
“Alex,” He replies. He shakes the kid’s hand. “You’re Theseus, aren’t you?”
Tommy sighs. “Tubs, are we just telling anyone who asks now?”
“He was there, dumbass,” Tubbo grumbles.
“Midas,” Alex says as an explanation, summoning a small golden hand that waves at Tommy.
“Oh, pog,” Tommy replies. “Are you, like, surprised?”
“About…?” Alex raises an eyebrow. “You?”
“Yeah, like ‘wow, this kid can pretend he’s an adult,’ and ‘wow, he can do cool shit,’” Tommy replies. “Stuff like that.”
“Nah,” Alex shrugs. “I knew you were a kid the whole time.”
Tommy’s jaw drops in offense.
“It’s pretty obvious,” Alex explains. “Heroes tend to ignore how old they think vigilantes might be, though. It fucks with their job if they think of us as people.”
Tommy snorts at his pointed comment. “Clearly.”
“So I assume he’s Ranboo,” Alex gestures at the other blond, still wrapped up with Tubbo.
Tommy nods. “Hey, Tubs, we found out some weird shit.”
“Like?” Tubbo frowns up at Tommy. The taller vigilante collapses onto the ground in front of Tubbo.
“Well, apparently, Phil is Zephyr,” Tommy spits the name like it’s done him personal harm.
By the way Tubbo gasps, “Phil?!” Alex thinks whoever this guy is might have.
“Fucking Phil !” Tommy huffs.
Raniero mumbles something Alex can’t hear into Tubbo’s torso.
“Firewall?” Tubbo groans. “Seriously?”
“I can’t control my family, Tubs,” Raniero replies.
“I know you said your uncle was a hero, but Firewall?” Tubbo huffs. “I thought he was cool.”
“He was cool until he kidnapped us,” Raniero sighs.
“What’d they do, anyway?” Alex asks, sitting down in an armchair across from the couch. “You guys look fine. Physically.”
“Well, Firewall like, knocked Ran out, took us to some sort of room in HQ to interrogate us, and took our masks off,” Tommy explains, wildly swinging his arms around as he talks. “He and The Blade say some shit about getting another hero as a ‘neutral third party’ for interrogation, so they bring in Zephyr- a.k.a, Phil- but he’s not neutral, so they, like, give up on interrogating us or something-” Tommy inhales exaggeratedly. “-and then, I manage to escape, because they didn’t put any power cuffs on me ‘cause they’re idiots, so I got myself and Ran out, and boom!”
“I have…” Alex squints at Tommy. “Questions.”
“Ask away, big man,” Tommy replies.
“How did they get Ranboo out of their kill mode?” Alex asks.
Tommy blanches. “Well, um-”
Raniero pokes his head up. “Yeah, how did they? I don’t remember a bunch.”
Tommy cringes a bit. “Firewall did a, like, brain scan, and the dude they had in there- Sneeg or some shit- said that you had like, electronics in your head?”
The room goes silent.
Alex cringes away from Tubbo, sensing an explosion. He may not be much like Schlatt, but their anger was the same- explosive, destroying anything they perceived as being in the way.
For Schlatt, it was anyone and everything, including his own son. Tubbo had grown up to not have the same anger-induced haze his father could get, and Alex was eternally grateful for that.
That doesn’t mean he still wasn’t cautious.
Internally, a voice that sounded like his Abuela was murmuring prayers for Tommy and his life in Spanish.
God knows he’d need it.
Notes:
okay, so i got a bit stuck on chapters 7 and 8, so those might be a bit. I want to get those done before I start posting, because I have 9-12 fully written, so I want to write 7 and 8 fully so I can post 7-12 while writing 13-20. I can't promise exactly when, but hopefully it won't be an entire year this time, lulz
talk to me on tumblr @wastedoverachiever! i love talking about this au, literally ask me anything
or comment! whatever you'd like, i just wanna talk about this au T_T
Chapter 7: sneaking out, hours past curfew
Summary:
"Hey Kid!" - Phoneboy, Phoneboy (2021)
Notes:
moar c!beeduo for the soul, reveals, and much more! this is officially the longest chapter i have posted, it took so long oml
CW/TW: Negative self-talk (mostly tubbo and ranboo), mentions of emotional supression (tubbo i'm looking at you), kids being kids (a.k.a having poor coping methods and lashing out), mentions of kidnapping, implied/referenced child abuse (schlatt), mentions of Tommy's history as a very young vigilante, mentions of Wilbur's mental health issues (referred to as sounding/being "insane"), as well as other characters being referred to as sounding/being "insane" or "crazy"
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“... said that you had like, electronics in your head?”
Tommy regrets the casual admittance as soon as it leaves his mouth. He spots Alex cringe away in the corner of his eyes, sensing Tubbo’s inevitable explosion.
How does he know Tubbo so well?
“ELECTRONICS?” Tubbo shrieks; the explosion. Raniero makes a wounded-sounding noise, smushing their face into Tubbo’s stomach. “Sorry,” Tubbo murmurs, petting his hair before glaring up at Tommy. “What the fuck do you mean, electronics?” He hisses.
Hm. A Raniero-muffled explosion. He’s never experienced that, despite Tubbo’s long-held crush on the taller vigilante.
“I dunno,” Tommy shrugs helplessly. “He said something about an input-output combination?”
“Like, to receive signals?” Alex muttered. “Why would they have that?”
“I dunno,” Tommy repeats, feeling very dumb. “Whatever it is, they thought that was what was causing the whole- like, murder rage.”
“Can we not call it a murder rage?” Raniero asks, muffled.
Tubbo pets their hair. “It kinda was, bossman.”
Raniero sighs. “I would like to be included in this conversation, then.”
Tubbo helps them sit up, their eyes still pushed shut in pain. Ran leans against Tubbo and sighs again.
“So, what are we doing?” Tubbo asks. “We can’t just leave them in your head when they make you go on murder rages.”
“Why-” Raniero groans. “Nevermind. I don’t want whatever it is in my head either.”
“I dunno why Firewall didn’t tell you,” Tommy admits. “I thought he would, but then we kinda escaped, so.”
“So you escaped from the one guy who understands what’s going on,” Alex sighs. “And he’s a hero. Great.”
“What, you wanted us to just stay there?” Tommy snaps. “We could’ve died, Q.”
“Firewall’s your uncle, right?” He asks Raniero. “He would’ve been at least a bit more forgiving when it came to you.”
Ran shrugs. “I don’t know, honestly. Uncle Sam, he’s. He’s strict. He would’ve sent me back to my moms and had me grounded for life as soon as he could.”
“He wouldn’t have helped you?” Tubbo huffs.
“Maybe?” Ran replies. “Maybe he would’ve tried to figure out how to make me a hero instead.”
Silence seems to echo in the room with Raniero’s careless suggestion of his uncle’s rejection of their autonomy. Tubbo especially looks a bit sick.
“Well, we’re gonna figure it the fuck out,” Tommy insists.
“Hey, Tubbo,” Alex pipes up. “Did you get a response from the Syndicate yet?”
“The Syndicate,” Tommy gasps. “You’re trying to get in with the Syndicate?!”
“I was trying to see if they could help break you two out,” Tubbo explains. “And I have, kind of.”
“What’d they say?” Tommy pesters. This is big . The Syndicate is fucking awesome, and Tommy wants to meet them Very Bad.
“Apparently, Eret and Totem are a part of it,” Tubbo replies. “Eret said she’d be expecting me to call back when I had a plan to get you two out.”
Tommy blinks. He wasn’t entirely not expecting Eret and Totem to be Syndicate members, but it’s still a bit surprising.
“Maybe they can help with… Ranboo’s brain,” Alex says, waving at Raniero’s head, still slouched into Tubbo’s shoulder in a way that makes Tommy’s back ache sympathetically. “Every group needs a tech wiz, right?”
Tubbo’s eyes light up- excited at a chance to talk to someone who understands his techno-babble, not just tolerates it- and yanks Raniero up to standing with him. “I’ll call Eret,” the shorter boy chirps, dragging a groggy Raniero to his computer room. It’s always darker there, anyway.
Tommy blinks at the closed door.
“Well,” Alex hums. “I should head out.”
“What?” Tommy startles. “Why?”
“I’m not one for… group projects,” Alex replies, snorting a bit. “I’ll see you guys around.”
“Wait, aren’t you and Tubbo, like, friends?” Tommy stammers. “Don’t you want to say goodbye, at least?”
“He’ll understand,” Alex shrugs on his coat, pulling on his sunglasses. “See you, T.”
With that, Alex strides out the door, his coat swishing around his legs- Midas leaves Tubbo’s apartment.
It takes an hour for Tubbo to get a hold of Eret again. Raniero stands back, slumped partially into the wall.
“Bumblebee!” Eret answers. “I didn’t expect a call back this soon.”
“Well, I’ve got a change in plans, a bit,” Tubbo replies. “T and Ranboo made it out on their own.”
“Holy shit,” Eret gasps. “Seriously?”
“They’re stubborn motherfuckers,” Tubbo snorts. “But we have some other problems.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Eret replies.
“Ranboo has some sort of electronic implants in his brain,” Tubbo explains. “I don’t have the tech to figure it out.”
“I think we have just the guy for you,” Eret says. “I’ll give you a location to meet Totem and I, we’ll take the three of you from there. You may need to be blindfolded, just for security.”
“You got it, bossman,” Tubbo replies. “Er- bosswoman?”
Eret chuckles. “All good, Bumblebee. Take care.” Click.
“Well, that worked,” Ran murmurs, wheeling over in the spinny chair. “Kinda.”
Tubbo scoffs. “Emphasis on kinda.”
Raniero leans over Tubbo, resting their head on his shoulder from behind his chair. “God, my head hurts.”
“Do you want to lay down?”
“Nah,” Ran huffs. “I’d rather stay with you.” They wheel over to be next to Tubbo, fidgeting with the contraption that Alex had left as he knocks their knees together.
“You alright?” Ran asks.
“I should be asking you that,” Tubbo quips.
Raniero shrugs. “Eh. Not great.”
“Understatement of the year, dude,” Tubbo snorts, poking Ran in the shoulder. “You don’t need to posture or anything.”
Raniero slumps a bit in their chair. “If I stop pretending like I’m fine, I’ll start crying, which I don’t think is very productive right now.”
“Productive, schmuck-tive! Cry if you need, bossman.”
“Alright, Mr. “I Don’t Have Feelings,” I’ll get right on that,” Ran murmurs, teasing but gentle.
“Okay, fine,” Tubbo groans. “Just ’cause I have bad coping methods doesn’t mean you have to, too.”
“I just-” Raniero huffs in frustration. “I feel stupid, y’know. Like I should’ve seen this coming.”
“Why?”
Ran shrugs, a bit helpless. “I don’t know! I just feel like I could’ve done… more, I guess.”
“More about what?” Tubbo asks, bewildered. “You don’t even remember getting this shit put in your head, much less who did it. What could you have done?”
“I think it’s pretty obvious when it happened,” Raniero mutters.
“Okay, you got kidnapped, then,” Tubbo retorts. “And you were twelve. What would you have done more, Ran?”
“Tommy was a vigilante at twelve,” Raniero murmurs.
“More like thirteen, but Tommy’s a fucking idiot,” Tubbo huffs. “It was never a good idea. His situation is entirely different, ‘Boo.”
“’Cause of his brother?”
“Mostly, yeah,” Tubbo sighs. “Wilbur was Tommy’s… life. You were a completely normal child up until this all happened.”
“I still had a shitty memory.”
“Yeah, but a normal kind of shitty memory, not one that’s technologically encouraged,” Tubbo snorts.
Raniero snorts. “That’s such a weird way of putting it.”
“What, technologically encouraged?”
Raniero giggles. “It’s so weird.”
Tubbo leans forward. “ Technologically encouraged, ” He whispers. Raniero giggles again, pushing at his face.
“You’re a nerd,” They snort.
The two of them sit in silence for a moment.
“Ran, I-”
“Tubbo!” Tommy bursts through the door, making Raniero wince and cringe away from the light. “Shit, sorry, Ran.”
“What, Tommy?” Tubbo snaps.
Tommy huffs. “You get a hold of Eret yet, big man?”
“I did,” Tubbo replies. “They said they knew someone who could help.”
Just then, his computer chimes with a notification. “It’s from Eret,” He mutters, tapping a few keys. The message is only a series of numbers and “See u there!”.
“We have to leave now?” Raniero groans. “Seriously?”
“Sorry, big man,” Tommy replies. “But the vigilante life waits for no painkillers!”
Tubbo looks uncomfortable; Tommy is cringing as the three of them make their way to the coordinates Eret provided.
Scrunched up into his sweatshirt, Tubbo has made himself look even tinier than usual, his entire body completely rigid.
Ranboo has tried to pry Tubbo’s hand from his pocket several times throughout their walk to no avail.
“Big man, I know you haven’t gone outside in a while,” Tommy snarks, “but you’re not really selling the “I’m-not-an-agoraphobe” thing.”
“I’m not agoraphobic!” Tubbo snaps.
It’s an age-old argument between the two, with Tubbo insisting he’s just anti-social and Tommy equally insistent on his friend’s very obvious agoraphobia.
Though, considering the resources and reputation of Tubbo’s father, it makes a good amount of sense.
“Not agoraphobia, then,” Tommy mutters.
“Thank you!” Tubbo huffs.
“You’re just paranoid,” Tommy snaps. “You have two vigilantes by your side, you’re perfectly safe, Tubs.”
“You still got kidnapped by him,” Tubbo spits. “Can’t say the idiot and the amnesiac inspire much confidence.”
It’s a stinging remark, one that has a painful silence after. Tubbo is clearly cringing at his outburst. Tommy knew his friend could be volatile and explosive in his anger, but he had never been that vicious.
“I-” He mutters. “I didn’t mean that. I-” A sniffle can be heard from Tubbo’s jacket, where his face is buried. “I’m sorry.”
“You did mean it,” Ran murmurs. “You wouldn’t have said it if you did. It’s okay, you’re not wrong.” It would be scathing, coming from anyone else, but Ran makes it sound soft and kind.
“I hate how much I’m like him ,” Tubbo whispers hoarsely.
“You’re nothing like him,” Tommy snaps finally. “Never say that. You may be a bitch, but you’re our bitch. We all have our shitty qualities- Ranboo’s got a spine of snowballs, I’m a stubborn idiot who’s probably gonna end up institutionalized or in jail, and you’re a bitch. We all know this, and we’re-” Tommy swallows around a lump in his throat. “We’re still friends.”
“Snowballs are new,” Ran comments. “Wouldn’t they just melt?”
“Thought I could move away from deserts,” Tommy snarks. “And you just don’t have an imagination, Ranboo.”
Tubbo laughs wetly. “You’re both so dumb,” He sounds more fond than Tommy thinks he meant to.
“You’re scared,” Ran murmurs, finally extracting Tubbo’s hand from his pocket. “That’s okay,” They interlock their fingers together. “We can be scared together.”
“I don’t have a reason to be,” Tubbo huffs but squeezes Ran’s hand. “You’re the one who’s got a villain on the hunt for you.”
“You kinda do too,” Tommy huffs, knocking his shoulder into Tubbo’s. “Your dad’s a bit insane.”
“A bit?” Tubbo snorts.
“Oh, you’re here!” A fourth voice pipes up from above them.
Darting his gaze upwards, Tommy is brought face-to-face with Totem, who levitates several feet in the air. “Follow me!” He chirps, spinning around and flying off in another direction.
“He-” Ran stammers. “He can fly?”
“His file said aerokinesis, so I suppose he can, but-” Tommy quickly tunes out Tubbo’s inevitable technical babble that he won’t understand and follows Totem.
The cheery vigilante leads them to a warehouse hidden in the suburbs of L’Manburg, only a few miles away from Raniero’s place.
“We could’ve gotten here ourselves,” Tubbo mutters. “We were only like, two blocks away from this place.”
Totem opens a sliding door for them, where they’re greeted by what Tommy can only describe as Tubbo’s heaven. It’s covered, nearly floor-to-ceiling, in computers, screens, dials, knobs, and switches. Tubbo, to no one’s surprise, squeals in joy. It sounds more goat-like than Tommy’s ever heard.
Ranboo is smiling fondly under his mask and Tommy gags at the other vigilante. They roll their eyes at him.
“Theseus!” Eret calls from the other side of the room. “Good to see you, man.” She strides over, wearing massive platforms as usual, accompanied by a smaller person in a gas mask and kaleidoscopic goggles. They’re wearing what looks like the pastel love child between a giant hoodie and a lab coat.
“Eret,” Tommy nods and then gestures to his friends. “This is Bumblebee and Ranboo.”
Tubbo is entirely distracted by the computers, but Ranboo waves politely.
“Nice to finally meet you both. This is Atropos,” Eret introduces. “They’re the main tech guru of The Syndicate.”
Atropos waves excitedly.
“This is all yours?” Tubbo asks, still staring.
“Yup!” Atropos replies cheerily. “You’d be surprised just how much tech the heroes throw away. They don’t have security cameras on their trash!” They giggle.
“This is amazing,” Tubbo murmurs.
“We kinda have something to ask of you,” Ranboo says to Atropos. This seems to wake Tubbo up, and he spins around to face the vigilante.
“Ranboo has technological implants in his head,” Tubbo explains a bit curtly. “We don’t entirely know what they’re for or who made them, but they need to be out or off .”
Atropos seems to snap into business mode, echoing Tubbo. “Implants?” They ask.
“I don’t have the tech to figure out what,” Tubbo replies. “We figured the Syndicate would have the resources to do that.”
“We do,” Atropos nods. “Alright, Ranboo, follow me.”
The next several minutes are filled with Atropos asking them several questions- what do they do, what situation were they in, what are some side effects- Tommy feels himself starting to nod off.
“So, Tubbo, you said-”
“Bumblebee,” Tommy snaps. “I told you his name was Bumblebee.”
Atropos freezes. “Did you? Oh, shoot. Crumplesticks. Fuck .”
Tommy blinks. “Who the hell are you?”
“Oh, it’s my powers,” Atropos replies. “All my memories are just knocking around up here-” He flicks the side of his head- “and they jump out sometimes. Sorry.”
“ All of your memories?” Tubbo asks, frowning. He’s stiff, his fists clenched so tightly his knuckles are white.
“Most of them, yeah,” Atropos replies. “The future ones get a bit fuzzy, what with them having multiple timelines and such, but it’s pretty much everything. I get confused, like a lot. It drives my fiances crazy.”
“So you’re not some assassin from my father?” Tubbo asks, sounding sarcastic despite his terrified stature.
“Your… father?” Atropos tilts their head comically. “I don’t- Oh, no, no, I’m not.”
Despite the flimsy excuse, Tubbo relaxes. “Sorry to interrupt your question, then, Atropos.”
“Oh, no worries!” Atropos replies cheerfully. “It’s confusing, I know.”
Tommy grumbles a bit but relaxes back into his chair.
“So, Bumblebee, Ranboo, you said you had no knowledge of who implanted these?” Atropos continues. “Do you have any theories?”
“It’s probably Schlatt,” Tommy grumbles.
“No way,” Tubbo snaps.
“Schlatt isn’t exactly known for his technical prowess,” Atropos calmly interjects. “It’s not exactly something he’d take his own initiative on.”
“He might’ve sponsored someone, but he wouldn’t do it himself,” Tubbo huffs.
“Okay, well, he’s definitely working with whoever did it,” Tommy retorts. “He knew Ranboo’s, like, codeword. And so far, the only people we know he’s working with are the Terrible Trio and the Eggpire.”
“Terrible Trio?” Atropos echoes.
“It’s his name for a villain trio that’s been bugging us,” Tubbo explains. “Nightmare, 404, Creater.”
Atropos hums.
“Eggpire seems unlikely,” Ranboo mutters. “Don’t they have those mind-control spores?”
“Then it’s the Terrible Trio!” Tommy exclaims. “Bam.”
“Tommy, they didn’t exist until two weeks ago,” Tubbo huffs. “I highly doubt they did it.”
“You said the implants were most likely placed when you were twelve?” Atropos interrupts, looking at Ranboo.
“Yeah, I got kidnapped,” Ranboo replies.
“By?”
“No one knows,” Ranboo shrugs. “Dream brought me home.”
Atropos stiffens a bit. “Well, I suppose I’ve questioned you all enough. Let’s take a look, shall we?”
Atropos leads them to a large, industrial-looking tube, presumably for performing some sort of scan of Ranboo’s brain. Tommy tunes out Atropos’ undoubtedly lengthy explanation, watching how Tubbo is enraptured by the tech-savvy vigilante and Ranboo looks more and more like they want to vomit.
“Alright, step on in, Ran,” Atropos instructs. Ranboo tentatively creeps into the tube, standing stiffly with their shoulders hunched.
Tommy continues to tune out Atropos’ techno-babble, focused on Ranboo. Surprisingly enough, Tubbo is also laser-focused on Ran, tugging at the sleeves of his sweater anxiously.
Tommy bumps Tubbo’s shoulder. “He’ll be fine.”
Tubbo just huffs. “I’m not worried.”
“Sure.” Tommy snorts.
Atropos is humming to himself, tapping away at their computer as Ranboo stands stiffly in a giant tube. Distantly, Tommy thinks they look a bit like an alien experiment in a sci-fi movie, with their lanky limbs and red and green glasses.
“You look like a bug,” Tommy blurts out to Ran. “Like a bug alien.”
“I can’t believe you called me an alien,” Raniero replies, sounding like they’re pouting. “This is homophobia.”
“What-?” Tommy sputters. “How-?”
“I can’t believe you, T,” Tubbo snickers. “How could you?”
“I’m not homophobic!” Tommy complains. “You’re gay, and Ran is… Ran!”
Ranboo and Tubbo just giggle at him.
“I can’t believe you both,” Tommy huffs, crossing his arms.
Suddenly, Atropos’ computer rattles as they shove at it. “No!”
“Atropos?” Tubbo asks. “What-?”
“I can’t-” Atropos shakes as they tap more things on their computer. “I can’t help you.”
“You said you could!” Tubbo argues. Tommy can sense a Tubbo-plosion coming on. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“There’s- The code.” Atropos gestures to the screen with shaking hands.
Tommy can’t decipher half of the shit on the screen, but in blinking purple letters in the middle is “DREAM.”
“What is this?” Tubbo snaps.
“Creator code,” Atropos mutters. “A signature of sorts. Says who made it.”
“You’re saying-” Tubbo gasps. Tubbo-plosion averted through sad. “Oh god.”
“What?” Ran asks, panicked. “What happened?”
Tubbo waves Ran over, and they hesitantly walk around Atropos’ massive computer. They flinch upon seeing the text on the screen, slapping a hand over their mask. Tubbo grabs their elbow in support.
“It’s them.”
“T-”
“No, it has to be them!” Tommy snaps. “Who do we know who would frame a hero like this? Nightmare! He’s the only one who would! He had to have done this!”
“T-”
“I’m fucking finding him,” Tommy retorts, striding towards the exit. “And you can’t stop me!”
With that, Tommy starts running out of the warehouse, beelining for the 17th district- where Nightmare and his buddies liked to prowl.
No one messes with his family.
Atropos is still shaking as Tommy rushes out the door. Tubbo feels fucking useless as he stares at the blinking “DREAM” on the screen, the specs of Raniero’s implants flashing around it, flickering between English and a gibberish-looking mess of symbols.
God, he’s so fucking useless.
“I-” Raniero sounds like they’re crying underneath their mask. “This is-”
“I can’t help you,” Atropos insists. “I can’t, I can’t.”
“Just give me the files, then,” Tubbo sticks out his hand. “I can analyze them further, with my own computer.”
Atropos stares at his hand. They nod after a minute, still muttering nonsensically to themself.
Finally. Something I can do.
Tubbo squeezes Ran’s elbow as they wait for Atropos to load everything onto a thumb drive.
A fucking thumb drive. That’s what holds what can change Ran’s entire life- a fucking thumb drive .
Tubbo feels as sick as Raniero looks.
Atropos finally shoves the drive into Tubbo’s hand. “Leave,” They order. “Leave, leave, leave -”
“Atropos!” Eret rushes in, Totem hot on her heels. “What happened? Theseus ran out-”
“Apparently, they can’t help us,” Tubbo snaps. “Thanks, Eret, this was so helpful.”
“Bee,” Ran murmurs.
“Dream,” Atropos pants, breathing unsteadily. “It said Dream, Emory-”
Eret sighs. “I’m sorry, kids,” They murmur, leading Tubbo and Raniero away from Atropos.
Tubbo glances back at the vigilante, watching as a girl with pink bangs begins leading them away. He swears she looks a little familiar, like the girl who hangs out with Tommy’s doorman Jack. Niki, her name is Niki.
Eret all but kicks them out of the warehouse. “Do you two need a ride?”
Looking at Ran, Tubbo shakes his head. “No, I think we’ll be alright.”
Eret nods. “I’m sorry again,” She hangs her head. “Atropos is- they’re a bit unstable at times. It comes with the territory. I am really sorry, though, I did promise.”
“We’ve got whatever they found,” Tubbo replies with a shrug. “I think I’ve got it from here.”
“You three are smart kids,” Eret nods. “You’ll be fine, I’m sure of it.”
Tubbo smiles a bit bitterly. “Thanks, Eret.”
She nods before all but slamming the door shut.
“Such a kind goodbye,” Tubbo grouses.
“‘Bee,” Ran murmurs. Tubbo is immediately back at their side, grabbing onto their elbow again.
“Ran? You okay?”
Instead of responding, their eyes glow beneath their glasses, and they’re in the Void. Tubbo should close his eyes, but he’s locked onto Ran’s face.
His apartment snaps into his vision, and he stumbles a bit as Ran tears off their mask and glasses. Their eyes are teary and red, and tear tracks mark their face.
“Oh, Ran,” Tubbo murmurs.
Raniero sobs, wrangling Tubbo into a hug and tucking their face into his neck.
Tubbo’s not the biggest fan of hugs, but he would never deny Ran, not like this. He reaches unsteady hands up to clutch at their shoulders, rubbing at their back as they sob into his shoulder.
They stay like that for a while.
When Tommy finally finds Nightmare, he’s standing in a warehouse as if he completely expected Tommy to find him.
Fucking bitch.
Tommy sees a flash of a tattered trench coat disappear into the rafters of the building, meaning Nightmare’s buddies are definitely here too.
“Theseus,” Nightmare hums, almost a purr. “How lovely to see you.”
“Cut the bullshit, Nightmare,” Tommy spits. “You know what I’m here for, don’t you.”
“I thought Firewall and Blade would’ve kept you and Raniero much busier,” He replies with a smirk. Okay, Tommy can’t see it, but he knows the smug bastard is smirking, he knows . The villain’s use of Ran’s real name makes his hackles raise, his fists clenching.
“Newsflash, bitch! We’re badass as fuck!”
Nightmare snorts. “Uh-huh.”
“We are!” Tommy retorts. “I know everything, Nightmare!”
“Do you.”
“I know you put that shit in Ranboo’s head to frame Dream!” Tommy snaps, annoyed by Nightmare’s blase attitude. “And it won’t fucking work, you bastard.”
There’s a pause, long and tense, before Nightmare begins laughing. No, cackling. Wheezy, unhinged, full-stop supervillain cackling. A shiver crawls its way up Tommy’s back, a slithering, uncomfortable thing. Nightmare sounds near insane.
Wilbur had, too, but it was different, somehow. His older brother’s laugh had always been amusing, a mischievous cackle that made Tommy snicker at the sheer ridiculousness of it.
This? This was madness, unhinged with the promise of pain.
“What do you think you’re doing, little vigilante?” Nightmare laughs. “Oh, yeah, real sorry about all that, kid!”
“So you admit it!” Tommy finally regains his voice. “You did it!”
“You know so much less than you think,” Nightmare sneers. “I didn’t frame Dream, I was just doing what I had to.”
His false sympathetic pity feels like spiders crawling down Tommy’s back.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Tommy snaps. “You ruined their life, dickhead!”
Nightmare scoffs. “They were just a step forward in the project I made my life about! Imagine, Theseus, a whole legion of protectors who have no idea of what they do? Just follow orders, a perfect split between technology and person. Imagine! No more trauma, no more last-second decisions that end in failure. There’s no room for failure with technology.”
“What, are you trying to take over the world or some shit?”
“I was trying to save the heroes,” Nightmare spits. “I told Firewall of my experiments. I thought he would appreciate a move to a more technological-based hero, and you know what he did? He called me insane!”
“’Cause you are!” Tommy interjects.
Nightmare growls. “I’m going to make things better, Theseus! I’ll be the comeback of the century!”
“No one will follow you, asshole!” Tommy scoffs. “Nice try.”
“No one will follow Nightmare, but they’ll follow Dream , won’t they?” Nightmare laughs. “I thought I ruined that, but people still seem to be plenty interested in me being a hero again.”
Tommy swears he can hear screaming, like a horrible live audience in the back of his head, like buildings crumbling and falling and rumbling in his ears.
“Oh, you didn’t know,” Nightmare sounds pitying. “I am Dream, Theseus. I delivered your friend directly to his parents after putting the “shit” in his head, and they were so thankful. So thankful to me for having improved their son.”
“You ruined their life,” Tommy replies, his voice feeling thin and hoarse.
“For now,” Nightmare- Dream- hums. “It will be leagues better when they join me.”
An arrow streaks in through the shattered window, and Tommy ducks from it on instinct. Instead, it thuds into the wall behind Dream.
“What-?”
It beeps once before blowing a hole into the wall, smoke pouring from the fletching. Tommy rears away from it, pressing himself into the wall and internally pleading for his powers to work, goddammit.
Two figures drop to the floor before him, one immediately diving into the smoke. The other turns to face him- Creater. The villain tilts his head at him.
“What?” Tommy snaps. Creater snorts.
“Of course Nightmare’s a monologue-r.”
The smoke is beginning to dissipate, and Tommy can see 404 holding the point of an arrow to Nightmare’s throat.
“Tell me why!” He screams in Dream’s face. His voice modulator squeals with the effort.
“404-” Creater starts, turning away from Tommy.
“Shut the hell up!” 404 snaps. He huffs in frustration, peeling off his mask before turning back to Dream. “Why didn’t you tell me?!”
His actual voice isn’t half bad-sounding, soft despite the harsh tone.
“George,” Dream murmurs. “I wanted to make things better.”
“You told me you didn’t know!” 404 screams. “You said you had no idea. You said we were making things better!”
“We are!” Dream argues.
“Don’t you see?” 404 retorts. “You’ve become exactly the person we didn’t want to be! You’ve become the people who hurt us! Hurt me, hurt Elias!”
Elias, Tommy thinks. Like Blazeborn. Holy fuck, 404 is HD. HD’s name is George. God, that’s boring.
“George-”
“Shut up!” George digs the arrow point into Dream’s neck, blood beading up.
“404-” Creater takes a step forward.
“Shut! Up!” George flings the arrow at Creater, the fletching whistling as it thuds into his leg.
Creater grunts as he staggers, grabbing his leg.
George seems to snarl at Creater before looking at the wall next to Tommy’s face. “Where’d the kid go?”
Creater swears, spinning around.
I’m invisible, Tommy thinks. Thank fuck.
He quickly creeps away, leaving the villains to their lovers’ quarrel (and Creater to his wound) and fleeing to Tubbo’s apartment.
God, he has a lot to tell his friends.
Notes:
Let it be known that tsaatsoav!Tommy is very sensitive to calling people "crazy" or "insane," and makes it very clear that there is a difference between those who are diagnosed with mental health issues and those who wish pain upon others. Using these words can be a slippery slope, and I am aware, but I (as of now) have no other words for this. If you do have suggestions/resources for me, please tell me in the comments or on tumblr @wastedoverachiever!
also feel free to just talk! i have a bad habit of skimming over tumblr notifs (thanks auDHD /sar) but i love seeing asks and messages :D
Chapter 8: another cog in the murder machine
Summary:
"Teenagers" - My Chemical Romance, The Black Parade (2006)
Notes:
Well.
It wasn’t a year I guess? A shorter one for today, college has been kicking my ass. Apologies for how disjointed it is, we need to get some places quickly and that requires... this.
CW/TW: Descriptions of violent and otherwise intrusive thoughts, mild manipulation, mild violence, mentions of vomit
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
When Tommy arrives back at Tubbo’s apartment, he has ten missed calls from Phil, seven texts from Techno, several texts from Sally that are clearly actually Fundy, and two calls from her. He scoffs at Phil’s calls but opens his voicemail to listen.
The first three are from Phil, which he deletes immediately. The fourth is from Sally.
“Hey, uncle Tommy,” His nephew’s voice whispers. “Grandpa and Uncle Techno are kinda freaking out. What happened? Call mom, please.”
He understands why Phil’s freaking out, but Techno ? Tommy knows that he works for the heroes, but he had always got the impression that Techno hadn’t really wanted to. He was practically an anarchist, being very vocally supportive of vigilantes whenever they came up in conversation.
(Phil always looked a bit confused and disappointed all at once.)
His fifth and final voicemail is actually from Sally.
“Hey, kiddo,” His sister-in-law’s soothing voice sounds worried. “Phil’s been looking for you. What happened? I know you don’t like him, Toms, but he’s so panicked that it’s making Fundy and I really worried. Call me back when you get the chance, okay? We love you, kid.”
His heart aches a bit as he deletes the last two voicemails.
He wanders through Tubbo’s apartment to distract himself, looking for his friends. He finds them, eventually.
Cuddled up in Tubbo’s bed.
Tubbo himself is sprawled, starfished on the bed, while Raniero is curled into a little ball next to him. They’re tucked into Tubbo’s side, their knees against his ribs and a shin tossed across his stomach.
It looks incredibly uncomfortable.
But his friends are sleeping peacefully, and as hilarious as it would be to see their faces if Tommy woke them, he decides not to. Instead, he exits the room and grabs an extra blanket and pillow from a hall closet that Tubbo keeps stocked since Tommy likes getting away from Phil. He promptly collapses onto the couch and passes out as soon as his eyes are closed.
Raniero awakes to his face shoved in Tubbo’s hair, their legs awkwardly tangled together. Raniero’s back aches a bit from being curled into such a tight ball, and they carefully roll over to stretch out. His back and joints pop almost painfully as he sticks his legs off the side of Tubbo’s bed- which is most definitely not made to fit two people.
Tubbo grumbles in his sleep, rolling onto his side from his starfish position. Raniero just pets his hair again, smoothing over small horns. Tubbo sniffs a bit, but his breathing evens out once more.
Raniero carefully crawls out of Tubbo’s bed, headed for the smaller vigilante’s computer room. Based on the lack of light outside, they’ve been asleep for a while- with no sign of Tommy.
As much as Raniero admires Tommy’s resilience, he isn’t confident in the vigilante’s ability to stay alive without him and Tubbo.
On their way to the computer room, they spot a Tommy-shaped lump on the couch. They sigh in relief. Thank God. Then, of course, Raniero makes an errant step, putting their weight on a floorboard he knows is creaky as hell.
The Tommy-shaped lump becomes the actual Tommy, sitting on the couch and blinking blearily. “Hey, Ran.”
“Hi, Tommy,” He whispers back.
“Why are we whispering?” Tommy asks at normal volume.
“Tubbo’s asleep,” Raniero replies with a shrug.
“He sleeps like the dead,” Tommy snorts. “I don’t think even a bomb going off could wake him.”
“He’d wake up to ask about how it was made,” Raniero mumbles.
Tommy chuckles. “Yeah, I guess he would.”
Raniero frowns at their friend. Tommy is usually energetic (borderline hyperactive), and this level of “chill” is not normal. He feels… sad, almost.
“Tommy?” Raniero steps closer. “You okay?”
Tommy laughs, sounding a bit self-deprecating and close to tears. “I- I went after Nightmare.”
“On your own?” Raniero gasps. “Are you okay?”
“Physically, I’m fine.”
Raniero frowns in concern, sitting down next to Tommy. “And…?”
“I, um-” Tommy sighs. “Nightmare is Dream.”
Raniero blinks. Enderwalk hisses in the back of their mind.
KILL, it seethes. KILL HIM KILL HIM KILL HIM KILLHIMKILLHIM
Raniero shakes their head harshly. “I think you’re right.”
“I thought you’d be way more combative against this,” Tommy replies. “You good, Ranboob?”
“I have this… voice? I guess?” Raniero shrugs. “Anyway, I’ve been hearing it ever since Dream got me back to my moms. It was quiet earlier, with Tubbo, but it didn’t like you mentioning Nightmare. Dream? Which do we call him?”
“Nightmare, I guess. He lost the rights to Dream,” Tommy replies. Then, frowning, he asks, “You thought a voice in your head was normal?”
“I told one of my therapists about it, he called it my ‘intrusive thoughts,’” Raniero explains. “It wasn’t usually super violent, and it didn’t usually go against what I thought myself, if meaner and evil-er.”
“What does it say?” Tommy asks. “Like, normally?”
Raniero shrugs. “Just stuff about, like, doing things that could get me or other people hurt. Recently, it started wanting me to hurt you and Tubbo.”
Tommy blinks. “Jeez.”
“That’s when I knew it wasn’t… Right, I guess,” Raniero continues. “It wasn’t normal.”
Tommy blinks once, twice, thrice, and then wraps Raniero in a hug. It’s a tight, squeezing thing, and Raniero has to process for a couple seconds before hugging back.
Tommy has never hugged him.
Fist bumps, high-fives, and affectionate insults are the love language of their little vigilante crew. With Tubbo’s touch aversion, he and Tommy have grown accustomed to no hugs.
It’s… nice.
Enderwalk hisses in the back of his mind, but Raniero just shoves it back by pressing his face into Tommy’s shoulder.
It can wait a few fucking seconds.
Tommy and Raniero stay on the couch for a while. Longer than Tommy would usually admit, but Ran just needed a hug, okay?
A loud bang comes from Tubbo’s room as the shorter boy careens into the living room. “I have a lead!” He cheers, holding up his laptop.
“What-?” Raniero jumps up. “You were asleep when I left!”
“Nope,” Tubbo replies. “I woke up when you kneed me in the ribs the first time.”
Raniero winces. Tubbo waves it off. “No problem, boss man. I found something, though.”
“Found what?” Tommy asks through a yawn, leaning back into the couch.
“A lead, Toms, follow along,” Tubbo snips, sitting on the armchair and typing rapidly on his laptop. “Atropos gave me a thumb drive with the specs on it, and I’ve been combing through them, trying to see how we turn them off.”
“There’s a way to do that?” Tommy asks.
“Currently, the only way I’ve found that can deactivate it is Dream’s eye scan,” Tubbo replies. “I might be able to find an archived scan in the Hero HQ database, but I’d need to actually get into the building to find it.”
Tommy winces. “Actually, Tubs, I think we can get a more recent one.”
Tubbo stops typing and looks up at Tommy. “Nightmare.”
“How did you-”
“Who else would he be?” Tubbo shrugs. “They have the same motif, just flipped. Nightmare would’ve either been a hardcore Dream stan or Dream himself. I remember Dream talking to my father at one point, so… Dream .”
“So we just need Nightmare’s eye scan,” Raniero sighs. “Should be super easy.” They sigh, sinking back into the couch.
“Might be easier than we think,” Tommy muses. Ran and Tubbo frown at him, almost in sync. “404 is also an ex-hero. He’s HD. He seemed super ticked off when Nightmare talked about what he did to Ran.”
“You- you talked to Nightmare?” Tubbo’s eye twitches beneath his bangs.
“I’m fine,” Tommy complains half-heartedly.
“What- you- you idiot ! Do you understand how incredibly dangerous that was? We wouldn’t have known, you asshole!” Tubbo yells. Then, he huffs. “Don’t do that again, dude,” He continues, softer.
Tommy blinks. “I- I won’t, Tubs, I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry I yelled,” Tubbo murmurs. “Start yelling back, would you two?”
“Gotcha, big man,” Tommy snorts.
Raniero just smiles at him, disgustingly fond.
“So, 404 might help us?” Tubbo continues.
“Maybe,” Tommy shrugs. “He seemed pretty alright with hating me before.”
“Better to try and fail than to have never tried at all,” Raniero pipes up.
Tommy scoffs. “I dunno how true that is, but I guess we’ll be testing it.”
Tubbo manages to find a small handful of places where the Terrible Trio may have their “headquarters.” Raniero and Tommy split up to search for them because Ran can teleport, and Tommy has the power of sheer unpredictability.
“Nightmare’s a monologue-r,” Tommy reports over comms. “So if you find him, it’ll be easy to escape.”
“Good to know,” Ranboo replies earnestly.
“I feel like we knew that already,” Tubbo comments.
“Just reiterating it,” Tommy shrugs as he slinks into a warehouse.
“Great, than-” Tubbo’s voice seems to glitch and short out.
“‘Bee?” Tommy asks, tapping at his comm. “‘Bee, come in, ‘Bee.”
No response.
“Ranboo? You there?”
Nothing.
Tommy gulps. If something fucked up comms, that means there’s definitely someone here.
He makes it two more steps into the warehouse before the music starts.
“Oohhh, ohhhh, ohhh ohhhh!” A familiar voice sings along with the intro. Then, the more familiar verse of “Maneater” by Nelly Furtado starts.
Tommy only knows it because Wilbur loved this kind of music, he swears.
And the only person he knows now that would do something this ridiculous is-
“Creater!” Tommy shouts. “Come out, you pussy bitch!”
A loud beating of wings can be heard as Creater descends from the rafters of the warehouse, still singing along to Nelly Furtado in his hoarse voice. His wings are busted as hell, missing primaries and covered in grime. They’re also fucking huge .
Tommy feels himself take several steps back, breathing heavily. Wilbur’s voice returns to him- “Vestiges are noticeable, Toms. Wings are for home, okay?” - and he feels sick.
Logically, Tommy knows that there are probably other winged heroes outside of L’Manburg, and that wings don’t equal Phil, but his instincts say run run run fly run run.
Creator lands unsteadily, clearly unused to his wings. He obviously hasn’t taken care of them in years. If they work the same as Tommy’s (and Wilbur’s and Phil’s), there’s a good chance he hasn’t let them out of that weird pocket dimension that they can live in.
Tommy hasn’t seen his own in years, either.
“Theseus,” Creater crows over his music. “Lovely to see you!”
“Can’t say the same,” Tommy sneers.
Creater huffs. “Such a rude child,” He tuts. “Were you raised by wolves, gremlin?”
Tommy scowls. How dare this villain unwittingly use Wilbur’s old nickname for him. “Bold of you to ask, when you look like you crawled out of a bog.”
Creater laughs. “Good one, kid.” His wings disappear, and he pulls his trenchcoat back on, rolling his shoulders. “I just needed to let them out for a bit. Didn’t mean to disgust you so much.”
Tommy huffs. God, this guy is dramatic. “I need to ask you something.”
“Oh?” Creater’s music stops. “Do tell.”
“How much do you like Nightmare?”
Creater’s lips pull into a scowl. “Can’t say I’m a big fan of his… pleasantries.”
Tommy crossed his arms.
Creater waves his hands. “Pleasantries! All this planning and these decisions, all they do is delay the destruction!”
“And that’s your job?”
“My passion , Theseus,” Creater purrs.
“Okay, so you don’t like Nightmare.”
“Eh,” Creater shrugs. “Could do without him.”
“I have an offer for you, then.”
Creater’s mask creaks as his lips pull into a maniacal smile. “ Do tell , Theseus.”
Ranboo is checking the last warehouse on Tubbo’s list when Tommy finally comes back on the comms.
“Big T!” Tubbo snaps. “I’ve been looking for you, boss man, where did you go?”
“Aw, Bee, you were worried ,” Tommy replies. “I’ve got a lead. Ran, meet us in the southeast corner of District 21. Bee, send him the address once I get there.”
“Us?” Ranboo echoes. “Who’s-?”
Tommy’s comm clicks off again.
Ranboo and Tubbo both groan.
“Well, he still has his tracker on,” Tubbo grumbles. “Dickhead.”
“I’ll just hang out with you until he gets…” Ranboo trails off. “Wherever he’s going.”
Creater freaks out when Tommy leads him to the abandoned office building in the 21st district- the one the eggpire collapsed five years ago.
He immediately reels back, pulling Tommy in the opposite direction. “Nope. No, no, no.”
“You have a better idea?”
“Yes, many, actually,” Creater snaps. “Let’s go.”
The villain leads him to a secluded building- one of those shops with apartments above it- and pulls him into a surprisingly clean lair.
Tommy huffs. “This to your liking, your highness?”
Creater nods stiffly.
Tommy clicks his mic back on. “‘Bee?”
“ Finally !” Tubbo crows. “You took forever, boss man. Ranboo incoming!”
With a whistle, Ranboo appears next to him. And then promptly shrieks upon seeing Creater.
“What is he doing here?” Ranboo yelps.
“He’s helping,” Tommy huffs.
“I can do things other than be destructive,” Creater sniffs. “I am a man of many talents.”
“Sure,” Tommy snorts. “Anyway, he agreed to help us get Nightmare’s eye scan.”
“How exactly do you need this?” Creater asks.
Ranboo and Tommy blink at him.
“However he can get it,” Tubbo instructs from their comms. Ranboo repeats this to Creater, who grins.
“Wonderful.”
Ranboo frowns behind their glasses, looking a bit like they regret repeating Tubbo exactly. “You wouldn’t happen to also know how to get into Hero HQ, would you?”
Creater pauses. “I can figure out a way.”
“Great, plan done,” Tommy huffs. “Meet us here in two days.”
He sticks his arm out to Ranboo, who transports the two vigilantes before Creater can ask any more questions. He wants to be away from the villain ASAP.
The dude just gives Tommy the heebie-jeebies.
“Creater!” Nightmare snaps as soon as he arrives in their shitty little “hideout.”
Creater peels off his mask and raises an eyebrow at the other man. “Yes?”
“Where have you been?”
Creater resists the urge to sneer at him, simply removing his jacket and gloves. “Out.”
“I need your help,” Nightmare replies sharply. “We need to get rid of Theseus if our plan is to continue.”
“Your plan, you mean,” Creater grumbles.
“I need you to take the kid out,” Nightmare continues over him. “Quickly. But make it messy, we need some media attention.”
Nightmare barely bothers to look in Creater’s direction.
“Fine,” Creater huffs, putting his gear away. “I’ll get right on that.”
He walks back into the meager bedrooms Nightmare provided. He can definitely use this to get a little more out of this deal other than just getting to mess with Nightmare.
In spite of Tubbo’s warnings, Tommy’s out on patrol the next day. Yeah, maybe three heroes know his identity (one of which knows him personally), but that won’t stop him. He’s been hiding out at Tubbo’s to avoid having to go to Phil’s house, where he will undoubtedly be turned in by his “brother” and “father.”
He’s halfway through his rounds in District 19 (not-so-lovingly called “Fort Big” by the residents) when he’s dragged into an alley.
Upon a loud shout when trying to attack his assailant, Tommy discovers it to be Creater.
“Such a rude greeting!” Creater chides. “Gremlin.”
“You yanked me into an alley!” Tommy complains. “Fuck off!”
“I want to make an… edit to our agreement,” Creater replies, his voice slightly nasally from holding his nose.
“What kind of edit?” Tommy snaps.
“Nightmare has asked for your gruesome murder,” Creater smirks. “As public as possible, according to him. Ergo, I need a bit more of a contingency plan from you, Theseus.”
This. Mother. Fucker.
“What kind of contingency,” Tommy grinds out from his clenched jaw.
“I do this favor for you,” Creater hums. “You leave me alone.”
“Alone,” Tommy echoes.
“Yep!” Creater chirps. “I go on my merry way blowing up whatever I like, and you turn a blind eye!”
Tommy scowls. “Not an option.”
Creater pouts and shrugs. “Guess I can’t help, then. How d’ya wanna go? Do you have any family? Might want to warn them away from the news for a bit.”
Tommy clenches his hands into fists. “Meet me halfway here, asshat.”
Creater hums, tapping his chin in false consideration.
“I’ll give you five months, or until Nightmare is out of the equation,” Tommy shoots back. “Whatever comes first.”
Creater scowls. “Six.”
“Six, and no more.”
Creater claps. “Perfect. Pleasure doing business, Theseus.”
The villain sticks his hand out with a grin, and Tommy snaps. His fist slams into the villain’s ribs, a small satisfying crunch noise echoing in the alley.
His powers activate themselves with a turn of his stomach, and he speeds away with his newfound super speed.
He’s fifteen blocks away, halfway to Tubbo’s, when he skids to a stop to vomit his guts out.
Fuck, what did I just agree to.
Notes:
tommy: i shot the hell out of that guy, huh? I feel sick
Tubbo: FUCK YOU! *gunshots*talk to me on tumblr @wastedoverachiever
comments are always appreciated!
Chapter 9: in the dark we dance together (baby you're a haunted house)
Summary:
"Baby You're a Haunted House" - Gerard Way (2018)
Notes:
*evil cackle* backstory time! Ft. Techno!!!, c!Phil being back on his bullshit (being a terrible father)
CW/TW: Child neglect, implied child abuse (not phil), mental health issues, implied stigma against mental illness, incredibly minor animal death, referenced character death (rip kristin im sorry), mild (uninentional) misgendering, mild/implied eye gore
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
When Wilbur Watson was six, his powers emerged.
Being too young to control anything, his downy wings were in full display as he accidentally blew up the classroom fishtank in his enthusiasm.
He had cried for hours, being the recipient of much scorn from his classmates, and was eventually sent home.
His dad managed to hide his worried looks over his son’s destructive power, all thanks to his mum’s soft words and gentle reassurances.
“Oh, little songbird,” She murmured to him, petting his downy feathers. “Your powers don’t make you bad. You’re far too gentle to be mean.”
“But I murdered those little fishies!” He had wailed. “All the kids said so!”
“They’re wrong,” Mum replied. “Did you mean to?”
“No,” He sobbed.
“It was an accident, honey,” She explained. “Sometimes accidents have a bigger reach than you mean. It doesn’t make you terrible.”
“But what if I do it again?” He hiccupped. “I don’t wanna.”
“Then I’ll teach you,” Mum pet his feathers again. “You’re a very smart boy, little songbird.”
When Wilbur Watson was nine, he met Theo. Theo was a nice kid, if a bit standoffish, but Wilbur was a determined (and some may say annoying) child.
He wanted to be Theo’s friend, and he was going to do it.
Wilbur didn’t have many friends, and wasn’t entirely sure how to do it. The “Fish-cident” from Year One still haunted his schooling- being in a small school could be such torture- and being known as the kid with wings who could explode things wasn’t exactly the most inviting reputation.
His first few attempts at befriending Theo brought no progress- chattering at the boy did not inspire him to chatter back, nor did simply sitting next to him. Theo had simply moved away; once, he had crawled up into a tree to get away from Wilbur.
When he had gone to his dad, crying about his inability to make friends, Dad had chuckled and pet Wilbur’s feathers- now much more brown and white rather than the downy vagueness of three years ago. “Sometimes, people don’t like talking,” His dad had said. “Give him some space, Wil. You’re a charming kid.”
So, Wilbur changed his tactics. Theo was newer to the school, and had gruffly described himself as “not-a-people-person” on the first day of school. Wilbur thought it odd that a seven-year-old managed to be so gruff, but he accepted Theo’s self-identification as an introvert.
Instead of attempting to talk to the younger boy, Wilbur opted to sit and read his newest book next to him. He was waiting for his mum to come pick him up, as she always did. Theo’s family always picked him up very late, and Wilbur never saw them.
He heard murmurs among the other kids that Theo didn’t actually have parents, and just waited for all the other children to leave before he walked home alone. Wilbur thought it was mean to assume things about people who you didn’t know, and his dad, upon hearing about the rumors, sighed “Children are cruel, Wilbur.”
“You read greek myths?”
Wilbur’s head shot up at the gentle murmur. Theo was leaning ever so slightly closer, clearly interested in his book.
“Yes!” Wilbur exclaimed. Theo flinched a bit. “Yes, I am,” Wilbur repeated, much softer. “Do you like greek mythology?”
Theo nodded enthusiastically.
“What’s your favorite?”
“Oh.” Theo looked a bit embarrassed. “I haven’t read any of them. My, um, uncle tells me some of them.”
“That’s alright!” Wilbur reassured the boy. “That’s how they’re supposed to be told.”
Theo frowned. “But they’re stories .”
“Stories in really old times were told, not read,” Wilbur explained. “My mum says that they were told through song!”
“Really?”
“Mmhmm! My mum knows a lot, too, I know she’s right.”
Theo grinned. “Your mom sounds cool.”
“She’s the best!”
“Wil!”
His mum was striding toward him, waving.
“There she is! Did you want to meet her?” Wilbur asked Theo, waving back at his mum.
“Oh, I dunno,” Theo mumbled. “I don’t- You don’t have to pretend to like me.”
Wilbur blinked at the younger boy. “Why would I pretend to like you?”
Theo scowled. “You don’t need to be mean about it.”
“I-” Wilbur frowned. “I do like you. I’m not pretending.”
Theo eyed him, a bit suspicious. Too suspicious for a seven-year-old, Wilbur thought.
“Wil, did you make a new friend?” His mum had arrived to stand in front of him and Theo. The other boy shuffled awkwardly.
“Yup!” Wilbur chirped. “Mum, this is Theo, Theo, this is my mum!”
“Hi, Theo,” Mum smiled warmly at Theo. “I’m Wilbur’s mom, you can call me Kristin.”
“Hi Mrs. Watson,” Theo mumbled, staring at his shoes.
“I was just telling Theo what you told me about myths!” Wilbur exclaimed. “He likes the Greek ones, his uncle tells them.”
“Oh, wonderful!” Mum clapped softly. “You’ve got a good eye for folks with good taste, Wil!”
Theo smiled a bit at his feet.
“Theo, did you want to come over?” Wilbur looked between his new friend and Mum. “Mum, can he come over?”
“Oh, honey, you know your dad’s rule about guests,” Mum replied with an apologetic look. “You could go to Theo’s-”
“No,” Theo’s head bolted up. “No, my dad’s super strict. He wouldn’t let me have friends over.”
Wilbur deflated.
“We could go on a walk,” Mum offered. “Theo, who’s picking you up?”
Theo’s cheeks flushed. “Um.”
Mum just looked at him expectantly, if a bit concerned.
“I’ve heard stupid rumors,” Wilbur said softly. “Do you walk home alone?”
Theo, cheeks still flushed in embarrassment, nodded.
“Oh, honey,” Mum murmured. “Can we walk you home, Theo?”
Theo kicked his feet a bit. “I mean, if you wanna.”
Wilbur pulled out the nuclear weapon his dad called his “puppy eyes.” Mum was weak to them.
She smiled. “Shall we, boys?”
And so, they walked Theo home.
Wilbur chattered about every single Greek myth he could remember off the top of his head, Mum filling in gaps and telling others he couldn’t recall.
They left Theo at the corner of the shadiest neighbourhood Wilbur had ever seen. He was very very careful to not let his face show anything, only support for his new friend.
As he and Mum walked back home, she squeezed his shoulders. “I’m proud of you, my little songbird. You’re a sweet boy.”
When Wilbur Watson was eleven, he found out two things- one, he was getting a baby brother, and two, he and mum were moving.
Without Dad.
“Why?” He had screamed upon finding out. “This isn’t fair!”
“Wil,” His dad soothed, ever the mediator. “It’s for your own good-”
“Bullshit!” He snapped. “ Bullshit ! It’s all bullshit!”
He ran to his room, slammed the door, and cried himself to sleep.
Mum woke him up, rubbing dried tear tracks away as she petted his hair. “Your Dad has to make a lot of hard decisions, songbird. He’s trying to protect us, even if it feels bad. We won’t be gone forever.”
She had been wrong.
When Wilbur Watson was fourteen, he had his first Christmas with his entire family. He, mum, and little baby Tommy had piled in their shitty car to visit Dad for the holiday.
Tommy had cried the whole way there, his blue eyes shimmering with tears as Wilbur attempted to soothe him. “You feel the same way I do, buddy,” He murmured. “We’ll get through it together, okay?”
When they arrived, Mum sent him up first with Tommy, clearly attempting to have him talk with dad a bit.
God, they had a lot to talk about.
He carried Tommy, out of his carrier, cradling the two-year-old on his hip. He was thankfully not crying anymore and was now cuddling his stuffed cow.
A young boy answered the door, a face Wilbur had almost forgotten.
“Theo?” He gasped.
“Wilbur?” Theo blinked. “What-?”
“Techno,” Dad called from inside the apartment. “Who’s at the door?”
“Uh, Wilbur,” Theo called back into the apartment, waving him in. “And… Baby.”
“Wil!” Dad darted out of the kitchen, his green apron covered in flour. “You’re early.”
“Mum likes being early,” Wilbur shrugged. “And I think she’s still wrapping presents in the car.”
Dad chuckled warmly, stepping forward and cooing at Tommy. “Hey, buddy,” He murmured, his eyes sparkling. “I’ll take him from you.”
“Aren’t you cooking, old man?” Wilbur snorted. “I’ve got him, he’s a bit fussy today.”
Dad blinked at him. “Oh. Alright.”
Tommy promptly poked him in the eye.
Wilbur soon learned that Dad had taken Theo- or “Techno,” as he now preferred- in, after busting his home for villain activity.
“They had been using him as a bodyguard,” Dad had murmured to him as Wilbur helped cook while Techno chatted with Mum, who held Tommy, in the living room. “He’s twelve. And it wasn’t his first time encountering a hero.”
Wilbur frowned into the pot. “I remember his home life being pretty shit.”
“Wil,” Dad chided.
“Yeah, yeah,” Wilbur huffed, stirring a bit more aggressively. "I'm still right."
Silence seemed to weigh down their shoulders, ringing empty in the kitchen as they listened to Techno answer Tommy’s babble in full sentences.
“What’s up with you?” Dad asked.
“Nothing,” Wilbur shot back.
“Wil,” Dad sighed. “I know it’s been too long, kid-”
“I have schizophrenia,” Wilbur blurted, setting the wooden spoon he had been using to stir the gravy on the counter. “And anxiety. Found out a month ago.”
“... Oh.” Dad blinked.
“I’m seeing a therapist for it. She has me on medication for it.” This was not how he wanted to do this.
“How long have-”
“I’ve been on it for two weeks now,” Wilbur interrupted. “I’ve been having hallucinations since we moved.”
Dad winced. “I’m sorry, Wil.”
Wilbur laughed bitterly. “Don’t be. You weren’t there.”
Nothing else was said as Wilbur continued to help Dad with the food in complete silence, save for the times the older man answered Mum or Techno when they wandered into the kitchen.
When Wilbur Watson was sixteen and Tommy Watson was four, their mum died.
She had been sick for the past year, and Dad- Phil - had done nothing. Callahan, their neighbour, was over helping Wilbur make dinner.
Callahan was nice- they entertained Tommy with silly voices and sounds, helped Wilbur make dinner and feel a little less like he was drowning.
Wilbur watched Tommy chow on his mac and cheese, wincing as the toddler tried to make his moth and cow stuffed animals eat with him.
“Callahan?”
Callahan looked up from their food, an inquiring expression on their face.
“Do you think my dad cares?” Wilbur asked.
Callahan looked pensive for a moment before responding in their usual, broken-up way. Callahan had an incredibly strange power- they were able to record and play back random bits and pieces of things they’ve heard, essentially functioning as an infinite human soundboard. It left them without their own voice, resorting to using other people’s voices.
“ I’m sure he does, Wilbur. ” The first few voices he didn’t recognize, but the last one- his name- was always in his mother’s. It made his heart clench with grief.
“Then-” He swallowed around the lump in his throat. “Why isn’t he here ?”
Callahan frowned at their meal. “ I don’t know. He should be. ”
Wilbur continued to eat his mac and cheese as he tried to not cry. He grinned at Tommy as his brother enthused about how much Clementine (his moth) and Henry (his cow) had enjoyed his cooking, cheese smeared all over the stuffed animals and Tommy’s face.
He swore, in that moment, that he wouldn’t let anything hurt Tommy, not if he could help it.
When Wilbur was seventeen, he managed to emancipate himself and Tommy. The court case was barely that- Callahan arriving and introducing themself as their neighbor while Phil was nowhere to be seen had been enough for the judge and jury to agree that Wilbur was enough of an adult. Tommy would be considered Callahan’s dependent until Wilbur turned 18, at which point he could re-try for custody of his little brother.
He changed his name, too. “Soot.”
When Callahan had asked him about it, he had grinned. “Nothing so rebellious as naming myself after my powers, right? My old man was pretty adverse to them, so I’ll embrace them. Fuck him.”
When Wilbur Soot was eighteen, he was rejected from the Antarctic School of Heroics. It had been his dad’s alma mater, and he was sure about his entry.
Instead, he had watched as the entry examiner had taken one look at the second page of his application (“please list any and all health issues you have had in the past three years”) and immediately denied him.
He tossed his papers on the kitchen counter, Callahan moving their mug off the granite to look at them.
“ Oh, Wilbur- ” His mum’s voice.
“You know why.”
Callahan grabbed the packet. “ Which page did they stop? ”
“ Two. They stopped at page fucking two, Callahan.”
Callahan flipped over the page. Upon seeing it, they set the packet down with a sigh. “ Wil- ”
“I’m going to the roof.”
The roof, in the past four years, had become his safe haven. IN addition to usually being completely empty, it was where he had met his now-only friend.
(Little did Wilbur know, she would become his girlfriend within the week. He’s not much of a social person, sue him.)
“Wilbur!”
Sarita (or Sally as she insisted he call her) was another girl who lived in the complex, two years older than Wilbur. She had gotten rejected from the Heracles Hero College two years prior, and was now pursuing a teaching degree.
“Sally,” He grinned, tossing her a pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket. “Long time no see, hey?”
“Your interview was today, right?”
“Typical Sally, glossing over pleasantries,” He huffed jokingly as he pulled out his lighter. “I’m hurt, really.”
Sally snorted, shoving his shoulder as she handed him a cigarette to light. “Get out with it, Soot. What happened? Were they charmed by your fiery passion?”
Wilbur snorted at her terrible pun. “They did not.”
“Shit,” Sally muttered. “That was a good one, though.”
“It was not,” Wilbur chuckled, lighting Sally’s cigarette and his before taking a long drag. “They took one look at the schizophrenia and decided it made me too high-risk, I think.”
Sally scowled. “Bullshit.”
“Bullshit,” Wilbur agreed.
“That sucks, birdy,” Sally leaned on his shoulder (one of the only people tall enough to) as they smoked. “You’ll figure it out. You always do.”
And figure it out he did.
He vowed, just as he had to himself when Tommy was two, that he would be a hero. Whatever it took.
And if that meant not quite being a hero?
That was a risk Wilbur was willing to take.
When Wilbur Soot was 19, he finally had custody of Tommy. His little brother’s surname was quickly changed to Soot, and it felt like a weight falling off his shoulders. He and Sally had started dating just a few months before.
Callahan stopped visiting as often, citing an increase of work, before they stopped visiting altogether.
Wilbur didn’t mind. He was Icarus, the winged vigilante who wreaked havoc on heroes and villains alike.
Sally told him she was pregnant when he came home, battered and bruised, from another patrol. They cried together on their ratty couch, Tommy sound asleep in his bed.
They laid in their bed that night, Wilbur not sleeping a wink. Instead, he cradled Sally’s belly, vowing to their unborn child the same thing he had to Tommy several years before-
Nothing will hurt you. Not if I can help it.
When Wilbur Soot was twenty, he married Sally. She was worried about having Florence with them, but Tommy promised to hold her. They had a small ceremony with a couple of their friends, Tommy, and little Florence.
Tommy helped Florence throw little flowers, barking at people to move out of their way in his squeaky, eight-year-old voice. Florence just babbled and threw flowers as best she could with her squishy fists.
Sally had sighed, wishing for a big ceremony, though she said they couldn’t afford one.
“Once we can,” He promised. “We’ll do a vow renewal! We’ll make it as big and fancy as you want, love.”
Sally grinned. “I’d love that, dear.”
When Wilbur Soot was twenty-one, he felt on top of the world.
It didn’t last.
“Callahan?”
“ Phil. I have an update. ”
“Callahan, it’s been five years , what-?”
“ Wilbur is dead .”
“......”
“ Phil, I won’t let you do nothing again. You do something or I will. ”
“... Thank you, Callahan.”
“ Make sure to make it up to him. He deserves to have you try , Phil. ”
PRESENT DAY
Creater was no stranger to the abandoned districts of L’Manberg. In fact, they were Nightmare’s preferred territory- less civilians meant fewer heroes meant more destruction .
Creater was no stranger to destruction.
Nightmare had promised him a razing of L’Manberg- “get rid of the shit, make it new and better ”- but he was a planner . A shitty planner, but Nightmare preferred a strategic approach to what Creater was sure could be done in whatever manner they wished.
He, personally, wished for a haphazard and chaotic approach, but both Nightmare and 404 scoffed at his ideas of nonpartisan destruction. Instead, they planned every detail of their plan to a disgusting degree, despite their main competitor- vigilantes- being very unpredictable and random.
He was getting a bit sick of their pretentiousness.
Plus, with 404's sudden adoption of a moral code and subsequent disappearance, Nightmare had become particularly volatile and difficult. With the added pressure from the vigilante Theseus, Creater was short on patience with Nightmare’s usual antics, much less his new ones.
So, he was killing two birds with one stone by going back to his old apartment in the 19th district. He knew the old man had been snooping around there recently, and it'd be a perfect opportunity to grab something.
He knew no one would be there, and he was still taken aback by the emptiness of his old apartment.
His heart yearned for the days when his family had run around, his daughter wrestling his brother on the couch, his wife scolding them for roughhousing.
Creater smiles at the spot he remembered the couch before a flutter of wings catches his attention.
A dark shadow swings into the apartment, black wings fluttering in anticipation. The unmasked face of Zephyr faces him. He raises an eyebrow under his mask. He was itching to cause some sort of destruction. It was an itch he had felt many times, and though this wasn’t the type of destruction he typically yearned for…
Some good-old fashioned drama was just as fun.
“The great Zephyr, out of retirement?” He scoffs. “My, my, how important must I be?”
Zephyr blinks at him. “Uh.”
“Eloquent.”
Zephyr scowls at him. “I’m not here on hero business.”
“Yes, you are retired,” Creater replies, running his hands over furniture, searching. “Why wear the costume without the mask?”
Zephyr sighs. “Trying to reconnect with my son.”
Creater snorts. “Really? Zephyr is a bad dad? Stop the presses!”
Zephyr’s scowl deepens. “I don’t really appreciate this, mate.”
Creater pouts at him mockingly. “Oh no, are your feewings hurt?”
“What’s your deal?”
Zephyr, as always, was unflappable. Hah. Bird pun.
“I don’t really have one,” Creater replies with a shrug. “I just wanna blow shit up.”
“I won’t let you blow this building up,” Zephyr deadpans.
“I wasn’t talking about this one,” Creater sighs. “Just in general, y’know?”
“I don’t.”
Creater huffs. “You hero-types are so boring.”
“So sorry to kill your vibe .”
“Did you learn that from your son?” Creater asks with a snort. His fingers finally catch on what he was looking for- a feather, black as the night sky. As Zephyr's wings.
“Yes, I did,” Zephyr replies, almost proudly.
“Wow, you care about him, huh?”
Zephyr stills. “And that’s supposed to mean…?”
Creater just peels off his mask in response.
“Wil-?!”
“Was getting hot,” Wilbur shrugs, stuffing the leather monstrosity into his jacket along with the feather he grabbed. “Glad Tommy won’t end up entirely like me.”
“Wil,” Phil repeats. “Why-?”
“How do you think people deal with being left for dead?” Wilbur asks, near snarling at his father, who flinches like he’s been hit. “Newsflash, old man , it’s not fucking well!”
“Wil,” Phil pleads, reaching a hand out.
“You keep saying my name like it’ll change anything ,” Wilbur spits.
“Wil, come home.”
“No.”
“Wil-”
“No. That offer should have been for a sixteen year old boy who had to raise his younger brother, for a four-year old child who didn’t understand why his mum wasn’t there anymore. You’re too late , old man. I’m not that sixteen year old anymore. You’re too goddamn late, Phil,” Wilbur snarls as his powers spark and spit in his palms, threatening to catch the dry timber of the room.
Phil looks like he’ll be sick, regret weighing heavily on his body.
Good. Regret your shit decisions, old man.
Wilbur lets his power continue to spit and fizzle in his palms, a few stray sparks catching on old wood.
“Wil, careful-”
That’s it.
As if something snapped, Wilbur lets his powers rise to his hands, creating a small explosion between him and Phil.
“Have fun saving a burning building!” Wilbur calls as he allows his wings to unfurl. “No sons to abandon in this one!”
With that, he flies off, his brown magpie wings beating oxygen into the flames. Despite their size and power, his wings haven’t been used in quite some time- they’re ungroomed, a bit singed, with a couple of primaries missing. They only take him a few blocks away, where he stumbles back to the ground, shunting them off into that weird magic dimension that Phil never bothered to explain.
He feels exhausted, and not in a good way. His guilt, buried in the back of his mind seems to flicker to life as he thinks of the feather that will get him and those vigilante kids into L'Manburg Hero HQ. His stomach rolls. God, why didn’t he feel better?
A small, miniscule part of him whispers that it knows why, and he smushes it and the guilt down as far as he can. Wilbur had sympathy and grief.
Creater has no room for such trivial feelings.
Creater only wished to watch the world burn.
As Wilbur’s wings carry him to an unsteady landing outside the abandoned apartment building that Nightmare claimed as their “hideout,” he second-guesses himself.
“You gonna do this or what?”
He turns to see Tommy. “I was getting to it, gremlin,” Wilbur replies. He’s been using “gremlin” with Theseus, too, and part of him feels like it’s disrespecting his memory of Tommy. The vigilante just… reminds him of his little brother, almost painfully so.
“You can’t disrespect my memory if I’m not dead!”
Oh. Yeah. This wasn’t his little brother; it was his most common hallucination. Usually, it was Tommy, but sometimes it was Sally, and a couple times it was Phil. Once, it was his daughter, and Wilbur had been inconsolable for the entire day.
He’s gotten better at telling the difference between real life and his hallucinations. His medications had helped quell some symptoms but mainly had helped him see that they weren’t real, and he still remembered some of the tells that his medications helped him see.
Wilbur knows this isn’t what his little brother looks like. It’s been five years, so Tommy would be seventeen. This hallucination always appears to be twelve, the age Wilbur remembers him. His chest aches with the thought of how Tommy has grown.
“Stop thinking so much and hurry up, loser!” Tommy snorts, sticking his tongue out at Wilbur and running into the building. Wilbur knows he won’t be there when he gets there, but he can’t help from jogging after the image of his little brother.
Somehow, he wishes he was thirteen again and didn’t know the difference between real life and hallucinations as he does now. Maybe seeing Tommy all the time would be less painful then.
As he expected, the hallucination is gone when he enters, Nightmare not even looking in his direction.
“Do it,” voices hiss around him, some screaming.
“Nightmare,” Wilbur purrs.
“Creater,” Nightmare huffs. “What do you want? I’m busy.”
He’s typing away at a computer, clearly still looking for 404. His little buddy George. He still won’t look in Wilbur’s direction.
The voices seep from the walls, sneering at the other man. They hiss, snake-like and droning. “Do it.”
I’m getting to it !
Nightmare finally turns around when Wilbur stands right behind him. “What the fuck do you want, Creater, I’m busy!”
Instead of responding, Wilbur plunges his fingers into one of Nightmare’s eye sockets. The voices cheer and roar and scream.
He hopes the vigilantes aren’t picky about which eye.
Notes:
c!Wilbur is so petty i love him. Also c!Callahan! I used they/them pronouns for them ‘cause i can! Their powers are super fun :D
Also character details: Wilbur’s wingspan is 17 feet, which means they’re each 8.5 feet long! Phil’s wingspan is 13 feet, so his are each only 6.5 feet long. According to the internet, humans would need 6.7 meter-long wings to actually fly (~22 feet), which sounds horrifying.
Pretty please talk to me in the comments or over on tumblr @wastedoverachiver! i have so many Thoughts
Chapter 10: and how long before you tell the truth?
Summary:
"Supermassive Black Hole" - Muse, Black Holes and Revelations (2006)
Notes:
Well, hi! It's certainly been a while. I've been struggling with this fic- fighting depression and ebbing hyperfixations too- for a while. I've lost most, if not all, interest in DSMP and related creators in the past couple years, especially with the, uh, questionable things that some of the creators have engaged in, as well as the terrible news of Technoblade's passing. Please know that I write from a point of view of before all of this, and I'm attempting to engage with the content in good faith. This fic has evolved, for me, past the DSMP and its creators. I hope you can engage with this fic while thinking of better times in the fandom. I still want to leave room for criticism of the creators, and this fic is in no way excusing nor enabling any actions of any creator. The characters are just that. Characters.
Anyway. with that out of the way, please enjoy this chapter!
TW/CW: mentions of gore, mentions of hallucinations/"insanity," mild violence, self-deprecation
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
As Tommy enters Tubbo’s apartment, he has to duck to narrowly avoid a flying chick’n nugget.
“Sorry!” Tubbo shouts at him.
Tommy blinks at the mess that is his friend’s apartment. There’s junk everywhere, computers set up on every available flat surface, and Tubbo is in the middle of it all, pulling at his hair in frustration.
“You good, Tubs?” Tommy asks hesitantly.
“No!” Tubbo shouts again. “I’ve been trying to get a hold of the Syndicate for five hours now!”
“... why?”
“They might be able to help,” Tubbo replies, tapping at four keyboards at once. “Creater makes you and Ran uncomfortable, and he’s too unpredictable and unhinged for my liking.”
Tommy blinks. “Aw, Tubs, that’s sweet.”
“Shut up before I never do anything nice for you ever again.”
Tommy laughs. “So I can safely say you haven’t had any success?”
“Eret and Totem won’t answer, so I’m trying to break into Atropos’ computer warehouse,” Tubbo replies. “So far, it’s impossible.”
“Only so far?”
“I'm figuring it out!” Tubbo snaps at him.
“Alright, let me know when you do, big man,” Tommy replies, shuffling into the kitchen to make himself and Tubbo some snacks.
Gods know they’ll need them.
Unfortunately, Tubbo doesn’t get a hold of the Syndicate before they have to leave to meet Creater. Ranboo quickly transports them to an alley several blocks from the HQ, where Creater already stands, grinning like an idiot.
Ranboo jumps upon seeing him. Tubbo just glares at the villain, who receives the full wrath of Tubbo’s ire due to the smaller vigilante’s missing glasses.
“I can’t wear sunglasses at night ,” Tubbo had snorted at Tommy. “I won’t be able to see. I might be an asshole, but I’m not stupid.”
Creater seems to jump upon seeing Tubbo, but shakes whatever his emotion was to tilt his head. “A new friend.”
“I’m the brains of this goddamn operation, excuse you,” Tubbo sneers. “Anyway-”
Tubbo launches into his plan. It’s simple, for “Tommy’s sake,” apparently.
Creater will get them inside using his…
“I’m sorry, what is getting us inside?” Tubbo asks incredulously.
Creater simply holds up what appears to be a crow’s feather and grins. “I have a key,” He says, like a dickhead.
Tubbo’s eye twitches in a way that makes Tommy almost fear for Creater’s life.
Tommy is not excited about working with Creater. The dude is a dramatic arsehole, and has attempted to kill him many times , but he’ll be damned if he lets Tubbo and Ranboo go with the villain without him.
After the villain gets them inside, they’ll beeline for Firewall’s horde of tech, where Tubbo will work on disabling Ranboo’s brain fuckery with the Creater-provided Nightmare eye scan. While they do that, Tommy and Creater will stand watch. When all is said and done, hopefully-electronic-free Ranboo will teleport them away.
If Tommy truly had his way, they wouldn’t be working with Creater. Hell, they wouldn’t need to disable electronics in Ranboo’s head if Tommy always had his way. Nevertheless, they do, and here they are.
Being a vigilante means making sacrifices. Tommy can’t remember if Wilbur had said that, or if Phil had said it about being a hero.
Either way, here he is, a vigilante making sacrifices. The sacrifice just happens to be his and his friends’ sanity.
“Blade.”
The other man grumbles sleepily on the other side of the line. “Karl. Thought I told you no business calls outside of work hours.”
“There’s some intruders in the HQ.”
“And you waited until now to tell me?”
“I didn’t think they would actually do it!” Karl hisses into their phone, leaving the room so he won’t wake Alex or Elias. “Much less that they’d be getting away with it.”
“Why do we even hire security,” The Blade huffs. Then, a beat of silence. “Who?”
“Theseus, Ranboo, and their third musketeer. Creater, too, interestingly enough,” Karl replies. “I wasn’t expecting them to work together so soon.”
“Well, I know who the first two are. Phil told me about Creater the other night.” A sigh. “I suppose you already knew that tidbit.”
“I try to let things go as they’re supposed to,” Karl murmurs sheepishly. Maybe he should’ve told Phil his eldest son hadn’t died, but honestly, that might’ve felt worse when Wilbur did come back, and Karl wasn’t about to step in some family business he had no right being in.
“Except for this?”
Karl shrugs a bit. “This is my job, right? Besides, I have a good feeling about telling you.”
“You’re a strange one,” The Blade replies.
“You already knew that,” Karl argues.
“That I did.” The Blade sighs again. “I’ll let them fuck around for a bit. Once they do something more serious, I’ll head in.”
“You’re the boss,” Karl replies, nodding despite knowing The Blade can’t see them. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight, Karl.”
Impressively, the feather fucking works on the provided recognition scanners into and throughout the HQ.
“My old man is good for something, finally!” Creater chirps when Tommy comments on it. The three vigilantes share a quick look of “what the fuck????”, or something to that feeling.
This whole ordeal has just solidified how fucking bonkers Creater is.
The four of them quickly find their way through the HQ, hiding swiftly from passing security until they arrive at Firewall’s Tech center.
They slip in quickly, the door creaking far too much for Tommy’s liking. They’re superheroes, and they can’t pay to oil their hinges? Or, fuck, new hinges entirely? Cheap-ass motherfuckers.
Tubbo quickly guides Ranboo to a chair, where the smaller vigilante quickly attaches several nodes (just like the ones Firewall and that Sneeg dude had used) to Ranboo’s head. Tubbo boots up the computer, plugging in the thumb drive with Ranboo’s brain specs.
He turns to Tommy and Creater. “What kind of guards are you if you just stand here the whole fucking time? Go!” Tubbo shoos them away.
Tommy scrambles to squint out the small windows in the door to the lab, Creater following suit.
They sit in complete silence, save for Tubbo’s muttering and clacking of keys, until Creater murmurs something to the opposite side of Tommy.
“Not now, gremlin,” He hisses to the left of him. A beat. “No, it’s very inconvenient.”
“... Creater?” Tommy asks hesitantly. The villain’s head snaps back in his direction.
Creater laughs awkwardly. “Sorry. Just- It’s- it’s nothing.
Tommy frowns. Sure.
Creater continues to mutter to a point a few inches to his left, brushing it off whenever Tommy asks. After a bit of just listening to Tubbo’s rapid typing and Creater’s muttering, Tommy thinks he might go stir-crazy if he doesn’t find something to do.
“I’m gonna scout the hallway a bit,” Tommy says. “If I see anyone, I’ll run back and tell you.”
Creater reaches for Tommy’s arm, but yanks his hand away like he’s been burned before he can even get near him.
Tommy stares at the villain, now muttering to something a few more inches to his left. Tommy shrugs before yanking open the door.
The alarm promptly goes off.
A shrill chime echoes through the room, reverberating in Tommy’s eardrums. He lets go of the door, and it shuts with a click that’s lost to the cacophony of the alarm.
“Fuck!” Creater swears. “They found us.”
“Bumblebee, how’s it coming?” Tommy shouts over the blaring noise.
“Just a few more seconds,” Tubbo replies. “Keep the guards busy, we can’t fuck this up, T!”
Tommy nods, pulling out his discs and standing just outside of the door, ready to get the drop on whoever dares to fuck with their one chance to help Ranboo.
Creater follows his lead, still muttering. He swears he hears the villain murmur “Tommy,” but it’s too faint with the alarm still blaring in his ears. He must’ve misheard.
Tubbo is still clacking away on the keyboard, his hands shaking slightly. The alarm, forebodingly, stops.
Tommy stares out the lab door, waiting.
“Bee?” Ranboo stretches out his arm, able to set it on Tubbo’s shoulder. “It’s okay, we can-”
“I almost have it,” Tubbo mutters. “Just a few more seconds, Ran.”
“We can go, Bee,” Ranboo repeats. “It’s not that-”
“Creater!” Tubbo snaps. “Eye scan!”
Creater darts over, pulling a cinched fabric pouch out of his pocket. He opens it and hands Tubbo an orb-looking thing with a manic grin.
“Is that-?” Tubbo grimaces. Ranboo gags.
Tubbo shakes his head, but pushes the orb to a panel on the computer system. Tommy’s too far away to see what it reads, but he hopes it’s working.
Considering Ranboo went rigid when it happened, it’s doing something .
Creater darts back to his place opposite Tommy, still grinning maniacally.
“What’d you give Bumblebee?” Tommy asks, hoping his guess is wrong.
“Oh, I ripped out Nightmare’s eye,” Creater chirps. So I wasn’t wrong. Great.
His disgust must show through his mask. “You said any way I could,” Creater shrugs. “So I did.”
Tommy sighs. “You’re a strange dude.”
“Most people just call me crazy,” Creater scoffs.
Before Tommy can pull out one of Wilbur’s lectures about calling people crazy (he heard them a lot, so he has to have at least one memorized), the lab door opens violently, sending both of them into the wall.
Tommy wheezes as he stands up, and is suddenly face-to-face with The Blade.
“Bee!” Tommy snaps.
The Blade seems to be staring at Ranboo and Tubbo, his head tilted in confusion. Ranboo is near-seizing at this point, and Tubbo looks ready to cry.
With a yell, Creater slams his sparking hands into The Blade’s shoulder, sending him careening past Tommy with a loud boom.
As The Blade groans, pulling himself out of the creater he made in the floor, Ranboo gasps and stops seizing. Comically, a giant “COMPLETE” flashes on the computer screen. Tubbo whoops before quickly ejecting the flash drive.
The Blade lumbers towards Tubbo, only to be intercepted by Tommy.
“I think the fuck not!” He yells, tossing a disc at the hero’s face. The Blade bats it away.
Creater makes a noise that Tommy can only describe as a screech before jumping onto The Blade’s back, wobbling dangerously on the hero’s shoulders. The villain’s legs dangle far too close to the floor to look cool at all as he attempts to wrap his skinny arms around The Blade’s neck.
“T-” Tommy can hear Ranboo ask from behind him.
“Take Bee and go!” Tommy snaps. “We got this dickhead!”
The Blade snorts, his eyes glowing red underneath his boar’s mask. Creater is quickly shaken off, and Tommy hears the familiar whistle of Ranboo bamfing away.
The Blade knocks one of his fists into Tommy's temple. His vision swims. The Blade knocks his other fist into Tommy's opposite temple. As his vision goes dark, Tommy thinks distantly that he should definitely see a doctor for the concussions he’s endured in the past few years.
Four days pass. Tubbo feels more and more like pulling his own hair with each passing hour.
Tommy’s gone. Again. All because he wasn’t fast enough. He was so stupid, stupid-
“Tubbo?” Ranboo pokes their head into his computer room. “Any luck?”
“No,” He snaps. Then, takes a deep breath. “No, I’m sorry,” He replies, softer this time.
“Good job,” Ranboo chirps genuinely. “With the snapping thing, not with… not getting the Syndicate’s attention.”
Tubbo groans. “I’m trying,” He replies, meaning both.
“I’m not breaking you out again, dickhead,” Tubbo huffs into Tommy’s long-unresponsive comm. “Figure it out your own damn self.”
He spends another hour tapping at his keyboard, looking for any way into Atropos’ firewall when Tommy’s comm crackles to life.
“You’re a persistent little shit, you know that?” An unfamiliar voice mutters from the comm.
“Who are you?” Tubbo demands. “How did you get this comm?”
“Call me Atlas,” The man replies. “I’m part of the Syndicate.”
Tubbo groans. “Finally!”
The man, Atlas, huffs. “You’ve got a friend in custody, don’t you? I can get them out for you.”
“Why would you do that?” Ranboo pipes up. “What’s the catch?”
“You join us,” Atlas replies. “We need all the help we can get for what’s coming.”
Tubbo and Ranboo blink at each other, then shrug.
“If you can help us get Theseus out,” Tubbo replies. “We’ll help you out.”
“Perfect,” Atlas replies. “I’ve, uh. Got a man on the inside. I’ll let you know the plan.”
The heroes have kept Tommy in this room for three days at his best approximation. His only tell of time is meals- they seem to give him one in the morning, one in the evening.
So far, it hasn’t been excruciating like so many horror stories say. It’s rather pleasant, other than the power-dampening cuffs they put him in and the frequent interrogation.
They know his identity. Tommy will be damned if he gives them more.
He’s been interrogated by two people in total. The first being Callahan, a person Tommy knew as his old neighbor who helped Wilbur raise him, who was apparently the head of Intelligence at L’Manburg Heroics. They attempted to do his first questioning session, but Tommy saw them near tears on their way out.
His main interrogator has been none other than Jack Manifold, the annoying doorman of Phil’s apartment complex who hates Tommy’s guts.
It’s mutual.
On the fourth day- he just finished his seventh meal- Manifold stalks in with an unusually happy grin. “You’re The Blade’s problem now,” The hero ( intern ) tells him, dragging him down a hallway.
Tommy thrashes as he goes, swearing up a storm at the other boy. Manifold tosses him into a room gleefully, sitting him down and then slamming the door behind him.
“Fuck you, Manifold!” Tommy shouts after him, mostly just at the dark walls of the interrogation room around him.
He waits for several minutes before a person slips into the room. The Blade, in his horrific boar mask, stares at him from the doorway. He sighs before sitting down across from Tommy.
“Hey, kid,” He says. Tommy just glares at him. This fucker isn’t getting anything else out of him, and he will die on this hill if he has to.
I’d die for Tubbo and Ranboo to stay safe. The thought is dramatic, and surprises even Tommy himself. But, yeah. He would die for his friends.
The Blade nods. “Fair enough.” He holds out his hand. “Hands please.”
Tommy frowns, but sticks out his cuffed hands. The Blade grabs the chain between them, and squeezes. The metal crumples underneath his grip, creaking and shattering like cheap plastic.
The Blade tosses the broken pieces off to the side. “There you go.”
Tommy blinks at the hero as he feels his stomach churn with the return of his powers. What the fuck is happening ? Blade hands him his mask and goggles. Tommy puts them both on with shaking hands.
“Here,” The Blade hands him a familiar-looking comm. “Your friend is very pushy. Annoying, really.”
Tommy frowns in confusion, but accepts the comm, holding it gingerly in his fingers.
“I’d say you can get the rest of your stuff back, but Manifold will be back too soon for that. Now, go stand in the corner and be invisible,” The Blade instructs. “Please,” he adds as an afterthought.
“Are you not gonna ask me anything?” Tommy asks in shock.
“Nah,” The Blade shrugs.
“Aren’t there cameras?”
“Nope,” The Blade replies. “Those don’t work,” he gestures to the cameras in the corners of the room. There’s no blinking light, nothing signaling they’re on. Still…
“Manifold will be back soon with your villain acquaintance,” The Blade hums. “So I recommend being invisible soon.”
“I-” Tommy frowns. “I can’t do it on command.”
The Blade tilts his head, his mask making it appear comical. “Heh?”
“It’s, like, panic-based, I can’t just do it,” Tommy stutters out.
The Blade hums. “Well, it’s dark back there,” He points to the corner. “Go stand back there and wait for it to kick in, I dunno.”
Tommy scrambles to stand in the corner, slumping into the wall and praying to whatever Gods exist that he’ll disappear soon.
Within minutes, Manifold opens the door again, this time carting a very ticked-off Creater. It’s a bit comical, since Creater is nearly a foot taller than Manifold, but the villain has slouched so far that it’s more sad looking than anything. Tommy can see that his mask has been removed, like his own, but Creater’s slouching combined with his long hair manages to hide his face from view.
Manifold pushes Creater into the same chair Tommy occupied a few seconds before, and looks at The Blade.
“Dealt with the vigilante?”
The Blade nods, pulling a recording device from a pocket in his jacket. Tommy can’t quite tell, but the device doesn’t seem to be on. Manifold just nods at the hero, clearly not high-rank enough to question the #2 hero.
“Sit up,” The Blade barks at Creater.
Creater scoffs, making a concerning amount of cracking sounds as he rolls his head up to look at the Blade. From Tommy’s view, all he can see of the villain is a shoulder-length matted mess of brown hair, greasy and limp with lack of care. He could guess the face that Creater is making- probably some kind of stupid smirk.
“Leave,” The Blade instructs, his typical monotone shivering with rage.
Manifold quickly hurries from the room, clearly not stupid enough to want to witness The Blade’s wrath.
As soon as the door closes, The Blade reaches up to remove his boar’s head mask, setting it down carefully on the table in front of Creater. His hands then slam onto the table, making the metal creak and groan under his strength.
Techno , his weird adopted brother, stares at Creater with rage glowing in his eyes and the metal table slowly crumpling under his fists.
Techno . The man who praised vigilantes constantly; the man who laughed at Phil whenever Tommy snapped at the older man.
Techno is The Blade. His normally brown eyes are slowly shifting to a deep red color- the color The Blade’s eyes turn whenever he gets angry.
“You disgust me,” Techno snaps at Creater.
“I know I’ve got more scars than I used to, Tech,” Creater says like Techno’s an old friend of his, “but am I really that horrible to look at?”
“Yes,” Techno spits. “But it’s not because of your scars.”
Creater scoffs. “Enlighten me, then, favorite son , how I am so ugly to you.”
Techno looks to where Tommy is slumped in the corner of the room. He can’t quite tell if he’s invisible or not, because Techno’s stares always felt like he was gaining holes in his forehead.
“You know why,” Techno spits after a beat, looking back to Creater. “But I don’t feel like having Theseus here for my verbal beatdown of you.”
Creater spins around, frowning upon seeing Tommy in the corner. ( Ah, so I’m not invisible. Damn. )
Tommy freezes.
That’s Wilbur.
That’s fucking Wilbur. Tommy can’t bring himself to feel anything as he watches the man he thought was dead stare him down. This man has tried to kill him, has preened his feathers, has ordered him to die, has held him through nightmares, has bargained for more when his friend’s life was on the line. Despite his numbness, Tommy feels his back (his wings ) itch with the instinct to run, run, fly away, get the fuck away , and his stomach churn in horror.
Techno looks at him like he understands all of the thoughts that are tumbling through his head.
Creater snorts at him, and Tommy is overcome by the urge to slap his brother. Both of them, while he’s at it, really.
“Getting a random vigilante involved in family business isn’t your M.O., Tech,” Wilbur scoffs. “What do you have planned, oh great hero?”
Techno sighs, standing and whacking Wilbur upside the head. The villain yelps. “Bumblebee, we’re ready to go,” Techno says, tapping a comm in his ear.
Tommy quickly puts his own in, just in time to hear Tubbo.
“Ranboo incoming!”
A moment later, Ranboo appears in the room. The taller vigilante blinks at the scene before him, scanning the room before their eyes land on Tommy.
Before Ranboo can speak, Tommy is darting over to latch onto one of their arms. The taller vigilante recoils slightly before blinking at looking at the older two.
“We ready to go?” Ranboo asks.
“Oh, this'll be fun,” Wilbur cackles, grabbing Ranboo’s other forearm. Techno grabs Ranboo’s hand. The taller vigilante whisks them away with a whistle and a shower of purple particles.
Notes:
double reveal hehe :D
Hope you enjoyed this chapter! Find me on tumblr @ wastedoverachiever
Chapter 11: you will never love me again (never break the chain)
Summary:
"The Chain" - Fleetwood Mac, Rumors (1977)
A Phil Interlude.
Notes:
Given the recent events that coincide with my posting of this chapter, I want to make some things clear. We support victims of DV/abuse in this household. Period. tsaastoav!Wilbur is, once again, a character. He, and myself, do NOT support IRL Wilbur Soot. Shubble was incredibly brave in coming forward, and deserves all of our support. Please know for my peace of mind that tsaatsoav!Wilbur is how I viewed c!Wilbur back in the heyday of the DSMP- a flawed individual who was actually seeking to change. This is mostly to reiterate the points I made in the beginning notes of last chapter, which were made and posted before Wilbur's """apology.""" I wanted to be very clear on my stance with this, as my previous statement was a bit more vague (with intention, idk wtf is going on in the fandom anymore tbh).
anyway. i've been waiting for this one. philza time babey
this is also my longest chapter yet, sitting at just over 5k words! holy cannoli tsaastov!Phil likes to talk
TW/CW: Bad parenting/parental neglect (phil and wilbur), mild misgendering, a smidgen of negative self-talk
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Phil was 23 when Wilbur was born. His career as a hero had barely started, and he was willing to sacrifice anything for his son and his wife.
“He doesn’t need a sacrifice, Phil,” Kristin had chided, as beautiful as ever with her tired eyes and body. “He just needs his dad.”
Wilbur had been a loud and cheerful child, forcing his way into conversations in that endearingly innocent way that only children could. So much changed when Wilbur developed his powers.
Fragokinesis, Dr. Jones had said. Manipulation and creation of explosions.
His son , his beautiful little Wilbur, had the power to level cities, raze anything he wanted to the ground.
His horror had made Kristin frown at him in disappointment.
He’s disappointed in himself, too.
Phil was 35 when Tommy was born. He had been so sure they didn’t need another kid, but accidents happen, and Kristin was happy to bring another little boy into the world.
Phil didn’t see Tommy as a baby.
He knew that Kristin had wanted to name him Floris, but Wilbur had insisted on “Tommy,” and neither of them could say no to their elder son.
Phil knew that keeping his family away was the best outcome for all of them. Wilbur had been kidnapped from his school seven times in the past three years, purely for being related to him.
He didn’t want his family being used for leverage by power-hungry villains or vengeful vigilantes. This was for the best.
Being the best thing didn’t mean that Phil’s heart didn’t ache as he sat alone in his big house.
Gaining Techno was pure coincidence.
He had taken down a villain family- more of a small mafia than anything- and had found the young boy trembling in pain and attempting to run away.
“Hey, mate,” Phil had murmured. “It’s okay, I won’t hurt you.”
The kid was skinny, his knuckles bruised and bloody as he lifted his fists weakly.
“I took down Sentinel,” The kid huffed. “I can take you down, too, Zephyr.”
This was who took down Sentinel? The hero with psychic-generated force fields was near unstoppable by most villains, and a kid took him down?
“I’m not looking for a fight,” Phil replied to the kid, stepping forward.
“You took out my family,” The kid spat. “You’re gonna try and kill me next.”
Phil blinked. The Dead Eyes had a kid with them?
“My father trusted me to protect us, and I will do so until my dying breath,” The kid gasped out, staggering to stand. He had a flair for the dramatics, Phil would give him that.
“You’re The Brute?”
The other members of The Dead Eyes had sneered at him, telling him he’d never get past “the Brute.” Was this kid really their last line of defense?
The kid puffed up in pride. Oh, he had no idea how tragic this actually was.
“Kid,” Phil replied, slowly pulling a dart from his jacket. “Let’s talk this out, okay? You’re hurt, and I don’t want to hurt you more, okay?”
The kid had attacked. Phil sent the dart flying into his side- Dr. Jones’ special formula of anesthetic specifically designed to knock out powered folk. The kid crumpled to the ground, still sneering at Phil until he passed out.
Theodore, or “Techno” as he preferred, had been sent to live with Phil until they found a true placement family.
That family never came into existence, and Techno stayed with Phil.
When Wilbur was fourteen, Techno twelve, and Tommy two, Phil and Kristin devised a plan for a family Christmas dinner.
It went horribly.
Wilbur was distant from him, preferring to take Tommy off of his mother’s hands. It was clear that Wilbur was incredibly protective of his little brother, and very rarely allowed Phil to even touch the toddler.
Techno observed Tommy from a slight distance, patting his thin wisp of hair when offered the toddler. Tommy gurgled at Techno, shaking his fists at the boy. Techno, ever the jumpy one, rejected any offers to hold Tommy.
Kristin and their boys stayed the night, and Phil remembers crying himself to sleep, slowly realizing something.
He wouldn’t realize it fully until his eldest died and he took in his youngest, his daughter-in-law, and grandson.
He will never have a good relationship with his sons. It had settled uncomfortably into his bones over these five years, sunk into the flutter of his wings and the ache of his limbs.
I will never be their father. Never again.
When Phil walks into the Hero HQ with a plan, he doesn’t expect people to be scurrying around like scattering ants.
He had heard about Techno taking in Theseus and the small-scale villain Creater. His sons , being interrogated by L’Manburg’s Intelligence sector.
Phil wasn’t too worried. The Intelligence sector had shrunk in the years he was supposed to be retired, dwindling down to Callahan and Jack Manifold, the kid that worked in his apartment complex.
Callahan and Sam met him at the door.
“Zephyr,” Callahan says with a pained smile. “Good to see you.”
“How many times are you gonna say you’re retired before you actually do?” Sam snarks.
Countless interns and other heroes are scattered around the main area of HQ, all but running around like chickens with their heads cut off. Techno’s face, hero mask and all, was all over nearly every screen in Phil’s immediate vision, accompanied by the masked faces of Tommy and Wilbur.
“I heard about Theseus,” Phil says to Callahan instead. “What happened?”
Callahan opens their mouth, but Sam speaks up before they can. “They’re saying he and some villain kidnapped Blade,” Sam explains. “We have a dead or alive order out, Zeph.”
Phil is shaking his head before Sam can even finish his sentence. “No, no that’s not right.”
“Just ‘cause it’s your kid-”
“Zephyr,” Callahan interrupts. “We don’t have much more to go off of. It’s our working theory, and you know the Coalition can be… hasty.”
“This doesn’t look like just a working theory,” Phil shot back, gesturing at the computer screens around them. “It looks like a manhunt.”
“What’s going on here?”
Of fucking course. Striding over was none other than Number-One hero Starshine. He annoyed Phil to no end, with his flashy powers and cocky smirk.
Did this hatred start after he beat Techno out for number one? No, absolutely not. Was it intensified after Tommy had such high praises for him? Totally not!
(Both are lies.)
“Zephyr decided to drop in,” Sam scoffs. “Heard about his little vigilante son fucking up.”
Phil felt one of his hands curl into a fist.
“I thought you were retired?” Starshine asks, cocking his head. “Or was that just for the week, like last time?”
Phil huffs. “Yeah, yeah, I know I’m bad at staying out of the game. But the Coalition is wrong -” He points at the wanted posters. “-about this.”
“How are you so sure?”
Phil stops. His brain flicks through his evidence- my sons wouldn’t do this, I know it - and settles on: “Blade’s too smart to get kidnapped by a teenage vigilante and a D-list villain.”
Wilbur and Tommy would both undoubtedly bristle at those descriptions, and it makes Phil chuckle internally to think of his sons’ incredulous faces.
“Fair enough,” Starshine concedes. “Blade’s got a good head on his shoulders. What’s your alternate theory?”
That truly stops Phil short. “I- hadn’t gotten to that yet.”
Sam scoffs again, and an urge to punch the younger hero surges through him.
“You’re just saying this ‘cause that vigilante’s your kid,” Sam shot back. “And so is The Blade, if I’m right.”
Phil grits his teeth. “Just because this involves my sons doesn’t mean that I’m wrong .”
“But you are biased,” Starshine pipes up with a frown. “You’re supposed to report that stuff, Zeph.”
“I did, for my first son!” Phil scoffs. “And look where that got him!”
Callahan frowns at him, while the other two heroes go quiet.
“Phil,” Callahan sneers. “Your sons’ circumstances are entirely your doing, and you know that. Don’t blame the Coalition for your poor choices as a father.”
Phil feels the words like a physical hit, and he takes an involuntary step back. They’re right , he thinks. Fuck, they’re right.
Starshine reaches out to put his hand on Callahan’s shoulder, but they brush him off and stalk away.
Sam whistles lowly. “Man, the wrath of Callahan. What did you do?”
Phil sighs. “A lot of things. I regret most of them.”
“At least you’re smart enough to realize,” Sam snorts. “I’ve never seen Callahan that pissed, man. What’d you do, other than let two of your sons become vigilantes?”
Phil whirls around to the younger hero. “I didn’t come here to talk about my personal life, Firewall-”
“Doesn’t look like it to me,” Sam shot back. “This feels really personal, Zephyr.”
“Oh, look who’s talking!” Phil retorts. “Your nephew is probably working with Theseus!”
Sam’s expression darkens into a glower. “Don’t bring Raniero into this.”
“Too late,” Phil scoffs. “Are you really going to turn your back on him just because he’s a vigilante?”
“ Your son got him wrapped up in this, I know it,” Sam spits.
“Will the Coalition believe that?” Phil replies. “I don’t think they will. I think they’ll lock the both of them up.”
Sam grits his teeth in a snarl. “Careful, Zephyr,” He sneers.
“Do you really think the Coalition will buy the “he had no friends except for Theseus” excuse?” Phil pushes.
“Nero has friends,” Sam mutters weakly.
“Yeah, my son,” Phil scoffs. “And their third musketeer! Who is probably also a vigilante!”
Several of the nearby monitors start shaking as Sam glares daggers at him. Phil clenches his jaw, his wings puffing up as he stares down the taller hero.
“Gentlemen!” Starshine finally butts in, pushing Sam away from Phil. “Please be civil, we’re in crisis.”
An intern shuffles over to Starshine, looking nervous as they hand him a tablet. “Ah, sir?”
Starshine accepts the tablet with a hum. He stares at the information, then looks up to Phil. “Zephyr, if you’d come with me?”
He hands the intern back the tablet, turning on his heel quickly and striding away. Phil internally rolls his eyes, but follows. Sam glares holes in his back as he walks off.
Starshine leads him to one of the interrogation rooms- currently being looked over by interns from the Intelligence sector. They’re examining several pieces of the room- namely the boar mask, an abandoned backpack, and the small hole blown in the wall.
Wilbur’s doing, then.
Phil narrows his eyes at the hole- too small for any person to fit through, so they didn’t use it to escape- and wonders just what Tommy’s friends can do.
“I’ll be needing this room for a moment,” Starshine says to the interns with a smooth grin. “We won’t be long, I assure you.”
The interns look at him, each other, and then back to him. They shrug, and shuffle out, leaving their investigative equipment behind.
“Despite the panic out there, you all seem relatively lukewarm about actually finding them,” Phil snorts.
Starshine sighs, looking at the boar’s head mask- Techno’s pride and joy. “Phil,” He murmurs. “I need you to know that this comes from a good place- a place of. Care, I suppose.”
Phil narrows his eyes. “What are you talking about, Vik?”
“Your sons, they’re…” Vik trails off, twisting his lips in consideration. “They’re a bit. Ah, unstable , you might say.”
Phil stiffens. “What are you suggesting?”
“I admire the Blade, truly,” Vik looks up from the mask. “But he’s notoriously protective of this thing.” Vik pokes at the mask, and Phil cringes.
This really looks bad on Techno’s part. All their parts, really.
“I remember how alluring vigilantes could be when I was younger,” Vik sighs. “The Blade, I suspect, may have a particular interest in their more… Violent practices.”
“Are you trying to say that Blade defected ?” Phil snaps, his blood boiling. Techno is a good man.
Vik shrugs. “All I’m saying is that the Blade has a violent history. He may not be biologically related to you, but your sons all managed to inherit your… Brashness.”
“How dare you?” Phil growls. He can feel his wings puffing up again, an angry rattle beginning in the back of his throat. “Blade has worked his arse off for the Coalition, the same as you!”
Vik shakes his head. “I’m not trying to discredit him, Phil, I only want you to consider the possibility-”
“My sons are many things,” Phil snaps. “But I taught them to do the right thing!”
“But did you?” Vik shakes his head. “Sam and Callahan have told me the stories. You only raised the Blade- and who’s to say his old villain family didn’t influence-”
Phil’s had e- fucking -nough of this. He watches his own fist swing out and slam into Vik’s cheek, a rattle humming through his chest.
“Fuck you,” He spits. “I’ll find out what really happened myself .”
Vik sighs, like he expected this. “Good luck, Zephyr. Know you’ll never be welcome here again.”
“Good!” Phil turns around abruptly, stalking out of the room. As he leaves, he passes Sam, now talking with Karl Jacobs, the Head Scientist of L’Manburg Heroics.
As Phil strides out, he stares directly ahead, ignoring Sam’s questions and any whispers from interns.
“Ph- Zephyr,” Karl stutters, scrambling to keep in stride with him. “Can I talk to you really quickly?”
Phil grits his teeth, and sighs. He likes Karl, really, but he’s not in the fucking mood. “Make it quick,” He grits out.
“Oh! Uh,” Karl wrings their hands together, messing with their sleeves. “Just. Um. Be open, okay? You’re gonna have some difficult news, soon, and I would really recommend listening to your sons-”
“Dr. Jacobs!” An intern pipes up from a computer. “I think I found something!”
“Oh, honk,” Karl mutters. “Uh, good luck, Phil.” They scramble away to the intern, pushing the sleeves of their jacket up.
Phil blinks after them. Karl had a habit of doing that- spewing some cryptic advice because they didn’t want to “spoil” future events- and it was equally unnerving every single time it happened.
Shaking his head, Phil continues his angry stomp out of the HQ. He’ll figure it out later.
On the walk back home, Phil’s able to calm himself down a bit. His wings still feel restless- even more so when trapped in their pocket dimension- but he’s cooled down a bit.
Maybe Vik wasn’t too far off with the “brash” comment, Phil scowls as he thinks to himself. The Watsons, as a family, are pretty brash.
He nods to the doorman on his way in- a kind but gruff Frenchman- and makes his way to their penthouse apartment. When he enters, Fundy is staring down his own bedroom door with a vibrant ferocity.
“Fundy?” Phil asks hesitantly.
Fundy jumps a bit, whirling around to face him. The boy grins, darting to him. “Grandpa,” he hisses. “There’s someone in my room!”
Phil’s heart drops into his stomach.
“He got in through my window,” Fundy begins whirling his arms around as he tells the story. “I turned into a mouse before he could see me, just like you said- but I stayed to look at him before I got out.”
Phil clenches his jaw. Whoever this is, they picked the absolute wrong time to fuck with his family. “And?”
“All I saw is that he’s suuuuper tall,” Fundy bounces on the balls of his feet. “And he’s got this icky hair and icky mask.”
Phil feels his own hands curl into fists. He stalks over to the door to Tommy and Fundy’s room, his grandson creeping up behind him. He slips into the room, quite as he can, closing the door behind him. He hears Fundy protest wordlessly.
The man inside is rummaging through Tommy’s things, grabbing clothes and shoving them into a bag. His movements are slow despite his hasty packing, almost admiring every piece of clothing before shoving it into a duffel.
As soon as Fundy shouts from behind the door, the man spins around. The mask is familiar- the same one Creater wears.
“Wil,” he hisses. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
Wilbur blinks at him. “What’re you doing here?”
“This is my house, you gremlin,” Phil steps towards his eldest son. “What happened with you and Techno?”
“Oh, he broke me and Theseus out. Real swell kid, that Theseus,” Wilbur sneers as he shoves more of Tommy’s clothes into the bag. “Techno sent me to get some things. He wasn’t expecting you to be home.”
Phil just watches Wilbur gather clothes. Wilbur then looks over to Tommy’s messy desk and then to the things pinned above it- drawings of Fundy’s, news clippings of Icarus and Starshine, and a Polaroid of Tommy and his friends. Wilbur gently presses his fingers, scarred and calloused, to the images of himself. He peels off the grotesque leather mask, the scarring on his face revealed as he stares at the images. His fingers trail over to the drawings- stuttering as he realizes he’s not in them.
“Where is Tommy, anyway?” Wilbur murmurs. “And Florence?”
Phil sighs. He doesn’t know . The thought is doubled-layered, flashes of Tommy in his vigilante costume with flashes of Fundy after he got his first short haircut.
“I don’t know where Tommy is,” Phil is being honest. “ Floris is outside.”
Wilbur blinks. His brow furrows briefly, then his eyes widen in realization. “She’s- I mean, he-”
“His name is Floris,” Phil interrupts gently, leaning against the door. “He prefers Fundy, though. Tommy gave him the nickname.”
Phil can see tears welling up in Wilbur’s eyes before his son turns away.
“Trust me, Wil, a lot can happen in five years. Especially when they’re young.” Phil thinks of the difference between toddler-Tommy and tween-Tommy- how it hadn’t felt like that long, yet his youngest son was three times the size he had been. “They change the most when they’re young. We forget that when we get older.”
Wilbur turns back to him with a snarl, his eyes still teary. “I’m nothing like you, old man.”
“Are you sure?” Phil sighs. “Here you are, making the same choices I did.”
“I had to-”
“What, you think I wanted my sons to hate me?” Phil slams a hand into the wall. “You think I wanted Tommy to barely even acknowledge me? You think I wanted you to- to-”
“To die?” Wilbur spits. “You made me this way, Phil . You left me under that rubble. You left me.”
Phil can feel his eyes sting, a soothing trill bubbling up in his throat. “I didn’t want to. I came back, after the other heroes left, Wil, I tried -”
“Not hard enough.”
With that, Wilbur grabs the duffel and swings himself out the window with a swish of his coat. Phil doesn’t move. He hears a burst of feathers colliding with the wind, and a whoop.
He collapses back into the door. I’m a terrible fucking father.
“Grandpa?” A hesitant voice asks. Fundy peeks out from underneath his bed, blue eyes wide and teary.
“Oh, Fundy,” Phil scrambles over to his grandson, crouching down despite his cracking knees. “How much did you hear, mate?”
“I- Was that really Dad?” Fundy’s lip trembles.
Phil bites the inside of his cheek, considering. “Fundy… He’s. He’s not the same.”
A few tears spill over Fundy’s cheeks. “He said you left, Grandpa.”
Phil shakes his head. “I’ve made some very, very, very bad decisions, Fundy. I’ve made a lot of mistakes. What happened to your dad was one of them.”
“Is that why Uncle Tommy doesn’t like you?”
“Probably,” Phil admits, swallowing past a lump in his throat. He reaches out to swipe a thumb underneath Fundy’s eye, but hesitates. “I understand if you want a little space, kiddo.”
Fundy shakes his head rapidly, scrubbing at his own face. “No, no. Didn’t you say Uncle Tommy’s missing?”
“He’s not missing , he’s just-” Oh. Well, he was sort of missing. Phil shrugs helplessly. “I just don’t know where he is.”
Fundy’s face hardens into determination, his eyes still a bit red. “Then we’ll find him!”
Phil chuckles, ruffling the boy’s hair. “We certainly will.”
They spend about an hour at home, calling the three people who Phil thought might know where Tommy was.
He tries Tubbo and Raniero, Tommy’s friends, first. They both go straight to voicemail, and he leaves them both a voicemail. Sally is his last resort, seeing as she’s not at home.
When he asked where she was, Fundy just shrugged. “Errands.”
Helpful.
Sally went to voicemail as well, and he left a slightly more panicked voicemail for her.
Fundy huffs once he hangs up. “No one answered?”
“No one,” Phil tosses his phone on the kitchen counter, putting his head in his hands. He wishes, for a moment, that he thought to put a tracker on Tommy’s phone- he realizes how terrible of an idea that would’ve been after a few seconds.
“Lemme try,” Fundy huffs. He pulls out his tablet and types out a message- to Tommy, most likely.
“Why would Tommy check his Discord rather than his phone calls?” Phil snorts.
Ping! Fundy’s tablet buzzes with a notification.
“Gremlin.”
Fundy taps out another message. “He says that he can’t tell me where he is, but it’s super cool and vigilante-y.”
Phil nods, but then reconsiders the sentence. “Why would Tommy tell you it’s “vigilante-y”?”
Fundy freezes. “No reason?”
Phil stares down his grandson. Fundy cringes, hugging his tablet to his chest.
“I might know he’s a vigilante?” Fundy squeaks out.
Phil groans. “When did he tell you?” He pinches the bridge of his nose, feeling a headache coming on.
“When he started doing it,” Fundy squeaks again. “Like, forever ago. I caught him coming in through the window, he had to.”
“You,” Phil ruffles the boy’s hair, “are too smart for your own good, mate.”
“Am I in trouble?”
“No.” Phil stands from the kitchen stools. “But we do need to find your uncle before the Coalition does.”
“The Hero Coalition? What do they want with Uncle Tommy?” Fundy jumps up, leaving his tablet.
“They think he and your dad kidnapped your uncle Techno,” Phil rubs his face. “It’s a bit…”
“Fucked?”
“Fundy! Language!”
His grandson has the decency to look at least a bit sheepish, shrugging with a pout.
“But, yes, it’s fucked.”
Phil grabs Fundy’s tablet before leading his grandson to the elevator. “Ready to see a secret room, mate?”
“Yes!” With a pop, Fox-Fundy skitters up his leg and arm, coming to drape himself across the back of Phil’s neck like a scarf. He’s shivering in excitement, chittering non-stop as they step into the elevator. They take it up three floors- to his and Techno’s office.
Techno had been raised to be paranoid, and Phil had gotten increasingly so as he got older. Thus, they hoarded any old tech they could get their hands on into this room- nicknamed “The Stronghold,” by Techno, of course. It had been finished only three years ago- outfitted with all the essential systems, should he and Techno decide they couldn’t trust the Coalition.
Not that they ever really trusted them in the first place.
Hopefully, the old tracking systems would be able to track the IP of Tommy’s phone- or anything useful, really. Cell tower, nearby wifi connections, anything. Phil was grasping at straws here, but it was all he could do. Short of calling Karl, of course, but Phil wasn’t really willing to risk getting him involved.
Phil sits at the main computer as Fundy hops off his shoulders. The 10-year-old is immediately wandering around the room, prodding at the various bits of technology and wires.
He tries six different programs in The Stronghold’s systems before he starts losing hope. He’s halfway through the seventh when the screens flicker. Fundy yelps, scrambling over to Phil.
“What the-”
Tubbo, Tommy’s friend, appears on the screen. He’s grinning, his beanie firmly in place but sunglasses missing. His hazel eyes have oblong pupils, like a goat’s, and they shine with mischief.
Phil only knows one person with goat-like pupils.
His train of thought is cut off by Tubbo’s shout. “Atlas! We’re through!” Tubbo turns back to the computer. “We can see you, by the way. Hi, Fundy!”
Fundy waves. “Hi, Tubbo! Is Uncle Tommy there?”
“Uh-”
Tubbo is interrupted by Techno lumbering and leaning down into frame, his face in its usual neutral scowl.
“Philza,” Techno barks, using his usual nickname for Phil. “How’s it goin’?”
“Hi, Uncle Techno!”
Techno flashes Fundy a rare smile. Phil is speechless for several seconds. “Where are you?”
“Classified,” Techno sounds far too pleased with himself. “Creater just got back, said you were home.”
“Is Theseus there too?” Phil feels himself leaning forward against his own will. “Do they know?”
Techno’s face droops a bit. “Theseus is here. T knows, but Creater doesn’t.”
“ Fuck ,” He says, with feeling.
Fundy snickers.
“Never repeat that,” Phil points at him. Fundy blinks at him with too-innocent eyes and a too-innocent smile.
“Listen, Phil,” Techno grumbles. “I just wanted to let you know they’re safe. I’m sure you can handle Fundy.”
“Wait, Tech-”
Techno raises an eyebrow at him.
“The Coalition is hunting down Theseus and Creater.” Phil felt his wings thrash in their confines. “Starshine has a lovely theory that I’m sure he’s circulating right as we speak.”
“Which is?” Techno raises an eyebrow.
“He thinks you defected , Tech.”
Techno just snorts. “So?”
“So?!” Phil shrieks. “You know what the Coalition does to defected heroes. They’ll be hunting all of you down within the hour!”
Techno scowls at him. “Phil. I did defect. I have been. What does the great hero of his generation want to do now?”
That stops Phil short. Techno abandoning the Coalition did make sense. He wasn’t exactly thrilled with the way they did things, favoring the freedom of vigilantism to the rule-driven popularity contest of heroes.
But what did Phil want to do now?
He looks down to Fundy, who is already staring up at him, a concerned look in his eye. He wants to protect Fundy and his sons. He wants to have sons at the end of all of this, whatever this is.
“We have reason to believe the Eggpire is making moves,” Techno continues. “We need all hands on deck, and the heroes aren’t going to do anything. What do you want, Phil?”
“To help,” He replies. “I just want to help you. All of you.”
For a moment, he thinks Techno doesn’t understand. Techno stares him down, face stoic. Then, he cracks another rare smile- closer to a smirk than anything. “Atropos will meet you outside. Be ready to try being a good father for once.” The screen goes dark.
I’m gonna try, Tech. I’m gonna try.
The silence in The Stronghold weighs heavily on Phil. Suddenly, a ping sounds from the computers. A set of coordinates appears on the screen, with a single message:
Don’t fuck it up this time.
Phil quickly inputs the coordinates into his phone’s GPS before he hurries Fundy back into the elevator and up to the roof.
“Where’re we going?” Fundy pipes up. “Are we gonna be looking for Uncle Tommy like detectives?”
“Sort of,” Phil mumbles. “Your Uncle Techno sent someone to pick us up, so we’ll see them soon.”
“So we’re not looking for Uncle Tommy?”
“No, Fundy, no we’re not.”
“Oh.” His grandson sounds heavily disappointed. “Can we look for Mama, then?”
“We’ll probably need to,” Phil sighs.
The elevator doors open up to the roof. There, two people wait for them. One is a person in a pastel colour-block coat, shaped like a lab coat but with baggy sleeves like a hoodie, and a teal-green swirl on the back panel. The other is a girl in a simple, brightly coloured sweater, the tips of her hair pink and the front pieces bleached.
The person in the pastel coat turns to face them, waving cheerfully. Their face is completely covered by a gas mask with kaleidoscopic lenses, their curly hair poofing out over their forehead.
“Hello!” They exclaim, bounding over. “Atlas sent us to get you. I’m Atropos, this is Clotho.” They gesture to the girl behind them, who turns as well. The lower half of her face is covered with a black facemask, while her eyes remain uncovered, even with circular wire-framed glasses. She waves, her cheeks scrunching like she’s smiling.
“Like the Fates?” Phil asks. Clotho, the spinner, Lachesis, the allotter, and Atropos, the inevitable. They were the Moirai , the fates. Kristen had loved Greek mythology, and she had told Techno and Wil the stories many times over. He remembered only a few of them.
Atropos nods enthusiastically. “Yep! Lachesis is another of our founding members, along with myself and Atlas. He’s quite fond of the myths.”
Atlas, the world-bearer. Is that really how Techno sees himself?
“I’m so glad you’re so open-minded,” Atropos continues. “Very impressive for a hero like yourself.”
The words spark a memory- Karl had said something similar to him just a few hours ago.
He stares at the vigilante. Atropos simply stares back, like they know what he’s thinking.
Maybe the Coalition wasn’t as stable or entrenched in heroes as he thought.
“Anyway!” Atropos claps. “We’re here to ensure your safe passage to the Syndicate’s headquarters. Your family is there waiting.”
Atropos and Clotho both climb up onto the ledge of the roof. “Follow me!” Atropos falls forward, Clotho following shortly behind them.
Phil rushes to the edge, where he sees the two vigilantes sticking straight out, their boots attached to the walls of the apartment building.
“C’mon, slowpokes!” Atropos giggles.
“Fundy, how long can you stay in your animal forms?” Phil looks down at his grandson, who shrugs.
“Wanna find out?”
Fundy grins, teeth sharper than normal.
“Oi,” Phil sets a hand on his shoulder. “Let me know when you feel tired, okay? I mean it!”
Fundy groans. “Ugh, fine , Grandpa.”
He says “Grandpa” like it’s a synonym for loser, and Phil has some half-prophetic visions of Fundy’s teenage years. They’re going to be a nightmare .
With a pop, Fundy transforms into a copper-brown bird, the same shade as his hair.
Phil shifts his shoulders, unlocking the dimension that his wings stay in. They unfurl with a whoosh of wind, feathers flapping and some looser ones flying off. Fundy squawks on his shoulders.
“I’ll explain later,” Phil huffs, climbing up onto the ledge, his joints protesting. “Let’s go find your uncles.”
Fundy chirps, diving off of the roof towards the vigilantes.
I’m coming, sons , he thinks, looking out to the L’Manburg skyline. I’m trying, for you.
Notes:
Go Phil! Go redeem yourself in the eyes of your sons! I believe in you!
find me on tumblr @ wastedoverachiever
Anonymous raccoon (Guest) on Chapter 1 Sun 19 Sep 2021 01:59AM UTC
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Flowerpot (Guest) on Chapter 2 Tue 13 Dec 2022 08:31PM UTC
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