Tommy's Ultra-Important Keychain

Chapter 13: The audacity of some people

Tommy waited on that stupid roof for fifteen minutes before someone finally found him.

He was bored the entire time. The people on the sidewalks below were too caught up in their own worlds to look up. He truly considered jumping to the fire escape of the building next to him, but it looked rusty, and he couldn't remember if his tetanus shots were up to date.

Somewhere in the city, Tommy's mentor was having the time of his life beating the shit out of a hero. He wanted to be there. He wanted to watch that. Icarus might've been losing ground when he left, but he was nothing if not unpredictable.

It was Midnight who found him after those painful fifteen minutes.

His large shadowy wings sent gusts of air out as he gently landed. His veil and large hat hid his identity, but under there was a friend. It was hard to picture Phil as a supervillain, so his legs were shaking the entire time, but Tommy had never been so glad to be terrified.

"Hey, mate," the veiled villain greeted. "Fancy seeing you up here."

"Hi," Tommy grumbled. His hair was a mess from the wind and his back was slouched from sitting on the ground for so long. "How's Wil?"

"After I got Hothead somewhere safe, I went back and picked him up," Midnight explained. "The Devil got involved in the fight, so we had to retreat."

Tommy saw how that could be dangerous for Icarus alone. The apprentice would never admit it, but he worried for his mentor.

The Devil was a bitch, and Tommy couldn't wait for the day he could punch him in his bitch face.

Flying with Midnight was a new sensation that absolutely nothing could've prepared him for. It felt like they were speeding down a road in a car with all the windows open, with only the open sky to stop you. It was awesome.

Midnight held him tightly around his torso, and with the strength of his arms alone, lifted him right off the ground. His shadow wings were large, powerful, and quite literally untouchable. Tommy's hand fell right through when he tried.

The villain warned him ahead of time that their flying would be rough. Tommy was certain he could handle it until the moment it started. The drawbacks of having wings made from darkness was that they couldn't get too near light. Midnight said it was mostly sunlight that could seriously throw him off, but they swerved to avoid streetlamps too.

If Tommy could open his mouth without screaming, he would've asked why they didn't fly over the city instead of through the twisting alleys. They'd gone so far in so little time that he didn't know where they were anymore.

Midnight wasn't small, and neither was the boy who dangled from his arms, yet they never crashed. His movements were sharp, fast, precise. He could likely outfly Speedrunner at some of his top speeds. It wasn't even three minutes later that they were landing on top of the parking building where Tommy had started.

"Holy shit," was all the apprentice could say. Midnight chuckled, and his wings folded behind him. The ground was more disorienting than the air after that experience. Tommy's head still turned, like he just rode every single rollercoaster in a theme park at once, except they hadn't been repaired in years, so your feet dangled and the turbulence was impossible to ignore.

"Sorry, mate," the villain hummed. "I know that was rough for your first flight. If there weren't helicopters filming the fight, I could've been smoother."

Tommy frowned and looked towards the direction of the original fight. Now that they were closer to it, he could see the news anchors buzzing around. It gave him a sense of closure to know he would be able to rewatch the fight on TV later.