Archive of Our Own ^beta

The sound of footsteps and a soft “Hey!” stirred Miles from his slouched position. Warm blood pooled beneath him, and his ears still rang from the abrupt entry. His whole body ached. As he sat up, taking in the dusty air and the vast expanse above his head, he heard someone ask, “Are you okay?”

No, he wasn’t okay, but the question wasn’t for him. His suspicions were confirmed when he heard a familiar voice brushing off the concern, saying, “I’m fine, I’m fine. Just resting.”

“Can’t you get up?”

“Yeah.” The first person chuckled, the laugh wry. It wasn’t fooling anyone. “Yeah, I always get up.” Coughs followed, contradicting him. “The coughing’s probably not a good sign.”

Miles forced himself upright but winced, curling a hand around his midsection and biting off a groan. Too fast. Using twisted steel nearby as support, he slowly got to his feet.

Finally, he could see the two figures below him.

It was weird seeing the scene play out from a different angle. He had had this nightmare so many times he could have repeated the words ad nauseam.

“Listen, we gotta team up here. We don’t have that much time. The override key is the only way to stop the collider. Swing up there, use this key, push the button, and blow it up. You need to hide your face; you don’t tell anyone who you are.” The phantom feeling of Peter’s hand gripping his own made him move forward, crouching down above the two. He had to stop what happened next. He had to. “No one can know. He’s got everyone in his pocket.”

Hushed, whispered and confused, his younger self mumbled, “What?”

“If he turns the machine on again, everything you know will disappear. Your family, everyone, everyone. Promise me you’ll do this.”

His younger self hesitated. He knew the turmoil that was going through his head, the weight and consideration he put into making a promise - especially to a dying man. Though others may not hold themselves to a promise, he always had. If only he knew where this promise would take him. “I promise.”

“Go! Destroy the collider. I’ll come and find you…” Another cough racked Peter’s frame as his younger self scrambled away. Miles settled into his crouch, checking his webshooters. There would be enough web fluid for what he was about to do. Hopefully. He only had one chance to get this right. “It’s going to be okay.”

For once, it would be.

He picked up some junk metal just as Fisk strolled up to Peter, the small weight twisting his stomach in knots. “I’d say it’s nice to see you again, Spider-Man. But it’s not.”

In a show of false bravado, Peter tilted his head up, greeting the looming man with a casual, “Hey, Kingpin. How’s business?”

Sorry, younger me, Miles thought, glancing over at where the younger him was hiding. He could barely see his silhouette in the dim, dusty lighting. You’ll survive.

“Booming!”

Miles chucked the scrap metal just below where his younger self was, dislodging a small pile for his efforts, causing a cascade of noise. It distracted Tombstone, Prowler, and Fisk, who all twisted around to look for the cause.

It was all the time he needed to thwip a web. It latched onto Peter’s chest, and with a sharp yank, he had Peter in his arms. In one smooth movement, ignoring his aching muscles, Miles ducked out of sight and covered Peter’s mouth in time to smother his alarmed noise.

Bracing himself, he waited for his spider-sense to sound at the discovery of the two hiding heroes. He couldn’t afford a fight with the state they were in; there was no way they would win. Much to his relief - and then felt sick at himself for feeling relieved - he heard Fisk’s orders to ‘kill that guy,’ and his younger self and Prowler disappeared off into the tunnels.

Their shocked noises at discovering that Peter was gone had him smiling. Fisk snarled his anger, smashing some debris in place of the man in his arms. “He couldn’t have gotten far! Find Spider-Man!”

That was their cue. Miles finally uncovered Peter’s mouth, but he had the good sense to remain quiet with Fisk so close, only studying his rescuer with wide eyes. Wrapping one of Peter’s arms around his shoulder, he helped him get to his feet. Together, they began the agonizing process of escaping.

There was a whisper of void in the corner of his eyes, vaguely humanoid, a reminder. This wasn’t enough. He swallowed and kept going, ignoring it, even as it moved with him, keeping just out of eyeline.

When they were close to the tunnel entrance, Miles checked his spider-sense before whispering, “Brace yourself,” and thwipped a web to yank them up.

Miles tripped and stumbled at the top, but this time, it was Peter who helped them stay upright. They kept moving, supporting each other in the slow walk to freedom.

It was only when they had made it to the expectations mural that Peter finally gained a voice. “Who are you?”

“Does it matter?” Miles asked, keeping his head down.

“I’d like to know the guy who saved my life.” Peter descended into a wet coughing fit, and Miles sighed.

“I’m Spider-Man, and so are you. Come on, we need to get you to your Aunt’s place.”

He gasped as Peter pinned him to the nearest wall, a hand pressed into the base of his throat. It was like his words had kick-started Peter, giving him a burst of desperate strength. And he was using it against him. “How do you know who I am?” he demanded.

Shit. “Not important.” The hand squeezed, a whisper of super strength behind his fingers, and Miles grabbed Peter's wrist, pressing back. “I’m from another dimension!” Not technically true, but it was close enough. “You died in my universe. Everyone there knows that your name is Peter Parker, and you were raised by your Aunt May. Stop, stop!”

Peter stepped back, the shattered lens revealing his one eye (icy blue, piercing eyes that haunted his nightmares) welling with unshed tears. He stumbled like a marionette with its strings cut. Miles narrowly caught him, hissing as it jarred his own aching body. “I thought I was going to die,” he whispered, his voice small and heartbroken.

“Yeah, well, you will if we don’t get you help,” Miles reminded him, looping Peter’s arm around him. “We have a long walk ahead of us.”

Peter chuckled, the sound tired, his head hanging. “You sure you’re not in the same boat?”

“I’m sure, Mr. Blunt Force Trauma,” Miles snarked, readjusting Peter’s grip around his shoulders and encouraging him to lean more weight into him. Miles’s enhanced healing just needed a chance to catch up, preferably with some food and sleep to help. “Come on, we’ve got a train to catch.”

Thank God for New York. Besides some side-eyeing from other people on the train, they made it to Queens without Fisk or his crew descending on them. Peter continued to worsen, but there was nothing Miles could do except keep them moving.

When they reached May’s place, he was practically sleepwalking in Miles’s arms. Peter’s head lolled, all his weight pressing into Miles’s back. The only thing Peter seemed capable of doing was placing one foot in front of the other.

Miles didn’t bother going to the front door. He dragged them into the backyard and knocked on the shed door.

May descended upon the two of them with all the skills of an experienced nurse. Miles brushed off her concern for him and did what he could to assist her with Peter. But he was practically useless, dead on his feet, and so with some encouragement, he went upstairs to pass out on the couch.

When he finally stirred, however many hours later, he opened his eyes and-

“Ah!” Thump.

“Konnichiwa! Are you okay?” Peni asked from her relaxed position on the couch's head.

Sitting up from his spot on the floor, Miles absently rubbed at his back. “Uh, yeah.” He was probably meant to be more surprised by her, wasn’t he? As their spider-sense’s melded, he extended a hand. “Um, I’m Spider-Man. Who are you?”

“Peni Parker! I am from New York in the year 3145, and I have a psychic link with a spider who lives inside my father’s robot, and we’re best friends!” Peni introduced herself, finally taking his hand and giving it a shake. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“You too. Are Noir and Ham here?” Miles asked, getting up off the floor.

Peni narrowed her eyes, and too late, he realized he wasn’t supposed to know about them. “They are having some lunch. Would you like some?”

As if to rat him out, his stomach made its best impression of a whale. Scratching the back of his neck, he chuckled. “That would be nice.” How long had he been since he had something to eat? Too long.

The figure in the corner of the room, hiding in the shadows, reminded him of the deadline bearing down on him.

Peni beckoned Miles to follow, but before they got anywhere, she collapsed onto the floor in a fit of glitches. When it was over, he extended a hand to help her up, “Hey, that looked like it hurt.” He knew it hurt. “Are you alright?”

Sighing, Peni shook her head. “We need to go home. All of us have been glitching. If we wait too long, this could…” She didn’t finish the thought; her face twisted with anxiety.

Miles glanced at his watch and then back at Peni. If there was one problem he could solve, it was this. He knew how distracting it was to fight bad guys when a glitch could strike at any moment. Taking off the watch gifted to him from Hobie, a pang of melancholy striking him at the reminder of the punk Spider-Man, he showed it to Peni. “Do you think you can replicate this exactly?”

She plucked it from his hand, turning it over and appraising it with a critical eye. “I think I can. What is it?”

“The solution. This will stop us from glitching. Make six more; wait, seven,” Miles instructed her, realizing that the Peter he had just saved would need one, too, at least to message the others when they went home. If he was okay. “Actually, where is Peter?”

“He's in his room. He’s on strict bedrest,” she explained with a shrug. “None of us have seen him.”

“Oh.” Well, at least he was alive. “Right. Yeah, he wasn’t in great shape.”

Peni looked him up and down, an eyebrow raised. “You aren’t either.”

Miles self-consciously glanced down at himself. His costume was torn and burned and barely hanging on. “...Yep. Do you think May would let me borrow some fabric?” he asked Peni, but she had already disappeared into the kitchen. “...I think she will.”

“You aren’t like the others,” May commented, hovering nearby as Miles sewed a new suit.

Miles didn’t glance up from his stitching. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

May chuckled. “Sure you don’t. You come here already hurt, like you’ve just been in some big fight, save Peter, and have a solution to the other’s glitching problem. You know more than you’re letting on.”

His new mask was done. He didn’t put it on, not wanting to reveal his face, instead placing it beside his multiversal watch. The watch beeped again like it had done every five minutes for the last hour, the ‘no signal found’ staring at him like an accusation. There were no other Spider-People for it to find, after all.

If not now, but tomorrow, he knew that people as smart as the other Spider-People would piece together that he really wasn’t like them… if they knew what his face looked like.

And he couldn’t let that happen — not if his younger self was going to become Spider-Man and not if he wanted to prevent everything that had gone wrong from happening. For all he knew, he would disappear as soon as everything was fixed. 

None of them needed that on their conscience.

“...What are you going to do about it?” Miles challenged her, stitching the last threads of his new suit.

May’s eyes burned into the back of his head. “Nothing. But I could.”

The implied threat hung in the air between them. Miles huffed a laugh, the only thing he could do. “I’m not a bad guy.” His costume was done. He finally swiveled around to look at May. “Thank you for letting me borrow this.”

“Thank Peter when you talk to him next,” May said. “It’s his stuff you’ve used.”

Miles ducked his head. “Right.” Now that this was sorted, he just had to figure out how to stop- oh no. The realization of the time hit him like a physical blow. “What time is it?” he asked, getting to his feet and haphazardly gathering everything up, mentally making a note to grab two of Peni’s spare watches.

“Almost three. Why?”

Little him had made the promise. And if he had made the promise, he had tried to become Spider-Man, and if he had tried to become Spider-Man…

“I’ve got to- he’s probably already- agh!” Costume in hand, he turned to May. “Where can I get changed?”

She pointed with a thumb behind herself. “Behind the spare suits.”

“Thanks!” He raced to where she had directed him, tearing his old costume off in record time.

“You’re not helping your case,” May called out after him, bemusement coloring her voice.

“Don’t care!”

By the time he had reached the city, twilight had descended upon everything, coating everything in artificial light. He was too late; he didn’t need to visually check to be sure of that. The goober was broken.

Which meant a trip to Alchemax, and that meant an event he had to prevent. However, preventing one event could have downstream effects, meaning Mayday might never exist. He had to get Peter to act as a mentor for his younger self.

Two birds with one stone was a saying for a reason.

Finding his old mentor was surprisingly easy. He spotted him perched on a building surveying the city. Miles landed behind him and folded his arms. He cleared his throat, biting down on a grin as Peter jolted.

Scrambling to face him, Peter crouched, ready to fight him — not that Miles blamed him. And then his masked eyes frowned in confusion as their spider-sense’s melded. “Who are you?”

“Hi, I’m Spider-Man. And you’re Peter Benjamin Parker. Like me, you’re not from this dimension,” Miles introduced himself. He extended a hand to shake. “Nice to meet you.”

Peter scoffed. He straightened up, brushing imaginary dirt off of his already half-destroyed suit. That’s right, his landing in this universe hadn’t been kind. He didn’t shake Miles’s hand. “Yeah, sure. How do you know who I am, exactly?”

Because we’ve met before. “I’m from a dimension where Spider-Man, you, died. I’m his successor. And now, this world has a new Spider-Man who needs training before we all go home,” Miles explained, taking a step forward. “They need your mentoring.”

Peter laughed, doubled over, wiping a fake tear from his eye. When Miles didn’t back down, undeterred by his mirth, Peter stopped chuckling long enough to say, “I don’t know who you think you’re talking to, kid, but I’m not the guy you want.”

Miles raised an eyebrow, folding his arms. “Well, too bad, you’re the most qualified for the job.”

“There’s already a Spider-Man in this dimension! Go tell him to look after this mysterious protege!” Peter retorted, throwing his hands up.

“He’s currently trying to recover from his near-death experience. I doubt he’ll be in any shape to help us before we have to leave.”

Peter rolled his eyes, and one of Miles’s eyes twitched. “I’m not looking for a side gig as a Spider-Man coach. I got-”

“-A lot going on in your dimension. Sure. Press X to doubt,” Miles snarked. “It’s totally not like you’re living life as a depressed, near jobless nobody who’s driven everybody away because you’re too scared to become more than what you are now.”

That struck a nerve. Peter stepped up to Miles, looming over to him. Miles squared his shoulder, meeting his gaze head-on. “You don’t know anything about me.”

“I know enough,” Miles muttered, then stepped back, letting the tension drain. “I’m not here for a fight. Look, I can’t do it because I need to get the goober to shut down Fisk’s whole deal. And, if you mentor him, I’ll give you this.”

He held out the spare watch he had brought with him.

“I’d probably be more enthusiastic if I knew what that was,” Peter said, folding his arms.

Right. He hadn’t understood them either when Gwen had shown hers to him a lifetime ago. “This will stop you from glitching. I’m sure you’ve already experienced the joy of your atoms reminding you that you don’t belong here.”

And, predictably, Peter made a grab for it. Miles barely sidestepped the lunge, camouflaging. “Nope! That’s not how this is going to work.”

“You’re so frustrating!” Peter shouted, his head swiveling. Likely looking for any inconsistencies to spot him by.

“You don’t even have to do much!” Miles promised. His voice dropped to something softer. “He just needs someone to get him on the right track. He’s a quick learner. He’s just… a little unsure of himself and his new powers right now. I know you’re the right guy for the job. Please.”

He knew when Peter had given up. He tipped his head back, muttering curses under his breath, before extending a hand. “Fine. Fine! I’ll go babysit this spider boy-”

“Spider-Man.”

“Whatever. Give it already.”

Miles let his invisibility melt away, holding the watch out. As Peter clipped it into place, a sudden thought struck him. “When you meet him, just make sure you don’t touch him without warning. He’ll knock you out.”

Peter squinted at him. “What? How?”

“Uh- the spider he got bit by. He got an extra power or two. I call it a Venom Strike.” Miles made a gesture with his hands, but it did nothing to clarify anything. “Bio-electricity. Ya know.”

“..Sure.”

Miles rocked on the balls of his feet. “Right. Uh, you have fun meeting him, and I’ll see you at May’s house tomorrow. And then we’ll go from there?”

Peter gave him a once-over, arms folded. “Yeah. Aunt May’s house. Totally.”

“Cool.”

Miles sulked in the back of the bus, the spare hoodie pulled taught over his face. His arms were wrapped around his knees, drawing them up to his chest. He leaned his head against them, watching the orange, snow-covered forest pass him by with a pang of nostalgia.

Everything had gone wrong. Peter and his younger self had shown up at Alchemax despite Miles telling Peter he would go get the goober, and the subsequent argument intermingled with his younger self getting stuck to the lights, had alerted Doc Ock to their existence.

He never even got a chance to make a detour.

The shadow in the corner of the bus, darker than its surroundings, taunted him with his failure.

Things had played out almost exactly the same, if on an accelerated timeline, since Miles forwent trying to hack into the computer and grabbed the monitor instead. The only silver lining was that he had caught the bagel before it had hit the Spot.

A familiar conversation played out a few rows in front of him, and his heart burned at the reminder of what once had been. 

“If you ever decide to do friends again, I could always open up a slot,” he heard his younger self say, with Gwen’s soft reply of, “I’ll keep you posted,” making him ache. He sighed and curled in on himself even tighter.

“You can take your mask off, Spider-Man. It’s just us here,” Peter said just loud enough for him to hear, stretched out across the aisle with his head on Miles’s side.

Miles hesitated. “No, I can’t.”

“It’s not your dimension. No one will know who you are. Who cares, right?” Peter insisted, and when Miles glanced between the gap between seats, Peter’s brown eyes watched him with a mild curiosity. “Like, if you’re scarred or burned or something, none of us will care.”

An excuse to latch on to. Miles lifted his head from his arms and leaned back against the backrest. “I care. Can you let it go, please?”

Peter’s mouth thinned, clearly not happy but unwilling to push it further.

There was movement, and his younger self’s head popped over the seats. “So, you can turn invisible like me. That’s pretty cool.”

Oh no. Not an interrogation. “Yeah, I got them with my spider bite.”

“I don’t think we had a proper introduction on account of that whole thing. That was crazy,” his younger self said, extending a hand. “My name is Miles, and I’m from this dimension. What about you?”

“Um, Spider-Man is fine.” Miles shook his hand, realizing too late how clammy his own were. He hoped that it couldn’t be felt through his gloves.

Younger Him folded his arms over the back of the seat and rested his head on them, tilting his head to the side. “Well, we’re all Spider-Man. That’ll be confusing. What about Red Back? 

“Yeah, sure. Do you have any nicknames?” Miles asked, a sudden spark of inspiration striking him. “I, uh, knew a Miles is all. Don’t want to get you mixed up in my head.”

Peter shot him an odd look, but Miles ignored it. His younger self tilted his head. “Not really?”

“Can I call you… um, how does Milo sound?” he suggested. “It’s close to your name already.”

“Sure, I don’t mind,” Milo hummed. “Do you have any other powers? If you have something, maybe I can do it too ‘cause our spider bites seem pretty similar.”

It was almost like they were the same spiders or something, Miles thought to himself. There was a second reason he was grateful for the mask - he had never had the best poker face. “Well… I have a type of bio-electricity. I call it my ‘Venom Strike,’” he said, extending an arm and letting a pulse race down to the tips of his fingers. “Do you have it?” he asked, if only to sell the ruse.

“He definitely has it,” Peter grumbled, and Milo visibly swallowed a giggle.

Miles sat up. “You didn’t- did you really? I warned you not to touch him.”

“I didn’t think it was that serious!” Peter defended himself, throwing his arms straight up before letting them flop back down.

Meeting Milo’s confused look, he grinned and asked, “Did you tie him up? Please tell me you tied him up.”

“I tied him up,” Milo confirmed, smiling with a touch of guilt behind it.

“Gave me the tough guy act and everything,” Peter whined.

A genuine laugh fell from Miles’s lips - it quickly turned hysterical and entirely inappropriate, full-bodied, making him shake. Tears welled up, fogging up his lenses. The laugh threatened to turn into sobs, and he bit his lip to try and tamp down on it. He tasted iron.

“Oh jeez, I think you broke him,” Peter muttered, but when Miles still couldn’t stop, he frowned. He sat up, reaching a hand through the gap to put it on Miles’s shoulder, and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “You good?”

He sniffed pathetically, reaching underneath his mask to wipe away the tears. “It’s been… a long few days.”

“I feel that,” Peter said. “A lot going on in your dimension?”

Miles shrugged, trying and failing to come off as casual, his hiccuping breath betraying him. Peter’s hand stayed on his shoulder, and he was grateful for the small comfort. “I wish I could go home,” he mumbled.

“That’s what Doc Ock’s monitor is for,” Peter reassured him with a soft smile. “We’re all going to go home and give terrible excuses for why we were gone for several days, and everything will be fine.”

But he wouldn’t be going home. There wasn’t a home to return to. It had all been destroyed, and it was all his fault. There wasn’t anything for him there. He didn’t know where he would go or what he would do once everything was done. He was an anomaly in every way.

It wasn’t about him, though. It was about his younger self, Milo, who was quietly watching him with pinched brows and a worried look. It was about fixing everything and making sure Milo wouldn’t face the anguish he had.

He had fixed one thing: the previous Spider-Man was alive. He had two more people to save.

“Yeah,” Miles whispered, then cleared his throat, sitting up straighter in a show of false bravado. “Yeah, everything will be fine.”

Everything was not fine.

“You two need to be more honest with yourselves. He’s not ready; it’s obvious,” Gwen said to Miles and Peter, beckoning them away from Milo, who still lay on the ground. Miles couldn’t tear his eyes away from himself, a ball of righteous anger choking him.

“There’s no way. He’s just a kid,” Noir added, drawing agreement from Ham and Peni.

Blondie, the nickname he had privately settled on for this world’s Peter Parker, his arm in a sling, joined the circle but remained quiet. He hadn’t said much of anything about any of the additional Spider-People, as if he was used to this amount of crazy. He looked worn and pale, still recovering.

“You don’t- you don’t understand,” Miles ground out, his hands curled into fists. “You need to give him a chance.”

“A fight is no place to ‘give someone a chance.’ If he doesn’t have it, he doesn’t have it,” Blondie spoke up, though he didn’t look happy about his contribution.

“If he can’t do this, we have to stay and do it for him,” Gwen reminded them.

There was a clunk, and everyone except him looked up as Milo escaped via the elevator.

“Miles?” Peter called out after him before sheepishly addressing the rest of them. “See that? He can, uh, turn invisible…”

“None of you get it,” Miles snapped, shouldering past the group to disappear deeper into the Spider Lair. Their curious and sympathetic eyes burned his back until he disappeared out of sight. The conversation continued without him.

Hands clutching the sides of his head, he leaned against a wall, struggling to do a breathing exercise he only half-remembered. A vain attempt to ease the ugly ball of heat threatening to tear him apart from the inside out.

A quiet tap tap nearby made him look up, switching to folding his arms at the sight of Blondie slowly approaching like he was a cornered animal. “Hi. That touched a nerve, huh?”

Miles didn’t bother responding, turning his face away and biting his lips, a hint of iron touching his tongue.

“I didn’t get a chance to thank you for saving me,” Blondie continued, a small, strained smile tugging at his cheeks. It didn’t reach his eyes; they were haunted, studying Miles like a puzzle to be solved. Miles shifted under his gaze. “I’m glad I didn’t die like… like your Peter did.”

Staring at the ghost of a man in front of him, his mouth dropped open for a long moment before he managed to cobble together an answer. “Yeah, of course.”

“I’m right in saying you were my successor?” Blondie guessed, his head tilting. At Miles’s confirming nod, he frowned - his eyes going distant. “That must have been tough.”

Miles stared at his feet, the familiar ache of losing what once was carving a hole in his chest. The rest of the crew were on the other side of these assorted Spider-Man suits, intermingling and figuring out how to make the new goober. But they didn’t have the same history; all of it erased and rewound, for better and worse. They had never been further away. “I had some help,” he whispered.

Blondie raised an eyebrow. “Yeah? I’d like to hear that story someday. Though I don’t think we’ll have a chance. None of you can stay in this dimension.”

“...Right, yeah. You’ll… you’ll just have to stew in the mystery,” Miles tried to joke. It fell flat on its face, partially because the joke was only understandable to him. “I… I just want to help Miles-” it felt so wrong saying his own name and meaning someone else “-figure this out. I know he can.”

“He’s also a kid. He doesn’t need this huge responsibility of getting all of you home.” Blondie let out a tired sigh. “I would do it, but I got hurt worse than I thought. I’ll be useless in a fight.”

Miles didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know how to ensure his younger self became Spider-Man.

But maybe he had been approaching this all wrong.

His younger self didn’t need to be Spider-Man, not with Blondie alive. The promise Blondie made to him a lifetime ago could be fulfilled - If you stick around, I can show you the ropes. Milo could be a kid again without the heavy weight of protecting a city on his shoulders.

Maybe he could solve everything.

“Yeah…” Miles mumbled. He cleared his throat, straightening up. It didn’t feel great to lie about the watches or to let the other Spider-People stress about being stuck in a different dimension when he knew they wouldn’t be, but he needed their help to stop the future.

They had all lied to him on Miguel’s orders. Turnabout was fair play.

He had saved Blondie. He just needed to save Uncle Aaron, and then-

Uncle Aaron. Oh no.

“I’ve- I’ve gotta go,” Miles gasped, brushing past Blondie at a near sprint. He didn’t bother with the elevator, thwipping a web and scrambling out the door, ignoring the confused shouts that followed after him.

Miles climbed in the window, breathing a sigh of relief at the lack of Milo or Uncle Aaron. He wasn’t too late. He went to the front door of the apartment and opened it, intentionally setting off the silent alarm before closing and locking it again.

Letting out a nervous breath - his feet metaphorically, if not physically, stuck to the floor - he turned his gaze to the window. Any second now, he would be greeted by Prowler’s claws.

He knew that saving Uncle Aaron meant seeing him again; at least this time, he was prepared to meet a ghost. It wouldn’t be unexpected, like when he had dropped into the wrong dimension. Still, the bubbling anticipation twisted his stomach into nauseous knots.

Should he wait on the couch? The middle of the room? By the window? Would Uncle Aaron come in with a bang or a whisper?

The shadows in the corner watched him pace with unwavering interest.

The answer came sooner than he hoped.

Miles forced himself to move forward as the purple, looming figure of Prowler crept through the window - his eyes instantly locking on the stranger in his home.

“I come in peace,” Miles said, his voice unwavering - stronger than he felt.

The Prowler’s claws clenched and unclenched, his stance tense and ready for a fight. “Talk,” he barked, and Miles winced at the artificial distortion.

Miles tilted his chin up, swallowing down the acid in his throat. “You have to stop being the Prowler. This will kill you.”

Everything stilled, including the figure outside. The words hung between them thick and undeniable, like a growing balloon, the rubber stretching thin, threatening to pop. 

“Why?” Prowler demanded, though he didn’t make a move to attack. It was more than he had expected. He forced himself to take a deep breath around the weight in his chest.

“...Your name is Aaron Davis, uncle to Miles Morales, brother to Jefferson Davis, and your sister-in-law is Rio Morales.” Prowler growled, the sound sub-vocal and rumbling in his chest - loud in the silent room. Miles continued on anyway. “Tomorrow, December 2018, you die from a gunshot wound to the back, aged forty-one, outside of May Parker’s residence. Murdered by Wilson Fisk.”

Prowler’s eyes narrowed, taking an aggressive step forward. “Who are you?”

“You die saving your nephew, Miles Morales,” his voice cracked, but he pushed through. “You wanted him to look up to you. You saw how he was the- the best of all of us. You told him to keep going. Those were your last words.”

“Who are you?!” Prowler yelled, grabbing Miles around the throat and shaking him once. A threat and a show of strength all at once.

He couldn’t resist, wouldn’t resist, limp in his uncle’s hands. 

“I’ve been here before. I know how this plays out. Please give it up. I know you want to be good. You feel like you don’t have a choice, but you do,” Miles pleaded, wrapping his hands around the Prowler’s arms above the metal gloves. “Uncle Aaron, please.”

The Prowler ripped Miles’s mask off in one smooth movement, discarding it aside. Tears ran down his cheek, his face exposed to the cold air. He knew he looked like a mess, days of wearing a mask nonstop, the lack of sleep, the countless fights, everything taking a toll on his appearance.

“Who are you?” The Prowler repeated, and Miles desperately wished he could see his face and catch a glimpse into what he was thinking. Instead, he could only plead to the blank, near expressionless masked eyes of his uncle’s suit.

“I’m- I’m Miles Morales. I’m from the future. I’m trying to- to prevent things from going really bad. You die tomorrow. I don’t want to grow up without you again,” Miles whispered, an ugly sob tearing its way from his throat.

Prowler stepped back, letting go of him, and Miles sank to his knees like a puppet with its strings cut.

He wrapped his arms around himself, a poor imitation of a hug, his head hung, staring at the wooden floor through blurred vision. “You told me to keep going. I did. And I lost everything. I- I can’t let that happen again. Please.”

“You’re not my nephew,” The Prowler muttered, and Miles’s head snapped up so quickly he felt a crack.

“What? No, it’s me- I’m from- it’s been a year. You’ve been dead for a year and-”

“You’re not my nephew,” The Prowler repeated, his hands curling into fists. Miles’s spider-sense pinged a warning, and his throat clenched. “He’s a good kid with a bright future ahead of him. He isn’t Spider-Man.”

Within his grief, a blistering anger bubbled up, burning him from the inside out. “You’ve been chasing my younger self, your nephew, around for days! Did you never stop to think about who that kid in the tunnel was? You were okay with killing a child until you found out it was me.”

Pain blossomed from his cheek, and he hit the ground with a twisted laugh. Prowler raised his arm, ready to punch him again, but Miles camouflaged and moved, the ground splintering where he had been.

“Fine! I tried to warn you. Show up tomorrow and get killed by your own boss!” Miles spat, tears welling up that he roughly scrubbed away. “But at least I tried.”

He dived for his mask, rolling out of the way of Prowler’s next attack, and webbed his foot to the ground. With him distracted, he grabbed one metal glove and twisted - yanking it off. Ducking beneath a swipe, he grabbed the other glove and did the same before webbing his arms to his side and shoving him onto the couch.

Gloves thrown across the room, Miles pulled his mask back on. He stepped towards the window, then froze, turning back to Prowler’s twisting, wriggling form. “They’ll biodegrade in a few hours. Please… don’t follow us.”

Then he hugged Uncle Aaron. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t returned - couldn’t be - and made the Prowler tense up. It might be his last chance to hug his warm, breathing body. He wanted to stay here forever, to hear his heart beating, but he couldn’t. Reluctantly, he let go.

Miles climbed out the window, quietly closing it behind himself. He gave himself a moment to compose himself, breathe in the cold night air, and listen to the sounds of New York at night. Then he sighed, tilting his head to the side.

“I know you’re there, Milo,” he whispered. “I’m sure you’ve got a lot of questions.”

Sure enough, his younger self flickered into existence, his eyes wide and horrified and brimming with tears. “Uncle Aaron’s the Prowler?”

“Yeah.” Miles tried to muster up the energy he needed to keep moving forward, but it was sapped dry. He felt cold and alone, and all he wanted to do was sleep, but there was still so much left to do. He had to keep going for Milo.

Straightening up, he tried to give his younger self a reassuring look. It was less effective with a mask on. “He- he’s a good guy, and he loves us- um, you. He loves you. He just… made some bad choices.”

“He’s going to die?” Milo asked, his voice cracking.

Miles flinched, folding his arms and glancing away. “I- I don’t know.”

He heard an ugly, pathetic sniffling from Milo’s direction and winced. He took a deep, shuddering breath and started down the fire escape stairs. At least this time, no one was getting chased. “Come on, let’s get back to the others. Put your mask back on if you’re walking around like that.”

There was a moment of hesitation before he heard the pitter-patter of Milo’s feet following after him. “We’re going to stop him from dying, right? You wouldn’t- just because he’s a villain, you won’t let him die, right?”

Miles stopped mid-step, and Milo bumped into his back, hands grabbing his shoulder to keep balance. He tilted his head back to meet Milo’s now-masked eyes. “What? Of course not. He’s our Uncle. I promise- I promise I’ll do anything I have to to stop him from dying.”

“You mean that?” Milo asked.

Maybe it was stupid to let himself get sentimental over his younger self, who was himself, flesh and blood. But he remembered the ache this betrayal had latched onto him, later drowned out by the pure grief of losing their Uncle.

It was the excuse he gave himself for pulling Milo into his arms and hugging him as tight as he dared.

The steps canceled out their height difference. Milo’s head tucked into the crook of his neck, a hiccuping sob smothered into his suit. Milo’s arms were tucked to his chest, his fists desperately clinging to the fabric of Miles’s spider symbol, gripping it like a lifeline. Miles closed his eyes, struggling to keep his own tears at bay.

“Yeah,” he whispered, choking up. “I do.”

It was a long moment before they separated. Milo let go first, rolling his mask up enough to wipe his tears on his sleeve. He sniffed, his shoulders curling in like he was embarrassed. “You, um, said we should go back to the others, right?”

“They’re waiting for us,” Miles agreed, folding his arms. “They’ll still be making the goober, but- they’re worried about us.”

Milo scoffed. “They don’t think I can be Spider-Man. I… I don’t know if I can do it. They’re probably right…”

A small smile reluctantly broke through. “Well… I’m proof they’re wrong, right?”

Watery eyes narrowed, and he barely even stumbled when Milo shoved him. “Why didn’t you say anything?” he demanded. “You’re a time traveler, and you weren’t going to tell anybody?” Milo paused, and then, under his breath, he whispered, “Is that a power I’m going to develop?”

Miles snorted, turning his face away. “No, that’s not- I don’t-” taking a deep breath in, the reminder of how exactly he got here carved a hole in his heart. He shrugged, half-hearted. “I… made a deal with someone. Someone powerful. Saving Peter and Uncle Aaron is, um, not really what we agreed to.”

There was a tense pause before Milo quietly asked, “Why are you here?”

The echo of Miles’s own scream still rang in his ears.

He had failed.

His body was cold. The blood was cold. Everything was cold.

He had done everything he could. Fought everyone. Only for Miguel to be right. The canon was intact in all its jagged, cutting edges.

But that was before. This was now. This was the slow walk towards the Abyss, to Spot, to the man before he had changed. Stepping past rubble, over other dead bodies, over crunching glass and twisted steel, further and further into the epicenter of destruction.

Shock had settled into his bones. His hands were shaking. His vision was blurred. His suit was ripped.

His Dad was dead. Brooklyn was destroyed. The Spot had won. He had taken everything from him. Like Miles had done to him.

The possibility of dying was there. The Abyss could rip him into pieces and discard his remains into the wind like a paper doll. It wasn’t the dumbest thing he was about to do - or, more accurately, ask.

As if sensing the change in intent, the defeat weighing on Miles’s shoulder, the Abyss shrunk in size from the towering colossus he had been, turning to confront him. Wisps of shadow spun around Miles’s feet, catching on him, trying to tug him closer.

Distantly, he heard someone shout his name. He glanced back. Made eye contact with Gwen, her mask off, tears in her eyes. Her words were lost to the wind, but it didn’t matter anyway. Miles knew she would try to talk him out of this.

He couldn’t let her.

The black enclosed around him, the world disappearing into the inky darkness, flashes of blue and purple drawing his attention back to the villain he had dismissed not even forty-eight hours ago. How he wished he could go back.

“Abyss,” Miles whispered, trying to draw himself up to his full height. It made his chest ache, the grief jostling around and catching his heart, drawing invisible blood. “My… nemesis.”

If he had a clearer head, saying the word would have made him cringe.

“Spider-Man,” the Abyss echoed, his head distorting, tilting to the side, glitching, monstrous. “How interesting. How weak for you to come groveling at my feet.”

“You can manipulate the very fabric of space,” Miles said, trying to ground himself in fact, ignoring the taunt. Even if the facts were otherworldly. “You can… can split the fabric of it. You’re powerful. You’re… at the peak of your powers.”

The Abyss’s head tilted to the side, his hands on his hips. The white swirls that made up his face became erratic - he might even call it gleeful. “I would say so, yes. Are you trying to bargain, Spider-Man? How uncharacteristic.”

Miles swallowed the instinctive need to defend himself. “Can you split the fabric of time?”

Surprisingly, the Abyss seriously considered his question. “I could.”

With a deep breath, Miles closed his eyes and whispered, “Take me back to the start. Before this week. Before everything. I… I took everything from you. I destroyed your life by… making you the Spot. Let me make it right.”

His plea hung heavy in the air, the weight of what he was asking palpable. He opened his eyes, finding the Abyss watching him like a curiosity. Or an ant under a microscope. The swirls narrowed. “You really would lose everything,” his nemesis murmured, and a shiver went down Miles’s spine. “The timeline of the very multiverse erased, you the only surviving remnant. All to prevent me from existing in the first place.”

“Y-yes, exactly,” Miles agreed, his stomach twisting in revolted knots. “Let me make this right. I know what I should have done. I know how to stop things from going wrong.”

After a beat, a portal opened up to the side of them. Its inky center spilled over, the black so dark all light was absorbed by it. His spider-sense whispered a warning.

“Go on, Spider-Man,” The Abyss taunted him. “Go fix the timeline. I’ll know if you fail. I will make you regret this if you fail.”

“I know you will,” Miles mumbled, tentatively extending an arm towards the new portal.

There was every chance Abyss was lying. There was every chance he would be torn apart and spat out or something worse. The potential consequences of his actions loomed over him, casting a shadow on his resolve.

The weight of his losses bore down on him, too, numbing his heart and fueling his desperation. Dad was dead. He didn’t know if his Mom was okay. Brooklyn was destroyed. 

Canon was intact.

He stepped through.

Miles slowly opened his eyes, staring down at his masked lens. It reflected his own pitiful face back at him. A tear rolled down his face, dripping onto the glass surface, mocking him. It was like a dam had broken, all the feelings he had tried to bottle up to make it through these few days cracking. Invisibility wouldn’t help him hide from the truth anymore.

The Sparknotes version of everything had left him hollowed out. The secret was out now. Milo knew, and he couldn’t make himself plead for his silence. Had debated trying to on the way to May’s but had settled on telling the truth. It was better they heard the story from him instead of wildly speculating. It still hurt.

He didn’t dare check the other Spider-People’s expressions, instead watching the shadows in the corner dance.

“I’m sorry for lying,” he told them, roughly scrubbing away his tears, forcing himself to take a deep breath. Desperately trying to compose himself. “You can go home if- if you want to. The watches will take you there. I just… I wanted help to stop Spot.”

Gwen was the first to speak up, pain laced in every word. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

Miles shrugged. “I don’t know how this works. Time travel. Any of it. I didn’t… I didn’t want to burden any of you with this knowledge if… if something went wrong.”

Peni turned to the others. “I should have known from the start. He knew about Ham and Noir before he had met them.”

“And he knew about the kid’s bio-electricity, and then later asked if the kid had the power,” Peter B contributed, hands on his hips, and Miles’s face burned.

“I get it,” Miles cut in. “I wasn’t very good at hiding it.”

Blondie had remained quiet. The others had let out little gasps as he had told them his story. Everything that was relevant, anyway. Spot’s creation, what had happened the last few days, the barest mentions of their betrayals, and in hitching breaths, what had made him make a reckless deal with an enemy. His blue eyes had bore into the side of his head the whole time, picking him apart like a puzzle. “Spot gave you the chance to completely clean your ledger,” he commented. Miles glanced up, making eye contact, and knew that Blondie understood what his fate had been once upon a time.

“I… I guess, yeah,” Miles whispered, hugging his arms around himself. May’s living room had never felt so cold.

Milo had started by his side, but the longer the story had gone on, the closer he had drifted to Peter B’s side.

Him against the rest of the Spiders. It felt all too familiar.

“I think we’re all breezing past the fact that we could go home right now,” Ham sniffed, arms folded. “Unlike some people, we all have lives to get back to.”

Miles flinched, ducking his head. He heard the dull thump of someone smacking the pig.

“You can go,” Miles croaked out, folding his arms tight to his body. “You don’t- no one needs to stay. I can do this by myself. It’s fine-”

“No,” Peter B interrupted. “Peni, is the goober complete?”

Peni confirmed with a chirpy, “Yep!”

Peter B stood up with a clap. “Then, let's decommission this collider. We don’t need to wait for them to turn it on. What do we say, team?”

Miles's head jolted up, tears welling up for a different reason as, one by one, the team all agreed. Even Ham tipped his head in a slight nod, an apology in his masked eyes. A weight Miles hadn’t realized he held lifted. It felt like he could finally take a deep breath.

Everything was out now. They knew who he was. And they hadn’t rejected him. He hadn’t been outcast. They wanted to help him, regardless of his earlier deception.

“So… what happened after this?” Milo asked timidly in the beat of quiet before quickly rephrasing his question. “Like, in the original timeline, what happened after we learned about… the Prowler?”

Miles swallowed, nerves lancing through him. “Uncle- The Prowler originally followed me here. Um. But he couldn’t have this time. The villains were trying to destroy our newly made goober. And… and originally, Fisk was staging a gala to honor, um, honor Peter. All of you infiltrated the collider then.”

“Wait, all of them?” Milo piped up, his brows furrowing. “Were we not with them?”

Mouth opening, Miles tried to stutter out an answer and came up blank. How was he supposed to tell his younger self about the leap of faith?

Ding Dong.

A cold rush swept through him. He pulled on his mask, the others following suit.

How had they known? Why were they here? Peter wasn’t dead, and they didn’t know his identity-

Uncle Aaron. Miles had told him where he had died. And Uncle Aaron had deducted that this was where they were probably hiding.

Uncle Aaron would die again because he couldn’t shut his big mouth.

Doc Ock crashed through the front door, just like she did in his nightmares. “Cute place. Real home-y.”

“Oh great, it’s Liv,” May groaned from the kitchen.

Miles tried to speak past the panic in his throat, to apologize for bringing them right to their doorstep, but all thoughts were crowded out by the sinking dread crawling over his skin.

And then chaos.

It was impossible to keep track of the goober, his younger self, and the Prowler with so much going on. They were all so important, it was crucial that he prevented what felt like an inevitability, but in the twelve-person brawl, he couldn’t.

He tried desperately to do what he could. Even with his shaking hands and blurred eyes, fear choking him, he fought.

Punching and kicking and grabbing and dodging and it wasn’t enough. Too many villains. Too many obstacles. It was all too much.

Prowler still chased Milo up the stairs.

Prowler still slammed Milo along the shingles.

Prowler still choked Milo, forcing him onto his tiptoes.

And Fisk still cocked his gun.

Miles didn’t think.

BANG .

He hit the ground, legs giving out beneath him, a strangled sob tearing its way out of his throat.

Agonizing pain swept through his arm, burning, overwhelming.

Who knew bullet wounds hurt so bad?

Someone let out a startled gasp, and then a hand touched his cheek, pulling his mask off his face, though he didn’t know who - his eyes clenched shut. Clawed, cold hands circled around his arm and then pressed down hard, forcing a choked whine as pressure was put on the bullet wound.

“Miles, why did you do that?” Uncle Aaron demanded. He had called him Miles.

“I made a promise,” Miles whispered, unable to help his small, delirious smile. It was his Uncle’s face, his actual voice, no distortion, no mask. It was Uncle Aaron. And he was alive.

“You idiot,” Milo choked out. Miles’s eyes fluttered open, darting to Uncle Aaron’s solemn, concerned face and then Milo’s, distraught. “You- that- you can’t do that!”

His surroundings came back into focus. They were still on May’s roof. He couldn’t see Fisk. Presumably, Peter B had taken care of him. Cold tiles grated at Miles’s back, but his younger self and Uncle Aaron kept him from sliding off.

“It’s just a flesh wound,” Miles tried to joke, blinking tears out of his eyes. 

“Stop talking; you’re bleeding,” Uncle Aaron ordered, gruff, yet every word subtly quivered. Grabbing his cape, he tore a long strip and used the cloth to bandage his arm with practiced motions. “We need to get this treated. I’m taking you back to mine.”

 He tried to get to his feet, vision swimming and unsteady. Exhaustion quickly began to overwhelm Miles. He hadn’t slept since that first night, and it was taking its toll. Uncle Aaron promptly lost patience and swept him into his arms.

“It’s okay,” Miles whispered, head lolling to rest on Uncle Aaron’s shoulder. It wasn’t as comfortable with his Prowler gear on. “I saved you. You’re okay.”

“Come on, Miles,” Uncle Aaron said, and it took a second too long to realize he didn’t mean him. He meant Milo. “We’re having a long conversation at mine.”

Miles passed out before they were off the roof.

Voices were whispering over his head when Miles stirred.

He moved his arm to rub his eyes and winced, hissing out a long breath. It caught the attention of the people in the room.

“Miles?” Uncle Aaron said, and he opened his eyes to find him out of the Prowler costume and in casual clothes crouched beside him. He was on Uncle Aaron’s couch. Milo hovered nearby, still in his knock-off Spider-Man costume, mask off.

Miles moved to sit up, carefully keeping his left arm as still as possible. “I’m okay,” he assured them, even as Uncle Aaron helped prop him up. “I’m fine. How long was I out?”

“A few hours." At the best of times, Uncle Aaron wasn’t a very emotive person. He was a smooth and effortless charmer, with an air of casual grace in every move. None of that was on display now; his face crumpled with concern. “I’m sorry, Miles,” he whispered, clasping a hand in his good arm’s. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you.”

He lightly squeezed back. “I wouldn’t have believed me either. Time-traveling nephews don’t happen every day,” he joked.

“Neither does dimensional traveling Spider-Men,” Uncle Aaron reminded him, a reluctant uptick to his smile.

Miles sniffed, pain and relief making his eyes watery. “I really missed you.”

Uncle Aaron’s head bowed. “I didn’t… think this job would kill me. Not so quickly. Not now.”

“I made a mural for you,” Miles whispered. It had crumbled to dust when the Abyss attacked, he didn’t say, didn’t want to re-live. “Dad helped me make it.”

“Really?” Uncle Aaron whispered, almost to himself. “Are we talking about the same guy here?”

“It was, um, private property. We had permission,” Miles added with a shrug, wincing as the movement jostled his injury. “I just… I did what you told me to. I kept going. It was… it was hard, though.”

“I’m sorry I missed so much,” Uncle Aaron apologized, carefully wrapping Miles in a hug. Shuddering, Miles hugged him back.

There was a creaking from the fire escape, and all three of them tensed, glancing over. Uncle Aaron stood up, his fists clenching. He didn’t relax, even with the reveal that it was just the other spider people, sans Blondie, Peter B taking the helm. 

“What are you guys doing here?” Milo asked, eyes red-rimmed but his voice strong.

“Collecting the time traveler,” Peter B answered, nodding at Miles. “We have a Spot to stop.”

Miles glanced up at Uncle Aaron. “What’s my prognosis, doc?”

Instead of answering him, Uncle Aaron addressed the Spider-People. “There’s five of you. I’m sure you have the collider covered without dragging my nephews into this.”

“We can’t stop the future if we don’t know who we’re stopping,” Gwen pointed out. “We’ve all fought with bullet wounds before. He’ll be fine.”

The group nodded. Milo stared at the Spider-People, mildly horrified, like they had grown a second head. Miles got up, tentatively moving his arm. It was tender. He couldn’t punch with it, but this was bigger than him. He still had three other limbs.

“I’ve only seen pre-Spot Spot in a picture. The collider explosion… disfigured him. His name is Johnathon Ohnn. We need to get all the scientists away from the collider,” Miles explained, straightening up.

“We’ll divide and conquer, then,” Noir contributed. “If one team focuses on the collider, the other can save the scientists.”

Miles hesitated. “The collider fight was a lot,” he reluctantly told them, unable to help a glance at Peter B. “It was all hands on deck. Kingpin’s lackeys are no joke.”

“As soon as they know you’re there, they’ll turn the collider on,” Uncle Aaron added.

Peni grinned. “Stealth mission, then?”

“I can help,” Milo piped up. All eyes turned to him, and he shifted nervously. “You know, because of my- my invisibility.”

Peter B met Miles’s eyes, considering him. “Miles?” he prompted him, and Miles realized that he would be the one to make the final decision. Who else could other than the person who had lived it all before?

He was going to have to break his own heart.

“You’re not ready, Milo,” Miles whispered, forcing himself to make eye contact. Milo sharply inhaled, betrayal in every line of his body. “Stay here with Uncle Aaron.”

“But- that’s not fair!” Milo choked out, furious. Miles glanced over at the other Spider-People, who seemed to get the message and moved to leave the apartment. “You need the numbers. Let me help. I can do this! You said it yourself; you’re proof that I can be Spider-Man.”

“You will be,” Miles assured him, taking a step forward and placing his hands on Milo’s shoulders, ignoring how it jarred his wound. “I promise you will be Spider-Man. But not now. You don’t need this stress.”

Milo stepped back, knocking Miles’s arms away from him. “I’m ready-”

“You’re going to get yourself killed,” Miles hissed, clenching his eyes shut, echoes of the past haunting him. He took a deep breath. “You’re not me. I’m not you. Not anymore. Time has changed me.”

“Your Uncle dying didn’t make you Spider-Man-”

“I lost everyone,” Miles whispered, cutting off Milo’s venomous words, his chest aching. “Dad died. Uncle Aaron died. My timeline is gone. I know the other spider-people, they were my friends, but they don’t know me. Nothing is the same, and I gave it all up for you. You. Aren’t. Ready.”

Milo blinked, furious beads of tears welling up. “Then let me prove it.”

He grabbed Milo by his Spider-Man costume and tugged him in close, pulling him off balance. Milo latched onto his arms to keep balance, hands wrapped around his elbow. “Then venom strike me right now, or turn invisible on command so you can get past me.”

And he tried. Clenching his eyes shut and tensing up, Milo tried to use his powers.

Nothing happened.

Miles was right, had known his younger self wasn’t ready, but it hurt to watch the past repeat and him be the one to inflict the pain.

Miles let him go, stepping back towards the window. He folded his arms, unable to look either of them in the eye. He wasn’t going to web him down like Peter B had done to him. Knew Milo had suffered enough humiliation without that. And it wasn’t like he was going to get a speech from his Dad to motivate him to break out with Uncle Aaron alive and well. “Everything will be okay,” he promised. “I’m going to make sure the future doesn’t happen… Goodbye Uncle Aaron, Goodbye Miles.”

“But I’ll see you afterward,” Milo protested. Miles flinched under the look from Uncle Aaron, the concern, the worry. Milo stepped forward as he reached the window. “At least… at least tell me when you knew you were ready.”

Sitting on the windowsill, Miles turned the question over in his head. He forced himself to look up and meet Milo’s lost eyes. “I didn’t. It’s a leap of faith. It’s always been a leap of faith.”

And then Miles thwipped a web, meeting the other Spider-People on the roof opposite, pulling his mask on.

“Are you okay?” Gwen quietly asked, a hand tentatively placed on his shoulder.

“Yeah,” Miles whispered, straightening up and giving them an unconvincing smile. “Let's stop the future.”

All of the Spider-People had split up to tackle the scientist problem. The work was slower and less exciting than purely punching and kicking bad guys. No less nerve-wracking, though.

The longer it dragged on, the more Miles’s hands shook. Room by room, he inched closer to the collider, all too aware of the deadline breathing down his neck. The more scientists they evacuated (willingly or not), the higher the chance of their work getting noticed and the collider sequence starting up anyway.

Miles snuck into another lab, eyes darting around for movement, but froze when he spotted the enigmatic shadow in the corner. It swirled in rolling vortexes, the white and black putting his heart in his throat. The vaguely humanoid shape tilted its head and waved, taunting him.

The worst part was he couldn’t decide if it was real or not.

“Spider-Man? Are you Spider-Man?” A familiar voice asked from behind him, goosebumps crawling up his arms.

Swallowing, he turned to face the Spot - or Johnathon Ohnn, he remembered, startled to see how… normal he looked. Wide-rimmed glasses, the sides of his hair shaved with a bush of hair on top, lab coat on. Nothing about him screamed ‘multiverse destroying threat.’

Frozen in place, he flinched away too late when Johnathon poked him with a pen. “Hey! Hands off the goods.”

“Interesting, we did manage to bring people over from other dimensions!” Jonathan exclaimed, pushing Miles back onto his workbench and tapping his knee with something.

“Stop that,” Miles complained, attempting to get up and being pushed back down. Wow, he was a lot stronger than he appeared. “And I’m not the ‘specimen’ you want to examine if that’s what you’re interested in.”

“What? What do you mean?” Jonathan asked, head jolting up.

“Look, you need to stop messing with the… whatever those dark particles are,” Miles said, vaguely gesturing at the large container with constantly moving black spots. It reminded him of a lava lamp, if a lava lamp could be emo. He tried to grab the scientist’s wrist, but he darted out of range. “Come on, we need to get you out of here before the collider sequence starts.”

“No way! I’m not leaving this lab. I have to study-”

“You really don’t want to study this,” Miles insisted. And now he was getting measured. What the hell. “You won’t like the consequences, is all I’m saying.”

Pushing his glasses up, Jonathan’s eyes narrowed. “Spoken like someone who knows the consequences.”

Miles sighed, trying again to get up and grab the scientist, only to be denied. “Yeah, it’s called time travel. And you are a headache. You, me, leave, now.”

“Time travel, wow. That’s fascinating. What kind of time travel are you experiencing? Is it a closed time loop, or have you produced an alternate branched timeline? Do you believe you have free will? Or is everything predetermined and always going to happen? If you die, do you think you would wake up at the start Groundhog Day style?”

Miles threw his hands up, waving them around as if to clear the air. “Woah, woah, hold on now.”

“How much of the past have you changed?” Jonathan demanded with glimmering eyes, leaning in way too close. Miles pushed him back.

“If I answer, will you finally leave?” Miles asked, giving in with a sigh.

Tilting his head to the side, Jonathan shrugged. “Oh, fine. Yes, I guess I will.”

“Spider-Man, this universe’s Spider-Man, Mr. Red and Blue, he originally died,” Miles explained, folding his arms.

“The downstream effects of that would be enormous, I’m sure,” Jonathan mumbled, more to himself than Miles. He turned back to him, and Miles could see him connecting the dots, coming to some sort of scientific conclusion. “And when did the other dimensional Spider-People show up? Before or after his original death?”

“Before. Not by much, but yeah. As far as I can tell, the… timeline of the very multiverse was erased. No one has, um, contacted me,” Miles divulged, trying to anticipate Johnathon’s next question.

“There goes the grandfather paradox then. There must be another answer to it,” Jonathan said, finally stepping back.

“The what?”

“Oh, don’t worry about it. You’re probably stuck in this new timeline forever, is all! Hope you like the past. ‘Cause if the paradox had been in effect, you would have faded away or disappeared or something as soon as you made a change that inhibited the vector of your time traveling,” Jonathan explained offhandedly, frantically scribbling down illegible notes.

Miles paused, heart in his throat. The Spot, the Abyss, was how he time traveled. Would he fade away as soon as he left the room? He looked over at the shadows, eyes catching on the vortex still taunting him with its presence.

A sharp pain, a pinch to his arm, snapped him out of it. Getting up, he shooed Johnathon towards the door. “Hey! Come on, we’re leaving, I did my part.”

“How did you even come back in time?” Jonathan asked over his shoulder. “You’re weirdly insistent about me leaving. Am I the reason you came back in time?”

Miles flushed, glad for his mask. “No!” he lied.

Shoving him out the door, he glanced back at where the shadowy figure had lurked. It waved at him, slowly fading without so much as a whisper. Miles looked at his own hands, checking if they were disappearing. Besides his own invisibility, which he flickered on and off, nothing had changed. He remained.

Swallowing, he tried to focus back on the task at hand. He refused to celebrate until the collider was destroyed - he knew the dangers of tempting fate all too well.

Some things changed. Others stayed the same.

The collider had turned on with a burst of color. By then, only the scientists in the main room remained. Somehow, he had ended up with the goober, the guy who could only use one arm, but there was no time to complain.

Racing up the ceiling of the collider, dodging stray cars and lampposts and hotdog carts, Miles thwipped a web up to the panel. Falling to his knees, he pried it open, pulling the goober out and fumbling to try and put it in the right way.

His spider-sense arched a split second before a tentacled appendage slammed him into the ceiling, rapidly binding him, choking all the air from his lungs.

“Any last words?” Doc Ock crowed, victorious, pulling him in closer.

“Can you- be- any more cliche?” Miles gasped, clenching his eyes shut, waves of pain from his bullet wound distracting him.

As he began to fade, he deliriously internally laughed that he had come this far only to die to Doc Ock of all people.

And then he was free falling.

A web latched onto his chest, tugging him up, and on instinct, he stuck to the first solid surface. Desperately inhaling, when he opened his eyes, the blur of purple and green fighting limbs darting off into the distance was not what he expected.

“Prowler?” Miles croaked and then cleared his throat.

“You okay?” Someone asked, a familiar voice. His voice.

“Milo! Miles!” Miles exclaimed, pure pride rushing through him. He couldn’t help it; he quickly hugged his younger self. Even when they broke apart, Milo laughing breathlessly, he kept a hand cupped around the back of his neck. He smelled like spray paint. His costume the one Miles had worn a lifetime ago. “You did your leap of faith! I knew you had it in you! Scary as hell, right?”

“So scary,” Milo agreed. He could hear the grin in his voice. “I couldn’t have done it without Uncle Aaron’s encouragement.”

His cheeks hurt from smiling. Something nostalgic instead of grief-stricken made his chest ache. “For me, it was Dad. His speech was everything I needed.”

“I can’t wait for him to meet you,” Milo said.

Miles shifted, his gut churning. He hadn’t disappeared or faded, even though the Spot would never exist. Maybe he had to plan for the future now. Maybe he would have to see Dad again.

“Right. Yeah. What are we going to tell him?” A bullet embedded next to them, and Miles snapped back to attention, the bubble of privacy bursting. “Later. Let’s shut this down. Ready?”

Milo held up his fist. “Ready.”

They fist bumped with a ‘dap.’

“So. The future…” Peter B casually asked, arms folded, watching Peni make her grand exit. The portal closed behind her, revealing once again the dusty remains of the collider, the ceiling above gone revealing the night sky. It was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen. Miles finally felt relaxed. He was stuck in the past forever. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. “Do things… get better?”

Miles shrugged. “I don’t have much to go off of now. And why jinx it, right?”

“Right. Right.” Peter B paused, clearly waiting for something. Miles raised his eyebrows, tilting his head to look at the man from the corner of his eyes. “Just. You know. Do I… make any big decisions? Make amends? Have… kids?”

Miles bit his lip, grateful for the mask that hid his knowing grin. “I think you would make a great dad. If you take that leap of faith.”

“...And I don’t mess it up?” Peter B asked, almost a whisper, something joyous and wondrous in his voice.

“No.” Then Miles considered it. “Though, maybe you shouldn’t bring a baby into a chase.”

Peter B chuckled. “Right. I’ll remember that. Thank you.”

“Don’t be a stranger,” Miles asked, a bead of desperation bleeding into his voice. Peter B wrapped a hand around his shoulders, pulling him in tight.

“I won’t,” he promised.

Then there were three.

Uncle Aaron, Milo, and him. Perched on a rooftop overlooking the scene of destruction. Miles could see his Dad milling about organizing the arrest of scientists and goons alike. Safe. Alive. Breathing.

It soothed something in him, knowing that he was okay.

He really had stopped the future.

“I don’t know what to do now,” Miles admitted to the other two, leaning against a gargoyle. “I didn’t think I would make it this far.”

Uncle Aaron kneeled next to him, squeezing his shoulder comfortingly. “You were always going to make it. I wouldn’t have let it be any other way.”

“Thanks,” Miles whispered. He straightened up with a deep breath, turning to Milo. “Well, how are we going to tell Mom and Dad? I’m… well, it's pretty hard to explain if we don’t tell them we’re Spider-Man.”

“Do we have to?” Milo asked, his face twisted in nervous knots.

He never had a chance to tell Mom and Dad he was Spider-Man. He didn’t know how it would go down. Gwen had said not to… until she had changed her mind.

“We’ll have to tell them eventually,” Miles pointed out reluctantly.

Milo sighed. Then, like a light bulb had gone off above his head, he perked up. “I’ve got an idea!”

Let’s do this one last time.

My name is Miles Morales. I was bitten by a radioactive spider, and for who’s-even-counting I’ve been one of three Spider-Men.

Adjusting to the past has been hard. Living with Uncle Aaron, my ‘long-lost-estranged-father-that-I-recently-reconnected-with,’ has helped. I met Mom and Dad, enduring comments on how similar Milo and I look. Definitely cousins, you can just see it. Could even be brothers.

I earned a place at Brooklyn Visions again. Made new friends. Reconnected the Spider-Verse. Miguel still hates me, but we’re getting there. Canon events have thankfully stayed firmly in the past.

Being Spider-Man has never been more fun. Swinging with Peter and Milo ends in a race almost every time.

Johnathon Ohnn continues to be a scientist but never became the Spot.

Things are different. They’ll never be the way they were before, as much as I ache for it sometimes.

But when I laugh at a dumb joke from Blondie or train with Uncle Aaron or hug my ‘Uncle’ Jeff… I would do it all over again.