Chapter Text
The night was cold it was dark not a star in the sky to shine down on him. Tommy rubbed his hands together in an effort to create some kind of heat his efforts were worthless he huffed annoyed and just shoved his hand into his sweater pockets. Of course, out of all the days it just had to be this one where he forgot to bring his jacket.
He grumbled angrily today was the fucking worst! He normally would get mad over stuff like this but after today’s bullshit, he deserved to curse the world a bit for it. But to get the full story we should probably go back a few hours.
Just a few hours ago he was standing behind a cash register completely bored out of his mind. When out of no this crazy old lady comes storming up to him yelling at him about how he gave her the wrong order. Now usually he was used to these kinds of things but he was so fucking tired.
And then that's when the crazy lady splashed her whole drink on him all over his shirt. He lost his shit cursing the hell out of her but just as he was cursing her out his manager walked through the door.
And Tommy can’t lie about how bad this looks. In his manager’s eyes, it looked like Tommy was the one in the wrong. Yelling at a poor old lady. He didn’t even have time to plead his case when his manager just fired him on the spot.
After all that Tommy just decided to sit on a bench but left when he realized how dark it got already. So that all brings him back here, walking the dark streets of logstedshire in the freezing cold wearing the thinnest material for a sweater and the jeans he was wearing didn’t exactly keep him warm either.
Prime he just wanted to get home already and knock out already. He quickened his paste wanting to get there as soon as possible. He finally slowed down when his apartment was in view. He took a moment to catch his breath before he jogged over the doors and pushed them open. Sitting at the front desk was a middle-aged woman with white hair. Her name was Clementine she was a sweet woman who let Tommy stay here for a pretty decent price. She looked up when she heard the front bells jingle. He gave her a small smile Clementine really was a saint. He still remembers the day when he first met her and she offered to help him get back on his feet.
He was about 16 at the time he was in a pretty bad mental state..it was so bad that he doesn’t even remember what it was. His mind just blocked it like he wasn’t meant to see it yet. Every time he tried to find out what happened to him he just ended up with headaches. He didn’t know where he was from and he didn’t know if he had family looking for him or not. All he knew was his first name and age that was about it.
So Tommy just stopped questioning it. He stopped trying to push it and find out. Maybe one day he’ll know what happened to him but for now, he’ll just accept it how it is.
“Tommy?” Clementine’s voice stopped any other thoughts. He shakes his head and walks up to her desk.
“Hey, clem..” She smiles softly and the corners of her eyes wrinkle. He looks at her hair and it’s in a bun. It suits her well “i like your hair suits you nicely”
She chuckles “Is this your way of charming me out of rent this month?” he laughs too.
“Whaaaa no no I would never do that clem! Common do i look like i would ever do that?” Clementine raises a brow. He let out a squawk offended. Clementine laughed again as she patted his hands.
“Am just messing with ya hun”
“Yeah, I know…” he glanced at the clock above her head it was 12:41 AM “am going to head to bed now. Don’t stay up too late grandma” he teased and dodged a swipe from her.
“Go on up already it’s getting past your bedtime” He laughs as he goes up the stairs avoiding all the cracks in them. He sure as hell wasn’t taking the elevator he’d be asking for a death wish.
He takes a moment to breathe after he reaches the third floor. Tommy recovers after a minute and walks over to his door 303 and pulls out his key. Puts the key in and twists unlocking the door. He steps in and kicks off his shoes. the apartment was small but it was just enough for him. One kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, and a small living room.
Tommy sits on his couch with a groan and just lays back for a moment. He takes a deep breath replaying everything that happened today…realizing how fucked he is. He had no fucking job…
Groans again angrily and grabs his laptop which had been sitting on the coffee table. He pulls it onto his lap and opens it he needed a new job stat rent was due in a month and he didn’t want to let clem down. So for the next hour, he spends his time on the computer searching.
Finally, he finds that the Hero Tower is having open interviews tomorrow at 8:20 AM how much of a coincidence is that?..he isn’t that thrilled, to be honest, but money is money. So he’ll give it a shot. He closes the laptop with a sigh placing it back on on the coffee table. He shuts his eyes for a bit…
Tommy wakes up to the sound of something crashing. “What the?..” he muttered and rubbed his eyes as he checked his phone. It was 5:34 AM..
He lets out a deep sigh..of course..now for those of you confused Tommy’s neighbors are vigilantes and Tommy..well he already knew that. It’s not like they were hiding it very well either someone was bound to find out. He gets up and scratches the back of his head softly and lazily walks over to his
bedroom and flops onto his bed pulling the thin blanket over his shoulders and passing out again.
---🕠 🕢---
The next time he woke up it was 7:32 AM. he sits up in his bed and just sat there for a bit blinking away his sleepyness then he got up with a stretch and a big yawn.
Today was a big day for him..the interview. He can’t help but feel like this is a little too soon. I mean he just got fired yesterday. “Eh,” he just shrugs it off whatever he’ll think about that later.
He just threw on some jeans and a turtle neck. It was the nicest thing he owned OK? Don’t judge. And to top it off some beat-up red sneakers. He looked…decent I guess.
He walked into the bathroom brushed his teeth and tried to make his hair look like less of a bird's nest..but no matter what he did it’d somehow just fluff up more! He just gave up after the 6th attempt. Looking at the time it showed 7:48 AM..shit he was going to be late if he didn’t leave now.
The walk to the train station is 10 mins and the ride to Manburg is at least a 15 min ride don’t even get him started on the walk to the tower..fuck..he should have woken up earlier.
He rushes out the bathroom and to the front door grabbing his keys on the way out. When he slams his door shut just at the same time one of his neighbors in 304 opens their door. A very short (in his opinion) goat hybrid stood there with dark brunette hair. If he remembers correctly his name was Toby? Or was it Tobias? He doesn’t remember. “Oh hey Tommy”
“Heyy…uh..?” he tried to put a name to the face in front of him really he tried. The short brunette in front of him just gave a short laugh
“It’s Tubbo. It’s fine if you don’t remember my name bossman” Tommy nodded a bit awkwardly and checked the time. 7: 51
“Uh, I really gotta get going right now actually maybe we can talk more next time?”
“Yeah sure don’t let me stop you” Tommy gave Tubbo a smile and ran down the hall and slid down the railing landing on the ground floor with a small thump. He rushes out the doors before Clementine can tell him off.
He rushes through the streets of logstedshire and down the stairs that lead to the station platform and hops onto the train just before the metal doors closed. He sighed and wobbled to a seat wiping the sweat from his forehead he made it. 8:01
---🕗 🕣---
It was 8: 13 by the time he got off the train when he reached the surface he immediately made his way to the tower. As he walked the streets of manburg he couldn’t help but look at everything. It was such a drastic change
After a few minutes of walking, he finally made it to the HQ tower. The thing was fucking huge he wonders how it was built..he admires it a bit more before finally stepping in.
The scent is what immediately caught his attention, a subtle scent of pumpkin spice in the air he liked it… Tommy took a look around and saw that there were tons of people in fancy suits sitting in some chairs or just standing up. He awkwardly made his way to the front desk to the receptionist. She looked up at him and brushed some of her dark brown hair away from her eyes. “How can I help you?” She gives him a polite smile.
He shuffled from one foot to another completely thrown off by how gentle her smile was..it reminded him of clementine. “Um am here for the interview I signed up for it last night..?” She nods her head and types away on her computer.
“First name?”
“Thomas” He hated his first name made him sound like an old man in his opinion. So that's why he prefers to go by Tommy
“Last name?”
“Sutton” Not the last name he would have picked but Clementine liked it, so he just let her pick it out. He didn’t have the heart to say no to the lady.
“Oh, here it is. I have your name here. Your name will be called soon so just hang in tight. We just had to confirm you were here” Tommy nods his head
“Um…thanks..uh..?” He looks down at her name tag “Thanks Kristen” She chuckles and he gives her a small smile. He then turned around and looked for a seat. Right in the corner of the room was an empty chair and took a seat. There were a couple of side glances and snickering here and there but he ignored them all together.
He wasn’t going to let it bring him down and get him in a bad mood after he wasted all his time just to get here. Pulling out his phone tommy decided he would pass the time scrolling through Twitter.
He doesn’t know how long he's been sitting here but it was long enough that his ass was starting to get tired of sitting in this damn chair. He bounced his knee and looked around noticing there were fewer people than before.
Every 25 minutes he would look up from his phone and watch as the next person was called into the room. He was bored out of his mind..he wanted a smoke so bad right now. Tommy blew a string of hair away from his face.
DING!
The sound of an elevator opening caught his attention tommy looked to the side and saw a woman and man step out But they weren’t just anyone no.. They were the infamous heroes Captain and Warden. Captain was number 5 in the ranks and the Warden was number 6 just below her.
Tommy watched them both with a curious eye…Now he was interested…He watched as the Captain scanned the room. Her eyes landed on him he didn’t immediately look away so they stared at each other for a few seconds before tommy lazily looked away getting bored with the interaction already.
The captain tilted her head at the weird reaction, the Warden nudged her grabbing back her attention. She nodded back to him and made a small reminder for herself to come back to this blonde boy.
Tommy watched as the two went around talking to every single person for the interview. Now tommy obviously saw what they were doing..It was basically like good cop bad cop, intimidation, or whatever you wanna call it.
The Warden was ruthless when it came to catching criminals and everyone knew that so that automatically made him a feared presence. Captain though was different she was compassionate and the public loved her.
So when the two went around talking to other candidates Tommy watched as the person they talked to would squirm at the presence of the warden there and the Captain would shake their hand and ask them questions like it was some kind of interrogation.
They circled the whole room and eventually got to tommy himself. Tommy gave them a polite smile and Captain returned it. He could tell by the way the corner of her eyes crinkled up from underneath her mask. “Hello there” she sticks out her hand. Now normally anyone would reach out as well and shake her hand because number one it’s polite and number two she’s a very respected hero.
But tommy wasn’t a fucking fool like the some of you. You see tommy likes doing his research..it’s like a hobby of his and most of the time it includes heroes…and their abilities. He picks apart every interview, newspaper, and battle caught on video.
This might make him sound like some villain plotting but really he just did this out of his own boredom.
Anyway back to the reason he won’t shake her hand is because well the captain is basically a human lie detector. Any kind of skin-to-skin contact with her and she’ll dig deep into your memories and shit. He wasn’t about to let someone fuck with his mind and see every part of his life that's just weird.
Tommy looked up at her and just smiled again. She pulled back her hand after a while seeing as he wasn’t going to reach for it anytime soon. Her eyebrows furrowed a bit and she looked at him with just as much curiousity. “Hello to you too”
“Is it alright if we talked for a bit?”
“Sure..” It’s not like he could say no. Tommy leaned back into the stiff chair the warden stood off a bit to the side eyeing Tommy.
“What's your name?” She asked
“Thomas and yours?” The warden immediately butted in
“That's classified..” His voice was stern and dark.
“Relax mate I wasn’t serious.” Tommy gives a cheeky smile The warden just huffs in return, his gas mask letting out smoke as if he was some cartoon character. Captain chuckled
Captain clears her throat “So what bring you to the tower Thomas?”
“The interview?”
“Well yes obviously but why? Why do you want the job?”
“Money” She tilts her head a little
“Money?”
“Money”
“Right..” She slowly nods her head. “Really?”
“Yeah,” She gives a short hum in response. Prime this was awkward as hell…When will this end? And as if the gods heard him his name is called.
“Thomas Sutton?”
“Ah looks like my time has finally come” The captain smiles again and the warden just gives him a nod.
“Well, it was a pleasure meeting you and talking for a short time.” Tommy gives her an awkward nod and gets up from his seat. Tommy hurriedly walks to the door where Kristin is waiting for him. She gives him a soft smile
“Just down the hall take a left and it's gonna be the 2nd door on your right”
“Rightttttttttt….i’ll try to remember that”
“Good luck Thomas”
“Thanks, Kristin” he takes a deep breath and steps into the hallway.
“She was always a mystery; still she is,
I cannot call her name, a mysterious piece.
She is the air I breathe, the vision I see,
The voice I speak, and all, invisible she.
Still I intend to paint, not through my pen,
But through my mind, failed though time and again.
I cannot see her now, she is too far,
Still she is within me, there's no bar.
She is the loveliest piece I had ever seen,
And mysterious too, always increasing my keen.
I cannot call her a moon, for it has black spot,
Nor the golden star, sometimes it's too hot.
I cannot compare her, she will be a mystery,
In future as she is now and as was in history.”
-Trailakya Roy