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Miles sat on the cold stone floor, his arms wrapped around his folded legs. He tucked his head in his arms to try to imagine he was blocked on all sides by stone with one clear wall, displaying him and preventing any escape with his electric powers. He couldn’t recall how long he had been in the room; after being captured during his escape from Earth-42, Miguel seemed all too happy to ‘trap the mistake’ in this prison he fashioned just for him.
Miguel seemed all to proud of himself, looking at the anomaly now in his grasp. His father will die, reality will be restored. So why does his heart hurt with ever slow beat as he watches the kid curl into himself on the stone floor? He shook his head, it doesn’t matter. Making sure time and reality stayed consistent is what mattered, not the accident in the cell across from him. He turned away as he heard something soft, almost intelligible if he didn’t have the hearing he did. “Miguel..”
Miguel looked towards the boy, he wouldn’t have assumed he spoke — or so much as breathed — had he not clearly heard his voice. After a moment, he heard him again, the softness of his voice betraying his inherent dangerous nature.
“Miguel, how did you know that the spider that bit me was from another reality?”
He raised an eyebrow at the question. He hadn’t really expected it since he thought the kid was smarter than to ask such an obvious question. “My job is keep the realities we all know about in check. I know about all the anomalies in every universe. I knew you were trouble since before the collider imploded, Miles.”
The kid doesn’t say anything, doesn’t react to anything Miguel has said. He honestly was expecting some reaction but the boy kept his head down as he spoke. “You fucked up reality so I had to come and fix it.”
He walked closer to the transparent wall. “My job is to stop anomalies, Miles. Nothing personal.”
Miguel hears a scoff coming from the wanna-be Spider-Man. The slight movement from his chest from expelling it was the first sign he saw that Miles was even alive; not a statue.
He looked up to stare at the man before him. Miguel had his mask off and his red eyes left an eerie chill down his spine that he tried to ignore. He needed to get this feeling out of his chest; a mix of anger, helplessness, some other feelings he couldn’t tie down. “No one asked you to step up to the plate, Miguel. No one asked you to ‘fix’,” Miles unwrapped his arms to give him sarcastic air quotes before wrapping them tightly around himself again, “these anomalies.”
It was Miguel’s turn to scoff; he looked away to do it, putting his hands on his hips. Shaking his head, he replied, “Of course they didn’t, Miles.”
He looks back into Miles’ eyes and relishes in his slight flinch. “No one has to tell me to do this. I do this to save people. I save people. Unlike you, since you keep fucking up the timeline.”
Miguel watches as Miles’ eyes harden at that, sitting up a bit higher so that he can see the boy’s chest rising and falling. He’s not sure if the fast rhythm was from him being upset or for some other reason. Not like it matter to Miguel, he just needed anomalies contained. Not comfortable. He crosses his arms across his chest just to prove that he’s the authority in this situation, not even Miles’ little electricity party trick can help him escape from this room he designed to keep the kid in.
“Miguel, I think we both know that you aren’t doing this because you want to save people.” He raises an eyebrow at the kid’s hard tone; like he knows anything about Miguel. “You’re doing this because you know you are the reason everything is fucked up.”
Miles watches Miguel stiffen at the comment, glad and a little scared to see the man’s eye flash behind the glass. He’s proud to have gotten the reaction out of the man, watching him clench his fists and grind his teeth. He stares at the man as he says, “Shut up, kid. You don’t know what you are talking about.”
Miles talks over him before he can finish the sentence, though. “Realities are collapsing because you are trying to capture the wrong people, to cover up your fuck-ups.” He was excited about getting a reaction out of the man who kidnapped him and ruined his life. Preventing him from saving his dad, turning his friends and mentor against him, accusing him of his universe’s downfall. “Spot is what we should be looking for, not me. If anything, your the anomaly, Miguel.”
This makes Miguel almost scoff again but he just takes a deep breathe. He shifts closer to the glass, the kid doing his best to not back down from him. It was almost amusing if he wasn’t so pissed off from the kid’s backtalk. “You better keep your comments to yourself, kid. I am not patient.”
Miles almost rolled his eyes, thinking, ‘Yeah, I could tell.’ Instead he replies with more edge and bite in his voice than he’s ever heard from himself, “What? Going to beat the shit out of me again?” He loved watching the man flinch and try to cover it up by adjusting his stance. “You are the original anomaly, Miguel.”
Miles unwraps his arms, his anger and desperation fueling his speech. “It was me getting bit by Earth-42’s spider,” he stands up as he says this, not taking his eyes off the man who was now breathing a bit heavier with emotion. Most likely anger. “It wasn’t me becoming Spider-Man and watching my Peter die.” He takes a step forward with each statement, Miguel’s eyes narrowing at Miles. “It wasn’t any Spider-Person’s father figures dying.” Miles can feel his own breathe getting quicker as he takes steps towards the man that was setting his spider senses into overdrive. “It was you. You weren’t supposed to happen, Miguel.” He gets right up to the glass, only having to whisper the last parts of his speech as he watches the man glare at him through the fortified glass barrier between them. “You were never supposed to mess with reality. You were never supposed to be Spider-Man.” A part of Miles is happy to watch the man’s frown deepen. “You fucked it all up and tried to get these people to fix your mess.”
Miles could tell the fist was coming, the crazed man in front of him was turning predictable.
Miguel was unsatisfied as Miles only smiled at him instead of flinching as his fist hit the wall.
“Even when facing you own mistakes, you blame others,” Miles continued as Miguel turned away from the kid. “You blamed Gwen for losing me,” Miguel was shaking his head. “You sent her back to a situation you knew could have been abusive. Could have gotten her killed because she wasn’t useful.” Miles voice was starting to sound loud in his own ears, he watched as the man paced in front of his cell. Unable to escape Miles’ words due to only trusting himself to watch the prisoner.
“You don’t listen, you don’t care about any of us.” Miles was pressing his hands against the crack that started when Miguel had hit it. He just needed to coax him a bit more, even if he could feel his hands shake against the cool glass.
Miguel scoffed and stopped his pacing, looking at Miles that made him feel sweaty. Like a sheep that was caught away from the herd and was staring a wolf in the eyes. Miguel’s red eyes seemed to glow with a fury that was making Miles second-guess his escape plan.
“I don’t care? I DON’T CARE?” Miguel’s yell seemed to vibrate the glass under his palms. The man got right up to the glass, Miles was frozen in place. “Why do I have to suffer while you all get to live your lives as heroes, huh?”
Miles had to watch as Miguel’s breathe fogged he glass, his glowing eyes were the only things he could see had the man continued. “I wanted to be Spider-Man, so I became him. I AM a hero. I am saving people. I…” His voice trailed off as he stared at the scared boy in front of him, his wide eyes and harsh breathing making him almost snap out of his anger-induced trance. “I’m saving the timeline.” His eyes hardened again as he remembered he was talking to an anomaly. A mistake, not a young boy. It was just trying to upset him, he needed to see if Jess would take over this shift so he could take his medication. He was just feeling withdrawal, he needed to take his dose soon.
Before he could leave, he heard the anomaly’s voice again. “Is that what you keep telling yourself?” The voice was shaky, even as it’s volume rose. “Are you that desperate to cover your mistakes? That hungry for power and attention.”
Miles had to get Miguel to stay, to hit the glass again. To attack him. “You aren’t a hero, Miguel. You beat up and cage children because you refuse to be wrong.” His breathes were coming out shallower as he were getting more desperate. “Would you have locked Gabriella up like this if she were still alive?”
Miguel stopped in his tracks, standing up to his full height and hadn’t turned to Miles yet. Miles knew he had him, even if his senses were going haywire and his heart was hammering out of his body.
“Y-You are distorting your own reality a-and bringing everyone else into the mess you created—” Miles tried to stutter out but Miguel had already turned around and hit the glass faster and harder than Miles had expected.
The man’s fangs were out and his eyes were staring into him, into his body. Miles felt himself freezing up and flinching backward from the attack. The feralness of the man was making Miles regret his own plan. He thought about just accepting his life in an eternal prison, alone, if it meant never having to have this man near him again.
Before Miguel could snarl something at him, he realized what he had done as he heard the crack from the glass. He knew it’d shatter in a second, his eyes staring down Miles. “Do not—”
The glass shattered, snapping Miles out of his fear-driven stupor.
Miles didn’t wait for the man to lunge at him. He went invisible and leapt out into his freedom. He couldn’t suppress the chill going down his spine as he heard the man growl and roar behind him. Miles couldn't help but feel like prey as he ran from the man as fast as he could. He hardly thinks Miguel was much of a man anymore, though.