Chapter Text
Miles’ phone buzzes. The cross-dimensional one has its own specific alert, similar to his regular phone but louder. He checks the phone, and the awaiting text makes his heart stop.
Prowler: hurt help mme my house
————
He leaps through the portal into Prowler’s living room. “Miles? MILES! Miles, you good?” He sprints to his bedroom and throws open the door. Empty. He runs through the kitchen. “Where are you?!”
There’s a feeble cough from behind the couch.
Miles runs for the couch. “Miles?” He jumps over it and yelps as he lands in a pool of blood.
Prowler is slouched back against it and holding his bleeding stomach with gritted teeth. His suit jacket is thrown aside and his mask is cracked in half and lying in the blood. He’s breathing too fast and sweating like he’s been here for a while.
“Shit.” Miles kneels, reaching out for him before pulling his hands back. Who knows how badly he’s injured? “What the hell happened? What can I do?”
Prowler licks his bloody lips, eyes fluttering. “First Aid kit… it’s…”
Miles is already going for the bathroom. He opens the cabinet above the sink and swipes it, then returns with a towel he snagged from the linen closet. “Okay. Here we have to apply pressure.”
Prowler’s heavy eyes slide over to the towel, and he looks horrified. “Mami just bought that towel.”
“Dude.”
“Another one.”
“Miles—”
“Another—” he coughs, wet and loud and Miles gives up.
“Fine, fine, fine, don’t stress.” He shoots a web and grabs another from the closet. Older and faded. Prowler glances at it and nods once. “Now where do I press? What hurts?”
Prowler slowly lifts his hand from his stomach.
Miles’ heart skips a beat. “Were you shot?”
“Kind of.”
“Kind of?” His breath comes faster as he stares at it. The bullet is embedded deep, the ripped fabric coated in blood. “Y-You should be at the hospital, man, you could—”
BANG.
It ricochets through his ears and shatters his high-strung nerves.
Uncle Aaron, shocked as he falls back gracelessly, all dead weight.
Eyes unnaturally wide—
Having to bear all two hundred pounds of him, getting him to safety just to die—
“—iles, Miles. Miles!”
He’s trembling. “S-Sorry. Uh.” He digs into the first aid kit, clumsy hands trembling too hard for the tiny items. “Shit,” he mutters, trying to remember what exactly Mamí taught him. There’s cotton and glue and creams and… and now everything is spilling out. The band-aids are a mess on the floor. His eyesight is blurry. Is he crying? Is he even breathing?
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Prowler snaps, shaking too. He looks scared. Furious, but scared, with unshed tears in his eyes. “I’m dying and I thought you could help!”
The words hit something raw and unhealed, like permanent cracks in his soul. The world is black around the edges.
“Where’s your head at?” Prowler is asking. More blood leaks between his fingers.
Miles’ head feels too light as he watches the blood. Nothing he does will help. Prowler is going to die, just like his uncle. “I-I’m trying.”
“Try harder! Be better! You’re kind of useless right now!”
Miles winces. A tear slips down his cheek. “I-I…” He looks at the wound, at all the blood, and shivers. Prowler is right. He is useless. A fucking useless mess. “I’m calling for backup.” He grabs his phone from his pocket.
“What? No.”
Miles pulls up the group chat.
“No!” Prowler slaps the phone away. It clatters and slides through the blood. “No! Listen to me, for once!”
“I am listening!”
“I don’t want any of them, I called you!”
Something in his mind snaps clean in half. “Well I can't do this! Clearly I can’t handle it, and clearly I haven’t healed as much as I thought, and maybe it’s because there’s another Uncle Aaron walking around like my uncle’s death never happened!” He grabs Prowler’s collar and screams in his face, “Don’t die!”
Prowler’s eyes are wide. Whatever he sees on Miles’ face is enough for him to finally break the long silence and whisper, “Call Hobie.”
Miles shakily lets go of him, covering his mouth. “Sorry, I-I’m sorry.” His breath shudders, his chest going so tight that it’s a sharp pain. His skin prickles uncomfortably, like his invisibility is clashing with the electricity. He shivers. “I’m so sorry.”
Prowler looks faint all over again, eyes half-open. The argument must’ve taken a lot out of him. “I’ll be okay if you call Hobie. Just Hobie.”
Miles shoots a web to grab his wet phone and curls up next to Prowler, taking his bloody hand. Prowler squeezes back.
He dials with his free hand and puts it on speaker.
It rings once.
Twice.
Prowler sinks further down the couch with a quiet groan, like a cut tether. Miles quickly squeezes his hand again, and Prowler squeezes back.
On the fourth ring, the line picks up.
“Hobie?” Miles blurts, his heart loud in his ears. He might be yelling. “Hobie? Are you there?”
Hobie’s voice is hoarse, the way it is when he’s rudely woken up. “Are you o—”
“Help! Help I need help, please, I’m sorry it’s so early over there but—”
“I’m on my way,” Hobie says, alert now. There’s rustling and zipping up on the other end. “Where are you? What’s happening?”
“It’s Prowler, please, he’s hurt and I can’t help,” he half-coughs, half-sobs, an ugly thing that makes him flush with embarrassment. He wipes his nose, but it doesn’t help how congested he sounds. “H-He’s been shot,” he wheezes, “There’s so much blood and I’m not helping—”
Prowler pries away the phone. He’s paler now, too pale. His voice wavers, a weak imitation of its usual bite. “Hey, man. Can you hurry?”
“Your house?”
“Y-Yeah.”
A portal swells open. Newspaper print and clippings and spiky collages. Prowler drops the phone in the blood.
Hobie runs through and goes straight for Prowler. His face is grim as he looks at all the blood pooled on the floor. Miles realizes how bad it looks; how awful this must be for Hobie.
“Oh God, Hobie, I-I’m sorry.”
Hobie roughly shakes his head like the memories can be erased. “Don’t apologize, love.” He has a kit of his own, faded and flecked with blood. He kneels in the blood and cracks open the kit. “But I need you to leave okay? He’s gonna be okay, I promise, but you can’t pass out or have a panic attack on me.”
“No.”
“Then get Pav.”
“Pav?”
“He’ll calm you down. Or Gwen.”
“I want to stay. I have to stay.”
Hobie opens his mouth but Prowler murmurs, looking even weaker now that there’s help, shaking harder, “Invite him over.”
Miles shakes his head. “No, man, you didn’t even want Hobie here.”
“You’re losing your mind, just—” Prowler jerks in pain from the hydrogen peroxide and grits, “Call.” Sweat pours down his agonized face.
Miles calls Pav.
The first ring doesn’t finish. “Miles! Perfect timing, bro, I just taught one of the puppies how to—”
“Pav,” he wheezes.
There’s silence on the other end for half a second. Then Pav says, firmly, “I’m coming right now, right away. Gwen must be there already. What universe?”
“Forty-two. My coordinates.”
A portal opens.
Pav is in his suit. As soon as the portal disappears, he pulls off his mask as he takes in the scene. Hobie looks over his shoulder, pointedly glances at Miles, then goes back to work preparing the needle. It glints in the light, with a sharp tip.
Pav crouches in front of him and turns Miles’ face towards him. His voice is gentle and his eyes are warm. “Breathe, Miles. It’s going to be okay.”
“How the fuck would you know?”
Pav doesn’t flinch. “Because Hobie is capable. Okay? He’s treated lots of wounds like this before.” He catches Miles’ chin again before he can look over. “Look at me. Just at me.”
Miles stares blankly into Pav’s dark eyes.
“Good. We’re going to breathe.”
Next to him, Prowler lets out a sharp whimper like he couldn’t stop it and squeezes Miles’ hand. Miles squeezes back. Hobie murmurs an apology. Pav’s hand tightens on Miles’ chin before he can look.
“Breathe with me. In.” He sucks in a large breath.
Miles does his best to copy.
“And out. Very good, Miles, you’re doing amazing. Stay here, with my voice. In.”
He breathes, still holding Prowler’s hand tight.
“And out.”
He exhales.
“Wonderful, Miles, keep going. You’re doing so well. Keep breathing."
Prowler coughs, tight and small, and his hand goes slack.
Hobie mutters, “Shit.”
Miles squeezes Prowler’s limp hand, over and over and when he doesn’t get a response he gasps, sharp and panicked. Pain lances through his own chest. Pav’s hand tightens on his chin before he can look over.
“He’s alive,” Hobie says. “He’s fine, love, don’t look. Just keep breathing.”
He struggles.
Pav rests a hand on Miles’ chest, right over his heart. “Slower. Slower, Miles. I promise everything’s going to work out.”
“Is he dead?” The words sound far away in his ears.
“Unconscious,” Hobie says sternly. “Surprised he stayed awake for so long.”
“But he’ll be okay?”
“Yes,” Hobie says, like he’s defying death itself. It isn’t comforting.
Miles shakes his head as new tears spring in his eyes and slip down his cheeks.
“Oh.” Pav looks like he’s about to cry too, lips in a pained smile and eyes watering. He pulls Miles into a firm hug, arms wrapped almost too tightly around him. It doesn’t help Miles breathe any easier, but he would never let go. “Hey. No, no, don't cry, Miles, it’s okay.”
“He’s dead,” he wheezes, returning the hug with one arm. His other hand is still wrapped in Prowler’s.
“No, no, he’s perfectly fine. Hobie said he would be.”
“Not him.”
Pav hesitates. “Are we talking about your uncle?”
He curls into him tighter. “It hurts, Pav.”
“I know.”
“I wanted him back,” he sobs into his shoulder, beginning to shake all over again. Pav rubs his back in slow, soothing circles. “But then h-he was standing in front of me. And he had me in chains and h-he looked at me and felt nothing.” He gasps for air. “Nothing. He could’ve killed me!”
“I’m sorry, Miles.”
God, those fucking words.
He yanks out of Pav’s arms to snarl, “Everyone is sorry! What does that do? Who does that help? Not me.”
Pav’s tears fall. “I know.” He pulls Miles back in tighter than before and rocks them back and forth. Miles melts all over again. Pav’s voice trembles. “I understand.”
Guilt barrels into Miles like a wave pulling him under. Everyone is living through their trauma tonight, just because he can’t keep it together.
Hobie says, from where Pav still isn’t letting Miles look, “That man wasn’t your uncle, Miles. Your uncle is gone.”
Pav cries, “Hobie!”
“Your uncle would never have done that to you. You’ve gotta separate the two, darling.”
Miles wipes his eyes. “It’s hard.”
“I know. Believe me. But your uncle loved you, more than anything. He knew full well what he was doing when he sacrificed himself.” There’s a snip of scissors. “And he isn’t here anymore, but forty-two is gonna be just fine. Look.”
Pav slowly pulls away. Miles looks.
Hobie is wiping his hands in the remaining clean section of the ruined towel. The entire front of his suit is coated with blood. Prowler is flat on his back. His shirt is cut off, the blood is cleaned from his stomach and the wound is sewn shut. He’s unconscious, and nearly as still as a rock but Miles stares at his chest as it rises and falls.
He finds himself crawling over the cooling blood and placing his bloody hand on his chest.
Prowler’s heart beats weakly beneath his palm.
Miles sobs in relief and lowers his head to his chest.