Who: Thomas Taylor & Joey Malone What: Thomas finally breaks, Joey knocks some sense into him. Possibly literally, idk. Where: Chicago (South Side) When: Backdated to Wednesday, September 5th 2018 Warnings: Violence maybe, mentions of a character death
It had been a little over three weeks since Thomas had left New York. He hadn't really known what he was going to do or where he was going to go, he just knew that he'd had to get out of there. Ever since Kylie's murder, and especially after nearly getting sent away for it, everything about Thomas's life had felt stifling. Things that he used to enjoy, the things he once valued, he just didn't have the energy to care about them anymore. His job at the Agency, his job with the Avengers, everything. He just wanted it all to stop. He wanted life without Kylie to just stop.
People told him it would take time. Even Peter was giving him that tired old speech about grief and how 'it hurts like hell now' but eventually he'd come out the other side of it? Whatever. Thomas didn't want to move on. He didn't want to be on any side of anything that Kylie wasn't a part of. Every cell in his body missed her, with every breath he took and every beat of his heart, he only thought of her. He saw her everywhere he looked. In his bedroom, his apartment, every bloody street in New York City. There were reminders of Kylie everywhere, and as much as a part of Thomas clung to them now in a desperate attempt to keep some part of her with him, another part of him was slowly being driven mad seeing her at every turn.
He needed to get out.
When he'd put in his notice with the Avengers and the Agency, Thomas hadn't really figured out what exactly he was going to do instead. He just knew he had to leave. He had to get out of New York altogether, because everywhere he looked there was something to remind him of Kylie. The other day he passed by the alley where he'd finally proposed to her and it felt like the wind had gotten knocked out of him, he suddenly couldn't breathe. It felt like that all the time now, like his body had lost the will to function normally without Kylie around to remind him that he was alive. He wasn't whole without her. He didn't want to be.
He'd started out just going from city to city. Never staying too long in one place, always moving. Stopping in to make some trouble for the local criminal element, catch a few bad guys, move on again. If anyone had been keeping tabs on his movements, Thomas hadn't bothered to notice, but if they had... well, it was pretty obvious that the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man wasn't exactly working with a full deck these days. Meaning that usually, Thomas held back from going a little too far with his fists. Now, not so much. He'd left more than a few guys in his wake that had been beaten so bad they'd had to be taken to the hospital in handcuffs.
The night before he'd been in Detroit, and before that Cleveland. Not staying in any one city for too long was a lot easier than he'd ever thought it would be, without attachments or anything keeping you in one place. When it came time to decide where to go next, he didn't even really think about it before he was hopping the MTN straight to Chicago, more or less in a daze. From there, well. There was never any shortage of criminals in the South Side, so Thomas didn't have a hard time finding more than a few guys to pummel until his own fists were red and bruised once he finally walked away. He didn't even fully realize where he was until he finally stopped in front of a familiar house, run down and vacant since it'd gotten foreclosed on some years back. It was the house he'd grown up in.
It didn't look lived in, probably because it was such a shit hole by the time his Aunt and Uncle left it that even the most desperate would rather take their chances outside than in a place like that, but that didn't mean there weren't squatters. Thomas didn't care. He was tired, but instead of finding a decent place to sleep for the night, he found himself breaking into the backyard of his old house. If there were any signs of life in there, Thomas ignored them as he dragged out one of the trash cans from the shed and dumped half a thing of gasoline into it from the bottle lying idle in the grass. Pulling the spare t-shirt out of his backpack, he flicked his lighter open and held it under the soft material until it caught before tossing the whole thing into the trash can where it immediately lit up in flames. The heat from the fire was almost calming, and after a few seconds Thomas impulsively ripped off his mask and threw that in the fire too. Might as well, right?