Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Miguel’s skull was still buzzing a little when he came to. 

Okay – the good news was his gizmo multiverse travel thing was mostly intact. It was keeping him stable at least. And he hadn’t landed in some kind of everyone-is-werewolves earth. Excellent news. Stupendous.

The bad news was his gizmo multiverse travel thing was just busted enough to mean he couldn’t open a portal and LYLA was out of communication. 

And the really bad news was he’d gotten electrified into unconsciousness by a child about twelve minutes into this new universe and now was unmasked, mildly concussed, and tied to a punching bag with a bunch of bungee cords. 

Pretty bad day for the multiverse traveling thing, overall.

— 

The guy was awake, but not saying anything. He just glowered at Miles with creepy red eyes.

Miles pulled his cheap Spider-Man mask down farther over his face and glowered right back, crossing his arms over his chest, trying to puff himself up to look bigger. He was beginning to think that dragging a supervillain who most-definitely worked for Kingpin back to his uncle’s apartment was a mistake, but… too late now.

“Who are you?”  Miles said, lowering his voice.

The guy did not seem impressed. 

“None of your business, kid.”

“I’m not a kid!” Miles snapped, his voice breaking a little — shit, lowering it again — “I mean — you’re in MY city so it is my business..”

The guy looked Miles up and down, then down at himself.

“You know my feet are on the ground, right?”

That was true. And totally not Miles’ fault — this guy was like 7 damn feet tall and it had been hard to maneuver his dead weight into the right position.

“Yeah. So?” Miles said.

“So, this isn’t very intimidating. Is this your first interrogation?”

“What? Psh, no. No, I’m — I do this all the time. I’m the interrogator.”

“That why you’re wearing a shocking Halloween costume?”

Miles picked at the too-small spider-shirt. Maybe he should have stolen one of Uncle Aaron’s shirts. 

“No, I’m —I’m also Spider-Man.”

“Spider-Man is dead,” the guy said, flatly.

“I’m the new Spider-Man.”

The guy snorted and rolled his eyes — he was kind of reminding Miles of his parents when they didn’t believe whatever he was telling them. And it was even more annoying coming from this stranger.

“Kid, I don’t have time for this  …” he said, starting to fidget his hands under the cord. 

“I am the new Spider-Man! I got bit by a spider and stick to walls and everything!” Miles said. He pulled his mask up, angrily. He wasn’t sure why it was so important to him that this guy believed him, but he stomped up to him and shoved his hand into the guy’s chest — where it stuck . Both to the guy’s weirdly textured shirt and the bungee-cords. 

And kept sticking.

Shit, not again.

If the guy noticed Miles’ sudden distress, he didn’t show it. He just looked confused and a little alarmed.

“… When? When did you get bitten?”

“Uh — day before yesterday?” Miles said, pulling his hand back, trying to unstick.

“… you gonna let go of me?” The guy said, red eyes flicking down to Miles’ hand and back up to his face.

“Working on it.”

“Hang on,” said the guy — and suddenly Miles was flying across the room and hitting the wall, taking a chunk of bungee cord with him. 

The guy dropped a foot back down to the floor — he’d kicked Miles across the room. The pattern on his shirt was more obvious now without the cord across his chest and the light reflecting off it —Miles had been too panicked in the dark to see it before, and then with tying him up, but —

“That’s — are you a Spider-Man?”

Miles scrambled to his feet.

The guy sighed and cursed under his breath in Spanish.

“… Yeah.”

“But I thought —wait, are you, like, another country’s Spider-Man? Are you Canadian Spider-Man?”

“Wh — Canadian?”

“Nobody knows anything about Canada! I would have heard about other places’ Spider-Man.”

“No, I’m not Canadian shocking Spider-Man!” The guy snapped. Miles jerked half a step back — the guy had fangs.

“Are you an evil Spider-Man? A supervillain Spider-Man?”

“No,” the guy gritted out between clenched teeth (and fangs).

Miles looked back at the mask he’d pulled off the guy’s face on the counter. That weird texture…

“Are you — from the future? And you’re my great-great-grandson?”

“N — yes. To the first part. I sure shocking hope not to the rest of it. I’m from the future — another universe's future.”

“That is  … so cool, man! This is amazing! You can help me — Peter Parker, he said he’d help me learn to be Spider-Man!”

“Before he died.”

“Y — well, yeah.”

“Hm.”

The guy appeared to be thinking about something.

“And you can help me stop the collider, like I — I promised Peter  …”

The guy looked up, “Collider?”

“Yeah, it’s this big — super-collider thing the Kingpin is using for  … something. I saw it and then Kingpin saw me and –”

“Wait, wait. The spider that bit you — where did it happen? Near the collider?”

“Yeah, under some subway tunnels — I can take you there! The spider’s still there, I think — or, I mean, it was, yesterday. And then we can stop the collider!”

The guy nodded once, still looking lost in thought. 

“And if I take you, you’ll help me and teach me  … how to be Spider-Man?” Miles added, hopefully.

The guy looked at Miles for a minute, like he was studying him. Miles fidgeted uncomfortably.

The guy sighed, “Yeah. Fine. I’ll teach you.”

Hell yes.

Miles scrambled forward to untie the guy, but before he could take more than a few paces, the bungee cords fell apart, cut to pieces. 

The guy straightened his back.

“How did you —woah —“ Miles took a step back again when he saw the claws emerging from the guy’s fingertips.

The guy rolled his eyes and, after grabbing his mask from the counter, stepped out onto the fire escape. Miles followed him. 

“Are you a vampire?” he asked as the guy reached out to the bricks and grabbed on with his claws, heaving himself up with one arm to the wall. 

The guy didn’t even look at him, “No.”

“You have fangs. And claws. And - and red eyes!” Miles said, crawling up the wall after him.

“Spiders also have all of those things,” the guy said, flatly.

“Spiders have red eyes?”

The guy paused for a moment and then shrugged, “…Okay — eyes, I don’t know.”

“You sure you’re really Spider-Man?”

“Are you?” The guy grumbled as he swung himself over the roof, leaving a trail of gouges in the wall where his hands and feet had been. 

“Ouch,” said Miles.

—

The city didn’t look to be in any danger of immediate-collapse of reality from the rooftop— though, admittedly Miguel wasn’t exactly sure what that would even look like. 

The kid was still yammering at him — something about pigeons — and Miguel tried his best to tune him out. He’d met a couple of other Spider-Men in their universes so far and they’d all been … chatty. Between that and the spider-bites and sticking-to-things and the spider-sense, maybe the kid had a point, he was definitely ticking the Real Spider-Man boxes more than Miguel was. 

“Hey, I’m Miles, by the way, Miles Morales,” the kid said.

Oh right. Basic human interaction, he forgot about that — maybe he’d been spending too much time with LYLA. 

“Miguel O’Hara,” he said, simply, “So, where’s the collider?”

“It’s  …” the kid — Miles, said, looking around and over his shoulder at the buildings, “there, under Fisk Tower.”

Miguel followed where the kid was pointing. Shock, and he thought Nueva York had obnoxious buildings. He squinted at the blazing lights and looked away before his eyes started watering. He’d need to get a pair of sunglasses.

“Oh, Peter gave me an override key! We need it to destroy the collider.”

Miles reached into his pocket and pulled out a shattered bit of silicon and metal. 

Miguel narrowed his eyes at it. 

“Did you break this?”

“No! It broke.”

Miguel pinched the bridge of his nose and turned to face the city again. If his multiverse gizmo was fully operational, he’d be able to fix it or make a new one in a few minutes with LYLA’s help and a couple of paperclips — but fixing the gizmo itself was another issue. And the goober took precedence. Unless it was faster to fix the gizmo and then use it make a new goober — 

“So, do you have a time machine?” Miles asked, suddenly at Miguel’s shoulder and making him jump a little and swear.

“What?”

“A time machine? Space-time travel box thing? How’d you get here?”

“No I have a — gizmo,” Miguel said, lifting his wrist briefly. Miles grabbed his hand and yanked it to examine it more closely.

“Woah, like a dimensional travel watch?”

“It’s much cooler than a watch,” Miguel grumbled, pulling his hand back.

“Looks kinda  … busted,” Miles said, squinting at it, then looking up at Miguel, “Did you break it?”

“No,” Miguel said, crossing his arms over his chest, “it … broke.”

Broke by him landing on it after falling 20 feet from the sky. 

The kid didn’t need to know that. 

—

They settled on a destination— the Alchemax labs. Where Miguel would hopefully be able to make a new override key and fix his time machine-watch-gizmo-thing. Apparently, the school computers probably weren't going to cut it. Unfortunately the bus going there wasn’t leaving until the morning, so they had time to kill. 

Miles had luckily been able to talk Miguel into going to an all-night cofee place after raiding Uncle Aaron’s closet for some less conspicuous clothes and a pair of sunglasses. Miguel insisted on wearing them inside — Miles kind of suspected that once you turned 30, you just became either super embarrassing or turned into a huge douchebag. 

But huge douchebag or not, Miles had got himself a spider-mentor — he was going to take full advantage.

He stared at Miguel over the table. Miguel picked at the edge of the cardboard cup, not meeting his gaze. 

“So  …”

Miguel’s eyes flicked to Miles over his glasses.

“… Spider-Man lessons?” said Miles.

Miguel sighed, “Yeah, alright. Ask away.”

Miles wasn’t sure he knew what he was expecting, but that wasn’t it. 

“Okay, uh… how do you unstick to stuff?”

“I don’t know. Retract?”

“… seriously?” said Miles.

“I don’t stick to anything, that’s all I got.”

“Then how do you —“

Miguel hooked an unopened sugar packet on a claw and balanced it on his fingertip, letting the loose sugar fall on to the table. 

He gave Miles a flat look. 

“Claws  …“ Miles said.

“Talons.”

“Talons, right.  … Wait, am I gonna grow talons?”

“Probably not,” Miguel said, tiredly.

“Am I gonna be super tall and gigantic?”

“That’s … regular genetics.”

“Am I gonna grow fangs?”  Miles was unable to hide the mild nervousness in his voice.

Miguel scowled.

“I mean, they’re cool! It would be cool to  …”

Miles kind of wilted under Miguel’s flat stare. This wasn’t going well. 

Miguel finally relented and leaned back in his chair, “Don’t worry, I think whatever you have going on is it. Has been for the rest of them. I'm just different.”

Miles perked up, “The rest of them? You’ve met other Spider-Men?”

“In other universes. Same story. Right time, right place, bit by a spider, spider-sense, sticks to walls, super strength,” he finally took a sip of the coffee, “etcetera.”

“But you’re  … different.”

“I had more of a  … attempted murder via genetic tampering thing, not a spider bite.”

“Woah  … wait, what about web shooters? Do you have those? If I’m gonna Spider-Man, I have to be able to swing.”

Miguel looked thoughtful for a moment, “... Yes. I… have those, but they’re…” 

Miguel scowled again, seemingly to himself and rolled up the sleeve of his shirt under the sweatshirt he’d taken from Uncle Aaron’s. There was a divot in his forearm near the wrist.

Miles blinked, “Wait they’re ...they’re in your arms?”

“Yes.”

“But how does that – I mean, don’t —  with real spiders, it comes out  …”

“Yes.”

Miles stared at Miguel. 

“But you —“

“No.”

“Just the wrists?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, I just wanted to check, because … regular spiders –”

Miguel actually very nearly smiled a little as he rolled his sleeve down, “Trust me, that occurred to me too.”

“... You think there’s a Spider-man out there who does have …”

“I can almost guarantee there is.”

Miles tried to think of another question – but was interrupted by yelling outside.

A middle-aged man in an ugly coat was being pushed out of the restaurant next door and was definitely pissed about it.

“What? Don’t you guys have layaway in this universe!” the man yelled as the chef turned and stomped back inside.

Miles and Miguel both turned to look out the window at that.

“... Peter?” said Miles. Miguel was already out the door. Miles ran after him - but he was gone.

“I’m glad you guys are gonna go out of business! I give you six months, tops!” the guy yelled again. People on the street were starting to avoid him.“Your burgers aren’t even that good! You’re overrated! You’re – hlp!”

The guy vanished over the top of a building, dragged by a web attached to his back.

Miguel – mask back on, leaned over the edge of the building and gestured for Miles to follow him -- before being pulled back suddenly himself by a web to the back of the neck. Uh oh.

Miles scrambled up the wall to join them right as the maybe-Peter had one hand under Miguel’s chin, pushing his head back. Miguel had his claws dug into maybe-Peter’s coat. 

“Hey!” Miles yelled, running forward – and then fell back, a little dizzy. The same feeling he’d gotten when he met Peter – the other Peter.

This maybe-Peter obviously felt the same, because he blinked for a half-second – just long enough for Miguel to pull his mask up and surge forward to sink his fangs into the maybe-Peter’s neck.

Maybe-Peter seized up in Miguel’s grip, like he was frozen – and Miguel dropped him on the floor.

“He really needs a shower,” Miguel said, looking faintly disgusted and wiping his mouth.

“Dude!” Miles yelped, gesturing to maybe-Peter “I thought you said you weren’t a vampire!”

“I’m not.”

“Then why did you bite him?! Is he dead?”

Miguel waved Miles off, “No, he’s fine, I have a paralyzing venom.”

“... That was not the answer I was expecting,” Miles said, slowly.

“Why do you think spiders have fangs?” 

Alright, that was fair.

“Okay , okay – What do we do with him now?” Miles said, looking down at the maybe-Peter Parker.

Miguel pulled his mask back down over his face and paused.

“Well…”

Fifteen minutes later, they were back in Uncle Aaron's apartment with maybe-Peter webbed to the punching bag.

Chapter Text

“How long is he gonna be out?” Miles said, swinging upside-down from a rope of web. 

Miguel had found this other Peter’s web shooters after he’d paralyzed him and given them to Miles to experiment with – provided he stayed in the apartment. Miles wondered if Uncle Aaron would have been so on-board with them doing this, but Miguel said it was safer than playing around 10 storeys up. And Miles had already had all the falling-from-heights he needed for the week.

“I gave him enough for a couple of hours – but with a Spider-Man, I’m not sure, he’ll probably recover quicker,” Miguel said, ducking under a stray web shot Miles fired over his head, “So, we have to be fast.”

“Fast? What are we doing?”

“I want to see the spider – the one you said bit you in the tunnel?”

“What, now? What about –” he pointed to the paralyzed Peter Parker, “The … ghost?” 

“Yeah – that’s why I want to go check.” Miguel said, standing, “I think he might be from another universe, too. Let’s go.”

“Alr – woah!” 

The web Miles hanging from snapped and dropped him to the floor.

He looked up at Miguel and grinned hopefully, “Can we swing there?”

Miguel sighed. 

—

Miguel was, unfortunately, not the best teacher for web swinging – he had his doubts he was going to be much of a teacher for anything but … well, probably better him than the one in old sweatpants that got kicked out of a restaurant an hour ago. But the overhand organic web that Miguel had didn’t translate well to the underhand web that Miles – and pretty much every other Spider-Man that Miguel had met – used.

Regardless, they’d managed to swing a block or two and Miguel only had to save Miles from breaking his neck twice, so it worked out.

Eventually, after some twists and turns and a high metal fence that Miles had excitedly crawled over before Miguel just clawed a hole in it, they arrived at an abandoned subway station that smelled of spray paint. 

Miguel’s eyes focused on the spider in the center of the floor, letting his telescopic vision narrow on it – it was colored a little strangely but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Radioactive spiders probably came in a lot of colors. And then it buzzed and in a flash of color, glitched, like it was becoming unset from reality – which it probably was.

Well, that was bad news. 

“Miles –”

“Hang on,” said Miles, staying at the entrance with a flashlight tucked under his arm. He hopped up and – the world exploded into blinding white.

Miguel swore and squeezed his eyes shut, lifting his arms in front of his face to block out the light. 

“What?! What’s wrong?” Miles squawked, alarmed.

Miguel kept his face covered, pain prickling in his eyes.

“Turn the shocking lights off!”

“Okay, okay!” 

There was a loud cachunk of a switch being moved and Miguel gingerly peered through one eye – darkness. Much better – kind of. He was still seeing stars blotting out the edges of his vision.

He rubbed his eyes.

“Uh, are you okay, man?” said Miles, taking a careful step forward.

“I’m a little light-sensitive,” said Miguel, blinking and shaking his head.

“A little?”

Miguel sighed, “Just give me a minute – and don’t point the flashlight at me, either.”

Miguel sat on an old metal barrel and blinked a few more times.

“Um. Sorry,” said Miles. 

Miguel shook his head, “It’s fine. Just warn me next time.”

They sat quietly – well, Miguel sat quietly, Miles fidgeted with the web shooters and hummed to himself.

“What were you doing down here?” said Miguel, once his eyes stopped watering.

Miles shrugged, “I was down here with my uncle, I wanted to paint something – because my dad's ...  – uncle Aaron knew this place was out of the way and my dad’s a cop, so…”

“Painting?”

Miles nodded towards the elaborate art sprayed on to the wall – a dizzying array of colors that Miguel was pretty sure weren’t actually visible to normal humans – maybe not even normal spiders. It was kind of giving him a cluster headache. 

“I like it,” said Miguel. 

“Yeah?” said Miles, obviously excited before calming himself down, “I mean – yeah, yeah, I – I think it really came together.” 

Miles shrugged, too casual – just like Gabriel always did when Miguel complimented his art.

“My brother’s the artist,” said Miguel, “I was more the…”

“Nerdy one?” Miles said, grinning.

Miguel gave Miles a flat look, “... You’re wearing a children’s Halloween costume and you’re saying that?”

Never mind that Miguel was wearing a left-over costume from a Day of the Dead party. 

The kid didn’t need to know that either.

Miles raised his hands in surrender and laughed, “That didn’t sound like a no, but alright, alright…”

Miguel crouched down to look at the dead spider curled on the cement floor. It was still and dead. Then it bzzt-ed again. 

“It did that when I came to see it before,” Miles said. 

“It’s glitching.”

“Glitching sounds … bad. That’s bad, right?” said Miles.

Miguel didn’t say anything. He pressed his tongue to the tip of a fang and rolled it over in his head.

So ... the collider brought this spider from another universe to this universe, where it bit Miles Morales. Meaning that there’s a universe out there, now, without a spider to bite somebody. Meaning there’s no Spider-Man in that universe. Which means there’s at least two universes now that might be unstabilized by the collider. 

A missing Spider-Man in one universe and two Spider-Men (one, admittedly, deceased) in another could be big enough problems that it might unravel the entirety of reality. 

And Miguel sticking around to help the kid learn to be Spider-Man was probably a massive anomaly and more than likely was accelerating things and if he was as smart as his ego liked to tell him he was, he’d run away now. Not let the kid in on anything, stop the collider on his own, drop the hobo Spider-Man off in his home reality and let the cards fall where they may and pray it was enough to stop the foundation of the cosmos from dropping out from under his feet.

…Unless.

Unless the multiverse was even more interconnected than he thought and the glitching spider, the spider-less universe, this universe’s Peter Parker dying, and Miles becoming Spider-Man were actually all part of the canon. 

The canon was a theory he and LYLA had been throwing around for a while. Certain events that seemed to be part of every Spider-person’s story. Spider bites, dead loved one (usually an uncle), dead police captain, a long trail of pain and heartbreak that all seemed to lead to a better, more heroic Spider, every time.

Every time … except for Miguel’s.

He looked at his hands and flexed his talons. He’d had his share of heartache, loss and misery, sure, but nothing was ever really quite right – not like it was for all the others, at least. He’d be lying if he said it wasn’t a bit of an insecurity. Here he was, traveling the multiverse and trying to find Spider-People, all the while barely resembling any of them. Miguel, genetically spliced and just as much a spider as he was a man, with the scary fangs and red eyes and claws who accidentally slit people’s throats and ripped skin off their arms trying to save them. He used to just worry about being a freak. Now he got to worry about being the wrong type of Spider-Man.

He poked at the spider with a tip of a talon.

This spider wasn’t from this universe. But … the supercollider that brought it here was. 

The spider glitched again.

“... Miguel?”

“Yes,” Miguel said, “It’s bad.”

“Why?”

Miguel shouldn’t elaborate. 

He couldn’t put this all on the kid – there’s nothing Miles could do to change it, it wasn’t his fault, it was the wrong place at the wrong time and giving him the idea that the entire multiverse might collapse based on him when he didn’t do anything would do nothing but freak the kid out. Let alone the canon theory, which wasn’t really proven yet and might be nothing or Miguel might be misinterpreting it entirely and – he was going to give himself an aneurysm stressing about this.

He looked at Miles.

“It’s complicated.”

“Seriously? You stand there silently thinking for four solid minutes and can’t come out with anything besides ‘it’s bad’ and ‘it’s complicated’?”

“Bad and complicated are all you need to worry about,” Miguel said, turning to the exit.

“That’s not an answer,” said Miles, “Come on – this is Spider-Man stakes, right? I can’t help you if you don’t tell me!” 

Don't tell him.

Don’t tell the kid he might destroy the universe, Miguel.

Don’t tell the kid he might destroy the universe, Miguel, you barely-functional bug-brained idiot.

“Miles, let me just – I don’t want you to –” Shock, this was so frustrating, “Let me think it over, okay?”

Miles sighed, a little sulky, “Fine…”

Miguel stood, “Fine. Let’s go check on our ghost.”

– 

This was not Peter’s day.

Lately, none of his days had been his day. And by lately, he meant the last 22-odd years. But this was the first time he’d woken up webbed to a punching bag in an apartment he didn’t recognize after getting bitten by a random stranger. The webbing was a neat trick – way harder to get out of than ropes, even if he wasn’t paralyzed. The paralysis was just starting to wear off his face when he heard the door creak open and shut, followed by somebody speaking in a low pitch.

“Keep your mask on, don’t volunteer any information, and don’t do the weird voice,”

“Okay, okay, I got it.

Peter opened his eyes. Directly in front of him, somebody – skinny, a little short – maybe 5’5”, stood with his arms crossed. He had a mask on – one of those cheap Spider-Man costumes they sold for kids.

In the shadows behind him, a man dressed in a dark blue suit with a red-orange pattern on it. Masked, like the small one, but this one wasn’t off-the-Spirit-Halloween-rack. He was very tall – tall enough that it was, you know, weird – and built like one of those upside-down Dorito heroes that Peter had lately started resenting a little, with the wide shoulders and thin waist and ooh look at me I’m so fit and I run around the city wearing horns and I’ve never had a failed talk show or a public feud with Lin Manuel Miranda.

He was getting off track.

“I’ve got some questions,” the little one said, obviously lowering his voice.

Behind him, the man in the shadows groaned, “I just said don’t do the weird voice! Why are you doing the weird voice?”

The little one turned to face the bigger one and hissed, “You just said ‘the weird voice’, how was I supposed to know which voice that was!”

“Any voice but your regular voice is the weird voice!”

“Then you should have said that!”

“I did!”

Okay, maybe these guys weren’t the brain trust he’d thought they were.

“Uh – guys?” said not-Peter, “is this a hostage situation or …?”

The two jerks looked up at him, and then at each other. The big one said something in Spanish and the little one left Peter to have a hushed conversation with him. As if Peter wasn’t just stuck to a punching bag hanging there three feet away – these were the rudest kidnappers Peter had ever met. But the webs were dissolving – so he just had to be able to catch them off guard.

“Not to interrupt!” Peter said, loudly, “But are you guys murdering me? What’s happening here?”

After another brief exchange between the two, the little one pulled up his mask.

Jeez, he was just a kid – he couldn’t have been more than 15. As for the other one – Peter eyed him, suspiciously. That guy’s mask was still on.

“Why do you look like Peter Parker?”

“I am Peter Parker – hey! Big guy! You gonna let your little sidekick do all the work for ya?”

The big one just stood in the shadows. The mask twitched a little – Peter was pretty sure he was rolling his eyes.

“Hey, I’m not a sidekick! I’m Spider-Man and – and so’s he!”

The kid pointed over his shoulder at the silent shadow.

“Wow, great, then guess you’re all full up on Spider-Men. So if you don’t mind…” 

He lashed forward, kicking the kid back and into the big guy and knocking them both to the ground– some Spider-Man, if he didn’t have the Spider-Sense to see that one coming – and dashed to the window to crawl out onto the fire escape.

Just gotta swing away with his trusty…

Where the hell were his web shooters?

Okay. Maybe they weren’t that dumb. 

And, more importantly, they were after him. Peter leapt across to the building next door just as the big one burst out the window, followed by the kid. 

“There’s no point running, Peter!” the big one yelled. A handful of claws gouged the building right next to Peter’s leg.

“There’s nowhere –ugh!” 

Peter kicked the big one right in the face – and then smashed his toe into his claws– before he could finish his sentence – yeah, yeah, nowhere to run, no point in hiding, blah blah. He’d heard it all before.

“Miguel!” the little one called as the big one slipped a few feet down the bricks. Peter didn’t stick around to see what happened next – he just hauled ass to the roof. 

Okay. No web shooters. Crazy dimension. Tiny little Spider-Man and his … Big Cat "Spider-Man" Bodyguard chasing him for some reason. 

He’d gotten through worse. Just needed to -

BZZT

A deafening hum filled his head and Peter was pretty sure he was being torn limb from limb. He collapsed to the ground on his back.

Yeesh, was that ozone smell coming from him? 

He looked up.

The two idiots were looking down at him.

“Are you okay?” the little one asked, kneeling down.

“No,” said Peter.

The big one had his mask off and was still standing – yeah, we get it pal, you’re tall, stop looming.

“When I said there’s no point running, Peter, I meant ‘you’re in another dimension and you need us if you want to get home’.”

“Maybe you should have opened with that.”

Peter sat up. The big one leaned back on the building’s edge. 

“Hey, buddy, question – did you bite me earlier?” 

“Yes,” the big one said, sneering. Peter caught the edge of a long, sharp fang. Yikes. Peter wasn’t sure where the kid got the idea that this creep was any kind of Spider-Man.

“Super weird thing to do.”

“You got aggressive.”

“You yanked me off the street!”

“You started a fight and I finished it,” the big one said. Peter could see all the fangs now.

“Okay! Okay – Miguel, c’mon, cool it.” said the kid.

‘Miguel’ huffed and crossed his arms. 

“Look, Peter, my name’s Miles Morales – Kingpin has a supercollider and if we don’t stop it, then Brooklyn’s gonna be swallowed by a black hole! We gotta shut it down.”

“And you need the collider to get home,” Miguel finished.

“So, you want my help,” said Peter. 

“Yes!" said Miles right as Miguel said “No.”

Miles turned and glared. 

Miguel rolled his eyes, sighed and shrugged.

“We need to fix the override key, Peter and … well, three Spider-Men are better than two, right?”

Peter looked at Miles and then back over to Miguel.

Yeah. ‘Three’ Spider-Men. Whatever you say, kid.

“... Yeah, alright. Let’s do it.”

Chapter Text

Miles was obviously too wired to sleep.

Miguel couldn’t really blame him – he’d had a wild couple of days. Miguel, of course, had been so bone-deep exhausted at the end of his first day that he’d slept almost 12 solid hours but that could probably chalked up to Miguel not being a teenager when he first became Spider-Man.

Peter had demanded his web-shooters back and Miles had reluctantly returned them (and refused Miguel’s suggestion to just borrow them again once Peter had fallen asleep on the sofa), so he was now spending his energy focused on an empty can that said “Monster” and “Energy” on it. 

The past had such weird names for things.

Miles kept taking deep breaths and then reaching out to tap the can.

Miguel raised an eyebrow, “What’s happening here?”

“Oh – uh, you remember when I electrocuted you?”

“Do I remember nine hours ago?”

Miles just blinked at him.

“Yes,” said Miguel, “I remember that happening.”

Miguel still had the Lichtenberg figure burn across his chest to prove it, too.

“Okay,” said Miles, “I… don’t know how I did that? I mean – I know I did it, but I can’t do it on purpose.”

“So you’re trying to … electrocute the can?” 

“Yeah, I’m – it’s stupid, right?”

A little.

“No,” Miguel said, “But your uncle might be annoyed if you leave a scorch mark on his coffee table.”

Miles pulled back from the can, “Oh. Yeah – I’ll… be on the roof.”

And with that, Miles grabbed the empty and clambered out the window.

The kid hadn’t glitched – even with the other dimensional spider-powers. That was probably a good sign. In fact, Miguel hadn’t noticed any weirdness outside of what was directly caused by the collider. Anomaly or not, Miles likely wasn’t causing any damage to the universe just by existing. He’d just need to not interfere with any possible canon events and maybe things would be fine. 

Maybe. 

Hopefully.

As for the Peter B. Parker asleep on the couch … Miguel wasn’t really sure what to do with him. He clearly had more normal Spider-Man abilities than Miguel did and was probably better suited to teaching Miles the ropes but… Miguel didn’t want to just let this guy take over as the mentor here, even if he was a “real” Spider-Man – not that he knew why.

He tried to ignore the imaginary LYLA voice in the back of his mind calling him out and saying ‘aw, you can play cool all you want, you just like having another little brother to look up to you and you don’t want him to toss you for a better Spider-Man.’

… Shut up, imaginary LYLA.

But he was already crawling out the window anyway.

Miles was crouched in front of the can, staring intensely at it, breathing deeply.

“Okay. Okay… One … two…. three!”

He tapped the can, which tipped over.

Miles swore and reset the can on its end and started counting again.

Hm… 

Miguel slowly, silently climbed over the edge of the building. He’d have to play this right to not set off Miles’ spider-sense. 

Miles exhaled, “One… two… thre - AUGH!”

Miles jumped and slapped the can right as Miguel shot a bolt of webbing at his feet.

The can crackled and lay smoldering and twisted a few yards away.

Miles spun around and threw his arms up at Miguel.

“What the hell!”

“Looks like you did it,” Miguel said, pointing to the can.

“I can’t rely on just having a guy follow me around and scare me whenever I want to shock something,” Miles said, dropping his arms.

Miguel choked on a laugh.

“What?” he said, coughing.

“What? If I want to zap anything, I have to learn to do it,” said Miles.

“Okay, zap – zap is better. Shock is … not.”

“What’s wrong with shock? You say shock a lot.”

“It means something different in the future.”

“What does it mean?”

“It’s a curse word, I don’t remember what it used to be.”

“Is it fuck?” Miles said, frowning.

“‘Fuck,’ that sounds right,” Miguel said, trying not to smirk.

“What?”

“Sorry. I’ve never heard anyone under the age of 60 say fuck.”

“This must be how my parents feel when I laugh at them for saying hella…” Miles said, with dawning horror in his voice as he picked up the smoking can, “I really gotta figure this out, though – without the assist.”

“Give yourself a break, kid,” said Miguel, crouching on the edge of the rooftop.

“I can’t. I promised Peter I’d shut down the collider.”

“Staying up all night trying to destroy aluminum cans isn’t going to fulfill that promise.”

“Spider-Man’s supposed to do all these … amazing things,” Miles said, kicking gravel across the roof, “And so far, I can do none of them.”

“It’s only your second day.”

“Feels longer,” Miles said. He sat on the edge of the rooftop next to Miguel, looking sad and tired. He should probably tell the kid to get some sleep... 

“It took me a while to control any of my … abilities,” Miguel said, slowly.

“Really?” Miles said, looking up.

“In the first two weeks, I destroyed nine separate sets of sheets, twelve pillows and a mattress. And a lot of my clothes and my couch… And my brother’s car.”

“A ca – How?”

Miguel extended his talons.

“I had to learn how to put these away. Their default state is out and… ”

Miguel reached back to a metal roof vent and slid his talons across the thin metal. They sliced through it like it was made of clay. Miles leaned away a little. 

“Okay. I can see how that would destroy a car.”

“I left webbing over my entire apartment. Trying to learn how to talk with fangs was… terrible. And everything tasted like venom for weeks.”

“That sounds pretty bad.”

“Things got better. I figured it out. It just takes time.”

Miles pulled his knees up to his chin, “I guess… But I don’t have that much time to stop the collider.”

Miguel almost reached out to put his hand on Miles’ shoulder – and then dropped his hand.

“You – you aren’t alone here, Miles. I said I would help, didn’t I? I know I’m… maybe not the ideal mentor, but I’ll do my best.”

“Hey, at least you didn’t get thrown out of a restaurant,” Miles said.

“No, I just got electrocuted by a teenager and tied to a punching bag,” said Miguel.

Miles was quiet for a few minutes, then sighed, “You think three Spider-Men who don’t know what they’re doing is gonna be enough?”

“It’ll have to be,” said Miguel, “... Do you want to hear an extremely stupid secret?”

“Okay?”

“I got my suit at a costume store for a Day of the Dead party. It’s made of Unstable Molecule Fabric and it was the only thing I owned that I couldn’t shred.”

Miles rounded on him, eyes wide, “You’re wearing a halloween costume?!”

“Day of the Dead.”

“Please tell me Spirit Halloween still exists in the future.”

“Of course it does.”

Miles stood up, grinning, “Oh man, I can’t believe you were making fun of my suit.”

“At least mine fits.”

“Nope, I know the truth now!” Miles said, delighted, “Spider-Man of the future, 7-feet tall, leaving a trail of webs and scratches all over the city, drinking his own venom, getting blinded by flashlights, ruining other people’s cars and wearing a costume from Spirit Halloween!”

Miguel sighed, “Aw, shock off.”

Miles laughed.

—

“Disinfect the mask,” Peter said, digging into the burger bag between him and Miles, “That’s crucial.”

They’d managed to get on the bus going to Hudson Valley without incident, besides Miguel and Peter’s posturing at each other from the time they woke up – Miles got the feeling maybe Miguel wasn’t quite over getting kicked in the face and Peter wasn’t quite over the biting thing. Miguel had his arms crossed over his chest and his eyes closed behind his sunglasses – he’d been pretending to sleep since they boarded the bus twenty minutes ago.

“Huh?”

“And baby powder in the suit, heavy on the joints,” Peter continued, mouth still mostly full of burger, “Chafing’s a real bitch.”

“Baby powder is a carcinogen,” said Miguel, cracking one crimson eye open, “Use cornstarch.”

“Hey Stretch, is this going to be your whole thing? Correcting me?” Peter said, leaning around Miles to give Miguel a dirty look.

“You want to cover yourself in asbestos?”

“Baby powder’s not – you’re full of it, Miles, gimme your phone,” Peter said and then he snatched Miles’ phone out of his jacket pocket. 

While Peter was furiously searching on Backrub, Miles turned to Miguel. 

“... Okay, really, what was with the biting?” he said, quietly.

Miguel grimaced, “You know the saying ‘when you have is a wrench, everything looks like a bolt’?”

“Uh, kind of? So, what, ‘when you have vampire fangs, everything looks like a neck’?”

“It was a split second decision,” said Miguel, “and sometimes, you think fast and you … decide to bite somebody.”

Miles couldn’t really fault him for that – he had made some idiotic split-second decisions in the past few days too.

Peter unceremoniously dumped Miles’ phone back into his lap. The screen was opened to a news article titled The Terrible Truth About Baby Powder.

“Well?” said Miguel.

“Nevermind,” Peter muttered.

Miguel snorted and crossed his arms again, “... You should disinfect the mask, though, he’s right about that part.”

Miles sighed. Just 3 hours and 40 minutes to go.

—

“And it’s a no on the cape.” 

“I think it’s cool!” 

“It’s disrespectful. Spider-Man doesn’t wear a cape.”

“I actually do sometimes,” said Miguel.

Peter gestured to Miguel, “See?”

Miguel turned slowly to face Peter. Even behind his mask, his scowl was evident. 

“I don’t think Spider-Man wears sweatpants over his suit either,” he growled. 

Peter shrugged, “Well, who’s the Spider-Man here?”

“All of us?” said Miles, hopefully. 

“The equipment I need will be in the basement labs,” said Miguel in what Peter thought was a sulky voice.

“How do you know?” Peter said, skeptically.

“I work at Alchemax in 2099. Every dimension I've been to, they're all basically the same - and they make us watch a lot of company history propaganda.” 

“Yeah, well, don’t take this the wrong way, pal, but you’re not gonna fit into the air duct,” Peter said, pointing to the vent cover on the side of the building.

“Good thing I’m not taking the air duct,” said Miguel.

“So, what, your plan’s just to Kool-Aid Man through the wall, steal the equipment and leave?” Peter said, rolling his eyes.

“I don’t even know what a colyade man is!” Miguel snapped.

“I said Kool-Aid!”

“That doesn’t clear it up! Listen, you two just stay here. I’m not gonna be that long.”

“Absolutely not,” said Peter.

“Aw, seriously Miguel?” said Miles.

“Sorry kid, it’s dangerous. Every person in there, from maintenance to manager, is armed with something. And you –” Miguel said, turning to Peter, “I think I’ve had the right amount of you.”

“Yeah, well, feeling’s mutual.” 

Miguel scoffed, then turned and fired a string of web (overhand, the weirdo) and swung off into the trees.

“Well, he’s a peach,” Peter said. He turned to Miles, “Kid, I don’t know where you found this guy but to me? You’re like a duckling that imprinted on an owl. An owl that eats ducklings.”

“All owls eat ducklings.”

“Metaphorically,” Peter said, gazing at the building, “Now, what would I do if I were me…”

“... What?” said Miles, when Peter had been lost in thought for a moment too long. 

“I’m heading in. You stay here and stand look-out – very important job.”

“Wait, what? Are you seriously leaving me here?”

Peter swung off into the trees, “Watch and learn, kid, I’ll quiz you later.”

—

Okay, so maybe the propaganda videos were a little less helpful than Miguel had thought they were.

Stupid Alchemax. Why bother making them sit through a history of their state campuses if they were going to lie about how things were stored?

He crept carefully down the hall - the paralyzed guard at the back entrance wasn’t going to get up anytime soon, and he’d webbed up the cameras but he knew better to think somebody wasn’t always watching at Alchemax.

Maybe if he’d learned that earlier, he wouldn’t be here in the first place.

He passed a door labeled Record Storage – and then another. And another. Record storage, record storage, record storage – how many fucking records did this place have? Why were these people still storing information on paper?

Footsteps were approaching down the hall – Miguel pressed himself against the side of the wall in a corner, uselessly. This place was too well-lit. That was another problem with Alchemax. Too much lighting. He got a quick grip into the concrete wall and with a jump, latched himself close to the ceiling, talons on all four limbs clenched tightly – let Alchemax forward him the bill for the damage 75 years in the future and a dimension away.

“Mr. Fisk has arrived, Dr. Octavius,” said a man’s voice – whiny, slightly nasal and increasing in volume as they came closer.

“Thank you, Dr. Crane,” a woman said, dismissively, “Probably wants to complain about something. Why he can’t send an email like a normal person is beyond me. Trying to intimidate us…” 

Miguel held his breath as they passed under him – don’t look up, don’t look up, don’t make him fight a bunch of spindly, if well-armed, nerds. 

He didn’t exhale until the two were gone and up the stairs.

They probably weren’t hanging out in the records room – there was some kind lab down here, somewhere.

Miguel dropped down to the floor – okay, backtrack the scientists, see where they came from. He was sure he could catch the acrid smell of ozone somewhere around this maze.

Ugh – maybe Parker had the right idea with the air duct – not that Miguel could fit. Skinny shoulders were a privilege afforded to Spider-Men who didn’t have to physically haul their body weight up walls by the talons.

He slipped this way and that through the seemingly deserted corridors – maybe everyone was at lunch - until he found a door marked TESTING LAB with a complicated-looking eye-scan electronic lock.

This was going to take finesse… 

He extended a talon between the door and the frame and sliced the deadbolt, then pulled the door open and slipped into the lab.

Now this was more what Alchemax told the employees in 2099 what their past looked like. Walls of graphs and charts, delicate pieces of lab equipment and experiments in-progress on the work benches. 

Miguel wasn’t exactly sure what he was looking for – mostly the equipment looked like the obsolete junk he’d seen in museums. Outside of the glass containment holder for a black, shifting hole in reality – that seemed like a shocking bad idea but if Alchemax wanted their Hudson Valley campus to be subject to implosive compression, that was their prerogative.

He passed by a rack of tools – these, while old-fashioned, had promise. 

He picked up one that looked somewhat similar to the dimension stretch thingy he had on his work bench at home – though his was more elegant. This one looked like a tuning fork with a thermometer and eyepiece attached. 

Miguel pulled his mask up over his jaw and, taking the stretch-thing in hand, hooked the cover for the Dimensional Travel Gizmo on a lower fang and popped it open. This was going to be annoying to do one-handed, since he really didn’t  want to remove the gizmo. One glitch and he’d probably accidentally send the entirety of Hudson Valley into low orbit. Or just blow his head clean off his neck. The stretch-thingy hummed ominously.

… Maybe he’d better wait to fix it til he had somebody else around to hold his hand steady.

Miguel snapped the gizmo shut again and tucked the stretch-thingy into his sleeve under the gizmo's strap. He just had to find a computer to get the information to fix the goober and – 

Shouting upstairs. 

A woman’s voice echoing, audible even through the concrete ceiling. The sound of shattering glass and footsteps running.

Oh those morons.

– 

Miles had definitely made a mistake. A terrible, terrible mistake. 

Why’d he have to get stuck with the weird, giant tarantula Spider-Man and the janky, old, broke hobo Spider-Man? 

He hugged the computer closer to his chest.

The cafeteria hummed with ominous electricity as every scientist in the damn room aimed strange-looking weapons at him and Peter.

This was it. He was about to die. 

And then the floor exploded. 

“How the hell did you do that?!” Miles shouted at Miguel as he slammed a scientist to the shattered tiles, sending him clean through the crater Miguel had just left in the floor.  

“Adrenaline,” Miguel snapped. “Run!”

“But –”

“Switchy-switchy,” said Peter, smoothly trading the computer out of Miles’ hands for the bagel and dragging him off running. 

Behind them, the scientists turned their attention and weapons on the Spider-Man who was clawing through their weapons (and cafeteria tables) like they were hot butter. Miles hucked the bagel at one of the few chasing him.

“Okay, maybe I can see the point of him now!” Peter said, tossing a web-shooter to Miles. “Time to swing!”

“But –”

—

Miguel caught up to them just a few minutes after “Gwanda” did, leaving behind a trail of broken weapons, shredded trees and scratched Alchemax scientists. 

Luckily, the bus back to the city was close – and mercifully empty.

“...You sure you’re okay?” Miles said anxiously, peering over the seat at Miguel. His nose was bleeding and he moved a little stiffly when they boarded the bus, dropping into the bench of seats at the back like his legs had gone out from under him. 

“Stop hovering,” Miguel said without opening up his eyes. 

“It looked like they shot you a bunch.”

Miguel waved him off.

“Not the first time. Those bolts didn’t even rip the suit…” Miguel said. He winced as he arched his back, “Just hurt like a mother.”

“Easy, tough guy,” said Peter from where he was stretched out across the aisle. 

Miguel didn’t bother responding.

“I’m fine, Miles. Nothing’s broken, I got the thing from the lab, you got the computer to fix the goober,” Miguel said, holding up the over-complicated looking tuning-fork/scope thing he’d stolen from Alchemax, “Good work – let me sleep this off.”

“If you’re sure…” Miles said, turning back to Gwen.

“They seem a little weird,” said Gwen, smiling slightly.

“Super weird,” Miles said. 

The trip back felt substantially shorter.

Chapter Text

They sat slightly uncomfortably in May Parker’s living room. After she and Peter had their emotional semi-reunion and shared awkward introductions, May had taken one look at the dried blood smeared over Miguel’s face and dragged him inside to clean up, muttering something about Spider-Men and their inherent inability to show up presentable at a person’s house.

“This is … very weird,” Peter admitted, looking at the chintz lining the room as Miguel returned from the kitchen. He was clean of blood and his red eyes were hidden behind dark glasses. 

“Sunglasses inside, huh?” said Gwen. 

“Ballet shoes over your suit, huh?” Miguel said, not looking at her. 

Gwen stuck her tongue out at Miguel’s back.

“He’s light-sensitive,” said Miles, nudging Gwen. Then he dropped his voice a little, “and maybe regular-sensitive.”

Gwen snorted and Miguel reached a long arm over and cuffed Miles lightly on the back of the head. Miles made an offended noise and launched himself off the couch — Miguel easily shoved him back before he got too far, but was then caught by surprise when Miles kicked him in the chest. 

Peter tried to tune out the rough-housing as Miguel retaliated by tossing Miles across the room, straight into Gwen – who joined Miles to return the attack. He was maybe feeling a little jealous, which was silly because he sure as shit didn’t want to have been the one stuck coaching the kid. And yeah, it was a little fun to swing around the woods with him, and he’d been kinda touched by Miles following him into the facility and not wanting him to die. Maybe his standards were too low if that was all it took for Peter to feel jealous of a weird barely-a-Spider-Man possible-monster like Miguel. Not like he ever wanted kids. 

… Right? 

Did he want —

“All cleaned up?” May said as she stepped into the living room. 

Miles, Gwen and Miguel froze in casual positions like they hadn’t all been acting like morons 7 seconds ago. 

Peter didn’t think he’d been that stupid when he was 15. And he definitely hadn’t been that stupid when he was 27. 

You know, unless you counted his short-lived pre-Spider Bite parkour phase in high school. 

Or the Spidey crepe pan that gave off semi-toxic fumes when heated over 90 degrees that he’d endorsed around a decade ago.

“Yeah,” said Miguel, “I think we’re set.”

May nodded and narrowed her eyes at Miguel, Gwen, and Miles, who all had very neutral ‘we weren’t doing anything’ faces on. 

“Then follow me.”

She exited into the backyard and they followed, right after Miles moved a chair in front of four deep claw-marks that somebody had accidentally scratched into the wall trying to pin down somebody else.

Idiots.

—

Peter had thought the wallpaper being a slightly different color was weird – and that somehow made meeting the pig, the black and white guy, and the child with the robot less of a shock. Funny how that works out.

What was slightly less funny was how poorly the introductions seemed to be going – for some reason, the rest of the Parkers (and Porkers) weren’t really vibing with Miles and Miguel. Even after they’d explained that Miguel was able to stay behind with Miles to destroy the Collider so nobody actually had to die staying behind.

Well … actually he could get why they didn’t click with Miguel. There was no tingle, no mental connection of your Spider-Sense reaching out to another’s. Peter was starting to wonder if Miguel maybe didn’t have any precognitive Spider-Sense at all and was just rawdogging fate like the rest of the world. Poor bastard. No wonder he got hit by so many lasers back at Alchemax. 

But Miles … sure he was inexperienced, but come on, fellow Parkers, let’s stop being so shande far di akavish here. Maybe Peter just had to sell the gang on the two of them a little.

“And you’re the ones who can destroy the Collider?” Spider-Ham said, looking at Miles and then all the way up at Miguel with an expression of distrust, “Because tall, dark and cheekbones over here can stay?”

Miguel briefly lifted his wrist where his dimensional travel gizmo was attached.

“Stylish.”

“It keeps me stable in other universes – unlike the rest of you, I’m not going to turn into Asado de Puerco in the next three days from cellular decay.”

Gwen put her hand up,  “Um, can’t you use your watch thingy to take us home once it’s fixed?”

Miguel shrugged, “Maybe? It’ll take hours to make a second one and I don’t know if you have that time.”

“We can’t just piggyback on you?”

Spider-Ham made an offended noise.

“It’s only a prototype,” Miguel said, looking down at the gizmo. “The portals it opens aren’t exactly stable enough for guests.”

“Meaning?” said Noir.

“Meaning there’s about a 7% chance you’ll end up with severe internal injuries that’ll take even people like us at least a week to heal...”

“That doesn’t sound so bad.”

“  … and about an 80% chance that you’ll just get ripped apart when the multiverse tries to send you back to a billion different worlds at the same time. Closer to 90% if you glitch in it.”

Yikes.

“What are the odds of tha—” Spider-Ham said before a painful flash of shapes and colors ripped into him.

“  … Increasing by the minute,” said Miguel, once the smoke and smell of bacon stopped wafting off Spider-Ham.

The group of Parkers (once Ham had recovered) collectively looked at him and his gizmo with increasing suspicion. 

“What?” Miguel said, irritable and slightly quietly. He was mumbling a little – maybe to hide how annoyed he was.

“You are … what, exactly?” Peni said, her Spider-Bot letting her lean too close into Miguel’s personal space. Miguel leaned back.

“Guys, come on,” said Gwen.

“Spider-Man. Like the rest of you,” Miguel growled.

“Really? No offense – I had you pegged as some kind of demon,” said Noir.

“Okay!” said Peter, stepping between the group and Miles and Miguel. “We’re getting off to a bad start –  let’s have a do-over. Everyone, this is Miguel O’Hara and he’s Spider-Man of – what year are you from again?”

“2099.” Miguel said. He had his arms tightly crossed over his chest, hands clenched tightly in his fists.

“2099! The not-too-distant-future!” 

Peni did not look especially impressed. 

“I mean, don’t get me wrong, he’s scary-looking and a major dick—”

Miguel sneered, rolling his eyes and, in Peter’s opinion, kind of proving his point.

“But,” he continued, draping an arm uncomfortably over Miguel’s stiff shoulder, “He’s a good guy. Really good at destroying floors and attracting gunfire. Venomous bite. Probably good at other stuff too, right, Mig?”

On hearing ‘venomous bite’, the robot zipped Peni out of Miguel’s reach.

“Not helping, Peter,” Miguel said, dully. 

Okay, fair.

Peter turned his attention to Miles.

“Okay – Miles, then, Miles is gonna save the multiverse! Watch this – kid can turn himself invisible!”

Things escalated from there.

They definitely should have practiced this beforehand, Peter thought, by the time Noir had knocked Miles to the floor for the third time and peppered him with the hundred and ninth question.

“Can you be strong?”

“Show me some moxie, soldier!”

“Ruthless?”

“Disciplined?”

“Hey! ” 

Peter hadn’t even realized Miguel had moved – for half a second, he was sure there had been two of him somehow – but Miguel was standing, hackles raised, red eyes blazing, claws out and fangs bared, between the group of other Spiders and Miles – still on the floor and starting to breathe quickly and shallowly.

Noir nudged Spider-Ham and made a significant sort of noise.

Oh, this wasn’t going to end well…

“The shock’s the matter with you?” Miguel snapped, “Think you can give the kid more than three Goddamn days to master whatever bullshit you’re talking about?” 

“We’re just being honest – he’s not ready! He’s just a kid!” Gwen said.

“Good thing he’s not alone, either.”

“This is Spider-Man work,” said Noir.

“We can handle it,” Peni said, crossing her arms and nodding. The robot repeated the gesture.

Miguel’s angry snarl faded into a dead-eyed, icy stare.

“Fine. You have fun picking which one of you gets to die – Miles, let’s –”

There was a clunk of metal and the elevator, apparently empty, rose silently into the air.

“See that?” Peter said, “He can, uh… turn invisible…”

Miguel huffed and stalked off into a dark corner of the room that housed a worktable of some kind, webbed the arm with his watch down and, without looking back, began to work on his dimensional gizmo.

Once the elevator returned, Peter, Gwen and the others left him and returned to the house. When Peter noticed a shadow slipping out of the shed some time later, he didn’t mention it to the others.

Frankly, he was just glad Miguel hadn’t destroyed the neighbourhood by fucking around with that thing with a tuning fork.

—

Miles had just finished playing the latest voicemail from his dad when Miguel dropped down next to him.

“How’d you find me?” Miles asked, dully after a quiet minute of walking. 

“It’s … very stupid.”

Miles looked at Miguel and waited.

Miguel broke almost instantly.

“I sensed the vibrations of you walking,” he admitted.

Miles stopped walking for a minute and stared at Miguel.

“You’re so weird, man.”

“You can conduct electricity and turn invisible. At least actual spiders can sense vibrations.”

“So weird!” Miles said, starting to walk again.

Miguel smirked and shook his head.

“You alright?”

Miles bit his lip, “I’m fine. Just wanted some air.”

“Some air in … where are we? Still in Queens?”

“Brooklyn, now. I just – I just wanted to see if my uncle was back yet. I don’t know, he always makes me feel better about stuff.”

“And he’s not back yet?” 

Miles shook his head.

“The others are right to be concerned,” said Miguel, delicately, “We’re on a deadline – a pretty literal one for them, since they’ll be turned into goop by cellular disintegration – but … you should give yourself a break. It’s only been two days. Part of that’s on me, I shouldn’t have let them start in on you.”

“I’m not a little kid,” said Miles, a little defensively – he didn’t want Miguel thinking that he couldn’t stand up for himself (despite the recent evidence that he actually couldn’t). “You don’t have to protect me.”

Miguel patted Miles on the shoulder, “Well, you inspire some protective instincts in .. what did he call me, a duck-eating owl?”

“You heard that, huh?”

“His voice carries – it’s nothing I haven’t heard before. Most of the Spider-Men I’ve met don’t think I’m a real Spider-Man. Which is … ironic.”

“Why’s it ironic?”

“I told you my powers came from genetic tampering.”

“You said somebody tried to kill you?”

“Yeah. A co-worker.”

“A guy you work with? Is Alchemax some kind of Asshole Factory or what?”

“That’s … not actually totally wrong. I’m a genetic engineer and…” Miguel waved a hand, vaguely, “we were trying to make super-humans for corporate espionage. We were only in testing phases but we were ordered to start human testing and… it didn’t go well…” Miguel trailed off.

“... And?” Miles said. 

Miguel scraped his hand over his face and frowned.

“This isn’t a nice story, Miles.”

Miles sighed, “You can’t start telling me your dramatic backstory and then not tell me, man, that’s not fair.”

Miguel rolled his eyes, “That’s … a good point.”

“Okay, so… Human testing went badly?”

“First test subject strangled me and then died. He was too genetically unstable to survive.”

Miles blinked. Yep, that was bad alright.

“I tried to quit, the human testing was all too much for me – it wound up being… a messy situation. At the end of it, a coworker sabotaged the genetic resequencer with an experimental spider DNA profile in order to kill me – or mutate me enough to kill me and…” Miguel smiled bitterly, showing his fangs, “he failed, mostly.”

“And that means…?”

“Without getting into the math of the genome humans share with spiders… Saying I’m genetically 50% spider is close.”

“So you’re… a SPIDER Spider-Man… A spideredman!” Miles gasped. “... I feel like you should have more legs.”

“I already have 50% of the limbs a spider has.”

“More eyes, then?”

“Don’t– don’t even joke about that, kid, I mean it. Shocking nightmare scenario,” Miguel said, wincing.

Miles put his hands in his pockets, “I probably wouldn’t appreciate anyone saying I’m not a real Spider-Man either if that’d all happened to me…” 

Miguel shrugged, “What they think about me doesn’t matter. What they think about you doesn’t matter either. You’re your own kind of Spider-Man, kid.”

“I know that – I do, but… still kinda hurts.”

Miguel sighed, “Yeah.”

— 

They eventually arrived at Miles’ uncle’s apartment – the same apartment that Miles had captured Miguel and, together, they’d captured Peter in. 

Miguel offered to wait on the roof of a nearby building while the kid had some time alone to think.

“I know how important brooding time is to a teenager.”

“Man! Fuck off!” Miles laughed.

“Okay, sorry, grandpa.”

Miguel let Miles try and push him off the roof for that, but was content to sit and wait for the kid to process his feelings – God only knew Miguel was no stranger to wanting to sit and sulk like a grouchy chicken when his ego was bruised – and his ego was more resilient than a 14-year-old’s. … Maybe by just a little. 

Miguel could admit the judgemental stares and being called a demon had stung. Usually, he’d manage to convince whatever Spider he’d met that, yes, while Miguel was different and an abomination and/or crime against nature, he was still Spider-Man. 

These ones were probably just stressed. Worried about getting home, worried about what they were missing while they were gone, worried about being turned into goop. And as annoying as Peter B. Parker had been, it’d been nice of him to try and stand up for Miguel and Miles. Even if he did kind of a crappy job of it.

Miguel was no stranger to doing a crappy job of stuff either – in fact, he was doing a pretty shocking crappy job right now. 

Somebody had just gone into the window of the apartment – dark cape, purple mask, claws. 

The Prowler. 

Miles had mentioned him – one of Kingpin’s goons. Especially persistent and deadly. 

But why would the Prowler be going into Miles’ uncle’s apartment? He wasn’t hunting, he had no way of knowing Miles was in there, or he’d be more stealthy, quicker to attack. So, unless he was familiar with the apartment...

Oh… oh no.

Miguel stared hard at the window – he could see inside clearly enough with his enhanced vision, but the angle didn’t allow him to see where Miles was. Nor could he hear anything but some vague chatter over a radio. No sound of the kid talking, either.

He couldn’t risk jumping in now, startling the Prowler and potentially putting Miles in danger. Would this guy attack Miles, if he knew it was his own nephew? 

Miguel wasn’t sure – if it had been a member of his family, then the answer was definitely yes, they would attack their own nephew. Miles spoke pretty highly of his uncle – but…  

If the kid was smart (and despite himself, Miguel was starting to think he was), he would have triggered his invisibility and already been making his escape. 

Miguel held his breath, ready to pounce across the rooftops to either help Miles escape or, as Peter called it, colyade man through the window and do things the hard way. 

He knew he wasn’t a patient man, but each heartbeat felt like a full minute. Come on, kid, get out while you can. 

There! The plant shifted – Miles, invisible, out the window. Miguel launched himself towards the building – twisting to bank off the fire escape at the last second when the Prowler lunged out the window, following the rippling air where Miles was.

Son of a bitch.

“Heading north–” the Prowler said, obviously into some headset, “got something on my tail, too.”

“Copy – got eyes on him now,” a voice said, crackling through the other end. 

On your tail is shocking right.

Miguel gripped the corner of a building and pushed himself into the air, clawing where the Prowler’s glowing boot had just been.

“Fuck off!” The Prowler snapped, landing a lucky kick at Miguel’s chest and knocking him back into a pile of discarded shipping palettes. 

By the time Miguel got free of the broken wood and trash, the Prowler was already seated on a motorcycle – revving it up.

Oh no you shocking don’t.

Miguel lunged.

Chapter Text

Aaron had been hit with, no lie, a lot of shit in his life. Metal bats, cans of soup, bricks, armored punches, webs (and fists and feet and stuff) from the late Spider-Man. And, you know, it was never great. Nobody liked getting hit with stuff. But this guy? Getting hit by this guy fucking sucked. For a hot minute, Aaron was sure he’d just been crashed into by a second motorcycle.

Speaking of motorcycles – it was in pieces. Literal ones. Sliced up like a ham. Aaron would have taken the time to mourn it if he didn’t have to immediately dodge the handful of knives heading faceward – no doubt the same ones that had been used to send his bike to an early chopshop grave. He had to get out from under this guy – he was heavy as hell and the dent left in the bricks from a misaimed punch left pretty much nothing to the imagination as to what it would do to Aaron’s face. 

He twisted away, letting his boots propel him out from under the guy. Gotta get high, get eyes back on the kid. No way was the big guy following him up to the damn roof.

… Or maybe the asshole would use those knives to just claw his way up to the roof like a goddamn lunatic tiger. Who the fuck was chasing him?

There wasn’t much time to wonder – the bastard had gotten his claws in Aaron’s cape and was pulling him down towards the roof. 

Alright, asshole. Let’s do it the hard way.

Aaron dropped the propulsion from his boots, letting his full weight fall on to the bastard before propelling again, sending him spinning back down to the street below – he unfortunately caught himself by firing a shot of some kind of white rope to the top of the building’s water tank – was that web? Did this guy steal the dead Spider-Man’s tech?

Aaron dropped down as the tiger hauled himself back up to the roof, just in time to slam his clawed gauntlet into the bastard’s ribs. The sweater he was wearing ripped and the man made a pained noise, but no blood appeared – neither on the claws of his gauntlet nor the fabric of the torn hoodie. That tight outfit he was wearing underneath must have been some kind of armor.

Come to think of it – that hoodie was kinda familiar. 

Wait a fucking second. 

“Why are you wearing my shirt?” Aaron growled, swiping at the tiger’s face.

“Why are you trying to kill your nephew?” the tiger growled right back.

What? 

No. 

What?

Aaron hesitated for a fraction of a second and missed his opponent sling-shotting himself forward with a cord of web. The resulting brutal kick to his chest sent Aaron flying across the roof and into a metal structure that clanged so loudly when he hit it that he momentarily forgot where he even was.

“You’re lying,” Aaron spat — he went to stand again but found himself webbed by his upper arms to the side of a water tank.

“Didn’t you recognize him? The way he ran? Why do you think he was down there that night?”

The man strode forward, looming over Aaron.

“The same place you took him to paint — the same place the spider bit him.”

No. 

No, no, no, it couldn’t have been.

“Who else would have been in your apartment, Uncle Aaron?”

Those desperate, terrified eyes behind that cheap Spider-Man mask.

Fuck. 

How could he have missed it?

Aaron stared up at the looming figure, “Who are you?”

“Spider-Man.”

“You’re bigger than the last one,” Aaron said.

“I’m bigger than most of them,” the Tiger-Spider-Man said, dismissively. “You have a choice to make, Prowler. You can make better choices and help your nephew…”

The Spider-Man flexed his hand. Five razor-sharp knives emerged from his fingertips. 

“Or you try to keep going after him — and I’m not letting you choose that one.”

Every instinct in Aaron’s mind made him want to laugh in this asshole’s face. Who the fuck did this guy think he was, threatening him? Didn’t he know who the Prowler was? Didn’t he know who he worked for? Didn’t he know what had happened to the last Spider-Man?

… Didn’t he know what might be about to happen to Miles?

And that was the problem. He did. And so did Aaron. And despite every shitty thing Aaron had done in his life, no matter how many people he’d failed – he had a chance to not let Miles down. too.

They stared at each other, neither of them speaking, waiting for the other to break first. God, it was fucking annoying when he was up against a person with the same kind of brain as he had – the last Spider-Man would have been making cracks about the water tank, his gauntlets, his mask – but this one just seemed content to let his silence and his claws do the talking. 

Aaron could respect that. 

“Scorpion’s following him,” said Aaron, “And by now, probably more than just him. I don’t think Miles will know how to lose them.”

With two swift and precise hand movements, Spider-Man used his claws to slice through the webs, and then held his hand out to Aaron. The claws smoothly folded back into his fingertips. 

“Gross,” said Aaron and he grabbed the offered hand, letting himself be pulled up, “We gotta follow Miles. Scorpion’s on him, so that means Tombstone and Doc Ock are too.”

Aaron hopped on to the ledge of the roof and activated his boot’s propulsion.

“Not sure we can catch up on foot, but we don’t have a choice – somebody sliced my bike up,” he said, bounding to the next roof. Spider-Man followed him, leaping into the air and landing on all fours.

“If somebody hadn’t, you’d be explaining to your brother why his son’s got your tire tracks all over his corpse.”

Heh.

“You know, I like you more than the last Spider-Man.”

“You’d be the first.”

Spider-Man didn’t look back as he bounded to the next rooftop and then the next. Aaron followed him.

—

They were late. Too much time spent staring each other down, Aaron guessed.

Tombstone was barrelling back inside and the door was off its hinges. Crashing and cursing suggested that Scorpion was already inside and – yeah, that was one of Ock’s weird arm swinging around inside too. 

Aaron stopped short and looked at Spider-Man, “What do we – “

Spider-Man hadn’t actually stopped running. He just plowed through the window to attack whoever it was he was aiming at inside. Aaron couldn’t argue with results – but he’d need to play this more carefully. Get Miles and get him out of there without the others realizing what he was doing and killing him about it.

Aaron went through the other window, landing right in front of Miles.

Miles stared at him. Those wide eyes. Fuck, how had he not seen it before? Aaron just had to grab him and run – Spider-Man had told him a little about what they had to do, the risk to the world. Kingpin might have had deep pockets, but that wasn’t worth much if the entire world was about to evaporate.  Why the fuck should Kingpin get to have his family at the expense of Aaron’s, anyway?

He hesitated too long – Spider-Man (another one, this one in red with sweatpants (the big one was currently trying to thresh Tombstone’s face, an instinct that Aaron could strongly relate to)) launched himself at Aaron and knocked him entirely through the wall, right as Miles sprinted up the stairs.

Once he’d recovered (from the hit and from seeing the giant spider-shaped robot that Ock just tossed out the window), he propelled himself to the hole in the wall upstairs. Miles hadn’t gone far, thank God, but he spun around, terrified as Aaron touched down in the ruins of a master bedroom.

“Miles.”

Aaron held his hands up and stopped before Miles could sprint away.

“It’s alright. It’s me –” he reached up and pulled his mask off, “It’s Aaron.”

Miles took a fearful step back anyway.

“Spider-Man, the big one, he told me everything. It’s alright, Miles.”

Miles clutched the little red thing in his hand tighter and shook his head, taking another step back.

“I’m not giving it to you –  or Kingpin. I can’t.”

“I know, I know – it’s fine, I’m not taking it. But we gotta go, okay? I got a safe house in Manhattan – we’ll head there to regroup and…”

Miles hadn’t taken a step forward. He still looked terrified. Aaron guessed that was fair.

“Miles… I’m – I’m sorry, man. And I can explain but we ain’t got the time for that now. I need you to trust me. Please. ” 

Miles paused ... and then nodded, “Yeah. But I can’t – my friends –”

“Miles, trust me, between the robot Spider-Man and Knives-For-Hands Spider-Man, I think your friends are gonna be fine. But we have to go.”

Miles looked back towards the stairs, where a fight was still raging – and then nodded again, “Yeah. Alright.”

They took the backyards, jumping over fences and hedges that lined the Queens suburbs, putting distance between them and the battle in the house. Miles kept flickering in and out of visibility – Aaron wondered when he’d started being able to do that. Had the last Spider-Man been able to? And for that matter, when had Miles gotten so fast?

Had it really only been a few days ago he’d watched Miles struggle to climb the fence in the tunnel? Aaron was kinda looking forward to seeing what the kid would be capable of next.

Behind them, the roof exploded as Scorpion popped out, chasing the Spider in white.

“Prowler! Where you think you’re going!” Scorpion growled in his earpiece. 

Aaron grabbed the earpiece and crushed it in his gauntlet – fuck that noise. Better not risk the Bluetooth letting Kingpin track him.

They only slowed down when they’d arrived in a busier area, somewhere near Elmhurst – an attack here would attract attention that Aaron was sure Kingpin wanted to avoid, at least in broad daylight.

Miles pressed himself against the wall of a tattoo parlor, gasping for breath.

“How did you … Uncle Aaron, how did you wind up working for Kingpin?”

“S’kind of a long story, Miles.”

“Then what are you going to do now?” 

Miles looked up at him and just about crushed Aaron’s throat with guilt. Shit, when had he gotten so soft? 

Somewhere in between the Spider-Tiger shredding his bike and now, probably.

“Guess I’m switching sides? Kingpin doesn’t offer a generous severance package.”

Shit. What was he gonna do?

Maybe he could –

BANG

Aaron felt like his chest had been dunked in cold water. He was falling forward, the ground swifting coming up to meet him before he was caught in Miles’ arms. When did the kid get so strong?

The icy numbness was spreading down his arms and legs and he couldn’t feel the ground under his feet – was he flying? Time was slowing down and speeding up simultaneously, he couldn’t seem to keep track of where or when he was. Distantly, he knew he was being carried but couldn’t keep the thought in his head.

He was lying down now. When did … When did that happen?

Miles.

“...Miles…”

Above him, Miles looked devastated. Shit, he was too young to be looking like that.

“Uncle Aaron… This is my fault.”

No.

Aaron shook his head and it felt like the world was swimming. He released his gauntlet and grabbed Miles’ hand like a lifeline.

“’M sorry. I wanted you to look up to me…” He had. Shouldn’t he have known it was going to end like this? Somewhere, there was a siren. “I let you down.”

Miles was crying now. Come on, no, don’t do that. Not for him.

“You’re the best of all of us, Miles. You’re on your way. Just .. keep goin’.”

Flashing lights and ear-splitting sirens filled the air around them. But for some reason, it sounded like they were being played underwater – the flashing in the sky was shining through a cloud of smoke. 

Aaron swallowed. He couldn’t let Miles get caught. 

“You gotta go.”

Miles nodded, shakily and pulled his mask down over his eyes.

Hey. 

There’s Spider-Man. 

Aaron thought Spider-Man was dead? 

No. Couldn’t be – Spider-Man always got back up.

And then Spider-Man was gone again and people were yelling, urgent and direct. 

It was okay. 

Aaron wasn’t Spider-Man.

But maybe he –

Chapter Text

The sketchbook hit the floor with a thump – which was weird, because Miles had just thrown it out the window a minute ago. He wasn’t entirely surprised when Miguel’s claws appeared on the windowsill, immediately followed by the rest of him. 

Miles wiped his eyes again.

“Hey,” said Miguel. He was holding Uncle Aaron’s sweatshirt in one hand – how had it only been a few days since they’d taken it? 

Miles didn’t say anything.

“I thought you might want his shirt? … I don’t know, maybe that’s – stupid.” 

Miles sat down on the bed. Miguel dropped the hoodie next to him and leaned against the window.

“It was my fault,” Miles said, after a long silence.

“No, it wasn’t,” Miguel said, immediately.

“You – you don’t understand, he was trying to save me.”

“Miles,” Miguel said, looking at the messy dorm room floor, “Take it from somebody who has actually caused people to die – it wasn’t.”

Miles hugged his knees to his chest. He felt like he couldn’t breathe.

“What happened?” Miles said, quietly, “What did you do?”

He wasn’t sure he really wanted to know – he was just grasping out for something to stop the crawling dread in his throat that he’d killed Uncle Aaron as much as Kingpin had.

Miguel took a breath and didn’t speak for a long time.

“The co-worker who … tried to kill me with the genetic resequencer – that one was my fault – the first one that was my fault,” Miguel said, finally, “I didn’t realize what he had done to me at first. I didn’t understand why he was so afraid and – trying to shoot me.”

“Asshole factory,” Miles said, dully.

“Asshole factory,” Miguel said, “I was trying to get him to stop, but he kept running away, still shooting. He hit some equipment he’d been messing with and it exploded. Took out an exterior wall and half the lab.

“I think … I wanted him to get away from the hole in the wall,” Miguel said, slowly, sounding a little lost, “But he kept trying to get away from me and he – he fell. I grabbed his arm, but he was just screaming and slipped out of my hand.”

“What happened?”

Miguel raised a hand and unsheathed his talons. 

“Oh,” said Miles.

‘Yeah,” said Miguel, dropping his hand to his side, “Don’t get me wrong, I hated that guy – not for any … real reason. I just thought he was useless and stupid – I also work at the Asshole Factory – but I didn’t want him to die. Not like that. The top floors of Alchemax to the bottom of Downtown is … a very, very long fall.”

Miles got the feeling Miguel was holding something back … but something about the look on his face made Miles think that he’d rather keep it to himself, even if Miles thought Miguel would tell him, if he asked.

“Did you get your watch fixed?” Miles asked, staring at the floor, “I forgot to ask you.”

“Yeah, mostly,” Miguel said, tilting the watch a little on his wrist, “Communication’s out but I can jump dimensions again.”

“Can I go with you?” Miles said, looking at Miguel.

Miguel paused and blinked slowly.

“After – after we get the others home and stop the collider,” said Miles.

Miguel bit his lip with a fang, “... Maybe. I was thinking about it.”

Miles smiled a little, surprised.

“Really? I thought you were gonna say I shouldn’t run away from my problems.”

“I run away from my problems all the time, I can’t be the person telling you not to.”

“Does it ever work?”

“Hm.” Miguel tilted his hand a little, “Thirty… thirty-five percent of the time?”

“I guess those are decent odds.”

“I’ll need to go back to my universe for a while, make a gizmo thing for you. We’d have to establish some ground rules, put on some child safety locks… ”

“Hey, c’mon, man…”

“I’m not gonna let you zip around the multiverse without any supervision when you should be going to class. I’d rather be able to keep an eye on you than risk you building a gizmo thing on your own,” said Miguel, “Let me think it over.”

Think it over… Hadn’t Miguel said something like that before? 

“The spider…”

“Hm?”

“The spider that bit me,” Miles said, standing up, “It was glitching. It's from another dimension, right? You said you had to think it over.”

Miguel frowned and stiffened his shoulders.

“Yeah. Yeah, I did,” Miguel said. He sounded like each word was being dragged out of him with a rusty hook.

“...So?”

Miguel took another deep breath and massaged his forehead, “Okay. There really hasn’t been a good time to tell you this, but .. I think I owe you an explanation. I’m not making any definitive statements here, it’s only a theory, so just – hear me out. Don’t panic.”

“This is a terrible lead in.”

“I know. I –” Miguel paused, “ … I don’t think that spider was supposed to bite you.” 

“What do you mean?” Miles said, trying to ignore the chasm that had just opened in his gut.

“It’s just – it’s a theory. That Spider-Man is supposed to go through these specific events – I’ve been calling it the canon. Events that are fated to happen. Every universe I’ve been to so far has had some version of these events occur. Some good, some bad, some … very bad.”

“Okay…”

“And I’ve been able to predict some of them by running these events through a simulation and – so far, observation suggests I’m right. But I’ve also simulated what happens if they’re disrupted by an anomaly, if an outside force stops the event or changes it somehow.”

“What happens then?”

“Then the fabric of reality is damaged. And if there’s enough damage, the results are … catastrophic. The entire reality will collapse in on itself. Every living and non-living thing evaporated. Gone. And if … if enough of them collapse, then that’s everything gone.”

“But it’s just – just a theory, right?”

“Yeah, but it’s a theory that you don’t want to test.”

“So … what are these anomalies, then?”

Miguel hesitated for a moment, “...Anomalies are … things that aren’t supposed to be in that reality. Things that come from outside that can irreparably disrupt what is supposed to happen. That’s why I have to be careful, anyone who travels to another dimension has to be … I know the damage that I can do if I change anything I’m not supposed to, no matter how much I want to. And trust me, there has been so much that I wanted to change.”

Miles looked at the back of his hand where the spider had bitten him. It felt like a hundred years ago, now. 

“The spider … It wasn’t supposed to bite me – but it did.”

Miles felt like throwing up. 

“If I hadn’t been bitten, I wouldn’t have gone back and Spider-Man wouldn’t have – he wouldn’t have had to save me.”

He was shaking now, tears threatening to return.

“Did I – is it – is it my fault that he –”

Miles jumped when Miguel grabbed both his shoulders, stooping down to look him in the eye.

“No, Miles. Okay?” Miguel said, seriously and urgently, “It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t ask for that spider to bite you, there’s no reason to have thought you shouldn’t have gone down there.”

“But – Is, is the universe going to collapse because I –“

“It’s just a theory, Miles,” Miguel said, shaking his shoulders slightly, “It’s a likely theory but it’s based on a pattern that I can’t see the whole of. I don’t really know if that spider was supposed to bite you or not, I don’t know every event that is meant to happen or not happen, I don’t know who is supposed to live or die and –”

“Was my uncle supposed to die?”

Miguel froze. His red eyes drifted down and he stopped meeting Miles’ gaze. 

Miles felt like throwing up again.

“Miguel,” he said again, “was Uncle Aaron meant to die?”

“ … Every Spider-Man loses somebody, Miles. It’s just … part of the story,” Miguel said, voice quiet and sad.

Miles shoved off Miguel’s grasp and stepped away. Miguel straightened his back and raised his hands in surrender.

“Did … did you let my uncle die, Miguel?”

“Miles, I didn’t know where either of you were –”

“Is that what you do? Do you just – let people die?!”

“I don’t let people die, but –”

“There shouldn’t be a but! Did you know he was in danger?”

Miguel took a deep breath, “Miles, I told you, if I try to change anything that isn’t supposed to be changed –”

“You knew! And you did nothing! Because of your stupid canon theory –” Miles said and took an aggressive step towards Miguel, who backed up (making Miles feel patronized and angrier), “You know all these horrible things are gonna happen, and you – don’t do anything to change any of it. Spider-Man is supposed to save people!”

“You can’t save everyone!”

“So you don’t even try to save anyone! Tell me the truth – if you had known where Uncle Aaron was, would you have tried to save him? To stop Kingpin?”

Miguel’s shoulders dropped and he sighed, “I … probably. Yes.”

“Probably?!”

“I obviously didn’t want your uncle to die, Miles, but it’s not that simple!” Miguel said, frustratedly running his hand through his hair, “It’s not like I have a shocking alarm in my head that tells me when something is key to the continued existence of reality! If – if I’m forced to choose between letting one person die and risking an entire world, I know what the right choice is, no matter how much it kills me to have to choose it.”

Miles wiped his sleeve across his eyes, desperate to not let Miguel see him crying.

 ”Peter was right – I can’t trust you.”

Miguel smiled bitterly, “Come on, Miles, pushing people away when you’re hurt and angry to make them hurt and angry? I invented that.”

“No, man,” Miles took a step back, “I’ll – I’ll get them home myself. You got your watch fixed, go home.”

“Miles, if you want to blame me for what happen, that’s fine,” Miguel said, so gently it made Miles’ blood boil, “But please, let me help –”

 “Just – get out of here! I don’t need you, I got real Spider-Men to help me now!” Miles spat, stomach twisting as soon as the words left his mouth.

Miguel didn’t respond. 

He gave Miles a flat, dead-eyed look for a long moment and then smoothly pulled his mask back over his face.

“Alright,” Miguel said, and he turned and put a foot on the windowsill. 

“Be careful,” he said, not looking behind him, “Destroy the collider. Don’t die.”

In a step, Miguel vanished out the window and, in a flash of orange light, he vanished from the universe entirely. 

–

This was gonna suck.

It had almost been a fight – and Peter didn’t really want to fight other Spider-People. Not, like, a fight fight with webs and punches and venomous bites – just an emotional one, with guilt trips and ugly truths. 

And one of those ugly truths was … Miles wasn’t ready. That had been Peter’s call, ultimately. The gang might have gotten a little carried away with the pressure they were putting on Miles, but Peter kind of wished Miguel hadn’t intervened. Though… maybe continuing turning the screws on the poor kid wouldn’t have actually inspired anything. Maybe Peter was just feeling guilty he hadn’t been the one standing up for Miles. 

It didn’t really matter. The kid was going to get himself killed trying to save the rest of them.  If Peter had been a shitty role model for not standing up for him, he would be a shittier one for letting Miles die, alone.

And it would have had to be alone. The other ugly truth was that the others didn’t trust Miguel, plain and simple. Peter had hoped seeing him in a fight would have raised their opinions of him, but apparently, seeing him slice through half of May’s furniture like a chainsaw didn’t make a great impression. But mostly … Peter blamed the lack of tingle. After so many years being the only Spider-Person in your world, to meet somebody else and know instantly they were like you, to not be alone anymore was … exhilarating. 

 Who could blame anyone for closing ranks when suddenly there’s somebody else who says he’s like you, but you can tell, on a mystical, instinctual level, that he isn’t. 

It … probably felt pretty shitty to be on the wrong side of that one, actually. No wonder Miguel had been so aggressive trying to get between Miles and the others. He hadn’t wanted the kid to feel like that.

Yeah, okay, Peter was feeling really guilty about not standing up for Miles.

Ultimately, they’d decided that this was best left to the "real" Spider-People – Peter didn’t exactly disagree and nothing he could say would have made them feel better about involving either Miles or Miguel. And so he’d volunteered. It wasn’t like he had anything worth going home for anyway.

Now he had to break the news. Like, an hour after the kid’s uncle was shot. Maybe it was good to get all the bad news in one day. Get the worst couple of events in your life into a single day, rather than spread them out.

… Yeah, this was gonna suck.

Peter peered in the window – he thought Miguel had followed Miles, but he was nowhere in sight (and hard to miss). 

Probably easier without him here.

Peter knocked on the window.

“Hey bud.”

—

It had all gone right until the moment it had all gone wrong. It had been so close, too. Miles had done it. He saved them. He sent them home. And now he was going to die without anyone knowing it.

The collider was on fire.

Miles didn’t know when it had happened – some time between Kingpin being hurled into the green button, the overlapping dimensions uncrossing and the resulting explosion.

The rope of webbing he was holding on to snapped in the sudden, intense heat, and now he was falling into the inferno below as it raced through the complex under Fisk tower. Maybe he’d just been too late – too much had come through from the multiverse, some car with a full tank of fuel or maybe an entire gas station and now … he was going to die.

Desperately, he sent up another shot of webbing – it burned away, caught by stray embers. 

Miles felt like the world was going in slow motion.

Was this what it was like for Uncle Aaron?

He wished he could have saved Uncle Aaron.

He wished he'd been a little faster. He wished he hadn’t sent Miguel away. He wished he could have said goodbye to his mother. 

Miles’ gaze turned to the broken glass in the observation deck, where his dad was trapped – blocked in by fire raging in the hall and the one engulfing the collider. 

He wished he could have saved his father.

Miles blinked slowly.  Behind his dad, the fire was twisting, becoming almost geometric. And then a shadow emerged from the center and it wrapped around his father’s chest. It was  … getting bigger? Closer?

It hit him like a freight train. 

Miles struggled in the shadow’s choking grip, tight and heavy around his chest and then vice-like on his wrist. The world lit up in orange and he was free falling backwards into it.

The shadow flickered and crackled, flashing black, blue, green, red and white like a shattered LED screen and it screamed.

The world turned dark again and Miles found himself sliding across a cold tile floor, gasping.

A few feet away, his dad lay as well, wide-awake and terrified, shirt still smoldering where he’d been hit by embers.

Miles sat up, looking wildly around in the dark room. He could see the outlines of furniture and a small amount of dim light was filtering through shaded windows.

“Spider-Man?” His dad said, gingerly sitting up. 

“I — um,” Miles stuttered, looking around. 

“Where are we?”

“Good question,” Miles said, his voice rough from the smoke.

“And – wait, what’s this?”

Miles looked at his dad, who was holding up his arm. He had a metal cuff on it — silver, with a simple interface, like a watch but — 

Miguel’s watch. 

Miles finally noticed the weight on his own wrist and looked down. Another watch. A little smaller. Made for Miles’ skinny arm. But how did  …

The shadow. The shadow that grabbed his dad and then him and threw them into a void of light. The shadow that glitched and shattered and screamed like it was being torn apart.

You couldn’t travel through the multiverse without wearing a watch.

Miles looked around, terrified. No, no, no, not like this, not again, he can’t let another Spider-Man die to save him.

It was too dark here. Miles grabbed his father’s flashlight from his belt and turned it on, yanking off his mask to see better. His own pulse thundered and drowned out his dad’s voice.

He desperately turned it around the room until it landed on a prone form. Costume ripped and scorched, blood dripping from under where the mask covered his mouth. 

The dark lenses retracted and narrowed when the light fell on his face.

“Hnn – LYLA  … lights… quarter … please,” Miguel muttered weakly, lifting his head and then dropping it back to the floor. 

The room gently lit up.

Miles rushed forward to where Miguel lay, bloody and burnt, and shook his shoulder, roughly.

“Miguel? Miguel!”

He wasn’t waking up. Miles couldn’t even tell if he was breathing over his own heartbeat pounding in his ears.

“Miles?!” 

Miles looked over his shoulder at his dad, who was staring slack-jawed at Miles’ uncovered face.

“Oh  … shock,” said Miles.

—

Ring

Ring

Ring

Ring

Ring

-Click-

“Hey, this is Jefferson. Please leave a message, uh, if you like!”

BEEP

“Jeff, it’s me again. I still haven’t heard from Miles. Or – or from you. Um. I spoke to the surgeon – he said it went well – no, uh, no major complications. Back on his feet in a few months, hopefully. He got … very, very lucky – he was so close to the hospital and the ambulance and… Jeff, I … Por Dios, please, please, call me back and tell me you weren’t near Fisk Tower. Call me back. Get Miles to call me back, I – I love you. Call me back.”

-Click-

Chapter Text

“Uh oh,” LYLA’s voice buzzed in Miguel’s ear, “What have you done to yourself this time?”

He wanted to swat in the direction her voice was coming from, but he couldn’t seem to summon the strength to lift his arm. That seemed like a bad sign.

Why couldn’t he lift his arm?

Right. 

The kid. 

It turned out, LYLA had been able to see Miguel perfectly fine from the moment he crash landed in 1610, even if communication was out on his end. And so, when he arrived back, she greeted him appropriately.

“Hey Miguel, welcome back. Did that 10 year old hurt your feelings?”

He really hated how easily she could read him sometimes. He spent the next few hours nursing his bruised ego (and trying to remind himself that he, himself, had also been a total dick when he was 14 who would have gone right for the jugular just like Miles did and he shouldn't take it so personally) (and Miguel was still a total dick at 27, too, so he really shouldn’t take it so personally). 

He had LYLA monitor the situation anyway. Even if he was a teeny bit hurt by the kid, he wanted to make sure it worked out – also to ensure that the multiverse didn’t collapse, because apparently that was a real danger he hadn’t anticipated, thanks past-Alchemax – and intervene if need be,

So, Miguel had been on standby (sulking) while LYLA gave him the play-by-play. And hey, good news: the multiverse didn’t collapse, everyone was returned safely to their home universes, and it all worked out. Until it didn’t. It was pretty lucky that she had been watching and decided, independently, that Miguel was probably going to want an extra gizmo for his little student. 

He hated how easily she could read him.

So, the collider was exploding. He was just going to get Miles, grab him from the life-threatening situation, make him feel a little guilty over the “real Spider-Man” dig and then take him home. But he hadn’t anticipated Miles’ father being there. 

It was a risk, he knew that, with basically a 20% chance of success. Not a bet he would normally take, but he couldn’t let Spider-Man  – Miles die. And he couldn’t fail Miles for a second time that day. 

Miguel had glitched in the past – never pleasant, a little like being flash-fried – but this time… Being halfway through dimensions when it hit was – well.

Deadly.

It hurt so badly he’d thought he had died right then and there. He thought he was having his skin peeled off. 

He thought he was back in the genetic resequencer.

Miguel tried to open his eyes again – an orange light. LYLA was doing a scan, presumably to make sure he was stable. He was pretty sure his lungs had been outside his body for a second there, so he didn’t begrudge the check-in.

Miles’ voice drifted in and out. Talking to somebody about what had happened. Quickly. Talking a mile a minute. Ha – that was a good one, he’d have to save that one assuming he ever remembered how to speak.

Who was Miles talking to again? His uncle?

Whatever.

“... the collider to shut it down and the other Spider-Men all went home and then I fought Kingpin and I won but then the supercollider exploded and then Miguel saved us and he’s … ”

Oh – Miguel – that was him . He should probably respond.

“M’great,” he said, extremely convincingly and not at all croaked out like a death rattle.

LYLA’s voice chimed in, “You are currently missing 35% of your blood,” 

“S’that a lot?” 

“He’s … great, apparently,” said Miles, right before Miguel drifted back into unconsciousness. 

Kid could handle it.

When he woke up, he was on the couch, his mask pulled up halfway and the UMF of his suit already starting to knit itself back together. The windows were unshaded, letting the eye-watering lights of Nueva York filter in. 

Miles’ father was sitting in a chair, staring ahead at nothing and looking deeply concerned. It kind of sent a chill up Miguel’s  spine – a long buried memory of the eerie moment of calm before his own father would light up surfaced briefly before his woozy brain discarded it. He was pretty sure Mr. Morales wasn’t the type. 

Miles was peering out the window at the other buildings and chatting to LYLA. 

“Didn’t need to put me on the couch,” Miguel said. He  tried to push himself up  – nope, bad idea – and immediately dropped back on it. 

“It, uh, felt a little weird leaving you on the floor,” said Mr. Morales, shrugging awkwardly. 

“I tried to tell him, you’ve done your best convalescing on that floor,” said LYLA.

“It’s easier to get blood off the tile…” Miguel said, trying again to sit up. 

Miles scurried over to him – Miguel waved his hands off when he tried to help him.

“I told you not to hover.”

“You okay?” Miles said, peering down at him.

“Yeah, can you not be 4 inches from me for a minute?”

“Okay, okay…” Miles said, backing up.

Miguel pulled his mask all the way off. 

“So – uh. You’re Spider-Man of the future?” said Mr. Morales, “And … another dimension?”

“Yeah. And – a version of me, maybe, in your dimension, in 80 years,” Miguel said. He had managed to sit up a little but let his head drop back over the arm of the couch – he really wasn’t in the mood to defend his being Spider-Man for like the 9th shocking time in a week.

But, surprisingly, Mr. Morales just nodded slowly and resumed looking shell-shocked at the table. 

Miguel guessed it had already been a weird day, so maybe the time travel dimension hopping thing wasn’t that big a deal.

“Just – give me a moment, I’ll get you home.” 

“I still need three hours to make another gizmo, Miguel,” said LYLA, popping up next to him, “And, according to your own safety protocols, you’re too injured to go anywhere and thus, locked out of the portal system.”

“I can override that.”

“Can you stand up under your own power?”

“Do you have to call me out in front of company?”

LYLA just smiled and flickered away, appearing closer to Mr. Morales.

“Jefferson Morales, this is Miguel O’Hara.”

Miguel raised a hand to wave vaguely in the kitchen’s direction.

Mr. Morales – Jefferson – waved back.

“Did I miss anything important?” Miguel said, turning his head to face Miles.

“Big recap of the week. Hugging. Confessions. Crying,” said Miles, cringing a little, “I’m kinda glad you didn’t see it.”

LYLA flickered in, “I recorded it.”

Miles stared up at her, looking betrayed, then at Miguel, “Does she just … do this?”

“Yeah.”

LYLE bowed and flickered back to the kitchen. 

“... Uncle Aaron is alive,” said Miles.

What.

“What.”

“I mean –” Miles looked back at his father, “You said he was stable?”

Mr. Morales looked up, a little surprised to be shaken from the dizzying reality he was trying to comprehend, “Uh? Yeah – yeah, last I spoke to the hospital. He was, uh, in critical, but stable condition . They were taking him in for surgery, and said they’d call but …” Jefferson lifted the phone from his pocket, “I haven’t gotten any news.”

He looked at his phone, “... What is A-Vert-Moblie and why is it asking me to do a retinal scan to pay $1800.99 monthly for ‘ twencen retro ’ roaming coverage?”

“Future’s stupid,” said Miles.

“It’s an old phone – It’s $200 off, they’re having a sale, or something,” Miguel said, impatiently, “What do you mean your uncle is alive?”

“I mean he didn’t die!” Miles said, sounding exhausted but excited.

What the shock. 

“... Huh.”

“Does that mean – what does that mean for the canon thing?” Miles said. 

Miguel shrugged and laughed a little – Miles looked a little alarmed at him smiling, probably not because of the fangs but because Miguel was pretty sure he hadn’t actually really laughed or smiled since they’d met.

“I have no idea!” Miguel admitted.

“Earth-1610 remains intact, no signs of collapse,” said LYLA, “Back to the drawing board?”

“I guess.”

Mr. Morales looked up, “Uh – pardon me, was … the collapse of earth a possibility?”

“A 75% chance,” said LYLA, “but it worked out.”

“I … think I better call your mother –” said Jefferson, “Can I have your wi-fi password, uh … Spider-Man?”

“What’s wifeye?” said Miguel.

Mr. Morales put his head in his hands and sighed.

“You’re not going to be able to connect to another dimension with that,” said LYLA, “If you’d like to speak to anyone from Earth-1610 –”

“Is that where we’re from?” said Mr. Morales.

“Yes,” LYLA said, surprisingly patient – why couldn’t she ever be that patient with Miguel? – “The only way to enable cross dimensional communication is with the gizmo. If you like, Miles can go through solo to contact your wife and –”

“ Oh, no, no way!” said Mr. Morales, standing up suddenly, “Miles is not jumping universes alone, we can wait for Spider-Man to, uh – recover – how long’s that gonna take?”

“Give me another 3 hours,” said Miguel.

“I would recommend at least 12,” said LYLA.

“Who asked you?”

“Jefferson Morales.” 

Miguel ignored her and dug his talons into the couch to haul himself mostly upright. His head swam for a minute before he could look properly at Mr. Morales and Miles.

“Okay – three hours for the gizmo. I haven’t had a shower in three days and I’ve been wearing this –” Miguel picked at his suit, “for about that long, so I’m going to go take care of that. Help yourself to whatever’s in the kitchen. I have coffee and a thing of yogurt –”

“The yogurt is expired,” said LYLA.

“Okay. I have coffee,” said Miguel.

Mr. Morales raised an eyebrow at him.

“How old are you?”

“27.”

Mr. Morales hummed and nodded, “Okay – that tracks.”

Miguel managed, somehow, to get to his feet without collapsing and staggered to the bedroom.

“I’ll order you a pizza,” said LYLA as the door closed behind him.

– 

Pizza of the future tasted an awful lot like Sbarro of the past, in Miles’ opinion. LYLA seemed so proud of herself, though, and Miles didn’t want to start anything.

It was almost three hours before Miguel returned from the shower. He looked a little less like a shambling corpse made of ash, which Miles took as a good sign. He was wearing a pair of loose sweatpants and a t-shirt with a cat on it. He looked – strangely normal. It really brought Miles back to the reality that Miguel, while, you know, weird and tall and shredded and a little scary, was also a bio-engineer and geneticist who spent all his work day in a lab or in front of a computer. 

He was tall, weird, shredded and scary, sure. But he was definitely also kind of a nerd.

“Took you long enough,” said LYLA, “Did you pass out?”

“You would know if I did,” said Miguel, heading to the kitchen where the weird, futuristic coffee pot was dripping. 

“You did,” said LYLA.

“Did you finish the gizmo?”

“Fifteen minutes left in manufacturing time,” LYLA said, cheerfully. Miles kind of wondered if he’d be able to access LYLA from his watch like Miguel could – assuming Miguel was going to let him keep it – actually, assuming his dad was going to let him keep it.

Dad had taken the news … pretty well, all things considered. He sat in dead silence for about ten minutes while his worldview adjusted, patiently allowed Miles to spill the whole story without interrupting – aside from demanding that Miles not grow fangs, do you have any idea how much money your braces cost what do you mean Spider-Man doesn’t usually have fangs of course he does spiders have fangs so Spider-Man should have fangs – and took his time with the situation. 

Miles hadn’t yet broached the topic of his continuing to be Spider-Man, but his dad had asked some pretty reasonable questions about Miguel’s qualifications and trusted LYLA’s testimony about it, so Miles was holding out hope that he wouldn’t forbid it, granted Miles had a tutor or something. And, you know, how was he really gonna stop him? Was he gonna arrest him? You can’t ground Spider-Man.

“Do you have anything Miles can wear over his … costume?” his dad said, looking at Miguel.

Miguel looked Miles up and down, “... Probably not.”

Okay, sure Miguel’s arm was about as thick as Miles’ head but hey, come on, man.

“Your brother left a sweater here six months ago,” said LYLA, “It’s under the couch.”

When Miles got back from retrieving the world’s most hideous neon-green wool sweater, his dad was standing in the kitchen with Miguel with a cup of coffee. He was looking at Miguel a little skeptically. 

“I’ll be honest. I’m an officer of the law, I don’t care much for vigilantes.”

“I spend most of my time stopping the police from brutalizing the people who live Downtown, if that makes you feel better,” said Miguel.

“The only police forces operating in Nueva York are owned and operated by corporate interests,” LYLA said before Miles’ dad could lose his mind.

“And you’re not some kind of psycho?”

Miguel shrugged and swallowed a sip of coffee, “I do run around in a Spider-themed costume fighting crime.”

His dad narrowed his eyes at Miguel. Miguel didn’t look particularly intimidated. 

A chime rang.

“Gizmo’s done!” said LYLA.

“You don’t have to ring a bell, LYLA, you’re not the wave cooker.”

“And you don’t have to be a bummer all the time, but here we are!”

–

Miguel managed to set the coordinates so they were neither in the collider, nor 20 feet in the air when they arrived back in Miles’ home dimension, just a few houses from their front door.

Miguel and his dad nodded at each other in some kind of weird old-man way. Miles got the feeling Miguel didn’t actually understand it, because he shot Miles a confused ‘was that right ?’ look after his dad had turned his back. 

“Miles? You coming?” his dad called.

“Uh, yeah, just – just a sec…” Miles said, turning back to Miguel, “So you’re gonna … keep teaching me, right?”

Miguel sighed, “Yeah, fine. I’m going to need a little time, because I haven’t been to work since Tuesday and I need to think of a reason.” 

“And I can keep the gizmo?”

“I got LYLA to put some limits on it. You can come here and earth-928 and that's it. Coordinates are locked to my place and the roof of your school. And LYLA’s gonna start watching you whenever you activate it. She’ll tell me if you’re shocking around with it.”

“Seriously, LYLA?” said Miles.

LYLA cooed from his watch, “Sorry Miles, I’m a born snitch.”

“So, those are the rules. Okay?”  Miguel said, a little too serious for a man in a cat t-shirt. 

Miles hugged him.

Miguel stiffened up like he didn’t know what to do with that, and then awkwardly patted Miles on the back.

“This is a little weird,” said Miguel.

Miles let go, grinning up at his giant, weird, tarantula vampire spider-mentor.

Miguel sighed and kinda half-smiled back at him, “I’ll uh. Be in touch.” He dialed in coordinates on his own gizmo and the bright orange portal opened behind him.

“Don’t let him fool you,” LYLA said, “He’s really excited.”

“Not excited,” Miguel snapped as he stepped through the portal, “Shut up, LYLA.”

The portal snapped shut behind him.

Miles turned and followed his dad back home.