Chapter Text
He was on his bed.
“What the fuck are you doing here,” Tommy hissed, shutting the door to his room. The last thing he needed was for his hero family to find the villain he had been assisting just lounging on his bed.
The villain grinned. His whole appearance was disheveled and almost crazy. Blood dripped down from a cut across his nose. Tommy grimaced as he spotted other blood stains on his gray comforter. The villain didn’t pay any mind, sitting criss-cross applesauce on his sheets with his dirty trench coat–that probably needed a wash with bleach in Tommy’s opinion–thrown over Tommy’s pillows. The fucker was nice enough to drop his shoes by the open window.
“What? I can’t visit a friend of mine?” his voice was smooth and clear like vodka but easily intoxicating.
Tommy shuffled over to his closet, putting his own coat on the very obvious coat hook on his door. As he did this, he whispered to the man, “We are not friends. I don’t even know your name.”
“I beg to differ,” the man stretched and put his hands behind his head before leaning back against the boy’s headboard. “I know everything about you, Tommy.”
It’s been six days. Tommy kept his window unlocked now anyways. How was he supposed to explain to his parents that the lock on his window was broken on the outside and not have them freak out? Exactly. So, he just kept the window unlocked.
Regardless, Tommy felt guilty about his actions. How was he not supposed to? He was conspiring with one of the biggest supervillains in the city, possibly even the country. The man was a maniac with a certain love for yellow. Tommy was quick to notice that his yellow sweater was gone after he came home with mud on his window seal. The next day, Soot was featuring Tommy’s sweater as he stood on a burning pier.
Tommy was just trying to function. Go to school, do math problems, sleep through history, ignore the bullies, ride the public transport home, do his homework, and wait for a phone call. The phone number always had the same area code, but the numbers changed several times. Burner phones, obviously. If he got a call, he’d ask and see when his parents would be coming home before he dressed and left through his own window.
One day, when riding the public bus back to his stop, the bus came to a sudden stop as the bus had turned down a street and right into a fight. People looked up from where they were glued to their phones and looked over and out the windshield. There, past the rock, was Soot. He stood on top of a large car pile up. The person fighting him? Fluke.
Tommy grit his teeth. Soot had promised to keep him out of the large battles, but here he was blocking his street. People started to panic and rushed out of the bus. They ran the other direction, but Tommy stayed. He wanted to hear what was happening to Soot and what Fluke had to say.
The teen snuck closer. He knelt down behind another flipped car that was thankfully not on fire. Granted, fire was still around him, but at least not near the leaking gasoline. Either way, it was the closest Tommy would get to the two without possibly alerting either of them that he was here. Besides, Tommy needed all the info on Soot as he could possibly find. With the tracker and wire in his phone, plus his home, Soot would know if he was working against him. Paranoid fucker, but smart.
“This is the start of the beginning of a wonderful era, Fluke!” Soot’s voice carried out into the abandoned clearing. The man didn’t even have his eyes on Fluke, though Fluke never moved. Soot swung around and took in the destruction beyond him. “You remember, don’t you?”
Remember? What?
“Of course I do, Soot,” the name is thrown out like a slur. “I refuse to let it happen again. Get down from your perch, you bird.”
Soot’s head cocked to the side, seemingly taking the insult and running with it. Tommy was surprised to hear Soot confirm, “I am merely a harmless pigeon in this City of Angels.”
City of Angels. A stupid descriptor of Pogtopia, not the Dugs. Pogtopia was ruled by the Angels, not that anyone knew who they were.
“Flightless,” Fluke hissed. That caused Soot to stiffen and piqued Tommy’s interest. “A flightless bird with no position in this world. Soot, just give in and let us take you back to the Nest.”
The man’s eyes widened. The pupils might have once been a beautiful color, but now they were only white with madness. It was probably one of the most unnerving things about the villain. His eyes stayed in their unnaturally widened form, “Fluke, oh Fluke. May I request something before we go home?”
Fluke seemed to relax a bit, though the man was confused, “Wha-what? What do you want, Soot?”
“Can you say hello to Fundy for me, Quackity?”
The man didn’t have time to respond as shadows solidified and dug themselves into the hero’s body. Tommy quickly turned, but could not get the image off the hero’s terror out of his head. His hands slapped over his mouth, eyes wide as bile threatened to fill his mouth. A liquid horror and a reaction to his new ‘friend’s brash actions.
The news displayed the hero’s name with a silent vigil on all news stations. Most TV stations didn’t play anything other than the hero’s smiling face and poker chip eyes. Tommy didn’t stick around to watch his parents set up another photo on their altar before they went to patrol.
Tommy tried not to react as Soot’s voice rang out in his ears.
“My symphony will be finished, whether the final chord is short or long.”
He didn’t answer the phone call that day.
The second week, Soot forced him out into the public eye. The man had height on Tommy. If Tommy were to look past the fact that he was labeled as a villain, the photo would have been brotherly. Soot even texted him the article with a winky face and the message: lil bro.
The photo itself was Tommy dressed in a similar way to Soot, minus the trench coat and instead leather jacket that Soot gifted him. Bulletproof lining apparently. His face was covered with a gasmask, whereas Soot’s was completely open with a gleeful smile on his lips. Again, it would have been brotherly if it weren’t for the blood on Soot’s glove as he squeezed Tommy’s shoulder.
Tommy hoped his eyes had shown the fear he felt. However, the radio informed him that the hero agency was placing a bounty on his head.
Tommy threw up.
School was constant. Soot would ramble about how important it was for Tommy to learn what he could. School was free, college was not.
‘Get what you can because once you’re officially public, there’s no life for you,’
the madman giggled in his ear. It didn’t stop Soot from constantly texting him throughout the day. Though, now he finally had a name on the contact. Wilbur Soot.
The texts were all one after another, never all in one text. The man sent messages well before his thought was finished as if to lead him on like a mouse and cheese. It was infuriating. Tommy didn’t know how to turn off his vibrations on his phone. Either way, whenever the man felt he was being ignored, he’d pick up another burner phone to harass Tommy with.
Tommy couldn’t escape him. Of course, he knew that his phone and his house were wired, but Tommy also wouldn’t dare mess with the little recorder in the pocket of his unused coat. It was a form of trust that Soot gave him, even if in hindsight it screamed a possessive and controlling man. If it appeased the man, Tommy would leave it alone.
He also knew that Soot liked being in control of the reigns. He knew that Soot enjoyed the blood that split from his fangs. He knew that Soot liked knowing. So, Tommy continued to message and answer the villain’s calls. He had dived right into the cold waters of this world, and there was no going back. No bleach could peel the stains from his hands or clothes, even if it wasn’t him officially doing the deed. It stained his mind.
The deranged man wasn’t horrible either. His acts and deeds weren’t at all right, but the man had an ambiance about him that had Tommy kneeling down and submitting. Other times, the boy would be laughing alongside the man as they ate ice cream on old abandoned rooftops. It was like whiplash. Days with crime filled nights only to be dropped off at his window with a ruffle of his hair and a wad of benjamins.
It shouldn’t have been so easy to get attached to such a demon.
“Wil,” Tommy whined as the two sat on the roof tops. It was normal for them to start off by meeting at one of the thirteen roofs amongst the city. This one was a dingy apartment building that was definitely not up to code, “What’s on the grocery list today?”
“No grocery lists today. We have a darker job to do,” Soot smiled down at Tommy from where he was perched on top of a crate of some sort. “It’s time for my protege to be introduced to the world of this madness?”
Tommy’s stomach dropped, but he didn’t dare let it show. Instead, he plastered a smile onto his face and looked up at his mentor, “What’s the plan for the madness, big man?”
Soot looked away and back to where the full moon shone down on the two of them. It was crazy to think that it had been a month and a half that Tommy had first met the villain. Tommy followed his gaze as he swung his legs off the side of the building. So far, they had been doing what would be considered petty crimes together, petty when speaking of Soot’s bigger crimes that he did when Tommy wasn’t present.
Soot spoke with an ease as if this was nothing more than another robbery, “We need to blow this building up.”
“What!?” Tommy’s head turned back to lock eyes with the madman. “Why do we ‘need’ to blow up this apartment? There are people inside!”
Soot laughed, “As if you haven’t held a loaded gun to a cashier’s head.”
“I wasn’t planning to shoot the cashier, dumbass!” Tommy gripped the edge of the concrete a bit tighter. “I’m not going to kill innocents, Wilbur.”
Soot jumped off the crates, stuffing his hands into his trenchcoat’s pockets. Tommy froze as the villain leaned over his shoulder, hot breath fanning his neck like a vampire would before they bit into their meals. But, Soot’s hand pressed against his back right in between his shoulders. A threat. Soot’s other hand gripped the upper part of his left arm, and honestly, that would have been comforting if it weren’t for the intent behind the man’s placement.
“Think about it like this,” the villain started. “These people are living so low below the poverty line that they live in a garbage apartment provided by the government. This is merely liberating their poor souls so that they can rot in hell.”
Tommy’s breath hitched as Soot’s voice turned from a sultry sweet to a deep threatening. There was no other option than to agree with the madman, or else become a Tommy splat on the ground. So, he breathed out, nodding, “Alright, but how do we blow this place?”
“I thought ahead,” Soot stood back up, his hands leaving Tommy feeling colder than he should in the warm spring air. It was close to summer. Soot turned from the edge of the building, not looking back to see if Tommy was following, but rather expecting the young teen to follow. “I already lined the elevator hatch to explode. I also have a couple hundred sticks of dynamite in the second floor apartment of a deadman.”
Soot turned around, the coat flaring out behind him. White eyes stared at Tommy against the full moon. He reached into his pocket, pulling out a wireless detonator with a lovely large button and a switch that set it from unarmed to armed. The sadistic bastard already had the switch turned to armed.
“I’m tasking you to detonate the explosives, Toms,” Soot extended the detonator to Tommy with a charming smile. The name, though used times before, had never been used in the field. However, it seemed tonight, Tommy was going a bit more than just public.
The boy gripped the detonator, finger automatically flicking the switch from armed to unarmed. He slipped it into his coat without complaint. Though, his fingers hovered over the button in his own pocket. Tommy had a lump in his throat that clogged him from being able to verbally agree. As if not verbally agreeing would ever help in his case if he went to prison. What he had been doing this entire time was more than enough charges to leave him in prison to rot for the rest of his life time.
Soot clapped him on his back, leading him away from the edge of the building and towards the stairs. They wouldn’t be going down the elevator, but Soot went ahead and hit the emergency stop in both elevators. ‘ To give the fire department a warning ,’ Soot had laughed quietly in his ear.
They left the building, Soot’s arm over his shoulders as if they were two brothers on a stroll. Tommy switched the detonator from unarmed to armed in his pocket, waiting for Soot to give him the command.
Soot smiled, a broad grin curling up into one that people could possibly look past the sadistic eyes. He leaned down, warmth radiating from the man as he leaned closer, “Now.”
Tommy swallowed, thumb pressing down on the button. A second later, the building behind them was ricocheted with explosions so loud that they burst the glass of buildings blocks away. Soot turned around, the orange glow lighting his smile with a dangerous tint. The villain laughed, hands grabbing Tommy to make him look at the building, “Look at what you did! Look at the destruction you caused!”
Tommy only grit his teeth underneath a tight lipped grin.
It’s been a month since Tommy blew up the apartment on the corner of 16th and 4th Avenue. The guilt crept deep in his bones, settling in the lining of his stomach like alcohol. The worst of it was the way he felt. The way happiness pooled in his gut as Wilbur pulled him down a side street, rambling with pride. The way Wilbur brushed an ashy hand through his blonde curls. Hell, Tommy didn’t even mind that there was soot on his hairline. He didn’t care about the marker of his nightly activities.
He was happy with what he had done, and that sickened him.
The two had even gone back after the firefighters and news reporters had left the scene to tag the crater with a modified tag. It looked a lot like Wilbur’s–which was merely the old flag of L’Manburg, usually in some state of disrepair–though, his was one he hand stitched with his own alias into the flag’s border. It was also his naming, Reverent.
Seeing the news the next day had been the worst. He didn’t feel the stabbing guilt till then. The news anchors spoke of his name with malice, going as far to call it hypocritical. His father had punched a hole through the plaster of their apartment wall. The action had caused him to flinch hard, worried for the day a hero would respond to his and Wilbur’s crimes. The hole was covered with a picture of orchids and hydrangeas by the time Tommy had returned home. Tommy had just sat on his couch as the TV droned on about the attack. Each news station had the same story, every day, every hour.
“ Soot’s accomplice, Reverent, has now been marked as a high level, class A threat. The People’s Protection Agency has also increased his bounty as well as issuing a dead or alive order. The PPA has also issued a curfew for all non essential workers between the hours of 9 PM and 5 AM. If you have any information about Soot and Reverent, please contact your local PPA or call the toll free number… ”
His mother made him promise not to break the curfew, but Tommy knew that wasn’t possible. He hurried to finish his breakfast, booking it to his room just as his stomach grumbled with discomfort. This time though, he didn’t throw up.
Wilbur had texted him only an hour later, congratulating him again on making it to the big leagues. Tommy responded with a smiley face.
Tommy hummed as he sat in his class. It was three weeks before finals. Spring break had come and gone, and so had his own birthday. Him and Wilbur had celebrated with a bit of slight arson by lighting the river on fire. Some boats had been torched, but it was surprisingly easy to line the river with a layer of gasoline. It had been a beautiful array of flames.
Though, while sitting on the warehouse roof near the river, Tommy turned to Wilbur, “I’m going to prison aren’t I?”
Wilbur hadn’t even looked over at him, “Only if you get caught.”
“How do you always escape? Even after working with you for these past few months, I never understand,” Tommy fiddled with his thumbs, running over his pocket lining where his communicator sat.
The villain beside Tommy hummed, swinging his legs as they sat, “Toms, getting away isn’t the issue when it comes to these disasters. It’s always going to be easy, whether it is in the middle of the day or in the dead of night. They call this place a concrete jungle for a reason.”
“That doesn’t answer my question though. Heroes chase us down, but somehow we always get away.”
“That’s the thing with heroes, though. They aren’t focused on us fully. The People’s Protection Agency values the protection of citizens first. The heroes are obligated to save any civilian they see in the line of danger.”
“I’m just afraid for when I move on to become my own Villain. I know I will mess up and end up in Pandora”
Wilbur huffed, running his hand through Tommy’s golden locks. He didn’t care that it knocked down the hood of Tommy’s jacket, “The PPA is flawed in its policies. You have to learn to abuse them. I always make sure I take routes that lead somewhere very public. That requires the Hero to pause and announce that I am in the crowd. It causes panic making it easier to get away. Either way, if you get into some trouble, I’ll make sure you get out, even if I have to break into Pandora.”
Tommy didn’t like the way the statement made his chest fill with warmth or the way it made his shoulders sag with relief. He didn’t voice it, only turning back to his birthday surprise. But, he continued to think. Wilbur was promising something Tommy never expected the narcissistic villain to ever do. It was a pledge almost. He promised, and Tommy could tell it was genuine. There was no mistaking the tone of Wilbur’s voice after all this time of them spending every day together.
“Thanks, Wil. That is so much of a relief,” he eventually said, getting another head rub in the process.
It was May 26th when things went wrong. That day, Reverent met his first hero. Soot was on the other side of the city, stuck between the wiring of their next project. Their intel had been false and now Archangel stood in front of him, golden wings tucked behind him. Everyone knew the costume of the hero. Everyone knew the Archangel’s powers as well. It was similar to Fluke’s, though Fluke’s was a manipulation of luck that required an action. Archangel’s was different.
Archangel was a walking disciple of Nike. Wherever Archangel was, his brother, the Founder, wasn’t far behind. The duo were powerful. Archangel had a high success rate which went up when his brother, a disciple of Poseidon, was present. There was only one thing Tommy could do.
The thing is about the disciples, their magic was limited. It wasn’t known exactly what their limits were, but Tommy just needed to wear them down enough for Wilbur to respond to his distress signal. Push comes to shove, he’ll attempt Wilbur’s tactic.
“Reverent,” Founder spoke, no joyous tone in his voice that Tommy remembered from banquets he attended with his parents, “we advise you to stand down and come peacefully. You stand no match against my brother and I.”
“I must refuse your dinner date, men,” Tommy rolled back and forth on his feet. “Apologies, but I can possibly contact your secretaries to schedule another time?”
If Tommy could see Archangel’s expression, he would have seen an eyeroll. But, the man’s face was hidden behind the porcelain. Tommy would have to tear the plate off the man’s body in order to see the hero’s face. However, that was not his gain here. Archangel rolled his shoulders, “Well, I guess we take you in forcibly then.
As Founder reached for him, Tommy stepped back, scoffing and responding in his best offended voice, “Hey now. Don’t put your hands on me. That’s assault.”
“Was it assault when you pistol whipped a cashier or when you blew up a building full of people?” Founder responded, pulling his large battle hammer off of his back. The man demigod didn’t wait for Tommy’s response, instead raising his hammer to swing.
“Well,” Tommy jumped back as the hammer swung at him, “that was a different case.”
Tommy didn’t care to listen to the rest of the conversation, keeping his eye out for Archangel. The winged man was sly and cunning. Tommy had spent hours watching fights and being schooled by Wilbur when he predicted the wrong move. The two constantly dedicated certain days specifically to training which left Tommy returning home sore and tired. It paid off, as Tommy continued to dodge Founder’s powerful attacks whilst predicting and maneuvering through Dream’s arms.
Of course, though, Tommy wasn’t as skilled as a hero. He was still a teenager in high school. He should have been worrying about his chemistry test coming up, but instead, here he was getting a right hook into his cheek bone. The punch had him stumbling back from the pure strength behind it. Pain bloomed from behind his mask, the cotton fabric aggravating the raw skin. The pressure was too much, but Tommy couldn’t reveal his identity yet. Not until he was out of high school, Wilbur had said.
Distractions were one of the first things Wilbur had taught him about. Distractions were the way you lost a battle. It was how you found yourself at the sharp point of a blade and later in silver handcuffs. Tommy knew these things, but he still found himself distracted from the flame in his cheek and blood in his mask. He didn’t see the hammer until the blunt weapon knocked right into his lower back, possibly throwing his back into an early retirement.
Tommy gasped in pain, collapsing to the ground. The first thing that crossed his mind as the cold comfort of the concrete ate into his bones was how disappointed he was at the fact he went down so easily. Second thought was how was he supposed to get out of this.
“Reverent, unmask yourself,” Archangel spoke clearly, not even winded from the brief exchange. It had left Tommy struggling to suck in air though.
The teen only groaned out a ‘no.’
“You leave us no choice but to unmask you ourselves. Founder?” Archangel turned to address his sibling. The other man kneeled down, using his hammer as a crutch as he reached for Tommy’s mask.
A third choice popped up in Tommy’s mind, a choice he had forgotten about. The reason he had even been put into this situation. It was an excuse. It was his mission. And, at this moment, it was his saving grace. Tommy groaned out, “Wait, please.”
Founder paused, looking back at Archangel, then focusing back on Tommy. The teen’s vision was blurry, but that was mainly because of the pain. He couldn’t make out many details, but he could see motions. The demigod pulled back his hand slightly, “State your intentions, Reverent.”
Tommy chewed on his lip. His mission was a secret, however, this wasn’t just an act of self preservation. Unmasking him and taking him in would ruin Tommy’s entire operation. So, Tommy sucked in a breath and revealed the secret he kept so close to himself, “I am an undercover hero, Noxilite, tasked with taking in supervillain Soot. Identification, C4436.”
Soot found him in an alley. The teen was hidden behind a dumpster with a nose full of blood and snot. As soon as he saw the man, he let out a sob that caused his lower back to erupt into a well of pain. A pained groan came soon after. Tommy didn’t dare move from his position, but he relayed the excuse he had over and over in his head.
‘ Founder took a hit to my back. As soon as I got away, I collapsed here and I can’t move. I can’t move Wil’! ’
It worked. The desperation in his voice and the injuries that were too real to be fake–which of course they were real–convinced Wilbur that he had escaped by the skin of his teeth. It wasn’t luck, because if it had been, then how could Archangel let him get away? No, it was the fact that Tommy was smart. Not because the heroes had actually planted him there when he refused to get medical attention from them. There was one thing that was true; Tommy couldn’t move.
Founder was strong. His attacks with his hammer were fierce and deadly. The man could break backs with merely one well aimed hit to the spine. Tommy was sure his was broken, if not, then severely hurt. Wilbur had fumbled with a regeneration potion. The supervillain’s hands were shaky as he fumbled with the cork. They shook even as he held the potion’s bottle to Tommy’s lips.
The man was muttering apologies and promises. It was something Tommy hadn’t seen yet. Sure, the two had been friendly–because they had to be if they were working together–but Tommy had never seen Wilbur like this. Wilbur was controlled and solid. He never gave a shred of uncertainty, only cool confidence. Seeing the man in front of him reaching for him with such softness sent a spark of pain into his spine. Though, it wasn’t for the pain in his back.
“I should have been here,” the man muttered, but he wasn’t aiming the words at Tommy. Instead, the villain muttered them to himself. “I cannot leave you alone like that again. I won’t. I promised.”
‘ Promised? ’ Tommy thought to himself, but perhaps it was because of his barely lucid mind. He possibly wasn’t hearing things correctly. Though, he continued to believe what he had heard. The past tense. Promised. What did that entail? What promise?
But Tommy couldn’t think about it long enough. Wilbur was hooking his arms under his knees and pulling Tommy’s arm over his shoulder. The movement made his back groan in pain, but there was no backboard to keep him flat. Instead, Wilbur muttered more apologies and attempted to keep the movement at a minimum. The villain mentioned something about an underground healer, but Tommy wasn’t too concerned.
Tommy didn’t go home that night.