Chapter Text
Cuptoast huffs, muttering under her breath as she ducks behind a half-destroyed wall, crossing her fingers that she hasn’t been spotted. All he can do is brace for impact as he hears the signature sound of Underscore pulling the pin on another explosive, paintbrush held tightly to his chest. From behind her comes dual shouts of surprise, followed by cackling laughter as Underscore vaults over the half-wall to join her, gunpowder and ash coating his fingertips. It can’t see his face from underneath his hair and gas mask, but it doesn’t have to see his features to know the maniacal smile that lies underneath. Milliseconds after he lands beside them, whatever he threw detonates, shaking the warehouse’s foundations as the room is coated in a thick layer of smoke. Cuptoast hopes, for its own sake, that it’s not poisonous this time, because its partner seriously has to start remembering that even though they’ll survive it, that doesn’t mean they won’t be bedridden for weeks trying to shake off its effects.
“Shit, where the hell did they go?” one of the heroes asks—Jericho, from its pitch—as his partner coughs. “Come out and face us, cowards!”
Cuptoast can tell that Underscore is about to throw out some sort of witty retort, so she quickly reaches out, slapping a hand over where she presumes his mouth is. It’s more performative than anything, as he could very much still talk, but it gets the point across. If they talk, the others will be easily able to track their voices—especially taking into account Firefox’s enhanced hearing. It’s a trap, and one they won’t be falling for, thank you very much. Instead, it gestures to their right, where the shrapnel from one of Underscore’s past explosives completely shattered one of the building’s windows. They’re on the second floor, admittedly, but they’ve survived far worse falls before. If they’re able to get over there undetected, they’ll be home free. Underscore, luckily, picks up on their suggestion, nodding curtly before dropping into an army crawl. Careful not to make any unnecessary noise, Cuptoast takes a second to slide his paintbrush into its holster before following suit. From what they can make out, the two heroes don’t sound to be anywhere near them, lost in a far-right corner of the warehouse and only getting fainter. Perfect.
He startles as he bumps into Underscore’s side. She’s about to quietly berate him for stopping out of nowhere, but stops herself at the sight of a familiar pair of brown boots, stationed right besides Underscore, tapping rhythmically against the floor. Uh oh. They would recognize those boots anywhere.
Before them stands the Captain Sparklez, the city’s strongest and most well-renowned hero, looking down at them disappointedly from behind his sunglasses with his hands on his hips. Even in the foggy atmosphere of the room (and even in his short stature), he looks intimidating as all hell, dark, draconic wings framed in the moonlight that streams in from the window behind him. There’s a split second of awkwardness as the three of them just stare at each other, with Underscore chuckling nervously and holding a finger to his lips, as if he actually believes the Captain will just stay silent and let them get away with this.
It’s all for naught, however, as Sparklez only sighs and shakes his head, reaching down and pulling the two of them up by the scruff of their jackets in a matter all too familiar to the two of them. Sparklez flaps his wings once, twice, clearing some of the smoke from the room and getting the attention of his fellow heroes, who rush to their side, and suddenly there are three adults glaring down disappointedly at them. As if Sparklez by himself wasn’t enough.
“Aw, c’mon now, we were just getting to the good part!” Tubbo whines, ripping off his mask to reveal a childish pout. Crumb joins him, despite its face still being covered by its box, crossing its arms as it’s set back onto the ground. Their dad gives the two of them a quick once-over, checking for any injuries or otherwise signs of harm. He takes a second to brush Tubbo’s hair out of his eyes, a fix that Tubbo doesn’t bother to undo, only huffing in response. Crumb takes it as the jig officially being up, removing her own box and shifting it under her arm. They had a good run, at least. Jordan quickly inspects them, as well, brushing away a fleck of dried paint from their cheek.
“It’s late and it’s a school night. You two should be in bed.”
“And you should be in a nursing home,” Crumb mutters, earning a snort from Tubbo and another disappointed sigh from their dad. “What? It’s true.”
“We tried to catch them, Jordan, we swear. They’re too goddamn spry for their own good.” Tucker’s still panting from running over, or possibly from the sheer amount of smoke that’s entered his lungs at this point, Crumb can’t be sure.
“You should be in a nursing home, too, if you’re gonna use words like spry.”
“This isn’t like, poison, right?” Sonja asks, working on clearing away the smoke with both her arms and tail. It’s a fair enough question, all things considered, and one Crumb would rather like to know herself.
“No, s’just regular smoke,” Tubbo replies, brushing off excess debris from his pants. “Crumb still gets pissy if I use the poison one.”
“I was sick for two weeks! I had to miss so many tests! Do you realize how much work two weeks is?”
Tubbo sticks out his tongue. “You don’t even like going to school. I was doing you a favour.”
“I still had so much makeup work! I can’t just not do that! And it was all your fault!”
“L.”
“I am literally going to kill you in your sleep. You are literally going to wake up tomorrow and you will be dead and it will be by my hands.”
Tubbo stifles a laugh. “How am I supposed to wake up if I’m dead? That makes no sense, boss man.”
That’s it. Crumb snaps, lunging towards its brother, who shrieks in fear and instantly turns to run behind Tucker. Jordan scruffs her like a kitten by the back of their windbreaker before they can reach either of them, pulling them back with practiced ease. She huffs, but doesn’t try to fight it, crossing her arms petulantly as she allows him to set her back down on the opposite side of Tucker and Tubbo. He’ll just have to get his revenge at a later date, but that’s alright. All he’s doing is giving her more time to plan, which is only like, his third mistake in the grand scheme of things
“Okay, okay, that’s enough,” Jordan interrupts, still holding onto the back of Crumb’s jacket for good measure. “Let’s just go home, it’s already far past your curfews. What were you doing out here at this hour, anyways?”
“Tubbo got the urge to blow something up, but we wanted to check if this place was fully abandoned before doing anything,” Crumb explains, and her brother nods in confirmation. “We didn’t wanna wake you up, though, so we just left.”
When Jordan came home earlier, he had looked exhausted. From what the two could gather, he’d had another run-in with the Pummel Party Crew, and it was clear that the battle wasn’t an easy win. He passed out basically the second he hit the couch, muttering something about the two of them being allowed to get take-out if they so wanted before instantly breaking into snores only dads are capable of. After having to deal with all of that, he’d earned some rest, and they weren’t going to be the ones to take that away from him.
Jordan’s face softens. “Ah, I see. How about this? We can come back here tomorrow, and if you’re still feeling up for it, Tubbo, we can unalive the heck out of this place.” Crumb tries not to cringe. It fails. “With supervision, of course.”
“Of course, of course,” Tubbo echoes, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Of course I’m still feeling up for it! Can Crumb come too? After she gets out of class?”
“I don’t see why not.” Jordan turns to his coworkers, smiling softly. “Thanks for your help finding them, as always.”
Tucker waves him off. “Eh, don’t sweat it. You know we’re always down to help. You two stay safe, alright?”
Crumb and Tubbo look at each other and smile. “No promises.”
The day could not pass any slower for Crumb. School is, as always, a chore, packed with subjects he can’t be bothered to pay attention to when his dad or brother could teach it to him a hundred times faster and easier. Even the two classes it actually looks forward to on a daily basis somewhat crashed and burned. Their art class is working on dynamic posing and atmosphere, so their teacher asked them to bring in photos with those elements. They brought in a photo of Sparklez, mid-battle in a fight against Underscore, having captured Jordan right as he was jumping back from one of Tubbo’s blasts. Her teacher was enamored by it, as was most of the class. One of her classmates asked her where she got it, as they’d never seen it before, and she kind of panicked and said she knows the publisher of Serenity (technically true) and he’d let her use it for class, despite it not being published yet (a lie; she took it herself, having asked the two to stage a battle so she could get a cool shot. The exact next photo in her camera roll is Tubbo giving Jordan bunny ears). So while their reputation in the eyes of their art classmates and teacher has gone up, Cuptoast will definitely be owing Mcchill a favor soon, and that is not a situation they particularly want to be in right now.
Her only other interesting class, culinary, almost literally crashed and burned. They were making pizzas, which while not Crumb’s favorite, it was still something he was looking forward to, as cooking is one of his few true passions outside of art. Everything was fine until the timers started going off and people went to take their pizzas out of the ovens. Some stupid kid Crumb can’t ever remember the name of (Rainbow? It starts with an R, it knows that much) went to reach into the oven with his bare hands, and managed to get as far as grabbing onto the rack before his partners caught him and pulled him away. Their teacher immediately rushed him to the nurse’s office, of course, and she’s pretty sure he ended up being fine (mutant genes will do that for you), but the mood was pretty dampened in the room after that. It wasn’t the first time that kid’s pulled something like that, either, and she knows it won’t be the last. They forgot a whole spatula in a cake once, which ended up leading to everyone having to evacuate the room due to the metal and plastic melting in the oven. It's pretty sure it's seen him put whole eggs into things, shells and all. There is absolutely no way they're passing the class, and that’s probably for the best.
Not the best way to end the school day, but hey, he’s had worse. Their school doesn’t get attacked often, if at all, but she’ll still never forget the time she had to see her dad running through their halls. Him being there wasn’t necessarily the bad part. Nor was it the fact that Sparklez appearing meant that there was a villain in the area. No, it was the way their classmates reacted. If they have to hear one more person talk about how hot their literal father is they're going to ask Tubbo if his next target can be them.
She makes sure to call up Mcchill on her walk home.
“Hey, Mcchill speaking. What’s up?”
“It’s Cuptoast. I need a favor.” Crumb likes Mcchill, it really does. He’s the only reporter she can bear talking to, since he’s the only one that doesn’t try to twist stories or headlines for more clicks. He tells things like they are, with both his blog and radio show being independently run and published. It knows Tubbo likes to listen to them when he’s working on a new project, and it’d be lying if it said it didn’t sometimes tune in while drawing. If she wants to be in the scene, she has to be on top of the news, after all.
“Oh, Cuptoast! I haven’t heard from you in a bit. How’ve you been?” Mcchill is chipper as always, it seems. They don't know how he does it, considering nearly every publication is constantly out for his throat for stealing their traffic.
“M’okay. I kinda said something that can tie back to me, though, so could you publish something for me in return for a favor? Pretty please?” Jordan always taught her and Tubbo that politeness and manners are important in any situation. Tom always taught him and Tubbo that politeness and manners only really matter when it comes to getting your way. Take a wild guess at which one the two listened to more.
“Depends on what you want published,” Mcchill replies over the soft rustling of papers. They can almost see him whipping out his notepad and pen. “A diversion? A cover-up? Do you need some rumors dispelled?" Of course he instantly goes into the worst possibilities. It’s not like she’s Tubbo. It knows how to keep things under wraps when it's in supervillain mode.
“Nothing like that. Just a photo. You don’t even gotta attach an article to it if you don’t want to, the photo by itself is fine.” There’s a silence over the line. Crumb prays that Mcchill won’t press the matter further. As a final bargaining chip, he adds, “It’s of Sparklez and Underscore.”
Mcchill’s response is instantaneous. “Deal . We can figure out payment later. How soon do you need this out?” If she’s lucky, his blog will get enough traffic from it that she won’t owe him anything more than a short interview. Maybe even a quote or two.
“Next publication, if you can. I can send it to you now.”
Mcchill chuckles. “Awesome, thanks. That’ll work perfectly; it should be front-page by tomorrow morning. Pleasure doing business with you as always, kid.”
Crumb hums, hanging up without any further fanfare and instantly emailing him the picture before it forgets. It’s not that they don't trust Mcchill to keep his word. He’s the only source she trusts at this point, actually. The more she talks with him, though, and the more that familiar they get, the higher the chances are that she’ll let something slip that she shouldn’t. Tubbo’s already come far too close to doing that on multiple different occasions, which is the reason as to why Underscore isn’t allowed to be interviewed without Cuptoast anymore. As much as it values Mcchill and his job, it’s far too risky to get comfortable around him. They'd feel more bad about it if their family’s safety wasn’t on the line.
She gets a response a few minutes later.
Pog
- Sent from my iPhone
Crumb grimaces. In her defense, she never claimed the man was a professional.
Jordan takes them back out to the warehouse after dinner, having insisted that they weren’t going to head out until both of them had finished their homework, as per usual. He says villainy is no excuse for missing important educational milestones. Crumb would point out how he dropped out of college to become a superhero nearly full-time, but they’ve tried that before, and it’s never gotten anywhere. He says that if they go to college, that’s a choice that they can make for themselves, but until then, they should at least give their studies an attempt. Do as he says, not as he does, or something like that.
“So, how do you want to do this?”
Tubbo’s already pulling handfuls of wires and different mechanisms from his bag, summoning them faster than Crumb can even process. To any outsider, it’s probably quite an impressive feat, as Tubbo’s bag requires him to have a complete understanding of the mechanics behind whatever he’s summoning for them to work. Crumb, however, has witnessed him use it probably more times than she’s blinked, so the allure is fully lost to her. Not that that doesn’t stop Tubbo from showing off. It doesn’t know how he still doesn’t understand that it could not care any less about science, no matter how cool he tries to make it out to be. She is one rant about spatial mechanics away from strangling him in his sleep.
“Crumb and I went around last night and made notes of all the support structures. It’s kind of shit, honestly, I have absolutely no clue how this place has held up this long. It has to violate at least five different codes.”
Jordan frowns. “Swear jar.”
“Yeah, yeah, add it to my tab.” They all know there is no physical swear jar, at least not anymore. Jordan was a lot stricter with it when the two were younger, but now, it’s nothing but an inside joke. Jordan doesn’t even correct the boy half the time, and Tubbo doesn’t even realize he swore half the time, so there’s not much point in actually keeping one, all things considered. “Crumb, can you start setting these up at the locations I showed you yesterday?”
Crumb nods, accepting the pile of explosives with open arms. She doesn’t pretend to understand how they work, but Tubbo isn’t allowed to hand her live explosives anymore, so she at least knows they won’t blow up on her and destroy their entire scheme. As quickly as possible, they dash to the needed spots (marked with bright-orange ink), all but throwing the bombs in their proper locations before booking it to the next one. Tubbo can deal with all the wiring and technical stuff. She can hear him and Jordan discussing technicalities and all the math behind it, but she couldn’t care less about any of that. He's just here to watch some cool explosions.
It takes about ten minutes in total for Tubbo and Jordan to finish rigging. Crumb sits in the corner the entire time, alternating between watching them work and sketching in his book. She doesn’t even notice when the two walk back over to her, only snapping out of her state when Jordan pats her softly on the head, gesturing for her to get up. It’s showtime. It hurriedly tucks its journal back into its bag, scrambling to its feet and out the front doors. Tubbo gets out before them, because of course he does, sticking his tongue out proudly as they slide to a halt beside him. Crumb doesn’t hesitate to elbow his brother before Jordan can make it out, innocently crossing his arms behind his back the second their dad exits the building. Tubbo glares at her, but she feigns innocence, the two of them knowing very well he can’t retaliate without Jordan calling him out. Another win for Crumb Cuptoast.
After Jordan deems them far enough from the building, he gives Tubbo a nod. The boy nearly trips over himself in reaching into his backpack, pulling out a small detonator from within. Crumb holds back the urge to mock him for the cliche use of a big red button.
“Crumb! Count down for me!”
If he says so. “One hundred, ninety-nine, ninety-eight—”
Tubbo groans, smacking his hand down on the button without further fanfare. “Oh, fuck off!”
“Swear jar!”
The bombs detonate. Crumb has seen dozens, if not a hundred, at this point, of buildings cave into themselves, but it’s something that never gets old. Tubbo whoops and cheers beside it, punching the air with a wild fire in his eyes that would worry Crumb if he were anyone else. Instead, she cheers with him, barely able to hear her own thoughts over the sound of rubble collapsing in on itself. Jordan’s laughing, it thinks, but it can’t quite tell, despite him having pulled the two of them close to his chest when the bombs went off, wings wrapped around them protectively. They can’t tell if the rumbling shaking t heir body is his laughter, or the effects of tons upon tons of concrete falling apart at the seams.
By the time the dust settles, Tubbo’s voice is hoarse from cheering and Jordan’s breathless from laughing, ruffling Tubbo’s hair and praising them for their good work. Crumb smiles so hard her face hurts, eyes only slightly tearing up from all the dust scattered around. The three of them sit there for some time, basking in each other’s presence and the dim moonlight above. It’s only as the wailing of sirens start approaching in the distance that they book it, leaving Jordan to deal with the clean up as they dash back home, promising to pay him back as soon as they can. By tomorrow morning, they’re certain the headlines will be swarming with Cuptoast and Underscore’s recent “attack”, an attack which Captain Sparklez bravely tried to stop to the best of his abilities, only to lose the villains in the chaos that erupted.
Maybe she’ll sell that to Mcchill. He’d love to be the first one to get the behind the scenes of a seemingly witness-less incident. Oh yeah, it’s all coming together.