Tommy's Ultra-Important Keychain

Chapter 30: Capitalists are good at capitalism. Who knew?

"They've been too quiet."

A clock on the wall ticked along to its melancholy rhythm, seconds feeling closer to minutes inside that bleak hall. A heavily scarred man glared at the floor. The office door had clicked shut only moments before, putting a barrier between him and the man inside. A second individual had been waiting for him outside, arms crossed and guard raised.

"To be fair, they're villains. They don't work on the same schedule as we do," Blink pointed out. Ace shoved past him and began his walk back to the elevator. His sidekick wasn't done speaking, "But maybe you're right. Whatever you need to think to feel like less of a failure. I mean— You did give them everything they needed to destroy the agency when you lost your item."

Ace growled at the jab, but they both knew he could do nothing to retaliate. The other heroes wouldn't look at him as he passed them, but Blink received several waves. His probation had been temporarily lifted in an attempt to rebuild his reputation, but Ace didn't get such a chance, despite his circumstances.

His head was foggy, full of unnecessary details that he couldn't sort. He itched for the return of his key, but he had no way to retrieve it. The state of helplessness in between his episodic breakdowns and moments of clarity was painful. Ace was fully aware that the red-and-white asshole, Hyperion, was probably flaunting his precious item to all his little villain friends.

A flash of purple caught his vision, one of the agency's lesser heroes passing him by, and he flinched. His feet tripped over themselves and he had to lean against the wall to prevent a collapse. It was too public of a space for him to fully retreat into his head, but he felt it coming on nevertheless.

His episodes had gotten more frequent since Alien disappeared. The kid had been around since the earlier days of the agency, when he was probably too young to be on such a high payroll. Purpled knew more than the general employee; inner workings, weaknesses, gossip, things that could throw the agency into disarray, and Ace had let him get away.

Since then, even the color palette of his damned ex-sidekick made his mind collapse in on itself. He couldn't eat, sleep, or breathe without the constant feeling of failure pulling him under. Blink didn't hesitate to drive the nail deeper.

After the incident with Tommy, Blink made sure that Ace was well acquainted with the taste of his own blood. His split lip was healing slowly, since Glitch was absolutely no help. The healer was weaker nowadays, spending the majority of his time sleeping. That meant that Ace was left black and blue for the whole world to see.

"What did the boss want from you," Blink asked, gesturing back at the office. "Are you finally being kicked out?"

Images poured in like a stream behind his eyes. He flinched, thrown off by how disorganized his memory had become. It used to be stable, like a filing cabinet given immense attention and care throughout the years, but it came in spurts without his key.

He remembered the meeting, the boss' smile, and the card he'd shown Ace. It was nicely decorated, professional – a perfect distraction from the issue at hand.

"No," he shot back at Blink, who was probably looking very smug behind his mask. "Not in your lifetime, kid."

He could feel a migraine forming in his head from the exertion. Ace forced himself to regain his composure, so that maybe he could make it back to his room before all hell broke loose. He curled his hands into fists, nails digging into the skin of his palms.

Hyperion.

That damned villain brat. He was the cause for this pain and suffering. He was the reason that Ace's world had been flipped upside-down. Whether by his own hands, or somebody else's, he would take down that cocky fool.