Chapter Text
"Tommy."
"What."
"You're going to die if you go down there."
"You said that already. You said that like four times, I know that already."
"Then why do you look like you're about to drop down into the pit full of drug dealers?"
"Because I am, Tubbo, and if you wanted to help me not immediately perish, you would be telling me information about these pricks instead of repeating the same mantra of my demise that's making me more anxious than ready to knock out these douchebags."
Tommy hears nothing but a heavy sigh and he grins, keeping his goggles fixed on the grim sight below him. The warehouse is decently lit, brighter than it should be for a drug deal, in Tommy's humble opinion. He sits perched in the rafters, staring down the eight or so men in suits opening briefcase after briefcase of cash and the little guns used to administer the drugs and the drugs themselves- Tommy rolls his eyes. What a bunch of show for nothing.
"Tubbo?" Tommy hisses through the silence, praying that he won't be heard over the chatter of the men below him. "You got anything on these jokers? Or am I meant to just head in blind?"
"That's what you usually do, anyway," the voice from his earbuds snaps back, drawing a slight laugh from Tommy. "Three of them have quirks that you don't need to worry about- like, at all, they're totally useless-"
"Good to know."
"And then there's a guy with...metal control, be wary of that, enhanced strength, you can see the tiger hybrid, one of them has burning hands, like, if he touches you, your skin will get hot, and one of them can make people temporarily blind."
Tommy sucks in a breath through his teeth, narrowing his eyes at the crowd. "Is there no way you could tell me who's who?"
"They're all white guys in suits, Tommy, what the hell do you want from me?"
"Okay, okay, fine!" Tommy narrows his eyes, reaching towards his back for the electric baton with he points at the end that constitutes about a fifth of Tommy's arsenal before muttering sarcastically, "Sorry for asking."
"Apology not accepted," Tubbo snarks, and Tommy makes an offended noise before he adds, "Not until you come back. Don't die, moron."
Tommy takes in a breath and puts a smile on his face. "I never do."
"That doesn't make sense, of course you haven't-"
Tommy jumps.
His legs are pointed directly at the back of the easiest target, catching everyone off guard and knocking the guy he aimed for onto the ground. The man collides with the floor at unheard-of speeds, his head hitting the concrete with a sharp crack before going still. Tommy gives the group absolutely zero time to react before plunging his baton into the nearest guy's neck, watching as he seizes and drops to the ground like a stone. He jumps backwards, shoves his baton into its holster before pulling his small, odd-looking gun out of its own and aiming it towards the group.
Almost everyone is frozen, not wanting to make any moves, but he sees looks of fear in some of their eyes in amusement in others. One of them actually has the audacity to chuckle, saying, "Alright, kid. You had your fun with the lightshow, put the toys down and you don't have to get hurt."
"Not a kid," Tommy snaps, grip on the gun tightening but being pointedly aimed away from the guy that spoke. "And what makes you think these are toys, idiot?"
"Well, for one-"
Tommy doesn't let the man finish before flicking his wrist so the gun is pointed at the man that talked and firing- gasps and yelps of surprise ring throughout the room at the sound of the trigger clicking, and Tommy watches with a smug smile as a dart flies through the air and hits the man square in the chest. He stares at Tommy for a moment, seemingly unaffected, before collapsing to the ground in a heap.
"On second thought," Tommy says, cracking his neck. "I don't actually give a damn. Now listen," He points at the rest of them before raising his voice to a shout. "Which one of you is the one with strength enhancement? Speak up!" At the lack of response, he turns to aim at the tiger hybrid, who is far skinnier in shape than the bar at which Tommy begins to care, yelling, "You can speak up now and I won't hurt this one! I won't have to hurt anyone else! I've taken out half of you and I can do it again!"
Tommy hears multiple of them start to talk, insult, and generally say words, but the boy filters them out, squinting at the expressions and body language of all the goons before sharply turning to fire at one of them, seemingly random.
He doesn't fall. Yeah, that's the strength enhancer.
The poor schmuck looks startled out of his own mind before he looks down at the dart lodged in his chest and growls. Straight up growls, the bastard, and he starts to move towards Tommy before the boy rolls his eyes and lazily fires another dart. The man still doesn't go down, and he looks enraged as he shoves his buddies out of the way and charges at the nonchalant teen. The man's movements are sluggish to the point where Tommy easily steps out of his way, his own body weight and lack of balance causing him to keep moving forward for a few more steps than intended, allowing Tommy to fire a dart into his neck with a chuckle.
"Dude," He says as the man tips over and falls to the ground, his head hitting the floor harder than the others due to his size. "You need to get better friends. They're so obvious-"
Apparently, the remaining four "friends" finally realized that Tommy, surprise, surprise, is an actual threat. The tiger hybrid springs into action first, running towards Tommy at speeds even he couldn't match, claws outstretched and ready to tear the boy to pieces. Pissed off at his witty quip getting interrupted, Tommy ducks under the swing the hybrid throws and propels himself to the side, narrowly missing a punch made by another one of the guys that apparently doesn't have a useful enough quirk to utilize in a fight.
Two melee fighters he could handle without a threat. What he's more concerned about, though, is what the other two are doing.
Between the ducks and dodges, Tommy watches in horror as the two other men race to the briefcases, flinging them open and hastily trying to assemble the odd gun-like device used to administer the quirk-enhancing drug.
Two melee fighters, easy-peasy. Two melee fighters and two douchebags with enhanced quirks...Tommy would probably have to start trying, and he wouldn't want that.
Tommy runs with his head in front of his centre of gravity, barreling between the two people attacking him with only a scratch from the tiger man trying to reach him and aiming his dartgun at one of the men, firing before he even gets a chance to aim. He thinks the dart struck true, but he immediately drops the gun and whips out the electric baton, thrusting it into the abdomen of the tiger hybrid that was catching up to him in his moment of pause to fire. The guy fries, dropping to the ground and twitching like a bug, and Tommy twists to swing his baton at the head of the other man, utilizing his height to get a good shot. The guy ducks- unfortunately- and manages to get in a single uppercut, though it doesn't feel very single- more like his jaw is getting shattered into a billion tiny pieces, and the way his head is thrown back by the impact allows him to see through blurry vision that the two guys at the table have now been reduced to one- one that is putting the little vials into the drug...gun...thing faster than Tommy's dazed mind can follow.
He frowns and shakes his head, jumping back and away from the dude that finally managed to hit him before shaking his head to steady his spinning mind, cursing him out, and thrusting forward with the baton. It hits true and the guy falls to the ground, but Tommy is less concerned about how he's flailing around on the floor and more about rushing to pick up his gun before the bastard with the drugs manages to-
Tommy watches in dawning horror (more like annoyance, but one wouldn't really interpret it as such) as the man places the gun-like device against his neck, pressing the trigger and letting the lime green, glowing substance flow into his veins. Tommy flinches despite himself.
"Are you really getting hopped up on that crap just to defeat a teenager?" Tommy sneers, taking a discreet step back. His head is spinning but significantly less so, and the blood that started to leak from his mouth ceases its flow as time passes. "Pretty pathetic, big man, if I do say so myself."
As Tommy's mouth runs, his mind runs a billion times faster. He tries to figure out which quirk this guy has- none of the useless ones Tubbo had mentioned, there would be no reason for them to take a quirk-enhancing drug...not the tiger hybrid, that guy is done for...not the enhanced strength man, he knocked that one out ages ago (he thinks)...he doesn't know why the temporary blindness one would use quirk enhancers, even if Tommy was only a little blind, he'd probably be able to kill him within the short amount of time- he isn't particularly strong.
It's either the metal bending guy or the hothands guy, and one would be substantially more annoying and hard to deal with than the other.
The man just stares at him with cold, red eyes before running at Tommy at full speed, startling the boy to the point of him forgetting to use his gun. He's too close to use that anyways, but the real problem begins when Tommy thrusts his baton towards the guy...and the man just grabs the baton.
Tommy's eyes flicker up to the man before looking at his weapon, and he only gets to take in the glowing red of the man's hand around his baton for a moment before the baton melts onto both of their hands, burning Tommy. He screams, jumping back and flinging his hand around to shake off the melted metal, screeching, "You bastard, do you know how much that cost?!"
The guy makes a disbelieving face at him- one that sort of says, "I literally just poured molten metal on this kid's hand and all he cares about is his fancy tech?"- before launching at him again. Tommy throws his ruined baton to the side and pockets his gun- he is not letting that get melted, too- but before he can pull anything else out, the man grabs onto his forearm.
Immediately, burning pain blossoms from the contact, and the cloth of his black long-sleeved shirt starts to burn away and it grows even worse as he meets exposed skin. The feeling makes tears leap to Tommy's eyes, and he can barely choke out words as the man pulls his arm down, forcing Tommy to meet him face to face. Tommy can only see his now glowing eyes through tears, his grin growing as the man places another hand on Tommy's cheek. Tommy screams, trying to wrench his body away as the man's grip on his face digs deeper, burning through his mask and searing his flesh as if Tommy pressed his face against an iron.
His mind is cloudy with the pain, and he struggles to breathe as the pain grows so much that his screams start to go silent. In a desperate act, Tommy throws half his body weight into yanking his face away from the man and using the momentum to knee him in the stomach. The man grunts and his grip on Tommy loosens, allowing the boy to pull himself away, cradling his arm as his mind races to stay above the fog. He keeps his eyes trained on the man as breathing gets easier, but he knows that if the guy decides to lunge again, he probably won't end up okay.
"-ommy? Tommy? Can you hear me? Why aren't you responding?"
Tommy blinks as the roar of blood in his ears quiets to reveal a very concerned Tubbo shouting in his ear for him to respond. "I'm here," He chokes out. "I'm fine."
"You don't sound fine, Tommy, you don't look fine! You need to get out of here now, that guy is completely hopped up on VA, you're not going to be able to get out of there without being seriously-"
Tommy is too busy digging around in his belt to pay attention to Tubbo's completely warranted concerns. Or, rather, pretending to dig around in his pouches when he really has his hand on what he needs already. He's already made a plan- a risky plan, but, then again, all of his plans are risky.
Without warning, Tommy pulls his hand out of his pouch and flicks it- within moments, a knife goes flying through the air and lodges itself in the man's shoulder. He lets out a cry of pain and surprise, hand moving to touch the weapon and pull it out, but Tommy lets him do no such thing before pulling the pin from a flash grenade and lobbing it at the guy, jumping backwards as he does and ducking to cover his ears and close his eyes.
The sound still travels through his hands and to his ears, but it doesn't affect him as much as the poor bastard that got hit square in the chest with it. He doesn't look at the man, instead rushing to swoop down and pick up his ruined baton, which has now hardened back into disfigured metal, praying to whatever God is watching over him, and running to beat the guy over the head with the weapon.
He's already stunned, dazed, burned, and bleeding, so it takes a very short amount of time for Tommy to realize that the man is basically incapacitated, sweeping his legs out from under him and letting his head hit the floor, busting his brains out with the baton a couple more times before relaxing. He lays a hand on the guy's neck, probably checking for a pulse (just in case) before standing up and letting out a tense sigh at the now-noiseless room, save for the sound of the city's nighttime flooding in from the windows.
"You're an idiot."
Tommy smiles tiredly. "I won."
"I hate you."
"Do you forgive me, yet?"
"NO!" Tubbo cries, and Tommy bursts into loud cackles, having to lean on his knees to support himself. He's lightheaded and dizzy and shouldn't be laughing this hard, but he can't stop himself from celebrating his victory. The adrenaline still coursing through his veins like a drug probably isn't helping, either. "You're a moron, you could have gotten yourself KILLED out there!"
He spends the next few minutes on the receiving end of Tubb's squawking like a terrified mother hen, giving each of the men doses of a drug from his belt to keep them helpfully knocked out without actually harming them- though Tommy wouldn't be too opposed to that, and he none-too-delicately drops them all into lump of drug dealers.
He dips into his pouch for his signature sticky notes and red pen before leaving a scrawled message stuck to the bodies of the men in a pile.
Hey heros, ur late again LLL
VA deal, as per usual, all of them had possession of the drugs but like if u guys could do me a favour
The tiger guy + the one with green eyes and the particularly ugly suit should be charged with asaulting a minor. they tried 2 attack me. ME!
o ya and the one that is bleeding and has a knife in him (dw he wont bleed out i patched him up) also got hoppped up before using his quirk on me (photo attached) and trying to sear my face off. i have to get a NEW MASK. that's gotta b a few more years, right???
that's also why there's one vial of VA gone and one of the guns is out or whatever. that's also definitely why there's exactly 2k gone from the briefcases. definitely. i definitely didn't take it. (i stole it from a drug dealer its fiiine you know guys know the drill)
"What was the last question, Tubs?" Tommy asks, half-present. He's distracted by digging around and pulling out the red and white polaroid camera from his belt and snapping a photo of his horrifically burned arm, ignoring Tubbo's pointed groan.
"You're still doing the questions thing?"
"Yep."
Several weeks ago, Tommy found himself flipping through the channels for the local news after a particularly large bust he and Tubbo actually had time to properly prepare for. Tommy had simply gassed the place (non-lethally) and only had to physically knock out two or three guys. L'Manburg is a very large and very famous city in the country of Essempea, and around the world, too, so there are many major news stations with their HQs positioned within its borders. But, as with any city, there are smaller stations that report on the happenings of the area, especially on those of the elusive Bang.
So imagine Tommy's surprise that day, flipping to check on the local news and seeing grainy photos of him on country-wide television.
He'd almost passed out then and there. Tubbo had to yell in his ear for a good minute and a half to get him to stay on his feet.
The mission wasn't even that hard. Thirty-something people and Tommy still thinks tonight was a more difficult escapade than that one. Despite that, the teen vigilante that mysteriously appeared three years ago amidst the growing drug crisis in L'Manburg got nationwide coverage for one of the biggest non-lethal drug busts in history. And all he had done was leave a couple of post-its.
Next time he went out to save the city, he left a note explaining the situation and the unconscious criminals he left his post-its on before diverging and addressing the publicity. In simple terms, he said he liked the name the citizens picked out for him (Bang is definitely better than other names he could have been stuck with) and asked if there were any questions the people had.
He wasn't expecting it to work, but it did. Though the media coverage has died down since then, local stations still cover the things he does and asks on TV the most requested question for him. And he'd answer.
It's a fun little parasocial QnA of sorts.
"They want to know who your costume designer is."
Tommy lets out a barking laugh and Tubbo joins in along with him. His red and white hoodie, face mask, cargo shorts and sneakers? Really?
anyways, i hate to break it to you guys, but if what i wear is a costume, Next is my personal designer L
but if having a cool logo on something makes it a costume then it is a costume and Next is my personal designer
see you soon,
BANG!
Tommy lets out a satisfied huff as he places down the last sticky note and the now-visible polaroid, standing up and stretching before pulling a burner phone out of his belt. He hovers over the 9-1-1 buttons before asking Tubbo, "Hey, Tubs, what time is it?"
"It's 2:27AM."
Tommy whistles. "I'm gonna feel that in the morning. Thank God it's summer break."
He punches in the numbers and presses call, radio silence coming from the other end of his earpiece before Tubbo says, "Tommy?"
"Yeah, big man?"
"Tomorrow is the first day of school."
Tommy blinks.
"The first day in the hero course."
Tommy blinks again, harder this time. He rubs his eyes and groans deeply.
"Oh, fuck-"
"9-9-9, what's your emergency?"