Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The sun was setting over the city and in the surprisingly clear evening, golden light settled over the towering skyscrapers. A few wispy clouds hung in the sky and glowed with bright halos.

On one of the rooftops of the tall, fancy office buildings sat a teen, legs swinging too and fro over the edge of the deadly fall.

Just like Theseus.

It would be too ironic if he fell again.

Taking a deep breath in, Tommy adjusting his facemask to make sure the buckles wouldn’t come loose at any point and slipped the small earpiece Tubbo had made into his ear.

“We ready to go?” Tommy asked.

It was a short, simple question, not able to convey just how much could go wrong with their plan, today and in the future. Even a small mistake could send everything spiralling off track.

Tommy’s mind began to run frantically through the possibilities again, checking over everything that could go wrong in his head, until Tubbo’s grounding voice came through the mic.

“Everything’s good on our end big man. I’m disabling the alarms as we speak, so if they even realize you’re they’ll have to summon heroes manually so-”

“That’ll buy me a couple of minutes to get away, blah blah blah. Yes I know all this, we went over it like ten times”

A loud sigh could be heard through the mic, slightly further away than Tubbo’s voice; Ranboo.

“We know you know, it’s just we’d rather you don’t get found out and arrested before we’ve actually done anything worth having a life sentence in jail for”

Tommy snorted.

“As if that’d happen. I’m too athletic, I’ll simply evade arrest as I’ve done many times before”

There was laughter from the other side of the call, the mood instantly becoming more relaxed despite the stunt they were about to try and pull off.

Darkness was settling over the streets a little more now, streetlamps and apartment lights showing the cityscape, which stretched out for miles.

Tommy took a deep breath in, forcing himself to become more serious. He needed to focus.

“I think I’m ready, make sure you are too. We all know our roles”

The teen stood up and tapped his feet together to activate the shoes Tubbo had made for him. They were plain white trainers, but extremely comfortable and, when activated, gave the wearer an extreme jump boost. 

Tubbo had made them himself and Tommy loved them immediately, naming them Clara and vowing never to take them off.

He’d made it almost a week before he had to break that vow due to his roommates claiming it was “ unsanitary ” and “ completely disgusting ”, but what did they know?

The rest of Tommy’s outfit was fairly casual - his signature baggy white baseball t-shirt with red sleeves and a white hoodie underneath, a black harness strapped in place on top, as well as black cargo pants. 

Hiding his recognisable golden hair, the hood of Tommy’s hoodie was pulled up and pinned in place to prevent anything from being revealed, while thin white gloves with grips on covered his hands, to prevent his fingerprints from being traced. 

Over his face was a round porcelain mask, mimicking that one the hero Dream’s, but instead of the sinister smile etched into that one, Tommy’s mask looked sad.

Around his waist was a utility belt, holding useful items such as his tranquillizing gun, zip ties, ropes and the key part of today’s plan.

An invisibility potion.

Due to some crime, much genius from Tubbo, and a lot of improvisation, the trio had managed to make a potion, one of the hardest items to get hold of in the city, if not the world.

Tubbo had come up with the idea after an argument between Tommy and Ranboo about eating carrots, with Ranboo arguing they made your eyesight better. He ended up experimenting to test this theory and find out who the winner of the argument was but accidentally stumbled into making a night vision potion as he amplified the effects of the carrots with glowstone. 

The trio called these mutant carrots “golden carrots” due to the way they glimmered golden, even glowing slightly in the dark. After more experimenting, Tubbo found that he could make these into a potion, amplifying their effects further and making them last longer, by adding blaze powder and water. 

Further experimentation found that adding fermented spider eyes kinda reversed the effects, but instead of making the drinker blind, as you would expect, they made the drinker invisible.

None of them knew why any of these effects happened, but they’d use it to their advantage either way.

Tommy was a few streets away from the bank now, dropping into an alleyway near the grand building. It wasn’t raining anymore, but puddles remained on the ground from the earlier weather. They were inky black. 

The teen cursed as he accidentally stood in one and soaked his socks.

Downing his potion, Tommy walked towards the bank, feeling the tingling sensation that had become quite familiar to him over the past few months cover his body, signifying he had now become invisible. 

It wasn’t painful or anything, but the sensation certainly wasn’t comfortable either.

It was almost too easy to climb into the building through a vent they had mapped out in the bank’s schematics.

“You in? Good. Go down the vent to your left”

Tommy bit his lip nervously as he crawled through the cramped vent. 

Man, crawling through a tiny, dark space was definitely doing wonders for his claustrophobia.

Technically he could have waited to take the invisibility potion, but Tommy didn’t want to risk being spotted before he’d even made it to the building he was robbing.

‘Left. Right. Up a little. Left again.’

He’d already memorised the maze of vents, but Tommy had to admit it eased his nerves to hear Ranboo and Tubbo’s practised instructions even as he grumbled to them that he didn’t need their help.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, Tommy made it to the room he was looking for.

Stereotypically, the item sat in the centre of the room on a tall pedestal, surrounded by crisscrossing red lasers. Security cameras surrounded the room, leaving no blind spots, but that was no problem to Tommy. It’s not like they could see him anyway.

After tying a rope to the vent edge and attaching that to his harness, Tommy grasped a fake replica of the slab of netherite that was below him.

Tommy wasn’t exactly sure what netherite was or what it did, but what he did know was that it was highly sought after and brought in a large profit on the black market. And, if it failed to sell there, they could always ransom it back to the heroes and gain a profit. The second way was riskier, which is why it was plan B, but no matter what they did, they could find a way of gaining money from this heist.

They even already had a buyer and everything.

Taking a deep breath in, Tommy began to lower himself into the room. Although he didn’t need to, out of habit he dodged the lasers, which would serve as tripwires for the alarm to summon heroes; Tubbo had disabled that alarm already.

With invisibility potions, anything the user wears or holds becomes invisible too, so Tommy was counting on a flawless switch between the real and fake netherite to pull this heist off.

The teen was now hanging, laying down in the air with his arms and legs spread out for balance, just above the pedestal. Hands shaking minutely, Tommy reached down, grabbing the real and placing down the fake netherite at the same time.

The shift would be barely noticeable, but Tommy was still annoyed with himself as he placed the fake down slightly wrong. Moving it now would just make the change more noticeable, so Tommy was forced to begin pulling himself back up to the ceiling to begin getting out of here. 

Everything was going according to plan. For now.

“Switch made” he muttered, knowing Tubbo had an eye on the cameras and probably knew already, but he just wanted to make sure.

“Wait. Shit. Tommy, don’t move.” Tubbo’s frantic voice hissed Tommy’s ear. “They found out the alarm is down and have fixed it”

Tommy was suddenly glad of his cautious nature, meaning he’d avoided all the lasers up to this point.

“Got it Bee”

But of course, nothing could ever go right for the great Tommyinnit.

The rope holding Tommy in suspension suddenly slipped, only moving a couple of inches, but it was enough to send the thief off balance and his hand skimmed a laser.

“Fuck. Shit. Balls. I hit one of the lasers” Tommy hissed, beginning to panic a little.

“It’s fine. You’re invisible and they won’t get there for a few minutes. Just don’t care about hitting the lasers and get out of there as fast as you can” came Ranboo’s calming voice in Tommy’s ear.

He pushed down the fear that had built in his throat. 

It was fine. Everything was gonna be fine.

Quicker this time, as he wasn’t trying to avoid the lasers anymore, Tommy climbed up the rope and into the small vent.

Yay, claustrophobia time!

An almost deafening alarm rang in Tommy’s ears as he crawled through the vent. It didn’t help his nerves, but at least it muted the slight metallic banging he made while moving.

At last, he made it out of the vent and into the cool night air. 

Sighing in relief, Tommy stopped and took a moment to stop and catch his breath.

The telltale sign that he was becoming visible started with the tingling in his hands, and Tommy realised he should get going. 

Sprinting, Tommy jumped onto the nearest building before he could be spotted.

The entrance of the bank was illuminated by flashing blue and red lights and the sound of wings told the teen exactly who they’d sent to investigate.

The Sleepy Bois inc.

It sounded like such an unthreatening name, and that was the point. 

In fact, they were three of the top heroes in the city - Ghostbur, the Blade and the Angel of Death (or just Angel for short)

Under his mask, Tommy grinned. This would draw their attention.

----------

Getting an emergency call at midnight wasn’t exactly uncommon for heroes. 

Getting a call about an attempted bank robbery certainly wasn’t uncommon.

What was uncommon was getting a call at midnight about a disturbance in a bank, only to arrive at the scene to find nothing remotely out of place, except one of the most valuable items in L’Manberg, that had been replaced with a fake.

Wilbur, or Ghostbur as he was more commonly known, ran his fingers through his fluffy brown hair, sighing again.

Techno, the Blade, sat across from him and their dad, the Angel, stood to his left, dark wings shifting uneasily behind him.

They were currently around the round table in their apartment at the hero’s HQ, staring at a slab of fake netherite, like if they stared hard enough at it it would begin to give them answers.

On the bottom of the slab had been a note, (the writing on the back of a receipt for £100 worth of carrots, but all the traceable information singed off), stuck on with sellotape.

“So it begins. You should watch your backs, or the consequences may be explosive”

There was a symbol underneath of a bee, two disks and a book and quill, all on a bench

The note was an obvious threat, or maybe a warning? The symbol too was confusing - it was clear it had meaning but the heroes couldn’t figure it out. And the carrots? That was just strange.

Either way, its meaning couldn’t be good and the three heroes knew they were dealing with someone both bold and very smart; a dangerous combination.

The thing they were most certain about though, was that they were dealing with new villain(s?) and they had to be careful. 

Despite being new, the villains had broken into one of the most secure banks in the city and stolen its most valuable item, so the heroes guessed they’d had training in some sort of gang or something like that.

“So. What’re we gonna do about the new villains. I’m assumin’ there’s more than one of them, a single person couldn’t do this by themself”

Technoblade was the one to break the silence.

Once again, Wilbur sighed and ran his hand through his hair. 

It was something he did a lot when he was stressed, as he currently was.

“They’re new at this most likely, we haven’t seen anything like this before. They have to mess up at some point right?”

Phil was reassuring as always but Wilbur was still unconvinced.

“What, so we’re just supposed to wait around for them to strike again? Surely we can work to prevent them?”

“We can’t do anythin’ apart from increase patrols right now, we don’t know what their plans are” Techno was right but it still irked Wilbur.

Phil continued, “It’s ok mate, we’ll mention it to everyone else. Anyway, for all we know, this could’ve been a one-time thing. They always slip up and get caught in the end.”

The words were empty and all three of them knew it, but Wilbur nodded, determination evident on his face.

“We’ll catch them”

----------

Punz was not trustworthy in any way, but Tommy knew he wouldn’t be sold out as long as he held up his side of the deal. And he had - the heavy slab of netherite weighed down a pocket in his utility belt.

He was currently stood on top of one of the massive apartment buildings a few streets away from the bank he’d just robbed. Maybe not the smartest move, but it was where Punz had wanted to meet. 

The man in question was stood a few metres away, having just arrived at the roof. He wore a white hoodie and golden chain, a white facemask covering the bottom half of his face. Tommy could see pale blue eyes reflecting the city lights, but couldn’t see the colour of his hair or any other revealing features.

“Do you have it?”

Tommy rolled his eyes, although it was more to himself than anyone else, as they were hidden by his mask, so he opted to scoff loudly instead.

“Who do you think I am? Of course I’ve got it”

Punz’s eye roll was visible to Tommy.

“I quite literally don’t know who you are. That’s what the point of the mask is right?”

Tommy sighed, bringing out the ingot of netherite from his belt.

“You’d better hold up your end of the deal. D’you have the fake IDs and legal documents I asked for? And the money”

The mercenary nodded and both of them walked towards each other, swapping goods.

The package Tommy received was a large folder, which held a bunch of legal documents claiming Tommy, Tubbo and Ranboo were all over eighteen and had completely real medical records.

“And you’ll forget about this as soon as we leave?” 

Tommy knew that was part of the mercenary’s code, but there could’ve been some fine print and he couldn’t risk anything.

Punz didn’t seem to be surprised by the question at all and replied, “Of course not. I don’t sell out my clients, or I wouldn’t have the reputation I do, would I?”

Tommy nodded.

“Until next time we do business”

The mercenary saluted before walking off the edge of the building. 

Tommy didn’t even bother looking over the edge, opting instead to turn in the opposite direction towards the poorer area of L’Manberg.

Towards home.

Chapter Text

Running along rooftops was one of Tommy’s favourite things to do, feeling the wind in his face and adrenaline in his veins. Especially with Clara (yes he still called his shoes that), Tommy could bound from building to building without faltering once.

It was clear when Tommy made it to the poorer areas of L’Manberg, the modern skyscrapers and busy main roads becoming run-down apartment buildings and narrow, unlit alleyways.

Soon the familiar apartment building, that Tommy has grown used to for the past ten months, came into view. It’s old, rundown and the perfect place for three teens who’d rather not be caught by the police to go.

Tommy made the last jump onto the wall of the building, climbing into the open window and swinging himself dramatically into the small kitchen.

“I’m back bitches”

Tommy was tackled with a hug from both his roommates, winding and almost knocking him over in the process, but after stumbling a bit they all landed on the sofa together.

“So, did you get the stuff?”

Excitedly, Tubbo looked at Tommy, who pulled the paper folder from Punz out from his belt and handed it to his roommate.

Tubbo pulled out the files and began flicking through them one by one to make sure they were passable and everything they’d asked for, although Tommy wasn’t sure how he could read any of it due to the fringe of dark brown hair that covered his face at all times. He wore an emerald green shirt, buttoned up wrong as usual, and blue jeans faded at the knees from age. The hair over his face hid burn scars and toxic yellow eyes.

On the surface, Tubbo’s “superpower”, or enhancement as they were more commonly called, was pretty simple and could seem harmless.

Increased IQ.

That pretty much meant Tubbo was extremely smart, a lot more so than the average person. 

Tommy was fairly certain that’s where his inventive streak came from: he knew how most things worked and wanted to make something that couldn’t be more efficient and couldn’t be figured out by anyone else.

It’s also where his enjoyment of hacking came from. Tubbo was looking for a program he couldn’t hack into or decode.

Then, Tommy’s other roommate, Ranboo (or as Tommy liked to call him, Ranboob . Ranboo didn’t exactly appreciate that).

Ranboo’s appearance was quite striking, having half black, half white hair and although his face was hidden by a facemask and glasses in public, Tommy could currently see his heterochromic red and green eyes. 

Purple particles seemed to dip in and out of existence around Ranboo, who claimed they would sometimes talk to him and cry whenever he listened to ‘Fallen Down’ from Undertale. 

It confused Tommy, but out of all the weird things they knew and had been through, he didn’t doubt his roommate.

Tommy knew Ranboo enjoyed wearing a suit but usually wore Hawaiian shirts and jeans, as he was currently doing.

Ranboo’s enhancement was also pretty simple.

Teleportation.

However, it was deceptively powerful. Ranboo could teleport himself and others, as you would expect on a basic level, but he could also teleport objects to and away from him, whether he was touching them or not. If Ranboo could visualise a place, he could teleport himself and anyone or anything (within a reasonable mass) he wanted to said place. There was also a more deadly side to his powers.

Ranboo could teleport just parts of things if he wanted. That also included people.

He would never use that aspect of his power, but Ranboo still had the potential to cause a lot of damage.

Tommy sighed, relaxing into the sofa, taking off his ‘villain’ gear - he pulled down his hood, took off his mask and belt and kicked off his shoes.

“So, is the next part of the plan ready to go?”

Tubbo looked up from the files he’d been scanning through and grinned.

“We managed to get a couple of employees fired pretty easily by digging up dirt on them and ‘accidentally’ releasing it to the heroes. There’s a job in the engineering department that I’ll take and Tommy’ll take the job as an intern to the Sleepy Bois”

Ranboo added, “Then I’ll be at home while you send me any useful information or dirt you gather. I also have the job of recruiting other villains”

“I’m just hoping they don’t have any backup files from Logstedshire”, Tommy sighed. “I’d rather not be arrested on sight”

The three of them huddled slightly closer to each other at the mention of Logsted. 

None of them exactly had pleasant memories from there.

“Well, Dream shouldn’t be coming back to the city until we make him and I’ve scoured all government records I can find and haven’t seen any mention of anything from there recently, apart from the fact that it’s all gone now. It’s not exactly something they’d want anyone finding out about. And, if we do find anything at the hero HQ, we’ll be able to delete it ourselves”

Tubbo was reassuring, and although all three of them had already known everything he said, it was still comforting.

Logstedshire had been gone for a while now and the memories should’ve died with it, but there were still the bad nights they wouldn’t talk about where the trio had to be within arms reach of each other so they were sure everything was real.

Logsted may have been gone, but the memories and scars most definitely weren’t.

Tommy took a deep breath in; the mood had been dampened quite a bit by the mention of Logsted.

“So, can I see my completely ‘legitimate’ birth certificate?”

Looking like he was suppressing a laugh, Tubbo handed Tommy’s new birth certificate to him.

“What the fuck?!”

Ranboo jumped a little at Tommy’s sudden yell.

“What- what’s wrong?”

Tommy scowled.

“Shut up boob boy. Why the fuck is my name Tomathy?”

The other two burst out laughing.

“Well, Tommy has to be short for something right? Isn’t Tomathy Underscore Beloved Innit a great name?” Tubbo laughed. “Or would you rather I put Theseus on there instead?”

Tommy groaned, putting his head in his hands.

“Why is my life so hard and why am I just surrounded by complete dickheads. Literally die. Both of you”

In the folder were birth certificates for Tubbo and Ranboo too, as well as fake GCSEs and a-levels for all of them, and letters of recommendation from definitely real previous employers and teachers they’d had in high school.

Tommy and Tubbo had even made Instagram accounts with a couple of embarrassing photos for realism a while back in preparation for this plan. All employees of the hero organisation went through an extensive background check before they were even considered for the jobs, so their stories had to line up perfectly with no holes.

They’d been over their life story a hundred times by now.

Tommy, Tubbo and Ranboo were all adoptive siblings and Tommy, the youngest of them (only by a few months), had just turned nineteen. They had moved out of their parents’ house in Pogtopia a while back and now all lived in L’Manberg together. 

The story was so meticulously planned, they had even picked certain hobbies that they may have done as kids, but had less time to do nowadays and so had fallen out of practice.

It had to be perfect for them to even have a chance at getting the jobs in the first place, then there was the issue of actually getting the jobs themselves. Jobs at the hero HQ were high in demand; who wouldn’t want a well-paying job working with their childhood role models?

But they had determination and fake recommendations from well-respected schools.

Surely nothing could go wrong.

----------

Two days of preparation, sleep and haircuts brought Tommy and Tubbo standing at the front of the hero’s HQ, definitely not nervous at all.

Nope. No nerves.

The hero HQ was a massive skyscraper in the centre of the city, covered in windows that clearly reflected the morning sun inconveniently into the eyes of everyone who stood around.

Tommy wondered if they put half as much money into cleaning those windows, the government would have any spare to put into the poorer areas of the city, like maybe better-built homes or some actual heroes to patrol less well off areas at night.

To be fair, Tommy would rather not have heroes patrolling the area due to the crimes he didn’t want to be caught committing, but he felt sorry for all the innocent people who couldn’t protect themselves from muggers.

But no, heroes only patrolled the rich areas of the city where the people who lived there could probably survive if they got robbed a few times. Being robbed every once in a might make them a little less stuck up. Tommy saw the looks he and Tubbo were receiving because they weren’t wearing the most expensive clothes.

By that, Tommy meant literally all their clothes came from charity shops and altogether both of them cost less than £10.

Tubbo wore his usual green shirt, but a newer one with fewer potion stains, and black jeans, while Tommy wore a plain white t-shirt, a thick red cardigan and blue jeans.

Everyone bustling around them wore suits.

Nodding at each other, the two teens began walking into the building. Tubbo grabbed Tommy’s hand and squeezed it a little, before letting go.

“Clingy bitch” Tommy muttered under his breath and Tubbo rolled his eyes.

Although he would never admit it, Tommy was comforted by Tubbo’s presence. 

They could do this.

Reaching the front desk, the duo had to wait in a queue before coming face to face with the receptionist.

Her nametag read ‘Hannah’ and she seemed to have a thing for roses.

“Hi, how can I help you guys today?” she asked brightly.

Tommy and Tubbo glanced at each other before Tommy spoke up.

“Hey...Hannah, I’m Tomathy and I’m here to interview as the intern for the SBI?”

Tubbo nodded.

“And I’m Tubbo, here about the position in the engineering department”

Hannah smiled brightly.

“Ah, of course! Tomathy was it? You’re on floor fifty-seven, just wait in the waiting area outside the office until your name is called”

Tommy smiled back at the receptionist before walking to the lift at the right of the foyer as Tubbo was told where he needed to go.

The lift was clean and fancy, as Tommy had expected. It had a mirror on one wall, and as Tommy pressed the button, a figure came running into the lift, gasping as if they’d been running somewhere. In fact, the figure literally ran into Tommy, sending them both stumbling.

As the figure straightened up, Tommy recognised them. 

Wilbur Soot.

Ghostbur.

One of the most powerful heroes in the city.

A man who literally just ran into Tommy.

“Watch where you’re going bitch” Tommy scowled.

Ghostbur’s head immediately snapped towards him, an eyebrow raised and a smile on his mouth.

The man had curly brown hair, sat messily but in a stylish way underneath a beanie on his head, some of it falling over his left eye. He wore round glasses and a yellow jumper over a white shirt.

“Are you here for the interviews? You look a little young to be getting a job here”

“You wha-”

Tommy glared at the man in front of him.

“I’m not a fucking child, dickhead”

Ghostbur, like a bitch, just laughed.

“You sure look and act like one then”

His cheeks burned, so Tommy turned away from the man to glare at the opposite wall. It just so happened that wall was the mirror, so he ended up just glaring at his own reflection slightly awkwardly.

This wasn’t a great first impression if Tommy was going to be honest, but he couldn’t just not swear at people if they were being bitches.

It wasn’t his fault if they deserved it.

“Sorry” came Ghostbur’s voice, surprising Tommy, who turned back around to look at the man. “Sorry for running into you and calling you a child, even if the second thing is true”

Tommy laughed, rolling his eyes.

“Sorry too then, for swearing at you. Also, I’m not a child, dickhead”

It was now Ghostbur’s turn to laugh.

“So you apologise for swearing at me, then proceed to swear at me again?”

“Yes, duh”

The mood was lighthearted as Tommy and Ghostbur arrived at the fifty-seventh floor, into a waiting room full of nervous-looking people in suits sitting, or some pacing with unspent energy.

Ghostbur waved goodbye and walked into his office where Tommy could already see the Blade and Angel waiting for the third member of their trio.

“I’ll see you in a bit”

Then he was gone as the door closed behind him, and Tommy was alone in a room full of nervous people and tense energy.

----------

Of course, because Tommy was always so lucky, he was the last person to be interviewed. Steadying his breathing, the teen stood up and walked into the office as his name was called.

The Sleepy Bois office was large, with three desks all on different sides of the room, facing the door. It was intimidating, to say the least.

The wall opposite the door was a large window, giving a great view of the afternoon city, busting with life and vibrant colours.

Tommy was a little distracted by the view behind the desk to notice the actual person stood in front of the desk before the Angel of Death, Philza Minecraft cleared his throat.

Whoops. 

He was here for an interview, not to look out windows.

“Hi! I’m Tomathy Underscore Beloved Innit, but you can just call me Tommy”

Tommy smiled, holding his hand out for a handshake.

The Angel had blonde hair and blue eyes, like Tommy but different in every way possible. Where Tommy’s hair was a bright, unnatural golden colour, the Angel’s was pale blonde. His eyes were blue like lapis, while Tommy had cerulean blue eyes. The most striking feature of the Angel were his jet black wings, currently folded neatly behind him.

The edges of the Angel’s eyes crinkled as he smiled, shaking Tommy’s hand

“So. Tell us about yourself”

Tommy’s eyes flicked over to the speaker of those words. 

The Blade.

Some foolish villains may have seen the Blade and laughed at him - pink hair may not seem the most intimidating - but anyone who actually knew about him and his power knew better than to underestimate him.

The Blade, or Technoblade, was well over six feet tall and the tallest one currently in the office, even taller than Ghostbur who himself certainly wasn’t short.

He had the body of a pro wrestler and the scars littering his face and forearms were very intimidating.

Tommy was a big man though, so he wasn’t intimidated at all.

Nope.

Definitely not.

Not even after the time the Blade had chased him across half the city over the rooftops for stealing over a kilogram of glowstone.

No fear here.

And the Blade’s enhancement was terrifying to go up against in battle, or so Tommy had heard. He’d never exactly wanted or tried to fight the Blade in hand to hand combat.

The power of precognition made the Blade the unbeatable, number two hero he was. Paired with his relentless training and agility, anyone trying to fight the Blade could have the precognition that they were gonna lose.

Unless they were Dream, but, well, that was Dream , so...

Plastering confidence over his face, Tommy smiled as if this was the easiest thing in the world.

“Well, you already know my name, of course, Tommy. I’m nineteen years old and currently live with my two adoptive brothers. I’ve always wanted to be a hero, like so many others, but my powers aren’t exactly suited for combat, so it was never really an option. I think this job is a great opportunity especially for jobs in the future”

Everything Tommy had just said, apart from his name, was a lie… and his name wasn’t actually short for Tomathy, so that was a lie too. Tommy was in fact sixteen and had never wanted to be a hero, still didn’t. On the surface, healing powers may not seem great for combat, but Tommy knew how to use them so they could be. The last one was kinda true; the job could be a great opportunity for future jobs, but Tommy wasn’t exactly planning on getting any future jobs so it was also a lie.

He paused.

“And that’s exactly what you wanted me to say. You already know all of that information”

The room stilled, all three of the heroes staring intently at Tommy.

Tommy scoffed.

“Look, the real reason I’m here is that this job pays well and I need money. I know you’re not stupid enough to not do background checks on everyone you hire, so I don’t see any point in answering the stupid ‘get to know you’ interview questions when you know it all already”

Everyone just stood there for a moment, shocked, before Ghostbur broke into a smile.

“Very blunt, but you’re not wrong.”

The Blade nodded to himself for a second, before seemingly making a decision.

“Ok then. What do you think of this?”

Tommy almost laughed as he was handed a file. A file about a break into a bank that happened two nights ago.

A break-in that Tommy may or may not have been there for.

Not that the heroes knew that.

Flicking through the file, Tommy skim-read everything, before looking up at the heroes.

“So… what? You want me to tell you how they did it?”

The Angel nodded encouragingly.

“It doesn’t have to be right, just theorise on what could’ve happened. We’re not even entirely sure ourselves so you may be able to help us with this”

Tommy thought for a second.

He couldn’t reveal anything Tomathy couldn’t have known, but he also wanted to get the job so couldn’t play dumb either.

“Well… to start with, this isn’t anything someone could’ve pulled off by themself, and it says there was an audio recorder in the room and there was a voice at some point when it’s thought the switch was made, so clearly the thief wasn’t working alone. 

Then there’s the problem of how they got into the room. Scratches were found at the entrance to the vent, so it’s safe to assume they lowered themself from the ceiling. The reason they appeared could be one of a few reasons: an enhancement possibly similar to Ghostbur’s, an EMP, a potion or somehow they went in blind spots to the cameras. All enhancements are in government records, so if there are people with powers similar to Ghostbur they most likely wouldn’t use them for crime as it would be easily traceable. It couldn’t have been an EMP because there were no reports of increased levels of electromagnetism and the lasers would’ve been affected too. The room was set up specifically to have no blind spots, especially around the asset so it can’t be that.

Although it’s still unlikely, I think the most likely option is the use of a potion. Have you monitored the area for traces of glowstone?”

Tommy looked up at the heroes to ask his question and for a moment was worried he’d revealed too much and they’d realised who he was.

All three of the heroes were staring at him, shock on their faces, even the Blade who’s face was normally impassive had his eyes open a little wider.

“That’s definitely impressive, kid I’ll give you that”

Again it was the Blade who broke the silence.

“Not a kid” Tommy muttered rolling his eyes.

The Angel’s eyebrows were slightly furrowed and he grabbed the file off the Blade’s desk where Tommy had put it down.

“That doesn’t explain how they got access to these potions in the first place though. It’s a well-known fact that potions are rare to come by and when expensive when you do”

Tommy almost laughed out loud.

If only they knew the number of carrots they’d had to buy then steal to make just one potion.

Well actually, they did know some of the carrots they’d bought . Tommy had thought it was rather funny to write a note on the back of a receipt that would be a piece of vital evidence if only the heroes knew how the invisibility potion had been made.

Instead, Tommy pretended to be thinking.

“I- I’m not entirely sure,” he said at last.

Tommy really couldn’t think of a plausible idea as to how a new group of thieves could have got their hands on potions without completely exposing himself.

All the heroes seemed to be lost in thought until Ghostbur finally spoke up again.

“I think we’ve got all the information we needed from that interview,” the hero laughed a little. “You can call me Wilbur, this is Phil and Techno” pointing at the Angel and Blade respectively.

Although Tommy already knew their real names, he smiled and nodded gratefully.

“I’ll… uh, see you I guess?”

Tommy waved at each of the heroes as he left.

Once he was in the lift and definitely out of earshot of the heroes, Tommy leaned his head against the wall and sighed.

Well, that was way more tiring than it needed to be.

Leaving the building as fast as he could, without looking suspicious, Tommy made it out onto the still busy street and breathed in the fresh air.

Man, that waiting room had been stuffy.

Tommy began his journey home.

Chapter Text

Niki’s cafe wasn’t too far from the trio’s apartment, although it was in a nicer part of town than their home.

When they first came to the city, the three teens had nothing - no money, food, or place to live and had sometimes gotten waste food from the bins behind the cafe, until they had been caught by the owner herself - Niki.

Niki had hot pink hair, not quite reaching down to her shoulders, though it was close. She had a bright smile and a kind face.

Not just a kind face, she was kinda all around actually.

After discovering the teens rooting around in her garbage, instead of reporting them to the police, or at the very least yelling at them, Niki had given them her signature understanding smile and invited them inside from the rain.

Tommy remembered entering the cafe for the first time, standing in the middle of the customer free room (nobody wanted to go outside in the heavy storm that had been happening) and feeling so small and out of place.

Tommy remembered the exact was the chairs were laid out, some pushed wonkily away from tables and he remembered the smell of coffee, bread and pastries that had drifted from further in the shop.

Some of Tommy’s best memories were made in this cafe.

Back then, Tommy’s ribs were countable looking at his chest, deadly thin from malnourishment.

In contrast, the trio now sat as comfortably on the table they’d claimed as if they’d lived in that cafe their entire lives. 

Tommy was currently, and probably always would be thin and lanky, however now he was a healthy weight compared to just a few months ago.

The afternoon was bright, clouds dancing across the blue sky as a gentle breeze came through the open windows at the cafe front.

“So, how’d it go?”

It was currently two o’clock in the afternoon and Tommy had just arrived at the cafe, where they’d all agreed to meet after the interviews. Ranboo had eaten lunch there and currently had a frothy coffee and slice of cake in front of him, as Tommy and Tubbo were waiting on their food to arrive.

The trio didn’t eat out a lot, since Ranboo wore his mask and it’s a little hard to eat through a mask (no, Tommy had not tried in the past to prove Ranboo wrong about that, and if he had, he won the argument), but at Niki’s cafe he felt comfortable enough to pull it down a little to take a drink or bite before hastily pulling it back up a couple of seconds later.

It may not have seemed like much for people who didn’t know the trio well, but for Ranboo it was more than he would do anywhere else, apart from their apartment of course.

Niki never asked intruding questions, only making small talk about how their days were, or telling them about interesting customers she’d met and new recipes she’d tried the evening before, and the teens appreciated it.

From the way the trio had gone from being homeless and moneyless to having an apartment and expensive technology, it was quite clear they weren’t exactly getting money from legal methods, but the most Niki had said was:

“Just don’t hurt others or get into anything you can’t handle. And if you get into something too big, you can always call me”

In short, Niki was almost like a big sister to them. 

Tubbo grinned.

“It went great, boss man! I was interviewed by Awesamdude and he was pretty chill. He was quite impressed by my redstone knowledge, so I’m quite confident I got the job”

“Nice, well done”

Ranboo turned to Tommy, who rubbed the back of his neck and refused to meet his eyes.

He sighed.

“Tommy, what did you do?”

“Uhm… nothing? It all went great Ranboob”

“Was it to do with Ghostbur running into the lift after you?”

“He what-”

“Tubbo, you fucking snitch”

The volume of the trio’s voices had increased considerably and an employee came over with Tommy and Tubbo’s drinks.

Except Niki didn’t have any employees to the teens’ knowledge and they’d been going to the cafe at least twice a week for the past ten months.

The waiter wore a stripy black and blue long-sleeved shirt underneath the black apron that was part of the uniform. He was bald and wore strange 3D glasses, as well as a headset with a microphone attached to it.

For some reason, he looked strangely familiar.

“Ayup. I have your drinks ‘nd shit”

“Who the fuck are you?” Tommy asked quite rudely.

“Jack Manifold. It’s my first day today”

The whole table just stared at the man.

“Wait- oh my gosh”

Tubbo laughed suddenly, tears coming to his eyes he was laughing so hard.

The other three at the table just exchanged confused expressions.

“I- am I missing something here? Is your friend ok?”

Ranboo shook his head.

“Not a clue. I mean we know he’s weird but I have no idea what he’s laughing about this time”

Tommy was just staring at his friend, who was currently dying across the table from him.

Once he was out of earshot, in the kitchen behind the counter, Tubbo leaned in excitedly to the table, still giggling every few seconds.

“That’s one of the guys we got fired. He had the job Tommy applied for”

The three of them began laughing.

“Wait a sec,” started Tommy between wheezes. “Is that the one who you managed to find out was attempting to make fucking nukes in the basement of the building?”

“Yep”

Ranboo shook his head.

“I can’t believe someone is actually dumb enough to think they could get away with making bombs under the heroes’ HQ actually”

“All I had to do to get him fired was get them to send the annual cleaning party down to the basement and they found him immediately.

They laughed harder at that.

“Wait a sec, how is he not in prison right now then?” Tommy said after stopping his laughter for a couple of seconds.

The other two stilled.

“That’s actually a good point Tommy” 

Tubbo’s brow was furrowed slightly now.

The three sat in silence for a few seconds, before Ranboo spoke.

“I mean it’s definitely something we should investigate, but maybe we could discuss it at home, rather than the place he literally works at now?”

They came to a silent agreement that this would be a conversation for later but began talking about meaningless things, albeit a little quieter than previously.

The rest of the afternoon was spent in Niki’s cafe, the trio talking about any random topics they could think of, avoiding any conversations to do with heroes. 

They hadn’t been to Niki’s cafe for the past couple of weeks, with all the planning they had been doing, getting every single aspect of their plan worked out to the last detail. If a single thing was wrong, the whole plan could fail and then everything would be for nothing. 

It was safe to say there was a little pressure on the plan going right.

It was nearly sunset before the trio began to head home, having drunk a few cups of coffee at this point and being given free cakes by Niki.

The three teens strolled along the pavement, carefree and laughing, Tommy carrying the paper bag of muffins Niki had given them.

Tommy often felt guilty for taking the free stuff from Niki - it wasn’t like they didn’t have enough money to pay for it, but she insisted and he couldn’t refuse the gentle smile she would give them.

Just being teenagers was a strange experience for the three of them, having never had the chance before.

And they weren’t even really living the typical teenage life now, what with not going to school, having full-time jobs (hopefully soon), avoiding arrest and plotting to overthrow the government.

Maybe the last one was normal, with the amount kids complain about school and their lives on TV shows, but it’s not like they ever had a solid plan or would actually go through with it.

Tommy looked at his best friends, remembering when they first met.

It seemed like a foreign world now and Tommy was quite glad of that.

As they walked through the city streets, the trio could see houses becoming run down, alleyways seeming darker, but they were used to it now.

The apartment definitely looked better at night, outside and inside.

At night it was hard to make out the cracks, stains and broken windows of the building, but in sunlight they were painfully clear.

Of course, the lift in the apartments was broken, so the teens had to climb the stairs until Tubbo realised they were all idiots and got Ranboo to them to the apartment.

From many legal means (crime), the inside of the trio’s apartment wasn’t too bad. With Ranboo being able to teleport into a shop, grab an item then teleport out within a few seconds, stealing became almost too easy and it meant that the furniture in the apartment was mismatched, but not cheap or uncomfortable.

Tommy went to lie down on the sofa, while Tubbo sat in front of his laptop to hack or something and Ranboo went to the kitchen area to make food.

The youngest teen sighed loudly.

No, he wasn’t attention seeking.

“I wanna rob another bank. Tubbo, can I rob a bank again?”

Without looking up from his laptop at all, Tubbo answered.

“No Tommy. First of all, we robbed a bank literally two days ago. Their security will be tighter and isn’t it a bit repetitive to just rob banks? Secondly, you threw my last potion of invisibility on the floor yesterday and we have no more carrots”

From the kitchen, Ranboo groaned.

“We’re out of food, the fridge is empty”

Honestly, Tommy was glad that Ranboo was unable to cook for the moment - the freak wanted to put spaghetti in everything and used too much icing on cakes.

By too much icing, that’s three tubs of icing on one cake thin.

The cake physically couldn’t handle that amount of icing and had collapsed in on itself.

That had certainly been a day.

Tommy shuddered at the dark memory.

Suddenly, Tubbo perked up.

“Oh, Tommy you could go “shopping” for us!”

A grin spread across Tommy’s face.

“Am I allowed to threaten someone with a gun though”

Ranboo rolled his eyes.

“Please don’t forget to put the safety on and accidentally shoot someone like last time”

“Hey, they were fine! They fainted from shock then I healed them and now they believe it was a hallucination. No damage done”

This time, Tubbo and Ranboo were synchronised in their eye-rolling.

“Yep. no damage done from literally shooting someone in the foot. Well done Tommy”

Ranboo was being sarcastic and Tommy didn’t appreciate it.

 Tubbo was scribbling something on a scrap piece of paper from the desk.

“I’m currently making a shopping list for you, ok Tommy? Please make sure to get everything on there”

Tommy thought Tubbo sounded rather condescending at that moment.

Why was everyone bullying Tommy today? That wasn’t very epic of them.

“Are you mansplaining to me right now Bee Boy ? I don’t need you gaslight gatekeep girlbossing me, I don’t appreciate that”

“I- what? You’re such a weirdo. Just take the shopping list and you know what to do with it right?”

“Yep.”

Tommy chose to be the bigger man here and ignore Tubbo’s insult.

The whole time they’d been talking, Tommy had been changing into his very pog thief outfit and just generally getting ready for crime.

“See ya Bee Boy, see ya Ranboob,” Tommy said, pushing past Ranboo to climb out the window, knocking the vase on the windowsill over.

Tommy wasn’t sure why they even had that vase there in the first place, as that was the window that Tommy climbed in and out of at least once a week, but it wasn’t his problem now.

Dropping down onto the slightly unstable fire escape stairs, Tommy activated Clara and bounced, literally.

----------

Tommy sighed as he arrived at the supermarket.

It was near the centre of the city and Tommy had had to hide in an alleyway one time to avoid being spotted by a patrolling hero.

Technically he hadn’t been doing anything illegal yet , as he argued to Tubbo, but his friend yelled in his ear until he climbed down into the alleyway, which he definitely felt safer in; the dark, rubbish-filled, enclosed space was better than the open roofs with bright moonlight shining on them by far.

Tommy stood, leaning his back on the wall of one of the tall buildings surrounding the alley, taking a second to breathe, before he felt the cold metal of a knife on his neck.

Well, not his bare neck, since he wore a bandanna there, but the point of the knife poked through the green material.

“You got any money kid?” a gravelly voice said in Tommy’s ear, as hands gripped around his chest.

Tommy was a little annoyed.

He would rather not be mugged today.

Also, no, he didn’t have money, why else would he be wearing a mask on his way to rob a store?

The teen said as much to the mugger, who growled and poked the knife further into him.

Great.

Tommy was going to have to actually fight this guy.

Pulling his arm forward, Tommy elbowed the man as hard as he could in the groin, wincing in sympathy as he was immediately let go.

Then Tommy realised the man had literally tried to mug him and kicked the guy in the face, before jumping out the alley.

Tommy rolled his eyes.

How embarrassing must it be to get beat up by a seventeen year-old when you’re armed with a knife.

But now Tommy stood in front of the supermarket, bright lights from the shop streaming into the almost empty car park, only employee’s cars remaining there now, although the shop was still open.

Standing in front of the shop’s glass automatic doors, Tommy used the light from inside the shop to see what was on the list. In Tubbo’s scrawly writing was:

• As many carrots as you can physically carry

• Glass bottles

• Gunpowder (fireworks)

• Corriander

• Blaze rods

• Vegetable stock

• Glowstone

• Lentils

Though Tubbo’s note had a few more spelling mistakes, Tommy knew exactly what he meant.

The door was automatic and opened as the teen stepped towards it.

That wasn’t a good enough entrance, so Tommy took a couple of steps back, waited for the doors to close, before running as fast as he could at them.

Fortunately, the glass wasn’t too thick and Tommy went straight through it, shards flying in all directions.

The employees of the store, who had been packing shelves, looked up, before clearly deciding they didn’t get paid enough for this and continuing with their jobs.

Grabbing a basket, Tommy began making his way around the store, grabbing the needed items off the shelves, as well as a couple of things that hadn’t been on the list.

Tommy wasn’t sure why the store had fireworks in stock, as it was nowhere near Bonfire Night, but he took them anyway, grabbing the biggest box of fireworks he could.

When he came to the vegetable aisle, Tommy made his way to the carrots and grabbed as many as he could.

The basket was rather heavy at this point and Tommy wondered whether he’d have to steal the basket too. 

Honestly, he’d been planning on using the plastic backs from the store, but thinking about it now, those bags were quite bad for the environment and could only be used once if they broke, which Tommy suspected they would with the weight of carrots he was carrying.

Then he started thinking about stealing a trolley from the store.

Tommy had never understood people who stole trolleys then just left them at the side of the road. If you’re gonna steal something you might as well take it home at that point, it’s stupid to leave the job half done.

He may or may not have felt bad for trolleys at the side of the road from time to time. They just looked so sad, lying on their side, as if asleep, or they’d simply given up.

Man, Tommy should stop personifying trolleys, shouldn’t he.

The only problem with stealing a trolley is that Tommy would have to lug the whole thing across half the city, from the inner areas to the outskirts and he couldn’t be bothered to do that.

But it would mean Tommy didn’t have to carry his shopping himself.

Then there’s the fact that trolleys almost always have a faulty wheel and that would make it harder to transport.

Then again, Ranboo existed…

And now Tommy understood people leaving trolleys by the side of the road.

As he was contemplating his very important life-changing decision, Tommy suddenly realised Tubbo and Ranboo were both shouting in his ear and tuned into their conversation to hear.

“-ou have to get out of there big man!”

Before he could think about doing anything, Tommy felt a cool hand on his shoulder, spinning around instinctually and flinching as he was met with the sight of a man dressed in full superhero gear staring at him.

Ghostbur.

Fuck.

“Hey big man! Big G. Can I call you that?”

Tommy’s mask had a voice modulator in it, so the hero wouldn’t recognise his voice and realise the thief he was currently planning on arresting was one of the people he’d interviewed just earlier that day; that didn’t prevent Tommy from being very worried something was going to make his identity be revealed somehow.

What Ghostbur did recognise, however, was the unmistakable shock and a little fear (no, Tommy wasn’t scared) in Tommy’s voice.

Ghostbur tilted his head, his smile cold.

“I’d prefer just Ghostbur if you don’t mind. Not that you’ll be calling anyone much of anything in prison”

Tommy scoffed.

“You can’t arrest, I didn’t steal anything yet”

For some reason, Ghostbur just looked confused and a little annoyed at his statement.

The hero lunged and the two became engaged in hand to hand combat, which considering Ghostbur’s ability to be able to phase through anything, was actually pretty tough for Tommy to keep up with.

The two began an exchange between dodges and punches.

“You literally ran through an automatic door. That’s property damage, which is illegal. Also, it’s a fucking automatic door that was unlocked . Like, if you hadn’t done that I wouldn’t really be able to do anything but give you a warning. That’s a little stupid if you ask me”

“Yes, but I didn’t ask you. Just walking in isn’t exactly a cool entrance and I wanted to look cool”

Ghostbur laughed, rolling his eyes.

“What the fuck, are you a child?”

“I’m twenty-one, bitch”

“More like twelve. What kind of twelve year old steals all the carrots from a supermarket? I thought you’re supposed to be rejecting all the vegetables put in front of you by your parents, not stealing more”

Tommy was getting a little annoyed now and didn’t exactly appreciate a comment about his parents, so he used his powers in retaliation.

Healing wasn’t seen as a useful enhancement for heroes to have, and it was pretty much decided from the moment of birth that anyone with that quirk would grow up to be a doctor, whether they wanted to or not. Healers in medical positions got paid a lot anyway, so who wouldn’t want to?

However, there was another use to the healing enhancement that had never been thought about before.

Most enhancements can reverse themselves - water manipulation could make things wet or dry them, Ghsotbur’s enhancement could make him tangible or intangible.

Healers could heal injuries and illnesses, so it made sense they could also un-heal them.

It was something nobody had thought of before Logstedshire, and something people hadn’t thought about after due to all the buildings and records being burnt to the ground and deleted completely.

People, especially heroes, collect a lot of injuries over their lifetimes, so it wasn’t hard for Tommy to find one, grabbing Ghostbur’s arm and feeling the cold tingles flow through his hand and in his left foot.

It wasn’t painful and Tommy was used to it by now but the hero clearly wasn’t, falling to the ground with a shout of surprise.

Tommy hadn’t unhealed any of the hero’s worse injuries (some of them could’ve been fatal), but a pretty bad sprain Ghostbur had gotten a few years back.

Another quirk to being a healer was that it was possible to look at a person and know when any of their injuries happened.

It wasn’t very useful, but it was there.

“Bye Ghostbur!”

Tommy walked out the front of the supermarket waving at the hero on the floor, basket in hand (he’d put it down to fight obviously) and began going home.

He pretended not to notice the slip of paper falling out of his pocket, the hero’s eyes following it as it fell to the floor.

The teen just wished he’d been able to take a trolley, as he called Raboo to pick him up.

----------

“We got the jobs! Tommy, Ranboo we got the jobs”

Tommy woke up to the sound of Tubbo’s yells, tensing until he realised they were excited shouts and nothing bad was happening.

Then the actual words Tubbo was saying dawned on him and Tommy shot out of bed, wiping sleep from his eyes.

The three boys shared a room and although it was cramped with all the beds shoved in there, it was cosy.

Tubbo was currently sat on his bed, laptop in front of him as he grinned like a kid on Christmas.

“I- what?”

To be honest, Tommy was a little confused. He’d kind of just assumed that after being called a dickhead, you wouldn’t want to hire that person as an intern, as well as the fact that Tommy had told them he was only there for the money.

Tommy had been preparing for having to have to update their plan with only Tubbo working in the building, but no.

Tommy got the job.

He grinned.

“Nice job you two”

Ranboo was grinning.

All three of them were grinning madly and Tommy knew in that moment that this, with his best friends, was his home.

Chapter Text

Wilbur had watched the villain walking away cockily and gritted his teeth, frustrated.

The pain in his ankle wasn’t unbearable but it was a bad sprain, feeling almost familiar and the hero wasn’t sure he’d be able to walk on it, let alone chase the thief then fight them with it.

At least he’d gotten a lead though.

Currently, the hero was sat in his office, ice on his ankle, staring down at the scrap of paper the villain had dropped and wondered what it could possibly mean.

It was clearly a shopping list, but the strange items on it suggested there was some sort of code or something deeper happening.

Wilbur ran over the items again, whispering them out loud to himself, hoping that would help him understand them better somehow.

• As many carrots as you can physically carry

• Glass bottles

• Gunpowder (from fireworks)

• Coriander

• Blaze rods

• Vegetable stock

• Glowstone

• Lentils

Carrots. Glowstone.

Wilbur pondered those specific items for a second, knowing there was a reason that they’d come up and seemed important recently, before it hit him.

“Have you checked the area for traces of glowstone?”

Tommy had said it during the interview the day previous. Glowstone was on the list, along with carrots - both things that related strongly to the bank robbery a few nights previous.

Paired with glass bottles and blaze rods, the evidence of potion usage was becoming stronger by the minute and the hero wasn’t sure he liked the picture it was painting.

Potions had to be made using the essence of the thing it was trying to stimulate; for example, to make a potion that made the user jump higher, a rabbit’s foot was required. 

The easiest way to get a sample with a specific “essence” was to use people whose enhancement lined up with whatever effect the maker wanted.

This meant that either the criminals they were looking for were kidnappers who were using the DNA of some poor individual with an invisibility enhancement, or they were masterminds who had managed to discover a way of making invisibility potions out of natural ingredients.

Wilbur wasn’t sure which was worse.

Sighing, the hero put his head in his hands. 

It was far too early for this.

Heroes went on a rota, alternating the days they patrolled and not having to come into HQ until the afternoon after a patrol, but today Wilbur had come back to HQ straight from patrol to get his foot healed and hadn’t gone home yet.

Although a lot of people didn’t seem to realise it, heroes needed sleep too.

What people also seemed to not anticipate was the amount of time heroes spent doing paperwork. A number of forms had to be filled out for every arrest made, depending on the number of witnesses and any injuries caused to villains or civilians.

It was exhausting and the reason they’d gotten an intern, Jack Manifold, to help with that.

Well, until the intern had been discovered making atomic bombs in the basement so they’d tried to arrest him, but he’d now disappeared into thin air.

The new intern was very interesting to Wilbur.

Tommy was only nineteen years old, although he looked younger, and had recommendations from a prestigious school and well-respected companies. He’d arrived at the interview wearing very understated clothes, which one would assume may mean he was less invested or possibly wouldn’t have the requirements for the job, but he’d blown all other interviewees out of the water with his perceptiveness and brutal honesty.

Wilbur still couldn’t decide if Tommy’s knowledge of the bank break-in was suspicious, amazing or both.

Either way, the hero had resolved to keep a close eye on the new employee. He hadn’t even properly come into work yet, but from their first introduction, Wilbur could tell that having Tommy around was going to be very interesting.

----------

It had been two days since they’d been told they got the job and Tommy and Tubbo were getting ready for their first day of work.

Ranboo was hovering around like a frantic mother, offering to help with anything he could.

“Remember please Tubbo not to blow anything up without permission, and Tommy don’t swear at your employers too much, it’d be great for you not to get fired on the first day. I’ll be making burgers tonight for tea if that’s alright with you two”

At the mention of burgers from their roommate, Tubbo and Tommy froze from their frantic getting ready and stared at their friend, both going slightly pale.

“I- Ranboo you better not make those fuckin’ American burgers again, or I will start stabbing shit”

Tommy conveyed his best death glare at Ranboo as Tubbo nodded along.

“I normally wouldn’t agree with Tomathy here, but please Boo, I don’t want your cholesterol burgers. Not again”

Ranboo frowned slightly.

“I just don’t get why you guys don’t appreciate my cooking, it’s really not that bad”

“Ranboo. Ranboob if you will. The carrot and lentil soup you made the other day was amazing. Until you thought that adding fucking spaghetti would make it better. Spaghetti doesn’t go in a soup”

Tubbo nodded in agreement and Ranboo opened his mouth to protest before he was interrupted.

“But-”

“Tommy is normally an idiot, but he has a point. I clearly remember you saying the line ‘you add the cinnamon roll before the milk or cereal’ when we were arguing whether it’s milk or cereal first. You claimed you were baking cereal and you added a fucking cinnamon roll, and would’ve added spaghetti if I didn’t stop you”

A purple blush was creeping onto Ranboo’s cheeks at this point.

“Mhm, exactly what he said- wait did you call me Tomathy again. What the fuck?! Die”

Grinning mischievously, Tubbo grabbed an angrily muttering Tommy, waved goodbye to Ranboo, then dragged the blond down the hall.

“Come on big man, we have a train to catch”

The journey to the city centre was uneventful as the two boys hopped between train lines. They may or may not have had train tickets, but that didn’t matter, with their amazing evasive manoeuvres of the station workers.

It was rush hour and the trains were packed with people going to work, the carriages only getting fuller as they approached the city centre.

Finally, it was their stop and, holding hands so they wouldn’t lose each other in the crowds, the duo made their way out of the station and towards the hero HQ, which was only a five minute walk away.

The sun was warm and bright that morning, and Tommy could tell there was a heatwave coming in. 

Of course, the HQ was air-conditioned and the blond sighed in relief as he stepped through the glass automatic doors to the coolness of the reception area.

Waving goodbye to each other with a promise to meet up at lunch, Tommy walked towards the lift, nodding at the receptionist as he passed.

Unlike last time, the ride up the lift was uneventful, the teen standing awkwardly as he passed floors.

The soft ding of the lift signified that Tommy had arrived at the right floor.

Breathing in to calm his nerves, Tommy stepped out of the lift.

He could do this.

He’d already got the job, that was the hard part, right?

Now he just had to keep it.

Knawing on his lip nervously, the teen came to the office door of the sleepy bois, knocking loudly on its wooden surface three times.

It was Philza who answered it, looking at Tommy and nodding with a warm smile.

“I have a bit of paperwork for you”

With wide eyes, Tommy tentatively stepped forward as Philza closed the office door behind them.

No, once again, he wasn’t scared.

“You may not know this but half the work heroes do is paperwork. Your main job will be helping write reports and making sure they’re ready for us to sign off on”

Tommy could feel his breath grow shorter.

The room was mostly bare, although its size was small enough to feel cosy with the minimal furniture, but not too small as to be cramped.

There was a window on one side, looking into the forest that surrounded the village of Logstadshire and the walls were painted a neutral light beige colour.

Bookcases lined one of the walls, some of the shelves sagging under the weight of the thick novels and historical books, surrounding a desk filled with discarded papers, which desperately needed sorting.

In the corner of the room was the tall plant Tommy enjoyed taking care of, Clementine, though Dream always said it was annoying due to its awkward positioning, meaning it had to be moved every time someone (Dream) wanted a book to read.

Tommy was sat on a sofa on the opposite wall next to Dream, his… brother figure? Trainer? Mentor? 

The teen had always been confused about what to call him, especially now Dream was eighteen and a fully fledged hero, while Tommy was still just in training.

Currently, Dream was doing paperwork, next to Tommy, who was leaning into his side slightly, watching the dark sky outside.

He turned back to look at Dream again.

“This is so fucking boring, can’t we do anything else?”

Dream rolled his eyes.

“Come on Theseus, don’t be like that. Also, language”

It was now Tommy’s turn to roll his eyes.

“Firstly, you know I hate that name. Secondly, I’m bored. Thirdly, I can say what I want”

“You’re thirteen, how do you even know how to fucking swear like that?”

Tommy laughed, shoving the hero, who promptly fell off the sofa entirely.

“Fuck off”

They continued with their lighthearted playfighting until Dream spotted his paperwork again and sighed, the expression on his face stilling Tommy.

“You should get to bed, it’s late already, I need to get this paperwork done and you have an appointment tomorrow morning, which you should be up early for”

At the mention of his appointment, a shiver ran down Tommy’s spine, noticeable to Dream.

“Come on Toms, you know they’re necessary, they do them because-”

The small room faded and Tommy blinked a couple of times, realising he was still in the Sleepy Bois’ office.

“-ommy? Tommy?”

Tommy jumped as a hand landed gently on his shoulder, looking up to see Phil staring at him, looking concerned.

Fuck.

He’d zoned, an increasingly common and annoying occurrence in the past few months.

Memories of Logstedshire were still too vivid, and Tommy felt the lump in his throat forming, felt the way his eyes stung, but pushed his feelings down.

Now was really not the time.

“You alright mate?”

Phil smiled comfortingly at the teen.

“Y-yeah. Uh, just my… uncle had a similar job with, um, the paperwork and I used to help him. He- he’s gone now”

“Ah. I’m sorry for your loss. Are you still up for doing this?”

Nodding enthusiastically, Tommy tried a shaky smile at the man.

“Of course Big P, I can handle it”

The winged hero laughed in surprise.

“Big P?”

Tommy felt his cheeks redden with embarrassment. He hadn’t meant to call the hero that, but it was sometimes an instinct to do so.

“Sorry, uh, Phil. Philza. Philza Minecraft, the bravest man in the world”

“Just Phil is fine”

Phil continued laughing, and Tommy nodded, slightly flustered.

“So, can I have the paperwork then? Also, where do I work? Like, where’s my desk?”

Nodding, the hero led Tommy through a door he hadn’t noticed previously, leading to a larger room obviously used for filing papers, though it was messy and had obviously originally been organised before slowly devolving into chaos.

There was a desk in one corner with an expensive looking PC on it and tidily arranged, though that wasn’t saying much as it was mostly bare anyway.

On one side of the room was a window, identical in style to the SBI’s office and Tommy could see himself getting very distracted by the view.

“This is the room, though we can have someone move in here with you if you get lonely or anything, I know different people have different working styles”

Tommy nodded gratefully and smiled at the man, still slightly shaky from the resurfaced memories he hadn’t wanted or needed to think about.

“Yeah, of course, thanks so much”

The teen sat at the desk, watching as Philza left the room, before returning less than a minute later with a pile of papers.

“This is all the stuff for the next few days, you’ll need to read the notes, research any videos of cases and sort them for me, Techno and Wilbur to sign. Once you’re done, just leave the papers on our respective desks”

“Mhm”

Tommy smiled as the man left, before leaning back in his chair, which like the PC, seemed surprisingly expensive - it was very comfortable.

The blond sighed.

Of course, the one downside to his, Tubbo and Ranboo’s plan was the fact that Tommy was going to have to work a nine to five office job for the next few months.

He groaned.

Tommy wasn’t skilled enough at engineering to do anything in Tubbo’s department and Ranboo’s enderwalk could be triggered easily, along with the fact he needed to wear the mask and glasses so the only viable option for Tommy had been working as an assistant to the SBI.

The teen just hoped they weren’t too boring employers.

After glancing around the room for a few minutes and taking everything in, Tommy turned to his desk and began working.

The files were mostly recent, minor crimes the heroes had stopped, such as muggings, and there was usually a grainy video taken from a security camera from a bad angle to show what happened, along with the hero’s, witness’s and criminal’s account. Sometimes there was physical evidence Tommy had to take, upload and print a photo of, but that was rare.

Tommy found it tedious how he had to type up, upload twice and print out each case before putting them in folders with dates and names, especially for the small cases, although he understood why it was necessary for the heroes to do this - it had taken Tubbo months to find and wipe all mentions of their trio and Logstedshire from the hero’s database and they still couldn’t be certain he’d caught everything.

Though with the discovery they still used paper copies of files, a pit grew in Tommy’s stomach.

There must’ve been paper files of Logstedshire in the building.

Files that could reveal everything.

Files that would destroy the very foundations of any plan the trio could begin to form.

Tommy wrote a note of his hand - ‘tell bee about files’ - before continuing on with his work as if nothing had happened.

Later on in the morning, Phil came into the room, wearing his increasingly familiar smile.

“Want any coffee?”

Having not noticed the man walk in, Tommy jumped, spinning around in his chair to see the man standing there.

“Fu- oh. Uh, yeah as long as it doesn’t taste like dirt I’ll have some”

The hero let out a small laugh at that, turning to leave before seemingly realising he’d forgotten something.

“Milk? Sugar? Any flavoured syrups you like?”

Tommy blinked, hesitating to decide before answering.

“Milk, please. And caramel syrup if you have it”

“Of course mate”

The hero finally walked out of the room, leaving Tommy alone with his files once again, not that he minded the ambient noise that filled the room in the absence of conversation.

Turning back to his work, Tommy found that he was over halfway through the files he’d been asked to work on and smiled.

He’d get them done by lunch if he was lucky.

There was more quiet working for a few minutes before Phil returned with two mugs of coffee, both filled to the brim with white foam, as you would get in a proper coffee shop.

After carefully handing Tommy one of the mugs, Phil pulled up a chair that had been abandoned in the middle of the room and sat near Tommy’s desk, at a right angle to Tommy himself.

“You getting on alright there?”

Tommy nodded, gesturing at the two piles of paperwork on the desk.

“Yep, I’m hoping to get this paperwork done by lunch, then I’m starting on sorting out this mess of a ‘filing room’ you have here”

Tilting his head a little, Phil looked at the completed papers and open files on Tommy’s computer.

“I’m just a little surprised you didn’t need any help with getting things working to be honest, our previous assistant had to have a full day of training and it took him a week to get the formatting correct on all the files”

Fuck.

Of course a brand new employee would have no clue how to use things, yet here Tommy was, using them as though he’d used them for years.

“I- my uncle. I, uh, used to help him with his work, he worked for… Dream, I think? I didn’t really pay much attention back then”

Phil nodded, his eyebrow creasing slightly.

“And he taught you how to do it?”

“N-no, I just watched him work a lot”

Now it was time for Tommy to add a little emotion to his performance.

He allowed his voice to grow thick and turned his head away from Phil.

“He… he died in an accident involving heroes actually. It-it’s funny how he spent years filling out files for heroes and he eventually became part of one.”

Phil hummed.

“Again, I’m really sorry for your loss”

He stood up, taking his coffee cup with him.

“If I don’t see you before lunch, I won’t see you till tomorrow, Techno and Wilbur are in this afternoon”

Tommy rubbed his eyes, pretending to hide the action from the hero, before turning back and smiling.

“Have a good day, Phil”

And with that, Philza left the room.

Relieved he didn’t have to pretend to be all sappy and shit in front of the hero anymore, Tommy sighed and began working once again.

He knew the lie about his “uncle” wasn’t a good one and it would trip him up at some point in the future, but Philza had been asking valid questions and Tommy didn’t need the stress of being found out on his first day.

Crying was a great way to stop people from asking further questions, and Tommy just hoped it worked this time.

Tommy returned to his work, ignoring the distracting thoughts in his head and the want to go home.

Chapter Text

Lunch break came before Tommy realised and he finally finished the last piece of paperwork he was working on.

He and Tubbo had agreed to meet up at Niki’s cafe; although it was a train ride away from HQ and there were other places nearer to their new workplace, they both enjoyed Niki’s company and the calm atmosphere of the place, as well as Niki’s bakes, which were always amazing.

Tommy stood up and stretched, feeling his back pop due to his poor posture. It was something Tubbo enjoyed making fun of him for, as Tommy was making fun of him for his shorter height. Usually, those arguments ended with Ranboo, the tall fucker, laughing at both of them.

This afternoon he’d start on sorting out the filing cabinets and entire system of sorting they had, but for now, he was hungry and wanted lunch.

When Tommy walked through the door to the SBI’s office, Phil was still there sat at his desk, seemingly lost in his work.

“Hey Phil, it’s my lunchbreak now so I’m gonna go out and get a bite to eat”

The hero looked up at the sound of Tommy’s voice, then at the clock to the right of the room and smiled.

“Of course mate, I hadn’t realised it was that time already. I’ll be gone by the time you get back, so I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon probably, depending on when I get into work”

Tommy nodded.

“Have a good day!”

And the teen left the office.

Tommy was just glad the building’s layout, at least on this floor, was straightforward, because he wasn’t sure how much he’d be able to deal with an absolute maze of a building and getting lost every two seconds. 

He wasn’t exactly the best with directions.

“So East is left, yeah?”

Dream sighed, exasperated.

“Tommy, left changes as soon as you rotate yourself. You can’t base directions just off your left and right. Look at where the sun is in the morning and that’s East. In the afternoon it’ll be West”

Tommy rolled his eyes.

“But I thought I wasn’t supposed to look at the sun or I’ll go blind ‘n’ shit”

At this point, Dream looked like this conversation was physically paining him.

“Of course you don’t look actually at the sun, but you can see where it is without looking at it directly”

“Sure, whatever. So north is up?”

Despite the smiley face mask, Tommy could sense the expression of sheer disappointment on his mentor’s face.

“You’re actually an idiot. Like a legitimate idiot child. How has this happened”

Tommy scowled.

Knowing how to push all Dream’s buttons of course came with the unfortunate side effect that Dream knew how to push all his.

“I’m not a fucking child”

“You’re fourteen and you don’t even know how to navigate using proper directions” Dream deadpanned.

“W-well I’m still a big man. Bigger than you. I could beat you up easy”

Dream tilted his head and Tommy immediately knew he was in dangerous territory.

“Could you? Why don’t we test that?”

There was an edge to his voice, the one Tommy knew meant he was smiling but it didn’t reach his eyes.

“I mean we really don’t have to…”

Tommy spent that night tending to his injuries, watching as he grew increasingly tired whilst pouring golden light onto the cuts bruises that coated his skin until they faded. The buzzing, almost painful energy of healing kept him up for the rest of the night.

It wasn’t the worst he’d been injured before, but the feeling of using his powers until he physically couldn’t anymore and was left dry heaving into the toilet wasn’t exactly a pleasant one.

The next morning, Dream scolded him for losing their fight, before ruffling his hair and congratulating him for use of his powers.

The warm feeling in Tommy’s chest was enough to make everything worth it.

At least, that’s what he told himself.

Tommy gasped as the lift dinged, signifying he had reached the ground floor.

Honestly, he wasn’t entirely sure how he’d gotten there but was glad the elevator had been empty save for him, as he wasn’t exactly in the best mental headspace to be in a small enclosed space with another person.

That was the second time this morning he’d has those memories and Tommy didn’t think it was going to get any better.

He’d been sure he was over Logstedshire by now.

Well, not over it, but at least able to suppress the memories until late at night when there was nothing to distract himself with.

Maybe that wasn’t the best way of dealing with… things (no, Tommyinnit has no trauma) but it was better than every little word setting off memories in his head like twisted films he had to watch.

Tommy walked through the foyer, forcing a smile at Hannah at the reception desk, before chewing on his lip as he walked out into the crowded street.

The crowds and bustle and the heat of the weather didn’t help ease Tommy’s anxiety, but he still made his way onto the train he had to catch with no issues.

At last, after minutes that felt much longer than that, Tommy pushed through the crowds again, thinner in the less central part of the city, and as soon as the pastel sign for Niki’s cafe came into view, he quickened his pace, making a beeline for it.

Stepping into the cafe, Tommy let out a sigh of relief in the air-conditioned air.

Tubbo was sat at their usual table already and grinned, waving the blond over.

“Hey Big T, you alright? Something happen?”

As he noticed Tommy’s distracted expression, Tubbo’s own shifted into one of concern.

In the past, Tommy would’ve brushed this off as pity, but now he recognised the look of care in his friend’s eyes and gave a half-hearted smile to his friend.

“Yeah, it’s nothing Tubso”

The brunet tilted head, the hair covering most of his face obscuring it, but Tommy knew he had an eyebrow raised.

Tommy sighed, rubbing his face.

“Fine. It’s not- it’s not… nothing. I just- Dream. I-I know what he did, but people keep… I keep being reminded of him and- and Logstedshire and it’s getting worse”

Tubbo nodded, understanding.

In fact, Tubbo and Ranboo were the only people who would understand Tommy’s feelings and maybe that was the reason he never took their concern as pity as he did with any others who would look at him like that.

“You probably need therapy boss man”

Tommy laughed at the ironic statement.

“Says you”

“We definitely all need therapy, to be honest”

Of course, Niki chose this moment to walk over and looked at the teens with an unsure expression.

“Are you two… alright?”

Both teens laughed again at that, sharing a knowing look before turning back to the woman.

“Could I have a toasted sandwich and a triple chocolate muffin, please Niki?” Tommy said, enthusiastically.

“And I’ll have the daily special soup and a cookie. Oh and also a coffee with double espresso shots”

Niki rolled her eyes jokingly at Tubbo’s coffee order, before looking at Tommy questioningly.

“You not getting a coffee today Tommy?”

The blond shook his head.

“Nah, had one at work and I don’t wanna be too jittery”

“Work? Oh yeah, I completely forgot to ask you how your interviews went, sorry. I’m assuming they went well?”

Tubbo and Tommy nodded eagerly.

“Yeah, working at the heroes’ HQ is pretty poggers if I do say. I’m just doing paperwork but seeing the cases is quite interesting”

Niki’s eyes widened slightly and she tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear; although she quickly smothered it, the two teens easily noticed her unease.

‘That’s- wow, um, congratulations”

“Thanks Niki” Tubbo smiled.

The bakery owner quickly rushed off, excusing herself to go get their food and drinks.

“Well, that was a little… su-”

Tommy glared at the shorter teen.

“No. Don’t you fucking dare. You’re right though, that’s not people’s usual reaction to heroes”

Contemplating, the two fell silent.

Tubbo was the one to speak up.

“Maybe it’s about Jack, her new employee? We never properly thought about why he isn’t in jail currently, she could be hiding him?”

Tommy nodded, breaking the silence that had fallen again.

“I dunno though, it seems slightly counter-intuitive to have the guy you’re hiding from heroes literally working in the front of a coffee sh-” Tommy saw Niki coming from the corner of his eye towards their table with their food. “and then I told my definitely real, hot girlfriend ‘sorry babe, no kissing tonight, I need to watch Philza Minecraft’ because he had that interview thing last night you know?”

Tubbo snorted, seeing Niki too and going along with it.

“Tommy I’m literally your roommate. You can’t lie to me about your girlfriend when you haven’t left the house for anything apart from food and work in the past week”

At the lighthearted conversation, Niki laughed as she arrived at the table.

Tommy scowled, though they all knew he didn’t really mean it.

“Come on Niki, back me up here. I’m the Tommyinnit, haver of wives. You believe I could have a girlfriend, right”

Niki raised her eyebrows.

“I mean I’m not the one who’s roommates with you…”

“Oh of course you side with him ” Tommy sighed. “Nobody’s ever on my side”

Giggling again, although it seemed slightly forced, Niki rolled her eyes and left the table to return to the back of the cafe.

“Ok she’s definitely being sus” Tubbo commented as they watched her leave.

“Come on, you didn’t have to phrase it like that. But yeah, I agree with you”

Tubbo pulled a familiar notebook from his bag, placing it on the table before reaching into his bag to grab a pen.

The book was hardback, with a creased spine and a dark brown leather cover. It looked old, despite having been bought less than a year ago, due to the scuffed front, crinkled paper and numerous odd sheets sticking out of it, including receipts and instructions for food and potions. On the front of the book were the large letters scrawled on with black paint “DO NOT READ”.

Keeping his voice low, Tommy leaned into the table.

“Tubbo are you fucking serious. You took the single book in our apartment capable of revealing all the shit we’ve planned to work where the heroes we’re literally planning to take down are?”

“Yup”

The brunet was currently flipping to the first empty page in the book, titling it Niki’s Cafe + Jack Manifold .

“I wanted to be able to make notes in case anything important happened and so I can make a rough floorplan of HQ, ‘cause that could come in useful probably. And it is coming in useful, right now”

Tommy put his head in his hands and groaned.

“Yeah but couldn’t you, like, not do it while you’re supposed to be working?”

“I didn’t do it while we were working. I’m doing it here”

“Fine. Whatever. Just please don’t fucking- you know, be stupid”

Tubbo looked up from the scrawling notes he was making and grinned reassuringly.

“Of course boss man”

The atmosphere was comfortable as the teens ate their food, quietly discussing how their mornings had been.

Although Tommy did find the analysis of crimes and seeing the different ways heroes used their powers interesting, the desk job couldn’t beat Tubbo’s in the lab by miles. The brunet was obviously passionate as he described the small jobs Awesamdude, Sam, had been telling him to do, even though it was just his first day at the job.

Tubbo was telling Tommy about the heroes’ different inventions to help use their powers. The engineering side of it was interesting, then there was the chemical side, involving potion use. The brunet was inspired to do more testing of his own and Tommy wasn’t sure if he should be excited or dreading more of Tubbo’s experiments.

Probably dreading, due to some of the side effects last time before the invisibility potions had been fully finished.

The blond wondered just for a moment if Tubbo enjoyed his job too much, whether he would ever betray Tommy and Ranboo, but immediately shook the idea from his head internally scolding himself for thinking such a thing.

Time passed quickly and before he knew it, Tommy was on his way back to HQ with Tubbo standing next to him in the crowded train carriage. They would’ve gone from HQ to Niki’s cafe together but hadn’t been sure whether one would be held up or get sidetracked, so the teens had decided it was easier just to meet at the bakery.

When they arrived at HQ, Tommy waved goodbye to Tubbo as they went their separate ways, Tommy going to the lift, as was slowly becoming routine for him.

The numbers flicked upwards in the lift until finally arriving at fifty-three, where the doors opened.

Tommy was slightly surprised to see the SBI’s office empty as he walked through it to get to the filing room but guessed they were probably either late or in a different room on the floor.

The room was just as messy as Tommy had left it, so he began his work reorganising.

Firstly, the teen began by finding all the loose sheets and gathering them in a pile to be sorted out and put where they were supposed to be later.

Next, began the emptying of the filing cabinets.

“I- what’re you doing?”

And that’s when Wilbur walked into the room.

Tommy was sat on the floor, surrounded by papers that piled high all around him. Half of the filing cabinet drawers were hanging open and there were loose papers everywhere, not counting the corner where a bunch of papers were scrunched up, due to being outdated, unneeded or having mistakes on them.

“Just a little bit of sorting Big Dubs”

“Wh-what? Firstly, um, Big Dubs? Secondly, didn’t you have other things to be doing, like writing up reports from the past week’s patrols? Thirdly, why the fuck does the room look like this?”

Tommy finally looked up from the paper he’d been trying to decipher at the hero who was standing at the entrance of the room, looking slightly confused and very annoyed as he looked around, before settling to glare at the blond.

“Firstly, sorry if you don’t like the nickname, sorry William. Secondly, check your desk. Thirdly, the room was a complete mess and, as I said, I’m sorting”

Wilbur rolled his eyes.

“It’s your first day, I really don’t need this kind of sass from you”

Then the brunet left the room, Tommy assumed to check he’d had actually finished the reports.

Returning to his work, the teen continued reading the report he’d been scanning until he was once again interrupted by Wilbur.

“What the fuck. You- you’ve done it all”

“Yes. Like I fucking said. Can you please sign them physically and digitally so they can return to this mess of a room and be sorted like the rest of this? Dickhead”

“I- don’t call me a dickhead, child”

Tommy froze for a second. 

What if they knew? 

Had he been careless enough already for them to know he’d lied about his age?

“I’m not a fucking child, what the hell? I’m nineteen?”

“Doesn’t stop you from acting like a literal child. You’re technically still a teenager and what with that white streak in your hair you’re probably still going through your teenage angst phase”

Fuck.

Wilbur wouldn’t know why he had the white streak, but Tommy hadn’t exactly wanted the heroes seeing it, due to the memories attached with how he’d gotten it. For the past few months, the teen had been dying it with blond, semi-permanent dye, but he realised he mustn’t have redyed it for a couple of weeks now.

“It was a… dare from my roommate and I kinda liked it. I’m not a fucking angsty teen”

The hero laughed.

“Sure, sure. Anyway, you want any help with this paperwork?”

“Not particularly”

Wilbur came further into the room and sat in the space next to Tommy.

“Tough luck, I have nothing better to do”

Tommy sighed, although it was more for dramatics than anything else.

So far, Tommy found Wilbur to be a little annoying, though witty at times and the blond didn’t actually mind his presence. As a hero, Ghostbur had seemed quite cocky, though from research he didn’t seem to be corrupt behind the scenes or have any knowledge of the government’s corruption, so compared to some others, he wasn’t too bad.

Then again, not having knowledge of the corruption running deep in the government you work for’s roots, even up to the president possibly meant he was an idiot.

“How’d it even get this messy anyway?”, Tommy asked, instead of trying to question the hero on his political views.

Wilbur looked around the room, before picking a pile to start sorting through.

“Hell if I know. It just kinda… happened gradually I guess? It never used to be this bad before our old intern so it could’ve been him? Or maybe I’m just shifting the blame”

Shifting the blame was a thing a lot of heroes were good at, Tommy had noticed.

“Eh, fair enough I guess. How many people have you guys arrested anyway, there’re so many files in here”

“Probably… I really don’t know to be honest. Hundreds? Thousands? I’ve been a hero for years now”

“What are you, an old man?”

Wilbur sent a playful glare to Tommy.

“Ok gremlin child”

Tommy was fairly certain now that the heroes didn’t know his actual; age, but Wilbur was just calling Tommy a child due to the way he was younger than the hero.

“Not a fucking child. What do you know, maybe my white streak is from old age. Ever think about that, huh?”

That got a laugh out of the man

The atmosphere was lighthearted now and Tommy found the man’s presence enjoyable. He had a dry, sarcastic sense of humour, similar to Tommy’s own and they bounced off each other well.

Time seemed to pass quickly.

“So, you have any updates on the bank case you asked me about in the interview?”

Tommy was asking partly out of curiosity to see if they’d seen the hints dropped and partly so he could see if they were anywhere being caught.

The mention of the case seemed to tire Wilbur slightly.

“I think I may have met the villain who broke into the bank actually. Either that or some associate of theirs”

Tommy hummed, questioningly.

“It was really weird… like it was this guy wearing a Dream mask, but sad looking? Like some sort of Dream stan or something. Anyway, I’ve decided to call them Nightmare because they are one”

“A Dream stan?”

The teen laughed.

“Yeah, there are some weirdos out there”

Tommy didn’t exactly like being indirectly called a weirdo, but the comment was still funny.

“So, how’d you know they were related to the bank robbery?”

“This shopping list they accidentally dropped. It included random stuff like lentils and coriander, but also stuff like carrots and glowstone relating to the case and glass bottles and gunpowder, which could both be used in potions. I’ve already sent for carrots and glowstone to be experimented on with potions in the lab downstairs, but so far they haven’t got any results”

Despite knowing all that information already Tommy nodded along, looking intrigued.

“Wow, that’s strange”

“Yup” Wilbur agreed. “Definitely the most confusing case I’ve worked on in a while. The last one that got me this confused was Logstedshire”

Tommy tried to keep his breathing steady.

“I-I mean I’ve heard about the Logstedshire case, but what was so confusing about it?”

There was a small crease in Wilbur’s brow.

“Just, well, everything about it. An entire town that was burnt down in the space of one night, clearly arson, though only around twenty percent of arson cases are solved usually, so the fact there were no arrests made isn’t the strange part. 

It’s the question of how a small town was destroyed overnight with zero bodies found, yet zero survivors found either. It’s as if everyone there never existed in the first place, but we know they did because there are files of every single one of them in our archives. Then there’s the strange experimentation that might’ve been happening there-”

Suddenly, Wilbur seemed to realise he was saying, or about to say, something he shouldn’t and cut himself off.

Again, none of this information was new to Tommy, but he nodded along, putting a confused look on his face.

“I, wow, I didn’t know all that”

A complete lie.

“So, what do you think happened?”

“Honestly? Possibly a villain attack. Possibly some of the residents themselves. I just can’t see how all the residents survived something like that, but there are just no bodies”

After that, they faded into silence, not uncomfortable, but not exactly comfortable either; it was more contemplative as they both sorted out the seemingly endless piles of paperwork. 

It certainly wasn’t the lighthearted atmosphere they’d had earlier.

They continued working in silence for a few minutes before a new conversation started, this time slightly quieter and both of them knew they were avoiding the topic they’d just been speaking about.

Finally, Tommy checked his phone, finding it was almost exactly five and said goodbye to Wilbur.

It’d been nice to speak to the man, but after the exhausting day, Tommy just couldn’t wait to get home.

Chapter Text

Tommy arrived back at the apartment, groaning as he flopped down onto the sofa.

“Why is having an actual job fucking tiring?”

Ranboo glanced over from the kitchen area, rolling his eyes before turning back to the counter where he’d been making dinner, burgers as promised.

“I wouldn’t know. Nah, I’m gonna become a gaming streamer and get so much money from that.”

“We literally robbed a bank less than a week ago, boob boy, I don’t think you’re exactly tight for money.”

Tubbo poked his head from the trio’s bedroom, clearly having been listening to the conversation.

“Speaking of money, Boo have you sorted out the bank stuff yet?”

The tallest teen hummed in agreement.

“Mhm! I’ve got the bank accounts sorted out, I need to finalise some stuff for your two accounts because you need to be there in person to sign the documents and everything. We could probably do that sometime this weekend?”

Having legal documents made a lot of things way easier for the trio to do… well, pretty much anything.

Before now, they’d had to do everything in cash, which was fine for cheaper things but looked pretty suspicious for any more expensive purchases. They had also wanted to get a car for a while, for emergencies if they ever needed to get out of the city quickly and discretely but again, a seller who would take cash when selling a car would be very dodgy.

Ranboo was currently pulling all the background strings of the plan they had, with financial things that needed to be sorted and bought, making a full map of the city’s secret and underground areas and connecting with other villains who could help with their plan.

They all had their roles: Tommy the one doing physical crimes and causing chaos, Tubbo doing the hacking and inventing and Ranboo making contacts and getting information.

The three of them worked together as a perfect team, just as they’d been trained.

“I keep getting these… like visions? Memories from Logstadshire. I told Tubbo at lunch, but I just-” Tommy cut himself off with a sigh, running his hands through his hair. “I just… I miss Dream. And I know I shouldn’t but-”

At this point, Tubbo and Ranboo had walked over to the sofa, sitting next to Tommy and he leant into their warmth, grounded by their physical presence.

Ranboo tilted his head at the blond and smiled.

“I think we all miss the past to be honest, even if we shouldn’t. I mean, we grew up in Logsted. But we burned it to the ground and it’s gone now, yeah? We all miss the simpler times in life.”

Tubbo nodded along.

“I mean I was kinda only half-joking when I said at lunch we need therapy, but maybe once this is all over we’ll be able to get it.”

That one made Tommy laugh.

“You know, I heard they have pretty good therapists in Pandora’s Vault, to be fair.”

The trio fell into a comfortable silence, taking in each other’s company as Tubbo put on some random soap opera that he’d been watching and although Tommy and Ranboo had no clue what was happening they added their own input when characters did something funny or stupid.

The smell of cooking burgers filled the apartment and Ranboo got up to sort their dinner out, before coming back a few minutes later with plates of very tasty looking burgers.

Tommy rolled his eyes at the side of spaghetti on the side of the tallest’s plate, just glad he hadn’t put any near his own food.

Overall it was a peaceful evening and the trio fell asleep laying against each other.

----------

Wilbur stood in the huge filing room underneath the hero building.

Tommy had left half an hour ago and the hero had tried to continue sorting out the filing, but couldn’t concentrate.

There was just something off about the new employee that Wilbur couldn’t place his finger on and although he’d been good at trying to hide it, the brunet had noticed the way Tommy had tensed and began breathing a little shakily at the mention of Logstedshire. He knew something and Wilbur wanted to know what.

And yet, his background checks had found the nineteen year old to be… well, completely clean. No criminal record, a normal family and siblings, a social media with normal posts for someone his age, recommendations from respected people. It all seemed to line up.

But then there was the weird way he knew how to do the paperwork perfectly with no help, according to Phil, or the way he reacted to Logstedshire.

The way Wilbur couldn’t explain it annoyed him.

So here he was, in the filing room underneath the HQ, the room with a paper copy of every single case, criminal, hero, villain and enhancement that had been so much as looked at since the Hardcore Hero Organisation had been founded, fifteen years ago.

The Organisation was a branch of the government technically, being regulated and funded by them, but it made independent decisions for most cases and crimes.

Although some would say it was stupid to keep paper files, which could be easily stolen or destroyed, for cases, but it was more that the paper copies were backups for the electronic files which could possibly be hacked into and edited without anyone knowing, despite the strong protections, firewalls and encoding that protected the files. Paper files couldn’t be tampered with without it being obvious and the files room was actually the most secure room in the entire building.

Wilbur took a step further into the room, hearing the clicks from overhead as the automatic lights turned on, lighting up each row as he walked past them, footsteps echoing.

He supposed he should start looking where it all started.

Logstedshire.

----------

Tommy woke up being used as a pillow by Ranboo, who, despite not looking heavy, was leaning his full weight on the blond’s arm and he couldn’t feel his fingers.

Immediately, Tommy noticed Tubbo’s absence from the sofa, wondering where he was for a second before hearing shuffling from the trio’s bedroom.

Sitting up, the teen stretched, feeling his joints pop rather loudly before slumping again and yawning.

Yeah, he definitely wasn’t a morning person.

At this point, Ranboo had woken up too and was blinking blearily, black and white hair stuck up at all angles.

Tommy got up and ended up walking around the apartment half asleep, getting ready for work.

Tubbo had made breakfast and the trio stood in the kitchen together eating cereal dry cereal because Tubbo had forgotten to put it on the shopping (or robbing) kist. It was strangely calming for some reason.

After waving Ranboo goodbye, Tommy and Tubbo walked to the train station, like the day previous, hopping onto the train with no tickets again and holding onto each other in the crowded carriage.

Tommy couldn’t say he’d ever been a fan of crowds or just areas with large groups of people in general and with his claustrophobia, being squashed and surrounded by people wasn’t exactly his idea of a fun morning activity. His hands shook slightly as he clung onto Tubbo’s for reassurance.

Although they’d only travelled the route to HQ a few times, it was quickly becoming familiar to Tommy, as he recognised different shops and possibly a couple of faces.

Once again, Tubbo waved goodbye to Tommy once they entered the building and the blond took the lift up to the Sleepy Bois’ floor.

Tommy immediately went to “his” room as he had begun thinking of it, finding it in the same state as he’d left with maybe a couple more piles of papers sorted.

On his desk were new cases he had to sort out from the previous night’s patrol, though it was less than the previous day’s work.

About an hour into his work, the Blade, Techno, walked into the room, standing rather awkwardly at the door.

The hero’s pink hair was done in a long braid thrown over a shoulder and his white shirt and red tie contrasted with the smart black trousers he wore.

Although Tommy had run into Techno whilst stealing things multiple times, somehow even without the large netherite axe he was more intimidating currently, standing at the door to Tommy’s room with a mug of black coffee in his hand.

“Hey Blade- uh Techno? Technoblade. Hi.”

Techno just raised an eyebrow looking slightly amused, before looking around the room again.

“It looks like this place was robbed or somethin’.”

“Y-yeah we’re sorting out, I thought Wilbur would’ve mentioned it?”

The hero shook his head.

“Nah, he didn’t come back to the apartment yesterday and I found him passed out at his desk this morning.”

“Oh… is he alright?”

The corners of Techno’s mouth lifted a little in a fond smile.

“Yeah, he just overworks himself sometimes when he gets too invested in stuff. He was doing research last night and got carried away I think.”

“What was he researching?” Tommy asked, perhaps a little too quickly.

Techno narrowed his eyes slightly.

“That’s his business.”

Tommy laughed, trying to keep the nervousness out of his voice.

“Right yeah, sorry. I’m kinda a curious person, so um, sorry if I ask annoying or intrusive questions sometimes. You really don’t have to answer me.”

The hero just hummed in acknowledgement, before leaving the room, but Tommy had the feeling the hero was definitely suspicious of him. That wasn’t the greatest situation to be in, but the teen was confident enough he’d be able to get them to trust him.

He just needed a bit of time and his classic Tommyinnit charm.

It was true that most people found him annoying at first.

Tommy returned to his work with a small sigh. Although he did find heroes, their powers and fighting methods interesting, most of the files he was currently writing up were monotonous with the same basic structure - criminal or small-time villain attacks or steals something, then gets caught by heroes.

The “good guys” always won, putting the “bad guys” in prison.

And while watching the same story repeating itself over and over again, Tommy became more determined his own story wouldn’t be the same. 

He, Tubbo and Ranboo would make sure it was different.

----------

It was around 3 AM, which admittedly may have been a very stereotypical time to meet up secretly with a contact who was also not the most law-abiding citizen, but it had been the best time to meet them while avoiding unwanted attention, so Tommy would take what he could get.

He was wearing his familiar “villain” outfit, hood pulled up and pinned and mask over his face as always. Although the place he was going was technically a neutral ground, it would still be stupid to reveal his identity to anyone, especially if he wanted to be taken seriously.

The bar was averagely full, though not rowdy and loud like usual bars. Most people in the room had an aura of foreboding or danger and Tommy most definitely didn’t want to mess with any of them. Avoiding any and all eye contact, he made a beeline for the bartender.

Like everyone in the room the bartender, Foolish, was wearing a mask; his resembled a shark and covered his entire face. The whole mask was a dark grey, with white nearer the centre and sharp-looking teeth around the mouth.

The bar they were currently in was the front for Las Nevadas, a casino underneath the city that had a main room of games and places to gamble at, but stretching out from it was a massive network of rooms for resting, getting food, medical care and pretty much any necessity and luxury anyone could want.

It was rumoured that in the case of a natural disaster or nuclear war the entire city’s inhabitants would be able to stay underground, although Tommy was fairly doubtful of the truth of that.

Las Nevadas was pretty much a safe space for heroes, villains and vigilantes alike.

Well, safe space might have been an exaggeration, but the was a rule against fighting and making arrests, with the entire casino being neutral ground and a space for gaining and selling information. As long as you were on good terms with the owner, you would be fine.

The teen walked through the room, sure he could feel everyone’s eyes on him, and sat at the bar.

“I’m here to meet with the Ace of Spades, I’m sure he mentioned I was coming?”

Tommy tried projecting as much confidence into his voice as he could, but couldn’t tell if it worked.

Man, he really wasn’t good at being an intimidating person. He should probably just stick to making awkward jokes.

“Nightmare. It’s good to see you again. I never got to give you my thanks.”

Tommy blinked in surprise, tilting his head slightly in confusion, before straightening up immediately when he realised it was a habit he’d picked up from Dream.

“I- don’t thank me, it was really fucking nothing. And there were the others who never-”

The bartender shook his head, cutting Tommy off.

“You did more than anyone else even attempted at that facility. Don’t discount the lives you saved. And make sure to give my greetings and thanks to Ender and Buzzkill.”

Tommy hummed in agreement.

“I’m just glad you’re doing well and found somewhere you’re happy.”

Foolish nodded, before beckoning for Tommy to come with him, through a door that wasn’t exactly hidden in the wall, but the teen wouldn’t have noticed if he wasn’t being led through it currently.

The door opened into a dimly lit stairwell and a shiver ran up the teen’s spine.

He trusted Foolish wouldn’t do anything to him, especially with the weight that was held by favours in the community of heroes, vigilantes and villains (they hadn’t saved Foolish because they wanted a favour, but the man insisted he owed them one now).

The walls were stone and seemed extremely old, certainly older than most of the buildings in the city above. Tommy didn’t enjoy how close they were, often brushing against his arm.

Fire torches lined the walls casting the flickering shadows of Foolish and Tommy onto the walls. 

Despite the fire, the air got exponentially colder until the teen wasn’t shivering from just the creepiness of the hallway anymore.

There was a point where a toxic looking green slime coated the walls and ceiling. Foolish seemed to pay no mind to it, but that didn’t stop Tommy from being increasingly concerned.

Then, in a change so sudden it almost gave Tommy whiplash, the staircase opened out into a large reception area, with a regal colour scheme of red and white. There was a reception desk with a person standing behind it, though like everyone here, they wore a mask covering their face (if they weren’t, Tommy imagined they’d have a pleasant customer service smile plastered onto their face).

Staircases and corridors seemed to lead into and away from the room and the teen wondered if it was possible to navigate this place at all without getting lost immediately; Tommy felt lost already just in the open reception area they were in.

Then, the teen finally looked where they were actually walking.

The casino.

If Tommy had thought the reception area was large, it was nothing compared to the hall they had just walked into.

White pillars reached up to the ceiling - well, Tommy assumed they did. He couldn’t actually tell, as the ceiling was so far above it was bathed in menacing darkness.

Then there was the casino itself. 

The brightly coloured machines created a maze on one side of the hall, a mixture of people playing on them, though it looked like most of the people there were rich people in business suits. There were also a few people, who were clearly vigilantes, heroes etc due to their unique outfits and masks.

Tommy was pretty sure he recognised a couple of them.

On the other side were the greens tables of people playing blackjack and poker. Tommy watched the players out of the corner of his eyes, knowing what they were doing, whilst still being completely unaware of the intricacies and secret techniques of the games -  he’d never played them himself before.

At the end of the hall was a large mahogany doorway, intricate carvings covering it in a clear display of grandeur.

Foolish knocked on the door a couple of times, waiting a few seconds before opening it.

They both stepped into the room together, with Foolish closing the door behind them.

The office itself once again was a definite display of power. From the carved wooden desk to the old bookcases on the walls lined with old and definitely rare books.

Then there was the man inhabiting the room.

The Ace of Spades.

Tommy had researched the name, finding the card in a pack of playing cards could mean a thirst for knowledge, or power and riches. Different sources said different things, but either way, the name suited him.

Most people just called him the Ace.

He was reclining, feet on his desk as though he didn’t have a care in the world. Tommy couldn’t tell much from where he was standing and due to the man’s pose, but he looked quite short; shorter than Tommy at least. His mask was black, though the left side had clearly been cut and sewed up with red thread - the lens of the goggles on that side was also cracked. It created a foreboding appearance.

As Tommy and Foolish walked into the room, the man sat up and despite the mask, Tommy could feel the grin on the Ace’s face from there.

“So you’re Nightmare?”

The casino owner studied Tommy, as the teen nodded.

“You’ve heard of me then.”

The Ace laughed, gesturing for Tommy to sit at the desk, opposite to him.

He nodded at Foolish, and the bartender left the room without a word.

“The media are sure doing a good job at covering everything up, but everyone who’s anyone has heard about your little bank heist. You left no evidence apart from that little mishap with the laser… but was that even a mishap in the first place?”

Tommy chuckled a little, slightly nervous.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The casino owner stood up, walking over to his cupboard and getting out two glasses and a bottle of whiskey, before sitting back down at the desk.

“Care for a drink?”

“I don’t- I don’t drink, thanks.”

The Ace just nodded.

“That’s fair enough.”

As were the rules in Las Nevadas, Tommy looked away while the other man took off his mask to take a drink. It was one of the many rules in Las Nevadas, but an important one that could even be punishable by death if you looked at the wrong person. Also, it was also simply a respectful thing to do in general for people who don’t want their faces revealed.

“So you robbed a bank and tripped the alarms on purpose to gain the heroes’ attention and-”

“I really didn’t-”

The man cut him off, laughing.

“Don’t lie to me about this Nightmare. You’re playing a dangerous game, but you’re playing it very well so far. It just interests me to wonder what your next move is. Again, with the store robbery, you’ve got some of the bigger heroes looking for you. My question is, what game are you playing?”

Tommy leaned forwards, resting his elbows on the desk.

“I don’t know what game I’m playing either, to be honest. What I do know is that I’m gonna fucking win it and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop me.”

This made the man hum in amusement.

“And here’s the other thing. You’re friends with Foolish.”

Tommy shrugged.

“He’s a friendly guy.”

“But here’s the thing. He’s a friendly guy on the surface but he doesn’t really trust anyone. Not with his struggles or past or anything. So how did you gain that?”

This made Tommy scoff.

“What, you want a step by step guide? I saved his life and asked for nothing in return.”

The Ace shifted in his seat and Tommy could almost feel his confusion.

“The thing you don’t understand is that loyalty isn’t earned with favours or mutually beneficial relationships, but when you don’t expect anything in return from a person.”

The casino owner bristled.

“Are you saying I don’t know loyalty?”

The question wasn’t a question really, and they both knew it. Though his words sounded calm and smooth, they were a threat, a warning for Tommy to stop insulting the man who was his current source of information.

Just for a moment, Tommy wished for the comforting voice of Tubbo, or even Ranboo (as much as he definitely hated the guy) in his earpiece, but once again, a rule of Las Nevadas included no listening devices whilst underground. Pretty much no contact to the city of L’Manberg above was allowed whilst in Las Nevadas.

Tommy chose his next words carefully.

“Of course not… but a large part of your business relies on favours and equivalent exchange for good deeds. My point is, are they good deeds at that point if you’re only doing them for the hope of your own self-gain in the future? I saved Foolish and didn’t ask for or want anything in return. That and he really is just a friendly guy.”

There was a brief silence of contemplation before the Ace sighed.

“How did I just get lectured about good deeds and loyalty from a villain ?”

That made Tommy laugh properly for the first time that night.

“I’m only labelled a villain because I allow and want myself to be. We both know it’s easier to achieve some goals that way, right? Gaining people’s attention is easier with bigger stunts and negative attention. Any attention is positive attention if you play it in the right way.”

The Ace’s hand subconsciously brushed against the sewn-up side of his mask before he agreed.

“Of course. And what would you give for those goals?”

They both knew what he was really asking.

“What do you want? We can steal pretty much anything you need? If you need a break-in. Or want to cause some chaos? We can-”

The Ace cut him off with a scoff.

“You’re offering nothing you lose from here, Nightmare.” The man spread his hands. “And do you really think I’m struggling in the riches department”

Tommy let out a shaky breath, trying to do it silently to keep his composure in front of the casino owner.

“You want information.”

Learning back and folding his arms, the Ace nodded, almost greedily.

“You’ve been in the public eye for a week and have definitely been doing things prior. I dunno Nightmare, you just seem like a… knowledgeable kinda guy.”

Tommy sighed.

“So, what? I tell you some information, you tell me some back. How do I know I’m getting a fair deal here? I don’t even know what your information is gonna be about.”

“Have you ever heard of the Red Banquet?”

That made Tommy sit up a little straighter.

“Of course I have.”

The Ace sat up again, nodding with satisfaction.

“The one this year is happening next week. I’ll tell you about it if you give me a piece of information nobody else knows. I’m sure you have a lot of stuff up there in your brain. It doesn’t even have to be about you , just something others don’t know.”

Calculating, Tommy drew in a breath.

Currently, the Ace may have been acting amiable enough, but Tommy knew, as did much of the city, what happened when someone with close secrets wronged the man. Even Schlatt, the president, knew to be wary of the man.

So Tommy considered what he could say, what would be valuable to the man but wouldn’t be used against himself.

“And this information wouldn’t be told to anyone?”

Tommy thought he could feel the grin through the Ace’s mask.

“Of course not… just think of it as insurance. This is our first time trading information with each other, so it’s insurance for you that means you know you’re getting a fair deal and I won’t lie unless you do. It also means I get a fair deal out of this and am not just giving away information for free. I won’t tell anyone what you tell me.”

The ‘ unless you use my information against me or those I care about’ went unsaid by the man, but Tommy could feel it there.

Tommy could feel his breathing, could feel the eyes of the other man in the room, could feel the silence waiting for what he said.

“I… I know what Dream looks like. The number one hero, I’ve seen him without his mask.”

The Ace leaned forwards in surprise.

“Why? How? Dream has never shown his face to anyone, from what I’ve heard not even 404 or Flame know what he looks like. You’ve gotta see why I don’t completely trust this.”

“One piece of information. That’s all you asked for, that’s all I owe you. I can swear on Prime it’s true though.”

The villain stayed silent for a moment, contemplating the teen’s words for a moment.

“Fine. Just for confirmation, I want to know where you saw it.”

Tommy sighed.

It was annoying how completely fair the man’s suspicions were and Tommy needed the information on the Red Banquet. Although the Ace wasn’t to be trusted, it would be bad business for him to give away the information Tommy had given him, so he wouldn’t. Tommy wasn’t planning on angering the man any time soon either.

“Logstedshire.”

Tommy could feel the curiosity rolling off the man in waves, but stayed silent.

“Huh. Now that’s not what I was expecting. You’re an interesting one, you know that right, Nightmare? But now I’ll uphold my end of the deal. You know the Eggpire, right? Their territory is to the north of here. There’s a hotel owned by a man called Sam Nook in the region and the Red Banquet is held underneath it. If you go to the receptionist this Friday after 11 pm they’ll give you directions and you’ll be in. No invitations are needed, it’s more of a word of mouth thing.”

“I thought you and Bad Halo had bad blood between you?”

The Ace clenched his fists subtly.

“We’ve had minor disagreements, sure, but currently we have a pact. Not that that’s any of your business.”

Standing up, Tommy stuck a hand towards the man.

“Pleasure doing business with you, Ace of Clubs.”

The man reached across the desk, shaking Tommy’s hand; a firm grip but not painful.

“I hope you know I’ll be keeping an eye on you, Nightmare. You'd better not become an annoyance.”

Tommy just laughed at the not so subtle threat. He walked over to the door.

“I’ll have you know, most people do find me annoying at first.”

He opened the door, walking back into the casino and nodding at Foolish, before making his way back through the hall.

It was time for him to go home.

Chapter Text

ok so i haven’t posted anything for this fic or ao3 for over a year at this point so hi again! it’s been a while

firstly, thank you so much for the support on this fic. the fact it has over 30k hits is genuinely insane to me and although i haven’t posted i do read the comments i receive and they always make me so happy :D

i never intended to abandon this fic, however it was written completely from my head and i kept on changing where i wanted the storyline to go. this created plot holes and a general dislike for the story from me as i couldn’t take it where i wanted to because i’d already published facts that would make the story contradict itself. i found i had to force myself to write and it wasn’t enjoyable so i stopped. sorry it took me so long to address.

i haven’t written for a year though i do still have some ideas and aus bouncing around my head. i may write again if i get motivation (i was thinking of writing a halloween oneshot but i’m not sure )

as for the future of this fic specifically, i may explore the au again but with more planning and backwriting before release. i still love and am very inspired by superhero aus in general so if i do write again i may write a superhero au, even if it’s not this specific world.

basically i may write in the future but i also may not depending on my own motivation.

thanks for the patience and i hope you all have a great day/night :)