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Chapter Text

"Tommy," Tubbo breathes into his earpiece. "You need to start running. Now!"

Ranboo and Purpled both echo the confirmation and Tommy hides his fear with a smirk under his mask. The boot on his hand is digging into the skin where he's hanging off the side of a building - that's not even that high up, two stories at most - and he has never wanted pancakes more.

"I'm a bit stuck right now Metis," Tommy grits through his teeth, the voice changer making his voice slightly deeper.

"Tommy just hang in there, I'm on my way." Ranboo calls from the other end of the earpiece, a few seconds pass, "no pun intended."

"Oh, Apophis," the man coos, like he's a wingless bird; the knowledge to fly, but no capability to do it, "I thought you would have more fight in you."

Tommy tilts his head, looking behind the hero with invisibility powers; invisibility may be a bit generous, it's more like translucent powers. "Don't get me wrong, I don't want to ruin your little hero moment, but I actually have places to be right now."

Apollo blinks in confusion and Tommy weaponises the opportunity before him.

He swings his leg over the edge of the building, pulling himself up before shoving his shoulder into the hero's knee, making him stumble backwards off of his hands. Darting up, albeit stumbling, he swipes the legs out from the hero, then sprints towards the other end of the building.

"Khonsu!" he shouts, "a little help please?"

As soon as he said the words, a purple haze covered the air in front of him with particles that looked like they were glitching the fabric of time itself, then Ranboo appeared.

"Sorry I'm late." he spoke with an uneasy smile.

"Yeah, yeah whatever," Tommy responded, taking a glance behind him, where Apollo was running towards them rapidly, "don't care, hurry!"

Ranboo grabbed his hand and they were out of there before Tommy even had a chance to flip off the hero.

They teleported back to their small apartment where their other roomates, Tubbo and Purpled, were waiting with a disappointed stare. "We told you to be careful tonight Tommy."

He loved his roomates, sometimes he feels somewhat inadequate next to them, but held no spite. Tubbo was amazingly smart and talented when it comes to technology, Ranboo was just generally a pretty smart guy as well as having great comedic timing and Purpled was out doing jobs for the most well known villains most of the time. Tommy was just an average coffee shop worker and part time vigilante.

He called them 'roommates', but they were more like brothers to him. Roommates feels too impersonal, too disconnected, after all they had known each other for the majority of their lives.

"Scold me later Tubbo, unless you want me to be sick all over you," Tommy said, immediately grabbing onto the wall with one hand and his mouth with the other, closing his eyes.

"Sorry." Ranboo said, which he should be, teleporting always makes Tommy nauseous.

Tommy moves his hand off his mouth to hold up his pointer finger to tell him to hold on as he opened his eyes and took a deep breath in, which quickly turned into a middle finger directed straight at Ranboo.

Tommy cackled as Ranboo nodded his head and flipped him off with both hands, keeping a blank face the whole time, before turning around to go to the kitchen.

"Now he's gone, I would like to formally apologi-" before he got to finish his sentence, he got tackled on to the sofa by the other blonde who was now punching his arm.

"What the fuck is wrong with you Tommy," Purpled starts, "we told you to be careful for a reason and you just go around taunting one of the top three heroes."

"The heroes are patrolling the lower districts now more than ever, you need to stop being reckless Tommy," Tubbo says, "we can barely pay rent with your job at the coffee shop and Purpled's jobs here and there, let alone your bail money."

Tommy and Purpled were the only ones with jobs - if you could even call Purpled's that - because Tommy insists that Ranboo and Tubbo get a full education to be the golden geese of the family as it were, to live normal teenage lives.

"I know," Tommy states dismissively, "'m sorry."

"Just do-" Tubbo loudly begins before Ranboo jumps onto the other end of the bean bag with his bowl of popcorn, sending Tubbo flying onto the floor.

"Boo?! Do you mind?" Tubbo shouts as Ranboo sucks the air between his teeth.

"My bad." he smiles nervously as the goat hybrid edges his way towards him, looking like he was about to attack.

If perfect timing was real, that was the pinnacle of it.

"Thank the gods." Tommy mutters behind his hand because he could not deal with the wrath of Tubbo Underscore today.

Purpled glanced over towards Tommy's hand and must have noticed the cuts that litter the back of his hands and knuckles as he was suddenly being dragged to the bathroom.

"Sit." Purpled pointed towards the toilet seat.

Tommy put the toilet lid down and perched on the end of it as Purpled was going through the cupboard to find gauze, a bandage and a safety pin.

"Run your hand under the water and dry it," Tommy did as he was told, "you've got to stop getting yourself injured man, we have limited resources that we can't keep wasting on your minor injuries."

"By all means don't bandage me up, I can live without it."

"Shut up."

Purpled came towards him and applied the gauze to his hand before opening the roller bandage. Starting with the end of it at the inside of his wrist, he wrapped it twice around, from there he pulled it diagonally across the top of his hand with the roll now next to his pinky finger.

Tommy winced.

"Oh be quiet, you've had worse." Purpled rolled his eyes.

The bandage was now being wrapped around his pinky finger, then under his other fingers until it got to his pointer finger which the bandage got wrapped around and then pulled down diagonally to the outside of Tommy's wrist.

"I am sorry by the way. I didn't think Apollo would be out tonight." he looked at the floor because anything is better than looking into Purpled's eyes right now.

Purpled simply hums in reply as he wrapped the bandage once more around his wrist and secured it with a safety pin.

"Maybe if you listened to us on the earpiece for once, instead of turning it down, you would of heard us warning you." Purpled said as he began bandaging the other hand.

"But then I would have to listen to your annoying voices. With all due respect, I would rather not."

"You are insufferable Tommy Innit." There was a long pause. "I'm done." he lightly sapped Tommy's cheek.

"Thanks bitch." Tommy indignantly muttered back.

"Whatever." Purpled rolled his eyes and walked out of the bathroom.

Tommy got hit with a sudden wave of tiredness and remembered he had a shift at the coffee shop the next day so he clambered his way to his and Tubbo's shared bedroom and flopped onto the single bed.

If Tommy felt an arm slip around him a few hours later, accompanied by the hushed words "please be more careful," he wouldn't mention it the next morning.

Chapter Text

Tommy and Purpled were playing in their back garden when they heard a massive bang come from their house.

"What was that?" Purpled whipped his head to the boy next to him.

Tommy didn't answer, but instead started running towards the house. Walking through the balloons on the floor, he saw five men in suits - some of which were holding guns - one pushed his Dad over, he was holding a hand to his forehead, blood dripping from it. Another man was holding his Mum's arms behind her back, restraining her from moving.

"Leave him alone!" Tommy shouted as Purpled barged his way into the room.

"Mum, what's happening?" His mum had tears rolling down her cheeks. Purpled pushed past Tommy, in a struggled attempt to get to his Dad before his shoulders were grabbed by one of the men.

"Dad, are you okay? Did they hurt you?" Purpled signed to his Dad.

"It's okay Purp. I'm okay, don't worry," he signed to his son before turning to the men with a furious glare. " Don't touch my boy, you have no right to be in my home!" He tried to stand to grab his boy, his blood, but didn't make it far as one of the men swung his gun at his head, causing him to stumble back and end up on the floor again.

"This matter does not concern you." The man held the gun to his Dad's head.

A tall blonde man wearing sunglasses and a black suit began to stride over to where Tommy was standing, "get away from me!"

The man picked Tommy up bridal style, face expressionless, and as a six year old there's not much you can do against a fully grown man, but that didn't stop him from struggling as much as he could.

He looked to his Mum with panicked eyes.

"Put me down!"

"Don't worry sunshine, everything is going to be okay," she looked towards Purpled, "moonlight, you're going to be okay. I love you," his Mum choked out quickly through her sobs before the man holding her put some kind of cloth over her face; her eyes widened. She looked at her husband with beseeching eyes, struggling in the brunettes arms, then looked at both of her boys with nothing but sadness and love in her eyes. 

Then she fell.

"Mum! Wake up," Purpled screamed, "Mum!"

The men began walking towards the front door with the boys screaming and struggling in their arms, aside from the one holding a gun to their Dad.

He looked at his wife on the floor, then looked up, pleading his thought to anyone that would listen. 'Don't take my boys. Don't let her die. They are my world. My galaxy.'

It was on this day that he decided that there was no divine power. No one to save them. They were completely and utterly alone. There was no one to make the Anthropocene bearable, no one to make it less scary.

No one was cruel enough to tear apart their family.

This was it. 

Tommy looked towards his Dad, still on the floor, a man still holding a gun to his head. 

"Dad!" 

He turned to his boys, tears welling in his eyes, he raised an arm and signed with shaky hands "I love you" for the last time.

The man carrying Tommy turned him away from the scene. He wasn't a monster; he was just doing his job. No one should have to see their Dad die.

A shot was heard.

Tommy stopped breathing.

Tommy sobbed.

Tommy screamed.

He shot up in bed, barely breathing, grabbing at his chest.

"-ommy," he could barely hear someone talking to him, "Tommy, breathe! You're at home. You're okay."

A hand grabbed his shoulder.

"Wh-," Tommy said breathlessly, looking at his surroundings. At the single bed, the light bulb hanging from the ceiling, at the wooden floors, at the window sill with paint that's crusting off, at the wardrobe with a door falling off. At the small boy sat next to him. His breathing evened out slightly after noticing the last one.

The hand on his shoulder added more pressure, "you're okay, Tommy. You're here."

"Sorry," Tommy drops his head into his hands, "didn't mean to wake you guys up."

"Don't worry about it big man. Purpled and Ran went out to get food and I was awake anyway."

"But we don't have money for food?" he peaks an eye out of his hands to look at Tubbo.

"I never said they were buying it."

He rubbed his hands down his face, looking up at the ceiling, his palms resting on his cheeks for a moment before he slaps them, sighing.

"Guess I should get ready for work, huh?"

"Tommy, you don't have to go. You could just take the day off."

"Pft, yeah right. You and I both know we need the money. Ranboo and Purp are literally out stealing food for us right now," he swung his legs over the side of his bed and headed towards the wardrobe. 

"Well I'm gonna go back to sleep then."

"You said you were already awake!"

"Goodnight, Tommy."

"It's morning, dickhead."

All men do is sleep and lie.

"Before you go though, are you okay?" Tubbo lifted his head from the pillow and rested his head on his hand.

"Yeah," Tommy lied.

Chapter Text

The walk to the coffee shop was generally uneventful, aside from this one guy trying to mug Tommy. All of the muggers he had met and this one was definitely the worst.

The brown haired man cornered him in an alleyway, "give me everything you have," he spoke in an odd accent. Australian maybe.

Tommy looked at his surroundings and unsurprisingly, there was no one else there, "um, no?"

The mugger took a small step back and looked slightly puzzled for a moment, "what? give me your stuff man or I- I'll.." he looked around, "stab you."

Tommy pulled an amused face at this man who had clearly never mugged anyone in his life, "sure you will big man," he chuckled as he leaned back against the wall and folded his arms.

The Australian sputtered, "uh, this has never happened before," he looked at the kid in front of him and took another step back.

"No worries," he lifted his hand towards the man which he hesitantly took, "I'm Tommy. I'm gonna go now or I'll be late for work, don't try to mug anyone else, dipshit."

"Sorry kid. Name's Lazar."

Tommy rolled his eyes and made it out of the other end other alley, when he turned and saluted the defeated looking man at the other end. 

-

He finally got to the coffee shop where a girl with light pink hair stood behind the counter serving a customer. 

"Hi, Niki!" Tommy shouted as he walked into the backroom to put on his apron and uniform.

He decided he was going to take a moment to sit on the sofa and go on his phone before his incredibly long shift.

Due to his restless night of sleep, he rested his eyes for a moment and he must've fallen asleep because he woke up to Niki pouring a cup of water on his head.

Tommy flayed his arms around, "Niki! What the fuck!"

"Time for work Toms, there's no way I'm doing this shift alone." She grabbed his hand as he grumbled about how his life is so hard and dragged him back out into the front of the shop. 

The blonde rubbed his eyes and leaned his elbows on the counter, "Gods, I am not ready for this shift."

"Are you ever?" the pink haired girl smiled and patted his shoulder as she left to go serve another customer. 

As a whole the shift was relatively normal, well as normal as it can be to work in a coffee shop where every single customer feels the need to criticise every single, little thing that you do just because they can.

One woman asked for a black coffee, so he obviously made her a black coffee, only for her to take a sip and spit it back out all over the counter and ask why there was no milk in it. He said "because it is a black coffee, black coffee doesn't have milk in it."

She responded, "that's not how they do it at the coffee shop down the street. They make it normally. With milk."

"Respectfully ma'am, if they are making black coffee with milk, then they are making the coffee wrong."

She simply scoffed and left the shop. No tip. Dickhead.

The Karen's are going to be the end of him, not the vigilantism, not his past. Nope, it'll be the Karen's with their ugly haircuts.

Five minutes before closing time, a man with curly brown hair and round glasses walked in and dragged a chair over to Tommy, sitting directly in front of him.

Tommy had lost all patience by this time of the night, "Hello?"

"Hi!" the brunette man sat with his head in his hands with his elbows on the table.

"You gonna order or what?" He was glad Niki was in the back or he would be in trouble for being rude to the customers because the customer always comes first. 

"Woah dude, If you keep up that tone, I'll have to tell your manager you're being mean to your sweet, paying customers," he grinned at Tommy.

"Whatever, just tell me what you want," he rolled his eyes.

"A black coffee to go please." 

People who drink black coffee in the day are weird, let alone drinking it this late at night. You must have some serious problems if you're doing that to yourself.

"Who the fuck buys black coffee at 10:55 pm."

"It's not for me, it's for my brother."

That does not make it any better.

"Your brother's an idiot."

The man scoffed lightheartedly as Tommy turned around to brew his coffee, "you're not going to ask for milk with it, are you?"

"Now why in the hell would I want milk with a black coffee." Tommy chuckled at his response which made the man start laughing too, "I'm Wilbur by the way."

Tommy didn't turn around, but smiled anyway, "Tommy."

Niki walked back into the shop which made Wilbur turn his attention to the girl. "Hey, Wil," to which he waved back, "hope he wasn't causing you too much trouble, Toms."

"Oh he was. He is a terrible man. Telling me about all the crimes he's committed and shit." Tommy spoke as he handed the coffee to the brunette. 

Wilbur spluttered something along the lines of, "that is not true." Tommy didn't care to listen.

"Sounds about right," she grinned at Wilbur, "come on, we gotta go," she turned to look at Tommy, "you okay to close up?"

He nodded in response and sent her a little wave, ignoring the man to her right who just put a heft tip into the tip jar.

"Goodbye, Toms," he mocked the nickname that Niki had given him when they first met, "It was lovely to meet you."

"Wish I could say the same," he responded which made both him and Niki chuckle as they said their goodbyes.

When they left, he grabbed the tip out of the jar and holy shit. He tipped £25, what the fuck.

What kind of rich do you have to be to tip that much to a teenager that insulted not only you, but your brother too.

Tommy hates rich people.