Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

     For a while, all that comes up is dead ends.

     “Anything?” Tubbo asks for the millionth time, and Ranboo gives a disheartened thumbs down. Tommy feels his own shoulders slump, disappointed in spite of himself.

     “Not a single crime that fits the bill,” Tommy sighs. “If I have to scroll through one more police report, I will die.”

     “Well, we can’t have that,” Ranboo’s voice is muffled on the couch, from where he’s face-down, having utterly given up. “Guess we better stop!”

     Tubbo looks up at both of them, eyes narrowed. “How do you guys get your information usually?”

     “Hit people,” Tommy shrugs.

     “Hit the right people,” Ranboo corrects.

     Tommy turns to look at him, eyebrows raised. “How do you know who’s the right person if you don’t just hit your suspects?”

     “Some superhero you are,” Tubbo snorts, seemingly fighting a smile. Tommy widens his eyes purposefully, staring hard, and Tubbo gives up, letting himself grin. “I mean, honestly.”

     “Not a hero,” Tommy jokes. “Haven’t you heard JMM and the Daily Bugle lately? I’m a Spider-Menace, a rogue, dangerous vigilante. I’m scary, Tubs.”

     “Sure you are,” Tubbo says, shaking his head, grin not wavering for a moment. “Seriously though - Does anyone have any ideas? I’ll even do a game at this point.”

     “Do you know the rules to Green Glass Door?” Tommy asks, after a moment of consideration. Ranboo shakes his head with a soft noise, and Tommy gets no confirmation from Tubbo, so he decides it’s probably best to explain.

     “So, some things could go through the green glass door. Grass, but not flowers. A happy person, but not a sad one. There’s a rule. You need to figure it out.”

     “And… how is this supposed to help?” Tubbo questions. “I’m sure there’s a reason, boss man, I’m just… not following.”

     “Ditto,” Ranboo says, face back on the cushion. 

     “Brainstorming,” Tommy shrugs. “Plus, our ideas seem to flow better when we’re doing something stupid to begin with. At least this one doesn’t include potential bodily harm, yeah?”

     “I take offense to that,” Tubbo raises a hand, briefly. “Anyways, I wanna go first. Could… a pig go through the green glass door?”

     “Nope,” Tommy pops the ‘p’ sound. “Ranboo?”

     “A bird.”

     Tommy shakes his head. “Not a bird, no.”

     “A… sheep,” Tubbo suggests, and Tommy nods. “Wait, seriously?”

     “Okay, okay, my turn,” Ranboo lifts his head up, turning to look at them, propping himself up on his elbows. “A… weed. Like, from the garden.”

     Tommy nods again.

     “Oh!” Tubbo exclaims, and Tommy can almost see the cartoon lightbulb that would appear over his head. “Okay, um, a carefree person, and a stressed person, but not a lonely one.”

     “Bingo,” Tommy grins, and Tubbo’s eyes light up. “What’s the rule, Tubso?”

     “Double-lettered words,” Tubbo crows, and Tommy nods. “My turn to change the rule?”

     At Tommy’s subsequent nod, Tubbo rubs his hands together like a movie villain. Maybe Tommy shouldn’t have enabled him, but at least he can see the gears in Tubbo’s head turning now - closer to any conclusion than they've been yet.

     “Alright, so…”

     “He was confused,” Ranboo murmurs, eyes faraway. The light is low in the apartment, the sun tucking itself behind swaying skyscrapers and impenetrable iron towers. “That was… the thing I could feel most. His confusion… and his resolve.”

     Tommy nods. “He was… overwhelmed, too. Something about him was…” Familiar.

     “Was?” Tubbo prompts.

     “Oh, uh… strange,” Tommy says. “He wasn’t right.”

     “That much, I can agree on,” Tubbo tilts his head, tone sympathetic. “Maybe… maybe he can’t move on because he doesn’t know why he’s here?”

     “Something about his memories felt odd,” Ranboo agrees. “Too stiff.”

     “Stiff goes through the green glass doors,” Tubbo murmurs, offhanded and probably to himself. It makes Tommy smile, but then he registers Ranboo’s wording, and the faint curve of his lips disappears.

      The graves, Tommy feels. Something about them had felt different - The only part of Casper’s thoughts that hadn’t felt the same, like it was something he knew and was just out of his reach. The graves didn’t feel… okay, not at all. Something Tommy had never known.

     “Tommy?” Tubbo waves his hand gently in Tommy’s vision, snapping him back to reality. “You okay, man? You totally zoned for a minute there.”

     “I’m alright,” Tommy says quickly. 

     Tubbo looks at him in a way Tommy can’t describe. “Do you have anything, then? To add? How did it feel for you besides… odd? Confused?”

     “Uh, nothing else,” Tommy shakes his head, a little too hard. “Just… those.”

     Tommy is lying again. He knows what he’s doing, he knows he’s breaking a pinky promise. He knows he’s not allowed to do that, but-

      You know, his traitorous mind whispers, those promises never really last.

     Tommy will tell the others. He will. He just… has to sort out his own thoughts first. He has to figure out what’s wrong - with Casper, with the memories, with himself.

     Tommy is shaken out of his thoughts as his spider-sense sets off, loud and sudden. Tubbo jerks at that same moment, and Ranboo all but throws himself off the couch as a picture frame above it shakes loose, crashing down.

     It takes Tommy an embarrassing moment too long to realise what’s happening. The city shakes under their unsteady feet, the air filled with a low thrumming.

     All too soon, Tommy realises, they’re out of time.

     Tommy is practically choking on all the panic in the air.

     The screaming tears at his skin like spindly hands, starved fingers reaching for salvation. Tommy keeps his eyes firmly ahead, shooting over the maze of streets, ignoring the fearful cries of his name. There’s no time. There’s no time.

     Ahead of him, Ranboo takes a sharp turn, rolling and landing hard onto a building's roof, narrowly missing someone’s haphazardly-hung laundry line. Tommy is quick to follow him into the laundry circle, and he can feel Tubbo on his heels.

     Safely shielded from the eyes of citizens by a colourful assortment of dress shirts, Ranboo pulls off his mask and looks the both of them in the eyes, jaw set in a carved line. 

     “What’s our plan?” He asks, firm in a way the very ground beneath their feet isn’t, and Tommy latches onto it like a sailor gone overboard. The waves will smash him to bits against the hull if he doesn’t. “Because that machine? It’s on.”

     “We don’t have a plan,” Tubbo frets, grabbing at his hair as his mask retracts. “We don’t even know why Casper has this thing, much less what it is or how it runs, besides on Casper! We’re not-”

     Tommy takes both of Tubbo’s hands, pulling them away from his hair, mask forgotten on the ground. Tubbo shoots him a wide-eyed look, like a deer in headlights, bracing for impact. Tommy does his best to look calming. He doesn’t think it’s working.

     “We just- We just need to break it,” Ranboo forces out, hands twisting, grasping at nothing. “Smash that stupid box to bits. Take it away from Casper. Once it’s gone, he can’t bring it back, right?”

     “I don’t know,” Tubbo shakes his head wildly. “I don’t know!”

     “You don’t need to know,” Ranboo replies, and Tommy thinks it’s an attempt at placating. “We’ll improvise, alright? Just like we always do.”

     “‘Cause that always works out so well,” Tubbo mutters, but he’s starting to nod. A thought strikes Tommy like a bolt of lightning, fast and electrifying.

     “If we break that thing,” He says quickly, rushing it out, unable to slow down, “you two can’t go home. You die here, don’t you? If you can’t go home?”

     Tubbo and Ranboo exchange a look for a moment too long. All this pressure inside of Tommy boils over at last.

     “What are you not telling me?” He snaps, and both of their guilty gazes lock back on him in unison. “What is it?”

     “We, uh,” Ranboo stammers.

     “We’re all so bad at being honest,” Tubbo interjects, trying for funny but falling so short that Tommy almost cringes. Tubbo does wince. “We’re, uh…”

     “We discussed it,” Ranboo finishes. “We decided we’d be okay if we… didn’t make it back. So long as your city…”

      “No,” Tommy demands, and it tears itself from his throat in a way that causes both Tubbo and Ranboo to take a step back. “No, no, no. You can’t- I won’t let you die, not in front of me, not again-”

     “It’s this or your city!” Tubbo argues, and it’s earnest, and Tommy feels like they’ve fallen into a sick, familiar tune. “You can’t be so-”

      “You can’t ask me to make that choice!” Tommy finds himself shouting, fists clenched hard enough that he things the spandex covering his nails is about to break. “That’s not fair!”

     “Newsflash,” Tubbo growls. “Neither is this. I don’t want to ask you to make it, but what choice do I - or you - really have?”

      “Fuck the city!” Tommy screams, and it’s too loud, too much. He ignores Ranboo and Tubbo’s twin shocked expressions. “What good has it ever done me, really?”

     A beat.

     “You don’t mean that,” Tubbo barely whispers, voice hoarse in a way it shouldn’t be, not after this little fighting, not after one round.

     “Don’t I?” Tommy snaps, with the last of the fight left in him, all draining from his ears at Tubbo’s broken look. “I…”

     Tommy scrubs at his eyes. He’s horrified to find his gloves coming back damp.

     “I don’t,” Tommy murmurs, staring down at his tear-stained fingers like they’re covered in blood. “I don’t mean it. I just…”

     Ranboo’s arms are around him in a moment.

     “I can’t lose you again,” Tommy chokes out, taking a deep breath, refusing to fully cry, not now. Not when there’s still work to do. “I can’t survive it. Not this time.”

     Tubbo slams into Tommy’s side, joining the hug with utter, clear desperation.

     “Please trust us,” Ranboo says, into Tommy’s hair. “Please. We’ll find a way, but right now, if we leave this, it’s gonna tear the whole city apart.”

     Tommy doesn’t want to trust. That has never ended well for him, trusting blindly. He doesn’t want to hope, to pray to something he can’t believe in, because otherwise it would mean he’s done something wrong to deserve this. He doesn’t want to rely on maybes, the way he has been for years.

     “Okay,” Tommy replies, in utter spite of himself, breaking away from the hug. “We’d better…”

     “Hey,” Ranboo says, soft, and Tommy turns back. Ranboo stands there, hand out, palm facing the ground, haloed in late afternoon light like an angel.

     Tentatively, Tommy puts his hand in the circle. 

     Tubbo joins without protest this time, wiping away a few tears of his own, gentle and hidden. “You guys are so lame,” He says anyway, seemingly unable to resist. 

     “Let’s do this,” Ranboo smiles, sure despite everything around them, “one last time.”

     Tommy wipes the last of the water from his eyes, and tugs his mask back on. One last time.

     Sure e-fucking-nough, Casper is fiddling with the dials when the trio climbs down into the rafters.

     It doesn’t take whispered planning, scheming on a time limit. For the first time in his life, inexplicably, Tommy is sure of his next move. Whatever he does, Tubbo and Ranboo will watch his six. Whatever he does, he’s indubitably secure.

     Tommy drops down to the cracked, uneven stone, pebbles bouncing around with the strength of the tremors here. Tommy is thankful for his supernatural balance and his stick-ability, because he’s positive he wouldn’t be able to stay standing here without it.

     Tubbo drops next to him, silent and sure. Tommy has an incredible idea.

     “Hey, Tubs,” Tommy grins under the spandex, cocking a hip, an effort to look relaxed, unbothered. Casper whips around. “Why are ghosts terrible liars?”

     “I dunno, Red. Why?” Tubbo replies, mirroring Tommy’s pose without missing a beat.

     “Because you can see right through them!” Tommy cackles, and Tubbo slaps his knee dramatically. Casper huffs out of his mask, and lunges. Tommy and Tubbo dive in opposite directions, and the chase is on.

     “Oh, I have one!” Ranboo calls, swinging above them, doing what Tommy can only guess is surveying the room for what to do. “What’s the best place for a ghost to go on holiday?”

     “Where, Boo?” Tommy asks, and then snorts. “Ha, Boo!”

     “Good one!” Ranboo replies. “The best place for a ghost to go on holiday is the Dead Sea!”

     On cue, Tommy and Tubbo crack up. Casper is clearly beginning to get aggravated, and Tommy finds that he’s pleased. His stupid plan is working like a charm. A few more, and Tommy is sure Casper will start to get reckless.

     “I have the ghost joke to end all ghost jokes,” Tubbo announces, solemn as he dodges right out of the way of Casper’s reaching glove. Now that Tommy’s looking for it, he can see the slight change in the way light reflects around him - a telltale sign that he’s turning solid.

     “Why, boo tell!” Tommy calls back, tone light and overdramatic. Tubbo and Ranboo laugh in a way that’s very clearly staged, like an old woman chortling on a late night comedy show.

     “What’s a little ghost’s favourite game?” Tubbo asks, jerking his hand in a way that tells Tommy to jump. Casper hurtles under him not a moment later.

     “I’m stumped,” Ranboo says, scratching his chin comically. “What?”

     “Hide and shriek!” Tubbo shouts, and Tommy and Ranboo break into that same, played-up laughter. Casper lunges for Ranboo without any calculation to his movements. Tommy knows, right there, that he’s got him.

     “If you want me,” Tommy taunts, “you’re gonna have to grab me.”

     Tommy zips up to the rafters, falling in time with Ranboo for just long enough to explain.

     “See how the light around him changes when he shifts from solid to not?” Tommy murmurs. “Tell Tubbo. He has to be solid to operate that thing.”

     “Holy shit,” Ranboo gasps. “You’re-”

     “Amazing, I know,” Tommy teases. “Tell me once this is over, okay? Heads up, on your nine!”

     Tommy and Ranboo split once again, both dropping from their webs as Casper hurtles through where they were a moment ago. Tommy lands on the console, and the beam splutters for a split-second from impact. He holds his hands up to his ears, shaking them, and Casper lunges again.

     Tommy is out of the way in a moment. Casper, fully solid, slams into the machine, and Tommy sees it miss a beat again, the smallest gap in the beam of light. Bullseye.

     Tommy should have known he’d flown too close to the sun. Really, he should have guessed. Things were going too well for him.

     The way Casper pulls himself up, standing and brushing off his coat before the lighting around him changes once again, strikes a chord deep in Tommy’s heart. He hesitates, just a moment too long. This time, when Casper lunges, he doesn’t move in time. Tommy braces himself.

     Ranboo appears in a flash of purple, knocking Tommy out of the way. Tommy can see Ranboo physically convulse, and knows what’s about to happen as Tubbo freezes in place too.

     Tommy, in a heartbeat, pushes Ranboo across the rumbling floor, ignoring the cracks spiderwebbing their way under his feet. He stands up, in Casper’s way. This is a stupid plan, and not the kind that gets them places, but it’s the only one he’s got.

     Tubbo senses it a moment before Tommy moves. “Red, no!” He cries out, reaching out as his hands begin to distort. “You don’t-”

     Casper lunges. Tubbo cuts off with an odd gurgle as the glitch overwhelms him. The light fractals around Casper shift shape, stretching until it’s right.

     Tommy holds his ground.

     The moment Casper is upon him is one Tommy doesn’t think he’ll ever feel again, won’t feel anything like this twice. Even as the pain and confusion and sadness and rage flood in, Tommy wrestles back, catching Casper’s upper arms, shoving him away. Casper seems so startled, for a moment, that he flies back, landing hard on the edge of the carved, charred valley in the condemned foundations.

     Tommy doesn’t let up, throwing himself onto Casper once more, wrestling him to the ground. If not for the overwhelming feeling, Tommy thinks he could win a fight in pure strength easily. He’s not at full power. He’s not sure if he’s going to win this one.

     Still, he persists. Tommy just has to wait out the glitch, long enough for his friends to get back in action. No amount of pain, misery, fear, will keep him from protecting them with his life, his blood, his love.

      You can’t have them, He tells the universe, gritting his teeth as the floodgates open impossibly wider. Not this time.

     Casper nearly pins Tommy to the stone. Tommy hooks a leg around Casper’s knees, preparing to yank, when he hears a faint, quiet, few guitar notes, something that was almost never there at all. 

     In that moment of distraction, Casper manages to slam Tommy’s head hard into the stone. Tommy’s vision shorts out, and he feels the floor cave under his skull. It’s all he can do to not pass out right there.

     In the end, he can’t even help that.

      Tommy doesn’t know how long he’s been calling Wilbur’s phone.

     Finally, he is alone in this empty house-that-was-home. He’s known it was coming for ages, and he’s had time to prepare, but he wouldn’t have been able to, even if he had been preparing for years and years.

     It’s storming outside, loud enough that it almost covers the horrible silence. It doesn’t. Tommy doesn’t know if it’s his enhanced hearing, or if the quiet is simply that loud. All that moves is Tommy, a rustling blanket as he lays in bed, curled up, smaller than he’s felt in all his life, truly alone for the first time.

     Wilbur’s voicemail begins speaking again, and Tommy bites his lip, so as not to sob. He refuses to miss a single second of this message he has committed to his brain, a few sentences that are all that remains of his biggest brother, his hero, his idol.

     When it finishes, Tommy rings again. He’s been at it for long enough that his eyes are starting to unfocus from the screen in front of him, the only light besides the occasional flash of lightning.

     This time, it doesn’t begin. An automated voice tells him that this inbox has been disconnected, in the same formal tone that the nurse had informed Tommy that Wilbur was dead. Something he knew, but would never be able to hear. Curled up in Techno’s arms, sobbing his eyes out in a hospital hallway, he’d never been younger.

     Tommy tries again, frantic, gripping his phone tightly enough that he can feel the metal crunch. He drops it immediately, out of fear of breaking it. Why didn’t he record it? He had to have known that Wilbur’s phone number would have to be requisitioned eventually. Why didn’t he record it, listen to it more, commit it to memory so deep he never forgot? Tommy tries to recall Wilbur’s voice in his head, but finds he can’t get the tone quite right, can’t get the quality dead on.

     Only then, on the third try, does Tommy sob, loud and broken, ripped from his chest, drowning out an automated voice telling him his brother is truly gone.

    When Tommy comes to, the first thing he sees is Tubbo and Ranboo, fighting with reckless abandon. When he shifts, he can feel the blood that’s dried between his hair and his mask pull, and he grimaces. His ears are ringing, and he’s still seeing spots, and Tommy is positive he has another concussion, but he doesn’t let that stop him.

     Tommy forces himself to his feet, dragging his body out of the bloody pool and to the console, gripping it so tightly he feels his fingers crush into the steel. He knows if he doesn’t act, Tubbo and Ranboo are fucked. They’re losing, the way they are, blinded by anger over Tommy’s injury. Neither of them have spotted him yet.

     Tommy finds he’s terrified.

      Ghosts are a child’s fear, he tells himself, scolding. Dizzyingly, before he can even finish the first thought: Tommy is a child. He’s been hiding under his blankets in his dark bedroom for years.

     Tommy grabs a rusted pipe, loose by his feet, wielding it with uncanny similarity to the way that he used to “spar” with Techno, in their living room with an old broomstick their dad had sawed in half just for this.

     Tommy is so, so sure.

     “Hey, ghost!” He calls, before he loses his courage entirely. Casper’s head snaps to his voice, and so do Tubbo and Ranboo’s. In a way that’s obvious, even against the dark fabric, once he really looks, Tommy realises that Tubbo’s leg is bleeding profusely. Tommy watches as he leans on Ranboo for support. “Over here! Eyes on me, dickhead!”

     “Red?” Tubbo asks, small, terrified, obviously pained.

     “Don’t move,” Tommy tells him and Ranboo both. Then, parroting their earlier words, “Trust me?”

     It’s a dirty move, Tommy knows. He’s uncomfortably aware, to the point where it squeezes his chest to say. He doesn’t have a choice, though. They have to stay out of this. They have to be safe.

     “Red,” Tubbo repeats, helplessly, but doesn’t move. Tommy looks back at Casper. He feels utterly ignited.

     In one smooth movement, Tommy yanks his bloody mask from his head, and lets it fall ungracefully to the floor. He swallows, exhales slowly, and opens his mouth.

     “It’s me, Wilbur,” Tommy says, unable to stop the shake in his voice, the tremor in his whole body that’s entirely unrelated to the quaking. “You don’t- you don’t need to do this, see? Whatever you think is happening, it’s not. It’s not. You don’t need to bring anyone back. I’m right here, see? I’m alive. It’s you…”

      Tommy, He hears, whipping past his ears on an unnatural wind as Casper doesn’t shift.

     “Tommy,” Tommy agrees, endlessly gentle as the mirage of Casper’s mask begins to flicker, almost imperceptible. “Your little brother.”

     The wind curls through his hair, ruffling it in a way that very nearly feels like long, lithe fingers.

     “You don’t have to do this,” Tommy continues. “You’re hurting people, see? You don’t want that. I know you don’t. You can stop this, Wil. I promise.”

     Casper shakes his head, just barely, just once. The mask flickers away for a few moments, and then again. Tommy can make out the sharp curve of a jaw, dark eyes, a strong nose he remembers so dearly.

      Can’t, the wind whispers, a secret just to him.

     “We’ll stop it together,” Tommy promises, finding he means it utterly. Tubbo and Ranboo haven’t moved an inch. “We can do anything, can’t we? You, me, and Techno against the world, always and forever. You promised, remember?”

     Casper- Wilbur seems to second-guess himself, mask disappearing completely. Even after a moment, Tommy can see with unnerving clarity that this is not the Wilbur he knew. It’s his brother, from his world, that much he’s sure of, but it’s as if whatever formed this ghost, Wilbur-as-he-is, forgot a few pieces, left important parts of Wilbur-as-he-was behind.

     Tommy finds he loves Wilbur no less, no matter how much of him is here.

     Wilbur’s ghostly eyebrows furrow. He opens his mouth, but no sound comes out.

     “Together,” Tommy repeats, holding out his pinky. “Always. You still owe me pancakes after this, don’t you?”

     Wilbur’s head snaps up to meet Tommy’s eyes, like an alarm has triggered in his head. Slowly, in a way that doesn’t match the urgency in his eyes, Wilbur opens his arms.

     Tommy steps forward, and then again. Carefully, he presses himself against Wilbur’s solid chest, ignoring the inhuman cold, instead noticing the way that he’s not overwhelmed, not for a breath.

      Together, the wind whistles, as Wilbur’s cold arms close gentle around him. Tommy hugs Wilbur for just a moment before he lights up, electrifying and impossible and ice-cold all at once.

     There’s a flash, so bright Tubbo is nearly blinded.

     When it clears, Tommy and Casper- Wilbur are both gone. Nothing is left except for the bloodied mask, red-turning-brown on the stone floor.

     Lastly, Tubbo notices that the machine splutters out, until it’s off.

     For a while, there’s no words to say. Tubbo can already feel the wound on his leg knitting itself together again, and he hopes it doesn’t scar too horribly, healing entirely without treatment. The machine lets out short bursts of energy, but doesn’t power all the way up again.

     “He’s not…” Ranboo murmurs from where Tubbo leans against him. “Tubbo, he’s not…”

     “Surely not,” Tubbo shakes his head. “Surely Tommy wouldn’t let this…”

     It’s as if their brains kick into overdrive in utter unison. 

     “We have to find him,” Tubbo hears himself say, scooping Tommy’s bloody mask off the ground, shooting a web at the rafters. “He’s waiting for us.”

     Tubbo has played this game one too many times, the one with the false hope. His family, his sisters, his Ranboo, his Tommy. He knows the number-one rule of a tragedy of any kind.

      Death can’t be legally confirmed, he thinks, in utter spite of himself, without identification of a body.

     Tommy opens his eyes. He thinks he does, at least. He feels impossible, incredible, thrumming with energy not entirely his own. He just has to figure out where he is. He fumbles around gently, knuckles knocking against something solid.

     Where’s the lights in this thing?

     Tubbo doesn’t know, honestly, how stupid he can fucking be. If Tommy’s not dead, he very well could be dying, and here’s Tubbo wasting his last minutes with a shitty memory of his own tech that he built.

     “I’m an idiot,” Tubbo verbalizes, sanitizing the thought so he doesn’t get a thwack on the head from Ranboo. “I really- how long have we been swinging for, Boo? Looking?”

     “Has to have been a while,” Ranboo tilts his head, following Tubbo’s light landing on a nearby fire escape, eyes trained on the dark sky as if he’s trying to puzzle out the hour. “What did you… think?”

     “I put a tracker on him,” Tubbo says simply, and Ranboo squeaks. Tubbo ignores it, pulling up his hologram, flickering due to the dent in Tubbo’s bracer. An easy fix.

     “Can we go back?” Ranboo says, strangled. “You’re tracking him?”

     “Both of you,” Tubbo shrugs.

      “What?”

     “After you disappeared that one night,” Tubbo explains, not focusing on Ranboo’s distress so much as pulling up Tommy’s tracker through the damaged screen, “I took precautions. We didn’t know where you were or if you were alive. I didn’t use them before this. They just… made me feel better.”

     “I’m not sure how I feel,” Ranboo’s voice is sort of faint.

     “Leave me and my spider-tracers alone,” Tubbo scolds. “They’re helping us. You have to be nice.”

     “Yes, sorry, spider-tracers,” Ranboo forces out, no less strangled than it was. “Sorry for the disrespect.”

     “You should be,” Tubbo says easily, just as the tracker on Tommy’s suit is pinpointed. “He’s in Manhattan.”

     That’s all it takes for both of them to take off, not another word needed. Tubbo has a sinking, horrible feeling.

     Tommy has come to the conclusion that he’s breathing stale air.

     He supposes he should be grateful he’s breathing at all, but he can’t seem to find it in himself to be anything but selfish here. There’s no light, Tommy is boxed in on all sides, and he doesn’t know where he is. He’s cold. What’s happening?

     Tommy finds himself admitting it, upfront - he’s scared.

     Tubbo has never felt so desperate, so afraid. Even pulling his-Tommy’s body from the rubble, he had been utterly resigned. This whole time, he’s been resigned. The hope that flutters in his chest, a little canary in a bone cage, is unfamiliar.

      Danger, it chirps. Danger, danger, danger.

     There’s danger everywhere. Tubbo swings over sirens, screams, rubble in the streets of Manhattan, ignoring how the world shakes with aftershocks. Ranboo is hot on his heels. They have a mission.

     Tubbo is so sure he knows how this will end.

     Tommy screams any name he can think of. Tubbo, Ranboo. Wilbur, Techno.

     He even screams for Phil, once or twice. Tommy wants his dad.

     Tommy finds himself sobbing, sucking in his limited air too quickly. He can’t help the way his body thrashes in the tight space it’s in. He doesn’t know where he is, how to get out, what to do. Here, his screams do not echo.

     Tommy’s hand jerks up, and he flinches as it crashes through whatever box he’s in. He has only a moment to recognise what he’s done before the thick, unpleasant mud begins to flood in, stealing the little space he has left.

     He bites his tongue when he screams. Tommy finds himself choking, half on the soil, half on his own blood as it clogs itself into his throat.

     Tubbo lands hard enough for it to hurt.

     He doesn’t care about grace right now, or appearances - he lands on the grass hard enough for it to ache, and begins scooping the plants and soil away with his hands. It’s not enough. It won’t be enough.

     Ranboo is late to land next to him, but he brings a shovel. Tubbo assumes it was on some other grave, and he finds he doesn’t really care, Tommy’s stained mask discarded to the side as the tracker program beeps, incessant and annoying.

     Ranboo plunges the shovel into the mud, and finally, they begin making headway.

     It’s seconds that feel like years, millenia. They dig deeper still, super-strength working overtime, ignoring how Wilbur’s headstone tilts precariously forward. Not again. Not again. Not again.

     Tubbo refuses to dig out another corpse.

     Tommy is going to die here.

     His fingers break the surface.

     When Tubbo grips miraculously warm fingers through all the soil, he doesn’t hesitate to yank. There’s a horrible groaning of wood, a splintering, and a crack.

     When he pulls Tommy out of the grave, he looks into what remains of the coffin, out of nothing more than a morbid curiosity.

     There’s nothing at all. No skin, no bones, no corpse. It’s an empty box, swallowed by the earth.

     Tommy is spitting out dirt, spluttering, and it’s too bright to see. He hides his face in Tubbo’s shoulder, unable to stop his sobs, unable to do anything but cry. Tommy doesn’t know how long it’s been. They hold him until clouds drift over the early-morning sun enough for Tommy to open his eyes, to adjust.

     Tommy isn’t sure when the end began, but he is sure that they’re too far in now. There’s no backing out, not anymore.

     Finally, reluctantly, Tommy squirms back, and Tubbo and Ranboo release him from the hug. He looks down at himself, an utter mess, covered in mud and bloodstains he doesn’t know how to get out of his suit. Tubbo is up to the shoulders in mud, and the white half of Ranboo’s suit is… no longer white.

     Tommy finds himself, last of all, to be thrumming with an energy that’s too strong, too unworldly to be his own. He thinks back to Wilbur’s cold, cold arms. 

     He knows what’s happened. He knows just what Wilbur has done.

     Tommy snaps back to reality when Ranboo nudges him gently, holding his mask. He points at a nearby theater, and just like that, the three of them are scaling it, in uncanny synchronization.

     Tommy realises that this climb is to catch his breath, away from the public eye. Tubbo and Ranboo give him space, pace a distance away, as Tommy finally surveys his surroundings.

     Aftershocks run through the shattered streets. Tommy can’t read the words flashing on the big screen fast enough, but the images that are usually ads are all news of the city-wide destruction. Wilbur’s power presses against Tommy’s bruised, battered skin, begging to be freed.

     Tommy prepares himself for the oncoming argument, and gets to his feet.

     In a moment, Tubbo is at his side. Tommy waves him off, standing shakily.

     “You need to rest,” Tubbo insists, and there it is. “Seriously, man, you just were buried alive. You’ve been through hell. You…”

     Tommy shakes his head. “Tubbo, I- we need to finish this. We’re not done. We need to finish it.”

     “Wilbur is gone,” Tubbo says, and it’s so soft it causes Tommy’s knees to finally buckle. Tubbo is under his arm in an instant, grasping across Tommy’s shaking back, and Ranboo takes up his other side, arm around his waist. Tommy can’t help but sag into their grip.

     “I know,” Tommy coughs, spitting a glob of blood onto the pavement. “I know. I just…”

     “You’re still coughing up blood,” Ranboo murmurs. “Tommy, can’t this wait? I…”

     “It can’t,” Tommy shakes his head again, more sure this time, more solid. “I have to… I’m going to blow, I think, if we don’t move now.”

     “What do you mean?” Tubbo’s head snaps up, alarmed.

     “Calm down,” Tommy murmurs to him. “I just… I think Wilbur left me with something, you know? That something that… everything ran on. That you discovered, Tubbo, that the machine ran on. I’ve… got it, and I think I can control it, but not for much longer, so we have to go.”

     “Are you absolutely sure?” Ranboo asks. “I mean, you just met…”

     “Your dead brother’s fucking ghost,” Tubbo supplies, and Tommy snorts.

     “Yeah, that,” Ranboo finishes. There’s a moment before Tommy answers - another moment he wants to stay in forever, a warm body on either side, holding him up when he’s too weak to do it himself.

     “Do you want the honest answer?” Tommy finally answers, voice quiet. “Because I can lie, if you want.”

     “No more lies,” Tubbo tells him, and Ranboo nods. “We can take it, big man, I promise you.”

     Tommy takes a deep breath, and for the first time in years, he tells the truth of how he feels, upfront and solid.

     “No,” He says. “No, I’m not sure, and I definitely,” He chuckles, bitter, “don’t think I’m okay. But… I think, if I do this, I think that I… could be. I need to do this. I just need to…”

     “Well,” Tubbo shrugs, and Tommy feels it under his arm more than he sees it. “You’re even crazier if you think you’re doing this alone, yeah?”

     Ranboo moves around, shifts so he’s in front of them, forming a makeshift huddle, putting his hand out, in the middle, palm facing the floor.

     “One last time,” Ranboo says, voice steel. “For real this time.”

     In spite of it all, this time, Tommy can’t help but grin.

     The basement that holds the machine seems… too empty, without Wilbur.

      Wilbur, Tommy thinks. It really is just his luck that the villain he’s been up against was none other than the confused, angry actual ghost of his dead big brother. It’s the kind of thing, he thinks, that can really only happen to him. Who else would this ever happen to?

     And after everything, after concussions and betrayals and ghosts from his past and being buried fucking alive, he’s still not done. Figures.

     The entire swing over, Ranboo and Tubbo had stuck close to his sides, just in case he fumbled. He didn’t. He’s been alone and injured far graver than he is now, doing something like this. Tommy realises how bad that sounds, honestly, but what is he gonna do about it? That’s life.

     Tommy’s rambling thoughts are cut off by a sharp, unfamiliar pain, one that he can’t pinpoint. He suppresses the yelp, but not the flinch - he notices, out of the corner of his eye, Tubbo watching him closely.

     After a few more, unevenly-spaced flinches, Tubbo snaps his fingers like some sort of mad scientist. When Tommy finally lands on the cracked, broken stone floor, Tubbo puts a hand on his shoulder as they watch the beam, waiting for it to fire again.

     “Tommy,” Tubbo says, sounding a little unsure, after a moment of silence. “Call me crazy, but…”

     “You’re crazy,” Tommy murmurs, only half-paying attention.

     “Shut up,” Tubbo replies, without missing a beat. “Anyways, I don’t think this machine has the function we thought it did.”

     Ranboo turns to them at that, tilting his head. “What do you mean?”

     Tubbo’s mask retracts. He’s pulling at his lip with his teeth, with that look in his eyes that Tommy knows means he’s thinking hard. Ranboo seems to instinctually react by pulling his mask off as well, and Tommy refuses to be the odd one out, pushing his hair back out of his eyes once he removes his mask last.

     “I said before that it was feeding off of Cas- Wilbur,” Tubbo corrects, not taking his eyes off of the machine, “But I don’t think I had it right. I think that this device, whatever its origins, was only ever meant to aim his energy, to point it in the right direction. Concentrate it.”

     Tommy turns to Tubbo, shrugging off his hand so that Tommy can grab Tubbo’s shoulders instead. “You’re telling me,” He reiterates, slow and unsure, “that not only was my dead brother a fuckin’ ghost, but he also had dimension-hopping superpowers?”

     Tubbo blinks once, then shakes his head, insistent. “No, no,” He says. “I think, well, I know that Wilbur’s energy wasn’t from… our plane of existence, so to speak. I don’t know where from, and I do intend to find out someday, but right now, I’m spitfiring. I think that… whatever ghost world energy he gave you, that he had before… I don’t think it’s bound to our laws of science. I think that the energy itself, not necessarily Wilbur, has the energy to… well. How would he get to us, otherwise?”

     “And how…” Ranboo trails off, looking up like he can’t think of what to say next. “How, exactly, did you come to this conclusion?”

     Tubbo shrugs. “I had my suspicions. That stuff I analyzed was like nothing I’d ever seen before. It stuck out in a world with scientific laws so similar to my own. It seemed so far-fetched, but now…”

     “Now I’ve absorbed a ghost, taken the body’s place, and have magic dead person powers,” Tommy offers.

     “You could say that,” Tubbo agrees. The way Ranboo looks at them is so, so tired. Tommy doesn’t blame him at all. He thinks if he had to deal with himself all day, he’d be tired too.

     “Anyways,” Tubbo continues, unperturbed by this look, “the machine needs Wilbur’s - yours, now - energy to run, doesn’t it? It was absorbing what he had, pulling it away to create the dimension portal or whatever it was. Is it not… doing the same to you?”

     Tommy is about to deny it. He really, truly is. However, not a moment too soon, an especially powerful burst fires from the laser, and Tommy yelps, clutching any part of his body he can, unable to pinpoint the source of the pain.

     Tubbo gives him a deadpan look. Tommy sighs.

     “Now,” Tubbo picks up where he left off, flawlessly, “that we’ve proven that… this is the part where it sort of strays out of… what I know how to do. You gotta go off vibes here, okay?”

      Go off vibes, Ranboo mouths to Tommy, and Tubbo swats his arm. Ranboo jumps. Tommy can’t help but laugh.

     “Hey!” Tubbo protests, lips pursed, brow furrowed. “Magic ghost-energy-given powers is uncharted territory, even where I'm from!”

     “Just tell me what I need to do,” Tommy says, trying to hold in a snort, taking a deep breath.

     “I think,” Tubbo says, “that however you use your spooky ghost magic,”

      Spooky ghost magic, Ranboo mouths, waggling his eyebrows. Tommy breaks off into a fit of giggles, and Tubbo shoves Ranboo hard enough to make him stumble, but not hard enough to not be playful still.

     Tubbo doesn’t give up, adamant to get his point out, ignoring Tommy’s laughter as he continues. “However you do so,” he says, more firmly, “you need to withdraw your energy from the machine entirely.”

     Tommy sobers enough to ask, “And what’ll… happen once I do that?”

     Tubbo shrugs again, the same way he always does when he’s not sure, as if it’s not a big deal, he’ll figure it out. “Guess we’re gonna find out, boss man.”

     It's a resigned sort of chuckle that Tubbo lets out then, a smouldering defeat in the ashes of the wildfire. Tommy, against everything he's ever known, finds himself hoping. Please be safe. Please don't let this be the end.

     Still, the business Tommy’s in is no place for second-guessing. He nods, placing both hands on the console, fingers slipping into the indents he already made in the steel. He shuts his eyes, takes a deep breath, exhales, and curls his fingers into the metal, ripping through it like wet paper in effort to reach what he knows is there.

     Sure enough, Tommy reaches it - a thrumming, utterly familiar energy, pulsing through the bowels of the machinery, exactly like the energy Tommy holds in his own soft tissue. He reaches, and latches on.

     Immediately, the energy puts up a fight. He’s not sure if it’s so much a fight as a natural resistance to new circumstance, but he doesn’t let up. Tommy pulls, and then he yanks.

     The coil pulls free. Tommy is alight.

     He feels like he might explode, when it ends. He doesn’t know what to feel. He doesn’t know what he’s feeling, besides that this is too much too little. At last, the machine’s quiet hum stops, and Tommy turns back to Ranboo and Tubbo, who are a ways back, grinning victoriously.

     They grin back, giddy. Tommy’s finished it. He’s done it. He can go home.

     His spider-sense blares. He sees the fraction-of-a-second where Tubbo and Ranboo’s eyes widen in unison, and watches Tubbo’s mouth open in a scream in what feels like slow motion.

      “Tommy!” Tubbo screams, just as Ranboo vanishes into purple sparks. Tommy feels Ranboo make impact with his back the same moment he hears it - the boom.

     Ranboo tackles Tommy to the floor, rolling, and they’re thrown a few extra feet by the rush of hot air, solid and forceful, on Tommy’s back. Ranboo rolls off of Tommy when they finally stop moving, sluggish and groaning. Tommy knows he’s fighting off a glitch. He sees Tubbo’s face contort unpleasantly.

     “That’s the second time you’ve saved me like that since this whole thing began,” Tommy tries for light, plastering a fake smile on his face, but Ranboo doesn’t respond. Tommy’s spider-sense won’t stop, and the building is shaking in a way it wasn’t before, and in a horrible moment, Tommy realises that the console has blown itself to bits.

     He realises in the next, worse moment that the entire machine is following suit.

     He doesn’t actually know how big the machinery is - he only knows the part he can see here. Judging by the locations of the shaking, he can safely say it’s much bigger than he thought it was, and he would safely put it at huge, in terms of size.

     Tommy crawls to Tubbo before he knows what he’s doing, acting entirely on instinct. Everything hurts - he feels scorched raw from the explosion, broken from impact. It wasn’t a soft landing, on top of all his other already-present injuries, and it’s frankly a miracle he’s able to drag Tubbo back to where Ranboo lays, organizing the three of them into a neat pile.

     Small rocks are starting to dislodge and fall, and the ceiling is shaking, chipping apart. There’s nowhere to swing, nowhere that will hold them, and it’s not like any one of them could, not now. It’s a terrible, dawning realisation when Tommy thinks, We’re going to die here.

     He doesn’t voice it, would never. The others are surely realising it for themselves. Tommy knows he should be scared, is scared, but it's a quiet sort of panic, he thinks. Ranboo is holding back a glitch, Tubbo landed hard on his bad leg in the original explosion, and Tommy feels more at peace here than he ever has in his life.

     Wilbur’s energy flares up inside of him, though Tommy doesn’t know what it wants with him now. It’s a strange mix of emotions, fear and excitement and adrenaline combined with otherworldly energy that settles unwieldy in his gut. 

     Tommy didn’t know when he would die. He didn’t think he would live to be old, surely, by nature of his nightly activities, but he’d never put much more thought into it, spare thinking about Wilbur’s funeral, that distant aunt, and the temptation to give up.

     He didn't give up, he thinks. Tommy didn't give up, and he didn't die alone. He won't die alone, and he won't die as the coward he started this ordeal as, afraid to love and be loved. With a start, Tommy realises that for the first time in a long time, he can surely say that he will die loved.

     He will be loved, Tommy realises, until the very moment all three of them are gone.

     It won’t be long now. Tommy can hear the distant roaring of water of the bay, pressing against the broken supports, ready to flood in the moment it shatters. The ceiling fares no better, forming pockets, sagging, about to break.

     Tommy looks down at his hands, scraped and bloody from digging into the console, holes in his gloves to make way. His spider-sense is screaming for him to run, flee, save himself, but there’s no way out, not for all three of them, and Tommy isn’t going anywhere, not alone.

     Never again, he’d promised himself. He would never, never be alone again.

     With that weird mix of fear-adrenaline-excitement coursing through his veins, Tommy looks up at Tubbo and Ranboo's scared faces. He pulls them both close, holding tight, before leaning back, not letting go.

     “I love you,” he tells them, and both of their expressions shift, eyes wide, mouths open. Tubbo looks lost, eyes watery, and all he can see in Ranboo’s face is shock. “Both of you.”

     Finally, after a moment or a year, Tubbo blinks rapidly, nodding with furious agreement. He extends his spindly, metal suit-limbs over the three of them, in a meager attempt at protection they all know will do nothing in the end.

     “I know,” Ranboo responds finally, forcing away the shock, watery joy replacing it. Tommy barks a laugh then, however inappropriate for the instant. It’s choked, near a sob. Ranboo’s eyes shine as he smiles back.

     Tommy feels like he's going to explode. He's practically glowing, with Wilbur's energy and happiness and hopes and fear and all of it. He pulls Tubbo and Ranboo impossibly close again, ignoring the terror in his belly, reveling in this final, endless devotion. 

     He will die a mystery, he knows, and he will die a child, but by god, Tommy will die a hero.

      Hero , is his final thought. It feels good to be a hero.

     The world caves in around him. The ceiling gives, and so do the walls, and the faint roar of the bay is louder in an instant, a blink of the eyes Tommy has squeezed shut. He doesn’t want to see. He doesn’t want to know.

     Ranboo’s hand finds his in the huddle, lacing their fingers together. Tommy waits.

     There’s something reaching for him, asking for help. Tommy can help. Without a moment of consideration, he reaches back in turn.

     It’s warm, familiar, love. This, he thinks, must be death. 

     If it’s all like this, Tommy decides, he isn’t afraid to die. It will be peaceful. He will die as unafraid as he possibly can.

      Not yet, a voice growls, foreign in his mind but not to his still-beating heart. It isn’t his voice. He recognises it to be Ranboo’s, strained but determined, and Tommy isn’t sure what’s happening, but the energy he can’t contain is buzzing, flooding through the link, and Tommy doesn’t dare stop it.

     His body doesn’t move, doesn’t shift an eyelid, but at last, he can see.

     As the world converges to bury them, Tommy pushes one final burst of Wilbur’s- Tommy’s own power into Ranboo’s, feeding the smouldering ashes that will burn them all to the ground, if he lets it. 

     Tommy would let it. Ranboo wouldn’t hurt him. This, Tommy knows.

     Just as the roar becomes unbearable, as the dust becomes choking, as the boulders finally drop, there’s a sharp tug in Tommy’s veins, his heart, his soul, and it all ends.

     Tommy’s eyes snap open on a familiar roof, facing the early afternoon sunlight. He flinches back, unable to bear the light for a moment. Smoke clouds his vision, from all directions, and he registers his dirty, torn mask in his clenched fist. He releases it, flexes his fingers. 

     Tommy’s mind catches up with his body, and he comes back to himself just as he feels his searing energy-power settling back inside him, in its correct place for the first time.

     A hand grabs his own, fumbling to open his once-again-closed fist. Tommy takes it, and instinctively reaches out his other hand, catching someone else’s long, skinny fingers.

     “Are we dead?” The person to his left groans, and Tommy shoots up from where he lays immediately, pulling Tubbo and Ranboo with him, despite both of their surprised yelps.

     “Holy shit,” Ranboo murmurs, staring at his hands, pulling his left hand away from Tommy’s, freeing Tommy’s right. “Did that- did I…?”

     It’s too good to be true, Tommy thinks. Surely, it’s too good to be true.

     Still, he nods. “You just-”

     “I just teleported us all out of there, didn’t I?” Ranboo asks, sounding faint. “I mean, not that I know how you did, Tommy, but you helped, but I…”

     Tubbo, on Tommy’s left side, still holding Tommy’s left hand, whoops suddenly, as if he’d finally come back online at that moment. Tommy is pulled to his feet, gleeful and messy, and stands up so quickly he almost slams his and Tubbo’s foreheads together. Tubbo doesn’t seem to even notice, grin wider than Tommy’s ever seen on him.

     “Takes more than that to kill us!” Tubbo cries, tilting his head back to face the smoke-filled sky, expression indescribable, elated. “Take that, universe!”

     “Don’t piss off the universe!” Tommy hisses, but it’s just as playful, joyous as he grabs Tubbo’s shoulders, Tubbo grabbing his in return. “We barely made it out of that one!”

     “Who cares what the universe wants?” Tubbo slides his hands down Tommy’s arms, pulling his wrists away from Tubbo’s shoulders, only to lace their fingers together, pure happiness never wavering. He spins Tommy in circles, picking up momentum as Tommy screeches with laughter like he hasn’t in years. “We fuckin’ won, Tommy! We lived! We’re fucking alive!”

     They’re alive.

     Tommy whoops with pure elation then, joy he can only describe as living, a love he hasn’t felt for life since he was little, in his room, listening to an old guitar that does nothing now but collect dust. He lets go of Tubbo’s hands to tackle Ranboo, who’s standing now, staring at his hands still with a soft, satisfied smile.

     Ranboo is quick on the uptake, catching Tommy and spinning him through the air to use the momentum, placing him on his feet and hugging him close. Tommy can feel Ranboo’s pulse against his palm, flat on his chest, beating quickly. 

     “We’re alive, Ranboo!” Tommy says, muffled but gleeful all the same. “We fuckin’ made it!”

     Ranboo yanks Tubbo into the hold as well, and they’re pressed together again, but this time there’s no death coming, no looming threat, no end-of-all crashing down. Tommy breathes an impossible exhale against Ranboo’s shoulder.

     They’re bloody, caked in dust, burnt and bloody, but none of it matters, not for a single second. Tommy has never felt this way before. Here, in these arms, in this burning city, in his broken, battered, bruised body, he feels impossibly light, impossibly existing at all.

     “We’re heroes,” Tommy whispers. “We’re heroes.”

     Somehow, some way, Tommy finds that for the first time, he believes it.

     “We are,” Tubbo agrees, with a nod Tommy feels against his neck. “Somehow.”

     “Who knew?” Ranboo jokes, and they all dissolve into giggles.

     Tommy thinks, for just a fleeting moment, in spite of it all, that there really is no love like this life, the one he holds fragile in his palms like a dying flame, flickering, fighting to survive.

     Tommy has fought, he knows. He has fought and fought and fought again. He fought, and now he’s won.

     He holds his friends close, basking in the gentle, sun-warmed glory of it all.

     They stay there, safe in eachother’s arms, amid the sirens and the smoke, for what must be hours. When Tommy comes back to himself truly, everything is bathed in a soft, golden light.

     He thinks that the building that had held the machinery has collapsed in on itself completely, smoke pouring into the sky from that direction. He’ll have to check, make sure that it’s really over. 

     It’s over.

     The realisation is sobering, hits harder than Tommy thought possible.

     It’s over.

     When they split, finally, shortly after Tommy tenses up in the hold, he keeps his head down. He can’t make eye contact, can’t see their faces. He can tell that they’re not looking either. There’s a long, miserable silence.

     Finally, Ranboo speaks.

     “So…” He murmurs.

     “Yeah,” Tubbo mumbles in return, wringing his hands together like they’re under a sink faucet.

     “It’s time?” Tommy asks, at last mustering the courage. He hates how meek he sounds, how afraid. Surely he knew this was coming. He had time to prepare.

     “It’s time,” Ranboo confirms, finally looking up. Tommy’s eyes are drawn to meet his, where they hold a quiet, unshakable strength. Tommy doesn’t know how he does it. He’s not strong. He doesn’t want to be.

     “I’m not ready,” Tommy whispers, hates himself for saying it, how he was unable to stop it slipping out. What he doesn’t say, is able to hold back, is something he knows they hear regardless: Don’t leave me alone. Not here. Not now.

     “I’m not sure I could ever be ready,” Tubbo admits, voice equally hushed, a secret under the blankets after lights-out at a childhood sleepover. “But I… I don’t feel very good, Tommy. I think… we’ve overstayed our welcome.”

     Ranboo nods, hesitant. “I’m not sure how we’re gonna get back, but we-”

     “I know how,” Tommy blurts. It feels like a curse, no matter how softly it falls from his lips. “I can… I’m not done yet, with Wilbur’s energy. My energy. I can feel it. I… it wants out.”

     Tubbo yanks them both into one more long, too-tight hug. Tommy can feel the way it shifts his ribs with a superhuman strength, just enough to not snap him in two entirely. It’s laced with a desperation in a way it wasn’t even facing certain death, and Tommy knows that in this moment, he would much rather be dead than have to be living again, alone and untethered.

     It's not enough. It'll never be enough. For the rest of Tommy's lonely life, it will never ever be enough.

     When they finally all pull back, not daring to let go entirely, Tommy studies them in a way he hasn’t needed to study anyone before. He refuses to forget a detail of them the way he forgot the little things about Wilbur, like how he used to brush the hair from his eyes, or how he used to blink or breathe or live around Tommy, doing all those little things he took for granted until it was too late.

     He won’t forget a thing. He won’t forget how Ranboo wears his jagged scar with pride, cutting his strong features in half, forehead to chin. He won’t forget how Ranboo was brave and kind, how Ranboo had saved all their lives after Tommy had simply shown his belly, how Ranboo, no matter how hard Tommy looks, doesn’t exist here.

     He won’t forget Tubbo, either. This Tubbo, not the one he knew but one so similar, equally as dear to him, alive and breathing in a way Tommy never thought he’d see again. He won’t forget Tubbo’s endless genius, his determination, the big heart he tries so hard to hide. He won’t forget the way that Tubbo’s eyes are a piercing emerald green, as opposed to his dead friend’s gentle sky-blue.

     “Okay,” Tommy hears himself barely say, barely whisper. “Okay.”

     “It won’t be forever,” Tubbo murmurs, pulling Tommy’s and his’ joined fingers to his face, resting his cheek on the back of Tommy’s dirty hand. “It won’t be. I don’t know how, or when, but I’ll find a way back to you. Both of you.”

     “If anyone can do it,” Ranboo chimes in, and it’s heavy, choked like a sob, “you can. I don’t know anyone better-suited for the job.”

     Tubbo does sob then, a sob-exhale-laugh. He nods, smiling. Ranboo’s fingers run lightly across his other cheek. Tommy ever-so-gently pulls his own hand away, instead holding out a pinky to each of them.

     “You’ll come back,” He states, and it’s not a question, not a maybe, not this time. “Swear it.”

     “Are you kidding me right now?” Tubbo giggles, and it’s exactly what he said so long ago now, in that basement, the first time all three of them had been together. “You have so little faith in me, that you must invoke the ancient powers?”

     Ranboo links pinkies with Tommy without a moment of hesitation, not even jokingly. “Take my soul, Mr. Devil!” He cries, shaking their conjoined hands vigorously, making Tommy laugh for real. “It belongs to you now!”

     Somewhere in the chaos, Tubbo slips his pinky into Tommy’s as well. It’s silent, fragile, but a promise. Even if it’s a child’s law, that a pinky promise must not be broken, well, Tommy is as much a child as he’s ever been. This once, he chooses to truly believe it.

     They will come back.

     Without looking at him, in a silent display of affection he initiates on his own, Tommy watches Tubbo hold out a pinky for Ranboo, who, for a millisecond, looks as shocked as Tommy feels. Ranboo doesn’t waste time, however, linking his pinky with Tubbo’s, firm.

     Tommy thinks he may start bawling here, like a baby, right now. He holds the waterworks back as best he can. Now isn’t the time or place. He won’t lose this moment to tears, not again.

     “It’s not goodbye,” Tubbo whispers, and it almost feels like he’s trying to convince himself of the words. “I’ll see you both again.”

     “You’d better,” Ranboo says dramatically, light. “You just swore your soul on it!”

     Tubbo huffs a laugh. “You’re both idiots,” he starts, ignoring the in-unison hey! s of protest, “so listen closely. Take care of yourselves, okay? If I get back, and you’re dead, I’ll kill you myself.”

     “Aye-aye,” Tommy murmurs, before stepping forward, in front of both of them, staring at the outline of the sun as it sinks in the orange sky. He can’t wait, not a moment more. 

     Tommy closes his eyes, spreads his arms, and lets go.

     Wilbur's magic flows out of him like a punch to the gut and a gentle breeze. He feels impossible and incredible and everything in between for but a moment, and then there's a shift in the air, and-

     Tommy opens his eyes to see a thrumming portal, infused with feelings and Tommy’s own beating heart, soft in a way the beam never was, emitting light but no heat. Keeping one hand out to the portal, he turns back, holding out the other.

     “Who’s first?” He asks, and this time his voice doesn’t break.

     Ranboo hugs Tubbo once more, quick and close and strong, breathing in the smell of his dirty hair for only a moment before he takes Tommy’s hand, ever-gentle. The portal flashes, and suddenly the New York City on the other side is different, similar to this one, but far from the same. Ranboo sucks in a breath, sudden and startled, that Tommy knows means home.

     “You’re glowing,” Ranboo murmurs, and it takes Tommy a moment to register the comment, meeting Ranboo’s eyes with confusion. “I mean that literally. Look at yourself.”

     When Tommy focuses on his own arm, outstretched, he can see it - the hazy, yellow light, in that same warm shade that Wilbur’s sweaters always were.

     “Guess I am,” Tommy agrees, equally as soft, awash in the golden hour glow. Ranboo closes his eyes, grinning, and exhales quietly, like he doesn’t quite believe it.

     “You really are something else, you know that?” He tells Tommy, meeting his gaze one last time. “I-”

     Ranboo cuts off, like he can’t bring himself to say it without choking up. 

     “I know,” Tommy replies simply, his lips turning into a gentle smile. Like this, connected to Ranboo’s very essence, he can feel the I love you loud and clear.

     “I deserved that,” Ranboo says, laughing softly. Tommy nods, and for a glorious moment, they bask.

     “You ready?” Tommy asks, voice near-stolen by the wind this high up, gentler than it should be.

     “As I’ll ever be,” Ranboo bows his head, squaring his shoulders, before looking back up, past Tommy, into the portal.

     Ranboo’s gaze turns to home, and for that, Tommy cannot hold him at fault.

     “I’ll see you soon, okay?” Ranboo whispers in earnest this time.

     “See you soon,” Tommy whispers back, and Ranboo steps past him without another word. Tommy watches as the portal flashes, gurgles, and swallows Ranboo up. He’s not sure what compels him to keep his eyes on the city that’s not his own, but when he sees the tiny black-and-white figure sailing through the air on a foreign horizon, he knows that everything is, at last, in its place.

     He turns back to Tubbo, holds out his hand. Tubbo pushes past, taking Tommy’s face between his palms instead, wiping away tears Tommy didn’t register were even falling with his calloused thumbs, gloves retracted.

     Tommy bows his head, and Tubbo meets him in the middle, pressing their foreheads together with a gentle insistence.

     “I don’t want to be alone again,” Tommy whispers, can’t help himself. 

     “You won’t be,” Tubbo whispers back, like it’s another secret traded between them, young and naive. “You’re not. I’ll be back before you know it.”

     “Promise?” Tommy sniffles, as the dam begins to burst.

     “I already did,” Tubbo tells him. Tommy closes his eyes, and when he opens them again, the image in the portal has changed, and Tubbo has stepped back, has taken his hand.

     The scenery is starkly different - it’s futuristic, tech-driven, something out of a sci-fi movie. It’s still New York City. In fact, it’s Tubbo’s city, and it suits him, Tommy thinks. It really does.

     Tubbo’s eyes soften as he stares into the swirling image of home. “I wish I could show you,” he says simply. “Home. Everything.”

     “You will,” Tommy insists, reaching their conjoined hands up to wipe at Tubbo’s watery eyes, as gentle as he can be. Tubbo looks back at him, eyes bright.

     “I want to introduce you to both of them,” He tells Tommy. “My… you. And Ranboo, from my world. Is that… is that weird?”

     “I showed you my dead brother,” Tommy shrugs, and Tubbo sniffles, smiling. “I’d love to meet them, Tubso. I really, really would.”

     A beat.

     “You know,” Tubbo murmurs, almost not to Tommy at all. “You’re nothing like he was.”

     Tommy can’t help but look at him, confused.

     “At first you were,” Tubbo continues. “You were so much like him I could barely look at you. I don't... maybe it's circumstance, but the more I get to know you, the more I realise you're... not like him at all.”

     “Is that…” Tommy hesitates. He almost doesn’t want to know, but he has to. “Is that a good or a bad thing?”

     “A good one,” Tubbo tells him, firm. “I think I like it this way. You may not be him, but one way or another, you're... still my Tommy.”

     “Yeah?” Tommy’s voice breaks, with an awful shuddering breath.

     “Yeah,” Tubbo confirms, impossibly softer still. At last, Tubbo takes a deep breath, shutting his eyes. Tommy commits the expression to his deepest memory.

     “I’ll…” Tubbo looks Tommy in the face again, expression indescribably despairing, lips quirked up nonetheless. “‘l’ll see you on the flip side, boss man?”

     “Really?” Tommy snorts, broken out of his stupor. “Who even says that anymore?”

     Tubbo sticks his tongue out, wrinkling his nose. Tommy returns it.

     “Yeah,” Tommy replies, desperate to stay here forever. “I’ll see you on the flip side, or whatever.”

     Tubbo smiles.

     Tommy smiles back.

     Tubbo steps forward, toe to toe with the edge of the portal. He seems to hesitate for a moment, hair blowing gently in the breeze, gloves forming around his hands again.

     Tommy waits for an inevitable end. He wants to turn away. He can’t tear his eyes from the sight.

     “I love you too,” Tubbo says, so quiet Tommy almost misses it, even with his enhanced ears. Tommy meets Tubbo’s eyes, shocked to hear the words, always accepting the implication, never expecting more. Didn’t think he’d ever get more.

     Tubbo’s smile is sweet and sad, and his mask begins to form over his face again as he steps forward, homebound.

     Tubbo disappears into the portal, and Tommy sees a little figure appear on the building closest to the swirling door. He can’t look away as he drops his hand to his side, and the portal flickers once, and then disappears.

     Just like that, with nothing to show for anything at all, Tommy is alone.

     It’s over.

     It's as much said as Tommy thinks it, and he realises it's not his voice, not entirely. He watches the portal close itself, slowly, and the last of Wilbur's magic flows into open air. It curls around him before it goes, once, rustling his hair in an unseen breeze. It's warm, and it smells like the stupid cologne Wilbur was obsessed with, and if Tommy strains his super-ears, he can almost hear those few closing notes as they fade from his mind for good again.

     Wilbur-as-he-is is gone as soon as he came. It occurs to Tommy, years late, that Wilbur-as-he-was, the real one, has been gone for a while.

     Tommy thinks this is where he’s supposed to break, to sob and curse the universe and do something drastic, the way he would have done. Yet, even alone on this roof, utterly solitary, Tommy feels a weight he didn’t know he had lifted from his shoulders.

     It’s not quite the weight of the sky, but Tommy thinks it’s close. He thinks that one day, maybe even one day soon, he’ll be okay. It will all be okay.

     Tommy stands there, on that ledge, swaying with the wind until the gold has disappeared from the horizon, and the sunlight stains his skin blue. Windows begin to light up below him - apartments, kitchens, living rooms, full of people that are alive because of everything Tommy lost.

     No, he thinks. That’s not fair. They’re alive because of what Tommy managed to achieve. They’re alive because he’s a hero, and they’ll never know it, not his face or his name. He finds he doesn’t want the fame, the idolization. Being someone’s hero is enough. 

     Tommy watches the sun set over smoke and rubble and the softer noise of recovery. He should go help, or get cleaned up, or something. He’s too comfortable here, not yet having to admit it all.

     “Tommy?”

     The voice is definitively not in his head this time, and is absolutely not his voice. It’s hesitant, low, slightly accented in a way Tommy doesn’t recall, but familiar in a way Tommy would know in death.

     Tommy whips around, and Techno stands in the roof access doorway, eyes wide, frozen in place. Tommy finds he’s frozen, too.

     He looks… good, Tommy notices. He really, really does. He’s filled out since he left - strong features sharpened and matured in a way Wilbur’s never got to be, despite their identical faces, cutting-edge in a way that doesn’t beg suffering. His long, long pink hair is in a neat braid that’s beginning to tug loose at the ends, his dark roots peeking out of his scalp ever-so-slightly. It’s the same shade he’s been dying it since he was thirteen.

     He’s in a sweater, a long coat, and slacks, his polished shoes covered in city dust. His glasses are new, sitting on the bridge of his nose, not the old, taped, too-small frames Tommy recalls him leaving with. He looks… good.

     Tommy tells him so. Techno barks a disbelieving laugh, taking a step forward, hesitant in a way Tommy has never seen him, letting the door swing shut behind him. Tommy finds himself stepping down, off the ledge, soft-footed and sure in a way his heart isn’t.

     “You… don’t,” Techno finally manages.

     “Fair enough,” Tommy smiles, can’t help it. “It’s been a long… what day is it?”

     “Tuesday,” Techno informs him, and Tommy nods.

     “It’s been a long two days,” Tommy finishes. Techno takes a moment to visibly survey the scene, and Tommy realises with a start what he’s still in his suit, entirely unmasked, exposed.

     Before he can open his mouth with some weak explanation, some lie, Techno’s lips curl into an amused smile. “Essay, huh?”

     “And drama homework,” Tommy reminds him, playfully, yet faint. He’s waiting for the other shoe to drop. He doesn’t want this. Why has this happened? Why now?

     “Ah, right,” Techno nods, before dropping the joking facade, stepping forward slowly with a serious look on his face. Tommy flinches, instincts blaring at him to bolt, but he holds his ground nonetheless.

     “You weren’t sick,” Techno asks, staring into Tommy’s soul with dark, piercing eyes, “were you?”

     Tommy can’t bring himself to lie. He shakes his head. “I, uh, had some- world-saving to do.”

     Softer than Tommy thought possible, Techno asks, “alone?”

     Tommy shakes his head again, firmer this time. “I had help,” he admits, and Techno looks around again, as if he will see them standing right here.

     “Where are they?” 

     “They went home,” Tommy whispers, not sure if Techno is close enough to hear. It’s all he can bring himself to say, to do. “I… I’ll explain all of this, I swear. I’m just…”

     “Take your time,” Techno tells him. He raises his arms a few times in a continually aborted movement, visibly frustrated, before he huffs out, “Tommy, can I hug you?”

     This takes Tommy by surprise. Techno was never much of a hugger. Even before Wilbur's death, the most Tommy would get was a quick peck on the forehead, or a hand on his shoulder, except for rare occasions like the day in the hospital, packed with grief and sorrow.

     Tommy nods, jerky and unsure. “Yeah,” he says, like it needs to be verbalized, and then, “please?”

     Tommy all but falls into Techno's arms, who holds him up with solid might. There's no super-strength, no unnatural effortlessness, no creaking ribs or deadly grips. There's no way to describe it, besides the obvious.

     Techno holds Tommy like he’s something precious.

     This, Tommy thinks, is what will break him.

     “You came back for me,” he murmurs instead, banishing that thought, refusing to taint this memory, as surely temporary as it will be.

     “Of course I did,” Techno responds into his hair. “I haven't been a good brother, or friend. I... I know. I don't deserve you back, but I love you, Tommy. You're my baby brother. When everything went down, you needed me, and I wasn't there. I'm never letting that happen again. I've got you, Tommy, and I'm not letting go unless you want me to.”

     Tommy finally bursts into tears, heaving sobs he muffles in Techno’s surely-expensive coat. Techno holds him all the while, lets him cry himself to coherency once again.

     “What about school?” Tommy asks, and mentally kicks himself for it instantly. It’s a stupid question, but it’s already out, and he can’t take it back, so he continues. “You need to finish, and I can’t leave the city, because I’m…”

     “Spider-Man,” Techno finishes, and Tommy nods.

     “It’s hard to believe, honestly,” Techno continues, and this is the moment Tommy has dreaded. This is the moment where it all comes apart.

     Except, it doesn’t.

     “I’m…” Techno seems lost for words, for the first time in his life. “My baby brother is a superhero, and a good one at that. My baby brother just saved the world. I’m… shit, Tommy, I’m so proud of you.”

     Tommy can’t help himself. His head jerks up to meet Techno’s gaze. “You mean it?” He asks, softly, unwavering, waiting. 

     Techno's hand lightly runs over the bloodstains on Tommy’s face and in his hair. “I've always been proud of you,” he says. “You're so strong, so kind, so proud. You've always made doing the right thing seem easy. You being a superhero is just adding to that. Yeah, Tommy, I'm proud of you. How could I not be?”

     “I love you,” Tommy blurts out, and Techno freezes. Tommy realises suddenly that it may be too soon. He didn’t mean to…

     “I love you too,” Techno murmurs, and kisses Tommy's forehead, long and gentle. It feels like years ago, fuzzy and warm. Tommy sags into it, and techno holds him up, petting his matted hair. It’s homecoming. “And, well, I wanted to ask you something,” Techno finally says. “I... I'm done running, I think. I don't want to run away from this anymore - not the city, this family, you.” He pauses. “Or Wilbur.”

     Tommy doesn’t know what he’s hearing.

     “I'm moving back,” Techno tells him. “Well, okay, I kind of already did. I've been planning, and when I bought my ticket, I also put down a deposit. I... I'm gonna live on the lower east side, and I... there's another bedroom. It's…”

     Techno is lost for words, again, for the second time in his life. This all feels impossible.

     “Move in with me?” he finally decides on, and Tommy's eyes widen. “We'll get you enrolled in school there, and I'm finishing my semester online, and I think it'll be good for both of us. A new environment, company... all of it. Will you... consider it? You don't have to answer now-”

     “Yes,” Tommy says, immediately. “Yes, I want to move in with you. Techno, all I've wanted was my family this whole time. I just- why the fuck would I say no?”

     “It’s a deal,” Techno laughs, elated, and Tommy laughs too. He can’t do anything but laugh, joyous and free. It’s as if his final shackles have unlocked, and at last, he’s free to fly. It feels, all of a sudden, like Tommy’s life is just beginning.

     “What about… the apartment?” Tommy murmurs, finally finding it in himself to ask. Techno holds him tighter as he adds, “The family one?”

     “Phil…” Techno hesitates, “Phil wants to sell it. Him and I agree that it’s full of bad memories. Good ones, too, but it’s so hard to move past…”

     “I agree too,” Tommy says. “Wow, that’s… weird. How… how is he?”

     “Actually, uh, why don't you see for yourself?” techno suggests. “He said, if you're okay with it, he'd like to... have lunch with you sometime. Multiple times. He's... coming back to the city, for the summer at least, and I think he wants to be... in your life again. He told me that even if you didn't consider him your father anymore, he'd be honored to at least know you.”

     Tommy sniffs. “I think,” he says, “I think I'd like that. But uh, nada on the spider-ing, yeah?”

     “Obviously,” Techno snorts. “I just... he and I both want you back, in any capacity. It's, uh, up to you.”

     “Shhh,” Tommy tells him, gentle yet smug. “Let me hug my big brother in peace.”

     Techno makes a soft, surprised noise, and yanks Tommy back into his arms.

     This doesn't truly fix anything, Tommy knows. It'll take a long time to be truly family again. That's okay. To have Techno back, to have Phil back, to have an opportunity for the best parts of himself to have a brand new start, he'll put in the work.

     Tommy finds that for the first time in years, he looks forward to the future. He refuses to let this slip by.

     Tommy's not a quitter. Tommy won't give up. Not this time.

     By the time move-in day rolls around, Tommy’s cuts and bruises are long-healed, his hair soft, all dust gone. The only grime on him, weeks later, is sweat in the hot weather as he lifts furniture that weighs nothing at all to him, carrying it into the apartment door.

     It’s a nice apartment. Tommy and Techno’s bedrooms are on opposite sides, and for obvious reasons, Techno has given Tommy the fire escape window bedroom. It’s an open space, with big windows and a nice view of the city lights, and high enough up to be discreet for Tommy’s after-hours activities.

     It’s… not perfect, but everything feels right, for the first time in years, like it’s all where it’s supposed to be. Tommy is finally where he belongs.

     Tommy still aches, everyday, for Wilbur or Ranboo or either version of Tubbo. He holds onto that promise as the days drag on with no contact. Let him have this.

     Still, things are better. Well, they will be, once Tommy can stop being a one-man moving crew.

     “Your turn!” He calls into the apartment, hearing Techno’s sharp bark of laughter from his bedroom.

     “I’m not the one who lost our security deposit so badly!” Techno shouts back. “Your job, strong man!”

     “This is so unfair,” Tommy replies finally, but can’t help the grin on his face as he places the couch where Techno had marked out, taking a seat for a moment’s rest. The jokes are getting easier with time, he thinks, as he looks at what Techno just finished working on.

     Across from him, on the wall, are all the family photos worth salvaging from the wreck of a childhood apartment Tommy had left. In the middle, the centerpiece, the crown jewel of the collection, is a wall mount, holding a beaten, well-loved guitar, with not a speck of dust in sight.

     Tommy’s spider-sense begins to quietly nudge at his mind, just as his ears pick up an odd gurgling behind him. Tommy whips around, facing an empty wall, and gently hops over the back of the couch, landing silently. He squares up, sliding his foot back, clenching his hands into fists.

     A colourful chaos splits the wall in two, too bright to look at for only a moment before it settles, circular and swirling. The breath floods from Tommy’s lungs as his eyes fall on the scene in its entirety.

     Tubbo and Ranboo stand through the portal, side by side, smiling. Tubbo’s holographic screen is up, and he adjusts a dial, making the portal just a little bigger, encompassing the whole picture. Ranboo gives Tommy a little wave.

     Tommy stares for a long, long moment, eyes hot, grinning so wide it hurts.

     It’s the same feeling as the instant Tommy is in freefall, after the leap from a rooftop, right before his web latches onto the next. Excitement, a little fear, and an ecstasy that comes with true freedom, on top of the world, all alone.

     This time, though, Tommy won’t be alone. He’s not alone anymore, and universe be damned, he refuses to ever be alone again.

     He’s no longer in freefall. He’s steady, facing forward, finally ready to fly.

     “Hey,” Tommy manages, at long last, watery and utterly joyous.

     “Hey,” Tubbo responds, equally as soft, eyes twinkling in the gentle light.

     Tommy is soaring.