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“You really don’t have to be here for this.”
“Miles, I want to.” Gwen put a hand on his shoulder. “And anyways, won’t an example make it easier to explain to them?”
Miles sighed and turned away from her. Knocking on the front door to his parent’s apartment. Gwen took in her surroundings, she had been here twice before. The hallway was dark, but not unclean in the slightest. It took on the same feeling it had when she had talked to his parents. Sad, upset, and longing for their child to get home. Feelings only intensified by all that had happened with his father today, little did they know that they were already well aware. They’d find out soon enough.
There were about three seconds of downtime after Miles knocked until it opened. It was a flash really, Rio and Jeff were clearly hoping it was him. The way the door opened and the way they stood allowed his parents to see him first. Gwen did her best to stay out of their moment.
“Cariño!” Rio gasped before pulling him in, Jeff behind her wrapped his arms around them both. “Hi, guys.” Rio pulled back but kept her hands on both his shoulders. She was clearly fighting back tears “Your father…he almost–”
“I know.” Miles interrupted, and his parents looked taken aback. It was then that they noticed Gwen’s presence.
“Gwanda?” Jeff questioned, it was good to hear his voice. His mother smiled at her, but not in the forced way she had when they first met on the roof, this one was genuine, it was nice.
She chuckled, “It’s Gwen, actually.” There was a beat of silence before they signalled for the two of them to enter “Sorry about the mess, there’s been a lot of people in and out today.” Rio explained. Gwen did her best to dismiss her concern, such a mom , she thought.
She and Miles sat down next to each other on the couch, his parents taking their own seats in two other armchairs. “Lots to talk about,” Miles began, “but let's rip the biggest bandaid off first.” Miles took off his overshirt, it was the only thing over his ripped and torn suit because she was wearing his jacket.
“I’m…” Miles closed his eyes, bracing himself for the emotional impact of his words. Gwen stared into the side of his face, trying her best to give support telepathically. They had proven that their spidey senses were somewhat intertwined, why couldn’t this work.
She didn’t take her eyes off Miles, but she imagined the visibility of his suit had already caused realization to set in for his dad. “...Spiderman.”
“So you…” Jeff trailed off. Miles had saved his life earlier that day, Miles had helped him to not get hurt plenty of times before, and Miles had known that his uncle had died before his dad even had. It unloaded a lot at once. Rio knew slightly less about all of it but had heard enough from her husband to grasp the level of dangerousness that being Spiderman brought.
Miles opened his eyes “Yeah Dad,” He grabbed for Gwen’s hand without looking, and she gladly let him take it. No matter how sticky and sweaty it would become.
“No more lying, I’m getting it all out. So if you’ll just let me say everything, I answer questions, and re-explain afterwards.” Miles pleaded with them, Jeff swallowed his tears and nodded. He grabbed for Rio’s hand, Gwen found it a little funny.
“The last time I ever spray painted with Uncle Aaron, I got bit by a radioactive spider, and it gave me spiderman powers.”
“Cause that makes sense.” Jeff replied
Gwen didn’t really take her eyes off Miles, doing her best to grasp how he felt with each sentence of explanation. “And Kingpin, the guy we beat, the thing at Alchemax he had created was essentially a multi-dimensional transporter. With the ability to pull things from other dimensions, and bring them here against their will.”
“Dimensions?” Rio questioned
“Please let me talk.” Miles asked
“So that wasn’t a fake job name…” Jeff spoke to himself.
“That transporter brought 5 other Spider-people from different dimensions here, one of which is…” Miles strained his mouth, showing part of his teeth, and turned towards Gwen.
It was her turn, she looked away from Miles to see his parents had followed his eyes towards her. They released each other’s hands, having to pull a little harder to get past the stickiness.
“Yeah, I-I am also Spiderman–well Spiderwoman, b-but, ya know.” She let out an awkward, forced chuckle. “But-but, we beat Kingpin, and we went home, and Miles blew up the collider!” Gwen clasped her hands together.
“But when I did, it left like a ‘hole’ that bad guys could go through to other dimensions, and created a bad guy with his own ability to travel through dimensions.” Miles elaborated, and then he pointed at his dad “That was the cow looking guy we beat, Dad.” Jeff nodded.
“Then another Spiderman, Miguel, created technology that allowed us Spider-people to travel through dimensions.” Gwen helped him now to explain. “To contain those bad guys to their own universe.” Miles stopped, opening the floor back up to his parents.
“Keeping them in their own universes makes sense.” Jeff said, “Still, learning that there are more dimensions is a pretty heavy statement,” He then turned to Gwen. “and to know that I’m talking to someone from another one of those dimensions is even stranger.” Gwen smiled at Jeff, not forced, genuine. “As far as other dimensions, the difference between mine and yours is…marginal.”
“Miguel, the guy that created the technology to travel between worlds, made a ‘Spider Society’ that banded together all of the Spiders.” Gwen looked apologetically at Miles, she didn’t like talking about the HQ. All it reminded her of was her lies to Miles and the time she had spent fighting against him. The time she had been following her head, not her heart.
“And there's so much I could explain about “canon” and everything else, but I’ll save that for another day.” Miles used his hands to emphasize “What matters, is they told me that you were going to die today, Dad, and I figured out how. Cow-dude was going to do it, and they told me I couldn’t save you.”
Gwen looked at his Dad. He and Miles had their eyes locked intensely. “I wasn’t going to let them tell me that, and I escaped, and I save you Dad, and I won’t get into what I had to do after to fix what they were trying to stop from happening, because it would take forever to explain, and it just doesn’t matter because you’re OK.”
“That’s what matters.” Miles stood up, so did his parents. They met in the middle. Gwen was fairly certain Jeff was crying, but did her best to give them their privacy, averting her eyes. Before deciding to step outside, she gave them their space.
~
Miles came to collect her a few moments later. There were tears in all three of their eyes, and yet he was smiling at her. He grabbed her hand and guided her back inside.
“Your father and I are going to talk about something, niño, go to your room for a moment.” Rio said to him. Miles took her there, she didn’t resist.
He shut the door behind “Left a lot out, no?” She inquired. She let go of his hand to instead sit on his bed. His room reminded her of her own when she was younger. 8 months wasn’t a lot, but at this stage in her life, things changed so rapidly that she couldn’t help but feel more adult than him. The room was cute, and exactly how she saw it when she snuck in 2 nights ago, save for the jacket she had stolen off his door rack, the one she was wearing at the moment.
“I’ll tell them about Earth-42 one day, but I think it might be too much for one day.” Miles sat down on the bed next to her, Gwen nodded in agreement. She untied her shoes and tossed them to a corner of the room, now feeling comfortable to prop one leg up onto his bed, pivoting her body to face him.
“Thanks for being here for that.” Gwen snickered, “And you said you didn’t need me.” She teased him, and Miles smiled. He kicked off his own shoes. “I’m tired.” He went to his closet to put some clothes over his suit.
“Me too…you think your parents will let me stay here for the night?” Miles had moved to be sitting completely on his bed. Legs crossed, slightly pressing into her own leg that was pinned between him and the wall. Miles laughed “Maybe in a different dimension.”
Gwen laughed too, but couldn’t help but be a little disappointed. “Speaking of your parents, what do you think they're talking about?”
“Probably my punishment, they love me, not enough to make up for all that I’ve done.”
Gwen brought up her other leg, with them now flanking either side of Miles, she scooted a little bit closer to him. “I’m sorry.” She let out softly.
“I told you to stop apologizing, I get it.”
“I know, but I just can’t help but feel like I haven’t done right by you…I almost ruined it with my only friend…again.” Gwen moved even closer to him. He started closing the space between them too.
Then Rio opened his door, and the two of them jerked away to the far edges of his bed “Mom! Knock!”
“It’s my house, I can open whatever door I want, but…” Rio fired back.
She and Jeff entered the room. “Miles Morales, you are grounded for one month for showing up to your father’s party late with the cake,” Gwen looked at Miles when he sighed, he seemed relieved.
Jeff then continued “two months for walking away from us during an argument,”
Miles' eyes widened.
Then Rio again “three months for having a girl in your room unannounced.” His parents made eye contact with her, she felt herself shrink and let out a forced laugh “sorry…”
“Five months for not telling us where you went after the party.”
“And six months for lying to us.” Rio finished.
Gwen looked at Miles, his mouth was agape, and yet no words came out. Then after a few seconds of silence, Rio shifted her stance from something confrontational to something more relaxed. “We can ground Miles Morales, but we can’t in good conscience ground Spiderman.”
Miles’ mouth closed into a smile.
“And you, young lady” Rio turned to Gwen. “Are allowed to come see him,” Gwen joined Miles in smiling. “But if you come into his room, door stays open.”
“Of course, Mrs. Morales, thank you” Gwen replied. Rio smiled, and let out a satisfied puff of air. His parents turned to leave, when from his window came a voice “Are they gone?”
It was Pav, Gwen put her hands in her hands. “Who was that?” Jeff questioned Miles.
“Come in guys.” Miles beckoned.
One by one, Gwen watched as they filed in. Jeff and Rio’s eyes widened with each one. They were pushed to the walls of his room, and naturally, they moved out into the main room of the apartment.
“Mom, Dad, these are my friends.” Miles pointed to the band.
“Pavitr, Hobie, Margo, Peni, Peter, Peter, Mayday, and Peter.” Miles pointed to each.
“Are those two cartoons?” Jeff pointed at Spider-Ham and Peni.
“Yes, don’t ask.” Miles groaned out
“So now what?” Margo asked as the 12 of them stood there, mostly unmoving.
Peter B. suggested an idea “I’m hungry.”
~
Their meal is a shmorgishborg. Each Spider tried to make what they could with the ingredients Miles’ family had on hand. Nearly clearing out their pantry and fridge. They all tried to share something from back home, it worked better for some than it did for others. The table refused to be quiet, stories being shared constantly, either from their own universes or from the events that had unfolded over the past couple of days.
Through it all Jeff and Rio learned tiny bits and pieces. They were remarkably understanding and welcoming, they were used to huge families. One by one they filed out, using their watches to go back to their homes. They thanked Miles, told him how proud of him they were, said they would see him soon, and this time it looked like Miles believed them.
Eventually, it was back to the four of them again. Jeff grabbed the bridge of his nose, and he laid back on the couch “Do you all have that many jokes?” Gwen and Miles laughed.
“One last thing before I’m grounded, Mom.” Miles asked as she cleaned up the kitchen. Rio raised an eyebrow. “Can I go meet her Dad?” He asked, and Gwen shot him a puzzled look. She wasn’t expecting this, she wanted him to meet her dad eventually, but he hadn’t even asked her.
Rio thought about it and looked at Jeff, he wasn’t paying attention. “That could work.” She started cleaning once again. “But save it for tomorrow, I don’t wanna be waiting up for you tonight.” Gwen looked towards Miles, they met each other’s eyes.
“Young lady, please feel free to stay the night.” This got Jeff’s attention “What now?”
“Go back to sleep dear, you need it.” Gwen and Miles snickered.
Gwen was restricted to sleeping on the couch, but even in Miles’ jacket, it wasn’t close enough. When his parents found them the next morning, Miles got grounded for seven months.