Chapter Text
Tommy wasn't a good guy. Everyone knew that. Out of every hero in the agency, Tommy was the most questionable. Theseus, that was his hero name, was known for causing chaos, for doing pranks, but when push came to shove, he would save people. He always saved people. Everyone thought he was annoying, but they trusted Theseus. Because even if he pulled pranks, he never meant harm. He didn't do anything bad. Hell, the worst thing he did was probably pickpocket from a fucking mugger! A mugger! It was a bad guy! Not even a woman!
He didn't know what he deserved to end up like this.
Sure, he was a former vigilante (keyword: former), but the people always loved him despite his childish antics.
When he was recruited by the hero agency, he thought this would be his chance to help the world, but it seemed everything always went wrong. Look, Tommy wasn't a good guy. He knew he wasn't a good guy, but he was a hero, he saved lives. He saved people.
Even so, he was stuck in the fiery pits of a building as the walls around him crumbled, as explosions sounded near him. He winced from the sounds. His leg was in pain from being stabbed by the fuckin' villain bitch. Even if he was in so much pain, he stood his ground as he glared daggers into the backs of the retreating villains. If he was being sacrificed to kill those motherfuckers, he would at least take them down with him.
Siren, the bitch, had been the most annoying of the three and was the reason his leg hurt so bad, so he barrelled into the villain. It barely took a second for the Blood God to have a sword to his throat as Siren easily peeled him off of them.
Rubble crashed around them.
Even with Siren safely away, the Blood God didn't lower his sword.
"C'mon," the Angel of Death prodded. "We're going to get nuked if you keep sticking around, mate." And at that, the Blood God moved away.
Seconds later, the window the three villains were going to use as their escape route crashed and burned, an explosion reeling the Angel back a couple feet. The ceiling collapsed around them, which wasn't necessarily good since there were multiple floors above them.
He laughed weakly as Siren started to panic and the Angel tried to calm him down. They ignored him. Theseus… no, Tommy, was dying, so why would they care about the words of a dying man?
He ended up trapped in a building, bombed by the very agency supposed to protect him, injured and weak when he was supposed to be fighting the three villains in front of him. He soon gave up though, because he was abandoned by the agency. It wasn't because he was starting to sway side to side from blood loss, or the lack of oxygen. Tommy's mask didn't have a filter for smoke, so his lungs kept gasping for oxygen, oxygen that he felt like he couldn't get. He couldn't breathe.
The villains, also known as SBI, were barely struggling. Lucky bastards had good gear (Tommy knew that, because he'd fought them for like ever) and they were barely affected by the smoke, only focusing on a way to get out. They completely ignored Tommy's existence.
Tommy, no, Theseus needed to breathe. He needed to breathe so fucking bad. The smoke inhalation was going to be a bitch, if he made it out of this building alive. His leg was bleeding, his arm was twisted, and he might also have a concussion, but he had to make it out of here.
Maybe it was the deliriousness from the pain and lack of oxygen, but Theseus broke the one rule he made for himself long ago when he took up the mask: to never take it off in front of another soul. He couldn't breathe and the fuckin' piece of cloth was making it harder to fuckin' breath.
His leg hurt so fucking bad. He couldn't feel the blood running down his leg anymore and he didn't know if that was a good or bad thing. His lungs hurt, but they were starting to feel so numb too. Survive was the only thing his brain registered in those moments; he disregarded every single rule that he made for himself.
For the first time since he swore he would never let himself be helpless again, he croaked out in the loudest voice he could muster in the thick air: "Help… me…" A desperate hand reached towards the makeshift exit that the SBI squad managed to make within minutes (Tommy envied the superstrength of the Blood God).
Blood God and the Angel didn't even turn, but Siren did. Tommy was met with piercing brown eyes that the blonde was only too familiar with.
He saw hatred and annoyance in them every time they met on the rooftops of the city as they fought each other, the other two never interfering. He was familiar with the hatred and annoyance. Everyone thought he was annoying; he was easily hateable, but this time: there was shock and some other look that Tommy could never think of as anything remotely close to hate.
The last thing he heard was as black spots clouded his vision: "What the fuck? Angel, Theseus is a kid," Siren hissed. Then, all he saw was black.
---
The next thing Tommy heard was beeping. He figured he was in the hospital, but he didn't know how he was. The hero agency abandoned him, so how the fuck did he manage to get out when he passed out only steps away from the villains who very much wanted him dead. He never really knew the other heroes that well, only Gogy really, and Gogy was a bitch. Gogy wouldn't risk his neck to save Theseus, and both of them knew it.
He felt pokes of IVs and some sort of tube. He figured it was there to help him breathe, considering he almost died of smoke inhalation. Tommy didn't really notice that his knowledge of hospitals was abnormal for a child, nor that he shouldn't be so familiar with them. Either way, it gave him enough oxygen to make coherent thoughts.
Tommy next started to open his eyes.
He wasn't in a hospital.
He was in a bedroom of sorts. He was hooked to an IV and a bunch of other shit that should be in a hospital, but it wasn't a hospital. It looked like a bedroom. It had a fucking fireplace for some reason, a chair, and a bookcase. Hell, there was even a minifridge. This was the weirdest bedroom Tommy had ever seen in his short life. Whoever saved him had weird fucking tastes.
Tommy sat up. It was a struggle, and it took far too much effort to do, but he did it. His throat felt parched and sore. As it should, Tommy told himself, because he almost died of smoke inhalation. He wondered who actually did save him though.
His question was answered because not even a second later, a brunette with familiar brown eyes (Tommy knew who it was immediately; how could he not?) came in munching on a chocolate chip cookie with an IV bag in hand. Unluckily, the bitch had a mask on, but his hair color was now known. It was a secret, and now Tommy knew it. He had a feeling he would never leave this room alive because he knew information that he wasn't supposed to know at all.
While Tommy was figuring out that he would either become a prisoner forever or be tortured and killed, Siren was just staring at Tommy like a deer in headlights.
The villain finished chewing before speaking though. "Hi, Theseus," the villain nervously greeted. "Fancy seeing you here, ey?"
Tommy didn't attempt to say anything. His throat was too sore to breathe, let alone talk.
"Look, I know we have our differences," the villain continued, looking more and more anxious as the conversation continued. Even so, Siren walked over to change out the IV and Tommy didn't have enough strength in his body to protest. For all Tommy knew, he was being poisoned. "But you're a kid- and we might be, y'know, evil and all, but we don't hurt kids."
Tommy couldn't stop his voice at all. "Yeah, tell that to when the Blood God stabbed me in the stomach and I was hospitalized for three weeks."
There was an awkward silence before Siren excused their actions with: "Well… that was before we knew you were a child."
"I am not a child," Tommy croaked, now simply ignoring the pain. If he was going to have to suffer next to his archnemesis, he might as well banter back. "I am 16." That answer didn't make it any better apparently, because the brown irises that showed something else other than the hatred and annoyance (with Tommy) turned dark and dangerous. Tommy was more familiar with this version of Siren, not the one switching out his IVs with a lighthearted smile as he pulled his mask up just enough to eat a fuckin' pastry.
"Well… it was nice chatting, Theseus," Siren said cheerily. Tommy knew all too well that it was passive aggressive, or at least there was a layer of unfiltered anger in his tone. Theseus and Siren hadn't fought for three years without knowing the others' emotional tells. Still, neither side had the upper hand, not really. Until now.
Tommy wondered why he wasn't dead yet. He was at Siren's mercy and they hated each other.
Either way, he didn't have much time to wonder because the exhaustion in his body made him fall asleep soon enough.