Archive of Our Own ^beta

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Sapnap is menacing some burglars when the city comes crashing down on him, and the city is nothing but static, static, static.

A scream leads him off his patrol route to an apartment complex. There are two of them, one boosting the other through a window. Idiots are busting into an apartment and didn’t have brains enough to check if the owner was home.

“I’ve got this theory that bad guys are dumber on the graveyard shift,” Sapnap says, and takes pleasure in watching one jump away from the window, leaving the other to dangle. It’s the little things. “Think the dark makes them invisible or something, I don’t know. Y’all are really proving my point.”

“Oh shit,” says the one not dangling from the window.

“Oh shit what?” says the one dangling from the window.

“It’s Wildfire!”

“Oh shit!”

Sapnap wreathes his fists in flame, just in case they want to try anything. “Okay, party’s over. I’m taking you to the nearest precinct, it’s up to you whether you’re rare or well done when you get there—”

And then something—happens.

When Sapnap was thirteen he jumped off the fire escape of their second floor apartment, in part to prove he could land in the scrubby little bush under their window, but mostly because Bad forbade him. It was back when love was still something Sapnap had to test.

He snapped his shin clean in two places. The bone broke like an iceberg through the skin, and he couldn’t cry, because Eryn was already crying and he didn’t want to scare him. Later Eryn would say the crack of bone was loud, like a gunshot. Sapnap wouldn’t know because it didn’t sound that way to him. It was wet, and wrong. Purely internal. Vibrations up his leg and spine all the way to the small bones in his ear.

Even as the two-story swoop of his gut and the lightning-strike of pain mellows and disperses in his memory, that sound stays clear. He can’t describe it. He won’t ever forget it.

Losing his powers feels exactly like that. A pop, or a snap. Internal and soundless. His flames snuff out. The city comes down. Static.

Dating Rewind and Facade was like this.

Wildfire chases Rewind down mainstreets and backstreets and through residential areas and scrubby apartment backyards. Rewind tears left, sprinting down an alley and right into a dead end.

He spins on his heel and tips his shoulders back against the brick wall. “Wow, fancy seeing you here! What are the chances, huh?”

His voice is so casual that Sapnap nearly doubles over to laugh. Instead he barrels forward, plants his hands on either side of Rewind’s head and watches the gust of heat catch up a second later, rippling his clothes and lifting the ends of Rewind’s curls.

“Nowhere to run, Rewind,” he says. His heart is a live coal in his mouth. He feels alive. “You’re mine."

Rewind grins. “Are you flirting with me, Wildfire? Me, a vigilante, and spoken for, at that. How scandalous.”

“I can’t imagine anyone speaking for you,” Sapnap says. Rewind laughs.

“Fair enough! No one could tie me down, anyway. Two, though—might get tied down for them.”

“Kinky.”

Rewind bites down on a laugh, and Sapnap snorts. The simmering tension threatens to bubble up and away into something light and fizzy and effervescent. Sapnap presses a quick kiss to Rewind’s cheek before he clears his throat and lifts his chin, shrugging Wildfire’s signature arrogance back over his shoulders. “Is that an invitation, Rewind?”

“If only,” Rewind says. Behind the goggles his eyes are half-lidded, lashes long and lovely. “But I’m afraid that today I don’t have the time."

Sapnap groans. “Come on, I caught you fair and square—”

Rewind tears left and smack into a dead end—no, he goes right, juking back around and skidding under Sapnap’s jet of flame. Sapnap is already turning down the wrong alley, but he’s not done. He thrusts his hands out and blasts himself backwards, bearing the spike of motion sickness until he cannonballs directly into Rewind’s back. They both go sprawling, end over end until they roll to a bruised and breathless stop, Rewind on his back and Sapnap on his knees above him.

“We have got to stop meeting like this,” Rewind says. His hair is a tousled halo, his breathing only lightly strained. Sapnap is ninety-nine percent sure he’s winking under his goggles, and it’s so stupid and cute he nearly dips down to kiss him. Instead he plants his hands on either side of Rewind’s head.

“Nowhere to run, Rewind,” he says. His heart is pounding in his ears, his stomach rolling with belated vertigo. He’s exhausted. He’s alive. Endorphins and adrenaline and fizzy, stupid love leave him giddy and alert. “You’re mine."

“Mm, I love it when you say that,” Rewind purrs. He loops his arms around Sapnap’s neck and pulls himself flush. “Why don’t we hear it one more time?”

Sapnap starts, and then he laughs, equal parts frustrated and delighted. “Don’t you fucking dare—”

Rewind tears left, avoiding the alley and scrambling on top of a beat up four wheeler instead. He bends at the knees and launches straight up to catch the dangling red iron bars of a fire escape. While Sapnap gapes, he scrambles up the ladder like an elbowy spider, trying the windows of each landing. Sapnap works best in open spaces. If Rewind gets into an apartment, that puts him at a severe disadvantage.

Not fucking likely.

He braces his hands on either side of his body and summons more heat than he probably should. It’ll leave him winded, but Rewind is not getting away.

Twin blasts of heat rocket him ten, fifteen feet into the air—he cannonballs down onto the landing, rattling the whole fire escape. Rewind swears and loses his balance. He stumbles right into Sapnap’s chest, hot but no longer burning. Sapnap closes his arms around Rewind’s waist and swings over the edge of the fire escape, softening the landing with another warm updraft. Rewind looks dazed. Sapnap completely fails not to preen.

“Wow,” Rewind pants. “You’re on the ball today. Not gonna lie, it’s pretty hot.”

“Everything about me is hot.” Sapnap’s tongue flickers between his teeth, the edge blue with flame. “But flattery’s not getting you out of this one, darlin’. Though I do appreciate it.”

Rewind leans into him, palms flat on his chest. “Ooh, breaking out the big guns with the accent, huh? Well, if flattery won’t do the trick, vertigo might.” This close Sapnap can see him bat his eyes. “How’s that nausea treating you, by the way?”

How did he—wait. “Oh, dude. Really? How many times?”

“Three now.” Rewind speaks around a shameless grin. “I’m so genuinely impressed, man, I’m not even joking. I’m tempted to just tell you where the jewels are, you’ve earned it.”

Is that a double entendre? Knowing Rewind, it probably is. Sapnap’s smile turns wry. “But.”

“But, one, those jerks at the jewelers are shady and you know it. And two, if I let you arrest me, I’ll be late for a previous engagement, and given my whole,” he waves his hand up and down, “y’know, deal, that would just be embarrassing.”

Sapnap’s stomach swoops. Maybe some of it’s the time travel, but definitely not all of it. “Hot date, huh?”

Rewind laughs. “You have no idea.”

“I’m getting jealous.”

“If my dance card opens up you’ll be the first to know.” Sapnap is ninety-nine percent sure he’s winking under his goggles. It’s stupidly cute. “Until then I’m gonna have to ask you to scoot, because if you don’t then we’ll have to do this again, and I think you might actually throw up this time. Which would really be a shame, after that stellar performance.”

Sapnap considers him. Confidence broadens his shoulders, tilts his chin up. “Bullshit,” he says, and his arms flex around Rewind’s waist. “I’m calling your bluff. If you could make another jump, you would have done it by now.”

“Maybe I wanted a few more stolen moments with you.”

“Maybe,” Sapnap murmurs, leaning an inch closer. Each breath is felt, warm and sweet. “Or maybe your time’s run out.”

Rewind tips his head back and laughs, loud and unashamed. “Oh no, you’re going along with my time-based banter, how can I resist?”

“You don’t,” Sapnap says. “Nowhere to run, Rewind. You’re mine.”

Rewind’s lashes flutter. He tilts forward, and Sapnap’s lips part, surprise and affection and anticipation lighting him up from the inside out.

Rewind doesn’t kiss him. His head thunks onto Sapnap’s shoulder. He snores, loudly.

“What the fuck,” says Sapnap.

“Your flirting was putting me to sleep,” comes George’s voice behind him, flat and unimpressed. Sapnap turns, and there he is at the mouth of the alley: white goggles, uncombed hair, bitchy expression. His signature blue uniform is so rumpled it looks more like a set of pajamas. George Lore, in all his annoying and unwanted glory.

“I had it handled,” Sapnap snaps. He readjusts Rewind’s weight, cradling the back of his head so it doesn’t roll off his shoulder at an awkward angle.

“If you had it handled, I wouldn’t be here.” George’s eyeroll is palpable through his goggles. “Besides, don’t you have a date to get to?”

Sapnap’s eyebrow ticks up. He’s surprised George remembered. “Yeah, but I think I’ve got some cushion. I’m pretty sure my date’s not going to be on time.”

“Well, you snooze you lose.”

Sapnap grimaces. “Dude.”

George is unapologetic. “I thought Rewind would appreciate it.”

And he just—plucks Rewind from Sapnap’s arms. Sapnap squawks. “Hey!”

“I caught him, I get credit.”

“And what the hell was I doing this whole time?”

“Flirting. Didn’t we already cover this?”

“Whatever, dick, just—hold his head, be careful—”

“He’s not a baby, idiot.”

Sapnap hovers anyway, but George is gentle. He shifts Rewind over his shoulder like a colorful sack of potatoes, walking with purpose and glaring at Sapnap from the corner of his eye.

“Quit crowding me. It’s annoying.”

Sapnap does not quit crowding him. “You’ve got twig arms, George, just give him to me—” He doubletakes as he sees the direction they’re heading. Right toward a main street—shops and civilians at the end of the block. The nearest precinct is in the opposite direction. “George, where are you going? Are you—are you jingling?”

“Wildfire, I have a confession.”

George stops dead. Sapnap stops too, and before he has a chance to ask why, George spins right into him.

“The reason I interrupted your weird mating ritual with Rewind,” he says, “is because I love you.”

Sapnap throws up in his mouth a little.

“George, what the fuck.”

“I do. I always have.”

He presses forward and Sapnap stumbles back. Oh, ew. Ew ew ew gross. “What the fuck, George, no you super fucking don’t, back off—”

George leans way too goddamn close, and then his heel catches Sapnap’s and Sapnap goes down hard.

He splutters, winded. George cackles above him. Except it’s not George’s laugh.

“Your fucking face, man!” says Facade’s voice from George’s mouth. Sapnap blinks the stars from his eyes to see him backing away rapidly. Rewind is shaking where he’s draped over his back—he’s laughing. Assholes.

“Oh, you’re fucking dead—”

Rewind gives up on pretending to be unconscious. Four hands flip him off, each adorned in glittering stolen rings.

They disappear around the corner. By the time Sapnap rounds it too, they’re long gone.

His pager beeps.

GET FUCKED IDIOT

ILUX2

When Sapnap manages to force his brain to be a brain again instead of a screaming knot of electricity, the owner of the nearly-burgled apartment is sitting beside him on the curb, instructing him how to breathe and when. In like this. Out like this. Slower, through your nose. Good, just like that. Do you have a history of migraines or panic attacks? She’s a nurse, apparently.

He says sorry, and thanks, and she says thanks too, for scaring the burglars away. Then she says do you need a blanket?

He says what?

She says you’re shivering.

And he is. Which is ridiculous. He hasn’t been cold since he was ten years old.

K ARE YOU OK

MY HEAD JUST EXPLODED AND MY POWERS ARE FUCKED

HOA IS LOSING THEIR SHIT I THINK ITS HAPPENING EVERYWHERE

WAIT DONT TELL THE VIGILANTES THAT

K

K

COME ON

K PLEASE

AOK BB TRYING TO FIND Q

WAHT

AINCE WHENR U TALKIGN TO Q

K WHATS HAPPPENING

Q YOU OK

SHITS FUCKED YOU OK

HEY

HEY

HEY

DONT BE A DICK Q TELL ME UR OK

imp you alive

yeah

what happened

idk hoa is trying to figure it out. dont mess with your powers

aw come on

im serious imp no bullshit

you should check on bad and skeppy

they’re fine. YOU should check on bad and skeppy

stop texting on the job. im reporting you

stop texting me first

you’re clingier than red raccoon’s brother

I miss being an only child

you alive

Of course! I think something crazy happened though o_O

is skeppy alive

Skeppy’s fine!

cool. so is eryn

Thank goodness. Are you alright?

Pandas?

So this is the long and short of it:

Something happened. Powers got swapped. Everything’s fucked.

Everything’s fucked but Sapnap’s fucked specifically, because now he’s got Warden’s nerdass technopath power. Which has to be the worst power ever conceived, and is making him resent Warden retroactively for acting like it’s ever been anything but. His head could crack open and nothing but trains and cellphones and coffeemakers and washing machines and electric toothbrushes and Karl’s novelty waffle maker and the entire city of Essempi would spill out.

“There’s nothing for you to do here,” George says, when Sapnap drags himself to HOA headquarters. “You’re not smart enough to figure out who did this, and you’re terrible with the press. Go do your job. Don’t get in the way.”

Sapnap doesn’t take it to heart because George is always a dick, and there’s comfort in consistency. His goggles are pushed up into his hair and he looks manic, like he pounded a Redbull and six espresso shots and also a line of coke, when really his powers just aren’t making him drowsy anymore.

Sapnap throws back some aspirin. He does his job.

Sapnap can feel sirens half the city away, crawling like centipedes in and out of his skull. He follows them to Oldtown, infamously nicknamed Boomerville, populated by the city’s most vulnerable and crotchety residents and therefore a hotbed for villainy. All of whom refuse to move out because “we’ve lived in Essempi our whole lives” and “one little robbery or ten is not going to scare us” and “you think this is the first time a villain has taken me hostage young man blah blah blah”. He keeps half an ear out for trouble, grinding his teeth when a siren yelps too loud. He should feel bad for not giving the work his full attention, probably. He kind of does. But it’s hard to focus when every machine in the city is dedicated to drilling out 80% of his thoughts, while the last 20% are dedicated to worrying after Quackity and Karl.

He pages Quackity again.

IF YOU DONT ANSWER IM PUTTING OUT AN APB

DONT THINK I WONT

He won’t. Quackity values his privacy, and is more sensitive to betrayal than he was, no matter how well intentioned. And it’s not like it would help. Authorities already know to keep an eye out for Facade—since his transition to villainy Quackity’s been labeled one of Essempi’s most wanted, and if Sapnap were to redirect any special attention his way it would only succeed in putting non-powered goons in the path of his ire. A stain on Sapnap’s reluctant conscience, and a bad look for the HOA besides.

But he’s getting antsy, which is a better word than desperate. Quackity could be playing it close to the vest or he could be hurt, and Sapnap can do nothing but resent his new status as the world’s most overpowered IT guy.

He shoots Karl a quick ANY UPDATES. A minute passes. Five. He switches to his communicator, and navigates the tiny flip phone buttons back to his contacts. His thumb hovers over his dad’s name. He doesn’t press it.

There’s a cry up the street. Shit, right. The job.

He skids to a stop in front of a general store, where two old timers are being held up by three robbers. Not villains, at least not as far as powers are concerned. They’re wearing ski masks under their era-inappropriate zoot suits, which is stupid as well as just fucking ugly. Sapnap has no idea what it is about this city that makes so many residents feel trapped in the 1930s, but he kind of hates it. They catch sight of him and swear.

“Scram, it’s Wildfire,” one says, and Sapnap has a brief moment to hope this will be a repeat of the nurse’s apartment, minus the skull-imploding power swap. But the one with the gun sticks out an arm.

“Hold on. Where are your flames, Wildfire?” he says, eyes narrowing behind his mask. “Can’t catch a spark?”

The story’s leaked already. Great.

Sapnap considers saying “I still have the power to kick your ass,” and then really really doesn’t, because even in his head it sounds stupid. He grabs an electric kettle off the nearest shelf and beams it at the guy’s head.

A line of bullets pepper the wall to Sapnap’s left as the guy drops like a sack of bricks. He tackles the second man through racks of chips and cereal. The guy starts biting, so Sapnap headbutts him once, twice, three times until he lies still. The third robber scrambles for the gun, which is when the old lady pulls a baseball bat from behind the counter and whacks him across the back with it. It’s over pretty quick after that.

Sapnap zipties them to the radiator and calls it in for pickup. The scratchy voice over the phone warns him it might take a while and asks that he sit tight until then. Sapnap’s not really sure what to do with that. Sitting on his hands after a bust has never been his MO. He usually bashes in, fists blazing, and then bashes back out again, villain in tow. There’s a cheerful beep from his belt.

It’s Karl. LIVING MY BEST LIFE HOTSTUFF SEE U TONIGHT

The relief is so sharp he doesn’t even question what “best life” could mean in a situation as shitty as this. Karl’s okay. Sapnap will see him soon. Nothing else matters.

Behind him, the old lady is picking her way through the ruins of her shop.

“Look at this mess,” she snaps. “You did more damage than the robbers did!”

“Apologies, ma’am,” Sapnap says. As annoying as old people are, Bad drove it into his skull to respect his elders. He starts righting shelves when he hears a groan from behind the counter. The old man, up until this moment silent, is sliding to the floor.

“Harold?” says the old lady, her voice losing its bite. “What’s wrong?”

Harold is gasping, clutching at his chest, and Sapnap barely catches him before his skull cracks on the linoleum. Oh fuck. “Can you hear me, sir?”

“He has a pacemaker,” the old lady says, fluttering behind them.

“Isn’t that supposed to stop this from happening?”

“Oh yes, why don’t you tell the pacemaker it’s doing its job wrong? I’m sure that will help!”

He tells the old lady to call an ambulance instead of telling her to fuck off, but even as he says it he can feel the vehicles sardined for blocks all around. Sapnap’s not an EMT. He can’t heal like Ponk. He’s a tank. He smashes and burns. He’s good for basic CPR, but if that doesn’t work he’s got nothing else. There’s fear in Harold’s eyes, and fear in the old lady behind him, and Sapnap lays his hand over Harold’s and squeezes because he doesn’t know what else to do.

And then he feels—something. In his brain. Under his fingers. A squiggly discordant note.

“Hold on,” he says, “just—I think there’s something—”

He pulls Harold’s hand away and lays his palm flat on the scratchy red sweater. He feels it again. It feels off.

He hisses, “Get your shit together,” and the pacemaker just—does.

Harold’s breathing steadies. Sapnap removes his hand. Harold pats himself down, bewildered, and the old lady whispers, “What did you do?”

Sapnap leans back on his heels, helping Harold sit up. “How are you feeling, sir?”

“Better,” he wheezes, still curled around his own chest. “The lead, it can pull out of alignment. Last time that happened was when those soldiers from the future tried to blow up the city, you remember, Louise?”

Louise is not to be distracted. “How did you fix it? You’re a firebrand.”

Sapnap doesn’t know how to answer that, so he ignores her as politely as possible. “Sit tight until the ambulance comes. I’ll help you clean this up, and then I’ll take those guys to the police myself. Look, you might want to close up shop for the next few days. I have a feeling things are going to get hairy. The HOA will do our best to contain it, but for your own safety—”

“Young man,” says Harold, already climbing to his feet despite Sapnap’s instructions, because of course. “Where do you think we live? If you expect a little thing like this to phase us—” armed robbery and a near-coronary, he means, “—then you must not be a local.”

Which. Yeah. Sapnap doesn’t know what else he expected.

Things sure as shit do not go up from there.

Work sucks! If he’s being honest. If he’s being fucking candid. And it sucks that work sucks, because Sapnap actually loves his job. He’d hate this swap for no other reason than that, and there are a lot of other reasons.

Everything is in chaos. Everyone is in peril. He knows chaos and peril are Essempi’s default state, but this is overkill. Even worse: now Sapnap is being made to feel empathy about it, and it blows. He can’t take a breath without running into some ass trying to snatch a purse, or a raging fire that the hero on call is too busy with the swap to put out, or blocks upon blocks upon blocks of traffic. So much traffic. So many ambulances stuck in traffic. Hours and hours of sorting gridlock like some glorified traffic cop, but maybe it’s kind of rewarding? A lot of people thank him, which is cool. He doesn’t usually stick around for that part. A lot of people are crying, too, which is less cool. Kind of a huge bummer.

His communicator vibrates when, by the world’s most miserable coincidence, two gangs are trying to rob the same bank. It’s Bad.

He should talk to him. He knows that. But there are more important things than his family drama, like flipping a switch in his head to activate the bank’s security system and trap a bunch of idiots screeching dibs behind six-inch steel doors.

He’s sitting on the sidewalk with his arm around a traumatized bank teller when Bad calls again. He sends it to voicemail, and focuses on getting her call through to her family instead.

By the time he gets home, it’s hours after his shift was meant to end. His head is a matryoshka doll of migraines. Just migraines on migraines on migraines. Migraines all the way down.

He’d hoped, faintly, that Karl would be waiting for him, but the apartment is lifeless, humming only with dormant machinery. He can map everything out with his eyes closed: the fridge and the microwave and the oven, the laptop on the coffee table, the space heater Karl left plugged in the last time he was home, the nervous system of lights, Quackity’s electric blanket that he never took back. No Karl.

Maybe this is better. He can clean himself up, and when Karl gets here he won’t look or smell like a zombie.

He downs two or six ibuprofen and drags himself into the shower. In the belly of the building the boiler rumbles, and Sapnap nudges it into efficiency, pleasantly surprised when the water is suddenly so hot his skin turns raw. It hurts in a way it never did before but that’s okay. He missed the heat.

When his fingers start to prune he turns the knob and steps out. The apartment is still empty. Back on the couch he pulls out his communicator and finds Karl’s number, ignoring the fact that calling him defeats the purpose of secure pagers entirely. Karl’s bubbly outgoing message picks up, and Sapnap is left floundering.

“Hey. Just, uh. Wanted to check in with you. Make sure you’re doing okay.” He feels like an idiot. No one leaves voicemails. “Get back to me when you can. Q still hasn’t answered me. I really…I’d like to hear your voice, I guess.”

He hangs up. Drags Quackity’s blanket over his shoulders. Opens a message to George.

any updates

idk

what do you mean idk. how do you not know

idk. ask dream

dream is dealing w press the govt and a shitton of ghosts

im asking you don’t be a bitch

you’re so annoying. fine

some leads are being followed. eggpire is suspect #1

The Eggpire. Sapnap’s heard rumors. A mysterious villain group on the rise, with the promise of something big on the horizon. This is definitely big.

i’ve heard of them

worst name in the game

ok what else

that’s it

what do you mean thats it

i mean that is all i know. why do you think people report to me i literally do not care

oh my god i’m never getting my powers back

keep crying about it i’m sure that will help

you’re the least helpful person in the hoa. no wonder the govt thinks we cant get shit done

i’m very helpful. is there anything else you need

yes you lazy ass

i could use some backup next patrol

can’t. doing hot girl shit

An image follows. George, staring straight-faced at the camera, lifting something massive over his head. It might be a Range Rover.

what the fuck is that

what the fuck does that mean

George leaves him on read.

stop fucking leaving me on read

George leaves him on read.

Sapnap wonders how their HOA communicators even have that feature, as he does every time it’s weaponized against him. These indestructible pieces of shit are ancient.

Another buzz. George has written: i had warden code it in to bully you. stop crying and watch me juggle an suv

Sapnap watches a brief, shoddy video of George tossing and failing to catch an SUV. He snaps a photo of his middle finger and pockets the communicator before he thinks to pull it back out and see what George had been responding to in the first place.

Just above George’s i had warden code it in to bully you is a message from Sapnap that he does not remember writing.

why do our HOA communicators even have that feature

He definitely didn’t write that. He thought it. He didn’t write it. Huh.

He takes out his pager. They were Quackity’s idea, when they first started dating. Two vigilantes and an Heroic Operatives Association founder—sneaking around was as fun as it was practical. Pagers, he said, were more secure, less traceable. Sapnap doesn’t know anything about that, but it was nice having something that was just theirs.

He closes his eyes. When he opens them, a message is waiting to be sent: MISS YOU

He blinks, and out the message goes. The pager chirps just as he’s setting it down, and Sapnap jumps so hard he fumbles it. His heart pounds in time with his migraine as he picks it up.

It’s not Quackity. It’s Karl.

SRRY BB GOT HELD UP

SUCH IS THE LIFE OF THE #4 VIGILANTE

Despite himself, Sapnap chuckles. Karl gloated for a week after that poll dropped. It was as insufferable as it was endearing.

ITS FINE

ANY LUCK W Q

NO HES AVOIDING ME :/

SAME

BE CAREFUL

WHEN AM I NOT

SEE U SOON HOTSTUFF

ILU ILU ILU

Sapnap closes his fist around the pager and presses his knuckles to his forehead. Static tries to worm its way past his fingers and between his ears. He ignores it.

I love you I love you I love you, he thinks. I love you I love you I love you.

When he looks down, the words stare back from the screen. He blinks. Out the message goes.

A siren goes by. He feels it more than he hears it. Then another.

He jams a hat over his hair, ties on his mask. The city is too loud to sleep anyway. Might as well log some overtime.

Dating Karl and Quackity was like this.

Getting stoned by precious jewels the second he steps into the apartment.

“Ow what the shit!” Rings and bracelets and earrings clatter to the floor. None of it actually hurt so much as surprised him. A belated string of pearls smacks him in the face and then bursts apart upon impact with the hardwood. “What the fuck.”

Karl and Quackity, still loaded down with their loot, are cackling six feet from the doorway. “Happy birthday!” Karl hoots, and Quackity sing-songs, “Birthday punches for the birthday boy!” Then he chucks more jewelry at him.

Sapnap catches one. It’s a peacock brooch studded with sapphires and emeralds and ruby eyes. “Tell me this isn’t what I think it is.”

“Well now you’re just setting us up for failure,” Quackity deadpans. Karl drapes his arms over his shoulders and nestles his chin on top of his beanie.

“And setting yourself up for disappointment,” he adds. “Now nobody wins.”

“I should’ve won,” Sapnap says, because it’s his birthday and it’s his right to bitch on his birthday. He reels them each in for a kiss, savored, one at a time. “And I would have won if you two hadn’t cheated. That was a fucked up joke you played, Q, I almost threw up on you.”

“What joke? This joke?” Quackity’s skin ripples, and suddenly George is standing in Sapnap’s arms. “I want you carnally, Sapitus Napitus.”

Sapnap gags. “Fuck off fuck off fuck off. On my birthday? That’s it, I’m changing your HOA file from vigilante to villain. This is psychological torture. I’m charging you for emotional damages.”

“Aw, poor baby.” Quackity leans in for another kiss, and Sapnap doesn’t indulge him until he shifts back into his own skin. He winds his arms around both their waists. Pecks their lips once, twice, three more times and then swings their combined weight down onto the couch. Shrieks, jewelry flying everywhere.

“You know you have to return it all,” Sapnap says, when the laughter has died down and Karl and Quackity have finished beating him with cushions. The couch isn’t quite the right size for the three of them. The apartment is big enough, and the king-sized bed is cold without three bodies in it, but the couch is a too-small sunken relic, more of a placeholder that just never got replaced. Quackity always talks about buying a new one once he’s finished moving in, something uniquely him in an otherwise Karl-and-Sapnap dominated space. Sapnap is so excited for that day he feels like a little kid, but he can’t deny that he’ll miss this ratty old thing when it’s gone. They’ve made a million stupid memories trying to fit here, cuddling, wrestling, throwing popcorn, kicking each other off. He’ll be sad to see it go, even if lying flat on his back is actively giving him scoliosis.

“We’ll return it after the investigation into the theft reveals all the corruption the jewelers were covering up,” Karl says patiently, nosing under Sapnap’s jaw. He’s wormed snug between Sapnap’s side and the couch, one arm stretched long and warm over Sapnap’s chest to bury his fingers into Quackity’s hair. Quackity is seated on the floor with his shoulders pressed against the couch and his head tilted back against Sapnap’s bicep, where he’s got one arm draped comfortably around Quackity’s shoulders and chest. The three of them connected just so, a closed circuit. “And then all the stolen jewelry will serendipitously appear on the HOA doorstep. Anonymously, of course.”

“And after we wear them to your birthday dinner tonight,” Quackity adds.

“We can’t wear your stolen loot out in public, genius.”

“We’re going to the casino, genius. Who’s going to report us there?”

“He’s got you there, baby,” Karl says, and Sapnap sighs, put upon.

“You two are ganging up on me again.”

“Always,” says Karl, and that word must have been the right one because Quackity’s eyes glitter a second before he’s boosting up onto his knees and pressing a kiss to Karl’s lips. Karl hums in leisurely surprise and kisses back.

“Right in front of my salad,” Sapnap says. His boyfriends quit making out on top of him to snicker against each other’s mouths.

“That meme is too old to be funny,” Quackity says. He settles with his chin against Sapnap’s sternum. “I’m only laughing because it’s your birthday.”

“I’ll take it.” Sapnap cups his face in one hand, and cups the other around Karl’s hip as he settles back down. “Can it at least be subtle? I’m HOA, for fuck’s sake, I’d rather not be fired for something as stupid as wearing stolen jewelry.”

Suddenly Karl is vibrating all along his side. His smile is enormous and goofy and contagious.

“What?” Sapnap asks, perplexed and smiling too. “What did you do?”

Quackity answers for him. “I think we can do subtle. How’s this?”

And then there’s a ring box on his chest, just below his collarbone. Sapnap gives himself a double chin looking at it. He looks at it for a long time.

“You’re fucking with me.”

Karl cackles. “Us? Noooo. Us?"

“Open it, idiot,” Quackity says, and Sapnap loves following orders, so he does.

Okay. The sun is up, the sirens are chirping. Sapnap hasn’t slept in forty eight hours and he is raring to go. Today is the day he finds Quackity. This is true because he’s decided it is, and if it isn’t, he’s going to light a building on fire.

His best bet, obviously, is the casino. Quackity’s pride and joy, a self-proclaimed den of iniquity, gilded and glittering. To those in the know, a villain joint. Sapnap is politely shown the door, and then less politely when he tries to sneak back in. His original powers didn’t lend to subtlety. Apparently neither does technopathy.

From the street, the penthouse windows are dark. Cross Las Nevadas off the list because he can’t think of another way in, but he’ll keep it on the back burner. For now the only option is to trawl Quackity’s old haunts, hoping to come across him or someone who might know anything about him.

Easier said than done when the whole city is conspiring against Sapnap’s lovelife. He drops by Quackity’s favorite cafe, his back alley deal spot where he knows just how to stand so he’s dramatically backlit, the car lot where he likes to admire outdated muscle cars, the pigeon coop on the lower east side with the birds he fondly calls fat little fuckers. At every goddamn turn he’s sidetracked by some dick trying to take advantage of the confusion of the swap or some civilian in physical or emotional peril. Usually both. He’s spent more time this past week awkwardly hugging civilians than he has in his entire career.

As much as he hates to say it? This swap sucks for him, but he thinks it sucks for the citizens of Essempi even more. Poor annoying fuckers.

And he still can’t find Quackity. He feels like a bloodhound, failing to pick up the scent and going mad with it.

Eventually his stomach demands a break. He glances at his communicator for the time and oh fuck he’s late.

He and Eryn have this weekly lunch that they don’t really call a weekly lunch. It’s more like they happen to cross paths on patrol every week, at the same time and the same place, and both happen to decide that yeah, they could spare an hour, and yeah, they could go for a bite. They catch each other up on their week. They talk about Bad and Skeppy, and George and Dream, and Eryn’s annoying friend Tommy. Sometimes they’re at McPuffy’s, sometimes they’re at the pricier place next door because Sapnap wants a beer. Eryn will try to sneak a sip, and Sapnap is forced to grab it first and down it. Which he’s beginning to think is the only reason Eryn does it, because it always makes him laugh.

Now Sapnap is late, and after weighing his options he decides that breaking their unspoken “don’t talk about the weekly lunch because then we’ll have to acknowledge the weekly lunch” rule is better than leaving Eryn hanging. He calls him from his communicator and Eryn picks up after the third ring. Sapnap feels the line connect like the taut cord between two tin can telephones, tied directly to his brain and faintly thrumming.

“Listen, I’m running late,” Sapnap says.

"Late to what," says Eryn, cool as a cucumber. Late to what. Sapnap rolls his eyes.

“Yeah yeah, whatever. I’m just letting you know I’m still like, ten minutes out.”

Eryn hums and gives up the pretense. "I could pick you up."

Sapnap snorts. “You and what car?”

“Who said anything about a car?”

It takes a second. Sapnap stops dead in the middle of the sidewalk.

“Imp. I know you’re not messing with shadow manipulation. I know you’re not, because we already talked about this and we agreed that you’re not.”

“ You talked about it," Imp corrects. "I didn’t agree to anything."

“You’re right. I talked about it, and I said that if you messed with shadow manipulation I would kick your ass.” A disgruntled businessman shoulder-checks Sapnap and he powers forward at twice the pace. “Don’t make me kick your ass, Imp, and don’t mess with shadow manipulation, that’s an order.”

“Come onnn," Eryn wheedles. "I’ve seen dad do this my whole life. What’s the worst that could happen?"

“You could fall into your own shadow,” Sapnap hisses, voice crackling through the shitty phone speaker. “Imp, if I have to quit giving dad the cold shoulder to break the news that his second favorite kid yeeted himself into the fucking shadow realm, I swear to god—”

“ You should talk to dad anyway," Eryn dismisses. "Relax, man. I’ve been practicing. I’ll shadowstep to you and shadowstep back, it’ll take two seconds—oh shit—”

The line goes dead.

Eryn’s a good kid. The truth is Sapnap has no idea how he turned out so good, hanging around him all the time. Sapnap’s a hero, sure, but he knows that the only thing that stopped him from becoming a villain like Quackity or a vigilante like Karl was that Dream and George got to him first.

Eryn, though. Eryn comes to heroism naturally. He’s great with his powers, great with the press, great with civilians. Already he’s made the Top Five Heroes poll. Even Bad put aside his newfound resentment of the HOA to frame that article in the living room. So did Sapnap. It was probably the proudest day of his life.

If anything happens to that kid, he’ll burn this city to the ground.

Eryn has not fallen into his shadow. Eryn is hunched over a fake-wooden table, chowing down on a McPuffy McPickin Chicken Sandwich.

“You little shit,” Sapnap fumes, grabbing the scruff of Eryn’s uniform and shaking. “You couldn’t pick up the goddamn phone?”

Eryn bats him away with a glare. “I dropped it. It broke. I didn’t even get to try shadowstepping.”

“Bullshit.”

“Whatever.”

Eryn turns deliberately back to his food. Sapnap stomps to the counter to cool off.

Pinholes are poked in his temper when he sees that his usual order is already waiting for him—a McPuffy Quarter Pounder alongside a large coke—and he leaves the staff a hefty tip. A few more pinholes when he gets back to the table. On second glance: Eryn’s spine is slouched with typical too-cool apathy, but beneath the uncomfortably familiar teenage pride is a hint of guilt. Sapnap remembers him small and crying, staring down from the fire escape.

“Look.” The weight of his sigh sinks him into the seat opposite. “I’m not trying to be an asshole. Bad always said getting lost in his shadow was the scariest thing that ever happened to him. How would I have got you back? What would I have told him?”

Eryn slumps further. He’s swimming in baggy black clothes and shadow, nearly featureless. Sapnap wonders if he knows he’s drawing the dark in the room. “Sorry.”

The last of Sapnap’s anger deflates. “Just—no more shadow manipulation, all right?”

“I’ve got a job too, Wildfire.” Sapnap barely manages not to snap because for once Eryn doesn’t sound like he’s mouthing off. He sits up a little. “I already talked to dad about the shadow manipulation, I can handle it. But I won’t try the shadowstepping. Deal?”

Sapnap’s never been known for picking his battles, but he thinks this is the best he’s going to get. And if he’s being honest, his brother’s always been the smarter of the two of them.

He peels a pickle off his McQuarter Pounder and flicks it across the table. “Deal.”

Eryn grins. The dark retreats. Sapnap shakes his head and tears into his McPickin Chicken.

“Are Red Raccoon and Murphy’s Law really brothers? I thought they were just vigilante partners,” he asks, to show that they’ve moved on. Eryn shrugs like he wasn’t the one to make the claim in the first place.

“Dunno. They seem like it.”

“Why do you hang out with him? He’s so annoying.”

“You think all my friends are annoying.”

“They are, but Tommy’s the less annoying of two annoying evils. Hang out with him instead.”

Eryn scoffs. “I have more than two friends, unlike you.”

“Fuck off, I have other friends.”

He does. He has at least five. Had? Whatever. And he’s got a lot of acquaintances, in the HOA and vigilante communities, even some villains.

“You’re right. I forgot dad is your best friend.” Eryn’s grin is shiteating. “Which is sad, by the way. You should call him.”

The little shit. “I’m marking you down for Boomerville patrol for a month.”

“What—come on!”

Sapnap takes a jaw-cracking bite and flips him off while he chews. It’s not that he enjoys being on the outs with the old man. He really fucking hates it, actually. As embarrassing as it is to admit, Eryn’s not wrong; Bad’s been one of Sapnap’s best friends since he was twelve, maybe eleven. They’ll get over this stalemate eventually—one of the few things Sapnap knows without a single shadow of a doubt—but it’s hard to imagine when he feels like he can barely recognize his father’s face anymore. The Bad that raised him is warm, dorky, mischievous. This Bad is resentful and power-hungry and aloof. They both bake muffins. They both love him. It’s a mess.

What he hates even more is forcing Eryn into the middle of the drama. If going home for Sunday dinner means asking his brother to play mediator, he’d rather not go at all.

He says, “If you don’t want Boomerville then drop it.”

Eryn frowns, but he drops it. He snatches Sapnap’s burger and takes a bite. Through a mouthful of ground beef and McPuffy’s secret sauce he says, “How’d you get here so fast, anyway? You said you were ten minutes out.”

“Stole a car. You’re filling out the vehicle seizure paperwork.” He jerks a thumb toward the window, where the car is parked awkwardly with one wheel hopped up on the sidewalk. One of those old Rolls Royce-looking models that Essempi inexplicably failed to outgrow. It roared to life under his hands.

Eryn grumbles. Sapnap mimics him and then it’s Eryn’s turn to flip him off.

“Come up with a better lie next time,” Sapnap says. “No way you broke your communicator. Those things are indestructible, that’s literally the only good thing about them.”

Eryn drops his communicator on the table. Wow. That’s broke as shit.

“Do you think they’ll get me another one?”

“Yeah, good luck with that. HOA budget is tighter than Warden’s clenched asshole. They were counting on these things outlasting us.”

Sapnap reaches for the communicator. The two inch screen, the obsolete flip phone hinge. He almost feels bad for the oldtimer. This thing didn’t fight in ‘Nam just to get dropped by some dumbass kid.

He thinks of the pacemaker. The bank security system. The car. Maybe he could just—

He pokes it. Something happens, a static shock but not. The cracked little screen lights up.

“You resurrected it,” Eryn says, eyes wide. “You’re like Nightshade but for tech.”

The front door of the McPuffy’s crashes open before Sapnap can answer. A man with an orange plastic tiger mask, a gun, and a shit-you-not burlap sack steps through the shattered glass. The only thing missing is the big dollar sign. “All right McLosers, you know the drill: all the money in the bag or the next thing that gets smashed in this smash and grab is your faces!”

Wow. That was painfully stupid. Sapnap can sympathize with folks on hard times; the HOA barely scrapes enough donations to pay its heroes minimum wage. But menacing McPuffy’s employees and enjoying it just makes you an asshole.

The cashier pops her gum and points at their table. Sapnap cracks his neck. Eryn flips a salute.

“Oh. Shit,” says tiger mask.

Eryn pulls his shadow out from under him like a rug. He slams into the ground nose first. Oh shit that was cool. Sapnap doesn’t know how to make technopathy useful here, so he just punches him a bunch.

Eryn escorts tiger mask to the cops, and Sapnap escorts Eryn. The whole ordeal carries them to the end of Eryn’s shift—halfdays, a benefit of being a teen on HOA payroll—but Sapnap’s not so lucky.

The sky is coal black and starless by the time he finally starts the trudge back to his apartment. The subway would be fastest, but the last time he tried to ride the train he threw up and someone took a video.

It’s a testament to how wiped he is that he doesn’t register the smoke or the screaming until he’s half a block away from the car lot. The one he stopped by earlier.

The one Quackity likes.

The thought seizes him by the throat and refuses to let go. He starts jogging, and then he starts running. It could be him. There’s no reason it couldn’t. Quackity didn’t spend time there on the regular, but every now and then he liked to admire the outdated and overpriced cars that the city loves. He’d point them out and whistle low. Maybe he’s finally taking one of those for himself. He wouldn’t have, as a vigilante, other than for a joyride. But as a villain, maybe—maybe—

It’s not Quackity. It’s Antfrost. A small-time villain, cat burglar by trade, emphasis on the cat. Dabbles as a fence. His whole MO avoids unnecessary civilian involvement, which Sapnap respects. He’s never had a drink with the guy, but on the occasion their paths crossed he seemed professional and easygoing.

Right now he’s standing on the hood of a Jaguar and cackling like a maniac, fire shooting from both hands.

Sapnap would like to say that his next move is solely inspired by sleep deprivation, but the truth is he’s always been impulsive.

“Hey!” he bellows, running upstream of screaming civilians and burning cars. “Give me back my powers, dick!”

Ant spins around. At the sight of him his hackles rise like a spooked cat, and then they smooth out. He grins.

“If it isn’t Wildfire himself,” he says, hip cocked. “I’ve gotta hand it to you, man, this power of yours packs a punch.” He curls his hands into fists and Sapnap watches them ignite with tooth-edged jealousy. Ant’s smile is edging towards feral. “Well. This power of mine, now.”

Sapnap sees red. Could be all the fire.

A thin jet of flame shoots white-hot from the finger gun at Ant’s hip, and Sapnap is forced to dive behind a boxy Lincoln (ugly as shit, why does Quackity like things like this) to avoid having his face melted off. Prick. He probes with his shitty horrible nerd powers to little effect: Ant doesn’t have much of use on his person. A phone and that’s about it. There’s nothing he can do at a distance.

“What’s wrong, Wildfire?” Ant calls. “Cat got your tongue?”

Ugh. Banter. He always sucked at this part of the job. Where are Karl and Quackity when you need them?

“I thought you were a cat burglar, Ant,” he calls back, crawling to the next car. Jesus, this is humiliating. “You know, subtle. Understated. This doesn’t seem very understated to me!”

“Used to be,” Ant says. “No need now. Why creep around picking locks when everything I want is suddenly much more affordable? There’s a citywide firesale: everything must go!”

The Lincoln spontaneously combusts behind him. God Sapnap misses being able to do that.

“Hey, how do you do that flying thing? I’ve been trying to figure it out. Finding you would be a lot easier from the sky,” says Ant.

It’s a question Sapnap gets a lot in interviews, and one he’s only able to answer because Quackity and Karl sat him down and explained it to him. He propels from the ground like a rocket, and lands using the same exhaust to keep from breaking his legs.

“I’d tell you, but it would be funnier watching you smash every bone in your body,” he says. If he can just get close enough… “How about you turn yourself in, and I’ll only kick your teeth in a little?”

“Tempting. Counterpoint—” He throws another fireball.

Antfrost keeps blasting cars, while Sapnap creeps slowly, painstakingly closer. The heat keeps ratcheting up. Sweat prickles everywhere, and breathing is a labored effort. His eyes are burning, though that could be the lack of sleep as easily as it could be the smoke. His lungs hurt. Honestly it just makes him angry. He used to be fireproof, for god’s sake.

“Not to give you the impression that I think about you, because I don’t, like, ever,” Sapnap says, “but I thought you were a chill guy, Ant. Maybe if you smoke a blunt and eat some cat food you’ll calm down and stop trying to burn the whole damn city to the ground!”

Ant chuckles, and Sapnap realizes his mistake a second too late. “Smoke a blunt, huh? Sounds like you want me to get—”

“Don’t you dare—”

“Blazed!”

Sapnap dives out of the path of a scorching blast of fire. He walked right into that one.

“You know, Wildfire…”

God damn it. He can already tell by the conversational tone that Ant’s about to start monologuing. That’s amateur villain shit. If he had any class at all he’d just kill him.

“I was a little worried when all this started. It wasn’t supposed to swap powers, you know? And it definitely wasn’t supposed to affect us.” Wait. What? “But after a few days to test drive, I can say I’m pretty satisfied with the results!”

Sapnap hears the roar just before fire consumes the car he was crawling toward. Shit.

“It’s only fitting, Wildfire,” Ant shouts, “that you go out in a blaze of glory!”

“You already said blazed!” Sapnap shouts back. Shit shit shit. He’s close, but not close enough. Technopathy. What a pointless power. Nothing but his phone and pager, and Ant’s phone, all of which he can barely even hear through the ambient noise of—of—

He’s—he’s in a car lot. He’s in a—jesus fuck. If this is what exhaustion does to a man he has no idea how George ever got anything done.

Ant raises his hand and Sapnap just kind of. Scoots the car he’s standing on. Ant tumbles off the hood, and when he springs to his feet, fuming, Sapnap nudges the bumper into his side.

Like barely, even, but he goes sprawling six feet. While he yowls in pain Sapnap pens him in a tight triangle with three nearby cars.

“You broke my hip, you asshole!”

Sapnap sits heavily on the hood of a Plymoth with exaggerated curves. “I barely touched you, you big baby.”

Ant seethes up at him, and Sapnap thinks he’s probably three seconds away from trying to barbecue him again. He nods his head at the muscle car on the left, old fashioned but souped up with big overcompensating exhaust pipes, and Ant shouts in alarm when they spit flames over his head.

“Go ahead. Let’s see who cooks who first.” Sapnap used to be fireproof. Doesn’t seem Ant knows that. “What did you mean, it wasn’t supposed to swap powers? What do you know about the swap?”

Ant bares his teeth. “You poor bastard. You have no idea, do you?”

“Wow, it’s almost like I’m interrogating you for information. Answer the question, asshole. Who else is involved?”

The cut of Ant’s mouth is malicious, and in the light of the fire his eyes are red. “You know, I don’t think I’ll tell you. I think I want you to figure this out on your own. I hope it hurts like a bitch, Halo.”

For just a second, everything in Sapnap’s body is thrown out of alignment. It’s not like Ant shouldn’t know his name. The identities of all HOA members are public record. But it’s common courtesy to use aliases, and to hear his surname in Antfrost’s mouth feels like a strange, personal violation.

Worse: it gives Ant the opening he needs. He thrusts his hands forward, and then the world goes up in flames.

But really, dating Karl and Quackity was like this.

It was good. That’s it. That’s all. Karl and Quackity were good people, and they made Sapnap good, and they were good together. Better together. It was good. It was really good.

He’s angry about it now because being angry is easier than being hurt. It makes him sick to his stomach, sick to his bones, to think that he knew exactly how good he had it and still he took it for granted. He must have, because he doesn’t know how else it could have fallen apart so fast. It has to be his fault. If it wasn’t, then he had no control at all, and he thinks that must be worse.

It ended like this.

Karl misses dates. Sapnap jokes that it shouldn’t be possible, what with, y’know, and Karl just kisses him and laughs.

Bad makes one, two, a dozen too many pointed comments about the HOA. Leaving the family business, Pandas? You’ll make your old man cry. You’re taking Eryn with you.

Karl makes a dozen too many pointed comments about Quackity. The move-in process stalls. Boxes stay packed. Quackity is hot and cold, clingy and distant in turns.

Quackity is more distant than clingy.

Quackity is defensive.

Bad, kind on the phone and ruthless in the field. Wildfire called on a job to stop him, and then another. Collateral damage. Why don’t we ask Eryn what he wants? Eryn already decided what he wants, Bad, leave him out of this, you’re not being fair—

Rewind’s coy I don’t know you outside the mask game is a little too convincing. Facade flees a little too fast.

Dates at the casino are white-knuckled. Family dinners are a war zone. Shouting matches and smashed plates and Eryn hunkered down, eating in silence.

And maybe he’s not paying enough attention to his fiances. Maybe he doesn’t see it coming or maybe he just doesn’t want to. One night he comes home and Karl is pacing the apartment, ranting at no one, and then he’s clutching Sapnap’s shoulders and insisting with bared teeth that Quackity is a threat. Quackity has to be stopped. Quackity is burning everything down and he’s taking the city with it.

Sapnap never hears Quackity’s side of the story because Quackity is gone.

When he debuts as a villain, months later, it’s like a prophecy realized. And Bad is texting him:

Hi Pandas! What time are you and your brother coming for dinner this Sunday?

antfrost knows something about the swap

the cat burglar?

yeah

why do you think that

bc i just fought him in a car lot and he said shit like “the swap didnt go how we thought but i like it”

dick got my powers and burned my arms

hahahaha

SHUT UP

do you have him in custody?

warden has truth compulsion now, he can do an interrogation

he got away from me

hahahahahaha you’re pathetic

fuck offffff

so that sounds like a lead right

yeah i guess

ok now what

wdym

wdym wdym

what are we doing with this info what are the next steps what is the plan george i swear to GOD

stop yelling at me

GEOREG

literally how many times can i say idk

idk idk i DONT KNOW

yes it sounds like a lead go follow it and quit bothering me

i hate this family

Sapnap has barely shambled into the apartment when the smell hits him like a suckerpunch. Karl is climbing through the window, covered in blood. His smile is a sliver of moon.

“Sapnap,” he says, light as air. “Sapnap, Sapnap—”

Sapnap can’t squeeze a word past the horror in his lungs. He lurches over the back of the couch but Karl is already on top of him, lips all over his face.

“I love you, I love you, do you know that I love you?” He laughs between kisses, oblivious to Sapnap’s frantic hands, frisking him all over. The blood is cold but it’s still wet, and he can’t find where it’s coming from. Where the hell is it all coming from? “Let me look at you, let me see—”

He pulls back, hands braced on either side of Sapnap’s face. His touch is slick and cold.

“Oh. Look at you. You’re so beautiful.” His breath tumbles out of him. “I’ve missed your face.”

And he sounds like it. He sounds like he hasn’t seen Sapnap in years and years.

“Gosh, I have so much to tell you. Come’ere, sit sit sit.” He drags Sapnap to the couch. The fabric makes an awful wet sound when he sits. Karl swivels his head back and forth, looking around like he’s seeing their apartment for the first time. Red droplets rain down from the ends of his hair. “Oh wow. So many things falling into place right now. Totally makes sense why the bed is so big, and let me just say, sincerely, my bad. But I’m here now! And everything’s gonna be so much better. You have to see the new power I have, I’m—”

“Covered in blood,” Sapnap chokes.

“—covered in blood.” Karl laughs like they’re in on the same joke. When it becomes evident that they aren’t, he stops.

“Oh, it’s not mine! My tank’s all full, dude. But that’s actually a perfect segue into what I’ve been dying to show you! Look, look at this.”

He pulls back but Sapnap can’t unlock his arms, terrified that the second he lets go Karl will drop dead of blood loss. Karl doesn’t seem to mind; he worms his hand into the scant space between them for the bandolier (since when did use a bandolier?) slung across his body. One canister flips open with a sharp click, and then Sapnap feels a strange little tug at his clothes, and his face, and his eyelashes and hair. For one paralyzing second Sapnap sees nothing but red. Then there’s a crimson globe spinning like a basketball over Karl’s finger.

“Holy shit,” Sapnap breathes. The sphere wobbles and shrinks as it drains into the little canister. “Technoblade’s blood manipulation?”

Karl preens. “My blood manipulation. Possession is nine tenths of the law.”

Relief slams Sapnap like a sixteen-wheeler. He thunks his head into Karl’s shoulder. Hears the faint buzzing in his head of Karl’s pager, twin to his own. “That’s so fucked. You get the second coolest power out there while I’m stuck with the egghead power for losers.”

“Technopathy, huh?” says Karl.

Sapnap is surprised he remembers. He told him over pager, but—he’s just surprised. “I’m like a walking smart home.”

Karl coos. “Giving yourself a lot of credit there, Sap. Smart home?”

Sapnap grinds his forehead into Karl’s collarbone in retaliation. God, it feels so good to touch him. “I’m serious. How am I supposed to fight mutated sewer alligators with this?”

“You barely fought the mutated sewer alligators with your flames,” Karl reminds him. The hand carefully unknotting Sapnap’s hair softens the blow. “I had to give you a mulligan because your fire kept getting doused by toilet water. You were wet and stinky for weeks.”

“Well, the tables have turned,” Sapnap says. He turns his face into the curve of Karl’s neck. Breathes in slow. “You’ll be wet and stinky until we fix this stupid power swap.”

Karl hums noncommittally, and then says, “Anyway, wanna hear what I’ve been doing the past few days?”

Sapnap is a little thrown by the subject change, but nods. He does want to hear it. He wants to hear anything Karl has to tell him.

Karl regales him with his exploits, wildly exaggerated, and Sapnap grunts and oohs and ahhs and no fucking ways throughout. Karl’s been looking for Quackity too, with just as much success. Sapnap wants to ask about the change of heart but feels like that might jinx it.

At some point during the story Karl notices the burns on Sapnap’s arms, detouring to grab a roll of gauze and wrap them up, firm and gentle, right there on the couch. Afterward they shift from sitting to laying down, Karl a long noodly line and Sapnap a sturdy blanket on top of him. He doesn’t lose the thread of his story once. It sounds like Karl’s really made Technoblade’s power his own; Sapnap can’t imagine Technoblade using a neon plastic water gun filled with blood. It sounds, also, like Karl is present in a way he hasn’t been in a long time. The story rambles and jumps from topic to topic based on word association, but he remembers. He’s clear and vibrant and entirely himself. Months of missing him shore up against Sapnap’s ribs, so sudden his eyes start to burn.

“I missed you.” There’s a hot stone caught in his throat. He swallows hard around it.

Karl clucks his tongue sweetly. He curls his arms around Sapnap’s head and presses a neat line of kisses along his scalp. “I should have found you sooner. I’m sorry.”

“You’re here now,” Sapnap says, and what he’s saying is I forgive you.

“I’m here for good, baby.” Karl noses against Sapnap’s temple. Sapnap feels a smile there. “With these new powers everything’s coming up roses, just you watch.”

Sapnap blinks slowly. He feels safe here, with Karl, and like he might finally sleep, but—but something about that doesn’t sound right. “Sure, but—you know we have to switch back, right? Sooner rather than later?”

“Sooner, later, never, who’s to say.”

“I mean. The HOA is saying it. And I’m saying it. And common sense is saying it, Karl. We’ve gotta switch back.”

“Have to, got to, HOA. Language like that makes a man want to vigilante all over the place.”

He’s serious. Or he’s not being serious, and that’s the problem. Karl has always been glibly allergic to vulnerable conversation, but not with Sapnap.

He pulls back to look at Karl properly. “Karl, I get that your new powers are fun, but this swap is a bad thing. Full stop. People are getting hurt. You get that, right?”

Karl’s smile twitches. Tension threads into the easy tilt to his brow. “Look, agree to disagree. It’s the first time in forever that we get to spend time together. I don’t want to fight, I want to snuggle with you.”

“I don’t want to fight either—”

“Great, then drop it.”

“Apparently we can’t, because you don’t fucking get it.” All the shit Karl’s been up to these past few days, how does he not get it? “This swap has fucked the city. Put aside the fact that I hate technopathy, and that Eryn could have gotten hurt, and the swap has still fucked the city. I’ve been putting out fires nonstop all week, I held a girl while she cried. And what, you don’t care? You had a fun few days so fuck everyone else?”

Karl sighs, this short disappointed sound, raising all of Sapnap’s hackles in one gust. He shimmies out from under him, rolling to his feet and walking to the middle of the room, stretching out his limbs and cracking his neck. His eyes on Sapnap are unbearably cool.

“They’ll adapt, just like you will. The city’s tough. So are you.”

And Karl turns his back on him, one hand rolling in a lazy, dismissive wave on his wrist. The casual apathy of it winds Sapnap like a sucker punch. Hurt bruises his insides, and then anger pulls them taut like live wire.

“Jesus, Karl, would it kill you to be serious for once in your life?”

“Maybe I don’t want to, okay?” Karl snaps. “Maybe I don’t want to be serious and I don’t want to talk about this and maybe I don’t want my freaking power back, so can you just drop it already?”

Sapnap falls silent. Karl is holding so, so still.

He takes a rattling breath, and then a slower one. With each breath Karl composes every line in his body. Draws himself back into something light and breezy and sweet, curves instead of angles, slack instead of tension. He turns around. His smile looks sickly, and Sapnap’s heart nearly punches from his chest to get to him, to hold him, to catch that smile before it falls.

“Hey, hey.” He crosses the divide in two intent strides, cupping his hands around Karl’s hips and then his face. Karl leans close and Sapnap leans closer, tips their foreheads together. “What’s wrong? Talk to me, I’ll listen. I’m listening, baby.”

“I don’t want to go back.” Karl isn’t crying and his voice doesn’t break, but still there’s a desperation to him, something urgent and almost pleading. “I’m so serious I could die, Sap. I don’t want it.”

“Okay.” Sapnap soothes his thumbs along Karl’s jaw. “I don’t…can you explain? I thought you liked your powers.”

“I do, I—I did. I don’t anymore.”

For the second time that night, Karl tells Sapnap a story.

They’re on the floor in front of the couch. The length of Karl’s limbs are reeled in until he’s comically small in Sapnap’s lap, head nestled on his shoulder, curls poking into his mouth. Sapnap wants to pull him into his chest and protect him with the cage of his body. They should be in bed, probably. The thought feels cruel, after—everything. The apartment feels bigger than ever. Quackity, in all the negative spaces.

“By the time I realized that using my powers made it worse, that ship had kind of sailed,” Karl says, playing with Sapnap’s fingers. A bead of blood rolls back and forth across their knuckles. “I should have told you. But I thought I had it handled. I thought I could keep it from getting worse. And then our powers got switched, and whoops! Looks like I forgot a whole person. Our person.”

Sapnap opens his mouth. Nothing comes out.

Karl whistles through his teeth, amused and miserable. “Yeah. Yikes, huh? Sorry about the whole. Completely ruining our relationship with the love of our life thing. That one’s on me.”

“Karl,” Sapnap says, and Karl jumps. His mouth is tight, and so are his fingers, bloody, hooked in Sapnap’s clavicle like he might run if he lets go.

Sapnap says, “I’m sorry. That’s shit, to go through alone. I’m sorry.”

Karl laughs, a wet and bubbly thing. He sniffles. He laughs again. “Yeah,” he says. “It’s shit. Yeah.”

Sapnap pulls him back into his shoulder to give him some privacy. Rocks them a little. Wishes, despite everything, that he could comfort Karl with a warm and gentle touch.

He asks, “Do you know who got it?”

Karl shakes his head. They leave it at that.

“Everything’s so clear now,” Karl whispers. “You’re so clear. I forgot what you smell like.” He takes a deep, shuddering breath. “You reek.”

Sapnap huffs a laugh, and feels Karl’s shoulders lose their hard, nervous edge. Feels him swallow.

“I can’t forget Quackity again. I can’t.”

“Do you think you’d forget him again, if you got your powers back?” Sapnap asks. “Maybe it’ll be like a reset, and if you just don’t use them, you won’t forget anything.”

“I don’t want to risk it.”

And how can Sapnap blame him for that?

A siren itches in the back of his skull, too far for his ears to pick up. He’d shake it out if he could. Karl is what matters. Quackity. Bad and Eryn, Dream and George. He’s a hero by chance, not by nature.

Christ. Why does his conscience have to kick up now?

“You still want to fix things,” Karl says.

Sapnap can only offer him the truth. It doesn’t feel like enough. “You and Quackity matter more to me than anything.”

Karl tips his head back. He searches Sapnap’s eyes and chews the dried skin of his lip. Splays his fingers on Sapnap’s cheeks, holds him there, and then tilts his head down to press a kiss to the corner of his eye.

“We’ll figure it out.”

He sounds a little desperate, a little like he’s trying to convince himself. But at least in this they’re together. Sapnap doesn’t think they’ve been together in a long time, so he tries to take comfort from that.

He curls his fingers around Karl’s and Karl squeezes, like a little heartbeat. Karl says it again. This time it’s aching. “Do you know that I love you?”

Sapnap says “yeah,” because he means it, and he says “yes,” again to hear himself mean it. And he says, “I love you,” because that has always been true and always will be.

And here’s how it goes, after it’s over.

Sapnap receives an invitation. Fancy black cardstock delivered by a suit with glasses. It is some straight up villain nonsense. Sapnap knows he should go in his suit, with his mask, and he knows he should be prepared for an ambush, and he knows he should have backup.

He wears the white and black button down that Quackity likes best on him, and the jeans that Karl always waggles his eyebrows at. He ties on his mask too, but pushes it up into his hair as a headband. As soon as he arrives he’s shuttled up to the penthouse, where Quackity is waiting. He looks like a villain, but less the super kind and more the James Bond kind, mysterious and dangerous and effortlessly beautiful, leaning an elbow on the mantle of a roaring fire, a glass of wine in hand. They have the world’s most awkward date, and Sapnap goes home.

On it goes. Quackity will call for him, sometimes via pager but usually via poker chip calling card or a feather tucked into his mask or some other dramatic villain nonsense, and Sapnap goes to him. They talk about things that don’t matter. This wine is nice. You looked good on the news yesterday. Casino’s doing well. Sometimes they eat. Sometimes the awkwardness is so painfully profound and Quackity’s expression so brittle, and so cold, that Sapnap is sure he won’t call him back again. He always does.

It feels like they’re in some sort of limbo. It feels like something has to give. It feels like both of them are afraid to move forward, but neither of them can bear to let go. This is true for Sapnap, at least.

It all seems so terribly pointless. Sapnap has never liked pointless things. He likes purpose. Survive; save the day; burn out the alien zombie virus from the meteorite. Give him a direction, he’ll scorch a path and make way for the growing of something better. Just tell him what to do. Tell him the right thing to say. Tell him how to fix things. Anything that Quackity wants, he’ll do it.

And if Quackity wants to keep doing this, Sapnap will do that too.

It’s four AM, according to his communicator. He doesn’t know what wakes him. Something in his head. Something familiar.

They’re back on the couch, with Quackity’s heated blanket and the comforter dragged from the bed, along with six pillows, because Karl Jacobs will sleep in luxury or he will not sleep at all. He also sleeps like the dead, so when Sapnap slides out from beneath the ensnaring tangle of his arms and legs he doesn’t even stop drooling, much less wake.

Sapnap shuffles half blind to the sink. Cups water in his hand and drinks, and cups it in his hand again to splash over his face. Some of the cobwebs settled behind his eyes wash away, but the sound is still there. He digs a finger into his ear and shakes it around. Still there. He thinks, actually, he might be able to follow it. He’s sure it’s in his head, but if he steps this way, it’s just a little louder. And he knows it. He knows he knows it.

The apartment doesn’t have a great view of the city. Quackity lamented that when he was moving in, because his casino gets the money-shot of Essempi’s skyline. But Karl cared less about the view out the window than the light coming in, so Quackity agreed to trade a scenic panorama for big, east-facing windows, that look out onto the roof of the squat building next door, and then the roof of the next squat building, and then the next, and on and on for like five more buildings before a much taller building puts an end to that. Karl loves all the sun they get, and loves the tiny wrought iron balcony that is definitely against city code, too small for a grown man but perfectly sized for a handful of potted plants that Karl loves like his own children. He’s shit at keeping them alive, which Sapnap is just now realizing might have to do with the time travel induced memory loss, but maybe now he’ll be able to resurrect one or two.

He creaks the awkwardly small balcony door open—more of a window, really—and suddenly the sound is louder. He climbs out.

There’s a silhouette on the next roof. Sapnap knows that shadow better than his own.

Sapnap shouts, like a fucking idiot, and the shadow spooks. Back in the apartment he hears Karl flail his way off the couch. The thought is there and gone again because Facade is running, Facade is getting away, Sapnap is losing him.

He gets a foot up on the railing and leaps. The old iron squeals, the burdened balcony dislodges, but not before Sapnap is rolling back to his feet on the next roof.

“Facade!” He breaks into a run. “Stop!”

Facade does not stop. Facade jumps to the next roof, and then the next, and then the next. He seems to glide through the air, gazelle-like. Sapnap, less graceful and not wearing any fucking footwear, refuses to be left behind. Even in the dark he can see the wings on Facade’s shoes, only half a roof ahead of him, and still he can hear that needling tone digging into his brain. On to the next roof. The next. Dawn-cold air spikes in his lungs. They’re coming on the building that’s too tall to scale, the gap too wide to vault besides.

Facade isn’t slowing.

Sapnap’s stomach drops. He puts on a burst of speed.

“Don’t—”

He does, and Sapnap’s scream seizes in his throat as he keels off the roof to catch him. He grabs Facade’s ankle while the lip of the roof bruises his thighs, barely stopping him from going over.

And Facade is just—standing there. Caught in mid air. Neither flying nor falling, leashed to the roof by Sapnap’s stretching arm, what the dick.

“Wait,” he wheezes, barely audible over his thundering heart, “Facade, wait—”

Facade kicks his foot. “Let me go, Wildfire.”

“Will you just listen?”

“Let go,” Facade hisses.

“Facade,” Sapnap says, “fucking, please—”

“I said, let go.”

Pressure bears down on Sapnap so fast and so hard that he hears his knees crack against the roof. His spine compresses. His ears pop. His hand is torn off of Facade’s ankle as he drops and the weight vanishes, as quick as it came, but he still can’t breathe. He tries and he tries and static rises up around his ears until he’s underwater, the city a dull conch shell roar.

A voice above him. Winged shoes swimming into view.

Wildfire, Facade says. And then Quackity says, Sapnap?

Sapnap wants to answer him. He does. He’d give his left arm for the magic words that will keep Quackity here with him. He thinks if he tried he’d throw up on those nice shoes.

Quackity tells him he’s okay. Quackity tells him to breathe.

Breathe. Sapnap flattens a shaking hand against Quackity’s ribs to feel them expand, and somehow Quackity lets him. In like this. Out like this. Slower. The static recedes.

“Shit,” Sapnap coughs. “Fuck.”

“Shit fuck is right,” Quackity agrees. His weight shifts. Then there’s an arm around Sapnap’s waist, hands fitting firm into the grooves of his ribs. Hauling up. It takes a few tugs before Sapnap’s knees decide to stop being jelly and hold his weight. Quackity pulls them back to the edge, and vertigo almost pitches Sapnap into the street again.

“The apartment—”

“Yeah, fuck that,” Quackity says flatly. “You want me to take you home? Then come on. It’s cold as balls out here.”

He steps off the roof, and Sapnap follows.

Over the length of a few city blocks Sapnap gets his strength back, which is good, and also his sense of shame, which is less good. Humiliating, actually. He clears his throat and squares his shoulders. Quackity just snorts at him.

“Sure, big guy,” he says, rapping his knuckles against Sapnap’s chest. Is it stupid, that Quackity can still fluster him with only three words and a quicksilver smile?

In no time at all they’re on the roof of the casino, stepping out over the edge to float their way into the penthouse without the hassle of villains and employees. More accurately: Quackity is the one floating. Sapnap is the one clinging to Quackity and trying not to look down.

Quackity’s arm flexes around his hips. “You scared of heights, hero?”

“Hell no,” Sapnap says. His voice cracks only once, valiantly. “I fly all the time, why would I be scared?”

He doesn’t fly all the time. He rockets up and rockets down. It’s glorified jumping. Not quite the same as sustained time spent at death defying heights.

“But that was when you had your flames,” Quackity says in his ear. His breath is warm and damp and shiver-inducing, and only a little bit gross. “You don’t anymore, but you still stepped out here with me. Pretty ballsy, putting your life in a villain’s hands.”

“All part of my master plan,” Sapnap grits. Don’t look down, don’t look down, don’t look ooooh fuck that is high up. “Look all vulnerable and shit so you let your guard down. Now I’ve got you right where I want you. You’re under arrest.”

Quackity scoffs a laugh. “You fucking dope. I could drop you off the side of this building.”

“You wouldn’t.”

Quackity drops him. He falls a perilous six inches, yelping while Quackity cackles from on high.

“You—you’re a dick," Sapnap splutters.

“I’m a villain,” Quackity corrects. He knocks a window with an elbow, and it squeaks open an inch. “And you’re gullible.”

Quackity helps him into the penthouse, and from there they lose steam. A vacuum closes around them with the shutting window. They hobble together a few awkward steps toward a poofy leather armchair before Quackity seems to realize Sapnap can probably make the rest of the journey himself. His arms jerk away from Sapnap’s waist.

“I’ll get something for your feet,” Quackity says, and walks off with purpose, leaving Sapnap to perch unsteadily in the armchair. When they used to come here together, the three of them, it looked different. Same dimensions, but a little messier, homier. Since then it’s undergone a renovation that he’s still getting used to. Now it looks like the crossroads between supervillain lair and hotshot CEO office. Lots of blank wallspace and dramatic splashes of black and white. A big marble fireplace. Furniture that probably costs more than Sapnap’s yearly salary, acquired legally or otherwise, comfortable if nothing else. This fancy open concept kitchenette that somehow doesn’t seem out of place with the businessman aesthetic, perhaps due to the giant island that could easily double as a conference table. A lot of tech in here, more than in Sapnap and Karl’s apartment, but it’s all sleek, high-end shit, purring in the background. It’s nice. Kind of cold.

Quackity returns with an armful of first aid supplies: gauze, tweezers, water, a little bottle of hydrogen peroxide. He sets it all on the floor and snaps his fingers. The lights come on. It’s such a pointlessly dramatic, show-offy little detail, so intrinsically Quackity, that Sapnap’s heart flutters at the edges.

Quackity sweeps off his hat with a deft twist of his hand. Sapnap is sure he means to take the mask with it. It doesn’t work. The mask skews at an angle and Quackity swears beneath his breath, turning on his heel so Sapnap can’t see his face. He doesn’t need to; he can nearly feel the unhappy flush radiating from the back of his neck and the edges of his ears and the fumbling tips of his fingers, pawing uselessly at the ties at the back of his head.

Sapnap reaches. “I can—”

“I don’t need your help,” Quackity snaps.

Halfway out of his chair, Sapnap freezes. Quackity’s jaw snaps shut. They hover together, caught in some awful liminal space.

“I know you don’t,” he says. “But, like. You undo my mask all the time. It’s only fair, right?”

Does he sound as desperate to be close to him as he feels? His hands are still reaching. He doesn’t know how not to reach for Quackity.

Quackity is watching him. He’s unreadable beneath the mask, but when he turns his back again, the line of his shoulders is softer.

“Yeah,” he says. “It’s only fair.”

Quackity’s hair is soft. A little greasy. His scalp is warm against Sapnap’s knuckles, the silk ties of the mask smooth.

“Shouldn’t you be better at this?” Quackity asks after a minute. “This is literally your job.”

“Shut up, I’m concentrating.”

“I could have done it myself by now.”

“Yeah, well, now I’m gonna take even longer.”

Quackity snickers, and Sapnap picks at the knot until it all comes undone with a tug. The mask slips down into Quackity’s waiting hands.

“Took you long enough.”

He turns around, still grinning, and Sapnap is struck by him all in a rush. His lovely dark eyes. The ragged scar carving his mouth into a permanent snarl. The sharp line of his jaw. The curve of his cheek, still soft, despite everything.

Sapnap lifts his hands because he doesn’t know when to quit and waits for Quackity to push him away. He thinks they’re both surprised when he doesn’t.

Quackity’s face fits to his palms just like it used to. “You’re okay?”

For just a second Quackity’s eyes go big and round and vulnerable, and then he dismisses the question with a laugh. “I should be asking you that. You’re the one that had a breakdown on the roof. And fucked up your feet.”

Sapnap tries to laugh with him. It curdles in his throat. “Quackity.”

Quackity looks away. “Of course I’m okay. Why wouldn’t I be?”

He sinks to a kneel, his face slipping from Sapnap’s hands like water. A sharp tap from his knuckle against Sapnap’s kneecap has him sitting too.

“Well,” says Sapnap, as firm, familiar hands pluck at his ankle and lift up his foot. The shiny black floors are cold. Quackity’s touch is hot. “You could’ve told me that. I’ve been trying to reach you.”

Gravel and beer bottle glass are tweezed out of his skin with clinical precision. “I don’t know what you want from me. An apology? Did you really expect me to reach out to the guy who’s been trying to arrest me for months, when I’m scrambling with a new power just like every other poor schmuck in this city?”

What else can he say? “Yeah, I did.”

Quackity’s shoulders bunch up. “Yeah, well. I’m sure you kept busy.”

“What does that mean?”

Quackity doesn’t answer. Sapnap might have pushed but the hydrogen peroxide is applied next and he hisses instead. The gauze is wrapped neatly. Only then does Quackity lift his eyes, and Sapnap sees them stall on the twin wrappings poking out of his sleeves. His face darkens like roiling sea, and then smoothes like a lake.

He stands fluidly, crossing the room and hitting a button on a remote. Sapnap feels it more than sees it. The fire gasps to life. “How’s Eryn?”

The chambers of Sapnap’s heart flood with emotion. Quackity was always thoughtful about things like this. “He’s okay. Doing his best to give me a heart attack, but I trust him. He’s got Bad’s shadow manipulation.”

Quackity nods. “Could be worse.”

“I guess.” Sapnap sighs. Tries to shake off the impulse to message his little brother there and then. The kid’s probably still asleep. “What about the kid with the force fields, he alright?”

“What about him? Aegis isn’t even my sidekick anymore.” He pauses. “He’s fine. Not great, but he’s adapting. Kid’s tough.”

The twist to his mouth isn’t entirely happy. Sapnap feels that twist inside him. Aegis is fine. Adaptable, strong. Like Eryn. Even if they shouldn’t have to be.

He nods. “Kid’s tough.”

Quackity gives him a shrewd look. “And Bad?”

Quackity and Bad used to run in the same vigilante circles. Sapnap likes that the love of his life has a good relationship with his father, and also he hates it. “I don’t like that you’re friends with my dad, Q.”

“Way to deflect, champ.” Quackity twirls a finger. A crystal decanter and two squat matching glasses glide over from the mantel. “What about you? You’re alright?”

“I’m fine.”

“Convincing.”

“Well, good, because I am.”

An exasperated puff through the nose. He pours brown liquid made amber by the fire and holds one glass out to Sapnap. Sapnap won’t drink it, because it tastes like piss, but he accepts and holds it anyway. Quackity told him that he used to hate it too, but his ex laughed at him every time he said so, and that cut at him until he developed a tolerance, and then an acquired taste. The thought always makes Sapnap fruitlessly angry, and sad.

Quackity sips, and says around the rim of his glass, “You don’t have a monopoly on caring about people, you know.”

A roundabout way of saying it, but still Sapnap feels flushed and pleased. “Yeah? Is that why you were outside my apartment at four in the morning?”

Quackity rolls his eyes, but Sapnap thinks he can see the quirk to one corner of his mouth. He sends the decanter back to the mantel with a flick of his wrist. Sapnap wants to watch it go but he can’t tear his eyes from the smile hiding in Quackity’s mouth. “Piss off, man.”

“You were worried.” Sapnap grins. “You like me.”

“You know what I didn’t like? When you had a conniption on the roof. What was that about?”

And just like that, Sapnap’s flush simmers from pleased to embarrassed. He sinks lower in the armchair. “My shitty swapped power. City gets loud. Almost makes me want to fuck off to the woods and be a hermit.”

Faint amusement lightens Quackity’s brow. “Technopathy. I busted a gut when you said that.” The mirth drains away. “I didn’t know it hurt you.”

Sapnap shifts. “It doesn’t like, hurt hurt. Just a headache. Warden says I’ll get used to it, but Warden’s a dick anyway, so who knows.”

“Sounds like Wildfire doesn’t really fit the brand anymore. You’ll need a new codename.” Quackity thinks on it for a second, then says with complete sincerity, “Alexa?”

Sapnap groans. “You suck.”

“What about Siri?”

“I am being so sensitive and vulnerable and sexy at you right now, and this is how you treat me. You’re under arrest. Again.”

Quackity holds up his hands. “It’s not my fault you’re being a pussy about it. They’re better than my new powers.”

Sapnap balks. “What? Dude, gravity control is OP as hell.”

“I can make people float. You know who else can do that? Stage magicians.”

“Bullshit. I bet you could pin me to the floor right now.”

“And you’d like it, wouldn’t you, you kinky freak,” Quackity laughs.

Sapnap says, “Only if it’s you or Karl doing the pinning.”

Quackity’s grin falters, but only for a moment. Sapnap swallows and tries again. “Quackity, listen. About Karl—”

“I don’t want to talk about Karl.”

“It’s not what you think.”

“What makes you think I think about him at all?” He downs the rest of his drink in one smooth pull and turns to fire in the same motion. The shadows are dramatic and jumping. When he turns around again, he’s smirking. “So you miss punching things?”

Sapnap feels that same tired desperation, tightening around his ribs like an iron band. He flexes his hands and lets it go. “Q, you have no idea how much I miss punching things.”

“Didn’t Warden have these fuck-off big mechanical arms? You could punch things with those.”

Warden’s mechanical arms. That’s—huh.

“They’re at HOA headquarters,” Sapnap says, slowly. “In his lab. I’d probably have to fill out paperwork and shit to take them out.”

“Or,” says Quackity.

So they steal Warden’s arms.

Quackity laments his lack of shapeshifting, but he’s stealthy and effortlessly cool even without it, and Sapnap figures out how to blur the security cameras without much trouble. It’s still early enough that he’s not technically on the job, which is how he justifies it. Also it’s fun. If they get caught he decides he’ll say they were testing the security protocols.

They don’t get caught. It’s easy. Like embarrassingly easy. After all this is over Sapnap’s going to have to address their security flaws, for real.

There are four arms total, each detachable from a sleek, many-faceted carapace affixed to the spine, like the shell of a scarab. They only take two because it turns out they’re way more complex than any of the tech Sapnap has interacted with to date, and trying to use all four gives him an instant nosebleed. Quackity finds a condemned building to take them for a spin. Gambler that he is at heart, he proposes a game and a prize for the winner, and they spend the last drips of night chasing each other with barking laughter.

Quackity darts through knocked walls and rotted floors and Sapnap hounds after him. His blood races. He’s never more than a step behind. Quackity is swift and sly, slipping around corners and gliding over debris. Sapnap isn’t half so graceful, but with these, he doesn’t have to be. All he has to do is listen for the sound of Quackity’s pager—that’s what he’d heard before, all the way from the roof opposite the apartment, a plucked chord unique to the three of them—and then he bulldozes his way over. It barely takes a thought; it barely takes a feeling. The arms can almost predict what he wants them to do, that’s how smooth the interface is.

Quackity dives up through a hole in the ceiling. He flips Sapnap off as he disappears. Sapnap follows, using one arm to grappling hook up through the hole, landing so heavy and hard on the floor above that it rings through the soles of his feet. Less than a foot away, Quackity yelps and stumbles back. Sapnap coils the other arm around his waist and pulls him flush.

They stare at each other, wild-eyed and panting.

“Caught you,” Sapnap says.

“First time for everything, hero,” Quackity says. He’s grinning, knife-sharp and lovely.

Sapnap unwinds the arm but doesn’t step back. Neither does Quackity. They stand toe to toe and chest to chest, smiling, breathing hard, and Sapnap says, “This was a great idea, Q. Has anyone told you recently that you’re the smartest person in this city?”

“Not recently enough. The most underappreciated evil genius Essempi’s got, that’s me.”

“You’re not evil.” Sapnap shrugs at Quackity’s raised eyebrow. “You’re not. You’re a villain. There’s a difference.”

“Not in the eyes of the law. And not in the eyes of your adoring public.”

“Who cares what they think?”

“You should. It’s your job.”

“My job is kicking ass and rescuing damsels,” Sapnap says. “Not caring what people think about me, or you. It doesn’t matter that you’re a villain.”

Quackity barks a laugh. He seems genuinely amused. “You beautiful dumb bag of rocks, that’s all that matters. That’s what this whole city is based on.”

The sweat is cooling on the back of Sapnap’s neck. “That never stopped us before.”

“Didn’t it?” Quackity’s smile gets toothier. “Karl dropped me like a bad habit. And maybe it didn’t stop you, but that’s your mistake.”

“It wasn’t a mistake.” Sapnap frowns. “Do you think it was?”

And now Quackity is frowning too. He shifts his weight, crosses his arms. Takes a step back. “You’re a hero. I’m a villain. You do the math.”

“You keep bringing that up. What the hell does it matter?”

“Everything!” Quackity bursts. “I’m a villain. I’m fucking mean. I barely talk to you and I cause problems with your fiance. The only things I had going for me were my powers and my impeccable style and now I’ve only got one of those things. I barely know how to use this gravity bullshit.” He paces, agitated, closer and closer to an east-facing wall Sapnap knocked down during the chase. “I can’t kick your ass without turning your spine to powder. I can’t control it enough to protect you. Or Aegis, or Handyman, or—or fucking Karl, not that he’d want me to, and sure as fuck not that I’d want to, but—but you’re a hero! And you have the HOA, and Essempi, and Karl, so you tell me, Wildfire, why the fuck would you—”

He stops like he’d skid over a cliff if he didn’t. They breathe together. In like this, out like this. Slow.

“I should go.” He turns to the crumbled wall and takes a step over the edge.

“Wait,” says Sapnap, and Quackity, suspended over a five story drop, waits. Watery gray dawn frames him in silhouette.

Sapnap reaches out a hand. He doesn’t know how not to reach for Quackity.

“I want you,” he says, “exactly as you are. Vigilante or villain, or shapeshifter, or gravity controller. Gravity manipulator. Whatever. I’ll love you until the fucking sun burns out.”

Quackity turns around. Flush burns from his collarbone to his hairline.

“You know what you are?” he says, finally. “You are goddamn embarrassing. You’re whipped. You’re a simp.”

“Yeah,” says Sapnap.

“Jesus.” Quackity slaps a hand over his face. “I’m really good at being mad at people. It’s a godgiven talent, I am the king of grudges. You’re making it really hard to be mad at you, and it’s fucking annoying!”

Quackity laughs, a begrudging, helpless sound, and Sapnap laughs too. “So, uh,” he fumbles, losing steam. “Could you maybe come back inside for a minute? I like. I want to spend some more time with you. We could…talk.”

“Talk,” Quackity scoffs. “About what?”

“I dunno, fuckin—things. Our week. The swap. You didn’t tell me how it’s been for you.”

“It’s been pretty shit, honestly.”

Sapnap’s shoulders droop. “Right? It sucks.”

Quackity’s gaze is searching, his scar pulled taut. He takes Sapnap’s hand.

Instead of stepping back inside, he pulls Sapnap out to the ledge, where they sit and let their legs swing. They talk. About their week. About their powers. It’s strained at first, and then it’s easy, like running rust from a faucet. Morning ekes across the sky.

“I’ve had to stamp out not one, but two attempted coups,” Quackity laments. “Two! Ungrateful putos de mierda."

“I’m not gonna say that’s what you get for working with villains, but.”

“I’m not gonna push you off of this building, but." He jostles Sapnap with an elbow, and smirks only a little when Sapnap pretends not to cling to his arm. “Two coups, plus all my competition who suddenly think they’re hot shit, plus protecting my dumbass employees who are honestly way more trouble than they’re worth, plus keeping the business running, plus this bullshit gravity nonsense—it’s a total clusterfuck.”

“I hear you,” Sapnap says. “The HOA isn’t doing much better. Even before the swap, things were held together by duct tape and toothpicks and Dream, that’s it. Now it’s a total shitshow. And the worst part,” Sapnap confesses, “is that I think this is better for some people. Like genuinely better. I haven’t seen George this awake in years. And Karl—you have to see him yourself, Quackity. He’s our Karl. I don’t know how to explain it. He’s present, he’s here. It’s…it’s really beautiful, seeing him like that.”

He expects Quackity to close off again, but he just sits quiet and pensive. “Yeah,” he says. “He was pretty beautiful, wasn’t he?”

Sapnap’s throat goes tight. “Yeah.” He swallows and shakes his head. “Either things stay this way and people keep getting hurt, or they switch back, and Karl—ugh. I dunno, man. I want to melt the face off whoever did this, but no one knows anything. And like, what would I even do? Cut their wifi?”

“Don’t count yourself out,” Quackity says. He knocks their ankles. “You can bash some heads with these arms. And worse comes to worst, you can always erase their google calendar.”

Sapnap huffs a grudging laugh, hooks his foot and locks their ankles together. Quackity lets him. “Hey, I saw your birds when I was looking for you.”

Quackity lights up. “Fat little fuckers. How are they?”

“Definitely still the chunkiest birds in Essempi,” Sapnap says. “But not as chunky as they used to be. They miss you, I guess. And they can’t stand me.”

“To be fair, no animals can stand you.”

“No shit. I fed them and all the thanks I got was bird shit.”

Quackity laughs. He seems to glow with it. Sapnap can’t help but bask a little, and the corners of Quackity’s eyes get sly. “I must look good in this light.”

It’s bad light, objectively. Morning has settled in overcast yet bright, washing out everything below it.

“You look good in every light,” Sapnap says, without thought or shame.

“Smoothtalker.” But Quackity’s cheek softens with a dimpled almost-smile. He clears his throat, shrugs on an air of professionalism. “I don’t know much more about the swap than you do, but I know some people who are looking into it. I’ve got some contacts, some branches I could shake. Find out what they know.”

Sapnap’s jaw drops, then claps shut. “That would be awesome. Thanks.”

Quackity puffs up a little. He’s amazing. Sapnap is in awe of him.

He says, “Wouldn’t it be easier if everyone just, like. Updated each other? That would make it faster, right? If everyone just shared information?”

“I guess,” says Quackity, lifting a brow. “You’d need a neutral ground. Lots of egos in the HOA.”

Sapnap blinks at him. Quackity blinks back. It clicks, and he grimaces.

“Oh, no way. I’m putting the kabosh in that right the fuck now. The casino is a villain joint, for villains, of villainy. No dice.”

“Come on, it wasn’t always just for villains. If you open the floor to HOA and their backup, heroes would feel safe, and with you and your crew manning the place, villains and vigilantes would feel safe too.”

Quackity’s gaze is critical. “I feel like you’re getting a little lost in the sauce here, Sap. It would never work.”

“We’re making it work, right now.”

“That was cheesy as hell.” His eyes are narrow, his cheeks pink. “Anyone ever tell you you’re annoying?”

“George, all the time. Well?”

The look he gives Sapnap is exasperated, and sort of wondering. He sighs.

“Jesus, fine. You want my casino so bad, you can have it. No arrests. Truce, right here.”

He thrusts out his hand. Sapnap scrambles to take it. “You have my word.”

“After all this is over,” Quackity says, “I’m going to take you heroes for everything you’ve got.”

His grin is sharklike. Sapnap wants, suddenly, to kiss him.

“I’m about to push my luck,” he warns, and squeezes Quackity’s hand. “Talk to Karl.”

Something ripples across Quackity’s face, not quite a frown. “Not likely.”

“That’s what I want for winning. One chance, Q, that’s all I’m asking.”

“You’re asking for a lot more than that.” But Quackity regards him, for a long time.

“...Maybe,” he says. “If you talk to Bad.”

Sapnap’s joy curdles at the edges. “What? Come on, that’s not fair—”

“When have I ever played fair?” Quackity flexes his hand, eyes bright. “You’re a sadsack when you don’t talk to him regularly. Quit being a pussy and talk to your dad, man.”

Sapnap grimaces. “You don’t know what he’s like now. He’s—he’s different. He’s not himself.”

“That’s why you have to talk to him.” Quackity’s face softens. “Those are my terms, Wildfire. Take them or leave them.”

Sapnap’s pride smarts. He aches with gratitude.

“Fine,” he grumbles, and Quackity pulls him down with one sharp tug and kisses the corner of his mouth, very quick.

“If you’re serious about pooling information, then I’ve got some work to do.” He rises to his feet, and Sapnap follows suit, eager to hold onto him a little longer. Quackity steps out over the edge again, stretching the link of their arms as far as they can go, and then he’s gone, flitting backward through the air. His voice follows him, echoing. “Hey Siri, get your shit together and talk to your dad!”

Sapnap is laughing too hard to think of a good comeback.

Sapnap goes to work. He checks on Eryn. Updates Karl. Fails to find Antfrost, but has a very productive day otherwise, entirely thanks to the giant mechanical arms and the punching. Hell yeah punching. Plans with Quackity, and a reluctant George, for a parley at the casino, scheduled for midnight the next day. Things are—they’re not good, but they’re better. Cautiously, hopefully, finally better.

And when he can’t put it off any longer, he gets his shit together and talks to his dad.

He tells himself he keeps the mask and the suit and the arms because it was faster to just jog straight from work to his dad’s apartment, but it probably has more to do with feeling more self-assured as Wildfire than Pandas, selfish dumbass kid who will never be able to repay his father’s kindness. About three blocks away he hears Quackity and Karl in the back of his head, poking fun at him for marching to his dad’s house ready to fight a war. And—yeah. Maybe he is coming in a little aggressive. Bad is sensitive to hero stuff at the moment, and maybe Sapnap is rolling up in full combat gear to provoke him. That’s a shit thing to do, when Bad only ever wants him to come around for dinner.

Too late to go back and change now, but Sapnap pushes up his mask and softens the set of his shoulders. The least he can do is give the guy some warning.

He pulls out his communicator and hovers his thumb over his dad’s contact. Navigates away to his messages. Navigates back and jabs the call button.

Bad picks up after two rings. “Pandas!”

“Hey, Bad.” Sapnap massages at the back of his neck. “Sorry, I know it’s been a while.”

Why did he open with that? Already apologizing, putting himself on the defensive. Giving Bad the upper hand.

Stop, says the voice in his head, that sometimes sounds like Karl and Quackity, or Eryn, or Dream. This isn’t a fight. Not every conversation with your father has to be a battle.

“Pish,” Bad says easily. “I’m just glad you called. How was your day?”

“Better than the past few. Just got off work. You and Skeppy been okay?”

“Of course!” Bad’s voice is clear and bright like homemade lemonade. “Your brother stopped by earlier and you’re calling now, I’d say we’re just peachy.”

Sapnap expects Skeppy to chime in at this, something snarky and good-humored, but the silence goes unbroken. He must be in another room.

“So, uh. I was thinking maybe we could. Talk, or something. Catch up.”

“Oh, Pandas, I’d love that.” There’s a clunk—a low sound, metallic and hollow. Then Bad, distracted: “But right now might not be the best time. Maybe you could come by for breakfast tomorrow?”

“Oh. I thought I could—” He cuts himself off. He’s already at the building, and Bad would let him in if he knew he was there, whether or not he felt up to it. “Yeah, breakfast sounds good. What are you doing?”

“Baking,” Bad says. “Skeppy and I are making a soufflé, if we’re not vigilant it might collapse.”

“Oh shit. And take all of society with it.”

“Language, smartypants.”

The warmth in his voice. Sapnap rolls his eyes upward to ward off any uncalled-for wetness. His gaze catches on the window of his father’s apartment.

It’s dark.

Sapnap thinks—Sapnap doesn’t think anything. So the lights are off. So what? It doesn’t mean Bad is lying. It doesn’t.

He feels for the connection between their phones like prodding a loose tooth. Bad’s phone pings back at him, a cord attached to a locked box. He can almost see it behind his eyes.

“Eryn took all the leftover muffins with him,” Bad says. “But you can have some of the soufflé tomorrow.”

Sapnap pulls the cord. The box opens.

Information spills into his head. Records. Times. Locations. Messages. From him, Skeppy, Eryn, Ant—

Sapnap’s eyes slam open.

Bad is still speaking. Bad says goodbye. Sapnap says goodbye too, he must, because Bad wouldn’t hang up otherwise.

Static rises in his ears. He’s cold.

Sapnap doesn’t know how he got his powers.

He assumes he was born with them, but maybe he absorbed some radiation from staring at the sun for too long, or maybe the creepy hoarder lady that lived next door when he was six was a witch, or maybe it was something bad he ate. There’s probably a way to pin it down, but he doesn’t actually care. What matters is that he started catching fire when he was ten, and before he turned eleven his parents packed up the apartment and left him behind in it.

After three days he’d eaten the last of the food in the fridge. When he left he locked the door behind him because that was what his mother taught him to do. He found a man who paid him five hundred dollars to burn down his house for the insurance check, and used that money to cross the country in a cramped and foul-smelling liminal space of buses. When funds ran low he went into box stores and lit fires in the corners, taking his pick of the junk food aisle and the registers while the employees fled. And then he arrived in Essempi.

It was a rough-edged city that smelled like oil and looked like hunched shoulders and very firmly did not want him, but that was okay, because he had rough edges too and was used to surviving in places he was unwanted. Shortly after disembarking he met a man who pitied him. He bought Sapnap a muffin and gave him a roll of twenties. Sapnap was eleven and knew an easy mark when he saw one.

He ran into the man frequently, and when he wasn’t farming his pity he was following him, learning his lifestyle, his schedule, the company he kept. The man wasn’t as cleancut as he seemed on the surface. He stole like Sapnap did, and tricked, and lied. He had a dog that he loved and charities he donated to. He did every job with the same partner. When they were out of the apartment and Sapnap was desperate, he snuck in and took what he needed.

This went on for three months. On a bad day Sapnap ducked inside to escape the cold, and fell asleep next to the radiator. He woke to find a blanket around his shoulders and the man in the kitchen making soup.

“You never have to steal from me,” Bad said, with his back mercifully turned. Sapnap thinks he would have bolted, had he turned around. “What’s mine is yours, always. But if taking things on your own terms makes it easier for you, then go right ahead. The door is always unlocked.”

Sapnap didn’t believe him, but he started staying over more often. The most Bad would do was make him wash his hands before eating, say please and thank you. He never explicitly invited Sapnap on jobs, but Skeppy did. Some of what they did had purpose—taking down a landlord preying on his tenants, exposing the owner of a laundromat rigging his machines to cheat elderly customers out of quarters. Other things had less purpose, other than maybe wreaking havoc. Bad called these jobs “pranks,” though they were unlike any pranks Sapnap had ever pulled.

One night Sapnap shuffled into the apartment, tired and missing the little racecar bed Bad had purchased for him at a yard sale. It was nine PM—Bad worried if he stayed out any later than that—and there was a kid seated on Bad’s clean kitchen counters. He was half Sapnap’s age, probably, small enough that his feet didn’t reach the floor, stuffing his face with baked goods. He couldn’t light things on fire but he was special too. His name was Eryn.

And suddenly Sapnap was thirteen, and he had a brother but he didn’t, and a racecar bed that was his but it wasn’t, and he was jumping from the fire escape because Bad told him not to but Bad wasn’t his father really and that thought rose in Sapnap like blistering smoke. For months he had been gnashing his teeth and swearing and breaking things and setting them on fire. A lot of things on fire. Infuriatingly, impossibly, Bad had endured it all, but with this Sapnap had gone too far. Bad would skin him or he would cry, and then he’d kick him out, and he’d lock the door behind him because that was what his mother said was right.

Bad didn’t do any of that. He kissed Sapnap’s hair, and he told him it would be okay, and they stepped into a shadow and stepped out at the hospital. Skeppy stayed behind with Eryn. There were scolding doctors and resetting bones and dodged legal questions, and then they were leaving again, with a new pair of crutches and a plaster cast.

Unsure what else to say, Sapnap ventured, “I bet this cast is going to itch like a bitch,” and Bad said “Language,” and then he burst into tears.

He said he was sorry they’d been fighting recently. He asked Sapnap to never do that again. He didn’t yell once.

A week after that, at Sapnap’s request, Bad had a contact draw up some documents. And then he was Sapnap Halo, and always had been.

L’Manburg is one of the oldest districts in Essempi. Cozy, quaint, built on the water. A fishing town by trade, and even when the city sprawled out and up and industrialized, it maintained its welcoming old-world charm. For all that the rest of the city is perpetually cold and wet and gray, L’Manburg managed some light.

Things fell apart shortly after the HOA was founded. They hadn’t found their sea legs yet. Just Dream, George, and Sapnap, scrambling, trying, often failing. Battles they couldn't contain. Buildings demolished and homes destroyed. Residents moved inland, businesses left, and L’Manburg fell into a despair it never recovered from. It’s a key point for the legislators who want to shut them down that Dream is always fighting with. A key point for the vigilantes who disapprove of them, too. Sapnap still isn’t sure if L’Manburg’s downfall was their fault or not. He doesn’t go there often.

Bad’s phone pinged from a warehouse near the docks. Tape over the door and boards over the windows. Inside there are unswept floors and cobwebs and rats, barren shelves and rusted conveyor belts, and the low, relentless roar of some great machine that should not exist.

He wishes Quackity were here. Karl. George and Dream. Telling him he’s being ridiculous. Telling him he needs to stop and breathe and think. Telling him to stop being so loud, as he finds a staircase and descends it.

The machine grows louder.

The basement is a maze of rooms and storage. Latent power lines and a hibernating boiler, not far off, and the machine rumbling beneath them all. He tracks it to a room that’s gutted and cavernously black, poked through by two lights like pinholes. One red and one blue.

He steps toward them, and the room plunges into a palpable dark. Bad bursts from it at a run.

“Sapnap!” He’s in his work clothes, shadow drawn over his face like a mask. “What are you doing here? You have to leave! They’re coming!”

“What?” Warden’s arms snap and lash. He cranes his neck to look past Bad but the dark is complete. “Who? Bad, what did you do?”

“The people responsible for this swap. Skeppy and I were investigating. We lured them here for information, but if they see HOA they’ll spook!” Bad seizes his shoulders and drives him back. “Go, go now, before they get here!”

Sapnap grabs Bad’s forearms. “Fuck that, I’m not leaving you here. I’m bringing these bastards in—”

“You can’t do it alone! They’ll get away or they’ll hurt you or worse. Go get backup, get Dream, I’ll keep the shadows high so they won’t see you. We’ll stall them until you get back.”

“Bad—”

“There’s no time! Go!”

Backup. Dream. Dream will know what to do. He’ll call Dream, and Quackity and Karl, and Karl will rewind this mess so they can do it right, talk to Bad in the daylight and get some answers—no, they won’t, because Karl’s powers were swapped—

Pedaling through the doorway, Sapnap stops.

“What are you doing?” Bad shoves at him. “Hurry, hurry, they’re coming—”

“Bad.” He catches Bad’s wrist. “You don’t have shadow manipulation anymore. Eryn does.”

Bad’s eyes are bright in the unnatural veil over his face. His mouth opens, and closes.

“Why do you have Eryn’s power?” Sapnap says. “Why have you been talking to Antfrost?”

Bad steps back. He lifts his hands away, and the urgency drops from his shoulders.

Sapnap spoke with Eryn today. He can’t remember the last thing he said to him.

“Tell me why you have Eryn’s power.”

If anything happens to that kid. If anything happens to that kid—

“Eryn came by and ate all the leftover muffins, like I said, and then he went home,” Bad says, hands held out, animal-soothing. “Your brother is perfectly safe. I only borrowed the shadow manipulation.”

Power mimicry. Thunder’s ability. Sapnap heard through the grapevine that Thunder woke up at the start of this with a sonic voice. Later a run in with Warden and Red Raccoon went south, and Thunder died. The only thing that saved him was Red Raccoon’s new necromancy.

And Bad is here, benefiting from Thunder’s powers. Telling him that Eryn is safe. “I don’t believe you.”

“That makes me very sad to hear.”

And he looks it. He doesn’t look like the man who plunged an entire city into chaos overnight. He doesn’t look like anything other than Sapnap’s father, gently hurt by his carelessness.

Sapnap steps fully into the basement and Bad, passively, steps back. He reaches into his pocket.

“Don’t move,” says Sapnap, and Bad raises his eyebrows.

“I’m calling Eryn.” He pulls out his phone. Taps the screen and puts it on speaker. “Hi, buddy.”

“Hey, dad.” Eryn’s voice, distracted, some tinny shooter game in the background. Relief leaves Sapnap lightheaded. “What’s up?”

“Just wanted to make sure you grabbed those leftovers for your friends.”

Eryn huffing. “Yes, dad, I took the leftovers. Thanks.”

Bad says great, I love you. Eryn says I love you back. The call disconnects. Sapnap and Bad watch each other.

“See? Everything’s fine.”

“The fuck it is. What’s that?” He gestures with one of Warden’s arms.

“Language—”

“Don’t even fucking dare, Bad, what is that thing behind you?”

A moment of tension. The darkness lifts.

The full length of the room unfurls, broad and empty, no windows and no doors. Set in the center: two enormous pillars. A glowing blue gem suspended in one and a blood red stone in the other.

“This is how you did it.” He wishes it was a question. He wishes Bad could say no and he would believe him. But he doesn’t even try to deny it.

“I’ve wanted to tell you for the longest time,” he says. “This isn’t how I wanted you to find out. I would have told you, when we fixed the machine. Got it right. Sat you down and explained it all properly.” His brow knits. “But we couldn’t risk it, and you’ve been so blinded by the HOA—”

“Me? I’m blinded?”

His voice echoes. Red at the edges of his vision. Red damping the inside of his nose. That fucking machine, grinding down his spine.

“Ant said it wasn’t supposed to swap our powers.”

“It wasn’t.”

“What was it meant to do?” He sucks in cold air. “What are you doing, Bad?”

Bad doesn’t hesitate. “It was supposed to erase them.”

Warden’s arms go slack. “What?”

“It’s not as bad as it sounds. Think of it like this, Pandas—”

“Don’t call me that,” Sapnap snaps.

Bad’s eyes go soft and sad. Like the time Sapnap yelled at Eryn for taking his bandana without permission. Like the time Skeppy came home later than he promised and Sapnap pretended to be asleep instead of saying goodnight. Like the time he broke his leg jumping from the fire escape. Bad in front of the hospital, so quiet and so small, and all the shadows in the world couldn’t hide the hurt in his face.

That’s how Bad looks right now, and Sapnap’s heart aches with guilt, a pavlovian response. As though he’s the one who did the betraying. As though Bad has the fucking right.

“Okay, Wildfire,” Bad says. “Think of it like this. One country develops nuclear weapons. And then a second, and then a third. And then before we know it we’re relying on mutually assured destruction to prevent nuclear war.” He’s taken on his schoolteacher tone. “Does that sound sustainable to you?”

Sapnap says nothing.

“It doesn’t to me,” Bad barrels on. “It sounds to me like one day some muffin will lose their temper and the whole world will go up in smoke. Now if you could press a button and get rid of every nuclear weapon in the whole world and no one had to get hurt, wouldn’t you do it?”

“What the fuck does this have to do with anything?”

“Everything,” Bad says. “That’s all we were trying to do, your dad and I and a few like-minded people. Antfrost, yes. We didn’t want to swap everyone’s powers, we wanted to get rid of them. Can’t you see that would have been better? Safer, for everyone? For Eryn?”

“Yeah?” Sapnap says. “You and Skeppy and your like-minded people, you would have lost your powers too?”

Bad shifts. “You have to understand. During the transition period, there would have been a dangerous vacuum, a need for order—”

“Stop,” Sapnap says. “Just—just stop. You can’t politic your way out of this. I’m not some easy mark, I’m me. You weren’t trying to help anyone. You wanted power. That’s it.”

For the first time Bad’s composure cracks. “You’re being a child. I can’t speak to you when you refuse to listen to reason—”

“Why haven’t you swapped everything back yet?”

Bad’s expression shutters.

“Because you like what you got, don’t you?” Sapnap shakes his head. “Do you even hear yourself? This isn’t vigilante. This isn’t even villain. This is just…bad. You’re not being the person I know you are. You’re not—” His voice gutters. “You’re not being my dad.”

For a moment, Bad looks stricken.

“You think I’m not your father?” he says, very slowly. Dark bleeds into his voice. “Fine. Then I won’t be your father.”

Sapnap falls through his shadow.

A weightless moment of terror throttles the scream from his throat. His body comes to a gallows-sharp stop, and only as he’s dangling does he realize he grabbed the exposed piping in the ceiling with one of Warden’s arms. That was instinct. Without it, he would have—Bad would have—

He propels back up, catching Bad in the chest with his boots. The other arm spears out to grab Bad’s wheeling arm, pinning him to the wall.

“Stand the fuck down,” he snarls. Hovering above the smoky blackness of a floor waiting to swallow him, he twists his body to face the machine. It imposes, forcing its presence upon the room and Sapnap’s skull. There’s no way he can figure out how it works. No way he can even turn it off. But if he can just brute his way through—disable it, for now, neutralize the threat—then maybe with Warden’s help he can fix it later. Reverse engineer what went wrong. Set everything right.

It’s a risk. It’s all he can think to do.

He focuses his stolen power and bulls his way in. The machine roars against him. Blood drips down the back of his throat, over his lips. Static. He pushes harder, feels it give—

Something pushes back.

Power mimicry. Bad, teeth bared, eyes vicious. His nose is bleeding. He’s fortifying the machine against him.

The arm pinning Bad pries slowly, painstakingly open. Alarm knifes up Sapnap’s spine. He can feel it—the purr of Warden’s arms becoming a hiss, turning on him. A shiver wracks down through the arm clamped onto the pipe, dropping him a foot closer to the darkness below. A split second-decision and he lets go of control of one arm to focus his control of the other, and it feels like a limb going dead. Bad thrusts his hand forward and the lost arm shoots straight for him, and Sapnap can already feel it around his neck, his jaw, his skull, squeezing. Crushing.

It vices around the pipe instead, shaking like a dog shakes a fox. The pipe squeals. Threatens to give.

The floor is a dark, yawning maw.

“Bad.” Sapnap’s ankles vanish into shadow. “Bad!”

But Bad’s face is a stranger’s.

All at once, rage scorches Sapnap’s insides to tar. This man wearing his father’s face.

It happens so fast. At the top of Sapnap’s spine there’s the rumble of the boiler waking, the insectoid click of an ignition—and then the world is light and pressure and heat.

The room comes apart. Sapnap is blown back, his head cracking against bare concrete. The ground is ground again, and the machine a groaning ruin. He chokes on gas and cooking flesh.

Bad is screaming.

“Bad.” He crawls to his knees. “Dad—!”

He propels back up, catching Bad in the chest with his boots. The other arm spears out to grab Bad’s wheeling arm, pinning him to the wall.

“Stand the fuck down,” he snarls, and a wave of nausea rushes over him, so strong he nearly lets go of the pipe.

He’s done this before. This has—he’s sure—

Skeppy descends the stairs and rushes to Bad’s side. He whispers to him, touches his face. He doesn’t look at Sapnap once.

“Skeppy,” Sapnap’s voice falters. “You—you have Rewind’s power?” And then horror. “No. It’ll hurt you, Rewind told me, you have to stop—”

“You blew up the boiler,” Skeppy snarls. “You nearly killed him, you ungrateful little—”

“I wouldn’t, I didn’t—”

He cuts himself off with a shout as Bad wrests control of one of Warden’s arms. It feels like a limb going dead. Instantly the arm turns on him, vicing onto the pipe and shaking like a dog shakes a fox.

The pipe tears free. The arm under Sapnap’s control slides off the end, and with a sick jag of fear Sapnap realizes the only thing holding him up is the arm in Bad’s control. If he dies here, Karl and Quackity will never forgive him.

“I will retrieve you,” Bad says, “when you’ve had a chance to reflect on our discussion. Maybe then we can have a mature conversation as father and son.”

In the moment before Sapnap falls, static rises in his ears. Oceanic, rushing through him and washing away all else. Heroes and vigilantes and villains, buoys on the water, pinpricks of light. At the heart of it, here in this room, that horrible churning machine.

A thought—SWAP EGGPIRE WAREHOUSE DOCKS—swept away in the current. He shuts his eyes. Out the message goes.

And then there is dark, and nothing but dark.

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