Chapter Text
“What time of day is the building least active?”
“Least active?”
“Yeah, when there’s the fewest number of people inside.”
“Ah. Like noon or something. Lunch hour, y’know.”
“Thanks.”
“You know you could’ve just Googled that, right?”
“Then what would I need you for, Tommy?” Tubbo teases, shifting around in his position on the rooftop overlooking the building he's scoping out. “How many workers are here today?”
“‘Bout a hundred at this exact moment. Small office building compared to its headquarters. Employees are provided their materials by the company, at the very least, so the worst of the damage to the civilians’ items will be their stationery. You wouldn’t be harming them.”
“Thanks, Tommy.”
“I’m the best, I know.”
Tubbo chuckles. The fond of course you are that remains unsaid is implied. The two of them are used to this dynamic by now.
Tubbo brings his hand out from under his thigh where he’d been sitting on it to keep it warm in the frigid late-fall cold. He reaches up towards his ear to click on the button on his earpiece, ending his call with Tommy, but before his hand is even halfway there, Tommy says, “don’t even think about it.”
Tubbo grins sheepishly, even though no one’s there to see it. “About what?” He can almost feel the pointed look Tommy is surely giving him from the other end of the call. “Last time was an accident and an anomaly!” He defends. “I make the slightest of mistakes one time and suddenly you’re all mother-henning me.”
Tommy scoffs. “Your ‘slightest of mistakes’ got you nearly caught by Ender last time. I know you’ve been fighting him a lot these past few months, but we still don’t know enough about him and his skills to be treating him so carelessly.”
“I know that.”
“And yet I still have to remind you.”
Tubbo rolls his eyes. “Okay,” he relents. “MotherInnit.”
“Hey!”
“Oh, look at the time! Nearly 12. I don’t need to be babied by the likes of you, boss man. I’m off!”
“Wait!” Tommy screeches, but Tubbo’s hand is already reaching for the hang-up button. “I coded it so when I call it automatically picks up on your end! You can’t escape me!”
Tubbo knows he isn’t bluffing—Tommy’s a coding genius—but for the sake of his pride, he says, “bye, Tommy,” before hanging up.
Tommy will call again if he feels he needs it.
He doesn’t.
Tubbo inwardly preens at the implied trust Tommy is giving him, in spite of his overprotectiveness and constant fussing over him. In hindsight, he’s always been grateful to have someone who cares about his well-being at all, but Tommy is something special. He’s the only person Tubbo’s ever truly been close to, but he figures that even if he had a line-up of people who cared about him, he’d choose Tommy anyway. He’d always choose Tommy and he’ll be damned if he ever forgets it.
But never mind that, now. He’s got a mission.
“You!”
Tubbo whirls around toward the infuriated voice, recognizing it instantly but still grinning at the confirmation of the tall, lanky hero stalking towards him from the opposite end of the rooftop: Ender, with his dual-toned skin and multicolored eyes and silky hair, just starting to extend towards his shoulders due to a clear lack of a haircut for the past few months. Tubbo absently remembers advising him a few weeks ago to keep it long because it looked nice and is glad to see him taking the advice to heart, regardless of whether or not he actually played any part in influencing his decision.
Despite this, part of Tubbo groans internally at the interruption of his near-perfectly executed plan: pull the fire alarm to evacuate the people inside (child’s play, truly, he’s almost disappointed in the lack of a challenge this presents), quickly scan the building to ensure its emptiness, then actually set the building on fire. Okay, sure, maybe not one of his (and Tommy’s) most elegant plans, but it gets the job done. Single out the people he’s looking for while simultaneously being a pain in their asses by burning down one of their office buildings.
Thinking again of Ender, another part of Tubbo flutters with excitement and the familiar oncoming adrenaline rush rising from his stomach to his chest as he prepares for the inevitable fight and, subsequently, the “tactical flirting” he’s been trying out on Ender. He knows the “tactical” element of this is questionable at best, but it is awfully amusing to see Ender get flustered and, in turn, very annoyed.
“Buzzkill!” Ender calls out to him again. Tubbo rolls his eyes at the name. He’s labelled one of the most well-known villains in L’Manberg and that’s the best name they could give him? Some days he regrets dropping out of the Hero Academy, if only because he’d lost the chance to choose a name for himself.
He bats his eyelashes at him and smiles sweetly as Ender pulls out a dagger with a soft swish! of metal and brandishes it menacingly. “Hey, Ender,” Tubbo drawls.
“You,” he seethes.
Tubbo grins back at him. “Me.”
Ender yells in frustrated annoyance and charges.
Tubbo dances back as Ender swipes at him, technique sloppy due to his emotion-clouded judgement. Tubbo knows that continuing to play defensive will only give Ender time to realize his irrationality and collect himself, hence becoming a much more formidable opponent. He decides to toy with him a bit longer, however. After all, there’s a reason Ender’s his “favorite” hero. It’s fun to get him riled up.
“What has displeased you today, my beloved?” Tubbo croons at him as he easily dodges strikes. “You seem very irked.” He pauses before grinning to himself and adding, “it’s cute.”
He hears Ender suck in a sharp breath and falter slightly, giving Tubbo the opening to kick at Ender’s wrist, knocking the dagger out of his hand, before spinning his leg back down and catching the knife in one swift movement. He backs himself into Ender’s chest, lolling his head back on his shoulder and smiling lazily up at him as Ender scrabbles backward away from the touch. He recovers quickly, though, realizing his advantage and enveloping Tubbo in his arms, grabbing for his dagger. Tubbo sharply brings it to his throat, the cool metal of the blade running down below one jaw as he turns his head and whispers into Ender's neck, below his ear, “now, now. We’re friends, aren’t we? Surely you can let me get away with one small bout of arson, right, handsome?” He giggles.
Ender, frozen still, seems to only just have remembered his ability to teleport, the warmth around Tubbo’s body disappearing as Ender suddenly appears in front of him, shoving him by his shoulders and causing Tubbo to stumble back further, precariously close to the edge of the building’s roof. He quickly adapts, though, dropping his act of silly banter to focus his attention on disarming Ender and making his getaway. Tubbo tucks Ender’s knife into one of his many pants pockets and his hand reemerges with a taser—a much more effective non-lethal weapon, in Tubbo’s opinion. He’s never been amazing at hand-to-hand combat anyway.
What he is good at is dodging. Ender, a new dagger in hand, readies himself into a fighting stance and begins teleporting around, attacking Tubbo from all angles with a few swipes of his knife before disappearing to a new location, staying out of Tubbo’s reach with his longer limbs. This technique had been frustrating for their first couple of fights, leaving Tubbo with more than a few stinging cuts, but after months of fighting and studying his tactics, Tubbo finds his patterns rather predictable, easily avoiding him and managing to rush towards him with the taser a few times. Ender, however, also knows Tubbo’s tactics, and avoids him as well, and thus the two are at an impasse.
Tubbo wracks his brain for a solution to give him an advantage as his body moves nearly subconsciously, with practiced skill, to respond to Ender’s movements. He desperately settles on tactical flirting, of all things.
“Hey, pretty boy,” his words come out shaky, and he’s panting from exertion, but he’s already made the decision to go through with this, so he continues. “Don’t you ever get tired of this? Why don’t we ever try anything new?”
Tubbo curses himself inwardly, embarrassed at his desperate attempt, but Ender breaks the silence with a gruff reply. “Like what?”
Tubbo’s surprise could be categorized as elation. That is, if he actually liked the idea of Ender flirting back with him. He doesn’t. “Like you taking me on a date.” He takes Ender’s slight falter as time to drop into a crouch, but instead of sweeping his leg over the ground in an attempt to topple Ender over by his ankles—which he clearly is already expecting, judging by his small jump—Tubbo swings and slams his forearm into the back of Ender’s knees. His legs fold instantly and his body falls to the ground, too surprised to even catch himself before he makes impact with the floor and wheezes out a breath. Tubbo immediately presses the taser into Ender’s side and he jolts for a second before lying still. He groans, glaring up at Tubbo’s victorious smile. Tubbo plops down next to him, suddenly remembering why he’d chosen to disarm him rather than simply knock him unconscious.
“The three heads of this department of this company—” he lists their names as he counts them off with his fingers “—are tied up in one of the storage containers on this roof. They’ve been communicating with local crime groups to target low-income or indebted people and threaten them—using them as free labor, basically—to reduce their employee costs. Look into it, you’ll find proof. Also, I’ve evacuated every single other person in the building. I don’t do collateral damage,” he finishes his explanation, rising to his feet again and brushing himself off. He turns to leave before looking over his shoulder and grinning, “the arson and property damage are just to piss them off, though. There’s quite a lot of corruption, they deserve it.” He shrugs. “Bye!” He sets off running toward the back end of the roof, away from the entrance where the chatter of news reporters and the wail of sirens still echo. He yells out behind him, “call me about that date!” before jumping off the edge of the building and landing on an adjacent one with a slightly lower roof, rolling to ease the impact of the landing in a seamless movement before continuing to run, parkouring throughout the city until he finds it safe enough to drop into an alleyway and throw a hoodie over his outfit, replacing his full-face mask with one that simply covers his mouth and nose.
“Was that flirting?”
“Gah!” Tubbo jumps at the sudden voice in his ear and blushes profusely upon realizing it’s Tommy with the earpiece again. “How long were you listening in?” He snaps.
Tommy cackles. “Well, I originally wanted to ask if we’d run out of milk, but then I couldn’t miss the ‘oh, my beloved, you’re so handsome, wanna go out with me?'” He mocks in a high-pitched voice before dissolving into giggles.
“Shut up, Tommy!” Tubbo whines, catching a few confused glances from a few fellow pedestrians as he heads toward his and Tommy’s flat. “It’s called tactical flirting, and it worked very well, thank you very much!”
“You tell yourself that, buddy.”
“The hell’s that supposed to mean?”
“I can’t believe you have a crush on a hero.”
Tubbo scowls at that. “It doesn't mean anything. At first it was just fun to mess with him, and now I know that I can actually use it as a tactic! You were there, listening in! We’re pretty evenly matched fighters, and that gave me an advantage! I beat him in hand to hand combat!”
Tommy snorts. “I am proud of you for that,” he concedes, “but ‘tactical flirting?’ Sure, big man.”
Tubbo only groans in response.
Tubbo sets the temperature of the scalding water hot enough to rub his skin red and raw, for steam to blanket the bathroom and rise in curls toward the ceiling like mist. He laments having to shower quickly to conserve water. In the few minutes it takes to rub the dirt and grime off of himself, the glass of the shower door has already completely fogged over. When he emerges from the shower, the air is still muggy with steam.
After dressing, he steps out into the one-room flat and walks up behind Tommy, who’s sitting at the dining table on his computer. He rests his arm on the back of the chair and leans over him to get a closer look at it. He’s watching the news.
Displayed on the screen are videos that crosscut between footage of the burning building, now simply a skeletal husk of its original framework, and a firsthand video from a camera set up on Ender’s person—as per protocol of all heroes—recording the fight between him and Tubbo. He notes, with a smirk, that his flirty banter has been cut from the footage. Later, a reporter recounts the situation, using words such as “villain” and “domestic terrorism” that would’ve made him seethe with rage years ago. By now, his attitude towards his reputation is just resigned.
Tommy, however, is ranting angrily at the computer with waving hand gestures and many bobbing head movements. Tubbo finds the mannerisms endearing. “How dare they! They completely ignored the fact that those guys were corrupt, were exploiting workers, and there were no casualties, none, you’ve done more for the community than any of the heroes combined and you’re better at it too; a vigilante at best, but still considered a villain, I can’t believe—”
Tubbo rests a reassuring hand on his shoulder and he stops immediately. “It’s fine,” he says tiredly. “I mean, did we really expect anything else?” He decides to lighten the mood by adding, “after all, I’m Buzzkill.”
Tommy snorts, laughing softly, but his smile is sad. “Guess that’s what we get for letting heroes handle media coverage.”
Tubbo frowns at that. He’d really expected Ender to relay the information he’d told him and hopefully accomplish what Tubbo hadn’t been able to before he showed up. Guess that had been naivety again. You really should know not to trust heroes by now, dumbass.
Tommy's hand on his jolts him back to reality. “I’m sorry for saying you had a crush on him before. I know he’s a hero, and all that.” Tubbo knows the implications behind this. I know you hate heroes.
Tubbo smiles softly and pulls Tommy into a hug, which he readily reciprocates. “I know, I know,” he says. Tommy knows the implications behind this. Of course I forgive you.
The two, through their years together, have learned to navigate each other’s mutual awkwardness with vulnerability through these hidden messages.
“You’re making dinner tonight.”
Tubbo scoffs in mock offense. “Am not! You spied on me today!”
“That’s my job! You hung up on me!”
“Oh, please. You could’ve re-called at any time. You literally did.”
“You still hung up on me,” he pouts.
The only defense that crosses Tubbo’s brain is a string of curse words, so he grumbles in response. Tommy grins in victory and turns back to his computer, likely to practice his coding or plan their next mission. Tubbo smiles at his focused expression and turns to gather whatever food they have in their supply and scrape it into a meal.
Later, when he sits at his own laptop scrolling through the news again, shocked to find that the company members he’d exposed had actually been incarcerated (though the context had been minimal and it was clear that the situation was very hush-hush), if he smiles softly and thinks of Ender, he’ll never admit it.