Chapter Text
Tommy is a heavy sleeper. Tommy is also a clingy sleeper. These two balance each other out, leaving Tubbo still fucked over.
Tubbo slowly unfolded his tingling legs, slightly jostling Tommy who had somehow fallen asleep sprawled across him like a cat. It didn’t look comfortable. His torso was the only thing elevated, leaving his neck to bend awkwardly. However, Tubbo knew from experience that this was how Tommy was most comfortable, spread out in whatever strange place he could find, preferably on top of someone.
With a deep breath, Tubbo began the process of sliding Tommy off of him. It was tedious work, nudging his limp, heavy body at around a centimeter a minute. Tubbo quickly shoved a pillow under Tommy before he could hit the floor. His lungs as he waited for him to wake up. He did not.
The art of slipping out of Tommy’s hold was a difficult thing to master. Tubbo prided himself on his extensive knowledge of Tommy. It was a metaphorical badge of honor he wore around the apartment.
Tubbo gently settled another blanket over Tommy. The extra weight comforted Tommy, even if he himself didn’t know it. Tubbo reminded himself to add a weighted blanket to his To Buy list later. Tubbo crept out of the blanket fort, making sure to avoid their wrappers. He would pick them up later.
Before he could entirely call this a job well done, there was one more task to finish the process. Jumping up only a little , Tubbo pulled Henry down from where Tommy had left him, hanging over the edge of the top bunk.
Henry was a difficult cow. He had the special talent of becoming non-existent the moment Tommy set him down. As most lost things do, he always managed to show his cotton-stuffed face a few hours to days later.
Tubbo turned back to the Secret Base and reached in just far enough that he could drop Henry into Tommy’s outstretched arm. Henry also had the special talent of instantly calming Tommy.
With Tommy’s clinginess appeased, Tubbo allowed himself to sigh. He turned to their small, cluttered closet and thrust both hands into it. They exited with an old backpack in their clutches.
Tubbo glanced back at Tommy. He knew his ‘Big Man in the Chair’ would be incredibly grouchy at being left out, but Tommy needed sleep. Tubbo…
Tubbo’s sleep schedule was non-existent. He slept when his eyes closed, and woke up when his eyes opened and that was that.
His eyes had opened and here he was, pulling his admittedly clunky gear out of his old middle school backpack. He shoved it on, one piece at a time in practiced, efficient motions. The window was opened and out he went, mindful to not scrape anything.
He clambered up onto the fire escape railing. Deep breath in, goggles on, and he jumped off.
Despite doing this hundreds of times, his heart still soared in victory when the mechanical wings on his back lifted him into the sky.
--
The city had turned out to be peaceful for everyone else, but uneventful for Tubbo. He kicked his feet out from where he had perched up on a shiny building that looked too fancy, and was thus deserving of his heels smudging the windows.
There was a glare of light, maybe a reflection that decided it was the right moment to hit Tubbo’s eyes. Tubbo turned. There was absolutely nothing interesting, moving, or reflective in that direction.
Despite that, Tubbo decided to fly towards what he thought he had seen anyway. If curiosity killed the cat, Tubbo would gladly embrace death. It’d be a good way to get out of his English quiz tomorrow, anyway. He landed on the brick roof of an older building with a heavy thump.
“Come out, come out, you little shit,” he muttered to himself, briskly making his way around the whole perimeter of the roof.
The city answered his call and a short cry echoed out. Tubbo sprinted towards the sound, his wings lifting him up as he jumped from building to building. He leaped over a slim alley. A glare caught his eyes again. He rolled to a stop. He slowly crept to the edge of the building and peered back down into the alley.
There were two people pressed close to a wall. The significantly taller one seemed to have the other pinned. The taller one pulled back their fist and revealed the cause of the noise Tubbo had heard.
The person’s fist came down again and again, letting out a louder crack each time. Tubbo closed his eyes. The sounds continued. He made up his mind and jumped down into the alley, wings softening his fall.
“What the fuck?”
The taller person whipped around to look at him. Light from the street reflected sharply off of their glasses. They stepped away from the other person, who crumpled to the ground with nothing to hold them up.
Now slightly out of the shadows, the person was revealed to be a tall man in a pristine suit. He could have passed as just another citizen returning home after a long day at the office. A long day that lasted until two in the morning. A car passed by, shedding just enough light for Tubbo to see blood coating his white glove.
The man held out his other hand, this one covered in a black glove. “He had a knife,” the suited man explained shortly.
Tubbo raised an eyebrow. “So you...beat the shit out of him?”
“Do you know what he was going to use it for?”
Tubbo stared at him before hesitantly shaking his head. The knife clutched in his gloved hand was impressively large. It’s sharp edges gleamed wickedly.
“Here.” The man dropped the knife on the ground. Before Tubbo could step away or flinch at the sound, the man kicked the knife away and it hit Tubbo’s boots. “Now you have a knife.”
Tubbo looked down at it but didn’t pick it up. “Are you gonna beat me up now, too?”
The man laughed loudly into the silent night air. He slouched forward and reached up to adjust the mask covering his lower face. “Do you want me to?” He asked with a voice shaky with laughter.
Tubbo drew himself up. “You wouldn’t be able to.”
Another bout of laughter burst from the man. After a few minutes of the man trying to calm himself down and Tubbo shifting from foot to foot silently, he was able to wheeze out the words “Sure, okay.”
Tubbo cleared his throat loudly, “Are you going to give me an actual explanation of what’s going on here?”
There was a pause before the man reacted. He lowered his hand from his face, revealing a smear of blood he had left on his mask. “Bye.”
“What?”
A burst of glowing purple particles jumped out from the man. They slowly floated to the ground and lost their light like ashes. Tubbo pulled his goggles up from his eyes to his forehead.
The man was gone.
A long, dragging groan called Tubbo’s attention away from the empty air. He looked down. “Oh, I forgot about you.” The former knife wielder laid limply on the ground with his cheek pressed into a puddle. Tubbo bent down and lifted the bloodied man into a sitting position. “Guess I’m gonna have to get you medical attention?”
Another groan, this one shorter.
“Yeah, yeah, okay,” Tubbo sighed. He reached into the pocket of the man’s hoodie. “I’m gonna need your ID. Also, you got a phone on you? I’ve kinda got a thing about not being tracked by the government.”
---
Tubbo and Tommy woke up that morning to the smell of blueberry pancakes. Clambering over tangled blankets, strewn wrappers, a chip bag, a laptop, and Henry, they began the race to the kitchen. It was a brutal race, as most are. They burst into the kitchen in a mess of shoving and shrieked insults.
A large stack of pancakes was quickly inhaled along with half a jug of orange juice. The apartment was filled with laughter and hazy morning sunlight.
Shoved into the very back of a bedroom closet, a backpack with a torn strap and a broken zipper sat. In it rested chunky metal equipment, thick goggles, and an impressively large, clean knife.