Chapter Text
Tommy Innit was a normal kid. He was honestly quite okay with this fact. He had a few friends and did okay in school. Yeah, he got into his fair share of trouble and sure, there was the occasional hero vs villain fight that would happen near his neighborhood and destroy some property, but I mean who didn’t have to deal with that? They’d been around since Tommy was, like, 3, so they were a well-established part of his life.
Honestly Tommy thought of it as quite a plus. The fights brought a lot of excitement into an otherwise pretty boring life. The “SBI”, as the heroes were coming to be known, showed up whenever the self-proclaimed “Dream Team” started causing trouble. The SBI occasionally showed up to help with missing person cases or to stop robberies, disappearing before they could be reprimanded for their technically-illegal acts. Nobody knew who they were or where they came from, but it certainly wasn’t like nobody’d tried.
Now, he’d never admit it, but Tommy was very interested in these people. Honestly, “interested” didn’t even begin to describe it. He’d seen practically every bit of footage of them he could get his hands on, and often tried to get close to battles happening to get a better glimpse at them. He could go on for days about how cool they were, especially the one called The Blade, who was basically just a one-man army.
“-and I was thinking- Tommy are you even listening to me?” Tommy suddenly realized that he’d been completely ignoring the words of Tubbo. Tubbo had been Tommy’s best friend for years, so he was used to his friend zoning out while he talked.
“Huh? Sorry, what?”
“I was saying that since it’s the weekend, I was thinking we could go see that movie you were talking about. You know, the one about the superheroes you fanboy over all the time?”
“Oh shut up! I don’t fanboy, I just think they’re cool, okay?”
Tubbo snorted, “Whatever you say Big Man. You want to go see the movie of the heroes you just think are cool?”
“... yes I do.”
Tubbo laughed and they continued walking. Eventually they reached the small diner where they’d hung out almost every day since they were 10. The waiter, Bad (who Tommy thought had a very weird name), came up to their table with the drinks they always ordered.
They chatted with him for a bit, got their food, paid, and left a few hours later. It was just like any other night, except that this night as they passed by the mall, a window shattered right next to them, two figures having come crashing through it, wrestling each other. One was someone whose… skin(?) was half black and half white, and the other… holy shit that’s The Blade.
Tommy stood stock still, not quite grasping the situation in front of him. He faintly registered Tubbo grabbing his arm and trying to pull him away, but before he moved, the weird person shot out an abnormally long arm and grabbed his leg. Tommy didn’t even have a chance to process that this had happened before he was suddenly somewhere very high up.
As any person in his situation would do, he screamed cuss words at the person holding him hostage. “Holy fuck- fuck you you fucking bitch put me back on the ground right now or I’ll kick in your kneecaps!”
The guy simply stood, getting a more firm grip on Tommy than the one he’d had before. He stared down at his captive with glowing red and green eyes. Tommy looked down, realizing they were on the very top of the mall. The Blade stood angrily down at the bottom, golden axe in hand. Tubbo was nowhere to be seen, and Tommy didn’t know if that was good or bad. He didn’t have time to think on this, because suddenly he was being dangled over the edge of the roof.
“Don’t come near me or he gets dropped,” The guy spoke, his voice very even. Another figure came out of the mall, through the door rather than the window this time. Tommy vaguely recognized them as Philza, the very first member of the SBI.
Tommy usually would’ve been in awe seeing the original members of the SBI in person, but he was currently being dangled off a roof, so pardon him if he wasn’t amazed. He vaguely recognized that there was a conversation happening between the heroes and the guy holding him over the edge of the roof, but he wasn’t really interested in it.
Then Tommy Innit did probably the stupidest thing he’d ever done in his life, and kicked the guy dangling him off a roof in the shins. Now, you’re probably screaming something like “Tommy, what the hell were you thinking?” and the thing is, he most certainly was not thinking at all.
Of course, people don’t take too kindly to being kicked in the shins. Neither did this guy, who, in his shock at the sudden pain, completely let go of Tommy. Somehow, instead of plummeting to his inevitable death, or at the very least very bad injury, Tommy glided down from the roof. Philza, who’d started flying up to catch him the moment he fell, paused in surprise as feathers sprouted from Tommy’s arms and slowed his descent.
Halfway through his fall, it registered to Tommy that he did not know what was happening or how to land, and subsequently began freaking out.
“Hey, mate, you’re doing good. We’re almost to the ground, just keep your arms out and bend your knees when you land,” Philza said. He did what the hero said, trying to focus on not dying. Just before reaching the ground, all of his feathers retracted and he dropped to the ground, falling to his knees and shaking.
“Are you alright mate? Sorry you got caught up in this.”
“I… You’re Philza.”
“Yes?”
“You’re Philza,” Tommy repeated, “oh my god I’m fucking meeting Philza and The Blade holy shit!”
“Ha, you a fan?”
“Yes- no! Not a fan! I do not fanboy! Do not listen to anything Tubbo tells you!”
“Uh, sure, mate. Do you mind telling us your name?”
“Oh uh, Tommy, Tommy Innit.”
“Ok then Tommy, did you know you had powers before today?”
“Powers? I don’t- holy shit I have powers.” Tommy looked up at the faces he’d had plastered on his wall for years, all looking at him with varied levels of concern and curiosity.
“Apparently you do.”
“I-uh… I gotta go!” He suddenly yelled out, scrambling to his feet.
“Wait we need to-”
“Can’t talk, gotta go, parents probably worried, was cool meeting you, okay bye!!” Tommy ran off with a newfound speed he hadn’t had before. Within minutes he found himself at his front door, exhausted. After the adrenaline of everything had worn off, he realized that his arm hurt like a bitch, having gotten cut by some glass when the window shattered. It had probably been a stupid idea to run away from the heroes, but in his defense he’d just been through a rather traumatic experience and wasn’t thinking straight.
He walked inside his house, knowing his parents were likely already asleep, and quickly found the bandaids, awkwardly slapping a bunch onto his arm. In his room, he just laid on his bed, staring up at the ceiling and wondering what the fuck he was going to do after the events of tonight.
Tommy Innit was a normal kid. Except maybe now he was realizing that he wasn’t
- - -
Techno and Phil sat in their living room, wondering how the hell they were going to deal with Tommy. He’d most certainly be in danger after revealing his powers in public without a disguise, but they couldn’t exactly go take a kid into hiding without being charged for a lot more than vigilantism.
“Christ that child’s going to be the death of us, isn’t he?” Techno finally said.
“I just hope he’s not the death of himself,” Phil said, his lips pursed into a thin line.
“Phil, that-”
Techno didn’t get to finish his sentence as Tubbo busted open the door. “What happened. Where is he.”
“You mean Tommy? Ran off before we got the chance to follow him.”
“Dickhead. Sorry I took so long, parents were being overprotective.”
“It’s okay, but damn if we don’t have a hell of a story to tell you.”
“Shit, he’s got powers, hasn’t he?”
The original SBI shared a look that said a definite yes, and Tubbo nearly screamed bloody murder. It’d been bad enough with Tommy running after their fights and obsessing over them, but now he was in serious danger.
“Did you at least get something on Ender?”
“Nothing. He vanished as soon as we were distracted. Probably telling Dream about this right now.”
“Well that’s just great. How are we gonna protect him?”
“Well… we don’t know. We need to make sure he knows how much danger he’s in, but we can’t exactly just pull him from his home to protect him, plus they’ll have eyes on him, and we can’t risk our identities being found out,” Phil sighed.
“You’re going to have to tell him about us. He probably won’t listen if any of us try to talk to him in civilian form, and it won’t be suspicious, since you’re already his best friend,” Techno said.
“Should I bring him here? Should I tell him your names?”
“Don’t bring him. Dream will have eyes on him, we can’t risk him finding any of our real bases. He’s already gotten far too close to figuring us out for my liking. You’ll have to tell him somewhere else safe. As for our real names… just be sure nobody is around.”
“I really hate Dream.”
“Don’t we all Tubbo, don’t we all.”