Annihilate

Tommy’s alarm clock rips him out of sleep and he flings his hand out and smashes snooze. He flinches at the loud crashing noise that follows, but it’s not enough to make him want to open his eyes just yet.

He doesn’t feel too bad as long as he does that. Everything is quiet around him, and he’s buried under his covers in a comfortable position. He closes his eyes and drifts back to sleep slowly…

Only to get interrupted quite rudely by his phone’s alarm, preemptively set for mornings where he falls back asleep after snoozing his first alarm.

Great. So, he’s awake now. How refreshing.

Already annoyed, he shuts it off and rolls out of bed, landing on the floor in a pile of blankets. The sun hasn’t risen yet, it’s still dark out – he glances at his alarm to gather the exact time and blinks.

He smashed the thing into pieces.

Tommy stares at the shattered alarm clock and promptly decides that he has to be dreaming. Because there’s no way that he just did that to his alarm.

He peels himself out of the five blankets Phil so helpfully covered him with. Something positive for once: he feels better. His head doesn’t hurt anymore, and he’s not burning up either. His hearing has gone back to normal–

Then he hears someone swearing outside their apartment – from twenty stories above ground – and abandons that thought again. No, it didn’t go back to normal, he just got used to it.

Fuck, he feels disgusting. He needs to take a shower.

He picks out fresh clothes, his like, third change in the last twelve hours, and meanders into the bathroom. Honestly, he’s too pissed-off and tired to deal with the spider bite or his weird symptoms (?) right now, so he just showers and tries not to think about any of it. This has to be a dream. Because if it isn’t, the spider bite gave him enhanced hearing and… healing. He knows he didn’t imagine those blisters – which means he healed injuries from getting struck by lightning literally overnight. A shiver runs down his spine as he remembers the strike.

Once he’s dressed again, he goes to brush his teeth, avoiding looking at his reflection, but when he’s done, he tries to put down his toothbrush and hilariously fails.

Tommy stares at the toothbrush and shakes out his hand. It stubbornly sticks. It’s– it’s sticking to his hand. How in the fuck–

“What the fuck,” he whispers, trying to peel the toothbrush off and failing. It only falls off when he shakes out his hand again, harder, and accidentally hits the sink with his knuckles. It cracks.

Tommy looks back and forth between the fracture in the sink and the toothbrush and slowly picks it up again, turning on the water and cleaning residue toothpaste out before putting it back. He splashes water into his face and stares at himself.

Were his eyes always this electric blue? He could swear their color was more grey yesterday.

No. Nuh-uh. He shakes his head vehemently. He’s just seeing shit now. He’s imagining things.

He picks up the towel and dries his face off, then lurches backwards when that sticks to his hand too. Panicking, he shakes out his hand, but the damn towel won’t fall off. He pulls at it and digs his heels into the floor and strains, but it won’t come off.

Fucking Christ. This is just– this is going so insanely wrong. He reaches for the towel rack for leverage and pulls with all his strength–

And he rips the towel rack out of the wall.

As Tommy stands there speechlessly, towel rack in hand and hole in wall, the towel peels off his fingers one by one and hits the ground. He stares at it, then at the rack, and gingerly sets it down on the washing machine. Then he clamps his hands over his mouth and tries not to burst into tears.

What the fuck is happening to him? He doesn’t want to develop… whatever the hell this is. Enhanced hearing that gives him headaches. Unreasonable strength that he can’t control. Weird sticky fingers that he can’t control either. He didn’t ask for this. For once in his fucking life, he just wants to be normal. Is that seriously that hard?

What is he going to do?

Will this ever go away again? Or is he going to be some freak science experiment for the rest of his life?

Tommy’s heart is pounding in his chest.

Oh-kay. Either he fell off his fire escape yesterday and hit his head hard enough to send him straight into a coma, and all of this is just one fucked-up dream; or, and he likes this possibility considerably less, the spider bite gave him fucking superpowers.

His life got real weird real fast.

Settling down on the floor, he stretches out his legs and silently forces himself to breathe evenly. He thinks of Deo and everything he’s taught him ever since they met at the foster home – he aged out, but never lost sight of Tommy, always hovering nearby as a hand to steady him. He’d know what to do.

Probably. This is a really unusual situation. Maybe even Techno would freak out. Maybe.

His focus suddenly shifts, everything around him blurring. He turns to the door.

“Tommy?” Phil calls from down the hall.

Tommy blinks. Did he just… see that coming? Somehow?

“I’m in here!” he manages out hoarsely.

Phil knocks on the door. “You okay? I can call you in sick. You don’t have to go to school.”

The hairs at the back of his neck are standing up. He feels electric, in just about every way, charged with anxiety and nausea. Yeah, it probably isn’t a good idea to go to school like this. “Yeah, I’m still feeling a little sick. It’s probably best if I stay home today.”

He opens the door to find Phil standing there in his uniform, frowning at him but his expression changes to surprised worry when he sees Tommy. “You look like shit.”

Tommy thinks he might burst out laughing or start sobbing at any given moment. “I feel like it too,” he says before squeezing past Phil. Did he hit a growth spurt? He swears he wasn’t as tall yesterday. Holy fucking God, the spider bite gave him superpowers. This… shouldn’t he like, go to Oscorp or something? This could seriously help people, sick people, to get better.

Then again, this is Oscorp he’s talking about. Who knows what Schlatt would do with him. Probably drain his blood and inject other people with it or some freaky dystopian shit like that.

His brain is running wild as he goes to his room, shuts the door and picks up his phone. Oh, perfect. Tubbo called him. Ain’t that just a coincidence.

He calls back, running a hand through his hair. He feels like he’s on crack, honestly. He’s still half sure he’s dreaming.

Then Tubbo picks up.

“Tommy! Oh my fucking God, finally you’re picking up. You’ll never believe what happened. My brother just got back from work, he stayed at the tower for like twenty hours yesterday after we left, one of the spiders they were experimenting on escaped!”

“You don’t fucking say,” Tommy drily says, gazing at his hand.

“Yeah,” Tubbo says with emphasis. “Dream said they looked at camera footage–”

“To catch a spider?”

“–and that you pointed out that it was gone? I was hanging around trying to listen in on shit and then these official-looking guys showed up and they want to question you or something!”

Somehow, that’s about the least of his problems right now. Tommy sighs. “Tubbo, I’m not coming to school today. I’m sick.”

“Oh, fuck off. Are you hearing what I’m saying? They locked down Oscorp. Everyone is looking for this spider. I don’t know what the hell is so important about it, but they think you saw it last.”

“Yep. Don’t care. Still sick.”

Tubbo snorts. “What’s your damage? Sore throat?”

“Headache.” And oh boy, is he lying through his teeth. “Bad headache. I’m dizzy ’n shit.”

”Aw, man. Get well soon, yeah? Ranboo will be bummed you’re missing the hangout.”

Tommy sighs. “Yeah, I’m bummed too. Just… really not feeling well. I’ll let you know if any official-looking guys try to play good cop bad cop with me, yeah?”

“Okay. Man, this is just freaky. I hope that spider is still somewhere at Oscorp. Can you imagine what would happen if it got loose?”

Oh, I can imagine, Tommy thinks. He says, “I’d rather not. I pointed out that it was only fourteen out of fifteen to the lady in charge and she just said ‘Naaaaah, it can camouflage itself’. Bruh. I could very clearly fucking see that it was gone.”

“Shit, man. Why didn’t you tell my brother?”

“I dunno. Didn’t think of it. Didn’t imagine it was that big of a deal. Also, the lady said not to worry, so really, whose fault is it that I didn’t worry?”

Tubbo hums thoughtfully. Then he makes a somewhat confused noise. “The people at this company are fucking weird sometimes. I don’t even get– why would they want to cover it up? Even now, they’re all so secretive about it. I don’t get what the big deal is. I mean, it’s just a spider.”

“I dunno either,” Tommy says as casually as he can. “What do you think would happen if it bit someone?”

“The person would probably fucking die? I don’t know, man. They were messing with the spider’s DNA and shit. I don’t want to know what that’d do to a person.”

Tommy looks at his hands. Again.

“Yeah, me neither. I’ll go back to sleep now. Bye, Tubs. Tell Ranboo to make their notes somewhat legible for me.”

“I will! Bye! Sleep well!”

Tommy hangs up and flops onto the floor, staring up at his ceiling. For fuck’s sake.

Okay, yeah, he definitely doesn’t want to fuck with Oscorp. Aside from the fact that it’s Tubbo’s family, they’re also a bunch of selfish assholes, aside from Dream. He thinks George wouldn’t hesitate to dissect him in the name of science. No thanks.

He shuts his eyes and listens to the world around him, a world that is so much sharper than he’s ever even dreamt it could be, vivid and loud and beautiful. The sounds of cars honking and accelerating and airplanes in the sky blur into background noise as he listens to people laugh and chatter, guitar notes from what has to be a street musician, the sound crutches rhythmically hitting the floor.

“And love will make you do wrong,” the street musician is singing, “love will make you do wrong…”

He doesn’t know how long he lies on the floor of his room and just listens to the noise of New York, but by the time he’s interrupted, he’s made a decision. The feeling in his gut tells him to keep the bite a secret, and he’s inclined to listen to it. He doesn’t want to get treated like some science experiment, and he doesn’t want Oscorp to have their sights on him – not before he’s figured this out on his own. Or at least figured out why the bite didn’t instantly kill him.

His focus strays to the footsteps in front of his door. He’s up in less than a second and snatches a blanket from the pile on his floor, wrapping it around his shoulders.

A knock on his door.

“Tommy? You awake?”

Oh, it’s Techno. Tommy gingerly tip-toes over and opens the door. “Hi. What’s up?”

His older brother surveys him, squinting.  He’s dressed for college, in his professor suit with the lecture tie, as he likes to call the fit he always wears when he gives lectures. His glasses are perched on his nose and Tommy gets the urge to tie up his pink hair. “Phil told me you’re sick. We’re gonna be gone in a bit, we all have work. If you need anything, just call, okay?”

Tommy leans against the doorframe and nods. “Okay. Will do.”

Techno nods right back at him. “Wilbur’s gonna be back at three or something. Get some rest, yeah? You look really exhausted.”

Tommy smiles tiredly and gives his brother a two-fingered salute. “Yes, sir.”

His brother smiles and leaves, and Tommy waits until he’s down the stairs before he exhales and drops the blanket to the floor again, looking outside. It’s snowing again, thick flakes falling from the sky and painting the city white. As he stares at the skyline, a plan starts forming in his head.

He knows what he’ll be doing today, and it definitely won’t be resting.