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The first time Tommy was put in psychiatric hold, he was strapped to his bed during the night. Sure, it was fair , he'd probably hurt himself if not. But he was so young and even more confused. He doesn't remember a lot from that time but he does remember how much it didn't serve to help him, it just grew the ever-festering feeling that he was alone— that there was never going to be anyone to help him.
The most recent time he was there, he spent the whole seventy-two hours playing Just Dance and eating pudding. Yeah, there was the ever-present sensation of eyes watching him as if he was a ticking time bomb but he didn’t care as long as he got to get the bursts of energy out while doing all the fun little dances, he was set.
These are completely contrasting situations but it goes to show how much he's learned to play the system.
Tommy's powers make him volatile, there's a deep urge to hurt everyone and then himself that comes along with the voices. If this were a different time— before all the laws about how powered people are still meant to be treated like humans— he'd be in a high-risk jail, all strapped with a power suppressor and treated like less than .
Sure, the fun trips to the bland building with the harsh staff that had grown to tolerate Tommy over the years could be classified as a sort of jail, but he gets to play Just Dance! And he gets to go home after the time is up. Sometimes they urge him to stay and he knows that if it was up to them he'd stay forever just to keep everyone else safe.
It’s bullshit, of course, it's been seven years since he was that scared little nine year old strapped to the bed, crying out for parents who were too much of cowards to stick around. Tommy doesn't really care at this point, that with his powers developing he lost everything he could have had— loving parents, stability, a normal childhood, the works. He's fine with having gotten emancipated and never having anyone in his corner.
Well, he was originally a little worried about the whole emancipation thing. It would have been hard to get a job to support himself with the whole murderous urges thing, but as it turns out the government pays pretty well to keep people like him out of the public eye.
He has everything he needs money-wise— a decent apartment, food, all that. The issue is that Tommy lacks in the interaction category. Sure he’s got the nurses at the ward who he sees at least once every two months but they don’t necessarily like him. And the people he sees in the ward are typically warned to stay away from him.
So one day, he has a fantastic idea while on one of his weekly walks. A small diner catches his attention, the red booths making the chatter louder— they had always liked the red. Instead of waking by like he knows he should, like everyone has informed him to do, he opens the door.
There aren’t many people in there so he’s not too worried about a flare.
Tommy’s eyes widen at the sight of the man working the front. He’s tall and buff with long pink hair intricately braided and laying neatly over his shoulders. The most off-putting thing is how his red eyes snap up to meet Tommy’s blue.
Okay, that’s a lie. The most off-putting thing is how the voices seem to like the man. They all chant for Tommy to get closer, for him to know the man. They don’t typically like anyone and for a moment it’s a little too overwhelming. Once he’s back to the normal whelm level, he starts breathing like a regular functioning human.
Unable to resist the urge to get closer, Tommy marches towards, getting as close to the man as the counter separating them will allow. “Hey kid, can I get you started with anything?” The man says, breaking out of his stupor. While Tommy would typically be offended over the kid accusation , he was still in shock at the voices’ reaction to the man.
“Just, uh– something,” Tommy answers thoughtlessly, sitting down at the bar. It’s not as uncomfortable as he thought it would be, but it’s just uncomfortable enough to give himself something to think about other than this strange man.
The man huffs a laugh. “Something huh?” There’s a small silence where he glances Tommy over with a strange look that the blonde can't quite name. It’s almost as if he’s sizing him up but not necessarily in a threatening way. “You okay with a coke?”
“That works,” Tommy answers shortly, wrapping his hands around the glass slide to him and relishing in the cold feeling. He sips his drink, wincing at the harsh carbonation that greets him, he never understood how people enjoyed it.
Placing the glass back on the counter, he returns his gaze to the strange man. “Do you need something?” Strange Man asks, quirking an eyebrow. Tommy had always found it strange when people who died their hair didn’t do the same to their eyebrows. It made Strange Man’s face look stronger, the contrast of the light pink and dark brown.
“Do you have a power?” he asks cutting to the chase. That had to be it right? He had read an article once about people with power-cancelling powers. Tommy could still the voices, though they weren’t as volatile as usual so maybe Strange Man just had a very weak form of a power suppression power that subdued them slightly.
“That's kind of rude to ask.” Strange Man says though he doesn’t seem angry. He says it as if it’s a funny joke and in a way, it might be. Between a powered individual and a nonpowered person, it might be a disrespectful question to ask. But for two powered people who have struggled and fought to be able to just live as themselves, powers are gloating material.
Tommy rolled his eyes, he wasn’t in the mood for jokes. He just wanted answers. “Don’t care. Do you… have a power?” He drawled, tracing a path for the condensation to run down his glass.
“Why do you want to know?” Strange Man asks, placing his hands, palms down on the counter. Tommy is starting to feel slightly bad as solely referring to the man as Strange Man but there’s no name tag or anything that alludes to the guy's name in the slightest around.
He looks Strange Man in his unsettling red eyes, debating if he should tell the truth. “There’s something off about you, they're–” he cuts himself off before he can say anything about the voices. “You seem different.”
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were calling me a freak,” Strange Man said after a few seconds.
“But you do, right? You do know better?” Tommy asked, praying that Strange Man did in fact just know and there wouldn’t be an awkward conversation that follows.
Strange Man sighs before leaning back slightly. “Not sure if I know but I’m sure they know,” Strange Man answers vaguely and Tommy practically beams.
It’s enough of a confirmation for Tommy. He knew that some powers repeated but he always assumed that the world hated him so much that he was the only one doomed with his powers. And sure, just because Strange Man hears the voices doesn’t mean he has the same fucked up powers Tommy has.
It’s still nice to believe though. “This is on the house,” he says pointing to the coke he barely touched before making his way out of the diner. He would have stayed for more questions but as the nurses at the ward always say, Tommy’s big feelings are never good for people, even if it is just excitement.
And that's how they left that encounter, with a small bit of comfort knowing that they weren't entirely alone in their struggle.
Tommy had wanted to go back sooner but he was lucky enough to get pulled for another fun holiday at the ward. It sucked this time around, there was a new girl who was hogging the Wii so he just stayed in his room the entire time.
As sure as he was sure he wasn't being trailed, he made his way back to the diner. “You never told me your name,” he said sitting in the same seat he had last time.
“That's because you didn't ask, I’m Technoblade,” Strange Man, now Technoblade said, sliding over a glass of water. Tommy shot him a small smile at the action, water was bound to be better than the overwhelming fizz of coke.
There was no ice, which was good, room temperature water was the only valid water. “Cool name, I’m Tommy.” It did mean he couldn’t bet on condensation races this time. “Fuckin’ Blade,” he mumbles to himself as he pulls the glass closer. “You don't worry about others figuring out your villain persona because the names are so close?”
“How in the hell do you know that?” Tommy is genuinely shocked that Technoblade didn’t think he would figure it out. To be honest, Tommy’s kind of disappointed that he didn’t notice one of the leading villains had the same power as him, but it's not like he kept up with that whole scene.
The impressively quick amount of time it took him to figure out who Technoblade was, and all on his own too! No internet was needed, he was just that big-brained. “Got warded for a couple of days, plenty of time to think and all.”
“Warded?”
“You know, when they throw you in the bin for a while because they’re scared of your potential and feel the need to monitor you, warded.” It’s said nonchalantly because it truly is nothing to him but the look of anger on Technoblade’s face makes him draw back a bit. “Do you not have ward visits?”
Techno clenches his jaw and Tommy preps himself in case he needs to turn tail and get the fuck out of here as quickly as possible. “Kid, no– that shouldn’t be happening to you, that’s not a normal thing.”
“Well, yeah, it’s not normal for normal people but I’m different. I’m all volatile and shit— a public safety risk.” Tommy says it emotionlessly, it doesn’t really matter to him much anymore. He’s had years to come to terms with the fact that he’s not good company to keep.
Techno seems to take this information harder than Tommy intended to give it.“You’re a kid,” Techno said, voice breaking. “You’re a kid, Tommy, that shouldn’t be happening to you.”
The blonde sighs, not fully understanding why Techno was making this out to be a big deal. Who cares that he’s a kid? “It’s fine! Been happening for years no need to get all like that, just one of the cons of being so fucking epic, innit? Not everyone can be a cool villain to hide from the government like you can.”
Techno takes a deep breath to settle the anger building. “You want a hot chocolate?” He asks, giving leeway out of the conversation. Tommy has a feeling that Techno needs the topic to be changed more than he does so he forces a small smile and nods.
Everything goes well from there, the conversation branches off to something less abrasive and Tommy actually learns about all the cool shit Techno’s done in both his civilian and villain life. He ends up not paying again but this time he’s sure it's out of pity but he doesn’t mind it much.
Tommy thinks he finds solace in Techno’s companionship.
This is one of his least favourite parts of anything about the unfortunate events that have led him to the life he leads now. He in all honesty had been trying his hardest to avoid a power flare but it just was too hard.
Tommy knew he shouldn't have gone on a walk today, he could feel each individual bone every time he moved and he was innately aware of the blood pumping through his veins. He knew from the start that this wasn't going to be a good day.
That didn’t mean he was expecting to be sitting in the back of a cop car with a mild concussion. It’s not like he even meant to cause that store to cave in, it was just loud and someone touched him and something snapped and the ground fell through. It wasn't his fault.
The cops were not too fond of listening to Tommy's explanation though. It was going to be fine though, it would just be an extended stay at the ward, if he was lucky the Just Dance hogging girl would be gone and he could spend a month dancing till he dropped like that one group of people.
Although, as it turns out, if you do enough damage to the city, it gives them the power to override your own rights that come with all the fun laws meant to protect him. So instead of Just Dance he's put into a cold cell in the basement of what he assumes to be the hero tower. He is mostly guessing about the location though, based on the sole factor of how many heroes he saw as he was manhandled into the elevator.
Before he was tossed carelessly into the cell, the— what he assumed were— low-level heroes were kind enough to strap a power suppressor far too tightly on his wrist. Tommy had kind of assumed that the voices made his life miserable with their whole urging to destroy everything, but he felt so entirely empty without them.
Like someone had taken his life force straight out of his chest and left as a shell of a person.
Without the voices, time passes without Tommy’s knowledge, everything seems to blend together in this shitty place. There are a few times when the heroes will slide food through a slot in the bottom of the door and even fewer times were Tommy would eat anything off of the metal trays.
For the most part, Tommy spent his time sitting on the cot in the corner of the cell and staring at the wall blankly. The first few hours— or maybe days, he wasn’t sure about time as a concept at this point— he did a lot of crying, however, the lack of hydration put a damper on that activity after a while.
It was just him and the wall for a while, that was until the sirens went off. Tommy could barely hear them, they seemed to be coming from a few floors up. But when the elevator doors opened the sirens could be heard clearly.
He peered into the gap of the barred window, eyes widening at the sight of the group of three villains searching for something . It was strange, there wasn’t much to be found among the cells, as far as Tommy was aware, he was the only one down here. Tommy’s brain glitched at the thought. They were searching for something but he was the only person in this desolate place, holy shit .
“Please,” Tommy pleaded, reaching his hands past the cold bars in the window of the door and towards the group of villains. His vision was blurry and his eyes were slightly puffy from the waves of big man crying he had done in the emptiness of his cell, but he was certain he has seen Techno donned in his regal villain attire.
The man stops in his tracks, turning towards Tommy, his elaborate cape swaying behind him. “Tommy, kid,” he sounds pained as he says it, looking over the scraps and bruises that cover Tommy from the whole making the shop sink in thing.
“Techno please, it’s too quiet.” It's as he says this that Techno's eyes drift down to the power suppressor strapped far too tightly to his wrist. “Please, Tech it hurts.” He's not sure if he's talking about his wrist— which has been rubbed raw— or the lack of his powers.
Techno’s eyes flash a bright red before the frame holding the door in place shatters. The man is quick to rush in and grab the blonde, tucking Tommy’s head into his chest. Tommy leans in in spite of the fact he wants to question everything about how Techno got here and maybe leave as soon as possible.
There’s something urging Tommy to trust Techno— to trust that he’s got the situation under control and that the man will keep him safe. Even if they don’t get out of here— which is unlikely— he’d be fine as long as he’s with Techno.
Tommy isn’t alone anymore.