When Doc woke up, he softly groaned and squeezed his eyes as he tried to find his boyfriend in the mess of blankets on his bed.

Blinking, he realized he wasn't there.

Did he already get up? I wish he waited for me. Maybe he's already working again.

Then he felt a breeze.

Funny, he could've sworn he didn't have his window open the night before.

Slowly sitting up, sure enough, his window was wide open, his black curtains billowing with the wind.

Then he realized Bdubs' phone was gone.

Oh shit.

Wide awake, he sprung out of bed, checking Bdubs' suitcase.

His essentials were gone.

"Bdubs!" He pointlessly cried out, sticking his head out the window. Doc slammed a fist on the windowsill. "Fuck!"

Someone knocked on his door before opening it. "Sweetie? What's wrong?" His mom asked.

"He's- he's gone! He left!"

-

If Angel was back in the city, Dynamight needed to be there to stop him.

The moment the hero returned, he quickly discovered that Warlock was gone, and the prison had perfectly shaped holes in its walls.

The hero claimed he had been spending his time trying to track down where Angel could have gone, but came back as soon as he heard Warlock was free. After all, protecting the city was his top priority. At least that's what he reminded everyone. He spent all morning doing damage control to the best of his abilities.

But that was mainly to keep him from going back to his place.

However, he inevitably needed a break.

The apartment no longer felt like home.

It was cold and empty.

The comforter still had creases from the suitcases thrown on it.

Drawers in the dresser and the bathroom were still open ajar from hasty grabbing.

None of the food had spoiled, as it had barely been two days, but Doc didn't feel like eating anything.

He was too... upset.

Angry.

How blind had he been by the rose-tinted glasses he had been wearing for almost a year? Why did he think everything could just be okay? What made him think he could live a happy, peaceful life with a villain? He and Angel put each other in danger the moment Bdubs took his mask off for the first time and they decided to date. For so long Doc refused to let himself be involved with anyone to prevent putting an innocent person at risk all from being associated with a hero with a lot of enemies.

He had no clue what Bdubs was up to. But the fact that neither had shown face in the city right away meant that Warlock wasn't dead.

Doc stood over the bathroom sink, splashing his face with cold water. He held his hands over his eyes and took a deep breath. "What're you up to, Bdubs?" He whispered.

Drawing his hands down, he met a frustrated glare in the mirror. Whoever was staring back, was someone he hadn't seen in ages.

Moving in with Bdubs made him softer. He was able to be more optimistic, more romantic. But something bad was approaching, he could feel it in his gut. After being surrounded by people all morning, something inside him finally snapped.

Whatever the two of them were planning, he needed to be ready. And he needed to be ready to stop Warlock if he tried doing anything to Angel.

When the person in his mirror wouldn't calm down, he punched him square in the nose, shattering his face.

Doc mindlessly shook the pieces of glass from his organic, green fist.

-

He moved into the kitchen because he couldn't sit still.

Bracing himself over the counter, he held his phone to his ear, waiting for the ringtone to end and be replaced with a familiar, comforting voice.

But Bdubs never answered.

"I'm not on my phone right now. If we had past agreements you want to touch on; I'll call you back. If you're anyone else; fuck off." Doc let the voicemail message play out but stayed quiet when it was his turn to say something.

With a small breath, he finally spoke, albeit quietly. "It's me. I just wanted to make sure you're safe." There was so much more he wanted to say. He wanted to beg Bdubs to call him back. He wanted to remind him that he would always be there for him. He wanted to ask him not to do anything stupid.

But he let it all die on the tip of his tongue and hung up.

"Where are you, Bdubs?" He whispered, dropping his head between his arms. It seemed like all he could do was ask questions to an empty apartment, to the air where his partner should have been standing.

How pathetic was he? His boyfriend hadn't left his side for more than a few good hours, and there he was; a complete wreck because of it. Was he always so clingy, so desperate, and a muddled mess of panicked emotions?

Because he never said where he was going, or what he was doing, and it's right in the middle of everyone wanting to start a witch hunt for him, He reasoned with himself.

Dynamight couldn't stop thinking about his dream the night prior. It felt almost real, how Bdubs kissed him then vanished into thin air, wisps of what he once was floating away on a breeze. He had tried so desperately to grab onto him, keep him close.

His phone chimed and he scrambled to pick it up.

"Ugh." Another email from a different coworker. His boss had elected him to take an extensive vacation so he could deal with learning his boyfriend was a villain that had been terrorizing the city for years. With so many emails flowing in from sympathetic coworkers and others, Doc wished he had a second phone, to keep his work life out of everything else.

So, he supposed on the bright side of all that had quickly become dim and dark in his life, at least he was being paid to not work.

But that didn't fix anything. That didn't make him feel any less anxious or angry over Bdubs' sudden leave. Maybe it would be easier for him to simply not miss him so much. It would make both jobs more manageable if he wasn't handling his heavy emotions.

Yet Doc did miss him.

And at the moment, there was nothing he could do about it.

-

This chapter was mainly me attempting to re-hone Doc's character, I feel like he was starting to drift from his original personality from the beginning of the first book, which is like, on one hand, yes character growth! People change! But on the other hand, for this story I needed Dynamight to be more broody. Plus I feel like it makes sense for him to slip back to that older mindset as a parallel to Bdubs who was fearing of regressing to how he used to be with Warlock. I'll admit that was unintentional at first but now it's on purpose lol