"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle."
― Sun Tzu

Tommy taps his foot incessantly against the ground. The wooden walls of the hallway around him seem to stretch infinitely in both directions as the worry claws at his stomach like a caged wild animal. He leans against one of the walls beside a dark blue door, and he doesn't feel the wood shifting beneath his shoulder blades even when he isn't sure that the floor is horizontally flat beneath his boots. His fingers reach for his wrist. His power brushes against his skin, ready to send him flying or towards the ground. Instead of releasing it, he grabs onto the scratchy fabric of the gauze that peeks out from beneath his metal cuff. He twiddles with it between his fingers. Between that and the foot-tapping, he manages to stay standing in that hallway instead of running away due to the restlessness in his body. He was never good at worrying about other people. He was never good at waiting to find out if they were okay.

Like Warden said, he took Jolt and Tommy to the Syndicate's safehouse in Prime Heights. Warden delivered Jolt to Argonaut and Dyscardia. Warden commanded Tommy to stay so that he could get checked out after Jolt. Tommy would have refused the order if Jolt wasn't still unconscious from whatever the mysterious voice did to him. Tommy wasn't there to be healed; he could handle his wounds by himself. He was there to find out if someone else he knew was dead or comatose. As much as Tommy fights against the care he has for Enderwalk and Jolt, it lingers in his body like a parasite, and it was raging against the idea that Jolt could be dead and that it was Tommy's fault. He never should have let Jolt come with him. He should have carried out that investigation on his own without anyone. He made a mistake, and he couldn't take it back. All he could do was wait to find out how bad of a mistake it was, and the wait really was going to kill him.

"Why were you so reckless?" A voice asks. On the opposite wall and the other side of the door, Ravager is there. Warden had to leave earlier to finish some business, so Ravager was forced to babysit Tommy to make sure the hero didn't leave before Argonaut and Dyscardia could check his health. Ravager sits in a plastic blue chair. It is barely big enough to hold him up, and the sight of Ravager touring over a chair Tommy can sit in normally has the intended effect of making him anxious. Tommy won't let that anxiousness weaken him, though. He was stronger than Ravager was getting him credit for.

"I wasn't being reckless, prick. I was being smart. There is no way in hell I could have walked up to the Syndicate with a lead from an organization that previously refused you. I'm sure we all know how much we hate each other. You would have taken me for a fucking liar, and I would have gone by myself, anyway," Tommy snaps, letting his restlessness and the tension in his body release in a burst of anger. He objectively knows that it isn't good to piss Ravager off, but he would rather get into a fight with the man than idly chat with awkward pressure threatening them in the hallway.

Ravager sighs, unimpressed. Tommy's hand clenches around the strip of gauze he's managed to pull loose from his metal cuff. Ravager's bright red eyes look at Tommy from the corner of his eye. "I didn't expect much from you, anyway."

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" Tommy snaps. He feels his body begin to shake under the pressure of his emotions. He wishes that literally anyone else was here with him right now. He would rather sit with Serenade than Ravager. Serenade isn't nicer than Ravager, but at least Serenade likes playing games that could distract Tommy from everything swirling in his head. At least, he probably would if Tommy couldn't get the memories from the morning out of his head. He still feels horrible about thinking Serenade was Wilbur, even for a brief moment.

"You are an idiot, Vendetta," Ravager does not mince his words as he stares completely at Tommy with a deadpan expression. He seems completely certain in his words, like he's telling a simple truth that everyone already knows.

The blonde flusters, his face turning bright red beneath his mask. It takes an extreme effort not to throw the first punch and even more self-control not to start yelling with all the ferocity in his chest. The thought that Jolt could be resting in the next room is the only thing that keeps him from even touching his metal staff. "You don't know shit about me."

"No, Vendetta, I know enough about you. I know that you joined the Hunters. You were with them for five years. You were regarded as Reverie's sidekick and successor until you set fire to Reishi's garden. You were exiled from the Hunters. You joined the heroes shortly after, and you have been with them for five years. You became an A-rank hero by defeating Minotaur in your first year of being a hero. You swore vengeance against the Syndicate, hence your accurate hero name," Ravager explains with a wave of his hand. Tommy feels his breath freeze in his throat. Ravager is so carelessly throwing around his past, like Tommy didn't go through hell losing his family, like he didn't lose his mind with the Hunters, like it didn't almost destroy him to take down Minotaur, like he hasn't spent every second since ten years ago attempting to right every wrong. Tommy's life was far more painful than Ravager's simple words, and Tommy hates how easily it can all be summed up with tidy dates and descriptions of who he was aligned with. "If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles."

Tommy laughs at Ravager's quote, deciding once and for all that the villain before him was nothing more than a nerd who knows how to go to the gym. Tommy decides that if Ravager wants to do that, he'll follow the villain's lead. "Ravager. You appeared on the scene six years ago under the banner of the Syndicate. You were regarded as powerful, strong, and most importantly, mysterious. You really fucking aren't. You, Ravager, are the successor of the Blood God, a vigilante that disappeared eleven years ago. You, like the Blood God's mentor and their mentor before them, have passed down your superpowers. As of right now, your superpower includes an enhanced physical state tied to bloodlust, a slow regeneration, fear inducement, heat resistance, minor blood manipulation, and weapon proficiency. Inconsequential powers on their own that can do a lot of fucking damage together. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle."

"It seems you're a well-informed idiot," Ravager concedes, barely blinking an eye as Vendetta tells the man his powers. No one in the Hero's Guild knows Ravager's powers except for Tommy. The blonde knows because of his intensive research. He's tracked every single one of Ravager's fights. He's spoken with the few survivors. He knows what Ravager is capable of, and the thought comforts him more than it terrifies him. If he comes down to it, Tommy has a chance at beating Ravager, which is a lot more than anyone else who has ever fought the villain has ever had.

"I thought you were a fucking nerd. You should know that 'well-informed' and 'idiot' are opposites," Tommy points out the contradiction. He wishes Ravager had a better reaction to the information than this nonchalance, but Tommy knew better than to expect that Ravager would show any emotions.

"You're an idiot for thinking you could defeat Azrael and Inchling," Ravager amends his statement. Tommy sucks in a tight breath, his voice filter making a weird crackling noise. Every day since ten years ago, Tommy has been making and reworking his plan for bringing his enemies to their knees. He has never been able to make a foolproof plan, but he's a lot more prepared than anyone else who has ever tried. Tommy knows everything there is to know about the villains. He knows their patterns, habits, and fighting styles. He is gaining a little more information about the loyalty of the other Syndicate members, but it wasn't like Tommy didn't already know he was going to be killed even if he succeeded against Azrael and Inchling. Tommy was prepared. He wasn't an idiot for thinking he could win when he knows that he has a chance.

"Are you going to stop me?" Tommy prods with a glare. He's in unfamiliar territory. He's made contingency plans for fighting against Ravager, but he isn't certain about any of them right now.

"I don't have to. You aren't a threat," Ravager explains simply. If it wasn't for his red-tinted glasses, Tommy would have said he was seeing red. Anger, bright and flaring, rises in his chest. He is a threat. He's going to kill Azrael and Inchling, and Ravager is going to hate himself for being so stupid as to think that Tommy was nothing. He's going to blame himself for the rest of his life, wondering how things could have changed if treated Vendetta like the threat he was.

"Vendetta," A voice calls as the blue door swings open. Tommy faces Argonaut. She stands at the door with a tense expression beneath her mask. She looks between Tommy and Ravager before letting her eyes settle on Tommy. She gestures for him to enter the room, "Come on in. We'll check you for injuries and then you can go."

Tommy nods jerkily, following Argonaut into the room. He throws another glare over his shoulder. Ravager raises an eyebrow at Tommy, leaning back against his chair. The door falls shut before Tommy can yell at the villain. Tommy represses an angry noise as he looks back at Argonaut. She stands at a hospital bed. Dyscardia is on the other side of the bed, fiddling with one of the machines. On the other side of the room, Jolt is wrapped up in blankets on a similar bed. His face is hidden from Tommy, but the heart monitor right beside him confirms that Jolt is breathing like he should.

"You can sit here," Argonaut points to the bed. Tommy hops on it, keeping his eyes on Jolt's body. If Argonaut and Dyscardia aren't fretting over him, does that mean Jolt is fine? Well, he can't be fine, but does this mean that he's in the clear?

Someone grabs his arm. Tommy whirls his attention around to Argonaut standing in front of him. She gives him a gentle smile as she brings a tweezer to his arm. She goes through the holes already in his costume. Tommy squints his eyes when the tweezers enter into his skin. Argonaut begins picking out tile shards. She places each bloodied one on a metal pan beside her. Dyscardia stands in front of Tommy. She lifts both of her hands up. Each hand holds up two fingers pressed together, and Dyscardia pulls her hand away from each other, one going towards Tommy and the other towards her own chest. Tommy's heartbeat immediately begins to slow. Tommy's breaths follow the rhythm. Tommy remains rather calm as Argonaut takes the last few shards from his arm. She looks up at Tommy with worried eyes. "I'm going to heal your arm now. Do you think you could remove your sleeve somehow? It would make it easier for me."

Tommy huffs, but his annoyance feels fuzzy against the extreme relaxation through his body. Tommy unclips his metal cuff, dropping it on the bed beside him. His chestplate goes next. He unzips a little bit of the front part of his suit. With both of those removed, Tommy is able to pull his arm out of his sleeve. He raises his arm through the opening around his neck. He drops his vacant arm back down in Argonaut's hold. She smiles at him, but the smile drops away when she looks down at his arm. Her frown makes Tommy's heart stutter, and Dyscardia makes a noise as she attempts to slow his heartbeat once more. Argonaut rushes to put a smile on her face as she runs her fingers along the shallow cuts. Each one seals shut with such precision that not even a scar is left behind. Argonaut drops his arm gently into his lap, and Tommy lethargically goes to put his arm back into his sleeve.

"Are there any other wounds we should know about?" Argonaut asks. Tommy blinks blearily at her. At the guild, he goes in for a healing session every half year because it's mandatory to go at least twice in a year, especially for the higher ranking heroes. Even those healing sessions aren't much more than the doctors putting down his new height and weight down in the files. He doesn't even think his cuts were worth Argonaut using her power. Bandages would have been fine to use.

"There's blood on his knee," Dyscardia chimes in, gesturing towards his knee where the tile shard stabbed right through him. Tommy brings his knee closer to his face to examine the extent of the wound. It still trickles a little bit of blood, but it isn't anything Tommy isn't able to handle. Argonaut seems to disagree as she looks at the wound, pushing Tommy's head away. He frowns at her as Argonaut makes some sort of wounded noise. She presses her fingers against the wound, and it heals after a few seconds.

"Look, Vendetta, I heard what you told Ravager about why you went. I know it might seem hard to believe, but the Syndicate works together, even with our allies. No matter what personal grudges we may have with each other, we have to work together to take down the Red Army. And this also means that you have to come to me whenever you get hurt, no matter how little it is," Argonaut explains to him, leaning down to look up at him, like she's purposefully putting herself in a weaker position to make Tommy feel better. It works surprisingly well. Tommy feels almost safe around Argonaut, and he supposes that he would. He doesn't have any personal grudges against her, and he doesn't think she's a completely horrible person. She was partners with Minotaur a long time ago, so Tommy thought that she would hate him. She doesn't seem to, and her kindness scares him more than Dyscardia's apathetic gaze or Ravager's gross oversimplification of who he is.

"Fuck off," Tommy tells her and Dyscardia. He jumps off the bed, walking out of the room. Argonaut calls after him, but Dyscardia lets him go. His emotions are running far too high for any of this. He throws the door open, slamming it behind him. He expects Ravager to be sitting in the plastic blue chair. The chair is empty, and Phil is standing at the end of the hallway. Phil frowns sympathetically as he walks to Tommy. He reaches his hand out as if he was going to hold Tommy or something like that, but the blonde takes a measured step back. Even if Phil isn't a villain, he still works with the Syndicate. Tommy is, too, technically, but he's doing it out of necessity, not choice like Phil.

"Are you okay?" Philza asks as he lowers his hand back to his chest. He clasps both of his hands together.

"Fucking fine," Tommy snaps. Physically, he's fine. Argonaut literally just healed him when he would have been fine without it. Emotionally, he isn't doing the best, but he's going to figure it out. Tommy has been mentally unwell for so long that it's his new normal.

"What were you thinking, Vendetta?" Philza asks him, tilting his head to the side with concern in his eyes. Tommy never imagined that the Syndicate would be this hung up on teamwork. Tommy thought they would be research-focused like he was, but they clearly cared more about making sure everyone returned unscathed. It was an admirable ideology to follow, especially for villains, but Tommy wasn't part of that. He didn't have the time to be part of it. He had work to do; he couldn't come crawling back every time he had a boo-boo.

"I'm getting real fucking tired of people asking me that. Am I the only one that gives a damn about securing good information? Am I the only one that thinks it's better to do shit alone, especially when I can't trust anyone in this godsdamn building?!" Tommy snaps, a low hiss whirring alongside his voice because of his modifier. Tommy sighs, deflating his shoulders when he notices Philza's expression. "I'm sorry. Misplaced anger. I didn't mean to get upset with you. I just... I don't understand why the fuck everyone is concerned."

"We're concerned because we're allies right now, however temporary it may be," Someone calls from behind Tommy. He turns around, already knowing that Serenade will be there. Part of him misses the 3-4ths mask Serenade had been wearing before, but he's mostly glad that the villain is wearing his veil. Tommy doesn't know if he would be able to look at Serenade if he could see those painfully brown eyes. "Come on, Vendetta, we're going back to the apartment."

"Serenade, take care of him," Philza calls out as Tommy walks to Serenade. The villain nods at the words. Tommy wonders why a villain would listen to a personal trainer. He feels like Philza should be at least a little wary of Serenade, but the trainer sees fit to command the villain to take care of someone who the Syndicate are supposed to hate just as much as he hates Azrael and Inchling.

Tommy doesn't question it, though, because he doesn't really care and he's too out of it. He wants to stay with Jolt, but he doesn't want to be anywhere near Dyscardia. He wants to fight Ravager, but he doesn't want Argonaut to heal him. He doesn't want anyone else to ask him what he was thinking because Tommy isn't sure he could ever explain to them. The Syndicate, for all intents and purposes, are a team. They have each other. Tommy has no one, and he's learned how to be okay with that. He isn't a group player and hasn't been one since he was a child with a family to teach him how to make decisions and help him clean up the messes when he failed. Tommy is alone now. He has no one to rely on but himself. He has no one to trust but himself. He doesn't think he'll ever get used to the Syndicate's insistence on teamwork.

Serenade does not play any music on the drive to the Paradise Apartment. He hums, but the noise is more soothing than annoying. Tommy relaxes in the passenger seat, keeping his eyes on the road in front of him. He recognizes a few of the buildings, and he recognizes less and less as they drive into Empires. He knows the graffiti symbols on the walls, but he doesn't know the buildings that lie underneath. It's a sobering thought that makes Tommy's heart jerk in his chest. Tommy blames his emotions on the villains he was just riled over.

Serenade parks in front of the apartment complex. He opens his door, leaving it hanging there. Tommy gives him an odd look as he gets out of the car. When Tommy shuts the door, Serenade finally gets out of the car. Tommy moves towards the apartments first. Serenade follows. There's an understanding that Serenade wants Tommy to go first and Tommy doesn't trust Serenade behind him. They settle this argument by walking side by side. It gets a little awkward when they must enter the building, and Serenade relents in going before Tommy to appease the hero. Tommy feels a flash of victory, but it drowns in the slight fear that awakens when he steps into the elevator. He still does not like them. The only upside is that Serenade is not making idle chit-chat as they rise.

They walk side-by-side in the hallway. When they get to the door, Tommy allows himself to slide into the apartment first. The hairs on the back of his neck raise when Serenade closes the door behind them. Tommy doesn't make mention of it as he walks to the corkboard in their living room. He writes a brief account of what happened in the G-train tunnel. He pins it to the board, stepping back to help him see all the information in relation to each other.

"Vendetta," Serenade calls, holding up a bowl with a spoon in it. Tommy's eyebrows furrow together as Serenade sets the bowl down on the countertop. Tommy pulls it closer to himself, a little surprised that Serenade made him dinner. Serenade poured water and the gray powder into a bowl, creating the health mixture for Tommy. He unlatches his mask, letting it hang off the side of his face. He removes the spoon from the bowl. He lifts the bowl up to his lips. He lets the sludge slide into his mouth and down his throat. Fortunately, it doesn't taste like much of anything, more like wet cardboard than anything truly awful. When he's done, Tommy sets the bowl back on the counter. Serenade eats a sandwich behind the counter, finishing around the same time Tommy does.

"Thank you, Serenade," Tommy mutters, unsure about the words even as they come out of his mouth. He snaps his mask shut, and he walks over to the corkboard. Before he can get there, Serenade snatches Tommy's wrist. Tommy frowns as he looks at the villain. "What the fuck do you want?"

"You're going to bed," Serenade tells Tommy like he's a toddler. Tommy isn't one, so he is willing to argue with Serenade. The villain doesn't let Tommy say anything as he nudges Tommy into the hallway. Tommy doesn't like being in front of the villain, but he doesn't like Serenade pushing him into his own room even more. Serenade follows him inside. Tommy scans the room, making sure he doesn't have anything compromising out. Even if he did, Serenade is drawn to the edge of the bed. He runs his fingers along the dried blood splatter on the sheets. His fingers continue towards the chain. Serenade sighs, attention coming back to Tommy. "Get changed into something comfortable."

Serenade leaves the room, closing the door behind him. Tommy rolls his eyes. He doesn't need to go to sleep. He shouldn't go to sleep with Serenade, either, not after what happened this morning. But, for some reason, Tommy does as he is told. He changes into another tank-top and sweatpants. He changes out his normal mask and glasses for the black cap that covers his eyes, nose, and forehead. He should wait for Serenade to come get him, but he goes to Serenade instead. The villain wears a comfortable outfit, too, including his own sleep mask. Tommy searches Serenade's eyes, searching for something familiar in the brown. The problem comes when Tommy notices way too many familiar things about those eyes. He knows them like he knows his own eyes, and it makes him want to cry.

"Come on," Serenade calls, lying on the bed with his arms open. Tommy stares at the villain for a very long moment. He could refuse. He could sleep on the floor. He could ask to sleep in a different position. He could do a lot of things other than fall into the arms like a leaf in the wind, but he doesn't do any of them. He lets Serenade hug him close, his ear against the man's chest. Serenade's heartbeat matches his own. Tommy smiles to himself, closing his eyes. Tommy ignores the tears building in his eyes, but Serenade's whispered promises means that he isn't ignoring it.

Tommy just lets himself fall asleep, too tired to really think about anything.