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Despite Wilbur’s lengthy list of life experiences as a world-famous rockstar, he’s somehow never had the experience of undergoing a kidnapping attempt.
He’s been mugged one or two times, sure, during his early days where he was able to keep wandering off with promises to Phil that he’d be perfectly fine, only to end up having to use someone’s phone later on in the night to say that someone stole his belongings at knifepoint. He’s been mobbed, more than once, but at this point he’s perfected the skill in slipping past screaming crowds that all want to grab at some part of him. There was that one time he was in a car crash, but he had been in the backseat, and it wasn’t much of a wreck by any means. He came away from that without a scratch, but he made headlines for the week anyway, the general public fretting over the fact that world-famous rockstar Wilbur Soot went through a terrible crash on the road.
It was an exaggeration of the situation, but Phil had personally driven him everywhere for the next week after seeing that particular article headline pop up on his internet feed. Wilbur only mostly complained about it. It’s nice to know his manager cares for his well-being. Or his paycheck. It’s one or the other.
All in all, for a man with such a thrilling life, going up on stage in front of hundreds, thousands of people on such a constant basis-- he doesn’t get up to much in the life-or-death category. Which is all good for him. He thinks he’s been doing fairly well in terms of safety and having basic-self preservation, but apparently it hasn’t been enough for Phil, because the man went ahead and made specific arrangements out of the worry in his heart after Wilbur got cornered by fans for the hundredth time in a row, and now, as of one month prior, Wilbur has had a personal bodyguard following at his heels at all times.
Technoblade is exactly the sort of person you’d think would be a bodyguard, tall and brawny with a constant expression that ranges from pissed off to mildly annoyed. He has the intimidation factor down, Wil can admit that much. He had it down so well, in fact, the first week he was on the job, that Wilbur had to step in and make attempts to let him seem more approachable, because instead of coming closer for a signature, his fans would steer clear of Wilbur immediately upon seeing the looming, threatening presence of his bodyguard right over his shoulder.
(That was probably the first mistake, now that Wil thinks about it. He crafted his own downfall here the moment he tried to make Techno less fear-inducing.)
After a rather short, awkward sort of conversation, Wilbur convinced Techno that he needed a pop of color to look nicer if he was going to follow him around everywhere as his personal bodyguard. He was implying a wardrobe change, something other than the black suit that gave off secret service vibes. Instead, the next day, Techno came to work with his hair dyed bright pink.
It was honestly a look, to be fair. Wilbur vaguely admired the boldness of it, and couldn’t help but keep giving glances at the color for the entirety of the day, or at least until Techno called him out on it.
Not long after that, Wilbur then also told Techno he oughta seem a bit more professional during concerts, and had Techno start to wear sunglasses for the majority of his shifts. It wasn’t actually for any reason of professionality, but rather to try and mellow out the murder vibes from his general facial expression. Wilbur doesn’t think the guy means to glare at everything on purpose, but regardless, it makes his fans all keep a wide distance from the front of the stage during concerts, and Wil feels that’s a bit much.
With these efforts in mind, Wilbur had hoped to be given a bit of success. His fans would no longer greatly hesitate to come near him, Techno could still do his job if Wilbur were to get mugged again, everything would be fine.
Except then it wasn’t fine. Because apparently Wilbur did too well at his attempts to make Techno more approachable, and as a result, his fans had become incredibly interested in the tall, pink haired stranger standing guard at the concerts. So interested, in fact, that a good chunk of them began directing their attention and phone cameras towards him instead of, oh, hm, the literal singer on stage.
Wilbur isn’t jealous of his bodyguard. Of course not. Most of his fans still adore him and only him, and of course there would be a curiosity for such an intriguing looking person who stands to the side at every performance.
However. It did humble him just a bit when one day, fans came up with beaming smiles, paper and pen in hand, and walked right past him to try and ask Techno for a signature. Techno! Not him! The person who literally just walked off stage! Techno! The bodyguard.
So obviously Wilbur had to get rid of Technoblade. His bruised ego is just too much to bear.
However, wanting to get rid of Technoblade and getting rid of Technoblade are both dramatically different things. Wilbur couldn’t technically fire the man, because while he was working under Wilbur, Phil is the one who hired him, and Wil was bound to get a lecture of a lifetime if he tossed his bodyguard to the side for the reason of ‘stealing my fans’ attention.’ He can’t try and avoid Techno either, because Technoblade’s entire job centers on Wilbur’s well-being, and a great part of ensuring said well-being is sticking to Wilbur’s heels at nearly every hour of the day. (Wilbur knows this because he once tried spending a day without having Technoblade over his shoulder. Technoblade kept appearing like an ominous entity in the corner of his eye. Wilbur vaguely wonders if the guy has a tracker on him.)
So Wil made a new plan. He can’t fire Techno, he can’t get away from Techno, but he can make Techno want to leave first. There’s no rules saying the man can’t quit his own job.
With that, Wilbur heartily threw all his self-preservation out of the window and began the mission of trying to get Technoblade to become so exhausted from his antics that he would have to just throw in the towel.
It started small, with the little things, one-sided conversations that ranged from mildly strange to downright insane. (“I think I’d merrily marry a fish if I really had to.” “What?” “Salmon, specifically.”) Then Wil decided to give his fans a bit more love these days, and got a bit closer to the screaming crowds than he usually would, causing Technoblade to consistently have to reach after him and haul him away from the screaming fangirls trying to get Wilbur to jump the metal barrier. After that, Wilbur started to explore, picking up the new habit of wandering off wherever his feet would take him, making Techno not dare to take his eyes off him for one minute because if he did, it would be one second, Wilbur drinking water behind stage, the next second, Wilbur is somehow making his way outside.
And the wandering only grew worse, Wilbur taking his freedom like a kindergartener with the incapability of committing to something. “Oh, Techno, let’s head downtown for coffee after a show. No, wait, Techno, I’ve changed my mind, I want a burger. No, actually, Techno go give this burger to someone else, I want to go buy a new hat somewhere. Here Techno, this hat is too ugly. You can wear it. Suits you perfectly. Let’s go walk down a dark alleyway. It’s a shortcut. Changed my mind. We’re going back to the coffeeshop. Techno, I don’t want coffee anymore, but hold the cup. Okay now let's run to the nearest sketchy part of the city, go!”
In Wilbur’s opinion, the whole thing has been quite a bit of fun. He thinks he was wearing down Techno by the end of the month, because by that point he had been able to decode his general grumpy facial expression, and there’s a difference between a resting bitch face and a ‘why are we back at McDonalds?’ face. But he’ll never really know if he managed to get to the end of Techno’s nerves, because he bit off too much to chew, and turns out constantly running off into dark alleyways and leaving Techno behind results in actually running face first into danger.
Or more specifically, a kidnapping attempt. Is it considered an attempt if they’ve succeeded? Or is this just considered a plain kidnapping? He’s not sure what to consider, really, he’s still reeling from a slight concussion he might’ve gotten when getting thrown into someone’s trunk. It all went a bit too fast. One minute, Wilbur was sprinting down the alley, Technoblade scrambling to follow after he had gotten Wil’s food order thrown into his arms, and the next, there were hands grabbing at him and pulling him to the side, with Technoblade yelling his name in a way that made his hair stand on end.
They had bound him fairly quickly, zip ties pulled too tightly over his wrists, a blindfold yanked over his eyes. He’s pretty sure he bruised his toe from smacking his foot into something after they dragged him by the shirt, his feet stumbling from not being able to see . Then he got shoved into a trunk, the lid slamming over him, and now he’s here.
He’s not sure if there's a specific protocol to follow when taking someone important as ransom to a second location, but he feels like they should’ve been a little nicer about it. If he- When he gets back home, he’s rating them a zero out of five on yelp, or something. Where would you rate kidnappers? In jail, probably, because they’re all probably going to go to jail when Wilbur gets-
The car goes over a bump on the road, and Wil gets jostled with it, grunting as his knees knock against the side of the trunk again. His heart slams hard up against his ribs, and he takes in a trembling breath to try and not shake out of his skin. At least they’re not speeding around. Being put into the trunk is bad enough, Wil doesn’t want to get thrown around in it from bad driving habits.
Wilbur’s mind suddenly goes to Phil, then, and he latches onto the idea of the man’s exasperation at Wilbur getting in trouble to distract from the fact he’s in someone’s trunk and the zipties are starting to really sting around his wrists, cutting into his circulation. God, Phil is going to be insufferable after this. He won’t be surprised if he hires yet another bodyguard, or just an entire group of them, circled around Wilbur at all times like he’s the actual president or something. Wilbur could deal with that for a bit. He’ll let it be, for a couple weeks, but then he’s definitely going to figure out how to fire a couple of them. He won’t repeat the instance of trying to make them quit, like with Technoblade, because as he is learning quite well right now, doing so ends up with Wilbur getting the short end of the stick.
Just as the beginnings of bitter regrets start to sink through into Wilbur’s scattered thoughts, the car suddenly makes a harsh stop, making him slam into the side of the trunk with a pained yell. He moves his bound hands up to his nose, the bone aching after having his face crash into the wall, and as his fingers brush over the cloth pulled securely over his eyes, his mind fills with questions as to why they’ve suddenly stopped. Are they here? Wherever they wanted to take Wil? That didn’t seem like a very long drive, which is good for him, might make it easier for the police to find-
The car jerks again, now suddenly stepping on the gas, the engine roaring up. Wilbur’s heartbeat picks up even faster than before, and he makes an futile attempt to grab at anything at all to try and steady himself against any future hard turns. He can feel the car swerving a bit through the road, clearly trying to rush to where its trying to go, and when they hit a bump for a second time, Wilbur actually gets thrown up with it.
He falls back down with his head hitting the carpet under him, and something like a whine gets pulled from his throat, thin and wavering. What happens if the car actually crashes with him inside it? He wants to say he’d be decently protected from where he is, depending on how they crash, but there’s no telling how it could go. He doesn’t even know why they’ve suddenly started driving so recklessly, when they clearly oughta be careful with the person for ransom in the trunk. Maybe they don’t care if Wilbur gets roughed up. Maybe they’re just after whatever money they can get, and after, they’ll throw what remains to the authorities and Phil.
Wilbur’s breathing goes wheezy at the thought, his eyes feeling wet from behind the blindfold, and again, his thoughts are cut off as the car comes to another abrupt stop, wheels screeching, slamming him against the side of the trunk. He somewhat expected it this time, so he’s able to protect his face, but his body still hurts with the impact of getting thrown. He suddenly wonders if the kidnappers have run into trouble, and with that, the car moves again, seemingly trying to to speed off in another direction, only to stop very suddenly again with the sound of crushing metal.
Wil’s heart jumps into his throat at the realization the car must’ve hit something, and he struggles to try and turn himself over in some sort of attempt to take advantage of the situation. He tries to pull the blindfold away from his face, but it’s tied in a good knot at the back of his head, and he can’t quite figure it out past the fumbling panic and the ache of his restraints.
There’s a muffled shouting from outside of the car, and Wilbur lifts his head up in attention, trying to make out the words. There’s an argument of some sort, people yelling with overlapping voices, then there’s a bang.
It’s not a gun. It makes Wilbur flinch anyway, but he feels like it’s far too quiet to be a gunshot. It repeats a couple times, the banging echoing loud in Wil’s ears, the yelling getting more panicked and the number of voices dwindling, and with the way it sounds like it’s coming through the walls of the car, he thinks someone might’ve be hitting the side of the car with something hard.
Wil twists his head in an effort to hear more, to raise his ear towards the sound, but the maybe-fight outside is over as quickly as it started up, and everything is suddenly eerily quiet.
A cold, sharp terror digs into Wilbur’s heart. Everything is quiet. Why? What happened?! What went wrong?! Were they just having an argument outside, and they’ve actually arrived wherever they were hoping to take Wil? Did they decide he’d be too much trouble?
The crunching sound of footsteps comes around the front of the truck, and Wilbur’s breath hitches as he desperately tries to move further into the dark, wanting to avoid the inevitable. There’s a clicking of the lock being messed with, taking what feels like an eternity to be opened. Don’t they literally have the key? As Wilbur hears the creak of the trunk being lifted up, the words come bubbling out from his throat, hoarse and a bit high with his fear.
“No, no, please-” He begs, shifting his face into the sour smelling carpet underneath him, trying to hide, his shaking hands held up as a sort of surrender. “Please don’t-”
“Wilbur.” He hears someone breathe out, absolutely relieved, and Wil goes still. There’s a second of pause, his ears taking in and slowly recognizing the sound of Technoblade’s voice.
“...Techno?” Wil croaks out, careful with hope.
“Yeah. It’s me.” Technoblade confirms, and there’s a hand turning his head up, fingers tugging gingerly at the blindfold over his eyes to free up his vision and let him have a good look at his bodyguard standing over him, the blinding light of a streetlamp over him making him look like a god-honest angel sent from the heavens.
“Oh my god.” Wilbur chokes with the words, tears welling up from the sheer relief slamming into him. He holds his hands up again, not to defend himself, but to try and get a grip on Techno, as if to reassure himself that he’s actually there and the danger is now gone. “Techno, Technoblade-”
“Let’s get you up, come on. Can you sit up?” Technoblade asks, taking Wil by the arm, his worry flickering over his face when Wilbur grunts at the action. “Are you hurt? Where did they hurt you? What hurts?” He questions, squeezing at Wil’s arms as if to figure out where any bruising might be.
“I got thrown around when they were fucking speeding.” Wilbur explains bluntly, glad to be upright at last, the night air against his face feeling fresh. He groans and lets his head slump forward.
Techno seems to grimace a bit at that. “Sorry.” Wilbur doesn’t even process the apology before Techno’s leaning in again, hand over the back of his spine. “Do you think you can stand?”
Wilbur goes to nod, ready to to anything to get out of this fucking car, but the more he thinks about it, his legs feel like jelly, and he’s pretty sure he’s going to end up sliding onto the ground if Techno puts him on his feet. He shakes his head with a distant look, then closes his eyes as the ache of everything comes in with the decrease of adrenaline.
“Just- please get me out of the trunk.” He tells Techno, pretending like his words don’t waver in the order, and Techno simply nods, telling Wilbur to brace himself for a second, then reaching inside and carrying him out to quickly move him over to the ground beside the car instead.
Technoblade kneels down in front of him as Wil leans back against the back of the car, his breath heaving through his lungs as the full relief sinks in and the realization of what just happened now has the time to process. He flinches when Techno carefully takes hold of his wrist, a deep frown on his face at how tightly they’re digging into his skin. Wil watches as Techno reaches into a pocket and pulls an actual pocket knife, and he flinches again when he moves to cut the zip ties off.
Techno glances up at him, the anger dissolving as soon as he meets eyes with Wil. “Stay still.” He warns, and Wil doesn’t move a muscle as Techno carefully uses the edge of the blade to cut free Wil’s wrists, showing the painful red lines left behind.
“Yeah, that’ll leave a mark.” Technoblade mutters, not seeming very happy with it, and Wil jerks his hands away when he presses a thumb at it, seemingly to check just how bad it is. Techno lets go of Wil’s hands and leans back to stand up again, searching for his phone while holding a palm out towards Wil. “I’m going to make a call, give me a second.”
Wilbur nods, but can’t help but blurt out a single question before Techno is able to hold his cell phone up to his ear. “How did you find me?”
“I have a tracker in your phone.” Technoblade says simply, and the moment he calls Phil, Phil picks it up nearly instantly on the other end. “Hey. Yeah, I found him. I got him.” There’s a pause, Phil’s relieved voice faintly heard. “You’re going to need to call an ambulance, though. Not for Wil, I think he’ll be fine, but the kidnappers are probably going to need an ambulance.”
Wil’s eyes go wide at that, and he’s then turning his head to look around the car, to see where exactly his captors have gone. Turns out, not very far. The angle is awkward from where Wilbur is sitting, but he can partially see someone’s body laying on the ground beside the car doors, and he’s wondering now if that banging noise he heard wasn’t someone trying to make damage to the car, but rather someone using the metal of the car as a way to damage somebody’s skull.
He gives a subtle glance over to Technoblade, checking his overall appearance, and he notes in the dim shadow that Techno’s hands look rough, dirty with something that can’t quite figure out in the poor light.
…well.
Technoblade finishes up the call fairly quickly, giving his location and assuring Phil a couple times that yes, Wilbur is alright, he’ll definitely get checked for bruises, but he’s alright in the moment compared to a few minutes ago. When he finally puts his phone away, Wil is feeling a bit more steady, and his confidence has steadily seeped back in to fight off the fear that was stuck in his throat.
“You beat the shit out of those guys, didn’t you?” Wilbur asks, and Technoblade levels him with a blank look, before making a short shrug. “Please don’t tell me you actually murdered them.”
“They started it.” He answers, and Wilbur snorts. “They were breathing when I walked away.” Technoblade defends himself further, and Wilbur makes an actual laugh at that, feeling a little hysterical. Then he feels like crying.
“How did you even follow? I mean, you were tracking me, but-”
“I stole a car.” Techno points in the direction of the front of the kidnapper’s car, and Wilbur pushes himself to the side to see that- yes, they did crash earlier as Wilbur suspected. Techno rammed his vehicle into the general area of the driver’s seat.
“Holy shit.” Wilbur breathes out, and he leans back against the trunk behind him, touching his fingertips against the still-tender lines around his wrists. “Holy shit. You’re cool. We’re cool now. You can stay.”
Technoblade gives him a long look of confusion. “What?”
Wilbur chooses that second to burst into tears, the stress of everything now finally catching up.
---
Phil is fairly sure he breaks a couple of street laws on the way over to Wil’s location, but he really doesn’t care all that much about it. He’ll pay off any cops if the situation calls for it, he has somewhere to be.
He drives as fast as he’s able without the great risk of causing a crash on the road, and by the time he gets here, it seems the ambulance he called has arrived and the cops are all on the scene, lingering around and warding off any chance of more trouble. Phil steps out of his car with a slam of the car door behind him, and a few heads swivel in his direction, their eyes going wide and spines standing a bit straighter at the sight of the sheer fury in his eyes.
“Where’s Wil?” He asks the first cop he walks up to, and they point a hand over to the side, where two people are sitting against the front of a cop car, leaning into each other with their focus on a phone.
Phil’s anger mellows out when he sees Wilbur’s tired face staring down at the screen, a blanket over his torso to keep the chill of the night off, and Techno’s arm over his shoulder to keep any lingering worries off too. It’s a sweet image, the two of them in each other’s company when only a day ago Wilbur seemed dead set on driving Technoblade insane. (God, the calls Phil would get from Techno. Wilbur is a persistent man when he wants to be. Shame he hadn’t realized Phil and Techno are good friends, and Techno would literally rather drop dead than ever turn in his resignation.)
“Wilbur.” Phil calls as he walks up to the two of them, and immediately, Techno’s head lifts with a dark look, something warning to not bother them. It dies off into something content when he realizes it's Phil.
“Oh, Phil, hey.” Techno nods, his shoulders seeming to lose a bit of their tense energy at seeing a familiar face.
“Phil?” Wilbur jerks his head up at that, now interested in who's calling his name, and he smiles wide at seeing his manager in the flesh. “Shit, Phil, oh my god- I got kidnapped.”
“I know.” Phil sounds amused. “Techno told me.” He comes close to draw Wilbur into a hug, grateful to have him safe.
“Snitch.” Wilbur mutters in Techno’s direction, and Technoblade squints at him like he’s not sure what to make of that. It sounds fond, at least. Wilbur redirects his attention to Phil, complaining when the man starts poking around at his head and his wrists for injuries. “I’m fine. Bumps and bruises, I just got thrown around a bit.”
“His wrists are a bit scraped. The zipties cut through the skin.”
“Snitch.” Wilbur hisses, more brutal in it this time.
“You’re alright?” Phil asks to confirm, holding Wilbur by the face so he can stop glaring daggers at Techno. “You’re good?”
“I’m good. Peachy.” Wilbur confirms.
“Good.” Phil smiles. Then he shakes Wilbur by the head a few times. “Do you have any idea the fucking heart attack you gave me, you little shit-?!”
“Techno! Techno! Person doing me harm!” Wilbur shrieks, trying to slap Phil’s hands away from him and scoot towards the safety of his bodyguard.
“I see no danger.” Technoblade deadpans, directing his attention to his phone.
“Techno!” Wilbur cries, and he’s eventually subjected to the entirety of Phil’s wrath as Technoblade pretends to scroll through his phone whilst still keeping an eye out. Just in case.