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you know, everything has been going great for miles.
his dad’s still alive — huge win! his grades have gotten up, and he’s managed to figure out a better balance between being spiderman and a student ( fuck yeah). he’s got his friends, both being able to visit and have them visit. and, of course, miles finally came out to his parents about being spiderman without a hitch.
(well, that’s a bit of a lie. of course, his mamí lectured him for not letting them know, and for doing all sorts of dangerous things. his dad, on the other hand, despite being a bit disappointed at it being hidden from him, was more than happy to make sure that the police department wouldn’t try to hunt down spiderman anymore. it was easy, especially since he had stepped down from captain, but had just as important of a position in another department of the nypd.)
he’s even begun to find a place within spider society. slowly but surely, miles became close with other spider-people. he and margo have hung out a lot, and he’s gotten to meet up with his old friends more often. he even gets to go see peter more often, and help him and mj take care of mayday when necessary.
all in all, everything’s great! fantastic, even. nothing could possibly go wrong, or be going wrong.
…
oh, who is he kidding.
did miles mention that he’s still plagued with nightmares of trauma and all that, like other spider-people?
well. yeah. that’s a thing.
man, miles can’t have shit.
miles breathes in shakily, digging the heels of his palms against his eyes, having just woken up from a nightmare. images from it keep flashing in miles’s mind, and he shudders, unable to keep out such imagery. the sight of gwen severely wounded, hobie struggling to save pavitr — and failing, jess hooked up in medbay, peter being chained up by the prowler, claws —
claws .
miles’s scars ache as he remembers the slash of claws across his skin. he and miguel — admittedly, very slowly — began to repair their relationship, just enough to keep one another on ‘friendly’ terms.
but it doesn’t remove the pain and trauma that came from the entire chase from their first encounter. his wounds have completely healed up, leaving faded scars behind, but they still occasionally ache. despite that, he and miguel… well, miles still considers it a work in progress.
miles shakes his head insistently, trying to shake the images out of his head. he kicks his covers off, scrambling up and heaving as he tries to catch his breath. his spidey-sense is going haywire, screaming at him to run danger hide run run run danger attack hide hide hide hide–
he slams his palm on his gizmo, not paying attention to the universe that he was attempting to travel to. when he’s on autopilot, miles knows that he’d end up in a safe dimension. he feels tears forming in his eyes, his lungs constricting, skin tingling, spidey-sense still screaming at him–
miles jumps through the portal as soon as it forms, not even paying attention as it circles closed behind him. he doesn’t register where he is, just knowing that the area felt familiar, and that was more than enough for him right now.
miles looks around wildly, attempting to find a place to hide hidehide hidehidehide despite not realizing where he was. he dives forward, scrambling under a desk and taking a deep breath.
hidden. safe. danger. danger.
his breathing is still shaky as he brings his hands up, covering his ears and digging his nails into his skin. he lets out a small sob, one of his hands immediately slapping over his mouth in an attempt to muffle his soft cries as he tries to get rid of the horrific nightmare still haunting him.
miles stays there for a while, desperately attempting to calm himself down. but he finds that he just can’t , despite his breathing slowly getting back into an even pattern. his spidey-sense is still screaming, a garbled mixture of safe hidden safe safe danger safe danger danger person behind turn turn turn–
miles turns around with wide eyes, letting out a strangled gasp of surprise as he sees a large, looming figure in front of him. he scrambles away from under the desk, backing up on his palms, breathing picking up once more.
“... morales?”
miles blinks slowly, attempting to calm down enough to figure out who it is. after a moment, he realizes–
“miguel?” he gasps out, staring at the man who’s staring down at him blankly. he was in his suit, but his mask was off. “i– huh? why are you – here–?”
“i think that’s more of a question for you,” miguel states, tilting his head. “you are in nueva york, after all.”
“oh, fuck, ” miles breathes, looking around the room and realizing that he was, in fact, in miguel’s office at hq. “ shoot , i’m – i’m so sorry, i’ll – i’ll just, uh, go and – and go bother hobie or peter or, uh–”
“you must have come here for a reason.” miguel furrows his eyebrows in confusion, and miles watches as miguel’s eyes dart over his form. “are you wounded? an anomaly?’’
miles still sometimes feels like it’s a bit strange, whenever miguel shows any form of concern for him. given that their very first interaction was rather hostile and negative, it feels nice that they’ve turned around this much, but at the same time…
“i – no, no anomaly. i’m not – physically hurt.”
“ entonces…, ” miguel says, and miles blinks in surprise as miguel sits down in front of him. “ háblame. ¿qué pasa, arañita? ”
“i can’t–” miles shakes his head insistently. it’s not that he doesn’t trust miguel, but they’ve just – never exactly talked like this, about ‘intimate’ things like trauma and nightmares. “it’s, er, not a big deal. i can go to someone else–”
“ no es una molestia .” in the blink of an eye, miles watches as miguel’s suit melts away, leaving him in his casual clothing. somehow, it… actually helped, the casualness, to make him feel more relaxed. “what is the issue?”
miles falls silent, and he’s so so grateful that miguel has decided to become patient in this situation. he doesn’t think he could handle any more stress on top of his anxiety right now. “i… had a nightmare.”
miguel makes a noise of understanding, but doesn’t say anything, giving miles the space to speak. miles brings his knees up to his chest, drumming his fingers across his shins and knees as he thinks of what to say. “it… i dunno. it just. it was – a lot. lots of…”
he shudders, falling silent once more and blinking away the sudden onset of tears. he hears miguel take a deep breath, and he tenses, waiting for miguel to tell him to get out, to stop being a bother–
“nightmares are… unfortunately rather common, amongst spider-people.”
miles slowly looks up, seeing miguel staring off towards his platform, where his monitors were, for once, turned off. “huh…?”
“i guess you could say it’s a – a canon, of sorts,” miguel hums, the faintest of smirks appearing on his face as miles lets out a groan, rolling his eyes. “there is a level of trauma that all spider-people unfortunately just… experience. whether it’s a canon event, or through fights, or even from pre-spider-person days.”
“even you?” miles asks quietly, tilting his head curiously. “you don’t… seem like you would.”
“i like to put up that facade, arañita,” miguel chuckles softly, but miles can hear the underlying exhaustion at that statement. “no one is immune to nightmares. not even me.”
miguel turns back to miles, who notices a flicker of some sort of emotion appearing in miguel’s eyes. “it is – partly the reason, why i didn’t want you to attempt to break your canon as well.”
“... huh?”
miles furrows his eyebrows in confusion, studying miguel for a moment, trying to figure out what he means. then–
“ oh .”
“i have nightmares, of the… feral-ness, as parker calls it, becoming too violent.” miguel takes a deep breath, tilting his head back and closing his eyes. “my own universe – the one i went to – collapsing … i see … i see my daughter disappearing in my arms, over and over. with an overactive imagination, where different possibilities could have happened…”
“it doesn’t exactly turn out family friendly,” miles finishes softly, before he winces at his wording. “er – no, uh, pun intended.”
“ estás bien, arañita,” miguel reassures. he opens his eyes, turning back to miles. “i – merely did not want you to think that you are alone in this. and … i figured that some – vulnerability would be necessary as well, if we wanted to move past…”
miles can’t help but smile at that, and he kicks miguel’s knee gently, teasing weakly, “ qué tal, tío? didn’t realize you’d get all sappy and wanna fix this mess up, too.”
“ si sigues hablando, me deshago de ti ,” miguel grumbles, making miles let out an offended sound. “i am trying here. comforting is – not my thing.”
miles presses his cheek against his propped up knee, taking a deep breath. miguel had just let miles know something a bit personal about him, about his own nightmares. “it… well, this time, it was sorta, like, a jumble of a bunch of things.”
“how so?”
“like, gwen being on the verge of death,” miles says quietly, not looking up at miguel. “hobie tryna save pav, but failing. jess in the medbay, peter being caught by the prowler, mamí y papí getting sucked into a fight… your, uh, your claws–”
“my claws?”
“yeah, from the, uh, the train incident.”
“... ah. i … apologize again, for that.”
“we promised not to dwell on it too much,” miles waves him off. “but, there was – also mj and mayday, somehow also getting involved – peni, peter – er, porker, that is – and noir also getting hurt, you getting crushed by, like, these huge ass buildings–”
“ cálmate, cálmate ,” miguel says, sitting up properly. “you – me? ”
“i mean, yeah?” miles blinks up at him, not understanding why miguel seems so confused. “you’re, like, in charge of everything, dude. this whole place would collapse without you if you didn’t have anyone to take over. and i know that you’re just a big softy to us kids, too, you just don’t wanna show it.”
miguel rolls his eyes at the last bit, ignoring miles’s teasing. “i am… flattered, i suppose, to hear that you also care–”
“ ha! so you do care!”
miguel shakes his head, but miles can tell that it’s being done out of fondness. “but – i can assure you that everyone is fine. no spider-person has been harmed at all this evening. you would be one of, if not the first, of the other spiders that i would alert if something happened to any of them. that, i can promise you.”
“oh…” miles stares at miguel in awe, not expecting to hear that. “damn, uh – gee, gracias, tío .”
“of course, arañita.”
before miguel can say anything else, miles feels his spidey-sense go off – but gently, in a way of alerting him that someone familiar was coming. miguel must have realized as well, as they both turn to the door to see hobie waltz in, fiddling with his watch.
“hobie,” miguel says neutrally, nodding at hobie, who raises an eyebrow back at him and nods as well. miles notices that hobie’s pretending like he isn’t out of breath, and realizes that he must have tried to check on miles, and rushed over to see if he was here. “what are you doing here?”
“searchin’ for the li’l bugger you got there,” hobie says, nodding his head at miles. “what are you doin’ in here with him, eh? not tryna convince him of some weird ass leadership shit, are ya?”
“i would rather die than allow one of you children to take over as a leader,” miguel says bluntly, but there’s a hint of amusement in his voice that he rarely lets out. “the society would collapse within minutes.”
“we’re not all that bad, right, miles?” hobie says, crouching down and slinging an arm over miles’s shoulders. tap tap tap – are you okay?
“yeah, we could be, like, lettin’ mayday in charge somehow,” miles snickers, watching as miguel’s face drops briefly in surprise. taptap – all good . “though, i don’t think that’s legal.”
“that li’l baby would do so much good for this place,” hobie disagrees. “she’d demand ice cream and sweets all day. i can respect that.”
“ so true.”
“anyways,” hobie says, standing up and helping miles get up as well, “i was tryna find you, you li’l shit, ‘cause pav wanted to hang out and watch movies. did ya know that plots of some movies are different across universes?”
“oh, shit, really?”
“yeah, get this – that harry potter lady? she managed to not be a transphobe in his universe.”
“no way.”
“ and she made draco and hermione a thing. she had the balls to do it, especially ‘cause the fucker’s not as bad of a bully as in yours.”
“ no way ,” miles gasps excitedly, all previous worries dissipating at the prospect of hanging out with the others. “ dude , that’s crazy – you think his hunger games are different?”
“what the bloody fuck is a hunger games.”
“you don’t know it?! dude, you’d love it. it’s basically like, the government is shit, does shitty things where kids have to kill and only one can survive, a girl leads a rebellion across the country.”
“right on, li’l guy, i do like the sound of that,” hobie says with a grin. “sounds like my typa series. we’ll do that next. don’t mind us, old man – we’ll be gettin’ outta your hair soon.”
miles turns to see miguel now standing, crossing his arms and staring at the two of them in slight amusement. miles tilts his head questioningly, making sure miguel didn’t want to discuss anything else, and miguel nods slightly. “go, niño . i don’t need either of you giving me gray hairs.”
“ ey, tío , don’t be like that,” miles whines while hobie mumbles about how he can already see a few strands peeking through. “we’ll, uh, see you later!”
miles lets hobie drag him out of the room, chatting with him excitedly as miguel shakes his head fondly. before they step out, unnoticed by miles, hobie briefly turns back to miguel.
miguel raises his eyebrow at him.
hobie glances over at miles, then back at miguel. his hand comes up, and miguel recognizes the british sign for thank you.
miguel nods back in understanding.
hobie nods as well, letting himself be dragged this time by an excited miles out of the room.
miguel sighs, running a hand through his hair and turning back to his platform, hands coming to a rest on his haps.
“sounds like you do have a soft spot for those kids,” lyla teases, appearing in front of him, and miguel groans, rolling his eyes. “it’s about time you start admitting it. they might even invite you to things, too.”
“i do not, and they will not. stop that nonsense.”
(they do. a week later, pavitr’s coming up to him excitedly, talking about how they’re going to experience everyone’s hunger games movie series. jess and peter were coming along, so of course, miguel was invited as well – or at least, that was pavitr’s logic.
and who is he to say no to pavitr, miles, and gwen looking at him pleadingly?)