Chapter Text
Somebody stepped closer behind him, their footsteps impossibly light and padded, more like paws than anything. Vé recognized it instantly, subtly scooting to the left to make room for his company on the rooftop.
The footsteps were, indeed, paws. Orange, fur-covered, animalistic legs swung off the ledge as the fox-person sat.
Vibrations went through the air as the hero, Foxtrot, started talking. Even with his mask on, Tommy could feel what his face looked like- the easygoing smile on his lips. In the same way, he could feel every bug and animal that moved anywhere near them. Physically, too, like an extension of himself.
"Vé, sorry I missed you yesterday. I was helping The Blade," Foxtrot said, leaning back on his hands.
Vé shook his head. "No worries. I had to leave early to help my group with a project."
"Speaking of your project- ah, wait..." Foxtrot looked around and stood up. He offered his hand to the vigilante. Vé stood too, following the lower-ranked hero to a room inside the run-down building with no windows and a lock- some form of custodian's closet. The hero- with no hesitation in doing so- unclipped his mask and revealed his face. In return, Vé took off his own.
Then, despite the rest of their outfits, they were just Fundy and Tommy again. Two civilians.
"Sorry. Anyway, speaking of your project, how is school going?" Fundy asked, sitting on the floor. Tommy huffed and dropped down across from him.
"Fuckin' awful. So, nothing new."
Nodding, Fundy waved it off. "You only have a year left, though. Make it through this, and you'll never have to go back."
Tommy looked down and paused, trying to form how he wanted to say what was next.
"I'm worried about that."
Fundy's ears moved back in concern. Tommy wasn't one to be transparent with his worried, but since the two had gotten close, Tommy wasn't wary around him. Though he had a blood family, they didn't know Tommy like Fundy. They didn't know him at all. As far as Tommy was concerned, Fundy was the only family he counted.
Fundy's hands moved to form words in BSL, the man fluent in the language. It seemed like a common thing of theirs. When there were serious conversations between the two, they would transition into signs. It helped Tommy think, as he didn't have to focus on the vibrations. 'Worried about the last year of school? What, are your grades dropping? I can help with that.'
'No. I'm- I'm worried about after that.' Tommy's hands were slower than usual, nerves catching up to him. 'My parents texted me about whether I'd be moving out when I'm eighteen. It seems they want me to, but I was thinking and-' His hands sped up. 'I realized I don't know who the hell would hire me. How will I pay rent, buy food, or live on my own when I can't do half the jobs that are hiring? I can't do customer service if I can't fucking hear the customers!'
Fundy held his hands up, motioning for Tommy to calm down and take a breath.
'Tommy, you are fully capable of any job. I wouldn't even know you're deaf if I met you today and didn't know you.'
'But- my powers aren't registered. You know I have to keep it a secret. My disability is registered, though. I already applied to every job hiring nearby but got turned down for all of them.' Tommy drew his knees up, avoiding Fundy's eyes.
Fundy shook his head, his eyebrows furrowing into a half-rage. Not at Tommy, the blond knew that much, but at the jobs. His hands flew to start signing, 'Assholes. Did they even give you an actual interview? Or did they just read your paper and decide no?'
'I got an interview at one, but when I got there, and saw the manager's face when they found out? I could already tell it was no good.'
This time, Fundy muttered something under his breath.
"Dick."
Tommy laughed, nodding quickly. "Dick," He agreed.
Fundy smiled, then shuffled around so that he was sitting next to Tommy. Putting his arm around the teen, Fundy laid his head back on the wall.
'If you can't find a job because of the bitches in charge, you can always stay with me. Even if you find a job.'
Tommy's lips twitched downward. 'Don't you live at the hero tower, though? Pretty sure that's illegal or some shit.'
'I could move out. I have the money. Here, we have a while before you turn eighteen, in the meantime we can figure out how to get you a decent job. Yeah?'
'Together?'
Fundy nodded. 'Together, you know it. I'd die before I left you alone.'
Tommy grinned, feeling far less tense than before. He sighed gratefully and closed his eyes.
Before he'd met Fundy, Tommy was lonely. He had lost his hearing a year before, and aside from the school's half-assed BSL lessons, Tommy knew nothing about communicating when deaf.
His parents gave up on him once he wasn't 'normal' or 'fixable.'
Then, when looking into a community effort to help the deaf and blind, Tommy met one of the teen recruits. Fundy had learned sign from his late mother, who had been deaf too. It took a while, but Tommy and Fundy became close.
When Tommy's sensing powers came in late, Fundy was the only person he told. They worked on it together, and Fundy's words were the first ones that Tommy interpreted from vibrations. They went to concerts together, coffee shops to let Tommy practice speaking again, and to speeches.
When Tommy became Vé, Fundy found out and- instead of being mad- he immediately offered to help Tommy be safer on the job.
Fundy was his brother.
Interrupting the comfortable moment, vibrations were sent to the comms on Fundy's mask across the room.
"Foxtrot, we have a robbery on Roberts Avenue- how far are you?"
Tommy tensed, knowing Fundy wouldn't be able to hear it without it on. Quickly, he rushed to hand Fundy the mask, putting his own on at the same time.
Fundy- Foxtrot now- raised a brow behind his mask at Vé.
"Foxtrot! Are you there?" A worried voice fed through the inside speakers. If it weren't for his power, Vé wouldn't have been able to hear it.
A quiet 'oh' escaped Foxtrot. "Oh, shit, sorry. I was..." Foxtrot smiled to himself. "I was helping a child."
Tommy gasped quietly, hands forming signs in a furious flurry.
'Did you just call me a child, dickhead?'
'Maybe.' Foxtrot signed back.
The voice came through the comms again, "Okay, well, there's a robbery on Robert's. At the bar there. How far away are you?"
"I'm a few blocks off. I'll be there in a minute or less."
Turning to Vé, Foxtrot pointed to the door, already walking as Vé followed behind him. Pressing a button so the other line couldn't hear, he spoke to the vigilante.
"I'll meet you there?"
"Only if you agree to never call me a child again."
"No-can-do."
"Bitch."
After they stopped the robbery, Foxtrot had to bring in the gunman. Before he left, he signed to Tommy that he would look for a job that could take Tommy.
Vé patrolled for another hour before he finally went home. The house wasn't empty (he felt that his parents were in their room, their door locked), but it was quiet, meaning his parents had gone to bed. Likely, they hadn't even noticed he was gone.
He lay in bed, simply feeling the things around him. The wind rushed through the streets around their apartment, a few people passing by occasionally. The nighttime routine of the outside room eventually lulled him to sleep, accompanied by the assurance that, no matter what happened with jobs, he had a home with Fundy.