Tommy offers a small salute before fading in his green sparks.
As for the next day? Well, there is a new rule for the universe: Tommy shouldn’t get to go to school angry and lost and hurting with little hope. Sure, Billy has offered to look into how to help him get away from his parents the night before, but that didn’t change the futility. Foster homes were supposed to be bad. If he didn’t just send up in a group home thanks to his age.
Long and short, he was impossibly highly keyed up by the time computer lab rolled around the next day. The teacher was an older woman that everyone was pretty sure kept a bottle of vodka in the drawer of her desk so Tommy knew he could get away with poking around on the internet rather than doing his class work. And his goal was seeing what he could find out about options available to teens in abusive homes.
Made the mistake, though, of doing it where Dan Simms could see it. His person bully. Lucky him.
“Awww, little Sheepy thinking he’s gonna try claiming his parents don’t love his sorry ass?” Dan asked, even as his his hand settled onto Tommy’s shoulder.
Which of course made Tommy flinch. His eyes glanced briefly toward the teacher. Sipping from her ‘water bottle’. No help from that corner.
“Not today, Dan. My dad already smacks the shit out of me enough. Just back off.”
Contrary to adult advice, not all bullies back off when confronted. Dan’s hand just tightened painfully on Tommy’s shoulder.
“What was that, Sheepy? All I heard was ‘baa baa baa.’ Try talking people.”
Too much. All too much. Tommy twisted enough to look up and Dan and glare. Which meant he didn’t catch the spark leaping from his finger to the keyboard and frying the thing.
"I want you to back off."
The spell didn’t catch, Tommy could feel it in how his body didn’t sag with exertion. But still his anger and sickness and frustration was building up, itching under his skin, demanding direction.
“Make me,” Dan smirked.
A mistake of words. Tommy had enough of this at home. He had enough in general. For the first him he stood and glared at his jock-moron bully eye to eye. Opened his mouth to speak. Except Dan moves first, grabbing for Tommy’s collar. The last mistake he would make for a while. Because as Tommy’s hand rose to knock it away something else entirely happened. Something far, far worse. A flash of light, multiple all from the source of his raises hand. The smell of ozone and burned hair. The darkness as the burst of lightning shorted everything in the room. The screams. All of it lost as Tommy stared in horror at Dan, collapsed on the floor.
“No,” he whispered in shock.
And then he lost control altogether.
Later, when he’d been taken from the school by the authorities, he didn’t protest. Didn’t say a word. Just let them take him with a numb sense of resignation. Didn’t answer questions, didn’t pay attention to the police detective or the shrink or even who even would have expected this? Thor himself, the authorities having called the Avenger for support to make sure Tommy’s clear mutant ability didn’t hurt anyone else until someone could get there with a suppression collar for his clear mutant ability.
The only thing that shook him from his numb shock was when one detective asked if he would at least write down what happened. Then Tommy nodded. The detective left him with a pen and paper and stepped out for a moment, Thor moving to wait outside of the room too.
No one seemed to care that technically no one could talk to Tommy without an adult present. Nor did Tommy care if Frank or Mary shows up. All he cared about was picking up the pen and writing out a brief message.
I’m sorry. I can’t talk to you anymore.
Two words repeated quickly and wit every ounce of belief he could muster and the paper flashed from his fingers.
To Billy.
They were enough. Sent and gone with a flash, to appear between the pages of one of Billy’s notebooks. Only the words, though. The paper was lost to the ether, leaving words in rich, emerald green ink scrawled along the next blank page of the next notebook Billy would open. And Tommy’s attention then shifted to his confession. Better to get it over with.
He doesn’t know it makes the news, even in New York, and definitely makes the Internet. Crazy mutant teen nearly electrocutes whole school, one kid in a coma, five with serious injuries, a good number of minor ones, and everyone scared about the mutant threats again. Charles Xavier not available for comment at this time. Which makes sense. Takes a while for the police to release enough to go on for it to get out of state. And given the explosion at the Avengers’ Mansion the next day, and everything else that spun out from that, it just became another story lost in the media shuffle.
Can do teddy or other YAs to help Billy pad out some time or another starter for Super-Skrull
As for the next day? Well, there is a new rule for the universe: Tommy shouldn’t get to go to school angry and lost and hurting with little hope. Sure, Billy has offered to look into how to help him get away from his parents the night before, but that didn’t change the futility. Foster homes were supposed to be bad. If he didn’t just send up in a group home thanks to his age.
Long and short, he was impossibly highly keyed up by the time computer lab rolled around the next day. The teacher was an older woman that everyone was pretty sure kept a bottle of vodka in the drawer of her desk so Tommy knew he could get away with poking around on the internet rather than doing his class work. And his goal was seeing what he could find out about options available to teens in abusive homes.
Made the mistake, though, of doing it where Dan Simms could see it. His person bully. Lucky him.
“Awww, little Sheepy thinking he’s gonna try claiming his parents don’t love his sorry ass?” Dan asked, even as his his hand settled onto Tommy’s shoulder.
Which of course made Tommy flinch. His eyes glanced briefly toward the teacher. Sipping from her ‘water bottle’. No help from that corner.
“Not today, Dan. My dad already smacks the shit out of me enough. Just back off.”
Contrary to adult advice, not all bullies back off when confronted. Dan’s hand just tightened painfully on Tommy’s shoulder.
“What was that, Sheepy? All I heard was ‘baa baa baa.’ Try talking people.”
Too much. All too much. Tommy twisted enough to look up and Dan and glare. Which meant he didn’t catch the spark leaping from his finger to the keyboard and frying the thing.
"I want you to back off."
The spell didn’t catch, Tommy could feel it in how his body didn’t sag with exertion. But still his anger and sickness and frustration was building up, itching under his skin, demanding direction.
“Make me,” Dan smirked.
A mistake of words. Tommy had enough of this at home. He had enough in general. For the first him he stood and glared at his jock-moron bully eye to eye. Opened his mouth to speak. Except Dan moves first, grabbing for Tommy’s collar. The last mistake he would make for a while. Because as Tommy’s hand rose to knock it away something else entirely happened. Something far, far worse. A flash of light, multiple all from the source of his raises hand. The smell of ozone and burned hair. The darkness as the burst of lightning shorted everything in the room. The screams. All of it lost as Tommy stared in horror at Dan, collapsed on the floor.
“No,” he whispered in shock.
And then he lost control altogether.
Later, when he’d been taken from the school by the authorities, he didn’t protest. Didn’t say a word. Just let them take him with a numb sense of resignation. Didn’t answer questions, didn’t pay attention to the police detective or the shrink or even
who even would have expected this?Thor himself, the authorities having called the Avenger for support to make sure Tommy’s clear mutant ability didn’t hurt anyone else until someone could get there with a suppression collar for his clear mutant ability.The only thing that shook him from his numb shock was when one detective asked if he would at least write down what happened. Then Tommy nodded. The detective left him with a pen and paper and stepped out for a moment, Thor moving to wait outside of the room too.
No one seemed to care that technically no one could talk to Tommy without an adult present. Nor did Tommy care if Frank or Mary shows up. All he cared about was picking up the pen and writing out a brief message.
I’m sorry. I can’t talk to you anymore.
Two words repeated quickly and wit every ounce of belief he could muster and the paper flashed from his fingers.
To Billy.
They were enough. Sent and gone with a flash, to appear between the pages of one of Billy’s notebooks. Only the words, though. The paper was lost to the ether, leaving words in rich, emerald green ink scrawled along the next blank page of the next notebook Billy would open. And Tommy’s attention then shifted to his confession. Better to get it over with.
He doesn’t know it makes the news, even in New York, and definitely makes the Internet. Crazy mutant teen nearly electrocutes whole school, one kid in a coma, five with serious injuries, a good number of minor ones, and everyone scared about the mutant threats again. Charles Xavier not available for comment at this time. Which makes sense. Takes a while for the police to release enough to go on for it to get out of state. And given the explosion at the Avengers’ Mansion the next day, and everything else that spun out from that, it just became another story lost in the media shuffle.