There was a reason Tommy did not trust medication. Whatever stupid pills Wilbur had tried to make and Technoblade had made Tommy take after the late lunch/early supper had done nothing but make his head all fuzzy. It was evil, horrible torture. They made him sleepy! He'd already slept enough for the day, thank you very much, but he ended up dozing for the rest of the evening. And for what? They didn't do anything at all!
Okay, maybe his wound didn't hurt as much, but what did that matter if he was 60-100% asleep the whole time he wasn't hurting? It was truly terrible and lame, and how dare they?
From what he could remember through his grogginess, he had expressed his discontent repeatedly with very compelling arguments, but none of them had appreciated his reasoning, and he'd mostly been shoved back into bed and told to watch the movie or go to sleep.
Eventually, they'd decided it was bedtime even though Tommy argued he was a big man who did not have a bedtime and stop patronizing him, Wilbur. He'd cleaned up and changed into yet another white shirt and grey pants before crashing back into bed and falling asleep almost instantly because of the stupid pills.
He woke some hours later with the lights dimmed and the tv shut off. He instinctually jumped at the honestly creepy as all fuck person sitting on the edge of his bed but calmed when he remembered what he was. Apparently, they'd decided that since he already knew about Ghostbur, they may as well all get a full night's sleep, because the ghost was the only one here.
"Hi, Tommy," he said when he noticed he was awake.
"Hi," Tommy said, grumpily. He was still groggy, and the soft bed and low lights didn't help. "Wilbur drugged me," he pouted.
"I know," he replied, sounding more amused than sympathetic.
"He's a bitch," Tommy declared. The cow plushie had been settled next to him at some point and he curled his body around it now.
"Do you feel any better?"
"Yes," he grumbled, "but now I'm tired."
"Well, why don't you go back to sleep?" he suggested.
"Don't wanna."
"Ah," he said with a head tilt. "What do you want to do then?"
"I want to do crime," Tommy answered, "and text women."
"Aren't you supposed to be a superhero?" His smile made his forehead all wrinkly, and Tommy wondered how that worked since he wasn't really in a body right now.
"I want to do crime against supervillains, so it's okay."
Ghostbur grinned. "And what crimes would you be committing?"
"Stealing mostly. I've always been good at stealing, but I had to stop when I got hired by the Superhero Guild. I'm going to break into your kitchen and take a bite out of every type of food you have except for the weird bread, and then I want the sweater Wilbur was wearing today, because it was very soft."
"Aw! You liked my sweater," he cooed.
"Soft," Tommy mumbled as an answer. He laid his head down with a yawn. "And you're never getting it back."
He floated forward a bit and cold non-pressure descended on Tommy's nose. Tommy wrinkled it. "You can have whatever you like," Ghostbur promised, "in the morning."
"You'll be gone in the morning," Tommy pointed out.
"Not really," Ghostbur replied. Tommy didn't have the energy to argue the point. He blinked once and suddenly Phil was there, him and Ghostbur talking in hushed tones.
Tommy listened to them talking idly without tracking a lot of it. Something cold brushed his forehead and he peaked open his eyes to see Ghostbur hovering over him with a smile.
"Will no," Phil said, his voice a bit louder than it had been before. "You have to let those fade at some point."
"Never," was the response.
Tommy gave a confused hum, peering up at him.
"It's nothing," Ghostbur promised. He reached out and the cool non-pressure stroked across his brow.
"Will," Phil said, exasperated.
Ghostbur quirked a smile. "See you later, Tommy!"
Tommy looked over at Phil once Ghostbur blinked out of existence. "Wha?" he asked.
"You may have a bit more blue on your face this morning, Mate," Phil explained.
Tommy's hand immediately touched his own eyebrow where Ghostbur had touched him a moment before. His mind caught up with what must have happened. "That bastard!"
Phil did not seem insulted on his child's behalf. Instead, he just chuckled. "He can be that sometimes, yeah." He sat down on the edge of the bed. "How'd you sleep?"
Tommy crossed his arms. "Well, you all drugged me, so I slept really 'well.'"
"It was Tylenol PM, Mate."
"You're all wrongins."
Phil patted him on the knee. "You needed sleep to recover anyway."
"Wrongins," Tommy hissed out. The hand on his knee squeezed lightly and Tommy was unsure if it was a warning or just a thing Phil does. He decided to back off the complaining just to be safe. "So, what're the plans for today, Big Man."
"You'll be spending most of the morning with me," he said. "Techno's cooking breakfast already and Wilbur's waking up now, obviously. I can bring you down some books or you can watch more movies if you'd like."
"Movies would be cool," Tommy said. "Might be too tired to read." He winced when he realized his excuse ended up being him complaining again, but Phil didn't react, and Tommy relaxed again after a moment.
"Fair enough," Phil answered simply. "Now or do you want to sleep more?"
Tommy thought about it for a moment. "Now?"
Phil nodded, and removed his hand to turn on the television and fetch the remote. Tommy spent a bit of time today actually exploring how Netflix worked, since he'd never gotten a chance to use the app before his kidnapping. He quickly figured out that each member of the household had their own subaccounts, that Tommy could easily get into any of their accounts by simply selecting the one he wanted with the remote, and that he could add movies and television shows to their watch lists with the click of a button. He was going to use these facts for evil. In fact, he did not start any movie or television show at all. Instead, he just added selections such as Veggietales, Boss Baby, and every movie that came up when he searched 'ghost' to Wilbur's watch list. He eventually figured out how to reorder said watch list and gleefully intermixed his additions into the ones that had already been on the list. He was pretty sure Phil knew what he was doing, but he hadn't said to stop.
He'd just added a fifth Scooby Doo movie when the door beeped. Tommy quickly pressed the back button as Wilbur entered the room.
"That was fast," Phil commented with a raised eyebrow.
"I can get ready fast," Wilbur replied. He sounded a bit testy.
"You really can't, Will."
Wilbur pursed his lips. "Techno finished your breakfast. I'm here to check the child's stitches."
"I'm not a child!" Tommy gasped in offence.
Wilbur and Phil both ignored him, Phil rising from his chair. "I'll be back in a bit," he said. He'd patted Tommy's shoulder and moved on to give Wilbur the same treatment as he wandered off towards the door before Tommy even had a chance to tense up.
Wilbur turned to face Tommy once he was gone. "Good morning, child."
"Shut up!" Tommy hissed with a scowl. "You stained me again, you bastard." He pointed to his face. Wilbur studied the newest blue mark above Tommy's eye for a moment. His hand reached forward, and he brushed his fingers across it, the touch an echo of the one that had created the mark but contrastingly warm and solid. Annoyingly, he did not seem embarrassed about it as he'd been the day before nor did he seem at all repentant. Tommy frowned at him and slapped the hand away.
Wilbur just smiled like an asshole and reached to shove at both of his shoulders saying, "Morning check-up time."
Tommy grumbled but consented to it despite the fact that Wilbur's insistence on checking the stitches and rebandaging the incision was starting to feel more like fussing than necessary medical care. Though, to be fair, the wound was taking a frustrating amount of time to heal. Usually, he'd be peeling off the bandages and literally hopping back into normal activities against doctor (and Tubbo) advisement by now, but he was still rather achy again now that the drugs were wearing off.
"You probably could do without the dressings at this point, but we'll leave it for now," Wilbur told him once he was finished with his fretting. "Also..." he trailed off, reaching back into the bag he'd brought the bandages in. "I was physically unable to not bring this to you." He plopped a piece of folded fabric down in his lap and Tommy did his best not to gasp in excitement when he realized what it was. Ghostbur was the best person ever even if he did mark up Tommy's face before leaving.
He pulled the sweater Wilbur had worn the day before over his head with no hesitation. It was already oversized on Wilbur who was taller than him by a few inches, so he ended up basically drowning in it, but that just made it better.
"Mine forever now, Bitch!" he exclaimed, hugging himself. It was so soft.
Wilbur gave him one of his funny looks and then arms were wrapping around Tommy and the sweater. Tommy was distracted enough by his glee at having acquired a sweater that he just hummed, content for about three seconds.
Then he realized what was happening. "Wait! No!" he said, starting to struggle. "Get off! You're clingier than Tubbo!"
Wilbur did not relent, hugging him closer and pressing his face into Tommy's hair. "No, I need a moment."
"Why?" Tommy whined.
"Ghostbur has given me a migraine this morning," Wilbur said as though that explained his behavior.
"So, you've decided to make that my problem?" Tommy groused. He was like a fucking boa constrictor.
"Yes," he said, "because it's all your fault."
"How's it my fault?" Tommy asked.
"It's about you."
"What?" Tommy asked. "Did Ghostbur decide to mentally punch your nose in because you're a prick?"
Wilbur paused. "Something like that."
"Well, good. You deserve the migraine," Tommy grumbled.
"Okay," Wilbur hummed. He still did not let go. Tommy realized he'd forgotten to keep struggling a while ago, but instead of starting back up again, he just let his head come down to rest on his stupid shoulder.
His hair was slightly damp where it brushed against Tommy's forehead and he smelled like toothpaste. He wasn't wearing a sweater today, but a long-sleeved thin shirt that Tommy could see him wearing as part of his supervillain costume. Maybe he even had. The prick was probably the only hero or villain ever who didn't just wear the same outfit every time but would instead switch it up with different colored shirts and pants. He even had a couple of different pairs of shoes. The only constant was his mask and the coat he threw over his getup.
"How long am I to be your prisoner?" Tommy asked, and then paused. "Well, more of a prisoner than I already am."
"Hush," Wilbur said. A hand weaved its way into Tommy's hair.
"Don't tell me to 'hush,'" Tommy grumbled even as the way his fingernails scratched gently at his skull was really nice.
"Or what?" Wilbur asked, sounding amused.
"I'll start stabbing shit," Tommy claimed.
"Oh, yes," he said mock seriously, "of course."
"Don't mock me."
"Don't mock me." Wilbur returned, and to Tommy's surprise it came out in Tommy's voice.
"I didn't know your powers included mocking abilities!" Tommy said with a gasp. "That's so cool... I mean... lame. You're lame. Your power is slightly less lame than you are overall, but still very lame."
Wilbur squeezed him softly with the arm not in his hair. "Fuck off."
"I'd like to do nothing more, asshole," Tommy grumbled into his shoulder.
The door beeped then, and Tommy immediately tried to jerk away, but once again managed to get nowhere. "Save me, Blade," he whined when he saw who had arrived. "He's being a clinging dick."
Technoblade looked over them with uncaring eyes. "You put on one of his sweaters?" he tsked. "There is no helping you."
"It's my sweater now!" Tommy insisted. "I'm never giving it back."
He hummed, not in the least bit sympathetic to Tommy's current plight. "I brought you breakfast," he informed him. "I didn't know what you liked in omelets, so I just did a cheese mixture. There's also hash browns."
Tommy looked him over and noticed that he was definitely in his supervillain costume sans the mask and cape, and his hair was no longer down and poofy, but braided neatly. Tommy was reminded abruptly why he was so fucking intimidating, plate full of breakfast in his hands or no.
Still, Tommy pushed past any leeriness evoked by him wearing ¾ of his villain getup. "Please, Techno," he begged, shoving at Wilbur's cheek. "I thought you were against torture."
"I'm not getting anywhere near him when he's like that," Technoblade said. He set Tommy's plate on the nightstand, not that Tommy could reach it right now. "Better you than me."
"Betrayal!"
Technoblade just shrugged and took a seat a good distance away from the bed (the coward). Tommy scowled at him, but he ignored that in favor of scrolling through something on his phone. Tommy sighed and put his head back down on Wilbur's shoulder again. This was not fair. He wanted his omelet.
Thankfully, his salvation came in the form of the door beeping once again.
"Phil, help me, please," Tommy said. "He won't release me to eat breakfast."
"Let him eat, Will," Phil said firmly. Wilbur leaned back to pout at him, and Phil raised an eyebrow. "Don't you and Techno have something you should be doing today anyway?"
He sighed. "Yeah," he relented, finally freeing Tommy from his evil clutches and scooting off the bed. He reached back and ruffled Tommy's hair. "We'll be back later, Gremlin. Got some errands."
"Please, take your time," Tommy said sweetly.
Wilbur rolled his eyes as Technoblade got to his feet. "Any driving conditions I need to know about before we leave?" Wilbur asked as he and Techno left.
"Just a few trees down near the city," Techno answered a moment before the door closed behind them.
Phil was already handing over his breakfast by the time Tommy turned his attention back to him. "You are the only valid man ever," Tommy told him as he took the plate. He took a bite of the omelet. ...Okay, so Technoblade had his uses too, he decided as he chewed. Wilbur could perish.
He ate about half of the omelet and most of the hash browns before he slowed. He glanced up at Phil as he set the plate aside. "So," he said. "Where'd they go?"
"Errands," Phil echoed Wilbur's statement with a serene smile.
Tommy narrowed his eyes at him. "They're doing crime, aren't they?"
The corners of his mouth twitched. "Maybe just a bit," he replied.
Tommy frowned. He wasn't sure how he felt about that. It was one thing to sit around watching movies with them all. It was another thing to know they were out being supervillains while he was locked in their lair. Would someone else be sent to stop them? Would people get hurt? Would it be Tommy's fault for trading himself for Tubbo? Especially if they weren't going to hurt Tubbo in the first place? He shook off the potential guilt for now. "Rude of you guys to make evil villain plots while I'm your prisoner. Aren't you supposed to be focusing all of your attention on me?"
"Well," he said, a sort of soft amusement on his face for some reason. "We had to take advantage of our nemesis being unable to interfere with our 'plots.' You've proven yourself to be quite the obstacle." He did not seem angry. He actually said 'nemesis' almost like someone might say a term of endearment, but this was still dangerous territory.
Tommy decided to proceed with a reckless lack of caution anyway. "That sounds like me," he said cheekily. "The obstacle."
Phil smiled softly. "You're quite good," he said. It was weird, because this was an enemy who was complementing him, but it still made something bubble happily in his chest.
"I..." he said looking down at his lap. He cleared his throat. "Course I am. I'm a big man hero."
Phil gave him a look that seemed to see way more than Tommy wanted him to. "Of course," he said quietly. "I've been very impressed by you."
"I mean," Tommy said. "I never exactly won. I just didn't lose."
"It was three against one and we're not exactly low-level villains. I was a level 9 hero at one point and that's just me. Stopping us from getting everything we wanted and managing to get away every time is incredibly impressive."
Tommy... didn't know what to say to that. He'd mostly been told the opposite every time he'd returned from fighting them. It was... nice. Phil seemed to notice his inability to speak, and his hand came out to touch his shoulder with a smile. Tommy couldn't figure out why Phil touching him like that still made him freeze when Wilbur had tried to smother him earlier and he'd been nothing but annoyed.
"So..." Tommy said, trying to ignore the touch. "What exactly are they up to?"
Phil gave him a skeptical look.
"What? It's not like I can do anything about it. I'm just curious."
Phil seemed to mull it over. "They're just going to go after another suppression orb," he admitted.
Tommy cocked his head at him. "A suppression orb? Is that the thing I snatched out from under you the other day?" Tommy asked.
"They didn't tell you what it was?" Phil asked. "I'd think they'd want to tell you what you've been defending." Yet, before Tommy could respond, he continued, his tone strangely darker suddenly. "Or maybe not."
Tommy shook his head. "No, they didn't tell me." He bit his lip. Now this might be pushing it... "What do you guys want it for?"
It took Phil a moment to answer, and Tommy started to get a little nervous, but he didn't get mad and the hand touching Tommy was still gentle. "It's part of an enchantment we're working on making," he said. "It has some other ingredients necessary to make it work, but the suppression orb's the rarest one."
"An enchantment?"
Phil hummed. "You know how power neutralizing cuffs work?" Phil asked.
Tommy glanced at the one on his wrist. "Uh... not really?"
"Well, they're enchanted," Phil said. "The dust from a suppression orb is one of the main ingredients, actually."
"Suppression orbs take away powers, then?"
"Not in their raw form, no. They only weaken powers slightly when activated, but they have a much larger range than things like power neutralizers. The Guild probably thinks we're trying to set up an anti-power weapon or something."
Tommy tilted his head at the phrasing. "But you're not?" he asked.
"No," Phil replied. He studied Tommy intently for a few tense moments. Tommy found himself holding his breath even though he had no idea what Phil was looking for. "We're actually using it to get around the Netherrealm barrier."
Tommy's brain misfired at that. That was not at all even close to what he'd expected Phil to say. "You... I... The hell you'd want to go down there for?"
"Well," Phil said. "It's less about us wanting to get in and more about wanting to get people out."
"You want to get people out?" Tommy asked, honestly dumbfounded.
"Well. One person for now. That's as much as we could figure out how to do with one suppression orb, and they're not exactly easy to come by, but eventually the goal would be to get everyone out if not take down the barrier entirely."
"You... but why?"
"Why?" Phil mused. "I guess because we think it's wrong. It shouldn't have existed in the first place, let alone still exist today, but no one is going to do anything about it. No one ever even wants to talk about it."
Oh, Tommy knew. He knew that. No one on the surface cared and if it got brought up, most people just kind of awkwardly changed the subject. No one ever wanted to talk about it, but now Phil was. Tommy wanted to say something too, but he couldn't get any words to dislodge from his throat. He didn't know what he would have said anyway.
"It's been over a century since the barrier was made, and it was a horrible prison idea to begin with," Phil continued. "They just left everyone there and forgot about them. Don't get me wrong, the people put there had done bad things, but none of them are even alive at this point. The original supervillains are all dead. It's just their children or more likely their grandchildren and great-grandchildren. The people down there don't deserve to be down there. Or maybe some of them do, but who knows if they would have if they hadn't been down there in the first place. Obviously, I haven't been there myself, but from what I've heard it's all just a circle of violence that can never peter out because it's all trapped in together. It needs to end. Even if most of them end up being monsters, they can't stay down there. Even if most of them end up being monsters, I know there has to be at least one person who doesn't deserve it. We, the three of us, have decided that we can't stand by anymore. We can't just leave everyone down there. So, that's what the suppression orb is for."
And that... that was a lot. That was way, way too much actually. It felt like someone had shoved a fire resistance potion down his throat and then forced him to drink lava.
Phil blinked at him in surprise after a few moments, his expression flickering between confused and concerned. His hand moved to touch Tommy's cheek. "You're crying," he said, carefully wiping a bit of wetness away.
"M'not," Tommy said. "I don't cry."
Phil's nose wrinkled up a bit probably because... yeah... yeah... fuck.
Tommy wasn't even sure why to be honest because... because logically he knew Phil's motivations probably went beyond the purely altruistic reasoning he'd just given. The Pit was full of untapped powers and people who would be unwaveringly loyal to someone who freed them from that hell, so it could easily be part of some bigger plot and yet...
And yet, all his brain could pull up was 'Me. He would have helped me.' Phil didn't even know. He'd clearly been trying to convince Tommy that it was the right thing to free them as though he'd disagree, because a lot of people would disagree. So many people would. Yet, without knowing, Phil had just said that at the most basic level possible he cared about the pain and fear not just of the people currently in the Pit now, but also of Tommy's childhood. Phil was saying it was wrong. He thought Tommy didn't deserve it. He didn't deserve to pay for the crimes of some parents he didn't even know. And they were not even their crimes, but the crimes of someone 3, maybe even 4 generations removed from him. No one had ever said anything like that before to Tommy.
Phil had just said he wanted to save the group of roaming teenagers who took it upon themselves to make a make-shift nomadic orphanage despite not knowing what the fuck they were doing with babies but saying even if they killed them through negligence or stupidity, it was better than not trying at all. And they had been stupid and negligent, but Tommy was fucking alive to tell the tale.
He wanted to save people like the man who'd taken it upon himself to dress up like the superheroes of old and fight against the relentless tides of evil that walked through the streets. Tommy'd watched him get gutted on the street for the effort, but he'd still made the effort.
He wanted to save the blind old grocery store owner that despite all of the horrible fighting and violence no one ever touched because at some point he'd fed every person in The Pit when they needed it the most and some of them had grown up cruel and deranged, but they never forgot.
He wanted to save the magic seller that had given two 10-year-olds red stone tattoos so they could always know if the other was hurt even though they didn't have nearly enough to give her for it.
And he wanted to save the murderers and the sadists and the people that bet on how fast a child would die in a ring for fun.
He would have wanted to save Tommy and Tubbo if they hadn't already saved themselves.
How the fuck was Tommy supposed to deal with that?
The answer was apparently that he fucking couldn't.
He distantly felt himself being shifted around by arms that had at some point gotten under him. "Here, hush," Phil's voice said as he was settled into a lap. Something wrapped around him until his was cocooned between it and Phil's chest. Feathers. Right: his wings. A soft cloth: a handkerchief or maybe just Phil's shirt sleeve rubbed carefully across Tommy's cheeks to clean up the mess there. "It's okay," Phil said, and now that Tommy was calming down, he could hear a hint of confusion in his voice still. How the hell was he going to explain this reaction? He almost laughed but was pretty sure Phil would think he was legit insane if he did so at this point, so he settled for shoving the thought away for future Tommy to deal with. He turned his face into Phil's chest to hide from the inquisitive glint in his eyes and Phil let him for now.
Phil squeezed him a bit tighter against his chest, but it couldn't possibly be a warning or a threat with the way his wings wrapped protectively over him, and his chin settled on top of his head. Tommy felt himself relaxing into the careful hold despite the way his chest still seized with sobs.
"You'll be okay," Phil promised, and it felt like it was maybe not a lie.