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“No. How many times do I have to say it?”
“As many times as I’m going to ask until you say yes.”
Miguel could feel the headache beginning to form behind his eyes as he finally turned around to face what was shaping up to be one of the most insufferable variants of Peter Parker he had ever met and his spider-spawn. Said spider-spawn grinned at him obliviously from the carrier, and above her head her dad grinned as well, though it was ten times more annoying.
“I’m not gonna babysit your kid, for the last time,” he gritted out.
“It’s not babysitting!” Peter argued. “It’s just…keeping an eye on her until I get back.”
“That’s literally babysitting.” Miguel pinched the bridge of his nose. “You had no problems last time. Why is it a problem now?”
“Because MJ found out and said I can’t take the kid to anymore fights, and I promised I wouldn’t…at least for now.”
Miguel thought his eyes might roll right out of his skull. “That’s your problem.”
Peter raised his hands. “I guess that anomaly issue must not be as bad as you say it is, ‘cause I can’t help you then.”
Miguel scowled at him, then back at the holographic screen where the big red warning sign still glared at him. It was a big problem, and despite how infuriating he was being at the moment, Peter was quite reliable. He was older and more experienced than most Spiders, and his appearance was simple enough that he did not draw attention in most dimensions. Success was practically guaranteed, and Miguel got the feeling that he knew it.
“Okay, fine, I’ll look after the kid,” he relented with a sigh of long-suffering.
Peter grinned. “I knew you would see reason!”
“More like seeing red.”
“It shouldn’t take me more than a couple of hours at most.” Peter lifted Mayday from her sling and held her out to Miguel, who promptly recoiled.
“Oh, no. I said I’d look after the kid. That doesn’t involve holding.”
Mayday giggled, swinging her socked feet around while Peter frowned over her bushy hair. “You should really hold her. I’ve found out that you can’t really stay mad when you’re holding a baby.”
“I’m not mad, I’m—”
“Come on man, you can’t fool me. Your blood pressure has to be through the roof all the time.”
Miguel felt his headache increasing, making his eyeballs throb. “You’re one sentence away from me rescinding my decision.”
Catching on to his increasing ire, Peter brought Mayday back to himself, rolling his eyes. “Alright, whatever you say.” He proceeded to an empty corner of Miguel’s “office”, though it looked too futuristic for him to seriously call it that. He shrugged off his bathrobe, spreading it out on the floor, and began making a makeshift playpen out of web walls. Miguel watched with displeasure, already envisioning the process of trying to get the webs off the wall.
“Alright honey, daddy’s gotta go away for a bit,” Peter told Mayday when the pen was completed. “You’re gonna stay in here and play because mister tall, dark, and angry over there just doesn’t appreciate how cute you are.”
Miguel groaned quietly in exasperation. Mayday turned a beaming smile his way as though she knew exactly how annoyed he was, and the muscles in his face twitched. Certainly not because he was struck with the urge to smile back.
Peter deposited her in the pen. She babbled something of a protest, but she was quickly placated with a bag full of colorful little building blocks that he emptied next to her, immediately sticking two of them together with an uneven web. Miguel turned towards his waiting screens, his hand instinctively shooting out to catch the plastic bag Peter flung his way.
“What’s this?” he growled, eyeing the garishly colored cereal pieces inside the bag.
“Fruit Loops,” Peter said.
“That explains nothing.”
“It’s a cereal from my dimension. Mayday loves it like nothing else. If she starts crawling around somewhere, you show her that and she’ll come for it, I guarantee it.”
Miguel arched an eyebrow, sniffing at the bag. He was hit with a wall of a sugary sweet scent that was almost nauseating to him, but surely deeply enticing to a child.
“I’m out of here,” Peter said, hastily limbering himself up.
“No fooling around,” Miguel warned. “Get back here as soon as you can.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Peter waved his words away, leaning over Mayday’s pen. “I’ll be back soon, honey. Try not to give Miguel here any trouble, okay?”
Mayday replied with something that could have been an affirmation or a denial, but she seemed perfectly content with her current setup. With some more embarrassingly mushy baby talk, Peter left the room, and Miguel felt his headache start to recede despite his unexpected guest. He glanced towards the pen, creeping a little closer so he could see over the edge. Mayday sat on her dad’s robe, playing around with the blocks, in her own little world. He quickly retreated before she noticed his proximity, and he was relieved that she was distracted for the moment.
His screens beckoned him, more anomalies waiting to be dealt with. Mayday’s noises and nonsense words echoed in the high ceiling of the room, but it was not nearly as obtrusive as he had anticipated it to be. He quickly became engrossed in his work, Lyla chattering in his ear, and he sank into the vortex of Spiders and anomalies that had become his life.
After some time, Miguel arose from the vortex, pulled by the need to stretch his legs after standing still for too long. He got the distinct feeling that something was amiss, and could not place it until he turned around and remembered the child he was supposed to be watching. Dread punched him in the gut as he realized Mayday’s noises had ceased, and when he approached the pen, he saw that it was empty save for some webbed-up building blocks.
Images of his impending death filled his mind, but he pushed them back, trying to focus on the situation. His Spider-Sense told him she was still nearby, her presence weaker than other Spiders because of her age but no less consistent. He turned in a circle, scanning the sharp metal contours of the room. There were not many places for anyone to hide, but he saw no sign of the fiery red hair. He opened his mouth, getting ready to call Lyla.
A giggle echoed from above.
Miguel looked up sharply. Like other parts of the headquarters, the ceiling was built with a series of diagonal and horizontal beams that crisscrossed over one another. In this room, they served no navigational purpose but provided him a place to go and hide away from the world for a bit to unwind. Apparently he wasn’t the only one who thought it was a good hiding place.
He knew the kid was a Spider, a second-generation one at that, which he had yet to see in any other dimension. However, the thought of her being so far off the ground made his heart lurch. He caught a flicker of shadow in the rafters and shot a web upwards, quickly pulling himself to Mayday’s location. He arrived on the beam just in time to see a tiny foot vanish around the edge of an adjacent one.
Hovering between annoyance and concern, Miguel leapt over, only to find that she was crawling almost completely upside down, her hair falling away towards the floor. He started after her, calling out, “Hey kid, be careful!”
Mayday’s looked at him approaching, walking sideways then upside down as he hurried to catch up. Then she let go, dropping into open air, and Miguel felt his heart fall with her. A strand of webbing shot out from both wrists at the same time. Mayday latched onto another beam, just narrowly avoiding being snagged by his webbing as she sailed off into the rafters with a wild giggle.
Miguel took a deep breath, trying to calm his pounding heart. Several words that were not child-friendly stuck in his throat, but he swallowed them back as he dove off the beam after Mayday. “Come back here!”
He catapulted himself up onto the beam Mayday had swung to. She saw him coming after here and let out a shriek of laughter that sounded almost disturbingly like a supervillain, toddling away quicker than someone who barely had control of her legs had any right to be. She somehow avoided to the rapid-fire spray of webs Miguel launched in her direction, shooting her own line straight up and ascending with a hysterical giggle.
Miguel tried to get a hold of his rising annoyance. She thought it was all just a game, and he was struck with a memory of another girl, a little older, running and laughing.
“Can’t catch me!”
Something bittersweet lodged in his chest, overpowering his exasperation. Above him, Mayday peeked over the edge of the beam she had crawled on, her eyes bright with anticipation. His lips twitched, threatening to form a full smile.
“Think I can’t keep up with you, huh?” he asked.
Mayday laughed again, vanishing beyond the edge. Miguel slung himself up onto the beam after her. As much as his heart pulled him towards engaging her in her silly game, his work waited for him. He remembered the bag of cereal Peter had left and pulled it out, hoping that it was as effective as had been claimed.
“Oye, kid, look!” Miguel shook the bag of cereal, and Mayday’s eyes snapped towards it like a hungry predator. “You want some, mija?” The endearment slipped from him without thought, and he only realized what he had said after he had spoken it aloud. It had been a long time since he had said it last, but it felt right.
Mayday advanced on him with surprising speed, her movement awkward in the way only young children could be in an uneven walk-crawl-stumble. She sent a strand of web out, catching the bag with it, but Miguel was not about to lose a tug-of-war with a baby. He grabbed the webbing, dragging her towards him, but she did not seem to care as it brought her closer to her sugary prize. She arrived at his feet, standing on his toes, reaching for the bag with soft but insistent hands.
“I guess your dad knew what he was talking about,” Miguel murmured, handing the bag over and snagging her in his arms in the same movement. She was light, almost shockingly so, but fit easily into the crook of his arm. He caught a whiff of fruity baby shampoo as her hair brushed by his nose, that pleasantly offset the more unpleasant scent of the Fruit Loops she had begun to shove into her mouth.
With a sigh, he stepped off the edge of the beam, entering a brief freefall before catching himself on a strand of webbing, lowering him and his cargo down to the floor slowly so she would not spill her precious snack. He brought her back to her pen, depositing her on the bathrobe once more, and she gave him a grin full of crumbs.
“You stay there,” he said, though he couldn’t make himself sound as forceful as he wanted to be.
Mayday babbled, spilling some cereal onto the floor.
“No trouble, my trasero,” Miguel grumbled. Not wanting to deal with her escapades and any potential injuries, he wove a new sheet of webbing, stretching it across the length of the top of the pen. Mayday squawked indignantly, her large eyes peering at him through the holes. “Sorry, kid. Can’t have you running around.”
Mayday made no more protests, so Miguel returned to his screens, trying to remember where he had been before the kid escaped. He resolved to keep a better eye on her, but getting too engrossed in his work had always been a problem for him. He didn’t look her way for all of two minutes, and the next thing he knew, sticky little fingers had latched onto his leg.
“Can’t you sit still for five minutes?” Miguel complained as Mayday began scaling his leg like it was a wall. He looked towards the pen, only to find his safety net had been torn open. “Super strength and stealth already. Great.”
He tried to dislodge Mayday by shaking his leg, but she clung doggedly, her tiny brow scrunched in concentration. With a frustrated groan, he reached down, resorting to unsticking the little fingers one by one. She was not about to be thwarted, however, immediately latching onto his arm instead with a scowl that could only be defined as thunderous. Realizing this was not a battle he wanted to fight, he stopped struggling.
“Alright, mija, what do you want?” he asked wearily.
In answer, Mayday shimmied up his arm onto his shoulder, balancing on wobbly legs as she leaned against his head for support. He instinctively brought a hand up, her shakiness making him a little nervous, but she sat down, wrapping her legs around his neck and balling her fists in his hair.
“You just want to sit there?” He turned his head slightly so they could make eye contact.
Mayday stared back at him, her eyes impossibly wide and wondering. The scowl from moments ago was gone, replaced by a placid expression, something almost tranquil.
“Okay,” Miguel said. “I guess you can sit there.”
As it turned out, it was entirely possible for Mayday to sit still. She hardly twitched at all as Miguel attempted to continue his work, watching the screens curiously. Once he got used to working with one hand and the new weight on his shoulder, he found he did not mind it as much as he thought. It dawned on him, albeit begrudgingly, that Peter had been right. He could feel the tension melting from his muscles, all the previous irritations of the day beginning to seem insignificant in comparison to the kid perched so trustingly on his shoulder, her heart beating against his ear. He didn’t know why she had insisted upon being with him, but it made him feel peaceful, like his past mistakes had not sullied him so much that he could not be cared for.
“Ah!” The quiet was broken as Mayday leaned out, reaching towards one of the screens.
“You want to get a better look at that?” Miguel enlarged the screen so that it took up most of the space in front of them. It was his simulation of the multiverse, updated continuously as Spiders traveled back and forth, threads breaking and weaving, spinning out into a vast web of universes.
Mayday watched as the web formed and shifted with wide eyes. It was likely that she did not understand what she was looking at, not truly, but she knew it was important and knew the kinship of every Spider in every universe.
“Sometimes I wish this did not exist,” Miguel said, more to himself than to her. “It’s amazing, but it’s come with a lot of pain for me, for almost everyone. But, without it, I guess I would’ve never met you.”
Mayday smiled at him as though she somehow understood what he was saying. Her fingers toyed with his hair, but he couldn't bring himself to care about how messed up it was.
“I had a daughter once,” he went on. “She was a lot like you. Curious, intelligent, hard to ignore. But no version of me is meant to have her, I guess. That’s my canon event.”
Mayday hummed, resting a cheek against Miguel’s temple. He took a deep breath, moving on before the wellspring of pain could open up inside him. “Anyway, you’re not so bad. A pain, but less of one than your dad.”
He continued working, more relaxed than he had felt in a long time, until he felt the creeping feeling of throbbing behind his eyes, a tingling in his gums. He realized then that with the abnormality of Mayday’s presence, he had forgotten the usual injection that calmed the more volatile side of his DNA.
Mayday let out a surprised yelp as she was suddenly deposited on the floor as Miguel practically leapt across the room to the corner where he kept the serum. The symptoms always came on fast, and even when he was properly injected, it did not always hold him back in moments of frenzy. A hiss fell from his mouth like steam being released from a valve as the robotic arm came up, his arm flaring with a momentary fire as the needle broke skin. The fire was washed away in a flood of coolness as the serum spread through his system, stopping the flareup. He breathed a sigh of relief as the throbbing faded, sliding down to sit with his back against the wall as his vitals began to even out.
“Boss, what did I tell you about forgetting?” Lyla chided in his ear.
“Gimme a break. I wasn’t expecting babysitting duty,” Miguel grumbled, running a hand over his eyes. He didn’t know how much Mayday had seen, though it was probably too much. That side of him was frightening, even to him, and he braced himself for tears as he refocused his attention on her.
But no, of course not. Mayday was toddling her way determinedly across the floor towards him, uncaring of how vast the distance was to tiny legs. There was no trace of tears or any indication of distress at all, merely the desire to be near him once more.
The kid was going to kill him, Miguel was sure of it. He shot out a strand of webbing, catching her by the front of her shirt and pulling her the rest of the way to him. She giggled at the sudden ride, but when she arrived her face became serious again as she stood against his arm, staring at him closely.
“Sorry, mija,” he murmured, trying to avoid her gaze. “There aren’t many nice parts of me, and that’s one of the worst.”
Mayday continued to look at him for a few moments, then wrapped her arms around his bicep, resting her head there. Miguel didn’t know what she was doing at first, until it dawned on him. She was giving him a hug, to the best of her ability.
“You’re a good kid,” he told her, a little choked, and he meant it. “You’ll probably be one of the best Spiders.”
That seemed to satisfy Mayday. She let go of his arm and tripped into his lap, settling herself so she was facing him, and he could not make himself avoid the soulful gaze any longer as she threatened to tip over backwards. He brought his knees up to support her back, thinking aloud.
“Almost every one of us was bitten, and almost every one of us lost someone.” He brushed a hand over the soft red hair. “But you were born with it. I’ve never seen that before, and I hope…I hope you don’t have to lose someone too.”
Mayday cooed, reaching for his face, oblivious to the weight of his words. Miguel watched her hand approach, slightly mystified, until he realized where it was heading. He caught the little wrist, so tiny, so fragile, before it could arrive at his fangs.
“Eso es malo, mija,” he said, and when Mayday gave him a funny look, he corrected himself. “I meant that’s bad. They have venom in them. Not nice.” Mayday grabbed hold of his thumb instead, barely able to wrap her fingers around it, and a humorous thought struck him. “I bet your dad would love it if your first word was in Spanish.”
Mayday giggled like she understood perfectly, and for the first time, he returned a smile. The feeling was foreign, but not unpleasant, and Mayday smiled wider at the sight.
They sat together for some time, there on the floor. Mayday played with Miguel’s fingers, and eventually he removed his gloves, giving her free access to the appendages that retained a vaguely claw-like appearance, though that did not seem to bother her. He let himself get lost in thought, relaxing even further until the little hands ceased playing with his fingers. Then he noticed her eyelids drooping, her head nodding towards her chest.
“Your dad’s not even back for your naptime. What a deadbeat.” Miguel gathered her into his arms, trying to ignore how she curled closer to him. “Don’t worry. We can fix that.”
It took only a couple of expertly-placed webs to form a makeshift hammock hanging between two sections of the wall. Miguel considered placing Mayday in the hammock and getting back to work, but the more she snuggled against him, the more he found himself disliking that idea. He made up his mind when she started snoring quietly into his shoulder, sinking into the hammock himself with the slumbering child on top of him.
“Lyla,” he whispered, “dim the lights.”
“That’s a very cute picture, boss.”
“Yeah, yeah, just do it.”
The lights dimmed. Miguel did not intend to fall asleep himself, but it was so peaceful that he too found a heaviness pulling at his eyelids. When was the last time he had gotten a good night’s sleep, anyway?
Peter came through the portal with a flourish, calling into the open air, “Hello, Miss AI-Lady? Please tell me my daughter is still alive!”
Lyla’s image appeared next to him. “She’s alive. Just keep your volume down when you go to Miguel’s office, ‘kay?”
With that in mind, Peter expected to find Mayday asleep. It was past her naptime, anyway. He did not expect to find both baby and babysitter fast asleep in a web hammock, without a care in the world. A huge grin crept onto his face.
Miguel came awake with a start as fingers snapped right above his head. He instinctively grabbed at the figure above him with a death grip, his claws sinking into fabric while his other hand moved to cover the still sleeping Mayday.
“Whoa, come on, it’s not like you’re in mortal peril. Relax, man.”
Miguel recognized the voice and sank back, blinking blearily at Peter’s grinning face hanging above him. “When did you get back?”
“Five minutes ago.” Peter flipped onto one of the support strands of the hammock lightly. “So much for ‘doesn’t involve holding’, I see.”
Miguel scoffed, sitting up carefully to avoid jostling Mayday. “Took you long enough.” Peter continued grinning, and he scowled. “What?”
“You were doing the thing!”
“What thing?”
“The dad thing where you pass out with your kid! I’ve done it like a hundred times now—”
“She’s your kid,” Miguel growled. “Let’s be clear about that.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. But you’re technically like another version of me. A really messed up, unfunny version of me, but it still counts. I think it’s an innate Spider-Man thing to like kids. I guess that would make you some sort of honorary uncle…”
Miguel stood up, having heard enough. Mayday mumbled, coming awake with the movement. She had drooled on his suit, but he didn’t care, oddly enough.
“Hi, honey!” Peter greeted her with outstretched arms. “Sorry I took so long!”
Mayday let out a drowsy string of babble, reaching for her dad. Miguel handed her over, with more reluctance than he had expected to feel.
“I hope she wasn’t too much trouble,” Peter said, giving him a knowing look.
“She was…fine,” he replied.
“Seems like more than fine to me. I think she likes you a lot.” Peter bounced her around a little. “So…if you need me to clean up another anomaly, d’you think you could look after her?”
Miguel tried to look annoyed. “This was supposed to be one time.”
“But there are always more anomalies, and I’m sure Mayday here would love to spend more time with you.”
Mayday gave him a winning smile, and Peter knew by the softening of Miguel’s face that he was done for. It would be good for him, after all he had suffered.
“Well, what do you say?”
Miguel did not answer aloud, but the way he looked at her was answer enough.