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It was always just a reprieve, that window of time. Unsustainable, as he shaped himself into what the job needed. But—
"Miguel," Peter whispers, quiet and shocking and sad.
"I," Miguel says and blinks once, twice. Shakes it away. Lets his suit repair itself over the gashes in his skin.
Peter purses his lips. He's crouched before Miguel, and Miguel realises too late that he's not standing anymore. Backs of his knuckles pressed against the hard concrete of city scraper roofs, claws digging into the heels of his hands. For a second adrenaline and fear sharp in his chest, but Mayday coos, jolting him away from the creeping panic. Something thick wells in the back of his throat.
She's old enough to crawl, now. Every day it ticks closer, time like a bomb. Something shows on his face because Peter looks down and away.
"Hey, honey," Peter says to the baby, gathering her close. He doesn't meet Miguel's eyes. Cradles Mayday to his chest, her shock of red hair vibrant against his coat. Mayday giggles, trusting and loved. So fucking loved. Miguel shuts his eyes so he doesn't have to see it.
He's always been a coward anyway, he supposes. It's not as if Peter is learning anything new.
Peter puts one hand on the ground and gets to his feet with a sigh. "Come on," he says, still quiet. Extends that same hand to Miguel; the crutch, the brace, and settles the other soft in Mayday's hair.
"Leave it," Miguel says roughly, and Peter doesn't even protest. Gets to his feet himself in one coiling motion, a few steps away from Peter. Turns to survey the city. Miguel can feel eyes on him as he nears the edge of the roof, but Peter doesn't say anything. Whether that's a blessing or not, he doesn't know.
"Lyla," he says. "Where's the anomaly?"
"Being dealt with," Lyla says with a frown.
"Where," Miguel repeats, fighting not to hiss at her.
Lyla hesitates before she gives in. It's not as if she has much a choice, but she gives in either way, and it's a relief because Miguel has been losing feeling in his fingertips. "Eight blocks south," she tells him. "What— oh, never mind."
"I'm fine," he says, which might be vain to say before anyone asks, yeah, but she will. He knows that. Knows it vivid and clean as any spider knows the path of web to its destination before it ever leaves his hand.
"Sure," Lyla says, unconvinced, but fizzles out of visible space again either way. Miguel sighs and sets it aside as a problem for later, the ones he'll never get around to. If Lyla has something to say he'll hear it eventually, even if he doesn't listen.
"Miguel!" Jess, the only rational thing left to him these days. "Can you hurry it up here?" she demands.
Miguel puts himself back into something resembling personhood, resembling Spiderman, and backs up far enough to leap. Peter follows him, faithful and full of all the grace Miguel's never had himself.
The good days make it worse. The days when he has the energy to interact with the Society, a couple members at a time. To bear their jokes and to smile back, fangs tucked away.
Make it worse for all of them. He can't be their friend. He's all too acutely aware of the patterns of abuse and how it looks, he just—
There's a calculated kind of cruelty to the way B shoves his daughter in Miguel's face all the time.
All the time.
Miguel never drops her, but he thinks some days that might be easier. Little May Parker, happy and burbling. See what happens if nobody catches her.
Maybe Peter would leave him alone then. Maybe.
He doesn't do it. Bears it with grit teeth at parade rest this time. Parkers though, cheeky to the end and brilliantly alive. Mayday climbs up to sit on his shoulder, and he just can't. "Peter," he says harshly. Peter doesn't take the girl, and Miguel inhales, hisses in Spanish.
"Look," Peter says, oddly defensive. His own arms are crossed. "You could let her down a lot more gently. She's just a kid," he says, quieter.
"Old enough to be Spider-Woman," Miguel says. "She made that choice, and we've made ours. Take your spawn, Peter."
Peter sets his jaw and collects his baby. Sweeps out of core.
Miguel turns back around to the screens. Lyla flickers at his shoulders, the same stance Peter had stood in. "Lyla," he says.
"Miguel," she says, upset. "I will strand you in a parallel dimension," she threatens. In, out. Outside, Peter is talking to the others in a low voice. He's trying. Is he? It's not easy for him.
Miguel's tired, bone deep. If he has to do this for much longer, he doesn't know what will happen. Peter's right about one thing, it is hard for him. In, out.
It's not Peter's or Lyla's faults if he can't hold it up. They're patient with him, though, and that's all he can ask from them.
Outside, the conversation lulls. Miguel closes his eyes briefly, waits for the inevitable: Hobie Brown swans his way into the room, meandering and still steady somehow even with it. Leans up against a table in the hall, chin dipped towards his chest. "O'Hara," he says, to the wall. "What's all this, then?" He's always been protective in his own way of the other kids.
"Fuck," Miguel says, and without meaning it, "I hate you."
"Get a grip on it, ay?" Hobie tilts his head all the way back, locking eyes with Miguel and smile feral as ever.
"Sure," Miguel says, just tired. "Sure."
First time Peter brings Mayday into HQ, all of a month and a half, Miguel flinches hard enough he knows it's visible.
It's like this. Miguel's first and biggest mistake was hoping. He had never known Gabriella that small, because he was never supposed to know her at all.
Still, the sight of Peter's baby, cradled to his chest with her mouth open, makes something ache sharply.
"Boss," Lyla says anxiously as he turns tail back into the heart of the base, flitting at his shoulders.
"Lock the doors," he orders. Lyla does as she's told. Miguel presses his fingers to his temples.
It's only—
B swings into headquarters bruised and whole, trailed by Pav and Iron Spider, who looks more than a little banged up. Pav is, as always, perfectly fine. Miguel dismisses them to medical, Pavitr with one arm around Iron Spider, faces Peter arms crossed.
"Hey, what gives?" Peter asks, smiling.
Miguel shakes his head and turns his back on him. The whole thing is less effective without the moody lighting, but at least he doesn't have to look at him. He's got a throbbing headache as is already.
"What happened," Miguel says. Lyla had lost contact with them three hours in, leaving Miguel to pace and wait.
"Parker luck," Peter says, a grimace in his voice. "Thank God for Pav. Hey, what's up with him anyway?"
"Haven't a clue," Miguel says truthfully. "Your watch?"
"Ehhhh," Peter says, shrugs. "Got taken. You know."
"Lyla," Miguel says.
"What, boss," Lyla says sweetly. Peter bites off a laugh behind him, and Miguel sighs deeply.
"Get the three of them assigned new watches for the time being, please," he says drily. "And have somebody retrieve the stolen ones. Assuming the inhabitants of Earth-1423 haven't figured it out yet."
Lyla offers him a half-assed salute, and her projection flickers out of view. Miguel rubs at his temples.
He worries. The bigger the Society gets the higher it mounts. It'd been a different kind of worry when it'd been him and a handful of others, but now.
Jess complains of him working himself into the ground, but how else do you atone?
They're running missions in new worlds against familiar-unfamiliar enemies. They're Spiderpeople, sure, as good at adaption as they are at anything at all, and they are all very good at everything they do. But a lot of them are just that, friendly neighbourhood Spidermen. They're not made for this. There are teams of reinforcements always ready, but heavier is the simmering worry of what happens when a Spiderman dies in another dimension. "How'd it go," he says tiredly. Always tired.
"Fine," Peter says, shrugging. Miguel turns back to him with glasses on, blinks unimpressed. "Minor hiccups aside."
"Minor hiccups," Miguel echoes.
"Yeah," Peter says. Miguel sighs.
"I— whatever. Get out of here, Parker."
Miguel dreams, and dreams, and he dreams. Lives extinguished and a universe collapsing, and Gabriella— Mayday. Mayday.
The anomaly they'd captured on some universe he can't even remember the designation of anymore sweeping in, claws out.
Slams back into consciousness the same way he'd left it, like a crashing train. Finds himself more exhausted than he'd been an hour ago, and runs his hands over his face.
What he wants—
It ends like this, Miguel gasping for breath and Rapture thick on his tongue. Peter waits.
"It wasn't my world," he says when he finally manages to breathe deep.
Peter blinks at him before his mouth twists. "But you still lost it," Peter says, soft. "That hardly seems fair."
Miguel curls his fists tight enough that it hurts more than stings. "It's not," he says. "That whole universe— because me." The back of his throat aches.
The only thing he ever finds relief in is the fact that nobody ever tries to tell him that it wasn't his fault. It was. He reached for things he could never have had, and the consequences didn't even land on him.
It's not fair. Trillions of lives on his head. Trillions of lives gone in a minute.
This isn't regret, it's reparations.
Peter steps forward, every step deliberate. Presses dry lips to Miguel's forehead, like forgiveness, like benediction. Maybe it's not something he can be the one to give out, but Miguel still sags. "I'm sorry," Peter says, even though they all know it's not his fault.
It ends like this, Miguel with his cut strings and his blood more hardened determination than empty grief. Ends always moving on, corpses unburied behind him.