Chapter Text
“I'm not fucking smoking that.”
“You need to relax. Expeditiously.”
“What I need is for everyone to stop telling me how tense I am.”
“But you are tense.”
Miguel’s already miffed countenance twists into a scowl. His eyes don't part from the holographic screens floating around the both of you. He flicks through some still frames of a security camera footage, pretending he can still keep focus on his task at such a late hour.
“Exactly,” You say smugly, waving a freshly rolled blunt in front of his face, “No rebuttal because it's true.”
He swats your hand away, “Stop it,” and turns to scrutinise another screen, “I'm busy.”
“I’m busy,” You parrot in a childish, mocking tone, “I've got work to do. Justice never sleeps,” To piss him off more, you put on a ridiculous, gravelly voice, “The fate of the entire Multiverse rests on my huge, rippling, obscenely jacked-up shoulders!”
He gives you a dead-eyed glance, a warning of sorts, before he goes back to the screen.
“I don't sound like that,” He mutters, angrily prodding at something.
“You do.”
“Three seconds to shut your mouth before I do it for y–”
“LYLA,” You cut him off, “When was the last time Mr. Grumpy Spider-Pants left this godforsaken room?”
The AI flickers to life, reclining with her arms behind her head and a foot hooked across her leg.
She gives you a pleasant smile, “If my records are right, which they always are, Miguel has been in his hidey-hole for five consecutive days.”
“Five days!” You echo back to him, aghast.
“This secure chamber is not a hidey-hole,” He retaliates, still busy tapping at the screen.
“It’s a glorified man-cave at best.”
He says nothing.
“I bet you haven't even showered,” You carry on.
“Poor personal hygiene is not sexy,” LYLA joins in, floating around in the air, typing away on her phone.
“I'm not trying to be sexy,” Miguel sneers, and you can't help but titter at how weakly he has to defend himself, “I'm trying to prevent the collapse of the ent–”
“Entire Multiverse,” You finish off for him dryly, “Yeah, yeah, we know.”
LYLA hovers right in front of his face, obscuring the screen. “And that skin-tight suit would say otherwise to the sexy thing, B-T-Dubz.”
He lunges for her, attempting to scoop her up with his fist, and fails miserably.
With an impish grin, she gracefully floats over to you and sits on your shoulder. She sniffs once, twice, and looks down at what you're holding.
“Is that…?” She cocks her head to one side at you, “And you’re trying to–?” Then, looks at Miguel and erupts into a fit of giggles like there's no tomorrow, “Oh, darl–” She pats your cheek with her tiny hand, “You're super ambitious.”
“Annoying,” He growls, “She's super annoying.”
You tut, “I'm offering you a fun, stressless night completely free of charge,” and prod him with the tip of a finger, directly between his shoulder blades, smirking when his shoulders jolt just a little bit, “How is that annoying?”
“Because it's you,” He retorts.
“I take that as a compliment, you know.”
“Ay, dios mío. How did I end up with two of you?”
“You attract the energy you put out into the world, Migs,” LYLA croons.
He grumbles again, sounding a lot like a feral street cat, “I do not give out annoying energy.”
The two of you share a look and try desperately to stifle a laugh.
“Sure you don't, muñeco,” You lay a hand on his arm and step in front of him, decidedly through with the less than stimulating foreplay.
“I've told you,” He says morosely, attention still fixed on the screens, “Do not call me that.”
Not rolling your eyes takes all the effort in the world.
LYLA perches on your shoulder again, crosses a leg over the other and fixes her sunglasses. “Yeah, conejita suits him better.”
“Oh, you're so right.”
“Of course I'm right. So, are we having a girly night in together?”
“Well, in theory we are.”
“Just the three of us? Mm, I’m getting exclusive VIP party vibes.”
“More of a slumber party.”
“Girls, I mean it–” Miguel starts, tone heavy and serious, “–I need to work.”
“You have been working,” You prod him again, on the centre of his chest and take an imposing step forwards, swallowing up the space that separates you from him, “This whole week, you've been working. The week before that too, and before that and blah, blah, blah,” Wafting the blunt around like a conductor's baton, you see his eyes narrow in provocation. “And there's been no more anomalies. No catastrophic, universe-shattering events. Nothing bleak whatsoever.”
“Apart from when the cafeteria ran out of empanadas,” LYLA butts in.
“Okay, one semi universe-shattering event, but–” You poke him again, he huffs out a disgruntled breath in response, “Nothing other than that.”
He purses his lips, gaze still distracted.
With a sigh, you cut through the holograms with your fingers, making them dissolve into nothingness.
Your hand sprawls out over Miguel’s chest, touch light and gentle, “Can't you just take a night off?” You aren’t one to plead or beg, especially not with him since it would only spur him on to be even more tiresome, but you're doing something close to that right now. For added good measure, you even bat your lashes at him, “For me?”
He looks down at you, finally, and pouts even harder. Like a child.
The eye roll can’t be fought off this time.
After a while, he asks, “Where did you even get that?” nodding at the blunt you've been wielding this whole time.
“Hobie,” You reply casually.
Miguel groans, like he's disgusted or in pain, one of the two. Maybe both.
“What? He grows the stuff himself, so you know it's both primo and safe. Not like weed can even be unsafe… Can it?”
“Esto es estúpido,” He mutters, pinching the bridge of his nose and turning away from you to pace along the platform, “Estoy rodeada de idiotas.”
“Again…” LYLA drawls lazily, “You attract what you put out.”
“Why don’t you go pester him?”
“Ah,” You throw a dismissive hand at him, “Hobie’s great an’ all but we smoke all the time. Plus…” You lower your voice a little and shoot him a sly smirk, “I like you better.”
He stills, shakes his head, mutters some more curses in Spanish under his breath and looks over his shoulder at you both.
“Oooh, the trademark intimidating glare,” You trill, holding your hands up in surrender, “Please don't eat me, oh, big and scary Spider-Man.”
“You are entirely repugnant,” He hisses, eyes aglow with a faint cherry hue.
“Aww,” You coo back, “You always say the sweetest things, Miggy.”
He lets out a frustrated grunt and turns around to face you properly, arms akimbo, talons out and settled on his hips to no doubt subdue you without actually lifting a finger.
“If I do this with you, will you shut the fuck up?”
“Hmmm,” Feigning interest in his plight, you tap the end of the blunt to your chin thoughtfully, “Depends. Will you stop acting like a gigantic scrote?”
The venomous narrowed eyes that come in response aren’t all that surprising. In fact, you’re more confused that he didn’t just explode into a six foot nine hurricane on the spot – Tasmanian devil style.
Even more shockingly, he quirks the tiniest of smirks at you and snatches the blunt from your grip.
“Guess we’ll have to find out, won’t we, niñita?”