Chapter Text
Tommy tended to be unlucky.
Never knew his mom, dad was rarely around and fucked off to blow his brain out on drugs off in California when Tommy was only six, leaving him stuck in the foster care system and shuttled from house togroup home to house to group home.
Being diagnosed with dyslexia and ADHD and considered a “problem child” certainly did nothing to help with his already shaky upbringing. And then, he somehow managed to screw everything up every time he got to a place where he could maybe tolerate staying.
And it wasn’t even his fault that things kept breaking around him! The first time had been in third grade, when the class had gone on a field trip to the zoo. There had been this accident with the cages in the insect area, and Tommy swore up and down that he had only wanted to get a closer look at the tarantulas, but—of course, he got expelled anyway. Then, the next year, he had gone to the natural history museum with his class and he swore he saw a man with one eye in the center of his forehead, so he followed and ended up in the back and may or may not have snuck into one of the rooms and accidentally knocked over a possibly priceless artifact. And half a year after that…well, you get the idea.
So, Tommy hadn’t really felt all that optimistic about his chances in this new school for troubled kids—Palmer Academy. What good would it do to stick an unlucky child in with a bunch of chronic liars, kleptomaniacs, and bullies? That was just fucking asking for trouble.
Okay, maybe not everything was as bad as he was making it out to be. There was at least one good thing about Palmer Academy.
Tubbo.
Ridiculous name, but Tommy felt it matched his only friend to the T. Literally. Haha.
Just looking at Tubbo, you’d imagine him an easy target for bullying—ridiculously scruffy, brown hair that formed a mop over his head and half covered his eyes; clothing whose sleeves were too long and seemed to hang off his body in odd angles; and, the cherry on top, he walked a bit funny.
Either way, Tommy had first seen Tubbo hunched over an empty lunch table on the second day of school and sidled over to him. He hadn’t exactly expected anything special to happen, but Tubbo was at a school for incurable, troubled kids, right? So clearly there had to be something interesting about him. And better to start making connections with the losers early, as Tommy sure as hell wasn’t making it in with the popular group.
And boy, had Tommy been wrong in his assumptions. Tubbo was an absolute menace—sure, he never got caught doing anything, but Tommy had seen him every other day with his entire skin covered in soot and ash marks and his hair blown up into fifty different cowlicks, grinning madly. There were only a few moments when Tommy actually got to know what Tubbo had been working on, but oh boy, were they glorious.
And presuming Tubbo was predisposed to being bullied was a miscalculation, too. Sure, at first, people tried to mess with Tubbo by tripping him in the halls, shooting those wet balls of paper at him, etc etc. They stopped pretty quickly after a group of bullies’ eyebrows ended up shaved off in a freak accident involving a slushie machine. No one could ever confirm it was Tubbo, but his manic grin and loud taunts made his involvement pretty obvious.
Anyways, Tubbo was great.
Which was why Tommy was feeling fairly optimistic about the field trip Palmer Academy was going on. Sure, nothing good could come of sending a group of misbehaving teenagers to a museum, but having Tubbo there would at least make things more interesting.
Of course, that was Tommy’s first mistake.
Being hopeful.
Nothing good ever came from Tommy believing things could be normal.
He had actually made it to June—almost all of the way through the school year—and was managing to barely pass most of his classes, and then he just had to get hopeful.
Either way, the day had been going pretty well up until that point. Sure, the other kids in Tommy’s class had been fucking around just as much as usual, but he and Tubbo were able to steer clear of the splash zones and repercussions, so Tommy counted that as a win.
And the museum visit had been mildly interesting so far, too. Mr. Jones’—a balding, nasally sounding, old man—narration was as bland and lackluster as usual, but Tommy had gotten pretty good at tuning out his history lectures and focusing on something that was actually interesting: the cool-as-fuck Grecian pottery on display.
Tommy had no clue what was going on in them, but at least they looked pretty cool. The patterns were interesting. The colors were kind of boring (would have been better if the orange had been red), but Tommy could deal with it.
If only Tommy didn’t have goddamn dyslexia, then maybe he could actually read the script on the stupidly tiny plaques and figure out what was being displayed on the pottery. Something about a bearded man being offered a baby?
Tubbo walked up behind Tommy, peering over his shoulder at the vase. Tubbo pursed his lips as they upturned slightly at the sight of it.
“Bit of a gross story.” Tubbo glanced up towards Tommy. “Do you know it?”
“Nope. Can’t read shit in this museum.”
Tubbo barked out a laugh. “Yeah, yeah, I understand. Anyway, you see that bearded guy on the left? He ate five of his kids. Would’ve eaten the sixth one too, but his wife hid the child away so he could grow up and defeat his father.”
Tommy stared incredulously at Tubbo. “He ate—he ate his fucking children?! That’s disgusting!”
“Yeah, all of the Greek stories are super fucked.” Tubbo replied, failing to contain his laughter.
Tommy looked back towards Mr. Jones, only to realize the class was in the process of moving on to the next section of the museum.
“C’mon Tubs, we’re getting left behind!”
——
The class gathered on the front steps of the museum for lunch. Overhead, a large storm was brewing. Tommy figured it must have been global warming or some shit, as the weather had been wacky all over the country since Christmas. There’d been massive snowstorms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes—Tommy wouldn’t have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in.
No one else seemed to notice, though. A group of guys were pelting a nearby flock of pigeons with their leftovers while a red-headed girl whom Tommy didn’t know the name of was attempting to steal an old lady’s purse. And, of course, Mr. Jones wasn’t seeing a thing.
Tommy debated letting him know, but discarded that idea almost immediately. Not only was it unlikely Mr. Jones would do anything anyway, but Tommy would end up being hated for snitching.
Plus, there was this sort of code among the students of Palmer Academy: don’t mention anything you see anyone else do to the teachers, and they’d do the same for you.
And, most importantly, Mr. Jones was a fucking bitch. Kept giving Tommy Fs and shit. He deserved to get sued by an angry lady who got her purse stolen by a teenager under his care.
Tommy and Tubbo sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. Tommy tended to start fights when he was around others (for some unknown reason), but he was determined to not screw up during one field trip in his life, so Tommy wouldn’t even give himself the chance to get in trouble.
Tubbo was fiddling with his styrofoam plate and it was making that awful squeaking sound, when he suddenly stopped, sniffed the air, and glanced up, eyes locking on to a figure crossing the plaza and heading towards the museum.
They were dressed in a long trench coat—so long that Tommy figured they had probably tripped over the bottom once or twice. Their back was hunched like those old grandmas who had to use walkers, but they moved almost too fast for comfort.
Then, Tommy blinked and the figure was walking up the stairs into the museum.
How’d they get there so fast?
Tommy had moments like that sometimes, when his brain fell asleep or something and suddenly the world had skipped a couple seconds. The school counselor had told him that it was part of the ADHD, his brain misinterpreting things.
This time, Tommy wasn’t so sure.
He glanced back towards Tubbo, expecting to find a look of confusion on his face as well. Instead, Tommy was greeted with a frozen visage, everything unmoving other than the eyes locked onto and tracking the figure as they headed into the museum. Tubbo was fidgeting with his fingers, too. More than usual, that is.
Did Tubbo know this person? Now that Tommy thought about it, he didn’t really know that much about Tubbo outside of school.
“You good, big man?” Tommy asked.
Tubbo blinked, then seemed to snap out of whatever state he had been in, taking a shuddering breath.
“Yeah, yeah. I’m good.”
“Do you know that guy?”
“Maybe. I’m not sure. Probably not.” Tubbo replied, brow still furrowed.
Tommy shot up from the fountain, clapping his hands together. “Alright then! Let’s go find out!”
Tubbo glanced up at Tommy. “What?” He breathed out, voice still sounding a bit shaky.
Tommy was already meandering in the direction of the museum entrance. Mr. Jones looked like he was falling asleep, and none of the other kids cared enough to mention Tommy’s actions to him. “C’mon, c’mon! Tubbo, I’m so bored, I gotta do some shit or I’ll die—I’ll literally die!”
Tubbo finally stood up, a long suffering sigh being expelled through his clenched teeth. “Weren’t you the one who said you weren’t going to fuck around this field trip?”
“Tubbo, my man, that was before this creepy fucker showed up and intrigued me.”
“I really, really don’t think this is a good idea.”
“Where’s your adventurous spirit, Tubbo?!” Without waiting for his answer, Tommy began leaping up the steps leading into the museum.
Honestly, Tommy knew this was a stupid decision. Tubbo was right, Tommy had promised that he wouldn’t fuck around this field trip. And Tommy knew that this excursion would end in disaster, if the luck he’d had for his entire life was anything to go by.
Halfway up the stairs, Tommy glanced back towards Tubbo. He was pale and looked like he was about to start pacing back and forth.
Still, Tommy walked in. If his bad luck was going to kick in anyways, he at least wanted to get in trouble for something he actually did.
Tommy followed the clicking echo of the figure's shoes—were they high heels?—deeper into the museum. When he finally caught up to them, he found himself back in the Ancient Greek section.
Except for the two of them, the gallery was empty.
Now that Tommy could get a closer look, he realized the figure was actually an old lady. She looked like your stereotypical grandmother—wrinkled, hunched, dull pink and white clothing, and gray, short, curly hair. Which made the whole trench coat get-up even stranger.
She had been glancing around the room frantically, as if searching for something before she froze, a weird, low, growling noise beginning to emerge from her throat.
“Were you the one who hid it? Is that why you’re here now?” Her voice was angry and taut, stretched thin like the leathery skin pulled across her frame.
“What?” Tommy breathed out, voice beginning to go shaky. It seemed his bad luck would kick in sooner than expected.
She turned, and the look in her eyes was beyond angry. The lights made them seem a sickly yellow.
“We are not fools, child. The thief had to drop it off somewhere. Are you supposed to be its guardian?”
“Miss, I—I think you’re confusing me for someone else. I’m just a normal guy, a friendly lad, Tommy Innes, yeah?” Tommy chuckled nervously and tried to disguise the quiver in his voice. The grandma looked like she wanted to kill him.
He really should have listened to Tubbo.
“‘A normal guy’? I can smell your stench, half blood. Confess, and you will suffer less pain.” She hissed, gloved fingers clenching and unclenching in a steady rhythm.
Half blood? What? Tommy wracked his brain, trying to figure out what was going on. He was in possession of all of his blood, thank you very much! What the hell was this woman talking about?
Was the grandma just senile?!
“Well?” She demanded.
“The fuck do you mean ‘half blood’—“
“Your time is up.” She hissed.
Then, the strangest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow, and suddenly Tommy wasn’t sure it was just because of the lights. Her gloves, neat, lacy, dull pink things, tore as her fingers stretched and ripped into talons. Her trench coat melted into large, leathery wings, the skin stretched across them as taut as the skin across her face.
She wasn’t human—she was a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs—and she was about to slice Tommy to pieces.
Then, things got even stranger.
Tubbo, who had been sitting petrified by the fountain just a minute earlier burst into the hall, holding a ball of what looked like scrap metal and wires held together with glue. He lobbed it towards the hag grandma with a grunt, panting heavily, as if he had been running.
Said hag grandma lunged at Tommy.
With a yelp, he dodged and felt talons scrape through the air where his face had just been. Tommy kept stumbling sideways, not wanting to be anywhere near the orb of scrap metal when it hit the ground.
Unfortunately, the ball just clattered to the ground with a loud clang and fell forward onto its uneven side. Nothing happened.
The hag spun towards Tommy with a murderous look in her eyes. His breathing was getting funny, limbs tingling as if they had fallen asleep and were now in the process of waking up.
Faintly, as though through a speaker from the late 1800s, Tommy could hear Tubbo shouting.
“Shit! Shit!! I forgot to fucking turn it on—Tommy it’s the big button, the big fucking button!!”
The grandma snarled, her cracked lips peeling up into a sneer.
Tommy lunged forward—brain barely processing the events unfolding around him—and scrambled for the bomb.
Because it was a bomb, right?
The hag flew straight towards Tommy, her claws grasping at him.
His hands were shaking, his knees were rapidly switching between locking up and turning to jelly, and his fingers finally fumbled around enough to hit the ‘big button’, whereupon a quiet ticking sound began clicking from inside.
Without thinking, Tommy thrust the bomb forward, using it as a paltry shield to try to deflect the grandma’s talons. The tingling sensation in his limbs returned in full force.
To his shock, the ‘shield’ actually seemed to work, with the hag snarling in frustration as her claws glanced off the rough metal and she darted past.
Tommy chucked the bomb—which was now ticking worryingly fast—at where the grandma had ended up, then lunged in the opposite direction and scrambled to bring his hands up to cover his neck.
The clicking ended and was replaced with an ear splitting explosion that rattled Tommy’s bones and almost distracted him from the multiple, new, stinging pains in the side of him facing the bomb.
When the ringing in his ears finally subsided, Tommy could make out Tubbo’s frantic shouts.
“Shit, shit—Tommy—I’m so sorry! Gods dammit, fuck!”
Tommy uncurled his body, pain spearing upwards from six or so points in his left thigh.
The first thing Tommy noticed when he opened his eyes, was the golden dust streaked out in a blast stain from where the grandma had last stood. Said grandma was no where to be found.
The second thing Tommy noticed, was Tubbo’s face—eyes watery and desperate, lip clenched painfully tight between his teeth. When Tubbo noticed Tommy’s open eyes, his face scrunched up and Tommy was convinced he would start bawling.
Instead, Tubbo’s expression morphed into one of pinched anger. “I told you not to follow her, you absolute idiot! I told you, but you didn’t listen to me, and now you have fucking shrapnel in your leg and I—I thought you died—“
Tubbo’s voice choked out at the end of his sentence and he squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, before ripping off his ratty, brown backpack and rummaging through it.
Tommy, honestly, was still not processing what had just occurred. Half of him was convinced this was all a hallucination, brought on by him disassociating from Mr. Jones’ boring lectures. The other half could feel the pieces of shrapnel lodged into his thigh and could smell the stench of sulphur permeating the air.
Tubbo pulled out a ziploc bag full of some sort of golden squares and shoved one of them in front of Tommy’s mouth. “Eat.”
Not having the energy to argue or ask what the fuck these lemon square-looking things were, Tommy opened his mouth and let Tubbo force the strange food into it. It was sort of sticky, but the taste flooded his mouth and reminded Tommy of the Uncrustables PB&J that he had been eating when he first met Tubbo—except a thousand times better, because the actual sandwich had been stale and cold, whereas this was warm and gooey and good.
Immediately, Tommy could feel the sharp pain in his thigh slip away, replaced with a warm, numbing sensation. It even disguised the sting as Tubbo gingerly pulled the six pieces of metal out of Tommy’s skin. Had the shards hit just a bit higher, Tommy would have been…he stopped that train of thought.
For the first time, Tommy realized that the shrapnel was golden. Had he just not noticed this earlier, when it had been a part of the bomb? Or had these pieces been hidden inside the ball?
Tommy was pulled out of his thoughts as Tubbo sighed loudly and let his head fall onto the tiled floor. “We need to get out of here.” Tubbo’s muffled voice echoed around the empty hall.
Finally, Tommy felt his voice return. “What the fuck just happened?!” It was a bit weak and shaky, but the familiar tone was strangely comforting.
“Can we please talk about this later?” Tubbo pleaded. “There’s, like, a video and everything, and I just—we need to get out of here quick. The Kindly Ones won’t take well to being beaten, and—“
Tubbo froze, a grin spreading across his face. “Holy shit, Tommy! We just beat one of the Kindly Ones!!”
“I don’t know what the fuck a Kindly One is, Tubbo!” Tommy didn’t mean for his voice to come out so angry, but honestly, he felt it was a bit justified.
Tommy had just been attacked by a demon grandma, had a bomb get thrown at him, had said bomb explode and impale him with shrapnel, had killed the demon grandma, was miraculously healed, and now he was just supposed to accept that Tubbo was in on all of this?!
“Tubbo, I don’t get any of this—I need—you need to explain this shit to me!!”
Tubbo let out a long sigh, then sat up, grasped Tommy’s hands, and looked him directly in the eyes. “The Greek gods are real, Tommy.”
Tommy let out a disbelieving huff. “What?”
“You remember the pottery of the guy eating his kids?” Tubbo was still staring Tommy directly in the eyes. “His name is Kronos. He’s real. So is everyone and everything else in all of the myths.”
Tommy sat in quiet shock, completely still. He swallowed dryly, his tongue feeling like putty in his mouth. “And if I were to say I believe you—and that is a big ‘if’—what does this even have to do with me?”
Tommy had an idea. The name ‘half blood’ lingered in his mind. He didn’t want to continue that thought.
“You’re the child of a god, Tommy. A demigod—a half-blood.”
The child of a god.
The Greek myths were all real.
It made too much sense, really.
All the shit that had happened—the snakes in his crib as a baby, the two-headed dog on his fifth birthday, the woman that seemed to meld with a tree as she walked into it, the man with one eye in the center of his forehead—it made too much sense, really.
And suddenly, Tommy felt an acid sensation sink into his chest.
The child of a god.
And where had that god been, when he was hiding from his father, trying to avoid the slurred words and raised fists?
The child of a god.
And where had that god been, when his father had abandoned him in that rotting apartment? Where had that god been when the police kicked down the door and Tommy thought he was going to choke on his own fear?
The child of a god.
And where had that god been, all the nights he had cried himself to sleep? All the days spent slinking around foreign houses, trying not to disturb the people that were housing him, but didn’t want him? All the hours spent locked in bedrooms and bathrooms and closets and lockers?
Tommy felt tears building up at the corners of his eyes and shoved them down, furiously. “Which god? Which god is my parent?” He choked out.
Which almighty being had abandoned him to salty tears and stinging cuts?
“Don’t know, boss man.” Tubbo wasn’t looking Tommy in the eyes anymore. “But we really, really need to get out of here. Now.”
“Okay. Sure.” Tommy’s voice was weak. It felt like that had been a trend today. “Where?”
A small grin slipped onto Tubbo’s face. “Camp Half Blood. The only safe place for demigods in the world.”