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“We’ll be back before midnight, but try to have him in bed by nine. We’ll pay you as soon as we get back, alright?”
Tommy nods, hitching the boy he’s babysitting further up on his hip. “Yeah, no problem. He seems like a sweet kid.”
The man, Wilbur, smiles. “He is, yeah. My little champion,” he chuckles fondly, smile firmly in place. “Watch whatever you want on the TV as long as it’s appropriate for him, go ahead and eat whatever you want.. Oh! Also, he refuses to eat anything that’s not frozen fish sticks. Just pop them in the oven for fifteen minutes and you’re good.”
“Got it!” Tommy nods, setting the kid down as he begins to squirm. “You can trust me, Mr. Soot.”
The boy throws himself at his dad, tail wagging back and forth. “Bye-bye, Daddy!”
Wilbur kneels and hugs his son tightly. “Bye, Fundy! Be good for Tommy, okay? Your dad and uncles have to take care of some business.”
Fundy nods seriously then brings his pointer finger and thumb up to his lips, mimicking a zipping motion. Weird, but then again, kids are strange. Tommy ignores it, but then Wilbur smiles and mirrors Fundy.
Okay, there’s definitely something weird about this family.
He hasn’t met the uncles of the boy, but his father is a little bit shady. He’s twitchy and glances at his watch far too often, and keeps shifting closer toward the door the longer they talk.
Tommy bids the man goodbye as he all but sprints out the door, leaving the blond stuck in the giant house with a (possibly) feral child.
(Tommy was the feral child at some point. He would not have wanted to deal with himself.)
True to Wilbur’s word, Fundy begs him to make fish sticks around dinner time. Like the good babysitter he is (and not because he’s scared of this child in any way), he dutifully heats them up in the oven.
Tommy thinks they smell gross. And they look vaguely soggy. Still, Fundy shovels them into his mouth like it’s the last meal he’ll ever have.
After they eat, the child begs him to turn on the TV, specifically the news channel. When Tommy switches to the correct station, he’s not surprised to see shaky helicopter footage of a couple heroes and villains fighting on a rooftop.
Unfortunately, it’s all too common to see big fights in their city. The top villains are known to frequent these areas, and as a result, the top heroes do too. Tommy thinks the villains are cool, but he wishes they would stop fighting near the poorer areas.
The villains, Siren, Blade, and Zephyrus, are stealing something from a giant warehouse, but the top hero, Dream, is attempting to stop them. It’s weird to see Dream fighting alone, as he’s usually joined by 404 or Blaze.
Fundy seems weirdly fascinated with the fight. Tommy asks the kid, “You like heroes, bud?”
The boy scrunches his nose like he smelled something bad. “Ew, no!”
“Oh, do you like the villains?”
“Yes! They’re so cool!!” Fundy exclaims, eyes fixed on the TV.
Tommy chuckles. “Yeah. They are pretty cool.”
A few minutes later, he hears a knock on the front door. It’s only around eight o’clock, so there’s no possible way the family would be back. It’s also too late for it to be a delivery of any kind.
A bad feeling settles in his gut as he looks at the front door, debating what to do. Tommy peers down at Fundy, only to find the boy already staring up at him with a terrified look on his face. The kid’s fox ears are pressed flat against his head, and his fluffy tail is wrapped around Tommy’s leg in search of comfort.
Tommy takes a deep breath. He has to be calm for the kid. “Fundy, has your dad ever given you a hiding place in case of emergency?” The boy nods. Tommy grips his shoulders gently, and turns him to look straight in his eyes. “I need you to go hide there and be quiet. You can’t come out until I call for you or your dad comes back, okay?”
Fundy whimpers, but mumbles a verbal confirmation and scrambles up the stairs to wherever his hiding place is. The knocking on the door picks up again, this time more aggressive. Tommy creeps over and looks through the peephole, but doesn’t see anyone.
The bad feeling suddenly triples.
In the same moment, both of the windows in the living room shatter and two dark figures jump into the house.
Tommy recognizes them as 404 and Blaze. Speak of the devil and he shall appear.
Blaze speaks first. “You know, when we put that tracker on Siren to find his main base, we weren’t expecting to find his kid.”
Now what the hell are they talking about?
Tommy deadpans a shocked, “What.”
“Don’t play dumb with us, brat. We know the Syndicate lives here.”
Okay, that explains why the kid’s family are so shifty. And why Fundy loves villains so much. Hindsight is a bitch, really. He’s just glad Fundy is safe.
The two heroes begin to advance, cornering him against the couch. “Alright, kid, come with us easily and no one gets hurt.”
No fucking way.
Blaze hurls a fireball at him, and Tommy jumps over the couch to avoid getting scorched. The impact of the attack rocks the entire house, but Tommy’s only hope is that Fundy isn’t too scared.
Tommy’s not going to go down without a fight, though. He redirects the growing fire to fly straight at 404, but the man dodges and darts directly in front of him. 404 reaches forward and places his palm on Tommy’s forehead.
Consciousness fades. The last thing he hears is, “You better hope your family can pay our demands.”
-
Wilbur taps his foot anxiously the entire car ride back to their house.
It’s the first time leaving his kid alone with the new babysitter. Their former babysitter, Puffy, recently moved cities, so they were forced to find a new one.
Techno glances at him in annoyance and snaps, “Wil, calm down. The background check on the kid came up clean. Our security system is better than anything in circulation. They’re fine.”
Still, Wilbur can’t shake the anxiety that hangs over his head. They turn onto their street around eleven o’clock, an entire hour before predicted. But as they get closer, it’s obvious something is wrong.
The front door is blown off the hinges, the two windows are shattered, and there are scorch marks decorating the floor and walls.
Wilbur flies out of the car before it even stops, sprinting into the house like a madman. He calls out multiple times for his son, taking the stairs three at a time in his hurry.
Then, from further upstairs, he hears Fundy’s voice yell, “Dad!”
The brunet takes off down the hallway toward the sound. He arrives in Fundy’s room just in time to see the boy emerge from the crawlspace they converted into an emergency bunk when they moved in.
Wilbur sweeps his son into his arms with a desperate cry, comforted by the sound of the boy sobbing into his shoulder. The brunet stands, still cradling Fundy to his chest, and yells, “Found him!”
Wilbur carries Fundy downstairs to where Techno and Phil are waiting. When the boy sees the damage, his tears start to flow again. “They– Dad, they took T-Tommy!”
Techno looks up at that. “Wait, the babysitter didn’t do this?”
Fundy shakes his head frantically. “No! No, Tommy saved me! He told me to go hide in the safety bunk! I- I heard them talking, and the guy said they knew the Synd- Syndi- you guys lived here! And they took Tommy because they thought he was me!”
Phil's eyes go wide. “Shit, so people know our location?”
“How, kid?” Techno asks.
“Um, the guy said he put a.. a tacker-? A tracker! They put a tracker on Dad!”
Wilbur curses, because of course this is his fault. “We need to start clearing out as soon as possible. I could pull some strings and have a new house set up within a couple days.”
Phil and Techno nod, then start to move swiftly around to pack things up. Wilbur sets Fundy down on the ground and starts to put up a temporary patch on the windows and door.
Fundy stomps his foot angrily as soon as Wilbur’s finished. The brunet turns to look at his son, confused, because the boy isn’t one to throw tantrums.
“Aren’t we gonna go save Tommy, Dad?”
Wilbur pauses. He kneels down and gently explains, “Sweetheart, We aren’t heroes. They’ll do a better job than we ever could.”
Fundy stomps again, cheeks red in anger. “No, you don’t understand! The heroes are the ones that took him!”
An hour later, the four are sitting in the car in full villain outfits driving around the outskirts of the city and searching random warehouses. Wilbur hadn’t wanted to bring Fundy along, but with how late at night it was, they couldn’t find an emergency babysitter.
After the third empty warehouse, Fundy begins to get antsy. He keeps his face glued to the window, searching for any sign of the boy that foolishly took his place.
Suddenly, a building in the distance goes up in flames. Phil swears and floors it in that direction, car skidding as it picks up too much speed in too little time.
The warehouse is steadily burning. Dark, billowing smoke pours out of the open windows and doors as the inside glows bright orange. Two of the top heroes, 404 and Blaze, are unconscious on the front lawn.
The three villains get out of the car but leave Fundy in his car seat just in case. Before they can even begin walking toward the inferno, a blurry smudge takes form through the flames of the open door.
The vigilante Phoenix steps out of the flaming warehouse and uses a rope to restrain both of the heroes. Wilbur calls out, “Hey! Phoenix!” as he approaches, Techno and Phil not far behind.
The winged vigilante whips his head up in surprise when his alias is called. Wilbur understands why. Phoenix is a small-time vigilante, usually focused on the smaller things like muggings and assaults, so it’s surprising that the top three villains are coming his way.
“Oh- Siren? Do you need something?” The younger asks, the only thing obscuring his identity being the tinted aviator goggles he wears. He also dons an aviator hat and jacket, and Wilbur admits he has to admire the dedication to the aesthetic.
“Yeah, uh, a kid got kidnapped by some heroes earlier so we were looking for him. Did you happen to see a teenager in the building before you, like, set it on fire?”
Phoenix stares for a long second, mouth hung open in shock. “Y’know, there was a guy in there. I let him use my phone to call a friend to pick him up. He’s long gone, man, sorry.”
“But he’s safe, right?” Wilbur asks.
“Last I saw.”
“Thank you. Have a good night, Phoenix!” Wilbur turns and begins to jog back to the car, but before he gets there, Fundy manages to undo his seatbelt and get out of the car. He runs toward the building, screaming.
“ TOMMY!”
At first, Wilbur thinks Fundy is heading for the fiery wreckage. But in reality, the boy throws himself right into Phoenix’s arms.
“You saved me, Tommy! You’re my hero!”
Phoenix cringes a little. “I don’t really align with the ‘h’ word, but thanks.”
Wilbur stares at the scene uncomprehendingly. Then, “Wait, you’re the babysitter?!”
Tommy smiles. “Well, I didn’t exactly realize I was babysitting Siren’s kid.”
Techno, somewhere off to the side, muffles a snort into his hand.
Fundy turns to Wilbur and asks, “Dad, can we keep him? Please?”
“What? No!”
“Please?”
“..Maybe.”