Chapter Text
Tommy was ten when it first happened. He was eating breakfast with his family, a familiar scene played out many times before. He ate like a madman, ravaging soggy cereal like it was the first time he had eaten in years. Steel scraped against porcelain wildly before he pushed back his chair and sat up, legs scraping against the cold hardwood floor. His mother scolded him and he laughed, the boisterous sound filling the room with mirth. He opened his mouth, prepared to quip back, but he chirped.
Tommy stopped, porcelain slipping from tan fingers, falling like Icarus to meet unforgiving hardwood. The sound reverberated off every wall, every surface it could find. Porcelain shards spread into every corner and crevice, searching for shelter. And in the middle of it all, the golden-haired boy stood, frozen in time like an ancient statue. His parents gaped up at him, shock filling every curve of their flush faces.
“You-you’re,” his mother stammered out, before standing up and pulling Tommy into a bone-crushing hug. “You’re an avian.”
He hugged her back tightly, softening into her arms as his father got up to join the hug as well.
“You’re a hybrid, like us,” his father whispered, the soft reassurance making his ears ring.
Tommy could feel the warmth of tears being cried into his shoulder, his mother's cries of joy being muffled only by the cotton fabric that clung desperately to his small frame. If he shifted a mere inch he would feel the crunch of broken shards, scattered and waiting to cut until all he knew were blood-soaked hands. But he didn’t move into the pain, the heartbreak, content to stay in his parents’ arms, where he was safe.
-
It felt like only days ago Tommy was a mere ten-year-old, astonished as golden wings sprouted from his back, as talons grew from tiny hands. Naive and wide-eyed, thinking only of the love and good the world could grant him.
The six years since then had taught him how cruel the world really was, and how before he knew it there could be a knife in his back, twisting and searching for a vein to bleed him dry. He saw how people were taken, tortured, and experimented on. How anyone classified as different was treated.
He saw them be dragged away, chains over bruised limbs as they begged for their lives. How those with a simple mutation that allowed them to shift into a fully animal form were treated like scum, shoved into the dirt and ridiculed. They were hunted for sport, for fun, for something so uncontrollable.
He saw the news report when they had finally killed the last one. The sheer joy on the news anchor’s face, the relief settling over like a wave that had finally reached the shore. He grew up watching a glorified genocide of the animal shifters, the genocide of his race.
But still, Tommy never, ever saw someone like him.
Every hybrid was a mix of human and some variety of animal. A person could shift into both their human and hybrid forms, but they would be unable to shift into anything else. It was impossible.
But Tommy could. He could quickly turn from a spider to a human to a mouse in a blink of an eye, without even breaking a sweat. He was more than a human and a hybrid. He could shift into anything.
But Tommy knew far too well what happened to those that were different, so he hid. He pretended to be an avian hybrid, the perfect son any parent would dream of. Tommy only shifted into his avian form, not willing to risk being discovered. A smart plan, sure, but a major detriment to his powers. He was stuck, watching longingly through tear-filled eyes as his classmates soared high into the sky, and ran faster than any human could.
But Tommy was weak. Golden feathers were the downy soft of a fledgling’s, and they were half the size of a fully grown avian. They flapped uselessly when he tried, succeeding only in creating a mere breeze. So when it came time for fellow hybrids to practice their animal traits, teachers and classmates turned their backs on him. On the child with blue eyes, brimming with hope and naivety, and when his gazes turned to barely contained rage and scorn, they pretended he didn’t even exist.
So when Tommy’s parents found out his secret, how he could shift like no other before him, he wasn’t exactly surprised at their reactions. But he did feel betrayed.
It grew in his chest, an ugly behemoth of a thing, twisting and writhing foully in his gut, tainting the bile clawing its way up his throat. They were his parents. The people who were supposed to clothe and feed him. The ones who were supposed to swaddle him in a warm blanket of care when he felt down, and rejoice at his victories, no matter how small they may be. The people who were supposed to adore him, to love him.
But they didn’t.
Instead they kicked him onto barren streets, cursing the day he was born as he shivered in the cold, alone.
From then on Tommy was a street kid, working shitty minimum wage jobs until they found out his real age, and he was forced to either run or risk being put into foster care. He lived in abandoned buildings and apartments with an assortment of health violations, but their rent was dirt cheap, and Tommy would take a roof over his head and a bed to sleep on over the streets.
By some miracle, his parents never reported his abilities to the authorities. That, he figured, would be the last thing they ever did for him.
So he took the small victory, and all the others after. The music discs and player he found for a discount at a garage sale that he used when his thoughts got a little too loud, the extra food his boss would give him on breaks at his job at the cafe. He took them all.
It was a miserable existence, depending on small mercies like these for his survival, but it was worth it because he was alive.
-
The crisp autumn air pricked at Tommy’s skin, lightly, but not enough for him to really be bothered by it. Dried leaves left a satisfying crunch underneath his worn boots, the only sound echoing off cold concrete in the dead of the night.
It was approaching five in the morning, and the moon was steadily approaching the horizon, but Tommy was still out. Not that he had a say in the matter, that is.
He trudged along, the watching rats scurrying away from him whenever he got too close. Tommy longed to be like the rats, to have a choice in where he went, what he did. To have control.
Eventually Tommy reached his destination. He squinted up at the sky, a flickering lightbulb obstructing his view. The moon was too far low in the sky. He was going to be late.
Tommy rushed towards the building, haste making his movements careless as he slammed the door open.
“What did the door do to you?” A voice behind him broke through his thoughts, and a low chuckle echoed off the cold stone walls of the alleyway.
“What’s it to you, prick?” Tommy huffed, crossing his arms, still not turning around to meet the mysterious man.
Behind him, the telltale sound of boots hitting the floor rang out as the man dropped from his perch on the nearby fire escape.
“It’s pretty dark out mate,” the man pointed out, tone dropping into a sweet softness that Tommy was unfamiliar with. “Not very safe, if you ask me.”
Tommy rolled his eyes, staring down the masked villain Aves. He was an avian hybrid, like Tommy pretended to be. The man had massive black wings coming out of his back, and sharp talons that could slice skin within seconds, and cause warm red blood to ooze out of broken bodies he had bested in battle.
“Like you care.”
At that, the man’s gaze turned softer, eyebrows furrowing in a soft sort of sadness.
“You’re a child out alone in the complete darkness! Anyone with half a brain would be concerned.”
“Says the man who burned down an entire building last week,” Tommy rebutted, slowly bringing one foot backward in a tortuously slow escape.
“The building with zero civilians in it?” The villain raised an eyebrow, begging him to try and refute it.
Tommy froze, knowing the winged man was right. In lieu of answering, he traced the curve of his mask with his eyes, marveling at the luxurious black fabric covering the lower portion of the man’s face. Seems villainy did pay well after all.
The villain sighed, forcing Tommy to stare up at the piercing blue eyes burning a hole in his soul.
“Listen, mate, I just came to make sure you were safe, alright?” The man’s eyes creased, like his mouth beneath the fabric was furrowing into a deep-set frown. “This area isn’t safe for children.”
Tommy gaped up at the man, raw emotion filling every empty crevice in his face. “You scumbag, I am not a child!”
The man in front of him stilled, a sort of shock overtaking him. At the fact that the outburst happened at all, or that a lowly civilian had just disrespected him, Tommy wasn’t sure. And he didn’t intend to find out.
So he stuck his hand out roughly, grasping onto the cold metal handle and yanking on it as the villain still stood there, dumbfounded. He all but tripped over himself, sprinting behind the safety of the door. Tommy yelled out a quick “Bye!” before slamming the door shut, and collapsing behind it.
He dug uneven fingernails into his scalp, pulling at blonde curls as the adrenaline rushed through his body like the tidal wave of a tsunami.
Tommy could’ve sat there for hours, or mere minutes, he would’ve been able to tell the difference. All he knew was the blood pounding in his head until he heard powerful wings flapping, signaling Aves leaving the premises. He let out a sigh of relief, letting air flow back into his lungs as he began to breathe again.
Footsteps echoed around in the back room Tommy was hiding in, and he looked up to meet the eyes of Niki.
Tommy met Niki after his parents had kicked him out. He had walked into her bakery, desperate for a job. And she smiled at him with kind eyes and agreed with soft words that made his heart feel warm (not that he’d ever admit that).
She had helped him get his footing, to get enough money to live. In exchange, Tommy took the hard shifts, the ones nobody wanted. So the blonde ended up on opening and closing shifts, rising early to bake each morning, and leaving a few hours after the customers came filing in. He had a few free hours then, and he mostly slept, until he returned for his closing shift.
Tommy was stuck in the darkness, watching the rise and fall of the moon on his walks to work in the deserted nighttime.
It did leave him prone to attacks though, as that was when superheroes, supervillains, and vigilantes roamed the area.
And until today, Tommy had been lucky. Only seeing them in passing, or watching from afar as rough hands punched clothed faces.
But now not only had he met one, he had probably just angered one as well.
“Tommy?” Niki’s soft voice brought him out of the thoughts racing through his mind at a vigorous pace.
Tommy pushed himself up abruptly, dusting the nonexistent layer of dirt off his pants to keep himself busy.
“Niki!” Tommy greeted loudly, smiling at her, but even her presence couldn’t quite make it reach his eyes.
She furrowed her eyebrows at this, and peered up at the blue-eyed boy. “You okay, Toms?”
And all Tommy could do was nod, a silence settling around the two as Niki frowned at the loud boy’s unusual silence. Her gills flared out, the merling becoming increasingly upset. Softly, she spoke again, using careful words as if she was approaching a wounded animal in the wild.
“If something’s off at home, you can tell me you know.”
And suddenly Tommy really, really regrets not lying about his age on his job application.
“I’m fine Niki, really,” he said, forcing his smile to grow even wider than before. But Niki still looked unconvinced.
“Listen, I just didn’t have enough to eat last night, okay? My parents weren’t home so I wasn’t fed. That’s it.”
Niki didn’t need to know about how he was living by himself in the poorest part of the city, Tommy reasoned. When he was by himself, nobody could find out about his powers. It was safer that way. And she especially did not need to know about him just angering a supervillain.
Niki nodded at that, seemingly content with his response, though she still seemed concerned. “Let’s get some food in you then, okay, Toms?”
At that, he smiled, a real smile that made his eyes crinkle and his heart feel warm.
“It’s food time, bitch!” He declared loudly, and ran off towards the front of the store, Niki laughing loudly behind him.
Tommy still had to help Niki bake and open the store when he was done eating, but Tommy was okay with that. He was full and happy, with a good acquaintance to keep him company at work. And Tommy was content with that, the warmth filling his bones like soft assurances of safety.
Except Tommy wasn’t safe. He lived in a crime-ridden, poor neighborhood. Living paycheck to paycheck. And now, he likely had an infamous supervillain after him.
But Tommy was fine, really. How likely was it that he came across another supervillain again anyways?