A/N: ,,,,,so,,,,,,betcha thought you'd seen the last of me? xD

on a serious note: I APOLOGISE FOR BEING SO SHIT WITH UPLOADING! Writing is hard yo. Writing while you're in not just school, but the ib program and nearing both exam time and graduation is harder yo. Writing with all that, plus mental illness may just be hardest tbh. But still, all of y'all have been so very lovely, and still wanna stick with this thing - for reasons i dont even know but hey, don't look a gift horse in the mouth huh? ^u^ - and for that, as always, thank y'all from the bottom of my lil sleepy heart. 333 you guys are the actual best!

To say Tom was pissed would be an understatement.

It had started out as such a good day too - he and the girls arrived almost immediately in the Underworld, and knowing the time taken for Marco to get there would be deemed too long for Star, who wanted to show her girlfriend everything, he let Star drag Jackie away promising to call Star's mirror and catch up with them when Marco arrived.

So Tom waited. And waited and waited, for longer than he thought he should be, but thought that he was just making the wait seem longer than it actually was. Right as he started actively debating whether to go out and see what was taking Marco so long or not, he heard the unmistakable sound of a gargoyle's flapping wings, and stepped up to his window with a little smile - he was over-thinking things, probably just Marco's habits rubbing off on him.

Of course that smile immediately dropped when he saw the condition Jeff was in, became a worried brow when he noticed Marco wasn't with him, and turned into a ferociously mad scowl when he heard what had happened - immediately asking Jeff for the location so he could transport.

So yeah, Tom was kinda royally pissed off.

Tom ends up opening a hellhole right at the moment Marco trips while dodging a blast from Ludo, who was monologuing with an unstable air about him. Ludo laughs at Marco sprawled on the ground and points his 'wand' at the boy.

"I told you you could not dodge me forever Diaz! I'd rather not kill you as yet, but since you won't just cooperate with me I think a magically enhanced coma will make you a much easier to deal with damsel in distress, don't you? Or-"

Ludo cuts himself off, and leans his head towards his wand, appearing to be listening to it. "Good idea! A mind control spell - Star's precious sidekick to be the one to betray her and bring her wand to me! My own little invisible prison with a puppet for a prisoner, ooh this will be fun!"

Ludo turns his insane grin down at Marco, "Any words before you lose the ability to think for yourself? Take your time, I've been waiting to hear you - or even Star really, I'm not picky - grovel at my feet."

However as Ludo was conversing with his wand, Marco caught sight of Tom appearing out of a hellhole and stomping his way over unsubtly. Marco's mouth twitches into a slight smile and says to Ludo, "Alright, two things. 1. I never thought I'd say this, but thank god for soul bonds."

Ludo looks at Marco in confusion and says patronisingly, "Soul bonds? What did you and Star get bonded? That's just adorable - imagine her face when I take away not only her friend but her bonded too! Ha! Oh happy day!"

"I never said I was bonded to Star, now did I?"

Ludo scoffs, "Stop bluffing boy, the cat's already out of the bag. If not Star, who could you have possibly bonded with?"

Marco allows the smile to take over his face, "And that brings me to my second thing." Marco then gestures his chin towards Tom who is all but behind Ludo, "Run."

Ludo turns his head in confusion, and jumps back into his eagle, startled.

"Oh, Your Majesty, you snuck up on me, heh. I'm sorry if I disturbed you, I'm just taking care of some business, you know how it is. I'll just pack him up to go - you know Diaz? That kid your Star always hangs around - as if he has the right to date her when she's clearly yours, am I right?" As he's speaking Ludo and his eagle are slowly backing away from the flaming prince, "So I'll just stuff him in a bag and get him out of your way - no need to thank me. How's the King and Queen?"

Marco, with a shit-eating grin, props himself of the floor with an elbow and says, "Tom meet Ludo -"

Ludo cuts him off, "Of course Prince Tom knows me! Most of my monster lackeys are supplied from the Underworld you dolt! My own father used to do jobs for their royal family at times!"

Marco just allowed his smile to get wider, "And Ludo meet Tom - prince of the Underworld, and my soul bonded."

All the colour drained from Ludo's face, and his mouth fell open while his eyes flickered between Marco and Tom blatantly hoping this was a joke. Marco then sits up fully, rests his back on a nearby rock, folds his arms behind his head, smile wider than ever and says, "Now would be the time to start running by the way."

Tom, who had been focused on looking over Marco for any visible bumps or bruises while Marco had his fun verbally scaring Ludo, allows a small smile to peak out at this, "If you're quite done Marco-Polo? I'd hate to cut your gloating speech short."

Ludo attempts to climb onto his eagle's back as Marco feigns boredom and casually waves his hand at Tom in non-verbal acquittance, "No no, I'm done. Go on, I know you want to."

Tom then smiled full teeth and turned slowly to Ludo - who gets so startled that he falls off his escape eagle he was trying to climb on to.

"Uh, I didn't know?"

Ludo tries pointing his wand shakily at Tom, before Tom bursts into flames and screams at the top of his lungs, "LUDO!"

As Tom takes after a squealing Ludo, Marco carefully stands up and hums to himself, checking and patting himself down for any injuries. After assessing the damage is nothing more serious than a few scrapes and bruises, Marco takes off his pretty dirty hoodie and ties it around his waist - overheating from both the dodging and the Underworld's climate - stepping out of the way of both a screaming, on fire Ludo who was tossed passed him and an angrily smiling Tom who gives chase to the villain he just threw.

Marco then stretches his sore joints out, and his muscles protesting groans almost block out Ludo's screaming, pleading, and apologising, as well as Tom maniacal laughter. Marco then carefully digs steps back into the crashed hellevator, and picks up his backpack, digging through it as he steps out of the no longer usable elevator right as Ludo gets thrown right through the thing, a fireball closely following him as the elevator shatters completely from the force of the throw.

Marco finds his pencil and notepad from where he had tossed them in earlier, and sits on a rock as he reassesses his list - striking off things he will no longer be able to do because of how much time Ludo took up, and adding new things to the bottom of the list such as to buy Jeff a nice fruit basket - or just something inexpensive that gargoyles like - to apologise for all the trouble.

Marco then looks up, to see how the fight - or rather Tom beating up Ludo - is going, and notices Ludo's eagle staring at him, not even attempting to help her master.

Marco nods at the eagle, "Smart bird." Before checking his mirror-watch to see exactly how much time Ludo had taken up out of his day so he could accurately correct his list, and seeing that he had around three missed calls from Star.

Marco hisses through his teeth, 'Three calls from Star back to back is never a good sign. She probably getting impatient, I just hope Jackie stops her from setting anything on fire or letting loose any animals. Who am I kidding, Jackie would probably cheer her on.'

With that thought Marco calls out to Tom, "Tom!"

Tom, who has Ludo under one arm and is beating Ludo's face in with a flaming fist stops momentarily to look up at Marco.

"Star's called three times, we have to go before she wrecks your kingdom."

Tom seems to debate this in his head, before he shrugs and drops Ludo abruptly onto the ground.

"Fair enough, you were supposed to be back by now and we should all be hanging out. She's probably worried, and a worried Starship is a chaotic Starship."

Tom casually steps over the bruised and bleeding Ludo to walk towards Marco as the human boy in question scoffs a laugh. "Any Star is a chaotic Star, Tom."

"Also very true Marco-Polo."

Tom smiles at Marco, and puts an arm around his shoulders as he snaps open a hellhole. Before they step in, Tom calls out over his shoulder, "Oh and Ludo? Touch Marco Diaz again and I will kill you - and that's a promise. Pass that on to your other little wannabe villain friends for me will you?"

As they step into the hellhole - which Marco is not at all happy about but decided to swallow his complaints this one time - Marco elbows Tom and says fake-angrily, "Why only me? Why not 'touch Marco Diaz or Star Butterfly again, and I'll slaughter you?"

Tom barks out a laugh, "Slaughter, nice, I'm gonna have to use that one more. Oh and Starship can take care of herself against creeps like Ludo - the way he was wielding that 'wand' of his has got nothing on Starship. I mean if she wants help, she knows I always got her back, but she doesn't usually need any."

Marco gets actually offended and whirls to face Tom, pointing a finger in his face, "Hey, I can handle myself too you know! I know karate, I'm not a damsel in distress! Ludo having magic just… surprised me is all."

Tom swats the finger from his face as they arrive in his room and says, "Trust me, I know you can handle yourself. You literally chopped off my hand when we first met."

Marco sheepishly looks away with a nervous laugh at that as Tom continues, "However, Starship's a princess, she's used to people trying to kill her, steal from her, and kidnap her - she's literally been taught ways to avoid and get out of this kind of shit. Not that she much tries to avoid it, seeing as she was also raised by her father to be a warrior and all - but that's just Starship. You on the other hand were kind of just suddenly thrown into all this, from what Starship says, and while yes, I will admit that you are frankly an utter badass for surviving and winning against literal monsters - even more badass for staying friends with Starship honestly - you're still kind of,"

Tom reaches out and lightly squeezes the finger that had been in face prior, "A squishy human. Not to mention, me being prince of a realm and you being my soul bonded allows me to fully put you directly under my protection - and sure you can fight for yourself, but I'd rather you not even get into those situations in the first place if I can help it. It doesn't seem like you have Starship's love for life threatening danger and non-ending fights either, if the way you totally ignored Ludo and let me beat him up while you got your shit together is any clue. If it was Starship that got attacked, she woulda been pounding on his face with me, that's for damn sure."

Marco shrugs and scrunches his nose, "Yeah probably - but that's Star."

Marco then turns around and walks to a nearby coffee table to drop his bag on, while continuing, "I suppose you're right - karate is all about self-defense, not endless fighting, if the enemy attacked me first I fight, but if they can't fight anymore I stop - Ludo couldn't fight me anymore, it didn't make sense to try to fight him more. And I didn't want to ruin all your fun. Good job calming down enough to let me do my whole 'you fucked up' introductions before you beat him up, by the way."

Tom shrugs, "What can I say, Brian's a miracle worker."

Marco chuckles, then turns back to Tom, "Remind me to send him a fruit basket. But just so we're on the same page, I always appreciate the help, but you do realise I can fight my own battles right? Just because I may not necessarily want to at times doesn't make me some wilting damsel forever in distress."

Tom smiles and steps forward towards Marco, all three eyes fondly rolling in unison, "Yes Marco-Polo, I get it. Besides, you? Wilting? You have a lot more fire in you than a lot of things I've seen, and I grew up in hell."

Marco fakes bashfulness and waves a hand at Tom, "Charmer."

Both he and Tom burst into laughter - the kind of laughter that's fueled from adrenaline left over from fights or near death situations.

As they pull themselves together, Marco wipes a tear from his eye and jabs a thumb at Tom's door, "Let's go see if Star and Jackie have burned the entire place down as yet."

A/N: as always, reviews & faves & follows keep me motivated! I'm on tumblr, so u can find me there, and if you ever want to show me something related to this fic (like fanart or a fan mix or something? anything rlly), you can either submit it to me or just post it with the tag #fsiiaabmb or #fsii (but maybe also me just in case! ^o^)