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Tubbo has been a villain for quite awhile, okay villain is a strong way to put it, he didn’t actually do anything illegal, he just got in the way of the Feds enough that they called him one, and tried having him arrested for.. nothing? Once they did that he started actually breaking the law, trespassing on federation property and stealing information, he didn’t find much use in anything else.
But one day.. he just stopped. He was gone, nobody saw him. People theorised that he died, that he was arrested, that he fled the country, but actually.. he just retired.
Tubbo retired because he wanted to spend more time taking care of his daughter, Sunny, while other parents fought and took care of their children at the same time.. they had other people to rely on and take care of there kids when they couldn’t, Tubbo didn’t feel like he had that. So he retired.
Now him not doing anything against the Feds out loud for others to see, doesn’t mean he was doing nothing, Tubbo had a plan. He retired as a villain and went on to open his cafe “Starshine cafe” a safe place for everyone! He had the best coffee in the city and his prices were pretty low! (He put a tip jar on the counter after enough customers became concerned over the money he makes.) In his free time however, he did research on other villains he hadn’t met yet, or wasn’t particularly close with.
Haiper was the first one he did research on, as he’d met him not to long ago, they were friendly with each other but Tubbo didn’t know much about him. So he did the logical thing and asked him if he wanted a job at his cafe! Okay in actuality he knows this was kind of a stupid move but it’s for research!
The next subject of his fascination was Ashswag, based on news reports he was quite strong and very much a problem for the Feds.. good. When he’s started looking for information on Ashswag he was.. confused to say the least, it’s like he didn’t exist until he was in the public eye as a villain, his hated for the Feds was all he was.. hm. So Tubbo came to his own conclusion, he has something to do with the Feds, not in a bad way or anything, he thinks of it like the Eggs, they showed up out of nowhere and so did Ashswag and they both correlate to the Feds so… surely that’s a good explanation for his sudden appearance. During his search for information on Ashswag he realised how silly he was being, Ashswag is always kicking up a fuss for the Feds, so surely a customer knows something, maybe one walked past during a battle involving Ashswag, maybe maybe they know where he’s found most often. Maybe Tubbo just needs to be observant.
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Oh my god. Tubbo… must be fucking blind.. because while being entirely blindsided by his thirst for more knowledge, he hasn’t realised the suspiciously Ashswag shaped customer calling themselves Ash, who visits the Cafe with his daughters Ghostie and Son, he always buys a chocolate milkshake for Son, a Banana milkshake for Ghostie and a boring old coffee for himself, sometimes he buys some to go cake slices for the girls to have at home though. Once Tubbo actually opened his eyes and realised that Ashswag has been in front of him this whole time he actually locked the fuck in.. and by that he means he bought a wall mounted magazine rack and filled it with colouring books and three boxes of rainbow crayons. He needed Ash to be comfortable so that he’d spill all his secrets to him…
What Tubbo hadn’t realised was that Ash was watching and learning about him too. He hadn’t realised that Ash knew he wasn’t just another guy. Ash wanted to know what the sudden lack of activity was. Did he not care about the Feds anymore? Did they have something in over him? Did they do something to him? They were all questions he wanted to ask but didn’t know how to yet.
Tubbo and Ash started having actual conversations with substance, not just a “how’s your day been?” kinda thing, Tubbo would ask about his kids, Ash would mention that it’s a lot harder being a single parent then it looks, Tubbo would drop his wisdom from having a child of his own, Tubbo would mention feeling like he has nobody to fall back on when he needs help, Ash fumbled a bit but said “I can always be there.” Over time they’d learn more and more about each other, they don’t know when it changed from gaining trust to birthday invitations but they aren’t to mad about it.
They’d both given up on getting information from each other at some point, Ash thinks he figured out the answer and Tubbo decided to try and find something new to do (research gets boring eventually).
This peace started splintering around closing time. Ash’s kids were being babysat by Ewron, he trusted him enough with that responsibility, so he decided to visit Tubbo’s cafe, he stood by the counter and spoke with Tubbo for however long, until he Heard the chime of the door bell, he watch Tubbo look to the door, about to say “hey!” To who he thought would be his daughter coming back from the park, but instead he saw someone very different and tensed up for a second before forcing himself to be calm ,when Ash turned around he understood what the shock was about, standing at the entrance was Cucurucho, he walked straight up to the counter and ordered a coffee with two teaspoons of sugar, to go. Tubbo got straight to work, made the coffee as quickly as he could, once it was done he put the coffee on the counter, the bear snatched it up immediately, and threw the money on the counter, all in coins and then he left. Tubbo was left picking up the pieces of what was supposed to be a safe and also picking up rolled away coins. Ash was left with the picture of Tubbo’s tensed face in his mind and it gave him one goal. Remove any and all worries Tubbo could have. Shortly after having that thought he realised it would probably be impossible, so he settled for trying to remove Cucurucho from the face of the earth, because that’ll definitely be more possible (he’s delusional).
Sunny walked through the door a few minutes later, with Empanada and Bagi in tow. (Tubbo closed the cafe early that day, he didn’t even tell Sunny why until they got home)
Ash ended up having an abrupt end to his conversation with Tubbo, he understood why, he was literally there, he was just hoping to get Tubbo’s number that day (so that there kids could go on play dates, obviously).
The day after this Haiper FINALLY got back to Tubbo about the job offer, he accepted. Tubbo will forever remember Ash’s face when he saw a new waiter (he looked so confused LMAO). Haiper and Ash hit it off well, it got kind of awkward when Haiper and Ash bumped into each other while doing villain work, but they just ended up yapping for hours about everything, annoying Feds other villains, the cafe, Ash’s kids, Tubbo’s daughter, the works.
Then Ash had an idea, Ash was friends with Tubbo, and Tubbo was friends with Haiper and Ash was friends with Haiper too.. they were like a trio, but.. they were all also villains! Well, if you count Tubbo being a retired villain that is.. So Ash asked the big question, it’s closing time and nobody was there, it was a better time than ever. Ash asked about making a team, to take down the Feds.
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Silence, not a word. It felt like the silence went on for an eternity, but it had only been a moment.
The silence was shattered by Tubbo’s laugh, followed by.. “Sure! Why not? That could be fun!”
A grin finds its way to Haiper’s face “like that invis mafia team you were the leader of?” (Ash did not find this funny.)
They brain stormed a name for this team, when Ash came up with “The Regime”.
He then also crowned himself as the leader because he formed the team, which then lead on to him and Haiper having a playful argument that Haiper probably should have won but somehow Ash still became leader.
To anyone else this was probably just a small thing, it won’t impact anyone to extremely..
Oh how wrong they were.