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Miles drifted, and the first thing he felt as his consciousness returned was this all encompassing, crushing pressure on his legs. He felt as though he was floating in that space between unconscious and awake, but as he focused on that pressing weight against his legs, he was ripped back into reality with a viciousness that stung.
The pain hit him all at once.
Searing and angry, it burrowed down into his bones and spread throbbing heat over every inch of his flesh and skin and bone. Trying to move his legs only made the pain increase tenfold — after attempting to twitch his toe, Miles had to break off and force his inhales through his nose in shuddering breaths as pain and black spots ate away at his vision.
He felt the familiar press of his mask against his face — the feeling that quickly turned sour, tight and restrictive as he struggled to yank it off. He leant his head back against the concrete again and breathed with his newfound freedom, but the air was stale and warm and dusty, as though it was coating his throat in a fine layer of sand.
It was dark. Miles squinted through the shadow, enhanced vision doing little to help as there was no light anywhere around him. It was all like a void, inky and indistinguishable. The outline of the ceiling eventually came into focus, a cacophony of broken concrete and rubble hanging over his head.
There were shards of asphalt, concrete and rock crumbling on either side of him, like some weak rendition of a naturally forming cave. It was probably low enough for him to stick his hand straight in the air and touch it, but even the thought of brushing his fingers against the debris caused fear to shoot icy tendrils down his bacl.
Scrunching his brow, Miles tried to think back as to how the hell he got here. He had been on a reconnaissance mission with a couple other spiders, snooping around at another dimension’s Alchemax. That was when the earthquake hit —
Was it an earthquake? Some experiment with the collider gone wrong? He didn’t know. He remembered the piercing warning sound, the cracks and shakes that clambered up the walls, and a tiny shaking stairwell that he had tried to dive for before the roof came down on top of him.
All he knew now was that he was so far down that he could not hear anything. No sirens, no people, no noise. Just muted quiet, pressing in heavily around him and leaving him shaking.
Miles had been down in a lower zone. Away from the cluster. And now —
The pain was fiery in his lower body, and Miles bit down on a muffled grunt of pain — the only sound his raw throat would let him make — as he propped himself up on his arms to look at the extent of the damage. A huge chunk of concrete pinned his legs against the ground, forcing them down with bruising force and enough pain to make him black out again.
Miles forced himself to breathe as he lay back, sucking in lungfuls of musty air. He coughed and saw the large particles in the air move and dance at his disturbance.
Every part of his body felt disconnected. His fingers were clumsy and slow as he fumbled for his watch. The orange of the pad lit up the surrounding area in a neon fluorescent glow, bathing everything in a muted light.
Miles was able to confirm his fears — that there was no obvious exit and he somehow had gotten lucky enough to find an air pocket. Miles shakily got up their communication channel, and rasped a shaky, “hello?”
Silence.
He swallowed back nausea and tried again. “Hello? Does anyone copy? I — “ He broke off into a spasm of horrid coughing when dust caught in his irritated lungs. “I need help.”
Nothing.
The crackle of static across the line felt like it was taunting him.
“Please,” Miles croaked, feeling panic rising in his chest, cramping and tight across his ribs as he continued to force dirty air past his parched throat and mouth. He tried to sit up again, “I think I’m somewhere below ground level, I just — ”
Was there any signal down here?
He jarred his leg trying to prop himself upright, and couldn’t help the horrid whine that slipped past his throat. The pain was back, pulsating in rhythm to his flighty heart rate. He couldn’t do this. He bit down on his knuckle and felt the skin split beneath his teeth.
“I think I’m trapped.” He grit out, voice coarse, then lay his head back down on the concrete. His world narrowed to nothing but his chest, focusing on getting air in and out at an even pace, even as panic tightened around him and threatened to choke him.
He stared at the watch, clinging loyally to his wrist, mostly undamaged in the wreckage aside from one thin hairline crack that ran down the middle.
That, of all things, ripped a sob from Miles’ chest. He didn’t cry for very long — the movement felt like his raw throat was about to tear open, and it exhausted him very quickly. His survival instincts kicked in and put a stopper to the tears pretty fast. The wet tracks carved clean lines down his dust and dirt covered face.
He stayed there for a very long time, repeatedly trying to contact the shared communication channel, before trying to contact each of his team individually, and then even his contacts from other dimensions. He spent a long time trying to get to Hobie, to no avail. Miles had to fight off his hopelessness and his panic with every rolling silence.
The pain was an ever-present reminder. He somehow managed to block out a lot of it — unsure as to whether that was human instinct or his rising pain tolerance — but every shift or twitch caused flares of hot pain to shoot up and down his legs. At least he could still feel them, Miles thought grimly. It would be worse if there was no pain at all.
Miles kept his eyes closed. This entire situation felt surreal enough to be a fever dream, and if not for the pain and the panic, Miles might’ve just classed this whole thing as one batshit dream.
Time passed.
He wanted out. He wanted out of this whole thing. Every breath builds and builds this pressure on his chest, tightening panic and pain.
Then, a rumble of static broke through the quiet. Miles flinched at the sound of it, like thunder in this tiny, quiet, enclosed space, and brought his watch closer to his face. A beat, then more static. It bounced off the concrete around them, shuddering in his ears.
A voice, almost, as garbled and distorted as it was. Unintelligible, but a voice.
Miles’ heart seized.
It came again, slightly clearer this time. Miles pressed the watch against his ear to rtry and discern what it was saying. “Ca —…py? Does an —... — ear me?” He knew that voice.
“Miguel?” He croaked in reply, “Miguel? Can you hear me?”
A beat, then, “Wh…— s this?”
“I’m here!” He breathed, louder this time, even as he erupted into another cough that wracked his entire frame. Coughing while lying down hurt, and it sent his instinctual fear of choking and suffocation haywire. “Miguel! It’s Miles!”
“Morales?” The voice came, even clearer this time, and it was very distinguishable as Miguel’s low tone. The sound of it makes relief flood his chest like a soothing balm, pricking tears at the backs of his eyes.
Miguel. He thought, Miguel is here.
“Stay calm — ales. Where — re you?”
“I don’t know.” Miles felt ridiculously childish and small. “The others and I separated. I’m down in the sub-levels.”
“Are you okay?” Miguel asked. “Hurt?”
“I’m alright,” Miles lied, then grimaced at the way the words burnt his tongue. “What about the others?”
More quiet. Miles began to panic, worrying they’d lost their fragile connection, but then Miguel’s voice came finally, “Hobie alerted his distress beacon. He’s okay. I’m sending a rescue group in to find and extract the rest of you.”
His muscles loosened a little at confirmation of Hobie. Hobie was safe. Hobie was fine.
“How long will that take?” Miles whispered.
“I… I can’t say, kid. Your tracker got disabled in the collapse.” Miles closed his eyes. Miguel’s voice was sharper the next time he pressed, “Why? Are we working against a timeframe? Limited air pocket?”
“Miguel, I…” Miles’ words came slow and clumsy and thick. “I can’t…”
“What?”
“My legs,” he blurted. “I can’t — they can’t…”
“Your legs?” Miles could detect the strain that had taken up in Miguel’s voice, even with the garble and the tinny distortion of the channel. “What’s wrong with your legs? Kid? What’s wrong?”
Miles’ throat tightened. He covered his eyes with the crook of his elbow, shame building and turning his face hot. “My legs are trapped.” He croaked. “I can’t — I can’t move them.”
Miles felt like a pinned butterfly. His legs were unmoving, he couldn’t escape, and stuck like this, he felt vulnerable and alone and horribly frightened.
It reminded him of this girl he knew in maybe the third or fourth grade — Ellie. She used to stab spiders through the torso and then pin their legs in place with further tacks, like some twisted surgery. Miles had always hated her, had always gotten upset when he saw her doing it, not just with spiders, but with other little insects. He noted, with a dull flicker of irony and humour, that now he could empathise with those little spiders even more.
“Dios Mio. Trapped?” Miguel repeated, strangled. “Trapped how?”
“I don’t — there’s a — some sort of slab — concrete. I can’t — ”
“Breathe, Morales. Breathe. Stay calm. Just focus on breathing, and tell me what’s happened.”
“My legs —” Miles’ breath came in short bursts. “They’re trapped under the debris. It’s too heavy—” he whimpered. “It hurts, Miguel — it hurts so bad.”
“Breathe, kid.” Miguel instructed. “Do you remember what floor you were on?”
“M — Minus something. Five, I think.”
“Minus five?”
Miles nodded with a raspy hum of affirmation. He didn’t remove his arm from across his eyes in case the panic set in again.
There were more sounds on the other side of the channel, movement that the connection picked up. Bustling voices, the sound of running.“Okay. Don’t worry, kid. Keep breathing. You’re gonna be fine. We’re — I’m coming to find you.”
“There was a fire exit,” Miles murmured dazedly. “I was running for the stairs.”
“Okay. That’s good. That’s really good. Just hang in there.”
“I can hang. ‘M spiderman.”
“Do you remember anything else?”
Miles frowned. “I can turn invisible.” He offered.
Miguel cursed under his breath. “Not about spiderman; about where you are.”
“Oh. Uhm. I dunno…— There was lots of shelves ‘n shit. Think it was for storage. ‘S all hazy. Sorry.”
“No, no. That’s alright. You don’t have to apologise. We’re gonna find you, kid. Just keep breathing.”
Miles shifted and another bolt of scalding pain shot up his legs and into his spine. He must’nt have turned his comm off, as not a second later, Miguel’s voice came, panicked and quick in his franzy, “Miles? Miles! Are you okay? What’s wrong?”
“I’m okay,” Miles forced out between ragged lungfuls of dirty air. “I — I’m okay.”
“We’re coming, kid. I’m coming.”
Miles whined again, wordless and intangible. A cry for help.
“Talk to me, kid. Talk to me about anything you like.”
“Mi mamá makes the best tembleque.” Miles said, teetering the line between conscious and delirious. The words tumbled off his tongue nonsensically, but Miguel hummed like he was interested, so Miles kept going, “She uses fresh coconut milk — makes it all creamy n’ spicy.” What he wouldn't give to be at home with his mom right now.
“Tembleque? Is it good?”
“The best.”
“Huh. You’ll have to make it for us some time. You’re Peuto Rican, right? Your mom’s side”
Miles hummed breathlessly.
“That’s cool. I’m Mexican on my mom’s side.”
“With a name like O’Hara,” Miles would’ve chuckled if he had the energy or the capacity in his lungs.
“My dad was Irish.”
Miles’ lips quirked up into a brief, quivering smile. He was about to reply, when he felt something warm soak into his back. Frowning, and disrupted from his thoughts, Miles reached over and felt the pooling liquid.. He brought his fingertips back up to his face and squinted. It was dark and glinting. The smell hit him a moment later. Coppery and bitter.
Blood.
“Miguel?” Miles asked, his voice beginning to tremble. “I — how far are you?”
“It’s hard to say. We’re working on it. Why? Did something happen?”
A wave of dizziness swept over him. “I just — there’s quite a bit ‘a blood, and…”
“Blood? Miles? Miles! Stay awake, you hear me? That’s an order! I’m coming to find you, jus hang on. Stay awake.”
But the wave of unconsciousness was steadily rising behind Miles’ eyes, and though he tried, as it crashed down around him in an unforgiving force.
“Miles? Miles!”
He lost his grip on consciousness and was swept along into a wave of oblivion.
…
“Miles?” Miguel growled into his comm. “Miles!” The rumble of static greeted him. Miles did not reply. Fuck. The kid was bleeding. A lot, it seemed. And now he wasn’t responding. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it.
Miguel swore again and surged faster.
He threw himself down the staircase, ducking and weaving between shattered glass and half-hanging light fixtures and juttings of debris and rubble. It was dark down here, illuminated only by flickering exit signs that coated everything in a green tinge and overhead lights that whirred and croaked. Dangling wires, smoke.
Miguel kept going.
At one point the stairs themselves had been split apart, torn down the middle like paper, and Miguel had to jump the entire case to avoid it. He should’ve stopped. He should’ve moved slower — been more careful. He should’ve waited for the rest of the rescue and extraction teams.
But Miles was down here. And Miles was hurt and trapped and bleeding and who knew what else, and Miguel needed to find him, quickly. He ducked beneath a particularly low hanging crack of concrete and his eyes zeroed in on the 5 plaque on the next exit on the stairway.
Minus five.
Miles was in here somewhere.
And Miguel was going to find him.
“Kid?” He called. His voice echoed, then was swallowed up in the silence.
The floor was in disarray, the walls all crumbling, cracked, full of decay, the ceiling an amalgamation of rubble, debris and rock and concrete. It was dark — the only lights came from the flickering, half broken fixtures. Glass and dirt and asphalt carpeted the floor. Tangled, bent rebar dangled down from what was once the ceiling, jutting out from the crumbling walls. Miguel clambered over a strewn table, beneath an overhang of sharp concrete, and deeper into the mess.
Miguel got up the communication channel on his watch. “Miles?” He spoke into the device, and held his breath. Nothing. He tried again. “Miles — ?” Blood roared in his ears, almost loud enough to mask the muffled reverberation that came from his left. He called into his watch again, and again the humming sound came from his left. Miguel bit back a flicker of hope.
Slinking towards his left, Miguel kept talking into his watch and waiting for the echo on Miles’ end, like some twisted version of marco-polo, as he tried to pinpoint the kid’s location, buried somewhere beneath the rubble. He moved closer, pressed his ear to the floor and the garble of static came again. It was louder, now, just beyond a layer of debris.
His kid. His kid was in there.
Miguel began to shift pieces of rubble out of the way, scrabbling at the pieces of rock and concrete, tunnelling his way towards where Miles must’ve been.
The slabs were sharp, biting into his palms and scraping against his flesh, but Miguel ignored the pain. Working faster and faster, he sent piece after piece moving out the way, forming a small hole, just broad enough for him to fit through, burrowing towards Miles’ location.
Until finally, finally, he forced his hand through between two fallen plates of concrete, and his fingers closed around thin air.
He shifted more chunks of rock to the side, his heart rate picking up even quicker in his chest, and if he squinted, he could make out a thin, dark opening. More rocks and debris cleared, and Miguel slipped through the between the rubble and clambered into a low-ceilinged pocket.
Miles was lying to one side. The kid looked ashen and grey — as though all his life had been sucked from his skin, and he was lying limp in a pool of saccharin blood. Only his torso was visible, Miguel realised with mounting, dawning horror, as his legs were being pinned by a huge, hulking mass of concrete that must have fallen on top of him.
“Morales?” Miguel was beside him in an instant, crawling on his knees to avoid scraping his head against the ceiling, and crouched beside his form, surveying the damage.
It was dark in here, but Miguel could see perfectly well, could see the rise and fall of Miles’ chest, could see the cooling sheen of blood, disturbed when Migul knelt in it, could see the abrasions that covered his young face, along with the dust and the tears that streaked his cheeks. He had taken his mask off.
Miguel took it in his fingers and folded it gently, before tucking it beneath Miles’ skull like a pillow. He ripped his own mask off, too, and reached out to press his cool knuckles against Miles’ burning skin. The touch sent a jolt up Miguel’s hand. His costume had ripped, revealing his dark skin, and the feeling of skin-to-skin contact was enough to make him withdraw immediately.
Miles twitched a little, his eyes dancing beneath his eyelids. He murmured a slurred thing, and leant into the touch. Miguel swallowed and returned it, careful to angle his claws away from Miles’ skin as he rubbed dust from his face and temples.
“Miles?” He said again, voice soft.
His kid stirred, trying to force his eyes open. He squinted up at Miguel. His lips worked like he wanted to talk, but all that came out was a wordless wheeze. Miguel grabbed the small waterskin pouch in the kit he carried with him, and held it to Miles’ lips.
Miguel was quick to sooth him. “Don’t try to talk yet.” He said as Miles drank desperately. After, Miguel replaced his touch with that of his mask, using it like a cloth to wipe away the grime that clung to Miles’ skin. “You’re badly hurt but it’s gonna be okay. I’m gonna get you outta here.”
“Miguel… — ” Miles rasped.
“Careful, araña.” Miguel chided. Miles wasn’t looking at him anymore, his eyes focused instead on the concrete that currently had him pinned. “Don’t try to move.”
Miles’ face twisted into ugly pain. “It hurts.”
“I know,” Miguel soothed, brushing his mask underneath Miles’ eyes to swipe away the lingering tears. His heart felt heavy, scared in a way he hadn’t been in a long while. Because it wasn’t fear for himself, it was fear for a child. It reached out it’s chilly fingers and wrapped tight around his chest, squeezing with bruising force. “I know. The extraction team is following my location. They’ll be here, they’ll get you out.”
Miles wrenched his head away. “I can’t — ”
“Yes you can,” Miguel replied firmly. “You’ve come this far. Just a little longer. I’m here now, and I’m not leaving.”
Miles let out a breath. The blood was still coming, the kid was still in pain and Miguel was helpless to do nothing but wait for others to arrive.
Or was he?
He was willing to bet that the only reason Miles kept bleeding was because his regenerative abilities were being stunted by the concrete that was compressing him. If they continued on like this, Miles might’ve bled out. But if Miguel could somehow get the rock out of the way… Miles’ body could begin to heal itself, unobstructed.
It was dangerous. Reckless. Improbable. All the things that Miguel usually despised. But he looked down at his kid, at his unhealthy pallor and the way his face was sour with pain, and something deep inside him overrode his usual functioning.
He needed to get his kid free.
Miguel would do anything to get his kid free.
He smoothed back Miles’ hair again, as sweaty and dirty as his curls were, and rose to his feet. He turned to the concrete.
“Miles.” He said, without looking at him. “I’m going to lift this. When I do, I need you to get out of the way. Okay?”
“Lift it?” he echoed dazedly. “What? How?” He knew what Miles was thinking. Sure, all Spidermen, especially Miguel, possessed superhuman strength, but it was tight and compact here, and the air was thick and damp and it was too cramped for Miguel to stand.
Miguel ignored the questions, ignored his own doubt. “Can you move yourself out of the way? It will hurt.”
A beat, then, “I think so.” shuffling, then a hesitant, “I — I’m ready.”
Miguel clenched and unclenched his fists, drinking in the damage. His mind whired a thousand thoughts per second, and then he shuffled towards the concrete, at the lowest point. It was sticking out from the wall, but atop that, there was a mountain of rubble and rock piled atop it. It was still attached to both the wall and the ground.
Christ.
He only had to lift it for a brief moment, and only by a couple of inches for Miguel to wriggle out.
He clasped a firm grip of the concrete. Its sharp edge bit into his bloody palms.
Miguel counted to three in his head, then began the strain. At first, nothing. He felt his muscles stretch to the brink of snapping, heaving upwards with all his might, but the concrete did not budge. Miguel didn’t stop, didn’t dare let go.
He pushed further.
He grit his teeth.
Felt a buzzing in his muscles, like bees swarming below his skin.
He kept pulling. He bent over at the hips, little by little, his fingernails bloody as they dug grooves into the concrete. His kid, he repeated in his head, his kid, his kid his kid his kid —
The concrete groaned beneath him. Miguel felt the most miniscule of shifts, a slight reposition of the weight of the slab, but even that was enough to draw a shuddering, relieved gasp from Miles. It wasn’t enough, but it was a start. Everything around them creaked like a challenge for him to stop, but Miguel had never been good at obeying threats.
He felt one of his teeth crack. His fang dug into his lip, spurting metallic blood over his tongue. Another tiny movement. The concrete relented under him and trembled — Miguel trembled with it, and for a brief, devastating moment, he shifted the entire weight of the concrete into his arms.
Miles gasped again as he scrambled back on his arms. Miguel watched him out of his peripheral vision, and only when he was sure Miles was far away, did his fingers uncurl.
The concrete slammed down again, a fume of dust emerging with it. Miguel’s fingers burnt, his muscles aching with a salty residue, weak and trembling and sore. He turned back to Miles, who was hunched against the wall, legs splayed limply out in front of him.
His eyes were blown wide. He watched Miguel as he hurried over, and let Miguel clutch him close. He seemed shocked, but if that was his body’s survival response or a cognitive processing of what had just happened, Miguel didn’t know.
He took a selfish moment to press his forehead against Miles’. The relief now was palpable, making him almost lightheaded. Miles was hot — too hot against him, his skin burning up — and his tears socked Miguel’s front, but he was alive and free. And that was all that mattered now.
“Your legs are broken,” Miguel observed as he pulled away. “How bad?”
“Nothing feels out of place,” Miles looked down, running the gentlest of fingers over his knees. His face seemed closed off. Distant. Like he was hardly cognizant. “All closed fractures, I think. Hairline.” He looked up and shot Miguel a shaky smile. “‘S okay. I’ve got that handy healing power. It’ll be okay.” And Miguel had no idea why Miles was trying to comfort him, even when that final sentence came out more like a question, a seek for comfort.
“I’ve got you, kid.” Miguel rumbled, and Miles stayed glued to his side as Miguel checked in with the extraction team and demanded a paramedic get to them as fast as possible. His arm remained securely tucked around his kid. When people slipped through the opening Miguel formed, and began flurrying around them in a blur of movement, Miles tensed against him.
They slipped a stretcher through the hole and began strapping Miles down atop it.
Miguel was beside him the whole time; they didn’t speak, Miles didn’t even look at him, floating in and out of consciousness, but Miguel’s presence seemed like enough to calm him as they brought him out of the makeshift tunnel and up the shattered staircase towards the outside.
When they emerged, Miguel was blinded momentarily by the wall of noise and overwhelming light that slammed into him. The light was bright enough to burn, turning his eyelashes into barbs. He staggered, clutching his head, but followed the extraction team — and Miles — towards the clearest spot on the ground floor.
Hobie was upon them in an instant. He had ripped off his mask and his worried expression morphed into something relieved and painfully young as he sprang upon Miles, taking his friend’s hand in his and squeezing tight. He walked with the extraction team as they carried the stretcher forwards.
“Miles, mate. You’re okay. You’re alright.” he shook his head. “Fucking hell. When I saw the building start fucking crumbling — and you weren’t responding — ”
“Hobie.” Miles croaked. “You’re okay.”
“I’m okay? You’re the one who got trapped under a thousand tonnes of rubble!”
Miles huffed, outraged. “You weren’t on the channel!”
“You weren’t on the channel,” Hobie snapped, planting a pointed finger in Miles’ chest. His eyes crinkled, good-natured. “That’s what we get for relying on Miguel’s shitty tech. Think we should build our own, eh?”
Miles frowned. “Where’s Miguel?”
“I’m right here,” Miguel pushed his way to Miles’ other side, and when Miles’ dark eyes fell upon him, he could see the way the kid melted with relief. “We’ll get you back to my dimension, kid, and get some proper care in you.”
“You need some TLC too,” Hobie noted. He was watching Miguel’s face, eyes wide and wary, before darting his gaze down to look at Miguel’s hands, too. “I think you broke a couple ‘a fingers. How’d you manage that?”
One of the other people in the team was readying a portal.
Miguel shrugged, flexing his fingers and noting the shooting pain that lanced up his knuckles. “I lifted the building.”
“You what?”