The air temperature dips as the last of the sunlight descends underneath the waves breaking apart a linear horizon. Thin, long clouds a few shades grayer from the purple-black sky float across the sky at a slow pace, their shapes infrequently changing as they collude with the gibbous moon. In this part of the city, the stars are invisible, but Tommy imagines they are twinkling happily several million miles away from the atmosphere that protects him and the weather patterns that grace the island.

Tommy sits on the rooftop of Madeleine's boutique. He swings his legs over the side, thumping his heels against the top of the window frame. His sketchbook, the one he uses for superhuman costumes, is open in his lap. There is a dull pencil in the margin next to a small, pink eraser shaped like a rhombus. A sharper pencil rests easily in his hands as he scribbles different designs all across the page, searching for what hits the quota of being cool enough and practical enough at the same time. An open box of sharpened pencils slid next to his thigh, almost falling off the building onto the ground below. Not the first time it has happened in his life, but certainly the first time in a little while since Tommy has gotten better at protecting his belongings.

Tommy's communicator sits on the other page, covering up a few doodles that probably won't ever be fully completed. The pale light of the communicator's screen illuminates Tommy's face and casts odd shadows across his paper from his hand, but he refuses to turn it off and he's already turned the brightness down as low as it can. He's stuck basking in the milky white light of electronics, though he doesn't mind too much.

Since sunset, Tommy has been messaging back and forth with Tubbo. Despite meeting fairly recently, the two of them have really hit it off. Tommy assumes it's because they are both desperate for a friend their own age, but that could be projecting. Tommy ignores that thought in favor of simply conversing with his new friend.

Despite how much fun Tommy is having with Tubbo, there is another reason why he's left the communicator open. It has been yet another week of radio silence from Wilbur, and Tommy is waiting impatiently for his friend to get over himself. Tommy has hung out with the family, including Sneeg. He's spent time with Niki, Jack, and Shelby. He's even gone on an outing with Tubbo. But Wilbur, the whole reason Tommy has any of this, the person Tommy owes his time to because of a debt, is still gone, and Tommy is having a lot of trouble processing how that makes him feel. Everyone, even Techno, assures Tommy that Wilbur will be fine, but Tommy knows how much trouble Wilbur stumbles into. He knows something is wrong, but there isn't anything he can do until Wilbur comes to him. Tommy has always hated waiting.

Tommy stops, staring down at his paper. He hasn't done anything while he's been thinking. Tommy grits his teeth. It doesn't matter where Wilbur is; Tommy has work to do.

Tommy leans his head back with a sigh. He takes in a deep breath, relishing in the slightly cool wind that blows across the roofs of tall buildings. While not particularly cold, it is sharp, and that is enough to make Tommy feel as if some clarity has been poured onto him with the same efficiency as someone pouring a bucket of ice-water over his head.

Tommy's moment of serenity is shredded by the realization that a strange noise at the edges of his awareness is getting louder. Tommy frowns, looking around for the noise. This leads him to looking upward, and he finds a dark spot in the night that is becoming more defined, darker, and louder as it approaches Tommy. The tailor exhales out of his nose, letting his eyes fall shut for a brief second. When he opens his eyes again, Azrael is standing on the rooftop beside Tommy with a cardboard box in his hands and his wings spread out behind him, as inky as the trenches of the night.

Azrael leans down onto one knee as he sets the cardboard box down. It genuinely alarms Tommy to see someone like Azrael lowering himself down, but the fear in his stomach keeps him from voicing his opinion. Even if it feels wrong for Azrael to be doing that, Azrael first and foremost can do whatever he wants. Powerless people like Tommy are better off keeping their mouths shut, a lesson ingrained in Tommy's psyche from different powerful people over the years.

"I've brought everything you asked for!" Azrael explains, tapping his hand against the top of the cardboard box. Tommy's eyes widen slightly. He is surprised by Azrael's efficiency and absolutely astonished that Azrael got everything Tommy asked for. When planning what Azrael's suit was going to look like, Tommy put his everything into it. Even if Tommy was only doing a basic suit, Azrael would need a lot of materials. The suit needs to be durable against heavy storms, pounding winds, and the wear-and-tear of fighting. There needed to be a sturdy but soft material around his back, especially where his wings came out of his back. The suit needed armor, but it couldn't be too heavy. There was also a matter of temperature extremes. Tommy was going to need a lot to pull this suit off, and Azrael got everything. Tommy would have called foul if he wasn't speaking to the Angel of Death himself.

"Thank you," Tommy says. He wanted his voice to be full of gratitude, but it sounded more curt than he cared for. Tommy sighs inwardly, turning back to his sketchbook. Maybe if he didn't acknowledge that he sounded off, Azrael wouldn't, either. Tommy's plan was immediately shot down by Azrael going all the way and sitting on the rooftop. He swings his legs over the side just like Tommy, putting his talons in his lap. Tommy looks at Azrael from the corner of his eye, voice filled with uncertainty. "What are you doing?"

"Is there anything you want to talk about?" Azrael asks. He stares up into the night idly, his sickeningly blue eyes resembling a piece of the daytime sky locked away. Azrael seems to be peering at something Tommy can't sense with his weak human attributes, but Tommy does not need to see what horrors Azrael can identify in the endless night.

"Nothing in particular," Tommy murmurs dumbly. Unlike Azrael, Tommy is staring at the villain's side profile. Tommy's eyes narrow slightly, and a slow frown appears on his face.

"Is there anything you want to talk about?" Azrael repeats, turning his attention to Tommy slowly in a way that would be horrifying if Tommy wasn't growing certain of what Azrael wants Tommy to talk about. Tommy stares for a moment longer, just to guarantee the truth, and he finds what he needs in Azrael's eyes.

"My business isn't yours," Tommy responds, turning away from Azrael. He looks back at his sketchbook, though he isn't able to pick up his pencil with how much his hand is shaking. Tommy swallows, dropping his hand onto the paper's surface as if he could ignore the way even his own body knows to be terrified of the man beside him.

"Phantasm's business is my business, though, so I have to handle this," Azrael explains. There is a rather gentle quality to his voice, and Tommy almost feels like he's been talked to by a parent. Tommy forces himself to chuckle at the thought instead of vomiting at it. Azrael is not his father. Tommy doesn't have a father, except for maybe Philza but Tommy is still working through that emotional issue. Tommy doesn't need to be viewing just anyone in a paternal light. Tommy is going to get himself killed this way.

"Why don't you talk to Phantasm, then?" Tommy asks, hoping to get Azrael to fly away. Tommy needs a lot more time to process his emotions and thoughts about this situation, and maybe a few others that are tangentially related.

"I have spoken to Phantasm, and I certainly will again, but I want to hear your side," Azrael claims, shooting down Tommy's hopes for mercifully ending the situation right now.

"I don't have a side," Tommy attempts, though the words fall flat even in his own ears. A person cannot have an argument unless they take a stance, even if that stance is to remain neutral or to do nothing.

"Everyone has a side." Tommy wonders if Azrael is reading his mind right now. There isn't any green around his talons, and Tommy doesn't know if Azrael has that ability, but the villain has the power 'magic.' If Azrael can molecular disassemble and then reassemble a physical wall without making a building fall down, Tommy wouldn't be surprised if he could do that metaphorically and transverse Tommy's mind.

"What do you know about the situation?" Tommy asks. He turns his communicator off, letting it slide onto the page that he had been working on prior to all of this. Tommy closes his sketchbook, setting it between him and Azrael as if that would be enough to stop Azrael from attacking if he felt like doing so.

"From what I have been told by several witnesses, you went with the vigilante Pulverize to stop the Binary Killer from killing whoever its next target was, though neither you nor Pulverize knew who this target was going to be. Lady Necrosis was the one to save you two, buying enough time for you to escape. When you passed out, Pulverize took your body to Vulcan's old base. Phantasm arrived shortly after to look after you. When you woke up, you and Phantasm had an argument about your decision and how you two saw each other," Azrael summarizes. "Does that sound about right?"

"More or less," Tommy murmurs. The biggest reason Tommy went with Pulverize to stop the Binary Killer and the catalyst for his argument with Phantasm was Tommy's healing powers. Tommy has to hope that no one told Azrael about that. Tommy has been able to get by with remaining free with the villains and vigilantes he's healed thus far, but he doubts one of the leaders of the Syndicate would let Tommy slip through their fingers. "Since you have it, you can leave now."

"Not yet. I want to know why Phantasm would see you as a tool," Azrael mentions, leaning forward as he tilts his head to look at Tommy. He lifts one of his hands up, pointing into the air without any particular reason for it. Tommy does glance up because this is Azrael, but when he finds nothing in the sky, he estimates it's a quirk of Azrael's speech patterns rather than anything deeper.

"My tailoring," Tommy answers immediately. He feels a jerk in his stomach at lying to Azrael, but Tommy glances away from the supervillain. He isn't lying, if only by a technicality. While the main reason Phantasm would see Tommy as a tool is because of his healing, Tommy can't discredit that his tailoring skills is as good a reason as any for keeping Tommy close and unaffiliated with other organizations. Maybe that is the real heart of the problem. It isn't about his powers or his skills, at all. Tommy looks down at his hands. He hopes not because that would make what he just said a legitimate lie instead of a technical truth. "I mean, the whole Syndicate must think of me as a fucking tool for that."

"None of us think of you as a tool. We think of you as your own person," Azrael assures Tommy, but his voice sounds a little too condescending for Tommy's liking. Tommy doesn't have stupid reasons for being upset. He has logical ones, or at least ones that genuinely make him feel bad about both himself and the situation.

"If you do that, why can't any of you respect my fucking decisions?" Tommy asks, looking back at Azrael with narrowed eyes. Azrael's head twists, to the side and back by a small margin, and Tommy doesn't understand what that means. Confusion? Interest? Anger? It isn't like Azrael's eyes are helping Tommy decipher anything happening right now. Although the secret charm cannot block the intensity and purity of the color, it compensates by making it damn near impossible to glean any emotion from those icy blue irises. Tommy looks away quickly, unable to stand looking at something he cannot comprehend.

"It isn't a matter of respect. The claim was placed on you because the Syndicate cares about you." Azrael's tone is soft, and his word choice is even more astounding. As one of the leaders, Azrael is the Syndicate. If he says the Syndicate is of a certain opinion or disposition, he automatically concludes himself in that. Azrael has no reason to care about Tommy. He, of all people, should be the one that considers Tommy a disposable tool to get suits and be done with it.

"No, don't say stuff like that like it makes any fucking sense," Tommy argues, his anger giving way to unadulterated confusion.

Azrael sighs, looking away from Tommy. He looks straight ahead, his eyes meeting the backside of a building illuminated by illuminated yellow squares consistently dispersed. Azrael's eyes are misty like a fog layering on top of a clear lake. Azrael's voice sounds distant as he lifts his hands up, moving them in slow circles as he explains, "Some of the Syndicate, like Shadow Girl and Nemesis, admire you for your skills and resilience. Some of us, like me and Ravager, respect your pursuits. Lady Necrosis and Parasite have a positive opinion of you by virtue of the rest of us having a good opinion of you. Phantasm is different."

Azrael stops speaking, but there is an air of continuation around him that keeps Tommy from arguing outright. He waits, watching the way Azreal's hands jerk away as if representing the emotional conflict inside his chest. Azrael eventually puts his hands down at his side, turning back to look at Tommy. "Phantasm is different. He holds your opinion in a high place. He likes spending time with you. He likes watching you grow. Even if he is a villain and you are a civilian, he doesn't want anything bad to happen to you. The reason Phantasm put a claim on you is because he wanted to protect you from the other groups in the city. The reason he hasn't told you any of this is because he doesn't want to scare you off."

"I don't want the villains to like me," Tommy grumbles, dropping his head into his hands, elbows on his knees. He hunches over, and he can see the street below through the cracks in his fingertips. Strangely enough, Tommy is certain Azrael would save him if Tommy were to slip, and Tommy almost wants to throw himself off just to prove that theory wrong.

"I imagine it is better than if villains were to dislike you," Azrael notes with a hint of amusement in his tone that makes Tommy halfway turn his face just to see Azrael's face between his fingers. Nothing worth seeing there, so Tommy looks back down.

"I would rather the Syndicate see me as nothing more than a tailor," Tommy determines, and he does mean it. He doesn't want them to see him as a healer, either, though only a few of them could do that. With Vulcan joining the Syndicate and Pulverize wanting to, too many people could do that.

"Did you not want to be seen as more than a mere tailor?" Azrael asks, confusion evident in his tone despite the secret charm creating a thick aura of mystery around him.

Tommy sits up quickly, throwing his arms out as he looks at Azrael, right into his frosted eyes. "No, what I want is for Phantasm to quite pretending that he fucking cares about me. You know, I was a kid who didn't have anyone. Phantasm was one of the first people who ever showed me genuine kindness. My life has gotten better since then; I don't fucking need Phantasm. I just can't forget what he did for me, and I don't want to fall for this trap."

"It isn't a trap. Phantasm genuinely cares about you. He was only angry because you put yourself into a reckless situation," Azrael says. He shifts where he sits, and Tommy watches as Azrael lifts up one of his talon-hands. Tommy stares at it warily, but he doesn't have the instinct to pull away as Azrael sets his hand down on Tommy's head. Azrael moves his fingers through Tommy's hair, careful not to scratch his scalp. Tommy sits there, wide eyes but little fight inside of him. He feels... Tommy really doesn't want to believe it, but he feels comfortable. He's okay with this. He doesn't understand why he would be. "I'm not particularly happy you did that, either."

"I'm not weak," Tommy huffs, glaring up at Azrael with the confidence of a man who isn't currently being petted by a villain that does magic with his hands.

"Compared to the Binary Killer, yes, you are. Even the heroes and villains are having trouble with Binary Killer. You shouldn't do that again," Azrael says firmly, removing his hand from Tommy's hair.

"Fine," Tommy agrees, though he isn't sure how accurate that statement will turn out to be. He will, at least, make an effort to avoid such situations, more so than he's been doing thus far.

Tommy's communicator buzzes, shattering the quiet moment. Tommy looks at the screen to find that Tubbo has messaged him about hanging out in the morning. Tommy sets one hand on the communicator, hiding the name. He looks back to Azrael, but the villain is standing up, not paying attention to Tommy's personal affairs. Azrael looks down at Tommy with a smile on his face. "I'll be leaving now."

Azrael takes a step off the roof. His wings spread out, flapping to keep him airborne. He turns around to look at Tommy. He pulls an envelope out of his robe. He tosses it at Tommy. As the blonde catches it, Azrael says, "Payment for my suit. I hope I'll get to see it soon."

Azrael flies away, faster than the winds of the night. Tommy swiftly answers Tubbo, staring at the envelope in the corner of his eye. When he's done accepting Tubbo's request, Tommy opens the envelope. He turns it, dropping a key into the center of his palm. A piece of paper slides out with it, floating gently in the air. Tommy catches it, reading the contents on the paper. He nearly drops everything when the weight of his realization settles in his mind.