Chapter Text
There was dread, climbing up Purpled's throat as he slowly walked towards the rooftop that became home.
There was dread, as Tommy’s fingers typed out a message, anxiously watching the text bubbles popping up.
There was dread, as Purpled’s feet reached the rooftop, and he waited for Tommy to show.
There was dread circling Tommy’s jittery movements as he gripped his phone in his hand, staring at the messages of ‘I’m here.’ and racing up the stairs.
There was dread,
as the door of the roof flung open and Purpled found himself face-to-face with Tommy once again.
But more than dread, there was relief.
More than dread, there was love.
“Purpled,” Tommy choked.
“Tommy.” And something about the way he said it made Tommy reach out like he wanted to hug the other teen, pulling himself back.
“Is it worth it?” Tommy begged, looking at Purpled. There was a metal scrap tucked tightly in hand- the same one that Purpled had given him the very first time they’d met.
He’d kept it.
“What?” Purpled asked like he didn’t know what Tommy was asking.
Like they hadn’t already had this conversation, the very first night they met.
Like Tommy hadn’t asked the same question nearly a month ago-
When it was just Tommy and Mercury.
When Theseus wasn’t a villain, when Purpled was just a hero.
“Being a hero.”
Tommy looked Purpled in the eyes.
A beat.
Purpled looked away.
A sigh.
“No,” Mercury said, donning the name for the last time. “No, it isn’t.”
“I feel like I’m dying.” The words sat heavily on Purpled’s tongue as Tommy let go of the metal scrap. Both of them sunk to the floor- neither of them really minded the concrete. “But that’s okay. Heroes always bounce back.”
“But you don’t have to,” Tommy said simply, looking at Purpled.
“But- I’m a hero. I’m supposed to save people.” There was a little crinkle in his brow. “That’s my job.”
Tommy hummed, taking Purpled’s hands gently and tracing small spirals onto palms.
“Now your job is to be a kid.”
“But- I’m supposed to.” He looked up at Tommy, too much hope- too much pleading in his eyes. “I’m supposed to be a hero.”
“You’re not a hero, Purps.” Tommy said softly. His eyes were full of mourning. “We’re just kids.”
Hero.
Purpled almost laughed at the idea.
He didn’t deserve the name.
He didn’t want the name.
Mercury was a hero.
Purpled was a kid who met Tommy on a rooftop, who wormed a way into his chest next to his heart.
Mercury was a hero with metal circling his fingers and saving civilians from danger.
Purpled was a kid, with too dark of a past and too dull of a future.
Mercury was a hero.
Purpled was a kid.
He was just that.
Just a kid.
(He really wasn’t a hero after all.)
“I’m not a hero,” Purpled murmured. “I’m not a hero Tommy.”
And there was something about saying it out loud- something not quite of finality, but acceptance.
Purpled let out a small, sad chuckle at that. He leaned back, looking at the sky.
There were stars out, tonight.
“Just kids.”
They sat there, for a moment.
Just surviving- maybe even more.
Maybe Purpled was living, in this moment right now. Maybe that’s what it felt like to live.
To be alive.
Something warm curled around his heart, nestling around it. It wasn’t constricting at it- it felt more like a warm blanket on a snowy day.
Purpled missed that feeling. The feeling that he got when his mother used to wrap him up in the good kind of suffocating hug, or the short ruffles he used to get from his dad.
The kind of love so openly displayed, that he’d avoided like the plague since everything happened.
And yet Purpled was here, as Tommy was still rubbing circles into his hand to ground him.
Purpled smiled.
Maybe if he died here, right now-
He’d be okay with that.
“We’re okay Purps,” Tommy murmured. Purpled wasn’t quite sure if he was trying to reassure Purpled or himself. “We’ll be okay.”
“Pandoras gonna come after me, you know.” Purpled said. For some reason, he couldn’t quite find himself to care much. “You can’t just leave the hero game like that.”
“Let them.”
“You can’t fight them all Tommy.”
Tommy turned to look at Purpled, nothing but honesty and a spark of determination in his eyes.
“No one is ever going to hurt you again.” He swore. “No one is even going to come close.”
“They know where I live.”
“So we’ll move out.”
“I can’t afford that.”
Tommy snorted.
“Purpled, I'm literally the kid of the biggest supervillain of our time, my dad wouldn’t mind a few thousand.” He tried to joke. Purpled smiled a tiny bit, the air sobering up quickly.
“I can’t run forever,” Purpled said quietly, some kind of a confession. “I’ve been running all my life.”
He looked up at the stars. They seemed so peaceful up there.
Purpled wondered what it’d be like to live in those stars.
The only sound was that of Tommy tapping the concrete beside him with three fingers in a repetitive motion.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
“I’m tired of running.” He said quietly.
“So we make a new life.”
Tommy responded. He sounded a little sad, but there was no regret.
There wasn’t a single ounce of regret in his voice as he spoke of leaving everything he loved for Purpled’s sake.
“How?”
“Fake your death. Fake mine. We start new, with new names, new lives.”
Purpled looked at Tommy.
“Why?”
Tap. Tap. Tap.
“I trust you.”
“Why?”
“You’re like me.”
Tap. Tap. Tap.
And Purpled smiled, reminiscing of the first time they had the conversation.
The roles were reversed, but it was still the same.
Nothing had changed nearly as much as Purpled thought it had.
“So we start new.” Purpled repeated. It wasn’t a question- not as much as it should’ve been.
Tommy sighed.
For a moment no one talked, the only sound being Tommy tapping his thigh in pairs of three.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Pause .
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Pause .
Tap. Tap. Ta-
“We start new,” Tommy said. There was an air of finality around it.
Purpled wasn’t sure whether or not he liked it.
“Tomorrow?”
Tommy snorted.
“What, you thought we’d fake our deaths right now? At four a.m. in the morning?”
Purpled shrugged, a smile tugging at his lips.
“Never too late to frame a casual death,” he teased and Tommy rolled his eyes, a grin overcoming his face.
The silence settled not uncomfortably between them. It was just a silence. There really wasn't much more to it.
Tommy leaned back, lying down on the concrete so he was facing the sky.
“Look at the stars.” He murmured. Purpled shot a glance over to Tommy. There was fondness in his eyes as he looked at the vast expanse of space. Maybe a hint of longing in his irises depths- like he wanted to go see them up close.
“They’re pretty,” Purpled remarked simply.
Tommy hummed a melody, tapping his thigh in a repetitive pattern of three.
“I always wanted to touch the stars, when I was a kid,” Tommy said. A small smile appeared on the blond’s face. “I always dreamt of being an astronaut- a life in the stars.” The expression disappeared as quickly as it was there. “Everyone always said that it was a stupid idea.”
Silence, for a moment.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
“Why’d you keep doing that?” Purpled gestured to where Tommy was tapping his thighs in pairs of three.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Pause.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Pause.
Tap. Tap. Ta-
“Means ‘I love you’, ” Tommy murmured. “I used to do it with my…other brother,” he said, something bitter and nostalgic in the way he said the last word.
“Habits die hard, I guess,” He said quietly. He sighed, leaning back so his hands were behind him.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
“You could still do it, you know,” Purpled said matter-of-factly. “It’s not too late.”
“For what?”
“Being an astronaut. Living amongst the stars.”
Tommy hummed noncommittally, shaking his head.
“I think I’ve outgrown it. It’s an old dream.” There was a hint of hesitance.
“But?”
“But sometimes, on nights like this-” He looked at Purpled. “I can’t help but wanna touch the stars again.”
Purpled exhaled, looking away from Tommy and back to the sky.
“I always wanted to be remembered.” He said quietly.
He wasn’t sure why he was saying it to be honest.
“I think that’s why I wanted to be a hero.”
No going back now.
“I just wanted to leave something behind for people to remember me by.” He said, a hint of resignation in his voice. “I don’t think it’ll happen, anymore.”
“We all fade from the world at one point,” Tommy said, not unsympathetically. “Even if you try your hardest- there's always going to be a time when no one remembers us.”
Purpled exhaled deeply again, a short smile appearing with it.
“Yeah.”
“There’s something special about that though- because maybe in a hundred, two hundred, even a thousand years later, no one will know who we are.” Tommy looked back to the stars twinkling softly, contentment in his gaze.
“But those stars .”
There was admiration in his voice.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
“Those stars are the same ones as last week. As a year ago- from before we were born.”
There was a pause.
“No one will know us.” Purpled said softly. Tommy exhaled.
“But they’ll know the same stars.”
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.