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Miles is on the roof of Aunt May's house, skittering backward. There's cheap polyester over his mouth, shingles sticking to his palms as he throws himself back and back and back, but all the spider bite powers in the world don't stop the Prowler from lunging forward and catching him by the throat. He's screaming. He's crying.
The Prowler picks him up, claws heavy and sharp around his neck, unforgiving, uncaring, impersonal. But it's Uncle Aaron, beneath this. He has to care. He has to.
Miles writhes and struggles and manages to tear his mask off, fluttering away in the wind, and stares into the white-blank of the Prowler's eyes. Of Uncle Aaron's eyes.
The Prowler hesitates. The powercells around his limbs lose their otherworldly glow. The sounds of battle fade to a crawl around them.
"Uncle Aaron," Miles manages, choking, pleading. "Uncle Aaron."
He hears Kingpin shout.
The modulator bites and growls at the air, covering up some sort of word. Miles can't tell what it is. He can't hear anything with the blood pounding in his ears.
"Please," he says.
The Prowler's claws tear a hole through his throat.
-
Miles wakes up.
-
A week after his world imploded and the universe tried to squash him like the bug he's named for, Miles finds himself fighting a new archnemesis.
"Man, c'mon," he near pleads, sparing a moment to wonder whether the get-on-your-knees thing works when you're suspended from the ceiling. "I know it, like, sucked but you can't deny I was also going through–"
"A week!" Ganke announces, hand raised imperiously. He's even shut off the TV for this, blanket pulled off his lap and sitting snug over his shoulders like a cape. The room's a right mess, considering everyone evacuated when the Spot did his best to blow a hole in every aspect of Miles' life when he figured out who he was, and it's only today they're allowed to come back.
So. You know.
A week since he's talked to Ganke.
"Lying to Salas," Ganke starts, ticking off his fingers. "Protecting all your stuff. Lying to the principal that your parents had already collected you so they didn't think you were dead. Having to escape when the, uh, cow-man started throwing up holes in my room." For all he's sixteen, he manages to push his glasses up the bridge of his nose in a decently intimidating way.
"Oh my god," Miles groans into his hands.
"So!" Ganke declares with the attitude of someone who has been stewing on this argument for a week and is going to win or die trying. He reaches behind him and, with a decorum that has to be practiced, slaps the pair of offending Jordans onto the table between them. "Here is my payment."
This is it. This is the worst timeline.
"I bought those the day they came out," Miles pleads.
"Lying to the principal," he stresses again.
"Dude," Miles says. "Okay. Fine. We'll share them. Split custody."
Ganke pulls the pair a little closer. "Sixty-forty."
"I– what? Are you going to keep track? How would we even remember?"
Ganke sniffs. "I'm a wonderful parent. I'll make a little calendar."
Miles, briefly, considers jumping back into Miguel's claws.
There's a moment of silence, Miles still upside down and regretting many life choices, before Ganke's lips quirk up and then he's chuckling, then laughing, chest shaking and face scrunched up like he's trying to contain it. Miles flumps off the ceiling and lands in the beanbag, hands covering his face.
"You're the worst," he says, and Ganke only laughs harder.
"I'm happy you're back, though," Ganke says, once the mood has floated back down to lucid conversation. "Seriously. Glad you're not, you know. Dead. That villain was a real piece of work."
Right. He only knows the rough outline, that Miles had an archnemesis, and he was gone for a week to defeat them. Nothing past that. It's not necessary, you know? He only needs to know the basics. The sparknotes version.
Nothing else.
"Yeah," Miles says, voice a little thick and tight in his chest. "I'm– I'm happy to be back, man."
He stares at his hands.
"Happy to be back."
-
Miguel is saying something. Miles can't hear him past the red-orange of the cage. He screams back, wordless, slamming his fists over and over and over again—it burns, bright and hot, singing his knuckles, smeared with blood. It doesn't break.
He doesn't know how long it's been. Hours. Days. Maybe his father is already dead. Miguel keeps talking. Miles can't hear him.
-
Accelerated healing is extraordinarily helpful, because with Rio Morales now uncomfortably aware of his vigilante role, Miles now has to be scared that a paper cut will make her not allow him to go on patrol.
Which. He's Spiderman.
But a chancla is a chancla, and he dutifully sends her an update every night before he goes out.
Being back in Visions is strange, in a way. It's similar to the first time he came back after getting bit by the spider; he walks around other teenagers chattering about test grades and new crushes and bodega runs for energy drinks, wondering how he ever worried about stuff like that, about how they won't understand. How he's supposed to fit in when his concerns lean more towards getting his spine shattered by a thirty-story fall or a genetically modified rhino trying to crush his skull beneath its hoof.
But then he had found somewhere full of people that would understand. That related to him.
He remembers how well that went.
Miles drifts through Brooklyn Visions Academy like a ghost and waits for patrol.
-
Uncle Aaron crouches next to him, bare hand resting on his chin. Brooklyn is cold and harsh behind him. Miles can't tell which one. No mask, eyes open and contemplative, his cape jagged in the streetlights beyond.
He's taken off his gauntlet, probably because it's wrapped around Miles' neck, claws embedded in the concrete.
"Supposed to get up, aren't ya?" Uncle Aaron asks, no modulator, no growl. He sounds almost curious. "Spiderman always gets up."
Miles writhes beneath the gauntlet like a pinned butterfly. He tries to say who he is and gurgles on something. He thinks it's blood.
"Sorry," Uncle Aaron says, and slips his mask back on. He reaches out with his other hand, claws lit up in purple and black. His voice modulator purrs. "Thought you'd be faster."
Miles can't get his mask off. He doesn't know if it would matter if he did.
-
It's been a week and a half, or something like that, and Miles has started to slip back into a routine. After the Spot nearly rotted New York to the ground, buildings and streets and boroughs swallowed up in inky black, villains, perhaps wisely, decided to take a quick vacation on their schemes. Miles is really quite thankful.
But that vacation has passed, and now the costume he wears everywhere he goes gets a workout again. It's nice, testing muscles that haven't exactly atrophied but haven't been pushed, and he lunges for any opportunities that present themself. In a city of nine million people, it's a fair number.
Being Spiderman again, where people only know him as the friendly neighborhood hero, is wonderful. He's missed it in a way that aches something fierce inside.
Gwen sends him a message asking how he's been. It takes him a day to open it.
He's fine, really.
-
It's telling, he thinks, that when he wakes up, or at least when he starts remembering things again, he's in the shattered cradle of the Alchemax building. There's not much left now, swaying glass panels, curling iron bars like the rusted ribcage of some decayed beast, blackened soil. If they hadn't fixed it in the year and a half since the first explosion, he wonders how long it'll take to deal with it now.
But as he comes back to himself, blinking at shadows and retracting his arms from where they'd been curled around his knees, he isn't really surprised that he sees this rotted corpse instead of his dorm room.
It's fitting. Where it all started.
He saw Peter Parker die here. He wonders, sometimes, if a piece of him died here too.
-
Maybe he needs to sleep less, he decides, doodling on the desk of his maths class. Mrs. Cruz is carefully circling something on the whiteboard, an equation that surely means something. He's drifting through physics now, since Princeton seems so far away. There's a watch on his wrist that does everything he wanted to do there and more.
Art might pay enough. He could stay in New York.
It's not like he thinks he'll get in, at least anymore. Nightmares keep him raw and ragged where patrols don't, and it's to the point he's just politely ignoring the guidance counselor's email for another meeting. Hard to keep up his grades when instead of studying, he lies in bed, staring at the ceiling, and dreads what comes when he closes his eyes.
Maybe he just needs to sleep less.
-
Miles tilts his head to the side, watching how his braids tumble over his ears to press against his neck. The weight's a little odd but not unpleasant, and in the mirror, he can appreciate how it frames his face and sharpens his cheekbones. Makes him look older than he is.
Something gurgles wetly in the other room, where chains clatter and vinyl croons. He ignores it.
-
Miles yawns, tucked away on the Brooklyn Point, and he's tired enough not to really care if some apartment behind him is getting a great view of his backside through the tinted glass. It's at that weird part of the morning, where the sun's still rising but the streetlamps have already dimmed so it's still cast in lingering night, which is frankly about as dark as New York ever gets. Peaceful, almost.
Which is great, because he's exhausted, and the lack of rampaging supervillains today has been wonderful for letting him rest up. It's only been two weeks since his universe tried its hardest to implode, and, well. There's been far more rebuilding than recovery in that timeline.
But it's also not great, because the reason Miles is out here patrolling is so he doesn't have to rest or think or dream, and the lack of anyone to stop means that he's running out of things to distract himself with.
So he near slips off the glass wall when his watch beeps with that silly little six-note beat Hobie programmed in.
It's been two weeks, right? The Spider Society went through what can politely be called an upheaval, which was even before the Spot did his damnedest to crumple them into manageable specks. Most everyone has gone back to their own dimension for a while, handling all the normal levels of threats, and his contact has been pretty limited to a few messages from other members. Eventually they're going to have to get back together, because when the Spot destroyed himself he left all these nifty new breaks in reality that keep spitting out anomalies like sunflower seeds, but it's only been two weeks. That doesn't feel near long enough.
But it means that, when Miguel's name pops up on his watch, no hologram or face or even Lyla, just his name, Miles still has to swallow something and glance away. Count to ten. Run through his old mantras.
It's fine, really. He leans back against the glass window and accepts the call.
A little orange-yellow hologram of Miguel's face pops into existence over his wrist, angled inward. He's in his mask, the lines stark and contrasting, and Miles has never been so thankful he's also in his, because it's much easier to school your face when you only have to worry about how wide your eyes are.
“Morales," Miguel says, voice deep and gravely and almost a growl, which has Miles' breath quicken even though he's pretty sure that's just the guy's voice, naturally. Which. He wishes it wasn't, he won't lie, but it feels kinda rude to ask someone to speak in, like, falsetto around you just because you happen to be scared of him.
Not that Miles is scared of him.
“Heya, boss," he says, because that feels like the only thing he can say without something else spilling out. “What's up?"
"I've received a request for backup, but I—and others—are busy." Sounds accurate, actually. There's a distant crash, Miguel's head swimming out of view, and he returns with his eyes narrowed to slits. "Are you available?"
Which. Huh. Miles certainly wouldn't have thought he would be a top choice, considering their less-than-amiable and truly more-than-awkward parting after the Spot was defeated, but he's got a watch and an open invitation to the Spider HQ, so that's enrollment as much as anything else. "I am," he says, more for lack of anything else to say. "Who needs help?"
"Pavitr," Miguel says, and then ducks some thrown projectile with a muffled curse.
Miles blinks, once, twice.
Here's the thing; Pavitr is great. He's open, friendly, and genuinely cheerful in a way that Miles hasn't seen from almost every other spider-person out there; even in the face of the Spot, the destruction of Mumbatten, he'd stayed not just web-and-quip-slinging, but genuinely optimistic. That's a tough feat when up against guys like the Scarlet Spider, who is still finding new corners to mope in.
And. You know.
Pavitr wasn't there.
It's kind of pathetic how much that means to Miles; because removing him from the situation doesn't mean his answer would have been any different. Maybe if he had been there, when Lyla wove together those holograms and Miguel laid out the plain, simple fact that Jefferson Morales needed to die, maybe Pavitr would have agreed. Would have seen the gnawing blackness at the base of Mumbatten and decided that Canon Events needed to stay so. Maybe he would have been a part of the chase.
But he wasn't there, and Miles can slip into the easy, easy reality that Pavitr would have been like Hobie and disagreed.
Miguel clears his throat and Miles snaps back to life, wind catching on his mask and distorting the edges of the hologram. "Of course," he says, like it's hardly a question, because it really isn't. "Earth-50101, right? I'll go now."
"Report back after," Miguel says, but there's a touch of relief in his voice, and he ends the call before Miles has even finished putting in the coordinates. The kaleidoscoping portal blooms before him, fractaling out and making the glass hum under his fingertips, and Miles doesn't hesitate before leaping through.
Mumbatten slaps him in the face with its brilliant colours and sounds and smells once again, and there's always that quick moment of adjustment as his cells try quite vigorously to disobey before the watch makes them stabilize, and then he's latching onto a nearby billboard and catapulting himself towards the sounds of distant explosions.
Always a decent bet when a spiderman is involved.
The evidence of an extended battle is scarred all over the surrounding buildings, great big furrows and gaping craters insurance companies would give up an arm and leg to avoid paying for. Above it all, there's a red-gold streak, bangle latching onto a water tower as he rolls neatly to the ground and pops up to his feet with a grace he still manages to make look more natural than the vast majority of spider-people out there.
Miles can't help a grin as he swings onto the scene.
Pavitr sees him and switches from what sounds like cussing the villain out in Marathi back to English in a split second. "Spiderman!"
Miles flips him a wave as he flies closer, taking the hint and landing to get a better angle. Doesn't seem like their target is particularly airborne, which is great, because if this thing could fly, Miles would owe Ganke five bucks from a heated debate they'd had after watching Godzilla vs King Kong.
The villain doesn't look like much, beyond pretty standard villain fare—it's an enormous crocodile, big and bulky and definitely the type that should belong in a zoo instead of the crowded streets, but relatively tame. Not really the kind that needs backup.
Then it growls, shakes itself, and a couple dozen scales fall off to reveal themselves as smaller, angrier, crocodiles.
Neat.
"What're we doing with the croc?" Miles shouts, doing one more flip than necessary as he skids around the thing, lashing a biker to the side before she can fall into a crater the crocodile splits into the concrete below. Civilians. Not an ounce of self-preservation to their name.
"Gharial, actually!" Pavitr chirps, cracking the reptile upside the head with his bangle. "Some sort of escaped experiment. I'm trying to contain it in Goregaon Park!"
Right, Mumbattan's Central Park equivalent—Miles has studied Pavitr's dimension enough over the past two weeks to have a rough idea of where that is, and he's already led it most of the way there. Coupla blocks more. Totally doable.
Miles scoops up one of the babies, some three feet of scale-y hatred and fury, and wriggles it in the gharial's direction. Maybe there's a sort of motherly instinct he can take advantage of. "C'mere, uh, girl? Gharial? Budget Killer Croc?" The monster in his hands tries to snap off his fingers. "Pspsps?"
Pavitr wallops it over the head and incites it into enough of a fury to start chasing Miles, so he's going to count that as teamwork. Go him.
Whatever he's going to say about it fades as the gharial, which is quite fast actually, starts hammering down the street after him.
Four legs versus his two. Entirely unfair.
Miles yelps halfway through trying to punt one of the babies into the next star system, skittering up the side of a building and nearly getting his arm caught in the mosquito netting wrapped over the window. The gharial bellows. "Here finally comes your Spiderman luck!" He hollers, lashing its tail a second before it bashes a rusted truck into rubble. "Was wondering why I didn't have anything bothering me in my dimension!"
Pavitr pauses in his elaborate cat's cradle or something to turn to Miles with an exaggerated gasp, mask-eyes widening to take up his entire face. Then Miles wins in terms of clever comebacks, because whatever Pavitr's about to say is lost by the gharial launching one of the scale-babies on its tail towards him like a goddamn ballistic missile, and suddenly they're both a touch too busy to concentrate on quips.
But before long, they're in Goregaon Park, and without ample concrete to crack beneath its enormous bulk and buildings to smash apart, the gharial loses a lot of its combative abilities. Miles and Pavitr team up to knit the first reptilian sweater to ever exist and pin all of its scale-babies to its side, which it doesn't look particularly pleased with, but there's really not much it can do when it's suspended fifteen feet above the ground and essentially giftwrapped.
Not bad work, by all accounts.
After dealing with the police, which is to say that Pavitr speaks rapidfire Hindi and Marathi while Miles does his best to pretend he knows what they're saying, there's a distant rumble of a crane and transport semi being called in, and both Spidermen are able to creep away. With a wave, Pavitr darts off the nearest rooftop, and Miles triple-flips to follow him. They chase each other, shouting encouragement and challenges and the best insults that can fit in the three seconds they have before the wind carries their words too far away, and Pavitr spirals up to the peak of the Royale State Building. It's a tall thing, a bit wonky-shaped, with a sort of glass roof that blends into a littered array of lightning rods; Pavitr does a quick gymnast spin around one of them before plopping to a seat on the edge, legs kicking free.
Miles does the spin as well, decidedly not as gracefully as Pavitr, and lands next to him with an intelligent oof.
Pavitr snickers. Miles shoves him.
"Can't say I've fought a gharial before," Miles offers, leaning back on his elbows and tugging his mask off, Pavitr matching him with an added fluff of his hair. Don't get him wrong, New York will always be his first love, but it's nice seeing a skyline that has more than a majority of steel-and-glass skyscrapers. Makes it look all the more interesting. "That normal here?"
Pavitr snorts. "Absolutely not. More times it's demons."
Miles blinks. He doesn't sound like he's kidding.
Doc Ock sounds a little tame in comparison, he's not going to lie.
"I think I'll leave that in your dimension," he says, and Pavitr makes a vague sound of agreement.
It's still early, sunlight ghosting over the tips of bridges and buildings, and they both have school soon. Ganke is probably already preparing an excuse for him, considering he's not in his bed and for all he complains about being the guy in the chair, he's practically done more work to keep up Spiderman's alias than Miles himself. Which. Very appreciated, that.
But they've both got school, a touch more patrolling, and that report Miguel asked for. Hell, they should probably send him something now, just so he doesn't think they both spontaneously combusted due to a moderately-larger-than-average reptile, but he isn't exactly gnawing at the bit to open contact there, and Pavitr seems content to watch the city.
"It was a terrible parent," Miles says, because he's pretty sure he's growing more and more allergic to silence after everything that's happened. "Doesn't deserve any form of custody. Would you throw your kids into danger like that?"
Pavitr frowns, thumbing at his chin. "Does Peter and Mayday count?"
"Ouch. I hope not."
"I don't think so," he decides. "Doesn't make you dangerous enough. Because I could have defeated that gharial on my own, even with its kids, but not Mayday. She'd crush me."
Miles does pause at that, tilting his head to the side. "You could've taken it down on your own? Then why'd you call for backup?"
"I could've," Pavitr agrees easily, leaning back as he tracks the rising sun. "But it would've taken longer, and more people could’ve been hurt. That's why we have the watches, right? So we don't have to do things like this alone?"
Oh.
Yeah, that does make sense, doesn't it?
I can do both! Spiderman always does both!
"And it's nice, to see people," Pavitr continues, holding his fingers up to frame his watch like one of those artsy Instagram photos. "Even in a battle. I know the Spider HQ isn't running like it did before, but that means I just have to reach out more. We're friends, you know? All of us."
Pavitr trails off a bit, which, fair. It's only been two weeks since the Spot, which is unfortunately enough time for people to notice Miles has been– distant. Maybe. It's not like they knew him before, so most of his changes can be handwaved away. Mostly.
It had been almost a year and a half since Gwen and Peter had seen him last, and he's changed since then. He's changed so much, really. Sometimes he's still fourteen and he doesn't know what pick-up lines work and he sits awake in the early morning thinking about saying I love you to his dad on the steps of Visions and he's got two quizzes this week and a roommate he's only just starting to get along with. Sometimes that was easier.
Sometimes he misses it.
But right now he's here with Pavitr, someone he could pretty easily say is his best friend if that didn't mean Ganke would smother him in his sleep, so Miles lets a smile bloom, wide and practiced, and knocks shoulders with him. "Man, how have you only been Spiderman for seven months? You're more mature than the rest of us."
Pavitr rolls his eyes, which looks horribly out of place on his wholesome face, and punches his side. "I'm serious, bro. I'd like to see you more. All of you. Not just for fighting, but hanging out. Exploring. I've only been to your dimension once."
And he's. Well. So earnest, eyes bright and excited, and the last time he was in Earth-1610 was when the Spot was trying to destroy Miles' life from the ground up and he was fending off villains and Miguel and fighting back to back with Miles as the multiverse threatened to collapse.
Miles hasn't dreamed of him.
Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to use his watch more.
-
"You're a mistake!"
Miguel is howling, the wind catching and carrying his answers away, the anti-gravity train bucking and writhing beneath them. Miles lashes out and there's something cracking over his ribcage, no one else is close enough, the wind keeps screaming. Miguel has his claws out. There's always claws.
"You were never supposed to be here! Everywhere you go will break and collapse and it's all your fault!"
Miles chokes on something, reaching out, but his back is hitting the train and something is shuddering in his chest and it's harder and harder to control his limbs. Get everyone out of HQ—hit Miguel with his venom blast—use the Go Home machine. Simple plan. Simple plan. He just needs to follow it. He's choking.
Miguel gets in close. He sees the reflection of his terrified eyes in the man's fangs.
"I will protect the multiverse. I will always protect it."
There are claws around his throat, blue-purple-red, and they pick him up and slam him back again and again and again and again–
-
Miles lied, earlier. About being fine.
He retches again into the porcelain, stomach fluttering beneath his ribs. There's blood under his nails from scratches that have already healed.
Resting his head against the side brings a welcome chill to his flushed forehead, shoulders shaking, heart in his throat. He's shirtless and the air drags shivers up his spine, danger sense pinging quietly in the darkness of his dorm bathroom. It's just a Wednesday, no one should be up partying, so he should be alone. Even Salas should be asleep. He's fine.
Over his back, scars prickle. He brushes his fingers over their puckered surface.
His mother would tell him he shouldn't bother them, he just needs to rub silicone oil in to help them fade—or at least, that's what she would say, because she doesn't know about them. No one does.
Miles never tells them what happened on Earth-42.
There's no– there's no reason, you know? By the time Gwen found him, he'd escaped, stumbling blindly through a Brooklyn so achingly familiar yet scored wrong, fire and destruction and great, belching clouds of black smoke to hide the stars even further. Any injuries he had could be handwaved away. Some from Miguel's chase. Some from glitching without a watch. Some from Mumbatten. The blood under his nails was nobody's but his own.
They don't need to know. He's not telling anyone, either. There's no reason.
There's every reason not to, actually.
He doesn't know everyone's full story—feels a mite rude to ask, really—but when most people run into their counterparts, they're either another variation of Spiderman, or they're dead. Which. Uh. Miles feels plenty bad about the second one, don't get him wrong, but there's a certain closure there. A certain relief.
They usually aren't something else.
He's got a quick enough healing rate that by the time he was getting checked out in the Spider HQ medbay, everything had either healed or flattened out into scars, and his dark skin means they blend in.
Besides. Well.
The ones that were deep enough to scar came from claws, jagged and ripping, and when the medical Spiderman looked at them, he purposely looked away and continued bandaging up Miles' fractured arm. So. It's clear he thought he knew who they were from.
There were only two other people close enough to see what Miguel did to Miles, to know that while the scars on his neck might be from him, the ones on his chest and sides certainly aren't. But Gwen and Peter aren't going to bring it up.
And Miguel absolutely isn't.
That's just how Miles likes it.
Blood hits the back of the porcelain. His tongue heals long before he's finished throwing up.
-
"I'm sorry," Miguel says mournfully, hands clasped before him. "But it has to be done."
Miles turns to him, eyes still reflected with stars from Lyla's demonstration, from watching Uncle Aaron's corpse drift away like dandelion seeds. There are more spider-people in the room, he's realizing, though it comes sluggishly; they fill in the darkness, masks and suits and faces blurring together. He wonders how they all coordinated themselves to show up at the same time.
"I have to save my dad," he says, because he does. It's written in his core like a law of the universe.
Miguel nods. "We will."
Miles kind of pauses, because he's pretty sure he just got a fifteen-minute speech on why he was explicitly not supposed to do that. He turns, meeting Peter and Gwen's eyes; there's a note of resignation there, of sorrow, but they hold his gaze without breaking. It's strangely encouraging.
"Okay," he says, because apparently Miguel is handing him the reins here, and he's never been one to crack under pressure. "Two days, right? If we get some people stationed at my flat, I can go elsewhere, try to draw the Spot's attention, and we can contain him. He's– he's stronger now, but that was just against me, Gwen, Pavitr, and Hobie. With all of us, he'll be a pushover."
Miles splays out the plan he's pretty proud of, actually, and waits. No one springs to action.
Miguel exhales. His eyes are sad. "You're the original anomaly, Miles," he says, and his heels click on the tile as he steps forward. "As long as you exist, no universe is safe. You break reality just by being here."
Which, kind of unfair, and he has a brief moment to be wildly insulted before Miguel kicks off the stairs and grabs him.
Miles bucks, thrashing, writhing; he goes invisible and back, spiraling, but that doesn't help when Miguel already has his claws around his throat. He grabs for the man's biceps and pushes every ounce of power he possibly has, lightning sparking, crackling, burning–
Miguel's suit absorbs it. Eats it right up without so much as a fizzle.
Like he prepared for it. Like he knew about Miles' venom strike.
Peter looks away.
"I'm sorry, Miles," Gwen whispers, and her arms are tucked in, shoulders curled, but she's not moving. Jess offers a comforting hand and she leans into it. "It's the only way."
Miles gasps and writhes, reaching out—but every spider-person just watches, a barrier, a silent wall. He kicks Miguel's side and bounces off. Something shudders and collapses and he thrashes, endlessly, uselessly. Blue-red. His back slams into the tile.
"We'll make sure your father survives," Miguel promises, sincere, earnest, and his claws bite into Miles' throat.
-
Miles stares at himself in the glass. He's grown again, and the costume pulls tight on his sides. In the building's reflection, with his mask up, he looks older.
He didn't look old before.
He wonders, sometimes, why Uncle Aaron was so willing to kill a kid. Why he chased him through abandoned tunnels and crowded streets, why his claws were out, why there was no hesitation until he removed his mask.
Why it happened three times before he removed his mask.
He'd hoped, with that fragile part of him that comes back and touches up the memorial after each rain, that maybe it was just the heat of the moment, that he was only moving to incapacitate, that it was all a show for Kingpin. Then on Earth-42, he had woken up tied to a punching bag, and it had been a long day of things he tries to forget before he'd gotten free. He's still young, for all he's grown taller. That time, Aaron had known his age right from the beginning. And it's not his Aaron. He knows that.
But it's close enough.
Being a kid doesn't seem to matter much, anymore.
Miles hadn't been wearing his mask when he was chased around Nueva York. Miguel had known his age. Had kept his claws out. Miles remembers feeling metal crumple under his back as he gasped for air. Memories blur with nightmares but there's a reason Other-Miles had been able to knock him out in one punch when he spends most of his days getting knocked through concrete walls. He hadn't escaped from the chase unscathed.
If he hadn't escaped, maybe he wouldn't have left at all.
Miles has a list of questions. Some are to a dead man, some are to a stranger, some are to a man he won't ask.
He doesn't think he'll get an answer for any of them.
-
The rain comes pouring down, heavy and choking, thundering against the metal-tipped stairs of the subway. It doesn't wash away the acrid stench of smoke, thick and billowing, some warehouse up in flames just a block away. Miles knows these streets, even if they aren't his, and he stumbles onward, arms clasped over his sides. There's blood on his suit. On his hands. He can barely see.
The collider. He just has to get to the collider.
There's a shrieking, wailing roar that manages to break past the storm and Miles spins, mind crackling as it screams danger— but he's much too injured and much too slow. His feet miss a curb.
Miguel, stepping through the portal, catches him.
"Thought I'd find you here," he says, casual, pinning Miles' arms to his side. Going invisible doesn't help. He's barely able to summon a spark. "Lyla, take us to Nueva York."
He goes through the portal. Miles chokes.
-
Pavitr's mask pokes into his line of sight. “You alright?"
“Heourgh," Miles says, from where he is currently embedded in the concrete.
It's not even his fault, this time. After the whole gharial incident, he and Pavitr meet up at least every couple of days, changing dimensions to explore all the differences, and it just so happened that they were in Pav's when some genius decided to unleash his master plan. It's a great plan, really. Especially the part where he's decided he needs to blow up all of Mumbatten to achieve it.
Really great stuff. Miles wishes more supervillains learned about reasonable levels of destruction.
They defeated him, of course, because fighting an interdimensional teleporting being tends to give you a telepathic connection on working together, but, ah, Miles discovers something interesting, which comes across like those cheesy statements telling you to try and learn at least one fun fact a day. And this fact is definitely a fun one; turns out a venom blast is most effective when up against a magnetics-based foe. Like. Startlingly effective.
He's crisped from the neck down. God, he hopes Nueva York has cheaper suit replacements. Maybe he should invest in rubber.
Pavitr's mask-eyes curl up in a smile. "You definitely look like it."
Miles manages something that sounds a bit like screw you if you really flex your imagination.
"Need help?" He offers, extending a hand. Miles stares at it.
And. Hm.
It’s not quite the question he’s asking, but the answer is yes. He hasn't been sleeping, has been actively avoiding it, barely talks to the people he was prepared to go to Princeton just for a chance to see again, can't look himself in the mirror, goes on patrol longer and longer, sits awake in the dark staring at nothing as his mind sluggishly catches up to reality. Something's wrong. Something's seriously wrong.
The nightmares aren't normal. Or maybe they are, for spider-people, and he's just crumbling under the weight everyone else bears easily.
If he was going to ask anyone, it would probably be Pavitr, who has stayed bright and energetic and open for the entire time Miles has known him. Pavitr, who has lived through some of his Canon Events, enough to know heartache and break and ruin, but has kept smiling through it all.
"Thanks," Miles says instead, and lets Pavitr pull him to his feet.
-
He can't remember this one. That should help, give him a break from the endless spiraling nightmares, but instead he wakes up paranoid and sweating and flinching at shadows and there's no logic to hide behind, no actual memory to overlay with the fake, and then he's breathing and it comes fast and hard and hot and tears are pouring down his cheeks.
He's fine, though.
-
They're having a meeting. A celebration, sort of, but Miguel's missive had been full of the we-need-to-talk and consider-our-path-moving-forwards that really drain the fun out of anything, and Miles isn't holding out a lot of hope there'll be cake.
There should be, though. Because it's been a month.
A month since Mumbatten, the chase, Earth-42, the Spot. A lot can happen in a month, to be fair, but compared to the madness those three days were, it feels like nothing has really happened at all. A handful of villains, yeah, but the types that claim their modus operandi at merely New York instead of the entire multiverse, so it's kind of hard to compare.
Miles has upset at least three of them by zoning out during their big planned monologue. Their fault, really. Would it kill them to take a speech class?
The portal to Nueva York fades away behind him, fractaling out with a quiet little pop, and he strolls through the pearlescent hallways and branching industrial bars as he heads for the address—can it be an address if it's just a room in a building, rather than a building itself?—Miguel told them to meet at. Small little office room.
Small little office room for a small little meeting, to be fair, only those closely involved in the whole, ah, multiverse collapsing thing, and Miles is very down for that. Semantics aside, for all Miguel has a powerful voice, he tends to default to quiet enough there's no chance Miles could hear him in a lecture hall filled with hundreds of spider-people.
There's not really a name for this specific group of them, though there should be. He thinks Peter calls them the kiddos. Miles also definitely heard Miguel reference the menaces in a conversation with Ben, and he'd bet money that was them. So. Three guesses for who plays good-cop-bad-cop in this.
But here's the thing. Miles is completely ready for this meeting, for seeing everyone in one place.
He is completely ready.
Which is why he's been pacing outside for some fifteen minutes now.
The meeting started two ago.
He's been chatting with everyone through his watch for a month, which means he sees their faces and hears their voices, and he's been meeting up with Pavitr in person for half of that. So. This shouldn't be anything strenuous, weird, or even remotely difficult. It's just saying hello to people he fought alongside to save the entire multiverse. If that doesn't make you friends, he finds it hard to believe in friendship at all.
It's just. Well.
He can't open the door.
"Oi, mate."
Hobie raises an eyebrow as Miles spins to face him, arms slung in his jacket and looking like he wishes there was a rock to kick moodily down the hallway. Or maybe that's just his face. Hard to tell.
"Hobie!" Miles says, a bit too eager, because at least he's not the only late one. "You– uh, here for the meeting?"
"Against my will," he yawns, rocking back on his heels in what should be a pretty impossible move with how enormous his combat boots are. "But can't hurt to see what the big man spews this time, suppose."
God. Miles wishes he had this level of confidence.
"Me too," he says, like he wouldn't have shown up at the meeting if Miguel invited him by chucking a paper airplane through a portal directly into his eye.
Hobie nods, yawns again, and kicks the door open hard enough to make it rattle in its hinges. Miles slips in behind him.
All heads snap in their direction, because Hobie wasn't exactly subtle, and Miles takes advantage of Hobie's lanky height to catch a brief glimpse of the room before he has to look at any of the people. It's a boring rectangle with a U-shaped desk lined with chairs, looking all the world like every cliché office room in movies that don't have a large enough budget to differentiate. He spares a moment to wonder why the Spider-Society, with all its fancy walls and hallways and climbing centers, can't spice up the meeting rooms.
Then he remembers Miguel's dramatic-as-hell lowering platform covered in monitors and sparking wires, and yeah, maybe this isn't so bad.
“Miles!" Pavitr chirps, shooting a hand in the air—because of course he's on time, he's Pavitr —and looks like Miles needs to bring him a gift from Brooklyn, because he's saved Miles a seat, and it just so happens to be on the opposite side of Gwen.
Which. Well. It's not like he's avoiding her, not really—he responds to every message she sends, shoots a few back himself, even keeps drawing her in his sketchbooks. It's been a month, which is a decent chunk of time, but everyone was busy; there are reasons they haven't met up beyond brief stints passing each other in the hall or grabbing more supplies. Good reasons, even.
It's just.
He sees her, and he sees Peter, and he sees Miguel.
There are a lot of memories associated with those names.
So for now, he flashes a smile in her direction, that well-practiced, well-fitting thing he keeps working on even though he's got a mask covering it most of the time, and keeps scanning the room. Peter's next to her, björn conspicuously absent and even his bathrobe set aside, though the slippers stay. Miles can respect that.
Ben isn't there, which is fair because he spent most of the whole debate getting beat up by Gwen and having his watch crushed, but Jess is, chin resting on her hand and looking like she wants to be anywhere else. Considering she has a healthy baby girl at home, Miles really can't blame her.
No cake, though. Damn.
At the head of the table, hands splayed over a collection of holograms and Lyla hovering beside his shoulder, is Miguel. And. Hm. It's been a while since Miles has seen him in person, and as it turns out, he is still just as tall and broad as before, suit stretched taut over his shoulders. Not the casual clothes everyone else is wearing.
Miguel stares at him, a little furrow growing between his brows. "You're late. I expected it from Brown, but not you, Morales."
"Sorry," Miles says, a little meekly. "I must've overslept."
Comedy gold. He hasn't slept in two days.
Hobie shrugs, but he's watching Miles with something warily discerning, like he's an art style that hasn't been replicated quite right, or something with a colour palette that leans too far away from base tones. There's a purse to his lips that makes light catch on the underside of his piercings.
Miles doesn't like that look either, so he trots over and perches in the chair next to Pavitr, shoulder-bumping him in the way. Pavitr's eyes curl up in that happy way of his, and then they're kicking each other under the table in the world's most overpowered game of footsie as Miguel drags his hand down his face with a sigh.
"As I was saying," he grits out, which Miles thinks is a little unfair because he's less than five minutes late. "If you all wish, the Spider-Society would like to extend a further invitation to you. With the anomalies still being released, we're keeping to a strike force basis, but we're looking for a potential way to remove those new breaks in reality now that they're no longer being continuously reopened."
No one is looking at Miles. Miles isn't looking at Miles.
"The Spot is defeated," he says, heavy enough that even if he didn't before, Miles would believe it right now. "And you all were the ones who had the most interaction with him. If you want, we would welcome you to this new research term."
He's being terribly polite about this, even if outsiders wouldn't think his gruff manner meant so. But Miles can read the careful calm on his face, the repeated mentions of if they want to, the lack of flashy, dramatic holograms or hard contracts. It's. Pretty nice, honestly.
Then there's. You know. The not-so-subtle elephant in the room that happened to come up the last time they didn't have coordination and communication and all those other things corporate offices will make little slogans of.
"What's the plan?" Said elephant asks, because Miles is now flexible enough to stick his foot in his mouth in a new and exciting variety of ways.
Miguel turns to him, and suddenly everyone's watching this interaction, either from the corner of their eyes or blatantly. It's a welcome break from how Peter has been trying to catch his eye for the past five minutes, but the sensation of so many gazes sends a prickle down his spine.
Hobie does a complicated kind of spin that both kicks his boots up on the table and balances him on one leg of his rolling chair, and Miles hides any discomfort with a snort of amusement.
"We have one," Miguel says, and Lyla blitzes through a few glitching sequences that look like mock-outrage. "Okay. Fine. We have some of a plan. It's a work in progress."
Hobie inclines his guitar pick in the man's direction.
"We're still touch-and-go with cleaning up the Society," he says, which is a polite way of saying everything-we-practiced-was-wrong-and-we're-trying-to-do-things-differently. "So there hasn't been much planned yet. But with Lyla, we're going to analyze that hammerspace he had and try to close his leftover portals from the other side."
Miguel pulls up a hologram, which spins over a yellow-orange schematic of the destroyed Alchemax building. His claws aren't out. Miles wishes he wasn't aware of that. "We're looking to examine Earth-1610, see what was so different about that collider explosion versus the one in Earth-50101. A long-term project. Mostly."
Well. He's put more thought into it than Miles, which is nice, because he had honestly thought they'd just have to keep fighting anomalies forever until eventually the portals ran out. Maybe there is some wisdom that comes with years.
There are bags under Miguel's eyes, he notices, which soften the burning red of his irises. Bags, deep and purpled, and the skin clings a little tighter to his cheekbones than Miles thinks it did before.
He remembers two weeks ago, Miguel calling him to pass along a request for backup, even as he fought whatever was on his side. For all this is his dimension, he doesn't think he's ever seen Miguel do anything outside this building.
It seems lonely, being the leader.
"Right-o," Hobie drawls, breaking a few laws of physics as he leans even further back on the singular leg of his chair. "Well. Can't say I'm not interested, s'long as everyone knows everythin' that happens. No more secrets."
Miguel's got a fantastic poker face. He merely raises an impassive eyebrow. "Of course."
Hobie tsks, like he was hoping Miguel would argue, maybe throw in a few self-important rants and monologues for good measure.
If Miles has been distant, then Hobie has been actively snippy. He'd come back after quitting, to be fair, and it isn't like he doesn't have a host of reasons as to why he was correct; so everyone, Miguel in particular, seems to actively swallow any comments when faced with the teen. Which, considering Miguel weighs twice as much and towers half a foot above the already annoyingly tall Spiderman, is decently impressive.
Miles really, really needs to stop thinking about Miguel in terms of fighting.
"I'll help!" Pavitr says, hand clasped over his heart. "It'd be my honour."
Gwen nods. "Same."
Neither Jess nor Peter say anything, though by the way Miguel isn't looking at them, they've probably already agreed. Peter's got this hangdog expression that has Miles very determinedly not looking at him, and everyone else has already agreed, so attention swivels to him. Great. He loves it.
"I'm in," Miles says, because he genuinely can't think of a single reason why he wouldn't be. Anomalies, for all they don't have to worry about them disrupting Canon Events anymore, are still major threats to other dimensions, particularly in cases with high technology or weird biologies coming in contact with worlds without. Been a few too many close calls for him to ever be comfortable with portals popping open all the time.
Miguel's got that bit of relief on his face again, which is kinda deserved, because despite their pretty divisive split last time, everyone's back on the team and agreeing to help. No threats of leaving or withholding watches, which is great, because if even one person had disagreed, Miles isn't sure what he'd do. It's just.
He wants to help, really. It's easier when everyone else does, too.
Lyla fritzes a few times, flashing before everyone. "Great!" She chirps, bright and tinny. "Nothing now, still working on catching anomalies, but I'll send you more info when grumpy here actually gets any!"
Miguel pinches the bridge of his nose. "Muchas gracias," he says, looking like he means exactly the opposite. "But yes. Give me some time, and I'll have more to say."
Fantastic. Miles loves the concept of time. The longer, the better.
Then he remembers Miguel is trying to keep anomalies from busting through dimensions like cardboard, and something like guilt festers in his stomach. It would be better if things happened faster, right? Better for the world. For multiple worlds. He should want it to be faster.
He busies himself by kicking Pavitr under the table again.
But it seems like without Lyla's expansive explaining-thing, meetings wrap themselves up pretty short, and Miguel busies himself by flicking all the active holograms into miniature versions he wraps around his watch like a futuristic charm bracelet. Insanely sweet, honestly. Jess stands, nods something to Miguel, and apparently that's a signal because everyone else clambers up to their feet. She slips out of the room in the time it takes for people to push upright, adjust ruffled clothing, doing the thing where they're building conversations in their heads but not saying them aloud yet, which is kind of funny that they're all so coordinated.
Miles stands and immediately receives a deposit of Pavitr's arm around his shoulders, eyes bright and cheery, and he's near vibrating with something he's clearly been holding in for the whole meeting.
"Okay," he whispers, which is somehow less secretive than shouting because his inside voice is about as quiet and subtle as a microphone. "Okay, so, I didn't ask for backup because I really needed to get to class, but you remember that Electro-ripoff from a week and a half ago? You're never going to believe who I ran into yesterday–"
"Miles?"
He turns to face her. Because it's her, he knows.
Gwen stares at him, a little hesitant, tongue pressing behind the gap in her teeth. Peter hovers over her shoulder, looking all the world like a worried parent, and they're both staring at him.
It's. Well. They've talked, you know? The whole tearful meet-up in Earth-42, when they dragged his bloodied body off the streets and through a portal to save his dad, and there had been plenty of quips and encouragement and support hurled at each other while they were spinning around the Spot in battle, and then in the aftermath, when New York stood and applauded them as one. And that's without the messages sent through the watch, little conversations, snippet stream-of-consciousness or mild bitching about whatever villain they're having to take down. So. They've talked.
But now, standing in front of them, Miles wonders if they really have.
"How have you been?" She asks, smiling a bit, and they're both doing their best to pretend that the entire room isn't leaning in to listen. Even Miguel, the traitor, pauses in flicking through his holograms.
"Um. Just, busy, I guess? Spiderman things. Spidermanning." He swallows, pushing a grin up in its place. "Same question back at you?"
"Good," she says, and then winces, because man, for all they've never been too smooth, this is particularly awful. Maybe he can turn invisible and get out before they ask him any more questions.
Peter steps in next, hand doing an odd little jerk like he wants to put it on Miles' shoulder, recalculates, tries to grab Mayday, remembers she isn't there, and just leaves it hovering in the air. It's also terribly unsmooth. If the media ever saw this, they'd have a field day.
"Heya," he says. "Long time no see, huh?"
Miles nods, realizes he should probably do more, and keeps brightening his smile up to kilowatt levels. "I guess it has been?"
Gwen brushes hair behind her ears. They're all looking at each other.
Pavitr, self-proclaimed master reader of people, senses the tension; which isn't difficult, because it's sitting heavy over the whole conversation like the gravitational pull of the moon. He leans back, webs Hobie's jacket, ignores his startled curse, and drags him over with all the grace of an acrobat. "We were thinking about meeting up!" He chirps, suffering Hobie's slap upside the back of his head with a halfhearted dodge. "Get the gang together, you know? Grab food?"
"Hands off the goods, mate," Hobie mumbles, then ignores his own advice and slings a lanky arm around Pavitr's neck. "Ain't sayin' no, though. Get some grub that isn't just spider-burgers. Or whatever they're called."
It's a plan. A great plan, even, since the advantage of numbers means Miles can slip in and out of conversations as he pleases. Add in food—which, when Pavitr is picking, is guaranteed to be fantastic—and that's a recipe for something almost pleasant.
And yet.
Gwen blinks, looking between the two, and a little smile crawls over her face as she watches Pavitr squawk when Hobie ruffles his hair. Peter's got something similar, all fond-like, curling over his day-old stubble.
"You haven't been around HQ lately," she hedges, which, fair. Not that he needs to explain himself. Miles has just been busy. Terribly busy, really. He's probably busy right now. "It'd be nice to hang out."
She doesn't have to say you've been hanging out with Pavitr. It's, uh, kind of obvious. Miles has a brief moment where he remembers that hm, yeah, the Mumbatten skyline on the shirt he's wearing probably didn't originate in his dimension.
But. You know.
He hasn't dreamt of Pavitr or Hobie. When he sees them, there's no overlap, nothing fake and false he has to concentrate on reminding himself isn't real. It'd be easier, he thinks, if the nightmares were abstract configurations of his worst fears—if they were just claws, or just betrayal, or just dying.
Instead, they're mostly memories, just ones ending differently than they did before.
His brain tells him Gwen and Peter are different, too. That the chase happened but then the next day, they found as he stumbled through Earth-42, helped him get home and defeat the Spot. That they stood by him as they fought against the destruction of the multiverse, and he couldn't have won the fight without them.
But it's hard to remember that, facing them.
Maybe he's a coward, sticking with Pavitr because it's easier. God, he remembers the year and a half just wishing he could be with Gwen, his dimension or hers, walking together and grabbing snacks and competing to catch the most bad guys. He'd dreamt of that, too, but that was when they were happy dreams, ones that woke him up and made him ache in a different way.
He wants to be friends with her again. He wants to spin around the Williamsburg Bank and thread needles between semis and compete on who can do the most flips before they have to catch themself.
He wants it.
He just needs more time.
"Sorry," he says, and means it, and wishes he could take it back. "Maybe– maybe next time, yeah? I told my mom I'd be back soon."
It's Tuesday. He's going back to Visions. He is, and continues to be, a terrible liar.
Peter gets that guilty little flash over his face, and behind him, Miguel goes back to pulling up various holograms, looking away. "Of course, bud. Hate to get you in trouble with your parents."
Gwen looks heartbroken, but also like she understands, which just makes Miles feel terrible. "See you then, Spiderman," she says, and it's an echo, enough of one Miles wants to grab her and promise that he still likes her, that he still wants nothing more than to be her friend, that he doesn't blame her for anything and they're as close as ever.
But instead he smiles, doesn't meet their eyes, and slips out of the room.
-
Miguel watches him. The Go Home machine hums and crackles, trying to maintain a barrier that's already been ripped apart, electric shell shredded by jagged claws, falling in fractals and lines and shreds of power. Useless.
Miles twitches. He can't make his limbs move.
"I'm sorry it had to end like this," Miguel says, calm, a little somber, mostly impassive. "If you had just listened– well."
He's staring at the ceiling. He can't twist to look anywhere else. Everyone else is gone, he thinks, filed out once the fight was over; no more reason to chase. To pursue.
Miguel checks his watch. He looks impatient to get out of there. Something else is more important.
"-elp," Miles manages, throat rasping and bubbling and choking. Lines of fire carve themselves over his face.
Miguel keeps watching him. He thinks he's bleeding out.
-
Rio Morales yawns, bapping herself on the chin as she tries to stretch and bangs her elbow on the doorframe. She's coming home from a late weekend shift, the hospital fond of giving her nothing but odd hours, and she's sagging a bit with lack of sleep. Sunglasses perch on the bridge of her nose.
Miles, from where he's sprawled over the couch and ruining his back by trying to sketch without proper support, stops moving.
Jefferson shouts something but it's indistinct, echoing off the walls of their flat, the chink of glasses and thump of cutting boards. She walks through the door and sets her purse on the side table, still yawning, hand curling up to rub at her chin. He can't see her eyes.
"Mamí," he says, very carefully, resting his sketchbook on his knees. It's unconscious, to flick his wrist and bring his webslinger up to his palm. "You're wearing sunglasses inside."
"Hm?" She turns to him in a way that suggests she's probably blinking in confusion, considering he's skipping the hello and how are you and how was your shift that make up their normal Saturday routine, but Miles can't see her eyes and he doesn't know. "Oh. I guess I am."
She reaches up, slides them to the top of her head, and looks at him with brown, brown eyes. "¿Te encuentras bien, mijo?"
His hands are shaking. He holds his felt-tip marker hard enough it starts to creak.
"Sorry," he says. "Must've seen something weird."
-
Miles is slumped over iron cables, fire lacing up his side and curling over his ribs. It'll scar later, he thinks blurredly, or maybe it already has. But there's a punching bag against his back and the soft whirl of vinyl he can only barely make out past the ringing in his ears, and when he raises his head, his own face stares back.
"You'll have to kill me," Miles Morales says. Not Miles Morales. The Prowler. He has braids. They're different.
Miles blinks at him, bleary, pain singing over his consciousness. "What?"
"You'll have to kill me," he repeats. "If you want to escape."
The vinyl skips and simpers. Ain't no love, it croons, echoing out to hide anything within. Ain't no love in the heart of the city–
Miles can't look away. Other-Miles stares at him, the Prowler wrapped around him like a cape, tucked between unlaced Jordans and spray-painted emblem. Uncle Aaron—just Aaron, this isn't his uncle, this isn't his uncle— isn't here. It's just them. In two days, in one day, his father dies.
He needs to get to the collider. He needs to get back to his world.
'Cause your love lit up this old neighborhood–
"I won't kill you," he croaks, lightning sparking under his suit as he tries to work his fingers free. Something might be broken. His breath comes out in a wheeze. "Spiderman doesn't kill."
Other-Miles smiles, and it's Miles' smile, the same quirk of lips he practices in the mirror. "Eres embustero," he says, and the Spanish purrs over his tongue. "I'm a villain, and your dad's life is on the line. You'll do it. You want to."
Ain't no love, and ain't it a pity–
The chains fall away. He looks down, and his hands are tipped in claws.
-
Miles doesn't sleep, after that. He thinks he would give up sleep forever if only they would stop.
-
Space octopi.
Listen. Miles is all for dimensional diversity, alright? He's got some dozens of tags in Hobie's outlined, papersketch style, he can ride Nueva York's vertical highway and take it to heights he's never been at before, and Pavitr consistently blows his mind with spices that don't exist in Earth-1610. So yeah. It's great.
But like. Space octopi.
Space octopi with very sharp tentacles, for some reason. Which is why, after he beat them and strung them up and slapped the surrounding area with enough sticky notes to almost cover some of the gaping wounds he'd scored in the bricks, he's still standing there, clutching at his ribs with the uncomfortable sensation of blood seeping through the lycra. It's an easy distraction to tap away on his watch with his free hand, sending in a request for someone to come pick these up and dump them back in their proper dimension, because if he stops and thinks about it for another few seconds, the gashes over his ribs are too easy to find similarities in.
So he simply won't. Miles is getting fantastic at this compartmentalizing thing.
Jess is still on maternity leave so he doesn't recognize the spider who pops out of the portal, flashing him a thumbs-up on one of her augmented metallic arms. Truly unfair. He manages one back. His hand is shaking.
It's past midnight now, which is partly why fighting the psychedelic rainbow glowing octopi was so strange, but it also means that it will take the police longer to get here. And sure, for all Miles has spiffed up his suit design a few times, he's kept it majority black, so the blood's mostly hidden. So. He could probably hold a conversation with whoever comes to investigate the scene, even if the villains have already been removed, the Spiderwoman rolling her shoulders as she hauls seven web-wrapped cephalopods behind her. Hell, with his healing ability, they'd probably scab over by the time he finished.
But it's been almost three days since Miles has last slept, and he is not at all feeling up for talking. For anything, really. He probably shouldn't have been fighting, simply because of how fuzzy the world is and how he's taking a particularly wide stance to avoid falling backward, but he's Brooklyn's Spiderman.
So. You know. Finished the fight, sent the bad guys back to their dimension. He's doing fine.
He doesn't want to go home.
That's a bad attitude, right? Not superhero-esque. Hero-like. What a hero does. There are black spots on the edges of his vision, creeping in, and even with the hand pressed over his ribs, blood is dripping out at a speed his mother would tell him is bad. A lot of this situation is bad, really.
If he goes home, his mother will ground him until he's thirty for getting so injured, and that means no patrol, and that means he has to sleep.
He doesn't want that, either.
That's why we have the watches, right? So we don't have to do things like this alone?
Miles didn't call for backup—honestly forgot it existed, in the thick of the fight, because it's been a year and a half on his own and only a month with the understanding there are other spider-people out there he can call upon—but maybe Pavitr's words can mean something here, too.
He squints a bit at his surroundings; the Spiderwoman is already gone, and he thinks she might have been saying something to him, but he either couldn't hear it or can't remember it. Also a pretty bad sign, if he's being obvious. In the distance, a siren wails.
Well. Only a heartbeat to make the decision. He slaps in the coordinates for Nueva York and stumbles through the portal.
It's easy, almost, to slip and pad his way through the Spider HQ, avoiding other spiders with a mixture of shadows and invisibility. Not that he doesn't want to talk to anyone, but he's getting really quite worried about this wound, and they tend to be chatty on the best of days. Strength and conditioning, Go Home machine, cafeteria; eventually the hallways empty out, the night hours meaning most are already home, and he's able to walk alone towards the medbay. It seems weirdly far away. Wouldn't it make more sense to be close to the teleportation room? His feet keep scuffing on the ground. He'd swing there if that didn't mean removing his hand from his side.
The hallway is getting longer. He needs to get to the medbay.
"Morales?"
The voice is soft but deep, a note of unconscious timbre that almost tastes like a growl. Hairs prickle the back of his neck.
It's dark in the hallway, he's realizing now; for all he's got excellent night vision, it's suddenly not enough, and the shadows are deep. The Spider HQ has these pearlescent walls and light panels but now they're shut off to keep from blinding Nueva York at night, which it is, and which means they're now dark, and Miles is no longer alone in the hallway, and he's injured.
He turns, very slowly.
Walking closer, broad, suit on but not over his face, heels clicking on the tiles, is Miguel. Lyla hovers over his shoulder, a shock of orange in the growing blackness, over the blue-red lines of his suit, of his cape.
Miles isn't breathing. He probably should be, and his hand has slipped away from keeping pressure on his ribs, and too much of his awareness is focused on the steady drip-drip-drip of scarlet pooling by his feet.
Miguel keeps coming closer. His mouth is moving.
"-rales, what are you doing here?"
That's a question, and one he doesn't remember hearing before, so that means it's new. It's night, but this isn't a memory, and it isn't a dream. Miguel is coming closer. Blood splashes down his leg. There's something, soft and cautious and wary, pinging in the back of his skull.
The man stops, less than five feet in front of him, and frowns. In the dark, his red eyes flash like a cat.
“You're injured," Miguel says, which is not inaccurate, but Miles hears it less as a statement and more as an opening. An opportunity.
He takes a step backward. The floor swims beneath him.
Something twists in Miguel’s expression. Miles can't tell what.
Miguel reaches for him, and his fingers curl, and his claws extend, and that wavering, hesitant little thing in the back of his mind shrieks. Danger sense tells him to run so Miles blips out of visibility, turns on his heel, and runs.
-
Our family doesn't run from danger, mijo, Rio Morales says, and her eyes are green. Behind her looms the mural of Jefferson Morales, husband, father, hero, and perched overhead is the Prowler. He's tall with a jagged cape. He's short with a spray-painted emblem. Miles blinks and then it's Miguel, claws out, and he's jumping and Gwen and Peter are holding him down and his throat is bared and the rain is pouring and the shadows rise–
-
"...oi? The fuck?"
Something's kicking his leg.
Miles blurs back to consciousness like a drunk stumbling home, fumbling for contact and nearly slipping beneath. Something keeps thumping against his leg.
"Mate, this ain't funny."
Miles pulls himself out of the void, fighting the inky pull back into its depths, and squints up. Or, at least tries to, because there's something clumped in his eyelashes that's keeping them stuck together, but he's able to open them. Mostly.
There's someone standing above him, cast in shadow, and Miles' heart skips a much-needed beat. His breath quickens.
But then light flashes off piercings, the rise and fall of wicks, and Miles blearily focuses on Hobie Brown. "Whuzzat?"
His voice comes out hoarse, catching on something in his throat, and altogether pathetic. There's a brief flash of humiliation.
Hobie's got an indiscernible expression on his face, something tight and sharp, but he's not looking quite at Miles, a little to his left. He squats, guitar ghosting against the ground, and waves a vague hand forward. It brushes against his calf.
His eyes narrow. "That you, Miles?"
Which. What? He frowns, tugs himself up into more of a sitting position, goes to reach out—and sees the floor through the palm of his hand. Oh. Cool. His invisibility can last even while he's unconscious. That's fascinating. He's definitely fascinated by that and is feeling no other emotion right now.
"S'me," he manages, which comes out cool and collected and not in a pitiful little croak. He's never had to concentrate on releasing his invisibility before, since it's more like clenching a muscle and a relief to let it go, but he closes his eyes and focuses and feels himself slip back into the visual world.
When he opens his eyes, Hobie is staring at him.
Miles tries for a grin. He's not quite sure it lands. "Hey?"
Hobie keeps staring. "Right lot o' blood, bruv. You good?"
Oh yeah. He's good. Great, even.
In lieu of an answer, Miles pries himself fully upright, back hitting the wall and legs dangling out in front. Everything's still dark, Nueva York deep and glimmering through the narrow windows, but the moon seems higher than when he last saw it. It's been some time, at least, since his ribs aren't screaming and are instead doing some vague, muffled groaning that says they've had a bit to heal. At least scabbed over, since everything feels tacky and crusted. He was… lying down, it looks like, and there's dried blood over his face where the puddle from his side spread. His eyelashes feel like they're made of dumbbells.
Hit the wall and fell, maybe? Or just passed out? No way to tell.
"Uh, yeah," he says, and swallows the urge to hack up a lung. "Totally fine. Just, uh. Chilling."
Hobie doesn't have to raise an eyebrow. Miles feels the expression echo through his very core.
"A little scrapped up," he admits, fighting the urge to twiddle his thumbs like some toddler. "But like. I'm fine."
Hobie keeps staring at him.
Defeated, Miles shuffles and raises his arm, revealing the scratches—shit, lacerations. He'd kind of assumed it was just his sleep deprivation that made him fumble so much, but those are deep cuts, shredding up the left side of his suit and hissing with any movement. Not, uh. Not great.
Okay. Maybe it's a bit worse than he thought.
"Shit, mate," Hobie says, catching his tongue between his teeth. "You’re a right mess. Actually bleedin' from your armpits now, eh?"
Miles squints at him. That seems a little unfair. "Ribs, actually," he tries to protest, a tad weakly, and Hobie hits him with a four-hour college-level lecture in the span of a single look.
"You need to get patched up," he declares, which is both unfortunate and true. "C'mere. Up and at 'em, big guy. This-a-way."
Miles feels like that combination of nicknames is a little generous, since he barely manages to pull himself upright on legs shaky as a newborn foal with Hobie's help. The lycra of his suit has dried and bunched with blood in ways that make it uncomfortably tight, and even when Hobie stoops so he can get an arm around the taller teen's shoulders and rest his weight less on his injured side, he's got none of the grace that comes with the Spiderman territory.
Hobie, very thankfully, doesn't say anything, and just helps him down the hallway.
He peers a little hazily at his surroundings, avoiding the puddle of blood they're leaving behind and instead trying to figure out where he ended up; opposite direction of the medbay, which is great to know that Miles' self-preservation instincts run just as strong as normal when he's passing out. It's still night out, so minimal to no other spiders, and Hobie guides him through the building like a ghost.
He can see the cameras now, grey little things blinking quietly in the corners, but he had been invisible before. Harder to track.
And Miles knows Miguel wouldn't hurt him. That they're closer now, for all that they're not friends, and he knows how much Miguel protects his spider-people charges. He wouldn't hurt him.
But if Miguel had found him before Hobie, Miles is a little worried that wouldn't have ended well for anyone.
Hobie shoulders through a nondescript door, hauling Miles in after like a newborn kitten, and gets him plopped down on a plush couch that'll have to be deep cleaned after this. It's a small break room, couple of cabinets and love chairs, a few throw pillows with a spiderweb design because there's no point in theming if you can't buy merch in your own style, apparently. One of dozens—the Spider HQ is stuffed full of little meeting rooms and break corners all smelling of coffee and some aggressive cleaning solution Nueva York uses liberally—and definitely the place that Miles was aiming for, absolutely.
Hobie sets him down and turns back to the room, lips pursed.
"I'm fine, really," Miles says, stretching just to show that he can. "Mostly healed, just need to rest up a bit–"
"'Course." This is punctuated by Hobie kicking open a drawer, digging through its neatly-organized inhabitants like a tornado, and emerging with a roll of cream bandages. "Believe ya completely. Take off your suit."
"That sounds like you don't believe me," he complains, but before Hobie can pull out some explicit cursing sequence he'll need Pavitr to translate, Miles is unzipping the back of his suit and peeling it off his shoulders, pooling around his waist. Spider HQ is nothing but well-regulated and the room's plenty warm enough he's not shivering, so he's really got no excuse not to let Hobie help him. No excuse at all.
Fishing out a package of disinfectant wipes and a roll of bandage tape—oh yeah, you can barely tell this is a break room designed for superheroes—Hobie comes back over, sprawling over the couch and starting to unwind the bandages. "Arm up."
Miles sighs but obeys. The disinfectant stings as he rubs the blood away.
Hobie's hands still, just for a second. His fingers brush over the littered scars beneath.
Miles doesn't look at him. After a moment, Hobie continues.
The teen's clearly done this a few times before, and Miles is soon bundled up like a kid's mummy costume, ribs trussed together and scratches muted beneath the comforting pressure. With his accelerated healing, he'll be fresh by tomorrow, which hopefully means he can toss the bandages out before his mother sees him, because as much as Miles fears death, he fears being grounded a lot more.
The silence stretches between them.
"Alright, mate," Hobie says, leaning in so their knees are bumping. "Ain't every day I come for grub and trip over somebody bleedin' up the hallway, 'specially if they're invisible. What happened?"
Miles bites the tip of his tongue. It'd be easy enough to lie—maybe, he's terrible at it and Hobie is that kind of annoyingly perceptive person nothing slips by—and he probably should, considering this isn't a happy-go-lucky conversation and he isn't exactly functioning at his best.
But, well. It's Hobie. Use your palms.
"I was going to medbay," he says. "And then. Uh. Ran into Miguel."
Hobie's eyes narrow to twin slits.
"He didn't– he didn't do this!" Miles fumbles to explain, raising his hands to flap heedlessly before Hobie pins them back to his side lest he messes with the bandages. "I just. Uh."
Truth is stranger than fiction; he's never really understood that quote until this moment, staring at his hands, explaining why his danger sense pinged for someone who was trying to help.
"I guess I thought– thought he might. So I ran."
Hobie sits there, light catching on the edges of his piercings, fingers tapping over his guitar strap. He's a quick guy, clever, and at this moment, Miles doesn't know if he wants him to understand or not.
He just wants something.
"You been avoiding Gwendy," Hobie says finally, wicks shifting as he tilts his head to the side. "And Peter's practiced his lil' apology speech on me three times now, even if he hasn't managed to find ya. Every damn day Miguel keeps checkin' your tracker to make sure you're safe, to the point of asking if I had fiddled with your watch, and now I find ya sprinting 'way from him and doin' your damnedest to bleed out."
Miles winces, just a bit.
"Ain't askin' ya to tell me everything," he says. "'Cause that's unfair and a right Hampton Wick move. But somethin's wrong. Can't help if I don't know."
Miles wishes he knew, too.
He'd just– he's gotten better, you know? Gotten stronger.
And then he's injured and the hallway is dark and Miguel is standing before him and it feels like maybe nothing has changed at all.
Miles stares at his hands.
"Yeah," he settles on, finally. It tastes like a confession. Maybe it is. "I'm not fine. Something's wrong."
Once he starts, something catches on the edge of his teeth until he continues, and Miles leans into the pour of information. "I've been dreaming. Like. Every night. And it's never the same but it's kind of the same, just new variations, and it's Uncle Aaron or Gwen or Peter or Miguel, and they're stopping me or trapping me or killing me. And– I know it's not real. I know it. But whenever I see them, that's all I see instead. And. It's wrong. I want to hang out with them, to catch up, to do all those things; but I can't. It's like my brain thinks if they get me alone, I'll blink and they'll do what my dreams say they'll do, even if I know they wouldn't. They wouldn't. But–"
Water splashes down his cheeks, catching in the blood. His chest shakes.
Hobie wraps an arm around his shoulders. "S'alright, mate. Let it out."
And Miles does.
Sometime later, he's about run out of tears, though his eyes are doing their best attempt to scrounge up some more scraps. Hobie's shifted so he's got one arm over Miles, rubbing something soothing on his back, and the other acting like a stress ball. His leather gloves are surprisingly comforting to squeeze.
Hobie bumps his shoulder. "Helps, don't it?"
Miles snorts despite himself. "Yeah."
"You're not alone anymore, alright? Did all that fightin' so no one had to be alone. That includes you." He extracts his hand from Miles' grip to clock him, lightly, on the side of the head. "Can't guess everything that's been happening up here. But we can help."
And yeah.
Maybe they can.
"There's more to talk about," Hobie says, as if that isn't an understatement. "But you're a grimy mess and I don't think you've been sleepin' the proper amount for a growing spider-baby. So sleep, alright? I'll take care of ya." He grins. "Beat the shit outta Miguel himself, if need be."
Miles snorts a little. "You'd do that anyway."
Hobie lets out a surprised bark of a laugh. “Nah, mate. Would've before, no questions asked, when he was doin' his 'ole Canon Events thing, but not now. Gettin' better. Don't get me wrong, still bloody daft, but better, y'know? More a man o' the people. He missed that, before." He leans back on the couch, hands spidering over his thighs to some unheard beat. "Still a bastard. But one I'm alright with stickin' by."
And. Oh.
That doesn't sound like something Hobie would say about the Miguel in his dreams. Doesn't sound like something he'd say about anyone from his dreams, really.
Maybe there's been a reason he's never dreamed about Hobie. Maybe he would've cut the curtain between memory and nightmare just by being there.
"Thanks," Miles says instead of any of that, because his tongue is thick and he'll need proper sleep if he wants a way to put that into an understandable format. "Seriously. Thank you, man."
"It's my honour," he says in a halfway convincing mockery of Pavitr's accent. "But get some rest, yeah? I'll watch over. You'll be fine."
It's been a month where that has been explicitly untrue. Where every time he closes his eyes, he wakes up choking.
But this time, he believes it.
"Kay," Miles says, and curls up on the couch without another word.
-
Miles falls asleep, and dreams of nothing.