Chapter Text
When it was born, it did not know it was born.
After all, when something is born, it should see light and feel love.
It felt none of those things.
It was trapped in darkness. Submerged in silence. Entangled in nothing but solitude.
It could not hear its mother.
What even was a mother?
Mother?
Mother?
Mother?!
MOTHER
WHERE ARE YOU PLEASE COME BACK I NEED YOU DON’T LEAVE ME PLEASE
It reached out with love.
It reached out for love.
But it felt nothing in return.
There was only silence.
Tommy’s day was going wonderfully until his apartment blew up.
The day started normally. He got ready for school, had a perfectly normal conversation with his father as he sipped coffee while Tommy ate toast, and then his mother drove him to school.
He then kissed his mother on the cheek because he was a good son, made it to Science on time (whoop-de-doo, Science. Amazing), and proceeded to sit through all of his school day without committing a single act of arson or murder.
Truly, a most amazing feat.
In fact, Tommy was so proud of himself for not setting his History teacher on fire that he bought himself a donut on the way to his job.
Now, Tommy wasn’t like one of those other basic teenagers who worked at coffee shops or bakeries or *shudder* fast food restaurants. Tommy was a much more intelligent life form than those teenagers, so Tommy worked at a library.
And this wasn’t one of those weird musty libraries where every person there was old and smelled like cat pee. No, this was the type of library that gave candy out to the children. So it was obviously superior.
And it also gave out brownies to the employees every Friday.
Tommy’s coworkers were pretty cool too. There was Andy, a twenty year old guy with an obnoxious amount of freckles that was responsible for baking the brownies, Willow, a super pog woman that thought Tommy was hilarious (And really, who didn’t?), and Techno, who seemed like a weird ass nerd that constantly spouted Greek mythology shit but also knew like five different types of martial arts and was built like a brick wall.
There were other people working there too, but those three were probably the most important (and the ones that Tommy knew best).
The only downside to working in the library was that he had to keep his swearing to a minimum, but that was a small price to pay for brownies.
And Prime were they good brownies.
Anyways, back to Tommy’s apartment blowing up.
He was busy debating (A.K.A. betting) with Andy about which of the city’s TTV (Top three villains) would be crashing the upcoming inauguration ceremony for the new president of L’Manberg when he got a text from his grandmother.
Now, a brief word about Tommy’s grandmother. Grandma May was SCARY with a capital S-C-A-R-Y. She was the living embodiment of that meme with the grandma holding the gun.
Sure, she appeared frail, delicate, and pale, but May was unfairly good at throwing knives and sharpshooting. She also made amazing banana bread muffins, but that wasn’t exactly a weapons skill.
…Unless it was.
Tommy’s phone buzzed again.
Poggestwomanever: Tommy.
Poggestwomanever: After work, can you come to my house instead? As quick as possible, please.
Bigman: yes maam
Poggestwomanever: I’ll have cookies waiting for you.
Bigman: your the best
Poggestwomanever: Tell me something I don’t already know.
“You good, man?” Andy stared at him.
“I won’t be if Revenant doesn’t crash the ceremony.” Tommy said, pocketing his phone before he could get in trouble.
Andy groaned. “There is no way Revenant will crash the ceremony. Revenant doesn’t care about the government. Dionysus, on the other hand, is all about anarchy. Crashing Schlatt’s ceremony is exactly something he’d do.”
“But that’s so obvious! Like, duh, he’d interrupt a sacred government ceremony and give a speech about anarchy or whatever, but everyone will probably be armed with super-powered instant fertilizer guns to kill all of his plants! Then he’ll get thrown into Pandora and his goals will never be achieved!”
Andy stared at him. “What?”
Tommy stared back. “…What?”
Techno, who was checking some lady’s books out from his place on the other side of the counter, sighed. “Herbicide guns, Tommy. If the government made super-powered instant fertilizer guns, they’d be helping Dionysus instead of stopping him.”
Tommy scowled. “I knew that.”
Techno placed all of the woman’s books in a bag and passed it to her. “I doubt that.”
“I did know that! I was testing you, to see if you knew that. Congratulations, you know the difference between fertilizer and pesticide!”
“Herbicide.”
“That’s what I said, innit?”
The warm smell of freshly baked cookies drifted through the doorway as Tommy let himself into his grandmother’s house.
“Grandma? Your favorite grandson has arrived!”
“You’re my only grandson, you brat!” May grumbled as she hobbled into the room.
Tommy dumped his backpack onto the floor and gave her a hug. “Which means you should love me even more, old lady!”
“I might be old, but I can still shoot a gun better than you can!” Tommy couldn’t exactly argue with that, so instead he darted into the kitchen and plopped down onto one of the stools at the counter.
His grandmother made her way towards the oven, where she reached in and pulled out a pan of cookies that she set onto the counter.
Tommy leaned forward in interest and his grandmother swatted him away. “Tell me how school is going, child.”
Tommy wrinkled his nose. “Ew. Why are we talking about that?”
She scoffed. “Back before the revolution, none of the children got an education. You should be grateful you can even step foot on that building!”
Here we go again, Tommy thought fondly with a roll of his eyes.
Half of his grandmother’s life was made up of complaining. About how her back hadn’t been the same since she fought in the war, how the birds were always digging up her garden, how Tommy needed to stop bringing injured animals to her house because nobody within their right minds would actually keep an injured bear in their backyard, no matter how many assurances she received that ‘Claire is nice and won’t hurt anybody, please keep her safe while she heals, once she’s all better she’ll go back into the woods and you’ll never see her again, please please please Grandma?’
Tommy also tended to complain about things. He complained about how school was evil and unfair, about how the villains were stupid and needed to get real jobs instead of just terrorizing the city for no reason at all, about how he had too many pog wives and he couldn’t possibly keep track of them all…
His grandmother plucked a cookie off of the tray and cleared her throat to catch his attention, probably because he’d zoned out and had been staring at the flowered wallpaper for like five minutes straight.
She shoved it into his mouth and Tommy spluttered as it burned his tongue.
“Grandma, what the fuck?”
“Eat.”
“It’s too hot!”
“Children these days…”
There was silence for a few minutes as Tommy blew on his cookie to cool it off. Once it was an actually decent temperature, he started snatching cookies off of the tray and proceeded to eat them as quickly as possible.
“Tommy.”
“Mmph?”
“Have you checked the news recently?”
“Nuh.” He mumbled around his mouthful of cookies.
His grandmother sighed. “Tell me when you’ve swallowed. I don’t want you to choke.”
“Wuh?” Tommy swallowed and resisted the urge to take another cookie. “What’s happening?”
“One of the Hero Outposts was attacked today.”
A cold lump settled in Tommy’s gut. He suddenly regretted eating those cookies. “Which… outpost?”
The city of L’Manberg was divided into seven districts, each with its own Hero Outpost, except for the first district, which hosted the main Hero Tower. The Hero Tower functioned as the main base of operations, while each Outpost had various heroes that rotated through the different districts to ensure that each one had heroes present in it.
Each Outpost was practically identical, built of shining white stone and steel beams. The different materials twisted around each other to connect and support the tallest floor of the Outpost, where there was a beautiful view of the city skyline.
Tommy would know, he’d been up there for a school field trip, and his family’s apartment was located directly within the shadow of the Fifth Outpost.
His grandmother’s voice was flat as she answered his question. “Fifth.”
“Who attacked it?” Tommy asked, panic rising. If it was one of the minor villains, there likely wouldn’t be much structural damage, same thing if Revenant attacked.
Revenant didn’t tend to hurt innocent civilians, and even then, his death touch wouldn’t damage the city, just kill… a lot of people.
“Burnout.”
Tommy jerked backwards, stool wobbling dangerously.
Burnout’s powers consisted of being able to summon fiery explosions. He was best known for his dramatic speeches and his obsession with arson. Every time he attacked, the city was left scrambling to repair the damage. If he’d attacked the Fifth Outpost, which was directly next to Tommy’s home…
“Calm down, child. Please.” His grandmother was standing next to him now, hands pressing down on his shoulders, grounding him. “We don’t know if anyone has died.”
“My mum d-didn’t have work-k—” Tommy cut himself off before he could think about the implications.
“The deceased list is coming out soon. Your mum was always a strong one. She’ll make it out, Tommy.”
Tommy didn’t answer, trying hard to focus on counting silently and not hyperventilating.
A few minutes passed in absolute silence except for the sound of Tommy’s breathing and May’s low voice.
May’s phone rang. As the first few bars of Bohemian Rhapsody drifted through the air, she answered it and frowned.
Tommy’s father’s voice came out of the speaker, sounding tinny and slightly distorted, and Tommy couldn’t hear what he was saying, but from his tone of voice it didn’t sound very good.
Tommy’s grandmother hung up with a “See you soon.” and turned to look at Tommy.
“The deceased’s list is out.” Their eyes met and Tommy fumbled to pull his phone out of his pocket.
The list wasn’t that hard to find, it was posted on every official news page that L’Manberg had to offer. The list was surprisingly short for such a major attack, but there was a subheading at the top stating that unidentified corpses had been found.
Tommy tried not to think about that any more than he had to as he scrolled down the list to find the I section.
Ingleford, Erin
Innox, Mia Grace
Innit, Sarah
Tommy froze and stared down at his screen, fingers clenched tightly around it.
Innit, Sarah
“No. No. No. No. Nononononono—”
His phone hit the ground and the screen cracked and flickered.
He could hear his grandmother’s voice calling his name, sounding as though it was coming from the end of a tunnel, but he could barely hear it over the pounding in his head.
Innit, Sarah.
Deceased.
Tommy dug his fingers into his hair and cried.
Tommy barely remembered the funeral procession.
He could, however, remember that it was quiet.
Too quiet.
He’d sat in the front row, said nothing as he watched an endless stream of people with blurry faces stop at the podium and say their remarks about his mother’s kindness and patience and grace.
He didn’t care about her fucking grace.
He cared about her life.
Something that she no longer had.
He watched as her coffin was lowered into the ground, rain streaming down from the sky and dripping down over the huddled mass of black umbrellas.
It was still so quiet.
And then she was gone.
Forever.
Burnout had destroyed not only the Hero Outpost, but almost all of the several blocks of residential neighborhoods that surrounded it.
Even with the city trying its hardest to rebuild as quickly as possible, construction took time. Many of the citizens had been relocated to various hotels around the city, while Tommy and his father were staying with Grandma May. She had enough room anyways.
All of L’Manberg had been buzzing with unease after Burnout’s attack. The heroes hadn’t managed to even get a glimpse of the villain, seeing as they had at the time been either on the other side of the city or trapped in the exploding tower.
There had been quite a few hero casualties, and even more civilian ones.
President Grant had made some speech about how things would get better and the city would rebuild, but nobody listened to him anyways because A. He sucked, and B. Schlatt would be replacing him in like two months, so who cared what he had to say anyways?
The President had been making more speeches recently, maybe to try and get some last minute sympathy for the next election.
It wasn’t exactly working out for the guy, but the endless drone of his voice made some nice background noise for when Tommy would curl up on the couch with hot chocolate and imagine he could still hear his mother scolding him for procrastinating on his homework.
If Tommy could have his mother back, he’d do all his homework, and turn it in on time, and get perfect grades for the rest of his life.
He’d become a lawyer and get super rich and then give all his money to charity.
He’d even give all his hot wives to charity.
There was a slam and Tommy jolted slightly as his grandmother’s back door slammed open.
“Listen up, child. I refuse to let you wallow in your depression for the rest of your life. I want you to go for a walk, and I don’t want to see your ass in this house for at least an hour. Go talk to animals or frolic in the woods. Get ice cream. Do something other than attempt to meld yourself with my sofa.”
Tommy didn’t move.
The blanket he was wrapped in was yanked away with surprising strength and Tommy tumbled onto the tile floor in a flurry of tangled limbs and cursing.
“Ow.”
“Get up.”
Tommy groaned, but followed his grandmother’s instructions and went to the door, swiping his phone from where it had been charging on the counter for the last week or so.
The fresh air was a relief to feel on his face after so much time cooped up in the house, but he wasn’t about to tell his grandmother that.
He started down the road and soon found himself unconsciously following the old paths in the city he would walk back when his life was normal.
He passed his favorite cafè and debated whether or not he should stop and get something there, but one glance at his mother’s favorite table sitting empty in the sunlight was enough to make bile rise in throat.
Picking up the pace in order to get away from his memories, he stomped past his school (closed, seeing as it was a Saturday), and finally stopped at the library.
He hadn’t gone to work since the day of the attack, but he eventually found himself pulling open the doors and stepping inside to the air-conditioned interior.
Techno and someone Tommy didn’t know were working the front desk, with the mystery person wearing a face mask helping two teens with their absolutely massive stack of books and Techno typing away at a computer, face etched into a faint frown.
Tommy took a small step forward away from the doorway, and then immediately thought better of it and prepared himself to turn back and run away make a tactical retreat to the nearby park.
Unfortunately, Techno happened to look up at that exact moment and his eyes widened at the sight of Tommy standing in the library with his unbrushed hair and rumpled hoodie.
“Tommy?”
Tommy winced and gave him a little wave before stuffing his hands back into the hoodie pockets.
Techno shoved his glasses up his nose and stared at him for a moment before saying, “Wait one second, okay?”
He proceeded to type something else into the computer and then grab his bag, which he swung onto his shoulder as he strode towards Tommy.
Tommy fidgeted in place as Techno called out his goodbyes to the mystery person, whose name was apparently Ranboo, and then opened the door for Tommy to walk through.
Tommy didn’t protest and silently left the stifling interior of the building. He really couldn’t stand being in there any longer.
“You look terrible.” Techno said as they walked down the street. Tommy kept his eyes on the ground as he replied.
“Gee, thanks, bitch boy.”
Techno sighed and shifted his bag onto his other shoulder. “Are you… okay?”
Tommy raised an eyebrow. “I could ask you the same thing, big man. You sound a little constipated.”
“Bruuuhhh,” he said, drawing out the sound, “I’m an introvert.”
“Oh, you poor thing.”
Techno stopped at a bakery that Tommy hadn’t been to before and led him inside. Working the checkout counter was a bald guy in weird blue and red glasses who waved at Techno when they walked in.
Techno ordered something off the menu and then looked at Tommy curiously. Tommy examined the menu and chose something at random, not really sure if he really wanted food at all.
The man (his name tag said Jack) gave them a thumbs up and started up on the order, while Techno escorted Tommy to a table in the corner of the bakery that was out of sight when you looked in from the street but had a decent view of the outside.
Techno set his bag down and sat across from Tommy, who cowered a little bit under the intense gaze he received from the other.
Seriously, his eyes looked fuckin’ red from how brown they were. Kinda creepy.
“Are you sure you’re fine?”
“I should be asking you that, big man.”
“You already said that, and you’re deflecting.”
Tommy slumped over and glared at the wall.
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but you look like you could use some major therapy.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?!” Tommy said indignantly.
Techno raised an eyebrow and said in his annoying monotone voice, “You look like you’ve been living curled up on your grandmother’s couch after losing everything you care about in a raging inferno.”
Tommy flinched.
Techno’s weird-ass eyes widened imperceptibly and he said, looking mildly concerned (which was actually a major record, usually the guy’s face was very very expressionless), “That… isn’t what happened, right?”
Tommy looked away from him and his stupid brown man bun. “Pretty much, yeah.”
“So… are you an orphan now?”
Tommy glared at him. “That’s your first question?”
“I don’t like orphans.”
“Who the fuck doesn’t like orphans?”
“Me.”
There was an awkward silence as Jack delivered their food. Techno received one steaming cup of coffee and a plate of yellow puffy things, while Tommy got a strawberry boba and a chocolate croissant.
Techno sipped his coffee as he stared down at Tommy, who took a very small bite of croissant.
Oh. Damn.
“This is a really good croissant,” Tommy said before shoving the entire thing in his mouth. Techno laughed.
After Tommy swallowed his croissant (with some difficulty), he peered over at Techno’s plate of weird yellow balls.
“What are those?”
Techno picked one up. “These? These are potato puffs.”
Tommy stared at him in horror. “You ordered potato puffs at a bakery?”
Techno blinked. “Yeah? What’s wrong with that? I like potatoes.” As if to demonstrate his point, he ate the potato puff.
Tommy rolled his eyes. “Americans…”
“What in Prime is an American?”
Tommy shrugged and did not reply.
Twenty minutes of exchanged banter later, Techno waved goodbye to him and walked off in the direction of the Fourth District, while Tommy went to the park.
It was strange. In every district in L’Manberg, you could always see the Hero Outpost poking out from above the trees or buildings, but now the sky was empty of a gleaming tower.
Tommy suddenly had an idea.
It was sort of stupid, but he wanted to pull it off before he changed his mind.
Changing direction, he abandoned his plan to go to the park and chill with the ducks (and very aggressive swans) and instead turned to head towards where the Tower would have been visible had it not been blown sky-high.
It took longer for Tommy to reach the ruins of his old apartment than it should have, mostly because he didjn’t have a giant fuck-ass tower to redirect himself with whenever he got lost.
He turned a corner, and almost staggered beneath the weight of both the memories and the horror of what he was eyeing.
The Hero Outpost was gone. Like, completely. There were no twisted remains or empty charred shells like there were of a few other buildings on the block. The entire Tower was so completely obliterated that there wasn’t a single hint of the massive structure that had resided in that space before.
Feeling rather sick, Tommy stumbled forward until he reached more or less where his apartment building’s front door would have been. Other than a very charred empty shell, the place where he had grown up in all his life was completely gone.
All the laughter and love that he could remember happening on this street was gone. Vanished. Completely erased.
Now his memories were all he had left. Everything she had touched was gone, burned away into ashes.
Laughter and off-tune singing and bedtime stories had been replaced with a suffocating silence that encased Tommy completely.
Tommy was alone.
“Uh, hey, bossman? You good?”