phoenix tommy but in a superhero au
(TW some descriptions of injuries + torture + self harm)
so because its modern with superpowers, when hes being tortured for tears, its less like being forced to cry and having them collected in a bottle or sum, and more like they have someone with the ability to control water literally rip the tears from his eyes as they are being produced, until his eyes are ruined and then they heal him and start again because its less risky and more instant then killing him.
its less like someone tearing his wings off and killing him and then doing it over and over, and more like they tear the feathers off his wings and then have someone healing and re-growing them constantly, painfully forcing the feathers out over and over just to rip them out.
he isnt given any release, not even in his own death as a reset, just constant torture.
he wishes he could die, believing it will fix his pain. but he never does.
when he escapes its with featherless wings and dry eyes and they both itch, a phantom pain and anxiety haunts him from their presence alone, and its enough to make him go insane, and he does.
He cuts his own wings off, He tears out his eyes to shred his own tear ducts out. its pure and joyful relief.
but it shackles him to life.
he wont be able disfigure himself again if he dies and heals, he knows he wont be able to make himself do it ever again.
so he can't die or they'll be back and so will be the itching. as much as he's dreamed of finding a way to truly die when he was in that place, he doesnt want to risk that it wont even help.
so that how tommy, fully capable of fixing himself, chooses to live blind and flightless instead.
and then even still becoming a vigilante or villain despite it with just his other powers alone. (future sight? sound vision? earth vision like toph? oh air bender powers would be sick)
as a result of being constantly tortured nearly 24/7 for who knows how long and having his bits taken for products. tommy runs into his own product way to frequently.
the phoenix feathers are sold as legitimate product to rich people or on the black market, though most people are under the belief that the feathers are from an undisclosed multiple different phoenix hybrids who are just anonymous and in hiding, who give the feathers away in exchange for protection from the company, because thats what the company advertises and tells the public.
they even run ads to tell people who are phoenix hybrids to contact them for protection, which both has the chance of yielding results and makes the public trust them, makes them feel better about their hero's using human product, literal tears, to heal.
the ads and the company give people the impression that there are maybe a hundred phoenix hybrids out there under the companies umbrella, when theres really only a handful, and they tell people that the reason there is a scarcity in product is because they only get the tears and feathers naturally.
so when tommy is out for his night job, when he inevitably runs into people using the feathers or the tears-
he has to pretend he isn't wondering if its his or not, like when he gets his hands on them, he isn't probably running his fingers over his own feather, or holding a bottle of his own tears-
because he's usually in front of other people.
and tommy quickly gains an obsession of re-claiming his own feathers. not stealing, they were always his.
then He gets to decide that theyre just a nest decoration. He gets to choose who to bring back, or who to heal with his tears.
sbi can be heroes or vigilantes or villains too.
but either way, they become friends with tommy in his nightly escapades, and they dont know his identity or anything about his backstory, just what he does as his alternate identity, all the stuff he's infamous for, including gathering the feathers and the tears.
theres all sorts of rumor's, maybe he knows someone whos power itself makes them sick who needs constant healing, maybe he donates them, maybe he uses them in his fights.
but for MAX misunderstanding, when they find out why hes been stealing the feathers (nest decoration, his body can't be healed by them and its not like he can put them back on) they get mad at him for wasting them and "taking them away from people who they could save"
angst is the bread with which to spread some found family jam onto and eat it without any peanut butter like the crazy found family fiend you are
(hmmmm I really like this idea, another W from the 2022 notes app)
