Work Text:
Miguel doesn’t realize it until he’s a handful of feet from Miles—has no reason to have noticed, before, because he’s never seen Miles—
Miles’ eyes are the same shade of brown as Gabriella’s were.
It turns his stomach over and over, and there’s a buzz of sensation in his arms, like he’s holding his daughter to his chest all over again. He wants to deny it. He wants to argue against it, tell himself that Gabriella’s eyes had more of a golden hue to them, that the dark hints in Miles’ are just a touch off, but he—he had just been watching the recording of his daughter, he knows they’re the same color, knows he can’t deny it—
Lyla and Jess had picked up where he left off, explaining the canon events and what makes them all the same. Miguel would be relieved if there was any space left after the panic and grief making a home in his chest.
And then Miles turns to him with those eyes— those eyes— determined and furious and scared, and Miguel imagines what Gabriella would say if someone told her she had to let her father die for the sake of the universe. Would she have argued like Miles, shoulders back? Would she have taken the word of some stranger who had lashed out at her simply because he could?
For a moment, when Miles had just arrived and spoken to him in his haphazard Spanish—called him tío, when was the last time someone had called him that?—the fury that had filled Miguel had blinded him.
Miles is all skinny legs and slowly-broadening shoulders; he’s a kid, but he’s older than Gabriella would ever get to be, and he heard Miguel’s name and reached out with the hand of a community he hasn’t had in years. Had offered him an empanada. So sincere, so young and hopeful—none of the cynicism and weight that being Spiderman places on your back burdening him yet—and Miguel had hated himself for what he was going to do to the kid, and he had hated the kid for being there in the first place.
“Miles,” Miguel says, interrupting the kid’s tirade. His voice is soft and hoarse. “Please. Por favor, sobrino.”
Miles looks back at him with wide eyes—teary eyes, eyelashes clumping together, and Miguel wonders hysterically if Gabriella would have liked him. She would have, surely—she would have liked Miles' easy kindness, the way he smiles so broadly.
“Tío—“ Miles starts, voice choking, and Miguel knows the kid had lost his uncle barely a year ago. Fuck. Fuck.
“Miguel,” Jess cuts in, and her voice is hard in a way Miguel has rarely heard. It’s become more often, in the past months, as things with her husband became more strained.
He snarls in his chest and turns away, teeth grit, and meets the eyes of Peter B. His daughter—his sweet, sweet daughter, all big eyes and wild curls—is watching him with concern, one little hand reaching out for him. There’s something painfully like hope on Peter B.’s face.
“No,” Miguel growls, but Peter B. is smiling at him, eyes crinkling, and Miguel flashes his fangs at him. It does little to dissuade the other’s happiness.
A hand touches his tense forearm—barely more than fingertips, and Miguel goes stiff, head dropping to stare at his feet. How many times had Gabriella grabbed him like this, little hands circling his wrist, trailing down to grab his fingers?
“Tío, I can’t just—he’s my dad,” Miles says, and his voice cracks, and Miguel has to squeeze his eyes shut.
“What’s the point of being Spiderman—or Spiderwoman, or whatever— if we don’t even try to stop the bad things from happening?” Gwen’s voice rises, strident and angry and so, so young. Jess says something in response. Miguel heaves a deep breath in that makes his ribs creak.
Gabriella would have liked Miles and Gwen and Pavitr, and probably—unfortunately—Hobie as well. She would have been so enamored with them, seeing them as grown up and cool, and Miguel’s heart feels like it’s fracturing. He doesn’t know how old Miles is.
Even as Gwen carries on with arguing, Miguel knows he’s given up. Peter B. can tell; had noticed the moment Miguel folded like a house of cards. He argues with himself as he turns to Miles—he’s never interfered with a Spider trying to stop a canon event in their own universe, so why start with this kid? He’ll fail—he’ll lose his father, because Miguel has seen it happen hundreds, thousands of times, but—he can let the kid try. He can do that much.
“The multiverse will destabilize if any of us try to do it for you,” Miguel says, looking down at that young, young face. Miles blinks up at him as if he doesn’t understand. “Gwen is right. The core of Spiderman is to always fight the impossible. How can I stand here and tell you what not to do—how could I, when I’ve done worse?”
That wins him looks; he hadn’t noticed when a crowd of Spiders had appeared, drawn by the yelling and lights, but he doesn’t want to reveal the worst of his mistakes. Not like this. Not when he’s going to let Miles do the same thing.
It seems like Miles has finally gotten it; his eyes are wide, hopeful, thankfully drying some. Gwen appears at his shoulder with a pleased look on her face.
“We’ll have to interfere if an anomaly appears.” Miguel adds, because while he can let Miles go, he can’t watch another universe fall apart.
“That’s all I need—“ Miles says, hand clenching his mask. “Just a chance—no te arrepentirás, tío! Gracias—gracias, gracias, gracias—“
The fury and disbelief on Jess’s face surprises him, and then he’s disappointed in himself for being surprised. Of course she’s angry. Of course she’s furious, to see a kid get a chance to stop something she hadn’t ever seen coming. Of course the murmuring and raising voices of the crowd around him express discontent—none of them had foreknowledge. None of them had this chance.
It just sinks deeper into his chest, though, this certainty that he has to let Miles try. Miguel will take responsibility if it goes south; if they have to patch the multiverse together afterwards, Miguel will do it himself. His shoulders are broad enough to carry a little more grief, a little more heartbreak.
One of the Spiders steps out of the crowd and starts arguing. Miguel draws Miles behind him with a hand around his shoulder, careful to keep his claws away, and marvels at the way the kid goes easily. The trust is another thing that erodes with time as Spiderman; the trust that things are going well, that things can turn around like this. He doesn’t want Miles to lose it; doesn’t want Gwen to, or Pavitr, either. They’re just kids.
“I never tried to interfere with any of your canon events.” Miguel says, and his fangs are a touch more prominent, reacting to his elevated heart rate. Who needs a spider-sense when there’s a room full of angry voices directed your way?
Hobie slides to stand at his side, and then Peter B. does the same. Jess doesn’t lift her voice in complaint like the others, but she doesn’t move to stand at his side, either. Her eyes are fixed on Miguel’s face and confused. She’s trying to understand.
How could Miguel tell her that he had forgotten what it was like to have a chance to save a family member? How could he explain the way Miles’ eyes fill with fire just the same as Gabriella’s? How could he admit that he had forgotten what it was to try, against the odds, regardless of if it was possible?
He can’t, so he doesn’t. He stands his ground.
And then someone launches the containment shield at him and Miguel barely has time to shovel Miles out of reach of it. He has to yell for Miles to go—to run—as the kid extends a hand towards him, and is thankful Hobie and Gwen have better sense as they drag him out of the room.
The crowd of Spiders lunges forward, and Miguel sinks his claws into the containment field; it sends aching skitters of energy up and down his arms, bones and muscles trembling, but he wrenches it open with a flicker of feedback through his nanotechnology suit. The others stop a few feet from him as his vambrace spikes grow.
“We’ve respected you to lead this whole time, O’Hara,” a Spiderwoman says, stepping forwards, “but you’re wrong. We have to stop him and let this happen.”
“ Let it happen?” Miguel asks, his voice rumbling out of his chest. His mask activates and flickers to cover his face with a twitch of his fingers. “When has a Spider ever let a bad thing happen?”
He doesn’t think he’ll be able to hold them off for long—not this many, not when his own powers pale in comparison—but Miguel will give Miles as much time as possible to get free. He imagines Gabriella, her little hand curling with his, and hopes that she would be proud of him.