Archive of Our Own ^beta

The basic uniform he’s made to wear is uncomfortable, tight against his shoulders and too loose around his stomach, but he wears it under a red and white hoodie nonetheless. It’s one of his first days back at the Tower, having spent too much time away from the city. Logstedshire was a dreary place.

He’s missed his favorite coffee shop, too. He’d always chat with the owner, Niki, before work and he didn’t get to tell her about his trip before he was sent on his way, in part a punishment and in part preparation for isolation should he ever be captured.

He walked to the Tower every day before his time at Logstedshire and he isn’t going to change that now, even with the slow pattering of rain on the pavement that pelt against his face as each drop land on his cheek. He turns down an alley to detour to Niki’s, stepping into a puddle with a splash as he comes into view of the pink cursive painted on the glass store front. He grins, despite the drizzle of rain, and pushes open the door. He’s greeted with a bell chime and he looks to the counter, expecting the cheery smile of Niki, pink hair falling into her eyes.

Niki’s cheery smile is a dark frown, pink hair instead curly and brown and oh, it isn’t Niki, is it?

“Who the fuck are you?” he scowls, shoving his hands into his hoodie pocket. The man scoffs.

“Who are you?” he mutters. “I work here, dumbass.”

Tommy squints. “You’re not Niki,” he huffs.

“No, I’m not,” he says.

“Why?”

The man splutters a laugh, short and staccato. “She needed some workers so she could focus on things other than the counter,” he explains.

Tommy sighs. He’d really been hoping to see Niki before work but he supposes he understands her want to focus on finding women (because what else could she be doing?).

He still can’t help but be disappointed as he orders his usual coffee, turning back out the door the second he gets it instead of hanging around as he usually does. His chest is tight as he continues to the tower, dread weighing in his stomach at the long shift ahead of him. Who knew what he’d be assigned.

He swipes into the building quickly, downing the rest of his coffee. He nods at Foolish, a security guard posted outside the locker rooms, and slips into the room behind him.

His locker is near the front—the back ones taken by upper tier heroes—but he doesn’t mind that much. He grabs his uniform, tossing it onto a bench and stuffing his bag into the locker in its place. He pulls off his hoodie, damp from the rain, and throws it in too before turning to his uniform.

His uniform was okay. It was still the basic uniform but in red, obnoxiously bright and the material isn’t flexible. He has a dark red bandana that he ties around his face, clipping it to his hair with a couple bobby pins. He pulls the fabric above his nose and lets it hang down his chin.

It’s stifling—he’d told Dream he hated having cloth pressed to his face. He’d much rather have an upper face mask, like Rose. It’s fine, though. He probably just forgot.

He changes quickly, ripping off the agency issued uniform for off-duty heroes and tugging on the tight red uniform in its place. He locks his locker, leaving the room with long, decisive steps that get shorter and shakier the closer to Dream’s office he gets.

His mentor isn’t bad, he doesn’t know why he’s anxious. He helps Tommy do the best he can for the agency.

When he reaches the door, it takes a moment but he hypes himself up enough to rap sharply on the wood, three times in quick succession. A muffled, “enter,” calls from inside the office and he turns the door knob shakily, pushing his way into the room.

Dream is sitting at his desk, wavy blond hair falling in front of green eyes as he turns his head to look at Tommy. Manilla folders are shoved to the side of the desk, papers spilling across the dark wood with highlighters spread around empty spaces.

“Ah, Bandit,” he says.

“Yes, sir? You requested my return from Logstedshire,” he reminds his mentor.

“Yes, I am aware,” Dream snaps. Tommy flinches away. “I have a new assignment for you, of which your skills will be far more… useful.”

Tommy blinks. His skills?

Dream shuffles through the folders on his desk, grabbing a medium-sized one from the center of the pile. He holds it out to Tommy, who steps forward to take it.

Dark, bold letters across the front read, “The Syndicate.”

“Sir?” he mumbles.

“The Syndicate has killed far too many good men. You are expendable, therefore the council has chosen to move you to lead hero on the case.”

Tommy blinks. He went from the isolation of the training program in Logstedshire to a lead hero dealing with one of the biggest villain groups in L’manberg?

“All our information is in that folder. I expect you to have a handle on this group before long,” Dream says, waving a hand flippantly. “You’re dismissed.”

Tommy nods, mostly to himself since Dream is back to staring down at his desk, and scurries out of the room. He shifts to his animal form, a blond raccoon, with the manilla folder clutched in mouth and scurries up the doorframe. His feet scrabble against the rough material and dull nails clutch at dents in the wall, bur he climbs up to a vent above Dream’s office. He’d removed the cover long ago.

He scuttles past the vent cap, landing on the stiff metal below him. He hops through the vent, feet quiet with his nails clipped. He skips past turns and continues forward, letting out a quiet chitter when he reaches another vent. He pushes it open with a creak, leaping out to land on his desk.

Tommy’s office is technically his dorm room, but he lives off site in an apartment, so he’d taken apart his stiff bed and replaced it with an oak wood desk months ago. He has a spinny chair and a small speaker to play music out of and he loves his little space in the tower.

Tommy had lost the key to his room within a week. He was too nervous about getting in trouble to get a new one so he had quickly come up with the solution of the vents, memorizing the layout and which vent covers had a path to his room. It works. He drops the manilla folder onto his desk and jumps off, shifting back to his human form mid-air.

Some people were capable of half-shifts, or taking on certain parts of their animal counterparts, while others had no in-between for their animal and human sides. Some human sides were more of a mix, ears or wings sticking in their human forms with no ability to hide them. Tommy was one of the lucky few capable of full shifts in either direction and a half-shift that kept his ears, tail, claws, and dark markings around his eyes.

Unfortunately, there were not many chairs that allowed him to sit comfortably with his tail out. He’s in his human form more often than not.

Tommy slumps down in his chair, indulging himself in a few circles before he pulls his chair up, flush against the desk, and opens the folder.

The Syndicate. Led by three leaders—Symphony, Brute, and Angel—their attacks were violent and fast, quickly gaining rank on the list of “shoot on sight.” A lot of villains were on good terms with the group, coordinated attacks not uncommon.

Tommy flips through the pages of various attacks. They seemed to go for supplies or inconveniencing the heroes, burning factories and raiding shipment facilities.

They’ve never been captured before. Injured, sure, but never life threatening. Their identities were a mystery, as were their base of operations and drawbacks.

Symphony was capable of making explosions out of nothing, fire and black smoke billowing from craters made by the flick of his hand. Angel could manipulate shadows, turning them solid and a force to be reckoned with. Brute’s power was unknown but presumed to be mental in the way he lacked extreme physical advantages. He was a strong fighter but a result of training, not a power, is what aided him

Tommy sighs. This was way above his pay grade.

Tommy is called into a fight less than three days later. He’s on patrol when he gets the alert so he gets there quickly, thunder and smoke a beacon to the fight.

Tommy jumps into the fray as soon as he arrives. A couple low tier heroes are there, fighting the lesser known villains while the Syndicate leaders break into a warehouse. Symphony stands between him and Brute, Angel nowhere to be found, so he lunges at Symphony.

He ignores the swoop of fear in his gut when dark eyes turn to him, a curious glint in them as Tommy goes to throw a punch. Symphony dodges easily, lifting a hand. An explosion not far to his left shakes the ground beneath him and he stumbles. Symphony takes the chance to pull out his knife, slashing at him while he regains his balance. Tommy leaps away, pausing when Symphony steps back as well. Tommy squints.

Whatever, the villain can be dumb if he wants. He rushes forward, driving an elbow forward. Symphony jumps away but Tommy twists, throwing a punch with his free arm that nails Symphony in the nose. “Ow,” the villain says and stumbles back and oops, Tommy forgot about the knife.

He doesn’t have time to react before it’s speared into his side. He gasps, fire burning like a stitch after a run. Symphony tilts his head. “Stay out of this, Hero,” he sneers. Tommy yanks the knife out of his side and hurls it at the villain. It nicks his arm but Symphony scowls and snaps his fingers, a cloud of smoke billowing between them. Tommy sees red and orange, only realizing Symphony had just created an explosion between them when he’s thrown off his feet. He slams against the ground, air leaving him all at once and his side hurts so bad. He’s going to die.

He glances around blearily, taking in the bricks surrounding him. He’s in an alley, then, good. His head drops back against the concrete with a thud. A jolt of pain runs through him and he lets out a high-pitched whine, sharp and distressing.

He doesn’t want to die. It hurts so bad.

Quiet steps sound at the mouth of the alley and Tommy lifts his head. It’s so heavy.

Dream. “Bandit,” he sighs. “Are you really gonna die that easily? I thought Logstedshire was meant to teach you better.”

Tommy keens. His hands are slack around the wet wound in his side but he doesn’t have the energy to apply proper pressure.

“What a waste,” Dream mutters, then pulls a gun from his belt and aims it at Tommy’s throat. He shoots.

Tommy’s vision is clouded by black.

Dying isn’t peaceful. There’s no light you’re not supposed to go through, just a void and the pain. His eyes well up with tears at the familiar sight of the void.

Tommy may be a raccoon, but his powers reflect that of a phoenix much more. He can’t die no matter how hard he tries, not permanently—stuck in a limbo while his body stitches itself back together.

It hurts. It always does. His muscles scream, cramps racing through his body and wounds healing in a burst of fire, or so it feels like.

He hates dying. It hurts, and it’s terrifying, and Tommy hates it.

His trainer had told him, in the Logstedshire range when he was training his aim with a throwing knife, that Tommy was a hero for his value as a shield. He can take as the hits the other heroes can’t and come back from it. He tells him Tommy should’ve taken the bullet for his parents.

Tommy didn’t know he was immortal when his parents died. He discovered it, terrifyingly, stuck in an isolation cell at Logstedshire on the first day. It was routine, he supposed, pushing the attendees to the brink of death on the first day of training—except Tommy dies easily, or so said one of the guards. His drawback.

Every power had a drawback. Another hero’s power of inducing sleep made him exhausted and sleeping constantly, another with fire powers susceptible to burns. Some had multiple, like Tommy—easy to kill and painful to come back.

He hated his power.

Light floods the void, eventually, red-tinged and invasive. He squints, tears spilling onto his cheeks when he wakes up with a gasp. He’s on the concrete, Dream with crossed arms standing above him.

He sniffles, stuffing a hand behind him to push him up. His muscles ache with the effort and Tommy wants to lay there forever, recovering from the stressful revival, but Dream is waiting. He’s no use laying in a puddle of blood in an alley.

“Thank you,” he chokes out, desperate for Dream to understand. “For- for making it quick.”

Dream sneers, spinning and striding away. Tommy sobs.

Wilbur, despite his annoyance, did forget about the loud, rude teen that yelled at him in Niki’s cafe.

Well, forgets about him until he comes in again. This time, the teen squints at Wilbur the second he enters the cafe.

“Hello, fuckface, what can I get for you?” Wilbur snarks.

The teen splutters. “Fuck you! I hate you, you are a small man, fuck you. Get me an iced caramel macchiato.”

Wilbur scoffs at the entitlement, but turns around to grab the milk. He sneaks looks at the blond teen, a sticky kind of concern raising in his chest when he notices the eyebags under his eyes aren’t just eyebags and he does, in fact, have a bruise smeared across his left cheek.

“So, child, what’s your name? For the order, of course,” Wilbur asks.

“I’m not a child! You are just old and balding, pussy. I’m Tommy, Niki knows me,” he says, just a bit too loud.

“Oh yeah?” Wilbur goads, hitting the top of the espresso machine to get it to turn on. It begins sputtering a moment later. “I don’t know, last I heard Niki doesn’t talk to feral children.”

If possible, the teen, Tommy, gets even more foul-mouthed. He lets out a string of curses Wilbur would cover Phil’s ears for, but Wilbur only laughs.

“Okay, okay,” he placates. “Take your coffee, gremlin.” He slides the iced coffee across the counter, smiling cheerily at Tommy’s grumpy squint.

Tommy doesn’t like training with Dream. He’s rough when they spar, not pulling punches and leaving Tommy with bruises that last for days.

Dream’s angry about something, he thinks as his feet are swept from underneath him and he falls to the ground, Dream dropping on top of him a moment later to pin him by his throat—only his grip is too tight for a spar and Tommy actually has to focus to breathe.

He doesn’t tap out, still. The trainers at Logstedshire had only gone further with each plead for an end, for the trainers to stop pushing.

Dream fingers press harder against his neck and Tommy’s hands scrabble to get between him and Dream, but his elbows get pinned by Dream’s knees and he’s stuck, and he can’t breathe again, oh god he’s gonna die and-

“Dream?”

The hands disappear and Tommy sucks in air desperately, choking in his frenzy for air. The knees on his elbows loosen, too, and then Dream is off him.

“Yes, Sapnap?”

“You were strangling Tom-”

“What are you talking about?” Dream interrupts.

“What?”

“Sapnap, I was just sparring, not strangling Bandit. Isn’t that right?” Dream’s eyes shoot to him, dangerous, and Tommy nods weakly. Sapnap looks as if he’s about to protest, but Dream starts talking again. “Did you need something, Flame?”

“Um, yeah- uh, Eret needs you to sign some papers,” Sapnap says, leading Dream away from where Tommy lays on the floor. He looks back at Tommy, concern evident in his expression, but Tommy avoids eye contact. He’s fine.

Brute is the best fighter in the Syndicate, which means it’s Tommy’s job to keep him busy while his team goes after Angel. He only hesitates a moment before flinging himself towards the boar half-shifter, knife in hand and dread heavy in his heart.

Brute seems surprised that Tommy is attacking him, clearly expecting Dream, one of the few fighters who could keep up with him. Tommy takes advantage of the surprise to slash at the villain with his knife but Brute seemingly sees it coming, stepping away from the blade. “Let me stab you, fucker,” Tommy grunts, grabbing a throwing knife from his belt and hurling it at the man. He moves away but it knicks his arm and Brute lets out a grunt.

“You are a nuisance,” Brute says, deep and gravelly, and pulls out a crossbow. It’s already loaded and Tommy doesn’t have time to dodge before it’s in his stomach.

He doubles over, biting his tongue to keep in a scream. A shout slips out anyways. Brute turns away from him, presumably deciding the fight is over with, and throws himself back into the fray. Tommy stumbles away into another secluded alley, this one damp. He collapses in a puddle.

Fuck his easy-to-bleed-out-ness. Tommy breathes in through his teeth, the sharp whistle sound unnaturally loud over the boom from the street. Anxiety curdles in his gut, the raw fear of death washing over him. He curls a hand around the bolt in his stomach, forcing the air out of his lungs before he yanks.

He’s in the void. Tommy glances down at his position, hand floating next to him instead of over his stomach.

Oh, he thinks. I passed out from the pain.

His eyes slip close, shallow breaths echoing in the dark expanse of nothing. He doesn’t bother moving, laying still in the twisted form of rest he’s gifted before the pain rushes back and he screams.

He’s in the alley, cement warm and wet under him. He doesn’t want to think about it. He aches everywhere, fire racing through his blood. He curls into his stomach, sobbing as he waits for it to recede.

He must lay there for hours, but he also must’ve gotten up before that because when he stumbles away from his shallow grave of concrete and blood the fight is still going on. He flings himself forward, desperation lining each punch.

“Hey, it’ll be alright, okay?” he says, pulling the sobbing child into his arms. The building collapses behind him and Tommy has a burn running up his arm with soot smeared on his face and uniform. The girl shoves her face into his neck, grasping at the front of his uniform with tiny hands. He stands, an arm under her keeping her in place.

“Bandit, enter the warehouse,” his comm crackles with the voice of his supervisor, Dream’s impatience carrying through the busy line.

“I’m with a citizen, sir,” he says, clutching the girl to his chest. He scans the street. A hero is ushering civilians away further down, a low tier one cleared for ground work. He stumbles in his haste to reach her.

“I don’t care, Bandit.”

He winces. Dream will be mad, but he can’t just drop the child in the middle of the street surrounded by collapsing buildings. He continues hurtling towards the hero, tuning out the furious shouting of his mentor over his comm.

“Take her, I have to go,” Tommy rushes, prying the girl from his uniform and shoving her into the arms of the hero. He doesn’t remember her name. He spins, sending up a silent prayer to Prime that the girl finds her parents, and sprints back to the bombs.

He shoves his way past the officers waiting outside for any arrestees and dashes into the building. He’s hit with a wave of smoke and heat but he hears a crash from above him and stumbles to the stairs, rushing up as quickly as his aching legs allow.

He squints through the hazy room, gaze focussing on two figures in the middle of a ring of fire. He hisses through his teeth, ducking under a fallen support beam.

He’s thrown into a wall a second later. There’s pressure on his chest, a face looming above him. “Stay down, Bandit,” Angel mutters. Wood splinters above them.

“Make me,” Tommy taunts, eyes alight with fury. He’s spiteful and too wild, too much, but he’s just enough for this. He pushes himself off the wall, forearm digging into his collarbone. His forehead slams into Angel’s nose, a wet crunch his victory bell.

Tommy doesn’t have the upper hand for long—for all that he talks, his training was not very focused on Tier Four level villain fights (he was meant to be a Tier Two hero, until he was sent to Logstedshire—now he was far more useful). Angel’s shadows leap forward, a swarm of translucent crows appearing from the corners of the rooms to push him back against the wall.

He grins with too many teeth, hidden as it is by his bandana, and lets an animalistic hiss out from behind his teeth. Dream would hate it.

Angel is holding a hand to his bleeding nose, the other wrapped around the handle of a briefcase. Tommy didn’t know what was in it.

He tries to push off the wall again but shadows at his feet nip at him, pulling his back flush to the wall. He hisses louder.

Angel looks at him. Tommy can’t read his expression with the black covering that hangs over his face, but he lets out a hoarse, “fuck you,” before Angel turns and runs from the building with a sweep of his cloak.

Tommy is stuck against the wall by angry shadows long after Angel leaves. When they finally soak back into the darkness, slippery like water, he pushes his way through rubble to get outside. Police and paramedics swarm the building, civilians sitting on curbs and talking to workers. A few are laid out on stretchers.

A paramedic approaches him but so does Dream and the paramedic only hesitates a moment before turning to a sobbing mother.

“Bandit,” Dream mutters, low and dangerous.

“Sir.” There is no fire left from fighting Angel, only a despondency beaten into him at Logstedshire.

“What were you doing?”

“I was fighting Angel, sir.”

A hand grabs his arm, nails stinging him even through the stiff material of his uniform. “Before that,” he growls. Tommy curls into himself.

“I- I was helping a civilian.” The hand grows tighter. Shit, he forgot. “Sir,” he tacks on and he’s so stupid, no wonder Tubbo reported him, why he didn’t earlier Tommy can’t fathom.

“I ordered you to leave the civili-”

“She would’ve been trampled!”

Silence. Tommy shot his focus to where he knew poisonous green eyes to be, covered by his mask but Dream was still, calm.

Fuck.

The bell’s cheery ring greets Tommy as he once again enters his favorite coffee shop. His eyelids are heavy, magnets dragging them shut even as he pries them open to the bright lights of Niki’s cafe. His arms are useless, he’s too exhausted from spending the night in the void (four deaths with fresh white curls to show for it) to bother moving them. It’s his day off.

“Hey, Tommy—what happened to your eye?” Wilbur’s tone flips like a lightswitch, tired but carefree to horrified, only that doesn’t make sense, Tommy’s eye didn’t bother Wilbur? Oh Prime, what if Wilbur’s drawback was feeling others' pain? Has Tommy been hurting him all this time, then?

“Tommy, Tommy—whatever you’re thinking, stop, okay? Take a deep breath,” Wilbur instructs and oh, Tommy hadn’t been breathing. He sucks in air but it stutters in his chest, leaving him just as quickly. “That was good, Tommy, just breathe some more.”

Tommy’s eyes shoot to his feet. He’s swaying in the middle of the shop. He tries to suck in another breath. It goes in better than the last, and this kind of reminds him of that one mission where Sapnap, Flame, as Dream told him to call him, had calmed him down with a hand on his chest. He remembers the way Sapnap’s breath had risen and fell beneath his palm, the way he’d been gently instructed on the counts for each motion. What was it? 748? 478? 748 sounds right, he thinks, so he begins counting each breath.

It takes a while, or maybe it doesn’t, but Wilbur’s worry shines so bright in those honey-brown eyes that Tommy’s breath gets knocked right back out of him. It isn’t the same type of breathlessness. He can still breathe.

“Hey, Wilbur,” he says, weak. It’s too quiet. He’s too loud? Fuck, maybe he just shouldn’t talk.

“Hey, Toms,” Wilbur says. He’s quiet, too, but it’s lined with something he doesn’t recognize. Kindness? No, Niki never sounded quite that soft. “What happened?”

Tommy’s fingers rise to his cheek, poking at the sore spot. He winces. So does Wilbur. “Nothing,” he says. It was deserved.

“It doesn’t look like nothing,” Wilbur says, squinting. “Let me put bruise cream on it?”

“I’m fine, Wil,” Tommy says, because he’s fine.

“Please? For my own peace of mind.”

Tommy sighs. Dream wouldn’t like it, Tommy deserved the punishment last night had brought. The deaths, the hits and the cruel words.

He’d just wanted the little girl to find her mother. He nods, eyes half-shut. Wilbur practically rips off his apron, hanging it up on the hook. “Hannah, I’m taking my break,” he calls into the backroom. Wilbur gives Tommy a reassuring smile, shoving a hand around the corner to the breakroom. A tube of bruise cream is in his hands a moment later. “How do you just have…” Tommy trails off when Wilbur puts a finger to his lips.

“Don’t you worry your pretty little head, sunshine,” Wilbur says. Then he starts saying some more stuff but Tommy doesn’t hear it because Wilbur called him sunshine, sunshine, and Tommy can’t remember anything that tasted that sweet.

Sunshine, he repeats in his head. Gentle fingers frame his face, cool cream spreading across his cheek and Tommy can’t not lean into the calloused hand.

He feels warm.

easily killed him by now. He grins when a fist misses his face. “Your aim is fucked,” he crows. “Little baby man aim. Small man!”

“Oh, and yours is better?” Symphony goads, jumping out of the way of a knife. Tommy swears up and down there’s a hint of mirth in his chilling laugh.

“I’m a Big Man with the best aim!” He cries, crossing his forearms to take the pressure of a hit.

Wilbur pushes against his arms. Tommy stumbles but his back hits a wall and he really needs to stop getting pinned by villains. Symphony’s breath is hot against his face, bandana too warm where it presses to his cheek. He flashes his fangs instinctually, even though Symphony can’t see it.

The arm against him is firm, leaving no room to escape, but it’s somehow lighter than Dream’s grip. He wonders if Symphony realizes Tommy can take more.

“You’re funny, Bandit,” Symphony sighs. “Brute will yell at me for this, but you don’t deserve death. Just stay down,” he says, then the pressure is gone. Tommy blinks and the man is gone, too.

What?

Symphony thinks he’s… funny? And he spared him from death because of it?

Symphony didn’t know death wasn’t permanent to him—Dream had killed him before for making a joke, and here was Symphony leaving him alive for the same thing.

What the fuck.

Tommy’s apartment is barren. He has an old couch he bought from a secondhand store and his kitchen is clean, a stack of paper plates in the corner because it was too much effort to keep and wash real dishes.

His bedroom is lifeless, too. A twin bed with one blanket on it (oh, how he longed to curl up in a nest, but he knew his animal side was not to be listened to) and a table with files from his cases. His closet was a mash of the cheapest t-shirts he could find and multiples of the basic uniform.

He did, at some point, get a TV. He’d decided he would need to know what the public knew and so he bought a TV and had the news on every second he was home.

It’s his day off.

The news reporter drones on about wildfires and had been for what felt like hours as he quietly made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. An alarm blares and Tommy’s eyes snap to the TV, abandoning his sandwich to get closer.

“Breaking news—The Syndicate is at it again. The villain group is attacking a Hero Agency warehouse on the East side of Pogtopia. Heroes are evacuating civilians from nearby apartments. On scene is Rose, Flame, and Diamond. The heroes are facing off against two of the Syndicate leaders, but Symphony is no where to be found. Updates on Channel 5!”

Tommy sucks in a breath. His knees are weak, wobbly, so he collapses onto his rugged couch.

He should be there.

Shaky helicopter footage flashes onto the screen, showing Rose and Diamond facing off against Brute. They aren’t faring well, Diamond is limping with red crawling up his leg—a defense mechanism his powers gave him. Rose’s vines seem to be cut down at every moment, the curly-haired hero coughing up blood with each plant slaughtered. Flame, at least, seems to be doing okay with Angel. They’re trading hits although Sapnap’s fire seems to be doing more damage to their surroundings than the villains are.

Symphony reappears, box tucked under an arm. His free hand is held in front of him, threatening an explosion should anyone come near. Angel sends shadows towards Flame, one big wave that would tire him out. He turns, instead of attempting to pull in more energy, and transforms into a crow. His slender, ebony black body glides to Symphony to perch on his shoulder. Brute doesn’t bother attacking the heroes anymore, just stepping away and slipping into place at Symphony’s left shoulder. The villains sprint away from the heroes, Brute shooting any officer brave enough to stand in their way.

The news anchor begins talking again but Tommy can’t bother to focus on the words—he should’ve been there.

Fuck.

Tommy slips into the training room silently. His chin tucked to his chest. He should’ve been at the fight the day prior, he knows. But he wasn’t. Dream had called him to training as soon as he swiped into the building.

The training room is cold. Grim. The sound of his neck cracking echoes in his head—Dream’s experimentation with Logstedshire’s discovery on his brief leave. He had been sent back once his mentor had known it was true—Tommy could not die.

Sometimes, Tommy is convinced a piece of him dies with each revival. He certainly never feels the same after (his hair is snow white under his blond curls. Although uncaring of his appearance as a hero, he spends an hour each day meticulously covering his streaks of white with blond. Nudge a curl here, another there, and it’s almost as if his deaths never happened).

He’d stopped counting each death long ago, but he knows it’s too many.

“Bandit,” a voice calls. Tommy’s chin snaps up. Dream stands by the mats, but he’s kicked them to the side. Cement padding for today, then.

“Dream, sir?” Tommy replies, jogging to his mentor. He tries to ignore the anxious shake of his voice.

“You know what happened yesterday, do you not?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then you know you should’ve been there. To shield those heroes.”

Tommy nods curtly, eyes cast to the black boots of the hero in front of him.

“You’re not a hero, you know?”

Tommy furrows his eyebrows, shifting his weight. “Sir?”

“A hero would save people. A hero risks their lives for civilians. You are nothing more than a maggot, a waste of space. You can’t die and yet you don’t even try your best?”

“I do! I try my-”

A stinging in his cheek interrupts him. His head is forced to the side, the smack ringing in the empty room.

“I expect you here every day of the week from now on. I thought that program trained you better,” Dream scoffs. Tommy forces himself to face the man again, but he keeps his eyes on the floor. No looking up. Don’t fucking talk back.

A hand rests against his cheek. It’s cold. It’s nothing like Wilbur’s gentle fingers. Tommy leans into it anyways, eyelids fluttering.

“I know you think you’re trying, Tommy,” Dream croons. He uses his real name and it’s so much warmer than Bandit. “But it’s not enough. I just don’t know how to make you better when you don’t want to be.”

A strangled noise from Tommy’s throat. He can be better. He is better.

The hand slipping to his throat says otherwise.

It’s only in the void, waiting to rise again to train with his stiff muscles and foggy head, that Tommy realizes no days off means he won’t be able to sleep off his revivals anymore.

He’s bent over a company computer, eyes burning against the bright screen. He ignores it.

He isn’t in his office—he doesn’t have anything electronic in there. He had practically ran to the file room, uploading the newest Syndicate attack to the heroes’ digital files.

Tommy slowly, meticulously, copies each sentence into the program. He skips from a business fire to a robbery, a suspicious two-week gap separating them.

What?

He squints at the paper and nope, no attack in between the two.

“Only one news station covered it,” Wilbur had told him. “But it’s the one my brother watches. They took down a trafficking ring. Some villains aren’t that bad, you know?”

He skims the file. He remembers cleaning up after the villains, a base of operations all that was left of the ring. The women rescued and workers slaughtered, Tommy recalls the confusion on his coworker’s faces. Dream had told him they’d done it to take the spotlight off the heroes.

Why wasn’t it in their file?

What other good things have they done?

“You’re funny, Bandit. You don’t deserve death,” Symphony had said. Angel sparing him in that house. Brute leaving him where he could’ve survived, if his powers hadn’t made nearly everything fatal. Brute leaving him alive.

Why did the heroes skip that report?

He’d leave this out of his report to Dream, he decides. He wouldn’t like it.

Tommy gets called into more than just Syndicate fights, now that he’s at the tower every day. He’s been to simple shootings and more complicated powered rampages. He’s joined some fights against other villain groups, too.

He’s fighting the Underground City with Captain, taking hits for Nook while he fights off Nemesis. Captain is firing shot after shot at Thunder as the man dodges them all, when two of the three Syndicate shows up.

Fuck.

Symphony joins Nemesis, the first one to arrive. Quickly after, Angel dives down from the sky and transforms to join Thunder in attacking Nook.

Brute doesn’t show up, at least for now. Tommy swears when Angel’s shadows circle him, herding him away from Nook’s side. “Fuck you, demons,” he shouts. The shadows lower and Tommy thinks he actually offended them until he realizes Angel had summoned most of them away to attempt to pry off Nook’s armor.

“Fuck no!” Tommy yells, jumping over the short masses around him. He sprints past Nook and barrels into Angel. He twists at the last moment to watch the shadows screech and abandon Nook.

Bingo.

Angel and Tommy slam into the pavement. They roll once, then twice, then Angel is on top of him and pinning him to the ground with his weight. Tommy whines quietly, then shuts himself up because what the fuck was that, raccoon brain.

“Little shit,” Angel cackles. What? Why is he laughing? Tommy’s confused enough that it takes him a moment to spring to his feet when the weight is gone.

Tommy’s only standing for a second, then he’s back on the ground with a bullet through his chest.

He wheezes, pain pulsating in his chest. He curls into a ball, then remembers he can’t die in the middle of a fight. He forces himself to stand. The pain is unbearable and his vision is blurry with tears but his panic forces him behind a car, collapsing after three steps.

He can’t be seen. He’s okay.

Fuck, no he’s not. He’s going to die.

It hurts. He hates being shot—at least when he’s strangled, his body weakens quickly. Being shot through the heart is okay, too, with the immediateness of the void, but the bullet had gone through the right side of his chest and he’s coughing up blood, oh Prime.

Tommy isn’t sure how long he’s curled into a ball, but it feels longer than usual. He just wants to die already.

Footsteps tap against the pavement, getting closer to Tommy. Thank Prime, Dream is here. He’ll kill him quickly.

“Bandit?”

That voice isn’t Dream’s.

“Oh Prime, Bandit!? Fuck,” the voice mutters, then knees fall beside him and cool hands press against his chest.

“Don’t fucking… put pressure on it,” Tommy slurs. “‘M gonna die anyways. Stop slowing it down,” he scolds.

“Who did this?” Symphony asks, leant over him. Shielding him. Isn’t that Tommy’s job?

“Hm?” Tommy sounds. Symphony swears. “Leave,” Tommy mumbles.

“I’m not leaving,” Symphony cries, frantic. Why is he frantic, again? Tommy’s dying, sure, but Symphony wanted to kill him, didn’t he?

Symphony can’t see him revive. He isn’t leaving for Tommy to die alone, though.

A cold hand slips into his. Tommy’s fingers curl around it, squeezing as hard as he can—which isn’t very hard. His limbs aren’t really working right now.

His eyes slip shut, a voice talking to him somewhere to his left.

He only knows he’s in the void when the voice stops. He pries his eyes open, squinting in the darkness. He still feels a phantom hand in his, but it slips out as if the owner of it is leaving.

Maybe he is. Why Symphony even stayed that long, he isn’t sure.

He doesn’t spend long in the void, which seems off considering how long his death took.

Whatever. He squints at the light splitting open the darkness, arms stiff. He aches. His chest cramps. Fuck, he hates revival.

Symphony is gone, anyways. His power is safe, still.

If a bell’s chime could be warm, Niki’s cafe’s doorbell was the one. Although still short and high pitched, it seemed to echo with the heat of welcoming. Wilbur helped, a cheery, “welcome to Niki’s, what can I get started for you?” greeting every customer.

When Tommy stumbled through the door the day after he died with Symphony by his side, he got neither the welcoming from Wilbur or the playful swears spewed at him he was used to.

“Welcome,” he droned instead, gaze boring holes into the counter. His stance was still, disturbed.

“Wil?” Tommy mutters, squinting at the shell of the man.

“Tommy?” Wilbur’s eyes flick to him and a wavering grin graces him. It’s hollow.

“Are you okay?”

Wilbur’s eyes move away, considering. Tommy shuffles where he stands, then moves closer to the counter.

“I’m—I work at somewhere besides Niki’s. My dad’s business,” Wilbur starts. “It’s just- there’s this rival company, okay? And we have to meet a lot. To figure stuff out. There’s someone who works for our rival company, and I hate him. I think? He’s funny, and he’s not as ev– rival-y as the other workers.

“Um, we met yesterday. But this guy, he got,” a pause, “fired. In front of us. And just… I didn’t like him, but a part of me is upset that he’s gone.”

Tommy watches the older man. His emotions seem much deeper than the story he’s told, but he supposes Wilbur may be confused because of that, too. “Why doesn’t your father hire him, then?”

“He- uhm, can’t. Get hired again. His… license was terminated.”

Tommy frowns. “Oh,” he says. “That… sucks, big man. I’m sorry.”

Wilbur smiles at him, small as it is. “Thanks, Toms.”

He gets called to another fight. He’s sore and achey and his limbs are too stiff from dying too many times too quickly and it’s all too much.

Tommy wasn’t enough for this. But he had to be. He had the chance to be.

With a small determination in his chest, small but burning brighter than before, he arrives at the battle scene. It’s a kidnapping. In a civilian house.

Brute stands in front of the house, guarding the entrance from all the police surrounding them.

Fuck that, Tommy thinks, and shifts to his raccoon form. He scurries around the officers and to the side of the house, claws clutching onto the lattice. He scampers up to a window, shifting back to human on the ledge, precariously perched. He pulls his gun out of his belt and, clutching onto ivy above the window and switching his earpieces to noise cancelling, shoots the glass. A clean hole splits the window into pieces and Tommy jams his elbow into a crack. It shatters. He climbs inside the house and sprints downstairs, towards a voice.

“Let him go,” Tommy demands, pointing a gun at Angel. “Use your shadows and I shoot.”

His hand is shaking.

“Bandit?” Symphony mutters. Tommy’s focus flicks the the tall villain, then an amputee tied to a chair in the kitchen. “How are you here?”

“What do you mean, how am I here? I’m fucking here. Don’t move or I shoot Angel.”

He takes a step towards the amputee and Symphony twitches. “You died, Bandit,” he says.

Tommy inhales sharply. Fuck.

He takes another step towards the amputee. “I didn’t die,” he says. “You left and my teammate took my to our infirmary.”

“If that was true, you wouldn’t be fighting this soon,” Symphony snaps.

“How do you know I’m not a healer?” He was one, technically. Just only healed himself after death.

“I know how healing drawbacks work. You’d be in even worse of a state,” Symphony argues and Tommy glares at him.

“Symphony,” Angel mutters, but the villain doesn’t listen.

“What are you, Bandit?”

Tommy clenches his teeth. He takes another step and reaches the amputee. He slips the gag out from his mouth.

“Bandit, leave me,” the amputee gasps. “I’m Ponk. Nook’s partner? This is my escape.”

Tommy freezes, then shoots his focus back to where Angel and Symphony watch, visibly confused. “He told me you were… like me. Please, let me go.”

Tommy squints at Angel, then turns his head to Ponk. Nook’s partner, he had said.

Tommy had always liked Nook. He had sent him letters at Logstedshire and they talked in the lunch hall, before.

He stares at Ponk’s face for a moment, then it clicks. He’s a healer.

“Fuck,” Tommy swears, then shoots his gaze to the windows. Closed. “Yeah,” he says. “I’m putting the gag back in.” Ponk nods and Tommy drags it back into his mouth.

He clicks the safety on. Angel’s shadows leap forward from where they had been watching, waiting. He lets them pin him without a struggle.

Angel goes for Ponk and Tommy watches through the translucent figures on top of him. Angel unties Ponk from the chair, helping him to his feet, then ties his wrists behind his back.

Symphony steps over to him. Tommy squints at him, turning his head to watch his approach. “If you need… an out, we could-”

“No,” Tommy spits. “I’m a hero.” (You are nothing more than a maggot, a waste of space. You can’t die and yet you don’t even try your best?) “I’ll kill you or go down trying.”

Symphony’s eyes flash with sorrow. “You could’ve killed me thirty seconds ago. You’ve already gone down trying, haven’t you?”

Tommy’s voice stutters, retort lost somewhere in his brain. Steel-toed boots patter away from him.

“I want to be a shark in the next life,” Tommy declares. It’s the afternoon and Tommy had come to the cafe after his overnight shift at the tower. He wasn’t called anywhere.

“Oh, yeah? How come?” Wilbur asks.

“Crunchy,” is Tommy’s only explanation and Wilbur bends over, giggling in that high-pitched way of his. Tommy’s laugh, loud and bright, joins it.

“Well then, Mr. Crunch,” Wilbur says when he can breathe. “Would you like to go try a burger place down the street? My shift is about to end.”

Tommy shouldn’t. Heroes weren’t meant to make civilian friends—leverage, a weakness, should Dream villains find out.

“Sure,” Tommy says, because he is a coward and terrible at doing what he should. Phantom hands grip his throat and he rubs at it absently, waiting for Wilbur to grab his stuff from the back.

They leave the store together, shoulders brushing, and the bell seems to wave goodbye.

Wilbur tells him about his music on their way (and Tommy begs him to play some for him, but with his now-constant work and Wilbur’s own two jobs, he doesn’t think it will happen). Tommy focuses on matching his steps to Wilbur’s, brown boots and ratty converse falling onto pavement in tandem.

Wilbur begins to turn at a corner while Tommy tries to walk forward—he doesn’t know where this burger shop is, okay? But Wilbur’s arm swings out to lay across his shoulders, guiding him away from the street and onto the sidewalk, and he waits with baited breath for the arm to leave but Wilbur keeps it there. He curls a hand around his shoulder and Tommy exhales with a slump of his shoulders.

Fuck, it’s so warm. He was so cold before. He’s pulled further into Wilbur’s side and his fingers draw shapes against his shoulder idly and Tommy doesn’t think.

He hums, eyes slipping half-shut, trusting Wilbur to guide him. The fingers move to words, neverending comfort in simple lines and curves drawn—just between Tommy and Wilbur. Nobody else gets this in this moment, just Tommy. He leans into his side, steps stumbling slightly, but Wilbur holds him up. “It’s alright, Toms,” Wilbur murmurs. “I’ve got you.”

Tommy melts and phantom pains slide away, tightness in his chest releasing and stiffness in his arms and legs from his most recent death loosening.

He freefalls and Wilbur catches him.

“He worries me, Tech,” Wilbur mutters. He’s slumped over Techno’s bed, his older brother leaning against the wall next to him. Wilbur holds Techno’s hand, a small place of contact that soothes Wilbur and isn’t too much for Techno.

“What about him?” Techno asks, setting down his book.

“He just… he has so many bruises. His eyebags are only growing, and he flinches when I move too fast. He makes jokes about how useless he is, a waste of space, and when I tell him he’s not he looks so confused. I hugged him yesterday and he couldn’t focus, he was leaning all his weight on me. I didn’t want to let him go when we were done eating.”

Techno’s eyes flash with brief concern. “He’s a civilian? Do you know where he lives?”

“Yeah, he’s a civilian. I don’t know where he lives, he always sees me on his way to work.”

Techno hums, switching their hands from laced fingers to perpendicular, fingers curled over the back of Wil’s hand. “You just have to wait him out, Wil,” Techno tells him.

“I don’t want to,” Wilbur grumbles. “He’s mine,” he says, and he knows he’s letting that possessiveness show. Techno’s look means he knows it too, and Wilbur’s been told he can’t just claim those that are his. Phil told him it was a fox-shifter thing. His brother and father both tried to help him not get overly attached but they couldn’t stop his instincts from latching onto the teen with bruises and a chip on his shoulder.

Fuck whoever hurt Tommy. He’d rip them apart.

The next time Tommy fights the Syndicate, Dream is there. He’s fighting Brute, one of the only villains he bothers with field work for. Tommy is heading to help him—take the hits Dream couldn’t, distract Brute—when Symphony barrels into him.

“What the fuck,” Tommy mutters as he’s forced away from Dream. His eyes flash but Symphony keeps pushing him with a knife to his chest, although a hand ahead of the point of the blade messes with his perspective of danger. It isn’t a threat, it’s a precaution.

“Stay down, Bandit,” Symphony says when Tommy’s back is flush to a car. He scowls.

“Fucking make me,” he hisses.

“No.”

Tommy blinks. “What?”

“No, I won’t make you. Stay down, you’re injured.”

“I’m not?”

“You died a week ago. I don’t know how you’re alive, but I know you are not at full strength. Don’t fight like this.”

“Why do you care?” Tommy snaps. Symphony shrugs and his shoulders tense in anger. Fuck him!

(A part of him wants to stand down. Why does the man who he fights to the death multiple times a week care more about his health than his own mentor?)

Tommy bares his teeth. His bandana blocks it and he’s tempted to pull it off, expose his face—bite Symphony. He ignores it. The public can’t know a kid (he’s not one, not after Logstedshire, but he knows he looks like one. They’ll think he’s one) fights villains weekly. There’ll be an uproar.

Symphony whistles and Angel’s shadows come rushing to him. He raises a hand to an earpiece. “Keep Bandit here, please,” and Angel seemingly commands them to because they’re on him.

They’re not pushing. It’s a façade.

“He won’t know they’re not forcing you,” Symphony says, gentle. “But they will keep you here if you try to join the fight. Stay here. They won’t hurt you.”

Dream finds him there, not fifteen minutes later. He rips his mask off in the absence of others, flashing furious, cold green eyes at him. Tommy whimpers.

“I got cut,” he hisses. “I’ll have to get stitches. If you weren’t this useless, you could’ve distracted Brute. I could’ve killed him.”

Dream slaps him. He’d been expecting it. The shadows slink away.

“You should’ve died for me. I could’ve killed him.” Dream pauses, fury shifting to a delicate curiosity. “I could kill you. Pay your debt, hm?”

Tommy wants to cry. He wants to shake his head and scream and sob, but he doesn’t. He whines, wordless and pitiful. Dream grins. It’s sharp and maniacle.

Hands wrap around his throat and squeeze. Tommy’s fingers scrabble at the harsh, calloused hands but its no use—even when he shifts in a panic and claws dig into the skin, the hands get tighter.

He’s in the void. Then he isn’t, and then there’s a knife at the side of his throat, sliding in and he hears his blood gurgle and its warm, too warm, and he’s in the void again.

He can only think fuck before he’s back in the light, harsh sobs ripping open his chest. A soft hand threads through his hair and he leans into it, then it grabs and forces to the side and crack, he’s in the void.

The void gives no comfort as he shouts and sobs, stomach in his throat and his neck is burning. It hurts. He can’t stop crying and he’s in the void for longer, this time, but he still ends up back in the light. He’s expecting another death, more sobs pulled out of his throat and it burns and stings and throbs and he can’t take it.

“You can,” Dream whispers, harsh against his ear. Hot breath ghosts over his cheek and he shivers, it burns. Fuck. “I expect you at training tomorrow.”

It’s a death wish to go. It’s a death wish to not. He’s fucked either way so he nods, tears and snot streaming down his face, then the hand pressing into his shoulder is gone and he slides to the ground.

He wants Wilbur.

Training isn’t training—it’s a beating. But Dream only kills him once, so he’s okay with it.

He’s called to fight the Syndicate again. Dream isn’t there, but Diamond and his partner are and they’re taking on Symphony so Tommy runs to Brute, launching himself at him, but he ends up stuck between a car (Brute pushes it. With his bare hands. What the fuck?) and a brick wall.

“I’m not going to hurt you, Bandit,” Brute says, deep and gravelly. “Symphony likes you.”

“What the fuck,” Tommy says, flat. It isn’t a question. “Why?”

“Look, we know the Hero Association is messed up,” Brute says. Tommy can’t help but agree, but then he bites his tongue as a punishment because no it isn’t. “But Symphony thinks you’re a victim of circumstance, and I trust him. Stay down.”

Then he’s gone.

Fuck that.

Tommy tries to shimmy himself out from between the car and wall but he’s stuck. He’s forced to wait there until the Syndicate leaves, then Diamond spots him and laughs for way too long, much to Tommy’s annoyance, and gets his partner to move the car—something something super strength.

Why does the Syndicate care so much about him standing down?

He’s in the halls, trying to organize a file as he walks which, okay, it wasn’t effective, but it was better than awkwardly staring at the floor or other heroes as he passed them. He glances up to make a turn and oh, there’s Tubbo.

He stares, neutral, at the short brunet. Tubbo gives him a weak smile and Tommy looks away. He keeps walking and then a shoulder bumps into his and he feels tears spring to his eyes. Fuck. He can’t cry. He isn’t a baby.

They’d been best friends, before—living together in a shared flat on the bad side of town. Tommy had been inspired by the horrid living there, determined to change it, and so he signed up for the Hero Agency. By some miracle, he’d been accepted as a security guard in training, then ascended to the lowest tier hero trainee. From there, he’d slowly climbed the ranks. Tubbo joined not long after he became a hero, Tommy’s vouch getting him in for an interview. He went into the tech department.

Tommy had been dicking around in the lab with Tubbo one day when he’d accidentally caught another scientist’s experiment on fire. George’s, Dream’s best friend. He’d been terrified, convinced Dream would kill him.

Tubbo wanted him to fess up to George but Tommy, well aware of Dream’s method of punishment, had chosen to blame a newbie instead. Some kid named Ranboo.

Tubbo had ratted him out. Tommy was sent to Logstedshire for intense training not a week later.

Tubbo had been the reason he was sent to the spark of the fire that had become his hell. He wasn’t fucking friends with him anymore.

Tommy’s crawling through vents, clawed feet tapping against the metal. It shifts under him and he has to bite his cheek to contain a shocked shriek.

“Contain yourself,” Dream hisses through his comm. He must’ve been louder than he thought.

They’ve set up a farce deal for the Syndicate to take part in. The heroes’ relationships with some vigilantes turned helpful, setting up an offer to the villain group through some decently-known vigilantes. They were in the warehouse now, but the Syndicate had shown up early and so the heroes hadn’t been in position.

Tommy was the smallest animal-shifter of the group assigned. Well, besides Sapnap, who was a literal fish, but Dream was a hyena and Rose was a doe and so Tommy was left to crawl through the vents.

Tommy reaches a vent grate and he peers through it, blue eyes flashing in the limited light. He squints at the figures at the bottom. Sure enough, three men, two tall and one short, stand at one side of the room while two shorter vigilantes stand on the other.

Tommy hesitates. He’s meant to leap through the grate and attack Symphony (the one least likely to survive a surprise attack), aim for the neck and kill the villain.

Arrests were no longer an option. The villains had exceeded the property damage amount that was set to separate the on-sight kills and arrests.

Tommy… didn’t want to. He hesitated.

“Bandit, are you in position?”

“Yes, sir,” he mutters.

He breathes in, then out. He mutes his comm.

He throws himself against the grate. It swings open with a screech and five heads shoot to the hurtling blond raccoon.

Tommy shifts just a moment before landing on Symphony. He shouts, surprised, but Tommy twists. His knife is headed past Symphony’s neck and he doesn’t correct it.

“Knock me out,” he hisses in his ear. “There’s back-up coming.”

Symphony is still shocked so Tommy stabs at him again—this time, just left of his shoulder. “I have to kill you if you don’t kill me first,” he mutters.

“Fuck,” Symphony breathes, then twists. He arm wraps around Tommy’s throat and Tommy struggles half-heartedly, squirming against the villain. “I’m not killing you,” Symphony tells him, hushed. Tommy’s eyes shoot to the other two villains, fighting the vigilantes. He doesn’t know their names.

“What the fuck are you doing, Tommy,” Sapnap’s voice echoes into his ear. “He’ll be furious.”

Tommy’s eyes slip shut. He knows. But these villains are so much kinder than the heroes are and Tommy’s always been susceptible to falling for charades. Dream’s was shallow but the Syndicate’s was thick, genuine. He could believe their care.

The arm around his neck squeezes, then Tommy’s awake and surrounded by heroes. Dream stands over him while Sapnap crouches to his right, fingers against his pulse point.

“Wha’ happened?” Tommy slurs, blinking slowly. He needs to wake up.

“You missed,” Dream spits, shifting a foot to step on Tommy’s fingers. He doesn’t mean to, Tommy knows. He squeezes his eyes shut.

Tommy nods. “I’m sorry, Dream—he responded so fast, like he knew what was happening before I landed.”

“No, Bandit. You can’t blame others for what’s wrong with you. If you weren’t so useless, Symphony would be dead by now.”

Sapnap frowns, head shooting up to look at Dream. He opens his mouth, probably to tell Tommy he’s useless, too, but Dream glares at the hero and his mouth shuts with a click. Still, the hand against his neck moves to his shoulder, squeezing lightly.

“Tommy, you know we’re friends, right? I do everything I do out of care for you,” Dream says, and it’s soft. He wishes Dream always spoke like that. Sapnap looks down, hand rubbing Tommy’s shoulder. It feels like Wilbur’s.

The void doesn’t feel like care. He remembers Dream anger and the deaths in the training room. It doesn’t feel like care.

Symphony staying with Tommy as he died felt like care. Angel keeping him away from the fight felt like care. Wilbur’s arm around his shoulder felt like care.

“I know, Dream,” he says. The boot moves off his fingers and he pulls them to his chest. They throb with the pain of being crushed. It… doesn’t feel like care.

“I don’t know that you do,” he says. “Flame, go check on our vigilantes, okay?”

“But-”

“Flame,” Dream growls.

Sapnap winces and rises from his crouch beside Tommy. He steps away slowly, glancing back with an unwarranted worry.

Tommy’s own worry was not as unnecessary as Sapnap’s. Dread curled between his heart and ribs, filling him with a shaky anxiety.

Sapnap’s footsteps disappear around the corner and Dream is leaning over Tommy.

The void is fickle with his injuries. Sometimes, it heals any wounds—other times, it amplifies the pain.

His time on the warehouse floor, Dream with an array of weapons over him, is one of worse and worse pain with each death. Each fatal wound is stitched together in the overworld but the pain lingers, aching over each bullet wound. His neck feels squeezed, like he’d laid his neck on a cutting block and, instead of an axe, a weight was slammed over it.

His bones snap into place and he screams into the darkness, gentle hands that feel like Wilbur’s curling over phantom pains.

He wishes he were with Wilbur, eating a burger in a booth shrouded in warmth and laughter. He wishes he were anywhere but in this void, cold darkness pressing in on him.

Tommy doesn’t count his deaths on the warehouse floor. He deserves it. He was told to kill Symphony and he didn’t (but he didn’t regret it, not really).

In the mirror at his small apartment, when he’s sent home to get rest, his white curls are more numerous than his blond ones. Right at the front of his head, a coil is bone white. He can’t hide it with the blond.

He doesn’t visit Wilbur the next day. He’s too tired to get up any earlier than he has to, joints aching far too much to make the walk to the cafe.

The Syndicate attacks a hero-run holding jail for vigilantes, breaking into all the villain-adjacent cells and releasing the vigilantes inside. It’s a clear revenge for the attack the day prior.

Tommy misses his day off. He stumbles into the jail with all the grace of a newborn deer. Angel grabs him near immediately, pulling him to Brute. The short, built fighter curls an arm around Tommy’s shoulder—back flush to the villain’s chest. Tommy’s attempts at breaking free weak.

The arm around him isn’t tight.

“What have they done to you, hero,” Brute mutters into his ear. Tommy wants to cry. He isn’t a hero. He glares up at Brute instead.

“Fuck you,” he spits. “Let me go.”

“You’ll just join the fight if I do,” Brute huffs. Tommy glances around at where Angel is fighting an unfamiliar hero and Symphony is wrestling with Diamond. Newly-released vigilantes tussle with the lower tier heroes.

“Don’t you need to help them fight?” Tommy pleads. The arm around him feels too much like a hug. He clenches his muscles to stop himself from melting into the unintended comfort.

“Nah, they’ve got it,” his captor drawls. Tommy clamps his jaw shut.

He’s not sure how long they stand there, Tommy slowly relaxing into the touch before he catches himself and tenses again. Eventually, Brute’s arm slips away and Tommy’s head shoots up, squinting at the mess in front of him. The unfamiliar hero is on the ground, blood pooling beneath him.

Fuck.

A hand grips his shoulder and Tommy spins, preparing to sock Brute in the jaw, but his eyes catch a white ceramic mask staring at him and he freezes.

“Dream?” he mutters, weak.

“Bandit,” his mentor parrots, scowling. The hand clamps down on his shoulder, bruising.

“B-Brute was holding me captive, please, you have to believe me,” Tommy begs. His eyes are wide, stiff fingers clenching into fists. His panic is like a cloud, descending upon him and fogging his understanding. Was Dream even mad? Probably.

A knife is held to his throat, all of a sudden. The tip rests right above his adam’s apple.

His eyes slip close, an resigned sigh leaving him. He was going to die again. He opens his eyes again to look into Dream’s lifeless mask, blurry through tears that cling to his eyelashes. The black smile mocks him.

He shoots his focus up to the sky and there’s… a face?

Brute stands above them, staring down at where Dream holds a knife to Tommy’s throat.

Fuck. The knife shoots forward, unknowing of its audience, and Tommy can’t say anything. Then he’s in the void.

He doesn’t hurt, not this time, but he still panics while the lifeless abyss presses in on him. The Syndicate will know of his powers, if they haven’t pieced them together already.

He doesn’t spend long there. His body always fixed his neck wounds quickly. He comes to with a familiar cramp in his limbs and a sting in his neck. Dream scowls down at him—he must’ve collapsed, then. Tommy looks up. Brute makes eye contact, horror in his expression, then he disappears.

Tommy doesn’t tell Dream.

Tommy fears his next encounter with the Syndicate, a rubber band tight around his lungs. It’s been days since Brute saw him killed. Were they planning something? Did they even care? Each alarm that brings him to a fight makes it harder and harder to breath—fear of a confrontation crippling him.

Dream has been ignoring him. No assignments, missions, or training. Sapnap’s been spending more time with him, though, which is odd, but he’s been leaving a hand on Tommy’s shoulder that he isn’t afraid to lean into.

It isn’t Wilbur, but it’s someone, and his fear of losing it to the Syndicate grows larger every day.

The alarm goes off and the thick clot of fear shoots from his chest to his stomach. He goes through the motions, strapping on gear and running to the fight—it’s close enough that he doesn’t bother grabbing a company car.

An apartment is on fire. A crowd of citizens stand idly across the street from the building and he jogs over to them.

“Bandit!” one calls, so he turns to the short man.

“What happened, sir?” he asks.

“Well…” he rubs the back of his neck. “Angel came through, breaking into apartments—he told us to get out. Brute gave every one of us a stack of cash with enough to get a new place as we left, then the next moment it was on fire.”

“Fuck. Wait, no, sorry, I didn’t swear! Um. Frick.”

The man laughs but Tommy’s thoughts are already inside the building. He looks over to the apartments.

The fire is contained, sure, but he can make out the faint outline of shadows holding back the flames from the front door.

Symphony steps out, making eye contact with Bandit. He tilts his head, flashing a bright smile, then steps back inside.

Fuck.

He turns to look at Dream. His mentor is watching the door, then turns to look at Bandit and points at the building.

Fuck. Okay, he can do this.

“Thank you,” he mutters to the citizen, then turns and jogs to the door. Heat presses in on him, sweat beading along his hairline almost the second he steps inside. He wipes it away. The shadows move, behind him and extending to the left, so he follows the way he’s guided with a sigh.

He’s lead up stairs, the fire not reaching the concrete and cement stairway, but the shadows guide him anyways. He’s pushed through the third floor door.

Tommy stumbles on his way in and when he rights himself he’s surrounded.

The shadows don’t push, not anymore, but they’re a wall at his back stopping an escape. In front of him is Angel, with Brute to his left and Symphony to his right. Symphony steps forward, arm outstretched and palm up.

“Hey, Bandit,” he says. “We know what’s been happening to you. It isn’t right.”

“Fuck off,” he snarls. Symphony doesn’t flinch. “I won’t go with you. You just want me for my powers.”

“No, we don’t, I swear. You don’t have to fight. We can set you up with a civilian life, just… please, don’t let the heroes keep doing that to you,” he pleads.

“No,” he spits. “I’m not a villain, I won’t betray Dr- the Agency.”

Symphony looks to Angel and Brute. Tommy tenses, then Brute is lunging forward. He pulls away but shadows push him back, then Brute’s arms are wrapped around his torso and he whines, high and desperate.

“We won’t let you go back to them,” Angel says, harsh but not condescending. He shies away from the man anyways.

“It’s alright, Bandit,” Symphony croons, low and comforting. “We won’t hurt you, we just want to help.”

Tommy hates the false promises, the sugar coated words. It reminds him of Dream. Brute pulls a cloth over Tommy’s eyes, dark fabric blinding him. A whine builds in the back of his throat that he can’t seem to hold back. It’s high and needy and animalistic.

“It’s okay, mate,” Angel mutters, far too close. The blindfold is tied and then he’s being led somewhere, arm wrapped tight around him.

“Stairs,” Brute huffs, then Tommy prepares to step down—to be used as hostage. His foot hits a step, hard, and it throbs. “Up,” Brute chuckles.

Tommy swears at the villain but steps up, ignoring the pain in his foot. The blindfold reminds him too much of the void. He hates it.

He’s not sure how the heroes don’t see the three villains and blindfolded hero leave, but he gets put in a car without much hassle. Only then does the blindfold get pulled off.

He blinks hard, squinting at the light as his eyes adjust. He’s in a van, not a car, and he’s sitting in the middle seat with Brute on his left and Symphony climbing in on his right. The windows are covered

“Fuck you,” he says again. Then he lunges for the knife strapped to Brute’s calf, grabbing it and spinning the blade around, forcing himself to swipe the knife through his neck.

He squeezes his eyes shut, anticipating the pain even through his shocked lack of panic, but the sharp blade never touches him. His hand is halted and theres a grunt from his left. He pries his eyes open.

Brute’s hand is wrapped around the blade. Blood wells up around his scarred fingers. It runs down his hand, dripping into Tommy’s lap.

It has to hurt. Why isn’t he letting Tommy kill himself? Symphony is watching his face but Tommy feels numb—there can’t be anything in his expression if he isn’t even feeling anything.

He lets go of the knife and Symphony grabs the handle of it before it can drop, slipping it out of Brute’s hand and tossing it to the floor.

Brute grunts, uncurling his hand. He grabs his cape and tears off a corner, wrapping his palm tightly with the fabric.

Tommy wants to apologize, to beg for forgiveness, but these are villains. He’s been kidnapped, why would he apologize to them?

“Boys?” Angel calls from the front. A divider sits between them and it’s lowered with a low buzz.

“Yes, dad?” Brute drawls, deep and sarcastic. He just cut his hand because of Tommy, why isn’t he strangling him right now?

“Are you behaving?”

It’s admonishing but lighthearted, a joke despite the tone of seriousness under it. What kind of dynamic was that?

“Bandit tried to kill himself,” Symphony says and Tommy curls into himself, expecting the Syndicate leader to finish the job. Maybe Brute was waiting for Angel to kill him first, then the other two could take their turn. He was so fucked.

“Oh, mate,” Angel says. He looks at Tommy regretfully, pitifully. Tommy wishes his bandana were gone so he could bare his teeth at the man and actually get a response.

He settles for, “fuck off.” Symphony laughs.

He’s taken to the Syndicate base, he thinks. He gets blindfolded and then led out of the car, then when the blindfold slips back off he’s in a kitchen-meeting-room area.

“Well,” Symphony says, “we’re here. You can use a spare room until we set up a civilian identity for you. I’ll get some people working on that for you.”

Tommy blinks. “What?”

Symphony hums, questioning, moving towards the little kitchen in the corner. He turns on a coffee maker, shoving a mug under the machine as it starts sputtering. Steam clouds up above him—it must be extra hot, then. Freak.

“Why- you guys are giving me a room? You kidnapped me,” he says.

“Um, sorry about that,” Symphony says, rubbing his neck. “Easiest option.”

Tommy huffs. Easiest option his ass. He wanted answers. Before he can open his mouth, Symphony walks out of the room.

Rude ass fucker.

His room is nice. It’s strange. Villains shouldn’t be giving him a room, they should be giving him a cell and deaths. It doesn’t make sense.

Symphony is nice. He stops all of Tommy’s escape attempts but he doesn’t hurt him for them, instead dragging him to a common room to watch TV with him.

It’s weird. It’s nice.

He’s sitting on their couch, stiff where he’s curled into the corner, when Symphony decides he’s sick of wearing his mask. “Fuck this,” he says, then pulls off his mask. Brute huffs where he sits in the kitchen.

Tommy looks up and meets familiar eyes. His heart stutters. “Wilbur?”

Symphony—Wilbur—twists to look at Tommy, eyes wide.

“Prime. Oh my Prime, you’re Wilbur,” Tommy’s voice gets high, frantic where it shifts into a whine.

“Bandit?” Wilbur asks, brown eyes flicking between Tommy’s blue.

Fuck. Tommy grabs at his bandana, pulling it down to below his chin. Wilbur’s mouth falls open.

“Tommy,” he breathes. Brute stands up from the kitchen, peering over the couch.

“Oh, you took your mask off,” Brute says, calm, too calm. Symphony is Wilbur.

“Oh Prime, those bruises were from us,” he screeches. “Techno, Techno this is Tommy, the one from the cafe?”

Brute (Techno?) shifts his gaze to Tommy, calculating. “Your teenager?”

Wilbur nods, mouth still open.

Techno’s expression turns furious. Tommy flinches away from the cold anger that rolls off the man. “The Hero Agency hires teenagers?”

His shoulders shove up to meet his ears. “Calm down, Tech,” Wilbur mutters. “Toms? Are you okay? I know- this is a shock, but I don’t hate you, okay? You’re still my Tommy, if I’m still your Wilbur.”

Tommy wants to say no, deny the villain because he’s a hero, but it’s Wilbur. He’d missed Wil. The void knew more of Wilbur than anyone in the Hero Agency, his kind touch Tommy’s anchor to life.

“Wil,” he chokes out, and his cheeks are wet and a sob is crawling his way out of his throat.

“Can I hug you?” Wilbur asks and Tommy doesn’t bother responding, just lunging across the couch to land in Wilbur’s arms. They wrap around him, squeezing lightly, and a face buries itself into Tommy’s white curls.

His nose presses flush against the juncture of Wil’s neck and he inhales and it smells of rosewood and lemons, of Wilbur.

“You’re a villain,” he chokes out.

“I know, I know,” he says. “You’re a hero, and you weren’t treated right. I know you don’t know why I’m a villain, but I hope you’ll understand one day.”

Tommy squeezes his eyes shut. One of the arms around him shifts, and there’s a hand against the back of his neck. Fingers thread through his hair. “Your hair is white,” Wilbur comments. Tommy grunts. “Why?”

“It’s… every time I come back, there’s another streak.”

Wilbur’s finger freeze against his head, then they go back to playing with his curls. “Oh, Toms,” he mutters. “I’m so, so sorry. Does it… is it painful?”

Tommy thinks of the stiffness, the ice in his limbs and the fire of his wounds. He keens, high and needy, and nods against Wilbur’s chest.

“I wish I could’ve gotten you out of there sooner… I’m so sorry, darling,” Wilbur says. The petname burns in his chest, a warm comfort that melts the ice around his heart. “You deserved none of that.”

“Techno?” Wilbur calls over his head. Tommy twists, peering over where Techno steps through the door. He must’ve left the room at some point if he’s only just coming in. “Could you make us some tea?”

“No,” Techno says, then walks to the kitchen and grabs two teabags. Tommy snorts, then buries his face back into Wilbur’s neck. Maybe it’s the raccoon brain talking, but there was something awfully calming about having his nose pressed to him, Wilbur’s comforting scent all he could think about.

“I don’t want to go back to Dream,” he confesses. He doesn’t want to go back to the harshness, the cold eyes and the brutal training.

“I won’t let him take you,” Wilbur snarls. “You’re mine.”

It isn’t threatening. It isn’t his Logstedshire trainer’s cold ownership, it isn’t Dream possessiveness over his power. It’s Wilbur. He trusts him.

“Yours,” he agrees, and he falls asleep with warm tea in his stomach, soft words crooned into his ear.

“Yours,” he says, and he falls asleep safe.