Chapter Text
The Spider-Society HQ was fairly empty today, being Christmas and all, and Peter had decided to leave MJ’s celebrations to just chill, not looking forward to any discussions or lectures with MJ’s parents about why they split up again.
Plus he had taken Mayday on a special 7 day Daddy Daughter trip for Haunakkah anyway. Mary Jane could get to have her Mommy Daughter day today.
Peter just expected to see more people. He knew most other Peters were Jewish, though it seemed most had taken advantage of Miguel’s offer for a day off. Peter sighed as he sat down on a support beam, leaning back. Maybe he should have gone, even if just to watch Mayday.
“Hello?” A man on a hoverboard shouted, holding bags of… something. Peter squinted as he reached up to the ceiling, slowly crawling across. “I’m looking for Miguel O’Hara!” He shouted, scanning the area. There was no one around the lobby but himself, and Peter was almost glad. The man’s face was concealed with a purple scarf and large goggles. Peter crawled closer.
“O’Hara! Spider-man!” He shouted again, Peter squinting. The man’s hoverboard seemed advanced, Peter spotting compartments that seemed to contain…
Oh fuck. Was this Miguel’s goblin? The colors checked out. Green jacket, green board, purple scarf. Weird outfit for the future but…
He moved a bit faster, seeing that the man was heading in the direction of Miguel’s office. How did he know where to go? This was bad. What if Miguel was caught off guard? An attack on a holiday was messed up.
Peter aimed his web when the man’s glider slowed, quickly shooting him off the hoverboard with a barrage of webs. The man gasped in shock, pulling something from his pocket and tossing it at Peter, a cartridge opening up into a net, Peter groaning as he got caught in it. It was almost cartoonish, Peter quickly releasing himself from the net. He swung back over to the goblin who had gotten back on the hoverboard after gathering whatever was in the bags. “Chill out, dude!” The man yelled, throwing another cartridge, Peter dodging it this time. He shot another impact web at one of the motors in the board, the board shaking. “Is this- inorganic webbing?!”
“Yep!” Peter confirmed, watching the man tumble off of the board, landing right in from of Miguel’s office. Peter swung through the air a bit faster, webbing him to the ground as he grabbed the hoverboard out of the air.
“What the shock dude, you messed up my stuff!” The man yelled, struggling in the webs. “Can’t you just let me see Miguel?”
“What do you want with him? Who are you?” Peter asked, hearing the door open. “Don’t worry Miggy-“
“Peter, what the shock are you doing to my brother?”
What.
“I’m sorry, excuse me?”
“That’s my brother.” Miguel pushed Peter aside, leaning over and using his claws to rip off the webs.
“Ay, watch the jacket.” The man huffed, wiping himself off as he stood up. “¿Esté es el bueno?” The man asked, Peter stepping back, unsure of what to say.
Miguel sighed at whatever was said. “No, él es el estúpido con la linda hija.” He understood that, at least. He was the stupid one with a pretty daughter, right?
The man pushed his goggles onto his head and pulled down his scarf. He did look like Miguel, but if Miguel was younger and less permanently sad and grumpy, missing the permanently angry forehead creases.
He grinned at whatever it was that Miguel said. “¡Ya veo, él es de quien estás enamorado!” The man said in a teasing voice, Miguel’s face flushing red as he let out a growl in warning. The man seemed unphased, turning to Peter. “Hey, the name’s Gabriel O’ Hara.” He said, sticking out his hand. Peter shook it awkwardly.
“Peter.” He said. “Uh… Sorry about that- I thought that the green goblin is also bad in this universe.”
“The green goblin?” Gabriel asked. “She is bad but Miguel got her a while ago. You thought I was the green goblin?”
“You’ve seen my goblin before, Parker.” Miguel added.
This was embarrassing, like Peter was being punished by the universe.
He should have just sucked it up and gone to MJ’s party. “I’m really sorry-“
“Did you see where the bags landed? I got some food, but-“
“I’ll find it!” Peter said quickly, zipping up to the ceiling. He scanned the floor, sure his face was bright red under his mask. He really messed up a family moment for Miguel. The guy never talked about his family after what happened with Gabriella, and now here was a brother with a similar name.
They were probably close. That’s who Gabriella was likely named after, right?
He spotted the bags laying a couple yards further back, swinging over and grabbing them before returning to Miguel and Gabriel, who were deep in conversation. He waited further back, not wanting to intrude, awkwardly pulling off his mask since Miguel and Gabriel had done the same.
“Oh, él es el que te gusta!” Gabriel teased loudly when he glanced over at Peter, Peter’s face flushing. He wasn’t sure if he got that right, but he might’ve understood.
Judging from Miguel’s reaction, maybe ‘he is the one you like’ was an accurate translation. Miguel was completely red faced, shoving his brother who stumbled. “Ow!”
“Parker, get out. Come back later.” He growled, Peter nodding as he awkwardly set the bags down, waving before swinging away, hearing the tail end of their conversation.
“You let him call you Miggy , huh?”
“Cállate.”
That was… words couldn’t even begin to describe how awkward that was. Peter had been thoroughly embarrassed. He attacked Miguel’s brother unprompted, and then got kicked out.
Celebrating Christmas didn’t seem too bad right now. This was honestly higher on the embarrassment scale than the time every single one of MJ’s relatives asked him why he couldn’t eat pork for the entire party. Though, it still was lower than the time MJ’s grandma tried to force feed him some bacon when they were in high school. That lady was pretty wacky.
He shook his head. He can’t keep thinking about Mary Jane if he’s trying to get over his divorce. That’s why he wanted to go into HQ. He expected that today would be a good day to hang out with Miguel. He knew Jess was busy with her baby’s first Christmas, and the other Spider-men all had something or had taken off just because. There really was no one in HQ he could talk to except for Lyla, Miguel, and apparently Gabriel, and all three were probably talking with each other anyway.
Maybe he should just sleep through it or watch shitty hallmark movies that were cringe inducing to replace his first-hand embarrassment with second-hand.
He opened up a portal, stepping through and back into his universe. He let out a sigh as he plopped down on the couch, groaning as he felt something poke him, getting up and seeing it was one of the dolls he had gotten Mayday. He picked it up, adjusting her hair and arms slightly to make the doll look neater before setting it down on the coffee table, leaning back against the couch. He turned on the TV, flipping through the channels before giving up. He really needed to buy a Hulu subscription or something. Maybe he could search up what Gabriel and Miguel had been talking about, but he realized that would be kind of intrusive. Most people usually spoke in other languages when they didn’t want people to listen in. Plus he could kind of recognize some words anyway. If enamorado or whatever was a cognate, it could mean enamored. He had to think back to high school Spanish for this one. Estas was directly to Miguel. So Miguel was enamored by something.
Maybe by him.
Peter smiled slightly at the thought. Miguel being teased so much by people was cute. Peter teased him, Lyla teased him (which was made funnier by the fact that Miguel had seemingly programmed her to do so), and now apparently Gabriel teased him as well. He’d need to outdo both of them, of course. He probably already was. Miguel usually let him go on for quite a while before getting annoyed. Though, then again, Miguel did kick him out just now. He had really messed that up. First time meeting Miguel’s brother and what does he do? Falsely imprison him. Even Miguel gave Miles a 10 minute conversation before trying to capture him.
He glanced up at the clock. Only around 10 minutes had passed since he left HQ. He sighed as he laid across the couch, shutting his eyes. A nap would have to do, unless he planned on thinking about highschool Spanish class until he could pick up Mayday or until some crime came up.
Peter managed to try to convince his body that he was sleeping for at least 30 minutes. And yet, he was no closer to sleeping from when he first started to now. He couldn’t stop thinking of how he embarrassed himself. Miguel probably thought he was an idiot. Well, he definitely thought that. Miguel had even called him estupido!
He was definitely as estupido as it came, PHD be damned. He turned over on the couch, pulling a pillow over his head, groaning as his watch rang. He sat up, answering it, seeing Miguel’s hologram pop up.
“Parker.”
“I’m sorry about earlier, I didn’t realize-“
“It’s fine. You can come back to my office now.” He said.
“Don’t you want to spend time with-“
“I already did.” Miguel said. “Are you coming or what?” He asked, sounding annoyed.
“Y-yeah! I’ll be there in a second!” Peter said, opening the portal to Miguel’s dimension again. He quickly got up, rushing through it and swinging to Miguel’s office once he reached HQ.
He paused before entering, taking a breath. What if Miguel just wanted to scold him? He surely ruined whatever Gabriel had in those bags. What if they were a gift for Miguel and Peter just ruined his Christmas.
He took another breath, shutting his eyes. Well. Maybe he could offer to replace it. Or offer to get chased around the Spider-society for the next three hours.
He heard the door open, his eyes looking at Miguel in shock. He didn’t even get a chance to thoroughly think through his options. “Parker.” Miguel said simply. “Come in.” Peter nodded, following Miguel into his office and onto his platform which was actually lowered for once, stepping on. The smell of food hit his nose, Peter glancing over to see that there was a stack of aluminum wrapped… somethings… on one of Miguel’s tables, the black bag Gabriel had been carrying tossed into the bin next to it. Fuck. Hopefully he didn’t fuck them up too bad.
“Miguel, I’m so s-“
“Stop apologizing. It’s not your fault. Jess did the same last month.”
“What?”
“Gabri came in here like some clown yelling for me and Jess put him in a cage.” He said, Peter laughing at the image. Miguel cracked a smile. “Lyla has pictures.”
“Can I see?” Miguel nodded, Lyla popping up with a display of the photos, which also included a frame of Jess face-palming as Miguel seemingly explained.
“Gabriel is reckless.” He said, a soft smile on his face. It was nice to see Miguel happy.
“Listen, Miggy, if you need to go hang out with your brother-“
“We already hung out today and we have plans for later in the week.” Miguel said, looking over at Peter. “He’s busy today anyway.”
“Oh.” Peter said simply. “I’m uh, sorry if I messed those up.” He added, gesturing to the table.
“The tamales are fine.” Miguel said. “Do you want some? I can have Lyla identify which are pork and which aren’t.”
“Dude, it’s your food.” Peter protested. “I don’t wanna eat your food after I messed up-“
“I can’t eat all of those, Peter. They will go bad before I get a chance to, even in the fridge.” Miguel said. “Do you want any? I’m serious.”
“If it’s not an issue.” Peter said.
“Lyla. Perform a scan of what contains and does not contain pork.” He said, Peter watching as Lyla popped up over the aluminum wrapped tamales.
“None of them have pork, you’re good Peter!” She said after a few second, giving Peter a thumbs up. He smiled.
“Thank you, Lyla.”
“No probs!” She grinned, disappearing again. Miguel grabbed a tamale, handing it to Peter before grabbing one for himself and sitting down at the table. “Don't eat the corn husk.”
“I know how to eat a tamale, I’m not that estupido.” Peter joked as he sat down next to him, seeing a light tinge of red on Miguel’s cheeks.
“Sorry about that.”
“It’s fine.” Peter smiled, patting Miguel on the back. “I’m just playing around, Miggy.”
“…How much did you understand?”
“Not much.” Peter said, taking a big bite out of the tamale. “This is really good. Did Gabriel make these?”
“No, my mother did.” Miguel said, eating his as well.
“They’re really, really good.” Peter repeated. He glanced at the pile, Miguel nodding when their eyes met. Peter took a second one. He unwrapped it from both the aluminum and the corn husk and ate it. “Can she teach me how to make these? The tamale ladies in my area raised their prices due to inflation.” He said, Miguel rolling his eyes.
“Even now those prices aren’t bad.”
“How much?”
“10 dollars a tamale is good-“
“What?!” Peter asked, shocked. “In my universe they’re $1.50 instead of a dollar. What do you mean they’re 10 dollars?” Peter asked. If this was the future he wasn’t sure if he wanted to live in it.
Miguel simply shrugged, taking a bite. “I don’t think she’d give the recipe. She’s a bit… much.” He mumbled. He looked tired just at the mention of her, seeming almost sad. Peter knew not to press anymore.
“That’s fair.” Peter said. Miguel reached over and grabbed a second one as well, quietly eating it. “Your brother really did make me think he was the goblin.”
“He’s just like that.” Miguel said, looking a bit more relaxed. “I told him not to ever wear green and purple here, especially on his board, but he doesn’t listen.”
“Green and purple really is a villain combo, huh? I saw a prowler variant a few days ago that had the green as well.”
Miguel nodded, leaning back. He was silent for a bit, Peter grabbing another tamale and scarfing it down. “Thank you for coming in today, Parker.”
“No worries, Mig. I didn’t have much to do anyway.” He said, being honest. “You just saved me from sulking in my apartment the whole day.” He added, smiling.
Miguel actually gave him a slight smile back. He looked so cute when he smiled. “I guess we saved each other from that then. Though I'd use the word brooding.”
“You would brood.” Peter laughed. “Do you want to go do something after this? Like, go on patrol? Or just chill here all day.”
“I’m alright with anything.” Miguel said. “Maybe patrolling would be good. Help take my mind off of things.”
“If you don’t mind me asking, what things are bothering you?” Peter asked, Miguel not responding as he took another tamale, looking deep in thought. “You don’t have to answer if it’s private, I get it.” Peter grabbed another as well. They really were good.
“No, It’s fine.” Miguel said. “I just…” he sighed, picking at the corn husk. “My mother never really liked me, but Gabriel said now she’s insisting that she wants me to visit for Christmas. Ever since she found out about me being Spider-Man she’s been acting differently.” He said. “I haven’t had her tamales in years. We used to make them all the time when we were younger.” He looked saddened at this, staring at the unwrapped tamale.
“I’m sorry, Miguel.” Peter said softly, unsure of how else to comfort his friend. He didn’t know his parents, but Aunt May and Uncle Ben were amazing guardians to himz
“It’s not your fault.” Miguel said simply. “She’s just… not the best.” He mumbled. “She’s never been the mom where you have someone to go to about issues. She just doesn’t care.” His breath seemed shaky, Peter watching Miguel carefully. “She only likes me now because I’m Spider-Man.” He looked away. “Maybe I should have gone. I don’t want Gabriel to be alone”
“It’s okay, Miguel. You shouldn’t feel obligated to be with your family if you don’t want to.” Peter said, patting his shoulder. “And anyway, you can always check in on your brother while he’s there, right?” He smiled, Miguel nodding after a moment.
They were silent as they ate more tamales, Miguel looking at Peter after a bit. “Why aren’t you with Mayday?”
“I’m Jewish.” Peter said blankly. “She’s doing Christmas with Mommy.” He added.
“I know you’re Jewish. Last year you did celebrate Christmas with them, didn’t you?”
“Yeah but… it’s been weird since we split up again and…” he sighed. “I’m not sure if she’ll remember it, and I don’t want her to remember MJ’s parents being mad at me the whole time. We already did Hanukkah anyway.” He added, looking back at Miguel. “Thanks for hanging out with me today, by the way. It’s nice to spend some time together outside of missions and meetings.”
Miguel hummed in response. Peter got up, tossing the garbage he had accumulated from eating too many tamales into the bin. “Let’s go on patrol, big guy. Maybe you can teach me some Spanish on the trip too.” He smiled, Miguel standing up, carefully cleaning the area and shoving the tamales into a mini-fridge under the desk. Peter honestly had no idea that was there.
“You know estupido, don’t you?”
“Yep. Yo soy muy estupido por you.” Peter said, smiling slightly as he saw Miguel’s expression, a mixture of a cringe and a smile. There was a tinge of red on Miguel’s cheeks as well.
“Yo soy muy estupido para ti.” He corrected.
“Oh, you’re stupid?” Peter said, Miguel frowning.
“I hate you.”
“I can tell you more of the Spanish I know.”
“What you spoke just now was Spanish from Taco Bell.”
“Tu eres muy lindo.” Peter said, grinning. “Estas muy macho.”
“What the shock are you trying to say?” Miguel asked, raising a brow.
“That you’re pretty?” Miguel was red-faced.
“No, I got that part.” He mumbled. “The other one.”
“That you’re super strong.”
“That is so wrong, its unreal.” Miguel said. “At least use Google Translate next time.”
“I got the main part right though.” Peter grinned, Miguel huffing. “Do you like being called pretty?” He asked, wanting to push his teasing a little.
Miguel crossed his arms. “You’re so annoying. Don’t you ever get tired?”
“Tired of what? Getting lost in your eyes?” He was really trying his luck here, hoping what he had overheard from Gabriel was true.
Miguel was completely red-faced now. “Sh-shut up! Stop!” He said, starting to swing away.
“Wait, wait, I have one more, and then I'm done and we can go on patrol!” Peter called out, catching up to Miguel when he stopped, staring at him with a tired look.
“Are you a carbon sample? Because I want to date you.” Peter grinned, winking. Miguel covered his face as he landed on a support beam. Peter landed next to him with a laugh, though he was sure his face was red. His chest ached with anticipation. Imagine if Miguel said no, and he completely misunderstood the vibes he had gotten off of everything. That would be even worse for him. Imprisoning Miguel’s brother and then failing at flirting. That’d be the Parker luck alright.
“Dios mio, don’t you ever stop?” Miguel mumbled, Peter’s face falling. He had messed up.
“Miguel, I- I’m so-“
“Shut up.” Miguel interrupted, pressing his lips against Peter’s, Peter’s eyes widening in surprise before he closed them, returning the kiss. He felt Miguel’s arms move to rest on his shoulders, Peter smiling slightly. It was odd with how much Miguel was taller, but it was nice. Peter pulled away for a moment to take a breath, wrapping his arms around Miguel’s waist. He leaned back in for another kiss, Miguel kissing back briefly this time before pulling away.
“Let’s go on patrol.” He mumbled.
“So did my line work?” Peter asked, following Miguel as the taller man swung away.
“Yes. Now shut up for 5 minutes.”
Peter grinned. A date with Miguel. Maybe on patrol could be their code word for going on a date. It’d be cute. Hey babe, wanna go on patrol tonight?
He now had something to do for the remainder of the day: swing around and catch bad guys, and maybe go get pizza from that place he liked. Miguel would probably love it too.
Would they even be open on Christmas?
Peter froze.
Shit.
Now his anniversary with Miguel was going to be on Christmas.