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Chapter Text

‘I know if there were a hand

To hold throughout it all

It would have been bearable’

— Heavensghost / Greifmother 

I.

Miles’ first taste of deception is the crumble of rubble that he inhales as Spider-man crouches down before him and says:

“If you stick around, I can show you the ropes.”

There’s a smile there, somewhere underneath the webbed mask. The man’s bugged out eyes are more expressive than they should be and he’s bent on one knee to look Miles directly in the eyes.

In the background the Green Goblin takes a lunge at the wall closest to them and it collapses like Lego.

Despite this, Miles feels a little like he’s swallowed a mouthful of sunshine, slipping past the gaps in his teeth and sliding underneath his tongue. For the first time that day, that incessant buzz of danger, danger, danger has dissolved to nothing. It’s going to be okay. Miles is not going to die in this underground cave of who-knows-what. Spider-man is here, and he’s going to help and Miles won’t have to worry about sticky palms and unnaturally high jumps all by himself. 

You’re like me.

He’s like him. They’re the same. Being placed in the same boat as Spider-man is more than enough for the thirteen year-old’s ego. Spider-man is cool. Way, way cool. He treats a massive, murderous, lizard mutant as nothing more than an average Tuesday– which is pretty badass, and also a little bit concerning considering this may be what Miles’ average Tuesday will look like from now.

There’s so much more Miles wants to say. Starting with thank you so much, I really don’t want to die so this is great and possibly also I think I may have pissed my pants a minute ago, you wouldn’t happen to carry around any spares? 

However, he doesn’t get to say anything before Spider-man swings off with a “see you in a bit.”

They do see each other later, of course.

Miles almost wishes that they didn’t.

He thinks it might’ve been simpler, if Spider-man hadn’t looked at him with such desperation, such urgency. His blue eye, uncovered through a crack, couldn’t hide the panic nearly as well as the mask could. There was trembling in the man’s fingers as he placed that small rectangle of metal into Miles’ unwilling palms. 

Spider-man says:

“Promise me you’ll do this.”

And Miles says:

“I promise.”

Miles wishes he hadn’t.

Spider-man becomes Peter Parker, Peter Parker becomes the name on a gravestone. 

Life moves on. 

Miles gets back up. He tries, and he fails and then he tries some more. It’s not easy but he quickly realises that nothing about being Spider-man will ever be easy. He thinks Peter might have told him that eventually, if he had lived. Miles thinks that maybe he would have realised being Spider-man was never easy a lot later with someone like Peter to guide him through it.

Sometimes Miles wishes–

Nevermind.

It’s spilled milk anyway, right?

II.

Miles’ second brush with deception is the tang of iron on his tongue as he bites down on his lip to stifle his scream.

Uncle Aaron is the Prowler. 

He’d thought the crunch of Kingpin’s fists on his universe’s only Peter Parker had also beaten the naivety out of his own head. He’d thought witnessing the death of Spider-man (the only one who had welcomed him with excitement, the only one who had actually wanted him) was enough to leave him jaded. He’d hoped that it had left him dulled enough that nothing would ever blindside him again.

But he’s thirteen. 

Miles is thirteen and he’s still not sure what pickup lines actually work on girls and he’s got two essays due tomorrow and he needs to tell his parents about the freaky new powers that are starting to haunt his everyday life but he’s scared and he’d prayed that Uncle Aaron would–

Miles was wrong.

He’s not nearly jaded enough for this.

This is worse than death. In fact, he feels like he’s dying as he trips over his legs and misses steps and catches his palms on the railings and almost falls flat on his face just to escape his own uncle. The same man that wrapped his fingers around Miles’ ankles just to keep him steady as they dyed the grey walls of Brooklyn.

Miles can’t breathe. 

It doesn’t matter that Miles manages to lose him. Even if his uncle is no longer looming over his shoulder, Miles can’t stop running. His lungs burn with something fierce but he can’t stop. He’s trying to outrun more than the man he thought he knew. He’s trying to outrun New York. He’s trying to outrun himself and the chiling loneliness that just won’t leave.

Because that’s what it is, really. More than claws scraping across his chest or slicing his head off his neck with one clean swipe, Miles is terrified of the creeping truth that he’s completely alone. 

Spider-man left you with a corpse. Your uncle will leave with yours.  

His eyes sting.

Miles blames it on the wind.

III.

The third encounter with deception is– Well, it’s– It’s the sharpness of salt that seeps past Miles’ lips as he weeps over his Uncle’s dying body. 

Miles wants to say he expected it, just to make it even the slightest bit easier. If he could just muster up a well, if I had a nickel for everytime I had to watch someone die right in front of me I’d have two, which is a little odd but maybe that’s just the way the cookie crumbles when you’re Miles Morales. If he could just say something witty , something funny like Spider-man is supposed to. If he could just pretend that his life is a comic book and this is the unfortunate event that he just gets over . 

It would be easier.

But nothing is easy for Spider-man.

His world feels like it’s ending.

Maybe it is.

Nothing could have prepared him for this. His naivety strikes once again because what is the life of a budding superhero without the death of a loved one? 

“You’re the best of all of us, Miles. Just keep going.”

Keep going? Keep going with what? Killing everyone he cares about? What’s next? His dad?

“Uncle Aaron,” Miles sobs out because there’s nothing more he can really say.

_____

“We’re the only ones who do get it, Miles.”

Miles knows it’s true. He looks at Peter B— his eyes have that same warm light and sometimes Miles can’t help but see blonde hair instead of brown when the man turns away— and wants to be angry. He wants to be very angry, and he is, for the most part. Miles is half-made of rage as the Spiders try to console him with their own morbid origin stories like it’s supposed to make him feel better.

But more than angry, he feels hollowed out. 

They are the only ones who get it, he knows. But they don’t belong here. Gwen doesn’t belong here, despite the way she smiles at him, despite the way it feels so right just to sit beside her and share an earbud. Noir doesn’t belong here and neither does Ham. Peni doesn’t either.  Peter B certainly doesn’t, no matter how warm his eyes are. 

They may get it, but they’re leaving. They have to leave, and it’s not fair, and Miles is going to be left with a suit too big to fill and an empty tunnel filled with graffiti.

He says:

“You don’t get it.”

And means:

Why won’t anyone stay?

No one gets the message.

IV.

Fool him once, shame on them. Fool him twice, shame on him. Fool him thrice and it’s just a little bit embarrassing at that point. But four times?

Deception is in the wind that they leave behind, it cuts across his ears in a swooping, gentle chill. Almost like mercy. Peter B’s eyes had softened the blow. An easy way down. Even the webbing around his torso is kind.

Miles wants to hate them. He really does.

All he feels is sadness. The worst kind of sadness. A kick to the stomach when you’re least expecting it and it just knocks the breath out of you because you hadn’t realised you had further to fall. 

It hurts, how little they think he’s capable of. 

It hurts even worse, how little he thinks himself capable of. 

“It’s a leap of faith.”

What does he have to believe in, to make that kind of jump? 

Miles is starting to think he’s not made of the same material as the rest of them. 

“Miles? It’s your dad…”

He can’t speak, so he leans against the door and listens.

Slowly, sunshine blooms on his tongue.

_____

Being Spider-man is not easy, but it’s not impossible.

Miles finds his rhythm among the skyline, in the alleys and the underground tunnels. In his mother’s hands, running through his hair. In his father’s squeeze of the arm and gentle “I love you, Miles.”

Brooklyn cushions his landings and steadies his strides.

It’s not exactly the hand-holding he’d dreamed of, but it’s enough.

_____

It’s been a while, nearing two years almost, so you’ll have to excuse Miles if he’d forgotten how deception tastes.

It fills his lungs with every inhale as his eyes dart around to people he’d practically considered a second family. Maybe they weren’t close with a year apart and more than a few unsaid why didn’t you ever visit me’s tucked away in Miles’ mind but— 

But they had been connected in a way no one else was. Spiders. Vigilantes. With great power comes great responsibility and every other iteration. 

He looks at Gwen. 

Gwen, who had leaned against his shoulder and shared a view of Brooklyn that no one else would ever glimpse. She looks away, mouth downturned. Peter won’t even meet his eyes. 

Surely not.

They don’t seriously expect him to let his dad die, just to— to what? To fulfil some universal checklist? They can’t expect him to watch his father die right before his eyes when he’s capable of preventing it. They can’t expect him to know and do nothing about it just so they can congratulate him with a pat on the back for going through a canon event. It’s fucking whack. They’re all insane. 

And he’d wanted to be right here, in this HQ, so badly.

Miles tries to let his heart down easily but it falls right to his feet with a thud.

“I can do both,” he insists. Because he can. Sure he gets a little in over his head sometimes, but he always pulls through when it counts. When it matters. His dad’s life matters. Miles can save him and his universe. He knows it.

(And if he can’t, he’d rather watch the world burn anyway.)

He looks to Peter for even the tiniest ounce of support and is met with kind eyes. Kind, merciful eyes. The easy way down. Of course. 

Miles can’t lift the disbelief from his eyebrows. If my Peter were here, he thinks as rage starts to trickle in, he would have stood beside me. He would have, he knows it like the sky is blue. His Peter would have shrugged his shoulders, and said: come on, kid, what are you waiting for? Let’s save your dad.

He knows it.

Miguel gives him a speech that is supposed to be sympathetic but doesn’t hit any of the right chords with Miles because it’s pure manipulation. Sacrifice your parents or destroy the world. Like that’s a real choice. Who in the right mind tells a teenager to stand to the side while their dad is killed. A super-powered teenager at that. 

Clearly, Miguel hasn’t spent nearly enough time around kids. Or anyone with common sense.

The ridged lines of the man’s shoulders hike up when Miles says tell him no.

“It wasn’t a choice,” Miguel tells him, like’d he known from the beginning that Miles was nothing more than a thorn in his side. Like’d he known that this was never a discussion, only a decision that had already been made.

Only one person helps him escape. 

Hundreds of Spiders who should have rallied up behind him because it’s the right thing to do, because it’s the thing that Spider-man is supposed to—

And only one. One person.

There’s no time to even thank Hobie, but Miles hopes he sees it in his eyes. He hopes the older teen knows that Miles is more thankful than words can really say. To have just one person— it’s enough to propel him forward.

He runs, and he has a plan because he’s in a gifted school for a reason and he knows he’s going to make it before he’s even made it onto the train. Miles knows he’s going to make it because there’s no possibility where he doesn’t. He won’t allow it.

Miguel goes feral (like tweakin’ feral) and Miles can’t help but remember what  Peter B had told him not even the day before.

He doesn’t bite, my ass.

VI.

Deception is an aftertaste, barely there on his tongue and when he exhales it’s washed away because Miles doesn’t believe a word Miguel says.

“It was never supposed to bite you!”

He’s just trying to get a rise but Miles isn’t stupid. He won’t fall for it.

Miguel’s claws come close to shaving off his heel and Miles starts to wonder who the heroes really are, if he’s supposed to be their leader. Murdering teenagers who want to save their parents isn’t the justice Miguel thinks it is, he thinks bitterly. 

Miguel screams:

“You’re a mistake!”

And Miles’ grip falters, not because he believes it, but because it hurts nonetheless. It’s always going to hurt, hearing something like that. 

VII.

Miles may have become slightly complacent, so sure of his own escape that he misses the way deception scurries along the train, up his torso, his neck, into his mouth and settles in his throat like a lump.

Miguel has him by the shoulders. Distantly, Miles can feel his skin knitting itself back together where the man had taken a swipe at his collarbones.

Miguel says:

“If you hadn’t been bit your Peter Parker would have lived.”

And Miles can’t speak.

Miguel says:

“Instead he died saving you. He would have stopped the collider before it ever went off. Spot wouldn’t exist and none of this would have happened.”

And Miles tries not to lose himself.

Miguel says:

“You don’t belong here. You never did.”

And Miles wishes he wasn’t beginning to believe it too.

VIII.

There’s nothing he can do but choke on the deception. It’s everywhere. Making room in his lungs, clogging his nostrils. It’s all over Peter B and Gwen.

Peter B says:

“This isn’t what we talked about.”

It’s a miracle that Miles can still find a way to feel betrayed. How many times has it been now? And he still feels just as raw as he did the day he watched his uncle unmask himself. His heart is just as tender as it had been staring down at Spider-man’s limp form. How many more times will it take?

What more does he need to go through until it stops hurting?

His ears are ringing, he can barely hear himself as he says, disbelieving and fresh out of hope:

“You knew. You all knew?”

Gwen’s eyes are full of guilt. It doesn’t soothe him like it’s supposed to. Distantly, Miles thinks of a sketchbook that sits thousands and thousands of miles away on a desk in a room he may never see again if he doesn’t get the fuck out of here.

Gwen says:

“I didn’t know how to tell you.”

Oh. Okay.

So that’s how it is. How it’s been , he supposes.

It’s starting to hurt less now. The sadness is crawling away. Has to make room, after all, for the rage.

Miles lets it fill him until his fingertips are sparking. Until his veins are buzzing like the day he’d been bitten, every sense going haywire before narrowing down to a single focus.

He grasps Miguel by the shoulders, knuckles going taut as he squeezes and hopes it hurts even half the amount that he feels. He looks straight into the man’s eyes and refuses to give into the fear that tries to sliver up his spine.

He’s not scared. 

He’s done with all this bullshit.

“Everybody keeps telling me how my story is supposed to go,” Miles grits his teeth because he’s sick of this. These words are going to count. He’ll create a canon event right here and he’ll make sure none of them forget it.

“Nah, I’mma do my own thing.”

_____

Peter B tries, but it’s not enough. 

Miles can’t bring himself to hate the man, not even a little because the way he looks at him has always been full of kindness. Kindness that only Peter Parkers’ are capable of. 

He doesn’t hate him, but he doesn’t trust him either. Miles doesn’t trust any of them. He’s not sure he ever will.

“I wanted to be with you guys so bad,” he whispers, mourning.

Peter places a hand on his shoulder and it’s almost enough. 

Miles looks at his daughter and she giggles, arms raised wide and when he doesn’t pick her up— because he’s seriously terrible with children— she climbs up him anyway.

Her small hands are warm on his face and it’s almost enough. 

Peter’s watch comes to life with a shrill.

Miles has to dampen down his disappointment before it can inflate.

Peter B tries.

But it’s not enough.

_____

There’s too much going through Miles’ head as he swings back into his universe. Miguel. Peter B. Gwen. Hobie. Jessica. The Spot. Ham. Peni. Noir. All of them spin through his mind in a spiral. Liars. Enemies. Old friends. It all begins to merge to one big headache.

This is not what he signed up to when he decided to become Spider-man (if you can even call it a decision. There was a serious lack of consent). Fighting bad guys? Sure. Easy peasy. Maybe a little hard to juggle with school but he made it work. Less than friendly coworkers? That’s fine too, all part of the job. 

But coworkers that are out for your head? For wanting to save your dad? Nope. Nuh uh. Nada. Absolutely not. 

And on top of that he’s somehow managed to create one of the biggest threats to the multiverse ever . 

Great job, Miles. 

Not to mention the fact that he’s— he’s—

Miles can barely breathe as he comes in close to their apartment. His anticipation to get home is undercut by nausea, stomach swooping dangerously.

“It was never supposed to bite you!”

His chest heaves violently and yet he inhales so little, practically gasping. Lifting his mask, Miles tries to take in the cold mist of a New York during dusk but it doesn’t help at all.  

“You’re a mistake!”

He’s not. He’s not . He’s not!

Miles can’t be a mistake. 

He was meant to be Spider-man. That spider bit him for a reason. It was always meant to be him. It has to be. He’s not a mistake. He’s not a mistake. He’s exactly what he’s supposed to be. He’s saved his city countless times, he’s saved lives, he’s saved his universe before and he’ll do it again because he’s Spider-man and he’s meant to be.

Miles is exactly who he’s meant to be, and he’s not going to let anyone tell him different.

Here’s what’s going to happen:

Miles is going to go home. 

He’s going to find his dad.

He’s going to save his dad.

He's going to save the multiverse .

And then he’s going to sleep for a week at least.

IX.

Miles doesn’t even feel the deception coming until it has him buckling over, skin sizzling and atoms cutting themselves in half as his body tries to realign with a universe that is not his.

He should have expected this. 

Miles really should have expected this.

Being Spider-man is never easy.

_____

The sight of Uncle Aaron sucker punches Miles right between ribs, close to his heart. A million and one thoughts cross his mind in a split second but there’s only one thing he wants to do.

Miles flings his arms around the man.

Uncle Aaron says:

“You took out your braids.”

Which aren’t quite the words he had wanted to hear, but beggars can rarely be choosers.

X.

Miles feels it this time. He feels it loud and clear. Deception is in the air , it’s in the streets of Brooklyn and on the very ground that Miles is standing on. 

However, nothing could prepare him for the sight of his dad’s mural, painted in colours that only he would have chosen. There’s no way to lessen the blow as the cold trickle of this will be you seeps down his back. 

In hindsight it’s really not fair.

Like, super unfair, because he’s distracted and his spider-senses have gone haywire for some reason— so he only notices something’s wrong ( more wrong than whatever the hell his life has turned into in the past day, anyway) seconds before it hits him.

Man, Miles thinks sluggishly before he blacks out. That was a cheap shot.

_____

Deception has gotten the best of Miles Morales for a good couple years now. Its tracked him down and resurfaced like weeds between his feet at every moment he’d least expected it. He’ll admit, he has a long way to go when it comes to knowing who to trust and who might be secretly trying to kill you and/or lie to you about your very existence.

But hey, everybody’s gotta learn somewhere right?

This is good for him, in fact. It’s character development.

Uncle Aaron who isn’t actually his Uncle Aaron— and may actually be more dangerous than Miles first thought— is teaching him a valuable lesson when it comes to naivety.

By almost smashing his head open with his fist. 

Character development, people, remember it’s all for the development. Or trauma. 

Same thing.

Not Uncle Aaron says he isn’t the Prowler. Which is… Interesting. And Miles is kinda reluctant to think any more about it because if this Uncle Aaron never became the Prowler then—

The Prowler drops down from the ceiling with a thud before stalking towards him. He’s much shorter than his alternate universe counterpart, but no less threatening. Which is slightly intimidating, however it’s overshadowed by the dread pooling in Miles’ stomach because he’s not an idiot. Things are snapping together very quickly, and he’s hating the picture it paints.

“Who… are you?” He questions, because he has to. 

The mask slides apart.

Miles stares into his own eyes.

“I’m Miles Morales.”

Spanish curls the edges of his words in a way that Miles could never manage. It shouldn’t be so chilling. 

Other-Miles’ face is hardened, all sharp lines and downstroked eyebrows, the sharp, confident pull of his mouth. 

Other-Miles says:

“But you… you can call me the Prowler.”

And Miles…

Miles is done with reasoning. He’s tired of looking like the crazy one for trying to save his dad. He’s downright sick of being hunted left right and centre for doing what Spider-man should do. He’s tired of trying to play the hero that everyone wants him to be.

Miles is going to be the hero that he needs. 

Sunshine pops between his teeth and explodes, bright and shining as it coats his mouth. It burns straight down his throat, swimming through his stomach and curling down his shoulders to collect at his fingertips. 

He’s going to save himself, because that’s what Spider-Man does.

Chapter Text

It bursts.

That feeling that Miles had kept so tightly between his molars, guarded so carefully because of its warmth— It explodes and transforms. The sunshine he had cradled in his gums for years, that small flicker of hope that things would always work out— it splinters and cracks and shakes and ignites into something too big to hold.

The studio that he had once coveted because it was Uncle Aaron, his sauve, cooler than life Uncle Aaron’s place is flooded with light. Electric gold zaps into every corner it can find. The mish-mash of rope and cables shred off of Miles with little more than quiet snap. The beanbag erupts with sand, the crisp shhhh of the falling grains grace his landing. 

In another universe, another life, Miles says:

“Don’t watch the mouth, watch the hands.”

In this universe, Miles says:

“Get the fuck out of my way.”

His every stride is charged, every step sends ripples of yellow-gold in his wake. 

Other-Miles is quick on his feet, he’s practically got a built in sixth sense for threats, Miles will give him that. Other-Miles is agile, he’s clearly trained his limbs to move with a kill or be killed type of wiring, Miles will give him that too. Other-Miles is smart, he’s deliberate with his every moment and always calculating— he blocks Miles’ swings with little more than a tilt of his body, so Miles will give him that as well.

But Other-Miles wasn’t chased all the way around Neuva York by people he had considered his and he hadn’t been almost clawed apart by a feral vampire with seriously dubious morals. Other-Miles probably didn’t run away from his uncle with his heart in his throat and tears clumping at his eyelashes. Other-Miles wasn’t the reason his uncle died. Other-Miles is also not a multiversal mistake, which Miles is admittedly very envious of. He’ll bet that Other-Miles’ head isn’t nearly as jumbled as his right now, he’ll bet that Other-Miles doesn’t feel so angry and defeated and betrayed and lied to (over and over-a-fucking-gain).

“Who are you?” Other-Miles questions, that furrow of his eyebrows growing deeper with disbelief as Miles evades his uppercut with a twist of his spine.

Yeah, Miles’ll give it to him, the guy is good.

But he’s not him.

So he says:

“I’m Spider-man.”

And lands a kick right across the jaw of the kid wearing his face.

Other-Miles crumples to the floor with a grunt, eyes rolling back. Miles’ foot trembles with the excess venom that sizzles off it in little zigzags. When he exhales, it comes out in a puff of smoke.

He turns to face the walking ghost. His uncle. Not his uncle. Alive. Dead. 

“You wanna go too?” He offers, wiping the sweat off his chin.

Other-Uncle Aaron’s jaw is set tight, clenching, and he looks like he wants nothing more than to tear Miles apart bit by bit. His body language is all razor-sharp edges, ready to pounce. It’s a little unnerving, to have that expression directed at him— his own Uncle Aaron… he— he’d always looked at him like Miles was—

“You're the best of all of us, Miles.”

Acid crawls up his throat and Miles swallows it back down.

When the man doesn’t answer, Miles raises an eyebrow, splaying out his palms with a shrug. “We can go, man. If you wanna tweak’ out, be my guest,” he laughs a little, “but I’m not sticking around, so I’m not pullin’ my punches either. I’ve got places to be.”

Nevermind that Miles has no idea how the hell he’s getting out of here. He has no watch, no way to communicate with anyone— pfft, he’s acting like he’s got people who are willing to help him to begin with— and he’s got no idea how this universe rolls. He’s officially in deep shit. But that’s a problem for when he’s alone.

Mental breakdowns only happen after the fighting, not during. That’s classic comic book rules, everyone knows that.

“You’re cocky, kid,” Other-Uncle Aaron says, and if it were a different time, a different place, a different person, it would undoubtedly sound like a tease. But it’s said with vitriol, distrust and hostility. The man’s eyes keep darting to Other-Miles’ prone form on the ground, like he doesn’t know whether to kill Miles or protect his nephew first.

“I’m good,” Miles corrects, because he is. He has to be good, or he’ll never get anywhere. If he wasn’t good enough, he’d still be at HQ and probably beaten to a pulp. If he wasn’t good enough, Kingpin’s collider would have destroyed his universe. If Miles wasn’t good enough, let’s face it, he’d been in a grave beside Peter Parker. It’s not a choice. It’s survival.

Other-Uncle Aaron’s mouth settles into a scowl and he looks seconds away from grabbing the gauntlet by the windowsill so Miles feels the need to tack on, “I’m not trying to kill you guys,” he swears, because it’s true. Miles is a lot of things, but he’ll never be a murderer.

Miles can’t quite keep the judgement of his face as he surveys the studio, “You guys are obviously in on some deeply questionable shit– like really, is– is that a machete? Anyways, I’m the normal one here,” he sniffs. Other-Uncle Aaron looks more dubious than he should. “Don’t get in my way and we’re cool– I have bigger problems than a doppelganger and my dead uncle lookalike.”

Other-Uncle Aaron’s eyes widen a little. He looks momentarily blindsided, eyes darting over Miles’ frame as though it’s the first time really looking at him. Like he’s some sort of puzzle to solve. “Dead, huh?” The man drawls, casual but Miles can see the tautness of his shoulders. “You’ve got stories, kid,” he sounds like he doesn’t believe him, or rather, doesn’t want to.

Miles shrugs. Not his problem. “Yeah,” he agrees, “and I’ll have you on the floor in seconds if you think of trying it,” he nods towards the gauntlet.

Other-Uncle Aaron’s jaw ticks. He’s considering it. Miles can see him weighing up the situation. The man slowly raises his palm in surrender. Smart guy. The shadows around his eyes are stark, Miles notices the longer he stares. The man suddenly looks exhausted.

“I’m too old for this shit,” Other-Uncle Aaron curses under his breath, giving Miles another once over before letting out an incredulous huff. “Who the hell even are you? And why are you wearing some tight-ass onesie?”

Well that’s kinda rude. Miles feels like everybody and their mothers have been dunking on his suit recently. 

“I’m Spider-man,” Miles says because that’s all there is to it, really.  

_____

Miles has got to say, that this is one of the weirdest experiences he’s had so far. And that’s saying something.

They’d all come to a truce. Of sorts. There were a few unwilling participants (two), but hey, life isn’t always fair. 

Other-Miles looks like he’s trying to obliterate Miles’ existence through sheer willpower, eyes trained on him with a singular, malicious focus. Keep trying buddy, Miles thinks and almost wants to pat the guy on the shoulder. 

“So…” Miles says, because he has to say something. Silence isn’t his thing. And okay, maybe he’s also trying to drown out his thoughts and the panic attack that he’d put on hold since he’d arrived in this hellhole of a universe. But it’s fine. He tries to think of a civil conversation that won’t result in bloodshed.

The Prowler, huh? How’s the whole murdering people thing going? Get a lot of revenue? Do you have to pay taxes? 

You and Uncle Aaron seem tight. I guess killing really brings the family together.

So, dead dad… that’s interesting. Sucks. My dad is actually alive so I guess that’s one point to me. But he’s gonna die in like, two days, if I don’t get the hell out of here. 

“What’s with the braids?” 

Other-Miles looks like he’d rather shoot himself in the head than answer. The passive aggressiveness of his eyes is offset by the shiner he sports on his jaw. 

“What’s with the high-top?” 

There’s nothing wrong with Miles’ hair, thank you very much. All the girls loved it back at school. It’s on trend. He tries not to get irritated. 

“What’s with the purple?” Miles challenges.

“What’s with the red?” Other-Miles fires back.

“Why’d you talk like that?”

Other-Miles smirks, “why don’t you? Mama back home must not love you enough, huh.”

Okay, Miles fell into that one. It’s not his fault he’s a no sabo kid. He just never picked it up half as well as he’d picked up the Brooklyn drawl. His eyes narrow.

“Yeah, yeah, well– well, you're a murderer so, “ he sniffs, shoulders shrugging. He’s not taking the high ground, sue him. If this doppelganger wants to talk fighting words then Miles will fight.

Other-Miles barely looks fazed. The teen tilts his head back as he assesses Miles. “Yeah, I am. What? Is that too much for your morals, Morales?” The Spanish thickens and slides along his tongue.

Miles grits his teeth. “Careful, between the two of us I’m pretty sure who your mama would prefer. Bet you haven’t told her about this little ‘thing’ you got goin’ on, huh?”

Other-Miles snarls, lunging out only to be pulled back by the collar. Other-Uncle Aaron flattens his palm along the boy’s neck. Calming him. Soothing him. Miles swallows and tries to clear his head. Not your uncle. Not your uncle. Not your universe.

“Give the pissing contest a rest,” Other-Uncle Aaron reprimands them both, but his eyes linger on Miles.  

Miles refuses to back down, squaring his shoulders. “I’m gonna defend myself if someone’s talking shit. I’m not a pushover, I’m not a follower and I don’t sit down on my ass and do nothing just because I’m told to!” 

Okay, maybe this is a bit bigger than a few comments. Maybe Miles is going through some stuff at the moment. Fucking sue him.

Other-Uncle Aaron has that look again, like he’s trying to take Miles apart with his eyes and decipher him. Miles scowls.

“Been told to sit on your ass a lot?” Other-Uncle Aaron questions, and there’s something that he’s trying to figure out but Miles can’t make heads or tails of it.

He chews on his lip, thinking for a moment before giving up. Whatever the man is trying to find out, it doesn’t matter either way. Miles will be gone by tomorrow at the latest and he’ll never see this earth again. 

“Yeah,” he shrugs, trying to act casual. “And I never listen,” he tells the both of them. It’s a warning. “Miguel thought he could try and beat obedience into me but I’ll never stop doing what I know is right. I don’t care how many villains come after me. How many times they try to kill me. I’ll get up again. I always get up, and I’m never goin’ to quit.”

Other-Miles and Other-Uncle Aaron share a look. It’s indecipherable to Miles. He can’t tell if they’re still plotting ways to take him down or if they’re wondering what to order for dinner. Abruptly, he feels like an outsider. The distance grows between them in the studio and echoes around Miles’ skull like an empty museum. 

He doesn’t want to admit it— hates to admit it, but there’s a jealousy that he can’t shake off as he watches them. It’s ugly and coiling and wriggling and it’s managed to sliver into his veins, into his bloodstream until he’s practically seeing green. It’s angry too. The embarrassing kind of angry. The five year-old who wants their toy back, kind of angry. 

The fifteen year-old who wants his uncle back, kind of angry.

Is loneliness meant to be so painful?

_____

Seeing his mum with another person’s eyes takes Miles through a trip. He hadn’t noticed when he first crawled through his lookalike bedroom, too full on adrenaline and relief and save dad, save dad, save dad to take in anything that mattered. But he sees it now, standing in his lookalike kitchen. The overhead lights are a hue warmer than the one’s back home and they soften the jade of his mother’s irises. 

Not his mum. Not his mum.

Check yourself, Miles. 

They hadn’t really planned this out too well, the three of them. It was reluctantly agreed that Miles would have to stay with them in the interim, to avoid trouble (this New York is crawling with it. Trouble is the air that it breathes). There wasn’t any plausible way to explain a lookalike son, so it was more of a rip off the band-aid kind of situation.

Other-mum– no, Other-Rio is strong. She doesn’t falter even as she stares at two versions of her son, hanging in the doorway side by side with apprehension. She doesn’t say who are you? Like the other two had, full of hostility and warning. She doesn’t start screaming, or swearing or cursing Miles’ very existence– even though she would be well within her rights to. Doppelgangers are straight out of a horror movie type shit.

What she does say is:

“What happened to your faces?”

Still a nurse, no matter the universe.

(Still a mother, no matter the son)

_____

“An alternate dimension,” Other-Rio rolls the words around her tongue. Miles searches her face for fear, anger, upset— anything to send him away. She dabs a cotton pad to the scratch on his cheek. “This is… a lot to take in. I know things are advancing quickly these days, but interdimensional travel is a little… Are you okay?”

Huh?

Miles goes to reply but the words crumble between his lips and disperse. He manages a small noise of confusion. 

“Are you okay?” She repeats, slower than before, like she’s assessing him for a concussion. “It couldn’t have been comfortable travelling here. You’re hurt,” she thumbs the slowly healing gash above his eyebrow.

Miles clenches his stomach. He steels his lungs and locks his jaw and keeps his eyes wide, unblinking, because he knows—

He knows the second he lets his guard down, the second he untenses— even for just a moment—

 Miles knows his tears will drown him completely.

“I’m okay,” he tells her.

_____

They have dinner.

They have dinner.

It’s ridiculous, right? Miles can barely comprehend it himself, as he sits beside his doppelganger and across from his undead uncle and his not-mother. Other-Uncle Aaron apparently lives with them. Which is… Interesting. 

Miles might be disassociating, just a little, because they are suddenly all staring at him.

“What?” He says, voice cracking before clearing his throat.

“String beans?” Other-Uncle Aaron asks, dry. 

Miles blinks. This is so ridiculous. Like seriously. This is a fever dream. “Um,” he says eloquently, “nah. No thanks. Don’t like ‘em.”

Beside him, Other-Miles tenses.

Other-Rio laughs, a surprised thing that bubbles out of her as she stares at Miles. “You too, huh?”

Miles blinks, “what?”

“Mijo hates them too,” and she’s smiling like it’s this wonderful discovery. Other-Uncle Aaron looks indifferent, but his eyes are doing that thing again. Miles tries not to fidget. He also tries not to let the lump in his throat grow.

Mijo hates them too.

Mijo.

Not him, not Miles. 

Homesickness backhands him so fast that he almost gasps with the amount that he wants to go home. To his mum. To his dad. To his bedroom and his kitchen and the grave of his Uncle Aaron—

Miles shakes his head violently, knee jolting up into the table. 

“Sorry,” he rasps, a buzzing in his ear. They are looking at him again. “There– there was a fly.”

“Do you want a drink?” Other-Rio offers and he can hear the subtle concern and he hates it.

Miles blinks and tries not to look at any of them too hard. “Uh, yeah,” he clears his throat. “Sure, thank you. What–er, what’dya have?”

Other-Rio makes her way to the fridge. 

“There’s orange juice, some apple. Some lemonade— ugh, mijo, I’ve told you to stop leaving empty cartons in the fridge! No lemonade. We have Mr Stepper though. And some water if-"

“Huh?” Miles frowns, filled with so much confusion that it momentarily pushes everything else to the side. He must have misheard. “Dr Pepper?”

Other-Rio blinks before staring down at the bottle in her hands. “Dr Pepper? No, this is Mr Stepper? Is that the same thing? Are you using slang right now?”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Miles waves his hands around, getting to his feet. “Do you–” dread pools in his stomach at the mere notion but surely it can’t be true. “Do you guys not have Dr Pepper?” He can’t help the way his voice cracks, he really can’t.

Other-Rio looks to the other two at the table for help. Other-Uncle Aaron gives a half-hearted shrug, “no idea what the kid’s on about.”

Other-Miles with a nose scrunched up in judgement, says, “what kind of name is Dr Pepper?” 

They don’t have Dr Pepper.

He lets out a disbelieving laugh. 

He’s in an alternate universe with no way out. His doppelganger is the Prowler, a murderer. His uncle is alive but also a murderer. His mother has green eyes. His dad is going to die in less than two days. He has no friends. Miguel is probably still tweakin’ the hell out. The Spot is going to destroy the multiverse. He’s a mistake.

And there’s no Dr Pepper.

Miles bursts into tears.

Chapter Text

Embarrassment.

Miles feels the humiliation trickle down his cheeks. The hot red flush of it. The ugly twist of his gut. The thud of his heart rattling against his ribcage. It’s embarrassment. Your body betraying you when you least want it, in a kitchen of strangers with familiar skin but unrecognisable eyes. It’s embarrassment because–

Miles doesn’t cry anymore. 

He hadn’t felt the prickling sting of red eyes since weeping over his uncle’s body. Since being thirteen years-old and watching Peter Parker die. He never let it get the hit on him after that. The lump of a sob was swallowed before it could rise. He’d stare, unblinking, until his eyes stung from dryness before he’d let tear ducts get the better of him.

Miles doesn’t cry.

He’d practically vowed it, unconsciously. He had taken a look around at the rest of the Spiders and felt smaller than life. Inadequate. He’d been Miles Morales, the kid who couldn’t turn invisible on command. Miles Morales, who couldn’t save his New York’s one and only Spider-man. Miles Morales, who hadn’t experienced a ‘canon’ event yet. Miles Morales, the one to pity. Miles Morales, the one left behind. Miles Morales, the mistake.

After the death of his uncle, he didn’t need any more reasons to be seen as incapable. To been seen as the child who just hadn’t grasped it yet. The naïve one. 

Tears were weakness. 

The sob that breaks free from his throat, unbidden, is weakness. It’s a lack of control. It’s the five-year-old without his toys. The fifteen-year-old who can’t get a grip. He doesn’t know what to do with himself, fists shaking and abdomen clenching because he’s so furious and there’s nowhere to put all the rage that ignites quicker than he can extinguish. That pure blue sadness clashes against angry red. His vision blurs with more than just tears.

There’d only been one place, that Miles had ever wanted to cry again:

His mother’s arms.

His mother who had cradled his cheekbones and made him promise:

“To take care of that little boy for me.”

That place, with a chin over her shoulder and palms on his back. Miles knows that place wouldn’t hurt. He knows that she would’ve held his heart carefully. He knows that it would’ve felt safe and it wouldn’t be a weakness, to weep on her.

Other-Rio rushes over in a frantic flurry, panicked Spanglish tumbling out and eyes darting across his shaking frame in confusion as she finds no sudden injuries. She places a hand on his shoulder and Miles flinches hard, shying away like she’d slapped him.

Other-Rio blinks, “I– Uh, are you– we can– I’m sure there’s some Mr Pepper here somewhere. The fridge is a mess— I’ll look again,” she tries, mouth tilting upwards in an uneasy smile. Her eyes are trailing behind Miles to the rest of the occupants with a barely concealed SOS help me out here.

No one helps, obviously. The silence is loud. 

Other-Rio’s fingers keep twitching as she resists reaching out for him. It’s that inbuilt need to care for any and everyone, Miles tells himself. The nurse in her that never clocks off. Or maybe it’s the face he carries. Maybe she looks at him and can’t see anything but Other-Miles even while her real son sits not even five feet away. It shouldn’t make Miles feel so irritated, so horribly frustrated and angry, but it does because he’s being pitied.

“’M fine, it’s just–” Miles chokes out, coughing roughly to muffle another sob. 

Get a grip. He sniffles quickly and scrapes his knuckles beneath his eyes with a hard swipe. Blinks hard, and forces himself to feel the ground below his feet. Shit man, he’s really let himself down here. 

He needs to get a head start on damage control before this spirals to somewhere he really doesn’t want it to. He grapples for an explanation that isn’t I feel like I’m dying and everything is horrible and I’m starting to hate almost everyone in my life and I’m so sure that nothing is ever going to be okay again and my dad is going to die because of m–

“Just allergies.” 

Well done, Miles. 

Disbelief sweeps through the room. He deserves it.

“I mean,” he fumbles, “hormones.” 

Yeah that’s much better.

Other-Rio’s left eyebrow is slowly arching higher the more she looks at him. Miles sniffs again, this time to avoid snot dribbling down his mouth. He has at least some decorum.

“I’m on medication,” he amends, and then immediately wants to slap himself. “For uh… things. There are… side effects. Crying. I’m not– I’m not sad. In fact, I don’t feel anything. Not in a weird way. In a normal way. I’m normal,” his voice cracks on the end there, pitching high. 

The following silence is the nail in the coffin to Miles’ growing despair.

Fuuuuck, man.

“You really know how to make things weird,” Other-Miles comments observationally. The doppelganger still sits at the table, chin in palm while he stares Miles up and down as though this is the most entertaining thing he’s ever witnessed.

Miles tries to count to ten in his head and doesn’t even make it to one. “And you really know how to be fu—” He side eyes Other-Rio, “er, freaking annoying.” It would’ve sounded way better if his nose wasn’t stuffy.

Other-Miles shrugs his shoulders, insult rolling off his shoulders like water. “At least I’m not on ‘medication’,” he finger quotes, “or was it, allergies?”

At least he still has a dad, Miles wants to snap at the fatherless piece of–

“Boys,” Other-Rio cuts in, looking both like she has no idea what’s happening and at the same time wants to put a stop to it immediately. It’s a look Miles recognises. “Enough. Mijo, clear the table. Miles…” She trails off, unsure, as she turns to stare at him. Miles tries to not let it get to him. “Why don’t we… sit down? I’ll find you some Mr Pepper and we can talk.”

“Dr Pepper,” Miles corrects quickly as he raises his hands in panic. “I’m fine though, really. Purely chemical reaction. Nothing serious. You don’t need to–”

“You’re a terrible liar kid, anyone ever tell you that?” Other-Uncle Aaron cuts him off. 

Miles had almost forgotten he existed. Almost. It was more like he’d been willfully ignoring the man’s presence because acknowledging that your not dead uncle from another universe– who also hates you– had just witnessed one of the most humiliating moments of your life was just a step too far for Miles’ tissue paper, blow-away-in-the-wind mental stability. He’s sure you understand.

He tries to keep the edge out of his voice and fails, “I think I’ve gotten by alright. Lived a double life for more than a year without any trouble,” Miles isn’t bragging, but come on, concealing your identity as a part-time vigilante from not only your parents but also the entirety of New York is a feat. And because he just can’t help himself, he adds, “I’m sure you get how hard it is to keep a rap on that kinda thing.”

Other-Uncle Aaron’s eyes narrow into slits like he’s planning Miles demise. Yeah, well get in line. 

He sees Other-Miles tense in his periphery. Good. He may have just had a mini breakdown in their kitchen, and he may or may not still be sniffling pitifully with red rimmed eyes, but Miles is still the one with the upper hand here. 

Other-Rio is painfully oblivious, immediately latching onto the wrong words. “Double life? Is this to do with the,” she pauses, squinting at Miles’ suit. “Onesie? Is it how you ended up here?”

“Not a onesie,” Miles corrects, trying to be gentle but it’s difficult when people keep dissing his suit all the goddamn time. “Spandex. It’s ergonomic. And yeah, kinda. But it’s a long story.” 

They all look at him, waiting for him to expand on that.

He doesn’t.

“A really long story,” Miles emphasises, bristling because he’s not explaining shit. Other-Miles lets out a little scoff like he doesn’t believe a word Miles says. 

Other-Rio does that– that thing. With her eyes. The same look his mum gives him when she wants to know something but doesn’t want to push him. All down-turned eyebrows and tenderness and I’ll wait for you to tell me. Miles’ fingers tremble. 

“It’s not a good story, either,” Miles tries again. “And I’ll be gone before the night is over so–”

“Gone?” Other-Rio questions with incredulity, that Spanish accent seeping in. “Gone where?” Her eyes dart around as though she excepts him to jump out the window within the next second— which, okay, isn’t that far off.

“Back home,” Miles says like it’s obvious. “I needed to be home, like, yesterday . On a real time crunch. There wouldn’t happen to be a Wilson Fisk in this universe, would there?”

Other-Miles flinches so hard he almost falls off his chair. Oh yeah, he’d forgotten about the whole Prowler working for Kingpin shtick.

“Kid,” Other-Uncle Aaron warns. 

Miles waves him off. It’s flattering that they both think he has enough time to try and sabotage their terrible choice of occupation. Miles may be a hero, but he’s not a saint. “If he’s here, then there should be a collider— I mean, only if he’s just as messed up as the one in my universe. Anyway, I think he’s my only ticket home.” And the worst part is he’s not lying in the slightest. Miles has no one. Miguel probably has Spiders crawling up the walls of every possible dimension. He was never given a real watch in the first place— it must’ve been planned, after all, they all knew that he was the liability. The anomaly. 

Breathe, Miles.

Don’t lose yourself. 

Peter B, he had tried, but Miles can’t imagine the man risking his life for him (going against a ‘canon’ event for him). He may have inspired the guy to have a child, he may have been the reason that he’d even considered having Mayday but– but Peter has too much on the line now, he’s got a family to protect. Why would he choose Miles? Why would anyone?

And Gwen.

Gwen.

His head throbs. Gwen, she’d… She–

Ah, whatever. It is what it is. Move on. Move on now.

“–iles? Miles?”

He blinks. The kitchen shrinks and expands, walls curving in on him before they straighten out. He shakes his head roughly. “Sorry, what?”

“You sure you’re okay?” Other-Rio questions, it sounds like a plead. Say no. Let me help you. Even if it’s not his mum, he hates to be the cause of her frown— and Miles knows that nothing he’d say, no explanation, manipulated or otherwise, would sound remotely like anything she’d want to hear from someone with her son’s face.

“I’m okay,” he says and it starts to feel like prayer. I’m okay. I’m fine. This is nothing, I can keep going. There’s deception on his tongue, but for the first time, it’s internal, born from his own blood. Miles doesn’t know if that makes it any better.

“So what? You’re gonna roll up to this Fisk guy,” Other-Uncle Aaron starts, turning the name Fisk around in his mouth until it sounds foreign. “And politely ask to use his ‘collider’ or whatever, and he’s just going to let you?” There’s a warning in there somewhere, but it doesn’t feel like it’s directed at Miles. More like it’s… for him? Miles blinks. Is he worried?

Miles hopes not. It was actually easier to deal with an alternate not dead uncle that hates you. Less feelings. And guilt.

“No?” Miles gives him a look that politely says are you out of your mind? “I’m not askin’ him jack. M’just gonna do it. He won’t be able to stop me.” He’s pretty confident about that, actually. Yeah, Kingpin had roughed him up real good in his universe, but that was a year ago. Miles just out-swung over a hundred Spiders and beat a feral vampire twice his age in hand to hand combat. Fisk’ll be light work. He’s got this in the bag.

“You’re just going to do it,” Other-Uncle Aaron repeats slowly, staring at him carefully, eyes unreadable. Miles tries not to fidget. 

He juts his chin out, chest puffing. “M’just gonna do it,” he confirms.

Other-Rio and Other-Uncle Aaron share a look– which Miles can’t decipher, yet again– before the man leaves the table and they both head off into the living room with a we’ll be right back, Mijo, Miles. Give us a sec. 

Okay then. Miles leans against the counter and tries to look anywhere but his ass of a doppelganger.

“You’re more unhinged than I thought,” Other-Miles comments in that stupid I’m better than you, silly no sabo kid in a onesie, voice.

“You’re more cowardly than I thought,” Miles fires back. 

Other-Miles’ jaw ticks. Miles raises both his eyebrows in a c’mon then.

“Must’ve done some shit, to end up here. Solo, ” Other-Miles drawls. 

Miles forces his shoulders to untense. “I’ll bet it ain’t half the shit you’ve done.”

Other-Miles rolls his eyes, “you’ve got a real complex, haven’t you? Bout’ morals and doing the right thing. Did your daddy teach you that?”

“Yours didn’t?” Fighting words, those are.

Other-Miles’ eyes narrow, posture drawing tight and coiled. A tiger ready to pounce. “He can’t’ve taught you enough, if you’re getting beaten bloody and bruised all the time,” he’s not discrete with the way he surveys Miles’ face, lingering on every gash, scrape and bruise.

“You’d know all ‘bout that, wouldn’t you? Who’s on your hit-list tonight? Who’re you goin’ to get the jump on whilst your mama sleeps thinking her son is a good person.”

“Cuidadito” Other-Miles sneers. Careful.  “Don’t talk about shit you wouldn’t understand. It’ll get you in trouble.”

“That’s never stopped me,” Miles squares his shoulders.

Other-Miles sniffs, looks him up and down. “One day it will.”

“Not anytime soon,” Miles says, because yeah, it’s true. He’s not an idiot. There’ll come a day where Miles bites off more than he can chew and it’ll be his ruin. He knows that. But as far as he’s concerned, that’s the way he’d prefer to go out. Rather do too much than too little.

Other-Miles is silent for a moment, sizing him up. “You’re reckless.”

“And you aren’t?” Miles questions incredulously. He finds it a little hard to believe.

“Not like you,” the teen shrugs, leaning back against his chair. “What’d you do so bad? To get chased here?”

He’s quick, this doppelganger. Infers a lot without ever letting it show. Picks up hints and runs a mile.

“Try to save my dad,” Miles tries to sound casual and fails. This conversation is taking a turn he doesn’t like. He fidgets against the counter.

Other-Miles blinks. “You’re being chased… for trying to save your dad? Your world full of supervillains or something?” The boy sounds so bewildered that Miles can’t hold back a snort.

“Nah, it’s like,” and he doesn’t know why but Miles actually starts explaining the shit he’d just swore he wouldn’t, to the person he thought he hated the most in this terrible universe. “In my world there’s this vigilante called Spider-man and uh, well turns out he wasn’t the only one because I got bitten by this radioactive spider and it gave me the superpowers, right? Cool shit, but only once you know how to use it. Anyways my Spider-man died so I kinda…” Stole the mantle from him. “Took inspiration from him and kept the thing going. Anyways, turns out there are way more Spider-men, like Spider-kids, Spider-women, Spider-pigs—”

“What the fuck,” Other-Miles squints.

Miles nods his head in an enthusiastic I know right. 

“Yeah, there’s like this massive HQ where everyone meets up and shit, which is cool but I was never invited and then suddenly I was invited and that was awesome, for a bit, but then this bulky-feral-vampire guy called Miguel who I thought  would be like my Spider Tio turns around and is like,” he clears his throat, deepening his voice, “Canon events are critical to every Spider-person, blah blah blah, manipulation, blah blah blah, I hate you, blah blah blah, your dad must DIE. So obviously,” he takes in a deep breath, trying not to think to deeply about any of what he’s saying, “I had to get the hell out of there. But then, wait, more plot twists–” 

Other-Miles’ eyebrows raise in palpable disbelief.

“Turns out that apparently my whole identity as Spider-man is actually a mistake and I was never meant to get powers and that by becoming Spider-man I’ve somehow created a multiversal level threat and am actively destroying universes just by existing. So that was fun to hear, but then it gets better because turns out all my friends already knew and just never told me,” he smiles like he’s talking about the weather and not a turn of events that could have been the kick-start to his villain arc. His hands shake so he curls them into fists.

“Bro,” Other-Miles says after a minute of silence.

“Bro,” Miles agrees, and hey, this is kinda nice. If he ignores all the glaring reasons why it’s not nice, that is.

“Wait, so,” Other-Miles squints in thought, head tilting. “How did you end up here?”

“Oh yeah,” Miles blinks, “I was actually trying to go home. Through this dimensional teleportation machine in the HQ, but because I’m a mistake, supposedly, and the spider I was bitten by wasn’t meant for me— it sent me here. Because the spider was originally in this universe, I guess, and was meant to bite…” He trails off.

Other-Miles stares at him.

Miles stares back.

“It…” Other-Miles starts, and he’s not just sizing Miles up anymore. He’s scrutinizing every bit of him, gaze lingering on the spray painted spider on his chest. “Me? It was meant to bite me?”

Miles doesn’t say a word.

Other-Miles is sitting one moment and standing the next. His eyes have hardened, almost instantaneously.  It’s dangerous, the look his doppelganger gives him. It’s vitriol. It’s sharp. It’s deep. Hatred reborn anew.

“So what?” The Spanish curl of the words is quick, hostile. “The reason my New York is in ruins— the reason there’s street fires every fucking– my dad— It’s you?”

Shit.

Miles ducks the first punch.

Chapter Text

Miles Morales is the son of Jefferson Davis and Rio Morales, nephew of Aaron Davis, and friend of more than a dozen stray animals.

He is six years-old, the first time a collarless dog nudges its nose underneath his ribs. Its wet snout dampens his t-shirt and he scrunches up his nose in disgust, like he isn’t the same kid who still picks his nose for boogers and eats them without a second thought. 

“Dad!” He whines, tripping over his own feet to try and avoid the clingy canine. “Help me, help me! It’s trying to eat me!”

His father laughs, strolling towards him at snail’s pace with a smile like it’s the most entertaining scene he’s witnessed all day. “It likes you, Miles.”

Miles doesn’t want it to like him. Dogs are scary. And nasty. The dog howls pitifully as though it can hear his thoughts. 

He’s swept up into his dad’s arms and immediately wraps his legs tight around the man’s waist, shoes pointed to the sky to avoid the playful nibbles of the dog. 

“It won’t leave me alone,” he buries his face in his dad’s neck, peeking down at the animal with tremulous eyebrows and a scowl. 

“It’s a puppy, Miles. It just wants to play,” his father chuckles and it rumbles his whole chest. Miles presses an ear to the man’s shoulder and listens. “It’s a good thing too, you know. That it likes you. Animals are very good judges of character. It knows how wonderful you are, son.”

When they leave the park, Miles dangling off his father’s shoulders with a chin atop the man’s head, he keeps his eyes on the dog. It watches them leave, tail wagging between its legs and a long tongue lolling out its mouth. Miles sticks out his own tongue and wiggles it. The dog lets out a yip and he giggles.

/////

Miles is seven and a half years-old, and there’s a baby bird on his window sill.

It’s got big eyes and a tiny beak. When he had pushed his curtains aside, its neck had twitched to look up at him, all curious and quiet. 

Miles isn’t allowed to open his window, but he knows where his parents hide the keys– he just hasn’t told them, in case they decide to change hiding spots. The house is silent and Miles tiptoes the entire way to the cupboard in the hallway. The keys jingle when he takes them out and he shushes them violently before high-tailing it back to his room.

The bird is still there.

When he lets it in, it immediately spreads its wings and soars straight past his head, proceeding to bump and scratch and crash against every surface it can find in his room. Miles yelps, frightened and more than a little irritated because hey, that’s really rude.

Of course that wakes both of his parents up.

His dad lets out a slew of barely censored curses while his mum doesn’t hold back at all, swearing in that mixture of Spanish and English that she sometimes creates when she’s angry.

It takes over half an hour to get rid of the bird. 

/////

Miles is ten and wearing a hoodie three sizes too big when he gets home from school.

His mum takes one look at him and crosses her arms. Uncle Aaron sits at the table.

“Mijo–” His mother starts but Miles cuts her off.

“Hi, Uncle Aaron, when’dya get here?” He gives one of his best smiles, the wide one that his teachers love. His fingers twitch in front of his stomach.

Uncle Aaron raises one eyebrow very slowly, mouth twitching in amusement and doesn’t say a word.

“Miles, whatever you’ve brought into the house,” his mum starts, eyes falling shut, “take it out before I see it.”

“What?” Miles sputters, eyebrows high and eyes wide. “I don’t have any–”

“Miles Gonzalo Morales, take it out side.”

“Ma,” Miles resists the urge to stomp his feet. “Please. Just this once. She’s only a baby and she was all alone and–”

“No–”

Miles barrels on, “her parents must have died and she looked so hungry, look at her,” and he unzips his hoodie at once, black kitten curled up in the pouch of it. “She’s so tiny, and she’s got no one and we have to help her, Mami, or she might die and if she dies then I’ll blame you and we’ll have to make her a grave in the park and you’ll feel guilty forever for the rest of your life because you could have let me keep her but you didn’t. So…”

He blinks imploringly.

Uncle Aaron has been laughing since Miles unzipped his hoodie.

His mum’s jaw ticks, mouth flat and eyes narrowed before she sighs heavily. “Where are the rest?”

“Wha-huh?” Miles stutters. “What rest? There’s no–”

“Miles.”

His shoulders slump.

“There’s five more in the hallway.”

/////

He doesn’t get to keep the kittens. His parents search around the neighbourhood for willing owners, and one by one, the kittens are adopted. Well, not all of them. The black one, the only girl, they keep. 

His mum calls her pest, but brings home tuna after every shift.

His dad calls her baldy, because of the patch behind her left ear.

Miles calls her Zip, after he finds her one too many times fiddling with the metal of his hoodies.

/////

“Where’s baldy?” His dad peeks into the living room, fresh from work in his uniform.

Miles points down to his legs, where Zip is curled up between his knees.

His dad smiles, coming over to tickle the kitten across the head gently. “She loves you.”

Miles tries not to preen, but it’s true. Zip is always clinging to him, twirling around his legs the minute he steps through the door. “It’s because I’m the nicest,” he jokes.

His dad ruffles his hair. “It’s because you’re amazing, and she can sense it. She’s smart, she chose you for a reason.”

Miles shakes his head out of the man’s grasp with a groan, “Dad, you're so embarrassing. You know that right?”

His dad laughs and ruffles his hair even worse, says, “of course I know that, I do it on purpose, you know that right?” before sauntering off. Miles watches him go and smiles to himself.

/////

There’s a raccoon in a box. 

It’s soaking wet and snuffling quietly.

Miles pauses, and contemplates, rocking back and forth on his heels as he weighs out the pros and cons. Within the next ten seconds he’s shoving the soggy animal into his hoodie. It’s too tired to even fight back, falling limp against his chest and he knows that he really can’t leave it behind now.

His mother swears in Spanish the moment he steps into the kitchen. She pinches the bridge of her nose and turns away, back facing him. “Mi amor!” She calls out, Puerto Rican accent thick, and really, an endearment like that shouldn’t be able to contain so much ire.

Miles’ dad pops into the kitchen a second later, eyes wide as he says, “yes baby?” and then makes eye contact with Miles’ whole–  just— everything , and lets out a deep sigh. “Not again, kid.”

“He’s your son today,” his mother says, still turned around. “You deal with it. But if I have to see whatever it is that he’s found off the street anywhere near me, I’m going to lose my mind,” she promises.

Miles’ shoulders hunch in on themselves. He tries for a sheepish expression. His dad isn’t impressed. “It’s just one raccoon, I promise,” he tries to soothe.

“Ra– racoon?!” His mother sputters, turning around in utter disbelief. “Miles. Get it out! Now!”

“Ma–”

“Rabies, Miles! They exist!”

“Son, take the racoon outside.”

“Guys please–”

(They end up taking the racoon to the nearest shelter. Miles visits it for the next three weeks, every day after school, just to watch the way it fattens up and grows softer fur.)

/////

“Kiddo,” his dad lingers in the doorway of Miles’ bedroom.

Miles uncrosses his legs and throws his pen to the side, relieved for any excuse to not focus on his homework. “Hey, dad,” he hums.

Zip has jumped off the bed to paw at his father’s legs. The man chuckles and picks her up. She sinks her teeth into the thick cotton of his uniform. 

“Listen,” his dad starts and Miles tries not to roll his eyes, he really does. Maybe he should get back on with his maths equations after all. “Listen,” his dad repeats with a huff like he knows what Miles is thinking. “I’m not about to lecture you, although I really should. I know you love animals, I know they love you. That’s ancient news. I just want you to be careful with who you’re picking off the street, not all animals are friendly– as surprising as that seems- and some carry diseases that could leave all of us in trouble. Just like with your doodling, and the graffiti that I know you and Aaron create– you two can’t fool me– there’s a time and a place, right? You wouldn’t draw on your homework, would you?”

Miles blinks, and then ever so slowly, shuffles his homework out of sight. “Of course not, dad.”

“Exactly,” his father barrels on. He’s started to pet the top of Zip’s head unconsciously. “So, time and a place. If they look rough, you can call the emergency services. For animals. The one for animals.  Not the one for humans, please. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is stop giving your mother a heart attack. Let’s give her a break, yeah? No more rogue, slightly feral animals in the kitchen.”

“Did mami put you up to this?” Miles questions immediately.

“No,” his dad answers back too quickly. 

Miles gives him a look.

His father’s shoulders slump a little, “yeah, alright. Doesn’t change a thing, young man. No more strays in the house.”

Miles fully plans to exploit the loopholes in that rule, and says, “okay, Papi. Time and place, got it,” he smiles a bit too wide.

His dad rolls his eyes, because he really does know Miles too well. “Baldy’s going to keep an eye on you for me,” he jokes before looking down at the cat. “Aren’t you, baldy? Chase away any strays Miles tries to bring home for me, okay? Good girl.”

Miles huffs, shaking his head, “stop trying to manipulate her, she’s not gonna listen. I’m the favourite, remember?”

His dad grins, “damn right you are.”

/////

Miles Morales is almost thirteen years-old, he’s friends with more than a dozen of the animals in his neighbourhood, he’s the nephew of Aaron Davis, the son of Rio Morales and–

And he was the son of Jefferson Davis.

There’s something in him that dies with his father. A piece of him that his father takes to the grave, a fragment that he can’t recover because the dead are selfish and leave you with nothing. Miles can’t help thinking that it was the best part of him.

/////

There are dogs everywhere. They line the streets and howl. Miles is almost thirteen years-old, and he thinks he’ll never be happy again. 

A casket is carried along the streets.

His mother’s cries tear through him. 

/////

There are riots every night. People scream of injustice. Of meaningless violence and a lack of protection. Of lives lost without reason. 

His mother shuts all the windows to keep the smoke out.

Miles sits and stares out at the sky dyed orange. Zip nips at his fingers playfully.

He rubs that spot behind her ears and his eyes well, unbidden. 

“He’s gone, Zip,” he tells the cat who leans into his palm. She doesn’t understand. She looks at him with her guileless little eyes and doesn’t understand a single thing. She doesn’t get it— that she’ll never hear the front door open three times a day instead of two, that she’ll never feel a palm that big on the crown of her head ever again, that she’ll never hear the name Baldy spoken from anyone else’s lips. 

When she meows obliviously and licks at his fingers, Miles folds over, curling in on himself and screams, “he’s gone, Zip! He’s never coming back, don’t you get it?!”

/////

He stands on Uncle Aaron’s shoulders and paints a reluctant picture.

Forced reds, and smudged yellows, angry greens and blues, the brown doesn’t want to come out of the can. His hands work against him. His stomach wishes he would stop, clenching and unclenching. His eyes try to put a halt to it, stinging and burning and building their own waterfall on his eyelashes. His vision blurs, he continues anyway. 

Uncle Aaron’s shoulders must hurt, but he never says a word.

/////

The first time Miles sneaks out of the window, it's for a breath of fresh air. His mother doesn’t notice, she can’t afford to— it’s the only rest she gets. The fridge has started looking more empty than usual. He’s started to pretend not to notice. His mother has started to pretend that she doesn’t notice him pretending.

He’s thirteen and two stray dogs trail behind him like he’s their owner.

“Go away!” He barks out to them, stamping his heels into the rubble ridden ground. They come to a halt, staring up at him with those round eyes, tails tucked between their legs.

He turns around and they follow once more. 

/////

Sneaking out once a week turns into once every other night which turns into every time the sun sets. 

It’s inevitable that he finds himself in trouble.

It’s inevitable that he finds himself in the company of one Wilson Fisk, who takes one look at him and says:

“Kid, don’t you want to help?”

That’s all it takes. 

Of course Miles wants to help. He wants the electricity to stop running out while his mother tries to make them toast. He wants to open the windows in their house again, without the risk of inhaling carbon monoxide. He wants his mother to smile again, properly. He wants this feeling in his chest to rise and never come back again. 

He looks up at the large shadow of a man, and knows that nothing good will come of this.

But Miles has also been angry, for a while now. It’s seeped beneath his skin and it’s not coming out anytime soon. He doesn’t even want it to. He wants to be angry, because it’s better than being sad. Because it feels like he should be. Because the world has been burning ever since—

“Yeah,” he agrees with a shrug, “how d’you want me to ‘help’?”

/////

Helping, is this:

Turning to his mother, and gathering the crumpled bills into his palms, flattening them onto the kitchen table.

“Mijo? What’s this?”

“I’ve started working after school,” he tells her, and tries to remember the last time he had lied to his mother without it showing on his face.  Tries not to think of who he’s becoming. “Just a part-time thing, at a bodega near the station. I know the owner’s son in school, it’s like a family business.”

His mother is looking for his tell— the one where his mouth twitches at the corners— but it doesn’t show and her shoulders slump a little, with something like relief, and something like disappointment. 

“Thank you, baby,” she tells him. “Quit whenever you want, the minute it starts to tire you out— you hand your resignation straight in, okay? We will always manage, no matter what.”

“Okay, Mami,” he agrees, lying through his teeth.

Helping, is also:

The knife Miles imbeds in the side of a boy a couple years older than him, for witnessing something he shouldn’t have. It’s the face the teenager makes, choked on a gasp with a fist clinging to Miles’ shoulder. It’s the tremble that shakes and shakes and shakes until it stops completely. It’s him, alone in an alleyway of Brooklyn when he should be sleeping, blood seeping into the black of his t-shirt. 

Helping, is:

Learning to swerve quick enough to avoid a bullet to his brain. It’s acting as bait to lead a man right to Mr Fisk. It’s Mr Fisk, placing a hand on his shoulder and telling him to watch as they take the man apart, bit by bit, until he’s bruised unrecognisable. It’s his hands that he curls into fists and the breath he holds until he’s crawling back in through the window.

Helping turns out to be:

Killing yourself, too. Shedding a skin you thought you’d never have to– your own. It becomes you, in the middle of the night, practising to not pull your punches, to tighten your fists and aim for the vital points. You, twisting your body, over and over again, to avoid the blows that you couldn’t defend quick enough, so that your mama doesn’t need to worry . You, staring into the mirror, and not recognising the person staring back. You, learning to not care that you barely feel like yourself anymore.

It’s you, by a grave, with a six foot hole by your feet. It’s you, climbing into that hole. It’s you, laying yourself down. You, mourning, for you.

/////

“Mama,” Miles says, “can you braid my hair?”

/////

A woman is choking on her breaths. Miles keeps his hand to her neck and doesn’t blink. She’s trying to look into his eyes but the mask prevents it. Her hands are squeezing his arms, pleading. 

“Nothing personal,” Miles tells her, as though it’s meant to be a comfort. 

Her eyes are dimming, vocal chords falling quiet and he tells himself to feel nothing. It’s just business. It’s just that extra food on the table, it’s just the toaster actually working for once, it’s just his mother resting her eyes for that bit longer.

Meow.

He doesn’t flinch, but it’s a close thing.

It’s a kitten, that blinks blearily, perched in the doorway and watching Miles strangle its owner with a small yawn. It doesn’t understand. It’s watching its owner die and it doesn’t even realise. There’s something in Miles’ throat that he can’t swallow around. The woman’s pulse stops. He climbs off of her fast. Already at the window sill within the next second. 

Meowww.

It mewls, stumbling over to him as though it’s not used to walking on all fours just yet. Miles doesn’t move. It paws at the leg he leaves dangling, little teeth coming out to bite into the leather of his boot playfully.

“Animals are very good judges of character.”

What bullshit. 

That night when climbs into his bedroom, he slumps down against his wall, draws Zip to his chest, and cries.

/////

Uncle Aaron finds out.

It’s real ugly. There’s screaming and shouting and fighting. Miles slamming his fists into the man’s chest because he won’t stop, no one can’t make him stop. Because he has to do this. Because don’t you get it? There’s no hope for any of them. Because he doesn’t want to get a call that his mother passed out after working three twenty-four hour shifts in a row ever again.

“If you tell my mum, I’ll kill you,” he tells the man, at the age of fourteen, with tears lining his eyes. 

Uncle Aaron wraps a hand around the back of his neck—

And draws him into a hug.

Uncle Aaron says:

“I’m going to help you.”

And by now, Miles knows that there’s nothing good that’ll come of it. Their definitions of help are getting more and more distorted with every street fire that sweeps the neighbourhood. Yet still, his shoulders slump with relief, to know he’s not alone.

/////

Miles visits his dad’s grave and gives himself one afternoon, to regret.

He sits by the gravestone, head between his knees and grieves. 

I’ve made a real mess of myself, dad, he tells the sky. It’s okay to hate me, too.

/////

Zip runs away, and never comes back.

“Took you long enough,” Miles tells the air outside his window.

Chapter Text

Miles Morales has a doppelganger. 

He looks into his own eyes, and feels fear– for the first time in years. 

For almost three years, Miles has climbed through his bedroom window at the beginning of Brooklyn’s sunrise, and every morning, like clockwork, he has silently crept his way into the bathroom. For almost three years, he has stared into the mirror, with the rising sun as a lone witness, and searched.  For almost three years, Miles has scrutinised and scoured and squinted. Ransacked his own skin. Dug beneath his eyelids. Scraped along his tongue. Searching. He’s glared into his own eyes, furious and haunted and yearning , for even the slightest of signs.

He had once considered taking the Prowler’s claw and forcing it across his face, so that it could unearth his blood and bones, for even just the chance of glimpsing—

Miles has been looking for years, every single day, and now he finds it, as he stares into the eyes of a boy wearing his skin.

He’s found it, and now he wishes to lose it. Desperately, he wishes. 

You want to know what he’s been looking for. He thinks you already do. He thinks the entire universe knows it, too. 

The twelve year-old boy. The human. That thumping, bleeding heart. Those clean hands. Those cleaner eyes. 

That quarter of his soul, that he’d torn from himself in a frenzy, panicked and weeping. Too scared to feel the way it had felt to grieve. His cowardly nails, tearing at his own chest, terrified of being alive. 

The boy he’d left behind, beside his father’s grave, and promised to come back to, when it stopped hurting.

The boy he’d lied to, because nothing had ever stopped hurting, and it never would.

/////

Miles wants to kill this boy. 

The intensity of this desire rattles him. Miles has never wanted to kill anybody. He’s drained the life out of more than he can count on his hands, and not once, has it ever been something he wanted. It’s been business. It’s been money. It’s been indifference. 

It has never been this.

It’s never been his own palms burning. It’s never been his lungs, igniting. It’s never been him, consumed and malicious ( and panicking. Frantic panicking, because Uncle Aaron is right there. The man can see. He can see the boy Miles is meant to be–).

The boy with his mouth asks:

“Who are you?” 

In an accent that he’d let go of. Infuriating. Fury licks at his heels. Miles wants to snarl. He wants to smash this kid’s head apart.

“I’m Miles Morales,” he replies. Because he is, and he should be the only one. Condescension pools on his tongue and he lets it drip. “But you… you can call me the Prowler.”

The universe is mocking him, and Miles doesn’t intend to let it slide. He intends to show this wannabe a lesson. He intends to destroy any evidence that such a person could ever exist. He intends—

The doppelganger doesn’t blindside him, because that’s ridiculous. Miles would never allow that, not after he’s trained for fucking hours on end, every single day just to end up—

Kicked right across the jaw.

Miles has never hated anyone more.

It’s only fitting, really, that his worst enemy would be another version of himself.

/////

There’s something off about the doppelganger.

 Well, aside from being an idiot, which he undoubtedly is. His mirrored self has no tact, no cunning, and bares his heart with two hands for all to see. His expressions, painfully obvious. It’s embarrassing to witness.

“What’s with the braids?” The idiot questions, and Miles wants to be the mature one here, but there’s hardly ever any fun in that.

So he says:

“What’s with the high-top?”

And watches the way the sorry excuse of a Morales grows irritated within seconds. It’s pathetic really. And rather amusing. 

Until it isn’t. The doppelganger clearly has no reservations about being a dick, and an apparent know-it-all about shit that doesn’t concern him. 

Easy, Uncle Aaron’s palm on his neck. Miles wants to bristle and swat him off. Wants to tell him that you don’t understand, what it’s like to look into your own face, and feel such uncontrollable hatred. To hate yourself so badly, for being the person you’re not.

Instead he lets his shoulders relax, because he is the Miles with the brains, clearly.

The boy is stubborn. Determined. An unstoppable force with the way he just doesn’t stop, the way his shoulders stay squared like he’s waiting for Miles to attack when he’s least paying attention. He’s vigilant. And clearly paranoid– although not without reason, he supposes, since Miles really does want to hurt him. 

The doppelganger fidgets, unconsciously, and his breath catches every so often, like he’s on the verge of hyperventilating, only to draw all the panic inwards until it’s barely visible. 

Miles is curious, but his jaw still aches and he’s reluctant to participate in anything even remotely close to civilised conversation with this two-brain-cells-maximum loser. So he simply watches and observes.

“Miguel thought he could try and beat obedience into me but I’ll never stop doing what I know is right. I don’t care how many villains come after me. How many times they try to kill me. I’ll get up again. I always get up, and I’m never goin’ to quit.”

Uncle Aaron shares a look with him, because this guy definitely has issues. Miles has no idea who Miguel is, but he doesn’t need to— battering fifteen year-olds is always going to be extremely questionable. Although, it’s not like Miles has much room left to judge. 

Still, in some twisted way, it almost makes him feel better to know that no version of himself is allowed to live unscathed. 

/////

His doppelganger meets his mother, and Miles has never wanted the universe to collapse in on itself more. He wishes, that he had been more prepared, wishes that he could have killed the boy before it escalated to this. Wishes there was a corpse of himself, back at Uncle Aaron’s, waiting to be buried, rather than standing in his kitchen.

Miles watches as his mother stares between the two of them. Eyes darting to and fro, taking in all the resemblances– the height, the eyes, the mouths, the limbs. And all the differences– the hair, the jawline, the posture (the good, the good, the fucking good). 

Miles wants to disappear, suddenly. Desperately. He wants to run. He wants to cover his face with both palms, to tug out his braids and crouch low, so that his mother will never be able to look at him and realise what she’s lost. What she doesn’t even realise is missing. 

So that she doesn’t find the son that’s been missing, in the boy that stands beside him.

His mami opens her mouth and he imagines her asking:

“Mijo, who’s this?” To his doppelganger instead of Miles.

He imagines her coming to the realisation, all by herself and saying:

“You’re not my son,” to him. And he won’t be able to disagree. He won’t even manage a single word.

He imagines—

Instead, his mother asks:

“What happened to your faces?”

Somehow, it feels worse.

/////

He watches his mother patch up the boy with his face and tries, desperately, to feel anything other than bitterness– lest it show in his eyes. He counts to ten in his head, and then starts again. 

One two three—

“Are you okay?” His mother asks.

Four, five six, seven–

“I’m okay,” the doppelganger replies.

Eight, nine, ten.

/////

Miles sits beside his fidgeting copy, and practises indifference.

The idiot bursts into tears, and he finds himself struggling.

It’s just so interesting. 

There’s nothing about this look-alike that makes sense. Hot one minute, lukewarm the next. Fighting with the skills of a trained combatant one second, crying over a nonexistent drink the next. The other boy constantly looks like he’s on the verge of losing his mind, and yet he keeps on going like he’s never learnt to stop. Never learnt to take a break, to give himself a moment to be torn apart before building back up again. 

It’s… familiar except– Except that Miles doesn’t want to relate to him ever, and so therefore, he doesn’t. He’s never wanted to be less like someone in his life (if only, to mask how much he wishes was).  

His gut twists uncomfortably the longer he stares at the fool who cries with a raw throat as though it may be the last sounds he makes.

His mother fusses over the doppelganger like she’s never known anything else. Like it doesn’t matter, that it’s not actually her son. 

On the bright side:

The idiot lies terribly. Which does wonders to Miles’ mood. Like, terribly. Humiliatingly, almost. No, definitely. 

“You really know how to make things weird,” Miles can’t help himself.

The look he gets for that comment gives him a thrill of amusement. It really is too easy to rile up this guy.

“And you really know how to be fu– er, freaking annoying.”

What an idiot.

/////

The doppelganger goes from having two brain cells to having zero.

“M’just gonna do it,” the boy says. Like that isn’t a death wish to be fulfilled.

Miles finally understands. He’s finally realised what makes this look-alike so strange and off-putting— It wasn’t the boy’s hair, despite how ugly it is. It wasn’t his eyes, despite being far too expressive to be anything but childish. It wasn’t even the fucking onesie that he apparently wears out of choice (like, what the hell).

It was just because the guy’s insane.

Which makes a lot more sense, and Miles wonders how he didn’t see it sooner.

Uncle Aaron and his mother leave, probably to discuss how they’re going to deal with the deranged doppelganger who can’t see common sense even if it was standing right in front of him. 

“You’re more unhinged than I thought,” Miles says casually, but it comes out more civil than he’d wanted. Almost edging on concern, which is unacceptable.

Luckily the idiot doesn’t notice.

“You’re more cowardly than I thought.”

Miles really doesn’t like this guy. He counts to ten in his head. No violence in the kitchen. No violence in the kitchen. They’d only just fixed the wobbly leg on the dining table. Relax, you’re ten times smarter than this echo of a person.

“Must’ve done some shit, to end up here. Solo, ” Miles lets the Puerto Rican accent glide along his tongue, tilts his head and stares. 

It works. The look-alike tries, but he’s got so many easy tells. It’s child’s play to find the right buttons to push.

“I’ll bet it ain’t half the shit you’ve done.”

Miles rolls his eyes. Get a look at the complex on this guy. Such a good boy, isn’t he? The doppelganger can preach his morals about justice and rights and wrongs until the sun rises, it’ll never result in anything more than a shrug from Miles. He’s made peace with demons (or at least, he pretends he has). 

“You’ve got a real complex, haven’t you?” He hums. “Bout’ morals and doing the right thing. Did your daddy teach you that?” 

It’s a low blow, even for him– but not for the right reasons. It’s a low blow, because Miles is digging his own fingers further into his festering wounds. Like a sore tooth that you can’t help wriggling, just for the pain of it. It’s a low blow, because he’s reminding himself of exactly what he lacks. What this undeserving clone gets to have. What he would have had, if the universe loved him back. 

And he twists it, unfurls that yearning sadness and crumples it, shapes it into disgust. Something much more manageable. 

“Yours didn’t?”

No violence in the goddamn kitchen, Miles.

He counts to ten.

“He can’t’ve taught you enough, if you’re getting beaten bloody and bruised all the time,” he challenges. It’s a weak rebuttal, all things considered.

“You’d know all ‘bout that, wouldn’t you? Who’s on your hit-list tonight? Who’re you goin’ to get the jump on whilst your mama sleeps thinking her son is a good person.”

Kitchen. You’re in the kitchen. No. Violence.

Miles hates this guy so much. This stupid kid in pyjamas, who carries around a title like Spider-man, as if it’s supposed to mean something. This boy, who squares his shoulders and puffs his chest and thinks he’s better than Miles– just because– just because he–

Miles counts to five when he can’t make it to ten.

“Cuidadito,” he can’t control the venom in his voice. Careful.  “ Don’t talk about shit you wouldn’t understand. It’ll get you in trouble.” It’s a threat.

But the doppelganger doesn’t take it as one. 

“That’s never stopped me,” he says.

Of course it hasn’t, Miles thinks, bitter. Of course it hasn’t.

/////

Whatever kind of backstory Miles was expecting, it wasn’t this. He’ll admit it, he’s a little more than bewildered and wonders what the hell is wrong with this guy’s universe (or universes? He’s not sure). For the first time since this whole mess started, Miles is not envious.

In fact, he’s almost sympathetic. Almost. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.

“Bro,” is all he manages after the doppelganger finishes his rather traumatic retelling of events. 

Miles stares into the eyes of the person wearing his face, and looks, not just for everything that he’s not, but for everything that this boy is: the scars, along his cheekbones; the jaded edge to his irises, like everything he sees is tinged with disappointment; the tremor of his fingers, that clench by his side. Miles stares at him, and wonders, if perhaps the grass is not as green as he’d once imagined.

He wonders if it would be worth it, to swap places with someone like this. If it’d hurt any less, in the long run. He thinks it would, but by how much? Is it even measurable, to begin with?

“Wait, so,” Miles thinks aloud, mulling. “How did you end up here?”

“Oh yeah,” The teen blinks, like he’d forgotten. “I was actually trying to go home. Through this dimensional teleportation machine in the HQ, but because I’m a mistake, and the spider I was bitten by wasn’t meant for me— it sent me here. Because the spider was originally in the universe, I guess, and was meant to bite…” 

There’s a sudden ringing in his ear. White noise, as though he’d been knocked in the head. That fuzzy blankness before the pain sets in, before the blood starts to leak from your temple. The warning, that something isn’t quite right. It fills his mind.

No. No it can’t be. 

“It…” Miles starts, slow. Considering. He rakes his eyes up and down the doppelganger’s form, something dangerous dripping into his bloodstream, one drop at a time with every second that passes. He stares into the boy’s eyes, jaded, yes, but not the eyes of a murderer. His hands, bruised and shaking, yes, but clean. His ridiculous suit that may look like pyjamas, but is the marking of a hero.  

“Me? It was meant to bite me?”

Miles stares into his own eyes, and feels his blood boil.

“So what?” Miles spits. “The reason my New York is in ruins— the reason there’s street fires every fucking– my dad— It’s you?”

The ghost of him, the mirror of him, the would-be of him, doesn’t say a word. And that says enough.

Fuck the kitchen.

/////

Miles has never felt like this. He’s never been so consumed like this. His hands have never felt like weapons, the way they do now. He’s never been so vicious, so volatile and angry in all his life.

This perfect version of him, he could have been bitten by a million spiders ten times over and he still wouldn’t be strong enough to beat Miles. Not because Miles is more skilled, or more powerful or more resourceful. But because Miles is murderous, where his counterpart isn’t. Because he knows that this copycat will still pull his punches where it matters, because he will avoid the vital organs while Miles aims straight for them.

If that makes him terrible, if it makes him the bad guy, then that’s fine.

“Woah! Shit,” the doppelganger curses, just barely managing to dodge a kick to the abdomen. “Chill! It’s not my fault, you insane–”

“I’ll kill you,” Miles cuts him off with a promise and punch that only just misses the side of the boy’s head. His fist smashes into the wall, and plaster crumbles. Miles can’t bring himself to feel anything about it, he can’t even feel his fist.

“Murdering your alternate self is a little bit–”

Why won’t this guy just shut up?

Miles’ fingers snag on the back of the boy’s suit, right on the neck, and he flings him backwards. The doppelganger goes sprawling with a small yelp. They roll onto the dining table, cutlery and plates that Miles was supposed to clean up fall to the floor with a clatter. The tablecloth twists and scrunches beneath them as they exchange blows. There’s string beans under his left knee and the doppelganger’s hair sits in gravy. 

Miles lands a solid punch to his jaw and watches the way he gasps, head snapping to the side.

But the doppelganger barely flinches as grits his teeth and snaps his jaw back into place with a small crunch , twisting his head back around with a glare that sends a chill straight through Miles’ spine.

“I’m so fucking sick,” the look-alike’s fist manages to land right in the middle of his stomach, and Miles chokes out a gasp. 

“Mijo! Miles!”

“Of being hit,” they go tumbling off the table onto the floor, shards of broken ceramic dig into Miles’ back and his head snaps to the side with another punch straight to his cheekbones. 

“Boys! Get off of each other now!”

“For existing! I didn’t choose this! You dumbass. You fucking dumbass. I hate you!” his doppelganger screams.

Miles tries to block but his rib-cage won’t stop squeezing his lungs. He tries to block another blow to the face, right above his jawline, but his forearms are starting to ache too much to move. He tries to block the uppercut, right beneath his chin but Miles—

Miles thinks that maybe he—

Maybe—

“I’m not the reason you’re a piece of shit!” His doppelganger snaps, full of disgust and vitriol and impatience— like Miles is a child, who just doesn’t get it. “That’s all on you. You chose to do this. You chose this life. You chose to do nothing good and it’s never been my fault! You’re a bad person all on your own, so stop trying to push the blame just to make yourself feel better!”

There’s something in Miles’ eyes. There’s something that he can’t see past, and it burns. He doesn’t know what it is. He promises he doesn’t. But it’s trickling down his cheeks and he wishes it would go away because it feels horrible.

There’s someone above Miles, who wears his face better than he does. Who deserves his mother, and his uncle, and his dad more than he does. There’s a boy above Miles, who would probably ruin himself, just to save someone. There is Spider-man, above Miles, and he’d started wishing that it were him, wearing that suit, braving that mantle. 

But Miles could never.

Miles wants to kill the boy above him, and leave no evidence that he ever existed. It would make everything alright again, because he could keep looking into the bathroom mirror and searching for something that wasn't there, and he’d never, ever find it. He’d spend his whole life looking for the boy he’d left behind at twelve years-old, and never find closure. And that would have been enough.

That’s not how it goes though, because the universe has never loved Miles and will always find ways to dig out the ground from beneath him. There’s still further to fall , the world whispers back, every time he thinks he’s found his footing. There’s still a boy, who looks just like you, and he’s all that you’ll never be.

The punching has stopped. Miles’ arms are crossed above his head, in a useless shield, and he feels so goddamn tired. There’s a lump in his throat that he struggles to breathe past.

“What the hell were you two thinking?!” 

Shit. The kitchen. Miles groans.

“Ma– um, Mrs, er, we didn’t mea— I mean, we’re sorry,” his doppelganger apologises.

“Sorry?!”

“Get off me,” Miles grunts, staring up at the ceiling and feeling a little bit like he wants to die as his mother starts ranting in Spanglish. He’ll definitely feel guilty about this later, and he’ll have to work a few extra jobs to repair the damages, but Miles feels like his brain is slowly seeping out of his ears at the moment and there’s something crusting around his eyes that he’d rather not think about.

The boy gets to his feet at once, and then, idiotically, offers him a hand.

Miles stares.

The boy stares back, face already showing with new bruises and a busted lip.

Miles slaps his hand away, sitting up by himself. “Fuck off,” he mutters.

The boy’s face twists, growing screwed with vivid irritation as he says, “you’re such a fu–”

And then glitches like a crappy game malfunction. 

Which is... different.

Chapter Text

Miles hisses through his teeth. A low, distorted whine reverberates at the back of his throat as his mind twists and turns and blurs all at once. A memory starts to replay itself just as he falls to his knees.

Chemistry class, fifth grade.

Sitting in the middle of the classroom. The names on the whiteboard: Leucippus, Democritus. Teacher, student. The atoms they had studied. Their theory. Indestructible, the philosophers had believed. Atoms were hard and solid and incompressible. Indestructible. 

It’s not true. 

Miles has never felt more destructible. 

His atoms are fraying and crumbling and chipping off at the edges with every moment they spend brushed up against the bricks of this terrible, unfamiliar Brooklyn.

It hurts, more than it had last time, and less than it will the next time, this he knows. Miles is slowly eroding, weathering away with the violent breeze that this New York carries. His entire body wants to go home. He wants to go home. His arms spasm and his legs shutter like the flash of a camera– bright and blinding and painful– and Miles wants to go home.

Grit your teeth, Miles. 

You’ll never survive if you don’t. Grit them until they grind and splinter, until your jaw aches, until your bones break before you do.

He grits his teeth.

It lasts ten seconds tops, and yet his palms waver as he tries to push himself off of the kitchen floor. Exhausted. He’s exhausted. 

There are hands on his shoulders. He shrugs them off with a shudder.

He says, “m’fine,” and lets those words form a shield between himself and everyone else. Between himself and the universe. He’s fine. Miles is fine. It hurt, yeah. It hurt a lot but he’s still fine and that’s what matters. That’s what has always mattered. Spider-man doesn’t need to be invulnerable, to keep going. Spider-man just has to keep going, despite being vulnerable.

“You’re not fine.”

It’s not the tone of the rebuttal that has Miles doing a double take— it’s the person who says it.

It’s not Other-Rio, despite the way she looks like she’s thinking it, all panicked, overwhelmed eyes as she frantically scans along Miles’ body with her freaky mother-nurse x-ray vision— gaze snagging on every slight tremor that he can’t control— as though she’s waiting for him to suddenly glitch out of existence. 

It’s not even Other-Uncle Aaron, who simply watches Miles with that unnerving, unreadable stare, standing in the doorway of the kitchen with a carefully raised eyebrow.

Other-Miles stares back at him, bloody lipped with red rimmed eyes, unimpressed. As though Miles’ statement had been a personal slight against him. Seriously, what’s his problem?

Well, Miles knows what the guy’s problem is, but he kindly chooses to not give a shit. The doppelganger can choke and die on his misdirected anger and nonsensical jealously, for all Miles cares.

“I am,” Miles refutes, snappy and more than a little irritated because damn, his muscles ache so bad. He settles back on his haunches, arms resting over knees and tries to take in a deep breath. He inhales—

“You’re a dipshit,” Other-Miles says, unprovoked. For the love of—

“Mijo!” Other-Rio admonishes, but it's lacklustre, lacks the bite and conviction. Probably because she had just witnessed an alternate version of her son beat the crap out of her son— on the floor of her destroyed kitchen— and then glitch out of reality like a flaw in some game. That’ll do it to a mother, Miles thinks. Or just, any sane person, really.

Miles’ breath comes out in a small huff, “and you’re–”

“No, you’re a dipshit,” Other-Miles repeats, as if Miles hadn’t heard the first time around. The boy’s eyes are filled with disdain, as though just staring at Miles is enough to upset him.

Miles suddenly regrets the remorse he had felt only minutes earlier. He regrets holding his last punch tight in his fist, reigning that rage back inside instead of letting it go until he was satisfied. He regrets that he had looked into the eyes of the boy wearing his face, and felt guilty — but those tears— he couldn’t have ignored them—

“You’re shaking,” Other-Miles observes.

He is, but Miles doesn’t know how to stop. It’s like trying to control the chatter of your teeth in winter. As long as you are cold, you will tremble.

As long as he is hurt, he will shake.

Miles tries to take the high road, tries to be the mature one because this stupid doppelganger never knows when to quit it. Miles will be the calm one, the blase one, because he's not angry anymore, he's just really tired. He levels a look of deep condescension, and says:

“Great job, Einstein, you really solv–”

“Stop being so damn stubborn and just admit it,” Other-Miles cuts him off once again, but the boy’s tone is so frustrated, so impatient and angry— his jaw is tight and his eyes are narrowed and his expression is so openly irritated that it takes Miles by surprise. 

Miles makes a sound somewhere between a snarl and shout, flinging his arms out wide with splayed palms as he says, “admit what?! Can’t you just shut the hell up for once and stop making my life more of a nightmare than it already is?!”

Okay, maybe Miles is still a little bit angry.

But it’s not fair. It seems like recently, everywhere he goes has someone who just hates his guts for no reason. No reason that makes sense. No reason that he could have possibly controlled.

Just once, Miles wants to be blamed for something that he’s done on purpose.

Not being bitten, or saving lives, or existing. 

Just once, Miles wants to deserve the blame he is given.

“Stop playing the martyr,” Other-Miles sneers back. “It’s pathetic. No one’s going to like you any better just because you play hero.”

What kind of nonsense—

“Martyr?” He laughs, incredulous. “I feel like I’m the only person who still wants me alive. How could I be the martyr, when all this time I’ve been the only one saving myself?!” I’m so tired, Miles doesn’t say, of saving myself.

Other-Miles is silent, staring for a moment, unwavering, before his eyes flicker to the side, mouth twisting downwards. Yeah, that’s what Miles thought. Nothing to say because his doppelganger is just an unnecessarily bitter, fatherless piece of—

“You’re hurt,” the boy spits out, scorn coating the words as he limps upwards onto his feet and continues, “ask for some goddamn help,”  before striding out of the kitchen, roughly bumping shoulders with Other-Uncle Aaron as he goes.

Miles stares at the invisible trail he leaves behind, eyes stuck on the place the boy had been. He frowns in confusion. What the hell?

Distantly, he hears the telltale shuffling of someone else leaving the room.

“Let’s get you to the couch,” there’s something missing, in Other-Rio’s words, in the lilt of her voice. The firmness, the certainty. That steady calm that carried through even when she was panicking. It’s all gone. Miles tries not to feel terrible about it, as he hobbles to his feet. And then he tries not to feel even worse, at how grateful he is, for it not to be his real mum going through this. Tries not to feel despicable, that he’d rather see green eyes filled with unease, rather than brown.

Most of all, Miles tries not to feel anything at all.

_____

Miles has been avoiding her gaze.

Other-Rio keeps attempting to catch him, as she cleans up yet another round of cuts and bruises. She tilts her head just so, when she dabs beneath his eyes and Miles has to avert his stare to the living room’s ceiling. He thinks, that maybe she adds a bit more pressure than necessary, just to make him wince and face her. But he refuses.

“It’s quite a mess,” she murmurs at last, after minutes of silence. “That you’ve made.”

Miles doesn’t know what she’s referring to. The kitchen? His face? Her son? The universe? All of it? 

“Yeah,” he agrees.

It’s silent again.

“Miles,” she starts, and stops. The ceiling is different, the lampshade is a paler orange. “Miles,” she says again, and it’s stronger this time, fiercer. “I don’t ever want to see you hit my son again.”

It sends chills through him, and he resists a shudder.

“I don’t care what you think of him,” she continues on, “I don’t care how much you think you know. I don’t care. Never lay a hand on my son. Never hurt my son. He’s a good boy, he’s my good boy,” she says, and Miles closes his eyes tight to avoid, well, everything. “You’re not allowed to hurt each other. No matter how many differences you think you have, no son of mine is allowed to hurt himself. If I ever see something like that again, we’re going to have problems. Are we clear?”

Miles clears his throat, eyes opening. “Clear,” he mumbles. Miles feels a little bit like he’s slowly dripping. A burning candle that melts past the couch, onto the floor, to settle by her feet. Flickering jealousy, bitterness that turns cold, hollow. He’s out of steam. Miles doesn’t know how to be rageful, in the arms of someone so similar to his mother.

“Miles,” she starts again, but it’s softer. His gaze flutters back to the ceiling. “Miles, you are a Morales, but I don’t know you.”

There’s a crack, near the light-bulb.

“I didn’t raise you, and while I could guess your favourite foods… all it would be is a guess,” she says, dabbing the blood behind his ears until it stings. “I’m guessing, with you. I’ve been guessing since you arrived, about the things you’ve been through. About how you wear your hair. If you like to draw… If the words you said to me, when you didn’t know I was me, and I, you— what would you have wanted me to say? I–” her fingers fall away from his face.

The light glows warmer here, than back home. There’s mould in the left corner, near the window.

“I can’t help thinking that I’ve already failed you.”

Miles’ breath hitches and sticks to his throat.

He doesn’t know what to say. She isn’t his mami. He isn’t her mijo.

“You—  you told me that you were Spider-man, and I didn’t know what that meant. I still don’t,” she confesses. “I could guess, but I might be wrong. But listen to me,” there’s a thumb on his chin, tugging him downwards.

Miles meets her eyes.

“I’ve been guessing my way through raising mijo, just the same. It’s not about how much we know, or don’t know,” she offers a small smile, “it’s about how much we try. It’s okay, for you to guess with me too.”

The room starts to shine, or maybe it’s just Miles’ eyes.

“If you guess… that I want to help you, that I want to protect you. Then you’d be right, “ she says slowly, “and if I guess, that you’re scared…?”

Miles tilts his chin, muted.

A hand hesitantly caresses the back of his head, fingers in curls, and draws him forward. Like the gentle wash of a tide rolling in at last, Miles’ spine curves and his chin falls, into the perfect dip of her shoulder. 

The woman who carries his mother’s voice says:

“There’s no version of my son, that I wouldn’t love.”

And a tender light, a warm yellow, that’s not so bright but no less powerful, settles on his tongue, like a spoonful of honey.

_____

Other-Uncle Aaron comes back.

He stands in the doorway once more and makes eye-contact with Other-Rio before tilting his head to the side a little. Miles has no idea what that means, but clearly Other-Rio does because she squares her shoulders with a small nod.

A hand on his shoulder, gentle, “I’ll be back in a minute,” she promises.

Miles doesn’t want to cling. He really doesn’t. 

His fingers snag on the sleeve of her cardigan anyway.

Other-Rio wraps a palm around his wrist. “You’ll never be hurt here,” she tells him, green eyes solid and certain but Miles wonders what that means. Hurt how? Can she control the way his body glitches out of time and space, like some defective bug— like— like a mistake? Can she control her son, the murderer, who’d love nothing more than to end him? Can she control this alternate uncle who—

Who—

Miles spares the man a wary glance, he gets an unreadable one back. 

Okay, Miles actually has no idea where that guy’s opinion on him lies. It’s actually more irritating than his crappy, condescending doppelganger, because at least Miles knows that he’s hated. This uncle Aaron has none of the tells that Miles is used to, or maybe, he just never knew the man well enough in the first place.

Other-Rio must see something in his expression, because she changes tactics. “You ‘beat them all’, didn’t you?”

“Huh?” Miles blinks, eyes snapping back to hers. What?

“You told me, back in the bedroom. You said you beat them all? Right?” Other-Rio tilts her head, gaze searching.

It feels like a trick question. “...I did, ” he agrees slowly. 

“I believe you,” Other-Rio says, “so believe in yourself. I don’t know what your uncle was like, back– back home. But this one would never hurt you,” she says it with such conviction that Miles finds it hard to refute. Her voice drops lower, like a whisper, “and even if he did try…?”

Miles stares, and finds himself saying, “I’m strong.”

“You’re strong.”

It's words that he's been aching to be told for forever. Not just as Miles Morales, the skinny kid with dreams of Princeton. Not just as Spider-man, the friendly neighbourhood vigilante. But Miles, all of that and everything in between. Him, in his entirety. He feels like he's held his breath for years, yearning for the moment his parents would look at him- all of him, and tell him how strong he's been. 

And yet, it doesn't feel right. Not like this. Not when it doesn't feel true.

Miles doesn’t know how to explain, that it’s never been a matter of physical strength, when it comes to his uncle. He doesn’t know how to explain that it’s more than that. He doesn’t know how to explain that he always runs from the people he loves before they can hurt him— because he doesn’t know how to weaponise his fists and stop his palms from opening up at the sight of his family . 

His grip tightens on her sleeve.

“I’m just next door,” she says, “call me if you need me.”

Miles lets her go.

Other-Rio whispers something in Other-Uncle Aaron’s ear, but Miles can’t hear it over the whirring in his ears.

The man doesn’t sit beside him, like she had. Instead, he takes to standing opposite Miles, leaning against the wall with a casualness Miles envies. 

“So,” the man starts.

Miles tries to forcibly relax his shoulders. “So…?” 

So, what? Miles can’t get a read on him at all. A lecture? A warning? A stay away from my nephew, you defective copy?  

“You’re serious, about Fisk?”

Miles blinks. “Yeah.” Of course he is, what other option does he have?

“Gutsy,” Other-Uncle Aaron wields the word like an insult.

Miles bristles, “I’ve beaten him before, I’ll do it again.”

“Do you rush into everything, without a plan?”” The man tilts his head, considering.

“Do you— do you question everything, for no reason?” Miles can’t help himself. This isn’t his uncle. His uncle’s laying in a grave. What’s the point of respecting a murderer, anyway?

Other-Uncle Aaron narrows his eyes, “watch it."

“Watch yourself,” Miles juts out his chin.

Other-Uncle Aaron stares, for a moment, before letting out a chuckle, head shaking lightly. Miles frowns.

“Should’ve known. Bullheaded kids,” the man mutters beneath his breath. Whatever the hell that means.

Miles frowns harder.

“I’m not a fan of you,” Other-Uncle Aaron confesses loudly, arms crossing.

Okay?

Miles shrugs.

Like he cares. That doesn’t matter shit to Miles. The man can dislike him all he wants.

“Great, you’re not exactly top of my list either,” Miles huffs. “You think I need you? To approve of me? No one’s backed me for a while, and m’doin’ fine. A whole universe of Spiders are against me. A– a supervillain is planning to personally ruin my life and you think I care a–about you?”

He scoffs and it comes out wobbly.

The man doesn’t answer.

Miles continues anyway. “You’re not special, man. And you ain’t scary either. I was almost clawed apart by a guy way bigger than you and I still. Beat. Him. So whatever ‘this’ is, give it a rest. I’m going to find the collider whether you like it or not, because I don’t care. I. Don’t. Care. I don’t care about your stupid job, or your stupid nephew that you love so much. I don’t care about this shitty New York, and I don’t care about you—”

His breath hitches, chest panting. Miles stands.

“I care about myself. I care about my dad. I care about the things that no one else will. I’m Spider-man, and I deserve to be Spider-man,” he walks right up to the man, chin to the sky as he jabs a finger straight to the unfeeling rock of a chest. His other hand shakes and he curls it into a fist. “You can try all you want. You can beat me up, and threaten me, and try to murder me but I’m never going to lie down and take it, because– because my uncle– he—”

His vision blurs. He grips the man’s shirt, knuckles straining. 

He says:

“My uncle told me to keep going, and he loved me.”

The world shakes, the walls breathe in and out— as though trying to guide him through it. Breathe, Miles, the ceiling murmurs. Take a deep breath, Miles, the light-bulb flickers. It’s okay, Miles, the living room that doesn’t belong to him whispers.

There’s a hand on the back of his neck, and Miles means to bristle. He really does. He means to tense, and coil, and hike his shoulders up to his eyebrows because he’s not safe. He means to pull away and shout to Other-Rio because he’s scared but—

It’s familiar. That large palm is familiar, and he hasn’t felt it in a long, long time. Miles trembles, teeth gritting.

“Let it out,” his uncle, who’s never known what it means to die but has killed countless, murmurs. 

Miles doesn’t want to. The last thing he wants to do is cry. He just wants to go home, and that wish is starting to feel like the tantrum of a child. Take me home, take me home, the five year-old kicks out his legs with thick tears. I want my dad, the five year-old screams. Home, home, home.

He smells like it. This man. He wears the same cologne. Miles closes his eyes and inhales, deeply, chest rising and heart thudding. The palm on his neck is warm and solid. Uncle Aaron, his mind calls out to somewhere further than just dimensions, to a place somewhere, between life and death, I want you back. 

I’m right here, the hand on his nape replies.

Miles exhales into a sob.

“You’re alright, kid,” the man says. “You’re alright.”

_____

“Take a shower.”

“What?”

“Kid, you reek.”

“I don’t have time —”

“You gonna save your dad, lookin’ like this?”

“...”

“Shower, man. Have some class.”

“What’d you know about class, anyways?”

“Watch it.”

“Watch yourself.”

“Aight, go on then. Walk out in your stinkin’ onesie.”

“...Five minutes. I’ll be five minutes.”

_____

Miles pauses outside the bedroom door.

“Mami, seriously, it doesn’t even hurt—”

“Mijo, quiet. Stop fidgeting before I smack you.”

“Mami— ow, just leave it would you?”

“I’m not leaving it. If you’re injured, I will mend you. This isn’t about what you want, Miles.”

There’s silence.

“I’ve already asked for extra shifts. It’ll be around a week but the kitchen—”

“Mijo. I don’t care about the kitchen. I care about my son who’s been battered bloody and bruised. Look at me.”

“Ma–”

“Look. At me. I don’t know what he’s got against you, I really don’t. But you stopped fighting back, why? Why’d you let him hit you, baby?”

“I didn’t—”

“You did. You did. Miles, I know you hide things. I hide things too. But I’ll never hide that I love you. I love you more than anything, mijo, you are my everything. So whatever this is, don’t let it happen again. Don’t let yourself be beaten. Fight back, because you’re worth it. Because you don’t deserve to be hurt. You never have. But most importantly, don’t hurt yourself.”

The silence stretches on so long that Miles raises his fist to knock—

“Sorry, mami. Please don’t worry about me.”

“Mijo.”

There’s shuffling. A shift in the air. Miles can feel the anguish on his skin. The weeping of a mother.

“I’ll worry about you all my life.”

Miles backs away from the door. He’ll wait. Just another five minutes, but he’ll wait.

_____

“You seriously have a thing for purple, huh?” 

“Shut it, you overgrown toddler,” Other-Miles replies darkly, looking like he’d rather die than be in the same room as him. Well, touche. 

Miles tries to resist making any other comments, because the tension in this room is like a ticking time bomb. His shoulders refuse to relax, not that he blames them. This was the same guy who had thrown him straight into a table, after all. It’s a natural reaction. PTSD. Or something.

“Those Jordans are mid,” Miles really, really cannot help himself. You’ve got to understand. Try to see it from his perspective. Try to see how irritating it is to look at a boy who is meant to be you, but wears braids, likes the colour purple more than red and wears Jordan 1 Utilitys. “Like, what are you actually puttin’ in that tiny ass pocket?”

Other-Miles visibly takes in a deep breath, Miles can see it in the way his shoulders fall and rise dramatically. “Not a pocket.”

“Well it looks like a pocket,” Miles says.

“It’s not—”

“It has a zip, it has space for like— lip balm. Are you putting lip balm in there?”

“My god,” Other-Miles tilts his head to the sky and sighs. It’s a startlingly familiar gesture, but Miles does not want to dig any deeper into that thought. “What’s it like?”

Miles blinks. Huh? “What’s… ‘what’ like?” He hedges carefully, eyes narrowing because Miles is absolutely not down for an introspective conversation on the differences between their worlds, or his vigilante alter-ego, or his father —

“Not thinking,” Other-Miles sniffs, back still turned as he searches through drawers. “Been wonderin’ for a while now, what it’s like to just walk around with zero brain cells. Casquivano. Care to explain?” Bird brain.

Nevermind.

Never mind. 

Miles counts to ten in his head. Don’t fight yourself, Miles. It’s wrong. It’s self hate, or something. Not nice. It’s not nice. 

“Fuck you, man,” Miles huffs, and then throws the guy’s pillow on the floor. Because seriously, fuck him.

Other-Miles turns around and gives him a glare. “Pick it up.”

Miles squares his shoulders. “No.”

“Pick. It. Up.”

“Or what?” He raises both eyebrows.

“Up. Now.”

“Or what?”

“I’ll—”

“What? Beat me up? Kill me? Who’s the one with superpowers, idiot?”

“I’ll–” Other-Miles’ eyes dart around, clearly stumped. “I’ll tell my mum.”

Miles pauses. 

He picks up the pillow.

“You’re such a dick,” he mutters. 

Other-Miles gives him the finger before chucking something at Miles’ head. 

Miles catches it easily. It’s a t-shirt. Some purple puppet sits in the middle. He squints. Velmo. “Seriously?” Miles scowls.

“Act like a child, look like a child,” Other-Miles shrugs his shoulders in a smug ‘take it or leave it’.

Miles hates this guy. And no, he doesn’t care about self-loathing or whatever the hell anyone else says.

“You’re the one who has it in the first place,” he fires back.

“It was a gift,” Other-Miles huffs.

“Some gift,” Miles mutters.

For some reason, his doppelganger bristles as though he’d been slapped. The t-shirt is ripped from his grasp. “Don’t wear it then,” Other-Miles snarls, “like I want to give you my shit.”

Miles raises his palms in surrender. “Chill, ” Miles says. Don’t dish what you can take, he wants to say but doesn’t, because there’s something in the boy’s eyes— something—

“Don’t tell me to chill!” Other-Miles snaps, eyes blazing. “My life is ruined because of you.”

Not this crap again. A trickle of rage starts to drip from the bedroom window that doesn’t close properly. It pools onto the floor, by their feet. “I thought we’d already established exactly whose fault it is. And I’m not the culprit, you jealous—”

“No, it is you,” Other-Miles refutes, throwing the t-shirt onto the floor as he stalks the few steps towards Miles.  “I will blame you.”

“I don’t have time for this!” Miles tries not to shout and fails. “The only reason I’m not punching you into next week is because–”

“What? You’re too good? Too merciful? Too much of a ‘hero’?”

“Because I promised your mother,” Miles snaps.

Other-Miles falls silent.

“And because I know,” Miles voice falters, falling quiet. “That you’re just a kid.”

Because Miles looks into the face of someone who’s supposed to be him, and he finds it incredibly hard to like him, and even harder to hate him. To truly hate. This guy isn’t the Spot, he’s not Miguel. He’s not Peter B, or Gwen. He’s Miles. He doesn’t like him, but he’s Miles. Miles with braids, who wears the colour purple more than red, who has different Jordans with weird pockets and has killed more people than Miles has probably saved. 

He’s still fifteen. Whatever being fifteen means. Miles hasn’t felt like much of a teenager, lately, and he thinks the boy before him has felt it even less.

But because most importantly, Miles really does not have the time to fight himself. His father has less than twenty-four hours left and Miles can’t be idle, twiddling his thumbs and playing around in this universe like a life isn’t at stake. 

It’s not about mercy, despite the way he has to clench his fists to do away with the urge to hit. Miles doesn't like mercy, it's made of deception.

“I’ve gotta save my dad, man,” Miles says firmly. “My life has never been about you. And yours was never about mine. So grow the fuck up and move on. Because– because–”

He inhales, eyes narrowing, “If my dad dies, I’ll make you regret standing in my way for the rest of your life.” A promise.

Other-Miles stares back, eyes hard and then—

They don’t soften. Not exactly. Miles doesn’t think the guy is even capable of looking soft, in any manner of the word.

But they ease. There’s something in the boy’s eyes that eases, like the tide washing away to reveal the sand. It’s the saddest expression Miles thinks he’s ever made. It looks a little bit, like letting go. Maybe, giving up. His chest tightens.

“Aight,” Other-Miles says eventually, as he stares into Miles' eyes, expression blank, before shrugging and turning away, feet silent as he heads for the door. The doppelganger lingers by the door frame for a moment, and before leaving he says:

“Take what you want.”

It sounds like—

Surrender.

Take what you want.  

But—

But Miles never surrenders. There should never be a version of himself that gives up. That backs down. It feels wrong. Even if it's what he had wanted.

Miles stares at the door that’s been left ajar. He stares at the walls, the ceilings, the lack of figurines. The threadbare pillows. The lone picture on a desk, face down, that he picks up by the corner and stares at. A father and son. A cat by their feet. Smiles that he didn’t think could exist in such a cold Brooklyn.

Take what you want.

There’s a shirt, by Miles’ feet. That purple puppet. Velmo. He stares at it, quiet. Thinking. Remembering. There’s an identical shirt lying at the bottom of his drawer, a million and one miles away. One that’s red. One that his father had bought, on April Fools, a few years back.

Oh.

Chapter Text

Miles is twelve years-old, holding a t-shirt by the fingertips as he twists his mouth into an unimpressed scowl.

“Seriously?” He huffs.

The culprit laughs. His father’s eyes smile before his mouth does— those little wrinkles at the corners that lead up to the bridge of his nose, they always crinkle first— and it’s how Miles always knows when his dad is up to something. 

“I got it over-sized,” the man grins, one elbow on the kitchen counter, “so you’ll never grow out of it.”

Miles rolls his eyes, “April fools was last week, you know that right?”

“Course I do,” the glee stretches wider, until it’s taking up every inch of the man’s expression. “Go on, try it on.”

“I’m not wearing this,” Miles gives him a look of ‘are you crazy?’. “I haven’t watched Raisin Road in years, Dad. You know this.”

“Course I know that,” his father nods, “Try it on.”

“Ma," Miles turns to the woman, who’s been quietly sipping at a mug the entire time. He squints, watching the way she raises the mug to her lips to hide a smile. “Ma!” Miles repeats, this time in betrayal. “Did you let him buy this? When I said I needed more tops, this is not what I meant.”

“Mijo,” his mother sniffs, nose twitching as she clearly tries not to laugh, “the colours suit you.”

Miles looks back down at the t-shirt in pure disbelief. Velmo stares back at him. Miles loves his parents, he does, but sometimes, they really, really test his patience. 

“I’m never wearing this,” he decides. 

Zip meows loudly, nipping at his socks.

“Even Zip’s against you, son, put it on.”

“Zip is never against me,” Miles disagrees, because it’s true. He’s her favourite. 

He tries the stupid thing on anyway.

It reaches his knees. 

Uncle Aaron steps into the kitchen with the worst possible timing, takes one look at Miles, and starts cracking up.

Miles can see his mother’s shoulders shaking.

His father’s laugh is the loudest of them all.

Miles tries to frown, but he ends up laughing too.

/////

Miles is fifteen, and there’s a t-shirt at the bottom of his drawer. 

His fingers tremble as he picks it up. He stares at it for a moment. The tag is still intact. He’d only worn it once. But there are tiny little scratches, at the sleeves. Like something had tried to claw at it. Or someone. Someone small, and dark, with a bald patch behind their ear. Someone gone.

“You’re such a dick.”

His own voice tells him. 

Miles wonders, if he’s even allowed to look at this— this childish thing. It makes his gut swirl. It would probably fit now, after all these years, it’d probably fit like it was meant to. But does he fit? Does he measure up, tall enough, to wear something like this? Or has he grown too tall? Has he missed his chance already? That slim window, of when this t-shirt would have settled on his shoulders like it was supposed to. He’s missed it, hasn’t he? 

His shoulders, they’re too sharp now. His stomach, too hard. His face, too old. His hands—

Too bloody.

But he’s not alone. There’s a boy on his bed, who looks just like him in almost every single way except:

He’s clean.

His hands are calloused yes, but they’re spotless. His shoulders may be rigid, but they’ve been carved that way from determination. His face, no matter how angry, is always made up of good intentions. That boy has probably made mistakes, yes, but even those must have been good.

Miles has tried scrubbing his hands, but there’s always another layer to go. He’d tried to rinse off the grime beneath his fingertips, only to realise it’s bone deep.

There is a son that his father would be proud of, in this bedroom, and Miles has grown tired of pretending it’s him.

He stares at the t-shirt and lets his grip loosen. 

He throws it.

“Seriously?” The doppelganger complains.

Miles relaxes his shoulders and smirks. He says, “act like a child, look like a child,” and means something else entirely, something far more bitter.

“You’re the one who has it in the first place,” the look-alike fires back.

Miles can’t resist rolling his eyes. This guy never knows when to just take the insult. 

“It was a gift,” he finds himself saying.

“Some gift.”

Miles can’t reign in his irritation quick enough. The resentment hits him so quick, a physical blow, and it draws his shoulders to his ears because who does this guy think he is? Who is he, to judge something his father had—

His—

Embarrassment settles between his ribs, prickly and burning. What was he thinking? 

With quick, forceful strides, he tears the shirt from the copycat’s hands. His fingers tremble around it, so he grips the material until his knuckles go taut. Velmo’s face distorts beneath his nails, wide smile turning to a grimace. 

“Don’t wear it then,” his mouth feels hot. “like I want to give you my shit.”

The doppelganger throws his hands up like an idiot— as though Miles is the problem here. Always the victim, this guy. “Chill,” he says. 

Chill.

Miles physically feels his temper go from zero to a hundred.

Feels it in his chest, that thuds out of rhythm because it’s not fair. It’s not fair that his mother and uncle are willing to back this boy as if he’s their own. It’s not fair, that even when this alternate version of himself is angry, even when he’s raging— his fists still look like justice. It’s not fair, that Miles will always look like the villain when he stands shoulder to shoulder with his doppelganger.

It’s not fair, that Miles is the villain in the first place.

It’s even less fair, that it’s all his own fault.

“Don’t tell me to chill!” He says.

“My life is ruined because of you,” he says, because he doesn’t know what else to say. Because he doesn’t want to say anything else. Because his flames burn brighter when he directs them outwards. Because he’d rather burn the boy wearing his face, than burn himself.

The look-alike gives him a look of disbelief, exasperation in the lines of his forehead. Like Miles cares. He doesn’t. He hates this guy. He hates him.

“I thought we’d already established exactly whose fault it is. And I’m not the culprit, you jealous—”

“No, it is you,” Miles spits, throwing the t-shirt onto the floor as he stalks the few steps towards the stupid idiot.  “I will blame you.” Because I don’t want to blame myself. Because it hurts, to blame myself.

“I don’t have time for this!” The doppelganger snarls. “The only reason I’m not punching you into next week is because–”

Miles scoffs.

“What? You’re too good? Too much of a ‘hero’?”

Always the fucking martyr, this guy.

“Because I promised your mother,” the boy snaps, taking a step forward, until they’re chin to chin.

Miles stills.

“And because I know,” The boy with his face, his mouth, whispers. “That you’re still a kid, too.”

No. 

No, no, no. 

You’re not supposed to say that, he wants to scream. The idiotic fool isn’t supposed to look at him with those eyes, his eyes, and understand him. Miles doesn’t want to be understood. Miles wants to fight. Miles wants to bleed.

“I’ve gotta save my dad, man.” It’s not a request. He’s not asking Miles. “My life has never been about you. And yours was never about mine. So grow the fuck up and move on. Because– because–”

Miles trembles, somewhere— is it his fingers? His toes? His spine? That shakes?

Maybe, it’s his heart.

The boy doesn’t glare. It’s not a glare, but it’s no less stony. 

“If my dad dies, I’ll make you regret standing in my way for the rest of your life.”

Miles…

Miles is so tired. He doesn’t even know what he’s fighting against, anymore. He’s angry. Terribly, sickeningly, nauseatingly angry. But there’s nowhere to put it. His fists are taut by his side and he lets them open up. Open palms. They still shake. Even his open palms feel like weapons. 

He’s never going to be half of what this guy is.

What’s the point?

“Aight,” he finds himself saying, voice an echo in his own head.

Miles stands in his childhood bedroom, and feels like a stranger— not for the first time, but never so intensely. His feet are planted firmly on the floor, and yet it feels like he’s floating. It’s his bed, in the corner. His desk, by the window. His t-shirt, by their feet. So why…? Why does he feel like the imposter? 

He looks into the face of justice personified, and wonders, who is he to stand in this boy’s way? 

Miles says:

“Take what you want.”

And means:

Take everything I have left.

He’s never deserved any of it to begin with.

/////

“He’s not all that,” Uncle Aaron tells him as they stabilise the table legs.

Miles shrugs his shoulders, eyes fixed on a loose screw that he twists between his fingers. “You ain’t gotta lie.”

“He’s like you,” the man tells him.

“I said you don’t have to lie,” Miles says, “so don’t do it.”

“Miles—”

“Leave it,” he mutters, rising to his feet. “I’ll get the toolbox, this screw’s busted.”

I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want you to tell me how much you’ve started to wish that I wasn’t who I am.

/////

“Mijo, can you give this to Miles?” His mother hands a pile. Towel, socks, pants, deodorant. “He’s in the bathroom.”

Miles takes it. She gives him a smile.

Miles stands outside the bathroom door longer than he should. 

It only takes one knock for the idiot to unlock the door. The doppelganger peeks half his body out, wet hair leaning to one side and dripping onto the tiles. His shoulders are even narrower without the onesie. There are scabbed over claw marks along his collarbones.  

“Uh,” the idiot says. “I thought you were— anyway, the water’s kinda cold— is it a pressure thing? Are those mine?” He’s more of a bumbling fool than usual. 

Miles raises one eyebrow dryly, and shoves the pile towards him rather violently.

The boy sputters. Miles doesn’t spare him another glance.

“It’s always cold,” he mutters as he turns back down the hallway.

/////

Miles stands on the rooftop, feels the wind brush past his neck, and crouches low, elbows to knees, head ducked and breathes.

The air is thick. Smoke fills his lungs. Miles raises his head to the sky, and stares, at the starless fog. It’s tinged with warmth, that dusty orange. The city is on fire, once again. The firefighters don’t come like they used to. It’s too much to extinguish anyway. Buildings aren’t the only things that burn. It’s the people too. Harder to kill a fire when it lives under your skin.

Not a single star. Maybe that’s why none of his wishes have ever come true.

Tomorrow, Miles will be lifting his bedroom window. He’ll climb through, one leg after the other. He’ll have a claw, instead of a right hand. He’ll slit a throat. Or perhaps, squeeze the air out of one. He’ll wear a mask, and even when he takes it off, at dawn, it’ll linger.

Tomorrow, the distorted mirror of who he could’ve been, will disappear. That boy will run off, with the mark of hero planted firmly on his chest, and he’ll save someone. Miles is sure of it. That boy will save someone, and then he’ll probably save another. And another. But he won’t save him.

He won’t save Miles.

No one’s saving him.

Tomorrow, his mother and uncle will watch that mirage of a person leave. And then there will be three. His uncle will look at him, and he’ll remember the boy with the fade, the boy who wore red better than purple, the boy who was stubborn for all the right reasons. His uncle will remember him, and he’ll look at Miles, and Miles will look at him. Miles will say, I know. But he’ll never say he’s sorry. 

His mother will pretend. She’ll kiss his cheek, and braid his hair, and pretend that she isn’t grieving for a son that doesn’t exist. Or does exist, but not for her. Miles will have to pretend too. He’ll have to pretend that it’s okay, that it doesn’t matter. 

Miles…

Miles will—

“Your mum’s lookin’ for you.”

Miles inhales deeply. Can he not even monologue without the idiot butting in?

“Cool,” he mutters.

He waits for the guy to leave.

He doesn’t.

“What’re you doin’ out here, man? It’s kinda…” the doppelganger hisses through his teeth, “edgy.”

Miles blinks. He turns to squint at the boy. “Edgy?”

The idiot blinks back before shrugging. “Yeah. Middle of the night. Rooftop. The uh– fires. You.”

It’s actually impressive, how much this guy manages to get on every single nerve that Miles has.

He counts to ten in his head. 

“Go away,” he settles on.

The doppelganger lets out a long drawn sigh, as though Miles is the problem. His jaw ticks. 

“Listen, man,” and Miles already knows that whatever comes out of the guy’s mouth next is going to be utter bullshit. “I think we got off on the wrong foot—”

Miles is right.

He’s on his feet at once. “Wrong foot?” He laughs, incredulous. “Aren’t you tired of being a fucking idiot?”

The boy bristles, eyebrows furrowing into a glare, but there’s something lacking in it. “Can’t you just—”

“What? Can’t I just what?” Miles cuts him off with a snarl. “Be you?”

“ What?” The guy blinks, “no—”

But Miles doesn’t want to hear it. He doesn’t want to reason. He’s seething, full of rage and it sizzles off of him like hot oil. 

“I wished I’d just killed you when I had the chance,” Miles confesses, words blurting out before he can catch them.

The boy stares. Miles stares back.

“Do you realise how insane you sound?” It’s a question filled with judgement. Do you realise what a horrible person you are? “You’re so—” the boy makes a noise of frustration, throwing his arms up. He’s got on Miles’ hoodie, the one his mother bought two years ago. Miles’ rib-cage squeezes. “You’re so awful.”

Miles pushes him. It’s not a hit. It’s not a hit. It’s a shove. A very gentle shove, that sends the guy sprawling along the rooftop ground. 

Miles glares down at him. “You think you’re better than me?”

The doppelganger glares up at him. “I fucking know it.”

When he’s questioned, Miles will say that he did not initiate the fight. It’s self-defence, he’ll say. 

The knee that he plunges into the idiot’s stomach is self-defence , trust him on this one. Miles gets a solid hit to the jaw. Blood pools on his tongue. He spits it out and throws a hard kick into the look-alike’s side.

“Why won’t you–”

The boy with his teeth snarls, tugging Miles forward by the strings of his jacket to land a sucker-punch to the abdomen. Miles hisses through bloody lips. 

“Just—”

He crushes his palm into the shithead’s face, pressing him into the wet gravel of the rooftop. He gets thrown off and shoved onto his back for his efforts. Miles’ shoulder blades ache and he twists to avoid a punch to the nose.

“Listen?!”

The doppelganger shouts at him, eyes wide and burning and bright. There’s something buzzing in the air. Streaks of electric yellow zap around the boy’s skin. Miles blinks, and it’s gone. 

“Why the fuck,” Miles glares, adjusting his knee, “would I listen to you?” And then he lands a solid hit right to the boy’s groin.

“Oh you fucking—” The idiot breaks off into a low whine, folding over himself. “Dick.”

Miles pants, chest heaving as he sits back up. “Takes one,” he tries to catch his breath, “to know one.”

His doppelganger glares.

Miles' body aches, and yet he wants more. His fists tingle. It’s not enough. He gets to his feet.

“Wait, wait!” The idiot shouts, panicked. “Time out, man. That was a low blow.”

Miles stops. Is it actually possible, to be so stupid? No wonder the guy’s been beaten bloody and bruised all the time, he thinks timeouts exist. Even worse though, why does Miles find himself agreeing? He huffs. “Whatever.”

Maybe the insanity has spread. Because there’s no way Miles actually sits down beside the guy, and doesn’t attack him. He’s lost his mind.

“So,” the idiot sniffs.

Miles ignores him.

“Let’s not tell your mum about this.”

Smartest thing the fool has ever said.

“Yeah,” Miles says. 

“And um,” the idiot starts again.

“Can you not,” Miles scowls.

“Wha— not what?” 

“Speak,” Miles shrugs.

“Fuck you, dude," his doppelganger hisses before sighing heavily. “Just hear me out.”

Miles could just get up and leave. Even better yet, he could raise his fists again— but he knows, they both know, that the idiot was pulling his punches. He never stood a chance.

Miles stays.

He doesn’t know why, but he does.

“M leavin’ real soon. Your uncle’s coming with me, said somethin’ about not trusting me to not get killed. Which is stupid, because I’ve never let anyone beat me. I’ve never not gotten back up. I always do—” He pauses, taking another deep breath, as though realising he’d started to feel too much. Drawing it back. Reigning it in. Miles tries not to relate. “I’ll keep him safe, I promise. He’s not my uncle— but— I won’t let him die. He’ll come back to you.”

Miles stares down at his hands. He’ll come back to you.

This boy’s uncle is dead, and yet— and yet—

“Why?” 

“So— Huh? Why? Why wouldn’t I? You think I’d just— just let him die?” There’s some of that fury building back up in his voice, as though Miles’ question is an offence to his character. To everything that this boy stands for. His morals. His goodness. “I’m not like— I wouldn’t do that.” I’m not like you.

Miles clenches and unclenches his fists. “Okay,” he says.

The boy deflates a little. “Sorry,” he mutters. “I don’t like you— you’re not really, y’know— but I’m sorry. About the shirt. And your dad.”

Miles flinches. “Shut up.”

“No, listen to me. I’m sorry. I didn’t realise— I mean, ugh, er— I did but I didn’t care because I hate you. But—”

“Great, thanks. You can stop now,” Miles says through gritted teeth. The rooftop starts to tremble beneath him. Vibrate. 

“Can you not be the worst person alive, for like, five seconds?”

“Can you not be the best?!” Miles whips his head around to scream.

The world seems to quiet, falling hush so that his words can fall to the ground that much louder. Miles can’t breathe. Everything is shaking. “Can you stop?! Can you stop being perfect? Can you stop being so damn heroic, all of the goddamn time?! Can you stop existing?!”

The wind is sharp tonight. It cuts right across the boy’s expression, who looks like he’d just been slapped. It cuts Miles’ tongue, for the words he can’t take back.

“You don’t know me,” the doppelganger’s voice wobbles. “You don’t fucking know me!”

“And you do?!” Miles shoves him on the shoulder, hard.

The look-alike shoves right back, “Shut up!”

“No, you shut up!” Miles pushes.

“No, you!” He pushes.

Miles punches. 

He punches back.

A kick. 

Kick back.

“Stop blaming me for everything that you’re not!” The boy with his skin pushes him. 

Miles can’t—

He can’t—

“No!” He screams back. Childish, so childish.

“What do you want from me?!” The boy yells, and it’s almost a plead with how exhausted he looks. 

What does he want?

Miles wants everything to stop. 

He wants the earth to come to a halt. He wants the rivers to stop running, and the sun to stop rising. He wants the trees to stop growing. He wants the wind to stop blowing. Miles wants the world to stop, and then he wants it to spin again. But in reverse. He wants the leaves to float back onto the branches, he wants the grass to grow shorter and shorter, he wants the sun to dip low and come back up again— he wants the world to turn and turn and turn until he stands in New York, three years ago. He wants a cat, by his ankles. He wants hot water to pour from the faucets. He wants—

Miles wants—

“I want my dad!”

It comes out a sob. Raw and festering, a wound that never closed. Blistering skin unfurling to reveal the red that bleeds and bleeds and bleeds. Miles is a walking injury. A boy severed in half.

The rooftop tilts and sways and reverberates with his yearning.

The boy before him lowers his fist. Mercy.

Miles shakes his head wildly, vision blurring. “Don’t fucking back down now! I’m the bad guy. I’m the murderer,” his voice doesn’t feel like his own. “So fucking fight me,” he lunges.

He misses, by just an inch. The world tilts. The rooftop’s edge, closer than he’d thought.

Miles blinks and he’s falling.

He's falling.

Something hits his chest, and the air tumbles out of him.

There’s a boy above him, eyes wide and fearful, as he pulls with hands that are calloused with good mistakes. He pulls, and Miles rises. In his periphery, the sun starts to line the sky with a gold rim. The alternate him, the boy with softer cheekbones but wearier eyes, pulls and Miles’ head doesn’t splatter against Brooklyn's floors. He pulls, and Miles’ feet touch the rooftop once more.

He pulls, and they fall into each other. Stumble, and fumble and trip, over each other. 

Miles inhales shakily, as he sits back on his haunches, and stares.

“Why?” The word hurts his throat, vowel scraping past his dry tongue.

The boy stares back, before looking away, chest heaving. “Don’t deserve it.”

What?

“Huh?” Miles’ mouth feels numb.

“You didn’t deserve it,” the boy says, quiet. To die, he doesn’t say.

“I’m a murderer,” Miles mumbles.

The boy shrugs, “not too late.”

His gut twists. “I can’t—”

“You’ve made bad mistakes.” Mistakes? Miles has made more than mistakes. “You can always make better ones.”

Miles stares, disbelieving. Despite himself, he starts to laugh. “You’re crazy, man.”

His doppelganger breaks into a grin. It’s the first time Miles has seen it. “Like you can talk,” he says, but he’s laughing too.

“What the hell was that, anyway?” Miles can’t stop smiling, he must be delirious.

“What was what?” The stupid idiot is still laughing.

“The— the— string,” he gestures to his own wrists, and feels ridiculous.

“Oh,” the boy ‘ohhhhhh’s. “My webs. Web-Shooters.”

It must be the near death experience. It’s got to be. Miles laughs until his stomach aches. “You’re— you’re actually a spider.”

“Shut up, man. It’s cool! Everyone has it,” the boy tries to huff but ends up snorting, which sets off another round of laughter.

“Bro,” Miles says, almost absentmindedly as his body twinges with a nice reminder of hey, you just got your ass kicked repeatedly.

“Bro,” his look-alike replies.

“We’re fucked,” he realises.

The guy blinks, confused for a moment, before an expression of pure despair dawns on him. “Oh shit,” he curses before quickly squaring his shoulders. “Self-defence.”

Miles glares, “what? No. I’m self-defence.”

The idiot sputters, “you clearly threw the first punch.”

“Did not,” Miles averts his eyes, “you instigated.”

“Stop the cap!” His doppelganger screeches, “I’m the victim.”

Miles rolls his eyes as they start to get up, and then winces, because damn, his stomach hurts. “No you’re not.” 

“I am, you lying piece of—”

“Dipshit,” Miles cuts him off, “you’re a delusional dispshit.”

“You wanna go again? Superpowers. Who’s got them? Huh? Huh?”

Miles sniffs, “like I’d want webs.”

“Dick," the boy kicks him in the shin. Miles kicks back.

There’s something in Miles’ mouth, the size of a gumdrop. It’s warm. He rolls it about on his tongue, and slowly, it melts. It spreads, like liquid gold, slivering through the gaps of his teeth and pooling on his lips. It tastes unfamiliar. Foreign. If he had to guess, Miles thinks it might be—

He thinks that maybe it’s—

Forgiveness. 

/////

There’s a boy, with Miles’ face. He’s super irritating, like goddamn. He wears Jordan 1s, and they’re ugly. He has a high-top with a fade, and that’s ugly too. He’s not got much smarts to spare, in fact Miles wonders if there’s even a brain rattling around in his skull, but—

But he’s good. Miles doesn’t like it, but he’s good. He’ll beat you into the ground, and then offer you a hand up. He’ll scream and shout and square his shoulders when he’s angry, but he’s kind. Infuriatingly so. He’ll save you, if he can. And if he can’t, he’ll do it anyway. 

Miles is jealous of him. He hates him, more than not. But he’s started to think, there’s a chance that they’re not so different. Miles has started to think, that the boy he buried alongside his father— never actually died. He thinks that boy is right here beside him, shoulder to shoulder with an idiotic haircut. And he thinks that boy is here, too, beneath his rib-cage.

/////

“You’ve got a bit of blood— no— yeah, there,” his doppelganger informs.

Miles scrubs at his lips hurriedly, looks at the boy and tries not to wince. “There’s uh,” he gestures to his own cheek. “Big bruise.”

The idiot slaps a palm over it like that’ll help.

“Okay, you go first,” the boy tries to shove him down the hallway.

Miles’ forces his eyes not to go wide with panic. “What? No? You go first.”

“You’re her son.”

“You’re,” Miles sputters, “you.”

They end up walking into the kitchen at the same time.

Miles blinks.

Eight pairs of eyes stare back at him.

“Miles,” his mother looks second away from losing her mind, that polite smile plastered over her panic. Uncle Aaron doesn’t look much better, except he’s resorted to the classic stone face. “I think these are… your friends?”

His doppelganger looks nauseous, eyes wide and hurt. Miles inches the tiniest bit closer to him.

“Esperen,” Wait. Oh shit. “What happened to your faces?!”

Chapter Text

Have you ever imagined something so vividly that you taste it? 

In the back of class, stomach growling as you fantasize about what you’ll eat when you get home— you start to think about your favourite meals, or maybe, just whatever was in the fridge that morning, like those bacalaitos your mother cooked the night before— and then, you start to taste it. The saltiness coats your tongue and your lips start to tingle, just a little. Phantom food. Memories that become tangible, until you can feel the sweet crunch of hot, crispy maduros between your molars.

But what if that gnawing in your stomach wasn’t hunger? What if it was the swirling, twisting ache of nausea? 

Then, maybe, your tongue would taste like acid. Perhaps, you’d lick your lips and taste the saltiness of your tears . You might even imagine that lump in your throat, too large to swallow around, and too illusive to grab a hold of.

Maybe, your tongue would taste like hurt. That’s a hard flavour to pin down, because sometimes it has the tang of iron, the coppery wet of blood between your teeth, and sometimes it has the sharpness of seawater, and sometimes it’s more of a feeling, the dryness of sandpaper, a parched throat.

Maybe, your tongue would taste like—

Deception.

Miles tastes deception. 

Is it with him, in this room? Is it holding hands with Gwen, who fidgets nervously, fingers clenching around nothing. Is it hanging off the shoulders of Peter B, who appears to have the weight of something dragging him down, eyes drooped as he stares back at Miles. Is it simply hanging in the corner of the kitchen, waiting for the right moment to strike?

Is it even here at all?

Does Miles want to find out?

He opens his mouth, and then closes it. 

“Esperen, what happened to your faces?!”

Miles blinks, eyes taking more than a second to refocus. Other-Rio stares back at him— at them , actually— with eyebrows raised, and a very, very unhappy twist to her mouth.

Oh shit. Forget his mental breakdown for a sec, he needs to figure out how to get out of this situation alive before his alternate mother rips him a new one.

“Uh,” Miles says helpfully, turning in barely concealed panic to his doppelganger.

“Um,” Other-Miles says back, even more helpfully.

“You two have five seconds to tell me before I–” and then she starts speaking Spanglish. Miles gulps. 

Other-Miles turns to him, eyes wider than Miles has even seen them. Miles stares back, eyes even wider, as that half-grin half-grimace stretches across his lips. 

What are we saying, man? He tries to create some sort of mental link purely through the most subtle of expressions—which is a strategy born to fail because when have the two of them ever been on the same page?

Don’t look at me. His doppelganger seems to say.

Don’t look at me either! Miles mentally screams.

Think of an excuse, you stupid fool. Other-Miles’ eyebrow twitches.

Miles’ nose scrunches. You think of an excuse, this is your fault anyway, you piece of—

“Cinco,” she starts to count.

Oh god. They’re fucked.

I’m blaming you, Miles narrows his eyes.

Not if I blame you first, Other-Miles squints.

“Cuatro.”

Listen here–

No, you listen—

“Tres.”

We’re dead, man, Miles shakes his head imperceptibly. 

Shit, Other-Miles’ gulps.

“Dos.”

Miles’ heart thuds. Let’s just say the same thing, he tries to communicate.

Say what? Other-Miles raises both eyebrows incredulously. 

Miles widens his eyes slightly, squints, widens them again, nods slightly to the right and then stares.

Other-Miles stares back.

He did not get that message. They’re done for. Miles silently starts praying.

“Uno—”

“We fell,” Miles says, both of them say, at exactly the same time.

Woah. Miles blinks.

Other-Miles blinks back.

They actually did that.

Other-Rio stares between the two of them, severely unimpressed. “You fell? Both of you? How? Where?”

Miles inhales, “okay, so, we were on the roof—”

“The roof? Mijo, what have I said about going up there?” Okay, oops. Bad move, bad move.

Other-Miles winces, “That I shouldn’t?”

“Uh, he was just showing me the— the city,” Miles fumbles, “because I was leaving– I am leaving. Just wanted to see. Stuff.”

He elbows his doppelganger in the side subtly. Help me.

“True. That’s true,” Other-Miles clears his throat, “He was pesterin’ me, Ma. Kept buggin’ me about not getting a real look of Brooklyn— I was only up there ‘cause of him. I said you wouldn’t like it but— ” 

Miles elbows him again, harder.

Okay, man, layin’ it on real thick, Miles’ eye twitches. Two can play that game. “But I wouldn’t have even known we could  go up to the roof, if it wasn’t for him,” Miles smiles, a little too sweetly, teeth gritted. “So if anything it’s ‘cause of him that we were there—”

“But he insisted,” Other-Miles cuts him off, and then the piece of shit grinds his stupid pocket Jordans into Miles’ left foot. Miles squeaks, and then clears his throat roughly. He’s never wanted to beat someone’s ass so bad. “He was really, really insistent.”

“Hm,” Miles hums, smile stiff, “I dunno about that, man. Think you’re exaggerating just a bit,” and then with a subtle flick of his wrist, he releases a small web that slaps right on the back of the doppelganger’s neck.

Other-Miles barely flinches, but his glare is deadly.

“Nah, I think—”

“Cállense!” Other-Rio snaps. Shut up. “I don’t care about who told who whatever! How did you both conveniently manage to fall?” She questions in a clear I know you’re lying so just give it up.

Miles and Other-Miles share a look. They’re in too deep now.

“We were—”

“He was—”

“Ground’s super slippery—”

“It was dark as hell—”

“Missed a step and then—”

“I tripped— ”

“On top of me—”

“We both went flying—”

“Like, flying, missed the stairs completely—”

“And I got this bruise from the wall—”

“I busted my lip on the rail—”

“It was crazy,” they both finish.

Other-Rio stares at them. They stare back. 

The woman crosses her arms. “I don’t know what you two did— because it wasn’t that, you’re both terrible liars, especially you, Miles— but it will not happen again. Am. I. Clear?” 

“Clear,” Other-Miles nods.

“Very clear,” Miles nods more frantically.

His shoulders relax, and he tries not to exhale too obviously with relief. That went better than he thought it would. 

“Now, care to introduce us?” Other-Rio smiles, a little too politely,  as she gestures to the new guests.

Miles turns to stare at them. 

Gwen raises a hesitant hand. “Hey, Miles.”

_____

Miles thought he was strong enough for this. 

He thought he’d been beaten down enough by now, that it wouldn’t hurt— that he’d barely even feel it— that he’d be able to look Gwen straight in the eyes and shrug his shoulders. He thought he'd be able to stare at her, past her and not so much as twitch. He thought he’d be able to say what, you think I still care? You think I’m still hurt? Over that? I’m over it. I’m over you, too.

But he’s not.

He doesn’t think he’ll ever be. 

His fingers tremble. He closes them into fists.

“These are…” Miles stares at the group as a whole, ignores the girl who falters when he refuses to meet her gaze, “they are…” What are they? To him? “Spiders. They’re like me,” he settles on, swallowing back down the acid that rises up his throat.

“Miles—” Peter B starts.

“They’re not supposed to be here,” Miles barrels on, turning back to Other-Rio. Focusing on Other-Rio. Just look at her. Just breathe. Everything’s fine. “I don’t know how they found me but— but I’m still going to find Fisk so—”

Breathe. In. And out. Breathe.

“Miles —”

“I really don’t know why they’re here,” he grits his teeth. “It’s not like— like anyone— we’re not on the same side—”

The walls shake.

"Miles, we—”

“You friends?” 

Miles blinks.

They all pause.

Other-Miles stares back, not at them, but at Miles. The guy has one eyebrow raised, head tilted just so.

“Huh?” Miles' mouth feels dry.

“Friends,” Other-Miles drawls, “these your gang?”

Miles stares, and then, slowly, he shakes his head.

Other-Miles nods. “Cool,” he hums, and turns, back to the Spiders. “Not sure what you guys thought you were doin’ here, but he doesn’t need you,'' then he jabs a thumb out the kitchen door. “Exit’s that way.”

“Miles,” Gwen stretches out his name, a plea, “just hear us out—”

“He’s not hearin’ shit. Vete de aquí.” Get out of here.

“Who even are you, kid?” Peter B throws his hands up, “you don’t understand the situation so—”

“Oh no,” Other-Miles shakes his head, “Don’t get it twisted, fool. I understand just fine. You don’t.”

“I like this guy,” a voice pipes up from the back. Miles blinks. Hobie blinks back, leaning against the kitchen wall. The older teen offers a wave. Miles gives a small one back.

“You’re not helping, Hobe,” Gwen complains.

Hobie shrugs his shoulders, “wasn’t tryin’ to.”

“Hobie, seriously,” Gwen throws him a glare.

The punk raises both his hands in mock surrender, “Gwendy, dunno what you thought was gonna happen here, mate. Chased ‘im halfway around Neuva and lied to his face— don’t blame him for not wantin’ to be buddy-buddy any more.”

“This guy’s got a brain,” Other-Miles mutters under his breath.

Gwen turns back to Miles, eyes wide with guilt. She takes a step forward, hesitant and careful, as though he’ll disappear at any moment, gaze darting all over his form with barely concealed panic. “Miles, you know that I—”

Miles takes a step back, mind racing as he tries not to think. Breathe. Fucking breathe, Miles. He inhales and it rattles his chest. “I don’t know anything, Gwen,” he shakes his head, eyes hard. “I never did,” and then he turns invisible.

“Miles!”

“Woah, I forgot he could do that.”

“That went well,” Spider-byte drawls sarcastically.

“That tension was crazy,” Pavitr whistles.

“For real, mate,” Hobie agrees.

“None of you helped!”

“Where did he go?” Other-Rio shouts.

“Do not worry, alternate mother of Miles, it is one of his abilities, to turn invisible,” Noir explains.

Miles backs out of the kitchen slowly, breathes coming out quicker and quicker— he can’t—.

Other-Miles turns, like he can see him.

Miles darts into the hallway.

_____

He stumbles into a bedroom that isn’t his, with a bed that isn’t his, and a desk that isn’t his. A room which has half the collectibles lining the shelves that his own does, a room without a sketchbook filled with marker scratches and fonts of his name and a girl that he—

He–

Miles sinks to the floor, back against the door, as he flickers in and out of existence. Seen. Not seen. Seen. Not seen. Existing. Non-existent. Fine. Not fine. There’s a whimper trapped between his lips that he refuses to release. A high keening that tickles the back of his throat. But Miles won’t cry. He won’t.

“Miles, you know that I—”

“Miles, just hear us out—”

“Miles—”

He can’t do this. Miles ducks his head between his knees, and realises he’s in way over his head. This is it. This is the crash.

The strength you thought you had, when you were shot right through the chest and managed to run anyway. You had dripped all over the streets, a trail of red in your wake. You ran like you never had. The fastest you ever had. There was something in your veins, something hot and wild and animalistic. Survive, survive, survive, your bones had echoed with every thud of your bare soles against gravel. Survive.

You thought it was strength. To be hit, to be knocked straight down, and get back up again.

Miles thought it was strength, he really did. 

But here’s what it really was:

Adrenaline.

It was his heart, pumping harder than it ever had, because it needed to. It was him, pushed to his limits, fighting off a grown man twice his size, not because he was strong enough— no, no, no. It was never about that. It was adrenaline. It was survival. It was do or die. It was his fear transforming, distorting, masking itself until it was an unrecognisable mass of rage.

It was Miles, pretending.

But he’s not, he’s never been—

He’s not strong.

He’s been confused, he’s been sad, he’s been hurt—

Never strong.

Never—

Never Spider-man.

“If you stick around, I can show you the ropes.”

Something swishes between his eyelashes. The floor blurs.

“Peter,” Miles chokes out and wishes.

Can you come back, please? Can you teach him, how to do this properly? Can you teach him, how to stop hurting? Please.

There’s a knock.

“You in there?” His own voice asks.

Miles sniffs roughly, “no.”

“Get out the way,” Other-Miles demands when he nudges at the door only to be stopped by Miles.

Miles moves.

The door opens. 

Other-Miles walks in. Hobie trails behind him. The door closes.

“He seemed aight,” Other-Miles jabs a thumb at the punk, as if that’s explanation enough.

“Alright, mate?” Hobie takes a seat on the desk.

Miles gives a muted nod.

“Lying,” Other-Miles rolls his eyes, “clearly lying.”

Miles gives him the finger.

“So what’s the plan, then?” Hobie stretches his arms behind his head.

Miles blinks. “Plan?”

“Yeah, Morals, how we savin’ your dad? You ‘ave got a plan, right?”

Miles blinks again, “what?”

Hobie looks over at Other-Miles, “is he good?”

“No,” Other-Miles says. “He’s an idiot.”

“Can you not—” Miles scowls.

“Can you not be an idiot?” Other-Miles cuts him off.

“You’re the idiot, idiot,” he counters dumbly. Give him a break, okay? He’s not at the top of his game right now.

“You two frenemies or suttin’?”

Other-Miles stares at him. Miles stares back.

“I hate him,” they reply in unison.

Hobie looks between the both of them before snorting, “looks like it.”

“You’re going to help me?” Miles blurts before he can help himself, so horribly confused.

Hobie stares, then tilts his head. “What’d ya think I was ‘ere for? The view? Ain’t much to look at, no offence,” he nods to Other-Miles, who waves him off.

“I…” Miles trails off, unsure. He doesn’t know what he’s thinking anymore. “No, I— I dunno, I guess— Miguel’s not on his way?” He hates the way his voice trembles.

“No clue we’re here, mate,” Hobie says seriously, like he knows how much this means to Miles. “Authority figures are number one on my blacklist, wouldn’t let him near you even if ya wanted it.”

Something relaxes and Miles shoulder’s slump. “So, all of you— you— you’re here to help? You want to help?

“Was never about that life, trust. Been wantin’ to quit that indoctrinating, control-loving ‘society’ for a while now. Always been on your side, Morals,” Hobie shrugs, like it’s nothing.

Always been on your side.

Your side.

Miles blinks rapidly. “Thanks man, seriously. I didn’t get a chance, when—”

Hobie waves him off, “I get it, don’t sweat it. All I needa know is what we’re doin’ next.”

Other-Miles nods, like Hobie’s got his approval. “You heard him, start talkin’.”

“What, you want in on this too?” Miles frowns.

“You’re a fool. I gotta stop those other fools from takin’ advantage of that,” Other-Miles says.

“How d’you manage to insult me—”

“M’not doin’ it for you,” his doppelganger cuts him off with an eye roll, “I just can’t stand seeing someone with my face be pushed around by brainless imbeciles wearing onesies — shit, one of them had on a bathrobe. You’re givin’ us a bad rep, fool.”

“Stop calling me a fool,” Miles complains but his chest has started to feel more solid— the ground beneath his feet, more stable. He doesn’t say thank you, because he’ll never thank his condescending shit of a look-alike but—

But—

“You’re right,” he agrees. His hands, they stop trembling. “I’m done lettin’ myself be bullied and beaten into shit. It’s embarrassing,” he shakes his head with a sigh before getting up. Miles stands, and feels himself exist. He’s meant to exist, and he’s supposed to be Spider-man, he repeats it like a mantra in the back of his head.

Meant to be. Meant to be. I’m meant to be.

“You got a way to get out of here?” Miles turns to Hobie, shoulders squared.

The older teen fiddles for a moment with his vest before chucking something at him. Miles catches it. A watch. A makeshift watch.

“Made it myself,” Hobie shrugs.

“You’re too cool, dude,” Miles can’t keep the awe out of his voice as he turns the watch around in his hands.

Out of the corner of his eye he sees Hobie smile, “s’nothing, mate.”

It’s everything, Miles wants to refute. It’s his ticket home. It’s his path, to his dad. “Thanks,” he says because if nothing else, he wants to say that. “I dunno what Spot’s planning— I— I didn’t see much in that vision, but— but I’ll stop him. I’m going to stop him.”

“Don’t doubt it,” Hobie nods.

“Course you are,” Other-Miles sniffs nonchalantly, and Miles turns to him. Because there’s no option for failure, his eyes seem to say. He gets it. They both do. Miles nods.

“Course I am,” he says.

There’s a knock on the door.

Miles tenses. 

“Miles? Kiddo, you in there?”

Other-Miles tilts his head. What’s your move?

Miles swallows. “It’s fine,” he says, and hopes he means it. He opens the door. Peter B stares back at him.

“Hey,” the man breathes, hesitant smile and eyes so goddamn warm. “Can we talk?”

Miles inhales, “yeah, okay.”

There’s a hand on his shoulder. Hobie stands by his side, gives him a look. Miles nods, “I’m good, you guys go. Be out in a sec.”

They linger for a moment before leaving. 

The door slams shut.

“Okay,” Miles exhales, “let's talk.”

_____

Miles doesn’t know where to look. Peter B keeps trying to meet his eyes, but Miles focuses on everything else— the scruff, that messy five o’clock shadow; his eyebrows, drawn together, tender; the black and grey baby carrier, strapped around his shoulders; his hands, gloved in red and reaching out—

Wait.

“Seriously?” Miles throws his hands up in disbelief. “You bought the baby? The baby, Peter?” 

Peter B blinks, and then subtly wraps the pink dressing gown around his torso, “well, I didn’t bring her in here. She’s with your mother in the kitchen. Not your mother, the alternate one. Anyway I couldn’t leave her behind. It’s good experience.”

Miles blinks, “you are such a questionable father.”

“Maybe,” Peter B agrees, “but I’ve done okay so far. Or well,” the man sighs, suddenly looking incredibly tired. “I’m trying to.”

Peter B tries, Miles knows this.

“Doesn’t mean it’s enough,” Miles mutters.

“What’d you say, kid?” Peter B questions.

Miles stares down at his hands, and folds them into fists for a second before releasing. “I said, that just because you try doesn’t mean it’s enough. ”

“Okay,” Peter B says slowly, “there is some unresolved trauma here. Time to resolve it.”

“There’s nothing to resolve,” Miles scowls. “It is what it is, man. You tried to be a good friend and you tried to let me down easy but— but you didn’t. You didn’t. You tried, you failed and I don’t trust you anymore. That’s it. Done.”

“Miles—”

“No, that’s it,” Miles insists. “There’s nothing more to say. You lied to me. You— You did all you thought could. I get it, so there’s no point in apologising,” he closes his eyes momentarily, shoulders deflating.

“Kid, I let you down,” Peter B sighs, one hand running down the side of his face wearily. “I did, I did. I know. I wanted to tell you, you have to know that Miles, we all wanted to tell you— we just didn’t know—”

“How,” Miles finishes for him tonelessly. “Yeah, I know.”

Peter B shakes his head, “no, you don’t know how hard it was. How much we wanted to visit you—”

“I don’t know?” Miles throws his hands out, incredulous. “What? You— you think it was easy? You— you,” he fumbles, blinking hard. “You think I just forgot about you guys, after you left? You think I wasn’t lonely? I was fucking lonely, Peter!”

Peter B takes a step towards him. Miles takes one back.

He shakes his head, “no, you don’t know how hard it was. How hard it still is. All that time. All— all those months, wishing to be with you guys and what? I meet Gwen for the first time in practically two years and she can’t even stay the whole day! I— I finally get to see you guys and you all act like I’m some— some ticking time-bomb! Oh he’s not supposed to be here. Has anyone told Miguel? Oh It’s just a small group, Miles, it’s not personal that you weren’t invited when every single Spider but you was!”

“Kid, breathe.”

“Shut up!” He screams, chest heaving. Peter B stares back at him, gaze so tender, eyes down-turned like it hurts him just to look at Miles. 

“I saw you,” Peter B says, soft. “I saw you living your life. Miguel kept monitors on you, I used to peek. Do you know what I saw?”

Miles’ tongue is stuck to the roof of his mouth. He shakes his head roughly.

“I saw one of the best Spider-men I’ve ever seen, Miles. I saw you grow into yourself. When I said you’re the reason I had Mayday, I wasn’t lying,” the man looks at him, smile small. “You’re wonderful, kid. I saw you, living your life, saving lives, and I didn’t have the heart to interfere. I didn’t want to give Miguel any reason to come after you, so I stayed away. We all did. But Miles, you have to know, I’ve never once thought you were a mistake.”

Miles blinks, then he blinks again. “Miguel said—”

“Miguel says a lot of sh— crap, alright? That’s the guy’s thing, he’s always monologuing,” Peter B chuckles, “doesn’t mean he’s always right.” 

“Gwen—”

“Gwen loves you, Miles,” Peter B places a hand on his shoulder, gentle. “She’s been struggling a lot, too, you know? She’s just a kid—”

Miles slaps him away. “I’m just a kid!” He shouts.

“Miles—”

“No!” Miles backs away, bumping into the desk. “I’m a kid too, Peter! I’m a kid, too,” his voice cracks, raw. Eyes wide and burning.

“I know, I—”

“But you don’t,” Miles’ lip wobbles. “You don’t. I was chased by almost the entire Spider society, almost clawed apart by Miguel and no one cared. I don’t feel like a kid, Peter. You want to know why?” He glares, eyelashes wet.

Peter B doesn’t say a word.

“Because I feel like the world’s against me!” He screams. “Because I feel fucking alone and I thought all of you— I thought you would’ve been there for me. But you weren’t. No one was. So why should I forgive any of you?” How can I? Tell me how to forgive you, he pleads, because I don’t know how to do it myself.

“Sometimes I wish,” Miles trembles, the ground beneath him rumbling. He feels hot, suffocating-ly hot. Flickering. A flame that’s slowly spreading. Up the walls, across the floor. Whittling away at the wooden bed-frame, the desk, the door. Melting the glass right off the windows. He’s burning up.

Miles inhales, a lungful of smoke.

When he exhales, it’s poisonous:

“Sometimes, I wish you were dead. Sometimes, I wish my Peter was still here, instead of you.”

Silence. The walls are peeling. Sparks of amber float in the air.

“Your Peter?” Peter B stares.

“My Peter,” Miles whispers, ash on his tongue.

“If you stick around, I can show you the ropes.”

Soot flakes around his eyes, crumbling down his cheeks. “He would have taught me,” he mumbles.

“Taught you what, Miles?”

“How to make it stop hurting.”

“Miles,” Peter B steps towards him, slow, unsure.

“How to be Spider-man, without it slowly killing you,” he continues.

There are hands on his shoulders.

“How to save yourself. He— he would have taught me that, too.”

He’s pulled forward, into the fluffiness of a pink bathrobe. Arms wrap around him.

“I’m sorry, kid. I’m so sorry,” Peter B whispers.

I wanted you to be there for me, that angry five year-old inside his chest cries. I wanted you to protect me. I wanted you to choose me. No one chose me. It’s not fair, it’s not fair, it’s not fair.

“I didn’t ask for this,” Miles chokes out. “I never— I never chose this— I didn’t want to be bitten. I was scared but– but my Peter was going to help,” he shudders, lump in throat. “He wanted me.”

“I want you,” A hand on the back of his head. “I want you, Miles. We want you, we always have.”

A wind blows in and the flame grows smaller.

He whimpers, “no, you don’t.”

“I do,” Peter B’s words are firm, non-negotiable. “I do. You’re amazing, you’re amazing and I’m sorry. You’re stronger than all of us, Miles. I’m sorry. I’m on your side, I know I haven’t been the best at showing it but— but I am. I always will be.”

Miles breathes in heavily, chest stuttering as he tries to breathe.

“I— You always seemed so— Back with Fisk, I had tried to protect you, I didn’t want you getting hurt but then I hurt you anyway by leaving,” Peter B sighs, “but then you came back, and you were this— this kid who seemed so sure of himself. You were Spider-man. You are Spider-man. So– so I thought that you didn’t need me— I saw you living your life and I thought he’s okay, he knows what he’s doing, he’s one of the best I’ve ever seen. But–”

“But you’re still a kid,” Peter pats his head. “I’m sorry. Should we try again, at this whole trust thing? This time without all the shocking betrayals, horrible lies and plans to kill your dad? Damn, when I say it like that it really does sound bad.”

Miles snorts, despite himself, leaning away from Peter to wipe his eyes. He exhales, and the flame is blown out. Quiet. “Yeah man, now you know how I feel.”

Peter smiles at him, kind and heartbroken all at once, “now I do.”

_____

“Okay, but seriously, what’s up with the other kid?”

“Huh? Who?”

“Your little twin. Angry eyes. Sharper jawline. Bit shorter. Way cooler.”

“Hey! He’s not cooler than me.”

“Uh huh. Sure, kid.”

“You wouldn’t know cool if it looked you in the eye, man.”

“Ah ah, this bathrobe is made of the finest materials, I’ll have you know. All the way from France.”

“Uh huh.”

_____

There’s a knock at the door.

“Miles, are you there?”

Miles blinks.

Peter blinks back at him. “You gonna get that?”

He doesn’t want to. Like, he really doesn’t want to. Miles cannot express how much he does not want to.

Peter must see it in his expression because he huffs a little, gives a sympathetic smile and nods towards the door. “Give it a chance? What's there to lose?”

I don’t want to find out, Miles thinks but doesn’t say.

Instead he squares his shoulders like preparing for battle, and opens the door.

He stares.

Gwen stares back at him.

“...Hey?”

Chapter Text

Normally, he breathes. 

Normally, Miles lets the air fill his lungs until they’re ready to burst, and then exhales. His chest rises, and falls. Up and down, in tandem, one after the other. Faster and faster. Normally, his rib-cage rattles with want. That all-consuming want. The type of feeling that has your heartbeat in the pads of your fingers. The type of feeling where you stare up at the sky, and squint, because it looks like the clouds are moving with you. The type of feeling where the world runs with you, where the world is you. The walls shake, and the floor trembles, and your blood vibrates and you—

You breathe.

Miles’ heart had leapt straight into the clouds, the day he met Gwen. 

It had squeezed through the confines of his bones, past his outstretched hands— before he could catch it— and leapt. Skipped more than a beat. Skipped three, four, five. 

(A hand on a shoulder. Palm sweaty. How did Uncle Aaron say it, again? Think, think— “Hey…?”)

Miles had never craved oxygen more, than by her side. He was constantly searching for it, looking for lungfuls to inhale in the corners of rooms because you’ve got to understand— you have to know that she always— you have to put yourself in his sneakers and understand that while being Spider-man always left his blood singing, left his ears ringing and his heart pumping—  

Please, try to understand that—

That while treading the skylines of Brooklyn, and letting his fists burn with that overwhelming sting of justice, while wearing the mask, the suit, the mantle—  

While that may have left him with a heaving chest— 

It wasn’t—

Gwen was the only one who left him breathless.

God, she took his breath away.

So every moment he spent by her side— swinging past, shoulder to shoulder, fingertips apart— he had prepared himself. Breathe Miles, and he’d inhale, like he’d never get the chance again. Great big gulps of air. And then he’d ration it— a puff here, an exhale there. Not too much, not too much, lest he lose it all. A diver deep below the surface, counting breaths, pacing his journey. 

She would turn to him, a half smile, and everything would go haywire. His chest would squeeze and tighten and gasp and the world would tremble with his want. 

Normally, Miles breathes.

Now, he stands in a childhood bedroom that doesn’t belong to him, and Miles—

Miles exhales.

His chest, it stills to nothing. His heart, it slows— stays behind his rib-cage, cowered and wounded and wary. The world is shaking, the walls are shredding themselves to pieces and the floor is crumbling beneath his feet and the sky is screaming just at the sight of her but—

Miles is still.

Miles does not move.

He grinds his heels, and stays put.

“Miles,” she starts, looking up at him through her eyelashes, mouth twisting. They used to stand eye to eye. He’s taller now. He wonders, if height is the only distance that’s grown between them.

She’s waiting, for him to speak up. For the anger, the blame, the you hurt me, so that she can say I’m sorry. So that he can say it’s not enough, so that she can say give me another chance. So he can sigh, and shake and bow his head. So he can say one chance, you get one chance. So she can say, I won’t let you down, this time.

Miles is waiting, too. He tilts his head.

“Miles, I know — I,” she fumbles, palms splaying out, finger tense as she tries to grasp the right words. She’s panicking, as though he’ll take the apologies from her because she’s allowed to speak them. As though he’ll interfere, misinterpret, cut her off half-way. As though she’s used to it— as though she’s spent half her life trying to make people hear her.

She takes a step forward. Miles doesn’t move. “I never wanted to hurt you, please I— please,” she’s begging, pleading, for understanding.

Miles understands, he does. He believes her, even.

“I know,” he says.

She stares, at a loss. Opens her mouth, then closes it. “Okay, okay,” she repeats, back tracking, “okay. Good. That’s good because I— I thought you’d never—”

“Forgive you?” Miles guesses.

She stares, apprehensive. A small, timid nod.

“I don’t,” Miles says, lets out another exhale.

She blinks, swallows heavily. “You— you don’t? I mean,” she swallows again, blinking more rapidly. “Of course you don’t I— I lied to you, and never visited even when I could’ve , I— I— Of course you don’t. You shouldn’t,” she nods, like she’s trying to convince herself. “Course you don’t.”

This is hard. Miles closes his eyes for a moment, feels that simmering warmth lining his eyelashes. Another exhale, chest deflating. 

“Gwen,” he starts, and stops. “I… Back home. My home. There's a mural. It’s got Peni and Noir. Ham. It’s got Peter B,” he opens his eyes. “It’s got you, right in the centre.”

Her eyebrows have a tremor to them.

“You’re right in the middle. There’s a sketchbook, back home. You’re on every page. Even the blank ones. I— I spent a year, remembering everyone. Remembering you. Because,” he swallows. “I thought I’d never see you again.”

“Miles—”

“No,” Miles shakes his head, “Listen. I thought, shit, that’s it. The only people who ever understood me , were gone. Never coming back. Do you— d’you have any idea how many nights I patrolled Brooklyn and imagined you guys with me? When— when I wished you guys would come back for me?”

She’s silent.

“But I— I knew , that if you could, you would have come back for me. That’s what I believed. I remembered you guys and— and—” he throws a palm out, “I made peace,” he laughs a little, disbelieving. “I was cool, don’t you get it? I was cool with letting you guys go, so— so then you come back and it turns out what?”

Her shoulders hunch in on themselves.

“What, Gwen? You tell me.”

“I don’t—”

“You do,” Miles shakes his head, “you do. All of you could have visited me but– but no, right? Because you were scared, right?”

She steps back, frowning. “It was more than that.”

“Okay,” Miles shrugs, trying to keep the sharpness out of his shoulder blades, “tell me.”

She opens her mouth, and closes it.

“Tell me!” He throws both hands out. Tell me . Make it make sense. 

“You don’t get it!” Gwen snaps, head shooting up, eyes hard and jaw sharp. “You don’t understand. What— what it’s like—”

“Then tell me!” He almost screams. The walls shake.

Her chest is heaving, hands vibrating by her side. Her hair falls into her face, and he wants to brush it away. 

“You— you,” she stumbles, “I was trying to survive, Miles. My dad was going to arrest me. His daughter. I– I,” she inhales shakily. “I was saved, don’t you get it? Miguel and Jessica, they saved me. I was alone. Do you know how much courage it took? To even think of visiting you? When it went against everything that they wanted?”

Miles forces himself to roll his eyes, hard. “Right. Must of took a lot out of you to visit a friend.”

“It did!” She screams. “Why won’t you— did you blame Peter this much? Why me? I was the one who came to see you— you wouldn’t have even known. Peter was never going to tell you, let alone visit— but— you make me feel like I’m the worst.”

“Because you are,” Miles takes a step forward, wood splintering under his soles. 

“Miles—”

“No,” Miles takes another step, until he’s looming over her. “You are. I never liked Peter— like—“ He swallows, stills his heart. “Like I liked you. ”

Her eyes are shining. There’s a drip, leaking through the window.

“That’s why it hurts so much,” Miles says, confesses.

“Miles,” she whispers.

They don’t see eye to eye. She has to look up. He has to look down. 

“Miles, I never meant to— you’re amazing,” she tells him.

He scoffs, “you can’t just—”

“Hear me out,” she pleads. “You’re amazing, so— so, it’s— Look, you never tie your shoes,” she nudges her trainer at his Jordans.

What?

Miles gives her a look. “Are you being for real, right now?”

“You don’t ever tie your shoes,” she repeats, eyes filled with that familiar firmness. “How many people have told you, to tie them?”

“Gwen—”

“Loads, right? But you don’t listen—”

“If you’re just gonna—”

“Miles, I— I need you to understand,” she stammers, a desperation there, on her bottom lip. “You’ve never listened. Like it’s easy. Like it’s— it’s really freaking easy to just ignore everything everyone tells you but— it’s not—- An entire society was against you and you just— you ran,” there’s an awed disbelief. “You said no even— even when we were all against you. Do you know how— I ran away from my dad, and it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. You ran away from everyone.”

He doesn’t get where she’s going with this.  

She says:

“Miles, you’re so amazing you don’t even realise it.”

And Miles is tired, of being told that. So fucking tired.

(“ You’re the best of us, Miles. Keep going. You’re on your way.”)

(“Kid, you’re amazing.”)

(“I see this spark in you and it’s amazing.”)

“I don’t feel amazing!” He snaps. The desk rattles. A crack runs itself across the ceiling. “If I’m so great— if— if,” he sniffs roughly, takes a step back and shakes his head. “If I’m so amazing then why does no one stick by me? Huh? What’s the real reason that none of you will back me until I’m already in the corner? You think you’re saving me? By coming back? Is that what you thought, Gwen?”

“I…”

“You’re not my saviour. None of you. Not Peter. Not you. No one,” Miles presses his lips together to stop them from trembling. That slow drip, it fills the room. Water by their feet. It soaks his shoelaces. 

“I’m not trying to— Miles, I just want to help you— I— I’m going to help you,” she squares her shoulders while her fingers grip the forearm of her suit with taut knuckles. Determination and hesitance rolled into one. Spider-woman, her eyes say. Teenager, the quiver of her mouth says.

Miles stares.

(The light of the projector as their backdrop. A hand tucking blonde behind her ear, leaning over. “I liked your joke. I mean, it wasn’t funny…” A half smile. Something warm on his tongue, something golden and hopeful. His first friend in this stupid school, maybe?)

Miles wants to give in. He wants to sigh, and let the water at his feet wade away. He wants to duck his head low and close his eyes and say you know what? I know you’re sorry. I know how hard it must’ve been, for you, too. Let’s go back, to how we were. Before. He wants to hug her, until the sharpness dulls in both of their shoulders, until their spines are malleable and her head falls onto his collarbone. Miles wants to forgive her. Wants to forgive all of them. Miles wants to let it all go .

The tide pulls back, waves turning shallow as they brush past his shoes.

Miles exhales, and says:

“I forgive you,” and he means it.

Gwen’s eyes widen, mouth parting.

“I forgive you,” he repeats, not to her this time. I forgive you. 

“Miles, I—”

“But nah,” he shakes his head a little, chuckles a bit. “I’m not doin’ this again.”

“Whu— what?” She blinks.

“I’m not doing this again,” he digs his heels into the crumbling ground and stays put. The tide washes back in, furious. Waves slam into the backs of his knees and he doesn’t move an inch. The drip from the window turns into a downpour. 

He says:

“I love you, Gwen,” a truth. “But not more than myself.”

“I... I don’t,” she stutters.

“I get it,” he shrugs, “I get why all of you did what you did. But that doesn’t mean I’m lettin’ it happen again. This time, I’m choosin’ myself, and you can either fall in line. You can either choose me, really choose me,” and when he inhales, it burns. Saltwater in his lungs. “Or you can get lost. Because I’m not settling for anything less, anymore.”

Sometimes the truth really fucking hurts. Sometimes, it hurts the speaker, even more than the listener.

The water rises to their chests, and maybe it’ll drown her. Maybe it’ll engulf her completely. But it won’t take Miles. He won’t let it.

He doesn’t wait for her response. Miles is done waiting around. The water splashes as he wades across the room, to her, past her. He pauses, at the door.

“I’m leaving in fifteen,” he tells her.

And then he walks out, leaving the tsunami of a bedroom to tear itself apart. Leaving a girl— a friend, she was a friend (is she still…?)— to either drown, or swim. Either way, it’s not his problem. 

It never was.

_____

Miles steps into the kitchen. 

The room falls silent.

“Oh hey guys! Don't worry, he’s back! Without Gwen. Yikes, must have ended badly,” Pavitr helpfully observes.

“Kid, you need to work on a filter,” Peter B shakes his head before offering Miles a small smile. He gives a strained one back.

“What? I was just saying—”

“And I’m just saying—”

“Do these idiots ever shut the hell up?” Other-Miles drawls.

“Don’t think so,” Spider-byte, or well, Margo shakes her head.

Damn, he does not remember there being that many of them. “Ham?” Miles blinks in disbelief at the pig. When did he get here?

“Miles!” The pig snorts, struggling under the weight of a crawling Mayday. “Good to see ya, kid. Missed seeing you without all the fur.” What the hell does that mean?

“Er, yeah, sure…?” Miles nods unsurely. “Good to see you. Too.”

“Hey Miles,” Peni gives a small wave, looking small, eyebags heavy. “Sorry that I didn’t help, before.”

“Nah, nah,” Miles waves her off hastily because he has had enough emotionally draining convos to last him the rest of his life, or at the very least, until next week.  He’s sure you understand. “Cool, it’s cool.” 

“Miles,” Noir starts, only to be cut off by Hobie.

“Sure the reunions can wait til’ after we saved your dad, right, Morals?” The punk tilts his head in a c’mon, let’s get the hell outta here. Other-Miles nods beside him, arms crossed and eyes slanted with that usual condescension that would normally piss Miles off, except that, for once, it’s not directed at him but rather at the rest of the Spiders. Which is kinda nice. In a weird way.

Miles blinks. Right. Right. He’s got shit to do. “Yeah,” he nods at the room, “if you’re comin’ with me, I’m leaving…” he trails off, when his eyes meet Other-Rio’s. Uncle Aaron stands beside her, shoulders tense. “In a minute. Just give me a minute.”

_____

Miles stands in a living room that is not his, for probably, the last time.

“This a good idea, kid?” Other-Uncle Aaron’s jaw is tight. 

Miles swallows, “it’s a lot quicker than dealing with Fisk. And I need time, more than anything.” It’s true, he knows it. Doesn’t make it any easier, though. Doesn’t stop his stomach from clenching. Doesn’t stop him from wanting to reach out, to snag both of them by their sleeves and stay right here, in a home that isn’t his, but feels much safer— much less like it’ll crumble away at even the smallest of mistakes he makes.

“You trust them?” Other-Rio questions, soft, with furrowed eyebrows.

That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it. It’s how he ended up here in the first place. Trust. Deception. His own naivety that’s fucked him over more times than he count. Trust. Leaning on others, depending on others. Trusting others not to leave him, trusting others to keep him whole— fumbling for a hand to hold, another web to grab on to, anything, anyone. That’s what did him in.

(“If you stick around, I can show you the ropes.”)

(“I didn’t know how to tell you.”)

(“ It was never supposed to bite you!”)

Miles shakes his head, “nah. I trust myself.”

Because that’s all there is to it, really. That’s all he’ll ever need.

_____

“You’re alright, kid” Other-Uncle Aaron places a hand on his shoulder. “Got a problem with knowin’ when to quit, but—”

Miles looks up at him, and doesn’t blink. Not for fear of crying, but rather, for fear of missing even a millisecond. For fear of closing his eyes for the tiniest of moments and forgetting the way his uncle’s cheekbones looked under overhead lights. For fear, of not taking in everything he can get while it’s right in front of him. It’s the five year-old, starved with a hollowed-out stomach, huddled over a warm meal— too scared to take a bite, too scared to move an inch. Stay here, don’t go. I’ll keep my eyes on you, this time, so don’t slip away. Don’t leave me, I’m so hungry it hurts.

Miles stumbles straight into his chest and breathes. 

His uncle, who is not his— will never actually be his— holds him.

“But all the best people do.”

_____

“Take care of yourself for me,” Other-Rio orders, fingers padding across his face as though looking for some injury to heal— to say wait, just a minute, stay for a little while longer, you’re not quite ready yet. She comes up empty. 

“I will,” Miles nods.

“You have to promise,” she’s serious, deadly. “You have to promise me, Miles. That you’ll put yourself first. That you won’t let anyone tell you different. Prométeme.”

Her eyes are green. She wears his mother’s face, but her eyes— they’re green. They shine now, with unshed tears. Miles knows, that this woman wears more than just his mother’s face.

“Mami, ” he whispers, and her tears fall, “Prometo.” I promise.

Miles knows, she wears his mother’s heart, too.

_____

“Fool,” Other-Miles catches him in the hallway, on the way back to the kitchen.

“You seriously gotta stop callin’ me that, man,” he scowls half-heartedly. Other-Miles just stares at him, gaze unreadable. What is with this guy, like, forreal? “What?”

“You know what you’re doin’?”

That’s a loaded question.

“When you say know—” Miles starts only to be cut off.

“With them. With your… dad,” the doppelganger’s jaw ticks, shoulders tensing. “You got a plan, if shit goes sideways?”

He’s… worried, Miles realises. He shuffles a little bit on his feet, tilts his head to the side in consideration. “Mmm,” Miles hums. “Nah.”

Other-Miles blinks. “Nah?”

“Nah, dude, I’m wingin’ it,” Miles tries not to wince, because when he says it like that, it really does sound insane but— but hear him out, Miles has been winging this shit for years. He’s not stupid, he knows how to strategise attacks and get the upper hand on his enemies, but that’s like, in the moment. In the grand scheme of things, he just runs into shit with good intentions and hopes for the best. It sounds bad but, well, to be Spider-man is to take risks, to make moves that aren’t guaranteed to work out.

Other-Miles looks murderous, which is never a good sign— especially considering his track record. Okay, that was a little mean, he’ll admit. But it’s also true. 

“You have no idea what you’re doing,” the doppelganger seems to realise.

“Nope,” Miles pops the ‘p’. “But I’mma win.”

“You really are an idiot,” it’s almost awed, the way he says it. “Not scared? That your daddy could die, cause’ you ain’t got it together?”

Miles tenses, shoulders reaching his ears. Other-Miles stares back at him, raises one eyebrow.  Miles lets his shoulders fall with a deep exhale. 

“I’m terrified,” he confesses, to perhaps, the only person he’ll ever admit it to. Himself. “Scared out of my mind, man.”

His doppelganger stares some more before sighing. “Stupid idiot,” he mutters. Miles cannot express how much this guy irritates him. Honestly.

“Can you quit with the—” he starts to complain, only to be cut off yet again.

“But that’s never stopped you,” Other-Miles states.

Miles blinks. “Huh?”

“Fear,” Other-Miles says, “it’s never stopped you, has it?”

What?

Miles stares at his doppelganger, questioning, and when he comes up empty, slowly, he nods. “It hasn’t.”

The boy nods back, like he was expecting it, and then he nudges his head towards the kitchen door, “time to roll, then?”

Miles nods again, more firmly. “Yeah,” he blinks, “yeah, I’m ready.” And it’s starting to feel a little more like the truth.

“Go save your daddy, idiot. Save him, so you can tell him bout’ the smarter version of you,” Other-Miles sneers at him, mouth curling at edges. Fighting words, those are.

Miles shakes his head with a laugh.

He looks at the boy with his face. The boy with sharper cheekbones, firmer eyes. The boy with a kill count that might be higher than Miles’ save count. The boy who folds, just the same, under his mother’s stare. The boy who likes to wear Jordans with stupid pockets. The boy who misses his father in a way that Miles hopes to never understand. The boy who—

The boy who is him.

Miles tilts his head, mouth curling a little as he says:

“Tell him yourself, man.”

_____

Miles lets the watch come to life. A portal tears itself into the space of the kitchen. A patchwork of colours, old newspaper mixing with vibrant neon. Bright yellows, reds, and greens swirling with dull oranges, pinks and purples. His universe, on the other side. 

Behind him, the Spiders stand. On his side, for the first time in what feels like forever. It feels good, he won’t deny it. It feels good, to be supported. It feels good, to know he isn’t alone.

Gwen stands to his left, and offers him a tiny smile, eyes red-rimmed. Miles offers a smaller one back, and that feels good, too. Feels fresh. Raw, but fresh. The first lungful of air as you stumble out of a burning building. The first inhale, after thinking you’d drowned.

But it’s not—

It’s not the reason that Miles feels so steady.

By his side, stands his doppelganger. Miles stands shoulder to shoulder with himself, and that’s what does it. That’s what keeps his chin high. Knowing he’s got his own back, when push comes to shove.

Other-Miles nudges him, “ain’t got all day, idiot, hurry up.”

Miles elbows him back.

There’s something in his mouth. It’s beneath his collarbones, too. In the tips of his fingers. It’s pumping through his bloodstream, warm and bright and shining. It’s stuck to his gums, and Miles dares to run his tongue along it. It’s familiar, but he’s never tasted it so vividly. A mouthful of sunshine except— no, it’s more than that. Perhaps, it’s the sun itself, blooming in his chest, in between his rib-cage.

Perhaps, it’s Miles, going to save his dad.

Perhaps, it’s Miles, saving himself as well.

Chapter Text

The idiot is panicking. His hands are trembling by his side. Miles watches him carefully.

“I really don’t know why they’re here,” the doppelganger insists, a mixture of fear and anger colouring his voice. “It’s not like— like anyone— we’re not on the same side—”

Miles remembers, what the boy had told him:

“Turns out all my friends already knew and just never told me.”

Don’t get him wrong, like really, don’t. He doesn’t like the fool, barely tolerates him— but Miles hates liars even more, as hypocritical as it may sound. These other brainless onesie-wearing imbeciles are already written off as useless to him. Annoyances. 

There’s a girl, with pink highlights. Must’ve had something going on with his look-alike, from the way she stares at him and the way the idiot stares back. Miles wants to smack the guy on the back of the head, because it looks like he’s about to give in or some shit from a few fluttering eyelashes.

“ Miles, we—”

“You friends?” He cuts her off quick, before it can spiral.

His doppelganger stares back at him, clearly out of it. “Huh?” he mumbles, like a fool. Typical.

“Friends,” Miles repeats, slowly, as though speaking to a child— which isn’t that far off, actually. “These your gang?”

He raises an eyebrow, and stares, waiting. The look-alike takes a while, but eventually, he shakes his head. And that’s all Miles needs.

Cool,” he hums, and looks back at the imbeciles. “Not sure what you guys thought you were doin’ here, but he doesn’t need you,'' then he jabs a thumb out the kitchen door. “Exit’s that way.”

“Miles,” The stupid girl tries again, “just here us out—”

Miles scowls. “He’s not hearin’ shit. Vete de aquí.” Get out of here.

“Who even are you, kid?” A man-toddler tries to get a word in. He’s wearing a pink bathrobe, and Miles has immediately had enough of him. “You don’t understand the situation so—”

“Oh no,” Miles shakes his head. “Don’t get it twisted, fool. I understand just fine. You don’t.”

“I like this guy,” Someone says. It’s a guy, who Miles’ll admit, looks cool. 

“You’re not helping, Hobe,” that girl complains.

Hobe, apparently, refutes. “Wasn’t tryin’ to.”

Nah, Miles likes this guy.

“Hobie, seriously,” the girl huffs.

The guy raises both his hands, looking like he couldn’t care less, “Gwendy, dunno what you thought was gonna happen here, mate. Chased ‘im halfway around Neuva and lied to his face— don’t blame him for not wantin’ to be buddy-buddy any more.”

It’s almost an out-of-body experience, to finally hear common sense. A miracle, at the very least. 

“This guy’s got a brain,” Miles observes, a little awed— and it’s sad, really, that he’s been surrounded by so many idiots lately, that any sign of even the most basic intelligence has him impressed.

The girl seems to panic. Probably beginning to realise just how bad she fumbled the bag, Miles thinks. She takes a step towards his doppelganger, and Miles tenses, turning to intercept.

“Miles, you know that I—”

His look-alike takes a step back, chest heaving as though he’d run a marathon. 

“I don’t know anything, Gwen,” the boy shakes his head. “I never did.”

And then, because this guy clearly never does things by halves— he fucking disappears. Like, evaporates. There one minute, gone the next.

“Miles!” The girl shouts.

“Woah, I forgot he could do that,” the man-toddler muses.

“That went well,” Some girl in the back says sarcastically.

“That tension was crazy,” another guy whistles. Seriously, how many of them are there?

“For real, mate,” the cool guy nods.

“None of you helped!” The girl snaps, frustrated.

“Where did he go?” His mother looks around, starting to panic.

“Do not worry, alternate mother of Miles, it is one of his abilities, to turn invisible,” Some weirdo who looks straight from the nineteen-fifties explains.

Miles feels something on the back of his neck. Goosebumps raising. He turns, to the kitchen door. There, at the entrance. Miles squints. It’s not something he can see, but rather, feel. 

He feels his doppelganger leave.

/////

“I’ll go after him,” the girl volunteers.

Miles gives her a look. “You ain’t doin’ shit.”

“Who are you to—”

“I said you ain’t doin' shit, so you ain’t,” Miles tilts his head.

She opens her mouth to refute, but the cool guy places a hand on her shoulder. “Low it, Gwendy. I’ll find him,” he says before turning to Miles, “you know where he is?”

Miles considers for a moment. His doppelganger seemed alright with the guy— but then again, the idiot likes to pretend everything is fine, so he can’t be certain. The cool guy stares back, like it wouldn’t matter to him whether Miles said yes or no. 

Okay.

“Yeah, I do, c’mon,” he nods towards the door.  “Just him,” he clarifies, before the imbeciles get any ideas. Especially the girl. Miles makes sure to give her another look before he leaves.

“My guy,” the teen grins, taking two easy strides to catch up. He’s tall.

/////

“Name’s Hobie Brown,” the guy says as they enter the hallway.

Miles just gives him a look when Hobie stares back at him, waiting.

“None of that,” the guy shakes his head, “you’re your own person ain’t you?”

Huh.

Miles swallows and says, “I’m Miles. Miles Morales.”

He gets a clap on the shoulder, “nice to meet ya’ mate.”

/////

The idiot’s blocking the way into his bedroom. Absolutely not. Miles presses a finger to his mouth when he catches Hobie’s eyes before quietly leaning against the door. As he suspected, the fool’s having a panic attack.

Miles clears his throat, “you in there?” He asks, an attempt at civility. 

His doppelganger replies with an unconvincing, “no.”

Nevermind.

Miles rolls his eyes. Hobie shrugs his shoulders in a what can you do? Miles knows exactly what he’s gonna do.

“Get out the way,” he orders, daring the look-alike to challenge him.

The doppelganger moves. Smart.

He throws the door open, striding in. The idiot is curled up on the floor, eyes shiny. Miles’ jaw clenches, just a little. This fool, what’s he expecting to fix, in here by himself? Does Miles have to do everything?

“He seemed aight,” Miles offers up, at the questioning glance at Hobie.

“Alright, mate?” Hobie walks past him like he owns the place, taking a seat on Miles’ desk. Miles’ eye twitches. He’ll allow it, for now. 

The idiot nods, and Miles wants to slap him.

“Lying,” he rolls his eyes again, “clearly lying.”

His doppelganger gives him the middle finger.

Ungrateful fool. Miles should’ve left him to rot in here, or better yet, he should have sent in his girl. Bet he’d like that.

“So what’s the plan, then?” Hobie stretches his arms behind his head.

His look-alike blinks. “Plan?”

Miles does not roll his eyes this time, a miracle in itself.

“Yeah, Morals, how we savin’ your dad? You ‘ave got a plan, right?”

The boy blinks again, “what?”

Hobie turns to him, eyebrow raised, “is he good?”

“No,” Miles says, and desperately wants to expand on it. Wants to list every single reason why his two-brain cell doppelganger is absolutely not fine. He settles on, “he’s an idiot.”

“Can you not—” The idiot tries to interrupt.

“Can you not be an idiot?” He cuts him off.

“You’re the idiot, idiot.” Wow, that was poor. The guy must be real shaken.

Hobie tilts his head, observing. “You two frenemies or suttin’?”

Miles stares at his doppelganger. The idiot stares back.

“I hate him,” they reply in unison. Which he also hates.

Hobie looks between the both of them before snorting, “looks like it.”

It’s actually incredible, how his doppelganger manages to say so little, and yet air every insecurity he has. It’s got to be a skill, of some sort. The way he stares up at Hobie with wide, hesitant eyes— as though he expects to be stabbed right through the back the minute he closes them. 

Miles wonders, if it’s something that only he can see— the way the boy has to clench his fists to mask the tremors, the way he blinks to keep his eyes dry, the way his voice shakes.

Miles wonders, if that’s what everyone sees, when they look at him. He desperately hopes not.

“What, you want in on this too?” His look-alike furrows his brows, bewildered.

Miles averts his eyes. God, this guy is so annoying. “You’re a fool. I gotta stop those other fools from takin’ advantage of that,” he mutters, because that’s the truth. Honestly.

“How d’you manage to insult me—”

“M’not doin’ it for you,” Miles rolls his eyes. “I just can’t stand seeing someone with my face be pushed around by brainless imbeciles wearing onesies — shit, one of them had on a bathrobe . You’re givin’ us a bad rep, fool.”

“Stop calling me a fool,” his doppelganger whines like a dumbass. But he seems to be turning Miles’ words over in his head. “You’re right,” he says, and Miles has gotta admit— it takes him by surprise. “I’m done lettin’ myself be bullied and beaten into shit. It’s embarrassing.”

Huh.

Miles stares, as the idiot stands up and squares his shoulders until he’s looking more like the arrogant fool he’s meant to be.

Not bad.

The man-toddler knocks on the door, and Miles is ready to tell him exactly where he can go, but his doppelganger gives him a look. A small it’s fine. Hmm.

Miles looks back at Hobie, one eyebrow raised. 

Hobie nods.

They both leave.

/////

“Mate, c’mon,” Hobie nudges him away from the door.

Miles tries not to frown. “I don’t trust that guy,” he really doesn’t. As harmless as that man-toddler looks, he was one of the idiot’s friends. If his doppelganger has another breakdown, Miles thinks he’ll lose his own mind. There’s only so many times you can see someone with your face cry. Shit’s embarrasing. Unless of course, he’s the reason for it. That’s different. That’s entertaining.

“Trust yourself then?” Hobie shrugs.

Miles pauses.

Hobie raises both eyebrows.

“Fine,” Miles scowls, backing away from the door. That idiot better hold his own, or Miles’ll beat his ass (he’ll try, anyway).

/////

Miles had forgotten about the dozen or so onesie-wearing freaks in his kitchen. He considers turning right back around, but Hobie has an arm across his shoulders and his mother looks seconds away from losing her mind with a red-haired baby wriggling in her arms. 

“Mijo,” her voice pitches up, “did you find Miles?”

He nods, “my bedroom.”

“Okay, okay,” she nods, humming a little as she tries to stop the toddler from pulling her hair. An actual toddler. They brought a baby. What the fuck.

Uncle Aaron is in the corner, next to the fridge, eyes narrowed. Miles doesn’t blame him.

“You found him?” The girl is by their side in seconds. Well, Hobie’s side. She steers clear of Miles, side-eyeing him. He side-eyes her back. 

“Course, Gwends,” Hobie says. He has this way of speaking, as though nothing matters. Casual. Easy. 

“What’d er— what’d he— did he say anything—”

“Nothing bout you,” Miles sneers, because he can’t help himself. 

“Lot on his mind, mate,” Hobie adds on, “cares a little bit more bout the whole dad situation, you get me?”

“Oh yeah— course— uh, of course,” she nods, looking so pitiful that Miles has to will himself not to roll his eyes. 

“I’ve never seen another Miles before,” some smiley guy pops up beside him. “I did only meet the other Miles, like, yesterday, but wow— you guys are so different. Do you think there’s another version of me? With like, a mohawk?”

Miles stares.

“Miles, Pav. Pav, Miles,” Hobie introduces. 

“You’re the silent, brooding type,” Pav nods at Miles, beaming as though it’s some great discovery. “I get it. It works. You two are like opposites, that’s total movie stuff, bro. Hey, have you two had, like, a massive fight yet? That’s a classic doppelganger cliche. Oh, oh you did. No way. You totally did! Who won? No wait, lemme guess. Uhh, Miles!”

“He’s a real riot, this one,” Hobie leans close to whisper, sounding fond.

“Uh huh,” Miles drawls. The guy still hasn’t stopped talking.

“Give him a break, kid, and catch your breath, too,” a literal fucking pig comes up to them. 

Honestly, Miles has had enough.

The pig offers out a hand. “Nice to meet ya’ other, other Miles.”

Miles does not shake his hand.

“He really is the brooding type,” the pig turns to Pav.

“I know right?” Pav laughs.

“These your friends?” Miles mumbles under his breath, disbelieving.

Hobie grins, like he’s just told a joke. “I don’t believe in friends,” he says, and somehow manages to make it sound like a yes.

/////

The man-toddler comes back, eyes shining but wearing a smile. Miles does not care, he just wants to know where the idiot is. 

“Miles’ still in there. Gwen’s just gone in, for a little talk. They’ll be out in a minute,” the imbecile explains under Miles’ glare. 

What the hell.

Miles whips his head around the room. That little — he didn’t even notice she’d snuck out (too busy trying to get that Pav guy and the silly pig to stop interrogating him ). Miles turns for the door only to be stopped, hand on his shoulder.

“Give it a min,” Hobie nods to the door. “They gotta work it out.”

Miles’ jaw clenches. “He’s an idiot,” he says because he doesn’t know what else to say. Because he doesn’t want to say anything that might suggest he’s even the slightest bit worried about the fool.

Hobie lets him go. 

Miles frowns.

The teen holds up both his palms. “I ain’t got any control over ya’.”

Miles looks back over at the door, and then rolls his eyes. Whatever. Let the fool get his heart re-broken for all he cares. His doppelganger can handle himself. Miles wonders why he was even bothering in the first place. He hates the guy. Seriously.

/////

Half of the people in the kitchen betrayed his look-alike. Miles knows the situation. He knows, how awful it must’ve been, to be lied to like that. He’s not feeling sympathetic for the idiot, not even close, actually. In fact, he’s feeling something else entirely and he doesn’t know why.

The man-toddler leans against the wall beside Miles.

“You alright, kid?”

Miles blinks, almost looks around because he knows there’s no way the man is talking to him.

The man blinks back.

“Fine,” he replies shortly.

“Bet it’s been kinda crazy, huh?”

Miles has no idea why this man is talking to him, and he wants it to end immediately. 

“Uh huh,” he says tonelessly.

“I’m sh— crappy, with words. Not much of the emotional type myself, but uh— It must’ve been hard for you, too. All this. Vigilantes in your kitchen. Random baby— who’s currently on the ceiling, crap, sorry, the drool does come off I promise.”

This guy is insane.

“Having another version of yourself,” the man’s voice quietens, a little. “Who, well— maybe looks a little better. That’s tough stuff.”

Miles tenses, “I don’t—”

“Been through it myself,” the guy continues on with a small sniff. “Saw the life of another me, who was basically perfect. Six-pack. Married. Blonde,” he chuckles, reaching up to scratch at the scruff of his chin. “Was real depressing, to think about who I could’ve been.”

Miles stays silent.

“But y’know,” the man hums, “met a lot of me’s this past year, and sure, some of them are real different— I’m talking cowboy different, kid. Super crazy. But uh, I’ve noticed that… well, we’re all the same, in the ways that matter most.”

“What ways?” Miles can’t help himself, and wants to bite off his tongue at the yearning on his lips— the desperate wanting.

The man turns to him. His eyes, they’re real… they’re real warm. “That’s what you gotta figure out, bud.”

Miles swallows. “What’s your name again?”

The man smiles, “Peter. Peter B Parker.”

Envy. 

Miles is feeling envious, once again, of his doppelganger. Sure, he was betrayed. Sure, he was lied to. Sure, he’ll probably have trust issues for the rest of his life but—

But, Miles didn’t even get the chance. He hasn’t had a friend in years. There’s no one left to lie to him. 

It’s twisted, isn’t it? To be jealous of betrayal. It’s got to be. There’s something terribly wrong with him, isn’t there? 

It’s just— It’s just that Miles can’t help thinking that it would’ve been better, to have known what the sun felt like first, even if only to have it ripped away. At least then, its absence would have meaning. At least then, he’d look up at a cold, black sky and remember what it had felt like, to be warm. 

Shit, whatever. Not like it matters now.

/////

“They sure are taking a while, huh?” Pav muses aloud. “Think they’re gonna make up? Should we take bets?”

“Don’t believe in gambling,” Hobie waves him off from where he sits on the floor, teaching the toddler some weird-ass hand signs.

“You’re really invested, aren’t you?” A girl on the other side of the kitchen drawls. Miles forgot she was here.

“They have so much tension,” Pav insists, voice going high. “It’s like having front row seats to a rom-com— if the rom-com was full of betrayals and backstabbing and superpowers and life-threatening enemies. Hmm. Maybe not a rom-com.”

“I think they’re toxic,” the girl hums. Miles perks up, just a little.

“Toxic?” Pav gasps, “no, no. They’re my OTP, man. They can’t be toxic.”

Miles frowns. “OTP?” he whispers to himself. 

“One true pairing,” the girl explains, she’s got this way of speaking— as if nothing really phases her. 

“...aight,” Miles says because still he has no idea what that actually means, but he also doesn’t want to.

“Gayatri and I are obviously my OTP of OTPs,” Pav continues, tone turning dreamy. “But those two are a close second because the tension, it’s so obvious that...” And then he just keeps going.

“I’d learn to tune him out, if I were you,” the girl advises.  “I’m Margo.”

“Miles,” he offers up, shifting a little.

She grins, “knew that, actually. You two do look alike. Just a tiny bit.”

Miles rolls his eyes, “ha,” he laughs dryly.

“The braids are cooler, though,” she says, casual.

Miles swallows. “Course they are,” he scowls.

Margo looks him up and down, still smiling, “you’re kinda—”

The kitchen door opens.

Everyone falls silent.

Miles stares at his doppelganger. He stands tall. There’s a firmness in the boy’s eyes that wasn’t there before. Something determined. A lack of that constant panic beneath his skin. Good. Miles’ has gotten tired of watching the fool fumble over himself.

“Oh hey guys! Don't worry, he’s back!” Pav cheers, before wincing a little. “Without Gwen. Yikes, must have ended badly.” Miles has to admit, the guy’s one of the biggest idiots he’s met so far— and that’s saying something— but he’s kinda funny.

/////

Miles stands in the hallway, and listens.

“You trust them?”

“Nah. I trust myself.”

(“But all the best people do.”)

(“Take care of yourself for me.”)

Miles stands in the hallway, and tries, not to think of everything he could have been.

/////

His uncle leaves the living room first. The man pauses at the door, when he sees Miles.

“I’m going, too,” he tells the man without any preamble. “Gotta— someone’s gotta make sure he doesn’t die.”

His uncle stares at him, like he’d already known. “You tell your mum?”

Miles shakes his head, “not yet.”

His uncle nods, and then he crosses the tiny distance of the hallway. Places a hand on the back of Miles’ neck, draws him into a brief hug.

His uncle says:

“I’ll see you, when you get back, Miles.”

And he means:

You better come back, Miles.

Miles nods roughly, “course. Course you will.”

/////

“Fool,” Miles calls out the minute his doppelganger steps into the hallway.

“You seriously gotta stop callin’ me that, man,” the look-alike screws up his face into a scowl.

Miles stares, thinking. Wondering, if it’s even worth it trying to converse with the idiot. Is it even worth it, to follow this fool to another universe for— for what? What’s the point? What does Miles gain from helping him?

The boy blinks, “what?”

Miles sighs mentally before asking, “you know what you’re doin’?”

It takes the doppelganger a minute, as though he’s trying to find a way to twist Miles’ question into something idiotic. The fool opens his mouth, and Miles already knows he’s gonna talk shit.

“When you say know—”

Yep. 

“With them,” he cuts the boy off, impatient. “With your… “ he trails off, and then has to steel himself, “Dad. You got a plan, if shit goes sideways?”

The doppelganger blinks dumbly before tilting his head, rocking back on his heels in thought and Miles already knows whatever plan he has is going to be ass.

“Mmm,” the idiot hums. “Nah.”

Miles blinks.

“Nah?”

There’s no way, there’s no way that the fool actually has no—

“Nah, dude, I’m wingin’ it,” the look-alike shrugs. Miles, suddenly, wants to bash his head into a wall. His fa— this guy’s father’s life is on the line and he has no plan. His blood boils. How careless— Does he not realise the gravity of—

(“M’just gonna do it.”)

(“That’s never stopped me.”)

(“I’ve never not gotten back up. I always do—”)

“You have no idea what you’re doing,” Miles realises. He stares, at the boy wearing his face, really stares. This guy doesn’t have a plan, because he’s never cared about the risks— no, because he’s willing to risk it all. Because he’ll run headfirst into danger with no thoughts on whether he’s bitten off more than he can chew.

Is that what it means? To be a hero?

“Nope,” the boy replies, casual. “But I’mma win.” There’s that unwavering confidence. That arrogance steeped in belief. 

“You really are an idiot,” Miles stares. “Not scared? That your daddy could die, cause’ you ain’t got it together?”

The boy tenses— easy as always. Miles raises an eyebrow. He watches as his doppelganger closes his eyes and lets his shoulders droop.

“I’m terrified,” it’s a whisper. The truth. Miles swallows, shifting at the rawness of it.

“Scared out of my mind, man,” the boy with his eyes stares back at him, expression so terribly naked.

God, Miles hates this guy. Really fucking hates him. He also really hates how he knows that he’s going to stick by this idiot’s side. He hates that he can’t stand the thought of this fool being beaten down by anyone but him. He hates it so much.

Miles lets out a long-suffering sigh. “Stupid idiot, ” he mutters like a curse.

“Can you quit with the—” the doppelganger starts to whine.

“But that’s never stopped you,” Miles cuts him off, impatient. He doesn’t want to drag this out any longer.

“Huh?”

Miles is so tired of this guy.

“Fear,” He drawls out slowly, “it’s never stopped you, has it?”

It takes the idiot a while, Miles can quite literally see the cogs rattling around in his empty skull (probably looking for the last remaining brain cell). But eventually,  that firmness in his eyes returns. The boy nods.

“It hasn’t.”

Miles nods. Good. “Time to roll, then?” He barrels on.

His doppelganger nods. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m ready.” And he looks it.

“Go save your daddy, idiot. Save him, so you can tell him bout’ the smarter version of you,” Miles taunts, because he’s been civil for way too long. He might be having an allergic reaction, actually.

His doppelganger laughs, and then tilts his head a little. There’s the beginnings of a smile on his lips, teasing and mean all at once.

The boy with his face but a much larger heart says:

“Tell him yourself, man.”

An offering.

And Miles—

Miles blinks, hard. Swallows down the lump in his throat before it can rise. Shit. This idiot. Why is he so— It’s not fair. Miles really wants to hate him, he really does. But man, doesn’t this guy get tired of being so good?

Miles wants to hate his doppelganger so much but—

Whatever.

Self-hate’s out of style, anyway.

/////

His mother’s in the bathroom.

She’s bent over the sink, shoulders shaking.

Miles steps inside. 

“Ma,” he calls out.

She inhales shakily, sniffles. “Mijo,” she whispers. 

Miles wraps an arm around her. Softly he starts, “hey, Ma I—”

“'Lo sé,” she shakes her head. I know. “Mi amor, I know.”

Miles buries his chin atop her head, and holds her. “Lo siento,” he whispers into her hair. I’m sorry.

She laughs wetly. “How did I go from ha— having two sons to having none?”

Miles closes his eyes. “I can’t let him go—”

“Baby, I know,” she cries. “I know, I know.”

“I’ll be back,” he promises, and then wonders, if it’s even him that she wants. His eyes burn. He wonders, if it’ll even matter whether he comes back or not— when he’s not the one that either of them want. “I’m sorry,” he says again, for another reason entirely.

“Mijo,” she sobs. 

“I’m so sorry, Ma,” his tears spill onto the crown of her head. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. Will he ever be able to apologise enough?

“Miles, it’s okay—”

Miles shakes his head, swallowing down a whimper. “Mm–mm,” he disagrees. “Ma, I— I’m so sorry , I— I’ve done terrible things. My— my hands—” his voice hitches and cracks and breaks.

“Miles, Miles,” she turns around in his arms. She stares up at him with shining eyes. “Baby, I love you. Te amo. There’s nothing you could do—”

Miles sobs, “you’re wrong, Mami, you’re wrong.”

“I’m not, I’m— Mijo, you’re my boy,” his mother cups his face, runs her thumbs beneath his eyes. “You’re my good boy, okay? That’s never going to change.”

Miles crumples, falls forward into the dip of her shoulder and shakes.

One day, he’ll tell her. One day, Miles will sit his mother down, and he’ll tell her everything. He’ll show her his palms, and tell her every death that he’s failed to forget. She’ll be horrified. She’ll hate him. She’ll regret ever calling him her son. But Miles will do it, because she deserves it.

“I love you, I love you,” she murmurs, like a prayer. “Keep him safe,” she says, but she isn’t talking to Miles, she’s talking to their bathroom ceiling. She’s talking to her husband.

One day, Miles will tell her everything. But on that day, when he offers up both his hands, he wants to tell her something else too. He will show her the blood beneath his fingernails, but he also—

Miles also wants—

Miles also wants to say here, look right here, at this life I helped save.

It won’t outweigh what he’s done, nothing will. But it will matter, to him. He hopes it’ll matter to her, too.

Miles inhales, and rubs at his eyes. He lets go of his mother, and stands tall. Looks into the bathroom mirror behind her head. Stares into his own eyes and thinks there you are . The twelve year-old boy gives a small smile back. Here I am.

/////

Miles stands side by side with his doppelganger.

The guy’s an idiot, no doubt about it. But that’s why Miles’ gotta come along. The fool will run straight into the fire without a second glance back, if he thinks it’s the right thing to do. It’s idiotic, for sure, but that’s alright. The universe needs people like that. Miles will make sure the idiot survives.

He scowls, just a little. “Ain’t got all day, idiot, hurry up,” he nudges his look-alike.

The boy elbows him in the side, and Miles’ mouth curls, just a little.

They step through together.

Chapter Text

omg guys i can believe i actually finished this!! it's my third completed chapter fic, so yippee. im acc so nervous tho bc idk if the ending is something i like lmao. imma let it marinate and reread.

anyways i wasn't even gonna do an a/n bc i felt embarrassed but then i was like uhm hold on lemme just do wtf i want lmao. so i'm just gonna talk a bit about the fic and like the message behind it and stuff bc i love doing that 

first of all though, huuuuuuuge thank you to all of you omfg. ngl i was so hesitant to post this fic. i'd been staring at this acc for the better part of two years and each time i'd think of posting something i'd just idek i was just scared lmao. but i'm glad i did post it bc this has been super fun, and you guys have been so lovely like seriously. i hope the ending wasn't too terrible. mwah mwah kissy kiss for all of u

now onto the fic!!!! okay so one of the main themes for this one was self-worth. honestly atsv was so inspiring to me bc of miles, he had this instilled sense of belonging yk and it was amazing to watch bc he turned his back on an entire society just to follow his moral compass. that's some hard shit to do. like honestly, as i am right now, i couldn't even imagine doing what he did despite how i have the same beliefs as him. and what was so interesting to me, was gwen. full disclosure i like gwen, in fact i like all spiderverse characters lmao-- they're all too complex for me to hate haha. i understood gwen so much, bc she was juggling with trying to keep her own head afloat, stay in the good books of her new mentors and find a way to visit her friend. it was a tough situation and i know ive struggled to balance between situations much less serious than hers. and the thing is that bc she is put against (used loosely) miles in atsv, it highlights her wavering abilities to choose what she believes in rather than what she's been told to do. miles is almost the complete opposite and so the way they juxtapose each other just amplifies their shortcomings and strengths respectively, which makes it so much easier to root for miles and to hate gwen.

i  personally don't like character bashing, so i usually take a pretty holistic view with my fics. i guess the main thing i was trying to get at for miles 1610 and gwen, is that people can try their best, they can have the best of intentions and they can still mess up. but the most important thing, is not to settle for less than you're worth. miles acknlowedges that gwen and peter b never meant to hurt him intentionally, but just because he knows that doesn't mean that's what he has to lie down and accept. you're never going to be responsible, for what people can't give you. but you are responsible for knowing when to move on, knowing when to say hey, you either rise to what i need of you or we part ways. it's knowing what you're worth. it's knowing that just because someone loves you, doesn't always mean they'll love you in the way you need. and that's okay. that's just how life is sometimes. you've just gotta establish your boundaries.

now with miles 42 omg, i acc had sm fun with him. with him, the theme was forgiving yourself. and it worked out rlly well as a doppelganger trope lmao. forgiveness, coming from an alternate version of you. i think that was super poetic. with miles 42 it wasn't about redemption. i actually hate the theme of redemption in fics lmao i don't like pinning people's lives down into arcs, into segments. it feels so artificial. this wasn't about erasing his murders, or absolving him of his guilt. it wasn't about trying to prove he's a 'good' person, bc i hate that as well. what even is a good person, anyway? it was about realising, that you can always better yourself. That you can always find forgiveness, within yourself. we're all going to do something terrible at one point or another, and most likely, it will be a mistake. and that will be that. you won't be able to change it. but life isn't about always about changing the past. regardless of what other people think about you, regardless of whether you're forgiven by others-- you will always have yourself, at the end of the day. so forgive yourself, be patience, and try again tomorrow. for all the terrible things that lay on your palms, you can always add better things- after all, the world can never have enough people trying to do better. why would it?

so yh :D honestly its 3am so this all feels a bit like incoherent rambling but yk what. thats fine. twitter is a bit questionable atm and tbh i dont use the app too much BUT if u wanna follow me here's my @  https://twitter.com/enelialt

also plantain still sucks ass and you plantain defenders can come fight me