Black Hole
Ame’s Commission in exchange for her generous donation to my MSABC Fundraiser.
Billy disappears at the end of ACC, and years after Tommy is still searching for him, but along the way finds something else.
~+~
Black Hole
~+~
He knew this would happen. He knew.
That’s why he fought so hard to keep them away; why he snarked and teased and generally made a nuisance of himself. It was the reason he had an acidic comment for everything, the reason he blew them all off, or sulked and bitched if he was somehow roped along into some kind of social gathering not involving bad guy ass-kicking.
It was the reason why he ran away whenever they got just a little too close. So that when the day came that they would leave him behind- because somehow no matter how fast he was, no matter how hard he ran to catch up, people still managed to leave him behind- when that day came as it always did, he wouldn’t have to feel anything.
Yet here he was, with his chest so tight he could hardly breathe, with his heart pounding so hard he was sure it would burst out of his chest, and his vision blurring- some dust must have gotten behind his goggles or something- and, and …
And it hurt.
It hurt more than anything he could have imagined in his most disturbing nightmares. More than his parents neglect, more than the utter rejection from kids all through his school years, more than his training and experimentation in juvie-
He felt empty and torn; as if a very large part of his soul had just vanished into the maelstrom of blue magic along with Billy.
Billy, his brother. There was no denying that fact any longer.
“Tommy?” Kate’s voice was soft and defeated, her touch on his shoulder utterly gentle. “Tommy, are … are you okay?”
He didn’t answer.
He ran.
~+~
“I swear to God I don’t know anything!!”
“We both know that’s not true,” Tommy vibrated his hold on the man’s arm even faster.
“Agghh!!! I swear!! Please stop!! I swear!!”
Green eyes narrowed coldly, “I don’t believe you.”
His victim’s scream turned nearly animalistic as sinew and bone began to break down under the pressure of hyper-accelerated molecules.
The whistle of an arrow caught his ear, making him pull his arm away from the man he held before it struck deeply into the wall. The man crumpled to the floor whimpering, but Tommy’s foot on his chest stopped him from crawling away.
“Let him go, Speed.”
He turned to face Patriot’s authoritative attitude, lips curled in a sneer.
“You gonna make me?” he taunted.
Another arrow was suddenly embedded in the ground near his foot, startling him into unpinning the man who scrambled onto his feet towards Hawkeye.
“He’s crazy, I don’t know any-”
Hawkeye delivered a solid punch to the man’s diaphragm, knocking him out cold and catching him before he hit the ground with a murmur of disgust, “Doesn’t mean you’re some innocent either.”
“What exactly are you here for, huh?” Tommy bristled at them both, “I almost had him talking! Are you gonna blow all my leads, is that it?!”
“How long are you going to keep this up?” Eli huffed at him as he approached with Kate.
“As long as it takes.”
“Tommy … This is crazy. This is wrong. You can’t keep doing this,” Kate squeezed his arm, and there is a very faint note of pleading in her voice.
“Watch me.”
“Stop playing games! You think we don’t miss him too? You think we don’t want to find him?”
“Seeing as you haven’t lifted a finger to search for him in months, I’d say you don’t give much of a fuck,” Tommy growled fiercely.
“Tommy,” Kate barked, patience wearing thin, “This isn’t working. You’re not any closer to finding him, and instead you’re very close to the point of no return.”
“Maybe that’s exactly where I gotta go to find him.”
“Dammit, quit your bullshit!” Eli reached for his collar only to stumble as Tommy flickered out of that spot, suddenly to the right of them.
“Tommy just think about what you’re doing, there’s a better way to go about this-”
“I do think! And you know what I figured out? If it were me, and our positions were reversed, if it were me out there lost and waiting to be found- he wouldn’t quit. He’d keep searching, he’d do whatever it took to find out where I was. He wouldn’t give up on me. So stop asking me to give up on him!”
“We’re not asking you to give up on him,” Kate said firmly, grasping his shoulder.
Eli clasped a hand around the other, “We’re asking you to let us help you.”
~+~
“Kate’s pregnant.”
Tommy suddenly felt the world speed up around him and leave him behind for a moment. Briefly, he wondered if that’s how the others felt when he ran off on them. He wasn’t moving though, he couldn’t. Eli’s grip on his arm was so tight, he would probably rip the man’s arm off if he tried to bolt - Eli was just stubborn enough not to let go even if it meant losing the limb.
“Who’s the father?”
As fast as the world had been going, it now slowed to a snail’s pace, the heart in his chest thudding painfully with each labored beat, as if wanting to stop. Yet his exterior remained cool, collected, his face blank of any emotion as he puffed on the cigarette.
“Does it matter?” Eli asked him, frowning.
Did it matter?
For three years Kate and Eli had stuck with him, humored him, saved him, helped him, kept him sane as the search for his brother got colder and more hopeless with each passing day. He was no closer to finding Billy than he was the day they had first approached him.
But like a black hole, somehow over the years the unrelenting pair had pulled him in, without him even realizing the tug of their gravity, steadily deeper and deeper into … What was this? Did it have a label? Did it need a label? Or was it simply … Them?
“Tommy.”
There was a challenge in that tone. He met Eli’s stern gaze, read the ‘Don’t you even fuckin’ think about it’ in his eyes- the press of his fingers digging deeper into his arm asking silently, ‘Don’t you dare run away.’
Would he run now?
He took a long drag on his cigarette before blowing it out in Eli’s face. The man snorted in disgust just like Tommy knew he would.
Chuckling deeply, he snuffed it out against the railing of the balcony and flicked it over, “Guess that’ll be my last one of those for a while. Second-hand smoke and all that jazz …”
Eli narrowed his eyes suspiciously, “You’ve never cared before-”
Tommy stared at him for a long silent moment before clicking his tongue and rolling his eyes, “Yea, well, I didn’t have a baby to worry about.”
Eli blinked, and whatever he was about to say died on his lips in shock. Tommy didn’t blame him, his track record wasn’t the best.
“Told you he wouldn’t run,” Kate drawled suddenly from the doorway, leaning against the sliding door, a self-assured smirk on her face.
Eli huffed awkwardly, but Tommy just chuckled, smiling widening as he turned to face Kate. Getting up, he gingerly placed a hand on her stomach.
“So, is it a boy or a girl?” Tommy asked in a hushed voice, leaning his forehead against her temple.
“Too soon to tell,” Kate placed her hand over his.
Should he run now?
“Well, it better be a boy,” Tommy said definitively, “Because I will run away if I have to deal with two Divas in the near future.”
Eli’s firm hand stroked the back of his neck gently, “I’ll drag you back kickin’ and screamin’ if you even try. My kid isn’t going to have a deadbeat Dad.”
“Your kid?” Tommy looked at him side-long, challenging.
“Our kid,” Kate said definitely, linking her fingers with Eli’s behind Tommy’s neck, “Will be lucky enough to have two fathers, yes?”
“And you’ll be explaining that to the school board eventually, right?” Tommy countered.
“We’ll home-school,” Eli supplied easily.
“And that way we won’t have to worry about extended absences,” Kate continued, “We’ll be traveling a lot, looking for Uncle Billy. Baby will just have to come with us.”
He looked hard at Kate, “You’re sure about that?”
Eli’s hand joined them on Kate’s stomach, “How else are we supposed to keep looking?”
Tommy stared at their hands, felt the warmth of Kate’s body, the sturdiness of Eli’s grip.
Could he possibly run now?
Who was he kidding? This was the event horizon.
He could attempt it, but he was certain of one thing. No matter how far he got, how fast he went, somehow they would pull him back in.
Tommy laughed nervously, angsty, fighting the instinct to make a break for it. He would stay this time, “Every kid needs to have a crazy Uncle. Billy fits the bill. If we find him.”
“When,” Eli stressed, making him stiffen.
“When we find him,” Kate finished, making his knees weaken.
Not even the speed of light could escape the pull of a black hole.
Tommy buried his face in Kate’s shoulder with a shuddering breath, “Yeah, when …”
And he wasn’t half as fast as that.
~+~
Fin
~+~