Chapter Text
The first thing Tommy remembered about home wasn’t the house itself.
Not his bedroom, either, though he vaguely remembered blue walls and glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to the ceiling. Not his parents, despite the fact that he could still picture flashes of them if he tried hard enough.
No.
The first thing Tommy remembered was the bird feeder.
It hung just outside the kitchen window on a rusted metal hook that his dad was always promising to fix. The feeder itself had once been painted yellow, though by the time Tommy was old enough to remember it properly the paint had already started peeling away in little strips.
Every morning he’d climb onto the kitchen counter and press his face against the glass.
Most of the birds blurred together now.
Sparrows.
Finches.
Robins.
Little flashes of feathers and movement that came and went with the seasons.
The canary was different.
The canary always came back.
It was a tiny thing. Bright yellow and stubborn beyond reason. Every morning it would land on the feeder and every morning Tommy would be waiting for it.
His mum used to laugh whenever she caught him staring.
“You know,” she’d tell him, setting a plate down beside him, “it does other things during the day.”
Tommy never believed her.
As far as he was concerned, the bird simply ceased to exist whenever he wasn’t looking at it.
The canary would tilt its head.
Tommy would tilt his head back.
A perfectly reasonable conversation.
Looking back, Tommy thought he probably should’ve remembered more important things.
The canary just happened to be what survived.
Funny, that.
⸻
Tommy woke to the sound of rain tapping against broken glass.
For a disorienting second, he expected to see the kitchen window.
Expected to see yellow paint.
Expected to see a stubborn little bird waiting for breakfast.
Instead, he opened his eyes to stained ceiling tiles and water damage.
Right.
Not eight anymore.
Not home anymore, either.
The abandoned office building greeted him with all the warmth and hospitality of a damp cardboard box.
Tommy sighed.
The building was trying its best.
Its best was simply terrible.
He sat up slowly, stretching cramped muscles as golden-brown wings shifted behind him. Feathers brushed against the back of the couch he’d claimed as a bed three weeks ago.
Three weeks.
Honestly, that was impressive.
Most of his hideouts lasted a week and a half before someone ruined everything.
Sometimes it was heroes.
Sometimes it was villains.
Once it had been raccoons.
Tommy still maintained the raccoons had been the most threatening.
A quick glance at the clock told him he had roughly forty minutes before school started.
Wonderful.
Just fantastic.
The educational system was truly committed to making his life difficult.
He grabbed his backpack from the floor and immediately regretted it.
The thing weighed a ton.
Inside was a collection of items that would probably concern any responsible adult unfortunate enough to inspect it.
Three notebooks.
A chemistry textbook.
Two burner phones.
A first-aid kit.
Several fake IDs.
A half-eaten granola bar.
An alarming amount of stolen pens.
Tommy had no idea where the pens kept coming from.
They simply appeared.
Like pigeons.
Or taxes.
Some things in life were inevitable.
The warning never came.
That was the first thing he checked every morning.
Before school.
Before breakfast.
Before literally everything else.
No ringing.
No wrongness.
No pressure building behind his ribs.
Good.
That meant today wasn’t immediately trying to kill him.
Experience had taught Tommy that this counted as a win.
⸻
School was awful.
Not because he disliked learning.
Learning was useful.
Useful things kept people alive.
No, school was awful because it required Tommy to pretend he was normal for seven consecutive hours.
Which was exhausting.
Tommy could fake being a terrifying criminal mastermind.
That was easy.
Pretending to be a regular sixteen-year-old was significantly harder.
He slipped into history class three minutes before the bell.
A personal best.
His teacher looked up from attendance.
“Mr. Simons.”
Tommy sat down.
“Sir.”
“You’re late.”
“I was actually early for tomorrow.”
The teacher closed his eyes briefly.
Tommy considered that a victory.
The day continued much the same.
History.
Math.
Chemistry.
Lunch.
More math, because apparently one math class wasn’t sufficient suffering.
By the time chemistry rolled around, Tommy had stopped pretending to pay attention.
The warning started halfway through the lesson.
A faint ringing settled at the edge of his hearing.
Tommy immediately straightened.
Not fear.
Not danger.
Just…
Wrong.
The sensation drifted through his thoughts like distant thunder.
His feathers shifted beneath his jacket.
Nobody noticed.
Nobody ever did.
The warning wasn’t immediate.
No ambush.
No attack.
No collapsing buildings.
Something farther away.
Something approaching.
Tommy hated those kinds of warnings.
Immediate danger was manageable.
You punched it, ran from it, or occasionally set it on fire.
Future problems were much worse.
Future problems expected planning.
Tommy was already busy.
⸻
By the time he arrived at the warehouse later that evening, the rain had become heavier.
Water drummed against rusted metal roofing as he stepped inside.
The conversations stopped immediately.
Tommy tried very hard not to find that funny.
There were at least twenty people in the room.
Most of them could kill him.
Several of them had tried at one point or another.
And yet every single one fell silent the second he entered.
Ridiculous.
The mask settled comfortably over the lower half of his face.
The voice modulator clicked on.
Canary slipped into place as naturally as breathing.
He moved toward the head of the table.
Nobody questioned it.
Nobody ever questioned it anymore.
Which was probably concerning.
Tommy chose not to think too hard about that.
“Let’s get started.”
Reports followed.
Finances.
Territory disputes.
Shipments.
Information exchanges.
Tommy listened more than he spoke.
People assumed he had some incredible strategic mind.
The truth was significantly less impressive.
Most people were simply terrible at noticing things.
The warning stirred halfway through a discussion about a waterfront transfer.
Wrong.
Not dangerous.
Just wrong.
Tommy tapped his fingers against the table.
Everyone immediately stopped talking.
The shipment manager swallowed.
“Boss?”
“Delay it.”
The room went silent.
No arguments.
No protests.
Just immediate acceptance.
Tommy wasn’t sure when that had started happening.
Years ago they would’ve laughed.
Now they wrote down his instructions without question.
It was unsettling.
The shipment would be delayed.
Two weeks later everyone would discover that customs inspections had doubled along the planned route.
Tommy would never mention it.
The others would add another story to the growing myth of Canary.
Neither side would discuss how weird the whole thing was.
The meeting continued.
The warning lingered.
Growing stronger.
And by the time the warehouse finally emptied, Tommy was beginning to suspect that whatever was coming wasn’t going to stay far away for much longer.