Archive of Our Own

1610’s Spot had been vanquished, a police captain deftly hauled from the rain of rubble that would have surely taken his life along the way. Miguel watched it all unfold from the pressing solitude of his lab, gaze flitting tensely between every angle. Dark matter rolled like a tide around the villain’s form; dread spread thick like oil in his gut. 

A blur of red rocketing toward the vacuous black, the sound of an electrical discharge sparking, the phantom smell of ozone, and screaming. The one remaining functional camera caught it all as Spot’s body atomised on a wave of dark energy, his body dispersed as opposing forces clashed and rejected one another. The nearby buildings and tarmac that had been stripped apart as they tumbled into his gravity fell in a cloud of ash that settled along the ground, pooling within the crater left behind by its creator as silence reigned.

Morales stood from where he knelt in its centre, his gaze lifting until his masked face was tilted to the sky in wordless triumph.

He swiped away the interface, bathing himself in the ensuing darkness as he leaned his full weight against the bench. Closing his eyes, the toothed ridges that lined his lungs released its hold on a breath that faltered when it rushed up his throat like a sickness.

Universe 1610’s lifeline remained stable in the hours following. Headquarters, which previously had felt akin to a hive of frantic, anxiety-filled bees, mellowed out with a collective sigh of relief once the news broke. It had taken a full week of no fluctuations before the disquiet unravelled enough to allow him to instruct LYLA to stop the constant monitoring of its condition. Even then he’d continued to catch himself, often pulling up its information with the expectation of the plethora of warnings that pointed to the fact that reality was unfolding just around the bend.

The first time he saw Miles was just days after the crisis had come to a close. The kid stood tall in the centre of the lab, head high as he met Miguel’s stare. They didn’t share a word, even as Jess stepped forward in his stead with a dimensional travel watch in hand. It fit around his wrist snugly, the orange of its virtual face a stark contrast to the dark tones of his suit when it flickered to life, mooring his form in alignment with the universe once more with the removal of his day pass.

Miguel nodded to him—a single incline of his head in acknowledgement that was haltingly returned before the kid turned and strided from the room. The rest of his mis-matched band flanked him on either side, already engaging in eager conversation that reverberated against the metal walls. He turned his back to the previously occupied space as the voices receded and the chamber fell quiet.

Being head of the Society, more often than not it fell to someone else to send their members into the field and receive mission reports before condensing it into a digestible overview for him to skim over. This, however, had never stopped him from accessing files whenever it suited him—he appreciated knowing how every Spider fared rather than being left in the dark simply because not all details were deemed essential. 

The first time Miles was deployed on a mission, he didn’t hesitate to pull up his report the moment it had been transcribed for system access.

A rudimentary Rhino, easily incapacitated with the help of the local Spider-Man. No injuries, and only a handful of lamp posts along with a broken fire hydrant to speak of the destruction of property. All in all, the best case scenario, especially when considering the villain’s tendency to bring down entire buildings amidst his rampaging. Of course he knew the kid was skilled, he’d seen for himself just how capable he was—been forced to admit it, really, when electricity had burned through the technical integrity of his suit as he’d tumbled down the side of the train—but to see that he’d readily thrown himself into his work was relieving, of sorts.

Every report that followed spoke of the same aptitude. Never had he found it necessary to call for backup, a detail that surpassed any of Miguel’s expectations based purely on the lack of experience that the young hero had under his belt.

“This kid is crazy,” LYLA declared from where her holographic form looked down at the sixth report in just as many days over his shoulder. “We always get backup requests for Green Goblin variants, yet he single-handedly cleared this guy without even a scratch.”

Even though it had been a little over a month since Miles’ initiation, he still found himself scanning every single one of his accounts that rolled in. There was no rhyme or reason to it at this point, but it had undeniably become a habit. It was harmless, he’d argue. At least it allowed him to keep tabs on how he’d adapted into his role within the Society.

Miguel read the strings of words over and over. “It’s definitely unusual.”

LYLA blipped out before appearing in front of him, arms crossed and head tilted his way. “Are you doubtful of the report? I’m not sure if Jess would take too kindly to you criticising her work, Mig.”

“No,” he answered, already sending in a call request to the woman in question, “not her or the report. Just the one who gave it to her.”

The holo-assistant quirked an eyebrow at him, but didn’t intervene as the connection was opened. Any concerns as to the state of the kid were quickly dispelled as Jess answered his inquiries. Indeed, apparently there hadn’t been any issues with the incapacitation and capture of the Goblin, with nothing indicating that Miles had been anything but truthful in his account. 

He pushed the matter to the back of his mind and ignored the persistent buzz of doubt that made itself a home there.

For all that Miles so readily accepted mission requests, Miguel could count the number of times that he had seen the kid around headquarters on one hand. He still ran with his usual crew if Peter’s recounts of their recent misadventures were anything to go by, though it seemed that they’d turned the band’s home universes into their usual stomping grounds.

It was nothing unusual, and he knew that there were a fair few that preferred to hang in their own worlds rather than the workplace, though it meant that it more often than not took him by surprise whenever he happened to catch a glimpse of the kid. They had hardly spoken more than a few words to each other—clipped greetings that extended into silences punctuated by an avoidance of eyes and the scuffing of feet as the teen hurried away.

Needless to say, he was caught off guard when Miles stepped into his path the day after his tussle with the Green Goblin as Miguel made his way to the transport bay, Peter nattering unceasingly in his ear about something or other that he was decidedly tuning out. The splash of red and black against the pristine white walls caught his attention immediately, and he took in the suited form of the kid. He wore his mask, obscuring his expression beyond the widening of the eye lenses as he spotted the pair’s approach. The teen froze in place.

“Morales,” Miguel intoned. This spurred the other man to finally come back down to Earth, the sentence on his tongue failing and his eyes likewise landing on the person in front of them before. A smile crept onto his face.

“Miles! What are you doing here, kid? Aren’t you meant to be on patrol?”

The mask lenses closed in a mimic of a blink, followed by a notable straightening of the back before he lifted a hand in greeting. “Hey! Uh… yeah, I was just… stopping in? It’s been a slow night, y’know how it is.”

Miguel squinted, looking at him more closely as he opened his other senses. Most notable was the scent of sweat and the acridity familiar with most cityscapes, though the discomfort in the growing stiffness of his shoulders and the sharpness of his movements as he lowered his arm back to his side was unmistakable. Its cause wasn’t difficult to discern; while his features were hidden, he was sure that Miles’ focus was on him moreso than Peter. It wasn’t lost on him why that might be, and he decidedly ignored the feeling of ice water surging through his veins as he was hit with the full brunt of the realisation.

To his merit, Peter seemed to likewise notice the kid’s behaviour. Rather than press the conversation, he waved a hand dismissively before continuing in his usual genial manner. “Of course, it might be worth taking it easy tonight then, yeah?”

Miles had begun nodding halfway through his sentence, clearly trying to move the conversation along. “Right, yeah, yeah, totally! So I’ll just…” he pointed in the direction past them as he began to creep around them in a wide arc. “I’ll— see you around?”

The harsh groaning of an unsated appetite betrayed the kid’s hasty departure, ringing out clear as day as soon as his back was turned. He slowly angled his head to look at them over his shoulder, and upon seeing the expressions the pair of them must have worn, his shoulders raised around his ears in a half-hearted shrug. 

“I skipped lunch?” The words crept up several octaves toward the end.

Peter clicked his tongue disapprovingly next to him as Miguel resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. 

He mimicked the gesture the other man had used prior, making a shooing motion as he spoke. “Hit the cafeteria on your way out, Morales. The last thing any of us needs is you collapsing in the field.”

Miles openly stared for an extended moment, as if unsure whether he’d heard him right, before he whipped around again and began to stride away, throwing a thumbs up over his shoulder. “Right, okay! I’ll, um… I’ll do that.”

Miguel only watched for a couple seconds before turning and continuing back en route to their destination. Peter fell into step at his side shortly after, sighing heavily all the while. “That kid… He’s one of the best of us, but he’ll never stop giving me grey hairs.” The gentle quality to the man’s voice was just the same with which he spoke of Mayday, rife with a fondness that heeded not the lack of blood binding them. “I think he’s a bit unsettled; he’s made a habit of starting his patrols earlier in the evenings. He won’t say anything, but I don’t think he’s been sleeping well. Whenever I see him he looks like he’s been put through the wringer.”

Humming his agreement, he started, “He’s putting in good work.” A single unassuming ping on his watch drew his attention before he could say any more. On its face there read an alert of a newly transcribed report filed under the one and only Miles Morales. Miguel blinked down at the alert, angling the watch away when Peter swayed closer to get a peek, ignoring the string of muttering that his efforts invoked. 

So much for patrolling. It was obvious now why the kid had been this far down in the tower—he’d been dropping off a newly caught anomaly for Margo to process.

Glancing at the other man, it was clear that he had already given up on him, having realised that his distraction had stripped away the possibility of lasting conversation, and furthermore that he was none the wiser to the fact that the kid had lied to their faces as he began to prattle on again. He debated his options, and with apprehension sinking its barbs into him, he dismissed the alert with the intention of getting back to it once he was alone.

Whether the kid was or was not forthcoming with his friends wasn’t his business so long as he wasn’t landing himself in any further trouble. Perhaps it was a one-off, he mused. Maybe it was as simple as making an excuse to find reprieve from the eyes of those who knew him best—a sentiment of which he could empathise greatly with. Regardless, it was certain that his involvement would do nothing but make matters worse, for who exactly he could not be sure. There was a reason he avoided Miles

It was a thought that was easy to entertain, even if the festering unease that had centred its attention around the kid railed against his better sense.

Jess had left with the promise that once the baby was old enough she’d bring them around to show them off. This had been much to Peter’s delight, who had proclaimed joyously that he looked forward to letting Mayday have playdates, which Miguel had immediately vetoed for the sake of what lingering control he still maintained over the productivity of his own workspace. Even though the woman’s return was months away, he dreaded the day that his command would inevitably be overstepped at the behest of stubborn Spiders.

With Jess gone, the vacuum of responsibilities that had yawned open in her stead was a notable one. Adding her duties to his own laundry list was the logical decision considering that he’d been the one managing her job prior to her becoming a member of the Society to begin with. If it meant his shoulders would bear more weight, then at least it was only his back that was breaking.

The reports weren’t awful to listen to, and more often than not LYLA was well-equipped to transcribe for him just as she had for Jess so that he could have his hands free to multi-task. All in all, it wasn’t a major detriment to his work rate, though he could have done without losing even more sleep to the more inconvenient callouts.

The true problem arose in the case of Miles Morales, as was the trend these days, whom he could no longer give a wide berth in order to spare the both of them the nigh unbearable discomfiture that they endured in the time that it took for every detail of his missions to be relayed. Whenever he was notified that the kid had responded to an anomaly alert, Miguel spent his time in advance of their meeting schooling himself into neutrality. It cornered him into a passtime of reinforcing the walls that bound the neatly folded layers of discontent and contrition that had ravaged its encasings since the moment he was forced to contend with everything that he’d thought he knew of the workings of the wider world and beyond.

The scuffing of feet from the hallway had become his warning to look busy, only sparing a glance over his shoulder when Miles would call out to him with a dry quip, its humour lost in the unreadable layers of his tone. “Ready to report, Morales?” he’d answer back by way of greeting as he lowered his workstation more to his level. The next minute or so entailed him looking away from his screens every now and again to show that he was listening, while the kid stared anywhere except in his direction, his words cascading out of him. More than once he’d backtrack to tack on another sliver of information before hitting his stride again. Miguel never complained, merely signalling for LYLA to add an amendment to the report that steadily wrote itself into existence on one of the adjacent holograms.

It didn’t slip his notice that the kid never removed the mask when he spoke unlike the rest of the Spiders. While most strolled around the grander spaces of the headquarters fully-suited, it seemed to be an accord among the members that one-on-one communication with each other was typically done bare-faced.

Miguel hadn’t seen the kid without the mask since the day he received his watch. 

All things considered, he couldn’t blame him for it—any attempts he made to hide his reservations that the teen still bore for him were minimal at best. If he wasn’t certain from the general air about him, then the way that Miles was straining not to sprint from the lab chamber every time Miguel dismissed him was more than enough to convince him of his aversion to him.

Sometimes it felt as though the kid was expecting something more of him; the steel of his spine showed a precognition of a punch that had yet to be thrown. The shame that bubbled like hot tar behind his ribs in response oozed into his stomach and rose up his throat, threatening to drown him if only he lingered on it long enough to give it the chance. It was just a facet of their shaky relationship that he had resigned himself to never overcoming. 

Despite the awkward atmosphere that they could never successfully dance around, Miles unwaveringly kept up his tireless efforts of bringing in anomalies. The proof of how efficiently he took to his work was blaring, and yet for all that he threw himself into each mission without much in the way of preparation, still he returned with no wounds to speak of and an underlying eagerness that even his discompose couldn’t conceal. His dedication was nothing short of admirable.

Miguel had regrets, many of which he could not rectify. When he awoke in debilitating pain with the knowledge that his coworker had tried and failed to kill him, he swore to be smarter. When his entire life cried out for him as she decayed where he cradled her in his arms, he swore to be stronger. When he gritted his teeth and lowered his head from the display where a silhouette of the young Spider-Man stood victorious in the wake of his own ignorance, he swore to be better.

It was a universal constant that even when he tried to do what was right, he would end up breaking every promise that he had ever made.

The smell of blood reached him just as soon as he turned to address the kid directly, bitter metal heavy in the air and causing him to choke as it settled on his tongue. Dismissing the displays, he whipped around to take him in, seeking him out in the dim lighting of the floor below. Miles was wearing a jacket that was zipped up and hiding the entire front of his torso from view. A ball of tension coiled in his gut that he ruthlessly repressed, and he wasted no time before leaping from the platform and down to the main level, striding forward to meet him.

The young hero froze in his approach. “Uh… Hey, man, are you—?”

“Show me.” Miguel realised that perhaps he didn’t have as tight a hold on himself as he thought he did; he ignored the flinch that his words elicited.

A single blink, the lenses matching the movement. He’s still in the mask, and it occurred to him how unfortunate the colour scheme was. The darker palette would make it difficult for anyone to pick out where blood sullied the fabric unless they knew to look for it. The thought made him more nauseous than he knew how to fathom.

“Huh?”

“You’re injured,” Miguel clarified as he came to a stop before him, raking his gaze over him and searching for any signs that he was in pain. The scent was too fresh to have come from the Lizard variant, nor any civilians that may have been caught in the crossfire. The fact that he wasn’t visibly favouring any part of his body was only more concerning. “Show me.”

“How d—?” Miles rocked back on his heels to put more distance between them, his voice hardening in an echo of the retaliating tone that he’d used against the man some months prior. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, I’m not hurt.”

“Miles,” Miguel growled out unbidden, warring with himself not to ball his fists at his sides when the kid went completely still at the sound. Acid chewed through him until it carved into the hollows of his bones.

The teen was quiet for a moment before he snapped out of it, heaving out a burdened exhale as he returned frustratedly, “You’re losing it. I don’t know what would make you think I’m hurt when I’m perfectly fine—”

“I can smell the blood on you, so unless you’re about to tell me that it’s from the other guy—which I don’t believe for a second and can have easily verified—then I’d suggest that you tell me the truth.”

It came out more like a threat than he intended it to, but at the very least it seemed to do the trick as the teen drew into himself and looked away again, defeated. The rabbit-quick beating of the kid’s heart was loud in his ears as he waited for him to muster his courage.

“I—He—...” Miles stammered. “It was a lucky shot, the guy grazed me, threw me around a bit. It’s not that bad. The Lizard is probably feeling worse off than I am.”

Oxygen surged over the gnarled and twisted brambles that had rooted within his chest as he inhaled deeply, soothing where their thorns burrowed into his flesh like a balm and forcing them to recede, if only slightly. When he was sure that he had a firm grasp on himself, he finally let himself speak. “Show me?”

The kid glanced up at his voice, the lenses closing minutely in what he assumed to be attempted comprehension of the stark change. Miguel counted it as a win when after fiddling with his sleeve for several seconds he lifted a hand to the jacket zipper. His next breath caught in his throat when Miles pulled the jacket aside, the damage finally visible.

“Por Dios,” he hissed. From the centre of the kid’s chest to the crest of his right shoulder there ran three thick lines, slashed into the flesh in an imprecise strike that left them jagged and painful to look at. Now exposed to the open air, the inside of the jacket was drenched and stained crimson. The wound itself still dripped blood that fell and soaked into his suit.

The sight had him struggling to rein himself in again; concern slid through the range of his emotions before trying stubbornly to settle on anger. It was what he always rounded back to—it was easier to feed the fire than to part the gates for that which would dig into him, hollow him out, and make a home in his skin like a parasite. He would rather endure a thousand hateful looks than be swept under the current and feel where the jagged rocks tear away the foundations of his being. 

Too many times had he been unmade by grief; there wasn’t enough life left in him to do it again. Miguel only knew what kind of man he was because he had been the one to press clay into the cracks of his armour just to dig his talons into them again and again. 

Why, then, did he feel so lost as he stared down at the kid that he only ever seemed capable of failing?

“Why did you come here instead of getting yourself stitched up?”

“It’s already healing—” Miles argued as he let the jacket fall back over the wound, but Miguel cut him off with a sharp click of his tongue.

“Not fast enough,” he retorted. While he wasn’t bleeding enough for blood loss to be a worry, it was better to be safe than sorry. “LYLA, let medical know we’re inbound.”

Despite the kid’s attempt to dispute his order—“Come on, that’s really not necessary!”—the holo-assistant appeared at his shoulder, giving him a mock salute. “For the record, I let them know the minute Miles stepped foot in here. I haven’t seen you so riled—”

“Cállate,” he bit out, then added, “thank you.” His fuse was short enough as it was, and allowing her to take scissors to it further was not among his current fancies. She gave him a knowing look that he determinedly did not meet before she shrugged and phased from the air. Turning back to the kid, he waved his hand in a beckoning motion as he stepped past him, heading for the exit. “Let’s go, I’m walking you there.”

It took seven of his own footfalls before there was the sound of Miles catching up with his purposefully slow pace, and when he fell into step at his side and just a stride behind, he focused his hearing on listening for any signs that the kid was fighting to keep up. It took another five footfalls before the teen spoke again.

“What about the report?”

Resisting the temptation to whip around and viciously shake some sense into the young hero right then and there was a victory that Miguel revelled in, albeit short-lived. “What about it?”

The ensuing silence had him glancing over his shoulder, though all that could be read from the kid was the lingering tense line of his shoulders. “I mean… don’t you want me to…?”

Another realisation struck him, then. The work rate that the teen had committed himself to over the last few months had been more damaging than any of them had ever discerned. It was his fault somehow, he was sure of it. Dios, he had made a mess of things.

“Miles, you are my priority right now. The report can wait until after you’ve been seen to.”

The mask hid anything overtly telling of his reaction, though the way his steps almost imperceptibly faltered spoke for itself. “Right. Yeah, okay.”

Miguel turned his gaze forward again, leading them into the headquarters-proper. The trip was slow-going by his standards, but he kept a close eye on the teen as they meandered into the facility’s bowels, internally cursing how expansive the space was all the while. 

It didn’t take long for Miles to begin to show signs of his suffering. Seeing him hold his right arm in place to keep it from swinging along with how he leaned into the afflicted side to limit stretching and aggravating it further made him nervous in a way that he hadn’t felt in some time. Rarely did he ever request the help of a fellow Spider when he happened to be the one to respond to the appearance of an anomaly. An injured ally made matters precarious in the heat of a fight, as one had to worry after not only one’s own safety, but account for the impaired abilities of their teammate. The young hero behind him was no exception, regardless of how wrong-footed their introductions had been.

It was exactly why he was ready the moment he heard the squeak of an unbalanced foot meeting the floor. Within a second he was reaching behind him, allowing Miles’ hand to latch on to his arm when he seekingly darted it out to steady himself. The hiss of breath through clamped teeth was the only indication that the teen gave as to whether the harsh movement had jostled the limb. Miguel waited, patient as he collected himself, before Miles looked up and took in the situation, mask lenses landing on where he was currently holding on to the man’s wrist in a death grip.

“We’re close, kid. I can support you the rest of the way there if that makes it easier.”

While it was instinct to turn it into something like an order, he was aware enough to know that it would have only made the kid far more uncomfortable with the entire situation. At least this way he had been given the choice to trust him, in this if not anything else.

“Uh…” Miles looked at him, and then at the corridor stretching out before them. Finally, his voice uncharacteristically low: “I— Yeah. Thanks.”

Miguel didn’t make any move to touch him, allowing him to reorient himself and readjust. Once he’d instead latched his good hand onto the man’s shoulder, the pair started again, falling easily back into a pace that was most comfortable for the teen. 

The hefty tension that once burdened their silence had shifted, allowing in a modicum of ease to temper its leaden weight. So too did the niggling discontent that had buzzed at the back of his mind find a fermata in its song—a fact that did nothing to unravel the ever-growing tangle of emotion that had snaked among the rungs of his ribs ever since he set his eyes on the aberrant child at his side.

Only the occasional hitching of breath followed them as the depths of the building folded around them.

The on-call nurse took one look at Miles’ hunched form before urging them to follow and leading the pair into one of the adjoining rooms. Miguel had ensured they were specially outfitted to feel as homely as feasibly possible while still being a place to practise medicine, complete with walls painted in inviting shades of blues and decorated with artwork created by any number of the current members of the Society. The nurse had tolerated his presence for just long enough to lead Miles over to the cot before they turned on him, the lenses of their mask pinching as they bullied him out of the room so that they could get to work. He went willingly, ignoring the eyes that followed him right up until the door slid shut behind him. 

Sinking into the chair opposite the room, he rubbed at his temples, trying to knead away the tightness that had already begun to mercilessly throb within his skull. There was simply no avoiding the overstimulation that medical facilities had the habit of spurring forth. The bright overheads had burned through his vision until every blink left him seeing the sterile white against the backs of his eyelids, and the smell of antiseptic was thick enough that he could taste it, doing him no favours as it dredged up recollections of a time that he would do anything to rid himself of. 

There was a reason he only ever tended to his own injuries. There was control to be found in the silences that layered over the harshness of his breaths as he focused every ounce of his attention on the motions of a needle and suture. He had never visited the towers’ infirmary unless he was bringing in another member or otherwise paying them a visit; it was not a place that he tended to linger.

With this in mind, Miguel contemplated why he’d sat down. He sighed, concluded that he was losing his mind for subjecting himself to the fate of a tension headache, sent out a non-emergency ping to a particular recipient in mind, and then proceeded to stop contemplating the matter entirely.

No less than five minutes later the sound of someone travelling at haste began to echo from around the corridor corner. Peter slid on the tile as he rounded it, out of breath and just a step below frantic as his eyes landed on where Miguel had not moved an inch from the seat that he had lay claim to for the unforeseeable future. The man’s mouth dropped open as he closed the distance, preparing for an argument if the affronted expression on his face was anything to go by.

“He’s not in trouble, Peter.” Yet, he resisted tacking on. There was no telling how well the other man would handle what he was going to have to explain to him, nor what he feared was still to be uncovered.

“Then explain,” he said as he slumped into the empty chair at his side. In the absence of his suit he wore sweatpants and a mostly grey shirt save for the food stains that Miguel could guess at the source of. It was apparent that he’d rushed straight from home as soon as he’d received his message.

At his imploring look he returned his gaze to the closed door before them, sparing no details as he relayed the state that Miles had come to him in, branching off in order to mention the instance in which the kid had lied to Peter about his patrol all those weeks ago. The admittance drove a shaky breath from the man, though any hint of anger to be found in it was swarmed with equal measures of worry.

“There’s no way this hasn’t been happening regularly. How many times a week was it that he was out there dragging these guys in? Five?”

“On average,” Miguel supplied, jaw tense.

A beset groan grated up the other’s throat, and in his periphery he watched as he dropped his head into his hands. “I can’t believe I didn’t see it. I should’ve been able to tell—he fooled all of us. How did he—”

“General exam is done,” LYLA shoehorned in as she flickered to life in front of them. The holo-assistant’s face sported a complicated array of misery and surprise. “I’m afraid that it only gets worse.”

A tablet-sized screen appeared in her place as she vanished. As they read through the list, the more and more Miguel wanted to throw his fist into something—anything to make the whining in his ears cease its shrilling refrain. The tormented inhale that was sucked down Peter’s throat hummed through the air between them and into his blood, igniting it and boiling away the shreds of exhaustion that had begun to way heavy on him.

“‘Malnutrition’? ‘Hairline fractures’, ‘cracked ribs’— Why… He’s breaking himself down, what is he—?” His strained whispering echoed his own thoughts, though it only served to awaken the thing that Miguel had wrestled to keep dormant all these months as it unleashed frenzied violence on the chasm behind his sternum with a snarl. It was only the knowledge that Miles was just one room away that kept him from letting his talons free and burying them in the wall. Instead, he let them sink into the skin of his own palms, uncaring of the blood that erupted from the incisions as he read the list over and over again.

The kid had reported to him just two days ago that his mission had gone off without a hitch, and yet now there wasn’t a shadow of a doubt that everything that he’d said had been based in deceit. It confounded him and terrified him to realise that for all that he found pride in his perceptiveness, this teenager had eluded it, and that he would have gotten away with it for who knows how long if not for the one ability that he harboured that could expose his guise for what it was. Had he practiced how to walk without a limp? How to blink through the rise and fall of the world in the midst of a concussion? How to manage his breaths so as not to disturb the shattered porcelain and marrow that fused itself together in ribbons of molten gold around his lungs?

Miguel had known anger, but it was its faithful accomplice that had always been the one to deliver the fatal strike. Guilt had never been kind to him, all teeth and simmering heat as it dripped like molasses before pooling in his gut and stirring it into a tempest that raged against its confines. It travelled up, thrashing when he mulishly blocked its ascent.

A hand landing on his shoulder had every rigid muscle in his body coiling tighter in preparation for a fight; it was a near thing as he looked up. He’d lost himself in his turmoil, and somewhere amidst being pulled into its gravity he’d shifted forward in his chair, ready to bolt. The screen was gone, and Peter was watching him, his mouth a hard line and a warning in his eyes.

Of anyone in the headquarters, the other man had seen this side of him the most. This quiet destruction that followed the upturning of his entire world had been witnessed by only a bare few, though it had been Peter that was there to see the fire before the smoke. While this wasn’t uncharted territory for either of them, the wire being walked here was a precarious one.

“You with me?”

Miguel parsed the words. It took him even longer to remember how to speak around the sharpened points that caged his tongue, the words brittle as they left him. “I’m with you.”

Peter nodded, though his palm remained firm against his shoulder. “Great, we can’t have you losing it now. Right now that kid needs someone to tell him that he’s okay, not a harsh word.”

He looked down at his hands and uncurled them. Crimson spilled from the marks that his fingertips had carved there, creating puddles in the creases his suit concealed his heart lines.

“I can’t give that to him, but—”

“Bullshit.” Miguel startled at his profanity—with Mayday around, he couldn’t recall the last time he’d heard the man curse. “Do you know what he thinks of you?”

Though he knew the question was rhetorical, he found himself supplied with his answer unbidden. I don’t want to know. I don’t know if I can bear to.

Peter barrelled on. “After all this time he still thinks that you hate him, all because you’ve never stated otherwise. Don’t you think it’s time that you stop feeling sorry for yourself and realise that you’ve left that amazing kid with the knowledge that you think he is lesser than us—any of us?”

The man had always been blunt to a certain extent, but this was the kind of tough love that he expected more from someone like Jess. His words had dumped a barrel of freezing water over his head, soaking him to the bone and leaving him vulnerable in a way rarely felt.

The storm of anger-guilt-something didn’t subside—not even close—but he had been shoved into the eye of it. While it whipped around at the edges of where he stood on the precipice of a plunge that he had never had the faith to take, he had been granted a clarity that allowed him to finally stare at its dizzying height and find the necessary courage to follow it down.

Movement across from the pair caught Miguel’s attention, and he blinked as the same nurse that he’d left Miles with stepped through the door. They glanced between them, the slight shift of their mask lenses giving nothing away. “He’ll make a full recovery with some rest, though we’ll be keeping him here until tomorrow morning. You can visit, but don’t overwhelm him.”

Peter murmured their thanks as the Spider left, hurrying down the hallway before disappearing around a bend. The other man rose from his chair wordlessly, stretching out his back with a pop. Miguel nodded to him, short and sharp, which was returned with an accompanying friendly shake of his shoulder as he moved away.

As he listened to the sound of Peter entering the room, he lowered his head, closed his eyes, and embraced the descent that awaited him.

Trying not to eavesdrop on the conversation unfolding on the other side of the wall was an increasingly difficult feat with how Peter’s voice would periodically climb on a rush of emotion before dropping to a more acceptable volume again. It was clear that he was confronting Miles about the lies; he had a feeling that what Miguel had told him had only scratched the surface, a plethora of falsities strung unassumingly between that, when woven together, formed a tapestry of ways in which he’d been let down.

Evidently, he wasn’t the only one whose relationship with the kid had been strained by the events surrounding the Spot—it explained his seeming evasiveness among his group. He was certain that there were no words sparked from animosity being shared within the room, for there was no doubt that Peter understood full well why things had played out this way.

Miguel used his time alone to come to terms with his mistakes, starting from when he’d first set his eyes on the kid right up until where he now sat, the gloves of his holosuit peeled away as he absently scraped flecks of dried blood from the exposed skin. The gashes were healing, though he knew with a familiarity borne of years of experience that the pain wouldn’t dissipate until the next day. The parable of it resonated with the words that ghosted his every thought, the voice warping until he no longer recognised it as the one that had delivered to him the harsh truth just some minutes prior.

He still thinks that you hate him, it said. Hate, the echo replied.

This once he let them speak instead of muzzling their mouths shut, prying away his armour and leaving himself unprotected to their slaughter. They claimed him, scraping and plundering as they pleased, and he breathed through the crushing pressure that twined around the unseen parts of him that he had long since buried. His palms smarted as he curled his hands into gentle fists. 

He let it hurt.

There was no telling how much time passed before the door slid open, though he was fairly certain that it couldn’t have been longer than a half hour since he’d been left on his own. Peter looked at him, assessing. Miguel met his gaze evenly, waiting for him to make his verdict. When the man shuffled to the side and held the door wide, his next breath left him in a sweeping wave of relief that was rapidly replaced by an anxious buzz that put down its roots in his stomach.

A twinge in his spine where he’d been slouched protested his movements as he braced his hands on his knees to stand. The two strides that it took to meet the threshold felt expansive, and it was the encouraging pat that landed on his back that gave him the nerve to take the third and final step into the room beyond.

Miguel froze as soon as he saw the kid. Miles no longer wore his suit, having exchanged it for grey joggers and a sunny yellow tee that hung off his shoulders where it was a size too big. The neckhole was loose, laying bare where a strip of bandage hugged his marred shoulder. None of this was what had shocked him in place, however. Rather, it was that he was seeing him for the first time in months without the mask. 

It was not a pleasing sight. His skin had been turned into a patchwork of bruises—splotchy purples and blues coincided with less obtrusive yellows that melded partly with the warmer undertones bordering his features. They caused the hollowness that had developed in his cheeks to stand out all the more as they darkened the shadows that were cast across the planes of his cheekbones and jaw, and likewise emphasised the oddly sunken appearance to his eyes.

Miguel had seen corpses in a better state than the child that sat before him, legs crossed and body stiff as he stared back. 

He barely comprehended it when Peter spoke where he stood at his back, unobtrusively low. “I’ll just be outside,” followed by the hum of the door sliding shut, sealing both of them in. 

Silence whirled around them on lofty wings. Miguel failed to think of something to break the ice that had begun to frost over his body and chill the very air around them; every half-formed sentence piled at his feet, a dead weight. The sheets on the cot were bunched in the teen’s grip where he braced himself at his sides, neck bowing lower with each passing second.

“... I didn’t expect you to still be around,” Miles started, far braver than Miguel was currently capable of being. “Do you… want me to report?”

It was enough to unanchor him from where he stood, though his words drove him into a sandbank of fresh grief. Sighing, he shook his head and started toward one of the vacant chairs closest to the door, sinking into it. He vainly hoped the extra space that spanned between them might make his speech more willing to be coaxed out into the open.

“I don’t care about the report.”

A fraction of tension leaked out from the kid’s posture as he snapped his head up to scrutinise him more directly. Without the mask, the confusion that converged in the narrowing of his eyes and the slight frown was entirely on display. It was impossible to reconcile just how expressive he was with the fact that he’d been successfully deflecting their attention away from the many justifiable causes for concern that had become entrenched in the young hero’s day-to-day.

He continued, “You should have come here from the get-go. Why didn’t you?”

Miles’ face hardened, locking itself into an airtight manifestation of detachment—not unexpected, though worrisome all the same. “Priorities? It doesn’t matter, man. I was going to handle it once I was back home.”

Miguel skimmed through the list of health issues that had been branded word-for-word into the forefront of his mind. Mentions of untreated head injuries and half-healed sprains—things that he most certainly could not have tended to or monitored on his lonesome. He thought of the kid walking on aches and pains and yet not letting it show until there was no one around to see his body fail.

He thought of his lean frame and the deepening pits of his cheeks, pointing back in blaring exclamations to a single word aligned with a bullet point. ‘Malnutrition’.

Nausea rolled alongside the ensuing undertow of anguish. “Are you having problems at home? School?”

“I don’t see how that’s any of your business,” Miles retorted, a defensive edge to his tone that made the waves break upon the rocks with unforeseen might.

“Will you just—” he ground out before catching himself. Miguel forced cadence as he spoke, even as he wrangled with the bitterness that drained from his head and into his heart only to bloom fresh resentment. “You’ve been overworking yourself for months, hauling in anomalies like if you stop for even a second you’ll never be able to get up again. I’ve been there. It’s impressive, but I don’t understand what you’re trying to prove here.”

The kid turned his gaze upon him then, guarded and not giving a single inch despite his outburst. For a time he said nothing, just looked at him, perhaps waiting for him to realise this final mistake. It crept in on tired limbs and baring red-stained teeth.

He thinks that I hate him. The tide had risen to his nose, threatening to drown him while cinder blocks held him at the water’s mercy. He’s been working himself to death, and he thinks that I hate him. Working himself to death—proving his worth to me. 

“Nothing’s going on at home,” Miles said, turning his face away again. It’s dismissive and impassive and all of the things that Miguel deserved for all that he had enabled it to come to this. Every act of betrayal that he’d unleashed upon this kid, both intentional and not, had mounted into a disaster that he should have seen on the horizon long before the fallout; every lie told to a friend, every skipped meal while short on time, every bruise and abrasion and break, every sleepless night.

For all that he was a supposed genius, he only ever managed to make a fool out of himself. Only at the end of the road had he finally realised where every fault in the pavement was bound to take them.

Miguel let the grief in, and on his next exhale, he let it go. 

He had started this, and for too long he had wasted their time away in self-absorbed heartache as he burrowed himself in the same tiresome song and dance. While he had been keen to avoid the problem that he’d created in a baseless hope that any lingering animosity yawning wide between them would resolve itself, Miles had suffered all the more for it. There was no one except him that could uncover and divide the closure that was so desperately needed; he had to be the one to finish this. 

The tailwind of his sorrow’s departure carried his next words, unfiltered and awkward and so unbelievably terrifying to part with.

“I’m not good at this. I should’ve— You’ve proven yourself—more than proven yourself, in fact. You’re exemplary in every way that matters, and I’m not just talking about how fast or strong or smart you are, though you are all of those things.”

Miles’ head had whipped back around, though Miguel kept his attention on the wall. If he stopped now, he had no confidence that his jaw wouldn’t seize up in an attempt to spare him from bearing the fear and uncertainty before it could starve all of the air from his lungs.

“You’ve got heart, kid. So much of it. More than is probably good for anyone in a position like the one you’re in. You didn’t deserve— I should’ve said this months ago, it was the least that I owed you for—” His voice faltered on that particular train of thought, wisped away by the ghosts of memories—a skyline fading into the world below and brown eyes bracketed by cool metal beneath his talons. Miguel shook his head harshly as his gaze jumped to meet Miles’.  

“Making you feel as though you had to put in the extra work in order to have worth was deplorable, and I will regret it for the rest of my days. There is no way for me to make up for anything that I did, but I can start with this: I’m sorry. Out of all of us, you have just as much of a right to be here as any of the rest of us, if not moreso. I asked the impossible of you without even taking into account that if it had been me in your situation I definitely wouldn’t have listened to me either. There is no way to justify the things I did, or said, or have done since, and I expect no forgiveness for any of it. I only hope you can believe me when I say that I want to be better than that, and that I’m going to try to be better than that, and that I’m sorry if I mess it up all over again.”

It was better than anything he had rehearsed while waiting in the hallway in the midst of detangling the harried hairs of his biases. Miguel felt as though someone had taken a knife to him, scooping out every vital part of him and leaving him limp and powerless. A reprise of his creation myth with Miles as the only witness.

The kid didn’t even blink, looking for all the world to be universes away. When silence lapsed yet again with no indication of whether he’d even registered its arrival, Miguel’s worry won out. “... Miles? You with me?”

The unseeing quality to Miles’ stare faded, his eyes widening. The corner of his mouth twitched—faint but nevertheless there. “Yeah… Yeah, I’m with you. That was just… I didn’t think you had it in you.” Miguel’s resulting grimace has the teen rushing to correct himself. “No, I just mean that that was really touching considering the whole ‘I’m not good at this’ part that you threw in at the start of all of that.

Miles drummed his fingers on his knee, his face falling. “I guess I… I don’t know. I thought I had to earn my place here—I had to make everything that happened to get here in the first place worth it.”

Once, he might have expected to be overcome by consuming guilt at the admittance, swamping him and leeching the heat from his chest. Now it only ebbed in as a shallow reminder, present yet bearable and leaving room to heal.

“You earned it the moment you got bit,” Miguel assured him. “Probably even before that, really; you belong here. I’m sorry that I made you believe differently.”

“And for the record, I do forgive you. I think I forgave you even before now, honestly. Still… it was nice to hear that.” The kid chewed on the inside of his cheek, eyebrows furrowed thoughtfully as he looked up at him, expression sincere. “And I believe you about the whole ‘changing for the better’ thing. You’ve already been different, in ways. Yeah, you screwed up a few months ago, but I could tell that you’d taken that to heart before....” Miles waved a hand in the air, gesturing to the room around them, though he understood it to mean the circumstances of the situation in their entirety.

It was bizarre to feel so bashful at the kid’s approval, every emotion heightened in the turbulent space where the barriers of his resolve had been eaten away. He’d been wrung dry of every ounce of energy. From the way the teen had slouched into the picture-perfect image of poor posture, he was sure he wasn’t the only one that would be pressed to endure any more heart-to-hearts for the day. They were each out of their depth, and if he were candour, Miguel wanted nothing more than to leave behind the last few minutes for him to sift through it in his own time—preferably alone, in the dark, and without the headache that was currently splitting his skull in two.

“... I’m glad,” he replied, doing his best not to show just how much his words had gotten to him, though unconvinced that he wasn’t entirely successful from the way Miles’ mouth tilted more noticeably in a subdued smile. Clearing his throat, Miguel drifted his gaze around the room. “Home’s alright. School—how’s that going?”

A beat of silence, and then the kid promptly let out a laugh that had him swivelling back around to glare at him. “Something funny, Morales?” he said, even as the persistent tightness in his muscles unwound, relenting.

“No, it’s—” Miguel struggled to tamp down his own humour when Miles let out an undignified snort. He shook his head, his amusement quietening and yet unable to hide his teeth. “I’m not laughing at you, I swear, just— It’s fine. I think my grades might have slipped a bit, which… Well, if my mom finds out…” The teen winced, and the man’s very soul stirred in empathy as he resisted doing the same. “Trying to stay on top of everything has been… harder.”

Miguel cupped his hands together as he straightened in his chair, breathing through the faint sting of guilt that he knew may never altogether recede. “Eso no está bien. I can’t let you take on all those missions anymore, and especially not until you’re back in fighting shape.”

Fire visibly roared to life in the kid’s eyes, his shoulders squaring with the intent to argue his case. It was a tenacity that he recognised all too well. Before Miles could get a word out, Miguel raised a pre-emptive eyebrow in challenge. Though he wouldn’t admit it, the silence that met the gesture was particularly gratifying—the sigh that the young hero let out, however, he would proudly cherish with excessive triumph.

“Right.”

“I’m limiting you to one per week—two if you’re responding to a backup request.”

This time when determined heat bore into Miguel again, he knew that there was no need for him to forestall an argument. He waited, and once Miles had concluded that he was immovable in his decision, he was rewarded for his patience.

The kid flopped over, his back hitting the cot in a dramatic display of youthful defeat that he struggled not to scoff at it in faux exasperation. “Fine. Aunque no feliz.”

With Miles’s face tilted to the ceiling tiles, Miguel made no effort to hide his baffled staring. It was the first time he’d heard him speak even a lick of Spanish since the day they’d met, wherein he’d shut him down with such callous indifference that the teen hadn’t bothered with any further attempts to bridge the distance between them for fear of rejection or loathing. ‘Tío’ he had called him with such open amiability. It would have been frightening how quick he was to offer attachment if he’d not been so absorbed by his distress. It was only in hindsight that he’d seen the true significance behind the act; he’d believed that he’d butchered any chance that there might have been of rectifying it long before he’d come to realise what he’d done.

And yet Miles continued to defy expectations. Now that he was grounded in the moment, it was every bit as alarming as he’d imagined it to be. When he’d set out to put to rights his grievous errors, he hadn’t accounted for the inherent goodness that the kid had proven to uphold. Here he was, bearing the scars—both invisible and seen—of their less than unpleasant history and holding out an olive branch without judgement. 

It was a second chance, and so much more than he had any right to hope for.

“Me lo agradecerás más adelante.” If it was obvious that he had to choke every syllable past the euphoria that had burgeoned in his chest, then Miles was merciful enough not to mention it.

The rapping of knuckles against the door cut through the air and had both of them startling. When it opened, he wasn’t surprised to see Peter peeking his head in.

“Are we playing nice in here?” he asked, glancing meaningfully between the pair before smiling grandly. Miguel realised that he’d more than likely been listening in and waiting for the perfect moment to make his entrance as the other man raised two plastic bags into view before stepping fully into the room. “I got us some early dinner!”

Making himself comfortable in the empty seat between himself and Miles, he wasted no time in divvying out the contents of the bags, laying out an array of takeaway containers across the bed before shoving one into Miguel’s hands. He’d barely begun refusing before a plastic fork was likewise pressed into his palm, a one-sided conversation dispersing the quiet. Sighing to himself, he resigned himself to the loss of his evening and the worsening of his headache as he flipped the lid of the container and stabbed the utensil into the meal.

More than happy to listen as Miles and Peter dove into a companionable back and forth, he soaked in their banter and allowed it to pacify the toiling of his mind. When the latter told LYLA to lower the brightness of the lights, Miguel shot him a grateful look before forcing a scowl when he was subjected to a stream of lighthearted teasing—blessedly ending when Peter choked on a mouthful of pork, the teen almost doing the same when he fought a laugh.

The pair watched the kid keenly, and at their pointed looks Miles took the hint and ate whatever was put in his lap. They were only satisfied once he finally pushed away the fifth container with the claim that if he so much as moved wrong he was going to explode. 

For once, the dire cold that had clung to him for as long as he could remember did not taint the moment. It gave way to a warmth that he likened to liquid light, the same that arose on the first dawn of spring. The shards of glass that he’d once swept beneath the rug were held between his fingers, refracting the radiance into a myriad of colours even as the sharpened edges bit into his hands, leaving imperfections that he made no rush to mend. The blood that welled was not that of a bitter defeat.

Miguel closed his eyes as he basked in the afterglow.

Miles chatted to him from where he leaned against the control panel beside him, waving his arms around as he relayed in great detail his latest battle with a Kraven variant with the particular ability of turning into every beast he’d hunted. Miguel listened with his gaze trained on the screens hovering around them, LYLA’s holographic form hovering at his shoulder and watching the kid raptly. She phased between laying on her front with her chin in her hands and emoting superfluously, transcribing his tale into a cohesive report all the while.

It had been two months since the air between them had been cleared, and he’d long since permitted the young hero to return to the field without restrictions. His change in behaviour had been remarkable as he returned to the confident teen that had first walked into the lab as a fresh face four months ago—the contrast stark when considering how carelessly reticent he had been. While injuries were still few and far between, the instances wherein he landed himself in trouble now led to a trip to the infirmary rather than half-truths and omissions. Once or twice, Miles had even put in a request for backup, no longer intent on going it alone.

Miguel was proud of him. The only difference was that now he didn’t make the same mistake of being quiet about it. 

Whenever the kid held out an expectant fist, he would only roll his eyes before entertaining the gesture and bumping it with his own. He made an effort to voice his praise, humoured by the consequent mildly sheepish remarks that he never failed to throw back at him.

They still had their moments; while the air had been cleared, there were some things that only time could heal. Sometimes Miles would show up with glazed eyes and in a cloak of uncharacteristic reservedness. On these days he let him be, assuring himself that his friends would be there to catch him should he fall. On others it was Miguel that struggled as he trapped torrents of anger against his teeth while memories washed in unbidden, unwilling to let them fall free and find an undeserving target.

He was trying—that was what mattered most. He had to keep telling himself that.

“At one point he was a tiger. Seriously, this guy would have given you a run for your money with the whole…” Miguel didn’t fight it as Miles grabbed the hand that hung lax at his side, flapping it limply and pointing to his fingers with a grin before dropping it again. “He even growled more than you do, which is saying something.”

“I don’t growl.” The palpable silence that followed had him glancing down at where the teen was looking at him, an eyebrow raised. “... Much,” he conceded. 

“Right,” Miles replied, unconvinced. “Well, it turned out fine. You know those cartoony net traps that they’d hide with leaves and sticks and stuff for animals to walk over? Turns out this guy didn’t, because he walked right into one that I made out of my webs. Gotta admit that I never would have thought that I’d hear a big cat cussing me out in real life, but there’s a first time for everything, right?”

Miguel hummed. Even after years of interacting with other Spiders every day, the chatter was a bit much to keep up with at times. At the very least most had become good at reading when he was willing to put up with it and when to steer clear of his fraying patience.

Peering at the kid again, he watched him make an aborted movement to touch a button on the panel, tucking his hand against his side as he crossed his arms over his chest self-admonishingly. It was clear that he was at the end of his account, only further confirmed when LYLA flashed him a thumbs up before vanishing from view.

Before he could second guess himself, Miguel lifted a hand and set it firmly on the teen’s head before giving it a playful ruffle. The subsequent squawk of surprise that Miles let out had a chuckle leaping from his chest in kind before he even knew to expect it. Brown eyes blown wide with shock looked up at him, any affront at the man’s attack on the kid’s hair dissipating just as soon as it could rise.

“Good job today, Morales,” Miguel said, trying and failing to ignore the sensation of helium inflating in his chest as his words were met with depthless wonder—so familiar, though something he thought he’d never see pointed his way again.

Miles beamed.

The teen tried to play it off, but the way he practically bounced from the room betrayed how much the interaction meant to him. Miguel merely waved him off as he left, sparing a second to run his thumb across the tips of his fingers, the skin tingling in a mimicry of times past even through the holosuit.

The satisfied grin refused to be hidden away, and so in the solace of his own company, he let it be.