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Tommy lept from roof to roof, trying to get to his spot before the signal. He almost yelled and gave away his position when his foot slipped as he landed on the edge of a gutter jutting out from a house but he steadied himself before he could fall. He kept running on top of the buildings circling around the square until he was positioned directly opposite to the city hall. Crouching down he pulled out his radio, “This is the Red Bandit. Come in Tubbsters.”
“I told you to stop calling me that!” His radio hissed and Tommy grimaced at it.
“You’re supposed to say that you read me! How else will I know if these things are working?”
“Isn’t it - you know what, nevermind. I read you Bandit, loud and clear.” Tommy grinned, he could almost see the eye roll through the radio.
“Roger that. Let’s get this shit show on the road!” He leapt down from his precarious position on the roof just as several large explosions came from a large building next to the city hall. Pushing his way through screaming civilians, Tommy made his way across the square. He squinted into the looming dust cloud, just barely being able to make out the silhouette of a figure approaching.
“Fearsome villain! I will not allow you to terrorize this city any more!” He cried out, dramatic effect slightly disturbed as he coughed from the smoke.
“Seeing that you have failed to catch me so far that seems like a pretty bold claim!” The villain stepped out of the smoke cover and smirked, surveying the debris scattered about the square.
“Surrender now and I won’t harm you! Or at least I’ll let your bitch ass off easy!”
“Do you really think I’ll hand myself over that easy hero? You’re dumber than you look, and that’s saying a lot!” The villain shot him a wink, forcing him to suppress a groan. Really? This might not be worth it if he had to sit here and take any more dumb jokes.
“Since you refuse to surrender you leave me no other choice but to take you in by force!” and with a yell, Tommy launched himself towards the villain. They exchanged a few super-powered punches and the villain let off a couple more smoke bombs. He even detonated another string of explosions just to add a little extra flair. After all, it was an important day, they had to make sure nothing was overlooked. The villain didn’t wait until Tommy was clear, though, launching him halfway across the square and into the side of a building.
“That’s gonna hurt like a bitch tomorrow. I’m gonna kill him. He was supposed to wait until my signal! Ranboob’s gonna be pissed he has to patch this up….” Trailing off Tommy stepped back into the street, dusting off the rubble clinging to him.
“You’ll pay for this villain!” And Tommy sprang back towards the action. They were careful to keep the fight towards the middle of the square, making sure it was safe enough for civilians to begin to gather at the edge of the spectacle, phones out and recording. After screaming a few more one liners (“Bombs away!” or “You like sandwiches? Eat this!”)The villain turned tail and ran.
“You won’t catch me today, hero!” and with a final cackle he disappeared.
Tommy shook his fist at the sky, “You may have bested me today but I’ll get you next time!” He scanned the adjacent streets, looking for any sign of the villain. “Pussy boy!” He shrieked, just for good measure.
The people watching slowly gathered around Tommy, clapping him on the back and reassuring him that he’d catch him next time. He laughed and tried not to seem too unconcerned as he signed a couple autographs, inwardly counting down the time until he could retreat to their base and get his back looked at by Ranboob. He finally managed to excuse himself from the civilian’s enthusiastic encouragement and left, already dreaming of a nice iced bath.
**********
“RANBOOB! I’M BACK!” Tommy screamed down the hallway, dumping his gear and muddy boots by the door.
“Hey Tommy! Tubbo just got back too! Man you guys really did a number on each other this time!” Ranboob appeared in the hallway, a mixing bowl resting on his hip.
“Where’s Tubbo I’m gonna kill him.”
“Uhhhh….” Ranboob chuckled nervously, “Maybe you should wait until he’s done with his ice bath?”
“So he’s in the bathroom! Thanks Ranboob!” Tommy pushed his way past him and bounded up the stairs, “YOU FUCKER, I TOLD YOU I WAS GOING TO TAKE ONE FIRST!”
“I swear you have the most selective hearing….” Ranboob sighed as he went back to the kitchen to finish the spaghetti for dinner.
Tommy reached the bathroom door, trying the handle only to realize the door was locked. “I KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE!”
“YOU CAN WAIT YOUR GODDAMN TURN TOMMY! I GOT HERE FIRST!”
“YOU WEREN’T THE ONE THAT GOT THROWN INTO A GODDAMN BUILDING!”
“CAN YOU TWO PLEASE KEEP IT DOWN! MICHAEL IS TRYING TO SLEEP!”
“SORRY RANBOOB!” Both boys chorus. Tommy glares at the door and stomps back down the stairs. No point in trying to get Tubbo to do something he doesn’t want to do.
“Hey, Tommy, the phone’s been ringing off the hook but I can’t get it ‘cause I have to watch the spaghetti sauce….” Poor Ranboob, he always looked so frazzled. He should really try to get some more sleep.
“Yeah, yeah. I got it.” He dragged his feet over to where the phone sat on the counter. Why they had a landline at the base was beyond him. Ranboob insisted on getting it for Tommy once he became more popular as a hero, he said it would be good for the “people to have a direct connection to their hero” or some shit. Really it became a business phone and Tommy dreaded hearing it ring; he patrolled often enough that civilians who needed him just personally asked him for help.
“Ah fuck….” He stopped as soon as he saw the caller ID and Ranboob almost ran into him.
“Come on Tommy. Wasn’t that the whole point of today?” Ranboob chided and gave him a slight push towards the phone.
“Yeah but I was hoping he would call later! I guess I should have known he was a loser with no life….”
“It is his inauguration day, right? And you guys were in the main square? Weren’t you trying to cause a scene?” Damn Ranboob and his logic.
“Ugh….fine….” He picked up the phone and immediately held it away from his ear. An irate voice could be heard ranting through the speaker and Ranboo had to hold back a laugh as Tommy mocked the voice.
“Nah nah nah- public disgrace- wah wah- immature child- blah blah- you could’ve picked any other day-” The phone fell silent and Tommy quickly held it to his ear.
“HELLO WILBUR! THE BIG MAN!”
“Tommy, did you listen to a single word I just said?” The voice, Wilbur, sighed.
“Ah yes, the weather we’re having! Quite marvelous, innit?” Tommy twirled a pencil around his fingers, idly looking out the window in the kitchen.
“Just….I get you and Tubbo like to have fun and sure I’ll admit, it does keep our city interesting without having actual villains, but you could’ve picked literally any other day-”
“Yeah but where would the fun be in that? Today was just for you big man! Figured you could use a little extra flair for the start of your term!” Tommy could see Ranboob rolling his eyes. He stuck out his tongue.
“Tommy-” Wilbur said exasperatedly, “I’m the mayor now. I’m supposed to be making sure things like today don’t happen-”
“Come on Wilbur! The Tubbsters and I don’t hurt anyone! The people love us! We probably boost your popularity ratings since they think we’re somehow related!”
“Tommy can’t you see how buildings constantly getting destroyed could be a problem- wait- shit- I’m getting a call- just- try to keep the damage to a minimum?”
“Will do big man! You can count on your reliable local hero the Red Ban-” A distinctive click came through the phone. “DID HE JUST HANG UP ON ME?” Tommy held the phone away from his ear to see that yes, Wilbur had indeed hung up.
“Well he did say he had another call coming in….” Ranboo muttered.
“I HEARD THAT! HE STILL DIDN’T HAVE TO JUST HANG UP!”
“Awww is Tommy missing his Wilby?” Tubbo sauntered into the kitchen, towel over his shoulders.
“I FUCKING TOLD YOU I WOULD GET THE FIRST ICE BATH!” Tommy rounded on Tubbo as Ranboo turned back to attend to his overflowing spaghetti sauce.
“You don’t need to yell! It’s first come first serve! It’s open now anyways, you can go.” Tubbo smiled cheekily and ducked as Tommy threw his pencil at him.
“Boys! Please, I'm trying to make dinner!” Ranboob was now trying to hold a spoon in his tail to stir the sauce while chopping up veggies with his hands. Maybe they should splurge and get a maid.
“I’m going, I’m going!” Tommy shot one last glare at Tubbo as he stomped up the stairs towards the bathroom. That idiot better have left some ice for him.
**********
Finally done with his bath (he had to get more ice) and changed into pajamas (the limited edition Philza ones Wilbur had given him), Tommy strolled into the kitchen yawning.
“Dinner ready?” A harried Ranboo looked up from where he was dishing out the food, Michael hanging onto his hip.
“Yeah, almost, Tubbo’s already in the dining room setting the table. And-” He finished pouring the last of the sauce onto a plate of spaghetti, “you can bring the food out!”
Tommy took the food without complaint and hurried into the dining room. “Hey Tubbo! Why’re we eating in the dining room?” Usually they all just ate at the small table crammed into the corner of the kitchen, saving them the trouble of cleaning up most of the time.
“Oh didn’t I tell you? Wil’s coming over!” Tubbo replied, cheerily folding one of the napkins into an origami swan.
“NO- NO YOU DIDN’T TELL ME!” Tommy stormed back into the kitchen, Tubbo’s laughter sounding behind him.
“RANBOOB! RANBO-”
“Tommy, I’m right here! You don’t need to constantly yell!” Tommy opened his mouth to retort but Ranboo interrupted. “And yes, I know Wil’s coming tonight, I didn’t tell you because you always freak out and I was busy with dinner. And why do you need a head’s up? You never do anything differently?” He really was going to have to talk to Ranboob about that logic of his.
“Well, I still want to know.” Tommy pouted and went back to the dining room, deliberately ignoring Ranboob’s loud sigh.
“Now that you’re done throwing a fit, mind helping me set the table?” Tubbo handed him some forks and kept folding the napkins as Tommy finished setting the table.
“When’s Wil supposed to get here?”
“Pretty soon, he said he had to finish cleaning up our mess then he would come over-” The doorbell rang, waking up Michael who started to cry in the next room. Ranboo rushed by yelling at Tubbo to get the door over his shoulder.
“That should be him now!” Tubbo said brightly as Tommy rolled his eyes.
“I swear we told him a million times not to ring that bell.” He grumbled as Tubbo went to get the door.
“Ok listen here you little shit, you and Tommy better not pull something like that again. Somewhere out there is a small forest, completely devastated, from the amount of paperwork you two managed to cause.” Oh yeah. Tubbo hadn’t received Wilbur’s wrath yet. Well, he’d make sure to plan a nice funeral. He had to hold back a snicker as Wilbur walked into the dining room, Tubbo mocking him behind his back.
“Of all the completely idiotic stunts to pull- didn’t you throw Tommy into a building? Nevermind, it’s just you do realize how much of a dumbass you are- don’t answer that!”
Tommy decided to go help Ranboo with Michael and let those two duke it out, hopefully they wouldn’t throw dinner at each other. He would like to eat tonight actually. He left the dining room and walked down the hallway, into the spare bedroom now devoted for Michael’s use.
“Ranboo!” He whisper-shouted into the darkened room. “Do you need any help?”
“No, thanks though. He’s finally calmed down, it’s been a long day.” His eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, enough to see Ranboo sitting on Michael’s bed smoothing his hair.
“You know he still get’s nightmares and it’s hard to get him back to sleep once he’s up.” Tommy grimaced, Michael’s sweet most of the time but he’s a demon from hell at two in the morning. Tubbo and Ranboo were much better at getting him back to bed than Tommy was so the job usually fell to them.
“Yeah, I swear we’ve told Wil not to ring that bell, but glad he’s asleep again.” Ranboo quietly got up from the bed and moved past Tommy, closing the door behind him.
“Now that that’s settled, let’s go eat!” He clapped his hands together and headed back towards the dining room, Tommy right behind him praying that Wil and Tubbo had left some food for them.
They arrived in the dining room and Tommy was shocked to find all the silverware and plates completely clean and intact, Wil must have felt bad about waking Michael up.
“Well, what are we waiting for? Isn’t this a party? Let’s eat!” And with that speech, Tubbo promptly dug in.
“Hey Wil! How come you were able to leave so early? I thought we gave you a lot of work to do?” Tommy asked through a mouthful of spaghetti.
“Don’t talk with food in your mouth. I made Techno cover for me, he owes me one anyway.”
“Ooooh I bet he was pissed,” Tubbo said gleefully. “Techno hates paperwork.”
“Yeah but he lost a bet so it doesn’t matter what he wants.”
“What’d you guys bet on?” Ranboo asked, shooting Tubbo a look as he tried to see how much bread he could stuff in his mouth.
“Oh he thought you guys would keep it extra quiet today for the inauguration and I told him no way in hell were you passing up an opportunity to piss me off like this. I won, obviously.” Tommy stared at Wilbur as he sipped his water.
“You KNEW we were going to do something? You KNEW?”
“Yes? Isn’t it your goal in life to be the biggest pain in the ass possible?” Damn, Ranboob’s logic seems to be rubbing off on him.
“Well excuse me for trying to make your inauguration day exciting….wait….is that why there were more police on the street this morning?”
“YOU FUCKER! I KNEW IT WAS YOUR FAULT! I ALMOST GOT ARRESTED GOING TO THE SQUARE!” Tubbo stood up and almost flipped the table but Ranboo pushed him back down.
“Please can we just have a normal dinner? Just once?” He pleaded with Tubbo as Wilbur glared at him.
“Well thanks to my frankly, excellent foresight, I was able to keep the paperwork and damage to a minimum and Techno’s really just stuck at city hall sulking. Please, please, no need to thank me.” This time Tommy had to leap up to help Ranboob hold back Tubbo.
“Hey! Tubbo!” Tubbo slowly turned to look at Tommy. If looks could kill, he would just be a smear on the floor. “I know Wil’s being a bitch, can’t help how you were born you know,” Now they were both glaring at him and wow, ok, maybe this wasn’t the best idea. “But….hey! There was less damage than usual! That’s good, right?”
“I guess it’s good that you stopped extra damage Wil.” Tubbo sat back down with a huff, luckily not seeing the smug look on Wilbur’s face.
“And Wil?” Ranboo prompted, “Do you have anything to say to Tubbo?”
“I guess it’s good I have you guys to keep the public entertained and not actual villains. I don’t think I have time to deal with real supervillains on top of being mayor.” The group continued eating dinner, ignoring the small indignant huffs coming from Tubbo.
“Yeah, I’ve been meaning to ask about that. I know you’ve only been mayor for a day but didn’t you mention earlier that crime rates have already dropped?” Ranboo had to raise his voice a little to be heard over Tubbo who was now humming something quite loudly.
“Actually the police chief called me right before I left to let me know this was the easiest day they’ve had in years! Apparently the villains in the city finally got the memo that the public does not support them, given that a top hero is now the mayor that should be pretty obvious- could you please stop that-'' Tubbo was now singing loudly, using his fork as a microphone and getting right up into Wil’s face.
“Tubbo-” Tommy tried but he kept singing, “Tubbo-” Now Wil was waving his hands in Tubbo’s face, trying to get his attention, “Tu-” but before he could say anything, Ranboo stood up.
“TUBBO!” The entire table went quiet, staring at Ranboo in shock. “STOP! You’ve been being a jerk all afternoon, I don’t know what your problem is but you need to go figure that out or apologize to Wil right now!” Tubbo stared at Ranboo for a second, then abruptly turned and stomped out of the dining room. They all were quiet as they heard Tubbo’s angry footsteps recede up the stairs.
“Can someone please explain what the fuck is going on?” Tommy asked, Ranboo and Wilbur appeared to suddenly find the floor very interesting.
“Seriously! What the fuck was that! Wil! What’s going on?”
Wil shuffled his feet, “I may have some idea.”
“Out with it! If you aren’t going to say shit then you can get out of my house.”
Wil had the decency to look embarrassed as he looked up from the floor and met Tommy’s eyes. “He might have told me not to be mayor and I might have ignored him?”
“I told you not to be the mayor too, he isn’t special.”
“Well, you see….”
“Wil lied and told Tubbo that he wouldn’t quit being a hero to become mayor and now Tubbo’s pissed.” Wil glared at Ranboo.
“WHAT? Why’d you lie? I told you not to quit too and you didn’t have a problem laughing in my face and telling me that I'm not the boss of you.”
“But you’re Tommy. Did you take anything I said personally?”
“No, I knew you were just being a bitch but-”
“Exactly, I knew you knew that I wasn’t going to pass up being the mayor but it’s Tubbo and I just felt bad when he was giving me that look- you know the one-” Tommy and Ranboo both nodded sympathetically, “And I couldn’t just tell him I was going to quit-”
“So you left us to deal with moody Tubbo but you didn’t want to ignore our dinner invite so you came anyways.” Ranboo finished and sighed, putting his head in his hands.
“Well this is your fault so you better go fix it.” Tommy said, patting Ranboob on the back.
“What am I supposed to say? He’s already pissed that I lied, he’s not going to listen to me. You go talk to him.”
“You think I know how to cheer him up?” Ranboo and Wilbur just looked at each other.
“Fine. You two owe me for this.” Tommy left the dining room and stomped up the stairs mumbling to himself, “It’s always “do this Tommy” or “do that” Tubbo better buy me that new Philza merch.” He reached the top of the stairs and stomped down the hall to Tubbo’s room. He banged on the door, loud enough to rattle the entire house, and shouted:
“TUBBO! YOU BETTER OPEN THIS DAMN DOOR OR I’LL-”
“IT’S UNLOCKED YOU IDIOT!”
Oh.
Tommy entered and plopped down next to Tubbo on the bed. He groaned and curled up in a ball, as far away from Tommy as possible without falling off the bed. Tommy just let him be, Tubbo would talk when he was ready.
They both relaxed in the silence, or at least Tommy did. He amused himself by looking around the room, not that he wasn’t in here all the time. In fact, he probably used this room almost as much as Tubbo did. Posters of almost every active pro-hero graced the walls including ones for the Blade and Philza Minecraft. A work table sat under the window, laden with tech that Tommy couldn’t even begin to comprehend. He closed his eyes and let the dull chatter of Ranboo and Wil downstairs lull him into a doze.
“Tommy?” Right, Tubbo. He made a noncommittal humph.
“Sorry for being a dick.”
“‘S ok. You should probably apologize to Wil though. But he was being a bitch too so I dunno if you want to.” He stretched and climbed off the bed, holding a hand out to Tubbo.
Tubbo grabbed it and pulled himself off the bed, tumbling onto the floor.
“Ow. Prick.” He winced and rubbed at the various bruises covering his body.
“Bitch.” Tommy stuck his tongue out at him and they both trooped back out into the hallway and down the stairs.
Wil and Ranboo were still sitting at the table. Ranboob was playing with a rubik's cube (Tommy had no idea where he was hiding that) and Wil was angrily typing on his phone. Tubbo coughed and they both looked up.
“Wil you were being a bitch but I guess I was too so now can we just eat a normal dinner?”
“That’s what I said in the first place.” Ranboo muttered but nodded and both Tommy and Tubbo sat back down.
“I think that’s as much of an apology as I’m going to get so I’ll take it.” Wil said, reaching past Tommy to get to the pepper. “Sorry for lying to you Tubbo. I didn’t want you to think that me becoming mayor was because I didn’t want to be a hero with you guys and Phil. I really do think that just by accepting the spot as mayor this city will be a lot safer.”
“Yeah, yeah, I guess that makes sense. We should prioritize the city’s safety and blah, blah, blah.” Tubbo crammed a large meatball in his mouth and made a face at Tommy who tried not to spit out his drink from laughter.
They quickly fell into comfortable conversation interspersed with bickering and several close brushes with a food fight. Tommy laughed and talked, enjoying Wil’s company though he would never admit it. They had certainly come a long way from being out on the streets to living happily in a large townhouse. Tubbo’s tech support business had kicked off and Ranboo’s art was selling well. They were even able to help Techno take care of Michael when he had to work. As Tubbo pounded him on the back trying to get him to stop choking on an especially large mouthful of spaghetti, he thought he wouldn’t trade this life for the world.