Work Text:
Tolly is scrolling through his Twitter feed when he sees that Roman Roy is trending. Wondering what he’s done now, he taps to look at the tweets. There’s a video at the top of his phone screen. He clicks to play, remembering that day, just over two years ago now, in the park.
I’ll give you a million dollars if you can hit a home run, Roman had promised him. He had come so close. As he sprinted he was already thinking about what his family would spend the money on, how proud his parents would be—
But he had failed. Roman had completed the humiliation by tearing up the check in his face and handing him a quarter. Here, it’s a quarter of a mill. His parents had hugged him and assured him that it didn’t matter, and they had got a shiny and expensive new watch out of it, but Tolly had been close to tears. He sometimes still thinks about what his life would be like now if he had hit that home run.
The video is of Roman in a suit, about to deliver a eulogy at his father’s funeral. He stumbles over his words and then beckons for someone to approach. Three people, who Tolly guesses must be his brothers and sister, get up and go to comfort him.
It’s not clear what Roman is saying in the video, but his sobs are loud and high-pitched enough to make out. He sounds like a small child. Watching him cry on his brother’s shoulder, Tolly finds it hard to believe that this is the same man who delighted in humiliating him as a boy (he’s 14 now, nearly a man).
Logan Roy had been kind that day, Tolly remembers. After his son had ripped the check up, Logan had come over and shaken Tolly’s hand, saying Magnificent effort. It had made him feel somewhat better at the time. He didn’t know who Logan was back then, but had felt sad upon seeing the news of his death a week ago.
The comments under the video of Roman sobbing are merciless. I need more billionaire tears, someone had tweeted. I’m only at half mast here. That’s one of the kinder tweets.
After scrolling though some of the worst ones, feeling more and more sickened, Tolly adds his own tweet under the video. It sucks to lose a parent no matter how rich you are, he types. Fortunately he’s not speaking from experience, but he has lost other people. Leave him alone. He knows he’ll probably get trolled for that too. He decides to delete the Twitter app on his phone for a while.
Putting his phone away and going to join his parents for dinner, Tolly remembers the sound of Roman Roy’s sobs as he walks down the stairs, feeling a pang of pity, and thinks yep, I’m the real winner here.