Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Tommy had a feeling he was going to die that day. He didn’t know why. He just woke up that morning with Clem at snuggling into his side, in her true form, with a strange feeling that death was around the corner.

He just brushed it off as him being paranoid, as he often was, and made himself a cup of coffee, but deep down, he knew something was going to go wrong today.

Maybe he should’ve rescheduled his plan. Told his friend. Gone over his plan one more time. Something. Anything. But he didn’t. He just went about his day as normal, and when it was time for him to blow up the main bridge that connected L’manburg to Essempi, everything went perfectly.

Too perfect.

He knew he would have to fight pros that day. It happened so often that he memorized the entire SBI’s and Dream Team's fighting styles despite them all being so different. He was prepared for that. It was normal for him.

He thought he was only going to be fighting SBI or the Dream Team, not both of them at the same time; 6v1 didn’t seem fair. Obviously, he knew he was a villain, the number 1 to be specific, but, geeze, they could go a little easy on him, right? Wrong. They pulled every trick in the book, and when The Blade came out of nowhere with his pickaxe high in the air, only a few centimeters away from his head, after he had just dodged a hit from 404, he knew it was over for him.

His world moved in slow motion as he took in the last scenery he would ever see.

Tommy knew he didn’t have time to dodge the attack or to activate his power on the pickaxe to make it lighter so he could push it away or the gravity so high that Technoblade couldn't swing it. It was already in motion and too close. So instead, he looked over to his cat, though she looked more like an overgrown tiger in her true form. Clementine. She was fighting the Crow Father. Fitting. He chuckled.

They’d been together ever since he got out of that godforsaken lab. They escaped together and have been together ever since. He was going to miss her. She was a good companion.

“I’ll miss you, Clementine, take care of yourself, girl,” he muttered under his breath, but he knew she heard him. She looked over at him and saw what was happening. Her eyes widened, and she tried to run to him. Unfortunately, she was too late as the pickaxe came crashing down on his head, digging into his forehead and down his face to his jaw. He passed out from the excruciating pain he was in.

Thomas Danger Innit died that day.

Chapter Text

Tommy woke with a mind-splitting headache and immediately closed his eyes again. He thought you weren’t supposed to feel pain after death. Though it wouldn't be the first time he was wrong, not that he would admit that out loud.

Deciding to see which religion turned out to be right in the end about the afterlife, he opened his eyes to see… a hospital room? What? He thought he was dead. He can remember the sicklingly loud crack and squelch as the pickaxe went through the flesh and bone of his face. Why wasn’t he dead?

He tried to sit up but was immediately reminded why that was not a good idea when his headache flared up again. So instead, he just tried to lift his arms but couldn't. Without lifting his head, he looked at his wrists and realized they had both been handcuffed to each side of the hospital bed with what he assumed were power-nullifying cuffs since he couldn’t use his power.

Which confirmed the sinking suspicion that he had been captured by heroes and was currently in their hospital awaiting his trial, which he knew almost certainly that he would be put on death row, considering he was the #1 villain. Top-ranked villains always either died on death row, during a fight, or retired. Tommy was hoping for the last one, but unfortunately for him, fate is very cruel.

Though if he was being honest, he was more upset that he was losing his rank than the fact that he was going to die. Especially after all that work he had to do to get to where he was. He wanted to go out on his terms, during an epic battle, like his most recent one, not after a stupidly long court session just to be killed by an electric chair.

As Tommy was in the middle of being upset that he was going to have the lamest death, a nurse walked in looking very bored, phone in hand, probably looking for a place to chill for a bit. Only to see Tommy staring straight at her when he was supposed to be asleep for a couple more days, recovering from the massive injury he got during the fight.

She immediately stepped out of the room to press a button on the wall outside. Then she grabbed a clipboard hanging on the wall and went to check Tommy’s vitals. Tommy was asking her a plethora of questions, and she ignored every one, telling him, “The heroes will explain when they get here,” every time he asked.

A few more people came in and out of his room after that, doctors and nurses, he assumed. Some of the younger nurses trembled when they walked into the room, probably scared he was gonna hurt them or something. Which was stupid because he could barely move, let alone hurt somebody. He couldn't even lift his head above a couple of centimeters without having to drop it in pain.

A nurse was taking a blood sample from his arm and was visibly shaking. You could probably see the guy’s shaking from a mile away. “I’m not gonna hurt you ya’know, i coudnt even if i wanted to so you can stop shaking like a goddamn leaf already.” Tommy huffed and rolled his eyes.

The nurse jumped when Tommy spoke, then nodded quickly and tried to control his shaking. Although Tommy’s scowl probably didn’t make him seem very friendly. He got the blood sample quickly, then left even quicker.

A couple of minutes later, when Tommy was bored out of his mind counting the ceiling tiles for the 6th time, a doctor walked in a greeted Tommy with a smile that he could tell was forced. “Hello Thomas, I'm Doctor Ponk, the head doctor in the doctor wing of the hero tower. I was also known as the hero Lemon before I just became a doctor/healer for heroes.”

Tommy just stared at the man. More specifically, the robot arm he had. “Mhm. So why am I here? Am I going to court just to inevitably be put on death row? Did you guys go through all the effort of saving my life just to do that?” he questioned with a deadpan stare.

Ponk scratched the back of his head and laughed nervously. “I'm not allowed to disclose that information. Though the SBI will be here momentarily to give you all the details. That’s what I came to tell you.”

Tommy just hummed then leaned his head back, holding back a wince of pain, and looked at the ceiling once more. “So, how long is momentarily? Because I was told a couple of hours ago that they would be here ‘soon’.”

“Well, they are very busy people and you weren’t supposed to be awake for a couple more days, so it might be a while before th-” Ponk was cut off by the door swinging open, and 3 people filed into the room, Tommy instantly recognizing them as Crow Father, The Blade, and Siren. “Never mind.” Tommy heard Ponk mutter.

Crow Father stepped up, away from the group. “Hello, Orbit, or should I call you Thomas?” Crow Father asked, smiling so brightly it hurt Tommy’s eyes.

“Tommy or Orbit, not Thomas,” Tommy replied. He noticed they didn't have most of their gear and weren’t wearing all of their hero costumes. Which was kind of insulting. He knows he told the nurse he couldn’t hurt anyone even if he wanted to, but he’d like to think he was still a parshall threat.

“Tommy, it is then,” he paused for a secon,d then continued, “Tommy originally the hero commission was going to do this how they always do, put you on trial, and if it warranted it, which let's be honest, it does, put you on death row.”

Tommy rolled his eyes. He already knew all of this information; everyone does. Why is he telling him this?

“However.. Your case is a bit different. Since the hero commission found out that you’re so young-”

“I'm not that young. I'm 19,” he thinks. He doesn’t know anymore.

“Yes, however, according to your files, you’ve been doing villain work for 5 years, which means you’ve been doing it since you were 14, and in the public’s eyes, 19 is too young for someone to be put on death row,” Crow Father explained to him.

The villain raised an eyebrow at that. “So what am I just going to serve life in prison?”

Crow Father looked to the side and had an awkward smile on his face, almost as if he didn’t want to say his next words. “Well.. not exactly. They’re just going to get Siren over there to make you forget everything, start with a clean slate, yaknow?”

Tommy just stared at him in disbelief. They were going to erase his memories? All of them? So he went through all that character development for nothing? All that pain and suffering for what? For it to get erased? He doesn’t think so.

“What if I say no?” Tommy questioned.

The Blade spoke up from Siren’s side. “You don’t get a choice. You’re a criminal.”

Tommy rolled his eyes. “So what, you’re just gonna forc-”

Crow Father nodded his head towards Tommy while looking at Siren. “Forget everything and sleep.”

Chapter Text

Blinking his eyes open, he was instantly blinded by bright lights. “Ughhh, where am I?” he said, bringing a hand to his face to rub the sleep out of his eyes, only to find that it was bandaged excessively. This is why he realized only half his vision was working.

“The hell?” Just then, a doctor walked in with a clipboard in hand and a smile on his face.

He walked towards the end of his bed and started, “Hello, I’m the head doctor of L’Manburg hospital. You were caught in a car crash, particularly caused by a hero-villain fight. We had to sew up your face, which might cause some scarring, and bandage the cuts on your arms and stomach.”

Tommy stared at the doctor blankly. He received a lot of information very quickly right after waking up from a who knows how long nap. “Uh huh.”

“There might be some damage to your brain, causing some memory issues or loss, so we’re going to have to do some tests.”

The blonde said a slow “okay,” and then the doctor walked closer to his bed and started asking him questions. " Alright, we’ll start with something simple. What’s your full name?” He looked at the clipboard, pen in hand. 

Tommy rolled his eyes, then opened his mouth to answer.

Then closed it when he realized he didn’t have an answer. “... my name? Uhm it’s.. Oh god, what’s my name?” he looked at his lap in horror when he tried to remember something about his life, anything, but he couldn’t.

His mouth went dry, and he stared at the doctor wide-eyed. “I can’t remember,” he whispered.

The doctor nodded, then wrote something down, a smile still on his face. “That’s okay. Some police officers found your wallet at the crash site, so we have your ID and can identify you. Can you remember anything?”

Tommy shook his head, relief apparent in his eyes.

“That’s okay, memory loss has a chance of coming back after recovery,” he wrote something down again. “Alright, a nurse will come soon to tell you your basic information, like name, age, and such, and tell you went you can get home.” Then the doctor walked out of the room, leaving Tommy slightly confused in his hospital bed.

The nurse arrived shortly after the doctor left and started listing things off like she had done this a million times and had somewhere to be. “Your name is Thomas Danger Innit, age 19, no power, address is apartment 782 in Trent. Don't worry, we’ll give you a paper with all this information.”

Unfortunately, that’s not where the information ended. She explained every injury he got in this apparent car crash. Then after every injury was listed off like goddamn cannon fire he finally was told he could go home after 5 days.

And those were the most boring 5 days in his life. Or at least, he thinks they were.. He can’t remember the others. 

Anyway, after he spent the boring days in the hospital and signing way too many papers, all the while worrying about how he was going to pay for the surgeries, he was finally able to go home. While he was checking out of the hospital, he asked about the bills to see how much debt he was in, only to find out someone had paid them for him. 

He was confused. Who would pay his hospital bills? They couldn’t have been cheap, and no one visited him while he was in the hospital. He wasn't complaining, though. 

Stepping out of the hospital, phone in hand with his address and Google Maps, he made it home, only getting lost twice, so he’ll take that as a win. Although when he opened his apartment door, he thought something about it was off.

Even if he didn’t remember the apartment, he remembered the feeling of it, and there was definitely something strange about it. It was very clean, like it had been scrubbed or searched for something. Or maybe he was just a clean freak back when he had his memories. He looked around and he felt like something was missing. He couldnt tell what it was but there was something.

After deciding to just ignore that feeling, he flopped onto his couch and read the entire paper that had the details of his life. It was boring, but it had an odd amount of details.. Like where he worked and for some reason the hours and days he worked too? It was kind of weird that they had so much information on his life but he wasnt complaining he didn’t have to find out on his own which would be very annoying. 

After reading the first couple of paragraphs and seeing how many there were, he threw the paper on the other side of the couch to read later and got up to eat something. Eating hospital food for the last couple of days was not good for his taste buds. However, upon opening his fridge, he only found some very old Mac and cheese and a massive amount of Coca-Cola cans. 

“I guess I'll have to go grocery shopping. Thanks for nothing past me,” he grumbled. 

He took a cola can with a sigh and then explored the rest of his apartment. It was surprisingly big considering he had a job at a diner. Don't get him wrong, it wasn’t a rich person big, but it was surprising since he was 5 dollars and 42 cents away from being flat broke. 

As he was looking around, there seemed to be a lot of orange and white hair under things. It didn’t look human, so he assumed he used to have a cat or something. Though all the hair didn’t seem to match up with his clean freak theory from earlier. Maybe the animal that wasn’t here was the reason things felt off, maybe he had a pet! The lack of pet things deterred that thought though. 

After he was done exploring every nook and cranny of his house and phone, since he was trying to find was his life was like before the accident, he decided that since he had to go to work the next day he should probably get some sleep. 

In the morning, he was met by the blinding light of the sun through his window. He should probably close the blinds at some point. However, that would mean getting out of bed, and he was still tired, so he didn’t really want to do that. 

Picking up his phone, he checked the time to see how much time he had to lay around. Unfortunately for him, he had somehow slept for 10 hours straight and only had around 10 minutes. He groaned and turned away from the window then sat up to get ready, figuring he could watch the news or something in the extra time.

Tommy put on his uniform, a black shirt with the diner’s logo and black pants, and drank a soda before making sure for the 10th time that he knew where the diner was, then set off. He said waved at SamNook, the guy at the front desk he had learned yesterday, then followed the directions on Google Maps to Bad’s Dinner. 

When he stepped into the diner, he was greeted with the chime of a bell and a demon hybrid. “Hi Tommy!!” the demon waved furiously with a bright smile. 

Tommy scratched the back of his head. “Uh, hi.. Who are you again? Sorry, I got in an accident and-”

“Don’t worry about explaining. The hospital called me earlier in the week and updated me on the situation.” he rushed over to Tommy and continued. “I'm Bad, your boss and owner of the diner!”

Bad turned around and showed Tommy around the diner and explained his job to him. It was pretty easy if you asked him, show people where to sit, take their orders, give them food, take their money, and leave. 

He takes back everything he said before. Why did he take this stupid job? he hates his past self. The people suck, the hours are long as hell, and worst of all, he cant even speak his mind when people are being bitchy for no reason! He can’t explain how happy he was when Bad told him he could go home.

After a week of the torturous job, he got paid a whole $864! Was it worth the torture? No. But he had bills to pay, so it would have to be. After doing the calculations of how much money he’ll have after the bills that month, he figured he’ll have a little over $90 to spare every week, which he was definitely spending most of on food because his cabinets and fridge were very empty. He was surviving on diner food for the past week.

As soon as he got the money in his bank account, he went straight to a grocery store and bought food. It wasn’t much, but at least it was something. He did forget that he had to carry all his stuff home though, which was a struggle. Eventually, though, he did make it home with all his belongings. Finally, he was able to make something to eat. 

Or so he thought. 

Apparently he didn’t know how to cook. Which in hindsight made sense, there was no food in his apartment when he got home from the hospital and he had no memories so even if he could cook before the accident he wouldn’t have any memories of how to. So tommy looked up a recipe and tried making something easy, chicken alfredo. 

Unfortunately for him hes apparently the worse cook in the universe because he messed up so bad that it was almost ineditable. However what was good for him was apparently he had an iron stomach and ate it with out even a slight stomach ache. It wasn’t good but it was food so he ate it happily. Somewhat. 

Anyways, his cooking problem was a future Tommy problem.