Annihilate

“By the way,” Wilbur says over dinner, too casually to be followed by anything even remotely casual, “Deo left you everything he owned.”

Tommy’s heart skips a beat, and he looks at his brother incredulously.

“I mean, legally, I’m the heir until you turn eighteen, but we’re brothers. So it really doesn’t matter.”

“What did he leave me?”

“His place,” Wilbur says, “All his money. I don’t know what else yet. Just got a call from whoever’s handling his inheritance this evening, said that I’ll probably have to go to court a lot in the next months.”

“Months?” Tommy echoes.

“Yeah, I looked it up. Average inheritance legal bullshit takes seventeen months to process. They have to go through everything he owns, calculate how much it’s worth, pay off any bills or debts or credits he had, blah blah. But I’m optimistic that it’ll go over quick. I’m his executor and shit. And Deo wasn’t the type to owe anyone anything.”

Yeah, true. But Tommy felt like he owed Deo everything.

He nods anyway. Wilbur drums his fork and knife against his plate.

“He really loved you, you know,” he says. “You were family. I… I can’t imagine what you felt when he was murdered right in front of you.”

Tommy’s fork clatters against his plate. “Can we not– talk about this?”

Wilbur looks sympathetic in a sort of way that should make him angry, but for some reason doesn’t. It just makes him desperate for him to stop looking at him like that.

“Tommy, Dad told me that you chased after the killers. He found and arrested the two of them. He told me what state they were in. Do you think you’ll ever talk about it?”

He closes his eyes. Mistake – Deo’s face flashes before them, no light in his empty gaze. The face of his killer follows suit, brown eyes terrified as he presses himself against the wall. So much blood on his hands. Bricks cracking under his fist. What the fuck are you?

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Tommy says.

Unexpectedly, Wilbur doesn’t push him. He just nods and goes back to his fish and chips.

“I still have to say sorry,” Tommy pipes up again after a while of silence where he just stared at his plate.

“For what?”

“What I said to you.”

Wilbur scoffs. “Come on. I know you didn’t mean it.”

Tommy sighs. “I didn’t, yeah. But I said it to hurt you. I’m sorry for that.”

Wilbur smiles at him. “You’re my little brother. I can take it.”

It’s oddly reassuring, enough to untie the knot his stomach has twisted itself into. Tommy goes back to dinner and finishes eating. He still has to crochet Wilbur something. But he thinks he might need a new beanie, actually, and he has a perfect amount of leftover maroon wool for something like that.

He goes up to his room and locks his door behind him before pulling out the web-shooters and -fluid that he’s provisionally storing under his bed for now. He’s improved upon the former after getting home, relocating the aiming thing to his middle- and ring fingers so he can aim more accurately with the middle of his hand.

The suit’s a work in progress, not only because he’s out of fabric but also because he’s still tinkering with the design. It’s pretty basic for now. And Tommy is nothing but extra. Seriously, this is an A+ opportunity make the suit a creative outlet he can basically puke his ideas all over. He doesn’t want to waste it.

So for now, he’s going with a hoodie he spray-painted his spider logo onto, stark white against the black fabric, and simple cargo pants. He has made himself the mask with the big eyes and actually sewn them into the fabric in a way that allows them to mimic his expression. It’s goofy-looking and he loves it. He looks like a janky hobo, but he’s ready to take it to the streets anyway.

He gets to catching up on school and completes his homework. After he’s done with that, he gets halfway through Wilbur’s beanie before it’s his usual time to go to bed, at which point he shuts off his lights and leaves his project on his desk. He pulls the balcony door closed behind him before climbing to the roof and hauling himself onto the edge of it.

Taking a deep breath, he pulls at the lanyard he made for his camera experimentally before sticking it into his collar. He made double of the length he needed out of thick wool and crocheted it all together to create a sturdy cord that can hold the camera effortlessly. He’s not killing another one tonight, thanks.

Tommy pulls down his mask. He takes a deep breath and jumps.

Gravity pulls at him harshly, tugging him towards the concrete, he plummets towards the ground, wind howling in his ears. He twists, back facing the streets, and aims his left hand at the roof, shooting a web.

The feedback isn’t as intense as he thought it’d be – the webs are stretchy, and he whoops as he swings over traffic and catapults himself into the air, letting go of the web a little too prematurely and shooting upwards before falling back down, using his right web-shooter to keep himself in motion.

It’s fucking amazing. He laughs in pure ecstasy as he hurls himself into the air over and over, propelling himself over buildings and across streets. This is officially the best idea he’s ever had.

Tommy lets himself fall, headfirst towards the ground before shooting two webs to the buildings right and left to him, and he lets himself fall even farther before the webs make him bounce back up. He hurtles towards the sky, the city turning upside down before his eyes. In the edge of his vision, he spots something.

His spider-sense confirms it, and he shoots a web and yanks himself onto a rooftop. He rolls out and almost falls off the side of the building, catching himself at the last moment.

“No one saw that,” he whispers to himself, heart thundering in his chest.

The shadows of the Vulture’s wings disappear again, but Tommy saw his figure perched on top of a building. He gets his breathing steady before following him, dropping into a roll and swinging. He lands on the next building just as the Vulture emerges, metallic wings flapping as he propels himself into the air.

He gets his first IRL-show of the Shocker, hanging onto the winged vigilante’s hand like an extra appendage. Vulture’s wings are remarkably strong, even with the extra weight of an entire new person, he holds himself in the air effortlessly. Tommy stealths his way after them and pulls out his camera. After he gets one-two-three good shots of the two vigilantes, he puts it down for a moment and watches as they land on top of Oscorp Tower.

What the fuck are they doing?

“Interesting,” he mumbles to himself. He shoots a web and pulls himself onto the wall, trying to land silently. He crawls up the glass and peeks over the edge of the building.

Vulture and Shocker’s conversation drifts over to him, voices distorted by voice changers. He should invest in one of those. The vigilantes are both standing now, looking over the city.

“–don’t know why he had Deo killed.”

Tommy’s finger freezes on the trigger of his camera.

“Me neither,” Vulture says. “I don’t get how he fits into all of this. The spider, the lizard… now Deo’s death. What made him specifically a target? We thought it was because of his connections to Kingpin–”

“And how likely is that?” Shocker asks. “Fact is, we know that Deo was selling Oscorp tech. It was Schlatt. We just don’t know why. Schlatt could’ve ruined his life with ease, had him arrested, whatever. What kind of response is a hit to a minor offense like that?”

Deo was selling Oscorp tech?

Tommy is getting more confused by the second, but at least he gets some insight into the Vulture and the Shocker. It seems like both of them actually knew his late friend. At least well enough to worry about clearing up his murder’s circumstances. He… appreciates that, on some level.

“I don’t know, man. I wish I knew. I’m just scared that he’s gonna end up going after him, too.”

Tommy blinks. Yeah, he’s just losing them now.

“He won’t. He doesn’t know where he was when Deo died.”

“And how do you know that? The whole incident with the lizard showed just how deep Schlatt’s connections to the cops run. What if he finds out? How much longer can we keep doing this?”

The Shocker shakes his head frantically. “We can’t– we have to keep doing this. You know we have to. You know Ihave to.”

Okay. This is getting a tick too cryptic for his liking.

Vulture sighs, or at least he thinks he does. It sounds strange with the voice changer. He snaps another picture of them. He’s here for money and information and things seem to be going his way for once.

“I know. I’m just saying that he’s in danger. We need to find out why Schlatt really ordered that hit and quickly.”

“Yeah.” The Shocker’s gauntlets light up bright neon yellow as he examines them. Tommy takes yet another picture. Oh, these are bangers. “So we break into Deo’s apartment?”

Oh.

Oh, okay, no. He’s so not fucking with that. They’re doing the same thing he wants to do, find out why Schlatt had Deo killed, but he thinks he has just a tiny bit more of a right to know than the guys Deo met on the job.

Whatever ‘the job’ actually was. Selling antiquities, his ass. Deo lied to him very easily, didn’t he?

Tommy stuffs his camera back into the safety of his hoodie, lets go of the web he was holding himself up on and pushes off the building, flipping a couple times before shooting a web. He swings across the city in wide arcs, slowly getting a better feeling for how to really utilize the webs; his timing gets better with each one he shoots, and he watches the world pass him by in a blur of colors and shadows as he swings and finally lands on Deo’s balcony yet again.

Breaking in is easy. Deo was the one who taught him how to pick a lock.

The apartment is dark and quiet. Tommy gets hit by an unexpected wave of nausea as he spots the bandages Deo left out to put away later. No one’s been here since his death, it seems, and if they were, they didn’t touch anything.

He walks around the place for a bit before remembering that he should probably turn on light to scare off Vulture and Shocker. But in all honesty, he just really doesn’t feel like it.

He feels like crying all over again when he wanders into Deo’s office and finds a framed picture of the two of them. He remembers the day – it was shortly before he met his foster family for the first time, fresh out of the last one, and Deo had taken him out for ice cream and skating. Tommy had fallen on his ass and banged up his wobbly knees. In the picture, he’s smiling brightly despite the blood running down his leg, and Deo is laughing too. They look so happy.

Fuck, he misses him. He misses him so bad that it cuts off his air flow. Tommy only doesn’t start spiraling because his spider-sense rudely reminds him of the two vigilantes about to break into this apartment.

Well, he’s pissed now. Might as well be pissed in civilian clothing.

He tugs off his mask and hoodie and stuffs them into a random duffel Deo has lying around, followed closely by his web-shooters. He sets the picture down and sits at Deo’s desk for a moment, looking around.

For someone who allegedly sold antiques, Deo had one hell of a good paper trail about his job. Tommy thumbs through months of printed-out bank transactions and sighs before dumping the whole stack of paper and a folder into the duffel bag too and zipping it closed. He spots a weird-looking bag that weighs almost nothing on a cabinet and just takes that with him as well.

The balcony creaks as Vulture lands on it. Tommy sighs and goes out to face them, leaning against the doorframe as Shocker opens the door and fumbles for a light switch. “Why is this open..?”

The light switches on and the two vigilantes freeze as they spot him casually chilling in the doorway.

Tommy raises an eyebrow. “You come here often?”

The Shocker stares at him almost owlishly despite his mask. “…Hello?”

“Evenin‘,” Tommy greets him with a wry smile.

“You… are not the owner of this apartment.”

“Correct, Holmes. I’m a court process away from owning it, though, since the owner of this apartment was murdered and I’m his heir. Now, I’m just kind of illegally speeding up that legal process, but what are you doing here?”

The Shocker kind of just stands there and stares at him. The Vulture cuts in helpfully, squeezing himself through the door.

“I knew Deo. We worked together sometimes. I’m sorry about what you’re going through.”

Tommy snorts derisively. “I’m just gonna say it, I don’t fucking like you. Answer my question.”

The Vulture raises his hands defensively. “We don’t want trouble. We’re trying to figure out why he was murdered, okay? We can help you.”

“Help me?” Tommy asks, feeling a little too volatile for his own good. “I don’t want or need your help.“

“You have no idea what you’re going up against,” the Shocker cuts in again. “You’re Deo’s heir? You’re likely in danger–”

Tommy grabs the next best thing he can get his hands on – which is a TV remote – and hurls it at the vigilante. It hits him in the middle of his stupid mask with deadly precision and knocks him back. “Ow!”

“Get the fuck out of this apartment if you’ve got nothing else to say,” Tommy basically seethes. “I’m not interested in being lied to or stolen from and everything that’s in here de facto belongs to me. I don’t give a shit about danger or whatever, I want the truth.”

The Vulture steps up. “Calm down.”

“You fucking watch your friend die in your arms, find out that your best friend’s dad put a fucking hit on his head, and then find out that he’s been lying to you practically all your life and tell me to fucking calm down again,” Tommy hisses.

His angry cat-like behavior seems to have an effect on the vigilantes, because they share a glance before the Shocker tries one last time. “You have every right to be angry. And to want the truth. But you have to understand–”

“–that there are bigger forces at play and it’s dangerous and blah blah blah.” Tommy is getting genuinely pissed off at the loop everyone seems to be stuck in. Danger, worry, danger, worry. Even though he could probably clap both of these assholes with his super strength.

Okay. No. He does not want to jinx himself. He backtracks on that mentally. No need to get all arrogant. He’s just some guy.

“Believe me, I know,” he says, crossing his arms. “Get out of here now before I call the cops on you.”

Again, the vigilantes share a look he can’t decipher. He resigns himself to their cryptic bullshit. Then, the Vulture gives his partner in crime a little nod, and he hops out of the door they came from, vaulting himself over the balcony.

The Shocker turns to him one last time.

“Be safe.”

Tommy stares after them for a long time.

Then he shakes off the encounter and decides to go home.