June-July Storm and Calibrations - OTA

[doubled_speed]

WHO: Tommy Sheperd, OTA
WHERE: Around Temba, Calibrations Waiting Room, Tommy’s Calibration Room
WHAT: The lead up to and time around Calibrations
WHEN: June 2nd to July 10th
WARNINGS: CW: Tommy’s Calibrations room potentially contains depictions of child abuse and neglect, deprivation of food to a minor, bullying, and possible references toward unintentional property destruction.. It depends on what you touch (each will have warnings in strike-through attached). One happier memory does occur, though.


Helping Hand (Around Temba - June 2nd, the 36 Hours - OTA)

The message comes and a few things happen. First, Tommy freezes. The storm had been bad the last time. The lack of powers, the way he fractured his ankle, the way he’d seen people he’d lost, the way he’d wanted to hide and never come back. The idea of it happening again scared him more than anything. Add in his new issues with lightning and it got more complicated, not less. Of course while he freezes forever, it’s actually only a minute, and then he’s moving.

While he hasn’t been to his home since things went wrong, he moves immediately there and starts packing a box with all of his things. And after a moment of thought, his brother’s things, and Teddy’s for good measure. Some clothes for them all, a few personal touches to feel comfortable. The painting Vision made for him happened to go into a box too. And once that is all left off in the mouth of the tunnel, he’s back in the city.

He stops at the Greenhouse and spends time harvesting every last thing that’s ripe that he can get his hands on. They’ll need food if they’re going to be there for a while. Then it’s off to the ships. Grabbing anything loose and useful on the ship is the goal to get things back. He then moves around the city, racing up to anyone he sees and stopping to ask an important question.

“Is there anything I can do to help you? Anything you need carried? Hell, I’ll carry you.”

Safety matters, and he’s a hero. It’s going to happen.


Calibrations Waiting Room

Here

Calibrations [CW: Tommy’s Calibrations room potentially contains depictions of child abuse and neglect, deprivation of food to a minor, bullying, and possible references toward unintentional property destruction. It depends on what you touch (each will have warnings in strike-through attached). One happier memory included.]

The room is different than the waking hours, but not much. It’s not actually emptier but it somehow manages to feel it, in an abandoned sort of way. Instead of a queen-sized bed, there’s a twin mattress on the floor, next to which there sits a half-eaten package of off-brand poptarts cw: neglect and deprivation of food. The mattress itself is resting under a window so dirty and dusty that it’s almost impossible to see out through it. Instead of the drawers there’s just a closet, open and mostly bare save for a pillow in the corner. And across from the pillow a beat-up bookbag cw: bullying. Hidden up on the shelf in the closet is a dusty high school yearbook cw: explosions, property destruction, for a school in New Jersey, Go Pumas! The last object of any real note in the room is a discarded belt cw: child abuse. Okay, no, there’s also what looks like a picture pinned to a wall, seemly drawn by a child. It’s on that level at least, it’s made of crayon, and depicts people in very colorful costumes, with something scrawled under it. Welcome to the Young Avengers it reads.

In the middle of it all, metaphorically, is Tommy, looking around the room in disgust.

Comments

[doubled_speed]

“There’s a reason my school got blown up. I didn’t mean for it to happen, but it wasn’t entirely my fault, even if my powers were involved,” Tommy sighs, moving to tap the locker door. No response. But eventually, a knock from inside. Like Tommy knew there would be.

“No one from before your team came from me even cares that I’m alive. Or that I was gone.”

[wearingthestars]

Billy really hopes that's not true. Even if they never made it clear to Tommy, he wants to believe there's people out there who Tommy had an impact on. Because he can't imagine his life without his brother in it. And he remembers that hopeless feeling all too well, but outside of school hours he could return home and find someone who cared.

"...Well you're stuck with us now."

[doubled_speed]

The first people Tommy ever made a lasting impact on, save Lisa, was Billy and his team. And Billy’s family. And a few Kree and Skrull who deserved getting hit.

“Yeah, if you say so,” Tommy answers as the halls around him go to mist. Back in his room now, a door finally arrived. Tommy just flops down on the floor and pulls his legs up to his chest, hugging them a little. So many secrets in this space, why did his brain have to give them up.

[wearingthestars]

Billy's eyes skirt to the door and then back to his brother, moving to sit on the floor beside him and lean into his side.

"...You okay?"

[doubled_speed]

No. He tried so hard to hide all of this stuff from Billy, that he doesn’t like that it’s out there now. Sure he played up some of the stereotypes people would have about kids like him, about people who ended up in jail and went out partying and threw themselves into the life of a hero with such abandon.

He just... well, he hadn’t wanted Billy to ever see how bad it was. Even talking to him about Frank had been hard.

“This place keeps... it keeps taking and forcing things. And you’re not going to respect me if you really know who I am.”

[wearingthestars]

"Tommy..." Billy sighs, thinking for a moment, "...I want to know you. The good parts and the bad. That's part of building a relationship. But...I don't want you to have to share anything you're not ready to. You know all my secrets."

Well...most of them. There's one glaring one they haven't got around to yet...

[doubled_speed]

“It’s all bad parts,” Tommy shrugs, and his eyes cast about the room. “This whole place is a trap of bad stuff. You don’t need to see any of it. I dealt with it a long time ago.”

He’s lying of course. He just got to the point where it’s not constantly on his mind.

[wearingthestars]

"You know that's not how that works," Billy argues. You don't just deal with it and move on. That stuff stick with you, whether you want it to or not.

"But I don't want to see anymore in here. You can tell me in the real world. If you want to."

[doubled_speed]

The chances of him telling are so small. So very, very small. But who knows.

"Just, uh... go? So you don't have to see it? I think that would make us all feel better.

[wearingthestars]

Billy nods, and since they're about as far from anyone seeing them as it's possible to be, he presses a kiss to his brother's temple before he pushes up.

"See you on the outside..."

[doubled_speed]

Wow, Billy's lucky Tommy doesn't just HUG him for that.

"Billy?"

He looks up at his brother and bites his lip before saying something he doesn't think he can say out there for real.

"I love you."

[wearingthestars]

He knows it, but hearing Tommy say it makes Billy beam.

"Love you too, Tommy," he swears, stepping out of the room.