Work Text:
"The Day Tommy Called Him Dad (By Accident)"
It started, like most disasters in the nest, with fire.
Not the big kind. Not the world-ending kind. Just the tiny, indoor, very illegal kind that comes from Tommy deciding he knows how to cook.
“I told you not to touch the stove!” Wilbur shouted, flinging open the window as smoke poured from the pan.
“I wasn’t touching it, I was mastering it!” Tommy retorted, flapping a dish towel like it was a sword. “It’s called culinary genius, Wilbur, maybe read a book—”
The pot exploded. Tubbo shrieked and dived under the table. Techno blinked once, got up, and walked outside.
And then there was a thud.
The whole house shook. Dust fell from the rafters. Tommy spun toward the door, guilty heat rising in his neck just as a massive black wing wedged its way through the opening, followed by the glint of too-sharp eyes.
Phil had landed.
Great.
The wing retracted. The door creaked open. Phil stepped in with the slow menace of an angry god in a bird costume. His feathers shimmered with moonlight, his eyes cold and calculating.
He sniffed. Smoke. Burnt sugar. Tomato? And fear.
“Who,” he said slowly, “set the nest on fire?”
“It was not on fire,” Tommy insisted, arms flailing defensively. “It was a controlled blaze. Like a bonfire. A very, very small—Wilbur did it.”
“I did not!” Wilbur yelled from across the room.
“Techno did it.”
“Wasn’t even in the house,” came Techno’s muffled voice from the yard.
“Tubbo then.”
“I’m four!” Tubbo wailed from under the table.
Phil sighed, the sound ruffling papers and egos alike. “Tommy.”
Tommy froze.
He hated when Phil said his name like that—flat, tired, like it physically hurt him to speak it. He hated the guilt it carved into his chest. He hated feeling like he'd failed someone who hadn’t even asked to be his parent, let alone wanted to be.
“I was trying to help,” he mumbled. “Wanted to make… y’know, a treat or something. For us.”
Phil was quiet.
Too quiet.
Tommy’s fists clenched. “It’s not like you’re even good at this! You don’t know what you’re doing! You feed us bird food and sleep in trees and—and scream at owls at three in the morning—!”
Phil blinked. “That owl deserved it.”
“You’re not even human! You’re just some—freaky sky demon with dad instincts! Why do you even care what I do?!”
He didn’t mean it.
He did.
He didn’t know.
Phil didn’t yell. That somehow made it worse. He just tilted his head, feathers twitching, and said, “Because I do care. You little idiot.”
Tommy bit the inside of his cheek. Hard. His chest felt like it had fire in it again.
“You’re not my dad,” he said, barely above a whisper.
Phil’s expression didn’t change.
Then Tubbo, still under the table, sneezed.
It shattered the tension like glass.
Phil sighed and crouched, awkwardly tucking one wing around the both of them.
“You’re right,” he said softly. “I’m not. I’m a giant crow who stole four kids out of a blizzard and now pretends he knows how to raise them.”
Tommy stared at the floor.
“But I still came when I smelled smoke,” Phil added. “Because I was worried. And because I care.”
Tommy’s voice came out too fast, too hot, unfiltered.
“…Yeah well—you didn’t have to, D—”
Silence.
Tommy’s eyes went wide. His mouth snapped shut like a trap.
Phil blinked once. Slowly.
Tommy looked like he wanted the ground to swallow him.
“I—no! I didn’t mean that! I was gonna say something else! Like—dickhead! Or—or dunce! Or—!”
Phil chuckled.
Soft. Warm. Like fire that didn’t burn.
“Oh yeah? You were gonna call me a ‘dadhead’?”
“Shut up,” Tommy mumbled, cheeks burning.
Phil ruffled his hair with one wingtip.
“Next time,” he said, “don’t try to make crème brûlée in a frying pan.”
“Next time,” Tommy muttered, “don’t be a bird.”
---
That night, Tommy curled up near Phil’s wing without being asked. He didn’t say anything about it. Neither did Phil.
But the warmth was different now.
Not just borrowed.
Shared.