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The rubble seems to collapse on him, and it hurts, stone and rock pressing down onto his legs, his torso.
Tommy’s not sure if he’s going to make it out alive.
The building was on fire, and Tommy, good civilian Tommy, was not going to let the little girl die. Who does that? Villains? No, actually, the heroes would but Tommy doesn’t want to think about that.
He’s currently being half crushed to death because his stupid little self decided to play hero and his power is not anything helpful. In fact, his power would’ve probably worsened the situation.
At least the little girl is out of the way.
God, this is not the way Tommy wanted to go out. He wanted to simply pass away very, very old surrounded by cats. Or cows. Animals in general.
But noooo, god wants him to fucking die or some shit, if the million times Tommy’s almost died says anything. At least his head is sticking out of the rubble, enough where he can see the superheroes and supervillains fight it out above him. The little girl isn’t there, she booked it the moment he pushed her out of the way.
The stone pressing against his arms shifts, so painfully they might be impaled, actually, and Tommy looks to his left to see the Flying Death slam into the ground, hitting the shit on top of his arms. Jesus christ, god really wants Tommy to fucking die. But Tommy doesn’t go down that easily.
“Oi fucker! Flying Death bitch! Over here!” If Tommy could wave with his arms, he definitely would be. Luckily his voice—his loud, obnoxious voice as described by Wilbur Soot—projects far enough for Flying Death to hear him, the wings on his back twitching at the noise.
Flying Death staggers over to him, obviously hurt, but Tommy doesn’t care. He would not like to bleed out, thank you very much.
“Wha–” Flying Death swears under his breath, a hand poised by his ear and he speaks rapidly into what Tommy assumes is an earpiece. “Okay, mate, one sec. Ares is almost here.”
“Thank fuckin’ god,” Tommy pauses, thinking, “actually no. Fuck god. He doesn’t do shit for me.” Flying Death stares at him in concern, mouth opening to probably say some pity-ing shit. “And fuck you for fuckin’ fighting and almost fuckin’ killing me. Hmmm? Fuck you.”
“Are you okay, T-kid?"
Tommy scowls to the best of his ability, pain lacing in every nerve. “Do I fuckin’ look okay you motherfucker? You just had to fight when I was conveniently walking by, bitch. Now I’m fuckin’ stuck here. Waiting for your ugly bitch Ares. Fuckin’ pretentious name.”
Flying Death lifts his hand to his earpiece again, this time talking louder. “Hurry up please. He won’t stop swearing and I think he’s going into shock.” Flying Death pauses for a moment before hissing, “Techno, it’s Tommy.”
Tommy laughs even though he’s not sure what’s funny. “Ares bitch can’t even get here fast.” He actually might be going into shock. “Fuckin’– fuckin’ hurry up Ares.”
He closes his eyes, tired all of the sudden. He doesn’t open them when Ares’ signature deep voice starts talking to Flying Death, nor does he open them when the Sharpshooter shows up. The Sharpshooter! Tommy wishes he wasn’t dying so he could fangirl.
“Lift, Techno, fucking lift!” Sharpshooter’s desperate voice breaks the haze, and Tommy cracks his eyes open, squinting at the bright light that must be the sun. And hey, Sharpshooter said Techno, which is Wilbur’s brother. Flying Death said Techno earlier too, and knew his name. What.
“Are yu– you Te-no? Wilby?” Tommy slurs, nearly incoherent.
“Really, Wilbur,” Flying Death says.
Sharpshooter, no wait. Wilbur. Sharpshooter? Who? Someone says, “Yeah Toms, it’s me, Wilbur. Ares is saving you, sunshine.” A hand picks his head up from where it was resting on the ground, helping the kink in his neck.
“C’n h’fuckin’ ‘urry up?” Tommy’s really, really tired.
The rubble shifts again, and Tommy groans. He can’t really feel his arms, to be honest, and it’s getting a bit hard to breathe.
“Focus on me, Toms,” the voice says, applying light pressure to Tommy’s face in a pattern. Tommy won’t admit it, but it helps. Not that he can admit, to be fair. “I think Flying Death’s passed out, Ares.” Okay, now the voice isn’t directed at Tommy.
The concrete on top of him groans with him, and it shifts, jostling his arms and causing spikes of pain to radiate throughout all of his bones. Suddenly, the pain is gone for a short minute, and Tommy sighs, relieved.
“I’ve got you, I’ve got you,” Wilbur, no Sharpshooter says. Wilbur is Sharpshooter? What? Whoever it is pulls his body out, and he allows them, quiet and dazed. Something slams nearby, and next thing he knows, Ares is peering down at him, not unsimilar to how Sharpshooter is. Isn’t Techno Ares? Wilbur’s brother? This is making Tommy’s head hurt.
The pain returns tenfold, and his legs hurt slightly but it’s nothing compared to his chest and arms. His chest rattles with every breath, most likely broken ribs and even a punctured lung—hopefully not—and his arms feel like they’ve been torn to shreds. Tommy can’t do much other than breath pitifully, arms unmoving.
He has a fix for his arms, at least.
With a loud pop, Tommy’s arms detach themselves from his body, the limbs disconnecting and falling to the ground. Above him Wilbur’s—Sharpshooter’s—mouth drops open, eyes bulging at the sight of his arms falling off of his body. Tommy’s not too sure why this is surprising, he does it all the time, even when bored.
A wave of fatigue washes over Tommy, and he closes his eyes, hearing Ares talk to Sharpshooter, words Tommy’s too tired to decipher, although he thinks he hears “Phil” and “Tommy” a few times.
With a final sigh at the pain relief that came from detaching his arms, Tommy passes out.
Tommy comes to with a bright light shining in his eyes, and he’s reminded of when he broke his left arm at 8 years old.
He was two weeks into summer, and was climbing a tree in his backyard, all alone due to his mother working and his father not caring. It was sometime in the afternoon, his mother should be home from her 12 hour shift, and his father should be almost passed out from his day drinking.
Tommy decided to go outside when his father opened his fifth beer of the day. Climbing high, Tommy had relished in the feeling of the wind in his hair, the closest he’d ever gotten to knowing what a superpower is like. Both of his parents are powerless, so it’s expected he was too.
He heard a car pull into the driveway, and thinking his mother was home, he rushed down the tree. Despite climbing the tree nearly everyday for his whole life, he misstepped and fell. Pain shot through his entire body and next thing he knows, his left arm is snapped at the elbow joint. He had blacked out from the shock and pain, before awakening to the sun glaring into his face, similar to the light piercing his eyes currently.
With his arm dangling at his side, Tommy wobbled inside, tears streaming down his face. Every time his arm brushed his dirty clothes, unimaginable pain would spark.
He was right, it was his mother, and she immediately went to one of two bedrooms and fell asleep, either ignoring or not hearing Tommy’s cries and knocks on the door. As a last resort, Tommy went to his father, who was laying half drunk on the couch with baseball playing.
The next few moments were his father screaming at him to stop crying and to go bother his mother.
Instead, Tommy went to his bedroom, gingerly laying down on his right side so as not to hurt his arm. He shut his eyes and wished, prayed, begged, for the pain to cease, for his arm to stop hurting.
He soon went unconscious and woke up in the middle of the night with no left arm attached to his body, and no pain either.
Needless to say, that was the first time in forever that his mother had checked on him during the night.
Tommy’s arm regrew completely 3 days later, brand spanking new, and it was fascinating to watch, his parents thought it was as well. It didn’t change his relationships with them though. He spent the next 4 years learning his power, and now he’s able to use it manually, whenever he wants. His arms still take 3 days to grow, though.
He ran away from his fucked up parents when he was 14, lying about his age and getting a job and apartment. In two years, he met Wilbur Soot at his work, and the two grew closer, like brothers. Wilbur saved Tommy then, allowing Tommy to move into his apartment with him.
Now he was saved by Wilbur, again.
The light is blinding, and Tommy squints, not too sure what’s going on.
Oh yeah, he fucking detached his arms.
Oh shit.
He’s in the hospital. With no arms. Tommy groans slightly, stuttering to a stop when the action twinges his ribs and oh yeah, those are fucking broken.
Something shifts to his left and Tommy looks over where his arm should be to see Wilbur fucking Soot sleeping with his head on the hospital bed. Fucker’s taking up his bed. What Tommy wouldn’t do for arms to push Wilbur’s head off right now.
“Tommy?” Wilbur murmurs, tiredly lifting his head up. His eyes are all tired, like somebody he loves is in the hospital. Oh wait, Tommy is in the hospital. “Tommy,” Wilbur gasps, waking up quickly.
Might as well get the hard part over already. “You’re Sharpshooter,” Tommy says bluntly, and Wilbur’s eyes open wide before he smiles slightly.
“Yeah, and you can guess that Flying Death and Ares are Phil and Techno.” Tommy nods. “Can we er—talk about the whole,” Wilbur waves an arm to Tommy’s missing arms, “arms, you know, fucking falling off thing? Is it your power?”
“Yep,” Tommy confirms, “I can detach my arms and they grow back three days later. Speaking of, how many days has it been?”
“Only a few hours,” Wilbur corrects, “Techno and Phil will be here soon. Phil was getting checked up ‘cause he fucking passed out too and Techno’s grabbing some food.”
“Sorry for being a totally pog bitch, Wil,” Tommy brags, “I’m just so fuckin' cool and I can a better hero than the actual heroes. Also I was totally a Sharpshooter stan until I found out you were him.”
Wilbur pushes Tommy’s head and Tommy’s face splits into a smile before swapping with a grimace, because ow, broken ribs are shitty as fuck.
The hospital door opens to Techno carrying multiple Mcdonald’s bags, much more bags than was needed, Phil following behind with his left wing wrapped up. Techno lifts the bags, super strength allowing him to hold what looks like ten bags easily
“I brought sustenance.”
Phil snorts, waving at Tommy. Tommy can’t wave back. “Hiya mate, sorry about the whole almost dying thing.”
“Forgiven,” Tommy says, “I just learned that the coolest supervillains are my family. And Wilbur, too.”
Techno sets the bags of food down and sits down on the edge of Tommy’s bed, ignoring Wilbur’s indignant hey! “Care to explain to the arms? Most people don’t just, lose their arms like a lizard.”
“Only if you tell me about your shit. I thought you all were fuckin’ powerless,” Tommy exclaims. God does he fucking wish he had his arms so he could exaggerate his point even more.
“Likewise,” Phil counters, and okay, true. Fair enough.
“Well surprise!” This would be the perfect time for jazz hands. “I’ve got a superpower. I can make my arms fuckin’ fall off and then they’ll grow back exactly three days later. That’s really all it fuckin’ is.”
Wilbur blinks at him. “What the fuck? What the fuck?”
Tommy scowls, “Well, you lot didn’t fuckin’ tell me you guys are fuckin’ supervillains! I honestly don’t know what’s weirder.”
“Your arms falling off,” says Techno.
“Yeah,” Phil agrees.
Wilbur points at Techno, “Anyways, he’s Ares, you know, super strong and other little things I don’t care about.” Wilbur pushes past Techno’s noise of disbelief at his gall to dismiss Techno's powers. “I’m Sharpshooter, really good eyesight and shit, and Phil’s Flying Death, which is kinda obvious with the wings.”
Before Tommy can ask, Phil clarifies, “My power allows me to hide my wings away, that’s why you didn’t know.”
Oh. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?”
At least Wilbur and Phil look semi-guilty. It’s Techno that answers, though. “Why don’t you tell us why you were livin’ alone at 14?”
“C’mon, man! That’s not fuckin’ fair,” Tommy exclaims, hot anger rising to his core. Fuck, does wish he could smack Techno across the head. Tommy pushes it away, allowing room for fear to spread in his core instead. “Does this change anything?”
“No.” Wilbur says firmly. “No. You’re my brother, and we are your family. Plus, I think us being fucking supervillains is way worse than you having power that’s slightly inconvenient yet life-saving. ‘Cause it saved your life.”
“It has before,” Tommy mumbles softly.
“Oh mate,” sighs Phil, hands reaching out to brush Tommy’s curls back from his face. “I’m sorry your past, your trauma, isn’t letting you talk.” Techno’s mouth thins, and Wilbur’s soft expression dips into a frown.
“Maybe someday,” Tommy says, “maybe someday.”
And maybe someday he will speak up, talk about the problems his father and mother caused him. First, he wants his fucking arms to grow the fuck back.