Chapter Text
Tommy wakes up.
He can hear whispers around him
Everything is so foggy.
"Where am I?"
"You don't need to know that. All you need to know is to go out and give those heroes pricks hell for me."
The line is hilariously cliche but Tommy cannot bring himself to smile. Or laugh. Or do anything really. There is an unseen weight resting on his eyelids but he does not sleep. Not yet. He wants to know things. Things like who he's speaking to.
There's a hand on his shoulder now. A small prick in his neck.
Tommy can't see the man's face. He will comply to their wishes. He knows what he has to do.
The fog covers his eyes and his head slumps against his shoulder as he falls asleep.
----
Tommy's awake again. There was no fog over his eyes this time and the man's orders rang in his ears.
He stumbles blindly in a direction. His body isn't used to all this moving so he's sluggish. He felt numb yet like his body was on fire.
He could feel himself limping. Now he's on a street but still no heroes in sight.
'Wouldn't really know a hero if I saw one, would I?'
Some people passing by ignored his limping state, others looked in confusion and mild worry and told others around them. Finally, one got out her phone. Tommy couldn't hear what she was saying. As much as he didn't want to admit it, a fog not unlike the one before was starting to fill his head.
He felt himself fall. He couldn't stop it. Someone was grabbing his shoulders. Tommy tried to squirm away but the hand held him tight. He turned his head slightly to see a man crouching above him. He had chocolate brown hair and eyes with an ugly, vibrant, yellow sweater on.
Tommy fainted after that.
----
Next time Tommy woke up he was in a blinding room. It looked so bright and obnoxious.
His first thought was that he didn't need to be there.
Tommy got up to attempt to try to leave and felt something tug at his arm. It was a tube connected to a heart monitor and when he tugged to remove it made a loud, obnoxious beeping noise. The beeping was apparently loud enough for someone to run down the hall just beyond the open door, also colored obnoxious white.
'Prime, this whole place is full of obnoxious stuff isn't it?'
Tommy did not expect the man with brown hair to come stumbling in clumsily. He had seemingly run down the hall because of the beeps.Tommy could see that he had changed out of the bright yellow sweater and was instead wearing a multi color sweater.
"Hey, hey stay laying down. You're not cleared to leave yet." He said. His voice sounded nice.
Tommy continued to swing his legs off the bed and look around the room. He saw a bag with his clothes in it and went to reach it but the man stopped him.
"Hand me my things back please." Tommy tried to sound as polite as he could. He really just wanted to leave. Something felt off about this place. Like something bad was going to happen while he was there.
"No. You can't leave until the doctor says you can. Kid, I'm just trying to help and do my job." He said with a sigh.
"Mhm and what is your job exactly?"
The man lit up. "Well I'm a hero." He said with a smile. "So are my brother and dad."
Hero? Tommy stared at him. 'Is that what heroes normally look like?'
"Hey you okay?" The man grabbed his shoulder and Tommy just shrugged it off.
"Yep all good here big man. I just really need to go." He went to grab his bag again but the man stopped him again.
"At least tell me your name. I need something to tell the nurse so she can contact your parents."
"Tommy. My name is Tommy."
"Tommy, okay I can work with that. You have a last name Tommy?"
"Nope. Just tell the person I'm a runaway. They don't care much about those do they?"
"Kid, stop messing around. You were wandering in the middle of town looking like you had just escaped a kidnapper or something." He hesitated to continue. "You aren't on some missing kids list are you?"
Tommy didn't say anything. To be honest he had no idea if he was or wasn't.
"Uh, well my name's Wilbur. I'm gonna need you to stay here for a couple days until you're released. God, that's gonna be a lot of paperwork, finding a relative to take you in and all." He ran a hand over his face, quietly groaning at the thought of the paperwork. "Again, what's your last name kid?"
"I'm not a kid." Tommy mumbled, trying to avoid the question he frankly didn't know the answer to.
"You look like your 13 at the oldest. Maybe 14." Wilbur replied with a smirk on his face.
'16' his brain supplied.
"I'm 16 dickhead."
"Oh? I don't believe you. When's your birthday then."
'Hell if I know dickhead.' Tommy wanted to say. Instead he shut his mouth, hoping Wilbur would get the memo and not try to push any further.
'Leave. Get out. Just leave.' A voice demanded. It wasn't his voice but he listened anyways.
Tommy had been entertaining this conversation for far too long.
"You want me to go. Don't you?"
Wilbur was taken back. "What? No I-"
The moment Tommy's hand lay on Wilbur's shoulder he slumped onto the hospital bed.
He'd stay there until Tommy was sure he wouldn't come after him.
Tommy grabbed his clothes and went to the conjoined bathroom to change.
When he saw his face in the mirror he didn't recognize the person staring back at him. Sure he mimicked his movements but who was he? He sighed.
'It's to fucking early for this.'
Tommy walked out of the place with relative ease.
No one questioned him, being too preoccupied with other sickly looking people.
Phase one: Find heroes was complete.
Time to start phase two: Become a villain.
First he had to get a costume. Everyone knew that every good super villain and heroes had badass costumes.
Question was, who was going to make it. Tommy sure as hell wasn't. He could sew or knit or whatever but not well enough to make a whole ass suit.
----
Getting a suit proved to be way easier than he thought. He was simply walking around a random store he wondered into when he heard yelling at the front. He turned out of the aisle to see someone in a black hoodie, gas mask and red and blue glasses. He was yelling as the cashier looked around, blinking and rubbing her eyes as if something was in her eyes.
"Hey lady, I know you can hear me. Open the register and I'll leave. No one has to get hurt. Trust me." The guy was saying.
Apparently he thought no one else was in the store so he didn't see Tommy sneak up behind him and touch his shoulder. He fell to the floor like a sack of potatoes and the cashier looked at him. She didn't get the chance to fully see his face though because she was also left on the floor from Tommy's touch.
Tommy left, a bag holding things he'd taken from the store and the guy with the glasses. Tommy then ducked into an alleyway to look over what he'd gotten. In the bag were quite a few things. The first was a red and white hoodie to copy the guy in the glasses. Then he got out the fingerless soft kind of cloth textured gloves. He also had the gas mask he'd taken from the guy. With a few touches of paint, it would match his hoodie. After a few minutes he was ready to go out.
----
Tommy didn't understand. All he did was take a few things and now suddenly, the back of his head was plastered all over the boxes. Someone called it a TV. Thankfully, no one seemed to be able to get a good look at his face from the TV box. He wasn't worried though. Not like they could catch him anyway. Tommy had learned quite a bit in the last hours or so after leaving the place Wilbur had taken him to. He forgot to ask what it was called.
The main thing was that there were apparently 4 categories you fell into in this world.
One was a civilian. No powers, just people trying to live their best lives.
Next was heroes. He already knew about Wilbur and with a little context, he figured he was a part of SBI. He was also able to guess with 99.9% certainty that Wilbur was Syren.
After the heroes were the vigilantes. People trying to do the hero's job.
Then finally there were the villains. Ready to tear up this society from the inside and out.
Huh. Tommy had a lot of work to do to make a name for himself then, didn't he?