Part of my collection of hurt!Techno Febuwhump oneshots. These can all be read as standalone.

Febuwhump prompt: "Can you hear me?"

Wilbur had lost track of Technoblade in the chaos.

The street was covered in a thick curtain of smoke. Rubble had fallen off nearby buildings, crushing both cars and civilians - trapping screaming people in place. It was bad. Really bad. Wilbur couldn't remember the last time they'd dealt with a villain capable of causing damage on such a scale.

Usually, Wilbur would see that as another reason to keep a closer eye on his brothers. Phil had the height advantage, just vaguely Wilbur could see the outline of their father's wings above the clouds. From up there, it was easy for Phil to keep an eye on everything. But with the dust stinging at his eyes, it was hard enough for Wilbur to tell ally from foe, let alone keep track of multiple people. He stuck close to Tommy though, trying to cover the blond while he darted from person to person, hands hovering over their bodies to check for a pulse. To see if they were able to be saved. Sometimes he stopped, he inhaled. His fingers pressed into somebody's neck and their eyes would open with a gasp. Wilbur sympathized with that reaction - Tommy's touch of life wasn't the gentlest thing in the world. He'd been on the receiving end of it once or twice. But it was better than dying.

A shape moved in the darkness. Wilbur's head turned and he snapped his fingers, watching the explosion burst in the air between them. Watching that shape get blown back against a wall.

If it was only the villain they had to deal with, that'd be fine. But the guy they were fighting had brought a whole army of lackeys.

"Why's there so fucking many of them?" Tommy complained. He wiped at his brow, sweat dripping down his temple. The healing wasn't effortless for him. There was an entire stretch of road left to go. Dozens of people still on the brink of death. Tommy wouldn't be able to keep this up forever, Wilbur knew.

Phil dove down to the ground in front of them, wings spread out for a smooth landing. As soon as his feet touched the ground his knees buckled. Wilbur and Tommy rushed over.

"They're hard to get close to," Phil grunted, hand pressed over a gaping wound in his stomach. It seemed to be ripped open as if somebody had tried to reach inside and pull his guts out. Wilbur cringed at the sight.

"Just because I can heal people doesn't mean you need to do shit like this," Tommy said. He pressed his palm against the injury, hands already stained with blood. Wilbur sometimes wondered if the casualness with which Tommy had started doing this stuff was something they needed to take him to the school psychiatrist for. Or maybe this was a little above their pay grade.

It wasn't exactly worth risking their secret identities for anyway.

"Where's Technoblade?" Wilbur asked.

"Around," Phil said. "Fuck if I know, really. It's hell out there."

As if aware of the ironic timing in their conversation, a nearby building shifted and started collapsing into the one beside it, making the street shake beneath them.

"Then you should call for backup," Wilbur said, nodding at the communicator strapped to Phil's belt. "This is ridiculous. The association has to send more people."

"They better," Tommy said, pulling his hand back. Phil's wound was more or less completely gone. "Good as new, old man."

"Thanks, child." Phil smirked at Tommy's stuttered outrage when hearing the nickname. "We should go see where your other brother is hanging out before he gets himself killed." But when he tried to get up he flinched.

Even Tommy's healing wasn't instant. And Tommy himself looked pretty worn out from the constant power use.

"You should both hang back," Wilbur told them, "take some time to recover. I'll go ahead."

He didn't wait for them to answer before taking off in the direction of the mayhem. Techno could handle himself, Wilbur wasn't worried about that. But he was also a reckless idiot at times, and that was definitely something Wilbur felt a decent amount of concern about.

It wouldn't be hard to find the villain as long as he followed the path of destruction left in their wake. Phil was hopefully requesting backup, but it might take a while for more heroes to show up. Nobody had been prepared for something of this magnitude to happen. Wilbur's legs were sore, he had been on his feet all day. God, could they just get this dealt with quickly and go home?

"Wilbur!"

A pained yelp burst from Wilbur as he was thrown into the ground, thanks to his brother's weight slamming into him. His head knocked against the pavement and he hissed, using one hand to feel for blood. "What the-"

"You're welcome," Techno said, nodding at the piece of rebar that had almost impaled Wilbur if it weren't for him being knocked out of its path. Techno rolled off him and got to his feet.

"You couldn't think of any way to save my life that didn't involve giving me a concussion?" Wilbur said half-heartedly.

Techno laughed. "Hmmmm, nope."

"Prick."

Wilbur snapped his fingers at a car behind Techno, so both the vehicle itself and the guy hiding behind it went up in blazes.

"Phil is calling for reinforcements," he said.

"If we wait for them to get here, the whole city will be leveled," Techno responded. "We need to get rid of this guy quicker than that."

"If you have any suggestions I'm all ears."

Techno shifted the sword in his hand, the shape of it going liquid for a bit and dripping blood onto the tarmac. "His magnetism power makes it hard to get close to him. I'm going to need a distraction."

Wilbur's face fell. "Let me guess, you want me to play decoy?"

He fucking hated playing decoy.

"Unless you wanna sneak up on them and stab them?" Techno asked. Wilbur could technically do it, he always kept a knife on him just in case.

But somehow that thought was even less appealing.

"Let's just go with plan A."

They found the villain a few blocks down, gleefully bending lampposts into pretzels. Every once in a while, they'd get a cartoony motherfucker like this who thought that just because they'd been born with superpowers, the entire world was their playground. While Techno took the long way around, Wilbur approached them from the street.

"Hey, asshole! Catch!"

They turned and caught the rock Wilbur had thrown at them out of the air. Raising an unimpressed eyebrow, they stared him down with disdain. "So eager to die, hero?"

Wilbur smirked. "Not quite." He snapped his fingers and the rock exploded, hurling the villain backward and into the ground. Wilbur swore he could hear a bone snap and for a moment he thought that was it - He thought maybe Techno had vastly underestimated this guy's abilities. But then they got up, looking even angrier than before.

Their hand was smoking, but the protective layer of metal around it had prevented it from being blown clean off their wrist. Pity.

The street rumbled again as they pulled multiple construction beams out of nearby buildings, sending those flying toward Wilbur. He tried to evade them as best he could, using his explosions to get rid of the fastest ones. He couldn't keep this game up forever, but he didn't have to. The villain was definitely distracted, pissed off enough to only care about keeping an eye on Wilbur.

And not on Technoblade, who was sneaking up behind them.

Wilbur ran towards them, snapping his fingers to make the concrete burst beneath their feet so they would stumble. His powers were limited in reach, the closer he got to something the more accurately Wilbur could control the detonation. He didn't need to be precise though, he just needed to unbalance them. Enough for Techno to jump them from behind, plunging his blade into the villain's back.

It came out of the front of their abdomen, blood bubbling to their lips. They looked down at it as if surprised, the shock on their face sending a little thrill through Wilbur.

After a dozen civilian casualties, he couldn't pretend to be mournful about this guy's demise.

Then they snarled and threw their body back while spinning around. Rebar shot from the ground below them aimlessly, the metal of sewers surging upwards turned into dangerous weapons by their anger. Wilbur staggered, but not before one piece skewered through his foot and stuck him in place. He screamed.

Techno was thrown into the ground by their elbow making contact with his face. More metal sprung from the ground, pinning him in place. One pierced his shoulder, the other his hip. Wilbur couldn't do anything but look on in horror.

Where the fuck was that backup they were promised?!

Using the other limb not pinned down, Techno tried to defend himself. But the villain pulled on more nearby metal to bat the solidified blood away, grin unchanging. They lifted their arm, the metal they were wielding breaking up into a hundred smaller pieces, sharp-edged and deadly.

Wilbur realized that if he didn't do something quick, he was about to see his brother be turned into mince meat - literally.

He wasn't close enough to direct his explosions effectively. He'd been taught never to use them this way. So he pulled his foot free with a stomach-turning squelch and a keen stab of pain that had him biting his tongue to keep from crying out. Blood streaked across the pavement. Wilbur didn't care, he had to get closer.

The villain brought their arm down.

Wilbur wasn't close enough, he wasn't-

Desperate, he snapped his fingers.

The resulting explosion was much more powerful than he had intended. Pain and fear had muddled his judgment and Wilbur himself was thrown back by the combustion, temple slamming into the ground again.

If he didn't have a concussion from before, he was definitely well on his way to getting one now.

His ankle broke when he landed on it wrong, Wilbur could hear the bone snap out of position. He cried out in agony and lay there on his side, world narrowing down to pain and not much else.

But then he blinked and he could see Techno, prone on the ground, the villain not even in sight anymore.

Techno wasn't moving.

"Techno?!" Wilbur tried to get up, ignoring how his knees buckled immediately. He didn't care, he had to move. "Technoblade?!"

He could hear sirens in the distance. He could hear the flap of wings signaling Phil was nearby.

Wilbur kept stumbling forward, the sound distant through the ringing of his ears. He had been too close to the explosion. He hadn't been close enough.

"Techno-" His legs gave out just as he reached his brother. Technoblade's eyes were open and he was blinking, but he seemed unresponsive to what was going on. Shock, maybe? Wilbur dug into his brain for all those fucking first aid classes they'd never paid attention to because Tommy was usually around to fix them - Tommy could just magic away their injuries for them.

Techno was covered in blood and the sight made Wilbur's heart plummet for a moment before he realized there were no injuries. It wasn't his brother's blood that covered him. One of the villain's legs still remained where they were standing. The other leg and most of their body (the parts that weren't reduced to gore-y chunks) were spread all over the street.

Wilbur's explosion had been a lot more powerful than he intended, a lot more powerful than he could even phantom he was capable of.

And Techno had been only a few feet away from it.

"Can you hear me?" Wilbur reached out and shook his brother slightly, noticing that it seemed to pull Techno from his thoughts and made a small frown come onto his face instead. He stared at Wilbur. "Can you hear me, Techno?"

The frown deepened, and Techno's eyes shifted to his lips.

"What?" Techno said, the word clumsy and fumbling. As if he couldn't hear himself say it.

Because he couldn't, Wilbur realized.

"Don't move," Wilbur said. Techno was still impaled on several pieces of rebar and Wilbur wasn't about to be a dumbass and try to pull anything loose. That's what he'd done with his foot and he was probably never going to hear the end of it from Tommy.

Obviously, Techno tried to sit up immediately. Wilbur pressed down on his shoulders.

"Don't move!" he repeated more forcefully. Techno still blinked up at him, unable to hear him. Wilbur gestured with his hands instead. "Just- just stay where you are, okay? They'll be here soon."

His head was spinning, he couldn't really vocalize any of his other thoughts when they all felt liquidized in his skull.

"Wil…bur…" Techno reached out, hand grasping for Wilbur's shoulder. Wilbur leaned in so his brother could hold him, putting his own palm on top.

"You'll be fine," he said again. Maybe he was simply trying to convince himself. "You'll be fine."

Together, they waited for those sirens to finally reach them.

"You're telling me you don't know if he'll ever be able to hear again?"

Wilbur didn't know if Phil meant to raise his voice loud enough to be overheard. He clenched his hand around the crutch he'd been given until his knuckles turned white.

Whatever the doctor answered wasn't clear enough for Wilbur to make out.

He knew this was his fault. If he hadn't been an idiot, if he hadn't let panic get the better of him, this wouldn't have happened. He should never have used his powers that close to Technoblade.

"If you hadn't done anything, he'd have died," Tommy said.

Wilbur shot up, hissing when his spine cracked from how long he'd been in a bent-over position. Tommy was staring at him from the other chair, the bags under his eyes betraying how direly he needed sleep. But he'd refused to head home. Not until they knew Techno would be fine.

"Don't fucking do that," Wilbur said with a scowl. Getting it rubbed in his face that he was as transparent as an open book wasn't exactly pleasant.

"Don't be so easy to read then," Tommy shot back. "You're, like, all self-pitying or whatever. It's pissing me off. Stop blaming yourself for an accident."

"You weren't there." It came out a little sharper than Wilbur had intended.

"So? I didn't have to be there to know you're taking this way too personally. You saved his life."

"I deafened him, Tommy!" Wilbur snarled. "I'm the reason he's in a hospital bed right now, I'm the reason he lost his fucking ability to hear stuff, and I'm the reason he might never get it back!"

"See, this is what I mean with you taking this shit too personally." Tommy stood, throwing his arms up in a gesture of defeat. "I'm the one who can't fix him, you don't think that's bothering me?"

He seemed genuinely upset by the confession and Wilbur's jaw snapped shut, after which he shifted back in his seat. His leg hurt like hell and he wasn't really able to think straight. All he knew was that he was pissed off - mainly at himself.

"Every time you guys run off, I'm the one left behind hoping you don't get yourself killed before I get there," Tommy said vehemently, "because as long as you're alive, I can do something. Being able to heal people doesn't mean I can magically fix everything. And that's frightening."

Wilbur rubbed at his eyes, the fight drained out of him. He couldn't even tell what they were arguing about. "What's your point, Tommy?"

"My point is that he's alive. Nothing else fucking matters right now, okay? Because he's alive. Thanks to you."

He sighed, but when he looked at Tommy's face, there was only sincerity there. And some genuine annoyance, but Wilbur wasn't focusing on that.

"Did you just mature while I wasn't looking or what happened? You never were this sensible before." He smiled thinly.

Tommy flipped him off. "Oh fuck you, I've always been sensible."

Phil came around the corner and that cut off the rest of their conversation. Wilbur shot upright, feeling another stab of pain in his leg in response. He was looking at Phil though.

"You're both still here?" the older man asked, sounding closer to exasperated than surprised. Phil should know better than anybody that telling them to go home and rest would be ignored.

"Can we see Techno?" Wilbur asked immediately. Nothing else mattered right now.

Phil nodded. "Don't stay in too long, he needs to rest." He clapped Tommy on the shoulder in passing. "And so do you. Did you get your blood sugar back up?"

"I had a candy bar," Tommy said, trying to walk past him. But Phil grabbed his arm.

"You know that's not good enough. We can't have you fainting on us, come on." Tommy tried to protest, but Phil wasn't just their team leader, he was their father. He could threaten to ground them if they didn't listen. And while Phil wasn't the strictest parent in the world, he did not fuck around with the side effects of overusing their powers. Especially since Tommy was rather sensitive to those effects.

Wilbur decided to head over to Techno's room, knowing the other two would catch up later.

He knocked on the door first, standing there for several seconds waiting for a response. He kinda wanted to smack himself over the head for his own stupidity, a fresh wave of guilt blooming in his throat but he shoved it down. Tommy was right. And self-pity would not help the situation anyway.

Techno was looking away from him when Wilbur entered the room, staring out the window. The Hero Association did not skimp when it came to medical facilities for their beloved heroes, Techno had a private room with all the amenities.

Yet he was simply looking at the lights outside, the city going about its daily life.

Wilbur cleared his throat as he walked up to the bed, but Techno didn't notice him until he was practically standing next to him. He jumped a bit but covered it up with a small smile.

"Hey Wilbur," he said. While his voice was a little pitched - again, probably a natural consequence of talking while unable to hear himself speak - it almost sounded normal.

Wilbur swallowed and waved.

"Hey Techno." Wilbur sat down on the chair next to the bed. "How are you feeling?"

Techno kind of tilted his head and gestured to his ear awkwardly.

Right… it's not as if Wilbur could forget, it just didn't come naturally to him to communicate any other way.

"Uhm…" He pointed at the IV sticking in Techno's arm. There was a button for paid meds, presumably. "Pain?" he asked, mouthing the word in a very exaggerated fashion.

Techno clearly understood because he shook his head.

"That's good."

Wilbur didn't know what to do. He hated feeling out of his depth in general, but all the usual ways he would deal with something like this had become sullen reminders of the blame that had carved out a hollow place in his chest. When his family got hurt he was the one who tried to make them smile, or keep them entertained. By telling them stories or singing them songs, by playing his guitar or making stupid jokes.

Not a single word would force itself from his throat. And even if it did, Techno wouldn't be able to hear.

If what the doctor said was true and this could be permanent, how would Wilbur ever be able to make up for what he had done?

He felt the gentle squeeze of Techno's hand closing around his. His brother had gone back to staring out the window, but his fingers were warm where they were intertwined.

Wilbur sighed and squeezed back.

Somehow it felt like that simple gesture said more than a million words would have.