Chapter Text
Techno doesn’t see Tommy again for almost two weeks.
And five days after the scrappy vigilante crawls out of his window, he wonders if he ever will.
Subconsciously skimming headlines reveals little: Fourteenth District remains mostly free of superhuman activity, as far as the newsmen proclaim anyway.
(Techno is not surprised. Casual praise is and has always been reserved for the big names: the heroes whose capes were made of the same lining as the government’s pockets. Faults, failures, and mistakes on the other hand – now that is prime feeding ground: tender strips of meat for the media to sink their gnashing teeth into until it comes apart.
And if there is one thing that Techno knows, it’s how the media prefers their steak: rotten.)
He thinks maybe he should’ve asked for Tommy’s persona name – social media tended to favor the small-timers – but as the days drag on and his apartment remains as barren as ever, he figures it might not matter anyway. Tommy hasn’t been back. The window, which he’d found himself leaving cracked more often than not, remains untouched. After a full week comes and goes, Techno stops leaving it open.
It’s a weird feeling: the one that gnaws at the flesh between his chest and stomach. It’s not quite hope, no – Techno isn’t hopeful that the scrappy vigilante he’d pieced back together would break back into his home. It’s something like expectation: the crawling static before a lightning strike – except Techno’s the one flying a key on a kite and waiting for the flash.
Tommy had upset his routine, had crash-landed into his life with the same ferocity as he had with his window. He’d dropped like an anchor into harsh waves, but where Techno had expected ripples, he’d been met only with stillness. Not for the first time, Techno is almost more put off by the quiet than the noise.
So, no. He’s not hopeful and he’s definitely not disappointed by the lone echo of his voice, magnified by the hollowness of the walls. Why would he be? This isn’t anything he isn’t used to, and one upset isn’t going to change that. Techno falls back into his routine with barely a missed step: donate blood on Monday, call Phil on Wednesday. He has groceries delivered to his front door on Saturday. Trains in the late nights or early mornings – whichever time his sleep schedule allows. Exists throughout.
(And if he’d moved his end table away from the window on Tuesday, that was being proactive – he doesn’t want to lose another vase in the event it gets knocked over again. Moving a stock of medical supplies into the hall closet was nothing more than convenient. He’s always been paranoid – there is nothing abnormal about any of this.)
Ironically, though, it’s only after Techno has resigned himself to the idea that Tommy is actually competent enough to survive without the help of a forsaken hero – as doubtful as the idea is – that he wakes up to the sound of incessant knocking against his windowpane.
The voices flurry into consciousness like a pile of dry, autumn leaves stirred up by a persistent wind. Techno yawns, drags himself out of his bed and towards the living room, and leans against the doorway to peer into the room.
Sure enough, there’s a head of blonde hair and a pair of bright, blue-lightning eyes poking up above the edge of his windowsill. When Tommy sees Techno, his eyes widen, and he brings a gloved hand up to wave wildly. He’s shouting something excitedly, bandana-mask bunched under his chin, but the sound is dampened by the glass. Techno waves back lazily.
Tommy catches the gesture and grins wider, dropping his hand to slide the window up with minimal effort. He sticks his arm through, balancing his elbow on the sill.
“Hello Technoblade,” Tommy greets, grinning crookedly as he tests the name. He lifts his other arm, previously hidden by the edge of the window, and holds up a creased, red and white fast food bag, the bottom heavy with splotches of grease. “I brought food!”
Techno is pretty sure that he defies at least six different laws of physics as he manages to swing a leg up, contorting himself awkwardly in order to shove his leg through the window and hook it over the edge of the frame.
“And a stab wound!”
Techno’s smile, or the ghost of one anyway, drops. Any trace of amusement he’d conjured up drains out of him in one fell swoop.
Tommy’s grin never wavers as he wiggles his leg, unblinkingly displaying the penknife sticking out of his calf. Blood stains his pant leg, surrounding the hilt of the knife like a bullseye.
Techno sighs.
“Sorry to bother you with this—”
“I told you to come,” Techno counters easily – once they’re on the sofa, over a blanket this time, with Tommy’s leg stretched across his lap – taking practiced fingers and guiding a pair of scissors through the fabric of Tommy’s sweats. He cuts them above the knee, carefully maneuvering around the hilt of the knife, and gently pulls the sticky fabric away, sympathizing with the hiss of pain Tommy pushes through gritted teeth. “It was smart to leave the knife in.”
“Yeah,” Tommy agrees breathily, tracking Techno’s ministrations unblinkingly. “Learned that one the hard way.”
Techno’s hand stills, neurons firing off a beat too slow at the unpleasant imagery that the blasé statement paints behind his eyes.
“That’s… concernin’,” he manages after a moment, setting the scissors down on the floor. Tommy nods, leg bouncing minutely as he watches Techno bring his hand up to wrap around the black handle. He takes a moment to meet Tommy’s eyes. “Brace yourself.”
Tommy blinks, then swallows, eyes widening a fraction as he looks down. He glances between the knife and Techno, nose twitching. Then, before Techno can blink, Tommy’s hand shoots out, landing on Techno’s shoulder, fingers twisting into the fabric of his T-shirt with a shaking sort of distress. Techno pauses, barely able to express his discomfort in the face of Tommy’s pale face, features screwed up tightly.
He looks, in this moment, remarkably like a child.
“Just do it,” Tommy breathes out through tight lips, eyes shut tight. “I’m not a bitch.”
Techno looks him over one last time before shrugging, tightening his grip, and pulling the knife up. The collar of his shirt rubs his skin raw as Tommy twists up the fabric even more. To his credit, though, he doesn’t make a sound – something which Techno both admires and is perturbed by.
The bloodied knife hits the floor next to the discarded scissors. Tommy exhales shakily, some sort of laugh bubbling just under the surface of the sound. Techno steadies Tommy’s arm without thinking as he presses a clean, dry rag beneath his knee. Tommy looks at him, smiling gratefully as his fingers loosen and slip away from Techno’s shirt onto his lap.
“Sorry,” he breathes, leaning back. “That’s– it’s weirder when someone else does it.”
Chat, previously quiet, mimics Techno’s faint unease as he considers that.
“We’ve still gotta clean it,” Techno tells him, glancing at the penknife with a grimace. “That thing probably has so many diseases.”
“Oh, yeah,” Tommy agrees sagely, following Techno’s eyes down to the unassuming, crimson-stained blade. “Fucker pulled that out of nowhere, I swear. One minute, I’m pinning him to the floor and the next—” His hands come up to mime a stabbing gesture at the air, “—No more leg for Tommy.”
Techno snorts, grabbing Tommy’s hand and maneuvering it to take over pressing down on the rag. “Your leg will be fine.” He gently eases Tommy’s leg off of his lap, even as he’s unable to resist slipping under his breath, “Probably.” Tommy’s mouth opens, but Techno doesn’t give him a chance. “Hold that.”
“What?” Techno grins sharply as he disappears into the other room. “Technoblade, what?” Then, barely audible, “What the fuck. Did he just…?”
Tommy trails off, and Techno huffs as he rifles through the first aid kit. Maybe talking to people can be fun.
The stab wound that Tommy has earned is significantly less fatal than the bullet wound that Techno had first patched up a little over a week ago: which is to say, not fatal at all. By the time it’s cleaned, and Techno has learned approximately ten new combinations of swear words – each more colorful than the last as they tumbled off of Tommy’s lips – it’s starting to scab, and to close, likely guided by the subtler aspects of Tommy’s enhancements. Techno doesn’t need to stitch it up, but he does wrap it.
Tommy is fascinated. “That’s so nice, what the fuck.”
Techno’s lips curve. “The bandage?”
“It’s crisp,” Tommy emphasizes, brushing his fingers over the clean edges as Techno finishes up. “Mine never look like that.”
Yikes.
“Practice makes perfect,” Techno remarks, scooping up the scissors and scattered medical supplies littering his hardwood.
Tommy smirks at him as he stretches his leg testingly, rolling his ankle and bending his knee repeatedly. “You get stabbed a lot, Blade?”
Did he? “More times than I can count.”
Tommy’s eyes widen appreciatively, still shining with that strange admiration. Techno turns his head away, vaguely discomforted by it, even as he’d anticipated it. The taste of fame has long since soured on his tongue. Despite the threat of warmth unfolding somewhere in his ribcage, the corruption he’d cut out of existence casts a heavy shadow on his glory days. Even if it feels… different, coming from Tommy.
“That’s badass,” Tommy breathes. Techno ignores the faint spark of pride skittering through him, even as the voices latch onto it like rabid dogs on a greasy bone. Tommy leans forward, eyes alight with curiosity. “Did you have someone to patch you up, too? You know, like… a sidekick.”
Techno casts a squinted glance at him over his shoulder. “I am not your sidekick.”
Tommy grins sheepishly. Techno shakes his head, amusement fading into consideration. Phil, he thinks automatically, before the thought is rejected like a bad dollar bill.
“Not at first,” he settles on, which is true.
Before he and Phil had met, they’d joined the old Hero’s League near-synchronously – clad in the efforts of their own personas. They’d had their own legacies, their own lives.
Techno had forged his legacy in the slums, the “Pits” of the gilded city, where the crime was thick and the chaos thicker – places like Fourteenth District. Phil had fancied the richer suburbs, the business districts, where the human corruption wasn’t any less present but significantly less blatant: putrefying the streets in the form of pressed suits and silk ties. What they had in common, and what had led them to the Hero’s League and the start of it all – making them not sidekicks but vicious partners – was that they both had nothing to lose, and everything to prove.
“Oh,” Tommy says appropriately, apparently less able to cope with the fallen silence than Techno. His eyes land on the forgotten fast food bags and his face lights up. “Burger time?”
Hunger twists in Techno’s stomach. He nods.
Tommy beams, like a flower turning its face up to gleaming sunlight – except in this case, it’s the barest dregs of Techno’s validation. Distantly, as Tommy limps over to his kitchen table before Techno has a chance to advise him not to, Techno wonders if this cheery demeanor is more of a facade than anything.
Techno is not hailed for his great social skills: if Tommy is so pleased by a mere nod, his network of support must be painfully lacking. Considering that he’s hobbling around Techno’s apartment dividing fries onto two separate napkins, and not, say, with his actual roommates, Techno can believe it.
It ignites a familiar sort of melancholy inside of him, twisting between his ribs like weeds through tough soil. He shoves it down — that and all the images of rusted fire escapes and flickering street lamps and nights that felt like small eternities as he crashed on benches and in alleyways and wherever the biting chill of winter didn’t fall so harshly.
Vigilantism has always been a lonely business. He knew what he was signing up for with every bruise and scrape he earned that his powers couldn’t keep up with. He’s sure, despite the disagreeing prod of a restless choir tapping at the back of his head, that Tommy does too. He wouldn’t have made it this far otherwise.
(It’s not enough. It doesn’t have to be enough.)
He ignores that too.
It’s not Techno’s place to press. The uneasy dynamic they’ve established is just that – uneasy. As fragile as a scab. He’ll do what he can, and for the things he can’t… he won’t. Simple as that.
(If only.)
“It’s kinda hard to be quick when you’re all stabbed and shit so, you know, sorry if the food’s cold,” Tommy explains, sliding him a wrapped burger as they settle down into Techno’s wooden chairs. He’s sitting in Phil’s spot as he pops a fry in his mouth, not that he knows that. “Had to come all the way from Eleventh.”
Techno hums a dismissal, and Tommy takes that as an opportunity to continue. He rambles like each word contracts his lungs, and stopping will leave him blue-faced and well, dead. Techno expects to be annoyed – his social battery these days never has much of a capacity. But it’s almost… pleasant: popping room temperature fries into his mouth as Tommy’s mindless chatter washes over him.
Even the voices have dimmed as if to listen: another defied expectation. It seems Tommy is full of them. Techno will have to watch out for that.
“—and then the fuckin’ police showed up, threatening to arrest me and shit if I didn’t leave, but then this old lady was like, ‘No, officer, don’t shoot Glare! He’s the coolest and best and he just saved me from being mugged! Shooting him down would be so not on!’ and then I—”
“Wait,” Techno interrupts, snapping back into the present. “Glare? Is that what they call you?”
Tommy frowns, faltering. “You really didn’t know?”
Vaguely startled by the slight change of mood, and more than vaguely confused by it, all Techno can do is offer lamely, “I… I don’t know anything about you, kid.”
For some reason, Tommy’s frown deepens. Techno only catches a glimpse of the avalanche that is Tommy’s expression falling before it’s gone, concealed even as he unfolds a tiny, hopeful grin. Once again, the action makes his facade more visible – and familiar – than ever. Techno wonders if Tommy thinks he’s a good liar.
“Well,” Tommy says after a moment, as he plucks a damp piece of lettuce off of the top of his sesame seed hamburger bun and flicks it onto the napkin. “Maybe we can change that.”
He laughs under his breath, if only at the foreign feeling of it all. “Sure, kid.”
Something about the way he says it has the silence settling over them awkwardly. At the back of his skull, a rush of displeasure erupts. Techno doesn’t know what to make of it, so he doesn’t say anything, even as Tommy’s eyes skim his face and he wilts.
(Techno resists the urge to wince.)
“Well,” Tommy repeats, with a gusto that feels hollow as he pushes up to his feet, shoving his half-eaten food into his bag. “It’s getting a bit late now, isn’t it?” It is – the setting sun has painted the sky a mixture of burnt orange and silky lilac – but Techno knows that’s not why Tommy stumbles back towards his living room. “I ought to be going. Thanks for, uh, stitching me up Mr. Technoblade. My leg appreciates it.”
“It’s Techno,” he reemphasizes, drawing his hand away from his own half-eaten fries. “And, uh, be safe.”
Tommy nods – quickly, too quickly – and looks away. Techno feels oddly cold as he watches him slide the window back up and pull himself through it. It closes behind him a shade too harshly, cutting off the rushing wind with a dull thump.
The silence has the voices spilling forward, more present than they had been since Tommy had shown up. He doesn’t quite know what they want, but he pushes back against it.
“This is above my paygrade, chat,” he chides quietly to the open air, lamely bringing a cold fry to his mouth and chewing it slowly. When he swallows, “I didn’t sign up for emotional baggage.”
The voices hiss in displeasure, but as they are part of him, they don’t contest: only settling at the nape of his neck uncomfortably.
Techno takes his time finishing the rest of his food, trying to stretch out the night. As the quiet presses close around him, noticeable in a way that it’s never really been before, Techno wishes that he’d employed more discipline on his sleep schedule.
At least then, he wouldn’t be confined to the mercy of his voices and his own scrambled thoughts for the next eight hours. Even that, it seems, is too much to ask of himself.
Techno expects another gap before Tommy returns, if he returns at all, but to his surprise, Tommy is knocking at his window the next day. Where Techno had thought he might’ve scared him away, the kid bounces back like elastic — this time, without the smile to match.
“Come in,” Techno says, watching him wave lamely through the window.
It’s well past ten, and the sky outside is black velvet, scattered with white-diamond stars – meaning, nowhere near as early as the last time – as Tommy tumbles in through his window, clutching his ribs.
Sudden alertness burns away any exhaustion as Techno grabs the remote to mute the droning television, cutting a newscaster off mid-rant as he stands. “Someone get the jump on you?”
“Everyone,” Tommy grunts out, watching Techno approach almost warily. His shoulders are stiff, tension coiled in every harsh line of his lanky silhouette. “Bad night.”
Though his arms are hugging his torso protectively, he doesn’t shy away from Techno’s gentle hands, letting Techno usher his arms away from his stomach. Swallowing, Tommy’s shaking hands grab at the bottom of his hoodie, pulling it up to expose an abstract painting of mottled purple and black bruises stretching across his ribs and stomach.
Techno whistles lowly, prickly unease rolling over him at the acute knowledge of the force it would’ve taken to put the bruises there. “Yeah, that’s not pretty.”
Tommy looks up at him. “Can you make sure nothing’s broken?”
Techno nods – he’s not an X-ray, but he can try – stepping closer to put one hand on Tommy’s shoulder and flattening the other on his chest, with barely any pressure to be mindful of the tender bruises. “Breathe for me.” Tommy does, leaning into his stabilizing grip. “Does that hurt any worse?”
“Not worse,” Tommy grits out after a moment, breathing hard. “All of it– all of it kinda hurts.”
“What was it?”
Tommy winces, eyes dropping towards the ground. “Baseball bat.”
Worry coils through him, but he shoves it down. It’s hard to tell with absolute certainty if something’s broken – but Techno thinks, with the faint knowledge of Tommy’s enhancements, it’s just bruised. That doesn’t mean it’s any less nasty of an injury.
“Let me get you some ice,” Techno tells him, nudging him towards the armchair he’d abandoned. Tommy sinks gingerly onto the edge of it, back straight as a rod and fists clenched tight in his lap. “Take it easy.”
“Will do,” Tommy breathes shakily, face riddled with discomfort.
Techno casts one last, scrutinizing gaze over him before slipping into the kitchen. As he’s opening his freezer and sifting for the ice packs he knows are buried somewhere beneath the stacks of frozen TV dinners and bags of vegetables and hash browns, he can hear Tommy in the other room, swearing under his breath.
When Techno returns, ice pack and paper towels in hand, Tommy’s staring down at his phone with his lip between his teeth, face closed off and grip around the phone case almost bloodless. Techno’s silhouette cuts through the soft TV light, falling onto the side of Tommy’s face, and Tommy looks up, sliding his phone into a pocket of his cargo-style black jeans. Through the nervousness painted across his face, Techno can make out a question churning beneath his skin.
He passes Tommy the paper towel-wrapped ice pack. “What?”
Tommy blows a nervous breath out. “Do you mind if I stay here for a few hours? Just enough for it to stop hurting? I don’t think I can h–hm.” Tommy coughs, looking away and making his near-obvious slip up of… something more obvious. “I don’t think I can keep, uh, patrolling right now.”
He’s almost pouting as he brings his eyes up to Techno’s, eyes verging on pleading – contrasting the tension in his shoulders, like he’s bracing for something—
“Sure.”
Tommy blinks. “Sure?”
Techno eyes him as he moves over to the sofa and drops down onto it. “Did you want me to say no?”
“No, I just– I thought–” He cuts himself off, brows furrowing before his face smooths out with relief. “Thanks.”
Thought what? Techno wants to ask, but doesn’t. It’s almost more amusing to watch Tommy battle through his own thoughts: each flickering emotion playing plainly and obviously over his face.
Tommy is still stiff as their conversation dies, so Techno takes the liberty of getting comfortable on the sofa, lying supine as he stretches his legs across it; settling against the arm to hopefully appease some of the swelling awkwardness. From the corner of his eye, he catches Tommy looking at him before the tension slowly drains out of him, and his shoulders slump. He relaxes against the armchair, pressing the ice against the smattering of bruises.
Techno’s faint satisfaction is echoed by the amalgamation at his nape. He drags a throw pillow behind his head, angling his neck so he can continue craning at the television. Exhaustion pulses persistently behind his eyes, trying to drag his eyelids closed. Admittedly, he hasn’t slept since the day before — not that he plans on it with Tommy in his apartment. Besides the fact that his blanket is on the armchair that Tommy is sitting on, he doesn’t want to leave the kid to his own devices.
But Chat is quiet again, making it all too easy to slip into that heavy tiredness. Techno shifts, stubbornly blinking the sleep out of his eyes.
“Turn the volume up, would you?”
Tommy jumps, startled. He glances over, the whites of his eyes bright in the near-dark. Without a word, he fumbles for the remote and aims it at the TV to comply.
The crisp voice of the news anchor floats over the both of them. Techno watches with mild interest, though he will admit that more of the words are lost to his hazy mind than he means for.
He’ll get up in a minute – stretch his legs. Turn some lights on. Stimulate his brain. For now, he’s content to just settle.
“Holy shit,” Tommy breathes.
Techno glances over, watching him lean forward, ice pack falling away from where he’d had it pressed to his side. Tommy’s eyes are wide and unblinking as he stares at the TV screen. Techno follows his wide gaze just in time for grainy CCTV footage to pop onto the screen.
“—circumstances still unknown as to the vigilante prowling Fourteenth District, locally known as Glare—”
Tommy’s face sours. He recoils, leaning back, and Techno realizes what’s happening right as indignation consumes Tommy’s every feature.
“Are you fucking—” Tommy’s eyes are narrow, face red even in the harsh lowlight. “I don’t fuckin’ prowl, I strut.” Techno snorts, and Tommy’s face whips over to him, eyes flashing. “Oi, dickhead, don’t laugh. There’s nothing–”
Techno laughs again – a real one. Tommy’s jaw drops, seeming to be lost for words as his eyes comb Techno’s face.
Instantly, his face drops into a sulk. “Fuck you, man.” He throws a damp paper towel at the screen. It doesn’t make it a foot in the air before floating pitifully to the hardwood. Tommy’s sulk deepens, but Techno thinks there’s a sheen of amusement there as he sinks back against the chair. He sighs, and it’s a cross between wistfulness and shallow irritation as the newscaster switches topics — clearly not finding the brief encounter with Glare very entertaining. “They got me all wrong, they do.”
“Do they?” Techno rumbles, lips quirking up.
Tommy throws an affronted look his way. “You’re the worst.”
“That’s not what you were sayin’ two weeks ago.”
Tommy’s face scrunches up. “I was– two weeks ago I was dying, so. Doesn’t count, does it?”
The voices stir pleasantly, piqued by the banter. Techno closes his eyes, silently agreeing. “I think it counts.”
“‘I think it counts,’” Tommy mocks, dropping his voice so low that it grates against his younger vocal cords, almost a growl. “Mehmehmeh. My name is Technoblade Bloodlust and I am a prick.”
“...You’re a child.”
“You’re a bitch.”
“Nice one,” Techno quips lowly. “Did you come up with that all by yourself?”
Tommy inhales, and when Techno looks up, his chest is puffed, eyes slanted. “You know, Technoblade—”
“Yeah?”
There’s a pause, Techno’s lips quirking towards a smile, then–
“I like you,” Tommy announces, bestowing the statement upon him like a gold medal.
Techno’s face twitches. He cracks his eyes open, raising an eyebrow. Tommy is beaming at him, letting the banter fade into something quieter, but still comfortable. Techno sighs, settling back against the chair as the voices hum happily.
Stop that, he thinks. No going soft.
But even as he chides his own personal choir—
“Tommy,” Techno starts, grinning internally at the breath he feels the kid draw in, in the brief pause that Techno drags out. “You are not the worst.”
Tommy exhales. “That’s– thank you.” The edge of genuineness almost makes Techno want to cringe before he can help himself. Luckily, Tommy slips right back into his pestiferous demeanor, voice pitching it up into what Techno is quickly being familiarized with as his spewing nonsense voice. “Hey, Technoblade,” Techno, Techno corrects internally, “I needed that today.” He hears him sag against the armchair. “Now where the fuck did I put the remote. I need to change this shit.”
“End table,” Techno mumbles belatedly, hardly aware that his dozing is rapidly becoming less of a “resting his eyes” doze and more of actual sleep.
“Oh,” Tommy says. “How did you– thanks, king.”
“Mhm.”
White noise floods his head as Tommy switches between channels. Techno sighs contentedly, tension bleeding out of him as he gives in to the nap that he feels coming on – never mind that it’s nearing eleven at night. Distantly, as he drifts off, he hears the tinny voices of the TV mesh with the sound of rapid typing against cell phone keys, louder now that Chat has dimmed as if falling asleep too.
It’s because of him, comes a thought, lethargically floating across his skull. It’s him.
Techno doesn’t know what that means.
And after about five more minutes of dozing, he doesn’t know anything at all.
And later, when the night has bled into the earliest hours of the morning, he won’t remember the quiet click of the television switching off, nor the sound of the remote hitting the end table. The soft footsteps padding across the hardwood will be lost to the sleepy haze consuming his thoughts: violent voices docile as a shadow hovers by the sofa, a blanket being draped carefully over him.
And if it weren’t for the note that he finds on the end table the next morning, displaying a crudely drawn smiley face followed by a scribbled THANKS AGAIN! that thaws something long dormant in his chest, he’d barely be aware of it at all.