Chapter Text
Tubbo can’t sleep. The heroes think he was hurt by A-Bomb, not that he is A-Bomb. Big Q is God-knows-where. Tubbo’s standing on a Jenga platform of lies; the next one they pull out is probably going to knock him down into a cell below the SBI base or deep within Pandora Penitentiary. So it’s almost three in the morning and he’s almost in the kitchen to get a glass of water, quiet as a mouse, when he hears voices and freezes.
Phil and Techno are in the living room, talking. So much for the water. Tubbo is about to go upstairs and try turning his pillow over—again—when he hears a familiar name.
“-thinks they found Roulette.”
Philza. Talking about Quackity.
“Where?” That’s Techno, voice low.
Paper rustles.
“There’s a John Doe who’s been in a coma since a little while after we stopped seeing Roulette. Got shot in the back of the head but it somehow missed all the important parts of his brain, then got fished out of the river alive.”
Tubbo’s eyes widen. The luck of surviving that—it sure sounds like Quackity.
It sure sounds like something Tubbo's father would do.
Phil was still talking. “He doesn’t match any Missing Persons reports, but he’s close enough to Roulette’s body type—or he would be if it weren’t for the wings—that Niki thinks it’s worth running a DNA test.”
Wings. Nobody outside of Schlatt’s house knows Quackity has wings under his costume. It has to be him.
Quackity’s alive.
Quackity’s in a coma.
Quackity’s going to be arrested.
“Wings?” Techno sounds amused. “Hey, don’t give me that look, I didn’t say anything. Far be it from me to get between Niki and a hunch. Poor guy, though. What about you, d’you think it’s anything?”
Phil sighs. “He’s lucky to be alive, but one-in-a-million chances happen every day, and then there’s the wings. We’ll see if the test comes back a match for our Roulette sample, and then I guess we’ll see if-”
Tubbo’s on the move before he realizes he’s made up his mind, footsteps loud enough that the heroes stop talking before he gets to the living room.
“You’ve found Roulette?” he asks. They’re both looking at him, illuminated by the incandescent light of the reading lamp. Techno’s half-standing and Phil’s hands are full of papers.
“Tubbo,” says Phil with a note of relief. “What’re you doing up?”
Tubbo shrugs, brushing past the question.
“Couldn’t sleep. You found Roulette?”
The heroes exchange a look.
“Nemesis thinks so,” Phil says after a moment. “Did- you know him?”
Tubbo remembers the look on Quackity’s face as he said goodbye.
“We met.”
The heroes exchange a significantly more worried look.
“Did he-”
“D’you think you’d recognize him?” Techno interrupts Phil.
“Like a police lineup?” Tubbo doesn’t want them to know how much he heard.
“Tech,” Phil says, “maybe we shouldn’t-”
“He’s in a coma,” Techno says. “No matter who this guy really is, he won’t be able to hurt you.”
Tubbo straightens his back, thinking of a hand lifted to strike him on his blind side, of a bullet to the back of the skull.
“I’d recognize him.”
Tubbo walks into the hospital between The Blade and Nemesis. Not Techno and—whoever Nemesis is under her mask; Phil mentioned a Niki earlier—but the heroes. A boar mask covers the Blade’s face, red cloak swirling behind him. Nemesis matches him stride for stride, just as confident, miles more so than Tubbo. Her cape is black, and reaches down only to mid-thigh. He can’t see a single feature, body and head covered entirely by a grey suit that kind of reminds Tubbo of the Iron Man movies. Tubbo has seen both of them as heroes before, always on dark nights, always right before he slaps his hand to something and it explodes. Trotting between the duo to keep up, Tommy’s hoodie pulled low over his eyes, blue medical mask over his nose and mouth, hands stuffed deep into his pockets, Tubbo feels like it’s all already over. Like they’ve already arrested him.
That’s how this plan ends. There’s no way else it can end; he’s already accepted that. They didn’t even have to set him up; he made the trap himself and stepped inside.
The hospital is a lot busier than Tubbo expected. He expected there would be nurses and doctors running around, and he was right but there are a lot more of them than he thought there would be, and even though the hospital looked huge, it’s full to bursting with patients. It also smells like antiseptic.
“Do all hospitals smell like this?” he asks, mostly just to pass the time.
“It varies by hospital and ward.” Nemesis’ voice has the faint buzz of modulation. “Have you been in many?”
“I might have been born in one?”
In hindsight, even Tubbo should have realized that's pretty concerning. Techno pauses, inscrutable boar mask turning towards him.
“You’ve never been in a hospital before?” Nemesis sounds shocked. “Not even…”
She trails off. Tubbo gets the picture. She saw his eye in the car; it’s pretty obvious how badly he’s been hurt.
“No,” he says. “They, uh…they took care of me at Schlatt's base.”
Both the adults are silent.
“Well,” Nemesis says uncertainly, “they did a good job.”
“It’s that or get the workers health insurance.” Tubbo doesn’t know much about health insurance, but he knows it’s expensive and he knows Schlatt doesn’t give expensive things away easily.
“Health insurance,” the Blade says, drawing it out. “What is this, Amer-”
“Nemesis? Blade?”
Somebody interrupts them. A doctor? Nurse? Tubbo has no way of knowing. He watches as the lady gives directions and then profusely thanks Nemesis for saving her grandchildren. Tubbo thinks he remembers that incident. He wasn't involved in the plan’s execution, but the name of the bank is familiar.
He curls his hands into fists inside the hoodie pocket. This was a mistake.
The heroes flank him as they head up four flights of stairs. The Blade turns left at the top of the stairwell, but Nemesis pulls him to the right, leading them without a misstep through all the subsections of the Long-Term Care Ward until she pushes open a door and there, unmoving in a bed-
It’s Quackity. It’s him, he’s alive, he’s been here this whole time, and his face-
Tubbo can’t react.
He pulls his hood back just a little, walks to Quackity’s bedside, and stands there looking at him.
He’s missing an eye, the same one the Blade blinded him in the night Schlatt brought Fundy home. There’s a mess of scarring-over tissue on his left cheek, split as if by an earthquake up through his eye and down through his jaw. A tube is sticking out of his mouth and an IV out of his arm. There’s an electrode stuck to his neck, and judging by the wires, a few others on his chest. There are also a couple of tubes further down, coming discreetly out from under the sheet, which Tubbo isn't thinking about. Quackity’s hair is all right—they didn’t have to cut anything at the front when they did whatever they did to fix being shot in the head—but there’s nothing on it. No beanie. Somehow that’s the detail Tubbo notices, that he doesn’t have a hat. Somehow that seems like the worst part of all.
Tubbo rests one hand on the edge of the bed, just his fingertips. He doesn’t dare try to get closer. He doesn’t dare touch. He just tries to send all the luck he can to his stepfather-turned-friend, the way Big Q did for him over the years.
Then he stuffs his hand back into his pocket and turns back towards the door.
“Not Roulette,” he says. Somehow his voice doesn’t waver.
“You doing okay?” the Blade asks.
His expression must have wavered instead. Or he spent too long looking at Quackity, or something.
Nemesis brushes past him in the direction of Quackity, a vial in one hand, saying something about a sample and test, and Tubbo realizes he’s failed. Nemesis is still going to run her DNA test, they’re still going to find out who Quackity really is, and if he wakes up he’s still going to live his entire life in the worst place SBI can find for him. Tubbo isn’t sure what Nemesis is doing. He’s not sure what the Blade is doing. The world is shrinking around him, and he’s shrinking almost as fast, everything shrinking except his heart going too fast in his chest. They’re going to catch Quackity. They’re going to learn Tubbo lied. It’s over for them both.
“-ubbo? Tubbo? Breathe, it’s okay.”
There’s a hand in his. Somebody’s rubbing his back, so tangibly there, so close to seizing him by the neck or, or, hell, it’s the Blade, he can just pick Tubbo up and throw him out the window, that would be easy for him, and Tubbo might not even see the ground coming. His breath comes faster. The hand on his back retreats.
“We shouldn’t have made you do that, Tubbo. I’m sorry.”
Now that’s almost laughable. Tubbo’s hands are holding each other tight in the hoodie pocket, and if he isn’t careful he’s going to blow up the hoodie and its goofy face with the tongue out and Tommy’s going to be upset and that’ll be the least of Tubbo’s problems.
“It must’ve been stressful thinking you’d meet a villain. Tubbo, he can’t hurt you. You’re safe.”
Tubbo does laugh at that, half-mad. The Blade and Nemesis are in front of him, the man who caught his father’s fist before it connected is lying comatose in a hospital bed behind him, and they think Quackity of all people is the one Tubbo’s scared of.
“Aaaand you’re laughing. Nemesis, this is out of my depth. If he was crying I could maybe deal, but I don’t know what to do with laughing. What did Roulette do?”
“Breathe,” Tubbo hears. “Breathe.” The voice counts, and slowly he manages to match his breathing to the numbers. He’s sitting on the hospital room’s floor. Funny; he doesn’t remember sitting down. He’s present now. He needs to be present to lie better, and if they hurt him maybe he can go away again.
“It’s okay,” Nemesis says. She’s kneeling in front of him, palms up. “You’re safe.”
Tubbo doesn’t think he’d be able to respond to that with anything but sarcasm, so he just keeps breathing.
Did Nemesis even take her DNA sample? She isn’t holding any vials or baggies or handfuls of hair. Maybe she never got the chance. Maybe-
“Can we go now?” Tubbo asks. He doesn’t need to try very hard to make his voice sound small and scared.
“We can go now.”
Tommy introduces him to Ranboo a few days later. Tubbo’s first impression is tall and nervous, and he thinks their mask is because they’re sick until he sees what seems to be the edge of a smiley-face scar on their cheek. Ranboo catches him looking and adjusts the mask. Tubbo doesn’t ask, which Ranboo repays by not asking him anything either, and the three of them spend the afternoon playing Mario Kart. Tommy does most of the talking at first, but Tubbo can easily trash-talk the Chain Chomps or argue about Rainbow Road without spilling any secrets.
They’re all pretty evenly matched, and Tubbo’s just hurling a red shell in Tommy’s direction when there’s a knock on the door.
“Tubbo?”
It’s Phil.
“Can I speak with you?”
Tommy goes oooooh, but Ranboo looks more nervous than they have since arriving. Tubbo thinks, as he follows Phil out the door, that he’s with Ranboo on this one.
“Techno told me about your reaction at the hospital,” Phil begins as he sits in one of the living room chairs. Tubbo takes the matching armchair opposite, fiddling with a loose thread in the cushion. “So I thought you should know this.”
Shit. Whatever this is, it’s about Quackity. Maybe he’s woken up, or-
“I want to start by saying he can’t hurt you,” Phil tells him. Tubbo is in agony waiting for the other shoe to drop, though this entire week has been such a cascade of other shoes dropping that it’s pretty much a centipede’s front hall. “But Nemesis ran a DNA test, and the John Doe you saw was a match for Roulette.”
Tubbo freezes with the thread still between his fingers.
Oh.
Oh, fuck.
Nemesis must have put the sample into a pocket or something while he was panicking.
“He’s being moved to a secure facility,” Phil continues, “where they’ll have the resources to keep him in if he wakes up.”
If.
“Will he?”
Phil hesitates before he answers.
“He probably will, mate.”
The relief is tangible, like a wave breaking over Tubbo and threatening to wash him off the armchair. Almost as tangible as the loose thread in Tubbo’s hand heating up and-
Pop.
It’s a small explosion, all things considered. It doesn’t hurt. It barely even singes the chair. But Phil locks onto it, staring at Tubbo’s empty hand, wings high and still like a hawk about to dive for a mouse. Tubbo is staring at Phil, shrinking back into the chair.
“What was that?” Phil whispers after what feels like an eternity. Tubbo swallows.
“Me, sir,” he says.
“A power?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Does anyone else know?”
The words hang heavy and immobilizing in the air. Phil hasn’t moved. Tubbo hasn’t run. There’s no point: Phil is only toying with him. He was doomed from the moment the Angel’s shadow passed over him. Really, he was doomed from the moment he was born.
“I’m A-Bomb.” Tubbo doesn’t dare look away. Up the stairs, Tommy and Ranboo probably haven’t even finished their race yet. Phil shakes his head, short and jerky like he’s flicking off water.
“You can’t be,” he says. “You’re thirteen.”
In for a penny, Tubbo thinks, in for a pound. He starts talking again, detached like it isn't his own life he's recounting.
“The explosions at Rutabaga were all set off from the back of the Awesam Engineering offices,” he says. “It set off a chain reaction. A miracle nobody was hurt, yeah? Like Roulette had a hand in it. Schlatt was pissed, but he couldn’t prove anything.” Tubbo lifts his hand, remembering the almost paralytic fear that gripped him in that building. “The Blade surprised me. I- I think I was aiming to kill, actually. But he grabbed my wrist.” He turns his hand, cupping inward, ever closer to where his face had burned. “And-”
There’s a hand on his wrist again, pulling it away from his face. Tubbo can only smile tiredly at Phil. His hand wasn’t charged; he wasn’t going to hurt himself. Phil looks terrified.
“I’m not gonna hurt myself,” Tubbo tells him.
“Don’t,” Phil says, dropping his wrist. He stays crouched in front of the chair, though, like he’s soothing an animal. “You- A-Bomb has been active since you were nine.”
“And a half,” Tubbo corrects. Those seven months had meant a lot to him at the time.
“And a ha- that is not better!”
“I lost a tooth my second time out.” Tubbo thinks maybe he’s transcended fear. Every path in front of him is equally terrifying; he might as well keep talking. “It’d been loose for weeks, it was almost ready, and then I got kicked in the face. I think maybe I swallowed it.”
“Aw, kid, no.”
So Tubbo tells him about all the missions he can remember. Phil reaches for him once, but Tubbo flinches back; Phil moves to the chair beside him and doesn’t try again.
He’s just finished describing the week of chaos after the King switched sides and put on her crown—he thinks he might have killed somebody then, actually, there was definitely a homeless encampment behind that Dream Team hideout he blew up, and he tells Phil they wouldn’t let him read the newspapers to find out for sure—when loud footsteps clump down the stairs and Tommy bursts into the living room.
“We’re about to start another round and we want you to give Tubbo back, because-”
“That’s not actually my name,” Tubbo says. This doesn’t shut Tommy up, but he does notice the tears on Tubbo’s face and switches direction, talking over him.
“Holy shit, are you okay, what the fuck happ-”
“Tommy,” Phil cut over both of them, “maybe this isn’t-”
“My last name is Schlatt.”
Dead silence.
Tommy’s half-strangled voice, of course, is the first to break it.
“What?”
Tubbo expects him to get mad, or maybe flee. Instead he just sputters for a few seconds. Tubbo can see him putting the pieces together.
“Holy shit,” he says after a moment. Of all things, he’s grinning. “That makes so much sense!”
“Tommy.” Phil’s voice carries a clear warning. He's sure to be putting his own pieces together.
“Also,” Tubbo adds, “I’ve been a supervillain since I was nine and half.”
Tommy is suddenly more serious than Tubbo has ever seen him before. “He made you, didn't he.” Tommy doesn't phrase it like a question. “Because you wouldn't. You're smart and you're pog and you're nice and you brought Fundy back. You wouldn't hurt somebody. You- did he hit you? ‘Cause I could take ‘im out for you, no problem.”
“Tommy.”
Tommy’s words hit harder than anger would have. Tubbo knows how to deal with anger. He doesn't know how to deal with faith. Tommy has known him for less than a month.
“I wasn't the one who got Fundy out,” Tubbo mumbles. “That was all Q. I didn't even know it was happening until it was.”
“Okay,” Tommy says, nodding. Phil is saying something, too; Tubbo thinks he's trying to tell Tommy to leave so he doesn't make this worse. Tubbo is of the opinion that, Tommy or no Tommy, this conversation has nowhere to go but up. “Cool. So we should give this Q guy a medal. Wait—are they okay?”
Tubbo closes his eyes. “Quackity’s in a coma. He got shot, he survived, I don't know-”
“Roulette?”
Flabbergasted, Tubbo thinks. That's the word for Phil's tone. He's never heard someone sound flabbergasted before.
“Can I write to him?” Tubbo asks. It's not exactly his preferred way to communicate, but beggars can't be choosers and he hasn't let SBI know he's dyslexic yet. “Or if you put us both in Pandora, can he be my cellmate?”
“Oh my Prime, Tubbo, we're not gonna arrest you!” Tubbo opens his eyes in time to see Tommy look at Phil for confirmation.
Phil stays silent.
“I mean, Phil…” Tommy wheedles. Tubbo's never heard someone wheedle before, either. “Come on…”
“We should have this conversation with a couple of lawyers and maybe a tape recorder and a door that locks,” Phil says slowly, the last part to Tommy. Tubbo hears it anyway; if Phil doesn't want him to know he’s going to be locked up he should try harder than that. “But…if it comes down to it, living in a house with three superheroes-”
“And one big man!”
“With three superheroes,” Phil repeats, ignoring Tommy, “is probably going to be legally satisfactory and safest for you.” He makes eye contact with Tubbo. Tubbo holds it, still trying for challenging. “I still think you are a good person,” he says clearly. “I will keep you as safe as I can.”
Tubbo nods. This time he feels the tears as they start to fall.