Chapter Text
BEEP … BEEP
Tommy groaned at the sound of his God-forsaken alarm, swinging an arm over his eyes, using the other to grab his phone. Tommy honestly laid there just like that for a few minutes, arm over his face whilst the other was off to the side holding his phone, trying to decide if not going to work would get him fired (can hero’s get fired??).
Eventually Tommy sat up, turning on his phone to check the time, 8:37, yeah he needed to get a move on. He half-heartedly rubbed sleep from his eyes before throwing his feet off the side of the bed.
He may be the second highest ranking hero in the world, but he didn’t have that extravagant of a room, or house to be honest. His room was simple, a pretty average size, LED lights wrapped around the ceiling, he had a closet on the right wall, his bed centered on the left, a couch under the window almost directly across the room from his door, and that was about it.
He grabbed the folded outfit that lay atop his dresser, quickly changing into it. Just like his room, his hero outfit wasn’t some big flashy show like some here’s had. He wore an off-gray long sleeved sweater with some black stripes on the arms (made out of some terrifying materiel that was somehow incredibly hard to break Tommy honestly has no clue what it is but god it’s cool) over a while t-shirt, paired with some pretty basic black cargo pants with straps. He had cool shoes tough, they were black up to about an inch below his knee, had pretty large soles that added at least two inches to his height, and they had some weird buckles that Tommy was pretty sure didn’t do anything. To top off his outfit he had a black medieval cape. Don’t forget the mask though, to cover the lower part of his face he wore a plain, black, cloth mask, lined with some sort of metal in the middle, and to cover the top half he had a racoon mask which was basically just a normal off-gray mask with some racoon ears (although there was a thin layer of some sort of material that granted him better night-vision laying just above his eyes).
After checking his appearance in the mirror, Tommy shoved some random sandwich ingredients into a bag before bolting out the door.
Now, you’d assume the second highest ranking hero would have a car, correct? Well, you'd be wrong, Tommy’s 16 and has nowhere near enough time for getting his license. As a result, at nine in the morning you may get to be witness to the sight of a top ranking hero booking it down the street towards the Heroes Spectacle. Tommy couldn’t exactly complain either, to be honest all the running tended to be pretty useful for his job, and after a while it starts to become kind of relaxing. Not too many people were wandering the streets at this hour anyway.
Tommy ruffled his hair a few times before finally placing his card in front of the scanner to be let into the grand building. The doors slid open in front of him and Tommy quickly scurried inside. The inside of the building was nothing short of a huge mansion, two of the five floors were mainly calm places to get any paperwork, plans, or just whatever done, littered with couches, countless tables, book shelves, vending machines, TV’s. really just huge living rooms.
Tommy looked around, most minor heroes were here, lounging on couches, a few chatting or doing work, the first floor is the lounging area mostly dedicated to them. Tommy liked that, especially because a lot of the major heroes were stuck up and would probably be a pain for the minor heroes to deal with on the daily. They also just deserved their own little area.
Tommy gave a small wave before striding over to the elevator, pushing the up button and waiting for it to open, which it did rather quickly with an obnoxiously loud ding. Tommy hit the 5 button, grabbing onto the handle lining the sides of the elevator. With a quick, sickening jolt the elevator went up, almost immediately opening to reveal the fifth floor, one of the two lounging areas, this one dedicated to the more major heroes. God, the day heroes learn that a smoother elevator would be preferable over a fast elevator is the day Tommy can retire in peace.
Tommy glanced around, immediately spotting the Dream Team in the near center, just chatting from what Tommy could tell. He rolled his eyes before turning towards one of the corners with a red couch, a window, and a table. Just as he was about to sit down he heard his name being called, “Theseus! C’mere for a minute!”
He bit back the groan that threatened to rise from his throat, throwing his bag on the couch and turning around to face the direction none other than Dream called him from. Once again he strode across the room to stand by the table the Dream Team were all stationed at. “Waddya’ need?” Tommy raised an eyebrow.
Ember cut in before Dream could respond, his flame mask sending an obnoxious glare across the room where the sun hit it, “Sorry if you were busy, we were just wondering if you were aware or keeping an eye on a couple of vigilantes that have recently been jumping into a lot of conflict. Uh- I believe they go by the names Ender and Atomic?” Tommy tried to remember if he knew anything about them, he was pretty sure he’d heard the names months ago, not anytime recently though, minor heroes usually kept track of vigilantes anyway so he never really had a reason to follow up on them even if he had. “I think I heard of them a few months back.” Tommy eventually put out there, tapping his foot on the ground, “Why?” This time Dream responded, “They’ve been appearing in a few villain fights recently, they seem to be rather neutral as to who they’re helping. They’ve been avoiding capture from all the minor heroes because Ender has teleportation powers so we figured we’d let a few of the higher ranking heroes know.” Dream concluded, answering most of Tommy’s questions without the younger needing to ask. “Can’t you guys just deal with it yourself? Or are you three fully trained, top ranking heroes not enough to catch a couple vigilantes?” Tommy scoffed teasingly. “Oh shut up, we have better things to do, just telling you to keep an eye out, my God.” Tommy could practically hear Dream’s eye roll beneath the hero's mask.
“Is that all?” Tommy cocked up an eyebrow, folding his arms over his chest. “Mh–..” Dream was cut off by Sleepwalker, “Actually these dimwits don’t think this is important but I’ve noticed the syndicate’s been oddly quiet lately.” The 4th ranking hero elbowed each of his friends mid-sentence. At least Sleepwalker had the sense to give Tommy some useful information. “Hm, interesting, what was their last appearance again?” At Tommy’s question Sleepwalker pulled a file out of his bag, going through it before finally reading off of the paper, “City center, members on scene were Apparition, Nemesis, and Blade, Heroes on scene were Dream, Theseus..you, and Genesis. It seems they weren’t really after anything in specific which tends to be out of character for the members of the syndicate that were present.” Sleepwalker concluded, slipping the paper back into the file then back in his bag. “I’ll keep that in mind.” Tommy nodded, giving the three a small half-hearted wave before striding back over to the couch he was originally going to place himself on.
Truthfully Tommy didn’t have much to do, looking at a few papers that honestly didn’t matter wasn’t exactly of any use. So, as he tends to do when he gets bored, Tommy decided to go on patrol, although today wasn’t technically his rotation he found the committee didn’t really care.
Now, Tommy was just calmly walking down the less crowded alleyways, enjoying how the wind ruffled his hair ever-so-slightly, he wasn’t really expecting much to happen, that is until he heard footsteps clattering against the stone behind him. He turned around, really just expecting some random mugger, but to his surprise there were a couple people, one of which appeared to be injured. One of these people stood insanely tall, taller than Tommy, if he had to guess the person in front of him had to be about 6’8, he had black and white split dyed hair, his face was covered by a black and white mask and goggles with purple lenses. The other one was much shorter, around 5’5 maybe, he was the injured one leaning on the taller for support, he had shaggy brown hair that covered half of his face, and a gas mask covering the lower half.
“Hello?” Tommy straightened up, tapping his voice changer to double check it was working while he tabbed into his “hero persona.” At the sight of him the taller of the two seemed to tense, pulling the shorter closer, “Hello?” The other clearly had a voice changer on, it was glitchy but still impossible to make out the exact voice, but if Tommy had to guess the person in front of him definitely had an American accent that clashed terribly with Tommy’s own British accent. “Are you two alright, did something happen?” Tommy vaguely gestured to the shorter boy’s obviously wounded leg. “Er- yeah, sorry for bothering you, Theseus-sir..?” The taller dipped his head rather awkwardly.
Okay, Yeah this was kind of suspicious, a couple of random people hiding their faces, with voice changers, injured, in an alleyway. “May I ask for your names?” Tommy stared at the empty space behind them leading to the exit of the alleyway whilst he spoke, preparing to set a clone in that spot in case things got out of hand.
The taller one tensed, and Tommy thought for a moment that he wouldn’t answer, “I’m Ender and this is my partner Atomic…” The taller one, presumably Ender eventually hesitantly responded. “Ra- Ender! You Shouldn’t tell a hero of all people that!” Atomic finally spoke, elbowing Ender with an angry hiss, Tommy was able to recognize the British Accent beneath the voice changer, his seemed to be better quality than Ender’s though. “Sorry!” Ender put his hands up in surrender for a moment before returning one to grip around Nuke’s shoulder once-more. So these two were the losers that had the Dream Team so worried?
Now, Tommy knows he should turn them in but he wasn’t a fan of turning in seemingly innocent, hurt people. So instead, he stepped to the side allowing the two further access into the alleyway. The two seemed surprised as Tommy gestured for them to walk past him, but when Tommy put his hands up the two hesitantly walked past and sat behind one of the dumpsters.
“Mind if I ask what happened?” Tommy leaned on the wall across from them watching while Ender took some bandages out of his bag and started tightly wrapping them on the wound around Atomic’s leg after carefully inspecting it. Atomic scoffed, “Wouldn’t you like to know?” The boy let out a hiss of pain at the pressure applied onto his leg. “I could turn you both in if I wanted to, come on I just wanna know” Tommy rolled his eyes, tapping his foot on the ground. Ender cut in before Atomic could respond, “Guy was getting mugged, saved the guy then this idiot decided it’d be smart to fall on some sharp rocks.” Ender chuckled fondly as he finished bandaging the wound as he then pulled Atomic’s pant leg back down. “Hey! The guy shoved me, I didn’t just ‘decide to fall’ you jerk!” Atomic gave his partner a punch to the gut, resulting in the taller letting out a draining huff of air, but when he regained his breath he immediately started laughing.
Atomic, despite his injured leg, immediately jumped on Ender, wrestling with him in the playful sort of way that dogs do. Tommy couldn’t help the sharp pang of jealousy that spiked in his stomach, he was suddenly hyper aware of the fondness these two held for each other. His throat clogged and his stomach felt like it was being tickled with feathers and pushed inside out at the same time. Sure he’d felt this way around the Dream Team sometimes with all their constant fond jabs at one another followed by immediate laughter, but this felt more real than those times. It’s like it just set in that most people in this world have friends, family, or partners to joke around with, and he was one of the few who didn’t. Of course, he already knew that and he’d come to terms with it a long time ago, but now that he’s the second highest ranking hero it was really too late to even start to make those relationships with people.
Eventually, Tommy calmed himself as he cleared his throat to remind the two he was still there, which was effective seeing as the two immediately tensed and pushed to their feet. “Sorry.” Ender immediately jolted out, quickly straightening his posture and awkwardly fixing his hair. Tommy just nodded in response, “You two should go, I won’t turn you in this time.” He half mumbled, gesturing back towards the alleyway’s entrance. “Yeah, uh- thank you Theseus.” Ender awkwardly stammered out, grabbing his partner’s shoulder. “Uh yeah, thanks or whatever.” Atomic still seemed slightly suspicious of the whole situation, but gave Tommy a small wave nevertheless. “You’re welcome… oh and try to stay away from big villain fights please, it’s not a vigilante’s place to interfere with those.” Tommy added the last bit as he remembered what Ember had told him earlier. “Er- yeah sorry, bye.” Ender gave a small wave, before slinging his whole arm around his partner and disappearing into a flurry of purple particles.
Right. Ender can teleport. Tommy now found himself questioning why the vigilante didn’t just teleport him and Atomic out to begin with since they were clearly worried about Tommy’s presence in the first place. That was the thought that kept circling through Tommy’s head for the rest of the night.