Chapter Text
For years, every morning, I drank
from Blackwater Pond.
It was flavored with oak leaves and also, no doubt,
the feet of ducks.
- Mornings at Blackwater, Mary Oliver
When people asked him why he did his job, Tommy would always reply the same.
He did it entirely and fully for the money.
He didn’t think anyone enjoyed cleaning as a job, really. And if someone did find some sort of a passion or even just motivation for it, Tommy thought they should be paid way fucking more, because he’d been searching for even a grain of it for weeks and had come up with absolutely nothing.
Now, to be fair, the money wasn’t bad. It was actually really, insanely good.
But that probably had more to do with the fact that he cleaned at the highest security prison in the whole country than the actual cleaning part. It made the job… well, considerably less appealing to most people, what with having all the most powerful villains of the last decades locked up in there and all.
Tommy, however, was not most people.
He did appreciate the lack of other candidates for it, though. If not, they never would’ve given an eighteen year-old the job, let alone for such a damn high salary. That, at the very least, did work as a motivation.
And, okay, the job wasn’t just to clean. Tommy was a janitor, officially, but that job just so happened to be cleaning 95% of the time, because unless there was something to repair, he just helped out the (also very royally rewarded) cleaners with their rounds. Still, it was fucking easy money, and Tommy, as an orphan straight out of the system with no other means of income and no trust fund, was in dire need of easy money. So he’d clean and do whatever else was in the job description. Sure.
This was absolutely fucking not in said description.
It was currently well into the afternoon, maybe later, if Tommy had to guess. Not that he’d really know, because he’d only just woken up strapped to a fucking chair.
But perhaps that’s not the best place to start.
♧︎︎︎
10 hours earlier
It was 8:37 in the morning and Tommy would like to combust into flames.
Well, either that or get some damn caffeine into his veins. Sure, he had a coffee break at ten, but that also meant he had to survive until ten.
So here he was, sleep- and caffeine deprived, mopping in the halls of a building normal people would never want to set foot in.
Most people never did either, to be fair. Pandora's Vault didn't allow visits from relatives or friends— the only people permitted to visit these prisoners were their lawyers. And even those visits were scarce, because if they'd already landed themselves a spot at the Vault, even the biggest tycoon of a lawyer couldn't do much anymore.
Anyone else walked down the street pretending the building wasn't even there. You'd think that was easy, since it was built on a small island off the coast of the city, but it was just so absolutely enormous that its pitch black exterior peaked above most of the city's builds easily anyway. Yet most people went about their days never once acknowledging it, quickly glancing away when it happened to be in their line of sight.
Not Tommy, though. Every day he'd take a ferry with some of the guards who were starting their shifts, he'd do his job and he'd be out again every evening, only to pick the mop up again the following day.
Again, easy fuckin' money.
And so, on this fine Monday morning, Tommy was mopping the halls with his earbuds in, humming along to the sounds of Common People by Pulp.
"You missed a spot," a voice spoke up above his music. It was only eight in the fucking morning and Tommy, if you hadn’t gathered it yet, was not a morning person. So whichever little bitch of a guard was trying to comment on his work was about to severely regret it.
Tommy squared his shoulders, pulled out an earbud and whipped around. "Excuse you, you fucki—" He stopped. There was no guard there. The hall was empty. Instead, he found himself staring into a cell.
The cells of Pandora's Vault, unlike your usual prison, weren't made up of a steel wall with a door with one tiny barred window. No, instead, the wall facing the hallway was entirely see-through, made up of a violet-tinted forcefield. 'To be able to watch them easily,' Tommy had been told by Bad, one of the guards, once. And while that might be true, it mostly just reminded Tommy of a zoo enclosure.
"I said," the voice spoke again, "you missed a spot. Right there, in the corner. You always miss it."
Tommy didn't need to read the plaque to know who the brown eyes he was staring into belonged to. Fucking Siren. The thought that Siren, the Siren, had focused on him enough to know he did (allegedly) always miss a spot should've been terrifying, but Tommy was tired and not having it today.
"Yeah, well, maybe I’m doin' it on purpose to annoy you." Tommy shouldn't have said that— he shouldn't have said anything at all. He was sort of contractually obligated not to say anything and he could also sort of be fired on the spot for doing so.
But this guy shouldn't be giving commentary on his work either. Bitch.
The villain was quiet for a few seconds. Then he snorted, his amusement clear and wow, it’d been a while since Tommy wanted to punch someone so badly. A while indeed.
"Mop it up. Do your job properly." Siren spoke, and with the way the words vibrated through the air so… strangely, with a bit of an echo and sounding almost metallic, Tommy could tell he’d laced the command with his power.
In the outside world, Tommy would've immediately listened. That was what the man’s power entailed, after all. The name Siren wasn’t given to him by mistake. Like the many cops, civilians and even heroes he’d had under his influence, Tommy wouldn't have had a choice but to do as he was told. That idea of being a puppet to Siren's voice was downright terrifying.
But that was in the outside world. The rules inside Pandora’s Vault weren’t the same. Here, Tommy just laughed.
"You think you’re so smart, huh? You're not that new here, you know how shit works." Tommy was pretty sure even civilians knew, even if they probably weren't aware of the specifics. The violet forcefield wasn't just that. It was more than just a barrier to keep the villains inside their dull cells. It was also laced with the Warden's power: nullification.
Anything, and more importantly, any one inside of that cell was fully unable to use their powers, to any extent. It was why the Warden was given the most powerful position inside the prison. He was fucking terrifying .
He also occasionally had coffee with Tommy.
"Worth a try, wasn't it? You never know if Sam'll drop his guard one of these days," Siren answered, leaning back against the wall from where he was sat on his bed, still seeming just as smug as he had before. Not many people knew the Warden by his civilian name, but Tommy wasn't particularly surprised. Of course Siren did. He wasn't in this place for stealing a lollipop from a child.
The man wasn't as intimidating, like this, though. Tommy used to see him on the news and pity whoever was stupid enough to cross paths with Siren. Siren— one of the big three villains that terrorised the city, right up there with the Blade and Zephyrus. He was the boogeyman mothers warned their children about, the personification of manipulation. He was always there, lurking in the shadows, and if you didn’t eat your greens he’d get you.
Now, he was just a ridiculously tall man with no mask and slightly crooked glasses.
Orange looked fucking bad on him, too. Tommy almost told him as much, but he reminded himself that he was better than that.
"Hm. You seemed more interesting, guess you're just as boring as the guards," Siren hummed as he leaned back against the wall, still sat on his bed and looking awfully proud of himself.
Oh, fuck this.
“Orange looks shit on you.”
Siren blinked, and his smile dropped and moved to sit on Tommy’s lips instead. “What the fu—”
“Now if you’ll excuse me, we can’t all sit on our lazy ass all day,” Tommy replied, a cheeky grin on his lips as he straightened up once again, putting the mop on his cleaning cart and starting to wheel it along. “Was nice meeting you though, Siren. Have fun sitting there and plotting revenge or something.”
And with a smirk resting on his face, feeling awfully smug, Tommy wheeled his cart past Siren’s cell. Because sure, arguing with a powerless supervillain was fun, but leaving a powerless supervillain behind in his little cell was arguably so much funnier.
As he wheeled past, only for a second, Tommy’s eyes lingered on the metal plaque next to the cell.
Inmate 6N17815, cat A. (std IEP level)
54 days since date of conviction xx-xx-xxxx
Villain persona: Siren
Legal name: Wilbur Soot (note: this record may contain false information, investigation ongoing)
Tommy let out a breath and looked away. There was more information on the plaque, fake or not, but why should he care? Sure, Tommy had always been curious, but he was here to get paid, not to learn about captured villains.
… Even if he had always kind of been really really interested in them, even as a kid. But he was only the janitor, and if Sam checked the cameras and noticed him lingering around the guy’s cell too long, he might get told off. Better not risk that. So he wheeled past and cast both the names Siren and Wilbur Soot out of his mind.
But not for long.
♧︎︎︎
It was eleven in the morning and Tommy still wanted to combust into flames. For an entirely different reason now, because he’d actually had his coffee break, so life was semi-alright to handle.
However, he currently found himself in front of the cell of none other than the Blade. Like only Siren wasn’t enough, no, let’s throw another one of the big three in the mix. But this hallway was on his list for the day, and since today Tommy was, apart from a few part time cleaners, the only one doing this, he’d just finish his little list until five o’ clock came around. Even if the Blade’s cell was on said list.
Tommy hummed, eyes rolling over the plaque next to the cell. It held about the same information as Siren’s, really, but he glossed over the top bit anyway.
Inmate 3N17D78, cat A. (basic IEP level)
54 days since date of conviction xx-xx-xxxx
Villain persona: The Blade
Legal Name: Techno (last name unknown)
Hm. Alright.
Tommy hummed, stepping over the small ledge and entering the cell. The force field was turned off, as it always was when the inmates were gone. The Blade was probably either at lunch or out for some mandatory time at the exercise yard. Mandatory, because if Sam had a say in it all the category A inmates would never see the light of day again.
Now, Sam was a nice man. He was! Tommy liked him, and he’d taken a liking to Tommy as well. But he was also… rather heavily influenced by higher-ups to keep a tight grip on his authority in the prison, and you could tell in his opinions about it. Because Tommy knew he wasn’t like that. Sam was a compassionate man, but he really put up a sort of… persona of the Warden. There was a reason he was talked about, after all. And not just because he occasionally helped out the number one hero.
But alas, it was mandatory, and whether he was at the courtyard or at lunch, the Blade was gone, and that was all that mattered for Tommy, because all the rooms in this hallway had to be cleaned today. So he got to work, grabbing the microfibre cloth and starting to dust things off.
Methodically, like the YouTube videos he’d watched on ‘How to clean professionally’ had taught him, he started over at the little bathroom area. Yes, the toilet as well. Not his favourite part of the job, but for nearly 30 bucks an hour, he could power through it.
“Man, come on,” Tommy groaned, huffing a bit as he laid eyes on the state of the bathroom, towels strewn across the floor like he’d entered a teenage boy’s bedroom.
(He immediately flipped off the voice in his head saying that ‘You’re a teenage boy with a room like this, Tommy’. It was different when it was his own mess, alright?)
30 pounds an hour. That’s at least two sort of decent meals and a new game. Yeah, alright. Plus, he still had music, and thus, with Changing of the Seasons by Two Door Cinema Club filling his ears, Tommy got to work.
It took him about twenty minutes to deep-clean the bathroom area (10 pounds), before he moved to the bedroom itself. Now, Tommy had been working here for about a month now, he’d seen a room or two, so he could confidently say that the Blade’s was… bare. Like, weirdly bare. Sure, this was a maximum security prison, but most inmates had some things with them, be it from back home or stuff they’d bought or gotten to keep due to good behaviour.
Ah— that might explain, actually. He didn’t expect this guy to be on particularly good behaviour. The Blade was, again, not known by that name for no reason. He wielded a sword like no other, fast like lightning, as if he always knew where you were going to strike before even you did, and strong as a boar. That was his mask, too. Of course, back when he’d still worn a mask, before this place took him.
A boar. It wasn’t unlike Techno, the character fit him well. He carried himself with pride, always. Even when he was paraded out of the courthouse in handcuffs, he looked like the one in control over the situation instead of the dozen policemen escorting him. He was that good. He was strong too, like an immovable force in every fight. A battle begun with the Blade was basically already a battle lost. And he snorted like a boar too, sometimes. Or so Tommy had been told.
In just over half an hour, the cell was completely cleaned. Bit of a personal record for Tommy, but the emptiness of the room made it easy.
“Bit sad,” he hummed, glancing around the bare (though at least now clean) room.
“You got a problem?”
Tommy froze. Because he easily recognised that voice. Oh, he recognised it alright. The Blade.
Tommy whipped around, eyes wide as his gaze fell on the man. He didn’t look particularly impressive, but then, he supposed that underestimation often worked in his favour. His pink hair had gotten long enough for it to be braided, apparently, but he didn’t look any less intimidating than he did on those news reports with the boar mask on.
“Oh, don’t go scaring him, come on, he’s just a kid.” The guard behind the villain sighed, before he turned to Tommy to give him that trademark friendly smile. “You done here, Tommy?”
Tommy blinked, eyes lingering on the other man just a few seconds before he nodded and stepped out of the cell, throwing his rag over to his cart. “Yeah, Bad, all done. See you at lunch?”
“See you at lunch,” Bad replied and nodded while he gave the Blade a small push to lead him into the cell so he could activate the forcefield again. Of course, all inmates also wore an ankle band that activated whenever they were taken out of their cells. A little purple light would start glowing, and their powers would be rendered just as useless as inside the cells.
"Why wouldn't you just always have the ankle bands on and have normal bars?" Tommy had asked Sam over coffee once. The man had sipped his drink and shrugged a bit.
"The bands take up way more energy because they move. I have to be awake and alert for my power to work on them." He'd explained, and Tommy, as a boy ever so fascinated with other people's powers, had listened intently.
"And the forcefields are easier because they're always in one place?"
"Yeah. I can do 'em in my sleep or even when I'm all the way across town. Took a while to get that level of control, though. My powers manifested really late already, and by the time I was genuinely good with them I must've been like twenty." Tommy gave a small nod and a hum as he sipped from his own drink. Sam, however, took the silence as something more, because when he spoke again, his tone was soft and his eyes were filled with pity.
"Oh, Tommy, I'm sure yours will manifest soon too. Mine only did at sixteen, maybe you're just a really late bloomer." Tommy hated pity, even from Sam. He'd gotten up and said he needed to get back to work, and that had been the end of that conversation.
Tommy shook his head, sighing as he looked over at the two again.
The Blade guy was looking at Tommy… kind of weirdly, and it was really freaking him the hell out, so he’d very much like to fucking bail right about now. Tommy just kind of nodded, pushing his cart away, a small grin appearing on his lips. “Yep! See you at lunch, bitch!”
“Language!”
♧︎︎︎
“You have got to be kidding me.”
Seriously. All three in one day, huh? Really?
To be fair, Zephyrus’ room wasn’t actually on his list for the day. But the one opposite him was, because the inmate that used to be in there was moved to a different facility, and so Tommy was cleaning there. But with the big fucking zoo enclosure window, Zephyrus' might as well fucking be on the list too.
“You alright mate?” The man said in a clearly confused reply, and Tommy immediately turned away to get the stuff he needed to clean the room. He wasn’t going to look at Zephyrus, wasn’t going to notice those enormous black wings that, even when rendered useless, were more impressive than anything else inside this whole building, and he most definitely wasn’t going to get in trouble for talking to yet another top villain.
“Yeah. Fine.” Tommy said, and fuck, why did he sound so nervous? Well, he knew why. Perhaps the better question was why couldn’t he hide it any better?
He heard a hum from inside the cell, and he dared to glance around once. The man was sat on his bed, seeming surprisingly… relaxed. It was an odd sight, though. He was usually clad in green and black, his wings behind him like shadows and he sported a black plague mask to hide his identity— a truly terrifying sight for anyone who crossed him. This was all different, though. His wings were out, sure, but with that orange jumpsuit it was hardly a sight to scream at.
And his eyes seemed so… troubled. Perhaps he always looked like that. Not like anyone would know, considering the mask he always wore.
Whatever. Tommy didn’t care. So he huffed a bit and turned away, then paused as his eyes caught a silvery metal. Hm. He’d read it for two other people today, might as well make that three and complete the set.
Inmate 6N0738, cat A. (std IEP level)
54 days since date of conviction xx-xx-xxxx
Villain persona: Zephyrus, the Crowfather
Legal name: unknown (note: inmate has asked to be called Phil, this information however cannot be confirmed to be truth with any records in official databases)
Tommy snorted a bit. It was kind of funny that they couldn't even find the man's name, though no surprise. Zephyrus, often called the Crowfather in hushed gossip, was pretty damn near a mafia boss. As leader of the Syndicate, he was pretty much the most powerful man in all of the city.
Was.
Because now he was locked up, a wild crow caught in a purple cage, with eyes as blue as the sky they'd seen up close so often and wings that could no longer take him there.
Those blue eyes caught his, and Tommy held his breath as he quickly looked away. He needed to get to work, and fast.
Breath in, breath out. He could do this.
So Tommy upped the volume of his music (All over Again by khai dreams, currently) and in record time, the room was finished up and he wheeled himself and his cart the hell away, leaving those sharp eyes across the hallway far behind him.
He needed more coffee to get through this fucking day.
♧︎︎︎
"Not taking your coffee with me today, huh?" Sam chuckled, leaning against a row of lockers as he watched Tommy pack his backpack. The boy snorted, shaking his head.
"I already did this morning, dick. Can't a man want some actually good coffee once a day?" It was, after all, pretty common knowledge that their coffee machine made sort of crap coffee. Tommy did still usually take both his morning and afternoon coffee breaks there though, because taking the ferry back to town for a break of just over half an hour was way too much of a hustle.
It was definitely worth it today, though. He needed more caffeine than what Clementine (Pandora's crappy coffee machine) could provide.
Sam chuckled and shook his head, reaching over to ruffle Tommy's hair. The absolute bastard. "Alright, alright. If you're not back before three you're working after hours though." Tommy rolled his eyes. He'd heard those worse before, but the day that Sam actually enforced them was yet to come.
"Now, Sam, when have I ever been back late?" The boy smirked, slinging his backpack over his shoulder and giving Sam a two-fingered salute as he made his way out.
Pressing his index finger on the little black pad next to the door, he waited until it lit up green and said 'Tom Parker, access granted' before he pushed the thick black door open.
"Three! Not a minute later, Tommy!" He could still hear Sam yell before the door fell shut again.
Tommy just smirked and made his way to the ferry.
On board of the small boat, as always, was a short guy with brown hair and a smile brighter than the sun up above. Tubbo, the only other questionably young employee of the prison, but more importantly, Tommy’s best friend.
“Tubs!” Tommy yelled, breaking out into a bright grin that was quickly matched on the other boy’s face as he rushed aboard the ship.
“Tommy! Clementine not doing it for you again?” The guy asked with a grin, already sailing the boat out of the dock before he even got an answer. He wasn’t at the helm, but he didn’t need to be, really. Tubbo controlled wind currents as his power (which, fucking cool) so all he really had to do was blow wind into the sails.
Every day, at least a dozen times a day, he’d sail from the prison back to the mainland whenever guards or workers needed it. A repetitive, boring job that Tommy would never want, but he happened to know that Tubbo was also paid really handsomely for it.
Besides, like Tubbo had regularly told Tommy, he could follow all his college classes remotely from there and he only had to take a break to sail back and forth once every few hours and he was getting paid for all the time he was on the boat. “Best side hustle ever,” he’d said, and Tommy couldn’t help but agree.
“Yup,” Tommy snorted, leaning his forearms on the railings of the boat and watching the waves as they sailed along. “It’s one of those ‘I need a good cup’ kinda days, you know how it is.”
Tubbo nodded with a chuckle as he moved towards the helm of the ship, turning his speaker on on the way there.
Tommy always enjoyed this. He hadn’t known Tubbo for a very long time, but they’d become quick friends anyway. Tubbo had already been working here when Tommy started, and on his first day, when he’d been dying from nerves, Tubbo had put on music and talked to him about games. When the boat had reached the island upon which Pandora’s Vault was built, all of his nerves had been subdued. They’d been… pretty much inseparable ever since.
They didn’t even always have to talk. Sometimes it was just like this, enjoying the other’s company with good music in the background. It was pleasant, albeit usually over far too quickly.
“You coming over tonight?” Tubbo asked after a while, and Tommy only then noticed the boat wasn’t moving anymore.
Tommy nodded, grabbing his backpack off the floor again and nodding. “Mhm, think so, don’t have any other plans.”
“Sweet. Oh, it is Ranboo’s turn to pick the movie, just a heads up.”
Tommy groaned, stepping onto the dock and turning around to yell back at his friend. “I swear— if I have to watch one of those weird eighties horror movies, I swear—”
“It’ll be fun!” Tubbo yelled back, and Tommy simply turned around and flipped him off, though there was a small smile on his lips as he walked off. Tubbo was a bit of an odd one, but not any more than Tommy was. Perhaps that’s why he enjoyed his company so much.
Tommy was just putting his earbuds in again, walking down the street with a pep in his step, when he felt a light tap on his shoulder.
Huh.
He turned around, raising an eyebrow. "Can I help yo—"
Then everything went black.
♧︎︎︎
“Oh, good, you’re awake.”
Tommy could only groan in response. Literally, because there was a gag in his mouth. Perhaps not the worst decision, or he would've started cursing his lungs out the second he got to, but that didn't mean he had to like it.
"Alright. I'm going to remove the blindfold and the gag, but if you scream, they’re going back on. Understood?"
Fucking hell.
Tommy, in the end, did not scream, which he thought was a real accomplishment on his part. He did immediately let his face fall into a glare, though.
Until he realised who exactly he was looking at.
He was met with a green and black suit, a black domino mask and pastel pink shoulder-length hair with intricate braids. This could only be one person, and Tommy knew her name very well.
"... Nemesis."
One of the city's top wanted villains and current acting leader of the Syndicate in Zephyrus' absence. A fucking force to be reckoned with. One Tommy did not particularly want to reckon with.
But of course he'd ended up here anyway. Because interactions with three locked up villains in one day hadn't already been enough, hm? What's one more?
"Tom," she answered in that icy, robotic voice changer tone, and Tommy sucked in a breath. Not even because of the voice and how its unnatural pitch made him shiver, but because of the name .
Nobody called him anything other than Tommy. Not anymore.
"Tommy," he corrected a little too quickly, with a little too much bite to it. Nemesis clearly noticed, because a chuckle followed.
"Tommy. Alright. I can work with that."
"The fuck is that supposed to mean?!" He hissed, pulling at the ropes tying him to the chair. Tommy was no stranger to knots, but these were pretty damn strong, even for his (very high) standards. Wouldn't mean he'd stop trying to get the hell out if them, though.
Nemesis hummed, watching him sitting there on his chair like he was a bird of prey. Tommy absolutely despised it. Because he was fucking Tommy , alright? He wasn't beaten down this easily, ever. He was quick and dangerous in his very own way— he couldn't be taken just like that.
Except that apparently, he could.
"Tommy, I have a proposition for you." She spoke, and Tommy felt a shiver run down his spine. Every instinct he had was telling him to leave, to run, but he couldn't. So instead he stayed silent, expecting her to elaborate.
"We know where you live, who you associate with and where you work," she began, and while she didn't explain, Tommy knew very well who 'we' meant. "It puts you in a… unique position."
Oh. Oh no.
She didn't need to continue for Tommy to know where this was going, really.
"You see, there's three men inside that prison that the Syndicate would like to see freed. You'll be assisting us, and you'll be rewarded for it."
Okay, so Tommy was fucked. Great. Good to know.
He wasn't just going to back down, though. They were real fucking bold to think that Tommy would just roll over and do their tricks just like that. "And if I don't?" He asked.
"Then you'll be doing it for free, and I won't be as kind," she spoke, a switchblade switching open in her hand. Newly polished, likely sharpened too. A clear threat.
Tommy gulped. He looked at the blade, then back at Nemesis.
Then, slowly, the boy nodded.
♧︎︎︎
Tommy used to say he did his job entirely and fully for the money.
Now, it was for his life as well.