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Miles lazily sipped on his soda while watching the two ‘lovebirds’ flirting with each other. His left eye twitched. Ugh. He tried not to send a venom-blast across the table towards a certain blonde devil-in-disguise, Matt Brock. The main source of his problems -if you didn’t count Matt- sat across the table flirting back with Matt. He felt someone ease themselve into the empty seat beside him. Without looking sideways, he already knew it was Jess. Only Jess would have the guts to sit beside him after he’d glared at every other person who’d tried to claim the same seat she now sat on and her chestnut brown hair was a dead giveaway.
‘you might as well kill him’, she said as she slid into the once vacant seat.
He gave her an unamused look but was still impressed.
‘how’d you figure?’, he asked already knowing the answer.
She snorted into her cup of coffee.
‘you’re as obvious as a bull in a china shop and also, I could feel your glare 9tables away from where I sat and-
She paused to fish out her phone from her pocket before shoving it in his face.
Immediately, his eyes landed on a text from…Gwen?
‘come get Miles or I’m afraid he might kill Matt’, Miles read out from the phone with a mumble.
He whipped his head around, slowly scanning the people seating at the tables closest to him until he spotted a blonde and partially dyed pink hair.
It’s owner buried in her phone
Gwen.
‘poor girl’s hopelessly in love with you. You know she really likes you, don’t you?’, Jessica said
But he didn’t like her. Not in that way.
She was a friend, Yes, but she was only a friend.
‘you know I don’t like her that way’, Miles said, huffing at Jess
‘ so does she’, jess responded eyeing the red head across their table who was flirting with Matt who liked some love-sick puppy.
‘you don’t know that’, he said, his voice sounding not really confident.
‘I don’t need to know, I only need to see’, Jess pointed out. ‘when was the last time you guys spent sometime together? Just the two of you. As best friends.’
A month ago.
He pinched the bridge of his nose, hoping to dispel the thoughts that May didn’t want to spend some time with him anymore.
After all, she was the one who’d invited him here.
Here, where she was paying lover boy more attention than her ‘plus plus-one’.
He certainly didn’t feel like a third-wheel.
Nope.
No, he didn’t.
In a way, he thought was being selfish for wanting May all to himself.
He was brought back to reality when he heard her giggle, a feat he thought he still had over Matt. Not anymore.
‘hey’
He felt Jessica intertwine her hands with his.
He looked up into her stormy-grey eyes filled with so much concern and…pity?
‘you’ve got to tell her or it will eat you from the inside out’
‘how would you know?’, he asked curiously. Jess never gave advice without having experience with the said situation.
‘let’s just say I’ve had experience with this kind of thing and before you ask, I’m not telling you.’
Miles raised an eyebrow at her
‘and it would probably affect your powers in a really weird way. You have more powers than any other spiders in the multiverse, so it makes sense if they’ll react differently and more dangerously than normal.’
‘God knows what it would do to your venom-blast’, she murmured.
‘why’re you telling me all this?’, he asked.
Her hands slipped out of his and began to play with a loose thread hanging from her sweater.
He squinted at her.
There was a new but familiar look on her face and it wasn’t one he’d ever think of seeing on her face.
Uncertainty.
‘it doesn’t matter. You don’t want to go down this path, it’s not healthy and in the end if you don’t admit your feelings and she gets married to another person, you’ll blame yourself, go off the radar for a while, think of committing suicide, might try committing suicide, will seek therapy but you’ll never recover because you lost the one thing most important to you and will never get it back because you’re no home-wrecker.’
Wow.
Like Wow.
He knew Jess had had issues in the past but this….this was different.
She turned away from him.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see her wiping away tears that had once threatened to spill from her eyes.
She sniffed.
‘believe me Miles, you don’t want to do this or you’ll just end up hurting yourself, her or the both of you’
‘ My God Jess, what the hell happened to you?’, he asked genuinely concerned.
He’d never seen her this emotional before.
‘all I’m trying to say’, she continued ‘ is that tell her on time or you won’t survive what’s coming if you don’t’
‘since when did you become a master at angst?, he asked, trying to lighten the mood
In his defense, he didn’t know much about her past.
His gaze drifted from Jess’s face to May’s own.
She was making out with Matt who’s hands was slowly creeping up her thighs and surprisingly, she didn’t stop him.
‘pervert’, he thought.
Not that he blamed Matt or anything cuz maaaaaan….he would love to have a piece of those sexy pale thighs that always attracted males and sometimes females to her.
Green eyes that resembled pools of dark-green liquid threatening to drown anyone who dared to look at her for too long.
She really took after her mum, MJ, retired supermodel and wife of the OG Spiderman.
Especially with her red hair which seemed to be her most attractive feature.
As if sensing his gaze, she turned to look at him, giving him a concerned look like she was trying to figure out what was wrong with him while trying to hold Matt’s hungry lips at bay, green eyes piercing through his soul as if trying to discover his deepest darkest thoughts… and he broke.
Jess was right.
He couldn’t do this anymore, not with her looking at him like that, like he was a broken soul.
Kinda ironic when you think of it because he was a broken soul.
Miles had always thought himself to have a heart of steel, immune to heartbreaks but along came a redhead and now his emotions were as twisted as the DC Universe.
Giving jess a quick peck on her cheek, he stood up and headed for the door, walking briskly hoping to escape the madness called love.
On his way out, he ran into the second person he didn’t have the emotional strength to deal with at the moment.
Gwen Stacy or to those who knew her better than others, Gwendolyn Maxine Stacy.
‘hey Miles’, she greeted shyly, her hand rubbing her arm nervously.
He knew what she was going through because he was the cause and also because he was going through the same thing.
‘Gwen’, he greeted back, trying not to sound rude or annoyed or impatient because she was just too sweet to be treated wrongly.
And…And maybe, he did have a soft spot for her.
He didn’t just have the heart to confront this ‘situation’ or whatever it was, whatever he was to her and whatever she was to him.
Especially right now that he was trying to not fall more deeply in love with his best friend who was back in the café-shop feeling her hands up Matt’s body.
Ugh.
He rubbed his eyes, trying to get the image of Matt’s hands on May’s thighs out of his head.
There was an awkward silence which lasted for about 5 minutes.
How did he know?, well he sorta kept checking his wristwatch every 30 seconds.
Rude?, yes he knew that very well.
She took a step forward as if approaching a nuclear bomb that needed disarming
‘u okay?’, she asked, worry coating her voice.
No, he wasn’t okay.
Not anymore.
Maybe, he might never be
Why did the wrong people keep asking him if he was okay?
Why couldn’t May ask him if he was okay?
Why didn’t she care?
His eyes became clouded with tears.
‘whoa Miles, are you…. crying?’, she asked, more worried than she’d ever being.
‘I know, damnit’, he thought.
He felt a hand cup his cheek and looked down into Gwen’s ethereal blue eyes that held ungodly amounts of worry.
He slowly leaned into her touch allowing himself the slightest amount of comfort.
She hesitates, and after a moment she reaches out for his hand which she finds shaking slightly and squeezes it lightly.
She looks up at him and smiles, hoping to calm him down.
‘I don’t know what you’re going through but I want you to know that I’m here for you…..that is, if you want?’
She looks uncertain for a minute before wrapping her arms around him, pulling him into a hug.
His arms stiffen beside him and after a while, he relaxes and leans into the hug.
‘we’ll figure this out. Together. No matter how long it takes. I’m not leaving you Miles’, she whispered into his ear.
the whole dam broke.
Tears that had threatened to spill before came out in full force.
‘it’s okay, Miles’, she whispered rubbing soothing circles around his back trying to comfort him and it felt weird cuz who’d heard of a 17year old comforting a 21 year old.
A 21 year old grown-ass man.
Oh God.
Why her?
This was supposed to be May doing this.
Somewhere at the back of his mind he knew it might have been her if he’d told her
And he couldn’t because he was her best friends and best friends don’t fall in love with each other.
Well, they did but most tended to revert back to their normal relationships as just friends or worse, never saw each other again if their relationship didn’t work out
His hands sparked.
Literally.
Blue tendrils of electricity snaking around his fingers, lighting up the space in which they stood.
This was bad.
His powers had never reacted to his emotions but now he wasn’t so sure.
It was also bad because Gwen had noticed and seeing as he couldn’t give her an explanation, he ran.
He ran like the coward that he was that couldn’t tell his best friend that he loved her.
‘Miles?’, she called out hoping to stop him.
‘Miles wait!’
He’d never used his spider-speed in public but right now, he didn’t care.
He sped up, the people around him becoming blurs as he ran faster than the human eyes could notice.
He just wanted to be as far away as possible from his problem.
scratch that.
Problems.
As he increased his speed, Gwen’s voice gradually became distant before fading into the background, unlike his problems which seemed to have planted a tracker on him.
Why did the universe have to make him choose?
Jess was right –that had to be the millionth time he’d admitted that this night- it was eating him from the inside and had become so bad that even his bio-electricity was responding to his emotions.
He needed to get as far away from here as quickly as possible.
He headed for his soon-to-not-to-be-his-home-anymore which had become his own when his parents –God bless their souls- had died.
He packed his belongings into a suitcase trying to decide which country to spend the rest of his life in.
But first, he needed to tell Jess.
He fished out his phone from his pocket and after some seconds called Jessica.
She at least deserved to know.
It wasn’t like May didn’t deserve to know but right now he couldn’t speak with her without not making a complete sentence and confronting his conflicting emotions.
He was brought out of his thoughts when he heard a muffled ‘hello?’ from his phone.
She sounded like she’d been asleep for a while.
‘hey jess’, he greeted.
‘Miles Gonzales Morales, where the hell are you?!’, she screeched, using her worried big-sister tone
‘I’m fine, I promise’, he tried to assure her.
He heard her release a sigh.
‘anyway, I’m living town’, he continued
‘for how long?’, she asked non-chalantly, seeing as she was already used to his impromptu absences.
He thought.
His brief silence allowed for Jessica to worry about him again.
‘Miles?, You there?’
‘yeah’
‘so for how long?’
He took in a deep breath and made up his mind.
‘forever’
She took his answer the wrong way.
‘are you trying to kill yourself?!’
‘no no no no not at all’
‘then why’d you say ‘forever’?’
‘nothing’, he anwered, suddenly becoming tired and just wishing the conversation would come to a close soon.
‘sooo where to?’
Canada seemed good at this time of the year. Canada it was then.
‘Canada’, he said
‘and what about Spiderman?’, she questioned further How had he known this?
Two words.
Impromptu leaves.
‘I’m sure May can handle New York on her own.’
May was capable of handling New York on her own.
‘there’s no stopping you, is there?’
‘nope’
‘okay then, have a nice time in Canada. Oh and if this is just to avoid your feelings for May, it’s going to bite you in the ass sometime’, she said, before hanging up.
That was easy.
Too easy.
1 hour later.
He sat inside the plane thinking about his decision to leave Brooklyn.
Had he made the right choice?
The door of the plane slammed shut.
There was no turning back now.
Canada, here I come.