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She wants to say that she doesn’t mean to come here, that she doesn’t realize where she’s even going until she’s already there, but it literally takes a train, a subway ride, and almost an entire hour, which is just too much for her to have just accidentally ended up here. Besides, there are a dozen other places she would accidentally end up in before Brooklyn. If she’s going to come all the way out here then it’s going to be for a reason. A very specific reason.
A very special reason.
Kamala stretches her neck all the way up to his window where she finds him laying on his bed, hand writing something in a paper journal like someone out of an old 90s movie. What a weirdo.
Vaguely she thinks he should have realized she was there, that his Spidey-Sense should have kicked in to alert him of her – she literal a person with powers creeping through his bedroom window – but it didn’t. His lack of awareness would concern her if she didn’t know what it means.
“Boo.”
She laughs when he quite literally jumps up at the sound, momentarily startled that someone was able to sneak up on him. Any panic is quickly replaced by a grin when he realizes it’s just her. She grins back and jumps up, shrinking herself when she lands on his window ledge.
“It’s way too easy to sneak up on you,” she teases when he opens the window. “You should work on that.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hello to you too,” Miles says, clearly fighting back his own laughter.
Except that’s all he says, just leaving it at that. He doesn’t ask what she’s doing in Brooklyn or why she’s there. Doesn’t push her for anything. Just greets her with a smile and patiently waits for her to let him in.
She tilts her head, looking up at him from her shrunken size. “Are you busy?”
He shrugs. “Nothing that can’t wait.”
“Meet me on the roof?”
Miles studies her for just a beat before he nods. “Sure.”
She doesn’t need a Spidey-Sense to know he’s there – she can tell before she even sees him, before he even lands. Partially because, as she’s told him multiple times, she’s just better at this whole superhero thing than him and always will be. But mostly because she hears Billie’s gleeful cheer when Miles swings them up to the roof.
Billie’s straddled to the front of his chest, wearing a Spider-Man onesie and a silly toy mask that’s only half on her face and doing a pretty terrible job hiding her identity.
“Hi cutie,” Kamala says, puffing up her cheeks and expanding her ears to make the most ridiculous face that gets her the most gleeful reaction from Billie.
Miles pulls his mask off to the top of his head, and raises a brow. “You already said hi to me,” he says as if it’s a reminder.
She rolls her eyes. “Funny,” she says as she tugs the mask off Billie’s face and pulls her out from her carrier.
“I know,” he grins smugly, pulling the body carrier off of himself and gently putting it on the ground before he plops down on the edge of the building, leaving his legs dangling in the air. She settles next to him and Billie giggles at the view, which she thinks should be concerning. Exactly how often is Miles swinging around with her? “Spider-Baby is fearless,” he says as if reading her mind. “It runs in the family.”
She’d say that isn’t true but with his family it very well might be.
Holding Billie with one hand, she points off to the distance. “Is that the court I think it is?”
Miles grins. “You remember?”
She huffs. “Of course I remember. I remember beating you too.”
“Uh, that’s not how I remember it, cheater,” he teases, bumping his shoulder against hers.
“It wasn’t cheating! I clearly said we were using our powers. It’s not my fault you were slow,” Kamala says defensively. Still, a grin tugs at her lips. “We still need to finish that game.”
He laughs. “I’ll sportball with you any time, Kamala. Just let me know.”
Her smile softens and she nods. “I will,” she says before resting her head on his shoulder.
They stay there like that for a while, her head resting on his shoulder, his head resting on hers, watching the sunset from the roof of his parents’ place.
“You okay?” he asks at some point.
She bites her lip, her hand wrapping around Bille’s little fingers.
Kamala loves being a hero. Really, she does. She believes in what she’s doing and she doesn’t know if she will ever stop. But some days…
Some days are harder than others.
Sometimes you don’t save the day. Sometimes even when you do, it still doesn’t feel like enough. Because it isn’t – she will never be able to do as much as she wants to, as much as she thinks she possibly could.
And she knows that at the end of the day she will have to get up and continue on. She will have to focus on what she can do, on the people she is able to save, on the hope she gives every time she puts her costume on. She knows because she’s done it before and she will do it again. This is hardly her first bad day and it will be far from her last, not if she plans to keep doing this. She will get back up and focus on the good.
But right now she thinks she just needs to fall a little longer.
It isn’t that she needs Spider-Man to catch her while she falls, because she’s Ms. Marvel – she can catch herself just fine thank you very much.
But… sometimes it’s nice to have him there when she lands.
There’s something about just being near Miles, about knowing that she can reach out and touch him if she needs him. It comforts her in a way that can’t explain. Or at least not in a way she’s really ready to explain, not out loud and not to Miles. Not even to herself.
Right now it’s just something she needs to let herself feel.
“No, not really,” Kamala admits. “But I will be.”
But until then, she’ll stay here where she can just let herself fall, knowing that he’ll be there for her when she’s ready to get back up again.