Chapter Text
"Oh please,", Tommy scoffed, "Like you actually give a shit about the city. All you fucking care about is yourself; the only thing this city is worth to you is the fucking power you get from terrorizing it."
The villain tilted his head at him, folding his arms. "Really? Is that what you think?"
"One-hundred fucking percent. You've hurt me, you've hurt people I care about, you've hurt people who've done nothing to you because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"And you think you can do anything about that? Really?", Wither folded his arms, clearly smug.
Tommy smiled under his mask. "You're absolutely fucking right I can,", the vigilante cracked his whip against the rooftop, "Might not be much, but getting rid of even one of you fuckers has got to be a net positive."
"Hmph. Maybe I'll let you leave here alive if you manage to get a hit in."
The villain rushed toward him, power active as a black glow radiated from his gloves. Tommy quickly dodged the attack, trying to latch his whip around Wither's wrist.
The man grabbed the weapon before it could wrap around, pulling Tommy toward him. The vigilante rolled under Wither's arm, extending the staff from the end of his whip handle and getting the man's ankles.
He stumbled, but remained on his feet as he tried to stomp on Tommy before he could get up again.
"Fuck off!", Tommy rolled a few more times before having enough space to get up again, retracting the staff again and going back in with the whip.
The sound of it cracking echoed throughout the city, filling the silence left by the rain that had stopped less than an hour before.
"What are you trying to prove here?", the villain asked, easily keeping up with him, "Do you seriously think you're strong enough to take me down? Take down any of the villains in this city?"
"Yeah, I do. I think I'm fucking stronger than all of you combined,", Tommy successfully got his whip around Wither's wrist.
The villain scoffed, pulling him closer again and actually managing to lay a hand on him this time; exactly what Tommy was hoping for. Prolonged contact would have been ideal, but getting hit with the power worked just as well.
He knew it was going to hurt like a motherfucker, but the only way he was going to make any headway was to beat him at his own game.
The vigilante bit the inside of his cheek as he felt his arm start to burn, thanking whatever god might be out there that it was his left one and not the right. Even if his powers kicked in fast enough the appendage stayed on him in one piece, there was no way in hell he would have been able to keep up with Wither using his non-dominant hand.
Tommy moved away so he had a second for everything to fully set, waiting for Wither to go at him again before testing out his new temporary ability. He stopped Wither's fist with his own, a red version of the man's decay powers being used to keep the hit from connecting.
The villain's eyes visibly widened behind his mask, and he shoved Tommy to the side as he tried to process what happened.
Taking advantage of the confusion, Tommy tackled him to the ground. They rolled around, fight devolving into an exchange of fists on the rooftop as they punched eachother. Tommy got Wither in the ribs, Wither kneed him in the liver, Tommy headbutted the villain in the throat, Wither decked him in the face.
Every hit felt five times worse than a normal one would have, and Tommy could only hope Wither was hurting just as bad.
The fight was eventually put to a stop by another villain showing up and kicking Tommy off of Wither.
"Fucks sake,", Raven sighed as he landed, "Fucking pests don't know when to quit."
Wither actually went to cower behind his accomplice, looking like he was shaking. "Ph- Da- Raven, he- Crimson used my power,", Wither actually sounded scared, which Tommy would have found rewarding if he couldn't feel the absolute confusion and ire radiating off of Raven.
The winged villain got out a gun, and Tommy was immediately on his feet again.
"You're not going fucking anywhere,", Raven shot him in the leg, "You don't hurt someone in my flock and fucking leave, especially not if you've got a power like that."
The bullet was thankfully only struck the edge of his thigh, but Tommy was practically shitting himself seeing how pissed the villain was. "Yeah, no, actually I've got some shit to do-"
He was shot at again, not even taking time to finish whatever quip he might have made before bailing.
Prior experience with Raven gave him enough insight to get to the ground; using abandoned buildings nearby to go between running and hiding until the villain lost interest.
Which ended up happening way sooner than usual, since Raven had apparently decided to leave him alone in less than fifteen minutes. Tommy still made sure he was in the clear as he got further away, finally stopping when his leg gave out and his chest felt ready to implode as it came into contact with the ground.
"Fuck- Shit-", he panted, propping himself up against the wall and removing his mask to get more air.
He felt like he was underwater, struggling to keep awake while he fumbled to get his phone out. He couldn't feel his hands when he opened his contacts, barely thinking about it as he called his brother.
"Tommy, this better be important. You know you're only meant to call me while I'm working if there's an emergency, and there's some shit going on-"
"Wil- I-", Tommy coughed up a mouthful of blood as he felt something else shift in his chest, "I fucked up. I- I need help."
His brother was quiet for what felt like far too long of a moment, and Tommy was worried he'd hung up.
"Please. I know you- you're fucking busy, but I'm-"
"Where are you, are you hurt?"
"I don't- I'm- I think I'm by Fredrick?", Tommy didn't know where he'd run to, and the fact that everything was blurry wasn't helping him figure it out.
"Tommy, I can't- You need to stay on the phone, ok? I can figure out where you are from that,", it sounded like Wilbur had connected some headphones or something, "Are you in danger right now?"
"I- I might be? I'm... I think I got away. I- Fuck, I'm so fucking sorry, I'm probably putting you in danger, but I didn't know what to do, and I-"
"Hey, calm down, it's alright. Whatever happened, I can assure you I'm a much larger threat than whoever hurt you. And I promise that they won't be around to do anything to you again."
Tommy let out a humorless chuckle, taking a deep breath and ignoring the fact that the puddle he was sitting in probably wasn't water. "I fucking doubt that."
"Doubt it, then; just keep talking with me if you think it's safe for you to do so. You're in an alleyway, right?"
"Y-yeah."
"I want you to call out when you can hear me, ok?"
"I don't know if I can."
It felt like his lungs were being stabbed when he breathed, talking any louder felt impossible.
"Try, it'll make it easier for me to find you."
Someone landed off of the rooftops nearby, and Tommy curled up the best he could behind some trash bins.
"Tommy?"
He could hear his brother somewhere nearby, and he debated whether it would be safe for him to answer.
"If you can hear me, tell me where you are."
"Over here!", he felt like he had to respond, coughing out some more blood as he tried to ignore just how much that had hurt.
Someone ran closer to him. "Where are you?"
"B-Behind the bins."
He heard Wilbur walk up to him, the man pausing when he found him. "Tommy, you- You're Crimson?"
Tommy didn't answer, hoping he was either already dead at this point or on the way out so he didn't have to explain this to his brother.
Wilbur squatted down in front of him, shaking his shoulders to get his attention. "Tommy, are you Crimson?"
"Yes, I am,", he bit back the pain that came from the action, keeping his eyes closed hoping it would make everything stop spinning.
"This whole fucking time...?"
"Well it's not like I can afford a fucking body doub-", more blood came out, "Body double."
"Fuck, ok, we- We can figure this all out when you aren't fucking dying on the ground."
Wilbur moved to pick him up, and he didn't fight back as he was carefully held against the man's chest.
Tommy could hear him talking, presumably calling someone else as he ran somewhere. Everything felt muted at this point, and Tommy found it far easier to sleep and hope he was fine later than it was to try staying awake and deal with everything now.
~-~
Tommy woke up slowly at some point later, immediately getting hit with just how much pain he was in.
He clearly hadn't been brought to a hospital, not that he expected to be given the situation, but the fact that he still wasn't able to feel his hands was a pretty clear sign he hadn't seen anyone with healing powers.
Next thing was that there was something around his wrist; a handcuff holding him to a metal bed frame. That made him tense, forcing the vigilante to wake up more and take his surroundings in.
He tried to sit up, struggling with both the massive amounts of pain from his injuries and the awkward angle his wrist was connected to the bed.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you."
Tommy froze, looking across the room to see Wither sitting in a folding chair set up a safe distance away from the bed.
"How much of last night do you remember?", the villain asked, putting down the book he'd been reading.
"I remember kicking your ass,", he carefully angled himself so he was staring directly at Wither, "And I remember getting away, but I guess that didn't fucking matter."
"Nothing else?"
"Aside from bleeding out behind some bins? No. Wish I fucking died, then I wouldn't have to deal with any more of your bullshit."
"You realize what kind of situation you're in, right? That it's probably not a good idea for you to be snarky right now?"
"I know that I'm not getting out of this shit, and I don't plan of giving you any useful information if you try to fucking torture me for it, so I don't see the point in being polite."
Wither scoffed at him. "You could at least be thankful we didn't leave you die."
"Thank you ever so much for leaving a fucking bullet in my leg and letting me wake up to festering rot on my hands beneath my suit,", Tommy hoped his sarcasm was shining through.
"You're- Why would your hands be messed up? I know you got shot, but I didn't do anything to your hands."
He kept his mouth shut, knowing that he'd regret it if he gave the villain too much information on how his powers worked.
Wither probably knew he wasn't going to get it out of him, sighing and getting to his feet. "I'm going to get someone else so we can check your injuries, you better be laying there when I get back."
"Not like I'm fucking going anywhere."
Tommy tried to go somewhere as soon as he was sure Wither was gone.
He wasn't able to move his hands very well, but that didn't matter if he was just going to use the villain's power again to get rid of the handcuffs. If he was lucky, Wither was the last one to touch him long enough for him to leech some power from him, so all he had to do was break down the handcuffs enough that he could bust them off and try sneaking out before he was caught.
A wrench was thrown in that plan immediately, when two bright red wings came shooting out of his back in a bloody spray.
"Fuck!", Tommy wasn't able to stop himself from reacting to how much that had hurt, curling up on his side and continuing to mutter swear words under his breath as he felt blood start dripping down his back.
So Raven was the last one to actually touch him, then.
He could still do something with this, he just needed to focus. Holding his breath to ignore the pain, Tommy sat up again and ripped out a feather from his new set of wings. He used the end of it to pick the lock on the handcuffs, taking an embarassingly long amount of time to get it thanks to how uncooperative his hands were being.
There wasn't any time for him to celebrate once he freed himself, the door opening and Wither returning with the third villain of his group that hadn't been there the night before; Poppet.
Both of them froze when they entered and saw him sitting there with wings, Poppet being the first one to move toward him.
"Holy shit, there's blood on the wall, you're shaking- Fucking-", the villain looked back at Wither, "Why the fuck did you get me instead of Jack?"
"He didn't have the wings when I left earlier! That's my point though, he can copy powers, so we need to be careful-"
Poppet interrupted the other man with a shove before walking closer to Tommy. "For fucks sake, he was coughing up blood last night! You said you would fucking take care of him, and yet you come up to me and tell me he said his hands were fucked up instead of getting him healed."
"He's not dead! He's fine for now, and if something does change, Jack is literally a few rooms over. The point I'm trying to get across here,", Wither stomped over and yanked Poppet back from Tommy, "Is that we don't know how he steals powers, and the absolute last thing we need is for him to get yours."
Poppet pulled his arm away from his teammate. "You can activate the fucking blocker on your helmet for it, I'm going to make sure Tommy is alright."
"This isn't a good idea-"
"Bite me,", he got closer to the vigilante again, squatting down in front of him and grabbing his hands, "Where are you injured?"
"My hands, inside shit, my back is fucked up now,", Tommy answered against his will, making sure he kept the answer as short as possible.
"How do I get your gloves off to check?"
"They're a part of the suit, they don't come off on their own."
"That's a shit design."
"Fuck off, die."
Popped seemed like he was thinking for a moment. "Do you have anything on under your suit?"
"Yes, I'm not a fucking weirdo."
"How does the suit come off?"
Tommy did his best to keep his mouth shut, powers activating as he tried to give himself some kind of resistance. The wings on his back dissapeared, leaving a pile of feathers behind him like the last time he used Raven's powers like that.
"There's a zipper on the shoulder seam,", he coughed as he spoke, his chest hurting as he did his best to stop talking, "It goes left to right behind my neck."
Tommy froze as the villain undid the top of his suit, finding the buttons on his own and carefully peeling it away.
The tanktop he wore underneath was soaked in blood, the back of it and the suit completely torn up by the wings earlier with the edges stuck in the now open wounds that remained.
Poppet stopped removing the sleeves around the middle of his forearms, the skin there getting progressively worse the closer it got to Tommy's hands. It was painfully clear that the reason he couldn't feel them was probably due to a lack of flesh, and he was almost thankful he didn't actually have to look at the extent of it.
"Go get Jack,", Poppet turned his head to look at Wither, "Now."
"He's fi-"
"I'm not asking. I don't give a fuck if you're salty he kicked your ass, don't you dare tell me he's fine."
"It's obviously not that bad if he was able to get out of the handcuffs! I get that you 'know him better', but you don't know Crimson better. He's slippery, and as soon as you give him a chance, he's going to-"
Poppet got in the other villain's face. "Technoblade, if anything happens to him, I can promise you it will end with me being an only child."
It felt like Tommy had been shot all over again when he heard that, a moment being needed for him to actually process what he'd just heard.
Neither of them had caught it, continuing to argue.
"Why are you trying to protect him on this? After all the trouble he's caused for us-"
"You can't expect him to be able to explain himself if he fucking dies now can you?!"
"He's not 'dying', he's injured. There's a pretty big difference between the two!"
"Both of you take your fucking helmets off, right now,", Tommy used Poppet's powers, feeling his throat get torn up as the words came out.
Both villains complied, looking at him with very different expressions.
His oldest brother, Wilbur, was just as concerned as he'd seemed with his face covered; anger in his eyes that was very clearly not directed at Tommy.
Techno on the other hand, looked afraid. His brother was doing his best to keep his face as neutral as it always was, but he wasn't able to hide the fear and uncertainty.
"Tommy, listen,-", Wilbur started, turning toward him again with a hand extended.
"Don't fucking touch me!", he spat at the man, blood coming out with it that time as he watched his brother move back like he'd been burned, "I can't fucking believe you-"
"Calm down-"
"How long have you been doing this shit?"
"Since before Phil adopted you. Please stop doing that, it's clearly hurting you."
Tommy started coughing, moving as far back as he could get with the bed against the wall. "Like you fucking care! The amount of fucking times you fuckers have-", he was interrupted by more blood, "The amount of times you fuckers have beaten the shit out of me-"
"We didn't know it was you! Please-"
"No, shut up! I don't want to hear another thing come out of your fucking mouth. I trusted you, I trusted all of you, and this is where it fucking leads,", Tommy stood, "You're staying in this room, and you're not going to follow me as I leave-"
Techno ran over and grabbed him, holding him from behind in a sort of hug that pinned his arms to his side.
It made him shut up out of sheer pain; open wounds on his back being irritated while the bruises and sores along his arms were brought to the forefront of his mind again. Tommy tried to stay focussed through the searing pain, breathing in an effort to keep himself from passing out from that alone.
"Alright, that's enough,", Wilbur tried to get Techno to let go once Tommy ended up switching active powers again.
"Bruh, he was literally about to leave!"
"Because he's scared! And you fucking man handling his injuries isn't going to help with that."
They glared at eachother for a long moment before Techno dropped Tommy on the ground. He turned to leave the room, picking his helmet up from where he'd dropped it. "Fine. This is your problem now, see if I care."
Techno slammed the door behind himself, and Tommy could hear his boots on the floor as he stomped away.
Wilbur sighed, squatting down in front of him. "Are you alright?"
He didn't answer, scared about what was going to happen next.
"Look, he- Techno's upset about the fact that you're- He's not handling this well. I haven't been there for a bunch of the fights and shit the two of you have had, but I've heard him complain about it enough to know he doesn't think very highly of Crimson."
"... And what do you think of me?", the sentence felt like barbed wire coming out of his mouth, his throat now added to the list of major injuries after using Wilbur's powers.
"Well,", he sat, keeping a knee bent and resting his arm on it, "As far as 'Crimson' goes, I don't know much beyond the fact that you tend to show up at the worst possible times and fuck things up in the most inconvenient way possible. On the 'Tommy' front, I'm confused about why you would want to be a vigilante, but mostly I want to make sure you're alright."
Tommy had no idea if his brother was lying or not, his hear pounding in his chest still as he debated stealing Wilbur's power again and making a break for it.
The man was clearly being more cautious about touching him than before, but he was still in grabbing range; either because he was an idiot, or...
"I've got a bullet in my leg, I think."
"Wait what?"
"Raven shot me last night when I was running away, and it didn't go all the way through."
"Right, fuck- Techno must not have checked for that when he wrapped it. If I go get Jack, do you promise you'll stay here?"
Tommy didn't answer again.
"Tommy, will you stay here if I go get a healer?"
"I don't know! Probably, fucking- Why did you use your powers to ask me that rather than telling me to stay?"
"Because I don't want to force you to stay put if it means stressing you out more than you already are."
"A little fucking late for that!", Tommy got to his feet, immediately falling backwards onto the bed, "I don't know where the fuck I am, I feel like absolute dog shit, I just found out that my fucking family is made up of supervillains; you not forcing me to stay isn't really doing anything for the fucking stress!"
Wilbur stood as well. "Everything will work out, I promise. I'm- Please stay here while I go get Jack. Your hands were already concerning enough, the fact that there may be a bullet stuck in you is even worse. I promise you'll be alright, you know I won't let anything happen to you."
He had that stupid hopeful smile on his face, and Tommy chose to look at the floor instead.
Wilbur wasn't gone long, coming back with the villain Thunder.
The man paused in the doorway, immediately exiting again and slamming the door to yell at Wilbur in the hall. All Tommy really heard was confusion, and Thunder demanding more context.
Wilbur's response was to open the door again and drag the other villain inside; shoving him toward the bed. "You don't need to know everything that fucking happened to heal him, now examine his injuries. And be gentle, because he's in pain."
"I know how to do my fucking job, man,", Thunder got up again, taking his mask off, "I just want to know why the fuck I was told Crimson was in here, but the fucking child is sitting here instead."
Tommy immediately threw a pillow at the man once he could see who he was, regretting the action as his still pulled down suit rubbed against the very open and very serious wounds on his arms.
He kept in a pained sound as he glared at one of the closest friends he'd made through his family after getting adopted. "Holy shit, how many of you fuckers are villains?"
"Damn, something must seriously be wrong if you don't give a fuck I called you a child,", Jack muttered, brow furrowed.
"Die, actually fucking die."
"Tommy, I was literally saying it was him,", Wilbur was confused by his reaction, "Did you not pick up on that?"
"Sorry, I wasn't expecting everyone I know to be a fucking terrorist; figured it was some other ugly fucker named Jack."
Jack took offense to that statement. "Oi, I'm not ugly!"
"You're a criminal, that makes you hideous."
"Air your fucking emotional trauma out later, I'm only here to deal with the physical stuff. Peel the suit off the rest of the way so I can figure out what to tackle first here."
"I'll peel off your skin. With a knife. Bitch."
Tommy made the mistake of getting the gloves off first, the majority of the parts that'd stopped bleeding starting up again thanks to the scabs coming off with the fabric. He nearly blacked out for a moment from the pain, forcing himself to stay alert because of where he was.
"Holy shit- Why the fuck didn't anyone tell me about this shit last night?!", Jack immediately grabbed one of the mismatched chairs from the folding table, dragging it over so he could get a better look, "What the fuck happened?"
"I don't really think that matters-", Wilbur started, Tommy interrupting him.
"I- It's from Wither's powers, that kind of damage. Same as the bruises."
Jack looked like he was thinking. "How the fuck is it only bruises if he used his powers for it? The hands make sense, but why would he hold back with the other shit?"
"It-", he took a deep breath before explaining, "When I copy shit, it protects me from the original power some but makes it fucking worse when I use it. Using Wil's earlier is why it sounds like I ate glass."
"Since when can you fucking copy powers?!"
Wilbur punched Jack in the shoulder. "Worry about that after you fucking heal him; his hands don't have any fucking skin."
Tommy hated the fact that another person knew about his powers now, but he knew from past experience that most people with healing abilities needed to have at least a vague idea about what caused the damage to fix it correctly.
Jack hit the other villain in retaliation. "I need to figure out how much shit is wrong with him, man! There's no fucking way this is going to be one session."
"Internal shit, two holes in back, hands,", Tommy interrupted himself with a cough, "Bullet in leg."
"Holy- How the fuck are you alive let alone conscious?!"
"Fuck you."
"Stop talking, I can hear your fucking vocal chords grating against eachother. I'm going to go get a kit and some water and shit so I can deal with... All of that. Don't fucking move, it'll make things worse."
"Die."
"That's what your dumb ass is going to do if you don't fucking listen to me."
"Jack, go get the shit you need. I'll make sure he doesn't get up and start doing cartwheels or something, alright?", Wilbur cut in, clearly just wanting the other man to deal with the injuries.
"He'd be lucky to stand at all,", Jack muttered as he got up, "Can't fucking believe- Actually, no, I fucking can. That's the worst fucking part of this."
He continued to talk to himself as he left the room, not even closing the door.
Jack was still quietly muttering when he returned with a bucket of water and a bag of various medical supplies, setting up the questionable card table as a work station.
He cleared his throat once he was done, looking at Tommy again. "I already know I'm not going to be able to get you anywhere near healed in one shot, but we need to clean everything up so nothing gets infected during the inbetween when I'm refueling. The fucking bullet you mentioned is my main concern, and that's going to hurt so you might want to get knocked out for this."
"Fuck no, I fucking refused to be unconscious around any of you fuckers now that I know you're-"
Wilbur stood in front of him again, about to do his usual motion of grabbing his hands before quickly pivoting and setting his hands on Tommy's knees. "I promise I'll make sure nothing bad happens to you. If you really want to stay awake while he's doing his shit, I won't stop you, but I seriously doubt you want to experience someone digging into your leg with tweezers to dig out a bullet."
"Wouldn't be the first time,", he balled his hands into fists, ignoring how much it hurt.
"Is it something you want to go through again?"
"... Not particularly."
"Do you want me to knock you out?"
"Depends, is it with a hammer or your powers?"
Wilbur chuckled. "Which would you prefer?"
"Powers, but some head trauma might make this easier to deal with."
"Don't think there's a mallet down here, sorry. You're sure you're alright with me doing this?"
He hesitated for a moment. "Yes, now knock me the fuck out so I don't have to look at you anymore."
"We're going to talk about this shit later, but get some sleep for now."
Tommy fell forward, and Wilbur caught him; careful not to touch any of his injuries. He could vaguely hear Jack saying something else, but he wasn't able to understand what as he was dragged fully out of awareness.