Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was the night before junior year.

Tommy pulled his gloves farther up his hands as he listened to his brother whine over his communicator.

“Tommy! Where the hell are you?!” The teen rolled his eyes. 

“Relax, Wil,” Tommy was significantly quieter than Wilbur. “I’m just out and about.”

“AT 1 IN THE MORNING?” Tommy quickly shushed him. “Oh don’t shush me! What’re you doing? Why’re you doing it?”

Tommy adjusted the squatting position he was in on the Townhall. He bit his cheek as he thought of a response. He figured Will would already have an idea of where he was, so he decided to confirm it.

“Out being epic.”

“TOMMY.” Tommy fought back a laugh. “ARE YOU OUT DOING OUR JOB?!”

He felt himself pause at this. Our job. As if they didn’t trust Tommy to do anything. And that hurt, no matter how much the boy pretended it didn’t. Seen as more of a nuisance than anything. But Tommy pulled a cheeky grin as he replied to his brother.

“I’ll be fine.” 

“You burnt your hand baking cookies last night.” 

“Aaaaaand you’re going off.”

“WAIT- NO- TOM-” Tommy pulled his communicator out his ear crushed it quickly under his feet. Techno’ll be pissed later but there were worse things Tommy broke of his oldest brother’s. 

He adjusted his bandana back over his mouth and pulled his goggles over his eyes. He placed his hands on the concrete and began slowly moving forward toward one of the vents on the rooftop. 

Tommy brought out his little custom tools he always used as a replacement to powers. He peered closely through the vent, watching for movement and concluded nothing. He twirled a screwdriver (which was the only normal tool he had with him) and stabbed it into the screws in the corners of it. 

Slowly, he lifted himself into the vent, making sure he didn’t fall to his death by keeping his arms and legs to the sides before landing. He crowled quietly toward the small amount of light in a second vent opening. 

He peered down at the room he found and was met with a small office. He scanned the room for any cameras or people before kicking down the vent door. When he jumped into the room he found nothing other than stacks of paper.

“Thought the Mayor’d have more valuable shit in his office,” He said to himself. Tommy glanced around the room a moment before checking a few drawers. 

Tommy scrunched his nose as he found an entire drawer full of alcohol bottles. He closed it quickly before searching through the papers. Wilbur and the mayor’s rivalry had been going on for as long as Tommy could remember, so if he could find some dirt to blackmail Mayor Schlatt maybe Wilbur would trust him more. Plus, Tommy didn’t like the bastard himself.

The documents were made up of mostly unsigned warrants or lawsuits. Tommy stifled a laugh at that one. 

Something did catch his eye: a picture of the mayor and a young boy beside him. Schlatt looked younger, having much less facial hair and his horns being significantly shorter. The boy next to him had fluffy brown hair with no horns, but his goat ears matched the mayor’s.

“I didn’t know Schlatt had a son.” 

“Neither did I.” Tommy’s soul nearly jumped straight out of his body at the new voice. He turned quickly, revealing his homemade taser. 

The stranger was about two feet taller than Tommy, with the entire right side of their body being white and the other being black. They had two medium horns pointing upwards with a makeshift crown right behind them. Their long, skinny tail swooshed behind them as they sat in the windowsill. Tommy hadn’t even heard it open.

“Who the fuck are you?!”

“I can ask the same for you.” Another voice came from the office door. Tommy whipped around and nearly tripped on his own sneakers. “I don’t remember you being the mayor.”

The other stranger had a chemist’s goggles but more personalized and hid his eyes. Tommy noticed he had large burns along his chin and under his goggles. His gloves were comically large but the blonde still figured he’d need to keep his distance from them.

“How did you get in here?” The black and white one said. 

Tommy pointed to the broken vent door. “Take a wild guess, dickhead.” The cat-like person rolled their eyes. 

The scientist walked forward, Tommy pointing his taser toward him. “Wanna get out of this place? Or get you shit rocked?”

Tommy glanced between the other two a moment before realizing, “how the hell did you find me? Either you were sneaking in just like me, or there was somehow a secret camera I didn’t noticed.”

This seemed to make the two pause, and Tommy smirked smugly. “I- Uh” the goggled one stammered. 

“Alright, alright,” Tommy started. “I’ll get outta your hair IF you tell me who you are and why you’re here.”

The other two looked at each other a long moment before sighing. “We…also wanted to…find something in the mayor’s office.”

“And we’re vigilantes, like you. I’m Mismatch, that’s Energize.” 

“Those are wanker names,” Tommy sneered at Mismatch. “And I’m not a vigilante, first off, how dare you. And second, why are vigilantes doing not vigilante things.”

“We don’t follow the law the same way heroes do. Schlatt is an asshole.” Energize said. “And what do you mean you’re not a vigilante? You’ve got the get-up of one.”

Tommy blinked, offended. “I’ll have you know I’m a villain!” 

Mismatch laughed in his window. “Yeah, and I’m human.” Tommy glared sharply under his own goggles. “Your costume looks homemade, which I’ve never seen a villain wear.”

“Well, I’m sorry I’m not as privileged as the big villains out there.” That was a lie, he definitely was. He was the son of motherfucking ANGEL, the third most famous villain out there. 

“And what’s your villain name?” Energize matched Tommy’s sarcastic energy.

He looked at the vigilante, hesitating to give him a name. But, the other two gave him theirs, and it was only fair to give them his. He said through gritted teeth, “Red Racoon.” 

“Well, that makes more sense with the fake ears on your hood and tail on the bottom of your sweatshirt.” Mismatch jumped into the room, closing the window behind him. 

“Are you a shapeshifter too or something?” Energize started looking through the papers Tommy was originally, completely ignoring the active taser in his hand. 

Tommy’s first thought was to lie, but if these two were anything like him they’d want him to show them what he could do. He also considered telling them he had no powers, but that would only increase the possibility of getting beaten right then and there.

“No, I’m not.” He spoke through gritted teeth. Energize pursed his lips as he reached the end of the paper stack he was looking through and began looking through another. Tommy glared at how nonchalant he was about what Tommy was holding.

“Then what can you do?” Mismatch said, joining Energize in searching through the papers. Tommy nearly sputtered at the fact neither were even a little phased by him. Either they were utter morons, or Tommy was.

“I can knock you the fuck up that’s what I can do!” He clicked his taser warningly. Mismatch raised an eyebrow at the device. Energize didn’t even look at him. “Okay. What’s going on, why’re you guys being so offensive.”

Energize snorted. “Yeah, very offensive that we’re not threatened by your dollar store taser.” Tommy gasped, exasperated. 

“How DARE you! I built this bad boy all on my own!” This made Energize look at him. His mouth fell open just a bit before turning into a big grin. 

“Really?!” He said, excitedly. “You build your own devices too??” 

Tommy blinked. “You were just insulting it.”

“Yeah, sorry bossman,” He brushed Tommy off with a wave of his hand. “It may work as a dollar store taser but building it yourself is pretty damn impressive. Mismatch, remind me that I need to build one myself!”

“ Me? Remind you?” Mismatch didn’t look at the two, continuing to search through drawers and more papers. Tommy could feel the eyeroll Energize did under his goggles. 

“What do you mean it works like a dollar store taser?” Tommy shoved the device back into his bag, completely forgetting the main reason he came here and the fact the three were supposed to be fighting each other.

Energize turned back to him. “Oh! On a regular person it would only feel like when you accidentally shock yourself after rubbing your socks on the carpet. For me it’d be like eating a singular Cheez-It cracker.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Tommy propped himself up on the mayor’s desk. Mismatch smirked at him. 

Energize pulled one of his gloves off, revealing yellow lightning-like scars tracing his veins. 

“You have jaundice?” Mismatch barked a laugh, quickly covering his mouth and looking toward the door. Energize chortled. Tommy found himself smiling under his mask. 

“Hell no,” He said. “My power allows me to absorb energy and reflect it back out. But of course, it leaves kinda nasty scars. They’re not painful but definitely don’t look good.”

“I think they look badass.”

Energize grinned. “Aw, Mismatch says the same thing. Sadly, if I absorb energy through bare skin, especially a lot, it burns pretty badly.” He pulled his glove back on. “Which is why I look like a science teacher.”

Tommy kicked his legs. Mismatch walked over to Energize holding a paper, the shorter one taking it to read. “What about you, patchwork?” Mismatch scrunched his nose at the nickname, but Tommy caught the slight smile on his face.

“I can teleport and transform into this, ” He gestured to himself. Tommy leaned toward him, wanting to know more. He’d never met someone with a teleportation ability before. “But teleporting too much and long distances causes my nose to bleed. I can teleport a few people with me, but it takes a lot of focus.”

“Are you this tall as a human?” Tommy itched his chin. 

Mismatch giggled. “No, I’m like 6’6 as a human.” 

Energize gasped enthusiastically. “Mismatch you beautiful creation! This is exactly what we need! Thunder’s gonna love this!” 

Tommy cocked an eyebrow. “Who? And what?” The vigilantes looked at him, Energize’s grin still visible. 

“We got the dirt we needed on Schlatt!” Tommy felt himself smile despite them being his enemies. Maybe they weren’t.

“Mind sharing?” 

The two paused a moment, and it felt like a punch in the gut to Tommy. Mismatch turned to him, “What’ll you do with it?”

Tommy shrugged. “Maybe I’ll make my brother pay me for the information.”

Energize and Mismatch shared a glance for a moment before smiling. “How about,” Energize started. “We give you the information, and none of us mention ever meeting each other.” 

Tommy grinned under his mask. “Deal!"

Chapter Text

Phil was standing in Tommy’s room when he returned. The boy stumbled right onto the floor from the window he snuck in, his goggles falling right off. Phil’s arms were crossed as he looked at his youngest son.

“Mind telling me why you were out and about in your homemade costume?” Tommy sat up, biting his cheek. “Or why you hung up on Wilbur? And the communicator Techno gave you no longer has connection?”

The blonde stood up, wiping himself off. “Techno’s got like eighty others. And Wil was getting on my nerves. Had to get him to be quiet.”

Philza sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. His black wings ruffled behind him. He walked over to his son, pulling his hood and bandana down. “What were you even doing out there? Were you hurt? Did any heroes find you?”

Tommy shuffled out of his dad’s grip. He remembered the two vigilantes he had met, as well as the promise they had made: don’t mention meeting each other. He looked up at his father, replying, “I’m fine. I can handle myself better than you think. I was out trying to get dirt on the mayor.”

“YOU WERE IN SCHLATT’S OFFICE?!” Philza’s wings spread out, nearly knocking over all of Tommy’s collectibles. The blonde quickly grabbed his shelves with his figures. 

“Dad!” He said instinctively.

“Oh, don’t ‘dad’ me! What if Schlatt was there? What if you were caught?” Well, he was. But the people he was caught by seemed to be just as stupid as he was. 

Tommy rolled his eyes. “But I wasn’t! And I was successful.” This seemed to perk Phil’s interest. The teen smiled at this. His dad cocked an eyebrow, intrigued. “Turns out Schlatt’s got a bunch of people he owes. Big Man’s got some unpaid debt.” 

Wilbur came bursting into the room. “TOMMY YOU WONDERFUL MORON!” Both the blondes seemed shocked at the older coming in the room. A man with long pink hair followed. “Do you know who he owes money to??” 

Tommy blinked a moment. He noticed Techno’s slight chuckle at his make-shift outfit. “How much’ll you pay me to tell me?” 

Wilbur’s grin faltered, pulling back into a frown. Phil smacked his son with his wing. “Tommy, this is serious. Give Wil the information and we’ll be able to take down that dictator.” 

Tommy bit his tongue. We. Yeah, you mean you three. Something sparked in his mind, causing him to grin. “If I get to help you out with it, I’ll tell you.” 

“Absolutely not,” Wilbur replied. Tommy frowned. Techno and Phil agreed. 

“You have school. I need you focusing on that, not villain work,” His dad said. Tommy hunched his shoulders. Even finding this information on his own wasn’t enough for his family to trust him.

He sighed, defeated, “Fine. Schlatt owes…”

Tubbo walked alongside Ranboo, both of them quiet as they strolled through the halls. He wore a beanie to hide his small horns, hoping no one would realize the similarities between him and Schlatt. The taller man gazed around the school, a soft smile on his face.

“Excited about school?” Tubbo teased. His friend glared playfully at him and Tubbo chuckled. 

“We have the same homeroom, right?” Ranboo asked, placing his hands in his sweatshirt pockets. Tubbo nodded.

The two were glad they had their first class of Junior Year with each other; both of them only really had each other, not making many other friends other than the other vigilantes. As they opened the door to their classroom they found the room filled with chatter. 

The two introverts scooted closer to each other as they walked inside. The teacher at her desk seemed to be rubbing her temples, clearly annoyed from all the noise. But hey, what do you expect for the first day of school?

“Ah! Hello,” she said quickly. She pulled out a clipboard with a sheet. “And who might you two be?”

“Toby,” he said easily. "But I go by Tubbo." The teacher nodded.

After Ranboo gave his name the woman glanced at the back of the room before sighing. “I apologize in advance, but you’ll be sitting with Tommy in the back. He’s known to be a bit rowdy.” 

The two boys looked at the boy named Tommy, who was picking something in his teeth while doodling. They looked at each other, surprised that that was the rowdy kid. 

The blonde looked up at his new deskmates as they sat down. He wiped his hand on his shirt and closed his notebook over his pencil. Tubbo shuffled a bit before speaking, “Hi, I’m Tubbo. This is Ranboo.” 

Tommy glanced at Ranboo and his eyes widened. “How fucking tall are you??” They started to see why he was dubbed the rowdy one. 

Ranboo blinked before laughing. “Yeah, I get that a lot. I’m 6’6.”

Tommy gaped at the man, his mouth falling open and his eyebrows knitting together. Tubbo and Ranboo smiled at each other, trying to contain their giggles. The blonde shook his head, blinking himself out of the trance he was in.

“Anyway, I’m Tommy. The biggest man there is,” Tubbo snorted. Tommy looked at the boy, offended. “What, sheep boy??”

Tommy couldn’t help but smile as he made the two laugh. There was something about them though, their voices seemed familiar and–was Tubbo wearing foundation? Tommy didn’t think too hard about it. 

“Well, first of all, dickhead, I’m a goat. Not a sheep.” Ranboo looked at his friend, raising his eyebrows. Tubbo dismissed him with a wave of his hand. 

“Then where're your horns?” Tommy said, leaning on his crossed arms on the table. Tubbo seemed to freeze at this. He definitely had horns, it was stated in the beginning. But they were ram horns, curling out his hair. And Schlatt was the only known ram in town. 

Tubbo shook his head and put on an easy smile. “Don’t have ‘em. Late bloomer, or something.” He shrugged, Ranboo nodded, catching on. 

Tommy raised a brow before the teacher called for everyone’s attention. 

The three of them talked throughout all of the class, getting called on for their giggling and banter. When Ranboo and Tubbo first came in it was just them two, now as they left they had a third. 

Tommy’s laugh was contagious, it was a loud burst that infected the other two. The three of them only met an hour ago, and yet were closer than ever. 

Even if they all shared the same sense of familiarity, they continued as if they'd been best friends forever.

Chapter Text

Marionette stared at Solitaire through his mask. He smirked at the uncomfortable face the other made. He’d never admit whether the mask was added to his outfit for the purpose of making others feel uneasy or just because he wanted to. The Minecraft Family said it was because he was a weirdo. 

“So, Marionette,” Solitaire spoke. Marionette cocked his head. “I heard about your little squabble between you and your friends. Must be hard, your best friends being completely against you.”

Marionette stared at Solitaire a moment, causing the other to glance away uncomfortably. 

“You’re digging up unnecessary drama from years ago,” the villain chuckled, waving a hand. “Sure, we were friends before, but we had opposite ideals. A disagreement about who’s the best singer doesn’t compare to being a villain and a hero.”

Solitaire scrunched his nose. “Yeah, whatever. I have a proposal.”

“Oh?” This perked Marionette’s interest. Solitaire scoffed quietly. 

“Yeah, turns out big man Mayor Schlatt has some unpaid debts,” Solitaire said. Marionette’s posture straightened. The brunette waved his hand around as he explained, “not only that, but he’s indebted to someone we know.”

The masked man cocked his head. “Who might that be?” 

Solitaire smirked. He leaned forward, cupping his hands around each other and putting his elbows on his knees. “The Gambler.”

Tommy shoved Ranboo’s face playfully as the taller man leaned over to copy his assignment. 

“Oh, don’t do that!” He laughed. “You don’t even have anything written yet!” 

Tommy scoffed. “Maybe I do but I’m just so good at hiding it from you,” the blonde grinned. Ranboo rolled his eyes. 

“Yeah, sure,” the older teen laughed. Tommy scrunched his nose at him, still smiling.

“Ranboo, Tommy,” the teacher spoke from his desk. “Mind telling me why you’re talking right now?” 

Ranboo shrunk while Tommy awkwardly continued writing. He leaned back over toward the teen, “second day of school and we’re already getting lectured.” Ranboo let out a quiet snort. 

Tommy nearly leapt out of his seat as the bell rang, eager to get out of school. Tubbo had invited him and Ranboo over to get to know Tommy better. Don’t question them, they’re lonely. And don’t worry, Tommy had told his family beforehand.

Was Wilbur happy about it? Not really. But that was because he never liked people inviting his little brother over, he was worried about him. He was always worried about him. Techno was too…in a way. He never showed it, he didn’t think he needed to. Techno trusted the people inviting Tommy over more than he trusted Tommy. Phil was escatic about this. It would be nice to have other people to keep him in check.

Tommy blinked wide-eyed at the house in front of him as he hopped off the bus with Ranboo and Tubbo. It was huge. Well, not really, but compared to Tommy’s house it was. Definitely bigger than an only child would be expected to have. 

“You fucking live here?!” Tommy gaped. Tubbo snorted.

“Yeah? My dad’s got a pretty successful job,” he said. That wasn’t a complete lie, but he wasn’t about to tell a kid he’s known for 2 days that he was the son of the mayor. Especially since he wasn’t the most popular of politicians. 

“No shit,” the blonde breathed. Ranboo glanced at Tubbo, who both shared a grin. 

As the teens made their way inside, Tommy’s jaw somehow dropped more. It was perfectly clean, with beautiful decor and a large staircase leading up. A mini-mansion. The Minecrafts’ house was full of trinkets and toys from Wilbur and Techno or junk food wrappers from Tommy. 

Tubbo grabbed Tommy’s hand eagerly and sprinted upstairs, Ranboo following. They stopped in front of a large room with beanbags, posters, like four consoles, and a large-ass TV. Tommy grinned widely. 

“Holy shit! You’ve got everything!” Usually, Tommy would be jealous of people like this. But that was because they’d brag about it, Tubbo was humble. In a sense.

The goat-hybrid chuckled. “Yeah, yeah. 'Boo and I spend most of our time here.”

“I would too,” the blonde was fidgeting with everything he found. He aggressively pulled out Mario Kart and showed it to the other boys. Sure, he had a Switch too, but he never really had people to play with. Wilbur and Techno were always too busy.

Tubbo and Ranboo grinned.

Bonding over Mario Kart, as they should.

Chapter Text

Quackity leaned back in his chair, eyeing the ram in front of him. Schlatt groaned and finally looked up at the avian. “What?”

“Just, ya know, wondering where my money’s at,” the man said nonchalantly. Schlatt pinched the bridge of his nose. 

“I’ll get it to you-”

“You said that two months ago,” Quackity interrupted. Schlatt glared. The man leaned forward. “If you were spending the money on your son I’d be less persistent, but both of us know how little you spend with little Tubster.”

Schlatt clutched his fists, glaring sharply. “Don’t bring him into this.”

Quackity raised an eyebrow. “Why? Because I’m right?” his voice was laced with poison. Schlatt fought down a shiver. The avian leaned back in his seat, almost satisfied. His gaze stayed unmoving. 

Schlatt sighed. “Is this because I stood you up that one time?”

Quackity seemed taken aback by this. “Excuse me?”

Schlatt rolled his eyes. “Look, I’m sorry I didn’t call back after our date-”

“Mister Schlatt,” the man slammed his hands on the desk. “You owe me money because you were too stubborn to walk away from a bottle of booze. This is not over a simple date that went wrong. You are indebted to me.”

Schlatt leaned back farther in his chair, attempting to get away from the mob boss in front of him. Quackity smirked at this. The man sat back down in his chair, his angry look turning into a conniving smile. 

“I’ll give you three months,” he hissed. “After that, I will no longer know you as ‘mayor’.”

“Red Racoon??”

Startled, Tommy punched the stranger in the face. A yelp was heard as the figure fell to the ground. A second figure was next to him, jumping to the side in surprise.

“Woah-! Don’t punch my partner!” the stranger helped the other up. Tommy flicked a switch on his goggles, turning on his custom night vision. The strangers were none other than the two vigilantes he had met about a week before: Mismatch and Energize.

“What the hell are you guys doing here?!” He squealed.

“Could say the same thing to you,” Mismatch said as he held his nose. That was familiar.

Tommy shifted on his feet, looking away. Clearing his throat he replied, “are you here to arrest me or something?”

Energize snorted. “No, vigilantes don’t have that kind of authority. Unless they were Batman, of course.” Mismatch glared at the blood stained on his sleeve.

“Then…what’re you doing here?”

“We were sent to check out the unauthorized person on the roof,” Tubbo replied nonchalantly. “Didn’t expect it to be you, though.” 

“Not sure if I should take offense to that,” Tommy muttered. He let out an annoyed sigh and looked at the partners. “Well, then, what’re you gonna do?”

Energize and Mismatch glanced at each other, contemplating. They shared a nod as if they have some sort of telepathic ability and turned back to the teen. 

Then, which absolutely flabbergasted the self-proclaimed villain, Energize put his hand out toward Tommy. He blinked under his goggles, his mouth open under his bandana. Finally, after many seconds of silence, Tommy yelled.

“THE HELL?? WHAT’RE YOU PLAYING AT? YOU TRICKING ME SO YOU CAN TAKE ME TO THE POLICE?” He yelled, panicked.

Energize brought his hand away, taken aback. “What?? No! From what we’ve seen, you have pretty much the same motives as us.”

Tommy scoffed. “Right. A vigilante trying to gain a villain’s trust so they can actually send them to jail. I know how it works!” 

Mismatch placed a hand on Energize’s shoulder and made him take a step back. He turned to Tommy, his eyebrows knit together. “Red, we don’t want-”

“What did you just call me?” Tommy looked up at the man. He felt his heart flutter. Mismatch’s cheeks beamed slightly and he looked away.

“I-I mean-”

“‘Red’?” Tommy repeated, his voice hushed now. Mismatch waved his hands.

“It was just a dumb thing that came out, I didn’t mean-”

“‘Red’,” he repeated again. He felt himself grin under his bandana. Mismatch turned away.

“Alright, fine! Don’t come with us to our awesome hideout,” the tall man said.

Energize looked up at him, surprised. “I was gonna take him to steal some ice cream from Walmart but that works too.”

Tommy let out a loud laugh. Mismatch and Energize looked at him surprised. They could’ve sworn they heard that cackle from someone else. But, they didn’t think too hard about it. Now they were gonna take this “villain” to their secret area just outside of town.

Chapter Text

Grian rubbed his temples as he sifted through the paperwork on his desk. He had many complaints from entitled parents about his shop being a “safety hazard” despite multiple safety inspector’s being outstanded by how he took care of it. 

The avian heard a knock at his office door. “Come in,” he called, not lifting his gaze as he read the many letters.

The door was pushed open by a cane while a man in a wheelchair came rolling in. He had a comically large purple top hat on with multiple scars lining his face. Grian glanced up at him, immediately relaxing when he saw a familiar face. 

“Hey, Scar,” he said tiredly. 

“Hey, Grian,” Scar replied, much more energetic than the avian. The English man placed his hands down on his papers and turned to the man.

“What’s up?” 

Scar frowned. “You looked tired. Have you been sleeping alright?”

“I’m fine,” Grian replied with a dismissive wave of his hand. “What did you need?” 

Scar’s brow furrowed a moment before he shrugged and came closer to the avian’s desk. The man placed a few papers on Grian’s desk, earning a frustrated sigh.

“Great, more papers.”

“Oh, quit whining,” Scar teased. He twisted them for Grian to read. “Lookit what the good ol’ Beeduo picked up.”

This piqued the Englishman’s interest. He scanned his eyes over the papers, Scar grinning amusedly when Grian’s eyes widened as he did so.

“Energize and Mismatch got this?” He asked.

Scar nodded confidently. Grian laughed.

“That’s amazing! Remind me to reward those two when I meet them again.”

“Will do, boss,” the other man saluted as he turned to get out. Grian snorted. When Scar left, the avian looked at the papers one more time.

“So…” he started. “That’s what you’ve been doing, huh, Schlatt? Really playing roulette with The Gambler?”

“BAHAHA!” Tommy cackled loudly next to Mismatch and Energize. The partners shared the same expression toward the kid. “Your- your hideout is a treehouse?! ”

Mismatch rolled his eyes. “Hey! At least we have a hideout!”

“What kid did you steal it from?” Tommy spoke through wheezes. “Why’s it so sad looking?”

“ You’re so sad looking!” Energize teased. The two smacked each other. Mismatch shoved the two away from each other, giggling.

“Alright, alright, so it looks like shit,” the brunette said. “But hey, we trusted you enough to take you to it!”

“I think I would’ve rathered you take me to jail,” Tommy laughed. Energize punched him in the shoulder, the two falling into a fit of giggles.

Mismatch chuckled and grabbed the two by the shoulders. He wrapped his arms around the two, causing Tommy to blink, confused. “Don’t freak out,” the tall man said. Tommy cocked an eyebrow. 

Then, in a matter of seconds, Tommy’s entire body went fuzzy and he was on top of the treehouse’s platform. He stumbled, sputtering loudly.

“What the hell was that?!” he squealed, smacking his torso to make sure he was still alive. Mismatch and Energize giggled.

“I told you, I was a teleporter,” the tallest boy said. Tommy blinked exasperatedly.

“You could’ve given me more than a millisecond to react!” 

“Nonsense,” Mismatch waved his hand. Tommy glared but his smirk was apparent. 

When he straightened himself, he spoke, “alright, soooo…what do you guys do here?”

Energize grinned. He grabbed the front of Tommy’s hoodie and dragged him to sit down on the planks of wood. The teen squealed before yelping as his knee smacked the wood. Energize apologized quickly before grabbing a large box and dragging it over to them. Mismatch sat down as well, rolling his eyes with a smile.

“What’s this?” Tommy asked.

“My gadgets and gizmos,” Energize replied with a grin. Tommy snorted.

“You did not just use ‘gadgets and gizmos’ unironically.”

“Oh, but I did.”

The three teens giggled stupidly with each other while Energize sifted through the box. 

“Do you still have that taser?” He asked, pulling out his own (which looked scarily similar to a police officer’s). Tommy nodded and Energize put his hand out for him to give it. The boy handed it over without question somehow. The vigilante studied it, taking it apart somewhat. He shushed Tommy when he tried objecting.

Energize placed the parts of the taser into his box and handed Tommy the police one. He stared at it wide-eyed under his goggles. 

“What the hell,” he breathed.

“Take it,” Energize said, almost sternly. 

Tommy gave him a look before taking the device. He faced it away from the three of them and clicked the button a moment. It vibrated slightly in his hand, the sparks much brighter than Tommy’s original. He almost dropped it, quickly taking his finger off the trigger.

“JESUS, man!” He placed the taser on the wooden floors, waving his hand around as the tingling sensation stayed. Mismatch and Energize giggled.

“Hey, if you’re gonna be a villain, I’m not letting you be a weak one.”

Tommy rolled his eyes. Wait…did he just do him a favor? Did a vigilante just do him a favor?? He eyed the two in front of him. They just gave him a taser…they just trusted him with a police-grade taser. And they were smiling. Proudly.  

They trusted him.

“Thanks…” he muttered. He didn’t know how to handle it. Two vigilantes, the people who are supposed to fight him trusted him more than his family seemed to. He clenched his fists around his pants and cleared his throat. 

“Don’t sweat it,” Energize said easily. It made Tommy smile. 

Mismatch smiled at Tommy before looking extremely pale. Er…on both sides. He shook Energize’s sleeve lightly. 

“I don’t know how much longer I can hold this form,” he said, a bit sickly. Energize tensed and glanced at Tommy a moment.

He gave a silent nod. “Don’t worry, big man. I’ll get outta your hair. I think I remember the way back to the city, from there I can find my way home.”

“You sure?” Energize asked sincerely. Tommy nodded.

“Of course. It’s the same as me and you taking off our masks, Mismatch doesn’t want me to know who he really is, that’s completely understandable.”

Energize shared a grin. Mismatch smiled gratefully. 

“Thanks, Red,” he replied while Tommy waved goodbye. 

The teen smiled and started running off. He couldn’t stop grinning under his bandana.

Chapter Text

Marionette tapped his foot impatiently. He took another look at the empty midnight street from the rooftop he was hiding on. He grumbled under his breath, bored. As much as meeting on a dark roof wasn’t Marionette’s first idea, he respected Solitaire as a villain and continued waiting for him.

That was until he heard a gasp behind him. It was too high of a voice to be Solitaire, or really anyone Marionette knew. He turned around swiftly, lifting his hands to use his powers. 

However, he didn’t find a hero. Or a villain. He found a kid just slightly shorter than he was, wearing a red hoodie, a worn out bandanna, and surprisingly impressive looking goggles. He was frozen in place, staring at the man.

“Who are you?” Marionette snapped.

The boy started to visibly shake, as most did when encountering the number one villain, but more in excitement than fear. 

“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” the boy breathed. Marionette cocked a brow under his mask. “I can’t believe I’m meeting the Marionette. ”

The man blinked silently at him. Finally, he cleared his throat and lifted his hands to threaten him more. “Who are you,” he growled again. 

The boy cleared his throat and straightened his posture. “Red Raccoon, sir,” he bowed slightly. Marionette almost snorted.

“I’ve never heard of you. Are you a vigilante?” The man let his fingers glow a sinister bright green as a warning.

“Oh, no, no,” Red Raccoon replied. “I’m a villain like you.”

That made Marionette laugh. “A villain? With your homemade outfit? Be real.”

The boy hunched slightly. “I am being real. I haven’t been doing this long so no wonder you don’t believe me.”

Marionette could see through his fake confidence. He smirked and scoffed under his mask. Lifting his wrist and letting his fingers glow he replied, “why don’t you go home ?” 

Usually, those he used his powers on would immediately follow his orders and their eyes would glow green to match, but the teenager just continued standing there. Marionette blinked. He twirled his finger, attempting to make him turn around, but nothing happened.

“ What the hell…” the man whispered.

“Whatcha doing there?” Red Racoon said. 

Marionette looked back up at him. “Go home.” He growled.

The boy took a step back. “Jesus, alright, man! Just wanted to talk to my idol.”

Shitty idol, Marionette thought. 

The teen turned on his heel before hopping off the roof. Curious, Marionette walked toward the edge. The boy was jumping down from each of the apartment platforms surprisingly well. Marionette watched him until he ran out of the alley below.

“Whatcha looking at?” Solitaire’s voice said suddenly.

Marionette looked at his hands a moment before replying. “Nothing.”

“What’re we doing here?” Ranboo said to his superior. Tubbo was next to him, his hands on his hips.

“Getting more detail on Schlatt,” Pesky Bird replied.

Tubbo squat next to the man, peering through the window as well. 

“Why can’t I just teleport in, grab some files, and teleport out?” The tall teen folded his arms.

“And let you have all the fun?” Tubbo turned back to him. Ranboo rolled his eyes.

The avian gestured for Ranboo to come next to them. He did, hunching much lower than the other two to see. It was a lively casino with lots of flashing lights. Ranboo had to close his eyes to keep from becoming disoriented.

“See that guy?” The man said as he pointed to a somewhat short man with black suspenders over his white dress shirt and a black beanie over his slick black hair. He had two yellow wings much smaller than Pesky Bird’s and a menacing scar from his lip to his left eye. “That’s Quackity, better known as The Gambler.”

“ That’s The Gambler?!” Tubbo whisper squealed.

Pesky Bird nodded. “Schlatt owes him tons of money. If we get The Gambler on our side then Schlatt’s sure to lose his office position.”

Ranboo looked at Tubbo, silently asking him, are you sure about this? Tubbo nodded, wiping a bit of dirt off his upper lip.

“Now, here’s the plan…”

Ranboo hid above the entire casino, walking along the ceiling supports. He slowly made his way toward Quackity, Tubbo watching for the signal. The teen waited a moment before quickly teleporting behind The Gambler’s bodyguards and knocking the two out on each other in a surprisingly swift movement.

Before the mob boss could turn around, Ranboo teleported back up to the supports and gave Tubbo his cue. The satyr nodded before shoving his hand onto the power generator and sending an overpowering energy surge. The lights and games went out, followed by multiple outraged sounds.

Quackity looked at the man made of green goop next to him and ran quickly toward his office. Ranboo gave Tubbo another nod and teleported down. He wiped the small amount of blood from his nose before following The Gambler.

Meanwhile, Tubbo was hurrying to find any gambling records Quackity had stored away. He searched through each cabinet, looking for his father’s name.

Finally, he found a folder labeled “J. Schlatt”. The boy grinned and reached in to grab it. It was thick, like, college textbook thick. He turned around to bring the evidence back to their exit but was startled by a familiar masked figure.

“JESUS CHRIST, MAN!” 

Tubbo stumbled backward, biting his tongue to keep from screaming. He found the same “villain” he kept having run-ins with. 

“What the fuck are you doing here?!” The vigilante whispered.

“Getting Schlatt’s records, what else?!”

“Well, I already have them. So go find someone else to take down.”

Tubbo could see Red scrunched his nose under his bandana. 

“Everyone’s in a race to get their hands on those,” Red said.

“Well it looks like we won!”

“We?” Tubbo paused.

He cleared his throat. “Yes, me and Mismatch. Obviously.”

Red folded his arms. “Then where’s the big guy?”

“He’s talking to The Gambler. Now get out of the way or we’re both gonna get caught!”

“I’m coming with you!”

Tubbo sputtered. “Wha- no you are not!”

“I can help! I wanna take down Schlatt just as much as you do. Besides, you guys already know me.”

“You’re a villain,” the boy snarled. “More or less–but either way, if you call yourself a villain we can’t take you with us.”

“What about anti-hero?”

“ No! Red, look, I like you, but now is really not the time to be arguing. Please just move.”

Red Racoon hesitated before reluctantly stepping aside. Tubbo gave him a nod before running back out the door. He boosted himself up, lucky for the casino to still be out of power, and easily went back through the window he and his team originally came from.

Grian was already in Quackity’s office when he arrived. He adjusted the mask over his eyes, straightening his posture when the man came running in.

“Gah! Who the hell are you?!”

“You really haven’t heard of me?” The man folded his arms. “Pesky Bird? The vigilante?”

Quackity looked him up and down. “Oh, so you’re Pesky Bird. What? You come to arrest me like some sort of Batman?”

Grian chuckled. “No, no. I’ve come to make a deal.” The other avian cocked a brow. “We know you want to get Schlatt out of office. He owes you a load of money. And we can help you with that.”

“Why should I trust you?”

The vigilante shrugged. “Beats me. I don’t really trust you either. But we both have a common goal.”

Quackity thought about this for a moment. Finally, after a long moment of silence, the mob boss replied.

“Fine. It’s a deal.”

Chapter Text

Mumbo watched his comrades come back to the base. He turned around to see Quackity blindfolded and wearing ear muffs. Energize and Mismatch were standing to the right of him.

“MY WORD-” The man yelped. “I thought we were trying to get him on our side, not kidnap him!”

“Neither of us truly trust each other enough,” Grian explained calmly. “Quackity agreed to this so we didn’t give out any hints to where our base is.”

“Are we there?” The other avian groaned. “You’re lucky I haven’t beat you up yet.”

Grian held back a snort and pulled the headphones off The Gambler’s head. He looked relieved as the blindfold was taken off too.

“Finally, Jesus.”

Quackity looked at Mumbo, making eye contact. The duck avian smirked and offered his hand.

“And you must be Redstone,” he said. “Pleasure to meet you.”

Mumbo was hesitant but reluctantly shook the other man’s hand. “Likewise.”

“Quackity, what do you already know about the mayor?” The avian asked. The other turned to him.

“The guy’s almost always drunk,” he said with a shrug. “He started gambling at Las Nevadas about two months ago. He started a few bar fights over his beer, it was pretty entertaining.”

Energize tensed next to Mismatch and his breath seemed to hitch. Mismatch gave him a soft nudge of reassurance.

“He’s been known to steal multiple people’s drinks after he was tabbed out. I’m pretty sure we kicked him out a few times. Unfortunately, he didn’t stop, he came back in and I had to come tell him off myself. He took that as a challenge. So he decided to play a few games with me. Probably the boldest move of his.”

Grian and Mumbo nodded along with his statement. Energize stepped closer to Mismatch. He instinctively wrapped his tail around his wrist.

“We played roulette first. He lost thirty thousand dollars.”

Energize sucked in a sharp breath and gripped Mismatch’s tail.

“We played pool, then craps, and he lost all of them. He still wouldn’t give up, he finally bet on poker. He really was drunk if he thought that was a good idea.”

Mismatch leaned down and made sure the others couldn’t hear him. “You want to leave?”

Energize shook his head. “I need to know how much of our money that bastard lost.”

Quackity then gave a sly smirk, reminiscing about the events of that night. “He played a good bluff, but so did I. He should’ve known I never lose at poker. He lost 180 thousand dollars total.” 

Energize turned around sharply and stormed out of the room. Mismatch sent the adults an apologetic look and some excuse before going after him.

“I can’t believe him!” Tubbo took his goggles off, revealing his deep burns under his eyes. “Betting that much money. What the hell!”

He chucked his goggles at the floor, Ranboo quickly catching them. He transformed into his regular form and gave Tubbo a sad look. He was crying. Ranboo wrapped his arms around the smaller boy, Tubbo almost immediately falling into his embrace.

“I just…” he hiccuped. “Why couldn’t he just be a dad for once?”

Ranboo frowned. “I don’t know. He sucks.”

Tubbo snorted. “Yeah, he does.”

They stood like that a moment before there was a knock at the door. Pesky Bird’s voice came from the other side, “you boys alright?”

“We’re fine,” Ranboo called back, letting Tubbo wipe his face. “Just didn’t want to hear much more.”

The avian let out a hum on the other side. “Well, you boys can go ahead and go home when you’re finished, just make sure you don’t reveal yourselves.”

“Yeah, yeah, we know how it works,” Tubbo responded, a bit more snappy than he intended. Pesky Bird didn’t seem to mind as he just gave another hum of affirmation and was heard leaving the hall.

Ranboo sighed and transformed again. He felt his nose swell up with blood from how long he’d been keeping this form but pressed forward with Tubbo by his side. They walked through the halls of their base and exited out of a small bunker entrance.

They entered a forest, the night air whipping their faces as they emerged. They double-checked that no one was near before leaving. Tubbo took out one of his gadgets that seemed to scan other lifeforms. Nothing other than a few animals popped up so the satyr gave Ranboo a thumbs up.

The tall man sighed, relieved, as he let himself shrink into his original form again. He wiped the small bit of blood that was dripping from his nose and wiped it on his suit. Luckily, his clothes transformed with him whenever he’d use his power, so his clothes fit perfectly no matter which form Ranboo took.

Tubbo took his goggles off again, placing them in his bag attached to his hip. He wiped something off his face, wincing slightly as he touched his burns.

It’d been about three years since he’d been in that accident. Yet it still seemed to hurt him. They didn’t seem like they’d ever fully heal. So Tubbo had to always have that reminder of that goddamn day when his father unknowingly lit an illegal firework in front of the entire town.

He had to be reminded of the people’s horrified screams and the excruciating pain on his face. The sudden loss of vision and the blood pouring down his face. The sound of the ambulance siren barely audible over the ringing in his ears.

It was just another reminder of the shit Tubbo had been through. Another reminder that he could never be normal. That he couldn’t just enjoy fireworks like everyone else anymore.

Tubbo stopped in the grass, his breath hitching. Ranboo stopped too, turning to his friend. The satyr hiccuped in his throat, quickly covering his mouth with his hand. Ranboo’s face wrinkled with worry as Tubbo’s legs started to tremble. 

Ranboo caught him before he could collapse. He let out choked sobs into his friend’s arm, and Ranboo let him. He whispered soft reassurances to his best friend, rubbing his back softly. They slowly kneeled on the ground, the sounds of cars driving in the distance.

It was a few minutes of that before Tubbo lifted himself off the other and rubbed his face. He let out a weak chuckle.

“That was stupid, sorry.”

Ranboo frowned. “Your feelings aren’t stupid. If you need to cry, you need to cry. Don’t feel ashamed of it.”

Tubbo huffed a smile. “Thanks, ‘Boo.”

The other teen returned the smile. “Of course, ‘Bo.”

The satyr sighed before reaching for his bag. “Better give this file to Thunder. He’ll need it to hack into…”

Ranboo raised a brow. Tubbo pushed himself away from him and started looking through his bag more hurriedly. Ranboo stood with the satyr, whose eyebrows were knit together in panic.

“Tubbo? What’s wrong?”

“The file.” Tubbo looked up, his eyes frantic. “The file’s gone.”

Chapter Text

Phil let himself glide down to a small cottage in the middle of the woods. It was a safe way to ensure no one saw where the villain lived. Sure, it had its downsides, but Phil needed to make sure his family was safe. Besides…their old home still had Kristen’s disapproving look of their path of villainy.

He landed in front of the porch. He stepped up the wooden stairs and pressed his thumb against a button under their doorbell. The sounds of something unlocking was heard on the other side of the door and it suddenly parted open.

Phil opened it more with his wing and walked inside. He placed his bag, which was now full of a punch of jewelry, on the kitchen counter. He stretched his arms over his head, yawning. He glanced at the clock next to the sink and found it was about two in the morning.

The avian pursed his lips before walking up the stairs toward his room. He pulled his cloak off and removed his gas mask looking thing off his face. He placed his hat on his dresser and began getting ready for bed.

As he walked, he checked his kids’ rooms. Wilbur and Techno were sleeping peacefully in their shared room. Will looked like he had been trying to contact someone as he had a communicator in his hand and wasn’t under his sheets. Phil walked in, removed the device from his son’s hand, and rolled him under his blanket.

Almost twenty five and yet still gets tucked in by his father, Philza thought with a slight smile on his face.

He walked toward the door decorated with random stickers and opened it. Tommy’s bed looked like it had someone sleeping in it, but Phil couldn’t see the boy’s fluffy blonde hair peeking out. Suspicious, the man walked toward the bed and pulled off the sheets.

“Thomas…” Philza snarled at the sight of two pillows stuck together under the blankets.

He looked up and found his curtains had been moved. Tommy went out again.

Tommy landed on top of a random building, high enough where he wouldn’t be spotted by someone just looking up. He grinned to himself as he held the large file in his hands.

He felt a bit guilty about stealing from Energize…but he needed this. He needed to prove his competence and if his only friends wouldn’t help him out then he’d help himself. 

Tommy froze at that thought. Friends. He considered two vigilantes friends.

The boy took a quick glance to find any cameras. After not finding any, he pulled his bandana down and his goggles up. He delicately opened the file to find Schlatt’s drunk face.

“Jason J. Schlatt,” Tommy read to himself. “Age 34. Unmarried…L.”

Before he could read more, his earpiece started buzzing. Tommy covered his mouth when he let out a yelp. He hesitated before tapping on it.

“Hello?”

“Thomas Innit Minecraft,” his father’s voice growled. Tommy shrunk. “Where the fuck are you?!”

Tommy paused. “Uhhh…frolicking?”

He heard his father huff on the other side of the communicator. “How many times have I told you? You cannot go out trying to be a villain.”

Tommy scrunched his nose. “I’m not trying to be a villain! I am a villain! I’m actually doing shit out here!”

“Get back home,” Philza commanded. Tommy was silent for a heartbeat.

“No.”

“What?”

Tommy lifted his earpiece out a bit, but still kept it near to hear his father. “No. I’m going to prove myself to you guys and I’m going to help our family!”

He took the device out and threw it down from the building. He regretted what he did almost immediately as he remembered that device was one of his and he was going to need to remake it. He groaned but turned back to the files.

His dad was most definitely going to ground him, but Tommy didn’t care too much at the moment.

He reopened the file and continued reading. There was information on his net worth and how much he had gambled in the Las Nevadas Casino. Tommy sucked in a sharp breath as he realized Schlatt had basically gambled away all of his monthly earnings. 

Tommy kept reading until he got to the family section and his eyes widened.

“Children, one…Toby T. Schlatt.” Tommy held his breath. “Tubbo.”

Chapter Text

Tubbo walked into school Monday morning biting his nails. He was walking quickly through the halls, barely paying any attention to where he was going. He had barely slept over the weekend, worried desperately about where his father’s file was. 

The satyr quickly shoved his bag into his locker and adjusted his beanie over his horns before walking toward his homeroom class.

He opened the door to his classroom to see Ranboo already sitting next to Tommy in the back. Tommy was doodling in his notebook, Ranboo gazing over his shoulder. Tubbo sighed and made his way to his seat across the two.

“‘Morning, Tubbo,” Ranboo said. Tommy paused for a second. 

He reluctantly brought his gaze up to the boy, giving an awkward wave and smile. Tubbo felt something twist in his stomach. He fidgeted in his seat and leaned forward.

“What’re you drawing?” He asked. Tommy instinctively covered it with his hand. Tubbo frowned.

“Oh, sorry,” Tommy apologized. He removed his hand and turned his notebook toward the other boy. It was a drawing of a costume that looked scarily familiar to Tubbo.

Tommy cleared his throat and took his notebook back, closing it. Ranboo gave Tubbo a weird look when the third boy decided not to look directly at the satyr. It caused the knot in his stomach to tighten.

It was like that the whole day, Tommy was tense every time Tubbo was near him and would never look him in the eyes. Ranboo also noticed it, giving Tubbo an almost sympathetic look. 

Finally, after school, Tubbo confronted him. He was drumming his fingers against the backpack strap he actually pulled over his shoulder. He tapped his foot in rhythm with his fingers as he waited for the bus. The vigilante walked toward him with a fast stride.

“Dude,” Tubbo’s sudden voice made Tommy jump. “What the hell?”

Tommy looked genuinely confused, but Tubbo didn’t buy it. “What d’you mean, boss man?”

He ignored the nickname the three of them gave each other. “You know what I mean. You’ve been basically ignoring me all day! You won’t look me in the eyes, this is the first time you’ve looked at me for more than eight seconds!”

Tommy’s face fell slightly. He turned to fully face the other boy. “I wasn’t trying to ignore you-”

Another lie.

Tubbo lifted his hands like he was about to push him, but exhaled sharply and brought his arms back down. “Just…what did I do wrong?”

Tommy bit the inside of his cheek. He sighed and looked away. “Nothing, Tubs, I’m sorry.”

The satyr was taken aback by the apology. He opened his mouth to say something but couldn’t make any sound. Then why, he almost said. But he didn’t. He just kept his mouth shut and looked down.

“I didn’t want to make you feel bad,” Tommy admitted. The truth. Tubbo looked up at him. “I’ve just…got a lot on my mind. I’ll try not to make you feel ignored again.”

The shorter teen smiled and lightly shoved the other’s shoulder with his fist. “Thanks, boss man.”

Tommy grabbed his bag full of gadgets and opened his window. Even if his dad grounded him, that wasn’t going to stop him from taking down Schlatt. Tubbo’s father…

Tommy shook his head and started climbing out of his room. That is, until his door opened behind him.

“Oi,” Techno’s voice came from the hall. “Dad said to stop you from sneaking out again. I would’ve made Will do it but he’s having some poetry night or something.”

Tommy stared bewildered at his older brother. Techno folded his arms as he leaned against the door frame.

“Ya gonna get back in here or do I have to drag you?”

The boy glared and pulled his bandana down. He took the leg lifted onto the windowsill back down and turned his body fully. Techno nodded approvingly.

“What’re you wearing, anyway?”

Tommy looked down at his hoodie. “My outfit.”

“ That’s what you’ve been wearing?” Techno’s voice was laced with a laugh. Tommy frowned.

“I made it myself,” he responded. He was quiet.

Techno blinked at him. “No wonder it looks like shit.”

Tommy knew that was a joke. The family always made fun of each other like that. But it stung this time. It caused him to tighten his fists and pull his lips back. He stared at his brother in silence, taking in light inhales.

Techno seemed to have noticed his little brother’s unamusement and stood up, dropping his arms.

“Look, I know it’s upsetting,” he took a step forward and placed his hand on the younger’s shoulder. “But we just don’t want you to get hurt. Being a villain isn’t as fun as you think it is. It’s dangerous and sometimes gruesome.”

Tommy didn’t reply.

“We’re only-”

“It’s because I don’t have powers, isn’t it?” Tommy snapped. He shoved Techno’s hand off him. “It’s because you think I’m useless !”

Techno took a small step back, his eyes widening with surprise. “What? No! We-”

“You all get to have these awesome gifts like most of the world, but I’m the only one with absolutely nothing special about me!”

Tommy’s voice started to get louder.

“I got you that fucking information! I was the one who found out about Schlatt’s debt! Yet you all still think I’m not capable enough for this!”

Techno’s brows knit together, shaping his eyes into a sorrowful look. Tommy started breathing faster.

“Tommy, that’s not-”

“SHUT THE FUCK UP!”

Techno staggered at his brother’s yelling. The boy’s eyes started watering and he rubbed his wrist against them to keep from crying. He wouldn’t cry. Not when he’s already seen as incapable.

He brought his goggles down from his forehead and pulled his bandana back up.

“You’ll see. I’m gonna make you guys fucking proud of me!”

With that, he took a quick move out the window, ignoring Techno’s calls. He jumped off their roof, rolling as he landed and started off into a sprint. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Techno starting to climb out of the window as well. Tommy started to speed up.

Techno yelled his name, the sounds of footsteps getting closer. 

Damn it, Tommy thought. It was foolish to think he could outrun his brother. Still, the boy kept running. 

His brother was faster and more agile than he was, but Tommy knew his weaknesses. The teen reached into his bag and grabbed four metal beads in between his fingers. With a swift turn, Tommy threw the beads down in a somehow perfect line in front of his brother.

Techno skidded as the beads made small explosions in front of him. He looked at his little brother with a shocked expression before quickly hopping over the smoke and continuing the chase. 

That gave Tommy more distance now. He was closer to the bustling streets where he could lose Techno easily. 

“Tommy– stop!” Techno gasped out, getting closer once again.

Tommy jumped suddenly, grabbing one of the lamp posts now that he was in the city borders, and swung easily onto the roof of a small shop.

Techno stopped, dumfounded. He panted heavily as he watched his little brother jump onto an eight foot tall pole and onto a building. The man huffed, looking down at the small mark left from one of Tommy’s mini grenades. He hurriedly grabbed his phone and called Wilbur. 

There were several rings until Wilbur answered.

“Dude,” his twin groaned. “I told you not to call me. We’re on in two minutes.”

“It’s about Tommy.”

“WHAT?!”

Techno heard someone shush his brother over the phone before he started talking again.

“The hell do you mean it’s about Tommy?? I thought you were watching him!”

“I was!” Techno defended. “The kid threw freaking bombs at me!”

“Bombs?”

“Something like that. They were like the size of peas. They blew up in a line in front of me. He was able to slow me down enough.”

There was a pause.

“Find him before dad beats all three of our asses.”

Chapter Text

Techno paced in his room. He was thinking about all the places Tommy could’ve been. The most likely was Schlatt’s office, but there wasn’t anything else to learn from there. He huffed a groan and grabbed his own uniform.

He pulled his mask over his eyes and his crimson cape over his shoulders after his white blouse. He pulled a gold crown over his hair before leaping back out his window and following Tommy’s steps.

Techno was quick to get to the city. He didn’t jump right onto a lamppost like his brother did, as that would bring attention to him, but he did jump onto a building next to it. He eyed the streets for the shop Tommy had ended up on. Once spotted, the man jumped easily onto the building and tried remembering which direction Tommy had gone.

He went straight, Techno remembered. He started in that direction, keeping himself above the ground.

The man bit his lip as he searched for his little brother. The kid didn’t wear his communicator since Phil called him last time. Even before then, he was aware of the GPS embedded in it and found a way to override it. Techno didn’t think much of it until the little bombs Tommy had thrown at the ground earlier.

They were barely the size of his fingernails yet made enough of an explosion to draw Techno back. It was impressive, but he wouldn’t admit that.

“It’s because I don’t have powers, isn’t it?” Tommy’s words echoed in Techno’s mind. He paused, looking down.

It wasn’t. Or maybe it was? Techno wasn’t really sure at the moment. His only goal was to find his brother.

Techno continued forward, pausing a few times to try and pinpoint where the rambunctious teen would’ve gone. He bit his cheek. He wasn’t finding anything that led him closer to his brother.

 Damn it. If he had just followed him when he first got to the city he’d have caught him by now. But no, Techno was too scared of outting his identity that he went back home. 

The man let out an indignant groan, running his hands through his hair and squatting down. He lost Tommy. He lost Tommy after he was given the responsibility of doing the exact opposite of that. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, letting out a long exhale.

Then, a voice. An unfamiliar voice, but a voice. One from below him. 

Peering hesitantly over the building, Techno saw three figures on the ground. One of them had large parrot wings with a red turtleneck and a dark crimson eye-mask. The other two were a tall black and white creature wearing a suit and a short satyr dressed like a chemist. 

Techno attempted to ignore them, standing up and searching the area for his brother again.

“I ran into Red Raccoon at the casino,” the satyr said. Techno paused.

“That self-proclaimed villain you keep coming in contact with?” The parrot man asked.

The satyr nodded. “He was trying to get Schlatt’s file, too.”

Techno sucked in a breath. There was a chance this was just some random person. But…Tommy loved raccoons. He claimed he was a raccoon ever since he was a kid. Even his beloved hoodie had ears and a tail matching one. 

Techno froze. Tommy was wearing that same hoodie when he was caught sneaking out. His red raccoon hoodie. 

Despite his better judgment, Techno jumped down, grabbed the satyr boy, and lifted him by the collar of his shirt. The vigilante yelped while the other two stepped back. 

The avian grabbed a crossbow from his back and pointed it at Techno. The villain was quick to react, summoning a large black sword with purple marbling along its blade. It looked as if it was made of obsidian. He pulled the satyr close to him and pressed the saber against the front of his neck. The tall black and white one gasped and took a step forward.

“What do you know about Red Racoon?” The villain snarled.

The vigilante blinked at him, as if he just asked something ridiculous. He put his hands up and took a hesitant step forward, to which Techno pressed the blade closer against the satyr’s throat.

“We don’t know much about him,” the tallest one said. “We’ve only run into him a few times. Please, just let him go.”

Techno pulled his lips back and glanced at the boy in his arms. He was surprisingly calm considering the saber that could easily end his life if Techno wanted it to. He didn’t, this was a kid who hadn’t done anything wrong. But Techno couldn’t let them know that he wouldn’t kill the boy.

“You have to know something if you continuously cross paths.”

The black and white creature gulped. The avian flared his wings.

“We know he’s got a knack for inventing,” the satyr in Techno’s arms said suddenly. It almost startled the man. “And that he doesn’t use his powers, if he has any.”

He doesn’t, Techno thought to himself. No wonder he’s “got a knack for inventing”, it’s all he can do. Techno felt like an idiot for never realizing it.

“That’s it,” the boy said. “You can let me go now.”

Techno didn’t respond for a long while. Finally, he let the boy go, who was overly nonchalant about the whole situation. The tall creature grabbed him and pulled him away from Techno. 

He shared an angry glare with the parrot before unsummoning his sword and hopping out of the alley.

He was going to find his brother and bring him back home. Drag him if he had to. 

Tommy leaned against his knees as he caught his breath. In all honesty, he was only doing all those cool moves to impress Techno. Otherwise, he probably would’ve just climbed the building regularly.

Schlatt was in a meeting with The King, the fifth most powerful villain. Apparently, he had gotten even more desperate now that he had two teams against him.

The King wasn’t like the regular villain, they were actually quite kind. But they didn’t agree with the heroes in L’Manburg, earning him the title of villain anyway. She was probably more known than the other four top villains, despite not having as strong of powers; she could hypnotize people, but only when she wasn’t blinking. The moment he looked away or blinked, the person would gain their consciousness back.

Think of Mr. Aizawa but with hypnosis and not disabilization.

Tommy would never admit the fact he knew almost every My Hero Academia character, out of pride or something. He mostly knew it from Tubbo but he secretly enjoyed watching animes with him.

Anyway, The King was more of an anti-hero than a villain, falling under the “chaotic neutral” category. He’d make deals with anyone if it benefited him or if he thought it would benefit people he cared about. She didn’t make deals with people out of malice, so it was likely that she wouldn’t deal with Schlatt.

Still, configuring with two villains was more than enough to impeach the mayor.

“Tommy fucking Minecraft,” Techno’s voice came from behind the boy.

Tommy yelped and turned around so quickly that he tripped over his own sneakers. Techno’s eyes glowed a dangerous red. The boy shrunk under his gaze.

“How’d you find me?”

“Figured out where Schlatt would be and connected the dots,” the villain growled.

Tommy huffed. “I just don’t get why it’s such a big deal that I’m trying to help this family.”

“You’re directly disobeying us,” Techno’s eyes slowly dimmed back to his usual yellow. “That’s what we don’t get.”

The youngest brother sighed. “You guys don’t give me much of a choice…”

Techno’s expression softened. He took a few steps forward and suddenly Tommy was wrapped in a hug. He blinked in surprise at the sudden embrace.

“I know,” the man said. “And I’m sorry. It’s not fair.”

Tommy lowered his head into his older brother’s shoulder and returned the hug. 

“Can I just…do this?” Tommy asked hesitantly. Techno let his little brother go and looked at him.

He let out a chuckle. “Fine. But I’m helping you.”

Despite having his face covered, Techno could see Tommy’s eyes brighten. If the tail on his hoodie was real it would’ve wagged. 

Tommy led Techno to the vent on the top of the building. “This is what I used to get his file earlier.”

Techno nodded. He stared as Tommy lifted a screwdriver out of his bag and began unscrewing the vent door. Techno was shocked that it wasn’t some sort of special automated device like everything else his little brother had on him.

“You know dad’s gonna kill us if he finds out I let you do this?” Techno said.

Tommy snorted. “Yeah, I know.”

The brothers fell into a comfortable silence while the vent door was unscrewed. Once they left a space for them to climb through, they made their way into the building.

Tommy was in front, pausing when they found Schlatt’s office. Techno groaned while his brother’s rear was in his face. 

Tommy gracefully leapt over the small vent opening, surprising Techno even more with how silent he was. The two people down below didn’t even bat an eye. Techno watched the other pull out a recording device and place it over the vent door.

“Why should I help you?” The King inquired.

Schlatt sighed, rubbing his forehead. “I’ve already lost enough to The Gambler, if I lose my spot in office I’ll be endangering not only myself but also my son.”

Tommy almost laughed. As if he actually cared about Tubbo, he’s made it apparent that he hates his father for the way he treats him. They talk shit about him all the time when they’re hanging out.

The King cocked a brow, his white eyes staring at Schlatt through his sunglasses.

“Perhaps it’s for the best,” the villain said. Schlatt looked dumbfounded. “Excuse me, Mr. Mayor, but you’re not exactly the most popular of politicians.”

Schlatt’s mouth fell open.

The King continued, “what could you possibly offer to make me help you?”

The mayor stared for a minute. Tommy tightened his grip on the recorder while Techno’s brows furrowed. 

“Anything you want,” the satyr said finally. Tommy knew that was a lie, the dude couldn’t pay off his debt even though he was literally the mayor, how would he get a top villain anything they wanted?

The King thought for a moment, leaning back in her chair. She pulled a sly smile as she replied, “your resignation.”

Schlatt glared sharply. “Not funny.”

The villain laughed, clearly disagreeing. Tommy bit his lip to keep from laughing as well. Glancing up, he saw Techno also holding back his own chuckle.

“I’m messing,” he leaned forward. “But really, there’s no villain that wants you in office. So your offer has to be pretty high.”

Schlatt fidgeted with his fingers. He took a deep breath before leaning on his desk. He spoke in a low voice, Tommy wasn’t sure if his recorder would be able to catch it.

“I can clear your record.”

The King froze. Tommy nearly dropped his device in surprise. How would he erase the fifth villain’s crimes? Techno’s eyes widened and he leaned closer to the vent.

“What?” The King breathed out.

“I’ll get rid of your convictions,” Schlatt explained. “I’ll take away any history of you being a villain. You can live in peace.”

The King tightened their grip on their pants. The mayor’s lips twitched upwards, fighting a smile. He got to them, he knew what they wanted. Tommy lifted his gaze, making eye contact with his older brother. Even without seeing his face, Techno could tell what his brother was asking. He nodded. Schlatt did have the power to do that.

“Don’t,” The King breathed.

Tommy felt like he was witnessing more than he needed. He came to get blackmail against Schlatt, but now he was learning about the motivations behind one of the top villains.

“We can get rid of both our crimes,” Schlatt said. He offered a hand over his desk. He was the manipulator in the situation now. 

The King stared at his outstretched hand. Tommy could see how badly she wanted to take it. He pulled his lips into a thin line before grasping his hand around the other’s. Schlatt grinned.

“You have yourself a deal, King.”

Schlatt's ear perked up at the sound of a click from the vents.

Chapter Text

“You have yourself a deal, King.”

Tommy grinned under his mask. He pulled the recorder away from the vent door, sharing a smile with Techno. He pushed the button down to stop the recording.

Click.

The sound echoed in the metal corridor. The brothers shared a look of panic as both their hearts skipped a beat. Schlatt perked up, glancing up towards the vents the two were hiding in. They quickly leaned away from the light, holding their breaths.

“Is something wrong, sir?” The King inquired.

Schlatt ignored her. He stood from his desk, stalking slowly to the bottom of the vent door. He tilted his head as he peered in.

Tommy held his mouth with his hand and stared at Techno. The brothers could hear the other’s heartbeat, shocked Schlatt couldn’t.

After what felt like eternity, the mayor scrunched his nose. “A rat must be up there. I’ll have to call someone.” Schlatt turned on his heel to face The King. He gave a dark smile. “Let’s continue discussing our deal.”

Tommy and Techno shared a glance before silently sneaking back through the vents. They let out exhales at the same time once they were back out of the building. They leaned on each other, panting to catch the breath they held.

After they caught their breath they grinned at each other and started laughing.

“Man, that was terrifying,” Tommy said. Techno agreed.

The older chuckled and grabbed his little brother by the shoulder. “Right, we got what we came here for. Let’s get you back home.”

The brothers walked along the buildings in silence, Tommy fidgeting with his recorder. Techno noticed the unusual quiet from his brother, stopping and turning to him.

“You alright, Toms?” The Blood God asked.

Tommy huffed. “Are you gonna tell Wilbur and dad about this?”

Techno stiffened. The boy looked so helpless and asked so genuinely that he wasn’t sure if that was even Tommy. The villain looked away, sighing.

“If you don’t want me to, I won’t.”

Tommy’s expression brightened. He looked up at his older brother and grinned widely. Techno was quickly pulled into a tight hug, his baby brother thanking him. Techno blinked multiple times before smiling softly, returning the hug.

“Oh, hey,” the villain started. Tommy pulled away to look at him. “I met a few people on my way here. They said they keep running into you.”

Upon returning home, Tubbo noticed his dad's car in the driveway. As he walked toward his house, he tensed up slightly.

Shit, the boy thought. He’s home early. The satyr just hoped the mayor didn’t notice his son missing. 

He climbed up the side of his house, using some of his own inventions to aide him. He lifted himself through the window he unlocked before he left and carefully stepped inside his room. He pulled his goggles off his face and placed them in a protected box under his bed. He shoved his labcoat off and put it on a hanger in the back of his closet.

He tossed his gloves into the same box with his goggles before changing into some more comfortable clothes. He glanced at the time and noticed he also got home earlier; it was only midnight, it was a short mission with Pesky Bird and Mismatch.

Tubbo laid on his bed and grabbed his phone.

2 unread messages. 

The boy unlocked his device to find a text from Tommy. 

Tom: Hey big man!! I was thinking about you and Ran coming over to my house. We don’t have much but I was thinking it would be a nice change from yours.

Tom: NOT THAT YOUR HOUSE ISNT GREAT

Tubbo let out a snort. He rubbed his eyes as he responded:

You: Sounds good toms

Tom: whyre you awake

You: whyre YOU awake???

Tom: long story. Anyway, does this Friday sound good?

You: yup! I’ll tell ranboo

Tom: :))

Tubbo sighed and rested his head on his arm. He could hear his dad walking toward his room, causing him to quickly pull his blanket over himself and put his phone on his side table. He heard the door creak open, letting the hallway lights in.

The older satyr strolled to his son’s bed, sitting down next to the fake-sleeping boy. Tubbo felt a hand caress his hair, similar to how his dad would when he was a kid. He hated the warm feeling it endured.

“‘Night, Tubs,” Schlatt said softly. He planted a kiss on his boy’s head before leaving.

Tubbo couldn’t move. He continued to lay there, his eyes wide. He relished that feeling. That feeling of joy, joy that his father kissed him goodnight. How many times had that happened while he wasn’t awake to notice it? Did his father check on him every night?

He gripped his sheets tightly and shut his eyes. He wasn’t going to cry.

Eventually, after what felt like hours, Tubbo fell asleep.

Ranboo leaned back in their chair as they tapped their fingers against their desk. This was one of the couple classes he had without Tommy or Tubbo. It was lonely if he was being honest.

Once the bell rang, the tall teen sauntered away to the cafeteria. Tubbo waved to him from the table he was at while Tommy choked on a sandwich. Ranboo smiled and walked towards his friends. 

“‘Sup, Boo,” Tubbo said. Tommy struggled to say the same.

The satyr smacked the taller boy on the back as he coughed. Ranboo couldn’t help but laugh. Once Tommy stopped dying, he turned to the oldest.

“Oh,” he started. “Tubs probably already talked to you about this, but I was wondering if you guys wanted to come over to my place this Friday.”

Ranboo perked up slightly. He had never been to Tommy’s house so this would be a nice change of things. From what Tommy told them about his family, he had a pretty good homelife. Sure, he vented about not feeling appreciated enough, but he never talked like he disliked his family.

Plus, Tommy was the only one with siblings.

“Sure,” Ranboo smiled. “Sounds good. When were you thinking?”

Tommy shrugged. “After school, if that’s alright with you guys.”

Tubbo and Ranboo nodded. “Yeah, that should be alright,” Tubbo said. “We can ride the bus with you like when we go to my house.”

Tommy beamed. “Excellent. I’ll tell my dad I’ll need pizza money.”

The three teens laughed with each other until lunch ended. Ranboo followed Tommy to their next class after waving goodbye to Tubbo. 

Tommy groaned as he sat down, not wanting to be in school anymore. Ranboo chuckled as he took his own seat next to the boy. He was fast to take out his notebook, flipping through all the doodles he had done in the past few months.

“What’s that?” Ranboo pointed at a drawing of a costume, stopping the pages from moving anymore. It was scarily close to a certain someone.

Tommy tensed slightly, like Ranboo wasn’t meant to see it. The boy let out a light laugh.

“It’s stupid. But it’s uh…a costume idea.”

Ranboo nodded, ignoring the way their fists tightened around their pants. There wasn’t any color, so they couldn’t confirm that it was Red Racoon, but the hoodie was a bit to similar for Ranboo’s liking…

To be fair, anyone could have that hoodie, he’d seen it a few times before in Walmart. Yet the way it was drawn with all the patches…

Ranboo must’ve been staring at it too long because Tommy quickly turned the pages until he got to an empty one. He started drawing random animals, not a lot of time going into them, just doodles. When the lesson began, Tommy continued doodling instead of taking notes.

Ranboo tapped his pen on the other’s notebook then pointed at the board. Tommy rolled his eyes.

“I already know all this,” he whispered. “The circumference of the sun is like 30 or something blah blah blah.”

Ranboo covered his mouth as he let out a quiet snort. Tommy grinned at making his friend laugh. 

It was like that for the rest of the day, the three kids joking to each other when they reunited, somehow not being put in detention by their teachers. They only had each other for company, but that didn’t bother them in the slightest.

They were best friends, afterall, even if they’ve only met a few months ago.

Chapter Text

Friday came quicker than Tommy expected. To be fair, he invited Tubbo and Ranboo on Wednesday so they didn’t have to wait long. 

The three teens hopped off the bus, their noses already slightly pink from being exposed to the chilly November air. The leaves made soft crinkling sounds as they walked along the grass. No one else got off at their stop, so it was a quiet walk.

Tommy adjusted his beanie over his head. Wilbur was insistent on him wearing it despite it not being that cold. Tommy had huffed and put it on for his older brother. He’s grateful he had, but he wasn’t going to admit that to Will.

“How far do you live?” Tubbo asked, his breath a white mist as he spoke.

Tommy shrugged. “A couple minutes from the bus stop,” he turned to see the two older boys giving him incredulous looks. He snorted at that.

“Sorry I don’t live closer to the city,” Tommy waved his hands dramatically. Tubbo and Ranboo rolled their eyes.

The three of them walked in a comfortable silence until Tommy turned suddenly onto a faint gravel pathway. You’d miss it if you weren’t specifically looking for it. It was hidden slightly by the trees and fallen leaves.

Tommy led them down the path for a few more seconds before they saw a cozy-looking cottage surrounded by a bunch of pine trees and a few dead ones to the side of them.

“This looks like where you’d get murdered,” Ranboo said. Tommy turned to look at them.

“It’s just the bears you gotta be worried about,” Tommy said. Ranboo froze for a second, causing Tommy to laugh.

“I’m kidding. The most dangerous animal out here is my brother’s dog. And he’s a big softie.”

As they made their way to the porch, a large, albino St. Bernard started barking. Ranboo and Tubbo jumped, grabbing onto each other while Tommy just grinned.

“Hi, Steve! Did Techno leave you out to greet us?” 

Steve just barked again while Tommy pet his head. Tubbo and Ranboo shared glances before unraveling themselves.

“Alright, boys,” Tommy turned to his friends and revealed some house keys from his pocket. “Get ready to be amazed.”

They weren’t amazed, clearly, but they let out dramatic gasps anyway. Tommy rolled his eyes and offered them inside.

The warmth was shocking to the two teens. The house had great heating apparently. Must distribute better by being a small house. They didn’t know, nor did they care. It just felt nice to be inside.

“Tommy?” A voice called. Tubbo and Ranboo stiffened at the uneasiness the voice brought.

A man walked out from what you would assume to be the living room. His hair was dyed a light pink tied into a loose bun. Gold-framed glasses sat against his nose. Tubbo squinted slightly at the familiar scars on his chin.

“Techno!” Tommy beamed. “Meet Ranboo and Tubbo.”

The satyr and shapeshifter waved sheepishly. Techno scanned Tubbo a bit, noting his goat legs and small lumps poking up from under his beanie. A familiarity passed over them that Tommy didn’t notice. His yellow eyes flicked back to Tommy and gave him a slight smile.

“Ah, so these are the knuckleheads I’ve heard so much about.”

Tubbo turned to Tommy. “Awww, you talk about us?”

Tommy’s ears faded into a light red as he glared at his friend. “I do not. Techno is a liar.”

He turned to his brother, who wore a smirk. He sent him a playful glare before asking, “where’s Will and Dad?”

“Dad had to do some emergency for work,” Techno replied. That seemed to make Tommy tense. “Will’s upstairs.”

Tommy grinned. His friends watched as he got into a weird stance, cupped his mouth, and yelled, “WILBUR!”

Techno covered his ears at his little brother screaming but overall was unphased. Tubbo and Ranboo looked at each other before giggling.

After a few seconds, a pair of footsteps were heard and a new person was revealed. He had curly brown hair that matched his chocolate eyes and wore silver glasses. He and Techno must’ve been twins, basically everything except the pink hair and yellow eyes matched the other.

The man glared at Tommy before noticing Ranboo and Tubbo next to him.

“Oh!” the man’s eyebrows went up. “You must be Tubbo and Ranboo.”

The two teens waved awkwardly. Wilbur grinned.

“Well, pleasure to meet you two. Tommy, dad said to give you some cash if you wanna buy any food or some shit.”

Tommy nodded. Wilbur walked down the stairs and pulled out his wallet. From what siblings are portrayed as in fiction, Tubbo and Ranboo were surprised at how cooperative the older brother was.

Wilbur pulled out a 20 and handed it to his little brother. Tommy grinned before grabbing his two friends by their wrists and bolting upstairs.

“Thanks, Will!”

The teens found themselves in a smaller-than-average room. Shelves filled with different collective figures lined the room, a desk sat to the right of the door, and a bed covered in bright red sheets was tucked in the corner.

“Ok, so,” Tommy sat on his bed and grabbed a laptop from under it. “What movie you boys wanna watch?”

The three decided to watch Moana (and by decided I mean Tommy convinced them), and Tommy took out his phone to order food. When Ranboo suggested a pizza with more than just pepperoni, Tommy looked at them as if they grew two extra heads.

The kids laughed loudly with each other, barely paying attention to the movie going on. Tubbo tried on Tommy’s clothes, making awful impressions of the taller boy. Ranboo looked through the random sketchbooks in the room, making fun of Tommy’s cringy old art styles.

“Tubbo, Ranboo,” Wilbur peaked into the room, pausing when he saw his little brother trying to force-feed Ranboo a half-eaten slice of pizza. He let out a snort before continuing, “are you guys staying the night?”

The two’s eyes widened. They looked at Tommy who had a large grin on his face.

“If that’s okay,” Tubbo said. Wilbur smiled.

“Alright then, there should be some blow-up mattresses and extra blankets in the closet downstairs. Tom’ll know where it is.”

With that, the older brother closed the door and continued to let the three boys be idiots together.

Chapter Text

Tommy woke up not in his bed. Turns out Tubbo had traded his mostly deflated mattress for Tommy’s actual bed. 

He let out a tired noise as he sat up, feeling the carpet beneath him as the mattress lost its air. Ranboo was asleep to his right, his legs going off the mini bed under his blanket. Tommy stood and leaned over Tubbo, who was snug in his sheets.

“Oi, dickhead,” he said into the satyr’s ear. Tubbo just mumbled out some unintelligible sound. Tommy shoved him. “Get up, idiot.”

Tubbo mumbled something Tommy figured was a “no”. The boy rolled his eyes and went to wake up Ranboo instead. He was given the same response from the taller teen.

Tommy huffed. “Do you guys want breakfast or not?”

“We’ll eat later,” Ranboo grumbled. Tommy glared.

They weren’t getting up, Tommy discovered. So he begrudgingly walked over to his desk and opened his sketchbook. He started drawing whatever came to mind, mindless doodles. It was about ten minutes later when he stopped and finally heard Ranboo’s mattress behind him move and the one sleeping on it sit up.

“Whatcha doing?” He asked rubbing his eyes.

“Drawing,” Tommy replied. “Cuz you guys took too long to wake up.”

Ranboo rolled his eyes and stood up. They leaned over Tommy’s shoulder to see what he was sketching and smiled. He walked out of the room after asking where the bathroom was. 

“You boys awake?” Tommy heard his dad call.

“Ranboo and I are!” He called back.

“Techno’s making waffles for you guys,” Wilbur added. 

That seemed to get Tubbo out of bed because as soon as Wilbur mentioned waffles the satyr sat up abruptly. Tommy couldn’t help but laugh as the other tried to unravel himself from the blankets and get up.

“Man, you guys are getting special treatment,” Tommy said as he and Tubbo made their way downstairs. Ranboo was quick to follow.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Wilbur asked from the counter, a mug of coffee in his hand.

“It means you guys never make me waffles without me asking,” Tommy said. Wilbur rolled his eyes.

Tubbo and Ranboo were startled by a winged man walking up to them from the living room. He had golden blonde hair with a few white strands hidden in it. An avian. A fucking huge one at that. Giant crow wings ruffled on the man’s back.

“Good morning,” he smiled warmly. “You can call me Philza, or Phil, whichever you prefer.”

Avians were one of the rarest power mutations, only three being known of in L’Manburg. Yet here one was, acting completely normal.

Hold on, backtrack, only three were known of in L’Manburg. A parrot, Pesky Bird; a duck, Quackity “The Gambler”; and a…crow…

Tommy grabbed his two friends before they could continue that suspicion and dragged them to one of their chairs. The counter had a marble top while the chairs consisted of those stools you could pull out and spin in. 

Three plates with two waffles on each were placed in front of them. A bottle of syrup was added. Tommy sat in the middle of Ranboo and Tubbo, fighting the other two for the syrup first.

When Techno was finished cooking he walked to the front door and let Steve in, who was barking happily. The man pet his dog and went to sit on the couch.

“Hey, Tech,” Tommy called. His brother hummed, opening his laptop. “Can we use the Switch?”

“Nope,” Techno replied, turning the TV on even if he wasn’t planning to really watch it. Tommy glared. “Go take your friends for a walk or something.”

“They don’t wanna do that.”

“I wouldn’t mind,” Ranboo interrupted. “As long as we don’t get lost.”

Tommy raised an eyebrow before letting out a breath and agreeing. He stood up, grabbed his and his friends’ plates, and placed them in the sink. He told the other boys to go get their coats up in his room. Tommy followed to grab his jacket.

“Oh, wait,” Tubbo said as they descended the stairs. “I forgot my phone, hold on.”

The satyr trotted back up the steps and back into Tommy’s room. He found his device on his friend’s drawing desk. As he went to grab it, he noticed a file slightly hidden under multiple random papers. He knew he shouldn’t snoop, but he couldn’t help the sinking feeling in his gut.

Slowly, he pulled the file from under the papers

J. Schlatt.

Tubbo’s heart started racing. He hesitantly opened the folder, holding his breath. Red marker highlighted certain parts…Schlatt’s alcohol addiction, his age, his…his children.

Toby T. Schlatt.

The satyr slammed the file down on the desk, his breath shaking. Tommy knew who Tubbo’s dad was. Not only that, but he had the exact file Tubbo had lost before. The file Red Raccoon was after.

Tubbo gasped softly. No wonder he found Techno familiar…he was the one who threatened him trying to find Red. He was the Blood God. 

Everything started to click together. Tommy was Red Raccoon, Techno was the Blood God, and Phil was probably fucking Angel.

“Tubs, hurry up,” Tommy called. Tubbo’s breath hitched.

“Coming,” he managed to call back.

He grabbed his phone and walked slowly back down the stairs after hiding the file again. Tommy and Ranboo grinned before going outside. Tubbo kept glancing at Tommy. He knew something now. Knew something he shouldn’t.

“I thought I said as long as we don’t get lost we could go for a walk,” Ranboo spoke up.

“We’re not lost!” Tommy tried to argue. “I know exactly where we are.”

“We passed that rock twice!” Ranboo pointed out.

“We don’t know that’s the same one,” Tommy waved his hand dismissively.

“That’s your juice box stain!” the taller kid pointed to a red splotch staining the white boulder. 

Tommy crushed said juice box in his hand, having finished it, and shoved it into his coat pocket. “Okay, fine! We’re a little bit lost. But I can find our way back easily. Worst-case scenario: my dad has to come find us.”

Tubbo seemed to tense at the mention of Phil. Now that they thought about it, he had been quiet the entire walk. It was unusual for one of them to be silent while the other two joked.

Ranboo turned to look at their friend. “You alright, Tubbo?”

The satyr boy held his breath as he looked up slowly. He looked at Ranboo and then at Tommy. Blonde hair peeking out of a bright red hood. Tommy’s obsession with raccoons. Techno’s scars on his chin.

He took a deep breath and sighed, “Tommy, I need to ask you something. And I need you to be completely honest with me.”

The blonde blinked at him. He let out a light chuckle, “yeah, ok, shoot.”

Tubbo kept eye contact with him. He took another deep inhale before responding. “Do you know who my dad is?”

Tommy’s eyes widened and he seemed to back away from the words. Ranboo’s eyes opened more as well before squinted from them furrowing their brows. Tommy tried another awkward laugh.

“Not really, I guess. I know we shit talk him all the time but-”

“BULLSHIT!” Tubbo yelled, startling the other two. “You know who my family is and you have his fucking file!”

Tommy’s mouth fell open slightly, his expression turning into shock and almost fear. Ranboo looked between his friends before taking a step between them.

“Ok, let’s just calm down-”

“He has the file, Ranboo!” Tubbo yelled, stomping forward. Ranboo put their arm in front of him to stop him from attacking Tommy. They looked at him, waiting for him to explain further. “The file we were trying to get! The file that was stolen from me!”

Tommy put his hands up and started backing away. “Look, Tubs, I have no idea what you’re-”

“Don’t lie to me, Tom! Or should I say Red ?”

Silence. 

Tommy’s expression changed into something the other two couldn’t decipher. A mix of fear and surprise were the only descriptions. Ranboo looked back and forth at his friends. Tubbo shoved their arm away from him and trudged up to Tommy. He brought his arm up and wiped his face aggressively. His dark green sleeve was covered in foundation. Deep burns were revealed on Tubbo’s face.

Tommy gasped.

“You’re…you’re Energize-!”

“Yeah, dumbass! And Ran’s Mismatch!”

Ranboo opened his mouth to interject. They seemed to be the only one caring that someone else would hear them.

“You–you went through my stuff?” Tommy’s voice was shaking.

“You’re not very great at hiding shit, boss man,” Tubbo’s tone wasn’t teasing like it usually was when using the nickname. It was aggressive, angry, grudging.

“I…” Tommy was starting to visibly shake. Ranboo grabbed the satyr and pulled him back.

“Tubbo, please, this has to be a misunderstanding-”

“Misunderstanding?!” Tubbo laughed. “He stole from us! He’s been lying to us this whole time!”

Tommy’s shocked gaze turned into a glare. “You lied to me too,” he snarled. “You didn’t tell me Schlatt was your dad, you didn’t tell me about your powers, you-”

The Bee Duo noticed Tommy was close to crying. For a split second, Tubbo lost his fierceness and softened his shoulders. But he regained his anger just as quickly as he had lost it. 

“Fuck you, man,” he growled.

Philza landed behind Tommy, a gust of wind nearly knocking the three over. He didn’t notice the newfound tension between the teens, instead just leading them back to the cottage. 

Tubbo explained that he and Ranboo had to get home. They insisted on taking the bus despite Phil, Techno, and Wilbur offering to drive them. He didn’t feel like letting the second and third most notorious villains know where he lived. With this track record, he wouldn’t be surprised if Wilbur was also a villain.

“I think you were a bit unfair to him,” Ranboo said as they waited by the bus stop.

Tubbo huffed. “He’s a villain. He said so himself.”

Chapter Text

Marionette sat on top of an abandoned building. His black cape waved in the wind. He looked…majestic, to say the least.

The villain couldn’t stop thinking about that strange kid immune to his mind control. “Puppeteering” is what he preferred to call it. Basically what it was, turning others into his puppets. Even the other top villains couldn’t resist it. That’s why he was in the number 1 spot.

And yet…this random teenager with a thrifted sweatshirt claiming to be a villain wasn’t affected by his powers.

Perhaps the kid had more to him than previously thought…

Tubbo please let me explain

Delivered.

I know you probably hate me but please listen

Delivered.

Ranboo can you talk to Tubbo for me?

Delivered.

Tommy’s eyes got wet. He chucked his phone across the room with a frustrated growl. He laid back on his bed and put his hands over his eyes. He choked on a sob he didn’t dare let escape him. He settled on just pathetically whimpering.

“Tommy?” He heard his dad call from the other side of the door. He didn’t respond. The door creaked open and a pair of footsteps came toward him. He bounced slightly as his dad sat on his bed.

Removing one hand from his face, Tommy looked at his dad. He rolled his arm to lay over his eyes.

“You alright, mate?” Phil asked. Tommy let out a fake, breathy chuckle.

“I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not,” his dad pushed his knee with his wing. “You’re clearly upset about something. Also, don’t throw your phone.”

Said phone was placed back on his side table. Tommy glanced at it and huffed. 

“It’s nothing,” he said. Phil frowned.

“It’s not nothing. Please, Toms, what’s wrong?”

God, couldn’t he just be left alone? What was he supposed to say? “Oh, yeah, turns out my best friends are vigilantes and found out I also have a secret identity and they’re pissed at me and probably hate my guts.” Sure, that’d go over well.

When he didn’t respond, his father sighed.

“I have to go to the store, anything in particular you want?” He asked as he stood.

Tommy thought a moment. After another moment of silence, he replied, “...Oreos.”

He heard his dad laugh lightly and let out a quick “okay” before leaving his room. Tommy removed his arm from his face and stared up at the ceiling.

This was gonna be a long weekend…

A long weekend it was, indeed. Tommy had sulked in his room for most of the days, only ever coming out to grab some snacks from the pantry and then retreating back to his cave. 

It was shocking to the family, to say the least. It made their hearts hurt to see their youngest this depressed. Especially since they didn’t know how to help.

When Wilbur offered to play the Switch with him, Tommy just hummed tiredly without glancing at him. Or when Techno invited him to help make dinner Sunday night, the youngest only shrugged. Or when Phil offered to take him flying over the town, the boy just continued staring at his phone, waiting for something.

Monday morning Tommy had a look of dread. He hated school, sure, but he had never been scared to go. In fact, he tried to fake being sick for the first time in years.

Of course, the family’s first thought was that he was being bullied. But even that was unusual for him to act so…not Tommy.

When Philza pulled out the thermometer and found he was at a healthy 98 degrees, he told his son to get dressed for school. He had already missed the bus due to his act, but Phil could easily drive him and he’d still be on time.

“If you’re really not feeling well,” his dad said as he pulled his seatbelt on. “You can go ahead and call me. But I want you to try and make it through the day, alright, mate?”

Tommy leaned his head against the cold window, the maroon beanie protecting his golden hair from the frost.

“Alright,” the boy huffed. He sounded so tired.

Phil frowned but didn’t do anything further. He turned the keys and began driving out of their gravel driveway into the city street.

The entire ride was quiet, the only sound being the engines of the cars. It seemed Tommy didn’t even feel up to listening to the radio, just continued staring out the window looking depressed.

When they arrived at the school, Phil squeezed his son’s shoulder affectionately. Tommy let out a light breath through his nose and sat up.

“Love you,” the man said. His kid just let out a soft “you too” before getting out of the car and into the school.

Inside no one noticed Tommy. He just walked slowly through the halls, staring at the ground as he made his way to class. As he made it to his homeroom class his breath hitched. He stood in front of the door for a few seconds before finally going in.

His eyes landed on his table. Tubbo’s chair was empty, which made his heart sink. But Ranboo sat in his seat, typing something on his laptop. Tommy’s stomach flipped as he walked hesitantly over. When he sat down, Ranboo just glanced at him and then went back to typing.

Tommy fiddled with his hands in his pocket.

“Where’s Tubbo?” His voice was quiet. Ranboo paused.

The taller kid sighed, “he’s sick.”

Tommy hummed, hiding his shaky breathing. He crossed his arms over the table and leaned forward. He bit his cheek to keep from crying. The last thing he needed was to have a panic attack during school. He was caught up on all his work so he just sat silently during the entire class.

His first class was biology. With Tubbo and Ranboo. The taller teen barely interacted with him, which made his heart hurt.

When lunch came around, Tommy went into the bathroom instead of the cafeteria. He locked the farthest stall and pulled his legs up on the toilet. He took out his phone.

Tubbo please let me explain

I know you probably hate me but please listen

Read 4:05 a.m.

Tommy held his breath and tears started falling. He made no sound, he just silently sobbed in the school bathroom. He pinned his head between his knees and let out shaky breaths. He ignored the bell indicating lunch was over.

He could skip a math class, right? He had an A in it, he could sacrifice an hour.

He played on his phone to distract himself. When the bell rang again Tommy sighed. He didn’t want to get up, he just wanted to hide in the bathroom all day.

“Oi,” a random dude’s voice startled Tommy. “Ya taking a shit?”

Tommy caught his phone before it clattered with the gross floor. He hesitated but eventually replied, “n-no. Sorry. I’ll be out in a second.”

He pulled himself off the toilet and unlocked the stall. He came face to face with a slightly shorter boy, around his age, with light brown skin and dark hair. He was wearing a navy blue sweatshirt with black jeans.

The boy looked at Tommy curiously. “Were you crying?”

Tommy’s eyes widened. “No!” He said, a bit louder than he meant to. The other kid just scoffed.

“Sure. It’s alright if you were, man,” the boy put his hand out. “Eryn.”

Tommy glanced down at it. He didn’t go to the bathroom but he still felt like he should wash his hands before shaking Eryn’s. He seemed to realize and took his hand back.

“Yeah, go wash your hands first.”

Tommy nodded and walked over to the sink. He stayed scrubbing his hands longer than was needed, stalling as much as he could before going to class.

“Tommy…”

“Huh?”

“My name’s Tommy.”

Eryn stood outside the stall, looking at him. His lips moved into a small grin.

“Nice to meet you, Tommy.”

Chapter Text

Tubbo listened to his Spotify playlist while he stared up at his ceiling. His eyes were red and puffy from crying. He liked Tommy, he considered him his best friend other than Ranboo. But he lied to him and stole from him. 

Plus, his family were villains. Real villains. Tubbo considered Tommy to be more of an anti-hero than anything. But his family was actually what he claimed to be.

They didn’t seem so bad… Tubbo thought to himself.

The boy sighed and sat up. It was about the time when school would be out or at least right before. He had slept most of the day, too exhausted to get up. His dad didn’t notice, obviously, he leaves earlier than Tubbo does. 

He was going to get an email about his son missing school, but he didn’t care too much. He could just say he missed the bus or slept in. It’s not like Schlatt comes and wakes him up in the mornings.

The lack of food got to the boy, causing him to groan and get out of bed. He dragged his feet across the floor out into the hall. 

He saw the maid vacuuming the stairs, who gave him a kind smile and waved. He waved back before slipping past her down the stairs. He made his way into the kitchen and grabbed some random cereal from the cupboards. It wasn’t rare for him to eat cereal in the afternoon, it wasn’t rare for most people either. 

While he ate he stared at his phone. His hands shook as he stared at the messages from Tommy. He wanted to respond, he wanted to so badly, but he couldn’t find it in himself to do so. He ended up turning his device off and eating with just his thoughts.

Tubbo sighed and placed his empty bowl into the sink before dragging himself back up to his room. He laid down heavily on his mattress, face shoved into his blanket. It was a long day and he didn’t feel like looking up his homework, so he just laid there for a bit.

Maybe tonight he’d go talk to Quackity about their plan. The plan that would’ve been able to happen a lot sooner if someone hadn’t stolen his file.

His phone buzzed, causing him to finally lift his head. It was Ranboo this time.

I told Tommy you were sick

Tubbo sighed and rolled onto his back. He dangled his phone over his face to reply.

How’d he react?

Ranboo: He seemed sad. I didn’t know what else to say

Don’t say anything else. I’m not speaking to him.

Ranboo: You’re gonna have to when you come back to school

Tubbo huffed. They were right. He couldn’t ignore Tommy forever. Unless he switched schools, but he didn’t want to leave Ranboo…and he didn’t want to leave Tommy either, no matter how badly he tried to convince himself.

We’ll cross that bridge when we get there

The satyr groaned and pulled his elbow over his eyes. Maybe a nap will help him out.

Tommy leaned his head against the cold bus window. His earbuds blared some sort of music he didn’t pay much attention to. He just needed a distraction.

A new weight bounced the teen slightly in his seat. He glanced over at whoever was sitting next to him, his breath hitching when he saw the familiar tall man he claimed to be his best friend. They were doing something on their phone, acting as if they didn’t know Tommy was there.

He wanted to pretend the other wasn’t there too, but he couldn’t stop himself from saying something.

“Hey,” he said quietly. Ranboo glanced at him.

“Hi.”

Tommy pulled his face away from the frosted window, his cheek bright red from the cold. He didn’t scoot much closer to them, keeping his distance.

“The seats were empty,” Ranboo spoke before he could say anything.

Tommy winced from the words alone. He let out a single “oh” before turning back towards the window. Ranboo’s heart contracted from the sight: the usually loud, hyperactive boy now silent and depressed against the window.

Tommy looked down at his phone, pretending to be looking at something. In reality he was just staring at the song playing on his homescreen. It was from a random game he had never played.

The two were silent the entire time until they arrived at Tommy’s stop. He was hesitant to interrupt Ranboo but found he had to otherwise he’d need to jump over their legs.

“Uhm…Ran?”

The kid seemed to freeze at the nickname and Tommy internally cringed at himself.

“This is my stop.”

Ranboo looked at him. “Oh, sorry.”

He moved his legs and bag on the seat for Tommy to squeeze through. When he made it to the aisle he looked back at Ranboo. The two made eye contact.

“I’ll uh…see you tomorrow,” Tommy said softly. 

Ranboo seemed taken aback but eventually replied, “Yeah. See you.”

“Were you able to locate the file?” Pesky Bird asked as Tubbo and Ranboo entered his office.

Tubbo tensed. Ranboo kept his mouth shut, knowing where the file was but not wanting to disclose it without Tubbo’s lead.

The satyr held his breath for a second before speaking, “no, sir.”

Ranboo fought the urge to look at his partner. They were glad Tubbo didn’t expose Tommy, knowing how much danger he’d be in if he had. Maybe Tubbo cared just as much as Ranboo did still.

Pesky Bird pursed his lips. “Hm…too bad. Quackity doesn’t know everything about him despite it being his file originally.”

Tubbo nodded, pulling his lips back into a thin line. He closed his fingers to hide the sweat on his palms. Ranboo noticed his hesitance. 

“What’s the next plan of action?” The shapeshifter decided to ask.

The avian huffed. “The plan’s going to be on hold for now until we can get more information. We don’t have enough blackmail to get him out of office.”

The Bee Duo sighed, disappointed. Pesky Bird told them they could go on their own mission or just go home, whichever they preferred.

With no villains or criminals to fight, the duo decided to go back to their little hideout. The hideout they trusted Red Racoon to come to…

When they arrived, Tubbo punched the bottom of the tree. Ranboo jumped.

“DAMN IT!” He yelled angrily. “We can’t get that bastard out of power without that file! And Tommy just HAD to steal it from us!”

Ranboo shifted on his feet, his tail twitching nervously. “He…he has the same objective as us. It’s not like he’s against us-”

“I DON’T CARE!” Tubbo turned around quickly. He ripped his goggles off and tossed them on the ground. “The only amount of evidence we have is Quackity’s records but without the damn file we can’t prove it!”

“Why don’t we ask him?” Ranboo suggested. Tubbo let out a laugh.

“Oh, right, cuz I want help from a LIAR and a THIEF! His whole family are villains!”

“We met them once.”

“HIS DAD IS A CROW AVIAN!” Tubbo’s voice grew louder. “How many crows do know in this town? ONE! Fucking ANGEL!”

Ranboo flinched from the shouting. He’d never seen Tubbo this angry at someone other than his dad. The vigilante grabbed Tubbo’s wrist and quickly teleported them up onto the platform. Tubbo huffed and ripped his hand away. Ranboo shifted into his regular form, frowning.

“GOD FUCKING–” his hooves hit something.  “...damn it.” He looked down, his anger immediately fading into confusion.

Ranboo followed his gaze. It was Tubbo’s toolbox. Who took it out?

Before the satyr could start panicking he noticed three new things that weren’t there before. Well…one of them used to be in it. It was the taser Tubbo had given to Tommy.

The duo kneeled next to it. Tubbo pulled out a file and a voice recorder. His brows furrowed. This was the file Tommy had in his room. This was the file they needed.

“When was he here?” Ranboo asked. Tubbo didn’t respond.

The satyr handed his partner the file and clicked on the voice recorder.

“I’ve already lost enough to The Gambler,” it was his dad. “If I lose my spot in office I’ll be endangering not only myself but also my son.”

Tubbo’s ears twitched, wanting to listen further. Who was he talking to?

“Perhaps it’s for the best,” Tubbo nearly dropped the recorder. He clicked the pause button on the device and looked over at Ranboo. Both of their eyes were wide and their mouths were gaped in shock. Schlatt was talking to The King.

“Excuse me, Mr. Mayor, but you’re not exactly the most popular of politicians.” The teens snorted at that. “what could you possibly offer to make me help you?”

Holy shit, they were making a deal. 

The two continued listening. They heard what the mayor was willing to offer in order to keep his place in office. They heard The King get offered a clear record. They heard Tubbo’s father make a deal with the fifth top villain. 

“Did Tommy just…” Ranboo breathed. Tubbo looked up at them.

“Tommy just gave us what we needed.”

Chapter Text

Dream shoved Sapnap against the stone wall. The hero coughed, a bit of blood flying out from biting his lip. George attempted to get a hit against the villain. Dream easily twirled around and tossed Sapnap on his partner.

“Shit,” the hero sputtered, lifting himself off the other. “He’s gotten stronger.”

“Yeah, no shit,” George growled. 

Dream chuckled lowly. He stalked toward his old friends, who quickly got to their feet. He put his arms out like they were frightened animals. And to him, they were.

“George, Sap,” he cooed. “It’s been a while since we’ve been together like this.”

“Like what? Fighting?” Sapnap snarled. Dream laughed.

“Fighting, not fighting, we’re connected no matter what.”

George took a step forward, baring his teeth. “Connected?! You betrayed us, Dream! You severed our connection the moment you blew up our house!”

Dream chuckled again. His mask watched the two heroes menacingly. It sent chills down their spines. Even when he was a hero, his uniform made everyone who was looking at him uncomfortable.

Most villains were simply selfish or were forced into this role. But Dream wasn’t a misunderstood villain. He was a foul, evil man whose only motivation was control.

“What’re you even doing here?” Sapnap barked. He lit up his hand with a ball of fire.

Dream crossed his arms behind his back. “Can’t I say hi to my best buds?”

“Don’t call us that,” the hero hissed. Dream huffed.

“My acquaintance bailed on me. He hasn’t been communicating with me about the mission he offered me.”

“You have a new partner?” George quizzed. Dream barked a laugh.

“Oh, hell no! We just have a similar goal at the moment. But my goal has changed as of late.”

George and Sapnap exchanged glances. George spoke up, “what has it changed to?”

Dream peeled his mask off. The friend the heroes used to know was revealed. His bright green eyes made the heroes flinch. He smirked at them, the scar along his lip following. He lifted his other hand, his fingertips glowing a neon green to match his eyes.

George and Sapnap widened their eyes. They turned to run away, but Dream was faster.

Green strings wrapped around their ankles, tripping them. They watched in horror as they were dragged over to the villain. The strings moved to their fingers, pulling them back to their feet. They tugged helplessly at the restraints.

“It’s confidential. But I am going to need you both.”

The heroes’ eyes widened further and their struggle got more hysterical. Dream smiled at this. He lifted his fingers to their foreheads.

“Find the kid known as Red Raccoon.”

Chapter Text

Tommy was the only one at his table that morning. He laid his head against his wrists, not motivated to get anything done. His laptop was open on one of his assignments but he made no effort to work on it. Whether he was tired from his mission last night or just depressed, he couldn’t tell.

“You’re tardy,” his homeroom teacher said suddenly.

“Sorry, ma’am,” Tubbo said. Tommy perked up.

Ranboo was behind the satyr, apologizing as well before going over to their table. Tommy looked away from them, hoping they didn’t notice. As they sat down, Tommy pretended he had been working on his computer.

Tubbo and Ranboo exchanged glances. Tubbo cleared his throat, “hey.”

Tommy paused, his stomach twisting. He didn’t look over at them. He gulped and replied, “hey.”

There was an awkward silence. Just the sound of Tommy’s fingers tapping against the keyboard. Tubbo fiddled with his thumbs, biting his cheek. Ranboo scooted forward in his seat and crossed his arms on the desk.

“Why were you guys late?” He asked hesitantly, not looking up at them.

Tubbo sighed. “We missed the bus. And neither of us has someone to take us.”

Tommy cocked a brow and glanced at them. “You don’t have your licenses?”

“ You don’t have a license,” Ranboo argued. Tommy giggled.

Tommy giggled. It was the first time since Saturday that he had laughed. Specifically, since he’d laughed with Ranboo and Tubbo. They almost forgot about the tension they had before…almost.

Another silence fell upon them.

Finally, Tubbo breathed, “Tommy…can we talk after school?”

Tommy froze. He blinked at his computer screen, pausing his typing. He glanced over at the satyr. He took a deep breath.

“Yeah, sure.”

“What is this?” Tubbo asked sharply. He held the old school recorder from the other night up for Tommy to see.

The teen blinked. “A recorder?”

Tubbo scoffed, rolling his eyes. “Don’t play dumb again. Schlatt’s file and your taser were in my box with this. There’s no way it’s not yours.”

Tommy shuffled on his feet. The three of them were behind the school, only a few people outside playing a sport they didn’t care about. There was still the worry of others overhearing them.

Tommy huffed. “Fine. I snuck into Schlatt’s office and recorded his conversation with The King. What about it?”

“Why’d you give it to us?” Tubbo snapped back. “You know this isn’t going to make us forgive you, right?”

Tommy physically wilted after hearing that…but he knew that was the response he was going to get. He sighed, “I just…know how much you want to take him down. Plus, you have a team for this. You have Ranboo and that bird dude.”

Tubbo and Ranboo glanced at each other. “How do you know Pesky?” The satyr asked.

“ That’s his name?!” Tommy laughed, a bit louder than intended. Tubbo rolled his eyes.

“Hey, don’t make fun of him, he’s one of the greatest fighters we know.”

Tommy jumped at the sound of a car honking. Turning his head, he saw Wilbur waving at him out the window. He flipped his brother off, who reacted with an overly offended gasp. He chuckled and turned back to his–er–the other two.

“I’ll…see you guys tomorrow. Maybe.”

Before either one of them could get a word in, Tommy was already off to his car. Ranboo sighed.

“You can’t stay mad at him forever,” they said.

Tubbo narrowed his eyes. “Watch me.”

Tommy clicked his seatbelt on and leaned against the back of his seat. Wilbur turned down the radio and glanced at his brother.

“So,” he started. “Why did you need to miss the bus?”

Tommy looked at him. He quickly tried to search for an answer, one that didn’t reveal his ex-best friends’ identities. He hated calling them that but he knew it was the most accurate to what their relationship was currently. As long as they weren’t enemies.

“I had to finish up a project,” he lied. Wilbur raised a brow.

“Uh-huh. And so did your friends?”

Tommy tried to keep his shoulders from tensing. “Yeah. We’re partners for it.”

Wilbur scoffed. “They let you pick your partners? Man, I wish I had that luxury.”

The brothers shared a chuckle before Tommy let out a sigh through his nose. They weren’t his partners. Not like they were before, they were on opposite sides of a war. He just…didn’t understand why they were so mad at him. Well, he did, kind of, but he didn’t know how else to make it up to them.

Wilbur turned earlier than he needed.

“Uh, Wil?” Tommy spoke up. “Did you forget how to get back home?”

The man snorted. “No. I know where we’re going.”

Tommy didn’t believe him until they pulled into a McDonald’s drive-thru. It was Tuesday, so there was only about one car they had to wait for.

“What’re you doing?” Tommy chirped. Wilbur smiled.

“I’m hungry. What do you want?”

The boy blinked at him, surprised. The last time he had McDonald’s was like two months ago. Or the last time someone else bought him McDonald’s was like two months ago.

He ordered some chicken nuggets with a large Coke. He ate his fries out of the bag as they drove back home. It was quiet for the rest of the drive except for a random song from Wilbur’s playlist. When they got to their house Techno was reading on the lounge chair.

“You got that?” the man scrunched his nose at the McDonald’s bag in Tommy’s hand.

“He’s been having a rough time,” his twin replies nonchalantly. Tommy paused. “Besides, their fries are good.”

“I haven’t been having a hard time,” Tommy barked. Wilbur and Techno looked at him.

“Tom,” Wilbur said. “You barely left your room all weekend, you’re super fucking depressed, and it takes us dragging you out of bed for you to get ready.”

The teen glared. “I’m not depressed!”

“That’s what a depressed person would say,” Techno teases. It was lighthearted, though.

Tommy dropped the fast food bag on the counter, grumbling to himself. Okay, maybe he was a little depressed, but that was supposed to be between him and him only.

“I’m gonna eat your fries, Wil.”

Chapter Text

Tubbo’s hooves clicked against the cement floor. In his satchel the voice recorder thumped against his thigh as he walked. Ranboo’s talons tapped behind, following the satyr. Pesky Bird was waiting for them in front of his office, his wings ruffling when he heard them approach.

“There you two are,” he said. “You told me you have something to forward our mission?”

“We do,” Tubbo said. He opened his bag and brought out the file and recorder.

Pesky grinned. “You found the file! But what’s this?”

Tubbo smirked. “Evidence.”

The vigilante listened to the recording, his eyes widening as he did. Tubbo and Ranboo grinned at each other. When the audio finished, Pesky looked back at them.

“How’d you get this?”

Shit, both Ranboo and Tubbo thought. Should they rat out Tommy? Sure. That would go well.

“We…” Tubbo choked. Ranboo noticed.

“We were able to track down the individual that took it,” Ranboo chimed in. Tubbo went along with it. “And it turned out they had a recording on them.”

Pesky glanced up at him. “Who was it?”

The Bee Duo tensed. “We weren’t able to identify them, sir,” Tubbo finished.

The avian hummed. The file was enough, they didn’t need to know the other detail. The trio set off from Pesky’s office, preparing to deliver their knew findings to their allies.

Ranboo teleported the three of them onto the top of a building, immediately falling against them from the strain of going that high up. He quickly regained his strength and they started forward. Mumbo and Quackity were waiting for them on the roof.

“I hope you actually have something to move forward,” Quackity snarled. “Otherwise, you’ve wasted my time.”

Tubbo glared. “We do, Mr. Gambler. We have the file from your records and a little something extra.”

That caused the duck avian to raise an eyebrow, curious. Pesky Bird revealed the tape recorder. Quackity almost laughed from how old-fashioned it was.

Until he heard it. His lips turned upwards into a large grin. He looked back over at the trio.

“This is fucking genius!” Quackity’s eyes glowed in the night. “Schlatt’s gonna lose his shit when he hears this.”

Tubbo felt his fingers curl into his palm. Pesky Bird was quick to shut down that idea, “we’re not confronting Schlatt right now. We first need to find The King and confirm that the recording is real.”

Quackity narrowed his eyes. “Sounds pretty real to me.”

Pesky rolled his eyes. “I know it does, but there are people who would rather believe we faked it than believe the mayor is collaborating with a terrorist.”

A cold chill ran down everyone’s spines. Something was watching them.

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” a voice surprised the five people. “But you have something of ours.”

Whipping around, they found two figures scowling at them. Tubbo and Ranboo recognized one of them immediately. Techno. 

His black mask folded as he glared at the vigilantes. He wore a long red cape and a dark-colored chest plate. A gold wreath was on his long pink hair. The other matched Techno almost completely except his mask was white, his cape was black, and he didn’t wear any armor. They looked hella fancy for villains.

“Who the fuck are you?” Quackity barked. 

“No way you’ve forgotten what some of the top villains look like,” the brown-haired one said. “Tsk, tsk, tsk, my dear Quackity.”

The avian took a surprised step back. His widened eyes narrowed as he regained his posture.

“Quackity,” Pesky whispered as he grabbed the other man’s shoulder. “They’re the Carnage Twins.”

The mob boss’s eyes widened. He looked over at the vigilante, his features contorted in shock. Pesky took his hand off his shoulder and took a step forward.

“What do you want?” He barked.

Solitaire chuckled darkly. Tubbo and Ranboo shared glances. They recognized his voice…’The Carnage Twins’. Holy shit. 

Their eyes widened as they both came to the same understanding: Wilbur was Solitaire.

Jesus, Tubbo thought. What kind of family does Tommy have?

Wilbur took a step forward, Techno following. “As I said, you have something of ours.”

Quackity cocked a brow. He wiggled the recorder in his hand. “This?” The man snickered. “Should’ve expected the anarchists to have such a dated device.”

Wilbur scrunched his nose. Techno growled. 

“We were the ones who found that information,” Wilbur snarled. “It would be greatly appreciated if you returned it.”

The man took another step forward and lifted his hand, gesturing for the mob boss to hand him the recorder. Quackity took a step back, smirking. 

“My apologies, Solitaire,” Pesky Bird spoke suddenly. “But we all seem to have a common goal here. Why don’t we work together?”

Techno glared. “We don’t work with outsiders.”

Quackity put a hand on his hip. “That didn’t stop your partner from associating with Marionette.”

Tubbo’s heart stopped. Wilbur’s eyes widened, clearly losing his confident facade. Quackity smirked smugly. Techno turned to his brother, scowling.

“You what ?” He growled. Wilbur started to sweat.

“I don’t work with him anymore,” his twin argued. They didn’t seem to be paying attention to the vigilantes. “We cut ties pretty quickly.”

Techno’s glare sharpened. Tubbo and Ranboo awkwardly scooted closer to each other. The siblings bickered back and forth while Mumbo leaned towards the duo.

“Let’s try and get out of here while they’re distracted,” he whispered.

Tubbo and Ranboo nodded. The group started sneaking away from the twins, walking swiftly and silently. They were about to descend the side of the building when they heard a short click.

Turning around, horror struck their faces as they found Wilbur holding a small grenade in his left hand and its pin in the other. Pesky quickly put his hands up to try and coax the villain into letting them go.

“You still have our information,” he growled. “We’re not letting you leave with it.”

“It’s not your information anymore,” Tubbo snapped. “It was given to us!”

Ranboo shoved the satyr’s shoulder. Tubbo sucked in a breath through his teeth as he realized what he just said. 

Shit, shit, shit, he thought frantically. This slip-up wouldn’t be as big of a deal if the Carnage Twins weren’t Tommy’s brothers. But they are and now they know their little brother gave away valuable information.

Wilbur and Techno exchanged glances. The brown-haired twin let go of the grenade and let it disappear back into hammerspace. He flinched when it exploded in his personal portal.

“Excuse us,” he said. “Apparently we have more important business to attend to.”

The twins turned on their heels and disappeared into the dark. Ranboo’s hands twitched nervously. Tubbo tapped his hoof rapidly.

“ Fuck,” he breathed.

Chapter Text

Tommy jumped upright in his bed, throwing his cow plush at the person yelling at him. The stuffed animal smacked Techno in the face, who was glaring sharply in the dark room. It was about three in the morning.

“Jesus!” He yelped. “What is your problem?!”

“What’s our problem?!” Wilbur snapped pointedly. Tommy flinched at his tone. “Do you even know who you gave that shit to?!”

Tommy furrowed his brows. What was he talking about?

Oh. Fuck. Shit.

“I didn’t think we needed it anymore,” he argued. “It was my information anyway! I was the one who found out that Schlatt was making a deal with The King.”

The twins glared. Tommy was too tired for this.

“I helped you,” Techno growled.

Tommy narrowed his eyes. “No, you didn’t. You just came with me. I was doing it by myself before you found me.”

“You were grounded ,” his older brother fought. “Of course, I went to find you.”

Tommy rolled his eyes. Here they go again, getting mad at Tommy for trying to help his family. Then getting mad at him for not trying to help his family. What did they want from him? 

“I had that recorder for over a week,” he said. “It’s not my fault the day you decided to actually use it I had already given it away.”

“What’s going on?” Their father’s voice spooked the three of them.

The brothers whipped around, finding their dad in the doorway with a tired glare. His arms were folded and his lips were pulled into a frown.

“Why the hell are you screaming at three in the GODDAMN MORNING?!” He barked.

The twins glanced at each other and then at Tommy. He gave them an offended look. The fuck did he do?

“Tommy gave away the audio recording of Schlatt making a deal,” Wilbur explained. Phil’s eyes widened.

He looked back at his youngest son. “You what?”

Tommy shrunk. He scooted back against the wall, pulling his blanket with him. He hated getting scolded.

Phil sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Tommy…you’re grounded for another month.”

“WHAT?!” Tommy jumped up. “You can’t do that! It’s not like I disobeyed you or anything-”

“You gave away valuable information to complete strangers,” Techno argued.

“They’re not complete strangers!” Tommy was already too deep in his argument. “They’re my friends!”

The boy paused. Were they friends? He took a second to find his voice again.

“They’re–they’re my friends. And they have the same goal as we do.”

His family glared. Phil crossed his arms and told the twins to go back to bed. Tommy slumped his shoulders.

“We’ll talk about this tomorrow,” his dad said as he closed the bedroom door.

Tommy wiped his face. He wasn’t going to cry over this. It was stupid, he was being dramatic. But everything had been going to shit this week so his metaphorical bottle of emotions was starting to reach a high enough pressure before it burst.

He sat heavily back on his bed. He gripped his comforter tightly. His breathing got more exasperated.

His head fell into his hands and he choked on a sob. He hiccuped. He pressed his palms firmer against his eyelids until he started seeing those little blurry stars. 

He was tired. He was tired of everything he did being wrong. 

He wiped his face one more time before falling back against his pillow. He pulled his blanket back over him and closed his eyes. Sleep was the only thing he wanted to care about right now.

Tommy was drawing outside instead of eating lunch. He didn’t feel like sitting alone surrounded by several people laughing and joking and being friends. Fuck them for reminding him of how lonely he was.

It was a bit chillier today, the clouds were grey and there was a bit of frost on the grass. Few people were outside, which gave Tommy a calm and quiet time to draw.

Tubbo and Ranboo were still not really speaking to him. He wanted to talk to them about their run-in with his brothers, but he didn’t feel like talking about that in public. Besides, if they wanted to talk about it then they’d have to come to him first.

That didn’t seem to be going that well for him, since it was already Thursday and they still hadn’t spoken to him.

Tommy’s drawing looked sad. The eyes weren’t even, the nose was too big, the legs were too small. His attempt at drawing a wolf had failed.

“Hey, that’s cool,” a new voice made Tommy jump.

“JESUS-” Tommy threw his notebook out of reflex. 

A familiar boy looked down at him, a smirk apparent on his face. It was Bathroom Boy (Tommy didn’t remember his name but he wasn’t going to admit that). 

The teen sat next to him, crossing his legs. He picked up the notebook and returned it to Tommy.

“Tommy, right?” He asked. 

Shit, Tommy thought. He knows my name but I don’t know his!

“Yeah,” he replied. He scratched his neck as he added, “sorry, I don’t really remember your name. It was kinda hard for me to realize someone was talking to me. In the bathroom. After I was crying.”

Tommy’s cheeks grew pink.

“I mean–when I wasn’t crying. I never cry. That’s for pussies.”

The boy snorted. It was painfully similar to Ranboo’s.

“Right, yeah,” he said. “I’m Eryn. If it makes you feel better, after you left the bathroom I took a shit.”

Tommy barked a laugh. A real laugh. His first real laugh that wasn’t a giggle or a snicker. Eryn grinned.

“Can you show me some of your drawings?” He asked. Tommy looked at him.

He hesitated but after a few seconds opened his notebook on the first page. His doodles consisted mainly of different animals (lots of raccoons), some mini blueprints, etc. Eryn talked highly about each of Tommy’s drawings, which made him smile.

The bell rang and the two departed. Tommy caught a glimpse of Ranboo and Tubbo looking at him as he came back into the school with Eryn. He ignored it and continued towards his class.

He sat in his chair and leaned on his palm. He read the assignments on the board, internally groaning, before grabbing his textbook. No lesson today, so he just had to work all period. Wonderful. Excellent. Tommy’s favorite.

Ranboo surprised Tommy as they sat next to him. It was his assigned seat, but it still made Tommy jump for some reason. The starting bell rang as soon as they sat down.

“Jesus,” the teen breathed. “That’s even more work than yesterday.”

Tommy hummed in reply. He decided he was going to be petty today. They ignored him for their first two classes, he was going to ignore them too.

Ranboo seemed to catch on to Tommy’s silence. They made a squeaking sound from biting their cheek and started tapping their finger against the table. Tommy started bouncing his leg from the anticipation that Ranboo emitted. 

“Are you gonna start doing your work?” Tommy broke the silence.

Ranboo jumped at the sudden voice Tommy had. He looked at the board and fumbled to get his note and textbook.

“Oh! Y-yeah! Right…”

Tommy felt a little bad. Ranboo seemed a lot more willing to fix their friendship than Tubbo was. But he still wasn’t trying his hardest. Tommy’s been depressed for the past week because of them, he deserved to be a little petty.

It was silent between them for the entire period, besides asking each other for answers to a couple of questions. 

It was silent the entire day, actually. Tubbo and Ranboo would stare at him, Tommy would ignore them. He didn’t want to push boundaries. If they wanted to reconcile, they’d come to him. If they didn’t, then they’d just stay in this tension for the rest of their school years.

Tubbo and Ranboo were sitting on one of the seats on the bus, sharing a pair of earbuds as they watched something on Ranboo’s phone. Tommy held his breath as he walked past, praying they wouldn’t notice him.

Unfortunately, they did notice him.

“Tom,” Tubbo spoke up, taking his one earbud out. “Can we talk?”

Tommy pivoted slightly to look at him. “Now? On the bus?”

“No, later.” Tubbo hesitated. He bit his cheek before continuing, “tonight?”

Tommy tensed his shoulders. “Where?” he breathed.

Tubbo smiled subtly. “The secret hideout.”

Tommy blinked for a couple of seconds. He fought of a grin as he replied, “yeah. I’ll meet you there. What time?”

“I’ll text you–”

“SIT DOWN!” One of the passengers scolded. Tommy was quick to sit in the only empty seat left.

He could hear Tubbo and Ranboo’s giggles from just two seats in front of him.

Both the twins were home this time. Tommy would need to be extra sneaky. That was going to be hard since they were watching him even closer after finding out he gave away private information.

“If you sneak out to go play hero, we’re gonna beat your ass,” Techno said from the couch. Tommy looked up from his late-night-bowl-of-cereal.

“Bet you won’t,” he replied, a spoonful of Fruit Loops in his cheek.

Wilbur looked over at him. “Oh, we will.”

“I’m too cool to get beaten up.”

His older brothers rolled their eyes. Tommy checked his phone to see the time. It was almost midnight, the time Tubbo and Ranboo told him to meet them.

Tommy finished his cereal, cleaned his bowl, pretended to take some sleep medicine, and headed up to his room.

“If I can’t sleep because of your loud ass movie, it’s your fault,” he called.

“Mhm,” Wilbur called back. “Remember, we catch you sneaking out, and we’ll be on your ass like a bunch of vultures.”

Tommy scrunched his nose. “Weirdo.”

“Scrawny.”

“Dickhead.”

“SHUT,” Techno told them.

Tommy continued up the stairs and shut his bedroom door. He grabbed his hoodie and satchel full of gadgets. He pulled up his mask and turned the brightness up on his goggles.

He had opened his window earlier when he got home as to not alert his brothers in the middle of the night with the unlocking and sliding of it.

He climbed over the windowsill and scaled the side of the house. He was going to have to take the long way in order to not get attention from Wilbur or Techno through the window.

He walked slowly and carefully into the large body of trees, deep enough where he wouldn’t get noticed but not far enough that he’d get lost. Not that he would, he’s too big of a man to get lost.

He wasn’t wearing a communicator this time. If his brothers or father tried contacting him, they’d fail. Not like he was new to the concept of going out without one, he broke at least five because of constant bombardment from his family. 

Once he made it to the city, he climbed up a random building and looked around. He tried remembering the way he followed Ranboo and Tubbo the first time.

I think we went this way, he thought, jumping over to another building. He remembered it being near a creak, but he wasn’t sure WHICH creak.

He continued traveling from building to building, feeling very much like Batman, attempting to find his way.

“Shit,” he breathed. “I might be lost.”

He recalled it being more on the outskirts of–

Something was watching him.

Tommy paused and looked at his surroundings cautiously. Was there a security camera he missed? Was there another villain around? Holy shit, was he about to get-

There was a masked figure on the roof of a building just across the street from him. They stared at him, a red hunting cape wandering lightly with the small bit of breeze. They wore blue leather armor with several leaf and mushroom decorations. Black and white goggles stared at Tommy’s.

“Fuck,” he cursed almost silently. “That’s 404. Is he gonna arrest me?!”

He heard a sound similar to that of a lighter being lit. He whipped his head around, being met with another man wearing white armor and a bandana holding his jet black hair up. A black bandana covered his own face. In his hand was a ball of fire the size of his palm.

The two top heroes were cornering him. 404 and Fireborn. Just his luck.

“Heya, fellas,” he tried a nervous laugh when 404 was suddenly on the same roof as him too. “What do you need?”

They were silent.

Tommy cleared his throat. “Nice to meet you, I’m Red Racoon, friends call me Red.”

Silence.

Something was wrong. He couldn’t see any of 404’s face, but he could see Fireborn’s eyes. They were bright green. Weren’t they supposed to be glowing orange?

Tommy was grabbed by the back of his hood and roughly pulled backward, revealing his blonde hair. He started thrashing around and attempted screaming, but was held firmly by 404. He tried biting the hero’s hand, but it had barely any effect due to his bandana.

Fireborn grabbed his wrists and held them so tightly he would cut off the circulation. 404 released his left arm and brought it close to Tommy’s face. He pulled down his bandana and pushed his wrist closer.

SHIT! FUCK! DICKS! Tommy aggressively thought of every curse word he knew.

A white mist escaped some sort of duct from 404’s wrist, traveling straight into Tommy’s saliva glands and lungs.

Before he could yell another cuss, his vision blurred and his body fell limp.

Chapter Text

“You think he went out?” Techno asked around ten minutes after Tommy went upstairs.

“Oh, absolutely,” Wilbur replied. “Can’t keep the little rat grounded unless you’re watching his every move.”

Techno snorted. He stood up from his seat on the couch. “I’ll go check.”

He went to the second floor and down the hall to the youngest child’s room. As he opened the door, not to his surprise, Tommy’s bed was found empty.

“He’s gone,” Techno called. Wilbur barked a laugh.

“Called it,” he responded. “Let him go. But take his DS.”

Techno walked into the room, flipping on the light switch. He took a few steps in, looking around for the device. He found it on the nightstand. As he walked to it, he found Tommy’s phone right next to it.

Techno tilted his head. Tommy wasn’t the type to leave his phone. The previous nights he had ran away he had it with him. Maybe he didn’t want to take the chance of getting tracked. Or maybe he forgot. Techno decided to assume the former.

He grabbed both devices and took them to his and Wilbur’s room, hiding them under his own bed. He texted Phil and informed him of the measures they took.

Their father was a lot more worried about Tommy leaving his phone than they were, but they just waited for the youngest to return.

Phil returned to his two oldest asleep on the couch, the sun starting to peak its way through the blinds. It had taken him a lot longer than usual to commit his heist. It had turned out that the art piece was a lot more protected than he had let on.

He huffed and headed up to Tommy’s room. He assumed the boy was knocked out in his bed after sneaking out once again. He just prayed nothing drastic happened to him.

As he opened the door, he found the bed empty. Tommy was still gone. It was almost time for his bus to arrive and he wasn’t home.

Phil ran downstairs and woke up the twins.

“Huh? Wha-?” Wilbur snorted.

“Did Tommy come home last night?!” Phil shook the man.

“Huh? I think so?”

“Did you see him come home?!”

“Mmmmno.”

Phil let him go and started pacing around. Wilbur and Techno rubbed their eyes, starting to come to their senses.

“You guys didn’t even try going out to look for him?” Phil’s voice wavered.

Wilbur and Techno exchanged a glance.

“He always comes back home,” Techno said. “We thought he’d be able to handle himself.”

“I can’t believe you two.”

Techno glared. “If I’m not mistaken, you didn’t push us too hard to find him.”

Phil looked at his eldest son, his eyes sharp. “Oh, so this is my fault now?”

“I’m just saying,” Techno stood up. “You clearly had some similar mindset to us if all it took to get you off our case was a total of two texts.”

Phil pulled his lips back, revealing his sharp canines. It had been years since he had bared his fangs at any of his children.

Wilbur pushed the two away from each other.

“Now’s not the time to be fighting,” he scolded. “We wait for a call from the school. If he doesn’t show up, we know something’s wrong. He might’ve ran away with those two numbskulls from the other week.”

For once, Wilbur was the sensible one. Philza and Techno sighed. Their father rubbed his face, trying to hide the fact his hands were shaking.

Dammit, Tommy, they all thought. Where are you?

Tubbo’s leg thumped rapidly against the carpet. Tommy hadn’t shown up last night. What if he doesn’t want to reconcile? What if he decided he and Ranboo weren’t worth it? He never thought he’d be this worried about his cracked friendship with a kid he’d only known for a few months.

Halloween was fun, he remembered. It was probably what brought them closer.

Tommy was dressed up as Tom Nook, Tubbo was one of those inflatable dinosaurs, and Ranboo was Princess Peach. They had one goal: to get a full pillowcase of candy. They didn’t skip any house unless no one was home. 

Did they look like weirdos? Absolutely. Did they care? No.

They were having fun. They had one more year until they had to go into the real world. They deserved to be stupid together.

He missed it. It had only been a week but he missed Tommy’s infectious laughter and his inappropriate jokes. 

“Hey,”  Ranboo nudged him with his eraser. “You okay?”

Tubbo bit his cheek. He looked down at his notebook, nothing had been written. After a moment, he shook his head.

“Aren’t you worried?” He asked quietly.

Ranboo looked away, tapping his pencil on his own book. They nodded.

“I am. But you also know that Tommy wasn’t supposed to be sneaking out.”

Tubbo huffed. “I guess.”

Ranboo nudged him. “I’m sure he’s fine.”

The satyr put his face in his hands. His notebook was still empty by the time the bell rang. He dragged his hooves as he made his way to his first hour.

He didn’t get much done all day, his stomach too upset to focus. He sat next to Ranboo at lunch, laying his head on the table. Ranboo frowned.

“Tubbo-”

“Pardon me,” an elderly woman made the two boys jump. “You’re Ranboo Beloved and Tubbo Schlatt, correct?”

The teens looked at each other and then nodded. Tubbo tensed as a couple of people looked at him after hearing his last name.

“Would you mind coming down to my office? I need to talk to you two about something.”

They followed the woman reluctantly out of the cafeteria and to her office. They sat down and exchanged another glance.

“Do you know a boy named Thomas Watson?”

The two froze upon hearing his name. They both hesitantly nodded.

“He’s…a friend,” Tubbo replied.

The lady pursed her lips. “When’s the last time you two saw him?”

“Yesterday,” Ranboo replied. “Right after school.”

She frowned. “Did you see or talk to him anytime after that?”

Tubbo glanced at his friend.

“I sent him a text but he didn’t respond.”

She nodded and picked up the phone on her desk. “Thank you. You can go back to lunch.”

“Did something happen?” Tubbo’s stomach lurched.

She sighed. “Hopefully not.”

Chapter Text

Tommy woke up with a bad crick in his neck. He groaned tiredly and rolled over. As he came to his senses, he realized he was on the ground. Since when did his room have wooden floors? He felt around, hoping to get back in bed before he was too awake to fall back to sleep.

He opened his eyes slightly when he couldn’t find it, lifting his head only a little. He found a wall with multiple missing paint chunks and several claw marks. Did he turn into a werewolf or something?

As he sat up, his head started pounding heavily. He let out a gasp and attempted to massage his temples.

Damn it, he thought. What the hell happened?

His vision was blurred and his head still pounded as he fully sat up. Jesus Christ, where was he?

Tommy’s heart started racing as he remembered the events from last night. Being restrained by 404 and Fireborn and then getting fucking drugged. Now he was in some sort of cellar or something. He couldn’t tell, his eyes still stung.

Why him? Why’d they kidnap him? More importantly, why did HEROES kidnap him?!

He wasn’t that well known. Sure, a couple of vigilantes knew about him, but not any official heroes. Besides, he hadn’t really done anything.

Tommy rubbed his eyes and continued to look around. It was dark, only a little light from a small lamp. As his eyes adjusted, he found large green eyes staring at him. Tommy jumped, biting his cheek to keep from screaming.

It’s a cat, Tommy scolded himself. You coward.

The animal watched him, its tail swaying back and forth as it snuggled in its bed. Tommy glanced around. At least he knew what the claw marks were from.

The cat continued staring at him, which was unnerving as hell. But Tommy opted to ignore it, for now, he had more pressing issues. Like, where the fuck he was and how to get out of here.

He started to stand despite his head throbbing in protest. He supported himself against a wall and continued massaging his temples. Once his eyes finally adjusted again, he continued taking in his surroundings.

There was a door.

Holy shit there was a door.

Tommy didn’t even think before he tried sprinting to the door. Key word, tried. He slipped and collided with the ground, making him groan. He rubbed his chin. Luckily, nothing got caught in between his teeth to get cut.

He moved his jaw around to make sure it wasn’t dislocated. Nothing was broken, but it was definitely going to bruise.

The cat continued staring at him.

He looked down at his ankle. A thick metal clasp sat around it, a short chain connecting to the wall behind him. Jesus, he really didn’t notice that at first? That anesthetic must’ve messed him up pretty badly.

The door unlocked.

Tommy jumped and whipped around. He pressed himself against the wall he was attached to. What did they want with him? Why was he here? Who were they?

The cat let out a sound and finally pried its eyes away from the boy. It jumped towards whoever was coming in, meowing impatiently.

The door opened.

A tall man took a step in. He scratched the creature behind its ears, showing quite a lot of affection for a kidnapper. He wore a black tank top and jeans. He had short-ish dirty blonde hair tied in a short ponytail. He wore a white mask with the creepiest smile Tommy had ever seen.

Holy fuck, he thought. That’s Marionette. THAT’S MARIONETTE–

“Hello,” the man spoke slowly. 

He closed the door behind him and sat down, crossing his legs. His cat bounced into his lap and snuggled in his legs. She brought her gaze back to Tommy once she was settled.

“I hope my companions didn’t hurt you too badly,” he said.

Tommy glared. His vision was still a bit messed up, which only added to the headache he had.

“I see you’ve met Patches,” the man looked down at the animal. “She’s probably upset that she has to share a living space with someone else.”

He tried a chuckle. Tommy pressed further against the wall.

“Why am I here?” Tommy managed to croak out. Jesus, his throat was dry. 

Marionette tilted his head. “I suppose that’s a fair question. But first, I want to make sure I even need you.”

Tommy furrowed his brow. Marionette lifted his hand, his fingertips glowing a bright green.

“Stand up,” he ordered. Tommy didn’t move.

“What?” he whimpered.

Marionette continued staring at him.

“Stand up,” he repeated, a bit more aggressive.

Tommy hesitated but stood, stabilizing himself against the wall. Marionette huffed and put his hand back down. He let the boy sit again.

“What are your powers?” The villain asked immediately.

Tommy bit his cheek. None, he wanted to say. He was already kidnapped and chained to the wall, it’s not like he could lie. If he did, there was a likely chance he’d be asked to prove it, and then he’d be fucked. 

He took a deep breath and looked at the mask’s eyes. He could barely make out a pair of real eyes through the narrow holes in the mask.

“I don’t have any,” he replied. His voice was level. 

The villain lifted his head as if he was surprised. He adjusted his seat, which made Patches claw his jeans to stay stable.

“Then how do you resist my hypnosis?”

Oh. So that’s what that is. 

Tommy knew Marionette had mind powers, he practically worshipped the guy, but he didn’t really know how it worked. He thought he just had glow-in-the-dark fingertips.

He shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe I’m just too awesome.”

Marionette wasn’t amused. Tommy gulped.

“Funny,” the villain snarled. “What’s your name?”

He hesitated. He thought about lying again. But there was no doubt missing posters would go around with his real name. His captor would find out anyway.

“None of your business,” the boy snapped. His kidnapper looked taken aback, even with his face covered.

Marionette let out a laugh. It made Tommy hunch his shoulders.

“You’ve got guts, kid,” he said. “That’ll make this even more fun to work with.”

“The fuck does that mean?”

The villain sighed. He stood up, lightly placing his cat back on the wooden floor. Tommy found himself cowering further into himself.

“You should rest,” the man said. He pushed Patches away from the door with his foot.

“Excuse me?” Tommy’s voice was shaky.

“We have much to do tomorrow,” he ignored him.

The lights went out and the door closed.

Tommy screamed until his voice was hoarse.

Chapter Text

Tommy had always been a troublesome child. Running around the house, crashing into everything, jumping onto 3-month-old Steve and riding him like he was a Mustang. When he had gotten his first few teeth, he immediately used them to take a bite out of Wilbur’s arm. 

It wasn’t a surprise when Tommy first started sneaking out.

What was surprising was the sudden knowledge of machinery. Tommy would randomly talk about what different types of machines were made of, identify the problem with one of their cars, or help Techno build one of his gadgets. It was even more surprising when they found out he made his own gear.

Techno found himself observing Tommy’s hidden gadgets under his bed. A homemade tazer (that barely worked but was still impressive), a couple of pea-sized explosives, and some sort of communication receptor. He frowned sadly.

“YOU HAD ONE JOB!” Phil screamed from downstairs. Techno stood up, following the sound quickly.

“He’s stolen important documents from the mayor!” Wilbur bit back. “I thought he could handle himself!”

Techno cut in between them. “Stop it,” he growled. “Fighting like this isn’t bringing Tommy back.”

Phil glared sharply but turned around. Techno sighed, relieved. Wilbur walked into the kitchen, leaning on the counter. The entire atmosphere seemed to tense even more. 

Techno huffed. “I’m going into town,” he sighed.

With that, he shut the door and made his way downtown to ask about Tommy’s whereabouts.

Ranboo walked past a couple of shops, his head hung low. It had been three days since Tommy didn’t show up at school. To say he and Tubbo were worried was an understatement. 

They opened the door to a small shop they regularly visited. It was where they got most of their clothes. Plus, they were good friends with the store owner.

“Ranboo!” A dirty-blonde-haired man wearing a red sweater greeted. “Always a pleasure to see you. Welcome in.”

Ranboo smiled before walking through the store. He wasn’t sure if he was actually going to buy anything, but the shop had a comforting atmosphere. 

He was only in there for a few minutes before another customer came in. Ranboo didn’t see them but he heard the bell. He admired a hand-knit sweater vest.

“Hello, sir,” Grian greeted. “Is there anything you need help with today?”

There was a pause. Then, “Yes, actually.”

Ranboo perked their head. They recognized that voice. They shuffled around the clothes rack to look at the customer. Their eyes widened as they saw the familiar face of Techno, aka the Blood God. He had an unusual expression for him; his brow was furrowed and his lip slightly quivered. He was worried.

Techno took out his phone and showed it to Grian.

“Have you seen this kid anywhere?” He asked, his voice slightly shaky.

Grian frowned as he studied the picture. “I can’t say I have,” he looked up at Techno sympathetically. “May I ask why?”

Techno shook even more. He looked like he was about to cry. Ranboo was shocked at the display.

“He’s my little brother,” he explained. “And…he’s missing.”

Ranboo’s heart dropped and his breath hitched. He gasped softly, causing Techno and Grian to look at him. His eyes were wide and he felt frozen in place. Techno raised his eyebrows, recognizing the kid.

“Wait,” he breathed. “You’re Ranboo, right? You’re friends with Tommy-”

“Tommy’s missing?” Ranboo’s voice was barely a whisper. 

Techno’s expression softened. He replied almost as quietly, “yes. He is.”

Ranboo put a hand on their forehead and stumbled slightly. He leaned against a wall before moving his hand down to cover his mouth. He was going to be sick. They could feel their heart beating rapidly as if it was trying to escape his body.

They quickly grabbed their phone, immediately dialing Tubbo. He walked swiftly out of the shop, ignoring Techno and Grian.

Three rings.

“Hello?” Tubbo’s voice sounded tired. To be fair, they had gotten out of school only an hour ago.

“Tubbo,” Ranboo breathed shakily. “It…it’s about Tommy.”

Tubbo paused on the other end. “What about him?”

Ranboo took a deep breath and tightened their grip around their phone. They bit their lip and wiped their eyes.

“He’s…” his voice cracked. “He’s missing.”

Another pause.

Beep.

Tubbo jumped from building to building, his hair dancing from the cold wind. He would stop on each roof and look around before continuing. The frost felt like pinneedles against his burnt skin, but he didn’t care. He needed to find Tommy.

This is my fault, he thought. I shouldn’t have pushed him away. Now he’s gone. He’s gone and it’s all my fault.

Tears pricked the corners of his eyes under his goggles. He paused and pushed his gloved hands under the specs and rubbed his eyes. He did that for a few seconds before the tears started to grow. He let out a weak whimper as his knees buckled. He stiffled his sobs against his gloves.

Not now, he scolded himself. Don’t start crying now. You have to find him.

His ear twitched as he heard the recognizable sound of the wind warping behind him. He lifted his wet face to look up at the tall figure. The creature frowned down at him, their red and green eyes soft.

“Tubbo…” Ranboo said gently.

They got on their knees and lightly wrapped their arms around the satyr. Tubbo removed his goggles and wiped his face, still sniffling.

“He’s okay,” Ranboo assured. “He’s okay…”

They both knew Ranboo was trying more to convince himself than he was Tubbo. There was an obvious layer of desperation as he tried to inform that Tommy was okay.

Tubbo sat up, lightly brushing Ranboo’s arms off of him. He wiped his face one more time before putting his goggles back on. He stood up, adjusting his gloves.

The two of them exchanged a glance before nodding, silently agreeing. They followed each other along the outskirts of town, searching for any sight of Tommy. It was dark and cold and they were tired. But they couldn’t stop. They had to find him.

Crack.

Tubbo paused. Ranboo winced and lifted their talon, revealing a broken lens on the ground. The bottom of his foot was scratched from the glass, but it didn’t matter. Ranboo squatted down, delicately lifting the material with two fingers.

Transparent wires were embedded in the lens. The vigilantes looked at each other with wide eyes.

“ Holy shit,” Tubbo breathed.

The two ran, Ranboo clutching the glass in their hands. They didn’t care if anyone saw them, they had to get back to the bunker.

Tubbo flew the trapdoor open before leaping down and sprinting quickly through the tunnels. They burst through the laboratory’s door, causing a man in a wheelchair to jump.

“Mismatch! Energize! What are you-”

“Scar-” Ranboo shoved the broken glass into the man’s hand. “We need you to run some tests on this.”

Scar quirked an eyebrow. “Why?”

Tubbo breathed heavily. Ranboo’s tail twitched.

“There’s been a kidnapping.”

Chapter Text

Lol hi

I'm not dead. Just haven't been writing. Been focused on my school and webcomic (Sunset Roses on Webtoon btw)

I wasn't happy with how this was written, especially not after all the stuff that came out about Dream, Wilbur, etc. I didn't want to continue writing about them nor did I like how my style was.

BUT! I've started to miss writing for the dsmp. Specifically Tommy, my goat, and the Bench Trio even if they don't interact anymore.

I also enjoy the story I had for this fic, it just wasn't executed in a way I like.

With that being said, I'm wanting to rewrite this.

Characters who are linked to creators I do not support will have changed names, but I'll make it clear who they're meant to replace.

Overall, I am happy this fic was able to get the traction it did. And I hope you guys will enjoy the rewrite. :)