Chapter Text
„Mom. “, Miles groaned as Rio continued to smooth out his very much already smooth uniform shirt. His mother smiled at him good-naturedly. “Mijo… We just got you back. If I had any say in it, I would keep you at home for another month or two, keep an eye on you at all times.”
“But if you keep me here, I will fail all my classes. My attendance is on thin ice as it is and…”
Rio kissed his temple. “And then Brooklyn wouldn’t have Spider-Man protecting them.”, her tone was exasperated but by now Miles knew that she was proud of him, proud that he had taken on the responsibility despite his own insecurities, proud because her son was doing the right thing.
But she was still his mother. She could have not stopped to fear for him any easier than she could have stopped breathing. Being Spider-Man was noble, maybe even necessary but it was too dangerous for her comfort.
And the things he had told him about the other Spider-People, other universes, how often he had escaped death only narrowly in his absence alone…
Miles, for his part, was relieved that his parents knew now, that he could stop lying to them, that everyone important in his life knew now and was fine with it (to varying degrees)
(He was glad that Jefferson hadn’t pointed a gun at him like Captain Stacy had done to Gwen. In the face of the uncertainty Miles had held on to the believe that his father would never do something like this to him, even with the lies, but he was sure Gwen had believed similar things before it had happened to her anyway.)
Speaking of Captain Davis walked from the kitchen into the living room, kissing his wife’s cheek. “We have to go, mi Amore.”, he said, giving his son a lopsided smile. “I will not use the siren just to get Miles to school on time.”
Kissing his mother as well, Miles followed Jefferson into the car, were awkward silence fell. They hadn’t addressed the captain’s disappointment and anger in any concrete fashion after Miles had told his tale. The only thing Jefferson had been able to offer was a tight hug and the assurance that he loved his child.
He had asked for space, and Miles had given it with a heavy heart, fearing that he had managed to alienate his father permanently. For the last couple of days, the two had treated each other as if nothing had happened, but there was tension anyway.
Talking to his mother had been easier for Miles. He had sat with her on the fire escape at night and described the betrayal and fear installed into him by people he had and still considered his friends. How he might have mended his relationship to Peter and Gwen in the aftermath of his rescue and the defeat of the Spot, but how it had still deeply altered his perception of them.
That among all the Spider-Men in the multiverse, only Hobie and Margo had helped him escape Miguel’s wild chase for him…
Rio had helped him by talking thru his feelings with him and by reassuring him that he was valid for them, but Miles couldn’t shake the feeling to burden her mother anyway.
Jefferson cleared his throat as he set the blinker. “So, your friend Gwanda is actually Gwen Stacy, the daughter of former Captain Stacy, from another universe?”
Miles nodded and then because his dad couldn’t see him, obviously. “Yeah, uh- but in her universe her dad is still alive and quiet the force recently I think, because Gwen told him that she was Spider-Woman.”
Humming Jefferson stopped at a red light. “Why would Stacy quit because of that?”
“Well, her version of Peter Parker died in a villain attack and apparently Mr. Stacy found Gwen as Spider-Woman with his corpse after the fact and it was assumed that she had killed him, as I suppose almost every Spider-Man had a difficult relation with the NYPD in the beginning.”
He stopped unsure if it was his place to tell, but ultimate decided to do so. His dad deserved all the facts to understand his hesitancy. “When Gwen told her dad that she was Spider-Woman and tried to explain that day, he had Spider-Woman cornered and at gunpoint. He apparently still tried to arrest her and shot at her after knowing it was her and-”
Suddenly Captain Davis made a sharp turn, parking his car in a Convenience Store Parking lot.
Miles looked at his father a quizzical look, while Captain Davis took a deep breath as he turned the engine off.
“Miles.”, he started, carefully, uncharacteristically hesitant, “I wouldn’t, I couldn’t shoot at you. Forget my reservations with masked heroes, even if you were a full-blown supervillain-” Miles thought about his alternate version the one that might have had become Spider-Man if Doc Oc’s Machine hadn’t had intervened, the one that had lost his Dad so early.
“I could never hurt you so deliberate. I sure as heck would not have done the arresting in that case. And the whole Spider-Man business. I do understand why you do it. That you do what you believe to be the right thing, and that is how your Mom and I have raised you.”
Miles gave him a tight smile and his father couldn’t fight is own.
“Sure, I believe that change should happen from inside the system. It can happen fast that vigilante stuff can go off the rails. I mean you heard about the maniac that calls himself the Punisher running around hell’s kitchen-
He interrupted himself and Miles added: “I am pretty sure Dare Devil is hunting him down already.”
“And Spider-Man is a great help.”, Jeff continues, ignoring the talk about the other mask vigilante in New York. “We as force can barley deal with the powered villains. It’s just that it should not be my teenage son or any teenager doing it outside the law.”
He leaned in and gave Miles a tight squeeze.
“I love you, Miles. You are the reason I became an officer. And I will forever do anything in my power to protect you. Just because we disagree doesn’t mean I will stop doing so.”
Fighting the tightness in his chest and throat, Spider-Man squeezed back. “I love you too, Dad.”
___
Miles slipped into Visions Academy and approximately two seconds before his teacher into his English classroom. Ganke shot him a long look and Miles reciprocated, annoyed that he wasn’t here early enough to at least give his friend, his best friend and only friend in this dimension, at least the abstract of the events that had accumulated into a destructive fight with the Spot against a dozen or so interdimensional Spider-People.
The city and the US as whole were puzzled over the emergence of what seemed to have been a bunch of different Spider-Man teaming up. Big teams like the Avengers for example were not really a thing in this dimension (yet?), not the way Peter (and a bunch of other Peters) told it. Sure, Spider-Man, Iron Man; Dare Devil; Hawkeye and others were a regular sight around New York and other places, but any cooperation was rather coincidental than intentional.
Miles’ school day passed in a blur. He tried to focus on the classes at hand, participated as much as humanly possible to make up the sudden ‘sick leave’ of the last few days, before asking for extra credit opportunities after lessons wrapped up. In the few minutes in between, he huddles close to Ganke who had abandoned any pretenses that he wasn’t invested, but even lunch break did not provide enough time to unpack everything.
And as determined Miles had been to pay attention and apply himself at 120%, his focus slipped a couple of times anyway. He was catching himself thinking about his other friends: Gwen, who had apparently gone home to make the effort to reconnect with her father. Pavitr, who was busy to help rebuild the damage to his dimension after it had almost crumbled to nothing. Peni, who had lost more people she loved in her canon event but hadn’t been able to open up to any of her fellow teen Spiders about it. Hobie, lived in a horrifying reality, where he was the wanted leader of an uprising against the government but still had offered Gwen, Pavitr, and even Miles, who had known a day at most, a place to stay.
So, in math class, while the teacher monologed about a principle Miles already excelled in, his notebook filled with doddles and sketches of SP//DR’ new armor, and the soft smile Peni had given him when they had finally found them, of Spider-Man India’s weapons and a typical joyful Pavitr sharing a cup of chair with the rest of them, of Gwen’s Spider-Woman swinging gracefully, while he tired to capture the way his friend had changed over the last year, Spider-Man with his electric guitar, west and spikes and Hobie leaning against the door frame with a smirk, Hobie high-fiving Mayday…
Miles huffed annoyed when the bell rang to end the lesion as the teacher was instructing homework over the hustle of students packing up, capturing Hobie Brown was infuriatingly difficult. Ripping a few pages out to use for his sketchbook later, he hung himself onto Ganke’s heels as they walked over to their dorm.
“So, there is a secret society of Spider-Men fighting interdimensional anomalies, most of them being Peter Parker-”
“Or Peter Parker adjacent.”
“Or that. But it was lead by this Miguel dude, with no spider-powers, who didn’t want you to join because he said you wasn’t supposed to exist as Spider-Man. Than he sent every Spider-Person ever to chase you, when you wanted to save your dad, who is perfectly fine since being promoted so far-”
“So far.”, Miles confirmed, ignoring the squeezy feeling in his stomach pointedly.
“And almost murdered you when you went thru their little sends-you-back-home machine, that by the way sent you in the wrong universe, one where you are the Prowler and your dad is dead and he tried to kill you and/or use you-”
“Alternative Me can be fucking scary and well, his Uncle Aaron is way more jaded and eviler?”
“And Miguel was, like on drugs the whole time, and spiraled when you and the rest of Gwen’s rescue squad proved that you are not an anomaly and there are, a shit-ton of holes in his canon events theory.
After that you still had to fight that Spot freak who you know, wanted to destroy everything or whatever.”
“Yeah, that is everything I suppose.”
By now Ganke was sprawled out on his bed, hand under his chin as he was processing the chain of events. Miles was sitting by the other boy’s desk, is socked feet propped up on the mattress.
“What is happening to the Spider-Society now? And this Miguel?”
“Headquarters are in Miguel’s universe, so I don’t know if they stay there, but for now Jess and Ben took over leadership with Margo doing most of the analytics but they turned down operations to a minimum, only like absolute interdimensional emergencies are being delt with.”, Miles was not bitter or anything that he still had not been invited by Spider-Woman nor Scarlet Spider to join this time around. Of course not. “And Miguel is going thru withdrawal. Peter did see to it, but he was incredibly vague about it.”
With a sigh Ganke rolled over and pressed his face into the pillow, throwing off Miles’ feet from his bed. “God, your life is so insane. I cannot believe I am getting involved in your life and your superheroing. That is such a bad idea.”
“I give you another two months or so before you’ll help me with every night patrol.”, Miles joked good-naturedly, placing his feet back on Genke’s thigh. “So much about not being my man in the chair.”
With another dark glare the conversation seemed to be over, and Miles went true is artistic endeavors during Math class deciding which of the pieces he might integrate or redo in his sketch book. Not that he had time to get any drawing done with his homework and superheroing being on the agenda tonight.
“I’ll order food and we study together?”, he asked after trying and failing to remember all of Hobie’s facial (?) piercings.
Ganke rose to a sitting position painstakingly slow, like a zombie or something. “Fine, but I will not stay up all night and help you with your extra credit. I need to be awake tomorrow for Computer Science Club.”
Later both boys were sitting together on the floor pouring over textbooks and munching on Mexican take out. In the background Ganke had put on old cartoon episodes both of them knew by heart. Currently Miles was struggling to shorten his history essay to the desired word count when his spider-senses went off. He had been listening into the chatter on police radio frequently, but it had not happened anything of notice. When he rose his head to their window, he made eye contact with Hobie thru his mask, the older teens fist was raised to knock.
Miles blinked once.
Twice.
And leaped over his roommate to open the window frantically.
“Hobie! What are you doing here?”
“’s up, Miles? You’re good after our little adventure?”
The older teen hoped into the room. An impressive task given how little the window was opened and how tall Spider-Man was.
Ganke put his notebook away with a sigh but was curious as ever at the arrival of yet another Spider-Man variant, he was not familiar with. For a moment there was silence, until Miles stumbled over his words a bit: “Uh, Hobie, that’s Ganke, my best friend and roommate and he is decidedly not helping me with Spider-man stuff, but he knows. Ganke, Hobie, the coolest Spider-Man I’ve ever met, only one that helped me against Miguel right away.”
“The coolest Spider-Man, huh? I apricate that, Miley.”, Hobie was grinning thru the mask Miles was sure.
“Do not call me that.”, Miles complained grumpily, but Hobie had already focused his attention on Ganke, hands stuffed into his vest-pocket and bouncing on his heals. “Cheers, mate. Good to meet you.”
Ganke nodded. “Already heard a lot about you today. I like your mohawk-spikes. Super cool costume all around.”
“Thanks. But you heard all about me?”, Hobie turned back to Miles, having decidedly too much fun with this interaction. “Well, only saw him today, I was with my parents the whole time, so obviously I had to fill him in about our adventure and the Spider-People I’ve met.”
Humming, Hobie leaped to sit on Miles’ bed, long legs dangling of the edge. A moment later he shot a web out to nick a burrito. One of Miles at that. Only when he pulled up the edge of his mask to eat, did Miles snap out of it.
“So, what do you need?”
“Like I said, bruv. I am checking in on you.”, he explained in between bites. “I do apologize for coming so late, I suppose. I was at Gwendy’s first. Mostly in case I need to beat the shit out of her dad. Just because he promised to be better…” Trailing off, he wiped his mouth with his suit. “But yeah, she seems fine enough giving the circumstances.”
Miles nodded, relived. He had no means to contact his dear friend and he had been afraid for her, just for that slight possibility. Just like he had been worried about his own father’s reaction even tough it seemed unlikely. (Was he disappointed that he had been again, an afterthought for his friends?)
“I am fine. My parents know now too. My mami is mostly concerned with my safety and my dad is grappling with it, but he promised to protect me one way or another. So, it could be worse?”
“Alright. But don’t forget that you are invited to crash at my place if anything ever happens, just like Gwen, tough it might not be the coziest universe to hang out. Fascist totalitarian regime and all…”
Ignoring the warm feeling Hobie’s loyalty ignited in his heart (especially since Peter and Gwen had kept things from him.) he cleared his throat. “Thanks, dude. I don’t know what else to say really. I hope I don’t need it, but, well, thanks.”
Hobie hoped down, threw his arm around his shoulder and pulled him into a half-hug. “Don’t worry about it. Do you want to go on patrol with me tonight, have a little fuck-about if nothing happens?”
“Sure.”, Miles hoped the other boys didn’t see the blush creeping up his neck to his cheeks. “Give me a sec to change.” Out of habit he started stripping down right than and there in the middle of the room. Hobie turned around, pretending to give him privacy. Ganke didn’t even look twice and now tipped away on his laptop. Miles did that all the time around their dorm either into the suit or out of it into normal clothes. (He did get the hang on wearing it underneath his clothes more and more these days tough) As long as he didn’t strip his boxers, his roomie was fine.
“Gank-eee.”, Miles started as he was pulling his mask over his head. “I told you I won’t help.”, the other shot automatically but could not keep a straight face. “But fine, I’ll proofread your essay, but I’ll take your last burrito.” “Deal!” “New York better be extra double safe with two Spider-Men swinging around!”
“An honor to meet ya, Ganke.”, Hobie gave a mock bow, before leaping after Miles out of the window and into the Night.
Miles watched Hobie swing thru the night. So intently he almost swung himself in a dark office building. Maybe he was ignoring the way the older teen cackled at him until they stopped to sit on the edge of an especially tall skyscraper.
The Static of Miles’ radio crinkled but again not really a single call that would be needing Spider-Man, not to mention two, not even a robbery or anything.
For a moment the two boys were just watching the New York Skyline in peace.
“Listen, Miles. I was fibbing a bit there with your boy Ganke. I didn’t only swing by to see how you are doing. Like sure I am chuffed that you’re good and all that jazz, but I also brought you a present.”, Hobie was rummaging thru the inside of his vest. “Here ya go,”
Miles caught the watch, the interdimensional watch with ease.
“It’s like the one you made for Gwen.”
The piece was as busy as the one his friends had used to rescue him first from his villain counterpart’s dimension and then from Miguel’s misguided wrath. Miles couldn’t hold back the broad grin he was giving Hobie. “Thank you, man. That is so cool.”
“You are very welcome. It isn’t the only surprise thought.”, Spider-Punk was stretching out his hand. “Give me your phone.”
And Miles did with minimal hesitation. Because it was Hobie, whatever the surprise it was, could not be malicious.
Another minute or two he watched his friend tinker with the devise until he added a piece of obvious 2099-tech to the interior of the phone and clicked the shell back on. When Miles took it back, he found a new app on his home screen, one with a little spider icon.
He clicked it.
A chat-app opened with a bunch of contacts already saved to it and a group-chat.
Spider-Gang 2.0 🕸️ 🕷️ 🦸
Hobs🇬🇧🧷🤘🏿🎸✊🏿: Oi! I’ve got @(S)Miles here say hi @everyone
Peni🤖💕 (◕‿◕)♡: MILES! FINALY (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧
Pavitr-Man☕🇮🇳😎🔥✨: Hey!
Porker🕷️🐽: Sup?
PBP🖤: Good evening, Miles
GhostGwen🥁👻🩰: Miles! I was just added as well.
Maydays Dad👶🕷️🕸️: Good to be able to read you kid
Maydays Dad👶🕷️🕸️: That’s being said who of you lil’ shoots changed my screenname again?
Margo-Byte 🕷️💻🔎: Hi Miles
(S)Miles🌻🕸️⚡: Glad to be here!
“Smiles?”, he asked looking up from the screen with a warm fuzzy feeling in his chest and a silly grin on his lips.
“I have no clue what you’re talking about, mate.”, Hobie grinned back. He suddenly looked like remembered something and tipped away on his own screen.
Miles phone ping-ed and he was invited to another group-chat.
Spider-Teens 🕷️🔥🎤
Unlike the general group chat with everyone this only had the Spider-People who still were in school or were supposed to be in school in it.
“Alright.” Hobie stretched. “I have to go see if my universe collapsed in my absence. See you round, Miles and well, be careful with that nice tech I got you. We should have a proper hang soon, yeah?”
Fist bumping the other Spidey before he vanished in the portal, Miles sat there for a moment longer watching the group-chat argue about Peter B.’s nickname and how much Mayday defined his identity now.
After the argument had lead nowhere, Spider-Man stopped a break-in at a convenience store, lacing the perks up prettily for the police to find before heading back to his dorm to sneak in and get some sleep before he had to finish his homework in the morning.
Maybe Miles won’t be so alone in the future.