Comfort Within Yourself

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/48241948.

Rating: Not Rated

Archive Warning: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Category: F/M, Gen
Fandom: Spider-Man: Spider-Verse (Sony Animated Movies)
Relationship: Miles Morales & Miles Morales | Prowler (Earth-42 Spider-Man: Across
the Spider-Verse), Aaron Davis (Marvel Earth-42) & Miles Morales |
Prowler (Marvel Earth-42), Jefferson Morales (Earth-1610)/Rio Morales,
Aaron Davis (Marvel Earth-42) & Miles Morales, Aaron Davis (Earth-42)
& Miles Morales | Prowler (Earth-42) & Rio Morales (Earth-42),
Jefferson Morales (Earth-1610) & Miles Morales & Rio Morales
Character: Miles Morales | Prowler (Marvel Earth-42), Miles Morales, Spot (Spider-
Man: Across the Universe), Aaron Davis (Marvel Earth-42), Peter B.
Parker (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse), Gwen Stacy | Spider-
Gwen, Pavitr Prabhakar, Hobie Brown, Rio Morales, Jefferson Morales
(Earth-1610), Miguel O'Hara, Lyla | LYrate Lifeform Approximation
(Earth-928), Rio Morales (Marvel Earth-42), Jefferson Morales (Marvel
Earth-42), Wilson Fisk
Additional Tags: Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Hurt Miles Morales, the both of
them, I blew Spot up in the first chapter, this is just a multi chap fic of
pain and fluff, Miles G is a teenager too, Miles & Miles G being forced to
bond within one shitty night, Minor Character Death, Miles Morales Is
So Done, Flashbacks, Hand wavy science, We aint getting into
Princeton with this one, Frequent updates, Im gonna write out all my
story plots before BTSV completely destroys them, Friendship,
Violence, Accidental Sibling Acquisition, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Stats: Published: 2023-06-30 Updated: 2023-09-01 Words: 47,319 Chapters:
18/?

Comfort Within Yourself

by Jora_hamiltrash7777

Summary

First, it was the clone of himself appearing from thin air, next he was being dragged into a
portal with said clone.

Oh, and said clone also wants to share parents.

(He didn’t have his father and Miles didn’t have an Uncle Aaron. Maybe tragedy followed
the Davis brothers through every universe but, Christ, Miles G wished it didn’t show
through their sons and nephews. He wondered if Miles had a mural of Uncle Aaron on the
wall of his apartment roof and balked when he found himself looking for similarities again.

Did he want to help people?)

Notes

Did some research and apparently comic Miles has a super move called Mega Venom Blast
so we're using that and sheer willpower to defeat Spot tonight <3

See the end of the work for more notes

 The Start of the End

“I’m sorry this happened to you.”

The blank face did not react, still and chalk white just like the encompassing space around them. It
stretched on and on and not one black portal could be seen near or far. The warm brown of skin
and a bright red spider were the only contrast against the white. Two figures, forged by science and
pain, stood parallel to each other.

Miles Morales was tired.

Spot tilted his head, a disjointed movement that sent a flare through Miles’ sixth sense, and
chuckled. The lanky form rose from his knees, posture tilted in that offsetting way as he
compensated for his long legs by leaning back. “You ruined me and all I get is sorry?”

Miles was tired .

“I chased you down and had to blow a hole through your little spider buddy’s dimension for you to
take me seriously.” The words were spoken incredulously, echoing far off into the blank of space,
and Miles closed his eyes and fell into the burn of electricity. It was hot, it lashed down Miles’
sensitive nerves with familiar power. And when the visions of chaos, destruction, and Dad dying
came…Miles did not panic. He did not falter. He kept going.

And released the electric-fueled venom blackening his eyesight.

Marvelous waves of electricity tore through the blank white space, it brought both villain and hero
to their knees, and by the time Miles realized there was a portal open right above the Super
Collider, Spot had already been angled in between Miles and the particle accelerator. The screams,
both from Miles and Spot, weren’t heard over the chitter of the electricity swirling around like a
hurricane and the roar of the active supercollider. He must have turned it on.

Miles was the eye, threats of the end of everything he loved the ocean he drew his power from.
“I’m sorry,” Spider-Man started, “but I can’t let you do this,” Miles concluded.
 A Spot on the Wall
Chapter Summary

The aftermath of Spot's destruction.

Chapter Notes

POV is Prowler Miles so he is being called Miles until they switch to Miles and Miles
G

See the end of the chapter for more notes

It was going to rain.

He could smell it through the smoke and dust clouding the blast zone, a sharp acidic stench tainted
by the fires ravaging NYC. Wheezes escaped his chest in uneven breaths and he reached for his
head before he could stop himself. His mask was scratched to hell and so was his face. Going over
his body for injury was a familiar process. Uncle Aaron demanded it after their missions and he
found himself being grateful that the man had forced those rules into the forefront of his mind. His
hearing was gone, replaced by a high pitch whine coming from his latest head injury, and his vision
was blacked out.

“Things are getting tough, Miles…”

Alchemax was out of business for the foreseeable future, perhaps forever, once the city of
desperate souls descended on the building remains like vultures. All this metal could be melted
down for bullets, all those bullets could lead to more bloodbaths, and Miles would watch the
crowd of kids screwed over by a stray bullet grow. The thought passed his mind briefly before he
went back to scoping out the area with his limited senses. He could still feel the vibrations of
rubble falling and the aftershocks of the earthquake triggered by the accelerator. He coughed and
screwed his eyes shut when pain ignited in his ribs, hot and achy. He knew that if he removed his
crop jacket and enforced compression Prowler shirt his chest would be a canvas of blues and
purples. I’ve had worse, he reminded himself and started blinking his eyes open.

Dust coated his dark eyelashes and he ignored the urge to rub his eyes as he adjusted himself into a
more dignified position. He didn’t need anyone stumbling across his beat-up body sprawled to hell,
especially not his counterpart. The thought of other him made him call out weakly. They had been
side by side when they pushed that odd being into the accelerator and now the other boy was gone.
The battle had been a whirlwind and Miles wasn’t even sure if he helped that much but Other Him
seemed thankful, oddly enough, for his assistance.
His hearing came back first.

Glass shattering, rubble falling, metal creaking, and the plop plop plop of something dripping
overhead. “Miles,” he coughed, and he didn’t think calling his own name would be something he’d
get used to, “where-”

His coughing cut him off and during his hacking fit, he could feel the dust coating his throat,
another bright reminder of the mass destruction he had partaken in. Each cough seemed to bring
back his vision and by the end of it, he was staring at a completely decimated lab facility.

It was disconcerting.

Alchemax was a place he came to often enough. He was familiar with its halls, vents, private
staircases, and most importantly its benefactor. Fisk was obsessed with the research facility, both
the ones in Brooklyn and in Hudson Valley. Whenever Kingpin called the Prowler in for a job, 9
times out of 10 it would be from his office at Alchemax. And now the place was nothing more but
a hellscape of science and destruction. Miles scoffed lightly when a piece of glass fell and shattered
right by his head as if on cue. He got up, removing his claw gauntlets and attaching them to his belt
with shaky hands before he stumbled toward the safest-looking exit path.

He tripped whenever a loose piece of rubble shifted beneath his feet and he found himself
appreciating the elegant strides he had acquired over the years when they became the only thing
between him and eating concrete. A light flickered before him, briefly illuminating the area 10 feet
ahead and exposing a black leg. He sighed, reaching for his butterfly knives and trekking toward
the leg with reluctant steps. He swore if that creepy hole man didn’t get blasted into atoms like he
speculated he would lose his shit. He got closer, twirling the knives with expert movements before
he stopped.

The bottom of the black leg was red and there were no white holes or dots on it. This was Miles…
Other Miles. The Other Miles who was awkward to a fault but carried himself with the same
graceful motions the Prowler did. The Prowler sighed again, tiredness seeping from every pore of
his body. This wasn't his usual style and he knew that. But the wave of want that came over him
when he decided to help Other Miles was still surging forward and it was the most he’d felt since
the night he became the Prowler. He put the knives away, shook his hands out, and then got to
lifting rubble off of his counterpart.

He worked quickly, ignoring the cuts and scrapes he got from particularly sharp debris. Within
minutes the slight figure trapped under the rubble started to move sluggishly. Miles hurried,
bracing his leg against a slab of concrete to heave a large piece of rubble off the other Miles. The
boy pinned under the rubble jumped at the movement, within seconds he was wide awake and
swinging as though his life depended on it. Miles scowled, jumping back when the rest of the
rubble was tossed off the other boy and sent flying in all directions.

"Relax," he snapped, "you tryna bring this place down on us again?"

His voice was enough to stop the other version of him and he mumbled a sarcastic stream of curses
under his breath as the rubble settled again. The other Miles blinked, wide eyes taking in his
surroundings before he hesitantly spoke. "Are you okay?"

Miles froze for a second and instantly felt ire from his quick moment of surprise. His uncle did not
spend months training him just for some overly optimistic version of himself to push him off kilter.
It was bad enough that he ditched the operation and blew a very generous paycheck behind this
‘Spot’ bullshit, but to emotionally compromise himself any further would be a disgrace. He
pretended that his desire was strictly a Prowler emotion and crammed his raw feelings back into
the box they belonged in. "Yeah," He said curtly, deliberately refusing to help the other Miles up.

The boy didn't seem to need assistance either way because he leaped up with the energy of
someone who had just woken from a nice cat nap despite just being trapped under what must have
been over 200 lbs of debris. Miles glanced around again and tried to stay calm through the surge of
dread he felt when he took in the destruction.

Fisk was going to be enraged .

Throughout the two years Miles had worked for Kingpin as the Prowler, he had watched the man
pour millions of dollars into the Super Collider and other projects at Alchemax. The man's
obsession with finding his family in another dimension, safe and alive, led to a lot of secrets. Some
people were allowed to know those secrets, the people who weren't…well the Prowler tried not to
drag out their deaths. But this was…this was years of work down the drain in one night.

"We gotta go," he told his counterpart, "I can't get caught up in this."

His mother, his uncle, and his life would be on the line if Kingpin found out that the mercenary he
had brought into his inner circle betrayed him like this. Miles had never taken his mask off in the
man’s presence but if people came sniffing around now and saw him he would be screwed. Maybe
the Prowler wasn't one for showy acts of violence but Wilson Fisk was.

"Yeah, let's-" Other Miles started twitching, a lag that made Miles believe his concussion was more
severe than he thought before Other Miles started breaking apart before his eyes. Colors distorting
and a voice trying to gasp for help were all Miles had time to observe before Other Miles was back
to normal, breathing heavily but not glitching anymore.

He decided to let the moment pass gracefully, turning on his heel and slinking up a steep hill of
rubble. Other him followed easily and he found himself getting annoyed by the comfortable
silence. He didn't know this…other him. He should not be comfortable with this alternate him that
came from another universe , but he was, and it made no sense.

"Hey, Miles-"
"Do you-"

They spoke at the same time, voices blending together in a creepy harmony before they both
clammed up. Miles looked at Other Miles, Other Miles looked back. "Does your mom call you
something different…where you're from?" Miles asked quietly, continuing the trek to an exit with
his last dregs of energy.

"She calls me papá or mijo… and this mom does too, man." Other Miles started, voice muted in
suspicion. He probably knew where Miles was going with this conversation already.

"She's my mom, not yours," Miles clarified with the barest hint of hate in his voice, "and I can't
keep calling both of us Miles in my head…it's…"

"Weird?" Other Miles finished and Miles hated that he didn't sink down to the loose jab he'd
thrown out. "I know- knew two Peters, one was just Peter and the other is Peter B we could do
something like that."

"They dead or something?" Miles asked instead of answering and from the corner of his eye he saw
Other Him flinch. "Yeah, we could do that…my middle name is Gonzalo."

"Mine too," was just the answer he suspected, "You could be Miles G and I'll be Miles!" Other
Miles concluded and Miles rolled his eyes up to the heavens as he went to respond-

Plop plop plop…

They both caught onto the noise at the same time, glancing at each other and losing the strange
comfortable kinship they had formed throughout the night. Miles stood still, head cocked to the
side like a puppy while Miles G observed. When Miles' eyes trailed up to the ceiling in a slow
movement, Miles G glanced up too.

A strange figure was draped over a fallen ceiling light. The body was chalk white and a strange
gray liquid was seeping from various points of its body. Miles had called it the Spot, Miles G
remembered, he had thought it was a stupid name until the man teleported right inside Uncle
Aaron's apartment hurling nonsense at Miles who was still tied to the punching bag.

“Give me a moment, Miles,” Uncle Aaron said, and Miles G removed the claw he had pressed up
to Miles’ face as the older man’s phone rang. Uncle Aaron checked the caller ID, tsked loudly, and
left through the front door.

“I shouldn’t be here,” Miles pleaded when the door closed with the click of a lock sliding into
place. Miles G straightened his head and stared. “You just come to that conclusion?” He rasped,
staring at Miles with a spark of fury hidden in his dead, hazel eyes. “You was in my room, wearing
my clothes, talking to my mamá but now that I got you here, all of a sudden it’s ‘I shouldn’t be
here’?”

“I didn’t know until I glitched,” Miles swore, and Miles G realized with a quick scan over that the
other boy was twitching his fingers. He looked back up at his counterpart's face and noticed,
uneased and suspicious, that the boy’s hazel brown eyes had a tint of electric blue in them. He
stepped away, the permanent scowl etched onto his face deepening with every passing second
before he finally snapped.

“How’d your Uncle Aaron die?”

The question veered Miles into a wall of pain and he flinched minutely. “He was shot,” the boy
said after a beat, shifting but not struggling in his bonds. The quiet confidence was something
ingrained in the boy’s veins. ‘If we fight, I’ll win,’ it said, and Miles G leaned back in a practiced
motion. He opened his mouth to ask another question, get another detail, anything to get a leg up
above this strange counterpart of himself who seemed secure in something . He didn’t get a word
out before a dark mass formed on his uncle’s wall right above the sofa. “I don’t wanna fight you,”
Miles said quickly and when Miles G looked at him he noticed the electric blue was back, “But I
have to stop Spot to save our Dad.”

Our.

Miles said ‘our’ like Miles G had a right to get to experience a life with Dad still alive. He called
Uncle Aaron by that familial title as though any version of Aaron, evil or good, would always be
his uncle. He had spoken to Rio as naturally as he would with his own mother. And now the one
thing Miles G no longer had, the thing he had taken for granted, Miles was offering him willingly.
Like he had some cosmic claim to all Jefferson Davises.

“Back to where it really started,” Spot crooned, “isn’t this hilarious?”

If the black figure, covered in ominous white spots, wasn’t crawling out of the hole in the wall and
talking crazy, Miles G would've rebuffed his counterpart. But for now, he slashed through the
ropes holding Miles up, and fell into a fighting stance.

They changed their escape route in favor of getting closer to the Spot. Webs and rockets between
the both of them got them closer to the light fixture the body- no, not body, still alive person was
hanging from. They both stopped in their tracks, recoiling from the scent of decay and smoke the
Spot was emitting. The man’s body had reverted back to that blank white Miles had found himself
being most familiar with but unlike last time, the man had a face. Multiple faces.

The faces covered almost every part of Spot’s body and each of them was screwed up in pain. The
noses, the eyes, and the mouths were all gushing this odd grayish-dark liquid. They stepped closer,
mouths clamped shut and lungs still as they stopped breathing. In the middle of Spot’s forehead
was one single black hole, it whispered and swirled on the chalky white skin and Miles G found
his hand twitching as though it wished it were curled around his gun. They waited for a beat, eyes
fixed on the dark hole with growing horror. Spot jerked, one final muscle spasm before a spark of
electricity crackled and all his faces went slack and the hole blinked from existence.

Quiet.
 The spidey sense was quiet, not even a tingle against Miles’ spine, and the boy filed away the sight
of Spot’s rapidly disintegrating body to be addressed later. He looked to his left, taking in the brief
flash of disgust on Miles G’s face, and snickered. The sound snapped the taller boy out of his
revulsion and he was instantly back on defense. “Come on,” he ordered, voice pitching down when
his mask closed over his face in a seamless click, “we gotta leave now.” He turned around, back to
Miles, and started walking off.

“My ribs,” Miles started and the Prowler stopped in his tracks and tilted his head in a gesture for
him to continue, “some of them are broken, I don’t think I can swing all the way back.”

“I can get us back.” Miles G reassured, continuing down a hill of rubble to slip away from the
Alchemax destruction. Already, he could hear police sirens and other emergency responders
zipping toward the fallen lab facility. He winced under his mask at the sight of the first group of
police cars. Fisk did not like police snooping around in his business and by tomorrow Miles G
knew those officers would be in the morgue.

He averted his thoughts from his boss and turned to see if Miles was still following him. The boy
was a few paces behind but sped up when he caught Miles G looking at him. Rolling his eyes,
Miles G mumbled for him to keep up, the demand turning into a jumbled mess through his
vocoder.

Miles understood him anyway.

Chapter End Notes

The Miles & Miles G reminded me of Peter & Peter B but there's no point in using the
distinction for the latter pair because Peter died :(
 Your People
Chapter Summary

Finding differences was like searching for a drop of blood in the ocean.

Chapter Notes

TW: Stitches, Blood

Literally had to google how motorcycles work

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Miles G’s way of getting them back to Uncle Aaron’s apartment was by stealing a motorcycle.

“I would've used my own, but it’s still at Uncle Aaron’s place,” Miles G snapped when Miles
protested the theft. “And this things a piece of shit, ain’t nobody gonna miss it.”

Sighing, Miles got on the back of it and steadied himself against Miles G when the boy revved up
the motorcycle and sped off without pause. Downtown Brooklyn was busy and if Miles ignored the
smoke from fires and the permanent gloom hanging over the city it was almost identical to his
Brooklyn. Looking around, he noticed the things he didn’t have time to observe when he had first
swung through the city during his panic attack. Like the Best Buy billboard advertising SONI
headphones, the Burger Queen on the corner, and a store Miles was sure closed in his universe
when he was 8.

He clutched Miles G's shoulders when they took a sharp turn, splashing up rainwater and spraying
it in a smooth arc much to the ire of the cab drivers in front of them, and sped through a residential
street. The wind and rain against his bare face stung, so he closed his eyes and looked down. The
ride continued and faintly he realized that Miles G hadn’t stopped for a single red light the whole
time they’d been riding the stolen motorcycle. The other boy seemed to know what he was doing
so he brushed the realization away and focused on his ribs knitting themselves back together. His
healing had already taken care of his black eye, rope burns, and the other injuries he had acquired
from outrunning an entire society of super-powered spider mutates. Well, all except for the claw
scratches on his shoulder.

A shiver traveled through him and for a moment he thought it was because the stress of the day,
fueled by terror and betrayal, had finally settled in him but no…he knew this feeling. This feeling
of you’re like me, we’re the same, we’re connected.

Spider-people.
He gripped Miles G’s shoulders tighter, grunting when the boy jerked the motorcycle to the left at
the pressure. “What?” The boy yelled, voice deep and menacing through the mask. Miles hesitated,
struggling to find an explanation that would make sense. Most of his panicked rambles when he
was tied to that punching bag were probably brushed off as hysterical lies so he didn’t know how
to phrase this without setting the taller boy off.

“We’re being followed!” He shouted over the roar of wind in his ears. His counterpart answered
with a rev of the engine and a quick gear shift. They zipped off, dangerous maneuvers between
people and cars keeping them upright and moving. The rumble of a motorcycle tearing down paved
streets evoked shrieks of terror and Miles felt guilty for a moment before Miles G turned the bike
into an alley so quickly that it was like they had never been driving through the streets in the first
place.

“Stay low.” Miles G ordered and they both jogged down the alley leaving the stolen motorcycle
abandoned behind them. Miles scratched the back of his neck when his senses continued to buzz
with nervous energy. One chase seemed to have programmed it to categorize all Spiders as threats
and now Miles didn’t have a reliable gauge to judge how dangerous these people were.

He swallowed, hoping it wasn’t Miguel, and scanned the rooftops above him. A few spiders he
could probably beat even in his current condition, but Miguel was a different type of strong and
Miles didn’t think he’d be getting away this time if the man came after him now. The sight of a
familiar top hat and trench coat stopped him in his tracks and he completely missed Miles G
hissing at him until the boy reached back and grabbed him. “ Go ,” the Prowler demanded, claw
gauntlets clinking against his belt as he ran down some steps and pushed an old green door open
with a kick of his rocket-enforced sneaker. Miles followed in after him, brushing off his glimpse of
the man on the roof as nothing but a fluke.

The basement Miles G had brought them seemed to double as a laundry room and boiler room.
Warmth from the machines settled into their bones and warmed them up from their time out in the
wind and rain. The rattling of clothes tumbling in a dryer was the only thing heard in the room
before Miles G rounded on Miles while ripping his mask away as though the thing had burned him.
“Who the hell were those people on the roof?” The boy's eyes were crazed and shifty as he glanced
towards the basement door back to Miles, he paced for a second before stopping in front of the
active dryer and then turned back to Miles clearly waiting for an answer.

“I told you I’m from a different dimension,” Miles started and internally sighed when Miles G held
up a hand. He didn’t have time to be accused of being crazy or lying-

“Wait,” the boy said, reaching into one of his pockets and pulling out his phone.

42 missed calls and messages.

He huffed lowly, putting the phone back in his pocket and not checking the caller ID. He already
knew who it was. “We gotta get back to Uncle Aaron’s place first,” he said plainly, reaching up
and feeling over his braids in a nervous movement, “then you needa tell me about all of this shit.
From the start.”

From the moment Miles realized he was in the wrong universe, he felt a slimmer of hope. His
counterpart was willing to listen to him now. He thought for sure that he would have to fight the
boy and end up with another person on his ass but Miles G had helped him, however begrudgingly,
and even seemed unwilling to leave him alone. Miles moved to agree but the shuffle of feet put
them both on edge.

The door to the laundry room opened and in came a woman.

An old woman hunched over her walker. She paid the two of them no mind and made a slow
beeline toward the dryer that was still vibrating as it tumbled clothes around in its stomach. The
two boys looked at each with twin looks of disbelief and quickly left through the door the old
woman had come through. They followed each other down the hall towards an elevator and
quickly hopped in when the up button lit up. Miles G shrugged out of his high-collar crop jacket
and folded the clothing article up as small as he could before shoving it and his mask into one of
the pockets of his cargo pants. “I don’t need someone’s nosy ass abuelita finding out I’m the
Prowler.” He explained when he caught Miles’ questioning look.

“I get it,” Miles agreed. He missed the feeling of his mask concealing his features as he walked
around in his spider suit, it seemed unnatural to wear one part and not the other. “Does Mom know-
your mom, I mean, about the Prowler stuff?”

The elevator felt tight all of a sudden and the glare Miles G shot him instantly shattered the light
mood between them. “Does your mamá know you have powers?” The boy asked rhetorically
before squeezing out of the elevator and putting a few feet between them.

“No,” Miles answered anyway, rubbing his arms as they left the apartment lobby and walked out
into the street. “But I’m going to tell her as soon as I get the chance.”

“Good luck,” Miles G scoffed, “that’ll go over real good for you. Hurry up, we needa get inside
before curfew starts.”

“Curfew? For you?” Miles questioned as he picked up the pace. He could see Uncle Aaron’s
building on the next street over and it sent a pang of nostalgia through him.

“For the whole city,” Miles G answered, “All the Cartel violence is starting to get to civilians so
the mayor got the cops out looking for anyone who’s out after 8.”

A city-wide curfew. Miles couldn’t imagine the amount of crime happening in NYC for that to
even be possible. It was never supposed to bite you. Somewhere off in the distance, the rapid-fire
pops of a gun echoed through the streets and the responding police sirens only succeeded in
drowning the sound out. There’s a world out there with no Spider-Man. Miles stumbled, vision
swimming as the lean figure of his counterpart strode down the street.

“Good guy?” Uncle Aaron repeated, music thrumming from speakers. A hand of sharp claws
brushing dangerously close to his face and then…

“I’m not.”
The painful pull of glitching pulled him out of his spiral and when he was yanked off the floor by a
strong hand he inhaled sharply. Miles G stared at him blankly, hazel brown eyes appearing mocha
in the dark gloom of the streets. “Let's go,” he told Miles simply and this time he stayed next to the
hero as they approached Uncle Aaron’s building. The moment Miles G opened the lobby door the
street lights went out and an awful blare sounded from the corner of every street. The curfew
warning lasted for two minutes before the streets were deathly quiet. Swiping his tongue over his
teeth, Miles closed the heavy lobby door behind him and looked to Miles G for his next course of
action. Now that they were inside the option of taking the fire escape was out, so now it would
have to be the stairs or the elevator.

When he glanced at his taller counterpart, Miles found the boy on his phone. Fingers tapped over
the screen in fast movements and the boy put his phone up by his ear like he was on a call. He
listened with full attention to the voice on the other side of the phone before closing his eyes and
poking his cheek with his tongue as he hit the hang-up button.

“Uncle Aaron wants to talk to you.” Miles G informed him quietly. Miles blanched at the tone and
furrowed his brow as he thought of Earth-42’s Uncle Aaron. The only thing this Uncle Aaron and
his Uncle Aaron seemed to have in common was their taste in music and connection to the Prowler.
This Uncle Aaron was used to a rougher, meaner version of life and had made that clear when he
shut down Miles’ attempts of trying to be heard.

I’m not.

The rejection had stung Miles for just a second before his brain went back to survival mode. “Is he
up there right now?” If he was Miles might actually just sit on a rooftop and let someone from
Spider Society find him…or die of cellular decay. Whichever came first.

“Nah,” Miles G denied absently, “he came back in after we went to Alchemax. We had a job to do
but…I was gone so he had to do it himself. He’s coming back from Manhattan now.” Miles
nodded, nerves calming and shoulders losing tension as they decided to wait for the elevator. He
could not confront Uncle Aaron right now. Too much had happened since he was thrown in this
sick parallel of his own universe and round 2 with a man who wore his uncle’s face would
officially push him over the edge. The cramped elevator carried them up and soon they were back
in the apartment again.

The paint above the couch was peeling where Spot had placed his dark portal and the apartment
still smelt of burning plastic from when Miles venom striked Spot back into his own portal before
getting sucked in alongside Miles G. There was no music playing and Miles G realized with a
twinge of guilt that the safe where he and his uncle stored their pistols in was slightly open. They
only used guns for risky jobs.

They had this job planned for weeks. And he had blown his uncle off just to chase after some
emotion that spawned from his-

“You want to play around with your future, Miles, be my guest!”

“Do you need stitches or anything?” He asked Miles, watching the boy glance around the
apartment. Miles was looking around as though he hadn’t been here, or at least his version of this
apartment, in a while. Again he found himself faltering and losing the ice barrier he had built since
the night he learned Dad died. When the boy nervously started playing around in his afro, Miles G
took it as a yes and moved toward the bathroom to get the bulky med kit under the sink.

“How’d you get here?” He asked once he came back to the living room with the med kit in hand,
“From your universe or whatever.”

Miles jumped and flashed his eyes toward the window before he sat on the floor where Miles G
had placed down the med kit. “I didn’t come here directly from my universe. There’s like a HQ in
one universe where all the Spider-People meet up and there are machines that can send somebody
home after it scans their DNA. I used one of those…and ended up here, man.”

“But you don’t belong here.” Miles G stated and he filed away the flinch Miles gave him into the
back of his mind. “I mean…your DNA isn’t from here.”

He picked up a needle, “Those need stitches.” Miles glanced at his shoulder, scratched to hell and
not even half scabbed over. Looking at them seemed to ignite a flare of pain so he went back to
staring out of the window as his counterpart sprayed a ridiculous amount of antiseptic over the
claw marks.

When the needle went in and came out for the third time, Miles G started on with his questions
again. “What’s your universe like?”

“Loud, active, I mean Brooklyn is always Brooklyn,” Miles said absently, “this one is just darker.”
Literally and metaphorically. “Our rooms are kinda the same and so are other parts of the
apartment. Mami is…”

This Mom was different than his. He didn’t see it when he first came through the bedroom window
in a panic but now he could pick out all the differences. The deeper lines, the tired set to her
shoulders, and the green eyes. But she was still compassionate, still told her jokes, and was still
Miles’ biggest supporter no matter the universe.

“She’s what?” Miles G’s voice broke him out of his thoughts and realized that the boy was
glowering at him.

“She’s like mine.” Is all Miles said. The taller boy grunted, finishing up his stitching with little
fanfare and tossing a tube of bruise cream toward Miles’ chest.

“You’re face is messed up.” Miles G told him when he was given a bemused look.

“I wonder why,” Miles spoke sarcastically before tossing the bruise cream back into the open med
kit. His counterpart didn’t seem apologetic at all. “You were a threat,” was all Miles G gave him in
return.

“And now I’m not?”

“Uncle Aaron can decide that,” Miles G told him slowly, eyes trailing up to meet identical brown
eyes, “I shouldn’t have helped you with that shit. I don’t help people- the Prowler doesn’t help
people.”

“Why?”

The question was asked on instinct. A simple branch of curiosity extended from Miles’ brain but
 his variant seemed to recoil away from him as though Miles had electrocuted him. “You think I can
be reformed or some shit,” Miles G sneered, roughly yanking a piece of glass from one of his cuts
and depositing it on a piece of gauze, “I go out there every night and someone dies or gets put in
the ICU. That’s it. You don’t help people here unless they’re your people. You try to help
someone you get repaid with a casket.”

“But you helped me-”

“You are me!” His voice echoed through the apartment and they both sat in stunned silence for a
horrible moment before the taller boy was up and striding off to another room. The door to Uncle
Aaron’s bedroom slammed shut and the only evidence that Miles G had been on the floor next to
Miles was the small pile of bloodied glass shards still resting on top of the stark white gauze.

Chapter End Notes

They'll get there...next chapter

Thanks for reading!!

 Trust Only Yourself
Chapter Summary

If there was someone out there to completely understand you, it'd be another version of
yourself.

Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

He leaned against the door and stared into the darkness of Uncle Aaron’s room. His breathing was
uneven and the realization of that was enough to send a curl of shame through his stomach. He had
tried so desperately to separate himself from the boy on the other side of the door.

But he failed .

He didn’t have his father and Miles didn’t have an Uncle Aaron. Maybe tragedy followed the Davis
brothers through every universe but, Christ, Miles G wished it didn’t show through their sons and
nephews. He wondered if Miles had a mural of Uncle Aaron on the wall of his apartment roof and
balked when he found himself looking for similarities again .

Did he want to help people?

NYC was a shitshow of lost dreams and struggling mothers. He knew that just downstairs in
apartment 4C a little girl was hiding from her drunk father. How many times had he laid by the
radiator and heard her screams of despair and terror whenever her father decided to use her as a
punching bag? Or the number of times the Chinese restaurant on the corner of his building had
been robbed? The drive-by shootings that plagued Bedstuy, drugs running rampant in Canarsie,
gangs founded from the pain of lost boys with no fathers in Flatbush. That was just in Brooklyn and
he didn’t even want to think about the other boroughs right now.

He had a commitment to help his mother and ease the burden of expenses off her shoulder. If it
wasn’t for him, his mother could have probably left the city after her husband’s funeral and found a
nice, quiet town upstate. His mother deserved nice and quiet. But instead, she got 24-hour shifts at
a hospital filled with scumbags who had gotten injured behind illegal shit. She probably had to take
care of patients that he had injured himself. How many patients had she stitched together thinking
that her son was safe at home? The thought of that alone made him hate himself more.

I should talk to him more , his brain traitorously suggested and he slid down the door to prevent
himself from going to do just that. Even if he went out there, what would he get? More
confirmation that they were parallels of each other?
Miles lost someone and he became a hero. He lost someone and sank into the grief that clung to the
city like a disease.

That was their only difference. He sprang up and dashed to the bathroom connected to the bedroom
when the sting of bile hit his throat. Hunched over the toilet and gasping hoarsely he almost missed
the soft knocks on Uncle Aaron’s door. Miles’ voice was quiet, awkward as he spoke, “I’m sorry
about those questions, man,” a pregnant pause, “there’s just a lot I don’t get about here- well, I do,
but it’d be better to hear from you. I dunno…I was just curious.”

They were in the same damn boat then.

He rubbed his bruised chest as he got up, washed his face off, and quickly wiped the emotions
plastered across his face away to be addressed later. Later meaning never. Tossing his braids back
over his shoulders, he walked toward Uncle Aaron’s bedroom door and pulled it open. He expected
Miles to still be on the other side of the door and was pleased, relieved almost, to discover that it
was the truth. The shorter boy looked like he expected him to be there too and when they both
stared at each other, assessing and analyzing, they reached the same conclusion with no prompting.

“I don’t want to fight with you,” Miles told him, eyes sincere and already accepting of whatever
answer Miles G would give him. That was the second time tonight the other boy had said that to
him. He spent years fighting, bleeding, and hurting. Of course, it had to be a different version of
himself promising not to screw him over.

He reached out and placed a hand on his counterpart’s shoulder, “Ok,” he agreed, “but you’re in
my way.”

It would be the closest thing to a peace offering he would be able to give Miles but the boy took it
anyway and shuffled away from the door with a sheepish smile. “You’re hella weird, y’know that
right?”

“So are you!” Miles shot back as they took their spots back on the floor by the med kit. “I can do
that-”

Miles took the needle from Miles G’s still hands and quickly began suturing the deep cut on the
boy’s forearm. They were comfortable. Distracting each other and themselves by going back and
forth and stitching up wounds and wasting the antiseptic spray. They laughed at each other when
one of them jumped from the sting of the disinfectant and spent the better half of the hour doing
ridiculous shit with the med kit supplies.

“He’s lame,” Miles G scoffed when the topic came back to Uncle Aaron, “all that stuff with the
punching bag is because he ain’t know what to do with you.”

“I used to think Uncle Aaron was the coolest person ever,” Miles said, using his hands to sweep
scattered bandage wrappers into a pile, “he was… suave. ”

“ Mas el no puedes conseguir una esposa. ” Miles G responded factually and Miles looked taken
aback before he released a sharp burst of laughter, “He has all that game but never wants to put it to
use.”

“Dad said the same thing!” Miles agreed before he caught what he said and glanced at his
counterpart as though expecting war. Miles G was preoccupied with shoving things back in the
med kit, something Uncle Aaron would probably bitch about it later, and pushing Miles’ pile of
bandaid wrappers closer to the trash.

“My dad was always mad Uncle Aaron never settled down,” Miles G admitted after clearing his
throat, “said it would calm him down or some shit, but I was like 5 when they talked about that
crap so...”

“I always want the best for my family, but sometimes it doesn’t come out that way.”

There were no looks of pity from Miles when Miles G looked up from the med kit and he exhaled
easily when he noticed the boy was more interested in staring out the window than scrounging up a
shitty apology. The pitter-patter of rain hitting the fire escape cushioned the silence they found
themselves in. The sand from the punching bag was gracefully swept up by Miles G while his
counterpart crawled around trying to find any more pieces of paper or wrapper that they might have
missed after they stopped messing around with the medical supplies. During their cleaning, they
missed the shadows passing over the window until the creak of the fire escape sounded.

The broom cracked against the floor when Miles G dropped it and the apartment went still as
another creak registered with their ears. Miles looked out the window again, senses buzzing, and
tensed. “You should hide.” He told Miles G.

The taller boy gave him an incredulous look and reached into his pocket for his knives. “It could
be Uncle Aaron.” The man would've called if that was the case. They both knew this wasn’t Uncle
Aaron. “Either way, ain't nowhere to hide in here.”

“They found me,” Miles whispered and he didn’t know if he was talking to himself or to Miles G.

“Who? Those people on the roof?” Miles G questioned harshly, inching towards the safe as the
creaks turned into something scuttling on the goddamn walls-

The window slid open.

Miles G flicked his knife around his fingers before releasing the sharp metal in a smooth arc to
connect with the person climbing through the window. The tall figure yelped, darting to the left
with superhuman speed but then falling into the apartment when the movement messed up the
careful balance they had. A man with scruffy brown hair and a 5-o’clock shadow was sprawled on
the floor. His fluffy pink bathrobe concealed a majority of the red and blue costume he wore
underneath and Miles G realized in horror that there was also a baby carrier strapped to the man’s
chest.

“Peter?” Miles’ quiet call broke the moment.

The man named Peter shuffled around on all fours for a moment before he sprang back up almost
cartoonishly. Miles G raked his eyes over the man and resisted the impulse to throw his second
knife toward the man. This lanky, skinny, white dude was not like the person that had come
tumbling from a portal a few hours ago.

“Miles!” The man responded, shocked and happy at the same time, “...and other Miles?”

“Get the hell out of my uncle’s apartment.” Miles G snarled, tucking his knife into his pocket and
walking toward the wall of katanas displayed by the punching bag. Peter seemed stunned for a
moment before he let out an awkward chuckle, “Right…anyway we came to rescue you, Miles.”

“Rescue me from what?” Miles questioned and something in the way his counterpart asked it made
Miles G think he was missing something big. “You were right,” Peter admitted, “Spider-Man
always goes above and beyond to save people…so we came-”

“We? Who’s we?” Miles G wanted to know the answer to that too.

Before Peter could answer, someone else was crawling into Uncle Aaron’s apartment. A girl
sporting half-buzzed blonde hair landed in the apartment with much more grace than Peter and
Miles G realized she was wearing one of those ridiculous skin-tight suits like Miles. He stepped
back into a shadowy corner of the room and scrutinized the pinched face Miles took on at the sight
of the girl. Something really big was missing from the bits and pieces he had learned about his
variant.

The boy was a superhero and so it seemed were these people. But none of them belonged here. So
why were they following after Miles?

“Miles, just hear us out,” Peter pleaded, hands held up like he was trying to make himself less
threatening, “we just want to help save your Dad. “

Miles G stopped breathing for a moment, eyes darting between the man in the fluffy bathrobe and
his counterpart. What exactly did Miles’ Dad need saving from? Why were these people involved
and who was that person he had helped Miles blow up at Alchemax?

“Spot is gone,” Miles said blankly. “He was going to kill my dad, he was going to be the cause of
my- the canon event. But he’s gone…I can’t feel him anymore.”

“We blew him up,” Miles G added at the climax of stunned silence. Peter and the blonde girl
seemed to remember he was there as they whipped their heads toward his dark corner. They looked
at him, really looked at him, and the horrified look they gave him irked him. The spray-painted
Prowler logo was displayed proudly on his chest and he crossed his arms when their eyes lingered
on it for too long.

“You became the Prowler?” Peter asked him. Miles shook his head at him, Don’t answer , the
gesture said.

“Why do you care?” He answered anyway.

Miles walked closer to him, blocking him from Peter and the blonde girl’s view, “How did you get
here? How did you know which universe I was in? Does Miguel know?”

“No, buddy, Miguel doesn’t know a thing,” Peter reassured quickly, “he’s looking for you but
definitely not here.”

“Spider-Byte and Peni figured out what universe you were in and built extra watches so we could
get you.” The blond girl answered, tentative and guilty sounding, before tossing a band of spare
parts and a screen toward Miles. He caught it easily and strapped it to his wrist right as it seemed
he would have another glitch attack.

“Who else is here, Gwen?” Miles asked and this time he was staring directly at the girl. She shifted
under his gaze before responding, “Noir, Ham, Pav, and Hobie…Mayday’s here too.”

As she listed people off, more thumps on the fire escape sounded out and soon Miles was staring
out the window into the determined faces of his former allies. Hobie winked at him, Pavitr gave a
little wave, and Miles almost laughed when Noir tipped his hat to him. Miles G looked out of the
window too. There was a baby sitting on top of a masked pig’s head, a digital girl occasionally
glitching in and out of view, a black and white man in a trenchcoat, an honest to god punk, and a
bouncy Indian kid messing around with a gold yo-yo.

His phone buzzed in his back pocket.

[Uncle A]: Who the hell are those ppl on my fire escape??

[Me]: Idk man

[Uncle A]: Wym ‘idk’

[Me]: …I don’t know? They jus showed up

He pocketed his phone when his uncle took a little too long to respond. The people on the fire
escape were bickering about something. He leaned forward and nudged Miles’ shoulder
impatiently. The other boy turned to look at him and he was confused to find pain marring the
boy’s face. “Are you going back to your dimension?”

“No.” What?

His phone finally buzzed again but he ignored it in favor of scowling at the simple answer.
“Thought you were just here to save your dad-”

“No, I’m here because I accidentally got sent here,” Miles denied, “I told you this already. There’s
someone looking for me but I can’t fight him right now.”

“Fight?” Miles G repeated, “Fight you for what?”

“I…disagreed with something he said,” Miles spoke, voice low under the chaos of all the Spider-
People crowding the fire escape, “I’m not supposed to be saving Dad, but I did it anyway.”

“You’re not supposed- so he was supposed to die?” He was getting antsy, fingers twitching for the
cold metal of his knife. His counterpart looked sick for a brief moment before he responded, “Yes.
It’s a canon event for all Spider-People…to lose a police captain close to you, but I don’t want that
to happen without trying to stop it. Miguel- he didn’t like that so I had to run…and I ended up here
because of that spider.”

He thought back to all the stuff Miles had been spewing when he was tied to the punching bag. His
counterpart was a superhero in another dimension but was never supposed to have his powers…
and every dimension except Miles G’s had this superhero. Spider-Man.

“Run from where?” He asked because he was missing a piece. A big piece. His phone buzzed
again in his back pocket. “The HQ in another dimension?”
 Miles nodded and Miles G eyed every Spider person nearby before pulling out his phone.

[Uncle A]: This is serious Miles, you think if the cops get on our ass Fisk is gonna bail us out or
something? He doesn’t even know our identities and your mother def doesn’t have bail money.

[Uncle A]: It’s the other Miles isn’t it? Kid you dont have what he has

The last message burned him and he swiped out of the chat with a swift drag of his thumb before
the words became imprinted into the back of his eyelids. His uncle hadn’t called him a kid since he
slashed the neck of his first target open. And now here the man was trying to be gentle in
reminding him that his father was dead.

“Get these people out of here,” he ordered quietly because every movement they made while on
the fire escape triggered his uncle’s security system and he did not want to distract the man while
he made the dangerous trip home from Manhattan. Miles seemed to notice something was wrong
with him and he found himself not hating his counterpart’s ability to read him anymore.

“Peter,” Miles said over the din and everybody quieted down, “can you go back to my Earth and
just…tell my parents I’m ok?”

“Miles, you’re not coming back with us?” Peter asked and the baby Miles G realized was supposed
to be in the carrier let out a gargle as she stared between her father and Miles with intelligent eyes.
The shorter boy shifted in front of him and looked like he wasn’t comfortable in his skin but he
shook his head and pushed forward anyway.

“Maybe it’s better if I just laid low here,” Miles murmured, “If Miguel’s still after me then…”

The silence became uncomfortable before Hobie spoke, “No worries, Miles. If we come across
Miguel we’ll take care of him for you.”

“He’s just been looking after the multiverse for a long time, ki- Miles,” Peter stumbled, his fingers
tapping against the limp baby carrier, “this whole thing, I’ll fix it.”

“We’ll all fix it,” Gwen swore, eyes shining even in the red light of Uncle Aaron’s apartment.

Chapter End Notes

Miles G: wth
Miles: I literally told you this information an hour ago

Mas el no puedes conseguir una esposa - But he cant get a wife

Suave - smooth
 Like Minds
Chapter Summary

Two people with swapped fates.

Chapter Notes

Saw a bunch of people comparing the two Miles' to Huey and Riley Freeman on TT
and it was something I didn't know I needed to see

See the end of the chapter for more notes

“Um, how are we going to fix this?” Pavitr asked, pulling his mask off and ducking into the alley
as the rest of the group came out in flashes of light. Earth-1610 was dark, and the dim glow of
streetlights hid them from any late-night street dwellers.

“Well we hafta stop by Miles’ gaff, first off,” Hobie yawned, swinging an arm around Pav and
leaning his weight on the shorter boy. Pavitr elbowed him, ignored the offended yelp, and looked
to Peter B. The man strapped his daughter back into her carrier and massaged his temple once he
was done.

If he were Miguel…where would he start?

He knew the only universe Miles had been in previous to Earth-928 was…his own. “Miguel has to
be here already.” He turned his back to the rest of the group as he began pacing, “If everyone
thinks Miles went home then they’d be here.”

“Two birds wit’ one stone then,” Hobie shrugged, “Gwendy lead the way-”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Peter rushed, holding out his hands in a stop motion when everyone readied
themselves to swing off after Gwen who had already leaped onto the nearest roof, “guys we need a
plan of action here.”

“This Miguel seems like a real yuck,” Noir said serenely, a gentle breeze carrying the tails of his
trenchcoat, “maybe he ran out of gas already. We have to help Miles however we can-”

“Exactly,” Gwen exclaimed, peering down at Peter from her perch on the roof ledge, “Miguel’s
not gonna listen to teenagers, Peter, you have to talk him down. We’ll handle his parents.”

The girl turned and shot out a web, swinging off with no further words. “We’re Spider-Man,”
Spider-Ham remarked, marching toward the wall as he prepared to swing off, “we always have a
plan of action.”

The rest of the gang swung off, bodies flipping over rooftops and dodging water towers. Mayday
made a questioning noise when her father did not follow. He placed a hand on her red curls and
sighed quietly, “It’s hard being an adult sometimes, kiddo.” Pressing a kiss to the back of her head,
Peter steeled himself internally and shot a hand out to follow after his counterparts.

If he needed to argue down Miguel O’Hara on a Brooklyn rooftop in the middle of the night for
Miles, he would. Because right now Miles needed his help, and Spider-Man always goes above and
beyond to help.

“What’s up with you and Gwanna?” Miles G started conversationally after the people on the fire
escape left in tunnels of light. Miles sighed, shaking his head before correcting him, “Her name’s
Gwen.” Miles G shrugged, moving toward the window and closing it with a muted click.

“You were looking at her like she was a stranger,” Miles G informed him, spinning around and
resting his body against the window as he watched Miles shift around before deciding to settle on
the floor in between the couch and coffee table. “No, I wasn’t,” Miles denied quietly.

“Yeah, you were,” Miles G moved from the window, crossing his legs and dropping down to sit
cross-legged in front of Miles on the opposite side of the coffee table.

“We didn’t have a good last meeting…and I- maybe we’ll figure it out eventually.” The words
were spoken with a sense of finality to them but Miles G noticed the tired set to the other boy's
shoulder. It was the same slouch he saw in the mirror after coming back from a particularly
harrowing mission. It didn’t look right on Miles.

“So, who’s Miguel?” He tried to switch the topic to something less touchy but it seemed like
Miles’ shoulders slumped lower at the question.

“He’s the leader of Spider Society,” Miles explained, “I mean, I just found out about it today but I
wasn’t even supposed to be there-”

“Why?”

Just an hour before Miles had asked his counterpart that same question. Why not help people? And
now it was, why weren’t you supposed to be there? Why don’t you belong? Miles wanted to blow
up like his variant did a moment ago, but he wasn’t angry, or maybe he was and it hadn’t registered
yet.

“I don’t belong there,” Miguel had placed his mouth right by Miles’ ear when he said it, making
sure that even over the noise of wind rushing, a train speeding, and Gwen and Peter’s yelling that
he would hear the words. “I’ve been Spider-Man for over a year, but I wasn’t supposed to be…that
spider should’ve bitten you.”

“Then how’d it get to you?” Miles G asked and Miles found himself drawn into the genuine
curiosity lining the boy’s face.

“Spot was- he was a scientist at my universe’s Alchemax,” Miles told him, “before he turned into
Spot he managed to get the spider from your universe to mine but it escaped…and found me
instead.”
“That was probably for the best, man,” Miles G professed, placing his elbows on his knees to hold
his face between his balled-up hands, “I told you I’m not the saving people type, that’s all you.”
The placement of his face between his hands squished his cheeks together and Miles realized in
that moment that Miles G was 15 years old too.

“You could’ve saved Dad,” Miles whispered, “and if I hadn’t gotten bit then I wouldn’t be here in
the first place-”

“Stop.”

“You need to learn responsibility, Miles!”

The taller boy closed his eyes and tilted his head down like he had a headache. Miles waited for
him to yell or storm off again but the boy did neither. Instead, he got up, jumped over the coffee
table, and settled next to Miles with cat-like agility. “I’ve only known you a few hours and it's been
the most I ever talked about my Dad.”

“Not even to Mom or Uncle Aaron?”

“No,” Miles G shook his head, “just you. Because you understand how it is…just that instead of
your Dad it was Uncle Aaron for you.”

“When you said I was you…that’s what you meant?”

The boy tilted his head to the left and then the right as though he was considering his choices
before nodding, “I had a choice to be the Prowler…and Dad would probably be sick if he could see
me now-”

“Don’t say that,” Miles insisted firmly, “he could never hate us.”

Miles G turned his head to look at the shorter boy and furrowed his eyebrows, “Then why not tell
yours about the whole Spider-Man shit? It’s definitely better than telling him about Prowler.”

“Because if I tell them I’m Spider-Man then I’m telling them that I’ve been hiding this secret for a
year. I’d be telling Dad that I’m the reason his brother died-”

“ You killed your Uncle Aaron?” Miles G interrupted, “You said he was shot!”

“No, no, Kingpin shot him,” Miles explained quickly, “but it was because Uncle Aaron found out
that I was Spider-Man and he didn’t want to kill me.”

The second part of Miles’ jumbled retelling was barely comprehended as his throat tightened at the
mention of his boss. The Kingpin in Miles’ universe had killed Uncle Aaron even while the man
was working for him. He already knew Fisk tolerated no mistakes, especially from his hired
killers, but the confirmation of certain death, if he was found to be a traitor, was vomit-inducing. A
hand nudged his shoulder and he almost swung before he remembered the conversation he had
been having prior to this moment.

He exhaled, looking at Miles with steady eyes as his heart fluttered inside his chest in painful beats.
It hurt to breathe and he found himself waving a hand for Miles to continue his story. The boy
stared at him suspiciously before rewinding and spewing all sorts of stuff out about train tracks,
dead Spider-Man (so this Peter Parker person was dead-), the multiverse, Doc Ock, figuring his
powers out-

It went on and on and the sound of Miles’ voice, a little lighter and definitely more gentle than his
own, pulled him out of the panic he was slowly sinking into. He leaned back against the sofa,
eyeing the digital clock to his right and blinking when he realized it was now the next day, and
listened to his counterpart go on about Spider Society. The base idea of the place was already
something he didn’t care for. Working with one or two people was alright, but hundreds? And
everyone was basically the same person?

“That ain’t right,” he finally spoke when his variant got to an odd point in his story, “it wasn’t just
your fault, that shit ain’t right.”

Miles nodded slowly, picking at the tight fabric encasing his leg, “Before I went…my Mom told
me some stuff and she was right.”

“Of course she was right,” Miles G scoffed, “ ella siempre tiene la razón.”

“Seriously, man?” Miles deadpanned, “You’re gonna drag me too?”

“I’m not draggin’ you…I’m just saying she’s usually right about things,” The boy reached up to
fiddle with the end of one of his braids, “and you’ve done a lot…probably more than other people
in that cult.”

“I’m still an anomaly at the end of the day though,” Miles muttered, pulling his legs up to his chest
and resting his chin on his knees, “they were right about that.”

Miles G nudged him, pointing with his lips toward the fire escape outside the closed window,
“You said I was supposed to be Spider-Man?” Miles nodded, eyes hesitant and questioning, “Then
I guess I’m an anomaly too,” he decided as he tapped the purple Prowler logo on his chest.

They decided that Pavitr would be the one to tell Mr. and Mrs. Morales the news.

“His dad’s a cop, Hobie,” Gwen had explained tiredly when the punk protested not being an
option. “You’re not walking in there with those laces on.”

“Last thing they’d be worried about is laces,” Hobie opposed, “but Pav would be better than a
pig.”

She shot Spider-Ham a look when the animal went to retaliate. They already had to sneak into the
building, the last thing she needed was someone coming to investigate the number of voices
echoing in the staircase. “Just knock on the door and- and tell them that Miles is safe and he’ll be
home soon to explain.”

Pavitr nodded, smoothing down the oversized hoodie that had been procured for him to hide his
costume, and went up the last flight of stairs to get to Miles’ floor. “Don’t panic,” Gwen whispered
and Pav shot her a thumbs up before knocking on the door.

Miles was safe and would be home, safe and would be home, safe and would-
The door was ripped open and Pavitr found himself staring into the brown eyes of Rio Morales.
The woman’s hair was ruffled from repeatedly running her hands through it and Pavitr could
almost taste her worry turn to confusion as she looked at him. Suddenly he felt like the wrong
option. He dealt with worried parents all the time in Mumbattan but Rio Morales wasn’t a fussing
aunty, she was Spider-Man’s mother, and she didn’t even know .

“Can I help you?” She asked, voice bemused and tired.

“Hi,” Pavitr squeaked, and with his super hearing, he could hear Hobie and Gwen mutter curses
under their breath. He cleared his throat, straightening up when Rio raised an eyebrow, “Hi, good
morning, Mrs. Morales, I’m a friend of Miles-”

“Miles?” Rio interrupted, and her eyes became concerned once again, “Jeff! One of Miles’ friends
is here! Have I met you? I don’t think I have…what’s your name?”

He was already way off script. Fumbling, he almost forgot his name, and by the time he squeezed
it out, Jeff was by his wife’s side staring down at Pavitr like he had the secrets to the universe. He
supposed he did, but those were Miles’ secrets to tell.

“Come in, come in,” Rio waved him inside and he found himself obeying the woman because
those eyes were almost daring him to object. He stood in the entryway awkwardly, wiping the
longer side of his hair behind his ear before narrowing in on any sounds outside the door.

“Just go with it, Pav!” Gwen was whispering and he snapped back to attention when a hand
clapped down on his shoulder.

“I asked if your parents know where you are,” Jeff repeated when Pavitr just stared blankly. He
shot the man a reassuring smile, “Yes, they do, I was just here to tell you-”

“It’s really early,” Rio interrupted and when Pavitr looked at the clock on the wall he noticed the
shorthand was inching toward 3, “how far do you live?”

“Just a borough over,” more like a universe over, “I go to Visions.”

Jeff and Rio seemed relieved to hear that and he found himself relaxing as they lost tension.
Briefly, the sound of Hobie’s voice made it through the door but when a thud rang out, Pavitr
pushed it to the back of his mind. “I’m just here to tell you that Miles is safe and he’ll be home
soon.”

The Morales adults shot each other skeptical looks before turning back to Pavitr. “I’m sorry but do
you know something that we don’t?” Rio asked with a frown, “I mean this is the second time an
unknown friend has come to tell us about Miles. And now it’s three in the morning on a Saturday
and we still have not seen or heard from our kid.”

Her voice rose at the end and Pavitr scrambled for an answer. “Miles is very busy with
something-”

“At 3 AM!?” Jeff burst and then turned to Rio when the woman slapped his arm, “Baby, this is
crazy! I mean what happened at the party was kinda extreme but Miles has never run off from
home like this before!”
 “I can assure you, he didn’t run off,” Pavitr defended, “he just has a secret…that he plans on telling
you…when he gets back home.”

“Woulda just said my piece and left,” he heard Hobie mutter through the door and Gwen must have
agreed because no thud was heard. The Morales adults were staring at him. They didn’t mask their
disbelief or anger and Pavitr finally realized that he was nervous because his mask was gone.

He could not talk to the Morales family as Spider-Man, not without revealing Miles’ identity.

So he did what Pavitr Prabhakar did best and turned the charm on.

Chapter End Notes

This multiverse stuff is such a mind screw...if Miles being Spider-Man makes him an
anomaly then theoretically Miles G is also an oddity (my mind spewing out more
parallels and similarities between the two at 3 AM)

Also... giving Pavitr the honor of talking to Jeff and Rio bc when I found out what
Hobie's laces mean in punk culture I threw out any and all thoughts of him interacting
with Jeff

And 'Yuck' means a stupid or idiotic person in 40's slang while 'Gaff' means house in
Cockney slang
 Quiet Isn't Always Good
Chapter Summary

Within hours, everything can go wrong.

Chapter Notes

Uncle Aaron's back so he can be the responsible (sometimes) adult figure

See the end of the chapter for more notes

When the front door burst open, both boys were still sitting on the floor and leaning against the
couch. They drifted off periodically, sleep creeping on them after their night of activity, but woke
up whenever the TV blared urgent breaking news. 12 AM turned to 1 AM, 1 AM turned to 2, and
sooner than later it was 3 AM. It didn’t usually take Uncle Aaron this long to get home, even when
he had to lay low to avoid the police questioning him about breaking curfew. The man was great at
sneaking around and the increased police presence on the streets did nothing to stop that.

But when the man came in, he didn’t even address his nephew or his variant as he shut the door
and bolted the four locks on it. The man moved in elegant strides, lifting his full face mask to his
forehead as he scrolled through his phone. He walked like he was in the middle of a mission, fast
and dangerous so nobody could realize him until it was too late. Miles G watched him as the pull
of sleep left his body and was replaced by that same dangerous air clouding his body.

“Miles?” Uncle Aaron asked, voice quiet and distracted. He was still scrolling and tapping, sinking
his nephew into a deeper state of dread. “Were you at Alchemax?”

“Yeah,” Miles G answered, bracing his weight on his hands to move into a standing position,
“Why?”

When Uncle Aaron spoke next, it confirmed his worst fears and shot through him like a
cannonball. “Fisk wants to talk to you.”

“Ok,” he agreed and no one called him out when his voice pitched down, “I’ll get my mask-”

“Miles!” Uncle Aaron barked and they both flinched. Uncle Aaron never yelled. Miles stood up,
staring between the two of them with poorly disguised curiosity. “He doesn’t want the Prowler, he
wants you .”

Fisk wanted Miles Morales. If Fisk knew Miles Morales then he knew about Rio Morales. Fisk
knew about Aaron Davis. He knew birthdays, addresses, and appearances . Fisk probably knew
everything down to his first-grade teacher.

He had been so careful when they left Alchemax. So how had the man found enough information
to piece together who he was?

Someone called his name, probably Uncle Aaron since he and Miles were avoiding saying each
other's name like the plague. His mouth seemed to stop working as he tried to push out a response.
When he hobbled backward and fell, someone caught him and eased him back into a sitting
position on the floor. He couldn’t see the living room anymore, vision swimming with black.

And all of a sudden he was 13 again.

“Quick reflexes,” Wilson Fisk complimented, crooked teeth set in a smile that Miles thought
looked more like a grimace. A body slashed at the neck and still sluggishly bleeding was laid
between Miles and Fisk.

Miles had killed that man.

He hadn’t meant to. But he was desperate. Clawing and slashing at the man who was trying to
overwhelm him until his claws connected and split through the man’s neck like butter. Uncle Aaron
had come soon after, face hidden by an all-black mask but Miles still heard the horrified, “No, no,
no, no,” spilling from the man’s lips.

He didn’t know if Uncle Aaron was mad. But Fisk certainly wasn’t. Happy Fisk was good, happy
Fisk meant Miles wouldn’t have to worry about watching his back in case the man tried to kill him.

“Clean…for your first one,” Fisk observed after the chuckles in the room had died down. What
were they laughing about? Were they laughing at him? His confusion was covered by his mask but
Fisk seemed to catch on anyway. “You get better at these things or you don’t live long enough to.”

The words were spoken casually but Miles finally realized what Kill or be Killed meant. If he
hadn’t slashed that man open in the dark staircase of Alchemax he probably have been
overwhelmed and killed. The connection wasn’t pretty and neither were the crystal tears slowly
building in his eyes but when Fisk clapped a large hand down on his fragile shoulders and said, “I
need people like you on the job,” he could do nothing but nod and try to ignore the holes Uncle
Aaron was staring into his back.

A sharp sting registered on his arm and he snapped out of the memory to come face to face with
Miles and Uncle Aaron leaning over him. His Uncle’s hand was rested on his arm, right over the
pinch mark that had been used to snap him back to reality. He wanted to push the man away, but
the skin covered by his Uncle’s hand was warm, a sharp contrast to the feeling of ice spreading
through his body.

He and his uncle weren’t that touchy with each other. It happened sometime after his Dad died and
they had never gone back to what they had before. Hugs were switched out for daps, hair ruffles
turned into the quick pull of his braids, smiles were only exchanged while listening to music, and
Uncle Aaron only ever really made contact with him during spars.
It wasn’t his Uncle’s fault, not really, it was just that Miles G had shied away from that stuff when
his Dad died. But his panic seemed enough to warrant a gentle touch. The hand remained even
when he pushed himself further into the couch and tried to hide his face. Uncle Aaron pinched him
again and this time he swung his arm lazily, a wild, sloppy movement that his Uncle caught
immediately.

“What the hell were you doing at Alchemax?” The man asked, voice laced with urgency. Both
Miles’ began speaking, one telling a more accurate version and the other beginning to mutter about
the pieces he knew. Uncle Aaron shot both of them a scowl and suddenly reached for Miles. He
grabbed the boy’s bandaged shoulder, pulling him down, even when he flinched away, to sit him
next to Miles G. The man looked between the two of them and went to say something before his
phone pinged again.

He reached for the phone, laid innocently on the coffee table and buzzing as though a muted alarm
clock was ringing, and picked it up. The silence was daunting, tension rising the longer Uncle
Aaron scrolled. The man clicked something, read it, read it again, and then turned the phone so
both boys could see the screen.

Rio Morales’ face stared back at them, frozen in time and smiling. It was an old ID picture of her.
Mint green scrubs complimented by her green eyes as she smiled at the camera. Her eyes weren't
tired or stressed, instead, they were lit up by the joy of a simpler life in a wonderful city. He
would've stopped to ingrain her happy smile into his brain but he couldn’t.

Not when a 75k bounty paid for by Kingpin was under her smiling face.

A spark flashed in his chest, bright and painful before it evolved into a supernova. Fisk was
threatening his mother. Fisk had put a hit on her in a city of some of the best mercenaries and
criminals to have walked the earth. He spent two years of his life doing Fisk’s bidding, killing and
maiming people just to sneak some extra money into his mom’s purse, and now the man didn’t
even have the decency to come after him directly.

Her smile haunted him, and all of a sudden it didn’t remind him of a simpler life.

“Miles, I’m sorry…I shouldn’t have yelled.”

“I’m going to the hospital,” Uncle Aaron decided quickly, standing up and pulling his jacket
around him. He wanted to give his uncle an actual hug right then and there. The man’s eyes were
hard and Miles G knew he was feeling the same unfiltered rage.

“She gets off at 7,” he found himself saying, and Uncle Aaron nodded in confirmation.

“She should still be there but I’ll shadow her in case someone gets in,” the man said before turning
to both boys, “all shit aside, we need to be careful about this. Fisk owns this city and unless
someone kills him or the police actually stick him we ain’t gonna be able to stay.”

“Run?” Miles asked and Miles G whipped his head to stare at him, “Our family doesn’t run from
things.”
“We don’t,” he agreed quietly, cutting off whatever abuse was going to fall from Uncle Aaron’s
lips. They did not have time to go back to square one, not after the night they had and the looming
threat of Rio Morales being reduced to a memory.

He wouldn’t have the strength to add her face alongside Dad’s.

Uncle Aaron stared between the two of them, wasting precious seconds and worsening his
nephew’s mood before he seemed to come to a conclusion. “Get the comms, the spare one too, and
put your mask on anyway. Just because Fisk knows don’t mean the whole city has to.”

Miles G nodded, readying himself as he moved toward the disguised hole in the wall. Extra gear
and material was concealed behind the brick and he grabbed the red box filled with spare rocket
pieces and extra communication devices. He picked up the one with the lowest sound quality, a
black earpiece that wouldn’t grate on Miles’ super hearing, and quickly came back to the sofa.

Miles and Uncle Aaron were squared off awkwardly and from the astonished look gracing the
man’s face, it appeared that Miles had said something unexpected. He brushed past his uncle,
deposited the earpiece in Miles’ hand, and reached into his never-ending pockets to find his mask
and jacket.

“Put this on,” he heard Uncle Aaron tell Miles. He paid the two of them no mind, thoughts swirling
between genuine murderous rage and worry for his mother. Why was Uncle Aaron still here and
not at the hospital? Where was he even supposed to meet Fisk? In the Alchemax rubble?

He voiced these questions to his Uncle at rapid-fire speed, passing by the safe and toeing on his
shoes. The man didn’t answer him, instead turning his attention to Miles and telling him, “Go with
him.”

Mrs. Morales made great tea, Pavitr decided when he took another sip and prattled on about
chemistry. He didn’t even know if Miles was in chemistry but the Morales adults didn’t seem fazed
by his explanation of hydrocarbons so he figured that it was at least something in their son’s
ballpark.

Peter had not given any signal, and neither had Noir or Byte. The three of them were probably still
in the midst of talking Miguel down leaving the rest of their mismatched group to camp out on the
stairs and listen to Pavitr keep the Moraleses distracted. “Miles got a perfect score on his final
exam for chemistry,” Mr. Morales told him, voice nostalgic and weighed down from lack of sleep,
“We were so happy but he didn’t care about that stuff at all.”

School is always easy for Spider-Man.

He kept the thought to himself, smiling in genuine awe as Mr. Morales went over Miles’ school
history. “Now if only I could get him to practice his Spanish more,” Mrs. Morales joked, head
cushioned on her arms as they sat around the small kitchen table.

They were waiting for Miles to come home, waiting for him to walk through the front door and tell
them his big secret. Pavitr hoped it went well as he stared at a family portrait of the three. A giggly
young boy, missing his front teeth and smiling with blue-stained lips from the lollipop in his hand,
cushioned between his parents on a park bench.

“You remind me of Miles, Pavitr,” Rio slurred, yawning and picking her head off the table to stare
into Pavitr’s wide eyes. “I don’t know what it is but you do.”

He found himself not knowing what to say so he took another sip of the now lukewarm tea and
stared into the middle of the table. When he pushed his hearing out, he could hear the steady
heartbeats of the Morales adults and the quiet chatter happening on the staircase.

“Do you know the secret?”

The light conversation on the staircase ended abruptly and when no advice or guidance on what to
say came, Pavitr answered truthfully, “Yes, I know it. But it has to be something Miles tells you.”
He felt like a hypocrite for it. Nothing dangerous ever happened in Mumbattan since before the
Spot Incident but he still hadn’t found a way to tell his Maya Auntie that he was Mumbattan’s
resident vigilante. He couldn’t imagine how the Morales adults would react to the news of their son
being involved in dangerous acts of vigilantism but it definitely wouldn’t be a happy moment. “I’m
sorry,” he found himself apologizing, because if Mrs. Morales was his Maya Auntie then he
wouldn’t want some random kid she’d never met telling her that her nephew had some life-altering
secret and she had to wait to hear it from him.

“Don’t be,” Mr. Morales said and Pavitr almost deflated at the amount of regret tainting the man’s
voice, “I probably pushed him too hard…and he felt the need to keep this big secret from us
because of it.”

“It’s not that, Mr. Morales-”

“Pav shut up!” He heard Gwen hiss and he snapped his mouth shut with a click and stared down
into the dark amber of his cold tea. Thankfully, the Morales adults didn’t question his cut-off
words and he exhaled slowly before downing the cold liquid. Placing the empty cup down, he
glanced toward the clock and internally groaned when he realized it hadn’t even been thirty
minutes yet.

From the corner of his eye, he saw movement on the roof across the street and furrowed his brows.
“Gwen,” he whispered, voice low so that it wouldn’t jolt Rio and Jeff from their states of early
sleep, “go check out the roof.”

That figure did not belong to Peter.

It was too tall, too wide across the shoulder. And when Pavitr turned his body to face it a beam of
moonlight, low and white, illuminated Miguel O’Hara’s position on the roof.

“Lovely surprise,” he heard Hobie mutter before the front door of the Morales’ door was swinging
open quietly. The punk stood hunched in the doorway gesturing for Pavitr to get out with a toss of
his head. He got up, looked out of the window again, and made his own gesture for Hobie to come
 in.

Miles wouldn’t want his parents to be watched through the window like this, Pavitr figured, and
maybe the sight of him and Hobie there would deter the man from whatever it was that he was
trying to do.

Chapter End Notes

Miguel watching the Moraleses from across the street

Pavitr: Bro kinda wide ngl-

 All Friends Start as Strangers
Chapter Summary

Family is family even across the multiverse.

Chapter Notes

Whenever I see Fisk Tower my brain replaces it with Trump Tower because it's so
stupid...like there's the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, the WTC...and
then trump tower...it reminds me of those kids who write their names on any and
everything that comes into their possession

See the end of the chapter for more notes

The police did not stop them as Miles G whipped down the streets toward Manhattan on his
personalized Prowler motorcycle. It seemed every crooked, corrupt person in the city knew what
was going on between the Prowler and Kingpin and didn’t want to interfere. He brushed off any
sighting of cop cars with complete indifference, an easy feat considering he stopped taking the
NYPD seriously after they brushed off his father’s death with a shitty ceremony and erased the
man’s influence from the station within two weeks.

“You don’t have to say anything back…but I just wanted you to know that.”

He left tire tracks on the road, gloved hands clasped against his handlebars as he rocketed through
the city at max speed. New York’s greatest buildings, iconic for their size and history, loomed in
the distance but Miles G only had his eyes locked on one.

Fisk Tower.

It wasn’t as recognizable to the outside world, just another skyscraper in a city filled to the brim
with massive buildings, but right now it was the most important building in the city. The owner of
the city was in that building. The threat to his mamá’s life was in that building. He made it over the
bridge in record time, grounded to the real world only by the memory of his mother’s bounty and
the grip Miles had on his shoulders.

His comm pinged and when Uncle Aaron’s voice came through, smooth and quiet, “I’ve got eyes
on her and two assassins, stay alert…the both of y’all,” he exhaled and relaxed just a little. His
Uncle was capable of warding off assassins and so much more, the man would never let some
hotshot assassin touch his mother. Miles gripped his shoulders again and he forced himself to snap
his attention back to Fisk and his horrendous tower. “Are we sneaking in?” Miles called over the
roar of the wind.

They hadn’t planned this well, something that would never happen if this was a normal mission but
none of them had been in a clear state of mind during the scramble to get out of the apartment and
find Rio.

He shook his head and sped into an alley between a multi-floor car park and an upscale deli. Fisk
Tower was right down the street and when he took off his mask he noticed the building had a
purple-pink hue to it. Fisk was beckoning him, calling him, and mocking him. “Nah, we’re walkin’
through the front door,” he told Miles as he walked out into the street. The other boy didn’t answer
and looking over at him he noticed that Miles was almost see-through before he completely
flickered out of sight.

“I hear heartbeats in the lobby,” Miles' voice came from his left side, “I’ll take care of them-”

“Why are you helping me with this?” The Prowler's voice was rough but his confusion came
through clearly anyway. Miles flickered back into sight for a moment but with the mask covering
his face Miles G couldn’t determine the other teen’s emotions.

“Because it’s my job to help people,” came the straight answer, “and honestly…she’s still my
Mom, maybe not my version but still…I don’t want any version of her to get hurt or die.”

And he couldn’t argue with that could he?

He didn’t want Miles to have any claim to his mamá but the other boy was right . This Rio Morales
was still a mother and in all universes, Miles Morales was her son. The connection didn’t upset him
this time and when he turned his head to look at the space he knew Miles was in, he nodded once
and reached for the heavy lobby door handle.

A bullet zipped past his head and shattered the glass of a storefront across the street. He rushed in
almost immediately, locked in on the path of the bullet as he located its origin. To his right, a
woman was flipped over and held in the air until her gun clattered to the floor, an invisible force
pushing the offending weapon away. He snapped his focus back to his own assailant and crouched
low before lunging. The man tried to throw him off, twisting and jerking to his left, but the Prowler
slashed out with a quick hand and the guard fell to the floor with a scream and a semi-deep set of
claw marks gracing his thigh. He grabbed the man’s gun, clutching the trigger and shooting off
bullet after bullet into the large glass display that took up the back wall of the lobby.

The glass cracked and rained down, glinting and bouncing off of light, as he searched for the rest
of the guard positions. Miles was still on his right, a hurricane of invisible limbs as he took down
clueless guards with experienced movements. This was not the usual quick take-downs he did with
Uncle Aaron.

It was chaotic, it was loud, it was fast, and it was most definitely his style.
Somewhere along the brawl, Miles and Miles G became one. They moved in perfect tandem,
picking up where one left off with zero setbacks. The guards still didn’t seem to catch on to the fact
that an invisible force was whirling through the lobby, plucking off any mercenaries that decided to
aim for the Prowler from the back, and they paid for that incompetence with a slash of claws or a
quick punch.

All too soon the room was still, unconscious bodies sprawled over each other and bleeding
sluggishly. The Prowler stood, victorious and drugged off his own adrenaline before his
counterpart came to his side. “The elevators opened,” Miles observed, nudging him with a gentle
shoulder and pointing his head toward the wall of elevators before vanishing from sight again.

Glass fell in little shards, breaking on impact and shattering into tiny crystal fragments. The noise
soothed him and he nodded in acknowledgment, “You comin’?” And he grinned under his mask
when he received a disbelieving scoff.

“Of course, I’m comin’, where else would I be?”

They made off toward the elevator, one hidden from the naked eye and the other striding along
with confident steps. He would not give Fisk the satisfaction of seeing his trepidation, especially
not when his Uncle was protecting his Mom and his…God, Miles wasn’t just a variant anymore.
He had evolved into something more overnight. Whatever Miles was, he was here and more than
capable of backing him up.

He clicked the P button on the elevator, glancing up at the camera tucked away in the corner and
tilting his head. The doors shut, quiet, and well-oiled, and then the elevator was rising seamlessly.

Straight into the lion’s den that Wilson Fisk called his penthouse.

The two assholes pretending to be patients in the hospital waiting room were oblivious to his
presence. Good, Aaron thought to himself as he shifted on the roof he was perched on. He
continued to watch them through the scope of his sniper rifle before moving his head to look at the
camera feed he had tapped into.

Rio was unaware of the threats in the waiting room. She sat behind a desk, frantically typing as she
updated patient charts and read emails from her fellow nurses. He watched her on the camera for a
minute, relief pouring through him when she settled into the chair. She wouldn’t be attending
patients right now which meant the two mercenaries-turned-patients would be sitting there waiting
for a target that would never come.

He fiddled with the gun, unused to his current position but more than willing to fill it until the
threats were neutralized. He couldn’t open fire now. It would send the already chaotic hospital into
lockdown and tip off other assassins that someone was protecting Rio.

His nephew- nephews didn’t seem to be having problems on their end as the comm link line
remained quiet.

“You’re not the big bad guy you claim you are, ” Other Miles had snapped at him when his Miles
had been preoccupied with staving off his panic as he looked for extra gear. It had been a sharp
contrast to the boy who had hugged him and tried to convince him he wasn’t a bad person and
Aaron could only stare at him in surprise before his Miles came back and cut threw the tension.
The challenging glare he was shot before they left the apartment was something he hadn’t seen
since Jeff died.

He was dead in another universe, dead to this Other Miles but yet the boy seemed confident that he
knew more about Aaron than the man did himself. He had left his Miles with the other boy and
came back to find them completely at ease with each other. It had been something he hadn’t
expected. His Miles didn’t do friends, especially after he had left BVA and that Ganke kid behind
to focus more on Prowler business.

And now they were getting along as though they’d grown up side by side.

Now his Miles was starting to revert back to that kid that had died alongside his father two years
ago. He knew his nephew had anxiety, something that was clear and prominent his whole
childhood, but when Jeff died the boy locked his emotions away. Their hugs became something of
the past and Miles had twisted and tucked his afro into braids, hair tight and protected like his
emotions. The boy was in complete control around others, except for that fateful night of his first
kill, and commanded his anxiety to be the fuel that made sure he succeeded.

A pang of grief went through him, both for his brother and for his nephew. Because he hadn’t
really seen his nephew since the night his brother died. His Miles had locked himself away,
abandoning his art and big personality, and had created a front so strong that nobody could
penetrate it.

Until this Other Miles.

He snapped back to reality when the comm pinged, finger almost pressing the trigger on instinct.
He calmed himself down, exhaling deeply and tapping the earbud in his ear, “What’s up?”

“We’re heading up,” his nephew rasped, voice distorted by the Prowler mask, “To the penthouse,”
he clarified when Aaron didn’t respond.

“Make sure you scope out exits,” the man responded, following the path of one of the assassins
pacing in the waiting room through the scope.

“Looks like the only way out is this slow-ass elevator,” Miles G retorted and Aaron heard someone
snicker. He rolled his eyes once, scowling when one of the men started harassing Rio’s co-worker
before replying, “I didn’t get you rockets just so you can take the elevator, man.”

“Yeah you got them because I had to beg,” came the quick response and Aaron resisted the urge to
roll his eyes again, “we’re almost there, I’ll stay on guard.”

The line went silent and Aaron pretended that this wasn’t the first time in two years he had heard
his nephew sound so light. He distracted himself by bringing back the feed of Rio working again.
The woman looked bored out of her mind as she flipped through charts at 4 AM and Aaron found
himself becoming more vigilant.

If Miles lost his mother too… then that kid Aaron used to spray-paint track walls with, bright and
so full of potential, would vanish forever.

Miguel O’Hara was a man of science.

It was just something ingrained into every Spider-Man. But so was compassion and empathy. It
was the driving force behind most Spider-People and as Peter’s words rang in his ears, he
wondered if they were properties he had lost.

Morales definitely hadn’t lost them, wherever the boy was. Prabhakar and Brown hadn’t lost theirs
either, determined and daring as they watched him from the Morales family apartment. He heard
Peter land behind him, the absence of Mayday a sting against his heart. Miles was important to
Peter, the man’s main motivation to have a child, and now Peter was withholding both kids from
him. Something he deserved when the memory of Miles’ eyes, wide and stunned, flashed in his
mind.

“Miles will come when he’s ready,” Peter told him, voice firm and serious in a way Miguel hadn’t
heard since those days when the older Spider-Man had to help him back to his feet after Gabriella
vanished from his arms as the world crumbled around them.

“So you do know his location,” Miguel decided, watching as Hobie gave him a look of sheer
boredom from the window across the street. Behind him, Peter huffed and scratched his chin.
“You know exactly where he is too,” the brown-haired man said, “but you’re still here watching
his parents.”

Jefferson Morales wouldn’t die. He knew that when ‘Canon event disrupted’ blared across his
gizmo screen. Lyla had been quiet for a while before she popped up, jokes missing and posture
serious, “Spot’s gone…not a trace of him anywhere. The holes in Mumbattan are closed and
everything else that was left behind is stable.”

So, Miles Morales had done it again. The boy had done what he said he was going to do and defied
canon. And Earth-1610 was not fading and collapsing in on itself like the dimension Miguel had
unintentionally destroyed. Peter’s words sat heavily on his mind, echoing and sharp just like
Morales’ declaration.

Miles Morales had no doubt lived up to Earth-1610’s Peter Parker with his endless courage and
desire to save everyone. The realization came to him right as Peter finished off his last spiel. He
turned to the man, mask eyes narrowing as he glowered at the man he had come to see as a friend,
“I’ll give him a chance,” he decided, “but I’m waiting here until he gets back.”
 He couldn’t stand to see Peter’s relieved expression so he turned back to face the Morales
apartment and groaned when that view was ruined by the sight of Hobie and Pavitr staring at him.
“So?” Lyla chirped, “Call off the hunt?” The AI had a brow raised, glasses skewed as she tilted her
head questioningly.

“Yes,” he sighed, “and monitor Earth-42 until Morales comes back.”

Chapter End Notes

Don't be scared to comment I'm loving all of them<3<3<3

 Full Circle
Chapter Summary

Fisk didn't get his power by cooperating with the police. How could he? Especially
when clean cops still exist.

Chapter Notes

Might not have time to post tomm so I'm posting this chapter early

See the end of the chapter for more notes

When the elevator doors open Miles G is alone.

The comm line with his Uncle is silent and so is Miles. He feels the boy brush past him, a
deliberate movement that makes Miles G turn on his heat sensor filter and watch as his counterpart
walks up the wall and settles on the ceiling next to a chandelier. He exhales, stepping out of the
elevator and into the penthouse.

Unlike the lobby, the people here only seem like they want to greet him and not kill him. “Mr. Fisk
is waiting for you in the dining room,” a butler told him, back ramrod straight and face severe as
the Prowler tracked bloody shoe prints on the floor. When Miles G did not move the butler held out
a hand and gestured to the left.

He said nothing to the older man and marched through the ridiculous expanse of the penthouse.
The place was tastefully decorated, with flower vases filled with beautiful bouquets and elaborate
art pieces decorating the wall. Miles crawled on the ceiling above him, skirting around the
chandeliers and decorative ceiling décor. Two maids dressed in navy blue attire held open the
double doors for him and he stamped down the instinctive urge to say thank you.

“Mr. Morales,” a festive voice greeted him, “It’s great to finally meet my best employee.”

Wilson Fisk loomed in his chair, teeth crooked and grinning. Miles G observed the man, fingers
twitching in his claw gauntlets before responding, “Fisk.”

The lack of Mr. wasn’t lost to either of them but Miles G didn’t allow the man a moment to point it
out as he reached for his own chair and pulled it out. He sat stiffly, countenance hidden by his
mask, and glanced up.

Miles was perched on the ceiling like he was waiting to jump down, ready and alert. The sight of
that calmed him down enough to rest himself against the back of the chair. His focus was brought
back when a door off to the side opened and more workers flooded out. They carried cutlery and
covered plates, feet tapping against the floor in a sudden cacophony of noise. Barely any of them
looked at him and the ones who did tried and failed to keep their face from betraying their
apprehension.

“Consider it early breakfast,” Fisk spoke when the last maid scampered through the door and
closed it, “or late dinner. Whichever you prefer.”

He grunted, shifted forward, and pulled off his mask.

Fisk grinned, wolfish and mean, before he waved for Miles G to lift the covering off his plate. He
tracked the man, eyes uncovered for the first time in the man’s presence, and waited for the larger
man to uncover his own plate. He’d given enough to Fisk already and tonight would be his last
night of employment anyway. His fingers itched to tap his commlink and he wished Uncle Aaron
were here to handle this instead.

“I ain’t hungry,” he replied just to be contrary. Fisk chuckled and the sound alone was enough to
make him recoil. The large man lifted his plate covering and the scent of eggs and steak wafted
around the large room before settling alongside the overwhelming scent of roses. “They’re real
freakin’ expensive this time of year,” Fisk commented when he caught him glaring at the bouget of
roses in the middle of the table.

“Everything’s been expensive since the Cartel came up,” he sneered, watching in horrified
amazement as Fisk scooped up half his serving of eggs and all but inhaled it. The man tilted his
head to the side in agreement, placing his fork down before he pointed at Miles G. “Your mother’s
been having problems with the rent.”

The observation was exactly that, an observation. But Fisk was not in the same world as the
Morales family, He was a billionaire and they were a struggling family who had to go above and
beyond to keep themselves afloat.

“What else do you know?” He asked Fisk quickly, “My birthday? My Mom’s social security
number? My address?”

“Gotta know basic employee information,” Fisk brushed off easily, picking up his knife and fork
and cutting off a piece of steak. His mother would never have been able to afford that steak.

“You hired me to kill,” he exploded, “I’m not some normal desk job worker! You never knew my
basic employee info for a reason, I ain’t even old enough to work at McDondald’s!"

“No you’re not,” the large man agreed, “but you’re big enough to go around breaking other
people’s stuff.”

They stared at each for a long time, beady black eyes glaring into unsettled hazels. He swallowed,
resisted the urge to look up or touch his commlink, and reached for the cloche covering his plate.

The tip of a claw, metal and scuffed, stared back at him.

“Your mother’s having problems with the bills,” Fisk repeated, voice sure and steady over the roar
of Miles G’s horror, “that’s why you got into this business, I get that. I respect that. A son should
always look out for his mother.”
“What do you want?” He blurted, looking from the claw to his gauntlet. How had he not noticed
one of the claws was missing? How could he have been so reckless?

“You’ve worked with me long enough to know what I want.” Fisk told him, pushing his plate to
the side, “But I’ve gotta say, things just come full circle sometimes.”

The man didn’t wait for a response, letting him stare at his claw piece in horror as he pushed on,
“First your father, real freakin’ sad by the way, now your mother, and next your Unc-”

“My father?” He repeated, trailing his eyes up to Fisk, “What about my father?” His father had
nothing to do with Fisk. Jefferson Davis was a clean cop, loyal to his oath even during his last
moments. What right did Fisk have to talk about him right-

“Well someone had to put the hit on him,” Fisk answered, voice amused as he stared down the
table at the teenager, “You know it was his station that was snooping around Alechemax. All the
money I gave to hush them up but no…Captain Morales wanted to tear my Super Collider down.
Guess it’s fitting that his son succeeded where he couldn’t.”

“Hit?”

His voice was dull as he repeated the word, staring straight ahead into Fisk’s eyes and seeing
nothing but the truth in the man’s eye.

“He was in my way so I had him removed,” the man said plainly, “it’s your standard job
assignment, ain’t it?”

The first beams of morning light peaked through the floor-to-ceiling windows and hit him in the
face, but he made no move to protect himself from the rays of the sun.

“Miles…Jeff- your Dad…he’s gone…”

“I’m sorry, Ma’am, he was just doing a standard patrol…the shooter was- well it wasn’t an
amateur is what I’m tryna say.”

“Miles, I love you…”

His father’s voice bounced around in his head, clear and so close , in a way that it hadn’t been since
he’d slowly started forgetting things about the man. But now sitting here in front of the man’s
 murderer it seemed like Jefferson was a ghost whispering its regrets in Miles’ ears.

He worked for the man that had put the hit on his father.

He killed people for his Father’s killer. And now here the man was, talking about killing his Mom
and Uncle too. The cold weight of metal sat heavy in his pocket but he refrained from grabbing it
when the man continued speaking, indifferent and apathetic to the panicking teenager across from
him. “It was nothing personal at first,” the man pulled out his phone, “but this-” he hit the dial
button and glared right into wide brown eyes, “Get rid of her.”

The phone was dropped onto the table with a quiet clatter before the man went on, “This is
personal.”

He leaped across the table, claws whirring and giving off a neon purple light, as the desire to kill
came to him for the first time in his life.

Chapter End Notes

Miles watching this happen from his spot on the ceiling:

 Maybe It Was Just Destiny
Chapter Summary

The Prowler (ft. Spider-Man) vs Fisk & Friends

Chapter Notes

These firework shows weren't even fireworks...that was just straight nuclear bomb
testing. Like where were the pretty colors? Why was it just straight fire and pops? Had
me wondering if we were under attack or something

See the end of the chapter for more notes

When the two assassins in the lobby made eye contact with each other after reaching for their
earpieces, Aaron knew something had gone horribly wrong. In a heartbeat the men were on their
feet, brushing past nurses and moving toward the back of the nurse station.

He got off his stomach, briefly abandoning his sniper rifle as he snatched his phone up. Rio’s
smiling face in his contact list was hit with a frantic finger and he pressed the phone to his ear…

Ring…

Ring…

“Aaron, what’s going on?” Rio answered on the second ring, voice alert as she was pulled from the
tedious task of emailing different doctors, “Is everything ok?”

“Rio, listen to me carefully,” he brushed the woman’s questions off, “I need you to get into the
janitor’s elevator and meet me in the south parking lot. Keep your head down and walk fast but
don’t run. ”

“What?” Rio hissed but Aaron could see her getting up and snatching her handbag from under the
desk. “What the hell is this? What’s going on?”

“There’s two men in the lobby, Rio,” he told her, slinging his weapon over his back and opening
the roof access door. He sprinted down the stairs, feet quiet and light as they carried him toward
the parking lot he parked the getaway car in.

“Two men for what?” His sister-in-law questioned, the sound of an elevator dinging muffling her
voice.
“Listen,” he said sharply, “I’ll explain later but I really gotta get you up outta here.” His nephew
didn’t need two dead parents he reminded himself when he felt like he wasn’t moving urgently
enough.

When he finally got to the parking lot, jittery and paranoid, Rio was there already. She didn’t
notice him as the door shut behind him nor did she notice the woman stalking between cars. She
was a member of Scorpions gang he realized when he caught sight of a bright red scorpion tail
tattooed onto the side of her neck. Aaron pulled out a knife, tossed it in a curved movement, and
leaped on top of the hood of a grey Honda Accord. The mercenary yelped loudly, legs buckling, as
the knife embedded itself into her arm.

Rio turned quickly, hair a mess and scrubs wrinkled from her mad dash through the hospital. A
woman wearing a black medical mask and a dark grey coat was crumpled between two cars. She
caught Rio’s terrified green eyes and snarled before pulling out a gun-

BANG!

Rio fell to the floor, clutching her chest, and let out a horrified gasp.

Fisk was prepared for his reaction he realized with apprehension.

The large man had flipped the table the moment his knees made contact with the middle of the
wooden structure and had circled around the room to stand over him menacingly. He crawled back
on his elbows, rolling neatly and springing back to his feet.

“You’ll be with her before the sun is up,” Fisk assured, face twisted in rage before he barreled
toward Miles G with floor-vibrating stomps. He activated his Prowler suit, rockets humming under
his feet as he sidestepped Fisk easily. His mask was snatched off the floor and quickly placed back
over his face just as the doors slammed open. He whirled around quickly, tensing when he noticed
Tombstone and Scorpion coming through the frame before grunting when Fisk flung the metal
cloche into his back.

The silver plate covering clattered against the ground and he put his attention back on Fisk as the
three men circled around him. He had never been allied with the Sinister Six or any of the other
people Fisk hired but he never knew the villains actually wanted him dead. “Can’t stand masked
bastards like you,” Tombstone growled out as though reading his mind. He stepped back, hands
kept carefully at his side when Scorpion twitched at the movement.

“I don’t have any problems with you,” he reasoned, fingers spreading slightly when Tombstone
took another step closer.

“And I don’t like you,” The albino replied before drawing his pistols and shooting the space where
the Prowler had been just seconds before. The three men paused for a moment, confused and
suspicious before Miles G was back and slamming his foot into the side of Tombstone’s head. The
man crumpled, dazed, and blinded before the Prowler spun around and landed another kick to keep
the hulking man down.

Scorpion charged next, mechanical legs scuttling across the marble floor with disturbing clicks.
The man cried out in Spanish, agitated and frustrated, when the Prowler leaped away but Miles G
was so occupied in trying to avoid the man’s dangerous stinger that he missed the venomous words
and the sound of Fisk picking up the table.

The heavy wooden table slammed into him with a bruising impact. He fell, pinned beneath the
wood, and wheezed as his mask flickered through filters. “Qué es esto?” He heard Scorpion ask
before the man howled in pain.

He winced when the light was blocked out above him. Fisk stood over him, fists clenched and jaw
clamped shut before reaching down and snatching his mask off his face. The man threw it behind
him in a careless motion before gesturing around the room in a grand movement, “Real talent for
breaking my stuff you got there.”

“I’m not scared of you,” he lied, “but your family was, that's why they ran away, right? To get
away from you? Your bullshit idea isn’t gonna work so you might as well just go ahead and kill
me, see where that gets you-”

Fisk roared in rage, eyes glinting with the most hatred Miles G had ever seen in his life as he raised
his meaty fists high above his head. He closed his hazel brown eyes shut when the fists came
down, over 400 pounds of muscle hurtling down to his chest.

“I want you to have a great life.”

He would die with regrets and sins weighing on his soul he realized as memories whirled around
his head. His parents were gone, he was on his way, and Uncle Aaron…maybe the man would be
able to get out of the city before Fisk went looking for him too. He hoped the man didn’t miss him
too much to leave. Maybe he would move to Texas, find a wife, settle down like Jeff always
wanted, and have his own kids. He’d tell his kids stories about their dead cousin but avoid telling
them anything about his last two years of life or death.

That was the greatest legacy he could think of as his former boss’ fists moved to crush his chest
flat. He waited, oddly accepting of his upcoming death, before cracking his eyes open.

A figure, skinny and lean, held Kingpin’s fists between his hands as electricity crackled up and
down his body. “He’s right, it won't work,” Miles told Fisk while the man stared down at the boy
who’d counter his strength with ease, “I mean it’s harsh...but true.” Miles spun Fisk by the wrists,
lifting the man’s feet from the floor and releasing him.

The boy turned to Miles G, lifting the bug-eyed mask Uncle Aaron had given back to him before
they left the apartment, “Are you good?” The question was asked as Miles lifted the heavy table up
with ease. He didn’t move or react to the weight being lifted off of him as he stared up at the
chandelier above him. It sparkled and reflected the early morning sun and he felt sick watching the
light bounce around the room.
 “She’s dead,” he said blankly, “we did all this shit for nothing .”

Miles grabbed his shoulders, lifting him to his feet and supporting his weight when he tried to
slump back down to sit on the floor. “You don’t know that for sure-”

“She’s dead.”

The table splintered by their legs, bullets clattering to the floor, and when they looked over,
Tombstone was on his knees, pointing his guns in their direction. Miles tried pulling him away but
he stood rooted to their current spot as he reached into his pocket for a smoke bomb. The pin fell to
the floor with a quiet clink and he tossed the bomb right next to Tombstone and ignored the pained
coughs spilling from the man as smoke clouded up that half of the room.

Fisk was getting to his feet, comical in any other situation but right now it was like watching a
predator take its second bite at its prey. Miles was trying to tell him something, fingers pressed up
to his commlink and shaking his shoulder to get his attention. He ignored the boy, his friend, his-

He pulled out his gun and let his finger hug the trigger.

Chapter End Notes

PARALLELS PARALLELS PARALLELS

:)
 Dad
Chapter Summary

Interlude.

Chapter Notes

Enjoy this

See the end of the chapter for more notes

It is a Friday night and the Morales household is up in flames.

“I didn’t even want to go,” Miles mumbled under his breath when Jeff pauses his tirade, “this
whole thing is stupid.”

“You need to learn responsibility, Miles!” Jeff fumed, eyes disbelieving as they took in the sight of
his son, slumped and indifferent. He knew Miles wouldn’t take to Visions Academy easily. The boy
was used to the go-with-the-flow vibe that came with Brooklyn Middle and now that Miles was
actually being academically challenged he had made his displeasure known every Friday
afternoon at the dinner table.

Except this afternoon Rio was running late from the hospital and couldn't put out the sparks of an
oncoming argument.

“Fine, fine,” he decided while nodding grimly, “You want to play around with your future, Miles,
be my guest! But until the principal calls me to say that you apologized you’re grounded.”

This got an actual reaction out of Miles and soon the boy was standing in the middle of the living
room with absolute fury decorating his face, “Apologize for what? I’ve never even spoken to him
before-”

“For wasting everybody's time and acting like you have something better to be doing,” Jeff spoke
over Miles, one hand gripping his police hat while the other pointed accusingly at his son, “Me
and your mother didn’t get to where we are so you can play around in a school as prestigious as
Visions. Do you just not care about the stuff we do for you, is that what this is?”

He realized the argument had branched into a different territory when the anger was completely
blown off of Miles’ face and got replaced with a look so stunned and hurt that Jeff wished he could
take it back. “I do appreciate- I do,” the boy croaked and Jeff felt the anger leave his body when
the first few teardrops escaped his son’s hazel brown eyes, “I won’t complain again.”
The promise was spoken softly, accompanied by tears and eyes so lost and lonely that Jeff found
himself stepping back. It was all the space Miles needed to brush past him and speed toward his
room.

“Miles, I’m sorry…I shouldn’t have yelled.”

Apologizing to Miles was something he found himself doing more and more as the boy grew up and
started discovering more about himself. It was easy to forget that Miles was a sociable person who
spoke to damn near everybody when the only thing he saw the boy do at home was get sucked into
his artwork. He knew- he and Rio knew Miles had no friends at Visions. His son was just lonely
and upset, he knew that, but still, he found himself snapping whenever Miles complained about
school.

He and Rio were probably the only people besides Aaron that Miles could talk to about this. Well,
probably just Rio and Aaron now when the echo of Miles’ promise beat against his heart like a
rebuke from the heavens.

His son did not answer as he slipped into his room and shut the door behind him. Jeff rubbed his
temple, dropping his hat on the side table by the sofa before walking down the hall after Miles. He
rapped on the door with two knuckles, leaning his weight against the door and listening for any
signs of Miles.

There was no scratch of pencil on paper.

There was no music.

There was no sound of Miles tapping his feet on the floor.

“I want you to have a great life,” he said into the silence, “I always want the best for my family but
sometimes it doesn’t come out that way. I know you think I’m being a hardass but- I’m not doing
this to be mean to you, ok? I know this whole thing going on at Visions isn’t something you’re used
to but Miles…you just have this spark- this amazing spark and I want to see it go as bright as it
can.”

His son, so bright and so loud, was quiet and dull behind his room door.

“Things are getting tough, Miles,” he found himself admitting, “The city is moving backward and
more and more people are screwing themselves over tryna figure themselves out. I just…don’t want
you to be one of those people because…I- Miles, I love you.”
 Miles stared at his room door, tucked halfway under his bed like a little kid hiding from a monster
and absolutely silent as his Dad spoke to him.

“You don’t have to say anything back…but I just wanted you to know that.”

Soon after that, Dad would leave for his shift, keys turning in the locks on the front door before the
sound of the man going down the stairs became quieter and quieter. Jefferson would go out
thinking that his one and only child had lost trust in him and Miles would go to bed, without eating
the dinner Mamá had left on the stove, feeling like a burden who couldn’t meet simple
expectations.

And when…

When Uncle Aaron shakes him awake in the middle of the night, red and blue lights are flashing
through his room windows while the sound of his Mamá talking to someone in the living room
buzzed in the background, “Miles…Jeff- your Dad…he’s gone,” he could only turn his back to the
man and close his eyes again as a new set of tears washed the old white tear tracks on his face
away.

Chapter End Notes

Did you enjoy it?

 It Should Have Been Me
Chapter Summary

When she first met Aaron, he shoved her into the passenger side of his pickup truck
and hit the gas...Now, almost 20 years later, they're doing it all over again.

Chapter Notes

I'm sorry y'all

See the end of the chapter for more notes

The thing a lot of people didn't understand about Fisk was that the man was not fat. He was big,
yes, but under his custom suits and thick skin Miles G knew the man was pure muscle. So the first
bullet that slammed into the man only did enough to evoke a pained grunt as he continued to rise
up.

The smoke from the smoke bomb he'd tossed to the other side of the room was starting to spread
through the entire room. Smoky tendrils crept along the floor and slowly encased his rocket-
enforced sneakers. Miles cursed next to him when Fisk got up completely, large chest heaving and
buttons popping from his blue dress shirt under the pressure of their scuffle.

He felt heavy as Fisk stormed toward them, loud stomps sending vibrations through the floor but
he wasn't afraid of the possibility of death anymore. He straightened his arm again, shutting one
eye as he took more shots. Next to him Miles recoiled, clamping his hand over the ear that wasn't
occupied by the earpiece but Miles G paid him no mind.

A bullet hit Fisk's kneecap and the man toppled over with a shout. "I think we should leave him to
the police-"

"No," he cut Miles off, eyes locked in on Fisk with a sort of numb rage that he'd never experienced
before, "The clean cops are too scared to arrest him and the rest of them are in his pocket." Miles
watched him, and on his face, he could see the same expression he made when he came to accept
something.

“You don’t like killing,” Miles told him and his nostrils flared at the words because he knew he
could not deny them. He could bullshit all day and pretend to be heartless but he wasn’t. His heart
was still as large and easy to break as it had been since the day he was born. The weight of Dad’s
death had just been enough to squeeze it behind a nearly impenetrable barrier but now his heart
was close to bursting out of its protective shell.

Te quiero, mijo
He would never hear those words again.

“I’d be helping a lot of people,” he decided as he raised the gun once more and aimed for Fisk’s
neck. He would make sure the man bled out slowly, just like his Dad did that horrible night. He’d
be helping Fisk too, he realized. If the man wanted his damn family back so much he could meet
them in hell. He pulled the trigger and when Miles pushed his hand back down to his side he
dropped the weapon. The sound of metal hitting the floor cut through Fisk’s bloodied gurgles and
the slow hiss of smoke escaping its canister.

“She’s gone,” he told Miles but the boy just shook his head.

“Uncle Aaron said to wait- said he was getting to a better spot.”

He ignored Miles and walked carefully, one foot in front of the next, to Fisk. The man was
sprawled on his side and it took a particularly harsh kick to roll him onto his back. When he glared
into Fisk’s eyes, pained and dark, a cross between a sneer and a smile settled on his face. “The
mayor’s gonna make sure your accounts are dry before they’re even done cremating you,” he told
Fisk as the man spluttered on his own blood. He sat down next to the man, rested a clawed hand on
the wide chest, and then continued telling Fisk his worst nightmares, “By the end of next week
people won’t be suffering on the streets anymore because you want to hoard billions of dollars. By
the end of next week, this building is gonna get reclaimed and turned into something better…and if
it doesn’t, I’ll just kill the new owner.”

Fisk’s beady black eyes were becoming shiny, death glazing over him and tugging his soul from
his body. “You killed my mother, you killed my father, and you ruined my life. They ain’t do
nothing wrong except be good people,” he flinched back when a spray of blood escaped Fisk’s
mouth before he carried on, “You swear up and down that the city is yours but Fisk…people only
want you for your money. And I’m gonna give them your money.” He pushed his claw down into
Fisk’s flesh and stared into the man’s eyes when he jerked. “You should have put the hit on me. ”

Kingpin twitched, once, twice, and stilled.

Miles watched his counterpart gaze off to the left after Fisk took his last breath. The other boy was
sitting criss-cross as a river of blood spread from the left side of Kingpin’s corpse and Miles almost
missed the ping of the earpiece until a static sound came through.

“-ar me? Miles? Can you hear me?”

“Oh! Yeah- yes, I hear you.”

“I got her out,” Uncle Aaron said, “the people Fisk hired are…down. I’ll drive around for a while
and make sure nobody’s trailing us before we go back to the apartment.”

“Fisk is dead,” he told Uncle Aaron before turning away from the man’s still body. “I think
something is wrong with him…your Miles I mean.”
“What? What’s wrong with him?”

“...Tell him she’s alive.”

“You’re the only one who picked up-”

He pulled the earpiece out and inched closer to his counterpart. When his presence registered to the
other boy, Miles held out the commlink and stared the other boy down. The earpiece was snatched
reluctantly and Miles sat next to him, steady and focused, before Uncle Aaron’s voice called
through the earpiece.

“What?” Miles G said out loud as he placed the commlink close to his ear.

“She’s ok, Miles,” Uncle Aaron said, “it was close but she’s good-”

The rest of Uncle Aaron’s speech was cut short when he dropped the earpiece on the floor and
clutched his head. Arms encased him and he leaned into Miles easily as they sat in broken glass,
blood, and smoke. Miles was leaning into him too he noticed faintly and he brought his arms up to
hug the other boy back.

“I wanna help people,” he told Miles, “I hate shit like this.”

“I told you that you were meant to be Spider-Man,” Miles murmured to him and he thumped the
other boy on his back for it.

“I’m not ,” he insisted, “that’s all you.”

They sat in silence for a moment, inhaling the sharp scent of blood and smoke. They were both
jittery and Miles accidentally shocked Miles G whenever he moved but the boy said nothing and
kept holding on. The sun had made it over the horizon and cast the city in a deep orange as its rays
fought to penetrate smoke clouds. Miles G watched the beams peek in and out as tried beating his
mind into submission. His eyes prickled and if asked he knew he wouldn’t be able to lie and say
they were reacting to the smoke because his face had reverted back to its old habit of displaying all
his emotions with no limitation.

“I was scared when he picked up that phone,” Miles admitted to him, “When the Fisk in my
universe killed Uncle Aaron it was quick…he was alive one moment and then I’m over his body in
a random alley.”

“He decides when someone lives or dies like he’s a God,” Miles G remarked and pulled both of
them away from Fisk’s body when the blood started spreading in their direction, “One call and
someone’s gone. He calls me and the target is gone within an hour so I thought- I thought she’d be
gone just as soon.”
“I thought she was dead too,” Miles conceded, “I didn’t want to accept it so I just waited for Uncle
Aaron to say something…I don’t know what I’d do if any version of Mami died.”

“...she’s really like your Mom?” He asked, considering Miles when the boy nodded.

“She’s still our Mom no matter what universe and he’s- no listen, he’s still our dad no matter
what.”

“Why you wanna share him so damn bad,” he asked Miles seriously, pulling away just slightly so
he could see the boy’s face, “You see what not having him around made me do and you're still
tryna get me to think that he’d be proud of me or some shit.”

“We’re his kid,” Miles shrugged hopelessly, “He and Mom sat down and planned us, y’know?
They made the choice to have a kid so I don’t think he’d be ashamed of you, or me, or any other
version of us.”

“...You tryna hype yourself up to tell them about your wall climbing crap, huh?”

“Shut up!” Miles huffed before pushing him away to spring back to his feet, “We’re like twins,
man…we could share things.”

“You wanna share…parents?” He repeated slowly as he rose to his own feet.

“Don’t say it like that,” Miles told him. He squatted down and scooped the earpiece off the floor
before putting it back in his pocket. “And I’m serious…I wouldn’t hate you if you wanted to talk to
Dad or anything…’cause I think you need to talk to him.”

“And you needa talk to Uncle Aaron so I guess we both got issues, don’t we?” Miles G judged
before pointing to Tombstone, “The police will lock him up, Scorpion too. They got no power
without Fisk backing them up.”

“Hey, you serious? About wanting to help people?”

He nodded, pulling at the end of one of his braids before spitting out an affirmative.

“I already started…might as well keep going.”

Rio and Jeff were the perfect couple.

During college when she had decided to do as much crazy shit as she could while getting her
prerequisites for nursing school, she met Jeff.
Well-

She met Aaron first. The then 19-year-old Aaron had slid up behind her, smooth-talking and
offering her random shit. She had smiled and nodded along, pretending to understand what the hell
he was going on about. It was only when he shoved her into the passenger side of his pickup truck
and stepped on the gas did she realize that he'd been in the process of stealing something. She
heard the whirl of sirens, the cop car that was always on campus for safety reasons, and screamed
when Aaron sharply tugged the wheel left and fled college grounds.

"What the hell is wrong with you!" She screamed at him and Aaron had given her some messed up
face that was more a grimace than a smile before telling her to keep this on the 'down low'.

She slapped the side of his arm and hopped out of the truck yelling curses at him all the while. For
a second he looked abashed and she moved to turn around in victory-

"What the hell is this, man?"

"I ain't know she was there!"

A man, wider and more muscular than Aaron, had been behind her. "Ria?" He asked her and she
scowled because she recognized him too.

"It's Rio, Jefferson."

"Oh…well I'm sorry about my brother," Jeff had folded his arms and glared in Aaron's direction,
"he's a dumbass."

"Man, screw you," Aaron snapped, "she's in one of my classes. She won't snitch, right?"

"You're both delinquents," she told them instead of answering Aaron and they gave each other
looks.

"Nah, you the only delinquent here, I wouldn't have done half the shit you did at that party last
night," Aaron laughed and when Rio turned to look at him she saw him counting business cards
like money.

"She probably wouldn't get caught stealing one damn letter either," Jeff responded and reached
around her to snatch his brother's collar, "Did you even get it? What are these cards-"

"Why the hell do we need this letter anyway?" Aaron jerked away, "You ever think that you too
damn nosy sometimes? 'Cause you are."

Jeff reached farther into the truck and punched Aaron in the shoulder. She watched them fight.
Cards sprayed from the truck window and Jefferson kicked his legs when Aaron started pulling on
the back of his shirt.

Dumbasses, she thought when Aaron spit out an impressive chain of curses. Complete idiots, and
she walked back up Central Hill to forget about the incident altogether.

But then Aaron had thrown a paper ball at her head next class and had the audacity to stare her
dead in the eyes when she whipped around to glare. She grabbed the ball and ripped through it with
no regard, watching in disbelief as Aaron pulled another ball from his pocket to fling in her face
like he'd expected the reaction.

She opened it.

You should hang around the bottom of Central Hill with us

She crumpled the ball back up and hurled it right at Aaron's nose before turning back to the math
lecture going on up front.

…But she had nothing better to do.

That was the thought that made her go down that hill almost every day after Aaron had put his
annoying younger brother skills to use. The three of them did any and everything at the bottom of
the hill, camped out in Aaron’s pickup truck through sun or rain as they goofed off.

And then one day Aaron hadn’t been there.

Without the younger boy there, Rio and Jeff only had each other to focus on and their
relationship… grew . “Y’all needa get your own truck to do this in,” Aaron had said in disgust
when he dropped them off for their first official date.

“I’ll get my license soon,” Jeff said absently because he was too busy swooning. Aaron laughed,
loud enough to attract attention before zipping down the street with all the recklessness of someone
who did not need a license could have.

They revolved around each other and her mere presence was enough to pull Jeff out of whatever
criminal activity he was involved in. When he came to her, mumbling about some police academy
and the nice apartment he had found, she pulled him inside and introduced him formally to her
Mamá. They grew love, security, and life . But between all of that Aaron had disappeared.

Aaron was like smoke. You had to clench your fists around him to hold onto him and if your
fingers slipped even slightly he would vanish as though he’d never been there. Jeff had been good
at holding onto Aaron but somewhere after college, he lost his grip and the younger man had
slipped into a deeper level of crime. She knew Jeff blamed himself for Aaron’s situation when they
visited him in prison.

“You could’ve spoken to me, reached out, something, man,” Jeff was whispering into the phone as
she stood behind him and glanced around. Prison was cold she noticed and hugged herself.

“You got your own thing going and I got mine,” Aaron responded from behind the glass barrier,
side-eyeing a guard when they let out a particularly nasty-sounding cough. Bronchitis, the nurse in
her thought but the sister in her was too busy staring at Aaron.

And now here she was almost 20 years later. Sprawled out on the parking lot floor as her brother-
in-law stood over a woman with a smoking gun in his hand. They stared at each for a moment,
green eyes to a masked face, before Aaron leaped off the car he was on and yanked her up from the
floor.

He pulled her to a pickup truck and shoved her into the passenger seat. He barely shut his own
door before he was pulling off and tearing through the parking lot.

She knew Aaron didn’t get the money he gave her from a legal job. She also knew that Miles was
aware of where exactly the money came from. How could she not have her suspicions? Especially
when the two of them huddled together over the kitchen table and whispered about things that had
nothing to do with the groceries she asked them to get.

“Did you get the groceries?” She asked when the thought popped back into her head. Aaron, still
masked and covered, whipped his head to stare at her and she knew that wasn’t something she
should have asked in that moment.

“Where’s Miles?” She asked instead and her suspicions were confirmed when Aaron swerved
thoughtlessly and reached up to his face to tap on an earpiece cleverly blended in with his black
mask.

“Hello? Can any of you hear me? Miles?”

She stared at the side of his head as he tried to get through to Miles. Her son had been acting so
strange when he came back home and then Aaron had swooped him away. Did she know too much
about whatever crimes they were involved in? She couldn’t think of any other reason a Cartel
member would be trying to kill her. “Where is he?”

Aaron grabbed the steering wheel with both hands when the car moved onto the empty sidewalks.
“Tryna get through,” he told her before going back to his earpiece.

“Is someone else with him?” She asked because if Aaron said no she would grab the wheel and
spin them into a streetlight pole. He nodded quickly, losing focus again , and hit the curb with a
loud thud. “Who?”

“You gotta see them for yourself,” he told her cryptically, and her almost 20-year-old-aged urge to
slap him came back in full force. “I got her out,” he told someone, maybe Miles, “the people Fisk
hired are…down,” the pop of a gun echoed in her ears and she found herself checking her chest
again, “I’ll drive around for a while and make sure nobody’s trailing us before we go back to the
apartment.”

“Where is he?” She asked and she knew Aaron was at his limit when he gripped the steering
wheel.

“Manhattan,” he told her, and then, “What? What’s wrong with him?”

Terror seized her chest, sharp and more terrifying than any bullet could ever be when she heard
those words. He had to be asking about Miles and whoever this mystery person was on the other
side-

“You’re the only one who picked up-”

 His voice turned into a buzz as she stared through the windshield. She had let Miles go about his
life with the trust that he would come to her if he ever got too deep into something but had she been
wrong about Miles’ trust in her? He had been a whirlwind of nonsensical words when she lost saw
him.

Spider-Man.

He was stuck on that topic, truthful and earnest as he went on about beating people. But who was
Spider-Man if not some alter ego her son had taken up to prowl the streets with? The news never
made any reports on Spider-Man so maybe he wasn’t involved in anything too crazy. She held onto
that hope, clutched the sides of her seat, and thought about what she would say to her son if he ever
came home.

Chapter End Notes

Rio:*almost gets shot*...Anyway, did y'all get the groceries

Aaron: Are you in shock or something?...Also no

I did not intend for Aaron to be such a shitty driver but new headcanon for me ig

I wanna know exactly what business Jeff and Aaron had when they were younger
AND WHAT THING DID RIO HAVE GOING ON? Jeff just drops all these little
backstory hints in the movie and then leaves us hanging like wth

Speaking of Rio ...she's still alive, not well, but alive. I would neverrrr make Miles G
an orphan...he got enough going on while being fatherless.
 One New, One Rusted
Chapter Summary

She shook her head and pulled him by the wrists to sit on his bed. “I’m here now, and I
should've always been but I don’t want you to worry about me, ok?”

He went to object but her green eyes were firm, an unmovable force, and he shrank
into himself because he hadn’t done anything to earn a look like that in a long time. “I
know what you did but you’re still my little boy. It’s all I can see you as and- and when
you come home looking all sad and lost and covered in bruises I don’t know how to
fix it…”

Chapter Notes

Im just writing random stuff for the chapter titles atp

See the end of the chapter for more notes

When Miles did come home, well after curfew had ended and the city was starting to become more
active, he brought with him the version of Miles that she had been so confused by. The other boy
was like a shadow next to her son, with bright eyes and free hair being the opposite to her boy’s
dull eyes and usually neat braids. Aaron was shooting her glances, face finally uncovered and
unprotected if she did decide to get up and slap him but she couldn’t be bothered with him right
now. There was an awkward pause when Miles- her Miles- closed the door behind him.

She observed him, properly, critically, in a way she hadn’t since Jeff’s funeral.

He looked tired and his braids were a mess. The oversized hoodie he was using to cover himself
didn’t conceal the lump of something against his hips and when he stepped forward she heard the
clink of metal. She held up a hand to stop him and he obeyed almost mindlessly. “What are you?”
She asked the other Miles. He looked nervous and gave her a bashful smile before Aaron started
speaking.

“Rio, it’s hard to ex-"

“I don’t wanna hear from you,” she told her brother-in-law sharply and pointed a finger at the
clone of her son, “What are you?”

The other version of her Miles jumped from bashful to noticeably terrified and deep down she
didn’t like seeing that look directed at her. Her Miles noticed the other boy’s mood decline and
gave her a beseeching look, “Mamí, he’s not a thing,” her son defended, “he’s me from another
dimension but he ain’t supposed to be here.”
“...Another dimension?”

“I’m sorry about this,” Other Miles was saying and she stared at him with wide eyes, “I didn’t
realize until the glitching started and then- I’m sorry, Mamí.”

When the title fell from his mouth, natural and innocent, she glanced between both boys and shook
her head. They made the same look of confusion and she had to sit down to settle her nerves before
she found her voice, “Take those hoodies off, they smell like smoke.”

The apartment became still.

She glanced at them and then at Aaron. The man was having a silent conversation with both of
them, eye contact and slight shifts were the only things she could read before her son was
approaching her. He kept his head down and kneeled on both knees before her like he was a sinner
seeking forgiveness.

“I have to tell you something…and it’s really bad,” Miles G confessed and she reached for his head
to smooth down the hair that had escaped his braids, “I get it if you don’t love me after-”

“I’ll always love you,” she held onto the back of his head and forced him to make eye contact with
her, “No matter what you say,” she knew it would be something horrible, “I’m always gonna be
your mother,” the only sin he could commit is leaving her behind, “You can tell me anything,”
God, she already had this conversation. What had she done to make her son think he couldn’t tell
her something? Or was Miles just like this across all dimensions?

He couldn’t seem to find words as he stared into her eyes so he fiddled with the zipper of his
hoodie and pulled it down with trembling fingers. When her eyes trailed over the logo on his chest
she sat frozen for a moment before looking up at Aaron and furrowing her eyebrows. “Did you put
him up to this-”

“No, no,” Miles G objected and grabbed the wrist that was connected to the hand on his head, “he
didn’t even want me to know it was- I just wanted to help you.”

“Help me with what?” Rio asked and when her son’s eyes flickered to the open overdue light bill
on the side table she let him go. He slumped over, a graceless, unnatural movement, and braced his
forehead on her knee. She glanced at Miles- Other Miles- and looked him over. He was shifty,
tapping his fingers along his legs in the same pattern Jeff used to, and was looking everywhere but
her.

“My…other self is- does she know about Spider-Man?” He looked surprised, as though he didn’t
expect to be addressed after the mystery of who and what he was was resolved, and shook his head.
“I’ve been trying to find ways to tell them and I thought I could last night…but I’m not even where
I’m supposed to be so…” His desperate attempt to speak to her last night came back with a painful
swing and she hoped for his sake that the Rio in his universe handled this better than she was right
now.

“Aaron, go get the groceries,” she said after a beat because she had no appropriate reaction to the
concept of dimension-hopping or the multiverse. Her son moved, and she reached for his arms to
drag him up from his sorry little slump. “Sit down, both of you. Aaron-”

“Groceries, got it,” the man didn’t want to leave but Rio couldn’t bear his presence right now and
she had two kids to look after.

“Come back quick,” she ordered. She wouldn’t make the same mistake she made in college and let
him go. He nodded briefly and she knew he would come back when he rested a hand on Miles'
messy braids before he left the apartment quietly.

"Ma?"

"Hm?”

They both stared at her, identical caramel eyes filled with suspicion, and shoulders tense. “Are you
mad?”

“No contigo,” she reassured him and reached for his face. He winced and she noticed with
growing anger that his face was bruised. “Sabes que te quiero, verdad?”

He nodded, eyes a little more hopeful, and rested his face in her palm even though she could tell it
was hurting him. She brought her hand down to his shoulder instead, squeezing gently, before she
got up. “You both need to change…and shower. I’m gonna go to the roof for a moment, just,” she
assessed the both of them and then sighed, “don’t burn the place down. Make sure you’re cleaned
up so I can check you over. Solo dame un memento.”

“Ok,” they both agreed, voices blended together in an off-putting harmony but she found she didn’t
mind when she cast one last look at them together on the sofa. When the door shut behind her and
the sound of her feet going up the stairs faded, both boys sank back into the couch and sat in
silence for less than a minute.

“Was that good or bad?” Miles asked quietly and turned his head slightly to look at Miles G. The
other boy exhaled through his mouth, tilting his head as he tried to consider an answer.

“She still loves me at least,” Miles G shook his head, eyebrows raised in astonished disbelief,
“That’s the best thing I could ask for…”

“...she’s gonna ground the shit out of you,” Miles deadpanned before getting up and slinking off to
the bathroom.

Miles G scoffed, bracing his hands on his knees as he got up with a surprising amount of effort. He
stood still for a minute and let his body adjust to the prickles of pain shooting up and down his
body before he followed after Miles. “Where you gonna get clean clothes from?” He asked the
other boy as he walked into his room.

“Don’t even play right now,” the creak of the shower faucet being turned on echoed from the
bathroom to his room. He yanked open his closet door and scrounged up a hoodie and a pair of
sweatpants that had been demoted to pajama status. He balled them up and flung them into the
bathroom before Miles could close the door, snickering when the other boy spat out a muffled
curse.

Alone in his room, he slowly slipped out of his Prowler outfit and cataloged the cuts and scuffs
marking individual pieces of the costume. He sighed, sinking down to the floor, and rested his head
against his bed. The strands that had escaped his braids were fiddled with for a moment before he
started the simple process of unraveling both braids. The scent of smoke was trapped in his hair,
unpleasant and heavy, so he got up carefully, mindful of his bruises, and found a comb.

In front of his mirror, he was raw.

His face was scratched up and his eyes were tinted red. The offending hazel brown-colored eyes
were still glassy with old tears and he used the back of his wrist to wipe them away. There was
nothing put together about him in this moment and he didn’t think he’d be able to scare an ant in
his current state. He observed himself in the mirror, taking in all the little emotions flashing across
his face and using his fingers to brush through any tangles in his hair.

“I need to wash it,” Rio spoke from his doorway. He raised his eyebrows and nodded; too tired to
even flinch at her sudden appearance. “Told you I only needed one moment,” she told him and his
adoration swelled with the gentle words. She walked to him, hands sliding up his arms, searching
and settling him all at once before she turned him to face her.

“You’re grounded,” she said predictably and he nodded in agreement, “I don’t even know what
you’re grounded from though…you have no friends,” ouch, “you don’t draw anymore,” the mural
weighed on his heart, “and the only thing you seem to care about now is me and your uncle. Que
voy a hacer contigo? Hm?”

He licked his lips, a quick dart of his tongue to lap at his busted button lip, and shrugged, “Did
anybody try anything when you left the hospital?”

She shook her head and pulled him by the wrists to sit on his bed. “I’m here now, and I should've
always been but I don’t want you to worry about me, ok?”

He went to object but her green eyes were firm, an unmovable force, and he shrank into himself
because he hadn’t done anything to earn a look like that in a long time. “I know what you did but
you’re still my little boy. It’s all I can see you as and- and when you come home looking all sad
and lost and covered in bruises I don’t know how to fix it…”

“You do fix it,” he argued but the effect was lost when she pulled him forward to start combing
through his hair, “I guess ‘m not that little boy anymore. Te lo quité. ”

“No, he’s just lost,” she tapped his chest, bare and covered in bruises from the events of last night
and this morning, “In here he’s still there but up here,” she flicked his temple and he winced,
“you’re telling yourself that you can’t be a kid anymore.”

He didn’t respond in hopes that he wouldn’t say anything to dig himself into a deeper hole but the
silence seemed to make his mamá sadder. “ Vamos, nene. Let me get your hair washed before
Miles gets out.”

He followed her automatically, passing the bathroom where he could hear Miles humming the tune
of a DMX song and going through the hallway that seemed longer than usual. “ Que sobre Papí? ”
He shot out before he could stop himself.
She came to a sudden stop, tightening the grip on his wrist before she mumbled, “What about
him?”

He tried to scrape up words but his mind was a mess of jumbled feelings and distorted memories.
“I don’t know,” he admitted and followed after her when she started walking again.

“Do you wanna talk about him?” She probed when they got to the kitchen, “You don’t have-”

“We had an argument before he died,” he interrupted quietly and the click of her mouth snapping
shut was like the sound of an executioner sharpening their blade. He pushed on, “I didn’t- I never
said I love you back and then he-”

He turned away from her when his eyes started stinging and tried to resist her hands turning him
back around. “You’re father loved you and he knew you loved him too, querido. What are you
trying to say?”

He was trapped in her arms, cornered between the stove and counter, and forced to look at her. “...I
don’t wanna talk about this anymore.” She didn’t object, didn’t tell him that they had only been
talking for but a minute, she just nodded and led him to the sink. He felt guilt slam against him, a
feeling he always got when she tried bringing up Dad only to be shut down. “ Ma, ‘m sorry. I
shouldn’t have said-”

“No, you should,” she told him and pushed him forward to bend over the sink, “you never say
anything about him…do you talk to Aaron-”

“No,” he said curtly, “I haven’t said anything since the day we put the piece up.” He didn’t know
how to speak to the man about Dad. Jeff might have been his father but Uncle Aaron had more
time with the man and so did his mother. “I don’ wanna seem like I’m the only one who lost him,”
he admitted, voice echoey as his head was pushed further down in the sink.

Rio turned on the water, moving the sink head away from Miles G’s head when the water came out
freezing cold. “You and your Uncle are the only people who have known your father for their
whole lives,” she sighed, “I thought that if not me then you’d at least talk to Aaron…but you pulled
away from him too, didn’t you?”

He mumbled another apology although he didn’t know what he was apologizing for anymore. She
moved the sink head back over him and he placed his head further into the sink to angle the water
away from his eyes. “Miles…those people that you-” he tensed and she scratched his scalp almost
absentmindedly, “were they normal people?”

“Normal?”

“Were they good people I mean?”

“Anybody who deals with Fisk ain’t good,” he said bitterly, “I still took them out quickly though.”

They were dancing around the word kill he realized but he didn’t want to be talking to his mother
in the mindset of a murderer anyway so he went along with it. His side twinged when she moved
him a little and he gripped the counter edge to stop her before his injuries reignited in pain. “Did
you do those?” She asked, holding his hair in both hands and using her chin to nod toward the
stitches lining his forearm.
“Nah, Miles stitched me up,” he told her and then relaxed against the sink edge when she eased
him down again. Her fingers massaging shampoo into his hair was a familiar feeling, the only time
they were basically on top of each other since Dad died, and he exhaled when he felt a line of
shampoo traveling down his temple toward his eye. She intercepted it quickly before it could get to
his sensitive eyes and then took the sink hose next to the faucet and washed away all the shampoo
coating his hair.

“I’m gonna stay home for the week,” she told him and then pressed on before he could interrupt, “I
have a bunch of PTO days saved up so we’re all gonna stay home and talk…as much as you can.”

She pulled his head up from the sink and he opened his eyes when she wrapped a towel around his
shoulders, “All?"

“I’m gonna be having a different conversation with your Uncle-”

“Mamí,” he groaned and leaned down so she could secure his hair in a clip, “I asked him to train
me…if he didn’t I’d probably be dead.”

“And what training was this? Jumping off buildings?” He resisted the urge to honestly say yes and
followed her back to his room. When they got there Miles was sprawled on the floor and clothed in
the hoodie and sweatpants Miles G had given him. “You,” Rio called to Miles, “come here and let
me see your shoulder, I saw you messing with it.”

He grabbed his own set of clothes and shivered when the water from his hair soaked through the
towel and started touching his shoulders. Miles and Rio bickered back and forth, the former
insisting his shoulder was fine while the latter insisted it was not. “I’m not asking,” the woman
chastised, “You might not be my Miles but you’re still my son so you better get over here when I
tell you-”

“Ok, ok-”

Ignoring them, he trailed out of the room and into the hallway. He was about to step into the
bathroom when the front door opened. Uncle Aaron stepped through halfway, weighted down with
grocery bags and pausing when they made eye contact. A sharp rebuke in Spanish directed at
Miles cut through their moment of silence and Miles G ducked into the bathroom before his Uncle
could say anything.

He didn’t know how to tell his Uncle about the revelation he had while sitting by Fisk’s cooling
body. The man already went along with so much of his shit but he couldn’t imagine pulling Uncle
Aaron away from his most stable source of income because of a sudden extreme perspective
change.

Dad would be proud , he told himself, all he wanted was for me to do good.

He nodded once in the mirror and then turned on the shower when his throat didn’t clamp down in
panic.
Chapter End Notes

Imagine how weird it would be to stare at two different versions of your kid at the
same time

Rio: wth are you? Nevermind don't answer that you're child #2

Translations:
No contigo- Not with you
Sabes que te queiro, verdad?- You know I love you, right?
Solo dame un momento- Just give me a moment
Que voy a hacer contigo?- What am I gonna do with you?
Te lo quite- I took him from you
Vamos, nene- C'mon, baby
Que sobre Papi?- What about Papi?
querido- sweetheart
(Google Translate got me wondering if ik basic Spanish bc why did I type half this
stuff into Translate and its tryna give me a whole different sentence? )

IMPORTANT: I might not be able to upload every day anymore because I want to
write longer chapters…so maybe every three days now if I’m fast
 Always In Your Corner
Chapter Summary

Miles finally speaks to his parents.

Chapter Notes

To everybody who had read my fic Always In Your Corner...DO NOT judge me for
this chapter title. It's just some mild self-plagiarism...and I'm fighting for my life with
these chapter titles rn

TW: Panic attack

See the end of the chapter for more notes

“Workers at Fisk Towers claim the last person their boss was seen with was the infamous Prowler.
Authorities have no clues pointing toward the Prowler’s identity but crime bosses Tombstone and
Scorpion have been successfully arrested on a multitude of charges and will be facing trial this
year. Multiple incriminating files have also been found in Wilson Fisk’s private office despite his
lawyer’s attempts at blocking police investigation. The Mayor cautions all minors to be inside by 6
PM while all adults should either be at home or at work by 8 PM. Now we go to eyewitness Ella
Lee who greeted the Prowler into Fisk’s penthouse moments before-”

The clear, blocky voice of the anchorwoman floated around the living room and its two inhabitants
kept their gazes locked in on the crime scene pictures that had been released to the press. “They’ve
tried to arrest Tombstone and Scorpion before?” Miles inquired, locked in on the TV screen with
laser focus.

Miles G glanced at the boy for a second before returning his attention to the TV, “There’s been
warrants out for their arrest for years but they have control over a lot of the supplies in the city…
it’s kinda like a hostage situation but with food and supplies instead of people.”

“Where are we gonna start?” Miles wondered when headshots of the rest of the Sinister Six
showed up on the screen.

“We? What are we gonna start?” Miles G raised his eyebrows and finally lost attention with the
TV. He drew his legs up and settled on the couch in a balled-up position, head resting on the back
of the couch. His hair, freshly conditioned and braided, was out of his face and Miles could see the
bruises on it progressively getting darker.

“You know…the whole helping people now, remember?”

“What’s that gotta do with you, man?” He asked genuinely, moving one leg from its tucked
position to jab his foot into the side of Miles’ thigh, “This ain’t even your universe.”

“...I can visit,” Miles gestured with his wrist that held the watch Gwen had gifted him in Uncle
Aaron’s apartment, “I mean if you don’t want me around after I go-”

“Nah.”

A hurt look flickered in Miles’ eyes but he felt too lethargic to correct the confusion immediately
so he remained in his lax position and slowly spoke, “I want you around, man, don’t trip. I just
don’t know why you’d wanna come back here if your universe is…better.”

“I wanna help you,” Miles shrugged but Miles G just hummed empathetically and scooted closer to
him.

“I think you’re just lonely.”

“I got friends,” Miles defended, “I have Ganke-”

“Ganke’s only friends with Miles Morales, not Spider-Man or the Prowler or any other secret
identity we got out there.”

“You have a Ganke too?”

The question made him wince but he answered before Miles could backpedal and shut down. “I
dropped out of Visions last year…gave them some bull about the grief interfering with my school
life,” and it had he realized now, “they put my scholarship on pause and said I could come back
whenever I was ready. But Ganke ,” he laughed sardonically, “Ganke knew who I was.”

“How?” Miles seemed fully absorbed so he continued talking, laughing fits randomly attacking him
even though there was nothing to laugh at.

“I put him through so much shit, man,” he looked up at the ceiling, braids tossed over the back of
the couch, “With all my crying in the middle of the night, coming in at 2 AM bleeding and shit,
and giving him the stupidest lies I’ve ever made up before.”

He and Ganke could only be friends during the day. It was like whenever the dorm curfew
announcements were made Miles became a different person. In broad daylight, he was normal but
in the confines of his and Ganke’s room, he became an unstable mess, a baby mercenary with no
clue of what to do with himself. God, he remembered the panic attacks that would creep up on him
in the middle of the night after his first kill. But Ganke never got upset with him, never asked for a
room change, and never called the cops or security when he stumbled through their window with
innate clumsiness.

“You’ll be back next year, right?” Ganke had asked him when they finished beating his suitcase
into submission. He had nodded and avoided the boy’s gaze, ashamed and confused. How couldn’t
he be? If he was Ganke he would have hated himself, he already did normally. So why did Ganke
want him around?

“Told him I would be back this year but we’re already halfway through the school year,” he trailed
off, hysteric laughter vanishing so quickly that he didn’t feel any emotions until Miles started
speaking again.

“Your Ganke seems a little more helpful than mine,” Miles joked, “maybe you should go back.”
“I’ll ask Mamí about it later,” he knew she would be happy about him wanting to go back, “but
what other friends you got? Ganke and who else?”

Now Miles was quiet.

Not silent in the way Miles G noticed he would be when he was observing something or listening
to someone but silent as though the topic of friends was something he hadn’t talked about in a
while.

“You’re a friend?” Miles spoke after a long moment of silence.

“Nah,” he replied just to mess with the other boy, “you can’t be friends with your siblings it doesn’t
count.”

The scowl lining Miles’ face fell away as shock replaced it and laughter almost started spilling
from his mouth again when the boy scrambled for a response. “Siblings?”

“Yeah, you’re the one who said we’re like twins,” Miles G reminded, “twins are siblings, you
know that right?”

“Shut up!” Miles said instinctively and grabbed the foot Miles G still had jammed into his thigh to
push it away, “Siblings can be friends.”

“Nah.”

“I don’t wanna be friends with you anymore,” Miles decided and stared at him with faux disgust.

“What are y’all yellin’ about?” Uncle Aaron’s voice came from the kitchen table and when they
looked over at him he was rubbing sleep away from his eyes.

“Uncle Aaron, were you friends with Dad?” Miles G tossed at the man before he could even regain
his bearings.

“What- I don’t know,” Uncle Aaron exclaimed, “we were brothers…that’s more than some lil’
friend-”

“Exactly!”

The man shushed them, fully awake and stretching as he got up from his seat at the kitchen table.
“Your mother’s still sleepin’, y’all needa go outside if you’re gonna be yellin’ at each other.”

“‘Kay,” both boys agreed at the same time, and a shudder trailed down Aaron’s spine when their
voices combined together. They were up and flying through the front door before he could even
respond so he just shook his head and took up their vacated spot on the couch so he could go back
to sleep.
On the stairs, both boys skipped steps as they dashed upward to the roof exit. Their impromptu
race resulted in nothing when they both crashed through the fire escape door at the same time but
they claimed victory and declared the other a loser anyway. The streets were loud and smoggy as
the wind pushed smoke all around but Miles could hear kids arguing over jump rope a few
buildings down so he figured it was just something this version of Brooklyn had gotten used to.

“You going back now?” Miles G asked quietly and he jolted back to present day at the question.

“I should…I really should,” he mumbled and looked at the taller boy when he slung an arm around
his shoulder.

“Remember when I knocked your ass out on this roof?”

He resisted the urge to shove the other boy over the edge and answered the question with an
unimpressed tone, “Yeah, man. I also remember waking up chained to a punching-”

“Shh, that’s in the past,” Miles G said, “what I’m tryna say is that you’re a cool person. At first, I
didn’t wanna have nothing to do with you and now you’re a little less annoying.”

“What does this have to do with me going back home?”

“You said yourself that Dad could never hate us and Mamí is always on our side,” Miles G
elaborated, “If there’s anyone who can make and keep a good relationship with people it’s you…or
us? You feel me?”

“I’ve been lying for over a year-”

“So have I-”

“But it’s different with Dad!” Miles rebuffed him loudly and the city seemed to quiet around them.
Miles G's eyes hardened and any hint of concern or care for Miles vanished behind a wall of hazel
ice. But that wall was still weak and Miles seemed to have a special way around it so he broke
through with a quiet, “Sorry…after last night, I’m not worried about Mom but Dad…you know
how he is.”

“I do know how he is,” Miles G responded evenly and Miles missed the sarcasm and snarkiness
the other boy had been using just moments before, “so I don’t know why you standing up here like
he’ll hate you. You’re a superhero , you’re Spider-Man. Whatever that means in your world seems
like a good thing so what the hell is the problem?”

Miles looked away from him, but he stepped forward and caught the boy’s identical hazel-brown
gaze, “Our family doesn’t run from things,” he reminded Miles, “especially not from each other.”

“Yeah, we- we don’t,” Miles agreed, nodding frantically but not quite as confident in the rest of his
body language.

Miles was plagued by anxiety too, Miles G realized before the shorter boy collided into him. He
redistributed his weight and leaned forward so Miles didn’t accidentally knock him down and send
them both sprawling across the roof. He hugged the other boy back tightly, wishing that he could
slash through the anxious buzz blurring Miles’ brain but it was something that would stick around.
He knew from personal experience.

“I’ll come back if they don’t kill me,” Miles told him. He forced himself to let go of the other boy,
his friend, his reflection, his brother, and tried to stomp down his own nerves when Miles stepped
back. He fiddled with the watch for a moment before a portal, bright and chaotic, opened up behind
him.

“Don’t run,” he told Miles one more time, “and don’t get lost.”

“I’ll come back,” Miles repeated again, a promise shining in his eyes before he let himself be swept
away by the portal.

When Miles came through the front door of his apartment, in the right universe this time, he was
bombarded with the sight of his parents closed in on one side of the living room while two other
people took up the second half.

“Miles?” His mother called and he noticed that she was armed with a broomstick.

“Why are you guys still here?” He asked Hobie and Pavitr. The latter boy was ducked behind
Hobie, face mortified and wide-eyed. “I thought you would tell them and then leave-”

“So you do know these kids?” His mother pointed at the duo with the broomstick.

Miles took a moment to answer, eyes shifting toward his father. His alive, breathing, and angry
father.

He pushed away the sick feeling spinning in his stomach and locked in on his mother again. “Yeah,
Mamí, they’re…friends.”

“We’ve never heard of these friends before until today,” Rio fumed, waving the broomstick as she
gestured toward Pavitr and Hobie. Miles glanced at them, wincing at the unimpressed look lining
Hobie’s face as he used his body to shield Pavitr.

“And where have you been?” Jeff added and Miles’ head spun. He stumbled forward, tripping over
the house slippers Other-Mamí had scrounged up for him and collapsed right in front of Jeff.

The broomstick clattered to the floor, loud and ear-shattering to Miles’ enhanced hearing. He
swallowed, pushing up on his hands, and cringed at the resulting silence. “Miles?” His mother
called again, but this time there wasn’t any shock or anger lacing her tone. He curled away from
the worry in her tone, scrambling back only to be intercepted by Hobie’s long legs.

“Up you get,” the taller boy asserted, “c’mon, up.”

He was tired from lack of sleep, a consequence of only taking a cat nap after the night of activity
he had, and now it was showing in his lack of strength. He tried to pull away from Hobie, yanking
weakly at his wrists that were held securely in a firm grip. “Said you were gonna do this, didn’t
you?” Hobie muttered in his ear and Miles scowled softly in response, “Do what you hafta to do
before you work yourself into a bigger mess.”

As usual, once Hobie was done dropping his tips he made to leave. The punk grabbed Pavitr’s arm
and pulled the other boy along with a final meaningful look toward Miles. “Mrs,” Hobie
acknowledged Rio on his way out with a tip of his head and completely ignored Jeff.

“Goodbye Mrs. and Mr. Morales,” Pavitr rushed out, “Sorry about this-”

The door shut behind them, muffling out the end of Pavitr’s apology and trapping Miles in the
present moment. He shuddered, breathing in and out with choppy puffs, and avoided his parents'
eyes.

“Miles,” Jeff spoke, watching as his son seemed to fall apart right before their eyes, “What’s
going-”

He was cut off when Miles slammed into him, almost a perfect replica of last year when Miles had
sneaked back into the apartment, skittish and scared. And just like last year, Jeff and Rio encased
him instinctively. “Where have you been?” Rio asked and Jeff could feel her elbows digging into
his side when she squeezed Miles tighter.

Miles mumbled something, voice muffled where he had his face buried into Jeff’s shoulder.
“What?” He questioned, shifting his shoulder back so Miles wouldn’t be able to hide his face
anymore.

“Said ‘m Spider-Man,” Miles repeated and then ripped away from them with a strength that almost
sent Jeff stumbling.

He stared at Miles, eyebrows furrowed and mouth opened in shock before he went to speak. Miles
cut him off before he could get a word out, holding up a hand and pacing up and down the space
behind the sofa, “Just- just let me explain,” Miles stressed, “before you say anything just let me
explain, ok? Just let me talk-”

“Ok!” Rio agreed quickly before Miles fell into an ocean of hysterics. She elbowed Jeff sharply
and he quickly smoothed over his face before Miles mistook his horror for something else. Their
son glanced between them, assessing them, testing them, and then nodded slowly.

“Let’s sit down,” Rio suggested carefully, “you look tired, Miles.”

“I am,” Miles agreed tentatively and then sat down at the edge of the couch. His feet tapped against
the floor and his legs looked like they were prepared for him to take flight any second.

"Ok," she repeated quietly, "So tell us…what are you talking about."

Don't run…don't get lost

"Last year I- I took down Kingpin, and I also got bit by a spider- a radioactive spider, and I-"

He rambled on and on, stumbling and tripping over words that didn't even belong together. His
parents nodded along as if they understood all the jumbled shit coming out of his mouth. Maybe
they did. Maybe Miles was making perfect sense and his brain was screwing him over.
Words spewed out of his mouth, desperate, fast, and he realized he was getting louder with every
sentence. He kept going and going, completely unaware of his final volume before his airways
tightened. Perched as precariously as he was, he didn't realize he was tipping over until his head
knocked against the coffee table and blanked out his vision for a moment.

"-les, no, no, open your eyes!"

He was wrong.

Other Mamí was wrong. Miles G was wrong. He was wrong .

He was not ready to tell his parents about Spider-Man. He wasn't even supposed to be Spider-Man.
He was still the same kid he was last year. Too small for the suit he'd inherited, too bright for the
darkness he was supposed to fight, and too hopeful in a jaded world.

"Breathe, c'mon breathe, like this-"

His parents didn't sound much like parents anymore. They sounded like front-line emergency
responders. They sounded like they were trying to talk some manic person down from committing
a life-altering mistake.

He wished they had done this before he blurted out his secret.

"Breathe in, hold," Mamí's hand was pressed firmly on his chest, forcing him to breathe deeply so
that his chest could move despite her weight, "keep holding…and out. Good, again-"

A light shined his eye and he recoiled, squinting them shut and squirming away from the hand
holding his head steady.

"No concussion," he heard but through the fogginess and panic, he couldn't tell if it was Mamá or
Dad. He forced himself to inhale and then exhale if only to appease his mother, but found that the
breathing exercise wasn't stopping him from feeling like the world was burning.

He didn't know how long he spent on the floor, shivering and sobbing in a hoodie that belonged to
his brother while his parents worked above him. Someone placed a hand in his hair, gentle, warm,
a complete contrast to the burning cold feeling blooming on his arm.

The confusion of it tore a hole through the hazy, suffocating mindset that had clouded his brain.
"Stop," he stammered, jerking his arm away from the cold that was abusing it. He thrashed against
the hands holding him in place, annoyance replacing panic and confusion replacing sorrow.
"What're you doin'?"

"Just feel it," Jeff shushed him, pushing the ice cube back onto Miles' arm. "You're safe, ok? I'm
not- we're not mad."

He exhaled without being told to. The ice still bit at his arm and he was still a little dizzy but Dad's
last sentence seemed to bottle his panic and successfully cork it. "You're not?" Because that's what
he had worried about for days, and then months, until it finally turned into a year. How could he
survive angering his parents when the harshest mood he'd ever put them in was ire that only lasted
for a few minutes? All his life his parents had been angry. At their jobs, at other family members,
even each other on rare occasions, but at Miles?

He would've descended back into a whirlpool of anxiety if Jeff hadn't spoken at that moment.
"We're not mad, son. Me personally, I'm just…I don't know but- but I can tell you that I'm not mad
at you."

"Thank you," Miles breathed and he could tell that the desperation painting his tone was physically
paining his father. Jeff nodded, one of his large hands clasped around Miles' arm as cold water
from the now-melted ice cube dripped through his fingers and landed on the floor.

"You don't need to thank us, papá ," Mamá's voice gently scolded. He tossed his head to the left,
trying to find where she was. Her smile, soft and sad, greeted him so he offered her one back.

Mamá liked when he was happy. And he was happy that she was there so he would show her this
happiness if only to erase the stress lining her face.

As usual, he failed.

Mamá cupped his face and leaned over to plant a kiss on his forehead. "Are you breathing better
now?"

The stress was still there. His wobbly smile fell off his face and he nodded against her hand.
"Yeah, I'm-" not good, "better," he decided with another nod against her palm. She tapped her hand
against his cheek, silently praising him although he didn't think he deserved it.

"C'mon, let's sit up," she was still speaking to him like he was a patient, "you need water."

It was probably for the best he realized. A panicking mother could not help a panicking son but a
nurse could definitely help a panicking child. A cup of water was placed in his hands and he sat
with the cup for a while to wait for his hands to stop shaking. Whenever they trembled his Dad
would gently squeeze his arm as though he was trying to anchor Miles to reality.

He took one sip and placed the cup next to him on the floor before he collapsed against his father's
sturdy figure. "Did anything I said make sense?" He questioned.

His parents tensed for a moment, having a silent conversation with one another and then Mamá
spoke, "You were saying a lot of things about the universe and then you started talking about the
multiverse-"

"We lost track after you went past Kingpin," Jeff summarized easily.

"Okay," he said eloquently, voice still a little high-pitched and teary, "I'll start over again-

"No."
He paused at Mamá's quick denial, glancing from the corners of his eyes to see Dad's face. The
man gave away nothing and so he brought his attention back to Mamá again, "What do you mean
no?"

"You're Spider-Man," Rio addressed, "we're all aware of your big secret now so… let's just cut it
off there until tomorrow."

"We can talk about this slowly ," Jeff added, nudging Miles with the shoulder the boy was
cushioned on, "this isn't an easy topic, baby."

He wanted to cringe at the long-forgotten endearment, something he couldn't remember Dad

calling him since kindergarten. How small and defenseless had he looked for his parents to revert
back to treating him like a toddler?

"I'm not a baby," he objected automatically but made no move to stop drowning himself in their
attention.

"Yes you are," Rio shut him down instantly, "You're barely allowed to work and you're especially
not allowed to be dealing with crimes-"

"Tomorrow," Jeff reminded his wife quickly, "we can get through more of this tomorrow and as
slowly as you want to go."

"I wanted to get it over with now," Miles admitted softly, bringing up a hand to wipe over his face
in a sloppy movement.

"You can't go over a year of incidents in one day," Dad said firmly, "and your brain doesn't want
you going over all that in one day."

"But, God, where have you been? We stayed up all night waiting for you and then that Pavitr kid
came and we fell asleep and then we woke up to another kid just sitting on the windowsill-"

"I was with another version of you," his mother went silent and stared at him with wide eyes that
still believed everything he said, "In a different dimension…it's kinda like ours except-" this time
he did cringe, "never mind. But I was with you, and another me, and a different Uncle Aaron."

They didn't object, didn't tell him his story made no sense, and most importantly they didn't
question the lack of Other Jeff as Miles went on. "Remember the Spot, Dad? Well, he found me
when I was alone with Miles G and we took him out together and then after that…there was just a
lot going on and I was too scared to come back home-"

This admission was enough to garner their objection it seemed. "Scared why? You shouldn't be
scared of us, mijo . What are you talking about?"

A memory, new and recent came to him. A memory of Other Mamá, face heartbroken, as Miles G
spat out that she wouldn't love him once he told her the biggest secret of his life. Rio Morales
would always love her son no matter what and she had proved that fact still stood even with sons
from other dimensions.

"You love me," he told Rio as though she didn't already know this about herself, "I'm sorry, Mamí,
and you too Dad. I spent all of last year thinking you wouldn't love me the same if I told you about
this but-"
 "We'll always love you, cariño, " Rio promised when Miles broke down again. He wasn't
panicking, no, but his emotions were raw and they showed themselves through another round of
sobbing. His body was adjusted, one half sprawled across Dad's lap while the other half was held
up on Mamá's chest. Their little huddle looked ridiculous, just a lump of three bodies tangled with
each other but Miles' brain hadn't felt this straightened out since before he started Visions.

"You need to take your time," Mamá reminded him again, voice low as though she was trying to
remind herself too, "just go slow and take your time and we'll be there for you. We're always there
for you. If there's one thing you remember me saying then remember that. We're always here. "

Chapter End Notes

I've been sucked into the black hole that is ClawCode and now it's showing in my
writing

ANYWAY, THEY'RE NOW ACTUALLY BROTHERS!! THEY SAID IT OUT

LOUD AND EVERYTHING!!! Miles and Miles G speaking at the same time and
creeping ppl out is now the main source of my happiness.

Also got major deja vu from writing the identity reveal scene bc it's the same concept
as Always In Your Corner except this time Miles actually has a panic attack
 Always Behind You
Chapter Summary

Miles G liked to pretend that he and his uncle were on the same page.

They were not.

But maybe after two years they finally could be?

Chapter Notes

Got locked out of my account omw to update this :(

After the page break or whatever it's called Miles G is just Miles but you'll know it's
still him considering his Uncle is still alive ♀️

See the end of the chapter for more notes

When Miles woke up a few hours later from a restless sleep, he was still tangled in warm arms and
held comfortably on the couch. His parents were knocked out, still tired from the stress of waiting
for him and then the additional shock of his reveal. He shifted slowly, a slight movement that
made his dad tighten the embrace he had around Miles’ waist before he relaxed back into his
slumber. Contorting his body, he slowly got his parents to accept his removal from their dog pile
and crept into the bathroom with silent strides.

He rolled his shoulders back a few times, shifting the collar of Miles G’s hoodie to check on the
claw marks. They seemed to have healed under the care of his brother’s stitches and the very
appreciated healing aspect of his powers. He shrugged, exhaling in relief when the motion didn’t
send a twinge of pain down the healed cuts.

Miguel was out of his mind.

“Crazy ass,” Miles muttered to himself as he leaned forward to examine his face in the mirror. It
was unblemished, flawless, the type of face he made sure to present to his parents before coming
home after patrols. There wasn’t any need to keep it that way anymore he supposed. If he even got
so much as a paper cut from here on out his parents would want to see it.

He wasn’t completely bothered by that thought.

The time he used to heal himself in the confines of his bedroom over the weekends was time he
wished he could use to curl up beside them on the couch. But how would he explain his offputting
silences as his body knitted itself back together? There was too much about his powers, instincts,
and overall state of constant anxiety to hide from his parents. So he avoided them altogether.

He hissed, a sound that came from his chest and was in no way human, before spinning around and
exiting the bathroom. He hovered over his parents for a moment, watching them with a blank face
before carefully tucking a pillow in Dad’s arm. The man clutched it protectively, wrapping it to his
chest, and Miles felt the urge to rip the pillow away and take back his spot with a surge of
misplaced jealousy.

What the hell is wrong with me?

The thought tore through his jumbled mind and he realized dimly that his instincts were on
overdrive. “I’ll be back soon,” he whispered to his sleeping parents, “I mean it this time.”

The door opened and closed with a soft click and Miles walked up the stairs, railings, and walls to
get to his fire escape roof access door. The air was crisp but the thick fabric of Miles G’s hoodie
protected him from the odd chill in the air. He shoved his hands in the pockets, glancing around
without turning his head before he spoke, “Where are you?”

No one answered.

His nostrils flared, agitated, frustrated. “I know one of you guys are here…I feel you-”

“Morales.”

His sixth sense stabbed him in the neck. A warning of all warnings compared to the little prickles
that would travel over the back of his neck in normal dangerous situations but Miguel O'Hara was
not a normal situation.

The man stood a few paces away, tall and menacing, so Miles tilted his head to the side to alleviate
the feeling of his senses attacking him and to better size Miguel up.

"I can beat you again," he concluded and the sight of Miguel tensing was gratifying . The man
tilted his head too, less sizing up and more decision-making before he deactivated his mask.

The sun seemed to be hurting Miguel but Miles just observed him with a blank face. It was easy, so
easy , to lose himself when his senses were like this but he could always be fully guaranteed that
once he came back to himself he would still be alive.

Miguel wouldn’t even get as far as he did on the train.

"I didn't come to fight again," Miguel assured and pressed on when Miles blinked slowly, "it'd be
stupid to…considering the canon was disrupted-"

"And here my dimension is," Miles gestured stiffly, "still safe and happy."

As though proving his point, a horde of children came racing down the block with fast food bags
gripped in their fists as they laughed and hollered. He straightened his head, nudging his canine
teeth with his tongue before nodding in Miguel's direction with his chin, "Maybe…you're the only
cause of these universe collapses. 'Cause I sure as hell don't have anything to do with them. Spot
and the accelerator? I handled that and my world's just fine."

"Morales, just-"

"Why you still here?"

This time Miles did display emotion, as much as he could on his frozen face. Confusion,
annoyance… anger .

Miguel did not have a spider sense to warn him of danger but he did have raw instincts that kept
him alive more often than not. But he didn't need his instincts to know that Miles had undergone
some change between their first and current meeting. The boy was more locked off, something
Miguel didn't think was possible when he thought back to the joyful reunion Miles had with Peter
B. He knew how to identify loneliness, it was one of his main feelings so how could he not see it
plain and clear in Miles Morales?

Except Miles hadn't always been lonely. He had the Peter Parker of his world for about five
minutes before the man died and then he had a rag-tag group of Spiders for less than a week before
they had to go back to their dimensions.

All the Spider-People Miguel had recruited besides Gwen, Peni, and Peter B, had just been
completely alone. They never had the idea or the feeling of having someone who understood their
lives dangled in front of them and snatched away.

But Miles had.

And he made sure, with cruel words and even crueler treatment, to make sure the boy knew that.
He guessed it was only right for Miles to blame him for his own predicament but the words stung.

Mine probably burned him.

He swiped a hand over his face and glanced in Miles’ direction again. The kid was just standing
there, hands jammed in his pockets and face eerily still as though he had no muscles to move it
with. “I was…out of line,” and Christ wasn’t that an understatement, “You’re a kid, and even if you
weren’t I shouldn’t have escalated the situation like that. I know what it’s like to lose someone and
I would’ve reacted the same if I had the time to try and save her-”

He cut himself off before Gabriella’s face came back to haunt him but her eyes, youthful and dark,
still blazed across the forefront of his mind. Miles’ eyes were the same right now he realized as
more pain flooded his chest. Except instead of the trust and love that should have been sparkling in
those eyes, rage, and betrayal dimmed them.

“Is this an apology?” Miles asked after a beat and Miguel realized that something was missing
from it.

“Lo siento por todo ,” he amended and finally Miles seemed to become a bit more human-like.

“What did Peter say to you?” Miles gave him a look over.

“Nothing that should be repeated.”

“Oh.”

The answer was simple, awkward, and so unapologetically Miles that Miguel found himself
wincing. “Well…I could get you a watch. You’re gonna need one if you’re a part of Spider Soc-”

“No,” Miles cut him off. Miguel waited for him to reiterate but when no explanation came he
found himself raising an eyebrow.

“...You don’t want to be a part of the Society?”

“Not really. I don’t know yet. But I could use another watch…and a new suit ‘cause you ripped up
mine.”

He didn’t have to become Spider-Man! He had a great life, an amazing life, that he could’ve kept
on living but he decided that helping people was the right thing to do. He lost his uncle behind it,
his childhood, and his innocence. Parent to parent I think you see the problem with that…and just
because she’s gone doesn’t mean you stop being a parent, Miguel.

“...Whatever you need, Morales.”

He meant that and Miles seemed to know it too, Miguel realized with an internal groan. The boy’s
eyes were squinted in triumph, a smile that promised Miguel a future of agony slowly stretching
across his face.
Adorable , Peter B had described the smile to him.

Demonic, he settled on.

“This wouldn’t hurt so much if you just held still,” Uncle Aaron said under his breath.

“It wouldn’t hurt at all if you weren’t doing this unnecessary shit,” Miles G shot back and then
yelped loudly when his Uncle flicked him on the mouth. He stared at the man from the corners of
his eyes, shocked and betrayed, but Uncle Aaron gave him a look.

Do you want another one?

He did not.

“It does hurt though,” he complained, pulling his arm away when the man finally released it.

“ Miles ,” Uncle Aaron started, annoyance laced in his voice, before he shut his eyes and took a
deep breath, “I told you not to strain your arms or lift anything heavy, your mother told you not to
strain your arms or lift anything heavy. But you did anyway,” the man gestured to his reopened cut
on his forearm, “you can’t be walkin’ around with busted stitches. Don’t even know why you’re
complaining, you stitch yourself up all the time with no problem-”

“And it’s always hurt stitching myself up,” Miles snapped, “just give me the-"

He tried to snatch the needle and thread from the man but his Uncle quickly moved the items out
of his reach. He looked at the man like he was crazy. Did Uncle Aaron really think he was going to
start tripping over a needle and thread?

"Screw you," he hissed and moved to brush past his uncle.

"Don't walk away from me, Miles."

That voice, firm and serious, the voice that he had been trained within an inch of his life to obey,
sent shivers down his spine. He froze instinctively, tensing as though expecting someone to leap
out and attack him. When this didn't happen he turned his head to glower at Uncle Aaron, rage,
humiliation, and pure childish pettiness painted across his face.
"Mean mug me all you want," Uncle Aaron said tonelessly, and suddenly he wanted to cry when
the man pointed at the couch, "I ain't letting you walk around with a slash on your arm…if you
wanna cry, then cry. You wanna curse me out, go ahead. But you're not walking away."

He swallowed, angry tears brimming in his eyes but he kept them at bay because he refused to cry
in front of the man. He turned around slowly, trekking over the area carpet and settling himself
back down on the edge of the sofa. Silently, gently, his Uncle took his arm back, dabbing gauze on
the little droplets of blood that had spotted up during their little clash.

"You never told me you didn't like stitching yourself up."

" Do you like poking holes in your body to hold cuts together?" Miles asked but the sarcastic bite
he tried to deliver it with fell through when a tear slipped down his face. He looked away, balling
his hand into a fist when Uncle Aaron carefully dipped the needle in and out of his arm.

"Cry, man," Uncle Aaron instructed him, "you're making yourself more mad."

" You're making me mad," he spat out but his eyes seemed more inclined to listen to the man
because more hot tears slipped past his lashes and slid down his cheeks.

The stitches did not take long to replace. He was compliant under his uncle's expert hand, breathing
in and out mechanically so that his anxiety didn't overwhelm him. "You're not gonna be going out
as Prowler anymore."

"What?"

"The contracts, the hits, I don't want you out there with that stuff," his uncle clarified and then, "I
never did to begin with."

He missed a breath. One slip and that was enough to drag him under. "I just wanted to help her!"
He burst and the startled way Uncle Aaron's eyes flew open was satisfying . He was sick and tired
of his uncle’s cool front, it wasn’t real, it wasn’t attainable. They lived the same life and yet his
uncle could handle it with ease? Bullshit.

"And I can't stop being Prowler. If I stop being Prowler then who's gonna stop the Sinister Six," he
was speaking loud enough to make it to the bedrooms but he couldn't find it in himself to stop
when he heard his Mamá's feet shuffle into her slippers, "You're not gonna take this from me-"

He had leaped to his feet sometime in the last minute, eyes wet and ablaze with anger and a
dangerous mixture of other emotions. His body was tense and on offense but his Uncle just sat
there and watched him. "You're not breathing good," the man observed.

He went to say something, a cruel remark resting just on the tip of his tongue, but like usual Rio
came just in time to cut off the oxygen to a soon-to-be fire. He felt her presence on his right, a
soothing aura that had comforted him since birth. It took every urge screaming fight right out of
him and he rubbed his face with the back of his hand. This was a waste of time.
"Whatever," he mumbled, shifting away from Mamá so she couldn't reach for him, "I'm not about
to argue with you."

The path to his bedroom was clear and he shot down it with quick strides, ignoring the start of his
name being called as he shut the door firmly. He tugged the end of his braids and the wave of dull
pain that came from pulling his hair soothed him enough to sit on his bed. His hands came up to his
neck and he massaged the back of it absent-mindedly while staring at the floor.

The wood flooring was clear, a miraculous feat considering there had been two teenagers in it just a
few hours ago. He sighed and laid back, the mindless task of staring at the ceiling forcing him to
think.

Think about his hair, food, school, his Mamá, Miles, Uncle Aaron, and Dad .

He rolled over, facing the wall, and bit his bottom lip.

Expecting Uncle Aaron to understand what he wanted to do with the Prowler was a fever dream, he
knew that, but he hadn’t expected the man to shut him down immediately. The older man had
spent months training him. They swung off grapples through the city, ran through katas, and used
glass bottles by the pier as target practice for shooting.

Any area of defense or skill that was out there, Uncle Aaron made sure he was familiar with.

And now the man couldn’t even be bothered to hear him out.

Didn’t explain much anyway, his brain mocked. He hugged himself. Nobody was going to
understand what he was getting at-

Miles would.

He cringed when the other boy’s eyes, bright and always empathetic, dangled around in his mind.
How had one night with Miles completely surpassed the level of understanding he had with Uncle
Aaron?

As if summoned by his thoughts, the man himself knocked on his door. “Yo, Miles, I’m comin’
in.”

He had no time to agree or deny before his uncle swung open his door and sauntered in. Glancing
over his shoulder, he gave the man a deadpan stare before returning his attention back to the wall.
“You put yourself in time-out?” Uncle Aaron teased as he sat down beside Miles.

“Leave me alone, man.”

“You got something to say to me,” Uncle Aaron told him, acknowledgment clear in the man's
 drawl, “I wasn’t hearing you out before…but if you still wanna say it, go for it.”

This wasn’t their style. If Miles shut down then Uncle Aaron was supposed to back off. Switch
topics. Stop the conversation altogether. Where the hell was his uncle getting this from?

“Ain’t no point,” Miles shook his head, “Said yourself you ain’t a good person…I thought- thought
that-”

“You could stop the Cartel all by yourself?” Uncle Aaron finished.

He didn’t answer but he also didn’t fight the long fingers wrapping around his shoulders and
flipping him over. Uncle Aaron sat on the edge of his bed, a demanding presence that he watched
warily. “You know I’m always right behind you? If you wanna rob candy stores, I’mma judge you
a bit, but I’ll make the plans and everything. The Cartel? Ain’t no chance in hell I’m letting you
take them on by yourself.”

“But I can’t be the Prowler?” Miles asked quietly and his Uncle glanced away with discomfort
dancing in his eyes.

“The Prowler doesn’t help people.”

“But I can,” Miles swore, “I can do that better than the stuff I used to do.”

“Man,” Uncle Aaron chuckled for a moment, “the police are gonna be confused as hell.”

“You’ll help?” His tone was childish, filled with optimism that had been absent for the past two
years. His uncle was visibly taken aback but when the man recovered he offered Miles a smile.

“I just said I’m right behind you.”

Chapter End Notes

I wanted to capture the different relationships Miles (G) has with his Dad and Uncle.
In the chapter called "Dad" Jeff lets Miles pass him by and then knocks on his door but
in this chap, Aaron doesn't let him walk away so easily and just barges in instead of
having a one-sided convo through the door. Jeff is always so careful with Miles and
Aaron...is careful in his own ways.

LOOK I can't stand Miguel and his whole "I accidentally destroyed a universe (that I
wasn't even supposed to be in) so your dad needs to die so your universe doesn't" but
he's better in fics which is why they exist ig...to turn characters you wanna slap into
characters you wanna hug and writing this made me realize that he was still a father
despite the circumstances so now I feel bad...but not bad enough to skip forcing him to
apologize.
 Doing Everything I Can
Chapter Summary

More apologies, what to do with your vigilante child, platonic punkflower being
punkflower, and Wilson Fisk bashing

Chapter Notes

If there are any mistakes its bc I rushed to upload this. I'LL FIX ANY IN LIKE 5
HOURS.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

"C'mon, admit it," Peter goaded and Miguel shot the man a horrific scowl.

He had rounded everyone up after…whatever the hell happened on Morales' rooftop and brought
them back to HQ. Half of the crew had left, awkward goodbyes floating around as he paced back
and forth. Hobie didn't want to be there -nothing that surprised Miguel- Pavitr looked shifty, Gwen
was blank-faced, Jess looked like she wanted to hit him, and Ben was sulking somewhere in a dark
corner of the office.

"Parker, I swear to everything-"

"I was right," Peter admitted himself, smug and so punchable "like usual."

Miguel wanted to rewind time and slap his younger self for ever interacting with the man.

"I wouldn't go that far," Jess muttered under her breath, leaning against a platform that was
suspended up to her shoulders. The woman looked exhausted and if Miguel had enough patience to
face her guaranteed rant he would've suggested she take time off.

"You're right," he snapped quickly, "Okay? You're right ."

The words were just to shut Peter B up and everyone knew it but there were bigger problems to
face and Gwen had no problem stabbing at them.

"So am I hired again or what?" She asked sarcastically, the hand on her hip decorated with a
makeshift gizmo. Miguel wanted to toss her back into her universe himself but when Jess cleared
her throat innocently he shook his head and whispered curses under his breath.

"Yes, yes, whatever," How was it that this one group of people could raise his blood pressure so
easily? "Do you want another watch too?"

"Oh, poor you," Hobie mocked, right by Miguel's desk setup even though the man hadn't even seen
him move. The older teenager was digging through drawers, messing up Miguel's screens, and just
generally making a mess. He found what he was looking for with a little hum, pulling out two sleek
watches and tossing one to Gwen. "I'm only coming back if Miles is," Hobie warned Miguel but
slid the second watch onto his wrist regardless.

If Miles didn't come back then Hobie would probably snatch Gwen and Pavitr away and make sure
that Miguel could never find them again. The teenager was loyal to his friends and was perfectly
fine with protecting them even if that meant pulling them away from things they wanted to be a
part of.

Miguel hated the fact he gave Hobie a reason to feel like that.

"Great." Miguel said curtly, "Let's all determine whether or not we should save the multiverse
based on Morales' involvement."

His jab was ignored. Hobie didn't even spare him a glance, instead, the punk seemed more
interested in digging around in the briefcase on one of Miguel's desks. "What's all this?"

"Don't- Dios , Brown, be careful. They're for Morales," Miguel answered swiftly when Hobie
upturned the contents over the desk, "Said he needed a new suit-"

"And you got him five?"

"They have different features!"

He was practically melting under the knowing looks Jess and Peter were shooting him but he
scowled deeper and shot a red laser web up to his desk to snatch the pile of suits away from Hobie.

"All the adults need to get back to work and all the kids," he pointed accusingly at Hobie, "need to
go home and-"

"I think I'll drop those off by Miles'," Hobie interrupted, moving quickly and leaping off the
suspended platform with the briefcase in hand. He landed silently in front of Miguel, boots barely
making a thud against the floor. "Last mission of the day, yeah?"

He covered his eyes with a hand and shooed Hobie away, "Do whatever the hell you want."

"Well I would've done that anyway," Hobie shrugged, and before Miguel's pressure spiked the
teenager was jumping through a portal with the suits in one arm and the briefcase tucked under the
other.

"Everyone get back to work, Gwen and Pavitr come here for a moment."

Peter shot him a sharp look on his way out and Jessica's glare was no kinder but he pretended to
ignore them as the two teenagers drifted closer. " Everyone ." He repeated loudly when the lump in
the corner did not move.

Ben Rielly dragged himself up, face set in a forlorn slump, and trailed after Jess and Peter in a
hunched posture.

" Ridiculous ,” Miguel muttered under his breath when the man finally left the expansive office
space, “I want the two of you on patrol in Pavitr’s dimension. All the crap that happened yesterday
is making Earth-50101 susceptible to anomaly attacks.”

“A lot of crap happened yesterday,” Gwen mumbled and if the girl didn’t look like she was about
to implode Miguel would’ve lost his cool. Instead, he sighed and leaned down slightly, “Yesterday
was…regrettable,” he settled on with a pained grimace, “but if we don’t stay vigilant with the
high-risk dimensions there’s going to be a whole new set of regrets we have to deal with.”

“My universe is still at risk?” Pavitr spoke. The terror lacing his voice definitely didn’t help Miguel
process the glassy shine to Gwen’s blue eyes and now he was on his second dose of emotional
teenager within 24 hours. He sighed again.

“Not for complete destruction,” he clarified and wordlessly Lyla brought up a statistics chart, “Just
an increase of possible anomaly attacks which is why Gwen is staying with you.”

Just as he suspected, the numbers and bars calmed Pavitr’s analytical brain and the boy’s shoulders
slumped with a barely there sigh of relief. Miguel straightened up, raising his eyebrows and
dropping them quickly to reset his face which was no doubt covered in emotions he usually
neglected to express, and stepped back.

Gwen looked at him, a quick shift of her eyes before she also stepped back. “Gwen-”

Pavitr, subconsciously following the blonde’s movements, stopped in his tracks and stared between
the two of them with eyes that picked up every tense, aborted movement. The presence of the other
boy almost stopped Miguel from continuing but he swallowed his pride when Peter’s voice, harsh
and firm for a change, bounced around in his head like the ringing of a hard slap. “Gwen, I’m
sorry.”

“Please don’t,” the girl shook her head, “I’m- I sorta fixed things with my Dad. Maybe trying to
prove you wrong was exactly what I needed to do this whole time. Miles did it immediately and I
just…”

“Miles wasn’t running away from home,” Miguel found himself saying through a rush of anger, “
Your father should've put you above that badge…and we should've remembered that you’re a kid.
Shock, you’re all a bunch of kids.”

Just a kid who has no idea what he's doing!

The realization came just as he spat it out. Kids, children, he had raised one. Had he really built
such a strong wall after Gabi died that he couldn’t even differentiate his teenage spiders from their
adult counterparts? It’s not like there were many kids at HQ anyway.

He chose the kids based on how reliable (in Spider terms) their abilities were. Hobie was older and
definitely didn’t carry the optimism most Spiders on the younger side had, Gwen was focused
enough to lead missions on her own, Pavitr was extremely intuitive, and Miles…well there was
definitely a power gap between most of HQ and Miles.

But one thing they all had in common besides being a spider-themed vigilante was their ability to
stick out. Miguel could recall in blinding detail the first time he met each of them. But he left all of
them to deal with their own shit.

He could’ve gotten Gwen a room at HQ. He didn’t.

He should’ve trained Pavitr. He didn’t.

He should’ve been the leader that Hobie would actually approve of. He wasn’t.

And Miles, terrified and struggling, didn’t even have a chance to think that Miguel could help him
before he crushed those hopes with every feral swipe of claws he took at the boy. “Don’t give me
any of that crap,” he shut Gwen down before she could even respond, “I shouldn’t have handled
yesterday the way I did.”

“Yeah,” Gwen agreed before she crossed her arms defensively and looked down, “...did he say he
would join?”

Her topic change was desperate, a shitty transition from apology to the main reason for said
apology. "Morales," he started, a child , "When I spoke to Miles he said he didn't know if he
wanted to join."

"Oh."

Gwen had spent the last few months living off of maybes. Maybe she could crash in Hobie's
steamboat. Maybe Maya Auntie would let her sleep on the couch. Maybe Jess would suggest her
for a long-term mission.

She had gotten lucky with all of them but the doubt swimming in Miguel's eyes paired with Miles'
indecisiveness made her feel like she was fresh out of options.
Alone.

This is how he felt, she told herself cruelly as she punched in digits to escape Miguel's somber
presence.

Miles was not dead but if he said no, then that meant their friendship was.

His sixth sense responded when he was around his parents.

He never noticed it for what it was before but he guessed the warm tingle that trailed down his
neck in their presence was from that. Instead of dangerwatchoutMOVE, he got safeclusterburrow .
It was something that made him sick whenever he felt it but if his parents had accepted him as
Spider-Man then they were also accepting the fact he was a mutate.

Were they?

The trickle of doubt was a human emotion, something foreign to his instincts so he decided to go
the safe route and ignore it. His parents were waking up, humming under their breaths and shifting
around on the cramped sofa. He brushed a hand over Mamá’s forehead, moving the one errant curl
that usually resided in the middle of it and simultaneously waking her up.

She blinked slowly, brown eyes unresponsive to her environment until they glanced over Miles. He
had to lean back so she wouldn’t disturb the careful perch he had on the back of the sofa when she
shot up.

“Miles,” she said his name like a prayer was answered and he frowned in response, reaching for
her face again. His fingers poked around her cheeks and when her face went from stunned to
confused he dropped down onto the couch softly and rested his head in the space between her neck
and shoulder. She snaked her arms around him, no doubt still confused but Miles could smell her
happiness.

“Fixed something,” he told her and didn’t bother with context. Dad shifted at his voice and Miles
looked back at the man, still hugging that blasted pillow, and snatched the item away to toss it to
the other side of the living room.

The man jerked awake, glasses askew and face crumpled in confusion before he caught sight of his
wife and son. “Hi,” Rio greeted softly and shifted her head to the left. Jeff inhaled, sitting up and
readjusting Miles’ precariously sprawled legs into the spot he had vacated.
Miles gave him a look and placed his long legs back where they had been before, “Everything’s
okay.”

“What do you mean?” Rio asked but her voice sounded distant and Jeff didn’t think she really
cared as she trailed her eyes over Miles. Briefly, he was reminded of the day Miles was born. Her
obsessive watching as she counted every freckle and birthmark their baby had. Miles was a force of
nature and they his amazed observers.

Nothing had changed in that it seemed.

Their son looked like he was about to fall into hibernation, eyes cloudy and movements clumsy as
he mumbled nonsense under his breath. “Gotta go again soon,” he whispered and now they were
snapped out of the trance Miles unknowingly put them in.

“Go? Go where?” Rio asked quickly and Miles seemed to freeze before melting in her arms. He
closed his eyes and breathed quietly. “I’ll come back,” he promised and before they could protest
his face relaxed as sleep dragged him under.

“He’s not leaving,” Rio decided out loud but Jeff couldn’t find it in him to agree.

“Honey,” he started off carefully, “I don’t think we can stop Miles from doing what he wants to
do.”

Miles was a great kid, polite and agreeable, but the interactions Jeff had with Spider-Man were
always backed by this sense that the vigilante could come and go whenever he pleased. Now that
these worlds were mixed, Miles as Spider-Man and Spider-Man as Miles, Jeff didn’t think Miles
would keep that agreeable attitude. Not when he was strong enough to stop trains and agile enough
to make it around the city in under an hour.

The farthest Miles would ever run from them was Aaron’s apartment.

Spider-Man? Spider-Man could make it from East Flatbush to Canarsie within 10 minutes.

And still be home in time for dinner , Jeff swallowed and lightly squeezed the ankles resting on his
lap.

“We’re his parents ,” Rio refuted but Jeff could see the realization blooming in her eyes, “We- we
raised him. Just because he’s Spider-Man doesn’t mean he doesn’t have to listen to us anymore.”

Miles moved in his sleep, a movement they were both familiar with but they froze regardless and
waited for him to settle again. “Why would he be leaving anyway?”

“It has to be something with those weird kids,” Jeff hissed and Rio nodded in agreement.
“Do you think that Gwanda girl knows them?”

“They have to be connected somehow, but what the hell does Miles or Spider-Man have to do with
them?” He asked incredulously, “Friends my ass, somethin’ ain’t right with them.”

She shushed him nervously when she felt Miles’ breathing pick up. He winced in apology and
brought his voice down to a whisper. They continued their conversation for what must have been
an eternity, the topic of it slumbering right on top of them and moving whenever they got too
passionate.

Sunlight peeked in and out from the windows they had forgotten to draw the curtains at. The city
still moved around them, unaware of the connections they were making to this horrible discovery.
Time seemed to be moving at a snail’s pace and the speed of light all at once and when Miles woke
up they had more worries than reassurances.

He seemed more focused and normal now that he was rested. When he wiggled off of them and
rolled onto the carpet, Rio felt like exploding. He hadn’t even been back for a full day and he was
already trying to get away.

“Where are you going?” She asked quickly.

He stopped stretching to glance at her curiously. “The bathroom?” He said hesitantly to the point
that it sounded more like a question.

He jumped up quickly- and Jeff was right, he was more open with using his powers now- before
slowly walking toward the hall as though giving them more time to object or voice any questions.
They could do nothing but stare after him as he nervously shuffled into the bathroom and now that
he was awake they couldn’t speak in fear that he would overhear them.

Enhanced senses.

She almost recoiled when her mind brought up every conversation she never wanted Miles to hear
while he was just a room away with ears that could hear from blocks away if Jeff’s estimates were
right. Had he even been in his room? Or had been swinging through the city while they thought he
was resting from his week at school.

“Mamí?” Miles questioned and Rio jolted back to the present with a noticeable flinch. Her first
instinct was to smile at him but then she remembered why he was standing halfway in the
bathroom and halfway out in the hall. Right.

“Nothing,” she reassured him and he nodded slightly, “take your time. We’ll be…out here if you
need us.”

What the hell could Miles need her for?

Only Jeff seemed to catch onto her internal doubt, a consequence of being in the same boat, and
scooted over to be closer to her. She exhaled tearfully and placed her head in her hand, "How the
hell are we gonna raise a superhero?"

"Same way we've been raising him this whole time, babe," Jeff replied warily.

When Miles finally shut the bathroom door behind him, he didn't even have time to listen to his
parents' whispered conversation before his senses were alerting him to something.

Someone , it cooed to him.

He didn’t have to go looking for this person. A hand, long and slender pulled back the shower
curtain and for the second time today, he was face to face with Hobie Brown.

“Coulda just knocked man,” Miles shook his head and Hobie laughed, a short huff of breath that
made the other boy smile.

“More fun to surprise people,” Hobie spoke casually as he stepped over the edge of the tub. “ ‘sides
I don’t think your folks would want to be seein’ me any time soon.”

Mrs. Morales had made that very clear when she brandished her trusty broomstick at him and
Pavitr.

“What’s that?” Miles nodded toward the briefcase in Hobie’s grip. The punk looked down at it for
a second as though he forgot it was in his hand before letting out a short, “Ah!”

Miles moved back a little, giving Hobie the space he needed by the sink to place the case down on
the edge. “Bossman,” Hobie mocked, “went a little overboard on your request. Bit much, innit?”

He opened the case and Miles wanted to put his full attention on it but he swore he could hear the
sound of his mother crying. Hobie glanced at him, face falling a bit, “I never had to tell anyone
about it…been on my own for a long time. But I think your parents will recover quick enough.”

“Whole reason why I didn’t wanna tell them was because I was tryna spare everyone the pain,”
Miles admitted and slumped against the doors. His mother must have buried her face in Dad’s
shoulder or something because her sobs were more muffled now.
“Pain woulda been a lot worse if you turned up dead and they never knew you were the one under
the mask this whole time,” The case was spun around so Miles could peer at its contents.

“I know,” he agreed and tilted his head, “I don’t wanna deal with this part of it though.”

“You’ll manage. From what I’ve heard, you always do.”

Five pure black suits were folded in the briefcase. They were blank canvases and Miles could
already feel his hands twitching for his red spray paint. When he reached out to touch one, it
shimmered under his gentle touch and then went back to dark black again. “Woah…”

A watch was held out in front of his face and he took it almost instinctively. “Am I in?”

“Thought that was all up to you.”

“Well I didn’t really think Miguel was being serious,” he admitted, “he seemed serious but…”

“One thing about him is that when he's in his right mind he’s always serious,” Hobie informed with
a scoff, “not that he’s in his right mind much .”

Miles laughed wetly and slipped the watch onto his other arm. He could give the 1st watch to
Miles G when he went to see him and keep this watch for the day he decided to officially get
wrapped up in Society business. “Thanks for helping me, man. I should’ve said this earlier but
there was a lot going on.”

“Knew I’d want to help you after all the stuff Gwendy’s told me. And then it turned out you were
much more than that so no way was I gonna leave you hangin’ there.”

“We knew each other for like 3 days, man,” Miles said and looked away, “You make it sound like
she talked about me every day.”

“She did,” Hobie affirmed, “and whenever we were at HQ me and Pav would have to hear it from
Peter B. too. It’s like how he shows everyone pictures of Mayday except for you it was havin’ to
hear your origin story over and over.”

"At least you have a new story now," Miles shut the briefcase, turning slightly as though trying to
figure out where to hide it before-

"Shit," he exhaled, "they really know now."

He didn’t have to hide.

The older boy nodded wisely, leaning against the wall and propping a foot against the edge of the
tub. He glanced at Miles for just a second and seemed to turn pink before settling back into the set
colors of Miles' universe.

"When things settle down…you should pop by my Earth," Hobie invited, and when he flashed pink
again Miles knew it wasn't his eyes playing tricks.
Miles hugged himself, wrists weighed down by the watches that gave him the power to go
anywhere, and smiled hesitantly.

Hobie was definitely a friend.

Standing on top of this 12-story building, Miles G is free.

The winds push his braids to the left but Uncle Aaron's presence next to him blocks the bite of the
cold air. He watches the world around him through his mask with no filter.

People are celebrating.

People are ripping the newspaper’s front page out and turning it into confetti.

The Fall of Wilson Fisk

"The news is so damn dramatic," he told Uncle Aaron. His voice was soft, barely there, and his
vocoder had to compensate by boosting his volume.

"Fisk was a king," Uncle Aaron said, "bastards like him don't just die. Nah, they gotta fall a bit
before they get put in the dirt."

"I put a hole in his neck," Miles G sang quietly and the vocoder seemed to malfunction at the tone,
“he died fast. Only angels fall, Tío . And are you really king if your subjects just want your
money?"

"Guess not," Uncle Aaron chuckled, "I'm just surprised he ain't leave a will."

"Can't take your money to hell," Miles G shrugged.

"That's the type of thinking that'll make you broke," Uncle Aaron warned absentmindedly.

"I'm sorry, last I checked you were the one saying that almost every damn day."

"I say a lot of shit," Uncle Aaron scoffed, "and that's what you choose to listen to?"

He ignored his Uncle with a muffled laugh. The city was loud around them, festive instead of
frightened, and oddly enough he felt like joining in. He snatched the paper beside him, yanked off
the front page, and ripped it to shreds.
 Maybe Fisk wouldn't be the last person he killed but he could surely hope.

"I hope you're burning," he whispered to the pieces of paper before throwing them over the edge of
the building. Uncle Aaron did not comment but he did sit down so Miles G followed his lead and
also sat.

"Gotta get back home before 8," Uncle Aaron reminded him.

"Okay, Mayor Davis."

His vocoder struggled to filter his laughter when Uncle Aaron slapped the back of his head. "I
forgot about how mean you could be."

" 'm not mean," he rebuked, "you're just…"

When he couldn't find a word that wouldn't automatically prove Uncle Aaron's point, he turned
away from the man and pretended that he didn't see when his uncle's shoulders started shaking
with laughter.

“Whatever,” he mumbled, ”...Uncle Aaron?”

“Hm?”

“Do you really think he got through to them?”

Uncle Aaron lost his easygoing flow almost instantly and Miles G could feel the holes being
burned into the side of his head. “You were sure he would…last minute doubts?”

“It’s just…Dad is- was very weird about people who took the law into their own hands,” Miles G
fidgeted in discomfort for a moment, glancing at Uncle Aaron even though the man’s face was
covered, “There’s a possibility-”

Before he could even voice this possibility, a vortex of flashing light opened up behind them.

“Never mind,” he deactivated his mask and waited for Miles to step through.

Chapter End Notes

Gwen lowkey deserves an apology too bc the way she got plucked up and tossed in
that go-home machine in front of damn near everyone was disrespectful.
 Invincible
Chapter Summary

Miles and Miles G run through Basic Vigilante 101 class.

Chapter Notes

I stole Melvin Potter from Daredevil bc only he could make a fly-ass suit like that.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Miles stumbles when he steps through the portal. His shoulders are sore from the way Mamá
hugged him and his ears are also ringing from her barely concealed threats. He promised her he'd
come back, of course he did, and she let him go for his sake and his sake alone. Dad is silent and
somber as he watches Miles step through the portal but he's on his second promise of the day and
the first hasn't been fulfilled yet.

So he goes back to Earth-42.

Thankfully the watch lands him in Miles G's vicinity as though it knew he was the person he was
going to see. He trips a little and almost goes flying if not for the arms that catch them. Uncle
Aaron, who still makes his brain spin, catches him carefully and supports him until his legs are
perfectly perpendicular to the rooftop.

"I'm alive," he cheers weakly and Miles G gives him a blank look in response before pulling him in
for a hug. It's tight, and restrictive, the same way Miles hugs people. Now on the receiving end of
one of his own hugs, he thinks they're rather nice.

He also thinks he'll blow away in the smoky wind if Miles G lets go.

"You're so stupid," Miles G tells him and Miles blinks because he can't recall doing anything stupid
within the past 12 hours. He shrugs and mutters in agreement anyway and lets the taller boy
smother him.

They remain embraced together, so inseparable that they classify as one.

"Said they aren't mad," he summarized quietly into the collar of Miles G's jacket. The other boy let
up, drawing away slowly with a careful look on his face.

“Mm,” Miles G hums and it sounds like relief is the main emotion behind the noise. Miles drops
his arms to his sides and directs his gaze behind Uncle Aaron. The man had graciously given them
as much privacy as he could while only having 10 feet of space to work with but he appreciated the
gesture regardless and tried to let the man know that with an awkward glance.

"9 o'clock?" Miles G asks suddenly, voice drawn out and tempting. Uncle Aaron looks like he
wants to do something he may regret later but he just shakes his head. "8:30?"

"Fine!" The man agrees quickly, like the 30 minutes means something to him, and starts inching
toward the roof access door. "Don't do anything crazy-"

"-and don't get caught," Miles G completes seamlessly. Uncle Aaron relaxes at that and instead of
the awkward shuffle he had begun to do, he slinks away instead. Uncle Aaron's deliberately loud on
the way down the stairs, feet hitting each step with an audible thud before the noises fade away
and the man is truly gone.

"What's up with him?"

"We had a talk, real sappy shit," Miles G coughed, and now he's the one acting strange, "...and he
still thinks you're weird."

"Nice," Miles pursed his lips and tried not to let the awkward moment choke him.

"Anyway," Miles G cuts through the silence, "you should show me your routes or whatever."

"Routes?" Miles repeats and leans back when his twin makes a movement with his face that he
knows isn't comfortable.

"Yeah," the taller boy grunts, "routes. For patrolling. Or do you just…go at it?"

"I used to," Miles answers and steps close to the ledge as though preparing himself, "and I don't
have routes…the old Spider-Man did. But I've got shortcuts."

"Shortcuts?" Miles G asks him and Miles notices the grapple gun strapped to the other boy's belt.
Perfect . "Like some underground tunnel shit?"

"Ew, man, no. I mean like a little list I follow while I'm patrolling," Miles explains, "Make sure
nothing crazy is happening around any schools or hospitals. The police station is on their own
unless it's something only I can take care of, the fire stations don't usually get any attention,
uhhh…"

He'd been doing this for over a year, a perfect amount of time to forget about the tedious tasks.
"Oh! If anything happens at a park, especially playgrounds , direct it somewhere else."

"...Do things usually happen at playgrounds?"

"People are crazy, man, you really think a group of toddlers is gonna stop them from their evil
secret plans."

Miles G looked disturbed for a moment before his face smoothed over. He nodded as he digested
that information.

"Oh, about the police," Miles said and his voice was far away in that scary tone that made Miles G
think he was going to vanish, "Find one you like."

"What?"

"Find a cop you like," Miles said forcefully, turning to look him in the eyes, "or any public figure
that can at least get the rest of the force off your ass. If you can work with one of them then they'll
know you're not out to commit any crazy crimes."

"I killed someone like two days ago," Miles G squinted. Miles sighed, a tired noise that no 15-year-
old should make, and waved his hand almost dismissively.

"Some cops still think I killed Uncle Aaron," Miles said quietly, "doesn't matter that he was the
Prowler. All that mattered was that the new Spider-Man finally gave them a reason to hunt him
down, but what can they do? Screw the rest of the city over because they wanna get rid of the
vigilante protecting it?"

"So who's your cop? Dad?"

Miles gave him a startled glance before he smiled slowly, softly. "Yeah. Maybe you can get one of
the guys at the station-"

"Can't. It's a whole different squad," Miles G said as he stepped closer to Miles, closer to the edge,
"Romero? He died. Daniels got swept up in some divorce crap and had to move back to his
hometown. Rodriguez-"

"She's Dad's partner here too?"

"Mhm," he nodded shallowly, "her kid's a fucking delinquent though, and not even a good one. Got
caught doing who knows what and she got wrapped up in it and lost her badge. And the rest of
them either moved or couldn't take the bullshit anymore."

"...I don't know what to tell you, man."

"I guess I'm cool with the mayor," Miles G shrugged.

" You couldn't lead with that -"

"Bro, you said cop-"

"Or any public figure," Miles stressed, "and how are you cool with the mayor?"

"I stole something from him," the other boy spoke and then clarified when he caught the look of
absolute confusion lining Miles' face, "he was cool about it. Was more worried about that damn
curfew thing than me being in his apartment."

"And that makes y'all cool?"

"...are those all the shortcuts or is there anything else?"

It was nearing 7:30, which meant they only had 1 hour to be outside. Arguing over his relationship
with the mayor wasn't something that would help stop the Sinister Six…but it was fun to irritate
Miles.

"Yeah, shortcuts, right," Miles mumbled stuff under his breath as he thought, "If you see someone
that's armed, approach them from behind."

"Well, I know that."

"Good because I didn't."

"...what happened?"

"I got grazed, anyway," Miles brushed off quickly, "this isn't something that has a lot of rules to it.
First priority is kids, let the police help but don't get too close and be very careful with other
mutants," and all too soon he was stepping toward the ledge, feet half over as he swayed
precariously, "you ready?"

Two low whines accompanying the glow of Miles G's rocket shoes answered the question and
Miles swung off with a whoop without even covering his face, his twin close behind.

"The hell's all this for?" A stout man asked nervously.

He's backed up against his work desk, feet braced and hands shaking as he clutches the material
list. "I don't pay you to ask questions," the man across from him scowls.
But Mr. Potter knows this is no man.

This is the Prowler. The original.

This man is much more dangerous than the newer one. Mr. Potter has seen this man tear people to
shreds. The new Prowler is a mercy, graceful and almost gentle in his youth, the original is just
hell-sent.

"My kid's going up against some dangerous shit," the original whispers, but his voice is not gentle
or soft on Melvin's ears. It never is when it comes to the New Prowler.

The New Prowler was still a kitten, quick to slash his claws but clumsy with his image. Sometimes
he was too nice. Said his pleases and thank you's too honestly. Killed a little too mercifully even
with the scummiest of scumbags.

But The Original did no such thing.

"When you're done with this jacket, not a single stray bullet or loose knife should be able to touch
him," The Original hisses in his face.

"I'll have it done by Wednesday," Melvin swears as he tries to still his fluttering hands so he doesn't
give in to the impulse to lash out. The Original does some odd movement with his body, swaying
gently like a wheat stalk in the wind, before nodding once and turning smoothly.

"Make him as invincible as you can," The Original reminds him as though Melvin's ever let him
down before.

"Invincible," he mutters to himself as the door to his workshop closes with a clang , "You already
make your kid invincible.

He grabs the chain mesh and the fabric roll he calls Prowler Purple anyway.
"You're okay," Miles reassures a little girl as he holds her steady. Her pants are wet from when she
peed herself and her face, covered in tears, is no better. Miles G looks down at the man sprawled
out at his feet. He's groaning and trying to reach for the slowly growing bump on his head from
where the Prowler had cracked his face into the wall.

"Shut up," he hisses and the man thankfully listens and muffles his pathetic cries.

"Want my granny," the little girl chokes through her sobs and something in her voice is a beautiful
mix of islander and city goer, "Want her," she warbles, and Miles- no , this entity that is Spider-
Man is quick to reassure her.

"We'll get you back to her," he swears, "do you know your address?"

While Spider-Man is busy cooing nonsense and making sure the girl doesn't plummet into a state
they can't pull her out of, the Prowler is assessing the creep at his feet. He crouches down cleanly
and places a threatening claw over the man's neck.

He won't do anything more, no, but this man is definitely the type to squeal at the slightest threat.

"What'd you want with her?"

"P-please," the man begs, "I saw her leave her building to go to the deli and she just fit the
description so I tried to grab her . Please-"

He brings one claw up to the general area of his mouth. Shut up the gesture said and once again the
man did.

"I live on the 4th floor," the girl is prattling and Miles' amazed wows seem to cheer her up with
ease. He leaves the man on the floor and steps closer to the two. Amazingly, the girl doesn't clam
up again in his presence. Instead, she hops from one foot to the next and says, "I saw you flying on
TV."

He freezes.

"I don't fly," he denies and Miles shakes his head slightly.

"Yeah, you do," the girl insists and Miles plucks her up, pee pants and all.

"I guess I do," his vocoder doesn't sound friendly at all but the girl grins at his confirmation
anyway.

"What's your name?"

Sirens are blaring and instinctively he moves to run away before remembering he's not the criminal
in this situation. "Milly," she responds and the beads decorating her braids clack together when
Miles bounces her, "and you're the Prowler."

He nods dumbly and Miles snickers under his mask before placing a foot on the wall, "Scared of
heights, Ms. Milly?"
 She shakes her head, hair accessories making a noise that neither of them has heard since their
Brooklyn Elementary days. "Well let's get you back to your Granny," Miles places his other foot up
on the wall and Milly exhales in amazement, "straight to the fourth floor."

Great.

He was stuck dealing with the police.

The bastard on the floor whimpers after the distinctive sound of Miles' web shooters echoes
through the air and Miles G sneers under his mask. "The hell you crying for?" He asks the man,
"You wanna traffic little girls and then-"

"It's the first time-" the man started to explain desperately before Miles G shut him down with a
breathtaking kick.

"She's not money, or drugs, or a material item you can smuggle as an in to Mysterio's gang," Miles
G seethes and his vocoder sounds exactly how it should sound. Menacing . "Yeah, you think I don't
know? Is smuggling little kids like a gang initiation?"

He flicks the man lightly, right where the bloody lump is, with a sharp metal claw when he nods
hesitantly. He knew all about the incriminating tattoos, shootouts, and kidnappings that were used
in order for a new member to be accepted into the Cartel folds. He did not need this lowlife failure
to confirm it for him.

The man's howl of pain clashes badly with the authoritative, "Freeze!" that rings out from behind
him. The voice is familiar despite its loud volume, almost like a step into the past.

He turns his head slightly and smirks under his mask.

There, at the end of the alley, is Rosita Maxwell. She's scared out of her mind but still holds her
gun steady while she barks out orders. Her red hair has more gray in it than what Miles G saw at
the funeral but that means nothing compared to her general presence.

Guess Papá's old squad is still around , he thinks to himself as he raises both claws in the air.

Chapter End Notes

The Mayor getting robbed:

The Mayor when someone's out past curfew: GET ON TOP THE FRIDGE-
Don't worry y'all this gonna be the only time Rosita shows up...I don't like giving
original characters plots unless it's for examples and stuff.

So sorry for the wait guys my brain has just been *empty* and then randomly turned
on yesterday when I wrote a majority of this.
 When Our Fathers Cried
Chapter Summary

Two brothers doing sibling things.

Chapter Notes

More Miles and Miles stuff

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Change of heart or not, Miles G still wants nothing to do with the police.

He moves too fast to catch with untrained eyes and before she could even think about shooting at
him, he’s up a wall and rolling cleanly onto a rooftop as he makes his escape. His mask whirs
loudly when he goes up higher, escaping the smoky air that sat closer to the pavement than to the
rooftops. He peeks over for just a moment, curiosity getting the better of him, and spies her
pointing her gun frantically in every direction before she tentatively lowers it and creeps near the
would-be-kidnapper.

Unlike the officer, the man saw exactly where he went. His terrified, swollen face tracks Miles G’s
movements on the roof and the teenager places a claw near to where his lips would be. The action
is a taunt and it works well in getting another round of pathetic tears from the man.

He won’t do well in Rikers alongside people like Scorpion and Tombstone.

When the Prowler turns around with that thought in mind and a little girl named Milly fresh in his
memory, he doesn’t feel bad at all.

His rockets blow through unraked leaves and plastic bottles as he races over rooftops. The address
Milly provided them with bounces around in his head and he directs himself toward that street with
no interruption. Miles doesn’t make them hard to find, perched on the side of the building by what
must be Milly’s fourth-floor apartment, but Miles G can see the tense line in the boy’s shoulder
from 10 rooftops away.

“Dear God,” he hears a woman saying when he maneuvers himself from the roof to the fire escape.
Her voice is all island and no city when she talks, the influence of Milly’s accent, and the woman
the girl affectionately calls Granny. Miles moves off the wall to perch on the fire escape as well,
and without prompt, he answers Miles G’s question without needing to be asked. “I hate
kidnappers.”
“You deal with them often?”

“When I can,” Miles answers, “they happen so fast that by the time I get there…the kid’s already
gone.”

“And then what do you do?”

Milly’s grandmother is praying through her wheezy sobs and the little girl isn’t really doing a good
job reassuring the older woman but she’s alive and in her arms so that counts for something. Miles
listens to the jumbled prayers for a moment before turning his head slightly, “...track ‘em down
with my other senses. And if I can’t then it becomes a police search hunt. If it gets to that…then
usually the kid is already long gone by then.”

The last sentence is said with so much disgust and shame that Miles G is taken aback …before he
realizes that the disgust and shame was something that Miles was directing at himself . He kicks
lightly at Miles’ ankle and tries to make eye contact with the boy. Between the lenses that take up
half of Miles’ face and the slanted white eyes that don’t cover the true position of his own eyes,
it’s an impossible task. Especially when Miles glances away.

“Just promise you won’t ever lose track of a kid,” Miles urged, “Promise me, man-”

“Got it,” he assures firmly, “I think I’m faster than some busted creepy van.”

“...good,” Miles decides and then nods his head toward the window, “She’s the first kid I’ve ever
returned to family. All the others in my universe were in foster care or homeless.”

“They’re tough people,” Miles G adds mildly. Miles laughs like he said something funny and
distantly he realizes the tense slump is gone, replaced by something lighter, completely freed from
the shame of past failures. It’ll be back , that disgusting sludge in his brain coos to him. It’s the
voice that convinced him he was a bad son, a bad nephew, a bad friend.

He cannot be a bad brother.

He’s careful when he lifts his hand, slowly resting it over Miles’ so that his claws don’t scrape the
skin he had stitched back together just a night ago for claw-related injuries. The big white lenses on
Miles’ mask widen and then all of a sudden Miles G is teetering backward. “Ay, be careful -”

“I’m sorry,” Miles says quickly as he pulls Miles G back to the safer side of the fire escape barrier,
“Are you okay? Man, I’m so sorry-”

“You needa chill with the tackle hugs, bro,” Miles G mumbles. His stomach feels like it’s dropped
straight to hell and his adrenaline is pumping from the threat of a four-story drop but he feels the
sheepish grin Miles shoots his way. It gives him the strength and patience he needs to finish up this
little kidnapping situation they handled tonight.

“She’s coming over here,” Miles tells him. They both straighten, smoothing over their faces as
though their masks don’t do that already, and wait as Milly and her grandmother hobble over.

“Thank you,” the old woman reaches out of the window and grips onto Miles’ wrists. He’s closer
and safer, suit blank and not decorated by any ominous logo.
Where is his logo?

“She’s all I have left,” the woman sobs. Her tears are painful to see and so are her trembling hands.
Milly wraps her arms around her grandmother’s waist as her own face crumples in tears again.

“She’s really brave,” Miles tells the woman and gently pulls her hands away with experienced
movements. Miles G thinks he would move too fast and slice the woman’s hands off if it were him.

Miles continues to reassure the woman, sympathetic but not too close, fast but not impatient. And
all Miles G can do is watch. Because no words spawn in his mouth at her frenzied warbles…just
silence .

He didn’t talk as an assassin. And now he can’t talk as a vigilante.

Nobody begrudges him for it. Nobody even looks at him as he shifts to the stairs of the fire escape.
But still, he feels like he didn’t do something right.

“Be safe,” Spider-Man warns as he too steps closer to the stairs.

“Wait!” Milly calls, “What’s your name?”

“It’s super boring,” Miles jokes before swinging up with a loud farewell. He follows his brother
after waving goodbye to a stupefied Milly and kicks up dust when his shoes hit the roof. The
buildings on this street are not flush with each other. There are alleys and a weird placement of
townhouses between buildings and the one they just so happen to be on top of is lower than its
neighbors.

“Do you always have to talk to people after rescuing them?” He asks.

Miles tilts his head left to right, 50/50 , “Usually I crack a joke and leave…but if people are
crying-”

“Gotta talk to them…great,” the Prowler cheers but his vocoder, his biggest enemy after Fisk to be
honest, makes him sound like a badly autotuned commercial. Miles laughs at him, a cackle that
echoes through the night before a short series of beeps cut him off.

“What’s that?”

“...we’re late.”

“Late for what? What was with the beeping-”

“Means we’re an hour into curfew, man, it’s 9 o’clock,” Miles G hisses and shoots off without any
more words. Thankfully, Miles seems to remember the time they promised to be back inside and
quickly races off too. They match each other's speed and stay high above the streets as they scale
walls with stunning agility.

There is no one to witness the jaw-dropping stunts they perform on the way home but they flip and
swing anyway in the hopes that it will launch them across Brooklyn faster. The Chinese restaurant
on the corner, still open even though no customers will come at this time, is a bright landmark that
signals their return home.

A few more roofs, a few more leaps, and they are home.

They sneak in through Miles G's bedroom window and quickly shut it in case any wandering eyes
from another building catch sight of them. "You good?" Miles asks him when he sits down on the
floor and remains motionless.

He breathes steadily as his heart goes back to its normal pace and goes to respond-

"Yeah," Uncle Aaron says from his desk chair, " you good ?"

They both whip their heads in the man's direction and then cringe at the sarcastic eyebrow raise
they are getting. "My fault…" He tells his uncle lamely. He doesn't sound contrite at all and the
coy expression he has on does little to help him but Uncle Aaron scoffs and lifts his phone back up
to his face.

He had clearly muted himself when they slipped in and now that he was off of mute he seemed
strange.

Cool. Professional. Curt.

Miles G furrowed his brows and frowned. His uncle ignored the expression and just listened to the
person on the other end of the line. " Uncle Aaron ," he hissed, "who is that?"

Miles crouched next to him, balancing on his forefeet with ease as he too observed Uncle Aaron.
"Can you hear who's on the other side?" He questions and Miles just tilts his head lightly before…

"Cable company."

The fear that Uncle Aaron was possibly on the phone with a new employer vanishes after that.
"You couldn't just tell me that?"

Uncle Aaron pulls the phone away again and mutes himself, "You thought I was talking to the
president or somethin'?"

The president doesn't need anything from two big-name criminals in NYC when he has the military
at his disposal already, he thinks snidely but keeps it in his brain to fester and die. Instead, he says,
"Can you argue about the cable bill in the living room then?"

Uncle Aaron squints at him and points menacingly with his phone, "Just wait 'till I get you on that
mat again."
“Spars?” He reiterates and tilts his head mockingly, “Just for that you won’t even catch me going
to your apartment.”

“Can’t avoid me forever,” Uncle Aaron promises.

The threat registered more as reassurance in Miles G’s brain and when Uncle Aaron got up to
relocate, he leaned back on his elbows and tossed his head back with a grin, “Wasn’t gonna.”

He lets the sound of Uncle Aaron’s laughter wash over him as the man leaves and readjusts his
head. Miles is still crouched in that creepy, frozen posture that Miles G thinks makes him look like
a horror movie monster but he doesn’t voice that thought. “Where’s your little spider logo?” He
asks because that’s the really important question.

“Oh,” Miles looks down as though he forgot he’d been running around in all black, “Damn, I gotta
repaint this.”

“You gonna redesign it too?”

“I mean, I’m like the only person who thinks it looks good.”

Miles G crosses his legs and moves to face Miles incredulously, “Well do you like it?”

Miles looks at him like he’s insane, mouth opening and closing as though he can’t answer the
simple yes or no question. He shoots the other boy a grin and takes his silence for a yes as he gets
up. In the back of his closet, a storage bin of his more expensive art supplies waits to be used after
months of inactivity.

“Get up,” he instructs Miles as he pulls out his spray paint cans. He hasn’t put up anything since
Dad’s mural but Miles isn’t a wall. He’s a different type of canvas, one that can talk and blend
perfectly with the inevitable errors of Miles G’s design. “Go up against that wall.”

“What are you about to do?” Miles asks but he’s not voicing any objections so Miles G shakes his
red spray paint can. It’s darker than the red on Miles’ old suit but everything in this universe might
be darker than in Miles’ so he doesn’t backtrack to look for another shade.

“Think I can’t make a spider or something?”

“Nah, man,” Miles replies and then his voice dips into a low, careful tone, “It’s just…thought you
were more of a music person.”

“I still sketch sometimes,” Miles G shrugs and then glances down at the can, “haven’t done shit
with these in a while though.”

When he looks back up, Miles’ identical honey-colored eyes are locked in on his face. “It reminded
me of Uncle Aaron’s suit,” he tells Miles G. For a moment, he has nothing to say…and then his
lips are moving without permission.

“Does Dad-” he hesitates for a moment, tempted to go back and replace it with your Dad but he
feels loose-lipped so he continues after the slight pause, “Does he miss Uncle Aaron?”

Miles stands a little straighter when he comes closer with the spray can, “I used to think they hated
each other…never understood sibling arguments or anything. But when he got shot it was like
they’d never had a bad moment a day in their lives. Dad was… so upset. ”

The scent of paint is sharp and lingers in the bedroom with no place to escape. Watching a
different version of himself get absorbed in art was eye-opening. Miles G looked like he had no
worries in life besides perfecting the proud spider logo on Miles’ chest.

It reminds Miles of being 14, unburdened by Spider-Man, and slashing paint over a train station
wall.

“Can’t have beef with a dead person,” his brother mumbles sagely, “unless it’s grandpa.”

“He’s an asshole here too!?”

“He's gotta be an asshole in every dimension,” Miles G scoffs, “Look how his sons turned out. ‘M
so glad he kicked it before I had my first memory.”

The press of paint hitting his suit is a light pressure that makes him want to squirm. The only thing
stopping him from giving in to that urge is the death glare his brother shoots him when he twists
just a centimeter to the left. “You’re lucky,” he says with a sheepish apologetic grin before
continuing, “I remember his funeral. Dad and Uncle Aaron looked like they wanted to burn the
whole thing down.”

“People like him don’t deserve funerals,” the spider logo was completed and Miles G took a step
back to examine his work from a distance. “It was a waste of money.”

“And barely anyone came.”

A shared laugh rings around the room, light and free. Pressed against the wall, Miles is at ease
while the paint on his chest dries. “Did good…” Miles G mumbles with a tiny nod.

The boy’s braids sway slightly with the movement and catch Miles' attention for a moment before
he asks, “Can I see?”

Miles G looks up quickly, eyebrows furrowing, “See what? I ain’t done, man.”

“What are you saying is good then?”

“Dad and Uncle Aaron…and us. They did good raising us I mean.”

“Yeah…” Miles agrees quietly as he looks off to the side. Despite their childhood, which he knows
wasn’t good at all, Dad and Uncle Aaron had tried their hardest to do the opposite of what Mr.
Davis would do. He didn’t notice it was something they put effort into until a bad night when Dad
almost said something that would’ve derailed the stability of their relationship but stopped himself
with the most constraint Miles had ever seen. He never questioned Uncle Aaron’s sarcastic jabs
whenever Grandpa was brought up, never understood Dad’s cold silences when he’d catch sight of
the man lingering at a family event. But the way both of those men had pushed themselves to the
brink of death and passed it just for Miles-

“Best people that could’ve raised us.”

“...and Mamí,” Miles G adds as though Miles could ever forget about her.

Miles rolls his eyes in response, “Yes, and Mamí.”

The paint on his chest is high quality, something Uncle Aaron definitely bought, and fast drying.
When he bows his head to look at it, the spider is darker and has sharper legs with minimum
dripping. “Lift your arms,” Miles G tells him, “Gonna add the sides now.”

He does so without hesitation.

“Are you telling me,” a man questions slowly, “that the Prowler is rouge now?”

“I- Sir, he never worked with us in the first place. Neither of them.”

“So? What are you telling me this for? Is this a joke? Because if it is I might actually kill you-”

“No! No, it ain’t a joke,” nothing was ever a joke in this horrible city, “One of the recruits got
busted by the police tonight because of him.”

“So…he’s working with the police?”

“Yes…”

“And the other one, the first one, where is he?”

“No sightings of him tonight-”

“No, no, no, he’s always right behind that little shit. He never works alone so who the hell was
with him tonight!?”

“They think it’s another kid but I- they don’t know.”

“You don’t know ?”

“Sir, please-”

A body crumpled to the floor, a steaming hole straight through the head, and a man pondered.

Surrounded by stolen art pieces with a circular helmet by his side, Mysterio pondered.

The city was changing too quickly. Improving with each major criminal that got put behind bars.
And the Prowler…was the one behind it.

“Okay,” Quentin laughed, airy and insane, as he shifted in his makeshift throne. “Claws against
illusions…let’s see who wins that one.”
Chapter End Notes

Gonna be 3 more chapters after this one and then it'll be a wrap at chapter 20!

Sorry for the wait y'all I was writing a bunch of other shit. Fantasy AU, more one-
shots, another multi-chap fic... def gonna have over 10 works in ATSV by the time I'm
done

NO ONE LIKES MILES' SUIT :( AND IT WAS PROBS BASED OF UNCLE

AARON'S CUS HE HAD DARK SIDES ON HIS SUIT KINDA LIKE MILES' RED
LINES
 On Go
Chapter Summary

You thought it was over

Chapter Notes

just two more chapters left y'all

See the end of the chapter for more notes

It's Miles' honest grin that lets him know the suit turned out well.

They're both standing in front of the mirror inside the hallway coat closet, faces alight with joy at a
simple repaint. It’s so stupid that it makes him grin too, a twin expression of happiness. “Thanks,
man,” Miles tells him and he brushes it off with a nonchalant shrug.

“No problem,” he responds lightly, the smile on his face lightening his voice into a pleasant,
satisfied hum. These moments that he’s been having with Miles- only enough to count on one hand
but still - have rapidly become one of his favorite things. It’s easy to fall into some childish scheme
with the other boy around. It’s easier to forget about the bills on the table and the looming feeling
that one mistake could cost him the rest of his family.

“I mean it,” Miles insists, and the urgency in his tone brings Miles G’s attention back, “This means
a lot.”

“...yeah,” Miles G realizes, this did mean something important, “ De nada .”

He thinks the moment will be overshadowed by their respective tragedies and trauma but Miles
smiles in the mirror again, a restless twitch traveling up and down his body like the streams of his
bioelectricity. “I have to go back home soon,” Miles tells him after some time, “They’re really
worried about everything.”

“They should be,” Miles G agrees and gives Miles a sarcastic glance. It was Mami and Dad, all
they did was worry .

The other boy shoots him a frown before turning around so they’re face to face. He fiddles with his
wrist for a moment, clumsy fingers suddenly tensing with agile grace as he maneuvers the watch
off his arm. “Here,” he holds it out to Miles G, “I don’t think I can pop in every day…so maybe
you could visit me?”

“I’m grounded too,” he reminds Miles but takes the watch anyway. Fisk would’ve killed anyone in
his path to get his hands on something like this, he realizes with an odd air of detachment.

“From interdimensional traveling?”

“Wanna ask Mamí that?”

“...no,” came the predictable answer, “My code is 1610. If you type that here, it’ll open the portal
for you, and all you have to do is step through.”

The explanation is simple. A basic set of instructions as though Miles is telling him how to make a
sandwich and not directing him on how to tear a hole through his universe to get to another. Life is
always some bullshit, he tells himself because caring too much about the abnormal doesn’t always
lead to where he thinks it will.

The boy in front of him is a prime example.

“Be safe,” his voice comes out gruffly. He says it all the time to his mother, sometimes even Uncle
Aaron, but he has a reason for that. The streets were dangerous, crawling with desperate people
who meant well down to dangerous monsters who preyed on the innocent and guilty alike. Miles
was just returning home to his parents.

The safest place for him to be.

“I don’t know,” he says before Miles could even ask why he said it or express confusion, “Just-”

“I think the only thing I needa keep myself safe from is me,” Miles responds.

The apartment is silent. Uncle Aaron has finally stopped snarling threats at the overseas customer
service employee, Mamí is catching up on all her missed hours of sleep, and even the city seems to
be taking a break from destroying itself.

“I know,” he tells Miles, and maybe he’s finally gotten used to the constricting arms that the other
boy is fond of surprising him with because he doesn’t flinch at all, “I know what you mean.”

“It got worse,” They are both careful not to say anything too revealing, there is no need to. They
both know what the other is referencing. “Like this whole time, it was just balancing off three
people. Now one’s gone, and the other two are stuck with the shittiest version of me.”

“If there’s an entire multiverse out there, ain’t no way we’re the worst version of ourselves,” Miles
G says, quiet and absentminded like this is something he’s thought about before.

He has.

But here is this moment, tainted around the edges with happiness but painful in the middle. “Were
you scared when you first saw him?”

"Uncle Aaron?" Miles reiterates, "I mean…a little. Our last moment wasn't great, man."

The curl of nausea that grips his abdomen almost brings him to his knees but he hardens and
pushes words- sharp, stinging, quiet, soft, Papí quiet and soft- out of his mind. Leaning into Miles
was easy. The other boy was skilled with his enhanced strength, using the right amount of force so
that Miles G felt held down but not suffocated. "S'okay," he hushes Miles because the boy makes
this noise, awful and low in his ear.

“Come to the roof with me?” Miles asks him and without saying a word to Uncle Aaron or even
leaving a message, he leads them toward the front door. “You’ll visit, right?”
“Uh-huh,” he gets out, a stumble in his step as he finds himself walking up the stairs again. Miles
is gripping the walls as he walks like it’s his fingers holding him up and not his legs. “1610,” he
mutters, half to reassure Miles, and half to remember the universe code the boy resided in.

The reassurance doesn’t just stop with Miles. It works on him too. His heart doesn’t feel like it’s
being weighed down anymore. The only thing burdening him right now, at this moment, is the
smoke tainting the air and the stack of re-enrollment papers waiting on the kitchen table for him.
Of all the things he’d spent years worrying about, these two were the mildest.

He didn’t have to be burdened anymore, at least not against his will. This watch around his wrist, a
mix-match of different materials, gave him the power to go anywhere .

When it’s time to say goodbye again, he doesn’t say it, instead, he waves:

“ Bendición , ‘mano .”

“What’s he like?” Mamí asks as she ‘checks him over for injuries’.

Miles knows she just wants a hug.

He turns and gives her one, catching the woman off guard but clearly being well-received as she
hugs him back. “He has braids,” Miles informs her, “and he likes purple, and motorcycles, and
music-”

“Motorcycles!?”

“Yeah,” he nods, “Uncle Aaron had one too- not for the Prowler stuff- just a normal one. He’d ride
me around on it sometimes.”

“Funny how I’ve never heard this before,” Mamí says and starts picking through his hair like her
fingers are tweezers. She will find nothing. Miles is careful with his hair, as he is with his face.

“If I told you about it when it was happening he’d be dead sooner than he was.”

“That’s for damn sure,” Dad grumbles from the hallway. When Miles turns his head slightly, the
man is leaning against the wall with his arms crossed looking all the part of a fondly exasperated
sibling. “He sounds…interesting.”

“Dad,” Miles warns and the man puts his hands up in surrender as he trails closer to his wife and
son.

“Not bad,” Jeff clarifies, “Just…he sounds a lot like Aaron.”

Miles swallows inaudibly and tries to bury his face into Mami’s neck. “Well Uncle Aaron and
Mamí is all he’s got,” he responds honestly and attempts to relax into the feeling of the woman
playing with his hair.
Jeff ran his tongue over his teeth, one of his nervous ticks that passed onto Miles, and hesitated a
moment before speaking, “I’m not around for him, am I?”

“Not around?” Miles repeats and squints in the man’s direction, “Not around isn’t the same as
dead, Dad.”

Both adults had already shared their suspicions about this alternate dimension but that’s all they
were. Suspicions.

Hearing it confirmed from Miles, uncharacteristically blunt with his words, was like being run
over. Rio stopped her anxious picking, digging her nails deeper into Miles’ curls until she hit his
scalp before she started to scratch. He tensed against her momentarily, leaning his head every
which way before giving up and settling back down.

“Mamí,” he complained but she ignored the whining with no guilt.

“Tell me more,” she demanded. Jeff seemed curious too as he settled into his armchair.

“About him?”

“Anything, mijo,” she clarified, “Tell me whatever you wanna tell me.”

The flash of stunned surprise that showed on Miles’ face shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did, but
she soldiered through and waited as Miles floundered around for a good starting point. She realized
suddenly, observations from over the years clashing together, that Miles never had this problem
before the first Spider-Man died.

Miles tripping over his words had just been childish shyness…now it was a desperate scramble to
defend himself. That wasn’t something she could just power through.

“I don’t know…” Miles started tentatively and she pushed away the disappointed feeling that
bubbled in her heart. This wasn’t something she could push -

“Can’t you just ask me something?” Miles offered instead, peeking up at her from where he was
still draped across the couch. “I don’t know where to start…sorry.”

“That’s okay,” Rio replied, fingers still moving in a slow back-and-forth motion in Miles’ hair. She
shifted, gathering the right words, and made eye contact the best she could with Miles’ precarious
position. “What’s the worst injury you’ve had?”

“Worst?” Miles repeated and then to both their horrors, he squinted his eyes shut and angled his
head to the side as though he was seriously thinking about it. “What do you call the worst injury?”

“I don’t know! Broken bones, stab wounds, bullet wounds-”

“Dad,” Miles interjected, an uncomfortable set to his shoulders, “I heal quick…and I’ve only ever
been grazed.”

Rio’s seen bullet grazes, small to big, on different people. It was her job. She could only get so
close to her patients before hospital rules put up a professional barrier but Miles wasn’t a job as
much as raising him was. “When was this?” She asked right as Jeff started talking again.

“Well, how quick is quick?”

Miles shrugged, careful not to jab his shoulder in her side, before responding carefully, “Depends
on how much I ate before I got injured and it was when I first started out. It didn’t hurt that bad,”
the nervous finger taps gave away his lie, “and it healed in three days, promise .”

“Well,” Mami reaches down to take his hand, “Can you promise that you’ll tell us about these
injuries now.”

“I already did,” Miles answers as he brings their joined hands close to his chest, “Promise you
won’t smother me?”

She scoffed a light sound that bounced off the roof of her mouth and squeezed Miles’ hand. “I can
promise to try ,” she compromised.

Jeff settled beside them, crossing his arms and tossing his head back the moment he got
comfortable. It was simple and lighthearted. Tomorrow, Miles will be going back to school. It
would only be for the week and then he would be back for Spring break. They had time. Thanks to
luck and Miles. They still had time.

“Imagine if you did have a brother here,” Jeff says with a shudder, “Wouldn’t have left that
hospital alive after your mother got done with me.”

She reaches over to slap his arm, jostling Miles and pulling a startled laugh from him, “What the
hell is that supposed to mean?”

“...nothing,” Dad says wisely and rubs the sting out of his shoulder.

Mamí doesn’t let him off that easily, poking and prodding for answers before Dad finally lets slip
that she broke his finger while in labor with Miles. The scowl Mami has lining her face is
something Miles finds scary and hilarious at the same time. It’s nice to listen to their endearing
bickering. He hasn’t been able to do that without being the direct reason behind their arguing in a
while.

“Was that more painful than giving birth?”

He prays Dad doesn’t dig himself into a deeper hole and begins fiddling with his watch. It’s been
two days since he left but not a peep from Miles G. He’s busy and grounded , Miles thinks to
himself and nuzzles his head into Mamí to muffle the high-pitched tones of their argument. If he
starts to overthink things now, it’ll blow up in his face and put him through a new trial of pain.

He should do something else. Call Abuela back, listen to her worried rants, and promise to spend
the night with her after church next week. Answer Ganke’s concerned texts so the boy doesn’t
have to wait an entire day just to find out he’s okay. Talk to Gwen .

Between the first two options and the last, calling Abuela and texting Ganke definitely seem like
the safest things for him to do. He’d spent more than a year wishing that he could talk to the girl
for just a moment.

And when he finally got that moment…it turned into something he never wanted to deal with.

“Ma,” he said suddenly and moved to get up, “I’m gonna go get ready for school- well for bed.”

“It’s only 7, mijo ,” Mami frowned and gave his hand a final squeeze before letting go. He knows
she’s doing the best she can at giving him space, giving him his right to choose. It shows in the
way she doesn’t try and force him to stay when he can tell that’s all she wants to do.

“I know,” he tells her and dips down to kiss her cheek, “I’ve gotta call Abuela and Ganke. I think
the whole missing thing made them really worried.”

“It did,” Mami agrees but her frown doesn’t deepen into a scowl so Miles gives her a sheepish
smile and backs away with a small wave. “I’ll wake up early tomorrow,” he says and Dad raises
his eyebrows in clear disbelief.

“And I’ll be president tomorrow.”

“Sure you will, captain ,” he sings and turns around to walk forward since his spider-sense never
felt inclined to warn him about obstacles unless he was walking in the right direction, “Good night,
guys, I love you!”

“Night, baby.”

“Good night, Miles.”

This time when he closes the door to the bathroom behind him, Mamí isn’t crying. Instead, the
small click the TV makes when it’s turned on makes its way to Miles’ ears and the frustrated voice
of Gorda Ramsey starts blaring through the apartment.

“The hell is that?” Dad asks and Mamí's response can barely be heard over the angry shouting of
the other woman.

“I’d be mad too-”

He sits on the edge of the tub and pulls out his phone. When he clicks Abuela’s contact and presses
call he tries to ignore the cold metal of the watch pressing into his face and waits for the woman to
pick up.

“Dónde diablos has estado? Tu madre me llamaba en medio de la noche preguntándome si sabía
donde estabas! Has perdido la cabeza, niño-”

This is easier than dealing with what-ifs and buts he realizes as he waits for the older woman to
finish rebuking him. He hums out apologies and answers her questions politely. She isn’t actually
mad, just really worried for him. Been worried for him since Uncle Aaron’s funeral. When her
voice becomes quieter, but still frantic as she shoots off questions, he switches the phone to his
other hand and pushes out every and anything to do with the watch from his mind.

In all honesty, he was a coward.

He had just accepted that fact while tearing down the streets at max speed. Or at least the
maximum speed Uncle Aaron would allow him to go. His motorcycle was sensitive, quick to
respond with just a slight shift or a tighter grip.

In other words, a perfect representation of himself.

Well except the coward part. His bike had no problem hurtling forward at breakneck speed. He
did.

Too many questions had swirled around in his head about this damn watch. Would the portal hurt?
What would happen if he got lost? Would it be weird to visit so soon after Miles had left? What if
he ran into Dad?

That question made him realize he was scribbling Jefferson Morales as his second emergency
contact on the Visions Enrollment form instead of Aaron Davis. Lucky for him, no one seemed to
blink twice at scratched-out information on important documents these days.

The scent of scorched pavement trailed after him as he swerved left without slowing down. He was
entering the more job-populated portion of Brooklyn, closer to the piers and surrounded by
factories. Nobody who followed the law and valued their life lived here. It was a cesspool of gang
members and the home of a few Sinister Six members.

In other words, somewhere he shouldn’t be without adult supervision.

He leaned forward as the scent of smoke became heavier. His bike pushed on, her wheels carrying
him further and further into a territory that got darker with each street and warehouse he passed. In
all fairness, this place wasn’t the worst-looking part of the city he’d ever seen. It looked put
together despite the occasional overflowing trash cans he sped past and the heavier scent of smoke-

Distracted.

He sucked his teeth, a noise his vocoder didn’t even try to express and pulled into an alley. His
bike was dealt with swiftly, still left on for a quick getaway, before he started to pace in circles.
The new costume his Uncle gave him was a little denser, a little firmer, and kept him warm from
the late-night chill that crept over the city past 10 PM.

Swallowing, he disengaged his claws and hooked them to his belt. The thrum of his motorcycle
was comforting, so he crouched down by the back wheel and listened to the purr of the engine as
he gathered up the nerves that had been spilling out of him on his impulsive ride to the docks.

He flipped his wrist out, palm facing down, as he stared at the blank screen of the watch.
Sometimes when he stared at it hard enough, bits and pieces of it would shift colors, going down or
up just a shade before returning to what it had been before. Sighing quietly, he tapped the screen
and watched it come to life.

Only a few universes were registered on it, a brief summary of all the places this watch had been
but the Earth-1610 right below Earth-42 was the most important. If he pressed it right now, would
a portal just open and suck him in?

Significantly calmer than he’d been just moments ago, he decided to take that risk and press the
option of Miles’ universe. The watch vibrated against his wrist and opened up a split screen. One
screen had an empty chat log and the other had very specific options that cleared up his worries
after carefully reading them.

This watch is creepy , he typed into the chat. As though confirming his words the watch did its odd
color glitch and settled back into the dark glint of night. He looked up and down the alley,
suddenly aware of his very open position, and gave himself a five-minute time limit.
I’ll let Hobie know

wyd?

The buzz against his wrist startled his attention back to the watch and he read the response quickly.
Im in an alley , he typed and left it at that. Miles replied quickly, but Miles G was too busy
observing the ends of the alley again. Something was off and he wished his mask would just lock
in on it so he could run the other way.

He slipped his hands back into the claws and strained his ears past the little clinks and clicks the
metal gave in response. Getting to his feet, he looked toward the darkest section of the alley and
pushed the night vision filter as bright as it could go.

Nothing.

He tossed a leg over his motorcycle and kept his eyes squinted as though waiting for some missed
detail to pop out. A clawed finger slowly moved toward his earpiece, just a few centimeters away
from calling Uncle Aaron to descend on the piers like a bat out of hell, and then-

His missed detail came to him in the form of a swirl of orange appearing on the wall opposite him.

It blinded him, searing into his eyes because the night vision was still at max. He looked away
quickly and let the mask adjust to the light before glancing back at the portal. The person leaping
out was clearly Miles. He didn’t need to have full sight to see that. The boy’s lean figure curled
expertly as he rolled to a stop right in front of Miles G.

“What’s going on?” Miles asked him when the portal shut with a final gust of wind. The trash
scattered around the alley that had been sucked up in the gravitational pull of the portal fell to the
floor with anti-climactic thuds. He blinked his eyes a few more times and then shot to his feet.

“I thought something was wrong,” he hissed and gestured to the dark corner of the alley Miles had
spawned from, “Whole time it was just you !”

“Something is wrong,” Miles insisted and then showed his watch. The chat between them was
open, the short history of texts highlighted by an orange glow. “You said you were in an alley with
no context and then I get here and my senses are acting up.”

“I checked, bro,” he relaxed back onto the seat of his motorcycle, “nothing suspicious-”

“ Man -”

He waved for Miles to get on the motorcycle too. If these easily triggered senses of Miles’ were
acting up so badly then maybe there was something going on. Perhaps a rabies-infected rat or a
misplaced used needle. He turned his bike slowly after Miles hopped on the back. The machine
rumbled beneath his palms as though begging for another speeding session through the city. He
sighed, adjusted his mask filter, and moved to grip the handlebars-
Clink…nk…nk

“Prowler,” a voice called warmly, “...and friend.”

He loved his nephew, really he did, but what did the boy not understand about ‘be home at 10:30’?

Aaron sighed and took out the tracker.

Went down at 9:42 PM.

He loved his nephew…but he was going to kill him when he got his hands on the boy.

It took Mysterio being a few feet away from him…for Miles G to realize that he’d never actually
seen or worked with the man before.

He looked stupid, obviously. The fishbowl helmet and the clashing colors of his outfit made him
look like a circus performer rather than a villain but whatever gas the man had thrown their way
was nothing to jest at. Miles was coughing, painful wheezes escaping from his mouth as he tried to
move backward.

His motorcycle tipped over to the side and the resulting noise of glass shattering made him cringe.
Mysterio spread his arms, a grand gesture, and started speaking again.

“Prow-” Miles started before he trailed off. He wanted to look back at the boy, wanted to ask what
was wrong with him but Mysterio was talking .

Warnings were flashing across his mask HUD. It tinted the world around him red and he almost
went cross-eyed trying to find the most important warning to read. His hand flew up to his earpiece,
tapping the device quickly and turning his location back on again.

“You know,” Mysterio’s voice registered in his ears, “I wanted to talk to Prowler Senior. You kids
are just so… agitating.”

“You should go look for him then,” Miles G responded tiredly and locked in on the air quality
warning flashing on the left side of his HUD.
Harmful gas detected!

Behind him, Miles was still occasionally coughing and with a jolt, he realized that the other boy
didn’t have a built-in air purifier in his mask like him. He bent down and hauled his motorcycle
upright in a fast movement. Mysterio froze, arms still held out like a rusty puppet and moved his
head in a way that was noticeable even through his dome helmet.

“Going somewhere?”

He wanted to say something rude, but the wheezes from behind him and the two new heat
signatures in front of him kept him quiet. He set his bike back down, slowly so as to not break
anything else on it, and flexed his claws. Two people, lean and dressed in all black, stepped out
from the shadows of the alley and stopped on either side of Mysterio.

“I don’t know what you kids are,” Mysterio addressed, “But I know something’s not right with
your DNA. Maybe a few superpowered cells are running through your veins or something. Who
knows? But I can’t take that risk right now,” the man tapped a canister at his waist, identical to the
one he’d tossed toward them, “This gas right here will immobilize those powers you have for a
moment so I can immobilize you permanently.”

He flexed his claws once more and got into position to lunge.

“Don't,” Miles breathed and he froze in place. Mysterio and his two suspicious guards were
waiting for him to make the first move. “Wait,” Miles whispered again, “Something’s above us,
just wait .”

He couldn’t turn to face Miles, not in their current situation, but he did bring a clawed hand down
to the side of his leg and twitch his thumb in response. He glanced up and his sensors locked in on
three moving targets. Except there was no heat signature. Just three masses hovering from above.

“Well, if you’re gonna wait around,” Mysterio called, agitated, and Miles G barely had a moment
to exhale before the two guards were racing toward him with knives drawn. He dived to the side
instinctively and watched one twist their ankle trying to catch him. He rolled away from the armed
assailant immediately and tried to pinpoint the other. For once he wished to rip off his mask, it was
too bright, too dark, too much, and too little.

Why was it still warning him about the air quality when he was trying to find a person who could
end his life with a well-placed slash?

He spun on his knees, keeping low and snatching his own knife from a compartment closer to his
shoes. The second one had completely passed him and his motorcycle.

The only barrier between Miles and Mysterio.

For a second, he thought Miles would move. Thought the boy would put those freaky instincts to
use and attach himself to a wall and get the hell away. But he didn’t. He couldn’t .

This time he lunged, fast and heavy as he flew toward the person with malicious intent. He couldn’t
use his rockets right now, the space was too cramped, and hitting Miles was a major risk.

Miles seemed to be getting over the worst of the gas though, unfurling his limbs and standing up a
little straighter. The way the lenses of his masks widened when he noticed the knife held out in his
direction pushed Miles G to move faster. “Get out of the way,” he shouted. The space between the
bodyguard and Miles was too close while the space between Miles G and the bodyguard was too
far. But Miles didn’t move immediately. The knife slashed the boy’s abdomen, a clean slice that
sent Miles stumbling.

Miles let gravity pull him down, moving with the pain and the sloppy movement of the guard. His
long legs lashed out, tripping the unsuspecting person and sending them and their knife sprawling.
Whatever was in the sky reacted to this. Three buzzing masses descended on them, one poking at
Miles and the other two going for his brother.

He didn’t know exactly what he was doing when he started reaching for his watch, but the
panicked way Prowler slashed through one of the machines and dodged to the right assured him it
was the right thing.

Without his heavy boots and numerous accessories, Hobie looks less like the fierce activist his
world knows him as and more like a misguided street urchin. He’s both, honestly, and damn proud
of it.

But he was not out in public. He was quite cozy actually, tucked into a beat-up armchair in the
corner of his bedroom. No one was by the docks at this time, especially not with the strange
downpour raining down right now. Spider-Punk was just Hobie now, muted and still as his
renovated steamboat rocked side to side gently like the ocean was its mother soothing the sea
vessel.

Hobie doesn’t remember ever being rocked until he made this boat his home. Every time the
thought invades his mind, cruel and incessant, he takes a moment to pause. Be still. And just
observe.

Some ridiculous patchwork blanket Pavitr brought from his universe is spread out across his bed.
One of Gwen’s old ballet shoes is tied to his doorknob by the laces, broken down, and clearly a
health hazard to her feet. It pulls an amused huff from his throat as he slowly looks over to his
dresser and desk.

The surface of both pieces of furniture is covered by hair products and accessories- oh, and a dark
purple headband that will surely smell like coconut oil if he had the energy to investigate. He
knows what’s in each unlabeled jar, knows where each accessory came from, and knows that Gwen
and Pavitr will never remember to take their stuff back home.

It’s nice to know .

 Tomorrow he’ll crash the police force’s press conference. It could get him shot at or increase the
bounty already on his head but it means the youth won’t be able to get a chance to listen to the
sweet, pretty lies that fall out of the current police captain’s mouth.

A true pig on the list of bastard police officers he’s busted in a corruption scheme.

For now, he stays in his chair, Left, right, left, right rocking on his boat, his home . Surrounded by
the things he fought over, bled for, and came across by pure chance. When his spider-sense purrs at
the base of his neck, greeting a fellow spider with no suspicion, he waits for Gwen or Pavitr to call
for him.

“Hobie!?”

That voice did not belong to his drummer or his best mate.

And just like that, he is moving. Quick strides over gentle rocking. “Miles,” he greets cheerfully
before his face drops.

Miles is hunched over, clutching his side as blood slowly drips down his new suit and splatters on
Hobie’s floors, “You gotta help us, man.”

Chapter End Notes

Genderbent Gordon Ramsey is important.

End Notes

Thanks for reading!!

Will update frequently!!!

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