Various Locations, September–October 2012
Adrian Toomes was forty-three years old, and he had built his company from nothing.
Not metaphorically.
Not inspirationally.
Literally.
One truck.
Then two.
Then a crew.
Then contracts.
Then a business.
The kind of business built by waking up at five in the morning for twenty years straight and learning how to negotiate while covered in drywall dust.
Toomes Salvage wasn't glamorous.
It was work.
Real work.
Demolition.
Cleanup.
Recovery.
The jobs nobody noticed until they needed somebody willing to crawl through broken concrete at three in the morning during freezing rain.
Adrian Toomes had spent his entire adult life becoming indispensable to a city that barely remembered his name.
And for a while—
That had been enough.
Then aliens invaded New York.
And suddenly the cleanup business became the most important industry in America overnight.
MANHATTANMAY 2012AFTER THE BATTLE OF NEW YORK
The streets still smoked.
Not figuratively.
Actually smoked.
Entire blocks looked peeled open.
Chitauri wreckage littered intersections.
Destroyed vehicles sat overturned beside collapsed storefronts.
And above all of it—
The impossible reality that human beings now lived in a world where aliens existed and Manhattan had survived a war against them.
Adrian stood in the middle of the ruins wearing a hardhat and fluorescent safety vest while surveying his biggest contract ever.
His crew unloaded salvage equipment nearby.
Good men.
Working men.
The kind who showed up every day because people depended on them showing up.
Randy Vale.
Jackson Brice.
Herman Schultz.
Men with mortgages.
Kids.
Bad knees.
Bills.
Toomes had fought hard for this contract.
Loans.
Equipment investments.
Political favors.
Insurance leverage.
Everything.
Because this wasn't just a cleanup operation.
This was survival.
One major contract could stabilize the company for years.
Adrian crouched beside a twisted piece of Chitauri metal half embedded in asphalt.
Alien alloy.
Lightweight.
Stronger than steel.
And humming faintly with residual energy.
Behind him, Schultz whistled softly.
"You think this stuff's radioactive?"
Adrian grunted.
"If it kills us, we won't have to pay taxes."
Schultz barked a laugh.
Nearby, workers carefully loaded alien components into containment crates.
Professional.
Controlled.
Legal.
Everything documented properly.
This mattered.
Because Adrian Toomes was not a criminal.
Not yet.
Then the vans arrived.
Black government SUVs first.
Then larger utility transports.
Then men in dark jackets carrying clipboards and federal authorization packets.
Every salvage worker on-site stopped immediately.
Adrian straightened slowly.
Something cold settled into his stomach.
A man stepped out from the lead vehicle.
Mid-forties.
Expensive suit.
Expressionless in the specific way government officials become expressionless after years of telling ordinary people their problems don't matter.
Behind him, the logo on the transport doors read:
DEPARTMENT OF DAMAGE CONTROL
The man approached calmly.
"Mr. Toomes?"
"Yeah."
The official handed him a document folder.
"Under Executive Order 13519, all extraterrestrial materials recovery operations have been federalized effective immediately."
Adrian frowned.
"...What?"
"The Department of Damage Control now has full jurisdiction over cleanup and containment."
The workers nearby exchanged uneasy looks.
Adrian opened the folder.
Legal language.
Transfer orders.
Seizure authorizations.
Federal acquisition notices.
His jaw tightened slowly.
"We have a contract."
The official nodded once.
"Your contract has been superseded."
"We've been here three weeks."
"Your crews will receive compensation for labor completed to date."
Adrian looked up sharply.
"I took out loans for this equipment."
No reaction.
"I hired men based on this contract."
Nothing.
"I got families counting on these paychecks."
The official adjusted his cuffs.
"You'll receive a compensation package."
Adrian stared at him for a very long moment.
Around them, Damage Control agents were already moving through the site.
Cataloging equipment.
Marking crates.
Claiming ownership.
Not aggressively.
Not violently.
Which somehow made it worse.
Because this wasn't robbery with guns.
This was robbery with paperwork.
The official extended a hand.
"I'm sorry for the inconvenience."
Adrian looked at the hand.
Then at the ruins of Manhattan around them.
Then at his crew standing silently behind him.
Working men.
Waiting for him to fix this somehow.
And for the first time in years—
Adrian Toomes realized no one was coming to help people like them.
The official lowered his hand awkwardly.
Then returned to the van.
The convoy drove away ten minutes later.
Taking the contract with them.
Taking the future with them.
Leaving Adrian standing in the rubble.
Silent.
Breathing slowly.
Looking at the alien technology scattered across the destroyed street.
A choice arrived quietly then.
Not dramatic.
Not explosive.
Just a thought.
Cold.
Practical.
Simple.
They took everything anyway.
Adrian looked around carefully.
Damage Control crews were still organizing perimeter transfers two blocks over.
Nobody was watching his men directly anymore.
Nobody cared.
Why would they?
People like Adrian Toomes only mattered when somebody needed cleanup done cheap.
He crouched beside a containment crate.
Inside:
damaged Chitauri power cells,
fractured weapon components,
propulsion fragments,
energy conductors unlike anything on Earth.
Adrian closed the crate slowly.
Then looked toward Herman Schultz.
Their eyes met.
Neither man spoke.
Neither needed to.
Adrian made his decision.
He kept some of it.
Not all.
Enough.
Enough to start.
[FOURTH-WALL BREAK]
Peter sits cross-legged on the edge of a rooftop water tower.
It's October now.
He's older by only a few weeks.
But somehow not really.
Wind moves softly through Queens behind him.
"I'm telling you about Adrian before I met him," Peter says quietly, "because if you only meet him as the Vulture, you miss the important part."
He rests his arms on his knees.
"When I first learned about him, I thought he was just another criminal."
"A weapons dealer."
"A guy profiting off chaos."
Peter looks down thoughtfully.
"He was those things."
"But he was also something worse."
He pauses.
"A man who'd been pushed."
The city hums below.
"That's the uncomfortable thing about Toomes."
"He's wrong."
"But not completely."
Peter's expression darkens slightly.
"He built weapons. He sold dangerous technology. People got hurt because of choices he made."
"That matters."
"But the thing that started him?"
Peter gestures vaguely toward Manhattan.
"The system took everything he'd built and called it procedure."
"No gun."
"No mask."
"No evil speech."
"Just paperwork."
Peter looks back at you.
"And if you've ever watched somebody lose everything because someone richer or more powerful decided they could?"
He shrugs faintly.
"Then part of you understands Adrian Toomes."
A pause.
"And that's what makes him dangerous."
Peter steps backward off the water tower.
Falls.
Then catches himself with a web-line at the last second.
THWIP.
"And that's what makes him tragic."
He swings away.
The operation evolved carefully.
Quietly.
Adrian understood risk.
He'd spent decades in industries where one bad decision could bankrupt you.
So he approached alien technology the same way he approached demolition work:
Slowly.
Methodically.
Professionally.
The first challenge wasn't understanding Chitauri technology completely.
That would've taken decades.
Maybe centuries.
The first challenge was simpler:
Make it usable.
Human engineering couldn't replicate alien systems.
Not directly.
So Adrian hired people who understood adaptation.
Herman Schultz handled mechanical integration.
Phineas Mason came later.
Quiet.
Brilliant.
The kind of engineer who could look at impossible technology and ask:
"What does it do, not how does it work?"
That distinction changed everything.
Reverse engineering through analogy.
Not replication.
Approximation.
Functional equivalence.
Human tools recreating alien effects.
Primitive compared to original Chitauri systems.
Still terrifying by Earth standards.
The first successful weapon prototype nearly exploded.
Schultz considered this encouraging.
"You know how many inventions started with explosions?" he argued.
Phineas Mason didn't even look up from his workstation.
"Statistically fewer than people think."
Schultz grinned.
"Still counts."
The vibrational gauntlets emerged first.
Compact weapons built from modified Chitauri energy loops.
Concussive force delivery systems.
Not elegant.
Not precise.
But devastating.
One test blast vaporized the engine block of a stolen sedan.
Schultz stared at the smoking wreck.
"...Okay that's actually awesome."
Adrian didn't smile.
He only calculated.
Value.
Risk.
Market demand.
The buyers came quietly.
Private contractors.
Mercenaries.
Criminal syndicates.
People with money and discretion.
Adrian sold carefully.
Never too much.
Never publicly.
Always below the radar.
Because Adrian Toomes wasn't trying to conquer the world.
He was trying to survive it.
The flight harness became personal.
Obsessive.
Eight months of engineering.
Hundreds of failures.
The wings alone nearly killed him twice.
But Adrian kept refining.
Metallic wing structures reinforced with salvaged propulsion cells.
Stabilization systems adapted from Chitauri glider tech.
Compact energy reactors.
A harness strong enough to carry the entire frame while airborne.
The first successful flight lasted eleven seconds.
The second lasted thirty-two.
The third crossed the East River.
Adrian landed hard on a warehouse rooftop in Brooklyn.
Breathing heavily.
Hands shaking slightly.
Wind whipping around the metal wings folded behind him.
For the first time since Damage Control stole his contract—
Adrian felt powerful again.
Not rich.
Not safe.
Powerful.
And that feeling changed him slowly.
Because power always does.
For two years, nobody noticed.
SHIELD missed them.
Damage Control missed them.
NYPD missed them.
The Avengers were busy saving the world from larger disasters.
And beneath all of it—
Adrian Toomes built an empire in the shadows of a city rebuilding itself.
Quiet.
Efficient.
Invisible.
Until October 2012.
Until Queens.
Until a kid in a hoodie started swinging through neighborhoods he wasn't supposed to notice.
QUEENSOCTOBER 2012
A black van unloaded suspicious crates behind a warehouse near Roosevelt Avenue.
Three men stood lookout nearby.
Inside the alley, unfamiliar weapons changed hands.
Alien tech disguised beneath tarps and duffel bags.
Quiet.
Professional.
Routine.
Above them—
A gray hoodie landed silently on a rooftop water tower.
Peter Parker crouched low.
Ski goggles reflecting city lights.
Breathing slow.
Watching.
His spider-sense buzzed faintly.
Not danger exactly.
Wrongness.
Below him, one of the men opened a crate.
Blue alien energy flickered inside.
Peter's eyes widened behind the goggles.
"...What the hell is that?"
And down in the alley—
Adrian Toomes looked upward suddenly.
Not because he saw Spider-Man.
Not yet.
But because years of survival instincts told him something had changed.
The city had started looking back.