Archive of Our Own

Craig lets out a breath through his teeth as he pushes his body backwards, keeping his eyes on the villain before him. Some small time thing, more than enough for him to handle on his own if he truly wanted. But this guy was… fragile. He didn’t have any resistance or any sort of strength enhancement backing him up. A Blaster class for sure, but not a very effective one.

Yeah, no, if he hit this guy without holding back, he’d kill him. And Craig really didn’t want to kill this guy, not when the legality of what he was doing was already so tenuous. They were kept on a pretty tight moral code, in order to be allowed to protect their city. If Craig accidentally killed this guy, he’d be booked for manslaughter or murder immediately.

So instead he listens for the tell-tale crackle behind him and drops, letting a bolt of lightning cross over his head and stunning the villain. Craig moves in the opening Tweek’s provided him, staying low and grabbing at the man's legs, before bodily lifting him and slamming him down. Just enough to disorient, just enough to get this guy's hands bound. Craig drags his arms into place, crossing them over one another and pulling out a length of cloth to bind them together, the man's palms pressed to his own forearms. Just to be safe, he zip-ties his arms together as well, pulling the plastic taut.

With his palms pressed up to his own arms, the man was practically disarmed. He’d been using his palms to fire, well, fire at the two of them. Most Blaster classes weren’t immune to their own powers, an unfortunate drawback for how damn powerful they could be. But most doesn’t mean all, so Craig stays tense as he stands up straight, watching carefully.

Behind him, he feels the temperature drop, Tweek preparing to fire at the first sign of trouble. It’s an unnecessary precaution, however, as the man tugs frantically at his arms. There’s a moment where he grits his teeth and the fabric around his hands starts to spark and blacken, but the man winces immediately afterwards and the smoke dies down before it can catch. Craig and Tweek both quietly relax, sighing.

The man writhes on the ground below them, spitting curses out from between his teeth and trying to lever himself up and onto his knees. Craig watches, impassive, and waits until the man actually manages to get himself onto his knees. Then, he raises one foot, plants it in the middle of the criminal’s back, and shoves him back down onto the ground, sighing out through his nose as he does.

“Fuck—!” the man barks out, glaring up at Craig once he writhes enough to turn his head enough to stare up at him. Craig raises an eyebrow, unimpressed, and hooks one thumb into one of the pockets of his utility belt, fidgeting with the lighter sitting safely inside. Behind him, he hears Tweek tic, shake out his hands, and then finally hears the sound of his comm springing to life as Tweek taps it to get their ‘man in the chair’ online.

“Techwarden, do you copy? We’ve got that arsonist down, where do— ugh— what do you want us to do with him?” Tweek’s voice is casual, conversational, and not for the first time Craig is relieved that these comm links are designed not to transmit voices within a certain distance of one another. Craig would hate having to hear that strange dissonance of Tweek’s voice echoing into his ear.

There’s a silence, then the other end crackles to life, Techwarden sighing first thing.

“I don’t know why I’m still surprised at how effective you two are at takedowns like this. I’ll set up your GPS on where to take him. Are either of you hurt?”

Craig turns, seeing Tweek look him up and down, and he obediently raises his hands, turning them around so he can see both sides, the wrappings he wears to protect his knuckles still perfectly intact. It’s a rare day that Craig gets hurt— Brute class individuals like himself nearly always come with some level of resistance, and Craig in particular is in a class all on his own, almost as a balance for how basic his powerset is. He can count on one hand the number of times he’s been hurt badly enough to need healing, and that was almost always when dealing with someone who could control an element of some kind. Getting burnt or electrocuted or frozen sucked.

Tweek, being a backline fighter, rarely gets hurt either— especially with Craig ready and willing to act as a distraction and tank for his partner. Craig gives him a glance over anyways, just to be thorough. The sweater he wears drowns him, an oversized turtleneck coming up to hide the bottom half of his face. His cargo pants aren’t even dirty, and his static-shocked hair doesn’t even look ruffled. Neither of them are even scratched, and Tweek isn’t even dusty.

Tweek gazes a little longer at Craig, something distinctly more appreciative in his gaze. Takes in the way Craig’s compression shirt clings to his chest, gazes at Craig’s thumb hooked into the utility belt he wears, lets his eyes drop down to the steel-toed boot still pinning the Blaster down to the ground. A long moment passes before he returns to the question.

“Come on, Tech, when has the answer to that ever been a yes? And even if it was, you know Comet only ever accepts healing from me,” Tweek responds, a teasing note in his voice. Craig turns back to the Blaster under his heel, who finally seems to accept that he’s not going anywhere, breathing heavily and gritting his teeth in a sneer up at Craig. Craig raises an eyebrow, and slowly presses down harder on the man’s back, listening to him wheeze.

“It’s protocol,” the hero shoots back, though there's a laugh in her voice. “At the very least, if Comet does get hurt I’ll know that you need time to heal him, Wonderstruck, and I can get someone to cover the two of you for a couple hours.”

Tweek’s phone— the untraceable one that Techwarden had provided everyone with once they’d actually formed this group— pings from his utility belt, and Tweek pulls it out to see the screen already unlocked and opened to his GPS system. Craig can’t help the way his nose crinkles at the sight. Techwarden’s abilities are… honestly pretty freaky, in his opinion. To have that sort of fine remote control over a device— even from this distance. Yes, these were phones she had helped program herself, and no, she didn’t have the same access to their personal devices. But still. Freaky as hell, at least to Craig. He just couldn’t bring himself to trust technology anymore, not after listening to one too many paranoid ramblings from Tweek.

“Alright, we’ll be at the drop off in ten, Tech. Want us to keep patrolling afterwards, or is it time for a shift change?” Tweek asks, idly curious. He turns down towards an alleyway, gesturing with his head for Craig to follow him. Craig takes his foot off the man below him, then hauls him up, throwing him lazily over one shoulder and holding him there tight. The man struggles, and Craig just holds him tighter, bringing his free hand up to tamp down on the man’s back.

“Go ahead and come back afterwards. Mysterion is in one of his moods and I’d rather have him work off his energy through a patrol than destroy our training hall again,” Techwarden responds, and Craig can’t help the snort that escapes him at that. Tweek shoots him a look over his shoulder, quietly disapproving, before returning his attention to their route.

“Got it. We’ll start heading back towards base and swap off with— ugh— Mysterion then. Maybe check in with whoever’s there while we’re in. See you then.”

The comm goes dead in response, leaving Tweek and Craig to swiftly jog in the late afternoon light, taking back roads and alleyways where they can. They’re known as heroes, visibly recognizable as such as two of the more ‘marketable’ heroes of the Freedom Pals. The two of them take day shifts most of the time, and they’ve got considerable fanbases— despite neither of them wanting to be a hero for popularity’s sake.

Being well-known heroes doesn’t stop people from feeling a bit disconcerted when they’re spotted hauling a man through the streets against his will, though. So, they try to stay out of sight as much as possible.

The dropoff point is exactly where Craig could have anticipated— right behind the police station, a car already waiting to take in the powered criminal, suppressant cuffs at the ready in Detective Murphy’s hands. They don’t process powered criminals here at the precinct— it’s just not designed for these kinds of criminals. Instead, they’ve got a separate facility just outside of town, the location a heavily guarded secret. Craig’s sure that if the local police were willing to let their heroes in on the location, Techwarden would just skip this entire part of the process. But alas, they must still work with the police.

Tweek does most of the talking, explaining the suspected crimes as well as giving an overview of his powers. Craig stays quiet, lifting the man off his shoulder and setting him into the back of the police car, holding the criminal still as he carefully undoes the binds holding him.

He holds out one hand for the suppressant cuffs before pulling the cloth off of the man's arms, locking his arms together behind his back in a swift, practiced maneuver. This is always the worst part of handoff, actually getting the cuffs onto a villain. On more than one occasion, one of them has lost control of the villain and they’ve had to start over again, this time trying to keep the villain from killing a police officer as well. Craig prefers to do this himself these days, rather than trusting an officer to manage it.

“I don’t understand why you two don’t just carry these kinds of cuffs yourself,” Murphy says, watching Craig finish cuffing the man and shoving him into the back of the police cruiser.

“It’s safer to— ack— not give them the chance to turn suppression cuffs on either one of us,” he explains. It’s mostly true, at least for the majority of the heroes. Craig personally just hates the fucking things. All it would take is one fuckup, and he’s getting those slapped onto him for the rest of his life. Murphy just hums in response to Tweek’s statement, though, and the conversation ends there.

Things are… tense, with local police. All of the Freedom Pals are registered as heroes, and their identities are known to the government branch that deals in powered individuals. But the local cops don’t exactly know who’s who behind the masks and disguises. There’s a distinct lack of trust for heroes for that exact reason. Plus, most cops aren’t too happy that there’s a whole other branch of people dealing with what should be, in their opinion, their cases. It’s a pride thing, Craig thinks.

Craig would prefer to never deal with them at all, but someone’s got to process these guys. And plus, if Craig didn’t work with the police, he’d never be allowed to use his own abilities. So fuck it. He could deal with the police, and the police would have to deal with him.

The two of them only hang around long enough for Murphy to finish up the information he needs for processing. The moment he dismisses them, Tweek and Craig are gone. Tweek floats up, using what little control he does have over winds to lift him up and over to the roof. Craig’s method is a bit more simple, a superpowered set of jumps up to the roof, disappearing from Murphy’s gaze.

(Thank god for that afternoon of training with Mysterion to get down the basics of parkour.)

The two of them don’t speak on their way out of downtown, crossing over rooftops to stay out of sight as best they can. They don’t need to— there’s nothing for Comet or Wonderstruck to discuss, after all. Anything they need to discuss as Craig and Tweek can wait until after they’re back in civilian outfits.

They reach the Freedom Pals base in record time— though calling it a base brings a different image to mind. The idea of a base brings to mind some kind of complex, or something greatly hidden. The reality is that their base is a manor just outside of downtown, right where the grime of the city gives way to nicely kept lawns and massive yards. It’s shockingly nondescript, and kind of out in the open. They don’t have to worry about being spotted as they slide in through the front gate, though.

No, the entire place is under some powerful psychic interference on the part of Doctor Timothy. People’s eyes tend to slip right over it, and the closer any of the heroes get to it, the less people can process their presence. Craig could stand in the middle of the street and no one would even honk at him to move.

Craig’s pretty sure the manor belonged to either Doctor Timothy or Armament before it became the Freedom Pals base. He’s just never really been sure. He’s leaning towards it having belonged to Doctor Timothy first, considering the good Doctor lives here full time. He knows Armament has a place in the city, and doesn’t stay here overnight unless he’s on night shift. But Craig also knows that Armament has money. Quite a lot of it, if some of his off-handed comments are to be believed.

(It wouldn’t surprise him if the home used to be Armament’s, but he’d given it up for Doctor Timothy sometime before the Freedom Pals were formed.)

Neither Tweek nor Craig bother with any sort of dramatic entrance. They’re not Mysterion, who lives and dies in constant pursuit of drama. No, Craig just holds open the front door for Tweek and they walk in like they own the place. They’re here just about every day, after all, and it’s been three years since they officially joined the Freedom Pals. They’ve got near free-reign of the place.

On their way in, they pass by Mysterion, exchanging terse nods with him. Yeah, he’s definitely in a mood today— pissy and tense and glowering. Idly, Craig wonders if it has anything to do with that nemesis of his— no one pisses Mysterion off more than Professor Chaos. But, well, it could really be any number of things, and Chaos had been quiet for a bit, still planning his next move.

Mysterion slides right past the door, climbing out of a window for no fucking reason at all, prompting an eyeroll from Craig and a stifled giggle from Tweek. Lives and dies by his stupid fucking dramatic aesthetic. Fucking freak.

Entering into the grand hall, or living room, or whatever the fuck, brings them the sight of The Human Kite, sprawled out on a couch and dead asleep. He’s the only one of the Freedom Pals to keep his face completely uncovered— and that’s because, according to him, his hero self is his true form. Blue and green tinted skin, feathery antennae, a long tail curled up on the floor next to him, and a pair of strange wings folded against his back. Kite was entirely inhuman, and allegedly had a human identity and disguise that he’d used when he and Machinist were still children.

According to The Machinist, his partner of sorts, Kite had been using his human disguise less and less, now that he was recognizable as a hero. With that knowledge, that made him the only hero who didn’t truly have a secret identity. And therefore, the only hero besides Tweek who Craig actually knew the identity of. Sort of. He still didn’t know the other's name, for all that mattered.

“He must be manning the infirmary this evening,” Tweek murmurs, reaching over to drag a blanket over the exhausted hero. Craig snaps out of his thoughts, glancing over at Tweek and nodding. Kite was usually on call for evening healing, and given he was napping before the sun was even down, it was a pretty easy guess to make.

“We really need more heroes who can heal,” Craig comments, taking a step forwards to look over Kite. The other is halfway contorted, and the position looks beyond uncomfortable. There’s a pillow nearly falling off the couch from under Kite’s head, and Craig leans over to drag it back into place.

“Yeah, I know,” Tweek responds, the two of them looking over Kite for a minute longer. Then, Craig straightens, and the two of them make their way out of the living-grand-room-hall-whatever and further into the manor, following a familiar path through the base.

“I mean seriously,” Craig continues, louder now that they’re out of earshot. “You and Kite are the only two healers we have that are any good. Fastpass can heal a little bit, but he’s still trying to figure out how to apply that outside of battle. And, I mean, Machinist is good with the hospital equipment in the infirmary, and he’s got first aid knowledge, but that’s not the same. What happens if one of you two gets hurt? We can’t keep relying on the two of you as our only healers, you know?”

“Maybe we can do some recruiting,” Tweek says, shrugging as he does. “But it’s not like there’s any healers making plans to show their faces anytime soon. We’re making it work. And hey, tonight should be easy on Kite. Mysterion never needs healing. It’s kinda uncanny.”

Craig hums in agreement, and they slow to a stop outside of an office door. The plaque next to it reads Surveillance, but Craig feels like they just need to change it to say Techwarden at this point, since she practically lives there most days. Sometimes Kite or Armament take over as their man in the chair, usually when Techwarden finally admits she needs to rest, or on the rare occasion she has an exam to take in person. But for the most part, it’ll be Techwarden inside.

Slowly, Craig looks up at a camera situated right above the door and offers a wave.

“Hey Tech, we made it back safe,” Craig greets. Next to him, Tweek offers a wave as well, staring up at the camera with wide eyes. There’s a pause, then a speaker crackles to life next to them.

“Hey guys,” Techwarden greets, voice bright. “Good to see you back! I’d come out to chat, but I’m in the middle of a deep dive, so I’m a little indisposed at the moment. Sorry about that!”

Craig’s not surprised. Techwarden usually does this during a shift change. She says that transferring her consciousness to the digital space makes it easier to split her focus, keep an eye on everything at once. Craig doesn’t pretend to understand it, and doesn’t pretend that the thought of Techwarden’s abilities doesn’t freak him out a bit. He’s never been a fan of complex, metaphysical powers like that.

“Make sure you— ack— eat something, Tech,” Tweek says, shaking out one of his wrists to try and stop a twitching tic he can feel coming. “Kite’s on shift tonight, and I know he’d kill you if he had to lug you to the infirmary because you— ah— didn’t take care of yourself.”

Techwarden laughs but agrees, and they depart further into the base, finding their way to the locker rooms. Calling them locker rooms does it a disservice, but Craig really can’t think of a better word for them. It’s a series of small shower rooms, each one biometrically locked to only open for the rooms' respective ‘owner’, and fitted with a shower and a locker to store their civilian items in, alongside a nicer case to keep their costumes in.

It’s perfectly private, no cameras and no way of peeking in at your fellow heroes. Perfectly designed for all of them to keep their secret identities intact.

That thought tends to bother Craig, and today is no exception to the rule as he and Tweek step into their respective rooms. It had been a comfort when this first started, knowing that these strangers who he didn’t trust weren’t just going to unmask him and reveal his identity to the world. It was the only form of trust they could offer one another, the ability to reveal their identities whenever they felt safest, only once they trusted each other.

Craig was pretty sure they’d reached that point, though. He knew these heroes. Understood them, had grown to view many of them as friends. He knew that Mosquito had a long-term girlfriend he was worried about. He knew that Machinist and Kite had grown up together, that Techwarden knew their identities because she’d been dating Machinist for a bit without either of them knowing the other was powered. He knew that both the Raccoon and Mysterion had a long history with Professor Chaos, and knew that The Raccoon was more put off by the fact that Chaos had professed Mysterion as his nemesis rather than himself than he’d like to admit. He knew Fastpass and Doctor Timothy used to hate each other.

And the Freedom Pals knew Craig, knew Tweek. They knew that Tweek’s parents had been arrested, that the man was on antipsychotics as a result of what he’d been put through as a child. They knew Craig was openly and proudly gay, knew that he struggled with emotional expression more than anything. They’d seen a million pictures of Craig’s guinea pigs, they knew that Craig had chosen the name Comet because he’d wanted to be an astronaut and then an astrophysicist, but life just hadn’t quite worked out with that yet.

He knew them. He trusted them. Craig would throw himself in front of a blow for any one of them. But at the end of the day, the only person who Craig knew outside of hero work was Tweek. And honestly, Craig’s pretty sure that if he and Tweek hadn’t been dating and hero partners already by the time the Freedom Pals had been formed, then he wouldn’t know who Tweek was either.

Craig strips out of his hero costume, frowning, and moves to turn on the shower. He worked up a sweat today, and he wasn’t willing to get into a car smelling like this and trap himself with the scent. His costume goes straight into the specialized case for it. Craig doesn’t pretend to know how it works— it was a joint effort between Machinist and Armament to design. All Craig knows is that his costume goes in dirty, and it comes out clean, with none of the objects left in his pockets damaged in the slightest.

Once the shower’s warmed up, Craig steps into the warm spray, still thinking.

Craig didn’t know who any of his fellow heroes were, sure, but the same could be said for him. He’d kept his identity close to his chest, as had Tweek, and neither of them had really made any moves to change the status quo in any significant way. They still left the manor with their identities obscured. They called each other Comet and Wonder on patrol, and during meetings. Hell, they hadn’t even admitted that the two of them were romantically involved. No hand-holding, no stolen kisses in dark alleyways, none of that.

Craig knew some of his fellow heroes had their suspicions. He was pretty sure Techwarden knew, though she hadn’t said anything. Mosquito had given Craig more than one teasing glance and eyebrow wiggle when they’d been bumming around in the manor, trying to get to know one another. The Raccoon had once loudly called them fags, but he’s also called nearly everyone in the group who got to close to one another that, so there was definitely a question on how much he truly suspected there. But neither he nor Tweek had wanted to talk about their relationship yet. They just weren’t quite sure how to bring it up.

Tilting his head back into the spray of hot water, Craig allows himself to sigh. He doesn’t really have any room to be upset at the distance everyone was still keeping from one another, since he wasn’t exactly making any moves to do anything about it. He just didn’t want to be the first. There was something horrifically vulnerable to putting yourself out there like that, and all of Craig’s soul revolted at the idea of being that vulnerable.

… maybe that’s why everyone else was waiting. The sheer fact that no one wanted to be the first to admit their identity. It’s a weird thing to realize, and Craig crinkles his nose at the thought, turning off the shower as he does.

He steps out, grabs one of the towels that’s always provided for them— Craig’s not quite sure how they get in here, and for the sake of his sanity he doesn’t want to think any further on it— and aggressively towels himself off, unwilling to be anything close to damp once he tries to wrangle himself back into civilian clothes. There was nothing worse than damp skin against dry clothes, and Craig would stand by that opinion until the day he died.

His civilian clothes are nothing special, and they aren’t even an indication of his day-to-day sense of fashion. It’s just a hoodie and jeans, alongside a black medical mask. Nondescript, and easy to hide in long enough to leave the manor in without revealing his face. Craig slides into the clothes, groaning at the damp patch on the back of his neck he’d missed, and grabs his regular cellphone, sliding it into his back pocket. The untraceable one Techwarden had gifted him goes into his hoodie pocket, alongside his car keys, and he kneels down to pull on his everyday converse.

His costume stays in its case, untouched. He’s got three sets, one of which stays at his apartment in case of emergency, hanging next to Tweek’s own spare costume. The other two are kept here, as his everyday wear and his backup, in case his costume ever gets destroyed. It would be pretty difficult to do— these costumes have gotten more and more resilient with every iteration, and Comet hasn’t had to replace his in a year and a half now.

All set, Craig pulls his black hood over his head, slides the medical mask onto his face and over his nose, and steps out into the communal hall of the shower rooms, leaning against the wall to wait for Tweek. Tweek always takes a bit longer to get ready cleaned up than Craig, since he has to make sure that he doesn’t have any lingering electrical charge on his skin before starting up the shower. He blew a fuse the first (and only) time he forgot to discharge the remaining electricity, and had been mortified in the face of The Machinist’s laughter.

After a couple of minutes, Craig pulls out his regular phone, scrolling through his notifications in boredom. There’s a text from his mother, a couple of notifications from Doordash about specials he’s earned by purchasing absolutely nothing, a daily notification from some walking app Tweek had gotten him into years ago that he’d never deleted, and… literally nothing else. No further texts, no social media notifications, nothing.

It’s kind of depressing. Were his only remaining friends really his coworkers? He got along well with Mosquito, Fastpass, and Armament, did that make them friends?

Were his only friends really just his coworkers whose names he didn’t even know? Ugh. No. That’s too depressing to think about. Craig puts his phone back into his pocket right as Tweek exits, looking quite similar to him— plain navy blue hoodie, hood pulled over the head, facemask up. Most of the heroes here pulled similar looks when leaving the manor.

All the trust in the world on the battlefield, but none when it came to the vulnerability of their regular lives outside of hero work.

Craig resists the urge to grab Tweek’s hand, very aware of the cameras that can see them in this part of the manor. Instead, the two of them head out of the changing area side by side to cross the corridor and take the elevator down to the parking garage.

(Because of course this place has an underground parking garage. Why wouldn’t it? Fucking rich people.)

There’s only a few cars in the lot. An old truck that Craig knows belongs to Machinist— he must’ve been around in one of the labs and they just hadn’t seen him. A slick Prius that might be Techwarden’s. A Honda that’s falling apart at the seams, which might be Mysterion’s, but could also just be an old car project for either Machinist or Armament. Craig’s never seen it leave the lot. There’s a van parked in the corner that Craig’s pretty sure belongs to Doctor Timothy himself— it’s closest to the elevator and hasn’t ever left the spot. He’s pretty sure that the back is equipped to strap in the Doctor’s wheelchair, though that means someone else would have to drive the vehicle for him.

(Not for the first time, Craig wonders if the Doctor has any sort of hired help, or if he even needs any to get around.)

And then, of course, Craig’s own car. It’s a simple thing— just some secondhand Toyota that he got to take him and Tweek from place to place once he realized that Tweek hated his motorcycle. He’d gotten the windows tinted two years ago, and had done approximately nothing else with it. He couldn’t have named the year or model off the top of his head, but he didn’t care too much about cars in general. It took him from place to place, and that was all that mattered to Craig.

Oh, and Tweek felt safe in the passenger seat. That was pretty damn important too.

The moment they’re both inside and buckled in, Craig sighs, pushing the hood off of his head and pulling the mask from his face. Tweek follows suit, and the two of them just melt into the seats for a long moment, relishing the moment to relax as just Tweek and Craig rather than Wonderstruck and Comet. Then, Craig sits forward, turning on the car and putting it into reverse as Tweek reaches forward for his aux cord, casually connecting his own phone without asking.

Tweek waits until they’ve pulled out of the parking garage, waits until they’ve pulled out of the manor's main gate, until they’re already one street down and headed back into the city, before he reaches across the console to grab for Craig’s hand. Craig allows it, well practiced at driving one-handed by now, and lets his arm rest against the center console. Tweek’s music plays low as Tweek plays with his fingers. Craig makes no move to turn it up. He’s known Tweek his entire life, and knows that if Tweek hasn’t turned up the volume yet, it’s because he’s got something to say.

“You’re thinking,” Tweek finally says, still staring down at Craig’s fingers between his own. The topic catches him a little off guard. It’s rare for Craig to be in such a mood that Tweek comments on it, despite how well the other can read him these days. That’s just what happens when you’ve been dating someone since sixteen, he guesses. He can’t really hide anything from Tweek. Craig sighs through his nose, giving Tweek a glance through the corner of his eyes before focusing on the road again.

“Just… thinking about how little we actually know the rest of the team, I guess,” Craig admits, choosing his words carefully. “We know them in an objective sense, we know details and facts about their lives. I feel like I would call several of them friends. Hell, I kind of feel like I’d recognize them if we met outside the masks, you know? It’s just been on my mind.”

Tweek hums, nodding, but doesn’t say anything else. He just waits for Craig to continue, leaning on a familiarity born of knowing one another for years. Craig lets the silence linger for a moment longer, before he settles back further into his seat. He knows Tweek won't let it drop until he says what’s really on his mind. Well, he would, if Craig asked him to. But Craig hasn’t asked him to.

“I’ve been… thinking about revealing my identity, honestly,” he finally admits. It’s the first time he’s said it out loud in the months since the thought first popped into his head. It’s not something he’s thought of too seriously— he doesn’t have a plan in place or anything. But the thought comes and goes. He lets the words settle in the space, gives Tweek the space to confront and process the thought.

Tweek twitches, a motion that starts in his left shoulder and ends with the side of his face nearly smacking into the car’s window. Craig takes that to mean that Tweek is not quite as on-board with the plan as he is.

“You— ack! You want us to be the first two to reveal our identities?! Why? What if— what if the whole thing is just an elaborate setup to get the two of us to reveal ourselves and then we’ll get arrested and go to jail for unlawful power usage?!” Oh boy. Tweek’s grip has tightened on Craig’s hand to the point of being painful, and Craig carefully runs his thumb over the back of Tweek’s hand, hoping the motion will be soothing.

“Tweek, honey… I really doubt that’s the case. There’s much easier ways to arrest us, if that was the goal this whole time. We would’ve been caught ages ago,” Craig reasons, hoping quietly that logic will be enough this time. Tweek’s paranoia can be difficult to deal with. Some days, a firm statement can be enough to drag him back to reality. Other times, Craig has to work within the fear for much longer, and let Tweek work out the emotions on his own. He really hopes it’s the former. Trying to be an emotional rock while driving is a lot harder than Craig ever thought it might be.

Thankfully, Tweek forces himself to take a deep breath, rubbing his free hand over his face.

“Yeah, that’s… I know. Ugh. I know. I just— why do we have to be first? That’s way too much pressure,” Tweek says, sounding calmer this time. Craig pauses, then lets out a sigh through his nose.

“I hadn’t actually thought about the fact that you’d probably have to reveal yourself as well.” he admits, fingers tightening on the steering wheel. “I’d really been only thinking about myself. But you’re right in that we’d have to have a simultaneous identity reveal. All it would take is one deep dive into social media to put the pieces together. I mean, how likely is it that my very public blond boyfriend isn’t the same as my blond hero partner, you know?”

Tweek hums, and the conversation drops off for a minute as Craig turns onto their street, letting go of Tweek’s hand to fumble for the large fob that would allow them into their apartment’s parking garage. Tweek finds it first, pressing it into Craig’s palm as they turn in towards the garage.

Once they’re heading towards their parking spot, Craig speaks again.

“I won’t do anything if you’re not ready.” Tweek’s head turns, analyzing Craig’s expression from his side profile. “We’re a team, and that means that any decisions should be made jointly. I was just thinking… Well, someone has to be the first to reveal their identity to the rest. I feel like we’re all just waiting for someone to rip the bandaid off. But I’m not going to force you to reveal yourself, and it doesn’t have to be us first if you don’t want it to be. Alright?”

Craig puts the car in park, turning to look at Tweek as he does, offering him one of his rare smiles. Tweek looks pensive, then nods, breaking eye contact after a few moments.

“Alright,” he says, sounding softer than before. “I’ll think about it, and I’ll tell you when I’m ready. We do this together.”

Tweek pauses for a moment, and Craig takes the opportunity to gently detangle their hands and pull the keys out of the ignition. He hears more than sees Tweek shift in his seat to look up at Craig, seatbelt unbuckling. When Tweek puts a hand on his shoulder, though, Craig turns back to look at his boyfriend.

“I love you,” Tweek says, almost a breath. But he’s smiling up at Craig, tilting his head. Craig’s expression softens, and leans over to briefly close the gap between them.

“I love you too, honey,” he says, letting his tone drop to match Tweek’s, the words breathed over his boyfriend’s lips. Tweek grins, surges up to steal another kiss, and then pulls back to unbuckle and leave the car.

They leave the conversation there for quite some time. Craig doesn’t bring it back up in conversation, unwilling to pressure his partner, and Tweek is content to take his time with the decision. On some level, Craig thinks he’s still waiting for someone else to get the nerve to speak up first. Which is fine. Craig’s more willing to wait, now that he’s remembered it wouldn’t just be himself he was exposing.

That doesn’t mean he’s completely dropped it, though. He’ll prod, subtly, to see where Tweek’s head is at. During an all-hands meeting, Mysterion had asked if anyone else had anything they wished to discuss. Craig had turned then, just barely, to look over at Tweek. Tweek had met his gaze, tensed subtly when he understood what Craig was silently asking, then closed his eyes and shook his head. Craig had left it at that, simply nodding quietly and ignoring the suspicious glance Mysterion had tossed the two of them.

The decision to reveal their identities was entirely in Tweek’s hands. Or, at least, Craig had placed it there. That doesn’t always mean that the world allows for every decision to stay directly in the hands you place them in.

Less than a month later, Tweek and Craig are both awoken at nearly one in the morning by a frantic chiming of their respective burners. Tweek’s up and out of bed first, always the lighter sleeper of the two of them, rolling onto his feet in a near frantic motion and picking up the phone— which immediately begins a call the moment he touches it.

“Techwarden?” He squeaks out, startled, even as he fumbles to put the call on speaker. “What’s going—?!”

“No time!” Techwarden says, frantic. “I need you and Comet to get to the corner of Broadway and Colfax as soon as possible.”

Craig stands at that, rolling out of bed quietly and pulling open their closet, digging into the back for the garment bag that held both of their spare costumes. He pulls the bag out, tearing it open and tossing the hanger with Tweek’s clothes onto the end of the bed. Techwarden keeps speaking as he moves.

“We’ve got a villain duo heading towards the capitol building, and it’s quickly expanding to an all-hands issue. One’s a Striker, possibly a Blaster? The other is a Shaker. I’ll give you a better rundown when you’re on the way. I’m presuming you know where Comet is? He hasn’t picked up yet.”

Craig’s already pulling on his cargo pants when Techwarden says that. He and Tweek make eye contact, stifling grins, before they snap back into focus. Craig grabs two pairs of socks from a basket in the closet, tossing one to Tweek and unfolding the other to put on himself. Tweek ignores the socks, placing his burner onto the bedside table and wrestling his sweater off of the hanger and onto his head, not even bothering to take off the tank top he’d slept in as he does.

“Yeah, don’t worry, I can pick up Comet. I’m sure he’s getting dressed first and foremost— he’s the sort to just assume something’s wrong when you call, you know?” Tweek says once his head’s clear. It’s mostly the truth— in fact, the only untruthful thing about it is the idea that he needs to go get Craig. Even if they’d been in separate apartment buildings, Craig would have started getting dressed before he even thought to pick up the call from Techwarden. Techwarden sighs, sounding frustrated, but accepts that answer.

“I swear one of these days his action-first attitude is going to get someone hurt. Ping me on the comms once you two are on the way,” she says, then the line goes dead. Craig’s phone stops pinging at the same moment, and they rush through the rest of getting dressed.

Craig opens their bedroom window as Tweek’s still tying his laces on their spare combat boots, peering out to try and catch sight of whatever’s happening near the capitol building. He can see sparks of light, far brighter than anything should be in that direction right now, and he worries his lip between his teeth at the sight. It’s been a long time since they’ve had an all-hands battle. Especially with only two villains. It’s rare to see someone that powerful.

Tweek joins him at the window a moment later, and the two of them climb out and onto the fire escape. Craig shuts the window behind them, and Tweek adds a layer of ice to the seal to keep it closed, just in case. It’s not like they can lock it from the outside. Then, they’re off. Craig steps up onto the railing of the fire escape, pulling himself up and onto the next level until he makes it to their building's roof. Tweek follows, floating up through a blast of carefully controlled storm winds.

His control of wind has always been tentative at best, given his powers are mostly weather-focused. Tweek can float, sure, but actual flight is a bit beyond his capabilities. It’s why he doesn’t officially have the Mover designation. It’s also why he joins Craig on the roof, the two of them sprinting across to jump to the next rooftop, heading towards downtown.

As they run, Craig taps his comm, and Techwarden immediately crackles to life in both of their earpieces.

“What’re we lookin’ at, Tech?” Craig asks, keeping his breathing steady as they sprint towards Broadway.

“Our biggest threat is the Shaker,” Tech starts, speaking quickly. “It looks like she’s got some sort of natural disaster manipulation. Currently, she’s surrounded by a tornado. Wonderstruck, we’re hoping you might be able to try and counter her. Kite and Mosquito can’t get close, so we’re switching tactics to our ranged fighters. Armament is setting up some turrets closer to the capitol in hopes of shooting her down, while Kite is running distraction tactics. Mosquito is keeping an eye out for civilians.”

“Got it,” Tweek responds, breathless, as they hop over another gap. Craig can hear the tornado now, though it’s much quieter than he thinks it rightfully should be. Possibly due to being man-made. It’s smaller than a true natural disaster.

“Next we’ve got the Striker. We can’t figure out what his deal is. We only know he’s a Striker because he’s not able to tank any hits. We’ve got Sugar Rush and Mysterion on him right now, with Machinist and Raccoon providing support when they can get in close. The bigger issue is his potential Blaster status. Mysterion says he saw the guy shoot off some kind of energy beam, but he hasn’t done that since. I’m working on it with the Doctor. Comet, you’re taking point once Sugar Rush flags. He’s been at this for an hour now, and he can’t take much more without a breather.”

“Understood,” Craig bites out, hitting the roof below him hard, and dragging up Tweek when his partner fumbles the landing. There’s debris here— broken glass and cracked concrete. They’re getting close. “We're less than three minutes out, coming in from the east. Are they headed towards Colfax and Broadway still, or will they beat us there?”

“You’ll be hitting the intersection at about the same moment, if both of you keep pace. Good luck, you two. I need to check in with Armament,” Techwarden says, then lets the comm go dead. Tweek and Craig don’t speak as they approach, purely focused on moving. As they start to approach the area around the capitol building, the gaps between buildings grow wider, and Craig wordlessly holds out his hand. Tweek takes it, trusting and knowing, and Craig launches them both over the gap. Halfway across, Tweek gives them a bit more lift with a gust of wind, and Craig gathers Tweek into his arms to stick the landing, letting his far more durable body take the heavy hit.

They detangle, standing up and making their way over to the edge of the building, looking over the capitol building quietly. It’s starting to get loud, the wind whipping around them and picking up with every passing moment. The two exchange a glance, then turn to the north, watching as the destruction heads their way. Sure enough, a miniature tornado is tearing its way down Broadway, shattering windows of every business it passes by and tossing debris through the air.

If he squints, Craig can just barely make out the sight of what looks like a person in the center of the storm. But only just. He can see Kite’s lasers— what must’ve been lighting up the sky before— but he can’t catch any sight of the hero just yet. He can, however, catch the barest sight of Mosquito, though it seems the hero can’t get close enough to do anything just yet. He can fly, sure, but he keeps getting tossed around whenever he tries to get close. Instead, he watches as the hero drops down to street level, snatching up a civilian into his arms and flying him further out, away from the destruction.

Craig hums, letting his gaze drop down to street level. For a moment, he can’t see anything. Then, there’s a flicker of shadow, and he spots Mysterion barrelling out of the darkness, still half engulfed for a long moment. Craig follows the motion, and finally catches sight of his own enemy. He certainly looks like a supervillain, with a shoddily made costume. It kind of… looks like the villain took inspiration from Craig’s own costume? Though it could just be a coincidence— Craig had prioritized function over form. It would be easy to get a similar outfit. It’s still uncanny— compression gear top, cargo pants, combat boots, and a dark face mask, though his mask has some kind of design in white on the front. Lame. All he’s missing is the chullo Craig refused to part with when designing his official costume.

This villain looks like a knock-off of Craig. Same outfit, but brighter colors. Simple, practical, but eye-catching. For whatever reason, that pisses him off a bit. So Craig reaches over, squeezes Tweek’s shoulder once to wish him luck, then pulls himself onto the edge of the roof. Behind him, he feels a rush of air as Tweek rises into the air, steadying himself and preparing to strike Tornado-Lady, lightning crackling in the air around them.

Craig doesn’t look back. He keeps his eyes on this knock-off of him, braces, and then leaps out towards the street. He feels Tweek’s storm winds shoving him a bit further, giving him more space to properly clear the gap and land in the road.

Craig has never really wanted to fly. He knows his limitations, knows what he’s capable of. And Craig’s pretty sure that if he were able to fly instead of endure damage like this, he’d be afraid of falling. As is, he’s in freefall from nearly nine stories up, and he doesn’t have even a flicker of fear. No, he’s just keeping an eye on the Striker.

Craig lands, hard, less than a foot in front of the Striker, who doesn’t have enough time to react to the sight of a hero landing before him. The villain stumbles, trying to stop from his dead sprint, and Craig catches him by the face.

Gently, Craig reminds himself. He’s not a Brute.

With that thought in mind, Craig shoves him into the concrete a bit gentler than he might have done if he was able to go all out. The villain chokes out a pained cry, but stays down for a moment, and Craig lets himself examine the situation on the ground.

Mysterion has slid into the shadows again, though Craig can hear an amused laugh from somewhere to his left. Sugar Rush is flagging, breathing heavy, his jaw tight with exertion. They make eye contact, briefly, and Craig waves him off to take a breather. Sugar Rush packs a harder punch than Craig, can perform greater feats of strength, but he’s got a hard limit on how long he can go before he starts getting really sick. Extended battles are definitely more Craig’s scene than his.

He can’t see The Raccoon anywhere, though he’s not stupid enough to believe that the attention-seeking hero is missing. He’s just much less of a front-line fighter than his physique might imply, both due to his cowardice and his low defensive capabilities. The Machinist is at a distance, readying one of his custom tools, trying to control the field of battle as best he can. They need to hold these villains here, if at all possible. There’s no time for witty banter, not time for talking.

Craig hears more than sees the knock-off villain move, and he can’t quite get out of the way of a punch to the chin. It hurts more than he expects, all the power in the motion seeming to be pushed through his fist. Craig grunts in pain, stumbles back, then gets another step back. He needs to keep this guy's attention on him. Of the four heroes still down on the ground, Craig is the only Brute.

He’s the only one who can take these hits without breaking his fucking jaw. So Craig grits his teeth, rolls his neck, and raises his fists. He just needs to keep this guy's eyes on him. Above him, there’s a crack of thunder, and the tornado slows down, the wind seeming to stutter.

Seems Tweek got a good shot in. Craig grins, then swings at the knock-off.

For a long few minutes, the two exchange blows. Craig hisses with each connection— he hits damn hard, hard enough for even Craig to bruise. Despite the heavy blows, Craig holds himself back enough to not accidentally kill this guy, and makes sure to keep half his mind on the rest of the battle. The tornado stalls and slows, swirling ominously in place as the woman tries to blow Tweek down to the ground. Kite and Mosquito are playing support now, each of them diving in to keep Tweek in the air as best they can. Diving down to drag him up and out of a downwind, catching him if he fumbles, the works.

Mysterion dives in and out, landing heavy blows whenever the villain has his back turned, then diving back into the shadows before a returning swing could be launched. Machinist does his best to control the area, using his tools to block off any potential paths the Striker could take, occasionally getting a hit in when the moment presents itself.

Craig still hasn’t spotted the Raccoon. He’s genuinely starting to believe the hero might have fucking bailed on them, which wouldn’t surprise him in the least.

Then, abruptly, something seems to shift. The knock-off stops swinging back, and instead just starts enduring Craig and Mysterion’s blows. He’s blocking them as best he can, sure, but he doesn’t make any effort to return fire. After a consistent back and forth like this, it’s odd that he’d stop fighting back. Something’s wrong. Something about this entire situation isn’t right, and Craig can’t figure out what it could be. He hops back a couple of steps, keeping his fists close, and frowns.

The villain grins, and raises his hands. There’s a spark in the center of the man’s palm, small but there, and Craig all too late remembers what Techwarden had mentioned. Mysterion had seen him fire off a beam of energy, somehow. A potential Blaster classification. Craig doesn’t know how durable he’ll be against that, and he raises his arms up to block the blow as soon as possible.

The villain raises his palm, and the angle is all wrong. It’s too high. At that angle it would go right over Craig’s head and miss. Is he aiming at the capitol building?

But, no. Craig looks behind the villain and he can see the capitol building rising bright and white behind him. They’ve circled one another over the course of the battle. The capitol isn’t behind Craig now. The tornado is. Kite and Mosquito are.

Tweek is behind him.

Craig needs to say something. Anything. But the words don’t come fast enough. The villain’s hands spark, and Craig turns, frantic. Kite is focused on the weather woman. Mosquito is preparing to dive in. Tweek has his back turned, hands raised, a storm of hail around him.

All Craig can do is watch as a shot of pure energy, sparking and bright and strange, darts across the sky in less than a second and blasts through Tweek’s side. Tweek doesn’t make a sound, not one that Craig can hear. The ice drops down to the ground, and after a breathless moment, Tweek starts to drop as well.

“Tw—!” Craig bites back the sound that almost escapes him, chokes on it. He can’t say his name, not here, not now. He forces the sound to become something else.

“Wonder!” he screams out, and he’s turning on his heel to try to catch his lover, his partner, his Tweek as the other drops out of the sky like a rock. His shout catches the attention of The Human Kite, who turns and immediately darts out of the sky to catch Tweek, bringing them both down gently, the wind already swirling around the two of them as Kite frantically starts healing Tweek.

Craig’s too far. He’s too fucking far and he can’t help.

There’s a blur of yellow, and then both Kite and Tweek are gone, rushed past and towards the capitol building. There’s a refreshing feeling left behind, some of Craig’s bruises aching less in the wake of Fastpass’s only form of frantic healing. Craig didn’t even know Fastpass was here. He turns, dizzy, panicking, back towards the capitol building. And then all he can see is the villain before him, cackling madly.

Craig had never hated another human being as much as he does at this moment. His gaze tunnels in on the Striker, blood rushing in his ears. He can’t remember the last time he felt this kind of cold fury. He wants to kill this man. He wants to fucking kill this man.

He takes a step forward to do just that, when a hand slams onto his shoulder. Then, there’s nothing but shadow, darkness, and cold. A second that lasts for minutes, hours. A movement through a space he was never intended to enter. When he can see again, he’s in an alleyway, shoved against a wall, Mysterion in front of him.

“Pull yourself together, Comet,” the man growls, gripping Craig’s shoulders. “Don’t you dare fucking kill him. Breathe, and pull yourself together. Wonderstruck will be okay, but the rest of us won’t if you don’t fucking pull youself together. Do not fuck us over right now.”

For a long moment, Craig can’t. He can’t breathe, can’t focus. All he can think about is the sight of Tweek just fucking dropping, the way he hadn’t even screamed. How he’d just gone limp in midair. His hands are curled into tight fists, shaking. Mysterion’s grip tightens on Craig’s shoulders, and he presses forward, shoving their foreheads together.

There's nothing intimate about the motion, nothing comforting like it is when Tweek does it. It almost hurts, skulls cracking together clumsily, but it forces Craig to look into Mysterion’s eyes. The look on Mysterion’s face is pure focus, his cowl pulled down to allow Craig to see his expression. The grit of his teeth, the tightness of his jaw, the fury in his eyes.

“Death is too fucking good for the bastard,” Mysterion hisses, and that gets Craig’s attention. “Make him suffer and rot, but do not give him the fucking mercy of death. Stay fucking focused, Comet.”

Craig breathes in slowly, and holds it for a moment. He cannot be Craig right now. He can’t be Craig, who is desperately in love and who is a slave to his fury and who wants to kill. Careful, Comet breathes out, then nods, focused.

“Right. Got it.” Mysterion examines Comet’s expression a moment longer, then nods and drags them both through the shadows again, dropping off Comet directly behind the villain, who’s dodging a combined attack from The Machinist and The Raccoon (finally fucking showing his face.) Comet darts forward as Raccoon falls back, raising his palms and smacking the flats of his palms hard over the man's ears. The hit is effective, and the villain stumbles, disoriented for a moment. Then, Comet pauses, thinking over what he’s seen of the man’s fighting style thus far.

He hits back just as hard as he gets hit, then stops hitting back and can shoot off a blast of pure energy. All at once, it clicks, and Comet hates how long it’s taken him to put the pieces together. He darts forward before the villain can reorient himself, tapping his comm link as he does. As it crackles to life, Techwarden turning on his microphone, Comet wraps one arm around the villain’s throat, pulling him into a chokehold.

“The striker works with kinetic and potential energy,” he spits out, tightening his grip as the villain grabs at his arm. “Or something like that. He takes damage from getting hit, stores that energy in his body, and can release it, either immediately or by storing it up. It lets him hit harder, and lets him do those fucking energy beams.”

He takes a heavy breath, and realizes that no one’s reported the way the tide of battle has shifted for the worst.

“Wonderstruck is— is down,” he forces out. “Kite is out to heal him at the moment. We need to shift gears to deal with the Shaker. I can handle the Striker for now.”

He ignores whatever Techwarden says in response, focusing his energy on getting this guy just down. The villain is pounding on Comet’s arm, frantically trying to get Comet off of him. But Comet isn’t letting go. He’s not going to hit him, not going to offer him anything other than the arm across his throat. Comet isn’t really trying to choke him out. It’s much harder to do in real life than movies and books make it seem, and beyond that it carries a very real risk of permanent brain damage if one isn’t careful.

Comet can’t really trust himself to be careful with this man’s life right now. So instead he’s just trying to keep the man still, disarm him by refusing to hit him again.

Over his head, there’s the sound of turret fire. In all the excitement, Comet had forgotten about Armament. He doesn’t care, just focuses on the villain in his arms. He follows the man down as he tries to drop to escape Comet’s grip. One of his legs wraps around to pin the man's own leg down to the ground. Still, the villain is pounding at Comet’s arm, breathing shallow through the pressure on his throat. Still, Comet doesn’t care.

Wonderstruck is suffering. He’s fucking dying, because of this man. Comet has no mercy left in his body.

He doesn’t move until Armament approaches the two of them, a pair of power-suppressant cuffs in his grip. Armament’s powers have no real combat applications, and power-suppressants won’t stop his machines from working, so he’s the only one of the heroes to feel safe carrying them. Together, Armament and Comet wrestle the Striker to the ground, get the cuffs around his wrists, and then ziptie his ankles together for good measure.

Comet stands, shaking, and looks out over the street in front of him. The female villain is already cuffed, sitting on a curb with The Machinist on one side and Mosquito on the other. Mysterion is standing to the side, keeping an eye on the villain Comet had taken down. All of them are tense, but none of them are ready to jump back into a fight. It’s over, for now, and Comet has nothing to do right here. Comet takes a shaking breath, then turns on a heel, darting towards the capitol green, searching frantically for any sign of his lover.

They aren’t far, close enough to be in eyeshot of the battle. Keeping him that close meant it was bad, meant there was no time to get somewhere safer. Comet’s breath catches, and Craig sprints for the small group of heroes. He doesn’t care, can’t bring himself to care about who’s around. He crashes to his knees by Tweek’s head, leaning over the other, and takes in the sight of the other’s face. His eyes are open, but his gaze seems unfocused, jaw tight with pain, and the sight nearly ruins Craig.

“Tweek,” he gasps out, and he forces himself to swallow a relieved sob as Tweek’s eyes snap to his. Craig ignores the sharp inhale from Fastpass above them and ignores the way Kite’s head snaps up for a moment before he forces himself to focus back on his task. He only has eyes for Tweek. He’s awake, he’s coherent. He’s not fucking dead. There’s blood soaked into the fabric of his sweater and covering Kite’s hands and pooling on the ground around them, but Tweek’s still alive.

Tweek blinks, slow, then reaches one hand up for Craig. Craig takes his hand, holds it tight, and leans just the slightest bit closer.

“Craig,” Tweek croaks out, and it’s painful to hear. The way his voice cracks on the word, the way his breath hitches, the relief in his tone. It’s all painful, and it sounds like it hurts to speak, so Craig immediately shushes him, dragging his facemask down over his chin. He doesn’t care about his anonymity, he can’t make himself care about anything but the man laying on the ground before him.

“Tweek, baby, shush, it’s okay. You’re gonna be okay. Kite’s got you, I’ve got you, we won, and you’re going to be okay. You’ve gotta be okay, baby. I’m right here,” he murmurs, ignoring the two heroes around them still. The only thing that exists to Craig at this moment is Tweek. Tweek, who’s blinking slow, who’s staring up at Craig like he’s trying to memorize the other’s face. Tweek, who’s clinging to Craig’s hand so tightly it hurts. Craig keeps whispering to him, trying to keep Tweek’s focus on him instead of on the pain he’s in.

Craig doesn’t look up when other heroes start to approach after the cops and cleanup crew have arrived. None of it matters, except for Tweek. He doesn’t stop murmuring, doesn’t stop whispering to Tweek. He doesn’t let go of the other’s hand, just holds tighter as the pained pinch in Tweek’s brow starts to lessen. He doesn’t even notice the way the other heroes glance at one another as they catch snippets of what he’s saying, as they hear Craig tell Tweek I love you between reassurances.

All he cares about is Tweek. He cares about keeping Tweek’s eyes on him, cares about keeping his lover awake. He just murmurs, whispers, keeps a constant stream of words for Tweek to focus on. He runs a hand through static-shocked hair anytime Tweek starts to drift, dragging him back to reality.

“Come on baby, stay with me, can’t rest until Kite says it’s okay. You know that, honey, you know that. You’ve done the same for me, kept me awake and aware in the worst. You can do this, you can stay with me, Tweek, it’s okay, stay awake for me, stay up for me,” he murmurs, gripping Tweek’s hand tighter when the other starts to go limp.

Craig loses track of time, stops paying attention to how long they’ve been there, when a car pulls up beside them. It’s a van— Doctor Timothy’s van. The empty space in the back is designed to hold the Doctor’s wheelchair, but it’ll do as an emergency healing space for now. Craig looks up as the van settles into park, pulls his mask back over his face like he’s just remembered it exists. He doesn’t have to guess to know it’s Techwarden driving, and he straightens up immediately.

Sure enough, the driver's side door opens, Techwarden showing up in the flesh for the first time… ever, as far as Craig’s aware. He’s hardly ever seen her. He knows, objectively, that she used to be a frontline fighter. But she’d pulled back once the Freedom Pals had been formed, most likely because she was still pursuing a doctorate, if he remembers correctly. Easier to keep up a school schedule if you didn’t have to deal with patrols.

(She was also damn useful as their man in the chair.)

It’s strange to see her here, but Craig can’t even bring himself to care. She’s here, which means they can get Tweek somewhere safer, somewhere that Kite can heal him better. Immediately, she’s directing people, even as Craig starts getting into position to lift Tweek into the back.

“I can only fit so many people into this van,” Techwarden starts, crossing her arms. “Machinist, I want you with us. You’re familiar with the infirmary machinery, you can help Kite with anything he needs once we get back to base. Obviously Wonderstruck and Kite will be riding in the back, and I doubt I could convince Comet to make his own way back. I can fit maybe two more in the van. Who’s it gonna be?”

Craig’s barely even listening. Sugar Rush has stepped in on Tweek’s other side, with Kite moving just barely out of the way to make room for him. As one, they carefully move to lift Tweek, trying to keep him steady. Craig has his left, Sugar Rush has his right, with Kite staying next to Sugar Rush, keeping his focus on healing the slowly-closing hole in Tweek’s side.

The conversation around him feels like he’s listening from behind his own heartbeat.

“You know that t-t-travel is no p-p-p— issue for me, Tech. I’ll m-m-meet you guys there.”

A gust of wind. Craig focuses on careful steps, making sure that he and Sugar Rush move at the same speed.

“I’ve got my ways. It’s dark out, and moving through the shadows is much faster than walking. I’ll make my own way.”

Someone opens the back for them, and Craig barely has the presence of mind to nod in appreciation. Sugar Rush starts dictating his moves, letting Craig move with him.

“I have a drone that can fly me back. Mosquito, you want to keep me company as we go? Air travel’s pretty quick.”

Craig and Sugar Rush carefully lay Tweek down in the back of the van, and Sugar Rush immediately lets Kite shuffle over him in order to get back into position to heal.

“I— it’s— okay. I’m… I’m worried about Comet and Wonderstruck, but I’m probably not the best to be in an enclosed space with Wonder right now. So that leaves Sugar Rush and the Raccoon riding back with you, then?”

Craig leans over Tweek once more, brushing his partner’s hair back. Tweek’s eyes slide back to Craig’s, and he breathes out a sigh of relief. Tweek’s still awake, still present. They’re still alright.

“Seems that way. Alright, Raccoon, you’re up front with me. Sugar Rush, Machinist, you two hop into the back with the other three. We’ll meet back at base, alright? We should have a meeting once Wonderstruck is stable.”

Craig doesn’t even react as the doors close and the van starts up again. Just grasps Tweek's hand again, leaning over his partner once more. The words start up again, steady and smooth despite himself. Just speaking, filling the silence to give Tweek something to focus on. He ignores the way the others in the truck look away, trying respectfully not to listen. Craig doesn’t care.

He doesn’t care about anything except Tweek surviving this.

The drive passes in a blur, and Craig only realizes they’ve arrived when Sugar Rush takes his place opposite Tweek and speaks.

“Comet. Focus. We’ve gotta get him to the infirmary.” Craig blinks, processing, then reluctantly releases Tweek’s hand in order to help Sugar Rush lift Tweek once more. The move as one, slowly gaining speed as they grow more confident carrying Tweek down the halls. Kite hasn’t let up on the healing even once, though he’s starting to go an alarming shade of white, from what Craig had seen in his brief glance over at the healer. They bustle into the infirmary, settle Tweek onto a bed, and from there things finally start to move a bit faster.

Kite finally managed to close most of the wound. Not all of it, but enough that it’s no longer fatal. He would’ve kept going, but The Machinist had finally put his foot down and stopped the other. Any more healing and Kite would be joining Tweek on one of these infirmary beds, and then they’d really be fucked. All Craig really registers from the conversation is that Tweek’s out of the woods now. Machinist helps Kite set Tweek up with an IV, and helps him bandage the rest of the wound. Craig sits at Tweek’s bedside the whole time, just holding onto his boyfriend’s hand like it’s his last lifeline.

He doesn’t register that they’ve been left alone until Kite pats him on the shoulder, smiling but exhausted. It’s the first time Craig’s looked one of his fellow heroes in the eyes since he found his way to Tweek's side.

“We’re having a meeting in the main hall. Come out once you’ve put yourself together a bit, alright? I think you two could use a moment. Tech’s gonna keep an eye on Wonder through the cameras in here once you join us. Take your time,” Kite says, voice gentle, exhaustion only evident in the undertones of his words. Craig watches, silent, until the door to the infirmary slides closed. Then, he turns back to Tweek, smiling thinly.

“... how are you feeling, honey?” he asks, hesitant. Tweek manages a weak smile, completely drained of energy.

“I’m fucking exhausted,” he admits, voice tired and rough. “I wanna sleep soon, Craig. But they’ve got me on the good pain meds, so I’m not hurting anymore. That’s good, right?”

Craig smiles down at him, a small thing, barely able to muster it. He rubs over the back of Tweek’s hand, a soothing motion, and tries to find the words to say. Now that he’s no longer terrified of what will happen to Tweek, the reality of the past hour or so catches up to him. He’d revealed Tweek’s name. Tweek had revealed Craig’s. Beyond that, Craig had made it damn obvious that they were in love, though whether the others had thought it a frantic deathbed confession or a confirmation of their relationship status wasn’t very clear to Craig.

Shit, he’s pretty sure Kite saw his face. Craig kind of fucked this whole reveal your identity when you’re ready thing.

“That is good,” he finally says, choosing his words carefully, “and you can sleep soon, I promise. I just gotta check something with you.” Tweek nods in response, his movements slow, and Craig already knows that Tweek’s figured out what he means.

“We exposed ourselves, didn’t we?” Tweek murmurs, still just sounding tired. Craig nods slowly.

“I’m sure if we asked them to, they’d pretend they didn’t know, but… well, someone had to reveal their identity first, right? This isn’t ideal, but… would you be alright with it? If I just… took the plunge?”

Tweek’s quiet for a long time. Long enough that Craig’s afraid he’s fallen asleep already. Then, he sighs, smiling weakly.

“It’s not how I wanted to do it,” Tweek admits, turning his gaze to meet Craig’s eyes, “but I never would have been ready to just say it myself. This is… probably better. Go on ahead, Craig. They already know, and there’s no point in pretending otherwise.”

Craig nods, then stands slowly, squeezing Tweeks hand before letting it go. He leans forward, brushes Tweek’s hair away from his face, then presses a kiss to his forehead. Tweek makes a happy little noise, and Craig leans back again, letting the hand in Tweek’s hair linger for a moment longer.

“Rest, honey. I’ll be back once the meeting is over. I’m not planning to leave your side again until Kite says you can go home.” Craig lifts his hand, finally, and then turns to leave the infirmary, turning the lights down low as he leaves. He turns left, making his way down the corridors towards the main hall. It’s almost terrifying. Almost invigorating. He knows they all know a bit, but it’ll be different the moment Craig confirms that they’re allowed to know. Once he reveals even more than just their names.

He stops for a moment outside the doors, just listening. Already he can hear hushed voices, hissing to one another in an attempt to keep him from eavesdropping. Unfortunate, considering that was exactly what Craig was trying to do. He takes a slow breath, then presses his hands to the door, pushing it open.

The room goes dead silent as Craig steps inside, every eye on him as he strides forward. He knows what’s on everyone’s mind, what’s on the tips of their tongues, and he kind of can’t stand the tension. Craig takes his regular seat, shifting uncomfortably at the presence of the empty chair beside him, and waits.

And waits.

And finally, after a solid two minutes of silence, he sighs, shifting back in his seat. He lets his gaze sweep over the gathered heroes, raising a slow eyebrow as he does.

“So do we want to talk about the fight and what we can do better next time, or are you all waiting to address the elephant in the room,” he asks, voice flat, unamused. The room seems to jolt into motion again, heroes shifting uncomfortably in their seats. The Raccoon leans forward, a grin spreading across his face as he watches and waits, looking entertained beyond belief. Armament looks to Fastpass, who seems focused on the ceiling. Kite shifts in his seat, but just tilts his head curiously. The Machinist looks down, fiddling with the iPad that Techwarden is using to sit in on the meeting with, the woman herself having slipped into the digital space to split her focus between the meeting and keeping an eye on Tweek. Mosquito keeps glancing between Craig, the empty seat next to him, and then to Doctor Timothy, who looks tired but alert, staring at Craig with kind eyes.

Finally, Mysterion stands, clearing his throat. The room, as one, snaps to attention.

“We should probably address the elephant in the room, then, since none of us seem able to focus,” he starts, casting a quick glance around the room. His eyes land on Craig last, but they don’t stay there long, dropping back down to the table.

The energy is uncomfortable. That’s what Craig realizes as the silence lingers for a minute too long. The other Freedom Pals are uncomfortable. They feel like they’ve gotten a glance at something they shouldn’t have, and there’s a pervasive sense of guilt among most of them. It’s more than a little surprising, though Craig imagines he’d feel similarly if one of the others had let their identity slip in such a stressful moment..

“We understand that tonight was… stressful for you,” Mysterion starts, clearly trying to pick his words carefully. “You were not acting in your right mind for much of it, and you may have done things without… thinking through them fully.”

Craig crosses his arms, raising a single eyebrow. He can see where this is going, a practiced neutral statement. There’s a part of him that wants to interrupt, that wants to tell them all of this is unnecessary, but a greater part of him is simply curious to see where Mysterion is going with this.

“We have discussed it, and we’re willing to completely ignore and forget about it if you so desire,” Mysterion says, voice calm and confident. The Raccoon makes a protesting noise, sitting forward, and Mysterion raises a hand, levelling a sharp glare at the larger hero.

“In fact,” Mysterion hisses, tone sharp and brokering no argument, “we’d be willing to have the Doctor attempt to put a block on our memories, if it comes down to it. We’re not certain if it’s within his ability, but the fact remains that we would rather try that if you want us to.”

Craig doesn’t respond immediately, just blinking over at Mysterion with pure bewilderment. Mysterion finally meets his gaze, and Craig’s shocked to see a level of apology in his eyes. A glance around the room shows that most of the others around him bear similar expressions on their faces. They feel guilty that Craig and Tweek were exposed in a moment of weakness, that their ability to reveal their identities was taken from them so abruptly.

It’s kind of heartwarming. But it proves, to Craig at least, all the more why they need to let this happen. They already trust each other. They would go to extreme lengths to keep that trust unbroken, even allowing themselves to be subjected to memory alteration, if possible. In Craig’s opinion, there’s no real reason for him not to trust the others with both his and Tweek’s identities. So he huffs out a laugh, shaking his head incredulously.

“That’s nice of you to offer,” Craig starts, sitting up properly now and letting his hands drift down to the table. “I’ve known for a while now that each and every one of you were trustworthy, and this just proves that fact. I really do appreciate what you’re trying to do here, and I know Wonder will as well.”

The room stays silent as Craig searches for his words, searches for his nerve. They already know, so why are his palms so sweaty? It’s that same vulnerability, that wall that none of them had been able to break down just yet. The same reason why it’s taken three years for Craig to even consider getting to this point. He takes a slow, steadying breath, and forces himself to continue.

“It’s a very kind offer, but I don’t think I’ll take you up on it,” Craig finally says, letting his gaze drift across the room again, watching in real time as his teammates' expressions shift to surprise and shock. “If I’m being honest, I’ve been considering taking this step for months— myself and Wonderstruck both, really. Tonight wasn’t ideal, and I never would have chosen to do it like this, but at the very least it takes some of the stress of that decision off of our shoulders.”

Again, Craig hesitates. He knows the others can understand what he’s getting at, but it’s still stressful.

“We never were going to have the guts to do it on our own, so I’ve spoken with Wonderstruck, and he’s agreed to let me do this,” Craig finally says, rambling now to try and force himself to just rip the bandaid off. Just do it. Slowly, hands steadier than he feels, Craig reaches up to his face. He pauses for just a moment too long, then continues.

In a single smooth motion, Craig pulls off his mask, letting it rest gently on the table before him. He pauses, considering, then reaches up and pushes his hat up and off of his head, letting his dark hair fall free. He reaches up, running his fingers through his hair, trying to pull it into something resembling orderly as he rests his hat on the table next to his mask. He takes a breath, then lets his gaze drift around the room, taking in the reactions around him.

Kite is smiling, tired but proud. The Machinist just looks stunned, eyes wide, taking in every detail of Craig’s face. Sugar Rush is smiling, Fastpass is grinning, Armament looks proud. He can hear Mosquito whisper a ‘holy shit’. The Raccoon looks actually a bit put out, like he was hoping Craig would be uncomfortable so he could rag on him for it. He can’t see Techwarden’s expression, given she’s only present as a voice on an iPad, but he’s pretty sure she was aware this was coming ever since his conversation with Tweek in the infirmary. Mysterion almost looks scared.

Doctor Timothy meets his eyes and smiles widely, nodding in approval.

The silence hangs over the group for a minute longer, just processing the fact that Craig is sitting among them, unmasked and uncaring of that fact. Willingly exposing himself to their scrutiny. When the silence stretches for a moment too long, Craig takes the opportunity to continue.

“One of us had to be the first to take the plunge and be honest, but I figured no one would want to be the first. That’s why I’ve been already considering revealing myself for months,” Craig says, shrugging. Then, he grins, a wry expression.

“My name is Craig Tucker,” he says, confident. “I’m twenty-four years old, and I’m dating Tweek Tweak, better known as Wonderstruck. We’ve been together since we were sixteen, and he’s my greatest weakness and my greatest strength. I don’t want this to feel like I’m pressuring anyone else to demask, I just wanted to get the ball rolling on this. We all obviously trust one another, so I don’t see why we can’t trust one another with this.”

Craig looks around the room once more, then leans back in his seat again, crossing his arms and letting his expression slide back into something more neutral.

“Any questions? Or can we move on?” He asks, just to be an asshole. There’s a moment of silence, and then three people start talking at once. Craig can’t help but snort in amusement, tilting his head back as a lighthearted argument breaks out over who gets to speak first. But it feels good, feels natural.

This should be a step in the right direction for all of them.